Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T77
The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T77 ($299.99 direct) is a beauty. Its compact design, metallic features, and touch screen make it feel like a luxury item. Aside from color fringing in the corners of images, most users will find the shots they take dazzling. The camera’s 3-inch LCD touch screen is very responsive, and the user interface is more intuitive than those of competing touch-screen models, such as the Nikon Coolpix S60 or the Kodak EasyShare v1073. The less-expensive Canon PowerShot SD790 IS ($249) and Nikon Coolpix S610c deliver images that are on a par with T77’s, but they don’t have touch screens and fun in-camera retouching options. Beyond that, this Cyber-shot is just handsome. Of course, as with any camera that employs a touch screen, battery life suffers.
Sony includes physical buttons for the most commonly used mission-critical operations: on/off, shutter release, playback/shoot, and zoom in/out. This makes life a lot easier—having to work with the touch screen for these operations could become a nuisance. The zoom control on the Nikon S60 is an icon; as a result, you’re often relying on the touch screen, and that becomes very frustrating. If you’re the type of user who takes pictures only in Auto mode, you’ll probably use the T77 touch screen only to view your pictures in playback mode.
The T77 is reasonably quick camera. It’s not the fastest I’ve tested, but you definitely won’t feel as if you’re always waiting for it to catch up to you, as you do with some cameras. First of all, it comes alive quickly: In testing it was able to pull off its first shot in an average of 2.28 seconds after I slid down the shield. And wait time between shots averaged a speedy 2.54 seconds. You won’t have to worry much about shutter lag, either. Using a Shooting Digital shutter lag test, the average of my trials came out to 0.33 second—that’s lightning fast. With so little delay, you’re far less likely to miss important shots.
I use a hardware and software suite called Imatest to get an objective rate for key image characteristics that determine image quality. I concentrate mostly on noise, sharpness, distortion, and color fringing. The T77 performed well in all of these categories except color fringing. Test results showed that most images, when closely inspected, showed color fringing in the corners. On my resolution tests, the T77 captured an average 2,009 pixels per picture height at the center of the lens, which is excellent. It indicates that the center of pictures should be very sharp. Toward the corners of the lens, this number decreased by 24 percent, but there’s bound to be some decrease, and anything less than 30 percent is acceptable. The results indicate that the camera should offer consistently sharp detail throughout images. The Nikon s60, by comparison, captured an average of only 1,683 pixels in the center, and this number decreased by 31 percent towards the corners.
As with most point-and-shooters, you’ll find distortion at both ends of the lens, but the amounts were tolerable. In the wide-angle position, barrel distortion is evident. At the full telephoto position, there’s a bit of pincushion distortion.
Noise levels are acceptable up to and including ISO 400. At ISO 800, things become very dicey, even though you can set the ISO up to 3200. At that highest level, however, you’ll probably be disappointed with the result. Imatest indicated that even at ISO 1600, the noise level was so high that it compromised sharpness by roughly 70 percent.
When I looked at shots I’d taken with the T77 and the Nikon s60 after a morning of rain, I found that the T77 had definitely produced slightly sharper imagery. In a picture of a motorcycle, droplets of rain on the chrome had more definition. As Imatest had indicated, the T77’s images showed some color fringing when viewed at actual size. In the same motorcycle photo, the white lane divider stripes on the street’s black pavement had reds bleeding from one side and blues from the other.
The T77 can record video at 640-by-480 resolution, more commonly known as standard definition (SD). Sony saves high-definition recording for the $399 Cyber-shot T-500. Video recorded with the T77 looks and sounds good. I wish, however, that the camera could take advantage of its 16:9 LCD screen and record widescreen SD video at that aspect ratio at 848-by-480 resolution. The Casio Exilim z250 offers this capability.
Sony has jam-packed this shooter with features, including face and smile detection. With smile detection, you just keep the camera pointed at the face in question—the camera snaps a picture when the smile appears. The T77’s strongest feature, however, is its large assortment of in-camera editing options. There’s a cornucopia of fun effects to choose from, among them soft focus, fish-eye lens, radial blur, and retro. You can even increase someone’s smile ( see the slide show for details ). Each effect has different intensity levels, and the camera adds the effect to a copy of the image, so the original stays intact.
This camera has a lot of features that will impress, but battery performance isn’t one of them. We don’t do a formal battery rundown test for cameras, but, in any case, just taking picture after picture until the camera’s battery runs out of juice isn’t indicative of real-world performance. Why not? Because much of the time spent using a camera involves viewing images on its LCD screen, which can drain the battery without taking a single exposure. This camera has a big LCD, and one that is a touch screen, so I’d expect its lithium ion battery life to be shorter, and the T77 didn’t surprise me. With most cameras, I can test for an entire week on one charge. The T77 required multiple charges during my review period. You may want to carry a spare battery, if you pick the T77.
The Sony Cyber-shot T77 faces tough competition when it comes to point-and-shoot cameras that deliver image quality and speed without draining your bank account. The Canon PowerShot 790 IS, Canon s610, and Nikon s610c, for example, deliver comparable images without the color fringing. Still, Sony’s handsome T77 offers good speed, solid imagery, and exciting in-camera editing tools, all of which add up to a very good buy—just don’t forget to bring along an extra battery.
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Canon PowerShot A1000 IS
At $199 (list), the PowerShot A1000 IS is the least-expensive 10-megapixel camera Canon has released this year. Despite its low price, it’s a great pick for those who prefer to shoot using auto settings exclusively. In Easy Mode, the camera delivers crisp colorful images. But be warned, if you step into its manual mode and move to higher ISO settings, the noisier-than-average pictures will disappoint.
Beginners and pros alike will appreciate the speed at which you can focus, shoot, and repeat with the A1000. The camera boots up and snaps its first shot in an average of 1.99 seconds. The wait time between shots averages a mere 2.81 seconds. Using shootingdigital.com to measure the camera’s shutter lag, the A1000 averaged 0.49 second, so fast that it blew away the much-pricier $349 Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX37, which averaged 0.85 second.
After capturing test patterns with the camera, I used Imatest software to analyze the images’ amount of noise and distortion. For its price, the A1000 IS performed very well.
At the center of its lens, the A1000 captures an impressive 2,083 lines per picture height. (The more lines, the sharper the image.) Even the more-expensive 10MP Fuji FinePix Z200fd ($299 list) could produce only 1,439 lines, which makes the A1000’s images 45 percent sharper. As you travel to the outer areas of the lens, sharpness drops by about 39 percent; any drop more than 30 percent is typically bad news, but since the A1000 is an inexpensive entry-level camera, it’s acceptable. Imatest also indicated that color fringing isn’t an issue, so images with high contrast won’t produce unwanted colors, unlike the entry-level Nikon Coolpix S210, whose images featured excessive fringing.
You’ll see significant noise in images at higher ISO settings, but if you stick with the camera’s automatic settings it’s not a problem. Typically, point-and-shoot cameras will stay in ISO 100 to 400 when in automatic mode. The noise levels in the ISO 800-to-1600 range were very high, so shots produced at those settings will look seriously grainy. Even the not-so-great Casio z250 showed about 50 percent less noise at ISO 800 than the A1000.
Image stabilization and face detection both work well. Some of Sony’s more recent models, such as the Cyber-shot DSC-T300, go a step further by offering smile detection and anti-blink features, but the A1000 delivers on the basics. In face detection mode, subject’s faces become boxed targets on the LCD and as they move, the target follows, even if a subject turns sideways. The dedicated face detection button will turn the feature on or off, but also acts as a “face select” button. If you have multiple faces detected, tapping this button will cycle through each one so you can choose which face should be the primary focus. It’s very useful if subjects are at different distances from the camera and you want to focus on a subject in the foreground rather than in the background.
Video produced by the A1000 is fluid and clear, recording at a resolution of 640 by 480 and 30 frames per second. But if you’re big on video, the Kodak EasyShare V1073 and M1033 both record at 1,280 by 720 and 30 frames per second, which is not only HD quality but spectacular in comparison.
The A1000 uses AA batteries, which can be viewed as a positive or a negative. A beginner might find it easier to simply carry around extra AA batteries to swap in, but more advanced users may prefer a rechargeable lithium ion cell.
The Canon PowerShot A1000 greatest threats come from the aforementioned Kodak EasyShare V1073 and M1033. Both models are thinner, use rechargeable batteries, and capture HD video, for about the same price. What these other two don’t offer is the image quality and ease of use that come with the A1000 IS. This entry-level camera excels at the basics: dead-simple “Easy Mode” shooting, sharp images, and speedy performance, all at a very palatable price, so it easily earns our Editors’ Choice for best low-cost point–and-shoot model.
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HP Pavilion Elite m9400t
The HP Pavilion Elite m9400t ($1,109 list; $1,440 with 20-inch widescreen monitor) will look familiar to some. It’s housed in the same case as the m9200t I looked at not too long ago, and it’s externally identical to the m9040n I reviewed last year. Like those systems, the m9400t is built to order, and it’s optimized for the multimedia enthusiast—as in the teen or adult in your family who thinks that the current family PC is “too slow” and “doesn’t do enough.” The m9400t has as many inputs and outputs on it as a typical A/V receiver in your home theater, and it’s just as much the center of your digital life. It has a friendly $1,110 price, and it’s the PC you’ll want to use when you get serious about the photos you shoot, the videos you post to the Internet, and the shows you watch on TV.
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runSlideShow(); The m9400t comes in a mid-tower case with an abundance of discreetly hidden input and output ports for your analog and digital sound and video. With both front doors closed, the system looks like a standard PC, albeit one with an attractive black glossy finish and silvery accents. The right door hides the Personal Media Drive bay (more on that later), and the left one hides easy-to-reach inputs for FireWire, USB, headphones, a microphone, and a full set of A/V inputs for video-in, audio L/R-in, and S-Video-in. (That’s right, you can hook up your analog camcorder or VCR to the system.) On the back there’s another set of A/V inputs that connect right into the TV tuner card (for set-top boxes such as cable boxes), antenna jacks for over-the-air and FM radio, more USB ports, another FireWire port, and digital audio input and output. Along with the ports, there’s a digital media card reader.
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The m9400t comes with a Blu-ray reader, so you can play back high-definition movies. It can burn CDs and DVDs, but not BD-R (Blu-ray) discs. This is fine, because it saves you a few hundred dollars over the Blu-ray burner model. BD-R media is still too expensive, and Blu-ray drives are rare enough to make the ability to burn Blu-ray discs not absolutely necessary. The m9400t has HDCP-compliant DVI and HDMI ports on the back of its GeForce 9500 GS card, so you can hook up a DVI monitor or an HDTV. Both formats look terrific played back on the m9400t. The system also has 802.11g Wi-Fi networking, so you don’t have to set it up near your cable modem if you don’t want to.
Home video files, music, and photos can take up a lot of hard drive space. The system’s 500GB built-in hard drive is roomy but likely to fill up quickly. The m9400t has, in addition, slots for two different types of removable hard drives. The first is for Pocket Media drives, which come in 160GB and 320GB capacities, at $120 and $180 direct, respectively; they are notebook-class drives that can be powered via a USB cable. The other is for Personal Media drives, which come in 500GB and 1TB capacities (at $120 and $180) and are desktop-class drives—they need an external power adapter when not plugged into the m9400t. Both will give you seemingly unlimited storage, and both work with the “easy backup” button on the front of the system. You can set the button to launch an automatic backup of anything you have on the system, including your documents, digital media, and more. Especially on a media system, where you’re storing all your family’s memories, it’s important to back up your data.
When it comes to performance, the m9400t’s 3GB of memory and quad-core Q6600 processor helped the system obtain impressive benchmark test results. The m9400t finished the Windows Media Encoder test in a speedy 46 seconds, and the Photoshop CS3 test in 29 seconds. Earlier this year, high-end machines like the Gateway FX7020 performed the same tests in around a minute, but the m9400t is pretty much on a par with what we’re seeing in multimedia PCs nowadays.
Even though the system has a discrete GeForce 9500 GS graphics card, it’s not ideal for 3D gaming. The m9400t’s World in Conflict score of 29 frames per second at a resolution of 1,280-by-1,024 indicates a mostly playable speed. On Crysis at the same resolution, however, the system’s score was a jerky 20 fps. That said, it should have no problem playing more modest games like Company of Heroes or World of Warcraft. If 3D performance is important, you can swap the graphics card for something more powerful when you configure it to order, but of course that will cost more money.
If there are any drawbacks to this system, it’s that it has a bunch of bloatware on it, including programs like a Microsoft Office 60-day trial, “My HP Games” by Wild Tangent, Yahoo! Toolbar, and Snapfish Picture Mover. I classify all these as bloatware because you can download them free on the Internet: They don’t give you any extra utility by coming preinstalled, and three of the four programs will try to sell you something (more game time, digital photo prints, and a full version of Office, to be exact). While there may not be anything inherently malicious about any of the three, they constitute advertisements that you really don’t need. Speaking of ads, there are plenty of them on the desktop and in the Vista Welcome Center (the first screen you see after you’ve setup your PC, and every time you turn on the PC unless you turn Welcome Center off), including ads for eBay, Juno and NetZero (dial-up Internet providers), MSN, and WeatherBug. The m9400t isn’t alone in this offense (systems from eMachines and Sony are similarly burdened with bloatware), but that doesn’t make it right.
HP does redeem itself a little bit by offering a 15-month subscription for Norton Internet Security. This is a vast improvement over systems from Dell and Gateway that come with measly 30-to-60-day subscriptions.
Ultimately it’s the features you get for the price that earn the HP Pavilion Elite m9400t its Editors’ Choice award for mainstream desktops. This is the system to buy if you want to spend around $1,000 and still enjoy multimedia-rich features and performance.
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Sony VAIO VGC-LV190Y
The Sony VAIO VGC-LV190Y ($2,799.99 list) is the best fusion of HDTV and PC I’ve seen yet, despite a couple of software nits. It combines the large screen and high resolution of an HDTV with the computing power of a dual-core multimedia PC. It’s got all the things you’d want in a mainstream home PC: wireless networking, an easy-to-use wireless keyboard and mouse, large screen, capacious hard drive, speedy processing, and a lot of RAM. It also has a lot of the features you’d want in an HDTV for the bedroom or den: built-in ATSC/HDTV tuner, largish screen, and the all-important HDMI input.
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runSlideShow(); The LV series is the successor to the LT series, as exemplified by the VGC-LT29U I looked at last spring. Sony addressed all of the shortcomings of that TV/PC combo in the new model. The screen is larger, so it finally displays a true 1,920-by-1,080 HD picture (in a 1,920-by-1,200 total screen resolution). Everything is wireless, including the keyboard with its new integrated touchpad and the svelte wireless mouse with back and forward buttons. The bloatware and crapware have been reined in. Last but not least, although the LV190Y no longer has a CableCARD option, it has something better and more flexible: a HDMI input! You can use this port with a cable or satellite TV box and the included IR blaster to watch TV just as if you were using a standard HDTV. Needless to say, Blu-ray movies look great on the 24-inch screen.
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This model is ideal for someone who needs a new TV in the bedroom (or den) and wants a new computer as well, but doesn’t want the computer to clash with the decor. The LC190Y’s adds PC guts to the HDTV exterior: a speedy dual-core Core 2 Duo E8500 processor, 4GB of DDR2 memory, nVidia GeForce 9300M GS graphics, and 1TB of hard drive space. The LV190Y can be detached from its table stand and mounted on a wall or in an armoire.
The LV190Y’s side panels are a little slimmer than those of its professional brother, the VAIO VGC-RT150Y, and the LV190Y has a sleeker, slot-loading Blu-ray burner instead of a chunky tray-loading drive. On those side panels are USB ports; controls for the HDMI input, wireless, and volume; audio ports; SD card slot; Memory Stick card slot; and an ExpressCard/34 slot. There’s a webcam built in as well, as befits a consumer PC. (Many businesses don’t want webcams at all for security reasons.) Overall, the LV190Y looks like a Sony Bravia TV with the “brushed metal” finish and coloring.
So how is it as a PC? I had trouble testing the system with our 3D benchmark tests, since the LV190Y wouldn’t sync to our 1,280-by-1,024 standard test resolution. At 1,280-by-768, Crysis tested at a disappointing and unplayable 9 frames per second. At the panel’s native 1,920-by-1,200 resolution, the LV190Y, predictably, was good only for a slideshow-like 2 fps on both Crysis and World in Conflict.
Things went a lot better on the multimedia benchmark tests. The LV190Y finished the Windows Media Encoder test in 52 seconds and the Photoshop CS3 test in only 24 seconds. These scores approach those of the much more expensive ($3,999) quad-core-powered Sony RT150Y (40 seconds for WME, 28 seconds for CS3). Massively overclocked systems like the Velocity Micro Raptor Signature Edition do even better (34 seconds for WME, 14 seconds for CS3). Then again, the Raptor or one of its ilk would look silly on your bedroom dresser.
The new LV190Y sticks very little crapware in your face—a definite improvement over the Sony VAIO LT29U. The obnoxious repeated offers are gone. There are the usual suspects on the system: Microsoft Office 60-day trial and AOL, but the VAIO-branded utilities are at least useful. Antivirus and Internet protection is now covered by Windows OneCare Live (instead of Norton), but it’s a measly 90-day trial. I’d like to see a 12- to 15-month subscription, which is what you get on the HP Pavilion Elite m9400t.
The Apple iMac (3.06-GHz Penryn), when tricked out to similar specs (4GB RAM, 1TB hard drive, 3.06-GHz Core 2 Duo processor) for $2,649, is undoubtedly a better 3D performer, since it has a higher-performing nVidia GeForce 8800 GS graphics card, but the LV190Y would be much better for a bedroom or den if you want to watch TV there. Sure, you can watch iTunes and online videos on both PCs, but the LV190Y has the TV tuner and the HDMI port to support devices like TiVo HD, the Sony PlayStation 3, or your cable box. The LV190Y also has Blu-ray, which Steve Jobs recently called “a bag of hurt” when asked if Apple will support it in its notebooks. I’m not saying that you’ll never be able to get Blu-ray in an iMac; you just can’t for now.
The LV190Y outclasses HP’s all-in-one TouchSmart IQ506 PC, since the Sony has a large screen, Blu-ray, and a better keyboard and mouse. But it’s not really a fair fight, since the IQ506 is built around the touch screen and is barely half the price of the LV190Y. Stay tuned for a comparison with the larger HP TouchSmart IQ800 series in the near future.
While I wouldn’t necessarily say that the Sony VGC-LV190Y dethrones the Apple iMac as king of all-in-ones, the LC190Y is a better choice in the bedroom than just about any PC. With its more TV-centric focus and design, the LV190Y overshadows the former all-in-one co-champion, the Dell XPS One. The VAIO LV190Y is certainly worthy of the Editors’ Choice mantle and comes highly recommended for those TV junkies who also need a PC. It’s the best of both worlds.
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Final Chrome Version Boosts Render Speed
PC Magazine has performed follow-up tests of Google Chrome to see how much progress the browser has made since coming out of beta. The results show that its already fast JavaScript performance on the respected Sunspider benchmark has gotten even faster and compatibility with popular sites such as Facebook has improved.
The retest shows a 24 percent speed improvement, bringing this released browser to the same level of performance as Firefox’s second beta 3.1 version. The new numbers far outstrip what Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was capable of, by a factor of nearly 100, and even bested the released version of Firefox 3.0’s results more than threefold.
However, there are still sites that kick back an “unsupported browser” message when a user attempts to view them using Chrome, such as Microsoft’s Office Live site. Chrome has added a separate bookmarks window, though it still lacks many capabilities found in the competition, such as bookmarking multiple sites at once (also known as tabbed groups) and tagging.
In memory usage, Chrome still holds up the rear, using somewhat more RAM than Internet Explorer, and more than double what Firefox consumed in testing with the same set of ten content rich sites. In standards support, Opera is still the leader, garnering 85 out of 100 possible points on the Acid3 Browser Compatibility test from the Web Standards Project.
Google Chrome
review DATE:12.12.08
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Chrome has two major things going for it: It’s lightning fast, and it’s from the biggest Web brand around. Now it adds a third draw: It’s released software rather than a beta test program. Google’s famous for leaving on the beta tag indefinitely, but the company needed to take off the beta tag in order to bundle the software with PC makers. Though the software is now officially “done,” it’s still lacking a lot of the richness available in other browsers, especially in the area of customizability. Nor, with the release of Firefox 3.1 beta is it any longer the fastest browser around, trailing the new Firefox by a small margin. I’ve taken a look at Chrome 1.0 to see what’s changed since the beta, but few of my conclusions change.
Chrome has two major things going for it: It’s lightning fast, and it’s from the biggest Web brand around. Now it adds a third draw: It’s released software rather than a beta test program. Google’s famous for leaving on the beta tag indefinitely, but the company needed to take off the beta tag in order to bundle the software with PC makers. Though the software is now officially “done,” it’s still lacking a lot of the richness available in other browsers, especially in the area of customizability. Nor, with the release of Firefox 3.1 beta is it any longer the fastest browser around, trailing the new Firefox by a small margin. I’ve taken a look at Chrome 1.0 to see what’s changed since the beta, but few of my conclusions change.
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runSlideShow(); With Chrome, Google set out to build a browser not merely as a viewer for Web sites and pages, but a platform for running Web applications. This is hardly a new concept—Firefox’s developers have touted their browser as a “platform” for a few years. But Chrome has a couple of new tricks under the hood that suit it well for use with Web applications. And its spare, “get-the-browser-out-of-the-way” aesthetic complements this goal, too. In developer-speak, the term chrome refers to the window borders, controls, and general eye candy. Google’s browser actually aims to minimize these, so it might more accurately be called “Antichrome.” The question is, do we need another browser when Internet Explorer serves most users just fine, Safari supports the Mac crowd, and Firefox warms the hearts of techie tweakers?
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Actually, Chrome isn’t a completely new browser. Google did develop one important piece of code in-house—its V8 JavaScript rendering engine, which uses a virtual machine to monitor and optimize JavaScript execution. But the browser is actually built on the open-source WebKit rendering engine used by Apple’s Safari, and it incorporates code from Mozilla’s Firefox, which is open-source as well. This means it should correctly present any sites that work in Safari, though in my testing, that wasn’t always the case. It also means the address bar’s prediction and security features should work just like those in Firefox, and that was the case. Chrome is currently Windows-only, but the company is working on Mac and Linux versions.
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Which Web Browser is King?
It’s a highly debatable topic, one that tends to be subjective and fraught with inconsistencies. For example, latency on the Internet can dramatically affect browser speed. One day, Google Chrome can load IGN.com faster than butter on a banana, the next day (say, when a new Gears of War 2 review posts), latency can slow the site to a crawl, and Chrome seems like a dud. That’s why, when you see speed tests for browser that claim “Chrome loads faster” it’s important to ask a few questions: loaded when, over what broadband speed, with what other apps running, on what machine?
Speed, of course, isn’t everything. We ran into an interesting compatibility glitch or two completing some of our tests. If a browser can’t finish a particular benchmark, it doesn’t get a score.
What does it mean, ultimately? For the average user, it may not mean much. But for those of us who spend vast amounts of time on the Internet, for work and play, browser performance is a big issue. Waiting for sites to load is no fun when you’re trying to get work done.
Testing Methodology
In this comprehensive browser speed test, I pulled out all of the stops. First, I found just about every speed test site around. Google offers a V8 test that tests JavaScript speed for Web apps. I also found test sites for SVG (scalable vector formats—an XML specification), Acid3 (a Web standards test engine), Canvas (an HTML extension), and DOM (document object model—an XML object). And, I found a great Flash test site that loads crabs into the browser one by one until the frame rate drops below 25FPS—it was originally designed for the PlayStation 3 but it works great as a generic speed tester.
Of course, I also tested ten content-rich sites for pure load time. Again, latency plays a major factor here, so I also tested all the sites several times through the day and used the average time.
I didn’t stop there. I repeated all of these tests on three different computers. I performed the tests on a Dell XPS M1530 laptop with 4GB of RAM, a 2.50GHz processor (the Intel T9300), and Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit as the base machine—a typical laptop. (Those are the results you see below.)
To verify the benchmark sites, I repeated the tests on a high-end workstation: an HP xw6400 with 16GB of RAM, a 3.0GHz processor, and Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit. Finally, I used a slower-than-dirt Mac Mini Intel Single Core 1.5GHz Mac with 2GB of RAM as a third sanity test. Since latency is an obvious factor, I tested over the same 2Mbps broadband feed in my home.
It’s interesting to note that the high-end PC and the low-end Mac Mini did not produce different results in any of these tests, with only slightly different rendering results (a second or two) for site loading and JavaScript. That means, the important issue is broadband speed and the browser itself and how it handles the code.
Now, a note about which browsers I used. For all tests, I used the version that is widely available to most users, not an obscure point version beta. (Google Chrome, which is only available as a beta, is the exception to this rule—I used version 0.3.154.9.) If you run all of these tests yourself on the Firefox 3.1 beta, post your results in the discussions—we’d like to see them. However, when we contacted Mozilla, they advised us to use the release version which is the most compatible and bug-free. (The latest 3.1 beta does not include the code that optimizes JavaScript apps, however.)
Otherwise, I used Firefox 3.04, the Chrome beta, the release version of Internet Explorer 7 (7.0.6001.18000), Opera 9.6, and Safari 3.2 (526.26.13) for each round of testing. If you have any concerns or comments about the results, post in the discussions—however, suffice it to say, at the time of this writing, under the same circumstances, I tested each browser on the same day to make sure they were all measured under the same conditions without any biases.
After each test run, I also assigned an arbitrary score, based on a ten point scale, with the winner getting ten points. At the end, all the scores are rolled up into a single score.
In the end, if you’re like me, you want to know the bottom line first. Sure, the details might be interesting, but you just want to know—at this point in time, which browser runs the fastest? Which one will help you get your work done faster than the others? And which one is the best for complex Web applications like Zoho Writer or Tokbox.com? That prize goes to Google Chrome, a browser that excelled at just about every benchmark, especially in the ten Web site speed tests.|
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Firefox 3: 8 Untold Secrets
With the ability to drastically expand the browser’s functions using plug-in extensions and Greasemonkey scripts, many of Firefox 3’s built-in features are overlooked. Here are eight handy things you can do with Firefox, ranging from tiny tweaks to hugely powerful capabilities, all with nary an extension to install.
1. Minimize the toolbar.
Free up a little extra screen real estate by getting rid of the big, round “Back” button and replacing it with a more streamlined control. Right-click the toolbar, choose Customize, and select Use small icons. The new controls are perfectly functional but smaller, allowing the toolbar to shrink and leaving more room for viewing sites.
2. Use smart bookmarks.
Smart bookmarks are live bookmarks that don’t just refer to particular sites but actually generate live lists of sites according to parameters you define. For example, you might have a smart bookmark that lists the 10 sites you visit most often, or the last 20 sites you’ve visited with a particular keyword in their title.
To create a smart bookmark, select Organize Bookmarks from Firefox’s Bookmarks menu. In the window that opens, select Bookmarks Menu in the left-hand pane, then click Organize in the toolbar at the top and New Bookmark in the drop-down menu. Give your smart bookmark a descriptive name, such as “10 Most Recent Bookmarks.” In the Location field, you’re going to enter in a line of code telling the smart bookmark what to do. For the 10 sites you bookmarked most recently, you’d enter: place:queryType=1&sort=12&maxResults=10 . There are dozens of parameters you can use; Mozilla’s developer site includes a list of commands you can use in smart bookmarks. Here are a couple of the most useful:
- The 10 sites you’ve visited most recently (some installations of Firefox come with this smart bookmark already in place on the Bookmarks toolbar): place:queryType=0&sort=8&maxResults=10
- The 10 most visited sites with some search term in them: place:queryType=0&sort=8&maxResults=10&terms=keyword (replace “keyword” with your desired term)
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Tips 3-4
3. Send e-mail via Yahoo! Mail or Gmail by default.
Normally, clicking on an e-mail address on a Web page will open up a new e-mail using your default e-mail program. If you’d rather use Yahoo! Mail, open up Options under Firefox’s Tools menu, select the Applications tab, and scroll down to the mailto: entry. Select Use Yahoo! Mail and click OK.Gmail is not included as a built-in option in every installation of Firefox, but if yours doesn’t have it, you can add Gmail easily enough. Skip the Options dialogs for now and instead type about:config in Firefox’s address bar and hit Enter. In the Filter field, type gecko.handlerServiceAllowRegisterFromDifferentHost. Actually, you can simply type gecko and find the entry in the filtered list. Double-click the gecko.handlerServiceAllowRegisterFromDifferentHost entry to change it to True.
Next, cut-and-paste this line into the address bar and hit Enter: javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler(”mailto”, “https://mail.google.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s”,”Gmail”)
A message will appear at the top of the browser window asking if you want to add Gmail as an application. Now, repeat the process above for choosing Yahoo! Mail, but select the new Use Gmail option instead.
4. Duplicate tabs with drag-and-drop.
Duplicating tabs is a piece of cake: Simply hold the Ctrl key while dragging the tab you want to duplicate to an empty space on the tab bar.
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Windows Vista SP2 Beta Preview
var slideShowSpeed=3000,crossFadeDuration = 3,Pic = new Array();Pic[0]=”http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/util_get_image/22/0,1425,i=226477,00.jpg”;Pic[1]=”http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/util_get_image/22/0,1425,i=226476,00.jpg”;Pic[2]=”http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/util_get_image/22/0,1425,i=226481,00.jpg”;Pic[3]=”http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/util_get_image/22/0,1425,i=226479,00.jpg”;
var t,j = 0,p = Pic.length,preLoad = new Array();
for (i = 0; i < p; i++){preLoad[i] = new Image();preLoad[i].src = Pic[i];}
function runSlideShow(){
var img = document.getElementById(”zsp”)
if (document.all){img.style.filter=”blendTrans(duration=2)”;img.style.filter=”blendTrans(duration=crossFadeDuration)”;img.filters.blendTrans.Apply();}
img.src = preLoad[j].src;
if (document.all){img.filters.blendTrans.Play();}
j = j + 1;
if(j>(p-1)){j=0;}
t=setTimeout(”runSlideShow()”,slideShowSpeed)}
runSlideShow(); It also includes support for more smartcards, such as those using the ICCD and CCID standards. Software incompatibilities, too, have been addressed: Microsoft says, for example, that SpySweeper and ZoneAlarm will now work with POP3 e-mail accounts.
Finally, gamers will appreciate performance upgrades that should mean smoother 3D-video performance. The company isn’t committing to a date for the final release of SP2 beyond saying that it will be in the first half of 2009, but Internet rumors mention a release candidate in February and full release in April.
The service pack also includes Windows Search 4, which was introduced last June and improves indexing performance and search relevance. In another effort to perk up performance, the SP2 update reduces resources used by the Vista Sidebar, which is scheduled to bite the dust come Windows 7.
Laptops should see a 10 percent improvement in power management efficiency, according to Microsoft. Finally, the pack adds support for the new VIA 64-bit CPU and includes a version of the exFAT file system for removable storage that now supports UTC timestamps for file synchronization across time zones.
Installation
Remember that, though it’s publicly available, SP2 is still beta, and therefore not recommended for critical systems. If you want to test it, it’s advisable to install it in a virtual machine, using Microsoft’s free Virtual PC or a similar product that will isolate your system’s actual OS. This beta will only be operational until May 1, 2010.
There are a few ways to get SP2. You can use Windows Update, though you’ll need to give it some special instructions (detailed below). You can also download and burn a disc image of the update from Microsoft TechNet. Finally, if you’re a TechNet subscriber, you can download and burn a full installation containing the service pack. You must have SP1 installed in order to complete the update, and the new upgrader cleans out SP1 bits that are no longer needed to free up space on your hard drive. That’s another reason you’ll want to install SP2 on a virtual machine, at least initially. Installing the beta also requires that you agree to send info about your setup experience to Microsoft through its Customer Experience Improvement Program. The documentation says the update is about 41MB (60MB for 64-bit). If you down the disc image, however, that’s a considerably larger download, at over 300MB. If you download the disc image, however, that’s a considerably larger download, at over 300MB. I chose the Windows Update method, as that’s how most users will get it.
In order to get the beta through Windows Update, you need to run a command script that sets a registry key telling Windows Update to offer you the Service Pack. You run this as an Administrator to get things going. When the final version is released, this step won’t be necessary: the update will occur automatically for users who have enabled automatic updates. I actually had to edit the Registry directly and go through a couple of Update requests before SP2 took hold. On my 64-bit system, despite the file size mentioned above, the update was listed as 490.8MB to 494.0MB, and on a 32-bit system the file showed as 297.5MB.
Unlike most Windows updates, this one has you go through a little setup wizard and agree to a user license. You have to close all programs, and you’re warned that the update could take over an hour and restart several times—almost like installing a new OS. On a reasonably fast Toshiba Qosmio laptop with 4MB of RAM and a 2GHz Core2 Duo processor, the whole process took under a half hour. With the newly updated OS installed, the text Windows Vista (TM) Evaluation copy, Build 6002 displayed in the lower right corner of the screen.
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Samsung S1070 digital camera specifications
| Samsung S1070 | |||
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| Discussion |
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| Owners opinions |
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| Format | Ultra Compact | ||
| Price (street) | |||
| Also known as | |||
| Release Status | |||
 Max resolution |
3648 x 2736 | ||
| Low resolution |
3648 x 2432, 3072 x 2304, 3648 x 2056, 3072 x 2304, 2592 x 1944, 1920 x 1080, 1024 x 768 | ||
| Image ratio w:h |
4:3, 3:2, 16:9 | ||
| Effective pixels |
10.2 million | ||
| Sensor photo detectors |
10.3 million | ||
| Sensor size |
1/2.33 ” (6.13 x 4.60 mm, 0.28 cm²) | ||
| Pixel density |
36 MP/cm² | ||
| Sensor type |
CCD | ||
| Sensor manufacturer |
Unknown | ||
| ISO rating |
Auto, 80, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600 | ||
| Zoom wide (W) |
38 mm | ||
| Zoom tele (T) |
105 mm (2.8 x) | ||
| Digital zoom |
Yes, up to 5x | ||
| Image stabilization |
No | ||
| Auto Focus |
Multi-point AF, Center, Face detection | ||
| Manual Focus |
No | ||
| Normal focus range |
80 cm | ||
| Macro focus range |
10 cm | ||
| White balance override |
6 positions plus manual | ||
| Aperture range |
F3.0 - F5.6 | ||
| Min shutter |
8 sec | ||
| Max shutter |
1/1500 sec | ||
| Built-in Flash | Yes | ||
| Flash range | 3 m | ||
| External flash | No | ||
| Flash modes | Auto, On, Off, Auto & Red-Eye reduction, Slow Sync, Fill-in Flash, Flash Off, Red-Eye Fix | ||
| Exposure compensation |
-2 to +2 EV in 1/3 EV Steps | ||
| Metering |
Multi, Center, Spot, Face Detection AE | ||
| Aperture priority |
No | ||
| Shutter priority |
No | ||
| Focal length multiplier |
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| Lens thread | No | ||
| Continuous Drive |
Yes | ||
| Movie Clips | Yes, 640 x 480, 320 x 240, 160 x 120 @ 30/15 fps MPEG-4 | ||
| Remote control | No | ||
| Self-timer | Yes | ||
| Timelapse recording |
No | ||
| Orientation sensor | No | ||
| Storage types |
SD/MMC/SDHC card, Internal | ||
| Storage included |
16 MB Internal | ||
| Uncompressed format |
No | ||
| Quality Levels |
Super fine, Fine, Normal | ||
| Viewfinder |
None | ||
| LCD |
2.7 “ | ||
| LCD Dots |
230,000 | ||
| Live View |
No | ||
| USB |
USB 1.0 (1.5Mbit/sec) | ||
| HDMI |
No | ||
| Wireless |
No | ||
| Environmentally sealed | No | ||
| Battery |
Lithium-Ion rechargeable & charger | ||
| Weight (inc. batteries) | 150 g (5.3 oz) | ||
| Dimensions | 93 x 62 x 24 mm (3.7 x 2.4 x 0.9 in) | ||
| Notes | |||
| Resolution Chart | |||
| Colour Patches |
Announced 16-Jul-08|
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Ultra compact/slim ’style’ cameras
Holidays ‘08 Compact Camera Group Test
Group 2: Ultra compact/slim ’style’ cameras
The digital camera hasn’t escaped the consumer electronics industry’s obsession with miniaturization. The first compact consumer digicams arrived in the mid 1990’s and they’ve been getting smaller and slimmer ever since. As far back as 1999 companies such as Olympus, Canon and Pentax were offering small, metal-bodied compacts that weren’t a lot bigger than a credit card, and we saw a new pretender to the ‘world’s smallest camera’ crown almost monthly.
Since then the development of the folded zoom lens by Minolta in 2001 (first seen in the Dimage X) and the collapsible ’sliding’ zoom (introduced by Pentax in the Optio S in 2003), combined with the adoption of the smaller SD card format and new slimmer Li-Ion batteries, have seen pocket cameras getting ever slimmer (though ergonomic issues and increasing screen sizes mean the other dimensions haven’t got much smaller).
We’ve tested many slimline cameras over the years and have found that choosing something you can slip into your pocket without ruining the line of your jacket almost always involves some kind of compromise, usually in the form of slightly below-par image quality, reduced battery life and less than ideal handling - often with a ’style conscious buyer’ premium slapped onto the price too. We wanted to find out if the latest generation of ultra compacts still suffered from these drawbacks.
The test cameras
For this group test we picked nine of the leading ’size zero’ cameras, all but two of which squeeze into our ‘under 21mm/0.8 inches thick’ criteria (we let a couple of portly 22mm models through out of pity). We included one camera, the Nikon Coolpix S210, which was originally slated for inclusion in our budget camera roundup (at around $130 it’s a lot less expensive than all the other cameras here), but was switched to this group because it’s a lot slimmer and more compact than any of Nikon’s premium compacts.
- Canon Powershot SD790 IS (IXUS 90)
- Casio Exilim EX-S10
- Fujifilm FinePix Z200fd
- Nikon Coolpix S210
- Nikon Coolpix S60
- Olympus Stylus 1040
- Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX37
- Pentax Optio S12
- Sony Cybershot DSC-T700
Key Spec compared
As we’ve discovered over the years the bare specification of a camera tells us precious little about how good it is, but it does at least give us a starting point for our comparison. In this table by far the most important figures are the zoom range, screen resolution and presence of an optical image stabilization system - and of course that all important girth figure (which range from a positively anorexic 16mm to a merely well-toned 22mm). You can basically ignore the sensor pixel count as it makes virtually no difference to your pictures on this type of camera.
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