Review: Pocket lets you shelve items to read and watch when the time is right

The Internet is a distracting place. Cat videos, recipes, and interesting blog posts all conspire to steal our focus and distract us from whatever we've set out to do in the first place. One way you can deal with this constant barrage of brain candy by blocking it out with procrastination-curbing applications such as Cold Turkey. Another possible way is to save all those interesting distractions for later, carrying on with your day secure in the knowledge you'll get to them when the time is right. If that sort of distraction management appeals to you, you're going to like free Web-based service Pocket.

Pocket lays out the content you've saved for later in a beautiful, easy-to-navigate grid.

Pocket started out as a service called Read It Later, which specialized in saving articles, and later morphed into a more general-purpose service that can also save videos and anything else. With the change in purpose and design came a change in name, and Pocket was born.

The idea at the core of the service is simple: You have one Pocket account, but numerous applications can plug into it to save content for later. There are browser bookmarklets and extensions, but there are also lots of mobile apps that feature built-in saving to Pocket, with Flipboard and Pulse being notable examples.

When you save a page for later using the Pocket bookmarklet, a simple overlay shows you the page was saved.

Saving an article to read later takes just a moment. Pocket doesn't ask any questions: It just saves the article, and you're done. Later, when you have time, you can access the Pocket Web app or use Pocket's mobile app, and read the articles you've saved at your leisure. Pocket even improves the reading experience by stripping out extraneous formatting and making the article look nicer, much like Readability does.

Using Pocket isn't like bookmarking content to read later: When you create simple browser bookmarks (or save links to a social bookmarking service), they stay there once you're done reading them. This makes for a very cluttered bookmark collection, mixing temporary content you'll visit just once with more permanent bookmarks you'll visit time and again. With Pocket, you get a dedicated space for all of those transient links, keeping them separate from your more permanent bookmarks; and since Pocket lets you easily mark links as read, it's easier to keep it from overflowing with clutter.

Pocket reformats articles to make reading easier and more focused.

Pocket isn't a revolutionary service, and it isn't new. But it's very useful, especially if you find yourself drawn to read articles and watch videos when you're really not supposed to.

Note: The Download button on the Product Information page takes you to the vendor's site, where you can use the latest version of this Web-based 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

From PC World. Shop computer and accessories from Amazon here

Review: Pocket lets you shelve items to read and watch when the time is right

The Internet is a distracting place. Cat videos, recipes, and interesting blog posts all conspire to steal our focus and distract us from whatever we've set out to do in the first place. One way you can deal with this constant barrage of brain candy by blocking it out with procrastination-curbing applications such as Cold Turkey. Another possible way is to save all those interesting distractions for later, carrying on with your day secure in the knowledge you'll get to them when the time is right. If that sort of distraction management appeals to you, you're going to like free Web-based service Pocket.

Pocket lays out the content you've saved for later in a beautiful, easy-to-navigate grid.

Pocket started out as a service called Read It Later, which specialized in saving articles, and later morphed into a more general-purpose service that can also save videos and anything else. With the change in purpose and design came a change in name, and Pocket was born.

The idea at the core of the service is simple: You have one Pocket account, but numerous applications can plug into it to save content for later. There are browser bookmarklets and extensions, but there are also lots of mobile apps that feature built-in saving to Pocket, with Flipboard and Pulse being notable examples.

When you save a page for later using the Pocket bookmarklet, a simple overlay shows you the page was saved.

Saving an article to read later takes just a moment. Pocket doesn't ask any questions: It just saves the article, and you're done. Later, when you have time, you can access the Pocket Web app or use Pocket's mobile app, and read the articles you've saved at your leisure. Pocket even improves the reading experience by stripping out extraneous formatting and making the article look nicer, much like Readability does.

Using Pocket isn't like bookmarking content to read later: When you create simple browser bookmarks (or save links to a social bookmarking service), they stay there once you're done reading them. This makes for a very cluttered bookmark collection, mixing temporary content you'll visit just once with more permanent bookmarks you'll visit time and again. With Pocket, you get a dedicated space for all of those transient links, keeping them separate from your more permanent bookmarks; and since Pocket lets you easily mark links as read, it's easier to keep it from overflowing with clutter.

Pocket reformats articles to make reading easier and more focused.

Pocket isn't a revolutionary service, and it isn't new. But it's very useful, especially if you find yourself drawn to read articles and watch videos when you're really not supposed to.

Note: The Download button on the Product Information page takes you to the vendor's site, where you can use the latest version of this Web-based 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

From PC World. Shop computer and accessories from Amazon here

CityBot Is An Intelligent Travel Guide in Your Pocket

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From Laptopmagazine. Visit Amazon Computer and Notebook Center Here

Review: Pocket lets you shelve items to read and watch when the time is right

The Internet is a distracting place. Cat videos, recipes, and interesting blog posts all conspire to steal our focus and distract us from whatever we've set out to do in the first place. One way you can deal with this constant barrage of brain candy by blocking it out with procrastination-curbing applications such as Cold Turkey. Another possible way is to save all those interesting distractions for later, carrying on with your day secure in the knowledge you'll get to them when the time is right. If that sort of distraction management appeals to you, you're going to like free Web-based service Pocket.

Pocket lays out the content you've saved for later in a beautiful, easy-to-navigate grid.

Pocket started out as a service called Read It Later, which specialized in saving articles, and later morphed into a more general-purpose service that can also save videos and anything else. With the change in purpose and design came a change in name, and Pocket was born.

The idea at the core of the service is simple: You have one Pocket account, but numerous applications can plug into it to save content for later. There are browser bookmarklets and extensions, but there are also lots of mobile apps that feature built-in saving to Pocket, with Flipboard and Pulse being notable examples.

When you save a page for later using the Pocket bookmarklet, a simple overlay shows you the page was saved.

Saving an article to read later takes just a moment. Pocket doesn't ask any questions: It just saves the article, and you're done. Later, when you have time, you can access the Pocket Web app or use Pocket's mobile app, and read the articles you've saved at your leisure. Pocket even improves the reading experience by stripping out extraneous formatting and making the article look nicer, much like Readability does.

Using Pocket isn't like bookmarking content to read later: When you create simple browser bookmarks (or save links to a social bookmarking service), they stay there once you're done reading them. This makes for a very cluttered bookmark collection, mixing temporary content you'll visit just once with more permanent bookmarks you'll visit time and again. With Pocket, you get a dedicated space for all of those transient links, keeping them separate from your more permanent bookmarks; and since Pocket lets you easily mark links as read, it's easier to keep it from overflowing with clutter.

Pocket reformats articles to make reading easier and more focused.

Pocket isn't a revolutionary service, and it isn't new. But it's very useful, especially if you find yourself drawn to read articles and watch videos when you're really not supposed to.

Note: The Download button on the Product Information page takes you to the vendor's site, where you can use the latest version of this Web-based 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

From PCWorld. Visit Amazon Computer and Notebook Center here

Samsung WB850F: Feature-Filled 21X Pocket Zoom Has Connections

A few years ago, a pocketable camera loaded with this many features would impossible to find. The Samsung WB850F ($350 as of August 6, 2012) boasts a 21X-optical-zoom lens, Wi-Fi sharing capabilities, GPS with in-camera mapping, and a 10-fps burst mode at a 16-megapixel resolution. It's practically a poster child for the latest in-camera tech of 2012.

The WB850F is notable because, first and foremost, it's a solid camera. Unlike previous Wi-Fi-enabled cameras, it makes its wireless-sharing capabilities secondary to several other key features: an impressive zoom lens, manual controls, good performance, and forward-thinking controls that give you quick access to most of the camera's settings.

That said, the WB850F did have a few shortcomings. It tended to lag (or even freeze up) when I switched between shooting modes, and its stabilization system became less effective at the telephoto end of the zoom—which is precisely where a user needs it most. Normally, it takes good-looking photos that you would want to share wirelessly. But it does have trouble shooting sharp photos at full zoom.

Performance, Image Quality, and Video Quality

In PCWorld Labs' subjective evaluations of image quality, our panel of judges awarded the WB850F scores of Good or better in all of our testing categories. The camera's strongest suit is sharpness, where it earned a score of Superior; we noted just a bit of discolored fringing in the finer details of our target resolution chart.

The WB850F also performed very well on color accuracy and lack of distortion, with scores of Very Good in each of those categories. Exposure quality was rated as Good, due to a slightly underexposed image in our still-life test.

You can see the full-size sample shots used for our subjective tests by clicking the thumbnails to the left.

The WB850F didn't do as well in our video-quality tests. Overall, the camera earned a score of Fair for video quality and Very Good for audio quality, but its lower-than-average video score is attributable to its performance in low-light situations. In our bright-light tests, the camera's 1080p footage shot at 30 frames per second looked okay; but footage shot in dimmer conditions looked noticeably noisy and snowy.

The WB850F's low-light footage did compare favorably with that of many other cameras in its class. Low-light video may be noisy, but you can see what's going on in the clip, and the motion looks smooth.

Here are the test video clips used for our subjective evaluations. Select 1080p from the bottom menu in the player for the full-resolution clips.

Strangely, no industry-standard CIPA battery rating is available for the Samsung WB850F. Not surprisingly, the camera battery didn't last too long in my hands-on tests when I used its Wi-Fi and GPS features; it delivered about a day's worth of juice before I had to recharge. Even when I wasn't using Wi-Fi and GPS, the battery indicator dipped from full bars to battery empty in about a day and a half, and I wasn't using it nonstop. From my hands-on tests and my experience with other cameras' battery longevity, I'd put this camera's battery life in our "Fair" range of 160 to 200 shots per charge.

Shooting Modes and Features

Samsung WB850F: Wide-angle (23mm)Samsung WB850F: Telephoto (483mm)Panorama modeMacro modeSketch filterLike many of today's other pocket megazooms in the same price range, the Samsung WB850F includes shooting modes that offer a little something for everyone: manual exposure controls, traditional scene modes, newfangled effects filters, and a "Smart" auto mode that automatically detects the correct scene presets to use.

You'll find a lot of choices in the camera's menus, too, but Samsung has done a nice job of keeping confusion and bloat to a minimum. You don't need to scroll through pages of screens in each mode to uncover more pages of arcane options; each mode's selections are limited to a single screen—a welcome touch.

The camera's manual exposure controls are accessed via a single A/S/M selection on the mode dial; once you've selected that mode, you can choose between aperture priority, shutter priority, and full manual mode on the ensuing screen. Though it's not a huge deal, that multipurpose manual mode adds a step compared to cameras that have dedicated aperture- and shutter-priority selections on the mode dial.

You can adjust shutter speeds (across a range from 1/2000 second to 16 seconds) and aperture values (a maximum of F2.8 at wide angle or F5.9 at the telephoto end) with the camera's scroll wheel. Pressing the Function button in A/S/M mode yields a wide range of adjustment options, including ISO (100 to 3200), white balance, manual/autofocus, and image size, among others.

In the manual and program auto modes, pressing the Function button brings up a list of creative filters—such as a miniature mode, a cartoon filter, and a paintlike overlay—that you can apply in real time. For shots taken in Auto mode or in one of the scene modes, you can apply the same filters during image playback by pressing the Menu button and selecting 'Smart Filters' from the menu.

The camera's scene modes are fairly basic, with eight options that cover the basics (a long-shutter night mode, a backlight mode, a Beauty Shot mode for portraits, and sunset and dawn modes, among others). Another spot on the mode dial gives you access to creative special effects, such as an HDR mode, a motion-controlled panorama mode, 3D shooting, and several frame modes that let you overlay photos on preset backgrounds or place photos side-by-side.

Despite the many shooting options here, the camera's reaction time sometimes lags a bit when you try to select them. When you switch from mode to mode or save a sequence of burst shots, the WB850F tends to hang for a few seconds. When you select on-screen options within a shooting mode, however, the camera reacts more quickly.

The Samsung WB850F did well in our lab tests, which involve mounting the camera on a tripod in a controlled lighting environment, but I found that the camera had a few shortcomings for handheld shooting. At the telephoto end of the zoom, I had trouble capturing a crisp shot; that's a challenge for any long-zoom camera, but the WB850F seemed more problematic than most. It did a serviceable job in low-light settings, but blur is a factor in the dark, as well.

On a more positive note, the camera's macro performance is well above average. The WB850F has a minumum focus distance that practically lets you touch the lens to a subject--in well-lit situations, at least. When you're shooting in less-than-optimal lighting conditions, the camera's autofocus system has trouble locking in on a subject, but that's true of virtually every camera in its class.

Wi-Fi and GPS features

In addition to its many shooting modes, the WB850F has a broad range of connectivity features. The camera can email photos and upload images to Facebook and Photobucket, though it shrinks them down to a 1664-by-1248-pixel photo (around 2 megapixels) in the process. I sent two test images from the camera—one via email, and one as a Facebook upload—and both of them transferred very quickly. Each photo was arrived at the proper destination within about 5 seconds.

You can also send videos from the camera, but that operation is a bit less smooth. First of all, the camera will send only 320-by-240 video files that are less than 30 seconds long, but you won't know their duration until you try to send them. Even worse, you can't reduce the resolution of a clip after you've shot it, so you'll have to record clips in low resolution in order to send them from the camera.

You can also save images wirelessly to Microsoft's SkyDrive cloud storage service (again, I couldn't send a high-definition video clip), back up photos wirelessly to a PC after installing the included Intellistudio and Auto Backup software, and stream photos and video from the camera to a DLNA-compliant TV.

As it did with its prior "Smart" cameras, Samsung offers two mobile apps for Android and iOS that let you use a phone as a real-time, wireless viewfinder/remote control for the camera, and another app that lets you offload images and video to a mobile device. The Remote Viewfinder app lets you operate the zoom lens, turn the flash on and off, and adjust photo resolution wirelessly via a mobile device. Your phone's screen gives you a live preview of what you're shooting, with impressively little lag time, though the remote zoom controls can be a bit touchy. After you snap a shot, you have the option of saving a copy of the image to your phone (12 megapixels max) by tapping an on-screen icon.

The WB850F has some of the best GPS features available on a camera, including an on-camera Navteq mapping interface, a points-of-interest database, and real-world location names (rather than just longitude and latitude coordinates) applied to your photos. The full range of GPS features aren't preloaded on the camera, however; instead, you'll need to load the maps onto the camera via the included CD or download them from Samsung's site.

Hardware and Design

The WB850F is built around a 16-megapixel backside-illuminated CMOS sensor and a 21X zoom lens (23mm to 483mm) with a hybrid optical/digital stabilization system. A 3-inch AMOLED screen that is sharper and brighter than most of the displays I've seen on competing cameras, handles shot composition and photo reviewing.

One potential annoyance is that you must charge the camera's battery while it's in the camera, using a supplied USB cable. An adapter in the box lets you connect the USB plug to a wall charger; but in either charging scenario, the entire camera must be plugged in.

The WB850F is a bit beefier than many of today's ever-shrinking pocket megazooms, but that's largely due to its raised handgrip, which makes the camera feel sturdy and comfortable to hold. And despite the extra heft, the WB850F is still pocketable, depending on your pants. If you enjoy spending a day about town while wearing a nice pair of slacks or chinos, it'll probably fit in your pocket; if you wear skinny jeans, no dice.

The top of the WB850F hosts a spring-loaded pop-up flash that you open with a lever and click back down with your finger, along with a power button, stereo microphones, a zoom ring/shutter button, and a mode dial.

On the back of the camera, Samsung has altered the standard control scheme somewhat. For the most part, the variations on the norm work well. One unique feature on the back is a Drive Speed control, which is a lot like a zoom-control ring; you operate it with your thumb to toggle between continuous shooting modes (3 fps, 5 fps, and 10 fps), a single-capture mode, a three-shot exposure-bracketing mode, and a Precapture mode that snps 8 shots as soon as you half-press the shutter button.

You'll also find—in addition to a menu button, a playback button, and a delete button—a time-saving Function button that gives you quick access to the settings supported by whatever shooting mode you're in. For example, if the camera is set to manual mode, pressing the Function button launches a heads-up display of aperture settings, ISO adjustments, exposure compensation, white balance and metering modes, and other settings. This arrangement definitely cuts down on the menu-diving you'd normally have to do with a smaller camera, as you get access to all of the applicable adjustments on a single screen.

A clickable scroll wheel handles on-screen selections and also operates as a four-way directional pad. As on most cameras, pressing the up, down, left, or right direction on the wheel gives you fast access to in-camera settings such as a timer and display adjustments; unlike on other cameras, the left and bottom directional buttons jump you to the camera's map interface and electronic compass. Those substitutions are handy if you use the camera's GPS features a lot, but if you're accustomed to a traditional button layout, you may miss the one-touch access to macro mode and flash settings; you must press the Function button to adjust those settings.

Bottom Line

I found a lot to like in the Samsung WB850F, including an ample zoom range, well-implemented controls, innovative Wi-Fi capabilities, and good image quality. The camera's GPS features are very good, too, though having to load them onto the camera yourself is a bit of a hassle. The WB850F certainly provides a lot of bang for the buck in terms of features. But the camera has a few downsides in usability, such as iffy stabilization at the telephoto end, laggy reaction times for some in-camera selections, and so-so low-light performance. The overall result is a good, versatile megazoom that's easily the best Wi-Fi-enabled camera we've tested so far. But aside from its futuristic features, it comes up a bit short of the usability bar set by the Canon PowerShot SX260 HS.

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Canon PowerShot SX260 HS Review: Another Top-Notch Canon Pocket Zoom

Thanks to a hard-to-beat combo of very good image quality, a generous optical-zoom reach, ease of use, and flexible shooting options, every iteration of Canon's PowerShot SX line seems to end up at the top of our pocket-megazoom cameras chart. The latest camera in the family, the 20X-optical-zoom Canon PowerShot SX260 HS ($350 as of June 1, 2012), is another winner. Because it covers so many bases, it's one of the easiest point-and-shoot cameras to recommend for any user.

The 12-megapixel PowerShot SX260 HS's versatile lens, assorted shooting modes, excellent image and video quality, and manual controls all contribute to its high rating. You'll find only a few weak spots in this camera: It doesn't shoot RAW, it has mediocre battery life, and audio capture is a bit hissy while it's shooting video. Due to its extensive zoom range, it also has a relatively narrow aperture at the wide-angle end--but every pocket megazoom we've ever seen also has that shortcoming.

Performance, Image Quality, and Video Quality

In PCWorld Labs subjective tests for image quality, the PowerShot SX260 HS earned a score of Very Good in nearly all of our testing categories, namely in exposure quality, color accuracy, and lack of distortion. In image sharpness it received a rating of Good.

The camera's sharpness score suffered a bit due to a visible moiré effect in our target-chart sharpness test, and the camera's images looked a bit soft in our still-life test. Colors appeared bright and vibrant without the oversaturation we commonly see from many of today's cameras, and the SX260 HS's auto-exposure mode produced excellent white-balance and exposure levels in our hands-on tests.

Click the thumbnails to the left to see the full-size images we used in the PCWorld Labs' subjective tests.

In video capture, the SX260 HS again ranked among the best models we've tested in the pocket megazoom category, generating good contrast, pleasing colors, and fine details in well-lit situations. The test footage we shot in low light wasn't as impressive, but due to its performance in our bright-lighting test, we rated the PowerShot SX260 HS's overall video quality as Very Good.

As mentioned before, audio pickup through the SX260 HS's top-mounted stereo microphones is a bit of a weakness. Audio capture in video mode sounded hissy to our subjective jury's ears, so we gave the camera an Audio score of Fair in our tests.

The battery life is a bit of a downer, too; the lack of long-lasting juice is beginning to look like a common failing among many of Canon's recent point-and-shoots. The PowerShot SX260 HS has a CIPA rating of 230 shots per charge of its lithium ion battery, which falls in the Fair range of our battery-life scores.

Shooting Modes and Features

SX260 HS: Wide-angle (25mm)SX260 HS: Full telephoto (500mm)SX260 HS: Handheld NightScene modeSX260 HS: Low-Light mode (3 megapixels)SX260 HS: Color Accent modeWith a 20X-optical-zoom (25mm to 500mm) lens and a pocketable body, the 12-megapixel Canon PowerShot SX260 HS is already a versatile camera in terms of hardware. When you consider its diverse range of shooting modes, the camera becomes the photographic equivalent of a Swiss Army knife.

In addition to traditional manual controls for focus, aperture (F3.5 wide-angle to F6.8 telephoto maximum aperture), shutter speed (1/3200 of a second to 15 seconds), and ISO levels (ISO 100 to 3200), the SX260 HS has a number of creative shooting options to rival any competing pocket megazoom. It's a solid performer at both ends of its zoom range, with macro capabilities that let you get within 2 inches of your subject, and excellent optical stabilization when you're zoomed all the way. At full telephoto, the camera's stabilization system "floats" a bit, making it easier to keep faraway subjects in frame. In my hands-on tests, handheld shots that I took at full telephoto came out impressively sharp.

Along with the usual array of scene modes (Portrait, Smooth Skin, Sunset, Snow, Panorama Assist, Fireworks), the camera's scene menu has a few unique options. Smart Shutter, for instance, automatically snaps three photos when it senses that someone in front of the lens is smiling, making it an alternative for self-timer shots. And the SX260 HS's High-Speed Burst HQ mode shoots ten full-resolution shots per second, with focus and exposure settings locked at the first image in the sequence.

For low-light shooting without a flash, the camera has two dedicated scene modes that each go about their business differently. The Handheld NightScene mode uses burst shooting with exposure bracketing to create an HDR-like image in dark environments. The Low Light mode shoots a single 3-megapixel image, as the camera combines adjacent pixels on the sensor to increase light sensitivity. In my tests, the Handheld NightScene mode produced noticeably sharper, more-detailed images in dark settings, but both did a good job in low-light situations. You can see sample shots taken with each mode, in the same scenario, to the left.

The camera also has a separate mode-dial entry for its digital creative effects, which include a fish-eye simulator, a miniature mode that lets you manually adjust the vertical and horizontal plane of focus, black-and-white and vibrant-color effects, and a vignette filter that simulates a toy camera. Included as well are Canon's Color Accent and Color Swap modes, which remain the best implementations of single-color highlight features I've seen in any point-and-shoot camera. With these modes, you can isolate a single color in a black-and-white shot or replace all instances of one color with another in your photo, as you're shooting it.

The creative options extend to the SX260 HS's movie-capture modes, which max out at 1080p capture at 24 frames per second. In the camera's Super Slow Motion movie mode, you can shoot 640-by-480-pixel video at 120 fps and 320-by-240-pixel video at 240 fps. Miniature Mode is also applicable while you're shooting video, but the camera records at 6 fps and plays the video back at 30 fps to simulate an old-timey, fast-motion movie.

Other notable options on the SX260 HS's mode dial include a "Quiet" mode, which completely silences the shutter and disables the flash to help you capture that stealthy photo of a sleeping baby or a wedding ceremony, and a "Live" mode that helps novice shooters adjust the brightness, color saturation, and color temperature via on-screen sliders rather than delving into manual controls.

Hardware and Design

The PowerShot SX260 HS feels sturdily built, and it looks a bit more streamlined than most high-zoom pocket cameras thanks to its minimalist handgrip. A slender, raised bar on the front of the camera works well as a handgrip when you hold it with your middle finger, and a slight groove around the top edge of the camera provides a comfortable resting spot for your index finger when you're shooting one-handed.

The top of the camera hosts the pop-up flash, the shutter button ringed by the zoom control, the power button, and the camera's built-in stereo microphones. The back of the camera hosts a mode dial, which lies relatively flat on the surface and locks into place firmly with each mode selection.

Accompanying the mode dial and the 3-inch LCD screen are five more controls that handle most of the commonly used settings: a dedicated video-record button, a playback button, a four-way directional pad/scrollwheel (for quick access to exposure compensation, flash settings, macro/manual focus, and the self timer), a display-settings button, and a menu button. As for ports, the SX260 HS has a rubberized cover for a Mini-USB connector and a Mini HDMI connector on the side, as well as a metal-backed plastic door that covers the battery and SD/SDHC/SDXC slot on the bottom, next to the tripod mount.

GPS Features

The Canon PowerShot SX260 HS's GPS features are as basic as they come, but they work well when you're adding geotagged images to photo-sharing services that support mapping. The SX260 HS doesn't have any in-camera maps like the ones found in pocket-zoom competitors such as the Samsung WB850F, but it does add information to each photo's EXIF data that you can use with various mapping services.

The camera requires a clear view of the sky--and depending on your immediate environment, it can take a minute or so to establish your GPS connection. I tested the PowerShot SX260 HS's GPS functions in New York; at street level with a lot of tall buildings around, the initial GPS connection needed about 2 to 3 minutes, and the camera had trouble maintaining the connection. Once I went up to the roof of a building with a clear view of the sky, the satellite link-up took less than a minute and was less problematic.

After you create that connection, you have the option of turning on the camera's GPS Logger feature to refresh your location data periodically, even when the camera is turned off. As you might guess, leaving the GPS Logger feature on all the time will have a significant impact on battery life, so it's a good idea to use the feature sparingly if you don't carry an extra battery.

I didn't find much to look at on the camera in terms of geodata--pressing the Display button during playback showed raw longitude and latitude data for each geotagged shot--but once I offloaded a tagged photo to a computer, the info integrated seamlessly with the mapping functions in Flickr, Picasa, and SmugMug.

As with the majority of GPS-enabled cameras, the SX260 HS's GPS functions are a "nice to have" feature for frequent travelers and anyone who likes to geotag images. If you want in-camera mapping, you'd be better served by the Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS20 or the Samsung WB850F. Outside of its GPS features, however, the PowerShot SX260 HS is simply one of the best pocket-megazoom cameras we've tested, and its geotagging works well with popular photo-sharing services.

Bottom Line

You're probably familiar with the saying "Jack of all trades, master of none." The PowerShot SX260 HS blows that idea out of the water. This is a pocket megazoom that does a lot of things and masters quite a few of them, providing excellent overall image and video quality, easy-to-use controls for both experienced photographers and novices, and shooting modes that cover a whole lot of bases. It's hard to recommend a single camera for everybody, but in the realm of long-zoom point-and-shoots, this one offers as much universal appeal as I've seen.

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