AllThingsD » Personal Technology

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.

[ See post to watch video ]

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.

[ See post to watch video ]

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Dialing Up 20 Years of Gadget Reviews

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 01:05:52 +0000

I began writing these Personal Technology columns 20 years ago, in October 1991, with the aim of reviewing computers and other digital products for average, mainstream users. The first line of my first column was: “Personal computers are just too hard to use, and it’s not your fault.”

[ See post to watch video ]

Consumer technology has come a long way since that day. Digital gadgets—then too often designed by techies for techies—have become essential to our lives, and much easier to use, even if we still need the Geek Squad and the Genius Bar more than we should. And the pace of change has been mind-boggling.

In 1991, most consumer computers didn’t have built-in audio beyond just the ability to beep. Most lacked any way to communicate with the outside world—even via a slow, dial-up modem. The Internet wasn’t available to most people. Search engines and social networks didn’t exist.

Mobile phones were huge bricks. Digital cameras for consumers cost a fortune and took monochrome pictures. Digital music players and video recorders, e-readers and tablets were nowhere to be found.

So, this week, I decided to take a look back at some of the game-changing products that appeared in this column over the past two decades and propelled us from that primitive landscape to today’s interconnected digital world. This list of milestones is just a sampling; yours might differ. Also, since I write for average consumers, the list is weighted toward consumer products, not gadgets for geeks or corporate use.

I’ll also write about what is yet to come—areas that could use big gains.

The pocket-size phone: In January of 1992, I declared Motorola’s MicroTac Lite to be the first mobile phone you could carry easily in a pocket. It was the first to weigh under half a pound and was “only” an inch thick—about triple the thickness of a slim smartphone today. It cost between $1,500 and $2,500.

Getting America Online: In May of 1992, I rated an obscure online service, America Online, as the best. It was much smaller than its chief rivals at the time, CompuServe and Prodigy, but its use of a standard-looking graphical interface made it more attractive.

Faster modems: Though it would be hardly recognized today, the external dial-up modem was a crucial device in connecting computers around the world. In June 1993, I recommended a popular $200 model, the Sportster, from a company called U.S. Robotics, that had gotten to the amazing speed of 14,400 bits per second. Comparing it with a broadband connection now is like comparing a bicycle to a locomotive.

Color digital camera: In 1994, the Apple QuickTake 100 could store up to 32 shots for a mere $700.

Mossberg on ‘What’s Next?’

So where do the opportunities lie for the biggest technology gains? Here are possibilities:

Better batteries. The entire digital universe would be revolutionized by batteries that could last more than a day in heavy use.

The ‘natural user interface.’ The graphical user interface is being replaced by the multitouch interface. Microsoft’s Kinect device for controlling its Xbox game console shows there is a future in controlling all devices via smart cameras that recognize faces and gestures.

Easier, integrated TVs. Many people watch videos from the Internet on their TVs, but the process is clumsy. Somebody needs to make the process unified and simple.

Flexible displays. These have been promised for years, but never made practical. Imagine being able to unfold, or roll out a large display screen.

Whatever is in store for consumer digital technology, I look forward to covering it.

Polished Windows: Apple’s Macintosh had popularized the graphical user interface starting in 1984. A year later came a crude version of Microsoft’s Windows operating system. But, in 1995, Microsoft caught up via Windows 95, cementing the victory of the graphical interface.

The Web browser: The Internet had been around a long time, but in 1993 I noted it was still hard for average consumers to access. That changed with the spread of the World Wide Web and Web browser. In January 1996, I hailed Netscape as the champion browser over Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

Power in your hand: In March of 1996, I called the new Palm Pilot the first hand-held computer “I can imagine incorporating into my daily life.” Where the Apple Newton and others had failed, little Palm created the device that would make Personal Digital Assistants popular and pave the way for the smartphone.

The slim laptop: In 1998, Sony set the standard for usable, thin and light laptops with its Vaio 505, a $2,000 wonder that came with a decent keyboard. It inspired many others over the years.

The simple computer: Also in 1998, beleaguered Apple shook up the PC market with the iMac, a colorful, speedy, one-piece desktop computer that set up in a matter of minutes and was ready to surf the Internet. I called it “the coolest looking desktop personal computer I’ve ever used.”

DVR: The next year, I reviewed two digital video recorders, including TiVo, which went on to become a verb, and to revolutionize TV viewing.

Google: In 2001, I recommended Google as not only the best search engine on the Web, but “the most useful site.”

The iPod: Later that same year, Apple changed the music industry, and its own fortunes, with the $400 iPod, which held 1,000 songs in a device the size of a deck of cards. It blew away all competitors.

The prototype smartphone: Also in 2001, Handspring, a company run by the founders of Palm, rolled out the Treo 180, which I declared the first decent hybrid of a PDA and phone. Later Treos sold by Palm, competed against the BlackBerry, which got its own phone functionality, but was mainly a corporate tool.

Legal music: In 2003, Apple introduced the iTunes music store, which gave consumers an easy, reasonably priced path to buying music, and again changed the industry.

The iPhone: In June of 2007, Apple upended the cellphone business with the iPhone, which put a powerful hand-held computer in your palm, and used innovative “multitouch” finger gestures as its interface.

The e-book: There had been many failed attempts at an e-reader, but in late 2007, Amazon offered the Kindle, which finally made books digital.

Android: In October 2008, T-Mobile and Google released the G1, the first smartphone to use the Android operating system—the principal competitor to the iPhone.

The iPad: Many companies had tried and failed to create a popular tablet computer, but in April 2010, Apple succeeded with the iPad, which has spawned a host of apps, a gaggle of competitors and a new category of digital device.

View the slideshow

Key Columns

The first column: “How to Stop Worrying And Get the Most From Your Computer” (Oct. 17, 1991)

The case for the Mac: “PC Shoppers May Find It’s Wise to Develop A Taste for Apples” (Aug. 6, 1992)

Explaining the Internet: “Internet, a Vast Link That Isn’t Missing, Can Be Hard to Find” (May 13, 1993)

The case for an “information appliance”: “The Info Appliance Is a Good Idea Waiting to Happen” (June 13, 1996)

Six years in: “Computers Remain Complex, But Good Changes Are Coming” (Oct. 23, 1997)

The 10th anniversary: “Consumer Technologies Make Startling Advances in Decade” (Oct. 25, 2001)

Exposing “smart tags”: “Microsoft Will Abandon Controversial Smart Tags” (June 28, 2001)

Condemning tracking cookies: “Despite Others’ Claims, Tracking Cookies Fit My Spyware Definition” (July 14, 2005)

How the multitouch interface is taking over: “Multitouch Interface Is Starting to Spread Among New Devices” (Jan. 31, 2008)

Apple fumbles MobileMe: “Apple’s MobileMe Is Far Too Flawed To Be Reliable” (July 24, 2008)

Cameras Act Like a Pro, but Are as Easy as Pie

Geoffrey A. Fowler — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 23:30:32 +0000

Digital cameras are a pain in the neck — literally.

Every time I lug around my camera, which tips the scale at three pounds with its zoom lens, I feel as if I am swinging a fragile barbell on a strap around my neck.

[ See post to watch video ]

For years, hobbyist digital photographers had two options: heavy SLR cameras that can capture creative effects, and pocket-sized point-and-shoots that take pedestrian photos. Now, camera makers are exploring a genre of cameras that seeks a happy medium between size and capability. Necks can relax now.

Nikon and Sony recently have introduced new models in this emerging category: the Nikon J1 and Sony NEX-5N. The devices offer many of the features of much larger cameras in a form that might slip into a purse or cargo pants pocket. Sony and Nikon make a range of small detachable lenses for these cameras so users can switch between zoom and wider-angle shots, just like those on full-sized SLR cameras. Even with the biggest lenses attached, they weigh only slightly more than a pound.

Coming in at about $700 each for packages that include a lens, these marvels of miniaturization cost $100 more than an entry-level digital SLR kit. But after testing them, I liked the Sony NEX-5N enough to contemplate making it my new walk-about camera. The Nikon J1 took some great photos, but offered less creative control.

An apple pie as seen in a photo taken by the Nikon J1.

The same pie as seen in a photo taken by the Sony NEX-5N, which has a simple way to make only the pie appear in focus, for example.

Both cameras dispense with the internal mirror and the old-fashioned viewfinder that SLRs use. Instead, they show you what you’re photographing via large LCD screens. (Sony sells a $350 viewfinder add-on if you like to squint.)

One reason these cameras take better photos than point-and-shoots is that they have much larger sensors, which record more light. Nikon created a whole new kind of midrange sensor for its new “1″ line, which are similar to what other camera makers call “micro four-thirds.” Sony managed to stuff a midsize SLR sensor into the small NEX-5N.

The image quality of both cameras was excellent. Though the Sony’s photos had a higher resolution, the Nikon’s had slightly richer tones. Both can take stunning, Blu-ray-quality video.

Larger sensors allow the cameras to tap the creative capabilities of lenses. They can take photos in low light without a flash or let users select which elements are in sharp focus and which are blurry (known as “depth of field”).

The differences between the two are in the controls. The Sony NEX-5N comes with a large touch screen to access settings and controls, including a main screen to select the focus point of the image. The intuitive interface offers a simple way to manipulate the depth of field — without having to know the science of aperture (involving the amount of light that reaches a sensor) and shutter speed, which is required on most digital SLRs.

I took a photo of an apple pie in sharp focus with the background blurry by moving a slider on the touch screen to “background defocus” and then clicking on the part of the pie I wanted in focus.

The Nikon J1 doesn’t have a touch screen, requiring users to control the camera through a series of hard buttons. Adjusting depth of field requires the user to understand aperture, and even if you do, the settings to adjust the specific focus point are buried inside several menus, and aren’t turned on by default.

Nikon’s philosophy is that users stepping up from a point-and-shoot would prefer to trust its software. One feature is called “smart photo selector,” which takes advantage of the camera’s ultra-fast focus and shutter speed to take a series of photos and then selects what it thinks are the best shot and four possible best-shot candidates, based on composition, facial recognition and motion. This feature is appealing if you don’t want to think about your photo settings, but want to know what other options might have looked like.

The Sony NEX-5N has a set-it-and-forget-it, “intelligent auto” shooting mode, and also a host of features that solve common photo frustrations. An “anti-motion blur” option keeps dinner-party photos from looking fuzzy or being filled with film noise by quickly taking six photos and merging them into one better photo.

Another mode merges several shots into what’s known as an HDR (high-dynamic range) photo that can merge the most interesting bits from the foreground and background when they are of different brightness levels. The NEX-5N even has a simple panorama option that automates taking very wide shots both for print and in 3-D (for compatible TVs).

The Nikon J1′s most interesting artistic option creates a “motion snapshot,” which blends a still image and about one second of movie footage into a slow-motion video accompanied by music. It is cute, but not useful enough to make the J1 a top choice.

Neither camera came with two features that should now be standard in such expensive gadgets: automatic tagging the GPS location where photos are taken, and the ability to wirelessly upload images.

While the Nikon J1, which features a clean retro-style design, won the most oohs and ahhs from friends, the Sony NEX-5N, whose larger sensor requires slightly larger and clunkier lenses, made it easier to figure out how to make photos more interesting.

Walt Mossberg and Mossberg’s Mailbox will return next week. Write to Geoffrey Fowler at geoffrey.fowler@wsj.com.

Quick Snapshot

Nikon J1

• Price: $650, including10-30 mm lens

• Sensor: 13.2 mm x 8.8 mm

• Resolution: 10.1 megapixels

• Flash: Built-in

• Weight: 9.8 oz

Sony NEX-5N

• Price: $700, including18-55 mm lens

• Sensor: 23.5 mm x 15.6 mm

• Resolution: 16.1 megapixels

• Flash: Add-on comes with camera

• Weight: 9.5 oz

Coming to a Gadget Near You: A Movie for All Your Screens

Geoffrey A. Fowler — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 02:04:19 +0000

Taking a movie to watch on the go is about to get easier.

[ See post to watch video ]

Entertainment companies and electronics makers have promised a future in which people will buy a movie once and then watch it on any of their gadgets. With a new service called UltraViolet that lets users build an online library of movies, Hollywood has taken a big step toward making that a reality.

Until now, watching movies on the go has been a frustrating—and pricy—experience. People often must buy a copy of a movie for each device: a Blu-ray from Best Buy for the TV and a digital copy from Apple’s iTunes for the iPad, for example. Some Hollywood studios have sold “combo” packs with a disc and a digital file, but the digital copies often came with playing limits and few guarantees they would work on future devices.

After three years of negotiations, last week a consortium of large Hollywood studios, gadget makers and retailers launched a cloud-based service that lets people watch online or mobile versions of the movies they bought on DVD or Blu-ray. This free “digital locker” keeps track of movie purchases and gets copies of them onto laptops, smartphones and more.

‘Green Lantern’ is one of two UltraViolet titles now available.

Movie and electronics companies have begun rolling out UltraViolet services on a few devices for a few movies and haven’t given a timeline for when there will be more. But they say eventually UltraViolet movies will work on many different devices and, by the end of the year, will come with most new Hollywood titles.

For now, though, UltraViolet’s offerings are slim. By the holidays, the service will work with at least 10 new DVD or Blu-ray discs, compared with thousands offered by online digital movie stores such as Amazon.com and Apple. But UltraViolet has a big advantage: the backing of some of the largest Hollywood studios, including Warner Brothers, NBC-Universal, Sony, Paramount, Fox and Lionsgate. (Fox is a unit of News Corp., which owns this newspaper.) Other companies involved include Comcast, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Netflix, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung and Wal-Mart’s Vudu. Disney has chosen not to participate and is developing its own digital locker, Disney Studio All Access.

For Hollywood, UltraViolet is an attempt to get consumers interested in buying movies again at a time when disc sales are on the decline, and more people are renting movies or streaming them online through services like Netflix.

Here’s how UltraViolet works today: I bought a disc at Best Buy with the movie “Green Lantern” to play in my Blu-ray player. Inside the case was a flier with a code I typed into a website called Flixster, where I registered for a digital locker with UltraViolet. After that, I could stream the movie to an iPhone and iPad using a free Flixster app, which is also available for Android phones and tablets. On a Windows laptop, I downloaded a copy from a free Flixster program that I can watch while on a plane without Internet access. The process went smoothly, though it could be streamlined. Entering redemption codes reminded me of collecting cereal-box tops to win a prize.

The UltraViolet group says at least one of its members is working on technology that will offer many ways to automatically add titles to a digital locker, including just by putting a disc into an Internet-equipped Blu-ray player. UltraViolet still has a huge content hurdle to cross. The only two movies available with it so far are “Green Lantern” and “Horrible Bosses,” though the studios promise 10, including the final “Harry Potter,” by the holidays.

And to really catch on, UltraViolet’s members may have to develop a way to add previous DVD purchases to a digital locker, like people do with music by “ripping” old audio CDs.

Still, buying an UltraViolet movie already comes closer to the idea of “buy once, play anywhere” than anything else on the market.

The one place UltraViolet streaming doesn’t currently work is your TV, though, of course, you can play your DVD there. The UltraViolet group’s aim, they say, is that there will be UltraViolet-compatible software built into TVs and set-top boxes, and consumers will even be able to buy UltraViolet movies online without a disc.

Like many cloud storage services that have emerged in recent months, using UltraViolet requires a strong Internet connection for all of your devices. My iMac with a cable Internet connection took 15 minutes to download “Green Lantern.” A representative for Flixster, which is owned by Warner Brothers, said it plans to upgrade its app to allow users to pre-load UltraViolet movies onto tablets and smartphones and watch them without Internet access.

For $19.99, I got a high-definition Blu-ray disc that played on my TV, as well as streamed in DVD-quality to my iPhone, iPad, and downloaded in DVD-quality to my Mac and PC computers. (A DVD version of the UltraViolet movie sold for $14.99.) Other stores aren’t as flexible as UltraViolet. Amazon.com’s digital locker service, Instant Video, sells a DVD-quality digital version of “Green Lantern” for $14.99 that I could stream only to computers or to my TV (via a Tivo, Blu-ray player, or other compatible device). And while Amazon let me download the movie on my PC, its software doesn’t work for Mac downloads. (Amazon’s videos will work on the forthcoming Kindle Fire.)

Apple’s iTunes store sells “Green Lantern” for $14.99 in a format that will play on a PC or Mac, and in high-definition on an iPad and on TV via a $99 Apple TV. But Apple’s movie purchases don’t play well with devices from other makers and TVs without an add-on Apple TV. Apple’s iCloud service, released last week, doesn’t yet support streaming iTunes movie purchases, but Apple is working on that.

UltraViolet is still young, but with the backing of so many major companies, it appears poised to help reinvent the way people buy and watch home video. UltraViolet may just be the best way to make sure your movies are free to play everywhere in the future.

Walt Mossberg and his Mossberg’s Mailbox will return on Thursday, Nov. 3.

Write to Geoffrey Fowler at geoffrey.fowler@wsj.com

The iPhone Finds Its Voice

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 01:03:27 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

Sometimes, as we all know, looks can be deceiving. While Apple’s latest iPhone doesn’t look different, and may not be the kind of blockbuster people expect from the late Steve Jobs’s company, it thinks different, to quote one of Apple’s old ad slogans. Inside its familiar-looking body there lurks a nascent artificial-intelligence system that has to be tried to be believed.

Apple’s fifth-generation iPhone, the $199 iPhone 4S, goes on sale Friday with a new operating system and a new cloud-synchronization service called iCloud. But, while its insides have been significantly improved, the phone’s exterior design is identical to that of last year’s iPhone 4, which Apple says is the best-selling smartphone in the world.

IPhone 4S’s 8-megapixel camera takes the best photos seen on a phone.

I’ve been testing the 4S for about a week to see how it differs from the previous model. I also evaluated the key features added by the new operating system, called iOS 5, including a new, free text-messaging service; deep integration with Twitter; and the ability to edit photos right on the phone. This new software will be available as a free upgrade for owners of the iPhone 4 and the 2009-vintage iPhone 3GS, as well as for Apple’s iPad tablet and its iPod Touch.

Apple’s Siri system can answer spoken restaurant requests.

I focused on the handful of new features unique to the 4S, notably the new voice-controlled artificial-intelligence system called Siri; a brilliant new camera for stills and videos; and faster, 4G-class download speeds. The iPhone is now available from Sprint, AT&T and Verizon, but I tested the AT&T version, because it is the only one which offers the faster download speeds.

The standout feature, not available in other iPhones, or in any other phone I’ve seen, is Siri. It answers questions and provides information using natural language and an intelligent understanding, not just of words, but of context and colloquial phrasing. It isn’t perfect, and is labeled a beta, but it has great potential and worked pretty well for me, despite some glitches.

Despite Siri, the iPhone 4S isn’t a dramatic game-changer like some previous iPhones. Some new features are catch-ups to competitors. I sense Apple chose to focus more on software and cloud service than on hardware. But, in my tests, the iPhone 4S performed very well. It’s a better iPhone for the same $199 entry price, at a time when some competitors are pricing their flagship smartphones starting at $299.

…and queries about calorie counts.

While some analysts and commentators were disappointed the new iPhone didn’t offer an external redesign, consumers so far don’t seem to care. Apple announced Monday that pre-orders for the iPhone 4S hit one million in the first 24 hours, a record that was 67% higher than the previous single-day high set by the iPhone 4 last year.

My advice is that owners of the iPhone 4 needn’t rush to upgrade; they can get the new operating system. But owners of older iPhone models, or those with basic phones, will find this latest iPhone a pleasure and a good value.

Artificial Intelligence

Some other phones, including earlier iPhones, have rudimentary voice recognition, for limited terms and responses. But Siri does much more. It offers too much to fully describe here, but it isn’t a simple voice-command system. It understands a wide variety of ways to ask a question, grasps the context, and returns useful information in a friendly way, either audibly or by displaying results on the screen. It learns your voice as it goes along.

It starts up when you either hold down the home button—even from the phone’s lock screen—or when you place the phone up to your ear when you’re not making a phone call.

Siri can find information in Wikipedia, Yelp and Wolfram Alpha. It successfully answered when I asked it, “Who’s the president of Iran?” (though it misunderstood me the first time) and “Who stars in ‘Boardwalk Empire?’ ” When I asked for a “French restaurant in Bethesda, Maryland,” it instantly returned a list from Yelp, ranked by user reviews.

In my tests, I was able to dictate emails and text messages, even in the car over Bluetooth, without looking at the screen. Accuracy wasn’t perfect—about 20% of the time I had to try twice to get all the words correct. But, in most cases, Siri didn’t make more errors than I do typing on a virtual keyboard.

Siri can read incoming text messages and let you reply via voice. If the message is about a date, Siri will even consult your calendar and tell you if you’re busy at that time, and then remember to return to the message reply.

The system understands multiple, colloquial forms of a question. I asked, “Will the weather get worse today?” and Siri answered, “I don’t think the weather is going to get worse” and displayed a weather chart. You can check stock prices, addresses, map directions and much more. It also answers in a friendly fashion, saying things like “Coming right up” or “I’m not sure what you said, Walt.” And it has some cute answers built in. When I asked it “What’s the best phone?” it said, “Wait… there are other phones?”

Siri has limitations, in addition to imperfect accuracy. It can’t read the contents of email. It can’t provide flight information or movie times. But Apple says it intends to link Siri to more databases over time. Also, Siri can reveal private data you’d rather it didn’t unless you adjust your passcode permissions.

Hardware

The iPhone 4S now comes with the same, dual-core processor found in the iPad 2. I didn’t notice a dramatic speed gain, but the phone operated rapidly and surely, with smooth scrolling and swiping.

There is now an 8-megapixel rear camera, with a greatly improved sensor, a new five-element lens and a wider aperture. Other phones boast 8-megapixel cameras, but the 4S takes the best pictures and high-definition videos I have seen on a phone. The colors were gorgeous, everything was sharp and the camera can detect up to 10 faces. Plus, it’s fast, both in taking the first shot and subsequent pictures.

Also, Apple finally has matched some competitors by allowing you to quickly get to the camera, even when the phone is locked, by just pressing the home button twice; and by letting you use the volume button to snap the picture. (These features are part of the free software and aren’t unique to the 4S.)

When combined with the new software feature that allows editing right on the phone, the iPhone 4S offers a camera experience I find unmatched on any other phone.

Though the 4S isn’t labeled as a 4G phone, and the Verizon and Sprint models can’t use those carriers’ 4G networks, the AT&T model, in my tests, achieved 4G speeds in areas where AT&T has deployed its 4G network.

In numerous tests at three different locations in the Washington suburbs, I averaged download speeds of nearly 7 megabits per second—better than in prior tests on Sprint and T-Mobile 4G phones. By contrast, a colleague’s tests of the Verizon version of the iPhone 4S yielded average download speeds of less than 1 mbps.

All models of the iPhone 4S are “world phones,” meaning even the Verizon and Sprint versions, which use a technology rare outside the U.S., can switch to the global standard cellphone technology and be used in most other countries.

Apple claims to have improved voice-call reception in the iPhone 4S, allowing the phone to switch between two antennas to pick up the best signal. But my AT&T model dropped too many calls, just as earlier AT&T iPhones do. My colleague’s Verizon iPhone 4S dropped none.

But ask Siri about, say booking a flight from Dulles to San Francisco and Siri says ‘sorry.’

In my tests, voice quality was very good, even on conference calls and over Bluetooth in the car. Apple says the 4S has as good or better battery life than the prior model. While I didn’t run a formal battery test, the phone lasted all day, every day, even when I was doing heavy testing and, thus, using it more than I typically would.

Also, there is a 64-gigabyte model of the iPhone 4S, for $399. A 32 GB version is, as in the past, $299.

Software

Apple claims the new iOS 5 operating system has 200 new features. These include some catch-ups, like a pull-down panel that combines your notifications of alerts and reminders, and new messages, plus a stock ticker and weather info. Also, like some other phones, the new system will allow you to swipe on an alert and go to the content, even if the phone is locked.

You can Tweet from within many apps, like photos, maps and the Web browser. The new, free, texting system, called iMessage—similar to BlackBerry Messenger service—lets you text to anyone with an iOS5 device, and automatically detects if they have one.

A new Reminders app seems like any other task list, but, on the iPhone 4 and 4S, it allows you to use location instead of time to trigger a reminder. For instance, you can tell it to remind you to call your spouse when you leave work. If it knows your work address, it will trigger the reminder when it detects you’ve left.

Perhaps the nicest feature is on-phone photo editing, which allows you to crop, and auto-enhance any photo. In my tests, it worked great.

Bottom line

The iPhone 4S is one of Apple’s less dramatic updates, but, when combined with the Siri, iOS 5 and iCloud features, it presents an attractive new offering to smartphone users. Some may be content to skip the new hardware and just enjoy the software and cloud features with older models. But those buying the phone will likely be happy with it.

RELATED POSTS:

The iPhone Finds Its Voice

Apple Helps Devices Get Their Heads in the Cloud

New Apple Software Adds Features to Older Phones

Full Apple Coverage »

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Grid 10 Tablet Hides Android Under Its Own Radical Design

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 01:11:57 +0000

Makers of tablets based on Google’s Android operating system have had trouble both in making inroads against Apple’s popular iPad, and in differentiating their products from one another. But the tablet market is young, and companies are still tinkering with ways to alter the template laid down by Apple.

[ See post to watch video ]

I’ve been testing a new, 10-inch Android-based tablet that tries to make a splash with a radical new software design and a dramatically lower price. It’s called the Grid 10, and comes from a small, privately held, Singapore-based company called Fusion Garage.

The Grid 10 has demoted Android to just an underlying software technology. It looks and works very differently from other Android tablets, because it uses its own software system on top of Android, something called the GridOS, which runs custom-designed Grid apps as well as many standard Android apps. Instead of being tied into Google’s standard apps, app store and other services, the Grid relies on other companies, such as Bing for its default search, and Amazon for app downloads and music purchases.

Grid 10′s main screen arranges apps and functions in grids, like this one for Social.

Also, the Grid 10 is going after Apple on price. The base Wi-Fi-only model, with 16 gigabytes of memory, costs $299, a full $200 less than the comparable Apple model. A 16GB model with cellular data included is priced at $399, versus $629 for a comparable iPad. The Grid 10 just became available on the company’s own website, fusiongarage.com.

I found the Grid 10 to be a mixed bag, and I can only comfortably recommend it for people who either are looking for a bargain or who enjoy using cutting-edge, but unproven, designs. The Grid software is clever and innovative in many ways, but rough around the edges and hobbled by glitches.

The hardware, while attractive, turned in the worst battery-life performance in my tests of any full-size tablet I’ve reviewed, exhibiting less than half the staying power of the iPad. It was slow to respond to swiping too often. And it lacks a rear camera.

Selecting a word on a Web page calls up a dial that offers various options, like looking it up somewhere else.

There are two other caveats I feel compelled to mention. First, Fusion Garage built an earlier, much-hyped tablet, the joojoo, which failed and was embroiled in a legal dispute with a partner. The company—which also plans a smartphone—says it is well funded by private investors and has more than 100 employees, but its track record isn’t exactly sterling.

Second, Fusion Garage has been scrambling to issue multiple large software updates in recent days to fix bugs. While these have mostly worked, making such large and frequent changes so close to shipping doesn’t inspire confidence, and gave me the distinct feeling that the product, whatever its strengths, might be premature.

I admired some of the design innovations in the Grid 10. It has a sharp, high-resolution screen and a bold design that uses gestures, not physical buttons or standard Android icons, for such functions as getting to the home screen or moving back to a previous screen. For instance, you get to the home screen by swiping down from the top with two fingers and you go back with a two-finger swipe from the right edge.

An entry for a new contact with touch-screen keyboard.

Instead of multiple pages of icons, the main screen is one huge virtual sheet, larger than the screen itself, with the icons for apps and functions arranged in checkerboard-like grids—one for Media, one for News, one for Social and so forth. Users can configure these. To move among them, you just keep moving the whole board around with a finger.

Instead of a physical volume button, there is a software dial that pops down from the top right of a thin status bar at the top that also displays things like notifications of new messages, battery life and wireless connection.

Similar dial-like controls appear elsewhere when needed. For instance, in the built-in video player, you can move ahead and back, or change the volume, by moving your finger along two dials that appear with a tap. And, in the browser, a swipe from the bottom left brings up a dial that can be turned to show all the tabs you have open.

When you select a word on a Web page, a dial appears that offers various options, such as looking it up in Wikipedia. If you do, the browser screen splits and the Wikipedia page appears next to the page you were on.

To log onto the device, you can use a signature, after a brief training session. There is a backup typed password in case the signature fails.

There are a couple of other cool features. One, called Heartbeat, gathers all your notifications, running apps, new messages and event reminders in one place. It even notes the time and asks if you’d like to search for places to eat lunch or dinner. You can call up Heartbeat with a two-finger swipe from the left side.

The other is Search, which simultaneously shows results from the Web and from content on the device, and gives suggestions for further information in a section called Star. For example, when I searched for “Inception,” it showed me the movie on the device, many Web sites referring to the film, and in the Star section, a link for buying the DVD.

But I found plenty of downsides. For instance, several apps I use on other Android tablets, such as the popular game Words With Friends, weren’t available for the Grid 10. It won’t run Flash, at least at first. It’s easy to forget where you placed an app on the huge, single home screen. There is a small navigation window that shows the home screen in miniature, but I found it of little help.

The front camera seemed mediocre to me, and I found the sound to be too faint.

In addition, the screen sometimes seemed slow to respond to gestures, or failed to respond at all, which is especially bad for a device that relies so heavily on swiping. And the signature sign-in feature, while generally reliable, fails to work too often, which is annoying.

I found the browser to be slow, and it crashed on me multiple times, as did the email app. The popular Pandora music service wouldn’t run on the Grid 10 in my tests, even though it was featured on the home page of my test unit.

And then there’s the battery life. In my tests, in which I play video back to back with the screen at 75% brightness and the Wi-Fi on, the Grid 10 lasted a pathetic 4 hours and 21 minutes, versus about 10 hours for the iPad. Even in mixed use, it never lasted a full day for me.

The Grid 10 is packed with interesting design ideas and is priced attractively. But it needs work, and anyone buying it is betting it’ll get better.

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

Encyclopaedia Britannica Now Fits Into an App

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 01:02:29 +0000

The Encyclopaedia Britannica has been the most prestigious general encyclopedia in the English language for what seems like forever. But it has always been expensive, and a bit stodgy. Today, when people need to look up information, they’re likely to just do a Web search, or to consult the free, community-written, online encyclopedia, Wikipedia.

[ See post to watch video ]

The Britannica, however, isn’t going away, or ignoring the digital world. It has long had a paid website. When it comes to school research, it is often trusted by many teachers and parents over less rigorously vetted sources. And now, it is about to launch a slick iPad app containing its entire content at a greatly reduced price: $2 a month, or $24 a year, versus $70 a year for the Web version and about $1,400 for the venerable print version. (People who pay for the Web version also get access to the iPad app at no extra cost.)

I’ve been testing this new iPad app, and I like it. It is much cleaner and more attractive than the cluttered Britannica website and sports some nice features, including a dynamic “link map” showing the relationship between topics in a visual format. Unlike the Web version, it is free of ads. The app is expected to be available in a couple of weeks.

Whether or not this new Britannica app is for you will be a personal decision based on what you’re looking for; and how much you value an edited, highly curated source over the broader, more easily updated, but crowd-sourced, Wikipedia, which also is available via a variety of iPad apps. Of course, many subscribers to Britannica will still use Wikipedia or other Web sources for research.

An icon at the top of an article generates a link map, a spider web of icons representing other articles related to the one you were reading.

Since I don’t presume to be an academic expert, for this review I focused mostly on the experience of using the forthcoming Britannica app, rather than attempting to analyze its contents. Still, some content comparisons with Wikipedia are useful to keep in mind.

The Britannica app contains 140,000 articles. Wikipedia has about 3.7 million. Many contemporary topics, like the latest in pop culture, or some current public figures, are included in Wikipedia, but missing from Britannica. For instance, the widely praised and popular TV show “Modern Family” gets lavish coverage in Wikipedia, but doesn’t make the cut in Britannica.

On the other hand, there are some topics in Britannica’s smaller collection of articles that I couldn’t locate in Wikipedia. One example: an article on Suzanne Douvillier, described by Britannica as “probably the first woman choreographer in America.”

And Britannica has many articles written by credentialed academics, journalists and other experts, while it can be difficult to discern the credentials, or even the real name, of a Wikipedia contributor.

The forthcoming Britannica iPad app, which also is slated to appear later in an iPhone and Android version, is handsome and colorful. It’s free to download and offers a small amount of free content, even for nonsubscribers. But the vast majority of its content is accessible only to subscribers.

Perhaps the coolest feature is the link map, triggered from an icon at the top of each article page. This generates a spider web of icons representing other articles related to the one you were reading.

For instance, the link map for the article on Apple Chairman Steve Jobs spawns tendrils leading to articles on things like “personal computer” and “software.” If you then tap on say, “software,” more tendrils appear, leading to topics like “Bill Gates” or “open source.” You can tap on any of the icons to read the underlying article.

This kind of visual array of related items isn’t a new idea. In fact, there is an iPad app called WikiNodes which does something similar for Wikipedia content. But Britannica has implemented the idea nicely.

The home page of the Britannica app features a large daily color photo with an accompanying free article related to the picture. For instance, a photo of the Croatian National Theatre links to a free article on the country’s capital, Zagreb.

Also on the home page is an event that occurred that day, such as the birth of the actress Brigitte Bardot, which can be tapped to reveal an article about her.

In addition, the home page features a large search box for looking up topics and three links in a section labeled “Browse.” One, called “A-Z,” allows you to just leaf through the Britannica alphabetically. Another, called Top Articles, includes 100 free articles on popular topics like the “Amazon River,” “the Beatles,” “the French Revolution” or “William Shakespeare.” The third is an expanded list of events and births that occurred on the day you are using the app.

Beyond the couple of free home page articles and the 100 free top articles, nonsubscribers will only see the first 100 words or so of each article.

When viewing an article, you can read through it by merely swiping from page to page, a process I found quick and reliable. A progress bar and page number shows where you are in an article, but there is no bookmark feature. The font size can be increased or decreased.

To the left of each article, there are icons that allow you to save it for offline reading, mark it as a favorite, or email a link to the Web version of that article, which can be read even by a nonsubscriber. A section of the app called My Britannica lists all your saved, favorite and recently viewed articles. I found all of this easy to discover and use.

At the top of each article, there are icons that, when tapped, display the table of contents for the article, and a gallery of images from the article, expanded to a larger size.

I found some things missing from the app, including some features that are present in Britannica’s website.

The most glaring omission is the lack of links to related sources outside the encyclopedia. There are also no videos in the app. And you can’t print articles from the app, though Britannica says it plans to add printing and the ability to post references to articles to social networks.

Especially for students, or anyone who values what Britannica has to offer, I found the new Britannica iPad app to be a pleasing, easy way to navigate through a large body of knowledge.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

A Galaxy S Sequel With Big-Screen Ambitions

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 01:03:06 +0000

In the crowded and sometimes confusing market for smartphones based on Google’s Android operating system, Samsung’s Galaxy models have been among the best and most popular. Launched last year on multiple carriers, the Galaxy S models made the Korean electronics giant a serious rival to Apple’s iPhone as well as to Android competitors like Motorola and HTC.

[ See post to watch video ]

Now, Samsung has introduced the second generation of the Galaxy S in the U.S., after the company reported selling five million of the new devices in Europe and Korea in 85 days. (For context, Apple sold about 20 million iPhones world-wide in its last reported quarter.) The new models are dubbed Galaxy S II, and will be carried by Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile in slightly different variations.

I’ve been testing the first of these new phones, which made its debut on the Sprint network last week. It goes by the lengthy, ungainly name of “Samsung Galaxy S II, Epic 4G Touch” and costs $200 with a two-year contract. But its name isn’t the only thing about this phone that’s super-sized. It also has a gargantuan 4.52-inch screen, which swells its overall dimensions to a size that dwarfs many other smartphones. For instance, its footprint is about a third larger than the iPhone 4′s.

Samsung Galaxy S II, Epic 4G Touch

The huge screen is something of a gamble for Samsung and its carrier partners. It makes the phone more attractive for some functions, like watching videos, playing games and viewing photos. But it also makes the Epic 4G harder to fit in a pocket or small purse, or to hold comfortably in smaller hands. And it looks really big when held up to the ear.

To its credit, Samsung has managed to offset the greater length and width by keeping the phone thin and light. It’s only slightly thicker than the iPhone 4 and actually weighs less. But the company pulled off this feat by using a plastic housing that feels insubstantial and fragile. For instance, the removable rear cover is a bendable, paper-thin plastic sheet that I found hard to snap on firmly.

Overall, I consider the Epic 4G Touch to be a capable, versatile smartphone with good battery life and a sharp, rich display. It worked well in my tests for voice and data, and it benefits from Sprint’s unlimited data plans, which compare favorably with the metered data plans of AT&T and Verizon. Like other Android phones, it also offers a rich catalog of 250,000 third-party apps—smaller than the iPhone’s total of 425,000, but still quite large.

However, whether the new Epic is the right phone for you depends on how you feel about its large size and general feel. You’ll also have to be comfortable with Android itself, which is still more complicated than the iPhone’s operating system. And you’ll want to make sure you have good reception for Sprint’s 4G network, which I found varied widely in speed.

The Epic’s hardware performed generally well in my tests. That huge display looked sharp and vivid, even though it actually has a lower resolution than the iPhone 4′s much smaller 3.5-inch screen. One reason may be that the Galaxy S II uses a different display technology than that on most other phones, something called Super AMOLED Plus, which Samsung claims has better blacks and sharper images.

The 8-megapixel rear camera and 2-megapixel front camera took very good still photos and high-definition videos. The speakers were clear for both phone calls and music in my tests. The phone comes with 16 gigabytes of internal memory and has a slot for an optional added memory card.

I didn’t do a formal battery test, but, in my experience, the Epic easily lasted all day between charges, even when I had played several TV shows.

Sprint’s 4G network was less consistent. It’s supposed to deliver download speeds of between 3 megabits per second and 6 mbps, with peaks of up to 10 mbps. But, in my home outside Washington, D.C., the Epic never came close, struggling to reach even 2 mbps in most of my tests. By contrast, in tests I ran in Palo Alto, Calif., the Epic on 4G was blazing, racking up speeds of between 6.5 and 11 mbps in test after test.

Also less impressive was the software. Android itself is getting smoother and simpler, but still has a geekier feel than Apple’s iOS operating system. For instance, to do such common things as composing a new message or searching through your mail in Google’s own Gmail app, you have to first open a menu rather than just directly tapping icons from the main screen. And Samsung actually boasts that the Galaxy S II has an improved “Task Manager,” a utility for managing running apps that average users will never want to consult.

Samsung, like most Android phone makers, adds its own software overlay to Android. The company calls this TouchWiz, and in the new Galaxy S II it includes several motion-based features, like tilting the device to reduce or enlarge the screen contents, or moving the device left or right while holding an icon to reposition the icon. I found the former clumsy but liked the latter, once I got the hang of it.

I also tried Samsung’s built-in video store, called Media Hub, with mixed results. Before boarding a plane, I purchased two TV shows and rented a movie. The TV shows played fine, but to my surprise and irritation, the movie refused to play without an Internet connection, even though it had been paid for and downloaded to the phone, because the program needed to go online to “acquire a license.”

Samsung also includes optional “live panels,” rectangular widgets on the screen that update constantly to show things like the weather, or news headlines with photos. These looked good when they worked. But in my tests, the weather one often failed to update and once crashed the phone. The news panel was usually slow to display photos.

Bottom line: The Sprint version of the Galaxy S II isn’t for everyone. But if you crave a big screen and don’t mind the bigger size, you might like it.

Write to Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Sony Designs Tablet That's Not an iPad Wannabe

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 01:03:00 +0000

One reason Apple’s iPad continues to dominate the tablet market after 17 months may be that all the main competitors look like imitations but don’t deliver as good an experience. They are typically flat slabs, like the iPad, priced about the same or more, but with many fewer apps, shorter battery life, usually greater weight and thickness and a weaker ecosystem for music, video, books and magazines. Whatever advantages they have—like added ports or the ability to play Flash video—haven’t been enough to sway consumers or developers.

[ See post to watch video ]

Now, Sony, whose brand and reputation for design have long resonated with consumers, is trying something different. On Friday, it is launching a handsome tablet with an unusual, asymmetrical design and some software tweaks and content services it hopes can set it apart from the pack.

I’ve been testing this device, called the Sony Tablet S, and I generally like it, despite some weaknesses and some features that aren’t yet fleshed out because they won’t be fully rolled out at launch. The Tablet S will appeal to buyers who would like a distinctive tablet from a trusted company that doesn’t look like an iPad wannabe.

Like dozens of other tablets, Sony’s new entry uses Google’s Android operating system. And it costs the same as the Wi-Fi-only iPads—$500 for a 16 gigabyte model and $600 for a 32 gigabyte model. The Tablet S has no cellular-data option. It’s also late to the game, and, in my tests, had significantly weaker battery life than the iPad 2.

However, the Tablet S looks nothing like the iPad 2 or any other current competitor. One of the long sides of its rectangular, plastic body has a thick, rounded edge that makes the device look like a folded-back magazine. In fact, Sony has carried this effect over onto the back, continuing the black curve with a molded black plastic sheet that looks like the rest of the magazine cover laying over a flat, gray surface.

Laying the Tablet S, left, in landscape, or horizontal, mode, creates a natural angle for typing. Coming this fall, the Tablet P, right, which unfolds to reveal twin 5.5-inch displays.

While this design makes the Tablet S much thicker than many competitors, it has several advantages. When you hold the device one-handed in portrait, or vertical, mode, it feels much more comfortable and balanced than any other tablet I’ve tested. When you lay it on a flat surface in landscape, or horizontal, mode, the rounded edge creates a natural angle for typing, without a case or stand.

This clever design makes the Tablet S feel lighter than the iPad when you hold it vertically, because more of the weight is in your palm—even though the two tablets are almost exactly the same weight.

At 9.4 inches, the bright, vivid screen on the Tablet S is smaller than the iPad’s 9.7 inch display or the 10.1-inch screen of Samsung’s comparable Galaxy Tab model. But I found it plenty generous, and it didn’t feel cramped. The Sony is about the same length as the iPad 2, but is narrower, and I found this proportion pleasing.

This clever design makes the Tablet S feel lighter than the iPad.

There are some trade-offs to this design. While it is beautifully balanced in vertical mode, it feels top-heavy in horizontal mode, especially because Sony forces you in that mode to hold it by the thin, lower edge. You can’t rotate the screen in horizontal mode so the thicker edge is at the bottom. Performance was snappy, and the front and back cameras took acceptable still photos and videos.

Sony is planning a second, even more radical tablet for later this fall, called the Tablet P. It’s a much smaller and lighter device that has no visible screen until you unfold it to reveal twin 5.5-inch displays that can either be used as one large screen or can have separate content in each. I have played briefly with this coming device, but haven’t been able to test it.

Unlike the iPad 2, the Tablet S has an SD memory-card slot, which I used to move movies, photos, music and documents to the Tablet S from a Mac. It worked fine, though the plastic hinge for the little door that covers the slot sometimes got stuck.

While Sony, like Apple, has long been praised for hardware design, it has never been able to match Apple in software and services, except on its PlayStation game consoles. The company is hoping the Tablet S changes that perception.

The Tablet S starts with the same software disadvantages as its Android brethren. While Android has a healthy selection of over 250,000 third-party apps (versus 425,000 total for Apple’s mobile devices), it has pathetically few tablet-optimized apps—estimated to be just a small fraction of the 100,000 tailored for the iPad.

But Sony has added some nice software features to the Tablet S. Some make navigation easier, but many aim to build on Sony’s strengths as a media and gaming company. Unlike Apple, which takes a broader view of the tablet’s potential, Sony sees its tablet as primarily an entertainment-consumption device.

For instance, Sony has added a small, customizable row of frequently used app icons at the upper left. At the upper right of the screen is a handsome, easy-to-use feature called Favorites, which highlight recently accessed or added songs, videos, pictures, books and Web bookmarks.

Sony also has tweaked the Android browser so it loads pages faster. In my tests, pages loaded slightly faster than on the iPad.

There is also a universal remote-control app that works with a built-in infrared transmitter to control TVs and other home-entertainment devices, even if they aren’t made by Sony. In my tests, I easily configured it to control my Pioneer TV and my TiVo, though it was unable to mate with my Apple TV.

Sony also is bundling services for buying music, TV shows and movies, e-books and games to create a content ecosystem like Apple’s. Unfortunately, these weren’t available for me to test.

The music service won’t be available until later this month, but it will be a subscription service with two monthly tiers, one for $3.99 and one for $9.99. The video service will be available with a very limited selection at launch, but the full service won’t appear until next month. It allows you to rent videos starting at $2.99 each. The games service will come along later this year, and Sony couldn’t provide details, except that it will offer PlayStation games meant for portable devices. The Tablet S will come with a trial membership to the music service and a free movie and e-book. It also comes preloaded with two simple games.

The Tablet S fell far short of the iPad 2 in my battery tests, where I play videos back to back with the network connection on and the screen brightness set at 75%. It died after 6 hours, 38 minutes, which is a whopping 3½ hours less than the iPad 2 lasted.

Still, Sony deserves credit for creating a novel design with real advantages and for building in some useful software. The Tablet S is worth considering when shopping for a tablet.

Write to Walt at walt.mossberg@wsj.com

Online Shopping on the Side

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 01:05:31 +0000

Online shopping is quick and easy if you know what you’re looking for, or only have to decide between a couple of products. But it can get tedious and time-consuming if you’re making a purchase that requires lots of comparisons over multiple sites.

[ See post to watch video ]

So, I’ve been testing Digital Folio, a new, free software product to be announced next week. It’s a browser add-on that lets you save and view potential product choices in a single place, and quickly see how their prices compare among some major online retailers.

You just drag links to products that interest you into a sidebar right alongside your Web browser. This module stays with you regardless of what website you’re viewing, and its contents can be shared with friends.

Best of all, for certain kinds of products from certain merchants, the sidebar will almost instantly show price comparisons for the same item from other online stores—even if you aren’t viewing the other stores’ websites. If you decide to buy an item, you just click on its link in the sidebar, and you’ll be taken to the retailer’s site, where you can place your order as you normally would.

Digital Folio is labeled as a beta, or test, version. But, in my tests, I found that, despite some limitations and rough edges, it’s a powerful piece of software that I believe could save shoppers both time and money.

Its maker, a small startup from Denver of the same name, has been showing and testing Digital Folio for awhile, but finally feels it’s ready for wide use. You can try it now at digitalfolio.com. The company makes money by getting a small cut of purchases made by Digital Folio users at partner online merchants.

Before getting into the details, it’s important to lay out three key limitations of Digital Folio today. First, while it can save potential choices for any kind of product from any site, Digital Folio only generates automatic price comparisons when you save product listings from its five online retail partners, which it calls “Smart Retailers.” These are Amazon, Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart and Sears.

Second, even at the partner retail sites, Digital Folio’s price comparison feature works for only 13 categories of items, all of them electronic products or appliances. These include cameras, computers, TVs, printers, refrigerators, dishwashers and microwaves. Oddly, two of the hottest such product categories—smartphones and tablets—aren’t included now in the price-comparison feature, but the company is planning to add more products.

Third, it only works with the two most popular Web browsers: Internet Explorer on Windows and Firefox on either Windows or Macintosh. And you’ll need relatively recent versions of the browsers and the computers’ operating systems. I tested it using the latest versions of the two browsers on the latest versions of Windows and the Mac OS.

Mobile versions are planned in the coming months for Windows Phones and Apple mobile devices, with an Android version coming later.

There are other comparison-shopping products, but none that work like this.

Digital Folio’s sidebar has two main sections, marked by tabs at the top. One called My Folios stores your lists of possible purchases. These can be divided into sections, or folios, for different products. For instance, in my tests, I set up folios for cameras, laptops and TVs. Each folio can also have sections, like laptops with screens in a certain size range.

The second tab is called Compare, and it provides the varying prices at the five partner merchants, though these prices don’t yet include shipping and handling costs.

Digital Folio shows you the best price among its partner stores for any given item.

Here’s an example of how it worked for me in my tests. While shopping for a pocket-size digital camera, I noticed on Amazon a certain Canon Powershot model. So I dragged its link into the Digital Folio sidebar. It was $129 on Amazon, but Digital Folio immediately advised me that Sears had it for about $113, and Wal-Mart for $119. It also listed higher prices at other of its partner merchants.

An even more interesting thing happens when you go to a retailer’s page that lists many items in a category, say a page at Amazon that lists TVs. The Compare tab starts pulsating and, in seconds, it generates a list of all the items on the page, along with prices at the other partner merchants.

In my tests, this allowed me to see that a certain Samsung model was cheapest at Amazon, but a Vizio model that also caught my eye was a lot less at Wal-Mart.

Unlike items you’ve deliberately dragged into Digital Folio, these instant comparisons at list pages don’t stay in the sidebar. They disappear when you navigate away from the page. But they’re amazingly dynamic. For instance, if you narrow down the selection on the list page by, say, brand, size or price, the Digital Folio list with price comparison changes along with it.

So what are those rough edges I was talking about? Well, I found setup to be clumsy on Internet Explorer, requiring multiple steps. I also much preferred using the product on Firefox, because, when you click on an item in the sidebar to revisit its original page, that page opens in a tab. By contrast, in Internet Explorer, it opens a new window and has to slowly reload the Digital Folio sidebar.

Also, you can’t drag an item directly into a folio in the sidebar. Instead, you have to wade through a dialog box to choose the folio where it should reside. And you can’t automatically, or rapidly, set up a new folio for a new category of item you find on a site; you have to first manually establish a new folio.

The product also doesn’t automatically refresh itself on one computer, if you’ve made changes to your folios on another. And it crashed Firefox repeatedly on one of my test Macs, though not on another.

Still, despite its early limits and design drawbacks, I believe Digital Folio is a good start toward making complicated online buying decisions simpler.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

A Parallels World Where Windows Zips on Macs

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 01:03:09 +0000

Apple’s Macintosh computers have long been able to run Windows, in addition to their native operating system, Mac OS X. But the process has sometimes been clumsy, slow or taxing to the machine and it hasn’t been tailored to the new Lion version of Apple’s OS.

Now, the most popular utility for running Windows programs simultaneously with Mac programs has been updated in a speedier version that takes advantage of some Lion features. It’s called Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac, and it goes on sale Sept. 1, as a $50 upgrade for current Parallels users and on Sept. 6 for new users at $80. The product comes from a Seattle company of the same name.

[ See post to watch video ]

I’ve been testing the new Parallels 7 on last year’s version of the MacBook Air laptop, running Lion with 4 gigabytes of memory. That’s the recommended amount of memory for running Windows 7, the version of Windows I tested.

In my tests, this latest Parallels edition ran Windows quickly and smoothly, and integrated well with some of Lion’s new features, even though my test Mac isn’t the fastest Apple laptop available today.

For instance, while I’m writing this in a Mac program on the Air, I’m simultaneously running the Windows-only Internet Explorer Web browser, and a couple of other Windows programs, with no discernible slowdown in any of them. I can easily recommend Parallels 7 to Mac users who need to use Windows programs some of the time.

Parallels Desktop 7 lets Windows programs, like Excel on the left, appear on the Mac as if they were Mac programs, without the Windows desktop.

I also tested a new companion Parallels Mobile iPad and iPhone app, which allows you to remotely control both your Mac and Windows running on your Mac. I am less sanguine about this product, which also goes on sale Thursday, for an introductory price of $5 (the regular price is $20). It did work, but like similar mobile programs for controlling PCs, I found it a bit awkward to use.

Parallels works by creating a so-called virtual machine inside your Mac. Within this virtual machine, you can install a copy of Windows you’ve purchased and it will behave like a faux Windows computer, compatible with the same programs as a physical Windows PC.

You can run Windows programs on your Mac either in one large window that displays the Windows desktop and taskbar, or in a mode that allows the Windows programs you run to simply appear on the Mac as if they were Mac programs, without the Windows desktop.

Going Back and Forth

Either way, you can switch back and forth between this virtual Windows computer and your regular Mac environment. You can copy and paste material between Mac programs and Windows programs, and drag files between the two operating systems. You can even open files from the Mac side of the machine in Windows programs, provided they are compatible.

This isn’t the same as another method for running Windows on a Mac, called Boot Camp—a built-in feature of the Mac designed by Apple. Boot Camp, which also requires you to purchase and install Windows, has two big advantages over Parallels: It’s free, and it dedicates the Mac’s hardware solely to Windows, so it runs Windows programs even faster.

But it has a big disadvantage. It doesn’t allow you to run both operating systems simultaneously, or copy and paste material between them. With Boot Camp, if you want to switch between the Mac OS and Windows, you have to reboot the Mac.

I found that the new Parallels started and resumed Windows much faster than its predecessor. When launching Windows, the Mac no longer slowed to a crawl, as it had in past versions.

All Windows 7 programs I tested launched and ran quickly and smoothly, and the fancy visual effects in Windows 7, such as mini-previews for icons in the taskbar, worked great.

Playing Solitaire

I was able to run the Windows versions of Microsoft Office (including Outlook), Quicken, and many other programs. I also easily ran such Windows-only programs as IE, Windows Media Player and even the venerable Windows Solitaire.

In addition, the new Parallels for the first time can take advantage of the Mac’s built-in webcam.

It has a new wizard for creating a virtual machine. And now, it will even allow you to buy, download and install Windows right from within Parallels. Previously, you had to obtain Windows separately. This is a big improvement, in my view.

Windows in Launchpad

Windows, and Windows programs, can be displayed in Lion’s new Launchpad feature, which mimics the main screen of an iPad. They also show up and behave like Mac programs in Lion’s new Mission Control feature, which shows all the programs running on the Mac in miniature. Windows programs can also run in Lion’s new full-screen mode.

The companion iPad app has been enhanced so it not only remotely controls the virtual machine, but the entire Mac. This has some advantages, such as allowing you to view Flash videos that the iPad normally can’t play, by playing them remotely on the computer.

But I found that, as on other iPad apps for remotely controlling computers, controlling PC and Mac screens is difficult using iPad gestures.

Many Virtual Machines

Parallels 7 can create and run multiple virtual machines, and also handle operating systems other than Windows. For instance, I was able to run Linux and an open-source version of Google’s Chrome OS on my Mac using Parallels. At one point in my tests, I had four operating systems running at once, and could control all four from an iPad.

Oddly, the new Parallels can even run a second, virtual copy of Lion, on a Lion-equipped Mac, though this would mainly be of interest to developers testing products.

(Apple says Lion won’t work in a virtual machine running on a PC.)

There are a couple of drawbacks to Parallels 7. As in prior versions, it can’t run the most graphics-intensive Windows games and other programs, so heavy-duty gamers will do better with Boot Camp or a physical Windows PC. And I found it wouldn’t share my Verizon 4G data modem with the Mac OS.

If you’re likely to be using Windows most of the time, it’s best to just use a regular Windows PC. But for Mac users who need to run a few Windows programs some of the time, Parallels 7 is a fine product.

Write to Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Ways to Make Web Watching More Like TV, Less Like a PC

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 01:04:16 +0000

Some folks watch movies, TV shows and videos from the Internet on their TVs by plugging in their computers, using ugly cables, keyboards, or mice that seem out of place in the living room. That PC-to-TV experience is more like using the computer than leaning back to enjoy TV.

[ See post to watch video ]

So this week, I decided to try out three inexpensive set-top boxes that aim to make this process easier and neater. They are the $100 Roku 2 XS, the $99 second-generation Apple TV and the $199 Boxee Box from D-Link. The intent of the three products I tested is to do what a computer can, but in a simpler, cheaper and more TV-like manner—with easy setup, clear onscreen menus and small, simple remotes.

None of these boxes can handle your regular cable or satellite service. Typically, you plug these gadgets into a separate input on your TV and switch to that input to use them, just as you do when using your DVD or Blu-ray player. Nor do these boxes play discs.

Clockwise starting from the left: Roku 2 XS with ‘Angry Birds’ on the TV; the uniquely shaped Boxee Box with its remote; and the Apple TV box.

While all three products carry some of the same popular Internet video sources, such as Netflix, YouTube, MLB.TV and Vimeo, they otherwise have different offerings. Apple’s huge and popular iTunes video store is available only on Apple TV. But Roku and Boxee each have numerous sources that Apple lacks, such as Hulu Plus and Amazon Instant Video on Roku, and Vudu on Boxee.

Of the three, I’d recommend Apple TV primarily for people who frequently use iTunes, or who own an iPad or iPhone. I’d recommend Roku for people who aren’t hooked on the Apple world and crave simplicity, variety and a low entry price. I’d only recommend the Boxee Box for techies because of its complexity.

Roku 2 XS

This is the smallest of the three, a tiny black gadget about 3 inches square and less than an inch thick. It’s the high end of a lineup that starts at $60.

The Roku uses a large, simple menu of “channels” of content providers—some free and some requiring a subscription or a pay-per-view fee to the content provider.

In my tests, the Roku 2 XS set up easily on my 50-inch Pioneer Plasma TV, and provided sharp, clear high-definition TV shows, movies and other videos from a wide variety of sources. Menus were mostly consistent and clear. I was able to watch TV shows like “30 Rock” and movies like “Star Trek,” though the most recent movies aren’t available and the selection of newer TV episodes was spotty.

The newest feature of the Roku is casual gaming, notably the popular “Angry Birds.” However, the Roku can’t access video, photos or music from computers on a home network, though it can play content from a USB drive.

Apple TV

This small black box seems to have inspired the new Roku design, although it’s a bit larger. It allows you to rent movies and buy TV shows from the iTunes store. A new feature also allows you to stream, for free, any TV show you’ve purchased from iTunes, even if you bought it on another device.

Though Apple won’t confirm this, I expect this same free feature to apply eventually to movies as well.

In my tests, Apple TV delivered great video, even though its resolution isn’t as high as those on the other two devices. Its user interface is clean, simple and consistent, and its remote is tiny and very simple.

The selection of non-Apple Internet sources on Apple TV is very limited. It includes a few paid services and some free ones, but ignores most of the non-Apple video on the Internet. But Apple TV really shines in fetching video, photos and music from any PC or Mac on your home network that is running iTunes.

Apple TV is becoming even more useful as an adapter for an iPad or iPhone. Using a feature on those devices called AirPlay, you can wirelessly beam some videos to your TV via Apple TV.

And, with a software update due soon, you’ll be able to wirelessly mirror the entire display of an iPad 2 to your TV, and stream music and photos you’ve stored on Apple’s new iCloud service.

My main gripe with Apple TV, in addition to its limited Web content, is that the remote lacks a “home” and “back” button.

Boxee Box

This is a much larger device, with an unusual, angled shape that costs twice as much as the others. Even with a new software update, I found Boxee more confusing and geeky than the other two.

Boxee’s strongest feature is that it has loads of content, and can play almost any video format. But this content is presented in two very different ways. If you just select a movie or TV show, you may find yourself in a Web browser, trying to control the video with a cursor—a scenario I find annoying from 10 feet away. If, however, the content comes from an app, such as Netflix or Vudu, it’s presented in a TV-friendly fashion. Depending on how you navigate to the video, you may be surprised by which interface you get.

In addition, Boxee has the flavor of a techie device. For instance, it includes setup choices like Deinterlacing Policy, and watching content from your home network requires you to choose from a geeky list of options.

Boxee also is rough around the edges. It failed to play any of the standard-formatted songs on my home network, and it froze on me twice.

A free Boxee iPad app can fetch videos from social networks or bookmarked Web pages, and has its own method for sending videos to the TV via the Boxee Box. Boxee also claims to support Apple’s official AirPlay feature, but, in my tests, this failed more often than it succeeded. (The company calls this feature “experimental.”)

On the other hand, the Boxee remote is the only one with a built-in keyboard—on the back of the remote. With the others, you have to peck out letters on an onscreen keyboard when doing things like searching.

Bottom line: To watch Internet video easily on a TV, either Roku or Apple TV is the best choice for average consumers.