Latest Posts in From the Lab

Voyager hard drive dock

Newer Technology Voyager

From the why-didn’t-I-think-of-that department, Newer Technology has created something remarkably simple and yet ingeniously clever. It's a flexible, easy-to-use docking station called the Voyager for Serial ATA (SATA) 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch hard drive mechanisms. If you’ve ever wanted to easily plug your old drives into your current setup, easily and cheaply maintain multiple drive backups, troubleshoot or clone a hard drive, or provide extra data storage for your burgeoning music collection, the Voyager is a great way to do it.

Newer Technology says that the Voyager will allow users to access data from any SATA hard drive up to 2TB. Mac or PC, you simply plug the drive into the Voyager’s dock and it’s conveniently good to go. We tested the Voyager with a half-dozen drives (from Seagate, Maxtor, and Western Digital among others) and they all worked fine.

With its four different connectivity options, Newer Technology calls the Voyager a “Quad Interface” dock. The Voyager has ports for USB 2.0, FireWire 400, FireWire 800, and eSATA, and cables are included for each connector. You’ll have to provide your own eSATA card to take advantage of the eSATA connection speeds; there are no Macs that come equipped with eSATA on board, and only the MacBook Pro and Mac Pro can accept such an add-on card. The Voyager is fully bootable and is hot-swappable too. No software drivers are needed.

We've seen adapters that could turn internal drives into “external drives” through attachments and a clunky series of wires. This is the first device we've seen that is a convenient, single drive, docking station. The Voyager is a more pedestrian and approachable technology; you have a hard drive and this lets you connect it to your current computer. Pretty simple.

As the drive is not completely enclosed, the docking station doesn’t require a cooling fan and runs quietly. A two-toned LED light indicates whether the drive is active or not. It weighs only 1.35 pounds without a drive, thereby making it a candidate for portability, but the plastic doesn’t feel sturdy enough for traveling and is probably best left on your desk. It also comes with a 1-year warranty.

Voyager with a 2.5-inch drive

The Voyager hard drive dock may not find itself on many wish lists this holiday season, but the Voyager’s pop-in docking technology is a remarkably convenient way to access drives. Whether its adding storage space to your current computer or accessing old files from your former, the Voyager provides an easy solution. It may not be the shiniest toy in the store, but its potential is pretty stellar nonetheless.

[Chris Holt is an assistant editor for Macworld.]

Review: Iomega eGo Helium Portable Hard Drive USB

Iomega's eGo Helium Portable Hard Drive USB is a Mac-formatted storage device that’s available with a capacity of 320GB. It has a case that’s stylistically like the iconic silver casing of the MacBook Air () and is Mac-ready out of the box.

With the lack of FireWire in the new MacBook () and MacBook Air (which never had FireWire in the first place), USB-only external drives have garnered new attention from Mac users. Most modern desktop and laptop computers can use the USB connection for data transfers, though you’ll be at a distinct speed disadvantage compared to the faster connection speeds of FireWire and eSATA (which requires a expansion card).

Iomega eGo Helium Portable Hard Drive USB

The small, aluminum-cased eGo Helium drive is designed to look at home with the latest line of Apple laptops. In fact, if you can imagine the MacBook Air having a baby, this is what it would probably look like. If you’re looking for aesthetic uniformity, this is your drive. The eGo Helium is plenty portable too; it’s only slightly wider and deeper than an iPod and can easily fit into your pants’ pocket.

Owners of older Mac laptops should be aware that the 5,400 rpm bus-powered eGo Helium may not work with your laptop. Like many other USB-only external drives, the drive didn’t work with our 1.67GHz PowerBook; older Mac laptops have difficulty producing power sufficient for the eGo Helium. Some companies offer power booster cables or external power sources to ameliorate this problem, but we couldn’t find any on the Iomega Web site that were compatible with this model. Iomega claims they are addressing the problem.

The eGo Helium finished our benchmarking timed tests with comparatively solid, if unimpressive results. The drive has times identical to Toshiba’s USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive 400GB () in our 1GB copy test at 53 seconds. The drive averages 1 minute, 19 seconds for the duplicate 1GB file test, which is slightly slower than the Toshiba drive. The eGo Helium’s Low Memory Photoshop test results similarly falls in the middle of USB-only drives at 1 minute, 48 seconds.

Macworld’s buying advice

Solid (albeit average) speed scores, a reasonable price, and a middling capacity make the eGo Helium an indistinct but satisfactory investment. If speed, capacity, or weight aren’t pressing needs, users may like the eGo Helium for its aesthetic chic and its all around quality.

[Chris Holt is an assistant editor for Macworld.]

Review: Casio Exilim Zoom EX-Z250 camera

When it’s time to take pictures, no one wants to fuss over camera settings. It’s especially frustrating when you have to set up a point-and-shoot camera. After all, aren’t you supposed to be able to simply point and shoot? Like many point-and-shoot cameras on the market today, Casio’s Exilim Zoom EX-Z250 is full of features, but the EX-Z250 has an easy-to-use design and lots of shooting modes that help take the guesswork out of setting up the camera.

Shooting modes

The EX-Z250 has 34 different preset shooting modes—an intimidating figure at first. Big, intuitive icons represent each mode; for example, the Self-portrait mode features a woman pointing a camera at herself, the Soft Flowing Water mode has an icon of a stream. Once you become familiar with each mode, the mode selection screens don’t seems as intimidating, and you’ll find that there’s a mode suitable for just about any shooting situation.

Casio's Exilim Zoom EX-Z250

If you don’t want to mess with the modes, you can always use the Auto mode, which lets the camera determine the proper settings. Or you can use the Auto Best Shot feature, where the camera senses the shooting conditions and selects one of six modes: Macro, Night Scene, Night Scene Portrait, Portrait, Scenery, or Sports. While using Auto Best Shot, I found that the camera shifts into Night Scene mode whenever it senses that light is low. When objects are close to the lens, the camera changes to Macro mode. When the camera senses moving objects, it shifts into Sports mode. Distant, still subjects trigger Scenery mode. Only on a few occasions did I notice that the camera invoke Portrait or Night Scene Portrait mode.

Read more...

Review: Western Digital My Passport Studio 500GB

On paper, the My Passport Studio 500GB has a lot going for it. It’s compact, offers three different connection types, has a healthy amount of storage space, and comes with a five-year warranty. On top of it all, the My Passport Studio features what the company calls "Turbo" capabilities that is supposed to boost data transfer speeds. In our time trials, we found the Turbo drivers did boost the speed of the connection a bit, but we found that even with the boost the My Passport Studio is only an average performer.

The external shell is simple, but what the drive lacks in stylistic verve it makes up for in ease of use. Already formatted for the Mac, the My Passport Studio can be easily attached into a computer with your connection of choice—FireWire 800, FireWire 400, and USB 2.0. Like many portable drives, the My Passport Studio doesn’t offer eSATA. No separate power source is required; the drive uses power from USB or FireWire.

Western Digital's My Passport Studio 500GB

Back in 2007, Buffalo introduced USB Turbo technology that supposedly increased USB data transfer rates by up to 60 percent. Now, many external drives offer USB Turbo technology for the PC; it's not always available on the Mac. This is the first drive we’ve reviewed that offers FireWire 800 and 400 Turbo as well. To use the My Passport Studio's Turbo features, you need to install WD's drivers. The drivers are available on the drive itself (so don't format the drive without looking first), or you can download the drivers from WD's Web site.

On average, the USB connection was improved by only six percent with the Turbo drivers. The results with the FireWire 400 and 800 connections were even less impressive; on average, the connection speed only improved 2 to 3 seconds compared to the test results without the Turbo drivers installed.

The results could have used a more significant boost with the turbo capabilities, because the drive's scores were disappointing in our time trials. It took 52 seconds to copy a 1GB file while using the USB 2.0 Turbo connection. This speed puts it on par with competing drives, but its FireWire 400 (51 seconds) and 800 (41 seconds) Turbo copy results were less than impressive. While using the FireWire 800 connection, OWC's Mercury On-The-Go FireWire 800/400 + USB 2.0 () beat the My Passport Studio by a full 6 seconds, or 15 percent. The 1GB Duplication Test and Low-Memory Photoshop Test were all generally a few seconds off the best times posted by other external drives. Interestingly, the FireWire 400 Turbo and USB 2.0 Turbo connections produced very similar scores that were within the margin of error; both finished the duplication test around 1 minute, 15 seconds and took 1 minute, 37 seconds to complete the Photoshop test. Unfortunately, while the scores are satisfactory, the added Turbo capabilities were disappointing.

The 500GB capacity of the My Passport Studio is fairly large for a portable drive, but can’t compete with the higher capacities of non-portable desktop drives. It’s still plenty of space to fit music, photos, and other media but can’t compete with the one or two terabyte capacities of high-end drives. Normally priced at $250, the 500GB My Passport Studio has a price per gigabyte of 50 cents. Western Digital currently is offering a promotional discount that brings the price of the drive down to $200 and the price per gigabyte down to 40 cents. This later price is even more impressive than the Toshiba USB 2.0, which has a price per gigabyte of 45 cents, and lacks the My Passport Studio’s FireWire 400 and 800 connections.

Macworld’s buying advice

Despite its claims to faster connection speeds with Turbo offerings, the scores for the My Passport Studio 500GB were only average compared to competing three-port drives. For users looking for a compact drive with a lot of storage and don’t care about having the absolutely best connection speeds on the market, the My Passport Studio is a fine option. If the connection speeds improved, the My Passport Studio would be the market's best option.

Review: OWC Mercury On-The-Go portable hard drive

OWC’s Mercury On-The-Go FireWire 800/400 + USB 2.0 is a Mac-ready, fast, bus-powered portable hard drive that eschews style for substance. Equipped with USB, FireWire 800, and FireWire 400 connection capabilities, the Mercury On-The-Go is a versatile drive that is easily portable.

The clear plastic casing allows you to view the hard drive mechanism on one side and the metallic cooling unit on the other. Since the drive is bus-powered, an AC adapter isn’t necessary. A couple LED activity lights are a nice touch, but this drive isn’t exactly a fashion accessory.

OWC's Mercury On-The-Go FireWire 800/400 + USB 2.0 320GB

OWC doesn’t bother with superficial aesthetics, instead focusing on performance and customization. OWC’s Mercury On-the-Go line is bit different than many drive families we’ve reviewed. Customization is standard practice, and when you order from OWC, you can specify the type of connections, bus speed, and the capacity. We tested a 7,200 rpm, 320GB portable external drive with FireWire 800, 400, and USB 2.0 connections. This covers most of the bases in terms of connectivity, with a good spectrum of versatility (the absence of eSATA notwithstanding) for an external drive.

The Mercury On-the-Go weighs only 11 ounces and is slightly longer and bulkier than competing external drives. OWC says you can fit the drive in your shirt pocket, but you’d have to have a really big shirt with really big pockets.

The drive finished our 1GB file copy test in 35 seconds using FireWire 800, a result that was among the fastest external drives we’ve tested. The 1GB duplication test results were equally impressive; these times are similar to G-Technology’s G-Drive mini (), our current top performer. The OWC drive actually bests the G-Drive mini’s time in our Low-Memory Photoshop test by a few seconds, outside our margin of error. If you need to use the drive via a USB connection, its scores compete with several USB-only external drives we’ve tested.

At $180 and $.56 per gigabyte the 320GB On-The-Go drive is a bit pricier than competing drives on a price-per-gigabyte scale.

Macworld’s buying advice

The Mercury On-The-Go FireWire 800/400 + USB 2.0 is a fast Mac-ready portable drive equipped with versatile connection options. It’s also competitively priced and matches up well in all departments against competing externals. Unless you buy your storage solutions based on appearance, you’ll be quite satisfied with this drive.

Review: Apple LED Cinema Display

Apple’s new LED Cinema Display is the company’s first display designed specifically for use with its laptop line. The new display looks a lot like a 24-inch iMac (), minus an inch or so of thickness and the few inches below the iMac’s screen. It’s a bright and glossy-screened LCD that has some very appealing features, but a very limited list of supported Macs.

It’s been more than four years since Apple revealed its last desktop monitor, the 30-inch Cinema HD Display (). The 30-inch, introduced in June 2004 along with smaller 20- () and 23-inch () models, marked the end of Apple’s use of its proprietary Apple Display Connector (ADC) in favor of the industry standard DVI connection. The new LED Cinema Display introduces quite a few new technologies to Apple’s display lineup, the most controversial of which is a connector that at this point appears unique to Apple, the Mini DisplayPort (Mini DisplayPort is based on DisplayPort technology developed by VESA).

24-inch LED Cinema Display

As of December 2008, the only computers that can be used with the display are the current 15-inch MacBook Pros (), the new aluminum MacBooks (), and the current MacBook Air (). Apple has said that all future Mac products will include Mini DisplayPort support, and converting cables and boxes may be in the offing. But in the meantime, this new monitor has a very limited audience.

Read more...

Review: Toshiba USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive 400GB

USB is usually a safe bet, and equipping an external hard drive exclusively with USB 2.0 means that almost any modern computer can use it. But USB 2.0’s pokey performance lags behind the eSATA and FireWire. That said, USB has a renewed appeal for Mac users in light of FireWire’s disappearance from the MacBook () and MacBook Air (). Toshiba’s USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive is respectably fast compared to other USB hard drives.

The Toshiba drive is also fairly unique-looking as far external drives go; the case reminds me of 1980s art deco or an product placed in a Miami Vice episode. Some users like to have their hard drives make a statement, and I guess this one says you like Phil Collins. The drive is available in a black case with Electric Blue, Carbon Grey, Hot Rod Red, or Gecko Green stripes.

The 400GB capacity in the unit we reviewed means you’ll have plenty of room for your photos, music, and files. The Toshiba USB 2.0 External Hard Drive is compact too; it’s slightly wider than an iPhone, making it an ideal pick-up-and-go portable drive.

Toshiba's USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive

Read more...

17-inch MacBook Pro benchmarks

Following the top-to-bottom refresh of Apple’s laptop line announced in October, people paid plenty of attention to the new unibody MacBook and MacBook Pro models. Little to no attention was given to either the top or the bottom of the line.

Now that we’ve reviewed the new MacBook and MacBook Pro models, we can turn our attention to those two extremes. We rated the low-end of Apple’s laptop offerings—the 2.1GHz MacBook in the white plastic enclosure—when that system first debuted in March. As for the top of the line, we’ve now gotten our hands on Apple’s 17-inch MacBook Pro—the largest laptop in the company’s product line.

Apple made only subtle changes to this MacBook Pro. The 17-inch offering features a higher-resolution 1,920-by-1,200 screen as the standard display, 4GB of RAM, and a higher capacity hard drive. The 17-inch model’s 2.5GHz processor is actually a slower clock speed than the 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo chip that powers one of the 15-inch MacBook Pros.

Macworld Lab’s tests indicate that despite the lack of any great leap forward in the 17-inch model’s under-the-hood specs, this laptop is still a very good performer.

Read more...

Review: Canon PowerShot SD880 IS

Canon’s PowerShot SD880 IS is a compact point and shoot digital camera. Part of Canon’s Digital Elph family, the camera shoots 10-megapixel photos, has 4x optical zoom, and supports ISO settings up to 3,200. The “IS” designation at the end of the name refers to the camera’s optical image stabilization mode.

Easy-as-pie to use, the SD880 IS includes 11 special shooting modes, including Aquarium, Fireworks, and Snow. There’s also a high ISO setting for shooting action in low light situations without flash, though noise in the images becomes more noticeable as you use the higher ISO settings. The camera also includes macro modes that allow you to focus on objects as close as 0.8 inches away from the lens.

Review: Pentax Optio A40 point-and-shoot camera

Pentax’s Optio A40 is a 12-megapixel compact point and shoot digital camera. It offers digital and optical shake reduction, as well as high ISO settings and a 3x optical zoom. It’s also capable of recording videos at 640-by-480 resolution at 30 frames per second in DivX-based MPEG-4 format, which requires the installation on your Mac of a free software plug-in.