Walt Mossberg

Intel Makes Leap in Device to Aid Impaired Readers

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:03:59 +0000

Despite all of the advances in digital technology, too few high-tech products have emerged to help the blind read books or other paper documents, or to make reading such texts easier for people with impaired vision or language-related learning disabilities.

A few years back, a breakthrough was made with text-to-speech software that could be installed on a specific mobile phone, but with limitations due to the phone’s small screen and buttons, and restricted processor power.

[ See post to watch video ]

Now, Intel (INTC), the giant chip maker, is attacking this problem with a new product: the Intel Reader. It’s a chunky, book-size device with a computer-grade processor and a large, forward-facing screen that can be viewed easily while its downward-facing camera is shooting text for translation into audio and giant text. It also has raised buttons that are easy to find via touch.

I’ve been testing the Intel Reader with books, newspapers, magazines, bank statements, menus and even cereal boxes. My results were decidedly mixed. In some cases, especially with books and certain magazine articles, it worked pretty well, often almost perfectly. In others, it did a poor job. I also found that it takes a lot of practice to learn how to aim the Reader’s camera properly.

However, an important caveat is in order. I have full, normal vision and no learning disabilities, so I can’t put myself in the place of someone who is unable to read paper documents, or who struggles to do so. For them, the limitations I found in this product might easily pale when compared with its liberating benefits. More information is at reader.intel.com.

When it worked as promised, the Intel Reader was a delight. It would start reading the text to me in under a minute, while displaying the words on the 4.3-inch screen in an easily adjusted font size that could allow as little as one word to fill the display. I also could switch to a view of the photo of the whole page, and zoom in to focus on a portion of the text. It holds multiple texts and has an easy interface with large menus that the machine can read to you.

But the Reader is relatively big and expensive. It costs a whopping $1,500 and is available from only a limited number of retailers who specialize in products for special-needs consumers. By contrast, the competing cellphone product, called the KNFB mobile reader, is much smaller because it uses a standard Nokia (NOK) mobile phone. It can be purchased through Amazon.com (AMZN), also for $1,500.

The Intel Reader

The Intel Reader is a special-purpose computer that weighs 1.4 pounds and is dominated by the roomy horizontal screen, with control buttons to the right and below. Along the bottom edge is a five-megapixel camera with flash.

The Reader’s second-most-prominent feature is a large, bright-blue “shoot” button, which occupies all of the diagonally cut upper right hand corner. You press this easy-to-find button twice to take a picture of the text that the Reader will then convert.

Both the text on the screen and the speed of the audio reading can be adjusted with prominent, raised buttons. Other buttons begin and end playback, and navigate through the menus.

The Reader uses the same Intel Atom processor found on netbook computers, and can hold 600 processed pages that you can transfer to and from a PC or Mac. It also can convert your processed pages into audio files for playback on a portable audio player.

The Reader can capture two book pages at a time. Intel also sells a $400 stand to make book conversion faster and easier.

In my tests, my biggest problem was aiming correctly. The Reader automatically corrects the curvature and orientation of pages. But in many of the items I captured, the first and last few words were either garbled or skipped. The company admits there is a learning curve to the Reader, and I did get better with time.

The Reader did a great job with pages from the new Ken Auletta book, “Googled,” and a fair job with pages from the first Harry Potter book. To my surprise, it didn’t stumble so much with the made-up words in the latter book, but with common ones like “magic.” In the book about Google (GOOG), the reader’s robotic voice kept pronouncing MySpace as “mizzpizz.” And it often pronounced the word “I” as “one.”

The device was excellent at reading a menu from a local bakery, even down to the tiny type, but it utterly failed to make sense of a simple summary statement from my bank, or the front of a box of Cheerios.

Newspapers were a particular challenge. The Reader frequently picked up fragments of adjoining articles or picture captions, or got completely flummoxed. In one case, it got permanently stuck trying to process an article. Intel says that was a rare bug it will fix.

On balance, I’d recommend the Reader, provider the user understands its limitations and is willing to tackle the learning curve.

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

Time Capsule Alternatives, Windows 7 and Using Droid in Europe

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:38:03 +0000

We’ve got two Apple iMacs. I planned to buy the Apple Time Capsule to back them up until I read online reports that some seem to just die after 18 months. Can you recommend another backup solution for a home Apple environment?

A: The built-in backup program in your iMacs, called Time Machine, doesn’t require Apple’s Time Capsule product to work. It will work with almost any brand of directly connected external hard disk.

For instance, I back up my home iMac to a Western Digital drive that’s connected to it via a cable.

As for hard-drive life, it’s my experience that many seem to die sooner or later, especially if they are used heavily. I don’t know if the ones inside the Time Capsule are especially fragile. But, in just the past six months, I’ve had an external hard disk from G-Tech die on me; seen an internal hard disk on my home Dell die for a second time; and discovered that the hard disk on my colleague’s MacBook died.

One way to protect against the failure of a local backup drive is to consider, in addition to using an external disk, backing up your data to an online backup service like Mozy, Carbonite or SugarSync.

My Dell has Microsoft Vista but I can upgrade free to the new Windows 7. However, I was told my antivirus software won’t be compatible and my email will change—the program will no longer be “Windows Mail.” What do you recommend?

A: I regard Windows 7 as much better than Vista, but you are correct that many antivirus programs will require upgrading and Windows Mail will go away during the upgrade. You’ll have to install a new email program, such as the very similar “Windows Live Mail,” which can import your messages. So, the question really is one of trade-offs. If you’re satisfied with Vista, and would rather not perform these program replacements, you should stand pat. If you don’t like Vista, and are anxious to replace it, then the hassles you describe could be worth it.

Will Office 2003 work with the new Windows 7 operating system?

A: Microsoft, which makes both products, says the answer is yes, though I haven’t tested it.

Is it possible that the Verizon Motorola Droid, which doesn’t work in Europe, could be turned into a “world phone” that could work on European cellphone networks via an app somebody might develop?

A: An app wouldn’t be able to do that for the current Verizon Droid. It’s a hardware issue.

Verizon’s Droid, like most Verizon phones, is built to run on a type of network called CDMA that isn’t used in Europe or most other countries outside the U.S., which use a network standard called GSM.

To run on these networks, the Droid, or any other current CDMA phone, would need an entirely different radio, or two radios, one for each type of network.

Verizon offers a handful of so-called “world phones,” which have both kinds of radios inside, but the Droid isn’t one of them. Motorola may well make a new model with two radios, or even a model with one radio that would work overseas, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it did so.

What could be done with an app is to allow the Droid to make so-called VOIP phone calls via the Internet.

In fact, while I haven’t checked, there may already be such an app for Android—the Droid’s operating system—that would do so. But, in many cases, making such Internet phone calls requires the user to be in range of a Wi-Fi network. Some carriers don’t allow such calls to be made over their cellular networks.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online for free at the All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Palm Pixi Needs a Dusting of Speed

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:52:55 +0000

Since the debut of the Palm Pre in June, Palm has talked about the value of the device’s webOS operating system, which offers fast responsiveness, multitasking, universal search and smart synchronization. These features are accessed using delightful multitouch gestures like swiping with a fingertip. So it makes perfect sense that Palm would want to expand its family of products running this great mobile operating system.

[ See post to watch video ]

This week, Palm (PALM) introduced a second device with webOS: the Palm Pixi (palm.com/pixi). This is a stripped-down version of the Pre and it costs $100 (after a $50 instant rebate and a $100 mail-in rebate and with a two-year service contract) compared with the $150 Pre. Walmart.com is currently selling the Pixi for even less—$50 (http://3.ly/oSE). Both the Pixi and the Pre run on Sprint’s (S) network.

I’ve been testing the Pixi and I’ve found that the physical differences from the Pre are acceptable variations that most people won’t mind and may not even detect. These include a smaller, lower-resolution screen, a two-megapixel camera rather than the Pre’s three-megapixel camera and stationary keyboard instead of one that slides out. The Pixi isn’t as pebble-shaped as the Pre, but its back cover is rounded to fit comfortably in a hand. And like the Pre, it has an eight-gigabyte storage capacity and it’s thin and light enough to forget in a jeans pocket or to comfortably hold up to your ear during phone calls.

The Pixi’s internal changes are much tougher to accept. It lacks Wi-Fi capability and so must rely solely on Sprint’s 3G network for its connection, which I found to be frustratingly slow at times. This littler phone also runs on a weaker processor than the Pre, a decision that Palm says helped cut costs and make the Pixi small. But this processor’s speed is slow enough to notice immediately and it robs webOS of its lightning-fast speed. The Pixi’s progress indicator—a spinning, white circle—appeared on my screen too often.

The $100 Palm Pixi is like a mini version of the Pre. A $70 Touchstone accessory (right) magnetically holds the Pixi as it charges.

Like its super-smartphone competitors, including Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, Research in Motion’s (RIMM) newer BlackBerrys and Google’s (GOOG) Android phones, the Palm Pixi taps into a virtual store from which users can download apps for the device. But Palm’s App Catalog currently holds fewer than 400 apps and roughly 80 of those aren’t yet configured for the Pixi. This means that people who buy the $100 Pixi can choose from just around 300 apps for download, compared with the 100,000 apps available for Apple’s $100 iPhone 3G.

Some apps come preloaded on the Pixi, like Facebook and NFL Mobile Live. I downloaded others, including Pandora radio, Tweed for Twitter and a game called Word Whirl Lite. I logged into my Pandora account and played songs from one of my personalized radio stations while reading through email. A tiny “P” icon at the bottom of the Pixi’s screen notified me that Pandora was running. Other notifiers, like new emails or instant messages, appear at the bottom as well.

If you aren’t familiar with webOS, it’s easy to learn. Functions are designed to be more people-centric rather than program-centric. For example, I can look at a name in Contacts and see how I’m linked to that person—like through Facebook or Google Talk. If I want to start an instant-messaging conversation with that person, I can do so right there rather than opening AIM or Google Talk first to find a person’s name and then initiate conversation. I logged onto the Pixi with a Google account and the device was smart enough to also synchronize data from my Google Talk, Google Calendar and Gmail contacts.

The Card View, a display of all the programs that are simultaneously running at any given time, can be exposed with a simple, upward finger swipe starting below the screen. To close a program, simply touch it with a finger and toss it upward, as if throwing it away. This is one of the most satisfying gestures in webOS. And it’s a good thing, too, because Pixi users will need to use it more often than they did with the Pre. Palm suggests running only seven programs at once for the best performance, rather than the 10 you can leave opened on the Pre.

But my Pixi stuttered with just five programs—sometimes fewer—opened. Simple tasks like opening an email or searching for an app in the App Catalog were painfully slow. I received an email containing one digital photo, and the process of opening just the email—not even the photo—took about 10 seconds. When I finally opened the email and its photo, I saved it to my Pixi and tapped on a menu option to upload it to Facebook. But five minutes later, the spinning progress indicator was still on my Pixi’s screen and I gave up. I tried again and the same thing happened. Finally, on the third try, my photo posted to Facebook.

As was the case for the Palm Pre, the Pixi can be charged by plugging into a normal AC adaptor or by resting it on the Touchstone, a $70 accessory that, with the help of a special back cover that snaps onto the Pixi, magnetically holds this device as it charges. A handful of stylish “Artist Series” back covers will sell on Palm.com for $50 each and will ship in early December.

The Pixi’s 2.6-inch screen has a 320×400 resolution, which is a step down from the Pre’s 3.1-inch, 320×480-resolution screen. Palm estimates the Pixi’s battery lasts for five hours of talk time, the same as the Pre, but for 350 hours of standby time—or 50 more hours than the Pre.

The Palm Pixi’s keyboard is tiny but sufficient. People who are used to BlackBerry or even iPhone keyboards might be irked that the Pixi keyboard doesn’t have built-in shortcuts like holding down a key to capitalize it or pressing the space bar twice to add a period to the end of a sentence.

Like its predecessor, the Pixi has a designated Gesture Area just beneath its screen where users can swipe a fingertip for quickly navigating through screens, like swiping right-to-left to go back a screen. Unlike the Pre, the Pixi doesn’t have a silver button below its screen that immediately takes users to Card View, but I didn’t miss this button.

Though the Palm Pixi is $50 less than the Palm Pre, its downgraded performance doesn’t make that dollar savings worth it.

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Price Is Heavier, but These Laptops Are Very Sleek

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

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

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

[ See post to watch video ]

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

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

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

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

The Toshiba Satellite T135

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

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

Toshiba Satellite T135

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

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

HP Pavilion dm3t

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

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

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

Lenovo IdeaPad U350

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

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

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

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

Droid Memory, Palm to iPod Touch, and iMacs for Older Users

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:22:58 +0000

I have read that the Motorola Droid from Verizon has a limited amount of memory for storing third-party apps, no matter how much total memory you add to it. Is this true?

A: That’s right. It’s a characteristic of Android, the Droid’s operating system made by Google, and it’s something I noted as a weakness when I reviewed the first Android phone over a year ago.

Even though the Droid comes with 16 gigabytes of memory, in the form of a removable card, apps can’t be stored on this memory card. They must be stored in a special area of internal memory, which in the case of the Droid totals only a measly 256 megabytes, about a fourth of one gigabyte. The memory card is reserved instead for things like documents, music, videos and pictures. That limits the total number of apps the phone can hold at any one time.

Google says the amount of internal memory allotted for apps is up to the hardware makers, and notes that the Droid has twice as much as the original Android phone. It also says that makers of complex apps that use things like graphics that are ancillary to the core app itself could theoretically offload these files to the memory cards.

But users of Apple’s competing iPhone can devote nearly all of its 16 gigabytes of memory to storing third-party apps, allowing many more apps to be stored on the phone.

I have all my data (addresses, calendar, notes) stored on my Palm Zire. I’d like to get an iPod Touch, but can’t figure out how to transfer the Palm calendar. Can you help? Or, do you know of any other “smart” handheld that will allow me to import my Palm data and give me Internet/email access?

A: There are various workarounds for doing the transfer to an iPod Touch, but, since you ask, there is another smart phone with great Internet capabilities that comes with a way to do it simply and directly: the Palm Pre. It’s based on a new and different operating system than your Zire is, called webOS, and is designed to sync with wireless contact and calendar sources rather than desktop programs.

But Palm has developed a one-time, one-way utility for transferring data from desktop software used by an older Palm to one of the wireless calendar and contact services with which the Pre was designed to sync. More information is at: http://bit.ly/2ivFI.

I want to buy a new computer and I really like the new iMac with the 27″ screen. I am 72 years old, which is one of the reasons I want the larger screen. Please tell me if you think my buying this iMac is a good idea. Is there some negative aspect of the iMac that I should be aware of?

A: I gave the new iMac with the huge screen a positive review, so I obviously think it’s a good computer. But, if by mentioning your age you mean to imply that you have vision issues, you should be aware that the new iMac’s screen isn’t just physically large, but is high resolution.

That allows it to pack a lot more content onto the screen, but, depending on what program you’re using, it can make the text small. Word processors, email programs and Web browsers usually allow you to enlarge text, but not all programs do.

The Mac itself has a system-wide zooming feature, but that makes some tasks harder to work with. I recommend you go to a store and play with the big iMac for a while to make sure you feel comfortable with its screen resolution.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online for free at the All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

A Downsized BlackBerry Bold With Oomph

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:16:08 +0000

Almost exactly one year ago, Research In Motion introduced what I then called the Buick of BlackBerrys: the BlackBerry Bold. It was bulky, heavy and seemed made for the holster-wearing set. But what it lacked in style it made up for in comfort. It had a generously sized keyboard, bright screen and even a leatherette back to accent its luxurious side. The Bold was RIM’s first BlackBerry to run on the fast 3G network, and AT&T was asking $300 for it—$100 more than the least expensive Apple iPhone at the time.

Much has changed in a year, most notably the growing number of serious competitors vying to steal customers from RIM (RIMM) and Apple (AAPL), and the surge of applications (“apps” for short) available for these super smart phones.

[ See post to watch video ]

This week, I tested RIM’s new BlackBerry Bold 9700 (na.blackberry.com), which will be available on Nov. 27 for $200 with a two-year T-Mobile contract. Like the original Bold, the Bold 9700 has a leatherette back. But that’s where the similarities end. This new version reminds me of the original Bold after a diet: smaller in every dimension—width, height, depth and weight—and, physically, it’s a lot like the newer BlackBerry Curve models. (I use the Curve 8900 every day, and after using the two together for a week I still mistook them for one another at a glance.)

RIM has long been proud of its diverse selection and the fact that it doesn’t force a “one size fits all” theory on its users. Instead, it offers BlackBerrys in all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Pearl Flip, a flip phone with a built-in BlackBerry, to the Storm 2, a touch-screen device without a physical keyboard, and several models in between.

Now, the Bold has dropped its distinguished characteristics. The Buick of BlackBerrys has become as common as the Toyota Camry. Is there nothing left for the user who likes a large, luxurious BlackBerry?

In a side-by-side comparison between this new Bold 9700, the Curve 8900 ($150 after a $100 mail-in rebate) and the Tour 9630 ($150 after Verizon’s $100 online discount), the physical differences are almost imperceptible. And these models don’t look all that different from the Curve 8520, which costs $50 with a two-year T-Mobile contract when bought at Wal-Mart (WMT).

The new Bold’s smaller size means its keyboard also is slightly smaller than its predecessor: It measures about 5.5 centimeters across rather than 5.9 centimeters. I still found it relatively comfortable to use. But this keyboard is almost exactly the same as the keyboard on the BlackBerry Tour, except the new Bold’s bottom row of keys is slightly shorter. Unlike the keyboard found on the Curve 8900 and other less-expensive Curves, the keys on the Bold 9700 are positioned side by side with no spaces between them, and horizontal rows are divided by chrome frets.

Look familiar? The BlackBerry Bold 9700 now resembles existing BlackBerrys.

While the Bold 9700 looks rather undistinguished, it has a few less-obvious attributes that give it a little oomph. For starters, it uses a trackpad for scrolling the screen. Longtime Blackberry users will remember the original scroll wheel, which was on the right side of the device. In 2006, the scroll wheel was replaced with a trackball on the front of the device. This September, that trackball was replaced by a trackpad as first seen on the Curve 8520, and its appearance on this new Bold confirms RIM’s decision to use it as the navigational tool of choice.

This trackpad is a tiny, touch-sensitive square that works by sensing a finger’s directional movements. Pressing in on the trackpad, like pressing in on the trackball, selects something on the screen. At first, I missed the satisfying physical feel of scrolling with the trackball, and the trackpad felt fast and less controllable to my thumb. But I soon got used to the trackpad and appreciated that it does away with all moving parts that could possibly get stuck—a trackball hazard for many BlackBerry users. The trackpad also establishes a flat layer beneath the screen that looks sleek and smooth in line with the four navigational buttons.

Another advantage of the Bold 9700 is its battery life. If you take off this BlackBerry’s leatherette back, a battery that measures almost the size of the device itself lies beneath. This large battery supplies the Bold 9700 with enough juice to last up to 19 days in standby mode. By comparison, the BlackBerry Tour and Curve 8900 last for up to 14 days each in standby. The new Bold’s talk time is up to six hours, slightly better than the Curve 8900’s 5½ and an hour better than the Tour’s five-hour talk time.

This thinner, lighter, smaller Bold is more comfortable to use for phone calls than the original, which could make users feel like they were holding a small piece of toast up to their ear during calls. I made several calls with no problems. Emailing on this Bold 9700 was as simple as always, and I set up four email accounts for testing.

Despite its fancy new BlackBerrys, RIM needs to overhaul the way it handles apps. The Bold 9700 comes preloaded with a prominently positioned icon for RIM’s BlackBerry App World store. But apps downloaded from here still go right into the “Downloads” folder, sending users unfamiliar with this system into a frantic search for their newly downloaded app.

And not all apps go into that folder; the Facebook app goes straight to the “Apps” folder. Why not put every new app right on the home screen and let me put them into folders if I so choose?

Once apps are downloaded, RIM neglects to notify you when all apps need to be updated. On my personal Curve 8900, I recently dug into the settings of my TwitterBerry and Facebook apps and manually checked to see if updated versions were available for each. This was the case, and I downloaded the new versions, but most people would never think to check for this kind of thing. Instead, RIM should send notifications about available updates for all apps.

The Bold 9700 runs on T-Mobile’s 3G network, which isn’t nearly as established as the 3G networks that Verizon (VZ) and AT&T (T) offer. It also can connect to Wi-Fi and allows voice calls to be made over Wi-Fi. (The BlackBerry Tour connects to Verizon’s 3G network but doesn’t have Wi-Fi—a huge downside. The Curve 8900 connects to Wi-Fi but not to 3G.)

The other attributes of the Bold 9700 are like the BlackBerry Curve 8900 and Tour: They all have cameras with flashes that are capable of capturing 3.2-megapixel photographs, bright 480×360-pixel displays, built-in GPS and slots for microSD memory cards so as to expand their memory.

If you’re considering a BlackBerry upgrade, the Bold 9700 offers 3G and Wi-Fi, a combination not offered by another BlackBerry with a full physical keyboard—other than the original Bold. But since many of the Bold 9700’s features are about the same as less-expensive BlackBerrys, it’s worth considering the Tour and Curve 8900 before you spend $200 on a device that no longer lives up to its bold name.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Motorola's Droid Is Smart Success for Verizon Users

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:10:06 +0000

Verizon Wireless customers tend to love the company’s fast 3G network. But many tech-oriented Verizon loyalists gripe about the carrier’s high-end smart phones, which haven’t matched the cachet and versatility of the Apple iPhone sold by AT&T (T). In fact, some Verizon customers have switched to AT&T simply to get an iPhone.

[ See post to watch video ]

But this week, Verizon (VZ) is rolling out a device that finally gives it a more credible alternative. This new $200 phone is the Motorola Droid and it’s the first Verizon model to run Google’s (GOOG) Android smart-phone operating system. I’ve been testing the Droid, and while it has some significant drawbacks, I regard it as a success overall. It’s the best super-smart phone Verizon offers, the best Motorola (MOT) phone I’ve tested and the best hardware so far to run Android. I can recommend the Droid to Verizon loyalists who have lusted for a better smart phone, but don’t want to switch networks.

Like the iPhone, the Droid is really a powerful hand-held computer that happens to make phone calls, and is a platform for numerous third-party programs, or apps. Currently, Android offers over 12,000 apps. That is just a fraction of the 100,000 apps available for the iPhone, but it’s well above what the newer BlackBerry or Palm (PALM) phones offer.

The Droid is also the first phone that runs the 2.0 version of Android, which sands off some of the rough edges of Google’s platform and adds some features—notably, a free voice-prompted turn-by-turn navigation program. Android still isn’t as slick or fluid as the iPhone’s OS, in my view, but it has some functionality Apple (AAPL) omits, including the ability to run multiple third-party apps simultaneously.

The Droid is a handsome, squared-off device with a gorgeous, huge, high-resolution screen, bigger and sharper than the iPhone’s. There’s also a slide-out physical keyboard. It’s only a tad longer and thicker than the Apple product. But it’s 25% heavier, which makes it less comfortable to carry around in a pocket.

The Droid also has a higher-resolution camera than the iPhone’s: five megapixels versus three megapixels. And the camera has a flash, which the Apple lacks. In my tests, pictures came out OK, though not dazzling, and videos I shot were quite good.

Motorola’s Droid

The Droid’s large 3.7-inch screen looked great, but it lacks multitouch features, such as two-finger zooming, and it seemed less responsive than some other touch screens I’ve tested.

Battery life is listed at a whopping 6.4 hours, and, in my tests, the Droid easily lasted through the day on a single charge. Phone calls were crisp and clear, and I never suffered a dropped call. Verizon’s network was speedy and reliable for Web surfing, email and social networking. I copied some songs and videos onto the Droid by plugging it into a computer, and all played properly.

The Droid, whose $200 price comes only after a $100 mail-in rebate, requires a minimum $70 monthly service plan for two years, and text messaging costs extra. It comes with 16 gigabytes of memory, in the form of a removable card, and can handle up to a 32-gigabyte card.

Unfortunately for lovers of physical keyboards, I found the one on the Droid to be pretty awful. It has flat, cramped keys that induce too many typing errors, yet lacks auto-correction. I found myself using the virtual on-screen keyboard, which was pretty fast and accurate for me, and did include auto-correction.

Another downside: The Droid’s screen has only three panels for displaying apps, versus 11 on the iPhone, and some large apps, called widgets, hog much of the space on these panels.

Like the Palm Pre, the Droid tries to integrate social networking with contacts, though in a more limited way. It handles Google’s Gmail and Facebook, as well as Microsoft Exchange for corporate email and data. A nice feature lets you tap a contact’s picture and get instant options for ways to communicate.

The Droid can do some cool tricks with a couple of $30 optional docks, one for the car and one for the desk or nightstand. When placed in the car dock, the phone automatically displays a horizontal view with large buttons, including one for the built-in navigation system. In my tests, this navigation system worked pretty well, even showing photos of certain intersections. But it also gave me a couple of bad directions, such as sending me the wrong way at a fork in the road.

When placed in the desktop dock, the Droid displays the time and a different row of large icons from when it’s in the car dock, including music and an alarm clock.

I ran into one odd flaw with my test Droid, and with a second test unit tried by a colleague. Neither could send a photo via multimedia messaging to either my iPhone or her BlackBerry. Verizon was able to send pictures this way to my iPhone from other Droids, and it suspects some flaw in our test units.

The Droid is potentially a big win for Verizon, Motorola and Google, as well as for loyal Verizon customers.

Find Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com

Windows Live Email, Vista and Apple Tablets

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:05:16 +0000

I have just bought a new computer with Windows 7, and not only can’t I download Outlook Express, I can’t even find it. Is it there? Where?

A: Sadly, Microsoft killed Outlook Express—its free, fast and simple Windows email program—long before Windows 7 came out. In Vista, it was replaced by something called Windows Mail. Now, there’s no email program at all built into Windows 7, unless a PC maker chooses to include one. But Microsoft offers for download a free product called Windows Live Email that is the latest successor to Outlook Express. You can get it, alone or as part of a suite of free “Essentials” programs that used to be routinely part of Windows, at: windowslive.com/desktop.

I was told that Apple is developing its own version of the Kindle e-book reader. I wanted to purchase a Kindle for Christmas, but now I’m not sure whether I should wait for an Apple version.

A: I have never heard any Apple official say or hint that the company is developing a direct competitor for the Kindle, or is planning to make any dedicated e-book reader. What you may be referring to is that some Web sites have been speculating that the much-rumored forthcoming Apple touch-controlled tablet would be mainly intended to be an e-book reader. I haven’t any evidence of this either.

The iPhone and iPod Touch already can run a free Kindle app from Amazon that allows you to read Kindle e-books on those devices without needing to own a Kindle itself. And Barnes & Noble, which has also announced a dedicated e-reader, has a similar iPhone app. So I assume that any general-purpose Apple tablet would likely be able to run such an app as well and function as an e-reader—along with performing other tasks.

But that’s different than producing a dedicated reader with a screen and controls designed primarily for book reading and a companion electronic book store, something Apple currently lacks. It’s entirely possible Apple is going into the e-book business, but I know of zero hard evidence that this is the case.

Do you have any recommendations about switching an existing 64-bit laptop from Vista to Windows 7? I totally dislike Vista but I don’t know if the switch can be done.

A: Yes, it can, in most cases, unless your PC’s manufacturer for some reason isn’t supporting or recommending the upgrade of your particular model. Just make sure you get the comparable version of Windows 7 (say, 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium if you are currently using 64-bit Vista Home Premium) so you can do a direct, in-place upgrade that will allow your programs and files to remain in place.

You can also do an in-place upgrade if you opt to move up to the costlier Ultimate version. I would also advise backing up your irreplaceable personal files before you begin the process.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online for free at the All Things Digital web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at walt.mossberg@wsj.com

Fitbit Sees How You Run, Walk and Sleep

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:28:38 +0000

Everyone knows they ought to be eating well, exercising and getting enough sleep. But when they take the elevator up one flight of stairs, drive six blocks instead of walking and skimp on sleep to watch the end of the big game, it’s their little secret.

Not for long.

[ See post to watch video ]

I’ve been testing Fitbit, a tiny $99 device with a motion-detecting sensor that, when worn, digitally records one’s distance (walking or running), calories burned and steps taken—as well as sleep patterns. The Fitbit wirelessly sends the data to its Web site, fitbit.com, for storing these minute-by-minute details. And the site has space where users add details like food and water consumption so it provides a more accurate picture of calories burned versus calories consumed.

I’ve been using Fitbit almost nonstop for the past week. I occasionally forgot to wear this lightweight tracking device because I was dog-sitting for a friend’s puppy and barely remembered to wear my shoes, much less Fitbit, as we dashed out the door for walks at 5:30 a.m. But after just a couple days of using Fitbit, I got hooked on the idea of keeping digital tabs on myself, and I liked looking back at my activity log over a period of time. I started taking the long way walking to and from my Washington, D.C., Metro stop. Rather than rolling my chair over to the printer to grab a printout, I stood up and walked the four feet over to it so I could log a few extra steps.

The idea of tracking one’s own fitness is nothing new, as anyone with an old pedometer will tell you. But Fitbit’s technology makes it easier to record and store data, and its corresponding Web site analyzes the data in relation to personal information like gender, age, weight and height. Unlike some other products, it attempts to track your body’s activity while you’re asleep and awake, rather than one or the other. For instance, the $29 Nike + iPod Sport Kit specifically monitors running or walking; the $399 Zeo Personal Sleep Coach records people’s brain waves to analyze sleep behavior.

The $99 Fitbit has a motiondetecting sensor and measures distance, calories, steps and sleep patterns.

But the Nike + iPod and Zeo offer Web components that Fitbit currently lacks. The Nike + iPod lets you upload your workout details to see how you stack up against others or to compete against friends. The Zeo, too, lets you upload your data to its Web site, where sleep patterns can be analyzed and daily coaching tips are offered.

Fitbit data is automatically transferred to Fitbit.com, but for now, this site isn’t particularly social and doesn’t offer as much in-depth personal analysis and coaching. The site doesn’t allow you to use your data to interact with a community of other users. The company says it plans to launch its online community by December, giving people a forum for anonymously comparing their data or working with a group toward a goal, like losing a certain amount of weight. And while the Fitbit.com site is free, the company is considering plans to charge a monthly fee for additional personal data analysis and coaching—a feature that may launch early next year.

At two inches high and a half-inch wide, Fitbit reminded me of the rectangular iPod Shuffle that clips onto clothing. It weighs just four-tenths of an ounce. The device also has a tiny holster for a firmer hold. I used this holster just to be on the safe side and the combination was still so small and weightless that I often forgot I was wearing Fitbit. While sleeping, I wore a Velcro wristband that held the device in place. Fitbit Inc. says the wrist is the best place to measure activity during sleep; let’s just hope you don’t dream about conducting the Vienna Philharmonic.

A button on the Fitbit shuffles through four blue screens that show calories, distance (in miles), steps, and a Tamagotchi-like flower that grows when your activity increases and shrinks when it decreases. This flower learns your behavior over time, so if you start working out heavily, it raises its standards and won’t grow as quickly.

Along with its holster and sleeping wristband, Fitbit comes with a base station—a small USB-connected stand for charging. The battery takes an hour to fully charge and lasts five to 10 days. Battery status can be checked through Fitbit.com.

First-time Fitbit setup isn’t as easy as it should be, though. Unlike some USB devices, this one doesn’t come with preloaded software, so you have to go to Fitbit.com/start to download software for the Mac or PC. This allows the plugged-in base station to act as a receiver: Whenever a Fitbit is within 15 feet of a base station plugged into a computer that’s turned on and has Fitbit software installed, its data is automatically sent to Fitbit.com in 15-minute intervals.

The device will hold seven days of minute-by-minute data and 30 days’ worth of daily data, so you don’t have to worry about losing everything if you aren’t near your base station for a while. Using the device is as simple as moving; it’s always on—there’s no on/off button. Setting the Fitbit to record sleep sessions is almost as easy: You press and hold its button for two seconds until “Start” appears; do the same until “Stop” appears when you wake in the morning.

The data that show up on Fitbit.com reflect the device’s 3-D motion-detecting sensor. Rather than simply counting your steps, Fitbit can accurately read your motion intensity and therefore sorts motion into sedentary, lightly active, fairly active and very active. Running with the dog registered as very active movement, as did my power-walking trips to the Metro. Predictably, my time spent writing this column registered as sedentary. I got up and did five minutes of jumping jacks, which were recognized on the Web site minutes later as very active movements. If you change data on Fitbit.com, like your weight, this transfers to the device so it’s calibrating as accurately as possible.

According to my sleep records, I wake up often while I sleep—11 different times in one night—but don’t remember doing so. I wanted to know more about these different sleep states, but Fitbit doesn’t analyze that sort of thing.

Fitbit.com bases its Web-site information on biomechanical studies performed by government agencies and universities over several years. It sets goals for each person according to his or her base metabolic rate, which is determined by gender, age, weight and height—all details that users can opt to enter, or not, during setup. On a typical workday, I met 80% of my calorie-burning goal and 71% of my miles-traveled goal. All of these goals can be adjusted from what Fitbit.com sets. An easy-to-read pie chart displayed my four levels of motion in color-coded percentages.

Extra activities and food consumption can be manually added, and though bookmarking tools make it easier to do this, I opted not to do this.

Fitbits began shipping at the end of September and will continue shipping to customers who pre-ordered the devices. In January, Fitbit Inc. will start delivering new orders and Fitbits will appear in retail stores.

–Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Operating Systems Offer New Choices in PC Shopping

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

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

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

[ See post to watch video ]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Running Windows Programs on Macs

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:57:15 +0000

If I purchased an Apple Mac that runs both Apple’s OS and Microsoft Windows, is there a way to move my Windows files and applications over to the Mac side? If that was done, would those applications need to be run in Windows? Is there a way to “convert” them so they could run under the Apple OS?

A: Windows programs cannot be “converted” to run directly in the Mac operating system, which is called Snow Leopard. But, if you use virtualization software like Parallels or VMware fusion, and install Windows, then a Windows program like Microsoft Outlook can run simultaneously with your Mac programs. Technically, you are running it in Windows, but the two operating systems are active at the same time. With both of these virtualization products, you can even hide the entire Windows desktop, so that the Windows program you are running simply occupies a window on your Mac like any Mac program does. You don’t even notice that Windows is running.

In the case of files you created in Windows, the situation is even simpler. Most of the common types of files consumers use—including Microsoft Office documents, MP3 music files, MP4 video files, JPG picture files, text files, Adobe PDF files, and others—can be run in native Macintosh programs without conversion and without the need to run Windows programs. So you can just copy them to the Mac side and use them in Mac programs like iPhoto, iTunes, or the native Mac version of Microsoft Office, which uses the same file formats as the Windows version.

If you have an unusual or proprietary Windows file for which there isn’t an equivalent program on the Mac, you would run it in a Windows program, as described above.

If I am planning to upgrade a Windows XP machine to Windows 7, can I buy the upgrade copy of 7 or must I buy the full version?

A: According to Microsoft’s Web site, XP is one of the older versions of Windows upon which you can indeed indeed use the less expensive upgrade versions of Windows 7. The company’s online store says: “All editions of Windows XP and Windows Vista qualify you to upgrade. So, if you’re running either on your PC today, buy a package labeled ‘Upgrade’.”

I’ve been holding out (for what feels like forever) on purchasing a Netbook because I read that Apple was coming out with one. Can you tell me anything about when they might really begin selling them?

A: Apple executives have said repeatedly and emphatically that they don’t plan to offer a netbook, which is essentially a cheap, small laptop. Instead, Apple is widely believed to be working on a small slate or tablet device that would be controlled via a fingertip touch screen. This would be sort of like a larger iPhone or iPod Touch. The company hasn’t confirmed that such a product is in the works, but many analysts and Apple bloggers predict it will debut early next year.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online for free at the All Things Digital web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Netbooks That Are Easier on the Eye

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:07:40 +0000

Like clockwork, retailers were ready for Microsoft Corp.’s (MSFT) Windows 7 release last week with new desktops, laptops and netbooks, those inexpensive, smaller laptops that have become popular in the past year. Included in this selection of netbooks are some that improved the poor screen resolutions that have plagued these tiny PCs.

[ See post to watch video ]

Screen resolution isn’t the same as the size of the screen itself. Rather, it is related to the number of pixels—or distinct dots—on a display, and an indication of how much material can be seen on the screen without scrolling. A higher-resolution screen allows you to see more of a Web page, spreadsheet or list of emails than a lower-resolution screen, even if both are the same physical size.

Because higher-resolution screens cost more, most netbooks come with low-resolution screens to keep prices down. But poor resolution combined with a small netbook screen results in frustrating visuals, like Web pages that display just a small portion of their contents, forcing you to scroll down or horizontally to see the rest of the page.

This week, I tested two Windows 7 netbooks with unusually high-res screens: Hewlett-Packard Co.’s (HPQ) HP Mini 311 with an 11.6-inch screen and a resolution of 1,366-by-768 pixels, and Nokia Corp.’s (NOK) Booklet 3G with a 10.1-inch screen and a resolution of 1,280-by-720-pixels. Both these small computers display the bulk of most Web pages without any scrolling necessary—a big relief on a netbook.

Though high-resolution screens make these netbooks easier on the eyes than others, I still had trouble adjusting to their shrunken features. I liked typing on the HP Mini’s generous keyboard, which H-P says is 92 percent of full size. But its touchpad buttons felt stiff and uncomfortably located at the edge of the computer. The Nokia Booklet had the opposite problem: Its touchpad and buttons worked fine, but its tiny keys made me feel like I was typing on a kiddie computer.

Nokia’s Booklet 3G has a long battery life and sleek design.

Nokia is a bit more of a newsmaker here, because when the Booklet 3G (nokiausa.com) comes out in mid-November, it will be the first foray by the Finnish mobile-device company into the laptop space. Best Buy (BBY) began taking advance orders for them this week. It costs $300 if purchased with AT&T Inc.’s (T) two-year Data Connect plan, which costs $60 a month for five gigabytes of data and allows users to toggle back and forth between two kinds of wireless connections, cellular 3G and Wi-Fi. If purchased without the AT&T plan, the Booklet 3G costs $600—a lot for a netbook—including only Windows 7 Starter, the low-end version of the new OS, and one gigabyte of memory.

The thing most people will notice right away about Nokia’s netbook is that it seems to take its design cues directly from Apple Inc. (AAPL) Like the MacBook Pro, the Nokia Booklet 3G is made from a single piece of aluminum, and its keyboard is made of black Chiclet-style keys. Its edges are rounded and smooth. I used one with a glossy black lid, but it will also come in shades of ice white or azure blue.

Nokia boasts that this netbook’s battery will last for 12 hours; after running it through a harsh test with its screen cranked up to the brightest setting, Wi-Fi on, music playing on a continuous loop and all power-saving features turned off, it ran for almost eight hours straight. This means that under normal circumstances, the battery might last for a remarkable 10 hours.

The Booklet 3G that I used differs from Nokia’s final release version in a few ways: Mine wasn’t loaded with AT&T’s Connection Manager software, which enables switching between Wi-Fi and 3G; it lacked the Nokia Social Hub software, which the company says allows users to track social-media feeds and text messages; and the GPS wasn’t yet connected to the U.S. map data server. My Booklet 3G included Ovi Suite, a Nokia-designed software program to bridge the connection between some Nokia smartphones and the Booklet 3G, like iTunes for the iPhone or BlackBerry’s Desktop Manager. But the software I had wasn’t the final version.

Unlike Nokia, H-P is no stranger to netbooks, having released nine of its Mini models in the past year. The HP Mini 311 (hp.com/go/mini) costs $400 when purchased with Windows XP and costs an additional $50 when loaded with Windows 7 Home Premium. The Mini that I tested costs $474 because it also had two gigabytes of memory rather than one gigabyte.

The H-P model is a little bigger all around compared with the Nokia, with an inch-larger screen; it weighs 3.22 pounds compared with 2.76 pounds for the Nokia. Both felt relatively thin and light, and I carried them home together from my office with ease. The HP Mini 311 had H-P’s subtle Black Swirl pattern on its lid—a faint pattern of silver swirls noticeable only at certain angles. It also comes in White Swirl.

I ran the same battery test on the HP as I did with the Nokia, and it lasted four hours and 15 minutes, giving it roughly six hours of juice under normal circumstances. H-P estimates that the Mini 311’s battery will last for six hours and 25 minutes.

I didn’t run into any problems while installing and using several programs on each of these netbooks, including Windows Live Essentials, Mozilla’s Firefox browser, Picasa 3, TweetDeck, Adobe (ADBE) Reader and iTunes. The HP Mini felt more responsive and, in fact, loaded some programs a little faster, but it had twice the memory.

Both netbooks have slots for memory cards, HDMI ports for connecting to HD screens and three USB ports. And they come with built-in Web cams, a common feature on netbooks.

A cold start on both the Mini 311 and Booklet 3G required roughly the same amount of time: one minute and eight seconds for the H-P, and a minute and 12 seconds for the Nokia. But restarting was a different story. While playing a song in iTunes, running three Web pages in Firefox and using TweetDeck, I selected Restart. The HP Mini 311 took a minute and 20 seconds while the Nokia took nearly two minutes.

Even without the AT&T discount, the Nokia Booklet 3G’s extra-long battery life and sleek design will be worth the extra money for some people—just beware its tiny keyboard. The HP Mini 311 is a good all-around netbook with a comfortable keyboard for typing. No one will be disappointed by the terrific screen resolutions.

-Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Apple's New iMac, MacBook Grow Better, Brighter

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

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

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

[ See post to watch video ]

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

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

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

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

The New iMacs

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

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

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

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

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

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

The New MacBook

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

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

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

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

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

Windows 7 Upgrades and Screen Readability

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:42:02 +0000

(See Corrections & Amplifications item below.)

I have a vision problem and can barely read low-contrast print, even the light colors on your Web site. Any ideas for how I and others can solve this problem? I use a Mac and the Firefox Web browser.

A: If your Mac is running the Leopard or Snow Leopard operating systems, you can use an onscreen slider control or keyboard commands to enhance the contrast. You can even switch the display to white-on-black, which really boosts the effect. This works system-wide. These settings are found in System Preferences, under the Universal Access preference, in the tab called “Seeing,” in the section called “Display.”

The new Windows 7 also has a similar feature that applies a “high contrast theme” when you press a certain key combination. It can be enabled or disabled in the Control Panel, under Ease of Access. You click on “Ease of Access Center,” and then “Make the computer easier to see.”

Where can I download the Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade edition for my Vista Home Premium computer?

A: Windows 7 can be downloaded at http://store.microsoft.com/home.aspx. And, after you’ve installed it, you can upgrade to higher versions anytime, if you like, for a fee. This is called the Windows Anytime Upgrade, and is explained at this site: http://bit.ly/VrV58.

Do you know if the new Windows 7 Home Premium will be offered at less than the retail price of $120 to current Vista PC owners who wish to upgrade?

A: That $120 price is the upgrade price for Vista owners moving to Windows 7 Home Premium, though of course some retailers might discount it. The “full,” or non-upgrade, edition of Home Premium lists for $200. Microsoft did run a sale on Windows 7 pre-orders earlier this year, but that’s over.

You can also get a Windows 7 upgrade from participating PC makers free, or for a nominal fee, if you buy a new PC equipped with Vista before the end of January, 2010, or bought one after June 26, 2009. For the latter offer, consult: http://bit.ly/rjAz4.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online, free, at the All Things Digital web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Corrections & Amplifications

An earlier version of this column erroneously stated that Windows 7 had to be purchased on a disk.

A New Search Engine Specializing in Fun

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:54:04 +0000

If you’re like me, you like to make the most out of what little free time you have. One way of finding ideas for activities without wasting precious minutes is by searching online. But sometimes the process of browsing the Web can suck you in and waste more time than it saves.

This week, I tested a tool called Goby (pronounced go-be), www.goby.com, which works as an activity search engine to help you find things to do. It tries to be simple enough so that you can get some ideas and start doing the things you want to do rather than wasting hours in front of the computer.

[ See post to watch video ]

Goby uses three boxes—What, Where and When—with drop-down menus to find results for your query. It crawls the Web searching what it considers high quality information from 500 sources and employs a part-human, part-machine review process to ensure first-rate results. Goby searches through over 200 categories, including live music, art exhibits, outdoor festivals, spas, bed-and-breakfasts and restaurants.

Using Goby was an emotional roller coaster. With very little effort I found things in Washington, D.C., that I’ve never heard of in the seven-plus years I’ve lived here, including tea with Martha Washington and a stuffed Civil War hero horse on display at the Smithsonian. But I also found inaccurate Goby results like an activity in Washington state rather than Washington, D.C., or photos that were supposed to represent a tennis center but instead showed a celebrity’s child with the same name. And sometimes the same results were listed four times in a row.

Goby’s results took a serious nose dive when I looked outside the city in my hometown of Allentown, Pa. I searched for all performing arts and theater near Allentown, an area that I know first-hand has plenty to offer in the way of music, theater and dance. Goby returned two results—one for the Nutcracker in December and another for a Shakespeare play that was put on last July. A quick check of my hometown newspaper’s Web site showed hundreds of performances to attend in the coming months.

The Goby home page

Goby.com has been available to the public for only a few weeks and it is still working out some kinks. The more people use it, the more accurate its results will become—or at least that’s what its founders hope will happen. When Goby’s search results are accurate, they include the kinds of thing locals would want to see or do in their own hometown, and that’s no small feat. But people won’t have a lot of patience for some of the erroneous results that now show up in Goby. Also, this activity search engine currently lacks features like the ability to build and save itineraries, make one-click ticket purchases or book reservations.

Though Goby’s query boxes ask users to enter What, Where and When, the When is always an optional specification, and people can enter either What or Where if they only know one of these factors. General suggestions of categories also are made in Goby’s drop-down menus. The What box opens five categories: things to do, food and drink, events, places to stay and, right now, fall fun; many of these open several, more-specified subcategories. For example, I started a search and followed a four-part trail: things to do, outdoor recreation, horseback riding and horseback riding trails—all within the same drop-down menu.

If you know what you want to do but not where you want to do it, the drop-down arrow in the Where box opens an interactive map of the U.S. Users can pan around the entire country, zooming in on specific areas or small towns. I even zoomed in on Minot, N.D. (population 35,000) and found out about an event taking place at the Northwest Arts Center on Nov. 2.

This map comes in handy if you know the general geographic area where you would like to spend time, but don’t know the area’s name.

Lists of query results are deliberately designed to show more than just Web links, like what Google (GOOG) often displays. Suggested activities are displayed in a numbered list on the left side of the screen, and a map with corresponding numbers is displayed on the right, moving along with your cursor as you scroll on the page. A blue flashlight tool on the map can be dragged anywhere to pinpoint exactly where you want to find activities, and after you drop the flashlight on a spot, the left-hand list dynamically changes to correspond with that map view.

A “More Info” tab shows vital information for each query result like a description, time, address and Web site for the activity. If you are looking at lodging, you can adjust a price scale to limit or expand results for rooms that cost a certain amount per night. Lists of results can be sorted according to category: Art events can be sorted by relevance, distance, date or name; bed-and-breakfasts also can be sorted by price.

Photos representing these activities are pulled in from source sites like bedandbreakfast.com as well as from Google and Flickr. While these images can provide a quick glimpse of something while saving users from navigating to another Web page, some of the results weren’t accurate. For example, when I searched for tennis in Washington, D.C., a tennis program that I didn’t know about called “Tennis at Shiloh” was listed in results. But four out of six photos showed images of Shiloh, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s child of the same name. I called the organization to confirm that it is indeed a real program, but without calling, I would have seen the photos, doubted the quality of the place and looked for another spot to play tennis.

A “What’s Nearby” function is designed to help people expand their activity searches. It takes the address of a selected activity and suggests other things nearby like places to go for dinner or where to listen to live music.

Unfortunately, Goby doesn’t let you build an itinerary. So if you find a few possible activities for a weekend trip to Williamsburg, Va., and then use “What’s Nearby” to find a pub for lunch, a restaurant for dinner and a bed-and-breakfast for the night, you can’t save all of these findings using Goby. The company says it plans to incorporate these features in the near future.

Goby would be incredibly helpful if it had a mobile app. This Sunday when I was across town from my house and had an unexpected block of free time, I could have used Goby to find a nearby art exhibit or a spot for apple picking. Goby says it is working on an iPhone app, which it expects to release later this year.

If you get lucky with Goby, you’ll find activities that let you do as its name says: Go, be and enjoy your surrounding area. But the site’s results need to be much more accurate for me to start relying on it full time.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com

The CLIQ, Storm2 Join Long Parade of iPhone Threats

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

(See Correction & Amplification below.)

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

[ See post to watch video ]

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

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

Motorola CLIQ

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

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

Motorola CLIQ

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

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

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

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

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

BlackBerry Storm2

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

BlackBerry’s Storm2

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

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

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

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

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

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

Corrections & Amplifications

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

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

Upgrading to Windows 7

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 21:52:02 +0000

In your review of Windows 7, you noted that it no longer contained common programs like email, a photo organizer and so forth. However, if you upgrade directly from Vista, and you have been using Microsoft’s built-in programs like these, will the Windows 7 installer actually remove them?

A: Yes. Microsoft says that it doesn’t consider the eliminated applications—like Windows Mail, Windows Photo Gallery or Windows Movie Maker—to have been programs at all, but merely built-in features of Vista. Since they don’t exist in Windows 7, they will be expunged in a straight upgrade from Vista, even though competing programs from third parties will be preserved.

Once Windows 7 is installed, Microsoft suggests that users of these built-in Vista programs download and install new, free, versions, via a package it calls Windows Live Essentials.

The company says your personal files, such as your photos and email and contacts, won’t be erased during the upgrade process, and can be imported into the new Windows Live programs after the upgrade. As an example, Microsoft says users of Windows Live Mail program (a part of Windows Live Essentials) will find an option under the program’s Import command for importing emails from the older Windows Mail program that was in Vista. It says those emails will still be on your hard disk, even though the old email program itself isn’t.

To save some of the aggravation you describe when migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7, can you upgrade from XP to Vista first and then from Vista to Windows 7, preserving your programs and your files?

A: Yes, though that could cost you the purchase of two new operating systems, plus the time and risks of various glitches that can occur in any such major process. Also, you must be sure that the version of Vista you are using as an interim step is the exact comparable version of Windows 7 you are aiming to end up with—say, Home Premium to Home Premium—unless you are planning to wind up with Windows 7 Ultimate, which can be the target of an in-place upgrade from Vista Home Basic, Home Premium or Business.

You must also ensure that both are either 32-bit or 64-bit editions (you can’t do in-place upgrades from one of these types to the other.)

In your review of Windows 7, you said you installed it on a Mac. Can you explain further how you did that?

A: I used a forthcoming new version of VMWare Fusion, which is one of the two popular programs for creating a virtual Windows computer on Macs.

This new version, Fusion 3, is due out on Oct. 27. Its competitor, Parallels, says that it will also officially support running Windows 7 in a virtual Windows computer on a Mac after Windows 7 comes out on Oct. 22.

I didn’t test Windows 7 using the other method for running Windows on a Mac, Apple’s free Boot Camp feature. This turns the entire Mac over to Windows, and doesn’t involve creating a virtual Windows computer—the Mac becomes a Windows computer.

For this to happen, though, Apple will have to issue drivers for its hardware that will work with Windows 7, or at least to be sure that its current Windows drivers are compatible.

The company says that it plans to do so after Windows 7 is released.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online free at the All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Windows 7 Upgrade Made Easy

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:16:03 +0000

Windows 7, Microsoft Corp.’s new operating system due out next week, is giving the company a lot to be happy about. By early reports, it’s fast, easy on the eyes and fixes most of the problems that plagued its predecessor, Vista. But while Microsoft (MSFT) employees are doing the dance of joy, some consumers are confused and scared about the prospect of upgrading their computers to Windows 7.

[ See post to watch video ]

The upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7 is particularly daunting because it requires first wiping the computer’s hard disk to perform what’s called a “custom” or “clean” install. This clears out the old operating system—as well as all of your programs, files and settings. To save personal files, XP users must back them up first, typically on an external hard disk, then transfer them back. Programs, however, will be lost altogether, so users must re-install these using their original CDs or installation files, and then also re-install all the program updates they’ve accumulated over the years.

People upgrading to Windows 7 from Vista may have it easier. In some common cases, they can upgrade to Windows 7 “in place,” which means they can save programs, files and settings right where they were. But since Vista was such a dud, many Windows users still use XP.

This week, I tested a program that tries to make the upgrade to Windows 7 just as easy for XP users as it is for some Vista users. I tested Laplink Software Inc.’s PCmover Windows 7 Upgrade Assistant (http://bit.ly/JeafI), a $15 program that saves programs, files and settings on the computer in a place that won’t be affected by the installation of Windows. This eliminates the hassle of using an external hard disk or re-installing programs. The company uses the analogy of a moving van to load up your computer’s information, storing it locally until it can be unloaded again on the same PC with a new operating system.

I tested this program using an Acer Aspire One netbook running Windows XP. It took me two hours from start to finish, a three-part process of installing the Upgrade Assistant, installing Windows 7, and then re-installing the PCmover program. I followed instructions and the process of upgrading was really quite easy, showing me the programs and files (photos, videos and documents) I had on my old operating system.

Afterward, I did have to dig around on my computer a little bit to make some adjustments, like fixing Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes music program so it opened in Windows 7. And I found it a little annoying that, throughout the process, the Upgrade Assistant tried to get me to buy more software programs, like RegistryBooster and DiskImage, by saying the programs would better prepare my old PC for the switch.

Laplink’s $15 PCmover Windows 7 Upgrade Assistant helps smooth the way for some XP users to upgrade to Windows 7.

The Upgrade Assistant also works with PCs running Vista. Microsoft offers an in-place upgrade option from Vista to 7, but this mainly works for people transferring from an identical version of Vista to an identical version of 7, like Windows Vista 32-bit Home Premium to Windows 7 32-bit Home Premium.

This program won’t magically fix every upgrade issue you face. If you bought your computer many years ago, it may not be able to run Windows 7 at all, because the hardware may be insufficient.

Another problem is that most netbooks and some laptops don’t come with built-in disk drives, making it a challenge to install Windows 7, since it comes on a DVD. I had to call around town to find a Radio Shack selling an external DVD disk drive that plugged into my Acer netbook via a USB cord.

Some security software programs, like that from McAfee Inc. (MFE) and Symantec Corp.’s (SYMC) Norton Antivirus, may not transfer over to Windows 7, though you should be able to manually install them after the migration.

When first installing the Upgrade Assistant, you can choose to do a full migration (files, settings and programs); just move files and settings; move files only; or perform a custom migration. You also can specify which user accounts to include or exclude and you can opt to exclude certain types of files, like temporary files.

After the PCmover program assessed the contents of my PC, it explained that it was packing my content into a “moving van”—a file for holding the content—and offered to break the moving van’s content into smaller parts for people who have storage limitations while transferring.

It’s a little nerve-wracking to think about transferring your computer’s entire contents over without being able to see where the files are going. At least on an external hard disk, you feel like the files are stored on something tangible and accessible—even if some step in the migration goes terribly wrong and the laptop never starts again, however unlikely.

After installing Windows 7 and then re-installing the PCmover program, I was finished. The next time I turned on the PC, a program called StartUp immediately started to run. This appeared to show me a list of programs that automatically ran on my old operating system but which PCmover disabled from running automatically on Windows 7. A quick step allowed programs that I selected to automatically run again.

One thing to note as you upgrade from Windows XP is that your PC may not be equipped to deliver the full Windows 7 experience. Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor Beta, Microsoft’s own tool, analyzes what will and won’t work properly when the newest version of Windows installs. The Upgrade Advisor warned me that Windows Aero, the name used for some of the gorgeous visuals in Windows 7, wasn’t capable of working with my netbook’s graphics adapter. Sure enough, Aero’s ability to show tiny, pop-up previews of programs that are running in your taskbar as you hover over them didn’t work. Instead, the names of the files and programs appeared in text-only preview panes.

The downloadable version of the Upgrade Assistant is now $15 for one license to use on one PC—a special pre-release price before Windows 7 is available Oct. 22. After that, the downloadable version will cost $20 from Laplink.com for one license to use on one PC. If you would rather not download this program, it also will be available for purchase in retail stores by the end of October. Of course, you also will have to buy a copy of Windows 7; the version most consumers will want is called Home Premium and it costs $120 as an upgrade.

If you are considering Windows 7 and you are currently using Windows XP on a relatively new PC, a simpler and better-organized migration process is worth the nominal price of Laplink’s PCmover Windows 7 Upgrade Assistant.

Edited by Walter. S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

A Windows to Help You Forget

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 01:02:03 +0000

In just two weeks, on Oct. 22, Microsoft’s long operating-system nightmare will be over. The company will release Windows 7, a faster and much better operating system than the little-loved Windows Vista, which did a lot to harm both the company’s reputation, and the productivity and blood pressure of its users. PC makers will rush to flood physical and online stores with new computers pre-loaded with Windows 7, and to offer the software to Vista owners who wish to upgrade.

[ See post to watch video ]

With Windows 7, PC users will at last have a strong, modern successor to the sturdy and familiar, but aged, Windows XP, which is still the most popular version of Windows, despite having come out in 2001. In the high-tech world, an eight-year-old operating system is the equivalent of a 20-year-old car. While XP works well for many people, it is relatively weak in areas such as security, networking and other features more important today than when XP was designed around 1999.

After using pre-release versions of Windows 7 for nine months, and intensively testing the final version for the past month on many different machines, I believe it is the best version of Windows Microsoft (MSFT) has produced. It’s a boost to productivity and a pleasure to use. Despite a few drawbacks, I can heartily recommend Windows 7 to mainstream consumers.

Like the new Snow Leopard operating system released in August by Microsoft’s archrival, Apple (AAPL), Windows 7 is much more of an evolutionary than a revolutionary product. Its main goal was to fix the flaws in Vista and to finally give Microsoft customers a reason to move up from XP. But Windows 7 is packed with features and tweaks that make using your computer an easier and more satisfying experience.

The new taskbar shows small previews of many windows and allows for larger previews.

Windows 7 introduces real advances in organizing your programs and files, arranging your taskbar and desktop, and quickly viewing and launching the page or document you want, when you want it. It also has cool built-in touch-screen features.

It removes a lot of clutter. And it mostly banishes Vista’s main flaws—sluggishness; incompatibility with third-party software and hardware; heavy hardware requirements; and constant, annoying security warnings.

I tested Windows 7 on 11 different computers, ranging from tiny netbooks to standard laptops to a couple of big desktops. These included machines from Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Dell (DELL), Acer, Asus, Toshiba and Sony (SNE). I even successfully ran it on an Apple Macintosh laptop. On some of these machines, Windows 7 was pre-loaded. On others, I had to upgrade from an earlier version of Windows.

In most cases, the installation took 45 minutes or less, and the new operating system worked snappily and well. But, I did encounter some drawbacks and problems. On a couple of these machines, glacial start-up and reboot times reminded me of Vista. And, on a couple of others, after upgrading, key features like the display or touchpad didn’t work properly. Also, Windows 7 still requires add-on security software that has to be frequently updated. It’s tedious and painful to upgrade an existing computer from XP to 7, and the variety of editions in which Windows 7 is offered is confusing.

Finally, Microsoft has stripped Windows 7 of familiar built-in applications, such as email, photo organizing, address book, calendar and video-editing programs. These can be downloaded free of charge, but they no longer come with the operating system, though some PC makers may choose to pre-load them.

In recent years, I, like many other reviewers, have argued that Apple’s Mac OS X operating system is much better than Windows. That’s no longer true. I still give the Mac OS a slight edge because it has a much easier and cheaper upgrade path; more built-in software programs; and far less vulnerability to viruses and other malicious software, which are overwhelmingly built to run on Windows.

Now, however, it’s much more of a toss-up between the two rivals. Windows 7 beats the Mac OS in some areas, such as better previews and navigation right from the taskbar, easier organization of open windows on the desktop and touch-screen capabilities. So Apple will have to scramble now that the gift of a flawed Vista has been replaced with a reliable, elegant version of Windows.

Here are some of the key features of Windows 7.

New Taskbar: In Windows 7, the familiar taskbar has been reinvented and made taller. Instead of mainly being a place where icons of open windows temporarily appear, it now is a place where you can permanently “pin” the icons of frequently used programs anywhere along its length, and in any arrangement you choose. This is a concept borrowed from Apple’s similar feature, the Dock. But Windows 7 takes the concept further.

For each running program, hovering over its taskbar icon pops up a small preview screen showing a mini-view of that program. This preview idea was in Vista. But, in Windows 7, it has been expanded in several ways. Now, every open window in that program is included separately in the preview. If you mouse over a window in the preview screen, it appears at full size on your desktop and all other windows on the desktop become transparent—part of a feature called Aero Peek. Click on the window and it comes up, ready for use. You can even close windows from these previews, or play media in them.

I found this feature more natural and versatile than a similar feature in Snow Leopard called Dock Expose.

You can also use Aero Peek at any time to see your empty desktop, with open windows reduced to virtual panes of glass. To do this, you just hover over a small rectangle at the right edge of the taskbar.

Taskbar icons also provide Jump Lists—pop-up menus listing frequent actions or recent files used.

Desktop organization: A feature called Snap allows you to expand windows to full-screen size by just dragging them to the top of the screen, or to half-screen size by dragging them to the left or right edges of the screen. Another called Shake allows you to make all other windows but the one you’re working on disappear by simply grabbing its title bar with the mouse and shaking it several times.

File organization: In Windows Explorer, the left-hand column now includes a feature called Libraries. Each library—Documents, Music, Pictures and Videos—consolidates all files of those types regardless of which folder, or even which hard disk, they live in.

Networking: Windows 7 still isn’t quite as natural at networking as I find the Mac to be, but it’s better than Vista. For instance, now you can see all available wireless networks by just clicking on an icon in the taskbar. A new feature called HomeGroups is supposed to let you share files more easily among Windows 7 PCs on your home network. In my tests, it worked, but not consistently, and it required typing in long, arcane passwords.

Touch: Some of the same kinds of multitouch gestures made popular on the iPhone are now built into Windows 7. But these features won’t likely become popular for a while because to get the most out of them, a computer needs a special type of touch screen that goes beyond most of the ones existing now. I tested this on one such laptop, a Lenovo, and was able to move windows around, to resize and flip through photos, and more.

Speed: In my tests, on every machine, Windows 7 ran swiftly and with far fewer of the delays typical in running Vista. All the laptops I tested resumed from sleep quickly and properly, unlike in Vista. Start-up and restart times were also improved. I chose six Windows 7 laptops from different makers to compare with a new MacBook Pro laptop. The Mac still started and restarted faster than most of the Windows 7 PCs. But the speed gap has narrowed considerably, and one of the Lenovos beat the Mac in restart time.

Nagging: In the name of security, Vista put up nagging warnings about a wide variety of tasks, driving people crazy. In Windows 7, you can now set this system so it nags you only when things are happening that you consider really worth the nag. Also, Microsoft has consolidated most of the alerts from the lower-right system tray into one icon, and they seemed less frequent.

Compatibility: I tried a wide variety of third-party software and all worked fine on every Windows 7 machine. These included Mozilla Firefox; Adobe (ADBE) Reader; Google’s (GOOG) Picasa and Chrome; and Apple’s iTunes and Safari.

I also tested several hardware devices, and, unlike Vista, Windows 7 handled all but one smoothly. These included a networked H-P printer, a Canon (CAJ) camera, an iPod nano, and at least five external flash drives and hard disks. The one failure was a Verizon (VZ) USB cellular modem. Microsoft says you don’t need external software to run these, but I found it was necessary, and even then had to use a trick I found on the Web to get it to work.

System Requirements: Nearly all Vista PCs, and newer or beefier XP machines, should be able to run Windows 7 fine. Even the netbooks I tested ran it speedily, especially with the Starter Edition, which lacks some of the powerful graphics effects in the operating system. (Other netbooks will be able to run other editions.)

If you have a standard PC, called a 32-bit PC, you’ll need at least one gigabyte of memory, 16 gigabytes of free hard-disk space and a graphics system that can support Microsoft technologies called “DirectX 9 with WDDM 1.0.” You’ll also need a processor with a speed of at least one gigahertz. If you have a newer-style 64-bit PC, which can use more memory, you’ll need at least two gigabytes of memory and 20 gigabytes of free hard disk space. In either case, you should double the minimum memory specification.

Aero Peek lets you see your desktop by making your windows transparent.

Installation, editions and price: There are four editions of Windows 7 of interest to consumers. One, a limited version called Starter, comes pre-loaded on netbooks. A second, called Professional, is mainly for people who need to tap remotely into company networks (check with your company to see if you need this). A third, called Ultimate, is mainly for techies who want every feature of all other editions. Most average consumers will want Home Premium, which costs $120 for upgrades.

The system for upgrading is complicated, but Vista owners can upgrade to the exactly comparable edition of Windows 7 while keeping all files, settings and programs in place.

Unfortunately, XP owners, the biggest body of Windows users, won’t be able to do that. They’ll have to wipe out their hard disks after backing up their files elsewhere, then install Windows 7, then restore their personal files, then re-install all their programs from the original CDs or downloaded installer files. Then, they have to install all the patches and upgrades to those programs from over the years.

Microsoft includes an Easy Transfer wizard to help with this, but it moves only personal files, not programs. This painful XP upgrade process is one of the worst things about Windows 7 and will likely drive many XP owners to either stick with what they’ve got or wait and buy a new one.

In my tests, both types of installations went OK, though the latter could take a long time.

Bottom line: Windows 7 is a very good, versatile operating system that should help Microsoft bury the memory of Vista and make PC users happy.

Correction: The edition of Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system aimed at business users is called Windows 7 Professional. This week’s Personal Technology column erroneously stated it was named Business.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at walt.mossberg@wsj.com

Buying a PC With Windows 7

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:42:02 +0000

There’s no other major item most of us own that is as confusing, unpredictable and unreliable as our personal computers. Everybody has questions about them, and we aim to help.

Here are a few questions about computers I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability.

Best Buy is offering a free upgrade to Windows 7 if you purchase a machine today that has Vista. Is it better to wait to buy after the release of Windows 7?

A: I’d say so. If you buy a Vista machine now, you’ll likely have to spend at least some time and effort upgrading, and you may run into at least minor issues, which is something that sometimes happens even with straightforward upgrades. Since PCs preloaded with Windows 7 are only two weeks away, it’s worth the wait, unless you are in dire need of a new PC right away.

With the end of Microsoft Money, are there any good alternatives to Quicken? I tried Quicken Online, but it is just too limited.

A: I haven’t reviewed it, but a program called Moneydance might be worth checking out. It runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, and claims to import data from Money and Quicken. Moneydance costs $40, but there’s a free trial. Information and downloads are is at moneydance.com.

I read that upgrading to Windows 7 deactivates the license key for any prior version of Windows, ruling out any chance of reversing the upgrade if it doesn’t work out for some reason.Is this true? If I am going to take the plunge into Windows 7, I want to make sure I can always go back if I’m unhappy.

A: Microsoft says that’s false. The company emailed me to say: “The upgrade process does not deactivate the product key for the previous version of Windows. If you need to uninstall Windows 7 and go back to your previous version of Windows, you can activate it using the original product key.”

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox and my other columns at http://walt.allthingsd.com.