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A P R I L 2014
GAMEVOLUTIONTHE CHANGING LANDSCAPE
GAME MARKETING SUMMITTHE ESSENTIAL CONFERENCE FOR INTERACTIVE GAME MARKETERS
www.GameMarketingSummit.comREGISTER NOW at
9TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE and AWARDSAPRIL 23, 2014
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
San Francisco, CA
» DEPARTMENTS
5 News
28 Consumer Watch
43 Reviews & Ratings
132 Farewell, Pat McGovern
» COLUMNS
113 Here’s How
» FEATURES
83 12 PC upgrades for under $300
99 Laptops for work and play
APRIL 2014
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
122 Hassle-Free PC
125 Answer Line
3
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360-DEGREE VIEWS: See products from all angles.
NEWS
6 Windows 8.1’s spring update
16 UI designer: Forcing Metro on all is great for power users
19 Microsoft to use a pop-up to push users off XP
22 Intel wants its new mobile chips in all your devices
25 Three big trends ruled the Mobile World Congress
5
» By far the most welcome change in the Windows 8.1 update
is one that many users may not even notice. If Windows 8.1
does not detect a touchscreen input on your device, it’ll boot
directly to the desktop to keep its finger-friendly live tiles
away from keyboard-and-mouse users. The operating system
then tosses up a new tutorial prompt to tell you how to find
the modern Start screen.
Boot to desktop by default
Windows 8.1’s spring updateDue in early April, the OS’s third refresh might be the charm. BY BRAD CHACOS
Tech and trends that will afect you today and beyond. NEWS
6
» Microsoft’s modern Windows 8 apps now appear in the
taskbar, mimicking the functionality of traditional desktop
software. The Windows Store app is pinned in the taskbar by
default in the Windows 8.1 update, to serve as a guidepost and
to drive users to Microsoft’s marketplace. Modern apps still
appear full screen when maximized; windowed modern apps
are reportedly in store for the 8.2 update (“Threshold”) in 2015.
Modern apps on the desktop taskbar
7
» In modern apps, you now can find the taskbar by moving your
cursor to the bottom of the screen. The taskbar spans the screen’s
length even when multiple modern apps are snapped side by side. As
a result, bouncing between standard desktop programs and modern
apps is much less of a burden (though still not seamless).
Unfortunately, the taskbar sometimes covers interface elements in
modern apps since they weren’t designed with it in mind.
The taskbar is everywhere
8
Inside Windows 8.1’s spring update
NEWS
» Previously, closing modern apps or snapping them side by side
required moving your cursor to the top of the screen, clicking and
holding, and dragging the app to one of the edges—a gesture
designed for touch displays. In the new update, a title bar appears at
the top of modern apps. Clicking the upper left corner reveals a
mouse-ready context menu with sizing options, while minimize and
close buttons appear at the upper right.
Mouse-friendly title-bar menus
9
» On the Windows 8.1 Start screen, if you’re using a mouse, right-
clicking an app now pops up an options menu for that live tile. In
contrast, if you’re using a touch input, the familiar modern-style
options bar pops up at the bottom of the screen. And the Start
screen now includes discrete power and search buttons at the upper
right. Before, you could find those crucial functions only via the
hidden charm bar.
Start screen changes
10
Inside Windows 8.1’s spring update
NEWS
» Windows 8 dumped tiles on the Start screen for every modern app
you installed. Windows 8.1 required you to add tiles manually, which
reduced clutter but made it easy to forget you’d installed an app
unless you added it to the Start screen immediately. The update
finds a happy medium: Next to the arrow that moves you from the
Start screen to All Apps, a notification appears if any newly installed
apps are available.
New apps installed notification
11
» The All Apps screen that displays installed programs has received a
slight rejiggering. The Tiles menu under the Settings charm now has
a ‘Show more apps in Apps view’ option, which does what you’d
expect by reducing the size of each app’s icon. The condensed view
should come in handy for traditional-PC users who configured their
Windows 8.1 desktop Start button to launch the All Apps screen as
an ad hoc Start menu.
Show more apps in Apps view
12
Inside Windows 8.1’s spring update
NEWS
» The Windows 8 and 8.1 versions of the modern Internet Explorer
hide the open tabs and address bar behind an interface that you
must manually summon. The incoming update leaves that interface
visible by default. A helpful Options button in the Tools menu now
negates the need to go messing around in the Settings charm, and
the button to launch IE’s awesome Reading Mode is now more
clearly labeled.
Internet Explorer tweaks
13
» Windows 8.1 added a slew of granular options to the modern
version of PC Settings in a bid to keep lovers of Microsoft’s touch-
centric interface ensconced in it. The update continues the shift by
including a new ‘Disk space’ menu under the ‘PC and devices’ options,
which provides tools for you to view and manage the gigabyte
gobblers on your hard drive. A button to purge the Recycle Bin is a
particularly convenient touch.
Disk Space menu in PC Setings
14
Inside Windows 8.1’s spring update
NEWS
» Finally, an under-the-hood change: Microsoft has said that the
coming Windows 8.1 update will be usable on devices outfitted
with just 1GB of RAM and 16GB of storage space, a change that
essentially halves the previous system requirements. Why move
backward? Sick of losing customers to Android tablets and
Chromebooks, Microsoft seems to be gearing up for a price war
with Google.
Reduced system requirements
15
16
UI designer: Forcing Metro on all is great for power usersBY BRAD CHACOS
WINDOWS 8’S MODERN interface didn’t go over well out of the gate.
Although the live tiles and touch-friendliness offered a lot to like,
usability experts panned many of the design choices, and power users
felt abandoned.
But beyond bridging the gap between PC and tablet, Windows’
immersion in the interface formerly known as Metro may have had
another purpose: separating novice and power users. This move could
preserve the best of Windows while making it more palatable to the
casual computing public.
“Before Windows 8 and Metro came along, power users and casual
users—the content creators and the content consumers—had to
share the same space,” Windows interface designer Jacob Miller wrote
17
on Reddit in February (go.pcworld.com/
millerreddit). (A Microsoft spokesperson
confirmed his employment.) Any new feature
had to be simple enough for newcomers but
practical enough for power users. Miller
claims that many features, such as virtual
desktops, fell by the wayside.
All work, no play, and vice versaEnter Windows 8. Yes, the modern interface is simple and better
suited for content consumption than content creation, but Miller—
who clarified that he was speaking as an employee sharing his
viewpoint rather than in an official capacity—claimed that was
the point.
Our hands were bound, and our users were annoyed.
So what did we do? We separated the users into two
groups. Casual and power. We made two separate
playgrounds for them.
So if Windows 8 was designed to herd casual and power users into
separate corners, why does the OS default to the modern interface?
Casual users don’t go exploring. If we made desktop
the default as it has always been, and included a nice
little start menu that felt like home, the casual users
would never have migrated to their land of milk and
honey… So we forced it upon them.
Now that Microsoft has fenced casual users inside the land of live
tiles, Miller says it can work on making the modern interface better for
casual users while filling the desktop with power features.
Once [the modern interface is] purring along
smoothly, we’ll start making the desktop more
advanced. We’ll add things that we couldn’t before.
Things will be faster, more advanced, and craftier.
NEWS
Displaced Windows desktop aficionados can start to feel optimistic again.
18
Peering into the futureIf Miller’s claims prove to be true, the results could be enticing.
Windows 8.1 started the migration, adding an optional boot-to-
desktop feature and numerous tweaks that improve the modern
interface: more control settings, more flexible snap functionality, and
Bing Smart Search. Microsoft’s modern apps are constantly adapting,
too, as the company shifts toward rapid-fire updates.
Leaked versions of the impending Windows 8.1 update 1 (see
“Windows 8.1’s spring update,” page 6) show that even more
improvements are inbound. But its new features—such as the ability
to boot to either the desktop or the Start screen, depending on
whether your setup has a touchscreen—seem like a Ballmer-esque
“refinement of the blend” (go.pcworld.com/ballmerblend) to make
the desktop and modern interfaces play more nicely together, rather
than a doubling down on the strengths of both.
It’s unclear whether Microsoft always intended to smooth the edges
or if it became more of a priority after Windows 8’s hard landing. But
considering the new update’s changes, Satya Nadella’s appointment
as Microsoft’s CEO, and Miller’s comments, displaced Windows
desktop aficionados can start to feel optimistic again.
Windows 8.1
update 1
offers mouse-
friendly Metro
options.
19
Microsoft to use a pop-up to push users off XPBY MARK HACHMAN
NORMALLY, AN UNEXPECTED pop-up is a reason to worry: Is your PC
infected with a virus? Is this pop-up an ad? With one particular pop-up
from Microsoft, you’re supposed to worry—but the message is legit.
In its ongoing bid to encourage Windows XP users to move to
Windows 7 or Windows 8, Microsoft began pushing a pop-up window
to users’ machines in March. The company is also partnering with
LapLink to offer a free migration tool to assist with the transition.
NEWS
20
By now, PCWorld readers and other people who keep up with tech
news should know that the expiration date for Windows XP is April 8,
2014. Support for XP is ending, meaning that any vulnerabilities
Microsoft hasn’t patched by now will remain open for malware
writers to exploit. A few contingency plans (see “Keep Windows XP
secure after Microsoft ends support,” page 37) can mitigate that
threat somewhat; Google will support Chrome for Windows XP
through 2015, for example. And although Microsoft has ditched
support for Internet Explorer 8 (the last browser for XP), Microsoft
Security Essentials will support Windows XP until July 14, 2015. Still,
that’s like wrapping duct tape around the Titanic.
So the challenge for Microsoft is to find a way to move users off XP.
The company’s answer? The tried-and-true pop-up notification.
According to Brandon Leblanc, the chief blogger for Microsoft,
the pop-up displays only for users who have elected to receive
updates via Windows Update. It includes a link to the Windows XP
End of Support website (go.pcworld.com/xpend), where XP users
can learn how to stay protected against security risks and viruses
after April 8. The notification is set to recur on the 8th of every
month unless the user disables it, Leblanc says.
Son, am I supposed to click this?The problem, however, is that the pop-up looks like every other pop-
up, complete with a link, that decades of computer use have taught
Pop-ups
generally raise
suspicion, but
this one’s
legitimate.
21
us not to click. Every tech-savvy son or
daughter has told their parents to avoid
such pop-ups, too. The alternative now, of
course, is for those kids to step in and to
encourage their parents to buy a new PC.
Or a Mac. Or a Chromebook.
For those people who want to provide
such family tech support, Microsoft is offering a free copy of
PCmover Express for Windows XP, which will copy files, music,
videos, email, and user profiles and settings from the old PC to the
new system, including across a network. The utility also allows
Windows XP users to customize exactly what to bring over to their
new machine. The free software is available from WindowsXP.com. If
users want to transfer applications from Windows XP, they can do
so, but they’ll need PCmover Professional (go.pcworld.com/
pcmover). Normally the price for that version is $60, but after a
Microsoft-sponsored discount it’s just $24.
NEWS
Microsof’s solution for moving users of XP: the tried-and-true pop-up.
22
Intel wants its new mobile chips in all your devicesBY MELISSA RIOFRIO
DESKTOP WHO? WINDOWS what? The classic Windows-based PC
remains Intel’s bread and butter, but it has needed to diversify its diet
for a long time. At an event at the Mobile World Congress in February,
the company announced two new Atom chips, code-named Merrifield
and Moorefield, that could be its first truly competitive mobile
solutions—and they arrive not a product cycle too soon.
In case you didn’t know how high the stakes were, Intel President
Renée James laid it out in her remarks at the event. “About 50 billion
connected-computing somethings”—yes, that’s what she called
them—“will be online by the year 2020.” Getting even a small slice of
that pie would be pretty sweet. But competitors like Qualcomm and
Samsung have enjoyed a long head start, so Intel has a lot to prove to
prospective customers.PH
OT
OG
RA
PH
Y B
Y M
EL
ISS
A R
IOF
RIO
Watch the video at
go.pcworld.com/merri
23
The new chips have two big selling points: Their 64-bit architecture
enables faster performance. At the same time, Intel wrings more
battery life out of the chips by designing them to power down
quickly after executing a task.
They’re also designed to work with operating systems beyond
good ol’ Windows. Hermann Eul, Intel vice president and general
manager of its Mobile and Communications Group, called the chips
“complete platforms…that can support multiple operating
systems and multiple segments in the market.” The company is
particularly eager to associate itself with Android, if the green
robots strutting around Intel’s booth on the show floor were any
indication—hardly surprising, as Android could provide the entry to
a much bigger market.
In a small, sterile room tucked discreetly into its booth, Intel
demonstrated a bank of reference Android mobile phones in action.
Using the Battery Xprt app for Android, the phones can last as long
as 19 or 20 hours on a full charge, according to Intel. The tests
simulate real-world cell-phone use, which is sporadic, as opposed to
NEWS
Intel showed its Merrifield and
Moorefield chips running in
reference designs at the Mobile
World Congress.
24
the rundown tests traditionally
conducted for PCs.
The demo also included two
identical Windows tablets, one
running Windows at 32 bits and the
other at 64 bits, “just to show we
could do it,” said a spokesperson.
But the real test of these chips lies ahead: Which device makers
will include them in their phone and tablet designs? Eul named
several at the event—Asus, Dell, Lenovo, and Samsung—and
promised there would be more partners to come. We’ll see. The lack
of on-board LTE in Intel’s chips has long been a sticking point, for
instance, and the new chips are also LTE free (go.pcworld.com/
nolte), though Intel does sell a separate LTE solution.
Eul aimed some
trash talk at
Qualcomm, whose
64-bit ARM chip
isn’t due until the
end of the year (go.
pcworld.com/
qualchip). Intel got
there first, Eul
emphasized: “We
ship. That is the
difference.”
The new chips
have tested with
up to 19 or 20
hours’ battery life.
The real test lies ahead: Which device makers will design with Intel’s chips?
25
Three big trends ruled the Mobile World CongressBY FLORENCE ION, SUSIE OCHS, AND MELISSA RIOFRIO
WE SPENT A WEEK IN BARCELONA at the Mobile World Congress, wading
through wearables (go.pcworld.com/wearables), sampling many
smartphones (go.pcworld.com/tensp), and trying out a tablet or two.
While the Galaxy S5 (go.pcworld.com/galaxys5) was the biggest product
to debut—with wearables from Sony (go.pcworld.com/sonywear) and
Huawei (go.pcworld.com/talkband) also garnering attention—it’s not a
revolutionary release for Samsung, despite some impressive software
additions (go.pcworld.com/s5features). We noticed three trends.
Low-end phones: Flagship models like the S5 aside, most phone
makers were touting low-cost handsets. Mozilla showed off phones
running the Firefox OS that could sell for the low, low price of $25. Even
when phone makers had a big handset to announce—say, Sony’s Xperia
NEWS
Watch the video at
go.pcworld.com/mwc2014
26
Z2 (go.pcworld.com/xperiaz2)—usually a lower-priced model (like the
Xperia M2) came along for the ride.
Phone makers are looking beyond users who want the latest and
greatest smartphone technology to people with more basic needs and
budgets—in particular consumers in
emerging markets. Nokia is getting into the
Android arena with a trio of phones built on
the Android Open Source Project (go.
pcworld.com/nokiatrio). That’s allowed
Nokia to give the X, X+, and XL a Windows
Phone–style tiled interface, which it can sell
to users in growth markets. And if those
users get accustomed to that Windows Phone feel by the time they’re
ready to upgrade, Nokia reasons, so much the better.
Top tablets: A pair of tablets caught our eye. Lenovo’s Yoga Tablet 10
HD+ (go.pcworld.com/lenovoyoga10) is a sleek-looking tablet with a
crisp display—a definite improvement over previous Yoga models. The
promised 18-hour battery life is welcome, too. And HP’s Pavilion x360 (go.
pcworld.com/hppavilion)—priced to entice at $399—takes a page out of
the Yoga’s book, with a hinge that lets
you use this laptop as either a
conventional notebook or a tablet.
Better audio: Manufacturers see
audio improvements as a way to make
their mobile devices stand out. Sony
built noise-canceling technology into
its Xperia Z2. HTC’s midrange Desire
816 (go.pcworld.com/htcdesire)
offers dual front-facing speakers.
Find more show coverage on our
Mobile World
Congress page (go.
pcworld.com/mwc).
For Android news,
visit Greenbot.com.
Flagship models aside, most phone makers were touting low-cost handsets.
Intel has its
eye on the
Android
market.
Welcome to Greenbot, a new website for
Android enthusiasts.
We’ve got the ’droid info you’re looking for.
Helpful tips, critical reviews, and expert
analysis for passionate Android users
of every experience level.
www.greenbot.com
28
TWITTER IS REPORTEDLY working on an e-commerce project
powered by Stripe (go.pcworld.com/twitterstripe), a
company that processes payments for sharing-economy
startups such as Lyft, Postmates, and Sidecar. What this
social-shopping initiative will look like is still unclear right now, but
this isn’t the first time social networks have set their sights on retail.
Pay by hashtagTwiter and other social networks aspire to become the go-to spot for shopping. BY CAITLIN McGARRY
CONSUMER WATCH
Make smart purchases, stay safe online.
ILL
US
TR
AT
ION
BY
JU
DE
BU
FF
UM
29
Cashtags and gifsLate last year, for instance, Facebook worked with Stripe to allow
Facebook users to store their credit card information with the social
network. When users then enter their Facebook login on partnering
retailers’ apps, their info fills in the payment fields automatically.
In February 2013, Twitter teamed up with American Express to launch
an experiment in which AmEx cardholders can sync their credit cards
(go.pcworld.com/amexsync) with their Twitter accounts and then
take advantage of discounts or buy physical goods by using an AmEx-
approved hashtag. Major brands such as Amazon, Best Buy, J. Crew,
McDonald’s, and Whole Foods have since signed on with American
Express to offer deals on Twitter, and American Express claims that its
social-network offers attract users who are ten years younger than
the average AmEx customer and spend about 30 percent more.
Twitter also partnered with Starbucks last fall. Instead of hashtags,
however, Starbucks required users to include a specific phrase—
”@tweetacoffee to @insertnamehere”—to trigger the sending of a
$5 gift card to the recipient of their choice. Keyhole, a company that
tracks social conversations, estimated that the promotion generated
$180,000 in sales for Starbucks (go.pcworld.com/twitterstarbucks).
The coffee chain has long offered gift cards on Facebook Gifts, too.
Gifts took a hit last summer, though, when Facebook determined that
physical goods weren’t selling well and decided to focus on digital gift
cards, which amounted to 80 percent of all gifts on the platform.
Sync your
AmEx card with
your Twitter
account to
get access to
special deals.
30
Pinterest drives purchasesAlthough Pinterest gets little attention for its ability to turn inspiring
images into sales, it’s cleaning up as far as social shopping goes.
On largely text-driven social networks such as Facebook and Twitter,
it’s difficult for companies to organically turn brand messages into
sales because those messages stick out like a sore thumb. Pinterest, in
contrast, drives purchases more naturally: Users can conceivably click
through any image from any board on the site to reach a product link.
Some numbers confirm the online bulletin board’s influence:
Pinterest captures the bulk of product sharing on social networks with
44 percent of shares (go.pcworld.com/pincommerce), while Facebook
and Twitter lag behind at 37 percent and 12 percent, respectively. One
pin translates to 78 cents in sales, according to research from Piquora.
People use pinned images and hashtag deals in vastly different ways,
though. Pins have a longer shelf life than hashtags, which are all about
Pinterest is
currently the
only social
network that
inspires people
to buy.
31
immediacy and serve to promote limited-time
offers or flash sales. A pin continues to push as
much traffic to a site three and a half months
after it’s posted as it does when initially
pinned, according to Piquora.
The retail challengeMaking a purchase directly from a product page feels safer than using
a hashtag as shorthand for “buy now.” If Twitter wants people to buy
stuff from a tweet, it has to convince users that shopping on a social
network is truly secure—and it has to present sales messages in a way
that doesn’t annoy users.
Social-conversion platform Chirpify is helping companies meet the
latter challenge. A recent campaign involving Lady Gaga let Twitter
users hashtag their tweets to get a package with the pop star’s latest
album. In Chirpify’s promotions, users aren’t storing their financial
information with Twitter—Chirpify’s team sees the promotional hashtag
and directs the user to a payment page.
“You don’t want to carpet bomb,” says Chirpify CEO Kevin Tate. “You
CONSUMER WATCH
Twiter has to convince users that shopping on a social network is secure.
Chirpify helps
big brands turn
hashtags into
purchases.
32
want to let the conversation be about other things. It lets customers
who are interested raise their hand and continue the conversation
from there.” And that conversation could begin outside of Twitter. If a
brand includes a hashtag in a print ad or TV commercial, for example,
Twitter users could enter that hashtag to take advantage of deals.
In the end, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and the retailers who want
to translate eyeballs into sales are just throwing things at the wall to
see what sticks—and to see what helps them get into your wallet.
33
CONSUMER WATCH
ROUTERS AND OTHER connected devices are leaving home networks
open to attack. The worst-case scenario? Strangers can access your
files, slip malware into your network, or use your own security cameras
to spy on you—all without laying a finger on your hardware.
For example, some older Linksys E-Series routers and Wireless-N
routers and access points are vulnerable to a malware infection that
deposits a self-replicating worm (go.pcworld.com/linksysworm). And
recent reports indicate that the default settings of Asus routers leave
USB storage devices wide open (go.pcworld.com/routerflaw).
If you’re running an Asus router with a USB storage drive attached,
download and install the latest firmware from Asus’s website (www.
service.asus.com). Don’t depend on the router’s Web interface to get
the update, as it might not download the most recent version.
As for Linksys routers, “customers who have enabled the Remote
Management Access feature can prevent further vulnerability to their
Routers: More
vulnerable than everBY JON L. JACOBI AND MICHAEL BROWN
34
network by disabling the Remote Management Access feature and
rebooting their router to remove the installed malware,” company
spokesperson Karen Sohl wrote in an email. “Linksys will be working on
the affected products with a firmware fix that is planned to be posted
on our website in the coming weeks.”
Asus and Linksys are hardly alone, however: Recent reports noted
similar flaws in Netgear’s ReadyNAS line (go.pcworld.com/netgearflaw).
How atackers get inYour public IP address is as well defined as your street address. In most
cases this public address leads straight to your router. If someone
gains control of your router, that person can open connections and
redirect traffic anywhere. The havoc the intruder wreaks can also ruin
the day for a lot of other people, depending on what the attacker
relays through your equipment.
A router directs traffic in and out of thousands of numbered ports.
Port 80, for starters, handles HTTP traffic (Web access). Port 21 sends
and receives files over FTP (File Transfer Protocol). Port 443 takes care
of HTTPS (encrypted Web traffic, such as banking or shopping
transactions), and port 3369 is for Remote Desktop.
If a port is open—normally all of them are—the router simply
shufles data to and from whatever IP device each port is directed to.
So you must password-protect not only your router but also every
Using the
Shodan search
engine, we easily
found an FTP
server filled with
pirated TV shows,
wide open.
35
device that communicates with the Web, even if it’s a refrigerator, to
prevent outsiders from gaining access via the ports.
Most routers and many NAS (network-attached storage) devices have
well-documented default login IDs and passwords, such as “admin” and
“password,” and their installation wizards encourage users to change
these defaults. If you neglect to do so, you leave your network vulnerable.
Note, though, that even if you create a secure, complex password, any
hard reset you might later perform on your router for troubleshooting
purposes can restore the old, weak password without your knowledge.
You must also keep your router’s configuration firmware updated
and secure all the services running on it. For example, enabling UPnP
on older firmware—an action that most router manufacturers
recommend, because doing so simplifies configuration—can expose
any FTP and SMB servers you have running on the router, enabling
Internet snoops to access every file on your attached storage devices.
A complete action planWant to assess your network’s vulnerability? First browse to What’s
My IP Address (www.whatsmyip.org). At the top is your public IP
address. To the left, select the Port Scanners option, and then run the
tests to see which ports are open. Some Internet gateways won’t let
you run such tests locally; you’ll have to note your public IP address
and then try these tests from a coffee shop or a friend’s house.
CONSUMER WATCH
You can learn
more about
network ports
on Wikipedia.
36
At Wikipedia you can find a list of all available
ports (go.pcworld.com/ports), but the critical
ones are those that allow remote access to
your files or remote control of your network
devices, such as FTP, HTTP, and RDP.
Checking to see if your network is password-
protected is easy enough. Open a browser and
type in your public IP address preceded by the
proper header (ftp://, http://, and so on). If you
connect, you should see a screen asking for a
password. If instead you go immediately to the
homepage for your router, NAS, or IP camera,
your network isn’t protected—and anyone
else with an Internet connection can access
those resources just as easily.
In addition, confirm whether the FTP service on your router or
NAS box is enabled, and whether it allows anonymous access—unless
you’re sharing files with the world, you should disable anonymous
access. You can find FTP in your router’s HTML configuration pages,
which you can access from your browser locally at 192.168.1.1,
192.168.1.254, or a similar address. (Check your user manual for the
default address of your router.)
For maximum security, you can put your router or router/modem into
pin-hole mode, in which every port is blocked by default and you open
only the services you need. It takes a bit of work, but it’s very secure.
Unless you’re sharing files with the world, you should disable anonymous access to your FTP service.
37
CONSUMER WATCH
THE WINDOWS XPOCALYPSE is upon us: Microsoft is no longer
providing security patches for Windows XP as of April 8, 2014. Nearly
30 percent of Internet-connected PCs still run XP. They’ll continue
operating normally, but they’ll be rotting inside, suffering from
increasingly numerous security holes.
If you’re using Windows XP, and you can’t upgrade your machine
immediately, you can protect yourself. Make no mistake, however: The
following tricks are like sticking your finger into a leaking dam. They’ll
help a bit, but the dam is crumbling.
Choose your sofware wiselyIf you use Internet Explorer, let it go—IE 8, the most recent version
available for XP, is no longer receiving patches. In contrast, Google
Chrome will continue supporting Windows XP until at least April 2015,
while Mozilla Firefox has no announced plans to stop supporting XP.
Keep Windows XP secure after Microsoft ends supportBY CHRIS HOFFMAN
38
Most antivirus utilities will continue supporting XP; even Microsoft
Security Essentials will do so until July 14, 2015. Antivirus-testing
company AV-Test asked 30 antivirus companies (go.pcworld.com/
avsupport) about their intentions, and all of them committed to
supporting XP until at least April 8, 2015. Most committed to an even
longer period, into at least 2016. Be sure you’re using an antivirus
program that’s receiving updates, though. And as Microsoft warns
(go.pcworld.com/xpav), remember that “the effectiveness of anti-
malware solutions on out-of-support operating systems is limited.”
If you’re still using the defunct Outlook Express, switch to the full
version of Outlook in Microsoft Office. If you want an alternative,
Mozilla is still supporting Thunderbird with patches, though it’s unclear
how long Thunderbird support on older operating systems will continue.
Or you can use a Web-based email service in Chrome or Firefox.
Office 2003 is losing its support just as XP is. If you’re using that
suite—or, even worse, Office XP—update to a newer, supported
version. (Yes, this means a Ribbon-bedecked version. Sorry.)
Remove insecure sofware
The Java browser plug-in is exploit-prone on any OS. Unless you need
Java for a specific purpose, uninstall it. If you need it, disable the
Mozilla’s
Plugin Check
ensures that
your browser
extras are fully
patched.
39
browser plug-in (go.pcworld.com/ditchplugins) and keep it up-to-date.
Attackers frequently target other browser plug-ins, too; Adobe Flash
and Adobe Reader are crucial. Modern versions of Flash and Reader
update themselves automatically, but older versions didn’t even check
for updates. If you don’t need these applications, uninstall them.
Scan for unpatched software on your computer with Secunia PSI
(go.pcworld.com/secunia_psi). You can also visit Mozilla’s Plugin Check
page (go.pcworld.com/plugincheck) to see if outdated browser plug-
ins are installed. Don’t let the page’s name fool you: The check works
in other browsers, too, not just Firefox.
Risky behavior will be magnified in a post-patch world. For tips,
check out our complete guides to staying safe in the Web’s worst
neighborhoods (go.pcworld.com/websworst) and guarding against
devious security traps (go.pcworld.com/devious).
Take drastic measures
Now let’s dig into the more radical but totally appropriate tactics.
Go ofline: Say you need Windows XP only to run a crucial business
CONSUMER WATCH
Windows 7’s XP
Mode lets you
run XP in a
virtual machine.
40
application, or to interact with hardware that
doesn’t function with newer versions of Windows.
In this case, disconnect that Windows XP system
from the network if possible. This action is the
easiest, most foolproof way to keep a Windows
XP computer secure.
Use a limited account: If your machine is
blasted by malware, the invader can do only as much damage as
the account it infects. Administrator accounts (go.pcworld.com/
adminrisk) give baddies the keys to your computing kingdom. Stick to
using a limited account for your day-to-day activities. Use an admin
account to create the locked-down login and fill it with the software
you need, and afterward don’t stray from limited land unless you need
to install or update software. (And even then, use the admin account
only for as long as is necessary to finish the installation.)
Confine XP to a virtual machine: Virtual machines let you run
Windows XP in an isolated container (go.pcworld.com/vminternet),
placing it in a window on your desktop. Windows 7 Professional includes
Windows XP Mode for just this reason, offering businesses and other
professional users the ability to set up such a virtual machine without
buying an additional Windows XP license.
If you’re upgrading to Windows 8 or Windows 7 Home, however,
Windows XP Mode is not included. In this situation you’ll have to get a
boxed copy of Windows XP—an old one will work—and then install it
inside a virtual machine. Fortunately, you don’t have to buy virtual
machine software: The free VirtualBox (go.pcworld.com/virtualbox43)
or VMware Player (go.pcworld.com/vmwarepl) will work fine.
Inside a virtual machine, you can run most Windows XP applications.
Note, however, that if a program needs direct access to a piece of
hardware, it may not work.
Remember, too, that the cessation of Microsoft support extends to
Windows XP Mode and Windows XP in virtual machines. However,
running XP in a virtual machine on a modern version of Windows is
much more secure than running XP as your primary OS.
Stick to using a limited account for your day-to-day activities in XP.
Move on
Suppose you have a trusty old XP system that works for Web browsing
and you don’t want to invest in a new computer or a new Windows. To
stay secure, you might try installing Ubuntu Linux (go.pcworld.com/
ubuntuguide) and tweaking its appearance (go.pcworld.com/
tweakubuntu), or perhaps installing the more lightweight Lubuntu
(go.pcworld.com/lubuntu). These completely free OSs work well on
older hardware, and will be supported with patches for years to come.
If Windows 8 puts you off, you can still upgrade to Windows 7, which
Microsoft will support until 2020. New copies of Windows 7 or 8 cost
nearly $100, though, and they might not run on XP-era hardware, so
you may be better off buying a whole new computer.
Sure, Microsoft wants to sell you a new Windows license, but it’s
been 12 years. Make plans to move on. You don’t have to go to
Windows 8, but you can’t stay here—not for long, anyway.
CONSUMER
WATCH
41
Join The Nature Conservancy to plant a billion trees, one tree at a time, in the fght to end climate change at plantabillion.org
44 We push six 802.11ac Wi-Fi USB adapters to the limit
54 Lenovo ThinkPad X240: A no-non-sense business laptop
57 Toshiba CB35-A3120 Chromebook hits the sweet spot
60 Reveal 11 Business automates profes-sional videography
63 Samsung Galaxy Note Pro: Android challenges Windows in the office
67 Intel 730 Series SSD (480GB): Good performance and a strong warranty
71 Lenovo Miix 2 8: A fast tablet that’s short on features
76 Pro document shredders offer total destruction
REVIEWS
& RATINGS
43
44
We push six 802.11ac Wi-Fi USB adapters to the limitThe competing devices we tested had significant diferences in performance and price. BY MICHAEL BROWN
TESTED IN PCWORLD LABS
In this section, hardware & software goes through rigorous testing.
REVIEWS
& RATINGS
Buffalo Technology AirStation
WI-U2-866D
D-Link DWA-182 Wireless AC1200
Dual Band USB Adapter
Trendnet TEW-805UB AC1200
Dual Band Wireless USB Adapter
Netgear A6200 WiFi USB Adapter
Asus USB-AC56 Dual-band
Wireless-AC1200 Adapter
Linksys WUSB6300 Wi-Fi Wireless AC
Dual-Band AC1200 USB Adapter
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ONCE YOU’VE PURCHASED a new 802.11ac router (see
go.pcworld.com/routers2013), you have to decide on a
wireless adapter to connect it to your client PC. If the
client doesn’t incorporate an 802.11ac adapter—and few
machines do—you won’t get the maximum benefit from the router. I
benchmarked six of the newest 802.11ac Wi-Fi USB adapters and
found striking differences in their performance.
The 802.11ac draft standard delivers a physical link rate of up to
1300 megabits per second (with a router that supports three spatial
streams for sending and three for receiving). Products in the current
I tested each adapter in four spots inside my 2800-square-foot single-story home, using only the 802.11ac protocol.
46
batch of 802.11ac Wi-Fi USB adapters, however,
support only two spatial streams and deliver a
maximum physical link rate of 867 mbps.
To find the top-performing adapter, I tested
each adapter in four spots inside my 2800-
square-foot single-story home, using only the
802.11ac protocol. I sequentially installed each
product in an AVADirect gaming notebook powered by an Intel Core
i5-3210M processor and 4GB of DDR3/1600 memory. Then I used an Asus
RT-AC68U802.11ac Wi-Fi router (go.pcworld.com/asusrtac68u) to create
a wireless network. Using the JPERF benchmarking utility, I measured TCP
throughput between the wireless laptop client and a server that was
hardwired to the router.
Some adapters come with a tethered USB cradle, increasing your range
of placement options. If the adapter had such a cradle, that’s how I
evaluated it. Other models plug directly into the client’s USB port, and
that’s how I tested those. A couple of models have articulated USB
connectors that allow you to orient the adapters either straight out from
or at a 90-degree angle to the client. In those cases I selected the angled
option if it was available—unless the vendor also provided a cradle.
USB surprise The type of USB interface had no detectable impact on the adapter’s
performance. The Asus USB-AC56, which has a USB 3.0 interface, turned
in the highest throughput overall, but the Netgear A6200 placed second,
despite its USB 2.0 interface. And the Trendnet TEW-805UB, which has a
USB 3.0 interface, was the slowest overall performer by a wide margin.
The Asus USB-AC56 took first place in tests with the client located in the
bedroom (9 feet from the router) and in the kitchen (20 feet away). Though
the Asus didn’t perform quite as well at longer distances, it came out on top
overall when I averaged the routers’ performance in all four locations.
Netgear’s A6200 finished a strong second overall, just 2 mbps behind
the Asus, and did especially well at longer distances. The D-Link DWA-182
finished third overall, with Buffalo’s AirStation WI-U2-866D close behind it.
I measured TCP throughput between the wireless laptop client and a server.
More: Wi-Fi USB Adapters
47
REVIEWS & RATINGS
The Asus USB-
AC56 was the
top performer
overall, but
Netgear’s
A6200 finished
right on its
heels. The
Netgear is also
much easier to
travel with.
802.11ac Wi-Fi Client Adapter Using an Asus RT-Ac68U Router
0 100 200 300 400 500
MEGABYTES PER SECOND. (LONGER BARS INDICATE HIGHER PERFORMANCE.)
Bedroom (client 9 feet from router)
Kitchen (client 20 feet from router)
Home theater (client 35 feet from router)
Home office (client 65 feet from router)
163.0
347.0
404.0
213.0
227.0
251.0
240.0
248.0
175.0
288.0
290.0
244.0
190.0
232.0
230.0
143.0
233.0
312.0
310.0
264.0
104.0
199.0
256.0
79.1
Trendnet TEW-805UB
Netgear A6200
Linksys WUSB6300
D-Link DWA-182
Buffalo WI-U2-866D
Asus USB-AC56
48
Asus USB-AC56 Dual-band Wireless-AC1200 AdapterThe USB-AC56 ($70; ; go.pcworld.com/ac56) comes with a
tethered USB stand and a hinged, detachable antenna. I thought the
latter would give the adapter an edge at longer distances, but it didn’t.
Designed with a USB 3.0 interface, it had the fastest TCP throughput
when the client was close to the router, reaching 404 megabits per
second when the client was in the bedroom, 9 feet from the router.
With the client in the kitchen and the router 20 feet away, the USB-
AC56 achieved a roundup-best TCP throughput of 347 mbps.
Given the size of the USB-AC56’s antenna, I was surprised when it
landed in fifth place on my test with the client inside the double-thick
walls of my home theater. Also unexpected was its fourth-place finish
on my test with the client in my home office, 65 feet from the router.
Even so, with data rates of 163 mbps and 213 mbps respectively on
those tests, the Asus adapter should have no trouble streaming high-
def video to any location inside a typical house.
The USB-AC56 is a bit unwieldy, whether you use its external
antenna or not (it also has an internal antenna, so the external one
isn’t essential). Without the antenna, the adapter protrudes almost 4
inches from your computer’s USB port. Remove the cap protecting
the threaded antenna connection and attach the antenna, and the
device’s length extends to nearly 4.5 inches.
When I averaged each adapter’s throughput at all four test locations,
the USB-AC56 had the highest mark—though by less than 1 percent.
The Asus USB-AC56 has internal antennas, too, so
you can leave the cap covering the thread mount
on, if you don’t want to use the long antenna.
More: Wi-Fi USB Adapters
49
REVIEWS & RATINGS
Bufalo Technology AirStation WI-U2-866DIn our roundup of 802.11ac Wi-Fi client USB adapters, Buffalo
Technology’s AirStation WI-U2-866D ($40; ; go.pcworld.
com/wiu2866d) earned two second-place finishes, and it ended up in
fourth place overall. Its $40 street price makes it an attractive value.
The WI-U2-866D’s antennas are mounted internally. Though Buffalo
doesn’t provide a cradle, you’ll find a bendable (but disappointingly
weak) USB 2.0 stub cable in the box.
The adapter’s hinged interface allows you to position the adapter
vertically or horizontally. The adapter is a bit over 3.5 inches long; but
when vertically oriented, it protrudes less than an inch from the PC.
Buffalo’s model was the only adapter in my test group that lacked a
WPS button. If you choose this model, you’ll have to remember your
router’s passphrase in order to establish a wireless connection. Like
Asus, Buffalo provides a software utility that reports connection
status, signal strength, and other details. You can use the utility with
either Buffalo’s adapter or your laptop’s built-in adapter.
The Buffalo adapter delivered TCP throughputs of 248 mbps from
65 feet away from the router (good for the second place in the
roundup), 227 mbps from 35 feet away (again, second), 251 mbps
from 20 feet away (fourth), and 240 mbps from 9 feet away (fifth).
The WI-U2-866D’s
hinged USB interface
folds into a recess on
the adapter’s back to
protect it.
The WI-U2-866D’s hinged USB
interface folds into a recess on the
adapter’s back to protect it.
50
D-Link DWA-182 Wireless AC1200 Dual Band USB AdapterIn our latest roundup of 802.11ac client adapters, D-Link’s DWA-182
($50; ; go.pcworld.com/wusb6300) finished in third place
overall, without achieving any first- or second-place finishes on any of
the individual tests. The compact adapter measures about 3 inches
long, not including its USB interface, and D-Link provides a USB cradle
that gives you some welcome flexibility in positioning it.
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 adapter has a WPS button, which simplifies connecting 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 the channel
it’s using, and shows a graphical representation of the signal strength.
The DWA-182’s $50 street price is $20 lower than that of the top-
performing Asus USB-AC56, but at the same time it’s $10 higher than
that of the fourth-place Buffalo AirStation WI-U2-866D.
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.
More: Wi-Fi USB Adapters
51
Though Linksys was one of
the first manufacturers to
ship an 802.11ac Wi-Fi
client USB adapter, the
WUSB6300 is far from a
standout model.
REVIEWS & RATINGS
Linksys WUSB6300 Wi-Fi Wireless AC Dual-Band AC1200 USB AdapterDespite its USB 3.0 interface, Linksys’s WUSB6300 802.11ac Wi-Fi client
USB adapter ($70; ; go.pcworld.com/wusb6300) was slower
than average at three of my four test locations. The compact adapter
protrudes from a PC by just 3 inches. It hides its two antennas inside its
plastic shell, and its WPS button makes connecting to your router easy.
But there’s no USB cradle, and the adapter isn’t hinged, so you don’t
have much flexibility in positioning the adapter for optimal reception.
Aside from its third-place finish on my home theater test, 35 feet
from the router, the WUSB6300 was a mediocre performer.
The Linksys adapter finished dead last when the client was 9 feet
away from the router in the same room, with TCP throughput of 230
megabits per second, versus 404 mbps for the Asus USB-AC56 at this
location, and 310 mbps for the Netgear A6200. The WUSB6300 did
slightly better when I moved the client into the kitchen, registering
TCP throughput of 232 mbps, but that rate is nowhere near the 347
mbps that the Asus adapter delivered.
The Linksys WUSB6300 finished third, fifth, or last in my individual
tests, and placed fifth overall. Combine that undistinguished perfor-
mance with a $70 street price, and you have little reason to favor this
adapter over any rival except the Trendnet TEW-805UB.
52
Netgear A6200 WiFi USB AdapterThe Netgear A6200 ($50; ; go.pcworld.com/a6200) has a USB 2
interface and a hinged connector. Its antenna lies inside a thin rectangular
bar that you can pivot to fine-tune its reception. Netgear’s antenna design
is much less fragile than the Asus USB-AC56’s screw-on antenna (unless you
remove the Asus model’s antenna every time you pack it).
Tested with its USB cradle and its antenna in a vertical orientation, the
Netgear adapter almost matched that of the first-place Asus USB-AC56
overall, falling short by just 2 megabits per second. But the performance
gap was far larger when the client was 9 feet away from the router: 310
mbps for the Netgear’s TCP throughput versus 404 mbps for the Asus’s.
The A6200 placed second when the client was in the kitchen, too, with
throughput of 312 mbps as opposed to the USB-AC56’s 347 mbps.
The Netgear adapter beat the Asus at longer ranges, however, with TCP
throughput of 233 mbps versus 163 mbps when the client was in my home
theater, 35 feet from the router; and 264 mbps versus 213 mbps when the
client was in my home office, 65 feet from the router.
The A6200 measures nearly 5 inches long with its antenna extended
(not including its USB interface), and slightly less than 3.5 inches long
with its antenna folded down for travel. The USB interface pivots, but it
doesn’t fold away completely as the Buffalo WI-U2-866D’s interface does.
If long-range performance is crucial in your network setup, this adapter
is a great choice. But if not, the Asus USB-AC56 is a better bet.
Netgear’s Genie utility provides useful
information such as site polling,
physical link rate, and the client’s
current IP address.
The hinged USB interface enables you
to fine-tune the adapter to your router.
Netgear also provides a USB cradle.
53
Nonhinged and cradleless, the
Trendnet TEW-805UB gives you
minimal placement flexibility.
REVIEWS & RATINGS
Trendnet TEW-805UB AC1200 Dual Band Wireless USB AdapterThe Trendnet TEW-805UB ($40; ; go.pcworld.com/
tew805ub) is small (protruding from a PC’s USB port by about 2.625
inches) and inexpensive. ($40 street). But it brings up the rear on most
performance metrics, and It has no special features.
The adapter is short and has a nonhinged USB 3.0 interface; it also
lacks a USB cradle, giving you little placement flexibility. The TEW-
805UB’s close-range performance was merely adequate. Whereas the
top-performing Asus USB-AC56 delivered TCP throughput of 404
megabits per second when situated 9 feet from the router, the
Trendnet managed just 256 mbps, good for fourth place.
In the other three test locations, Trendnet’s adapter finished last by
wide margins. It couldn’t muster triple-digit performance when the
client was at its farthest point from the router—65 feet away—and it
only barely achieved that mark when the client was in my home
theater, 35 feet away. When the client was in the kitchen, the TEW-
805UB was 33 mbps slower than the fifth-place Linksys WUSB6300.
If your 802.11ac Wi-Fi budget is limited to $40, Buffalo’s WI-U2-
866D is a far better buy. If you can stretch it just $10 more, D-Link’s
DWA-182 will deliver even higher performance. There’s very little
reason to opt for Trendnet’s TEW-805UB.
IF LENOVO’S SPENDY ThinkPad X1 Carbon is the laptop every worker
bee craves, Lenovo’s thrifty ThinkPad X240 (go.pcworld.com /
thinkpadx240) is the one an employer is more apt to spring for.
You might think the ThinkPad X240 is too big to qualify for the
Ultrabook designation, but it’s only 0.79 inches thick and weighs
just 3 pounds. It has two batteries and a battery bridge that allows
hot swapping.
The X240’s WorldBench score of 282 leaves it slightly behind
Dell’s XPS 12 Ultrabook Convertible (with the same dual-core CPU)
and Samsung’s Ativ Book 7 (with a third-generation Core
i5-3337U)—surprising given that the ThinkPad has twice as much
DDR3/1600 memory: 8GB versus 4GB.
Lenovo ThinkPad X240: A no-nonsense business laptopBY MICHELLE MASTIN
Lenovo’s
ThinkPad X240
may look big next
to wafer-thin
notebooks—but
it’s only 0.79
inches thick.
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REVIEWS & RATINGS
The X240 packs a fourth-generation Intel Core processor, so you can
expect long battery life. Our test unit came with a Core i5-4200U, but
there are other choices. The three-cell battery ran for 6 hours, 26
minutes.
The X240 has a number of I/O ports absent on the X1 Carbon,
including a gigabit ethernet port, a smart card reader, a 34mm Express
card socket, a VGA port, an always-on USB 2.0 port, and a docking port.
Like the X1 Carbon, it has two USB 3.0 ports, a Mini DisplayPort, an SD
card reader, and a fingerprint reader.
The keyboard still has a nubby red dot in the center, but the dedicated
buttons are gone. You must press the whole trackpad with your finger in
the correct click zone. The roomy size lets you make the most of
Windows 8’s multitouch gestures, but at times the trackpad registered
If you don’t
mind toting an
extra battery,
the ThinkPad
X240’s hot-
swap feature
will keep you
productive
for hours.
55
Lenovo ThinkPad X240
Batery life
Asus VivoBook
S550CA
(reference)
Lenovo ThinkPad X240
Dell XSP 12 Ultrabook Convertible
Samsung Ativ Book 7 model NP740USE-K01UB)
LONGER BARS ARE BETTER.
0:00 1:00 2:00 3:00 4:00 6:00
6:26
5:00
6:49
6:03
3:22
7:00 8:00
two-finger scrolling when I only
used one finger. But it was
smooth and responsive overall.
The keyboard still has a
nubby red dot in the center,
but the dedicated buttons are
gone. You must press the
whole trackpad with your
finger in the correct click
zone. At times the trackpad
registered two-finger scrolling
when I only used one finger.
But it was smooth and
responsive overall.
If you’re looking for a
workhorse laptop with great
battery life, Lenovo’s X240 is a
solid choice.
Lenovo ThinkPad X240
PROS:
• Durable carbon-fiber chassis
• Hot-swappable battery
• All the I/O ports you could ask for
CONS:
• Disappointing 1366 by 768 display
• Keyboard not up to ThinkPad
standards
• Weak speakers
BOTTOM LINE:
Has fourth-gen Intel Core CPUs and
hot-swappable batteries. But its
display resolution is a letdown.
$1555
The 1366 by 768 display
lacks definition.
56
THE CHROMEBOOK HAS found its sweet spot, and it’s around the
$279 range, where the Toshiba CB35-A3120 Chromebook resides
(go.pcworld.com/toshibacb35). It sure isn’t down with the $200-or-so
cheapies, with their clackety plastics and sorry little screens. Nor is it
in the 1-percenter fantasyland of the gorgeous and expensive
Chromebook Pixel. The $250 Samsung Chromebook 3 is nice, and for
$300 you could get an 11-inch touchscreen in the Acer C270P, or a
14-inch (non-touch) display in the HP Chromebook 14. But the
Toshiba Chromebook hits the sweet spotBY MELISSA RIOFRIO
REVIEWS
& RATINGS
A top-down
view shows
the roomy
clickpad and
island-style
keyboard.
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Toshiba CB35-A3120 is nearly as good as those higher-priced competitors, and it’s
a notch better than the similarly priced HP Chromebook 11.
What the Toshiba CB35-A3120 has over the HP Chromebook 11 is a much larger
13.3-inch LED backlit display; a mobile-
friendly Intel Celeron 2955U (Haswell)
processor; and a 52Wh, four-cell lithium
ion battery. The Toshiba performed well,
scoring 2910 in Peacekeeper. The
battery lasted almost 7 hours in our
tests—noticeably longer than what the
HP Chromebook 11 achieved with its
ARM processor and 30Wh battery.
The CB35-A3120 also trumps the
Chromebook 11 in connectivity, sporting
two USB 3.0 ports (the HP has just USB
2.0), an SD card slot, a headphone jack,
and an HDMI-out port. It has built-in
Wi-Fi 802.11a/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0,
and a webcam and microphone sit atop
the display. Built-in stereo speakers
deliver tolerable though tinny sound.
The screen’s wide, 16:9 aspect ratio
keeps this system compact, at 8.9 by
12.9 by 0.80 inches; the HP Chromebook
Toshiba CB35-A3120
Chromebook
PROS:
• Long battery life
• USB 3.0 ports
• Decent-size display
CONS:
• Display feels a little bendy
• Just adequate video playback
BOTTOM LINE:
The Toshiba CB35-A3120
Chromebook strikes a nice balance
with its good-size display, long
battery life, and compact design.
$279
The right side
has an audio jack,
two USB 3.0
ports, and an
HDMI-out port.
58
REVIEWS
& RATINGS
14 is decidedly bulkier. The 1366-by-768-
pixel resolution is nothing special, nor is
the occasionally choppy video playback,
but that’s typical for this price range.
The Sunray Silver plastic chassis has an
attractive, easy-to-grip surface. The
display lid feels slightly bendy, but the
bottom half is nicely stiff. At 3.3 pounds,
the CB35-A3120
is easy to tote.
Most low-end Chromebooks have crummy keyboards with
hard plastic keys and hard travel. The CB35-A3120’s island-
style keys offer softer travel—a pleasant surprise. The top-row
function keys and lower-right cursor keys are half-size but
usable, and the clickpad is roomy and pretty responsive.
The Chromebook’s other features include 2GB of DDR3L
1600MHz memory and a 16GB SSD.
Chromebooks are hitting their stride. My current favorite in
this price range is the HP Chromebook 14, but the
CB35-A3120 is a tempting alternative for a bit less cash.
The CB35-A3120 is
slender, small, and light.
The CB35-A3120’s island-style keys ofer sofer travel than most low-end Chromebooks do—a pleasant surprise.
59
60
Reveal 11 Business automates videographyBY JON L. JACOBI
MOST PEOPLE DON’T think of video-production software as a business
tool. In today’s video-centric advertising, training, and communications
environment, however, they should. Muvee Technologies seems to
share that opinion, judging from its simple-to-use but effective Reveal
11 Business (go.pcworld.com/reveal11).
You provide the pictures, video, and text, after which you arrange
their sequence and pick a style template; then you simply let the
program process everything into a complete production. The number
REVIEWS & RATINGS
of style templates—which contain background music, effects, and
transitions melded into a consistent look and feel—is what
differentiates the regular $80 version of Reveal 11 and the $500
Business edition. The regular version has only a few, while the business
version has more than 40, plus 2000 musical renditions that you may
use royalty-free. Functionally, the versions are identical.
My only complaint is that Reveal 11 Business could stand to look
more, well, businesslike. The styles offered in the Business pack are
nice, but they’re named in artistic terms. If you’re looking for
something like “Target: 27-year-old to 32-year-old food-centrics,”
forget it—you’re getting “Reflections,” “Soar,” and “Turn Back Time.”
Reveal 11 Business is
supremely easy to use. A
content row sits at the top,
and style-selection and
preview panes appear
beneath that. But the
program offers more
control over video
production than is
apparent at first glance.
Click Personalize in the
bottom-left corner, and
you can insert your logo,
adjust the scene timing,
define the titling and
credits, or record a voice-
over. You’ll find a small
audio-mix console, too.
Click any picture or video
in the media bay, and the
program presents slick and
simple editing controls
such as a zoom-effect
Muvee Reveal 11
Business
PROS:
• Easy to use
• Produces professional-quality
video
• More affordable than a
videographer
CONS:
• Styles content not organized in
a businesslike fashion
BOTTOM LINE:
Reveal 11 Business could be just
the software you need to create
high-quality promotional or training videos.
$500
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control for photos and a highly accurate scene detector and slicer for
videos. Attached to each style are controls for color profiles, scene-
change speed, camera wonkiness, and more.
Even better, labels and messages are concise yet not overly terse:
They actually tell you what to do. Additionally, there’s not one
cluttered area, overcrowded toolbar, or cryptic icon in sight. Interfaces
don’t get any better than this. I never once cracked open the help file.
I’m not trying to step on the toes of professional videographers—
good ones are worth their weight in gold. But many people don’t have
the gold, and Reveal 11 Business largely meets the need, if not for a
professional advertising campaign, then for just about everything else.
If you’re strapped for cash, you could buy the regular version of the
software and then shop in the Muvee store for a $10 or $15 style that
suits you. The company also offers a music store with affordable
licensing fees based on your intended usage.
In Reveal 11’s
Personalize
section, you
can record a
voice-over for
your video.
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& RATINGS
Samsung Galaxy Note Pro: Android moves into the officeBY MARK HACHMAN
IN THE CURRENT market, paying $750 for a 12-inch Android tablet
seems exorbitant. But if now isn’t the time for consumers to start
thinking of large Android tablets as legitimate Windows laptop
replacements, that day isn’t far off.
The massive Samsung Galaxy Note Pro (go.pcworld.com/
galaxynotepro), like the Microsoft Surface, functions best on a desk.
Offering a 12.2-inch screen and weighing 1.65 pounds, it’s virtually
identical to the Galaxy Tab Pro save for the addition of an S Pen stylus.
According to Samsung, the Wi-Fi version of the tablet houses a
Samsung’s
Galaxy Note Pro
makes Android an
attractive option
for business use.
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1.9GHz quad-core ARM Cortex A15
chip and runs Android 4.4 (KitKat). On
our performance tests it produced a
Sunspider score of 0.97 second
(hitting the upper echelons among
tablets), and a PeaceKeeper score of
815. For the sake of comparison, the
third-generation iPad managed 516 in
PeaceKeeper (higher scores are better).
You can configure the optional ($70) foldable cover so that it wakes
and unlocks the tablet when you flip it back. The cover also doubles as
a flimsy stand. To use the tablet as a laptop replacement, however,
you’ll need to buy a
Bluetooth keyboard and
possibly a mouse.
Charging takes three to
four hours, but battery life
is excellent: You’ll see two,
possibly even three days
of casual use from its
integrated 9500-mAh
battery. In our looping
video test, the battery
lasted 8 hours, 37 minutes.
The 12.2-inch display
boasts a resolution of
2560 by 1600 and a pixel
density of 247 ppi. You
can hook up an external
monitor via an optional
($40) HDMI dongle.
Pulling out the S Pen
triggers several options,
including my favorite, the
Samsung Galaxy Note Pro (SM-P900)
PROS:
• Large, vivid screen
• Excellent battery life and
performance
• Office and videoconferencing
apps built in
CONS:
• No wired display connection
• Flip cover doubles as a flimsy stand
BOTTOM LINE:
This capable tablet offers a generous
screen, excellent battery life, and
access to plenty of productivity apps.
$750 (32GB), $850 (64GB)
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Judging from the
home button’s
position, the
tablet’s preferred
orientation is
landscape.
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REVIEWS
& RATINGS
Pen Window. This mode lets you run a second
app inside a window, providing Android with a
desktop-like multitasking environment. Even
better is Multi Window mode: To trigger this
mode, you swipe in from the right side, using a
list of supported apps. Dragging one app to the
main screen fills it. Dragging a second one
“snaps” the screen into two halves—and so on, up to four screens.
Productivity apps such as Cisco’s WebEx and Samsung Remote PC
(an alternative to Microsoft Remote Desktop) are included. On Google
Play, Hancom’s Hanword word processor costs more than $17, but on
the Note Pro, it’s free, as are similar apps to view and edit PowerPoint
and Excel files. Aside from some possible font-compatibility issues, the
Hancom apps work surprisingly well. Google’s own Quickoffice is also
installed. Android versions of virtually every productivity app you
could want are available from either the Samsung app store or
You can have
up to four apps
open at once in
Multi Window
mode.
You’ll see two, possibly three days of casual use from its integrated batery.
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Google Play, adding up to a PC-like experience on an Android tablet.
Considering the sum of its parts, the Galaxy Note Pro is not only a
viable choice for a tablet enthusiast but also an option for an
adventuresome road warrior eager to leave the Windows world. If
only Samsung could knock another $150 or so off the price.
The tablet
gives access
to a host of
productivity
apps.
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REVIEWS & RATINGS
Intel 730 Series SSD offers good performanceBY JON L. JACOBI
INTEL’S NEW 730 Series of enthusiast-class SSDs come emblazoned
with the image of a skull, but they don’t fully live up to a killer image.
The company shipped a pair of 480GB drives to us so we could
benchmark them striped as a single volume in RAID 0, which is how a
PC enthusiast might deploy them. Theoretically, you should get close
to double the performance this way; but because we haven’t tested
any other SSDs in tandem, we stuck with one drive for our full bench-
marking regimen and ran CrystalDiskMark for the RAID 0 setup.
Plenty of roomSSDs in the 730 Series use 20nm MLC (multilevel cell) NAND. Since
the SSD is just 7mm high, it will fit in most laptops and even in an
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all-in-one (if the machine is upgradable), as well
as in a conventional desktop rig. It relies on
Intel’s PC29AS21CA0 controller, which the
company also uses to power its 3500- and 3700
Series SSDs for data-center operators. Intel says
that it overclocks the controller by 50 percent
and the NAND bus by 20 percent to increase
overall performance substantially. Though Intel suggested at its 2013
developers’ conference that it might allow end users to overclock the
controller, in the end it decided against doing so.
The drives are available in 240GB and 480GB flavors, priced at $250
and $490, respectively. We tested the 480GB model and it performed
well, but not superbly, ranking tenth among the 19 drives we’ve
tested to date. That said,
this SSD does smoke the
Intel 335 Series; and the
difference between the
first and tenth-place
drives is statistically
insignificant once you
exclude Plextor’s new PCIe
drive and Samsung’s EVO
using its Rapid caching
software.
The 480GB Series 730
wrote our 10GB mix of
files and folders at 469.1
megabytes per second
and a single 10GB file at
461.9 MBps. It also read
the files and folders at
384.4 MBps and the single
large file at 454.2 MBps.
I noticed a significant
Intel 730 Series SSD (480GB)
PROS:
• Strong 5-year warranty
• Enterprise-class controller
• 7mm height
CONS:
• Midrange performance
• High-end price tag
BOTTOM LINE:
Intel’s 730 Series SSD ought to last a
good long while, but you shouldn’t
imagine that the drive’s skull logo
portends killer performance.
$490
The 480GB model performed well, ranking tenth among 19 drives tested.
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REVIEWS & RATINGS
performance jump when testing two of these drives striped in RAID 0,
using Intel Rapid Storage Technology. The uptick approaches the 100
percent improvement that Intel claims for it.
CrystalDiskMark’s sequential write number jumped from about
460MBps to 800 MBps, and its read number went from 470 MBps to
just over 900 MBps. But the performance gains will vary depending on
which RAID technology you use. When I repeated the tests on my own
system—a motherboard with an Intel Z77 chipset, an Intel Core
i7-3770 CPU, and 8GB DDR3/1600 memory—the performance
increase topped out at about 50 MBps.
The Intel 730 Series finished in the middle of the pack on this test involving
reading and writing a 10GB collection of small files and folders.
Intel 730 Series SSD (480GB) Read/Write Performance With 10GB of Small Files/Folders
0 100 200 300 400 600
411.9
443.3
414.6
465.2
394.9
494.1
361.3
342.7
376.7
469.1
384.4
MEGABYTES PER SECOND. (LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE.)
Files and Folders (Read)
Files and Folders (Write) 500
493.7
Toshiba Q Series Pro 512GB
Samsung 840 EVO 500GB, w/RAPID
Samsung 840 EVO 500GB, w/o RAPID
OCZ Vertex 460 480GB
Intel 335 Series 240GB
Intel 730 Series 480GB
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Performance is only part of the 730 Series story: Intel backs the SSD
with a healthy five-year warranty. You can tell from the capacities—
240GB and 480GB, versus 256GB and 512GB—that much of NAND is
devoted to housekeeping and overprovisioning (memory cells set
aside to replace bad blocks, or to swap with deleted-but-not-erased
memory in certain situations).
Intel rates both drives at 1.2 million hours mean time between
failure, which works out to about 13 years. The claimed 50GB of writes
per day (on the 240GB model) and 70GB of writes per day (on the
480GB model) amount to roughly 90 and 125 terabytes written under
warranty. Those are decent numbers.
Summing upTo judge from our tests of the 480GB model, Intel’s 730 Series SSDs
aren’t the fastest solid-state drives you can buy, but they’re very solid.
The enterprise-class heritage and five-year warranty are reassuring;
and in pairs—coupled with Intel’s Rapid Storage Technology—they
make for a very fast storage subsystem.
About our test environment: We benchmark hard drives and SSDs
using an Asus Z98 Expert motherboard (Intel Z87 chipset) with an
Intel Core i7-4770K CPU, 32GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR3/1600
memory, and a 512GB Toshiba Q Series Pro SSD. The operating system
is Windows 8.1 Pro.
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Speedy Miix 2 8 tablet is short on featuresBY MICHELLE MASTIN
INTEL’S BAY TRAIL–CLASS Atom processors allow PC manufacturers
to build powerful tablets with a key feature that competitors like
Google’s Nexus 7 and Apple’s iPad mini can’t deliver: the ability to run
Windows 8.1 and all the apps available for that operating system.
For its Miix 2 8, Lenovo paired Intel’s quad-core Atom Z3740 with
2GB of low-power DDR3/1066 memory and 32GB of storage. In our
WorldBench 8.1 test results, the Miix 2 8 outperformed Dell’s Venue
Pro 8 (go.pcworld.com/venuepro8) by a margin of 12 percent—
earning a mark of 164, versus the Venue Pro 8’s 146—even though
Dell’s tablet carries a very similar Atom processor (the Atom Z3740D)
and faster memory (low-power DDR3/1333 RAM).
REVIEWS
& RATINGS
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When can a display be
too bright? When you’re
using it to read it in a
darkened room.
Watch the video at
go.pcworld.com/miix28.
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Lenovo Miix 2 8
PROS:
• Very thin and light
• Great benchmark performance and
battery life
• Touch-sensitive Windows button
CONS:
• Speakers distort at high volume
• Too few I/O ports
• Screen too bright for nighttime
reading
BOTTOM LINE:
Lenovo’s Miix 2 8 delivers great
performance and battery life, but
few extra features.
$300
Its batery delivers enough juice to support more than a day of productivity.
The processors in both tablets have the same
base clock speed—1.33GHz—but the one in the
Miix 2 8 has a slightly speedier higher burst fre-
quency (1.86GHz) than the one in the Venue Pro
8 (1.83GHz). More responsible, I suspect, are the
dual memory channels in the Lenovo’s processor;
the Dell’s processor has a single memory channel.
The Miix 2 outperformed the Venue Pro 8 in terms of battery life,
too, lasting more than 10 hours, compared to 7 hours, 44 minutes for
the Dell. Here again, much of the credit goes to the Atom Z3740 in
the Miix 2 8, which has a scenario design power of 2 watts while the
Atom Z3740D in the Venue Pro 8 has an SDP of 2.2 watts.
Intel devised its SDP
formula to measure the
heat generated by CPUs
in “thin, thermally
constrained designs.” As
with desktop and laptop
CPUs and their associated
thermal design power
(TDP) numbers, a mobile
CPU with a higher SDP will
generally consume more
power than one with a
lower SDP.
The Miix 2 8 has all the
horsepower it needs to run
Windows 8.1, and its battery
delivers enough juice to
support more than a full day
of productivity away from
an AC outlet. But you should
seriously consider spending
$50 more to move up to the
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REVIEWS & RATINGS
model with 64GB of storage, because the 32GB model we tested
leaves only about 7GB of space for your apps and data. You also have
the option of slipping a memory card into the MicroSD slot in either
model to expand its capacity.
Adequate resolutionThe Miix 2 8’s touchscreen display delivers resolution of 1280 by 800
pixels. That resolution isn’t as high as the 1080p screen on the $269
Nexus 7 or the 2048-by-1536-pixel screen of the $499 iPad mini with
Retina display, but it’s enough to ensure that text, graphics, and video
look crisp and clear. On the other hand, an 8-inch screen doesn’t offer
a lot of viewing real estate at any moment, so you may find that you’re
still scrolling around quite a bit once you zoom text to a readable size.
Reading books is a great application for mini tablets like this one. I
have tried several dedicated e-readers and dozens of tablets in pursuit
Lenovo’s Miix 2 8 outperformed its 8-inch rival, the Dell Venue Pro 8, and its
larger (10.1-inch) sibling, the Lenovo Miix 10, on WorldBench 8.1.
Lenovo Miix 2 8 Laptop WorldBench 8.1 score
Lenovo Miix 2 8 (Intel Atom Z3740)
Dell Venue 8 Pro (Intel Atom Z3740)
(LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE.)
0 100 150 20050
Lenovo Miix 10 (Intel Atom Z2760)
121
146
164
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of the perfect balance between that activity and everything else a
tablet can do—but achieving that balance is difficult.
In the past, my biggest complaint was that the screen seemed dim
or that the touch layer ruined the clarity. Neither of those flaws is
present here. The Miix 2 8’s IPS panel is bright and clear. In fact, I found
it a bit too bright for reading comfortably in a darkened room, even
when I adjusted it to its dimmest setting. My eyes grew tired much
sooner than my wrist did—a credit to the tablet’s thin profile (it
measures 0.3 inch thick) and light weight (just 0.77 pound).
Video enthusiasts will have reason to cheer. The built-in stereo
speakers are loud enough to fill my home office with the sounds of a
Netflix binge, but they begin to distort if you crank them up to their
maximum level. Lenovo’s optional Flip Cover with Stylus ($30) protects
the Miix 2 8’s display and can fold into a handy stand while the tablet
is in landscape mode.
Years of using Android phones and iPads have taught me to press
something at the center bottom of the device to get to the home
screen, and the Miix 2 8 didn’t leave me hanging: It provides a
capacitive Windows button on the bottom bezel.
Tablet-optimized apps work wellAny Windows tablet can run any program that doesn’t require 2GB or
more of memory, but you’ll be happiest with apps that are optimized to
run on a tablet. The Windows store offers a generous array of apps, and
A svelte profile is one
of the thin and light
Miix 2 8’s most
appealing aspects.
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& RATINGS
the ecosystem is growing. And since the Miix 2 8
runs Windows, you can watch Hulu videos that
aren’t available on purely mobile platforms—when
you’re not being productive with the preinstalled
copy of Microsoft Office Home & Student 2013.
Can this device replace a laptop? Its only input/
output is a Micro-USB 2.0 port that’s also used for
charging, so I wouldn’t recommend going Miix 2 8 only. You could pair
it with a Bluetooth keyboard, but there’s no way to connect an
external display, hardwired ethernet, or other peripherals.
The Miix 2 8 is an excellent tablet, but this is a tough market and
details matter. For me, the more dimmable screen on Dell’s Venue Pro
8 makes it a better nighttime reader. For other users, the Micro HDMI
port on Toshiba’s Encore 8 (go.pcworld.com/encore8) or the active
Wacom digitizer included in the Asus VivoTab Note 8 (go.pcworld.
com/vivotabnote8) is a must-have feature. Ultimately the Miix 2 8’s
top-notch performance isn’t enough to overwhelm comparably priced
competitors that have more features.
You can watch Hulu videos that aren’t available on purely mobile platforms.
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Pro document shredders
offer total destructionBY CHRISTOPHER NULL
DESTROY IT, ALL of it: Obliterate the old bills and tax documents you
don’t want to store. Eliminate your expired credit cards and aging CD
backups. Do that, and you’ll keep your data out of the wrong hands.
Shredding specialistsYou need a good shredder to rip everything into bits small enough to
confound even the most obsessive-compulsive puzzle master. To find
the best models, we tested the pulverizing potential of five professional
cross-cut shredders intended for small offices. These machines can
feed more sheets and shred for longer periods than the typical, low-
volume home shredder available at your local big-box store.
Watch the video at
go.pcworld.com/shred
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REVIEWS & RATINGS
Office Depot’s Ativa V141C (go.pcworld.com/ativav141c) has a traditional,
vertical top-feeding system. A flap covers the slot as a sort of safety catch.
The unit is quiet and unobtrusively small despite its sizable waste bin.
In contrast to most shredders, which require cooldown intervals (usually
after only minutes of sustained operation), the V141C is rated for
continuous use: Theoretically it can run forever without a break.
The machine’s 14-sheet feeding-capacity rating is on the low side—and
worse, it didn’t bear out in my testing. The actual limit for the very narrow
feeding slot seemed to be 8 to 10 sheets. Fat envelopes jammed the unit
regularly. It can shred credit cards, but not optical discs.
I spent more time trying to wedge material into the slot and wrestling
with jams than I did shredding. I’d give this machine a pass.
Ativa (Ofce Depot) V141C
Street price: $480
Weight: 28 pounds
Bin capacity:
8.7 gallons
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Although the design of the Fellowes Powershred 99Ci (go.pcworld.com/
fellowes99ci) is largely typical of top-feeding shredders, the slot is
positioned so that pages go in aligned side to side instead of the usual
front to back. As a result the unit is narrower but deeper than the
average setup. To guide optical discs and credit cards into the waiting
jaws, you move a slightly odd flap over the slot.
The 99Ci is rated to chew up 17 pages per pass, and that proved to be
about accurate in my testing. If the sensors detect an overload, the unit
refuses to start the motor, preventing jams before they start. Once the
99Ci is running, it’s fairly jam-free, though not quite “100% jam proof” as
promised on the box. Clearing jams that do occur can be arduous.
The unit’s big bin, its 25-minute cycle time, and its preinstalled casters
are all helpful features, but it’s louder than other shredders here. And the
bin’s strange shape makes it difficult to empty without spilling confetti.
All in all, the Powershred 99Ci is a serviceable shredder, though bargain
hunters should consider the Staples SPL-TXC24A first.
Fellowes
Powershred
99Ci
Street price: $300
Weight: 38 pounds
Bin capacity:
9.0 gallons
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REVIEWS & RATINGS
The GoEcolife GXC205Pi Platinum Series (go.pcworld.com/goecolife20)
sets the pace for destructive potential. While surprisingly quiet, it plows
through most anything, including CDs and credit cards, and up to 20 sheets
of paper per pass. I was rarely able to jam it, even with junk-mail envelopes
and misfed sheets, and creating a jam took far more than 20 sheets of
paper. A front LCD gives you status updates (a rare feature for shredders),
and the 20 minutes of continuous run time is plenty for most operations.
The slot is on the side instead of on top. To feed the beast, you slide
papers in parallel to the floor. It sounds like a small thing, but in many
environments this design will free up some space by letting you keep the
shredder under your desk instead of beside it. Casters make this hulking
device (the largest in this roundup) easy to maneuver.
The unit includes a dust cover, too, and its built-in compartment can
hold odds and ends. It’s also certified CarbonFree by Carbonfund.org.
GoEcolife GXC205Pi Platinum Series
Street price: $500
Weight: 44 pounds
Bin capacity:
7.8 gallons
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Staples 24-Sheet Cross-Cut Shredder SPL-TXC24A
Street price: $300
Weight: 44 pounds
Bin capacity:
8.0 gallons
The Staples SPL-TXC24A (go.pcworld.com/staplestxc24a) is a Death Star
of a shredder: What it lacks in sophistication it makes up for in raw power.
It’s standard in design, with a vertical slot for feeding paper, credit cards,
or CDs. The slot is thin and barely wide enough to accommodate a regular
sheet of paper, but no matter. You can shove just about anything into
this shredder, and it chews the material up without complaint. It’s also a
particularly tough unit to jam: It can easily handle two junk-mail
envelopes, provided that you can wedge them into the slot.
Other nice features include (user-installed) casters and a lighted
waste-bin area that makes it easier to see how full the unit is, which
sounds silly but turns out to be surprisingly useful. The 20-minute duty
cycle is acceptable. One minor complaint: This shredder is slightly louder
than the others here, though it’s hardly deafening.
Incredibly, this model is significantly less expensive than most of the
other tested shredders. You may want to get his and hers units.
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REVIEWS & RATINGS
The pint-size Swingline Stack-and-Shred 100X (go.pcworld.com/
swingline100x) has a killer feature: You can fill the autofeed tray with up
to 100 sheets of shreddables and let ’er rip. If you have a large amount of
relatively standard sheets of 8.5-by-11-inch paper to shred (no piles of
mail or stacks of CDs, alas), this is one of the easiest ways to get rid of it.
Otherwise, the 100X is a simple, quiet shredder that’s best reserved for
light use. If you’re not using the autofeed tray, the additional manual feed
slot can handle only six sheets of paper at a time, and it chokes if you try
to push past that. Jamming it is easy to do with even a small junk mailer,
which means you’ll have to open envelopes and shred their contents
piecemeal. The feed slot (which has a conduit just for credit cards) is
difficult to work with, owing to its narrow opening and odd alignment.
The smaller bin and short duty cycle (a barely acceptable 5 minutes)
aren’t deal-breakers—in fact, the compact bin makes this shredder the
easiest to empty among those tested—but the manual feed slot’s
measly capacity is the Stack-and-Shred 100X’s biggest drawback.
Swingline Stack-and-Shred 100X
Street price: $500
Weight: 27 pounds
Bin capacity:
7.0 gallons
Children are our greatest hope for the future.
Let’s be their greatest hope too.
Cancer strikes infants and children. For teens
and young adults, survival can depend on
treatment by a pediatric oncologist, designed
specifically for them.
The St. Baldrick’s Foundation and Stand Up To
Cancer are funding groundbreaking collaborative
research to bring the most effective therapies to kids
fi ghting cancer. To learn how you can help keep
these kids in play, go to stbaldricks.org/inplay and
standup2cancer.org/pediatrics.
175,000 KIDS WILL BE DIAGNOSED WITH CANCER THIS YEAR.
HELP KEEP THESE KIDS
IN PLAY.
Julia HernandezDiagnosed at 16, in remission. Samuel L. Jackson
Stand Up To Cancer and St. Baldrick’s Ambassador
St. Baldrick’s Foundation is a charitable 501(c)(3) organization funding childhood cancer research. Stand Up To Cancer is a program of the Entertainment Industry Foundation, a 501(c )(3) charitable organization. P
ho
to b
y N
ige
l Pa
rry
ADD SOME ZIP TO YOUR DESKTOP WITH NEW STORAGE, NETWORKING, OR ACCESSORIES.
BY JO N L. JACO B I A N I M AT I O N BY JO H N U E L A N D
F O R U N D E R $30012 PC UPGRADES
83
IS IT TIME
FOR A
PC UPGRADE?
Maybe your old desktop is struggling to
keep up with the demands of modern,
high-resolution games and media. Or
perhaps someone in your family has a
computer that needs rejuvenating. We
have PC upgrades to fit every budget.
We set an upper limit of $300, but we
did so just to cover some of our pricier
recommendations. Most of these
upgrades cost far less. Presented in order
of how much of a transformative effect
they’re likely to have, from greatest to
least, here are our 12 favorites.
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85
OUR NUMBER ONE UPGRADE RECOMMENDATION
is a solid-state drive. Why? No upgrade provides a
more noticeable, practical increase in performance
than a fast SSD. Getting one is almost as good as
buying a brand-new PC.
About a year ago, a top model would have run you
approximately a buck per gigabyte. This year the
cost is 80 cents per gigabyte, and sometimes even
less. You’ll wonder how you ever got along without
one of these drives.
With most drives, more capacity
equals faster performance, due
to the presence of more
chips and channels. Also,
if your motherboard
doesn’t have a SATA 6-gbps
connection (all good SSDs are of
this type), pick up a good PCIe 2X
SATA 6-gbps controller—it makes a
huge difference in system speed.
Toshiba’s Q Series Pro 256GB (go.
pcworld.com/toshibaqpro) is almost as fast
as Samsung’s top-dog 840 Pro (go.pcworld.
com/samsung840); we found the 256GB version
of the Toshiba drive online for only $200. It’s the
only drive we’ve tested whose performance doesn’t
drop off at lower capacities, too. In fact, the 128GB
version tested slightly faster than the 256GB model.
11A SOLID-STATE DRIVE
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WHEN IT COMES TO CPUS, what once was state-of-
the-art now won’t pull the cart. And if installing an
SSD doesn’t completely satisfy your need for speed,
maybe adding a new CPU will. Your choice of CPU
depends on what motherboard your computer is
packing under the hood. If your PC has a Socket 1155
motherboard, for instance, your best choice is the
Intel Core i7-3770K (go.pcworld.com/intel3770k),
whose price slips in just under our $300 ceiling and
whose hardware supports overclocking (running
faster than spec) for even better performance.
If you have an AMD AM3+ motherboard, make
your target an AMD FX-9370 (go.
pcworld.com/amdfx),
priced at around $200.
If you already own a
Socket 1150 Haswell
system, but went the
cheapskate route
originally with an Intel
Core i3 or Core i5, opt
for a fourth-generation
Intel Core i7-4770K
(go.pcworld.com/
intel4770k).
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THIS UPGRADE IS FOR GAMERS AND FOR PHOTO
and video geeks only, as even the lowliest integrated
GPU is fast enough to handle the 2D graphics found
in everyday applications. For playing games at a
decent resolution, however, you need a discrete
graphics card from AMD or Nvidia.
Combined with built-in Avivo or CUDA codec
acceleration, a discrete graphics card can also speed
the processing of video files—and with 4K video
rearing its extremely bandwidth-hungry head, that’s
not a bad thing. OpenCL support helps accelerate
photo rendering.
You’re not going to get a state-of-the-art board for
anywhere near $300, but the Nvidia GTX 760 (go.
pcworld.com/nvidgtx) is a great all-around card that
will bring you most of the way there for about $250.
If you’re an AMD diehard or if you want to save ten
fivers, the Radeon R9-270X (go.pcworld.com/radr9)
offers comparable performance for only $200.
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88
A NEW MOTHERBOARD
MAYBE WHAT’S BUGGING YOU is your motherboard’s
lack of USB 3.0, PCIe 3.0, SATA 6-Gbps, SLI/CrossFire
(for multiple graphics cards), or Thunderbolt. If your
CPU is reasonably young, a new motherboard will
provide some or all of those faster technologies.
Another reason to upgrade the motherboard is
downsizing. A micro-ATX or mini-ITX motherboard
takes up less room and fits in a smaller case.
Finally, Intel’s Haswell platform really does use a lot
less energy—which is always a good thing, and an
even better reason to upgrade your motherboard.
(The upgrade requires a new Socket 1150 CPU, too.)
You can find scads of motherboards out there, and
it has been a while since we ran across a lemon from
any manufacturer, but you should probably stick
with a well-known brand name. We have a fondness
for anything from Asus (asus.com/us), Gigabyte
(gigabyte.us), or MSI (us.msi.com), as we’ve rarely
encountered a problem with their products.
44
89
THOUGH IT DOESN’T OFFER THE OBVIOUS
performance boost of an SSD or a faster CPU,
more and better memory lets your operating
system spend less time swapping stuff to disk
and lets you keep more apps and larger files open.
And if you love video, you can’t have enough memory.
Most users will be fine with memory that matches
the fastest frequency their motherboard’s chipset
supports, which is generally DDR3/1600 these days.
As for the amount—2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, 32GB—
the more, the merrier; but 8GB should be plenty
unless you need extreme speed. You’ll pay about
$7.50 a gigabyte for on-spec, brand-name, non-ECC
(error-correcting code) memory, and about $12 per
gigabyte for the ECC kind.
If you took our advice and bought a CPU with
overclocking capabilities, you’ll want memory that
supports the same feature. A lot of high-quality
enthusiast-level memory is available, but we’ve had
good luck with the Kingston 2400MHz HyperX
Predator, which costs about $12.50
a gigabyte. Kingston
also sells 2800MHz of
memory for about $32
a gigabyte if you really
want to push the limits—
and your budget.
SPEEDIER MEMORY
55
AND MORE
OF IT
66
HARD-DRIVE PRICES STILL
haven’t returned to their all-
time low level of a couple of
years ago, but they’re no
longer the premium item they
became immediately after
the 2011 floods in Thailand.
You can now get 4GB in a
single drive—just in time to
hold all those 1080p movies
you’ve been downloading.
Hybrid drives didn’t live up to
the hype, so you’re best off
sticking with the traditional kind.
Our pick of the litter is the Western
Digital Black 4TB (go.pcworld.com/
wdblack) . The successor to the Caviar
Black, the WD Black 4TB costs a pretty penny (about
$220 at the time of this writing), but it spins at a
dizzying 7200 rpm, has a whopping 64MB cache, and
carries a reassuring five-year warranty. It has tested
faster than just about everything else in its class, too.
You might, of course, opt for a cheaper drive—
especially if the newcomer will be playing second
fiddle to an SSD in your system. If you’re feeling
adventurous or you’re worried about losing your
data, consider buying two drives and running them
in RAID 0 (for more speed) or in RAID 1 (for safety).
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NO WIRELESS SETUP WILL BE AS FAST
as wired gigabit ethernet, but you might
find that the latest generation, 802.11ac, is fast
enough to let you embrace a life without wires
and switches. Under the right circumstances
(802.11ac at both ends), the technology gets
you about two-thirds of what you get with
gigabit ethernet. For this upgrade, you’ll
have to purchase both an 802.11ac router
and an 802.11ac adapter for your PC.
On the router side, Asus’s RT-AC68U
(go.pcworld.com/asusrta) bested all
competitors in our recent tests. At
$220, it’s pricey—but it’s also very
fast. As for an adapter, you can’t
go wrong with the $70 Netgear
A6200 USB 3.0 (go.pcworld.
com/netgearusb).
77
AN 802.11AC WI-FI SETUP
91
92
A LIQUID COOLER
LIQUID-BASED SYSTEMS COOL BETTER THAN
traditional air-only systems do—and that
advantage can be a significant boon if we’ve talked
you into overclocking, with its high thermal over-
head. Although a liquid-cooling system’s radiator has
a fan, chances are good that it’s replacing an existing
case fan and is a whisper-quiet, top-of-the-line
model. You might consider ornamental liquid-
cooling systems with clear tubing and colored or
UV-reactive fluid, if you’re into such things.
You can pay a lot of money for liquid cooling—but
most users will be fine with something modest, such
as Corsair’s $85 Hydro Series H75 (go.pcworld.com/
corsair75), which consists of a copper water block,
a radiator, and a single 120mm cooling fan, or with
the same company’s $120 Hydro Series H100i (go.
pcworld.com/corsair100), which has a dual radiator
and two 120mm fans.
88
93
HAVE RETINA OR 4K ENVY? Want to reach out and
drag things around on your Windows home screen
with your bare hands? A new display may be the
upgrade you’re looking for.
Alas, even the least-expensive 24-inch touchscreen
display currently exceeds our $300 limit; however,
you can find a 23-, 24-, or 27-inch 1080p model
without touch capabilities for less than that. A
multitude of good displays are available, but we’ve
had particularly good results over the years with Dell
models. You can pick up the company’s 23-inch
E2314H (go.pcworld.com/dell2314) for just $200.
A LARGER DISPLAY
99
94
DESPITE SOME USERS’ UNBRIDLED PASSION
for touch, the fastest way to navigate and to input
information on a PC remains the humble mouse and
venerable keyboard. Moving up to models with more
heft and a better feel opens a world of luxurious
tactile sensations. Wireless models reduce cable
clutter. Sold yet?
Logitech makes many worthy keyboards, and some
people swear by the Microsoft ergonomic models.
Nevertheless, if you can find an old IBM Model M,
you’re typing on the best keyboard ever made. The
$129 Das Keyboard Professional Model S Mechanical
Keyboard (go.pcworld.com/daskey) is much the
same thing, sans the Model M’s rather high decibel
level. Me? I live for the clack.
Among mice, consider the svelte, wireless $70
Logitech Ultrathin Touch Mouse T630 (go.pcworld.
com/logi630). Although it’s designed for Ultrabooks,
it’s a pleasantly self-indulgent pairing for any system.
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95
I RECENTLY UPGRADED MY PC CASE—to make it
smaller. For $50, I snagged a Cooler Master HD 120,
which is about the size of a breadbox but has room
for a full-size graphics card. Alas, going small means
switching to a smaller motherboard as well—and
before you know it, you’re sliding down the slippery
(but not altogether unpleasant) upgrade slope.
Tastes vary when it comes to case aesthetics, but
the $100-and-up Corsair Obsidian
series (go.pcworld.com/
corsairob) for all
the flavors of ATX,
the $70 BitFenix
Prodigy (go.
pcworld.com/
bitfen) and $50
Cooler Master
Elite 130 (go.
pcworld.com/
elite130) for mini-
ITX are good
places to start
looking. You can
save a few bucks
by reusing your
old power supply,
if it’s up-to-date
enough.
A NEW CASE
1111
WE CONSIDERED MAKING
backup the number one item on
the list because its presence will
forestall so many problems.
If you want a local backup,
choose a hard drive with the
fastest interface technology your
system supports: Thunderbolt,
eSATA, USB 3.0, FireWire (which
is fading from the scene), or
USB 2.0, in that order. Speed is
essential—if backups take too long
to make, you’ll give up on the process.
LaCie (go.pcworld.com/laci), Seagate
(go.pcworld.com/seagate), and WD (go.
pcworld.com/wd) all manufacture capable
external drives, and all of them include backup
software, though Windows itself provides
everything you need.
You might even consider opting for a NAS
(network-attached storage) box, which can also
back up multiple PCs and devices without your
having to drag it around. You can also opt for online
backup, by itself or in addition to a local option;
figure on paying $50 a year for such a service. If that
seems expensive, think about the minimum $700 it
costs these days to recover data from a corrupted
hard drive—if recovery is possible at all.A B
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96
GET STARTED with Win-dows 8. Follow step-by-step instructions to install the new operating system.
BECOME AN ANDROID authority with this compre-hensive guide to the Android Honeycomb OS.
EXTEND BATTERY LIFE in your laptop, phone, and camera with these useful hints and tricks.
SPEED UP YOUR TECH gear that has lost its pep. These fixes will get you back into the fast lane.
ICE CREAM SANDWICH is the most delicious Android OS yet. Get the scoop on Google’s latest mobile OS.
DISCOVER EVERYTHING about Windows 7. Uncover its most useful features with this hands-on guide.
GET THINGS DONE while you wait for a flight. Find out which airports are the best for tech travelers.
MASTER WINDOWS 7 with these 50 essential tips and secret utilities. Master Windows Update, and more.
PCWorld Superguides are available in a variety of formats, so they’re easy to read on nearly any device.
The PCWorld Superguide Series Get PCWorld’s thorough reference guides to help you learn more about your tech gear. These books are packed with practical how-to advice, in-depth fea-tures, tips and tricks, and much more.
Get Yours Today: pcworld.com/superguide
You might know Joshua.
He loves video games, and he
owns enough to know they’re not
all meant for kids. That’s why he
reminds his friends (at least the
ones that have kids) that they all
have big black letters on the box
to help parents find the ones that
are best for their families.
You can learn about those
ratings at ESRB.org
Los Angeles, CA
LAPTOPS
WORK & PLAY
FO
R
THE DIFFERENCES THAT MATTER
99
aptops come in many flavors—
thin-and-light, convertible, desktop
replacement, portable workstation—but all
of them fall into one of two main categories:
consumer and business models. Laptop
manufacturers label some systems for
consumers and others for business. While
both incorporate similar components and
run the same operating system, business
laptops can cost twice as much. Why the high
price tag? Primarily it’s because businesses
demand computers that are built to last and
easy to maintain. Once you understand the
differentiators, you can decide what best fits
your computing needs—and your budget.
BY JO N L. JACO B I / I L LU S T R AT I O N S BY C H I B I R M I N G H A M
Which is right for you, a business or consumer laptop?
We’ll help you figure it out.
100
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eompanies expect business laptops to
remain in service much longer than a
typical consumer notebook does, and to withstand
at least a little rough handling. As such, business
laptops normally rely on especially strong
materials—aluminum or magnesium, for
instance—and rugged design specifications.
Consumer laptops—especially budget models—
make copious use of plastic.
Most businesses standardize on one or a few
laptop models, and they keep the machines in
service for at least three years. This stability
reduces the tech-support burden on the
company’s IT department. When a manufacturer
introduces a new business laptop, it often commits
to keeping that model available for between 18
months and five years, so its corporate customers
can supplement their fleets down the road.
Business systems
like Dell’s Latitude
6430u are made of
rugged materials.
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Business buyers also expect replacement parts to
be available over the laptop’s entire service life. That
means the manufacturer must maintain an
inventory of parts it might never actually sell. The
price of the notebook reimburses the manufacturer
for some of that cost.
Consumer laptops tend to have much shorter shelf
lives. A given model might be available for a year or
even less before a newer model replaces it. Toshiba
initially manufactured a limited number of its
luxurious Kirabooks, for example, and switched to
Intel’s fourth-generation Core processor when it
produced the next batch.
Consumers are more apt than businesses to
replace rather than repair a failing laptop.
Sometimes this decision represents the most
sensible strategy—or even the only strategy, as
manufacturers may run out of crucial replacement
parts for models in their consumer product lines.
Other times, this approach gives consumers an
excuse to buy a new model with all the latest
fripperies. Businesses can’t afford to change
models on a whim, as each switch incurs costs
beyond acquiring a new machine: testing, training,
software licenses, and more.
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Businesses can’t change models on a whim, as each switch incurs costs beyond buying a new machine.
Only Apple
uses these
screws on
business
systems.
usiness laptops are generally easier to
maintain and fix than consumer models.
You won’t find Torx screws or Apple’s ridiculous new
Pentalobe fasteners on a business machine (unless
it’s a MacBook Pro).
With many business laptop models, a common
Phillips screwdriver should be the only tool you
need. And with a machine like HP’s ZBook 15 (go.
pcworld.com/hpzb15) mobile workstation, you
won’t even need that. Slide open two friction locks,
and you can remove its bottom panel to reach its
memory, storage, Wi-Fi adapter, battery, and more.
User-serviceable components are increasingly
rare in consumer-oriented notebooks, as they have
become disposable commodities.
With many business models, the only tool you’ll need is a Phillips screwdriver.
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he port selection on consumer laptops
usually depends on the price tag: High-end
machines sport the newest technologies early,
while budget machines lag behind. These days,
many I/O technologies—such as USB 3.0 and
HDMI—are ubiquitous on consumer laptops. Very
advanced technologies, such as Thunderbolt and
Thunderbolt 2, have caught on more slowly.
Business laptops usually lag in offering the latest
connection technologies because corporate nickel-
nursers don’t want to pay for something that isn’t
yet—and may never be—mainstream. And legacy
technologies like VGA hang around on business
laptops because users need to connect their
systems to aging video projectors.
Today, wireless networking is de rigueur in both
classes of laptops. An integrated 802.11ac Wi-Fi
adapter is your best choice, but 802.11n adapters
are cheaper and more common. Some business
laptops also permit cellular connectivity via a SIM
If you spend a lot of time at a desk, but still need laptop mobility, a docking station can be a godsend.
HP’s ZBook 15 has almost every I/O port you can think of.
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card that users can install inside the laptop or plug
into an external port.
Smart card and ExpressCard slots appear
exclusively on business laptops. Smart cards prevent
unauthorized users from gaining access to the
computer while it is powered up but unattended.
ExpressCard is a legacy interface that replaced the
even older PC Card and PCMCIA technologies.
Many business laptops come with docking ports;
consumer laptops almost never do. If you spend a
lot of time at a desk, but still need the mobility of a
laptop, a docking station or port replicator can be a
godsend. You hard-wire your peripherals to the
docking station, and then physically connect the
laptop to the docking station. Push one button (or
disconnect one cable), grab your laptop, and go.
You don’t have to buy a business laptop to use a
docking port. Third-party devices such as the
Targus Universal USB 3.0 DV (go.pcworld.com/
uniusb3) deliver similar functionality via USB and
DisplayLink technologies. And the WiGig wireless
technology eliminates the need for a physical
connection between laptop and dock. WiGig has
been slow to catch on, but Dell jumped on it early
with the Wireless Dock D5000 (go.pcworld.com/
dockd5000), which is now compatible with a
number of its laptops.
No Wi-Fi hotspot around?
That’s no problem if your
laptop can handle a SIM card.
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Surprisingly, Toshiba’s
business-oriented Tecra
offers an HDMI video port.
he graphics processors integrated into
modern CPUs are all you need for surfing
the Web, watching movies, and performing most
other common tasks. For computationally intense
applications, you need a discrete graphics
processor. If a consumer laptop has one of these,
the system is designed to run games. A business
laptop with a discrete GPU is designed to handle
computer-aided design (CAD), 3D modeling,
scientific or medical imaging, content creation,
and the like; look for machines outfitted with AMD
FirePro Mobile Graphics or Nvidia Quadro Mobile
Workstation cards.
Most HDTVs have HDMI ports, and consumer
laptops often use that interface, too. But
DisplayPort, which business-oriented laptops and
displays tend to use, is a superior video interface
for business users; see “HDMI vs. DisplayPort:
Which display interface reigns supreme?” (go.
pcworld.com/hdmivsdp). A single DisplayPort 1.2
interface can support four monitors at
1920-by-1200-pixel resolution each, or two
monitors at 2560-by-1600-pixel resolution each. In
either case, each display can receive independent
audio and video streams. Both DisplayPort and
HDMI can support a single 4K monitor (defined as
having a resolution of 3840 by 2160 pixels).
display
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orporate IT departments that oversee
hundreds or even thousands of laptops
need to be able to manage these devices
remotely. Though most small businesses don’t
have IT departments, many pay consultants to
manage their IT resources. Buying a laptop
equipped with a CPU- or BIOS-level technology
such as Intel’s vPro, DASH (Desktop and Mobile
Architecture for System Hardware), or HP’s
SureStart can save time and money.
These tools enable IT specialists to monitor,
manage, remotely access, and even repair
laptop software installations in the field. The
user doesn’t need to be present, and the laptop
may be so compromised—by a malware
infection, a borked software installation, or a
corrupted file—that it can’t boot to its
operating system.
Remotely reimaging (that is, copying all the
software, including the OS, back to the laptop’s
hard drive over a network connection) saves
time and avoids the expense of travel or
shipping. Furthermore, vPro can prevent certain
types of malware and attacks that occur below
the operating system level, and SureStart
Business laptops ofen integrate security features into their hardware to protect sensitive data.
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The Toshiba Tecra
incorporates a
fingerprint scanner.
(available only on HP machines) can quickly
restore a previous version of the computer’s BIOS
if the current version suffers is attacked or
becomes corrupted.
To protect sensitive information they may
contain, business laptops often have special
security features integrated into their hardware.
A biometric device such as a fingerprint scanner
can verify an authorized user’s identity, for
instance, while encryption tools such as a TPM
(Trusted Platform Module) chip and Windows
BitLocker can scramble data as the user writes it
to the laptop’s hard drive. Data encryption
prevents interlopers from reading data in
coherent form unless they have the proper keys
for decoding it.
If you consider vPro or DASH must-have
features for your laptop, make sure that the
model you buy has those features. Not every
business laptop does. For models with Intel
CPUs, check Intel’s ARK site (ark.intel.com) to
see whether the chip has vPro support. Any
laptop that has both an AMD CPU and a TPM
chip will support DASH. SureStart is strictly an
HP technology, so check the specs for the
model you’re interested in buying to see
whether it has that feature.
Next Up: Preinstalled software
ma
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npack a consumer laptop and you’ll find
lots of junk consuming storage space
already: games, demos, trialware, links to websites,
and more. Software companies pay laptop
manufacturers to preinstall this glop, which can
reduce the price of the finished product. You don’t
have to leave any of it in place, of course, but
removing it is a hassle, even with the aid of free
software like Piriform’s CCleaner (go.pcworld.com/
ccleaner). The tech-support desk at your local big-
box store will happily handle the removal process—
but not for free.
Businesses don’t want to waste time and money
removing bloatware, so manufacturers reduce or
eliminate such add-ons from their business laptops.
Businesses that buy systems in bulk can specify the
exact software footprint they want.
Because most corporations are keen to keep all
employees on the same platform (to simplify and
reduce the cost of tech support), they often stick
with an operating system long after a new version
is released. When you buy a consumer laptop, it will
most likely come with Windows 8.1 installed.
Business laptops often come with the rights to
downgrade from Windows 8 to Windows 7, or with
the option to have a flavor of Linux.
Businesses that buy systems in bulk can specify the exact sofware footprint they want.
pre
installed
so
fw
are
ypically the manufacturer’s warranty for
a consumer laptop promises to correct
any defects that may arise in the machine within
the first year of ownership, at no charge. Low-ball
units might be protected for just 90 days. Such
brief warranties keep prices low and allow
retailers to pitch third-party extended
warranties. Any business laptop worthy of the
name will come with a three-year warranty, and
the buyer may be able to extend the period of
coverage to five or even six years.
When a consumer laptop fails, the owner
usually must ship or carry the unit to a service
depot for diagnostics and repair. Such depots
rarely offer a guaranteed turnaround time, and if
a component needs replacing, they may not have
the part in stock. In a worst-case scenario, a
laptop submitted for repair could be missing in
action for weeks.
Businesses can’t afford to have their employees
sitting around twiddling their thumbs as they
wait for their laptops to be fixed. An enterprise IT
department will have loaner units on hand, and
Next Up: Preinstalled software
Dell’s Latitude 7440
offers easy access for
upgrades or repairs.
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they’ll often perform the repairs in-house or deal
with the vendor directly. Small businesses can
avoid lost productivity by taking advantage of a
business-laptop manufacturer’s guarantees of
on-site service and a short turnaround (typically
24 hours, not including transit time if the unit
must go back to the factory).
Consumer tech support varies in quality and
efficiency, but it’s generally a hit-or-miss
proposition that may occur only via email or
online chat. The toll-free support number, if it
exists, is unlikely to be available 24/7, and callers
commonly have to endure long hold times. The
tech support offered may not cover software
issues at all.
Business travelers trying to finish their work
before a big meeting need their hardware and
software problems solved right away, so
manufacturers’ support policies for business
laptops are far more robust. Telephone tech
support is nearly always available, and it includes
software support.
Next Up: Preinstalled software
When a consumer laptop fails, the owner usually must ship or carry it to a service depot for repair.
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fter reading this article, you may wonder
whether I think business laptops are the
better choice for all potential buyers. I don’t. They
tend to be more expensive at the outset, and their
higher cost of ownership doesn’t make sense for
nonbusiness buyers, especially those with DIY skills.
If you’re not purchasing a fleet of laptops and you
don’t rely completely on your laptop for your
livelihood (smartphones and tablets can serve as
tolerable stopgaps these days), a consumer laptop
should fill your needs.
But if time is money in your world, a business
laptop’s better support, longer warranty, extended
life cycle, and enhanced security features will save
you some cash over the long haul—even if your
“fleet” consists of a single laptop.
Consumers should, for the most part, stick with
consumer products. A higher-end model will
provide many of the features you’d find in a
business laptop, for less money—though you’re
unlikely to find a consumer model that offers Intel’s
vPro or HP’s SureStart.
A consumer-
oriented system
like the Toshiba
Kirabook may fit
the bill just fine.
bu
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es
s or c
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r?
114 Your backup drive needs a backup plan
118 Master texting with these 9 basic tips
122 Hassle-Free PC: Supercharge Gmail with Labs features
125 Answer Line: Reinstall Windows when you’ve lost your disc or partition
HERE’S
HOW
f you’ve gotten into the habit of backing up your PC (go.
pcworld.com/simplebackup), congratulations—but you aren’t
as safe as you may think you are. Files on your backup drive can
be just as vulnerable to disaster as files on your system can be.
Most recently CryptoLocker (go.pcworld.com/cryptolocker)
demonstrated that an external drive connected to a PC—such as an
Files on your backup drive may be vulnerable to disaster unless you take precautions. BY TONY BRADLEY
I
How to build, maintain, and fix your tech gear.
HERE’S HOW
Your backup drive needs a backup plan
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external USB hard drive used for backup purposes—could fall victim
to ransomware just as easily as the computer itself.
“A lot of people got burned by CryptoLocker because their attached
backup drives were also encrypted by the Trojan,” explains Dwayne
Melancon, chief technology officer of enterprise security company
Tripwire. “CryptoLocker encrypts local data files, but it also looks for
attached storage devices, network shares, and other storage locations
connected to your computer.”
Don’t let such a catastrophe befall you. Here are a few options for
protecting your backup drive.
Disconnect your backup mediaMarc Maiffret, CTO of security software firm BeyondTrust, sums up
the most commonsense solution: “Make sure to back up to media that
can be removed physically from your system and stored offline.”
This approach is not especially convenient, of course, but it’s a good
tactic for a couple of reasons. First, it moves your backup data out of
harm’s way if ransomware ever infects your computer. Second, if you
store the backup media in a fireproof safe—or better still, off-site in a
safe deposit box—the backup may survive even if a natural (or
unnatural) physical disaster destroys the original data.
One option is to back up your data to
less-volatile media such as
recordable CDs or DVDs. Once
the recording session is
finalized, the data should be
safe from malware threats even
if the disc remains in the drive.
The downside of using optical
discs is the media’s much
smaller storage capacity
compared with a modern hard
drive: Performing a full backup
may require multiple discs.
Back up to the cloudConsider using the cloud to hold your backups rather than storing
the files locally. Cloud backup applications generally run as a
background service that the system doesn’t view as an attached or
networked drive. As a result, malware threats are unlikely to spread
directly to your cloud backups.
Most modern backup systems use a proprietary storage format for
further protection. “This makes the backed-up files unable to be read
or written to by common malware,” says Paul Lipman, CEO of Total
Defense, which sells online backup services as well as antivirus and
security software. “It doesn’t mean it’s impossible—it’s just highly
unlikely. Malware generally works by attaching to existing files on
the system; and in cases of proprietary storage formats, the malware
would not be able to infect the backup directly.”
Note, however, that most cloud backup services automatically sync
and update data. If your local PC becomes compromised, you’ll want
to disable the service to prevent the compromised data from
overwriting your good backup data.
HERE’S HOW
Using a cloud
backup service
such as
Backblaze
helps to secure
your data.
Back up multiple versionsThe most effective way to safeguard your backup is to maintain more
than one copy. You have two methods to accomplish this.
First, most security experts suggest backing up important data to
more than one location: For example, back up to an external USB drive
that you then disconnect, and also use cloud backup. If infection or
disaster compromises either backup, you’ll still have a good copy.
The second approach is to maintain version histories of your files:
Save multiple backups from different points in time, and choose a cloud
backup service that holds more than just the most recent backup, so you
can restore data from a time before the compromise occurred.
“I also create several generations of local and off-site image backups
of my computer, so I can quickly restore one of them if my system is
lost, compromised, or otherwise unusable,” Tripwire’s Melancon says.
Without a backup plan for your backup drive, you’re not much better
off than if you’d never backed up. Follow one of the methods here to
ensure that your backup will be available when you need it most.
HERE’S HOW
Redundancy is
the strongest
protection for
your backed-up
data. CrashPlan
can back up to
multiple
locations.
TEXTING IS THE NEW CALLING, and with so many texts flying back
and forth, it’s a good idea to make sure you’re getting your message
across as clearly as possible. Here are some suggestions.
Use text shortcuts
Save time with text shortcuts—shorthand blurbs that you enter and
that expand to a longer word or phrase when you tap the spacebar.
For instance, you can have “brb” turn into “be right back.”
On iOS, open Settings, tap General, and then tap Keyboard. In the
Shortcuts section, tap Add New Shortcut, enter the phrase you want
ready access to, and enter the shortcut you want to assign. Tap Save.
On Android, go to Settings, select Language & input under the
BY NICK MEDIATI
Master texting with these 9 basic tips
PH
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Personal subheading, and tap Personal dictionary. Press the plus (+)
button at the upper right, and then enter the phrase and its shortcut.
Tap the Back button, and Android will save your shortcut.
Switch your keyboardIf you have an Android phone, try a new keyboard on for size. A
different keyboard can offer extra features—or even different layouts.
Check out the recommendations at our sister site TechHive (go.
pcworld.com/andkeyboards), and then head to the Google Play store.
Use emoji or emoticonsEmoji and emoticons are more than just cute—they can convey
meaning and subtext. If you own an iPhone, or are one of the lucky
few to have Android 4.4 KitKat, check out the emoji keyboard.
On iOS, open Settings, tap General, and then tap Keyboard. On the
Keyboard settings screen, tap Keyboards u Add New Keyboard, and
HERE’S HOW
Keyboard
shortcuts make it
easier to express
your rage in text
messages.
select Emoji from the list. The next time you tap out a text in the
Messages app, you’ll notice a globe icon next to the spacebar. Tap it,
and then insert a few faces. (Just don’t go too crazy with it.)
On Android, things are a little more involved. KitKat has built-in
emoji support (learn more at go.pcworld.com/kitkatemoji), but earlier
versions don’t make emoji entry easy.
Although not all smartphone models support emoji, remember that
you don’t need anything special to use traditional emoticons such as
“:P” and “:/” (so those are always an option).
If in doubt, be directNot everyone is great at picking up on subtext, not everyone is
skilled at using emoticons, and not every situation lends itself well
to sarcasm, irony, or humor. And even though your friends might
appreciate your quirky sense of humor, other people might find it
to be an acquired taste. If you’re exchanging messages with someone
you don’t know well, keep your text direct and to the point, and avoid
unintentional miscommunication.
To add a keyboard
shortcut on Android,
create a new
dictionary entry.
(Mmmmm,
cheesecake.)
Avoid autocorrect mishapsWe’ve all been there: You make a typo and autocorrect misinterprets it.
You hastily try to correct it, which then begets a cascading autocorrect
nightmare, and your mangled text ends up on Damn You Auto Correct
(www.damnyouautocorrect.com). Before tapping Send, take a deep
breath and count to three. Review the message for unfortunate typos
or autocorrect errors. Confirm that your text makes sense and that
you’re using something approaching proper grammar, too.
Don’t text while angryTaking a moment to think can also come in handy if you’re upset. If
someone’s text puts you in a foul mood, stop, put the phone away,
and resist the urge to reply until you’ve calmed down. Showing a little
restraint now can save you from headaches and heartache later.
Don’t text while inebriatedNothing says “bad judgment” like running off your virtual mouth while
you aren’t in control of your mental faculties. If you’re at the bar, hand
over your car keys—and your phone—to your group’s designated driver.
Just make sure to log out of Facebook or Twitter beforehand, lest
they post embarrassing things under your name.
Don’t text while walkingFew things in modern life are as annoying as that person who insists on
tapping out a text message while shuffling along slowly on a crowded
sidewalk. Other pedestrians just want to get on with their day. For
everyone’s sake, step to the side and tap out your message. Once
you’re done, tuck your phone into your pocket and go on your way.
Don’t text while drivingAlthough drunken texting will embarrass you, texting while driving
can injure or kill you—or other people. Research shows the practice to
be at least as dangerous as driving drunk, and it’s already against the
law in many states. If you’re driving, stow your phone. It can wait.
HERE’S HOW
HERE’S HOW
Supercharge Gmail with Labs features
BY IAN PAUL
HASSLE-FREE PC
GOOGLE’S GMAIL PACKS a slew of features for staying
productive and organized. But one big advantage is the extra
stuff you can add through Gmail Labs.
To enable Labs features, first click the settings cog in the
upper-right corner of the Gmail interface and select Settings
from the drop-down menu. Click the Labs tab to see a list of
items. (Any Labs features you’ve already enabled will appear
first.) Click Enable to the right of any item you desire, and
then scroll down and click Save Changes.
Note that a small dose of daring is required: Labs’
experimental tools sometimes become full-fledged Gmail
features, but they can also break or vanish without warning.
That said, some Labs experiments can streamline your email
management. Here are three of my favorites.
‘Mark as read’ buton
Having trouble adhering to the Inbox Zero system? Here’s
what I do: At the end of every day, I click the select-all
Click the Labs
settings tab to
find useful
Gmail add-ons.
checkbox at the top of the Inbox and then mark all messages as read.
Okay, maybe that’s cheating, but it works for me. Of course, life
would be easier if Gmail didn’t require users to right-click or to dig
into the More menu just to find the ‘Mark as read’ option.
Thank goodness for the Mark as Read Button item in Labs. As the
item’s name suggests, enabling it creates a discrete, convenient
‘Mark as read’ button at the top of the Inbox window once you have
selected one or more messages.
Undo Send
Whether it’s a wisecrack delivered to an unintended recipient, an
incomplete and incoherent message, or an incorrect address, sending
a message by accident is bad news. Labs has a remedy: Undo Send
gives you up to 30 seconds after you’ve clicked the Send button to
call your message back—no harm, no foul.
Enabling this experiment takes a bit of work, however. Once you’ve
enabled Undo Send in Labs, open the Settings options again. Scroll
‘Mark as read’
in action.
down under the General tab to the Undo Send section. Click the
checkbox for Enable Undo Send if the setting isn’t enabled already.
Click the drop-down menu that appears underneath and then select
the amount of time you’d like for your undo grace period. Finally,
scroll down and click Save Changes.
Green Robot
Green Robot lets you know, with a little robot
icon, when your Gmail chat contacts are
currently on a mobile device, clueing you in to
expect shorter or delayed responses.
Note that this Labs item works only if you
are using Gmail’s old chat interface rather
than the new Hangouts format. Google, however, has yet to force all
Gmail users over to Hangouts, so this tweak still works for now. If
you’d like to switch back to Gmail chat from Hangouts (PC only),
click your name at the top of the Hangouts/chat window in Gmail.
At the bottom of the drop-down menu, click Revert to old chat.
The Undo Send item gives you up to 30 seconds to call your email message back.
HERE’S
HOW
Reinstall Windows when you’ve lost your disc or partition
Q:WAYNE KLAWUHN USED the Darik’s Boot and Nuke
utility (www.dban.org) to securely wipe his hard drive.
Unfortunately, the erasing procedure also wiped the tools
necessary for reinstalling Windows.
A:EVERY COMPUTER THAT’S sold with Windows
preinstalled must come with a tool for reinstalling
the operating system. The most common approach puts the
restoration tool on a specially designated partition on the
BY LINCOLN SPECTOR
ANSWER LINEP
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HY
BY
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HERE’S HOW
hard drive. Some computers, particularly from
small manufacturers, come instead with an
OEM Windows DVD.
But what do you do if that partition has been
lost—either through a hard-drive crash or user
error? Or what if you’ve misplaced that DVD?
If you purchased the PC from a major vendor,
contact the vendor and ask if the company can provide a replacement.
Such copies usually come on a DVD or on a flash drive. I know for a fact
that Dell, HP, and Lenovo offer this service. Dell charges about $90; I
don’t know what the other companies charge.
Another option that might work: See if you can borrow a Windows
DVD from someone. It must be the exact version of Windows your
PC had—for instance, Windows 7 Home Premium. It also must be a
complete version of the operating system, not an upgrade disc.
After the installation, when it comes time to activate Windows,
use the activation number on your PC. You should find it on a plate,
probably mounted on the back of your desktop system or on the
bottom of your laptop. Do not use the activation number printed on
the package the disc came in. If you do, it will either fail or severely
inconvenience the friend who lent you the disc.
If all of the above tactics fail, you may have to buy a whole new retail
or OEM copy of Windows. Or switch to Linux.
When it comes time to activate Windows, use the activation number on your PC.
News, tips, and reviews covering phones, tablets,apps, and all the other tech in your life.
TechHive helps you find your tech sweet spot.
We steer you to products you’ll love and show you how to get the most out of them.
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About Us
PH
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ON
GR
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Remembering Pat McGovern, the technology media tycoon you never knewPCWorld is here today because Pat shared our founders’ passion for technology and educating people about it. Longtime PCWorlders remember his vision and his boundless energy. BY MELISSA RIOFRIO
IN MEMORIAM
HE WAS THE media tycoon who flew beneath your radar. And yet Patrick J.
McGovern, who died March 19 at the age of 76, is the reason PCWorld—
along with hundreds of other technology-oriented websites, publications,
and events—is here today.
We’re here because Pat believed in the power of technology and the
need to educate people about what it meant, and how to use it. On one
recent day, for example, PCWorld.com posted breaking stories about new
Intel chips and Microsoft DirectX 12 graphics. We reviewed Toshiba’s
Kirabook and six mechanical gaming keyboards. And we produced a
feature on Excel tips and tricks. If you’ve read and liked any of our stories,
then we’ve fulfilled what Pat wanted from the start.
An independent editorial voiceIt was always all about the technology for Pat, who started following the
industry in 1964 when he founded International Data Corporation, a
research firm that remains a leader in its field and is now a subsidiary of our
parent company, International Data Group. Pat had already founded trade
IT publications, including IDG’s flagship Computerworld, when in 1982 he
invested in the fledgling personal computer magazine PC World. Founded
by David Bunnell and Cheryl Woodard, PC World quickly became a leader in
covering PCs and everything connected to them. Now called PCWorld (we
dropped the space), we celebrated our 30th anniversary in 2013.
From the beginning, Pat McGovern championed an independent
editorial voice. Robert Luhn, who joined PC World’s staff shortly after the
magazine’s launch, recalls, “We were given the freedom to report and
write, and say what was what. I think that’s why people ultimately ended
up trusting PC World more than its competitors.”
“I always felt that he had my back in terms of editorial matters,” says
former editor-in-chief Harry McCracken, who abruptly left PC World in
Pat had already founded trade IT publications, including IDG’s Computerworld, when in 1982 he invested in the fledgling PC World.
2007 over an editorial dispute with our then-publisher. “When I chose to
quit PC World, he called me directly and said I could publish any story I
wanted to.” (IDG swiftly resolved the dispute, and Harry returned to PC
World for another year.)
Steve Fox, who was PCWorld’s editorial director until 2012, says, “In the
same way everyone talks about Steve Jobs being Apple, for those of us
who were at IDG, we understood that Pat McGovern was IDG.”
Pat McGovern built a culture at IDG that had two centers: technology
and people. He believed that high-quality publications started with
hiring and training the best people and keeping them as happy as
possible. This was a tall order in the hard-charging, high-pressure world of
journalism, but Pat persisted. Whether it was the signed memos he sent
to individuals whose work he had noticed, or his yearly tradition of handing
out the holiday bonuses in person, we couldn’t fault his friendly touch.
“In my short time at IDG, I got only a single chance to meet Pat,” says
PCWorld editor-in-chief Jon Phillips, “but his legend preceded him. I’ve
heard ‘Pat stories’ at company meetings and in training sessions, and
even from employees who’ve left the IDG fold. He was basically a founding
father of tech media, and the magazines he established in the ’80s
created a blueprint for so much of the tech journalism we still read today.
The fact that IDG is a three-pronged effort of tech media, tech research,
and tech-focused venture capital says so much about his ambition level.
And his fascination with brain research, via all his work with MIT, tells us
that this guy’s sense of wonder and intellect ran really, really deep.”
So when we say good-bye to Pat today, we’re not saying good-bye to
your standard-issue CEO, who has to be smart, and good at building
businesses and making hard decisions, all while maintaining a company’s
public face. Pat could do all of that. But he also brought a specific passion
for technology to his job, which drove his ambitions for all of IDG’s
Pat believed that high-quality publications started with hiring and training the best people and keeping them happy.
IN MEMORIAM
businesses. And he had a warm and humane approach, which made him
“Uncle Pat” to many of us, even on our hardest and longest days.
We still can’t believe he’s gone. He always seemed to have boundless
energy and enthusiasm, despite a work and travel schedule that would
have exhausted any normal person. “He had the vigor that comes from
loving what you do and loving your life,” Steve Fox told me, and may we
all be so lucky. Thanks for everything, Pat.
Pat brought a specific passion for technology to his job, which drove his ambitions for all of IDG’s businesses.