Review: Dell B1265dfw is a decent monochrome laser MFP with pricey toner

Thinking of the $280 Dell B1265dfw as a monochrome laser printer with benefits puts it in its best light. Besides good print speed, it offers copying, faxing, and scanning in color. There's even an automatic document feeder (ADF), though the duplex scanning features are restricted to the flatbed portion of the scanning system and are manual only. The B1265dfw also suffers particularly pricey toner--well over three cents per page even with the high-capacity supplies.

The B1265dfw is your standard medium-sized, boxy small-to-medium business MFP. It's solidly constructed, and though its standard warranty lasts just one year, a 3-year advance-replacement warranty is available for an additional $40.

The B1265dfw is a triple treat connectivity-wise, with USB, Wi-Fi, and Ethernet on board. The software Installation is easy, and Dell has made an effort to simplify Wi-Fi setup, even providing a WPS button on the control panel. Said control panel is on the right front of the unit, flips up for easy access, and is intuitively laid out. There's a numeric keypad for faxing and a two-line monochrome display. It's rendered in off-white which helpfully focuses your attention on it from the otherwise charcoal colored unit. On the other hand, Dell made the embossed icons on the circular cursor control difficult to read by not differentiating their color. Go figure.

Paper handling features include automatic duplex printing; a 250-sheet bottom-mounted paper cassette; a front-loading, single-sheet auxiliary feed; a 151-sheet integrated output tray directly above that; and a 40-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF) for the scanning portion of the unit. The flatbed scanner is letter/A4-sized, and the lid telescopes slightly more than an inch to accommodate thicker materials.

Though the B1265dfw has an ADF, it's limited. While there's help (prompts on the LCD) for manual 1-sided to 2-sided, and 2-sided to 2-sided copying, it's only available when using the flatbed platen. This is not the MFP you want to buy if you regularly scan lengthy two-sided documents.

The B1265dfw’s speed is middling for a monochrome laser, but fast compared to other $300 multifunctions we’ve tested—most of which have been inkjets.Documents consisting of plain, black text with a few simple, monochrome graphics average a speedy 19.3 pages per minute (ppm) on the PC, and 15.3 ppm on the Mac. Snapshot-sized, 4--by-6-inch photos print at about 5.5 ppm.

The quality of the B1265dfw's text is excellent, which is expected for any monochrome laser printer. The graphics are mediocre at best, with horizontal striation and vertical banding becoming more noticeable as image size increases. Scans are quick, of good quality, and you may scan in color as well as monochrome. Copying is obviously limited to black and white and suffers the same faults as the other graphics.

The B1265dfw uses a single integrated drum/toner unit and ships with a 1,000-page starter-size cartridge. The replacements cost $57 for a 1,500-page cartridge, and $83 for a 2,500-page cartridge. That works out to 3.8 cents per page (cpp) with the former, and 3.3 cents per page with the latter. That's pricey for a monochrome laser no matter how cheap the initial unit cost.

You buy a monochrome laser for speed and great text. The B1265dfw delivers both, albeit not as cheaply as one would wish. If you do the math, the total cost of operation will probably work out for small-volume copying and printing. The question you should ask is whether you might not be better off with a full-featured, $300 color inkjet MFP like the Epson WorkForce Pro WP-4540, which provides decent speed and impressive print quality, with far superior graphics and a significantly cheaper cost per page.

Jon L. Jacobi has worked with computers since you flipped switches and punched cards to program them. He studied music at Juilliard, and now he power-mods his car for kicks.
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Review: Dell C1760nw color printer has great output quality but pricey toner

We’ve spent a lot of electronic ink telling you to avoid low-cost color laser printers, because they’re all slow, with sparse features, and worst of all, really expensive toner. We’d almost advise the same about the $280 (as of March 25, 2013) Dell C1760nw color laser-class printer (it uses LED technology), but it has one thing going for it: impressive graphics quality, which is challenging to find on any office color laser printer at any price point. Choose this one above the rest, if you must, but you might also want to check out the faster, far more economical, office-class inkjets that we’ve seen from Epson and HP.

The C1760nw's two-line LCD display and control buttons are minimal, but effective. The menu structure is nicely laid out, making options easy to find. A blue light directly above the controls indicates the status of Wi-Fi connections. You can also manage the printer via Wi-Fi or Ethernet using the unit's HTML configuration interface. In addition to the PC and Mac drivers, the C1760nw offers remote-printing features, including printing from mobile devices and via email.

As with most low-cost color lasers, paper-handling features on the C1760nw are sparse. The front face folds down to create a 150-sheet, open-faced input tray on the bottom of the unit. A 10-page, removable bypass tray sits directly on top of it. The bypass tray allows you to print envelopes and other one-offs without unloading and reloading that main tray, as required with the single-tray C1660w. The output bin integrated into the top of the unit holds 100 sheets. The C1760nw lacks automatic two-side printing (duplexing), however, onscreen prompts walk you through the manual process. You can easily reach most of the paper path for clearing paper jams by folding down the panel on the back of the unit, and the toner cartridges are accessed via a panel on the right side of the unit.

Though cheaper than the C1660w's, the C1760nw's toner is still no bargain. The 3.5 cents you'll pay per black page is around the average for entry-level inkjets, but the additional 5 cents for each additional color is high. Black toner is sold in $70, 2000-page units and the 1400-page cyan, magenta, and yellow cartridges cost $70 each as well. Those are the high-capacity supplies. Dell also sells the 700-page cartridges the C1760nw ships with, but unless you want to pay over 7 cents per page (cpp) for black pages and over 8 cents per color, we recommend against them.

Melissa Riofrio

While adding color to a C1760nw page is expensive, it's definitely worth it. Color graphics and photos look far better than what we’ve normally seen from an inexpensive, laser-class printer. Text is outstandingly sharp, and black areas are smooth and uniform, if a tad lighter than we'd like.

The C1760nw posted average to slow time in our speed tests, using the ethernet connection. Full-page (letter-size) photos print to laser glossy paper at 1.5 pages per minute (ppm). Smaller, snapshot-sized (4- by-6-inch) photos print at 1.8 ppm to plain paper and just under 1.46 ppm to glossy laser stock. Black text and mixed pages of black text and monochrome graphics print at an aggregate 8 on the PC and 8.2 on the Mac.

The C1760w carries a one-year warranty with easy exchange. You can pump that up to five years with exchange for $80, and on-site service is also available. The drum/fuser is a lifetime unit, and those support options are reassuring when no replacement is readily available. Dell quotes a 30,000-page duty cycle, but in real life this is about a 500-page-a-month unit. Even if the unit can handle heavier use, print more than 500 pages and the price of the toner will start catching up to you.

Color laser devotees, we know you’re out there. If you must buy a low-cost color laser, the Dell C1760nw is one we’re willing to recommend--albeit with many reservations--because of its unusually good graphics quality.

Jon L. Jacobi has worked with computers since you flipped switches and punched cards to program them. He studied music at Julliard, and now he power mods his car for kicks.
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The daughter of a mechanical engineer, Melissa grew up playing with machine parts and still loves getting into the nuts and bolts of how things work. She is never happier than when she is on a factory tour.
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Review: CopyTrans Photo offers pricey iPhone photo management

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Review: Canon Pixma MG4220 a capable home-office MFP with pricey ink

Jon L. Jacobi has worked with computers since you flipped switches and punched cards to program them, studied music at Julliard, and power mods his car for kicks.
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The $130 Canon Pixma MG4220 color inkjet multifunction will easily handle the needs of a home office, but its ink costs are higher than average, and they're ludicrously expensive if you make the mistake of purchasing the low-capacity PG-240 and CL-241 cartridges. On the other hand, the unit provides nice output, makes quick work of business documents and copies, and automatically duplexes—a nice feature set for the price.

The Pixma MG4220 is easy to set up via Wi-Fi or USB. The control panel, unfortunately, is still not so simple to use. On this model, Canon continues its practice of positioning three buttons under the LCD (a 2.5-incher on the Pixma MG4220) to perform certain actions, rather than letting you use the perfectly adequate four-way cursor control and OK button. Hopping back and forth among all the buttons is both pointless and aggravating. Comparatively, the software is a model of efficiency, and the new quick menu for common tasks is easy on the eye. The MFP provides full support for scanning, copying, and Web printing.

The Pixma MG4220's 100-sheet input tray and 50-sheet output tray make it strictly a low-volume printer. The fact that it will automatically refeed the paper to print on the other side (automatic duplexing, in other words) is a boon. You'll find no automatic document feeder for the letter/A4-size scanner on the top of the Pixma MG4220, but the lid telescopes a full inch to accept thicker materials. The MFP's card slot supports direct photo printing from SD Card and Memory Stick media.

Judging from our tests, the Pixma MG4220 is easily fast enough for a home office when printing and copying business documents. Monochrome pages exited at about 6.8 pages per minute on the PC and 6.6 ppm on the Mac, while copies arrived at a sprightly 6.4 ppm. Photos, on the other hand, printed rather slowly. Snapshot-size (4-by-6-inch) photos printed at a little under 3 ppm to plain paper, but at a rate of only about 0.6 ppm on glossy paper. Full-page color photos rendered to glossy paper at a rate of 0.3 ppm, about average for an entry-level inkjet MFP.

The output from the Pixma MG4220 is good, but typical current-generation Canon. At default settings, text is sharp and black, monochrome graphics have a slight purple tint, and plain-paper color graphics could be a tad darker and use more contrast. At the printer's best setting, text is good enough for business documents, though extremely slow to arrive compared with default settings. Color photos look very nice, with our only minor complaint being the slight orange tint. Said tint, however, does give the pictures a friendly, warm vibe.

Now for the bad news. Ink costs for the MG4220 are high in general, but what you absolutely do not want to do is purchase the 180-page PG-240 black cartridge or CL-241 unified color cartridge (the same kinds of cartridges that also ship with the unit): At 10.6 cents per page for black and 13.9 cents per page for color, their costs are exorbitant. The story gets better—slightly—from there. The 300-page XL black costs $21, or 7.0 cents per page, and the 600-page XXL black costs $38, or 6.3 cents per page.

The XL unified color cartridge is more affordable: At $30 for 400 pages, you pay 7.5 cents per page for all three colors. That assumes usage similar to the industry standard employed to measure page yield. If you use a lot more of any one color, you’ll need to replace the entire cartridge even if plenty of ink remains for the other colors. A four-color page printed with the XL color cartridge and the XXL black cartridge costs a slightly lower-than-average 13.8 cents.

Melissa Riofrio

The Canon Pixma MG4220 has decent output and sufficient speed for most home offices, and is one of the cheaper MFPs with automatic duplexing. However, you do have alternatives. The HP Photosmart 5520 has cheaper inks, and the Brother MFC-J625DW has an automatic document feeder as well.

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HP Z1 Workstation Review: Pretty, Powerful, and Pricey, but Not Perfect

The new HP Z1 Workstation is the most attractive, most powerful, and most expensive all-in-one PC I've ever seen. And that isn't an exaggeration: This all-in-one workstation, the first of its kind, has a gorgeous 27-inch edge-to-edge glass screen, packs desktop-class components, and will set you back a cool $5673 (as configured, and as of April 10, 2012).

Our review model sports an Intel Xeon E31280 processor, 16GB of RAM, and an Nvidia Quadro 4000M graphics card, and runs a 64-bit version of Windows 7 Professional. The graphics card alone currently goes for around $750 online, so that's a big chunk of the Z1's hefty price tag. The model we tested also features built-in Bluetooth 3.0, built-in Wi-Fi, a high-def (1080p) 2-megapixel adjustable webcam, and a Blu-ray Disc writer. Budget-minded shoppers can pick up the Z1 with lower-end specs (such as a 32-bit OS, a DVD-RW drive, or an Intel Core i3-2120 processor) for less, as the Z1's base configuration starts at $1899.

Performance

I'll just go ahead and say it: This machine is, hands down, the most powerful all-in-one PC we've ever tested. In PCWorld's WorldBench 7 benchmark tests, the Z1 posted an impressive score of 159. That means the Z1 is 59 percent faster than our baseline model, a desktop with an Intel Core i5-2500K processor, 8GB of RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti graphics card. The score puts the Z1 well ahead of the rest of its class (most large-screen AIOs score in the 80-to-100 range on WorldBench 7), and even ahead of some of our lower-end performance tower desktops.

The Z1 also offers impressive graphics performance, thanks to its Quadro 4000M professional workstation graphics card, which supports high-quality 3D. In PCWorld's Dirt 3 graphics tests, the Z1 delivered very good frame rates of 69.1 frames per second (high quality, 1680-by-1050-pixel resolution) and 112.9 fps (high quality, 1024-by-768-pixel resolution).

Design

The Z1 is housed in a gorgeous, if large, all-in-one chassis. The machine sports a glossy 27-inch screen with edge-to-edge glass across the slim black bezel. It sits on a sturdy plastic stand that flexes and folds to allow you to lay the screen flat and snap open the chassis. The stand is rather deep--16.5 inches, to be exact--which is necessary to support the Z1 when it's vertical and when it's horizontal. The depth is unfortunate, however, since it means that this otherwise slim PC takes up a lot of desk space.

Ports are mostly located on the back of the Z1, inconveniently underneath the point where the stand connects to the machine. Making things even more inconvenient, these ports angle upward, so plugging anything in is extremely frustrating. On the back of the Z1, you'll find four USB 2.0 ports, one gigabit ethernet connection, DisplayPort in/out, S/PDIF, a subwoofer connection, line-in, and line-out, as well as a lock slot. A few convenience ports--two USB 3.0 ports, one FireWire port, a four-in-one card reader, and microphone and headphone jacks--are located on the side of the system.

Unlike most all-in-ones, the Z1 is made to be opened and tinkered with. However, while it is housed in a toolless chassis, opening the Z1 is tricky. First you have to lay the screen flat, which involves a lot of pushing and hoping that nothing breaks (putting the screen upright again is much more difficult, too). Then the screen snaps open from the bottom, and you're treated to the neat-but-cramped interior of an AIO. Inside you'll find four PCIe slots (one PCIe x16 slot that's full, plus three open MiniPCIe slots), four memory slots (32GB maximum), and three USB 2.0 ports.

Screen, Speakers, and Peripherals

The Z1's crowning glory is its 27-inch LCD In-Plane Switching screen, which has a native resolution of 2560 by 1440 pixels. The screen is very bright, with striking contrast and crisp images and text. Thanks to the IPS technology, colors look accurate, and viewing angles are very good. The screen is not a touchscreen, which is disappointing, since most higher-end AIOs have touchscreens these days.

Multimedia looks and sounds great on the Z1. Video playback is smooth, with very little artifacting (and much of the artifacting we saw was due to the video source, not the Z1's playback). Audio sounds very good, with full, rich bass and decent surround-sound simulation. The speakers are quite loud, so this AIO could easily double as a TV substitute. (Not that you'd be watching much media, when you should be working.)

The Z1 comes with a wireless keyboard and mouse, both of which are mediocre at best. The keyboard, which has regular-style keys, is easy to type on but offers weak feedback. The optical mouse is typical, with two buttons and a scrollwheel, and is slightly jumpy and oversensitive.

Bottom Line

The HP Z1 Workstation is gorgeous and powerful, but it's definitely not perfect. My biggest issue with the system is that it lacks a touchscreen, a feature that most of its competitors have. The Z1 also has difficult-to-access ports, an inconveniently deep stand, and mediocre peripherals. These problems aren't usually deal breakers, but for $5673 I pretty much expect perfection.

Still, the Z1 is exceedingly powerful for an AIO, and it's also extremely attractive. So if you like traditional input devices (and you have your own), and if you have a lot of desk space to spare, you may want to check out this beauty. Plus, the ability to open the PC up and swap out parts--even if it's fairly cramped in there--is something you won't find in any other all-in-one.

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HP LaserJet Pro 400 Color Printer M451dn Review: Great Output, Pricey Toner

The $500 (as of April 2, 2012) HP LaserJet Pro 400 M451dn color laser printer produces extremely nice output--including photos--and is very speedy for a model in this price range. It also has an automatic duplexer, a feature missing from the $450 LaserJet Pro 400 M451nw that we recently reviewed. It sounds great--until you examine the toner costs, which are steep for a relatively high-volume printer.

The controls on the M451dn are minimal but adequate. A two-way rocker button lets you navigate the two-line LED; the panel also has a warning light, along with the usual OK, cancel, and back buttons. Software installation is easy via either USB or ethernet, and the printer dialog procedure is well thought-out.

Paper-handling features include a 250-sheet bottom main tray, an automatic duplexer, a 150-sheet output tray, and an optional ($143) bottom-mounted, 250-sheet auxiliary paper feeder. With a monthly duty cycle of 40,000 pages and a recommended actual monthly print volume of up to 2000 pages, the M451dn can handle a fair amount of printing.

In terms of access, the M451dn is extremely well designed. From the front you can fold out a small part of the panel to reveal the 50-sheet front multipurpose tray, or you can move a larger part of the panel to access the paper path and the slide-out toner tray. A pop-off panel on the right side of the printer makes it easy to upgrade the standard 128MB of memory to 384MB. Note: As of this writing, HP's website sells a 256MB DDR2 DIMM memory upgrade for $599. That exorbitant price comes with HP’s guarantee that the memory will work in the printer, but third-party memory is available for less than $30.

That brings me to the Achilles' heel of this printer: toner costs. The standard black toner cartridge costs $79 and lasts 2200 pages, or 3.6 cents per page. A high-yield black cartridge, available for $102, lasts for 4000 pages, reducing black costs to 2.5 cents per page. The costs are a little higher than average compared with those of other color lasers we’ve tested--and incidentally, some business inkjets have significantly cheaper consumables.

HP offers no high-yield option for the M451dn's cyan, magenta, and yellow cartridges, so if you print a lot of color pages, this is not the printer for you. The standard sizes cost $114 each and last for 2600 pages, working out to just under 4.4 cents per page per color. Next to other standard-size cartridges, these costs are a little cheaper than average, but compared with high-yield toners, they are far more expensive than average. The starter-size cartridges that ship with the printer last approximately 1400 pages.

If you can hack the toner costs, the output of the M451dn is impressive and arrives quickly. Text is dark and sharp, and color photos are very good for a color laser at this price. Our full-page test photo showed a cool color palette and nice details. Text pages rendered at 11.4 pages per minute on the PC and 11.0 ppm on the Mac. Normal-size photos printed at 3.2 ppm to plain paper and 1.5 ppm on glossy paper. Full-page photos printed at about 0.8 ppm.

Output quality and speed are the HP LaserJet Pro 400 Color Printer M451dn's strong suits. If you need the Wi-Fi connectivity that it lacks, its otherwise identical cousin, the M451dw, is only $50 more, at $550. However, if you print in any sort of volume, the ongoing costs for any model in the M451 product line will hurt you eventually--especially if you print lots of color. Alternatives in this price range include the Dell 2150cdn and Brother HL-4570CDW; the latter's high-yield supplies are much less expensive than the M451dn's.

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Canon Pixma MG2120 Color Inkjet MFP: Basic With Pricey Black Ink and a Short Warranty

Depending on how much and what you print, the $70 (as of 03/07/2012), USB-attached Canon Pixma MG2120 color inkjet multifunction printer may be adequate for a home user. But its black ink is hardly a bargain, so if you print mostly text, you won't like the ongoing costs. On the other hand, if you normally print mixed text and color graphics, this MFP costs about the same to operate as most of the competition.

The Pixma MG2120 will handle low volumes of printing, copying, and scanning easily. Not surprisingly, given the price, it has no amenities such as an automatic duplexer, or an automatic document feeder (ADF) for the scanner. On the plus side, the lid for the letter/A4-size scanner telescopes to accommodate thicker material, and you can even push-scan by changing a setting in the scanner dialog. The single input tray handles about 100 sheets, and the output tray directly above it handles 50.

The control panel is rudimentary. The single-digit LED and array of flashing-light indicators can be hard to decipher, despite some good labeling. There are no media-card slots, nor is there a display for navigating menus or previewing photos.

Canon, unlike HP with its Photosmart 5010, offers a full-featured PC printer driver. The unit has the regular panoply of layout options such as booklet and "n-up," or tiled, pages (multiple pages reduced in size and printed on a single sheet of paper).

Mac users, however, will be disappointed: You'll find no manual duplexing support for the Mac, and Canon's solution for supporting Lion (OS X 10.7) was to send me to a website where I could find no download specifically for the Pixma MG2120, only those for more expensive models. Fortunately, Apple's own Add Printer installation found, downloaded, and installed a suitable driver for the unit.

The output from the Pixma MG2120 is decently fast considering the price and its intended low-volume usage. Text prints at about 5.8 pages per minute on the PC, and 5.7 ppm on the Mac; 4-by-6-inch photos print at 2.4 ppm on plain paper and at about half that rate on glossy photo paper. The full-page photo we print from the Mac takes a little less than 4 minutes, or 0.3 ppm--a bit slower than the norm. Scans and copies on the other hand, are a on par with, or quicker than, those of most MFPs.

The quality of the Pixma MG2120's output is about the same as that produced by other Canon Pixma MG-series printers. Text is not laserlike, but certainly serviceable, even for business correspondence. Color graphics have a warm, friendly vibe. They’re not terribly accurate in terms of their color palette, skewing orangeish even on Canon’s own photo paper. They do, however, show nice detail.

The Pixma MG2120's black ink is expensive no matter which size of cartridge you purchase. The PG-240XL Extra Large black cartridge costs $21 and lasts for 300 pages, which is a pricey 7 cents per page (cpp). The $38, 600-page PG-240XXL black cartridge is only slightly cheaper at 6.3 cpp. The tri-color CL-241XL cost $30 and lasts for 400 pages, or 7.5 cpp. That makes a four-color page 13.8 cpp at best, which is about average for an inkjet MFP.

Canon offers only a 90-day warranty on the Pixma MG2120. Before discovering that, I would've estimated that the construction of the unit would have it lasting far longer than three months. However, Canon's brief commitment to the unit should be noted.

If you print in low volume--a few pages a few times a week, or an occasional photo--then the economics of the Pixma MG2120 might work for you. For more frequent use, opt for something a tad pricier with better black-ink costs, such as the Brother MFC-J430W or the Epson Stylus NX430. Both of these units also carry a more reassuring one-year warranty.

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McAfee Mobile Security Review: Good Overall Protection, But Can Be Pricey

McAfee Mobile Security provides comprehensive security for your Android device.

McAfee Mobile Security provides comprehensive security and antivirus for your Android phone or tablet. It protects your personal data in the event of loss or theft, enables data backup and restore, locates and tracks your device, safeguards against viruses and spyware, and provides safe surfing and app protection.

This trial protects your device for 7 days. After the trial, you can purchase McAfee Mobile Security within the app for US$29.99.

IMPORTANT: You need your PIN to uninstall McAfee Mobile Security. This requirement is to protect your phone and data by preventing thieves from uninstalling the app without your permission.

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? FEATURES ?

Antivirus, Anti-spyware, and Anti-phishing — Scan and clean malicious code from inbound/outbound emails, text messages, attachments, and files

Safe Mobile Web Surfing — Protection against web threats by blocking access to risky sites from texts, emails, QR codes and social networking sites

Safeguard Your Privacy with App Protection — Identify which apps can access your sensitive data like contacts, location, photos, and other personal info

Device Lock — Prevent misuse of your phone and personal info by remotely locking all data, including data on your memory (SIM) card, and displaying a "contact me" message on the device

Remotely Wipe Data — Protect your privacy by remotely deleting the data on your device and removable memory card in case of loss or theft.

Backup and Restore Data — Preserve irreplaceable personal information on demand, or on schedule, then restore your information to your new device

Locate and Track — Find your device if it is lost or stolen. View its location on a map; send a text to prompt its return, and use a remote alarm to make it "scream”

Call Blocker and SMS Blocker — Easily filter out spammers, incorrect numbers and unwanted texts

Uninstall Protection — Keep a thief—or another user—from uninstalling the app and accessing your phone when it is lost

Manage your mobile device protection

Remotely manage your mobile security from one central, easy-to-use web portal or even via SMS texts using any smartphone or tablet

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? AWARDS & ACCOLADES ?

- Productivity/Tools Winner and Third overall, Android Developer Challenge 2

- Test Winner – PCTipp Magazine, Sept 2011

- "Software Of The Year 2010," Softwareload

- The Best Smartphone App For Business, Inc., Mar 2010

- "As complete a package of protection as you can hope", PC World, Mar 2010

- App Of The Week, The New York Times, Jan 2010

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? WHY McAFEE MOBILE SECURITY? ?

We keep many of the important details of our lives on our mobile devices and increasingly use them for critical tasks and communications, yet we don’t always think about the importance of mobile security. It is essential to safeguard your privacy and to make sure your personal data doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. Malware is on the move, spreading far beyond personal computers. With the growing popularity of mobile devices comes an increase in mobile viruses , Trojan horses and worms targeting these devices.

With more than 150 million mobile devices protected worldwide, McAfee offers the most robust, comprehensive mobile security solutions in the market today. Protect your identity and your personal life with McAfee Mobile Security.

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? GET SUPPORT ?

Having trouble with McAfee Mobile Security? Visit us at http://service.mcafee.com.

For the latest product updates, remember to follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/mcafee and Twitter at www.twitter.com/mcafee.

McAfee Mobile Security Screenshotsby Eric Geier, PCWorld

As threats to mobile devices sharply increase, a good security app can make a huge difference. McAfee Mobile Security, the mobile version of McAfee's desktop software, can help protect your phone or tablet from mobile malware, phishing, and device theft. McAfee provides a free seven-day trial, but requires a $30 yearly subscription if you decide to keep using the service once thereafter.

Once you've installed the app, McAfee Mobile Security will prompt to verify your mobile number and set up a six-digit PIN the first time you run it. After you complete those steps, the main app screen will list shortcuts to each component: Security Scan, App Protection, Call & SMS Filter, Backup, Restore & Wipe, Lock Device, and Web Protection. The entire app is password-protected with your chosen PIN, and you can set the app so that the user can't uninstall it without first entering your PIN.

Security Scan lets you run on-demand malware scans of your apps and device. The antivirus protection also automatically scans installed apps, code from text messages, attachments, and files. App Protection searches for apps that have access to your sensitive data or device functions, and organizes them for you to investigate further; you can then set McAfee to remove suspect apps. McAfee also monitors other apps you install, alerting you to possible privacy issues. Web Protection blocks malicious websites in the Android browser, and it warns you when you receive dubious email or text messages.

You can initiate the app's remote location and antitheft functions from your account on its website or via SMS commands that you send from another phone. You can view your device's location on a map and set off its alarm so you can track the device by sound when it's nearby. You can also lock your lost phone or tablet with a custom message that will prevent someone from using it and yet inform the person about how to return it. You can also wipe your contacts, call logs, text messages, photos, videos, and SD Card if you determine that you won't be able to get your device back.

McAfee Mobile Security's backup feature saves your contacts, text messages, call logs, photos, and videos to McAfee's servers. You can view all of your backups via your account on McAfee's website, and you can reload the messages and contacts from there back onto your device (if you've had to wipe it).

The Call & SMS Filter allows you to block communication with all or select numbers on phones. You can also block all anonymous callers and text messages that contain keywords you specify. McAfee Mobile Security maintains a log that lists all blocked communications.

McAfee Mobile Security also offers SIM card tracking. The app can send out a text message alert when the person in possession of your phone changes the SIM card (thieves often replace the SIM card on a stolen phone so that they can use their mobile number on the handset. You can also always view the device's assigned number via your account on the McAfee website. And you can view device information, such as the device IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) number, in case you want to report it to your service provider or to third-party theft databases as stolen.

Both the app and McAfee's Web interface are user-friendly and easy to navigate. My one gripe involves the awkward six-digit PIN that McAfee required me to use. Password-protecting the app is smart, but a four-digit PIN is much more common and a lot easier to remember. Moreover, for phones, McAfee requires you to use your mobile number as the username to access the Web interface, and you have to remember to include your country code (1 for the United States). This requirement doesn't apply to tablets, however--on them, you use your email address as your username.

Overall, McAfee Mobile Security does a good job of protecting Android devices against malware and theft. Nevertheless, its steep price makes it hard to recommend. In contrast, Avast Mobile Security is totally free and contains more antitheft features. AVG Anti-Virus Pro provides very similar protection to what McAfee Mobile Security offers, and you can get it for a one-time payment of $10--much cheaper than the $30 per year that McAfee charges.

Useful 20.0% Stable 0.0% Fun 0.0% Attractive 0.0% Met expectations 0.0%

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McAfee Mobile Security Screenshots

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Samsung ML-2955DW Review: Cheap Laser Printer, Pricey Toner

The Samsung ML-2955DW monochrome laser printer is notable for its very low street price ($150 as of February 8, 2012) and its full network connectivity, namely USB, ethernet, and Wi-Fi. Unfortunately, the expensive toner restricts it to low-volume use.

It’s the same old story: cheap printer, pricey toner. The ML-2955DW ships with a starter-size toner cartridge with a 1000-page yield. Replacements include a 1500-page cartridge for $63, which works out to 4.2 cents per page--steep compared with the current average of 2.6 cents per page for all the monochrome lasers we’ve tested. The higher-yield cartridge costs $75 and lasts for 2500 pages, or 3 cents per page, versus an average of 1.8 cents per page for other high-yield cartridges we’ve priced. If you take a year or more to get through a cartridge, you probably won’t care. If you have to replace the cartridges several times a year, however, you will definitely start to feel the pinch. For higher-volume use, step up to a model such as the Dell 2350dn, which has reasonably priced consumables.

The ML-2955DW is otherwise a decent printer. Equipped with a 533MHz CPU and 64MB of memory, it printed plain text in our tests at a middling rate of 18.3 pages per minute. It comes with a 250-sheet input tray and a 150-sheet output tray; the latter has a flip-out plastic panel that catches paper or covers the output area. The printer also has a front manual-feed slot, which you can access by pressing on a small front panel. On my test unit, however, the bendy panel required a pretty hard push to open.

The top control panel is spare to a fault. It has power and cancel buttons, plus buttons to enable Wi-Fi Protected Setup and ‘Eco’ mode (explained below). A few indicator lights are present as well, but they suffer from inscrutable icon labels and color/blink patterns that mean nothing unless you consult the documentation.

Samsung tries to make it easier to save paper and toner with its ‘Eco’ mode, which automatically combines duplexing, 2-up printing (fitting two reduced-size pages onto one sheet), and a lighter application of toner. These settings are adequate for drafts and internal reference documents, though the lighter toner means that text might be slightly harder to read. If you delve into the ‘Eco’ tab in the printer driver, you can see estimates of the resources you are conserving with each choice.

The Samsung ML-2955DW is priced to fit the budget of small or home offices--at least initially. The toner costs over time will be dear. If you plan to print more than a few dozen pages per week, move up a hundred dollars or so in purchase price to buy a machine with cheaper consumables.

From PCWorld. Visit Amazon Computer and Notebook Center here