pc magazine - june 2014

DIGITAL EDITION

JUNE 2014

SMARTWATCHES HAS THEIR TIME COME?

THE BEST

FITNESS

APPS

TOP

EVERNOTE

TIPS

SMARTWATCHES:

HAS THEIR TIME

COME?We look at one of the latest

technology trends to determine

whether the future really will be

worn on your wrist.

THE BEST FITNESS APPS

You always have your phone with

you, so why not put it to good use?

Your ideal body may be just a

download away.

DON’T LET RATS HIJACK

YOUR MAC!

Remote access Trojans can give

hackers control over your Mac.

Here are some ways to protect

yourself and your computer.

FEATURES

COVER STORY

JUNE 2014

CONTENTS

REVIEWS

CONSUMER

ELECTRONICS

Sennheiser HD6 Mix

OnePlus One (Unlocked)

Sony Alpha 6000

iRobot Scooba 450

HARDWARE

Beeverycreative Beethefirst

MSI GT70 2PC Dominator

Asus Transformer Book Trio

CyberPower Zeus Mini

Seagate Backup Plus Fast

SOFTWARE

Snagit

OnePlus One

Beethefirst

AT&T PLANNING

IN-FLIGHT 4G LTE

Flying mobile LTE Internet could

be a reality as soon as 2015.

THIS CIRCUIT BOARD

TECH IS 90 PERCENT

RECYCLABLE

Cunning design techniques—plus

hot water—may bring new life to

old hardware.

NEW STORAGE FOR

FLEXIBLE COMPUTERS

Magnetic fields and OLEDs may

expand storage capabilities for

low-cost plastic computers.

CHAT

Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan weighs

in on why he’s head of more than

just a gaming company.

TOP GEAR

LAUNCH WINDOW

WHAT’S NEW NOW

TOP GEAR: Aros Smart Air Conditioner

GET ORGANIZED

Keep Track of Your Stuff

TIPS

Make the Most of Evernote

SHOPPING

Tech Gifts for Grads

GAMING

Conquer Dark Souls II

APPSCOUT

Our Favorite Apps for June

DIGITAL LIFE

DAN COSTA

First Word

JAMIE LENDINO

BASIC Is 50, and I Still Miss It

SAMARA LYNN

You Love Easy Networking Setup, but So Do Scammers

TIM BAJARIN

Does Apple Need a Large-Screen iPhone?

JOHN C. DVORAK

Last Word

OPINIONS

PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION I SUBSCRIBE I JUNE 2014

The fly in the ointment of the

revolution was networking.

Putting a monthly magazine to bed is

always a struggle. We’re covering an

industry that changes daily—if not hourly.

To wit, our cover story for this issue of PC

Magazine is about smartwatches. It’s a

blossoming new product category that everyone

agrees has immense promise, and yet no one really

wants to wear one. Worse still, Apple seems poised

to enter the market any day now, and totally up-

end the existing players. Or it may not. Either way,

we’re sending this issue to the printer.

Or, more precisely, uploading ¿les via the Adobe

Digital Publishing Suite that will then be digitally

distributed to (at least) the iOS, Google Play,

Kindle, Nook, and Kobo platforms. In the world of

digital publishing, this is as big a statement as we

can make. After all, we can change our website in

minutes, but releasing a new issue of PC Magazine

would take, well, hours. Maybe even a day.

To be clear, no one is happy with the current

crop of smartwatches. Even our Editors’ Choice

Pebble Smartwatch is saddled with some serious

limitations. It doesn’t have a color screen, it’s

pricey, the value of the device is still in question,

and so on. And yet, it’s telling that Pebble has

come closer than any other company on Earth to

perfecting the idea of the smartwatch. Pebble

started from scratch. This startup from the Valley

has outmatched Sony, Samsung, Qualcomm, and

as of this writing by forfeit, even Apple. The Pebble

works. It solves problems. As such, it has a loyal

and continually growing audience.

This is not a new idea.

Which Watch?

Smartwatch.

Such much

DAN COSTA

FIRST WORD

The Sony SmartWatch debuted in September of

2013, although you would be hard-pressed to ¿nd

someone who owns one. In the mid 1990s, I tested

a Swatch Pager watch. I did not get many pages—

and got even fewer dates. (I blame the watch.) The

origins of the ¿rst digital smartwatch are up for

debate, but I would give the prize to the Pulsar,

which reached its most robust form in 1982. It

could store 24 characters in its user-

programmable memory.

Today, our expectations are loftier. We want our

smartwatch to sync with our phone, alert us to text

messages, manage our calendar, and track our

heart rate. Oh, and it has to look good, too. No,

we’re not there yet. Although again, the Pebble is

very, very close.

Executive Editor of News and Features Chloe

Albanesius examines the state of the smartwatch

market and explores what may come next. We

wanted to wait for Apple to come in with a game

changer, but to be honest, we got tired of waiting.

Of course, we would never commit an entire

issue to just one product category—especially not

one as nascent as the smartwatch. This issue also

includes details on AT&T’s plans to bring 4G LTE

to the sky and Jamie Lendino’s rather touching

tribute to the programming language BASIC,

which recently turned 50 years old.

Suf¿ce it to say, Jamie is more sentimental about

BASIC than I am about that Swatch Pager.

[email protected]


New NowWhat’s

AT&T PLANNING IN-FLIGHT 4G LTE

NEW CIRCUIT BOARD TECH IS

90 PERCENT RECYCLABLE

INNOVATIVE STORAGE BRINGS

FLEXIBLE COMPTUERS CLOSER

CHAT: RAZER CEO MIN-LIANG TAN

TOP GEAR

LAUNCH WINDOW

FLEXIBLE COMPUTERS CLOSER

90 PERCENT RECYCLABLE

NEWS

WHAT’S NEW NOW

AT&T Planning In-Flight 4G LTE BY STEPHANIE MLOT

AT&T wants to rack up some frequent Àier miles with high-speed 4G

LTE-based in-Àight mobile service.

Slated to be available by the end of 2015, the system will provide

broadband connectivity for passengers and crew alike.

To deliver on its sky-high promise, the communications company plans to

build an air-to-ground network based on global 4G LTE standards to utilize

spectrum already owned by AT&T.

“Everyone wants access to high-speed, reliable mobile Internet wherever they

are, including at 35,000 feet,” John Stankey, chief strategy of¿cer at AT&T, said

in a statement. “We are building on AT&T’s signi¿cant strengths to develop in-

Àight connectivity technology unlike any other that exists today, based on 4G

LTE standards.”

According to September’s wireless connectivity survey by Honeywell

Aerospace, nearly 90 percent of air travelers would give up amenities like

preferred seating or extra legroom for faster in-Àight Wi-Fi connections.

With the intent of addressing those users’ concerns, AT&T and Honeywell are

partnering to provide the hardware and service capabilities necessary to deliver

a better in-Àight connectivity solution. More than an added customer

convenience, the network will also allow for better communications between the

plane and ground crew, through transmission of real-time aircraft data.

“We believe this will enable airlines and passengers to bene¿t from reliable

high speeds and a better experience,” Stankey continued. “We expect this

service to transform connectivity in the aviation industry—we are truly

mobilizing the sky.”

But AT&T isn’t the only one with high-Àying plans: Gogo recently announced

its new 2Ku in-Àight Wi-Fi technology, expected to launch on commercial

Àights by the middle of 2015.

By using its low-pro¿le Ground to Orbit (GTO) antennas, Gogo will introduce

2Ku to for the return link to the ground; via two low-pro¿le, high-ef¿ciency Ku-

band satellite antennas, the company promises speeds of more than 70Mbps.

Current pricing tiers offer a 24-hour Wi-Fi service pass for $14, as well as a

$39.95 monthly pass for a speci¿c airline, or $49.95 for an unlimited pass that’s

good on all Gogo Àights.

AT&T, meanwhile, has not revealed a pricing plan for its upcoming service.

Gogo Ground to OrbitThis latest service from

the well-known in-flight

Internet company uses

satellite for receiving

signals only and the

Gogo Air to Ground

network for the return

link. Gogo Ground to

Orbit promises peak

speads of 70Mbps or

more to aircraft flying

in North America.


NEWS

WHAT’S NEW NOW

This New Circuit Board Tech Is 90 Percent Recyclable BY RYAN WHITWAM

Electronic waste is becoming a more troubling problem every year as we

all hop from one device to the next, always looking toward that next

phone or laptop. Most old devices are discarded in the trash to be taken

to land¿lls, but even devices that are recycled responsibly can be a headache.

The circuit boards in all our phones and computers are based on reinforced

epoxy glass and solder, which are a pain to dismantle safely.

Three British companies, the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), InTec, and

Gwent Electronic Materials have developed a new type of adhesive that could

make circuit boards 90 percent recyclable. Just apply water and you’re done.

The component tech is called ReUSE, which stands for Reusable, Unzippable,

Sustainable Electronics. ReUSE is based on a recyclable

thermoplastic substrate, onto which a conductive

adhesive and inks are layered. This is how easily

recoverable components are applied to the circuit board.

When the device is no longer needed, the board is

submerged in very hot (nearly boiling) water. After a few

minutes, the adhesive dissolves and the components can

be scraped off and harvested for recycling.

The high temperatures needed to disassociate the

materials makes this a feasible solution for many

electronic devices. Splashing water on something isn’t

going to cause it to collapse into a pile of chips, though

it’s not like water is the best friend of electronics in the

¿rst place. Any type of device that doesn’t get excessively

hot could make use of ReUSE, but the creators cite

servers and other high-performance electronics as being

too toasty for these environmentally friendly boards.

So are you going to be able to buy electronics that use

ReUSE boards? Though the technology won’t be scalable

for major electronics manufacturers for a while yet, Chris

Hunt, head of the Electronics Interconnection Team at

NPL, is remaining realistic. He says it’s going to take a

shift in the ideology of manufacturers to adopt the more

sustainable practices that ReUSE makes possible.

REDUCE, REUSE,

RECYCLE

The adhesive used

on ReUSE circuit

boards dissolves

when it comes in

contact with hot

water, making it

easy to break apart

the boards and

reclaim the

components for

other uses.


EXTREMETECH

WHAT’S NEW NOW

Magneto-Optical Storage Brings Flexible Computers Closer BY SEBASTIAN ANTHONY

Researchers at the University of Iowa have discovered a method of

converting magnetic data into optical data for free, without external

electricity. This is a big step toward the creation of Àexible,

inexpensive, disposable plastic computers, which are gaining in popularity

thanks to society’s recent shift toward mobile computing and “quanti¿ed self”

activity monitors.

Plastic computers are fundamentally similar to the metal computers we have

today. But instead of being fabricated out of wafers of silicon, they consist of

organic semiconductors that are laid down on a Àexible substrate, creating

organic ¿eld-effect transistors (OFETs). These OFETs don’t have the same

performance characteristics as silicon, but they’re good enough for ultra-low-

1 2

FOR NO CHARGE

University of Iowa

researchers have

discovered how to

convert magnetic

data stored on foil

into optical data—

without the need of

external electricity.

power mobile and wearable computing

applications. (Incidentally, these are the

same kind of organic semiconductors used

in OLED displays.)

Although we mostly have the logic and

computation side of plastic computers

worked out, there are still big question

marks hanging over the storage and power

consumption parts of the equation. OFETs

aren’t all that ef¿cient, and current

transistor densities are much too low to

build usable amounts of RAM or

nonvolatile NAND Àash on a plastic

substrate. It is theoretically possible to use

a thin magnetic foil that stores high-

density data, much like a hard drive

platter, but reading that magnetic data with organic semiconductors has

traditionally been a dif¿cult process that’s consumed a lot of power—until now.

The University of Iowa researchers have found a way of transducing

(converting) magnetic data stored on a magnetic foil into optical data emitted

by an organic LED. Normally this would require a large amount of electricity,

but using a magnetoelectroluminescent compound in the OLED the

researchers found that the transduction could be done for free. The science is

complex, but the magnetic ¿eld of the bits stored on the foil is enough to excite

the OLED into producing photons. In theory, you could then transport this

optical data around the plastic computer using some kind of communication

bus. (Plastics, though not ideal to use as a substrate for building high-

performance computers, are very good at carrying optical data. Most

consumer-grade optical ¿ber, for networking and audio, is plastic.)

“This could help solve problems of storage and communication for new types

of inexpensive, low-power computers based on conducting plastics,” says

professor Markus Wohlgenannt, co-author of the group’s research paper.

There could also be some implications for high-capacity storage devices that

use high-speed optical buses.

For consumers, the main takeaway here is that we’re taking another step

toward low-cost Àexible computers that have decent storage capacity. Given

our new interest in curved devices, activity trackers, and sticking sensors on

everything, the University of Iowa discovery could be signi¿cant indeed.


KEEPING FLEXIBLE

Plastic substrates are good for

transporting the optical data created

as part of this new procedure.i

Razer SharpFor Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan, his company’s unique,

bleeding-edge gaming peripherals are only the beginning.

BY BRIAN WESTOVER

Although the Razer name is well known in the gaming community,

most readers only associate it with with ambitious concept designs

released at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

Take, for example, Project Christine, a design concept for a fully modular

gaming desktop that removes the complexity of PC building by introducing self-

contained components and built-in features like liquid cooling—and was named

“Best of CES.” Razer’s other announcement this year, a combination

smartwatch and ¿tness band called the Nabu, is at the top of many “most

anticipated wearables” lists. With ¿tness tracking and integration to Razer’s

CHAT

WHAT’S NEW NOW

2 7

gaming-focused VoIP and chat service Comms, the

Nabu should also offer some impressive social features.

It’s a long way from where Razer started. From mice

and keyboards to laptops and beyond, in recent years

Razer has become a major force in PC gaming.

Razer CEO and cofounder Min-Liang Tan, the driving

force behind Razer’s innovative projects and aggressive

growth, discussed over email the history of the

company, what guides the company’s decision making,

and where he thinks the gaming industry is headed.

The Razer Boomslang was one of the first mice

built specifically for gaming. How did that first

product (and Razer as a business) get started?

And what lessons did you learn from it?

Razer started as a side project of sorts amongst a

collection of hard-core PC gamers and friends who were

looking for a competitive edge. One of us had an idea to

create a mouse designed speci¿cally for gaming, and the

outcome was the Razer Boomslang. We quickly realized

the potential of a full line of dedicated gaming

peripheral products. We quit our jobs, promoted [the

Boomslang] amongst our gamer friends, and our PC

peripheral business quickly grew organically from the

ground up. Today, we are more than a gaming hardware

BIG BOOM

Razer’s inaugural

product, the Boomslang

(released in 1998),

was the first mouse on

the market designed

for gamers.

Today, we are more than a gaming hardware company. We make an entire suite of gaming software solutions.

company. We make an entire suite of gaming software

solutions. We announced our ¿rst wearable device, the

Razer Nabu, at CES 2014. We have close to ¿ve million

fans on Facebook and millions more on other social

media platforms all around the globe that validate our

existence as a company that makes product for gamers.

We’ve done all this without spending a cent on

traditional advertising. When you start with

phenomenal product, everything else becomes easier.

What are your thoughts on innovation, and how

does Razer continually try to push the envelope?

Simply stated, there hasn’t been a ton of innovation

among the big hardware players in the gaming space,

historically. Mind you, every year we see fantastic

advancement in games and platforms, but there is

traditionally a lag in the industry when it comes to

timely addressing the technical demands of new games

and meeting the requirements of players. Razer was

born of a need to shore up the rift between the cadence

of game development and interfaces. The opportunity

to increase performance and fun for gamers fuels our

passion for innovation. We built one of the largest in-

house design and engineering teams in the industry to

enable us to turn that enthusiasm into product realities.

It’s also important to remember that we truly are a

company of gamers who make products for gamers. It’s

more than just a tagline—it’s our DNA. Most everything

we do starts with a product that we would use ourselves

or that our friends would want. A good example is the

Razer Blade 14-inch laptop. We essentially crammed

into an ultrabook form factor the power of a desktop

computer with the best possible display in the world.

Somebody had to give gamers that level of portability

and power, and to make it look and feel incredible. We

included Razer-green USB ports. The laptop can be

opened with just one ¿nger. The chassis is made of

super-durable, aircraft-grade aluminum. These are the

NABU NOT TABOO

Razer touts its Nabu

smartband as “the first

truly social wearable.”

It incorporates dual

screens, gesture

controls, innovative

discovery functions,

and more.

types of small, but important, features that you’ll

notice on all of our products. We innovate because

it’s fun chasing after perfection for the bene¿t of

gamers worldwide.

Razer has already expanded from gaming

accessories to laptops and tablets; with projects

like Christine and Nabu, what do you see as the

future of your company? Is there a larger plan

guiding these developments?

We exist to make the very best products for gamers and

the gaming lifestyle. That is the Àuid plan that guides

us. With respect to systems and wearables, we

de¿nitely see them as long-term categories for Razer.

Another area of signi¿cant ongoing interest is software.

One of the best ways we’ve found to deliver

improvements to our products and value to our

customers is through our proprietary online network.

We’ve shipped approximately 13 million smart devices

to date, and they all call back to us vis-à-vis Razer’s

cloud platform. In only its second year, Razer Synapse

2.0 stands as one of the largest platforms in the world

for gamers, with 7.5 million registered users. With it,

gamers can connect to other gamers and to their

games and mobile devices, customize product and

game settings, and enhance gaming performance, all

in the cloud.

Not every project has been so successful. What

are your thoughts on projects, like the Razer

Hydra controller or the Switchblade laptop, that

never really caught on?

We view the Hydra and the Switchblade concept as

successes, altogether. The latter provided the impetus

for the Switchblade User Interface included on our

award-winning Razer Blade Pro 17-inch laptop. Now in

its fourth iteration, the Razer Blade Pro has the

support of gamers worldwide, as well as global

PROJECT CHRISTINE

Think PC building is too

complicated? Project

Christine is a completely

modular PC, so you can

get exactly the system

you want just by

snapping in the right

component “pods.”

celebrities, including Afrojack. The Hydra, meanwhile,

became the motion controller of choice for Oculus

Rift developers.

That said, not every project we develop will be a

bottom-line success. That’s simply a natural part of the

process when striving for true innovation and design

perfection. I’ve literally killed products an hour before

launch because we found what some might call a minor

imperfection. If a product isn’t up to my standards, then

we don’t release it. It’s that simple.

With Razer’s ambitious projects, and others like

the Oculus Rift and Valve’s Steam Machine, where

do you see PC gaming going in the near future?

And what impact will it have on the PC market?

There has been speculation about PC gaming interest

waning, but we have reason to think the opposite is

true, especially on the global level. PC sales in the U.S.

were down 6.9 percent in [the fourth quarter] last year,

but at the same time, Razer celebrated its biggest

quarter ever. Gaming is huge—bigger than the motion

picture industry in terms of revenue—and it is

forecasted to grow aggressively. We see PC gaming (and

gaming in general) moving mainstream and becoming

more immersive in the process. It’s one of the reasons

we out¿tted our new Blade laptop with a QHD+ 3,200-

by-1,800 display. Oculus, Valve, and Razer are some of

the companies spearheading what we see as a charge

into an entirely optimistic future for PC gaming.

Do you think the gaming market's move toward

tablets and smartphones will hurt hurt the PC

gaming industry? How will Razer adapt?

PC gaming continues to be a healthy segment within the

PC industry, and we don’t envision that changing

anytime soon. There are more than 200 million hard-

core PC gamers in the world today. As PC gaming

becomes increasingly relevant as a global phenomenon

NO ORDINARY

CONTROLLER

Forget joysticks and

direction pads. The

Hydra uses magnetic

fields to bring real

motion sensing to

your PC gaming.

and aspirational lifestyle, it’s reasonable to suggest a signi¿cant number of

current PC users will be recruited into the gaming ranks…. All in all, there are

an estimated 1.4 billion gamers globally. Many of them play on their mobile

devices and we see this as a great opportunity, not a harbinger of doom. Razer is

a brand- and platform-agnostic business, so as gaming continues to grow, we

will plan to support it as gamer needs and wants suggest.

Will we ever see a Razer Steam Machine? What about your own set-top-

box or console?

Valve is one of our best partners, and we are in constant communication with

that team. That said, we’ve always taken an approach at Razer to not rush

things. If we decide to do a Steam Box, we want the ¿nal product to be perfect.

Is there any product out there that you wish you had done first?

With our internal R&D resources, we’re usually able to stay in front of trends or

differentiate ourselves within them. A good recent example of getting caught up

in a trend happened with our Razer Nabu. We had been researching wearable

technology for three and a half years before we unveiled the Nabu at CES 2014.

Wearable tech happened to be the talk of the show, and there were many

suitors for the public’s attention. That said, the Nabu was able to break

through all the noise by capturing roughly 50 percent of a “Best of CES” open

vote to earn the People’s Choice award. In terms of a speci¿c product, the

Oculus Rift is very cool and something I wouldn’t have minded developing. That

was truly innovative.

As gaming continues to

grow, we will plan to

support it as gamer needs

and wants suggest.

The Switchblade UI is an app platform, the Nabu already has 30,000

developers signed up, and you collaborated with Koenigsegg for a

special-edition laptop. I’ve read elsewhere you’ve been talking to

companies about making Project Christine a reality. Tell me about

collaboration and having to play nice with others, especially companies

that might have very different goals.

We are very passionate about what we do at Razer. Not all companies

understand our passion for perfection or share our enthusiasm for innovation.

Many do, and it is our privilege and pleasure to work with some really great

brands and creative minds across all types of industries. The Koenigsegg

collaboration stemmed from mutual admiration between myself and Christian

von Koenigsegg. Koenigsegg makes the fastest production sports cars in the

world. We make arguably the most powerful laptops in the world. Our ideas

might be different, but we’re each obsessed with design and performance.

That’s the fabric from which all of our collaborations are woven, whether it’s

with our Swedish Hypercar friends, Afrojack on the music front, Evil Geniuses

within the pro gaming ranks, partnerships with Intel and EA’s Battle¿eld

products, or PewDiePie with social media initiatives.

What can we expect in the future from Razer? Can you give us any hints

about the next big announcement?

We’ve got all sorts of crazy stuff that we’re working on in our design labs. Our

future big announcements will be predicated on the gaming industry as a whole,

the trends that we’re seeing, and what our pro gamers and the Razer

community are asking for. Immersive platforms, like virtual reality, are exciting

to us, as is the explosive growth that we’re witnessing in mobile gaming. We’ve

always taken an approach at Razer that we’ll make anything that our gaming

community demands. Our credo—“For Gamers, By Gamers”—is more than just

a slogan, after all.


What We Love Most

This Month BY MATTHEW MURRAY

& CHANDRA STEELE

TOP GEAR

WHAT’S NEW NOW

ALEXANDER WANG URBEATS

You may know that earbuds come in more colors than just black and white, but you may not

know that they can be just as stylish as anything else you wear. Fashion designer Alexander

Wang lent his unique style to the ever-popular Beats line for the limited-edition urBeats,

which is decked out in pale gold and matte black. In addition to a built-in microphone and

tangle-free cords, this durable and good-sounding pair also comes with an embossed glossy

stingray case.

$149.95 ronrobinson.com

What We Love Most


& CHANDRA STEELE

TOP GEAR

WHAT’S NEW NOW

BOOSTCASE HYBRID POWER CASE

Apple’s iPhone has a lot of terrific qualities, but outstanding battery life isn’t always among

them—good luck getting a full day’s use out of a single charge. The Boostcase will make

these worries vanish. This two-piece case for the iPhone 5 and 5s is a sleeve containing a

2,200mAh battery; you can attach it in a single step to add up to 150 percent more uptime.

For added convenience, three colored LEDs show you how much juice you have left. Besides

the gold shown here, the Boostcase also comes in red, blue, green, white, and black.

$99.95 boostcase.com

What We Love Most


& CHANDRA STEELE

TOP GEAR

WHAT’S NEW NOW

FITNESS SHIRTS

Activity tracking is good for helping you stay in shape, but introducing too many devices can

make the process cumbersome. OMsignal has solved that problem with its new line of

Fitness Shirts, compression athletic wear with built-in sensors that transmit highly accurate

heart and breathing data via Bluetooth to an attached data module. Constructed with rain-,

splash-, and sweat-resistant materials, the shirts are designed to take any punishment your

workouts can inflict.

$199 for complete starter kit (one shirt and data module) omsignal.com

What We Love Most


& CHANDRA STEELE

TOP GEAR

WHAT’S NEW NOW

LITTLEBITS SPACE KIT

Be a NASA engineer—sort of. The littleBits Space Kit was developed in collaboration with

NASA and lets you build your own Mars Rover or International Space Station. A selection of

modules (power, input, output, and wire) lets you and your family power your stargazing

while learning important scientific principles like electromagnetism, kinetic and potential

energy, and more. The basic space kit comes with 12 modules, five lesson plans, and ten

STEAM activities, but with other packs you can build your own analog synthesizer or

whatever else you can imagine.

$189 littlebits.cc

What We Love Most


& CHANDRA STEELE


TOP GEAR

WHAT’S NEW NOW

AROS

When summer weather turns your home into an oven, you may not care about how you cool it

off. But don’t make dumb choices—go instead for the Aros smart air conditioner. This

attractive 8,000BTU unit maintains the perfect balance between a comfortable

temperature and energy savings (in rooms up to 350 square feet in size) by learning from

your schedule, usage, budget, and location. Plus, you can control it from anywhere using an

app on your mobile device.

$300 quirky.com

LAUNCH WINDOW

WHAT’S NEW NOW

Hot Future Tech ReleasesWondering what’s coming out in the world of technology, gadgets, and games? This calendar tells you when the best new stuff ships. BY ALEX COLON

1ACER ASPIRE

SWITCH 10acer.com

Release: May 2014

Acer is taking the detachable

hybrid concept, which pairs a

standalone tablet with a

docking keyboard, and

remixing it with a docking

hinge that can be attached

facing either forward or back.

With this arrangement, the

versatile Aspire Switch 10 can

be used in four different

positions: Notebook, Pad,

Display, and Tent.

LAUNCH WINDOW

WHAT’S NEW NOW


2LENOVO

THINKPAD 10

TABLETlenovo.com

Release: June 2014 Lenovo’s new ThinkPad 10 is a

Windows 8.1 tablet made for

businesses, which leverages

the familiarity longtime

ThinkPad users and support

staff have with their previous

laptops, tablets, and

ultrabooks. The tablet’s

10.1-inch screen has a

1,920-by-1,200-resolution IPS

screen—a vast improvement

over older enterprise-

targeted tablets that topped

out at 1,280 by 800.

LAUNCH WINDOW

WHAT’S NEW NOW


3WINDOWS

PHONE 8.1windowsphone.com

Release: June 24, 2014 You could say that Microsoft

is playing catch-up with its

mobile operating system, and

in some ways you’d be right.

But with Windows Phone 8.1,

Microsoft has removed nearly

all the barriers to the OS’s

widespread adoption, and

added slick new features that

could pull users into the

platform’s fold. Its new

Cortana voice-activated

digital assistant, for instance,

blends the personality of Siri

with the behavioral learning

of Google Now.

LAUNCH WINDOW

WHAT’S NEW NOW


4PHILIPS

HUE TAPmeethue.com

Release: Summer 2014 The tap is a light switch that

gives you even more control

over your Philips hue smart

bulbs. When your tablet or

smartphone isn’t available,

simply tap on one of the

switch’s four buttons to

modify the lighting in a given

room. And because the tap is

powered by kinetic energy, it

doesn’t require a battery or

plug-in power source.

LAUNCH WINDOW

WHAT’S NEW NOW


5SUPER

SMASH

BROS. FOR

NINTENDO

3DSsmashbros.com

Release: Summer 2014 The latest Super Smash Bros.

takes all of Nintendo’s

biggest characters, plus

Mega Man and Sonic the

Hedgehog, and throws them

together in a fighting game.

It’s set to launch on the 3DS

before the Wii U, and will

feature a new gameplay

mode called Smash Run, in

which players race through a

dungeon for power-ups

before facing off in combat.

LAUNCH WINDOW

WHAT’S NEW NOW


6RAZER NABUrazerzone.com

Release: Q2 2014

Don’t call it an activity

tracker. The Razer Nabu is a

“smart band,” though it keeps

track of all the requisite

activity categories: distance,

sleep, stairs, and steps. It also

features two OLED screens:

one on the top that shows

incoming notification icons,

and a private screen on the

inside of the wrist that

provides more detailed

information. But the most

intriguing feature is a social

aspect that lets the bands

communicate so users can

find one another.

LAUNCH WINDOW

WHAT’S NEW NOW


7LEAPFROG

LEAPBANDleapfrog.com Release date: August 2014 Wearables are about to get a

whole lot more kid-friendly.

LeapFrog’s latest toy, the

LeapBand, is the first

wearable activity tracker

intended specifically for

children ages 4 to 7 years old.

Think of it as a combination

of a pedometer and one of

those Tamagotchi virtual

pets from the 1990s that’s

aimed at getting the younger

generation moving.

LAUNCH WINDOW

WHAT’S NEW NOW


8PANONO

PANORAMIC

BALL CAMERApanono.com

Release: September 2014 The Panono is a sphere with

36 3-megapixel image

sensors placed around it.

Throw it up in the air and it

captures a single image,

stitched together from all of

those sensors. A quick bit of

multiplication tells you that

the final product is a

whopping 108 megapixels.

That gets you a spherical

image that you can spin

around (using either your

Web browser or a special app

on your tablet or phone) and

zoom into to see more detail.

LAUNCH WINDOW

WHAT’S NEW NOW


9CANARYcanary.is

Release: September 2014 The Canary is a home

security system that contains

an HD video camera and

multiple sensors that track

just about everything:

activity, air quality, motion,

sound, temperature, and

vibration. It’s controlled

entirely from your iPhone or

Android device, and alerts

you when it senses anything

out of the ordinary, whether a

sudden change in

temperature that could

mean a fire, or sound and

motion that could signify

an intrusion.

LAUNCH WINDOW

WHAT’S NEW NOW



10NODhellonod.com

Release: Fall 2014 The Nod is a Bluetooth-

enabled gesture control ring

that lets you communicate

with your devices without

needing to reach out and

touch them. On the outside

the Nod looks like a plain

black ring, but the portion

near your palm is home to a

touch panel as well as two

tactile buttons, so you have

some physical options in

addition to gesture-based

controls. The Nod should be

ideal for PowerPoint

presentations, and can even

be used for gaming.

Opinions

JAMIE LENDINOBASIC IS NOW 50, AND

I STILL MISS IT

Something is lost today in that more people don’t

know how to program.

JAMIE LENDINO

SAMARA LYNN

TIM BAJARIN

One of the most popular computer

programming languages ever just turned

50, but almost no one uses it anymore.

BASIC, short for Beginner’s All-Purpose

Symbolic Instruction Code, may have gotten its

start in 1964 at Dartmouth College as a math

project. But it ended up de¿ning home computer

ownership for an entire generation.

BASIC BEGINNINGS

As a kid growing up in Brooklyn in the early

1980s, getting my ¿rst real computer—an Atari

800—was a huge turning point. Radio Shack

TRS-80, Apple II, IBM PC, and Commodore 64

owners all experienced a variation of the same

thing. As a certi¿able Atari nut, I subscribed to

the then-new Antic magazine; the contents of all

issues can be found at www.atarimagazines.com.

Each monthly issue had plenty of BASIC

programs to type in. I killed a lot of evenings and

Sundays in elementary school doing just that.

The results were laughable by today’s

standards. I distinctly remember my dad and I

spending one Sunday afternoon typing in this Àag

program in BASIC; it was one of the ¿rst ones we

did, when we ¿rst got the computer. It seemed

really long at the time (though later I would type

in programs ten times its size, and spend several

days on them). When we ¿nished, it naturally

didn’t work at ¿rst; we had made at least one

Ja

mie

Le

nd

ino

BASIC Is Now 50, and I Still Miss It

Jamie Lendino,

managing editor

of Consumer

Electronics for PC

Magazine, has

also written for

Laptop, Sound

and Vision,

Popular Science,

and other

publications.

OPINIONS

mistake somewhere, so we spent even more time

¿guring that out.

After all that, when we ¿nally got it right, we

typed RUN, and—ta da!—it displayed a blocky,

pixelated American Àag on the screen, complete

with white dots for stars. And that was it. “This is

what we get for all that? You’ve got to be joking,”

my father said. After that, I was the one who

typed in all the programs. I didn’t mind.

CODING FOR FUN AND (NO) PROFIT

From then on, it was off to the races. I typed in

code for more graphics demos, puzzle games, text

adventures, disk utilities, printing projects—you

name it, and there were probably a bunch of near-

useless-but-still-fun programs I could type in or

write myself. Eventually, I started running a BBS

on the Atari 800. Being in Brooklyn was key for

that, because I ended up making some close

friends who all happened to be in the New York

City area.

At the time, schools began adding computer

labs; my elementary school had a lab full of

Commodore PET machines, and we were issued

great big yellow binders full of exercises and

programming examples to type in over the course

of the semester. We learned about avoiding

spaghetti code (too many GOTO statements), how

to design simple and clear user interfaces, and

how to program rudimentary graphics and

sound on what were even then considered

obsolete computers.

To be fair, BASIC had something of a less-than-

stellar reputation among true power users at the

time. Because it’s an interpreted language, there

was a huge amount of memory and CPU overhead

to get it to work. Before you could run programs,

you had to run BASIC ¿rst, and then run your

Ja

mie

Le

nd

ino

code on top of it. Games programmed in BASIC

tended to be sluggish and unresponsive compared

with those written in assembly, which was much

tougher to learn but gave you more direct access

to the “metal,” or hardware.

C ISN’T THE SAME

Time magazine’s Harry McCracken recently

wrote a stellar overview of how BASIC impacted

being a computer user in the late 1970s and early

1980s. I’m de¿nitely on his side; I believe

something is lost today in that more people don’t

know how to program.

Granted, it’s different now; the computer was a

completely novel thing back in the early 1980s,

and it was great to learn to program it and watch

it do things. If you needed a mortgage calculator,

or (ahem) a Dungeons & Dragons character

generator, you’d look up the necessary BASIC

commands in whatever book you had, and write it

yourself. Game programmers would make all

their own art and sound effects, and because

resolution was so low, you could even get away

with it.

Now, with a single tap, you can download any

of more than a million apps on your phone, all of

which do much more than that out of the box,

and look and sound amazing in comparison, with

professional art and sound design. If you want to

write something yourself, it’s much tougher now,

given the complexity of each OS, and less

immediately gratifying.

There’s still a need for new software—but not

for the kinds of things you’d program on your

own, like that mortgage calculator or character

generator. If you need a rudimentary app that

does X, you can probably ¿nd a zillion of them on

the Web with a Google search. Many will even run

Jam

ie L

en

din

oThere’s still a

need for new software—but

not for the kinds of things you’d program

on your own.

in your browser, so you don’t have to install

anything. And although BASIC itself still exists in

newer forms like Visual Basic and QBasic, they’re

footnotes rather than the main story, at least with

regard to owning a computer.

I went on to get a computer science degree, but

I never really enjoyed C programming in the same

way I did BASIC and didn’t make a career of it.

I’m heartened that so many people do, and I’m in

awe of their skills.

But that’s the thing: Even though I wasn’t a

natural-born coder like the John Carmacks of the

world, BASIC meant that I could still learn to

program, and learn everything about how

computers work.

In a world of quad-core phones and high-

de¿nition game consoles, BASIC programming

looks pretty tame today. But I can’t imagine my

childhood without it, and it’s a bit sad to me that

there isn’t a modern-day equivalent of an easy-to-

learn programming language for everyone.

[email protected]

Ja

mie

Le

nd

ino

BASIC programming

looks pretty tame today.

But I can’t imagine my

childhood without it.


Sa

ma

ra L

yn

n

In recent years, I’ve noticed fewer complaints

about the networking device setup process.

Usually most complaints surround

performance issues, like connection drops and

dead zones.

This isn’t a coincidence. In the last several

years, most of the major manufacturers of

consumer networking products have made their

products easier for the average person to set up

and manage. Wi-Fi and the cloud have both

contributed to this.

For instance, most routers now ship with

wireless networks precon¿gured. This was not the

case ¿ve years ago. Back then, you had to connect

a router via wire, ¿nd its IP address and then get

into its management software to set it up.

Now, you can take a tablet (with some routers,

even a smartphone), connect to its Wi-Fi, and ¿re

up a browser. Increasingly, you don’t even have to

¿nd (let alone know the de¿nition of) an IP

address to set up the router to your liking—often

a browser will automatically redirect you to the

device’s Web-based setup page.

Another example of no-brainer con¿gurations

can be seen with the latest crop of network-

attached storage (NAS) devices that let you

connect to them remotely via the cloud. Gone are

the days when you needed to be a networking

guru to successfully con¿gure port forwarding,

telnet, or FTP to remotely connect back to a NAS

You Love Easy Networking

Setup, but So Do Scammers

OPINIONS

PC Magazine lead

networking

analyst Samara

Lynn has served

as IT director at a

major New York

health care

facility and as a

technology editor

for the CRN Test

Center.

in your home from the outside world.

Indeed, manufacturers, eagerly intent on

pushing an agenda of a connected world—or the

“Internet of Things”—are making devices easier

and easier to set up and manage, reducing the

complex voodoo of networking devices.

STRANGER DANGER

There are, however, some sacri¿ces that must be

made in order to attain that ease of use. The most

pressing is security. You’ve probably heard the

news reports about creeps who have nothing

better to do than hijack IP-enabled baby cams

and monitors to shout and curse at bewildered

children from the Internet.

Fortunately, that type of infringement upon

Internet-connected monitors and surveillance

webcams can best be thwarted by applying proper

security on a home network (WPA2 and WPA2-

supported devices are a must) and by changing all

default passwords on your networking device the

¿rst time you set it up.

Other breaches are a bit more complex. The

Register reported on a suspected security Àaw in

NAS devices that could let just about anyone

access the data stored on the NAS. The NAS

reportedly provides access to data without any

authentication required, as a default setting. The

irony is that the Àaw is a result of the vendor’s

desire to make data sharing with “anyone” easy

for the average home user to set up. Although The

Register does not specify the make of the NAS, it’s

probably safe to assume it’s one of the consumer-

targeted, “personal cloud” storage devices that

are in abundance on the market.

This “thinking not required” technology is not

only a real threat to security but to the devices

themselves. Back in 2012, Cisco Systems, which

Sa

ma

ra L

yn

n

at that point still had a home networking division,

rolled out a platform designed to make setting up

and managing a Cisco router easy to do whether a

user was at home or not. Cisco delivered this

potential greatness in a ¿rmware release to its

customers. The problem was, the ¿rmware

bricked many users’ routers. There was such an

outcry from customers that Cisco had to quickly

establish procedures for customers to roll back

their ¿rmware. That ¿asco resulted in bad

publicity for Cisco and unnecessary complexity

for its customers—all for the sake of simplicity.

Networking vendors have told me time and

time again that simple setup and management is

what customers want. That may be, but parents

also don’t want some jackass with Cheetos-

stained ¿ngers scanning the Web for the public

IP address of their baby monitor so he can scream

at their child. People don’t want just anyone to

access their ¿les on a NAS, especially if they are

also using those NASes to store sensitive

business information.

I don’t know what the answer is. But we need to

come up with better solutions. The Internet of

Things isn’t imminent—it’s here, and our devices

will keep getting more connected. The best-case

scenario will be to make devices easy, but perhaps

not too easy, for users to set up and manage.

Maybe we also need to keep a bit of the voodoo in

these devices and educate consumers about

Internet and device safety.

[email protected]

Sa

ma

ra L

yn

n“Thinking not

required” technology is

not only a real threat to

security but to the devices

themselves.


Tim

Ba

jari

n

There has been a lot of speculation lately

on what Apple will do for its next

smartphone, frequently dubbed the

iPhone 6. Various rumor sites have suggested that

Apple will reveal a larger phone this fall, perhaps

with a 4.7- or 4.8-inch screen. Earlier in the year

speculation was high that Apple would also do a

5.5-inch or 6-inch phone, but rumor sites are now

saying that a phablet-sized iPhone won’t come

out in 2014 due to manufacturing problems.

Personally, I doubt that an iPhone in the 5.5- or

6-inch range was ever was on the roadmap for

2014. And I still believe that when Apple reveals

its next phone, it will be under 5 inches and most

likely will have a 4.7- or 4.8-inch screen.

Now, that does not mean that Apple has not

been toying with a larger smartphone, or that it

has one in the works for the future. But as for this

year, I am convinced that any new iPhone will

still reÀect Steve Jobs’ strong position that a

smartphone needs to be used with one hand. But

with Jobs gone, is it perhaps time for Apple’s top

leadership to break away from this Jobsian line of

design guidelines and eventually do a phablet-

sized smartphone?

In my line of work I have to travel all over the

world, and for the last three years I have seen

more and more users opting for smartphones in

the 5- to 6-inch range. This trend really kicked

into high gear in late 2011 with Samsung’s

Does Apple Need a Large-Screen iPhone?

Tim Bajarin is the

president of

Creative Strategies

and a consultant,

analyst, and

futurist covering

personal computers

and consumer

technology.

OPINIONS

Tim

Ba

jari

nintroduction of its ¿rst Galaxy Note, a 5.3-inch

phablet. By Mobile World Congress 2012, the

Note had become a hot product, especially in

Korea and in some parts of Asia. Since then,

many smartphone vendors have released large

smartphones, and they have now become hot

sellers in many Asian and some European

markets. Even in the U.S. you see a lot of

Samsung Galaxy S4 and S5 phones, both of which

top 5 inches.

One of the more interesting demographics for a

larger smartphone is women. Ironically, Steve

Jobs’ focus on one-handed smartphone use took

into great consideration the fact that women have

smaller hands than men. But once 5-inch and

even larger 6-inch phablets hit the market, they

became real hits with women, especially in Asia,

where women make up the largest demographic

of phablet users in the world. I have seen various

research reports in the last year that say that this

is primarily due to the fact that for many women

a phablet really is a crossover device, so that they

only have to carry around one device, not two.

Also, many people in Asia have long commutes,

so they play games and watch videos on trains

and buses. On my last trip to Japan, I observed

this a lot when taking the trains into Tokyo and

saw both men and women playing games or

watching their TV programs on the way to work.

Having a larger screen makes this type of

experience better, so demand for larger-screen

smartphones is on the rise in these markets.

I was recently in London and Paris and had

time to sightsee in both places. I have been going

to sights like the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame in

Paris and walked around the London sites for

decades, and this year I saw people everywhere

using smartphones and tablets—including both

regular-size iPads and iPad minis—instead of the

cameras that used to be so ubiquitous.

At a personal level, I have become very fond of

the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, which has a 5.7-inch

screen. I carry it in my back pocket even though

my iPhone 5s is my primary smartphone. I ¿nd

the larger screen on the Note 3 better for things

like Web browsing, reading books, and watching

videos. I realize I’m in the unusual position of

getting to test all types of smartphones, tablets,

and laptops, but when I’m out and about the

mobile devices I must have with me are the

iPhone 5s and the Note 3.

At least for me this underscores that one size

does not ¿t all. If Apple really wants to continue

to dominate the market for smartphones, it has to

move past Jobs’ original design focus and think

hard about releasing a larger smartphone by next

year or risk losing more market share to

smartphone vendors that give users more

choices—especially in Asia and China, two

markets driven by smartphones of all sizes.

I’m not sure a 6-inch device is necessary,

though. While in Europe, I also used a 6-inch

phablet with dual-SIM slot. I liked the extra

screen real estate, but it was too big for my back

pocket; the Note 3 more than met my needs. My

personal assessment is that Apple should keep its

smaller smartphones, but also pursue a 5.5- or

5.7-inch smartphone and a 6s with a 4.7- or 4.8-

inch screen. It is time for Apple to look to a future

where more choices in screen sizes drive its

smartphone plans.

Tim

Ba

jari

n


If Apple really wants to continue

to dominate the market for smartphones,

it has to move past

Jobs’ original design focus.

ReviewsCONSUMER

ELECTRONICS

Sennheiser HD6 Mix

OnePlus One (Unlocked)

Sony Alpha 6000

iRobot Scooba 450

HARDWARE


MSI GT70 2PC Dominator

Asus Transformer Book Trio



SOFTWARE

Snagit

EDITORS’

CHOICE

Although Sennheiser has had terri¿c success

with consumer-level headphones, it’s built its

reputation on more pro-focused gear. The

Sennheiser HD6 Mix offers the best of both

worlds in an affordable studio-grade over-ear

pair. Sure, $279.95 isn’t cheap, but it’s comparably

priced with luxury-style consumer models, and the

distinction in audio performance is clear with its

Sennheiser

HD6 Mix

$279.95

L L L L H

Professional Headphones Consumers Will Love

CONSUMER ELECTRONICS

REVIEWS

incredibly accurate sound signature. It reproduces

extremely deep bass without using the trick much of the

competition employs: overly boosting all of the lows. As

much of a studio tool as a reference pair for music

lovers, the HD6 Mix is yet another PC Magazine

Editors’ Choice winner for Sennheiser’s crowded

mantel, standing alongside the excellent HD 280 Pro

and HD8 DJ.

DESIGN

The HD6 Mix is a chunky studio headphone pair, with

blue accents on an otherwise black and gunmetal gray

contour. The HD6 has the bulky construction of a DJ-

style pair like the HD8 DJ, rather than less expensive

studio pairs like the HD 280 Pro, and it takes a little

tinkering to ¿nd a comfortable ¿t. The build of the HD6

can easily exert unnecessary tension on the top of your

skull, and unlike many pairs the HD6 effectively lock

in place rather than relent or ease the tension on

their own. This just means you need to ¿ne-tune

the ¿t so the pair stays put with a minimum of

tension on the top of your head.

The headphones feel exceedingly comfortable

when properly adjusted, with a well-cushioned

underside to the headband and removable,

plush earpads. The pads snap in and out

easily, and a second pair is included with the

HD6. The default earpads have a cushioned

leather-style studio monitor covering; the

second pair features a velour material.

One excellent facet of the HD6’s design,

and a partial reason for the tension the

headphones can hold, is its passive noise

reduction. It offers no active noise

cancellation, but the circumaural earpads do

a tremendous job of creating a seal around

your ears and blocking out external sounds; it

almost seems as if noise reduction circuitry

Sennheiser

HD6 Mix

PROS Powerful,

accurate frequency

response. Deep bass,

excellent clarity

throughout the range.

Comes with two

removable cables—

one coiled, one

straight. Extra

earpads included.

CONS Can be slightly

uncomfortable.

and an external microphone are involved. This is good for making sure you only

hear the left and right channels, with nothing else getting in the way.

The HD6 comes with two cables, one coiled and one straight, and connection

points sit on each earcup. Both cables are long (about 10 feet) and made of

sturdy, pro-grade material. In addition to the earcups and cables, the HD6 also

includes a quarter-inch adapter for larger headphone jacks, and a hard shell

carrying case.

PERFORMANCE

On tracks with intense sub-bass content, such as The Knife’s “Silent Shout,” the

HD6 doesn’t hold back. At top volumes, the deep bass response is powerful but

never overly boosted or remotely distorted. Many pairs that can reproduce deep

lows like the synth drum hits on this track tend to have heavily sculpted,

boosted lows, but the HD6’s response feels even across the frequency range.

The lows aren’t exaggerated, but they are dutifully represented; on this mix, the

deep bass is powerful, so it sounds powerful through the HD6. Switch to a

different genre without gobs of deep bass in the mix, and you can forget that the

HD6 can even produce subwoofer-like frequencies.

Bill Callahan’s “Drover” illustrates this perfectly. Both baritone vocals and the

drums on this track have a pleasant low and low-mid presence to them, but

there’s just as much mid and high-mid response to keep everything clear and

not muddy. On pairs that boost the bass intensely, the drums might sound

unnaturally thunderous, or Callahan’s voice might receive far too much bass

emphasis. On the HD6, both are crisp and rich without any semblance of the

deep bass summoned by the massive drum hits on the Knife track. This track

lacks any sort of intense sub-bass content, and so the HD6 Mix doesn’t recreate

it. This simply isn’t how most headphones operate in the bass-boosted era.

EASY ON

THE EARS

The ear pads on

the Sennheiser

HD6 Mix are

removable and

replaceable; two

sets come with

the headphones.

Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “No Church in the Wild”

provides us with another example of the HD6 Mix’s

excellent response. The attack of the kick drum loop

gets the perfect amount of high-mid presence to help it

slice through the mix, sounding more sharp and cutting

than it is deep or beefy but with a healthy amount of

low-mid presence. The sub-bass synth hits that

punctuate the drum loop are equal parts high-mid rasp

and subwoofer power, and both come through in the

mix clearly. Meanwhile, nothing competes with the

vocals for your attention; they own the spotlight despite

the dense mix’s array of potential distractions.

At modest or louder volume levels, the HD6 Mix

brings you everything. Sennheiser claims its response

begins at 8Hz (many headphones don’t go much below

20Hz), and after listening to it, I can believe it. The

HD6 Mix doesn’t rely on insanely boosted bass to bring

you deep lows; it’s just armed with a wider frequency

response than most headphones, so if there is deep bass

content on a track you’ll hear it about as loudly as the

mix engineer intended. When the track has no deep

bass, low end isn’t produced out of the ether. Simply

put, these are reference-level, professional headphones

that will suit any music lover with a preference for

balance and clarity just as well.

If the price throws you off a bit, Sennheiser makes

some other more affordable options, like the

aforementioned HD 280 Pro and the HD 558. The

former is a good set for home and pro studios alike,

whereas the latter is more for home listening than

production. If you’re looking for other Àat-response,

reference-style headphones in this range, the AKG K545

and the Bang & Olufsen BeoPlay H6 both offer balanced

mixes with slightly differing accents. It’s hard to go

wrong with Sennheiser’s pair, however—the HD6 Mix

should be part of any serious studio headphone search.

TIM GIDEON

The HD6 Mix should be

part of any serious studio

headphone search.


EDITORS’

CHOICE

The days of the $600 smartphone aren’t over quite yet, but if the

OnePlus One is any indication of things to come, the end is nigh. One

Plus’ high-end phablet in many ways eclipses similar products from

big names like Samsung and LG. Despite a few small bugs, the

OnePlus One is every bit the hero device fans have anticipated. Dollar

for dollar, it’s the best unlocked smartphone value around.

DESIGN, FEATURES, AND CALL QUALITY

The OnePlus One doesn’t feel like a sub-$400 phone, unless your expectations

are informed solely by Nexus 5 experience. Its clean lines and tight build quality

evoke a desirability that’s sorely lacking in the budget-friendly realm. It may be

big (6.02 by 2.99 by 0.35 inches, HWD) and all plastic, but it’s a solidly

designed phablet.

OnePlus One

(Unlocked)

$299

L L L L H

For an Android Phablet, the OnePlus One Is Too Good


REVIEWS

Our white test unit featured a matte ¿nish; the black

model has a textured sandstone ¿nish. OnePlus

promises a variety of swappable options for the

removable back cover, but you’re stuck with the non-

removable 3,100mAh battery and 12.19GB of available

built-in storage. In our tests, the OnePlus One lasted for

17 hours of continuous talk time, but dropped the call

with about 10 percent of battery life remaining.

The 5.5-inch, 1080p IPS display is on par with the

best I’ve seen, including those on the HTC One

(M8) and Samsung Galaxy S5. You won’t be able to

discern any real difference in sharpness at this level

(401ppi), the viewing angle is nearly 180 degrees,

and color reproduction is neutral without looking

muted. Below the display are capacitive Menu,

Home, and Back buttons, but you can disable them

in favor of standard software navigation buttons.

Two surprisingly loud speakers Àank the micro

USB port on the bottom edge, but they still sound

fairly thin. Above the display is a multicolored

noti¿cation LED.

With GSM (850/900/1800/1,900MHz), LTE

(Bands 1/3/4/7/17/38/40), and UMTS (Bands

1/2/4/5/8), the OnePlus One can handle a variety

of networks, including AT&T and T-Mobile here in

the U.S.

Call quality, unfortunately, was one of the

OnePlus One’s biggest sore spots. Volume in the

earpiece was frustratingly weak and made callers

sound muted, distant, and dif¿cult to hear over

even innocuous ambient noise. Transmissions

through the mic were clearer, but still low in

volume. The headphone jack works ¿ne for music,

but the OnePlus One couldn’t route calls through a

wired headset.

I also noticed a bug when it came to the phone’s

proximity sensor on calls. With most phones,

taking the phone away from your face during or

OnePlus One

(Unlocked)

PROS Unbeatable

price-to-performance

ratio. Attractive, well

built. Excellent 1080p

LCD. Unlocked. 4G LTE

compatible.

CONS Some software

bugs. Disappointing

call quality.

TWO PLUS TWO

Dual speakers can be

found on the bottom

of the OnePlus One,

but don’t expect

them to produce

amazing sound.

after a call will wake the screen from sleep. This

almost never worked correctly in my tests, making it

nearly impossible for me to end a call without

¿ddling with the Power button. Group texting

worked ¿ne with a number of iPhone and Android

users, but the OnePlus One had some issues

downloading pictures sent as MMS.

Also onboard are dual-band 802.11b/g/n/ac Wi-

Fi, NFC, and Bluetooth 4.0. The OnePlus One had

no problem connecting to a multitude of Wi-Fi

networks and easily paired with a Jawbone ERA

Bluetooth headset.

PERFORMANCE AND CYANOGENMOD

The OnePlus One is powered by a quad-core 2.5GHz

Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 SoC and 3GB RAM. It’s

the fastest silicon around at the moment and the

same foundation found in Àagship phones like the

GS5 and M8. This alone is a triumph for an

inexpensive, unlocked phone, and performance is

everything you’d expect—I couldn’t ¿nd any tasks that

taxed the One too heavily.

Part of that speed is thanks to the clean and light

CyanogenMod 11S software, based on Android 4.4.2.

The completely customizable CyanogenMod combines

stock Android sensibilities with the utility of

aftermarket features, including advanced gesture and

voice commands, that you won’t ¿nd in other skins.

The voice commands were a little shaky. Instead of

“Okay Google Now,” you train the OnePlus One to

recognize “Hey Snapdragon” to launch Google Now’s

voice recognition. This worked for me about 30

percent of the time, and typically only when I

yelled or enunciated unnaturally. When it

works, it functions more or less on the same

level as on the Moto X. You can ask for

weather forecasts, send texts, set reminders,

or perform any other Google Now function.

Easily swappable UI elements and themes are a trademark of CyanogenMod,

letting you change icons, fonts, wallpapers, and lock screens to any of hundreds

of designs downloadable from the built-in store or Google Play. You can toggle

whether you use the on-screen or capacitive navigation buttons, but launching

straight into Google Now caused the navigation bar to lose its transparency

effect and display as a thick black bar along the bottom. Luckily, the ¿x was

easy: Locking and unlocking the phone made the bar transparent again.

OnePlus puts an emphasis on security, offering encrypted text messaging

between devices running CyanogenMod and granular control over individual

app permissions with Privacy Guard.

CAMERAS AND CONCLUSIONS

The OnePlus One comes equipped with a 13-megapixel, rear-facing camera with

dual-LED Àash and a 5MP front-facing camera. OnePlus says it uses a Sony

Exmor IMX 214 sensor with an f/2.0 aperture for gathering more light and a

six-element lens to cut down on distortion. In good lighting, images look alive

with detail and true-to-life colors. Autofocus was nearly instantaneous, but

exposure was hit or miss and dynamic

range was only average. Unfortunately,

that low-distortion claim doesn’t hold up—toward the

edges of the frame straight lines become awkwardly

warped and unnatural. In low light and indoors, the

camera admirably balanced grain with detail, but

images still looked soft, especially if subjects weren’t

completely still. I prefer them to the results I saw with

the Galaxy S5 in low light, but the HTC One (M8) still

takes better low-light photos.

The OnePlus One is capable of 4K video recording,

but its quality is generally mediocre, frame rates can dip

below 15 frames per second, and autofocus is painfully

slow. Standard 1080p footage looks vivid and lifelike in

good lighting, but graininess creeps in even under

modestly lit scenarios.

The OnePlus One is hopefully a harbinger of things to

come: a no-compromise device that challenges the

current hegemony of subsidized smartphones and

contract-bound service plans. If the untested company

can maintain quality control and meet demand, the One

will be the smartphone to beat. It might be too big for

some, though, and there’s still a case to be made for

stock Android straight from Google—if you fall in this

camp, the Google Nexus 5 is still stellar. Otherwise, the

OnePlus One is the most phone for the least money, and

earns our Editors’ Choice award for unlocked phablets.

EUGENE KIM


If the untested company can

maintain quality control

and meet demand, the

One will be the smartphone

to beat.

EDITORS’CHOICE

The Sony Alpha 6000 is one of the fastest-

focusing cameras that I’ve held in my hands,

and the quality of the images that its

24-megapixel APS-C sensor captures is

outstanding. That it manages to perform this

well sets it apart from the crowd, especially when you

consider that it also squeezes a sharp OLED EVF, a

tilting rear display, and Wi-Fi into its compact body. It’s

our new favorite in this class.

DESIGN AND FEATURES

The Alpha 6000 looks a lot like the NEX-6 that it

replaces in Sony’s mirrorless lineup, but there are a few

Sony Alpha 6000

$649.99 (body only)

L L L L H

Snap Sharp Photos With Sony’s Mirrorless Marvel


REVIEWS

changes in body design. It measures 2.6 by 4.7 by 1.8

inches (HWD) and weighs 12.1 ounces without a lens.

It’s just a little smaller and lighter than the NEX-6 (2.8

by 4.8 by 1.7 inches, 12.2 ounces), but squeezes in an

extra control button and separate a pair of control dials.

The camera skips the SLR styling of some other

mirrorless cameras with an integrated EVF, instead

placing the view¿nder in the corner of the camera so all

the controls can slide over to the right side. There is a

built-in Àash—it’s mounted on a hinge so you can tilt it

back for indirect illumination—and a multifunction hot

shoe. It can accommodate a number of accessories,

including larger Àashes, external microphones, and an

XLR adapter for balanced audio input.

Next to the Àash are the standard mode dial and a

control dial. There’s a modest handgrip in front of

them—it has the power switch and shutter release, as

well as the programmable C1 button. The physical

release and the Menu button sit above the rear LCD,

with the remainder to its right. From top to bottom,

there’s the Autoexposure Lock button, the Fn control

(for accessing 12 customizable shooting controls), a

control wheel with a Center button (which activates

Lock-on AF when the focus area is set to Wide or

Center, and lets you move the focus point around the

LCD if you switch to Flexible Spot or Zone focus), four

directional presses (Display, ISO, Exposure

Compensation, Drive Mode), the Play button, and the

programmable C2 button. The on-body controls

are customizable.

The 3-inch hinge-mounted rear display is limited

to about 45 degrees when facing down, and has a

921k-dot resolution on par with the best cameras in

this class. The Alpha 6000’s 1,440k-dot

electronic view¿nder doesn’t pack as

many pixels as other cameras’,

but it’s still quite sharp.

Sony Alpha 6000

PROS Incredibly fast

autofocus. 11.1fps

burst shooting with

tracking focus.

Amazing high-ISO

image quality. Sharp

OLED EVF. Tilting rear

display. Includes in-

body flash, Wi-Fi with

NFC, multifunction

hot shoe. Supports

1080p60 video

capture. Extra camera

apps available for

download.

CONS Overly

sensitive eye sensor.

Slow startup. EVF

lags in very dim light.

Lacks analog mic

input. Some apps

must be purchased.

Because it uses OLED it delivers more contrast than you’ll ¿nd in LCD EVFs.

There is some choppiness in very dim light, but it’s no worse than you’ll

experience with the rear LCD, and you’ll only encounter it in very low light. The

Live View feed is acceptably smooth when you’re shooting in the interiors of

most homes.

An eye sensor automatically switches between the rear LCD and the EVF, but

if you’re using the camera near your body it turns off the LCD when the Alpha is

just 3 inches away from you, and even my index ¿nger triggered the sensor

when it got within an inch. The only way to toggle between the rear LCD and

EVF manually is via the menu—you can’t assign that function to a custom

button. A feature that would disable the EVF when the rear LCD is tilted would

go a long way to rectify this issue.

The Wi-Fi–enabled Alpha 6000 supports NFC pairing for quick connection to

compatible phones and tablets. If you have a phone without NFC, a password is

required to connect to the network that the camera broadcasts when Wi-Fi is

enabled. With the free Sony PlayMemories Mobile app, it’s possible to transfer

images from the camera to your Android or iOS phone or tablet, though Raw

images will copy over in JPEG format. MP4 video transfer is also supported.

You can move beyond basic transfer functionality by downloading apps from

the PlayMemories store. It’s accessed directly from the camera; you just need to

connect it to a Wi-Fi network to get online. The free Smart Remote Control app

lets you control certain Alpha 6000 features (including zoom if you’re using a

power zoom lens, focus point, shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and EV

compensation) via your phone or tablet. There’s a big shutter button on the app

for taking a photo, and you can set a self-timer if desired.

There are a number of other apps available. Direct Upload lets you post

directly to Facebook, Flickr, or PlayMemories Online; and Photo Retouch and

Picture Effect+ are available for basic photo editing and ¿ltering. There are also

some premium apps, including one to capture star trails ($9.99), another for

time lapse photography ($9.99), and another that expands the bracketing

functionality of the camera ($4.99). A full list is available on the Web so you can

have an idea of what’s available before you invest in the Alpha 6000, but it’s too

bad these additional apps aren’t free—as they are with Samsung’s cameras.

PERFORMANCE AND CONCLUSIONS

The Alpha 6000 is slow to start and capture a photo—that takes about 1.9

seconds, but once the camera is on, it’s a speed demon. In good light it focuses

and ¿res almost instantly: 0.02 second on our focus lag test. In very dim light

that ¿gure slows to about 0.8 second.

As far as burst shooting, the Sony manages 11.1 frames per second (fps), with

continuous autofocus, and it keeps your subject in focus even as it moves

through the frame. You’ll want to engage the Lock-on AF function to make sure

your subject is tracked by the camera. The focus system had no trouble keeping

moving subjects in focus, even in scenes with other subjects on the periphery.

The number of shots that can be captured before the camera slows varies by

format: 22 Raw+JPEG or Raw shots, or 48 JPEG images. I tested using a

SanDisk 95MBps memory card the Alpha 6000 required 19.3, 14.5, and 20.2

seconds to clear its buffer to the card for each respective format.

We’re reviewing just the Alpha 6000’s body, but it’s available in a kit with a

16-50mm power zoom lens. When tested with the Alpha 6000, the center-

THE LIGHT IS RIGHT

The Sony Alpha 6000

has a hinged flash that

gives you the ability to

choose between direct

and indirect light for

your photos.

weighted average Imatest score tops 1,800 lines

throughout the zoom range, even at maximum

aperture, but we still recommend stopping the lens

down a bit for the best quality. There’s a huge jump in

resolution when you shoot it at f/5.6 at wider angles

(and f/8 when zoomed further in). Edge performance

never gets terri¿c at 16mm, but it’s pretty good when

the lens is stopped down and zoomed in. The Alpha

6000 does automatically correct for the large amount

of distortion that’s present at the widest angle

when shooting JPEGs, but if you work in Raw

you’ll need to apply lens correction in Lightroom.

Imatest also checks photos for noise, which

increases as you increase the camera’s sensitivity

to light (ISO). You can push the Alpha 6000 all

the way to ISO 12800 and noise remains below

our 1.5 percent threshold, increasing to 2.1

percent at its top ISO 25600 sensitivity when

using default JPEG noise reduction settings. If

you prefer images that are on the noisier side but

show more detail, you can set the noise reduction

to Low or Off via the menu, or just shoot in Raw.

JPEG detail is shockingly good at ISO 3200, and

there’s only a slight drop off in quality at ISO 6400.

At ISO 12800 some detail gives way to smudging. You

can eke out more detail by shooting Raw, though

keep in mind that severe graininess sets in

at ISO 25600. The Alpha 6000 is de¿nitely

the best mirrorless camera in its price class

in terms of ISO performance.

MP4 video quality on the Alpha 6000 tops

out at 1080p30 at 12Mbps; AVCHD gives

you a selection of bitrates, up to a maximum

of 1080p60 at 28Mbps. The video itself is

very sharp, and when shooting at 60fps

motion is smooth. If you’re serious about

video you’ll want to invest in an external

microphone—the sound of the 16-50mm

power zoom lens is audible if you use the

internal microphone—but the Alpha 6000 lacks a

standard 3.5mm microphone input port, so you’ll need

one that works with the camera’s hot shoe.

In addition to the shoe, there are micro USB and

micro HDMI connectors, both protected by a Àap on

the left side of the body. The USB port is used to

charge the camera; an AC adapter and cable are

included. The battery compartment also houses the

memory card slot; SD, SDHC, SDXC, and Sony

Memory Stick Duo cards are supported.

The Sony Alpha 6000 is the best APS-C mirrorless

camera the company has produced to date. Its

24-megapixel image sensor offers a ton of resolution,

and yet still manages to keep noise under control at

very high ISOs. The 11.1fps burst rate is the fastest

we’ve seen in a mirrorless camera, and its autofocus

system is able to keep pace even when ¿ring off shots

at such a high speed. Add in a tilting rear display, EVF,

and Wi-Fi, and it’s tough to ¿nd too much fault with

the Alpha 6000.

JIM FISHER


THE (LENS)

CHOICE IS YOURS

The Alpha 6000 is

available body-only,

or you can buy it in a

kit with a 16-50mm

power zoom lens

that turns out solid

photos.

Vacuum robots are terri¿c for picking up

physical debris and pet hair tumbleweeds, but

they don’t exactly leave your Àoors looking

shiny and new the same way a good mopping will. If

you’ve already grown accustomed to automated Àoor

cleaning, though, the last thing you’ll want to do is

break out the mop and bucket. Luckily, iRobot’s latest

‘bot, the Scooba 450, does a good job of cleaning your

Àoors so you don’t have to. But at $599.99, it’s a

substantially larger investment than a re¿ll pack of

Swiffer pads.

iRobot Scooba

450

$599.99

L L L H m

This Robomop’s Success Is Not a Clean Sweep


REVIEWS

DESIGN AND SETUP

Physically, you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference

between the Scooba 450 and the previous model, the

Scooba 390. It also looks pretty much identical to

iRobot’s Roomba family of vacuum robots. The ‘bot

measures 3.6 inches high and 14.4 inches in diameter,

which is a size that lets it get into most spots, but I’ll

touch on that more in a bit.

A handle on top of the Scooba makes it easy to carry

from room to room (and prevents any water from

spilling out). There are three clearly labeled, backlit

buttons on top. The biggest of these, Clean, starts and

stops the cleaning cycle. An Information button to the

left Àashes various colors to let you know the status of

the robot. One big improvement in the 450 is that,

when you press the Information button, it now speaks a

verbal cue as well, so there’s no guesswork as to what a

particular light means. Finally, a Room Size button lets

you choose between short and long cleaning cycles

(which equates to rooms up to 150 or 300 square feet,

each of which takes 25 or 45 minutes, respectively).

Setting up the Scooba 450 is easy. You’ll need to

LAW OF ROBOTICS

The iRobot Scooba

450 is easy to

configure so you can

keep it cleaning just

where you want it.

iRobot Scooba

450

PROS Effective

cleaning. Easy to use.

Speaks audible cues.

CONS Pricey. Loud.

Requires some

manual labor to keep

clean.

charge it for 8 hours the ¿rst time out, but after that

it can reach a full charge in less than 3 hours, which

is faster than previous models. Once fully charged,

you need to load the Scooba’s 750mL tank with

water as well as iRobot’s own hard Àoor cleaning

solution. (One bottle comes with the Scooba;

additional bottles will run you $12.95 each.) You

can’t use any other cleaning Àuids, but a single bottle

should last for 32 cleaning cycles. If you’re all out of

cleaner, iRobot says you can also just use water.

There’s a Tank Release button on top of the

Scooba that lets you easily detach the water tank

from the rest of the robot’s body. And the bottom of

the tank has clearly labeled Clean and Dirty

compartments, so it’s clear where the fresh water

goes in and the refuse later goes out. Once the tank

is full, you’re ready to clean.

CLEANING PROCESS

Although the Scooba 450 looks like a Roomba, it

certainly doesn’t clean like one. The Scooba uses a

new three-cycle cleaning process, which iRobot

claims makes it up to three times more effective than

previous models. When you turn it on, the Scooba

automatically sweeps and presoaks, scrubs, and then

squeegees your Àoors dry. That presoak period is

3 6

POWER WASHING

The Scooba 450 comes with

its own handsome charging

cradle. After its first charge,

the robot can reach full battery

life in less than 3 hours.

crucial, according to iRobot, as it provides more time for the water and cleaning

solution to loosen any dirt and debris.

iRobot has updated its iAdapt responsive navigation technology for wet Àoors,

which optimizes the amount of time the Scooba makes between passes. And the

robot’s scrubbing brush spins at over 600rpm, which helps it clean up most

moderate messes. According to iRobot, the Scooba is capable of washing away

up to 99.3 percent of bacteria, which is impressive.

PERFORMANCE

What’s most important, though, is how the Scooba works on real Àoors, and in

most instances, it does a pretty solid job. In small spaces, the Scooba follows a

regimented process. It starts off by cleaning in a circle, making a few revolutions

outward, before it takes off to the nearest wall to clean the room’s perimeter.

The Scooba cleans well, too. It makes quick work of any relatively fresh stains,

and I was surprised by just how much dirt came out of the tank when it was

¿nished cleaning. You might have to lend a helping hand for deeper-set stains,

like an ancient coffee spill, but if you use the Scooba on a regular basis it should

keep your Àoors looking as good as new.

Most rooms, however, are neither perfectly square nor completely

unimpeded. Luckily, the Scooba can distinguish the difference between hard

Àoors and carpet, and can detect stairs. When the Scooba butts up against a

carpet, it’ll pause brieÀy before changing direction, much like if it bumped into

a wall. The same goes for chairs and other furniture, as well as stairs. The

Scooba has a relatively low pro¿le that lets it ¿t under most couches and chairs,

but it’s wide, so it has a tough time getting around extremely small spaces, like

my minuscule Brooklyn apartment bathroom.

I wanted to use the Scooba to tidy up PC Labs, which is a wide-open 5,000

square feet. Unfortunately, in rooms that big, the Scooba tends to get a bit lost.

It started off doing its circular routine, but then it took off and never came back.

This was ¿ne in some regards—some clean parts of the Lab are better than

none—but because the Scooba didn’t get to complete a full cleaning rotation, it

never got to perform the ¿nal step, which is to squeegee the excess water away,

so the Àoor was basically left to air dry.

On the bright side, the less water the Scooba picks up, the less dirty water you

need to drain. Once the Scooba has ¿nished cleaning, you need to take it to a

sink and drain it of all the collected liquid. The water usually takes on a gray,

murky tone, and you’ll sometimes encounter stray bits of hair and other

detritus. On the other hand, at least you know it’s doing its job.

Obviously many people have rooms that are larger than 300 square feet, and

iRobot has a solution. You can set up an Auto Virtual Wall, which is basically a

small, Àask-shaped device that creates an invisible barrier that the Scooba won’t

cross. You get one Virtual Wall with the Scooba, and additional Walls cost

$39.99 each. They’re extremely simple to set up—just insert two D batteries, Àip

the Power switch, and point the device in the direction you wish to create a wall.

In a huge room, you can use a number of Virtual Walls to section off a small

portion of the room and clean it spot by spot. The Scooba lasts long enough to

complete a 45-minute, 300-square-feet cleaning cycle before you need to charge

it, which means it could take a while to fully clean a larger room.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the Scooba 450 is

almost as loud as a traditional upright vacuum, but it’s

close. You probably don’t want to be in the room while it’s

cleaning, unless you have a high tolerance or you’re

wearing a pair of earplugs.

CONCLUSIONS

The Roomba family seems to be more popular than the

Scooba robots, and I’m not quite sure why. After all, it’s

relatively simple to pull out the vacuum or broom and tidy

up. Mopping, on the other hand, requires much more

work. That’s why, despite its imperfections, I still like the

Scooba 450. I’m not sure I’d be willing to spend $599.99

on it, but the thought of never needing to mop again is

quite appealing.

If you already own the Scooba 390, it cleans nearly as

well as the 450, so the main thing you’re missing out on is

voice cues. iRobot no longer sells any other Scooba robots,

though it offers the Braava 320 ($199.99) and the Braava

380t ($299.99), which are less expensive, less noisy, and

less effective at cleaning, are ¿ne choices for the more

casual clean freak.

ALEX COLON


DIRTY WORK

The Scooba 450 can

keep your floors clean,

but cleaning the

intricate Scooba

itself can be a chore.

Beethe¿rst, the kickoff product from Portuguese

company Beeverycreative, is not your typical

3D printer. It has a handsome and compact

frame design, is easy enough to set up and run, and

showed very good print quality at high resolution. But

it’s expensive for what it offers, has a relatively small

build area, and the Windows version of its software still

has a few kinks to work out. Still, it’s a terri¿c ¿rst

product for this startup.


$2,449

L L L m m

Expensive 3D Printer Is a Honey for Beginners

HARDWARE

REVIEWS

DESIGN

The Beethe¿rst has a beautiful and unusual frame,

almost donut-shaped, but with square sides and

rounded corners. The “donut hole” is an open

rectangular area where the printing takes place. The

extruder stays at the top of the printer and moves from

side to side, while the build platform moves vertically,

as well as in and out. A string of blue-white lights

festoons the printer’s top, and at the bottom, the

Beethe¿rst name is illuminated from within.

Beeverycreative designed the Beethe¿rst with an eye

to ease of use, portability, and design. The company

seeks to get everyone—not just makers and early

adopters—excited about 3D printing. Some features,

such as the extruder’s staying

within the frame and mostly

internal wiring, were added

with classroom friendliness

in mind.

With its frame measuring

15.7 by 15.7 by 5.1 inches

(HWD), Beethe¿rst is very

compact for a 3D printer; its

4.9-by-5.3-by-7.5-inch build

area is likewise modest by 3D

printer standards. The

Solidoodle 4, for instance, has

an 8-inch-cube build area, and

the Editors’ Choice Type A

Machines Series 1’s build area

measures 10 by 9 by 9 inches.

For the most part, setting up

a Beethe¿rst is simple and

straightforward, and you’re

guided by printed

instructions. You install the proprietary Beesoft

software from the Beeverycreative site, attach the power

and USB cords, cover the build platform with the


PROS Handsome

design. Easy to set up,

use. Good print quality

at high resolution.

Compact. Easy to

remove finished

objects from print bed.

CONS Pricey for its

capabilities. Filament

spools are expensive,

proprietary, small.

Can’t print without

computer connection.

Some software issues.

included 3M blue painter’s tape, and then attach the platform to the printer

(magnets keep it in place). You then place the spool holder rod inside the

¿lament spool, and attach this assembly to the inside of the printer.

The Beethe¿rst is designed for use with polylactic acid (PLA) plastic ¿lament.

The compatible 0.73-pound spools are unusually small and sold at a premium

through Beverycreative and a few distributors, such as Dynamism, which

charges $39 per spool. Retailers generally sell the much larger 2.2-pound PLA

spools for other 3D printers for around $35 each. Although you can’t exactly

compare the cost-per-¿lament weight for the two sizes (as the spools

themselves count toward the weight), with Beethe¿rst you clearly get a lot less

¿lament for a similar or slightly higher price.

Once you’ve booted up the software, you can access instructions from the

Maintenance menu to load the ¿lament. You need to snake the ¿lament through

a hole above the spool and through a coiled tube until it reaches the extruder

assembly and can move no more. Pressing a button will then draw the ¿lament

into the extruder. The process can be awkward at ¿rst, but it went more

smoothly than I expected.

HIVE MIND

With a squat stature

and a modest-sized

build area, the

Beethefirst 3D

printer is best suited

for smaller projects.

SOFTWARE

The Beesoft printing software is available for PC, Mac, and Linux, and seems to

be frequently upgraded. I ¿rst installed the software on a Windows 7 machine,

and although I got it to print out one object, the program would usually crash as

soon as I connected the printer to the PC. Our Dynamism contact said the

tendency to crash under Windows is a known issue with the software—which is

currently in beta—and Beethe¿rst is working to correct it. He suggested that I

run the software in Administrator mode, which didn’t help. What did help was

waiting a few minutes, even after the software seemed to have loaded, before

connecting the printer’s USB cable. I got Beesoft to work without problems on

another Windows 7 laptop, as well as a Windows 8 machine. I did most of our

testing using a Mac running OS X Mavericks, which printed glitch-free.

Once it’s up and running, the software is easy to use. You load an object ¿le

from an image gallery (it comes with a handful of preloaded object ¿les you can

try) or from your own collection. Press Print to view a menu where you can

adjust resolution and density, as well as add a raft (a base to print on) or

supports. You then save the ¿le in the company’s own Bee ¿le format, and once

the object ¿le is sliced to the resolution and parameters you specify, and the

extruder heated to the right temperature, printing will commence.

FLOWER POWER

The attractive

Beethefirst turns

out excellent-looking

printed objects at

high resolution

(though it slows

down considerably

in doing so).

PRINTING AND CONCLUSIONS

Before you print for the ¿rst time, you have to calibrate

the Beethe¿rst so the extruder is the proper distance

from the build platform, and the platform is level. This

is done by following the instructions in the software and

turning either of two screws in the arm that supports

the build platform. It took me two tries to get it right,

but once it’s set it should remain calibrated for a good

while if you treat the printer gently.

I printed test objects at both its high (100 microns)

and low (300 microns) resolutions, the only two

choices. At the low (coarse) resolution, the prints

looked crude and in one case proved brittle (with the

ear on a Yoda head breaking off). Output looked much

better at high (¿ne) resolution—among the best we’ve

seen from any 3D printer. Printing was considerably

(and predictably) slower at the higher resolution.

Beethe¿rst is a beautiful addition to the 3D printing

ranks, and its ease of use makes it a good choice for

novices and educational applications, as well as makers

and designers. Its build quality at high resolution is

exquisite, and artists and designers should be happy

with it. Its main drawback is its price, which will be

prohibitive for many individuals and schools.

COMB THE AREA

Calibrating the

Beethefirst extruder

can be tricky, but it’s

a necessary step to

producing accurate

printed objects.

If it ¿ts into your budget, the Beethe¿rst is

well worth considering. It’s compact and

elegant, and has outstanding print quality at

high resolution. Despite some software issues

when running under Windows, it would make

a good addition to a classroom, home, or

design studio. Though many 3D printers are

easy to set up and use and turn out good-

quality objects, it’s tough to ¿nd another 3D

printer with the Beethe¿rst’s elegance and

compactness. But from our Editors’ Choice

Type A Machine Series 1 (Àoor models are

available for $899, in preparation for the

release of a new model) to the Solidoodle 4

($999), there are a number of much more

economical choices out there that offer much

of what the Beethe¿rst does—and in some

cases more.

TONY HOFFMAN


BEE PLUS

Designed for ease of

use, the Beethefirst

places a higher

premium on trouble-

free setup and

operation than value

or print quality (at

least at its lower and

faster resolution).

But it’s a good

starter printer if your

needs are modest.

EDITORS’

CHOICE

The MSI GT70 2PC Dominator is a beefy, 17-inch midrange gaming

laptop, boasting the latest hardware from Intel and Nvidia, and

features like a customizable keyboard backlight and Blu-ray drive. It

has one or two rough spots—namely no adequate touchpad support

for the best Windows 8 experience—but for the most part it’s a

powerful rig that won’t put you in the poorhouse.

DESIGN

The GT70 2PC Dominator will look familiar to anyone who has used MSI’s

gaming laptops before. The 8.3-pound system measures 2.2 by 16.9 by 11.3

inches (HWD), and has black brushed aluminum across the lid and palm rest.

MSI GT70 2PC

Dominator

$2,351 (as tested)

L L L L m

A Great Gaming Laptop at a Reasonable Price

HARDWARE

REVIEWS

The laptop is equipped with a well-built, chiclet-style

keyboard from SteelSeries. It uses a complex

backlighting scheme, with different zones that can be

independently set to any of a selection of colors. The

keys travel smoothly, with adequate depth and causing

no Àexing of the underlying deck. The accompanying

touchpad is also fairly good, with discrete right and left

buttons, but there’s no support for basic Windows 8

gestures, such as swiping in from the edges. Our

previous Editors’ Choice for midrange gaming laptops,

the Asus G75VW-DH72, handled those gestures easily.

The 17.3-inch screen boasts 1,920-by-1,080

resolution, and has a matte ¿nish to reduce glare and

reÀectivity. The display looks good, with true colors and

wide viewing angles, but it lacks touch capability. This

isn’t unusual for gaming laptops, but it means that the

touch input so essential to the Windows 8.1 operating

system is relegated entirely to the touchpad, with its

incomplete gesture support.

Finally, the GT70 2PC Dominator is out¿tted with

two stereo speakers and a built-in subwoofer. While

playing The Knife’s “Silent Shout,” that subwoofer

provided decent bass, thumping right along when most

laptops can barely offer anything in the low end.

Dialogue and music were clear on the latest trailer for

X-Men: Days of Future Past, and the subwoofer lent a

MSI GT70 2PC

Dominator

PROS Potent

performance.

Hardware includes

gaming networking

adapter, integrated

subwoofer, Blu-ray

combo drive,

keyboard with

multicolor backlight.

CONS Touchpad

doesn’t support basic

Windows 8 gesture

controls.

ALL YOU NEED

(AND WANT)

Two stereo speakers

and a good port

selection are nice

additions to the MSI

GT70 2PC Dominator.

little additional weight to its various explosions and

sound effects.

FEATURES

The GT70 2PC Dominator is equipped with ¿ve USB

ports (three USB 3.0, two USB 2.0), HDMI, VGA, and

Mini DisplayPort for video output, an SD card reader,

and jacks for headphone and microphone. The system

also boasts a combo Blu-ray/DVD burner. A Killer

DoubleShot network adapter provides both Gigabit

Ethernet and 802.11n Wi-Fi, with optimizations for

gaming, like prioritization for latency-sensitive

application traf¿c. Also on hand is Bluetooth 4.0 + HS,

which is perfect for connecting a wireless headset.

For speedy performance, the GT70 2PC Dominator

features a 128GB solid-state drive (SSD), and a larger

1TB, 7,200rpm hard drive for storage. With this pairing,

you get the performance you need when running

programs and a wealth of storage at a reasonable price.

In addition to Windows 8.1, our review unit arrived

preloaded with extra utilities, including SteelSeries

Engine for customizing the keyboard backlight. You

can also expect Nvidia GeForce Experience, which

offers simple driver management and settings

adjustments; DVR-like gameplay recording and

streaming (ShadowPlay); wireless streaming to

an Nvidia Shield (Game Stream); and Battery

Boost, which combines automatic system

optimizations and frame-rate targeting

to keep you gaming at a high level

while on battery power. MSI

covers the GT70 2PC

Dominator with a one-year

warranty on parts and labor.

PERFORMANCE

With a 2.7GHz Intel Core i7-

4800MQ quad-core processor

You get the performance

you need when running

programs and a wealth of

storage at a reasonable

price.

and 16GB of RAM, the GT70 2PC Dominator offers

solid performance for gaming and productivity alike.

The system completed PCMark 7 with a score of 6,073,

making it one of the more capable gaming laptops in

this price range, though it came in slightly behind the

Eurocom X3 (6,281) and the most recent Origin EON17-

SLX (6,446). In multimedia tests, the laptop completed

Handbrake in 32 seconds and Photoshop in 3 minutes,

17 seconds, fast enough even for prosumer-level photo

and video editing.

The GT70 2PC Dominator is out¿tted with an Nvidia

GeForce GTX 880M, the same GPU offered in the

Eurocom X3. With it, the system produced 3DMark 11

scores of 10,282 (using Entry settings), and 2,315 (on

Extreme). In gaming tests, the GT70 2PC Dominator

was good, but not exactly dominant. At baseline settings

(1,368-by-768 resolution, medium details) it scored 125

frames per second (fps) in Aliens vs. Predator, and

99fps in Heaven. At 1,920-by-1,080 resolution and

higher details, it pumped out 36fps in Aliens vs.

Predator and 38fps in Heaven. These are very good

scores, easily outpacing the midrange Editors’ Choice

Asus G75VW-DH72, and showing that the system will

handle even demanding new titles at full resolution

without dropped frames or jittering. That said, it

couldn’t quite keep up with more recent

competitors like the Eurocom X3 and the dual-

GPU Origin EON17-SLX.

In our battery rundown test, the MSI GT70 2PC

Dominator lasted 3 hours, 19 minutes. Although

this was well ahead of systems like the Origin

EON17-SLX (1:13) and Lenovo IdeaPad Y510

(2:21), it fell short of both MSI’s portability-

minded GE40 2OC-009US (6:14) and the similarly

equipped Eurocom X3 (3:42). Despite this, you’ll

still be able to enjoy gaming performance on

battery power thanks to Nvidia’s Battery Boost.

CONCLUSION

The MSI GT70 2PC Dominator has all the right

ingredients for a top-Àight gaming PC, with the

latest Intel and Nvidia hardware, a Blu-ray

drive, and ¿ner touches, like a customizable

backlit keyboard and built-in subwoofer.

We’d like to see better touchpad support

for Windows 8, but it’s a small

complaint on such a potent gaming

system. In terms of performance

alone, the MSI GT70 2PC Dominator

is well ahead of the Asus G75VW-DH72,

and easily replaces it as our Editors’

Choice for midrange gaming laptops.

BRIAN WESTOVER


The MSI GT70 2PC Dominator

has all the right ingredients for

a top-flight gaming PC.

First announced at the Computex trade show in June 2013, the Asus

Transformer Book Trio is the next step in the move toward convertible

and detachable hybrid designs, serving as three devices in one: a laptop,

a tablet, and even a desktop PC (sort of). Ambitious though it may be, the end

result falls short of what we expect from a ¿nished consumer product, with

complications arising from the three-in-one implementation and bugs that

further mar the user experience.

DESIGN AND FEATURES

The Transformer Book Trio might earn the title of most complicated hybrid

system, with two separate devices and two separate operating systems

combining, Voltron-style. With both halves of the system together, the

Transformer Book Trio measures 0.93 by 12 by 7.6 inches (HWD) and weighs

Asus

Transformer

Book Trio

$1,499 (as tested)

L L H m m

Asus’ Three-Way Laptop Is Less Than Meets the Eye

HARDWARE

REVIEWS

3.7 pounds—thicker and heavier than most other

systems of this type.

The display detaches from the keyboard to become an

11.6-inch tablet, with a 1,920-by-1,080 In-Plane

Switching (IPS) display that supports ten-point touch.

Although we’ve seen detachable tablets before, the

Transformer Book Trio’s tablet portion (armed with a

last-generation 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z2560 dual-core

processor, along with 16GB of Àash storage and an

internal 19Wh battery) comes with a separate operating

system, a skinned version of Android 4.2 Jelly Bean.

In laptop mode (with the tablet and keyboard

connected), you have the option of running either

Windows 8.1 or Android, and you can switch from one to

the other with the press of a button on the keyboard.

We’ve seen a couple of other dual-OS devices in the past,

but navigating two operating systems is clunky at best.

Then there’s the desktop mode. Because it has its own

processor (an ultrabook-class, dual-core 1.8GHz Intel

Core i7-4500U, paired with 4GB of RAM), hard drive

(500GB in capacity, spinning at 5,400rpm), 33Wh Li-

Poly battery, and ports, the docking keyboard isn’t

useless when the tablet is disconnected. Instead, it can

run entirely on its own, provided you connect it to an

external monitor via Mini DisplayPort or micro HDMI.

The Transformer Book Trio feels extremely well made,

with a luxurious brushed metal over most of the chassis.

The docking hinge initially seems to connect solidly, but

there’s no alignment guide or other help for properly

aligning the tablet with the docking connector. Once

docked, the hinge is fairly wobbly, and doesn’t hold up

Asus

Transformer

Book Trio

PROS Combines

tablet convenience,

laptop productivity.

Uses both Windows,

Android. Decent

overall performance.

CONS Expensive.

Awkward hardware

switching, file sharing

between laptop and

tablet. Tablet

exhibited some

activation issues.

WEIGHTY

CONCEPTS

When in its laptop

state, the Asus

Transformer Book

Trio is bulkier than

most similar hybrid

laptops.

well against the taps and bumps that are common when using a touch screen.

The ¿nal, and most irritating, problem we encountered was the tablet’s

propensity to turn off but not back on—this happened even with a replacement

unit, making the intermittent issue impossible to ignore.

The keyboard is on the small side and feels a little cheap, with non-backlit

keys and a deck made of plastic instead of the brushed aluminum found on the

rest of the chassis, but it offers a decent typing experience. The arrow keys and

top-row function keys are half-sized, which only exacerbates the cramped

feeling. The accompanying touchpad is also quite small, and not particularly

responsive. It had trouble with Windows 8 gestures, such as swiping in from the

edges to access Charms or cycle through open apps.

One more quirk to watch out for: The power button for the laptop/desktop PC

half of the system is an otherwise normal function key next to the Delete key. A

slip of the ¿nger, and you’ll put the entire system to sleep.

The tablet is moderately well equipped, with a front-facing 720p camera for

Skype and video chat, and a 5-megapixel camera in the rear for shooting photos

and 1080p video. Along the bottom edge of the tablet you’ll ¿nd a microSD card

slot, a micro USB 2.0 port, headphone jack, and docking connector. (It’s worth

noting that when the tablet is docked, the ports along the bottom edge are all

inaccessible.) On the back are Power and Volume buttons. For connectivity,

there’s single-band 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 3.0.

The docking keyboard, with its larger dimensions and PC capabilities, has an

expanded set of ports and features, with two USB 3.0 ports (one with extra

There’s no alignment

guide or other help

for properly aligning the

tablet with the docking

connector.

INNOVATION

AT A PRICE

Being able to use the

Transformer Book

Trio in three different

ways is a good idea,

but implementation

oddities make the

system frustrating

to operate overall.

power for charging devices), micro

HDMI and Mini DisplayPort for

connecting to an external monitor or

HDTV, and a headset jack. Its

networking features are better than

those of the tablet: dual-band 802.11ac

Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. The Bang and

Olufsen ICEpower sound systems delivers

good-quality audio on both the tablet’s

and keyboard’s speakers.

You can supplement the tablet’s 16GB

of onboard storage by using a 32GB or

64GB card in the built-in microSD card

slot. Unfortunately, although the

keyboard’s spinning hard drive offers

considerably more storage capacity

than what you’ll usually see in

convertible tablet systems, it’s also slower and more

prone to damage when used on the go.

Now is probably a good time to mention that Asus

covers the Transformer Book Trio with a one-year

warranty, and an extra 30-day “Zero Bright Dot

Guarantee” on the display. Asus also includes a soft

zippered case, which gives you a bit more protection

against scuffs and dings.

LIFE WITH TWO OPERATING SYSTEMS

Though switching between the Windows 8.1 environment and Android is simple

for the user, the operating systems are functionally running on separate devices,

sharing only the display and keyboard. This introduces some aggravating

quirks. For example, switching from Tablet mode to Laptop mode isn’t as

simple as connecting the tablet and pushing the button. Instead, you’ll need to

power on the keyboard ¿rst, and you won’t be able to change from one OS to the

other until it’s done with its separate boot sequence.

You can share ¿les between Android and Windows, but doing so is far from

seamless. You’ll need to sign onto your home network, with device sharing

enabled, then use the Asus Console app to transfer individual ¿les. It’s only

slightly different than the process you would go through to share ¿les between

any other two Windows and Android devices, complete with all of the inherent

limitations. You still need to worry about ¿le compatibility, and the tablet’s

limited storage will require you to share content in small chunks. This sort of

thing is an understandable annoyance when dealing with two separate devices,

but not with what are ostensibly two parts of a single product.

PERFORMANCE

The Transformer Book Trio is as much an Android tablet as it is a laptop, so our

performance evaluation included our usual battery of Android tests. Because of

the low-end processor, performance isn’t terri¿c. In the AnTuTu overall system

benchmark test, the Trio eked out a score of 17,471, whereas the Samsung

Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 pulled well ahead with 21,048. Asphalt 8 was smooth and

playable, but it was bogged down a little by the 1080p display.

As a laptop and desktop PC, the Transformer Book Trio’s performance is

signi¿cantly better than we’ve seen from Atom-powered PCs and Windows

tablets, but it falls short of what you get from comparable laptops. In PCMark 7

the Trio scored 2,979, beating out Asus’ own Atom-powered Transformer Book

T100A1 (2,485), but not other Core-powered systems with solid-state drives,

like the HP 13t-h200 X2 (4,035) and Microsoft Surface Pro 2 (5,248).

Multimedia performance was better, too: The Transformer Book Trio ¿nished

Photoshop in 4 minutes, 23 seconds, and Handbrake in 1:13; that’s ever so

slightly ahead of the Surface Pro 2 (Handbrake 1:13, Photoshop 4:25), the 13t-

h200 X2 (Handbrake 1:53), and the Asus Transformer Book TX300C

(Photoshop 4:47).

Equipped with Intel’s integrated HD Graphics 4400, the Trio offered

decent graphics performance, putting it neck-and-neck with the Surface Pro 2.

In 3DMark 11, the Trio scored 1,818 under Entry settings and 290 on

Extreme; the Surface Pro 2 edged slightly ahead (1,863 for Entry, 303 for

Extreme). In gaming tests, the Trio was also nearly identical in performance to

the Surface Pro 2.

Battery life with the tablet alone was 5 hours, 59 minutes, putting the

Transformer Book Trio ahead of the Acer Iconia A1-830 (4:03) and the Galaxy

Tab 3 10.1 (4:45), but about an hour behind the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 10 (6:56).

Running in laptop mode, the Transformer Book Trio lasted 6 hours, 4 minutes,

on our standard battery rundown test. This falls short of the total battery life

offered by other systems, like the HP Spectre 13t-h200 X2 (7:15) and Asus

TX300C (7:45). The Atom-powered Asus Transformer Book T100A1 lasted

11:20, and the Microsoft Surface Pro 2 lasted 7:19 with no secondary battery.

CONCLUSION

The Asus Transformer Book Trio presents a collection of contradictions. Its

laptop and tablet performance, taken separately, are actually very good, and the

marriage of two separate devices and operating systems provides clever

solutions to several unique technical problems. But implementation problems,

from kludgy ¿le sharing to booting oddities and power issues when switching

between tablet and laptop, and the high price outweigh the bene¿ts offered by

the otherwise decent performance. The Editors’ Choice Microsoft Surface Pro 2

and the accompanying Microsoft Docking Station offers equal or better

performance and a seamless Windows experience across all usage modes. But if

you want to use Android and Windows together, you’re better off purchasing

the laptop and tablet of your choice separately.

BRIAN WESTOVER


NO EASY ANSWERS

Despite its innovative

nature and good

performance in some

applications, the

Transformer Book

Trio is a high-priced

system that doesn’t

quite manage to live

up to its daring

potential—especially

when compared with

other tablets.

EDITORS’CHOICE

We’ve seen plenty of console-sized gaming

desktops in the last few years, as companies

try to convert people raised on PlayStation

and Xbox to the ranks of PC gamers.

Unfortunately, these smaller rigs have usually

left us wanting in terms of performance. Now, the

CyberPower Zeus Mini is here to throw all that out the

window. This miniature PC packs a punch, with a small-

form-factor (SFF) chassis packed with components


$1,825 (as tested)

L L L L m

Big Performance Lurks Within This Tiny Desktop

HARDWARE

REVIEWS

built for maximum performance and overclocking.

There’s not much room for upgrades and maintenance,

but this is one gaming PC that won’t be showing its age

anytime soon.

DESIGN AND FEATURES

The chassis has an angular front panel and a black paint

job, accented with bright-green, chevron-shaped

cooling vents. Glowing green LEDs inside the chassis

put a positively verdant spin on the otherwise all-black

tower. The chassis can be used upright like a regular PC

tower, or horizontal and incorporated into a

home entertainment setup.

The front of the chassis features two USB

ports (one USB 3.0, one USB 2.0), headphone

and microphone jacks, and a slot-loading DVD

burner. A small power button on the top edge

of the panel glows green when the system is

powered on.

On the rear of the tower are six additional

USB ports (two USB 2.0, four USB 3.0), two

Gigabit Ethernet ports, audio connections for

external speakers, and S/PDIF output for

digital eight-channel surround sound. There

are also ports for HDMI and DVI on the main

panel, but these have been disabled; coming

off of the graphics card, however, are two

DVI-D connections and outputs for HDMI

and DisplayPort.

Open up the side of the Zeus Mini and you’ll

discover that the tower is very crowded. Given

that the system measures only 13 by 4.4 by 17.4 inches

(HWD), its design is actually quite economical in its use

of interior space, but conditions inside are certainly

cramped. Even if there were any available PCIe slots or

SATA ports, the small con¿nes of the case don’t leave

much room for upgrades, and the radiator and cooling

fan block most of the access to the motherboard.

BIG-FEELING

SMALL FORM

FACTOR

Don’t let its size

fool you: There are

plenty of powerful

components inside

the CyberPower

Zeus Mini.


PROS Fits almost

anywhere. Powerful

components across

the board. Category-

leading performance.

CONS Limited

expansion room.

Cramped internal

design makes

maintenance, repairs

difficult.

Behind a cooling fan, you’ll catch glimpses of a Gigabyte Z87N Mini-ITX

motherboard equipped with a quad-core Intel Core i7-4770K processor and a

Cooler Master Seidon 120mm liquid cooling system. A riser card connects to a

discrete EVGA GeForce GTX 780 Superclocked video card, but because of the

way it’s positioned in the case, you’ll need to remove it to access the front of the

card. On one side of the motherboard are two slots containing 16GB of

1,600MHz dual-channel DDR3 RAM—G.SKILL Ripjaws X, made for

performance in overclocking—and SATA ports are all ¿lled, connecting to a

120GB solid-state drive for programs and a 2TB 7,200rpm storage hard drive.

Our review unit came with Windows 8.1 preinstalled, along with Nvidia’s

GeForce experience, which handles all of the driver updates, and provides

features like ShadowPlay (for recording in-game content) and GameCast for

enjoying the games on your PC through an Nvidia Shield. The only other

bundled software is a 30-day trial of Microsoft Of¿ce 365.

CyberPower covers the Zeus Mini with a three-year warranty (one year on

parts, three years on labor), along with lifetime tech support. Also, for those

interested in making the most of the Zeus Mini’s overclocking capabilities, you

can add Intel’s Performance Tuning Protection Plan for $29, which covers the

CPU in case of damage while tweaking performance beyond stock speci¿cations.

PERFORMANCE

The Zeus Mini is built for performance, and it delivered in

our tests. In PCMark 7, the Zeus Mini scored 6,710, several

hundred points more than most competitors, and just

ahead of the category-leading Velocity Micro Edge Z30

SmallBlock (6,657). It also landed toward the front of the

pack in CineBench, scoring 8.59, only placing behind the

overclocked Maingear Potenza Super Stock (9.57).

Performance was also superb in multimedia tests: The

Zeus Mini completed Handbrake in 28 seconds (tying the

Digital Storm Bolt) and nearly offered the fastest time in

Photoshop (2 minutes, 48 seconds).

But where the Zeus Mini really trounced competitors was

in graphics and gaming performance. It nabbed top scores

in 3DMark 11—a score of 15,614 on the Entry present and

4,672 at Extreme—and the best gaming performance in the

category. In Aliens vs. Predator, the Zeus Mini produced

237 frames per second (fps) at 1,355-by-768 resolution and

moderate detail settings, and 84fps at 1,920-by-1,080

resolution and high details. Similar performance was seen

in Heaven, where the Zeus Mini pumped out 181fps at the

1,366 by 768 baseline, and 74fps at full resolution and

details. All of these results were well ahead of competitors’,

making the Zeus Mini the best SFF machine for gaming.

CONCLUSION

With awesome test scores and a collection of parts made to

be pushed to the limit, the CyberPower Zeus Mini uses

every inch of its tiny size to provide the best gaming

experience possible. Though the lack of room for upgrades

will de¿nitely bum out PC tinkerers, the performance

speaks for itself, launching it ahead of comparable SFF

gaming rigs. With all that power selling for such a

reasonable price, the Zeus Mini is the pint-sized PC to beat,

replacing the Maingear Potenza Super Stock as our Editors’

Choice for midrange gaming desktops.

BRIAN WESTOVER


EDITORS’CHOICE

It was only a couple of years ago that portable hard drives with 1TB of

space were considered jaw-dropping. Enter Seagate’s Backup Plus

Fast, a portable USB 3.0 drive that boasts a prodigious 4TB of storage

capacity. This drive will hold more than 1,000 movies, tens of

thousands of songs or pictures, as well as everything on your PC’s

main drive and then some. It’s compact, offers fast throughput, and is a very

good value for what it offers.

DESIGN AND FEATURES

The Backup Plus Fast has a black polycarbonate exterior and measures about

0.88 by 3.25 by 4.75 inches (HWD). It’s a little chunkier than other portable

drives, like Seagate’s earlier Backup Plus, but then again, it also offers

signi¿cantly more space. That said, the Backup Plus Fast is a lot more portable


$229.99

L L L L m

Speedy, Portable Backup for All Your Important Files

HARDWARE

REVIEWS

than desktop-class drives like the LaCie Little Big Disk

Thunderbolt or the Western Digital My Book.

The Backup Plus Fast is USB 3.0 bus-powered, which

means it doesn’t require an external power adapter like

the LaCie Thunderbolt and Western Digital My Book.

The device comes with both a single-plug USB 3.0 cable

and a Y-shaped USB cable for use with laptops that

don’t provide enough power to spin up the drive. You

may need it for tablets, Chromebooks, and other low-

powered systems, though most desktops and laptops

have USB 3.0 ports that are capable of charging power-

hungry, full-size tablets.

If there’s anything missing, it might be the

Universal Storage Module (USM) port that is on

other Seagate drives, including the Backup Plus.

USM lets users clip on adapters for other

interfaces, like FireWire 800, eSATA, or

Thunderbolt. The last makes a lot of sense for a

4TB drive, given that graphics arts users with

Macs and professional workstations are prime

candidates for humungous storage devices. Thus

the drive would potentially be even faster with a

Thunderbolt adapter, but we understand why

Seagate chose the more ubiquitous USB 3.0 as

the drive’s sole interface.

The drive is NTFS formatted for use with

Windows PCs out of the box. That doesn’t leave

Mac users out of the picture, as the drive comes

with an NTFS driver for OS X. If you’d rather not

use the NTFS utility, you can always reformat the

drive to HFS+ for use with OS X exclusively. The

drive comes with Seagate Dashboard, a utility

that backs up your data, and shares and saves

pictures and videos across your social media

accounts. Both the NTFS and Dashboard utilities

come on the drive, ready to be installed on your

Mac or PC. The Backup Plus Fast comes with a

three-year warranty.


PROS Prodigious

storage capacity.

Speedy throughput.

CONS No more

Universal Storage

Module interface. No

Thunderbolt option.

Bulky.

PERFORMANCE AND VALUE

The Backup Plus Fast is one of the faster large-capacity external hard drives

we’ve tested. Sure, solid-state drives (SSDs) are speedier, but you can’t ¿nd

SSDs with a 4TB capacity at anywhere near this price. The Backup Plus Fast

garnered an amazing score of 87,971 on the PCMark05 disk test, which

measures general usage, read/write speeds, app loading times, and so on. This

is even faster than we saw from two of the previous champs, the ioSafe Rugged

Portable SSD (25,101) and the Seagate Backup Plus (6,463). The drive couldn’t

complete the PCMark 7 test due to errors, so we used the Blackmagic drive test

on a Mac. Its scores on that (229MBps write, 229MBps read) were almost twice

those of the G-Drive Mobile USB 3.0 (123MBps read; 122MBps write).

Although the Backup Plus Fast’s initial price of $269.99 might seem high, it

actually works out to only about 6 cents per gigabyte. This is a much better

value than the 14 cents per gigabyte you get with the 1TB Seagate Backup Plus

or G-Drive Mobile USB 3.0.

The Seagate Backup Plus Fast is just the hard drive you need if you’re carrying

lots of video downloads from one PC to another. It’s also an excellent auxiliary

drive for media set-top boxes or network-attached storage (NAS) routers that

have built-in drive sharing. The drive’s high speed and throughput ensure that

you won’t be waiting long to copy or view your ¿les. For all these reasons, the

Seagate Backup Plus Fast is our new Editors’ Choice for portable drives.

JOEL SANTO DOMINGO


EDITORS’CHOICE

Journalists, bloggers, meme creators, forum

posters, and anyone else who works or plays

online will eventually need a screen capture

utility. TechSmith’s Snagit is the tool for the

job. It combines a new video trimming tool,

traditional image and video capture, image import and

export capabilities, and more into one slick package

that demonstrates—on both PC and Mac—considerable

Àexibility, power, and ease of use for its price.

START SNAGGING

When you launch Snagit, the software displays a

miniature control that peeks out from the top edge of

your display. It sports a big red button for taking a

Snagit

$49.95

L L L L H

The Screen Capture Utility You Don’t Know You Need

SOFTWARE

REVIEWS

screenshot and smaller buttons for various settings

options. (You can also use the PC’s Print Screen key, or

de¿ne your own keyboard shortcut.) You can set up

Snagit to capture an image in the traditional way,

“scrape” text from webpages or other documents, or

record a screen-cap video. The text scraping option, a

feature not found in rival Ashampoo Snap 7, only works

with documents with actual text data.

If you’ve tried other screen-capture utilities, you

know that it isn’t easy to capture drop-down lists and

other Windows features that tend to disappear when

you press a key. Snagit’s incredibly useful timed

countdown feature alleviates the problem by letting you

capture almost anything on screen. This should be a

feature in all image capture apps.

Snagit lets you easily apply special effects to an image

(like grayscale, text, arrows, and borders) without

aspiring to be a super-tool like Adobe Illustrator. Its

video recording feature lets you include an audio track

from either a microphone or Windows’ own audio

output—for example, from an MP3 or a YouTube video.

TechSmith’s handy free Fuse apps (for Android and

iOS) let you export images from your phone or tablet to

a desktop running Snagit if the devices are on the same

Wi-Fi network.

CHOICE SELECT

Snagit is a snap to

use, letting you easily

capture almost any

display element you

can see on the screen.

Snagit

PROS Packed with

useful screen capture

features. New video

trimming tool. Full

range of borders,

effects. Uploads to

YouTube, Google

Drive. Can capture

drop-down menus,

other Windows

features that many

rival programs can’t.

Available for PC or

Mac.

CONS No revert

feature in the PC

image editor. Pricey.

PROFILING CAPTURES

Snagit comes with a small set of

capture “pro¿les” that determine

exactly what gets captured when you

take a screenshot. The default All-in-

One pro¿le displays a brightly colored

pair of crosshairs that you can either

drag to select part of the screen or

hover over a window border to capture

its whole area. For the ¿rst option, the

selection is captured when you release

the mouse button. If the selection area

is an automatically selected window,

you simply tap the left mouse button to take the screenshot. Ashampoo Snap 7,

by contrast, requires you to click the highlighted section after you trace an

outline to capture the image.

Other pro¿les insert the screen capture into Word with a border, or record a

video and send it to ScreenCast. Similar pro¿les can be downloaded from inside

the app itself, so you can use a pro¿le that sends a screen capture to Twitter or

Facebook, or posts a video capture to YouTube. You can create custom pro¿les,

too, by selecting outputs and effects and saving the setting.

IMAGE AND VIDEO EDITING

By default, a captured image opens in Snagit’s editor, and is saved in Snagit’s

image library. One nice thing about Snagit’s image saving is that any screenshot

you snag will forever be accessible from the program cache, even if you don’t

explicitly save it.

From the editor, you can save images and videos in any standard format,

including JPEG, BMP, PDF, and Flash (a choice not available in Snap 7). You

can even add hotspots that act as hyperlinks if you save your capture as

MHTML, PDF, SWF, or Snagit’s own SNAG format. One essential feature for

anyone making screenshots of Internet applications is the Blur tool, which

comes in handy when you want to mask elements in an image—obscuring

phone numbers in screens that are going to be publically shared, for example.

Google Drive integration lets you upload images to a dedicated folder without

leaving the app. Unfortunately, other popular cloud storage services like Box,

Dropbox, and Onebox aren’t supported. Images can be exported to Microsoft

Word, Excel, or PowerPoint.

Added to the most recent version is a basic video editor for the simple

trimming of clips. Captured video can be shared to Camtasia, ScreenCast, or

YouTube. Earlier Snagit versions recorded video in AVI format, but starting

with PC version 11 Snagit adopted the MPEG-4 format. You can preview

captured videos in the editor, and capture individual frames.

Snagit assigns some keystrokes for its own features, such as Shift-F9 and

Shift-F10 to start and stop video capture. If you use those keys in any other

applications, you’ll want to disable them in Snagit’s Tools menu.

NO GOING BACK

Our only serious complaint with Snagit is that in Windows there’s still no revert

feature for instantly undoing modi¿cations to a saved image. (The Mac version

does this.) You can close an image without saving and then reopen it, but that’s

more trouble than reverting. Also, in many apps a revert can be undone if you

change your mind. Closing with saving is more of nuclear option.

SNAGIT SNAGS THE PRIZE

Despite that small Windows hiccup, Snagit is beautifully designed, reliable, and

ef¿cient, doing just about everything a screen-capture app should do. Rival

screen capture products, like Snap, and integrated Windows and Mac tools,

work well enough, but can’t match Snagit’s Àexibility and power.

EDWARD MENDELSON

JEFFREY L. WILSON


ANYTHING,

ANYWHERE

CAPTURE

Whether simple

screen elements,

sound, or even video,

Snagit will help you

easily make it yours.

Features

SMARTWATCHES: HAS

THEIR TIME COME?

THE BEST

FITNESS APPS

DON’T LET RATS

HIJACK YOUR MAC!

FEATURES

SMARTWATCHESHAS THEIR TIME COME?

From Samsung’s Galaxy Gear lineup to the Kickstarter-backed Pebble, this could be the year the smartwatch transitions from movie prop to must-have gadget. But should you embrace this high-tech wearable? BY CHLOE ALBANESIUS

For years, the smartwatch has been a popular

accessory for Hollywood heroes, something

Samsung capitalized on in its marketing

campaign for last year’s Galaxy Gear. But although that

device got off to a slow start, it helped usher in a new era

of wearables, an emerging market that has seen

smartphone functionality move from the palm of our

hands to eyeglasses, belt clips, and wristbands.

A good deal of the chatter about wearables has focused

on Google Glass, but the search giant’s high-tech specs

are not exactly fashionable and currently cost $1,500.

Google’s Android Wear operating system for

smartwatches, however, will likely bear more immediate

fruit, as gadget giants like LG and Motorola line up to

show off devices running the OS later this year.

But why now? Smartwatches are nothing new;

Microsoft, for one, tested the waters with the ill-fated

SPOT device in 2003. It and other smartwatch options

over the years were interesting, but they didn’t really

provide enough functionality to keep us hooked. The

SPOT, for example, provided weather, traf¿c, stock news,

and personal calendar data. Big whoop. These days, it

seems like every device can do that.

SPOT CHECK

The Microsoft SPOT,

released in 2003, was

an early attempt at

the smartwatch that

gave users access to

12 channels of MSN

Direct information

about news, sports,

weather, and more.

GETTING IN GEAR

In its 2013 ad

campaign for

the Galaxy Gear,

Samsung drew

from TV shows’ and

movies’ fascination

with wrist-based

communication.

But most devices

have yet to live up

to fiction’s promise.

In the decade since the SPOT, we’ve seen a smartphone

revolution, network upgrades to 3G and then 4G LTE, an

exploding app ecosystem, advances in touch screens, and

a cultural shift that makes many of us feel the need to be

glued to our devices 24-7. But why hold your phone when

you can have its most useful services strapped to your

wrist for instant access? That’s the conclusion that

Samsung, Motorola, LG, Sony, Pebble, Qualcomm—and

maybe Apple?—hope you’ll reach as you ponder your

next electronics purchase. But should you buy? Let’s see

if they’re worth your hard-earned cash.

THE SMARTWATCH’S ‘EARLY DAYS’

An April report from IDC estimated that it’s early days for smart wearables and

that we won’t see a real explosion in the market until 2016. Though the

wearables market will hit about 19.2 million units in 2014, that will be largely

driven by ¿tness-focused devices from the likes of Fitbit or Jawbone. “Smart

accessories, such as the Pebble smartwatch, Samsung Galaxy Gear, and the

Sony SmartWatch, will also take a giant step forward, but their value

proposition has yet to be completely clari¿ed,” IDC analysts wrote.

Smartwatch shipments alone landed at around 2 million for 2013, according

to February data from Strategy Analytics, with Android-based gadgets

dominating the market at 61 percent, driven in large part by the Galaxy Gear.

“Android currently has several challengers in the smartwatch space, like

Firefox and Pebble OS, but none of them are a major threat at this stage because

of their relatively limited ecosystems and modest retail presence,” Strategy

SONY

SMARTWATCH 2

Sony gets closer to

the smartwatch ideal

with this smartphone

companion, but

bugs and other

limitations make the

sleek, comfortable

SmartWatch 2 unlikely

to appeal to everyone.

Analytics Senior Analyst Woody Oh said. “Android’s

main risk to its smartwatch dominance in the future

will come from Apple iOS, Microsoft, and perhaps

Tizen or COS. These four brands have the potential

scale or marketing power to offer a credible

alternative to Google’s popular platform.”

In fact, shortly after that report was released,

Samsung unveiled its Tizen-based follow-ups to the

Galaxy Gear: the Gear 2 and the Gear 2 Neo. As PC

Magazine’s Sascha Segan explained at the time, “Tizen

was widely seen as a backstop for Samsung in case

Google’s control over Android became too suffocating.”

And perhaps Samsung found Android on the Galaxy

Gear to be “too heavy, cumbersome, and power-

consuming,” Segan speculated after some hands-on

time with the new Gear smartwatches.

Rumors about an iOS-based smartwatch,

meanwhile, have been making the rounds for ages. But

Apple has yet to pull the trigger. Apple CEO Tim Cook

has said that he ¿nds the wearables market “incredibly

interesting,” but Cupertino has otherwise been

characteristically coy when it comes to discussing

actual product roadmaps. The closest we’ve come to

any sort of comment is Cook’s assertion during a

recent earnings call that “it means much more to us to

get it right than to be ¿rst.”

SAMSUNG GEAR 2

The Gear 2 smartwatch

is a vast improvement

over the original

version, but even with

a beautiful display

and good activity

tracking features, it’s

still too expensive

($299.99) and limited

in functionality.

QUALCOMM TOQ

The Mirasol color

e-paper display on

the Android-only Toq

is incredible, but its

restricted feature set

and app selection,

combined with finicky

hardware and a poor

wrist strap, make it a

tough sell at $249.

In what could be perceived as a dig at top rival

Samsung and the Galaxy Gear, Cook said that he has seen

“so many examples out in the marketplace [where] the

objective has been to be ¿rst. But customers don’t care

about that. They want insanely great, insanely great, and

that’s what we want to deliver.”

At this point, nothing on the market would likely be

described as “insanely great.” Advances have been made,

but challenges remain, including the need to connect to a

smartphone. For now, most smartwatches are an

extension of your mobile device. You can glance at your

wrist for text messages or app alerts when your hands are

full or when it’s not appropriate to pull out your

smartphone, change the music playing in your earphones,

or silence an incoming call. But it might not be worth

paying $200 or more for a wrist-based device just so you

don’t have to dig your phone out of your pocket or the

bottom of your purse.

PEBBLES AND GEARS AND TOQS, OH MY!

So what is out there? Samsung is already back for round

two with its Tizen-based Gear 2 lineup. But when it

comes to stylish and affordable smartwatches, PC

Magazine’s pick for the best device on the market is the

Pebble Smartwatch, and its pricier, more suave older

brother, the Pebble Steel.

Pebble made headlines for banking $10 million on

Kickstarter, and although many hardware projects have

had trouble getting off the ground after a crowdfunding

windfall, Pebble has been the exception. As of January,

it had sold 300,000 of its $150 Pebble Smartwatches,

and it has since added the $249 Pebble Steel and

launched an app store.

“The ¿rst Pebble succeeded by ¿nding a nexus of

features and simplicity that helped manage the digital

deluge of everyday life. But the inaugural effort was not

without its Àaws; it was particularly hampered by a

chintzy plastic design that made it feel more tech-toy

than versatile daily driver,” Eugene Kim wrote in his

March 2014 PC Magazine review of the Steel, which he

found “addresses those complaints in a big way by

introducing a solid steel design, glass screen, and much

tighter build quality.”

The Pebble is compatible with Android and iOS

devices via accompanying apps that push noti¿cations

and let you access stripped-down versions of favorite

apps like Foursquare, Yelp, or ESPN.

Sony has a similar device with its sleek SmartWatch

2, but the device is limited to Android and it lacks call

functionality. Qualcomm is also selling a limited

number of Toq smartwatches that sync with Android

smartphones and offer multiple-day battery life and

Mirasol display technology.

QUALCOMM AND

SONY GOES ERE

TK LEDE

MUga Itate sumque

nonsequi conseque

quas dit essi dolut

accuptat harchillaut

reri sanis am, omnis

dolenim qui velessi

moluptus nulles

harchillaut reri sanis

am, omnis dolenim qui

velessi moluptus nulles

PEBBLE STEEL

The Pebble Steel

is as mature as

smartwatches come,

blending sophisticated

design, a solid app

store, and plenty of

customizability. The

one big drawback is the

price: $249 is a bit high

for the functionality

the Pebble Steel offers.

ANDROID WEAR TO THE RESCUE?

After numerous rumors about a Google-backed

smartwatch throughout 2013, the company ultimately

stuck to its software roots and announced a

smartwatch-centric mobile OS in March, dubbed

Android Wear. Like it did with the full Android mobile

OS, Google has partnered with some big-name gadget

makers (Asus, HTC, LG, Motorola, Samsung,

Broadcom, Imagination, Intel, Mediatek, Qualcomm,

and Fossil Group), which have committed to releasing

Android Wear devices.

There’s the Motorola Moto 360, which adopts the

familiar circular watch face and aims to be an every-

person smartwatch that consumers will want to wear all

the time. Details about the Moto 360 are scant, but we

do know that there are no ports or contact points,

meaning it uses some sort of wireless power solution.

Meanwhile, LG has teased its G Watch, which

promises a sleek design, voice-activated commands, and

an always-on display.

Can these companies succeed where others have

failed? Segan expressed some skepticism. “Balancing

screen quality and battery size in a smartwatch that

people want to wear has been the real struggle

smartwatch makers have faced,” he said.

MOTOROLA

MOTO 360

Motorola’s entry

in the smartwatch

race is intended to

bring traditional and

beautiful timepiece

styling to the emerging

category. Pricing

and release date

information has not

yet been announced

for the Android-

powered device.

SUBSTANCE AND STYLE

The Moto 360 and LG G Watch certainly look lovely in

the mock-ups but some good lighting can do wonders.

Ultimately, companies that embrace Android Wear—or

any other wearable OS—need to make sure they

produce a device that doesn’t remind the average

consumer of the clunky calculator watches from the

1970s. The Pebble has gone that route with the classier

Steel, and Samsung wisely did away with the jarring

visible screws on its Gear follow-ups, but it remains to

be seen if the upcoming Android Wear lineup is

fashion-forward (and price-conscious) enough to lure

shoppers away from traditional timepieces.

I can see today’s smartwatches appealing to the tech-

savvy shopper who likes to try out new gadgets, but

can’t quite swing the $1,500 Google Glass price tag. In

the end, they are nifty little devices that will only get

smarter over time. If you have an extra $250, a Pebble

Steel might make for a fun new gizmo, and Android

smartphone users could easily link up to the new Gears

or upcoming Android Wear devices.

But do you need a smartwatch right now? Probably

not. If you’re on a budget, it’s perhaps best to see what

becomes of Android Wear—or if Tim Cook actually

comes up with that “insanely great” product.

LG G WATCH

Due out in first half of

2014, the water- and

dust-resistant LG G

Watch will feature

both touch and voice

controls, plus an

always-on display.

The anticipated cost:

about $300.


FEATURES

THE BEST

FITNESS APPSLooking to lose weight, exercise more, beat your best running or cycling

time, or simply keep track of what you eat? These mobile apps can help you

get the job done. BY JILL DUFFY

Argus / iOS / Free

If spending a hundred bucks (or more)

on a fitness tracker isn’t your thing, you might try Argus. It tracks your activity directly through your iPhone rather than a separately purchased device. As long as you carry your phone all day long, Argus will watch your movements. You can also log other workouts, keep an eye on how much water you drink, and take photos of your food to inspire yourself to stick to a healthy lifestyle. Be aware that Argus can drain your battery quickly, though.

Cyclemeter / iOS / $4.99

Bicycle tracking app Cyclemeter

collects a wealth of data, is very

accurate, contains several well-thought-

out features, and appeals to fitness

enthusiasts who participate in more than

one sport. Despite the name, you can use

Cyclemeter to track walks, runs, and other

activities. It does not include a calorie

counting component, but it is packed

with data about your biking outings.

Digifit iCardio / Android, iOS / Free

(requires heart rate monitor)

If you want hard stats about your

workouts, an accelerometer and GPS

aren’t enough. You need a heart rate

monitor—and an app that can access the

data it collects. You can pair Digifit iCardio

with any supported heart rate monitor to

track your runs, bicycle rides, and other

workouts. Besides heart rate, it also

records distance, time, and pace. The

necessary components can add up, so

plan to spend from $50 to $100 to get

full use of this app.

Endomondo Sports Tracker /

Multiplatform / Free

Endomondo focuses on the community

aspects of staying motivated to reach

your fitness activity goals. The app

uses GPS features on your phone to

track running, cycling, jogging, skating,

dancing—whatever. Then you share

your progress with friends by connecting

Endomondo to your other online social

accounts, such as Facebook. An added

bonus is that the app also can connect to

some supported fitness devices, such as

Garmin sports watches.

Fitbit.com / Android, iOS, Web /

Free to $49 per year for Premium

I came to know the Fitbit system through

testing the company’s activity trackers,

but you don’t necessarily need a tracker

to use parts of the mobile app and

website. Without a tracker, you can use

the Fitbit app and website to count

calories, log your weight, and record other

health information, such as your blood

pressure and glucose levels. If you do own

a Fitbit, however, don’t worry: You can

upload the data it collects to the mobile

app through Bluetooth.

Fitocracy / Android, iOS, Web / Free

Fitocracy uses game-like stats to spur on

friendly competition and increase your

dedication to working out. It helps you

track your various workouts, but more

importantly, encourages social interaction

among its users. Post a status, whether

it’s your success story of going to the gym

or the reason you skipped a workout, and

you’re likely to find a wealth of support

from the community. It also has plentiful

resources for all fitness enthusiasts, from

weightlifters to swimmers.

Fitsby Sports / Android / Free

This Android-only workout motivation

app asks you to put your money where

your mouth is. It uses a combination of

gamification and betting to push you

and your friends to reach a desired goal

for exercising. Decide among your group

how much money you’re going to wager,

and the person who checks into the gym

the most in a given period of time wins

the pot. Betting real money is optional, so

you can use Fitsby just for friendly

competition if you prefer.

GAIN Fitness / iOS, Web / Free;

$2.99 per additional exercise pack

Using GAIN Fitness you can set and

schedule routines for exercising at the

gym, at home, or on the go—with or

without equipment like weights and

stretching bands. GAIN Fitness plays

video and audio as you work out, counting

you through reps as you go. A fairly

balanced set of exercises is included,

but you’ll have to buy additional workout

packs for $2.99 each to target specific

body areas or get other kinds of

workouts, such as yoga routines.

Goji Play / iOS / $99 for

game system to control apps

Goji Play isn’t exactly a fitness app, but

rather a whole exer-gaming system that

works with an iPad. For $99, you get two

Bluetooth controllers and an activity

tracker that you wear while working out.

As you move, you can play games on the

iPad, and the game character’s speed (or

another game mechanic) will change

depending on how vigorously you’re

working out. The 12 or so games that work

with Goji Play aren’t the most thrilling, but

if you think video games could distract

you from the pain of exercising, Goji Play

may be worth a go.

Map My Fitness / Android, iOS,

Windows Phone / Free or subscription

Capable of gauging more than 600 activi-

ties, Map My Fitness uses GPS to track the

routes you travel, and shows you a map of

the ground you covered when you’re done. It

also displays length, in both time and dis-

tance, as well as pace, maximum speed, and

more. Though the app is free, it keeps some

features behind a pay wall. To unlock them

all, you’ll need to subscribe for $5.99 per

month or $29.99 per year.

Moves / Android, iOS / Free

Moves works similar to Argus. It’s a way to

turn your phone into an activity tracker so

you don’t have to buy yet another gadget to

track your activity. It uses GPS to record

your movements and then creates a neat

timeline showing where you went and how

long it took to get there. If you have an

iPhone 5s you’ll see optimal battery life, but

with other devices be aware that the Moves

drains the battery—or master the helpful

settings that let you pause tracking for a

specified amount of time.

Nike+ Running / Android, iPhone / Free

The Nike+ Running app tracks your distance,

pace, time, and calories burned while you

run. It uses GPS to map your route and has

audio feedback built in—including real-time

cheering every time one of your friends from

Facebook or Path (a private social network)

“likes” the post where you’ve noted you’re

going out for a run. If you have a Nike+ Fuel-

Band SE, the app integrates well with it.

Lose It! / Android, iOS,

Android, iOS, Kindle, Nook, Web / Free

The free website and app Lose It!,

designed for counting calories and

logging exercise, can help you lose weight,

especially if you tend to eat name-brand

American foods. Lose It!, which has been

around for years, has an incredibly strong

community of supportive people to help you

stick to your goals. Lose It! is compatible

with a long list of other fitness devices and

apps, including Nike+ FuelBand, Fitbit

devices, Runkeeper, MapMyFitness, and

Jawbone UP.

Pact / Android, iOS / Free

Pact, formerly known as Gympact, is an app

that you use to wager money on whether

you’ll go to the gym (similar to Fitsby in

some ways) or complete a workout. The

app verifies if you’ve hit your goals by

making sure you check in to the venues

where you said you’d pump some iron.

If you reach or exceed your goals, you earn

cash. If you don’t, you have to pay up. The

pot is communal, and there are a lot of

slackers out there pouring money into it.

Pear Training Intelligence / Android,

iOS / Free (requires heart rate monitor)

Designed for use with a comfortable (but

expensive) heart rate monitor, Pear Training

Intelligence coaches you through runs, jogs,

powerwalks, and training programs for races

by using your heart rate as an indicator of

whether you should speed up or slow down.

A real human voice makes the audio part of

the experience excellent. The app is free, but

the add-ons add up to about $99, which

includes a chest-strap heart rate monitor,

earphones, and a storage pouch.

Runmeter PRO / iOS / Free for app; $4.99

for PRO subscription (recommended)

Runmeter PRO is another fitness app that can

handle much more than its name implies. Sure,

it works for tracking your runs, but it’s just as

ready to track walks, bicycle rides, and 5K

training programs. Pay for the PRO subscription

because it adds a number of features you’ll

want, such as the ability to start and stop

recording a run using your iPhone’s earphone

controller, automatic exclusion of stop times

(for red lights, for example), as well as support

for iCloud so you can see your stats on an iPad,

too. It has all the basics you’d expect: audio

coaching, maps, graphs, splits, intervals, laps,

and training plans.

Runtastic PRO / Android, BlackBerry, iOS,

Windows Phone, Web / $4.99

Runtastic PRO lets you measure and track your

runs, walks, and other exercises, but it also

doubles as a coaching app to motivate you to

keep working toward your goals. You can use it

to train for races, too. The $4.99 PRO version is

worthwhile, because the free app lacks (and

tries to sell to you through in-app purchases)

many of the features that are central to the

experience, such as the coaching features,

voice feedback, and music player integration.

Runtastic Six Pack Abs / iOS / Free; $4.99 in-app purchase for full content

The Runtastic Six Pack Abs app will leave your

midsection muscles burning for days—or simply

tighten that tummy, depending on the difficulty

level you choose. It’s a solid coaching app that

targets abs through a wide variety of exercise

moves. A human voice (available in several

languages) counts through your sets and reps,

and a video of an avatar shows you the correct

form for each exercise. Some of the training

programs are weeks long, and there’s plenty of

variety along the way.

Strava Cycling / Android, iOS / Free

Bringing a totally different twist to

bicycle ride tracking, Strava Cycling takes

segments of your ride and pits your best

time against those of others who have

ridden the same stretch of road. It can be

exciting, but also fiercely competitive if you

live in areas where a lot of other people ride

with Strava. There’s also a Running app if

you’re not partial to working out on wheels.

Sworkit Pro / Android, iOS, Phone / $0.99

The Sworkit Pro app, used for circuit training,

helps you piece together workouts for home

or the gym. You can customize workouts by

targeting different areas of the body, and

specify the length of time you want to

exercise. The included workout moves touch

on cardio, strengthening, and stretching,

giving you a full range of activity.

Touchfit: GSP / iPhone / $6.99

GSP in the name of this app stands for

Georges St-Pierre, your workout coach

(and MMA World Champion) for the muscle-

boosting routines contained therein. What’s

neat about this iOS-only app is it first has

you complete a test workout, in which you

rate different exercises as easy, tough,

impossible, or “need to learn,” which then

informs the app how difficult your workouts

should be. You can choose workouts of 20,

40, or 60 minutes, which can all be

performed at home or in a gym with little

more than a mat and a resistance band.

The Walk / Android, iOS / $3.99

Maybe you’ve heard of Zombies, Run!

(also featured on this page), but never

tried it because, well, you hate running.

Now there’s an alternative called The

Walk, which uses audio storytelling to

add some adventure to your walking

workouts. As you walk, you listen to a

story and are tasked with completing

different missions. Who knows? Adding a

storytelling and adventure element may

be just the motivation you need to spur

you to keep walking.

Weight Watchers Mobile /

Android, iOS / Free; requires Weight

Watchers membership

Without a Weight Watchers membership,

you can’t really use the Weight Watchers

Mobile app, but members will love how it

helps them keep track of the foods they

eat and tally up their “points” (allotted

calories) for the day and week. The app

has a built-in scanner that lets you

find information about packaged foods

instantly. More Weight Watchers

resources are tucked into this app as

well, all designed to keep you on the plan.

Zombies, Run! / Android, iOS / $2.99

Zombies, Run! is an audio adventure and

game rolled into a running workout. You

listen to a story through your earbuds

about zombies—which may be right on

your tail!—and keep running to complete

missions as they come up in the story.

It’s a little silly, but definitely engaging.

This app aims to motivate you to move

rather than let you spend your time

wading through data about your runs.


FEATURES

Don’t Let RATs HijackYour Mac!

Remote access Trojans let attackers use your Mac

from the comfort of their own homes. Here’s how to

not become a victim of this spooky, unnerving attack.

BY MAX EDDY

MMy partner and I have seven pet rats at home

and I love every single one of them. But there

is one kind of rat I am keen on keeping out of

my home—and my computer: a remote access Trojan.

These nasty, malicious applications let attackers use

your computer as if they were sitting right in front of

it, giving them complete access to your ¿les, your

network, and your personal information.

RATS IN THE MAC

A while back, I received an email from a reader who

had just returned from a trip abroad. Since coming

home, he had noticed that his MacBook was behaving

oddly. He found that some of his settings had been

changed and, stranger still, his cursor would sometimes

Ày off on its own. The ¿nal straw came when the reader

saw an email open on its own and heard, through his

speakers, someone talking about looking for a

particular address.

We spoke with the researchers at Bitdefender and,

based on the description the reader provided, they said

they believed that the HellRTS, a type of RAT, was to

blame. If that’s the case, what our reader experienced

was just a piece of what this “complex malware

development kit” can do. Unfortunately, Bitdefender’s

researchers said they couldn’t be sure without examining

the infected machine.

That said, Avast’s Mac malware analyst, Peter Kalnai,

told me that most RATs on OS X have limited

functionality compared with their Windows-only

counterparts. “Therefore, some cross-platform Java bot

could be suspected of being behind this case,” he said.

The symptoms our reader described were extreme—

and bizarre. A RAT may be used much more subtly,

giving out far fewer clues that it’s on your machine.

Researchers from ESET told me that Mac users should

watch out for their computer suddenly slowing as the

malware hogs CPU power.

The reader saw an email open

on its own and heard, through

his speakers, someone

talking about looking for a

particular address.

Surprisingly, Sophos’ senior researcher Chester

Wisniewski said that RATs are the tool of choice for

attacking Macs. “PC users are primarily being hit by

opportunistic, money making, spam-spewing garbage,”

Wisniewski explained. “Mac users, on the other hand, are

primarily being targeted with data stealers and remote access Trojans.”

CALL THE EXTERMINATOR

The problem with RATs is that they let attackers make subtle changes to your

computers without you even realizing it. An attacker could install a keylogger

and snatch up all your passwords, or install more malware deep in your

computer. An infected computer has been vulnerable for as long as the RAT has

been installed, so there’s no telling what mischief has gone on.

Interestingly, Kalnai suggested that the ¿rst course of action be simply

rebooting the computer. “A system reboot is an easy way to get rid of an

infection that does not contain any mechanism for persistence,” he explained.

Unfortunately for our reader, such a simple solution wasn’t enough.

When you’re ready to address your RAT problem, the ¿rst step is to

disconnect the infected computer from the Internet. RATs only work when the

infected computer can get online, so isolating your computer gives you more

control. You may want to switch off your Wi-Fi network while working on the

infected system, just to be on the safe side. If you need to download software for

the infected machine, use someone else’s computer and copy the ¿les you need

onto a clean storage device—preferably a new one, or one you’ve scanned with

antivirus software.

The next thing to do is back up your Mac, but this presents a problem because

unpleasant surprises may be lurking on your computer. You might consider

following the advice of Kaspersky senior researcher Roberto Martinez and back

up only critical information but not system ¿les. If you’ve already been backing

up your computer with the built-in Time Machine tool, there’s almost certainly

something nasty on there. We’ll deal with that shortly.

The problem with RATs is that they let attackers

make subtle changes to your computers without

you even realizing it.

Next, try to install antivirus software to exterminate

the RAT. (See the sidebar on this page for one Mac

antivirus software package suggestion.) Run the

software program and follow its steps for removing any

found malware.

Before attempting to recover any information from

your backup, scan it with two different antivirus tools in

case one misses something. Then, restore your ¿les

selectively, avoiding anything that seems suspicious.

Unfortunately, using the one-click restore feature of

Time Machine isn’t the safest bet this time around.

Once you’re done, wipe your backup and start fresh.

More advanced users can attempt to discover the

RAT’s persistence mechanism and delete those ¿les.

Kalnai suggests looking for a launcher ¿le in the

/Library/LaunchAgents/ directory, or look for the line

“setenv DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES <Trojan’s

library>” inserted into the /etc/launchd.conf ¿le. Of

course, such efforts are probably beyond the average

user. I prefer to give antivirus software a try before

mucking around in my Mac’s innards.

THE NUCLEAR OPTION

When our reader wrote to us about his RAT infestation,

Antivirus software was

seen as necessary only

for PCs for a long time,

but today Mac users

need it to protect their

computers from RATs

and other threats. One

good solution is

F-Secure Anti-Virus

for Mac.

$41.00 f-secure.com

ANTIVIRUSSOFTWARE

he’d already gone to the extreme by wiping his

computer. There’s a lot of appeal in starting fresh, but

doing it safely is critical.

If you decide to go this route, my colleague Fahmida Y.

Rashid recommends not using Apple’s built-in recovery

partition, as the RAT’s operator may have tampered with it.

Instead, use a hard copy of OS X, or explain your situation to an Apple Genius and

install the latest OS using the Genius’ equipment. According to Apple’s support

forums, it’s also possible to create a bootable USB stick for installing Mavericks.

As we said before, backups of an infected machine may only serve to reinfect

your computer. It’s prudent to install and run two antivirus tools on your backup

and only restore ¿les you need and trust. Instead of restoring applications from

your backup, download clean copies. If you have software that can’t be obtained

through other means, run your antivirus tools immediately after installing apps

from your backup. Again, wipe your backup

once you’ve ¿nished restoring your Mac.

KEEP THE RATS OUT

The best way to keep from being hurt by RATs

is to keep them out of your computer in the

¿rst place. Install antivirus software, run it

regularly, and keep it up to date. Also,

investigate every ¿le and link you’re sent. If a

URL looks funny, or if you weren’t expecting

an Excel spreadsheet from your great aunt

Hortense, don’t click it. Stereotypically, Mac

users haven’t always thought about security.

That’s no longer an option.

Preventing infection is the best defense, but

Martinez says that it requires constant

vigilance. That’s because malware is frequently

spread through social engineering—basically,

tricking people into downloading or installing a

malicious ¿le.

“Cybercriminals can send, for example, an email

with some attached ¿le with the malware code

embedded or maybe a link that leads the user to a

compromised or phishing website,” Martinez said. “For

that reason, it’s very important to be careful opening

¿les (mainly those that come from the Internet)

attached in an email or via an USB storage device.”

Martinez also warns that malware developers can fake

digital certi¿cates, letting them circumvent an operating

system’s built-in defenses.

Also, RATs only have as much access as the victim’s

account they’re targeting. Set up multiple accounts on

your Mac but grant Administrator access to only one.

And, of course, create strong passwords for each

account. Give all your other accounts limited access,

and don’t use the Administrator account for anything

besides making important changes to your system.

This means you’ll have to authenticate software

installations and other changes, but that’s a minor

inconvenience.

Finally, set up your Mac’s ¿rewall feature if you

haven’t already. RATs need to communicate with their

operators over the Internet, so blocking that traf¿c will

stop the RAT in its tracks.

Apple’s built-in ¿rewall is a good option, but you

may want to rely on a third-party solution if you’re

recovering from a RAT infestation—at least until you

can con¿rm that there’s no unusual traf¿c going to or

from your Mac. Some Mac antivirus products, such as

Norton Antivirus for Mac, include a ¿rewall. Other

tools, such as Little Snitch 3, make it easy to monitor

and authorize Web traf¿c from apps.

RATs are among the scariest attacks out there. They

can make your computer, and anything it connects to,

vulnerable. But it’s the experience of watching your

computer taking action on its own that is truly

unnerving. Remember that just because you’re on a Mac

doesn’t mean that you’re safe. Take the time to learn

what tools are available and use some common sense to

keep the RATs off your Mac.

REPEL RATS

(AND OTHER

THREATS)

Want to protect

your computer

from potentially

dangerous Web

traffic? Little

Snitch 3 lets you

view and specify

which apps are

trying to interact

with the Internet.


Digital

Life

GET ORGANIZED

Keep Track of Your Stuff

TIPS

Make the Most of Evernote

SHOPPING

Tech Gifts for Grads

GAMING

Conquer Dark Souls II

APPSCOUT

Our Favorite Apps for June

How often have you lost your keys, misplaced your phone, or had your

laptop swiped while your back was turned? With advances in GPS,

Bluetooth, and other technologies, more and more devices that help

you ¿nd lost or misplaced items are coming to market. Although many of these

gadgets and services go a long way toward giving you peace of mind by making

it harder to lose something precious, they don’t all work as you might expect.

Keep Track of Your StuffWith the right gadgets and apps, you can ensure

that you never again misplace your most

important possessions. BY JILL DUFFY

GET ORGANIZED

DIGITAL LIFE

BASIC TRACKERS

Perhaps the most common and inexpensive type of

solution involves tagging your property with some

kind of small tracker, which often looks like a

keychain but can also take the shape of a bulky

sticker. Most of these solutions do little more than

pair those trackers with a Bluetooth-enabled device

(usually an iPhone or Android phone), and through

an app alert you when the item has gone out of range.

In other words, you hear an alert when the phone can

no longer detect the tagged item. The problem is that

you now know the item is lost, but you don’t

necessarily know where it is!

The way to ¿nd the tagged item, then, is to slowly

retrace your steps until it comes back into range.

When it’s within 150 feet or so, you’ll see a dot appear

on your phone’s screen showing the radial distance of

how close you are to it. The app won’t tell you in

which direction you need to move, so you’ll have to

triangulate to ¿nd it. This solution, though limited,

does have its uses. For example, say you hook your

house keys to the tracker. If you leave home without

your keys, you’ll know within a few feet of being out

the door. Or imagine that you’re prone to misplacing

your sunglasses. You can wander around your house

and near your car until you see them pop into range.

On the other hand, say you leave both your phone

and your tracker-tagged keys in a bag, which you

leave behind at a friend’s house. The keys and phone

are still together, so no alarm sounds. Or maybe

you’re considering putting a tracker on your cat’s

collar. If the cat bolts, you’ll know she’s gone but you

won’t have any clue where.

‘FIND MY X’ SOLUTIONS

Another way to track down your lost items is the one

that’s speci¿c to an already-high-tech device, such as

a smartphone, tablet, or laptop. Some devices include

OUR FAVORITE

ITEM TRACKERS

Keeping track of the important

items in your life isn’t always

easy, but gadgets and apps

can help. Here are three

options you should consider.

Bikn $129.99 for starter kit with iPhone “smart case” and two trackers

HipKey $59.95 for one

SticknFind $24.95 for two

these services when you buy them—you just have to turn them on or sign up for

an account, which could either be free or require a monthly fee.

Most Apple hardware sold today, including iPhones, iPads, and Macs,

inherently supports a service called Find My Device. It’s free to use, but does

require enabling and connecting with an iCloud account. This service can detect

your device’s exact GPS location—just open any Web browser or the app,

provided your device’s location services setting is on and its battery is charged.

If you lose an iPhone when the battery is very low, Find My iPhone will at least

tell you its last known location.

Android device owners can get similar bene¿ts with a similarly named

WheresMyDroid app and service. Both the Android and iOS services let you

remotely wipe your device (as long as it has battery power and an Internet

connection) to help protect your data, too.

LoJack for Laptops is another service in this class. Some laptops even ship

with it preinstalled, but keep the service dormant unless activated.

With LoJack for Laptops, there isn’t a physical tag attached to your laptop—

the service uses GPS, Wi-Fi, and other hardware and operating system features

to determine its location. If your laptop is lost or

stolen, you can log into your account from another

computer, try to physically locate the device, remotely

wipe it, or call upon the Absolute Software team (who

licenses the “LoJack” name from the other company

that makes LoJack for vehicles) for help. Absolute

Software hires a lot of former law enforcement and IT

professionals on its Theft Recovery Team, which can

attempt to get back your notebook.

FAIRY DUST OF THE FUTURE?

In the future, technologists hope to make lost-item

recovery devices and services smaller, less expensive,

and more pro¿cient. One way it might happen is

through radio frequency identi¿cation (RFID) “dust,”

which Hitachi has been experimenting with since

2001. They’re literally speck-sized trackers (0.15mm

by 0.15mm, HW, and 7.5 micrometers thick) that

could be sprinkled onto all kinds of things, from

shipping containers to food. Hitachi has worked on a

special RFID identi¿cation device that works up to

600 feet away. Oh, and the smaller-than-sand RFID

chips have GPS capabilities, too. The technology

could open up amazing possibilities, but some fear

the invasive nature of the potential. For example,

what might happen with a GPS tracker that’s small

enough to literally consume? And consider how easy

it would be to plant a dust grain–sized tracker on an

unsuspecting mark.

Clearly, there are many issues to work out both

with the technology itself and the ethics of how and to

what extent it might be used. In the meantime, know

the ins and outs of how these trackers work before

you buy them, as they are often limited in what they

can do.


Consider how easy it

would be to plant a dust grain–sized

tracker on an unsuspecting

mark.

Whether you call Evernote a note-taking service, an organization

tool, or an archiving platform, none of those terms is suf¿cient to

convey just how much you can do with it. Evernote is, quite simply,

an online spot to store anything and everything you might ¿nd of interest later.

The more you add, the more useful it becomes. If you use it the right way, it

will be the database of your entire existence—and make your day-to-day life

that much simpler. These tips will help you get there.

Make the Most of EvernoteIt’s your ultimate digital repository for just about everything, but are you using it to its fullest? These tips and tricks will make you an Evernote master. BY ERIC GRIFFITH

TIPS

DIGITAL LIFE

UPGRADE TO

EVERNOTE PREMIUM

Once you’ve saved a few items, it pays to

switch to Evernote Premium. It costs $5

per month or $45 per year, and provides a

slew of extras. It removes the limitation

on how much you can upload and store,

gives you access to items even if you’re

offline, and offers enhanced search

capabilities. Although free users can

search on tags, notebooks, and in

pictures, users with paid accounts can

search inside attachments like PDFs or

spreadsheets. It even has a presentation

mode that supports dual monitors: one

for the presentation, and the other for

your own notes as you present.

CLIP THE WEB

The most important part of your Evernote

arsenal is the Web Clipper. It’s a browser

extension for Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and

Safari, and becomes part of IE when you

install Evernote for Windows. With it, you

can capture everything you see online,

from an entire page to just one little

section or picture. A menu will fly out from

the right and provide several options,

from changing the notebook (all notes go

into a notebook on Evernote) to inserting

arrows, highlights, or annotations. All it

takes is a click on the Evernote icon.

MAIL TO EVERNOTE

Email is still the killer app for sharing

information. When you receive something

worth storing—jokes, documents, code

snippets, medical records, travel

reservations, pictures from home, and so

on—Evernote provides you a private email

address to make that happen with a

simple forward of the message. To find

your special address, view your account

information in the apps. Give that address

to other people and they can send things

to your Evernote account as well. The

subject line will become the name of the

note. You can make sure it’s filed correctly

by adding @notebook, !date for a

reminder, and/or #tag. Here’s an example:

Lowes Hose Purchase @Receipt

!2014/05/05 #household.

You can also add emails to existing

notes by using a + at the end of the

subject line, adding it to a note with the

same title as your subject line.

MERGE SEVERAL NOTES

INTO ONE

Sometimes you have multiple notes that

just go better together. It’s easy to merge

them in the desktop versions of Evernote

(Windows, Mac, and Web). Select

multiple notes (hold down the Shift key

and click) and you’ll see a graphical

version of them in a pile. The options will

be to email them, save the attachments

in them, move them, or merge them.

They’ll all get one title, based on the first

note you picked. (If you have notes

installed using other Evernote apps like

Food or Skitch, you can’t access them in

those apps after a merge.)

CREATE STACKS AND

STACKS OF NOTEBOOKS

Evernote storage is a metaphor, with

notes inside notebooks. Well, notebooks

can also be grouped together, inside

“stacks.” For example, you could make a

stack called Travel and then put multiple

notebooks for different trips inside. You

can share notebooks, but not stacks. On

the Mac version you can drag and drop

notebooks together to make a stack; in

Evernote for Windows or the Web, right-

click a notebook and select to add it to an

existing stack or create a new one.

SEE THINGS CLEARLY

Evernote (the company) makes lots of

cool software programs, but among the

best is Clearly. First and foremost, it takes

articles you find online and with a click

makes them readable—no more extra

formatting or ads or nonsense. Then,

when you’ve got just the text and images

desired, you can read it—or save it as-is to

Evernote. In that way, it takes on the read-

it-later services like Pocket, Readability,

and Instapaper. Evernote Premium users

can utilize the text-to-speech option, so

Clearly will read the article aloud in any of

21 languages. It’s a good way to listen to

your own writing and see what’s wrong

with it.

ADD REMINDERS

Any note filed in Evernote can get a

reminder. Click the alarm clock icon over

the note in the Web or desktop interface,

and you’ll get a drop-down calendar, with

options to set a reminder tomorrow, in a

week, or any time you’d like to go back and

reference it.

MAKE A TASK LIST

There are lots of online and mobile to-do

list apps that are better than Evernote.

But if you’re throwing your lot in with

Evernote completely, it can’t hurt to know

how to make a task list yourself. Create a

new note and look on the text toolbar

above it (or below on the mobile apps) for

the Check Box tool. Insert one and you’re

on your way.

SECURE YOUR RESEARCH

This isn’t so much about better use of

Evernote as it is just a good idea: Turn on

the Two-Step Verification feature in

Account Settings. When enabled, you’ll

require either a phone capable of receiving

texts, or a smartphone running an

authenticator app like Authy or Google

Authenticator. Either method can provide

the code you must enter in addition to

your password to keep your account safe.

TRACK EXPENSES

VIA SMARTPHONE

We live in a credit card world. That means

getting receipts—lots and lots of them, for

every purchase. They can be handy to

double-check against your statement or

online account activity to prevent fraud,

but that means a wallet or purse filled

with stray papers. Instead, take a quick

snapshot of your receipts with Evernote

using your smartphone. Slap them all into

a notebook called “Receipts,” tag them by

retailer if you like, and then you have a

storehouse of your purchasing history.

What’s more, you can search them

because Evernote turns words inside

pictures into searchable text. This also

works well for take-out menus, store hours

listings, posters, magazine articles you

can’t finish reading at the doctor’s

office, you name it. Apps like the free

CamScanner make inputting the images

even easier.

CREATE NOTES ON WITH APPS

Evernote’s own smartphone apps make it

relatively easy to create new notes—

actual text you write to yourself! Plus they

can add pictures and audio pretty simply.

But there are specialty third-party apps

just for notes that take writing on your

phone to a new level—apps like Drafts

($3.99)—and they integrate directly with

Evernote. Some are completely Evernote-

centric, like EverMemo (free).

USE MOLESKINE OR POST-IT

FOR BETTER NOTES

In the Evernote Market, you can purchase

Moleskine notebooks, sketchbooks, and

journals of almost any size that are priced

from $11.95 to $32.95. There’s also a

$29.95 Post-it Note holder, with four

special colors of paper, or get one big

green Post-It note sheet for $15.95. What

makes these papers special is that they

all are “Evernote Camera-Enabled.” On the

Post-its, for example, you can assign a

color to a notebook to automatically file

them—you don’t need to enter a

notebook name. The Moleskines have

special dotted lines that optimize the

image, plus “smart stickers” to help assign

the page to a notebook. And though you’d

probably be fine with regular, cheaper

Mokeskine noteboooks, all of the above

also come with a month of Evernote

Premium for free.

IFTTT: SAVE NOTES

FROM EVERYWHERE

Evernote has become such a big part of

people’s online storage needs that it’s

integrated with just about every service

out there. If you don’t believe that, visit

the Evernote App Center for a listing of

featured apps for the Web, iOS, and

Android apps that can send information

to Evernote.

No app is more powerful in this regard

than If This, Then That, or ifttt. Because it

ties in with so many other services, you

can use it to create recipe after recipe.

Among the most popular things you can

send to Evernote instantly: starred Gmail

messages, favorited items in Pocket or on

Twitter, Instagram photos, Feedly articles,

reminders made with Siri, any RSS feed,

Foursquare check-ins, or even a diary of

Facebook messages. The list is practically

infinite, limited only by your creative

coupling of services and their triggers.

Dump everything in Evernote and search/

sort it later.

SCANNER TIME:

GO TRULY PAPERLESS

The scanner is Evernote’s best friend.

Because, as with pictures or handwritten

notes, every word in a scanned document

is searchable within Evernote. You can go

paperless in just hours (or days, you

packrat). Evernote sells a Wi-Fi–enabled

scanner made by Fujitsu, the ScanSnap, for

$500; that’s pricey, but it scans everything

directly into your digital depot of docs.

Other small sheet-fed scanners with

software that supports Evernote direct

uploads are available from Canon, Doxie,

and SimpleScan. If you’re really brave with

your papers, send them all via snail mail to

Shoeboxed.com. The company will scan

and put them in your Evernote account.

After a free trial, the basic service is $9.95

per month for 50 docs per month, up to

$100 per month for 1,000. For free, you can

get five docs scanned per month.

INTEGRATE WITH WEBMAIL

Powerbot is a $1.99-per-month service

coupled with a browser extension (for

Chrome, Firefox, and Safari) that turns

your Web-based email account on Gmail,

Yahoo, Outlook, or Google Calendar into an

Evernote-feeding powerhouse. Rather than

just forwarding a message, you can click a

button in your mail to send a message, an

attachment, even an entire thread of

emails to Evernote (or to Dropbox or

OneNote). Better yet, Powerbot also can

access Evernote so you can attach an

existing note to an outgoing message.

BLOG BY NOTEBOOK

Here’s one you probably didn’t consider.

You can publicly share an Evernote

notebook as a blog. To do it, you sign up

(via your Evernote credentials) at the

website Postach.io. It’s a breeze to create,

and Postach.io supports RSS feeds, tags

for Facebook and Twitter simultaneous

posts, domain names (you have to buy one

elsewhere), Disqus comments, Google

Analytics, and more. Postach.io can’t

delete notes or notebooks or get to your

account info. You designate exactly what

notebook it should pull from, and any note

inside—from images to text to audio to

documents—will become visible on the

blog once it’s tagged as “published.”

ACADEMIC SUCCESS

VIA EVERNOTE

Evernote is a must for students—

especially those prone to losing things.

Scan in every handout and syllabus. Take

pictures of the notes on the whiteboard

and record audio of lectures right in the

app. Forward emails from classmates and

the teacher/professor to a notebook

named after the class. Type class notes

right into the Evernote directly. Use an

Evernote Moleskine notebook for hand-

written notes you’ll scan later. Set up a

shared notebook with friends in class to

ensure no one misses out on notes or

research materials. And of course, every

bit of research on a project or paper

should go in for searching. Take advantage

of mobile apps like ReferenceME that

scan bar codes of books and then format

info about them to cite in papers.

SHARING IS CARING

We’ve mentioned this a couple of times:

you can share a notebook in Evernote with

other Evernote users—or the world (this

requires having a Premium account). It’s

as simple as right-clicking the folder on

the Windows, Mac, or Web desktop

interfaces and selecting “Share this

notebook.” You’ll get two choices: “Share

with individuals” (those who already use

Evernote; you’ll need their email

addresses) and “Create a Public Link.” The

latter provides a URL you can put out

there via email, social media, blog post,

etc. This isn’t like social network sharing,

where you send a note out—this is more

like making a publicly accessible open

door from the Web to a notebook. So be

sure you mean it. If you do create a link

and later regret it, you can delete it.

ENCRYPT SENSITIVE

DESKTOP NOTE TEXT

On the desktop versions of Evernote, it’s

entirely possible to set up encryption for

individual notes, or indeed individual text

in a note. It’s good for keeping out prying

eyes, but not foolproof, nor really all that

strong. It only works on text, not images.

It also only works from the desktop

version of Evernote, not on the Web or

mobile apps—meaning, if you encrypt

an item on the desktop, it won’t be

encrypted when you view it elsewhere.

So use this feature cautiously.


Tech Gifts for GradsCash may be the most popular graduation present, but why not give something that shows how much you care? Whether the person you love is just finishing with high school or college, these gifts will help them make their exciting new life easier and more fun. BY KARA KAMENEC

SHOPPING

DIGITAL LIFE

NIMBUS

Perfect for a desk or dorm room, this customizable four-dial personal dashboard monitors

and displays digital life in a physical form. Each dial acts as a barometer that syncs in real

time, and is controlled directly from an iPhone with an easy-to-use app. Set the dashboard

to display weather, email, calendar appointments, traffic and commute time, portfolio

savings goals, and much more—everything you need to ensure you’ll never be late or

underprepared again. Nimbus can even display social network activity across Facebook,

Twitter, and Instagram, as well as fitness data such as steps burned, sleep duration, and

more when linked to a Fitbit.

$99.99 quirky.com


SHOPPING

DIGITAL LIFE

VERILUX RISE & SHINE NATURAL WAKE-UP LIGHT

Tackling college classes or work projects can be difficult if you don’t get enough of the right

kind of sleep. Verilux designed the Rise & Shine to regulate circadian rhythms with external

cues to maintain healthy sleeping and waking patterns. More peaceful than an abrupt alarm

clock, the light uses a natural sunrise simulation to wake you calmly, but will only do so when

you’re not in the deep, restorative stages of sleep. This results in better-quality sleep and lets

you wake up much more energized, all without the need for downer drugs or stimulants. The

Rise & Shine also has a built-in FM radio, a standard noise alarm clock that can be set with

built-in nature sounds and soothing tones, and a snooze feature.

$99.95 verilux.com


SHOPPING

DIGITAL LIFE

CUBE SENSORS

Make an office or dorm room more productive with CubeSensors, health and comfort

monitoring devices that contain powerful sensors aimed at helping optimize the condition of

any room. CubeSensors measure air quality, temperature, humidity, noise levels, light levels,

and air pressure. To see how healthy a room environment is, simply pick up and shake that

room’s wireless cube. It will emit a glowing color signaling whether the room is healthy. More

details on improving a room’s wellness may be found in the CubeSensor app, which can also

send alerts and recommendations to continually improve room quality.

$299-$599 cubesensors.com


SHOPPING

DIGITAL LIFE

IOGEAR BLUETOOTH DESKTOP DOCK

Create a distraction-free, connected work area with the innovative Iogear Bluetooth Desktop

Dock. Ideal for multitaskers, it syncs a wired keyboard and mouse with two other connected

devices, such as a smartphone and tablet. Seamlessly type texts and answer personal emails

on your phone or iPad directly from the computer keyboard, while still using the keyboard for

desktop applications. The dock even accommodates specific hotkeys, such as F8 to play and

pause music, or Esc to access Siri. The USB hot-pluggable stand fits most smartphones and

tablets, and supports both PC and Mac keyboards.

$59.95 iogear.com


SHOPPING

DIGITAL LIFE

WEBBLE ERGONOMIC OFFICE FOOTREST

Long days working at the office or studying at a desk can be much more comfortable if you

use a footrest designed to promote wellness. The Webble Ergonomic Office Footrest is

designed to keep the body moving rather than still, providing a 360-degree range of motion

that improves flexibility and blood circulation, reduces muscle fatigue, and relieves pressure

on joints. The uniquely shaped Webble sits on four gliding casters with a spring suspension

covered by a patented mesh membrane.

$149.95 webblefootrest.com


SHOPPING

DIGITAL LIFE

HANDPRESSO AUTO E.S.E.

For anyone about to enter the world of morning commutes, this automatic espresso maker

could be the perfect pick-me-up. Simply plug the Handpresso into a 12-volt car cigarette

lighter, add water and a coffee pod (available in a variety of high-quality and European

brands), and press one button. After three beeps, the espresso is ready, and easily pours out

of the top of the device, just like professional machine espresso—the whole device is even

designed to slide into a standard cup holder.

$199 handpresso.com


SHOPPING

DIGITAL LIFE

SANCTUARY4 CHARGING STATION

Keeping all your devices powered up is a challenge as it is. And managing cords? Even worse.

The Sanctuary4 Charging Station solves these problems, with a 4-amp charger that can

restore juice to up to four devices at once, and more quickly than a standard charger. The

cube-shaped Sanctuary4 is designed for simplicity and organization, and lets you hide all

cables in a hidden compartment beneath the visible center of the dock. And because

charging cables change over time, the dock features customizable connectivity, as it hosts

four USB ports and lets you use any USB charging cable you need.

$99.95 bluelounge.com


SHOPPING

DIGITAL LIFE

SANSAIRE SOUS VIDE CIRCULATOR

With busy class schedules, heavy workloads, and a new stream of social activities, many

grads find that homemade meals become a rare treat. Though nothing can replace Mom’s

home cooking, the Sansaire Sous Vide Circulator comes close. It lets you easily cook sous vide

style: a method that circulates hot water to lock in moisture, amplify spices, and heat meats

and vegetables to the perfect temperature with no possibility of overcooking. To use, place

the Sansaire in a pot along with a water bag of meat or vegetables, add water to the pot, and

turn the round ring located on the top of the Sansaire to set the cooking temperature.

$199 sansaire.com


SHOPPING

DIGITAL LIFE

KITCHEN SAFE

Temptations and long hours can prevent you from staying focused and healthy, but the

Kitchen Safe can help. It’s a 4mm-thick acrylic container with an electronically lockable lid.

Once locked, the container cannot be opened until the time you specify, anywhere from one

minute to ten days. More than just a diet gadget, the Kitchen Safe can also be used to limit

the use of other distractions, such as video game controllers or cell phones, during study or

work hours. Even better, the Kitchen Safe is useful for anyone with a roommate—care

packages and Mom’s homemade cooking can be kept untouched when traveling or when

unexpected guests visit.

$49.95 thekitchensafe.com



SHOPPING

DIGITAL LIFE

CLIPR

ClipR is the incredibly simplistic, yet useful device that can make any brand of headphones go

wireless. It acts as a Near Field Communication (NFC)–enabled transmitter and Bluetooth

headphone adapter. Simply plug headphones into the ClipR and receive sound from any

connected Bluetooth device, including computers, tablets, and phones. Ideal for music,

phone calls, games, and more, the ClipR transmits high-quality sound with built-in noise

cancellation and makes it easy to go hands-free with the technology you already have. The

ClipR measures only 3.5mm in diameter, and features a convenient clip to easily attach to

shirts, purses, backpacks, belts, and more.

$39.99 musemini.com

Dark Souls II is every bit as challenging as its predecessor and, in some

respects, even harder and less forgiving. The game world known as

Drangleic is a vast realm ¿lled with wonderful secrets as well as

wretched monsters, so you must stay focused and pay careful attention to the

environment to avoid the deadly traps and enemies lying in ambush. You will

no doubt come across many other secrets and treasures as you explore, but, if

you keep these tips in mind, you’ll start strong. Be vigilant, and good luck!

Conquer Dark Souls IIDon’t succumb to one of the year’s most difficult games. These tips will help you keep your wits and stay observant. BY GABRIEL ZAMORA

GAMING

DIGITAL LIFE

Strengthen Your Estus Flask as Soon as You Can Healing is and rare precious in Dark Souls II. You receive your curative Estus Flask from

the Emerald Herald when you arrive in Majula (the game’s main hub), but it can only be

used a single time. Estus Shards, which are scattered throughout Drangleic, strengthen

your flask and give you additional swigs of the healing potion. But they are rare, and it’s

up to you to find them.

The very first of these is hidden within Majula, by the well near the abandoned mansion.

Strike the rock sitting on the lip of the well to raise a corpse hidden within. Your first

Estus Shard will be on the corpse. Collect it and take it to the Emerald Herald to receive

your upgrade.

Find the Ring of BindingWhen you die in Dark Souls II, you revive at the last bonfire you visited—but at the cost

of all of your souls, your human appearance, and a percentage of your maximum health.

Dying repeatedly can reduce your health up to 50 percent, if you are careless or unlucky.

To complicate this further, there are enemies and hazards that can curse you outright,

instantly reducing your maximum health and robbing you of your humanity. The Ring of

Binding can alleviate some of the stress tied to the undead curse, however.

Head to Heide’s Tower of Flame by traversing the waterways in Majula, near the Victor’s

Stone. There are two bosses in Heide’s Tower of Flame, but you don’t have to challenge

either to claim your prize. Make your way to the Cathedral of Blue by taking the leftmost

path. When you defeat the Old Knight by the drawbridge, a lever will reveal itself, letting

you lower the bridge. Do so. At the top you’ll find the Ring of Binding inside an iron chest.

Take it, equip it, and breathe a little easier knowing that with each death you lose less of

your max health, and can only lose a maximum of 25 percent of your total health.

Exhaust NPC DialogueYou will meet a wide variety of non-player characters (NPCs) on your journey through

Drangleic. They generally have a lot to say, but you will need to engage them repeatedly

to coax them into sharing their knowledge and lore. Certain NPCs will happily give you

precious key items and treasures if you talk with them often. Merchants in particular will

reward you after you spend a certain number of souls at their shops, so be sure to chat

them up regularly. Most important, several of the merchant NPCs you encounter will

actually relocate to Majula when you’ve listened to everything they have to say. As you

can imagine, having the merchants converge in one place makes preparing for your

adventures much more convenient, so do not pass up the “talk” option when you meet

with an NPC.

Do Not Attack Chests Repeatedly Some treasure chests are actually man-eating monsters called mimics. Striking chests

is the most effective way to force the beast to reveal itself. Unfortunately, real, non-

mimic wooden chests can break when repeatedly struck. Three strikes with any weapon

will destroy a chest and its contents, reducing the treasure within to useless rubbish.

Worse still, any enemy strike that connects with the chest counts as a hit, so it’s entirely

possible for an enemy to destroy your loot. As a rule, attack a chest once. One hit is all it

takes to force a mimic to drop the charade.

Just don’t let your guard down if a chest passes this test, as some are trapped and can

kill unsuspecting players as easily as any mimic. Crossbow-trapped chests are

telegraphed by white mist that rises when you open them. The safest way to avoid

getting killed is to simply hide behind a shield. Poison traps can be identified by a green

gas that rises from a chest when opened. The best way to avoid this trap is to roll away.

Explosive traps are similar to poison traps, except that they emit a red aura before the

explosives kick in. You can evade the trap in the same way that you do poison traps: by

rolling away.


Don’t Consume Boss Souls on Your First Playthrough Souls, Drangleic’s currency, are relatively easy to come by, provided you don’t die too

much. There is no reason to crush a precious boss’ soul for its soul value alone—they

should be saved for crafting unique weapons and spells. If you crush a particular boss’s

soul, you won’t get another one from that boss until you kill it again, which can only be

done by beginning a New Game or by burning a Bonfire Ascetic at a bonfire near said

boss. Doing either, however, makes the boss and the enemies that spawn near it

considerably tougher than they were when you originally fought them. So don’t crush a

boss’ soul unless you know what you’re doing. Otherwise, you’re going to have to put a

lot of work into reacquiring that soul.

Our Favorite Apps

iOS Android, iOS Android, iOS iOS

APPSCOUT

DIGITAL LIFE

Leo’s Fortunel l l l h

EDITORS’CHOICE

Because touch controls lack the pinpoint accuracy hard-core gamers require,

mobile platformers have often disappointed. But Developer 1337 & Senri have

avoided touch’s shortcomings with this physics-based puzzle game that lets you

control the mustached fuzzball Leo by swiping to inflate and float or dive.

Challenges start out easy, but rapidly become complex, adding new concepts such

as weight and momentum as you go. Loaded with beautiful, detailed

environments and frequent checkpoints to reduce frustration, Leo’s Fortune is one of the

best games on the iOS platform.

$4.99

Our Favorite Apps


APPSCOUT

DIGITAL LIFE

Distillerl l l l m

Whiskey enthusiasts obsess over their drinks’ source locations and styles, as well as arcane

knowledge about barrel aging, grain composition, and expert ratings in the same way tech

geeks obsess over PCs’ CPUs and video cards. If you can’t tell the difference between a

bottle of whiskey that costs $15 and one that costs $300, the free Distiller is for you. It’s not

a be-all, end-all authority, but it’s good for cutting through the confusion and delivering

expert opinions for the neophyte and enthusiast alike.

FREE

Our Favorite Apps


APPSCOUT

DIGITAL LIFE

Weather UndergroundL L L L H

EDITORS’CHOICE

Are you tired of The Weather Channel’s biweekly freak-outs about “megastorms”?

Then Weather Underground might be what you’re looking for. This no-nonsense

free app draws from multiple data sources, including 33,000 personal weather

stations from local enthusiasts, and integrates user contributions in reporting

current conditions and hazards. The central Wundermap shows radar,

temperature, precipitation, wind, and more, and additional widgets provide other

crucial information. An elegant design further helps Weather Underground pleasantly sate

your nerdy data hunger.

FREE

Our Favorite Apps


APPSCOUT

DIGITAL LIFE


Monument ValleyL L L L H

EDITORS’CHOICE

With rare exceptions, video games rely on our accepting that two-dimensional

images are really three-dimensional spaces that operate just as they do in the real

world. Monument Valley defies these expectations by making impossible

geometric figures the keys to solving gorgeous, mind-bending puzzles. Though

brief, each level is as much a puzzle as a work of art, drawing on architectural

influences from the Near East, medieval Europe, and Islamic structures. This is a

quiet, contemplative game that wraps clever design in a mystery that’s worth solving.

$3.99

I recently gave a depressing speech to a group

in Michigan, in which I retraced the computer

revolution that began in 1975 and apparently

ended 20 years later.

By this I mean that the original ideas and ideals

that were espoused for the few years of what was

then termed the microcomputer revolution have,

without exception, been undone over the course of

the last 20 years.

The ¿rst and primary aspect of the revolution

was to rid the world of the computer priesthood.

Abolish the roadblocks. Let you take total control

of the machine and use it as you see ¿t. This was

an era when each new development encouraged

freedom and independence.

The Ày in the ointment of the revolution was

networking. Once that became the focus, things

began to fall apart.

Let’s look at the stages of the computer

revolution. It began with the microprocessor,

which would become more and more powerful as

time went by. This led to the microcomputer,

which was later known as a personal computer,

then a desktop computer, then a workstation.

The short moment in the 1980s that it was called

a personal computer was when the revolution

peaked, and the time we will look back upon as the

golden age of personal computing. This was also

the time when software was developed by the users

and the community for individual use.

In the ¿rst few years, personal computers were

seen as toys. But once the spreadsheet arrived and

could do things that no mainframe or

Unmaking the PC

Revolution

JOHN C. DVORAK

LAST WORD

minicomputer could manage, then people Àocked

to the little machines.

Because of the versatility of the machines and

their low prices, business and industry adopted

them like crazy. When throwback ideas such as

network computers came along some years later, it

was too late and too expensive. So businesses

bought desktop computers like crazy. Billions of

them were sold. They were no longer toys, but

important tools.

Software was still developed or tweaked by

users, but the machines began to develop the kind

of complexity that ensured that only a few experts

trained in modern coding languages could easily

develop most applications for them. Besides,

people were kept busy by the machines themselves

once the Internet (what I consider the biggest time

waster in the history of humankind) became

popularized and people aimlessly surfed.

At this point, the Internet became the

revolution. The workstation began to devolve into

laptops, desktop replacements, and mobile devices

(including tablets). None of this had anything to

do with computing. It was all about the Internet

and making access to it easier and cheaper.

The phrase developed in the 1990s saying that

“the network is the computer” was now a reality.

Everything was about the network. And it wasn’t

just any network, it was a worldwide, all-

encompassing network that was set out to control

everything we do.

The increasing complexity of the giant network

required massive corporations to form to develop

search mechanisms, security systems, and even

network-centric programming languages. In fact,

the priesthood had returned to the scene.

Users were now more dependent than ever.

Dependent on the network. Dependent on the

priests. Dependent on experts for upgrades, for

software installation, to manage cloud

applications, to verify software ownership.

Everything. All worse than before.

Worse than the 1960s. Everything had

completely reversed itself, putting everyone on

pre–computer revolution footing.

My speech in Michigan asked any leftover

idealists to look at the revolution that came and

went and ask, What was the point? Perhaps it was

just to lead to the Internet revolution. But the goal

had originally been freedom and independence.

What’s depressing is that, in spite of what we’ve

gained, those are the two things we’ve most lost.

[email protected]


Everything had completely

reversed itself, putting

everyone on pre–computer

revolution footing.

mailto:[email protected]

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, PC MAGAZINE NETWORK Dan CostaCREATIVE DIRECTOR, ZIFF DAVIS Cynthia Passanante

MANAGING EDITOR, DIGITAL EDITIONS Matthew Murray

SENIOR DESIGNER Jackie Smith

SENIOR PRODUCER Mark Lamorgese

NEWS & FEATURES

EXECUTIVE EDITOR Chloe Albanesius

FEATURES EDITORS Evan Dashevsky, Eric Griffith

SENIOR FEATURES WRITER Chandra Steele

REPORTERS Stephanie Mlot, Angela Moscaritolo, Damon Poeter

PC LABS

EXECUTIVE EDITOR, REVIEWS Wendy Sheehan Donnell

MANAGING EDITORS Sean Carroll (software, security, Internet, business, networking), Jamie Lendino

(conumer electronics, mobile), Laarni Almendrala Ragaza (hardware)

LEAD ANALYSTS Samara Lynn (networking), Michael Muchmore (software), Neil J. Rubenking (security),

Joel Santo Domingo (desktops, laptops), Sascha Segan (mobile), M. David Stone (printers, scanners)

SENIOR ANALYSTS Alex Colon (consumer electronics), Jim Fisher (digital cameras)

ANALYSTS Jill Duffy (software, Internet, networking), Will Greenwald (consumer electronics),

Tony Hoffman (printers, scanners), Eugene Kim (mobile), Brian Westover (hardware),

Jeffrey L. Wilson (software, Internet, networking)

JUNIOR ANALYSTS Max Eddy (software, Internet, networking), Antonio Villas-Boas (consumer electronics)

INVENTORY CONTROL COORDINATOR Nicole Graham

ART, MEDIA & PRODUCTION

SENIOR PROJECT MANAGER Yun-San Tsai

PRODUCERS Gina Latessa, Whitney Reynolds

COMMERCE PRODUCER Arielle Rochette

DESIGNER James Jacobsen

PRODUCTION DESIGNER José Ruiz

STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Eddie Schneckloth

VIDEO PRODUCER Chris Snyder

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Tim Bajarin, John R. Delaney, John C. Dvorak, Tim Gideon, Bill Howard, Edward Mendelson,

Fahmida Y. Rashid


EDITORIAL

MASTHEAD

CORPORATE

MASTHEAD


ZIFF DAVIS INC.

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Vivek Shah

CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER Steven Horowitz

CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Andy Johns

CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER Joey Fortuna

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, SALES AND MARKETING Eric Koepele

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Anurag Harsh

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT AND GENERAL MANAGER, DATA SOLUTIONS Bennett Zucker

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, CONTENT Dan Costa

GENERAL COUNSEL Stephen Hicks

VICE PRESIDENTS Frank Bilich (Sales, PCMag Digital Group), Jason Haddad (sales

development), Diane Malanowski (human resources), Archie Rosenblum (technology),

Jason Steele (commerce)

THE INDEPENDENT GUIDE PC Magazine is the Independent Guide to Technology. Our mission is

to test and review computer- and Internet-related products and services and report fairly and objectively on the

results. Our editors do not invest in firms whose products or services we review, nor do we accept travel tickets or

other gifts of value from such firms. Except where noted, PC Magazine reviews are of products and services that are

currently available. Our reviews are written without regard to advertising or business relationships with any vendor.

HOW TO CONTACT EDITORS We welcome comments from readers. Send your comments to [email protected]

or to PC Magazine, 28 E. 28th St., New York, NY 10016-7940. Please include a daytime telephone number. PC

Magazine’s general number is 212-503-3500. We cannot look up stories from past issues, recommend products, or

diagnose problems with your PC by phone.

PERMISSIONS, REPRINTS, CONTENT, AND TRADEMARK RIGHTS For permission to reuse material in this

publication or to use our logo, contact us at [email protected], or by phone at 212-503-5263/5264.

Material in this publication may not be reproduced in any form without written permission. Copyright © 2014, Ziff

Davis Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

pc magazine - june 2014

Documents

new issue of pc magazine

new life

monthly magazine

digital editionjune

world of digital publishing

adobe digital publishing

best fitness appsyou

current crop of smartwatches