Dell Venue 8 Pro review: Windows 8.1 in a pint-sized package

Dell Venue 8 Pro $300.00 Dell's 8-inch mini tablet packs full Windows 8.1 in a thin and light package with strong performance and battery life. The optional stylus is good only for short notes. not long handwriting or sketching.

Miniature tablets are becoming more and more popular, with devices like Google’s Nexus 7 and Apple’s iPad mini in the vanguard. Acer tried to bring Windows to the mini form with its Iconia W3 earlier this year, but that tablet was hampered by an awful screen, a bulky chassis, and a slow processor.

But it looks as though Intel’s new quad-core Atom processor, formerly codenamed Bay Trail, has what it takes to make Windows a worthy tablet operating system. Dell’s Venue 8 Pro is equipped with an Atom Z3740D CPU,  2GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage, and it runs the full version of Windows 8.1. The OS takes up quite a bit of that storage, leaving you with a little over 12GB of free space out of the box. Bumping up to the 64GB Venue 8 Pro adds $50 to the price tag, or you can supplement that storage with a MicroSD card.

The Dell Venue 8 Pro is available in either black or red. Options include an active stylus, a case, an additional 32GB of storage, and mobile broadband.

The Venue Pro’s 8-inch touchscreen has a resolution of 1280 by 800 pixels—that’s a far cry from the 1080p resolution of tablets such as the more laptop-like Microsoft Surface Pro 2, and it’s even farther from the iPad mini with a 2048-by-1536-pixel Retina display.

But text and images look great on the Venue Pro’s bright IPS display—or at least the Venue Pro’s display can be bright, if you turn off Dell's overly aggressive power-saving auto-brightness. And the Venue Pro’s $300 price tag is $100 lower than the Asus Transformer Book T100 (a 10-inch Bay Trail-powered hybrid with 64GB of storage and resolution of 1366 by 768 pixels) and its $200 cheaper than the 32GB iPad mini with Retina display.

So the Venue 8 Pro looks good on paper, but how does the tablet hold up in real life? I spend a lot of tablet time reading. The biggest advantage to the 8-inch Venue 8 Pro over a 10 inch tablet like the Surface Pro is that the smaller Venue 8 Pro is comfortable to hold in one hand in portrait mode for extended reading. Measuring just 0.35 inches thick and weighing just 0.87 pounds, it’s easy to read all day. The tablet ran our battery run-down test for 7 hours and 44 minutes before expiring.

The 8-inch screen is less awesome when it comes to getting work done. I try to write my reviews on the device I'm reviewing, but even with a good Bluetooth keyboard, the Venue 8 Pro’s display was too small to work comfortably while switching between OneNote pages, browser tabs, and other apps I use frequently, so I switched back to my laptop about halfway through.

The single Micro-USB port doubles as a data port and charging port. That means you’ll need an adapter to plug in anything with a full-size USB plug, and you can’t charge the tablet while you have something plugged in without yet another adapter. I’ve been perfectly happy to use Bluetooth peripherals with the Venue Pro 8.

The Venue 8 Pro's touchscreen delivers a resolution of 1280 by 800 pixels.

There’s also no physical video out, not even the tiny Micro HDMI port that fits just fine in so many smartphones. The Venue 8 Pro does support the Wi-Fi Alliance’s Miracast wireless display standard, but you’ll need a compatible TV or projector—or an adapter—to make use of that technology. You can plug in headphones, but the sound is actually great over the single speaker in the back too. I have to crank most tablets all the way up to hear dialogue clearly, but I only had to set the Venue 8 Pro's volume to half way.

I’m glad that the Venue 8 Pro can recognize an active stylus—a $30 option—but the Synaptics active pen technology is new and not quite fully baked. You can take handwritten notes in OneNote with the pen, but it’s not a smooth experience. I was able to get cleaner handwriting by slowing down and being more deliberate, which would be fine for short meetings or occasional note-taking, but I’m not sure I could keep up with a physics lecture.

Dell seems committed to improving the experience. They’ve already released a firmware update for the digitizer, but when I applied it, it only led to more issues. I was much happier with the experience after rolling back to the original firmware, although many users have reported better accuracy after the update.

While you can run full-fledged Windows desktop applications but that’s really not what these mini tablets were designed for. Your best experience is going to be with apps from the Windows App store that use the tablet and finger-friendly modern UI. The Venue Pro 8 comes with the full version of Microsoft Office Home and Student 2013—an excellent value.

The app selection in the Windows store is much smaller than more mature ecosystems such as iOS and Android, but I have yet to run into an app I wanted that didn’t exist or didn’t have a good equivalent. For reference, I primarily read news from RSS feeds (Modern Reader), read books and magazines (using the Nook or Kindle apps), write (using OneNote or Evernote), watch shows and movies (usually on Netflix or Hulu), or just waste time in general (reading and posting on Facebook). If you’re thinking of picking up a Windows tablet, but you’re not sure whether you can find the apps you like, you can browse the store here.

The Dell Venue Pro 8 will never replace your laptop, but that’s not the point. For $300, you get full Windows in a mini tablet, and despite the low price, it’s not cheaply done. It’s well built, performs well, and will run all day on battery. The only big caveats are the lack of ports and the half-baked active pen.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Review: 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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Digital Storm Bolt review: small package, small price, big performance

Digital Storm's Bolt doesn't look as intimidating as those ginormous gaming PCs that glow and take up a third of your desk, but don't let this machine's slender profile fool you. This little monster is brimming with powerful components and stands ready to crush any game that gets in its way.

Measuring just 3.6 inches wide, 14 inches tall, and 15 inches deep, the Bolt is the Micro Machine of performance systems.

This sleek rig isn't plastered with decals, and it doesn't boast a fancy paint job or bright LEDs that can double as a nightlight. It's available in just two colors: white or gunmetal gray. The only decoration aside from the stylishly functional black air vents is the Digital Storm and Bolt logos. The design is fetchingly minimalist.

The front of the system houses only the DVD drive, and that's about all that would fit. Two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, and the microphone and speaker jacks are inconveniently located on the bottom right-hand side of the case, which means you'll be dropping to your hands and knees each time you need to plug in a thumb drive or your headphones.

ROBERT CARDINThe rear of the system has plenty of ports and video options.

Four more USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, two ethernet ports, and two antenna connections are around the back, along with all the audio ports and more video outputs than you'll ever need. The Nvidia GeForce GTX 660Ti graphics card can drive up to four displays using any combination of DVI-I, DVI-D, HDMI and DisplayPort. However, given that there's no room inside the case for adding storage, it would have been nice to have an eSATA port here.

No matter what type of desktop rig you buy, you're going to crack it open from time to time. Whether you're swapping out components or just evicting dust bunnies, you'll need to be careful dismantling this intricate puzzle.

ROBERT CARDINThe inside of the Bolt is packed tight.

The cover is a pain to remove when cables are plugged into the back. Unlike the typical case, where the side panel comes off, the Bolt's entire shell slides off the back. Cables get caught up in the mix and snag along the way, so it's just easier to open it up when everything is unplugged.

Our eval unit came with a 120GB SSD and a 500GB 7200 RPM mechanical drive, and there was just enough space to accommodate one more SSD as an eventual upgrade. The setup can also be configured to house two full-sized drives if you opt out of SSDs.

Nearly the entire motherboard (a Gigabyte GA-Z77N-WIFI) is covered by the heat sink and a 120mm fan, which you'll need to remove in order to access the motherboard's single PCIe slot and its two DIMM slots.

Enough with the looks, this isn't a fashion show—so let's get to the number crunching. The Bolt's Intel Core i7 3770K and 8GB of DDR3/1600 RAM managed to crank out a whopping 201 on our Worldbench 7 benchmark suite. That's more than double the score of our baseline system from a package nearly half its size. If that isn't enough performance for you, the CPU's multiplier is unlocked and begs to be overclocked.

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 660Ti also produced some impressive benchmarks: We ran both Crysis 2 and DiRT 3 at 2560-by-1600 pixel resolution with settings on ultra to really put the system to work. It averaged 54.1 frames per second on DiRT 3, and 28 frames per second on Crysis 2. DiRT 3 looked silky smooth and nearly hit that coveted 60 frames-per-second target. Crysis 2 struggled just a bit, but remained thoroughly playable. Taking the game's settings down to high produced an average 44.6 frames per second, while dropping the resolution to a much more common resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels with settings at high produced average frame rate of 80.6 frames per second.

When you put high-end components in a small package and run them hard, heat usually becomes an issue. But the Bolt is dressed to the nines in fans and vents and manages to stay both cool and quiet. I had it running right next to me, at ear level, for an entire day and barely noticed its noise signature.

Digital Storm's Bolt packs beefy power into a slim, sexy package. It's a bit of headache to get inside, but you shouldn't need to upgrade this machine for some time to come. This is a great choice for a PC gamer with a smaller room and a smaller budget. It will fit anywhere, play anything, and it's priced right at $1599.

Alex covers desktops, everything from fancy to practical. He's also an avid (addicted) gamer and loves following the industry.
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Leap Motion Controller Hands On: High Accuracy, Small Package

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Samsung Series 7 Slate Review: Laptop Power in a Slim Package

The Samsung Series 7 Slate takes a different path from that of other recent Windows 7 tablets, packing more-powerful components that include an Intel Core i5 processor and a 128GB solid-state drive. But the fancy ingredients aren't cheap: The Series 7 starts at $1100, and the configuration we tested costs $1350 (prices as of June 1, 2012).

Hardware

Samsung is no stranger to the tablet world, but this model is its first attempt at a Windows-based slate. The Series 7 Slate benefits from Samsung's overall design experience; at 0.51 inch thick, the Series 7 Slate is the thinnest of the six Windows 7 tablets we've tested to date. Nevertheless, a number of recent Android tablets are thinner, as is the third-generation Apple iPad (at 0.37 inch).

Thanks to its dual-core 1.6GHz Core i5 CPU and 1GB of graphics memory, Samsung's Series 7 Slate is virtually an ultraportable with the keyboard chopped off. The machine comes with a generous 4GB of RAM, four times what you'd find in a typical Android tablet, and twice what the other Windows models we've seen offer. It also has either a 64GB or a 128GB solid-state drive (we tested the 64GB version).

The 11.6-inch IPS display supports 1366-by-768-pixel resolution. Viewing angles are expansive, and our panel of judges gave high marks to the color and contrast in our display testing. The 16:9 aspect ratio on a screen of this size display does seem oddly wide, and (conversely) unusually tall and thin in portrait mode.

The touchscreen's responsiveness is great. In my hands-on testing, I experienced no missed taps; and with the larger screen, I could expand the onscreen Windows keyboard to near-touch-typable size. The tablet instantly recognized my swipes and flicks.

The Slate comes in at just under 1.98 pounds, but the Slate feels reasonably well-balanced for two-handed holding.

Samsung equips the Series 7 Slate with two cameras: a 3-megapixel camera on the back, and a 2-megapixel forward-facing camera on the front.

On the right side of the case, you'll find the power button (with a blue LED to indicate charging) and a rotation lock switch. The bottom houses the dock connector and two speakers. On the left side are the AC adapter jack, a micro HDMI port, a volume rocker, a combination headphone/microphone jack, and a full-size USB port. The top hosts a MicroSD card slot and dual built-in microphones.

The curved back and edges make the tablet quite comfortable to hold, given its weight. The matching, extra-cost ($100) dock enhances desktop use, and I found that couch surfing with the tablet propped up on my knees worked well.

Pen and Digitizer

One of the Series 7 Slate's distinguishing features is its dual-input pen and touch digitizer. Samsung uses Wacom's technology, which in my experience provides the most fluid and accurate inking experience available. The Series 7 Slate's handling of pen-based input didn't disappoint; my writing experience was excellent. In addition, the touch layer can sense ten touch points, making it useful for any multitouch applications or scenarios you may encounter.

The only drawback to the system is that the glossy screen feels quite slippery under the pen. Unlike the matte screen of the Fujitsu Stylistic Q550, which behaves more like paper, the Samsung's screen conveyed the strong impression that I was writing on glass. Still, my handwriting looked noticeably better on the Samsung than on the Fujitsu.

Using Wacom for the digitizer opens up a world of optional replacement pens of different sizes and feature sets to accommodate a wide range of tastes. The stock pen that Samsung provides has a right-click button on the side, and a button on the top that acts as an eraser. To me, the pen seemed to be on the thin side of comfortable, but it was lightweight; and unlike N-trig pens, Wacom pens don't require a battery.

Performance

This tablet smoked the other Windows 7 tablets we've looked at. It took one-quarter the time to complete the Heaven Photoshop test, was more than twice as fast as its closest competitor at WebVizBench Web browsing, and earned a score of 1346 on PCMark 7's productivity suite--more than doubling the mark of its nearest competitor. Videos looked especially pleasing on the 11.6-inch screen, and the speakers are strong enough to fill a room.

Impressively, the Series 7 Slate's 5520mAh battery kept the tablet's i5 processor running for 5 hours, 35 minutes in the PCWorld Labs' battery tests. That's less than an hour worse than the battery life of the much weaker Intel Atom-based Fujitsu Stylistic Q550.

The biggest drawback of the Series 7 Slate's raw power is the fan required to keep it cool. In my use, the fan kicked on at the slightest hint of activity and was loud enough to be distracting in a quiet room. At times, it was so loud that it sounded like a tiny airplane trying to take off.

The Easy Settings app provides some fan control, including an option called 'silent mode' to run the fan continuously at low speed. I highly recommend turning this setting on, since when the fan was running at full speed people in my office could hear it from several desks away.

The active fan pushes some pretty warm air out the exhaust vent at the top. That's fine when you hold the tablet in landscape mode, but if you're a lefty looking to hold it in portrait mode in your right hand while you write, or if you want to tuck it into the crook of your left arm and wrap your hand around to hold it, you'll find that it gets pretty toasty.

Software

Recognizing that the Windows 7 interface is not the touch-friendliest one around, Samsung did something about it. The company provides a Touch Launcher overlay to make finger navigation easier. This welcome addition comes up when you tap the home button on the bottom bezel.

In the left third of the screen, a collapsible information panel keeps track of battery charge, Wi-Fi status, to-do items, time, and weather. The rest of the screen contains large app icons similar to those present in Android and iOS.

The collection of apps includes some written for the touchscreen, some (such as the YouTube app) that are really just links to Web pages, and some (like the link to Windows Journal) that are built-in Windows programs.

Oddly, the specially written notes app doesn't take advantage of the pen; it's text only. Fortunately Samsung includes a link to Windows Journal, which is normally buried in the Start menu, for people who want to launch handwritten notes from Samsung's touch overlay.

The RSS app uses Google credentials to log in, which makes it a touch-friendly version of Google Reader. Social Dashboard handles Facebook and Twitter. A separate Twitter app repeatedly timed out when I tried to use it to sign in.

The Easy Settings app provides finger-based access to most of the system settings you'll need regularly, including display, power management, and Wi-Fi connections.

All of the custom touch apps run at full screen, but the overlay itself leaves the Windows taskbar exposed so you still have access to the clock, system tray, and Start menu, as well as to any pinned or already running programs.

I'm accustomed to using Windows 7 on touch tablets; and though the experience isn't ideal, I rarely feel the need to use special touch apps or launcher overlays. Nevertheless, Samsung has done a solid job with its launcher; it's one of the few additions I've found that genuinely enhances the Windows tablet experience, rather than just slowing it down. Of course, the Samsung Slate benefits immensely from having the processing power to drive an overlay without getting bogged down.

Bottom Line

The Samsung Series 7 Slate is a sleek and powerful piece of hardware that will serve you well if you can bear its relatively high cost, and you can't wait for the wave of Windows 8 tablets due to arrive later this year. If you need to run Windows programs without compromise, this is the tablet for you. If you need a Wacom digitizer, this is the thinnest and lightest package you can get it in. Just keep in mind that to get that power, you must put up with some fan noise and heat--and a high sticker price.

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Photoscape Offers Unique Features in a Basic Package

If you need a down-and-dirty photo editor, Photoscape (free) is certainly priced right. But don't think you're going to get an equivalent of Adobe Photoshop ($200) or even a Serif PhotoPlus X5 or Xara Photo & Graphic Designer (both $90). Photoscape is basic, but interesting in its own right if you look beyond the editing tools and play with some of the hidden gems this free program offers.

Photoscape is a little confusing when you first run the program. There are essentially seven main features within Photoscape: Animated GIF; Batch Editor; Editor; Page, where you can assign a page size and multiple-image layout; Merge, which is similar to Page, but more of a photo-montage or poster tool; Print; and Viewer, in which you can see the images in your folder displayed as thumbnails.

The Merge, Page, and Print features work more or less the same, but have nuances that may make each more or less useful to your particular application. Photoscape's Print, for example, is great if you are printing hard copies of your images. You can set the space between photos and drag and drop the pictures. You can set the size of the prints and fit as many as you can to the page. Photoscape's Page feature works in a similar manner but uses pixels to create a montage of images for web or blog use. You can't overlap and create digital paper art, like with Serif CraftArtist Compact (free), for example, but you can use Photoscape to easily create montages.

Photoscape's Make a Box filter extrudes an image into a 3D box with the picture on each side.Photoscape's photo editing tools are mostly basic and include adjustments for brightness, color, and contrast, plus levels, sharpen, and filter tools. Some of the filters in Photoscape are fabulously unusual: Region makes a selected spot your focal point; Fake Tilt Shift makes wide photos look like miniature models by faking the depth of field and adding blur; Graduated Tint darkens the sky or top of your image. Reflection creates a reflection of your image in whatever color you choose.

Photoscape also includes the filters you may expect, such as Antique Photo and Vignetting. Compared to CameraBag 2 ($29), a photo editing tool that specializes in creating vintage style from your images, Photoscape is a little lacking in this department and may leave you feeling like you're flying blind. The vignette styles, for example, are labeled #1 through #10. At least you can click through and preview them all.

The Film Effect filters also are a step behind CameraBag 2, and unless you've ever used Velvia or Provia films, you'll probably just be a little confused. If you don't know what 35mm transparency film is, skip Photoscape's Film Effects.

If you're looking for free software that has artistic or fine art filters, Photoscape probably isn't your thing. If you don't mind juggling your images between applications, try using Photoscape to crop your images: Photoscape's crop ratio is brilliant and allows you to set the final print ratio and crop your images to match. Ratios include the standards for 8x10 and 4x6 prints, as well as a whole slew of unusual ones. You can use FotoSketcher (free) to create fine art from your images, then take them back to Photoscape to print them.

There were a few areas I felt Photoscape fell really short. There are no layers or history, so if you decide you don't like a particular effect, you have to undo everything you've applied since that effect. Photoscape's tools to remove red-eye and blemishes did not work very well, unlike those in the more high-end PhotoPlus X5 or Xara Photo & Graphic Designer.

Photoscape has some features that far exceeded my expectations others that floundered. Photoscape is free, so it's easy to forgive its poorly designed or implemented aspects. However, with a little effort, some honest user feedback, and a ruthless developer willing to cut out the dead weight, Photoscape could become a fabulous niche program.

--Clare Brandt

From PCWorld. Visit Amazon Computer and Notebook Center here

HP Omni 27 Review: Big Things in a Big Package

Initially the HP Omni 27 took my breath away. Seriously, when I first saw it sitting in the PCWorld Labs, I was absolutely taken by its gorgeous, edge-to-edge glass 27-inch screen. The rest of the design leaves a little to be desired, but this screen is definitely a step in the right direction.

Our review model, priced at $1250 (as of March 14, 2012), is equipped with an Intel Core i5-2400S processor, 8GB of RAM, a 1TB hard drive, and a slot-loading Blu-ray Disc player. The standard options include built-in Wi-Fi connectivity, and an integrated webcam and microphone.

The Omni 27 is a very good performer in its category of big-screen all-in-one PCs. In PCWorld's WorldBench 6 benchmark tests, the Omni 27 earned an impressive score of 140, which puts it right near the top of its class. It didn't quite beat out the $1800 Lenovo IdeaCentre B520, however, which achieved a mark of 156.

Graphics performance is less than impressive, since the Omni 27 doesn't have a discrete graphics card. On our Dirt 3 graphics tests, the Omni 27 managed a paltry frame rate of just 28 frames per second when we dialed it all the way down to a 1024-by-768-pixel resolution, on low quality settings.

The Omni 27's stunning 27-inch screen is surrounded by a thin black bezel. The glass extends over the bezel, giving the machine a seamless and somewhat iMac-inspired look. The speakers, along with an HP logo and the Omni 27 model name, are located below the screen. The entire system sits on a matte-silver easel stand, which tilts easily but restricts screen height.

The screen has a native resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels. It's attractive--when it's on as well as when it's off. Color representation looks excellent, and images are crisp, but the surface produces a lot of reflection when the brightness isn't turned all the way up. Luckily, the screen is very bright. The only real complaint I have is that it's not a touchscreen, which is pretty much standard for all-in-ones these days. I know that HP can make a great touchscreen, so I'm a little disappointed that this otherwise gorgeous display lacks touch-input support.

At the top of the screen, on the right side, is the power button. The left side of the screen has convenience ports--a multiformat card reader, two USB 3.0 ports, a microphone jack, and a headphone jack enhanced with Beats Audio. The right side of the screen has the slot-loading Blu-ray Disc drive, an HDMI input port, and buttons to cycle through display modes. The rest of the ports--gigabit ethernet, four USB 2.0 ports, audio-out, a subwoofer jack, and a lock slot--are positioned on the back of the system.

The Omni 27 comes with wireless peripherals. The keyboard has flat, Chiclet-style keys, volume controls, and a sleep button, and is slightly curved at the top (instead of having pop-out feet to produce an angle). It's comfortable enough for casual typists, but the keys are a little too small and close together for extended sessions. The mouse, a basic two-button optical device with a scrollwheel, moves smoothly.

Multimedia looks great on the Omni 27--this is definitely an all-in-one that can double as small television. In my testing, Blu-ray playback was excellent, and HD video streaming looked very smooth. The speakers are very loud (another feature that makes this PC a great TV replacement), and they have good bass representation and depth if you turn the Beats Audio feature on. Admittedly, voices sound a little fuzzy at the highest volume.

The HP Omni 27 has a great-looking screen and is a terrific performer. It slacks off a little in some areas--the absence of a discrete graphics card, for instance, is a drawback for people who want to perform graphics-intensive tasks. (And who wouldn't, on such a pretty screen?) The easel stand is also a drawback, since it's not terribly attractive, it doesn't allow you to lower or raise the screen, and it prevents you from storing your keyboard underneath the system. Still, if you're looking for a beautiful, big-screen all-in-one that's not a Mac, the HP Omni 27 is a very appealing choice.

From PCWorld. Visit Amazon Computer and Notebook Center here