Desktop Replacement Notebook: iBuypower M865TU

You want a speedy desktop replacement notebook wrapped in an unassuming, businesslike shell? That's precisely what the iBuypower M865TU delivers, courtesy of an 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo Mobile and a GeForce GTX 260M under the hood. Like the classic mullet, this speed machine lets you work all day then party all night, for a mere $2000. [Review]

Inexpensive Gaming Laptop: Asus G51Vx-RX05

If all you wanna do is have some fun, the G51Vx-RX05 gives you all of the raw gaming performance of the M865TU—it sports the same GeForce GTX 260M GPU—but instead of a spendy 3.0GHz Core 2 Duo, the Asus economizes at 2GHz. While the G51Vx's dual-core is down two cores and about a gigahertz from the iBuypower machine, when it comes to games, the big videocard is all that matters. For a cool grand, you can pick up this laptop exclusively at Best Buy. [Review]

Over-the-Top Crazy-Awesome Desktop: Velocity Micro Gamer's Edge DualX

What do you get when you put a Core i7 CPU overclocked beyond 4GHz, three GeForce GTX 285 GPUs in tri-SLI, four lightning-fast Intel solid-state drives running in RAID 0, and a shiny new copy of Windows 7 Ultimate in one case? Enough computing power to make your Xbox 360 piss itself and run screaming for mommy. This machine doesn't just demolish benchmarks, it rapes and pillages them, leaving nothing behind but a smoking crater and a host of lesser machines. The downside? It costs $9000. [Review]

"Cheap" Crazy-Awesome Desktop: Falcon Northwest Talon

From one of the original boutique PC manufacturer's comes the Talon. Packing 90% of the raw performance of Velocity Micro's $9000 wonder for a mere $4000, the Talon's watchwords are "extreme" and "efficiency." With a new Lynnfield Core i5 CPU and a pair of ATI's hot-off-the-presses Radeon 5970, this rig uses all four GPUs and all four CPU cores to deliver kick ass performance. [Review]

Will Smith is the Editor-in-Chief of Maximum PC, not the famous actor/rapper. His work has appeared in many publications, including Maximum PC, Wired, Mac|Life, and T3, and on the web at Maximum PC and Ars Technica. He's the author of The Maximum PC Guide to Building a Dream PC.

Actually, I'm not sure if this flowchart makes anything easier. In the end it might just make fun of you and bring you back to square one. Still, there is some useful information in there if you are willing to go on the journey.

Make sure to click on the image to see the full size chart. [Gliffy]

Hope that helps. Click here, or on the image, to see the full size chart.

We've selected the five phones that most feel like modern handsets to us—the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3G S, the Palm Pre, the HTC Magic (or, as we soon expect, the T-Mobile G2) and the BlackBerry Storm—and broken them down by hardware, software and cost. This is a guide in the strictest sense, meaning we aren't declaring winners or losers, just giving you the information you need to make your own choice. So! On with the matrices. Phones' hardware specs tend to dominate carriers' marketing, but in many cases they just don't mean much, with a few exceptions: screens, storage, graphics performance and input.

The iPhones and Pre hold a sizable advantage in the screen department, trumping the G2, which doesn't have multitouch, and the Storm, which has an ill-conceived pseudo-multitouch clickscreen that left most reviewers at best underwhelmed, and at worst downright frustrated.

In terms of storage, our phones take two fundamentally different approaches. The iPhone and Pre include healthy amounts of nonremovable storage—in the case of the iPhone 3G S, up to 32GB—which makes sense: if we're going to use our phones as they're marketed (as multimedia devices), we need space. The G2, like the G1 before it, depends on a removable microSD card for file storage, since its inbuilt memory is measured in megabytes. So does the Storm. This is fine if the carrier bundles the handset with a capacious card; Verizon is good about this. T-Mobile, on the other hand, shipped the G1 with a pitifully small 1GB card, so we'll just have to hope they're more generous with the G2.

Technical 3D ability is actually fairly uniform across this hardware, with the exception of the iPhone 3G S, which is, in this area, a next-gen product. Only Apple and HTC, though, give developers any meaningful kind of access to their handsets' graphics accelerators, meaning the G2 and iPhones (particularly the bulked-up 3G S) will be the sole options for would-be gamers. And of the two platforms, iPhone OS has amassed plenty of serious gaming titles, while Android, let's be honest, hasn't.

The Pre is an obvious standout in that it has a hardware keyboard in addition to its touchscreen. The hardware QWERTY/onscreen keyboard debate is all about personal preference, so whether this is a boon or a burden is up to you. Typing on a screen is an acquired skill—but much more so on the Storm than the iPhone or G2.

Battery life would seem to be a valuable metric; it's not. The differences in capacity and claimed endurance don't really matter much, since realistically, they all need to be charged nightly.

Note: the Storm is due a minor hardware refresh, possibly quite soon. The main change, it's been rumored, is a different touchscreen.
The greatest hardware in the world couldn't save a phone with shitty software, and your handset's OS is the single largest determining factor in how you'll enjoy your phone. We've explored the differences between the major smartphone platforms at length here, and there's no point getting too far into the specific differences right now.

To summarize: iPhone OS claims advantages in ease of use, its burgeoning App Store, and a respectable core feature set, but falters on multitasking and its lack of ability to install unsanctioned apps. The Pre's WebOS is extremely slick and friendly to multitasking, but its App Catalog is light on content, and its development SDK is somewhat restrictive. Android and BlackBerry OS are both more laissez-faire, letting users install apps from whatever source they choose. Neither of their app stores is spectacular, but Android's is markedly less anemic. More on app stores here.

Carrier preferences will often override prices, but here they are anyway. The Pre and G2 are the most economic options, and the Storm roughly ties the 3G S as the most expensive. (It's easy to underestimate how much a small monthly cost difference can add up over two years.) But again, carrier loyalty (or more likely, disloyalty) and coverage quality is as important as cost. If Sprint's killing your Pre buzz, it could be worth waiting until next year, when Verizon is rumored to pick it up. Likewise, if T-Mobile coverage in your area is patchy, don't worry: by the time T-Mobile actually offers the G2, we'll probably have at least another functionally identical handset lined up for release elsewhere.

So there you have it: everything you need to know about the latest crop of consumer smartphones. Go forth, and be gouged.

1. Leopard works fine on old machines as long as they're not too old. Leopard only works on Intel, G5 and G4 Macs that are 867MHz or faster—meaning your really, really old PowerBooks or iBooks are borderline. You can try rigging up an install on Macs that aren't too old (like the one we tested on), but you don't get the Core Animation or other fancy effects. It's slightly slower to start up and shut down compared to Tiger, but you get more features.

2. Veteran Windows users probably won't change their minds about switching. If you're thinking of making the switch to OS X, Leopard doesn't provide a dramatic change over Tiger—so if you didn't like OS X before, you're probably not going to change your mind now. That said, the improvements over Tiger just makes it all the more worth your while to give OS X a shot. Depending on whether you absolutely need certain Windows apps (you can find many Mac equivalent apps), you can have the option of dual booting with Boot Camp or running both operating systems at once with Parallels like myself.

3. Time Machine provides the easiest built-in backup software on any OS. Even compared with the built-in backup software on Vista, Time Machine is super easy and super automated—all the while keeping functionality high by including easy-to-use file versioning as well. If you're not already backing up your Mac with apps like the similarly powerful SuperDuper, Time Machine is a big reason to upgrade. All you need to do is plug in an external USB hard drive and everything's taken care of for you, all in the background without any input from you. If you're already happy with your backup method, this will be a marginal feature, but if you're tired of dealing with backups or losing data, Leopard is for you.

4. iChat gives you powerful video, screen and document sharing. Another one of the major improvements in Leopard is in the iChat app. Not only do you get video effects, there's lots of work-focused document sharing and screen sharing as well for working with people over long distances (totally would have been useful when I was writing my book). There's also iChat recording for recording your video chats or meetings for later viewing. That's a killer feature for some, totally useless for others. But if you're going to be doing any kind of screen-viewing with other people, iChat is probably the easiest way to do it since it launches right from your chat application.

5. Leopard is the only way you can dual-boot Windows on your Mac. Boot Camp may have been free before, but your old copy will expire at the end of the year. That means you need Leopard to dual-boot Windows and OS X. You can still use virtualization software like Parallels or VM Ware for using Windows at the same time as your Mac, but you're sharing system resources between the two applications. If you only need to use Windows—and you need to maximize your RAM and CPU—you're better off with Boot Camp.

6. Leopard probably will work with your applications. It's likely that Leopard will work with just about all your applications and plug-ins, but there are going to be a few bumps along the way. For us, our Griffin PowerMate, a NAS driver (which caused us a massive chain of consecutive kernel panics), various Unsanity add-ons and Mail.app plug-ins all have to be updated for Leopard before we can use them again. You should make sure all your critical apps are Leopard-compatible before you upgrade by checking their web sites, otherwise you're going to find yourself actually downgrading back to Tiger while you wait.

7. If you use your Mac every day you should upgrade now. On the other hand, if you use your Mac for more than just a few hours a day, chances are you're a hardcore user. If this is the case, you should definitely buy Leopard. There might not be one glaring feature that makes you rush for your credit card, but all the small improvements—from iCal to Mail to Address Book to Finder—will make your day-to-day computer use that much more convenient that you'll be glad you upgraded.

8. Leopard is not much more resource intensive than Tiger. We've noticed slightly more RAM usage compared with Tiger, but as long as you have more than 1GB of memory it's not a huge deal. You do need about 10GB of free space to install Leopard, but after you're done there's no real noticeable storage increase demands. In fact, we're pretty sure that our MacBook Pro runs faster now after upgrading to Leopard than it did back on Tiger. You probably don't need to buy more RAM for this, but it couldn't hurt.

9. 64-bit performance speeds up newer Macs. If you're on a Core 2 Duo Mac (that's pretty much all new Macs purchased in the last year or so), Leopard will eventually give you 64-bit versions of your apps. It's a bit technical when we get down to talking about frameworks and the building blocks for new applications, but just know that 64-bit versions of the same applications will run faster than 32-bit versions. Plus, you have no performance penalty for running 32-bit applications along-side 64-bit ones.

10. You might not need Leopard right now if you're on an old machine. Although Apple lists 300 new features in Leopard, on a few of them are critical—and none of them are showstoppers. If you're going to buy a new Mac soon, the new Mac will come with a copy of Leopard, saving you $129 in the process. Plus, the cost of iLife '08 isn't included in Leopard, meaning you're going to have to shell out another $79. If you buy a new Mac, you get both of these for free. Even if you're not planning on a new machine, you need to take a good look at the features listed above and see just how important they are. If they're only marginally crucial to your every day usage, it's safe to wait until you really need Leopard for something before upgrading.

Bonus: There are three very tangible reasons to upgrade to Leopard: Time Machine, iChat and Finder/Quicklook upgrades. If you have a good backup solution now, or don't use iChat video, and don't have to browse a lot of multimedia files in finder, you might not need to upgrade.

1) Not all iPod Accessories and headphones will work with the iPhone: Unless your accessory specifically claims that it works with the iPhone, you're going to have mixed results when you plug in. Some work (but prompt you to turn on Airplane mode), some don't. So far our test show good results.

As for headphones, if you've got an L-shaped plug or a fat plug, you're out of luck. Thanks to the recessed headphone jack, you're going to actually have to buy an adapter to get some of your regular headphones to work with the iPhone.

2) AT&T is Evil: You know this. Being stuck on AT&T for two years is going to be horrible. This is the company that had managers forcing customers to buy accessories with the iPhone just so they could meet their sales quotas. Plus, their reception and customer service leave a lot to be desired.

3) No video recording or MMS: The iPhone's 2-megapixel camera is great if there's enough light, but there's no video recording at all. None. This is odd, since the iPhone has so much video playback capabilities in its iPod "app," but don't expect to make movies with this thing. And since you can't record video, you can't send any video messages (MMS) either.

4) No Instant Messaging: The SMS app may look great with its iChat-esque bubbles, but there's no IM app to be found anywhere. With the Helio Ocean and the Sidekick both featuring on-board multi-client IM apps, and Windows Mobile and Palm smartphones able to add them on later, there's no excuse for not having an IM client.

5) Not for business use: BlackBerry enthusiasts need not apply. In addition to the keyboard being totally different (we're already typing fast with two thumbs, but less "adaptable" people may not pick up on this as fast), there's no push email except for Yahoo Mail. There is Exchange support, but it's just using IMAP access. Good luck getting your IT department to hook this up.

6) It's not a full iPod Replacement, and it has no games: With 4GB or 8GB of storage, this is essentially an iPod nano. It's definitely not an iPod Video, both in terms of storage and functionality. You can watch videos, sure, but there's no TV out, and not nearly enough room to keep all the TV shows and podcasts you keep downloading. Plus, all those 5G iPod games that you thought were going to make it onto the iPhone? Nope. No games at all.

7) It's not a smartphone: As much as Apple wants you to think their "open application development" using webapps is actual apps, it's not. You can get some stuff done using webapps and Safari, but as of right now, support sucks. Until people start developing apps specifically customized for the iPhone's quirks, you won't be doing anything super fancy. And of course there's no way for you to get "real" Cocoa-based apps onto the iPhone.

8) The data connection is slow: Although the iPhone has both EDGE and Wi-Fi, you're probably going to be using EDGE most of the time. Why? Because if you're in Wi-Fi range, you're usually at home or at work, when you've got an actual computer in front of you. When you're outside driving or walking, you'll be on EDGE. If you're on EDGE, expect emails with large attachments and Web pages to download slowly. Unlike other gripes, this is something they can't fix with a software update. Real time traffic is nice though.

9) There's no GPS: The iPhone may have a Google Maps application with turn by turn driving directions, but there's no actual GPS in there. You're going to have find your current location yourself, plus tell the phone exactly when you're turning. Like the data connection, a software update can't fix this.

10) There are no custom ringtones: You can't use your own ringtones (whether they're MP3s, downloaded music, or iTunes tracks) as ringtones for your phone. Luckily for us, since the default ringtones are pretty lousy, custom ringtones may be coming soon.

As you can see, the iPhone has caveats galore. Even though we're still enjoying the iPhone, any prospective buyers should be aware of these limitations before throwing down $500 or $600. Many of these problems (video recording, MMS, Instant Messaging, custom ringtones) can be fixed with a software update, but if any of the other features are important to you, you may have to wait until iPhone 2.0.

Do you go with a cheap $9 a month rental from Comcast and put up with all its flaws to save money? Do you plunk down a couple hundred bucks and a monthly fee for a TiVo Series 3 because it just works the way you want it? Do you go all out and spend a couple grand for a Vista Media Center that has every single extra feature you could possibly want in a PC? Or do you go to the other extreme and build your own MythTV/SageTV/XP Media Center machine out of spare parts?

Here are the ten things you should know before you decide.

0) Do you have HDTV cable and an HDTV set? The pre-requisite to even getting an HD DVR is actually having high def cable and an HDTV. Make sure you're signed up for high definition cable from your cable provider (it's usually $5-$15 more a month) and have an HDTV to watch it on. The super-cheap EDTV sets you find at Costco won't support up to the 1080i resolution that HD cable brings, which means all those extra pixels are going to waste. Make sure you have the necessary equipment before you go and spend the money on an HD recorder.

1) Are you cheap? This is the biggest and most important question. Admit it, you're cheap. Hell, I'm pretty cheap too. Do you really need to spend $500 or $2000 for a system only to have to keep on paying rental or subscription fees of nearly $100 a month? Do you really want to watch that much TV? If not, then renting a HD DVR from your cable company or building your own Myth TV or XP Media Center Edition box with an over the air (OTA) HD recorder could be for you.

2) Are you familiar with Linux/PCs? If you are cheap (see #1), then you're probably contemplating salvaging an old PC and building a media center out of that. The only problem is that MythTV requires anywhere from slight Linux knowledge (installing some packages) to uber haxor Linux knowledge (recompiling kernels, fiddling with code and compiling), depending on what PC components you already have and which ones you can get your hands on. Even if you're going for a Windows XP MCE-based box, you might still have to go out and look for drivers and download updates to your current software. It's not nearly as easy as buying a TiVo or a pre-built Vista Media Center box.

3) Does someone nontechnical need to use it? If you or your wife/husband/roommates don't know the first thing about computers, you're going to want to go with TiVo. Although Vista's CableCARD HTPC is pretty easy to use (as we saw in our TiVo head-to-head), it's still a PC and still suffers from the same old PC problems like freezing or crashing. If you want the absolute simplest interface while still keeping features intact, you'll want a TiVo Series 3. Also, if you've already owned a TiVo before, you're going to want to stick with TiVo. Learning another system, even if it is easy like Vista's Media Center, is unnecessary if you're already an expert at one.

4) Do you need DivX/XviD playback? If you're often downloading TV shows and movies off of BitTorrent, you're going to want a way to watch them on your TV. And if you don't have an upscaling DVD player that supports DivX, a Vista CableCARD HTPC or a do-it-yourself Myth/XP machine can do the trick. However, most of the time HDTV encodes you find on BitTorrent are of poorer quality than the feeds you get from your cable provider—because they've been re-encoded, naturally. You'll want to watch most of your TV programming from your DVR instead of from BitTorrent if you can help it.

5) Do you have Satellite TV? If you have Dish or DirecTV, your own provider has a box made just to cram down your throat, so you're usually stuck with those. The DIY solutions like MythTV or XP MCE won't work with satellite, but Microsoft and DirecTV said they're going to integrate an app/plug-in into Vista Media Centers that allow reception of DirecTV. In this case, the receiver is your Vista HTPC, which brings with it all the benefits that HTPC systems have.

6) Do you need photos and music? Gaming? Internet browsing? Vista Media Centers trounce TiVo when it comes to viewing photos and playing back your music. To a slightly lesser extent, so do MythTV and XP MCE boxes. If you're going to want to play games or browse the Internet from your couch like some kind of non-shitty WebTV, a PC is the way to go.

7) Do you need On Demand? HD cable in general? This one's a little tricky. For On Demand, the only HD DVR that supports this is the one from your cable company. Both TiVos and Vista machines don't. Also, if you want HD cable, that totally rules out home-made machines like MythTV, which don't have CableCARD support and can only get cable over the air using an ATSC card. Depending on where you live, how big an antenna you use (yeah, you'll have to use an antenna), and what channels your local stations broadcast in HD, you may or may not have the same experience as HD cable.

8) Do you watch a lot of TV? If you record a lot of TV, you're going to need a lot of space. The DVRs from your cable company only have 120GB of space (the Comcast Motorola box), TiVo only has 250GB unless you upgrade it with an external hard drive, but Vista Media Centers and do-it-yourself solutions are almost infinitely expandable thanks to the fact that they're PCs. In fact, you could even store the recordings on another server over the network, or burn them to DVDs if you want to archive them.

9) Can you stand a PC in the living room? We're fine with it, but many people hate the sight of a PC in their home entertainment setups. This is a huge win for TiVo, since it looks like it belongs in your media center. However, you can technically get an extender like an Xbox 360 and get the exact same experience as if you had the Vista Media Center in your living room. This way, you can house your machine in another room and have a (relatively) quiet front-end. The same is true for MythTV systems, which can also be extended with smaller front ends and have larger servers in the back room.

10) Do you love Macs? Although we prefer to go with a TiVo 3 or Vista Media Center, we know of a couple people that are so tied into the Apple ecosystem of iTunes music and movies that they really want that experience in the living room as well. Using something like a Miglia TVMini HD+, you can turn your Mac Mini into a DVR that even records in DivX. Add to that the fact that you have a Mac with Front Row attached to your TV—so you can easily watch iTunes movies or listen to iTunes music—and you have the perfect setup for a Mac head who wants DVR features. The only caveat, like the issues MythTV systems run into on #7, is that you can only record over the air HD and not stuff from cable. (Of course, TiVo's desktop app is well supported on the Mac, so you can stream music and photos from your Apple, and a MCE PC can still run iTunes.)

With all these options, it's probably tough to decide which one is right for you. There's no perfect solution right now (neither TiVo nor Vista HTPCs are great for everyone), so you should pick the features you really, really need to have and choose the DVR that meets most of them. – Jason Chen

Although the high definition players are already fairly cheap (HD DVD at $299 and Blu-ray getting close), the lack of content and their uncertain future is still putting a lot of people off. What's the alternative? An upscaling DVD player that turns all of the movies you own—plus all the ones you can rent from Netflix or Blockbuster—into high definition goodness.

Sure, the quality isn't going to be as good as HD DVD or Blu-ray, but if you add in the extra features that these very refined DVD players have—streaming, Internet radio, and DivX playback—you can possibly get an even richer media experience. Here are the ten things you should know before you buy one.

0) Before we start, you should understand that Upscaling DVD players aren't the same as actual HD DVD or Blu-ray players. You still have the same amount of data in terms of pixels you came in with, namely, a lot less pixels than actual HD players. These don't turn SD content into HD content technically, they just make your SD content look a whole lot better than they do on regular SD players.

1) Does it upscale to 1080p? Not all players do—especially the very cheap ones (under $100). If you've got a fancy HDTV that supports 1080p, you'd want a player that can output everything your display can handle. However, it's not a huge deal if both your TV and the player are 1080i. The difference in quality isn't enough to make it worth your money to upgrade your equipment for at this point.

2) Does your TV support HDMI? Some players that do upscale to 1080i or 1080p only do it over HDMI. If you've got an older set with only component cables, check to make sure the DVD player you get upscales both DVDs and other video files over component and not just HDMI.

3) Does it support DivX, WMV, XviD, and other file formats? One of the benefits of getting an upscaling DVD player over either Blu-ray or HD DVD is the addition of file playback. If you regularly download TV shows or movies off of BitTorrent, you'll be happier if the player you get can play these back on your widescreen TV. For the DVD fans, you'll want to find out whether it supports playback of DVD images as well. Instead of having to switch out DVDs, you could essentially make your own DVD changer by dumping 100 of your favorite movies onto an external hard drive.

4) Does it support video/audio streaming? Instead of having to burn DVD-Rs (which could get costly) or DVD-RWs (still time consuming) whenever you've downloaded something new to watch, why not just stream the files directly from your PC or file server? If the player supports audio streaming as well, you've got yourself a nice music player in your living room at no extra cost.

5) Does it have wireless? If your player does stream, check to see if it supports 802.11g as well. You may not necessarily have your entertainment center wired up for Ethernet cables as well as it's wired for audio/video equipment. With wireless, you can stream data with no extra wiring involved.

6) Does it have 5.1 audio? Is it a built-in receiver with speaker tabs? Almost all the upscaling DVD players will have 5.1 audio with either optical or coaxial audio outputs, but if you're going the super cheap route ($50 and under), you should make sure it's got the right connections. If you don't have a receiver already, you could go the opposite route and spend a little more on a DVD player that's also a receiver built in (Home Theater in a Box gives you speakers as well).

7) How are the extras? This is optional, but some players have extras like shoutcast Internet radio streaming, Internet TV stations, and Weather forecasts. If you're into stuff like Internet radio then make sure the player you have supports it.

8) Is it region-free? Not all players are, and if you're going to be playing back DVDs you buy overseas for $2 a pop, you should make sure the player you buy supports it.

9) Does it play back burned discs? Again, if you're going to be copying discs "you already own", you should be sure that there's support for it. Then again, there's nothing more fun than taking merchandise back to the store because it doesn't work the way you want. So, it's mostly up to you.

10) Would you be better off with a Home Theater PC? Instead of getting a set-top box that tries to emulate everything a PC can do, why not get a PC? If you're looking for all these features, plus DVRing (for recording your TV shows), gaming, Internet browsing, and BitTorrenting all in one, then you won't go wrong with an HTPC. The only thing to worry about is the price, which will probably be a bit more than what you'd spend on one of these upscaling DVD players.

– Jason Chen

Upconverting and Upscaling players [Gizmodo]

Picking a Player [RunnersWorld]