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HP's Whitman to Shed More Light on the Future, Including Job Cuts, Today

Arik Hesseldahl — Wed, 23 May 2012 12:30:20 +0000

Hewlett-Packard will report its quarterly earnings today after the close of regular trading in New York, and there’s a lot riding on what its senior executives, especially CEO Meg Whitman, will have to say.

The consensus among Wall Street analysts calls for HP to report sales of $29.92 billion and a per-share profit of 91 cents. And, for the most part, analysts are expecting HP’s results to be in line with expectations, if maybe a little light on sales.

One possible curveball, however, is Europe. Given HP’s exposure to the faltering markets on that continent, about which Dell complained in its earnings report yesterday, HP could conceivably see its results hurt more by Europe than by Dell.

Europe accounts for 37 percent of HP’s revenue, making it the most heavily exposed there among the large IT vendors. “The increasing uncertainty and resulting macro weakness in Europe will likely act as an ongoing headwind to growth,” wrote analyst Chris Whitmore of Deutsche Bank Securities in a note to clients Tuesday.

But the big item on the agenda will be HP’s plans for restructuring, and how many jobs may be lost. As AllThingsD reported last week, HP is contemplating a restructuring that could see as many as 30,000 jobs eliminated, including 5,000 through voluntary retirements. What’s unclear is over what length of time these jobs will go — I’ve been told by sources that this is a key detail, and it is likely to be a fairly long period of time.

The reductions would be the latest in a long, painful sequence of cuts for HP that began years ago. Whitmore notes that HP chopped 50,000 jobs over the course of five years under the tenure of former CEO Mark Hurd. “We suspect HP will position this cost cutting as ‘cut to reinvest’ — an interesting strategy considering HP has been restructuring for the past decade,” Whitmore writes.

Whatever restructuring Whitman puts on the table, Whitmore expects it will help HP maintain its prior guidance — it expects to finish the year with a per-share profit north of $4.00 — but it’s still not going to be easy. Summer PC demand is expected to be soft, and the lack of a tablet strategy isn’t helping. Demand for corporate PCs will likely be a rare bright spot, but just barely.

In printers, the relatively weak results of printer concerns Canon and Lexmark don’t exactly imbue the market with confidence that the trend of sliding profits and sales in HP’s printer operation, recently combined with the Personal Systems Group in a sweeping reorganization announced last month, is anywhere close to being reversed.

One thing to watch for — and something about which Whitman has hinted in the past — is SKU reduction. An SKU is industry lingo for “stock-keeping unit,” and it refers to specific models and makes and packages of a given product. Consumer printers — and, in fact, printers in general — would be an obvious place to cut back on the number of models offered to the market, and it would be perfectly in line with Whitman’s prior messages emphasizing simplicity and streamlining HP’s approach to the market. While I don’t expect Whitman to go on at length about this subject, it’s the sort of thing she may touch on as she hones the “simplicity” message.

What not to expect: One big bomb dropped all at once, outlining the sum total of Whitman’s long-term strategy for HP — one she has already admitted will take a long time to implement. The fact is, it’s a big job, probably one of the biggest in all of the corporate world, and so it’s necessarily coming out in pieces. Today’s piece will be a big one.

There's a Storm Ahead for HP's Printer Business

Arik Hesseldahl — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:21:26 +0000

When the troubled IT giant Hewlett-Packard reports its quarterly results tomorrow, most analysts expect it to come through and meet — and perhaps even beat — some already diminished expectations.

Yet HP is facing a significant problem in a key market: Printing. HP’s Imaging and Printing Group, or IPG, accounts for roughly 20 percent of HP’s revenue, making it a bigger business by revenue than the enterprise and server, storage and networking businesses.

As it does with most printer vendors, the business model of IPG works like this: HP sells a printer, more often than not at a loss, then makes up for the loss by selling the customer ink and other supplies over the next several years of the printer’s useful life.

In this business, HP is the king. In a survey of the state of the printing market issued last week, the market research firm IDC pegged HP’s overall share at north of 41 percent. In 2011, by IDC’s reckoning, HP sold more than twice the number of printers as its nearest rival Canon, and more than the combined unit sales of its nearest three rivals — Canon, Epson and Samsung.

So what’s the problem? The printing business is on the wane. For all of 2011, combined sales grew by 0.7 percent, according to IDC, and what little growth there was didn’t go to HP. IDC says HP’s printer shipments declined by 0.7 percent last year, while Canon, Samsung and Brother all saw their shipments grow.

And sales in key market geographies make the picture look even worse. In the U.S., for example, IDC says the market for printers in 2011 contracted by 9 percent, while HP’s unit sales plummeted by more than 12 percent. On a unit basis, IDC says, HP sold fewer than 4.2 million printers to U.S. customers, compared to 4.8 million in 2010.

Slowing hardware sales are only the leading edge of the problem. Remember that HP takes a loss on every printer it sells and makes it up on much more profitable supplies. Here’s where the numbers start to look scary: As overall revenue in the IPG was essentially flat year on year in 2011 — sales were $25.78 billion in 2011 versus $25.76 billion in 2010 — sales of supplies declined.

That may not seem important, until you realize that sales of supplies account for more than two-thirds of IPG’s revenue: Printer supplies are a $17 billion annual business that had been growing until 2011 when sales headed south. Sales of ink cartridges tend to track sales of new printers on a six- to nine-month lag, but there’s also a long tail that feeds into the existing installed base. Printers can stay in service for years, gobbling up ink.

A decline in ink sales can have an outsized impact in IPG’s profitability: Operating margins in IPG declined from 17.1 percent in 2010 to 15.4 percent in 2011.

And if market trends weren’t enough to drag down HP’s printer business, there are economic ones, too. Canon manufactures key parts of HP’s LaserJet printers in Japan. That caused two significant problems: Logistics costs increased as a result of the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan last year. Meanwhile, the strength of the Japanese yen relative to the U.S. dollar is adding even more incremental costs.

The bottom line: Printing has been one of HP’s long-term strengths. If people are printing less, they’re buying fewer printers. And if they’re buying fewer printers, they’re buying less ink. All of it is bad news for the world’s biggest printer company. We’ll see just how bad on Wednesday, when HP reports its latest results.

Three Cameras in Focus at CES

Lauren Goode — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 20:08:41 +0000

Smartphones are munching at many industries, including cameras. And while some camera makers are looking to compete by making their digital cameras “smarter” — which means adding more Wi-Fi capabilities and apps — others are focusing on their core capabilities: Taking pictures. Here are three cameras that stood out at the Consumer Electronics Show last week:

Canon PowerShot G1 X
The Canon PowerShot G1 X follows the PowerShot G12, which will stay in Canon’s product lineup; the G1 X adds the largest sensor to date for a Canon PowerShot model. Bodywise, it’s not as chunky as a DSLR, but it’s larger than the PowerShot G12, and still has a pretty solid composite-material body, weighing in at 19 ounces and measuring 4.98 x 2.93 x 2.12 inches.

The camera uses a 1.5-inch, 14.3 megapixel high-sensitivity CMOS sensor, which is 6.3 times larger than the G12’s sensor. A representative for Canon says it works especially well in low light.

Interchangeable lenses aren’t an option — the G1 X does have a 28mm-to-112mm (4x) optical zoom lens — and for hobbyists, this will be just fine. But for fans of the Canon 5D, 7D, and 60D, the lack of lens options could be what makes them stay true to their DSLRs.

The G1 X also captures 1080p HD video, with optical zooming and auto-focus features. It’s got a pop-up flash, and a fully rotating view screen. While some consumers might prefer not to have an extra view-screen “arm” hanging off the camera, regular video shooters might prefer this to an embedded view screen.

The Canon G1 X will cost $799, and is expected to hit the market at the end of February.

FujiFilm X-Pro 1
Fujifilm’s new flagship product will stoke the fires of your inner photo freak, but will likely leave a big, gaping hole in your wallet.

Fujifilm is touting a brand-new proprietary sensor that is supposed to set this device apart from other cameras. In fact, the new sensor is establishing the X-Pro 1 as the new flagship camera of Fujifilm. The X-Pro 1 has a 16.3 megapixel CMOS sensor, sized 23.6 mm x 15.6 mm. Fujifilm says this new sensor allows for the removal of additional low-pass filters within the camera, and still captures high-resolution images and true colors.

The X-Pro 1 supports three interchangeable lenses, captures 1080p HD video, and has a hybrid multi-iew finder that switches between electronic and optical view.

The body of the camera has a vintage look, which camera buffs will appreciate, and it’s palpably heavier than Fujifilm’s X100 camera.

With the X-Pro 1, Fujifilm is targeting an advanced photographer, and likely one that is focused on taking still images, rather than video. The price point hasn’t been set yet, but it will likely retail for more than the FinePix X100, which retails for $1,200. Fujifilm is aiming for a March 2012 launch of the X-Pro 1.

Nikon 1 Series
The belle of the CES ball this year was Nikon’s D4 camera, which won various awards throughout the week. But the D4 is geared toward professionals — and costs $6,000.

For consumers, the Nikon “1″ series cameras may be the way to go. These cameras actually hit the market last October, but were still getting attention at last week’s big show in Las Vegas.

The Nikon 1 V1, at $849, is slightly bigger than the J1, and has an electronic viewfinder and one other feature that I feel is a real bonus. Otherwise, the V1 and J1 are almost identical. The 1 series cameras are not full-fledged DLSRs, but offer some of the same advanced functionality, and support interchangeable lenses. They pack in a 10.1 megapixel, 13.2 mm x 8.8 mm high-speed AF CMOS sensor, and have a 2.7x lens focal length. Like many digital cameras on the market, they capture 1080p HD video.

There’s one dial on the back for toggling between the four functions of the camera: Still images, video, motion snapshot and smart photo selection. For some users, this makes the V1 and J1 simpler to navigate than other compact cameras; others might not like some of the limits on customization. Bounce-flash accessories, like the SB-N5 speedlight for the V1, are available for purchase, and offer a bit more illumination than built-in pop-up lights.

But there’s one small feature on the Nikon 1 V1 that makes a big difference, in my opinion — the external audio input. Very few point-and-shoots or DSLRs come with a microphone jack; in order to capture good, isolated sound on many cameras, you’d have to slide an accessory into the “hot shoe” at the top of the camera. With the Nikon 1 V1, you could attach a stereo mic and stop apologizing for the bad audio and ambient noise in your videos.

The Nikon 1 V1 retails for $849; the Nikon 1 J1 costs $699.

Ever Made a Wi-Fi Device? You Probably Just Got Sued.

Arik Hesseldahl — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 23:03:27 +0000

Ever heard of Mosaid Technology? Neither have I, but it’s a Canadian chip designer that’s been around since 1975. And if you’re among the 17 companies it sued today, you probably wish you’d never heard of it.

That’s right, 17 companies all at once, and all over six patents related to Wi-Fi that it says are being infringed. The defendants include household names like Dell, Research In Motion, Intel, Canon and Asus, as well as some lesser known names in tech like Atheros–the wireless chipmaker that’s being acquired by Qualcomm–Marvell Semiconductor and the Chinese networking concern Huawei.

The suit was filed in the United States District Court Eastern District of Texas, which is notable because this district has developed something of a reputation of being friendly to so-called patent trolls, companies who make their living not by making products, but by suing established companies with the resources to either pay damages or cash settlements after arguably infringing on some patents they happen to have. When a few cases filed in this court went in favor of the plaintiff some years ago, numerous others followed. It also gained the nickname of “rocket docket,” meaning patent cases tended to be wrapped up inside of one to two years, much faster than in other courts.

Mosaid says it has licensed the six patents in question to 15 other companies, some of which you’ve heard of. They include Sony, Samsung, Panasonic and Nokia.

And if you’re not on either list–sued today or working with a license–and sell a Wi-Fi enabled product, you can probably bet that Mosaid is coming for you sooner or later. As Mosaid CEO John Lindgren put it in a company statement: “We believe that all companies offering products that implement the Wi-Fi standard require a license to our wireless patents.” Sounds like Mosaid’s lawyers are going to be busy.

Man, I Got So WikiLeaked Last Night

Beth Callaghan — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 20:23:29 +0000

“WikiLeaks” has entered the canon of the English language, but not according to the OED. Research done by a group known as Global Language Monitor shows that “WikiLeaks” has appeared in global media more than 300 million times since 2006. The Texas-based group cites a minimum of 25,000 mentions in English-speaking media as a requirement for the name to become its own lowercase, generic word. Unfortunately, GLM doesn’t specify its definition or whether the word would be used as a noun, verb, adjective or adverb.

Digital Cameras Improve Zooms, HD Function

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 22:26:27 +0000

With Thanksgiving fast approaching, so, too, comes the start of the holiday shopping mayhem. Once again, digital cameras are rocketing to the top of wish lists, and once again, shoppers are tentatively entering electronics stores with bewildered looks on their faces.

[ See post to watch video ]

To alleviate some of that shopping stress, I’ve compiled a buyer’s guide for different camera categories with prices and pointers to innovation. This year, manufacturers have improved photo-location tagging and are offering artistic photo alteration and clever ways to label images for future sharing on social networks.

Let’s Get Physical

Consumers are starting to understand that better sensors make it possible to do things like taking photos in low light, which can really make a difference in photo quality. Some high-quality sensors are making their way into affordable models, like the CMOS sensor in Nikon’s $300 Coolpix S8100. High megapixel counts aren’t overly important, though more megapixels per photo still make it easier to zoom in while editing and give higher resolution in a larger photo or poster. A 14-megapixel camera like the Olympus FE-47 costs just $100, but a recent Consumer Reports review gave it low marks in handling shake and liquid-crystal-display screen quality. Optical zoom, or the physically manipulated distance between the camera and a subject, is still more important than digital zoom, and it’s easy to find many models with 7x optical zoom or better. LCD screens on digicams are so large that they leave little room for optical viewfinders, thus making built-in image stabilization all the more important. Image stabilization comes on nearly all new cameras. And more digicams than ever are capable of recording high-definition videos.

Breaking It Down

Digital cameras can be divided into four broad categories: pocket-size, point-and-shoot, super- or mega-zooms and digital single-lens reflexes (D-SLRs). I’ll leave SLRs out of the discussion, since they’re still primarily aimed at hobbyists who don’t mind the cost and effort of buying additional lenses, filters, flashes and other accessories.

Most pocket-size digital cameras cost between $100 and $300, weigh no more than seven ounces and lack optical viewfinders, forcing users to look at LCD screens to compose pictures. Most of these LCD viewing screens measure between 2.6 inches and 3.5 inches diagonally. Samsung, however, has an even bigger touch-screen LCD, at 3.7 inches, on its CL80 camera priced at $350.

These small but powerful machines capture images with 10, 12 or 14 megapixels and their optical zoom lenses usually range from 3x to 7x, though a handful of manufacturers are boosting their cameras’ optical zooms. The $170 Casio Exilim EX-H5, for example, is equipped with a 10x optical zoom lens.

Today’s point-and-shoot digital cameras are sleeker and more stylish than they used to be, though they remain somewhat bulkier than their pocket-size relatives. The point-and-shoot size can allow for better optical zoom lenses, and these models sometimes cost less than the pocket sizes. The $300 Canon PowerShot SX210 IS and $280 Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS5 are equipped with 14x and 12x optical zoom lenses, respectively.

Super-zoom or mega-zoom digital cameras satisfy people who want the power of a great zoom and optional manual settings without the hassle and expense of an SLR. At a glance, you might mistake these models for SLRs due to their bulkier bodies, and, in some cases, detachable (or hot-shoe) flashes. Nikon’s $400 Coolpix P100 offers a 26x wide-angle optical zoom, and Olympus’s $350 SP-800UZ is the smallest camera with a 30x wide-angle optical zoom. Both cameras have built-in flashes, but the Nikon includes an optical viewfinder while the Olympus offers only an LCD screen for viewing and capturing photos.

Shaking It Up

Camera manufacturers are adding creative new features to these devices. Starting the week of Thanksgiving, Casio will provide Hybrid GPS on its $350 EX-H20G, which geotags (adds digital location information to) images indoors where GPS satellite signals can’t reach. This works using a combined GPS radio and motion sensor to measure the direction in which the camera has moved, and how fast. When you’re back in satellite range, the camera corrects the geotag by cross-referencing its own estimates with satellite-provided latitude and longitude.

Olympus now has art filters, which let you view your subject with special effects before capturing the photo. Some filters supply gentle sepia, soft focus or grainy film. There is also a drawing filter, which makes a subject instantly appear as a sketch.

Samsung’s $150 PL90 model has a pop-out USB arm that reminds me a lot of the pop-out USB connector on Cisco’s popular Flip camcorders. Samsung’s USB arm eliminates the need for messy wires, or the removal of a memory card to transfer photos from a digicam to a PC.

Many cameras have and continue to supply guides that appear on screen as a photo is being captured. Sony’s NEX-5 offers this, and the Olympus Live Guide let you preview photo adjustments—like brightness or color saturation—on the screen as you make them. Nikon’s Scene Auto Selector, found in the Coolpix P7000, Coolpix S8100 and Coolpix S80, will automatically adjust the camera’s settings so users can stop worrying about scrolling through menus to select the right scene from a list.

Fujifilm offers the only true (not simulated) three-dimensional digital camera in its $500 FinePix REAL 3D W3, which I reviewed in August. These 3D images can be seen through the camera’s LCD viewing screen but not on laptops or television sets unless they’re 3D-capable and you’re wearing 3D glasses.

Kodak is trying to encourage sharing with its cameras by including a Share button that, when pressed, digitally tags images and videos with labels for Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Kodak Gallery or email, then automatically sends the photos to those places when you next plug the camera into a PC.

One last warning: Don’t be seduced by lower prices or better technology alone. Be sure you try a camera in the store before buying it. The way it feels or works for you is just as important as any technological specification.

Email Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Tackling 54,000 Photos With Two Programs

Geoffrey A. Fowler — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 23:57:24 +0000

Taking photos is fun. Sorting and editing them is not.

I’ve got 54,220 photos on my computer, including a few would-be National Geographic covers but far more out-of-focus portraits and poorly exposed sunsets that I’ve never bothered to fix or delete.

Thanks to plummeting prices on digital SLR cameras, amateurs like myself can now experiment freely with artistic shots, taking hundreds of photos without spending a small fortune in film. But those experiments generate a lot of homework by way of virtual stacks of photos in need of processing.

Lightroom’s dense panels of options.

Adobe Systems Inc.’s (ADBE) Photoshop is famous for helping photographers extract the most out of their shots in a digital darkroom. But at $699, Photoshop costs as much as a new camera and takes a graduate course to master. Moreover, Photoshop was designed to edit a single photo at a time, not for sorting through a collection.

A new generation of software from Adobe and Apple Inc. (AAPL) has emerged to fill the gap between Photoshop and entry-level photo-management software like Apple Inc.’s iPhoto and Google Inc.’s (GOOG) Picasa. For people who have graduated from point-and-shoot cameras, Adobe’s Photoshop Lightroom 3 ($299) and Apple’s Aperture 3 ($199) offer tools to organize large collections and tackle the nitty-gritty of digital developing and re-touching.

I’ve been testing Lightroom (for Mac and PC) and Aperture (for Mac only) to organize, process and share photos I took at my friends’ recent wedding. While both programs were designed with professional photographers in mind, I found they were effective at helping a hobbyist like myself whittle 400 photos to just 40 in less than an hour.

The programs also let me edit photos far beyond the basics of brightness and contrast. One shot moved from the reject to the favorites pile after Lightroom let me take advantage of my Canon camera’s advanced image format to boost the exposure of an image taken during a dimly lit reception.

Many professional photographers have a strong preference for one of the two programs. I preferred the overall aesthetic and photo-editing tools in Lightroom for extracting the best from my photos. Nonetheless, Aperture’s strengths lie in some nifty organizational tricks, and I would recommend it for people interested in three specific uses: upgrading from a large iPhoto collection; taking video with an SLR; or tagging photos with locations.

At their core, both Lightroom and Aperture are databases, but don’t let that scare away your inner Ansel Adams.

Lightroom’s database gives you tools to organize your photos into folders on your computer, create collections from across folders, and tag photos with keywords, star ratings, and other features. For people like me who are lazy about applying tags to describe photos, Lightroom offers a spray-can tool to virtually “paint” keywords on bunches of photos at one time.

Aperture’s approach to cataloging is borrowed from iPhoto. You put your photos into “projects” (known as “events” in iPhoto), which the software will suggest when you import images from your camera based on groups that were taken around the same time. You can also add keywords, ratings and other tags.

But Aperture has two more tricks up its sleeve. You can tag photos based on the people in them, using the same technology Apple built into iPhoto to recognize faces. While that’s a good idea, I found that Aperture (like iPhoto) didn’t do an ideal job at distinguishing faces, especially in profile.

Apple says the face-recognition function works best if you identify both a couple of front-on and profile photos for any person, and also let it finish going through your whole collection before using it.

More useful is Aperture’s ability to tag photos geographically. Some new cameras collect GPS data with each shot and Aperture charts that info with pins on a giant world map, making it fun to track a journey or search for all the photos taken in one place.

Unfortunately, the majority of cameras don’t capture GPS data, but Aperture does offer some tools for adding in location data after the fact, such as importing it from a photo taken by an iPhone at the same site. Lightroom can also record GPS data for photos, but you have to work with third-party plug-ins to get the same functionality as in Aperture.

It’s in the digital darkroom that both programs earn their keep. The biggest reason an SLR-owner should upgrade beyond a basic photo editor is so he or she can work with so-called RAW files, sort of digital negatives that use extra data from the camera’s sensor to give you artistic control over factors like exposure long after you’ve shot the photo. Both programs work well with RAW, and moreover, editing photos on both programs is nondestructive, which means you can undo any changes you make—all the way back to your original photo—even after the photo has been saved. Sometimes the sky really can be too blue.

I found Lightroom’s editing features to be the most intuitive. It uses a three-paned screen clearly showing all of the available adjustments, your photo, and a history of the changes made to the image. I felt Aperture made me hunt for some of those features, but some users may prefer its optional floating palettes to Lightroom’s dense panels of options, and also its elegant system for brushing changes onto an image.

Lightroom boasts some cutting-edge editing features, such as the ability to adjust photos based on profiles of the lenses used to take them. That’s especially useful if you are working with a wide-angle lens that can distort images. With the click of a button, a warped wall at the edge of a wide-angle photo is made vertical again. The lens profiling wasn’t automatic with my older-model Canon SLR, but still worked.

To be sure, there are well-known Photoshop tricks that neither of these programs can do, such as stitching two or more photos together. They also can’t digitally cut your ex’s head out of photos. But if you really need to do that, finding the right photo-editing software is the least of your problems.

And to my disappointment, both programs are missing an increasingly popular service called HDR, or high dynamic range, where you merge photos taken at different levels of exposure into a new photo that takes the best aspects of them all. To make these sorts of images, you have to download external plugins. That’s the occasion I most missed Photoshop.

Finally, the programs both offer tools to showcase shots in professional-looking books and prints as well as on websites like Facebook and Flickr. Lightroom has the most options for producing Web galleries.

Aperture will appeal to users with cameras that do the newest trick in digtial SLR photography: take video. Such videos, which can feature beautiful photographic characteristics like short depth of field, can be imported and edited right in Aperture. The videos can be included in the software’s handsome mixed-media slideshows without the need for a separate video-editing program.

Either Lightroom or Aperture is a worthy upgrade for any semi-serious photographer. Both are available to download for free limited trials and I’d suggest testing the workflow of both before committing your photo collection.

Walter S. Mossberg and the Mossberg’s Mailbox will return Sept. 16. Email Geoffrey Fowler at geoffrey.fowler@wsj.com.

Giving Your Pictures Some Va Va 'Zoom'

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 23:24:47 +0000

Are you ready to take a step closer to the digital-camera big leagues? Many people who have used a basic point-and-shoot camera for several years are ready to bring it up a notch.

The next logical category of camera after basic point-and-shoots (and before digital single-lens reflex, SLR, cameras) are the so-called megazoom cameras, capable of zeroing in on a subject with around 20x optical zoom strength. They also have fairly high megapixel counts, capturing about 10 to 12 MP each, and offer several automatic and manual settings for capturing photos.

The Nikon Coolpix P90

Most of the cameras in this category resemble SLRs, with bulkier builds and protruding zoom lenses. But they cost somewhere in the $400 range—significantly less expensive than SLRs, which often cost over $1,000 for the camera body alone (lenses are typically sold separately). If you don’t want to spend the money or you aren’t completely sure you want to commit to learning the ins and outs of an SLR, this midrange model is a sound compromise.

Of course, these cameras have some downsides. Serious photographers who have grown accustomed to the high-quality photos of SLRs will point out the comparatively poorer photo quality of megazooms. But for average users like me, the quality of photos captured using a megazoom digital camera is a welcome upgrade from a point-and-shoot.

Another significant difference for point-and-shoot users will be adjusting to the size and overall bulk of megazoom cameras. Users can’t toss them into a small purse or pocket on the way out the door like they do with compact point-and-shoots. Instead, megazooms are usually seen hanging from neck straps or stowed away in camera shoulder bags.

Canon's PowerShot SX20 IS

Some smaller cameras are categorized as megazooms, including the Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS1K and Casio Exilim EX-H10BK, though both look more like thick point-and-shoot cameras. These Panasonic (PC) and Casio models cost between $250 and $300 and offer 12x and 10x optical zooms, respectively. But they aren’t capable of some of the more advanced features found on expensive megazooms—like 24x optical zoom or some manual settings and shooting modes.

This Christmas, I was fortunate to receive one such megazoom camera, the Nikon Coolpix P90, which costs around $400. Though I’ve used other cameras in this category, I was especially struck by how the capabilities of this megazoom altered my photo-capturing behavior.

In the Snow

Granted, not everyone will react as I did, but I took my camera and set out on photography jaunts around my neighborhood in Washington, D.C., scaling piles of snow to capture just the right angle, and using tree branches to frame shots of the Capitol in the distance.

The details and colors in the photos that my camera captured were so much more vivid than those on my admittedly older point-and-shoot that I wondered what took me so long to make the upgrade.

I spent the first week with this camera using it in its Auto setting—an old habit that carried over from my point-and-shoot days (also because I didn’t have time to read through the manual).

But even in the automatic mode, photos looked astonishingly good—prompting compliments from family and friends. A week later, I delved into the camera’s user manual and learned how to use many more features.

A Downside

One big downside: Though the Nikon Coolpix P90 weighs only 16.2 ounces, its bulky shape prohibits it from being carried along on a whim.

I brought the camera on a family vacation, but left it in my room rather than trying to fit it in my bag during a trip to the beach and on a zip line ride through the rain forest. A compact point-and-shoot would’ve easily fit into a pocket.

But then I have my BlackBerry Curve 8900′s camera—with 3.2 megapixels, auto focus and a built-in flash—for snapping photos on the go. (Plus, I can instantly share the shots via email, Facebook or Twitter.)

As more mobile devices include good quality cameras, like Google’s (GOOG) new $179 (with T-Mobile) Nexus One super-smart phone with five megapixels and a flash, fewer people will need to carry point-and-shoots for quickly capturing digital memories.

A Pleasure to Edit

Editing photos captured by a megazoom is a real pleasure. I cropped and zoomed to my heart’s content, noticing more details in photos after looking at them on my computer than when I initially took the pictures. When I needed to trim someone or something out of a shot, I didn’t worry about degrading the photo’s overall quality. And because of their high resolution, my photos can be enlarged with very little quality or color compromise.

The Casio Exilim EX-H10BK

In addition to Nikon, many other companies make cameras for the megazoom category. Some examples are Canon’s $400 PowerShot SX20 IS, Sony’s (SNE) $480 Cyber-shot DSC-HX1 and Casio’s $400 EX-FH20. These offer several shooting modes, as well as scene modes for common settings like sunsets, backlight, night portraits, burst mode and panoramas. They have optical and/or digital-image stabilization to thwart shaky hands, settings for focusing in on a subject manually or automatically, and ways to save frequently used manual settings.

Flash Features

Some megazooms have built-in flashes, while others use an external mount so that a flash can be snapped on or off for use. (My Nikon came with a built-in flash.) They often have more than one flash that fits in the mount, leaving users with the choice of which one to use.

The digital cameras include LCD viewing screens as well as optical viewfinders. (The latter is commonly left off of many small point-and-shoot cameras, but it’s really helpful for people who want to hold the camera up to one eye for steadier shooting.)

Some LCD screens, like the Canon’s, swing out and swivel around. The Nikon’s can be adjusted up 90 degrees or down 45 degrees for shooting below or above a subject.

No matter which model, the megazoom category of digital cameras offers a combination of advanced features and affordability that could entice people who are ready to take the next step into a world of more serious digital photography.

mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

A Windows to Help You Forget

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 01:02:03 +0000

In just two weeks, on Oct. 22, Microsoft’s long operating-system nightmare will be over. The company will release Windows 7, a faster and much better operating system than the little-loved Windows Vista, which did a lot to harm both the company’s reputation, and the productivity and blood pressure of its users. PC makers will rush to flood physical and online stores with new computers pre-loaded with Windows 7, and to offer the software to Vista owners who wish to upgrade.

[ See post to watch video ]

With Windows 7, PC users will at last have a strong, modern successor to the sturdy and familiar, but aged, Windows XP, which is still the most popular version of Windows, despite having come out in 2001. In the high-tech world, an eight-year-old operating system is the equivalent of a 20-year-old car. While XP works well for many people, it is relatively weak in areas such as security, networking and other features more important today than when XP was designed around 1999.

After using pre-release versions of Windows 7 for nine months, and intensively testing the final version for the past month on many different machines, I believe it is the best version of Windows Microsoft (MSFT) has produced. It’s a boost to productivity and a pleasure to use. Despite a few drawbacks, I can heartily recommend Windows 7 to mainstream consumers.

Like the new Snow Leopard operating system released in August by Microsoft’s archrival, Apple (AAPL), Windows 7 is much more of an evolutionary than a revolutionary product. Its main goal was to fix the flaws in Vista and to finally give Microsoft customers a reason to move up from XP. But Windows 7 is packed with features and tweaks that make using your computer an easier and more satisfying experience.

The new taskbar shows small previews of many windows and allows for larger previews.

Windows 7 introduces real advances in organizing your programs and files, arranging your taskbar and desktop, and quickly viewing and launching the page or document you want, when you want it. It also has cool built-in touch-screen features.

It removes a lot of clutter. And it mostly banishes Vista’s main flaws—sluggishness; incompatibility with third-party software and hardware; heavy hardware requirements; and constant, annoying security warnings.

I tested Windows 7 on 11 different computers, ranging from tiny netbooks to standard laptops to a couple of big desktops. These included machines from Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Dell (DELL), Acer, Asus, Toshiba and Sony (SNE). I even successfully ran it on an Apple Macintosh laptop. On some of these machines, Windows 7 was pre-loaded. On others, I had to upgrade from an earlier version of Windows.

In most cases, the installation took 45 minutes or less, and the new operating system worked snappily and well. But, I did encounter some drawbacks and problems. On a couple of these machines, glacial start-up and reboot times reminded me of Vista. And, on a couple of others, after upgrading, key features like the display or touchpad didn’t work properly. Also, Windows 7 still requires add-on security software that has to be frequently updated. It’s tedious and painful to upgrade an existing computer from XP to 7, and the variety of editions in which Windows 7 is offered is confusing.

Finally, Microsoft has stripped Windows 7 of familiar built-in applications, such as email, photo organizing, address book, calendar and video-editing programs. These can be downloaded free of charge, but they no longer come with the operating system, though some PC makers may choose to pre-load them.

In recent years, I, like many other reviewers, have argued that Apple’s Mac OS X operating system is much better than Windows. That’s no longer true. I still give the Mac OS a slight edge because it has a much easier and cheaper upgrade path; more built-in software programs; and far less vulnerability to viruses and other malicious software, which are overwhelmingly built to run on Windows.

Now, however, it’s much more of a toss-up between the two rivals. Windows 7 beats the Mac OS in some areas, such as better previews and navigation right from the taskbar, easier organization of open windows on the desktop and touch-screen capabilities. So Apple will have to scramble now that the gift of a flawed Vista has been replaced with a reliable, elegant version of Windows.

Here are some of the key features of Windows 7.

New Taskbar: In Windows 7, the familiar taskbar has been reinvented and made taller. Instead of mainly being a place where icons of open windows temporarily appear, it now is a place where you can permanently “pin” the icons of frequently used programs anywhere along its length, and in any arrangement you choose. This is a concept borrowed from Apple’s similar feature, the Dock. But Windows 7 takes the concept further.

For each running program, hovering over its taskbar icon pops up a small preview screen showing a mini-view of that program. This preview idea was in Vista. But, in Windows 7, it has been expanded in several ways. Now, every open window in that program is included separately in the preview. If you mouse over a window in the preview screen, it appears at full size on your desktop and all other windows on the desktop become transparent—part of a feature called Aero Peek. Click on the window and it comes up, ready for use. You can even close windows from these previews, or play media in them.

I found this feature more natural and versatile than a similar feature in Snow Leopard called Dock Expose.

You can also use Aero Peek at any time to see your empty desktop, with open windows reduced to virtual panes of glass. To do this, you just hover over a small rectangle at the right edge of the taskbar.

Taskbar icons also provide Jump Lists—pop-up menus listing frequent actions or recent files used.

Desktop organization: A feature called Snap allows you to expand windows to full-screen size by just dragging them to the top of the screen, or to half-screen size by dragging them to the left or right edges of the screen. Another called Shake allows you to make all other windows but the one you’re working on disappear by simply grabbing its title bar with the mouse and shaking it several times.

File organization: In Windows Explorer, the left-hand column now includes a feature called Libraries. Each library—Documents, Music, Pictures and Videos—consolidates all files of those types regardless of which folder, or even which hard disk, they live in.

Networking: Windows 7 still isn’t quite as natural at networking as I find the Mac to be, but it’s better than Vista. For instance, now you can see all available wireless networks by just clicking on an icon in the taskbar. A new feature called HomeGroups is supposed to let you share files more easily among Windows 7 PCs on your home network. In my tests, it worked, but not consistently, and it required typing in long, arcane passwords.

Touch: Some of the same kinds of multitouch gestures made popular on the iPhone are now built into Windows 7. But these features won’t likely become popular for a while because to get the most out of them, a computer needs a special type of touch screen that goes beyond most of the ones existing now. I tested this on one such laptop, a Lenovo, and was able to move windows around, to resize and flip through photos, and more.

Speed: In my tests, on every machine, Windows 7 ran swiftly and with far fewer of the delays typical in running Vista. All the laptops I tested resumed from sleep quickly and properly, unlike in Vista. Start-up and restart times were also improved. I chose six Windows 7 laptops from different makers to compare with a new MacBook Pro laptop. The Mac still started and restarted faster than most of the Windows 7 PCs. But the speed gap has narrowed considerably, and one of the Lenovos beat the Mac in restart time.

Nagging: In the name of security, Vista put up nagging warnings about a wide variety of tasks, driving people crazy. In Windows 7, you can now set this system so it nags you only when things are happening that you consider really worth the nag. Also, Microsoft has consolidated most of the alerts from the lower-right system tray into one icon, and they seemed less frequent.

Compatibility: I tried a wide variety of third-party software and all worked fine on every Windows 7 machine. These included Mozilla Firefox; Adobe (ADBE) Reader; Google’s (GOOG) Picasa and Chrome; and Apple’s iTunes and Safari.

I also tested several hardware devices, and, unlike Vista, Windows 7 handled all but one smoothly. These included a networked H-P printer, a Canon (CAJ) camera, an iPod nano, and at least five external flash drives and hard disks. The one failure was a Verizon (VZ) USB cellular modem. Microsoft says you don’t need external software to run these, but I found it was necessary, and even then had to use a trick I found on the Web to get it to work.

System Requirements: Nearly all Vista PCs, and newer or beefier XP machines, should be able to run Windows 7 fine. Even the netbooks I tested ran it speedily, especially with the Starter Edition, which lacks some of the powerful graphics effects in the operating system. (Other netbooks will be able to run other editions.)

If you have a standard PC, called a 32-bit PC, you’ll need at least one gigabyte of memory, 16 gigabytes of free hard-disk space and a graphics system that can support Microsoft technologies called “DirectX 9 with WDDM 1.0.” You’ll also need a processor with a speed of at least one gigahertz. If you have a newer-style 64-bit PC, which can use more memory, you’ll need at least two gigabytes of memory and 20 gigabytes of free hard disk space. In either case, you should double the minimum memory specification.

Aero Peek lets you see your desktop by making your windows transparent.

Installation, editions and price: There are four editions of Windows 7 of interest to consumers. One, a limited version called Starter, comes pre-loaded on netbooks. A second, called Professional, is mainly for people who need to tap remotely into company networks (check with your company to see if you need this). A third, called Ultimate, is mainly for techies who want every feature of all other editions. Most average consumers will want Home Premium, which costs $120 for upgrades.

The system for upgrading is complicated, but Vista owners can upgrade to the exactly comparable edition of Windows 7 while keeping all files, settings and programs in place.

Unfortunately, XP owners, the biggest body of Windows users, won’t be able to do that. They’ll have to wipe out their hard disks after backing up their files elsewhere, then install Windows 7, then restore their personal files, then re-install all their programs from the original CDs or downloaded installer files. Then, they have to install all the patches and upgrades to those programs from over the years.

Microsoft includes an Easy Transfer wizard to help with this, but it moves only personal files, not programs. This painful XP upgrade process is one of the worst things about Windows 7 and will likely drive many XP owners to either stick with what they’ve got or wait and buy a new one.

In my tests, both types of installations went OK, though the latter could take a long time.

Bottom line: Windows 7 is a very good, versatile operating system that should help Microsoft bury the memory of Vista and make PC users happy.

Correction: The edition of Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system aimed at business users is called Windows 7 Professional. This week’s Personal Technology column erroneously stated it was named Business.

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

Another Ad You Can't Ignore: The New York Times Serves Up Old News

Peter Kafka — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:08:59 +0000

The Internet advertising industry is doing its best to grab the attention of Web surfers, who have been trained over the years to tune out the come-ons. Here’s the latest, from the New York Times (NYT): An ad for Canon (CAJ) that swaps out the entire front page of the paper’s business section, replaces it with a black-and-white version of the business section, circa June 2009, and then replaces that version with a color version of the same page. Eventually, the ad disappears and you get returned to the old version.

You’ll get the best sense of the ad if you head to the Times yourself, because it will auto-load, but if for some reason that doesn’t work, here’s a screen grab I took this morning:

I’m all for the industry trying new stuff, since my paycheck is at least partly dependent on ad dollars. And I think that outlets like the Times are more likely to succeed with extraordinary one-off presentations like the one that Apple (AAPL) ran on the cover of the Times and The Wall Street Journal a while back. And I’m also okay with publishers who allow advertisers to step between me and the stuff I want to see–within reason.

But the execution here seems off: When my screen turns from color to black and white, my first reaction isn’t “Cool, I wonder who sponsored the monochrome?” but “WTF? Is my MacBook busted?” My next reaction: “What happened to the headlines I was just reading?” And the next: “Maybe I should be reading a different site.”

That can’t be what Canon and the Times were hoping for, right?

Another problem: I’m not in the market for a printer (or is it a copier?) and I don’t know that I ever will be. I know that ad buyers don’t really care about that and that they’re generally trying to reach a very wide swath of people who fall into my general demographic profile.

But if you’re going to make it hard for me to get to the content I want, don’t you want to make sure you’re doing it for a good reason?

Mediocrity Rules! Why the iPhone's Crummy Camera Is Flickr's Favorite.

Peter Kafka — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 22:28:00 +0000

Flickr is one of the Web’s most popular photo-sharing sites. Flickr users’ camera of choice? The iPhone.

At least it was yesterday, when the LA Times checked in on Flickr’s stats; at the time, Apple (AAPL)’s handset had passed the Canon (CAJ) EOS Digital Rebel XTi as the most popular camera on Yahoo’s (YHOO) photo site. The stats are updated daily, though, and as of this afternoon, the Canon had pulled back in front by a few hundred users.

But the precise numbers don’t matter. The takeaway here is that people who like taking and sharing photos are happy to use an inferior camera–even the newest iPhone sports just three megapixels and lacks rudimentary features like zoom and flash–if it’s easy to use. And most important, if it’s already on the phone they’re carrying around.

I’m not the first to point this out, but I’ll reiterate: There are important/worrisome lessons here for other gadget makers.

Cisco’s (CSCO)’s Flip camera line, for instance, is great, and I used my Mino HD twice today for interviews. But if I was carrying around an iPhone 3GS or any other handset with video-recording capabilities, I’m not sure that I would have packed the Flip. And I’d probably end up filming a lot more interviews if my camera was always with me.

Same goes for Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle, or any other would-be e-book reader: I appreciate that they’re designed specifically for reading and boast low-power screens that are easy on the eyes, hold up well in variable light, etc. But I read a newsstand’s worth of copy every day on my rudimentary BlackBerrry 8830, which isn’t designed for that at all; plenty of iPhone fans say they’re happy reading full-length novels on their gadgets.

That doesn’t mean that people who are passionate about cameras or novels or whatever won’t prefer specialized devices. But that leaves a very big chunk of the market–those of us who find that good enough is plenty good–for the iPhone or any other all-in-one tool.

[Image credit: Erik Pitti]

I Want My, I Want My SED

John Paczkowski — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 09:00:03 +0000

“We have big plans for the digital television business,” Canon CEO Fujio Mitarai said at a Canon exhibition in 2005. And with a new technology called surface-conduction electron-emitter display, and plans to use it to transform the lowly TV into a “multifunction information device,” Canon (CAJ) seemed well poised to execute them.

At the time, anyway. A patent dispute with Applied Nanotech soon stalled SED TV’s commercial debut. Which was a nasty break for Canon. With a performance and picture quality said to be far higher than LCD or plasma, SED was vital to expanding the company’s presence in the digital living room, which, lets face it, never extended much beyond digital cameras and printers.

Well, Canon’s big plans for the digital television business are back on track again. Applied Nanotech has dropped its claims against the company, saying to continue litigation “would probably be a futile effort.” And that means Canon is now free to bring SED TVs to market, some three years after first announcing plans to do so. Question now is this: Is it three years too late? With LCD and plasma displays more affordable, SED has lost quite a bit of its competitive edge. And with a decline in TV prices prompting profit warnings from the likes of Sony (SNE) and Panasonic (PC), the TV business isn’t looking too inviting.

Where Your Old Gadgets Find a Second Life

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:32:45 +0000

It’s a fact of life and one of the reasons I have a job: digital electronics will eventually break or get replaced. But it’s hard to know just what to do with the gadgets that get left behind. Some people stuff them in junk drawers. Others want to donate or recycle their old electronics, but worry about compromising private data. And plenty of people want some monetary compensation.

This week I took a look at some options for people who want to get rid of old electronics, one way or another. The good news is that there are a handful of Web sites that make it easy to do this — and some of them may even pay you for your old products. The bad news is that you’ll likely receive only a fraction of what you originally paid, especially if you waited a while to get rid of it.

Some sites, like Gazelle.com and VenJuvo.com, offer cash for your items and/or will recycle products. Another site, TechForward.com, lets people pay a fee to “lock in” a value for how much the site promises to pay for the product in the future. MyBoneYard.com accepts only laptops, desktop PCs, cellphones and flat-panel monitors, and gives Visa (V) gift cards rather than cash.

I was surprised to receive significantly different value offers from Gazelle and VenJuvo when trying to sell the exact same products on each site. In one instance, VenJuvo offered me $30 more than Gazelle for a digital camera; another time, I got $15 more from Gazelle for an old Apple (AAPL) iPod. It’s worth the extra step to shop around at more than one of these sites before getting rid of something.

Both ask a few questions about the item, including its condition and whether or not it still has the accessories that originally came with it. Gazelle determines a product’s value using retail — think Amazon (AMZN) and eBay (EBAY) — and wholesale channels; VenJuvo uses similar criteria and also looks at competitors’ prices.

If you worry about someone stealing your digital data, you’ll likely not feel comfortable dropping something in the mail that’s chock full of personal information, especially if it no longer powers on to allow the owner to wipe this information.

Both Gazelle and VenJuvo accept at least some types of digital cameras, laptops, MP3 players, GPS devices, camcorders and gaming consoles. Gazelle also accepts cellphones. But they don’t take everything. Gazelle doesn’t take LCD TVs and VenJuvo doesn’t accept satellite radios and portable hard drives or any smartphones or cellphones other than the iPhone; neither accepts desktop PCs.

I took the closest look at newly released Gazelle, owned by Second Rotation Inc., and walked through the simple start-to-finish process of selling a gadget and receiving money from the site. After pulling up the site, people can find their product and its value by choosing from a list of nine categories or by typing some part of the product’s name into a search box.

I sold Gazelle a first-generation iPod Mini with four gigabytes of memory for which my boss paid $249 in 2004. I answered a few questions about the product: Yes, it still powered on; no, I didn’t have the original AC adapter, manuals or software installation CD, and it was in “excellent” condition, according to my assessment. Gazelle placed its value at $25.

At this step, I opted to add the iPod to my box and check out, but users can also add other items to a box, including electronics for recycling. Gazelle’s policy is that it pays 100% of shipping costs for any box shipped to the company, so long as there’s at least one item in the box worth $1. Eighty percent of transactions qualify for a free box; the rest can be sent with printed-out prepaid shipping labels, but you must find packaging.

Gazelle lets users receive payments via a mailed, paper check or using PayPal; money is received either way within five business days. People can also donate their money to one of 23 causes, including the American Red Cross and World Vision. I opted for PayPal, and the $25 amount was deposited shortly after Gazelle received the iPod.

I sent the old iPod to Gazelle in a brightly colored, empty box that arrives at a customer’s door a few days after he or she sells the device to Gazelle. I secured the old iPod in the box using balled up paper, and sealed it with packing tape. A prepaid shipping label was already stuck to it, and I needed only drop it off at UPS.

If Gazelle receives a product and decides that it isn’t worth what you said it was — either more or less — and you’d rather not sell, the company will ship the product back, free of charge. But while Gazelle’s site guarantees users that they’ll receive their money, and that personal data are safe with the company, no money-back guarantee is offered.

Gazelle hopes to calm nerves by posting detailed instructions on the site about how to wipe a device of all private information. But the company hasn’t yet done this, and numerous users will remain skeptical even with such instructions.

I also poked around on VenJuvo Inc.’s Web site of the same name, www.VenJuvo.com, which is derived from two Greek words meaning “support, assist and delight sellers,” according to the company. This site, too, buys products back from people, though it pays via check, PayPal or Kmart (SHLD) gift card. Users fill out similarly simple questionnaires on each product to help assess value. Unlike Gazelle’s style of mailing boxes to users, VenJuvo gives users only prepaid shipping labels to print out and stick on a box that the customer must supply.

One notable difference between the sites is Gazelle’s broader range of products. In the case of digital cameras, for example, Gazelle accepts 80 brands while VenJuvo takes only Canon (CAJ), Sony (SNE), Olympus and Kodak (EK). Unlike with Gazelle, if you send VenJuvo a product that isn’t worth what you said it was, the company won’t return the product free-of-charge; instead, it will charge you for shipping.

If users choose to receive a gift card, they get a 10% added value. While VenJuvo doesn’t let people donate a product’s value to a cause, it will add this feature next week and will include different causes (like Ronald McDonald House and Big Brothers Big Sisters) than those found on Gazelle.

Unlike Gazelle, VenJuvo will always take items for recycling and will pay for the shipping, regardless of whether you traded something in for a value.

A useful resource for general electronics recycling is the Consumer Electronics Association Web site, www.MyGreenElectronics.org, which locates nearby electronics-recycling centers according to ZIP Code. And almost every computer manufacturer has a recycling program in place; some will even recycle computers that aren’t their own brand.

One way or another, it’s time to clean out the old junk drawer. Just be sure to do some comparison shopping if you want money for your old products.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Downloading Pictures Wirelessly

Walt Mossberg — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:01:00 +0000

Here are a few questions I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability.

Has anyone come up with a method that allows people to take pictures with a regular digital camera and then download them wirelessly to a computer, and/or perhaps to the Internet?

There have been a few digital cameras with built-in Wi-Fi wireless capability, but the best and simplest method I know is a $100 product called Eye-Fi. This tiny gadget looks and works like a regular, garden-variety SD memory card, but it packs a Wi-Fi transmitter inside. It fits into a standard SD memory-card slot and is compatible with a wide range of camera models from Canon (CAJ), Kodak (EK), Nikon (NINOF.PK) and others.

Coupled with clever software, and a clever Web site, the Eye-Fi card automatically zips your pictures wirelessly to your PC or Mac, and/or to your choice of over 20 online photo-sharing services.

For more information, see www.eye.fi. For a list of compatible cameras, see support.eye.fi/compatibility/. For a full review of the product, see: solution.allthingsd.com/20071121/.

You mentioned last week that SugarSync might be a good solution for backups, so if one computer dies your files still exist on another system. But what if the doomed computer doesn’t actually die but its files are corrupted by malicious software? Do those newly corrupted files overwrite the good copies on your SugarSync network?

They could do so, depending on which folders you had chosen to replicate on your other computers. Automatic-synchronization services like SugarSync have a tough time telling whether changes to a file are deliberate, accidental or the result of some sort of corruption. Though the last is rare, it could look to SugarSync like you had changed the file on purpose.

One way to guard against that is for a service to offer “versioning” — the practice of maintaining multiple past copies of a file. That way, if a change isn’t intentional, you can go back to the prior, pristine version. Sharpcast, the company that makes SugarSync, says it is planning to add versioning to the service, but offers no specific date. In the meantime, one way to back up a file without fear of its being overwritten by a corrupted version is to upload it to SugarSync’s special “Web Archive” folder, whose contents are never automatically updated.

Have you ever reviewed and suggested a media player for connecting to a home theater to play all songs, videos and photos that exist on your home computers?

Yes, I have reviewed several over the years. The one I find simplest and best designed is Apple TV, which, despite its name, can work fine in a household with no other Apple (AAPL) hardware. It costs $229 and is a small, thin, unobtrusive box that fetches music, photos and videos from your home network using either a wired or a wireless connection. It can connect to your TV set or home theater via a variety of analog and digital ports, including component-video, HDMI, and optical and analog audio. It supports high-definition video and works with any computer, Windows or Mac, that has Apple’s free iTunes software installed and running.

Apple TV handles many standard photo, music and video formats, but it is limited to music and video files that iTunes can handle. That excludes copy-protected files in Microsoft’s formats, and certain open Microsoft formats, but includes common files like MP3s. Apple TV also allows you to access YouTube and to purchase music and TV shows from Apple, and rent movies from Apple, without the use of a computer.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online for free at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

How to Buy Your Next Digital Camera

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 09 May 2007 00:01:00 +0000

Digital cameras have evolved much in the past few years to include more capabilities, sharper, larger viewing screens and slimmer builds. So while some people may still be shopping for their first digicam, many others are looking to buy a second, improved version of their current camera.

It’s a good time to be in the market for such a camera. According to research from Olympus, unit sales for these gizmos has grown about 30% in the past two years, while dollar sales grew at about half that rate, indicating declining prices and improved technology. In fact, digital-camera prices have dropped an average of $30 over the past 12 months.

This guide offers an overview of the basics that you’ll need to know when buying a digital camera. It also explains many of the fancy features that are popping up on these devices, such as facial recognition — a camera’s ability to detect when faces are being captured in photos, thus appropriately adjusting exposure, focus and flash. This guide isn’t geared toward hobbyists, but rather toward average users who want good quality photos but don’t want to struggle with confusing product specs and promotions.

Point and Shoot, or Flaunt and Pocket

As you begin looking for a camera, selecting a preferred size and shape will help narrow your choices. Like iPods and cellphones, stylish pocket cameras are fashionable accessories; some come in shades like Precious Rose or Noble Blue. These pocket models, designed with emphasis on small size, are as easy to carry as they are to use for taking good photos: most offer seven or eight megapixels each, a 3x or better optical zoom lens and a stunning viewing screen. Good examples include Sony Corp.’s $400 Cyber-shot DSC-T100 or Nikon Inc.’s $300 Coolpix S50.

If you don’t mind sacrificing style for a camera that’s sturdier in your hand but bulkier in your purse, point-and-shoot models will be more your speed. On average, these cost less than their showy cousins. They’re more likely to have protruding zoom lenses that don’t collapse entirely into the camera body and often feature larger buttons. More point-and-shoots offer optical viewfinders, which have become practically extinct on pocket digicams where real estate is scarce. Examples of point-and-shoots with optical viewfinders include Eastman Kodak Co.’s EasyShare C653 and Canon Inc.’s PowerShot A460-both cost $130.

A third category of digital cameras, the single-lens reflex or SLR, continues to be marketed to regular consumers rather than to the photography enthusiasts for whom they were originally intended. SLR prices have dropped a couple of hundred dollars in the past year, but many models still start around $800 and come with detachable lenses and flashes. Average users can steer clear of SLR cameras.

Megapixels

Most cameras today offer anywhere between six and 10 megapixels; cameras with four megapixels or fewer are rather rare. But while higher megapixel counts are easy to find for less money, such as Hewlett-Packard Co.’s $300 PhotoSmart R967 with 10 megapixels, such intense resolution is really only necessary if you plan to heavily edit or blow up your photographs for jumbo prints, which most people won’t be doing.

Zoom Confusion

While most camera makers offer clearer marketing strategies now than a year or so ago, some still try to dupe consumers by listing only a camera’s total zoom — the optical and digital zoom multiplied together to create a larger, more impressive number. The truth lies in optical zoom, an enhancement made by a physically moving lens, not digital zoom, which instead magnifies a photo using the camera’s digital circuitry.

This year, companies also created a new category for cameras with 10x or 12x optical-zoom lenses — these are often referred to as high zoom digital cameras. In reality, a camera with about a 4x optical zoom is sufficient for most people.

Facial Recognition

This category is likely to become more popular. Facial recognition makes the camera smart enough to recognize that the subject contains a face and must be captured with the correct balance of color and lighting. Sony’s Cyber-shot G1 can detect up to eight faces in one image; Canon’s technology can detect up to nine per shot.

Image Stabilization

Image stabilization, or IS, was once only available in high-end SLR cameras. Now, almost all of the top-name consumer digicams offer this because without optical viewfinders, users must shakily hold cameras out to look through viewing screens. Referred to as antishake or vibration reduction by some manufacturers, there are three kinds of IS: optical and mechanical image stabilization, which physically steady a camera even when your hand is shaking, or digital image stabilization, which can improve a shot when the photographed subject is moving.

Some cameras, like the $250 Olympus Stylus 760, offer dual IS. This means the camera is equipped with both digital and mechanical or optical image stabilization, the best of both worlds. If you’ll be using a camera specifically for shots of moving objects, digital IS will work.

Storage — on Your Camera or on a Web Site

The cost of memory cards has dropped by half compared with last year: one-gigabyte memory cards now only cost about $30, and $50 two-gigabyte cards are even more popular thanks to people who want to record videos for uploading and sharing on Web sites. Data can be transferred from these cards by plugging them into a computer using an adapter or a card slot, or cameras can be connected to PCs with USB cords.

Now, Kodak, Nikon and Sony offer cameras with wireless Internet connection capabilities, or Wi-Fi. This allows you to take pictures and, when connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot, upload them directly to a Web site for sharing or storing, saving you the step of transferring the images to a computer first. These cameras are the $200 EasyShare One from Kodak, Nikon’s $350 Coolpix S50c and Sony’s $600 Cyber-shot DSC-G1.

Although using Wi-Fi in a digital camera is a smart idea, it could be a real drain on your camera’s battery. Wi-Fi is by no means a necessary feature, but some people will find it a useful add-on.

Battery Tips

Camera battery life can be affected by new features like extra-large screens — especially those that can play slide shows of your photographs — built-in Wi-Fi and even in-camera editing, which requires your camera and LCD screen to be on for longer periods. If you rarely take shots indoors, your flash will likely be used less, which might help your camera’s battery life. A spare battery is useful, and some cameras will work with drugstore batteries for the sake of convenience.

In-Camera Editing

The large, bright LCD viewing screens on cameras — some of which measure up to three inches or even three and a half inches diagonally — encourage everyday photogs to share their shots. To make even these images look better, camera manufacturers are incorporating in-camera editing for fixing mistakes on the spot, without a computer.

Cameras from all of the major manufacturers now enable red-eye fixes either as the photo is captured or after the fact. Companies such as Kodak offer zooming, cropping and panoramic shot stitching, while H-P cameras offer touch-ups like blemish-removing and ways to make a subject look slimmer.

* * *

The digital camera category is exciting right now, as these portable devices become more like computers thanks to in-camera editing, greater memory and built-in Wi-Fi. But remember that your photos come first, no matter how many bells and whistles are added to a camera.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com

Compact Photo Printers Expand Their Reach

Walter S. Mossberg and Katherine Boehret — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 00:01:00 +0000

Compact photo printers, the toaster-shaped gadgets made popular by Hewlett-Packard a few years back, can still wow a crowd. They use special photo paper — usually of the 4×6 variety; can accept most digital camera memory cards; and produce beautiful prints right on the spot, making their owners the hits of parties and family gatherings.

These printers are also well-liked because of their ability to work independent of a computer: just plug in your digital camera’s USB cable or a memory card and press print. But because most of these printers have typically lacked good editing options, users were still returning to their computers to make adjustments on important images.

This week we tested three of the newest compact photo printers from HP, Epson and Canon that include features that make them more like mini-computers all their own, including extensive editing options and even internal memory and a CD burner in the HP and Epson, respectively.

But with these new features come higher prices. The $200 Canon Pixma mini260, $250 HP Photosmart A716 and $300 Epson PictureMate Flash cost significantly more than the mini-printers we reviewed almost two years ago. Back then, the most expensive of the three compact photo printers we tested was $200.

We’ve been printing directly from memory cards plugged into these three printers for the past week to see if their higher prices were delivering better results. Overall, we were impressed by the quality of the prints. We were also pleased, though not surprised, to find that the cost of paper and ink supplies has dropped about 10 cents per print, overall. The most inexpensive supply pack, from Epson, offers prints for 27 cents apiece, though this is still about 12 cents more than Kodak Gallery’s online store.

We printed photos taken with two different digital cameras, as well as photos captured on a cellphone’s 1.3-megapixel camera. Neither of the cameras was made by the makers of the printers.

We found the Epson’s prints to be the best overall, even though they cost the least. The Epson produced sharp images with rich, vibrant colors that churned out in just 45 seconds each, the fastest time of the three. And, though we had to do some in-printer editing to produce a red-eye-free image of a friend with the Epson, the final version of this photo also looked good. The Epson is larger and costlier than the others, but the company makes a less expensive, smaller model with the same picture-printing features and quality.

The HP more easily eliminated red-eye with its Photo Fix button, but its other prints looked somewhat less vivid than the Epson’s. And at a speed of two minutes per image, we grew tired of waiting for these prints. The Canon’s images looked sharp, but were slightly yellow in tone when lined up side-by-side with the other prints. They took about a minute each to print.

All three of these compact photo printers have built-in handles for portability, 2.5-inch viewing screens to preview images and optional sold-separately batteries for cordless use.

The $250 HP Photosmart A716 looks much like its predecessors: white and toaster-shaped with accessible memory card slots and a USB port on the front side. But this printer comes with four gigabytes of internal memory, enough to hold up to 4,000 pictures according to HP. We easily saved various images to the HP Photosmart’s memory by pressing a Save button on the printer’s top side.

One advantage to HP’s internal memory: at a party or family gathering, you wouldn’t have to rush to print out as many images as possible before people taking pictures left with their cameras or memory cards. Instead, you could just save the images onto the printer for later. For $70 less, HP sells the Photosmart A616 — the same printer without internal memory.

The HP Photosmart A716 really shines in the editing department, offering image improvement options that truly made a difference. But we weren’t able to easily view multiple photos at once on its screen — this view can only be seen by selecting Print Index View, which is buried four steps deep in a menu. In addition to 4×6 photos, you can also print 5x7s using the A716.

Epson’s $300 PictureMate Flash stands higher than the HP and Canon printers, partially due to the CD burner that is built into its base. This feature lets you copy digital photos onto CDs, which can then be handed out in addition to, or instead of, prints. You can also print an index of the images that are being copied onto the CD.

We quickly burned 50 digital shots from our SecureDigital memory card onto a CD; when slipped into our computer the CD’s images appeared, ready for editing, emailing or Web posting. Epson also sells its PictureMate Snap — the same printer without the burner — for $100 less.

The Epson PictureMate Flash has colorful buttons that are well labeled and easy to understand, including a smart Display button that easily switched our screen’s view from full-screen to thumbnail. At 6.6 pounds, this compact printer weighs in as the heaviest of the bunch.

When we pulled the $200 Canon Pixma mini260 out of its box, we wondered how it would transform into a printer. But after a few clever fold-backs and compartment openings, we were in business. This printer’s most useful button is a round navigational dial, like that used by Canon in its digital cameras. The mini260, like the Epson, easily switches from one image view to the next using a soft key below the viewing screen.

But even with the navigational dial, we found that using the Canon Pixma was more laborious than operating the other two. For one thing, inserting a memory card into its side slot didn’t trigger the printer to automatically pull up the images. We had to first open another menu to see our photos. And a screen filled with options like paper size, type and print quality had to be bypassed before each printout. The other printers smartly hide these settings deeper within their menus.

A host of editing options are offered in the Canon, but even with all of these settings turned on or adjusted for the best results, edited pictures still weren’t as good as those from the HP or Epson. The red-eye in one image, for example, wasn’t fully removed even after we turned on red-eye correction.

In the end, we liked the $300 Epson PictureMate Flash best. If its price tag makes you wince, try the $200 PictureMate Snap, which doesn’t include the CD burner. In our tests, the Epson produced the best prints for the least amount of money in the fastest time per photo. Consumers who are in the market for a portable photo printer won’t be disappointed by this new gadget.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at walt.mossberg@wsj.com and Katherine Boehret at katie.boehret@wsj.com

Portable Gadget Reads Text Aloud to the Blind

Walter S. Mossberg and Katherine Boehret — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 00:01:00 +0000

For the blind and visually impaired, technology has been helpful in many ways. Software can dictate the text on a computer screen, and advancements in voice recognition have made it possible to navigate a computer more easily.

But, for reading printed documents, like magazines, menus and mail, many blind and visually impaired people must still rely on other people to read to them, or must use large, deskbound reading machines that do nothing to allow reading while on the go. These dependencies are affecting more and more people, as aging Boomers confront diseases like macular degeneration and the effects of diabetes on eyesight.

The $3,495 Kurzweil-National Federation of the Blind Reader takes digital pictures of text and reads them out loud. www.knfbreader.com.

Starting this month, there’s a new portable gadget for the blind that permits them to “read” printed documents anywhere, at home or away, without the aid of sighted people. This gadget takes a digital picture of a page of text, and then reads it aloud to the blind person, either through a speaker or through earphones. It’s called the Kurzweil-National Federation of the Blind Reader, and we’ve been testing it.

We aren’t blind or visually impaired, so we can’t presume to speak for people who are. But we do know gadgets, and we were able to test the new Reader on different printed documents to see how well it did.

Our verdict: The K-NFB Reader was remarkably effective on a wide variety of documents, and would be a real boon to anyone who is blind or has seriously failing eyesight. It isn’t perfect — it can get confused by highly stylized text, or by illustrations embedded in text, for instance. It’s a bit bulky. And, at $3,495, it’s quite expensive. But it works.

The Kurzweil-National Federation of the Blind Reader was released on July 1. It is the result of a collaboration between the Kurzweil Foundation and the NFB, and it might be the closest a blind person can get to reading without using Braille.

The K-NFB Reader consists of two digital devices, connected electronically and surrounded by a synthetic case, plus special software that performs the scanning and reading aloud.

It is made up of a personal digital assistant, or PDA, stuck to a digital camera. The camera captures the image of a document, then sends that image to the PDA, which uses software to translate and read aloud the document in just 30 seconds.

We tested this device with magazine and newspaper articles, printed Microsoft Word documents, bills, junk mail and books. The results were impressive, and with a little patience and practice, we think the K-NFB Reader can be truly liberating for the blind. But it definitely takes some getting used to.

The reader consists of two digital devices, connected electronically and surrounded by a synthetic case.

It’s obvious that this reader can get even smaller and better in the coming years. The foundation and the federation are already looking into whether the reader’s functionality can be replicated on a cellphone with a built-in camera.

The digital camera used in this first version of the reader is a Canon SD20, which goes for about $200 online; the PDA is a lesser known product here in the U.S. — the Fujitsu-Siemens LOOX N560, priced at around $600 on the Web. But the total cost for the K-NFB Reader is a stunning $3,495.

The companies explain that this is the list price and that the software makes up a huge chunk of the cost. We certainly can’t put a price on a blind person’s new ability to “read,” but this seemed a little steep to us.

The PDA and camera are directly connected electronically (no cable is needed) and its casing covers the slots for your camera battery and PDA SD card. Altogether, the Reader only weighs about 12 ounces, making it portable for everyday use.

The included 1-gigabyte memory card stays in the PDA, not the camera, and is estimated to hold about 900 pages of documents. The camera battery and PDA battery must each be charged; the NFB estimates the camera battery will last for about 100 images and the PDA battery for about six hours of normal use.

The PDA has a large, 3.5-inch screen, which, logically, never displays anything as you use the device. Below the screen, four buttons surround four directional up, down, left and right buttons; these surround one center select button. The Reader’s directions instructed us to treat the four outer buttons as F1, F2, F3 and F4, though they aren’t labeled as such.

To turn on the device, you press F1 and then F2. Pressing the F2 button lets you scroll through three modes: User Settings, Shooting Mode and Document Reader, each with its own menus. The device speaks the name of each function and menu as you select them, so a blind person knows what he or she is doing. The device also comes with directions in Braille and regular print, and they were pretty straightforward.

The Reader can be set in one of two modes for reading: books, articles and labels; or bills and memos. We kept ours in the former category for most of our testing.

We started off testing the Reader with a simple Word document. We followed instructions, holding the device up near our eyes. Pressing the up arrow gave us a “field of view report,” or an audible description of what the camera saw on the table in front of us, like “Left, right and bottom edges visible.” The best view description is announced as, “Portrait view” or “Landscape view,” and you’ll want to press the down arrow to capture your image as soon as you hear this.

The reader can be set in different modes: books, articles and labels; or bills and memos.

It takes a few tries to get a hang of how to position the Reader. But thanks to the detailed description, you can usually figure out which way to move the Reader to view the document at the best angle.

When we pressed the down arrow to take a picture, a voice announced “Taking picture,” “Preprocessing picture,” and then “Processing image.” If the device is idle for more than three minutes (by default), it will announce, “Auto shutdown is turning the system off, goodbye.”

After 30 seconds of processing, the device’s voice started reading the text from our Word document without a problem. However, it had trouble reading articles that started with an extra-large, graphical first letter, a style found in many magazines and newspapers (like this column). For example, if the first word in a story was “Walt,” the Reader would say, “W” and “alt,” pronouncing the “W” and “alt” as two separate words. Sometimes it would skip the large first letter.

Articles that were written in column form were handled without much problem; when the Reader got to the bottom of one column, it started at the top of the next. But illustrations positioned in the center of a block of text posed a problem; in one case, the Reader read a cartoon illustrator’s signature, in another, it interpreted squiggles in the drawing as apostrophes or dashes or even letters.

When used for a page in a hardcover book, our Reader did a good job, though we doubt anyone would use this for hundreds of pages.

Katie tried the reader on a box of over-the-counter pills to see if it might accurately identify its contents, and the directions, for a blind person. The gadget was able to read smaller print, such as the “Just one tablet per dose” warning. But the largest text on the box — the product’s name — wasn’t recognized, nor was the name of its manufacturer. Both words were written in more stylized text, which we guess gave the Reader trouble.

One downside of this first version is that the reader’s voice is robotic and flat, with little or no inflection, but the Kurzweil Foundation notes that many blind people are used to this robotic voice because it has been used on other products in the past. Even when the reader captured all of the words, it sometimes pronounced them strangely, or incorrectly, such as pronouncing “reading” as “redding” and “cool” as “see all.”

On Tuesday, a new version of the software will allow users to choose a more human-sounding playback voice. We tested this, but didn’t find it to be a big improvement. It’s still pretty robotic.

Documents can be saved on your Reader according to the current date, and special audio files called Voice Notes can be used to tag each document. We tried this and easily recorded a Voice Note describing one of our documents, later linking the note to our document by pressing F3.

If you take the time to learn how to use the Kurzweil-National Federation of the Blind Reader, we think you’ll be very pleased with the results. This gadget, though expensive, is simple to use and works quickly. It also does a good job of explaining its processes to the user, so he or she knows what is happening on the gadget at all times.

For someone who can’t see, the K-NFB Reader might offer a huge lifestyle change.

Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com.

Finding a Photo-Organizing Program

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 00:01:00 +0000

There’s no other major item most of us own that is as confusing, unpredictable and unreliable as our personal computers. Everybody has questions about them, and we aim to help.

Here are a few questions about computers I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. This week my mailbox contained questions about switching between software provided by camera companies, Web-based tax-preparation software and scheduling antispyware sweeps.

If you have a question, send it to me at mossberg@wsj.com, and I may select it to be answered here in Mossberg’s Mailbox.

I have been using Olympus digital cameras for years, so I have a library of Olympus digital photos using Olympus software. If I were to switch to a Canon camera, how easy is it to also switch software? Is there an easy way to transfer the Olympus photos into the Canon software?

Unless you are doing something unusual, all your photos from both cameras should be in the standard format called “jpg” and I assume either company’s software can handle all of them. However, I don’t recommend using the software supplied by camera makers. They may be fine at making cameras, but, with the exception of Kodak, they usually create lousy software. Instead, I suggest getting a good, general photo-organizing program, and making that the center for managing your pictures — whatever camera you use.

Every Macintosh computer comes with a superb program called iPhoto for organizing, sharing and editing photos. Windows computers don’t come with anything as good, but you can download a free program called Picasa from Google, at picasa.com. Or, you can download Kodak’s very nice EasyShare software, at Kodak.com. It’s free, comes in versions for both Windows and Mac, and doesn’t require a Kodak camera or printer to use. Paid software that also does the trick on Windows includes ACDSee, at acdsystems.com; and Corel Photo Album, at corel.com.

In 2002, you advised against using Web-based tax-preparation software, writing, “Your tax data are highly sensitive and confidential, and I think the Web is just too susceptible to hackers and crooks to make it a fitting repository for such information.” Do you continue to have these concerns?

Yes. If anything, the incidence of identity theft and other security problems on the Web have grown worse since 2002. I am not criticizing the tax-preparation companies, which I assume have good security. And I am not advising people against normal e-commerce, or the use of credit cards online. But I would be personally loath to put the broad and deep financial information required for a tax filing on a server controlled by someone else and connected to the Internet. I would instead download or buy traditional tax-preparation software, which keeps your data on your own hard disk.

I have the Spy Sweeper antispyware software that you recommend, and am wondering how often you suggest scheduling it to automatically scan my computer for software. I was thinking once a month.

Once a month isn’t good enough if you are an active Internet user, or your computer is on a broadband connection and stays on, and connected, all the time. I run both spyware and virus scans nightly on my Windows computers, and I advise all Windows broadband users to do so. There’s no downside, if your computer is on all the time anyway. I also advise setting the software to run in the background, guarding your PC against new intrusions.

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

Testing Out a Speedy New Home Photo Printer

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 00:01:00 +0000

Relatively few people print photos using their own printers, for two big reasons: The process is slow, and ink is expensive, especially in printers where there’s just one large color cartridge, which must be replaced whenever a single color runs dry.

So, most digital photos never get printed, and many of those that do are produced at kiosks in retail stores, and ordered from online photo services like Shutterfly and Kodak’s EasyShare Gallery. That’s bad news for Hewlett-Packard Co., the leader in home printers, which makes a lot of money selling ink and paper to consumers. Now, H-P has come up with a new printer design for homes that it hopes will entice consumers to do more of their own printing.

This week, my assistant Katie Boehret and I reviewed H-P’s speedy new $199 Photosmart 8250 Photo Printer, a product that the company hopes will change the way you think about printing photos at home. In its fastest mode, the company boasts, the 8250 can churn out a snapshot-sized 4×6 photo in just 14 seconds and all-black-print text pages at 32 per minute — much faster than its 20 color or black-print page-per-minute claims for older home inkjets. Our tests showed the new model to be very fast, but not quite as speedy as H-P’s claims imply.

In addition to its speed, the Photosmart 8250 also boasts a new type of water-fast ink and a new ink-cartridge system for home printers. Instead of lumping all of the printer’s colors together in one large cartridge, this printer stores each of its six inks in a separate cartridge. That way, if you use a lot of one color — say lots of green, taking pictures of baseball games — you only need to replace one color when you run out, not all of the others, which still may be in good supply.

These new cartridges cost about $10 for each of the five colors, and $18 for the solo black cartridge, which holds about twice as much ink as any one color. By contrast, on H-P’s older printers, the single color cartridge can cost as much as $35, and the black cartridge about $30.

The longevity of these new individual tanks varies per color and depending on what is being printed. H-P estimates that with typical pages of mixed text and graphics, the new black cartridge will print 480 pages, and color cartridges range between 350 and 490 pages. The cartridges in the old system last for 450 color and 450 black pages.

This idea of individual ink tanks is nothing new. Some H-P rivals, such as Epson and Canon, have relied on that type of design for years, and H-P itself has sold inkjets for business with individual ink tanks. But the company claims its new home system is engineered to use more of the ink inside each tank before it requires replacement, cutting down on waste.

To give us some perspective on H-P’s more traditional printer cartridges and speeds, we also tested the 8250′s year-old predecessor — the $149.99 Photosmart 8150 Photo Printer. The 8150 works with the old cartridge system — using just two larger cartridges at a time.

These two silver printers are similar in appearance — each is designed with a useful four-card media-card reader and a 2.5-inch color LCD screen centered on its top side. This combination of features makes both printers useable without attaching to a Mac or Windows PC; the LCD serves as a preview panel for images on your memory card, thus allowing you to zoom, lighten, or remove red eye in photos before printing.

But as we easily set up these two printers, we took note of how, under the hood, they appear rather different from one another. The older 8150′s two large cartridges have built-in printheads that slide from side to side during printing, then over to the right side for reloading and resting.

Under the 8250′s lid, we took a bit more time to snap each of its six cartridges into place. This rainbow of yellow, light and regular magenta, light and regular cyan and black cartridges fit smack in the center of the printer’s guts.

These cartridges differ from the older type in that they are separate from the printhead, the device that moves left to right while spitting color onto a page. Each container of color stays in place, and is connected to the moving printhead through its own tube. H-P says this system enables faster printing while also making it possible to replace just one color at a time.

Katie and I tested the 8250 for speed and quality by printing full-page color photos, 4×6 color photos, color Microsoft Word documents and black text-only Word documents. We sent documents to each printer from its corresponding computer, as well as directly from an inserted memory card. We ran the same tests on the 8150, just to get an understanding of how much faster the 8250 was, and how — if at all — the quality differed. Our results showed the 8250 to be much faster, but we couldn’t detect any quality difference. Both the old and new models produced very good, but unexceptional, prints.

Unsurprisingly, the 8250′s fastest results came from printing the color and black Word documents, each of which was finished in just 10 seconds, about 13 seconds faster than the 8150. Printing 4×6 color photos took 32 seconds on the 8250, about a minute less than on the 8150. And it took about eight more seconds to print a full-page photo on the 8250. The full-page photo on the 8150 took around four minutes.

H-P is selling new “Advanced” photo paper to use with its new ink. The company claims that the combination of paper and ink will lead to water-fast prints that dry faster, and that the new paper also contributes to faster print times, which we found to be true. We used a sheet of HP Premium Plus Photo Paper instead of the HP Advanced Photo Paper to print a 4×6 on the 8250, and it took 70 seconds, over twice as long.

H-P’s fastest result — the 14 second 4×6 photo — is achieved by printing on Advanced Photo Paper, in fast-draft mode with borders, and H-P times the print according to the second page out, after the printheads are already in place for printing. By contrast, our tests attempt to approximate real life. We start timing when the print button is pressed and count the first page out.

Occasionally, the 8250 performed some noisy “device maintenance,” according to the message on the LCD screen. H-P explained that this is the printer’s way of recycling the ink it uses to clean its printhead, whereas many printers clean printheads using ink, but never re-use that ink.

The individual ink cartridges might be enough to sway you into buying the 8250, especially if you print items with certain colors regularly — like documents with your company’s all-red logo. You might also be drawn to its speed, which had us hooked, but its quality, while good, wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.

With reporting by Katherine Boehret

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

The Latest Round of Pocket Digital Cameras

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 23:59:00 +0000

One of the great things about digital cameras is that, freed from the need to house and handle film, they can be much smaller than film cameras and still pack in lots of features and excellent picture quality. You can literally keep in your pocket a point-and-shoot digital camera whose pictures can’t be distinguished from those taken by larger point-and-shoot models, digital or film.

And the camera makers keep turning out attractive new pocket digital models. Over this past Memorial Day weekend, my assistant Katie Boehret and I tested five of the newest pocket digital cameras from Nikon, Fujifilm, Kodak, Canon and Konica Minolta. These cameras range in price from $349 to $499; all weigh six ounces or less, not counting their batteries; and all are an inch or less thick. (Except for the Konica Minolta and Canon, these are official list prices; buyers may be able to find the cameras for less.)

Each of these cameras has a maximum resolution of about five megapixels, except for the Canon, which is $100 more than any of the others, and can capture up to 7.1-megapixel images. Unless you do very heavy editing of photos, or make prints larger than 8×10′s, five megapixels is more than enough for any casual photographer.

Zooming In

They all have the capability to record short video clips. And all have 3x optical zoom, which is sufficient for casual shooters. But only two of the five cameras — the Kodak and Canon — have lenses that physically protrude from the camera body. The others use internal zooming technology, which means that the camera face always remains flat, even when completely zoomed in on an object. All five use proprietary batteries and seemed able to sustain an average day of shooting.

Four of the five models, all except the Canon, have huge, 2.5-inch LCD screens on the back, up from the 2-inch or smaller screens common in pocket cameras only a year ago. But, to make room for the bigger screens, three of the five have omitted an essential feature, the optical viewfinder, which is a far better tool for framing a shot than the screen is.

Only the Canon and the Kodak have optical viewfinders. That means you can easily frame shots even when bright sunlight washes out the LCD screen, and your shots can be steadier than when you rely on the screen alone, which requires you to extend the camera away from your body.

In our tests, all of these cameras took rich, sharp pictures, indoors and out. You wouldn’t go wrong with any of them. But, because I consider optical viewfinders so important, I recommend the Canon or the Kodak. And of those two I lean toward the Kodak because it is $100 less, is thinner and lighter, and manages to combine both an optical viewfinder and the larger 2.5-inch screen. The Konica Minolta, which I have recommended in the past, is no longer my favorite because it has lost its optical viewfinder in its latest iteration.

Fujifilm FinePix Z1 List price: $399.95

The Kodak also benefits from being able to dock with the company’s snapshot printers and with nonprinting docks that work with Kodak’s EasyShare software to allow users to easily share pictures via email on a PC or Mac.

We should note that the Kodak that we tried out was a preproduction unit. In our tests, it was slower than the other cameras to ready itself to take the next shot. By contrast, the Canon seemed the fastest at shot-to-shot speed. But Kodak claims that the shot-to shot speed is much faster in production units.

The $400 Fujifilm FinePix Z1 caught our attention because of its sexy appearance. Instead of taking on the typical look of a digital camera, the front of the FinePix Z1 looks (in its closed state) like a simple black rectangle with silver-accented buttons and edges. A thin piece that covers the entire front side of the camera slides across to reveal the camera’s lens and flash, while simultaneously turning the camera on.

The Z1 measures just 0.7-inch wide, making it the slimmest of the five cameras that we tested. A generously sized 2.5-inch LCD viewing screen takes up most of the back side of the camera, but it lacks an optical viewfinder.

Focus Alert

Nikon Coolpix S1 List price: $379.95

We snapped photographs using the Z1 and found a few helpful features. An indicator lamp directly to the right of the LCD viewing screen blinked green when we held the shutter button halfway down, and then glowed steadily once the image was in focus, so we knew when to take the picture. The FinePix Z1 also is one of three cameras we reviewed that comes with a handy docking cradle for charging the camera’s battery and transferring its photos onto your computer.

The $380 Nikon Coolpix S1 also comes with a docking cradle, and it, too, earns points for its stylishly sleek appearance. Its most striking feature is how quietly it operates. When we pressed this silver camera’s “On/Off” button, a small metal circle instantly and almost noiselessly moved, revealing the camera’s lens like something out of a James Bond movie.

Lighten Up

When using the Nikon, we especially liked a feature built into the camera called D-Lighting, which allowed us to improve the lighting of a photograph after it was captured. We simply pressed the “OK” button while reviewing a captured image, and two small shots appeared on the screen — one that showed the image as it was, and one that showed how it would look after D-Lighting brightened the image, thus allowing us to choose to lighten it or not. We found that most of our pictures benefited from this in-camera editing process, especially shots that were taken indoors.

The buttons on the back of the Nikon proved a bit tough to operate. In keeping with the coolness of the camera, the Menu, Playback and Delete buttons are all tiny, smooth circles. But we found ourselves pushing them extra hard to get results, which was annoying. The Nikon lacks an optical viewfinder, forcing users to rely solely on its LCD screen for capturing photos.

Canon PowerShot SD500 Estimated street price: $499

The chunkiest of the cameras that we tested was the $500 Canon PowerShot SD500. But even though it weighed the most and was thicker than the rest that we tested, the SD500 is still a rather compact pocket camera.

We were impressed by the Canon’s quick start-up time, which seemed to be almost as fast as the 0.5-second start-up time of the Konica Minolta Dimage X60. And its mode dial — which many other Canon cameras also have — helps users easily switch between playback, video camera and photography modes.

The Canon offers a way to adjust color tones in photos by using a My Colors mode that allows you, for instance, to turn grass red or blue. But this seemed more of a gimmick than the Nikon’s genuinely useful D-Lighting feature.

And, unlike the stealthily quiet Nikon, the Canon seems to announce its presence with noise — its zoom lens whirs as it moves in and out, and special “click” sound effects can be heard whenever you take a picture.

The $400 Kodak EasyShare V550 combines its large screen and optical viewfinder in a slim, black matte body that has etched buttons on the top that light up blue, like the metal keypad on the iconic Motorola Razr cellphone.

Kodak EasyShare V550 List price: $399.95

It’s laced with touches of Kodak’s user-friendly approach, which we liked, including a blurry-picture alert and explanations of what picture-capturing mode you’re currently using (i.e. “Auto — use for general picture taking”). This camera also comes with a dock for charging the camera and transferring photos. This camera’s control buttons flank the left and right sides of its large LCD screen, and the optical viewfinder is oddly situated on the left side, which took a little getting used to.

Taking pictures with the Kodak was easy, and we liked the view screen better than any of the others, because it showed very rich colors. You can adjust the screen’s brightness by simply pressing the left or right arrows.

The last camera that we tested was the $350 Konica Minolta Dimage X60, the follow-up camera to the company’s Dimage X50, which is one of mine and Katie’s favorite digital cameras. The X50 had a 2-inch viewing screen, but still had an optical viewfinder. This new X60 has a 2.5-inch LCD screen but is the first Dimage X model we tested that ditches the viewfinder.

Trade-Offs

Konica Minolta Dimage X60 Estimated street price: $349.99

The Dimage X60 still has the same simple user interface that made its predecessor so popular, but because of the larger viewing screen, its buttons are much tinier. Its super-fast start-up time is a real boon for those who want to capture an image quickly. But, without the viewfinder, it’s no longer our top pick.

Overall, the quality of the images from all five cameras was impressive. Most of the colors seemed true to the actual subject, though the Konica Minolta’s images tended to have slightly rosier hues, which showed up in skin tones, and the Nikon had a somewhat yellow tint in some of our shots.

The Canon and Konica Minolta seemed to start up almost instantly, while the other cameras were a little more sluggish. But the shot-to-shot time for the Canon and Fujifilm cameras seemed to be the fastest overall.

There’s plenty to choose from in this crop of new pocket cameras, depending on your budget, tastes and needs. But the Kodak EasyShare V550 and the Canon PowerShot SD500 are the best of this lot, all in all.

With reporting by Katherine Boehret

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