Gadgetory

this week on the cnet tech review nokia unveils its first windows phone handsets our favorite high-tech cars for drivers on a budget the asus zenbook might make you forget it's not a mac and is your smartphone spying on you brian cooley has the answer it's all coming up right now hi everyone i'm molly wood 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 plus offer our own unique tech wisdom in the form of the bottom line let's start things off with the good nokia announced its first two windows phone handsets on wednesday the lumia 800 and the lumia 710 the lumia 800 though is the phone that Microsoft and Nokia are calling the first real windows phone it's due to hit stores in europe sometime in november but nicole lee has one for you to see right now i'm nicole a senior associate editor piscina common this is a first look at the nokia lumia 800 out of Nokia's first Windows Phone devices supports the latest Windows Phone 7.5 mango operating system it's made out of a unibody polycarbonate material on the frontier is a curved 3.7 inch WVGA AMOLED clear black display and that music has a polarizing filter that makes it look good under bright sunlight the display is made out of Gorilla Glass so it's scratch resistant and it's also slightly curved to make it easier to swipe between screens on the frontier underneath the display you get the windows phone controls like the back button the windows button as well as the search function on the side you get the volume rocker the power button as well as a camera button on the top here is a headset jack as well as a little micro USB port on the back here is the 8 megapixel camera lens with the LED flash the 8 megapixel camera can record in 720p HD video it also has a Carl Zeiss lens the Nokia Lumia 800 is powered by 1.4 gigahertz single core processor along with 512 megabytes of processor memory it has 16 gigabytes internal storage because of its unibody design it does not have a removable battery but you can go to a nokia store or a carrier store to have that replaced it has the usual features like Wi-Fi gps and more it is a quad-band gsm phone so you can be used internationally the Nokia Lumia 800 also comes with support with a variety of Nokia sir like Nokia drive which is Nokia's turn-by-turn navigation system nokia music just Nokia's music store and Nokia mix radio which is Nokia's streaming radio service the Nokia Lumia 800 will be available in cyan magenta and black you'll be available for a five hundred in eighty five dollars without a contract I'm Nicole in this has been the first look at the Nokia Lumia 800 it's still unclear whether the Lumia 800 will ever make its way to the US but Nokia plans to offer a whole slew of Windows Phone phones to America in early 2012 and be sure to check out the step-down model the Lumia 710 over at cnet TV com up next we've got a couple of products that offer big-ticket features at bargain prices first Scott Stein shows us an ultrabook laptop that's even cheaper than a macbook air followed by matt mackowiak with a surround sound speaker system for less than a hundred bucks I'm Scott Stein senior editor at cnet com and if you were a Windows user who has been envying the macbook air there is no better time for you than the present because thanks to Intel's term ultrabook there are a ton of laptops that are now coming out that are thin that are light and look a lot like the macbook air one of the most notable and one of the most macbook air like is the asus zenbook well here it is in this nice little padded envelope this actually comes with the zenbook unlike MacBook Airs has a little pouch that's kind of attractive and you open it up and sure enough here is the aluminum zenbook and it certainly looks like a macbook air in terms of its unibody aluminum design there's a little bit more of a radial design here that I catching light shimmering effect on the back lid and a little bit of a darker metal brush metal on the back but it's a lot of the same feel a tiny bit thicker and a little bit heavier but really comfortable and very sturdy to hold in fact the Asus Zenbook the UX 31 which is the 13 inch version comes in at a lower price in the macbook air about two hundred dollars less for the same internal it's the UX 31e dh50 too that's not very zen-like name but that's the name of this particular version is 1099 and comes with a 128 gigabyte SSD Drive and 4 gigs of ram and that matches what you're going to see on the 12 99 macbook air so it's a pretty good value and into that this comes with a USB 3.0 port an HDMI although take note this is a micro-hdmi port you're going to need a converter cable to be able to plug that into your TV but it does have VGA dongles and an Ethernet dongle that connects with USB that comes in the box the zenbook is named probably to create a sense of Zen composure and simplicity in a laptop this does have pretty fast boot times and a very fast wake up from sleep about two seconds which is very competitive with the macbook air but we didn't really find that keyboard or that trackpad to be very zen-like in fact we found ourselves missing a lot of key types when using this slightly mushy keyboard and the trackpad uses sent Alex instead of synaptics which means in our experience we found the trackpad to be a little more finicky and a little harder to pull off multi-touch commands with but it is a very large trackpad and equals the macbook air in its size and its clickability but if you're an AV hound you'll appreciate the fact that this 13 inch screen has a 1600 x 900 resolution that's a lot more resolution for your pixel dollar than the 1366 x 768 that you're going to see on most 13 inch laptops and the Bang & Olufsen design speaker system and audio in this zenbook laptop does live up to the hype it sounds a lot better than similar ultra slim laptops and it's not going to blow you away like some super high-end desktop replacement but it's great for listening to music and to movies if you want to pay more for your zenbook you can pay as much as 1449 which is going to give you a core i7 processor and 256 gigabytes of storage that's still less than you would pay for the equivalent macbook air at its high end now if you love great sound and nicer screen resolution and you can give up a keyboard and a trackpad then maybe you're a little bit disappointing and a battery life that is still okay but doesn't perform as well as we found the macbook air to perform give this a try this is as close as you're going to get to a macbook air without it being a macbook air i'm scott stein and as a look at the asus zenbook ux31a hey I'm Matthew miskovic at cnet com and this is the monoprice 8 24 7 now most people know about monoprice from the company's excellent line of cheap hdmi cables now the company is branching out to some other home theater products the monoprice a 24 7 is a 5.1 speaker system and the pricing is just incredible with this whole system costing just $84 that's less than fifteen dollars per speaker if you include the subwoofer now the system includes four small satellite speakers a center channel and the subwoofer the cabinets are plastic with the sandy texture but they have some weight to them so they don't feel completely cheap at this price we were also shocked to see monoprice included four swivel wall mounts in the package which is something you don't even find on more expensive speaker systems now around back you'll see the metal speaker connectors which are pretty decent although they won't accept banana plugs and you'll need to use 16 gauge or thinner speaker wire the 60 watt subwoofer has a down firing 8 inch woofer with a baseboard on the front and the design is a pretty plain boxy look now for eighty-four dollars we were expecting pretty lackluster sound quality but monoprice really surprised us it doesn't sound great but for a system of this size it sounds pretty good the subwoofer blends nicely with the satellite speakers and it can play pretty loud without getting distorted of course like any system this size it does fare better with movies rather than music so if you expect to listen to a lot of to channel music you'll probably want to consider something else we also put it head-to-head with the $400 energy take classic 5.1 system and there's no doubt that the energy sounded better in just about every way possible but the energy system is more than four times as expensive and we're sure many listeners would be perfectly happy with the mono prices sound so should you bind the monoprice 82 47 that depends on how much you to spend for four hundred dollars you can get much better sound quality from either the energy take classic system or the larger pioneer spp k21 BS but if you can't spend that much the monoprice 82 47 is the best deal we've seen for under four hundred dollars and it really is a perfect starter 5.1 system I'm Matthew miskovic and this is the monoprice in 82 47 I gotta say I am loving a world in which quality electronics are also inexpensive what a concept also that zenbook is h-o-t hot continuing on with the budget theme it's time to talk cars having a lot of cool tech in a car is great but not if you can't afford to pay for it so here's Brian Cooley with cnet's top 5 high-tech cars with low low prices in this economy when I suggest a high-tech car you probably blanch at the thought of buying something which costs as much as a foreclosed house but you can actually roll cnet style for a monthly nut low enough to swing even after you're laid off I'm Brian Cooley with the top five high-tech cars that cost under 20 grand reviewed and ranked by cnet so far in 2011 let's hit the road number five is the hyundai accent SE now we love us some hyundai and kia these days so why the bottom of the list well because you can't even option a navigation head unit on any accent at any price and it doesn't have a very elaborate voice command system like a Ford SYNC so this is all kind of a throwback to a few years ago when car companies positioned their small cars as utilitarian transport that offered less now the accents a nice car but they kind of missed the boat on this idea of really loading it up closer to the mid-range cars at least optionally number four is the lovable fiat 500c the most stylish car on our list though unnerving ly close to Fred Flintstone's car in some aspects navigation consists of a clip on tomtom unit and the cars powertrain is shall we say modest but it does offer a cousin of Ford SYNC called blue and me and a very cool power ragtop that opens up to la dolce vita all for under 20 grand number three is the chevy cruze eco it scored high in cnet's review because of its Wonder of an engine a 1.4 liter turbo four-cylinder that cranks out 28 42 mpg while being sufficiently powerful and refined on the road as is the whole car you can't get factory nav on a cruise either but it does have onstar which can bring in a form of nav and it also supports the nuanced our mobile app which lets you control various aspects of the car remotely from your smartphone while it's sitting still of course number two is the newcomer in the bunch a little Scion iQ very small but not stupidly small like a smart car instead Scion has a smart strategy of offering an array of high-tech head units at good prices and the IQ has pandora integrated right out of the box it's little motors a 1.3 liter engine its best in cities confidence killing on the highway and sounds like it's grinding coffee in both situations but overall it's an affordable car with interesting tech options and a style that stands out just don't trip on it before I take you to our number one cheap tech car check out this survey according to arbitron and Edison research the tech that we use most in our cars is still AM FM radio CD player and cell phone but when you ask folks what they love to use in their car it's satellite radio ipod and gps and the mainstreaming of all those technologies and more into inexpensive cars like i'm talking about today is a very happy trend ok the number one tech car to look at when you're on a budget is pretty easy it's the Ford Fiesta two things stand out for us first for its excellent Sync system which I almost think is better on a simple display like in this car then on the elaborate LCD it does a great job of recognizing contact names and music titles when you bark them out by voice and Fiesta offers a dual clutch manual gearbox nobody else does that at this price not even close on the other hand the navigation is kind of an OnStar like system which we found was sort of hit and miss and even then it only works when you have a cell connection but still if it's our 20 grand we're probably going to buy a fiesta by the way everyone always asks at moments like this what do I Drive sorry to disappoint you but my 88 country squire doesn't even have airbags and I want you to be safe for more top 5s like this go to top 5 cnet com I'm Brian Cooley thanks for watching of course if money is no object you might want to check out the 2012 Porsche Panamera Turbo S I'm save it up for that you can find our review over in the car tech section on cnet TV right now but not right now we've still got a lot more tech review coming up right after this 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 in the good given the amount of personal data we store on our smartphones these days if your phone isn't passcode protected what are you thinking while iphones only offer the numeric keypad pin options android users have a few other choices here Sharon Vaknin with the pros and cons for each one hey everyone I'm Sharon Vaknin for cnet.com and today I'll show you how to pick the best screen lock for your Android phone when ice cream sandwich is released android phones will get a super futuristic face unlock option but until then i'll show you how to choose the most secure lock setting already available on your phone let's start by heading to settings location and security and head down to screen lock settings to get started tap change screen lock enter your current unlock code and check out the three possible lock options pattern is the default and most popular screen lock setting but it's also the least secure because it can be easily cracked with the smudges you leave behind each time you unlock your phone I don't recommend using a pattern lock but if you insist on using it maybe to impress your iPhone using friends enter the pattern you want to use enter it again to confirm then uncheck use visible pattern this way anyone looking over your shoulder as you unlock the phone will have a hard time seeing the pattern now the next option is a pin lock pins are easy to remember and offer decent to great security depending on your number combination the majority of people choose terrible pins like 1 2 3 4 or 11 11 but please don't be one of these people instead choose a pin that's at least 6 characters and doesn't follow a numerical pattern once you choose your pin then confirm it uncheck visible passwords so that when you unlock your phone your pin is hidden as you type the last and most secure lock setting is password which can be a nation of letters and numbers offering the highest level of security it is the most annoying form of security because it does take extra time to enter but if you pick a strong password you can rest assured the data in your phone is safe just tap password here enter it and confirm it and uncheck visible password so that your secret code is hidden as you unlock your phone if you have any questions or tech tips that you'd like to share hit me up on Twitter or my facebook page for cnet I'm Sharon Vaknin and i'll see you on the interwebs i'm so glad that Sharon is finally calling android onto the carpet for the underreported problem of greasy finger security flaws because you speaking of you let's have a look at some of the gadgets unfortunate enough to end up in the bed o printers so necessary and so aggravating even the best of them make you want to smash them occasionally so what about when they're not actually all that great let Justin you tell you all about it what's up guys I'm just a new printer editor for cnet and this is your first look at the lexmark pro 7 15 multifunction printer we're seeing the prices drop for all in one printers these days those are devices that combine a printer scanner copier and fax machine in one unfortunately though this one will set you back two hundred bucks so is that worth it well not really it's more or less the same as the previous version that's the pro 705 which you can now get for a hundred bucks on third party retailer websites the LCD display up front here sits more flush into the control panel than its older brother but for some reason the company got rid of the shortcut buttons all together and they put them up as virtual controls on the screen a little bit more inconvenient it's also missing the media card reader so don't expect to print photos directly off a memory card you'll have to do it the old-fashioned way and plug your camera in with a hard wired USB cable another thing we don't like is that you can only fit a hundred sheets of paper in there at a time just for perspective we prefer the epson workforce 845 printer for the same price that gives you a huge touch screen control panel to separate paper drawers with a 500 sheet Cassidy and two separate media card slots with an additional USB port for printing all flash drives that's a lot more functionality for the same price so we're giving a thumbs down to this lexmark pro 7 15 and recommending you buy the older pro 705 for cheaper or by the epson workforce 845 if you're really looking for a printer that can do it all you can read all the details in our full review on cnet but that's going to do it for me I'm Justin you you just took a first look at the lexmark pro 7 15 printer thanks for watching thumbs down indeed plus seriously why haven't printers gotten any smaller alright let's leave that poor printer alone and move along to this week's bottom line this week in the bottom line we want to highlight a new show here at CNN TV called device and concur with Brian Cooley this week the device in question is your cell phone and as Brian points out it may be giving up more info about you than you know or than you want to know seems everybody's freaked these days about being followed or tracked from up there but one of the biggest misconceptions I hear about GPS all the time is that those satellites are tracking you they don't they actually can't but they do enable devices down here on the ground to do so and one of the most insidious isn't even a tracking device per se it's your smartphone first a little explanation how all this stuff works the global positioning system or GPS is a network of about 30 satellites constantly orbiting the globe run by the US government and what they're doing is always sending down to earth a signal indicating where they are and when they are there with extreme precision now devices down here on earth with an inexpensive GPS receiver chip in them pick up all those signals and can make sensitive that's how they know where they are now as you know there are dedicated gps tracking devices like this guy here you drop this in someone's purse attach it to their car hide it somewhere on their person and you'll know where they are all the time in real time but when it comes to sheer numbers the smartphone is a far more ubiquitous GPS tracker it's growth has been huge in the last few years as of now some forty three percent of us carry one and that's growing fast but unlike a simple tracker it marries your location to details about your life and makes all of that available via a constant wireless internet connection for example I'm out running errands right now while I should be at work my phone basically knows that because GPS tells it where I am and what time I'm there I left on my google latitude feature that's recording locations and since I probably have 3g and Wi-Fi on most or all of the time those various information gatherers can report my information and things about me without me really being aware of it do I have your attention now Facebook Apple Google Microsoft just some of the parties that have been in the headlines recently for recording and storing this kind of information okay as bad as this sounds the good news is this kind of tracking happens on not just a smartphone but your smartphone therefore you have access to some controls that will let you manage how much of this happens so know these settings in the menus on any smartphone you own first of all be familiar with your phone's GPS menu you can often turn GPS on and off in several layers but note that any phone made in the last few years will always reveal your location if you call 911 I assume doesn't bother you secondly pictures combined with location that can be particularly creepy so locate the settings on your smartphone's camera app that can disable automatic GPS tagging of your pictures thirdly know what your apps are doing with your location check their settings look at the disclaimer when you install them and know that in some cases you may have to adjust your privacy for them on the full website not within the phone app itself now if all this has you thoroughly demoralized and laying awake at night take heart in a couple of real-world facts first of all among the millions of us you and I probably aren't that interesting to be worth tracking anyway least not specifically also you can take more dramatic steps to shut down your smartphone you can turn off all GPS technology you can even turn off the wireless connections when you're not using it but at that point you're probably also in the market for a nice three-bedroom cave in Tora Bora the bottom line this week only you can prevent cell phone spying a lot of people are worried about their privacy but not that many of you do what it takes to lock down your information it's your day to folks dig into those settings you'll be glad you did all right that's going to do it for this time but come back next week for an all-new cnet tech review until then there are tons of great videos available every day at cnet TV com I'll see you next time and thank you for watching