Gadgetory

this week on the cnet tech review apple sony Nintendo Microsoft everybody had big announcements this week and we have them all covered stay here for all the news for me three and apple's WWDC plus an all-new top five countdown and the series 5 Chromebook 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 plus offer some unique tech wisdom in the form of the bottom line let's start with the good Apple held its annual worldwide developers conference in San Francisco this week and there weren't many surprises mostly because apple gave us the heads-up on what to expect ahead of time no new iphone sorry but lots of software updates including a new service called iCloud which Steve Jobs says will totally change how you use your iDevices so you like everything so far well I'll try not to blow it so I get to talk about iCloud now some people think the cloud is just a hard disk in the sky right and you take a bunch of stuff and you put it in your dropbox or your idisk or whatever and it transfers it up to the cloud and stores and then you drag whatever you want back out on your other devices we think it's way more than that and we call it iCloud now iCloud stores your content in the cloud and wirelessly pushes it to all your devices so it automatically uploads it stores it and automatically pushes it to all your other devices but also it's completely integrated with your apps and so everything happens automatically and there's nothing new to learn it just all works it just now you might ask why should I believe them they're the ones that brought me mobile me it wasn't our finest hour let me just say that but we learned a lot now the three core apps in mobile me or contacts calendar and Mail three things we'd obviously like kept up to date we've thrown them away we've riorca tected and rewritten them from the ground up to bi cloud apps and we've put them on all of our devices so as an example in contacts when I make a new contact on my iPhone it's automatically brought up to the cloud where it's stored on the cloud right the truth is on the cloud and then it's automatically pushed down to my other devices so they're all in sync it's that easy I just update a contact on my iPhone and don't even think about it and that contact is updated on all my other devices and if I change it on any device it's updated on all devices wirelessly automatically without me doing a thing we've also added calendar sharing so as an example if I'm sharing a few calendars with my wife school and soccer calendars let's say right and I add a new calendar for a teacher parent conference on my phone it's again automatically pushed up to the cloud and automatically push to my wife's iphone if she adds the she adds an appointment for a soccer game again goes up to the cloud and back to my iPhone it's that simple and then we have mail mail was in the best shape of all but it's even better now we give you a mail account it at me calm your new messages again are pushed to all your devices and like we used to your inbox and folders are all kept up-to-date on all devices so that's mail and no ads we build products that we want for ourselves too and we just don't want to ads so we can't get there so these are the three apps that form the core of mobileme we used to sell them for a subscription price of ninety nine dollars annually as of today this product ceases to exist and those three apps are out of the food don't worry mobileme folks you'll get a refund all 52 of you now an iCloud is officially released later this year it promises to streamline sharing media between all your connected Apple products but Sharon Vaknin is here to show you how you can start using some of these services today hey everyone I'm Sharon Vaknin for cnet.com steve jobs recently announced apple's new service at the worldwide developers conference in San Francisco it's called iCloud and it finally lets you wirelessly sync your music books and apps across all your devices the full version of iCloud won't be available until fall but you can start using some of these features right now the whole point of iCloud is that music and other media you purchase on one I device can be automatically downloaded onto all your other devices as long as they're using the same iTunes account to get started using iCloud you'll need to set it up on each device you want to keep synced so gather up all your idevices like your iPhone iPad or iPod Touch first go to settings then store here you can set your device to automatically download new music books and apps you downloaded onto other Apple devices and Mac or PC apples letting you connect with up to 10 devices just switch the different content categories to on and automatic downloading will be enabled if you're on an iphone or ipad with a limited data plan i suggest leaving the option to use cellular data off because if you turn this option on automatic downloads will be counted against your data plan if you leave this option off automatic downloading will then only work when you're connected to Wi-Fi now change the itunes settings on your computer iCloud requires itunes 10.3 or later and you can download it by going to apple.com / iTunes once you have it go to preferences then store here you have the same options as your idevices and you can check the items you want to keep synced so now that I have these settings enabled if I download a song in itunes it'll also start downloading on my iPhone or if I download a song on my iPad it'll be added to my library on my computer but if you're like me you don't have a lot of storage space left on your device for my iPhone I left automatic downloading off but since my computer has lots of storage I kept automatic downloading on for everything on my iPhone I'll manually download new content to do this go to iTunes then purchased you'll see a list of all the songs you bought on any device to download them just hit the cloud download button you can also view songs you purchased but haven't put on your device by going to the tab on the right the same goes for books and apps for books open I books and head to store then purchased for apps go to the App Store then updates then purchased except on the iPad where purchased gets its own button to manage your content in itunes go to the iTunes Store then purchased in the right sidebar in this screen you can download previously purchased items at no extra cost for now I cloud only supports music books and apps but Steve Jobs explained that the rest of the feature is like calendar mail and photos syncing will come in the fall and will get you caught up with those features when they arrive for cnet com I'm Sharon Vaknin and i'll see you on the interwebs be sure to come back next week for an in-depth look at iOS 5 or if you can't wait head over to cnet TV com for more of our coverage from WWDC 2011 meanwhile down in Los Angeles III kicked off on Monday as well we got new hardware from Sony and Nintendo scores of new games available for demos booth babes and a dude with muscles the size of Brian tongs face here he is with a wrap up of all the action hey guys Brian song here at e3 2011 we're all eyes are fixed on the video game world we've got hot hardware announcements from Nintendo and Sony we've got a lot of booth babes and you always see a few curious suspect things here but you know what it's all about the games there front and center so let's check out the floor in my hands I have the new controller that's part of the entire we use system now when you look at this roundabout this is unlike any controller we've seen some of the games for example shield pose that we're going to show you offers you an additional window into the world so you can move it around and give you different views within the game that you're playing another cool example of how this can be used in different ways is with chase me we've kind of see a bird's-eye view of a map while other people see a completely different experience with what they're playing be coming out sometime in 2012 but there you have it really a nice feeling a nice hold and a pretty sleek design alright guys we're inside of Microsoft booth in their connect pod and this is your 24 connect so we're looking at a lot of new software titles and apps and functions one of the features here is inside connect fun labs I'm going to be able to make an avatar of what you see here and connect to me so let's just see how good this thing is all right you see all this you see all that up there check it out the Bruce Lee face right there right so you can see this obviously looks just like me it has the big nose there's a big nose the hair ok looking for the blondes right but up look obviously another thing that's big here are the girls 83 have you seen any lookers yeah I'm telling you they ship them all out for some special island or something man I don't know what it's about it's crazy oh it's so glorious all the Sam feels so good oh my gosh diamond in the rough a beautiful looking lady in a line waiting for a game sometimes gamer guys are a little socially awkward sometimes so if you had a tip for like a guy of really like how to get a gamer girls attention well what do you think don't be scared of women in my hand we have Sony's PlayStation Vita now the first thing you're going to notice right off the bat this gorgeous 25 inch OLED display also the power of the graphics in this handheld unlike anything we've seen before they really touted that it was on or almost on the level of ps3 graphics I'm going to tell you when I look at this it's made me a believer now this screen on the front is a touchscreen it also has a touch panel on the back side that is incorporated in a game player for a variety of titles one of the most anticipated handled that I can remember and it feels really light and I can't wait to get my hands on this more hi guys nothing bigger and badder than Hulk Hogan here at e3 vulture did he just cover my face now you don't you just covered my face with your guns you can do it all familiar I fire you for protection another title that we're looking forward to this coming year kinect Star Wars let's see what this Jedi's all about baby seriously I could do that oh I guess I might not do this don't do that there you have it another successful e3 2011 you know over the years we've covered so many things we've covered great games gadgets we've even got to meet a whole what else is there really left to cover Oh Brian hey at least Hulk Hogan was willing to give you the time of day actually to see Brian's whole interview with the Hulkster and all the rest of our III coverage take a look over it see you at tv.com all kinds of good stuff there and while you're there you can also find the latest installment of tap that app this week Jessica dole court is on the warpath about bland search results luckily she has a solution is it just me or is anyone else bothered by the fact that Google search returns are so freaking boring look at all those plain blue links I mean come on blah anyway I'm Jessica's all court for seeing it and I'm going to show you a far cooler way to search for stuff on your iPhone this my friends is duet it's a new free app and it uses the idea of categories to help you narrow down your search so let's say that you're looking for information about a movie that you want to see just type the title and pick the right shortcut from the list instead of waiting through those generic results duet will actually bring you live web pages from popular websites just keep swiping through until you find the one that you want if something's out of place you can easily delete the ones that do it gets wrong the sites that you heart are the ones that you'll see more often in your results list okay so I mentioned before that the sites are live that means that you can tap them and interact exactly how you would in the browser heck you can even buy movie tickets if you want when you're all done you tap the tab button in the bottom right to return to the main list of course no app would be complete without sharing options to social networks and do it has those 20 and the app will also offer to help you install a native app if there is one there's more than that too and I talked about some of the other features in my hands on review on cnet download.com so check it out there if you've got other suggestions for great apps to cover send them along to tap that app at cnet com I'm Jessica doll court and until next time keep on tap now as with any search app it's going to work best if you have a good data connection on your phone especially since you'll be waiting for not just one page to load but several maybe you want Wi-Fi alright we've covered a lot of ground already but there's still plenty more to come we'll be back for more tech review right after this welcome back to the Cena tech review our weekly video digest of all things good and bad we've seen here at cnet TV continuing on in the good if I do say so myself one of the best things that we do here at cnet is give good buying advice but with some products like smartphones there are so many variables that we can only do so much without knowing how you want to use the phone so if you're in the market for a new smartphone this top five countdown should help you figure out how to look for the right one look I feel for you buying a smartphone is complicated you never feel like you really got the right one I mean I work at cnet for crying out loud every time I buy a new phone i feel kind of sick I'm Brian Cooley with top five things to think about when buying a new smartphone inspired by a survey done by business intelligence they asked people what their number one smartphone buying factor was at number five we're starting off a little wonky its data migration now just three point nine percent of folks said this is their number one concern but I think more should have I mean how are you going to move your contacts calendar media photos messaging history account settings from whatever you carry now to your new smartphone well check cnet TV and Google around for tips on how to move your stuff from phone to phone it's different and sometimes barely possible depending on the combo of phones in question and pack a lunch you may end up doing it several times before it gets done right number four seven point two percent of you said carrier does the carrier you want offer the phone you want now it'd be pretty damn frustrating if you lived in illinois wanted buy a honda accord but they only worked on roads in wisconsin sure you could move but is it worth it that's kind of the situation with phones so as much as i hate to give the carriers that much power in my life or yours that might be where you want to start your search number three surprisingly is app selection I say surprisingly because just over eight percent of you said this is the top priority but there's all that hype around apps much of what makes a smartphone smart are the apps you load on it but clearly a lot of folks remember that the web which all smartphones access is kind of the ultimate app and oh yeah call quality still ranks higher than angry birds well for now number two now we get into some big numbers his features thirty-three percent of you said this is your number one concern area this is stuff like screen resolution battery life keyboard type the cameras the storage doesn't support flash but don't fall for the spec arms race is an eight megapixel camera meaningfully better to you than five megapixels do you even know or do you just want to brag can you really see that extra bajillion dots of screen resolution or is a really good screen really good read our reviews because we tell you what specs make a real difference and so do the users who chime in as well before I get you to the number one thing people cite as their main reason to choose a smartphone let's look at the one that ranked bottom of the list price just three percent said price is their biggest concern that's because price is pretty irrelevant right now the sweet spot for all the top smartphones is 200 bucks for the two year activation a few of them are a hundred dollars few or 250 maybe 300 but not for long expect to pay two bills period it's the full cost of your two-year contract you want to scrutinize that's where you'll spend anywhere from a couple grand to 2400 to pushing $3,000 okay what's the number one thing most often cited by people buying a smartphone their top concern thirty-eight percent say platform android iOS blackberry Windows Phone webOS phones have made operating systems hot and crucial again the operating system the phone runs on dictates what it's good at in many cases and how the interface looks and feels the stuff you have to look at and navigate every time you pick up the phone so you better like it and platform also determines which tech jihad you've just signed up with which fan boys will dis you and the comments your smug techie friends will make behind your back so you see a lot rides on platform okay hope while this has helped and remember relax whatever you get something better comes out next week for more top 5s like this go to top 5 cnet com I'm Brian Cooley thanks to one so now that you know what you're looking for let's see how the new HTC Sensation stacks up against your criteria hey everyone I'm Bonnie toss senior editor at cnet com and I'm here to bring you a first look at the HTC Sensation 4G this is t-mobile's latest Android smartphone and I've really been looking forward to getting my hands on this device ever since I got a sneak peek at it back in spring and the smartphone definitely does not disappoint what really grabbed my attention first was the design the smartphone features a 4.3 inch display but unlike a lot of other 4.3 inch touch devices out there such as a thunderbolt and the Samsung Droid Charge the sensation is pretty slim and not too bulky it has tapered edges so it's really comfortable to hold and it has a high quality feel to it which is something I expect if I'm paying two hundred dollars for it the display is also gorgeous it's a quarter HD super LCD so not quite the calibre of the iphones retina display or samsung super amoled plus screens but text and images still look sharp and vibrant on the sensation screen there's more to the smartphone than just a good design though it's running android 2.3 Gingerbread along with a new version of HTC Sense sense is HTC's custom user experience for Android and they've added some really great features to it the biggest thing is the new lock screen and now offers application shortcuts so instead of having to unlock the phone find the app and then launch it you can just drag the icon to the ring at the bottom and the sensation automatically goes to the app you can also feature more content on the lockscreen such as photos and french stream once you unlock the phone you'll find even more enhancements like this 3d carousel for your home screens and an improved Mail app and widget that provides you with a preview of your messages powering all this goodness is Qualcomm's dual-core 1.2 gigahertz processor which has kept the phone running smoothly so far save the t-mobile g2x which uses in videos dual core chipset is slightly faster but the sensation 4g is still very responsive and it also offers good call quality and battery life the only real downside to the sensation 4g is the internal memory there's four gigabytes of internal storage but only one a bite of that is available to the user t-mobile does ship the phone with a pre-installed a gigabyte microSD card but if you plan on taking a lot of pictures or caring a lot of music or videos it's worth upgrading to a 32 gigabyte card all things considered we think the HTC Sensation 4G is one of the best android phones up there and worthy of our Editor's Choice Award t-mobile has two great Android devices in the g2x and now this and if you like stock Android and want a little more power go with a g2x but i think the sensation 4g is better for the general consumer because of the design and great user experience the HTC Sensation 4G will be available starting june fifteenth for 1 99 99 on contract i'm bonnie chen this has been your first look at the HTC Sensation 4G do we have a winner well like we said that's up to you and your needs but if you're looking to go android and you can live without LTE you can't really go wrong with the sensation and with that let's move on to the bad apple isn't the only one with their heads in the clouds these days Google's actually been there for a while now with their laptops based on the chrome browser although this one might be a little ahead of its time here's Josh Goldman with a slightly skeptical first look hey I'm Josh Goldman senior editor with cnet and this is a look at the samsung series 5 chromebook it's the first of two laptops the other from Acer that runs on Google's Chrome OS now if all you know from operating systems is Windows and Mac this is nothing like those while there might be a lot going on under the hood on this thing to the user it just appears like a web browser and that's it there is no software to install or uninstall for that matter there is no updating no security to worry about that stuff's all done automatically really it's about as simple as a computer can get because everything is web-based to go along with the simplicity of the OS you get a simple computer the series 5 is powered by an intel atom processor typically founded netbooks integrated graphics two gigs of memory and 16 gig solid state hard drive that's plenty of power to stream movies and music play casual games like Angry Birds and of course run all of googles productivity apps like Doc's mail and calendar while giving you a potential battery life of up to eight and a half hours it also wakes instantly and boots from off in less than 10 seconds the thing is if you're used to being able to do a lot of things with your Windows or Mac computer the shine fades pretty fast from the Chromebook working only on the web can be very limiting for example editing photos requires that you upload them to a site edit them and then download them again someone send you a zip file for work that you need to open tough it's not supported so you'll need to find a website to handle it one last thing getting the most from the Chromebook means having a constant web connection there are a number of offline apps you can take advantage of but it really limits what you can do when you've got no Wi-Fi access you can get models with verizon 3g mobile broadband access but it means getting a data plan to do anything significant and again if you're out of range you're out of luck I'm Josh Goldman and that's a look at the samsung series 5 Chromebook I'm all for keeping some of my music or documents or other data in the cloud but all of it let's just say the internet will have to catch up to the Chromebook although I kind of hope it gets there soon let's wrap things up with this week's bottom line when the time came for sony's press conference at e3 monday night pundits were placing bets on how long it would take for somebody from the company to acknowledge the recent playstation network outage and other security concerns well it turns out not very long Sony's Jack Tretton addressed the problems right off the top of the presentation and our own car tsuboi sat down with him soon after this isn't the first time that have come to the stage in an e3 press conference with an elephant in the room Jack Tretton the CEO of sony computer entertainment wasted no time addressing the recent security breach of the sony playstation network at this year's e3 in Los Angeles and I want to apologize both personally in on behalf of the company for any anxiety that we've caused you treadin says the breach which compromised information of up to 77 million users of the PlayStation Network resulting in three weeks of interrupted service in the u.s. could have happened to any company hacking right now is becoming a major major problem across all facets so I think we're confident that were much more secure than we were before but there are very few guarantees in life but there was some good news announced new games and a new handheld device the PS Vita they take everything that was in the PlayStation Portable and now it's got a touch screen so it feels more like an iPod Touch and iPhone and it's got much better graphics like a playstation 3 and sony has made a play for more advanced 3d technology this is Playstations brand new 24 inch 3d display it allows two players eh for 3d glasses and see different images pletely eliminating the need for a split screen sony plans to offer the 3d display as a bundle with glasses a 3d game an hdmi cable and with the price of five hundred dollars it will make it one of the least expensive ways to view HD and 3d movies at home in Los Angeles I'm Cara Tsuboi cnet.com for CBS News the bottom line this week thanks I guess I mean I'm glad Sony acknowledged the security breaches up front but I felt like they mostly just apologize for the inconvenience of not playing games online and not like the inconvenience of the possible identity theft from all the data that was stolen I don't know maybe I just wanted a little more begging for forgiveness or cooler hardware all right folks that's our show come back next week for a hands-on look at iOS 5 on an all-new cnet tech review until then there are tons of great videos available every day at Cena TV com I'll see you next time and thank you for watching