best free antivirus software

september 2010 first looks: Lenovo IdeaCentre B500 20 Tools You Can’t Live Without How to Build a Linux PC for $200 top 100 FREE mobile apps • Android • Apple iPhone • BlackBerry • Palm • • Plus The New BlackBerry Torch 9800 >> september 2010 vol. 29 no. 9

42 COVER STORY The top 100 Free mobile apps The dream of turning your phone into a PC on the go would be nothing without the right apps. In this blockbuster story, we include the best free apps for iPhone, Android, Palm, Symbian, and Windows Mobile phones. You’ll find everything from e-book readers to VoIP.

PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION september 2010 storemags & fantamag - magazines for all

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FIRST LOOKS tech newS 12 hardware 5 Front Side Lenovo IdeaCentre B500 The “Internet kill switch” bill; wood- Ava Direct Nano Cube en iPhone skins; building a $200 Linux PC; the coolest laptop bags. Dell Studio XPS 7100 Acer Aspire AS5741Z-5433 opINIONS Casio Green Slim XJ-A145U 2 First Word: Plus Quick Looks Lance Ulanoff 36 John C. Dvorak 20 CONSUMER ELECTRONICS 38 sAscha Segan Sony Bravia KDL-55HX800 40 Dan Costa BlackBerry Torch Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS2 solUTIONS Plus Quick Looks 64 Top Twitter Tools Want to tweet with the pros? 26 bUSINESS Check out our list of handy Twitter HP Z200 companion apps and services. Imation Defender F200 + Bio 72 security: Free Av Software HP LaserJet Enterprise P3015dn Sure, pay suites are more powerful, but our list of free AV and anti- 30 sOFTWARE malware apps can also get the job Webroot AntiVirus 2011 done. Ad-Aware Pro Internet Security 8.3 76 OFFICE: super excel tips iMovie for iPhone 4 master Excel 2010 with our 10 most Plus Quick Looks useful tips and shortcuts. 82 The best stuff PC Magazine Digital Edition, ISSN 0888-8507, is published monthly at $12 for one year. Ziff Davis Media Inc., 28 East 28th Street, New York NY 10016-7940.

september 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 1 FIRST WORD LANCE ULANOFF

Easier on a Mac

’ve been cheating on my Windows dows in over a decade. For years, I’ve 7 PC. You see, when I need to edit used Adobe Premiere Elements to edit and and upload videos to YouTube, I upload videos on my Windows XP, Vista, use a Mac. My indiscretion began and, now, Windows 7 systems. When I was casually, but it’s evolved into a bit of shooting 640-by-480 video, things went anI obsession: This is an affair that I do not pretty smoothly. I’m actually a big fan of intend to end. The simple, painful truth is the remarkable level of control afforded that video editing and YouTube uploading me by Premiere Elements and have stuck is much smoother when I use iMovie on a with the app from Version 1 through 8. How- MacBook Pro. ever, when I switched to an HD pocket cam- I’ve been shooting a lot of video lately and, corder, things got dicey. if you’ve seen any of my YouTube uploads, These days, I’m using a Kodak Zi8 Pocket you know I’ve met with varying degrees of Video Camera to shoot most of my video. success. I’ve posted pixelated videos, vid- Naturally, the files are larger than VGA- eos that look a tad blurry, and even videos quality files, but not so large that a mid- that are too small for the now-standard 16:9 range, decently equipped PC shouldn’t be YouTube playback window. Each and every able to handle them. Unfortunately, even at one of these clips was edited and uploaded WVGA resolution, Adobe Premiere 8 seems via Windows. Contrast that with the results to choke on some of my files, struggling using my Mac: Every video looks better, and to catch up (it’s forever grinding through all properly fill the YouTube playback win- background processes). I can live with this dow. In each instance, producing the video when it’s on my laptop, but I am frustrated on the Mac was easier. when I see similar performance on my Win- dows 7 desktop, which has Nvidia graphics The Big Slowdown and 6GB of memory. What really drives me I’m not blaming Windows 7, per se. Instead, nuts, however, is what happens to my out- I’ll point a bony finger at the apps. As I’ve put. Adobe Premiere Elements is at a com- said before, this is the best version of Win- plete loss when it comes to guiding me to

2 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION september 2010 storemags & fantamag - magazines for all

Every iMovie video I’ve uploaded to YouTube looks better than those edited with Premiere.

the best output settings for my video. It Most of the work involved clicking, double- doesn’t appear to auto-sense the size or clicking, and dragging and dropping. I could resolution, and it doesn’t stop me when I preview portions of the video and my full select something that will make the video video at any time. You can do this with Pre- look like garbage. In fact, the more I dig miere and other Windows apps, too, but it into the program, the worse it becomes. If it was easier to do so in iMovie. took only a few minutes to convert and then upload the video I might not care. Too bad it Deceptively Simple can take well over an hour to compress and Most video-editing products make you upload a 9-minute video (longer if I choose choose between a timeline interface and the wrong settings). I have tried both local a storyboard. Perhaps the only video edi- and online help, but there is nothing that tor on the market to split the difference is addresses my specific problem. iMovie. The video-editing window is utterly unique. It gives you video-scene thumb- Keeping It Simple nails nearly as large as you’d find in a story- I tried switching to a simpler app—the very board editor, but with the near-frame-level usable Windows Movie Maker. It’s super- control you’d find in a timeline. On the sur- friendly, but, ultimately, a bit too simplistic face, iMovie appears to offer far less control for my needs. Plus, it offered no more advice than does Premiere; yet, what it does offer about proper upload settings than Premiere. usually results in highly professional out- I could go on about my frustrations, but put. iMovie gets the single most important why bother? I finally decided to switch to thing right: It defaults to the best YouTube the 15-inch MacBook Pro with iMovie (part output option. Virtually every iMovie video of iLife 9) that I have sitting in my office. I’ve uploaded to YouTube looks better than I discovered that iMovie on the Mac is what I posted via Premiere Elements and better in almost every way than any video- Windows Movie Maker. editing software I have ever tried. I simply For lower-resolution videos, Windows- booted the software, created a new project, based tools may suffice, but for videos of and then imported my video. The interface any resolution above 480i, I’m going with a seems to understand something that none Mac and iMovie whenever possible. Please of the Windows apps I’ve tried do—that do not tell my Windows 7 PC. you’re working with video. All video apps Follow me on Twitter! Catch the chief’s I’ve tried use drag-and-drop, but iMovie lets comments on the latest tech developments at you dispense with virtually everything else. twitter.com/LanceUlanoff.

september 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 3 Editor-in-ChiEf, pC magazinE nEtwork Lance Ulanoff ®

Editor Stephanie Chang dirECtor of onLinE ContEnt, EXECUtiVE prodUCEr Vicki B. Jacobson EXECUtiVE Editor Dan Costa pC Labs dirECtor, managing Editor (Laptops, dEsktops) Laarni Almendrala Ragaza www.pcmag.com managing Editors Sean Carroll (software, security, Internet, business), Tony Hoffman (printers, scanners), Matthew Murray (ExtremeTech), Sascha Segan (mobile), Wendy Sheehan Donnell (consumer electronics) fEatUrEs Editor Eric Griffith sEnior Editors Brian Heater (PCMag.com), Carol Mangis (blogs, community), Erik Rhey (Digital Edition) pC Labs LEad anaLysts Cisco Cheng (laptops), Tim Gideon (consumer electronics), Samara Lynn (business, networking), Michael Muchmore (software), Neil J. Rubenking (security), Joel Santo Domingo (desktops), M. David Stone (printers, scanners) anaLysts Dan Evans (DIY, hardware), PJ Jacobowitz (consumer electronics) inVEntory ControL Coordinator Nicole Graham staff photographEr Scott Schedivy pCmag.Com managEr, onLinE prodUCtion Yun-San Tsai prodUCErs Mark Lamorgese, Whitney A. Reynolds nEws Editor Mark Hachman nEws rEportEr Chloe Albanesius staff Editors Jennifer Bergen (blogs), Gregg Binder (printers, scanners), Errol Pierre-Louis (software, security, Internet), Jeffrey Wilson (software, security, Internet) assistant Editors Sean Ludwig (mobile), David Pierce (consumer electronics), Natalie Shoemaker (hardware) CommErCE prodUCErs Iman Edwards, Arielle Rochette UtiLity program managEr Tim Smith CrEatiVE dirECtor Chris Phillips ContribUting Editors Helen Bradley, John R. Delaney, Richard V. Dragan, John C. Dvorak, Craig Ellison, Galen Fott, Bill Howard, Don Labriola, Jamie Lendino, Jim Louderback, Bill Machrone, Edward Mendelson, Jan Ozer, Neil Randall, Matthew D. Sarrel, Larry Seltzer intErns Andrea Burciu, Joe Osborne

ViCE prEsidEnt, digitaL saLEs Kenneth J. Detlet 212-503-5252 ViCE prEsidEnt, markEting James Selden 212-503-4689 markEting managEr Lindsay Garrison 212-503-5270 wEb dEsignEr Yoland Ouiya adVErtising offiCE 28 E. 28th St., New York, NY 10016-7940; phone, 800-336-2423, 212-503-3500; fax, 212-503-5000 For advertising information go to www.pcmagmedia.com ziff daVis inC. ChiEf EXECUtiVE offiCEr Vivek Shah ChiEf finanCiaL offiCEr and sEnior ViCE prEsidEnt Neil Glass ChiEf opErating offiCEr Steve Sutton sEnior ViCE prEsidEnt, ContEnt Lance Ulanoff gEnEraL managEr and sEnior ViCE prEsidEnt, data soLUtions Bennett Zucker sEnior ViCE prEsidEnt, bUsinEss dEVELopmEnt Anurag Harsh gEnEraL CoUnsEL Stephen Hicks ViCE prEsidEnt James Selden (Marketing and Sales Development, Consumer/Small-Business) EXECUtiVE dirECtor Larry Chevres (Internet Technology) dirECtor Nyasha Bass (Licensing) thE indEpEndEnt gUidE PC Magazine is the Independent Guide to Technology. Our mission is to test and review computer- and Internet-related products and services and report fairly and objectively on the results. Our editors do not invest in firms whose products or services we review, nor do we accept travel tickets or other gifts of value from such firms. Except where noted, PC Magazine reviews are of products and services that are currently available. Our reviews are written without regard to advertising or business relationships with any vendor. how to ContaCt thE Editors We welcome comments from readers. Send your comments to Internet address pcmag@ pcmag.com or to PC Magazine, 28 E. 28th St., New York, NY 10016-7940. Please include a daytime telephone number. PC Magazine’s general number is 212-503-3500. The West Coast Operations number is 415-547-8000. We cannot look up stories from past issues, recommend products, or diagnose problems with your PC by phone. An index of past issues is at www. pcmag.com/previous_issues. 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Cutting the Power Does a new cyber-security bill really have an Internet kill switch?

In the physical world, most Americans are land Security Department, which would used to increased security in a post–9-11 implement cyber-security policies. world. But there may be a new law that A provision that is getting the most atten- could affect the security of the online world. tion, however, is one that gives the presi- Senate bill 3480, also known as the Pro- dent the power to “authorize emergency tecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act measures to protect the nation’s most criti- of 2010, is being debated on the Senate cal infrastructure if a cyber vulnerability is floor.T he bill is an over-arching cyber-secu- being exploited or is about to be exploited.” rity initiative, which would, among other Though the language is somewhat vague, things, create an office of cyberspace policy this section is interpreted by many as giving within the White House, which would be led the president an “Internet kill switch” that by a Senate-appointed director. It would would effectively allow him to “turn off” the also create a new center within the Home- Web in an emergency.

september 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 5 frontside

Joe Lieberman, the bill’s sponsor, refutes the “Internet kill switch” notion as “misinformation.”

Defining Disabling require advance notification to Congress, Several privacy groups, including the and can continue for up to six months after American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the threat expires. wrote a letter to the Senate committee that This bill, the committee said, “would bring approved the bill, saying, in part, “While the presidential authority to respond to a major bill makes it clear that it does not authorize cyber attack into the 21st century by provid- electronic surveillance beyond that autho- ing a precise, targeted, and focused way for rized in current law, we are concerned that the president to defend our most sensitive the emergency actions that could be com- infrastructure.” pelled could include shutting down or limit- Specifically, the bill would give the presi- ing Internet communications.” The groups dent 30 days to respond to a threat, requires also said the bill should be amended to that he notify Congress beforehand, and describe exactly what actions the govern- demands that he use the “least disruptive ment can take. means feasible” to do so. Also, owners of Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, private networks would be able to propose the bill’s sponsor, refuted the “Internet kill alternative responses to a given threat. switch” assertion as “misinformation” dur- ing an appearance on CNN. Going on the Defensive “The president will never take over—the According to Lieberman, the bill is a government should never take over the response to real threats against the United Internet,” Lieberman said. States. “Catastrophic cyber attack is no lon- ger a fantasy or a fiction,” Lieberman said Web Executive Authority in a statement. He added that the country’s Current law already provides the president electric grid and telecommunications are with broad authority to take over commu- “constantly being probed by nation states, nications networks, according to the Sen- some terrorist groups, and organized crimi- ate committee, pointing to Section 706 nal gangs.” He said that a cyber-attack on of the Communications Act. That portion America can do “as much or more damage gives the president authority to “cause the today as a conventional war attack.” closing of any facility or station for wire Lieberman cited China as an example as communication” and “authorize the use of a government having such authority: “Right control of any such facility or station” by now, China, the government, can disconnect the federal government. This can be done parts of its Internet in a case of war. We need if a state or threat of war exists, it does not to have that here, too.”—Chloe Albanesius

6 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION SEPTEMBER 2010 storemags & fantamag - magazines for all

A $35 Tablet PC India’s low-cost answer to the iPad.

Thanks to the success of the Apple iPad, Kapil Sibal. According to Sibal, the device tablets are, for the first time in their long has a virtual keyboard, Wi-Fi capability, a history, well on the way to becoming main- built-in camera, 2GB of RAM, and runs on stream. With prices starting at $499, how- the Android operating system. ever, Apple’s device is still too expensive The Indian government is attempting to for many. A new prototype from the Indian push the device’s price down to a mere $10. government, however, may slice the price of “We have come out with the device at 1,500 tablets down to a fraction of that. rupees [$35] and now we invite individuals, The government has announced plans entrepreneurs, firms and industries to pro- to create an educational tablet priced at duce the device at cheaper rates than this,” $35. The device, which will offer a number Sibal told The Business Standard. of basic computing features, such as a Web So far, there hasn’t been a manufacturer browser and video conferencing, is set to named for this device. Recently, however, roll out to Indian students in 2011. OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte sent The device was first demoed on an Indian an open letter to the Indian government TV show called “Gadget Guru” by India’s expressing his support and offering OLPC Human Resource Development Minister, technology for the project.—Brian Heater

BEST of the Internet Kapitall Gpanion Animated Explanations Kapitall is a free service that Gpanion syncs with your This video site is full of pro- educates consumers in invest- Google account and allows you fessionally animated videos ing in an interactive, graphi- to launch any of your Google that answer commonly asked cally pleasing way, including apps right from the page into questions in diverse subject companies color-coded by fresh tabs. Default apps on the areas, such as health, tech- sector and comprehensive dashboard include Gmail, Cal- nology, and the workplace. watch lists.—Jen Edwards endar, and Docs.—Joe Osborne —Alan Henry

SEPTEMBER 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 7 frontside BEST of our blogs

GEARLOG NetDock Has What Your Netbook Lacks Wooden iPhone Skins Denver-based Karvt announced that its wooden skins for the iPhone 3G and 4 are now available for pre-order. The skins are made of sustainable material and come in bamboo (two finishes), cherry (two finishes), maple (one finish), pine (two finishes), and walnut (two finishes).P i hone 3 skins go for only $15 each, while iPhone 4 skins are $25. The only downside is that the skins come with front and rear pieces, so they don’t cover the sides and won’t prevent the iPhone 4’s antenna problem.—Troy Dreier

SECURITY WATCH GOODCLEANTECH Unpatched Vulnerability in Apple’s Green AA Battery Windows Charger Several sites, including Apple has just released a bat- VUPEN Security, are report- tery charger, which comes ing a vulnerability in Windows with 6 double-A nickel-metal 7 and Windows Server 2008 hydride (NiMH) batteries. And and 2008 R2 that could lead AT WORK the company has added a to full kernel-level access Panasonic Announces Sub- eco-friendly feature that cuts to the system. The bug is a $200 Laser MFPs the power once the batteries boundary error in the Cre- For small businesses looking are fully charged, reducing its ateDIBPalette() function in for quality printers at a low “vampire draw” from the usual win32k.sys. The resulting buf- price, Panasonic has launched 315 milliwatts to a mere 30. The fer overflow can elevate privi- three sub-$200 A4 laser charger also has a removable leges to kernel level, but the MFPs for the home office, AC plug that can be replaced attack requires that the user small office, and remote with other plugs for interna- be a trusted, logged-on user. office.T he KX-MB2000, tional travel. The charger also VUPEN says it has confirmed KX-MB2010, and KX-MB2030 works with other brands of the vulnerability in Windows feature 24 page-per-minute double-A NiMH rechargeables. 7 and Windows Server 2008 (ppm) laser printing and The kit is available for $29 at and 2008 R2, but Secunia also copying, networked multi- the Apple Store.—Katherine lists Windows XP SP3, Win- format color scanning, and Montgomery dows Server 2003 R2 Enter- a suite of Panasonic office- prise SP2, and Windows Vista enabling software. All three Business SP1. As of press time, models include a front-facing there was no response from maintenance and consum- .—Larry Seltzer able loading bay. They are the firstP anasonic MFPs in the sub-$200 range to include a 10/100 Base-TX Ethernet port for shared network printing and scanning.—Errol Pierre- Louis

8 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION SEPTEMBER 2010 storemags & fantamag - magazines for all

ExtremeTech Building A $200 Linux PC Lab notes on constructing a super-cheap desktop.

Times are still tough out there, but our needs and desires don’t always flag just because the economy does. If an accident or an equipment failure has punched an unex- pected hole in your computing life, you may be in need of a system—any system—to fill it. You may be tempted to drop $500 or more on a budget desktop at Costco or Wal-Mart. But even if you need a computer right away, there are plenty of good reasons to build one rather than buy one. case with a 350-watt power supply ($29.99). But what can you build quickly and Finally, the operating system, Ubuntu 10.04 cheaply? To answer this question, we LTS, didn’t cost us a dime. Because of our spent hours researching possibilities, mak- tight budget, we left out a graphics card and ing swaps, compromises, and last-minute optical drive. Our final total was $192.95. changes until we had all the parts for our The build took less than a half hour and system that, amazingly, came in under our presented no major challenges. We bench- drastically low $200 budget. marked our Linux PC against the eMachines With our budget and ground rules set, we Mini-e ER1402-05 nettop, which had more shopped Newegg and picked up the follow- RAM (2GB) and ran Windows 7. Our sys- ing components: a Foxconn A6GMV moth- tem cold-booted faster and copied a 2.18GB erboard ($39.99), a 2.9-GHz AMD Athlon folder much more quickly. And our system II X2 245 processor ($58.99), 1GB Crucial consistently came out ahead in system tasks CT12864BA1339 RAM ($24.99), a 160GB and applications, proving that a little time Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3160318AS and effort can get you a useable backup PC hard drive ($38.99), and a Rosewill R424BK on the cheap.—Matthew Murray

SEPTEMBER 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 9 frontside

Connected Traveler Treat Your Laptop Right Invest in a stylish, comfortable laptop bag for your PC.

When you are traveling, your laptop can be underneath a Velcro flap.T he red interior is your office lifeline, television, and communi- lightly cushioned but also has raised pad- cation device. So why trust it to some junky ded dots that serve as shock absorbers. The shoulder bag you got free at a trade show? bag comes in four sizes: extra small, small, Save your technology—and your back— medium, and large. with one of these cool, functional, and ergo- For the maximum in carrying comfort, nomic choices. try the Tumi Alpha Bravo Benning Deluxe

Designed primarily for the mobile com- Messenger Bag ($245 direct, l l l h m ). muter, the very affordable Timbuk2 Quickie This bag, which comes in spruce green and

Laptop Messenger Bag ($45 direct, jet black, is made from a knit nylon mate-

l l l l h ) is a good bag for minimalists rial that makes for a comfortable feel, not to who need just enough space to fit a laptop mention the Benning’s ballistic nylon strap: and a few accessories. This bag measures It’s so soft that Tumi doesn’t even bother a slender 9.8 by 13.7 by 1.1 inches (HWD) with a shoulder pad. and weighs only 0.7 pounds. The exte- For the high-tech, organized lady who rior, black nylon with light-gray trim, has does not want to compromise her sense a simple, attractive design aesthetic with of fashion, we recommend the Sherpani only two expandable front pockets hidden Viso SlimLine Laptop Bag ($109.95 list,

Timbuk2 Quickie Laptop Bag Tumi Alpha Bravo Benning Deluxe Bag

10 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION SEPTEMBER 2010 storemags & fantamag - magazines for all

Sherpani Viso SlimLine Bag Victorinox Trevi Brief Mobile Edge EVO Backpack

l l l l m ). The Viso comes in java, black, more. In the middle is another zippered or seafoam and has comfortable nubuck compartment that houses and protects leather handles and zipper tassels. Sher- your laptop with three pockets for acces- pani bags are made of recycled materials, sories. At the back, you’ll find another large so you can feel no guilt about upgrading zippered pocket and a sleeve for sliding this to this better bag. It is also roomy, so you bag over the handle of your rolling suitcase. can fit a book, bottled drink, or a modestly The Trevi Brief comes with both handles sized bagged lunch. Thankfully, the zip- and a shoulder strap. pers—which encompass three-fourths of If you need something a little bigger, the the bag’s perimeter—do not run, so your Mobile Edge EVO Backpack ($79.99 direct, bag will only open as much as you want it l l l l m ) is, quite frankly, a beast of a bag. to. Another plus: it is a light bag, so you can It comes with 16 exterior pockets to cover carry it all day comfortably. all your needs whether that’s for personal As you would expect of a company that items or travel accessories. Its exterior makes Swiss Army gear, the Victorinox design is rather plain, aside from all the zip-

Trevi Laptop Brief ($259 direct, l l l h m ) pers and compartments. Inside, there’s a is a multitasker that can fit all your acces- snug laptop compartment that holds up to sories, business materials, and gadgets with a 16-inch laptop. It also has a work-oriented no problem. The 16-by-12-by-6–inch bag compartment inside that contains slots can fit laptops up to 15.4 inches and weighs to hold your memory cards, flash drives, 4 pounds. The outside of the bag has a slot wallet, IDs, pens and pencils, iPod/MP3 for quick access to documents. There’s a player, and even a hole through the top of zippered compartment with multiple slots backpack to string your headsets through. for PDAs, cell phones, business cards, and —Gregg Binder and Natalie Shoemaker

SEPTEMBER 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 11 INSIDE 12 HARDWARE 20 Consumer Electronics 26 BUSINESS 30 sOFTWARE First

Lenovo IdeaCentre B500 An All-in-One Winner

The IdeaCentre B500 eschews and Bluetooth for the keyboard and mouse. trendy features like a touch screen The system comes mostly free of bloat- and HDMI inputs in favor of rock- ware, but you do get some useful software, solid HD and multimedia perfor- such as WinDVD, and you can watch live or mance. You won’t miss the touch recorded TV in the Media Center interface. screen once you put this entertainment- You also get a motion-control remote. oriented system on your desk and rock out The B500’s well-appointed components to World of Warcraft while simultaneously all worked together to give it excellent mul- listening to music. Granted, you’ll pay a cou- timedia and 3D scores. It smoked Windows ple hundred dollars more for the B500 than Media Encoder at only 38 seconds and fin- for its rivals, but that premium is worth it. ished Photoshop CS4 in a speedy 1 minute The B500 has an angular look, setting 32 seconds. And surprisingly, the B500 itself apart from the more minimalist all-in- achieved playable scores on our gaming ones, such as the Apple iMac and Gateway tests, turning in 56 frames per second (fps) One ZX6900 series. The JBL stereo speak- for Crysis and 49 fps for World in Conflict— ers sit low under the 23-inch widescreen almost unheard-of scores for an all-in-one. and are highlighted by a show-through per- So if you’re looking for multimedia prow- forated grill with orange accents. ess, and 3D power, the B500 is the one to The system has a decent number of con- get.—Joel Santo Domingo nections and is mostly wireless, with 802.11n CLICK HERE FOR MORE >>

Specs 2.6-GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400S processor; 4GB SDRAM; 1TB SATA hard drive; nVidia GeForce GTS 250M graphics; Blu-ray combo drive; 23-inch widescreen LCD; integrated stereo speakers; Windows 7 Home I Premium (64-bit).

12 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION SEPTEMBER 2010 storemags & fantamag - magazines for all

our ratings key: l l l l l EXCELLENT l l l l m VERY GOOD l l l m m GOOD l l m m m FAIR l m m m m POOR

Lenovo IdeaCentre B500 $1,399 direct L l l l m Pros Bright, beautiful 1080p HD screen. Less screen/bezel reflections than competitor. Discrete 3D graphics. Blu-ray player. TV tuner. Analog A/V in. Wireless keyboard and mouse. Minimal bloatware. Ambient lighting. Motion-control remote. Cons No HDMI. No eSATA. Bluetooth keyboard and mouse slow to wake. No 5-GHz 802.11a or 802.11n networking. A little pricier than its rivals.

PERFORMANCE TESTS MULTIMEDIA TESTS pcMark World in Windows Media CineBench Photoshop L High scores are best. M Low scores are best. vantage* 3dMark crysis** Conflict ** Encoder M R10 (XCPU) CS4 M Bold type denotes first place. L vantage* L L (fps) L (fps) (min:sec) L (min:sec)

Lenovo IdeaCentre B500 5,613 14,552 56 49 0:38 11,285 1:32

Apple iMac 21.5-inch (Core 2 Duo) 5,453 3,996 10 12 0:49 6,995 1:32

HP TouchSmart 600-1055 PC 4,318 6,006 18 22 1:05 4,862 2:18

Product name in RED indicates Editors’ Choice. * Test was run at 1,024-by-768 resolution. ** Test was run at 1,280-by-1,024 resolution.

SEPTEMBER 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 13 first looks hardware

AVADirect Nano Cube Small Desktop, Great AVADirect Nano Cube $1,999 list Gaming l l l h m PROS Compact portable gaming rig. Good gaming performance scores. No extraneous he AVADirect Nano Cube is a software. Speedy SSD. HDMI and DisplayPort. specialist desktop PC among CONS Loud fans. No expansion room. Eas- ily scratched paint. Limited storage space. No other gaming rigs. This com- FireWire. pact system provides fast performance, but lacks in on the ATI Radeon graphic card. someT creature comforts. If you absolutely The Nano Cube’s performance on three need a small, mid-range gaming system of the four gaming benchmark tests we that travels from bedroom to friend’s house ran were flawlessly smooth. It played Cry- to hotel conference room, take a look at the sis and World in Conflict at medium resolu- Nano Cube as a serious contender. tion at 96 frames per second (fps) and 134 The Nano Cube measures about 7 by 9 by fps, respectively. Crysis at very high quality 11.5 inches (HWD), but you’ll have to allow was a bit jerky (33 fps), however. Multime- a few inches’ clearance on each side for dia tests were also quick, with this system cooling and access to the back panel. The finishing Windows Media Encoder in a quick white paint job on our review units showed 30 seconds and Photoshop CS4 in 1:18. All scratches easily. The interior of the chassis in all, the Nano Cube is a decent system is neat, though every bit of room is filled. for the specialized LAN party enthusiast. (You’ll have to remove items to upgrade this But if you don’t need portability, I recom- system.) Ports include a whopping 12 USB mend the Editors’ Choice Falcon North- 2.0 ports, one of which doubles as an eSATA west Talon (Core i7-875K) for $500 more. port. The system also has an HDMI port and —Joel Santo Domingo DisplayPort in addition to the two DVI ports >>CLICK HERE FOR MORE

Specs 2.4-GHz Intel Core i5-750S processor; 4GB SDRAM; 128GB SSD storage; ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphics; I dual-layer DVD±RW drive, Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit).

14 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION SEPTEMBER 2010 storemags & fantamag - magazines for all

first looks HARDWARE

Dell Studio XPS 7100 A Gaming- Multimedia Crossover

The Dell Studio XPS 7100 is a genre-straddling desktop PC. On one end, it has a quick six-core AMD multimedia processor and Dell Studio XPS 7100 1.5TB hard drive. On the other, it $1,149 direct L l l l m comes with an ATI Radeon HD 5870 graph- Pros Very good gaming performance. 6-core ics card, so it’s a contender as one of the bet- AMD Phenom II processor. Intelligent solu- ter entry-level gaming rigs. It’s packed with a tion to bloatware problem. 15-month McAfee Security Center subscription. 802.11n wireless. lot of future-proof technology, and its price Immobilizing bracket on graphics card. HDMI, tag won’t break the bank. eSATA, DisplayPort. Blu-ray. The XPS 7100 comes in a silver version Cons Fewer legacy technologies. Very little of the tower on the XPS 8000. The system expansion space. is angled, so it appears to be leaning back, making it easier to access the media card ute 38 seconds—which is reasonably quick. bays and optical drives. The XPS 7100 also The XPS 7100 also showed totally playable has some internal expansion room, including frame rates on three of our four gaming space for one PCI card, two hard drives, and tests, scoring 65 frames per second (fps) on one optical drive. You’ll need a screwdriver Crysis (at 1,280 by 1,024 resolution) and 82 to get inside, but everything is well laid out fps at World in Conflict at the same resolu- and easy to access. Also notable is the fact tion. Though the Gateway FX6831-01 is still that this system comes free of bloatware. our Editors’ Choice for gaming PCs (offering In terms of performance, the XPS 7100 more bang for the buck and easier upgrad- was able to complete the Windows Media ing), the XPS 7100 takes the EC crown for Encoder (WME) test in a speedy 38 sec- multimedia PCs.—Joel Santo Domingo onds, and the Photoshop CS4 test in 1 min- >>CLICK HERE FOR MORE

Specs 2.8-GHz AMD Phenom II X6 1055T processor; 6GB SDRAM; 1.5TB SATA hard drive; ATI Radeon HD 5870 I graphics; Blu-ray combo drive; Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit).

september 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 15 first looks hardware

Acer Aspire AS5741Z-5433 Power on a Budget

With a 15.6-inch screen, dual-core Pentium processor, 4GB of RAM, 320GB hard drive, and Windows 7 Home Premium, the Aspire AS5741Z-5433 (available at Sta- ples) has an impressive list of features for Acer Aspire AS5741Z-5433 a budget laptop. In addition, its battery life $579.98 list L l l l m and overall performance places it in the top Pros Strong performance for its class. Great tier in its category. battery life. HDMI port. Smudge-resistant lid. Weighing 5.39 pounds, this system is rela- Cons Lackluster audio quality. Mushy key- tively light and has a very subdued design, board. with a smudge-resistant lid that’s covered in a dark-gray, plastic matte coating that surprisingly well—easily out-sprinting its has a textured, mesh pattern, while on its closest competitors on nearly every test. keyboard dock is a smooth, matte-silver This system’s CineBench R10 score of 4,992 metallic surface with light streaks. The is a whopping 44 percent higher than the Chiclet-style keyboard includes a numeric Compaq CQ62-225nr’s score. And the pad, but lacks dedicated volume and bright- PCMark Vantage test score of 4,204 was ness buttons. The keyboard flexed way too still a sizeable 28 percent faster than the much for my tastes, but the touch pad was CQ62-225nr’s. Not to mention that the very responsive. The 15.6-inch display is sur- AS5741Z-5433 surprised me with its impres- rounded by a glossy, black plastic bezel that sive battery life, lasting 4 hours, 20 minutes also houses a 1.3-megapixel webcam and on MobileMark 2007. This class-leading per- microphone. You also get an HDMI-out port formance and battery life, combined with a and an integrated 5-in-1 media card reader. few extra features, means that a tight bud- And the presence of bloatware is kept to a get can still get you an Editors’ Choice lap- minimum. top.—Daniel A. Begun For a budget laptop, this Acer performs >>CLICK HERE FOR MORE

Specs 1.86-GHz Intel P6000 processor; 4GB SDRAM; 320GB SATA hard drive; Intel GMA HD graphics; dual-layer I DVD drive; Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit).

16 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION september 2010 storemags & fantamag - magazines for all

first looks HARDWARE

Casio Green Slim XJ-A145U A New- Tech Data Projector

ot many projectors offer Casio Green Slim XJ-A145U both a 2,500-lumen rating $999.99 direct and a light source designed l l l h m Pros Lightweight. Mercury-free light source to last the life of the projec- with a 20,000-hour lifetime and 6,000-hour tor. In fact, the Casio Green warranty. Reads files from USB keys. SNlim XJ-A145U and a few closely related Cons Some image quality issues, particularly for video, as opposed to data, images. Casio models are the first to make that claim. The secret is Casio’s innovative Green Slim hybrid light source. Not only does it your laptop at home. last a lot longer than the traditional lamps, it I measured the XJ-A145U’s brightness in has the additional benefit of being mercury its brightest mode at 1,927 lumens, or about free, which makes it a much more ecologi- 77 percent of its rating—and bright enough cally friendly projector than most. to throw a reasonably large image, even in a In some ways, the 1.7-by-11.7-by-8.3–inch well-lit room. On our DisplayMate tests, the (HWD) XJ-A145U is a typical lightweight XJ-A145U handled most images without a XGA (1,024-by-768) DLP projector, but problem. However, like all DLP projectors, instead of producing red, green, and blue it showed a slight rainbow effect, with light using a standard lamp and a color wheel, it areas breaking up into little red-green-blue produces red with LEDs, blue with lasers, rainbows when you shift your gaze or some- and green by shining the blue laser light on thing moves on screen. Also, I saw obvious a phosphor. One of the key advantages of posterization and a greenish tint to skin the hybrid light source is its 20,000-hour tones in videos. So although this projector expected lifetime—which is 4 to 10 times is not great for video and the rainbow effect longer than the claimed lifetimes for stan- is a bit distracting, it is still a bright, portable dard lamps. And adding to the portability of system that’s environmentally smart and this unit is its ability to read JPG and AVI files easy on the wallet.—M. David Stone from a USB memory key, so you can leave >>CLICK HERE FOR MORE

september 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 17 Quick looks HARDWARE

DESKTOPs

Gateway FX6840-01e Gateway DX4320-01e Gateway DX4840-02e HP Pavilion p6527c-b $999.99 list $699.99 list $799.99 list $699.99 list

L l l h m L l l m m L l l l m l l l m m

• Solid productivity and • Good performance • Great performance • Quad-core CPU multimedia performance • Large hard drive • Monitor included • Bundles in an HD monitor • Spacious hard drive • Two-year warranty • Two-year warranty on

OS • Two-year warranty system R P

• So-so graphics • So-so graphics • Integrated graphics • No Blu-ray performance performance • Bloatware • No HDMI S

N • No Blu-ray drive • Bloatware • Poor 3D performance CO • Bloatware

The FX6840-01e is an This desktop is equipped The DX4840-02e is a If you are looking for a E underachieving gaming with a quad-core CPU and reasonably priced desktop desktop and monitor bun- IN rig with a budget-friendly massive hard drive, but it’s with strong productivity dle for no-frills computing, price tag. not suited for high-detail and multimedia perfor- the HP Pavilion p6527c-b gaming. mance for the money. might be the system for BOTTOM L BOTTOM you.

2.8-GHz Intel Core i7 860 3.0-GHz AMD Phenom II X4 3.2-GHz Intel Core i5 650 2.9-GHz AMD Athlon II 635 processor; 8GB SDRAM; 945 processor; 6GB SDRAM; processor; 4GB SDRAM; processor; 4GB SDRAM; 1TB hard drive; ATI 1TB hard drive; Nvidia 640GB hard drive; DVD±RW 500GB hard drive; Nvidia Radeon HD5570 graphics; GeForce 315 graphics; drive; Windows 7 Home GeForce 6150SE graphics; DVD±RW drive; Windows 7 DVD±RW drive; Windows 7 Premium (64-bit). DVD±RW drive.

SPECS Home Premium (64-bit). Home Premium (64-bit).

Product name in RED indicates Editors’ Choice.

18 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION SEPTEMBER 2010 storemags & fantamag - magazines for all

LAPTOPS printers

HP Pavilion p6577c-b Alienware M11x (Core i7) Dell Inspiron 17R- Epson Stylus Photo R2880 $999 list $1,175 direct 2211OBK $799.99 direct $799.98 list

L l l h m L l l l m L l l l m L l l l h

• Quad-core CPU • Ruggedized exterior • Great performance for its • Fast • 25-inch 1080p monitor • Portable class • Impressively high-quality included • Backlit keyboard • HDMI-out and eSATA ports photos and graphics • 1TB drive • HDMI and DisplayPort • Barely any pre-installed • Maximum 13- by 19-inch • Excellent graphics bloatware cut paper size • Very good battery life • Fine arts papers available • Inexpensive

• No Blu-ray • Undersized keyboard • Lid collects fingerprint • Needs different black ink • No HDMI or eSATA ports • Screen glare can be smudges cartridges for matte and • Integrated graphics bothersome • No ExpressCard slot or glossy paper • Bloatware • Battery is screwed into the FireWire port chassis

The HP Pavilion p6577c-b is There’s no better laptop Offering average features Suitable for both serious a solid mid-priced desktop made for road gamers than for a 17.3-inch laptop, the amateurs and professional PC with room for expansion the Alienware M11x (Core Dell Inspiron 17R-2211OBK photographers and graphic and a giant HD monitor. i7). excels in performance. artists, the Epson Stylus Photo R2880 delivers great- looking output at fast speed.

2.5-GHz Intel Core 2 Quad 1.2-GHz Intel Core i7-640um 2.4-GHz Intel Core i5-450M Ink jet; 1-pass color; super- Q8300 processor; 8GB processor; 4GB SDRAM; processor; 4GB SDRAM; tabloid maximum paper SDRAM; 1TB hard drive; 500GB hard drive; Nvidia 500GB hard drive; Intel GMA size; direct printing from Intel GMA X4500HD graph- GeForce 335M and Intel HD graphics; 802.11n Wi-Fi; cameras; 8.4 by 24.3 by 12.7 ics; DVD±RW drive. GMA HD (Core i7) graphics; 17.3-inch display; DVD± inches (HWD). 11.6-inch display; Atheros drive; 6.7 pounds; Windows 802.11n Wi-Fi; 4.5 pounds; 7 Home Premium. 64-Wh battery; Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit).

Visit pcmag.com for the full reviews of these and scores of other hardware products.

SEPTEMBER 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 19 first looks consumer electronics

Sony Bravia KDL-55HX800 Sony 3D HDTV Delivers

hen the Bravia KDL- but it still maintains a reasonably slim profile. 55HX800 arrived in PC The cabinet is approximately 2 inches thick, Labs, we couldn’t wait except for at the bottom, where it extends to tear open the box. out an additional 3/4-inch to accommodate And we weren’t disap- a pair of embedded down-firing speak- pointed:W Besides delivering 3D, it also has ers. On the left side of the TV are two HDMI the latest TV tech, including LED backlight- jacks, a set of composite A/V ports, and a ing and a fast 240-Hz refresh rate, which USB port. The HX800 comes with an attrac- translates to a beautiful 2D picture, too. tive 8.6-inch matte-black remote featuring The HX800 series is the least expensive a concave face with 43 buttons and a 4-way of Sony’s family of 3D HDTVs, though you rocker. There’s also a dedicated 3D button wouldn’t know it by this 55-inch HDTV’s for switching between 2D and 3D mode. hefty $3,400 price tag. And by the time you On our tests, the 3D effect was overall add in $150 3D glasses for the family and a well implemented and fun to watch—but 3D transmitter, you’re in for around $4,000. not perfect. The picture is not as bright as That doesn’t include a 3D-capable Blu-ray it is in 2D, due to the darkened lenses. Also, player or discs. As with most brand-new you get some ghosting around 3D images. technologies, you’re paying a premium to The HX800 turned in a respectable con- be in on the ground floor. trast ratio of 2,814:1, and grayscale swatches But you won’t be disapointed. With its from DisplayMate’s LCD diagnostic soft- sleek lines and thin glossy black bezel, the ware showed no signs of tinting or satura- HX800 is one good-looking HDTV. Other tion, and colors were very accurate. When it than a couple of small status indicators and comes to 2D, the HX800 does an excellent a polished chrome Sony logo in the center job of displaying HD content. And for 3D of the lower bezel, the front of the set is very this HDTV also performed admirably with clean. This model uses a proprietary LED the limited catalog of 3D content currently backlighting technology dubbed Dynamic available. More important, its 2D image Edge, a hybrid of sorts consisting of edge-lit quality is stellar, and the set comes with a LEDs and a partial array of LEDs with local full complement of Web apps to keep you dimming. As a result, the HX800 is not nearly busy while you wait for more 3D content to as thin as other edge-lit models such as LG’s become available.—John R. Delaney 47LE5500 and Samsung’s UN40B7000, >>CLICK HERE FOR MORE

20 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION september 2010 storemags & fantamag - magazines for all

Sony Bravia KDL-55HX800 $3,399.99 list L l l l m Pros 3D-ready. Very good 3D and 2D picture quality. Attractive cabinet. Plenty of Web apps. Cons Expensive. 3D glasses and transmitter cost extra. Some backlight blooming. Glasses are heavy and can become a bit uncomfortable when worn for long periods.

september 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 21 first looks consumer electronics

BlackBerry Torch 9800 (AT&T) BlackBerry Goes Touch Screen

he new BlackBerry Torch 9800 with BlackBerry 6 keeps RIM in the game. It’s the first truly usable BlackBerry Torch 9800 (AT&T) With two-year contract, $199.99 direct touch screen BlackBerry, and L l l l m it’sT packed with new features: a new Web Pros Looks and feels good. Lots of new browser, apps, interface, and social net- features. Integrates social-networking well. working hooks. Messaging is still clearly at Cons Browser still slower than iPhone 4’s. Fewer games and apps than iOS or Android. this phone’s core, though, leaving the Torch Poor Microsoft Exchange integration for a strong bet for those who type and chat all consumers. day, and still behind the leaders for those who prefer to play games, surf the Web, or phone for people who are more comfort- watch videos. able typing on a hard keyboard than on a The 4.4-by-2.4-by 0.6-inch (HWD), touch screen. 5.7-ounce Torch is black and silver, with a On our tests, I found that the Torch is a soft-touch back and a comforting heft. good voice phone but lacks noise cancella- The screen slides up to reveal a BlackBerry tion and also has a slight buzz in the side- Bold–like keyboard, which I found to be tone. The new browser is 25 percent faster flat-feeling but still very useable. And the at rendering pages than the browser on 3.2-inch, 360-by-480 capacitive touch the BlackBerry Bold 9650—but it is still screen is very responsive. The device has slower than the iPhone 4’s. So in a nut- 4GB of on-board storage and comes with shell, the Torch keeps the flame alive, but an additional 4GB MicroSD card. The new it’s not a barn-burner. But if you’re looking BlackBerry 6 OS offers a great balance of for a messaging-focused smartphone with keyboard, track pad, and touch-screen a QWERTY keyboard, this is AT&T’s top input. You can do almost everything two or choice.—Sascha Segan three ways, which makes this the best AT&T >>CLICK HERE FOR MORE

22 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION SEPTEMBER 2010 storemags & fantamag - magazines for all

first looks consumer electronics

Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS2 Rugged And Full Of Features

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS2 is an update to last year’s Lumix Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS2 TS1—although based on its per- $399.99 list formance, the TS2 is far more L l l l m than an incremental update. It has Pros Great Image quality. Simple operation. SDXC card support. Spectacular 720p30 HD all the makings of an excellent point-and- video capture. Mini-HDMI port with CEC sup- shoot camera, with the added benefit of a port. Fast performance. Waterproof to 33 feet. Drop-proof to 6.6 feet. Freezeproof to 14 de- ruggedized housing. The camera’s perfor- grees F. mance is comparable to last year’s Editors’ Cons Occasional lens fog during underwater Choice, the ruggedized Canon PowerShot use. Pricey. No lens cover. D10, though the D10 offers a superior lens, in addition to a more affordable price tag. But tured its first image in an average of 1.7 if capturing HD video is important to you, seconds, averaging 2 seconds of wait time you’ll want to spend the extra on the TS2. between shots—both good scores. And the At 2.5 by 3.9 by 0.9 inches (HWD), the TS2 averaged just 0.34 second of shutter TS2 is of average size compared with other lag. The TS2 also produced sharp, low-noise ruggedized cameras, but far thinner than images at up to and including ISO 800. And the D10. The TS2 is waterproof to 33 feet this model is hands-down the best rugge- and can shoot in temperatures as low as 14 dized camera for capturing video. If a $400 degrees Fahrenheit. The 4.6X optical zoom ruggedized camera is in your budget, don’t lens has a focal length of 28–128mm and a hesitate to get the TS2. But keep in mind maximum aperture range of f/3.3–5.9. As that the D10 will deliver equivalent images for the TS2’s user interface, I can safely say it (but no HD video) for much less dough. is just as solid as the camera’s construction, Nonetheless, the TS2 is a great rugged with an intuitive menu structure and little camera deserving of Editors’ Choice status. clutter. —PJ Jacobowitz On our tests, the TS2 started up and cap- >>CLICK HERE FOR MORE

september 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 23 Quick looks CONSUMER ELECTRONICS

HDTVS CAMERAS PHONE FRAMES

Panasonic TC-P50G25 Casio Exilim G EX-G1 Olympus Stylus Kodak Pulse Digital $1,499.95 list $229.99 list Tough-8010 Photo Frame $399.99 list $129.95 direct

L l l h m L l l m m L l l h m L l l l m

• Reasonably priced • Thin build for a • Good image quality with • Fast user interface • Excellent black levels ruggedized camera low noise • Good image quality • Beautiful HD picture • Waterproof up to 10 feet • Water- and crush-proof • Responsive touch screen • Wide viewing angles • Can survive drops up to • 720p HD video • integration

PROS 7 feet • 2GB of internal storage • Can operate in tempera- tures as low as 14°F

• Only 3 HDMI ports • Soft images • Pricey • No video playback • Not terribly energy- • No lens cover to protect • Noticeable shutter lag • Support for photo sharing efficient from smudges • Long delays between sites is limited • A limited number of Web • Slow recycle times shots

CONS apps • Dated user interface • LCD has noticeable • Needs proprietary USB motion blur cable

An affordably priced The EX-G1 offers a rugge- The 8010 is a good fit for The Kodak Pulse’s Wi-Fi 50-inch plasma, the TC- dized build in a surprisingly those who want top-of-the- capability and respon- P50G25 offers deep blacks compact body, but sub-par line rugged protection, HD sive touch screen offer a and a crisp, detailed HD image quality limits its video capture, and a cam- painless, automatic photo picture—with some com- usability. era that’s easy to operate. experience. BOTTOM LINE BOTTOM promises.

50-inch screen; 1,920-by- Compact; 12.1MP; 3X Compact; 14MP; 28–140 7-inch screen; 800-by-600 1,080 native resolution; optical zoom; 2.5-inch LCD; lens; 5X optical zoom; native resolution; 6.25 by 16:9 aspect ratio. HD video capture; 2.5 by 4 2.7-inch LCD; HD video 7.5 by 1.0 inches (HWD). by 0.78 inches (HWD); 5.1 capture; 2.5 by 3.9 by 0.9 SPECS ounces. inches (HWD); 7.6 ounces.

Product name in RED indicates Editors’ Choice.

24 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION SEPTEMBER 2010 storemags & fantamag - magazines for all

BLUETOOTH HEADSETS AUDIO SMART PHONES

Motorola H17txt Creative ZiiSound D5 Samsung Gravity 3 Pantech Ease $99.99 list $299.99 direct SGH-T479 $69.99 to $219.99 direct $49.99 to $179.99

L l l h m L l l m m L l l l m L l h m m

• Reads caller ID and full text • Quality wireless audio • Excellent keyboards • Expansive touch screen messages • Simple, visually pleasing • Solid construction • Roomy, slide-out QWERTY • Supports A2DP streaming design • Workable e-mail programs keyboard over mono • Works through walls and Web browser • Easy to use UI • Comfortable fit • Sharp camera • Solid battery life

• Texting features work only • Speakers can’t handle • Non-standard headphone • Some issues with call with Android deep bass at high volumes jack quality • App may have to be • Bluetooth audio signal can • Buggy Bluetooth music • Proprietary headphone updated for your specific be weak playback jack smartphone • Riddled with AT&T bloat- ware

The H17txt reads text mes- At $300, the slick D5 seems The Gravity 3’s balanced The Ease is indeed easy to sages to Android phone a bit overpriced, and wire- feature set, reasonable use, but AT&T’s pricey mes- owners, but there are better less capability is stronger plan pricing, and excellent saging plan kills the value. deals out there. than audio performance. overall performance make it a winner.

1.7 by 0.7 by 0.4 inches 2-channel audio; 3.5 by 16.7 T-Mobile; 2.4-inch screen; AT&T; 3.2-inch touch screen; (HWD); 0.3 ounces. by 4.3 inches (HWD); 8.4 2MP camera; Bluetooth; 4.7 2MP camera; Bluetooth; 4.5 pounds. by 2.1 by 0.6 inches (HWD); by 2.3 by 0.6 inches (HWD); 4.3 ounces. 3.5 ounces.

Visit pcmag.com for the full reviews of these and scores of other hardware products.

SEPTEMBER 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 25 FIRsT LOOKs busINEss

HP Z200 A Workstation For Tight Spaces

The HP Z200 small-form-factor HP Z200 (SFF) PC offers workstation-level $2,496 direct performance in a surprisingly small L l l m m PROs Compact. Powerful. Expandable. HP package. Sure, you won’t get the Performance Advisor. No bloatware. myriad expandability options of a CONs Only takes half-height expansion cards. tower, but how many of your workers actu- No room for extra hard drives. No eSATA or USB 3.0. Expensive. ally need 16TB of hard drive space anyway? The Z200 works best as a workstation for the space-constrained staffer with a heavy possess, poll your system performance, and multimedia-oriented workload. It’s got auto-optimize settings for your workload. many advantages and a few drawbacks, but This system has EnergyStar 5.0 compli- the main thing that might make potential ance and EPEAT Gold certification, as well buyers retract their wallets is the steep price. as other eco-friendly features, thus earning The Z200 looks just like the $800 PCs our GreenTech Approved seal. you buy your rank-and-file employees, In testing, the Z200 zipped through Win- but at roughly 4 by 13 by 15 inches (HWD), dows Media Encoder in 36 seconds and the this diminutive workstation hides a good Photoshop CS4 test in 1 minute, 17 seconds amount of internal power. It supports Intel (a score that is faster than any of the rank- Core i3, i5, and quad-core Xeon processors and-file business systems we’ve seen). It and has some expansion room, including a also turned in a decent score on our 3D tests, free PCIe x1 and PCIe x4 slot. You also get outperforming the Lenovo ThinkStation a media-card reader, FireWire, and a whop- E20. So, I can recommend the Z200 over the ping 10 USB ports. Also, this system is bloat- Lenovo E20 only if your desk real estate out- ware-free, but you do get HP Performance weighs the purchase price difference (more Advisor, a program that lets you and your than $1,200). —Joel Santo Domingo IT department know what components you >>CLICK HERE FOR MORE

sPECs: 3.46-GHz Intel Core i5-670 processor; 8GB SDRAM; 500GB SATA hard drive; Nvidia Quadro FX 380 LP I graphics; DVD±RW drive; Windows 7 Professional (64-bit).

26 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION SEPTEMBER 2010 storemags & fantamag - magazines for all

PERFORMANCE TESTS PCMARK WORLD IN WINDOWs MEDIA CINEBENCH L High scores are best. M Low scores are best. vANTAGE* 3DMARK CRYsIs** CONFLICT ENCODER M R10 PHOTOsHOP Cs4 Bold type denotes first place. L vANTAGE* L L ** L (min:sec) (XCPU) L (min:sec) M

HP Z200 9,055 5,976 15 19 0:36 11,009 1:17

Apple iMac 21.5-inch (Core 2 Duo) 5,453 3,996 10 12 0:49 6,995 1:32

HP Pavilion Elite HPE-140f 8,803 16,123 48 52 0:37 10,465 1:20

Lenovo ThinkStation E20 8,661 8,132 24 30 0:37 10,492 1:19

RED denotes Editors’ Choice. N/A—Not applicable: The product could not complete the test, or the test was not compatible. * This test was run at 1,024 by 768 resolution. ** Test was run at 1,280 by 1,024 resolution.

SEPTEMBER 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 27 first looks business

Imation Defender F200 + Bio Super Storage Security

arlier this year, a German secu- rity research group revealed a serious vulnerability in the password-verification soft- ware for supposedly secure UESB drives from Kingston, SanDisk, and Verbatim. You won’t run into that kind of Imation Defender F200 + Bio problem with The Imation Defender F200 1GB, $109 list; 32GB, $369 + Bio. First, the password verification takes l l l l m place right on the drive itself rather than Pros Encrypted USB drive with government- in PC-based software. Second, a built-in validated biometric and password authentica- tion. Administrator can recycle device for a new swipe-style fingerprint reader gives the user or rescue user if authentication fails. Less Defender two-factor authentication. costly than some similar biometric devices. Like IronKey Personal S200, the Defender CONS Making a change in the required au- thentication methods (fingerprint, password, has received FIPS 140-2 Level 3 validation or both) requires a complete reformat, as do from the U.S. government, which means the many other configuration changes. Fully de- device can actively resist tampering as well tachable cover easily lost. as adhere to requirements for storage and transfer of encryption keys and other secu- tication by fingerprint, password, or both, rity elements. Once you’ve completed the depending on how you originally config- initial setup, most settings can’t be changed ured it. You have the option to check a without reformatting the device. You can box to open your private data in read-only configure the Defender for up to ten users, mode. A drive for your private, encrypted storing fingerprint data for each. In a single- storage shows up in Windows when you user situation, it’s possible to disable the log on and vanishes when you log out or administrator account, and you can choose eject the device. Although IronKey offers to enable “data destruction” mode, mean- more features and a ruggedized exterior for ing that a user’s data will become perma- $30 less, the Defender gives you the added nently unavailable after a specified number security of fingerprint biometrics, making of failed log-ons. it a good choice for the security-conscious. When you plug in the Defender, its auto- —Neil J. Rubenking play software launches and invites authen- >>CLICK HERE FOR MORE

28 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION september 2010 storemags & fantamag - magazines for all

first looks business

HP LaserJet P3015dn Speedy Biz Laser

he LaserJet Enterprise P3015dn is best understood as the little brother to the HP LaserJet P4014n that I reviewed last year. Both are monochromeT lasers that offer similarly fast printing for a small to medium-size office or workgroup. Both offer similar—and rea- sonably ample—paper capacities in their HP LaserJet Enterprise P3015dn base configurations. Unlike the P4014n, $899.99 direct l l l l m however, the P3015dn offers only limited Pros Fast. High-quality text. Reasonably high additional paper-handling options, making paper capacity for a small office or workgroup. it suitable for somewhat less heavy-duty Cons Few paper-handling options. printing needs. This isn’t to say that the P3015dn is a lightweight when it comes to paper han- monochrome lasers, and particularly good dling. Its standard configuration has a 600- for fast mono lasers. Graphics output was sheet capacity, divided into a 500-sheet acceptable for internal use, but prob- drawer and 100-sheet multipurpose tray, ably not for slick client material. Photo along with a duplexer for printing on both output was towards the bottom of the sides of a page. As for speed, the P3015dn range, but typical for a mono laser. Also turned in a score of 4 minutes 33 seconds worth mention is the P3015dn’s low run- on our business application suite, com- ning cost, which HP claims is 1.8 cents per pared with 4:29 for the P4014n. These two page with the printer’s high-capacity car- printers were also essentially tied on each tridges. So overall the combination of fast individual test I ran. speed, good-looking text, ample paper The P3015dn scored reasonably well handling, and low cost per page makes for output quality overall, but in par- it easy to recommend for businesses. ticular, it excelled at text output. Its text —M. David Stone quality is near the top of the range for >>CLICK HERE FOR MORE

september 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 29 first looks SOFTWARE

Webroot AntiVirus with Spy Sweeper 2011 Simple, Powerful Protection

After putting Webroot AntiVirus it took just 18 minutes. Real-time protection with Spy Sweeper 2011 through its comes from over a dozen “shield” modules. paces, I’m convinced this applica- When I ran Webroot on 13 malware- tion was worth the wait. The new infested test systems, I found that it detected edition’s user interface has been 83 percent of threats, the same as Ad-Aware redesigned with a strong emphasis on sim- Pro Internet Security 8.3. However, it did a plicity. On-screen elements slide into place better job at cleaning up malware, scoring rather than snapping open a new view. If the 7.0 points overall to Ad-Aware Pro’s 6.4. In product is performing perfectly, the main quite a few cases, Webroot wiped out every screen is a serene green with minimal detail. trace of the threat. Spyware Doctor with A gray screen with a yellow warning icon AntiVirus 2010 beat them both, detecting indicates the configuration isn’t quite opti- 89 percent and scoring 7.3 points. mal. A real problem turns the main screen Webroot also set a new record in the scary red. Yes, other products use same keylogger removal category with 7.8 of 10 green/yellow/red status scheme, but Web- possible points, handily beating both Spy- root has kicked it up a notch. ware Doctor’s 7.1 and the next-best 6.6 By default, the app downloads and installs points achieved by Norton AntiVirus 2010 all signature updates automatically, with no So while Webroot didn’t ace every test, user interaction required. Also, Webroot it consistently made the top three, and, automatically scans your system for mal- unlike many products, it did well both at ware when the system is idle, applying all malware prevention and at cleaning up of its malware-smashing technologies by existing infestations. You won’t go wrong default. It scans memory, the Registry, and choosing Webroot to protect your system the full file system; it looks inside archives, against viruses and other types of malware, and it uses direct-disk scanning to detect which is why we have awarded it an Editors’ rootkits. Despite all this activity, the scan is Choice.—Neil J. Rubenking quite fast. On my standard clean test system, >>CLICK HERE FOR MORE

30 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION september 2010 storemags & fantamag - magazines for all

Webroot AntiVirus with Spy Sweeper 2011 $39.99 direct ($49.99 for 3 licenses) L l l l h Pros New user inter- face is simple, attrac- tive, and well-designed. Scanning and updating occur automatically. Very effective malware blocking and cleanup, especially of rootkits and scareware. Full scan is speedy. Cons In testing it took many hours to scan some of the malware- infested systems.

september 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 31 first looks software

Ad-Aware Pro Internet Security 8.3 Ad-Aware Keeps Clean Systems Virus-Free

emember your first anti-spy- ware program? If you started using anti-spyware in the last millennium, chances are you used Ad-Aware. Lavasoft’s originalR Ad-Aware, one of the first-ever anti- spyware utilities, appeared in 1999. More recent versions have successfully branched out to cover viruses, Trojans, rootkits, and many other types of security threats. The latest edition, 8.3, isn’t a major update, but it’s cheaper and timed to match the release Ad-Aware Pro Internet Security 8.3 of Ad-Aware Total Security 1.0. $29.95 direct The user interface starts off in simple l l l l m Pros Simple UI hides complexity when not mode, showing only the most essential needed. Quick full scan. Especially effective at controls and status items. You can launch a removing scareware. Great at keeping malware scan, trigger a manual update, or verify that out of clean systems, particularly rootkits. Cons Failed to fully clean up much detected real-time protection elements are turned malware. Some malware still running after al- on. You’ll have to switch to advanced mode leged removal. Bonus “AutoStart Manager” if you want to change any settings. In this can easily disable launch of items that should be left alone. mode, you can review malware-fighting statistics or go straight to the list of quaran- amount of malware traces. Still, its score of tined threats. 6.4 points was better than that of free antivi- My testing showed that malware cleanup rus Editors’ Choice Panda Cloud Anti-Virus isn’t this version’s strongest feature. It 1.1, which scored 5.9. Basically, this latest detected 83 percent of malware threats, version of Ad-Aware is extremely effective putting it right in the middle of the products when installed on a clean system, less so I’ve tested with my current malware collec- when challenged to get rid of malware that’s tion. Despite the potential power of its boot- already present.—Neil J. Rubenking time cleanup, Ad-Aware left behind a fair >>CLICK HERE FOR MORE

32 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION september 2010 storemags & fantamag - magazines for all

first looks software

iMovie for iPhone 4 So-So Editing on The Go

he iPhone’s IPS LCD screen is remarkably sharp, but is it good enough for video editing? Apple obviously believes it is, and proved itT with the release of iMovie for iPhone 4, the first smartphone app that lets you edit video on the go. It won’t replace the usabil- ity and functionality of desktop–based iMovie for iPhone 4 video-editing apps such as iMovie or Win- $4.99 direct dows Live Movie Maker, but iMovie is sur- l l l m m Pros Trims video clips. Applies themes, back- prisingly peppy and worth a look if your ground music, and titles. Decent performance. video-editing needs are very basic. One Cons Can’t split video clips. Not the most caveat: Don’t try installing it on any device intuitive app, given its limited capabilities. No voice-over capability. Can’t customize title other than the new iPhone 4. fonts or size. Desktop video-editing software typically uses a three-pane view that shows a preview applying a theme and importing content. of the movie, a timeline, and one or more iMovie offers five themes:M odern, Bright, palettes of effects and editing options. The Travel, Playful, and News. You can also add iPhone’s small screen is a disadvantage in music, and turn the video’s original sound this regard; it must make do with the first on or off. There’s no option to add voice- two, and a couple buttons to take the place overs with the iPhone’s built-in mic, how- of the palettes. Video editing isn’t always ever. Another thing you don’t get is video the most intuitive task, and the interface of stabilization. If you have no laptop/desktop iMovie doesn’t ease matters. I played with option, this iMovie is passable. But if you can, the app for a while without consulting the use the desktop version instead and save instructions, and didn’t get very far. At one your five bucks.—Michael Muchmore point I found myself in an infinite loop of >>CLICK HERE FOR MORE

september 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 33 Quick looks SOFTWARE

security

Ad-Aware Total K7 SecureWeb Outpost Antivirus digital defender Pro 2.0 Security 1.0 $29.95 direct per year Pro 7.0 $25 direct $49.95 direct Three licenses, $24.95 direct

L l l h m L l l l m L l h m m L m m m m

• Firewall handles program • Secure browser protects • Scans incoming and out- • Quick install control automatically online transactions at going e-mail • Received VB100% award • Better malware removal many levels • Offers multiple layers of in one of two attempts than standalone Ad-Aware • Blocks keylogging and behavior-based security • Very good phishing screen scraping • Includes ID Block private S

O protection • Works with standard anti- data protection R

P • Local, online backup malware

• Occupies over 1GB on • No way to organize • Web Control blocked few • In testing, displayed a disk favorites in stripped-down malicious sites poor malware detection • Noticeable performance browser • So-so malware removal rate drag • Doesn’t actively identify • Multi-layer behavior- • Poor ability to keep mal- • Firewall blocked or block phishing sites based security generates ware from installing on a S programs it shouldn’t • Doesn’t block keyloggers tons of pop-ups clean system ON

C • Less-effective malware • Pro-only “deep scanning” blocking than standalone made for a very slow scan Ad-Aware with no significant benefit

The massive Ad-Aware This secure browser can Outpost 7.0 doesn’t detect digital defender Pro’s deep Total Security includes protect your online trans- or remove malware quite scanning mode more than standard security compo- actions even on a system as well as the competition. tripled the scan time with- nents as well as backup that’s been compromised It offers many features to out appreciably improv- E N I and system tune-up. Most by malware. protect clean systems, but ing malware detection, components do a good job, it also spews confusing cleanup, or blocking. OM L

TT though a few are sketchy. pop-ups. BO

Product name in RED indicates Editors’ Choice.

34 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION SEPTEMBER 2010 storemags & fantamag - magazines for all

BACKUP ONLINE PHOTO ALBUMS GAMES

AAcronis Backup & Windows Live Photo 3D Dot Game Heroes Red Dead Redemption Recovery 10 Gallery (Wave 4 Beta) $39.99 list $59.99 list $74 direct Free

L l h m m Not rated L l l h m L l l l m • Provides both drive-image • Face recognition • Wonderfully constructed • Great western and file-based backup • Geo-tagging world • Wonderful story, gameplay, • Speedy performance • Blemish-removal tool • Nostalgic throwbacks to and world • Packed with features • Panorama stitcher 8-bit gaming • Easy interface • Fun, interesting gameplay

• Unclear interface with • Can’t adjust camera raw • Repetitive soundtrack • Glitches and bugs take you confusing vocabulary files • The adventure isn’t par- out of the story • Some features modify ticularly fresh hard-disk structure • Emergency CD didn’t re- spond to keyboard on one test system

Acronis Backup & Now with face recognition 3D Dot Game Heroes has Red Dead Redemption is the Recovery 10 is power- and retouching, Windows charm in its jokes and old- first great western video ful, multi-purpose backup Live Photo Gallery can stand school gaming references, game done right. Some software, but using it can be proud against iPhoto and but it feels more like a walk bugs may distract, but the confusing and often frus- Picasa. down memory lane rather gameplay and story are top trating. than a full-fledged game. notch.

Visit pcmag.com for the full reviews of these and scores of other software products.

SEPTEMBER 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 35 john c. dvorak

Note to Self: Chips Are Out, Apps Are In

hen you’re a tech col- one and takes two newer ideas and marries umnist like me, you’d them to create the iPad. First it throws out better be writing about the previous concepts regarding the tablet whatever hot tech- computer. No stylus, no handwriting recog- nologies are sweeping nition, no notepad qualities. Instead, it takes theW nation, or forget it. As I wrote about last the iPhone and combines that with the Kin- month, the current public consciousness dle, a pure e-book reader. Voila! The iPad. has shifted from dumb to dumber. So my This is actually a completely new model writing essay after essay about new instruc- for a pad. It cannot be compared to the tions within the x86 chip would get me zero attempts of the past to popularize this readers. Nobody cares about chips now. physical style of platform. This is some Apps are where it’s at. serious fodder for writers and publishers. The mobile platform has taken over the It’s actually more interesting than the app- mindshare of the public at large, so we writ- Phone because it is so weird. You cannot ers and publishers need to be laser-focused talk about this idea enough as far as the on these apps and the phones that run readers are concerned. And the phenom- them—mainly the iPhone and also Android enal skyrocketing sales prove the point as phones from Motorola and others. RIM is try- the device becomes the fastest selling con- ing to get into the act, and is out on a sumer electronics device ever. limb trying to do its own thing. As this device sells by the millions right From this emerged the anomaly called out of the chute, one must recall the early the iPad. This whole idea was easy to con- days of the original ground-breaking demn from the get-go. Time after time, pads Macintosh computer. The hoped-for goal have been attempted yet have never been back in 1984 was to try and sell 100,000 popular. All have failed. So Apple pulls a fast Macs in 90 days. Apple barely made it (if at

36 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION SEPTEMBER 2010 storemags & fantamag - magazines for all

Writing essay after essay about new instructions within the x86 chip would get me zero readers.

all). Times have indeed changed. tion, tracking, surveillance, and on and on. So if mobile apps and the iPad are the two You can worry yourself sick about the hot topics for the next year or so, what else paucity of interesting tech stories that do is out there? not involve an iPhone app, but there will be There is the Internet and its gatekeeper, plenty to discuss, but it has now moved to Google. This appears to be the only com- the “big picture.” pany working the Net that is doing any- I’ve begun to notice this transition from thing interesting or noteworthy—not good. nerd talk to serious debate over technology Microsoft has been marginalized and tries and society beginning a few years back. to get attention for Bing when it should be While a good gizmo with a picture attached keeping people interested in desktop com- will always get some attention, talking puting somehow. I’m not sure how to do about how you may be getting screwed this either, but Microsoft should be trying by technological trends seems to be more to figure it out. But it doesn’t seem to care, and more interesting to a wider and more despite the fact that this is the way it makes diverse group of readers. make most of its money. While tech mavens like myself could So let’s face it, unless something comes effortlessly ride out these trends by decon- along sooner than later, all you’ll be read- structing the code-name conventions ing about is Apple, Google, Pad comput- employed by Intel (I have done this a lot over ing, app-phones, and not much else. Yeah, the years), nowadays nobody cares. The there will be the occasional story about an usefulness of the barcode readers on the AMD chip with a funny name, or IBM think- app-Phones, now that’s worth discussing! ing about cloud computing, or Larry Ellison But writing about how technology allows of Oracle buying the new Lexus supercar. people to easily snoop on your TV-viewing The slate of articles sounds boring, and habits might be even more interesting. it is. But there is a benefit, too. Because the Perhaps this is the age of the practical; line-up is weak, writers and analysts will look we’ve had enough of geek talk. Hello iPad, elsewhere for human interest. And this falls let me smudge your screen. Are you spying right into the lap of laws, regulations and the on me, iPad? Hmmm...interesting. effect of technology on the public-at-large. Dvorak Live on the Web John’s Internet TV This means discussions of harmful effects, show airs every Wednesday at 3:30 ET on Cranky privacy, learning, computers in schools, Geeks.com. You can download back episodes computers and terrorism, automotive adop- whenever you like.

SEPTEMBER 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 37 SASCHA SEGAN

AT&T’s Insane Service Plan Strategy

s AT&T trying to kill feature phones? even on a layaway plan). So far, it seems to Recently, the company started be a failure at worst and a curiosity at best: charging less per month for full- The hypnotic power of the up-front price fledged smartphones than for crip- cannot be denied. pled texting phones. This would Iseem to deprive the carrier’s 85.1 million AT&T’s Sleight of Hand customers of a useful, inexpensive mobile- Still, in an industry with many insane pricing device choice. schemes, AT&T’s now takes the cake. Here’s As we all know, Americans aren’t how the silliness works: All AT&T phones always smart when it comes to making require a voice plan costing at least $39.99. choices about anything that involves a But the only phones you can actually get monthly fee. We’re a country of suckers for $39.99 per month are the dumbest of who fell for “no money down” mortgages, dumbphones, without keyboards or apps. and for years we’ve played out a tiny version AT&T has a range of smartphones (includ- of that tragedy by sucking up “free” phones ing, of course, the iPhone), and it offers two that are really anything but. data plans for them. The $15 monthly plan is Let me remind you: The most important for light users, with 200MB per month. The fee associated with a mobile phone is the $25 plan gets you 2GB of data. If you’re into monthly price. When you’re in a two-year texting, that costs extra ($5 per month for contract, even a $400 gadget translates to 200 messages, or $20 for unlimited mes- only $16 per month. Of course, you prob- sages). You should understand, though, ably won’t listen to me on this one. T-Mobile that you can ease into the smartphone life- has been running an experiment for a while style for a minimum of $55 per month. where it lowers subscribers’ monthly fees In the doughy middle of AT&T’s lineup in exchange for buying phones up front (or are a bunch of “texting phones,” otherwise

38 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION september 2010 storemags & fantamag - magazines for all

It’s very hard to argue any advantage to buying a feature phone over a smartphone on AT&T.

known as quick-messaging devices. These could just slap down a big click-through are supposed to be a lower-cost way for warning on certain activities saying “Are people to get some smartphone features. you sure you want to do this? This is going Texting phones have QWERTY keyboards to cost a lot of money!” and skip the manda- and usually an e-mail program and Web tory plan. But they’re trying to raise monthly browser. They’re always somewhat crippled fees, not save you money. and inadequate compared to a good smart- phone, but they’re a good way to dip your A Counterproductive Stance toes in the mobile-computing waters. AT&T’s policies seem counterproductive in The thing is, this product category works many ways. Take the company’s nasty atti- only if the darn things are noticeably less tude toward Google’s Android OS. AT&T is expensive than smartphones. Otherwise, far too dependent on iPhone sales right now, just get a smartphone! so you’d think it’d be happy to get a power- ful smartphone alternative. Unfortunately, it The Real Price of Data alienates the technorati by locking out “non- So, here’s the problem. Remember how you market” Android apps, and it confuses con- can get a smartphone for $55 per month? sumers by loading up its Android phones Texting phones cost at least $60. Now, that with useless bloatware. $60 minimum plan also includes 200 SMS Fortunately, there’s plenty of wireless messages, which would drive your $55 choice in this country. Cell phone buyers can smartphone plan up to $60 as well. But it’s go with Verizon’s voice quality, Sprint’s low very hard to argue any financial advantage rates, T-Mobile’s easily understood plans, to buying a feature phone over a smart- prepaid options from several different car- phone on AT&T. AT&T isn’t alone in making riers, or even the personal service of a small, people buy onerous add-ons to use their local phone company. feature phones, however. Verizon tacks a $15 Nonetheless, it would be really nice for mandatory charge onto all of its 3G phones. the companies’ pricing schemes to be com- Sprint’s and T-Mobile’s plans are both more prehensible. There’s a natural progression— affordable and comprehensible than AT&T’s cheap simple phones, slightly less cheap and Verizon’s. texting phones, and, then, smartphones. AT&T and Verizon claim that their manda- Why is that so hard for AT&T to understand? tory data plans exist to prevent people from STAY PHONE-SMART Keep up with the latest being “accidentally” charged for data, but on smartphones by reading Sascha’s column at that’s disingenuous nonsense. Instead, they go.pcmag.com/segan.

september 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 39 DAN COSTA

The Connected Reader

hen Amazon.com CEO go. But only recently have I started to under- Jeff Bezos launched stand how reading itself has changed. the latest edition of the company’s Kindle Reading Goes Social e-book reader, he did Not long ago, Amazon released a software soW with a solemn commitment to maintain update that would let you link your Kindle the device’s dedicated reading experience. account to Twitter and Facebook. Just Bezos’s vision for the Kindle has always select a portion of the text, and with two been to provide an almost invisible device clicks you can share a link to it with all of between the reader and the book. It is a your friends. Sharing books with friends has pretty thought, no doubt more comforting always been the second greatest pleasure than the idea of pitting the mono-function of being a reader—the first being getting Kindle against the multimedia powerhouse those books back. Technology accelerates that is the Apple iPad. Still, it is fundamen- the process, giving you access to a real- tally wrong. Bezos is right to keep the focus time, constantly available book club. Read- of the Kindle on reading, but must address ing is suddenly social. the fact that the way we read is changing. Another example of the evolution of read- Whenever I talk about e-book read- ing is Flipboard for the iPad. I admit, when ers, I feel the need to first present my book the news of this app first broke, I didn’t bonafides, which is to say, I love books. The understand the buzz. I was inclined to dis- smell, the feel, the soft clap as a finished miss Flipboard as a Silicon Valley darling book slams shut. My first edition of Heming- that would have little appeal to mainstream way’s Winner Takes Nothing is among my consumers. After testing out the service, most prized possessions. But at this point, however, I think the attention was deserved. almost all of my book purchases are elec- At its core, Flipboard is a reader applica- tronic. Maybe it is the nature of my job, tion, albeit more of an RSS reader than an maybe it is the appeal of the digital discount, e-book reader. Still, it pulls text and pho- ($9.99!), but my Kindle goes everywhere I tos from sites and organizes them in a nice

40 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION SEPTEMBER 2010 storemags & fantamag - magazines for all

Reading is becoming less passive and more interactive. Who is to say that is a bad thing? interface for the iPad. Compared with the who is to say that is a bad thing? mobile sites most publishers put online, Of course, there is a difference between Flipboard is a wonder. But that isn’t its great enhancement and gratuitous embellish- innovation—like the latest Kindle update, ment. As Bezos himself told The Wall Street Flipboard makes reading social. Journal: All of the digerati flipping over Flipboard “For the vast majority of books, adding managed to crash the startup’s servers, so I video and animation is not going to be help- had to wait to see the Facebook and Twit- ful. It is distracting rather than enhancing. ter integration. Link your Twitter account You are not going to improve Hemingway with Flipboard to make a digital magazine, by adding video snippets.” complete with photos, links, and text. My The future of reading isn’t so much in add- sister posted pictures of her kids on Face- ing content, but adding context, be it social, book, and Flipboard scrapes them off the historical, factual, or otherwise. I don’t think Web and displays them in its well-ordered a video with the author adds that much design. When Newser.com posts a link to its to most books. Still, how many people live coverage of a Jeff Bezos interview on who read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Charlie Rose, that gets picked up, too. And Googled Stieg Larsson to read his back- it is all on the same page, within the same story? (In my opinion, his story is far more design. The newspaper may be dying, but interesting than the books.) That kind of the personal paper has just been born. functionality needs to be supported by the reader itself. So does book lending, which Define ‘Reading’ the nook supports now. So does annotation Sure, you say, but it just sounds like a cool and commenting. graphical way to read your Twitter feed. Yes, Despite his praise for the pure reading I respond, read your Twitter feed. Not skim, experience, Bezos knows all of this. The not surf, but read. Kindle has already changed reading as we Is this real reading? I dare say people read know it. The device can be searched, words their Twitter feeds with an interest that has can be defined, books can be read aloud for been lacking among most newspaper read- the visually impaired. There are 630,000 ers for years. Indeed, the average teenager titles available within 30 seconds anywhere spends almost two hours a day online, and there is 3G or Wi-Fi. The rules have changed, in that time he or she isn’t just reading, but and I say it is a good thing. also writing. Reading is becoming a less TALK back to Dan E-mail your thoughts to passive and more interactive activity. And [email protected].

SEPTEMBER 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 41 Top 100 Free Apps for Your Whether you tote an iPhone, Droid, BlackBerry, or Palm Pre, your apps are what make your smartphone brilliant. Here are our top free app picks of 2010.

s you’ve probably haven’t noticed, the app scene is boom- ing. The iPhone still leads the Arace, with more than 225,000 apps, but other platforms are gaining momentum. Google’s Android Market now has more than 60,000 apps. Palm’s App Catalog for the Pre and Pixi has risen from hundreds to more than 2,000 apps during the past several months alone. And there are thousands of apps for BlackBerry, Win- dows Mobile, and Symbian phones. Although the iPhone isn’t the number- inside one smartphone platform in America 44 iphonE (that’s BlackBerry), iPhone owners down- 52 android load more apps than owners of competing 58 blackbe devices. But a huge number of Android- 60 palm W powered phones are hitting the mar- 62 symbian ketplace right now. Verizon and Sprint, 63 windows

42 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION SEPTEMBER 2010 storemags & fantamag - magazines for all Top 100 Free Apps or Your Phone especially, have been enthusiastic about Android, offering Google’s OS as their hot- test smartphone platform right now. Our list includes 10 free apps for Palm’s webOS; Palm phones are now available on Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T, and HP has said it’s going to “double down” on the Palm system. Meanwhile, we give the Symbian OS just five free apps; Nokia’s smartphones have barely hung on in the U.S. market. The losers in this roundup are app devel- opers for BlackBerrys and Windows Mobile phones. There are millions of BlackBerrys in the U.S. but BlackBerry owners are less interested in reading about apps than users of other platforms, according to our reader- ship statistics. That may be because RIM’s App World is still difficult to use. Microsoft’s Windows Mobile is in a chrysa- inside lis right now, as it transforms into 7 later this year. Microsoft shifted oid most developers’ interest away from Win- erry dows Mobile 6.5. But because there are still ebos millions of Windows Mobile 6.5 phones in ian consumers’ hands, we’re giving you five ws mobile great free apps for that platform.

SEPTEMBER 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 43 TOP 40 Free apps* by sean ludwig

Apple Inc. AT&T Services Inc. Apple iBooks 1.1 AT&T myWireless 1.3.2 www.apple.com www.att.com Apple’s iBooks isn’t just AT&T’s myWireless an e-book reader; it’s also app tells you if you’re an excellent PDF reader. coming close to your This app uses an attrac- monthly 200MB or tive bookshelf to arrange 2GB data limit, how your virtual books and many minutes you’ve PDFs, and Apple makes quite a few older used, and when your next bill is due. It also books available for free through its online allows you to upgrade your plan if you’re store. You can also sync your bookmarks using your iPhone much more than you and notations with your iPod touch, iPad, or expected. Checking this app periodically is additional . the best way to protect yourself from unex- pected AT&T charges. Microsoft Corp. Bing 1.2 NBC Universal Inc. www.bing.com CNBC Real-Time 1.3 On the desktop, I pre- www.cnbc.com fer Google, but on the One of the best busi- iPhone, I prefer Bing, ness news sites has which offers more than one of the best free just simple search. It also business apps on the provides a scrolling photo iPhone. CNBC’s app search, voice search, and local shopping starts with business- searches; it even has a bar-code scanner to news alerts, but we look up prices in stores. The Social tool lets really like it because of its detailed stock- you connect to Facebook and Twitter and portfolio tracker. Plus, we dig its well- search your results from friends. rendered graphics.

Andy Qua Cube Runner 1.5 andyqua.co.uk/CubeRunner/Welcome.html This addictive game lets you control an arrow that flies through rows of digital cubes. You must try to avoid the cubes and fly for as long as you can. In the background, fun electronic music jams along as you pilot your arrow. It’s a total flashback to early ’80s arcade graphics.

*These apps are for the iPhone and iPod touch. All will work on the iPad, but not terribly well unless they have been optimized. For a list of great iPad apps, check out our 25 Best iPad Apps story online by clicking here.

44 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION SEPTEMBER 2010 storemags & fantamag - magazines for all

Nuance Communications Inc. Dragon Dictation 1.3.4 www.nuance.com Ever wanted to dictate a long series of notes and then e-mail or text them? Dragon Dictation can do that for you. Just load the app, tap the red button, and dictate for a minute at a time. One downside: Some users have complained that Nuance goes through your contacts to ensure accuracy when you speak names. It’s a breach of privacy, but is it any worse than Facebook? Probably not. And we’d rather have the names spelled correctly.

Evenflow Inc. eBay Inc. Dropbox 1.2.2 eBay Mobile 1.7.0 www.dropbox.com www.ebay.com Dropbox lets you That auction item you access your personal want desperately will files residing on any of go to someone else your gadgets or com- unless you can swoop puters. It gives you 2GB in at the last second. of file storage that can be accessed from This app lets you do any computer. On iPhone, iPod touch, and just that from anywhere with an Internet iPad, the app allows you to view docu- connection. It lets users search, bid on ments, spreadsheets, presentations, and items, update their info, check bids on some videos and photos that you’ve put items being sold, and much more. For fre- into your personal file space. quent bidders, this an essential tool. eBuddy B.V. Condé Nast eBuddy Epicurious Recipes & Messenger 3.6.0 Shopping List 2.1 www.ebuddy.com www.epicurious.com If you use many differ- If you’re a foodie, you ent instant-messaging probably know about clients, eBuddy will let Epicurious and its you log into each of 100,000-plus recipes. them at once, such as The site’s iPhone app lets AIM, Yahoo, Facebook, Google Talk, ICQ, you turn your favorite recipes into a shop- MySpace, and MSN. It will push notification ping list that you check off, or turn them of new instant messages to you even when into a paginated cookbook. The ads here it isn’t running, and you can tell it to log out can be annoying, but we’re willing to put up automatically after a set period of time. with them for a free app.

SEPTEMBER 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 45 top 40 Free iphone apps

ESPN Inc. Evernote Corp. ESPN Evernote 3.3.5 ScoreCenter 1.5.3 www.evernote.com www.espn.go.com Take notes several Sports fanatics with different ways—text, iPhones need this. It voice, and photos— allows you to keep track then access them from of your favorite teams any desktop or phone on a single page, read with Evernote’s soft- the latest analyses from ESPN, and receive ware. The simple inter- push notifications when games start or face makes it easy to write down important teams score. Sportacular is also a smart to-dos, or things like locations, phone num- sports app with similar score-tracking abili- bers, and e-mail addresses. ties, but we think ESPN’s design is a little cleaner. Fandango Fandango 3.2.2 Facebook www.fandango.com Facebook 3.1.4 Looking for movie www.facebook.com times on the go? Fan- If you’re an active dango is your friend. social networker, It can show you movie you’re probably on times, help you buy Facebook. And if you tickets, and show you have an iPhone as well, user reviews of the this well-designed app latest blockbusters and indie flicks. Since is a must-have. The home screen is a 3-by-3 some theaters sell tickets through competi- grid that gives you access to almost every- tor Moviefone, you should also download thing Facebook has to offer. The app also Moviefone’s app if you want to be able to integrates with the iPhone’s own features buy tickets anywhere you go. well, letting you call or text any friend who has publicly posted his or her number.

John Haney Software Flashlight. 2.1.1 www.johnhaney.com/software As simple (or dumb) as it sounds, having a flashlight app on your iPhone or iPod touch is never a bad thing. Turn up the iPhone screen’s brightness and you can use it as a reading light, or even as a backup on a camping trip. If you feel like starting a party on the go, the app can display a strobe light or other light effects.

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Foursquare Foursquare 1.9.0 foursquare.com Any modern social networker with an iPhone should be on Four- square. It’s a hip, fun app where you check in to places you go physi- cally and earn badges when you accomplish various things. It sounds a bit silly (and maybe it is), but there are rewards—being the person who checks in the most (called the “mayor”) at a restaurant can earn you a free meal, drink, or dessert.

Google Groupon Google Earth 3.0.0 Groupon 1.1.0 earth.google.com www.groupon.com Google Maps is fine Groupon offers decent- and dandy, but Google to-great coupons on Earth ups the ante, stuff to do, see, eat, and taking you wherever buy in 65 cities. There’s you want in the world. one deal a day, and if You can digitally climb not enough people mountains, browse geo-tagged photos, sign up, the deal is canceled (hence the check out city info with Google Local name, Groupon). It’s a smart system that Search, and search in many languages. makes sure users and businesses alike get This latest version includes road layers and something from the deal. It even has a little native support for the iPad, too. green cred because with it you no longer have to print out coupons. Amazon.com Inc. Kindle 2.1.1 Intuit Inc. www.amazon.com Mint.com Personal While Apple’s iBooks Finance 1.3 app might be slightly www.mint.com flashier, Amazon Kin- Keep track of your dle’s library has been spending with Mint. around longer, has com’s mobile app. Just more titles, and works enter a few data points with more devices. in the iPhone, and For those who want to read on the cheap, you’ll be able to see Kindle also has a lot more free books for your spending patterns as an easy-to-read download. The app allows users to read the chart. Of course, if your bank account is beginning of any e-book, making it a good anemic, cool-looking animations probably shopping tool. won’t make you feel much better about it.

SEPTEMBER 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 47 top 40 Free iphone apps

The New York Times Co. OpenTable Inc. NYTimes 2.3.3 OpenTable 3.0.2 www.nytimes.com www.opentable.com Wondering why a You’re out on a date newspaper’s app is that’s going better necessary when you than expected, but can just go to the you didn’t make dinner paper’s Web site? The reservations. What to app allows you to save do? Time to bust out stories for reading when you don’t have an the OpenTable app for Internet connection. (Thanks, AT&T!) Plus, iPhone and make a reservation for a nearby even as newspapers across the country are restaurant. OpenTable makes the process cutting back, the Times still has niche sec- so fast and easy that you might be able to tions like Technology, Books, Travel, Fash- do it while your date isn’t looking. ion, and Dining. Pandora Media Inc. Opera Software ASA Pandora Radio 3.1.1 Opera Mini Web www.pandora.com Browser 5.0.2 Pandora creates cus- www.opera.com tom streaming radio We were pleasantly stations based on art- surprised when Apple ists or songs you like. approved Opera It uses elements from Mini—a competitor of the song itself and the Safari—for the iPhone. user’s preferences to Lousy AT&T connections prompted Apple pick new songs to listen to. You’re likely to to approve Opera Mini, which uses less data hear some unfamiliar bands mixed in with and can sometimes eke out a complete a lot of bands you already know and like. Web page when Safari can’t. Safari is better Plus, if you use Pandora on your desktop, overall, but Opera Mini is good to use when the iPhone account will sync your thumbs your network connection isn’t optimal. up or down on song selections.

Adobe Systems Inc. Photoshop.com Mobile 1.2.2 www.adobe.com With the new iPhone 4’s 5-megapixel camera and better photo capa- bilities, there’s a good chance more users are going to need an app like this. Photoshop.com Mobile lets you crop, rotate, change expo- sure, and apply other effects to your iPhone photos. Then you can upload your work to an account on Photoshop.com.

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Apple Inc. Remote 1.3.3 www.apple.com Turn your iPhone or iPod touch into a remote control for music on your computer or Apple TV. While music is playing, album artwork is displayed on your phone and you can even edit playlists. The app only works over your home Wi-Fi connection, so you don’t have to worry about anyone else controlling your tunes—except other people in your house, of course.

Big in Japan Siri ShopSavvy Barcode Siri Assistant 1.1.1 Scanner 1.5 www.siri.com www.biggu.com Siri’s smart search app Take a photo of any has learning A.I. built in, bar code, and Shop- so it remembers your Savvy will show you preferences and loca- prices for that prod- tions as you use it, thus uct from online and providing more accurate search results. local retailers. If you think a product is over- The most recent version adds the ability priced, you can simply buy it from someone to post to Twitter and do math problems. else. If ShopSavvy doesn’t find what you Let’s just hope Siri doesn’t become Skynet need, check out pic2shop, another accu- and use the data in its computer systems to rate bar-code scanner. take over the world.

Skype Ltd. Slacker Inc. Skype 2.0.0 Slacker Radio 2.1 www.skype.com www.slacker.com Though the iPhone Want to listen to profes- version doesn’t yet do sionally programmed video calls (you’ll have radio stations on your to stick to FaceTime on phone? Then meet the iPhone 4 for that), Slacker, which never it finally does 3G VoIP slacks in finding you great voice calls, Wi-Fi Skype-to-Skype calls, and music. If you enter an artist, it finds simi- paid Skype-to-landline calls. Skype’s inter- lar music you might like and you can ban national rates are much lower than AT&T’s, or like songs to help the system fine-tune and this app can be a real boon if you use it your listening experience. Like Pandora, the in a Wi-Fi zone while traveling. more you use it, the better the app works.

SEPTEMBER 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 49 top 40 Free iphone apps

Lexis Numérique Tapulous Surfacer 1.0.0 Tap Tap Revenge 3.5 www.lexis-games.com/ tapulous.com Surfacer is half It might not be the most digital art proj- innovative game, but ect, half addictive at this point, Tap Tap game. The game is easy: Cover as much sur- Revenge is an undeni- face as you can with circles without hitting able touchstone in the any of the moving balls. As you complete iPhone app canon. For levels, more moving balls are added and it the uninitiated, TTR is a music-based game becomes harder to cover the surfaces with that has its users tap their fingers along the allotted amount of circles. The fuzzy with the beat of popular songs. Think of it electronic music in the background works as Guitar Hero for Dummies. TTR developer extremely well as a soundtrack. Tapulous was acquired by Disney in early July, so we’re hoping to see a lot more add- TripIt on packs and music for TTR in the future. TripIt 1.6.1 www.tripit.com Mobile Bros LLC Our managing editor Trundle 1.2.1 for mobile devices, mobile-bros.com/ Sascha Segan, is also a This frustrating travel writer who never but rewarding hits the road without platform game loading his information will keep you entertained and puzzled for into TripIt. The app helps you keep track of hours. You control a gear (yes, a piece of all those annoying confirmation numbers metal) that’s trying to get from one side and flight statuses. It might seem like a sim- of a level to another. You move the iPhone ple thing, but when your flight is canceled, side to side to control your gear and tap the it can save you precious minutes rebooking. screen to jump. It’s harder than it sounds, especially once you start having to master the game’s smart physics.

TweetDeck TweetDeck for iPhone 1.3 www..com There is an unending debate about which free iPhone Twitter cli- ent is the best. Among TweetDeck, Twitteriffic, , and Echofon, our favorite is TweetDeck. You can sync to your Tweet- Deck account on the desktop, and its depth of features (includ- ing multiple accounts) are unmatched by other free clients.

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The Weather Channel Interactive The Weather Channel 2.82 www.weather.com Just like Twitter clients, there are many free weather apps for the iPhone. The Weather Channel is far and away our favorite because of its rich range of options. It displays current and extended forecasts, maps, severe weather alerts, pollen counts, videos, and more. What- ever weather data you need while on the go, The Weather Channel has it, guaranteed.

JiWire Inc. Newtoy Wi-Fi Finder 2.0.1 Words With Friends www.jiwire.com/iphone Free 3.0.9 Ever needed to find a newtoyinc.com/wp/ good Wi-Fi connec- This is basically a tion in a hurry because generic version of your data plan or Scrabble that you play AT&T’s signal wasn’t iPhone to iPhone. It has cutting it? Wi-Fi Finder by JiWire lets you push notifications to download a complete directory of free see when someone else has played a word, Wi-Fi spots in the U.S. and it even works and a very simple interface to keep track without a data connection. The app works of your games. Couple this with the free best in populated cities, but that’s where WordWeb Dictionary app and you might be you’re more likely to find free (and paid) unbeatable. Wi-Fi connections. Yelp Inc. Avantar LLC Yelp 4.3.0 Yellow Pages 2.9.3 www.yelp.com www.avantar.us/ Looking for a good new Have you ever looked restaurant in your neigh- up a store’s address borhood? Yelp has an on Google Maps, then extensive database of gone there only to find restaurants, bars, coffee the store is closed? shops, movie theaters, and shops. The best Yellow Pages can help. part of Yelp is the user reviews. Consensus Its extensive database for business que- forms around the best places in each neigh- ries has few wrong numbers or addresses. borhood. The competing Urbanspoon app, In our tests, we found Yellow Pages to be which features professional reviews, is also more accurate and complete than the com- a fun addition if you’re a foodie on the look- peting YPMobile app. out for good restaurants.

SEPTEMBER 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 51 top 30 Free google android apps by gregg binder

ReChild The Associated Press Advanced Task Killer AP Mobile 2.3 Free 1.7.9 www.ap.org rechild.mobi This app provides After hours of strenu- constant updates on ous Android multitask- multiple news catego- ing, you might find your ries, as well as AP news phone to be sluggish videos. It caches stories and drained of its bat- for offline reading and tery. This task-killing app can free up valu- provides local news tai- able megabytes of memory and plenty of lored to your ZIP code. processor power. The pay version with an You can also customize your homepage so “auto-kill” function is available for $5, but the first news you see fits your needs. the free version is more than acceptable. Metago We Love Astrid Astro File Manager Astrid 2.14.3 2.4.2 www.weloveastrid.com www.metago.net/astro Astrid is still probably We all love apps, but the best Android to-do they take up valuable list app. You can start space on your phone. with a generic list of Astro lets you back up tasks, then add more apps on your SD card; complexity by tag- you can’t run them ging tasks, setting priorities, and assigning from there, but you can dates with reminders. Astrid also syncs with swap out apps you aren’t using. It lets you Remember The Milk, an online to-do list app browse your phone’s file system, examin- that can send your tasks to Google Calen- ing and moving files. It also gives you a dar, Gmail, Twitter, or your desktop. very detailed peek into which apps and processes are running, with info about how much memory and CPU power each pro- cess is using.

Glu Mobile Bonsai Blast 1.5 www.glu.com This classic game lets you shoot colored bubbles at strings of other colored bubbles to clear them out, with walls, super-powered bub- bles, and lots of vaguely Asian landscapes complicating the situation. It’s simple, addictive, and graphically pleasing.

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MGeek Dolphin Browser HD 2.0.0 home.dolphin-browser.com/tunny/Home.htm If you aren’t happy with the generic browser that comes with your phone, Dolphin is the way to go. It offers tabbed browsing, multi- touch zooming, syncing with Google bookmarks, and the ability to flag sites that you might want to read later. You can even down- load YouTube videos.

doubleTwist Facebook doubleTwist Player 1.0.1 Facebook for twist.to/android Android 1.2 This slick media player www.facebook.com/apps helps make up for the This is the “official” lack of iTunes on your Facebook app on phone. Combine it with Android, and it serves the desktop version of its purpose well doubleTwist, and you’ll enough. You can post turn your Android device into a portable status updates, upload multimedia powerhouse that syncs music, photos, and check your news stream. It’s (un-DRMed) iTunes playlists, and videos a lot faster than using the Facebook Web as well as any Apple hardware does. It’s a app, so it’s the best option on Android to must-have for all music lovers. stay connected to your Facebook friends.

Foursquare Google Foursquare Google Maps www.foursquare.com/android Navigation Foursquare is a cool www.google.com/mobile/ location-based social navigation/ networking app that inte- Google Maps Naviga- grates with Facebook tion gives you free, and Twitter, too. The voice-guided GPS integrated Google Maps driving directions on feature allows you to get views of places your Android phone. in your area, so you can easily go from one It offers Google’s trade- restaurant to another (it doesn’t hurt that it mark satellite view, real-time traffic reports, comes with Yelp integration as well). Then search and voice recognition, and best-in- you can “check in” to various locations to class POI search. alert your friends that you’re there.

SEPTEMBER 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 53 top 30 Free google android apps

Google Google Google Sky Map 1.5.2 Google Voice 0.3.4 www.google.com/mobile/ www.google.com/voice skymap/ If you have a virtual Put names to all the Google Voice number, stars, planets, and con- use this app to make stellations. This app outgoing calls and syncs with your GPS to SMS messages easily, provide you with a map including international of the sky wherever calls that run about you are. The only tricky 2 cents per minute. This app also lets you thing can be getting your phone and the integrate your phone’s built-in address sky aligned exactly right. book and call log for voice calls. There are other third-party apps out there that tap MH Games into Google Voice, but Google’s native app Jewels 1.60 works almost seamlessly. www.mhgames.org Jewels is a highly pol- Google ished, free, Bejeweled Listen 1.1.3 clone. The game is listen.googlelabs.com highly addictive and Every smartphone serves as a great way needs a good podcast to pass the time on client, and Google your commute. Dif- Listen fits the bill on ferent modes let you play this as a strategy Android. You can game or an action game, and if you’re com- subscribe to individual podcasts or find petitive, you can share your scores with podcasts using terms you like. You can others. downloading podcasts to play even when you aren’t connected to a network. Rewind and forward options need improvement, but overall Listen is a great way to get radio- style content onto your Android phone. Meebo Inc. Meebo IM 22 www.meebo.com/android This is our favorite Android-based, multi-platform IM program. Along with the usual AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Google, and ICQ instant-messaging networks, Meebo also supports Facebook and MySpace IM, which is pretty cool. Social-networking contacts come with photos and status messages, and you can keep multiple conversations going at once.

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Intuit Inc. Mint 1.4 www.mint.com This impressive app allows Android users to manage their finances easily on the go. You can see real-time account balances, compare your spending with your monthly budget, keep track of recent transactions, and edit transaction details. An exclusive-to-Android feature: Home- screen widgets display overall cash flow and financial updates.

Flixster Inc. PageOnce Movies by Flixster PageOnce Personal 2.9.4 Assistant 1.4 www.flixster.com/wap/apps/ www.pageonce.com android This app lets you There are a lot of good monitor your financial movie apps out there, accounts, as well as but Movies by Flix- track anything flight- ster gets our nod here related (frequent flyer because of its com- miles, itineraries, flight plete experience. It will inform you of the times), cell-phone minutes, bills due dates, latest top flicks and movies coming out, your Netflix queue, eBay bids, and a variety as well as theaters near you. It provides of social-network feeds. PageOnce says trailers, reviews, information, and Rotten it uses top-notch encryption and is fully Tomatoes results for all the current movies. insured, so you don’t have to worry about And yes, you can even buy tickets to select the security of your data. A $6.99 “pre- participating theaters as well. mium” version lets you ditch ads.

Pandora Media Inc. Adobe Systems Inc. Pandora Radio 1.3 Photoshop.com www.pandora.com Mobile 1.2.0 Internet radio gives you mobile.photoshop.com an endless amount of Here’s an arsenal of music for your Android photo-editing tools to phone, albeit at the cost use on your Android of battery life. Pandora phone. You can crop, lets you tap into custom rotate, color-correct, or change images to radio stations that you black and white with a beautifully intuitive create based on songs or artists. Pandora interface. The app integrates with free Pho- will play best over Wi-Fi, but it also works toshop.com online accounts, but unfortu- over 3G. nately not other services such as Flickr.

SEPTEMBER 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 55 top 30 Free google android apps

Team Replica Ringdroid Replica Island 1.3 Ringdroid 2.3 replicaisland.net code.google.com/p/ringdroid Replica Island is More than a ring-tone perhaps the most app, Ringdroid is really sophisticated free an audio editor for your game on the Android platform. As a plat- Android phone. You can former, where you collect coins and avoid use it to clip audio files to enemies, it’s similar to older video games make ring tones, but also like Mega Man and Super Mario Brothers. for any other purpose—for example, send- But it’s a must-have game that provides ing audio recordings to friends. Just take 40 levels of fun, and it uses phone features almost any unprotected audio file that your such as the accelerometer quite well. Android phone can play, slide two sliders to the beginning and end of your clip, and in Big In Japan Inc. an instant your new sound is ready. ShopSavvy 3.6.6 www.biggu.com Mobile1Sports LLC ShopSavvy is the best SportsTap 2.4.8 comparison-shopping www.sportstap.mobi app for Android. Just SportsTap gives you take a picture of a prod- scores, stats, and news for uct’s bar code with baseball, football, basket- the phone’s camera, ball, hockey, golf, tennis, and ShopSavvy will soccer, and NASCAR. It give you prices from various retailers along lets you select some of with reviews from online shopping sites. Its your favorite teams, so you can get updates weakness is its collection of “local” stores; immediately upon opening the app. And while standing in midtown Manhattan, it unlike competing apps, it gives you Accu- told us the nearest store selling a particular Score game projections for many of the video game was a Wal-Mart in New Jersey. day’s games—nice for anyone who might want to partake in the occasional bet.

Flaviu Negrean Talk To Me Classic 1.7.8 www.flaviuapps.com Originally, this language translator with speech-to-speech functionality (you speak the word; it speaks the translation back to you) offered only services in English, French, Spanish, German, and Italian. Now it has many other languages such as Chinese, and you can just type what you want translated into the program. This app is a must-have aid for any traveler.

56 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION SEPTEMBER 2010 storemags & fantamag - magazines for all

Matt Wachowski Trap 1.00 www.brothersoft.com/virus-trap-127901 The last game to make our app list could arguably be the most addictive. If you remember the 1980s game Qix, you’ll be famil- iar with Trap. The goal of Trap is to draw lines to take over screen areas and trap moving balls inside walls. Be careful, though— you can’t let the balls hit any of the lines you are drawing.

CBS Interactive Inc. TweetUp Inc. TV.com 1.3 Twidroyd 3.4.0 www.cbs.com twidroyd.com You can’t hit Hulu on The recently renamed Android yet, but TV.com Twidroyd (to avoid is a good alternative. This that pesky Lucasfilm streaming video app lets trademark) is a popular, you select programming straightforward, and from CBS, The CW, CNET, simple Android Twitter ET, Showtime, CBS News, Gamespot, client. Twidroyd lets you send direct mes- CBS Sports, and more. We’d recommend sages, @reply to your friends, post pictures, streaming over Wi-Fi rather than 3G for set your location via GPS, set background more reliable video quality. Not all channels notifications, and paste a URL. It also runs allow you to watch full episodes, but the in the background, periodically checking ones that do offer the ability to browse and for new tweets and telling you through an skip chapters. icon in your notification bar.

The Weather Channel Yelp The Weather Channel Yelp 1.4.2 2.3.22 www.yelp.com www.weather.com Yelp’s many business cat- Get everything you need egories help it edge out to know weatherwise Urbanspoon as our favor- before you head out for ite restaurant-reviewing the day—hourly, 36-hour, app. In addition to places and 10-day forecasts, to eat, you can search multiple locations, and live video from the for banks, gas stations, drugstores, the TV channel. The app automatically updates “hot on yelp” section, and much more. Yelp your location using GPS, and its home- gives you amateur rather than professional screen widgets will keep you informed if it’s reviews, but the Yelp community is well- time to get your umbrella out. respected.

SEPTEMBER 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 57 TOP 10 Free apps by sascha segan

The Associated Press Bitstream AP Mobile News BOLT 2.1 2.5.6 www.boltbrowser.com bb.apnews.com Unless you can get Get complete, flex- the new browser ible access to local, for BlackBerry 6 OS, stick with BOLT, a national, and international news with AP fast, high-quality browser that downloads Mobile News. Plus, the latest version of this pages that actually look like desktop Web app lets you send stories to Facebook or pages. The new version 2.1 adds tabbed your friends, read stories offline, or watch browsing, support for many Flash video news videos. If you’re looking for multiple Web sites, and Web-based chat apps, news sources, try Viigo, but AP can satisfy such as Facebook and Meebo. If you have any needy news junkie. a lower-res BlackBerry, like the 8530, try Opera Mini (www.opera.com) instead. App Pro Shop FlashLight 1.0.2 Google appworld.blackberry.com Google Maps 4.2 Our favorite free m.google.com/maps flashlight app is Google’s free extremely easy to mobile mapping use, and the light is program just keeps bright. You can adjust getting better. The most recent version both the color and adds bicycling and transit directions, brightness of the as well as the ability to share directions light to your taste, too; according to the through SMS and Facebook. You can turn manufacturer, different colors of light work live traffic and Google Buzz layers on and better in different situations. FlashLight is off, and the GPS locks in quickly. “Labs” available from BlackBerry App World. beta options include a terrain layer and scale bar.

Amazon.com Inc. Kindle for BlackBerry Beta www.amazon.com/kindlebb The tiny BlackBerry screen may not seem like the ideal platform for reading long-form books, but stick with us here. Kindle for BlackBerry is part of a multi-platform strategy, where you can read Kindle books on your iPad, on your computer, on your Kin- dle, and on your BlackBerry. Unfortunately, newspapers and magazines aren’t available on the BlackBerry platform. But we really like the ability to put down the latest best-seller at home, and seamlessly sneak a glimpse at it during a long, boring meeting at work.

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Qik Inc. Qik LiveStreaming 1.0.15 www.qik.com Broadcast video with your BlackBerry with this app; you can stream it live to the Web or to other mobile phones. It’s simple to use if you have a good 3G or Wi-Fi connection. All of your videos are also automatically archived and shared for later viewing, and your viewers can respond to you in real time.

Slacker Research in Motion Slacker Radio for Twitter for Black- BlackBerry 3.1.76 Berry 1.0.0.40 www.slacker.com www.blackberry.com In the eternal war Now that Facebook between Slacker and comes baked into Pandora—the two leading custom stream- most BlackBerry smartphones, the folks ing radio apps for the BlackBerry—Slacker at RIM have an official Twitter client. Its recently edged out its rival by offering “sta- advantage over the competition is its very tion caching,” which lets you listen to music elegant, well-designed interface. Nothing’s while you’re offline and really saves battery rough here—you can Tweet, search, use life. Unfortunately, station caching requires lists, follow, or check trends using beautiful a $4-$5 monthly Slacker Radio Plus sub- fonts and an unobtrusive utility bar. scription. But the free Slacker app is still great for streaming music, with all the pro- AWS Convergence fessionally programmed and custom sta- WeatherBug 1.1.0.150 tions you expect from Slacker.com. www.aws.com Sure, WeatherBug Viigo gives you live local- Viigo for weather updates, BlackBerry 3.1.489 detailed forecast www.viigo.im summaries, weather Our top BlackBerry alerts, camera views, app pick, Viigo is and detailed radar maps from a weather also the best single-information app for app nowadays. But it also goes a bit further any handheld platform. Under the hood, it’s by integrating with Bing Maps, letting you an RSS reader. But it finds and presents its tap on a map to find out how the weather information brilliantly, whether it’s a slew is over there. WeatherBug is available in of news sources and Technorati searches, BlackBerry App World. weather, sports scores, flight information, or even Tweets.

SEPTEMBER 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 59 TOP 10 Free palm Webos apps by jamie lendino

The Associated Press K’s Cluttered Loft AP Mobile 1.0.0 Destroids 1.3 www.ap.org www.ailis.de/~k/ The Palm version of the Remember pumping quar- AP’s ubiquitous multi- ters into Asteroids back in media news app offers a the day? If so you’ll appre- customizable front page, ciate this one. Destroids with top headlines bro- lets you blast apart space ken down by category. rocks and fight UFOs. Each new level brings Bring up a story, and the interface gets out more and faster asteroids. Smooth anima- of the way, letting you scroll through full- tion, configurable keys, a global high score page news articles without having to press board, and even adjustable in-game physics tiny Next buttons every few paragraphs. make Destroids a rare treat. You can also run searches, and share favor- ites over e-mail, SMS, and Twitter. Flixster Flixster 0.9.19 Facebook www.flixster.com Facebook 1.2.1 Flixster won’t let you buy www.facebook.com movie tickets online, but it Facebook’s webOS app will do pretty much every- lets you view your news thing else to help you feed, upload photos, run make your film choice. searches, and browse The app divides up movies into Open- profiles, in addition to ing This Week, Top Box Office, and Also having the usual status- in Theaters, with average review scores, update bar. It also displays recent notifica- stars, running time, ratings, and even box tions, and it keeps a refresh icon handy at office results. There are icons for finding all times. Keep your addiction alive and well showtimes at nearby theaters via GPS, plus while on the go. upcoming titles, DVD release schedules, and a search function. Still undecided? You can even play trailers from within the app.

Foursquare Foursquare for webOS foursquare.com/app/foursquare_for_webos It may be in beta, but it’s almost fully functional, and it’s certainly good enough to get the point of the service across. In short, the app lets you “check in” to different real-life locations, in order to tell your friends and colleagues of your whereabouts. The app also recommends nearby res- taurants, events, and other things you may find interesting.

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OpenTable OpenTable www.opentable.com OpenTable lets webOS device owners search for restaurants and book reservations. It finds nearby restaurants by cuisine type using the phone’s GPS. It adds reservations to the phone’s built-in calendar app, and it lets you modify them later in case something comes up. The app even dis- plays step-by-step directions on how to get to a restaurant, and lets you send invites to friends or colleagues.

Pandora Media Google Pandora 1.0.4 Translator 0.9.6 www.pandora.com www.google.com Enjoy Pandora’s custom, Need to ask a Dutch shop streaming Web radio owner if the pastries are fresh? right from your Palm The Translator app is simple Pre or Pixi. The webOS to use. The main screen offers version lets you key in a basic “From” and “To” boxes song or artist to create a new station, just and a choice of 45 languages. Once you like on the desktop. You can also access all translate text, you can send it as a text or as of your favorite stations or create new ones part of an e-mail message. As with all trans- that are stored in your universal account. lation apps, you’ll get literal results that may Icons along the bottom of the screen let not be exactly what you intend to say. Still, you like or dislike tracks, bookmark songs combine this with the built-in Google Maps, and artists, and even buy tracks over the air. and you’ll never feel lost in a country again.

Delicious Morsel LLC The Weather Channel Interactive Twee Free 1.6.0 The Weather Channel www.deliciousmorsel.com 1.0.0.0 Why pay for a Twitter www.weather.com client when you can get Weather apps are a dime Twee Free for free? It a dozen. But The Weather offers location-based Channel’s webOS app is tweets and trending one of the best, with GPS- topic information. It supports multiple enabled local weather, beautifully arranged accounts, displays @replies and direct mes- pages, and 36-hour and 10-day forecasts. sages, and lets you re-tweet or reply to oth- It also features fully animated radar maps ers. It also shortens URLs, uploads photos to for cloud cover and precipitation, plus con- TwitPic, YFrog, TweetPhoto, and Img.ly, and figurable tornado and other severe weather previews photos that others have posted. notifications.

SEPTEMBER 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 61 top 5 free symbian apps by jamie lendino

Fring Joiku Fring 9.4 JoikuSpot Light www.fring.com www.joiku.com Fring is one of several Why pay for a MiFi when Symbian apps that lets you can turn your phone you make free VoIP and video calls. Unlike into a Wi-Fi hotspot for the others, Fring also hooks into Google free? JoikuSpot Light is a Talk, AIM, MSN Messenger, and even Face- limited version of the company’s paid, pre- book and Twitter accounts, letting you con- mium app. The Light version offers basic nect with everyone from a single, unified tethering for your laptop, iPad, or other address book. Behind the scenes, the app’s Wi-Fi device, and it supports regular and optimized P2P backbone ensures that your secure Web sites. The paid version drops calls stay clear and that your video chats the default landing screen, and adds WPA- look and sound as good as possible. based security, support for VPNs and e-mail protocols, and additional configura- Nokia tion options. Maps www.nokia.com Qik Inc. Nokia is beginning to pre- Qik 1.0.56 load this app on the latest www.qik.com Symbian smartphones, but More than just another existing owners who don’t video player, Qik lets you stream live video already have it should from your phone, either to a private group grab it right now. Ovi Maps of friends or over the public Internet as you offers completely free, accurate, voice- see fit. The app also posts to Facebook, enabled turn-by-turn directions for both Twitter, and YouTube, and lets you share driving and walking. It offers fast recalcula- your location with others. Everything is tions, Internet-connected POI searches and integrated, so you don’t need multiple 2D- and 3D-map views. Load this app and steps to share photos, video clips, or live forever relegate your existing PND to door- video. The app even hooks into Blogger, stop status. Wordpress, and other blogging platforms.

Ravensoft TweetS60 Lite 1.40.0 www.tweets60.com TweetS60 remains Symbian’s premier free Twitter client. It displays the latest tweets, your own updates, and direct messages, and it lets you re- tweet or update your own status. It runs in the background, providing updates while you do other things. The paid, $1.99 Pro version lets you post TwitPic photos, as well as create and run custom searches.

62 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION SEPTEMBER 2010 storemags & fantamag - magazines for all top 5 free windows mobile apps by jamie lendino

Microsoft Corp. Bing for Mobile 1.0 www.microsoft.com Bing for Mobile brings Microsoft’s latest search engine to your phone. That means GPS-enabled maps, local movie show times, and targeted POI (point-of-interest) searches for restaurants, parks, hotels, and other com- monly searched-for locations. It also offers Bing Web searches, though this last part is just an illusion, as all it does is fire up Bing using Internet Explorer Mobile.

Facebook Microsoft Corp. Facebook for Windows Office Mobile 2010 Mobile 1.0 www.microsoft.com www.facebook.com Nearly all Windows Facebook’s Windows Mobile devices sold today Mobile app takes full come with a portable advantage of touch-screen devices. It version of Office. But few have the latest includes a much more responsive inter- Office Mobile 2010. The newest suite offers face than you’d expect. You can upload a convenient Text Reflow feature that for- photos taken with your device’s camera, mats text for easier reading on a cell phone, and stream videos from Facebook’s site. without altering the actual document’s The app is also smart enough to adjust the formatting. It also lets you control a laptop interface to fit Windows Mobile devices PowerPoint presentation, and even read with different screen resolutions. notes separately from the audience’s view.

Opera Software SPB Software Opera Mobile 10 SPB TV for Windows www.operamobile.com Mobile 2.0.1 Windows Phone users are www.spbsoftwarehouse.com lucky to have two excellent, Sick of how cell-phone freeware browsers: Opera carriers and some devel- Mobile 10 and Skyfire 1.5. We opers are charging $10 or give the nod to Opera Mobile more per month for mobile TV? Enter SPB 10, for its transparent yet full-featured TV, an app that delivers more than 100 sub- interface, and comprehensive bookmark scription-free TV channels to your handset. management—complete with a Safari-like You won’t find HBO, ESPN, or the BBC on Speed Dial home screen for your favorite here. But you do get dozens of public TV Web pages. Opera Mobile lacks Flash sup- channels, including AFP and NASA, an inte- port, though; for that, you’ll still want Skyfire grated TV guide by channel and time slot, 1.5 for its ability to stream Web video. fast channel switching, and live previews.

SEPTEMBER 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 63 Solutions Top 20 Twitter Tools Here are our favorite apps for tweeting, improving tweets, and being an all-around better twit. By Eric Griffith

hen PC Magazine first There’s no way to create a completely reviewed Twitter back comprehensive list of tools for tweeting; in 2007, we gave the they spring up as fast as rabbits in spring- “hugely popular phe- time. That said, there’s no doubt you’ll find nomenon” a rating of some gems here that you can put to use 3.5W stars and noted that the social-network- immediately. Most of these focus on inter- ing site “fills a gap left by other forms of face apps, but we’ve also included tools that communication.” Three years later, Twitter handle multimedia, backup, stats, and more. is a form of communication in and of itself, with more than 105 million users and about 1. Tweetie (by Twitter) 55 million tweets per day. Its 140-character Category: Twitter Interface limit, which once seemed restrictive, now URL: http://www.atebits.com/tweetie-mac/ seems almost limitless in its reach. Twitter Username: @tweetie One of the reasons for Twitter’s success Platforms Supported: Mac OS/iPhone and growth is the extensive collection of Once only for the iPhone, Tweetie is now third-party apps available for use with the also available on Mac OS ($19.95; the free micro-blogging-and-so-much-more ser- version runs ads). This is no master con- vice. Twitter’s openness makes it easy for trol for Twitter, but the design is simple software vendors and Web site builders to and straightforward—something Mac OS create tools that take advantage of the plat- users are used to. It does support multiple form, all to help you become an all-around accounts, for example, even if it doesn’t do better tweeter. true multiple columns (just multiple win-

64 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION september 2010 storemags & fantamag - magazines for all

72 security 76 Office Protect your PC from Get the most out of Excel viruses for free with these tips

umn tweet access on the desktop. Because it’s written using Adobe Air, you can use the same software on all of the major operating systems, plus there are mobile versions. It can update and view statuses in more than just Twitter (it even updates FourSquare), and the company site has a directory of all dows with different columns). A Mac OS types of Twitterers worth following. 2.0 version is coming soon. It’s a perennial favorite on the iPhone. In fact, Tweetie is so 3. Web good, Twitter bought it and rebranded it Category: Twitter Interface with its own name and now gives it away. URL: http://seesmic.com/web/ Twitter Username: @seesmic 2. TweetDeck Platforms Supported: Web Category: Twitter Interface The folks at Seesmic have no lack of tools URL: www.tweetdeck.com for tweeting, but none come as easy as the Twitter Username: @tweetdeck Web-based interface. Log on with your Platforms Supported: Windows/Mac OS/ Twitter credentials and you get a home col- Linux/iPhone/iPad umn of those you follow, a column of tweets Arguably the most popular third-party Twit- that mention you, and more. You can add ter app, TweetDeck set the bar for multi-col- columns with your favorite lists or trending

September 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 65 solutions social networking

topics. You can even filter results. It can be a little slow to load, but the control it pro- vides—for free—is priceless.

5. twhirl Category: Twitter Interface URL: www.twhirl.org Twitter Username: @seesmic Platforms Supported: Windows/Mac OS Simple, single-column twhirl for Adobe Air is another free tool from Seesmic that 4. integrates with services like Ping.fm for Category: Twitter Interface cross-posts and yfrog for images. It han- URL: http://twitterrific.com dles multiple accounts, including those Twitter Username: @twitterrific on FriendFeed or Seesmic Video to share Platforms Supported: Mac OS/iPhone/iPad home videos. The color schemes aren’t Twitterrific is another set of tools for theM ac all great, but what twhirl lacks in design it OS/iPhone-only side. It was one of the first makes up for in ease of use. out of the gate with an iPad-specific inter- face, in fact. New features will arrive when it 6. gets updated for iOS 4 and the new iPhone Category: Business Twitter Interface 4. The Mac OS version is $14.95 without ads; URL: http://hootsuite.com the premium iPhone version is $4.99. You Twitter Username: @hootsuite can even buy a plush, 4-inch-high version of Platforms Supported: Web the Ollie bird icon if you really like Twitterrific Dubbed the “professional Twitter client,” (that’ll run you $26.95). this app provides a flexible, tabbed, multi-

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column layout for reading and managing one or more Twitter accounts (not to men- tion other social networks, such as LinkedIn and Facebook). Multiple editors can post, tweets can be scheduled ahead of time, and you can track stats on just how well your tweets are doing in fancy-looking graphs.

8. Brizzly Category: Twitter Interface URL:http://brizzly.com Twitter Username: @brizzly Platforms Supported: Web Whether you’re a tweeter or a Facebooker, you can use Brizzly to get easy access to sta- tus updates and the links and pics that come with them, with automatic auto-expansion, so you don’t have to go to another site to see images, for example. It even tells you all 7. Yoono about current trending topics. Category: Social Networking Interface URL: www.yoono.com 9. Hahlo Twitter Username: @yoono Category: Twitter Interface Platforms Supported: Win/Mac OS/Linux/ URL: http://hahlo.com Browser Add-on/iPhone Twitter Username: @hahlo This service provides access to all of your Platforms Supported: Web social nets in one stream and unified IM Use Twitter’s OAuth to sign in and you’re accounts in another, all accessed via tabs. instantly surfing tweets in a user-friendly Yoono also makes it easy to access links, interface complete with tabs for accessing images, and videos. Yoono can load as your lists, mentions, and direct messages. a sidebar in a browser (Firefox, Google The interface is minimalist and perfectly Chrome, or IE) or as a desktop app, and designed for use in the Firefox sidebar there’s even a portable version that runs (right-click the bookmark and check) and on USB flash drives. Coming soon: a Yoono on mobile phones (it looks fantastic on iPhone app. iPhone’s Safari browser).

september 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 67 solutions social networking

versal app and vice-versa. You’ll never read the same tweet twice, and that’s the twuth. When posting, you can drag and drop items like photos and music. (There’s also an Echofon add-on for Firefox, previously known as TwitterFox.)

10. threadsy Category: Social Networking Interface URL: www.threadsy.com Twitter Username: @threadsy Platforms Supported: Web 12. Seesmic Look Threadsy is an uber inbox that accesses all Category: Twitter Interface of your social networks, plus e-mail. Imag- URL: http://seesmic.com/seesmic_desktop/ ine your Twitter direct messages, Facebook look/ messages, and Gmail (or Yahoo Mail, AOL, Twitter Username: @seesmic Mobile Me, IMAP e-mail) on one side of the Platforms Supported: Windows screen and your status updates from Face- This may be the best-looking, single- book and Twitter on the other in a column account, Twitter-desktop app you’ll ever called Streams. Click a name and you get see. Seesmic Look is a Windows 7–only details on the tweeter. app that “rains” tweets in a very Flash- esque interface. It’s unlike any other tweet- 11. Echofon accessing app. (Seesmic also has two other Category: Twitter Interface/Browser Plug-In desktop apps—one for Windows only and URL: http://www.echofon.com another written for Adobe Air to run on Mac Twitter Username: @echofon OS and Linux. The next generation will even Platforms Supported: Mac OS/iPhone/iPad support plug-ins.) Things get complicated when you want to follow your Twitter stream across multiple 13. DestroyTwitter 2.0 devices. Echofon tries to manage that for Category: Twitter Interface the Apple elite. Buy the $20 desktop app, URL: destroytwitter.com and it syncs with the $4.99 iPhone/iPad uni- Twitter Username: @destroytwitter

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nels” or groups of users you create. It runs in a single pane, but you can have multiple columns (three by default). Grab the mobile version for iPhone and you can sync groups, filters, and more with your desktop app.

Platforms Supported: Windows/Mac OS/ Linux Destroy Twitter lets you filter your timeline of tweets, so you see tweets written only by a select group of users or with specific keywords. The latest upgrade also makes it easier to turn those filters on and off.T he tool can now go full-screen to show multiple columns of tweets. And composing tweets is a breeze, with the ability to pick file hosts when uploading images or video, or switch URL shorteners quickly.

14. Mixero 15. TwiDroyd Category: Social Networking Interface Category: Twitter Interface URL: mixero.com URL: twidroyd.com Twitter Username: @mixero Twitter Username: @twidroyd Platforms Supported: Windows/Mac OS/ Platforms Supported: Android Linux/iPhone Recently renamed (to avoid lawsuits with As you might expect, Mixero offers a nice the guy who owns the Droid trademark), mix of features. It accesses both Twitter the app formerly known as TwiDroid is a pri- (multiple accounts) and Facebook sta- mary tool for Android-based phone users tuses, provides a threaded look for direct who tweet. The Twitter client comes in free messages, and, of course, filters on “chan- and $3.99-for-life versions. The paid ver-

SEPTEMBER 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 69 solutions social networking

sion adds desktop widgets, multi-account several Twitter and social-networking apps, support, native bit.ly support, color themes, such as HootSuite, CoTweet, Seesmic, phone shake to refresh, and more. and Twhirl. You never have to worry about keeping people abreast of your doings ever again.

17. yfrog 16. Ping.fm Category: Photo/Video Hosting Category: Multi-Service Poster URL: yfrog.com URL: ping.fm Twitter Username: @yfrog Twitter Username: @pingfm Platforms Supported: Web/iPhone/ Platforms Supported: Web Android/BlackBerry We’re all busy people, and many of us have This terrific service makes it easy for you more than one social network to keep up- to share your photos and video with fol- to-date every day (or every hour). Thank lowers on Twitter. It transcodes video into goodness for Ping.fm, which exists to make a Flash-based format for easy playback sure all of our social networks get the same on all browsers (it even transcodes to non- treatment. To use it, just enter a status mes- Flash video that you and others can play sage as you normally would, and it’s sent on iPhones). yfrog features a Web-based out to all the services you set: Twitter, Face- uploader that captures directly from your book, MySpace, LinkedIn, Tumbler, Plurk, webcam. It also handles e-mail uploads. The Plaxo, and more than 30 others. You can service is supported by third-party apps, access Ping.FM via Web, e-mail, SMS, and such as TweetDeck, Seesmic, and Twitterif- instant message, and it’s featured as part of fic, to name a few.

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19. TwitVid Category: Video Hosting URL: www.twitvid.com Twitter Username: @twitvid Platforms Supported: Web/iPhone/ BlackBerry Despite being unrelated, TwitVid will likely look familiar if you use or visit TwitPic. As you can probably guess, TwitVid is a video-host- ing site. You can sign on with your Twitter, 18. TwitPic Facebook, Myspace, or YouTube accounts, Category: Photo Hosting upload a video file, record from a webcam, URL: www..com and send videos via e-mail or MMS. Twitter Username: @twitpic Platforms Supported: Web If you’ve seen a picture linked from a tweet, chances are good it was hosted by Twit- Pic. Anyone with a Twitter account can use TwitPic automatically, using the same cre- dentials. You can upload an image using the TwitPic page by sending it to your unique TwitPic.com e-mail, or by using any of the many Twitter clients that support it by default (including Twitter for iPhone, Black- Berry, and Android, as well as clients like 20. BackupMyTweets Twhirl, Twitteriffic, and many others). Category: Backup URL: backupmytweets.com Twitter Username: @backupmytweets Platforms Supported: Web/E-mail You can back up 1GB of tweets (they say that covers about 1 million posts) for free at this site, as long as you pimp the service a bit on Twitter. It even provides the copy to use, or you can customize the tweet. Or, you can pay $9.95 per year without talk- ing up the service. You can download the whole backup as an HTML file. n

SEPTEMBER 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 71 sOLuTIONs sECurITy Free Virus And Spyware Protection: What’s Right for You? Everyone needs antivirus and antispyware software, but do you really need to pay for them? By Neil J. Rubenking

ith the vast number of security suites. I use the Norton suite on viruses, spyware, and my own systems, but I know others have a other malware served big hate-on for Norton. If you’re in the anti- up alongside Inter- Norton camp consider BitDefender Total

net content, there’s no security 2010 ($79.99 direct, L l l l M ) or questionW that everybody needs security ZoneAlarm Extreme security 2010 ($69.99 software. The problem is, not everybody direct, L l l l M ) for suite protection. wants to cough up the cash to buy that pro- tection. But there’s plenty of free antivirus The Free Contenders software available, and it runs the gamut Still, some of the free options come pretty from impressive (Panda Cloud Antivirus) to close to those top commercial products. ineffective (digital defender free 2.0). Panda Cloud Antivirus Free Edition 1.1 Don’t get me wrong; if you can scrape does an even better job than the commer- up the money, buy some high-end com- cial products at keeping malware from mercial antivirus; it will undoubtedly offer infesting a clean system, though it’s not as your system the best protection. spyware good at cleaning up malware that’s already Doctor with AntiVirus 2010 ($39.95 direct, on board. The free edition of Malwarebytes’

L l l l h ) retains the honor of Editors’ Anti-Malware 1.46 does a good cleanup job, Choice for standalone malware protection, particularly against scareware, and because and Norton Internet security 2010 ($69.99 it doesn’t have a real-time antivirus compo- direct, L l l l h ) is our Editors’ Choice for nent, it gets along well with others.

72 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION SEPTEMBER 2010 storemags & fantamag - magazines for all

Like Malwarebytes, Trend Micro’s House- credit card number could be costly. IObit Call 7.1 offers malware cleanup but not real- security 360 performed poorly in almost time protection. Like Panda Cloud Antivirus, every test except blocking and removing HouseCall uses signatures “in the cloud” scareware. Immunet Protect Free 2.0 aims rather than maintaining a local signature to keep you protected by protecting every- database. That means no time spent updat- one you interact with, but the protection ing the database and no disk space devoted it aims to share needs more work. digital to storing it—very nice! defender free 2.0 also performed poorly. AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 9.0, Avira AntiVir Personal 10, and avast! Free Anti- Experiment! virus 5.0 live in the shadows of their full- If you buy a security tool and later decide fledged for-pay editions. AVG adds more you don’t like it, you’re stuck, at least until protection to distinguish the paid edition it’s time to renew. Not so with a free prod- from the free. The other two include all uct; you can to try different ones and then protective features, so unless you intend choose the one you like best. You can even commercial use you’ll do fine with the free experiment with multiple free products; editions. Avast! in particular tested well for just don’t run real-time malware protection malware removal, edging out Microsoft from two at once—that can cause problems Security Essentials 1.0 for the best malware as they’re likely to fight each other. What- removal score by a free product using last ever you decide, the important thing is to year’s malware samples. use something. An unprotected computer is dangerous to you and to everyone you Free Can Be Costly contact—so get some protection. An empty Just because a product is free doesn’t mean wallet is no excuse! it will save you money, though. Installing Here are our top picks for free anti-virus a free product that lets malware steal your and malware protection. n

avast! Free Antivirus 5.0 l l l l M Free You won’t recognize this latest version of avast! Free Antivirus. It looks completely different and has more power under the hood.

CLICk HErE FOr MOrE >>

Product name in rED indicates Editors’ Choice. SEPTEMBER 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 73 solutions security

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 9.0 l l l h M Free Version 9.0 of AVG’s free version cleans up malware and prevents further infes- tations. This edition works faster and adds identity theft recovery.

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Avira AntiVir Personal 10 l l l h M Free Avira AntiVir Personal does a great job of keeping malware from infesting your clean computer. Just don’t rely on it to clean things up if your system is al- ready infested. In testing, even when it did detect entrenched threats, it often couldn’t remove them.

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Trend Micro HouseCall 7.1 l l l h M Free Once a browser add-in, Trend Micro’s venerable HouseCall is now a standalone thin client that keeps its malware-detecting intelligence in the cloud.

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74 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION SEPTEMBER 2010 storemags & fantamag - magazines for all

Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware 1.46 l l l h M Free The free Malwarebytes utility down- loads, installs, and scans very quickly. Use it any time your regular security program hits a snag.

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Panda Cloud Antivirus Free Edition 1.1 l l l l M Free The latest Panda Cloud Antivirus is the best free antivirus and antispyware software we’ve tested.

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Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0 l l l M M Free Installing the free Microsoft Security Essentials will protect your system from malware—to a degree. But you’ll get better protection from one of the other well-known free anti-malware products.

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SEPTEMBER 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 75 sOLuTIONs OffICE 10 Excellent Excel 2010 Tips New tools and features in Excel make it a powerful part of the Microsoft Office 2010 suite. Here are 10 tips to help you master this new version of the spreadsheet app. By Edward Mendelson

ithout a doubt, excel is again. this single keystroke is a lot quicker one of the most pow- to use than the alternate method of display- erful and complex ing formulas, which is to use file | Options desktop apps ever | Advanced, then scroll down to Display designed. With its per- Options for this Worksheet and check the formanceW tweaks and added features, the box next to show formulas in cells instead new version of excel is part of what makes of their calculated results. Uncheck the box microsoft Office 2010 a highly desirable—if to display results again. not absolutely necessary—upgrade from Office 2007. Here are 10 ways to make the Bonus tip: When you do this to display for- most of the spreadsheet app. We stick to mulas in cells, select a cell with a formula, the basics—no need to write complex for- and excel outlines the cells that are refer- mulas to take advantage of them—and enced in the formula. because basic functionality hasn’t changed for the most part, those who use older ver- 2. Display Actual Cell Values When sions of the app will be able to use some of Creating or Editing a formula these tips, too. the previous tip shows how to display for- mulas in the entire spreadsheet. Here’s 1. Display formulas Instead of Results how to switch between displaying the cell A single keystroke lets you toggle between addresses in a formula and the actual values excel’s normal display, which shows the in each cell. Use any method that displays a results of the formulas in the spreadsheet, formula—for example, when the formula of and a display mode that shows the actual the current cell is visible in the formula bar, formulas. the keystroke is Ctrl-~; press it or when you’re creating a formula for the once, and excel displays formulas instead of first time, or after pressingCtrl-~ to display results. press it again, and the results appear formulas throughout the worksheet. In the

76 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION september 2010 storemags & fantamag - magazines for all

DIsPLAyING CELL VALuEs this formula would normally display the address D12:O12, but by selecting it and pressing f9, the actual values appear.

formula you want to find out about, select enced cells. press Enter, and the selection the cell addresses, and press f9. the high- moves to the next referenced cell, and con- lighted addresses are replaced by the val- tinue to press enter to move through the ues of all the cells referenced in the formula. rest of the referenced cells. If you want to return to the normal display, just press Esc. 4. Highlight the formulas That Reference the Current Cell 3. Highlight All Cells Referenced by the previous tip explained how to use Ctrl-[ a formula to see all the cells referenced by a formula. When you’re debugging a worksheet, you What if you want to do the reverse, and see can easily navigate through all the cells the formulas that reference a cell? select referenced in a formula. Highlight the cell the cell, and press Ctrl-] (Ctrl-close-square- and press Ctrl-[ (that’s Ctrl-open-square- bracket). As in the previous tip, the selection bracket). excel highlights all the cells ref- moves to the first formula that references erenced by the formula, and moves the the cell. press Enter repeatedly to navigate current selection to the first of the refer- to the other formulas that reference the cell.

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sEEING fORMuLAs THAT REfERENCE A CELL Originally in cell D3, we pressed Ctrl-]; this then high- lighted b3, D12, and D35, and b3 became the current cell.

5. Add Content or formatting to Multiple click select All sheets. If you only want to sheets at Once select two or more individual sheets, hold You can add content or apply formatting down the Ctrl key and click on the tabs of to two or more of the sheets on a multi- the sheets that you want to format or edit sheet worksheet fairly easily, by “group- at the same time. When two or more sheets ing” the sheets together. When you group are grouped, excel adds the word [Group] multiple sheets, any content or formatting (in square brackets) after the sheet’s name that you add to one sheet also gets added in the title bar. to all the other sheets, so you can add a row of headers to one sheet and have it auto- 6. Be Careful When Working with matically appear on all the sheets that are Grouped sheets grouped together with it. to group all the Grouping is a powerful but dangerous fea- sheets in a worksheet, right-click on any of ture. If you delete the contents of a cell in the tabs in the lower left of the window, and one grouped sheet, the contents of the

78 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION september 2010 storemags & fantamag - magazines for all

GROuP sHEETs WITH CAuTION make sure to select Ungroup sheets before you begin editing worksheets that are grouped. Otherwise you may inadvertently delete a lot of data.

cells at the same location in all the other excel. When you press Ctrl-A in a work- grouped sheets will also be deleted. so sheet with data in it, you select the current before you start editing in a worksheet with region (that is, all connected cells), and grouped sheets, right-click on one of the not the whole worksheet. but wait—if you tabs at the lower-left and choose ungroup immediately press Ctrl-A a second time, sheets. you select the entire worksheet—unless the worksheet contains a table, in which 7. The standard Select All Key Doesn’t case your second press of Ctrl-A will select Work the Way you Think It Does the current region and the summary rows experienced Windows users know that (typically the headers) of the current table. Ctrl-A is the shortcut key that selects every- And if your second Ctrl-A selects the cur- thing in a window or document; the “A” in rent table and its summary rows, then you’ll Ctrl-A stands for “All.” Ctrl-A works this way need to press Ctrl-A a third time to select in every application you can find—except the entire worksheet.

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sELECTING ALL Unlike most other applications, excel does not allow you to select all data by pressing Ctrl-A. but you can do so by pressing the gray box in the upper- left corner of the spreadsheet.

Bonus tip: the one-step way to select the row (for example, the cell with the sales entire worksheet is to the click on the gray figure form ay) press Ctrl-Left to go to the box at the upper-left corner of the work- first data cell in this set (the cell with the sheet—the one at the corner of the lettered sales figure for January), then hold down columns and numbered rows. the shift key and press Ctrl-Right to select all the sales figures for January through 8. use the Ctrl Key for Quick Navigation December. When you want to move quickly to the left, right, top, or bottom cell in a data set, just 9. find a sum or Average Quickly press Ctrl with one of the arrow keys. Let’s type a few numbers in some adjacent cells, say you want to select the cells in the cur- or highlight some numbers in existing cells. rent row of the data set, but only the cells Now look down at the status bar at the foot with numbers, not the labels—for example, of the window. excel displays the average sales figures for January through Decem- of the numbers, a count of the cells, and the ber. If the current cell is in the middle of the sum. You can also use this trick with non-

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AVERAGEs AND suMs IN A fLAsH If you want a sum or average of a group of cells, highlight them, then look at the status bar at the very bottom of the spreadsheet.

adjacent cells. Here’s how: click on one cell, size. Here’s the easy way. Click on the first then hold down the Ctrl key and click on a chart to select it, then hold down the Ctrl cell with a number that you want to add to key and click on the other charts that you the number in the first cell. Continue to add want to align it with. When all the charts you numbers by Ctrl-clicking in additional cells. want to align are selected, right-click on any the average, count, and sum in the status one of them and choose size and Proper- bar get updated each time you click another ties. this opens the format shape dialog, cell. by the way, when you use this tip, excel and the measurements that you enter in the ignores any cells you click that contain text dialogue will be applied to all the selected or graphics instead of numbers. charts. After making the charts the same size, go to the Drawing Tools tab and click 10. Tidy up your Charts on format. Use the Align drop-down menu If you’ve ever created two or more charts on on the ribbon to align the selected charts a worksheet, you know how tricky it can be and to distribute them evenly either hori- to align them and make them all the same zontally or vertically. n

september 2010 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 81 Editors’ Choices in Key Categories For the complete reviews of these products and more Editors’ Choices check out go.pcmag.com/editorschoice Best

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