AllThingsD » e-reader

Limiting Wi-Fi Access Per Child

Walt Mossberg — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 01:12:57 +0000

We have four children. They have a combination of desktops, laptops, tablet and smartphones. How can I limit Wi-Fi Internet access time by child across all of these devices?

I have never tested this, but various Wi-Fi routers have parental control settings built right in. Some of these controls claim to filter out unsuitable content and others also offer the option of timing the access for various devices, or “clients” in tech jargon, on the network. Your current router may even have these features. To use them, you have to use software that came with the router, or access the router’s settings via a Web page. Your router’s instructions should tell you how to do this. You may also have to know something called the “MAC” address for each device, a unique identifier that would allow you to set different time limits for each. Sometimes this is called the “Wi-Fi address.” Asus, for instance, has parental controls like this on its routers. Here’s what they look like.

I bought a Nexus 7 last year and have purchased a few books from Google Play. I find reading to be a problem because of the reflective glare on the screen. I have read good reviews on the new Kobo Aura HD. My question is: If I buy a dedicated e-reader like the Kobo or Kindle, will I be trapped into a specific book market? Will I be able to transfer books from Google Play to the Kobo Aura HD?

There are technical workarounds that allow you to “sideload” books manually onto e-readers like the Kobo or Kindle, though I’m not certain your Google Play books would be transferable in that manner. However, the basic answer to your question is that, unlike general-purpose tablets that can have reader apps from many online bookstores, dedicated e-readers are linked to specific book stores online.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

A Tablet Good for Living Room, Bag and Water

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 22:19:23 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

In today’s tablet market, one device stands distinctly above all others: Apple’s iPad. With this tablet, Apple did what it always does and created an innovative, must-have device in a once-unexciting category.

That was three years ago.

Now, a company that made its name with high-end consumer electronics wants to give Apple a real challenge. Sony’s Xperia Tablet Z runs the latest version of Android, has a 10.1-inch screen and is the thinnest tablet yet, even thinner than Apple’s iPad Mini.

At 1.09 pounds, it’s lighter than the 1.44-pound full-size iPad. This tablet has infrared that turns it into a universal living-room remote control. And just for kicks, it works even when submerged in up to three feet of water for 30 minutes.

The Xperia is only available in models with Wi-Fi connections, as was the iPad when it launched. The models cost the same amount as their comparable iPad models: $499 for a 16-gigabyte Xperia (in black) and $599 for the 32-gigabyte model (in black or white). The Xperia is available in Sony stores, at Amazon.com and other online retailers; it will be in Best Buy stores in July.

With all of its ports closed, the Xperia can work submerged in up to three feet of water for 30 minutes.

Sony has been out of the mobile-technology conversation for a long time, and the Xperia Tablet Z’s design and price position the company to get back in the game if it plays its cards right.

Sony also has a smartphone with the same name in the U.S., the Xperia Z, which is available unlocked (without a carrier) for $630. Kazuo Hirai, Sony’s president and CEO, recently said the phone will soon be available with a carrier.

I’ve been using this new tablet for over a week and it’s a serious rival to the iPad. Its stylish overall design, screen, fast performance, good camera and noticeably high sound quality make it easy to love. The Android OS, called Jellybean, runs smoothly and more thoughtfully than previous iterations of Android. But the Xperia Tablet Z didn’t fare well in my battery-life test. And some people may find the Xperia’s plastic back feels flimsy compared with the sturdy, brushed aluminum back on the iPad.

I own an Android tablet and have tested several others, but I liked the Xperia Z’s physical design best. Its super-thin build and light weight let you tote it in a briefcase or bag without noticing it. The Z’s speaker openings are smartly situated on the bottom and side edges, giving a full, surround-sound effect that doesn’t get muffled when you put it down on a table.

After putting the Xperia through its paces for a week, I decided to test its water resistance. First, I made sure all of its ports were covered with their attached flip-out doors. This included a Micro SD memory-card expansion slot, USB 2.0 port and a headphone output. I submerged the device in a deep sink filled with water for 10 minutes with music playing from it. I could still hear it underwater.

The built-in infrared remote can control multiple components and lets users change channels with a swipe toward the television.

Most people won’t go for a swim with their tablets, but they will use them in places where splashes and spills are a regular occurrence, like the kitchen and bathroom. Even with wet fingertips, gestures and selections on the Xperia screen were still recognized, however inconsistently.

In everyday use, the Xperia’s battery life worked well enough that I didn’t notice a problem. But it came up short in my battery test. I set the screen brightness to 75%, kept Wi-Fi on to collect email in the background and played a loop of video until the tablet ran out of juice. The Xperia Z died after just under 5½ hours; the iPad lasted for nearly 11½ hours.

In my living room, I tested the Xperia Z’s built-in infrared remote by opening a preloaded Remote Control app. Here, I selected my device type and maker, and on-screen controls appeared that I tested to make sure they worked with my LG TV, TiVo and Sony sound system. This took just a few minutes and could come in handy if you use your tablet while watching TV, but most people probably will use it as a parlor trick.

I downloaded Sony’s TV SideView app, which let me enter my ZIP Code to pull up my cable provider’s channel guide to browse currently playing content from my tablet without disturbing the TV screen.

The Xperia Tablet Z, left, has a 10.1-inch screen and is the thinnest tablet yet.

A handsome “Watch Now” view floated images of currently playing programs on my screen, and I tapped on each for more details, including related Twitter feeds. Swiping a box representing the program toward the TV changes the TV’s channel to this show.

The Xperia Z’s 8-megapixel rear camera and 2-megapixel front camera have more megapixels than the iPad’s 5-megpixel rear camera and 1.2-megapixel front camera, though the cameras shouldn’t be judged solely on megapixels. Photos of the Pacific Ocean, friends and beaches looked rich and crisp. As I swiped through photos, each took a little extra time to come into focus, like what sometimes happens on a digital camera.

If you’re an Android fan and you’ve been waiting for a tablet with a great design, Sony’s Xperia Tablet Z fits the bill. Just don’t expect its battery to last as long as the iPad’s.

Write to Katie at katie.boehret@wsj.com

New Flipboard: News and Posts Handpicked and Shared

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 01:02:58 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

One of the best ways of following topics that are interesting to you is Flipboard, a popular app for Apple and Android mobile devices that automatically turns social-network posts and news from online publications into beautiful, magazine-like pages you “flip” through by swiping.

Now, a new second generation of Flipboard, out Tuesday, is extending the app so it allows users to create and share their own handsome digital magazines with a few clicks and without any design talent required. If you make your magazine public, anyone with Flipboard, which is a free app, can read it and comment on it.

I’ve been testing this new version of Flipboard, which has some other improved features, over the past week or so, on several iPads and an iPhone. My verdict is the new features make a great mobile app even better. There are some limitations to the new capabilities, but they make your mobile device more personal and more of a creative tool, rather than just a means of consumption. For now, the new version is only available for Apple’s devices, but an Android edition is in the works.

Walt Mossberg’s Flipboard magazine on the American Revolution

The original Flipboard, which is produced by a small, private Silicon Valley company of the same name, was aimed at helping people wade through the welter of information on social networks and the Web, by allowing them to corral posts on popular topics like, say, baking or basketball, into attractive collections. The company says that capability has earned it 50 million registered users and a smaller, but active, core group of millions who use it daily.

I have long used Flipboard to follow tech and political news, or to leaf through everything posted on Twitter or Facebook by particular people or sites. These collections would update as new posts meeting the criteria appeared. If I had a collection about, say, the economy or smartphones, based on tweets on those subjects, it would stay current, showing me automatically any Web pages referenced within those tweets.

With the new personal magazine feature, however, I can make my own Flipboard-hosted publications on particular topics of interest, handpicking the posts or articles I want to include, rather than relying on feeds or algorithms. And it’s easy to do. When you find a post, video or article you want to include in your magazine, you just click a plus button next to it, choose which of your magazines to “flip it” into and it appears in that magazine. The magazine only updates when you decide to update it with a new article, photo or video. The original creators are credited.

Above, one person’s Flipboard page with personal magazines and subscriptions

During my testing, I made five magazines, some public and some private. Since these were just for testing, they weren’t carefully created. But I was impressed by how quickly I could produce them and how nicely Flipboard laid them out, with handsome cover photos, bold headlines and a logical arrangement of photos and articles.

I made public magazines on the American Revolution, Ancient Wonders, the Boston Red Sox and my favorite current TV dramas. I also made a private magazine to store content I wanted to read later.

This process is greatly helped by a much-enhanced search feature in Flipboard, which finds items both in Flipboard itself and in a long list of social networks and sites, such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, YouTube, Instagram, Flickr, Tumblr and streams of content, called RSS feeds, produced by various sites.

You can add content to your magazines using a special bookmark for most browsers on PCs or Macs. When you see something on the Web you’d like in one of your magazines, click this bookmark and a small Flipboard window opens with thumbnails of your magazines, allowing you to add the item. Alas, this bookmark is very difficult to install on the browsers on the iPad and iPhone.

There’s a new Notifications feature that tells you when people have liked or commented on your magazines. A “By Our Readers” feature suggests public magazines the Flipboard staff considers outstanding.

Publishers are making use of the new magazine feature in Flipboard. Esquire has created a magazine that’s a collection of its interviews and Rolling Stone has published a Flipboard magazine collecting some of its articles on the Beatles.

If you find a magazine you like, you can subscribe to it, for easy and continued access, or share a link to it via Twitter, Facebook or email. If somebody who has Flipboard wants to view the magazine, it’ll automatically open. Otherwise, the link will take a person to a Web page with instructions on how to get Flipboard.

Unfortunately, what you can’t do is to edit your magazine much, or add original or local content to it. You can’t rearrange articles, or create your own text articles, or add photos or videos that live only on your iPad or iPhone. You also can’t rearrange articles. Because Flipboard is so oriented to pulling in content from online sources, to use one of your own photos or videos in your own magazine, you’d have to first post it to a site like Flickr. To use an article you write for your own magazine, you’d have to first post it online.

The only tweaking you can do directly is to change the cover picture, which is typically drawn from the most recent article you include that has a photo; remove an item; create and change the title and a short description of the magazine; and change its status between publicly visible or private.

You also can’t charge for your magazines or sell ads in them, though any ads embedded in the content you include would travel with that content into your magazine.

Flipboard says it expects to add some of these features, like the ability to use photos and videos stored on your device, in updates.

Overall, Flipboard’s new personal magazines are a very good addition to a very good app.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

How Much of a Tablet Can You Get for Under $300?

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 01:03:02 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

This month marks the third anniversary of Apple’s iPad. Since it hit the market, it has sold over 120 million units, and tablets in general have taken off. But large-screen tablets like the 9.7-inch iPad have remained dear for many budgets. The latest iPad and Microsoft’s new Surface RT start at $499. Even lower-priced, full-size tablets from name-brand companies typically cost $300 to $400. To pay significantly less, you’ve had to opt for a much smaller unit, in the 7-inch range.

Now, major manufacturers are lowering prices for some larger-screen tablets to at least slightly below $300. This week I’ve been testing two of these sub-$300 models. One is the largest Kindle Fire HD, with an 8.9-inch screen and a price that was just cut to $269 from $299. The other is a new 10.1-inch tablet from Asus, the MeMo Pad Smart 10.1, which sells for $299. The Kindle’s display is smaller than the roughly 10-inch tablets, but I consider it close enough to include in the category.

Left, the Asus MeMo Pad Smart; right, the Kindle Fire HD

What kind of large tablet do you get for under $300? Pretty good ones. While neither of the two I tested is as good as the iPad, each delivers decent value for the price.

These two tablets are quite different from each other. The new, awkwardly named, Asus is a standard Android tablet, replete with built-in apps from Google, which makes Android, and a few from Asus. It has front and rear cameras, and the standard 16 gigabytes of internal memory. And it has access to the Google Play store, which features over 700,000 apps, only a fraction of which are designed to take advantage of a large tablet screen.

The Kindle Fire HD 8.9, like its popular $199, 7-inch sibling, is technically an Android tablet. But it buries Android under Amazon’s own user interface, doesn’t feature Google’s apps and uses its own tablet-oriented, highly curated app store, which currently has 50,000 choices. It is capable of managing email, browsing and social networking, and running popular third-party apps and games. However, the Kindle Fire HD is mainly a hardware front end to Amazon’s vast collection of digital books, music and video. It also comes with 16 gigabytes of internal memory.

The Asus, available at various online stores, runs the current major release of Android, called Jelly Bean, albeit a slightly older version of that software. However, the Kindle, consistent with its general demotion of Android to mere plumbing, is running a version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich, that’s a whole generation behind. It’s available at Amazon.com.

Perhaps the biggest difference between the two was in battery life. I ran my usual rigorous tablet battery test on each, turning the screen brightness to 75%, keeping Wi-Fi on to collect email in the background, and then playing videos until the units shut down for lack of power.

The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 scored 8 hours and 16 minutes in my test, nearly two hours less than the iPad, yet better than many tablets I’ve tested. But the Asus MeMo did quite poorly, lasting only 5 hours and 27 minutes, almost 3 hours less than Amazon’s tablet.

To get the Kindle for $269, you have to put up with ads, some on the lock screen and some in the form of recommendations for buying other content on the home screen. You can turn off the latter in settings—a new feature. But to get a model without the full-screen ads, which Amazon calls “Special Offers,” you have to pay $15 more, either when purchasing the device or by going to an obscure page on Amazon.com.

Other downsides of the Kindle HD 8.9 are that it lacks a rear camera and its browser, called Silk, remains in my tests a bit slower at loading Web pages than either the iPad or standard Android browsers.

On the other hand, the bigger Kindle offers a crisp, sharp screen, and can also be purchased for just $30 more with twice the memory, and for $399 with a cellular data option in addition to Wi-Fi. It’s lighter and slightly thinner than the full-size iPad, and slightly thinner and lighter than the MeMo 10.1, though the latter is also lighter than the iPad. It has much higher screen resolution than the MeMo’s, but less than the iPad’s.

The Asus lacks a higher-memory or cellular model, though it has a memory-card slot for adding storage. It also has a nice feature that permits continuous burst shooting of up to 100 continuous photos. This photo feature worked, but some of the shots were out of focus.

With the Kindle, I never had a crash or a glitch. On the Asus, I ran into a couple of minor, but annoying, problems. An Asus app called BuddyBuzz, one of many attempts by device makers to meld your social networks in one place, crashed frequently. However, I doubt many users will rely on it. And while playing movies rented from Google, I got several messages saying the movie couldn’t be authenticated. One tap fixed this, but no one wants to be interrupted like that while watching “Inception.” Asus said it couldn’t replicate either glitch but would investigate.

Many people may prefer smaller tablets, which typically sell for around $200 or even less. But for those who want a full-size slate at a lower price, these two sub-$300 models are good choices.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Amazon's E-Book Business Is Up 70 Percent, but It's Still Not Disclosing Kindle Sales

Tricia Duryee — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 00:15:14 +0000

Amazon is still not saying how many Kindles it is selling, even though the e-book business has become a “multi-billion dollar category” for the retailer.

But whatever those sales numbers were, they would have been higher last year if Amazon hadn’t sold out of its flagship e-reader, said Amazon’s CFO Tom Szkutak during the company’s earnings call today.

In response to an analyst’s question about why the company’s revenue was lighter than expected in Q4, Szkutak named a number of reasons.

For one, he said, sales of consumer electronics, including TVs, MP3s and digital cameras, fell short of expectations. But also, he said, it had to do with shortages of the Kindle Paperwhite.

“We are thrilled to have Paperwhite in our lineup — it’s the best e-reader out there, but we couldn’t keep up with demand,” he said. “We would have had more sales in Q4 if we could keep up with demand.”

“The team is working hard to have good stock going forward on that product,” he added.

Amazon is notorious for not commenting on the performance of its hardware business, and that policy didn’t change this quarter. But in Amazon’s earnings release, Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos did open up a little bit about the company’s e-book business as a whole.

“We’re now seeing the transition we’ve been expecting,” he said. “After five years, eBooks is a multi-billion dollar category for us and growing fast — up approximately 70 percent last year. In contrast, our physical book sales experienced the lowest December growth rate in our 17 years as a book seller, up just 5 percent. We’re excited and very grateful to our customers for their response to Kindle and our ever expanding ecosystem and selection.”

Some critics will not consider that enough information, given the size of the business.

After all, without knowing unit sales, it makes it extremely difficult for analysts to compare Amazon to other tablet makers, namely Apple. But in some respects, e-book sales is a better measurement to track Amazon’s performance. That’s because it makes little to no profit on the hardware, and instead emphasizes the lifetime value of the customer.

By emphasizing content sales — and not unit sales — Amazon is under less pressure to get customers to continually upgrade their devices to generate more revenue. Put another way, a three-year-old Kindle can generate as much revenue as a brand new one. If Amazon disclosed device sales, analysts and investors would be closely tracking that metric for signs of growth.

Amazon also deploys this loss-leader strategy for Amazon Prime, which gives members free two-day shipping as well as access to free streaming video and free e-books. On the call, Szkutak cautioned that it’s still early, but that those freebies are beginning to drive additional revenue.

“The percentage of Prime customers who are watching free content has gone up dramatically,” he said, “And, they are purchasing paid content. They are watching for free, but they are also paying for new content.”

Nook Loses Ground in Tablet War

Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 17:12:47 +0000

Barnes & Noble Inc. said revenue at its consumer stores fell 10.9% during the nine-week holiday selling season ended Dec. 29, a sign that the retailer is falling behind in the crucial tablet battle with Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc., and Google Inc.

While the revenue drop reflected in part a slight decline in the number of stores open, and lower online sales, it included an 8.2% drop in sales at stores open at least one year. Most of that was driven by lower sales of Nook digital devices, both the tablet and e-reader. Excluding Nook device sales, “core” same-store-sales fell 3.1%, because fewer consumers came to the stores.

Read the rest of the post on the original site »

Americans Read More E-Books -- But Maybe Not on E-Readers

Lauren Goode — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 15:00:54 +0000

More U.S. consumers are e-reading — just not necessarily on e-readers.

That’s according to a new report from the Pew Research Center, which surveyed over 2,000 Americans age 16 and up during a month-long period just before the holidays.

The number of consumers who read e-books is up seven percent to nearly a quarter of those surveyed, compared with data from the same time period a year ago. This coincided with a decline in those who say they still read dead-tree books, from 72 percent to 67 percent over a 12-month period.

The Pew report focuses on how this impacts libraries and e-book lending. But what’s more interesting is the data surrounding the types of devices consumers are e-reading on.

A quarter of those surveyed own tablets, like the iPad or Kindle Fire, compared with 10 percent of consumers who said the same a year ago. Meanwhile, just 19 percent said they owned a Kindle or Nook, compared with 10 percent last year.

So, tablet ownership shows a slightly greater increase than e-reader ownership — more evidence that e-readers are slowly losing momentum as tablets gain share. As reported recently by the New York Times Bits blog, IHS iSuppli estimates shipments of e-book readers will suffer a 36 percent drop this year, falling to 14.9 million units.

And a report from eMarketer suggests “2011 might prove to have been the high-water mark for ereaders. IHS iSuppli predicted continued declines, with worldwide shipments falling to just 7.1 million units by 2016.”

Every Time You Buy a Tablet, an E-Reader Dies

John Paczkowski — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 21:50:13 +0000

E-book readers haven’t been around all that long, but already they’re heading toward obsolescence, pushed aside by the burgeoning demand for their multi-use successor: The tablet.

After years of rapid growth, sales of dedicated e-readers like Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook are declining, precipitously. That’s the word from market research outfit IHS iSuppli, which says the e-reader is “flaming out.”

In 2011, worldwide e-book reader sales hit 23.2 million, says IHS iSuppli. This year, it says, they’ve fallen 36 percent to 14.9 million units. Next year, sales will fall an additional 27 percent to 10.9 million. And by 2016, just 7.1 million e-book readers will be purchased.

Not a surprise, really. With each successive generation, tablets are becoming thinner, lighter and more powerful. Their prices are dropping and, more importantly, consumers are beginning to see them as a better value proposition than the single-use e-reader.

“The stunning rise and then blazing flameout of e-books perfectly encapsulates what has become an axiomatic truth in the industry,” said IHS iSuppli analyst Jordan Selburn. “Single-task devices like the e-book reader are being replaced without remorse in the lives of consumers by their multifunction equivalents, in this case by media tablets.”

Nook HD's Screen Dazzles, but Quirks Detract

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 01:17:11 +0000

If technology were more like the fashion world, this fall would be the “in” season for small, color tablets. The runway shows would feature Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD in September, Apple’s iPad Mini in October and Barnes & Noble’s Nook HD, available now.

[ See post to watch video ]

Among this tablet trio, the Nook HD stands out with the highest-resolution small screen, and its redesigned interface continues to prove that Barnes & Noble, no doubt still a bookseller in the minds of some consumers, is taking software quite seriously.

Plenty of people will use the Nook HD for reading e-books or digital magazines and watching videos. To truly compete as a small tablet, however, it needs more apps: Only 10,000 apps are available for the Nook HD, while Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD runs some 35,000 apps and Apple’s App Store boasts over 275,000 iPad apps. The Nook HD has apps for Twitter, Dropbox and Flipboard, but none for Facebook, Yelp or Pandora.

The device’s high-resolution screen (1,440 by 900 pixels) is a great way to watch video.

The Nook HD and the Kindle Fire HD, which both have 7-inch screens, start at $199. At that price, the Nook has half the storage of the Kindle Fire HD but the Kindle has preloaded ads. The 7.9-inch-screen iPad Mini starts at $329.

I’ve been using the Nook HD for the past week, and many of its new features make it a more complete, finished device. In particular, I liked how up to six people can share the device while maintaining separate accounts for privacy, though all must share the same payment source. Neither the Kindle Fire HD nor the iPad Mini has such a feature. This means Mom can keep her mystery novels from her 11-year-old, and she won’t see her 11-year-old’s games and apps. Content can also be shared among all users, and passwords are optional.

The Your Nook Today screen shows content suggestions based on user preferences — and the weather.

Barnes & Noble now offers Nook Video, where people can buy or rent content. Movie prices are comparable to Amazon Instant Video, though Amazon offers 48-hour rentals after the time the movie starts compared with Nook rentals, which are for 24 hours. Apple’s iTunes movies cost less for some HD versions, such as “Ocean’s Thirteen” and “Disclosure,” which each cost $14.99 on iTunes vs. $19.99 on Nook Video or Amazon Instant Video.

Another new feature is Nook Catalogs, which lets users download free catalogs. Fewer than 100 company catalogs are now available, though this number should reach 100 in the next month, said a spokeswoman for Barnes & Noble. I downloaded Uncommon Goods, one of my favorite gift catalogs, and navigated directly from the catalog’s pages to the company’s Web site so I could buy items.

I used a new Scrapbook feature to virtually tear out and save pages from magazines and catalogs with a two-finger, downward swipe. I named one scrapbook “Gift Ideas.” This can be shared across user profiles for gift-giving coordination.

Nook HD still has its flaws.

It’s missing the front-facing camera found on rival devices, and this will disappoint Skype users. Newly designed digital newspapers, which users can subscribe to and receive automatically as editions become available, feel stripped down. The pages and sections in The Wall Street Journal on my Nook HD felt disjointed and too much like books; indeed, the Nook HD’s version of the Journal excluded all videos.

The Nook HD allows several separate accounts on one device, and content can be shared across accounts.

On the device’s browser, some videos didn’t work in the small-screen player on WSJ.com and NYTimes.com, and videos on CNN.com didn’t play without first downloading Adobe Flash Player. A Barnes & Noble spokeswoman said certain videos now only play in full-screen view on the browser. An update to fix this is planned.

In another unexpected wrinkle, I ran into an Android error message a couple of times. The Nook HD runs on a retooled version of Google’s Android operating system, but no regular user should see Android-specific messages.

On the upside, the screen of this Nook HD is stunning. Text in e-books was clear and sharp. I watched “The Bucket List,” and its scenes of snowcapped mountains looked breathtaking. At 1,440 by 900 pixels, the Nook HD’s screen is better than Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD (1,280 by 800) and especially the iPad Mini (1,024 by 768).

But as I watched the film, I noticed two things: One, the Nook HD speakers are loud enough for basic tasks — like email sound notifications — but didn’t sound sufficiently loud for this movie and another one I watched. I plugged in my headphones, and the movie sounded fine.

Two, the back of the Nook HD feels soft, like other Nooks, but its frame is made of a plastic that makes it feel less refined than the polished, solid construction of the iPad Mini and Kindle Fire HD.

There are several ways to navigate the Nook HD interface. By tapping a little silver “n” just below the device’s screen, I always returned to my home page, which showed recently opened books, newspapers, magazines, apps or daily editions of newspapers in something called the Active Shelf. Five circular icons at the bottom of the screen guided me to different sections of the device: Library, Apps, Web, Email or Shop.

A circle at the top right of the home screen called “Your Nook Today” suggests content each user might like based on preferences. Users must select at least one of these preferences during setup of the device. I think most will appreciate this feature, because it makes it easier to discover books and other content.

Barnes & Noble’s Nook HD makes up for its ho-hum physical build with a remarkably good screen, and it does a nice job of helping users discover more content. But to play in prime time, it needs more apps that matter and fewer quirks.

Write to Katherine Boehret at katie.boehret@wsj.com.

Getting a Tablet With a Lot of Memory

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 02:40:26 +0000

I have a 32GB iPad 1 and need more space. I was considering purchasing another tablet but would like to get 128GB. Do you know of any tablets that offer that much capacity or if anyone is planning on coming out with one soon?

As far as I know, the most storage built into any name-brand tablet today is 64 gigabytes, which is where the iPad tops out. Many, such as Google’s new Nexus 10, stop at 32GB. However, some tablets, like Microsoft’s new Surface RT, which can be ordered with 64GB, include an expansion slot that allows adding extra memory via a microSD card. Since such cards are available in 64GB capacities for around $60, that could theoretically allow you to have a tablet with 128GB of storage. However, check first to ensure the tablet can handle that much storage. Some only can make use of cards of up to 32GB. By the way, Microsoft says the Surface RT can handle a 64GB card and the planned Surface Pro, due early next year, will include a model with 128GB.

You recently recommended PeggyBank for its ability to convert old media and place it on the Web. While interesting, I do not wish to put our old media on the Web, but would appreciate the names of the best two or three companies who could put our media on DVDs.

Well, first of all, PeggyBank itself can put your media on DVDs or flash drives. The Web vault it creates for you is free once you pay for a conversion, but you don’t have to use it. As for other companies that focus more on conversion to DVDs, I haven’t reviewed these in years, so can’t make a recommendation. But some leading ones are YesVideo, iMemories and ScanDigital. YesVideo, which performed well in a test I did in 2004, does conversions both directly and through popular merchants like Walmart, Costco, CVS and Walgreens. If you are primarily interested in putting photos, slides or negatives on DVD, a well-known firm is ScanMyPhotos.com. It also converts videotapes.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Sizing Up the New iPad Mini

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 01:06:55 +0000

The iPad has been a true tech phenomenon. Apple has sold 100 million of the tablets in just 2½ years, even though many people doubted they needed a $500 device that’s in between a smartphone and a laptop. No competing model has gained significant traction in the market.

[ See post to watch video ]

Still, there’s been a problem with the iPad. Though it’s much smaller than a laptop, at just 1.44 pounds, and 0.37 inch thick, it can be too heavy to hold for long periods of time, such as when you’re using it to read an e-book. It typically takes two hands to hold. Its 9.7-inch screen, while a pleasure to use, makes it too large to carry without a thought in many purses.

So, on Friday, Apple is introducing a much smaller variant, the iPad Mini, which works exactly like the original and runs all the same apps — the 275,000 tablet-optimized programs plus the rest of the over 700,000 apps available for the iOS operating system the iPad shares with Apple’s iPhone.

The iPad mini weighs just less than 11 ounces, and is only 0.28 inch thick. That’s 53 percent lighter and 23 percent thinner than the standard iPad. It’s 5.3 inches wide versus 7.3 inches for its larger sibling.

In shrinking the iconic iPad, Apple has pulled off an impressive feat. It has managed to create a tablet that’s notably thinner and lighter than the leading small competitors with 7-inch screens, while squeezing in a significantly roomier 7.9-inch display. And it has shunned the plastic construction used in its smaller rivals to retain the iPad’s sturdier aluminum and glass body.

Unlike its two top small tablet competitors, the mini has a rear camera. And unlike the Kindle Fire HD, it offers optional cellular data connectivity to supplement Wi-Fi. It has very good battery life.

However, there are two downsides compared with the leading 7-inch competitors, the Google Nexus 7 and the Amazon Kindle Fire HD. First, the iPad mini starts at $329, versus $199 for its two main rivals (though the Fire HD costs $214 without annoying ads). Second, it has a lower screen resolution — 1024 by 768, versus 1280 by 800 for the other two.

I’ve been testing the iPad mini for several days and found it does exactly what it promises: It brings the iPad experience to a smaller device. Every app that ran on my larger iPad ran perfectly on the mini. I was able to use it one-handed and hold it for long periods of time without tiring. My only complaints were that it’s a tad too wide to fit in most of my pockets, and the screen resolution is a big step backwards from the Retina display on the current large iPad.

But it’s about 30 percent thinner than the leading 7-inch competitors, the Google Nexus 7 and the Amazon Kindle Fire 7. And it’s about 9 percent lighter than the Nexus and about 22 percent lighter than the Fire HD. It’s very slightly narrower across than the Fire HD, but about 11 percent wider than the Nexus. I found it easy to hold with one hand, though the width might be a bit too much for some people with smaller hands.

Even though the mini is thinner and lighter than the leading 7-inch tablets, its larger screen provides about 35 percent more room for viewing content like books and Web pages. I found it easy to see and read material on the screen and to tap and swipe. My only complaint was that the keyboard, in portrait mode, felt a bit cramped, though it was fine in landscape mode. (I found that, unlike with the big iPad, it was more common for me to hold the Mini in portrait mode.)

In my harsh battery test, where I play videos back to back with the screen set at 75 percent and the Wi-Fi on to collect email, the iPad mini exceeded Apple’s battery life claim of 10 hours and lasted 10 hours and 27 minutes. That was about an hour better than the Kindle Fire HD, but about 17 minutes less than the Nexus 7.

I found the cameras did a very good job. I conducted several clear video chats using the 1.2 megapixel front camera, and the 5-megapixel rear camera produced very good photos and videos. The stereo speakers sounded good to my ears.

So why did Apple, whose large iPad and new Macs boast extremely high screen resolution, choose a lower resolution for the mini? The company did so because it says there are only two resolutions that allow its tablet apps to run unmodified. One is the extremely high resolution on the current large iPad, which would have boosted the cost and lowered the battery life of the mini. The other, the one Apple chose for the mini, is the same resolution on iPad models consumers have snapped up: The original iPad and the iPad 2, which is still on the market at $399.

This makes sense, but it means that, unlike its closest competitors, the mini can’t play video in high definition. Apple insists the device does better than standard definition, if you are obtaining the video from its iTunes service, since iTunes scales the video for the device, so it will render somewhere between standard definition and HD. It says some other services will do the same. But the lack of true HD gives the Nexus and Fire HD an advantage for video fans. In my tests, video looked just fine, but not as good as on the regular iPad.

The cellular models, which will start at $459, will be available in a couple of weeks.

The $329 price may well tempt some budget-conscious buyers who have lusted for an iPad. But Apple believes the lower size and weight, not the price, are the key attractions.

If you love the iPad, or want one but just found it too large or heavy, the iPad mini is the perfect solution.

Write to Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Apple's Mini Pitch: Just as Good as an iPad, Better Than Everything Else

Peter Kafka — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 18:21:08 +0000

You got this one right, too, Internet: It is indeed the iPad mini, and it’s $329.

If you’re looking for a surprise here, you won’t find it. As predicted, Apple delivered a smaller version of the tablet it first brought out in April 2010.

And, earlier this morning, Tim Cook announced that Apple had sold 100 million of the full-sized ones since then.

So why buy the new one? Apple’s messaging today comes down to two basic ideas:

The iPad mini is just as good as the regular iPads.
The iPad mini is much better than the smaller tablets you’ve seen from Amazon and Google.

Is that enough? Earlier in his presentation, Cook argued convincingly that consumers didn’t have much interest in rival tablets, boasting that 91 percent of all Web traffic on tablets comes from iPads. But, as we now know, Apple’s own executives think there’s value in a smaller tablet, even if Steve Jobs publicly disagreed.

Time to see what consumers think.

——————

We know that Apple is showing off a new iPad today. And we know it will be smaller and cheaper than its other models.

But while we obsess over the details that Tim Cook and company unveil at the California Theatre in San Jose this morning, it’s worth keeping the big picture in mind: How will Apple convince consumers to buy a smaller version of the thing they have already bought 84 million times?

There seems to be a pretty good business case for Apple here: Google and Amazon are making increasingly attractive mini tablets. And even if those gadgets don’t appear to be making much of a dent in iPad sales so far, there’s no reason to let them have the minipad market to themselves.

Plus, there’s the fact that Apple executives who aren’t Steve Jobs seem to think a small tablet is a good thing.

But that’s all behind-the-scenes stuff. For the past two years, Apple has been telling consumers that the tablet it makes is perfect for use at home, at work and on the road. So, what does a smaller version of the same thing have to offer?

We’ll get to hear Apple make its case very soon. Tune in below for live coverage. You can also watch the event stream in real time, as long as you have an Apple computer, Apple TV or iOS device.

Greetings! Typing at you live from San Jose. In theory, Apple event should kick off in 10 minutes.

9:53 am: Time to play “name that song.” Currently in rotation: Something that sounds like El DeBarge. Though pretty sure it isn’t.

9:54 am: Also have time to introduce my fellow ATD writers, who are also on hand to contribute live reports. Say hello to John “The Brow” Paczkowski, Bonnie “Boom Boom” Cha, and Adam Tow, who is so cool he doesn’t need a nickname.

(FYI, Adam is the guy who takes all the great photos you’re seeing. He’s also the guy who keeps the site running. Good guy to suck up to.)

9:56 am: Interesting. SoundHound works even with the din in here. So I can tell you we’re now listening to something called “It’s Time” by something called Imagine Dragons. (Sounds like Simple Minds, for you oldsters.)

10:00 am: And we’re on. Here’s Tim Cook. Loud applause.

10:01 am: Cook intro-ing. “Really exciting things to show you.”

Update time, beginning with iPhone.

Superlatives for iPhone 5 opening-weekend sales, which we’ve heard about.

Now a video of people buying phones at Apple stores.

Buying an iPhone 5 was very, very exciting. Even more so if you had a thumping, soaring soundtrack behind you as you made your purchase.

No ugly people bought iPhone 5s opening weekend.

10:04 am: Cook is back onstage.

Now recapping intro of iPod touch, nano. Shoutout to The Verge, which is apparently off the Apple shitlist.

Sold three million new iPod touches, nanos.

iOS 6 now on 200 million devices.

“Phenomenal!”

“Fastest upgrade rate” of any device “we’re aware of.”

More feature recaps.

125 million documents “in the Cloud.” Wonder if that includes music files.

300 billion iMessages in last year. [Applause] 28,000 per second.

160 million Game Center accounts. (I have one. Have never used it.)

70 million photos shared.

App store: Last month, 700,000 iOS apps. Now 275,000 iPad apps. Both numbers “growing,” Cook says.

New milestone: 35 billion apps downloaded.

“This is jaw-dropping.”

$6.5 billion paid out to developers. Someone back that math out, and you can figure out total app sales.

iBooks: 1.5 million titles available.

Cook is uptempo, selling hard this morning. Bezos-like.

New version of iBooks out today. “Really cool new reading option”: Continuous scrolling. A few “ahs” from the crowd.

New sharing feature with Facebook, Twitter.

Now supports Japanese, Chinese text.

“You’re going to love it.”

On to the Mac. Apple outgrew the PC market, 15 percent to 2 percent, in the last year. Been doing that for six years.

Because everyone everywhere says Mac is the best.

10:14 am: Going to continue innovating with Mac. So here’s Phil Schiller to talk about it. [Loud applause]

MacBook: 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display was perhaps the best we’ve made. Engadget, The Verge, Wired all praised us.

But No. 1-selling notebook, and Mac, is 13-inch MacBook Pro. “Just perfect for so many uses.”

So we’re going to “introduce something so much better.”

Here’s the 13-inch MacBook Pro. [Loud applause]

.75-inch thin. Look, it’s 20 percent thinner than the last model. At 3.5 pounds, it’s “almost a pound lighter” than the last one.

“Look how thin it is.”

Bye-bye, optical drive.

Retina display, like all of you said it would have.

2,560 by 1,660 pixels.

“Second-highest-resolution notebook display.” 15-inch Macbook is highest.

Schiller is trying to tell us that you’ll get a better image on your notebook than on your HDTV.

“Surfing the Web could be like a fine print magazine.”

Great for photographers. Lots of Retina-optimized apps.

“But there’s a lot more”: Better speakers, HD camera, etc.

On to the innards: “Everything about the new MacBook Pro has been reengineered from scratch.”

Chips: Intel Ivy Bridge, Intel HD Graphics.

“It is a fantastic computer.”

10:22 am: Meanwhile! Eagle-eyed John Paczkowski points out that on the right side of the stage, there appears to be something draped in black cloth on a black stand. If you squint and hope, you could imagine something like a big monitor under there …

10:23 am: Now an ad.

Starting pricing: MacBook Air, $999; MacBook Pro, $1,199; MacBook Pro w/Retina, $1,699.

“It is the best lineup of portables we have ever offered.”

10:25 am: New: Mac mini. “You knew there’d be something called ‘mini’ in this presentation.” [Applause]

Haven’t heard anyone talk about Mac mini in a very long time. New innards. Better chips, more storage, RAM. Entry-level is $599.

10:27 am: iMac. It’s “the best all-in-one computer in the industry.”

Remember the original iMac from 1998?

Schiller shows off something that looks like those “evolution of man” posters, showing iMacs over the years.

Ooohs and ahs for new super-thin iMac. Followed by loudest applause of morning.

Sustained applause.

Still clapping.

Schiller: “Stunning from every side.”

10:29 am: So there’s that mystery solved. It was a monitor under wraps over there. It just happens to have a computer built into it.

5mm-thin edge. Extends down to “the chin” of the device.

They used something called “friction stir welding” to put the device together.

It brings back the image of the old iMac, which now looks like a sad fatty hanging out with Louis C.K. at the Cinnabon.

10:32 am: Many more specs, explanations of how they made it so thin. For instance: “Plasma deposition process.”

Eight pounds lighter than old tubby iMac.

“There is a serious computer inside this thin design.”

New iMac cannot fly, nor can it turn water into wine.

New “Apple Fusion Drive” is available for both mini and iMac. 128GB flash. 1 terabyte or 3TB HDD. “Fused into a single volume.”

Basic idea: Fusion Drive figures out, on the fly, what stuff should go over to flash drive, which should be relegated to HDD. “You just use it, it works.”

Fusion Drive gets round of applause.

Entry level for new iMac: $1,299. More applause.

Shipping next month.

Next level up: $1,799. Those won’t ship till December.

Uses 50 percent less energy. “Perhaps the boldest new iMac designs we’ve ever created.”

10:38 am: Schiller off, Cook back.

“These products are really cool.”

Next up: iPad.

New stat: Two weeks ago, sold our 100-millionth iPad. Applause.

That’s in 2.5 years, remember. “Unprecedented for a new product in a new category.”

“This has attracted a fair amount of attention.” But no one is using rival tablets, Cook says: iPads account for 91 percent of tablet Web traffic.

Why are iPads killing it? “Turns out there is a simple reason for it. People love their iPads.”

Cook sings praises of existing iPad line.

So …

Wait for it …

Not there yet: Some education talk.

Students, teachers love the iPad. Here’s a testimonial from a school superintendent in Texas.

Refers to iBooks Author, introduced earlier this year. (Haven’t heard much about this since.)

New iPad textbooks so great they make you want to be a kid again. Now in 2,500 classrooms in the U.S.

Not just Big Three publishers, but little ones, too.

New version of iBooks Author. (Note that yesterday McGraw-Hill was offering executive for interview, post-event.)

Easier to update books, etc. Available today.

10:45 am: Time to talk up iPad in the office.

94 percent of Fortune 500 “testing or deploying iPad.”

“Just getting started …”

Still winding up: Newest iPad is awesome. “But we’re not taking our foot off the gas.”

10:47 am: Cook off, Schiller back.

Schiller: Fourth-generation iPad. “Amazing … it is a powerhouse.”

New A6X chip.

2x faster than last chip for CPU, for graphics. New “image signal processor,” etc.

Ten-hour battery life. Upgraded camera. LTE with “greatly expanded coverage.” Working with many new carriers, including Sprint.

New cables, connectors.

Retina display, of course. Comes in “both black and white.”

Starts at $499 for 16GB. $629 with cellular.

“So, what else can we do to help customers find even more uses for iPad …”

10:50 am: And here we go: iPad mini (or whatever they’re calling it). Loudest applause yet.

Yup, “iPad mini.”

“What can you do with iPad mini that you can’t do” with regular iPad? “This” — you can hold it in one hand.

Again, crucial here for Schiller, et al, to explain why you want one of these, not just to talk specs.

Then again, crowd already pumped.

Thin as a pencil, light as a pad of paper.

Screen size: It had to be smaller, but not too small, etc. iPad 2: 9.7-inch diagnoal, iPad mini, 7.9-inch. Both have same pixel count. So all software created for iPad already works on mini.

“Great for reading your email, responding to your email, surfing the Web.”

Great for magazines, books, HD phone calls. Great for all of your iWork apps. “It is so much fun” to play GarageBand on this.

Facebook shout-out.

Games: Real Racing 2.

No one else can say their apps work great on shrunken tablets.

Compares iPad mini side by side with Google’s Nexus 7, without calling it out by name.

Apple’s display is bigger — 7.9-inch to 7-inch. That’s 29.6 square inches, compared to 21.9. 35 percent larger. “That’s a huge difference.”

Shows off Web page for Guggenheim site, argues that, in practicality, it’s 49 percent bigger, once you strip out the Android “noise” around it. Flip it over, and it’s 67 percent.

Two messages so far: iPad mini is like iPad, but smaller. iPad mini is like Google’s Nexus, but better.

Shout-out to TripAdvisor. Did I also hear him name-check Pandora?

iPad mini’s innards better than iPad 2’s.

Better chip, 5MP iSight camera, LTE wireless, faster Wi-Fi.

Ten-hour battery life.

“Every inch an iPad.”

11:00 am: Here’s a video.

Jony Ive, of course.

This sounds like The Jam in the background. Wonder if that’s right.

This isn’t just a shrunken iPad, says Jony Ive. If we just shrunk it, you’d notice “loss.” This is not just a “reduction of the original.”

More spec talk.

(Apple isn’t arguing that there’s anything you can do with this — short of holding it one-handed — that you can’t already do with the devices it is already selling. And that alone may be enough for some people. But I assume that the price will be the real kicker here.)

11:05 am: Schiller back.

Comes with its own line of covers (optional).

Starts at 16GB. $329 for Wi-Fi only.

Still selling iPad 2 at $399.

Preorder starts Friday. W-Fi ships next week. Two weeks later, shipping Wi-Fi + cellular.

And here comes a TV ad.

Not a word. Very smart.

11:09 am: Schiller off, Cook on.

2012 wrap-up. “We told you earlier this year you would see some incredible innovation this year … we think we kept our promise.”

Sparing you recap of things we’re already heard about today. My hunch: No one more thing today. Hope I’m wrong!

“Yes, it has been an incredible year.”

“A truly prolific year of innovation for Apple.”

Shout-outs to Apple employees. “They dedicate a huge part of their lives to making the best products on Earth.”

Applause. Cook beams.

“These are the most talented and innovative people I know, and it is a privilege to work with them”

11:12 am: And that’s a wrap.
Closing music from Jack Black, via his new “Blunderbuss” album, which is excellent. [Correction: That's Jack White, of course. Thanks to reader RichardL for noting.]

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Amazon's Jeff Bezos Confirms Kindles Are Sold at Cost

Tricia Duryee — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 18:13:15 +0000

Asa Mathat / AllThingsD.com

Like others, I’ve asked Amazon how it manages to keep Kindle prices low while still offering some of the latest hardware, and, like others, I’ve never managed to coax out a straight answer. Just last month, I posed the question to CEO Jeff Bezos, and he dodged again, acknowledging only that “we don’t want to lose a lot of money on the device.”

But apparently Bezos has tired of dancing around the subject, because when the BBC asked on Thursday, he answered: “We sell the hardware at our cost, so it is break-even on the hardware.”

The comments came a week after the company started shipping the Kindle Paperwhite, the well-reviewed new e-reader that comes with a glowing screen. The new Kindle Fire HD with an 8.9-inch display will start shipping Nov. 20.

It should not be a surprise that Amazon doesn’t make money off the sale of these devices. Many teardowns have suggested that the hardware components alone cost close to the sale price. Additionally, Bezos has made it clear that he wants the devices’ success to be measured by the amount of books and other content people buy on them — not on the sale of the hardware alone. That’s probably why Amazon declines to disclose how many devices it sells each quarter despite pleas from Wall Street.

Amazon’s model is familiar to other retail business, where margins are low and made up on tremendous volume. But that’s in contrast with most consumer electronics companies, like Apple, which sells hardware at generous margins. Bezos declined to say which approach was better. In my interview with him, he explained: “Our approach is our approach, and we don’t even claim it’s the right approach. It’s not something that’s new, but it’s something we’ve done since the founding of the company.”

A Little Night Reading With Light-Up Devices

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 22:11:01 +0000

We’ve all been there: The person on one side of the bed is ready to sleep while the person on the other side wants to stay up and read a little longer. The night owl usually wins because the sleepy one is too tired to argue.

[ See post to watch video ]

I’m the night owl in this scenario. Since my husband wakes up an hour and a half earlier than I do each morning, he always closes his book first, leaving me reading with the light on and feeling guilty. Some people with iPads find they can read in the dark by the glow of their LCD screens. But if you’re like me and you use a more traditional e-reader, like Amazon’s Kindle or Barnes & Noble’s Nook, you need another light source to finish your chapter.

Now, both Amazon and Barnes & Noble offer touchscreen e-readers with lit screens. Amazon’s $119 Kindle Paperwhite started shipping on Monday for $119, and Barnes & Noble’s Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight launched in April for $139, but this week it dropped to $119.

The Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight.

Amazon’s Kindle Paperwhite.

Good news: Both e-readers will give sleepy spouses a chance to snooze. For the past week, I’ve used them to read guilt-free in the dark, finishing chapters of Ruth Reichl’s memoir, “Tender at the Bone.” These e-readers’ lights came in handy in other places, too, like while I stood waiting on dimly lighted subway platforms or in certain spots in my house where the light isn’t ideal for reading. I still think reading with a lamp is easiest on my eyes, but these are the next best thing.

Though each device’s light worked as advertised, I found myself reaching for the Kindle Paperwhite more often because it had a more even-looking light than the Nook with GlowLight. And the Kindle’s light comes from LEDs at the bottom of the screen, while the Nook’s LEDs are at the top where they were more noticeable, given the angle at which I comfortably hold books to read.

Neither of these lights looks flawless: With both, I saw lines on the screen near where their LED lights shone onto the page.

Amazon says its Kindle Paperwhite screen has 25 percent higher contrast than previous Kindles, and text looked crisp and easy to read. Its Wi-Fi version costs $119, and it’s also available with a 3G connection for $179. But for these prices, Amazon Special Offers appear on lock screens every time the Paperwhite is in sleep mode. To buy a device without these ads, you’ll have to pay $20 more. And the Paperwhite’s power adapter is sold separately for $10.

At $119, Barnes & Noble’s Nook with GlowLight costs the same as the Kindle Paperwhite but doesn’t have ads on its screen and ships with a power adapter. It’s only available in a Wi-Fi model, not 3G for people who want an e-reader with an always-on Internet connection.

The lights on these devices work differently. The Kindle Paperwhite’s light comes on as soon as you wake the device from sleep and start using it. The light technically never turns off; it can only be turned down to a low level that looks like it’s off. The Paperwhite’s light-use instructions appear on screen and tell people to use a high setting in brightly lighted rooms and a low setting in dark rooms. This sounds counterintuitive, but an Amazon spokeswoman explained the company believes the most comfortable reading experience is when the light of the display isn’t much brighter than the surroundings.

Sure enough, when I was having trouble sleeping and reached over for the Paperwhite, I read books at light level six (out of 24) because my eyes were adjusted to the dark.

When you wake the Nook with GlowLight from sleep, its light doesn’t go on automatically. But a simple move turns the light on and off: Press and hold the little “n” button below the screen for two seconds. Like the Kindle Paperwhite, an adjustable scale turns the light up or down, though the lower lighting levels of the Nook GlowLight didn’t look as good as the Kindle Paperwhite.

In the hand, the Nook with GlowLight is wider than the Kindle Paperwhite, but the Paperwhite is a bit longer when measured from the top to bottom. The Nook with GlowLight has subtle physical buttons between the screen and the edge of the device, giving you ways to flip pages without touching the screen. I like using this option when my hands are covered in sunscreen at the beach.

As is expected, the battery life for both devices is affected by the lights, but is still very good. Amazon estimates the Kindle Paperwhite will last eight weeks with its light on. Barnes & Noble says the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight will last for a month with its light on and two months with the light off. Both companies tested battery life for a half-hour of daily reading with Wi-Fi off.

If you still can’t decide, some of Amazon’s extra features may sell you. Certain titles from the bookselling giant include a feature called X-ray, which displays extra details about the book. And the Kindle Paperwhite can receive library books via Wi-Fi, while the Nook uses a clumsy transferring technique that requires a USB cord.

Email katie.boehret@wsj.com.

Kindle Fire, USB on the iPad, and Disk Defragmentation

Walt Mossberg — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 01:21:57 +0000

When the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD is used to read an ordinary eBook, does the book page look like the new Kindle Paperwhite, or ordinary Kindle gray?

Neither. Standard Kindle e-readers, even the improved new ones, use a technology called E Ink, that’s entirely different from the screen technology on the Kindle Fire series. The latter is an LCD screen, similar to what’s on an iPad or a laptop. I found reading a book on the Fire HD to be a good experience, but it’s different from that on a standard Kindle. For instance, like other LCD screens, the one on the Fire has much more glare than an E Ink screen, especially outdoors, even though Amazon claims the new HD has 25 percent less glare than its predecessor.

Does the iPad have a USB port? Can you attach a memory card reader to the iPad?

It has neither a built-in USB port nor a built-in memory card reader. But Apple sells a $29 accessory called the Camera Connection Kit that includes two adapters, one with a memory card reader and one with a USB port for connecting a camera via a cable. The catch is that these adapters only work with photos, not other types of files.

Is it possible to run disk defragmentation in Mac OSX (Mountain Lion) and if so, what is the best way to go about doing this?

Apple says its operating system does disk defragmentation—tidying up the arrangement of files for faster access—automatically, so doing so manually is unnecessary. I haven’t done it on my Macs for years. Still, some experts say it’s useful to do so, especially if your hard disk is almost full, or you’re noticing significant slowdowns. There are third-party defragmentation apps for the Mac. One, called iDefrag, can be found at http://bit.ly/M1ODBw. I haven’t tested it, so I don’t know how well it works.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Conan O'Brien Imagines the $5 Kindle (Video)

Tricia Duryee — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 16:40:27 +0000

Amazon is well known for selling its e-readers and tablets at a steep discount. The lowest priced e-reader sets you back $69, and the cheapest color tablet runs you $199. But even though Amazon has ruled out a free Kindle, and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos remains cagey about whether the company breaks even on the devices, there’s already demand for a $5 version. Conan O’Brien imagines what that would be like: Meet the bulky, yet very versatile, “Wendell.”

(Warning: 30-second pre-roll before the clip.)

Kindle Fire HD Is Better but It Isn't the Best Color Tablet

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 01:02:23 +0000

Amazon is upping its game in the color tablet market. Last year, it launched the 7-inch Kindle Fire, a pretty good, but limited, device mostly distinguished by its low price of $199 and its seamless access to Amazon’s massive ecosystem of e-books, music, videos and periodicals.

[ See post to watch video ]

Now, Amazon has come up with a successor, the Kindle Fire HD, which comes in two screen sizes, 7 inches and 8.9 inches (the iPad’s screen is 9.7 inches, by comparison). Again, I see the key advantages of these new Fires as low base prices and easy access to Amazon’s content offerings. The 7-inch model, while beefed up, still starts at $199 and the larger version at $299. By contrast, the latest iPad starts at $499, though the older iPad 2 is still available at $399.

But this time, Amazon is facing a well-received, 7-inch, $199 competitor: Google’s Nexus 7, which also is positioned as primarily a front end to an online content store. So, while Amazon is still stressing that these new Fires are best seen as front doors to its online stores, it is now claiming the Fire HD is also “the best tablet at any price.”

The new 7-inch Kindle, which ships on Friday, is much improved from the original Fire and has new features. For starters, its base model has 16 gigabytes of storage, double that of the original Fire or the base Nexus 7, and equal to the base iPad. It is slimmer, lighter and more stylish than its predecessor. It now boasts a high-definition screen, dual speakers, a faster processor and far better battery life.

The Kindle Fire HD has a carousel displaying recently used apps and contents and a horizontal menu of categories across the top.

However, after testing the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD, I can’t agree with the sweeping claim that it is “the best tablet at any price.”

The Fire HD isn’t as polished, fluid or versatile as the iPad. It offers only a fraction of the third-party apps available on either the iPad or the Nexus 7 (and other standard Android tablets). I found that after prolonged use, the Fire HD showed signs of latency—apps and content displayed delays in launching. This latency disappeared after a reboot.

The Fire HD also assaults users with ads occupying the entire screen every time they start or resume using it. You have to pay Amazon another $15, using an obscure setting on a Web page, to escape these ads. And there are pitches to buy more content on many other screens, even those displaying your already-purchased content.

I didn’t test the 8.9-inch version, costing up to $599 with fast cellular-data connectivity and maximum memory. It won’t be available until Nov. 20. Like the Nexus, but unlike the iPad, the 7-inch model can’t operate on a cellular-data network and relies on Wi-Fi only.

The main user interface has changed. Instead of a series of faux shelves displaying recently used apps and content, there is now a carousel, a scrolling horizontal array of these items. Across the top is a horizontal menu of categories, like Games, Apps, Books, Music, Videos and so forth.

Like all 7-inch tablets, the new Fire has less than half the screen real estate of an iPad, but is easier to hold in one hand, or to tuck into a purse or large pocket.

I found the screen to be crisp, clear and vivid, though inferior to the superb Retina display on the current iPad. Its resolution is the same as that of the Nexus 7. It also is about the same thickness as the Nexus, though a bit heavier. It is much lighter than the larger iPad, but about 10% thicker.

I found its speakers far better than those on the iPad and Nexus.

Like the original Fire, the Fire HD is technically an Android tablet. It uses last year’s version of Android, Google’s mobile operating system, while the Nexus uses a newer, more polished version. But, like its predecessor, the new Fire buries Android, demoting it to mere plumbing. It doesn’t use Google’s user interface, or the standard Google apps, like Google Maps or a special Gmail app, found on other Android devices. Instead of the standard Google Play store for apps and content, it has its own. Most Android apps aren’t available there.

The Fire is really a hardware entry point to Amazon’s massive, unmatched selection of books and other content. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos introduced the Fire HD saying it shouldn’t be thought of as a gadget. “The Kindle Fire is a service,” he said.

That may sound strange because Amazon makes apps for its competitors that can access the content it offers. For instance, iPad owners can get free apps from Amazon for Kindle books, Amazon video and music. But this content, and especially the ability to quickly buy it, is much better integrated into the Fire.

The Fire has some content capabilities that aren’t present in Amazon’s iPad apps. Among these are the ability to lend certain books; a feature called “Immersion Reading,” which lets you listen to a professional audio narration of a book (for an added price) as you read along; and a feature called “X-Ray,” which quickly displays all the characters in a book or all the actors in a movie.

Amazon claims the new Fire has advanced Wi-Fi technology that is faster than the Wi-Fi on the iPad. But in my tests, I couldn’t replicate that. Most Web pages I tried loaded slightly faster on the iPad. And, using two different speed test utilities on two different networks, I found the iPad was a bit faster in almost every instance, occasionally much faster.

The Fire HD lacks some features the costlier iPad offers. Among these are a rear camera, and built-in dictation, instant messaging and maps, and the ability to beam video or music to a TV using a device like the Apple TV. It lacks artificial-intelligence features like Apple’s Siri, or Google Now, a feature of the Nexus 7.

Amazon’s app store has about 30,000 apps, versus more than 500,000 for the iPad or Nexus.

In my harsh battery test, where I set the screen at 75% brightness, leave on the Wi-Fi to collect email in the background, and play videos back to back, the Fire HD was respectable, if not up to its claim of 11 hours, or as good as its competitors. It lasted nine hours and 28 minutes, compared with just five hours and 47 minutes for the original Fire. That was about half an hour less than the iPad, but over an hour less than the Nexus.

Overall, I see the 7-inch Fire HD as a good value for those primarily interested in easily tapping Amazon’s large collection of content.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Amazon Shines Light on Kindle Paperwhite

Bonnie Cha — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 18:14:21 +0000

Though not a complete surprise, Amazon today revealed a new Kindle e-reader with an illuminated screen and up to eight weeks of battery life.

Unveiled by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos at a press event in Santa Monica, Calif., the Kindle Paperwhite will be available on Oct. 1, with preorders starting today, and features a front-lit touchscreen that will allow you to use the e-reader during the night and day. The light is directed down toward the display, so it’s easier to read outside, and users will be able to adjust the brightness level of the light.

The Paperwhite’s display also shows 25 percent more contrast, and has 62 percent more pixels than the current Kindles, at 212 pixels per inch.

Amazon said its Paperwhite technology has been fours years in the making, and that part of that time was spent on making it more power-efficient than its competitors, namely the Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight.

The Kindle Paperwhite promises up to eight weeks of battery life, even with the light on, which Bezos said was twice as much as the Nook offers.

The e-reader measures just 9.1mm thick and weighs 7.5 ounces, making it “thinner than a magazine and lighter than a paperback book.” It offers a number of features that Kindle users have come to love, such as X-Ray and Whispersync, which syncs your bookmarks, notes and last page read across all devices. A new function called Time to Read will show you how much time it will take you to finish a chapter, based on its projections from your actual reading speed.

The Kindle Paperwhite will come in Wi-Fi and 3G models, costing $119 and $179, respectively. Kobo also announced a front-lit e-reader just hours before Amazon’s event, but it’s more expensive than the Wi-Fi Paperwhite. The Kobo Glo goes for $129.99, while the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight costs $139.99.

To keep costs down, however, the Paperwhite does not offer audiobook support.

In addition to the Paperwhite, Amazon introduced the Kindle Fire HD today, which offers 4G LTE connectivity, faster performance and an 8.9-inch touchscreen.

TV Commercial Shows Off New Kindle Devices Before Amazon Does

Tricia Duryee — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 05:06:13 +0000

Amazon jumped the gun a little, showing off some of its new devices during a commercial that aired during tonight’s NFL season opener.

As first noticed by The Verge, the commercial shows off some of the devices that have been rumored to be announced at Amazon’s press conference tomorrow in Los Angeles.

For those watching closely, you may be able to spot a new e-reader with a glowing screen; the company’s current Kindle Fire (or possibly, an updated seven-inch device); and a larger-screened device — although, in my opinion, it’s being held too far away from the camera to presume that it is equal in size to the iPad.

In general, the commercial does a good job describing how Amazon is a part of your daily life, whether it’s because you ordered something online that arrives in the mail, or because you downloaded something electronically.

The narrator says: “We are the reinventors of normal. We dream of making things that change your life and then disappear into your everyday — of making the revolutionary routine.”

More live coverage coming from AllThingsD at 10:30 am PT tomorrow.

Here’s the commercial, via The Verge:

Managing Expectations for Amazon's Upcoming Kindle Event

Tricia Duryee — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 19:04:26 +0000

In less than two weeks, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos will take the stage at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, Calif., to announce a lineup of new Kindle devices.

It was only a year ago that Bezos introduced a plethora of devices in New York, including Kindle Touch for $99, a 3G version for $149, a Kindle Fire for $199 and a bare bones e-reader for $79.

This year promises to be an equally significant event. But until we find out what it entails, let’s do a quick recap of what we know so far:

The 10-Inch Kindle Fire:

While this has been the biggest rumor that has been out there, a larger Kindle Fire 2 — which would be equal in size to Apple’s iPad — is most definitely not a done deal. According to several sources, even though a larger cousin of the seven-inch Kindle Fire is definitely in the works, it’s not clear if Amazon is ready to roll one out quite yet.

There might, though, be a slightly larger version, perhaps around eight inches or slightly more.

While not getting a 10-inch version might disappoint some, with Apple’s latest iPad expected to be a smaller version, sources said that competing head on with the old one is a possibility but might not come in this iteration.

The Seven-Inch Kindle Fire:

As reported by AllThingsD’s John Paczkowski, there will be an updated seven-inch device, which is expected to be thinner and lighter than the original.

It is also likely to have a built-in camera and a much-improved display. Developers are being told to expect a display with a 1280×800 pixel resolution, which is a bit different than the 1024×600 display of the current Kindle Fire.

Back-Lit E-Reader:

One of the biggest upgrades to expect in the black-and-white department is a device with back-lit technology to compete with the Nook Simple Touch with its GlowLight. The Seattle mega-retailer has kept this product under wraps, but a small acquisition made in late 2010 gives the effort away.

That company, founded in 1991 in Helsinki, was named Oy Modilis. It has a number of patents relating to lighting technology that can be used in e-readers, according to TechCrunch, which spotted an early prototype a few months ago.

Price:

Since the Kindle Fire was introduced last year, the seven-inch Nexus 7 came out with many of the same specs and at the exact same price point. If the original Fire has a chance to continue on, it would have to fall below $199 with the new version at or near that price to remain competitive.

How low can it go? What if there were a bare-bones device subsidized by Prime subscriptions and advertising? Still, about 16 months ago, Kindle Director Jay Marine told AllThingsD ”the economics don’t work” for a free Kindle.

Connectivity:

Today, the Fire ships with Wi-Fi, but no cellular connectivity. Expect that to change, but how it will work is anyone’s guess. Today, Amazon packages 3G with some of its more expensive e-ink readers for free.

But that seems like an impossible model when it comes to devices designed to be media hogs. While not optimal to make consumers pay for 3G or 4G, having the option is a feature consumers might be looking for.

Barnes & Noble Nook E-Reader Goes International

John Paczkowski — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 15:15:51 +0000

Barnes & Noble has finally scheduled the long-awaited international debut of its Nook e-reader. The company said Monday that it will begin selling its Nook Simple Touch and Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight in the U.K. in mid-October. The devices will be sold online through a new digital storefront, and also via some as of yet unannounced retail partners in the country. For Barnes & Noble, the largest bookstore retailer in the U.S. by far, this is an important push forward into the e-book sector, amid increasingly heated competition with Amazon, which already peddles its Kindle e-reader in the U.K. and other international markets.

Make Any Bag a Powerbag With myCharge Battery Pack

Lauren Goode — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 13:00:24 +0000

It’s back-to-school season, which means it’s time to stock up on gear. The upside of digital devices like smartphones, e-readers and tablets invading the classroom is that they’re replacing the 20 pounds of textbooks that students would normally carry on their backs.

The bad news is that, unlike the dead tree versions of books, these items are battery-operated and require constant recharging.

So, for this week’s review I took a look at some battery-charging products that can juice up multiple devices while you’re carrying them in a backpack or laptop bag. I mainly focused on the portable myCharge, made by Michigan-based RFA Brands. This multipurpose battery pack launched Aug. 1, and is available in a variety of colors and prices, from $50 to $100. The one I tested, the myCharge Peak 6000, is at the high end.

RFA also makes Powerbags that come with built-in packs for juicing up your phone and tablets. The ones I tested — a messenger bag and a backpack — cost $140 and $180, respectively.

[ See post to watch video ]

At two-and-a-half to three pounds each, the Powerbags were too heavy and bulky for my everyday use, and I discovered that they charge certain devices at a snail’s pace. The portable myCharge, however, was more useful. Unlike some countertop power-pack solutions with tentacle-like wire attachments, the myCharge was light enough to throw in a bag to create my own homemade Powerbag. And when I was carrying around multiple devices, I found a myCharge to be much more helpful than something like an attachable battery pack for a phone.

It’s important to note, though, that none of these products charge laptops, which might be their biggest drawback.

The myCharge Peak 6000 is named as such because it’s a 6,000 milliamp (mA) battery pack. That means it can charge an iPhone four times in a cycle before the myCharge itself needs to recharge. If you charge two devices at once, it cuts those charging claims in half.

The myCharge can actually charge up to three devices at once, with little rubber arms that hold micro-USB, USB and Apple connectors, in addition to its USB port. It works with iPhone, iPod, iPad, BlackBerry and an assortment of other phones. While it is compatible with the new iPad, it won’t charge it very well, due to discrepancies in milliamps.

The myCharge casing is made of glossy white plastic with gray sides and a matching strip down the middle. Overall, the device measures 4.25 inches by 7.25 inches, is 2.5 inches thick and weighs half a pound. All of the charging connectors snap in and out of the device, keeping it compact and free of wire tangles. Even the device’s own AC wall plug is wire-free and tucked into the back of the myCharge.

While the myCharge Peak 6000 packs a lot of power, it isn’t super-speedy. When I charged my nearly-dead iPhone using the myCharge Peak 6000, it took nearly two hours to get to 100 percent, longer than it would normally take to charge my phone when it was plugged into a wall outlet. I found that I used the myCharge more often when I was looking for a quick boost on the go. When I was home, I would still plug my devices into a wall outlet.

I really liked the myCharge’s new voice notifications, which the earlier version of the 6,000mA myCharge lacks. It told me how much power the myCharge had, and acknowledged when I plugged in different devices. It also told me when the myCharge itself needed to be charged.

One drawback of the myCharge is that you can’t charge two of the same devices simultaneously without carrying a cord. So, when I was charging my iPhone, I could only charge an iPad 2 via the USB port on the myCharge. When I created a makeshift Powerbag one night by tucking the myCharge in my purse, my dinner companion and I couldn’t both charge our iPhones.

However, I could charge an iPhone at the same time as I charged a Kindle, or a Samsung smartphone, via micro-USB. And with the myCharge, the Galaxy Nexus charged much more quickly than it did with the Powerbag.

The $140 Powerbag messenger bag contains a 3,000mA battery pack that can charge four devices at once. It has micro-USB, mini-USB and 30-pin connectors — the proprietary plugs for Apple devices — as well as a spare USB port. It has some style, and smartly weaves charging cables through the bag. When I plugged in my 50 percent-charged iPhone, it fit neatly into a small pocket in the bag, and by the end of a hour-long business meeting, the phone was charged.

The Powerbag backpack offers the same connectors, and contains a more powerful 6,000mA battery back. But it has so much unnecessary bulk that I doubt anyone would be the cool kid in school — or the office – with this bag. I carried it to a tech event here in New York City and, while I appreciated the extra source of battery life, I found it to be just as cumbersome as the backpack I usually use for carrying my professional camera gear.

In my experience, the Powerbags charged one of my test phones — a Samsung Galaxy Nexus — at an incredibly slow rate. After more than an hour of charge time, the initially-drained smartphone had charged 33 percent.

RFA Brands says that even though the Powerbags come with 6,000mA and 3,000mA batteries, they only deliver a 500mA current (comparable to charging from your laptop via USB) to tablets and other newer devices, including the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the phone I tested. This results in slower charging.

Also, while the Powerbags are compatible with all Amazon Kindles and the Barnes & Noble Nook e-reader, as well as the original iPad and iPad 2 — they won’t fully charge the new iPad, due to the new iPad’s high-milliamp battery.

While I wouldn’t recommend investing in the Powerbags, the myCharge Peak 6000 is a solid device with multiple charging options, ideal for regular travelers, business people shuttling to and from meetings, or students looking to charge those digital devices for class.

New Samsung Tablet Offers a Stylus and a Split Screen

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 15:02:52 +0000

Even though they’ve been the best known competitors to Apple’s dominant iPad, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab tablets have lagged far behind the leader in popularity. For instance, according to documents Samsung had to release at a patent trial last week, three leading Galaxy Tab models, combined, had sold just 1.4 million units in the U.S. from the fourth quarter of 2010 through the middle of 2012. Apple documents said it sold 29.7 million iPads in the U.S. during the same period.

[ See post to watch video ]

So, Samsung is trying something new. This week, it is releasing a new flagship full-size tablet, the Galaxy Note 10.1, designed around two key features the iPad lacks—a stylus and several apps that allow you to use it for note-taking and sketching, and the ability to view two apps at once in a split-screen view.

In particular, Samsung is betting on the stylus, which the company calls the S Pen, to attract users who find typing on glass to be limiting and might want, at least occasionally, to simulate pen and paper. The late Apple CEO Steve Jobs disdained the stylus as a tool, although lots of third-party styluses are now sold for use even with the iPad.

I’ve been testing the Galaxy Note 10.1 for the past four days and, in general, I like it. It works smoothly and quickly, and the stylus and split-screen features perform as promised. However, I found its battery life to be much lower than the iPad’s, and some of Samsung’s software to be overly complicated. Plus, even Samsung concedes that the key differentiator, the pen, isn’t likely to be used by most people most of the time.

Still, I can recommend the Galaxy Note 10.1 as a better choice than the iPad for people who value the stylus or split-screen capability, or for those who prefer Android.

This new tablet builds on a previous Samsung stylus-equipped product, a 5-inch Galaxy Note released in February. But that device was actually a huge $300 phone, with some tablet features, a sort of tweener product that some nicknamed a “phablet.” This new Galaxy Note is a pure tablet about the size of the iPad and with the same base price of $499.99 for a 16 gigabyte version. The Galaxy Tab will remain available.

Like other Samsung products, the Note 10.1 is based on Google’s Android operating system, with some software features added by Samsung. It uses last year’s version of Android, called Ice Cream Sandwich, though Samsung promises an upgrade to the newer, sleeker, Jelly Bean version at an unspecified date.

Pen-compatible apps pop up on the side of the screen when the pen is removed from its slot.

The new tablet looks different as well. It has a plastic case with a thin, silvery border, twin front-mounted speakers and a storage slot for the stylus. Also, unlike the iPad, it has an easily accessed slot for extra-cost flash memory cards that can expand its storage. It’s lighter than the iPad and slightly thinner.

The new Note has much lower screen resolution than the new iPad, though I found videos and photos looked good. The front and rear cameras were decent, and the twin front speakers sounded better than the iPad’s speaker on the back.

[ See post to watch video ]

Using the S Pen for simple handwriting or sketching was easy. It can detect over 1,000 degrees of pressure, so you can learn to make lines thicker or thinner based on how hard you press. But you don’t want to lose the stylus: It costs $40 to replace.

When you remove the pen from its slot, a menu of mostly pen-compatible apps pops up on the side of the screen. The primary app for the pen is called S Note. It’s essentially a free-form electronic pad. You can jot down notes or sketch in it. The notes can be translated into handwriting, something I found worked only moderately well. S Note also can transform shapes you draw, like circles or triangles, into perfect images. This worked great for me.

Most of these tasks were simple to do, though there are a lot of menus and choices that can make this easy app complicated. And if you’re drawing something that requires scrolling, you’re forced to use a mini-version of the page to scroll to the place you want.

I also tested the pen in two non-Samsung apps that are bundled with the device. One is Polaris Office, an app that handles Microsoft Office documents. Here, you can annotate documents by hand, but not create them with handwriting. The other is an Android version of Adobe Photoshop, called PS Touch, where the pen proved handy in tasks like cutting unwanted backgrounds out of photos.

The pen can also be used in place of your finger to navigate through the tablet. Samsung says it doesn’t expect many people to use the pen this way. In fact, a spokesman said the company sees the pen as something most people will only use some of the time.

In the Galaxy Note 10.1, some apps can share the screen, and you can copy and paste between them.

The split-screen feature works with a limited selection of apps, such as S Note, email and the browser. While in this multiscreen mode, each app takes up half the screen, and you can copy and paste content between them. I liked using this feature, but found copying and pasting often required multiple, clumsy steps, like taking screen shots of what’s in one app, and then cropping.

In addition to the stylus and split screen, the new Note has some features, mostly about beaming and sharing content, carried over from Samsung’s new Galaxy S III smartphone. As on the phone, I found these somewhat complex. Like the iPad, the Note will be able to beam content to a TV wirelessly, via an adapter, but the adapter isn’t ready for release yet.

Another useful feature on the Note is a pop-up row of mini-apps at the bottom of the screen. These are stripped-down versions of core apps: email, calendar, calculator, music player and S Note.

I also liked a video feature: You can view a movie in pop-out mode. It appears in a small window and continues to play while you do something else, like surf the Web. Another nice video feature missing on the iPad: You can set the video player to auto-play a series of videos, one after another.

The biggest downside of the Galaxy Note 10.1, in my tests, was battery life. Using my standard, tough, tablet battery test, it lasted only seven hours and 27 minutes between charges, about 2.5 hours less than the Apple device.

With its stylus and split-screen features, the Galaxy Note 10.1 may well give Samsung the boost it needs in the ever more competitive tablet wars.

Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Corrections & Amplifications

An earlier version of this article incorrectly had the price of the Galaxy Note 10.1 as $499.

From Google, the Toughest Challenger to the iPad

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 01:02:26 +0000

Tired of watching in frustration as its popular Android mobile operating system failed to make much of a dent in the tablet market, Google is stepping in next week with an Android tablet it helped design. It’s the Nexus 7, a $199 model with a 7-inch screen. And in my view, it’s a winner.

[ See post to watch video ]

After testing the Nexus 7 for a couple of weeks, I consider it the best Android tablet I’ve used. It’s a serious alternative to both Apple’s larger $499 iPad and to a more direct rival: Amazon’s $199, Android-based, 7-inch Kindle Fire. I prefer the Nexus 7 to 7-inch models from Google partners like Samsung, whose comparable product costs $250.

The new Google tablet doesn’t have all the features of the iPad. For instance, it lacks a cellular connectivity option, a rear camera and the iPad’s dazzling screen resolution. Its base model has half the memory of the iPad’s. It offers fewer content choices — music, movies, TV shows — than either the Apple or Amazon devices do. It also has very few apps designed for a tablet, as opposed to a phone, while the iPad boasts over 200,000 apps for tablet use. And its screen area is less than half the size of the iPad’s.

The Google Nexus 7′s My Library home screen displays a user’s recent media content.

But Google’s tablet is a better choice than the iPad for people on a budget; for those who prefer a lighter, more compact tablet that’s easier to carry and operate with one hand; and for those who prefer Google’s ecosystem of apps, services and content to Apple’s.

Despite some drawbacks, I found it a pleasure to use.

The Nexus 7 even includes an artificial-intelligence feature, following in the path of Apple’s much-touted Siri. It answers some spoken questions, like Siri does. But it also presents a screen, called Google Now, with information it considers relevant to you at your present location and time — like the weather, traffic conditions between home and work, your next calendar appointment, and information for flights you’ve been researching.

The Nexus 7 also carries an unusual distinction: It’s the first tablet I’ve tested that beats the iPad in my standard battery test. It lasted over 10 hours, about 45 minutes more than the latest iPad.

Every tablet must be compared with the iPad, which has become synonymous with the category. And Apple is rumored to be planning a smaller, less costly iPad, which could give the Nexus 7 a run for its money.

But for now at least, the Nexus 7 seems to be aimed more at competing with the Kindle Fire. Like the Fire, it’s being positioned mainly as a content-consumption device. Unlike Apple, Google is playing down the productivity and creativity aspects of the Nexus 7 and treating it, as Amazon does, mostly as an inexpensive hardware portal to the company’s cloud-based offerings of music, video, books and magazines.

The Google Now screen shows data relevant to you and your location — like weather, traffic and a calendar appointment.

The home screen of the Nexus 7 is a colorful array of large representations of the most recent songs, books and other content you’ve been using. The Android Market, the company’s app and content store, has been renamed Google Play, and the marketing for the Nexus 7 includes phrases like “Made for Google Play” and “The Playground is Open.”

The size and price advantages of the Nexus 7 are similar to those of the Kindle Fire, but the quality of the hardware and software in the new Google slate blows away those of the Fire. The latter is a chunky device that lacks a camera and microphone, and has a heavily modified version of Android, which can be sluggish. The Nexus 7 is a sleek, handsome tablet with a smooth, quick, new version of Android. In my test, the battery life of the Nexus 7 exceeded the Fire’s by a huge margin: Nearly five hours.

Also, even though Google isn’t emphasizing it, the Nexus 7, like other Android devices, can run 600,000 apps, almost as many as Apple offers, and far ahead of the 25,000 available for the Fire.

In my experience, too many of these Android apps — which Google doesn’t vet in advance — are flaky and inferior to those in the curated collections of Apple and Amazon. But even if you only count the good ones, they far outstrip what the Fire offers, and include many apps that enable the Nexus 7 to also be a productivity and creation device.

The Nexus 7, which was built for Google by Asus, is a special type of Google product, all labeled Nexus, which the company sees as a best-of-breed example for Android hardware makers. There have been Nexus phones, but this is the first Nexus tablet. It’s is available for preorder now at Google’s online store, play.google.com, and the company expects to start delivering it next week. Also next week, it will become available at a few physical retailers. There’s no cellular fee needed to use it, as it’s a Wi-Fi-only device.

Along with the new tablet, Google is introducing a new version of Android, called Jelly Bean. This isn’t a revolutionary update, but it refines and polishes the operating system by making it much smoother and faster to use (Google calls this “butteriness”) and adding the Google Now feature.

Jelly Bean is also now available for the Galaxy Nexus phone by Samsung, and will slowly roll out to some other Android devices.

Jelly Bean finally puts Android on a par with Apple’s iOS operating system, which drives the iPhone and iPad, in two key respects: Responsiveness (when the hardware is potent enough) and elimination of the constant need to resort to menus, which plagued most prior versions of Android.

In my battery test, where I keep the screen at 75% brightness, leave the Internet connection on and email collecting in the background and play videos back to back, the Nexus 7 lasted 10 hours and 44 minutes. The current iPad logged nine hours and 58 minutes on the same test (albeit while driving a much more power-hungry screen) and the Fire lasted five hours and 47 minutes.

So what are the drawbacks of the Nexus 7?

The main one is that some key content is missing. Shows from many popular TV networks aren’t offered, including hits like “Mad Men” and “Modern Family.” And magazines from Time Inc., like Time and Sports Illustrated, are absent. Google says it’s working on adding more content. Also, many of Google’s books are out-of-print volumes from before 1923.

I found some magazine pages were a bit fuzzy, and the books app lacks a basic feature: The ability to select a word to search for it in the book, get a definition or add a highlight or note. Google says it plans to add this feature.

Google’s voice-controlled question-and-answer feature, like Apple’s Siri, didn’t understand me or get it right a lot of the time. And it didn’t understand some questions Siri does, like “Will I need an umbrella today?”

And Google Now requires you to compromise some privacy, by allowing the service to track your location and search history. It tries to figure out your home address by detecting where the device is during most nights.

Overall, however, Google and Asus have produced a very good tablet in the Nexus 7, one I can recommend.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

An E-Reader Revolution for Africa?

Geoffrey A. Fowler and Nicholas Bariyo — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 18:23:33 +0000

It is time for a vocabulary lesson in Bernard Opio’s sixth-form class at the Humble Primary School in Mukono, Uganda. One new word the students have already learned this year is “Kindle.”

Mr. Opio instructs them to pull out their Amazon.com Kindle e-reading devices. Within seconds, most of the teenagers have a digital Oxford English Dictionary open on their screens. “It took the kids just a few days to learn how to use them,” says Mr. Opio.

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