Epson WorkForce Pro WF-4630 review: For $300, small-office inkjet offers better output and value than a color laser

Epson’s new $300 WorkForce Pro WF-4630 is just the kind of affordable, capable multifunction printer most small offices could use—even if they think they need a laser. A laser MFP may offer better text output (barely), but everything else lines up in an inkjet’s favor: purchase price, supply costs, and graphics output. Epson’s WF-4630 is the avatar for the breed: easily fast enough for small office work and packed with features. It also produces outstandingly sharp text, thanks to Epson’s new PrecisionCore print head.

The ethernet/USB/Wi-Fi-connectable WF-4630 stands approximately 13.5 inches high by 18 inches wide. It’s not the massive unit you’ll see in a printer room, but the size that sits on a table closer to the action. Output arrives in a fold-out catch above the bottom 250-sheet paper tray. A second, 80-sheet vertical rear feed will handle paper up to 8.5 by 47.2 inches (banners, anyone?) and provides a straighter path for envelopes and photo paper.

Image: Michael Homnick

The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-4630's output tray extends out from the front of the unit to catch printed pages.

The WF-4630 is managed via a 3.5-inch color touchscreen and a well thought-out set of buttons, including a keypad for fax duties. Epson's on-display interface is super-easy to navigate, and there’s now a preview of scanned documents. Sweet.

The driver dialog is typical Epson, logically and cleanly rendered. Epson also provides the standard set of now commonplace Web, Wi-Fi direct, remote, and email printing features with the WF-4630.

Copying, faxing, and scanning are facilitated by a letter/A4-size flatbed scanner for single-page documents and an automatic document feeder (ADF) for longer documents. The scanner lid telescopes slightly for magazines and the like, while the ADF scans both sides of documents automatically. Nice. The only thing nicer would be duplex scanning via dual scanner elements rather than re-feeds.

Image: Michael Homnick

The 3.5-inch color touchscreen on Epson's WorkForce Pro WF-4630 sports large, easy-to-understand icons for all the main functions.

The output from the WF-4630 is outstanding, and I mean outstanding for any type of printer, inkjet or laser. Text is extremely sharp, as are the focus and edges of both monochrome and color graphics. Color graphics, while a bit sharper, still offer the usual Epson palette—warm but not overly so.

We did run into one issue with our first test unit, where occasionally lines were offset to the right about four times per page. Our second unit exhibited this flaw in the first run, but rarely after that. 

Image: Michael Homnick

All functions are accessible via the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-4630's 3.5-inch color touchscreen.

The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-4630 not only produces great-looking documents, it’s a very good performer. Standard, letter-sized, monochrome business documents arrived at 14.9 pages per minute on the PC, and 13.4 pages per minute on the Mac. Even better, there’s little to no wait time before pages start arriving as with laser printers that need to power down to keep cool.

Full-page photos on plain paper issue forth at approximately 5.5 per minute, while the same photo prints to glossy stock in about 40 seconds. Scans complete at a moderate but workable pace: 10 seconds for a preview, 32 seconds at 600 dpi and just over a minute at 1200 dpi.

Image: Michael Homnick

The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-4630's ink cartridges fit into spring-loaded bays behind a front panel.

Supply costs are up a hair from previous generations, but still very cheap. When using Epson’s standard 1,100-page cartridges ($35 black, $30 for cyan, magenta, and yellow), ink costs for the WF-4630 are well below normal: 3.2 cents per black page, and 2.7 cents per page/per color for 11.3-cent four-color page—several cents lower than most consumer-grade inkjets and low-end lasers. The real savings begin with the $42, 2,600-page black (1.6 cents per page) and $44, 2,000-page color tanks (2.2 cents per page, per color). With those more capacious supplies, you’re paying a mere 8.2 cents for a four-color page.

Epson warranties the WF-4630 for one-year, with a recommended monthly page load of 2000 pages. You may extend the warranty to two years for $40 and three years for $60. The fact that extensions are available speaks to the overall quality of construction, which is generally quite sturdy.

The WorkForce Pro WF-4630 inkjet is a sweet little multifunction that does everything well. Supply costs are distinctly better than those of similarly-priced laser printers and low-end inkjets. If you want to spend less time adding paper, the functionally-equivalent $400 WorkForce Pro WF-4640 doubles the capacity of the bottom tray to 500 sheets.

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Trend Micro Titanium Maximum Security 2014 review: All-in-one suite offers excellent protection

Trend Micro Titanium Maximum Security 2014 ($45 for one year of protection on up to three PCs) stands out for being an all-in-one security suite. It offers the usual antivirus and anti-malware protection, plus a mobile security component, 5GB of free online backup, and password and online-banking security. It also carries the same price as Trend Micro’s Internet Security 2014 suite at the moment, so fans of Trend Micro will find it well worth grabbing for all the extra features.

In AV-Test’s real-world (zero-day) tests, Trend Micro successfully blocked 100 percent of unknown malware attacks, putting it on a par with Eset Smart Security, F-Secure Internet Security 2014, Kaspersky Internet Security 2014, and Norton Internet Security 2014. It also blocked 100 percent of known malware attacks, and it didn’t flag any safe files or websites as threats in our usability tests.

Further good news: That excellent level of vigilance has relatively little impact on performance. In AV-Test’s performance tests, Trend Micro earned a mark of 5, so it will slow your system somewhat but not too excessively.

Trend Micro Titanium Maximum Security 2014 offers outstanding security, but its interface needs to step into the touchscreen era.

Prior to installing the program, Trend Micro will scan your system and ask you to uninstall any other antivirus programs (including trial versions) you may have; you can perform this step directly from Trend Micro’s installer. Though uninstall routines may require a reboot, simply installing Trend Micro won’t. The rest of the process is simple, with just a couple of screens to click through.

Trend Micro’s main screen is relatively easy to read. Along the top of the main console window are five large tabs: Overview, PC/Mobile, Privacy, Data, and Family. The first tab features a large checkmark to indicate that your system is protected, as well as information such as a ‘Security Summary’ (which keeps a running count of how many threats the suite has stopped) and a button for scanning your system. One potential source of confusion is the fact that a selected tab is tinted red; in many other security suites, that hue signals “danger,” but it appears here as Trend Micro’s brand color.

The other tabs offer additional features, including ‘System Tuner’ and ‘Rescue Disk’ in PC/Mobile, ‘Social Networking Protection’ in Privacy, and parental controls in ‘Family’. You can access the suite’s settings from the main tab, just below the large green checkmark, next to the scan button.

Trend Micro’s interface is heavy on check boxes and radio buttons rather than touchscreen-friendly toggles and tiles, and explanations are sparse. The seemingly redundant Other Settings menu within the settings menu offers a hodgepodge of advanced and not-so-advanced settings.

Of the four suites we tested that delivered very strong antimalware performance and that offer coverage of up to three PCs for one year, Trend Micro’s had the lowest price: $45, versus $80 for Norton, $60 for Kaspersky, and $56 for McAfee Internet Security 2014.

If you’re willing to overlook the interface’s shortcomings, Trend Micro Titanium Maximum offers outstanding protection and a lot of features for the money.

Sarah is a freelance writer and editor based in Silicon Valley. She has a love/hate relationship with social media and a bad habit of describing technology as "sexy."
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ZTE Grand S II Offers 5.5-inch Screen, Quad-Core CPU and Voice Control

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Review: Apricorn's Aegis 3.0 portable drive offers an SSD option for better performance

Apricorn’s Aegis Portable 3.0 is a handsome 2.5-inch, silver and black, USB 3.0 external drive with an integrated cable—and it ships in both hard-drive and SSD flavors. If that isn’t a siren’s call to see just how much of a performance boost you get from a solid-state drive in an external USB 3.0 enclosure, I don’t know what is. Apricorn thoughtfully shipped us both versions so we could answer that call.

There’s no outward difference between the SSD version (outfitted with a 256GB SanDisk SD6SB1M256G1022I) and the hard-drive model (which comes with a 1TB, 2.5-inch Toshiba MQ01ABD100), aside from the fact that the SSD version weighs an ounce or two less.

ROBERT CARDINThe Aegis Portable 3.0 comes in an attractive enclosure with an attached USB 3.0 cable.

The Lab ran both models through PCWorld’s 10GB-file stress tests, copying data to and from a 16GB RAM drive, and the differences were as vivid as Apricorn’s advertising claims—at least when writing data to the drives. The 256GB SSD version wrote our single 10GB file at 334 megabytes per second, which is almost three times faster than the hard-drive version’s 115.5 MBps.

With a 10GB mix of small files and folders, the difference in write speed was even more pronounced: 102.7 MBps to 22.6 MBps. But 22.6 MBps is poky, even for a hard drive. We saw similarly subpar write performance from Apricorn’s Aeigis Bio, so it might be the bridge controller. By way of comparison, Seagate’s Wireless Plus 1TB wrote the same test file at 93 MBps, and other external USB 3.0 hard drives we’ve tested typically measure anywhere from 50 MBps to 80 MBps.

On the read tests, on the other hand, the drives finished in a near dead heat. Both the SSD version and the hard-drive version of the Aegis Portable 3.0 read the single 10GB file at 263 MBps. In the 10GB files-and-folder test, the hard-drive version actually edged out the SSD version 214 MBps to 212 MBps.

The superior write performance of the SSD versions of the Apricorn Aegis Portable 3.0 carries a hefty premium: The 256GB model costs $399 and the 512GB unit sells for $599, compared to just $79 for the 500GB, $109 for the 1TB, and $189 for 1.5TB versions. Clearly there’s some pre-purchase contemplation to be done.

That said, the SSD version weighs significantly less than the hard-drive versions, making it a boon for those who like to travel light. And with no moving parts, the SSD version is not subject to damage from drops, bumps, and other physical impacts; you can be as ham-handed as they come and still not have to worry about hurting the drive.

The SSD-based Aegis Portable 3.0 is a nice product for those who regularly back up or copy files onto an external drive, and need to do so in a hurry. In other usage scenarios, you might be better off buying an external hard drive and saving your cash for other purchases.

Note: I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that you can grab an unpopulated 2.5-inch USB 3.0 enclosure and populate it with a bare 256GB SSD for considerably less than $400. It might not come with an integrated cable or a carrying case, and you’d have separate warranties for the enclosure and the SSD, but you would save a lot of cash.

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NotePad++ offers portable notepad features for programmers

Notepad++ is a portable notepad that users like computer programmers will find enormously useful, because it offers something the regular Notepad doesn't: numbered lines.

Numbered what, I hear you ask?

If you're testing a program in a language such as Javascript, you’ll get obscure error messages like “operand missing on line 346”. So, it helps if you know which line the bug is on, and how to quickly locate that line. If the lines are not numbered, like in the regular Notepad, you would be sitting there till doomsday, trying to locate that one elusive little bug.  With Notepad++, it's as simple as scrolling down to the correct numbered line.

Notepad++ offers line numbers, which is very useful for programmers.

Other smart features include zooming in and out (handy if you have bad eyesight), macro recording and playback, and tabbed notes, so you can have multiple notes open in the same window and click back and forth between them.  It also offers colour syntax coding, which makes reading through programs easier. Notepad++ is also smaller than Notepad, which results in less strain on your CPU.

Notepad++ is also open source software, so if you have the technical know-how, you can examine the source code and make whatever changes you want to it, provided you don't charge for it. And since it's donationware, you can keep Notepad++ chugging with a donation to the developers.

Expatriate Scotsman now living in Wurzburg, Germany, freelance writer, frustrated future bestselling author, obsessed bibliophile. Other interests include trying to understand The Architect in the Matrix movies, decrypting codes and ciphers, and trying to persuade my landlord and my wife to let me have a Highland Cow for a pet.
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Review: MultiPLX RSS reader offers powerful features and a few too many bugs

The RSS race is slowly calming down as we come to terms with the death of Google Reader. With big names such as AOL and Digg clambering for a spot in the news-reader scene, and with smaller readers popping up all over the place, you'd almost think there were no RSS readers available prior to Google's announcement. MultiPLX is an innovative take on the traditional reader that boasts quite a list of features, and it also happened to be around when we were all still in Google Reader's grasp.

Even in the Cards layout, it's easy to see which items you've already read

With MultiPLX, you can start following a large lineup of websites without ever creating an account or signing in. Going to multiplx.com launches a watered-down version of the reader, full of dozens of feeds about business, food, science, sports, technology, travel, and more. This version does not support read and unread counts or starring and liking items, but does support MultiPLX's wide variety of sharing options.

Once you sign in, you get the benefit of the full list of features, and can also import your feeds from a different website using the import tool. The tool is not limited to only your feeds, though; MultiPLX lets you import your starred items, liked items, and shared items as well, using JSON files. You can also easily export all this data from MultiPLX to be used in a different service.

The reading experience itself is pretty straightforward. There are three layouts to choose from: card, list, and condensed list. Your feeds appear in the left sidebar or in a dropdown menu on the top navigation bar. Aside from your imported feeds, you can use MultiPLX's Discover feature to add predefined websites from dozens of categories. Another way to add feeds, at least in theory, it the +PLX bookmarklet, which I could not get to work on any of my browsers. The +PLX button is also available on MultiPLX itself, where is does work, at least most of the time.

The MultiPLX reading experience is clean and distraction free

Individual articles are displayed in either a lightbox or in fullscreen mode. You can navigate between these using keyboard shortcuts, or by clicking the Previous and Next buttons. MultiPLX supports sharing to a wide array of services, including Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, Pocket, and Buffer, to name a few. You can also share items via email, and star them or like them—two features that have about the same functionality, but provide two distinct ways to save items for later.

There's no way to manage feeds and folders from the main page, but under the Manage Followed tab you can move feeds between folders, rename items, and remove them. The interface for this is not the most intuitive. I kept looking for a "Save" button, when in fact each feed has its own little save button in the form of a checkmark button. From here you can also add new folders and remove existing ones.

Though not the most efficient, MultiPLX's feed manager give you full control over your folders and feeds

Three features make MultiPLX truly stand out from the crowd: trends, search, and folder sharing. In the trends tab, you can learn more about your own reading habits, and discover which feeds really are your favorite according to your starring, liking, and reading habits. Search, as to be expected, lets you search your entire feed collection for keywords.

The folder sharing feature is promising, but was unfortunately broken when I was testing MultiPLX. In theory, each of your MultiPLX folders can be marked as public, and shared with others using a public link or via email. You can also add a clip or a blogroll to your website for that feed, and even get an RSS feed URL for that specific folder. In practice, I did not manage to share a folder with anyone, but the developers promise that this will be fixed soon.

MultiPLX resides entirely on the Web and is fully responsive, and therefore available on any browser, including mobile ones. The reader is still in beta, and while bugs are a bit too common at the moment, it is being actively developed with weekly updates and bug fixes. It's a flexible and easy to use reader, which makes it a great option for both beginners with no RSS experience and power users with their own feeds, preferences, and websites, although beginners should wait until it's out of beta. If you're still looking for Mr. Right in the RSS scene, MultiPLX could be it.

Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you can use this Web-based software.

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Review: DropittoMe offers simple Dropbox sharing without software

DROPitTOme DropittoMe is a free and easy way to allow others to upload content to your Dropbox—and you might find it pretty handy, too.

If you use the online file sharing service Dropbox, you know how easy it is for other users to send you files. But what about people who don't use Dropbox? DROPitTOme (and yes, that is how they capitalize it) is a free service that provides a simple way that people can upload files to your Dropbox account without having to install anything. It's similar to the handy dbinbox.

DropittoMe requires a password before content can be uploaded to your account, which is a nice security feature.

To use DropittoMe, you simply allow the service access to your Dropbox, and it creates a DropittoMe folder in your account. You then claim your username, which will be part of the link DropittoMe creates for you. I was able to claim “Liane” as a username, so my link will be relatively easy for anyone with whom I share it to remember it. With this link, anyone can send me files that then appear in the Dropittome folder in Dropbox.

I like that DropittoMe doesn’t simply assign you a random link. Instead, you get an easy-to-remember URL. What’s also nice is that you get to create a password, which folks who want to upload content to your Dropbox account will need to send files. It’s not the utmost in security—especially when you consider the security pitfalls of how you’re going to share that password with your friends and colleagues—but it is at least a protective barrier to your account.

DropittoMe’s interface is easy to understand, but also slick and attractive.

DropittoMe isn’t just for other folks to use. It’s also a convenient way to upload files to your own Dropbox account. You could use Dropbox’s own Web app when using a computer without Dropbox installed, but DropittoMe’s upload link can be even simpler. It allows you to upload files with fewer clicks. It allows you to place them only in the DropittoMe folder that it’s already created, though. And it limits you to files that are 75MB or smaller. But it’s a free, easy way to allow others to share content with you without them having to sign up for Dropbox.

Note: The Download button takes you to to the vendor's website, where you can sign up to use this Web service.

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Review: Gmail Notifier Pro offers notifications and a whole lot more

Gmail Notifier Pro $13.00 Gmail Notifier Pro offers an easy way to get updates on many of the services you use, but don't expect it to shine as an email client.

Buy Now

Based on its name alone, you might think Gmail Notifier Pro is simply a notification service for Google's email service, something like Chrome extension Checker Plus. But you'd be wrong. Sure, this application will notify you of incoming Gmail messages, but it also does a whole lot more.

To get started with Gmail Notifier Pro, simply install it on your Windows PCs, and add the accounts you'd like it to manage. It supports various Google services, including Calendar, Reader, Drive, News, and Google +, as well as RSS/Atom feeds, Microsoft SkyDrive, Twitter, Yahoo Mail, Microsoft Outlook.com, and any IMAP or POP email account. The free demo version supports two accounts, while the $13 Personal License and $20 Commercial License let you add an unlimited number of accounts.

Gmail Notifier Pro displays a small pop-up for an incoming email.

Once you've added the accounts, Gmail Notifier Pro runs in the background, and displays a small pop-up notification when changes have been made to one of your accounts. These changes include incoming email messages, Facebook friend requests and messages, calendar reminders, updates to documents stored in SkyDrive or Google Drive, and more.

In fact, the number of notifications can be overwhelming if you use Gmail Notifier Pro to manage numerous accounts, but it is easy to choose which information you'd like the application to display, and for how long.

As an email client, Gmail Notifier Pro is not as refined as it should be.

As a notification service, Gmail Notifier Pro works great. It alerts you to incoming emails and other updates in a way that's not intrusive. At a quick glance, you can see whether an incoming message or update is important enough to interrupt your work. But that's not all it does: Gmail Notifier Pro also works as an email client, from which you can compose and send messages. Here, it stumbles just a bit. Sure, you can easily read messages and attachments, and composing them is a breeze, too. But the overall interface is not just not refined enough: It's too text-heavy and lacks the small details (such as a three-pane view) that the best email clients offer.

I wouldn't rely on Gmail Notifier Pro as an email client, but I do like the notifications it offers. It covers a wide range of services and works reliably.

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Review: Asus VivoBook S550CA offers Windows 8 and touchscreen in mainstream package

Attractive, touchscreen-equipped laptops running a full version of Windows 8 are getting cheaper than you might think. Some newly announced Sony touchscreen-equipped laptops start around $600 for 14-inch and 15-inch models. But for just a little more money, Asus’ 15.6-inch VivoBook S550CA has an MSRP of $750—and you can find our review model online for as low as $630.

That’s right—the VivoBook S550CA costs just as much as a souped-up 16GB iPad, but it’s also got a full-size keyboard, an optical drive, and the touchscreen. If you’re looking for a deal, this is a pretty good one.

The VivoBook S550CA is the largest of Asus’ low-cost VivoBook line. It’s 0.86 inches thick, and it weighs 5.7 pounds. Asus calls it an Ultrabook, but, as we’ve already determined, Asus seems to be bandying that term about recklessly. The VivoBook S550CA isn’t even technically an Ultrabook—while it does have a 24GB SSD boot drive (alongside a 500GB hard drive), and it does start up in just under 15 seconds, the S550CA is 0.04 inches too thick to be an Ultrabook. Intel’s guidelines do state, after all, that Ultrabooks with screens larger than 14 inches have to be under 0.82 inches thick.

That said, the S550CA cuts a slim profile for a 15.6-inch machine. Our review model is housed in a black and silver chassis, with brushed-aluminum detailing on the cover and wrist-rest and cheaper matte plastic on the bottom. The black cover is unfortunately prone to fingerprints, which sort of messes with the sleekness of the look.

Despite being just 0.86 inches thick, the S550CA does have a tray-loading optical drive—a Super-Multi DVD drive, to be exact—located on its right side. That may seem quaint, but many mainstream laptops still include it. It’s also got a couple of USB 2.0 ports, one USB 3.0 port, HDMI and VGA outs, and a Gigabit Ethernet port. Connectivity is good (there’s also built-in Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0), but it would be nice to see two or three USB 3.0 ports, instead of just one. However, the full-sized HDMI out is a nice touch.

The S550CA’s input devices are a mixed bag. The touchscreen is very good—it’s responsive, accurate, and easy to use. The only minor issue I have is that the touch sensitivity doesn’t extend past the bezel of the screen (and it’s an edge-to-edge glass screen, so this could easily have been implemented), and that makes certain Windows 8 gestures, such as swiping from the right side of the screen, more difficult than necessary. Many of the higher-end laptops I’ve seen do extend the touch sensitivity just past the edge of the screen, which makes for a much smoother Windows 8 experience. However, it is an otherwise excellent touchscreen for the price, so I can’t complain too much.

The laptop’s other input devices aren’t quite as impressive. The full-sized keyboard has black, island-style keys and a 10-key number pad. The keys are lightly textured and evenly spaced, but the keyboard is shallow—so shallow, in fact, that it’s almost impossible to type quickly and accurately. The large touchpad below the keyboard is a little better, but it also suffers from shallowness: It hardly depresses when you tap the built-in buttons, which means that right- and left-clicks are often disregarded. It is a touchpad, though, so you can tap to left-click, and Asus’ Smart Gesture technology (such as pinch to zoom and two-finger scrolling) works smoothly.

The S550CA is a good performer in our benchmarks, with a 1.7GHz core i7 CPU and 6GB of DDR3 memory. The exception is media playback, which is a little disappointing.

The S550CA has no discrete graphics card—just Intel integrated graphics. HD streaming video looks OK, but you will see a lot of artifacting and blurring in scenes with a lot of high-motion content. In other words, video playback on the S550CA is about as good as you can expect on a machine with integrated graphics and a low-res screen.

Also, the screen has a paltry resolution of just 1366 by 768 pixels—par for the course on 11-, 13-, and even 14-inch notebooks, especially cheap ones, but definitely dated on a 15.6-inch screen. The low resolution is unfortunate, because the S550CA has an otherwise excellent-looking screen. Not only is it extremely bright, but colors look crisp and accurate, and off-axis viewing angles are good.

Mike HomnickThe 15.6-inch screen is bright and crisp-looking, with accurate colors, but the resolution is a disappointing 1366 by 768 pixels.

Battery life is mediocre, too: We clocked just under three and a half hours in our rundown tests. This is a laptop you could take around town with you, but not on a long airplane trip, without AC reinforcement.

Audio playback is a little better, however. The speakers, which are located primarily on the bottom of the laptop, produce loud, full sound. Asus’ SonicMaster sound-enhancing technology offers up a decent simulation of surround sound, though it’s certainly not the best sound I’ve ever heard. The only issue is that the main speakers are on the bottom of the laptop, and are situated so that sound gets muffled if you rest the laptop on anything, such as your lap or a desk.

Getting the full Windows 8 experience—touchscreen and all—doesn’t have to be expensive. The Asus VivoBook S550CA falls short in some performance areas and features, but for many mainstream users, it's still a decent computer for a great price.

Sarah is a freelance writer and editor based in Silicon Valley. She has a love/hate relationship with social media and a bad habit of describing technology as "sexy."
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Review: Lenovo’s IdeaPad Y500 offers excellent gaming specs for the price

At first glance, the Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 doesn’t look like anything special.

This thick, heavy (6.2-pound), 15.6-inch laptop is encased in a plain, sturdy chassis with a brushed-aluminum cover. It’s sleek-looking, though strangely prone to fingerprints. Lenovo’s logo is subtly appliquéd in the upper left corner, and the edges of the corner taper ever so slightly.

Nothing would indicate that this is actually a rather powerful—and surprisingly affordable—gaming-oriented machine with a third-generation Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, and not one but two Nvidia GeForce GT 650M graphics cards under the hood. (The second graphics card is wedged into the laptop’s “Ultrabay,” which is Lenovo’s term for the swappable drive bay that replaces the DVD drive.)

Of course, our review model, in all its spec’d out glory—it’s also got a 1TB hard drive, a 16GB SSD boot drive, a glossy full HD display, and a full-sized backlit keyboard with a 10-key numberpad—starts at around $1150. That’s a bit pricier than the $800 base model of the Y500, but it’s still a great price for a gaming laptop.

Performance-wise, this build of the Y500 is very good, though it can’t quite hold its own with the more intense gaming models. It received a score of 70 (out of 100) on our WorldBench 8 benchmark tests, which puts it well above most mainstream laptops, but still below behemoths like the $3785 Origin EON17-SLX (which scored 115 out of 100). Still, this is one of the better laptops we’ve tested, and its graphics performance is comparable to that of the EON17-SLX. In our Dirt Showdown graphics test, the Y500 managed 116.1 frames per second (fps), while the EON17-SLX managed 139.5 fps.

In other words: If you’re a gamer, this is a viable, and much more affordable, alternative to an Origin desktop replacement.

The Y500 looks good, too, and offers sturdily-built, comfortable components. The full-sized keyboard has chiclet-style, red-rimmed keys set against a shiny black background. The keyboard is extremely comfortable to type on, with great tactile feedback and nice, evenly-spaced keys. The red backlight gives it a pop of color, though I have one minor complaint, as a gamer: The keys are so evenly-spaced (and the numberpad is right next to the keyboard) that a multi-color backlight would be helpful. It’s hard to distinguish where keys are, quickly, with an all-red keyboard.

The Y500’s touchpad is large and easy to use, but nobody really cares. This is a gaming machine, which means you’re most likely going to use an external mouse. The touchpad was a tad jumpy and oversensitive, in my opinion, but it can be disabled with a quick function keystroke.

The Y500’s screen is one of its biggest assets, even though when you tap it—and you will, this is Windows 8, after all—you’ll discover that it’s not a touchscreen. The screen itself looks great: It’s big, bright, and crisp, colors look accurate, and off-axis viewing angles are pretty good. It’s got a full HD resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels, and high-motion content looks excellent in playback. But it’s still…not a touchscreen. Of course, this isn’t quite as big of a deal because it’s a gaming machine—touchscreens aren’t really the gamer’s instrument of choice. But since it does have Windows 8, it’s a bit frustrating to realize that you can’t take advantage of all the awesome swipe gestures that Windows 8 has to offer. That said, it’s important to remember that even the uber-pricey Origin EON17-SLX doesn’t have a touchscreen either.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 is a great choice as a gaming laptop that’s lighter and cheaper than your typical desktop-replacement monstrosity. Despite a few minor drawbacks, overall it’s a great machine that offers excellent performance and specs for the price.

Sarah is a freelance writer and editor based in Silicon Valley. She has a love/hate relationship with social media and a bad habit of describing technology as "sexy."
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Review: Asus VivoTab Smart offers full Windows 8 OS in hybrid tablet form

Despite all the Microsoft Surface hype, Windows 8 tablets have yet to find their niche. It’s difficult, after all, to be more expensive than Apple’s ever-cool iPad, yet less usable than a reasonably cheap laptop.

So what can the Asus VivoTab Smart—a slim little 10.1-inch tablet with a Clover Trail processor—bring to the table? Well, for one thing, it’s relatively cheap: the VivoTab starts at just $499, and that includes 64GB of built-in storage. It also runs the full version of Windows 8, so you don’t have to settle for Windows RT.

Just because it runs a desktop OS doesn't mean it runs like a PC, of course. Compare it to a low-powered Ultrabook, and it's toast. It’s moderately powerful for a tablet, however, scoring higher than similarly appointed models with Intel Pentium 6 CPUs and 2GB of memory, such as the Samsung XE500T1C-A01 and the Acer Iconia W510-1422. Battery life is good and long, at 7 hours and 36 minutes in our tests.

Of course, the $499 price tag doesn’t include the VivoTab’s accessories: a Smart Cover-esque magnetic screen protector that folds into a stand, and a separate, Bluetooth keyboard and touchpad. The screen protector/keyboard combo costs an additional $130, which means it’s about $629 for the full VivoTab Smart experience. This is still a fairly good deal—the Dell XPS 10 tablet with keyboard bundle also costs $629, but it has half the built-in storage.

The VivoTab itself is pretty enough: it has a solid polycarbonate back in white, black, or red, a 10.1-inch glossy screen surrounded by a medium bezel, and a maximum thickness of about 0.38 inches. It weighs a mere 1.28 pounds (580 grams), and the accessories add hardly any additional weight or thickness.

The IPS screen offers up decent coloration (whites look a tad yellowish at lower brightness settings) and good touchscreen responsiveness and accuracy. It also has excellent off-axis viewing angles, though the screen isn’t quite as bright as I usually like. It’s 350 nits, which isn’t quite good enough for outdoor viewing. By comparison, the latest iPad’s screen is about 400 nits.

Ports and slots are pretty limited—it is a tablet, after all. There are no buttons aside from the power button, volume rocker, and touch-sensitive Windows button on the front bezel. There’s also a MicroSD slot, MicroUSB port, and a micro HDMI slot, as well as a 2-in-1 audio jack. As far as connectivity goes, the VivoTab is actually better equipped than expected, with built-in Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, and an NFC chip.

Looks aside, the VivoTab Smart’s real appeal are its accessories. There are two accessories, though they’re sold together as a bundle. The Smart Cover-like screen protector is what Asus calls the “Transleeve.” It comes in several colors, including black, pink, and light blue, and connects to the VivoTab via a magnet along the side. Though the Transleeve looks like Apple’s Smart Cover for the iPad, it doesn’t act like a Smart Cover—that is, it doesn’t automatically wake/sleep the VivoTab when you pull it open. It does, however, lay flush against the VivoTab’s screen for a moderate amount of scratch protection.

What’s cool about the Transleeve is that it folds into a stand. Folding it is easy—there are scored lines that show you where you’re supposed to bend it, and there are built-in magnets that help it stay in place. The stand lets you use the tablet in an upright position or a lower, angled position. I assume the upright position is for use with the external keyboard, while the angled position is more for typing directly on the tablet. The only issue I had with the stand was that it’s not adjustable, and the upright position offers a bit too much lean for my liking. I’d prefer a keyboard dock that lets you adjust the screen position.

The Bluetooth keyboard accessory is surprisingly pleasant to use. Not only is it extremely lightweight and slim—you wouldn’t think twice about tossing this in your bag alongside the VivoTab—it’s surprisingly comfortable to type on. Well, relatively speaking. The island-style keys are small, but well-spaced, and they offer considerable tactile feedback. It’s certainly not my first choice among keyboards, but as far as externals go, it’s pretty good.

As a lightweight hybrid that’s more tablet than laptop, the Asus VivoTab Smart is a decent choice. This tablet is both extremely portable and usable, and the full Windows 8 OS is a welcome bonus.

Sarah is a freelance writer and editor based in Silicon Valley. She has a love/hate relationship with social media and a bad habit of describing technology as "sexy."
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Review: Dell Latitude 6430u offers high quality throughout

Whatever happens to Dell in the near future, let’s hope that the company keeps making notebooks as nice as the Latitude 6430u. In a world of cheap-feeling merchandise, it stands apart. It’s sedately handsome, ruggedized, remarkably stable in your hand and on the table, and a tactile joy to use. It’s also fast and available with a wide variety of warranty and support options, as a good corporate computer should be.

Why on earth would anyone start a review by talking about a laptop’s physical stability and feel? Partly because it’s better than talking about the 6430u’s 4-pound bulk, but also because there’s palpable pleasure in handling a well-balanced unit sporting a silky, soft-to-the-touch feel. The unusually uniform weight distribution comes courtesy of the flat battery pack that occupies the lower front quarter of the unit. That balance makes the unit feel lighter than it actually is.

The 6430u’s heft also makes it a very stable typing platform, which accentuates the already nice feel of the Chiclet-style keyboard. The keyboard response is a little lighter than a Lenovo’s, but combined with the solidity of the 6430u, the overall experience might actually be a wee bit better—high praise in my book. The keyboard is backlit, and you can control the lighting intensity via a function-key combination. The unit’s touchpad has silky-smooth response, and buttons on the top and bottom reduce hand travel when clicks are required. Even the eraserhead pointing device is well adjusted. Someone at Dell obviously spent considerable time designing the ergonomics.

Our test configuration of the 6430u sported an Intel Core i5-3427u processor, 8GB of DDR3 memory, and a 128GB Samsung PM830 solid-state drive, which helped the unit earn a very capable score of 78 on PCWorld’s WorldBench 8 test suite. The integrated Intel HD 4000 GPU’s game play is mediocre but doable at 800 by 600 or so. There’s no discrete-GPU option, but this is a business machine first and foremost.

The 6430u’s startup time is a mere 10 seconds, and battery life is a very nice 6 hours, 18 minutes. That’s enough to get you coast to coast, at least with the jet stream at your back. Our test unit shipped with Windows 8. Given that the Latitude is sold primarily as a business-fleet model, a Start Menu replacement, such as IObit’s free Start Menu 8 or Stardock’s $5 Start8, might be welcome. All the flavors of the more business-friendly Windows 7 are available as well.

One might quibble with a pricey laptop whose 14-inch display tops out at a 1366-by-768-pixel resolution. (A 1600 by 900 option is available for an additional $52.) But unless you’re adamant about having 1080p video, the display looks great. No touchscreen model is available, but that could be a good thing when you consider the impression that a fingerprint-filled screen would make in the meeting room.

The 6430u’s port array is a nice blend of legacy and modern ports. The unit’s left side sports VGA output, a USB 3.0 port, a Wi-Fi switch, the headset jack, and the power cord jack. The right side is home to a powered USB 3.0 port, the gigabit ethernet port, and a Kensington lock port for securing the unit. Another benefit of positioning the battery at the lower front is that Dell could center ports on the back of the unit, including a combo eSATA/USB 3.0 port and an HDMI output. Our test unit came with both dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. Broadband (including LTE) and WiGig (60GHz) cards are available as well.

The unit we tested costs $1279 (as of March 27, 2013). Besides the already mentioned options, you can provision the 6430u with faster or slower CPUs, more memory, a larger hard drive, a smart-card reader, and the modular external USB drive enclosure that in our model came fitted with a DVD drive. Pricing starts at around $900 for an entry-level model and rises to a little under $2100 for a fully loaded system. A three-year warranty is standard, but you can opt for a 4- or 5-year option, as well as onsite service.

I rarely get this enthusiastic over a corporate product of any sort, but I’m a sucker for products that are tactilely and ergonomically superior. The Latitude 6430u is expensive, but most truly superb things are. Even consumers should seriously consider this ultrabook, since the entry-level configuration is more than adequate for most purposes, and the three-year warranty makes a big-box store’s extended warranty unnecessary.

Editor's note: This review was corrected for a factual error. All the USB ports on the Latitude 6430u are USB 3.0. PCWorld regrets the error.

Jon L. Jacobi has worked with computers since you flipped switches and punched cards to program them. He studied music at Julliard, and now he power mods his car for kicks.
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Review: BleachBit offers free, comprehensive disk cleaning and privacy protection

There are so many system cleaners out there, you could pack a Start screen with them. They're not all equally good, though, and some are have restrictions for business use. CCleaner and PC Decrapifier are among the best, but they are not completely free to use in a professional setting. Businesses wishing to use either of these have to pay up. If you're a business user looking for a truly free system cleaner, one interesting option is open-source, cross-platform BleachBit.

BleachBit's text-heavy interface is suited for users who know what they're doing.

BleachBit doesn't have much in the way of a flashy interface. There's a list of items running down the left side of the window, subdivided into categories such as Google Chrome, Flash, Microsoft Office, and so on. There's also a System category for more general cleanups, and a Deep Scan one for tracking down junk files strewn all over the disk (such as .DS_Store and thumbs.db files).

Pick a category, and a quick explanation appears about each of its sub-items. Explanations are usually very brief and assume prior knowledge, though For example, under Firefox, you can opt to clean out something called DOM Storage. If you're not sure what that is, the text informs you that this means it will "Delete HTML5 cookies." If you know what that means, great. If not, you'll have to start searching the Web for answers.

BleachBit is smart enough to know that some operations are going to be more time-consuming than others. For example, when you check the box to remove Temporary Files during a Deep Scan, it pops up an alert telling you that this is going to be a slow operation. Other alerts exist too: Check the box for deleting Backup files, and BleachBit will prompt you to inspect the Preview report for any files you do want to keep.

BleachBit does include single-line descriptions of what each item does, but some of these are laconic.

Once you've decided what you want to clean out, it's time to click the Preview button. This executes a dry run of the options you've checked, outputting a log of planned operations. If this sounds dry and technical, that’s because it is: the output is just a long, long, text dump full of inscrutable paths for temporary files and cookies, and other information. At the end of the report there's a more human-readable summary, letting you know how much disk space would be recovered by the operation, how many files would be deleted, and how many "special operations" would be performed. Special operations include things like securely wiping free disk space.

The log is only marginally useful. Not only is it difficult to read, but if you spot an operation  you wish to exclude (for example, a file you don't want deleted after all), there isn't much you can do about it. You can't exclude it: all you can do is to cancel the whole operation.

Another problem with the log is that it doesn't make it clear which disk drives are affected. For example, when I ran BleachBit, it cleaned out an impressive 18.5GB of files. But it didn’t clarify whether that was on my relatively small SSD, or my roomy 2TB hard drive. It probably cleaned some from both, but the report only stated a total without breaking it down per drive.

BleachBit can free up lots of disk space, but neglects to tell you which drives now have more breathing room.

BleachBit feels like a solid, no-nonsense utility for users who know what they're doing. Being free, open-source, and cross-platform are great advantages, especially in an enterprise environment. If you're just a home user looking for a simple way to clean out your computer, BleachBit doesn't beat CCleaner. But for an office, or a home user who likes to keep their computers clean, BleachBit makes for a lean solution.

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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Review: BleachBit offers free, comprehensive disk cleaning and privacy protection

There are so many system cleaners out there, you could pack a Start screen with them. They're not all equally good, though, and some are have restrictions for business use. CCleaner and PC Decrapifier are among the best, but they are not completely free to use in a professional setting. Businesses wishing to use either of these have to pay up. If you're a business user looking for a truly free system cleaner, one interesting option is open-source, cross-platform BleachBit.

BleachBit's text-heavy interface is suited for users who know what they're doing.

BleachBit doesn't have much in the way of a flashy interface. There's a list of items running down the left side of the window, subdivided into categories such as Google Chrome, Flash, Microsoft Office, and so on. There's also a System category for more general cleanups, and a Deep Scan one for tracking down junk files strewn all over the disk (such as .DS_Store and thumbs.db files).

Pick a category, and a quick explanation appears about each of its sub-items. Explanations are usually very brief and assume prior knowledge, though For example, under Firefox, you can opt to clean out something called DOM Storage. If you're not sure what that is, the text informs you that this means it will "Delete HTML5 cookies." If you know what that means, great. If not, you'll have to start searching the Web for answers.

BleachBit is smart enough to know that some operations are going to be more time-consuming than others. For example, when you check the box to remove Temporary Files during a Deep Scan, it pops up an alert telling you that this is going to be a slow operation. Other alerts exist too: Check the box for deleting Backup files, and BleachBit will prompt you to inspect the Preview report for any files you do want to keep.

BleachBit does include single-line descriptions of what each item does, but some of these are laconic.

Once you've decided what you want to clean out, it's time to click the Preview button. This executes a dry run of the options you've checked, outputting a log of planned operations. If this sounds dry and technical, that’s because it is: the output is just a long, long, text dump full of inscrutable paths for temporary files and cookies, and other information. At the end of the report there's a more human-readable summary, letting you know how much disk space would be recovered by the operation, how many files would be deleted, and how many "special operations" would be performed. Special operations include things like securely wiping free disk space.

The log is only marginally useful. Not only is it difficult to read, but if you spot an operation  you wish to exclude (for example, a file you don't want deleted after all), there isn't much you can do about it. You can't exclude it: all you can do is to cancel the whole operation.

Another problem with the log is that it doesn't make it clear which disk drives are affected. For example, when I ran BleachBit, it cleaned out an impressive 18.5GB of files. But it didn’t clarify whether that was on my relatively small SSD, or my roomy 2TB hard drive. It probably cleaned some from both, but the report only stated a total without breaking it down per drive.

BleachBit can free up lots of disk space, but neglects to tell you which drives now have more breathing room.

BleachBit feels like a solid, no-nonsense utility for users who know what they're doing. Being free, open-source, and cross-platform are great advantages, especially in an enterprise environment. If you're just a home user looking for a simple way to clean out your computer, BleachBit doesn't beat CCleaner. But for an office, or a home user who likes to keep their computers clean, BleachBit makes for a lean solution.

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.
More by Erez Zukerman

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“Facebook Card” Launched, Offers A Physical Gift Card Service

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Windows 8 Special Offers Expire Today, Goodbye $39 Upgrade

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Review: CopyTrans Photo offers pricey iPhone photo management

With each new iPhone, Apple has improved its picture-taking capabilities. So much so that many folks now rely on an iPhone as their primary picture-taking device. iTunes, however, just hasn't kept up. While Apple's software excels as a tool for managing your iOS apps, music, and videos, it treats your photos like an afterthought. Sure, it lets you sync photos from your computer to your iOS device, but it doesn't offer any help in downloading the pictures you capture with your iPhone, nor previews of your pictures. That's exactly what CopyTrans Photos does. This application is pricey, at $20, but it does offer a decent tool for managing the photos you capture with your iPhone or iPad.

CopyTrans Photos installs as part of WindSolutions's CopyTrans Suite, which includes several different applications for managing various parts of your iOS experience, such as CopyTrans and CopyTrans Contacts. While it's called a suite, you purchase the applications you want individually. All of the applications include a free demo version; you can try any of them and buy the ones you like. (The free demo of CopyTrans Photos limits you to 20 transfers.)

CopyTrans Photo displays the photos from your iOS device on the left and the photos from the designated PC folder on the right.

CopyTrans Photos launches in a full-screen window that features two main columns, one of which displays thumbnails of the photos on your connected iOS device and another that displays thumbnails of the photos on your Windows PC. A third, smaller column displays the Explorer view, which shows the folder structure of your PC, allowing you to navigate to more photos.

Transferring photos between your computer and iOS device is as easy as right clicking on any of the thumbnails and choosing the transfer option. The only hiccup I encountered was when my iPhone display column was set to display the contents of my "Camera Roll" instead of my "Photo Library" (tabs at the top of the column let you switch between these views). CopyTrans Photos will not let you add photos from your computer to your iOS Camera Roll; you have to add them to the Photo Library instead.

You can create an album on your iOS device and add photos to it, and you can sync individual photos or entire albums between the two devices. CopyTrans Photos does not offer any sort of photo editing tools, but it does include a slideshow option, which allows you to sit back and watch a collection of photos on your PC's screen.

CopyTrans Photo is not cheap, and I wish that it included at least some basic photo editing tools for its price. And I wish it automated the process of importing new photos from your phone to your PC by offering a Synch feature. As it stands, the process is a bit convoluted: you have to create a new folder in the Explorer View column of CopyTrans Photos, then select all of the photos from your iPhone and copy them to that folder. And CopyTrans Photo did not allow me to delete any photos from my iPhone's camera roll. Importing my iPhone photos via Windows itself is far more streamlined, and allows me to delete the photos, too. For $20, CopyTrans Photos should make that process—and more—a whole lot easier.

Note: The Download button on the Product Information page will download the software to your system.

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Review: LiveDrive offers new Windows 8 App

Jon L. Jacobi has worked with computers since you flipped switches and punched cards to program them. He studied music at Julliard, and now he power mods his car for kicks.
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Livedrive is one of the first developers to the Windows 8 party with a new native app that works with the company's online storage and file sharing service. Livedrive already has provided apps for both Android and iOS, so this is a logical evolution for the company. It's available in plans that range from $8 per month on up, each with a 14-day free trial.

The Windows 8 Livedrive app works well and follows the interface standards to the tee. The real only limitation is that you can't back up your Windows 8 PC using it, only access Livedrive's BriefCase file-sharing service. Obviously, it's intended for mobile devices that don't have a lot to back up, but it would be nice if you could use the app to back up Windows 8 tablets like any other computer. Admittedly, the Livedrive desktop app is a lot more efficient with options for prioritizing files, etc.

As you might have inferred from the previous paragraph, LiveDrive is both a backup/storage and a file sharing service. Backup is the usual a matter of selecting files, folders, drives, or your computer and... Well, backing up. The BriefCase is a way to share files amongst your PCs and is two-way from all devices. In the W8 UI app you can access the BriefCase to email a link, upload the file to SkyDrive (a major nod to Microsoft no doubt—there's no support for iCloud, Google Drive, etc., in this app), and save it locally. But there is no support for backup.

Livedrive's new Windows 8 native app follows the interface perfectly and is easy to use, though it lacks the backup options of the desktop version.

Livedrive's pricing is broken down between the backup and BriefCase services. For home users, backup is $8 a month or $80 a year for all the files on one PC or Mac. The BriefCase is $16 a month or $160 yearly and includes 2TB of storage for all your devices. Together as the Pro Plan, they're $25 a month or $250 a year with unlimited backup plus for 5 PCs or Macs, plus 5GB of BriefCase storage for all your devices. That sounds expensive, but it's also a heck of a lot of storage and nearly universal access.

Livedrive is well worth a look if you have a lot of stuff to back up. It's pricey, but the unlimited backup is offered by most services and you have access from any device. But while expanding the access of Windows 8 devices to the BriefCase services is a good move, it is a pity that they didn't go the whole way and include the service's backup functionality, especially as more and more people organize their lives with mobile devices that need backing up as well.

Note: The "Download" button on the Product Information page will take you to the vendor's, where you can download the software to your system.

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Free PDF Image Extractor Offers Easy Way to Unlock Images

Unless you are a dab hand with an image editor, having a utility that can extract images from a PDF is a useful thing, for the maybe three times a year you need it. Fortunately, 4dots Software provides their PDF Image Extractor free of charge, so if you need to extract an image that's locked within a PDF you won't need to also extract your wallet from your pants pocket.

Free PDF Image Extractor offers many options for adjusting your image or batch of images. Unfortunately it does not include a good preview of the changes.Free PDF Image Extractor is easy to use. Simply add as many PDF files as you want—created by any PDF creation software—to the extraction window. Or right-click them in Windows Explorer and choose "Extract Images from PDF" (if you checked Integrate with Windows Explorer at installation; if you unchecked this add-on, you won't have this option). Set your options for saving the images in PDF Image Extractor's Output tab, and advanced image options in the Image Actions tab.

Like some costlier image extractors on the market, Free PDF Image Extractor will only extract the size of the image embedded in the PDF, not the original image. For example, if the original is 4 inches wide at 300 dpi, but it was shrunk by the person who created the PDF to 2 inches at 72 dpi, Free PDF Image Extractor will collect the smaller version. However, Free PDF Image Extractor offers some useful options that can be applied to your extracted images in a batch.

The Image Actions tab includes options for resizing and setting the resolution; adding a watermark, text, or frame; changing the image format; rotating, flipping, and cropping the image; and making adjustments to color and color depth. Free PDF Extractor's success with these options depends greatly on your expectations, plus making any specific adjustments is tricky because PDF Image Extractor provides its own image as a "preview" rather than a real preview of the image you want to extract.

The Free PDF Image Extractor installer is bundled with 4dots Software's own Search Suggestor, a browser toolbar and the Babylon Toolbar. I highly recommend choosing the custom setup and declining the installation of Search Suggestor, proceed with the installation, then also decline the installation of the Babylon Toolbar. Both Search Suggestor and Babylon may cause multiple reports of ad-ware to appear next time you run your anti-malware software.

Of course, Adobe Acrobat X Standard (the $300 version, not free Acrobat Reader) includes a built-in image extractor, as do many other PDF creators. If you're on a budget, Nitro PDF Reader 2 (available in 32-bit and 64-bit editions, both free) can perform the magic of extracting images, as can many of the more expensive (but cheaper than Adobe) PDF-XChange applications available from Tracker Software: the Pro version of PDF-XChange Viewer ($38), PDF Tools ($45) and PDF-XChange Pro ($74) all include the extraction feature.

If you don't need a new PDF reader, are in a big hurry, or just want to get down and dirty with image extraction, 4Dots Software's Free PDF Image Extractor is a no-nonsense tool that won’t make a dent in your wallet.

If you don't have software that can read or annotate PDF, or are still using free Acrobat Reader, try Nitro PDF Reader 2. It's fast, safe, and as a bonus it will extract images like a pro.

—Clare Brandt

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Amazon vs. Google Play: Which Store Offers the Most Content?

Number of Apps: 50,000 (Amazon Appstore), 600,000 (Google Play)

Number of Songs: 20 million (Amazon Appstore), Millions (Google Play)

Number of Movies: 100,000 (Amazon Appstore), Thousands (Google Play)

Number of Books: 850,000 (Amazon Appstore), 4 million (Google Play)

Searching for some of the most popular Android games, we found what we were looking for (“Angry Birds Space,” “Dead Space,” “Fruit Ninja” and “Triple Town”) on both Amazon’s Appstore and Google Play.

We had equal success (for the most part) when searching for the latest movies. Both the Amazon Instant Video Store and Google Play featured “The Hunger Games,” “Snow White and the Huntsman” and “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.” Inexplicably, however, Google Play didn’t carry the summer’s biggest box office-busting blockbuster, “The Avengers.”

Unfortunately, Google Play falls far behind the curve in its selection of older movies and television shows. When we searched for obscure 80's fantasy flick “Legend,” the closest title Google Play found was “Halo Legends,” a series of sci-fi shorts inspired by the video game of the same name. The service even drew a blank when we searched for classics like “Terminator 2,” “Aliens” and “The Longest Day.” Amazon’s video store, on the other hand, had all four movies ready to download.

Likewise, venerable sci-fi shows like “The X-Files” and “Twin Peaks” can be found on Amazon, but are missing from Google Play’s catalog. Even immensely popular series like “Friends” (and cult classics like “Arrested Development”) are absent on Google Play.

While Google Play may boast a selection of songs in the millions, it will be hard pressed to compete with Amazon’s robust store. When we searched for some of the most popular heavy metal bands from the 70's and 80's — including Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin — Amazon featured nearly a complete catalog for each band while Google Play offered merely cover albums.

 We found Google Play’s selection of magazines somewhat shallow as well. While you can subscribe to “PC Gamer” through both Google Play and Amazon, only the Appstore features digital subscriptions to popular magazines like “Martha Stewart Living” and “Time Magazine.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, less mainstream publications like “Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine” can only be found on Amazon.

Clearly, Google has a lot of catching up to do — and many licenses to acquire — before Google Play can truly compete with Amazon’s offerings. In the meantime, if content is your most important consideration when purchasing a tablet, go with the Kindle Fire.

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