PCWorld Jul-12

WE HAVE A secret weapon. It’s called PCWorld Labs, and it’s where all of our product testing takes place. The facility is a technogeek’s paradise. Everywhere you look, the benches are brimming with hardware—desktops, laptops, printers, hard drives, HDTVs, and more, many with their hoods popped or in some other state of disassembly. Overseeing the bustling enterprise are Senior Lab Manager Jim Galbraith and Lab Manager Tony Leung. They work alongside development analysts Thomas Luong and William Wang, editorial assistant Alex Cocilova, and interns Kean Bartelman and Chris Southard to supply the benchmark data that fuels hundreds of PCWorld reviews each year. And now, the lab team has an exciting new weapon in its arsenal: WorldBench 7, the newest version of PCWorld’s very own Windows-based benchmark testing suite for desktops and laptops. WorldBench…

Windows 8 After reading the May cover story [“Windows 8: Will You Love It or Hate It?”], I installed the Consumer Preview version of Windows 8 on one of my extra computers. After using the operating system for three days, I have to say that I hate it. Microsoft, it seems to me, tried to throw everything into Windows 8, including the proverbial kitchen sink. Its hodge-podge of interfaces (Metro versus desktop) is most confusing, and Windows 8 pretty much buries the common tasks that one got used to in Windows 7 (which, by the way, is a very stable, excellent OS). Microsoft should take a cue from its rival Apple, remove its Metro interface from Windows 8, and create something similar to iOS for use in Microsoft tablets and smartphones. Then…

BLOATWARE IS THE bane of every tech user, haunting many desktop PCs, laptops, and tablets. But to me, the uninstallable manufacturer-added apps found on smartphones represent the bottom of the barrel in bloatware. The worst offenders today are Android phones. And the three-headed monster of bloatware, cheaply made phones, and Google Play malware could prove toxic for the Android platform. Recently, I reviewed the Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G, a T-Mobile-based Android phone. The phone scored well for its design, display, and performance; but the abundance of Samsung-and T-Mobile-added bloatware dragged the phone’s overall rating down. T-Mobile alone added 411, Game Base, Lookout, More for Me, Netflix, T-Mobile TV, T-Mobile Name ID, T-Mobile Video Chat...and the list goes on. Some of those “apps” are just links to app stores or trial versions of…

SONY SMARTWATCH The Android-powered, Bluetooth-enabled SmartWatch ($150) is a tiny, Nano-like watch that works with Android-based smartphones to let users read text messages, email messages, and status updates, and (of course) see who’s calling. The watch links to Google Play, where you can download additional apps. find.pcworld.com/72986 PHOSPHOR E-INK DIGITAL HOUR CLOCK WATCH The Phosphor E-Ink Digital Hour Clock Watch ($165) could be taken for a typical digital watch with a retro-style LED display, except that the display uses E-Ink, which frees you to change its look completely (since the E-Ink is flexible). You also get high-contrast readability and excellent battery life. find.pcworld.com/72984 QLOCKTWO W This funky watch uses words instead of numbers to display time. The Qlocktwo W, designed by Biegert & Funk, has a 110-letter grid; press a button, and it lights…

DRIVE, GOOGLE’S long-awaited challenger to Dropbox, has arrived, offering impressive search capabilities and good integration with other Google services including Docs and Google+. Here’s a look at the best and worst of Google Drive. When you add the service to your Google account, it automatically replaces Docs. If collaborative documents that you’re used to seeing in Docs are absent from Drive, click the More drop-down menu and then open the All items menu to see whether they are there (as is likely). Instead of downloading copies of your files that are saved online in Google’s Docs formats, Drive has a folder full of icons that link to the documents in your browser. If your PC is set up to access Docs offline with Google Chrome, you can open these files in one click…

Firefox 12 Puts an End to Annoying Updates Mozilla’s Firefox 12 browser made its official debut in late April, featuring a nearly silent update process as one of its most important new features. Firefox for Windows achieves the simplified update process by removing the user account control dialog pop-up that in the past required explicit user permission for each update. There’s no adverse effect on system security, Mozilla says, and the primary benefit is fewer interruptions for users. Barnes & Noble Creates Ebook Partnership With Microsoft Microsoft and Barnes & Noble have announced that they are joining forces to bolster the Nook’s competitive edge against Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s iBooks platforms. Under the agreement the partners will collaborate on a Metro-style Nook e-reader app for Windows 8 for users in the United States…