Personal Technology » Wi-Fi

Price Is Heavier, but These Laptops Are Very Sleek

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:03:32 +0000

PC makers this fall are trying to get consumers who want small laptops to move up from low-profit netbooks to larger, costlier models called “ultrathin” or “thin and light.” These models are lighter and thinner than many regular laptops, but they have bigger screens and keyboards than most netbooks do.

The slim portables tend to start at around $500 and many fall into the $600 to $900 range. You can easily find bigger, heavier laptops for less. But the manufacturers are hoping mobile consumers will be willing to pay a premium for sleekness and long battery life.

[ See post to watch video ]

I’ve been testing three examples of the new class: the Toshiba Satellite T135, the Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) Pavilion dm3t and the Lenovo IdeaPad U350. All came equipped with bright 13-inch screens, power-sipping Intel (INTC) processors and Windows 7 Home Premium. The particular configurations lent me by the manufacturers for testing were priced at $600 for the Toshiba, $840 for the HP and $700 for the Lenovo.

I found the trio a mixed bag, with notable pros and cons for each. These trade-offs left me unable to declare a clear winner. The one you’d like best would depend on your own weighting of various qualities, like the feel of a keyboard or touchpad.

Nevertheless, I found that all three were capable, easy-to-carry laptops. In my tests, each easily handled common consumer tasks at acceptable speeds. The three weighed between 3.5 and 4.2 pounds. All were about an inch thick, or a bit less, at their thinnest points.

I ran all three through my tough battery test, where I turn off all power-saving features, set the screen to maximum brightness, leave Wi-Fi on and play a continuous loop of music.

The Toshiba Satellite T135

The Toshiba and the HP turned in excellent results in this battery test, while the Lenovo was disappointing, mainly because it comes with a smaller standard battery. In a re-test, with a $50 optional larger battery, the Lenovo also did very well, but at the cost of added weight and thickness.

In normal use, with power-saving turned on, the Toshiba and HP could easily last for a full work day of typical activities, and the Lenovo could, too, with the optional battery.

Toshiba Satellite T135

This is a sleek, glossy machine that starts at around 3.9 pounds for the 13-inch models. It got the best battery life of the three with a standard battery: five hours and 38 minutes, which I estimate would easily translate into more than seven hours in normal use. It also cost the least, at $600, of the three I tried. My test model came with three gigabytes of memory and a 250-gigabyte hard disk. It was very fast at resuming from sleep, but took more than two minutes to perform a restart with just three common programs running, and nearly two minutes to start up cold.

My main beef with the Toshiba is its keyboard and touchpad buttons. The keyboard felt too rubbery and flexible, and the buttons under the touchpad were in the form of a single, slippery, hard-to-use bar.

HP Pavilion dm3t

This laptop, the most expensive of my test models by far, at $840, was also the heaviest, at 4.2 pounds. The chassis is metal, instead of plastic. Its battery life clocked in at five hours and two minutes in my test, which means you could easily exceed six hours in normal use. My test model came with 3 GB of memory and a huge 500 GB hard disk.

The keyboard felt solid, but the fatal flaw of the dm3 for me was its metallic touchpad, which made the cursor move slowly and even stop at times. Like the Toshiba, the HP took a long time to get going: almost 2.5 minutes for a restart and about two minutes for a cold start.

The HP dm3 also is available for about $100 less when equipped with AMD (AMD) processors, though HP says those have weaker battery life.

Lenovo IdeaPad U350

In many ways, I liked the U350 best. It was sturdy, but thinner overall than the others because it lacked a bulging battery. The keyboard is firm and well designed, and the touchpad and buttons are comfortable and easy to use. It came with 4 GB of memory and a 320 GB hard disk for its $700 price. It was the only one of the three to restart in under two minutes. It also weighed the least, about 3.5 pounds.

But the IdeaPad’s downfall is its small, flat battery, which offered only two hours and 38 minutes of life, or maybe 3.5 to four hours in normal use. With the optional $50 battery, the battery life in my test zoomed up to nearly six hours, which means maybe 7.5 or eight hours in normal use. But that extra battery brought the computer’s weight to four pounds and made it thicker.

These thin, light, machines perform adequately and can last a long time unplugged. But I urge you to test them personally before choosing one, to make sure you’re comfortable with their designs.

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

The CLIQ, Storm2 Join Long Parade of iPhone Threats

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:02:09 +0000

(See Correction & Amplification below.)

It’s raining smart phones. No, make that super-smart phones, the type of hand-held computer, like Apple’s iPhone or the models powered by Google’s Android software, that browse the Web well, have sophisticated communication functions and are made to run a wide variety of modern third-party apps. This holiday season, new super-smart phone models seem to be appearing weekly.

[ See post to watch video ]

So far, the king of this new field, in my view, remains its pioneer, the iPhone. Apple’s phone has its limitations, but its design, usability and versatility have kept it ahead. There’s a well-equipped iPhone model available for as little as $99, and the platform offers a staggering 85,000 downloadable apps. By comparison, there are around 10,000 apps for Android, 3,000 for the newer models of the Research in Motion (RIMM) BlackBerry, a few hundred modern apps for phones running the latest versions of Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows Mobile software, and even fewer than that for Palm’s (PALM) Pre and its soon-to-be released little sibling, the Pixi.

But nobody is conceding the game to Apple (AAPL). A flood of new Android models is upon us, and RIM, which has a fanatical following for its BlackBerry models, is still potent despite the disappointment surrounding its first touch-screen model, the Storm.

Motorola CLIQ

I’ve been testing two new contenders, and both represent second chances of sorts. One is the revised version of the BlackBerry Storm, called the Storm2, from Verizon (VZ). The other is the first super-smart phone from Motorola, the fading former phone leader. It’s an Android-based model called the CLIQ, which will be offered by T-Mobile.

Here’s a quick look at these two new pocket computers.

Motorola CLIQ

The CLIQ is a hefty slider phone, with a touch screen on top and a slide-out physical keyboard underneath. It has a smaller screen than the iPhone or Storm, and comes with just two gigabytes of memory versus 16 gigabytes for the $199 iPhone. But the CLIQ claims six hours of talk time, an hour more than Apple’s device, and, unlike the iPhone, it has a removable battery and expandable memory. It also has a higher-resolution camera—five megapixels versus three megapixels.

It boasts all of the standard Android features. But what sets the CLIQ apart is that it’s built around the idea of consolidating all your communications and social networking, and making them easy to access. Motorola (MOT) does this with special software called Blur, part of which exists on the device itself and part on a special Motorola-run server.

Blur takes the form of special on-screen widgets. One constantly displays your own status on various services, such as Facebook and Twitter. Another, called Happenings, shows your friends’ latest updates on social-networking services, without requiring you to enter separate apps. A third, called Messages, offers a quick snapshot of current emails and text messages from all your accounts. Each entry in your address book also displays the person’s social-networking status and information.

In my tests, all of these Blur features worked nicely and proved handy, except that I couldn’t get it to consolidate both of my Gmail accounts.

My biggest gripe was with the physical keyboard, which I found cramped and hard to use. The top row is too close to the bottom of the screen and, on the bottom row, I kept hitting the symbols key when I was aiming for “M” or “N.” So I found myself constantly resorting to the virtual on-screen keyboard, which worked pretty well.

BlackBerry Storm2

The original Storm, RIM’s first phone without a physical keyboard, didn’t convert droves of traditional BlackBerry lovers. This was partly because it had an odd typing mechanism where the whole screen moved with each tap on the virtual keyboard. Also, the phone lacked Wi-Fi and, when held vertically, the device offered only a cramped on-screen keyboard with multiple letters on each key.

BlackBerry’s Storm2

The Storm2 fixes all those flaws. The screen now stays still when tapped, providing tactile feedback electronically instead of mechanically. This allows for faster, smoother typing. The new model also has Wi-Fi. And you can now use a full, albeit squeezed, virtual keyboard in vertical mode.

In addition, while the dimensions haven’t changed, the Storm2 looks sleeker and has a few user interface refinements, like an on-screen Send button.

Overall, I found the Storm2 worked well in my tests. Battery life was decent, with 5.5 hours of claimed talk time, and typing was much improved, though I doubt it will satisfy lovers of physical keyboards.

The browser is still inferior to Apple’s, Google’s and Palm’s. And the traditional BlackBerry interface cries out for a major overhaul in a touch device like this, especially when you add a lot of apps. RIM’s menu and folder metaphor seems tired on this device.

Verizon hasn’t set a launch date or price for the Storm2, but it’s likely to appear in November at around $200.

The super-smart-phone war is still in its early stages. There are more and even better devices on the way, and Apple will have plenty of clever competition.

Corrections & Amplifications

The Motorola CLIQ comes with two gigabytes of memory and the $199 iPhone comes with 16 gigabytes. A previous version of this column incorrectly expressed these figures as megabytes, not gigabytes. An earlier version of this column also mistakenly stated, based on a BlackBerry fact sheet, that the Storm2 will ship with two gigabytes of memory. Wednesday night, after the column was published, the company said the Storm2 will actually ship with 18 gigabytes of memory.

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.

HTC's Hero May Be Your Scene

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

Super-smart phones based on Google’s Android operating system have been relatively slow to take off since the first one appeared a year ago. Despite Google’s iconic brand, they have yet to develop the strong bond with U.S. consumers achieved by the Research in Motion (RIMM) BlackBerry or the Apple (AAPL) iPhone. And, after a year, Android has less than 10% of the 85,000 apps the iPhone now offers.

[ See post to watch video ]

But Android is beginning to blossom in the market for this class of device, which is really a hand-held computer that performs many laptop-like functions.

In August, T-Mobile began offering a new $200 myTouch Android phone. Motorola (MOT) will shortly launch a new $200 Android model called the CLIQ. And, on Oct. 11, Sprint (S) will start selling perhaps the most unusual Android phone so far, the $180 HTC Hero. I’ve been testing the Hero, a touch-screen phone without a physical keyboard that has some important distinctions from earlier Android models. In general, I like the Hero and can recommend it to Sprint customers, or others looking for something powerful, but different.

HTC, a veteran Taiwan-based maker of phones, has altered Android more than anyone else so far. It has been gradually developing its own signature software layer that sits atop phone operating systems. With the Hero, it has applied this software for the first time to an Android phone, and that’s what sets the Hero apart from its Android brethren. The latest, beefed-up, version of this HTC software is called “Sense.”

Sense includes handsome, large widgets with extra features that go beyond the vanilla Android experience supplied to everyone by Google (GOOG). So the Hero looks and behaves somewhat differently. For instance, a contact page in the address book application consolidates that contact’s Facebook and Flickr accounts. The music player and photo album look better, and the Hero with Sense can use Microsoft’s Exchange service to synchronize mail, calendars and contacts.

Sprint’s HTC Hero

Sense also offers something called Scenes—entire collections of sets of screens and apps, either canned or customized, that can change the phone software’s look and feel. With just a couple of clicks, you could switch between a work-oriented “scene,” that prominently features apps such as a stock tracker and your work email, and an entertainment-oriented scene filled with the music player, photo album and other apps.

As with Sprint’s Palm (PALM) Pre, the Hero’s price is a bit deceptive. To get the phone for $180, you must remember to mail in a rebate form worth $100. At purchase, you have to put up $280. On the other hand, Sprint’s monthly fees can be much cheaper than those for other carriers. You’ll have to pay at least $70 a month to use the Hero, the same minimum fee that AT&T charges iPhone owners. But Sprint’s fee, unlike AT&T’s (T), includes unlimited text messaging and unlimited free calls to any mobile number on any network.

The Hero’s hardware isn’t especially beautiful. It’s a dull grey, noticeably thicker than the iPhone, with a smaller screen and six buttons plus a trackball, which adds another navigation option to the touch screen. It’s the same length as an iPhone, but is a bit narrower and lighter. It comes with just two gigabytes of memory, compared with eight gigabytes on the $99 iPhone and 16 gigabytes on Apple’s $199 model, though the Hero’s memory, unlike the iPhone’s, is expandable via a hard-to-reach slot under its removable back cover.

One big drawback is battery life. Sprint is only claiming up to four hours of talk time for the Hero, versus five hours for the Pre and iPhone. But, unlike the iPhone’s, the Hero’s battery is removable. Another drawback: I sometimes found the touch screen unresponsive, requiring multiple pokes at an icon.

On the plus side, the Hero has a much higher resolution camera than the iPhone’s or Pre’s—five megapixels versus three megapixels.

It also functions as a video camera, and in my tests, both still photos and videos I took looked very good. Phone calls, even on speaker phone, were clear and strong, and the phone has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth in addition to Sprint’s high-speed network, which in my view is better than its reputation. Web browsing was adequate.

HTC’s Sense gives the Hero seven screens on which to place apps, versus Android’s standard three screens.

And, in addition to the standard Android apps and the 8,000 downloadable apps from Android’s Market app store, there are a variety of large, beautiful HTC “widgets” you can use. The downside of these is that they can occupy an entire screen.

The most impressive widget is called People. It’s an address book in which each contact’s page features a scrolling bar at the bottom with icons that allow you to see that person’s most recent Facebook status, photos from Facebook and Flickr, plus emails and text messages she’s sent to you and recent calls between you. This is somewhat similar to Palm’s Synergy feature, which is also based around people.

Overall, I found the HTC Hero to be the best Android phone I’ve tested, and a worthy competitor to the iPhone, the BlackBerry and the Pre.

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.

These Apps Help Users of iPhones Find Their Way

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 01:20:03 +0000

(See Corrections & Amplifications item below.)

Among its many features, Apple’s iPhone is equipped with GPS and includes manual, written driving directions built into its standard Maps application. But that function doesn’t automatically bring up each turn sequentially, and it lacks voice prompts.

Now, a number of companies have launched, or will soon launch, iPhone apps that do offer voice-prompted, automated, turn-by-turn navigation. Of course, many other cellphones have long offered such services. But the iPhone’s large screen, decent mono speaker and large selection of car mounting kits make it a tempting navigation device.

[ See post to watch video ]

I’ve been testing four such apps: from TomTom, Navigon, AT&T (T) and Fullpower. The last, called MotionX GPS Drive, isn’t available in Apple’s app store as I write this. In the case of the Navigon MobileNavigator, which is already available, I tested an updated version expected to hit the store shortly.

TomTom’s iPhone app

One big downside: Because Apple doesn’t allow third-party iPhone apps to run simultaneously with the device’s core functions, any incoming or outgoing phone call will interrupt all these apps during routing. When the call is over, the apps will automatically resume and continue your route. And none of these apps work on the original iPhone, only the 3G and 3GS.

Some of the apps take up a large amount of space on your iPhone, because they store all their maps locally. Others are much slimmer, because they download the apps on the fly, but these require you to have good cellular or Wi-Fi coverage at least at the start of a navigation session.

In my tests, on both local streets and highways, all four apps ate up big chunks of the iPhone’s battery life. So, I recommend that you employ a car charger when running them. Also, they all work much better and more safely if you use a windshield or dashboard mount.

None of the apps stood out as much better than the others at navigation, though they have different styles and features. All include the usual lists of local businesses and other points of interest.

TomTom: The U.S. and Canada navigation app costs $100 and takes up a whopping 1.2 gigabytes of space on your phone. But there is no subscription fee and the maps are always present. Like a stand-alone navigation device, it uses big icons and lettering in its menus. It worked OK in my tests, except that it took a little longer than the others to acquire a GPS satellite signal to accurately situate itself. TomTom’s app doesn’t have live traffic information, doesn’t provide a text summary of your planned route, doesn’t announce street names and doesn’t integrate control of the iPhone’s music player.

Like all of its rivals, TomTom can fetch destinations from addresses in your iPhone contact list. But it didn’t understand a typical Washington, D.C., street name, such as “11th St., NE.” TomTom plans an extra-cost mounting kit that includes a better speaker, a power plug and a GPS receiver more potent than the iPhone’s.

Navigon MobileNavigator: This app costs $90, and it takes up 1.3 GB on the iPhone because it also stores all the maps. There is no recurring fee. I thought Navigon had the cleanest interface and the best 3D map view, including representations of some highway-exit and speed-limit signs. It also barks the word “caution” when you are speeding.

But the Navigon voice was the least distinct, and while it generally did OK, it thought my D.C. test address was a bridge. It also lacks a route summary and live-traffic reports, though the update I tested now announces street names and integrates music control.

MotionX-GPS Drive: Of all the apps, this one looks and works most like a typical iPod app, and least like a navigation program ported from another device. Its main screen has a clever menu arranged in a circle. It’s also fairly small—just 10 megabytes or so. But it must download maps and other info each time you start a route. This also allows it to update the information on the fly. Drive also is potentially the cheapest of the four apps I tested. It will cost $1.99 and include a 30-day free trial. After that, it’s $25 a year.

This app worked well in my tests, and is packed with features, including live traffic, a route summary, and integrated music control. It understood my D.C. test address, but it doesn’t announce street names, and its function buttons are very small and labeled with tiny type.

AT&T Navigator: The iPhone version of this existing service, like Drive, downloads maps and info on the fly, but it takes up even less space on the phone—just 2.3 megabytes. That means you need a good connection at the start of a trip. It worked OK for me. Its interface is clean, and it has a route summary, live traffic and announcement of street names. It also understood my D.C. test address. And it synchronizes saved addresses with a Web site. But it is potentially the priciest. The app itself is free but usage costs $10 a month.

None of these apps is perfect, but each adds a new dimension to the iPhone.

Corrections and Amplifications

An earlier version of this column mistakenly said the Navigon app could synchronize with a web site for trip planning.

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.

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.

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.

[ See post to watch video ]

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.

New iPhone Is Better Model–Or Just Get OS 3.0

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:00:38 +0000

Apple Inc.’s iPhone has been a smashing success, redefining the smart-phone market and creating a new hand-held computing platform that has attracted over 50,000 third-party apps, or software programs, in less than a year. With its nearly identical sibling, the iPod Touch, it has sold a combined 40 million units since June 2007, when the computer maker plunged into the phone business.

But the iPhone is drawing increasing competition from entrenched smart-phone makers anxious to emulate the upstart. The most significant of these is Palm’s (PALM) impressive new Pre, which is off to a good start with an estimated 100,000 or so units sold since it launched on June 6.

[ See post to watch video ]

So, like a shark, Apple (AAPL) must keep moving. This week, it is introducing two new products designed to consolidate and increase its position as the leader in this new generation of hand-held computers. I’ve been testing both and I like them a lot, with some minor caveats.

One of the new products is a refreshed model of the iPhone itself, called the iPhone 3G S. It looks the same, but offers more speed, more memory, more battery life, and a few new features, including video recording and a better camera for still photos.

The second is OS 3.0, the third version of the iPhone’s operating system, which comes on the 3G S and also can be installed on all prior iPhones and Touches. It includes a much longer list of added features, some innovative and some long overdue catch-ups to other phones. These include such widely requested capabilities as cut, copy and paste; systemwide searching; a wider virtual keyboard; and a feature called MMS that allows users to send photos and videos directly to other phones without using email.

Apple last week also made a bold business move to complement these new products. It decided to keep making the current model, the iPhone 3G, and to slash its price by 50%, to $99. That’s an unheard-of price tag for a pocket computer of this power and versatility, and gives millions of additional consumers a reason to choose the iPhone instead of a competitor.

In my tests, both the new phone and the new operating system performed well, with a few small exceptions. I believe the two strengthen the iPhone platform, make it likely the iPhone will continue to attract scads of apps, and are good for consumers.

But I also regard these changes as more evolutionary than revolutionary, and I don’t think this latest iPhone is as compelling an upgrade for the average user as the 3G model was last year for owners of the original 2007 iPhone.

Current iPhone owners can get an improved product by merely sticking with their existing phones and upgrading to the feature-laden new operating system, which is free (it costs $10 for iPod Touch owners), rather than shelling out at least $199 for the new iPhone 3G S. And many new iPhone buyers can opt for the $99 3G model, which is not only cheaper, but also greatly improved by the new OS 3.0.

On the other hand, power users will crave the new model’s much-better performance, battery life, storage and other features. And some will want the new model because, unlike the current model, it’s capable of handling a new cellular network feature that, in the next few years, will offer double the current data speeds.

The new, free operating system is available for download starting June 17. The iPhone 3G S will go on sale June 19 for $199 for a version with 16 gigabytes of memory, and $299 for 32 gigabytes of memory. Those memory capacities are double the amounts offered on the previous model last year at the same prices, and far exceed the built-in memory on most competing smart phones.

These prices are for new U.S. customers on the AT&T network, plus current owners who are eligible for what AT&T (T) calls a “standard” upgrade. If you already own an older iPhone, you could pay $200 more to upgrade, depending on how far along you are in your two-year service contract and how much you spend monthly. But AT&T, stung by criticism in recent days, has just decided to offer the lower, new-customer prices at launch to iPhone 3G owners eligible for upgrades at any time up to Sept. 30 of this year, even if they were originally told they’d have to pay the $200 premium.

Before I detail the new features and how they worked in my tests, let me state up-front what the new iPhone and its new operating system don’t deliver. The iPhone still lacks a physical keyboard. It still can’t run more than one third-party app at a time, as the Pre does. Its otherwise excellent Web browser still can’t play videos created in Adobe’s Flash software, which is widely used on the Web. And it still isn’t available on any U.S. carrier besides AT&T.

Also, AT&T won’t enable MMS until late this summer, even though dozens of other iPhone carriers in other countries are doing so immediately. And AT&T hasn’t set a date by which it will offer tethering, a new iPhone feature that allows the device to be used as a modem for a laptop. Other carriers in other countries are allowing this right away.

Here’s a rundown of the most important new features of both the new hardware and software, and how they performed in my tests.

The iPhone 3G S

Speed: To me, this is the most important feature of the new iPhone 3G S. In fact, the “S” in the name stands for speed. During my week of testing, the new model proved dramatically snappier in every way than my iPhone 3G. Its processor is 50% faster than in the prior model, and it sports a new graphics chip.

Applications opened much more quickly. Web pages loaded far faster. The camera was ready to use almost instantly. And I never once saw the occasional, annoying iPhone behavior where you strike a key while typing and it sits there, seemingly stuck, before you can continue.

Cellular-data speeds were about the same, but in repeated testing on different Wi-Fi networks, the 3G S racked up speeds 30% to 50% faster than on the 3G running at the same time on the same networks.

Battery Life: On my 3G iPhone, I usually could make it through the day, but it was often a close call, with the battery indicator winding up in the red. By contrast, the new model did much better, never hitting the red zone and rarely requiring interim charging at the office or in the car, even though, because I was testing it, I was pounding it much harder than usual, making more voice calls, playing lots of videos and music, trying numerous apps, constantly downloading email from two accounts, and syncing two calendars over the air.

Apple claims about the same talk time for the new model as on the old, and about the same Web-surfing time over the cellular network. But it says the 3G S gets about 50% more battery life when playing videos or surfing the Internet over Wi-Fi and 25% more time — an astounding 30 hours — for continuous music playback.

Memory: With the new 32-gigabyte model, I was able to store over 3,000 songs, more than 1,600 photos, 74 videos, 67 applications, 400 emails, nearly 1,000 contacts, months of calendar data, and dozens of documents, and still have 5 gigabytes left over—more than most phones offer out of the box.

Camera: The new model’s camera has a 3 megapixel resolution, up from 2 megapixels, and has autofocus and a feature that lets you tap the screen to change the focus to an object or person in the background of a shot. It still lacks zoom or a flash, though it does better in low light. It also has a macro feature for close-up shots. In my tests, all of this worked, but I didn’t think the pictures it took were dramatically better than those on the old model, and it can’t compete with phones like Nokia’s (NOK) new $700 N97, which has a 5-megapixel camera with zoom.

Video: The new video recorder worked well, even in low light, and lets you post videos directly to YouTube, among other places. You can also trim your videos right on the phone. This all worked well, but the videos aren’t high definition, and pale in comparison to those on the latest HD model of the popular $229 Flip pocket camcorder.

Voice Control: By simply holding down the new iPhone’s home button, you can dial contacts and control music playback by uttering voice commands. The phone will even tell you which song is playing. Like most voice-recognition systems, this one isn’t perfect. But it worked most of the time.

Compass: I don’t consider this important for most users, but it did work when I was walking or driving. It can orient maps in the direction you’re heading.

Small Touches: You can optionally turn on a new battery indicator that shows a precise percentage of battery life left. The screen has a new coating that resists oil and grease from fingerprints.

Downsides: The new phone crashed on me twice during my tests. Once, the voice-control feature killed the sound on the built-in iPod, requiring a reboot. But I couldn’t replicate this problem. Another time, the phone froze while downloading a TV show. Apple blamed this on a prerelease server issue, and it didn’t happen again.

iPhone Operating System 3.0

Copy, Cut and Paste: Apple is late with this common feature, but it’s the best implementation I’ve seen on a phone. In a text page, you just double tap on a word, and it is selected with little handles around it that let you expand or contract the selected area. Then, you just click on a copy icon that pops up over the selection. To paste, you tap elsewhere in the page, or even in another app, and a paste icon pops up. Click that icon, and the selected text is pasted in. It worked well in all my tests.

The feature works a bit differently for some Web pages, where you hold down your finger over an area and it selects a whole block of text, like a paragraph, but still has the handles that allow adjusting the selection. It also allows copying and pasting photos. You can also just select a word or a section or a whole page of text and delete it. And if you want to undo a paste, just shake the phone.

Some Web pages and third-party apps don’t yet support this feature, but most do.

Search: Before, you could search only in the Contacts app. Now, there are search features in Mail, Calendar, the built-in iPod and Notes. And there is a way to search the whole phone at once. You just hit the home button, slowly, twice, and a special search screen appears. Type in any phrase, and it brings up every instance in multiple apps.

This is another catch-up feature, but it works well. For instance, when I searched for the word “Phil,” it brought up songs by Phil Collins, a note about Philadelphia, calendar items mentioning people named Phil or Phillips, emails to or from people with those names, and contacts for people named Phil or Phillips.

In email, the search function will even find messages that aren’t on your phone but that are stored on the servers of certain email services. For instance, I was able to almost instantly find emails from two years ago stored on Google’s (GOOG) Gmail.

One downside — in email, search looks for words only in email headers, not in the body of the messages.

Landscape Keyboard: In older iPods, the only built-in program that supported a wider, landscape keyboard, which is better for thumb typing, was the Web browser. Now, you can turn the phone horizontally and use a landscape keyboard in the Mail, Messages and Notes programs as well.

Find My iPhone: If you belong to Apple’s $99 a year MobileMe service, you can now locate a lost iPhone on a map on any computer, send the iPhone a message saying how to return it to you, and cause it to emit a beep, even if the sound is turned off. I tested this and it worked well. You can even remotely wipe all your data off the phone.

Voice Memos: The OS includes a Voice Memo app that lets you dictate reminders or other messages, and then edit and email them. I found it worked well.

Navigation: Another catch-up feature, turn-by-turn navigation with voice prompts, is also now supported. I tested this with a third-party app called Gokivo, and it did OK, though the developer admits to a prerelease bug I encountered.

Auto-Authentication: In the new OS, the iPhone can remember your log-in credentials for commercial Wi-Fi hotspot services, so you don’t have to enter them again and again. Unfortunately, in my tests with the AT&T Wi-Fi service, this failed repeatedly in several Starbucks (SBUX) shops. Apple blames a glitch in my prerelease phone’s SIM card.

Push Notification: To make up for its lack of multitasking, the new iPhone OS has a feature where third-party apps can notify you of new events, like a sports score, or a new invitation to an online game. I tried this with a game called TapTap Revenge, and it worked fine.

Stocks: The built-in stock application now has much more detailed data, including market cap, news headlines and price/earnings ratio for each stock.

MMS and Tethering: I couldn’t test these useful features because my tests were all done on AT&T, which hasn’t rolled them out.

Minor Touches: You can now move an icon among screens with one continuous motion, instead of stopping at each screen. And there are two more screens to house icons. You can finally synchronize Notes with your PC or Mac. You also can now maintain both calendars and contacts synced wirelessly with online services and those synced via cable with your computer. And you can play games and transfer files wirelessly over Bluetooth with other iPods or Touches that are nearby.

Bottom Line: Both the new iPhone and iPhone OS are packed with features that make a great product even better. But, for many users, the software may be enough of a boost to keep them from buying the new model.

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.

Sharing Where You Are When You Care to Share

Nick Wingfield — Thu, 21 May 2009 01:02:03 +0000

There’s a tendency in the Twitter era for people to share copious details of their lives with online pals. One way to do that is through new mobile-phone services that let people share their physical locations using the tracking technology inside modern cellphones.

While these location-sharing services have some interesting possibilities, they also raise some disturbing implications for privacy — or maybe it just seems that way if, like me, you’re over 35 years old. Lately I’ve been testing a cellphone location-sharing service that I found simple, useful and non-creepy enough that I can imagine people thirtysomething and older using it.

Send a ‘Glympse’ to share your location

The free service is called Glympse, from a company of the same name that has designed it to share your location with friends and colleagues in small increments of time — glimpses, as the name implies, of your whereabouts. Glympse just released a test version of the service as an application for the G1, a phone offered by T-Mobile that runs Google’s (GOOG) Android operating system.

The company will release versions of Glympse for BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, iPhone and Nokia (NOK) phones in the coming weeks. Users can download the Glympse software onto G1 phones through Android Market, the online clearinghouse for applications for Android phones.

I used Glympse on an iPhone and a G1 and, for comparison, tried out a couple of other location-sharing applications, Google Latitude and Loopt. When you start the Glympse application, it identifies where you are on a map using a combination of location technologies in cellphones, including GPS satellites, Wi-Fi hot spots and phone towers.

Your location isn’t shared with others until you “send a Glympse” to someone. The software allowed me to send a Glympse with my location for selected chunks of time lasting anywhere from zero minutes to four hours. Picking zero minutes shared only my location at the moment of sending, while selecting four hours meant the recipients of my Glympse could track me for that period of time, wherever I went.

The sender of a Glympse can address it by entering a recipient’s email address, or a mobile-phone number for a text message. Recipients get a message with a link to a map on a Web page. A nice thing about the service is that it doesn’t require recipients to have the Glympse software, though the experience is richer when they do.

Sending a Glympse can be helpful anytime a friend, family member or colleague is expecting you. You can send a Glympse that lets a friend know you’re stuck in heavy traffic (although it’s wise to do that before you’re on the road to stay safe and, in some states, to avoid breaking the law). Parents can insist that teens send a Glympse when they go out for the evening.

Bryan Trussel, the CEO of Glympse, sent me several Glympses with short messages like “late lunch meeting” and “headed home” to explain where he was going. On the G1, I could see an icon representing Mr. Trussel moving around a map as he drove through the streets of Redmond, Wash., including his speed. I was also able to see traffic conditions, which would have been helpful if he had been running late. Glympse gave me a similar view of his location through a Web browser running on my PC. On the iPhone, the experience was more static, forcing me to reload a Web page to get a fresh view of Mr. Trussel’s whereabouts. Glympse says it will fix this so users of the iPhone can watch someone’s location in real time.

I encountered a bug with the service when I sent a couple Glympses to my own cellphone and that of a colleague — both BlackBerrys and neither of which had Glympse software. Both Glympses linked to high-level maps suggesting I was somewhere in North America, which wasn’t very helpful, even if it was technically accurate. The company couldn’t figure out what the problem was, and it eventually stopped happening for me too.

Once a Glympse expires, the service no longer tracks the sender’s location. It will show the sender’s last known location for 48 hours after the Glympse expires. Glympse may some day use your location information to target advertising to you, but the company isn’t doing that for now.

I’m far more comfortable with this form of finite location-sharing than the approach used by other services. Google Latitude lets you share your location to only a list of friends. It gives you the option of turning location sharing off or, through a “city level” option, it reveals only your general whereabouts. Loopt similarly allows you to set options to show, or hide your location from all or some online friends. A feature called Loopt Mix lists strangers you can send messages to in your general vicinity — many of whom seemed to be looking for romantic partners in my area.

Despite these controls, I easily forgot I was sharing my location with these two services. This might be fine for someone who enjoys being tracked down by friends during a night out on the town or is diligent about changing privacy settings when they want to go stealth.

I’m too lazy to manage my privacy so closely though. I don’t mind giving friends a look at my location, but only if I know the invitation isn’t open-ended.

Email nick.wingfield@wsj.com.

Verizon Now Sells Subsidized Netbook With Cell Service

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 14 May 2009 01:12:03 +0000

As laptops have shrunk in size and price, and cellphones have expanded in size and capability, the two are increasingly overlapping in function. Now, their pricing and sales models are blurring, too.

For a while, some wireless carriers in Europe and in Asia have been selling tiny laptops, called netbooks, equipped with built-in cellular modems, at low, subsidized prices, just as they do with mobile phones. And, just as with a subsidized phone or a plug-in laptop data card, there’s a catch: To get the low upfront price, the customer must agree to a contract and pay a monthly data fee.

[ See post to watch video ]

Starting May 17, Verizon Wireless, the largest U.S. wireless carrier, will try the same thing on these shores, selling a netbook model made by Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) at $200, after a $50 mail-in rebate — less than half its usual price of $520. To get this price, the customer must sign a two-year contract and pay either $40 or $60 a month, depending on the amount of data to be consumed.

I’ve been testing this netbook, the H-P Mini 1151NR, a version of H-P’s Mini 1000 series with a cellular modem built-in. This model sports a 10.1-inch screen, and yet is very compact and easy to tote. It weighs just 2.45 pounds, is about an inch thick, and is only about 10 inches long and 6.5 inches deep. It has an Intel (INTC) Atom processor, common in netbooks; runs Windows XP; and includes one gigabyte of memory, a built-in Webcam and an 80-gigabyte hard disk. Like most netbooks, it includes Wi-Fi, but lacks a DVD drive.

My verdict: This netbook is an adequate light-duty computer, and $200 is a low price for a PC with a hard disk running Windows XP. But Verizon’s charge for Internet service is high if you intend to rely on that service as your main online connection, because the data levels covered by the carrier’s plans aren’t unlimited, and cost extra after you exceed a certain amount. It makes much more sense if you travel a lot, stay within the data limits each month, and want to avoid hotel and airport Wi-Fi fees.

But the Verizon (VZ) service is slower than many Wi-Fi connections, and it can be obtained for almost any laptop by buying a plug-in card that carries the same monthly fees. In my tests, at a typical Marriott (MAR) hotel, the Verizon cellular service achieved download speeds of around 1.6 megabits per second, while the Wi-Fi modem in the same PC got over five mbps.

The H-P Mini 1151NR

Also, even for a netbook, the computer itself is underequipped. Its 80-gigabyte hard disk is cramped by today’s netbook standards, and it has only a small three-cell battery that doesn’t last long. In my tough battery test, where I left the cellular Internet connection on, disabled all power-saving features, and played music continuously, the H-P Mini 1151NR lasted a pathetic one hour and 55 minutes. That suggests that, in normal use, you might get around 2.5 hours of use.

A bigger six-cell battery is available for $130 from Verizon, but that’s a huge price premium on a $200 PC, plus it makes the netbook 75% thicker and 30% heavier. Verizon doesn’t offer a larger internal hard disk.

By comparison, you can buy an Acer One Windows XP netbook with the same size screen as the Verizon netbook, and twice the hard disk and battery capacity, for $340. The Acer lacks the built-in cellular modem, but you can buy that from Verizon in plug-in form for $30, with the same monthly fees. Total upfront price: $370, versus $330 for the Verizon model with the bigger battery.

You could also pay much less at a RadioShack (RSH) store, which is selling a subsidized netbook with a built-in cellular modem and required contract (with AT&T) (T) at $60 a month. This model, also an Acer running XP, has a smaller 8.9-inch screen, but most other specs are similar to those on the Verizon model. Yet there’s one enormous difference: It costs only $50, plus a $36 activation fee.

In my tests, the Verizon/H-P netbook handled all common tasks well, if not at blazing speeds. It lacks Microsoft Office, but includes the lesser Microsoft Works productivity suite. I was able to download and run common third-party programs like Firefox and iTunes. The built-in Verizon software for managing the cellular and Wi-Fi connections worked very well, and can be upgraded to a new version with added features.

The hardware has some notable downsides. The keyboard feels too flexible, and some symbols on the function keys are hard to read. The mouse buttons are awkwardly arrayed on the sides of the touch pad, not below it. And the speaker, while loud, is tinny. Also, the machine has a bunch of craplets, mostly links to H-P Web sites or to companies like eBay (EBAY) and Pandora.

Still, if you travel a lot and like using a cellular modem, the machine’s $200 price is compelling, so long as you can handle the wimpy battery and small hard disk.

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.

Quickoffice Brings Editing to iPhones, But Put It on Hold

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 07 May 2009 01:04:03 +0000

I am typing these words in a full-fledged word processor on an Apple iPhone. It’s a third-party app that allows you to edit, format or create Microsoft Word and Excel documents, and then send them back to a PC or Mac where they can be opened in Word or Excel. Oh, and it has cut, copy and paste in its word processor — a capability long missing from the iPhone that isn’t due from Apple (AAPL) itself until this summer.

[ See post to watch video ]

Devotees of older smart phones, tired of iPhone hype, will be quick to note this is no innovation. Devices like Windows Mobile phones, Palm (PALM) Treos and BlackBerrys have made these abilities available for years. But, for the 37 million iPhone and iPod Touch owners, it’s potentially a major step forward, closing a hole in a hand-held computing platform that is otherwise more elegant and versatile than any other.

This new app, called Quickoffice, has some nice features. Its cut, copy and paste function is very well designed. It can save files locally on the phone. It has a built-in email function for sending files to others, and it can upload or download files to and from a PC or Mac, or to and from online storage.

But there’s a catch. While Quickoffice, which is also available on other platforms, did work OK in my tests, it has some major drawbacks that keep me from recommending it right now. The product’s maker, Quickoffice Inc., acknowledges these and is working to fix them by summer. But, especially because Quickoffice costs $19.99, a Rolls-Royce price in the iPhone’s app store, you might want to hold off on buying it until the fixes are in place.

In particular, Quickoffice can’t simply load and edit any Word or Excel file you receive as an email attachment. The company claims this is a built-in iPhone limitation, but it’s still a big problem for users. Instead, to get files into Quickoffice for editing, you have to transfer them using a Wi-Fi network from your PC or Mac, or from the iDisk online storage feature of Apple’s MobileMe Web service, which costs $99 a year.

Also, amazingly, Quickoffice shipped without any automatic typo-correcting function or spell checker. For various technical reasons, it couldn’t even use the one built into the iPhone. So, you have to do a lot of correcting of typos once the file gets onto a computer. For instance, the first words of this column, as originally created in Quickoffice, read: “I am typing these words in a full-feledged word pricessor … ” I had to clean them up in Word on my laptop.

The Quickword app on iPhone

And, while you can view a text or spreadsheet file in landscape mode, you can do only limited editing of text documents in this mode, and no editing at all of spreadsheet documents viewed in landscape.

Quickoffice for the iPhone consists of three modules. One is Quickword, the word processor. The second is Quicksheet, the spreadsheet program. These two, also separately available from the app store at $12.99 each, can handle standard Microsoft (MSFT) .doc and . xls files, but not Microsoft’s newer .docx and .xlsx formats. The third module, called Quickoffice Files, merely transfers and displays files, but doesn’t allow editing or creating them. It handles a much wider variety of file types, and is sold separately for $1.99.

Cut, copy and paste is implemented nicely. You simply double-tap to select a word or triple-tap to select a paragraph. Small dots appear at either end of the selection, allowing you to expand or contract the selected section of text. Once your selection is done, you can then cut it or copy it, or change its formatting. To cut or copy your selection, you just choose cut or copy from a popup menu. To paste, you tap once elsewhere in the document, and then select Paste from a popup menu. You can paste text copied or cut from one Quickword document into another, but not into any other app on the iPhone. (Apple will add that ability this summer.)

Quickword is the better of the two main modules. It has an impressive suite of features, including the ability to bold or italicize characters, change fonts and colors, create bullet points, and undo or redo changes. All of this formatting was retained correctly when I transferred the files to a computer, and vice versa. Quickword doesn’t have every feature of Word on a computer, but its feature set is strong.

Quicksheet has 125 functions. It also does formatting of cells well, and has undo and redo. Again, it isn’t as powerful as Excel, but its capabilities are decent. Unfortunately, unlike in the word processor, I found some problems in Quicksheet. In one simple spreadsheet I imported, it failed to properly display text that stretched across multiple cells, and failed to do a simple recalculation that worked perfectly in Excel. Also, it lacks cut, copy and paste.

Getting documents into the app is a pain. Unless you have a MobileMe account, on either Windows or Mac, you have to type a geeky numerical address into a Web browser and then choose a file from your computer using the browser page that comes up.

Quickoffice is an OK start, but it needs a lot of work.

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.