Linksys EA6900 802.11ac Wi-Fi router review: Too expensive for what’s delivered

After acquiring Linksys from Cisco, Belkin changed only one element of the EA-series industrial design with the EA6900: The company added adjustable/upgradeable antennas. That design change doesn’t seem to have had the performance impact Belkin was hoping for. The EA6900 is a good router, but it’s certainly not a barn-burner.

Well, it might be in one respect, but you might not care: The EA6900 finished far ahead of the pack in terms of its 2.4GHz 802.11n performance (with the notable exception of when the client was located in my acoustically isolated home theater). Its performance as an 802.11ac router was unexceptional when paired with Linksys’s own WUSB6100 Wi-Fi adapter, only on par when paired with Linksys’s own WUMC710 Wi-Fi bridge, and relatively weak when paired with a second EA6900 configured as a Wi-Fi bridge.

ROBERT CARDIN

Adding adjustable antennas to the Linksys EA6900 didn't appreciably increase this router's wireless performance.

The EA6900 is a dual-band router delivering throughput of 450 mbps on its 2.4GHz and 5GHz 802.11n networks, and up to 1300 mbps on its 5GHz 802.11ac network. As I’ve already mentioned, it features adjustable/upgradeable antennas.

As with several of the other routers I’ve tested recently, the EA6900 has one USB 3.0 port and one USB 2.0 port, so it can share both USB storage and a USB printer on your network. It has FTP and SAMBA servers, as well as DLNA and UPnP media servers, but it doesn’t have an iTunes server. It supports VPN pass-through, so you can log into your company’s VPN, but it doesn’t have its own VPN server. You can nonetheless access a storage device attached to the router from the Internet using Linksys Smart Wi-Fi and a third-party DDNS (Dynamic Domain Name System) service.

You may configure the router manually, or you may establish a free account to use all the online features of Linksys Smart Wi-Fi, including remote access to a storage device or an IP camera attached to the router. If you do sign up for a Smart Wi-Fi account, you can link several compatible Linksys routers and manage them all from the same online portal. This is convenient if you’re the default networking tech support for friends or family (provided they also buy Linksys routers, of course).

ROBERT CARDIN

Like most high-end routers, the Linksys EA6900 is equipped with one USB 3.0 port and one USB 2.0 port, so you can share both storage and a printer on your network. 

Smart Wi-Fi also provides better-than-typical parental controls, including the ability to block websites based on their content and establishing time limitations when Internet access is allowed from specific computers. If parental controls are activated, you must provide a password to bypass them. You can operate a guest network on the EA900, but only on the 2.4GHz network.

Like most routers, the EA6900’s Quality of Service capabilities are limited to prioritizing traffic that’s uploaded to the Internet. That’s great for lag-sensitive applications such as VoIP, videoconferencing, and online games, but it can’t manage traffic coming down from the Internet.

The EA6900 can be configured to operate as a router, as a Wi-Fi access point, or—with a recent firmware update—an 802.11ac wireless bridge. Like the Asus RT-AC68U and the Netgear Nighthawk, the EA6900 supports TurboQAM, but I don’t count that as a major advantage because most adapters on the client side don’t support TurboQAM. As a router, the EA6900 proved to be much faster than the Buffalo WZR-1750DHP and the Trendnet TEW-812DRU, but well behind the aforementioned Asus and Netgear devices.

Linksys provided me with early firmware that enabled me to convert a second EA6900 into an 802.11ac wireless bridge, so early firmware might explain why TCP throughput between the two was relatively poor. It came in last at all four locations where I placed the bridge and the client.

My next test paired the EA6900 with the Linksys WUMC710 802.11ac wireless bridge, and it pretty much ran with the pack with the exception of reaching the client when it was in my difficult-to-penetrate home theater. It tied for fourth place at that location.

When paired with Linksys’s own WUSB6100 client adapter, the EA6900 turned in a respectable performance, taking third place overall. Compared to the rest of the pack, it performed better in the two longer-range tests than it did when the client was close by.

Linksys’s router wasn’t nearly impressive as a 5GHz 802.11n router, except when the client was at its furthest distance from the router. It took a first-place finish when the client was in my home office, 65 feet from the router.

The Linksys EA6900 delivered a surprisingly strong performance as a 2.4GHz 802.11n router, beating the rest of the field at three of my four test locations (the one exception being when the client was in the home theater, where the EA6900 placed third).

The EA6900 performed very well as a network-attached storage device. The Netgear R7000 crushed every other device, and the Asus RT-AC68U placed second, but Linksys took a very respectable third-place finish.

The Linksys EA6900 performed reasonably well in most of my tests, and it has a very solid feature set. But its $190 street price is high considering that the Netgear R700 costs just $9 more and delivers far superior performance. The D-Link DIR-868L is also much faster, and it costs a full $40 less. Linksys needs to do better.

Michael manages PCWorld's hardware product reviews and contributes to TechHive's coverage of home-control systems and sound bars.
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Razer Ouroboros Review: An expensive love letter to lefty mice lovers

Razer Ouroboros $150.00 Razer's Ouroboros gaming mouse is kind of hard to say and costs $150, but is readily customizable, lefty-friendly, and performs well. Also, it’s gorgeous.

Gaming mice are a fascinating concept: how do you convince folks to spend over a hundred bucks to replace their $20 pointing-and-clicking device? First, it needs to be flashy; funky designs and lights help. It needs to be comfortable: see Mad Catz’s Cyborg R.A.T 7 ($99) and its ilk, replete with knobs to fiddle and bits to slide about. It also needs to offer an edge over the hoi polloi and their two buttons-and-a-scroll wheel affairs—Razer’s long since gone over the deep end on that front, the 17-button Razer Naga 2014 ($80) being their latest (admittedly excellent) entry in the input arms race.

Well, almost their latest—here’s another one for the pack, the Razer Ouroboros. It’s got a ludicrous name, will set you back $150, and doesn’t offer quite as much whizz-bangery as the Naga or the R.A.T. It’s also the best mouse I’ve used in years, distilling all of Razer’s mouse-tech into an ambidextrous package that’s user-friendly without feeling ridiculous. And it’s gorgeous, like some Imperial skunkworks project dreamt up by a jaded TIE fighter pilot, forever lost after one last fateful trip to that nondescript, not-a-moon space station.

Yes, it costs $150. But If you want a gaming mouse and can spare the cash, you should probably buy this one. Let’s get into why.

We’ll start with the important bits: it’s incredibly comfortable, eventually. You’ll need a screwdriver to loosen screws underneath the mouse and remove the rear panel, which gives you access to the AA battery compartment and lets you adjust the mouse’s length. It’s feels a bit small, but once stretched out it fits perfectly into my fairly large hands. A wheel on the rear end also lets you adjust the angle of the palm rest so your hand sits just right. The mouse is incredibly sturdy, and the soft matte panels hold up rather well after extended use. There are also a pair of interchangeable magnetic panels for the mouse’s sides, offering up flat, textured plates or smooth, contoured winglets—the latter clearly being the only correct choice.

The panels on the side of the mouse can be swapped out for sleek, sexy, comfortable contoured winglets.

Yes, requiring a screwdriver to adjust your mouse feels a little ridiculous, but unless your hand regularly changes size or you have very bad luck with NiMH AA batteries you’ll never need to duck in there again. The non-U.S. version of the mouse offers a quick-release latch under the base of the mouse, but us North Americans are out of luck—I imagine these screws are a bit more cost-effective.

Moving right along: buttons are here, and there are just enough of them. A typical mouse offers left and right buttons and a clickable scroll wheel. The Ouroboros also offers two on the spine and three on each side; the two silver buttons are rather visible, but you can also press the mouse’s left or right flanks. Every single button (except the left click) is customizable, and many are by default quick DPI-toggles—I’ve never felt the need to swap sensitivity on the fly so I swapped these out for in-game abilities.

The number, size and arrangement of buttons on the Ouroboros feels just right.

The Ouroboros is wireless, which I absolutely love. It’s incredibly responsive, offering nary a hint of latency with sensitivity that can be tweaked all the way up to 8200 DPI. The mouse’s laser can also be calibrated to improving tracking on your mouse pad or surface. It’s is also a wired mouse, so the gaming purist can love it too. Best of both worlds, really: the mouse’s charging dock serves as a wireless receiver, and plugs into your PC (or Mac) via USB. If you need to move to a laptop, charge the battery while you use the mouse, or just like being tethered to a desk, simply unplug the dock and slide the USB cable into the port on the mouse.

Razer reports that the mouse will last for 12 hours between charges and sure, that sounds about right. I’ve used it incessantly but always find myself sticking it back into the dock when I step away from my computer for extended periods of time, so the battery indicator sitting on the spine has never dipped below that nebulous two-stage mark. The mouse also goes to sleep when idle, but resumes activity with nary a hitch.

Are there problems? Sure. As an ambidextrous mouse, half of the device is arguably useless. Side buttons will be the domain of your thumb, and there’s only so much your pinky and ring finger can do unless you’re incredibly dexterous. Being a lefty MMO-enthusiast who’s generally ignored by peripheral manufacturers, I’m okay with this—extra buttons are always welcome, and I simply assign less critical abilities to those buttons I can’t quite press as handily. I imagine the same will be true for my right-handed gamer brethren.

You know, it looks less like an ouroboros and more like a flying car from Blade Runner.

This one’s a bit more serious: after powering up my PC, the mouse would occasionally “forget” my customized button configurations, ignoring profile settings and behaving as it would in its default state; I fixed this by plugging the USB cable in for a moment. I didn’t manage to reproduce this with any regularity, which is the worst sort of bug—you don’t know anything’s wrong until you’re in the middle of a pitched battle and can’t fire off that critical ability. I imagine troubleshooting and waiting for a patch to roll out will clean that up soon enough.

This is the part of a Razer peripheral review where I bemoan Razer Synapse. I still think requiring an account to download customization software is ridiculous. But truth be told, I’m over it—it’s unobtrusive, offers a one-stop configuration shop if you happen to use lots of Razer gear, and the cloud-saved profiles could come in handy if you migrate between machines a lot.

Being able to go wireless when you want to is a huge plus, though purists will turn their nose up at the drop in accuracy that comes from abandoning your wire.

Really, this all boils down to price. You can find mice that will work just as well as you need them to for $40—they likely won’t be wireless, but purists demand wired-fidelity anyway. And they won’t be nearly as attractive, though beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If $150 is just too high a price to pay, Logitech is doing some amazing things with mice these days, and I’d recommend giving their wares a gander.

But the Ouroboros is a lovely piece of equipment. There’s always room to complain—the profile issue I ran into cost me one or two intense Guild Wars 2 matchups—but this mouse is quite literally an amalgam of all of my favorite gaming mouse features over the last few years, packed into a single gorgeous package. It’s a lot to spend on a single peripheral, but it’s arguably well worth it.

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Lenovo ThinkPad Helix review: A versatile but expensive Ultrabook/tablet hybrid

Lenovo’s ThinkPad Helix is nothing if not versatile. This 11.6-inch Windows 8 Pro touchscreen tablet can operate as such, dock to a razor-thin keyboard to become a dual-battery notebook PC, and then flip with acrobatic ease to become a desktop presenter.

ROBERT CARDINLenovo's ThinkPad Helix is one of the best laptop/tablet hybrids we've seen so far.

The Helix also boasts a 128GB solid-state drive, which boosts its performance on tasks involving data transfers between storage and memory (boot, return from sleep, and application launches, for example). The presence of the SSD played no small part in the Helix’s respectable Notebook WorldBench 8.1 score of 285, which was nearly three times better than that of our reference system (an Asus VivoBook S550CA, which augments its mechanical hard drive with a 24GB SSD cache). The Helix also earned an outstanding PCMark 7 storage test score of 5308, one of the best results we’ve seen. (WorldBench 8.1 consists of a suite of synthetic and real-world benchmarks, of which PCMark 7 is one element.)

A 128GB SSD helped the ThinkPad Helix deliver a good benchmark performance.

In configurations that use both the tablet and the keyboard, we saw impressive battery life of 6.5 hours thanks to the presence of a battery in each component. The Helix’s longevity dropped to just 2 hours when operating as a tablet with a single battery.

In most tasks less dependent on hard-disk access, the Helix still performed solidly, if not as brilliantly. Outfitted with an Intel Core i5-3337U mobile CPU (based on 2012’s Ivy Bridge architecture) and 4GB of DDR3/1333 memory that it must share with the Intel HD 4000 integrated graphics hardware, our review unit suffered most in gaming tests.

All this power and versatility doesn’t come cheap. Our review unit, the least expensive of the available configurations on Lenovo’s website, carried a $1679 price tag ($1427 after an instant rebate) as of August 5, 2013. Conventional touchscreen Windows 8 laptops are widely available for less than $1000.

In usability, the Helix generally lives up to Lenovo’s reputation for well-built portables. The black soft-touch case feels good when you’re handling the tablet, and the keyboard boasts Lenovo’s signature, pleasing contours and snappy action. For pointing, you get to choose among a responsive touchpad with multitouch support, a red eraserhead joystick button, and of course the digitizing touchscreen. Separating the keyboard takes only a second or two and doesn’t require a reboot. In our tests the touchscreen responded well to swipes.

ROBERT CARDINSeparate the Helix's display from its keyboard, and you have a fully functional Windows 8 tablet.

The integrated high-def webcam produced smooth-looking video on Skype calls, and its low-light technology worked well. The integrated microphone picked up my voice well, but the Helix’s audio is very disappointing. Even when I turned it all the way up, I could barely hear the voice of Skype callers, and music on YouTube videos was positively faint. This problem could be a deal-breaker for someone who needs to make presentations on the road.

I have a few other quibbles as well: Although the Helix maintains the sub-0.75-inch thickness appropriate for an ultraportable, the machine is heavy for its display size, weighing a full 3.6 pounds with the keyboard and 1.8 pounds without it.

Lenovo provides a plastic stylus that slides into a slot on the tablet, but I didn’t enjoy using it because it was imprecise—a real issue on the 1920-by-1080-pixel widescreen IPS display. That resolution on an 11.6-inch display made for good-looking videos on YouTube and Skype, but it also resulted in very tiny type on many websites, including a few that use Flash or other technologies that don’t support pinch and zoom. I sometimes found myself squinting, and using the stylus to select radio buttons (fingertips being too blunt an instrument) was generally a hit-or-miss affair.

In tablet mode, you get one Mini DisplayPort connection, one USB 2.0 port, a SIM-card slot for optional mobile broadband, and a combo headphone/microphone jack. The keyboard dock adds a pair of USB 3.0 ports and a Mini DisplayPort connection. But I missed having an SD Card reader, and depending on a USB dongle for ethernet connections is a bit of drag (the Helix does support both 2.4GHz and 5GHz 802.11n Wi-Fi).

The ThinkPad Helix deserves kudos for its innovative design, and a business user in search of a laptop-tablet convertible with good performance might find the high price tag palatable. (And if money is no object, you can upgrade to a faster processor, add more solid-state storage capacity, and tack on on the aforementioned mobile-broadband feature.)

If a high-performance tablet is all you need, note that Microsoft recently slashed the price of its 128GB Surface Pro to $899. But that tablet’s screen is an inch smaller, and you’ll need to add $130 to get the Type Cover keyboard (which, in addition to being inferior to the Helix’s, lacks a trackpad).

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: DeepDyve works like a low-cost subscription to expensive journals

DeepDyve DeepDyve brings true change to scholarly and professional research with its affordable rentals and free full-text previews.

Download Now

If you're not affiliated with a university or don't have access to its proxy, getting full-text versions of articles is either expensive or impossible. DeepDyve is an innovative service targeted at individuals and companies alike, which makes the game much more affordable by letting you rent articles from thousands of journals.

DeepDyve lets you browse many major journals and spend up to five minutes a day on an article.

An abstract is not enough to judge an entire paper. A free account with DeepDyve gets you free access to full-text articles for five minutes a day. If you deem an article interesting, you can pay $20 for five 30-day rentals, or $40/month for 40 monthly rentals (or by DeepDyve's odd definition, "virtually unlimited").

DeepDyve's interface is friendly and easy to use, and a browser plugin for Google Scholar tells you which articles in the results list are available for rent. Your DeepDyve personal homepage is an RSS reader of sorts, and can be used to follow your favorite journals . Even if you are affiliated with a university, DeepDyve is a great way to preview full-text articles when you don't have access to the proxy.

Note: The Download button takes you to to the vendor's website.

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10 Most Expensive iTunes Apps

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Review: Google Chromebook Pixel is an expensive curiosity

Google’s Chromebook Pixel is an idea. It describes Google’s vision of a high-end laptop for citizens of a future world, freed from the encumbrances of old-style computer operating systems, existing entirely on the Web.

The Chromebook Pixel is also a product, starting at $1299 (I reviewed the $1449 version, with 4G networking). It’s as solidly built and generously appointed as any laptop you’ll find, but it runs only the Chrome web browser, not Apple's Mac OS X or Microsoft's Windows.

As an idea sprung from Google’s view of the future of technology, the Chromebook Pixel is intriguing, even intoxicating. But it’s hard to fathom how it works as a real-world product.

If nothing else, it's reignited the Chromebook debate. Within the editorial team here, some editors wonder what the Chromebook’s point is, while others say that Chromebook’s critics are missing the point. Meanwhile, tech legend Linus Torvalds came out in favor of the Chromebook Pixel. Reasonable people are disagreeing, and thanks to the Pixel, Chromebooks are suddenly getting a lot of attention again.

If the Chromebook Pixel is Google’s vision of what a laptop should be, the company has, if nothing else, proven it has good taste in hardware design. If there were an Apple logo on the top, nobody would be surprised. As a longtime user of Apple laptops, I felt right at home when I opened up the Chromebook Pixel for the first time.

GoogleThe Chromebook Pixel's brushed-aluminum design would fit right in at an Apple store.

This is a solid, aluminum-bodied laptop. At 3.35 pounds, it sits between the 2.96-pound 13-inch MacBook Air and the 3.57-pound 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro.

The Chromebook Pixel is dominated by its large, high-resolution display. It’s a bright, glass-covered panel, with a resolution of 2560 by 1700 pixels and a density of 239 pixels per inch (ppi). Like the Retina MacBook Pro (whose density of 227 ppi is imperceptibly lower), this is a screen so good that you simply can’t see the pixels. Photos are fantastically detailed, and text is crisp. The screen has an aspect ratio of 3:2, which makes it taller than most recent laptops. Given that extra height is more valuable than extra width on most web pages, it’s a good decision.

GoogleThe Chromebook Pixel's high-resolution display is so good you simply can't see the pixels.

The display is also a touchscreen—a curious design decision given Chrome OS is still largely a mouse-driven interface. We’ve all become so trained in the gestures of touchscreen interfaces, however, that it’s become almost second nature to reach out and tap on a screen from time to time. As long as you’re reaching over a keyboard, a touchscreen is never going to be a primary input method on a laptop. But it’s a nice addition to the trackpad.

When using the Pixel's touchscreen to swipe between images on the 500px Chrome app, I noticed that scrolling seemed laggy when I used my finger, but crisp when I used the keyboard. Part of this is, I think, psychological: When you move your finger, you expect the content underneath your finger to move along with it. But that's not all of it: When I touched an arrow key, the app scrolled to the next picture much more smoothly than it did when I swiped. The UI just wasn't measuring up. The overall experience left the touchscreen seeming at times surprisingly inferior to the keyboard.

Melissa RiofrioIn the 500px app, moving through photos seemed faster using the keyboard than the touchscreen.

The Pixel’s trackpad is a large black, glass multitouch model comparable to those found on Apple’s laptops, and its backlit keyboard is similarly Apple-like. There’s no standard set of function keys at the top, though--instead, there’s a bar of buttons used to control brightness, volume, and similar features.

Ports are minimal. The Pixel has two USB 2.0 ports (not 3.0, sadly), a Mini DisplayPort for video out, a standard headphone jack, and an SD card slot.

The higher-end Pixel is made for cloud-based computing. Consider the 64GB of solid-state storage to be just in case. Onboard storage is really not the point of this device, but it's actually hard even to find it in Chrome OS: Files is just another icon in the app dock. More important is the integrated 4G networking, which comes with two years of Verizon LTE service and 100MB per month of data. My Pixel connected to Verizon’s LTE network automatically whenever it couldn’t find a local Wi-Fi hotspot. With the exception of a couple of airplane flights I was able to use the Web anytime, anywhere. The $1299 version of the Pixel has just 32GB of storage and no 4G.

Driving the entire experience is a dual-core Intel Core i5 processor running at 1.8 GHz. That's far more power than any other Chromebook can boast. The Pixel posted competitive times in HTML5 gaming, Javascript processing, and other tests--even compared to some full-fledged laptops. But this power (and the display) taxed the battery, which lasted just over 3 hours in our tests.

As accomplished as the Chromebook Pixel’s hardware is, it can’t be judged on its own. The hardware works in concert with its software--in this case, Google’s Chrome OS.

GoogleEverything in Chrome happens in a browser tab.

Chrome OS is a bold move by Google to move beyond traditional operating systems. Everything--and I mean everything--in Chrome OS happens in a browser tab. Even hardware settings (such as shutting down wireless networking before boarding a plane) are controlled via a panel inside a browser tab.

The idea here is that, for a lot of people, the Web is all that’s really necessary. If you’ve traded Word for Google Docs and Outlook for Gmail, you may find that the experience of using your computer has narrowed into one that’s almost entirely in a browser. Why not dump the rest of that junk and just embrace the browser?

I love the sentiment, but I don’t think most prospective laptop buyers--especially prospective purchasers of a laptop as pricey as the Chromebook Pixel--will find that their lives are Web-centric enough to make the shift. If all Web apps were as good as Google’s, there would be a stronger case. Spending a couple of days using Twitter’s website rather than a native Twitter client made me want to pull my hair out.

Melissa RiofrioThe Chrome Web Store is a melange of truly impressive native Web apps and glorified bookmarks.

Google’s Chrome Web Store doesn’t help matters any. It’s a melange of truly impressive native Web apps and glorified bookmarks, and it’s often hard to tell which is which. I installed the Kingdom Rush “app” only to discover that it was just a shortcut to the Flash version of the Kingdom Rush game on the Kingdom Rush website. (My son sometimes commandeers my MacBook Air to play Minecraft, but since that game requires Java and doesn't run in a browser, he'd be out of luck on the Chromebook Pixel.)

This is not to say that Chrome OS can’t run truly offline apps. Though the Web was originally intended for online work, Google has done a great job of making its apps work offline. I’m writing this paragraph offline, in Google Docs, at 40,000 feet. (Granted, it took me quite a while to figure out how to enable offline access for Google Docs, since it’s turned on for all Google Apps for Domains users by default.)

Chrome is a great browser, but Chrome OS shows a lot of gaps when it leaves its comfort zone.

The problem is that some stuff just doesn’t work offline. If you’re never offline--never in a wireless dead spot or on an airplane or in a foreign country with incompatible wireless service--that won’t matter. Again, I’d wager that for most people this will be an issue, at least for a while.

Chrome is a great browser, but Chrome OS shows a lot of gaps when it leaves its comfort zone. Usability would be improved by better window management. Chrome OS has a nice dock where you can pin frequently used apps, but it doesn’t really work right. If I’ve got a Gmail tab open and I click the Gmail button on the dock, it opens a duplicate tab. Chrome OS supports separate full-screen workspaces for different apps, but it’s got to be managed manually. I felt like I was doing a lot of unnecessary work moving tabs around to where I wanted them to go.

Melissa Riofrio Chrome OS has a nice dock where you can pin frequently used apps, but it doesn’t really work right.

There are also places where the browser heritage shows through a bit too much. There’s a little Scratchpad app that’s built so you can quickly type in a few notes. It looks like its counterparts on Mac and Windows, but my right-click brought up a “Back” contextual menu that didn’t make any sense, and when I closed the Notes window, I repeatedly received a warning that “closing this tab” might make me lose data. It wasn’t a tab, and I didn’t lose any data. Pay no attention to the browser behind the curtain!

The Chromebook Pixel is as well-built a laptop as you'll see. The body is solid, and the screen is something to behold.

GoogleThe Chromebook Pixel is a sleek, exciting iteration of Google's vision of the future of computing. And it's incredibly expensive.

The problem is in the price and the operating system. At roughly the same price, you can buy an Apple laptop or an Ultrabook PC that provides roughly the same specs, runs Chrome, and also runs your favorite computer operating system with apps and games and Dropbox syncing and everything else you've come to expect from a laptop.

As the resident of a stripped-down laptop offered for a stripped-down price, Chrome OS makes some sort of sense, but on a high-end laptop such as this, I have a hard time seeing who would want one. Sure, there are users who have completely embraced the Web and simply don't need the hassle of OS chrome and security updates and the like, but how many of those people are in the market for a laptop whose cheapest version is $1299?

As an idea, Chromebook Pixel has a lot going for it. It's an iteration of Google's vision of the future of computing, and it's sleek and exciting. But as a product, it's just not practical. There are better laptops and cheaper laptops and better, cheaper laptops. The Chromebook Pixel augurs days to come, but in the present it's just an expensive curiosity.

Jason oversees all editorial operations for TechHive, PCWorld, and Macworld. He has reviewed every major Apple product of the last few years, including the original iPhone and iPad as well as every major version of Mac OS X.
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Canon Pixma MG4120 Review: All the Basics, Expensive Black Ink

The $130 (as of March 19, 2012) Canon Pixma MG4120 color inkjet multifunction (print/copy/scan) is one of the cheaper MFPs on the market to feature paper-saving automatic duplexing. It also produces nice-looking output at a reasonable pace. Color-ink costs are lower than average for a low-price MFP, too, so photos and Web pages are relatively cheap to print. The black ink is pricey, however, so printing out everyday letters and term papers costs more than the norm.

You can attach the Pixma MG4120 directly to your PC via USB, or network it using the integrated Wi-Fi. The unit's flip-up 2.4-inch LCD screen is easy to read, and makes using the printer a breeze for the most part. Canon needs to ditch the three "function" buttons for making selections, though. Having to move your fingers to those buttons is a waste of time and effort; the OK button and four-way cursor control would suffice. The Pixma MG4120 also features SD Card and Memory Stick slots for printing photos or offloading scans.

Paper-handling features on the Pixma MG4120 are modest, though adequate for home use. You get a single 100-sheet letter/legal input tray at the front of the unit, and a 50-sheet output tray directly above it. The unit doesn't have an automatic document feeder for the A4/letter-size scanner, but it does offer an automatic duplexer for hassle-free two-sided printing. The lid for the scanner telescopes to accommodate thicker material.

The Pixma MG4120's output is about the same quality as what you see from other Canon Pixma MG-series printers--that is, quite good. Text is sharp, if not laserlike. Color graphics have an orange skew that can make faces look spray-tanned, but the tint also makes for warm-feeling landscapes and still-lifes. Photo details are nicely rendered.

Speed is good for everyday tasks and the odd photo. In our tests the Pixma MG4120 printed text pages at 6.5 pages per minute on the PC and 7.1 ppm on the Mac. Snapshot-size photos printed at 2.6 ppm on plain paper, and at 1.2 ppm on photo paper. Color PDF pages and full-page photos printed on the Mac took twice as long as the average. Scans and copies at normal and higher resolutions were decently fast. And, in case you were wondering, the Pixma MG4120's performance falls right in line with the numbering convention of the MG series--it's faster than the MG2120 and MG3120, and slower than the MG6120 and the newer MG5220.

Similar to its brethren, the Pixma MG4120 has higher-than-average black-ink costs. The PG-240XL Extra Large black cartridge costs $21 and lasts for 300 pages, or 7 cents per page. The $38, 600-page PG-240XXL black cartridge reduces costs only slightly to 6.3 cents per page. Color, on the other hand, is relatively cheap. The unified-color CL-241XL costs $30 and lasts for 400 pages, or 7.5 cents per page. A four-color page using the PG-240XXL and the CL-241XL would be 13.8 cents, about average in cost for an inkjet MFP. Note that with a tricolor cartridge (containing cyan, magenta, and yellow), when one color runs out, you have to replace the entire cartridge even if ink remains for the other colors.

If you're looking for alternatives with lower black-ink costs, both the HP Photosmart 6510 e-All-in-One ($150) and the Brother MFC-J625DW ($130) are worth considering. However, the Pixma MG4120 is otherwise every bit as competent, and it's decently inexpensive for mixed-color pages and photos.

From PCWorld. Visit Amazon Computer and Notebook Center here

Why Sprint’s New $99 ZTE Optik Tablet is More Expensive Than the iPad

For $99 bucks, Sprint’s latest Honeycomb tablet, the ZTE Optik, brings a lot to the table. Hitting the carrier’s stores on Sunday, February 5, the 7-inch slate runs Android Honeycomb and includes powerful components inside, but that cost of entry requires a two-year contract with Sprint that makes the Optik more expensive than any Wi-Fi only tablet you can buy.

Inside, the Optik sports a 1.2-GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor, 7-inch 1280x-800-pixel WXGA screen, 16GB of storage, 1GB of RAM, a 5-megapixel back-facing camera, and 2-MP front-facing lens.

In the connections department, the Optik feels like a device from 2010 as it offers 802.11b/g, but not 802.11n Wi-Fi and access to Sprint’s 3G network, with no 4G support. If you want a contract-free, Wi-Fi-only Optik, you’ll pay $349. The Sprint 3G version is a wallet-friendly $99.

A hundred bucks seems affordable, but at that price, you’d also need to spring for a monthly 3G data plan. Sprint’s cheapest plan is capped at 1GB for $20 a month with a max cap of 12GB for $80 a month. In between are monthly options for 3GB at $35 and 6GB for $50. That means at minimum, Optik buyers will pay $580 over two years, including the tablet. The figure climbs to nosebleed heights with the 3GB a month option: $940 over two years. And that’s without faster 4G speeds.

By comparison, a competing subsidized tablet, the 7-inch Springboard for T-Mobile, costs $379 with a two-year contract. The cheapest data plan available to T-Mobile tablet owners is 2GB of data a month for$20, but over two years the total rises to $860, including the cost of the Springboard. A point of difference: The Springboard supports both T-Mobile’s 3G and 4G data networks. 

Another alternative for Optik buyers is to connect the tablet to a Sprint smartphone’s 3G/4G hotspot feature. Sprint ratcheted up prices for its hotspot service last fall, so it now costs $30 a month for 5GB, or an extra $720 on your smartphone bill. At least users will be able to take advantage of 4G speeds.

For those forgoing monthly contracts and hotspot plans, the ZTE Optik’s Wi-Fi-only flavor is $349. That’s about 80 bucks cheaper than another Wi-Fi only tablet, the 7-inch Toshiba Thrive, but way more expensive than the $199 Kindle Fire or $249 Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet.

At that price (and with its solid array of specs), the ZTE Optik looks to be a solid new Android tablet. But, if you’re thinking of signing on, keep in mind that the costs over time will be much bigger than, say, buying a $499 iPad. 

From Laptopmagazine. Visit Amazon Computer and Notebook Center Here