Microsoft Corp launched a line of phones aimed at young people (Kin phones) on Monday

Microsoft Corp launched a line of phones aimed at young people on Monday, marking a fresh assault on the low end of the growing smartphone market, where it has been losing out to BlackBerry maker Research in Motion, Apple Inc and Google Inc.

The software company’s first foray into designing its own phones comes six months before it rolls out its new Windows software for phones made by handset makers HTC, Samsung and others, which should be a more direct challenge to Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android phones.

The new phones launched on Monday, called Kin One and Kin Two, are made by Japan’s Sharp Corp and will be sold by Verizon Wireless, a joint venture between Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group.(Reuters)

Microsoft will soon launch a new generation of Internet Explorer (IE), IE9 next month

WASHINGTON Microsoft will soon launch a new generation of Internet Explorer (IE), IE9 next month. According to schedule, will be introduced at the IE9 annual conference Micorosoft MIX 10, which will dihelat at 15 to March 17, 2010 in Las Vegas. At the conference, which became the focus of Microsoft’s mobile platforms IE9 and the latest generation of Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 7. Unfortunately Microsoft still reluctant to mention a more detailed specification of IE9. In his blog, Microsoft promised to announce more details when IE9 conference in Las Vegas next month. Softpedia launched, Wednesday (17/2/2010), as General Manager, Dean Hachamovitch responsible for the development and release of IE. So no wonder, he was appointed as one of the speakers at the MIX10 event, especially for IE9 present.

“Dean will discuss the changes and development that has made Microsoft the PDC IE9 since 2009 some time ago. There will be many surprises at the launch later,” wrote one of the team MIX 10 in his blog. Microsoft IE9 demonstrate for the first time on the PDC 2009, November 2009. At that time, Microsoft is showing the early development of these browsers and announced the main objectives IE9 release. Dean never mentions, IE9 intended to provide better support for modern web standards, improve performance especially when used for JavaScript, as well as supporting hardware speeds. At PDC 2009, the developers only shown IE9 demo. At MIX 10 conference later, Microsoft promised a free download IE9, so the browser can immediately taste.

Apple's new LED Cinema Display

Apple LED Cinema Display

Apple’s new LED Cinema Display is designed specifically — nay, exclusively — with MacBook Pro owners in mind, giving them a simple way to dramatically increase their screen real estate with an extra 24 inches of incredibly gorgeous video. This 1,920 x 1,200-pixel resolution monitor includes all the trimmings you’d expect from Apple: beautiful industrial design, spare controls (there isn’t even a power button), and unparalleled performance and brightness.There’s a catch, however, and that’s that if you don’t have a MacBook Pro (with its mini DisplayPort connector), you’re pretty much hosed. A single cable with three connectors splitting off from its terminus snakes out from the back of the LED Cinema Display: the mini DisplayPort plug, a MagSafe charger, and a USB connector. Plug them all into your Mac laptop and you’re ready for business, no additional setup required. But if you have any other type of machine, you’ll find this monitor is pretty much useless — it won’t even work with your MacBook Pro if you try booting into Windows via Boot Camp. Booooo!

Nokia's Booklet 3G is cute and quaint

Nokia's Booklet 3G

Try as we might, we just can’t see the point of this so-called smartbook.Sure, Nokia’s Booklet 3G is cute and quaint. It’s got Mac-like svelteness and would look equally at home on the desk of a CEO or graphic designer. But why would either of them bother to put it there?The smartbook, as near as anyone at Nokia has been able to explain, is a device that melds a smartphone with netbook. I’ve long imagined such a beast would perhaps look like the handheld HP computers of yore — a monstrous phone you could edit a spreadsheet on. But in 2009’s reality, the smartbook is emerging as something quite different, and far more boring: Basically, it’s a netbook outfitted with a wireless network card.Sure enough, that’s exactly what Nokia’s Booklet 3G is: A netbook with a 10.1-inch screen (1028 x 720 pixels), a 1.6-GHz Atom processor, a paltry 1 GB of RAM, and a 120-GB hard drive. It comes with Wi-Fi and a WCDMA 3G wireless card, with service courtesy of AT&T. Our test unit had Windows 7 Starter Edition is preinstalled.

And for that measly configuration, Nokia wants you to fork over 600 bucks. Sign up for two years of data service with AT&T and you can have it for a mere $300, a touch less than other netbooks of this general size and shape.And that’s the head-scratcher. You can pick up a USB 3G adapter from the carrier of your choice for next to nothing and use it on every computer you own. Or you can pay $300 for this single-purpose machine with a minuscule keyboard, dim screen and downright awful performance, while paying a monthly fee for the thing every month for the next two years. Rest assured, that’s all you’re getting: There’s no phone in the Booklet 3G by any stretch of the imagination; it can’t even make voice calls.

Overall, the Booklet 3G (and, to be fair, all smartbooks that follow) is really a back-to-the-drawing-board proposition. As sexy and long-lived, battery-wise, as it might be, it’s simply too slow and far too expensive for anyone to seriously consider buying when far more credible alternatives (like, say, any netbook on the market) are available. Turn this into a free-with-service gimmick and maybe we could see getting behind it. Maybe.

Pogoplug only supports USB 2.0

pogoplug

Pogoplug was a PCMag Editors’ Choice in its first version. Now CloudEngine’s latest iteration of its multimedia sharing device has been updated with several new features including a lurid purple-pink cable stand. It does what it did before: give you fast access, locally or remotely, to your USB storage devices—up to four of them, instead of just one. There are multimedia enhancements: you can stream almost any video file, do automatic media synching, and perform improved contact management. All of which helps make up for the $30 price increase from the original.

Although it does have more USB ports as well as a 1 GB Ethernet port, this little, Linux-based device isn’t significantly larger than the first-generation. Its presence certainly wouldn’t overwhelm a small, home office. Maybe the sheer number of external devices you can connect to it will. Also nice: the price includes the fee for cloud-based sharing service for the life of the device.

Already own the first generation Pogoplug? No worries, as you can get the new software features as a free upgrade. You’re just stuck with the 1 USB port.Pogoplug doesn’t do anything much differently than other NAS devices except it doesn’t come with on-board storage.However, it does allow you to easily setup content and device sharing. A reader asked how Pogoplug differs from a service like LogMeIn Hamachi which provides hosted VPN and requires no specialized hardware. Both PogoPlug and LogMeIn can achieve remote access to your computer. However, for non-IT folks and home users, the idea of a VPN can be daunting. PogoPlug is effortless sharing, and is ideal for a home or small business where there is no IT presence.

Pogoplug only supports USB 2.0 and older devices and the following disk drive file systems: NTFS, FAT32, Mac OS Extended Journaled and Non-Journaled (HFS+) and EXT-2/EXT-3. The Web-based management console can be accessed via any modern browser.

Setup
The folks at Pogoplug tout how fast it is to get the device setup and they are not joking. The time to connect the device to a router, then to a 150 GB USB Verbatim external drive, powering it all up, to seeing my drive’s files on mypoloplug.com (the device’s Web-based console) took a scant 2 minutes and 19 seconds. The longest part of the setup was getting up off my chair and walking to the router.

What’s New
There really aren’t any noticeable changes in the Web-based interface since the last version. There is improved contact management. Anytime you type in an email address to send an invite to share a file, that name is automatically remembered. Such addresses make up your address book within the system. There’s no way currently to import contacts, like from Hotmail or Gmail, but perhaps that will be on Pogoplug’s roadmap.

Pogoplug next gen supports a wider range of video file types that can be streamed to other users as well as to iPhones and Android phones. Blackberry isn’t supported but Pogoplug says it’s in the works.

Pogoplug now supports automatic medic synch. You can setup one-way synch from any media source to folders on the storage devices attached to Pogoplug. It offers location independent, global search; search across any drives connected to any of your Pogoplugs—that’s right, you can run multiples Pogoplugs on your network, so you could have more than four USB storage devices to access.

A new fun, feature is the ability to create slideshows. You don’t get the bells and whistles of Microsoft PowerPoint, but creating business presentations isn’t the purpose. I quickly put together a slideshow of pictures and a video by dragging and dropping them into the slideshow creation screen and added accompanying music. Note—Pogoplug doesn’t support all media files. I had no problem with .MP3s, but could not drag and drop a Windows Media Audio (.WMA) file into my slideshow. There’s also no way to control slideshow speed.

You can opt to use the free, downloadable client to access Pogoplug rather than a Web browser. The client treats the Pogoplug as another local hard drive on your machine, accessed via Windows Explorer, even when remote. Clients are available for Windows 32- and 64-bit desktops, Mac OS X and there’s a beta version available for Linux. Of course, as mentioned in the last review, there’s a terrific client for accessing files (not just video) from your iPhone.

Security
One thing I was concerned about was security. It was a bit disconcerting to fire a device up and see my personal files pop up via the Internet, even though I had to login to the Web-based client first. There is under-the-hood security, though. Both the Web-based and desktop clients use 256-AES encryption—security that is very difficult to crack. To ensure the highest security, it’s a good idea to access the web client using https://my.pogoplug.com rather than through HTTP.

Testing
This device is really peppy. Of course, much of the performance relies on Internet connection speed, but if this were sloppily-engineered, it could slow even the fastest broadband. When I disconnected the Verbatim drive and added a USB stick, I saw the contents of the memory stick online in under 3 minutes. I got this while connected to a DSL line that’s not the fastest broadband available, either.

I reconnected the Verbatim drive and three USB memory sticks to the Pogoplug simultaneously. The device does a nice job of scanning each newly connected device and I nimbly switched back and forth between each device’s libraries in the Web client.

Big warning—make sure you eject any drive you want to physically disconnect from Pogoplug using the eject command in the interface (it’s the same eject symbol you see on DVD and Blu-Ray Players.) I pulled the Verbatim drive while “hot,” that is, without clicking the eject button and the drive got hosed. It was inaccessible through Pogoplug and through Windows Explorer. No big loss for my test equipment, and this isn’t the norm for USB devices, of course, so your mileage may vary. But consider yourself warned.

Bottom Line
This really is a neat little device. It innovates by harnessing the power and flexibility of the cloud, without having your data actually reside in the cloud. With Pogoplug, you can access and share files over the Internet but the actual data remains in your control on your storage devices. The second-generation Pogoplug performs even better than the first, and the multimedia enhancements make it of even greater value, especially if you want to share. This version is as heartily recommended as the previous, despite the ghastly colored cable stand.

The LG Shine II

LG Shine II

The LG Shine II doesn’t mess with success. The first LG Shine was a best-seller on AT&T thanks to its high-end metallic body and solid call quality. Aside from a few minor improvements, the Shine II is virtually the same as the first model, with the same main benefit—it looks and feels good. It’s a good choice for AT&T subscribers looking for a basic, reliable, and classy voice phone.

Design and Call Quality
The Shine II measures 4.2 by 2.0 by 0.5 inches and weighs 4.4 ounces. The Shine’s brushed-aluminum housing makes it heavy but durable. Just like my old RAZR V3, I’d expect the Shine II to hold up nicely over time. It also looks great, and the cool blue backlighting enhanced the look further. The slider mechanism felt smooth and satisfying.

The 2.2-inch LCD has 240-by-320-pixel resolution. A new five-way control pad features a prominent, raised center button. The button, left, and right keys were fine, but the up and down keys were very small and stiff. Large-enough Send, End, and Back keys sit above an otherwise cramped, recessed keypad. Dialing numbers was tough with one hand.

As a quad-band EDGE (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) and dual-band HSDPA (850/1900 MHz) phone, the Shine II works on AT&T’s 3G network and on 2G EDGE networks overseas. Voice calls sounded loud, clear, and crisp, with a slightly trebly tone in the earpiece. Callers on the other end couldn’t distinguish between the Shine II and a BlackBerry Bold 9700 (also on AT&T); both sounded excellent. Calls sounded fine through a Plantronics Voyager Pro Bluetooth headset. The speakerphone went pretty loud, but sounded harsh and distorted at top volume. Battery life was on the short side, at 3 hours and 46 minutes of talk time.

User Interface, Apps, and Multimedia
The Shine II’s UI looks sharp and is well designed. The Shine II was very responsive to key presses. The stiff control pad wasn’t ideal for gaming, and the Shine II’s sluggish Java benchmark results mean you should stick to 2D titles. The Opera-powered Web browser was surprisingly good, offering mobile and landscape views. The browser delivers accurate renderings of desktop HTML pages, but the tiny screen is an impediment.

The Shine hooks into AT&T Mobile e-mail for Yahoo, Windows Live, and AOL accounts, but not Gmail. A basic IM client offers AIM, Yahoo, and Windows Live support but not Google Talk. Either way, with only a numeric keypad, this isn’t a messaging phone. (If you want a keyboard, the excellent Pantech Impact beckons, and even costs $20 less.) It also works with AT&T Navigator (powered by TeleNav) for voice-enabled, turn-by-turn GPS directions.

The Shine II’s music player includes an adjustable EQ, ringtone creator, and music recognition software. There’s 102MB of free onboard storage. A microSD card slot sits underneath the battery cover, but not under the battery; my 16GB SanDisk card worked fine. The proprietary headphone jack is a disappointment, and there are no wired earbuds in the box. Thankfully, the Shine II now supports stereo Bluetooth. Music tracks sounded very bassy over Motorola S9-HDs, even with the Shine II’s custom EQ off; LG seems to have hardwired in a bass boost. Tiny album art thumbnails displayed when available. Standalone 3GP and MP4 videos played very smoothly in landscape mode, though the video player was sluggish and clumsy to operate. Streamed CNN videos played smoothly for about 10 seconds before freezing and timing out on several attempts.

Camera and Conclusions
The 2-megapixel camera includes an LED flash and auto-focus. A built-in image editor resizes, crops, and rotates photos, and features some basic effects. Test photos looked OK, with a little noise but decent resolution in shadowy areas, and a slightly soft, grayish focus outdoors. Shutter speeds were just under one second. Recorded 320-by-240 videos had good color balance, but were too jerky at 10 frames per second.

The LG Shine II is a good handset, but I’d like to see its price come down. Otherwise, it runs into headwinds on AT&T’s lineup as better phones get discounted. The $99 Sony Ericsson c905a is a vertical slider like the LG Shine II, but it has a vastly more powerful 8.1-megapixel camera with face detection. The $149 Samsung Mythic SGH-a897, our current Editors’ Choice for AT&T feature phones, offers mobile TV, a high-resolution touch screen, and plenty of music and video features.

Neither of those phones have the Shine II’s aluminum-chic design, though. For thousands of folks to date, that has been enough to seal the deal—and it likely will be enough once again with the Shine II.

the Insignia NS-L42X-10A HDTVs

Insignia NS-L42X-10A

Not everyone has the need—or the budget—for the latest and greatest in television technology. Features such as LED backlighting, 240Hz refresh rates, and Web connectivity are all the rage right now, but as is usually the case with new tech, you’ll pay a premium for it. Enter the Insignia NS-L42X-10A, one in a series of four low-cost 1080p 120Hz HDTVs offered exclusively by Best Buy. Priced at $749.99, this 42-inch LCD model may not offer much in the way of features or aesthetics, and its picture quality is less than perfect, but if you’re looking for a cheap, no-frills flat-screen TV for, say, the basement, or a playroom, it’ll fit the bill.

Design and Appearance
The 42-inch panel is housed in a plain-looking black cabinet. The display is bordered by a relatively wide glossy black bezel on three sides, and an extra-wide lower bezel which curves upwards at the bottom. I’m not a fan of the design: it looks a bit flimsy and lacks the clean lines found on much-pricier models such as the LG 42SL80 and the Toshiba Regza 46SV670U. The matching stand is fairly stable and does a good job of supporting the 37-pound screen, and it swivels so you can position the display for optimal viewing. The two 12-watt speakers provide plenty of volume, and the SRS TruSurround feature does a fairly good job of simulating a multi-channel audio experience, but you’ll need a subwoofer if you want pumping bass, since you won’t find any here.

Recessed into the right side of the cabinet are buttons for powering up the set, changing channels, selecting an input source, raising and lowering the volume, and accessing the on-screen menu system. On the left are two of the five HDMI ports, VGA (PC) and S-Video inputs, a PC audio input, composite audio and video ports, and a headphone jack. Around back are three additional HDMI ports, two sets of component audio and video inputs, a digital (SPDIF) output, one set of analog stereo audio outputs, a secondary S-Video input, and a secondary set of composite A/V inputs. While it’s nice to have five HDMI ports, you won’t find a card reader, Ethernet, or USB ports—features which can be found on many of today’s midrange models such as the Sharp Aquos LC-40LE700UN and the Toshiba 46SV670U.

The 52-button remote is tapered in the middle and fits comfortably in your hand, but it’s a bit on the small side and the buttons feel slightly crowded. The four-way rocker is very responsive, however, making it easy to zip through the on-screen menus. The uncomplicated menu structure is broken into four basic submenus; Picture, Audio, Channels, and Settings. The Picture section is where you can tweak brightness, contrast, sharpness, color, and tint levels. In the Advanced video menu you can adjust backlighting and color temperature settings and enable/disable noise reduction and dynamic contrast ratio functionality. Here you can also choose one of three Digital Clear Motion levels (DCM), which uses 120Hz technology to help reduce motion blur, or you can disable the feature altogether. There’s also a switch that enables a light sensor, which adjusts the screen’s brightness according to the ambient lighting environment. I suggest leaving this feature off; in my tests, the luminance level, which changed often, was very distracting.

The Audio menu provides settings for bass, treble, balance, and SRS TruSurround as well as a dynamic volume setting that compensates for sudden changes in sound level during broadcasts. The Channels menu lets you hide channels and create a favorites list, and the Settings menu is where you can set up parental controls and assign a parental-control password.

Image Quality and Performance
After a darkroom calibration using the DisplayMate for Windows Multimedia Edition diagnostic software, the NS-L42X-10A turned in a contrast ratio of 3207:1, which is quite good for an HDTV that uses CCFL backlighting. It takes more than a high contrast ratio to deliver a high quality picture, though. Greens and blues were saturated, resulting in uneven skin tones and tinting in certain shades of gray. The high contrast ratio helped deliver deep blacks, but I noticed significant motion artifacts in the form of background noise while watching scenes from The Matrix in standard definition. There was a fair amount of image smearing as well. Not surprisingly, the panel was unable to pass the HD HQV Jaggies benchmark, which tests de-interlacing performance.

The set fared better with 1080p HD content. Mission: Impossible 2 on Blu-ray was sharp, but once again I observed subtle smearing and some judder, particularly during the opening rock climbing scene where the camera is continually panning. Enabling the DCM feature helped reduce the judder effect, but the resulting picture looked too sharp and overly noisy. In my tests, viewing angles were fine up to around 165 degrees off center; after that, colors began to fade.

The NS-L42X-10A draws an average of 220 watts, which means it’ll cost around $3.60 a month to run (based on five hours of daily use using the 2008 national average cost of $0.1135 per kWh). While not as energy efficient as some of the newer LED-backlit HDTVs like the 40-inch Sharp LC-40LE700UN, which draws only 120 watts, it’s far from a power hog. Whereas most HDTVs come with a one-year warranty, Insignia provides a two-year plan at no extra cost.

Overall, the big draw of the Insignia NS-L42X-10A is its rock-bottom $750 price. Even in these days of freefalling HDTV prices, it’s tough to find a 1080p 42-inch set for less, let alone one with a two-year warranty. It’s certainly not the sexiest-looking model you’ll find, and its performance is pretty much what you’d expect from a low-cost HDTV, but despite these shortcomings, its low price, two-year warranty, and plethora of HDMI ports help to redeem the NS-L42X-10A . That said, if you have a few extra bucks to spend, the 40-inch Sharp Aquos LC-40LE700UN offers better performance and a more robust feature set, and can be had for around $950 online.

The Polywell MiniBox P5500C with a 23-inch widescreen monitor

The Polywell MiniBox P5500C

The Polywell MiniBox P5500C ($1,850 direct, $2,099 with a 23-inch widescreen monitor) isn’t as sleek as the Falcon Northwest FragBox or AVADirect GT3 gaming systems, but what it does have is a lot of internal space for components, while keeping the spirit of a small form factor gaming rig intact. The MiniBox P5500C comes with Intel Core i7-870 power and a single ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics card, so it has the power to smack your opponents on the game grid. A Blu-ray player and over 3TB of drive space make it a video workstation worth considering if you need to equip a news or a film-support van.

Design
The MiniBox sits in a reasonably compact case (9.5 by 11.5 by 14 inches, HWD), which is a lot smaller than mid-tower chassis, but it’s still a lot bigger than the 15.5- by 4.5- by 12.5-inch (HWD) chassis of the AVADirect GT3. It won’t win any beauty contests, but it does have a windowed side panel showing off the ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics card (Card makers put ATI’s mascot Ruby on the cards for that reason). There’s a handle on the front so it’s easier to move, though the Falcon NW Fragbox is more convenient since the handle is on the top. The build quality is decent though unremarkable, and the system’s fan noise is present while the system is in operation (not quite noise-cancelling headset levels, but you will hear it in a quiet room).

Features
The MiniBox has 4GB of DDR3 memory, 3.5TB of drive space spread over 3 drives (one is removable), a Blu-ray player (with DVD burner) and a plethora of input/output ports, including ten USB 2.0 ports, two FireWire, HDMI, eSATA, and a DisplayPort. Like other small system builders, Polywell keeps the included software load light: The system came with Windows 7 Ultimate, and all the drivers for the Blu-ray drive and other components. The system did come with 90-day subscription to Notron Anti-Virus.

The system had some buzzing when we turned it on, likely a consequence of rough shipping, but once it was on and running awhile it was fairly quiet. There is some fan noise from the case fans and the Radeon graphics card, but these only made their presence known when the system was working hard on our benchmark tests. If you’re really obsessive about noise, then I’d recommend using a pair of noise-cancelling headphones during gaming sessions. Good headphones are standard for gaming sessions anyway.

Performance
The MiniBox P5500C’s Intel Core i7-870 processor and ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics card helped it achieve top-notch gaming performance, compared with other gaming systems with Core i7 and a single graphics card. It scored class-leading, playable frame rates on three of our four gaming tests: Crysis at 1,280 by 1,024 (95 frames per second), World in Conflict at 1,280 by 1,024 (124 fps) and 1,920 by 1,200 (46 fps). The P5500C’s Crysis score at 19 by 12 is unplayable at 20 fps, but you’d need multiple “highest-end” graphics cards like three Radeon 5870 cards to get playable frame rates for that test. Compare these scores to those of our current Editors’ Choice the Velocity Micro Edge Z30: Crysis 84fps and 18fps, WiC 103 fps and 44 fps. This is one fast gaming rig.

Likewise, the P5500C is fast at our multimedia tests: 28 seconds at our Windows Media Encoder test is best in class, while 1:18 at our PhotoShop CS4 test is no slouch (the Z30 is fastest at 1:09). The combination of a speedy Core i7 processor, speedy DDR3 RAM, and lots of hard drive space means that the P5500C would serve a multimedia maven as well as a hardcore gamer.

Compared with the competition, the P5500C is good, if a little expensive. If you delete options like the Blu-ray drive, Windows 7 Ultimate in favor of Win 7 Home Premium, and one or two of the hard drives, then you’d come closer to the prices of competition like the AVADirect GT3 ($1,367), Velocity Micro Z30 ($1,299) and Gateway FX6801-03 ($1,279). As is, you can get the same gaming and multimedia performance for a lot less money by going with the competition. The Polywell does have the dual-graphics upgrade space that the GT3 lacks. Ultimately, the Velocity Micro Edge Z30’s bang for the buck wins out, and that model retains the Editors’ Choice for mid-priced gaming systems. I’d recommend the P5500C more for the semi-nomadic multimedia maven, one that needs blazing performance and a lot of drive space in a semi-portable package.

The Apple iMac 21.5-inch (Core 2 Duo) is perfect as an all in one PC

The Apple iMac 21.5-inch (Core 2 Duo)

The iMac 21.5-inch (Core 2 Duo) is a study in duality: It has the Apple design and mystique that looks and feels pricey, but the system is also a lot less expensive than the 27-inch version. Less expensive in Apple’s case means a starting price of $1,199, and while the competition is cheaper at similar screen sizes, those competitors have to compromise on features like less memory or downgrading to slower Intel Pentium Dual-Core processors. The “baby” iMac still manages to fit true 1080p HD screen resolution, a speedy 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo processor, and wireless everything into an attractive aluminum and glass all in one desktop. It’s the Mac desktop to get if you want to get multimedia work done, and as such earns our nod for Editors’ Choice.

Design
The “less expensive” Apple iMac is a bit smaller than its 27-inch big brother, but that also means that it seems more proportional to the included wireless keyboard and Magic Mouse. The compact wireless keyboard in particular looks like a toy when placed under the 27-inch iMac. The 21.5-inch iMac looks similar to its 20-inch predecessor, but the 16:9 screen makes it a little wider. This wider stance minimizes the “Jay Leno chin” of previous models, but there’s still a bunch of chassis visible below the screen. The back panel is now aluminum like the front (the old back was black polycarbonate plastic), and there are still Apple icons strategically placed to remind you of what you’ve bought.

Features
The system contains the same 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E7600 processor found in the base 27-inch iMac. The system comes with 4GB of DDR3 SDRAM, 500GB hard drive, integrated Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics, and a slot loading DVD burner. The memory, graphics, hard drive, and processor can all be upgraded when you order it from Apple, but the base configuration we look at here is pretty good on its own. The 21.5-inch model’s 1,920 by 1,080 (true 1080p) screen resolution is an improvement over the old 20-inch model’s 1,680 by 1,050 resolution that couldn’t quite show all the pixels in HD movies bought from iTunes. Unfortunately, none of the iMac models can be equipped with a Blu-ray player; you’re limited strictly to downloads and Web videos.

The system is essentially wireless, with the only tether that’s absolutely necessary being the power cord. The keyboard is wireless, the Magic Mouse is wireless, and the system has 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2,1+EDR for everything else. You can of course hook up hard drives to the iMac’s four USB ports or single FireWire 800 port. I’d like to see an eSATA port on a future Mac, but for now FireWire 800 is fast enough. The iMac has a Mini DisplayPort output for extending the desktop or mirroring, but you’ll need to upgrade to the 27-inch model if you want Mini DisplayPort input. You’ll need an adapter to connect the iMac to anything but Apple’s 24-inch LED Cinema Display. One other nit is the new SD card reader: it only accepts SD cards. Single-slot media card readers on Windows systems will usually accept SD, Memory Stick, and xD cards with or without an adapter. Good thing the majority of digital cameras these days use SD.

Like other Macs, the iMac comes with Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), iLife ’09, and a few other programs like Photo Booth and Front Row. Apple should be applauded for limiting the software to useful programs and avoiding all the bloatware and trial software that seems to infest some Windows PCs. You can run Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7 on the iMac in Boot Camp, but of course, you’ll have to buy Microsoft’s OS separately. Windows 7 isn’t officially supported at this time, but we were able to install Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit without any trouble.

Performance

The 21.5-inch iMac is a power miser: it uses only 70W while idling with the screen on, and 91W while under load on our CineBench R10 test. This is very good, considering its 27-inch big brother idled at 120W and ran at 150W, and matches the energy use of the Lenovo A600 (3011-4BU). It’s a little more than leading energy-saving SFF desktops like the Lenovo ThinkCentre M58p ECO (40W idle, 76W load), but then again the iMacs and A600 have built in screens using power.. This is in addition to Apple’s recycling programs, EPEAT Gold certification, Energy Star 5.0 certification, RoHS compliance, and reduction in packaging. All this earns the iMac our Green Tech Approved award.

The iMac is a better performer on the benchmark tests than its predecessor the iMac (Nvidia GeForce 9400M), thanks to a faster processor. It completed the PhotoShop CS4 test in just under two minutes (1:58), while the older iMac took 2:23. The new iMac was a good performer in Windows 7 as well: it took a sprightly 49 seconds for the Windows Media Encoder test and 1:32 for CS4. In fact the iMac’s CS4 score was better than the quad-core powered Gateway One ZX6810-01 (1:39), a notable achievement. I could certainly see artists on deadline switching their iMacs from the Mac OS to Windows in order to save a few minutes here and there to meet a deadline. The iMac’s 3D performance wasn’t groundbreaking, but it was at least able to complete our 3DMark Vantage and 3D game tests at 1,280 by 1,024 resolution. That said, the iMac’s performance at Crysis (10 frames per second) and World in Conflict (12 fps) were essentially unplayable. Older games should work fine on the integrated Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics, but if 3D games are important to you then consider one of the upgraded iMacs with ATI Radeon HD 4670 discrete graphics.

Compared with rivals, the Apple iMac 21.5-inch comes across as a bang for the buck win. It’s cheaper than the Gateway One ZX6810-01, yet performs similarly in day-to-day and multimedia performance. It’s certainly faster overall than other all-in one desktops like the Averatec D1200, HP TouchSmart 600-1055, and Lenovo IdeaCentre A600 (3011-4BU). The iMac 21.5-inch doesn’t have the HDMI-in capability of the HP TouchSmart, nor does it have Blu-ray capability, but that’s not a deal breaker at the sub $1,200 price point. The TouchSmart 600-1055 is really in a higher price category at $1,599 list. Plus the iMac certainly isn’t encumbered by the bloatware that all these Windows PCs have.

At $1,199, the Apple iMac fits neatly in the mid-price slot between the two other Editors’ Choice all-in-one desktops: the $1,599 HP TouchSmart 600-1055 and the $549 Lenovo C300 (3012-2DU). The HP TouchSmart 600 is more HDTV-consumption oriented, and the Lenovo C300 is an inexpensive nettop better suited to viewing Web sites, photos, and videos rather than actually doing multimedia projects. The Apple iMac 21.5-inch (Core 2 Duo) is perfect as an all in one PC for those that want to get some work done, whether for business or pleasure. If you want a $1,200 system with a decent screen resolution that also has multimedia processing power to spare, get the iMac 21.5-inch.

The VAIO VPC-L117FX/B looks like it could be a Sony Bravia HDTV

Sony VAIO VPC L117FX B

Among the all in one all-in-one desktop PC, the Sony VAIO VPC-L117FX/B ($2,000 list) is certainly one of the best looking. It has the look of a 24-inch HDTV, an intentional design choice. Inside that sexy shell is the heart of a power user’s PC: quad-core Intel processor, 6GB of memory, 1TB hard drive, Blu-ray burner, and a decent Nvidia graphics card. Placement in the kitchen, den, home office, and living room come to mind, but like its Sony VAIO all in one predecessors, it will even work in the most design critical room in the house: the bedroom.

Design
The VAIO VPC-L117FX/B looks like it could be a Sony Bravia HDTV. That is one of its greatest strengths, since it can blend in anywhere a smaller (20- to 36-inch) HDTV fits. It can even replace a TV in the bedroom, since it has a built-in Blu-ray drive, ATSC tuner, and HDMI-in ports. Viewing Blu-ray videos on the VAIO give you that “view through a window” effect that makes it seem like the action is happening on the other side of the display glass. We tested the system with films made before (Coming to America, The Warriors) and after the advent of CGI (Star Trek, Mission Impossible II). All of the films looked great. The picture is vivid, accurate, and noise-free. The HDMI-in port lets you connect a game system like a Sony Playstation 3 or a set-top box like the one from you cable TV company. The built-in tuner grabs over the air HDTV signals and displays them in Windows 7’s built-in Media Center interface. There’s a slot built into the base of the unit, so you can stow the wireless keyboard out of the way when you’re not using it, and the keyboard and mouse can easily reach a bed or couch 10 to 15 feet away. The system is wall mountable with a kit you can buy separately.

The all-in-one comes with five USB ports, a FireWire/i.Link port, and that 24-inch 1,920 by 1,080 resolution screen (which is true 1080p HD). This is truly a power-users’ system, and it better be one for $2,000. The system also comes with 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and an IR remote control so you can work almost completely wireless.

Features
The system’s touchscreen is responsive, though it takes a few seconds for your finger to learn exactly where to point to get the screen to recognize your commands. The HP TouchSmart systems are a little more forgiving with finger placement, but both the Sony and HP all in one PC’s screens are multi-touch enabled and can use standard Windows 7 touch command functions like swipe, flick, pinch, and rotate. The system’s quad-core processor makes the Sony VPC-L117FX/B just a little more responsive than the TouchSmart 600, but you’re unlikely to notice the difference unless you have the two side by side. Aside from the usual Windows 7 apps, the VAIO VPC-L117FX/B comes with VAIO Media Gallery, a unified multimedia viewing interface that lets you quickly view all your music, photos, and videos on a variety of formats, including neat calendar-organized formats. This serves a range of users from the “messy but organized” types to the obsessive compulsives that have to have their photos organized by time stamps. Media Gallery allows you to group photos arbitrarily or via searchable criteria; then you can create a quick slideshow with a couple of touches, then export to VAIO Movie Story. VAIO Movie Story is a quick way to create well, if not edited, then concatenated home movie made of your pictures, clips from your digital camera, and clips from your cell phone. Movie Story can either use music you choose, or it will check the videos with an algorithm and automatically suggest or add music. You can then burn the resulting movie to DVD or Blu-ray disc, save the file in a variety of media formats (including MPEG-2, MP4, etc.), or export your file to a Sony Media device like a PSP or a Mylo. I’d like to see an integrated export to iTunes/iPod or better yet an export to Facebook or Youtube, but you could of course do that manually after you create a file.

The VAIO VPC-L117FX/B comes with Google’s Chrome as its default browser, but like all Windows 7 PCs, it also comes with Internet Explorer 8. I found that touch navigation works better in IE8, since I couldn’t scroll slowly in Chrome—it only recognized flick commands like page forward/back and page up/down. Scrolling up and down in IE8 using finger gestures was smooth and worked as expected. I’m sure Google will improve the interface over time, but for now IE8 is the better touch-enabled browser on the VAIO.

Aside from the useful software above, there’s very little in the way of bloatware on the VAIO VPC-L117FX/B. There’s a copy of Microsoft Works, which is useful. Then there’s an installer for a 60-day trial of Microsoft Office, which is the right way to both satisfy Microsoft’s agreements with Sony, and to avoid the dreaded “pre-installed Office” syndrome. Likewise, there’s a link to Quicken’s Website for offers on QuickBooks and Quicken, but you have to download and install them. Believe me, this is a good thing. You don’t have to install Office or Quickbooks unless you want to, so there’s nothing to clean up and therefore no stray .DLL files or leftover detritus to muck up your hard drive. If there’s any drawback to the Sony VAIO Media software, it’s that it’s not as modular as HP’s TouchSmart interface, with its widgets and iPod Touch-style apps. On the other hand, VAIO Media Gallery and Movie Story are some of the most intuitive and easiest to use pack-in multimedia apps outside of Apple’s iLife (iMovie, iDVD, etc.).

Performance
The VAIO VPC-L117FX/B’s performance is very good, thanks to its Intel Core 2 Quad 8400S processor and Nvidia GeForce GT 240M graphics, though it’s tied for the class leader in only one of our standard benchmark tests. The VAIO is speedy at the PhotoShop CS4 test with a class-leading 1 minute 39 seconds, tied with the Gateway One ZX6810-01. It’s also only one second behind the Gateway FX6810-01 at the Windows Media Encoder test (43 seconds), which makes the VAIO VPC-L117FX/B an excellent choice for the multimedia enthusiast. It’s other scores are competitive in the field of multimedia all in one desktops, including the dual-core powered Apple iMac 27-inch (Core 2 Duo), Lenovo IdeaCentre A600 (3011-4BU), and the Editor’s Choice HP TouchSmart 600-1055 PC. The VAIO VPC-L117FX/B can be used for light gaming: it played World in Conflict at a smooth 39 frames per second (fps), but is a little too slow playing Crysis at our standard settings (30fps). If you push the quality levels and/or resolution down you can likely get a playable frame rate in Crysis. The GPU does help with programs like Microsoft’s Virtual Earth and HD video playback from the web.

As a high-end all-in-one desktop PC, the Sony VAIO VPC-L117FX/B is a little pricey at about $2,000, but you can just about rationalize the added expense if you consider the system has one of the best quality screens in the business, Blu-ray burner (as opposed to just a player for the Lenovo A600 and HP TouchSmart 600), and its looks more like an HDTV than a PC, unlike the iMac, Gateway One, Lenovo IdeaCentre, and HP TouchSmart. That said, these other four are a lot less expensive, especially in the case of the Gateway One and Lenovo A600 (both $1,399 list). The Gateway One is the performance leader overall, with a speedy Solid State Drive (SSD) helping its quad-core processor take five wins out of the seven benchmark tests. However, the Editor’s Choice winning HP TouchSmart 600-1055 has the most polished implementation of touch technology in Windows 7, along with the best bang for the buck ($1,599 list) out of all the multimedia all in ones. The Sony VAIO VPC-L117FX/B is a “better quality” choice if you’re willing to spend the bucks, but you’d have to be a individual who’s really hard to please to justify an almost $500 price premium.