Personal Technology » Macintosh

Operating Systems Offer New Choices in PC Shopping

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:02:04 +0000

Now that both Microsoft and Apple have finally shipped the new versions of their operating systems, Windows 7 and Snow Leopard, respectively, it’s time for my annual fall computer-buying guide.

This guide stresses laptops, which have become the prevalent choice, but most of its specs also apply to desktops. As always, it is aimed at average consumers doing typical tasks, such as Web surfing, email, social networking, word processing, photos, video and music. It doesn’t apply to businesses, hard-core gamers or serious media producers—groups that need specialized or heftier hardware.

[ See post to watch video ]

Consumers shopping for new computers this fall have a wide variety of choices with the new operating systems pre-installed, making the machines faster and better. Windows PCs are no longer burdened with the disliked Vista OS.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that the Windows hardware makers and retailers generally are trying to nudge you to spend more. They are anxious to guide consumers away from the popular, but low-profit, stripped-down netbooks to somewhat larger Windows 7 laptops from which they can make more money. This larger-size category goes by a variety of names, which can be confusing.

Windows vs. Mac: The arrival of Windows 7 makes PCs from Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Dell (DELL) and others much better choices than their Vista-equipped predecessors were. Microsoft (MSFT) has closed most of the gap with Apple’s (AAPL) Mac OS X operating system. Also, Windows PCs are often priced hundreds of dollars lower than Macs, and offer many more choices.

But Apple’s hardware is stylish and sturdy, and, in my tests, Macs usually boot faster than Windows machines. Plus, Apple’s chain of retail stores offers a better buying experience and strong post-purchase support. Also, in my view, Apple’s built-in software still has the edge. Snow Leopard is fast and reliable. And it comes with a full suite of excellent built-in programs, including email, photo and video software. Microsoft has stripped Windows 7 of such programs. Some PC makers have restored some or all of these in certain models, although I consider Apple’s counterparts better. Another huge plus: The Mac isn’t susceptible to the vast majority of viruses and spyware.

Cost: Prices on Windows PCs are creeping upward. You can buy a Windows PC for under $500, but many stores are pushing costlier models. And those $250 netbooks are much scarcer. Now, they typically run between $300 and $450. Apple has mostly stuck with its same, higher, prices, though it has boosted the specs on many models. The cheapest Mac desktop, the minimalist Mac mini, is $599. The cheapest Mac laptop, the new MacBook, is $999. The heart of Apple’s line starts at $1,199.

New category: Windows PC makers this season are pushing a category of laptop that is meant to fit between a netbook and a full-size laptop. It goes by a variety of confusing names, such as “ultrathin” or “thin and light,” though these models are often no thinner or lighter than some laptops of the past. They typically cost between $500 and $800, and often have 13-inch screens.

Memory: All Macs come with at least two gigabytes of memory, which is plenty for running Snow Leopard well. Mainstream Windows PCs have at least three gigabytes. But the cheapest Windows machines sometimes come with less. I recommend at least two gigabytes.

64-bit: PCs have long been based on something called a 32-bit architecture, but many models now use a 64-bit architecture, allowing properly written software to use more memory and run faster. If possible, buy a 64-bit computer, which is likely to dominate eventually, even though some software and add-on hardware may be incompatible at first.

Graphics: The new operating systems allow software makers to speed up some tasks by offloading them from the main processor onto the graphics chip. So, if possible, get a “discrete” graphics processor, which has its own memory. Otherwise, find a potent “integrated” graphics chip, which shares your main memory.

Processor: Mainstream Windows PCs sport fast, dual-core processors from Intel (INTC) or its rival, AMD (AMD). These pack the equivalent of two brains onto one chip. But many lower-price Windows PCs have slower processors, such as the Intel Atom, which are best suited for light duty. Apple models all use Intel’s dual-core processors, except for the highest-priced desktops, which come with quad-core chips.

Hard disks: A 250-gigabyte hard disk should be the minimum on most PCs. On a netbook, look for at least a 160-gigabyte disk. Solid-state disks are faster and use less battery power, but often add hundreds of dollars to the price tag.

Touch: Windows 7 lets you control the computer by touching the screen with your fingers, and some PC makers add their own touch-screen features. But this only works fully with newer types of touch screens, adding cost. Make sure any touch-screen model you buy has a full multitouch screen that supports all Windows 7 gestures. Apple uses the laptop touch pad, or its new mouse, as the multitouch, finger-gesture mechanism, instead of the screen.

As always, don’t buy more machine than you need.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Apple's New iMac, MacBook Grow Better, Brighter

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:02:03 +0000

This is the week when Microsoft finally starts selling Windows 7, its much-improved successor to the disappointing Vista version of Windows. PC makers, who have suffered from Vista’s poor reputation, will begin touting models that come with Windows 7, which I praised in a detailed review earlier this month.

But Microsoft’s (MSFT) historic rival, Apple (AAPL), isn’t sitting still. After releasing its own new operating system, Snow Leopard, in August, Apple this week is rolling out new versions of two of the best- known Macs: its iconic all-in-one iMac desktop, and its least-expensive laptop, the MacBook.

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Though both new Macs sport important improvements, they are evolutionary, not revolutionary, and neither follows the industry trend toward bargain-basement prices. The MacBook is still $999, and the iMac still starts at $1,199, though the company is giving users more power and features at those same price points. You can pay much less for laptops and desktops from competitors like Dell (DELL) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ).

Apple is, however, introducing one revolutionary product this week: a $69 mouse called the Magic Mouse. It’s the first mouse I’ve seen whose entire surface acts like a laptop trackpad, and allows fingertip multitouch gestures for scrolling and flipping through lists, photos and Web pages on the screen, while still performing traditional cursor movements and clicking. This mouse comes with the new iMac and will be usable on most other Macs as well, once Apple offers a software update for them. It worked well for me.

I’ve been testing these new computers for a few days, and I can recommend both. The new iMacs have spectacular screens that are larger and sport much higher resolutions than those on their predecessors. They also add more memory capacity, bigger hard disks and faster processors.

The new $999, 13″ MacBook now includes most of the key features of the similar-sized MacBook Pro, which costs $200 more. These include a large multitouch trackpad, significantly enhanced battery life, and a brighter screen. Despite its lower price, the lowly MacBook comes with a 56% larger hard disk (250 gigabytes versus 160) than the Pro model.

The New iMacs

Apple has kept the basic design of the iMac, which looks like a stand-alone monitor but has a powerful computer built in. But the new models have larger, wider screens that have been re-sized to match up with high-definition video. The $1,199 base model has a 21.5″ screen, compared to the old 20″ screen, and has 17% higher resolution.

The highest-priced models, at $1,699 and $1,999, have huge 27″ screens, versus 24 inches for the older models, and they have a 60% increase in resolution.

The $1,199 base iMac has 4 gigabytes of memory, double the amount in the prior base model, and a 500 gigabyte hard disk, up from 320 gigabytes. The costlier editions have a one terabyte hard disk, which is roughly 1,000 gigabytes. The top model has a more powerful graphics card and a heavy-duty processor.

All the iMacs now have slots for SD flash memory cards, and the large-screen models can act as external monitors.

In my tests, using a 27″ model, the machine was fast and the screen was brilliant at displaying hi-res photos and high-definition video. Its width allowed me to treat it like two monitors, with, say a Microsoft Word document on the left and a Web page on the right.

One downside: the $1,499 model now has a smaller screen—21.5″ versus 24″—though it has a larger hard disk and better graphics card.

The New MacBook

This 13″ laptop, like its predecessor, is shiny white plastic, but has been redesigned to have more-rounded edges and a rubbery non-slip bottom. It now has the Pro’s large Apple trackpad, which acts as both a huge mouse button and a surface for fingertip gestures like two-finger scrolling, and resizing and rotating photos. It’s still 1.08″ thick—but is a bit longer and wider than the older model, though it weighs less: 4.7 pounds versus 5 pounds.

Apple has dropped the FireWire port from this machine, as well as its ability to be run via a remote control. And it still lacks an SD card slot. But it now has a large sealed battery that Apple claims can last up to 7 hours between charges. On my tough battery test, where I turn off all power-saving features and play music constantly, the MacBook lasted just over five hours. In normal use, I estimate it could easily top six hours.

In my tests, this MacBook was fast and reliable using a wide variety of programs. It started up cold in a mere 22 seconds, and was ready to go after a restart, with several programs running, in 44 seconds. For anyone on a budget, it’s a better deal than the 13″ MacBook Pro, especially considering its larger hard disk.

These new models now round out a full line of refreshed Macs, but they will face stiff new competition from a horde of PCs running the new and better version of Windows.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Apple's iTunes 9 Makes it Easier to Share, Organize

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:04:03 +0000

Apple’s iTunes program is one of the most popular software products in the world. The company says hundreds of millions of copies of iTunes have been downloaded, far exceeding the 220 million iPod music players it has sold. That’s because many people use iTunes to organize, play and buy music and videos on their computers, or to burn music CDs, even if they don’t own iPods or iPhones. Ironically, the vast majority of iTunes copies are on Windows PCs, not Apple’s own Macintosh computers, because Windows machines are much more numerous.

[ See post to watch video ]

Last week, Apple released its ninth major version of iTunes — which first came out in January, 2001, before the iPod even existed — and I’ve been testing it. This release is the biggest overhaul of the familiar program in recent years, with improvements in the look and functionality of each of the software’s three main portions: the media jukebox, the built-in store and the synchronization features that move media and applications to and from iPods and iPhones.

In my tests, performed on multiple Windows PCs and Macs, iTunes 9 worked as advertised, and I found it to be less cluttered, more intelligent and easier to use than the prior version. It synced music and videos properly for me using both an iPod Nano and an iPhone. It’s available as a free download at apple.com/itunes.

To me, the two biggest new features in iTunes 9 are something called Home Sharing and a new, easier way to organize the apps on an iPhone or iPod Touch.

For years, iTunes users have been able to wirelessly stream music from nearby computers running iTunes whose owners chose to share their music. But Home Sharing takes this one step further, allowing users to actually copy the song files from one computer to another.

Right inside iTunes, you can simply peer into the shared library on another computer set up to allow this, and then select the song you want and drag it into your own library. It doesn’t delete the original from the other computer.

In my tests, this worked perfectly with music, as well as TV shows, movies and audiobooks, and it worked between any combination of my PCs and Macs. You can even configure Home Sharing to automatically transfer to your library new media purchased on another shared computer.

But Home Sharing has limitations. It only works with a maximum of five computers. These computers must be on the same local network, not connected over the Internet. And they must be the same computers authorized to play copy-protected media you buy from Apple.

With 75,000 apps available for the iPhone and iPod Touch, it has been easy to download so many that your device becomes cluttered, with numerous icons scattered among numerous screens in a manner that isn’t optimal. There’s a way to move them around, or delete them, right on the device, but it’s clumsy, partly because you can’t see all the screens at once, and partly because it’s difficult to move an icon from a location on one screen to another location several screens away.

The new iTunes lets you organize your iPhone's screen right on your computer

Now, in the new iTunes 9, when you plug in your device, the software displays an exact visual representation of your iPhone or Touch screens right on your computer, and allows you to rearrange them with your mouse. When you disconnect, the new arrangement is retained on the phone. It worked fine for me.

In iTunes 9, you also can create up to 12 automated “Genius Mixes” from your personal music library — essentially personal radio stations consisting of songs iTunes considers to be related, that play on and on. I enjoyed this feature, and found it generally made good choices.

There are also a number of small visual improvements throughout the program. In the jukebox, for instance, you can now locate all songs by a particular artist using a Column Browser — an optional left-hand column that lists the artists.

In the store, categories like music, movies and TV shows are now arrayed across the top, with drop-down menus for genres. The store also is generally better organized, with richer graphics, more white space and easier navigation.

A small touch of social networking, not exactly Apple’s historic strength, has been added to iTunes. From inside the store, you can post a link to a favorite title to either Facebook or Twitter, though this of course serves Apple by encouraging others to buy the title.

You can now buy special albums, called “iTunes LPs,” that attempt to replicate the experience of old vinyl albums by including lots of extra material. For instance, for one such title by the Doors, iTunes delivered to me liner notes, digital scans of old posters and set lists, plus photos and video interviews. Another, called Mayhem, by the singer/actor Tyrese Gibson, includes just one song, but also a vivid digital comic book with voiced dialogue.

However, these iTunes LPs take up a lot of space on your hard disk — about half a gigabyte each for the ones I tried.

Overall, iTunes 9 is a nice improvement on a much-used program.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Apple Changes Leopard's Spots

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 01:01:13 +0000

For a company known for breakthrough products with cool features, Apple this week is doing something unusual: It is introducing a key product with very few new features that are visible to its users. This new release, the latest major version of the Macintosh operating system, looks and works almost exactly the same as its predecessor, but has been heavily re-engineered under the covers for greater speed and efficiency, and to add future-oriented core technologies.

The new software, called Snow Leopard, succeeds Apple’s 2007-vintage Leopard, which I regard as the best computer operating system out there, and markedly superior to its main rival, Microsoft’s Windows Vista. Snow Leopard goes on sale Friday, Aug. 28, and will be pre-installed on all new Macintosh computers.

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The company, which often proclaims its new releases as revolutionary, has been very low key about Snow Leopard. For many months, Apple (AAPL) has made it clear the new OS wouldn’t sport new eye-popping features, but would instead be focused on what it calls “refinements” and “fine-tuning.” Perhaps its biggest new feature is something only a minority of Mac owners will ever use: built-in compatibility with Microsoft’s Exchange corporate email, calendar and contacts service.

Snow Leopard is priced accordingly, at just $29 for people upgrading from Leopard. That’s $100 less than what Leopard cost. And it’s $90 less than what Microsoft plans to charge upgraders for the main consumer version of its next version of Windows, called Windows 7, which is due out Oct. 22. Windows 7 is also an iteration on its predecessor, rather than a revolutionary new product, though it has some nice tweaks and will be a more dramatic improvement due to Vista’s failings. I’ll have a full review of it closer to its release.

I’ve been testing Snow Leopard on three Macs—an older desktop and a laptop of my own that I upgraded from Leopard, and a new MacBook Pro laptop Apple lent me for testing with Snow Leopard pre-installed. I found Snow Leopard easy to install, faster than Leopard, compatible with my most commonly used software and peripherals, and filled with a number of small, useful refinements and additions.

One delightful change: Snow Leopard takes up less than half the room on a hard disk that Leopard did, and Apple says the average user who upgrades will free up about 7 gigabytes of space. On my 2008-vintage MacBook Pro, I gained back a whopping 14 gigabytes.

But I also encountered a number of bugs and glitches, and a few incompatibilities, including a wildly wrong guess by Snow Leopard about which driver to use for an older, lightly used printer on one of my upgraded Macs. (It did fine with my main printer.)

Overall, I believe Snow Leopard will help keep the Mac an appealing choice for computer buyers, and I can recommend it to existing Mac owners seeking more speed and disk space, or wanting to more easily use Exchange. But I don’t consider Snow Leopard a must-have upgrade for average consumers. It’s more of a nice-to-have upgrade. If you’re happy with Leopard, there’s no reason to rush out and get Snow Leopard.

For some current Mac owners, Snow Leopard isn’t an option. About 20% of them are still using older models that aren’t powered by the Intel (INTC) processors Apple currently uses. Snow Leopard simply won’t work on these machines, including models designated as G4 or G5 and sold as recently as 2006.

And, for owners of Intel-based Macs who are still using the older Tiger version of the Mac OS, Apple is officially making Snow Leopard available only in a “boxed set” that includes other software and costs $169. The reasoning is that these folks never paid the $129 back in 2007 to upgrade to Leopard. But here’s a tip: Apple concedes that the $29 Snow Leopard upgrade will work properly on these Tiger-equipped Macs, so you can save the extra $140.

Here’s a quick rundown of what I found in testing Snow Leopard:

Installation

Snow Leopard comes in one version, rather than the multiple operating system versions favored by Microsoft (MSFT). And that single version handles hardware and software based on both a standard computer technology, called 32-bit, and a newer one, called 64-bit, which can use much more memory and is faster.

Both my desktop and laptop Macs converted to Snow Leopard quickly and smoothly, in about 45 minutes each. Unlike the upgrade process Microsoft is requiring to get to Windows 7 from Windows XP, the Snow Leopard upgrade preserves all your files, settings and programs where they previously existed, right down to your desktop icons and wallpaper. No disk wiping, file moving, or program re-installation is required. And, as noted above, you actually gain disk space, because Apple has slimmed down the OS and also automatically removes or compresses old system files (not your personal data) that are no longer needed or used often.

However, I did run into a couple of minor problems: on one of my Macs, a screen saver displaying certain of my photos didn’t work after the switch. Other photos did work. Apple says this is a bug it will fix.

Speed

After changing to Snow Leopard, my Macs worked faster. I already considered them pretty speedy, so the overall effect wasn’t mind-blowing. But Snow Leopard’s built-in programs, like Mail, the Safari browser, and the Finder—Apple’s equivalent of the Windows Explorer—have all been rewritten behind the scenes, so these and other specific features are now a lot quicker. I found that email folders stuffed with thousands of messages opened almost instantly, and copying files was noticeably faster, even when the destination was on the Internet or a network. The Safari 4 browser, already very fast with Leopard, is even speedier under Snow Leopard, especially on more complex Web sites that use a popular technology called Javascript.

New Features

True to its word, Apple has built few new features into Snow Leopard, and, except for Exchange (explained below), these are small. One touted feature is called Dock Expose, which allows you to see small versions of all the open windows in any running program by clicking on its icon in the Dock at the bottom of the screen. But this is mostly a reworking of a feature that already has been on the Mac.

Apple’s QuickTime video player has been upgraded, with a clean new interface for playback, and the new ability to record and trim videos. Icons can be more easily enlarged, and you can preview the files they represent, even playing videos in miniature or paging through multipage PDF or PowerPoint files.

My three favorite tweaks, barely mentioned by Apple:

“Substitutions,” which is like the auto-correct feature in Microsoft Word, but extends the concept to Apple’s email and other programs;
the ability for Snow Leopard to automatically reset the time zone on the Mac’s clock based on your location while traveling;
and a new built-in function in QuickTime that allows you to record videos of actions you take on the Mac’s screen.

Exchange

Although Exchange is a widely used Microsoft server product, employed by many, many companies to manage employees’ email, calendars, and contacts, it isn’t built into Windows. To use Exchange, you have to buy add-on software, usually Microsoft’s Outlook for Windows PCs. It also hasn’t been built into the Mac OS, and usually required Mac owners to buy Microsoft’s Entourage program. But, with Snow Leopard, Apple is building Exchange right into the operating system, so it works with Apple’s free, built-in email, calendar and contact programs.

With the generous help of my company’s IT folks, I tested this feature, and it worked very well. All my corporate information flowed into Apple’s programs, very quickly, and I could search the company directory, check the calendars of people with whom I wished to schedule meetings, and more.

However, Apple makes setting up this new feature look simpler than it is. In most cases, I believe, it will require the time and cooperation of corporate IT personnel, who will need time to learn it—especially since, at many companies, relatively few of these folks are Mac experts. In my case, an Apple employee had to help my IT colleagues and me to get it going. But you likely won’t have that aid.

Compatibility and Glitches

Commonly used third-party programs, like the Mac versions of Microsoft Office, the Firefox browser, and Adobe Reader, all worked fine in my tests after the upgrade. But a few things didn’t. Apple admitted I had found a few bugs and said that some software makers will have to upgrade their software because the programs rely on under-the-hood components that have changed in Snow Leopard.

VMware’s Fusion program for running Windows simultaneously with the Mac operating system worked, and I was able to use Windows. But it was a bit glitchy. VMware (VMW) provided me with a forthcoming new version tailored for Snow Leopard’s changed underlying architecture, which worked perfectly.

A Cisco (CSCO) program used to connect to corporate virtual private networks caused one of my test machines to completely crash, a rarity on Macs. But Snow Leopard now contains the same Cisco VPN connector as a built-in feature, and that worked perfectly.

Snow Leopard didn’t properly recognize my older-model Verizon (VZ) cellular modem card, though I was still able to use the card by digging into Apple’s network preferences screen. Apple says this is a bug it will fix.

As noted above, Snow Leopard didn’t work at first with an older networked printer on one of my test Macs, and thought it was a laser printer instead of an inkjet. I did get it working, by manually selecting a different printer driver, but Apple admits this is a bug it will have to fix.

Finally, the Time Machine backup file on one of my Macs stopped working. With my permission, Apple examined the file using a diagnostic tool and claimed it had become corrupted a couple of months ago, before the upgrade, and that Snow Leopard merely exposed the problem. I have no way of knowing if this is true, but Time Machine did work perfectly on the two other test Macs.

Underlying Technologies

In addition to greater 64-bit capability, Snow Leopard has two other big under-the-hood additions. One, called Grand Central Dispatch, makes it easier for developers to write programs that make better use of the multiple “cores,” or processing units, in modern processors. The other, called OpenCL, makes it easier for developers to offload some non-graphics tasks to today’s potent graphics chips. These are very important, especially for power-hungry tasks like video production and high-end gaming, but Microsoft is building similar capabilities into Windows 7, and they won’t really matter on either platform until third-party developers make use of them, which will take time.

Bottom Line

Apple already had the best computer operating system in Leopard, and Snow Leopard makes it a little better. But it isn’t a big breakthrough for average users, and, even at $29, it isn’t a typical Apple lust-provoking product.

Find Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

New Netbook Offers Long Battery Life and Room to Type

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 01:02:03 +0000

The brightest spot for Windows PC makers in this awful economy has been the relatively new category of small, light, minimalist and cheap laptops called netbooks.

But there are some significant compromises for consumers who rely on netbooks, which typically sell for between $300 and $500, have screens of 8” or 10,” and weigh under three pounds.

[ See post to watch video ]

Because their screens are not only small, but also tend to offer low resolution, they can’t show as much of a Web page, or document, as a normal laptop screen, so a lot of scrolling is required. Many have cramped, flimsy-feeling keyboards, and undersized touchpads with small, stiff buttons. And many have lousy battery life.

I’ve been testing a new netbook from Toshiba, the last major Windows brand to join the category in the U.S., but a company with long experience in making diminutive, albeit far costlier, laptops. And this new $400 Toshiba, inelegantly called the NB205-N310, stands out for solving some of these common netbook problems, including offering the best netbook keyboard I’ve tested.

The Toshiba shares most of the characteristics of competing netbooks. It has a 10” screen; uses the low-power Intel (INTC) Atom processor; sports a 160-gigabyte hard disk; and has a built-in Webcam. Like almost all netbooks, it runs the aging but familiar Windows XP Home operating system. Its one gigabyte of memory is sub-par for a standard laptop, but generous for a netbook. It has a decent complement of ports and connectors, including three USB ports, one of which can charge accessories like cellphones even while the PC is in sleep mode.

While not the smallest or lightest competitor on the shelf, the new Toshiba’s overall dimensions qualify it as a true netbook: it weighs 2.9 pounds, and is 10.4 inches wide, 7.6 inches deep, and an inch thick at its thinnest point. It fits nicely on the tray in a coach plane seat, and comes in a variety of colors.

But this machine breaks from the pack in several areas. First, it has by far the best keyboard I’ve seen in a netbook. The keyboard design resembles that on Apple’s (AAPL) MacBook Pro laptops —big, raised keys with lots of room in between, and good vertical movement. The space bar, and the “Enter” and “Backspace” keys are wide, and there are even dedicated “Page Up” and “Page Down” keys.

My only major gripe with this keyboard was a baffling decision to shrink the Tab key, which is heavily used to navigate forms on Web pages, to less than half the size of a normal letter key. It is so small I kept hitting the adjacent “Q” key until I got used to it. But, otherwise, this is a great netbook keyboard.

The company offers a model of the NB205 with a flat keyboard for $50 less, but I think the extra $50 is worth it.

The Toshiba’s second big plus is its touchpad and buttons. The pad itself is much roomier and easier to use than on any other netbook I’ve tested, a crucial benefit given that its typical low-resolution netbook screen, while bright and crisp, forces you to scroll a lot. (There’s a button that can zoom out, but I found it clumsy to use.) And the twin buttons, in stark contrast to those on many netbooks, are large and very responsive.

The Toshiba NB205-N310

The third big plus on this new netbook is battery life, which I found to be outstanding. This model comes standard with one of those protruding, six-cell batteries, though it doesn’t stick out as far as some I’ve seen. Toshiba claims you can get up to an impressive nine hours and five minutes of life between charges. (There’s a $330 model with a battery Toshiba claims lasts just 3.5 hours.)

In my standard battery test, where I turn off all power-saving features, crank up the screen to full brightness, leave on the Wi-Fi, and play music continuously, the Toshiba NB205-N310 lasted a whopping six hours and 32 minutes. That means you would likely top eight hours, and maybe approach Toshiba’s claim, in a more normal usage pattern.

The machine properly handled a variety of common programs I tested, including Microsoft Office (MSFT), Firefox, iTunes, Picasa and the TweetDeck program for using Twitter.

But there were some drawbacks. One was performance. Streaming of Web videos stuttered a bit more often than I would have liked. Wi-Fi speed was noticeably less than what I get on a standard Windows laptop.

Startup and reboot speeds were very slow. With one Word document open, two Web sites open in Firefox and iTunes playing a song, it took the Toshiba over two minutes to reboot, compared to about a minute and a half on my last-generation Acer Aspire One netbook running the same things. Starting up cold also took about 30 seconds longer than on the Acer.

This may be because Toshiba has loaded the machine with software many people won’t use, including the Skype communications program and a networking utility that duplicates some of Windows’ built-in functions. Also, the speakers are feeble, even for a netbook.

Still, Toshiba has advanced the netbook category in key respects.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Hasta la Vista: The Many Versions of Windows 7

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 01:02:03 +0000

Last week, this column laid out the painful, tedious process that awaits Windows XP users in October if they choose to migrate their existing PCs to Microsoft’s forthcoming new edition of Windows, called Windows 7. This week, I aim to explain some of the other details and issues involved in upgrading a PC to Windows 7, even if you are currently running Windows Vista, from which an upgrade is far simpler.

Unlike migrating from XP–still the most common version of Windows, despite its age–moving up from Vista is designed to be relatively straightforward. It’s a direct upgrade process that preserves all your personal files, settings and programs.

However, even this easier transition involves some choices and limitations that can be confusing for mainstream, non-techie users, so I will try to sort them out here. Throughout this column, I will be referring to simple, direct, upgrades meant for average users. I won’t be discussing more complex methods that require things like wiping out, or dividing, hard disks.

[ See post to watch video ]

Unlike Vista, Windows 7 doesn’t require beefier hardware than its immediate predecessor. It should work fine on nearly every Vista PC, and even on many late-model computers running XP. In fact, it is a bit less demanding than Vista. For instance, Microsoft (MSFT) has repeatedly demonstrated Windows 7 working on low-powered netbooks that choked on Vista.

However, just like Vista, Windows 7 will be sold in a multitude of different editions, and deciding which one to buy can be confusing. There are six different flavors, though one is reserved for countries Microsoft calls “emerging markets.” Of the remaining five, one is for big businesses. Another, a stripped-down edition called Starter, can’t be installed as a direct upgrade for existing computers, according to Microsoft.

Most consumers will likely choose Windows 7 Home Premium, which costs $120 for upgraders and has all the key Windows 7 features. The next step up, called Professional, adds a few extras that may be especially useful for consumers who work at large companies or use older, specialized programs. Most notably, the Professional edition, unlike the Home Premium version, can remotely tap into certain corporate networks that use a system called “Domain Joining.” And the Professional version has the ability to run older Windows XP programs that wouldn’t otherwise work in Windows 7. It costs $200 for upgraders. The other likely choice is called Ultimate. It combines every feature of the other editions but costs upgraders $100 more than Home Premium.

There are limitations on which current Vista machines can be directly upgraded to the various versions of Windows 7. In general, you can only upgrade your current version of Vista to the comparable version of Windows 7. For instance, Vista Home Premium can only be upgraded to Windows 7 Home Premium and Vista Business can only be upgraded to Windows 7 Professional. This rule has two exceptions. Any flavor of Vista except Starter can be upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate, if you care to spend the extra money. And Vista Home Basic can be upgraded to Windows 7 Home Premium.

All of the three common consumer versions of Windows 7 can run inside virtual machines, such as the faux Windows computers created on Apple (AAPL) Macintosh hardware using the Fusion and Parallels software. However, the upgrade rules still apply.

After you’ve installed Windows 7, you can move up from Home Premium to Professional with minimal extra effort, for an added sum, by using a program from Microsoft called Windows Anytime Upgrade. This unlocks the added features of Professional, which were actually already on your machine, but were hidden. You can do the same thing to move up to Ultimate.

However, there’s another complication. For each of the three main consumer versions of Windows 7, there are actually two editions. One is meant for PCs with standard processors, called 32-bit processors, and the other for PCs that sport newer processors called 64-bit processors. The 32-bit version of Windows can recognize only 3 gigabytes of memory, but the 64-bit version can use much, much more. For most average users, 3 gigabytes is plenty, but some consumers have 64-bit Vista machines, which can move faster when lots of programs are being used at once, or when doing tasks like playing back high-definition video.

The problem is that you cannot directly upgrade 32-bit Vista to 64-bit Windows 7, or vice versa. So that adds another layer of complexity to the upgrade process.

Finally, a note about prices. Most major Windows PC makers are offering free, or very low cost, upgrades to Windows 7 later, if you buy a Vista PC now. They are doing this, in cooperation with Microsoft, to discourage people from waiting until October to buy a new PC. Each hardware company has slightly different policies on this. However, this free upgrade program isn’t of any help if you simply want to keep your existing PC and upgrade it to Windows 7.

You can learn more about the various editions of Windows 7 at: windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/compare-editions?T1=tab01. And I’ll have a full review closer to its Oct. 22 release date.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

In Browser Wars, The New Firefox Loses Some Edge

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 22:02:03 +0000

The war of the Web browsers has taken another turn with the release of a major new version of Mozilla Firefox, the No. 2 browser in market share, but No. 1 in the hearts of many of the most knowledgeable computer users.

[ See post to watch video ]

This new edition of Firefox is the third big new browser release this year, following new editions of Microsoft’s (MSFT) Internet Explorer and Apple’s (AAPL) Safari. Unlike Firefox, these two browsers come bundled with the two major computer platforms, Windows and Mac. By contrast, Mozilla must convince users to download Firefox, which comes in essentially identical versions for both systems. And it has done a reasonably good job, garnering by most estimates around 23% market share, versus between 60% and 70% for IE, which is by far the leader. Meanwhile, Google (GOOG)—a former Firefox supporter—has joined the battle with its nascent Chrome browser, which so far runs only on Windows, but is due on the Mac one day and is to morph into a whole new operating system next year. And there are other very capable browsers with small user bases, the most notable of which is Opera.

I’ve been using Firefox since its inception years ago, and have been testing this latest iteration, version 3.5, since it emerged June 30. I can continue to recommend it as a fine way to surf the Web. The new version is improved, and worked very well for me on both my Windows and Macintosh computers.

But, in this round of the war, Mozilla’s product no longer stands out as clearly superior, for two reasons. First, Firefox has lost its traditionally biggest advantage: greater speed than its rivals. While Firefox 3.5 is about twice as fast as the previous version 3.0, and handily beat Internet Explorer 8 in my tests, it lagged behind both Safari 4.02 and the beta edition of Chrome 2.0 a bit in most test scenarios. Overall, Safari was fastest in most of my tests, both on Mac and Windows (yes, Apple makes a little-known version of Safari for Windows).

In fact, Mozilla no longer is claiming to be the fastest browser. It now prefers to say it is one of what it calls the “modern” browsers, along with Safari and Chrome, whose under-the-hood technologies make them better at handling a growing breed of sophisticated Internet-based applications that mimic traditional computer programs like photo editors and word processors and spreadsheets.

Second, this version of Firefox has relatively few new features, and some of them are merely catch-ups to those introduced earlier by Microsoft and Apple. Most notable among these is a private browsing mode, first popularized in Safari, and greatly expanded in IE, which allows you to traverse Web sites without leaving traces on your computer to show what you’ve been doing.

Mozilla says its main goal from now on will be to turn Firefox into the ideal platform for running Web-based applications. It shares the belief, also fervently embraced by Google, that consumers will gradually migrate away from programs stored on their computers’ hard disks to those stored in “the Cloud,” the industry’s term for the servers that run the Internet.

To show this, the new Firefox can do a few new tricks, like streaming video directly from Web pages without requiring plug-ins like Adobe’s (ADBE) Flash. Alas, this works only with obscure video formats little used on the Web at the moment.

Firefox 3.5 does include some new features, in addition to private browsing. It can pinpoint your location, so that any properly configured Web site can serve up locally relevant content. It has a nice option that lets you “forget” any Web page in your history, wiping out all traces you’ve been there, even if you neglected to turn on private browsing mode beforehand. And it can recover your open tabs after a crash.

Also, Firefox continues to lead its rivals in the number and variety of third-party add-ons that enhance browsing in myriad ways, such as adding features to sites like Twitter or making bookmarking easier.

As for speed, I tested Firefox 3.5 against its main rivals by timing how long it took to launch into the same home page, and how long it took to completely load popular Web sites like Facebook and YouTube. I tested how long it took to completely load folders containing numerous sports and news sites simultaneously. I also ran an industry benchmark test that measures the browsers’ speed at handling an important Web language called JavaScript. I did these tests on the same home network on both a Dell (DELL) and an Apple computer.

While Firefox won a few of these tests, Safari and Chrome won more of them. In most cases, the speed differences weren’t large, except in the case of IE, which was dramatically slower than the others. But this is the first new version of Firefox I’ve tested that didn’t win most of the tests.

Firefox is still a great Web browser, and still much faster than its main rival, Internet Explorer. But its edge is being eroded.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Only One Beyoncé: Services Pick Up After Your Music

Geoffrey A. Fowler — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:08:04 +0000

My digital music collection is over a decade old, and it’s as disorderly as a drawer of mismatched socks.

Many songs are missing the correct album titles and cover art—or just show up in Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) iTunes with mysterious names like “Track04.” Over the years I’ve used several programs to import and buy music, resulting in wild inconsistencies in my collection. I’ve got songs by Beyoncé (with accent), Beyonce (without accent), Beyoncé Knowles (with accent) and Beyonce Knowles (without accent).

Several companies have developed programs that tap into vast databases of songs to tame music collections. I’ve been testing one by San Francisco startup TuneUp Media that’s available to download online and buy in Apple’s stores. While I was reluctant to pay $19.95 for a year’s subscription to a service I reckon should be in iTunes for free, TuneUp has largely delivered on its promise to scrub my music collection with minimal effort, making sure tracks were properly titled and adding extras like album cover art.

TuneUp’s greatest asset is that it works seamlessly with iTunes (for Mac and PC). With TuneUp hooked on to the right side of the iTunes program, you drag “dirty,” or mislabeled, songs into a box identified by a spray bottle of cleaner. The software identifies songs by taking clues from information you’ve embedded in your music, as well as sampling the song’s digital fingerprint. TuneUp looks for a match to those clues in a database of songs maintained by Sony Corp.’s (SNE) Gracenote.

Some matches are a slam dunk, but almost half of my collection proved to be problematic. Of the 500 most-played songs in my pop-oriented collection, TuneUp found “matches” for songs across 79 albums and “likely matches” for songs across 209 albums. It couldn’t identify 10 songs. The company says it counts matches as a 90% or higher chance of a match, and “likely” as at least 75% chance of a match. Songs with a likelihood under 75% are labeled “not found.”

TuneUp gives you the chance to review each of the matches before it adjusts your catalog. (It comes with an undo button.) Accepting all of the sure matches is easy enough, but slogging through the likely matches is troublesome. TuneUp gives you only the option to accept or reject its one recommendation after listening to the file, if you want.I worried that I might be inadvertently mislabeling a song, but haven’t yet found evidence of errors in my collection. The company says it cut out alternative matches to simplify the cleaning process, but is working on adding them to future releases of the software.

Once a song has been cleaned by TuneUp, it is given a consistent name, track number, album cover and other helpful information, such as the year it was released. Now I’ve got songs by just Beyoncé (with accent) and almost all of my songs feature the album cover art that looks so nifty on iPhone screens. The software assigns your songs genre identifications, which can be handy for matching music to your mood. Most of the classifications aren’t terms I would have come up with: Beyoncé is dubbed “urban crossover,” while Michael Jackson is either “disco” or “other pop” depending on the era—but at least they’re consistent. You also can tell TuneUp not to change any specific part of a song’s existing catalog listing, including genre.

TuneUp takes a few seconds, depending on your computer and Internet speed, to identify and re-classify each song. Attempting to scrub a whole collection—mine has more than 10,000 songs—can be a lengthy affair. The company suggests cleaning 500 songs at a time, but you can do many more than that if you leave it running over night.

I tried out a free competitor to TuneUp called MusicBrainz Picard, which matches songs based on a database collected by a swarm of Internet users, rather than one particular company. TuneUp and MusicBrainz, which is run by a nonprofit, are as different as Britannica and Wikipedia in their approaches to cataloging information.

The MusicBrainz approach to building a user-generated database is powerful and has been tapped by companies such as the BBC and Amazon.com (AMZN) to improve the way they keep track of music on their sites. Some of my songs that TuneUp couldn’t identify, such as the song “This Way” by hip hop group Dilated Peoples, were a breeze for MusicBrainz. To date, MusicBrainz has about 700,000 “releases” (such as whole albums) and 8,000,000 individual “tracks” in its database.

But MusicBrainz’s database has limitations, such as the inability to catalog album-cover images or song lyrics, both of which are copyrighted material. The free Picard program lets you tap the MusicBrainz database from your own computer. Serious music fans will be attracted to Picard because it is more precise than TuneUp; Picard guides you to choose from a variety of options when it isn’t certain of a match. But the software is rudimentary and requires concentration and time to use. Picard also doesn’t connect directly into iTunes’ catalog. To use it with iTunes, you have to first clean up all of your music files with Picard and then re-import your songs into iTunes.

I recommend TuneUp for the average music fan who might view cleaning up a music collection as the sort of task that shouldn’t take much longer than one rainy Sunday afternoon. Picard is better for people for whom maintaining an orderly music collection is a never-ending project.

TuneUp comes with a feature called “Tuniverse,” which fills the right side of the screen with information related to whatever song iTunes is playing at the time. That information includes YouTube videos, biographical details from Wikipedia, Google (GOOG) News, music recommendations from Amazon and tickets from StubHub to coming concerts in your area. While I initially worried Tuniverse would feel like added advertising on the screen, I’ve come to enjoy the extra information. And once again, I was left wondering why Apple hasn’t built these capabilities directly into iTunes. I, for one, learned from Tuniverse that Beyoncé has a concert in San Francisco next week, and I just might buy a ticket.

Walt Mossberg is on vacation.

Write to Geoffrey A. Fowler at Geoffrey.Fowler@wsj.com

New Mac Laptops Use Batteries Sealed for Power

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:04:03 +0000

The majority of laptop computers come with removable batteries. This approach allows you to pop in a fresh spare when your battery runs out of juice between charges, and to easily replace a battery when its lifespan is over.

But there’s a dirty little secret about removable-battery laptops owned by average consumers: Hardly anybody buys extra batteries. Research firm NPD estimates that fewer than 5% of consumers buy a spare. So, a small trend has begun in the industry: More electronic products are being designed with their rechargeable batteries sealed inside. For instance, Dell’s (DELL) new high-end laptop, the Adamo, has a sealed battery, as does the excellent Flip pocket video camera.

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The leading proponent of this idea is Apple (AAPL), which has often led the industry in introducing or removing components from computers. This month, Apple unveiled two revised MacBook Pro laptops with higher-capacity, sealed-in batteries. In fact, Apple’s entire line of laptops now uses sealed batteries, except for one low-end MacBook model from last year’s series.

Apple says this makes sense because sealing in the batteries lets the company make them larger, without adding heft to the laptops. Apple says the two models are the same size and weight as their predecessors, yet their battery capacity has grown by 33% and 46%, respectively.

And, Apple asserts, it has come up with some software technology that allows these sealed batteries to last up to five years in typical use. The company claims that is almost triple the industry average for removable batteries and is longer than the typical time consumers keep the computer, thus making it far less likely you’ll need to replace a dead battery. Apple says it is able to seal in bigger batteries without making the machines larger because the company can compensate by shedding the casings, internal housings and other components needed by replaceable power packs.

The 13-inch MacBook Pro

I’ve been testing these two new Apple laptops, the 13-inch MacBook Pro and the 15-inch MacBook Pro, using my own harsh battery test, which I apply to all laptops I review. The results were excellent. These two new Apple laptops scored among the highest battery lives between charges of any laptop I have ever tested with a battery that fits entirely inside the machine’s dimensions, without sticking out of the back or bottom and adding weight.

The smaller of the two machines lasted a few minutes shy of five hours in my test. And the larger one lasted five hours and 21 minutes. I estimate that, in a more normal usage scenario, both machines would come close to Apple’s claim of around seven hours between charges—essentially a full workday of unplugged use. Those numbers are likely to obviate the need for spare batteries for the majority of average consumers.

There are some important caveats. I was unable to verify Apple’s claim that these sealed batteries can be fully recharged up to 1,000 times, and thus, last around five years. Second, if and when the sealed batteries do become unable to hold an adequate charge, the entire computer must be returned to Apple for a new battery. The company says that, if you do this at an Apple store, it’s a same-day process and, at least on the 13-inch model, the price of a new battery is the same as what Apple formerly charged for a new removable battery. But it’s still more of a hassle.

Also, there are users—like people who work on very long flights—for whom replaceable batteries will always be a necessity. These users will want the option, unavailable on the new Macs, to pop in an extra-strength battery.

Finally, while Apple has cut the prices of these two new laptops, they are still pricey compared with similar-sized models from other companies. The 13-inch model starts at $1,199, and the 15-inch model starts at $1,699. Like all Macs, these computers have, in my opinion, a better operating system, better built-in software and better security than their Windows competitors. But you can get competing machines for hundreds of dollars less.

In my battery test, I turn off all power-saving features, leave the Wi-Fi network on, crank up the screen to 100% brightness, and play a continuous loop of music. That maximizes some of the biggest power hogs on a laptop. In normal use, a typical owner would likely use the power-saving features, turn the screen down a bit, have Wi-Fi off some of the time, and wouldn’t be running the hard disk constantly.

Neither of my test machines used the energy-saving, but costly, solid-state drives that are slowly replacing mechanical hard disks. And my test models both used integrated graphics chips, which suck less power than the more potent discrete graphics offered on the 15-inch model.

Still, I believe that these new MacBook Pros prove that sealed batteries can result in a very good experience for average users.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email mossberg@wsj.com.

Synchronizing Your Bookmarks on All Your PCs

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 02:02:03 +0000

Lots of people now have multiple computers, at home and at work, and many use more than one Web browser. That makes it hard to keep bookmarks straight. If, for instance, you bookmark a Web site as a “Favorite” on your PC at work using Microsoft’s (MSFT) Internet Explorer, it doesn’t automatically show up as a bookmark in Apple’s (AAPL) Safari browser on your Macintosh at home.

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But I’ve been testing a new, free program, available now, that aims to solve this problem. It synchronizes your bookmarks automatically among all your computers, Windows or Mac, and across all the main brands of Web browsers — Internet Explorer, Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox. On PCs running Windows XP or Vista, it works with Internet Explorer and Firefox. On Macs, it works with Safari and Firefox.

The program is called Foxmarks, and it’s from a San Francisco company of the same name. The Foxmarks software has been around since 2006, but worked only with the Firefox browser — hence the name. Yet Firefox isn’t the dominant choice on either Windows or Mac. So the company decided to expand the product to Internet Explorer, which is the built-in browser on Windows (and thus No. 1 in the world) and Safari, which is the built-in browser on Mac.

This new version, available for download at foxmarks.com, doesn’t merely synchronize your bookmarks between copies of the same browser. It synchronizes them between different browser brands, even if some are running on Windows PCs and some on Macs.

In my tests, Foxmarks worked well, with a few minor caveats. After using it for five days, I now have exactly the same set of bookmarks (or Favorites, in Internet Explorer’s parlance), arranged in the same order, on multiple computers — Windows and Mac — in a total of 12 different copies of Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari.

There’s a different version of Foxmarks customized for each of the three main browsers, but each talks to the same password-protected Web account, which contains the latest version of your bookmarks. When you add, delete, rename or rearrange any bookmark in any browser on any of your computers, the Foxmarks software sends the change up to the Web account. Then, the next time any of your other browsers checks with the Web account, it receives the change.

For example, in my tests, I bookmarked a Wikipedia article in Firefox on my Dell (DELL) running Windows Vista. Foxmarks then caused that same new bookmark to appear in Internet Explorer on the same Dell, and in both Firefox and Safari on my Apple Macintosh computer. And, on each machine, the new bookmark for the Wikipedia article was in the same location.

In another case, I changed the order of two bookmarks in the Bookmarks Bar in Safari on one of my Macs, and the same re-ordering was replicated on a Windows PC in the Links Toolbar of IE and in the Bookmarks Toolbar of Firefox.

If you don’t want exactly the same set of bookmarks on all your machines, you can set up different profiles with different bookmarks for your work and home computers.

You can access the password-protected Web site containing your bookmarks from any PC, even if it isn’t one of yours, and can view a customized version of this site via the browser on an iPhone or other smart phone. You can even set up a mobile profile that will show you just a subset of your bookmarks in your phone’s Web browser, though you can’t sync bookmarks to and from a phone.

From the Web, you can alter your bookmarks, and these changes will then be pushed down to the browsers on your computers. You also can share bookmarks with others via email or an RSS feed.

There are other Web-based repositories of bookmarks, notably a service called Delicious. But none that I know of automatically synchronizes bookmarks among browsers and computers, which is the main function of Foxmarks.

Foxmarks has another feature: It can also sync stored passwords for Web sites you frequently visit. But this trick works only in Firefox, and in my tests didn’t work properly all the time.

The software has a few other limitations and glitches. The Internet Explorer version is still labeled a beta, or test, version because it still produces occasional syncing errors, especially in Vista. That was true in my tests, and I’d be wary of using it with Vista, though it performed solidly in Windows XP. It works reliably only with Internet Explorer 6 or 7, not the pre-release version of Internet Explorer 8, which the company isn’t yet supporting.

On the Mac, Foxmarks works only with the current Leopard version of the operating system and the current version 3 of Safari. It doesn’t work with the Windows version of Safari.

And syncing isn’t instant. It can take as long as an hour for each computer to check with the Web site and get the changes.

The company plans to keep Foxmarks free, but is hoping to make money from future, unspecified products.

Foxmarks is a clever, well-done product that can help users of multiple computers and multiple browsers to keep their Web lives in order.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.