Gadgetory

this week on cnet tech review Mac os10 lion arrives while Apple eats its young with the new MacBook Airs will also show you how to upgrade the RAM on your imac Spotify helps you find the music your friends are listening to oh joy and possibly the best real world five dot one system we've ever tested can make it all sound great that's all coming up right now hello folks I'm Brian Cooley and welcome to the cnet tech review where we collect our hottest videos of the week and tell you what's good and what's bad in the world of tech as well as offer our own special wisdom in the form of the bottom line let's start off with the good new this week on the laptop front was a pair of updates to apple's macbook air line up these ultra lights already had pretty darn impressive specs but as our dan ackerman shows us there's always room for a little improvement i'm dan ackerman and we are here taking a very first look at the latest version of apple's 13-inch macbook air now physically from the outside you open up the box this looks a heck of a lot like the previous macbook air and in fact physically it's pretty much the same box except this guy has a backlit keyboard something that was in the original air mission from the second generation now back here again and the other big changes i'm going to show you right here on the side this display port jack right here in the back is now a thunderbolt compatible jack so that you can hook up a display to it but you can also hook up thunderbolt peripherals if you happen to run across any there were a couple of hard drives and Apple is going to have a really nice-looking big laptop oriented monitor later on in the summer that you can actually connect this directly to and that's going to have an ethernet port and a firewire and some other Jack's that through that single Thunderbolt connection you can all access from your laptop under the hood the biggest change with this latest generation of macbook air systems is the move from Intel's Core 2 Duo CPUs to the latest second generation core i series that's a two-generation leap for the processor you've got core i5 in the 11 inch and the 13 inch macbooks and in both of those you can actually upgrade to the faster core i7 processors these are all the low voltage versions and you've got to start with the more expensive upgraded base models for both of those in order to get that core i7 processor it is just start out with a 128 gig solid-state drive in the 13 inch version and 4 gigs of ram you can upgrade that to a 256 gig solid-state drive which should be big enough for just about everybody once you start doing that your macbook air can get a little bit expensive we've still got the same 16 x 10 display they haven't moved to 16 by 9 yet on the 13 inch models the big gigantic multitrack touchpad is the same they have however added for the OS 10 lion operating system upgrade that comes with this a bunch of new gestures that took us a little while to get used to but a bunch of them are actually pretty useful and you're going to have to train yourself to use those instead of some of the previous versions of these multi-touch gestures so following the traditional Apple upgrade cycle what they've done is they've kept the price of the same 12 99 and 1599 for the two different base models of the 13-inch macbook air while upgrading the components inside most notably of course that core i5 processor and the Thunderbolt port i'm dan ackerman and that is Apple's new 13-inch MacBook Air now with the introduction of the new MacBook Airs the basic 13-inch MacBook the one that cost 999 quietly vanished so these new heirs are now Apple's entry-level portable computers if you're not convinced check out Scott's teens further impressions of the 11 inch model right now at cnet TV com perhaps more important than the new hardware is the fact that OS 10 lion was released into the wild on Wednesday and our jason parker didn't waste any time before going after it hello everyone Apple is finally unleash the lion that's Mac os10 line and it's available today at the mac app store but is it worth the upgrade for everyone i'm jason parker from cnet and this is a first look at Apple's newest operating system Mac OS 10 line we had the chance to sit down and check out many of the new features and we're impressed with what we've seen so far to get started multi-touch gestures figure prominently in Mac OS 10 lion letting you swipe pinch and tap your way through many of the operating systems newest features for example a three-finger swipe upwards brings up the new mission control where you can see everything that's currently running along with associated windows that have the running apps icon at the bottom simply click on any window to bring it to the front as another example in Safari you'll now be able to go back or forward through your history on a browser tab with a two-finger swipe all the multi-touch gestures feel very natural and apple says it's because they've added new more responsive animations notice how you can swipe the Safari page exactly as much or as little as you want Mac os10 lion now offers full screen apps a feature many windows users have seen as a major disappointment in the mac OS over the years now you can click on the diagonal arrows icon in the upper right corner of a window to quickly switch to full screen once in full screen you're three finger horizontal swipe switches between full screen apps and desktops speaking of desktops the spaces feature has been elegantly worked into Mission Control as well if you want to create a second desktop just click and drag a window or set of windows to the icon at the upper right now with a three finger horizontal swipe you'll be able to switch between open apps and newly created desktops oh and also new to lion one further three-finger swipe to the right now gets you to the widget dashboard it's no secret that iOS devices have been a huge success for Apple and along with touch screen features some iOS interface elements snuck into line as well launchpad gives you another option for quickly showing all your apps and it looks just like the way apps are laid out in the iOS bring up launchpad by hitting the icon in the dock or by doing a three finger and thumb pinch motion just like the iphone you can click and hold a nap too to jiggle mode then either move apps around or create folders by dropping a nap on another apps icon you still have the option to search for apps in the finder and still can create an application folder in the dock but if you like that iOS look launch pad is the way to go one of the biggest upgrades for Lion is one of the most important apps of all mail Apple's email app now the layout closely resembles the email experience on the iPad with your message list on the left and message content on the right the new mail app now has a favorites bar for one click access to your most used folders you can still do it the old way if you want however by hitting the show button in the upper left to bring up the standard folder structure also just like iOS devices you'll now be able to view message threads as conversations a number next to the message shows how many messages have been sent in a conversation once clicked each conversation shows separate boxes for each reply that's both nice-looking and makes it less confusing to quickly read through searching email got a huge upgrade as well now when you type in a name for example mail offers suggestions based on what's in your inbox but even better they created search tokens when you click a suggestion it creates a token this way you can refine your search by first creating a token of the name then out a month say then a subject and get only the mail that came from that person in that month and with that subject this will make searching for that mystery email much easier than before apple also made it easier to share files with those nearby where once you need it to email or send a file by a chat client you'll now be able to use airdrop simply choose airdrop from the finder and you'll be able to see nearby users where you can drag and drop a file to their avatar we have one word for this finally even though the mac app store was introduced as an update and Snow Leopard it's important to talk about here because it's the only place you can buy and download line for 2999 unfortunately this means that if you skipped over snow leopard you'll still have to buy it for twenty nine dollars in order to get the Mac App Store to download lion we can see why Apple did it this way but frankly it doesn't seem fair to those who chose not to x snow leopard overall Mac os10 lion is a solid upgrade that comes with more the 250 new features we can't list them all here but be sure to check out our full review at download com this is jason parker for cnet thanks for watching our first look at mac OS see you next time so if you're all set to take on the upgrade make sure to check out our how to section at cnet com to find out how to prep your current mac for a lion install you'll notice that Apple's suggest at least 2 gigabytes of RAM but as we all know the more the better in that category if you're sitting there staring at your imac though wondering where does the RAM even go David Garneau has you covered I'm David carling from cnet I'm going to show you how to upgrade the RAM on your iMac which will definitely speed up your machine it's really pretty simple and we recommend upgrading your RAM yourself because you can save a good bit of money by not ordering extra ram from Apple when you initially purchase your imac the first thing to do is figure out just what I Mac you have and check on apples website to figure out which model you have and what kind of ram it takes and how much memory you can put into your machine the last couple of years the base configuration of the imac has come with four gigabytes of ram in 22 gigabyte memory modules which takes up two of the four memory slots in the imac to get to the memory compartment you lay your imac on a soft surface with the screen facing down then all you have to do is take a phillips screwdriver and unscrew the three screws for the plate that covers the compartment on the bottom of the imac and you'll be able to find where your memory is hiding as you can see here we have two slots open for additional memory this imac which is a 2011 model accepts up to 16 gigabytes of ram add to the 2010 models what a lot of people do is keep the existing two gigabyte modules in place then add an additional 24 gigabyte models bringing the total to 12 gigabytes alas the modules only go up to 4 gigabytes so if you want to get to the full 16 gigabytes you have to replace your current 2 gigabyte modules with 4 gigabyte modules that's probably not worth it for a lot of people but we said you do save a lot of money by installing it yourself for instance to add an additional 8 gigabytes of RAM Apple would charge you 200 bucks well 2 4 gigabyte modules of this Kingston memory Kingston provided for this demo we're running around seventy dollars ridiculously apple charges six hundred dollars for a full 16 gigabyte upgrade when you can do the same install yourself for less than a third of the cost to get the modules installed you just slide them into the respective compartments wait until you feel a little click that tells you it's snapped in place to get an existing module out you gently pull up on the ribbon and slide the new module in it's really all there is to it once you've got your memory installed and put the plate back on and should be good to go with the machine that feels noticeably zippier I'm David Connelly and thanks for watching the scene at how to video huh from the looks of things the RAM modules appear to be just about the only user serviceable part on a whole iMac but anyhow to that requires only a screwdriver and basic sobriety works for me okay before this turns into one long version of Apple bite let's turn to our promised first look at the new Spotify music service Donald bill has a look at about the most awaited arrival from that side of the Atlantic since the Beatles hey I'm Donald Bell and today we're taking a long-awaited first look at spotify a free streaming music application for mac and pc here's what all the fuss is about after installing the software spotify pops up and shows you a hybrid of your computer's music collection and an online database full of songs and albums that you can stream at no cost it's an all-you-can-eat buffet of unlimited music streams both the majors and the Indies living right alongside your personal music collection so whether it's the rolling stones or some horrible new kesha song you can just type it in and you're immediately listening to full songs and albums you can keep a record of your favorite tracks by giving them a star you can also create playlists of your favorite tracks even if they're a mix of mp3s and songs from Spotify now what makes Spotify so viral is that it pulls in any friends from Facebook who are also using Spotify from here you can check out what they're listening to as well as their favorite tracks and playlists on your end you can manage what songs and playlists can be seen by others now if you find some great tracking you want to shout it out to the world you can also hit the share button and blast it out to all of your friends on Facebook Twitter or messenger that link will take them to the full song stream if they already have Spotify or it will prompt them to download the software you get enough people sharing and you can see how spotify gets popular very quickly so what's the catch well ultimately spotify wants to get you on a paid account free users are granted six months of unlimited access to the entire spotify catalog but after that spotify will lay down some restrictions on how much you can stream free users will also have to put up some audio ads between tracks fortunately spotify isn't asking much from its paid subscribers for five dollars a month you're back to unlimited playback on any computer ad free for ten dollars a month you also get the ability to cash your favorite tunes and playlists offline plus you can use their mobile app which can also catch your favorites for offline listening all in all it's a great service and the free option is so compelling it's hard not to recommend it's addictive though so if you don't have an afternoon to kill listening to great music you should save it for another day for CNN com I'm Donald ah sure Spotify is only free for six months but don't worry by then they'll surely be a brand new must-have sharing service to take its place now while I go beg Donald for a spotify invite let's take a quick break but don't go too far we've still got a lot more tech review right after this you welcome back to the cnet tech review our weekly video digest of all things good and bad we've seen here at cnet TV continuing on now with the good the folks from clips are probably still devising ways to put sugar in Matt Mackowiak see a stank after we put their HD theater 500 speaker system in the bad section last week well Matt's back this week with the energy take classic 5.1 speaker system to which he has a completely different reaction hey I'm Matthew miskovic at cnet com and this is the energy take classic 5.1 this is a 5.1 speaker system and it can be found online for four hundred dollars the tape classic is one of the best home audio values you're going to find the system is made up of four compact satellite speakers a center channel and a 200 watt subwoofer the speakers have an elegant piano black finish and overall the system looks like it costs a lot more than it actually does behind the speaker grill you'll find a point 75 inch tweeter and a 3 inch mid-range driver around back the speakers have high-quality binding posts so you'll be able to use banana plugs with your speaker wire the subwoofer has an 8 inch driver on the bottom and standard connectivity options on the back panel what makes the take plastic system stand out from other compact speakers is its outstanding sound quality the speakers are small but it sounds like a big system which means you can crank it up loud on movies and the energy delivers a powerful sound without getting distorted the blend between the subwoofer and the satellite speakers is superb and this is really one of the best compact subs you're going to find which is a big reason why the system sounds so good the take classic also sounds excellent with 2 channel music which is rare with a budget system like this we used to take classic as our reference speakers when we were reviewing several other budget speaker packages and the energies always came out on top with the sole exception of pioneers SP PK 21 be a speaker package the Pioneer does sound a little better at high volumes but those speakers are much larger and that won't be a good choice for many living rooms when you consider its excellent compact design outstanding sound quality and the incredible price it's really tough to recommend anything other than energy system that's why the energy take classic 5.1 is our editors choice for budget speaker systems and at four hundred dollars it's an incredible value I'm Matthew miskovic and this is the energy take classic 5.1 so there you go great design great sound great value one problem energy take wow that's a stupid name okay let's see who we're gonna knock down a peg this week as we move to the bad when it comes to buying a smartphone you don't have to spend a lot of money but while there is such a thing as an entry-level phone there's also such a thing as a do not enter model as we're about to find out hi I'm Jessica adult court for cnet what I've got here today is the huawei m835 for metropcs it's also known as the t-mobile comment and the huawei i do so if it looks a little familiar to you that's why this is quite an entry-level phone it runs android 2.2 froyo but it does not have hotspot support that's pretty normal for this type of phone and also for phones that run on prepaid carriers I really like that it's running stock Android because the screen is really small so the less clutter you've got on here the better it's got a 2.8 inch qvga screen this is again as I said really small and that's where swipe comes in handy because hunting and pecking on this really just won't work the phone itself is also very compact it's got a black face on the front the shiny and glossy and a soft touch material on the back it seems a little bit thick and instinctively I keep thinking that there's going to be a slide-out QWERTY keyboard but there's not there's a 3.2 megapixel camera on the back I thought that the pictures it took were washed out and kind of unfocused same for video so that's unfortunate there's a microSD card slot that takes up to 32 gigabytes of external storage but you do have to remove the battery to get at it and that's downside on top of all of these drawbacks the processor is also really slow and it only has 2.5 g data so it feels really pokey overall call quality also not so hot so things aren't looking too good for this phone and pricing maybe it's only saving grace right now it's eighty dollars with a fifty-dollar instant savings and there's no contract with metropcs so that makes it one of the most affordable Android phones for the carrier but for about twenty dollars more you can also pick up the LG optimus m which i think is a better phone overall so again this is the huawei m835 and you can check out my full review all the pros and cons at cnet com you see there's a reason that Apple spends billions on R&D Huawei apparently spent about a weekend let's finish things up with this week's bottom line Thursday marked the official opening of comic-con 2011 in San Diego now since Molly is on vacation this week she won't be there costumed as Wonder Woman neither will brian Tong though I'd pay to see that but he is there like the Pied Piper of pop culture by the power of sea net I have the power Bryant on here with cnet com at comic-con 2011 here in San Diego this is day one you can see everyone streaming behind me they're here for all the comics the movies the TV shows the costumes of toys so much more so we're gonna go to the show floor and check it all out you're really committing with this makeup what inspired you it was actually more of people asked me to do it for the year so I was like all right why not it's Comic Con you know most excited for true blood except i'm kind of sad cuz my favorite character isn't gonna be here Eric the ladies like me now yeah what brings you here to comic-con oh really the ladies you're gonna find a droid like that all right we have a family of superheroes here and guys what brings you out to comic-con it's just it's so much fun dressing up and just being around everybody and we love looking at all the exhibits and seeing all the different halls and see what's going on well you know the only person here with leggings is Superman they told me I had to the Christmas present from my dad was to take a to comic-con what are you the most excited about to see here at comic-con um I'm gonna say probably the amazing spider-man if I can get in tomorrow so to comic-con we know there's a lot of comic books in artwork but collectibles are big thing here we're at the alex ross booth one of the most legendary comic book artists here and look these are original works of his we're talking about stuff in the seven thousand dollars eight thousand dollar range and if you want to get real spicy look at the Joker 25k you're here waiting what are you looking to get here oh I'm going to get some some GI Joe transformers maybe you know door now look at this list they have a little shopping cart a checklist here but these are exclusive toys to comic-con right I'm gonna open up and play with them and keep them in our packaging oh they say in the package now you guys came here all the way from the wife atomic on yes yeah I've been coming here for oh my gosh I think since I want to see 93 and yeah it's it I mean even though it Comic Con has grown immensely it's still really worth it coming how does it feel to be a grown man waiting in line for toys feels great I'm like the I'm Peter Pan man the boy who never grew up now guys the number one thing you have to have when you come to comic-con you need this big swag back it's almost as big as me but I could see it usually a little over the shoulder murse doubled up it got like some backpack action going on like that I'm sure we could find plenty of uses for this thing this is like the greatest place I've ever been yeah even look look over there all the legos you want to go over there I have the lovely Conan ladies here with me why we're actually barbarian slave girl barbarians slave girls now right I know what that means Joey tell me the story about this what's up all right played a gear since the first came out fell in love with it they made a hundred of these for a hundred bucks third to last one now I'm gonna be carrying my shoulders for next three hours i justyou got you got a little caught up in the hype of these collectibles right and I try not to a my girlfriend lecture last two days about buying vinylmation true Disney is how you gonna explain this to her when the whole point was don't fall for the church oh it's my birthday in like four days so it's hard to get to myself stars is releasing their entire collection on blu-ray sometime this fall and what's exciting about this is we have a lot of cool displays like this museum replicas they've had been able to get the reference models of the actual costumes then use things like the same materials the same accessories here we have the Emperor they're showcasing Luke Skywalker's digs as well as Princess Leia's a lovely white gown but this is some of the cool and killer stuff that you'll find here all over the show floor in celebration of Star Wars blu-ray release alright guys you know I'm a big roller and right next to me we're looking at over 1 million dollars worth of comics Captain America Superman Batman you know how we do it so tell us what you got right here basic comic line a book on the documentary I matches comic con done by Morgan Spurlock and signed by Stan Lee hey man uh how's it hanging inspired by all these superheroes at comic-con I have one last idea for this swag bag and it okay let's try this oh oh that was a bad idea Oh for cnet com I'm Brian song from the show floor literally a swatch all our videos and more oh it's gonna hurt so the bottom line this week better him than me standing here in this studio is about as close as I want to get to all those grown man lined up for action figures I'm just nervous about where that goes to experience even more of comic-con from a comfortable distance be sure to keep your browser pointed at cnet all weekend long all right folks that's our show for this time come back next week for an all-new seen that tech review and until then there are tons of great videos available every day at cnet TV com we'll see you here next time and thank you for watching you