D-Link DWA-182 review: A solid performer at all distances

In our latest roundup of 802.11ac client adapters, D-Link’s DWA-182 didn’t take any first- or second-place finishes, and it finished in third place overall. The adapter measures about 3 inches long, not including its USB interface, but D-Link provides a USB cradle that gives you some flexibility in positioning.

ROBERT CARDIN

The ‘C’ rev of the D-Link DWA-182 has a USB 3.0 interface, but the USB 2.0 interface on the model reviewed here didn’t present a performance bottleneck. (Click to zoom.)

D-Link switched to a USB 3.0 interface with hardware revision C1. I had an older version that uses a USB 2.0 interface, but I don’t think it makes a big difference. The adapter itself isn’t hinged, so your only orientation choices are horizontal or vertical. My benchmark numbers came from using the adapter in the cradle.

The D-Link DWA-182 placed third in most tests, including when the client was in my home office, 65 feet from the router. (Click to zoom.) 

The adapter has a WPS button, which makes it easier to connect the client to the router. The antennas are inside the device. D-Link offers a simple utility for establishing a connection to your wireless router: The utility reports the status of your connection, notes which channel it’s using, and shows a graphical representation of the signal strength.

A $50 street price means the D-Link DWA-182 is $20 cheaper than the top-performing Asus USB-AC56, but that also makes it $10 more expensive than the fourth-place Buffalo AirStation WI-UW-866D adapter.

Note: This review is part of a roundup of six 802.11ac Wi-Fi client USB adapters. For more, read the introduction to the roundup.

Michael manages PCWorld's hardware product reviews and contributes to TechHive's coverage of home-control systems and sound bars.
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Kaspersky Internet Security 2014 review: An all-around performer

The best security suites are the ones you never notice, because they work silently in the background. But when you want to dig into the settings, you’ll appreciate dealing with a well-designed user interface that even a novice can understand.

Kaspersky Internet Security 2014 ($60 for one year of protection on up to three PCs) is one such suite. It offers great protection, and its design works well on touch and nontouch systems.

In AV-Test’s real-world battery of tests involving Web and email threats, Kaspersky blocked 100 percent of zero-day attacks, matching the performance of Eset Smart Security 7, F-Secure Internet Security 2014, Norton Internet Security 2014, and Trend Micro Titanium Maximum Security 2014, and making it one of the strongest security suites in our roundup. AV-Test’s baseline security program, Microsoft Security Essentials, blocked just 71 percent of zero-day attacks. Kaspersky also sailed through our malware zoo test (identifying and blocking widespread known malware that had been discovered within the previous month), stopping 100 percent of attacks.

Kaspersky Internet Security 2014: ready for touchscreens.

Kaspersky’s algorithm is tight: Internet Security 2014 didn’t flag a single nonthreatening website as risky, nor did it falsely block or issue warnings to users installing legitimate software. During system scans, Kaspersky didn’t flag any legitimate programs as unsafe. The most trigger-happy packages in our roundup—F-Secure, Vipre Internet Security 2014, and Webroot SecureAnywhere Internet Security Complete—registered five false positives each.

Internet Security 2014 is also one of the lightest-impact suites in our roundup, scoring a 1 (a mark bested only by the far less effective Webroot SecureAnywhere suite) that reflects minimal adverse impact on overall system performance.

Installing Internet Security 2014 is easy. You have just four screens to click through, and the suite doesn’t try to push additional software or settings changes. The only potential hiccup during installation arises if Kaspersky detects “incompatible” software, such as a rival antimalware suite, in which case it asks you to uninstall the offending program. Uninstalling a competing suite may require a reboot, but simply installing Kaspersky’s suite does not.

Kaspersky’s interface is optimized for Windows 8 without having too distinctly a Metro style. Though buttons are large and easy to click, not every setting is a colorful square.

The main screen features a big computer icon with several large button icons beneath it. A checkmark on the computer icon indicates protection, and you can click the icon for details about any security issues. The buttons provide quick links for scanning your system, updating your security database, and accessing Safe Money, which protects your online banking and payment information. Tap an arrow to the right of these links for access to features including reports, parental controls, and quarantined files.

The top level of the settings menu is designed to meet the needs of regular people, with easy, touchscreen-friendly toggles and plain-English explanations for all settings. More-experienced users can click top-level settings to find additional options.

Kaspersky Internet Security 2014 is a well-rounded suite, with excellent protection, minimal strain on system resources, and a user-friendly interface. Its jargon-free settings explanations won me over last year, and now its protection capabilities are just as impressive.

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: Norton Internet Security 2013: Solid performer with a polished interface

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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Symantec’s 2013 edition of Norton Internet Security ($50 for one year and three PCs, as of 12/19/12) is a solid performer with a polished, touch-optimized user interface. This security suite didn’t totally dominate its competitors, but it did completely block, detect, and disable all malware in our real-world tests, and it performed well enough overall to snag second place in our roundup.

Norton’s excellent showing in our real-world attack test indicates that it should be effective at blocking brand-new malware attacks as it encounters them in the wild. As noted in the F-Secure review, of the security suites we tested, four others were also successful at completely blocking 100 percent of attacks: Bitdefender, F-Secure, G Data, and Trend Micro.

Norton produced stellar—though not absolutely perfect—results in detecting known malware. In our malware-zoo detection test, the program successfully detected 99.8 percent of known malware samples. Norton Internet Security also put up a perfect score in our false-positive test: It didn’t mistakenly identify any safe files, out of more than 250,000, as being malicious.

Norton does an acceptable job of cleaning up a system that has already been infected, but it missed some infections completely in our evaluation. In our system cleanup test, the program detected and disabled 90 percent of infections, and completely cleaned up 60 percent of infections. This is a decent but not fantastic showing—seven of our tested suites detected and disabled 100 percent of infections, and six cleaned up all traces of infection at least 70 percent of the time.

On the other hand, Norton Internet Security is a relatively lightweight program that won’t bog down your system. It added about half a second to startup time (compared to a PC that had no antivirus program installed), and also added 3 seconds to shutdown time; in all of our other speed tests, it was faster than average. Norton is faster than average when it comes to scanning speeds, as well. The package required just 1 minute, 19 seconds to complete an on-demand (manual) scan, and 2 minutes, 55 seconds to complete an on-access scan—both are times that represent better-than-average results.

Norton’s interface is very polished and simple, and the program installs with just one click. The main window has tilelike buttons, which look designed to work well with Windows 8 touch systems. You’ll find four tiles on the main screen: a tile that shows your protection status, along with information about your CPU usage; a ‘Scan Now’ tile; a LiveUpdate tile (which you’d use to install any updates to the suite); and a tile for advanced settings. You can also access the settings via the Settings tab, which is located at the top of the screen.

The settings menu is relatively easy to navigate, though it has more options than a beginning user really needs. Still, Norton does a good job of explaining different features and toggles, and a little help button (which takes you to Norton’s online support site) is always located next to confusing terms.

The 2013 version of Norton Internet Security is definitely worth a look, especially if you’re a Windows 8 user.

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Lenovo Thinkpad USB 3.0 Secure Hard Drive Review: A High-Flying Performer

If having to pay $7+ per gigabyte for secure flash drives makes you blanch, take a look at the Lenovo ThinkPad USB 3.0 Secure Hard Drive. At only $200 for 750GB—which translates to about 4GB per $1—and PIN-pad security, it's a lot more affordable than secure flash drives. Plus, the ThinkPad USB 3.0 Secure Hard Drive is faster than the USB flash drives, most of which are USB 2.0. As a 2.5-inch hard drive it's not as portable or rugged as the flash drives , but it's where you go if you need the capacity.

Though the Lenovo Secure Hard Drive isn't FIPS 140-2 certified, it is sealed against intrusion and is in a chassis that's lightly ruggedized. It uses 256-bit AES encryption integrated into the drive controller, and is software-free; you unlock your data using a keypad on the top of the unit. A keypad is faster and more convenient than waiting for software to launch, and also makes the unit compatible with any operating system or device.

The keypad is wear-resistant so that as long as you keep it clean, thieves won't be able to detect which keys are most often used, at least not without resorting to advanced techniques. The physical dimensions of the Lenovo Secure Hard Drive makes it easier to use than a PIN-protected USB secure flash drive such as the Aegis Secure key—you can hold the unit in both hands and use your thumbs to enter the PIN, texting-style.

The Secure Hard Drive's security system provides an administrative PIN in addition to ten user PINs. Eight digits are required for all PINS. Accessing the drive is as simple as pressing the green unlock button and entering your PIN. Administrative mode, under which you can create PINs, is entered by pressing and holding the unlock button for 5 seconds. The device also has a lock button so you can secure the unit without detaching it from the computer. If the number of failed PIN-entry attempts exceeds the administrator-specified limit, the encryption keys for accessing the data are destroyed, but the hardware remains intact and usable, though sans its previous contents.

The Lenovo Secure Hard Drive proved quite a good performer. Not surprising given the USB 3.0 interface. In PCWorld's tests, the drive wrote a 10GB mix of small files and folders at 39.4MBps and read it at 64.3MBps. With a single large file, that write performance jumped to 89.2MBps and 99.7MBps. As there are no USB 3.0 secure flash drives available yet, the Lenovo Secure Hard Drive is currently the considerably faster option. The drive features a captive USB cable that you can't lose or leave behind, though Lenovo includes a USB Y-cable so you can use the drive with underpowered USB 2.0 ports.

If you don't need the tiny form factor of a USB flash drive, the Lenovo Secure Hard Drive is a much better deal. You'll need to be a bit more careful handling it, but otherwise it has only upsides.

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Lenovo Thinkpad USB 3.0 Secure Hard Drive Review: A High-Flying Performer

If having to pay $7+ per gigabyte for secure flash drives makes you blanch, take a look at the Lenovo ThinkPad USB 3.0 Secure Hard Drive. At only $200 for 750GB—which translates to about 4GB per $1—and PIN-pad security, it's a lot more affordable than secure flash drives. Plus, the ThinkPad USB 3.0 Secure Hard Drive is faster than the USB flash drives, most of which are USB 2.0. As a 2.5-inch hard drive it's not as portable or rugged as the flash drives , but it's where you go if you need the capacity.

Though the Lenovo Secure Hard Drive isn't FIPS 140-2 certified, it is sealed against intrusion and is in a chassis that's lightly ruggedized. It uses 256-bit AES encryption integrated into the drive controller, and is software-free; you unlock your data using a keypad on the top of the unit. A keypad is faster and more convenient than waiting for software to launch, and also makes the unit compatible with any operating system or device.

The keypad is wear-resistant so that as long as you keep it clean, thieves won't be able to detect which keys are most often used, at least not without resorting to advanced techniques. The physical dimensions of the Lenovo Secure Hard Drive makes it easier to use than a PIN-protected USB secure flash drive such as the Aegis Secure key—you can hold the unit in both hands and use your thumbs to enter the PIN, texting-style.

The Secure Hard Drive's security system provides an administrative PIN in addition to ten user PINs. Eight digits are required for all PINS. Accessing the drive is as simple as pressing the green unlock button and entering your PIN. Administrative mode, under which you can create PINs, is entered by pressing and holding the unlock button for 5 seconds. The device also has a lock button so you can secure the unit without detaching it from the computer. If the number of failed PIN-entry attempts exceeds the administrator-specified limit, the encryption keys for accessing the data are destroyed, but the hardware remains intact and usable, though sans its previous contents.

The Lenovo Secure Hard Drive proved quite a good performer. Not surprising given the USB 3.0 interface. In PCWorld's tests, the drive wrote a 10GB mix of small files and folders at 39.4MBps and read it at 64.3MBps. With a single large file, that write performance jumped to 89.2MBps and 99.7MBps. As there are no USB 3.0 secure flash drives available yet, the Lenovo Secure Hard Drive is currently the considerably faster option. The drive features a captive USB cable that you can't lose or leave behind, though Lenovo includes a USB Y-cable so you can use the drive with underpowered USB 2.0 ports.

If you don't need the tiny form factor of a USB flash drive, the Lenovo Secure Hard Drive is a much better deal. You'll need to be a bit more careful handling it, but otherwise it has only upsides.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Digital Storm ODE Level 4 Review: Sleek Performer, Steep Price Tag

Digital Storm has released another iteration of its ODE desktop, the ODE Level 4. At $3499 (as of March 27, 2012), the price tag rivals those of most of the top performance desktops--but does this PC have the chops to rank among the best? According to our tests, it does.

The Level 4 carries a lightning-fast Intel Core i7-3930K CPU that runs at 4.6GHz, as well as 16GB of DDR3 RAM. This system flew through our WorldBench 6 benchmark, earning an impressive mark of 213. In comparison, the original Digital Storm ODE posted a score of 198 in July 2011. The quicker processor and generous amounts of RAM allowed the ODE Level 4 to breach the 200 mark.

Using two AMD Radeon HD 7970 graphics cards in CrossFire, the ODE Level 4 achieved some stunning scores on our graphics benchmark tests. Running Crysis 2 and Dirt 3 at 2560-by-1600-pixel resolution, on Ultra settings, the system managed an average of 71.9 frames per second on the former and 108.5 fps on the latter--admirable scores on those graphically intensive games.

Speedy performance is coupled with speedy storage: The included 120GB solid-state drive cuts boot times and revs up applications and games. For everything else, the ODE Level 4 offers a 1TB 7200-rpm hard drive. That amount of storage may not satisfy the most hard-core users or media enthusiasts, but it's a great start.

The system includes a Blu-ray rewriter for ripping and burning DVDs and Blu-ray discs, but media lovers won't find much else here that's enticing. The PC lacks a card reader, too, but it has plenty of room for you to add one.

With a total of seven USB 3.0 ports, eight USB 2.0 ports, two eSATA ports, and a FireWire port spread out over the case, you will not want for connectivity options. You'll also find two DVI ports, two mini-HDMI ports, and four mini-DisplayPort connectors between the two graphics cards.

The ODE Level 4's case resembles that of its predecessor, but retains the same positive aspects. The exterior is a glossy white with rounded corners, a unique look. The abundant fans all over the case keep the interior cool and functional, yet they aren’t especially loud. The processor comes equipped with a Corsair liquid cooler, which feeds into yet another fan on the top. A few interior lights give the case a soft red and white glow, lending the machine a bit of style without being obnoxious.

Speaking of interiors, the inside is clean and organized, with plenty of room to tinker. Two spring-loaded latches allow easy, tool-free acess. The two graphics cards take up most of the motherboard space, but two PCI slots are still open in between, if you can manage to fit anything between the CrossFire link. Only three of the internal bays are occupied, leaving three open exterior bays (for adding, say, extra media devices) and four interior hard-drive bays. It is also worth noting that only half of the DIMM slots are occupied, which leaves room for more RAM if needed.

The ODE Level 4 also offers two gigabit ethernet ports, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. Getting online and connecting your devices could not be easier.

As for how the ODE Level 4 stacks up against other recent performance PCs, it tops the Polywell Ignition X7900i-3960, which earned a score of 206 on our WorldBench 6 benchmark; it's also $1000 cheaper than the Ignition (which was $4599 at the time of our review). The ODE Level 4 has a bit less RAM and only one SSD (in contrast to the Ignition’s pair), but ultimately it’s a little more cost-effective.

The Digital Storm ODE Level 4 is a clean, quiet, and powerful machine. It's unfortunate that this PC's price tag exceeds many people's budgets; if you're looking for a better bargain, you can find options on our Top 10 Performance Desktops chart that offer comparable power at a palatable price. But if you have a little extra cash to spend, the ODE Level 4 is an attractive powerhouse, and a solid choice.

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