Gateway NE 72206u review: An affordable, but not so swift, big-screen laptop

Gateway NE72206u This desktop replacement has a strong feature set for its low price tag, even if its performance is only so-so.

Desktop-replacement laptops like the Gateway NE72206u have two major advantages over their smaller brethren, including lots of screen real estate and a full-size keyboard. For many users, these features are paramount, trumping other concerns such as portability and battery life. Of course, some systems take better advantage of their large size than others do. The NE72206u—with its 17.3-inch, 1600-by-900-pixel display and its large keyboard with full numeric keypad—falls somewhere in the middle, mainly because it’s not an overwhelming performer. But with a street price of just 500 bucks, we’re not complaining.

Gateway’s NE72206u isn’t the lightest or most powerful laptop you’ll find, but this desktop replacement does offer a 17.3-inch display and a compelling price-to-performance ratio.

The NE72206u is built around an AMD A6-5200 CPU with integrated AMD HD 8400 graphics. It also has 6GB of memory (500MB of which is allocated to the graphics), and a 500GB, 5400-rpm Toshiba MQ01ABD050 hard drive. Together those components helped the laptop produce a WorldBench 8.1 score of 100—the same as our reference-point notebook (a now aging Asus VivoBook S550CA). Its battery life of 4 hours, 22 minutes, on the other hand, is quite good for a desktop replacement.

In hands-on use, the NE72206u is smooth enough once Windows does its caching thing, but it doesn’t snap to as a machine based on a faster AMD A8/A10 or an Intel Core i3 processor would. Adding a solid-state drive would be an easy way to goose this system, but the NE72206u is a tease in that respect: Although it has a second drive bay just waiting to fulfill that fantasy, the bay lacks a SATA connector. That means you’d have to ditch the hard drive to add an SSD. At least you can easily access both the bays and the memory by loosening nine captive screws and removing one large panel on the bottom of the unit.

The webcam is a widescreen 720p model, and the picture is decent, if not incredibly smooth. Movie playback, however, even high-bit-rate 1080p, certainly is silky. The audio through the speakers is good, with just a hint of bass to keep things listenable.

The NE72206u has a large keyboard, but although typing feels fine, it could use a larger gap at the border of the alphabetical keys and the numeric keypad. Having the cursor arrows share keys with Page Down, Page Up, Home, and End is not an optimal arrangement, either. The touchpad seems a bit oversensitive to tapping, though dragging is okay and the buttons require a minimal degree of pressure to register clicks.

The Gateway NE72206u ships with Windows 8 and a small helping of useful utilities, such as Gateway’s recovery management utility and Nero BackItUp 12 Essentials. The software selection also includes possibly useful trials of Norton Online Backup and Internet Security, as well as of Microsoft Office.

Another advantage that large laptops typically offer is room for an optical drive, a DVD burner in this case. While it’s not the necessity it once was, an optical drive remains handy for aiding recovery, installing older software, and playing movies.

The NE72206u’s port array is sufficient but minimal. It has two USB 2.0 ports, a charging USB 3.0 port, HDMI and VGA video out, and headset and microphone jacks. You’ll also find an SD Card slot, an ethernet connection, and both 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0 + HS.

The NE72206u is a lot of laptop for $500, even if it’s not the swiftest or lightest. Weighing 7.7 pounds with the AC adapter, it’s not for weak shoulders. It is great for working around the house and for playing movies and casual games—but darn, I wish that second drive bay had a SATA connector.

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Origin Genesis Z87 review: Boutique PC bliss in a (slightly) more affordable package

Origin Genesis Z87 $6,555.00 While it is expensive, Origin's Genesis Z87 delivers performance close to some of the most over-the-top boutique gaming rigs we've seen lately.

Today’s best gaming desktop computers are universally fast, powerful, and sexy. They’re a lot like high-end sports cars, complete with flashy lights and sleek metal chassis. Origin takes the sports car analogy one step further with its Haswell-powered Genesis Z87 system: It offers the option of a semi-custom paint job or a totally custom laser etching on its case—provided you’re willing to open your wallet wide.

Otherwise, a basic Genesis system with an AMD processor can be had for as little as $1791. Our review model, however, sports a fourth-generation Intel Core CPU and costs a cool $6555 as of this writing. It’s not the most expensive gaming machine on the block (hello, $9500 Primordial Medusa), but it’ll put a sizable dent in most bank accounts.

ROBERT CARDIN While the Genesis Z87 comes in an OEM enclosure, it sports a very splashy paint job.

The Genesis Z87 has all the components you’d look for, plus a few extras. Housed in a large Corsair 800D chassis painted “Shredder Red” (a black paint job that looks like the case has been skinned to reveal a red undercoat), the Genesis sports an unlocked Intel Core i7-4770K processor (overclocked to 4.7GHz), 16GB of DDR3/1866 memory, and three Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 graphics cards. It also has two 256GB Samsung 840 Pro SSDs running in RAID 0; a 1TB, 7200rpm hard drive; and Wi-Fi 802.11a/c (along with Bluetooth and a gigabit ethernet port for connectivity).

The system also features all the other goodies you expect to see on high-powered gaming systems, including a 1200-watt power supply, six USB 3.0 ports, a 40-in-1 card reader, a Blu-ray burner, interior LED lighting, and 7.1-channel surround sound. Each video card has two DVI ports, one HDMI-out, and one DisplayPort to support multimonitor setups.

As you might expect, these specs yield excellent benchmark performances. The Genesis scored an impressive Desktop WorldBench 8.1 score of 414, which means it’s more than four times as fast as our reference model (the Acer Aspire A5600U-UB13 all-in-one, a middle-of-the-road performer). That score puts it right up there with the marks of boutique competitors that are also equipped with the Core i7-4770K, including Digital Storm’s Virtue (399), Micro Express’s MicroFlex 47B (421), and Maingear’s Shift Super Stock Z87 (435)—see the chart below (and click on it to enlarge it).

The Genesis Z87 can hold its own against sometimes much more expensive rigs when running our WorldBench suite.

But WorldBench 8.1 isn’t really designed to push the limits of high-end gaming systems. It includes basic gaming tests, but it’s weighted more to evaluating a computer’s performance on everyday productivity tasks. How much of a gaming system’s power it can really capture is limited. So the PCWorld Lab subjects these extreme rigs to extreme gaming tests. And on that score, the Genesis Z87 didn’t disappoint (click on the charts to enlarge).

The three Titan video cards in Maingear's Shift Super Stock Z87 help that machine to a clear win in some of our extreme gaming tests—here, Dirt Showdown.

Playing BioShock Infinite at a resolution of 2560 by 1600 pixels on a 30-inch display, with visual quality set to Ultra, the Genesis Z87 managed to generate 132 frames per second. That’s just shy of the 135.5 frames per second that the much more expensive Maingear Shift Super Stock Z87 produced with its three Nvidia GeForce Titan cards. That configuration is available as an option on the Genesis, and you just might want it if you wish to drive a triple-head gaming set: Where Maingear’s rig rocked Dirt Showdown at a resolution of 7680 by 1600 pixels (splashed across 30-inch displays) at nearly 45 frames per second, the Genesis Z87 was limited to 33 frames per second.

The Genesis Z87 is capable of running top-shelf games (here, BioShock Infinite) at very high frame rates.

Design-wise, the Genesis falls a little short of Maingear’s Shift. The painted chassis is easy on the eyes, and its matte-black interior really makes its red accents (fans and coolant tubes) pop. But the orientation of its motherboard leaves its video cards stacked like cordwood. Where the Shift’s vertical orientation provides natural channels for air to flow through the cards, the air must find its way around the cards inside the Genesis. I was also surprised that Origin didn’t provide any means of supporting these heavy cards, relying solely on the chassis’ mounting bracket to support their weight.

ROBERT CARDINThe Genesis Z87's red fans and coolant tubing really pop against the matte-black interior of its Corsair Obsidian 800D enclosure.

The Genesis Z87’s CPU is liquid-cooled, with two radiators: A very large triple-fan one mounted to the top of the case, and a smaller one with a single fan mounted to the rear of the chassis. A fan controller mounted inside one of the front drive bays lets you dial in your preferred balance of cooling and noise. But with half a dozen chassis fans, plus the three on the video cards, the Genesis can get loud under maximum load.

Origin’s Genesis Z87 is a great choice for hard-core gamers with the cash to indulge their favorite pastime, delivering performance that can be close to that of Maingear’s Shift Super Stock Z87 at a price tag that’s nearly $1500 lower. Both machines are lovingly, professionally handcrafted and overclocked to the max, but the Shift earns its price premium with a trio of more powerful video cards, faster memory, two additional SSDs, and a delightfully unconventional case design.

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Review: Gateway's DX4870-UB2C is an affordable workhorse desktop

Desktop PCs come in all shapes and sizes these days, but Acer’s Gateway DX4870-UB2C is pretty old-school: A midsize desktop tower, it delivers solid—but not spectacular—productivity performance and 1TB of hard disk storage for a modest $550; however, you must provide a monitor, and headphones or speakers for audio.

That profile makes it a good candidate for a student (it’s no coincidence that it appears during back-to-school season) or anyone on a budget who might have a display and audio gear from a previous system. In fact, the Gateway DX4870-UB2C (who comes up with these names, anyhow?) has an analog VGA port to accommodate the older LCD or (gasp!) CRT, as well as an HDMI port to accommodate a newer digital display (but there’s no DVI or DisplayPort).

This machine is no barn-burner, but it did outperform our reference machine.

Outfitted with an Intel Core i5-3330 quad-core CPU, 8GB of RAM (expandable to 32GB), integrated Intel graphics, a 1TB (7200-rpm) hard disk, and Windows 8, the DX4870-UB2C scored 153 on PC WorldBench—well above the 100 score for our reference system (Acer's Aspire U all-in-one), but hardly stellar compared to scores in the 200s, 300s, and even 400s racked up by recent high-performance systems.

This Gateway shapes up as an affordable way to upgrade to reasonably current desktop components.

The lack of a discrete graphics card and a solid-state drive probably account for the poorest test results—in file compression, storage, and GPU-accelerated image editing, and—most tellingly—gaming. The DX4870-UB2C otherwise hovers in the middle of the pack on almost all benchmarks, and should capably handle any routine student or small-business tasks. Its power consumption was modest, another plus for cash-strapped and/or eco-minded buyers.

ROBERT CARDINThe Gateway DX4870-UB2C is about as flashy as its name; but for the price, it presents a solid value for students, households, or small and medium businesses on tight budgets.

In appearance, the DX4870-UB2C generally observes the conventions of current midtower desktop design, with a top that curves upward toward the front, ending in a protruding edge affording easy access to microphone and headphone jacks, a memory card reader, and a couple of USB 2.0 ports. The power toggle itself is adjacent in the center of the top edge.

A couple of covered bays reside beneath this ledge, the topmost of which contains a DVD burner that supports multiple formats (DVD-RAM/±R/±RW). The second bay is empty, providing room for expansion.

In the back are six more USB ports (two USB 2.0 and two 3.0), the aforementioned display connections, a gigabit ethernet port, and additional audio-in and -out ports. The motherboard has four expansion slots: three supporting older PCI Express x1 cards and one for the faster PCI Express x16 add-ons. You also get Bluetooth support and 802.11n Wi-Fi support on both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands.

ROBERT CARDINThe machine relies on Intel’s integrated graphics, but one PCIe x16 slot on the motherboard allows you to add a discrete graphics card.

The optical mouse and keyboard are both wired, however, and plug in to old-style dedicated PS2 ports on the top of the back. I would have liked to see wireless peripherals or USB at the very least. The keyboard felt cheesy, with somewhat wobbly action. But streamed video looked fine on a high-def HDMI-attached monitor, and the audio sounded great on a set of borrowed headphones.

Gateway’s software bundle, which appears as a mass of tiles on the Windows 8 desktop, is decidedly consumer focused, including a couple of games and the usual trial versions of security apps. The presence of a couple of dictionaries and a link to the human-guided search engine ChaCha signal the obvious outreach to students. While these don’t add significant value, I have to say I did enjoy my first game of Cut the Rope.

Overall, the Gateway shapes up as an affordable way to upgrade to reasonably current desktop components without spending a fortune to also acquire routine peripherals that you might already have. It may lack the svelte lines of a small-footprint desktop, but those machines tend to be significantly more expensive—and for everyday desktop use, the trade-off may well be quite acceptable for the intended audience.

Contributing Editor Yardena (Denny) Arar is a San Francisco-based freelance writer, avid online shopper, media junkie, consummate foodie, and proud possessor of a private pilot's license.
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Review: Postbox is a slick, affordable desktop email client that plays nice with Gmail

If you're after a desktop email client that isn't Outlook, you may discover you don't have very many options. Mozilla Thunderbird is no longer actively developed; Eudora is a distant memory; The Bat! is still around, but costs $35 (or $45 for the Professional edition). One of the more appealing options available is Postbox, a slick, modern-looking desktop email client that plays nice with Gmail and will set you back just $10 after the 30-day free trial.

With all panes shown, the Postbox interface feels powerful almost to the point of being overwhelming.

Postbox v3.0.7 is actually based on Thunderbird: If you go to Tools > Options, you'll find a very familiar looking Options dialog. The rest of the interface, however, looks different. Gone is the traditional horizontally-split layout, replaced by a vertical split that puts your message headers on the left, with the message body on the right, much like the Gmail Offline Chrome extension. You can still bring the Classic View back, though.

By default, the leftmost part of the window is populated by a nested list of folders based on your Gmail labels. Almost all of my labels synced correctly, except for one: the Bulk label, which I automatically filter incoming "gray mail" into. That label never made it all the way to Postbox due to a configuration error on my Gmail account: I had to make it available via IMAP (as all other labels were set), after which it synced to Postbox without a hitch.

In the past, each email was its own little island of text. Modern clients such as Gmail changed this by showing threaded conversations, which cleverly group related emails into one cohesive view. Postbox uses the same concept, and adds a few desktop interface niceties such as being able to pop open the conversation and access a specific email directly from the list of message headers.

Postbox makes it easy to individually collapse every pane, so that you can end up with a minimalistic list of conversations if you prefer.

As much as Postbox strives to play nice with Gmail, some of the visual differences are disorienting: For example, the message list shows senders' names in bold, even for messages you've already read. The "unread" marker is a small blue dot, quite elegant, but not as obvious as bold/non-bold text. There is a way to change this, but only by manually editing the configuration (or switching to the Classic, horizontally-split, view). Another point that kept me from seriously using Postbox is the lack of support for RTL languages, such as Hebrew and Arabic. If you write even the occasional email in such a language, Postbox is out of the question.

One of the challenges of managing email is quickly getting to the messages you care about within a cluttered folder. Gmail lets you do this with blazing-fast searches and clever operators like "is:unread." Postbox offers a more visual way, in the form of the Focus Pane. This collapsible pane lets you quickly slice and dice the current folder: Show only unread messages, show only messages that have attachments, only messages from today, yesterday, the past week, or the past month, and more. Postbox even lets you assign "topics" to your emails, which are another layer of classification, distinct from labels. You can assign any email to a topic such as Work, Home, or Personal. The Focus Bar lets you quickly filter these, as well.

With the folder pane, the focus pane, the vertical conversations list, and the email preview pane, the Postbox interface feels busy. Fortunately, Postbox allows you to eliminate the folder pane by setting up a handful of favorite folders, which you can then access via a toolbar at the top of the window. You can also collapse and expand the focus pane with a single click, and even hide the email preview pane, so that you're left with just a minimalistic list of message headers.

Threaded conversations, familiar to every Gmail user, are fully supported in Postbox.

Postbox isn't perfect, but then again, the same can be said about email itself as a communication medium. Still, if you're not happy with Gmail's browser interface and yearn for the comfort of the desktop clients of yore, you would do well to try it out. Be sure to allow for an adjustment period. Slick as it may be, it's still an acquired taste.

Note: The Download button on the Product Information page takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of the software.

Endlessly tweaking his workflow for comfort and efficiency, Erez is a freelance writer on a mission to discover the simplest, coolest, and most effective software and websites to make tomorrow happen today.
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Iris Smart Kit: A Basic and Affordable Introduction to Home Automation

In the second installment of our "Easy Home Automation Projects for the Weekend Warrior" series, we'll consider Lowes' new DIY system, Iris. The big-box retailer offers three very affordable do-it-yourself kits that let you connect via the cloud to monitor, control, and (to a lesser extent) secure your home. This is one of the better efforts I've seen to bring this technology into the mainstream.

All three kits include the Iris Hub, which taps your broadband connection via your router (and which must be hardwired to it). The Hub runs on AC power, but it has a battery backup, too. The Safe & Secure Kit ($179) adds two door/window sensors, a motion sensor, and a wireless keypad. The Comfort & Control Kit (also $179) supplies a plug-in lighting-control module and a programmable thermostat, but none of the security features. The $299 Smart Kit—reviewed here—contains all of the components from the other two kits, along with a range extender.

The Iris Hub, which forms the heart of the system, must be hardwired to your router. All three systems are controllable from a PC, a smartphone, or a tablet; and free apps for Android and iOS operating systems are available. No matter which kit you start with, you can expand the system by adding sensors, plug-in and in-wall lighting controls, appliance modules, IP cameras, and more. Unfortunately, the current lack of support for keyless entry locks leaves a big hole in the Iris system. (A Lowes spokesperson told me that the company plans to add support for entry locks "within the coming weeks." I'll update this story when they do.) Iris doesn't support smoke or CO2 detectors, either, though those devices are on the product roadmap.

The 'Optional' Service Plan

Iris comes with a free service plan that's pretty much useless. I wouldn't recommend buying the system unless you intend to add the optional $10-per-month Premium service plan. Lowes provides a 60-day trial subscription to the Premium service with every kit, giving you plenty of time to discover how essential it is. Still, even with the paid plan, Iris doesn't provide central office monitoring of the Iris system's security components. You can program Iris to send alerts to a contact list in the event of a break-in, but that's all. Services that provide central-office monitoring can dispatch emergency responders—police, fire, or ambulance, as appropriate.

To be fair, home-control service providers that offer central-office monitoring—ADT, FrontPoint Security, and Vivint, for instance—charge much more per month ($50 or more) than Lowes does. And as Lowes points out in its advertising, some emergency responders assess fines for responding to false alarms (check with your local police and fire departments to determine their policy on this matter). On the other hand, the three companies I mentioned will call people on your contact list and ask them for instructions on how to proceed before calling a dispatcher (but they will call a dispatcher if they can't reach anyone on your contact list).

The Hub

The Add Your Devices screen shows all of the components that you can include in an Iris system. As its name implies, the Hub lies at the heart of the Iris system. It runs on AC power, but it also has a battery backup. A female voice emanating from the Hub will inform you of system events, such as a detected intrusion or a power failure. You must enroll each Iris module in the Hub via the cloud-based user interface. Lowes says that this process should take about an hour for the Smart Kit (a fairly accurate estimate, in my experience). Most of the system's how-to instructions are accessible online, and they include an instructional video for each step. Toll-free telephone tech support is available if you need it.

With the $299 Smart Kit and the $179 Safe & Secure Kit, you can arm and disarm the Iris system via the included keypad.If you purchase a kit that contains security elements—or if you add such features later—you'll receive a battery-operated keypad for arming and disarming the system. This module, which you can mount on a wall or leave on a countertop, is equipped with a weak siren that goes off in response to an intrusion alert (in addition to triggering the female voice in the Hub). Either the door/window sensors or the motion sensor can trigger an alarm event.

The keypad has two arming states: "On" arms the door/window sensors and the motion sensors (use this setting when you leave the house); "Partial" arms the motion sensors, but leaves the motion detector turned off (use this setting if you intend to remain at home and you want the alarm to sound if a door or window opens). You can program an optional entry delay to give you time to enter the house and disarm the system before it sounds an alarm. Alternatively, you can use your smartphone (free apps re available for Android and iOS devices), or you can purchase a $20 keychain remote.

Door and Window Sensors

The door and window sensors are white and fairly small and unobtrusive, but I prefer sensors that mount inside the door and doorframe, and are completely invisible when the door is closed (you can't use these in windows or French doors, however, because of the glass). Lowes designed the Iris sensors to attach to the frame and to the door or window with strong two-sided adhesive tape; there's no provision for mounting them with screws.

You can monitor, arm, and disarm the Iris system via a cloud-based user interface. This screen indicates that the motion sensor has set off an intruder alarm.The sensors form a magnetic field when the door or window is closed. Opening the door or window breaks the field, triggering the sensor to send a message to a central control panel (in the Iris system, that's the Hub). If the system is armed, an alarm will sound at the keypad and at the Hub, and the Hub can send you an email message and/or your phone a text message. The free plan limits you to 12 text messages and 50 email messages per month; on the paid plan, the limits increase to 240 alert messages per year via text or email.

If you exceed the free plan's limit, Lowes will give you seven days' notice to upgrade to the paid plan. If you exceed the paid plan's limit, Lowes will give you seven days' notice to upgrade to a Premium Service Level Extension, which costs an extra $5 per month, but doubles both your messaging limit and your remote-camera access hours.

Lighting Controls

The plug-in module lets you turn lamps and small appliances on and off.Like most other devices of its kind, the plug-in lighting-control module is big and bulky—think of a wall wart on steroids. If you don't mind performing some electrical work (or paying an electrician to do it), you can replace your existing in-wall receptacles, switches, and dimmers with Z-Wave models. Lowes sells only GE devices, but its prices are quite reasonable ($35 for each switch and receptacle, $40 for each dimmer, and $45 for each three-way switch).

Lowes doesn't offer three-way dimmers, though GE does manufacture them, nor does it support Z-Wave scene and zone controllers. (Scene controllers can use various controlled lighting sources to create mood lighting. Zone controllers can manage multiple controlled light sources from a single location.)

Lowes recommends that Iris customers look for a "Works With Iris" label on other brands of wireless lighting controls. A company spokesperson told me that "while other devices may pair with the Iris Hub, all of their capabilities may not function properly and Iris cannot support them at this time."

Thermostat

Radio Thermostats of America manufactures the Z-Wave touchscreen thermostat. You can control the programmable touchscreen thermostat that comes with the Comfort & Control and Smart Kit packages (and that you can add to any other Iris system) from your computer, smartphone, or tablet. You can set four temperature targets—morning, day, evening, and night—independently for each day of the week.

Most of the Iris system is based on Z-Wave technology, which relies on a low-power mesh data network. A low-power network is less likely to interfere with neighboring networks, but each device on the network has very short range. That's where the mesh topology comes into play.

When the Iris Hub sends a command over the network—to turn on a light in the kitchen, for example—the Hub broadcasts a message addressed to that specific device in every direction to every Z-Wave device (or node) in its range. Like a digital bucket brigade, each Z-Wave device repeats the command that it receives, broadcasting it in every direction to every node within its range, until the message reaches its intended recipient and the command is executed. Z-Wave devices can also report their status back to the central controller (the Hub, in this case).

You can program four heating or cooling events for each day of the week.The Iris range extender included in the Smart Kit (and available as an addition to any other Iris system) is basically a bridge that extends the network's reach, so you can locate the thermostat, lighting-control module, or other device outside the Hub's normal range. You can accomplish the same result by installing more Z-Wave lighting controls around your home. The more Z-Wave devices you deploy, the better your network's range will be.

Iris can inform you of the status of its door and window sensors (open or closed); and unlike some Z-Wave networks I've tested, it can also report the status of lights (on or off). If you inform Iris of your electric utility company's billing rate per kilowatt hour, the service will provide an estimate of how much you're spending on electricity to power that device. Lowes also offers an add-on meter reader ($150) to track electricity consumption for your entire house.

Video Cameras

When you have a video camera installed, the Iris home screen displays ads alongside more-useful data.Although the device isn't included in any of its three Iris packages, Lowes sent along one of its $129 IP network cameras to test with the system. This reasonably priced, full-featured model has a built-in motion sensor and infrared lighting that provides a degree of night vision. With a free Iris account, you can stream up to 2 minutes of live video per session (with a daily limit of 30 minutes), but to record video—a feature you'll want to have in the event of a break in—you must sign up for a paid account.

A paid account lets you stream up to 10 minutes of live or recorded video per session (with a daily limit of 3 hours), and you can store up to 1GB of recorded video online. You can delete selected videos to gain more online storage space, but you can't download videos, meaning that you can't provide a copy to law enforcement. The Lowes spokesperson told me that the company is planning to add this feature at some point.

Iris maintains a skimpy history of events; the history is limited to the dates and times when the alarm system was turned on or off and when intrusion or panic alerts were triggered. It will also identify whether the alert was triggered from the keypad, the website, the door/window sensor, or the motion sensor. Iris keeps track of the number of text messages and email messages that it sends each month, too; but the history doesn't record when door/window sensors are opened and closed, when the motion sensor gets tripped, when the camera records video, when the thermostat's programming gets changed or overridden, or which users have logged into the system from the Web. If you use the Basic (free) service plan, the history will log only the three most recent events.

Free vs. Premium

With the free plan, you can enroll only one user—the account holder—into the system, and only the account holder will receive notifications of alarm events. You can turn devices on and off remotely, via the Web interface, but you can't program devices according to a schedule. More importantly, you can't link control of one device to the status of another. Without this ability, you won't be able to program lights to turn on, and you won't be able to set a camera to begin recording when the door/window or motion sensor triggers an intruder alert.

With the paid plan, you can have the system send alerts to six people (from an address book of 20 contacts), and you can arrange for different people to receive alerts in connection with different events. You can program devices—such as lights—to turn on and off according to a schedule (so you can make sure that your porch light is lit when you arrive home after dark, and you can give your house a "somebody's home" look when you're away). You can also link events to device status: When you open the front door, for example, you can have the light in your foyer turn on for 5 minutes and then turn off.

With the paid plan, you can program the entire system according to four modes: Home, Night, Away, and Vacation (this option isn't available with the free plan). You might program Away mode to adjust the thermostat so that you won't be heating or cooling an empty house, so that the all of the lights remain off during daylight hours, and so that selected lights automatically turn on at night so you don't have to come home to a darkened house.

You can control the Iris system from a computer, a smartphone (as here), or a tablet.The free plan prevents Iris from offering this level of programmability and device interconnectedness. The paid plan has a couple of serious flaws, too. For one thing, the system fails to take enough conditions into account. In the foyer scenario I described earlier, Iris will turn on the light whether it's day or night, because the rule doesn't allow you to specify a timeframe during which it should be in effect.

Iris should also be able to alert you when events don't happen within an expected timeframe. If you have a latchkey child who should be home at 3 p.m. each weekday, for example, the system should generate an alert if the alarm system isn't disarmed by, say, 3:15 on those days, indicating that someone has entered the home.

Weak Security Features

As a security system, Iris costs far less per month than FrontPoint Security's DIY system, but its upfront costs are considerably higher (because FrontPoint subsidizes the cost of your equipment if you opt for a three-year service contract). Iris is a weak security system by comparison, for several reasons.

First, it's not monitored by a central office that can dispatch local emergency services. At best, Iris will notify you of an intrusion by text message or email; but if you receive the alert while you're away from home, you can't call 911 to summon the police to your house (911 is set up to dispatch emergency services to your current location).

Second, Iris relies solely on your broadband Internet connection. If a burglar cuts your phone or cable TV line, Iris won't be able to notify you of the intrusion if you're away from home. Better security systems—including FrontPoint's—use GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) modules as either a primary or a backup communications link. The only way to sever that link is to destroy the GSM module before it sends the alert.

Third, if you're at home when a break-in occurs, Iris's weak siren will do little to deter a determined interloper. It might not even wake you up, unless it's in the same room that you're sleeping in.

The Bottom Line

Iris is a slightly flawed home-automation system, even if you pay for the Premium service plan, and it's a weak home-security system. Still, if you're interested in dabbling in home automation, Iris is a good place to start. You can use software updates to fix many of the usability problems I encountered; and since Iris relies on de facto standards (Z-Wave, Wi-Fi, and to a lesser extent, ZigBee), you should be able to switch most of its components—aside from the Hub and perhaps the keypad—to a more sophisticated controller if you eventually outgrow Iris.

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EVGA GTX 660 Ti Review: Kepler Rendered Affordable

Nvidia has been getting a lot of mileage out of the Kepler desktop GPU, using the chip in the GTX 670 and GTX 680 graphics cards, and bringing it back once again in the new GTX 660 Ti. Although the GTX 670 had one functional block disabled, the GTX 660 Ti cuts just a single key feature: one of the memory controller blocks. This design change reduces the data width to memory to 192 bits wide, in contrast to the 256-bit pathways available on the GTX 670 and GTX 680. Since the ROP (raster operations) unit is part of that block, the ROP units now number 24 instead of 32. The clock rate is a little lower as well.

Speeds and Feeds

Let’s take a quick look at how the GTX 660 Ti differs from its pricier cousins. Note that the listed clock frequencies are for eVGA's GTX 660 Ti SC model, which is clocked slightly higher than Nvidia’s reference card. Other shipping retail boards may differ in clock frequencies, depending on the design of the board and what each company wants to support. The target price for the base GTX 660 Ti is $299; the superclocked eVGA model we tested is priced at $310 (prices are as of August 16, 2012).

2 x Dual Link DVI, 2 x HDMI 1.4a (Fast), 2 x DisplayPort 1.2

2 x Dual Link DVI, 2 x HDMI 1.4a (Fast), 2 x DisplayPort 1.2

2 x Dual Link DVI, 2 x HDMI 1.4a (Fast), 2 x DisplayPort 1.2

Those are the base specs in a nutshell. It’s time to check out how our test board performed.

Performance

We collected performance data by using FutureMark’s 3DMark 2011 and four DirectX 11 games: Crysis 2, Dirt Showdown, Metro 2033, and Batman: Arkham City. We ran the game tests at 1920-by-1200-pixel resolution with 4x multisampling antialiasing enabled. In addition, we measured system power, under idle and load, using a Watts Up Pro power meter. The system we used for testing carried a Core i7-3960X CPU running at 3.3GHz, as well as 12GB of DDR3 memory running at 1600MHz. The power supply, motherboard, and other hardware remained constant during the entire run; so too did the operating system, Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit.

I compared the eVGA GTX 660 Ti SC's performance with that of AMD’s similarly priced Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition, in the form of the Asus HD 7870 DirectCU II. I didn’t have time to rerun all the benchmarks with the older GTX 560 Ti, but initial testing indicates that the 660 Ti is definitely a step up in performance.

The eVGA card easily won the 3DMark 2011 synthetic test. Although 3DMark 2011 isn’t comparable to actual games, it does test most DirectX 11 features.

In Batman: Arkham City, the GTX 660 Ti won out over the Radeon by about 10 percent, which is a pretty substantial difference.

In Crysis 2, the difference in performance between the eVGA and Asus cards was smaller than in Arkham City, but still worth noting.

In the Metro 2033 test, the roles reversed slightly, with the GTX 660 Ti running just a bit slower than the Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition.

What gives? In this game the Asus Radeon card pulled out a big win over the GTX 660 Ti. However, in this case the difference is not purely attributable to a graphics issue. Dirt Showdown uses Microsoft’s DirectCompute interface to perform some serious floating point calculations for two key features: global illumination and advanced lighting. The AMD GPU is substantially better at pure computation than the Nvidia chip is, which gives the AMD product an edge. Note that most games have yet to make heavy use of the GPU in general compute tasks, so it’s unlikely you’ll see big differences, and the GTX 660 Ti tends to perform better in games that don’t make heavy use of GPU compute.

It’s impressive how idle power usage has improved on all the current-generation cards. We saw little practical difference in power usage between these two cards.

Final Thoughts

Priced at $310, the eVGA GTX 660 Ti SC is aimed at gamers who want to get very good performance without spending $400 or more for a high-end card. Such users tend to hold on to their cards for two or three years, so they're probably upgrading from an older GTX 260 card. In those cases, the GTX 660 Ti offers reasonably substantial performance gains, as well as the ability to run DirectX 11 titles.

The card is surprisingly compact for its performance, and should fit in most midsize-tower cases—even those lacking the depth to handle more-robust cards. Power supply requirements should be modest, too: A good 500W PSU should do the trick.

The eVGA GTX 660 Ti is efficient and compact, and it offers very good performance at its price. If you’re a serious PC gamer with a limited budget, and if you have been making do with a two-year-old card, it’s time to think seriously about upgrading.

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HP Officejet 6700 Premium e-All-in-one Printer Review: Fast, Affordable Color

The HP Officejet 6700 Premium e-All-in-One color inkjet multifunction (print/scan/copy/fax) offers many impressive capabilities, especially considering its affordable price of just $170 (as of March 28, 2012). Geared toward the needs of a midvolume home or small office (printing dozens, not hundreds, of pages per week), the Officejet 6700 Premium performs quickly and produces decent text and photos. Its inks, especially colors, are affordable in their high-yield versions.

The OfficeJet 6700 Premium is a triple treat, interface-wise: USB, ethernet, and Wi-Fi are all present. Setup is easy, and the software is the usual competent but easy-to-use HP suite, including optical character recognition.

The control panel is a 2.65-inch touchscreen color LCD with additional touch controls to each side. The only nontouch control is the power button. A USB port on the OfficeJet 6700 Premium's front allows you to offload scans or perform direct printing.

Highlights in paper handling include a roomy 250-sheet bottom-mounted paper tray (most of its competitors have 100- or 150-sheet trays) and a 75-sheet output tray, plus automatic duplexing. The flatbed scanner platen is your typical letter/A4-size offering, but the 35-sheet automatic document feeder above it can scan legal-size media and capture both sides of a two-sided document (one side at a time). Telescoping hinges for the scanner cover/ADF are the only things we missed.

The OfficeJet 6700 Premium's speed is peppy for the price range: In our tests the OfficeJet 6700 Premium reached a medium-fast rate of 10 pages per minute printing plain text on the PC and Mac platforms, and it posted average or faster speeds printing photos and color graphics. Only its scanning was significantly more sluggish than average.

Though the scans are slow, at least they look good: fairly accurate in color, not too choppy or dark. Print quality disappoints at default settings on plain paper, as text appears dark charcoal rather than black and slightly soft around the edges, while color images look orangey and fuzzy. Switching to a finer quality mode for text and photo paper for color improves matters considerably (and uses more ink). The draft mode is both faster and more readable than most.

The Officejet 6700 Premium uses a four-cartridge ink system that's costlier than average with the standard-capacity supplies, but considerably cheaper than average with the high-capacity cartridges. The normal $20 black that lasts for 400 pages works out to a rather pricey 5 cents per page. The $11 cyan, magenta, and yellow last for 330 pages, or 3.3 cents per page. That's a slightly above-average 15 cents per four-color page.

The high-yield cartridges include a 1000-page black for $32, or 3.2 cents per page, and 825–page colors for $16 each, which works out to 1.9 cents per page. That makes for a far more affordable, 9-cent four-color page. Text pages still cost about twice what you’ll pay with fancier models such as the HP Officejet Pro 8600 Plus.

Though the HP Officejet 6700 Premium falls a bit short in scanning capabilities and ink costs, it's otherwise a capable midpriced inkjet MFP. A similarly priced competitor, the Brother MFC-J825DW, offers CD/DVD printing and a two-year warranty (compared to the HP's one), but it also has a lower paper capacity and some higher ink prices.

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Buffalo LinkStation Pro Duo 2TB Review: An Affordable, Solid Performer

The $380 (as of March 23, 2012) Buffalo LinkStation Pro Duo streams media well--and it performs well, too, thanks to its 1.6GHz CPU. Software features include the usual sharing, DLNA/iTunes media serving, and Mac Time Machine support, but you also get rarer perks such as Bittorrent downloads, Squeezebox streaming, backup from PCs using the five supplied licenses to Nova Backup, and website serving.

The LinkStation Pro Duo is a basic two-bay NAS box. It comes with a single USB 2.0 port on the back, but no USB 3.0 or eSATA. The unit also lacks a quick-copy button. The two drive bays are easy to reach when you pop off part of the front cover, but they aren't hot-swappable.

In its default RAID 0 configuration, the LinkStation Pro Duo read our 10GB large file at 68.5 megabytes per second. That's speedy enough to handle streaming even 1080p video, though it's only slightly faster than the slowest box we tested for our roundup of 11 NAS boxes. The other performance numbers are lower-echelon as well, though adequate for home use. The box wrote our 10GB mix of files and folders at 27.5 MBps, read them at 40.6 MBps, and wrote the large 10GB file at 45.6 MBps.

Note: RAID 0 increases performance slightly and uses the full capacity of the box's drives, but it leaves all of the data on the box at risk. Drive failure happens, so keep the LinkStation Pro Duo backed up, or consider reconfiguring it to RAID 1 mirroring to build in data redundancy.

The LinkStation Pro Duo's operating system is generally well-organized, but the language and help are often terse, technical, and not particularly easy to follow. You can puzzle stuff out fairly quickly if you have the tech chops, but we noticed some very loose ends in the interface and in what it describes.

The 2TB LinkStation Pro Duo's street price of approximately $380 puts it in direct competition with the Western Digital My Book Live Duo 4TB. The latter offers twice the capacity for the same price, as well as faster (by 20 MBps) large-file read performance. That makes the LinkStation Pro Duo a tough sell, even though it has some attractive software features that the My Book Live Duo lacks.

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HP Omni 220 Quad Review: Fast, Affordable, Homely

HP's Omni line is known for its speediness--the HP Omni 200 Quad is one of the quickest budget all-in-one PCs we've tested--and the HP Omni 220 Quad, which starts at $1000 (as of March 14, 2012), is no different. Actually, it is different: It's even faster than the Omni 200.

Awesome, right? Well, not everything about the Omni 220 is stellar, but maybe you can overlook its flaws because it's such a good performer.

Our review model came packed with an Intel Core i7-2600S processor, 6GB of RAM, and a 1TB hard drive. It also features an AMD Radeon HD 6450 discrete graphics card, built-in Wireless-N networking, and Beats Audio enhancement technology. The system runs the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium.

No question about it--the Omni 220 is fast. We're talking definite nonbudget speeds: In PCWorld's WorldBench 6 benchmark tests, the Omni 220 earned an impressive score of 147. By contrast, its predecessor, the Omni 200, posted a mark of 132, and even that's speedy.

Graphics performance is also good, especially for the all-in-one category. In our Dirt 2 tests the Omni 220 managed a decent frame rate of 40 frames per second (at 1680-by-1050-pixel resolution and highest settings). Cranked up to 1920 by 1200 pixels, it fell short with a frame rate of just 25 fps. If you're shopping for a gaming machine, you may want to look elsewhere.

Performance stats aside, the Omni 220 is a lot like the Omni 200. Both feature the same cantilever design, which isn't terribly attractive or ugly--it just is. Both sport a 21.5-inch display with a native resolution of 1680 by 1080 pixels (full HD). And both have speakers that work well for music but not for anything else.

For what it's worth, the included Beats Audio software enhances the speaker output considerably (the speakers sound thin and bassless without Beats Audio turned on).That said, the result is not very loud, and audio sounds fuzzy at the highest volume setting.

The Omni 220's screen lacks touch support, and its off-axis viewing angles are pretty dismal. It's also a tad too bright. Usually I'm all for superbright screens, but in this case the colors look washed out. On a positive note, the matte screen produces little glare. The brightness and the lack of glare are great news if you plan on using this PC in bright light or direct sunlight, but since it's an all-in-one and not a laptop, that probably won't be an issue.

On the back of the system, you'll find most of the ports: four USB 2.0 connections, gigabit ethernet, audio-out, and a Kensington lock. A few convenience items--two USB 3.0 ports, separate headphone and microphone jacks, and a multiformat card reader--are on the left side of the screen. The right side of the screen houses the tray-loading Blu-ray Disc player.

Accompanying the Omni 220 are a wired mouse and keyboard, both of which are mediocre. The keyboard is flat, with regular keys, and it's a little stiff for typing. It does have volume control buttons, as well as a red Beats Audio key for turning the Beats Audio speaker enhancement on and off. The optical mouse is a typical two-buttons-with-a-scrollwheel affair. It's light and responsive--a plus, since you have no touchscreen to fall back on.

The HP Omni 220 Quad is faster than its predecessor, and it packs a Blu-ray disc player--we think that's great. The display is a bit less impressive, but if you're looking for a Blu-ray player and an all-in-one that offers great general performance, it's not a bad choice.

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Free and Affordable Software to Sync Your Work and Your Life

If you're like plenty of people these days, you have more than just one computer--and I don't mean just a traditional desktop or laptop PC, but also a smartphone or a tablet. A smartphone is little more than a computer wrapped around a cell phone; and a tablet, of course, is merely a computer in a convenient portable package.

Having multiple devices is certainly useful, but it's problematic as well. What happens when you're on your smartphone and you want to access contacts that you normally store on your desktop computer? How can you keep your schedule in sync everywhere? How about keeping your notes in sync, or listening to the music files on your PC when you're halfway across the continent with only your phone nearby?

You can handle those challenges and more, with help from the following downloads. All of them are useful, and all of them are easy to use. And most of them are free.

(To get all of the links in one convenient list, see our "Free and Affordable Software to Sync Your Work and Your Life" downloads collection.)

Keeping Files in Sync

When you're juggling multiple computers and multiple devices, the biggest problem you face is ensuring that your files and folders stay in sync. These downloads do the job neatly.

SugarSync

SugarSync is my favorite way to keep all my important files and folders synchronized. Just install it on each of your PCs or Macs, and tell it which files and folders to sync--it then works behind the scenes. As you edit a file, SugarSync uploads the file to cloud-based storage, and then syncs it to your other devices. You can access the files from any computer with Internet access, and from an Android or iOS device too.

SugarSync is free for two computers and for mobile devices, for up to 5GB in storage. If you want more than that, you'll have to pay. The service has several price tiers, depending on the amount of storage you want, from $50 a year for 30GB to $400 a year for 500GB.

Windows Live Mesh

Microsoft's Windows Live Mesh is another great tool for keeping files and folders coordinated. It's free, and it works in concert with Microsoft's cloud-based storage service SkyDrive to keep your PCs and Macs synchronized. You get up to 5GB of cloud-based storage. Just like SugarSync, it sends files to the cloud storage and then syncs the files from there, so you can access the files not just on your own PCs and Macs, but wherever you have an Internet connection. Not only that, but you can also access your PC or Mac from Windows Phone 7, Android, and iOS devices.

Xmarks

If you browse the Web on multiple computers, or if you use multiple browsers, trying to keep their bookmarks in line is a huge hassle. With Xmarks, however, that's no longer a problem. This tool syncs bookmarks between multiple PCs and Macs, and works with Firefox, Internet Explorer, Mac OS X Safari, and Chrome.

The software and service are free for computers, but if you also want to sync your bookmarks with IOS and Android devices, you'll have to pay $12 per year.

Evernote

Evernote is the best application you can find for keeping Web information and notes in sync among multiple computers and iOS and Android devices. Use it to clip Web pages or sections of Web pages on your PC or Mac, or to jot down notes, and it syncs those items to multiple devices so you can access them from anywhere. It's free, but if you want more features--such as offline notebooks for Android and iOS devices, and larger file sizes for each note--you'll have to pay $45 per year.

Email and Sync

With these two email-related sync downloads, you can increase your productivity and send files more easily.

Smartr Inbox for Gmail by Xobni

For anyone who wants to mix information in their Gmail account and in social networking services such as Facebook, the free Smartr Inbox for Gmail is a must-have tool. Install it, and you'll be able to combine information about contacts from social networking services with Gmail. Smartr Inbox offers a great way to make Gmail the central hub for all of your electronic communications.

SugarSync for Outlook

If you use both SugarSync and Microsoft's Outlook, consider grabbing the free SugarSync for Outlook add-on, which can circumvent the limitations that mail providers put on sending or receiving files over a certain size. Simply install the add-on, and specify a file size in the settings. Then, whenever you want to email a file larger than that size, SugarSync helps you send a link to the file on your cloud-based SugarSync account, rather than sending the file attachment itself. The email recipient just needs to click the link to obtain the file.

Remote Access

Sometimes, just keeping your files synced isn't enough, and you need to access your main computer remotely. The next two downloads make that task simple.

LogMeIn

With this great software, you can take control of your PC remotely, from another computer or device, just as if you were sitting in front of it. You simply install LogMeIn on both devices, and then connect to the computer you want to control over the Internet, via encrypted access. The software works with PCs, Macs, and iOS and Android devices. The basic service is free, but some versions cost extra; for example, to control your PC from an iOS device, you have to pay $30 for the LogMeIn Ignition iOS app.

X1 Mobile Search

Want to use your iOS or Android device to search for and access files on your PC or Mac? Use X1 Mobile Search. Install the free X1 Mobile Connect on your PC or Mac, and put the $15 X1 Mobile Search on your mobile device. Once both programs are in place, you can make the connection from your mobile device to your PC or Mac, and quickly grab the files you want.

Playing Music in the Cloud

Here's a common problem: You have a big music collection on your PC or Mac, but you can't listen to it on your smartphone or another computer. Fortunately, a nifty solution is a download away.

Google Music

Google Music lets you enjoy your tunes just about anywhere. Download the free Music Manager software, which uploads your songs to Google's cloud service, and then you can play those songs on any computer with Internet access, or via an Android app. You can also download free music tracks from the Google Music service, or buy tracks, and they'll be available in your cloud-based collection as well. You can store up to 20,000 of your own songs, plus whatever you buy or download from the Google Music service. It plays all popular file types, including Windows Media Audio (.wma) files--which rival Amazon Cloud Music Player won't play.

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