Google Should Fear Microsoft-Yahoo Partnership

With the arrival of the Bing search engine and the Microsoft-Yahoo search partnership, it's been a hectic summer for search -- not that you'll see market leader Google sweating.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt said back in June about Bing: "I don't think Bing's arrival has changed what we're doing. We are about search, we're about making things enormously successful, by virtue of innovation." For the most part Google is ignoring Bing, at least publicly. Google has not made any outward strategic moves that imply worry about Bing or the Microsoft-Yahoo partnership, other than to state that it's bad for innovation and competition.

Indeed, the Microsoft-Yahoo partnership will face the scrutiny of antitrust regulators and some experts question whether the partnership will be approved.

But if the partnership does pass legal muster, the search wizards in Mountain View will have a legitimate threat on deck. Microsoft has the money ($100 million is being spent on Bing marketing) and Yahoo has the users (98 million Yahoo Mail users in the United States, four times as many as Gmail). Both companies have the technology.

Google's plan, according to an upcoming Time magazine feature story, is to keep on innovating in search and let Microsoft mass market the heck out of Bing. But here are three reasons why quietly innovating may not be enough to keep the tenacious Microhoo at bay.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has made it clear that Microsoft's foray into search is not a flirtation, it's a marriage. He said at Bing's launch in late May: "Bing is an important first step forward in our long-term effort to deliver innovations in search."

Microsoft has said that it plans to spend 5 to 10 percent of its operating income on search over the next five years, a number that works out to be roughly $10 billion per year.

From the outset, Microsoft pointed all its guns at Google with Bing, working to make its interface warm and colorful and structure its search results into categories, as opposed to Google's minimalist interface and long list of links. The subsequent $100 million ad campaign for Bing has focused on how it is more organized and user-friendly than Google.

Google Doesn't Market Itself

Google is one of those companies, like Starbucks, that doesn't do much consumer advertising. Why should they? When your company name is a worldwide verb, you don't exactly need to get the word out. But with the Microsoft-Yahoo partnership, the ground is starting to shift under Google.

The Bing ads have changed perceptions. They rather humorously portray Google's search results as a random collection of links, many of them useless. If anything, the ads have made people question, for probably the first time, whether Google's search is the best way.

The Time magazine story mentions that Google's search engine does have features that most users don't even know about such as providing "the local weather and movie times and performing currency conversions with a single search query."

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Five reasons Apple fears Windows 7

Here are the five reasons Apple fears Windows 7:

1. Clean and Simple User Experience.
There is now very little difference between the easy user experience on Windows 7 and Mac OS X. Gone from Windows 7 are Vista's loads of unnecessary bloatware applications, confusing and poorly designed configuration dialog boxes, and moronic UAC popups that impeded a user's productivity at every turn. The new task bar is more simple and straightforward than Mac OS X's crowded icon bar. Windows also has very good screen configuration settings that make switching between monitor configurations extremely easy. And the Control Panel has been redesigned to the basics of what end users need to manage Windows 7. Like it or not, we're now down to personal preference when it comes to usability and ease of use.

2. Mac Crashes More.
Fact is, my Windows 7 systems don't crash... ever. Those days of frequent Windows Explorer crashes went away when I installed the Windows 7 RC. My Mac now crashes more often (about once a month or so) than Windows 7, and my Mac isn't over laden with junk on it.

3. Flexibility and Lower Cost.
Microsoft has updated its "PC hunter" commercials but they still show how easy it is to find a better value when buying a Windows PC over a Mac. You have to use some pretty convoluted math to come to the conclusion Macs don't cost more than PCs for the equivalent devices. If you buy a Mac it's going to be because you consciously have decided you want a Mac instead of a PC, you hate Microsoft, you prefer the Mac user interface, etc.

4. Performance.

We may not have side-by-side Windows 7 and Mac OS X performance comparisons yet (I'm sure we will soon) but Windows 7 isn't the performance hog Vista was. The experience is great. Windows 7 tools are fast, applications don't freeze up waiting for resources, disk I/O performance is great, memory utilization is much more efficient. Startup, shutdown and sleep are fast. Outlook still has its issues with not responding but overall we're talking a speedy experience on Windows 7. Now add that to the fact that Windows has access to the latest hardware advances -- you can crack the core on the latest Intel i7 or other hardware advances.

5. Mac Security Is NOT Better Than Windows 7.
Many still live with the myth that Mac OS X doesn't have any security issues while Windows does. That myth ignores the facts. For example, Apple just released 18 security patches (the smallest collection of patches this year) for Mac OS X on August 5th. Many try to argue that not all the fixes are for Mac OS X, but rather for other software that might be included with it. To compare apples-to-apples (pun intended) you have to stack up the software each vendor ships with their products, not selective parts of it. While it is true that Windows is still a much larger security target because of it's market share, it isn't true that the Mac doesn't have plenty of security issues of its own.

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Toshiba Portege R600-ST520W Review

While Toshiba's new Portege R600-ST520W hits the ground running with a base weight of 2.4 pounds (3 pounds with the power supply included) and a thickness just over the 1-inch mark, its price tag of well over 2 grand and its so-so hardware reduce the Portege R600 to a good--not great--showing (and it becomes a tough sell when compared to netbooks that cost less than a quarter of its price).

Toshiba sent us their midlevel R600 configuration. Priced at $2149 at the time of review, it includes an Intel Core 2 Duo SU9400 processor at 1.4GHz, 3GB of DDR2 RAM, integrated graphics from Intel, a Wimax-capable wireless card, and a 160GB hard drive with a 32-bit version of Vista Business Edition installed. (That choice of operating system should make this machine's intended audience clear enough.)

In general office performance, the R600 does all right, but it won't win any medals: It scored a 67 in Worldbench, beating out Fujitsu's LifeBook T2020 and Dell's Adamo (these notebooks scored 64 and 65, respectively), but came up short compared with the Macbook Air's 78. You probably wouldn't expect to play any games on this thing--and we confirmed that. Unreal Tournament 3 couldn't squeeze out more than about 6 frames a second at its lowest supported resolution. At least the R600's battery hung in for just under 6 hours to a charge.

While the numbers might indicate a lackluster user experience, I didn't find this to be the case. The R600 felt very responsive, handling several running programs and DVD playback simultaneously with no hitches. This is probably due to the 3GB of installed memory, but in any case, the R600 was easy on my patience, and on my wrists.

The keyboard takes up about half of the notebook's main body below the screen. While you won't find a 10-key input or a lot of function keys, you will find a comfortable and uncompromised layout. Unlike the truncated, clipped keyboards of netbooks and other ultraportables, the R600 features full-size keys and a well-placed FN key that doesn't get in the way. My only complaint is related to one of my major issues with the notebook itself. Its superlight weight and thin construction make it feel positively dainty at times, and as a user with large hands, I often felt I was going to break it. There's also a moderate amount of flex toward the middle of the keyboard. The touchpad is smaller than those on many full-featured notebooks, but it isn't tiny, and it gets the job done.

The R600's display is pretty impressive for its size. Packing a 1280-by-800 resolution into a small footprint, it features excellent brightness and a glare-resistant screen that remains viewable in any lighting conditions it's likely to see. It also has an outdoor lighting option, which deactivates the monitor's backlight. Though the vertical viewing angles are slightly spotty, this isn't an issue for the most part. Color reproduction is good, image quality is razor-sharp, and text is readable without causing too many headaches.

Maybe Toshiba would really prefer you didn't upgrade the R600 at all on your own. While the laptop has a pretty wide array of kits, including a WiMax radio (you'd need to find an area with WiMax coverage to use it), upgrading it is a nightmare. You'll need jeweler's screwdrivers to open the expansion panels on the R600's underside, only to be met with a paltry DIMM slot and not much else.

Sound is where the R600's nature as an ultraportable presents its other big compromise; the mono speaker's maximum volume is too quiet to be heard over even low levels of ambient noise, and the sound quality is awful. Even the external audio controls leave something to be desired--the old fashioned dial on the left side of the notebook looks dated and awkward. The R600 fares a little better with headphones, landing somewhere around the lower end of average for sound quality, but volume remains quiet.

As an ultraportable, the R600's inputs are reasonable. You get two dedicated USB ports and a third that pulls double duty as both a USB and an e-SATA port (the latter is always nice to see), plus gigabit ethernet, SD and Express Card slots, and a VGA output. The business audience will likely appreciate this last touch, as most office projectors continue to support primarily VGA. As for included software, you have the standard packages for backup and for hotkey and wireless management. The HDD Protection utility (which stops the hard disk's heads in a safe position if movement is detected) is well-intentioned, but you'll want to turn down its sensitivity right away.

The R600's design looks stylish enough, at least with the lid closed. It features a brushed metal surface in silver--subdued but not boring (and it's nice to see Toshiba move away from high-gloss, high-fingerprint surfaces). With the lid open, the design is not so great, at least in my opinion--mismatching surfaces don't look modern, they usually look bad. Other than this (admittedly minor) qualm, the R600 is a handsome ultraportable that will catch more than a few glances.

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Lenovo Ideapad U110 Review

Lenovo's supersvelte IdeaPad U110 is about as flashy as ultraportable laptops get. Somewhere between the fire-engine red, laser-etched lid and the rugged rubbery base coating, the U110 establishe itself as a bonafide MacBook Air rival.

This IdeaPad weighs 2.9 pounds with the seven-cell battery in place. It measures 10.8 inches by 7.7 inches by 0.72 inch, and for an ultraportable it packs a reasonable amount of power under the hood: A 1.6-GHz Intel L7500 Core 2 Duo CPU and 2GB of RAM help the U110 run a little faster than Apple's Air. In our WorldBench tests, the U110 scored in the middle of the pack with a score of 65 versus the thin-and-light MacBook's slower 57.

The U110's reasonably roomy 120GB hard drive spins at a pokey 4200RPM, but the notebookit had a respectable battery life of 4 hours, 38 minutes on a single charge.

Lenovo's business-class ThinkPad X300 beat the Air by the same margin in our performance tests. But unlike the U110 (and the Air), it squeezes in optical and solid-state drives (for a higher price, of course).

The rugged, rubberized IdeaPad matches the durability and design of its stablemate, with three USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire port, PC Express and SD card slots, an ethernet jack, and VGA out.

On a laptop with an 11.1-inch screen at 1366 by 768 resolution, a scrunched-up keyboard with inhumanly small buttons would hardly seem out of place. But the U110's buttons are huge by ultraportable standards. Though the wide, flat keys took a little getting used to, I had no trouble tapping out this review on it.

One negative: The U110 is a fingerprint magnet. Its glossy coating renders the four shortcut keys almost unnoticeable. Run your fingers along the top of the keyboard for the faintly lit, stylized buttons to appear. Good luck seeing them in broad daylight, though.

As on the IdeaPad Y510, Lenovo's glossy treatment creates an annoying amount of glare, even with the brightness control set all the way up. At least you'll be fine indoors.

The software included with ThinkPads is vastly superior to what included you get with an IdeaPad. Exhibit A: the ThinkPad's smartly executed ThinkVantage Suite versus the U110's Shuttle Center II entertainment hub, which borders on being useless bloatware.

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Acer Timeline 3810T Review

The Acer Aspire 3810T, aka the Acer Timeline, has two things going for it: This model is one of the first laptops out the gate to use an Intel CULV processor (in this case, the 1.4GHz U9400). The 3810T also has a sharp style that's sure to grab attention. How does this laptop stand up to the MSI X340 or to the HP Pavilion dv2 (which uses the first-gen Athlon Neo CPU)? Pretty well.

In WorldBench 6, the Timeline trounced the Pavilion dv2 (which scored a 46) and outpaced the MSI X340 (which earned a 56), notching a mark of 68. That's the kind of score we've seen from some typically expensive ultraportables--but in this case, you're paying only $799. While this machine manages to outrun similar competitors for the price with a U9400 CPU and 4GB of RAM, it lacks a discrete graphics card. As a result, though the Timeline surprisingly sails through 64-bit Windows Vista Home Premium, you shouldn't expect it to be a multimedia marvel. It does, however, hang in for a ridiculously long stretch of time--it lasted about 8 hours, 21 minutes on a single charge in our tests. That's a pretty solid run, and that battery life was one of the things that helped push the Timeline ahead of the X340 in our evaluations.

But where do you peg a portable like this? Is it a high-powered tweener, or is it a low-performance ultraportable on the cheap? That depends on whom you ask. The dv2 stretches the definition of a netbook. The X340 is a slim, plasticky, poor-man's MacBook Air. The Timeline is a sleek, solid notebook, but it's the size of a conventional ultraportable. Measuring 12.67 by 1.13 by 8.97 inches and weighing 3.5 pounds, this system could be easily confused with a traditional laptop.

Now, the layout of the Timeline--namely, the keyboard--might prompt some love-hate reactions. For an advanced hunt-and-peck specialist like myself, the keys feel springy and good to the touch. But the flat, seemingly floating, psuedo cut-out keys aren't suitable for everyone. Say you're munching on snacks while typing (this review brought to you by Cheetos)--grit and debris will quickly, easily, and frequently fall between the buttons. And my editorial partner in crime, Melissa Perenson, was quick to point out that anyone with long fingernails will find their fingertips catching underneath the keys. Does that mean you'll break a nail every time you type or try to wedge up a key? I don't know, but folks in need of a manicure should consider themselves warned.

Among the Timeline's handy and unique features are a couple of touch-inducive shortcuts. A Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n toggle sits next to a shortcut to Acer Backup Manager (an easy-to-use software utility) and a quick toggle for a battery-saving mod.

Camping below all that is a good-sized touchpad. It has the same texture as the wrist rest, and the only indicator that you're in the strike zone is a slight speed bump surrounding the area. The mouse-button bar has an odd lip that your finger can slip into so that your thumb can rest while you navigate. I'm not particularly crazy about the cheap plastic feel of both the wrist rest and the button, but the setup certainly gets the job done. I know it's an entirely different class, but I wish that more portable makers would take a cue from the Asus Eee PC 1008HA, which has golf-ball-like dimples dotting the active touchpad area. And metallic buttons on the Timeline wouldn't hurt, either.

The screen is nice--provided that you use the Timeline only indoors. The glossy 1366-by-768-pixel panel has colors that pop. If you saw this system on a store shelf, you'd be drawn in by the rich reds and blues that don't drown each other out. Try typing on it outside, however, and you're looking into a fairly expensive mirror. It's not exactly unusable--I wrote half this review outdoors. But the display is extremely dim, and making out much more than black text on a white background under broad daylight is hard. In short, it's just the continuing curse of the glossy screen coating.

Judging from its size and shape, the Timeline seems capable of accommodating an internal optical drive. But it doesn't. What it does have, however, are a reasonable number of ports. VGA and HDMI video-outs complement three USB plugs, an RJ-45 ethernet port, a Webcam, and headphone and microphone jacks.

As for the software, yes, you get some of the usual trialware (Microsoft Office, for instance). However, Acer has also thrown some helpful applications into the mix, ones that might be worth your while to try. Beyond Office, you get Microsoft Works, the eSobi news reader, the aforementioned backup utility, MyWinLocker for safely stowing files, and Orion, a soup-to-nuts IM/communication client. Oh, yeah--you'll also find a host of obnoxious casual-game demos in the "Acer GameZone" that you'll probably want to uninstall the second you power the Timeline up.

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HP Elitebook 2530P Review

There's so much to like about the HP EliteBook 2530P that it's hard to know where to start genuflecting. This little black and silver beauty meets all the basic expectations--great performance, full set of connections--and then piles on nifty extras such as two sets of pointing devices and a keyboard light. It's by no means cheap at $2499, but if you want your laptop to mean business (in this case Windows Vista Business), HP has a fairly desirable ultraportable for you.

Equipped with a 1.86-GHz Core 2 Duo SL9400 CPU and 3GB of RAM, the EliteBook notched a reasonably speedy WorldBench 6 score of 89. And don't forget the 80GB solid-state drive--it's skimpy capacity-wise and it's the main contributor to the machine's high price, but it also deserves some of the credit for the laptop's speed. (Want to save some bucks? 120GB and 160GB SATA hard drives are also options.)

The standard ultraportable disclaimer also applies here: This system can't play 3D games, because the video memory is integrated and the squeaky speakers sound pretty awful. Also, the EliteBook carries a standard DVD writer, not a Blu-ray high-definition drive. Otherwise, however, this little laptop should be able to handle just about any type of business or entertainment application. How does it compare with other ultraportables currently on the scene? Well, it outperforms and outspecs the HP Voodoo Envy 133 in just about every way except sex appeal. It solidly outperforms the Samsung X360 (an SSD-based notebook that scored a 64 in WorldBench 6) and lags a little behind Sony's pricey VAIO VGN-Z598U (which earned a 96).

The EliteBook comes with a big power pack that extends the back of the unit by about half an inch. The design isn't overly clunky, however, and the battery lasted a good, long time in our tests: 12 minutes shy of 7 hours. Most impressive, it outlasted most other laptops, save for the Samsung X360 and the Lenovo ThinkPad X200.

It even has an external power gauge, especially convenient for checking battery life when the unit is turned off. Just 3.8 pounds, the EliteBook would be perfect for stuffing in a briefcase or backpack and then working offsite all day, without needing to lug along the power adapter. And the 12.1-inch, 1280-by-800-pixel, wide-aspect screen is glossy and bright but not annoyingly reflective--one of the benefits of using a backlit LED panel.

The keyboard is a cut above. The stroke is short and hard, but the layout is elegant and includes two pointing devices, not only a touchpad but an eraserhead embedded among the keys. The eraserhead tip is wide and concave, with tactile nubs that make getting the hang of maneuvering the pointer easy. Each pointing device has its own dedicated set of mouse buttons, both exceptionally comfortable thanks to a soft rubberized finish. Need to get work done in a dark room or on a plane? Pressing a small black button at the top of the screen pops out a nearby keyboard light, an LED mounted in a tiny hood that shines a pale white glow on the keys.

The standard laptop connections are well covered. The EliteBook has Bluetooth and Wi-Fi wireless capabilities, gigabit ethernet, an ExpressCard/54 slot, a separate SD Card slot, and a Firewire port, not to mention both modem and network jacks. Hate remembering a bunch of passwords? A fingerprint reader is provided in the lower-right quadrant of the wrist rest. You can communicate face-to-face with the built-in 2-megapixel Webcam, too. Though the machine has only two USB ports, one is powered. (If you need more, HP's $109 docking station for the EliteBook provides four USB ports.) The unit even has a plastic sheath on the bottom for slipping in a business card to quickly identify you as the owner.

One thing that isn't standard: This corporate raider can take a beating. While we can't vouch for dunking it in a fish tank or dropping it in the desert, it does look like it can handle a desk-to-floor drop--and maybe a splash from a small latte.

And on the software front, it comes with a bunch of business-minded appliclations. You'll find security management tools, including a drive encryption option that seems pretty useful. I also really liked the HP Webcam software. It's a colorful, attractive and easy-to-use interface with lots of options, including taking stills, video with audio, or audio alone. In short, the software does a good job of answering (but not quite matching) Lenovo's ThinkVantage software suite that you'll find on ThinkPads.

We do have one design complaint worth mentioning, however. The futuristic touch-sensitive membranes that a lot of laptops now incorporate as quick-launch panels have been a mixed bag, and the EliteBook's is no exception. It was responsive to taps and included an on/off for the touchpad, which is always nice, but the volume gauge needed recalibrating. It didn't always respond, even to repeated swipes.

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Asus U6V-A1 Review

If you're looking for a speedy ultraportable laptop without breaking the bank, look no further than the Asus U6V-A1. This $1649, Windows Vista Business-based notebook offers up strong performance scores and is a nicely balanced overall system.

Powered by a 2.26-GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB of memory, and an nVidia GeForce 9300M GS integrated graphics chip, The Asus U6V exhibits excellent performance compared with other ultraportables, earning a WorldBench 6 score of 93. The U6V held its own on the gaming front, garnering 38 frames per second in Doom 3 and 68 fps in Far Cry (1024-by-768 resolution with antialiasing turned off). Those frame rates may not sound so hot, but ultraportables rarely rise above mediocre game performance. Compared with others in this class, the U6V trounces lesser machines that offer only weak-sauce integrated graphics chips (ahem, Intel) and puts up a decent fight against most of its competition. In fact, it's a hair faster than Lenovo's ThinkPad X200.

The Asus U6V comes equipped with a 320GB hard drive--plenty roomy for all your media. But grab a good set of headphones or external speakers to go with it; the U6V has only a crummy speaker, with poor volume and all the sound quality of an alarm clock radio. That said, the 12.1-inch 1280-by-800 glossy wide-screen display is bright, crisp, and evenly lit--what you put on the screen will look great indoors and still hold up decently outside.

By and large the U6V is an attractive, nicely designed notebook with some higher-end touches such as a leather palmrest. The keyboard feels firm, but the keys on the edges are smaller than usual to make room for the Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down keys along the keyboard's right-hand side; while not a big deal, you may have to adjust your typing-muscle memory a little. The trackpad is a bit small, but usable; the buttons, though, can be awkward to use, since they're not very large (thanks to the fingerprint reader between the left and right buttons) and can be difficult to press. Good thing our review unit includes an external Bluetooth mouse (I was certainly tempted to use it).

The U6V includes three USB ports, with ports on both sides of the notebook for easy mousing. Also included are eSATA, HDMI, and VGA ports, an ExpressCard/34 slot, gigabit ethernet, and a built-in Webcam. The hard drive and memory modules are easily accessed by removing their covers on the bottom of the unit.

The notebook weighs in at 3.5 pounds with the 6-cell lithium ion battery--about average for an ultraportable--but add another 0.9 pound if you want to lug around the power adapter. You'll need it: The U6V's included 6-cell battery achieved 3 hours, 29 minutes of running life in the PC World Test Center's evaluation. While this is about average for a typical all-purpose notebook, it's on the lower end of the spectrum for ultraportables. Some machines we've tested have lasted upwards of 6 hours. However, the U6V does include an extra 3-cell battery--a nice touch considering that most other PC makers would make this an extra-cost option.

ExpressGate--Asus's preboot interface for performing basic tasks--makes an appearance on the U6V. Press a button on the notebook, and within seconds you'll have access to a Web browser, Skype, a photo viewer, and more, in case you don't want to deal with Windows.

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