Pocket camcorders (AKA mini cams or budget cams, or sometimes Flip cams after the pioneer of the category) are simple gadgets. They've got one job to do: Shoot watchable video, often for uploading to streaming video sites. They're also very close to the end of their lifespan, with perhaps only a year or so left before smartphones make them obsolete, but right now they're the easiest and cheapest way to take quick and dirty video. I tested seven of these diminutive camcorders, or more accurately six camcorders and one capable PMP, in five categories: Outdoor, indoor, low light, macro, and sound.

The criteria for judging fell mostly to smoothness of video during motion, image sharpness, noise, and color reproduction. Specs like storage capacity, screen size and battery life are mostly the same across the board, although overall, compared to last year, this crop of mini cams are faster and stronger, with beefed up memory and HD sensors. All save the iPod Nano take 720p video (or better) and add HDMI ports and more memory to accommodate the higher-quality footage. Yet I wasn't really all that thrilled with any of the camcorders—the bar for these cams is so low you could trip over it, and several of them actually did. Battery life was disappointing across the board, as none could break two hours of filming. Anyway, on to the results!

Results

Choosing between the Kodak Zi8, Flip Mino HD and Flip Ultra HD is tricky. The Zi8 is unreliable, but when it's good it's unbelievably good; the Mino HD is diminutive, solid and stylish, but overpriced and with lousy touch controls; and the Ultra HD is a reliably good shooter with a low price and the best controls of all, but physically unappealing (read: fat as hell). In my opinion, you should never judge a book by its obese cover, so the champion is...the Flip Ultra HD!

Flip Ultra HD: First Place

Flip's Ultra HD is the best overall choice. It's one of the cheapest cams around (at $150, it's $70 less than it's younger brother, the Mino HD), but it tied for the highest score in our lineup, and it features nice tactile controls that I much prefer to the sleeker Mino HD's touch-sensitive exercise in frustration. Unfortunately, the Dom DeLuise HD is upsettingly fat—about twice as thick as the Mino HD, but even that doesn't really get across how truly large it feels in the hand. It's not particularly heavy, but it is by a long shot the thickest pocket cam here. On the plus side, that girth hides a useful battery—Flip includes a rechargeable pack, but the John Candy HD can also use two AA batteries, which is great since pocket cams have generally abysmal battery life (usually about an hour, though of course they're often rated for double or triple that). Replaceable, cheap batteries are really nice, but some will have to decide whether the William Howard Taft HD's girth is worth that feature. Given its price, I think it is.

Video quality is just fine, above average if not particularly impressive on every test, and it, like the Mino HD, is extremely user-friendly. Although that simplicity yields less flexibility and a barebones feature set compared to the Kodak Zi8, it's a good distillation of the aims of pocket camcorders, and its 100% tactile controls are a welcome change from the Mino HD. If you're not superficial, it's a very smart buy.

Flip Mino HD: Second Place

Flip's Mino HD is the best-looking and best-feeling camcorder I tried. Its aluminum body feels solid and expensive, which might be because it is—at $230, it's the priciest camcorder I tested. But I wouldn't be surprised if it sells the best, even though it's not the greatest deal, because it looks (and is) simple, cute, and functional. I won't rehash my review, except to say that I hate those goddamn touch buttons more and more every time I use the Mino HD. They're incredibly sensitive and I guarantee that you will accidentally trigger the playback function more times than you can count.

Besides that, it's totally serviceable: It did well on all of my tests, it's thoughtfully designed and stupid-easy to use. But it's definitely overpriced, and I have a hard time recommending it over its physically awkward yet substantially cheaper older brother, the Ultra HD, just for its looks.

Kodak Zi8: Third Place

Wider and taller than the Flip Ultra HD, though not nearly as fat, the Zi8 packs a 1080p sensor and the largest and best screen of the bunch. The controls are easy and tactile and aside from flimsy-feeling plastic covers over the ports (one of mine already fell off), the hardware is high-quality. The Zi8 snagged the bronze medal, because while its highs were higher than either of the Flips, its lows were lower—and given how focused and simple this type of gadget is, reliability is worth more than flashing moments of greatness.

The Zi8 absolutely rocked in two of my tests, outdoor and macro, with perfect color reproduction and excellent clarity, and it even takes pretty decent still photos (think point-and-shoot circa 2006 quality). But the conditions need to be just right to get the most out of this guy—I first tried it in 1080p mode (neither of the Flips can break 720p) and while picture quality was amazing, scenes with lots of motion were pretty jerky to the point of being distracting. But even in 720p, it was still head-and-shoulders above the competition—but only in outdoor and macro testing. In the indoor test it proved to have difficulty focusing on objects closer than 10 feet but farther than 2 feet away, and low light shooting was distinctly tinted red and a bit dark. It wasn't unusable in any test (unlike the similarly uneven Creative Vado HD) and at $180 it's fairly priced, so I'd still recommend it—but you and I are likely to be more forgiving of the Zi8's flaws than, say, your mom, who just wants a camera that works pretty well all the time. For her, go for a Flip.

The Rest

The Creative Vado HD scored pretty high, only a point lower than the bronze medalist Kodak Zi8, but while its design is fairly middle-of-the-road (albeit nice and teeny), its abilities were all over the place. It was one of the worst in standard daytime shooting (it has a hard time with sunlight, a serious problem for a pocket cam) and macro, but was the best at indoor, and while its low light video was a little dark, it was the clearest and smoothest of the lot. It also, likely due to Creative's background in stellar-sounding PMPs and sound cards, boasts excellent sound quality. At $150, it's very fairly priced, but I can't recommend a camcorder that mangles sunlight the way the Vado does.

Apple's iPod Nano is the only "camcorder" in this roundup to peak at VGA resolution, and aside from a surprisingly strong macro performance, it shows. It turned vibrant colors dull and lifeless, washed out detail and made everything seem darker than it was. It can't compete with the Zi8s and Flips of the world, but it's still usable and incredibly priced at $150/$180 for 8GB/16GB—if you've got a Nano already, you probably won't need a dedicated cam. Convergence killed the video star, I guess.

The JVC Picsio GC-FM1 sucked. It's spectacularly ugly (think Ed Hardy-inspired) and cheap-feeling, with a confusing button layout (unforgivable in a pocket cam) and a high price ($200, or $178 at Amazon). Besides all that, it scored poorly in every one of our tests. Avoid.

And finally, the worst—Aiptek's PenCam HD. I wanted to like it, I really did—it's got a tongue-depressor-like design and came with a sweet tripod that attaches to a bicycle's handlebars—but it bombed in almost every one of my tests. The 1.1-inch screen is nearly unusable and battery life barely topped 40 minutes, so it's definitely the loser here.

Here's a giant gallery of all 28 videos I took.

Don Nguyen assisted with this Battlemodo.

The goal here is simple: Play all the videos that I have ripped from DVD, downloaded from the web, shot with my own cameras or obtained in some other manner, no matter what the format. It sounds simple, but Apple TV can't do it. Neither can the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. Video codecs and containers are a nightmare to keep track of, and even more of a nightmare to convert.

This isn't about photos and music. Apple TV is better at both of those than any of this stuff. It's also not about renting movies or buying movies, or even streaming movies from Netflix. Roku has a nice cheap box for that, and Apple TV is suitable if you just want to live inside Steve Jobs' media store. This is about playing non-DRM movies, pure and simple.

The names might be familiar to you: The Popcorn Hour C-200 by Syabas is quickly gaining cult status (and has its own hacker wiki), while the other four smaller boxes come from brands you probably have experience with, including WD, Seagate, Netgear and Patriot. None have built-in wireless, but they all have Ethernet ports.

My two main tests were simple—I loaded PC and Mac formatted external hard drives with a variety of files ranging from H.264 MP4s to WMVs of several vintages, from raw AVCHD files in MTS wrappers to the hot new DivX 7 MKV. Then I browsed through my local network to a NAS that had a cache of similar files. Could I see them? Could I play them? These shouldn't be issues, but they're big issues.

Here's a rundown of each machine, and how they fared in testing:

As you can see, there were clear leaders given my criteria above, but what struck me was how each one differed. Truth is, depending on who you are, any one of these might be the best fit. Here's what really separates them:

WD TV Live - $150

I would have given this thing the solo spot at the top if it weren't for a few dings that might very well be fixed in a firmware update: It won't show you DVD menus on ripped DVD images, and when you play files with the suffix .m4v, it won't fast forward or rewind. Weird bug, and can be fixed if you just change .m4v to .mp4, but since that's the default file naming for Handbrake's "Apple TV" profile, it could be a problem for people, like me, who spent months ripping their entire DVD collection that way.

WD's strengths include a friendly user interface with handy video previews, some promising early online services (including Pandora), and the most reasonable photo and music handling I've seen in this cluster of gadgets.

Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ - $150

I loved this when I tested it a few weeks ago, despite its fugly interface, and it holds up under testing. It does better with ripped .ISO files than WD, doing both DVD menus and chapters (and it doesn't have that weird .m4v bug either). Video was better, especially when running 1080p content. And when it came to browsing my Linksys NAS in search of movies, it could reach more and read more than the WD.

The tradeoff is that the interface is bad, and there's almost nothing in the way of online services. It gets points for making an attempt at sorting music, and displaying photos, but if that's a priority, WD is the better call.

Popcorn Hour C-200 - $300

Hardcore AV nerds love this thing, and I understand why. There are more ways to get at video content than in any other set-top box I've ever seen, and if you really know how to hack, there's really not much it can't do.

It's a big ole thing—they call it a "network tank," and despite remind me of the far cooler ones in Tron, I get it. It has an internal BitTorrent client and you can plug in a Blu-ray drive, for God's sake. I found very few video formats that it wouldn't support (FLV was one) but I had to take major points off because for being so big, it has a lame interface, and it comes with an RF remote that only worked when I stood within 3 feet. They even mention that there might be problems with interference, and that if people experience that, they can buy the IR remote. Great, thanks.

My only question—and, commenters, it's not rhetorical—is why spend $300 on this (plus extra for the optional internal HDD and the IR remote) when you can just buy a home-theater PC?

Patriot Box Office - $130

This was the dark horse of the group, being a late entry by a company known only for computer memory. I was surprised at how well it held up. It actually could decode more tested formats than any other device in this lineup—it did Flash video (FLV), which the three above can't render. Only the WD and the Patriot show you video previews, too. As small as it is, there's a space for a 2.5" SATA drive in there, and even a BitTorrent client. You can copy files to and from different drives and the network, and it's the cheapest of the lot, at $130.

So why did it come in a distant 3rd? Unlike the three above, it can't read Mac formatted hard drives, and its video quality was noticeably the worst of the batch. That said, if you are a hacker sort and want something to play with that doesn't cost as much as Popcorn, set your sights on this.

Netgear Digital Entertainer Live

As you can probably tell by now, Netgear had the most disappointing box of the lineup, despite its Apple TV ripoff of a look and feel. Lack of Mac media support and the inability to read key file formats, like DivX 7 and AVCHD, meant it couldn't pass muster with real video fanatics. Its biggest point of woe was the fact that it didn't support any file over 720p in resolution—whether that's a software thing or a hardware thing, it's sure not future-proof, and probably best to stay away.

I also didn't like the fact that its interface is laid out entirely for retail, like an Apple TV without the panache, or a Roku box that costs more and doesn't do Netflix. Local files were not a priority, and despite the friendly interface, it doesn't even make an attempt to differentiate photos and music. I did give it a gold star for online services, but only because it had the most in this group—if online services are what you love, buy a Roku, or a TiVo, or an Xbox, or a friggin' Apple TV.

Still not sure what you're looking for, check the spec comparisons here:

Update: At the urging of many readers, I recently tested the Asus O!Play and found that it does all of the things the Seagate can do (except fit Seagate-branded FreeAgent drives inside), but at a lower cost—$100 vs $130 in today's pricing. If you have narrowed your options down to the Seagate, skip over to my Asus O!Play review before making your final decision.

I have to admit, I didn't have high hopes for these two machines. The first "budget" products in any category always seem to fall short, but in this case I was pleasantly surprised. Both the Vivitek H1080FD and the Optoma HD20, which use DLP technology, offered exceptional performance for the price, but one definitely stood out.

The Results...

The Vivitek takes gold almost every category.
Stack those results up (by weighting each gold medal with 3 points and each silver with 2), and you can see how it all adds up.

Winner: Vivitek H1080FD

While the Optoma HD20 and the Vivitek H1080FD are alike in many respects, the bottom line is that Vivitek pushed the envelope a bit more with picture quality, and provided more of those features that you might find in a pricier projector.

It's a shade bigger than the Optoma, and a little more than a pound heavier at 7.8 lbs, but it is still an extremely portable device (they even go so far as to throw in a carrying case). Both the Vivitek and the Optoma lack lens shift capability, so I had to set them up on this ghetto cardboard box on top of a card table configuration in order to deliver a straight, unobstructed picture to the wall. However, once things were set up and calibrated properly, the Vivitek offered up slightly richer colors and better overall contrast (5000:1) than the Optoma—although black levels and overall quality of the 1080p picture appear similar between the two devices. I also give the Vivitek an edge in the brightness department—especially when comparing the brightest modes. Still, after running through several 1080p video clips on both machines, I was really wowed by the overall image quality on these entry-level projectors.

As I mentioned earlier, the Vivitek brought a few features to the table that you usually find in pricier models. For one thing, it's extremely quiet—especially when compared to the Optoma. It also features more inputs/outputs than the Optoma, including S-Video, RS-232c connector and audio jacks (although it would be a crime to use S-Video). It even features a small 5W onboard speaker which aids in portability and ease of use for those who are looking for a simple, all-in-one solution. The speaker is basic, but I found it helpful in my temporary setup when I just wanted to plug and play.

There isn't much to complain about with regard to the Vivitek H1080FD, but I did notice that menus in the UI don't collapse, so you have to exit in order to get a full picture of your changes. However, the most troubling negative has to do with the $400 cost of a replacement lamp. The overall lamp life of the Vivitek and the Optoma are the same, but there is a $150 difference in the price of the replacement. Given the fact that there isn't a vast difference in performance between the two models, this expense could be a real dealbreaker for people who are looking to use their projector on a more regular basis.

Runner-Up: Optoma HD20

Sure, the runner-up in a contest of two is the "loser," but there's a lot to like about the Optoma. Right off the bat, you have to marvel at how small this thing is. At 12.76" x 3.82" x 9.21" and 6.4 pounds, users don't need to use the HD20 in a permanent setup. It can be easily stored and transported—but, again, the lack of lens shift means you might struggle to get an optimum viewing angle.

Granted, the HD20 isn't going to blow away enthusiasts who will settle for nothing less than the blackest blacks and whitest whites, but most of us will be more than satisfied with the clarity, color and contrast (4000:1). Overall lumen output wasn't quite up to snuff when compared to the Vivitek, but it was still considerably better than you would expect in a budget model in both bright and theater modes—easily allowing for a screen just under 100" in my living room to be comfortably viewable with ambient light.

Of course, the HD20 is not without it's flaws. First of all, excessive fan noise makes it sound more like what you might expect from buying a cheaply priced DLP. It's noticeable in Standard mode, but I was definitely distracted by it in Bright (users might also find the light emanating from the front vent to be distracting). I also found the UI to be well organized but fairly annoying to navigate, mostly because the remote isn't very responsive. I felt like I had to mash the button down to get a response.

Feature Comparison

But What If You Spend More?

OK, so what if you're willing to spend a bit more than $1000?

Epson's HC 8100 represents a price point in the entry-level market for consumers willing to pay extra for better 1080p performance. At $1600, the LCD-based 8100 is a big step up from the Vivitek and the Optoma. In my opinion, it is worth the added expense.

Simply put, it easily outstrips both of its cheaper competitors in just about every performance category. It also has some advantages that the others lack, many of which derive from the advantages 3LCD has over DLP. Brightness and color accuracy are better, no color wheel means no rainbow effect (for the people who suffer from that—you know who you are) and it has a high degree of vertical and horizontal lens shift, meaning you can put this thing just about anywhere and throw a clean image. However, it is literally twice as big and heavy as the Vivitek, which could make it unsuitable for some setups.

If you are concerned with the long term cost of ownership, the Epson is competitive in that area with a $300 lamp replacement cost (4000 hour lamp life in Normal and Eco modes) and a two-year limited warranty. So, in that sense, it could be cheaper to own in the long term than both the Vivitek and the Optoma, depending on your usage.

Verdict

If you have your heart set on 1080p, the good news is that you will probably be satisfied no matter which one of these projectors you choose—definitely an encouraging sign at these price points. That having been said, I think it is worth spending an an extra $600 for the improved performance of the Epson HC 8100.

However, if the HC 8100 isn't in your budget, there is no shame in going with the Vivitek—it will deliver a lot of bang for your buck. On the other hand, if you plan on using your projector frequently and the long term cost of ownership is a concern, the Optoma HD20 will be less expensive in the long run—and the choice might be further justified since there isn't a vast difference in performance. Perhaps the best news is that, within the next year, more 1080p projectors from the likes of Sony and Panasonic will be competing at these lower prices, too. If you are patient, it might be worth it to wait and see how the market develops. [Epson and Vivitek and Optoma]

Why Not a Netbook?

In this battle, we're talking about a whole new class of notebooks that fall somewhere between Atom netbooks and full-blown Core 2 Duo machines.

There is no doubt that if you spend $400 more than the average netbook on one of these 13-inch travel friendly notebooks—the Acer Aspire Timeline AS3810T-8737, ASUS UL30A-A1, HP Pavilion dm3, and Toshiba Satellite T135—you'll be purchasing the comfort of a real notebook, the endurance of a netbook and a bit of the thin-n-light enticement of premium devices like the MacBook Air.

And instead of Intel's underpowered Atom processors, each is equipped with 1.3GHz Intel ultra low voltage (ULV) processor and Windows 7 Home Premium. Handling your everyday computing tasks (running a browser, productivity suite, iTunes, TweetDeck, etc.) and 1080p high definition video (each of them have HDMI out) isn't a problem for the CPU.

Meanwhile, your average Atom netbook can't play a 1080p clip without stuttering, nor can it multitask as smoothly. However, no UL system can reach the performance of a Core 2 Duo with discrete graphics. By way of comparison a 15.4-inch Acer Aspire with a 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and discrete ATI graphics has about double the performance in Geekbench, but it pays in battery life.

But you don't need heavy graphics support or super processor speeds to surf the web. The assumption with all of these thin and lights is that we all live so far up in the cloud that we can see that there really is no boy in the balloon.

The Results

Even if most of the 13-inch thin and light notebooks out there have identical specs with ULV processors, hard drives and memory, they aren't created equal.

Design, ergonomics and battery life matter most, which is why ASUS takes the crown.

The Winner: ASUS UL30A-A1

Price: $800
The ASUS UL30A-A1 isn't an Eee PC, but its design reminds me of the company's chic netbook line. The metal lid looks slightly MacBook-like and it is the thinnest-feeling system of them all at less than an inch thick all around.

ASUS fares quite well on ergonomics. The keyboard is island-style (meaning that the keys are isolated from one another, like on the MacBook) and quite comfortable. However, there is a bit of flex to the overall panel. As for the touchpad, it happens to be the best of the entire group. While all the rest are technically capable of multitouch gestures, the UL30-AL's actually works (especially two-finger scrolling which I cannot live without)!

But ASUS really rises to the top in battery life. The UL30A-A1 is the only one of the bunch to come with an eight-cell battery. On our battery test (with Wi-Fi on and screen brightness set at 65 percent) a movie played back non-stop for 6 hours and 25 minutes, the longest of any of the systems in this Battlemodo. That's even longer than the HP Mini 5101 (with a six cell battery) netbook's 5:45. In real-world circumstances, that battery life can only get better since our testing is processor-intensive. For $800 flat it packs the best all around performance, endurance and ergonomics.

The Runners-Up

Acer Aspire Timeline AS3810T-8737
Price: $800Acer kicked off the thin and light trend last spring with the Timeline series. And while ASUS has caught up, Acer still pulls the silver medal. The AS3810T is noticeably lighter than the rest. The design is more corporate looking than the HP or the ASUS, but if you are the buttoned up type that won't be a bother.

The island-style keyboard is just a pleasure, though the keys themselves are a bit slippery at first. The touchpad is kinda small and the single button a bit stiff, but navigating the desktop is still a decent experience. Acer's six cell battery doesn't last as long as HP's, but still makes out with more than five hours of runtime. If you can score a great deal on this system, it shouldn't be beyond consideration.

HP Pavilion dm3
Price: $740 (as configured) The HP Pavilion dm3's aluminum lid looks great and feels really solid, but it isn't the trimmest of systems measuring 1.23 inches at its thickest point (or almost a quarter thicker than our winner).

Under the lid, the island keyboard (you seeing the trend?!) is by far my favorite of all. The keys are firm and the manufacturing quality is superb. If only I could give the same props to the touchpad. The mirrored pad, besides being custom-tailored for narcissists, is rough making it hard to push the cursor along. And if you have sweaty fingers forget about it! The Pavilion's battery life was second to ASUS', and really we can't say 5.5 hours is all that shabby!

Toshiba Satellite T135
Price: $710 (as configured) Toshiba killed it with its NB205 netbook, but the T135 can't destroy the competition in the ULV space. Though the notebook is pretty thin (.87 inches at its thinnest point) it just doesn't look or feel as slender as some of the others. And the same goes for the Satellite's design and coated lid (available in black, white and red); it just isn't as attractive as the rest.

It doesn't have an island-style keyboard, but I actually typed pretty darn fast on the smooth black keys. But damn you mouse button! I wish you were chopped in half to make two buttons so I knew which one I was clicking on. The T135's battery was the weakest of the bunch, lasting just a bit more than 5 hours on our intensive video run down. Again, though that is pretty darn long.

Feature Comparison

Verdict

The ASUS UL30A-A1 is our number one pick for a 13-inch ULV based system. It is thin, light, and comfortable to use for its over 6 and a half hours of juice. The Acer keeps a close second to the ASUS with its long run time and sleek bod. The HP Pavillion dm3 and the Toshiba T135, while still affordable and adequate performers, simply aren't the best.

The Problem

Honestly, there are plenty of reasons to be uneasy about Bluetooth headphones: They run off battery power, so you need to be mindful of keeping them charged; they're often styled strangely to accommodate the necessary wireless hardware; they're more expensive than equivalent wired headphones; and most of all, they sound like crap. Or, so you've heard. You know, from other people, not with your ears. The colloquial "heard." Er, you know what I mean.

Perhaps even more than choosing the best Bluetooth headphones, the point of this little exercise is to figure out if A2DP, the technology, is even worth your time. After all, it isn't really worth going to the trouble and expense of untethering your headphones if they barely qualify as headphones. So first, some background:

The Advanced Audio Distribution Profile, or A2DP, is an umbrella term for the modern Bluetooth audio profile, meaning the standards by which Bluetooth devices send a receive audio. It complements the Headset Profile (HSP), which takes care of low-quality mono transmissions, like those to single-ear Bluetooth headsets, to provide the capability to listen to music without too much distortion. And that's the crux of the A2DP problem, both real and perceived: It's better than mono Bluetooth, to be sure, but is it as good as a wired headset? Or more realistically, is it close enough that it doesn't really matter?

Since A2DP audio is encoded and recompressed at the source, leading to (sometimes drastically) differing audio quality betwen devices, I paired a number of sources—an iPhone 3G, an HTC Hero, a unibody Macbook Pro—with a veritable stack of headphones to see if the end result, the sound that actually hits your ears, is worth the trouble. Here are the best five:

The Headphones

(Click the chart to enlarge)

Sony DR-BT50

Street Price: $125

The only cup-style headphones included in this roundup, the Sonys serve as a sort of reference for sound quality, features, fit and comfort. Also: impracticality. If you're planning on using a Bluetooth headphones as they're generally understood to be intended, you're probably not looking for bulbous headhuggers like this.

That said! They've got by far the bassiest, clearest sound of the lot, and the included controls, though they can take a while for your fingers to map out, are more complete than any others. Using these headphones is a joy compared to most others, but only in a situations where they're appropriate: Sitting on a sofa? At a PC? I don't really know. Whatever they're meant for, the lack of a USB charger corroborates the theory that they're not really intended to be that portable.

Far and away the best, most balanced sound; moderate noise isolation

Wider set of controls than any other headphones, but probably more than you need, or your handset even supports

They're too big to exercise or travel with

Motorola Motorokr s305

Street Price: $40

Something about this headset is immediately alarming. It feels cheap, it comes with very few accessories, it even looks a bit dated—it sort of feels like you've accidentally been handed a stray accessory, dropped out of a Motorola Rokr box, yearning to be reconnected to its parent phone. But seriously, give it a minute.

You could find plenty of things to complain about with the s305s, but hell, I just don't want to: With these cheap, stripped-down headphones, Motorola shows that they understand the draw of A2DP better than anyone else. They sound fine—solid mids, relatively clear highs, adequate bass—without sounding overequalized; their fixed fit works well enough on most heads, without sacrificing weight or durability; they connect with ease, and offer minimal, though adequate, controls; they charge quickly via USB, for a playback period that'll outlast any workout session. And most of all, they're very, very cheap.

Minimalist: easy to use and set up

They're gloriously cheap

It feels light in the hand and on the head; it also feels a bit flimsy

Jabra Halo

Street Price: $120

Nobody's going to dispute the Halo's stylishness, especially in this company—most of these headphones looks like they were designed in the late 90s (Why? No really—this doesn't make any sense) and many come in form-factors I haven't seen since I carried a Discman. For what it's worth, the Jabra's matte black, ultra-thin headband take on Bluetoothery is eye-catching, and there's nothing expressly wrong with it.

Nor is there anything terribly wrong with the sound: It's abundantly clear, though not very bassy—something that could be pegged as much on the sometimes awkward fit of the Halo's earpads as on their actual drivers. I had the most pairing issues with the Halo, but they all mysteriously resolved themselves eventually—par for the course with Bluetooth, and less of a concern than you might think, since one they're paired to a device, they're paired to a device. Controls, aside from volume, which relies on a jumpy touchpad on the earpiece, were simple and intuitive. The price, I guess, is the only real kick in the balls from Jabra's headphones: The street price is a hefty $120

HEADPHONES FROM SPAAAAAAAAACE

They're comfortable, and it's easy to forget you're wearing them

Too expensive for what you get

Logitech Freepulse

Street Price: $90

Logitech's gone all-out with the Freepulse, and you'd be hard pressed to find a hardware feature—aside from USB charging—that these things don't list on their spec sheet. They've got by far the most versatile Bluetooth transmitter, meaning that they can be paired with just about any device comfortably. Controls are subtly built into the earpieces, but once they've been explored, they're easy to reach and utilize during exercise.

I found the fit to be a bit strange, since these particular headphones, despite looking like a traditional wraparound headset, actually hang on your ears by means of floppy little rubber loops. They're secure enough, sure, but they don't exactly cram the drivers against your ear holes; hence lack of great bass. Oh and hey, no mic! These things aren't cheap, so, uh, what the hell?

Best Bluetooth transmitter of the bunch—fits just about any device

They fit everyone fine, but nobody particularly well

At this price, where's the mic?

iLuv i222

Street Price: $60

In a lot of ways, the i222 is a cheaper, newer equivalent to the Freepulse: Its design looks newer, albeit a little Bluetooth-headset-y, its feature set matches the Logitech's almost point for point, and, crucially, it has a mic, because almost every A2DP-enabled playback device is, let's face it, a phone.

Interestingly, the iLuv's battery life trumped even the most expensive headphones in my limited testing. My main cause for concern is a generally plasticky feeling: I can already see multiple areas of concern on the headset, and online reports go some way to confirming my worries about durability.

Tons of features for the price, including a Bluetooth transmitter

Build quality is a concern

Post-Game

If all these evaluations sound a little bit tentative, that's because they are. Each headset evaluation was underscored by a fundamental discomfort with A2DP because, well, it's not that good.

Don't get me wrong, it's better than I expected, and a far sight better than you might predict if you were weened on Bluetooth earpieces. But the sound is flat, lacking in bass range and sacrificing detail on higher tones. And even if these headphones are specifically tuned for playing back Bluetooth streams, the few that include direct line-in support, like the Jabra Halo, give you a ready-made comparison between wireless and wired sound. Spoiler: It isn't all that flattering for the ol' toof.

This casts A2DP headphones in a different light, not as a viable, wireless, futuristic alternative to regular headphones, but as a degraded, battery-hungry, expensive compromise. You buy them because you need something wireless—that's it. There's no other reason.

The Winner

As such, the headset I'm most comfortable telling people to buy is also the cheapest. There will be people who'll want something else—the Sonys are the best bet for, say, a PC gamer, and the iLuvs are an obvious choice if your music-listening devices don't actually support Bluetooth. But more than anything, I see A2DP headsets as a way to listen to music during a run, or on cable-averse exercise machines, as a way to listen to a charging device while you wander around a room, or as a way to merge your everpresent Bluetooth headset with your earbuds.

For this, the Motorola s305s fit the bill: They're light, functional and simple. They sound fine. They look OK. They sync with almost anything. They win because they do as much as you can ask of Bluetooth headphones, and they do it on the cheap.

I must make it clear that the reasons for choosing TomTom, Navigon and TeleNav for the first roundup was based on prior experience and reputation. Costs are higher on those apps, but it's because you mostly know what to expect.

With this second round, things start out on shakier ground: My only experience with Networks In Motion, creators of GoKivo, was their dreadful VZNavigator app. ALK, publisher of CoPilot, has been around, but mainly in the Windows CE space. And Sygic I had honestly never heard of. The good news is, they all beat my expectations, and one of them comes out a real champion, especially when price is a major consideration.

CoPilot Live North America by ALK

The strongest of the lot, made stronger by the $35 price tag. You get a full 1.23GB map database on the phone, which I prefer because it means your device will function even in the Reallybadlands. Still, it's not the best designed app in this category, not by a long shot.

The POI search may actually be the best one out there, because it works like a Garmin: You type in a name, and it continues to spiral outward until it finds the place you're thinking of, even if it's 100 miles away.

There's a trip planner, like Navigon's, that lets you add and delete stops, and even optimize them for maximum geographical efficiency.

The system is built to be connected, with weather and a social function "free" with purchase; live traffic and fuel prices will cost you $20 extra per year—which is still cheap compared to anything else.

ALK is promising a presumably free update with text-to-speech for street names read aloud, and monthly map "improvements," direct to the phone.

The site has a design that would make Jon Ive spin in his grave (were he dead). Not only is it crowded and noisy, but there is too much ambiguity (not one but two get-started pop-up menus) and lack of feedback: After planning a trip you select a gas station from the quick-stop menu—does it cancel the original trip? Or just add the gas station? It sure as hell isn't going to tell you. Some of this becomes apparent with use, but it's still a design flaw.

The software itself was a little shaky. When I first started, it froze on a (mandatory) registration page, saying I didn't have internet access when I did. Occasionally, it still hangs on the opening splash screen, making me force quit.

No iPhone status bar when app is running—no service indicator or clock, and a proprietary battery-life indicator that's on the main screen but not subsidiary ones. (Navigon, TomTom, TeleNav and GoKivo all show the true iPhone status bar.)

Keyboard isn't QWERTY, so I spent what felt like 14 whole minutes looking for the letter "z."

Because the thing is so damn cheap—whiners, stop right here, because full-map apps can't get any cheaper—I can forgive many of its flaws. If all you have is $35 to spend, buy this. [iTunes link]

GoKivo GPS Navigator by Networks In Motion

Like I said, my experience with previous Networks In Motion products has not been pleasant. Compared to TeleNav's Sprint Navigator and AT&T Navigator, NIM's VZNavigator was atrocious. So imagine my surprise when I actually enjoyed GoKivo.

There's a "keep it simple stupid" mentality that seems to work for this interface, especially for areas you basically already know. You find your area on the map, and do a keyword search to find POIs in that particular vicinity (a la Google Maps).

The navigation screen is much improved over earlier VZNavigator screens, with clear maps.

Slide-out music transport is very cool—all apps let you pop up "now playing" to skip or adjust volume, but this lets you browse music, start songs, set shuffle and repeat, all within the navi app.

Connected data means fresh maps and traffic info—I was surprised how well it worked even on a mountain, though spotty coverage does mean unreliable response time, and possible blackout.

Vertical orientation only, no landscape view (which I prefer).

There's no way to drop a pin on the map and navigate to it, even though the interface all but begs for that kind of interaction.

Despite using Yahoo Local database, POI search doesn't always show you places you know are there—this seems to be affected by how zoomed-in your are on the search map, but it's confusing.

If you don't really know where to search for something, you're screwed.

Subscription of $10 up front, plus $10 each month thereafter, is fiscally unsound when compared to standalone apps, even $100 TomTom. GoKivo is, in effect, $120—per year.

I would be happy to give GoKivo a "Most Improved" award, based on how far it's come since earlier VZNavigator days. But in light of the cost structure, there's no way to recommend it. [iTunes link]

Sygic Mobile Maps America

Sygic is, in some ways, the app I liked best of these three, but its proximity in cost and feature set to Navigon renders it more of a discounted impersonator.

There's a powerful routing tool at the heart of Sygic, that lets you not only program a circuit of addresses, but lets you modify that circuit in many ways, simulate the run, and pull up a list of turns. It's also very easy to add destinations straight from the map, a feature not seen on all navi apps.

Like Navigon, Sygic can read street names aloud with text-to-speech functionality.

Fairly clean navigation screen, if you can get past the Euro stylings.

There's no woman's voice for English turn-by-turn instructions, and the US English voice is named Lucien—no offense to dudes named Lucien, but that's proof of what you see throughout the app: Sygic is just too country-agnostic for a great US experience.

Not only does the app block the all-important iPhone status bar at top, it doesn't even match some take-for-granted iPhone interface behaviors. For instance, instead of scrolling down a list by flicking up, you have to tap gingerly on up and down buttons on the side.

POI search doesn't work at significant distances: only searches your surrounding 10 or 20 miles, unless you specify another town. (Navigon has a similar problem.) POI categories are also a little jumbled.

Sygic is, at this point, $30 cheaper than Navigon, and $40 cheaper than TomTom. The thing is, it's noticeably "cheaper" in the way it's designed too. Despite its functionality, it's not a good way to save money. [iTunes link]

In The End

You probably gathered by now that the good way to save money is to buy ALK's CoPilot. If you have the $60 to spend on Sygic, get CoPilot plus a year of CoPilot connected services. You'll still have money left over for an ice-cream cone—or a down payment on the $10-$30 car mount. GoKivo, like TeleNav's AT&T Navigator, is out because the $10/month model doesn't offer enough for its added cost.

If you want something more aesthetically sound than CoPilot—and there's no shame in that—Navigon is still the best bet. And though it's up to $90, that's not a terrible price compared to standalone products, and it does continue to gain features like text-to-speech for free. Whether you want to pay $25 extra for Navigon's live traffic is, for the moment, your call.

Click here for iPhone Navigation App Battlemodo, Part I, with introductory discussion about GPS iPhone apps in general.

First, we have to establish the definition of a task chair. They are, according to this site, meant for medium duty use; they're the chairs you see gathered permanently around a meeting table, or in front of a desk for guests—as opposed to behind a desk, where the boss sits, in a true "desk chair." Comfortable, but not exactly meant to be used all day, they tend to have list prices ranging from $500 to $700. Still they're often used by secretaries or other type of office workers (everyone who isn't a boss who can't convince someone to give them a nicer chair) whose jobs require them to get up once in a while. They usually have backs that rise up not quite as high as desk chairs, like the $1000-and-up Herman Miller Aeron and Embody, or Steelcase Leap.

Herman Miller Setu

The $650 Setu might be about half the price of the current top seat, but it is definitely not, as we initially reported, a "poor man's Embody." It's quite different.

The Setu is Lennie to the Embody's George: simple, straightforward and lacking in sophistication. That is to say, there's no real customization you can do with knobs and levers, because there are none, save for the obligatory height adjustment. Its "elastomeric" fabric does contour somewhat to the curve of your back, but it's nowhere as customizable as actually being able to change the angles of the chair's spine.

It's as if Herman Miller tried to build a chair with as few parts as possible, making sure each beam, back and support did the job of one-and-a-half beams, backs and supports. However, their frugality regarding use of material has one downside: the seat is too shallow. Imagine sitting with your ass all the way into the back of the seat; even then, the seat would only come forward to about 3/4 of your thigh. It's not horrible if you're short or if you'd rather sit on the edge of your seat, but those of you who expect support all the way up to the back of your knees will be disappointed.

Otherwise, the Setu is quite a good task chair. It provides ample back support for a full eight-hour day, and the aerated fabric breathes enough that you can even work shirtless on a hot day and things will be alright. (For you, not your co-workers.) The arms protrude enough to be usable, but not too much to be obtrusive. There's plenty of give in the seat and the back to feel like you're sitting with the chair, rather than fighting against it.

Conforms to your back nicely

Great look, great design

More expensive than Cobi

The seat is a bit shallow; doesn't go all the way to the back of the knee

Steelcase Cobi

Surprisingly, the Cobi is more like the Embody in design and build than the Setu, despite it being from a competing firm. What's cool about the Cobi is that you can actually customize parts of it yourself, picking the color, whether you want arms and whether you want it in stool form or chair form. Each piece adds a little to its $400 base, and our white-framed, fixed-armed, wasabi green seat totaled to $490. If you were going stool mode—high and sturdy, as in bar stool, not backless and stubby, as in foot stool—you'd actually end up at $720, which is $70 more than the Setu.

The look of the Cobi is definitely more traditional than the Setu, with its round seat, protruding arms and tongue-like lip of a back—and it sits the same way too. There are, like the Setu, no adjustments for the back or the seat or the arms, but it conforms more or less to your back as you're sitting. The cradling is less pronounced than the Herman Miller, but enough that you'll still be comfortable as you're working. And the seat is perfectly fine here, not a few inches shy of optimal length like the Setu.

Priced lower than Setu

You can customize your own colors, frame, arms

Doesn't conform to your back as well as the Setu

Comparison

Your decision here is one of tradeoffs. If you want to go a little cheaper, the Steelcase Cobi is great, but it won't spoon your back quite as well as the Herman Miller Setu. If you want stylishness, Setu's definitely going to impress, but you're going to have to live with that shallower seat and a slightly higher price tag.

The Cobi is customizable at purchase, but all the design choices lead to a more traditional-looking chair, something you may or may not prefer. The more sci-fi-looking Setu may win in the design department but you will definitely not be upset if you pick the Cobi, especially if you want to create one in your favorite color.

This Battlemodo shows both the benefits and limitations of the task-chair category. If you're looking for going further in customizability and comfort, it would be worth it to go with the Embody. It's down to $1099 now, and cradles your ass better than either the Setu or the Cobi ever will. [Steelcase Cobi and Herman Miller Setu]

Aaaand we can't not do a proper sizemodo, naturally:

Until August 31st, Navigon MobileNavigator will cost $70. In my testing, it competed neck and neck with the $100 TomTom, so for the next eight days, it's the best value among the top contenders. But when they're both selling for $100, that TomTom is going to look a lot more tempting. The third app I tested is TeleNav's AT&T Navigator. It's certainly worthy, and has some connected capability that the other two apps here don't, but in the end, the economics are wrong: At $10 per month, it could become frightfully expensive, with no significant added value.

These three navigators are the most reputable in the app store (hence their heightened cost). They're all based on software I've used in the past too, either in other phones or in portable navigators. Because of the familiarity, I knew I could spot anything amiss in the iPhone edition, but I was surprised to discover that, if anything, these iPhone apps are better designed than anything their companies made before—and run great on my iPhone 3GS. It's a relief to know that GPS navigation with an iPhone is, finally, a really real reality.

Navigon and TomTom are completely contained apps that hog upwards of 1.2 GB a piece; TeleNav is a small app that relies on the phone's net connection. Nevertheless, they all work more or less the same. They give turn-by-turn directions on an animated map, just like portable navigators. While they're doing it, you can play music from the iPhone's iPod, and if a call comes in, you see it pop up on the screen. GPS performance on the 3GS was better than I had hoped for—hiccupy at times but never completely gone, even when messing around indoors.

Every app also has direct access to Contacts—this isn't just good for people for whom you've added addresses, it's brilliant for quickly navigating to stuff you've found in Google Maps—you just whatever it is to Contacts with a single tap, open your navi app and it's there.

No matter which app you're using, the GPS runs constantly and the screen generally stays on, which means utter battery drainage: You will need to keep your iPhone plugged into the car's lighter jack. You will also need a dashboard mount, which range from $10 to $30.

Here's how the apps did against each other, followed by some deeper impressions:

AT&T Navigator by TeleNav
Product page; iTunes link

Unlike the other two, TeleNav is very much a connected app. It downloads a fresh map of your surroundings wherever you are, and it checks for traffic and POIs in much the same way. TeleNav's servers are always being updated, so you're never out of date. The trouble is that a) this costs $10 per month forever and ever, b) with the exception of searching for gas by price and the occasional useful traffic alert, the connectedness is hard to appreciate, and c) downloading maps and routes means that if you have poor phone reception, you might not have navigation.

TeleNav distributes its app "free" in the app store, but to get turn-by-turn navigation (the only reason you'd want the app), you have to sign up and commit to paying $10 a month on your AT&T bill. It's a deal for the first 10 months or so, especially since you can cancel it at any time, so maybe you'll only need it on trips. But if you intend to keep it and use it for more than that, you'll kick yourself for not having paid up front for Navigon or TomTom—when you add up all those Hamiltons, the $100 apps are ultimately cheaper.

I had some trouble with the software, too. Version 1.1 of the "free" client app crashed a lot, and it didn't automatically update to the more stable version 1.2i. I had to remove the app from my iPhone, and then add it again. The good news is, it worked and I haven't experienced a crash since.

Though I was pretty pleased with TeleNav's overall usability, but the connectedness did get annoying sometimes. The best example is the map section: TeleNav has very pretty maps, but they take a 21st century eternity to download (we're talking 5-10 seconds here), and the whole screen has to reload when you pan or zoom. Also, when you're in the map, you can't tap on a destination and route there, a fact that seemed to render the maps useless.

The B- I give the program is a combination of the shortcomings, albeit minor, and the problematic economics for anyone intending to use this regularly for a year or more.

Navigon MobileNavigator
Product page; iTunes link

Navigon portable navigators had just started to get good when the company closed shop in the US. I can't say I miss them, really, but what's nice is that most or all of the great features of the portable product have arrived intact in the iPhone app. It really is startling to see how well both TomTom and Navigon have overlaid their core features to the iPhone.

Navigon comes with 1.29 GB of maps and POI data, good because, like TomTom, it's not "connected." There's no live traffic, no online search, nothing like that. I can't say I miss it. The app runs almost exactly like the last Navigon portables, with such nice touches as lane guidance (those screens that pop up saying which lanes you should—and definitely should not—be in). It lays out well in both landscape and portrait modes, and the driving interface, with its customization options, looks the best.

Navigon has always had some trouble with its POI interface—in this case, you can can easily search for something in the wrong place. If you don't know the specific city a POI is in, just putting in the nearest big city is not enough. I recommend sitting down with it and familiarizing yourself with the POI search flow, because once you get the hang of it, you will be better at knowing where to look for stuff.

The biggest glaring omission of this app was the route view, what I used to call MapQuest view back when people remembered what MapQuest was: You get a full rundown of your turns, so you can see where the hell this thing is trying to take you. For the price, it's still reasonable, and Navigon has already updated its software—for free—a few times since launch, so who's to say that a good route summary isn't up next?

I gave it an A- until August 31, when the price goes from $70 to $100. After that, it's probably a B+ or B. On the level it can't really beat the TomTom, but when it's $30 cheaper, it most certainly does.

TomTom US & Canada for iPhone
Product page; iTunes link

I know some of you probably recall my negative sentiments about a recent TomTom portable navigator, and indeed, the whole family of TomTom navigators. I am happy to report that, by leaving hardware design in the hands of Apple, and by making at least a bit of effort to streamline the TomTom interface when bringing it to the iPhone, most of my complaints are rendered moot. There's still the matter of taking four taps to cancel a route (it takes just two on the other two apps). There's also the matter of POIs lacking coherent capitalization and punctuation, rendering them barely recognizable in English, and other hints of one-platform-for-all international scaling. But in general, it's a damn worthwhile, even powerful app.

The next step is to see TomTom's dock is any good. TomTom says it improves GPS performance, gives some voice command control and raises the volume on turn-by-turn instructions. I am currently using a generic iPhone dock, the one that sells for $30 on Amazon, and I plugged the iPhone into the car stereo for both music and instructions. Also, I didn't really have any trouble with GPS performance (surprisingly), so whatever this thing costs, its value is as yet undetermined.

In the portable navigator world, Garmin is still king, but in this world, there is no Garmin, so TomTom will probably ascend to the throne. In the current lineup, TomTom's offering is a B+, but that grade could go down as well as up. I just hope they take their roles as developers seriously and work on what still needs improvement, or else so help me I will nail another series of complaints to their door.

Tips for Using All GPS Apps
• Get a dash mount. Like I said, you can pay roughly $10 to $30 on Amazon, but the $30 version (middle in the pic above) has the nicer joint design. If you don't mount it, you're going to kill yourself. Note: The Amazon links are examples, not recommended products. Stay tuned for our review of TomTom's mount, shown in the photo above at right.

• Never drive without a car charger. These things suck juice like nobody's business. Operate without a charger, and your phone will become a brick within the hour.

• All these apps let you access iPhone Contacts. This means you should paste in addresses for your most visited friends and colleagues. It also means that if the app's POI search sucks, you can go to Google Maps, do a search there (or with an app like Where To?) and then add that Google Map entry to Contacts. Instantly it appears in your navigation app too.

• You can listen to music while you're navigating, if you can handle the navi voice coming on to tell you when to turn. Double-tap the home button to get a floating box of rudimentary iPod functions: track ID, volume, play/pause, forward and back. If you pause your music though, you can't double-tap the home button to start it again. You'll have to exit your navigation app, go into the iPod interface, and start it up.

Update: More Notes
Since I've probably driven with more various GPS devices in my car than almost anyone, and have been doing it since these silly things were a lot harder to use and cost $1500 a piece, I wanted to address some general questions from comments:

• There are two major map-makers in the world, Navteq (now owned by Nokia) and Tele Atlas (now owned by TomTom). Though traditionally Navteq's US mapset was superior, they are both now almost imperceptibly identical, thanks to Tele Atlas' acquisition of a US company called GDT a few years back. They are both very reputable sources of road data now, and it would take you a long time to identify any differences, let alone one's clear superiority over the other. In other words, at this point, since it's one or the other, source of road data doesn't really matter.

• Map updates, however, do matter—but they matter at intervals of at least two years. The map makers named above are constantly updating, but they don't publish updates (even to monthly subscription services) instantly. It takes months—sometimes weeks if you're lucky—for map data to go live, and most tweaks are new housing developments and other things you might not notice. Also, map makers may spend a lot of time and effort on an area where you don't live, and never get around to fixing your particular neighborhood problem. (There's an intersection in Poughkeepsie, NY that has been wrong in Navteq's database for five years, because hey, it's Poughkeepsie!) So it doesn't make sense to argue that you should spend over 2X the money for a subscription app that isn't as good as the fixed ones—even if you have to buy expensive map modules or new versions of them in a couple of years. On the flipside, many people driving with three- or four-year-old Garmins are pretty happy.

• Someone mentioned that certain devices make a "ding" sound at the turn. That was always a signature of Magellan (who like Garmin doesn't make an iPhone app at the moment). Every app tells you when you are approaching a turn. They do so at different intervals. While it seems from a comparative standpoint that the intervals themselves matter, they do not after the initial breaking-in period. You just acclimate to the instructions you're getting from your own device, and make safe driving maneuvers based on those instructions.

• The state of California does mysteriously ban suction-cup windshield mounts. I have still driven in California with such a device, and would encourage people visiting California to not worry about it. Those of you who live in California should probably check out those sandbag mounts, but please, if anyone knows anyone who's gotten a ticket for this "offense," email me about it. I really want to hear this story.

• ALK, makers of the CoPilot software, have been around for many years and have not ever been among the strongest contenders. However, due to their price and the fact that they're still around, I have agreed to check out CoPilot, and will be posting on that app when I'm ready. But don't let that stop you from buying Navigon while it's still on sale.

Update #2Click here for iPhone Navigation App Battlemodo, Part II, with evaluation of ALK's CoPilot, Network In Motion's GoKivo and Sygic.

I'm not trying to be all namby pamby, like "Oh, you're each so special in your own ways, it's so hard to choose!" but I can't stress enough how solid both the Nikon D5000 and the Canon Rebel T1i are. For the price—$850 for the D5000, $900 for the T1i, both including beginner-level 18-55mm lenses—either one will work fine, whether you're a beginner looking to learn about photography, or a veteran with investment in a few lenses but not enough cash for a step-up Nikon D90 or D700, or a Canon 5D Mark II. (I highlighted their spec differences here.)

In fact, the differences between the D5000 and the T1i tend to be more about button layout and interface design than picture-taking ability. If you basically know what you're doing, you can take essentially the same picture with either camera, except in certain situations mentioned below.

Handling

Like I said, there are differences in interface. Unlike fancier DSLRs, both have single dials on the right-hand side, and both have just one large full-color LCD screen for managing settings, setting up shots and reviewing them later. The Canon's is a little bigger with a lot more resolution, which makes a big benefit when you're shooting video or focusing in Live View, but is otherwise irrelevant.

In interface design, however, the better design goes to Nikon. As you can see below, the organization of information on the screen is much more palatable and less arbitrary. Nikon users who are used to having the second LCD screen up top for basic info—plus specialized buttons—can quickly learn a new behavior, getting all information on the big LCD, using the "i" info button for making most quick setting tweaks.

The Canon interface is similar to previous Rebels, and is pretty durn fugly, and the extra buttons only help in some cases where they are clearly labeled. (And even when the buttons are clearly labeled, there are some hidden functions—hitting the ISO button while shooting video will lock the auto exposure, for instance.)

Automatic Modes

I tested each camera both in full-manual mode and on some of the automatic modes. I've heard from a lot of uppity photographers who don't like people discussing auto shooting, perhaps as a way of trumpeting their own apparently stellar knowledge of the workings of photography. But it's important to remember that these sub-$1000 cameras are aimed at untrained entry-level shooters, and many of those people tell me that they almost always leave it in auto.

In this case, Nikon has six auto modes, plus a SCENE setting with like 14 different options, in each case including a photo. The Canon is shy on this point, with just five presets. The scene modes are helpful to newbies who can't translate what they see into camera settings. Still, anyone who buys a camera like this should do so with the intent to learn manual settings, and may benefit more from just taking 100 shots in each setting, like I do, changing settings all along.

What I did find is that even in semi-automatic modes, the Canon and Nikon were more different than better. For instance, when I set the White Balance on Cloudy, both got the white more or less right, but the Canon tended to look more pink, while the Nikon was more green, as you can see:

ISO Noise

Everybody bitches about how more megapixels don't matter and that optics determine picture quality more than anything, and they're right. But sensors still matter, especially when shooting in low light—which you do by jacking up the ISO. As you can see below, while both cameras handle relatively noise-free shooting at ISO 800, they both start to get noisy by 1600, and at 3200 they are both noisier still. But the Canon is less noisy in this case.

It stands to point out that I shot this with both cameras on the default "normal" aka "basic" noise-reduction settings. Both cameras let you jack up noise reduction more, or take it off entirely, but in each case, you probably have to consult the manual to learn how, hence me testing on the default settings.

Live View

Live View was last year's ace in the hole, something first championed by Sony and Olympus, which Canon then took and ran with, followed, only recently, by Nikon. Now everybody's got it, and it's okay, but it's not great, and it's certainly not the preferred shooting mode for either of these cameras.

The problem is, when you have a live picture on your LCD, the typical auto-focus mechanism doesn't work, because the mirror inside the camera is lifted up, exposing the optical sensor.

Canon and Nikon have different ways of handling this. Canon says "screw it" and drops the mirror for a split second, letting the camera use its normal AF sensor and getting a nice tight focus.

The Nikon, from what I've seen in my testing, can't do this. Instead it uses secondary auto-focus techniques that are annoyingly slow. The fact that the Nikon has a flip-out "vari-angle" LCD to make Live View more useful is actually silly—by having to wait for the damn thing to autofocus, and by not guaranteeing as good an autofocus, you lose any advantage you'd have by watching this happening in the LCD. I think the mirror-drop technique used by Canon and the vari-angle LCD would be a good combination, however, and my guess is, Nikon is exploring this even now.

Video

This year's killer upgrade is video, specifically, high-definition video. The Nikon D5000 has 720p at 24 frames per second; Canon's T1i shoots 1080p at up to 20fps. The question is, will you use it?

I said it before and I'll say it again: Shooting higher-res video with larger sensors and big honkin' lenses is awesome. They wide-aspect shots have a cinematic quality, and make better use of light in the room for a more natural feel.

BUT—yes, big ole "but"—the fact that autofocus is pretty borked when you're shooting videos means you get naturally lit cinematically scoped blurry videos, unless you and your subject remain perfectly still.

Like with standard Live View, Nikon and Canon take different approaches. Nikon says "no AF during shooting whatsoever," meaning you focus first, then hit record, then, if you have to, start manually refocusing as your toddler, cat or ginormous model rocket starts to make its move. Having lived with the D90 for a while, I want to say I got good at manually focusing, but I did not.

As is the case with Canon's 5D Mark II, the T1i does let you autofocus during shooting, but it's not the nice instant refocus you get while shooting stills. It's the wiggy servo-noisy zoom-zoom-zoom-zoom kind of contrast-based AF that takes too long. So while you're shooting, you not only see the auto re-focusing in action, but you hear it too.

While Canon's noisy AF is by far the better option of the two for shooting videos, Canon does something in the T1i that might piss off serious photographers: It disables shutter, aperture and ISO controls for video shooting. It's full auto, unlike the Nikon D5000, which, like the D90, gives you a certain degree of camera control while shooting video. While the Nikon lets you choose your ISO for instance, the Canon actually varies ISO settings along with auto exposure every time your video's lighting changes dramatically. I personally don't miss it—and in my experience, Canon does a slightly better job of getting automatic settings like WB right, and is a more trustworthy camcorder maker in general—but you might miss the control.

One overlooked benefit to the Canon is that you can take still shots while shooting video, without interrupting the video itself. You just get a momentary freezeframe, and the recording continues. On the Nikon, when you shoot video, you can take a still pic, but the video recording stops when you do.

In the End

So, why did I pick the Canon by a nose? Mainly the video and the better Live View focus technique, as well as the slightly better high-ISO performance. When I chatted with NYT's David Pogue about his rave review of Panasonic's Lumix GH1—a far better camcorder than either of these because of its quiet lens and full-fledged autofocus—he told me that this kind of half-baked AF makes the video on these cameras a mere "parlor stunt." I reprint his comment because I agree with him for the most part.

Still, as someone who enjoyed the Nikon D90 video mode, half-baked as it is, I look forward to extended testing of the T1i, shooting video whenever I can. Because in the YouTube era, we're not looking to go remake Dr. Zhivago. I for one just want something to record a quick vid of my kid doing something hilarious (which her mom won't let me post on Giz). What I find is that the best video camera is the one built into the still camera I already use. And that's why, parlor stunt or not, DSLR video is going to be important from here on out. Here's hoping both Nikon and Canon keep working to make them better.

In Summary

Nikon D5000

Great all-around entry-level DSLR camera

Well-designed user interface; more friendly to beginner photographers

Vari-angle LCD rendered less effective by slow auto-focus in Live View

Can't autofocus during video shooting

High ISO settings have more noise

Canon T1i

Great all-around entry-level DSLR camera

Live View autofocus technique is fast and effective, and you can also auto-focus while shooting video

Less noise at high ISO, better automatic-shooting results

Interface can be confusing to new photographers

Autofocus in video mode is noisy (as in "audibly annoying") and slow, so it's a better perk than the Nikon but not a hands-down win

Product Pages:

Nikon D5000



Canon EOS Rebel T1i

Let me say first that I did not use either of these cameras in their ideal conditions—namely, outside, underwater while swimming. For some reason, Canon and Panasonic did not tailor the release dates of these cameras to coincide with my trip to Egypt a few months ago, which is where I wanted to test them out (why not guys??). Back here in New York, any outdoor body of water is way too frigid right now, and there's something pretty creepy and ultimately unacceptable about taking an underwater camera to the YMCA for test shots. So, instead of the verdant coral reefs of the Red Sea off the Sinai coast, which were straight out of Planet Earth, our test shots are of me playing with a Kraken Attackin' Lego Pirates playset in my kitchen sink. Which is a cool playset, but, you know, not the same.

But still, we've gathered enough data I think to inform your decision, if you're thinking of picking up a waterproof toughcam for this summer. Here are the main points of differentiation I see:

Form Factor/Interface
Both cameras are waterproof, but the Canon D10 is protected up to 10 meters (around 32 feet), where the Panasonic TS1 is only protected up to three meters (around 10 feet). And that's immediately apparent in their shapes:

The D10 looks like it was designed by Ringo on the set of Yellow Submarine—its bulbous shell and porthole-like screws drive home the fact that this baby is going underwater. But on land, it'll be tough to fit it into a pants pocket without some serious bulging.

It does have some nice, easy-to-press buttons for changing into video mode, for instance, and the icons on the LCD screen are nice and big, easily spotted through a snorkeling mask. There are some superfluous button presses to lock in settings which could be tedious underwater, but the UI is not horrible, and you'll easily get used to it. The D10 also has come big screw-mounts on each corner for mounting various underwater grips and other accessories that you can buy from Canon.

The TS1 takes a totally different approach, with a sleek rectangular slab shape that at first glance is hard to distinguish from regular non-tough weeniecams. The buttons are a bit smaller, but not prohibitively so, and shootings modes are selected with a thumb dial instead of dedicated buttons—I didn't see anything I couldn't operate with a bit of practice while snorkeling. A basic locking wrist-strap comes in the box.

The important thing is that the TS1 is not at all out of place in non-toughcam situations, where the D10 may be. But if you're a deep snorkeler, three meters may not be enough for you compared to the D10's 10 meters (I imagine if you're a serious SCUBA diver, you'll need something beefier than either of these), but where you lose usability under water with the TS1 you will gain it on land. Consider that.

Video
Another big difference, if not the biggest, is that the Panasonic TS1 shoots 720p in the AVCHD format, where the Canon only does 640x480 VGA vids. The TS1 video recording mode isn't the most polished—there's a good two to three second delay from when you hit the dedicated video button to when recording actually starts and stops, and it's unclear exactly when everything does start, but if you're OK with that, the HD video mode is awesome. I mean, underwater HD in such a tiny package—that's a no-brainer right? I would kill to have some HD clips of my friends and I swimming around in crazy schools of neon fish in Egypt.

Here are some sample clips from the sink:

TS1 720P Clip:

Note: There is a current bug with the TS1 that makes video imported into iMovie '08 and '09 play at double speed. I had to do some conversion to avoid this, which is a pain. Panasonic says they're working with Apple on this to include a fix in future versions of iMovie.

Canon D10 VGA Clip:

Keep in mind that the AVCHD format is kind of annoying, in that you might have to install special codecs and import video straight into your video editing software of choice and then export it in friendlier formats, rather than just grabbing an AVI or MOV clip from the memory card and uploading it to YouTube.

And yeah, the quality of these videos is pretty bad, but the difference in the actual output is clear: 720p underwater rules.

Shooting
Both cameras are 12-megapixels, for full-res shots at 4000x3000. Both have the same size CCD sensor, but the TS1's ISO goes up to 6400 where the Canon D10's only to 1600. I didn't do a thorough sensitivity test with either camera, but I would imagine you don't want to go much higher than 800 on either one, so the difference is probably fairly moot.

A difference that does matter is the TS1's wider-angle lens: it's a 28mm-128mm f/3.3-f/5.9 effective focal length zoom, compared to the D10's 35mm-105mm f/2.8-f/4.9.

As you can see, color reproduction via the TS1's Leica lens is far better than the D10s, which has to fight through a bit more protective plastic. Also, the TS1 tends to autofocus underwater with much greater ease—important, because you won't always be able to look at the LCD when composing shots while snorkeling.

Conclusion
Like I said, I only played with these cameras in the sink, so I didn't push their waterproof capabilities to their max. But having a waterproof and shockproof camera around the house is kind of cool in its own right—imagine taking bath time photos of your kid without having to worry about getting the camera wet, or taking shots with dirty hands while you're barbecuing, or anything like that. You can always dunk these cameras underwater to clean them off. It's nice. You don't have to be a snorkeler to use them and have fun with them.

Which is why for me, the balance shifts heavily toward the Panasonic TS1. Its form factor makes using it on land a lot more convenient, and the added HD video option is a huge plus. And my ears hurt if I go down much further than three meters underwater anyway. At a premium of only $70 ($400 list vs. $330 for the D10), I'd say it's well worth spending up for.

Panasonic Lumix DSC-TS1
HD video capture

Unobtrusive form factor good for both land and sea

28mm wide-angle lens

Buttons perhaps more difficult to use underwater

Only waterproof up to 3 meters

Canon PowerShot D10
Super-rugged body waterproof up to 10 meters

Big, simple buttons and LCD icons

Only shoots video at 640x480

Very bulky

Let's go over the basics. The cameras, with 18-55mm image stabilizer lenses, have MSRPs within $50 of each other, the Nikon at $850 and the Canon at $900. Spec-wise, that extra $50 goes a long way:

• Nikon has a 12.3-megapixel CMOS, while the Canon has a 15.1 megapixel CMOS.

• The Canon's 3" LCD screen has 920,000 dots; Nikon's 2.7" LCD only has 230,000 dots, but it gets bonus points for the "vari-angle" adjustable mount.

• HD video shooting is the selling point for both, but while the Nikon can handle 720p, the Canon can shoot up to 12 minutes per burst of full 1080p high-def video (though at a minimal 20 frames per second). Both have HDMI outputs, to prove how dedicated they are to high-def video.

• ISO wise, they're pretty evenly matched, from 100 to 3200, with a Hi ISO bump at 6400. (The Canon has an additional ISO 12800 high setting.) The key here is which one is noisier at the higher levels; I have my guesses, but we'll just have to see.

• Getting deeper into camera-nerd territory, the Nikon has an 11-point autofocus, compared to Canon's 9-point AF. They both boast the usual proprietary engines, for Canon the DIGIC 4 imaging processor, and for Nikon, the "exclusive" EXPEED image processing system. And obviously, both can be fitted with a huge number of lenses from their specific manufacturer, lens compatibility usually being the deciding factor for people who already have huge glass investment.

What does it all mean? I have no doubt that both cameras are worthy sons of bitches, and like their predecessors, many of their idiosyncratic ticks—visual menus vs lists, etc.—are well known and documents. Some conclusions are already in sight, given the fact that the D5000 is a direct descendant of the D90, whereas the T1i comes straight from the 5D Mk II's loins, both heavily reviewed already.

Still, over the next day, I'll be shooting hundreds of photos in different lighting conditions, in order to make sense of this two-headed temptation. Here's some further reading While U Wait:

News announcements on Giz:
Nikon D5000
Canon EOS Rebel T1i

Product Pages:
Nikon D5000
Canon EOS Rebel T1i

We're resurrecting this piece in honor of Listening Test, and although we did our testing in November of last year (and a lot has happened since then), the results have held up well. That is, except for one huge exception: The SE115, heir to the legacy of the SE110, has acceded the throne, replacing the SE110 as prince of the sub-$150 earphones and overall king, and inviting a lazy, inconsistent royalty metaphor from one Gizmodo writer.

Listening Test: It's music tech week at Gizmodo.

One trend that seems to be taking place in the land of iPod docks is that companies seem less concerned with the high end, hi-fi iPod docks. Instead, they're gravitating towards smaller, lighter docks that sound nice, but are intended more for casual listening. Both Logitech and Klipsch are putting most of their weight behind these smaller docks. In our testing, we checked out:

• Altec Lansing InMotion Max

• Bose SoundDock II

• iHome iP71

• iLuv i398

• JBL OnStage 400p

• Klipsch iGroove SXT (NOTE: Updated product specs for refreshed iGroove SXT not on Klipsch site yet)

• Logitech Pure-Fi Anywhere 2

• Sony SRSGUI0iP

That said, we still went looking for the iPod dock that sounded really good while sticking as close to the $200 mark. Some were much cheaper, or much more expensive, but most of them all had something interesting to offer. Ultimately, overall audio quality had the most weight in helping to pick our winner, but price, design, and the usefulness of smaller features were also taken into consideration:

The Winner:

JBL On Stage 400p: At $250, the On Stage 400p is a bit more expensive than some of the other docks, but it sounds so nice, it was impossible to give top honors to anyone else. It uses a 30w sub to push out the low end, while delivering another 30w of power to the tweeters for the highs and mids. And though it might not wow anyone with its design, it's nice enough that you don't have to hide it in your living room. Just might want to wait till it goes on sale later on.

The Runners Up:

Bose SoundDock II: It's no huge surprise why the SoundDock II out performs the rest of the field: at $300 , Bose's accessory is outfitted with better hardware. But is the sound quality worth $100 than the rest of the docks? And what's the chance you'll ever find it on sale?

Altec Lansing InMotion Max: What the InMotion Max lacks in booming low end, it makes up for in precision audio tuning and a light, slim design. Two 2-inch drivers are bolstered by two, 2-inch passive radiators which sit directly above. The result are nice mids and highs that offer much better sound than the 14w power rating would suggest. Other nice little touches include song info that appears in the backlit display, capacitive touch buttons (which include <</>> controls), battery power that lasts 3.5 hours, and a spring loaded ipod dock connector that slides out. Well done.

Honorable Mentions:

Klipsch iGroove SXT: The new, revamped iGroove SXT (hitting stores this july) packs a lot of punch into a compact bundle. Enhanced acoustics and a dedicated amplifier for each driver give the SXT a nice, deep sound, but sometimes the high-end clarity suffers. Still it's hard not to like this one, and Klipsch is phasing out its bigger iGroove, so this is it if you love Klipsch.

Logitech Pure-Fi Anywhere 2: Coming in at a lower price point and smaller size than most the other docks here, it's hard to compare it sonically because most the other docks are bigger and more expensive . But the Pure-Fi Anywhere 2 does manage to improve over the original Pure-Fi Anywhere in the sound department and does what few other docks can do: Travel around easily with a 10 hour battery life. Besides, the larger Pure-Fi Dream system may sound better, but its clock-radio interface leaves too much to be desired.

Listening Test: It's music tech week at Gizmodo.

Those who haven't seen the Snuggie ad or one of its many parodies and aren't aware of the blanket-with-sleeves phenomenon get no sympathy from us. Unless, you've just awoken from an eight-month coma, in which case: Welcome back! To recap, the Snuggie is the most famous and widely marketed of the many blanket-with-sleeves. The Freedom Blanket originated the idea, the Slanket followed up, and recently, the Blankoat decided to take it into a ridiculous dimension.

But which is the best for you? We tried each of them the way they were meant to be worn: on the sofa, lying down, with one fist buried in a bag of Doritos and the other cradling a bottle of beer. We gained thirty-five pounds, but it was so worth it.

And for those of you who think that the whole blanket-with-sleeves product could just as easily be accomplished with a robe worn backwards? We tested that too.

Snuggie ($15): Don't buy this. Having the most ironic value contributes nothing to the final product when it's constructed out of material that's one step up from a papery hospital gown. Not only are the sleeves too cramped, the bottom part—the part that keeps your feet warm when you're lying down—isn't long enough for anyone of a decent height. I'm only 5' 10", and I have to bend my knees to keep all of my body covered. Bend them! This body wasn't constructed for that.

The Snuggie is also the most static-prone of all the blankets, and comes in such neon colors that surely are not found in nature. There's a reason why this is the cheapest of the bunch, which means you should only consider this if you have a plus-sized dog you want to dress up as a radioactive Superman. Krypto, if you will. Nobody else should buy it.

At $15, it's the cheapest

Can be conveniently found at many lousy stores

Generates a lot of static when being taken off

Thin, papery material

Too short for most people

Slanket ($38): The most expensive of the major three, the Slanket is where you turn when you want to make sure you get the best for your blanket money. It's 60 inches x 95 inches, so it's long enough even for people over 6 feet, and is made out of polyester microfibers, so it's soft and thick. Essentially, it's everything the Snuggie is not.

When someone asks why a regular blanket won't do, the Slanket is the answer. The sleeves are wizardy enough to keep you warm and allow enough space for maneuverability (gaming is the most prominent example). It has the most variety of colors choices—11 at my count—and is an example of the concept done right. If you're serious about staying warm while also keeping your hands one extra layer of material away from being able to fondle your genitals, this is it. [Slanket]

Very comfortable, very long, very usable

Comes in a wide variety of couch-matching colors

Most expensive of the 3 normal ones

Still generates a little static when removed

Freedom Blanket ($30): The original blanket with sleeves has become, unfortunately, lost between the media blitz of the Snuggie and the web-presence of the Slanket. But it shouldn't be. The price, $30, reflects exactly how the Freedom Blanket performs: somewhere in-between the Snuggie and the Slanket.

The Freedom Blanket isn't quite as comfortable as the Slanket, but comparing it to the Snuggie would be like comparing rubbing your face with a cotton towel to rubbing your face with Joaquin Phoenix's beard. At 72 inches, it's also longer than the Snuggie, but still falls slightly short of the Slanket's 95 inches. And that's pretty much the whole story.

If you don't want a piece of crap like the Snuggie but can't get over the fact that you're paying a couple Hamiltons for a blanket with sleeves, the Freedom Blanket is a good compromise. Plus, you'll sleep well knowing that you're supporting the people who actually invented the idea instead of someone who knows how to copy very well. [Freedom Blanket]

More comfortable than the Snuggie

Not quite as expensive as the Slanket

Also generates spouse-shocking static when removed

Slightly too short for tall people

Sruli Recht Blankoat ($330): The Blankoat is to the other three blankets as getting a full service massage is to setting your showerhead into massage mode. They may sound similar, but it's an entirely alien concept. If you have enough money to spend $330 on a gigantic 120-inch long blanket made out of wool from Icelandic sheep, you have enough money to run your heater and walk around in your underwear instead.

You know how wool sweaters are itchy? This is a wool sweater for your entire body. If you like wool, great—this will keep you very, very warm. If you don't, wearing this while watching an episode of America's Next Top Model is like an hour enduring Gitmo's mildest torture session.

But if your question is whether or not the Blankoat does its job, the answer is yes. With this much material, you can wrap yourself entirely inside the thing—including your head—with only a small hole left for your face. Having actually never lived in Iceland, or Boston, or anywhere where you actually have to physically move snow away so you can travel, I can't say whether the Blankoat would be worth the money in those situations. I imagine it would. But you're still paying $330, which is John Mayer money. [Blankoat]

Provides the most coverage of all the solutions

Wool is scratchy

It's $330!!

A Bathrobe ($42 or cheaper): You may already have one of these. You may also wonder why you can't just turn one backwards and be done with it. Two reasons. One, no robe is long enough to cover your feet. People don't enjoy falling down repeatedly when going for a drink of water. Two, the sleeves aren't long enough to provide adequate coverage like all of the above options (save for the Snuggie). [Low-priced bathrobe on Amazon]

You may already own one, in which case it's free

Doesn't cover your feet when lying down, doesn't cover your arms adequately

Here's what you should take away. Get the Slanket if you're serious about staying warm while lying on your couch, the Freedom Blanket if you're not. Nobody anywhere should buy the Snuggie. The Blankoat is for rich people who can afford Icelandic wool. Bathrobes do not work, no matter how much you wish them to.

Thank you, Snuggie, for raising blanket-with-sleeves awareness. Now get out.

The Amplifi is a utilitarian machine, but it has excellent sound for a budget iPod dock—probably because it's built upon a real wood case. And it's just inconceivable to me that you will do any better for $50. Just keep in mind that it cannot charge a (newer?) iPhone or an iPod touch (though it will play their music), which will probably be a dealbreaker for at least a few of you. [Buy via GearDiary]

The Energizer AA batteries are rated at 2200 mAh and the Duracells at 2000 mAh (that's milliampere-hours, a measurement of energy charge). But the Duracells last a lot longer.

I tested using an ICON LED flashlight, this solid aluminum model with high and low settings—the high setting killing a standard battery in about 3 hours. Through several trials using different cells, the Energizer lasted 2 to 3.5 hours, while the Duracells took anywhere from 5 to 6.5 hours to drain. Not an insignificant discrepancy, and contrary to the respective charge ratings on each.

The Duracell family of rechargeable batteries also come precharged out of the package, so that's very convenient. They've also got USB ports for charging USB gadgets. Both companies offer car and 15 minute chargers. The Duracell Mobile charger is my favorite simply because it has a car adapter and a wall adapter, and can charge 4 AA batteries or any USB device from those sources. (It does not do 15 minute charges, however, but I'd rather buy extras and have them ready to go.) The only real drawback is that it can't charge D cells and 9V batteries like the giant sized Energizer family charger can. Both kinds of batteries are NiMH. Duracell claims their batteries will hold their charge for a year in storage, while Energizer claims only 6 months.

Frills aside, the bottom line here is battery life, and Duracell has a lot more of it than Energizer.

OnTheSnow's Snow Reports
Using their own dataset, OnTheSnow's $2 app is my app of choice for checking the resort conditions, including time of update, trails and lifts open/total, a direct call number to mountains, weather, new snow depths over the last 3 days and base depth conditions. It looks nice, too. Includes conditions from resorts in EU, South and North America, and allows you to favorite 16 resorts and scroll through them with swipes. [iTunes Link]

Snow Report
The most simple app lets you favorite the same resorts listed in OnTheSnow's app, because it uses their data. The best feature in this no frills app is that it lists all the new snow depth from the last day from all resorts on a single page. You have to click through for surface type, and its $3 so not really recommended. Maybe if it was $.99 or free.
[iTunes Link]

REI Ski and Snowboard Report
I love REI, the outdoor gear co-op, but I hate their iPhone app made by Zumobi. You can only have 3 resorts on tap, it takes awhile to load, and 25% of the space is dedicated to shopping at REI and pushing Zumobi apps, none of which I feel inclined to do when I'm about to hit the slopes. The info is good — it has base and new snow over the last 3 days, lifts (but not run) data, and a link to weather and webcams. Same resort and dataset as OnTheSnow apps. It's worth it only because its free. But I will probably delete it soon because its ugliness offends me. [iTunes Link]

Snocator
It loads slow, but it has a few major things going for it: It is location aware, so can list your nearby resorts instantly, and can use the 3G's gps to pinpoint you on maps of resorts, so you can tell where you are in relation to trails. Clicking through gets you more than just base and new snow and temps: maps, mountain cams, weather, among others. They're building a friend finding feature, soon, too, they say. But a rather ugly app. Only US and Canada support and only 70 resorts are mapped down to the trails. Here's a warning: it costs $2.99, but expires end of the season. F-That! [iTunes Link]

Ski Lodge
OMG so beautiful. All the resorts are listed on one page (which I like) with base, temp, an icon for current weather, new snow over the last one or two days. It's also location aware, and can list your local mountains. Clicking through you get a detailed page with not only photos and websites and an option to view the place in the iPhone map app, but you can download official trail maps! They're highly detailed, so are about a quarter to half a megabyte each, so don't try this on anything but 3G or WiFi. (The good news is they cache for future reference.) But US and Canadian support and only metrics (CM and Centigrade) make it a potential deal buster for me. I also don't know where they're getting their data from. However, if they fix these minor beefs, I'm game. I think they can, so probably best to buy this NOW at $0.99, its current sale price. UPDATE: Settings for metric/standard measurements were in the iPhone system preferences page. Ski Lodge WINS. [iTunes Link]

SnoCountry
Just found this this morning, so I'll just give my brief impressions. Oh, it crashed. And thinks I don't have an internet connection now. Skip. I'll update if I get it working. But you should pass for now on this at 99 cents, or just try the free version which is limited to 2 favorite resorts. [iTunes Link]

We Ski - Ski Reporter
A simple app that uses snocountry's data, and is free. I like how it shows which resorts are open or closed with a green/red icon, but the font for new snow is small and hard to read. But it's free. [iTunes Link]

The Winners
If you've been following along, you probably guessed: Overall I recommend OnTheSnow's app. But if metric measurements don't bother you and you are limiting your skiing to the US and Canada, I'd recommend trying out Ski Lodge, especially at the current sale price.

I'm really looking forward to snowboarding this weekend.

To find out, we grabbed five HDTVs you can find on the street for under $900—some require a little snooping to find that price, but they're out there. We've got four LCDs and one plasma, with four of them were discount brands, while one was from a pretty top name brand. We're looking at a few things: are any sub-$900 TVs actually watchable? Are any lower-tier brands as good as big name brands? And finally, which TV delivers the most bang for the buck?

The HD Guru Gary Merson and Cnet senior editor for TVs David Katzmaier—two guys who know more about HDTVs than I know about my mom—graciously came by to help us calibrate the sets, in order to coax the absolute best picture out of them and give us some insights on what we should look for.

Here's how we set up the tests: Every set was calibrated with a THX Optimizer disc, with an emphasis on getting the darkest possible blacks while maintaining detail and acceptable brightness, since blacks are LCDs' big weakness, and the most likely attribute to suffer in cheaper sets—in more expensive sets, like Sony's LED-backlit Bravia XBR8, a lot of what you're paying for are deep, detailed blacks. From there, we tested the sets playoff style—two at a time with a 2-way HDMI splitter using The Dark Knight on Blu-ray as the test disc because it's a beautifully shot film with all kinds of perfect HDTV test scenes, and its excellent master makes it solid source material. Plus, it's the one Blu-ray movie everyone will own. And it's awesome. So, two may enter, only one may leave: The set that wins the showdown advances to the next round. Here are the five cheap HDTVS:

•Insiginia NS-LCD42HD-09 1080p LCD$800 (Note: We actually tested the 52-inch version because Best Buy didn't have the 42-inch model, but they assured that the guts are the same, so we assume that the results would be the same)
•Toshiba Regza 42RV535 1080p LCD $875-$930
•Vizio VO42LF 1080p LCD $830 MSRP-$880
•Vizio VP423 720p Plasma $830 MSRP
•Westinghouse VK-40F580D 1080p LCD$850-$899

Round 1: Toshiba Regza vs. Vizio LCD

It's pretty much a blow-out: The Regza wowed us against the Vizio with blacks that weren't just deeper, but more detailed with a much cleaner contrast. In night-time skyscraper shots, you could make out windows and other smaller details much more clearly. The Vizio's viewing angle was not nearly as wide as the Toshiba, and it had a more noticeable color distortion at a 45-degree angle. Color wise, the Vizio might be a bit more appealing, because even after calibration, they tend to be more saturated. The Toshiba had noticeable instances of showing shiny moire pattern when panning down a building that was essentially a set of verticals lines—in other words, they got kind of warped. But dialing down the sharpness, as David suggested, reduced this quite a bit. Both sets have below-par motion resolution, one of Gary's favorite picking points. If you watch text as the camera zooms by, it gets mad blurry, but as Gary himself admits, most people don't notice this kind of thing unless it's super egregious.

Winner: Toshiba

Round 2: Westinghouse vs. Vizio LCD

This was a really tough one. We went ahead and slotted the Westinghouse against the loser of the first LCD battle because we noticed it had a really obnoxious backlight issue during calibration: It's much brighter on the right than on the left, a problem that gets worse when you view it off-angle. The picture exaggerates how bad it is, but it's definitely noticeable.
That aside, it performed favorably against the Vizio. It has a better viewing angle with less distortion as you swing to the side. But it also has some of the moire problems we noticed with the Toshiba. Motion isn't fantastic on either set. What did the Vizio in was how badly it crushed the blacks vs. the Westinghouse. In other words, at the brightest black level we considered acceptable, a lot of detail was lost. Gary pointed out the problem there—which you'll see again in the plasma: Its settings don't have fine enough gradations for picture fine-tuning. It got brighter or darker in huge leaps, preventing us from finding a happy medium with solid blacks that have detail. So, as we said, it's a tough one. If the Westinghouse didn't have the backlight issue, it would've won hands down.

Winner: Tie.

Round 3: Vizio vs. Insignia
The Insignia is the worst set we tested. It's just bad. The blacks are really crushed, the details are mushy, the colors don't pop—we even tried tweaking post-calibration to bring them up, but it just made them look unnatural—and the few aspect-ratio options all resulted in a noticeable portion of the picture being cut off, even as it displayed perfectly on the Vizio LCD next to it. If you buy the 42-inch version for $800, you're getting hosed. If you buy the $1500 52-inch version, you're just screwed. It made the Vizio, the loser in previous rounds, look almost amazing.

Winner: Vizio

Final Round: Toshiba Regza vs. Vizio Plasma
This was the hardest fought battle of the competition. We gave the plasma a bye to skip to the final, because we rightly figured plasma's inherently better picture qualities suited it for a boss battle, the Sagat to LCD's Ryu.

One of plasma's greatest strengths against LCDs is that, unless you're talking about super-high-end LED-backlit LCD, plasma will beat LCDs with darker, richer blacks every time, simply because of the technological differences. So it was stunning that the Vizio essentially forfeited this advantage by crushing them. Hard. They were darker than the Toshiba's, obviously, but bringing the brightness up to a level where you could make out the same dark details seen on the Toshiba without washing out the picture was impossible because of the controls. Gary says he routinely advocates that TV makers build in finer gradations in adjustments, and in this case, the ability of the user to more finely adjust the picture. Better controls would have been to the Vizio plasma's tremendous advantage.

The Vizio plasma maintained its other inherent strengths though. It had zero viewing-angle trouble, looking essentially perfect from all angles. Motion was better, with more details preserved, in signs for instance, as the camera passed by. Like the other Vizio set, the LCD, colors were verrry saturated, especially out of the box, with a lot of red in the picture. Calibration helped, but the Toshiba still seemed to provide more accurate color. A few people in our office who passed by said they preferred the extra pop of the Vizio plasma's color and saturation, so this might come down to a personal preference.

At our viewing distance of six feet, the difference in detail between the 1080p LCD and 720p plasma was noticeable, particularly when we examined facial details and hair. The 1080p Toshiba was, well, more detailed than the 720p Vizio plasma. From nine or more feet away though, most viewers would be hard pressed to discern a difference in screen resolution.

In the end, we, along with Gary, came down on the side of the Toshiba. Its picture has a clarity that the plasma didn't quite touch, both in dark scenes and its colors were truer to life. Overall, we feel it's the best buy for the money, though it will take a bit of gumshoeing to buy it for under $900.

Winner: Toshiba

Other Considerations
There are a few larger points to take one. First and foremost, any of these sets will be more amazing than your standard-def set, and none of them, except perhaps the Insignia, are a total waste of money. Another important point, one that David stresses, is that we were able to make the picture on each one worlds better than it was out of the box—if you calibrate your TV, you will get more out of it, no matter who you buy it from. Finally, Gary notes that the lower-tiered brands can have worse warranty and customer support terms, so while the Toshiba might run the highest price initially, its overall cost of ownership may possibly be lower. If you haven't bought an HDTV yet, we hope this little test-bed has served you in making this very important step.

Before we get started, a quick note on the last Windows Mobile test, and what we're doing differently here. Some of you guys complained that the Samsung Epix was a crappy, slow piece of hardware. However, according to Laptop, its 624MHz Marvell processor and 128MB RAM are specs that just about on par with the three phones clamored for in the comments. Still, you get your wish: Here we lined up the Sony Xperia X1, HTC Touch Pro (AT&T's Fuze) and the Samsung Omnia, and put them through the same tests. On the Epix, for Opera testing, we went with v8.65 in order to not use beta software. (Opera's own site lists 8.65 as its most recent stable version.) Here, all the Windows Mobile hardware we've added to the test have Opera 9.5 built right in.

So without further explanation, here are the numbers—time to load the page, and how accurately it was rendered using Firefox 3 as a reference:

As you can see, the Xperia, Fuze and Omnia are about on par with the Epix when it comes to IE (they suck!), though Opera Mobile 9.5 obviously crushes 8.65 when it comes to speed and competency. I asked Opera why I saw the performance differences between the three phones and they admitted that there are some tweaks, which "are mainly with making our browser work best on the different devices." So, let's look at the new phones and see how they rate against the Epix:

Xperia X1
You probably noticed in the chart that load times are longer over Wi-Fi in a few spots. This is because it would randomly hang, not loading data, for up to 20 seconds. The Xperia was aggravating because its touchscreen seemed to be the least responsive of the three, making navigation a pain, though its optical mouse came in handy for zipping around pages, and it worked better than the Omnia's. One other annoyance is that Opera blocked its virtual symbol keyboard from coming up, which made it hard to enter one of the URLs. It falls smack in the middle.

HTC Fuze
I had the smoothest overall experience with the Fuze, and would be my closest thing to a recommendation. Its touchscreen was responsive, which made double tapping to zoom and pan around pages fast and mostly intuitive in Opera Mobile. Having symbols mapped directly to the keyboard is a big time saver while punching in URLs. This is good, since it seemed to be the slowest of the three, both over 3G and Wi-Fi. Sluggishness aside, the web experience is markedly more usable than the other two new phones.

Omnia
The all-touchscreen Omnia, despite being the fastest over 3G in a number of cases, was a nightmare. During the 3G tests, it managed to crash Opera on three of the six pages tested. I also had tons of Wi-Fi issues. Eventually I was told by Samsung that VZAppZone, Verizon's pseudo-app store that's all but pre-installed on the phone (after you fire it up, it installs), was breaking the Wi-Fi. (On the Epix in the previous showdown, I was later told by Samsung that installing Opera is what broke Wi-Fi for IE. So, uh, Samsung maybe...oh, whatever.) Also, its portrait keyboard has keys so ridiculously skinny, they'd remind anorexic models not to eat. When Opera did work and a page was actually loaded, it was the snappiest at moving around the page. But overall, yeesh.

Conclusion
So where would I slot Opera 9.5 overall if I were to slide it into the previous browser battle? I'd give it a B-. It has a great, desktop-y UI (though I wish a few of the buttons were a smidge bigger, taking into consideration fat fingers and the inadequacies of resistive touchscreens). It's really competent, and it has a solid zoom metaphor, with the double taps usually working like a charm. And it has extras like tabs. But, and this is the big but, it still doesn't feel quite as smooth or instantly responsive as Safari or Android's browser. It's clearly an OS issue, though, not an Opera one.

Speaking to that, testing these three phones actually took longer than it did to test the six in the original Battlemodo, entirely because of how much wrestling I had to do with Windows Mobile. I've used close to a dozen Windows Mobile devices over the last year, and it's still a bitch.

If you haven't noticed in our reviews of Windows Mobile phones, we've basically ceased comparing to them anything but other WM phones, in a wishful attempt at dulling our totally appropriate disdain for the OS, lest the review essentially turn into one giant bitchfest. They're clearly off in their own world of performance and function.

Even ceding the point that Windows Mobile is somehow more functional than the iPhone or Android, it's like comparing one of those 100-in-1 kitchen gadgets that'll blend, slice, dice, toast, saute, braise, set the table, clean the dishes AND suck you off while it's doing all that to a Waring MX1000 blender. It doesn't matter how much the all-in-one gadget can technically do if you can't figure out how to use it, and it performs every task with only mediocre results.

If the iPhone ran half as poorly as Windows Mobile phones, Apple haters would (rightfully) scream as loudly as Apple fanboys do about Vista. If any BlackBerry was as much of a flustercuck, reviewers would trash the crap out of it. I'm sorry, but at this point, any apologist left defending Windows Mobile is either delusional or full of crap—either way, not worth listening to.

I won't touch another Windows Mobile phone until WM7 or at least 6.5, no matter how awesome the hardware looks. Call me when it runs Android.

Keep in mind, though two of these list for $400, most cap at $250, and they're all toys. They don't have a heck of a lot of AI, though they do have an impressive array of user-triggered functionality and some goofy "spontaneous" behavior. You ain't getting C-3PO no matter where you turn, not even R2-D2, but there's something cool about each of these:

Mr. Personality - $245
This is one weird bot. Turn it on and it will act like one of the many "personalities" you have downloaded to it, telling jokes, reading fortunes and interacting with you along the way.
Pros: 3-legged, multi-directional wheels move in all directions easily; multiple personalities technically mean relief from boredom; depending on the personality, it'll call you "master"
Cons: The default personality is very annoying; not enough functions to stay entertaining; obstacle sensors are too sensitive
Worth the money? Doubtful. Depending on the power of the development community some fun personalities may emerge, but they are severely limited by the options on the remote.

Rovio - $240
Maybe the most technical bot of the bunch, the Rovio is a webcam-on-wheels controlled via an internet interface. With some smart maneuvering, you can snoop on your daughter's date in the living room from the privacy of your bedroom. Or, if you have your own domain server, you can control the Rovio from anywhere in the world. It has major limitations, like an awful camera and outside of Internet Explorer you can't hear any sound, but its API allows customization so there's true potential that has yet to be reached.
Pros: Good looking, highly interactive UI; like Roomba, can return to its base to charge itself when batteries run low
Cons: Seriously shitty webcam; setting it up on a Mac is torture; if you bought this thinking you can easily control it from anywhere in the world for free you're SOL
Worth the money? Not yet. The Rovio is a great concept, but you'll be much better off waiting for version 2.0... or maybe 3.0.

Femisapien - $50
She's the female companion to Robosapien, and she'll blow you kisses, dance to music or speak in her very own gibberish language with you. She doesn't do anything very fancy, but she's the only girl here, so she looks better doing it than most of these other bots.
Pros: Fairly interactive; relatively inexpensive; giant robot boobs
Cons: Command system very complicated; routines aren't all that exciting
Worth the money? Only if your name is Zoltan.

iDance WALL-E - $53
The cheapest WALL-E of the crop, and a less expensive alternative to the Rolly, iDance WALL-E dances—if you can call it that—to the beat of your MP3 player, or his own built in sound bank. A one-trick pony, but I'll be damned if it isn't an adorable trick.
Pros: Look at that little bot—how could you not love it? His dancing is fun and silly, and he couldn't be any easier to use
Cons: The speaker sucks; WALL-E's moves don't match the music closely like Rolly's do
Worth the money? When we first saw the iDance WALL-E, he was only supposed to cost $25 bucks. But now, at twice the price, it's definitely one bot we can live without.

Ultimate WALL-E - $400
The name says it all: The biggest WALL-E of the litter is ultimate in every way. It will follow you around, dance to your music, or perform a pre-programmed series of movements and noises. Best of all, it uses a really interesting controller that can move WALL-E using a touchpad.
Pros: Big enough to seem realistic; a ton of features so it won't bore quickly
Cons: Expensive; controller has too many buttons that don't do very much; did I mention "expensive"?
Worth the money? Who has that kind of money to spend on a robot? Especially one that isn't programmable, upgradable or all that intelligent. It should've stayed at its original $190 price.

U-Command WALL-E - $130
U-Command WALL-E is the Baby Bear of the WALL-E bunch, just right in almost every way. Its controls are comparable to the Ultimate WALL-E, it can move, dance and make noises on your command, all for a much more attractive price.
Pros: Essentially a "lite" version of the Ultimate WALL-E for less than half the price, versatile controls allow for repeated play without getting too stale
Cons: The only WALL-E without a line-in speaker for MP3s; not as technically impressive as other over-$100 contenders
Worth the money? Totally. Even at $130, it's one of the cheaper robots on the list, and the most fun right out of the box.

Sony Rolly - $400
At first glance, the Rolly doesn't fit the traditional robot mold. The egg-shaped MP3 speaker looks like it's just another smooth white gadget with an "i" in front of its name. But when you see it in action, it's one of the most exciting little toys around, dancing wildly and putting on a light show to the rhythm of the songs coming from its body.
Pros: Great speaker; customizes dance/light shows to your own songs; amusing even after repeated viewings
Cons: Can't customize songs on a Mac (but you can on a Vaio!); can't jump to a specific track on the device
Worth the money? Surprisingly, it might well be. I can't put my finger on it exactly, but I get a huge kick out of the Rolly. The fluidity and snazziness of the movement and lights explains the steep cost.

D-Rex - $150
The scariest bot of the lot, D-Rex growls, attacks and lets out the sounds of bodily functions from every orifice. Rubbery, lizard-like skin and huge, moving yellow eyes add to the effect.
Pros: Creepy; fun to play with (for a while); the coolest looking of all the robots
Cons: Doesn't do too enough; may scare little kids (or is that a "pro"?)
Worth the money? Tough call. D-Rex is probably the biggest robot here and isn't that expensive for being so big. But since it only performs a few functions, don't expect anything close to a Pleo.

Elmo Live - $60
What's left to say about the newest version of every kid's favorite fuzzy friend? It raps, dances and tells stories and jokes, all in the body of the most popular Muppet of a generation.
Pros: Buy this for your kids and they will love you forever.
Cons: Don't buy this for your kids and they will hate you forever; also, the song "Elmo's Gotta Get On Up" has been stuck in my head for damn near six months
Worth the money? Do you have a choice? At $60 it's a steal compared to most of these other bots... but good luck finding it.

And now...
The Winner: U-Command WALL-E. One of the few bots here that is fun to play with more than once, this WALL-E is cute, interactive and kids can enjoy him without driving parents crazy by playing the same thing over and over—*cough*Elmo Live*cough*.

Runner-Up: Rolly. I can't stop looking at this little dude. His syncopated dancing demands attention from anyone who sees him, and he is the bot that performs his most essential function—playing music through a speaker—the best.

Honorable Mention: iDance WALL-E and Ultimate WALL-E. I like you both a lot, but why did you get me all excited with your decent prices, and then double them when I wasn't looking? Not cool guys.

The Loser: Rovio. No offense here Rovio, we really like the though of a remote controlled, customizable webcam and we think you will get it right one day, but right now you cost too much and the most important feature you have—your webcam—is absolutely terrible.

Now that Netflix's Watch Instantly is on both TiVo and Microsoft's Xbox 360, the natural question for you, Señor and Señorita tech enthusiast, is which one of these two should YOU use to watch Netflix on. The answer, surprisingly, is whichever one you want. Updated 2:33 PM EST

Here's how they both compared in video quality, navigation (getting around inside a movie), and general UI experience (queueing up movies to watch).

• Video Quality: Tie. We got up to the maximum bars of quality on both TiVo and Xbox 360 for an HD movie, which meant Netflix was streaming the same file content to us on either device. This boiled the visual quality down to each box's respective rendering capability, and it was pretty impossible to tell the difference between the two. The tie means that in terms of quality, you're fine going off with either machine. When watching one of the couple hundred of HD movies on Netflix, you'll get a slightly better than DVD quality experience no matter which one you go with. (Strangely enough, we got one bar down from maximum quality while streaming an SD movie, even though we were able to hit max on an HD one.)

• Navigation: Tie. The Xbox 360 still has the problem of not being able to fast forward or rewind, but only jump around in 10(ish) minute increments. TiVo, on the other hand, CAN fast forward and rewind through the entire movie. There's a lower-resolution video stream that pops up while seeking to show you where you are in the movie, minimizing guesswork as best it can. Unfortunately, only the 7 second skip back feature was implemented to fine-tune your FFing and RWing; the 30 second skip forward forwards you all the way to the end of the movie.

Update The Xbox 360 actually can fast forward, but not in HD titles (the ones we tested, including The Thing). SD titles seek by way of thumbnailed pictures, slightly different from the way TiVo does it. Thanks to the commenters that pointed this out. They also say that some HD content is able to be FF'ed through.

• General UI: Tie. You have to add titles from your browser on your computer for both the boxes, since neither one has an on-board Netflix browsing system. The Xbox 360 does have a slightly nicer way of presenting each show, but nothing that should sway you one way or the other.

What these ratings mean for you is that you're fine watching Netflix on whichever device you currently have, and shouldn't feel the need to go out and buy the other one. If you've got TiVo and Xbox 360, we'd prefer TiVo's implementation because of the fast forwarding and rewinding feature.

There are a lot of $200-$300 point and shoots on the market right now, and there's no way the test display at Best Buy is going to tell you which to buy. How is elbowing other shoppers while analyzing your hasty snapshots on a 3-inch, low-rez screen going to help you make an informed buying decision?

Instead, I put six of the most popular point-and-shoots on the market through some major testing. Then I decided on the one that you should buy without the hedging BS.

Meet our competitors

Each of these compact point and shoots features optical image stabilization and is priced around $250:

Samsung TL9 ($280)

10MP, 5X zoom, 2.7-inch LCD

Canon SD790 ($250)

10MP, 3X zoom, 3-inch LCD

Nikon S560 ($250)

10MP, 5X zoom, 2.7-inch LCD

Sony W170 ($250)

10MP, 5x zoom, 2.7-inch LCD

Panasonic FS20 ($250)

10MP, 4x zoom, 3-inch LCD

Kodak M1093 ($200)

10MP, 3x zoom, 3-inch LCD

Studio Shoot

The shots inside were captured under diffused sunlight in full auto mode at max (10MP) resolution. I won't say that it wasn't an extreme disappointment that only one camera, the Kodak, was able to shoot with proper white balance in this situation and offer us colors as they really look (you'll have to trust me on this one). The other cameras compensated poorly, possibly metering the diffused light as tungsten light, and producing a fairly cold image because of it.



Other than the color, you can't make out much from the wide shots. But if you blow the images up to their native resolution, there are huge differences. Even in the web-compressed images here, it's obvious that Canon captures the most detail:

It's basically a tie between Sony and Kodak for second place. Here's what Kodak looks like:

And then there's a pretty hard drop in quality. Panasonic comes in a solid last place here:

You can fix the color by manually choosing a smarter white balance (color temperature), or adjusting the balance in post. But you can't get the texture of those cookies back. Big win for Canon here.

Motion Photography

It's no secret that many point-and-shoots are horrible for capturing the spontaneity of a child or pet, in part due to focus lag and often an additional wait before the shot is actually taken. While DSLRs are the best solution, I wanted to see if any point-and-shoots could rise to the challenge of capturing some action.

So I put them to the test on a Chicago side street where cars get up to 15-20mph. After repeat testing on each model, once again, we had a clear winner. Trouble is, it's Panasonic, loser of the resolution match! Panasonic features more shooting settings than any of its competitors, so my guess is that they spent a lot of time on optimizing at least this particular preset optimization.



The remainder of the competition was fairly close, and I can't say that even the Panasonic model will capture any incredible sports action photography. But I will say that the Nikon and Samsung seemed to lag more than the others from button press to shot acquisition. They both tended to have the blurriest shots as well. Here's a typical result of the Nikon:

Video

Like high-speed photography, point-and-shoots aren't fundamentally designed for video. But then again, since they all shoot video, people have begun using them more frequently than they ever used their bigger, more specialized camcorders, so a test was necessary.

After playing some billiards, I found Canon's image, though not technically the highest resolution, to be the best. A point as well to its realistic sound capture of ball on ball action.



Second place goes to Kodak. Even though you can make out a great deal of grain on the table's felt surface, it also captures a relatively sharp, pleasantly contrasty image when you examine each ball.



Last place? This title is, once again, reserved for Panasonic. For some reason, the camera interpreted the red table as some sort of blurry pastel. And the sound was a like a fast food drive-through speaker.

Flash

We've all been there. It's late. A friend is in town. Your cameraphone can't hope to capture a shot in your drunken stupor, especially as you're hanging out in a smokey bar. I'd loved to have recreated this scene precisely in its brilliance, but instead I opted to take pictures of my cat with the lights low.



It's an unfair challenge for a small-lensed, small-chipped camera to capture a decent picture in low light, even with flash as a crutch, but the Sony did as well as I could have hoped, illuminating my subject and her background alike, lacking the hotspots of most flash photography.

The other cameras were predictably mediocre, but the absolute worst at handling flash had to be the Nikon. Not only did it give my cat a washed-out glow, but it didn't even consider properly exposing that obnoxious pile of boxes behind her. The shame.

Weird Features and Gimmicks

None of these items should probably determine your buying decision, but I wanted to mention a few of the more...interesting features of the cameras. The Samsung TL9 has a set of snazzy analog dials on top that display battery life and remaining memory like a car's dash—plus it plays music and movies. The Panasonic has categorized an Intelligent Auto Mode that gives a lazy but informed user a nice way to tell the camera, "hey, you may need to boost the ISO," without messing with any other controls or gimmicky menus. The Nikon will warn you if a subject's eyes are closed. The Canon has ditched the standard up, down, left, right menu dial for a spinning ring...that's bold, if not always intuitive. And Sony will shoot in 16x9 or stretch images to that ratio for quick HDTV slideshows. Plus, smile/face detectors are everywhere. How did we ever take pictures before boxes enclosed a loved one's face?

So What Should You Buy?

After all my testing, I'd recommend the Canon SD790. Sure, it didn't win every category, but it won the one that counts most—detail. It came first in the video category. And it never ever fell flat on its face.

Maybe this conclusion sounds a little too clinical to you. If so, let me say that there are less tangible elements I appreciate about the Canon SD790: It includes the best built battery charger and it is the only model tested to sync with a computer via mini USB (as opposed to some annoying proprietary cable or dock). On top of those, it always seems quick to capture a shot after I pressed for the shutter, though it's still not nearly as responsive as my prosumer DSLR. The one thing I'd ask for in this camera is a more powerful zoom lens (something you can get in the Canon line for a few bucks more).

If you know an extreme technophobe, you might tell them about the Kodak M1093. It offers the simplest shooting experience with one button to choose a photo mode, one button for flash toggling and one button to actually take a picture. Digital cameras don't get simpler than that, and I have to admit, as the cheapest model in this roundup ($200), with the least techie brand name, it performs better than I expected—though it does have a propensity to bump the ISO, producing some unwanted noise.

But as for the Sony W170, while it does feature the widest angle lens with 5x of zoom, it's clunky in the hand and rarely brilliant in quality. As for the Nikon S560, it takes mediocre shots. The Panasonic FS20 is inconsistent—bordering on horrendous much of the time—and features a small screen and a dated interface. Meanwhile, the Samsung TL9 just completely fails to impress me.

So go ahead, pick up the Canon. It seems the company's overwhelming market share is well deserved. Or don't. I won't lose sleep or anything. Just don't come crying to me when all your pictures look like crap.

Before 2007, using the internet on your phone would make you want to kill yourself, if you were dumb enough to believe the crap splattered across that tiny screen even was the "internet." But the combination of increased bandwidth and better mobile software means that more phones really are promising to deliver the real internet, in living color. We tested eight different browsers, and while some put smiles on our faces, others proved that rendering HTML correctly is a far cry from actually giving you an awesome web experience. And what about 3G vs. Wi-Fi? Everything the carriers have told you is a lie. This is the true state of mobile web.

Before we give you the rundown of each of the most prevalent mobile browsers, here's how they all stacked up in a timed test of how fast (and how well) they could render websites, chosen for their diversity and particular challenges:

CHART KEY: Number value is time for complete page load in seconds; page rendering is rated from "Fail" to "Excellent" for each; and the color (red, yellow, green) indicates overall performance taking into account both speed and rendering accuracy: Green = good overall, Red = fail overall.

This second chart runs through the same procedure with all of the phones that had Wi-Fi options:

It's a pretty daunting pile of numbers, so let's break it down into standard prose, rating each browser as we go:
Android
A fast, smart mobile browser based on WebKit. It tackles most sites with (almost) unrivaled grace and speed. Panning and zooming could be smoother and more responsive, but with a ton of options for getting around a page—various touch methods and the trackball—few sites will be challenging to zip around. The only thing we really miss is multitouch for zoom. Buttons just aren't a very elegant or precise solution, and while the whole-page magnifying glass technique is nice, we'd love something a bit more refined. Overall though, we're happy campers on Android's browser. Grade: B+

BlackBerry Bold
Leaps and bounds ahead of the browser BlackBerry users have put up with for years, it renders most pages correctly, even if scripts give it a conniption fit (hence its long load times for Wikipedia and the WSJ). It uses the standard "click to zoom" metaphor, which works well enough, though getting around a page with the trackball can be kind of a work out for you thumb. The Column View, which squeezes a whole page into a single column, is fairly convenient and makes it easier to get around wider pages, even if it doesn't work equally as well on every site (nice on Wikipedia, ugly on Giz). Hopefully they fix the script performance in the Storm, which is using an updated version of the Bold's browser. We humbly suggest they ditch their home-baked browser for one based on WebKit, which would help out there. Grade: B-/C+

iPhone
What can we say? It's still got the best mobile browser around. It crushes basically everything but Android's browser—which is also based on WebKit—in speed and outclasses its still classy brother-from-another-mother (and everyone else) with the ease and elegance of its multitouch zooming. Some pages still give it fits, and it's missing Flash support, but it really does deliver an unrivaled mobile web experience. We love it, but make no mistake we're eagerly waiting for something better. (Mobile Firefox? Is it you?) Grade: A-

Nokia E71 Symbian S60
Hey look, another web browser with WebKit guts! It doesn't perform quite as well as Android's or iPhone's iteration where speed or render accuracy are concerned (can any Symbian nuts explain why?), but it does a serviceable job. The big thing it has going for it is Flash Lite 3 support, though performance there is kinda assy and memory intensive. Navigation is tougher with the E71's d-pad than with a trackball, but the whole page magnifying approach makes it easy enough to get around (too bad you have to dig through a menu or two to get to it). Not bad, but short of excellent. Grade: B-

Internet Explorer on Windows Mobile
Jesus Christ. This is a joke, right Microsoft? Hahaha. No really, this is the worst smartphone browser on the planet. It couldn't render its way out of an ASCII-art paper bag. It totally screwed up every single test page, except for Wikipedia, which it only mostly screwed up. Good luck navigating a page if you're granted the miraculous occurrence of it being rendered in a state that's usable. Grade: F-

Opera Mobile on Windows Mobile
Microsoft's own intentions notwithstanding, you can use the internet on a Windows Mobile phone. You just need Opera Mobile. It's kind of hobbled by Windows Mobile's assy performance, but it usually gets the job done. Not as quickly or always as accurately as its WebKit rivals, but it's definitely usable. Interestingly, it benefits more from the extra bandwidth offered by Wi-Fi than the WebKit browsers do. Menu-based zoom is annoying and imprecise. Touch-based panning worked okay, though a little laggy. We mostly navigated with the Samsung Epix's optical cursor, which worked pretty well, somewhere in between a d-pad and a trackball. Grade: C

Sprint Instinct
Holy CRAP. This is not the painfully lousy browser the Instinct shipped with not by a long shot. The original was slow and fairly feeble, even if it was the head of its (dumbphone) class. The new 1.1 browser really is a life-changing upgrade. It suffers in the chart because it's much slower than most other browsers, and zooming is still clumsy, but once the page loads, it's much smoother to pan and actually move around. I got a bit annoyed that it lied about pageload time, hanging at the last 2 percent of the status bar for half the load, but it usually gets things right. This is the best non-smartphone browser you can get. Grade: C+

LG Dare
Like the Instinct, the Dare proves you can actually get a usable browsing experience on a feature phone. It's a little nimbler at loading pages than its Korean blood rival, but the reason it ultimately posts lower marks than the Instinct is that it buckles way more easily under a moderate to heavy pageload, turning it into an unresponsive picture of the website you were trying to look at. Still, it renders most pages fairly accurately, and we like the sliding zoom scroll bar, at least in theory, since it seems like an intuitive way to deal with the zoom issue. Unfortunately, it works more like a glorified pair of buttons. (Note: I don't think the speed was actually a piddly 300 Kbps—I think it just had a problem dealing with DSL Reports' mobile speedtest, even though it's text-based for the dumbest of phones.) Grade: C

Methodology
We tested every browser only using the full—not mobile—versions of selected sites, over 3G and, whenever possible, Wi-Fi. All scripts were turned on, and the cache was cleared before each round of testing. We took the average of a series of five sequential speedtests to give us an idea of the bandwidth we're dealing with, and timed how long it took to completely load a site according to each browser's progress bar. We assessed whether or not it rendered the page correctly, on a scale ranging from "excellent" to "good" (a couple things out of place) to "utter fail" (I've seen prettier train wrecks).

A few additional issues to note: Internet Explorer would not work on Wi-Fi. Opera yes, our Skyfire install, yes, Internet Exploder, no. (Samsung suggested it might be because of Opera.) We didn't pursue the matter because of how IE did in the 3G tests: A page that looks like a pile of blended dog poo is going to look like that no matter how much faster it loads. Sprint's updated Instinct and Verizon's Dare, which we included as best-of-class examples of feature phones, don't have Wi-Fi capabilities. We left out Opera Mini and Skyfire, since they both leave most of the hard work to servers which essentially spit out a kind of image file—besides, we don't think this kind of internet-by-proxy browser will be around for much longer.

The Big Gulp
Remember our mantra it's code that counts? It's true for mobile internet too. An awesome browser can make up for a mediocre network, but a terrible browser delivers a crappy experience no matter how great the network is. It's all about the browser. As it stands, WebKit is clearly the best thing going, but even then, software implementation matters, or Nokia would deliver as good a performance as Android and iPhone. Proving the point, it's striking how little Wi-Fi actually boosted speed beyond 3G—hell, WebKit browsers on 3G slid past some of the others that were running on Wi-Fi.

Another thing to note is that the zoom metaphor is a tricky thing to nail. Buttons are too brutish, the magnifying glass is imprecise. Multitouch seems to be the best way to handle zooming in and out in a way that's intuitive and precise. Hopefully we'll see other developers start to use multitouch interfaces in touchscreen phones (*cough*ANDROID!*cough*).

As much as this blow-by-blow battlemodo shows you all the problems we encountered, the big picture is that really, mobile web is pretty dandy right now, and getting dandier. It could be more reliable, faster, maybe a little more versatile, but for the most part, yes, you can access the internet on your phone. Compared to just two years ago, that's really saying something. We can't wait to see what it'll look like in two years. Maybe Internet Exploder will actually work. Nah, that's a little too sci-fi.

A few notes on testing and results: As with the earphone Battlemodo, my testing methods were not scientific but practical: The audio test was a sonically diverse playlist of reasonable bitrate MP3s, the isolation test was a ride on a San Francisco city bus followed by white noise on a home stereo, and the mic testing was done by, well, making a few calls.

Each headset gets its own conclusion, including a summary of the circumstances for which the set is best suited. One with fantastic sound might cut off the noises of traffic, making it useless for biking. Another might be great for running, but not pick up nuanced tones of your obsessively ripped lossless audio collection. Apple's own headset serves as a baseline—it doesn't have its own section, but it is referred to where appropriate. At the $70 mark and above, it tends to be outclassed. Because of the varying needs of headset users, there's no one Battlemodo champion, but some are definitely better than others. Here are the results:

Altec Lansing Earclip-S - $40
One of two earclip-style headsets we tested, these earphones don't offer much over the standard headset besides a secure fit. Music playback is as clear as on Apple's buds, but without any of the bass. They're not very attractive and feel cheap and flimsy. The sticky rubber sheathing can sort of grab your hair, if you're bushy around the ears, though it does help the clips stay put. There are two controllers, one on the mic and one down the wire for with volume and mic shutoff. The volume controller is sensitive and gets inadvertently adjusted pretty often, and the call/play button can be hard to find in a hurry. The mic added an annoying static sound to voices.
Conclusion: Recommend for exercise duty, where they would at least stay in place and sound OK. They're water resistant too, but at this price you may not be too paranoid about sweat murdering your headset anyway. They look, feel and sound as cheap as they are.

Shure Music Phone Adapter - $50
Shure's solution to the headset problem is to sell you the earphones and microphone separately. Pairing with the fantastic SE110s will make for a fantastic combo, but the combo will set you back almost $150 total. Good thing you can use this adapter with any earphones. Voice quality is high, even in situations with ambient noise, but extras are not; there is just one button and gator clip.
Conclusion: If you like your current earphones, keep them and buy the Shure. Ideally, your earphones will have a short cable, otherwise you'll have to clip the mic to your shirt and let the excess cable dangle.

Maximo iMetal iP-HS1 - $70
Music is richer and clearer than with Apple's headset, but not by much. These fit like traditional earbuds, and are on the large side in both look and diameter. They're solid, but could be perceived as a little garish on account of the chrome finish. The single, large low-hanging button works well and is the easiest of the lot to quickly press. The very capable mic is positioned and designed intelligently, and is the best we tested.
Conclusion: A solid replacement for lost or broken Apple headsets for people who have big, weird ear holes and don't care about isolation.

Maximo iMetal iP-HS2 Isolators - $70
These are the in-ear version of the iMetal. Sound is slighly bottom-heavy but the rest of the range is well-represented. The tips are comfortable, and provide surprisingly good isolation. Walking doesn't cause any annoying thumping from the cables, which is often a problem for similar in-ears. The single call/play button is identical to that on the other Maximo, as is the superb mic.
Conclusion: The best value and a recommended purchase, provided you want something that shuts you off from the outside world.

V-Moda Vibe Duo - $100
These in-ears are about as bassy as they are stylish. This results in a slightly muddy sound but they're good for casual listening. Isolation is fair, but you hear significant cable rustling when you walk with them. The tip choices are smart and comfortable for a wide range of ear holes. The single control button is on the mic, easy to find. The mic delivers clear, intelligible sound at a moderate volume.
Conclusion: Too expensive for what you get, but look great and are as tough as nails.

Sennheiser MM50-ip - $100
Sound is comparable to iMetal isolators in terms of balance and quality, but they handle high volumes and bassier songs a bit better. Senn gives us plenty of tip choices, most of which are cushy and easy on the ear holes, but with a low to fair amount of isolation. There is some degree of cable noise when walking, but it's not too intrusive. The mic has a flush call button that can be hard to feel, but luckily sits directly opposite an easy-to-fumble-for indention at the mic's grille. Mic quality is above average, but not very loud. Unequal cable length after the split drives some people nuts, but works fine.
Conclusion: If they were a few dollars cheaper they would be much, much more appealing. Without a significant performance advantage, they lose out to the cheaper Maximo iMetals.

AirDrives Interactive Headset - $100
Taking a totally different approach than just about anyone else, the AirDrives are earclips with drivers that sort of float above your ears. The logic is that they won't interfere with ambient noises and permit all-day listening without fear of ear damage. Achieving a proper fit (or hover, I guess) was difficult on my freakish baby ears, but once you bend them correctly they don't budge. The listening sensation is akin to being in a room with the stereo on, so it's easy to hear what is going on around you. Voices sound fine, but music is robbed of any low to lower-mid frequencies, which I expect would be a dealbreaker for many.
Conclusion: Good for work or exercise where awareness of your surroundings is key, but that's it. Sound is just too poor to recommend for music lovers.

Etymotics hf2 - $180
Excellent, balanced sound, featuring the same audio hardware as the hf5's that won their category in our earphone Battlemodo. These won't win over beat junkies, but are truly in a different class than anything else reviewed here in terms of sound quality—and price. Putting these guys in usually means getting a deep, full seal against your ear canals, which can be offputting to some people, but rewarding to others. Isolation is very strong, and cable rustling is minimal. The mic setup is a one-button affair, but that button is easy to find.
Conclusion: Only buy these if you're an audiophile who, for some reason, doesn't already have a pair of decent earphones. Otherwise, just grab the Shures.

We tried to cover the bases here, but this list of headsets is by no means comprehensive—if you want to add anything from your personal experience, please share it in the comments. Special thanks goes to Clay Hane for testing assistance.

First, some ground rules on the scope and purpose of my testing:

The headphones tested are all what you'd consider "upgrades" rather than "replacements" for the crap headphones that came with your MP3 player. While I capped pricing at $200, my "cheapest" pair started at around $40. The three tiers are under $100, $100-$150, and $150-$200.

The most practical measure of sound quality is to just sit and listen. I focused on in-ear headphones because they are built not just to jam a driver right next to your ear, but to block outside noise. It's simple: less ambient noise = better experience.

In the spirit of cutting out the vaguely scientific marketing jargon, my tests were unscientific, but consistent across the board and based on real-world situations. The methodology was simple: a current-gen iPod, a sonically diverse playlist of music and, for isolation testing, a seat on the 14 bus in San Francisco, then some time next to a white noise machine.

With so much of the earphone inside of your ear, rustling of the cable can cause some serious noise. If the cable isn't properly buffered from the earphone, the deep, annoying shuffling can interfere your music when you try to walk or turn your head. That's why I made note of "cable noise"—this isn't to suggest there was some kind of buzz or white noise from the cable itself.

The Losers: This is a tricky price point, as some stock earbuds (Apple, Sony) are actually pretty good. Slapping a rubber cuff on a half-baked product doesn't justify a price of $50+. In the case of Apple's in-ears and the CX300s, you aren't really experiencing a different class of audio than with stock buds, though there is a marked improvement. The CX500s put on a good show for bass junkies, but that's about it. Creative has a nice product with a great price, but it just can't measure up to the metro.fi on the performance front.

$100-$150
The Winner: Shure SE110 This price point offers the highest price to performance ratio, and the SE110 is the best of the lot. If you can get over the deep penetration and the over-ear looping, you'll find that the SE110s are comfortable, block out plenty of ambient noise and most importantly produce stunning, immersive sound. The tones are wisely balanced, and quality is at the level that you'll be noticing new things about songs that you've heard dozens of times. Decent discounts are available at various online retailers, as is the case with most of this category.

The Losers: Manufacturers know that this is a sweet spot for consumers, so the market is crowded with good options. The hardware starts to look a little more "professional," or more accurately, "weird." Etymotics, always fans of producing earphones that are really good on paper, fails with the ER6 not because of quality issues, but because the buds are awkward and overwhelm with the high and middle tones. The company's new earphone tips, however, are amazing (more on this below, in the more expensive category). Ultimate Ears loses their luster at this level. Creative is yet again a nice runner-up; the Zen Aurvanas are very capable, but couldn't supplant the crystal-clear SE110s.

$150-$200
The Winner: Etymotics hf5 Ostensibly designed with portable music players in mind, the hf5s solve the balance problems of the er6 models and much, much more. They're cool looking (with the right tips, they look like sci-fi laser pistols), have little to no cable movement noise and reproduce sound in a way that is both perfectly clear and highly enjoyable. Everything about these gives the impression of quality, from the brushed aluminum finish to the way that music suddenly sounds distinctly layered in a way that it didn't before, and that it doesn't on many similarly priced units. One caveat, though: the hf5s (and the er6s, for that matter) must be used with the new foam rubber tips, called "Mushrooms." They're a little phallic and sort of a sickly gray, but they are leaps and bounds better than Etymotics' trademark flanged tips. The tighter seal that these offer to most people is conducive to better listening, and the isolation properties are superb. You can't hear anything else with these guys in. Every manufacturer should have something like this. According to the Etymotics people, by the time the hf5s ship these will be standard issue. Good.

The Losers: To sum up the category: Expensive without enough added benefit. Spending $100 will get you a phenomenal listening experience, so it's hard to justify spending more. The $200 cap was intended to filter out the luxury market/audiophile products that tend to show up at about that price, but hints of both are apparent here. The Shure SE210s are a wonderful pair of earphones, but the large premium over the SE110s is a dealbreaker, as side-by-side comparisons expose only the slightest variation in sound quality. The Klipsch Custom-2s are more of a luxury item than the others, with woven cable housing and a case that is ready for you iPod as well. Harman Kardon is just batting out of their league here, and Ultimate Ears doesn't improve on their cheaper models, even introducing some pretty terrible cable noise.

If you're looking to get the most out of your MP3 player, you'll have to spend some money. But as it turns out, the general rule is that once you pass about $100, your audio improvements will become smaller and more expensive. After reviewing all of these earphones, one simple fact is very clear: If I were in the market for a new set of earphones, I would buy the SE110s.

We tested five guns, the Super Soaker Sneak Attack 4-Way, the Sizzlin' Cool Steady Stream, the Water Warriors Motorized Tarantula, the Super Soaker Quick Blast and the Banzai Color Stream Blaster.

It should be noted that each gun has its own gimmick that it uses to try to sell you on it while you're wandering the aisles at Toys R Us or Target or wherever it is you purchase your weaponry. By far the most useless was the Color Stream Blaster, which comes with little cartridges of dye that turn the water various colors. This means that after you have a water gun fight, your victims will need to go take a shower and do laundry. That seems like it'd be less fun, not more, so we ignored those things altogether.

Much more fun were the nozzles on the Sneak Attack 4-Way, which let you change the stream by twisting the front of the gun. You could do a thin, powerful stream, a broader misting stream, or fire sideways in either direction. Let me tell you, there are few things more satisfying than saying "Hey, check this out!," pointing the gun off in the distance and then pegging your friend point-blank in the face with a sideways shot. It never, ever gets old.

For the official testing, we first measured the distance that these things can fire compared to their box claims. You never want to be hit by someone you can't hit back because your gun sucks and you're too far away. Surprisingly, the claims of distance made on the boxes was often wildly inaccurate. The Super Soaker Quick Blast, for example, claimed to shoot 25 feet, while we could barely get it firing past 18 feet. The other Super Soaker, on the other hand, claimed a paltry 20 feet, but in practice the thing shot nearly 30 feet (the best of the bunch).

We then wanted to know just how much pain could be inflicted with a shot to the face from each of the guns. Luckily, Summer Intern Dan was there, so we set him up facing the camera and took turns blasting him in the face from a few feet away, recording his reactions. The most painful shot was the Sneak Attack due to its powerful blast, with the Color Stream Blaster and Quick Blast each delivering paltry bursts that he could barely feel.

So what gun do we recommend for your next battle? Well, the Color Blast is a decent gun if you ignore the, you know, color element, and it comes in a two pack, which is nice. However, you feel like you're paying extra for something you won't use, so unless you really want to spray red water at someone, I'd recommend passing. The Tarantula just felt like cheating due to its rechargeable battery that removed the pump action from the mix, and it's a pain to have to rejuice a water gun between uses. It has a huge tank and a decent distance, but for $20 it's definitely the most expensive gun, so it's hard to recommend.

The Super Soaker Quick Blast was definitely at the bottom of our list, with a pathetic stream and a cheap-feeling pump. It doesn't hold much water, either, and whoever got stuck using it during our battle royale was at a serious disadvantage. Avoid it if you can.

The Steady Stream, the cheapest of the guns, was actually our runner up, surprisingly. It doesn't have any real gimmicks to it, but it's a solid gun that fires a good distance and is fun to use, especially for the price.

At the end of the day, however, there was a very clear winner amongst our array of weaponry, and it was the Super Soaker Sneak Attack 4-Way. It shot the farthest, had the most fun gimmick, had a respectable capacity, inflicted the most physical pain on our enemies/intern and was one of the cheapest at under $10. It feels solid in your hands and is just the most fun gun out of all of the models we tested. And really, if a water gun isn't really fun to use, it's doing something wrong.

To sum that up, the Instinct is easily the best, most feature rich iPhone clone on the block, and at $129, is a steal for Sprint customers. My major problem with it is the touchscreen itself—I think the Vu's touchscreen is way more responsive. (Wilson likes it just fine, favoring it over Verizon's cloneys.) The Vu has everything superficial down right—the touchscreen, keyboard (best of the bunch) and phone body—but is really lacking in the feature department, and therefore not really worth the new $199 price, which hinges entirely on its Mobile TV function. If you married the Vu's body and touchscreen to the Instinct's features and price, you'd have a champion here, and a serious iPhone challenger. Too bad LG and Sammy hate each other.

The Voyager isn't considered an iPhone clone anymore, not in the strictest sense, though most of its problems stem from Verizon software rather than the hardware. As Wilson said in his review last fall, it's ambitious but flawed—and the flaws are mostly on Verizon. I'm really hoping Verizon lets the Dare just breathe, because the Vu proves LG is best left to its own devices. The Glyde is just a truly terrible phone. Most clay bricks are more responsive than its touchscreen, especially around the edges, and the crappy, sluggish Verizon software doesn't help. And its keyboard ain't much better.

One thing they all have in common is a shitty browser. There isn't a mobile browser that touches mobile Safari yet. Even when they could render HTML correctly, moving and zooming around the page (especially ones that aren't mobile optimized) is an exercise in self-control—how long can you take it before stabbing your eyes out. Opera mini does load on the Vu, and it's better than the included browser, but it worked kinda wonikly at times. For me, that's a critical flaw in all of these phones.

Best to worst: Instinct, Vu, Voyager, and Glyde.

UPDATE: Check out our review of the LG Dare, which gives the Instinct a run for its money

Visual Quality
I watched lots of snowboarding videos on both setups. Both sets have the same resolution, but the screens look bigger and with less ambient light and distracting reflection in the Zeiss. It's supposed to simulate a 45 inch screen at 6 feet away, but all I know is that it's a lot more in your face than the Myvu. The Zeiss and Myvu's brightness, contrast and black levels were on par with each other. I do wish they came in 16:9 versions, but the 4:3 ratio is probably more practical. There's a 3D setting on the Zeiss, which is to be used with clips provided on their website, but as most content isn't 3D, it didn't factor into my testing. Update: Eyestrain isn't bad at all at the 30 minute mark, but I'll do some more testing today to make sure.

Comfort
The Zeiss has adjustable head pieces, and a large and narrow nose piece. It's a much heavier set up, however, and so the Myvu is much more comfortable, with its adjustable nosepiece. I'd be more likely to use the Myvu out of the house, given their weight.

Audio
The Zeiss has mounted earbuds on adjustable plastic sticks that don't actually interface directly with your canals. (They float over them.) The Myvu's buds go into your ears, isolate a lot more sound and produce better audio, although the dangly wires add to the clutter.

Jordie Factor
The Cinemizers are far uglier than the lighter Myvu Crystals, partially from the bulging faux-eye pieces packed with the eyesight correcting diopter glass (+/-3.5D) and knobs, partially from just being too damn far apart. The Myvus are also a lot easier to walk around with, as you can see easily above and below the screen making driving with these a lot safer. (I kid!)

Controls
The Zeiss has a really nice rubber remote with contrast/brightness settings, volume, FF/RW, Play/Pause buttons and a nice clip. That leads to the battery dock, which holds the iPod and has a power button. The Myvu's controller has individual brightness and contrast settings, plus volume, but no navigation.

Compatibility and cabling
The Zeiss comes with a number of click in plastic holders for the touch, 3G Nano, Classic 80gb, 5th gen 60/80GB iPod, and Classic 160GB. There's no case for an iPhone the Classic 160 fit fine. There's a 1/8th inch jack for audio/video input, but a cable is not included. The Myvu comes in iPod or universal kits, but the universal kit excludes the iPod dock connection. The universal kit has adapters for regular composite jacks, Zune, Gigabeat, Archos, and 5th gen video iPods. The Myvu's cabling is also a mess, since you've got a separate battery/remote jack which interfaces with the iPod through another cable. The Zeiss's design bundles the battery with the already bulky iPod and so the only spare part is a remote. Very nice.

Battery Life
Both claim 4 hours of life. It's worth noting that other headsets from Myvu with 320 pixel wide images can do 10 hours of battery life. Both charge via USB, with the Zeiss charging a minimum of 2.5 hours and the Myvu finishing in 4 to 12 hours. (Rated.)

Accessories/Extras
The Zeiss has a really nice case, while the Myvu has a mere bag.

If visual quality is your ultimate requirement, and you're married to an iPod, the Zeiss makes better sense. But the Myvu's ability to play with other video sources out of the box and its $100 cheaper price tag make it a little bit better for the general buyer. Both will give you a charisma penalty of 3-4 points, but you know, we don't care about that kind of thing around here.

Suspension of disbelief off: I guess there's a bigger question here of whether or not any of us need such a set up. I can imagine using one on a plane so I don't have to drain my iPhone's battery displaying a 3 hour movie on the 3.5 inch LCD; instead, I can avoid neck cramps and stare wherever my anatomy feels I will be most comfortable. Likewise in bed or on a couch. A few years ago, the quality was worse and these headsets were closer to $500. From here, at $300, I guess those limited scenarios are a decent value. Ultimately, most of you who decide to take such an advanced plunge will be doing it to bleed at the edge. What's nice is that going forward these things can only get better and cheaper, and I hope, less imposing to wear. [Zeiss and Myvu]

Ever since the world caught wind of the Pure Digital Flip cam's success, super-cheap digital pocket camcorders have sprouted up everywhere. With everyone and their mother trying to become the next Lil Show Stoppa or Soulja Girl, people need a cheap and easy way to capture those magic moments. I tested six of these cams—from Creative, RCA/Audiovox, DXG and Pure Digital—all $180 or less. Here are samples of all of their videos in various conditions, and an overall look at how they stack up:

Video samples: I tested the camcorders in the three most common situations you'll use them for: indoors with full light, indoors with low light, and outdoors. In the videos, I stood in the same place with each camera. As you can see, different cameras capture different areas. Watch as these two goofballs get their line dance on and destroy the Great American Songbook, and you will easily spot the difference in quality between the recordings.

Indoor, full light:

Indoor, low light:

Outdoors:

The Runners-Up (in no particular order):

DXG 569-V HD: The best thing about this cam is that it looks very fancy. The worst thing is that it isn't. The DXG took the worst overall video of the bunch even though it claims to record in HD. Also, the 3 AAAs ran out after about 25 minutes of recording—I should've realized this would be a problem when I saw the unit came bundled with rechargeable batteries and a charger. Still, it's nice that it has a still camera option, and you could probably trick your friends into thinking you have a pricier Xacti for a minute.

Creative Vado: The Vado is the most non-descript camera of the bunch. Boring UI, crappy video quality and a plain outer shell make it a snoozer. However, it's about as thin as the Mino, very cheap and has no frills at all, making it a decent option for total luddites or technophobes.

RCA Small Wonder EZ210: I naturally gravitated to the EZ210 because of it's giant screen, big buttons, and retro look. Seriously, for all the tech inside, the camcorder looks like it was made in 1982. Even though the EZ210 is the most welcoming cam of the bunch, in the end it's about video quality and this one wasn't cutting it. It's a fair price, and I love the expandable memory, so it's a close 2nd place option.

RCA Small Wonder EZ200: The EZ200 is all over the map. After seeing the nice quality of the EZ210's daylight video, I was shocked to see how grainy and slow the EZ200's daylight footage was—it looked like an old-fashioned home film camera. Also, the flip out screen is hokey to me, but it's great for people who like to look at themselves while lipsynching to Mr. Roboto. Complaints aside, I was pleasantly surprised that the EZ200 took halfway decent low-light video. That plus the cheap price and expandable memory make this one a reasonable bet for a starter cam.

Flip Mino: The Mino is thin, has a great look and feel, and captures excellent video, but it's not the winner for a few reasons. Most importantly, it has a narrower-angled lens than just about every other camera in the test—I couldn't get my whole couch into the shot no matter how I tried. Also, the sound wasn't very good. Finally, this week I'm on the other side of the neverending rechargeable vs. AA debate, and between the Li-ion battery and non-upgradeable memory, the Mino is a little too closed for my tastes. However, if you're looking purely for video quality, Mino is a no brainer.

And the winner is...

Flip Ultra: Yes, the first is still the best, and there are good reasons why so many companies want to capture its success: The Ultra works, and it works well. Low light video is great, the camera feels good in your hand, and it's so simple that you could probably train your cat to record their own cute videos with it. The small screen is a drawback, but it captures a good chunk of space. The Ultra is the best value of the bunch when you consider the criteria, remaining the Cadillac of cheap pocket camcorders.

[Special thanks to the singers and dancers, who asked to be known as Rocko Money and Inter Minetti!!]

The case-mate leather collection:

The leather collection from Case-mate comes in both a variety of styles and colors that include line leather, croc-embossed leather and carbon fiber leather versions (the Black Croc-Embossed Leather iPhone Case/Holster Combo is pictured here). They are branded as luxury models with prices to match (line leather $49.99, croc-leather $59.99 and carbon fiber $69.99 for combo versions). All of the cases include a holster, screen protecting film and a design that features leather wrapped around an impact-resistant plastic shell—which makes them basically the same in terms of shape and protection. So, if you dig this style of case, the decision is going to come down to the leather used.

I found that all of the versions lived up to their luxury status in terms of materials and craftsmanship. Protection is going to be good but not great considering that the top is completely exposed and the screen is protected by nothing more than a simple scratch resistant film, but it should do the job for normal wear and tear. That holster is a friggin' beast though, so if you don't need to clip this to your belt you are better off saving a little cash and purchasing case-only. Case-mate's Naked Case was also tapped for this review, but units are hard to come by. Look for a stand-alone review soon.

Otterbox Defender Series:

Out of all the cases reviewed, the Otterbox is going to offer the highest degree of impact, dust, scratch and water resistance. It features multiple layers of protection with a hard-shell case that covers the body of the phone, a thin plastic membrane that covers the screen, camera and Apple logo, and a rubber jacket. It allows access to all of the iPhone's controls (except the silence switch) and if you lead an active, rugged lifestyle, the Otterbox should stand up to punishment—just don't expect this thing to be completely waterproof. While the rubber layer does fold into the iPhone's open ports and there is a mesh over the speakers and microphone, it is not designed to be submerged in water.

Naturally, with the plastic case covering the screen itself, you are going to have to deal with the occasional air pocket, touchscreen command error and blurry photograph—but these issues do not represent much of a problem. However, I did manage to rip the rubber outer casing inside the first day of using it, so I have my doubts about the long-term durability of that layer. It is also very bulky, but that is to be expected with a case that offers this type of protection. All in all I would say that the Otterbox's $50 price tag is a little steep—if only for that issue with the rubber outer layer. Also available in a yellow version.

Ivyskin Xylo T2 Touch-Thru Case:

Ivyskin is heavily touting their Surface Xylo Wave (SXW) technology as a "breakthrough" given the fact that it allows for normal touchscreen operation through a hard-shell case. But, to be honest, I found that the Otterbox, the Xylo and the iShield mirror are all basically the same in this respect. The plastic covering the skin on all three cases is extremely thin and offers protection that will hold up to scratches and light impacts. I would say that the screen on the Xylo is the thickest of the bunch, but I doubt that it will offer a substantial increase in protection over the other two devices. They also deliver the same amount of accuracy with the touchscreen—that is to say you will occasionally find yourself double-tapping to type or open up a link, but it does not represent much of a problem. When it comes right down to it, the technology works well.

As for the case itself, the Xylo T2 is made of a basic polycarbonate, which is like wrapping the phone in a form-fitting jewel-box. It will provide adequate protection against minor damage, but don't expect it to withstand a jarring impact. However, if you are looking for full protection against everyday wear and tear it will do the job with a design that does not add a ton of thickness to the phone itself. Not bad for $34.99. Also available in a variety of colors.

iShield Mirror:

Finally, the iShield Mirror is basically the same case as the Xylo T2 but the plastic covering the touchscreen is thinner, and it offers a gimmicky film on the surface that allows it to function as a mirror when the phone is not in use. To be honest, the images in the mirror end up being too distorted to make it functional, and the film renders the screen image fuzzy in low light and nearly invisible in the sunlight. So, if you are looking for a case of this type, I suggest getting over yourself and ditching the mirror functionality for the Xylo T2—especially since it will only cost you $5 more.

Conclusion:

With the exception of the iShield Mirror, I can confidently recommend all of these cases. I found myself using the Xylo T2 the most in everyday situations because of its small form factor and complete screen coverage and the Otterbox while I was out mountain biking on the trails. But the Case-mate leather collection was the most physically attractive option by far. In the end, it will really boil down to the lifestyle you lead, how much you are willing to spend and your personal preferences. [case-mate and Ivyskin Xylo T2 and Otterbox and iShield Mirror]

The Gear
From Razer, I got the Lachesis mouse, Lycosa keyboard, Piranha headset and Destructor pad. That's $80 each for components plus a $40 mouse pad, totalling $280.

From SteelSeries, it's the Ikari Laser ($90), 7G keyboard ($150), Siberia Neckband headset ($100) and QcK+pad ($15). Do the math and it adds up to $355.

My old, battle-tested equipment, all Logitech: MX500, Media Elite keyboard, whatever free Logitech headset came with Unreal Tournament 2004 and a free Vista mousepad. Street (or garage sale) value of about $45.

Quick and Dirty Conclusions
It takes more than 20 minutes to get used to a new keyboard and mouse. So I spent a couple days with each set to get comfortable before actual testing with what I've been at almost exclusively on PC as of late: Team Fortress 2. I didn't want readjusting to a game like Battlefield 2142 added to the list of possible variables.

Because of my style of play (mostly heavy/sniper, offensive support), the best indicator of whether or not my game improved is still kill-to-death ratio, even though TF2 is an objective-oriented game. I've taken the results for 15 rounds of gameplay for each set of gear, then averaged them out to a single K-D ratio for each, and accounting for dominations (killing same guy three times).

SteelSeries: 2.6, with 5 dominations
Logitech: 2.42, with 2 dominations
Razer: 1.98, with 2 dominations

What It All Means
Objectively, SteelSeries made me a better gamer. Why? Because comfort level is the bottom line when it comes to gaming (or any) gear you grip or pound everyday, more so than any stupid spec or number proving how awesome a piece of equipment is. Ergonomically, the SteelSeries stuff just felt right, even after using it a short while.

Fans of Logitech's MX500 (me!) or G5 series mice will dig the SteelSeries Ikari mouse, since it's almost the exact same, but with an extra nub for your ring finger, plus it fixes the crappy scroll wheel issue that plagues the G5 and G7. The Razer Lachesis mouse is ambidextrous, and it just never felt right. (I'm not a claw gripper, though.) I kept accidentally hitting the buttons on the right side of the mouse, causing it to reboot to change profiles, which got me killed more than once. The braided cable on the Ikari, like on Logitech's G5 mouse, was a construction plus over Lycosa's thin rubber cord, though they both feel solid. I don't think either is worth the price ($90 for a mouse is insane), though—my MX500 is still just fine.

Keyboard-wise, Razer's Lycosa actually has a better layout (big backspace, small enter) than SteelSeries' 7G. It's also the much sexier of the two. But I'm not too big on its squishy laptop-style keys for gaming, and the keys' rubber coating started out as a plus and grew into a minus as it made my fingers feel weird and sorta chapped after extended sessions. SteelSeries compromises between big clacky keys and soft touch by registering the key press at the halfway point—they're tall keys—so you can go light or really slam them. I wish it had the subtle backlighting like the Lycosa , and maybe some more macro options. But the build quality of the 7G is absolutely bunker-worthy—it's incredibly heavy. I could club a family of baby seals to death with it and go back to gaming (after wiping the blood off). Yeah, it's $150, but it feels like it's going to stick around to the next ice age, so you're actually paying for solid equipment, gaming BS aside. The Lycosa feels more fragile—not crappy, but just above average.

Headsets have the same build matchup—the SteelSeries is heavier and more sturdy—but this time the cheaper Razer Piranha comes out ahead in audio quality (no surprise, actually). Positional audio was much truer, especially rear to front (a necessity to avoid getting backstabbed by a bastard Spy). Besides, as SteelSeries readily admitted to me, the Siberias suck for music.

Mousing surfaces? Whatever. Beyond the basics of non-reflectivity, it's total hype.

Conclusion
SteelSeries made me a better gamer, but the label "gaming gear" is BS. Buy what feels comfortable, because that's what you'll game better with. If you're a fan of Razer ergonomic styles (I wasn't overly) then it might be worth the extra price, but on the construction merits alone, it doesn't necessarily stack up. The SteelSeries stuff felt more substantial and like the build quality was slightly more commensurate with the higher price point (though I still think the 7G should go for like $100, not $150). Most scientific statement I can make: I was most comfortable with SteelSeries and my old gear, so I did better with them. [SteelSeries, Razer]

Canon EOS Digital Rebel XSi - I originally wrote: "Live View is limited, or you might even say crippled. You can't preview autofocus—I'm not even sure the autofocus works very well in this mode." When you activate Live View, you have to enter the custom settings and enable one of two kinds of autofocus, which you then manually trigger with the press of a button. The Live View isn't so much crippled as it is overly complicated, compared to the sexier iterations in the Sony and Olympus.

Sony Alpha a350 - I noted a sluggishness with photo reviewing: once you take a shot, there's an annoying pause. The question was raised whether or not this was due to Sony's D-Range Optimizer, which "delivers suitable tonality and exposures with rich shadow and highlight detail, even under high contrast situations." While the D-RO and D-RO+ modes can add even more time to the turnaround on the a350, taking pics without D-RO still means a turnaround time about twice as long as Canon's.

Nikon D60 - I complained about something I called the "auto-focus lamp" but which Nikon refers to as AF -assist. You can in fact turn it off, but it's not exactly easy. First, you have to go to the Setup menu to enable the "full" Custom Settings Menu, or the option doesn't appear. And then you have to go into the Custom Settings Menu, locate the AF-assist option and turn it off—provided you know that the bright annoying light is even called by that somewhat indirect name. My feeling is that this option should be off as a default, like on some competing DSLRs.

Olympus E-420 - I have said repeatedly that this camera has trouble with autofocus: when shooting with the kit lens, it resets almost every time you point it at an object, even if it's the same object you were focused on a second before. Olympus suggested I update the lens firmware to see if it improved anything. While there was a patch that I successfully installed, the lens' AF behavior is unchanged.

As you can see, when all new information is factored in, my initial ranking still stays the same. It seems you get what you pay for, though it bears repeating that the real dark horse is Sony's a300, a $700 (with lens) 10-megapixel version of the a350.

One final note: Whenever I bring up DSLRs, the debate about automatic shooting modes rages with some vehemence. I love the discussion, but I want to stress two things: Cameras intended for newbies need really good auto modes, and even the $900 kits I write about are targeted at the noob crowd. Don't believe me? Chuck Westfall, head of media and customer relations for Canon USA, told me this the other day: "The Rebel demographic is skewed towards beginners," adding, "We've found that any kind of automation we can give them is a good thing."

Thanks for the lively debate, and by all means keep it rockin'. As always, I am blown away by the depth of knowledge coming from Giz commenters on this popular but often confusing subject. [Entry-Level DSLR Battlemodo]

The Weigh In As you can see, there's a wide range. I'm not saying weight is everything, but being the heaviest (by a lot) doesn't help the Sony.
On Paper Before we get into each camera's capabilities, have a look at their specs. Cameras are arranged in order of price, from cheap to pricey. You can see how it's easy to fall in love with the lower-priced models. But in action, you statt to realize why the pricing is so slanted.
1600 ISO and Auto White Balance In these shots, you can judge two things. First, some cameras have noisier high-ISO results than others (cough*Olympus*cough), and second, that auto white balance isn't the easiest thing to master. (I'm talking about you, Nikon.) Fortunately, two cameras do both reasonably well:
Action Shots in "P" Automatic Mode Some of you have beef with me complaining that some DSLRs have lousy automatic settings, but the truth is, great DSLRs do damn well on auto, so it's a way to separate the good from the bad. Here you can see from a quick session with all four cameras that getting a clean shot of a moving cat in low light isn't always possible:
Note the Nikon's shot: The cat is squinting because of the auto-focus lamp that goes on before the shot—generally annoying when trying to capture kids and pets in their natural states.

Full Manual ShootingHere's what happens when I try to take the same or similar shots with the different cameras, using more or less the same manual settings. (The above shot was from the Sony Alpha a350.)

Daffodils: Low f-stop, medium shutter speed, handheld Dawn: Medium f-stop, fast shutter speed, handheld Creek: High f-stop, slow shutter speed, tripod
THE END RESULTCanon EOS Digital Rebel XSi - First Place
What I Liked It's an all around decent camera, much lighter in weight than the Sony but with most of the same performance. The cheap starter lens, which you may scoff at, gives it an added weight bonus, making it lighter than all but the Olympus.
What I Didn't Like Live View is limited, or you might even say crippled. You can't preview autofocus—I'm not even sure the autofocus works very well in this mode. In the manual, Canon concedes that this is really for still life shooting and other limited applications. Also, for being $150 to $170 more than the Nikon, it's more or less the same class of camera, especially for manual shooting.

Sony Alpha a350 - Second Place
What I Liked All around intuitive camera with impressive automatic modes, a Live View that can demonstrate a lot, and solid control for people who know more. It's got the teaching ability of the Olympus with the picture reliability of the Canon. Although the a350 with 14-megapixel sensor is not as good a buy as the Canon at the same price, I think the nearly identical $700 a300 kit might be the best value of all right now.
What I Didn't Like The thing is giant, especially with the 16-80mm lens I tested. (The a300 is the same size and weight, by the way.) In Live View, I noticed from time to time that white balance on preview was different than what came out in the shot, which was annoying. The worst attribute, though, is the exceptional processing delay after you take each shot.

Nikon D60 - Third Place
What I Liked There's a keep-it-simple design here that works: not many hidden frills, but many nice clear options. I think for the money, this is the best idea for knowledgable, confident shooters, though it's not the best bet for beginners. I like one rare random perk in particular, the stop-motion video maker.
What I Didn't Like Simple means no frills like Live View previewing that the other models have. Though it's very handy when done right, like on the Olympus, it can also be done badly. Judging from Canon's execution, I can see why Nikon didn't bother. I have two particular pet peeves with the Nikon: Low-light autofocus triggers a very bright AF lamp, which makes pets and children go all squinty, and the auto white balance makes things too yellow indoors, and can't be overridden when in automatic modes.

Olympus E-420 - Fourth Place
What I Liked Besides the remarkably low price, I think this camera has the capacity to teach you a lot about manual settings because of the Live View. Like the Sony, this shows you the effects of your WB, exposure, f-stop and shutter settings in a live preview as you make them. Oly has this down, and was the one that started it all.
What I Didn't Like The lightweight camera is missing a lot of strong tech: the ISO 1600 is noisy, autofocus doesn't respond nearly quick enough, and shooting in automatic modes turns up blurry and unfortunate shots.

There you have it, folks. I've tried to include enough of my methodology to let you judge this stuff for yourselves. Surely there's a lot to talk about, including the obligatory "body vs. glass" debate. I agree that lenses make a difference, but with new DSLR advancements, the bodies are starting to have a greater impact on how well people take pictures. You may know it all, but any one of these cameras can help the ignorant noob more than anything that came before. OK, that's my take... you have the floor.

Update: Check out our DSLR Battlemodo follow-up, which answers some of the questions raised in the comments below.

A few weeks back, I wrote up a piece on Vudu's high-definition video falling short of my expectations. Today I bring you a more thorough report of the three most compelling set-top boxes and their video-download capabilities. Apple TV, Vudu and Xbox 360 all have a lot going for them, but by looking at them side-by-side, you can see how their makers are all taking different paths to get to the ultimate desired end. Dive into the chart, then have a look at the screengrabs from three movies, to really get a feel for the progress, or lack of progress, in the world of HD downloads.

Just so you know, in addition to skipping everything that requires an actual PC (including HP's MediaSmart receivers), I omitted TiVo from the running for now, for two reasons: 1) the Amazon Unbox on TiVo doesn't yet offer HD movie downloads; and 2) TiVo itself is a subscription service, whereas these systems don't charge a monthly fee for the privilege of renting movies.You can see how frustrating it is to pick a winner when you look at the three systems on paper. Fortunately, things clear up a bit when you compare stills I shot at the same time, on the same Panasonic 1080p plasma TV.

Screens from Ratatouille—note that the Vudu shot is standard-definition only:
Screens from 3:10 to Yuma—note that the Apple TV shot is standard-definition only:
Screens from Transformers—here the three devices are all running high-def versions, and I've mixed in a screen from the HD DVD of it as well, for surprising comparison.
Keep in mind that the key here is to compare the shots with each other, as they were all shot the same way. (Note that the same perceived down-rezzing issue I noted before on Vudu's high-def is still obvious.)

Now that you've seen all the evidence I could gather. It's a toss-up to me, though I think for content I have to lean towards Vudu and for pure video quality (and most HD content) the Xbox 360 is hard to beat. Meanwhile, Apple TV is cheapest and lives up to its name with the best access to actual TV programming—though NBC is still painfully absent. How about helping me make the call here?

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It turns out that, surprise surprise, you pay a premium for a tiny form factor. The MacBook Air is seriously expensive for the guts you get inside, but Apple isn't the only company guilty of charging insane amounts for smaller computers. Just look at the Sony Vaio TZ150N, for example. $2,100 for a 1.06 GHz processor? Are you kidding me? I don't care how small, it's still a rip-off.

The best deal—if you don't mind an extra pound of weight and half-inch of thickness—is the Dell XPS M1330. It bests the MacBook Air in nearly every single category, delivering about 30% more processing power, 50% more memory, over 300% more hard drive space, plus a dedicated graphics card. All of this, for $300 less. But also, two hours less of battery life, thanks to the new smaller and more efficient Core 2 Duo processor in the MacBook Air.

But it's really no surprise that a form factor as striking as the MacBook Air's warrants a premium price. Super-slim and light laptops as a category have yet to come down from the stratosphere, dollar-wise. It's a form factor that SSD just makes loads of sense for, lightening them up and cutting down on battery life, but that drives the price up even further for the time being. Chips are still getting smaller and screen technology keeps improving. In a couple of years, these form factors will be reasonably priced with great specs, but until then, prepare to pay a huge chunk more for a bit less power, just so you can brag about having the thinnest computer on the block.

[Gizmodo's Macworld 2008 Full Coverage]

Sony DS6000
Price: $300 retail, $230 street
Impressions: You'll notice the solid build quality immediately. Featuring soft cups that fit around your ears, the headphones turn on automatically when placed on your head. Testing out Superman Returns, we were impressed by bright trumpets and deep, powerful planets whizzing by our head during the opening credits alone. When Superman returns to the Kent farm, we felt and then heard the subtle roar of an asteroid approaching from behind our ears—while dishes clanked in the foreground and water gurgled in the middle of our ears. We were able to appreciate the crisp, distinct sound design in a way we never had before.

Acoustic Research AWD510
Price: $250 retail, $200 street
Impressions: We were disappointed that while the earcups appear oversized, they didn't wrap around our ears all the way. So even when the sound localization—our made-up term for how far or close the sounds felt from our ears—may have actually been slightly superior to the Sony model, we wondered why Acoustic Research didn't seal the deal and disconnect us completely from our wives/kids/lives by covering 100% of the ear. On the sound front, the AWD510 had a tinniness that was a real turn-off. It might have been a product of compression: on the other end, the headphones never once roared, and often left us craving more.

Sennheiser RS 130
Price: $170 retail, $110 street
Impressions: See the two headphones above these? They have two things in common. 1. True surround sound capabilities. 2. They run on 2.4ghz radio signals. These Sennheisers are a cheaper alternative, instead supporting SRS (fake 3D sound with only two speakers) and IR (infrared) data streaming. So how big are these compromises?

Actually, the SRS works pretty well. You won't get those a-ha! moments like, say, when Superman flies by the screen and you'd swear his cape is in your face, but there's a lot to say about really good stereo-esque sound attached to your head. It's the IR that's a deal breaker. From the second we put the headphones on our ears, we heard a hiss that never left and occasionally got worse. And it's a shame, because otherwise the headphones sound pretty good, though mid- to low-range speech left a bit to be desired.

Pioneer SE-DHP800
Price:$475 retail, $275 street
Impressions: (We didn't like our picture). There's no doubt, this pair of Pioneer headphones emphasizes clarity. The moment that stuck out most for us was during the space credits, a shattered meteor whizzed by our heads and we could distinguish more pieces, eyes closed, than on any other model. If the Acoustic Research model features good localization, the Pioneers sound even better. The catch? They cheat you out of the low ranges almost completely. And the effect is like eating reduced fat cheese: it seems alright in the first bite, but you're missing a whole dimension of fulfillment. Ultimately, they feel like a headphone experience.

Oh, and these bad boys are infrared as well, but we didn't encounter problems like we did with the Sennheisers (we could only make the sound fail by placing our hands in front of both our ears). As we've found with previous experience, avoid cheap IR headphones...they will probably just disappoint you.

VERDICT: We favor the Sony DS6000, especially since they're cheaper than Pioneer's offerings. From their easy dock charging to their very solid (and best-rounded) listening experience, we wouldn't mind turning off the speakers if it meant we were turning these on.* The Pioneers come in a close second, but felt like surround sound without a subwoofer: technically impressive, but at the end of the day, coming up a bit short on our id factor.

*But buyer beware, the Sony system's powerful radio transmission has occasionally interfered with both our Wi-Fi connection and, surprisingly enough, the clarity of our wireless Xbox LIVE headsets. We still recommend the product, but it's something to keep in mind if you have a small space and heavy Wi-Fi dependence. The Pioneer model should cause no such interferences.

Also of note, Panasonic has an interesting competitive model we were not able to acquire at the time of this testing.