Gadgetory

this week on the scene a tech review the white iphone 4 is here finally Samsung infuses the 4g smartphone market with style it's a battle of the ultra portables and an all-new prize fight and molly's top gift picks for Mother's Day it's all coming up right now hi everyone i'm brian Tong 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 start with the good if you're a good son like me well you already knew that this Sunday is Mother's Day now I do realize that it's only a couple of days away but there's still time to find a great gift especially if your mama likes tech now I'm only maybe on vacation but she took some time out to run down her favorite gift for moms before she left Mother's Day this year is may 8th everyone don't miss it and don't go with the same old collection of flowers and candy you send every year I'm Molly wooden for Brian Cooley with a scene at top five the top five tech gifts for mom coming in at number five it's the Amazon Kindle if she doesn't have a kindle yet people now is the time I mean the ad-supported model is only 114 bucks just make sure you pair it with an amazon gift card for book buying and some sort of certificate for several hours of alone time for reading preferably by a pool somewhere in at number four get her a smartphone we have a lot of favorites in this category from the obvious iphone 4 to the HTC Thunderbolt to the shift 4g on sprint the main goal though is getting mom a gift that will help her take pictures get on facebook text with you when you don't have time to talk get her email and play games on the go if she doesn't have a smartphone yet this is the year to make it happen coming in at number three the Microsoft Xbox Kinect every mom I know right now is loving the kinect for one reason dance central it is an awesomely fun workout and the kids love it too if you don't have an xbox it's a great bundle and if you do the Kinect add-on makes it less of a boy's toy and more of a family console of course if your mom is anything like me you can get her connect and the new Mortal Kombat game I'm not trying to stereotype here much at a very strong number two the ipad 2 I got my mom and iPad and we've never been better Facebook friends it's the perfect email web and video watching device for mom especially if the dude in her life hogs the remote plus hello angry birds rio and i can tell you from personal experience the ipad is the best kid entertainment and education tool you will ever own kid airplane iPad she will thank you and finally my number one tech gift idea for mom this year is my number one tech gifts idea always a roku streaming media box the Roku is the perfect gift it's as cheap as 59 bucks now with no monthly fee plus it's dead simple to set up and you'll be watching streaming movies that video and don't forget that every episode of Mad Men is coming to netflix instant streaming and if there's one constant in the universe it's this we ladies love to watch Don Draper ok now I'm stereotyping but don't try to pretend that it's not true because it is true and that's it for this edition of seen at top 5 i'm molly wood and you can find all the rest of our top 5 videos over at cnet TV com of course if you're watching this after mate there's never really a bad time to tell your mama how much you love her so don't be afraid to hook her up with any of these great gift ideas any time of the year for example the Samsung Infuse 4G for ATT won't be out until later this month but I'll bet your mom will let it slide for a couple weeks if this is a smart phone you picked out for her hey everyone I'm Bonnie Todd senior editor at cnet com and I'm here bringing you a first look at the Samsung Infuse 4G samsung and ATT have finally announced a release date for this phone it's going to be available starting May fifteenth we actually saw this a little while ago but wanted to give you a refresher because it has been a while first looking at the design that you can see that it's kind of big and that's due to the 4.5 inch super amoled plus display it's really gorgeous though it offers more clarity and better outdoor visibility than their Super AMOLED screens and I just compared it to the captivate and you can tell the difference the colors are really vibrant and pop off the screen and watching videos and pictures on here look really great so it is big but it is thin as well it's eight point nine millimeters thin and Samsung is saying it's the thinnest smartphone available in the US it's also got this little texture ice back on here which I really like because I've complained before that Samsung's phones have been kind of plastic e so this does a nice job of adding a little bit more of a premium feel to it feature wise is offering a 1.2 gigahertz processor belts look at an 8 megapixel camera as well as a front facing camera it is a 4d device and running android 2.2 point one a couple of special things it's shipping with a 2 gigabyte microSD card with a couple of movie oilers on here and a special edition of angry birds where there's a golden egg and if you get through the levels you can go to website and get some Samsung prizes so little motivation to play Angry Birds here if you need it AT&T is still finalizing pricing for the phone but you can check our blog post at cnet com for more information and more first impressions I'm Bonnie town this has been your first look at the same stuff infuse 4g and while we're on the subject of Mother's Day what mom doesn't enjoy taking snapshots of her adorable children like me here's Josh Goldman with a pair of pointed shoot cameras that take great photos while keeping things simple hey I'm Josh Goldman senior editor we've seen it and this is a look at the sony cybershot w 570 now the W 570 replaces the cyber-shot w350 which was a popular camera with our readers and one of my favorite ultra compacts from 2010 on the upside nothing much changes from that model to this there's a resolution bump from 14 to 16 megapixels and the lens is a little brighter wider and longer but the body remains very small what you should know is that the increased resolution doesn't improve photo quality so it doesn't really add anything and the increase seems to be slowing down shooting speed at least from shot to shot and while the lens specs are nice the edges and corners of photos appear soft so unless your subjects are in the center of your shot they might not be all that sharp still for its size and price it takes very good photos and movie clips too for that matter in 720p HD the camera is easy to use and Sony's embedded a full user manual if you need help along the way plus it has Sony's sweep panorama feature for quick ultra wide shots so even though it's not a huge jump forward from the w350 it's worth checking out if you're looking for a good camera that you won't hesitate to take with you I'm Josh Goldman and that's the sony cybershot w 570 hi there I'm Josh Goldman senior editor with cnet and this is a look at the canon powershot 830 300 is this is the top of canons a series lineup for 2011 also known as it's easy and fun cameras the most part that just means that cannon did its best to make the camera simple enough for anyone to pick up and use and it is really if you never want to leave it's smart auto mode you're pretty much in good shape to shoot a wide variety of subjects without touching a thing the controls and menus are straight forward to so no problems there well almost no problems anyway the buttons are flat and flush with the body making them a little difficult to press but otherwise the design is fine and as the top model in the line it's still less than one hundred and eighty dollars by the way you get some better than basic features that includes optical image stabilization for the 5x zoom wide-angle lens a nice 3-inch LCD on back and 720p HD movie capture no use of the optical zoom while recording though and if you want to do a little experimenting with your photos can it includes its new live view control mode and that lets you play with brightness color and tone and gives you some sliders so it's really easy to do and there's also creative filters like toy camera poster effect and super vivid photo and video quality are quite good for the money and really other than the flat buttons the only issue I had with it is it's shot to shot speed which is close to four seconds and five seconds with the flash but if that doesn't bother you this is a fine choice for an ultra compact camera I'm Josh Goldman and that's the Canon 830 300 is now if your mom likes your gadgets to look a little more girly the canon powershot is also available in other colors including pink and red otherwise both are also available in stylish silver or basic black okay guys it's time to take a quick break but we'll be right back with more tech review right after this welcome back to the scene attack review our weekly video digest of all things good and bad we've seen here at cnet TV now continuing on in the good the time has come for more of what you've all been waiting for more of me that's right it's time for this week's prize fight and this one's a doozy in this battle of ultra portables the new Samsung 9 series takes on the reigning champ the macbook air which one will come out on top oh there's only one way to find out what's up prize 5 fans i'm brian Tong and this is a blockbuster battle between two of the thinnest 13 inch laptops it's a prized by a Throwdown showdown between samsung's nine series and apple's macbook air our judges for this fight our senior editor dan I think I can ackerman senior associate editor Scott the bottom line Stein and Bryan can't go wrong tom now will take all three judges blind scores and average them out to the nearest tenth each round the final prize fight score will be an average of all rounds using the same decimal system this is going to be a classic so who's in it to win it round one is designed Samsung's 9 series looks like a piece of Modern Art with its gorgeous rap sheet metal design its plastic bezel is a fingerprint magnet but its thinnest point is point zero two inches thinner than the airs thickest point for those you that Karen come on we know who you are now there's still nothing on this planet that can match the superior design of apple's unibody macbook air its blade design is super thin lightweight and sturdy this is just another iconic stud in apple stable both laptops are amazing and should be praised for raising the bar in ultrathin design but Apple is still a cut above the rest it gets a perfect five and the 9 series gets a 4.3 next round is features Samsung's 9 series just brings it when it comes to features with a core i5 processor double the RAM at four gigs and a backlit keyboard yes it maxes out with a 128 gig solid-state drive and there's flip out ports for an Ethernet dongle HDMI out two USBs audio out and a microSD card slot now the macbook air improves from its predecessor with two USB ports and an SD card slot there's also a mini DisplayPort for video out and audio out on the other side but it's Ethernet dongle takes up a USB port when used a differentiator is its multi-touch trackpad with gestures but you'll have no backlit keyboard the biggest option is the ability to double the storage to 256 gigs but that's more of an option and not a feature the nine series takes this round with the four and the macbook air gets a three so after averaging two rounds Samsung leads by two tenths of a point with plenty of fight left round three is performance these two laptops are surprisingly evenly matched you might think Samsung's 1.4 gigahertz core i5 would destroy the air but it's low voltage processor has similar performance with the airs 1.8 or 2 duo now here's some of our benchmark tests where Apple did score faster in two of the three tests but neither of these thinnies were able to separate themselves in graphic performance Apple's wake up from sleep is almost an instant on but this one is too close to call and we're calling this round even at four points apiece next round is battery life with ultra portables the amount of juice you have to go the distance is key Samsung was able to squeeze out five hours and 22 minutes of life from our battery drain tests while Apple's MacBook Air was just under five at four hours and 58 minutes the nine Series was almost 30 minutes better and that's top of the class for this laptop category it takes this round with the 4.3 and Apple gets up for after averaging four rounds Samsung still holds on to its two tenths of a point lead but anything can happen here the final round that decides it all is value these are ultra portables not netbooks but a premium class of laptops using solid state drives with a premium price to match Samsung's 9 series will cost you get ready for this one 1649 dollars which makes Apple's pricing look like a bargain it'll scare consumers initially but there's more to it now I purchase the coverage plan for all my laptops and the Samsung price includes three years of warranty now Apple's MacBook Air at one thousand two hundred ninety nine dollars isn't the cheapest for a 13-inch but again that's not why you're paying attention to this you can double the hard drive to 256 gigs and you'll still be cheaper than the nine series at 1599 but the air only comes with a one-year warranty and it's $249 to get applicators three-year coverage that puts these two in the same ballpark but 1649 still scares people Apple takes this final round with the poor and Samsung gets a 3 so let's average out all five rounds and enterprise fight that was neck and neck without any room to budge Apple takes the final round pushing it just over the top 4.0 to 3.9 and is your prize fight winner this is a prize fight where you really can't go wrong but in the end the macbook air prevails i'm brian song thanks for watching and we'll catch you guys next time on another prize fight though some might just call the 9 series a macbook rip off there's no denying that it has a lot going for it beyond the super slim design but for my money you can't go wrong with the macbook air and hey I host the Apple bite what else you expect me to say alright let's take a look at what we've got in the bag this week earlier in the show we saw the new and few smartphone and Bonnie choc couldn't say enough good things about it that's hardly the case with the nokia e7 take a look hey everyone I'm Bonnie Todd senior editor at cnet com and I'm here to bring you a first look at the nokia e7 this is the latest flagship device in their a series of business smartphones and it's available now unlocked but it cost a pretty penny 650 dollars to be exact so is it worth it let's take a look the phone actually resembles the nokia n8 in a lot of ways which isn't bad because the n8 had a pretty great design what I like about it is the high quality construction and it has an aluminum casing and glass display so it feels like a premium device and not plastic be like a lot of the other devices out there slightly bigger and heavier than the n8 but it's really not that bulky especially when you consider that Nokia packed in a full keyboard you can access it by pushing the screen to the right or up depending on how you're holding it the sliding mechanism is smooth and the hinge feel strong and I also like that it props the screen at a slight angle so it's easier to read while you're typing the keyboard is one of the highlights of the phone the buttons are good size and there's a nice amount of spacing between them plus the way out is really roomy so it felt very comfortable to use and I could type pretty quickly on it without too many miss presses unfortunately that's about where my love fest for the e7 ends the device has a good number features for business users including Exchange ActiveSync support the Quick Office suite and security features plus it's got a pretty great 8 megapixel camera and HDMI port but like the n8 the symbian operating system just brings the device down it's running symbian3 so at least you get some improvements like the simpler one touch user interface and better multimedia options but it's still clunky and lacks some functionality compared to other platforms like iOS Android and Windows Phone with a 6 180 megahertz processor it also feels pretty underpowered and the smartphone actually froze on me once well is trying to play a video so with all these performance and software issues it's really hard for me to recommend this phone especially with its 650 dollar price tag if you really love Simeon it might be worth it but otherwise I'd say if you want a business smartphone with a qwerty keyboard go with something like the t-mobile g2 or HTC arrived I'm Bonnie Tom this has been your first look at the nokia e7 so basically if you're thinking of a smartphone for your mom this weekend and you had your eye on the nokia e7 here's my advice don't not if you expect your mom to ever do your laundry for you ever again not that she does it for me okay there's nothing left to do but dive right into this week's bottom line it's been almost a year now since the iphone 4 was announced and after a series of delays the white version finally started shipping just this week so was it worth the wait let's check in with kent german to see what he thinks hi I'm Kent Sherman section editor for cnet.com and it's a big day here in the studio because we actually have the white iphone yes it's the white iphone 4 we've waited so long for it months and months and months and well you probably waited so long that you might not even care at this point but we're going to show it to you nave just because it has been so talked about and we still don't know why it took Apple so long to reduce this device we've heard that it could have been the proximity sensor we also have a rumor on the 3gs there was some discoloration on the white iphone so we never know but this device is finally here we're going to show it to you of course it is exactly the same we are showing a verizon phone here and AT&T verizon will both offer the white iphone of course the only differences will be what network it runs on features are exactly the same on the black iphone 4 so it's going to have the camera it's going to have itunes connectivity it's going to have the ipod player it's going to have the browser everything that you'd expect on that phone is going to be there and there are no cosmetic differences except for the white color you will notice a line up here and actually when i first saw it I thought that maybe oh this is something new it's actually not the black iphone hatch has that as well you just can't see it because like the skin of the phone it's also black you have to hold it up so the light to really see that line but that's the only thing that's different this is the verizon iphone so of course there is that extra line here in the antenna but again that's the only difference is you're going to see starting with the earlier iPhones I've never been such a fan of the white models but I know a lot of people have been so it's great that you can now have the option to buy it of course it doesn't have a unicorn horn on it you might be waiting for that because a lot of people call this attack unicorn but it does just doesn't have that unicorn horn on the back I thought the back looked a little cheaper than the black iphone it's just a real subjective thing that I saw you may not agree but just didn't like the skin quite as much the upside though is the back won't show fingerprints as easily as the black iphone get smudgy really quickly and you're not going to see that here now there's been a lot of controversy over whether the I white iphone is actually thicker than the black model some blogs have posted photos they do see a difference even though it's maybe point 2 millimeters which is hardly anything and other blogs and news reports have said as no difference check the video where we actually take the phone down to a place in San Francisco they can measure things really really accurately down to even smaller than a millimeter so we'll see if that's actually true but for right now I don't see any difference we also heard that the white iphone doesn't accommodate the standard cases or bumpers that Apple's actually put out well app was good enough to send us a white bumper or she can use any bumper you'd like and you know when I snapped it on I didn't think it went on any more difficult than on the black iphone I also didn't see a difference when I tried using this other case that I currently use on a black iphone 4 it snapped on just as easily as well so I think even if it is a little bit bigger I don't think it's a big deal and be honest with you I'm sure that when you make a bunch of products like that sometimes there are very very slight differences to come out of the production line but overall the white iphone exactly the same as I said may not be your cup of tea but it's finally finally here and if you don't care and I'm sure there's a lot of you out there that don't well its here anyway for you i'm kent german and this is the white iphone 4 the bottom line this week yep it's white I mean what else can I say it's still the same phone which is great and now you're really cool now look you've got the white iphone no one else has it okay I admit it is kind of pretty okay folks that's our show but Molly will be back next week with a brand new scene at tech review until then there are tons of great videos available every day at cnet TV com see you next time and thanks for watching