AllThingsD » gigabyte

Cisco Lays Out Aggressive Strategy to Capture More Cloud Business

Arik Hesseldahl — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:37:12 +0000

Networking giant Cisco Systems has been angling to be a serious provider of cloud technology for a few years now, but hasn’t really laid out a strategy for how it intends to get there. Now that I think about it, it will be exactly a year ago tomorrow that I did my very first AllThingsD interview with Lew Tucker, Cisco’s CTO for cloud computing.

Today, Cisco finally laid out a cohesive strategy to become a significant player in the cloud business. It announced an offering called CloudVerse that combines three big elements — its Unified Data Center, Cloud Intelligent Network and Cloud Applications — into a big portfolio aimed at companies building out their data centers.

The idea is basically this: If you want to build a cloud, either to resell cloud services of some kind or for your company’s own internal operations, Cisco wants to talk to you. Under the CloudVerse tent are a bunch of offerings including computing, networking, collaboration and software for automating and managing it all.

Cisco named a handful of companies who are already CloudVerse customers, and a few will catch your eye, because they’re big. One is Terremark, the Web-hosting and cloud-services outfit that telecom giant Verizon acquired earlier this year. Others include Telecom Italia, Telefonica Spain and Fujitsu.

Naturally, Cisco is hoping to use its position as the supplier of choice for networking gear as a springboard into selling more stuff inside the data center, and it already has key relationships with many a corporate CIO. A key part of its go-to-market strategy will be convincing those CIOs that it has something unique to offer.

Here’s one such thing: The Network Positioning System and Cloud-to-Cloud connected. Imagine you have a sprawling set of far-flung data centers around the globe. When one center gets starts to get close to reaching its capacity load — maybe it’s Cyber Monday or something — Cisco’s NPS technology allows the routers in one data center to start automatically looking around for capacity elsewhere, to keep things humming along.

There’s a lot more detail to it, but it’s worth pointing out that, as a percentage of Cisco’s business, the cloud business isn’t huge. On an earnings conference call with analysts last month, CEO John Chambers said that the Unified Computing System that forms the backbone of its server business had recorded 116 percent revenue growth year over year; even with that, it’s on run-rate to being a $1 billion annualized business. If it hits that mark in Cisco’s fiscal year 2012, which ends in July, it will amount to about 2 percent of estimated annual sales.

But Cisco expects the cloud business opportunity to grow like crazy. Last week, it issued something called the Cisco Cloud Index, which estimates that more than half of all computing workloads will be running in data centers by 2014, and that the daily traffic conducted on cloud services of various types will amount to 1.6 zettabytes per year. My math may be off a bit, but compare it to the scale of your average hard drive — a zettabyte amounts to a billion terabytes, or a trillion gigabytes. Cisco describes it as enough data to amount to four days of high-quality video streaming for every person on Earth.

It’s a serious opportunity, no doubt. The question is whether or not Cisco can exploit it in a manner that moves the needle. Doing so is an important part of the strategy that Chambers set forth as part of the epic restructuring that has been going on at Cisco since last year. Investors seem to like what they see, as Cisco shares are trading at $18.80 today, which is up 41 percent from a recent 52-week low. As turnarounds go, it does look like progress.

New iPhone Keeps Apple Top of Class

Walter S. Mossberg — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 23:02:18 +0000

Just three years ago, Apple wasn’t in the mobile-phone business at all. Since then, its game-changing iPhone has become the most influential smartphone in the world. Now, on June 24, the company will roll out the fourth generation of the device, called the iPhone 4.

[ See post to watch video ]

While attractive, capable new smartphones emerge regularly from competitors, a new iPhone deserves special attention for two reasons. First, the device lies at the center of a huge ecosystem of 225,000 apps, plus popular related gadgets like Apple’s iPod Touch connected media player and iPad tablet, which collectively are approaching 100 million units sold. Second, the iPhone’s multitouch, gesture-based interface; elegant Web browser; sophisticated music and video playback; and other features have been emulated on many competing devices, so what Apple does affects the whole industry.

I’ve been testing the iPhone 4 for more than a week. In both hardware and software, it is a major leap over its already-excellent predecessor, the iPhone 3GS.

It has some downsides and limitations—most important, the overwhelmed AT&T network in the U.S., which, in my tests, the new phone handled sometimes better and, unfortunately, sometimes worse than its predecessor. I’ll get into that below. But, overall, Apple (AAPL) has delivered a big, well-designed update that, in my view, keeps it in the lead in the smartphone wars.

The iPhone 4 is a dramatic redesign. It manages to pack a radically sharper screen; a second, front-facing camera; a larger battery; a better rear camera with flash; and a faster processor into a body that is 24% thinner, a bit narrower, and retains the same length and weight as its predecessor’s. In fact, Apple claims that the iPhone 4 is the world’s thinnest smartphone and sports the world’s highest-resolution smartphone screen.

With the front-facing camera, and clever new software called FaceTime, Apple has brought simple, high-quality video calling to mobile phones, albeit, for now, only over Wi-Fi and only among iPhone 4 owners. In multiple tests, this feature worked very well for me and is a classic example of the value of having one company do integrated hardware and software.

In addition, the iPhone now includes an updated operating system—which also can be installed free on the prior model—that introduces catch-up software features such as limited multitasking (the ability to run apps simultaneously); folders for grouping related apps; and, for email, a unified inbox for multiple accounts and the ability to present messages as threaded conversations. This software is called iOS4.

The iPhone 4 will cost the same as the iPhone 3GS: $199 for a model with 16 gigabytes of memory and $299 for 32 gigabytes, with a two-year contract from AT&T (T). The 3GS model will drop to $99 with a two-year contract and 8 gigabytes of memory.

Design

Physically, the iPhone 4 is attractive and feels great in the hand. Even the back is now clad in glass, which Apple claims is a superstrong variety 30 times tougher than plastic. I dropped it several times from a few feet onto a hard surface with no problem, and it acquired no scratches at all in my testing, even though I didn’t use a case or coddle it.

Although it is the same weight as its predecessor, the iPhone 4 feels denser and tighter—more like a fine possession than a disposable gadget. It still looks like an iPhone, but it manages to make the 3GS appear bulbous by comparison.

While its 3.5-inch screen, once considered huge, is now smaller than those on some other smartphones, the high resolution packs in a lot of material and makes text appear almost like ink on fine paper. The software is simply richer looking and smoother to use than on competing phones I’ve tested, with fewer confusing menus and settings, and far more apps.

Screen, Voice, Battery and Camera

Always brilliant at marketing, Apple has dubbed its new screen the “Retina display.” At a resolution of 960×640, it has four times the pixels of its predecessor and displays a whopping 326 pixels per inch. I don’t know how it compares with the human retina, but I do know that, just as Apple claims, text on the screen shows no jagged lines, even when expanded to giant size.

Voice quality was quite good, even on long speaker-phone calls, and data performance over Wi-Fi was excellent. Video and audio streamed from the Web played smoothly.

Apple claims longer battery life for most functions—seven hours of talk time, for instance, versus five hours on the earlier model. I didn’t perform a precise battery test, but, even in heavy use, the iPhone 4′s battery never reached the red zone on a single day of my tests.

The new rear camera is another big plus. My test pictures came out sharp and clear, even in low light and close-up situations. It isn’t the best cellphone camera I’ve tested, but it is a big improvement.

The iPhone 4 records video in high definition and, in my tests, these videos came out very well in most conditions. Apple also is selling for $5 an iPhone version of its Macintosh video-editing program, iMovie, for editing the videos.

FaceTime

Video calling is one of this device’s best features. As noted, it currently requires an iPhone 4 and Wi-Fi connection on both ends, though Apple says it is making the technology free to others and hopes to have millions of compatible devices. There is no setup and nothing to learn. You just press a FaceTime button, and if the other person accepts the invitation to talk face to face, his or her image appears, with your own image showing in a small corner window.

You can tap an icon on the screen to swap the front camera for the rear one, so you can show your caller around the room, or include other people near you who are behind the phone.

You can even begin a video call as an audio cellular call, push a button, and switch it to a Wi-Fi FaceTime call. It worked great for me, except for a couple of brief freeze-ups.

Multitasking

After years of complaints, Apple finally has brought multitasking to the iPhone. But it has done so in a limited way that won’t please everyone. On the iPhone 4, multitasking doesn’t mean every app can work fully in the background. To prevent a disastrous drain on battery life, Apple has allowed only certain apps to fully multitask. These include streaming audio services like Pandora, which keep playing music from the Web while you do other things, and voice-prompted navigation apps, which keep working while you’re on a call. Others that fully work in the background include Internet calling apps, and those that perform long downloads.

But some logical candidates, such as Twitter and Facebook, merely pause in place when you switch away from them. You can get back to them quickly, and they update more rapidly than before, but they don’t constantly update in the background. They only wake up in the background if you have set them to notify you of an update, and then only for a limited time. Apple says constant fetching of hundreds of social-networking updates in the background would kill the battery too quickly.

In fact, for many scenarios, such as games, Apple’s version of multitasking is really just fast switching among open apps that save their place. And, even to achieve this, the apps must be updated. For some users, this limited version of multitasking will be a disappointment.

To use multitasking you just press the iPhone’s home button twice and a row of icons representing running apps appears. Click on the one you want and, if it has been updated for the new operating system, it will appear just as you left it.

Multitasking also will work on updated iPhone 3GS models, but not on models older than that.

Folders

Because iPhone users can easily accumulate hundreds of apps, it can become difficult to organize them. So the new iPhone OS now allows you to group them into folders. For instance, I grabbed the icon for The Wall Street Journal app, dragged it on top of the one for the Washington Post app, and a folder was instantly created called “News,” based on the apps’ built-in categories. You can change the name to anything you like, or alter or disassemble the folders.

The Big Downside

The most important downside of the iPhone 4 is that, in the U.S., it’s shackled to AT&T, which not only still operates a network that has trouble connecting and maintaining calls in many cities, but now has abandoned unlimited, flat-rate data plans. Apple needs a second network.

Both Apple (AAPL) and AT&T (T) told me they worked to make the iPhone 4 do a better job with AT&T’s network. For example, the phone itself is surrounded by a prominent stainless-steel trim piece that acts as a large antenna. And Apple said it also tuned the phone to try to grab whatever band on the network was less congested or less affected by interference—to stress the quality of a signal over its raw strength. AT&T said it, too, made some changes to its network with the new iPhone in mind.

But, in my tests, network reception was a mixed bag. Compared with the previous model, the new iPhone dropped marginally fewer calls made in my car, both in Washington and in Boston, and was much louder and clearer over my car’s built-in Bluetooth speaker-phone system.

Yet, in some places where the signal was relatively weak, the iPhone 4 showed no bars, or fewer bars than its predecessor. Apple says that this is a bug it plans to fix, and that it has to do with the way the bars are presented, not the actual ability to make a call. And, in fact, in nearly all of these cases, the iPhone 4 was able to place calls despite the lack of bars.

However, on at least six occasions during my tests, the new iPhone was either reporting “no service” or searching for a network while the old one, held in my other hand, was showing at least a couple of bars. Neither Apple nor AT&T could explain this. The iPhone 4 quickly recovered in these situations, showing service after a few seconds, but it was still troubling.

Just as with its predecessors, I can’t recommend this new iPhone for voice calling for people who experience poor AT&T reception, unless they are willing to carry a second phone on a network that works better for them.

For everyone else, however, I’d say that Apple has built a beautiful smartphone that works well, adds impressive new features and is still, overall, the best device in its class.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

More iPhone 4 Coverage »

Using the iPad as a Standalone Device

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 21:42:40 +0000

Can the iPad can be used totally on its own, or must you sync it with another computer? If I bought an iPad for my grandmother, who has no other computer, would she be able to just download apps and music and rent movies solely via the iTunes Store on the iPad?

Yes, but with a catch. Based on what Apple (AAPL) has said, iPad owners will be able to buy apps, music and books, and buy and rent video, right on the device, without requiring a PC or Mac running iTunes software. You can also synchronize contacts, email and calendar items over the air, from an online source, instead of over a cable from your computer.

However, Apple’s Web site suggests you’ll need to connect to a computer running iTunes in order to back up the iPad, and, if the iPhone is any guide, you will likely need to do the same to upgrade the iPad’s operating system whenever Apple updates it.

I enjoyed your article on the two new Lenovo computers you’ve tested. The ThinkPad Edge sounds like a machine that will suit my needs quite well. You mentioned in the article that the machine you tested was upgraded from the base model. What were the specifications of your test machine?

The $799 model I tested differs from the $579 base model by having a more powerful Intel (INTC) processor; 4 gigabytes of memory instead of 2 gigabytes; a 320-gigabyte hard disk versus 250 gigabytes; a different graphics card and a higher-capacity battery. Full specs are in the left-hand column on this Web page: http://bit.ly/7jNBcw.

In your column of March 18, you gave the advice: “There are easier ways to erase all cookies, by using a function in your Web browser.” How do you do this?

In Internet Explorer 8, select the Safety menu, choose “Delete Browsing History,” uncheck everything but “Cookies,” and click “Delete.” In Firefox 3.6, select the Tools menu, and then “Clear Recent History.” Then click “Details,” uncheck everything but “Cookies,” and pick “Everything” from the time range list.

In Safari 4.0, go to Preferences, then “Security,” then “Show Cookies,” then choose “Remove All.”

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

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

In Mobile Gymnastics, the Motorola Backflip Scores a 6

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:47:23 +0000

Touch screens are now prevalent enough on mobile devices that I find myself touching the screens of every new gadget I see. My trusty index finger of a stylus is ready at all times to swipe, pinch, double tap and scroll since these are natural gestures.

[ See post to watch video ]

Yet touch screens have some downsides. Finger gestures leave smudge marks on the glass screens and monopolize screen real estate, making it hard to show the screen to someone while navigating. Also, touch screens often require two hands.

This week, I tested a smart phone with a solution for two of the three touch-screen problems. The Motorola Backflip (http://3.ly/Ku9), which became available March 7, lets people navigate its screen by touching a panel behind it, thus keeping fingers off of the screen. This trackpad-like panel is appropriately named the Backtrack and works like magic: On-screen objects are selected, text scrolls and screens open, but you can’t see the fingers manipulating the screen because they’re hidden behind it.

The Backflip, which runs on AT&T’s (T) 3G network, costs $100 after a $100 mail-in rebate and a two-year agreement. Its name comes from its design: The Backflip’s screen seems to flip backward when the QWERTY keyboard flips down for use. In the device’s “closed” position, the keyboard flips back up and is automatically turned off.

I’ve been using the Motorola Backflip for emailing, Web browsing, social networking, taking photos and making phone calls. While I applaud its creative design and the idea of the Backtrack, I think it sacrifices functionality for form. Take, for example, its QWERTY keyboard, which has a subtly handsome design when the Backflip is closed. But when used for typing, its shallow keys don’t give much tactile feedback and are tough to use. Likewise, the Backtrack is clever, but only works when the phone is the flat, opened position, forcing people to reach around both the keyboard and the screen to use it. I often found myself giving up and just touching the screen directly, which also works.

Other companies’ mobile devices have found ways around actually touching their touch screens, silly as it may sound. Palm’s (PALM) Pre and Pixi models use a gesture area beneath the screen to navigate—with just one hand holding and swiping.

The Backflip in opened position.

I easily set up two email accounts and Twitter and Facebook accounts on my Backflip. There are also shortcuts for setting up accounts for Picasa, Photobucket, Bebo, LastFM and MySpace.

The Motorola Backflip runs Motoblur, the company’s social-network and message-consolidating software, which I found to be an attractive interface with intelligent capabilities. For instance, if it senses you’re checking it a lot, it will update the displayed messages more frequently. Motoblur also uses images from contacts, like their Facebook or Twitter photo, and displays these as small background icons behind Motoblur messages from that person. This is a small detail, but it brings an extra spark of life to everyday messages.

But Motoblur lacks one of the most popular Twitter functions: the ability to re-tweet, or re-message someone else’s tweet (Twitter status). A Motorola (MOT) representative said re-tweet is under evaluation, but won’t disclose details about timing. Motoblur has been available for six months, first seen in the Motorola CLIQ.

Oddly, the Backflip runs the Android 1.5 operating system, not the newest Android 2.1. A Motorola representative said the company plans to update this but wouldn’t say when. It seems strange for a brand-new device not to run the newest operating system.

Phone calls were clear and loud, and photos captured on the five-megapixel, flash, digital zoom camera looked great. I enjoyed using the Backflip’s bright, 3.1-inch screen with 320×480 pixel resolution. Though I wasn’t crazy about typing on its keyboard, I did like the keyboard shortcut keys for the Web browser, home, email and search. With the Backflip in its opened position, I used the Backtrack—the trackpad behind the screen—to skip around from one thing to the next. Double tapping on anything selected it, and I swiped my fingers down on the Backtrack to scroll a long news story on the browser.

The Backflip is designed so that whenever it’s plugged into its wall charger or set at a 90-degree angle, it goes into Tabletop mode, showing a large digital clock with the local weather, date and options for setting an alarm. This mode also offers a button for watching the device’s photos in a slow-panning, Ken Burns-like slideshow, which is useful for sharing with friends.

Monthly AT&T plans that work with the Backflip include a combination of the carrier’s required $30 unlimited data plan and a $40, $60 or $70 voice plan. It comes with a 2-gigabyte memory card, though it will work with one that holds up to 32 gigabytes. Its internal memory is 512 megabytes, and the memory available for apps is 220 megabytes, though certain apps can offload some data they use onto the roomier card.

Motorola deserves credit for trying an innovative design and for offering a unique way of moving fingers off of the touch screen. But the Backflip device seems unfinished because of several features that don’t work as well as they should.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Two Laptops Take Images to Another Dimension

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 22:37:58 +0000

If switching from standard to high-definition television wasn’t confusing enough, there’s another wave of TV technology on the horizon: 3D. But 3D TVs and much of the 3D content won’t be available until later this year, and even then most of these sets will be pricey and will require people to wear special glasses for viewing. If you can’t wait for a 3D TV to hit your living room, you can get a preview of what’s to come with the latest in 3D laptops.

[ See post to watch video ]

I feasted my eyes on 3D laptops this week, testing the $770 Acer Aspire 5738DG and checking out the $1,700 Asus G51J 3D. These two computers are aimed at different crowds and each uses different technology to display enhanced images. The Acer is designed as a laptop first and a 3D game player second, and it’s priced for mainstream consumers—only about $70 more than the model without 3D. The Asus laptop is meant for serious gamers who care about a high-quality 3D experience. Unfortunately, you still need to wear the 3D glasses with both.

The Acer Aspire laptop applies a slightly older 3D method known as micro-polarized display, often referred to as “micropol.” It combines software, a film layer on the computer screen and 3D glasses to make videos and photos pop out. This laptop can take 2D videos and photos and display them in 3D; it also plays about 150 3D games as well as 3D movies, of which there aren’t many.

Acer converts 2D content to 3D by using a third-party software program called TriDef 3D, which people must use to see their photos and videos in 3D. Using this program is a bit clumsy and I tested it by loading my own photos and videos onto the Acer. A faster way to see photos or videos in 3D is by right clicking on the file from anywhere else on the PC and selecting an option to see it in TriDef’s 3D player. It was fun to see old images and videos in this 3D simulation.

I looked through a friend’s photos from a trip to Petra, Jordan, and the 3D sight of him riding a camel through a rock valley was spectacular. Files that were in the Windows Media Video format played without issue, and I watched two such videos including one of a bear lumbering around in a stream. But when I had trouble playing QuickTime and MP4 video files, a spokeswoman for Acer checked and confirmed that the TriDef program won’t play all QuickTime or MP4 video files; TriDef is working on fixing the MP4 problem.

Another problem with the Acer’s technology is that the laptop screen must be tilted at just the right angle—about 120 degrees—to see 3D properly. Otherwise the image looks blurry.

Eight photos and nine short videos come loaded on the Acer Aspire. All of these looked really good to my eyes, which were covered by the included black 3D shades. A clip-on piece for prescription glasses also comes with the laptop.

The Acer Aspire can be loaded with an Intel (INTC) Core 2 Duo processor, discrete graphics, 4 gigabytes of memory and a 320-gigabyte hard drive. Its keyboard includes a 10-key number set on the right, like that found on most desktop keyboards. Its bright screen measures 15.6 inches diagonally and it weighs 6.2 pounds.

The pricier Asus G51J 3D laptop comes loaded with Nvidia’s (NVDA) 3D Vision, considered to be a much higher quality 3D experience. This technology was originally only available on a desktop PC with several different necessary components. Now on a laptop, it displays 3D images to people as long as they’re wearing special battery-powered glasses and are standing no more than 40 feet away. These Nvidia glasses deliver the highest resolution possible per eye and enable wide viewing angles. The screen also has a high refresh rate of 120 hertz compared to the Acer’s 60 hertz.

Unlike the Acer Aspire, 2D photos and videos can’t be viewed in 3D on the Asus. Instead, this laptop depends on originally produced 3D content, including photos or videos that are captured using special technology like that found on 3D cameras such as Fujifilm’s FinePix REAL 3D W1, which are rare. As is also true on the Acer Aspire, movies only play on the Asus if they were created in 3D.

Games are another story. Nvidia 3D Vision will convert 2D games to 3D in real time using the computer’s graphics processor. Nvidia has tested some 430 games that work with this technology today.

Asus couldn’t send a G51J 3D laptop to me in time for this column, but I got a look at it in January while wearing the battery-operated Nvidia glasses, which work for 40 hours before a recharge and can fit over prescription glasses. This laptop has an Intel Core i7 processor and can have a hard drive of up to 500 gigabytes. It comes with 4 gigabytes of memory and its screen measures 15.6 inches. But it weighs 7.3 pounds, or about a pound heavier than the Acer.

Later this year, Acer also plans to make a laptop with Nvidia’s technology. (Acer currently uses Nvidia’s technology in its monitors.) Nvidia has announced plans for using its 120-hertz 3D Vision capability with laptops from Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics.

It’s obvious that, right now, 3D technology isn’t necessarily something most mainstream consumers want or need. Gamers will see Asus’s G51J 3D as an exciting mobile alternative to what was once only available in a desktop. And the Acer Aspire will appeal to casual gamers and people who want a trusty laptop and/or the ability to view some photos and videos in 3D. One thing’s for sure: Wearing the special glasses—no matter how stylish—is still a wearisome part of seeing things in 3D.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg.

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Get Your Storage Out of the Cloud

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:35:34 +0000

Ask anyone in the technology industry to talk about trends and “the cloud” is sure to come up in conversation. The cloud is a hip way of describing Web-accessible storage, and whether people know it or not, they’re using this more each day. Social networks save account information in the cloud. Photo-sharing sites store images in the cloud. Web-based email programs keep messages in the cloud. People also are starting to back up the contents of their computers to the cloud, which makes files accessible from almost anywhere using an Internet connection.

[ See post to watch video ]

Not everyone is gung-ho about storing personal data somewhere other than on their own PC. They might wonder who else can access the cloud’s contents and if the cloud is a truly reliable option for storage.

This week I tested Pogoplug (pogoplug.com), a $129 solution that lets people back up their digital files and access them via a Web browser, or mobile devices. It streams content through the cloud (Pogoplug servers), but never actually stores anything in the cloud. People keep their content on their own hard drive—the Pogoplug lets them access it elsewhere via the cloud.

For the most part, Pogoplug works like a charm. One downside is that files can be a bit slower to open from remote computers or mobile devices than on computers within the same network as the Pogoplug. But its single best attribute is its ability to do the job without trying to tell you every smart thing it’s doing in the background.

Unique Model

Pogoplug comes from San Francisco-based Cloud Engines Inc. and its business model is unlike other cloud-storage solutions. Pogoplug users pay upfront for the device and a hard drive of their choice, which is the storage device, and they never pay again. Other services store content in the cloud, making for faster remote access to files. But these services charge users monthly or annually for storage. ZumoDrive offers 2 gigabytes of storage free but charges annual fees ranging from $30 for 10 gigabytes to $800 for 500 gigabytes. SugarSync, a cloud-based synching program, also offers a free 2-gigabyte program, but charges from $50 to $250 a year for 30 to 250 gigabytes.

Pogoplug uses in-home storage with through-the-cloud access.

Cloud Engines sent me a hard drive for my testing: Seagate’s (STX) FreeAgent Go with 250 gigabytes of storage. This little rectangle costs $90 on Seagate.com or $69 on Amazon.com (AMZN), bringing my Pogoplug set-up total to $200. This is $180 less than just one year of ZumoDrive’s 200-gigabyte plan, or $50 less than SugarSync’s one-year, 250-gigabyte plan.

The Pogoplug is a white box with an electric pink strip running down one side and its underbelly. Three cables attach to it and run out to the wall socket, a router and whatever storage you choose (a hard drive or a small thumb drive). Each Pogoplug has four USB ports, allowing four hard drives or several USB hubs with additional USB ports to connect to the gadget at once.

A Mini Computer

The Pogoplug runs as a mini computer with its own processor that sends files out to the cloud for streaming whenever you want to see them. It creates thumbnails of photos and organizes media, making it easier to find on the my.pogoplug.com Web site. And Pogoplug also uses advanced networking to create a secure connection so people with firewalls and extra secure network settings can leave them just as they are.

Setting up Pogoplug is as simple as plugging in its three cords and pairing it with a computer. I shared with the Pogoplug at least 100 files from a Windows 7 PC and a MacBook Pro. I also set sharing to synchronize with Pogoplug whenever new files were added to designated files on my computers. All of this content was stored on the Seagate hard drive and neatly displayed on my.pogoplug.com.

Hunting for Files

This Web site looks sort of like a bare-bones version of iTunes. Three sections on the left—My Media; Show My Files (sorted into today, last week, last month, those I shared and those shared with me); and My Library—opened content in a large panel. Options at the bottom of the screen changed the way this content was displayed, and a search box enabled hunting through all types of files for specific words. I tried “snow” and found many results, thanks to photos taken of the recent storms in Washington, D.C.

Each file saved to Pogoplug is represented by a thumbnail image on the Web site and can be downloaded, shared or previewed by you or others with whom you share. Videos are, by default, shortened to 10-second previews, but an option in settings allows videos to always show in their full formats. An Upload button at the bottom lets people share content from whatever computer they are using to Pogoplug, and a Sharing button sends files to friends via email or social-networking sites including Twitter, Facebook and MySpace. Options let people set sharing so Pogoplug constantly updates friends whenever new data is added, like new photos added to an album.

Both Macs and PCs worked for me while I tested accessing Pogoplug on the three main browsers that run on both machines: Mozilla’s Firefox, Google’s (GOOG) Chrome and Apple’s (AAPL) Safari. Internet Explorer worked on Windows. I simply opened my.pogoplug.com, entered my username and password, and I could see all the files on the Seagate hard drive. A desktop app for the Mac or PC treats Pogoplug as a local drive, making it easy to drag and drop media to it.

Most common files types can be stored, accessed and shared through the Pogoplug. I tested sharing movies, music, photos, Microsoft Word documents, PDFs and others. These digital files can reside solely on the hard drives plugged into the Pogoplug. Computers in the same network opened files faster than computers or smart phones working in other places, but the wait wasn’t unbearable.

I also used a free Pogoplug app on the iPhone and Palm (PALM) Pre, and the interface was just as simple as the my.pogoplug.com site. A Pogoplug app also exists in the Android Market app store for Android phones, but the app for BlackBerry isn’t yet in RIM’s (RIMM) App Catalog and must be installed via the Desktop Manager. Even without an app, I used the iPhone browser to open shared files sent to me in emails, and had no trouble viewing images or listening to songs.

Pogoplug is a terrifically simple way to back up files and make them accessible from afar or on the go. Starting in March, Pogoplug will be capable of synchronizing and backing up content through the cloud service with other Pogoplugs located elsewhere. For instance, you can keep Pogoplug at home and one at the office and have a backup to your backup device.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg.

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

NAND Market Suffering From Apple-Related Memory Loss

John Paczkowski — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:45:16 +0000

The NAND flash memory supply may be heading for a drought, thanks to Apple. According to a new report from iSuppli, Cupertino is again planning to increase the iPhone’s memory, which will motivate rivals to boost memory in their smartphones.

The resulting demand for NAND flash will be “insatiable,” says iSuppli analyst Michael Yang. And supplies for the year will likely be strained. iSuppli figures that in 2010, iPhone shipments will reach 33 million units, up from 25.1 million in 2009–each with an average of 35.2 gigabytes of NAND.

That’s a hell of a lot of flash. Add to that the memory requirements of Apple’s iPod line and its new iPad slate and, well, you can see where things are going (see chart below; click to enlarge). Says Yang: “With the iPhone already the largest application for NAND, this huge growth is likely to lead to some periods of under-supply for the year.”

That’s not likely to be a problem for Apple (AAPL), which typically inks long-term supply agreements with its flash suppliers to ensure that its needs are met. Recall that the company boasted of a half-billion dollar flash memory deal with Toshiba last July.

“We did a long-term supply agreement with Toshiba,” Apple COO Tim Cook explained at the time. “As a part of that, as part of the terms and conditions, we paid them $500 million as a pre-pay earlier in the quarter. You know, we view Flash as a very key component for us because as you know we use it in so much on so many of our products and also we are a reasonable percentage of the user of Flash on a worldwide basis.”

But an undersupply of flash will almost certainly cause difficulties for other consumer electronics companies, which may be forced to grapple with part shortages and price increases across the entire NAND flash market.

Parallels Zips Past Fusion in Running Windows on Macs

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 02:04:07 +0000

One of the advantages of the Apple Macintosh is that it’s the only computer consumers can buy that is able to run both Apple’s own Mac operating system and Microsoft Windows on the same machine. That means that, if you prefer the Mac environment, but need to run a program only available in Windows, you can do so on the same Mac, and even at the same time.

For instance, while I am writing this column on a Mac laptop in the Mac OS, using the Mac version of Microsoft Word, I am also simultaneously running the latest versions of Internet Explorer and Outlook—which aren’t available for the Mac—in Windows, on the same machine. I can switch back and forth among these programs with ease.

[ See post to watch video ]

Now, the two most popular software products for accomplishing this feat, Parallels and VMware Fusion, have been updated to run faster, and to support the latest versions of the two operating systems, Apple’s (AAPL) Snow Leopard and Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows 7. Each costs $80 and requires a Mac running an Intel processor.

I’ve been comparing these latest versions, called Parallels Desktop 5 and VMware Fusion 3, using each to run Windows 7 on the same Mac laptop powered by Snow Leopard. My verdict is that, after falling behind Fusion for awhile, Parallels is now the best choice again. In my tests, it proved to be both faster, and more capable of handling the heavy-duty visual effects in Windows 7.

Both programs work by creating a so-called virtual machine—a software version of a physical computer—on the Mac. Inside these faux PCs, you can install any of dozens of operating systems and the applications that run on them. That includes numerous versions of Windows, including Windows XP and Vista, and, now, Windows 7. In order to do this, you will have to buy separately a new, full (not an upgrade) version of Windows, which costs about $200.

VMware Fusion’s Aero feature with Flip 3D effect

Both programs can run either the full Windows desktop, or individual Windows programs with the desktop hidden. Parallels now comes with a new mode, called Crystal, which integrates the Windows system even more, by placing the Windows Start menu and system tray icons in the Mac’s own top menu bar.

These virtual-machine programs shouldn’t be confused with Apple’s own built-in solution for running Windows on a Mac, called Boot Camp, which also has recently been updated to handle Windows 7. Boot Camp can’t run the two operating systems simultaneously; you must reboot the computer to switch between them. That gives Windows sole control of the hardware when it’s running, but many people find Boot Camp inconvenient. I didn’t test Boot Camp for this review.

Fusion 3, from Silicon Valley company VMware (VMW), is a relatively minor revision. The latest version is mainly designed to add speed, simplify the interface, make it compatible with Snow Leopard and Windows 7, and to improve graphics performance. It achieves most of these goals, but I still found it ran more slowly with Windows 7 than it did with Windows XP. It also was significantly pokier than Parallels 5.

In addition, I found that Fusion had occasional trouble with the transparency effects in Windows 7, such as its ability to turn transparent Windows that are open so you can see your desktop. It also occasionally switched off Windows’ new Aero feature, which offers live previews of task-bar icons. It sometimes turned all my Windows desktop icons white momentarily.

The bigger story is the comeback of Parallels, which is made by a Swiss-based firm of the same name. It was the first virtual-machine program for Intel-based Macs, but got eclipsed by Fusion. Now, the fifth version of Parallels is much faster and much better at the sophisticated graphics upon which Windows 7 relies.

In my tests, on a 2008-vintage MacBook Pro with 4 gigabytes of memory, Parallels 5 started up and had Windows 7 ready to roll nearly two minutes faster than Fusion 3. Windows 7 Home Premium launched from a cold start within Parallels about a minute faster than it did inside Fusion. And, when I restarted Windows 7 with several common programs running, it took two minutes and 23 seconds in Parallels 5, versus over four minutes in Fusion 3.

Beyond that, I found Parallels 5 handled the graphical previews and transparent effects in Windows 7 more quickly and smoothly than Fusion did. The Aero previews of running programs in the task bar appeared more quickly.

Also, I found Parallels 5 played high-definition video in Windows more smoothly than Fusion did. It also seemed to slow down the Mac side of the computer less.

Parallels isn’t perfect. In particular, it displays a black screen for a bit during start-up, something the company says it hopes to fix. And, while it shares the Mac’s printer, it confusingly mislabels it.

Neither of these programs is the answer for Mac owners who want to run the latest heavy-duty games or other graphics-intensive programs in Windows 7. For them, I recommend either Boot Camp or a separate Windows PC.

But, if you’re looking to run typical, everyday Windows programs on a Mac without rebooting, Parallels 5 is now the best solution.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free of charge, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Two Little Laptops With a Lot to Offer Their Core Users

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 02:04:09 +0000

For all the talk about new tablet computers like Apple’s iPad, laptops remain the computer industry’s bread and butter, and smaller laptops are especially popular with consumers.

So, I’ve been testing two diminutive laptops, both with 11-inch screens, that show how clever engineering can take a familiar device and customize it for particular audiences. These two machines couldn’t be more different, and they are aimed at radically different customers. Neither is a bargain-priced netbook, but both were designed with compactness in mind.

[ See post to watch video ]

One of these products is from Dell’s Alienware group, which specializes in potent computers for hard-core gamers. The device is called the M11x, and it came out this week at a base price of $799. It’s an attempt to pack much of the power gamers typically tote around inside thicker, heavier laptops into a much more portable chassis. The M11x weighs about 4.4 pounds, which in the gaming world is svelte, and is about 1.3 inches thick.

The other machine I’ve been testing was released by Sony over the holiday shopping season with relatively little mass-market fanfare. It’s called the Vaio X, starts at $1,299 and is easily the lightest laptop I’ve ever reviewed.

In fact, it’s so light, at just 1.6 pounds, that at first I thought it must be a mock-up made of cardboard. The Vaio X is also just a tad over a half an inch thick. Its processor and graphics system are like a netbook’s, so it can’t come close to matching the Dell (DELL) in performance. But it isn’t meant for the performance market. It’s meant for highly mobile users who do typical computing, want to show off something sleek and can tolerate a high price and weak battery life in the standard configuration.

The M11x is a chunky box that, despite its size, is immediately recognizable as an Alienware product. The power button looks like a space alien’s face, and, along with the keyboard and some other features on the front edge, it can be made to light up and pulse in a variety of bright colors.

Inside, it sports dual graphics systems—one powerful discrete graphics card for heavy-duty gaming, and one lesser integrated card for other tasks or when you want to save battery life. You can switch between them quickly, without rebooting.

I am not a serious gamer, but I briefly tested the M11x on some included 3D games, and they ran smoothly and well. The machine also did great on high-definition video and on common tasks like Web browsing, email and word processing. It’s also packed with ports, including an HDMI connector, the new standard for easy hookup to a TV.

On my tough battery test, the Alienware did pretty well, clocking in at just under four hours with the more potent graphics in use, and just under five hours with the lesser graphics turned on. In normal usage patterns, you could stretch these figures.

The downsides to this machine are that the keyboard is cramped, and the specs on the $799 base model might not satisfy a serious gamer or video creator. It has a relatively small 160-gigabyte hard disk and a low-end Pentium processor. The model I tested, with a 500-gigabyte hard disk, a Core 2 Duo processor and twice the base 2 gigabytes of memory, costs $1,099.

The Sony Vaio X is a world apart, a reminder that the company, which years ago pioneered small, thin, costly laptops, can keep doing so. This little computer can get lost in your briefcase.

The Vaio X comes in several colors, but has modest specs for the price. It uses the Intel Atom processor, common in netbooks, and integrated graphics. It only comes with 2 gigabytes of memory, and the base $1,299 model has a very small 64-gigabyte solid-state drive for storage. You can double the storage on the $1,499 model I tested.

The Sony (SNE) is gorgeous, and its lightness amazed everyone to whom I showed it. It handled all the common tasks I threw at it, including some HD video from YouTube, which played fine. But it also has a cramped keyboard, plus a tiny touch pad.

In addition to Wi-Fi, the Sony also includes a 3G cellular modem from Verizon, which I tested and which worked well. If you opt to use it, you have to pay Verizon, with monthly contracts starting at $40 and no-contract usage at $15 a day or $30 a week. All these plans have usage caps.

The Achilles’ heel of the Sony is battery life. Its petite built-in battery got a miserable one hour and 48 minutes in my test, which might mean 2.5 hours in normal use. Sony does include an expanded battery with the unit, which got an impressive eight hours and 11 minutes in my test, or perhaps as much as 10 in typical use. But this battery is huge. It covers the entire bottom of the machine and must be affixed with screws. The battery roughly triples the computer’s thickness and brings its weight to nearly three pounds.

These two creative designs show that, despite the coming wave of tablets, the laptop is still a platform for innovation.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free of charge, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Meet Apple's iPad: Starts at $500, Supported by AT&T

John Paczkowski — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:25:08 +0000

“Q: What do you think of the tablet PC?
Jobs: We’re not sure the tablet PC will be successful. It’s turned into a notebook that you can write on. Do you want to handwrite all your email? We have all the technology ourselves to do that–we just don’t know whether it will be successful.”

–Apple CEO Steve Jobs, International Herald Tribune, Sept. 2002

“There are no plans to make a tablet. It turns out people want keyboards….We look at the tablet and we think it’s going to fail.”

– Steve Jobs, D: All Things Digital Conference, 2003

At a 2007 all-hands meeting to discuss the iPhone, Apple CEO Steve Jobs remarked on the company’s product roadmap. The machines Apple will bring to market in the years ahead, he said, would be “off the charts.”

This morning, Jobs made good on his word, unveiling a new multimedia tablet device called the iPad.

As predicted, the Apple iPad is a portable gadget that falls between the iPhone and Apple’s laptop line. So far, Apple (AAPL) has been highlighting the machine’s ability to deliver audio and visual stuff, including a new way to view the New York Times (NYT) via a custom-made app, games designed by Electronic Arts (ERTS), and an iBook store supported by five major publishers and designed to rival Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle platform.

The hard facts: IPad sports full multitouch functionality, includes 16 to 64-gigabyte flash storage, and provides 10 hours of battery life and one full month of standby time. It is one-half inch thick, weighs 1.5 pounds and comes with a 9.7-inch IPS display, which looks quite sharp.

The standard OS X applications look and work much the same as on the Apple laptop and iPhone. Using a pixel-doubling function, the iPad scales iPhone apps to full-screen without losing much in translation. A new iPhone software development kit geared specifically to the iPad aims to encourage development for its larger screen and is being released today.

Jobs unveiled two big surprises: The lowest-priced version of the machine will cost $500, well below the $800-$1,000 price point pundits had predicted. The lowest-priced 3G-capable machine will be $629. The top-priced device, a 64GB version equipped with 3G capability, will be $829.

Rather than go with Verizon (VZ) as a wireless carrier, Apple is sticking with much-maligned AT&T (T). Wireless services don’t come with the device, but will be sold on a monthly basis. A 250-megabyte plan will run $14.99 in the U.S., and an unlimited plan will go for $29.99.

The complete liveblog of this morning’s Apple iPad event can be seen here.

Yep, Palm's Coming to Verizon, With a Couple of New Phones

Peter Kafka — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 19:03:08 +0000

Palm is expected to announce today that its Pre and Pixi smartphones will be available on Verizon Wireless (VZ) . What else is in store? This is normally Palm (PALM) bete noire John Paczkowski’s territory, but John’s en route to Las Vegas from the Bay Area, so I’ll be tapping away.

Some totally unverified gossip from my fellow scribes here at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas: Expect an AT&T (T) announcement as well. [UPDATE: Make that "sort of verified"--AT&T already indicated it would support the Palm operating system yesterday, as Business Insider's Dan Frommer notes.]
Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein takes the stage: Our platform is a deliberate bet on the Web, he tells us. It’s at “the heart of everything we do at Palm.”
Rubinstein notes that there have been 85,000 downloads of the webOS software development kit since launch in July and 20,000 registrations for the new online developer program, adding that these are clear indicators of interest in the Palm platform. [Translation: We're going to start catching up to Apple (AAPL) and its gazillions of apps. Promise.]
Rubinstein: Pixi is the “perfect choice for consumers looking to purchase their first smartphone.” That’s why we have these supercool back covers available. Check ’em out! And now a video of people talking about our stuff. [In the video, a talking head mentions "the death of the PC." Ominous!]
Palm announces a new partner: French carrier SFR, co-owned by Vivendi and Vodafone (VOD). Vivendi SVP Jean-Marc Tassetto says his company reaches half of the country’s population, simultaneously taking a dig at Apple and offering praise for Palm: “We started negotiating in Cupertino, we ended up in Sunnyvale.”
Palm SVP of Product Marketing Katie Mitic updates Palm’s developer program. After six months in closed beta, it is formally opening up. Any developer can submit a webOS app. Why work with Palm, Mitic asks? Her answer includes more coded Apple digs: The company promises a “fast and easy development” cycle and “freedom and choice” in how developers take apps to market. There are now 1,000 apps and Palm expects much faster growth.
Palm promises a “new approach to app distribution,” i.e., you won’t have to get Palm apps exclusively through Palm’s equivalent of iTunes. You can get them anywhere on the Web or via mobile. Mitic shows off Projectappetite.com as an example.
Coming this spring: A “Hot Apps” bonus program–$1,000 to developers with the best distribution (both free and paid), measured by downloads.
Also coming: A new “Plug-in development kit” for webOS.
We’re shown some new games from the likes of Gameloft and Electronic Arts (ERTS), including Need for Speed and Sims, etc. These are available today in the U.S.
Here’s Travis Boatman, VP of EA Mobile’s Worldwide Studios. Palm came to us a few months ago, he notes, before offering praise for Palm (duh): “Within a few weeks, we realized how great this SDK is….It’s really easy to use,” etc.
Some demos: Sims3, Need for Speed Undercover (which does indeed look “gorgeous,” as Boatman says).
More from Katie Mitic, who introduces Paul Cousineau, product marketing director, who is going to demo something involving Pre’s camera.
New feature: Video recording. Cousineau demos an editing feature with footage he just took onstage. It can be shared to Google’s (GOOG) YouTube, Facebook, etc., and will be available to all customers in February via software update. “No new hardware required.”
Cousineau demonstrates integration of various webOS features, moving data/elements from one app to another–sharing a YouTube clip that was just shot, for example.
Back to Mitic: More on over-the-air software updates. There have been nine updates since June, she says, covering battery performance, email, search, etc., adding that Palm is “bringing the pace of Web development to the mobile environment.” The February update will have a battery performance boost, too.
Back to Rubinstein, who focuses on two new products. He pulls the first, “Pre Plus,” from his pocket, describing it as a “more elegant, easy-to-use experience.” Button goes away, memory increases. It comes with 16 gigabytes of flash. The second new product,”Pixi Plus,” comes with built-in Wi-Fi. More color choices for back cover.
Carrier announcements: Both new phones are available exclusively on Verizon Wireless.
There’s a new 3G “mobile hotspot” app for both new phones that allows users to tether with the “appropriate data plan.” They can connect up to five devices.
Next: A taped message from Verizon Wireless CMO John Stratton, who is snowed in at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, apparently. Phones will be avail starting Jan. 25, he says.
How much will the new Palm phones cost? We won’t tell you! Ho ho ho.
Rubinstein recaps, promising to allow CES visitors to actually hold the new phones this time. (Last year Palm had a “look but don’t touch” policy when it showed off the Pre).

There’s no mention of AT&T, even though the carrier has been talking about Palm options in public. Interesting. Maybe there’s a “one carrier per press event” rule.

UPDATE (sort of): After the event, I asked Rubinstein about the phantom announcement from AT&T. Here’s the entire exchange.

Rubinstein: “We don’t have anything to announce.”

Me: “Really? Because AT&T executives are saying they’ll have two phones running the webOS later this year.”

Rubinstein: “We don’t have anything to announce.”

He was smiling a bit, though. Certainly cheerier than when I asked former Palm CEO Ed Colligan about Pre pricing last year.

Gadgets to Bring Holiday Cheer to Little Travelers

Nick Wingfield — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 02:05:21 +0000

Along with many other people, I’ll spend hours flying with young children this holiday season to visit family and, like many parents, I’d do anything within reason to keep my young children busy on a crowded airplane.

The iPod Touch offers the best options for young kids.

I’m a big fan of old-fashioned analog activities—books and crayons—but they’re not enough when you’re cooped up for six hours on a plane. In advance of a cross-country flight on Wednesday, my two kids and I spent several days trying out the most versatile and convenient gadget—offering movies, games and other electronic media—for keeping us entertained.

We looked at Apple’s iPod Touch, a Sony (SNE) PSPgo and a Nintendo DSi. Sony and Nintendo have updated their PlayStation Portable and DS game players with features aimed at going beyond traditional gaming. Apple (AAPL) is been promoting the iPod touch’s game capabilities.

Nintendo has done a lot to push the boundaries of gaming, with the Wii and other products. But the $169.99 DSi isn’t the entertainment Swiss army knife the iPod Touch and PSPgo are. It doesn’t play movies, for example—a big minus for my 2-year-old son, who is too young to be patient with most games.

It’s still a fun game-player, though, with popular titles for young kids, including two that are big with my 6-year-old daughter: the Nintendogs virtual pet and Pokemon adventure games, which run about $30 a title. One big change Nintendo made to the DSi is the addition of two cameras that are used in fun games, like the ones that put a player’s photo alongside other characters. One simple camera application lets you distort and doodle on images.

Nintendo and Sony also have followed the lead of the App Store—Apple’s online clearinghouse for iPhone and iPod Touch software—by letting users download software directly to the DSi and PSPgo over a Wi-Fi connection. It is more convenient than keeping track of a lot of external game cartridges and discs. Compared with the more than 100,000 titles in the App Store, however, Nintendo’s DSi Shop is sparsely stocked. It had only two free applications and about 90 titles, mostly costing $2 to $8.

One free DSi titles, Flipnote Studio, was a huge hit with my 6-year-old. It let her create an electronic version of an old-fashioned flip book, where you animate sketches by flipping pages. The DSi has only 256 megabytes of built-in storage, good for about a dozen games, though users can expand that with a storage card.

With the $249.99 PSPgo, Sony got rid of the old proprietary disc format for movies and games used in older PSP models, replacing it with 16 gigabytes of built-in flash storage onto which users can download games, movies and other content. The change allowed Sony to make a sleeker device with controls that slide away under its crisp color display.

The iPod Touch is still slimmer and easier to tuck into a pocket. A model with eight gigabytes sells for $199, while one with 32 gigabytes sells for $299.

The PSPgo’s display is slightly wider than that on the iPod Touch, but isn’t touch-sensitive. Still, the PSPgo and iPod Touch are fine for watching movies. They’re more convenient on airplanes than fumbling with a laptop and DVDs. And users can wirelessly download movies and games onto the PSPgo from Sony’s online PlayStation Store. I found it faster, though, to do the transaction on my PC over a wired Internet connection, and load the material onto the PSPgo over a USB cable with Sony’s version of Apple’s iTunes application, called Media Go. Media Go runs only on Windows.

Prices for movies on the iTunes and PlayStation Stores were mostly the same at $14.99 for new releases and $9.99 for older ones. Rentals are $3.99. Both stores had a similar selection of new releases, but the PlayStation Store lacked some kid titles that were on iTunes, such as “Toy Story.” There is also a directory of free podcasts on iTunes that makes it easy to download free videos to the iPod Touch, including kid-friendly material such as NASA space-shuttle landings and “Sesame Street” clips.

Games for PSPgo tend to be more intricate than those for iPod Touch, but that comes at a price. While Sony sells cheaper games, many are in the $19 to $30 range. I liked an adventure game called “Little Big Planet” starring a character called Sack Boy—for $39.99.

That price is steep compared with all the inexpensive and free content on the App Store for the iPod Touch. My kids liked a lot of it: a free dress-up game called “Dress Chica” and a $1.99 snowball-fight game called “Grinchmas.” My son particularly loved a free, beautifully illustrated short book called “Voodoo Doll’s Halloween Story.” My 6-year-old spent hours with a free math-drills program.

I found the iPod Touch offers the best entertainment options for young kids at bargain prices. And that is a gift for parents.

Email Nick.Wingfield@wsj.com. Walt Mossberg is on vacation.

ZumoDrive Service Is a Silver Lining In 'Cloud' Storage

By Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 02:15:28 +0000

As people acquire multiple digital devices, including tiny netbooks and super-smart phones, it becomes harder to coordinate all their documents, music and photos so they have access to them from whichever device they’re using at the moment.

People resort to all sorts of time-consuming methods for doing this. Some email the items to themselves. Others copy them to USB thumb drives and manually transfer them to each machine. Still others use Internet-based, or “cloud,” storage, uploading all their photos to a service like Flickr or Facebook, or using Web-based productivity programs like Google Docs (GOOG). And some use Web-based backup, storage or synchronization services.

Each of these methods, even the cloud-based ones, has limitations and frustrations. Some are complicated, or work only with certain kinds of files. Others work only when you have a Web connection, or don’t replicate your preferred folder structure. Still, others work OK with standard files and folders, but have trouble with specially arranged content, such as music that is organized in a jukebox program.

I’ve been testing a cloud-based service that attempts to solve these problems. It is called ZumoDrive, and it comes from a small company called Zecter Inc. A new version is due out this week that aims to add some capability and make the task simpler.

ZumoDrive mimics a standard physical hard disk, which can contain numerous folders and files. It works on Windows, Macintosh or Linux computers, and also comes in a more limited version for the Apple iPhone. It presents itself as a standard hard-disk icon on all your computers. But it’s actually a single, identical virtual hard disk that lives on the company’s servers, not on the computers themselves. The files it contains are rapidly streamed down to your machines when you need them.

I tested the service on a desktop Windows PC, a netbook, two Mac laptops and an iPhone. I generally liked ZumoDrive and found it easy to use, and pretty fast. But I ran into a few glitches, and it can be pricey. The new version will offer 2 gigabytes of storage free, but will cost a monthly or annual fee for more storage, ranging from $30 a year for 10 gigabytes to $800 a year for 500 gigabytes.

Also, like all cloud-based storage, ZumoDrive isn’t fully accessible when you’re offline. It caches, or automatically downloads, some recently used files, making them available offline. But you may want to open a document or play a song that is available only when you are online.

There have been online storage services for years, including some that could appear as desktop icons. In particular, ZumoDrive competes with somewhat similar services such as SugarSync and DropBox. But it’s different.

Unlike DropBox, it doesn’t require you to remember to place files in a single, special folder. You can link your existing folders to the ZumoDrive. And, unlike SugarSync, it doesn’t copy all your shared files to the hard disks of all your computers. It keeps the files in the cloud.

Compared with SugarSync, which I also like, ZumoDrive uses much less of your hard disk space, and does a better job with iTunes libraries. But SugarSync doesn’t require you to be online to use the files it synchronizes, though it also keeps a backup copy that you can access from the Web.

You don’t need to learn any special techniques to use ZumoDrive. Your computer sees the ZumoDrive as if it were a physical hard disk, so you can add and delete files to it in the normal ways. A program like Microsoft Word (MSFT) also sees it as a normal disk, and can open files from, or save them to, a ZumoDrive without a second thought.

And, because a ZumoDrive can be large without taking up much space on your local drive, it is especially nice for netbooks, which may offer relatively little storage. It also allows you to share folders with others, and encrypts the data you store on it, for security.

To use ZumoDrive, you first upload all your key stuff from your main computer. Then, once you install the small ZumoDrive program on your other devices, all those file names show up on your screen and can be fetched from the cloud when you like. You can add files and folders from the other computers as well. And you can also access your files via a Web site or an iPhone.

You can link folders on your computers to identical folders on your ZumoDrive, and they will stay in sync, so you can keep using the folder structure you’re used to, and it will be up-to-date on the ZumoDrive.

ZumoDrive understands how to handle and centralize your iTunes music library. In my tests, I uploaded an iTunes library of about 900 songs from a Mac at my home, and was able to play the songs on a Windows XP netbook that had no music stored locally.

I ran into some glitches and limitations, all of which the company says it is fixing. For instance, at first my netbook didn’t fetch all the iTunes songs.

But, all in all, ZumoDrive is a harbinger of the new world of cloud computing, and it is worth a look.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Palm Pixi Needs a Dusting of Speed

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:52:55 +0000

Since the debut of the Palm Pre in June, Palm has talked about the value of the device’s webOS operating system, which offers fast responsiveness, multitasking, universal search and smart synchronization. These features are accessed using delightful multitouch gestures like swiping with a fingertip. So it makes perfect sense that Palm would want to expand its family of products running this great mobile operating system.

[ See post to watch video ]

This week, Palm (PALM) introduced a second device with webOS: the Palm Pixi (palm.com/pixi). This is a stripped-down version of the Pre and it costs $100 (after a $50 instant rebate and a $100 mail-in rebate and with a two-year service contract) compared with the $150 Pre. Walmart.com is currently selling the Pixi for even less—$50 (http://3.ly/oSE). Both the Pixi and the Pre run on Sprint’s (S) network.

I’ve been testing the Pixi and I’ve found that the physical differences from the Pre are acceptable variations that most people won’t mind and may not even detect. These include a smaller, lower-resolution screen, a two-megapixel camera rather than the Pre’s three-megapixel camera and stationary keyboard instead of one that slides out. The Pixi isn’t as pebble-shaped as the Pre, but its back cover is rounded to fit comfortably in a hand. And like the Pre, it has an eight-gigabyte storage capacity and it’s thin and light enough to forget in a jeans pocket or to comfortably hold up to your ear during phone calls.

The Pixi’s internal changes are much tougher to accept. It lacks Wi-Fi capability and so must rely solely on Sprint’s 3G network for its connection, which I found to be frustratingly slow at times. This littler phone also runs on a weaker processor than the Pre, a decision that Palm says helped cut costs and make the Pixi small. But this processor’s speed is slow enough to notice immediately and it robs webOS of its lightning-fast speed. The Pixi’s progress indicator—a spinning, white circle—appeared on my screen too often.

The $100 Palm Pixi is like a mini version of the Pre. A $70 Touchstone accessory (right) magnetically holds the Pixi as it charges.

Like its super-smartphone competitors, including Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, Research in Motion’s (RIMM) newer BlackBerrys and Google’s (GOOG) Android phones, the Palm Pixi taps into a virtual store from which users can download apps for the device. But Palm’s App Catalog currently holds fewer than 400 apps and roughly 80 of those aren’t yet configured for the Pixi. This means that people who buy the $100 Pixi can choose from just around 300 apps for download, compared with the 100,000 apps available for Apple’s $100 iPhone 3G.

Some apps come preloaded on the Pixi, like Facebook and NFL Mobile Live. I downloaded others, including Pandora radio, Tweed for Twitter and a game called Word Whirl Lite. I logged into my Pandora account and played songs from one of my personalized radio stations while reading through email. A tiny “P” icon at the bottom of the Pixi’s screen notified me that Pandora was running. Other notifiers, like new emails or instant messages, appear at the bottom as well.

If you aren’t familiar with webOS, it’s easy to learn. Functions are designed to be more people-centric rather than program-centric. For example, I can look at a name in Contacts and see how I’m linked to that person—like through Facebook or Google Talk. If I want to start an instant-messaging conversation with that person, I can do so right there rather than opening AIM or Google Talk first to find a person’s name and then initiate conversation. I logged onto the Pixi with a Google account and the device was smart enough to also synchronize data from my Google Talk, Google Calendar and Gmail contacts.

The Card View, a display of all the programs that are simultaneously running at any given time, can be exposed with a simple, upward finger swipe starting below the screen. To close a program, simply touch it with a finger and toss it upward, as if throwing it away. This is one of the most satisfying gestures in webOS. And it’s a good thing, too, because Pixi users will need to use it more often than they did with the Pre. Palm suggests running only seven programs at once for the best performance, rather than the 10 you can leave opened on the Pre.

But my Pixi stuttered with just five programs—sometimes fewer—opened. Simple tasks like opening an email or searching for an app in the App Catalog were painfully slow. I received an email containing one digital photo, and the process of opening just the email—not even the photo—took about 10 seconds. When I finally opened the email and its photo, I saved it to my Pixi and tapped on a menu option to upload it to Facebook. But five minutes later, the spinning progress indicator was still on my Pixi’s screen and I gave up. I tried again and the same thing happened. Finally, on the third try, my photo posted to Facebook.

As was the case for the Palm Pre, the Pixi can be charged by plugging into a normal AC adaptor or by resting it on the Touchstone, a $70 accessory that, with the help of a special back cover that snaps onto the Pixi, magnetically holds this device as it charges. A handful of stylish “Artist Series” back covers will sell on Palm.com for $50 each and will ship in early December.

The Pixi’s 2.6-inch screen has a 320×400 resolution, which is a step down from the Pre’s 3.1-inch, 320×480-resolution screen. Palm estimates the Pixi’s battery lasts for five hours of talk time, the same as the Pre, but for 350 hours of standby time—or 50 more hours than the Pre.

The Palm Pixi’s keyboard is tiny but sufficient. People who are used to BlackBerry or even iPhone keyboards might be irked that the Pixi keyboard doesn’t have built-in shortcuts like holding down a key to capitalize it or pressing the space bar twice to add a period to the end of a sentence.

Like its predecessor, the Pixi has a designated Gesture Area just beneath its screen where users can swipe a fingertip for quickly navigating through screens, like swiping right-to-left to go back a screen. Unlike the Pre, the Pixi doesn’t have a silver button below its screen that immediately takes users to Card View, but I didn’t miss this button.

Though the Palm Pixi is $50 less than the Palm Pre, its downgraded performance doesn’t make that dollar savings worth it.

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Motorola's Droid Is Smart Success for Verizon Users

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:10:06 +0000

Verizon Wireless customers tend to love the company’s fast 3G network. But many tech-oriented Verizon loyalists gripe about the carrier’s high-end smart phones, which haven’t matched the cachet and versatility of the Apple iPhone sold by AT&T (T). In fact, some Verizon customers have switched to AT&T simply to get an iPhone.

[ See post to watch video ]

But this week, Verizon (VZ) is rolling out a device that finally gives it a more credible alternative. This new $200 phone is the Motorola Droid and it’s the first Verizon model to run Google’s (GOOG) Android smart-phone operating system. I’ve been testing the Droid, and while it has some significant drawbacks, I regard it as a success overall. It’s the best super-smart phone Verizon offers, the best Motorola (MOT) phone I’ve tested and the best hardware so far to run Android. I can recommend the Droid to Verizon loyalists who have lusted for a better smart phone, but don’t want to switch networks.

Like the iPhone, the Droid is really a powerful hand-held computer that happens to make phone calls, and is a platform for numerous third-party programs, or apps. Currently, Android offers over 12,000 apps. That is just a fraction of the 100,000 apps available for the iPhone, but it’s well above what the newer BlackBerry or Palm (PALM) phones offer.

The Droid is also the first phone that runs the 2.0 version of Android, which sands off some of the rough edges of Google’s platform and adds some features—notably, a free voice-prompted turn-by-turn navigation program. Android still isn’t as slick or fluid as the iPhone’s OS, in my view, but it has some functionality Apple (AAPL) omits, including the ability to run multiple third-party apps simultaneously.

The Droid is a handsome, squared-off device with a gorgeous, huge, high-resolution screen, bigger and sharper than the iPhone’s. There’s also a slide-out physical keyboard. It’s only a tad longer and thicker than the Apple product. But it’s 25% heavier, which makes it less comfortable to carry around in a pocket.

The Droid also has a higher-resolution camera than the iPhone’s: five megapixels versus three megapixels. And the camera has a flash, which the Apple lacks. In my tests, pictures came out OK, though not dazzling, and videos I shot were quite good.

Motorola’s Droid

The Droid’s large 3.7-inch screen looked great, but it lacks multitouch features, such as two-finger zooming, and it seemed less responsive than some other touch screens I’ve tested.

Battery life is listed at a whopping 6.4 hours, and, in my tests, the Droid easily lasted through the day on a single charge. Phone calls were crisp and clear, and I never suffered a dropped call. Verizon’s network was speedy and reliable for Web surfing, email and social networking. I copied some songs and videos onto the Droid by plugging it into a computer, and all played properly.

The Droid, whose $200 price comes only after a $100 mail-in rebate, requires a minimum $70 monthly service plan for two years, and text messaging costs extra. It comes with 16 gigabytes of memory, in the form of a removable card, and can handle up to a 32-gigabyte card.

Unfortunately for lovers of physical keyboards, I found the one on the Droid to be pretty awful. It has flat, cramped keys that induce too many typing errors, yet lacks auto-correction. I found myself using the virtual on-screen keyboard, which was pretty fast and accurate for me, and did include auto-correction.

Another downside: The Droid’s screen has only three panels for displaying apps, versus 11 on the iPhone, and some large apps, called widgets, hog much of the space on these panels.

Like the Palm Pre, the Droid tries to integrate social networking with contacts, though in a more limited way. It handles Google’s Gmail and Facebook, as well as Microsoft Exchange for corporate email and data. A nice feature lets you tap a contact’s picture and get instant options for ways to communicate.

The Droid can do some cool tricks with a couple of $30 optional docks, one for the car and one for the desk or nightstand. When placed in the car dock, the phone automatically displays a horizontal view with large buttons, including one for the built-in navigation system. In my tests, this navigation system worked pretty well, even showing photos of certain intersections. But it also gave me a couple of bad directions, such as sending me the wrong way at a fork in the road.

When placed in the desktop dock, the Droid displays the time and a different row of large icons from when it’s in the car dock, including music and an alarm clock.

I ran into one odd flaw with my test Droid, and with a second test unit tried by a colleague. Neither could send a photo via multimedia messaging to either my iPhone or her BlackBerry. Verizon was able to send pictures this way to my iPhone from other Droids, and it suspects some flaw in our test units.

The Droid is potentially a big win for Verizon, Motorola and Google, as well as for loyal Verizon customers.

Find Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com

Operating Systems Offer New Choices in PC Shopping

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:02:04 +0000

Now that both Microsoft and Apple have finally shipped the new versions of their operating systems, Windows 7 and Snow Leopard, respectively, it’s time for my annual fall computer-buying guide.

This guide stresses laptops, which have become the prevalent choice, but most of its specs also apply to desktops. As always, it is aimed at average consumers doing typical tasks, such as Web surfing, email, social networking, word processing, photos, video and music. It doesn’t apply to businesses, hard-core gamers or serious media producers—groups that need specialized or heftier hardware.

[ See post to watch video ]

Consumers shopping for new computers this fall have a wide variety of choices with the new operating systems pre-installed, making the machines faster and better. Windows PCs are no longer burdened with the disliked Vista OS.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that the Windows hardware makers and retailers generally are trying to nudge you to spend more. They are anxious to guide consumers away from the popular, but low-profit, stripped-down netbooks to somewhat larger Windows 7 laptops from which they can make more money. This larger-size category goes by a variety of names, which can be confusing.

Windows vs. Mac: The arrival of Windows 7 makes PCs from Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Dell (DELL) and others much better choices than their Vista-equipped predecessors were. Microsoft (MSFT) has closed most of the gap with Apple’s (AAPL) Mac OS X operating system. Also, Windows PCs are often priced hundreds of dollars lower than Macs, and offer many more choices.

But Apple’s hardware is stylish and sturdy, and, in my tests, Macs usually boot faster than Windows machines. Plus, Apple’s chain of retail stores offers a better buying experience and strong post-purchase support. Also, in my view, Apple’s built-in software still has the edge. Snow Leopard is fast and reliable. And it comes with a full suite of excellent built-in programs, including email, photo and video software. Microsoft has stripped Windows 7 of such programs. Some PC makers have restored some or all of these in certain models, although I consider Apple’s counterparts better. Another huge plus: The Mac isn’t susceptible to the vast majority of viruses and spyware.

Cost: Prices on Windows PCs are creeping upward. You can buy a Windows PC for under $500, but many stores are pushing costlier models. And those $250 netbooks are much scarcer. Now, they typically run between $300 and $450. Apple has mostly stuck with its same, higher, prices, though it has boosted the specs on many models. The cheapest Mac desktop, the minimalist Mac mini, is $599. The cheapest Mac laptop, the new MacBook, is $999. The heart of Apple’s line starts at $1,199.

New category: Windows PC makers this season are pushing a category of laptop that is meant to fit between a netbook and a full-size laptop. It goes by a variety of confusing names, such as “ultrathin” or “thin and light,” though these models are often no thinner or lighter than some laptops of the past. They typically cost between $500 and $800, and often have 13-inch screens.

Memory: All Macs come with at least two gigabytes of memory, which is plenty for running Snow Leopard well. Mainstream Windows PCs have at least three gigabytes. But the cheapest Windows machines sometimes come with less. I recommend at least two gigabytes.

64-bit: PCs have long been based on something called a 32-bit architecture, but many models now use a 64-bit architecture, allowing properly written software to use more memory and run faster. If possible, buy a 64-bit computer, which is likely to dominate eventually, even though some software and add-on hardware may be incompatible at first.

Graphics: The new operating systems allow software makers to speed up some tasks by offloading them from the main processor onto the graphics chip. So, if possible, get a “discrete” graphics processor, which has its own memory. Otherwise, find a potent “integrated” graphics chip, which shares your main memory.

Processor: Mainstream Windows PCs sport fast, dual-core processors from Intel (INTC) or its rival, AMD (AMD). These pack the equivalent of two brains onto one chip. But many lower-price Windows PCs have slower processors, such as the Intel Atom, which are best suited for light duty. Apple models all use Intel’s dual-core processors, except for the highest-priced desktops, which come with quad-core chips.

Hard disks: A 250-gigabyte hard disk should be the minimum on most PCs. On a netbook, look for at least a 160-gigabyte disk. Solid-state disks are faster and use less battery power, but often add hundreds of dollars to the price tag.

Touch: Windows 7 lets you control the computer by touching the screen with your fingers, and some PC makers add their own touch-screen features. But this only works fully with newer types of touch screens, adding cost. Make sure any touch-screen model you buy has a full multitouch screen that supports all Windows 7 gestures. Apple uses the laptop touch pad, or its new mouse, as the multitouch, finger-gesture mechanism, instead of the screen.

As always, don’t buy more machine than you need.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Netbooks That Are Easier on the Eye

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:07:40 +0000

Like clockwork, retailers were ready for Microsoft Corp.’s (MSFT) Windows 7 release last week with new desktops, laptops and netbooks, those inexpensive, smaller laptops that have become popular in the past year. Included in this selection of netbooks are some that improved the poor screen resolutions that have plagued these tiny PCs.

[ See post to watch video ]

Screen resolution isn’t the same as the size of the screen itself. Rather, it is related to the number of pixels—or distinct dots—on a display, and an indication of how much material can be seen on the screen without scrolling. A higher-resolution screen allows you to see more of a Web page, spreadsheet or list of emails than a lower-resolution screen, even if both are the same physical size.

Because higher-resolution screens cost more, most netbooks come with low-resolution screens to keep prices down. But poor resolution combined with a small netbook screen results in frustrating visuals, like Web pages that display just a small portion of their contents, forcing you to scroll down or horizontally to see the rest of the page.

This week, I tested two Windows 7 netbooks with unusually high-res screens: Hewlett-Packard Co.’s (HPQ) HP Mini 311 with an 11.6-inch screen and a resolution of 1,366-by-768 pixels, and Nokia Corp.’s (NOK) Booklet 3G with a 10.1-inch screen and a resolution of 1,280-by-720-pixels. Both these small computers display the bulk of most Web pages without any scrolling necessary—a big relief on a netbook.

Though high-resolution screens make these netbooks easier on the eyes than others, I still had trouble adjusting to their shrunken features. I liked typing on the HP Mini’s generous keyboard, which H-P says is 92 percent of full size. But its touchpad buttons felt stiff and uncomfortably located at the edge of the computer. The Nokia Booklet had the opposite problem: Its touchpad and buttons worked fine, but its tiny keys made me feel like I was typing on a kiddie computer.

Nokia’s Booklet 3G has a long battery life and sleek design.

Nokia is a bit more of a newsmaker here, because when the Booklet 3G (nokiausa.com) comes out in mid-November, it will be the first foray by the Finnish mobile-device company into the laptop space. Best Buy (BBY) began taking advance orders for them this week. It costs $300 if purchased with AT&T Inc.’s (T) two-year Data Connect plan, which costs $60 a month for five gigabytes of data and allows users to toggle back and forth between two kinds of wireless connections, cellular 3G and Wi-Fi. If purchased without the AT&T plan, the Booklet 3G costs $600—a lot for a netbook—including only Windows 7 Starter, the low-end version of the new OS, and one gigabyte of memory.

The thing most people will notice right away about Nokia’s netbook is that it seems to take its design cues directly from Apple Inc. (AAPL) Like the MacBook Pro, the Nokia Booklet 3G is made from a single piece of aluminum, and its keyboard is made of black Chiclet-style keys. Its edges are rounded and smooth. I used one with a glossy black lid, but it will also come in shades of ice white or azure blue.

Nokia boasts that this netbook’s battery will last for 12 hours; after running it through a harsh test with its screen cranked up to the brightest setting, Wi-Fi on, music playing on a continuous loop and all power-saving features turned off, it ran for almost eight hours straight. This means that under normal circumstances, the battery might last for a remarkable 10 hours.

The Booklet 3G that I used differs from Nokia’s final release version in a few ways: Mine wasn’t loaded with AT&T’s Connection Manager software, which enables switching between Wi-Fi and 3G; it lacked the Nokia Social Hub software, which the company says allows users to track social-media feeds and text messages; and the GPS wasn’t yet connected to the U.S. map data server. My Booklet 3G included Ovi Suite, a Nokia-designed software program to bridge the connection between some Nokia smartphones and the Booklet 3G, like iTunes for the iPhone or BlackBerry’s Desktop Manager. But the software I had wasn’t the final version.

Unlike Nokia, H-P is no stranger to netbooks, having released nine of its Mini models in the past year. The HP Mini 311 (hp.com/go/mini) costs $400 when purchased with Windows XP and costs an additional $50 when loaded with Windows 7 Home Premium. The Mini that I tested costs $474 because it also had two gigabytes of memory rather than one gigabyte.

The H-P model is a little bigger all around compared with the Nokia, with an inch-larger screen; it weighs 3.22 pounds compared with 2.76 pounds for the Nokia. Both felt relatively thin and light, and I carried them home together from my office with ease. The HP Mini 311 had H-P’s subtle Black Swirl pattern on its lid—a faint pattern of silver swirls noticeable only at certain angles. It also comes in White Swirl.

I ran the same battery test on the HP as I did with the Nokia, and it lasted four hours and 15 minutes, giving it roughly six hours of juice under normal circumstances. H-P estimates that the Mini 311′s battery will last for six hours and 25 minutes.

I didn’t run into any problems while installing and using several programs on each of these netbooks, including Windows Live Essentials, Mozilla’s Firefox browser, Picasa 3, TweetDeck, Adobe (ADBE) Reader and iTunes. The HP Mini felt more responsive and, in fact, loaded some programs a little faster, but it had twice the memory.

Both netbooks have slots for memory cards, HDMI ports for connecting to HD screens and three USB ports. And they come with built-in Web cams, a common feature on netbooks.

A cold start on both the Mini 311 and Booklet 3G required roughly the same amount of time: one minute and eight seconds for the H-P, and a minute and 12 seconds for the Nokia. But restarting was a different story. While playing a song in iTunes, running three Web pages in Firefox and using TweetDeck, I selected Restart. The HP Mini 311 took a minute and 20 seconds while the Nokia took nearly two minutes.

Even without the AT&T discount, the Nokia Booklet 3G’s extra-long battery life and sleek design will be worth the extra money for some people—just beware its tiny keyboard. The HP Mini 311 is a good all-around netbook with a comfortable keyboard for typing. No one will be disappointed by the terrific screen resolutions.

-Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Apple’s New iMac, MacBook Grow Better, Brighter

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 02:02:03 +0000

This is the week when Microsoft finally starts selling Windows 7, its much-improved successor to the disappointing Vista version of Windows. PC makers, who have suffered from Vista’s poor reputation, will begin touting models that come with Windows 7, which I praised in a detailed review earlier this month.

But Microsoft’s (MSFT) historic rival, Apple (AAPL), isn’t sitting still. After releasing its own new operating system, Snow Leopard, in August, Apple this week is rolling out new versions of two of the best- known Macs: its iconic all-in-one iMac desktop, and its least-expensive laptop, the MacBook.

[ See post to watch video ]

Though both new Macs sport important improvements, they are evolutionary, not revolutionary, and neither follows the industry trend toward bargain-basement prices. The MacBook is still $999, and the iMac still starts at $1,199, though the company is giving users more power and features at those same price points. You can pay much less for laptops and desktops from competitors like Dell (DELL) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ).

Apple is, however, introducing one revolutionary product this week: a $69 mouse called the Magic Mouse. It’s the first mouse I’ve seen whose entire surface acts like a laptop trackpad, and allows fingertip multitouch gestures for scrolling and flipping through lists, photos and Web pages on the screen, while still performing traditional cursor movements and clicking. This mouse comes with the new iMac and will be usable on most other Macs as well, once Apple offers a software update for them. It worked well for me.

I’ve been testing these new computers for a few days, and I can recommend both. The new iMacs have spectacular screens that are larger and sport much higher resolutions than those on their predecessors. They also add more memory capacity, bigger hard disks and faster processors.

The new $999, 13″ MacBook now includes most of the key features of the similar-sized MacBook Pro, which costs $200 more. These include a large multitouch trackpad, significantly enhanced battery life, and a brighter screen. Despite its lower price, the lowly MacBook comes with a 56% larger hard disk (250 gigabytes versus 160) than the Pro model.

The New iMacs

Apple has kept the basic design of the iMac, which looks like a stand-alone monitor but has a powerful computer built in. But the new models have larger, wider screens that have been re-sized to match up with high-definition video. The $1,199 base model has a 21.5″ screen, compared to the old 20″ screen, and has 17% higher resolution.

The highest-priced models, at $1,699 and $1,999, have huge 27″ screens, versus 24 inches for the older models, and they have a 60% increase in resolution.

The $1,199 base iMac has 4 gigabytes of memory, double the amount in the prior base model, and a 500 gigabyte hard disk, up from 320 gigabytes. The costlier editions have a one terabyte hard disk, which is roughly 1,000 gigabytes. The top model has a more powerful graphics card and a heavy-duty processor.

All the iMacs now have slots for SD flash memory cards, and the large-screen models can act as external monitors.

In my tests, using a 27″ model, the machine was fast and the screen was brilliant at displaying hi-res photos and high-definition video. Its width allowed me to treat it like two monitors, with, say a Microsoft Word document on the left and a Web page on the right.

One downside: the $1,499 model now has a smaller screen—21.5″ versus 24″—though it has a larger hard disk and better graphics card.

The New MacBook

This 13″ laptop, like its predecessor, is shiny white plastic, but has been redesigned to have more-rounded edges and a rubbery non-slip bottom. It now has the Pro’s large Apple trackpad, which acts as both a huge mouse button and a surface for fingertip gestures like two-finger scrolling, and resizing and rotating photos. It’s still 1.08″ thick—but is a bit longer and wider than the older model, though it weighs less: 4.7 pounds versus 5 pounds.

Apple has dropped the FireWire port from this machine, as well as its ability to be run via a remote control. And it still lacks an SD card slot. But it now has a large sealed battery that Apple claims can last up to 7 hours between charges. On my tough battery test, where I turn off all power-saving features and play music constantly, the MacBook lasted just over five hours. In normal use, I estimate it could easily top six hours.

In my tests, this MacBook was fast and reliable using a wide variety of programs. It started up cold in a mere 22 seconds, and was ready to go after a restart, with several programs running, in 44 seconds. For anyone on a budget, it’s a better deal than the 13″ MacBook Pro, especially considering its larger hard disk.

These new models now round out a full line of refreshed Macs, but they will face stiff new competition from a horde of PCs running the new and better version of Windows.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

A Windows to Help You Forget

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

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

[ See post to watch video ]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are some of the key features of Windows 7.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Microsoft Packs The New Zune HD With Bells, Whistles And Plenty of Style

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:58:03 +0000

At long last, Microsoft has made a portable media player that you can be proud to carry around: the Zune HD.

This fourth-generation Zune (Zune.net) is ultra thin and has a stunningly vivid 3.3-inch touch screen that covers most of its surface, doing away with the old device’s touchpad. It comes in one small size rather than the older large and small versions, and has capacities of 16 and 32 gigabytes for $220 and $290, respectively.

[ See post to watch video ]

The Zune HD does a nice job of integrating and artistically displaying content about an artist, song or album whenever possible. It has an acceptable built-in browser that surfs the Web using a Wi-Fi connection, and a customizable Quickplay menu on the home screen that displays your content using tiny, stylish tiles. The corresponding Zune Marketplace finally offers movies—about 500 for renting or buying, half of which have HD resolution. And a $90 docking station works with the device to display its HD content on your HDTV.

Given all the improvements of this new Zune, it’s a shame that this makeover stopped short of revamping its commerce system, which is still too confusing. Rather than inviting newcomers to the Zune and its online store by allowing them to use real money to buy content, it is still tied to the points system made popular by Microsoft’s (MSFT) Xbox gaming console. In this gamer-friendly system, the cost of one song is 79 points, roughly the equivalent of a dollar, and users must buy points in buckets ranging from 400 for $5 to 5,000 for $62.50. People who are trying to watch their budgets don’t need the hassle of calculating points per purchase. And Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle e-reader and Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes Store have proved that using dollars and an uncomplicated one-click system is a successful strategy.

The way I prefer to get the most out of the Zune system is by using the Zune Pass for $15 monthly. This charge allows free continuous streaming of music from any computer’s browser as long as you log in, and includes 10 free MP3 downloads a month that are yours to keep even if you bail on using the Zune software. The Zune Pass lets you listen to Smart DJ playlists that can be built in one of three ways: using your own library; using a mix of Marketplace content and music from your library; or using only songs from the Marketplace. These also can be set to last for a certain amount of time—say for a 30-minute jog or a two-hour party.

I created several Smart DJ playlists including one using Dierks Bentley as the seed artist from which other suggestions were generated. This country singer was a good test for the Zune software because Mr. Bentley’s music blends new and old country sounds. I set the Smart DJ to produce a mix using only content from Marketplace and it returned a great list that included songs from newer group, Little Big Town, as well as older stuff like Joe Diffie’s “John Deere Green.” Any Smart DJ list can be dragged onto the Zune HD.

Apple’s iPod Touch is the Zune HD’s biggest rival and its iTunes Store has much more content in all categories compared with Zune Marketplace. But let’s put music, movies, TV shows, podcasts and music videos aside and say we’re satisfied with the amount of content offered by Zune Marketplace.

One of the iPod Touch’s best features is its ability to access Apple’s App Store, a catalog of 75,000 applications. The Zune HD only dips its pinky toe into a pool where Apple is already swimming laps: Only nine apps can be downloaded from the Zune Marketplace (all are free). They’re colorful and simple to use, but nine apps won’t be enough to compete head on with the iPod Touch.

The Zune HD uses Quickplay (shown on second player from left) to instantly display certain content.

It would be a real boon to Zune if it somehow inherited the gaming genes of Microsoft’s already-established Xbox, especially considering how Apple has heavily marketed the iPod Touch as a portable gaming system. Microsoft will only say that later this year Zune will offer apps for Twitter and Facebook as well as 3-D games like “Project Gotham Racing: Ferrari Edition.”

The only same-capacity model in the Zune HD and iPod Touch is the 32-gigabyte, which costs $290 and $299, respectively. The Zune HD is smaller than the iPod Touch so its organic light-emitting-diode touch screen is 3.3 inches compared with the Touch’s 3.5-inch screen. The Zune fits easily in any pocket and is just 0.35-inch thick. A thin horizontal button on the face of the device takes you to the home screen, and a hidden button on the left side pulls up an on-screen menu for volume and playback controls—or just tap the screen when content is playing. It doesn’t have a speaker like the iPod Touch, so you’ll always need earbuds to hear anything that’s playing.

Quickplay is one of my favorite features on the Zune HD. It uses tiny tiles to visually represent your content in four categories: currently playing; anything pinned (or labeled with a shortcut tile) to Quickplay; a history of recently opened content; and anything that’s new to the player. This includes all of your photos, videos, music, Web pages and apps. I easily pinned AllThingsD.com, a “Saturday Night Live” video and a favorite photo to the Quickplay menu. Clever animation sends this menu to the background of the home screen or swiftly pulls it into the foreground when needed.

I rented and downloaded the movie “Girl with a Pearl Earring” and opted to pay 360 points for the HD version rather than paying 240 points for the standard-definition version. A helpful on-screen explanation described the advantages of each according to where it would be played. Movie rentals last for 14 days or 24 hours after you first press play.

Listening to music on the Zune HD is a lot of fun—and even educational. Whenever the screen goes idle while playing a song, large images of the artist and album cover fill the entire screen while text—album name, artist name, song name—scrolls across these images. With one touch, I saw a list of other albums and songs by that artist, an artist biography, related artists, and pictures of the artist. This is a lot more interesting than staring at one image on the screen, and I learned a lot of new information about musicians I’ve been listening to for years.

The newly added Web browser on the Zune HD gets the job done, but has downsides. Its on-screen keyboard for entering names of Web pages has very small keys and doesn’t use predictive typing to fix your mistakes. Some Web pages rendered normally on the browser, but a couple—like Georgetown.edu—looked normal only when I turned the Zune HD horizontally.

As with other Zunes, this Zune HD has a radio receiver and now uses HD radio for finding more stations with clearer signals. If you like a song, an on-screen button tags it for buying and downloading immediately or later.

The Zune HD is a great-looking little player, and users will especially appreciate its Quickplay menu, rich collection of artist information and mesmerizing screen. If its points system was scrapped and its Zune Marketplace was filled with more content, I’d like it better.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg.

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Apple's iTunes 9 Makes it Easier to Share, Organize

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:04:03 +0000

Apple’s iTunes program is one of the most popular software products in the world. The company says hundreds of millions of copies of iTunes have been downloaded, far exceeding the 220 million iPod music players it has sold. That’s because many people use iTunes to organize, play and buy music and videos on their computers, or to burn music CDs, even if they don’t own iPods or iPhones. Ironically, the vast majority of iTunes copies are on Windows PCs, not Apple’s own Macintosh computers, because Windows machines are much more numerous.

[ See post to watch video ]

Last week, Apple released its ninth major version of iTunes — which first came out in January, 2001, before the iPod even existed — and I’ve been testing it. This release is the biggest overhaul of the familiar program in recent years, with improvements in the look and functionality of each of the software’s three main portions: the media jukebox, the built-in store and the synchronization features that move media and applications to and from iPods and iPhones.

In my tests, performed on multiple Windows PCs and Macs, iTunes 9 worked as advertised, and I found it to be less cluttered, more intelligent and easier to use than the prior version. It synced music and videos properly for me using both an iPod Nano and an iPhone. It’s available as a free download at apple.com/itunes.

To me, the two biggest new features in iTunes 9 are something called Home Sharing and a new, easier way to organize the apps on an iPhone or iPod Touch.

For years, iTunes users have been able to wirelessly stream music from nearby computers running iTunes whose owners chose to share their music. But Home Sharing takes this one step further, allowing users to actually copy the song files from one computer to another.

Right inside iTunes, you can simply peer into the shared library on another computer set up to allow this, and then select the song you want and drag it into your own library. It doesn’t delete the original from the other computer.

In my tests, this worked perfectly with music, as well as TV shows, movies and audiobooks, and it worked between any combination of my PCs and Macs. You can even configure Home Sharing to automatically transfer to your library new media purchased on another shared computer.

But Home Sharing has limitations. It only works with a maximum of five computers. These computers must be on the same local network, not connected over the Internet. And they must be the same computers authorized to play copy-protected media you buy from Apple.

With 75,000 apps available for the iPhone and iPod Touch, it has been easy to download so many that your device becomes cluttered, with numerous icons scattered among numerous screens in a manner that isn’t optimal. There’s a way to move them around, or delete them, right on the device, but it’s clumsy, partly because you can’t see all the screens at once, and partly because it’s difficult to move an icon from a location on one screen to another location several screens away.

The new iTunes lets you organize your iPhone's screen right on your computer

Now, in the new iTunes 9, when you plug in your device, the software displays an exact visual representation of your iPhone or Touch screens right on your computer, and allows you to rearrange them with your mouse. When you disconnect, the new arrangement is retained on the phone. It worked fine for me.

In iTunes 9, you also can create up to 12 automated “Genius Mixes” from your personal music library — essentially personal radio stations consisting of songs iTunes considers to be related, that play on and on. I enjoyed this feature, and found it generally made good choices.

There are also a number of small visual improvements throughout the program. In the jukebox, for instance, you can now locate all songs by a particular artist using a Column Browser — an optional left-hand column that lists the artists.

In the store, categories like music, movies and TV shows are now arrayed across the top, with drop-down menus for genres. The store also is generally better organized, with richer graphics, more white space and easier navigation.

A small touch of social networking, not exactly Apple’s historic strength, has been added to iTunes. From inside the store, you can post a link to a favorite title to either Facebook or Twitter, though this of course serves Apple by encouraging others to buy the title.

You can now buy special albums, called “iTunes LPs,” that attempt to replicate the experience of old vinyl albums by including lots of extra material. For instance, for one such title by the Doors, iTunes delivered to me liner notes, digital scans of old posters and set lists, plus photos and video interviews. Another, called Mayhem, by the singer/actor Tyrese Gibson, includes just one song, but also a vivid digital comic book with voiced dialogue.

However, these iTunes LPs take up a lot of space on your hard disk — about half a gigabyte each for the ones I tried.

Overall, iTunes 9 is a nice improvement on a much-used program.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Upgrading Macs

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 21:24:03 +0000

Thanks for your columns about the difficulties of upgrading to Windows 7 from Windows XP. But I am a Mac owner with an iMac I bought new last year that currently runs Mac OS X Leopard. Will there be obstacles to upgrading my Mac to the new Snow Leopard?

Owners of any Mac with an Intel processor—about 80% of all Macs in use, including yours—will be able to do simple, direct in-place upgrades to the new Snow Leopard edition of the Mac operating system, due out soon. This method will preserve all programs, files and settings without requiring any of the hard-disk wiping, temporary offloading of files and re-installing of programs that Microsoft is requiring to move to Windows 7 from its most popular current version, Windows XP.

Not only that, but Snow Leopard will cost you and other Leopard users just $29, which is $90 less than the Home Premium version of Windows 7. Apple also is claiming that the upgrade will be up to 45% faster than in the past and that it will actually free up an additional 6 gigabytes of hard disk space.

However, that doesn’t mean there won’t be obstacles or issues for some Mac users. Most important, owners of the other 20% of Macs, those whose models use older PowerPC processors—like the G4 and G5—won’t be able to use Snow Leopard at all. It’s the first Mac OS version that runs only on Intel-based Macs. So, if these folks want Snow Leopard, they’ll have to buy new machines, even though some of them bought their Macs as recently as 2006.

Also, although Intel-based Macs running the older Tiger version of the operating system can be directly and simply upgraded to Snow Leopard, Apple is officially requiring their owners to spend more for it. They have to buy Snow Leopard as part of a $169 boxed set that includes other Apple software they may not want.

Given the manual process of moving from Windows XP to Windows 7, isn’t it likely that there’ll be some third-party utility to handle it?

Yes. Seattle-based Laplink Software has announced that it will issue a new version of its PCmover utility—mainly sold for transferring data to new PCs—that will be able perform automated in-place upgrades to Windows 7 on an existing Windows XP machine, including the preservation of programs. I haven’t tested it yet, and can’t swear that it will work properly. More information is at laplink.com under “Latest News.”

Can you recommend software to remove trial/craplet programs? Something suitable for average users?

The one I have used with success is called “The PC Decrapifier,” which removes unneeded trial programs, add-on programs and advertising come-ons known as “craplets.” The software is free at pcdecrapifier.com. Note that it works only on PCs running Windows XP and Windows Vista. Before you use it, make sure to read the list of exactly what it removes, which is on the Web site.

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

A BlackBerry Priced Right For Newcomers

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 07:52:03 +0000

Web browsing and email have comfortably migrated to mobile handhelds like the iPhone, BlackBerry and Palm (PALM) Pre. But many of these gadgets still cost a lot compared with cellphones that come free with renewed two-year contracts.

This week, I tested a new BlackBerry that costs less than any other BlackBerry did at launch—that is, if you buy it at the right place. Research in Motion’s (RIMM) BlackBerry Curve 8520 costs just $49 at Wal-Mart (WMT)—or $130 if you buy it at T-Mobile. Both prices are with two-year T-Mobile contracts.

[ See post to watch video ]

The BlackBerry Curve has been one of the company’s most popular models. All iterations of the Curve combine a full QWERTY keyboard with a sleeker, more stylish look than bigger BlackBerry models like the Bold. And Curves typically cost less than their larger counterparts. In February, RIM refreshed its Curve brand for the first time in over two years with the 8900. This model was a real upgrade for Curve users, thanks to a brighter screen, faster performance and flatter keys that were easier to press. But six months later, it still costs as much as $199 (after rebate)—a steep asking price considering how some older 8300-series Curves are offered for around $50 with two-year contracts.

This newest $49 Curve 8520 lowers that price barrier. Its monthly T-Mobile service plans are also relatively inexpensive, starting at $55 for voice and data (not including MMS or SMS messaging).

It has two features never before seen on a BlackBerry. First, in place of a trackball or scroll wheel, this Curve uses a trackpad—a mini version of those used for mouse navigation on laptops.

Second, it has designated physical buttons for playing, pausing and skipping ahead or back within media like videos and music. These rubbery buttons are built into the top edge of the BlackBerry.

I like the look of the Curve 8520—especially how the surface covering its screen extends down to the trackpad and its four surrounding buttons, giving it a smooth facade. It comes in two colors, black and frost (I used the black). Its low price, alone, will be enough to draw customers.

But something about the way its keyboard and navigational keys worked felt cheap. Letter keys felt light and hollow while the Send, Menu, Escape and End keys around the trackpad clicked as I touched them.

The specifications of this BlackBerry tell the tale more specifically. Its 320×240 pixel screen looks faded next to that of the Curve 8900, which is 480×360. The blinking red indicator light at the top front corner of all BlackBerrys is a barely noticeable dot on this device.

And its camera is only two megapixels, not 3.2 megapixels like on the 8900, and is the first on a BlackBerry not to have a built-in flash. Also, it doesn’t run on the fast 3G network, though it uses Wi-Fi and automatically connects to trusted networks when in range of them.

First-time smartphone owners may not notice or care about these small details, but veteran BlackBerry users will pick up on them right away.

The Curve 8520 incorporates useful physical features found on previous models like right- and left-side convenience keys that work as handy shortcuts. It comes with a 1-gigabyte microSD memory card so users don’t have to buy their own before loading this device with photos, music and videos.

A strip of rubber runs around the Curve’s edge, covering up and smoothing over its convenience keys and volume buttons. This rugged addition isn’t visible from the front of the BlackBerry and it will probably go a long way in preventing nicks and dings. The word “Curve” is imprinted on the back of the BlackBerry, proudly branding this model.

The navigational trackpad is a cinch to use and moves the cursor up, down, right and left with very little effort. To select, one needs only to press in on the trackpad just as with the trackball. Unlike the trackball, which rolls in place and can get stuck once in a great while, the trackpad doesn’t have any moving parts.

The physical media keys on the Curve 8520′s top edge work to instantly start playing media from any screen, like a music video that I watched. If you were to use your BlackBerry as your sole portable media player, these would be more valuable. And their position on the top of the Curve makes them easy to reach if the device is in a pocket or purse.

In my everyday usage scenarios, I usually forgot about these shortcut buttons and just used the trackpad to find and select a track or video for playing.

BlackBerry’s App World store for applications that users can load onto the device still only offers 2,000 apps, compared to Apple’s (AAPL) 65,000. This means that for now, this new Curve can’t be enhanced with as many outside programs, which is a real downside. And if you do download a lot of apps, or music or videos or photos, you may have to get a bigger memory card.

The Curve 8520 isn’t made for BlackBerry fanatics. But it’s a good entry-level BlackBerry for users who still haven’t let go of their basic cellphones. At Wal-Mart’s $49 price, it’s hard to beat.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Hasta la Vista: The Many Versions of Windows 7

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 01:02:03 +0000

Last week, this column laid out the painful, tedious process that awaits Windows XP users in October if they choose to migrate their existing PCs to Microsoft’s forthcoming new edition of Windows, called Windows 7. This week, I aim to explain some of the other details and issues involved in upgrading a PC to Windows 7, even if you are currently running Windows Vista, from which an upgrade is far simpler.

Unlike migrating from XP–still the most common version of Windows, despite its age–moving up from Vista is designed to be relatively straightforward. It’s a direct upgrade process that preserves all your personal files, settings and programs.

However, even this easier transition involves some choices and limitations that can be confusing for mainstream, non-techie users, so I will try to sort them out here. Throughout this column, I will be referring to simple, direct, upgrades meant for average users. I won’t be discussing more complex methods that require things like wiping out, or dividing, hard disks.

[ See post to watch video ]

Unlike Vista, Windows 7 doesn’t require beefier hardware than its immediate predecessor. It should work fine on nearly every Vista PC, and even on many late-model computers running XP. In fact, it is a bit less demanding than Vista. For instance, Microsoft (MSFT) has repeatedly demonstrated Windows 7 working on low-powered netbooks that choked on Vista.

However, just like Vista, Windows 7 will be sold in a multitude of different editions, and deciding which one to buy can be confusing. There are six different flavors, though one is reserved for countries Microsoft calls “emerging markets.” Of the remaining five, one is for big businesses. Another, a stripped-down edition called Starter, can’t be installed as a direct upgrade for existing computers, according to Microsoft.

Most consumers will likely choose Windows 7 Home Premium, which costs $120 for upgraders and has all the key Windows 7 features. The next step up, called Professional, adds a few extras that may be especially useful for consumers who work at large companies or use older, specialized programs. Most notably, the Professional edition, unlike the Home Premium version, can remotely tap into certain corporate networks that use a system called “Domain Joining.” And the Professional version has the ability to run older Windows XP programs that wouldn’t otherwise work in Windows 7. It costs $200 for upgraders. The other likely choice is called Ultimate. It combines every feature of the other editions but costs upgraders $100 more than Home Premium.

There are limitations on which current Vista machines can be directly upgraded to the various versions of Windows 7. In general, you can only upgrade your current version of Vista to the comparable version of Windows 7. For instance, Vista Home Premium can only be upgraded to Windows 7 Home Premium and Vista Business can only be upgraded to Windows 7 Professional. This rule has two exceptions. Any flavor of Vista except Starter can be upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate, if you care to spend the extra money. And Vista Home Basic can be upgraded to Windows 7 Home Premium.

All of the three common consumer versions of Windows 7 can run inside virtual machines, such as the faux Windows computers created on Apple (AAPL) Macintosh hardware using the Fusion and Parallels software. However, the upgrade rules still apply.

After you’ve installed Windows 7, you can move up from Home Premium to Professional with minimal extra effort, for an added sum, by using a program from Microsoft called Windows Anytime Upgrade. This unlocks the added features of Professional, which were actually already on your machine, but were hidden. You can do the same thing to move up to Ultimate.

However, there’s another complication. For each of the three main consumer versions of Windows 7, there are actually two editions. One is meant for PCs with standard processors, called 32-bit processors, and the other for PCs that sport newer processors called 64-bit processors. The 32-bit version of Windows can recognize only 3 gigabytes of memory, but the 64-bit version can use much, much more. For most average users, 3 gigabytes is plenty, but some consumers have 64-bit Vista machines, which can move faster when lots of programs are being used at once, or when doing tasks like playing back high-definition video.

The problem is that you cannot directly upgrade 32-bit Vista to 64-bit Windows 7, or vice versa. So that adds another layer of complexity to the upgrade process.

Finally, a note about prices. Most major Windows PC makers are offering free, or very low cost, upgrades to Windows 7 later, if you buy a Vista PC now. They are doing this, in cooperation with Microsoft, to discourage people from waiting until October to buy a new PC. Each hardware company has slightly different policies on this. However, this free upgrade program isn’t of any help if you simply want to keep your existing PC and upgrade it to Windows 7.

You can learn more about the various editions of Windows 7 at: windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/compare-editions?T1=tab01. And I’ll have a full review closer to its Oct. 22 release date.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Apple’s Half-Billion Dollar NAND Binge

John Paczkowski — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:55:03 +0000

Apple’s voracious appetite for NAND flash RAM has proven a boon to Toshiba. Discussing Apple’s latest earnings on a conference call with analysts Tuesday, company COO Tim Cook revealed that Apple and Toshiba have inked a flash memory deal worth half a billion dollars.

“We did a long-term supply agreement with Toshiba,” Cook explained. “As a part of that, as part of the terms and conditions, we paid them $500 million as a pre-pay earlier in the quarter. You know, we view Flash as a very key component for us because as you know we use it in so much on so many of our products and also we are a reasonable percentage of the user of Flash on a worldwide basis.”

Indeed, Apple (AAPL) sells millions of NAND flash-enabled devices each year, so many that its needs often constrain supply for the entire market. In 2005, the company arranged to purchase up to 40 percent of Samsung Electronics’ holiday NAND output for use in it iPods. In July of last year Apple bought 50 million 8Gb-equivalent NAND flash chips from Samsung, forcing the company to reduce its supply to other customers.

Then, this past April, Apple ordered 100 million 8Gb–or one-gigabyte (1GB)–chips from Samsung, once again causing flash supplies to tighten. Now we have this $500 million prepayment, which, according to sources, will keep Apple in NAND for about three months.

Great news for Toshiba, which has been suffering mounting losses in the midst of tougher competition, and for the NAND market as well. As Tim Cook said yesterday, “The NAND market has now begun to stabilize and we expect it to move towards a supply/demand balance.”