Gadgetory

this week on the cnet tech review acer tries to take a bite out of Apple the galaxy tab versus the ipad in a tablet price fight LastPass prevents poor passwords and cell phone carrier ratings for where you live it's all coming up right now hey everyone I'm Hollywood 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 and offer some unique tech wisdom in the form of the bottom line let's get started with the good just before the Thanksgiving break acer held an event in new york to show off a couple of their would-be ipad killers dan ackerman was on hand to give us a peek at what's to come i'm dan ackerman and we're down in soho today we're acer had a big press event to talk about really the hot topic of the air that's tablets and touch screens they had a handful of products and some new services to show off key among them iconia it's a 14-inch laptop and if it looks like something's a little bit different that's because it has two screens and they're both touchscreen this is more of a full laptop experience and to get that on-screen keyboard what you do is you don't hit a button or anything you take both hands ten fingers two pumps put him down right here and it knows to pop up the full keyboard right there which then you can type on depending on your proficiency with on-screen keyboards it will also take one hand input you put all five fingers down and it brings up this media jog wheel that lets you John through all sorts of different media options and of course they actually have their own custom web browser built in right here that's meant to work with both screens I've got it up right here but with one touch I can expand it to both screens or I can just view it just on the top the Iconia is a full-featured laptop it's going to intel core i5 processor and it runs windows 7 and it should be available depending on where you live in the world in december or early in 2011 so we're here with ashes just announced 10 inch android tablet unlike a lot of other android tablets that we've seen this one is actually going to use nvidia's tegra platform and that should give you a pretty good experience in terms of you know media viewing and videos and music and stuff like that it's designed to work with clear Phi that is answers new multimedia sharing platform and it should be out sometime in 2011 it does not yet have a name a price or any info on which cell carriers are going to sell it in the u.s. acer also talked about a couple of new services one is clarify that's their media sharing platform for having a central hub in your home and sharing music in movies and video among different devices the other is alive that is a sers new content store and that works again on acer products and a little bit like itunes and that it has movies and music but it also has ebooks and other kinds of publications and apps leaving games and what it does is it keeps track of your preferences and lets you set up almost channels if you like particular artists or type of music remove it you can set up a channel and it will give you suggestions based on things that would fit in that channel like superhero movies or Lady gaga so just in time for the holiday shopping season to kick off Asia has given us a whole bunch of stuff to think about for next year in soho i'm dan ackerman looks like acer is really taking a run at apple a fancy laptop a tablet wireless media sharing and the acer store better watch out Steve Jobs but before those acers come to market Apple's already got its hands full trying to fend off attacks from Samsung and the galaxy tab and of course there's really only one way to crown the king of tablets prizefight what's up prized by fans I'm Brian Tommy and this is the first ever prizefight tablet work that you've been asking for it's a prize 5 point out between the samsung galaxy tab and apple's ipad 3g our judges for this fight our senior editor Donald Saved by the Bell senior associate editor Jessica dish amount dole court and Bryant ring a ling a ding dong now we'll take all three judges blind scores and average them out to the nearest tenth each round the final price wide score be an average of all rounds using the same decimal system let's get ready to rumble round 1 is design Samsung's Galaxy Tab has a solid design with its 7-inch screen and curved corners that's less than half the size of the ipad it's lighter and more comfortable to hold the tabs 1024 x 600 resolution on a smaller screen brings a slightly crisper image button left us wanting more and buy more we mean screen size the iPad brings apple's highest level of design and its 9.7 inch screen is big but its design isn't bulky the metal finish and curved edges are gorgeous and it's 1024 x 768 display just pops it might be heavier than you like but it feels like it's worth every penny Apple's iPad gets a perfect five and Samsung's Galaxy Tab gets a 4 next rounds controls and user interface the galaxy tab is pure Android and if you've used it before you'll feel right at home one issue is that it's the exact same experience you would get on a phone there's nothing that makes it unique for a tablet you'll still get the same customization but widgets don't align with icons hitting the menu button to access app features on the android OS bug donald the swype input method is here but at the end of the day newcomers to tablets might feel intimidated by its learning curve now it doesn't matter if you've used an iphone or ipod the iPads user interface is so simple then several judges mentioned how our nieces and nephews one and a half years in older can all use the iPad we keep saying it but it's still amazing how easy it is to use the keyboard is more spacious and comfortable for typing and the iPad was snapping or navigating overall the iPad strikes hard with its second perfect round and the Galaxy Tab gets at 3.3 it's after averaging two rounds Apple leads by more than a point but there's plenty of fight to go round three is features and performance the tab has everything that iPad users have been craving for with front and rear facing cameras with a flash a microSD card slot wireless hotspot capability and flash 10.1 support it also comes packed with Google's goodies like voice search and commands google navigation and access to key services in the notifications pull down apps from the marketplace are still built for phones and just don't take full advantage of the screen real estate they're just bigger the tab is also a step behind performance wise with a few laggy moments and its battery life is shorter by three hours now the iPad can't match up with the hardware features but it's still the snappiest tablet on the market with significantly better battery life the new control strip is a nice addition but changing the orientation button to a mute button is idiotic it also has plenty of apps built specifically to use the larger form factor and it makes for a better user experience but it's not enough as the tab finally takes its first round with the floor and the iPad gets a 3.3 next round is web browsing to multimedia the tabs web browser is a solid offering but it's frustrating how it goes directly to most of the mobile versions of websites by default even with a 7-inch screen the experience can be a little cramped now flash playback can be hit or miss and it has laggy moments when you're pinching and zooming into websites Samsung's media hub is a nice way to get media content but it still has a long ways to go the 3 megapixel rear camera is mediocre but one advantage is that it's easier to hold and use as an e-book reader now the iPads web browser is full screen multi-touch version of Safari that actually makes web browsing more fun and takes advantage of its space even though it doesn't have flash the multimedia experience is one of a kind with its deep library of content from iTunes it has a polished media player multimedia absent add more access to content and a large screen that enhances the experience the iPad gets a 4.7 and the tab gets a 4 so after averaging four rounds apples lead has been trimmed down to seven tenths of a point the final round that decides it all is value the samsung galaxy tab can be purchased with a two-year contract on t-mobile or sprint for 399 or without a contract on all four carriers for around 5 99 data plans vary but at that price you're almost paying the same price of an ipad 3g for half the screen size apple's ipad 3g starts at six hundred and twenty nine dollars with no contract an apple broke new ground with affordable data plans the Wi-Fi only model gives you even lower pricing but if you're looking for the best bang for your buck it's the ipad tablet prices are still a little high overall but in the final round the ipad gets of 4 and Samsung's Galaxy Tab gets a 3 so let's average out all five rounds and enterprise fight where Apple came out swinging with back-to-back perfect rounds the Galaxy Tab closed the gap but it was just too much to overcome and the apple ipad 3g takes this first-time tablet face-off 4.4 to 3.7 and is your prize fight winner both of these tablets are great pics and will fit different needs but this young market will constantly be flooded with new contenders and the war for prizefight supremacy rages on i'm brian Tong thanks for watching we'll catch you guys next time on another prize fight was there ever any question what was going to win that prize fight yeah not really but luckily for samsung they've got other new products for you to choose from and not just the TVs and smartphones you're used to seeing check out this new laptop courtesy of Scott's time hi I'm Scott Stein senior associate editor at cnet com and this is the Samsung qx4 10 now this holiday shopping season everybody wants to know the same thing how do I get a great affordable laptop that's got everything I need and is pretty compact it's simple questions right well you may not be thinking of samsung laptops but this year we've been really surprised at the quality and the affordability of samsung laptops that we've seen and the qx4 10 is a slimmer nicer looking design that really looks like kind of a crossbreed of a vaio and a macbook pro at a price that's really pretty reasonable 849 and inside you've got a core i5 processor 4 gigs of ram 640 gigabyte hard drive and Nvidia Optimus enabled automatic switching graphics now the graphics aren't spectacular its geforce 310m which are entry level but they enable you to play most mainstream games pretty well don't expect anything screaming if you're a real hardcore gamer we will deploy everything from unreal tournament 3 2 Activision's blur a pretty reasonable frame rates and we enjoyed it and in addition this laptop is intel wireless display which we've seen a number of other laptops you need to purchase a separate $99 neck gear box called push2tv once you have that enables streaming of video and audio content wirelessly to your television and it works really nicely with the exception of doesn't play blu-ray or DVD content you probably already have that hooked up to your TV anyway considering all of that in this package for under a thousand dollars it's a great deal especially since it's a really nicely designed laptop it has a aluminum metal frame here brush metal on the back edge to edge glossy display the keyboard feels really nice it's sort of like a macbook keyboard is a little bit like a vaio keyboard or if used a sis's raised keyboards and there's a multi-touch click pad that's pretty nicely sized better than other competitors we've seen not as large as a macbook pros but hey we're not complaining and the port selection is pretty nice you've got your us p ports you've got your HDMI there's nothing unexpected on here there's no Express card and there's no bluetooth on this but other than that for 849 you're getting graphics you're getting a good processor you're getting good specs you're getting Intel wireless display and you're getting a design that to most people is going to look high-end but hey it's a 49 you saved a little bit of money this holiday season give the Samsung qx4 10 a look I think you'll be pleasantly surprised I'm Scott Stein and this is the Samsung qx4 10 so a pretty snazzy laptop from Samsung and a pretty snazzy shirt for Scott to although maybe not the best for shooting on that set I think I lost track of him a couple times turning our attention back to Apple last week in the tech review buying guide we suggested that the ipad and the macbook air both make great gifts but is now really the right time to buy Apple products well let's check in with Brian again with his buying guide from the apple byte okay it's the holidays and you probably want some real good advice about when is a good time to buy that specific Apple gadget we get tons of emails about it so we want to give you the apples buyer guide or what we like to call here the Apple biters guide in it all right we have three apples green means it's good to go yellow means it's in the middle of its product life cycle so it's okay but it might be worth holding out a little longer and red means wait for an update soon now things are fluid and unpredictable but this is using the best info we have so first up the iphone for now it really depends on your carrier if you're on AT&T it's a solid time to buy and that's where they have a green apple new models will be probably coming around june or july since it's a yearly update so your smack in the middle now if you're on verizon we're throwing out the red apple don't switch over to a different carrier just be patient because all of the major websites point2 sometime in january for the iphone florida potentially come to verizon key word is potentially now if you're looking for an iPad it's worthy of a yellow Apple there will be no new models announced any time soon but we expect to possibly hear news in January but the next-gen will probably come out in late march to april which is still about five months away so if you just want one with a camera then don't pull the trigger and wait for it now the entire lineup of ipods was refreshed in September and that's been their typical yearly release cycle so green apples galore for all ipod models imax are updated about every seven months and it's been three months since the last release so it's where they have a yellow apple and there's nothing wrong with you getting one if you need one now the mac pro's they get updated a lot less frequently because they're so powerful the last update was in july and they'll go even a year or more before the next update so all signs point to a green apple now on the laptop front this line is updated every six months or so the macbook pros and the white macbook we're updated in the spring we won't see anything before Christmas but we'll probably see something early next year so we're giving it a yellow apple but I would lean towards waiting if you can all right we'll get two more your questions next week hopefully that biters guide helped out but that's going to do it for this week's show send your emails to the apple byte at cnet com i'm brian Tong thanks for watching we'll see you next week for another bite of the Apple I know the macbook air wasn't on Brian's list but since it just came out in October I think it's safe to give that one the green light as well and i'm giving you the green light to stretch your legs for a bit because it's time for a break but don't go too far because we will be right back with more tech review 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 according to our friends over at smart planet the most common password people use are the digits 123456 so if that's your password change it now or better yet check out a program called LastPass which can help you manage better passwords and remember them for you I don't know about you but i hate remembering passwords there's personal email work email bank accounts Twitter and Facebook and woe to anybody who uses the same one for both of those malware magnets so far the best option I found is the free browser add-on LastPass hi i'm seth rosenblatt for cnet and today i'll show you the basics of how to use the secure encrypted password manager LastPass which is encrypted with aes 256 the installation process is simple but important more than just installing like any other add on it helps you create a LastPass account and it will import your existing passwords unless you choose not to once you install the LastPass icon will appear in the upper right hand corner of the browser importing the passwords is key because once they're in your LastPass account it can remove them from your browser's making it difficult to get to them without your LastPass login info once installed last pass will auto-detect username and password form fields if it has the credentials for the page or visiting it will ask to fill in the info for you you can also set last pass to automatically filling credentials or even automatically log in when you visit a site that you're creating credentials for it will ask if you'd like it to create a password for you in the LastPass vault where your passwords are stored you can change the default level of security for generated passwords it will also auto detect when you've changed the password for a site that's already been saved and ask you if you'd like to change the saved version LastPass comes with some excellent power features you can use the encrypted online vault to access your secure sites on the fly and past premium supplies you with a mobile version of the password manager it also works in conjunction with you Becky for extra tinfoil-hat paranoid protection or you can create for free your own encrypted USB key for multi-factor protection called LastPass sesame if you're concerned about keyloggers LastPass com supplies a virtual keyboard it's not fail proof but LastPass is an excellent and secure way to cut down the risk of having your passwords compromised the first look at last pass for cnet download.com i'm seth rosenblatt and just in case you were wondering the number for password on the list is password some people just never learn all right let's switch gears and see what we can find over in the bed since this is the holiday season many of you may be thinking about buying a new cell phone for a loved one don't at least not until you check out our top five awful cell phones that no one wants to find in their stocking this year it's a great time to be alive and communicating excellent cell phones of all kinds abound these however are not among them I'm Brian Cooley with the top five phones you should pass up for something anything else number five is the motorola flipout with a tepid cnet rating of 6.7 okay motorola lesson one when making a touchscreen smartphone make the screen large enough to touch this chunky little guy has the android operating system crammed into it but not enough interface area to take advantage of it in spite of a nice slide out keyboard here's a hint the screen is square the web is not oh by the way the speakerphone is also crapped as was its 3g radio next number for the sony ericsson vivaz what us stupid name cnet rating 6.3 now touchscreen products these days pretty much all use what's called a capacitive touchscreen except the vivaz which uses resistive technology kind of like those plastic flat buttons on a gas pump that ain't cool coupled with the hoary old symbian OS and slow internal guts and you'll have plenty of time to contemplate what else you could have bought number 3 the samsung SGH a 107 C narrating six-point oh we give it about a 2 point 0 for its name this is the most basic phone on our list of losers today and frankly to basic it doesn't have an external display so you have to flip it open to do anything other than being a great prop for a movie set in the 1990s it's just a mess oh and it's missing the single biggest innovation and phones since the flip Bluetooth number two the ZTE agent with a cnet rating of 5.3 yes ZTE has who makes this dud no I hadn't heard of them before either I think this quote from our review says it all design features and call quality all leave much to be desired we're done with this one before we get to our number one phone to avoid a smartphone in general is not something we're avoiding latest numbers from Nielsen research indicated the number of smartphones in use in the US will equal the number of ordinary cell phones by around q3 of 2011 the revolution is on ok our number one phone to not walk but run from is the dell aero with a miserable cnet rating of 5.0 that's out of 10 remember running the ancient android 1.5 OS doesn't start things well but then del that paragon of user interface design skins at their own way which makes it frustrating and unintuitive ads sluggish internals and mmm nice phone if you want to see the secret sixth loser phone that vibe for number one on today's list or to catch up on all the cnet top fives head to top five cnet com I'm Brian Cooley thanks for watching now once you decide not to buy a terrible phone you should probably make sure the phone can get decent reception where it's going to be used luckily for you see net has partnered with RootMetrics to bring you a new service that can help you find the best carriers for your area kent german has the scoop in this week's bottom line hi I'm seen at senior editor kent german you've come to rely on seen it for in-depth analysis or reviews of the latest cell phones and accessories but as you know carrier coverage also plays a part in creating your best wireless experience seen it does not rate wireless carrier coverage because it varies too much from neighborhood to neighborhood but we know that it's important to research care performance for your home commute and workplace that's why we partnered with RootMetrics to create a unique tool that can help you make a carrier decision unlike some services that track carrier dead zones rootmetrics uses a smartphone app that anonymously gathers information on voice signal strength and data speeds now i'm going to show you the tool to explain its features and how to use it to access the tool just click on the cell phone coverage map link here at cell phones cnet com you also can find the link on any seen at cell phone review you'll start by seeing a list of all the covered markets which includes most of the country's largest cities if you don't see your town listed at the moment route will be expanding coverage in the future and at the end of this video I'll tell you how you can help now i'm going to show you what information is available for each city let's choose San Francisco as an example the interface uses a mashup of google map so it should be familiar to most users you can zoom out and in with the bar on the left and you can scroll around as you wish down at the bottom of the map you'll see tabs for the three metrics that route tracks the first tab the roots corps represents the carriers overall network performance using a color code it measures an aggregate voice and data score for the area the map is covering green and yellow are best orange is in the middle and red and black or worse as you click between carriers and as you change the map view by scrolling or zooming the data is recalculated root breaks up each city into hexagonal sections or hexes that span a couple of city blocks to see data for specific hex just click on it and you'll get this pop-up window you can choose to see the score for one carrier or you can compare all for the carrier with the highest school or will always be at the top of the list if you click on the voice tab you can see the voice score for the map area currently viewing just like on your phone you'll see the voice strength and bars for even more detailed information you can click on the advanced link to see the signal strength in decibels now it's a negative number so the closer it is to zero the better the signal now it's important to understand that this tool measures the signal penetration in a certain area capacity however is another story even with a strong signal a cellar network can be overloaded if too many people using it at one time the result can be made dropped calls poor audio quality or an inability to connect the same is true for data as well here you'll see the average time it takes to download a song and upload a photo for each carrier and if you click on the advanced link you'll see the average upload and download data speeds and kilo bits we hope that you'll find this tool useful and that you'll use it to think about wireless coverage in your area and if you'd like to take this information on the go and help root gather data about a new or existing area download the free iPhone app that's available in the iTunes App Store an Android app is coming and support for other smartphones will follow in the near future for more information go to root metrics calm I'm Ken chairman and thanks for joining me the bottom line this week your mileage may vary a lot actually we're really excited about this new project and you can help us make it better by downloading the app and letting us share your results and no we won't read all your text messages I promise all right folks that's it for me today but come back next week for an all-new episode of the 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 you