AllThingsD » Walt Mossberg

Microsoft Gives Windows a Clean Sweep

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 16 May 2012 01:01:54 +0000

For a long time, some Microsoft officials have privately griped that PC makers don’t present Windows in its best light. They clutter desktops with icons that are often little more than ads for third-party products; include confusing utilities that duplicate functions already in Windows; require lengthy setup; and configure PCs in ways that slow them down.

One consequence, in the eyes of these Microsoft executives, is to confer an advantage on the company’s main operating-system rival, Apple.

[ See post to watch video ]

Now, Microsoft is doing something about the situation. In a program unknown to most computer users, the company has been using its small chain of retail stores and its online computer store to sell customized versions of popular PC models that have been streamlined for a cleaner look and better performance. It calls these machines “Signature” PCs. They retain the maker’s brand, but sport a special Signature desktop and configuration. And they cost about the same as the identical stock version of the machine sold elsewhere.

Microsoft also offers a program that, for $99, will turn users’ Windows 7 PCs into Signature versions, if the owner brings the computer into one of its 16 stores, due to grow to 21 outlets in coming months. All Signature computers come with 90 days of free phone support, as well as help at the stores’ “Answer Desks,” which are like the Genius Bars at Apple stores.

I’ve been testing three Signature models and comparing them with the same machines as sold elsewhere without the Signature modifications. I found the Signature versions much cleaner and easier to navigate and faster in a variety of tests.

A Folio 13 model PC desktop, as shipped by Hewlett-Packard, shows a cluster of third-party software icons.

I’d recommend that prospective Windows PC buyers who live near a Microsoft store, which are mostly in the West, or are willing to shop at the company’s online store, consider a Signature machine. Information on store locations, as well as a link to online PC shopping from Microsoft, is at microsoftstore.com. Information on Signature is at signature.microsoft.com.

Some important caveats are in order. The hardware makers presumably believe, and some consumers may well agree, that the extra software, utilities and settings, which Microsoft removes or buries, are beneficial. Some of these, like offers to join game or music services, may be viewed as welcome bonuses. Others, like customized networking utilities, or launchers for the PC makers’ own media software, may be viewed as better matched to the hardware, or superior to Microsoft’s approach, even though they duplicate Windows functions. Many can be turned off, or removed, by a user with sufficient skill and time.

Also, Microsoft loads Signature machines with its own add-on software, such as its free email, photo and video programs, its Zune music and video program, and a stripped-down “Starter” version of Microsoft Office, that includes only Word and Excel, plus ads, and an offer to buy the full version.

However, the company says the stores will remove any of these a customer doesn’t want and even help the customer install competing software, such as Google’s Chrome browser, or Apple’s iTunes for Windows.

The same PC as sold by Microsoft in its Signature configuration.

At my request, Microsoft supplied me with before-and-after laptops from Hewlett-Packard, Sony and Samsung. Over the past few days, I’ve been comparing the stock and Signature versions, and testing how much time it takes to set them up, start them and restart them in daily use, resume them from sleep, and shut them down.

The Signature desktop, which is labeled “Microsoft Signature,” features a picture of a sunset over a lake as its wallpaper. It contains no icons other than the recycling bin. The Taskbar contains only icons for Internet Explorer, the Explorer file browser, and Microsoft’s free email, photo and moviemaking programs. The system tray, to the right of the Taskbar, contains only the bare minimum of items, such as the network and battery indicators.

Signature machines are also configured with battery, audio and touch-pad settings Microsoft considers optimal. The usual third-party security software—which is typically provided for only 30 to 90 days, makes you go through some setup, and nags you to subscribe—is replaced by Microsoft’s own Security Essentials program, which is free, required no registration or subscription and updates itself automatically.

By contrast, my test HP Folio 13 had eight icons besides the recycling bin, including several that were come-ons for music and game services. It also featured several HP utilities.

A Sony EH37FX included an app from Best Buy that launched every time the PC started (though you could turn this off). Both stock machines festooned the IE browser with two space-hogging toolbars, including one from Microsoft’s own Bing search service; the Signature machine had none.

The Samsung Series 7 I tested came with 10 extra icons and a bunch of special utilities.

Signature isn’t the same on every machine. In most cases, it strips out some of the added software and utilities, and retains others, but hides them in a folder buried in the Start Menu. In some cases, however, where a utility is deemed essential for a computer’s particular hardware, it retains these.

Such decisions, and indeed all of the Signature settings, are controlled by a team of engineers housed in Microsoft’s retail division.

In my speed tests, Signature beat all the stock machines on all my trials, but the margins weren’t dramatic, usually from a few seconds to 25 seconds. On the HP, the differences were especially minimal. Across all three machines, the biggest differences were the time it took to set the PC up out of the box and the time it took to shut down the PC.

One Microsoft official told me that Signature represents “Microsoft’s perspective on Windows,” rather than that of the hardware maker.

In my opinion, although it may generally benefit Microsoft at the expense of the hardware maker, it also makes for a better experience for the user.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

A Real-Estate App When You're Buying or Just Nosy

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 09 May 2012 01:05:32 +0000

Let’s say you’re walking around your neighborhood, or a neighborhood you’d like to make yours, and you spy a house you find interesting. Even if it isn’t for sale, you can just whip out your iPhone, take a picture of the home and in less than a minute, you’ll have an estimate of its price, plus details on its square footage, number of rooms, similar homes for sale and other facts.

[ See post to watch video ]

This feat of digital magic, which works all over the country, is performed by a new, free app called HomeSnap, from a Washington, D.C., online real-estate firm, Sawbuck Realty. Despite its parentage, the company says that using the app doesn’t send any data to a Realtor, or invite any calls or emails from one — unless you explicitly ask for such a connection. It’s just a cool way to investigate houses and if you like, to share your “Snaps” — photo profiles of houses — with HomeSnap users and friends via email, text or social networks.

Why would you want to use it? Maybe you’re interested in buying the house if it ever comes on the market, or helping a friend do so. Or, maybe you’re just curious, or nosy. Of course, you could be in real house-hunting mode, and HomeSnap gives you even more information if the house you took a picture of is for sale, including interior photos and bid history. There’s even the option of contacting a buyer’s agent, asking a question or requesting a tour—right from the phone.

You can use the app to flip through Snaps taken by others, either in nearby areas or around the nation. (HomeSnap allows you to keep your own Snaps out of this “stream,” if you’d rather your neighbors didn’t know you’ve been investigating their homes or you’d rather not tip off potential competing buyers.)

With a picture you take of a home, HomeSnap offers data like the number of bedrooms and baths.

There are many real-estate apps and Web sites, such as Zillow, that allow you to get similar information. Some real-estate firms have their own. But these typically require you to type in an address, or troll through a list, or study a map and tap on a marker that represents a house of interest. All HomeSnap requires is that you snap the shutter on your iPhone. (Android and iPad versions are in the works.)

I’ve been testing HomeSnap for a few weeks in two states: Maryland and Rhode Island. In my 17 attempts, the app almost always correctly identified the house I was shooting. In two cases, both in townhouse complexes, it wasn’t sure and presented me with an aerial photo displaying a few guesses from which I could pick. In two other cases, it couldn’t identify the house at all for some reason.

The app doesn’t actually perform photo recognition on the house. Instead, it uses the iPhone’s GPS capability and its sensors to identify the house and then fetches the details from a server in the cloud.

HomeSnap includes a Stealth mode that lets you take a picture when you aren’t right in front of a house — even when you’re inside another nearby house — and get an aerial view of homes in the area from which you can choose a property as your Snap. This proved accurate for me. In one test, it worked perfectly when I was only able to shoot the rear of a house.

Sawbuck says it built the app partly because it hopes that if a user likes it, he or she will one day use one of its agents. But it says so far only about 10 percent of the 150,000 Snaps taken with the app have been of homes that are actually for sale.

You can flip through Snaps by others, either nearby or around the nation.

If a home isn’t for sale, HomeSnap draws its information from public information like tax records, school boundaries and census data. If a home is for sale, it provides much more detailed information drawn from local listing databases.

I found HomeSnap fun and impressive. It’s a good tool for investigating possible purchases, learning the estimated value of a house and getting other important information. For example, each Snap includes scores from third-party data vendors that rate the quality of nearby schools and rate the relative appreciation and investment value of a home, over 10 years, compared with the average. Some Snaps reveal previous sale dates and prices.

But its information wasn’t always complete or accurate. For instance, in the case of my own home, which isn’t on the market, it got the number of bathrooms wrong, and didn’t know the number of bedrooms — an omission the company blames on a quirk in the public records available for my area. (My tests elsewhere did include the number of bedrooms.) The app has a feature that allows you to report such errors.

In addition, the app currently doesn’t have extra information drawn from listings of homes for rent and can’t pinpoint units inside large buildings. The company says it’s working on both capabilities.

It marks photos of certain homes with a color-coded banner — green if the home is for sale; orange if it’s under contract; and purple if there’s an upcoming open house for the property. If there’s a major change in the information on a Snap in your history, the app updates it.

The app keeps a history of your Snaps and the company retains them on its servers, whether or not you choose to make them public. In its licensing terms, the company reserves the right to reuse, or modify, the photos you take, though it promises not to “materially” change them, or to distribute or reproduce photos taken by those who opt to keep them private.

If you’re looking for a house or just curious about one and you own an iPhone, HomeSnap is a clever, useful and entertaining tool.

Write to Walt at walt.mossberg@wsj.com.

Are Macs More Secure?

Walt Mossberg — Wed, 02 May 2012 04:25:00 +0000

Apple claims Macs to be more secure than Windows PCs. In the light of recent malware attacks on the Mac platform, there are several articles on the Web questioning this claim. What is your take on this matter?

Macs aren’t invulnerable to malicious software. No computer is. But the people who produce viruses and spyware have traditionally focused on Windows—and still do, primarily. There have indeed been a couple of recent instances of malware that spread among some Macs in the real world. But bear in mind that, despite the steady growth in Mac sales, Windows still powers the vast majority of the world’s PCs, and, because of that, there are hundreds of thousands of malicious programs targeting it, versus just a handful of known ones for the Mac.

So, my take on this is that while Mac users must be careful where they surf, and Apple will have to step up its game against these attacks, an unprotected Macintosh is still, in daily use, far less likely to become infected than an unprotected Windows PC. How users handle this depends on their habits and their tolerance, both for risk, and for the downsides of constantly running security software, which can sap resources and be annoying. I advise all Windows users to run such software. But I see it as optional for Mac users, at least today. Time will tell if that changes.

Do you know of any apps that work well with dictation on older iPhones?

One that I have used successfully is Dragon Dictation from Nuance. The same company makes an Android app called FlexT9, which I haven’t tested, that includes dictation, among other features. Both apps work on a wide variety of models.

I love my BlackBerry for the ease of emailing and maintaining my schedule but not for accessing the Internet. I am a T-Mobile customer. Is there any device that has the good features of the BlackBerry and also easily and comprehensively accesses the Internet?

T-Mobile offers a wide range of Android phones that include very good Web browsers and typically have two email apps: one for Gmail and one for all your other email accounts. They also have calendar apps.

Overall, I prefer these smartphones to current BlackBerrys and find the email experience fine. But people who are used to the BlackBerry for email—especially corporate email—sometimes complain that email on other devices isn’t as fast. This is partly because BlackBerry email is routed through a proprietary system. I’d advise asking friends or colleagues with newer T-Mobile Android phones about their email experience.

Write to Walt at mossberg.@wsj.com.

Samsung Aims to Get in Touch With Media Players

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 02 May 2012 01:08:20 +0000

Here’s a shocker: Not everyone wants to buy a smartphone.

Parents, for example, often balk at paying high monthly cellular-data bills for their teens and tweens and would rather they stick with simpler phones, if they have phones at all. And even some adults prefer simpler, less costly phones.

For a lot of these users, a popular solution has been what’s called a connected media player: Essentially a smartphone without cellular voice and data access, and without the monthly cellular bill. And the king of that category has been Apple’s iPod touch, which starts at $199. A Wi-Fi-only device, the touch looks like a thinner iPhone, with the same high-resolution 3.5-inch screen. It runs most of the same apps, handles email and Web surfing, and is a very capable hand-held game machine, music and video player, and photo viewer.

[ See post to watch video ]

Now Samsung, Apple’s biggest rival in the smartphone arena, is going after the touch with a new connected media player sporting a similar-sized screen, the Galaxy Player 3.6. But Samsung is charging about $50 less — $150. And in about 10 days, it’ll launch a second model, the larger Galaxy Player 4.2, for $200. Both devices run on a year-old version of Google’s Android operating system.

Samsung dipped its toe into this market last year with earlier Galaxy Players, but they were mostly ignored by consumers, partly because of bulky designs and high prices. Now, the Korean giant is doubling down with more compact and affordable models.

I’ve been testing the Player 3.6 for the past few days and comparing it with the latest iPod touch. The Samsung has some advantages, such as a camera that takes better still pictures, an FM radio and expandable memory. But overall, it feels like a cruder device than the touch. Its much lower screen resolution made text, video and images look grainy compared with those on the touch, and its bulkier plastic case felt flimsy compared with the glass and stainless-steel case on the touch, which uses Apple’s latest OS.

Still, for some people, especially parents buying for their kids, the Galaxy Player 3.6 may be good enough, especially since it costs 25 percent less. Its price advantage is even a bit better, because it comes with a charger, something the touch doesn’t include. And its included earbuds are the in-ear type, with a microphone and play-pause button, which the included touch earbuds lack.

Among the features of the Samsung Galaxy Player 3.6: FM radio and earbuds with a microphone and play-pause button.

Even though the Galaxy Player isn’t a cellphone, it can make voice and video calls, and send text messages over the Internet when you’re in Wi-Fi range. Just like the touch.

Samsung insists the $200, 4.2-inch model will be a closer competitor to the touch. I didn’t get a chance to put this model through its paces. But I did get to play with one for about an hour. Its screen resolution is much higher than its sibling’s, though still well below that of the touch. It also has front-mounted stereo speakers that sounded great — better than the Apple’s speaker. And some users will prefer its larger screen.

Even the entry-level Samsung model might be considered an alternative to Apple’s, especially by prospective buyers who are price-conscious or prefer Android, or who want some Samsung features the touch lacks. The Galaxy Player 3.6 is about 34 percent thicker, 8 percent heavier than the touch, and is also longer and wider, but it is still comfortable in the hand and the pocket.

I tried music, videos, photos, games, email, Web surfing and third-party apps like Netflix and “Angry Birds” on the new Player. All worked fine, as did a movie I rented from Google’s online store, recently renamed Google Play from Android Market. To get media from a computer onto the Player, Samsung recommends plugging it in via a cable and dragging the files manually into specified folders on the device. This worked for me, but was tedious.

Samsung offers a Windows and Mac program called Kies that automates the transfer process. But in my tests, only the Windows version was able to work with the Player I was using.

The 2-megapixel rear camera on the Player 3.6 was better at still photos than the one on the touch, but worse at videos. Still, neither comes close to matching the superb cameras in smartphones like the latest iPhone or the Android-based HTC One.

The Player 3.6 has an unusual feature: It can be paired with a cellphone — even an iPhone — via Bluetooth, and can be used to answer (not place) calls. In my tests, this worked, but I can’t imagine using it very often.

Like the base $199 iPod touch, the $150 entry-model Player comes with 8 gigabytes of internal memory. But, unlike the Apple, you can expand its memory with an extra-cost memory card, up to 32GB. Apple offers higher-priced touch models with 32GB and 64GB of sealed-in memory.

I didn’t do a formal battery test, but Samsung claims the Player 3.6 gets 30 hours when playing audio and six hours when playing video. Apple claims 40 hours for audio and seven hours for video on the touch. In my use, the Samsung’s battery held up nicely, and the battery is removable.

Overall, the new Galaxy Player 3.6 is worth a look if you’re in the market for a device with many of the features, but not the monthly costs, of a smartphone, especially if you’re on a budget and can live with the poor screen resolution.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Taking Dictation

Walter S. Mossberg — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 21:47:31 +0000

Can I hook up my iPhone to my iMac and dictate into a word processor? Or should I just dictate into the Notes app on the iPhone and send that by email? I am executor of my mom’s estate and she left a lot of written memories that I want to compile into a book for family members. It would be a lot easier to dictate than to type them all.

As far as I know, the iPhone can’t be used as a dictation appendage for a computer. You’d have to dictate into a document on the phone and transfer that to the computer. But you don’t have to use Apple’s Notes app.

There are many apps on iPhone and Android that can produce documents in Microsoft Word format which, when transferred to a PC or Mac, can be opened right in Word. Examples are Quickoffice, Documents To Go, and Apple’s own Pages. You can use dictation with all of these.

Enjoyed your article on using smartphones to turn dictation into text. I have recently become interested in various inexpensive devices that can record professors’ lectures into text. Do you think that the iPhone or Android phones can do that from a long distance, say, in back of the class?

Anything is possible, but it’s not what the dictation features are designed to do, and I didn’t test that scenario. I doubt it would be very reliable or accurate.

The microphones on smartphones are typically designed to focus on a single voice close to the phone and to ignore the details of more distant sounds. It might work in a small, quiet seminar room with a professor whose voice is loud and clear, but I’m skeptical it would work in the back row of a large hall.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Google Stores, Syncs, Edits in the Cloud

Walter S. Mossberg — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 16:37:48 +0000

For years, some people who wanted to store files on remote servers in the cloud have been emailing the files to their Gmail accounts, or uploading them to Google’s lightly used Google Docs online productivity suite, even if they had no intention of editing them there.

Now, Google is formally jumping into the cloud-based file storage and syncing business, offering a service called Google Drive, which will compete with products like Dropbox and others by offering lower prices and different features. It works on multiple operating systems, browsers and mobile devices, including those of Google’s competitors Apple and Microsoft. There are apps for Windows, Mac and mobile devices that automatically sync files with Google Drive.

[ See post to watch video ]

I’ve been testing Google Drive, which launches today, and I like it. It subsumes the editing and file-creation features of Google Docs, and replaces Google Docs (though any documents you have stored there carry over). In my tests — on a Mac, a Lenovo PC, a new iPad and the latest Samsung Android tablet — Google Drive worked quickly and well, and most of its features operated as promised. At launch, it’s available for Windows PCs, Macs and Android devices. The version for the iPhone and iPad is planned for release soon.

Google Drive, which can be found at drive.google.com, offers users 5 gigabytes of free storage, compared with 2 gigabytes free for the popular Dropbox, and equal to the free offering from another cloud storage and syncing service I like, SugarSync. That’s enough for thousands of typical documents, photos and songs.

Prices for additional storage drastically undercut Dropbox and SugarSync. For instance, 100 GB on Google Drive costs $4.99 a month. By contrast, 100 GB costs $14.99 monthly on SugarSync and $19.99 on Dropbox. Google Drive will offer huge capacities, in tiers, all the way up to 16 terabytes. (A terabyte is roughly 1,000 gigabytes.) And if you buy extra storage for Google Drive, your Gmail quota rises to 25 GB.

But one of Google’s biggest rivals isn’t standing still. Microsoft is expanding both the features and capacity of its little-known SkyDrive cloud storage service as well. That product started out as a free, fixed-capacity (25 gigabytes) online locker mostly for users of the stripped-down, cloud-based version of Microsoft Office, though it also has been available as an app for Windows Phone smartphones and for iPhones. It’s giving away even more free storage than Google — 7 GB, though that is a cut from what it used to offer free. It also is charging less than Google. For instance, you can add 100 gigabytes for $50 a year. And users of the old version get to keep their 25-gigabyte free allotment. I wasn’t able to test this new version of SkyDrive for this column. It also is offering syncing apps for Windows and Mac.

Google Drive is meant as an evolution of Google Docs. While you could previously upload a file to Google Docs using your Web browser, for Google Drive, the company is providing free apps for Mac and Windows that, like Dropbox, do this for you. They create special folders that sync with your cloud-based repository and with the Web version of the product. So, you can drag a file into these local folders on your computer and that file will be uploaded to your cloud account and will rapidly appear in the Web version of Google Drive, in the Google Drive folders on your other computers, and in the Google Drive apps on Android, iPhone and iPad devices. These local apps also sync any changes to the files you make.

One big difference between Dropbox and Google Drive is you can edit or create files in the latter, rather than merely storing or viewing them. This is because Google Drive includes the rudimentary word processor, spreadsheet, presentation and other apps that make up Google Docs.

But there is a catch. If your stored document is in a Microsoft Office format, you can only view it. To edit it, you have to click a command to convert the file to Google’s own formats, or choose a setting that converts Microsoft Office files when uploaded. But this latter feature only works when uploading from the website.

Google Drive also is missing some features of SugarSync I like. The latter doesn’t require you to place files in a special folder; it syncs the folders you already use on your PC and Mac. Also, unlike SugarSync, Google Drive doesn’t let you email files directly into your cloud locker.

Google Drive allows you to share files and folders, and collaborate with others. You can also email files as attachments. People with whom you share files can be allowed different rights: To view, comment, or edit them. You can also keep the files private.

Because Google has run into hot water over keeping users’ information private, some people may be reluctant to trust their files to Google Drive. But the company insists that, while it does process and store your files, no human can see them and, at least today, the files aren’t used to target advertising at users. The company notes no file can be placed in Google Drive unless the user wants it there.

The service does a very good job of searching files, even finding words inside PDF or scanned documents. The company claims it can find images when you type in words describing them, like “bridge” or “mountain”—even if those words don’t appear in the image’s file name. But I found this mostly worked with photos of famous places or people Google has collected via its Google Goggles product. Google Drive failed to find images with generic file names on almost all of my own pictures, even when they included things like mountains or other common objects.

Google Drive did a good job in my tests with videos. It converts nearly every common video format into a format it can play, right inside its website. This process can take some time. While Google Drive can store music, it can’t play it directly via its website.

Google’s new service also works with third-party document creation and editing apps that are built to work with it. I used one, called Balsamiq Mockups, to create a quick wire-frame diagram.

I can recommend Google Drive to consumers looking for cloud-based storage, with the added bonus of integrated editing, at lower prices. But the new Microsoft SkyDrive also seems worth a try.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Permission to Procrastinate: Wait to Get a New Laptop

Walt Mossberg — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 01:13:10 +0000

If you’re thinking of buying a new laptop this spring, my advice is to think again. Unless your laptop is on its last legs and you have to move quickly, there are compelling reasons to wait until at least the summer, and probably the fall, to buy a new machine, especially if you are looking for a Windows PC, but even if you are in the market for a Mac.

[ See post to watch video ]

That makes this annual spring buyer’s guide a bit different. People always worry that buying tech products today carries a risk of obsolescence. Most of the time, that fear is overblown. But this spring really is a bad time to buy a new laptop, because genuinely big changes are due in the coming months.

On the PC side, Microsoft is set to introduce Windows 8, the most radical new version of Windows in years, probably in the fall. PC makers will be introducing new laptop designs to take advantage of it. While Windows 8 will work with a mouse or touch pad and a keyboard, it will be heavily oriented toward tablet-type touch-screen navigation. Many PC makers are planning convertible Windows 8 models for the holiday shopping season that can act as either tablets or regular clamshell laptops.

If you buy a traditional Windows 7 laptop now, Microsoft says it will very likely be upgradable to Windows 8, but you won’t find the new styles of laptops on store shelves now. Even if you buy one of the rare touch-screen laptops now, Microsoft says it will likely work with the touch features of Windows 8, but it may not be optimized to do a great job with the new software. Also, in my view, it is always better, especially with Windows computers, to buy a new machine if you want a new version of Windows.

On the Mac side, Apple also is bringing out a new operating system, this summer. Called Mountain Lion, it won’t be as big a change as Windows 8, partly because Apple already has integrated a lot of touch gestures and tablet-type features into the Mac using the touch pad, and has given no indication it plans touch screens.

While current Macs will most likely be upgradeable to Mountain Lion, you risk missing out on new hardware if you buy a machine now.

However, Apple is overdue for redesigned laptops, especially in its MacBook Pro line, and it is a good bet that new, possibly heavily redesigned, models will begin appearing later this year. Current Macs will likely be upgradable to Mountain Lion, but if you buy now, you’ll miss out on the likely new hardware.

There is another factor that calls for waiting. Intel, whose processors are used by most Windows PC makers and by Apple, is on the verge of introducing a new family of chips, called Ivy Bridge, which the chip maker claims will offer much faster graphics performance without sacrificing battery life. While some Ivy Bridge laptops will be available very soon, the new chips won’t show up in large numbers of consumer laptops until around June. So, even before Windows 8 appears, many consumer laptops you buy now will be outclassed by similar machines that will be introduced this summer.

There is a silver lining. If you watch prices carefully, you may find bargains on Windows 7 laptops running the current Intel processors — which are plenty capable — as the newer models get closer. And PC makers are likely, at some point, to offer free upgrades to Windows 8.

With all of that in mind, here is a cheat sheet to choosing a laptop now, if you must. As always, these tips are for average consumers doing common tasks — email, Web browsing, social networking, general office productivity, photos, music, videos and simple games. This guide isn’t meant for corporate buyers or for serious gamers and media producers.

Tablet or laptop

Tablets can reduce your reliance on a laptop and allow you to wait to buy a new one. Tablet users often find they use their laptops less often for daily tasks like email, Web browsing, or social networking.

Windows 8, the most radical new version in years, will likely be out this fall, accompanied by new PC designs.

Price

Windows PC makers are trying to nudge up the price of their laptops, since they feel they make too little profit on them. You can buy a stripped-down Windows laptop for under $300 and an adequate model for around $500. But a well-equipped model typically runs between $600 and $900. The cheapest Mac laptop, the 11-inch MacBook Air, costs $999, and prices quickly climb to $1,200.

Windows vs. Mac

Windows 7 laptops offer more variety in styles, and often more ports and larger hard disks, at less cost. But Apple laptops are sturdy, sleek and offer better built-in software. They have excellent customer support and can even run Windows, at an extra cost.

Also, Mac users have only the rare virus to contend with, while Windows users must worry about hundreds of thousands of potential attacks. Finally, Apple’s slim, light, speedy MacBook Air, which starts at $999, is a gem. It isn’t only a great traveling machine, but it can be used as your main machine.

Ultrabooks

Nearly every PC maker now has a MacBook Air-type model called an Ultrabook. I have yet to find one that is quite as good as the Air, especially on my battery tests. But I like the ultrabooks a lot, and think most consumers will, too. The main downsides to the ultrabooks are that they are relatively pricey — some top $1,000 — and have less storage. Like the Air, most use fast solid-state drives instead of hard disks, and these top out at just 256 gigabytes.

Memory

Get at least 4 gigabytes of memory, or RAM, on a new Windows computer. On a Mac, you can get away with 2 gigabytes, but 4 GB is better.

Processors

Intel’s chips — even the new ones coming soon — are called the i3, i5, and i7. An i5 is fine for most consumers, and even an i3 will do. But a laptop with chips from AMD is also fine.

Graphics

Usually cheaper machines have weak graphics hardware and costlier ones have better graphics. Better graphics can make a machine faster.

Hard disks

A 500 gigabyte hard disk should be the minimum on most PCs, except bargain and very light models. As always, be wary of sales pitches and don’t buy more laptop than you need.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Take a Note: Typing With No Hands

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 01:08:24 +0000

I am writing this paragraph on an iPhone. But I am not typing it on the phone’s virtual keyboard. I am dictating it using a little-known feature that allows you to employ your voice instead of your fingers, wherever text entry is possible on the device.

[ See post to watch video ]

And now, for this paragraph, I have switched to an Android phone. Once again, I am composing these words using only my voice, and not typing them on the virtual keyboard.

Those two paragraphs, dictated as emails and then cut and pasted into this column on a computer, required far fewer corrections than you might think, given the bad reputation for accuracy that voice input on digital devices has acquired. I only had to add a comma I’d forgotten to specify in the first paragraph and capitalize the word “Android” in the second paragraph.

For me, a daily user of virtual keyboards, the process was quicker and more accurate than typing would likely have been, even for the relatively short blocks of text typically composed on phones.

So, on the suspicion that dictation on smartphones might prove useful for others as well, I’ve been testing it heavily over the past week. I used a top phone with Google’s Android software, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, and an Apple iPhone 4S. In general, I found that, while dictation could occasionally fail badly, it worked surprisingly well in a wide variety of environments and applications.

On both leading smartphone platforms, I found that relatively short dictation—such as emails, texts, tweets, Facebook posts and notes—was at least as accurate, and often more, as typing on a glass screen. It was better in quiet environments, but did OK even in most noisy places like grocery stores, coffee shops and carwashes. It was also faster, since, as long as you don’t have to correct numerous errors, speaking is usually faster than typing on glass.

For this review, I am not mainly referring to Siri, the widely publicized, voice-controlled feature on the new iPhones, which can do things like tell you the weather, or stock prices. Nor am I discussing the “voice actions” on Android, which can perform Web searches and other tasks. Both can also help with some text dictation. I concentrated on a much simpler feature of both platforms: a small microphone key that’s included right in the phones’ on-screen keyboards.

Apple’s dictation system did better at capitalizing proper names.

Android phones have had this microphone key for a couple of years, and Apple added it to the latest iPhone, the 4S, last fall, and to the new iPad, when it came out last month. But I’m guessing that many users of these phones either haven’t used this special key, or haven’t even noticed it.

While the microphone keys work a bit differently on the two platforms, they are basically similar. When the keyboard appears, ready for you to type, you can instead hit the microphone key and simply dictate what you want to say. The phones then send your spoken words to a remote server, which rapidly translates them into text and sends them back to the phone’s screen. If corrections are needed, you make them by typing, though both platforms make this easier by indicating the likeliest errors, and suggesting alternatives.

A couple of caveats are in order. I didn’t compare dictation to typing on a phone with physical keys, whose devotees are often speedy and accurate. Instead, I thought the apt comparison was with a virtual keyboard, which is becoming the norm on phones, but is still a source of frustration for many users.

But Android was more reliable.

I also didn’t try dictating a long document, like this column, because phones are rarely used for lengthy composing.

I found that both platforms’ dictation systems worked well enough for me to recommend them. In case after case, both phones got it right, or close enough to require little correcting.

But there are differences. Android has an advantage in that, in the newest version of its operating system, it displays the dictated text almost in real time, lagging just slightly behind your spoken words. On the iPhone, the system only reveals its rendering of your dictation after you’ve tapped on a “Done” button.

Android’s dictation system also supports many more languages than Apple’s—40 languages and dialects, including Spanish, Chinese, Arabic and Hebrew. On the iPhone, only English, French and German are currently supported, though Apple says Chinese, Korean, Italian, and Spanish will be added later this year.

However, I found the iPhone 4S worked better than the Galaxy Nexus in noisier environments. For instance, in a crowded shopping-mall food court, while neither phone was perfect, the iPhone understood me to say: “I am dictating this email from the very noisy Court at Montgomery Mall on the iPhone”—missing only the word “food” and capitalizing “Court.” The Android phone mangled a very similar sentence as: “I am dictating this email on droid phone from the bearing noise for it montgomery mall.”

Google notes that, unlike Apple, it supports many phones, and that the results might have differed on another model, with better noise cancellation. Apple says the iPhone 4S does have noise cancellation. And, in any case, the two phones’ results were more comparable in quieter settings.

Apple’s system also did better at capitalizing proper names, like Stradivarius, or Red Sox, or even Google (which my Android phone, ironically, always rendered in lowercase). But Google says it will be updating its dictation feature in weeks to better handle proper names.

On the other hand, I found that, when Android did err, it had a more extensive and easier to use manner for correcting those mistakes than the iPhone did. Android was also more reliable; sometimes the iPhone returned no text at all.

Still, I found these differences less important than the fact that, for me, the results on both platforms were impressive. On both, if you say words like “period” or “comma,” you generally get the punctuation mark (though both try to make the distinction when you actually want a word like “period.”)

And, in test after test, both did a good job. Errors were generally fewer than if I had typed the words quickly.

Both have a downside: Because they do the transcription on their servers, and they are anxious to improve, they do retain some information about what you’re saying. Both companies say they respect your privacy, but, if you worry about transmitting your messages or notes to Apple or Google, don’t use dictation.

Otherwise, especially for those who find typing on glass clumsy, the microphone key on Android and the new iPhone is something you might want to add to your arsenal of ways to use your phone.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Alternatives to the iPhone

Walt Mossberg — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 01:03:20 +0000

I’ve been using the iPhone since it came out in 2007. And while I’m satisfied with the way it works, I’m considering changing phones just to have something different—in particular a larger screen. What, in your opinion, are the best alternatives to the iPhone? I use mine primarily for email, along with checking stocks and weather.

I would go with an Android phone, which has plenty of apps that are similar to what you are used to, and which typically these days come with larger screens, some exceeding 4.5 inches. There are always new models coming out, and there are so many that it can be hard to recommend one. But, in my tests, I’ve been especially impressed with the Samsung Galaxy models.

I’m a Verizon user currently on 3G and we’ve been promised 4G in our area by end of 2013. Do you have any indication Verizon is actually going to continue with LTE service or is this just a smoke screen? Are they really going to roll out new 4G (LTE) service or is this just chosen markets?

I don’t know where you live, or when or whether Verizon Wireless plans to offer LTE, the fastest cellular data network, in your particular area. But I can say that, for Verizon, LTE is anything but a “smoke screen,” and I’d be stunned if the carrier didn’t continue rolling it out. Verizon has deployed it in over 200 markets and says it plans to cover 400 markets by the end of 2012. It’s a key part of the company’s competitive strategy.

Every carrier that deploys a new network starts with a few “chosen markets,” and there are always some areas left out, even years later, for various reasons. But from everything I know, Verizon is planning a broad national LTE network.

I run Windows 7 on a Mac using Parallels Desktop. Can I use the normal Windows update process to keep Windows 7 up to date or will it compromise the Windows setup through Parallels?

Your virtual copy of Windows inside the Parallels software is designed to work just like Windows on a physical PC. That includes the Windows update process, which I have used many times on Windows via Parallels. This is separate from any updates made by Apple to the Mac operating system, or updates to the Parallels program itself.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com

It's Big, It's Blue, It's Windows, but Can It Beat Rival Phones?

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 01:01:41 +0000

In the lucrative and competitive world of smartphones, Apple’s iPhone is the most popular device and Google’s Android—used by phone makers like Samsung and Motorola—is the most widely used operating system. With Palm gone, and the BlackBerry staggering, most smartphone buyers and app developers now think of it as a two-horse race.

[ See post to watch video ]

However, Microsoft and Nokia, two former thoroughbreds of the smartphone market in the days before the iPhone changed the game, are determined to change that. They’ve teamed up in the hope of offering an appealing third choice. So far, Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system has struggled to attract either buyers or app developers. But on April 8, Nokia and AT&T will begin selling the first high-end, 4G LTE, Windows Phone model released in the U.S., the Lumia 900.

The Lumia 900 looks rather different from other smartphones. It’s a solid, sturdy, single slab of rounded blue plastic—yes, blue—with a large, thin, bright screen that appears to lie on top, instead of being inset. (For the less adventurous, it also comes in black, and, in a few weeks, white.)

Plus, for an unspecified “limited time,” it costs just $100, half the typical $200 price of most other top-of-the-line competitors. That price requires a two-year AT&T contract whose fees start at $80 a month for a very minimal amount of data and voice minutes, plus unlimited texting. (It’s $60 without the texting plan.)

I’ve been testing the Lumia 900 and found that it provides the best home yet for the attractive Windows Phone software, but still doesn’t measure up to rival smartphones.

The Lumia 900’s screen is much larger than the iPhone’s, but the phone isn’t as big and bulky as some recent Android models.

The screen is a roomy 4.3 inches—much larger than the iPhone’s—but the phone itself, while larger than an iPhone, isn’t as big and bulky as some recent Android models. I found it comfortable in the hand and the pocket.

When on an LTE network, the phone delivered download speeds of between 10 and 15 megabits per second in my tests, faster than most home Internet connections. Voice calls were clear and reliable, and the rear camera delivers 8 megapixel resolution.

Also, the Lumia 900 features the three biggest advantages of the Windows Phone platform—a handsome, distinctive, tile-based user interface; a mobile version of Microsoft’s Xbox Live gaming network; and a mobile version of genuine Microsoft Office, which allows you to edit documents and share them with PCs and Macs, or store them in the cloud.

But, overall, I consider the Lumia 900 a mixed bag. Unless you are a big Windows Phone fan, or don’t want to spend more than $100 upfront, I can’t recommend the Lumia 900 over the iPhone 4S, or a first-rate Android phone like Samsung’s Galaxy S II series.

I was underwhelmed by the battery life, the browser, and the quality of its photos.

Plus, the Windows Phone platform has only a fraction of the third-party apps available for its rivals—about 70,000, versus nearly 600,000 for the iPhone and more than 450,000 for Android.

It also has a weaker content ecosystem. For instance, there is no way to buy TV shows or movies directly from the phone, and far fewer magazine and newspaper apps are available.

And if LTE—which I consider the only true 4G network in the U.S.—matters to you, bear in mind that AT&T offers that service in just 31 markets, versus 203 for Verizon. In most places, the Lumia, like other AT&T phones, including the AT&T version of the iPhone, delivers a slower version of 4G, which is really just a souped-up version of 3G.

The Windows Phone software itself on this new phone hasn’t changed. Instead of multiple pages of icons, as on iPhone and Android, it offers a scroll of tiles that show information. And it still has “hubs” that combine information like contacts and social-media updates for people you know.

Still, despite its flaws, including the likelihood of a lot of scrolling to get to apps, it remains a refreshing change from the dominant competitors.

My biggest problem was with the Web browser, a mobile version of Internet Explorer.

Back in January, when I tested the same browser on an entry-level Nokia Windows Phone, it worked fine on both the cellular network and on my Wi-Fi network. But the Lumia 900 stalled frequently when rendering websites on my fast, home Wi-Fi network, though the phone did fine on LTE.

To make sure my Wi-Fi wasn’t faulty, I tried some of the same sites, in the same spot, on an iPhone, an Android phone and even an older Samsung Windows Phone. All worked perfectly. Nokia had no explanation for this problem.

I found that, in light use, the battery lasted through a typical day. But in heavier use, including lots of email usage and Web browsing, streaming a one-hour TV show via Netflix, and conducting an hour-long phone call, the battery drained more quickly and was almost gone by late in the afternoon. This was especially true if I was using LTE much of the time.

While the Lumia 900’s processor is single-core, not the common dual-core found on other high-end phones, I found the phone worked smoothly and quickly, and played videos fine.

The screen resolution of 800 by 480 is lower than the iPhone’s, and I found the display generally less sharp than the Apple’s. The screen visibility was a bit better outdoors than most other phones I’ve tested, but not dramatically so.

The camera, despite having the same resolution as the new iPhone, took notably worse pictures of the same scenes in my tests. To my eye, colors were oversaturated, and details were less sharp.

There were a few other issues. The Mac version of Microsoft’s Windows Phone syncing software wouldn’t recognize the Lumia 900, though the PC version did. The on-off button isn’t labeled, or easily distinguishable, from the dedicated camera button.

Bottom line: If you’re looking for a $100, high-end smartphone, or are a Windows Phone fan who has been waiting for better hardware, the Lumia 900 is worth considering. But the phone had just too many drawbacks in my tests to best its chief competitors.

Write to Walt at walt.mossberg@wsj.com

Is the iPhone 4S Really 4G?

Walt Mossberg — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 00:37:52 +0000

In your recent article about 4G cellular networks, you didn’t mention the iPhone. Do you know if the iPhone 4S, which now indicates (on the AT&T version) that you’re sometimes on 4G, is actually 4G?

The AT&T version of the latest iPhone can take advantage of one of the types of faster networks that has been heavily advertised as 4G, by rival phone makers and by AT&T. It can theoretically download data twice as fast as the prior AT&T iPhone. But like many other phones, it’s using what is essentially a souped-up version of 3G.

When the iPhone 4S first came out, Apple announced it had this higher speed on the AT&T version, but didn’t label it 4G. Now, since a recent operating-system update, these iPhones say they are on “4G” when they are in an area covered by some of AT&T’s faster networks. But the software revision didn’t change the download speed of the phone, only the indicator.

In your column explaining 4G, you called the LTE networks the fastest. But an engineering friend of mine says current LTE isn’t true LTE, and a faster version is in the works.

The United Nations standards body for telecommunications typically approves yearslong road maps for faster and faster versions of cellular networks and that’s true for LTE, which stands for “Long Term Evolution.”

There’s a future variant, often called “LTE-Advanced,” which is supposed to be much faster. But no U.S. carrier has deployed it yet. Indeed, the current version of LTE is still far from full deployment.

As for whether today’s version is “true LTE,” this is a nomenclature issue that mainly interests technical purists. All you need to know as a consumer, is that LTE today is typically much faster than any other cellular data network you can use.

I recently purchased a MacBook Pro and also bought Microsoft Office for the Mac, which didn’t include the Access database program. Is there a version of Access for the Mac?

No. Microsoft has chosen not to offer a Mac version. In fact, even for Windows PCs, the two consumer versions of Office, Home and Student and Home and Business, omit Access.

Only the costliest edition, the $350 Professional version, includes it. If you want to run Access on your Mac, you’ll have to install Windows.

Write to Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

4G or Not 4G: A Guide to Cut Through All the "Fast" Talk

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 01:07:26 +0000

Of all the confusing technology terms used in consumer marketing today, perhaps the most opaque is “4G,” used to describe a new, much faster generation of cellular data on smartphones, tablets and other devices. It sounds simple, but there are many varieties of 4G and conflicting claims.

[ See post to watch video ]

AT&T claims “The nation’s largest 4G network,” and T-Mobile says it has “America’s largest 4G network.” Verizon Wireless boasts “America’s fastest 4G network,” and Sprint says it had the first 4G network.

Yet the technology used by T-Mobile, and mostly comprising AT&T’s 4G network, isn’t considered “real” 4G at all by some critics, and the one used by Sprint has proven to be a dead end and is being abandoned. The flavor being used by Verizon is now being adopted by its rivals, but won’t be interoperable among them.

Verizon offers LTE, which is the fastest variety of 4G.

It’s a headache for consumers to grasp. So here’s a simplified explainer to some of the most common questions, based on interviews with top technical officials at all four major U.S. wireless carriers.

What is 4G?

It’s the fourth and latest generation technology for data access over cellular networks. It’s faster and can give networks more capacity than the 3G networks still on most phones. There’s a technical definition, set by a United Nations agency in Europe, and a marketing definition, which is looser, but more relevant to most consumers.

Who needs 4G?

It’s mostly for people with smartphones, tablets and laptops who often need fast data speeds for Web browsing, app use and email when they’re out of the range of Wi-Fi networks. It can give you the same or greater data speeds as home or office Wi-Fi when you’re in a taxi. In hotels and airports, it’s often faster than public Wi-Fi networks.

How does 4G differ from another term being advertised, ‘LTE’?

LTE, which stands for “Long Term Evolution,” is the fastest, most consistent variety of 4G, and the one most technical experts feel hews most closely to the technical standard set by the U.N. In the U.S., it has primarily been deployed by Verizon, which offers it in over 200 markets. AT&T has begun deploying it, offering LTE in 28 markets so far. Sprint and T-Mobile are pivoting to LTE, though they have no cities covered by it yet.

What are these other versions of 4G?

Sprint uses a technology called WiMax. T-Mobile and AT&T deployed a technology called HSPA+, a faster version of 3G that they relabeled as 4G, and which many technical critics regard as a “faux 4G.” Sprint will begin switching to LTE later this year, and T-Mobile in 2013.

Sprint uses a 4G technology called WiMax.

How fast is 4G?

Claims vary and performance depends upon the type of device, location, and time. In my tests, 4G phones, tablets and data modems for laptops typically deliver from three to 20 times the download speeds of 3G devices. The speed king is LTE. The LTE devices I’ve used have typically averaged download speeds of between 10 and 20 megabits per second, with frequent instances of over 30 megabits per second. The other forms of 4G have generally produced download speeds well under 10 mbps in my tests. But all of these are better than 3G, which in my tests on all networks and many devices, averages download speeds of under 2 mbps.

How does LTE compare with common wired home Internet speeds?

Although it is wireless, LTE is often faster than most Americans’ wired home Internet service. According to Akamai, a large Internet company, the average broadband speed in the U.S. in the third quarter of 2011 was a mere 6.1 mbps.

How does LTE compare with Wi-Fi?

Wi-Fi is usually a wireless broadcast of a wired Internet service, so, if the average U.S. broadband speed is 6.1 mbps, that’s around what the average Wi-Fi speed is. But, in public places, the shared Wi-Fi is often much, much slower than LTE. In tests I did this week at Dulles Airport near Washington, and at a hotel outside Boston, the public Wi-Fi networks delivered well under 1 mbps on the new iPad. But the Verizon LTE cellular network on the iPad averaged over 32 mbps in both places.

T-Mobile and most of AT&T’s network use HSPA+.

Is LTE only faster at downloads? What about uploads?

It’s faster at both than 3G, in my experience.

Will these speeds drop as more people adopt LTE?

Probably, but it’s hard to say by how much, since LTE also offers more capacity, as well as speed. Verizon’s LTE network is believed to be used by less than 10% of its total subscribers.

What does LTE cost?

Prices vary by carrier and device. Verizon and AT&T use tiered pricing, where you pay escalating prices for larger and larger buckets of data. So far, they haven’t raised these prices for LTE, though people with LTE may find they use more data, and thus will need bigger buckets. One example: On the Verizon version of the new LTE iPad, prices range from $20 a month for 1 gigabyte of data to $80 a month for 10 gigabytes.

If I have an LTE phone or tablet, will I use more data faster than if I have 3G?

Quite possibly. The same amount of content, received at the same quality, won’t use more data on LTE than it does on 3G. However, because LTE is so much faster, users may be tempted to download or stream more data, like video, than with 3G. And they may choose to view higher quality video, which uses more data. Also, some apps and websites, sensing the higher LTE speed, will automatically send down larger, higher quality, data files, especially video.

AT&T is starting to roll out LTE.

How does LTE affect voice calls?

It doesn’t. It’s all about data, so far. Voice calls are handled by other, parallel networks. But companies are hoping to move voice traffic to LTE.

What if I have an LTE phone or tablet, but I move into an area without LTE coverage?

On Verizon, you fall back to a 3G network. On AT&T, you fall back to HSPA+, which is a slower 4G network, but still faster than 3G.

Who has the biggest 4G network in the U.S.?

Even if you accept all the carriers’ definitions of 4G, it’s hard to tell. Carriers measure the size of their networks differently — sometimes by the number of people to whom it is theoretically available, and sometimes by the number of cities and markets, which can be defined differently. Verizon has the largest LTE network. Both AT&T and T-Mobile claim the biggest 4G network, but the first has only a limited LTE deployment and the second has none.

Does LTE work overseas?

Yes, but there is less LTE rollout going on overseas than in the U.S. So, in most countries, your shiny new American LTE device may wind up falling back to slower networks.

Will an LTE phone from AT&T work on Verizon, and vice versa?

No. The technology is the same, but the networks use different bands, or frequencies. So, at least today, LTE devices aren’t interoperable among networks.

Email Walt at walt.mossberg@wsj.com.

Need Mobile Email? You'll Need a Data Plan.

Walt Mossberg — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 01:04:47 +0000

I have not used my cellphone for anything other than making calls, so I had a cheap $20 per month plan. Now, I need to access emails when I’m on the road. Is there any cheap way to do this other than getting a new, costlier two-year contract with a data plan? I don’t plan to surf the Web on the phone.

I don’t know exactly what plans are available for your particular phone, but I do know that wireless carriers consider email a form of data and that you will therefore need to add a data plan, whether you plan to surf the Web or not. If your phone can connect to Wi-Fi networks and your need to check email isn’t constant, you might be able to use free Wi-Fi hotspots for email, when you can get to them. But phones with Wi-Fi are typically smartphones, for which carriers require a data plan. The other option would be to rely for email on a device other than your phone, such as a laptop, a tablet, or a connected mobile media player—all of which use Wi-Fi and none of which require a cellular data contract.

Is it normal for the new iPad to be charged only 87% after four full hours of charging?

Based on my experience, that doesn’t sound out of line. Because it has a much larger battery, the time it takes to fully charge the new iPad is noticeably longer than on the earlier models. (Note: See this post by AllThingsD’s Ina Fried.)

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Two Screens Aren't Better Than One for Sony Tablet P

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 01:03:11 +0000

One way to stand out in a crowded category of devices is to employ a novel hardware design. Last year, Sony got decent marks from many reviewers, including me, for an Android tablet called the Tablet S, crafted to look like a magazine, with one thick, rounded vertical edge that made it more comfortable to hold than many other tablets. Now, the company has brought out another Android tablet with an even more radical design, and this one shows the limits of novelty.

[ See post to watch video ]

The new Tablet P, sold in AT&T stores, is a 7-inch long, narrow, hinged device with no exposed display at all. When you open it, twin small screens are revealed. Content can appear on one of the two screens, or be spread across both. It can operate over either a Wi-Fi or a cellular-data connection.

It sounds cool, but the Tablet P has some crucial drawbacks. The most important one is that, to take advantage of its full viewing area by using both screens as a single display, you must put up with a thick, black, plastic bar across the center of whatever you’re viewing. That disruptive scar is the inside of the hinge, where the dual screens meet.

Some apps avoid that absurd situation by cramming all their content into just one screen. But these screens are small, just 5.5 inches diagonally, closer to the area of a large smartphone than Sony’s Tablet S or the iPad, whose screens are about 10 inches. When content is spread across both screens, as it is in the Web browser, the combined display is about 7 inches, but that black bar is present.

To be fair, Sony has modified or created some apps so they take intelligent advantage of the dual screens, without the black bar to annoy you. For instance, the email app uses the bottom screen to list your messages and the top one to show whichever message you’re reading. Similarly, the stock video player, and many games, use the bottom screen for control buttons and the top for the content.

But at launch, there are only about 40 such specially adapted apps out of the hundreds of thousands of Android apps the Tablet P can run. Sony says more will be coming, but I suspect that will depend on how many of these foldout tablets it can sell. And I can’t recommend this one.

Sony has built-in on-screen buttons that can switch some apps from single-screen to combined-screen mode. But this isn’t available in some common, crucial apps, like the Web browser and Google Maps, which must be run in combined-screen mode, with the bar in the middle. You can’t run different apps in each screen, only separate parts of the same app.

Because it folds up, the Tablet P is much more portable than iPad-size tablets, or even 7-inch tablets like the Amazon Kindle Fire. It fits in a pants or jacket pocket or a modest-size purse. But when closed, its surfaces are rounded and have an overall thickness of a whopping 1.03 inches — much thicker than a typical smartphone or tablet — and so created a bulge.

There are other downsides. The Tablet P is relatively costly for a small tablet. Sony sells it online for $550, more than the base iPad and much more than the $199, 7-inch Fire. AT&T sells it for $400, but that price requires a two-year contract costing either $35 or $50 a month, depending on how much data you want.

This new tablet comes with a paltry amount of memory. It is packaged with a 2 gigabyte removable memory card and 4 gigabytes of internal storage, of which just 1.8 gigabytes is available to the user. That is a total of less than 4GB, versus 16GB for the base iPad. You can buy a larger memory card, up to 32GB, but that adds about $30 in cost.

Battery life also is weak. In my standard battery test, where I play videos back to back with the screen at 75 percent brightness and both Wi-Fi and cellular connections turned on, the Tablet P lasted just 5 hours and 16 minutes, about half the battery life of an iPad. The battery is removable and a spare can be bought for $70.

And the cellular-data connection isn’t the fastest type. While it is labeled as 4G, it doesn’t use the best 4G technology, called LTE. In my tests, in the Washington, D.C., area, the Tablet P averaged just 3.7 megabits per second over cellular, versus more than 12 mbps for a new iPad running on AT&T’s LTE network.

Finally, there is the hardware. I found the screens and cameras were OK, but the speaker was very weak. And, in the few days I was using it, a little door covering the USB port fell off and the top cover, which I had removed to insert a cellular SIM card, kept coming loose.

Portability is a virtue, and some companies are working on flexible screens that could bend without exposing a hinge. But in my view, the Tablet P doesn’t cut it.

Write to Walt at walt.mossberg@wsj.com

Apple's New iPad

Walt Mossberg — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 01:02:39 +0000

I have noticed that, on my new iPad, parts of the back get warm or even hot from time to time, something I didn’t experience on the iPad 2. Is this just me?

No, I’ve had a number of others tell me the same thing, including some who described their iPads as getting “hot.” While I didn’t notice this on the iPad I tested for my review, I have noticed some mild warming once or twice, briefly, on the new iPad I bought for myself. The company says that, because of the larger battery and the greater power being consumed, it wouldn’t be unusual for parts of the back of the device to feel warm from time to time. If it gets uncomfortably hot, I would advise you to take it back to the store. Apple says it shouldn’t get so hot as to be uncomfortable to use.

Consumer Reports said Tuesday that it had run lab tests showing the new model runs up to 13 degrees hotter than the iPad 2 when playing an action game uninterrupted for 45 minutes. But the magazine said: “When it was at its hottest, it felt very warm but not especially uncomfortable if held for a brief period.”

I have read that, because of the higher resolution on the new iPad, apps and content will take up more space. Does that mean I either have to keep less content on the device, or buy a model with more capacity?

According to Apple, it all depends on the app and the nature of the content. The company says apps that are very graphics or photo intensive may swell in size if they want to take full advantage of the new, sharper screen. Others, which mainly rely on text, can either stay the same size or grow only slightly.

As for content, the biggest issue will likely be photos and videos taken on the iPad itself, which create dramatically larger files. I suspect relatively few people will use a large tablet frequently as a camera. And because of the screen, some people may be tempted to download more high-definition videos, which take up more room. Whether you need a model with greater capacity depends on what kinds of apps and content, and how much, you plan to store on it.

I bought the new iPad and agree with you that text is incredibly sharp, but I’ve run into some apps—including The Wall Street Journal’s—that looked fine on the older model, but fuzzier on the newer one. Are developers upgrading their apps?

Apple says that most text, even on older apps, still looks sharp, because they use the iPad’s built-in fonts, which have been adjusted to match the new screen. And that has been my experience. However, on some apps, text looks more pixilated on the new high-resolution screen, because they use custom fonts. Developers are starting to release updates to fix this issue, as well as to sharpen their graphics. As for the Journal app, the publisher says a version that is retuned for the new display is in the works and is planned for release around April 1.

Email Walt at mossberg.@wsj.com

Walt Mossberg and Lauren Goode Talk New iPad on WSJ Digits

Walt Mossberg — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 19:27:55 +0000

On WSJ Digits today, Walt Mossberg joined Simon Constable and Lauren Goode to follow up on his review of the new iPad. They cover the spectacular Retina Display, the fast LTE cellular connection, the voice dictation feature, and the long-running battery life.

Check out Walt and Lauren on Digits below:

[ See post to watch video ]

Replacing the Ribbon

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 04:27:50 +0000

I’m not pleased with Microsoft’s Ribbon interface for Office. Any way to revert to the old menu format instead?

When Microsoft replaced the classic menus and toolbars with the tab-based “Ribbon” at the top in the 2007 version of Office for Windows, it didn’t offer an option to keep the old approach. It still doesn’t.

(Microsoft’s Mac version of Office is an exception: It lets you opt for the old interface.)

However, some independent companies make add-on products that restore the classic interface. I haven’t tested any, but you can find them by searching for “Office classic menu.”

I need to purchase a new MacBook to replace an aging machine. On the new machine I will need to run Windows. I was reviewing your article on Parallels Desktop for Mac. Will this application run adequately on a MacBook Air? Apple sales consultants suggest that it will not and that I should instead purchase a MacBook Pro.

In my experience, Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac, which allows you to simultaneously run Windows and Mac programs, runs perfectly fine on a MacBook Air. I have used it on an Air many times to run Windows programs like Internet Explorer, Quicken and Microsoft Office for Windows.

It used to be that leaving a phone plugged in too long supposedly damaged the battery. But with the newer devices, I have gotten into the habit of plugging it in before bed and leaving it plugged in all night. In general is this OK for today’s batteries or do I need to get up in the middle of the night and unplug?

I do the same thing with my phones and I don’t believe this damages the battery.

I have tested many, many phones in recent years and have never seen a warning against this practice. Some modern chargers and phones are designed to cut off the power once the battery is charged, both to protect the battery and to save energy.

You can check with the manufacturer to be sure.

Write to Walt at walt.mossberg@wsj.com

New iPad: A Million More Pixels Than HDTV

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 01:02:47 +0000

Apple’s iPad could be described as a personal display through which you see and manipulate text, graphics, photos and videos often delivered via the Internet. So, how has the company chosen to improve its wildly popular tablet? By making that display dramatically better and making the delivery of content dramatically faster.

[ See post to watch video ]

There are other changes in the new, third-generation iPad — called simply “iPad,” with no number, which goes on sale on Friday at the same base price as its predecessor, $499. But the key upgrades are to those core features — the 9.7-inch screen and the data speed over cellular networks. These upgrades are massive. Using the new display is like getting a new eyeglasses prescription — you suddenly realize what you thought looked sharp before wasn’t nearly as sharp as it could be.

Boosting those particular features — the screen and the cellular speed — usually has a negative impact on battery life in a digital device. But Apple has managed to crank them up them while maintaining the long battery life between charges that has helped give the iPad such an edge over other tablets.

Objects, like the trees in this photo of Glacier National Park in Montana that Walt made his screen wallpaper, look sharper on the new iPad.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t other trade-offs. Mostly to make room for a larger battery, the new iPad weighs about 8% more and is about 7% thicker than the prior model. That means the company can’t claim to have the thinnest and lightest tablet, as it boasted last year with the iPad 2. (It’s still thinner and lighter than the original iPad.)

I’ve been testing the new iPad, and despite these trade-offs, its key improvements strengthen its position as the best tablet on the market. Apple hasn’t totally revamped the iPad or added loads of new features. But it has improved it significantly, at the same price.

It has the most spectacular display I have ever seen in a mobile device. The company squeezed four times the pixels into the same physical space as on the iPad 2 and claims the new iPad’s screen has a million more pixels than an HDTV. All I know is that text is much sharper, and photos look richer.

If you already own an iPad 2, and like it, you shouldn’t feel like you have to rush out to buy the new one. However, for those who use their iPads as their main e-readers, and those who use it frequently while away from Wi-Fi coverage, this new model could make a big difference.

The optional, extra-cost, 4G LTE cellular-data capability made it feel like I was always on a fast Wi-Fi connection. I loved the photos and videos I took with the greatly improved rear camera. And the battery life degraded by just 11 minutes, a figure that is still much better than on any tablet I’ve tested.

Letters that seemed sharp on the iPad 2, far left, suddenly felt fuzzier when compared with the new iPad’s ‘retina’ display, left. (It’s hard to reproduce on a web page.)

Along with the unmatched collection of 200,000 third-party programs designed for its large screen, and the large catalogs of music, books, periodicals and video content available for it, I can recommend the new iPad to consumers as their best choice in a general-purpose tablet.

The exceptions would be people who prefer a smaller size for one-handed use, or those who find the weight a burden. While the weight gain was noticeable, I didn’t find it a problem even for long reading or video-watching sessions. The extra thickness was barely discernible.

For the weight conscious, and for those who can’t swing the $499 entry cost, there is an out. Apple for the first time is making and selling the prior iPad model at a reduced price. The iPad 2 will now be available starting at $399, with just one choice of storage capacity — 16 gigabytes. The new iPad can be bought in 16, 32 or 64 GB capacities, at prices up to $829. The optional cellular capability costs the same as the slower 3G capability, both up front and in monthly fees from Verizon and AT&T.

The Display

It’s not as if people are complaining about the screens on their iPads, a device so attractive and useful that Apple sold about 55 million of them in two years. But this display is a big leap forward.

It’s hard to illustrate on a Web page or in print how brilliant this new display is. You have to see it. Apple calls it a “retina” display because, at normal viewing distance, there are so many pixels per inch, the human eye can’t pick them out individually. This display packs 264 pixels into every inch, twice as many as on iPad 2. Overall, the resolution is 2048 x 1536, versus 1024 x 768 for the iPad 2.

My epiphany came when I placed my iPad 2 next to the new model, with the same text on the screen. Letters and words that had seemed sharp on the older model five minutes earlier suddenly looked fuzzier.

As I tested the new model over five days, I found I was able to use smaller font sizes to read books and email. The same photos I had enjoyed on the older model looked much better on the new one, not only because of the increased resolution, but because Apple claims it increased color saturation by 44%. One thing Apple hasn’t fixed: like all glossy, LCD color displays, this one still does poorly in direct sunlight.

The new iPad’s 4G LTE cellular speeds are faster than many home Internet connections, as seen in this speed test showing how fast it would take to download data.

The Speed

The new iPad is hardly the first device to use 4G LTE cellular technology, but it marks a huge difference from the iPad 2. On Verizon’s network in Washington and Austin, Texas, I averaged LTE download speeds of over 17 megabits per second, faster than most home wired networks. A colleague using a new iPad on AT&T’s LTE network averaged over 12 mbps. My iPad 2 running Verizon’s 3G network averaged just over 1 mbps. Of course, you can get a Wi-Fi only model, at $130 less. The base $499 model is Wi-Fi only.

There is another dimension to speed: the overall responsiveness of the device. The new iPad is just as buttery smooth to use as the iPad 2. Apple beefed up the processor, especially its graphics capabilities.

The Battery

Apple claims up to 10 hours of battery life between charges, and up to nine hours if you are relying strictly on cellular connectivity. In my standard battery test, where I play videos back to back with both cellular and Wi-Fi on, and the screen at 75% brightness, the new iPad logged 9 hours and 58 minutes, compared with 10 hours and 9 minutes for the iPad 2. Other tablets died hours sooner in the same test. In more normal use, the new iPad lasted more than a full day, though not as long as the iPad 2 did.

The Rear Camera

Like the iPad 2, the third-generation iPad has front and rear cameras. The front camera, meant mainly for video chats, hasn’t changed. But the rear camera, which was awful for photos on the iPad 2, and was estimated at less than a single megapixel of resolution, has greatly improved. It’s now a 5-megapixel shooter with improved optics. I loved the photos and videos it took, indoors and out.

Other features

The new iPad is the first that can be used, like many smartphones, as a personal hot spot — a base station to connect laptops and other devices to the Internet. In my tests, this worked fine.

It also allows you to dictate, rather than type, emails and other text. I found this surprisingly accurate. And Apple now has a brilliant new version of its iPhoto software that has been rewritten for the iPad, reviewed this week by Katie Boehret.

Bottom Line

Since it launched in 2010, the iPad has been the best tablet on the planet. With the new, third-generation model, it still holds that crown.

Write to Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

A Droid Phone With a Battery That Outlasts Most Talkers

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 02:13:34 +0000

While smartphones have gotten smarter, and cellular networks have gotten faster, battery life has struggled to keep pace. In my own use, recent iPhone models and most Android phones manage to get through a day on one charge. However, for many others, smartphones don’t make it through a long workday, and that is especially true for Android phones using the new, faster, 4G networks, which can drain power at an alarming rate.

[ See post to watch video ]

Even assessing cellphone-battery life has become trickier. In the old days, voice-call “talk time” was pretty much all that mattered. But today, people use the devices for a variety of tasks, including voice calls, Web browsing, playing local or remote audio and video, running apps, and gaming. The battery drain varies, depending on factors such as the kind of connection or how far you are from a cellular tower.

Now, Motorola has introduced a 4G Android smartphone on Verizon Wireless that seeks to erase battery worries. It is called the Droid Razr Maxx and it attacks the power problem with a huge battery almost twice the capacity of the one in the company’s similar Droid Razr, and more than double the capacity of the one in Apple’s iPhone 4S.

Droid Razr Maxx

I’ve been testing the Droid Razr Maxx, which has been out since late January, and found it delivers far greater battery life than any smartphone on which I’ve run battery tests. In one test, it lasted more than 20 hours in mixed, moderate use, including voice calls, video playback, and lots of Web and apps usage, plus downloading hundreds of emails. I also conducted a simulated, continuous test voice call, which the phone powered through for more than 20 hours before dying. And it played videos back to back for more than 14 hours before the battery gave up.

By comparison, Apple claims talk time of up to eight hours, and video playback of up to 10 hours for the iPhone 4S.

To me, the Droid Razr Maxx is the smartphone to choose if you are a heavy user for whom battery life is a problem, or a light or moderate user who would like to charge your phone less often. But there are trade-offs, notably price.

Unlike the plain Droid Razr, or the iPhone 4S, which start at $200, you have to pay $300 for the Droid Razr Maxx. This is somewhat offset by the fact that it comes with 32 gigabytes of memory, instead of the usual base amount of 16 gigabytes. An iPhone with 32 gigabytes costs $299 and doesn’t have the bigger battery. But with the Maxx, you have no choice: There is no cheaper option.

And then there is size and weight. The large battery makes the Maxx significantly thicker and heavier than the ultra-slender Droid Razr. But it is still fairly thin and light. Unlike old phones with “expanded” batteries, it doesn’t sport a huge bulge on the back.

iPhone 4S

Still, like a lot of recent Android phones, it’s wide, perhaps too wide for comfortable use by someone with small hands.

The most impressive test result I got was in the voice-call test. To simulate my end of the conversation, I placed the Maxx next to a laptop playing a repeating loop of famous speeches. To simulate the other end, I dialed into a special test number Motorola has that features a spoken voice on a similar repeating loop. Ignoring the company’s test suggestions, I kept power-draining functions such as Wi-Fi, 4G and Bluetooth running during the test, because I don’t think people turn those off when they make a call. Still, the call lasted 20 hours, 11 minutes.

One note: The screen, a major source of battery use, was dark for most of the call, but it would also turn off if the phone were held up to your ear for a real-life call.

In other respects, the Droid Razr Maxx is pretty much the same as most other current Android phones. Like them, its pluses include a large screen — 4.3 inches in this case — and a single sign-in for a variety of services from Google, which makes Android and is in the process of acquiring Motorola.

Like some other Motorola phones, the Maxx can be used with an optional $250 dock that resembles a laptop. When docked, it can run the Firefox Web browser. Motorola is committed to this idea, but, so far, consumers seem unmoved.

I found the Maxx to be a reliable phone. In tests around Washington, D.C., it didn’t drop a single call, voice quality was good in both regular and speakerphone mode, and Verizon’s LTE 4G network was very fast, typically delivering download speeds of 13 or 14 megabits per second, better than many home wired services.

The software ran smoothly and quickly, but, as is typical with Android phones, various apps crashed a couple of times. The Maxx runs an older version of Android, called Gingerbread, but Motorola says it will eventually be upgraded to the latest version, called Ice Cream Sandwich.

The rear, 8-megapixel camera took very good video around my neighborhood, but I found the still photos it took to be worse than those on some Samsung models and the latest iPhone.

Motorola delivers a few software features that attempt to differentiate it from competitors. One, called MotoCast, can sync music, photos, videos and documents from a PC or Mac, either using a USB cable or wirelessly. In my tests, it worked fine.

Another, called Smart Actions, is a somewhat geeky feature that lets you set certain actions that will occur when a “trigger” action happens. For instance, I was able to make the phone start playing a particular playlist of songs when earbuds were plugged in. The result is cool, but it’s likely too much work for most people.

If you are dying for longer battery life and are willing to pay more, the Motorola Droid Razr Maxx is the smartphone for you.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Backup for Years

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 01:40:43 +0000

What do you advise as the best way to assure that all of one’s digital documents (and photos, etc.) will be safe for many years? For example, is it advisable to replace one’s hard drive every five years or so to assure that the information stored thereon remains viable?

The best advice I have is to back up your key files, like documents and photos, on a frequent basis. And I would do this in two ways—locally, on an external hard disk, and remotely, to a cloud-based backup service. Software to do this locally is built into both Windows PCs and Macs, and there are third- party programs available. For remote backup, which usually costs money after an introductory amount, there are services like Carbonite and CrashPlan (which can also handle local backups.) My colleague Katie Boehret recently reviewed CrashPlan here: http://bit.ly/zIxStH.

All the USB ports on my Mac laptop are ruined thanks to water damage. Could I use an AirStash wireless USB drive to transfer photos from my camera to my computer?

Assuming your camera uses a standard SD memory card, you can pop it into the AirStash, and connect your laptop to the AirStash Wi-Fi network. Using your Web browser, you can view the photos and download them. However, this Web interface is rudimentary and allows only one photo to download at a time, which can be maddeningly slow. The company says you can download multiple photos at a time if you install a free program called Cyberduck, but setting this up is geeky.

I did not know when I bought my Samsung phone that I would not be able to update its operating system because I have an Apple Mac computer.

According to the customer service representative I talked to, because the Samsung is an Android phone, which uses an operating system by Google, and Google and Apple “are competitors,” Samsung will only update the phone by providing a downloadable program that runs on Windows computers, but not Macs. Have you heard of this?

I raised your question with a senior mobile-phone official at Samsung who quickly responded that “this is absolutely not true” and added that the company is “actually in the process of getting some content up on samsung.com to help consumers with this very issue.”

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Radical Camera Lets You Pick What's Blurry And What's Not

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 22:04:59 +0000

The consumer point-and-shoot camera has just been reinvented—not tweaked, or remodeled, but actually re-thought from top to bottom. A Silicon Valley start-up called Lytro is shipping this week a camera that looks like no other and actually lets you focus or refocus your pictures on a computer after you take them.

[ See post to watch video ]

Not only that, but the company is promising that pictures you take with the camera today will be able to be manipulated after the fact in additional ways in coming months. For instance, you’ll be able to snap into focus everything at once, regardless of depth. Or change the perspective from which the picture is seen, and switch a photo back and forth between 2-D and 3-D. That’s why it calls the images “living pictures.”

This $399 camera, also called Lytro, can do all this because it is a so-called light-field camera, which is based on a different technology from traditional digital cameras. In simple terms, it uses a modified sensor, plus proprietary software, to capture and process more, and different, information about the light hitting its lens than other cameras do. This includes the direction of light rays. The result is a richer picture file that software, on the camera and on a computer, can use to manipulate images in new ways. Lytro doesn’t even classify its camera by the familiar megapixel measure. Instead, the company says it has a resolution of 11 megarays—in other words, it can capture 11 million light rays.

The Lytro can focus or refocus pictures after they’re taken. Photo credit: Eric Cheng / Lytro

Just as the technology is very different, so is the camera itself. It looks sort of like a short, square, pocket-size telescope, with a nonprotruding 8X zoom lens on one end and a touch-screen viewfinder on the other. It has only two buttons and a zoom slider. It starts instantly and is instantly ready to take the next picture, because it doesn’t need to perform autofocusing. It can be purchased in three colors at lytro.com. The base model can hold about 350 pictures. There is also a $499 model that can hold 750 pictures.

The company provides a free desktop app and a free online service, where you can view, share and manipulate the pictures.

I’ve been testing the Lytro and found it does just what it says. I was able to take rapid-fire shots that looked good on my computer, and that could be focused and refocused, uploaded to the Internet and shared. I consider it a revolution in consumer photography, with more benefits to come.

The Lytro camera is lightweight and small enough to fit in a pocket.

But as in most revolutions, there are some downsides and trade-offs to the Lytro, at least at launch. For instance, it doesn’t shoot video. Its “living pictures” can’t be imported into standard photo software, only to its own accompanying software. And that Lytro software—necessary to store and share the photos—works only on Macs; a Windows version is due later this year. (However, Lytro pictures uploaded from the Mac software to Lytro’s photo service, or to Facebook, can be viewed and refocused on Windows PCs and mobile devices via a Web browser.)

The pictures can be exported into the standard JPEG format for use in other software, but then they lose their ability to be refocused.

Also, the company is still working on tools for editing the photos, so, for now, you can’t do common things like cropping, or changing brightness or contrast. The camera lacks a flash, though this is partly offset by its unusually large f/2 lens, which is always fully open, letting in a lot of available light, even when zoomed. Also, the camera doesn’t come with a charger. You have to charge it, slowly, by plugging it into a computer, or, more rapidly, by using one of a list of approved chargers from other devices, such as an iPhone charger.

Importing the pictures can be slow, because a lot of processing is involved and the files are relatively large—about 16 megabytes in my tests. Photos you “star” on the camera as favorites get processed first.

But the main drawback to the Lytro I discovered is that it takes a while to learn how to spot and frame pictures that show off the camera’s refocusing abilities. Also, in many common situations, such as taking a simple picture of a single face or object, the refocusing ability just doesn’t come into play, since it works best when there are multiple objects arranged so that some are in the foreground and some are in the background.

The company offers videos to help you learn this new type of photography. In them, for instance, a host advises that it is good to get very close to an object in the foreground—so close, that it looks blurry in the viewfinder. One is at http://vimeo.com/37336723. You can see the refocusing in action at a sample gallery at Lytro.com.

After a few days, however, I was able to get interesting pictures whose focus could be changed to bring out details. For instance, I took a picture of a cup of coffee perched on a car hood. Afterward, when I tapped on the viewfinder on the image of the coffee, it became sharp. When I next tapped on a blurry concrete-and-brick step in the background of the photo, it suddenly became sharp—instead of the cup—and a crack in the concrete that hadn’t been visible appeared.

In another case, I took a shot of a bush about eight feet in front of a fieldstone wall. With a simple click, I was able to make either the bush, or the wall, crystal clear.

When I uploaded these pictures via my Mac to Lytro.com, the company’s free photo-sharing site, or to a test account on Facebook, I was able to change the focus again—even on a Windows PC or an iPad—and so will my friends who see them. You can email friends links to your Lytro.com photos.

The Lytro took almost no pictures that were out of focus. But in a couple of cases, where I was more than six inches away from a simple object that was out of focus, clicking on it brought it into focus. However, the Lytro can’t correct motion blur.

There are two shooting modes. In Everyday Mode, the optical zoom is limited to 3.5X, and the area in which refocusing works is fixed. In Creative mode, the Zoom is at the full 8X, and you can tap on the viewfinder to set the point around which the picture can be refocused.

The Lytro comes in three colors, with the red version capable of holding 750 pictures.

The battery is sealed, but battery life was good. The company says you can take 400 to 600 pictures, depending on usage, between charges.

The camera is 4.4 inches long, 1.6 inches in height and width, and weighs about 7.5 ounces. I found it fit in a jacket pocket easily. The front of the camera is aluminum and the rear is rubberized. The power and shutter buttons are on the rubberized part. So is a touch slider built into the surface for controlling the zoom.

The touch screen has only a few icons, which you make visible by swiping upward. One swipe changes from Everyday to Creative mode. In Everyday mode, tapping the viewfinder image sets the exposure.

The Lytro is an exciting and novel leap in digital photography, but because it still has some missing features, like flash and a file format that works in other software, buyers should consider it a second camera, at least for now.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

The Writing on the Tablet

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 22:03:03 +0000

I’d like to purchase a tablet for use in the classroom and group meetings. I’d like a tablet that can take written notes in PDF and PowerPoint files, has a Web-browsing experience similar to that on a laptop, and can at least open Word and Excel files. With the iPad 3’s impending release, I’m tempted to jump in but I’ve also heard there are some interesting Windows 8 and Android Ice Cream Sandwich tablets coming out later this year. What do you recommend?

I can’t make a recommendation now, since none of these tablets is out. However, I can make a few observations. Even on the current iPad, you can annotate files and take written notes in various apps. But the iPad isn’t designed at heart for freehand note-taking and annotation, and you’d have to buy an add-on stylus. Some Android devices—even without Ice Cream Sandwich—have integrated note-taking and the stylus as a core feature. The latest is the Samsung Galaxy Note, a ginormous phone that is really a small tablet. As for Windows 8, it is designed to run the full version of Office. And the preview device Microsoft has supports handwriting and has a stylus in the box.

I use Adobe Connect for online training, and want to use the iPad. I’ve been using the Adobe Connect iPad app. I find it okay but not great. I had high hopes for Online Live Desktop. I purchased the subscription and entered the Adobe Connect Meeting room without incident. When I attempted to activate the iPad camera and microphone, I couldn’t. Why?

OnLive doesn’t interact with the iPad’s native features—even the virtual keyboard. I hadn’t tried the camera or microphone, but I am not surprised you couldn’t make them work. OnLive essentially uses the iPad as a terminal for a copy of Windows that is running on a remote server. The company is working on tapping the iPhone’s native features.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Dell Goes on Ultrabook Diet With Slimmed-Down Laptop

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

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

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

[ See post to watch video ]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Write to Walt at walt.mossberg@wsj.com

Stashing Movies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.