Gadgetory

this week on the scene that tech review for G is coming just maybe not to you adobe photoshop gets an update the latest imac upgrade is our editors choice and how to find the returns department at the iTunes Store it's all coming up right now hey everyone I'm Brian Tong and welcome to the scene that tech review Mollywood is off this week so that means I'm in charge of picking the hottest videos of the week and bringing you the good ones the bad ones and offering some sage bottom-line advice because I am to be trusted let's kick things off with the good stuff when we first saw the HTC evo 4g kent german was drooling all over it at ctia in barcelona this week Bonnie chopped finally got a chance to put it through its paces how'd it hold up it's in the good section for a reason take a look hey everyone I'm Bonnie cha senior editor at cnet com and i've got your first look at the much-anticipated HTC evo 4g for sprint as many of you know this is the first 4g smartphone available in the US and that comes with a lot of pressure does it deliver all and all the hype well let's take a look as far as the design the evo is very similar to the HTC hd2 it's actually a bit bigger than the hd2 but HTC still manages to keep it relatively thin so it's still pretty manageable plus you might be willing to overlook the large size when you get a glimpse of the massive display measures 4.3 inches diagonally and has a sharp wvga resolution so it's fantastic for viewing webpages photos and reading text there's even a handy kickstand on the back that will let you prop the phone on a desk so you can watch videos or slide shows without having to hold the device in your hand the evo is also relatively easy to use and extremely customizable thanks to HTC Sense senses HTC's custom skin for the Android platform and it's always been our favorite because it makes the OS look less techy and actually enhances a lot of the phone's core applications for example in the phone app a tabbed menu along the bottom lets you easily filter through messages based on status attachments group or meeting invite and it also improves the standard Android media player by bringing a nicer Cover Flow like interface underneath sense the evo is running android 2.1 which is currently the most recent version of android available so you're getting some of the latest features like google maps with navigation voice to text entry and live wallpapers but if you're an Android fan you know that android 2.2 also known as froyo is coming soon I asked sprint about whether they would provide an update to froyo when available and they said they're not announcing anything right now but what we should focus on right now is the 4g capabilities of the evo vivos the first phone to take advantage of Sprint's wimax network which claims to provide wireless speeds of up to 10 times faster than today's 3g average 3g download speeds come in around 600 kilobits per second to 1.4 megabits per second while 4g averages around 3 megabits per second to 6 megabits per second sprint's 4g isn't available in new york's yet so I went down to Philadelphia where they do have it to put these claims test and the evo did deliver I averaged around 3.4 2 megabits per second for download speeds and upload speeds of 0.9 3 megabits per second so it was on the lower end of the spectrum but I also did a 3g speed test to compare with 4G and I was getting 0.77 megabits per second down and zero point three point zero point three five megabits per second up so definitely a huge difference the evil also comes with a number of features that can take advantage of 4G it's actually going to be the first to ship with a YouTube high quality player and also ships with a quick video chat and a front-facing 1.3 megapixel camera so you can make video calls unfortunately our review unit didn't come preloaded with the quick chat app but we're hoping to check it out later the evo can also be used as mobile hotspot and can connect up to eight devices just be aware that this is going to cost you an additional thirty dollars per month the civil silver lining there is that there's no data cap there's a lot more to this phone but the video would go on forever if I try to cover it all overall I'd say the evo 4g is easily the best smartphone that sprint has to offer and certainly one of the best android phones on the market it's packed with tons of features and it's powerful and it does deliver on the Ford II promise I'm just disappointed that they're launching it with so few 4g markets currently Sprint's wimax network is live in 32 cities and the carrier promises to bring that up that total up to 44 cities by the end of the year including New York San Francisco la Cincinnati in Miami I can the additional ten dollars for four G's a fair price but it's unfair to me to make this ad on mandatory and they know a lot of people have been unhappy about this in the grand scheme of things for in stata plans are much less than its competitors and there is no data cap with a premium add-on but still if you live in a 3d only market I can understand why you'd be unhappy about paying for something you're not actually getting hopefully spring can really start lighting up additional 4G markets quickly so people can get their money's worth and let the evo for do you really live up to its full potential the HTC evo 4g will be available starting june fourth for 1 99 99 with a two-year contract i'm bonnie town this has been your first look at the HTC evo 4g now I'm pretty attached to my iphone but as soon as 4G is up and running here in San Francisco I'll be drooling as much as Ken now some of you may know that I host a show here at cnet called the apple byte where we break down everything that goes on in the world of Apple lately most of the bus has been centered around the iPad and the impending announcement of the new iphone but behind the scenes Apple has been upgrading the processors in many of their laptops and desktops as well here's rich brown with his review of the big daddy of the imac family hi I'm rich brown senior editor for cnet.com today we're going to take a look at apple's highest end 27-inch imac so we say highest end and that's because the base model for this unit starts at 1999 unlike the 1699 version this one comes with a core i5 cpu actually has four cores that's the only four core chip available in Apple's imac line this particular model though actually has a core i7 CPU in it which is a little bit faster than core i5 also costs a little bit more so it's 200 bucks that makes our review unit 2199 so what you get for that price is the fastest own one currently available as well as a tall one with the largest screen even Sony's highest and on one only has a 24 inch monitor so Apple remodeled its imac line back in the fall and there's a few different design element if you're familiar with the 1699 iMac nothing has changed it's basically the same in the exterior there's edge-to-edge glass going across the front of the system and up at the top you get a webcam now the effect of the screen with the glass and with the glossy coating is that it's very bright appears very crisp the image is great for watching movies for images playing games now that you can get steam on the imac the keyboard mouse both wireless are now included with the imac you can see here it's sort of a trim down design familiar chiclet keyboard you've got batteries that go in here and a keyboard power button over here for the mouse this is apple's new magic mouse it's got a pretty unique design to it we don't really love the sort of sharp edge as you get there and it's feels a little too tapered in the front and though it has some gesture-based touch sensitive features built into it it's really not the most intuitive experience so it's certainly a serviceable mouse but we can't say we love it sigh the imac here you can see there's a slot loading DVD Drive Apple still does not use blu-ray and down here finally which is new to this generation of vimax is an SD card slot which makes it easy to swap data between mobile devices on your computer now the back of the system you can see that it's pretty clean design there's the same reports down here in the bottom edge you get a couple audio outputs as well as four USB firewire 800 Jack mini DisplayPort jack which we'll get to in a minute so as the ethernet input the system of course comes with wireless and bluetooth built-in so in terms of networking you're pretty much covered so what's also unique to this new generation of imax is that the mini displayport is bi-directional that means you can not only send the signal out from the imac you can send signals into it for example you could take a macbook pro connected to the imac to use this as a secondary monitor that's obviously a very useful feature and extends the life of the imac once the computer parts are obsolete but we're a little bit frustrated by it because with other on one's from windows-based vendors we've seen HDMI ports built in that let you connect say game console or cable box unfortunately at least out of the box you can only connect other macs to the imax so it's a little bit frustrating now you can't actually find on the market hdmi to mini DisplayPort adapters that will let you connect game consoles or other devices they're expensive though they cost about 150 same goes with the wall mounting technically you can pop the standoff connect a visa compatible wall mount to the back of the imac and mount it up wherever you want to but most windows-based all-in-ones have that functionality built in so you certainly could take the imac in its giant screen and transform it into sort of a Mac based media center you definitely have to want it you have to be willing to spend a little bit more than what you get out of the box and it's not really the most convenient process so we hope Apple is listening and eventually they might take steps to make that a little more streamlined despite those limitations the imac is still one of the best all in ones you can buy that's why it's an editor's choice because it has a giant screen and fafsa performers in its category so i'm rich brown this is the 27-inch core i7 you know with that 27-inch screen and that super fast processor that imac could be great for one of my favorite hobbies drawing in my abs in beach pictures and luckily for me a brand-new version of photoshop just came out to seth rosenblatt is here with a tour of photoshop cs5 Photoshop has been in the English lexicon as a term to edit images for a long long time with the latest version of Adobe's flagship program stretches the canvas of manipulation much farther than ever before hi I'm Seth Rosenblatt frisina download com and in this first look video we're taking a quick peek at adobe's major update to photoshop the look of the program has changed so little from photoshop cs4 that users of that version should be instantly comfortable with this major update but photoshop creative suite 5 also known as photoshop version 12 gives photographers artists designers and low cats obsessives with too much money on their hands a stunning array of new tools among the new features in adobe's flagship image editing software are automatic lens correction high dynamic range toning automated editing tools and significant improvements to creating 3d images let's look at the new automatic lens correction option which will fix an image that has been distorted by a geometric distortion chromatic aberration or vignetting go to filter lens correction and examine the tabs as you can see the panel is loaded with options and the process to fix this photo can be complex you're pretty much required to read or watch a tutorial to get it right if you need high-end image manipulation though this and many of the other new features our killer must haves one of the new automated editing tools that's been getting rightfully a lot of attention is the content aware fill option lets you remove an object from an image with a simple mouse stroke and replace it with pitch perfect approximations to match the surrounding light color and noise of the area it can be used as part of the Spot Healing Brush or with the selection tool while the Spot Healing Brush isn't new to cs5 the content aware function is and it makes Spot Healing much more accurate than before an excellent improvement to the Photoshop workflow in cs5 is the introduction of the mini bridge mini bridge creates a panel within Photoshop for directly accessing all of bridges features but without the hassle of having to switch windows it's a long overdue and logical improvement users who need photoshop's 3d features will be impressed by the ones available in photoshop cs5 extended this is a pricier version of the program and includes all the features of the standard Photoshop along with 3d editing tools part of extended is adobe repo say which allows users to convert 2d images to 3d and then edit the extrusion properties photoshop cs5 is nothing less than a boundary-pushing leap forward for the premiere image editor at one hundred and ninety nine dollars for an upgrade or 699 for a brand-new version and a multitude of lower price than even free alternatives with varying degrees of less power you really should think twice about whether you need this multi-faceted complex but undeniably excellent program with a first look at photoshop cs5 i'm seth rosenblatt for download com that content aware fill option is ridiculous and i can't wait to use it for cutting ex-girlfriend's out of my vacation photos and there are a lot of them not really now in addition to the apple byte i also hosts a show called tap that app where i sift through tons of apps for the iphone and ipad but did you know that there's a way to return apps well neither did I until I shot this how-to video there are times where some of us get a little app happy I know you've been there and we purchased the wrong app from apple's app store I recently purchased the Iron Man 2 game I know don't judge me but I accidentally purchased the iphone version instead of the one for the ipad i'm brian Tong for cnet com and i'll show you a little trick that a lot of people don't know about how to return apps that you've already purchased now Before we jump into this I want to emphasize that this is not intended to be used to buy a nap then return it and hurt the developers because these guys are the people that are making our gadgets more enjoyable so let's respect that alright the first thing you have to do is purchase some apps from the App Store through your iphone ipod touch ipad or computer or wherever now once you've done that jump into itunes at in the top right hand corner find your username select account and login let's go to your purchase history and then you'll see a list of dates and order numbers select the date that you made the purchase and you'll see an order breakdown then click on report a problem and an option will show up next to the price of each app find the booboo that you made in this case it's going to be iron man 2 for me that was 699 and click report a problem a prompt will appear and you'll need to select the problem that you had and add any comments I explained my iron man 2 issue and also told them how I purchase the ipad version immediately afterwards submit it and you'll receive a confirmation email it only took about a day for an iTunes rep to get back to me but I received an email telling me the charges would be reversed now that Dustin reservist there's really no reason to return a 99-cent app and you do have up to 90 days to request a refund but hopefully this feature helps you the same way it helped me out I'm Brian Shawn for cnet com with your how-to for refunding apps respect your developers and use it wisely again I want to stress at the point of this video is not to rip off the find people who create these apps because that would be bad but if you have a legitimate problem with the purchase like I did it's good to know there is a way to fix it now on that note it's time to take a break but don't go anywhere we'll be right back with sock monkeys not bad for your daily dose of tech news check out see nuts loaded it's packed full the latest tech news highlights that matter to you find out the latest gadgets or the coolest gizmos all that more monday through thursday at cnet com flash loaded welcome back guys i'm brian Tong and this is the scene attack review so far we've seen plenty of good stuff but it's not all puppies and roses in the tech world so let's move on to the bad last week molly explained how Tom aired has moved on to greener pastures but we couldn't let him go without one more look at some of the worst programs to ever appear on download.com take a look at this installment of the top five worst downloads for spring 2010 welcome to Cena top 5 home for wayward lists I'm Tom Merritt spring it's a time of renewal for everyone that is except Seth Rosenblatt he's our intrepid cnet reviewer charged with digging in to download.com vault every three months and dragging the worst examples of software into the light of day and they all seem to love it so let's count down the top 5 worst downloads at number 5 who is on my Wi-Fi I'm not asking that's the name of the program also known as what my Wi-Fi router already does now granted this one is free so I guess for those of you too lazy to pull up your router in a browser window this could be good coming in to number four you are celeb yes you are you know what makes you a celeb having money to burn on a program to make fake magazine covers yep high roller who can just waste 15 bucks on a program that does what you can easily do in Microsoft Paint up to number 3 NB fashion astrology okay maybe you don't have the same problem Seth does with astrology or fashion no matter what you have to admit this is a pretty ugly program for something that's supposed to use Sun signs to tell you how to look chic sliding it a number two internet explorer toolbars seth has lumped a whole category together here noting that microsoft itself has put out a white paper confirming that toolbars have got to go if you want browser stability that is if not have adam before we get to number one let's cleanse the worst download palette with a look at some good downloads these at the top five most popular downloads on cnet download.com right now how restful for the eyes all right let's get to our number one the worst download of the spring according to the man who knows CNET's seth rosenblatt at number one it's man juice yes I just said man juice it's a seduction and dating simulation game with a textual RPG interface features include approaching girls training pick up skills and traveling to different cities man juice makes iPad sound positively prosaic well that's it for this edition of CNN top 5 don't forget to visit cnet download.com for many many good downloads there's more good than bad out there but now you know what to avoid I'm Tom Merritt see you next time man juice huh yeah I'm not going to touch that at all anyways look for a brand new batch of top five countdown starring our very own Brian Cooley in the next few weeks and stick around for more bc coming up later in the show continuing on with the theme of bad back in October Bonnie Chow reviewed the garmin nuvi phone the first smartphone from the gps device maker and let's just say she was less than impressed in fact that phone only received two out of a possible five stars on cnet's rating scale now the company is back with their new garmin phone for t-mobile let's find out if it's as bad as the first one hi I'm Bonnie cha senior editor at cnet com and today I've got your first look at the garmin phone for t-mobile this is a second smartphone from gps maker garmin and even though i've only had the device for a few hours so far can already tell you that it's a huge improvement over the garmin nuvi phone which was released on AT&T back in october two thousand nine for one thing the garminfone has a sleeker design I don't know if you remember the nuvi phone but it was a bit of a brick and just looked really boring but the garminfone is a bit sexier with a nice shiny finish on the front and has a slimmer profile so it's easier to carry around as a phone and a handheld navigator it also features a higher resolution screen so everything looks sharper and colors pop a bit more the built-in accelerometer is also much more responsive to switch the screen orientation when you rotate the phone but more than anything else I think what really makes the biggest difference here is that the garminfone is running Android the original newbie phone was a linux-based system and although it had all the elements of a smartphone features weren't integrated well and the capabilities just seemed half-baked but we know that Android is a proven OS and also brings such things as all the Google services a better browser android marketplace support for amazon mp3 store and more as you can see it's not running the standard android skin garmin customize the user interface to prominently feature the navigation capabilities on the home screen which i think is fine I think the UI is pretty easy to use and you can expand the tray from the right side and scroll through all your available apps and you can drag and drop your most frequently use programs to this bar here which can easily access from the main screen the one downside is that the garminfone is only running android 1.6 but t-mobile has set the device is capable of over-the-air updates and is working on providing an android 2.1 update of course as a Garmin device you get a heap of navigation features smartphone comes with pre-loaded maps of North America and nearly 6 million points of interest can create routes for the car or in pedestrian mode and offers voice guided directions there's even an app called Garmin voice studio where you can have a family member or a friend record a set of instructions and let that be the voice you hear when getting directions Garmin's connected services are also available which lets you search for nearby gas prices restaurants and movie times real-time traffic and weather data and this time it's included in the price of the phone which is 1 99 99 with a 2-year contract you don't have to pay an extra monthly subscription fee like the nuvi phone required also included in the price of the phone is a car mount the garmin phone will be available from t-mobile in june we're definitely looking forward to taking it out for a test drive to see how it does on the road but so far we've been pretty happy with what we've seen I'm Bonnington this has been your first look at the garminfone from t-mobile in this case it looks like the second time's a charm and I just hope it's compatible with Android 2.2 which was also announced this week now the moment you've been waiting for this week's bottom line usually Brian Cooley likes to work alone but when he took the 2011 kia sorento out for a spin he brought a little friend along for the ride poor little guy you know the Kia Sorento it's the car the sock monkey and his friends take to Vegas but i'm guessing the inanimate set probably didn't check the tech very well we'll take care of that now in the 2011 sorrento IX front wheel drive now you can bet nobody either cloth or human never rolled like that in the previous sorento a dowdy dough ball of the thing that nobody noticed but this second-generation vehicle which is hitting the u.s. now as a 2011 looks alright part of that is thanks to a design by Peter Schreyer best known for doing the TT while he was over at Audi look around this sorrento this is not the kia sorento you'da seen before it's not really what you think of in a kia the interior materials the feel the soft plastics the fake metal the leather seats are significantly nicer than other cars in this price class because hyundai-kia knows they've got some image catching up to do and they're working on it pretty hard and I'd say rather successfully now we've got the advanced head unit this is an optional thing part of a limited package but it gives you of course navigation right off the bat and I like this map the screens not that large but the rendering the graphics the style of the information on it is I think very easy to digest with a quick glance I understand how they're representing traffic that makes sense i know that red means traffic there are some other systems that use read to mean road that makes no sense to me but while that nav system which is good looking and operates well is an optional piece the audio sources are all standard and they're pretty darn good first of all you've got am/fm radio but no HD radio satellite you've got serious for that choice now under CD aux we have access to our USB or our aux jack right next to it or with the kia cable it becomes an ipod connection I don't have a kia cable there didn't come with the car if somebody lost it so here i am trying to use my ipod white USB cable nope doesn't work i tried to add an aux cable with it nope that didn't make it work either then i open the manual it says don't do this because that may burn something up in the car whoops pulled that right out my point is this i'm not crazy about systems that require you to have a special automaker USB ipod aux cable to use your ipod or your ipod touch that's not a good thing to me because you're going to lose that cable and got to buy another one and they're more expensive than the one you might get down at RadioShack phone this is a nice one look at this I've got my blackberry paired and the a2dp stereo bluetooth streaming again standard with this car and of course if you got bluetooth streaming you definitely have Bluetooth hands-free for calling all that bundled in whether you get the upgraded head unit or not that's a nice array of entertainment options now I've got a rear view camera on that same screen as well but that's not part of the net negation package you got to get another package to get that it's in the premium package which includes roof rails and leather seats what's the connection don't do that guys roll in the rear view camera with the upgraded head unit package to make it part of upholstery that doesn't connect except with my wallet and I see right through it now our Sorento ax is missing one option an engine well I guess that's an engine looks as though they forgot to put it in though there's enough room in there for another engine and I kind of wish we had to because this is a gutless little thing 2.4 liter inline 4 175 horsepower hundred and sixty nine foot pounds of torque it's not up to the job now the good thing about putting in an underachieving power plant is you can often get some overachieving mpg and we do pretty well on that count 21 29 on this guy front-wheel drive 21-27 if you go for all wheel drive I would trade a few mpg just a few to have a little more power there's a v6 version of this car drive it before you decide to buy one of these one gearbox choice in our Sorento e ex a 6-speed automatic with the usual shift ability it doesn't make a whole lot of difference with this engine driving the Sorento with the four-cylinder is an exercise in thinking ahead about when you're going to need power because it doesn't have it when you need it doesn't matter what you do the gearbox i'm in drive i'm in the sport Matic mode I've shifted it aggressively and it just doesn't matter it's a slow responding slippery out of breath powertrain the right qualities tight as a drum no rattles no squeaks no float or flop it's a nice independent suspension but it's almost too simply taught it feels too much like your writing on Springs as opposed to a more sophisticated compliant underpinning so bottom line is you're not going to get that feeling of a budget lexus rx on this vehicle the way you might think but it's still a good value for the money ok let's price this 2011 kia sorento ex front wheel drive is twenty five six base that includes destination and a scene at this guy yep you start with the limited package for two thousand dollars that gets you the nav with traffic the infinity audio upgrade though the sources are the same as base and these do they really still think those are cool chrome wheels if you won't get the rear view camera you got to go for the premium package which also adds in leather and the roof rails you're going to be annoyed by that right down to the last minute and for the world's smallest third row seat at seven hundred bucks if you learn only one thing from the show let it be this week's bottom line keep coolly away from your children's toys but it is nice to see that he's getting out there and meeting people or sock monkeys okay that's our show for this week thanks again to Molly for letting me fill in while she's away she'll be back next week with another round up of cnet video but until then you can find more of the goodies kids go for at Cena tv.com see you next time and thanks for watching