Perhaps the thinnest and lightest full-sized 10.1-inch slate to date, the Excite 10 LE is a huge departure from Toshiba’s previous forays into the Android tablet market. It’s nothing like last year’s big and bulky 10.1-inch Toshiba Thrive, which afforded it the space required for its generous port selection. In addition, unlike many of its higher-end thin-and-light competitors, it comes with dedicated HDMI and USB ports (though these are miniature ports, whereas the Thrive had full-size ports); the Tablet S has no HDMI port, and the Transformer Prime has no USB port. As you’ll see later in the Design section of this review, the Excite 10 LE really is an all-around versatile slate.

You can buy the Excite 10 LE in one of two flavors: the $529.99 16GB model we’re looking at here, or the $599.99 32GB version. (Toshiba also offers these two models running Android 3.2, or Honeycomb, for the same price.) Both versions are exceptional slates, albeit a little pricy. Some competing Tegra 3– and Android 4.0–based (a.k.a. Ice Cream Sandwich, or ICS) models, such as the Acer’s $449.99 Iconia Tab A510 and Asus’s $399.99 Transform Pad TF300, come with 32GB of storage for lower prices. Like the higher-end Transformer Prime and the aforementioned Tablet S, with this model you pay a little more for the thin-and-light engineering, the sleek design, and the metal casing.

Toshiba Excite 10 LE Review and Ratings

Compared with the of Tegra 3–based slates we’ve looked at, however, it’s not the best performing tablet. But then it’s also not built around the popular Tegra 3 processor. And that seems to have hurt its benchmark performance: the Excite 10 LE turned in mediocre scores on most of our benchmark tests and fell slightly behind in a few a key areas, especially battery life. During our hands-on time with it, though, we didn’t notice any performance lags and were generally very pleased with its responsiveness. If thin, light, and drop-dead gorgeous are part of what you’re looking for in a tablet, you’ll find it in the Excite 10 LE—so long as you don’t mind paying for it, that is.

See the full review at Computer Shopper.

If the slates that have passed through our labs in recent weeks are any indication, there’s no better time to buy a tablet. It’s also a great time to upgrade. And the impressive new models we’ve seen in the first third of 2012, such as Acer’s $449.99 Iconia Tab A510 (which replaces early-2011′s Iconia Tab A500) just might make that prospect irresistible.

We were lukewarm about Acer’s first attempt at an ICS tablet, the Iconia Tab A200. It was a decent enough slate, but it was somewhat clunky and had a ho-hum feature set. The Iconia Tab A510, on the other hand—with top-shelf components—deserves more respect, especially considering its stiffer competition.

Since the Iconia Tab A510 is one of only a handful of slates to take advantage of the high-performing Tegra 3 processor, that in itself makes it attractive. While several manufacturers have introduced devices running ICS recently, many of those, such as Samsung’s soon-to-be-released $399.99 Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1), rely on the older Tegra 2 dual-core processor. Based on what we’ve seen so far, the Tegra 3 CPU performs notably better, and it does so while consuming significantly less power.

Acer has positioned the Iconia Tab A510 as its higher-end slate. However, in the Android world, the price places it in direct competition with two Asus models: its deluxe $499.99 Eee Pad Transformer Prime, and its entry-level $399.99 Asus Transformer Pad TF300, both of which are built around Tegra 3 processors. The $449.99 price places the Iconia Tab A510 halfway between these two models. (Not to mention, it’s smack dab between Apple’s two lowest-cost iPads, the now-$399 iPad 2 and the $499 Wi-Fi-only, 16GB 2012 iPad.) To a lesser degree, it also competes with Acer’s own entry-level $349.99 Iconia Tab A200, which runs on the Tegra 2 CPU.

Acer Iconia Tab A510

The competition is strong here. The Asus Transformer Prime, especially, is a well-built, fast device with a strong feature set, but the Iconia Tab A510 has a few strengths of its own. For starters, it turned in the highest scores to date on most of our tablet benchmark tests; it’s one of the strongest-performing tablets we’ve seen so far. It’s not as fancy-looking as the higher-priced Transformer Prime, but Acer has taken a more practical, utilitarian design approach. In addition to performing well, it comes with 32GB of onboard storage, plus the option for 64GB more via a MicroSDXC card slot. Plus, it has a good-looking screen, feels good in your hands, and is pleasant to use.

See the full review at Computer Shopper.

Before we go any further, though, we should note that we also liked the Transformer Prime—so much so, in fact, that we gave it our Editors’ Choice award. However, despite the fact that the Transformer Pad TF300 has a slightly slower processor (more on that in the Performance section), it scored better on most of our benchmark tests. On the surface, this doesn’t seem to make sense, but processor speed isn’t the only performance-impacting factor. Specific operating system and firmware tweaks, as well as different types of memory chips and other circuitry, can also make a slate run better. For example, Asus used DDR2 for the system memory in the Prime, but stepped up to DDR3 memory for this model. Little changes like these can make significant differences in performance.

As of late April 2012, these two slates are the only ones we’ve seen built around the Nvidia Tegra 3 processor. In addition to performing better on several of our tests, the Transformer Pad TF300 also provides support for 3G and 4G cellular Internet connectivity. The Transformer Prime supports only Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. That said, as of this writing, 3G and 4G service for this tablet were not available in the United States, and we can’t say when it will be. (Asus would not discuss its ongoing negotiations with cell-service providers.)

The Transformer Pad TF300 comes in two versions and three colors. You can buy a 16GB model for $379.99 and a 32GB version, the one we review here, for $399.99. (Paying $20 more for twice the storage seems like a no-brainer to us.) As shown in the image below, you can take your pick of red, white, or blue chassis—eventually. Only the blue model will hit the stores in spring 2012; you’ll have to wait until June to get a red or white one.

See the full review at Computer Shopper.

We have on hand all three: the $79.99 Pixma MX372 (our review’s in the works), the $99.99 Pixma MX432 (reviewed here), and the $149.99 Pixma MX512 (reviewed at the link). While these three budget-priced printers vary widely in features, each one supports the basic functions you’d expect from any AIO: printing, copying, scanning, and faxing.

Canon’s typical approach, when releasing a bunch of similarly priced models like this, is to apply a graduated set of features across them, according to price. For example, the difference between our $99.99 Pixma MX432 and the $149.99 MX512 is that, for the additional $50, you get a 2.5-inch color LCD, support for printing from most popular memory devices, automatic duplexing (that is, the ability to print two-sided pages without user intervention), and a few other productivity and convenience features. In short, as the price goes up, the feature list expands.

Were you to step down to the $79.99 Pixma MX372, for the $20 savings you’d give up wireless (Wi-Fi) connectivity and support for printing from PictBridge-compliant USB 2.0 devices. (As you might guess from the price, it’s a pretty basic printer.) Aside from these feature disparities, though, these three models are essentially the same inside their shells, with identical print engines and other internal mechanisms. The print quality and print speeds on all three are about the same.

As for that print quality and speed, the MX432, like the MX512 we tested recently, prints excellent-looking business documents and photos, mostly a little slower than average for a printer in this price range. Also like with the higher-priced MX512, the MX432′s ink costs a lot, if you measure the per-page cost. (These two Pixmas use the same ink cartridges.)

If you use your printer often, this model’s cost per page (CPP) will make doing so expensive. With that in mind, this AIO is a good choice only if your small or home office has low-volume copy and print requirements. If you can live with the high cost per page, though, the prints and copies you do get from this model will make you happy. In our tests, they were generally of exceptional quality.

See the full review at Computer Shopper.

If you’ve been keeping up with trends in laptops in 2012, you know about “ultrabooks”—a new breed of exceptionally light laptops built around powerful Intel CPUs and that comply with a set of specifications dictated by Intel. And if you’ve seen any ultrabooks in the flesh (or should that be, “in the metal”?), you probably think of them as slim, sleek, and sexy. But one thing that you don’t expect out of most ultrabooks, given how lean they are, is a DVD drive inside. That’s an inclusion that makes the $949 Samsung Series 5 Ultra stand out from the ultrabook pack.

With a 14-inch screen and a little more girth than most ultrabooks, the Samsung Series 5 14″ Ultra juts out in other ways, too. It’s actually closer in size and weight to the almost-hefty but very sexy HP Envy 14 Spectre, another 14-inch-screened laptop that’s priced $450 more at $1,399. And while we liked the Envy 14 Spectre for its forward-looking innovation and unique design, we like the Series 5 Ultra for its creature comforts and healthy selection of ports. It’s simply a practical machine. With it, you won’t end up stranded in a hotel room or an out-of-town office with all the right cords and no ports to plug them into.

The Series 5 Ultra comes in two screen sizes and three flavors. The $949.99 14-inch model (model NP530U4BI), the one we’re reviewing here, has an optical drive and a 500GB “hybrid”-style hard drive. (The drive is equipped with onboard cache for better performance.) If you prefer something smaller, thinner, and lighter, though, and you can do without the optical drive, Samsung offers a 13-inch model (NP530U3BI) in two configurations. The lower-priced ($899.99) 13-inch model comes with the same 500GB hybrid drive as the 14-incher we tested, while the higher-end ($1,099) version moves you up to a 128GB solid-state drive (SSD). All three models use the 1.6GHz Intel Core i5-2467M processor, have 4GB of RAM, and run the Home Premium version of Windows 7.

Granted, the Series 5 Ultra is no ultra-looker; its appearance is less striking than most other ultrabooks. And its benchmark-test scores, in most cases, hovered just above the ultrabook-category averages. Regardless, we liked this laptop. Samsung products typically have good-looking screens, and the Series 5 Ultra was no exception.

We can’t help but wonder, though, how much less it would cost if it wasn’t called an ultrabook—a distinction that, in itself, is worth a premium. We admired the first wave of ultrabooks for their elegant, MacBook Air–like grace and elegance. The Series 5 Ultra is a good-quality laptop, to be sure, but it didn’t remind us much of the MacBook Air or any of the first ultrabooks we’ve come to know. It’s more practical than pretty.

See the full review at Computer Shopper.

Early 2012 has been an aggressive launch season for Samsung. Here in April, as we wrote this, the company had just launched two new Galaxy Tab–family tablets. These latest models both come equipped with the “Ice Cream Sandwich” (ICS) version of the Android operating system (more prosaically known as Android 4.0), and are debuting at new low prices. The smaller of the two, the 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0), is the subject of our review. It’s making its debut at $249—a drastic reduction from the original 2010 Galaxy Tab and the much more recent Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, both with the same-size screen, but starting at $399. (A larger version of this tablet with a 10.1-inch screen, the Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1), is coming in May at a very palatable $399.)

Aside from a few small hardware changes and the updated Android operating system, the Galaxy Tab 2 is a lot like the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus. Surprisingly, several of the changes, such as a lower-resolution front camera and a slightly slower CPU, are downgrades. This new slate is also slightly thicker and weighs a little more. (We’ll look more closely at these differences and how they affect the Galaxy Tab 2′s overall user experience and performance a little later in this review.)

Unlike its predecessor, which comes in versions with 16GB and 32GB storage capacities, the Galaxy Tab 2 comes in only one capacity: 8GB. (The 10-inch Galaxy Tab 2 coming in May should have 16GB of storage space.) In response to our queries about whether we would be seeing models with larger complements of storage, Samsung could not say, nor could they tell us whether 3G or 4G cellular-connect versions were on their way. We can say, though, that our review unit did not have a SIM-card slot.

The very modest price for this new tablet, especially considering how well it’s built, the exceptional screen quality, and its overall performance, makes it a great value. The small changes Samsung made to hit the $250 price seem quite reasonable. At this price, it can compete with the $199 Amazon Kindle Fire, but bear in mind that the two are actually very different devices. (The Kindle Fire is primarily a media-consumption device, whereas the Galaxy Tab 2 is full-fledged tablet.)

Like all of Samsung’s slates, this one is attractive, feels great in your hands, and comes with some highly useful apps. For the price, the Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) is one of the best entry-level 7-inch tablets we’ve seen.

See the full review at Computer Shopper.

When we researched the term, as it’s used in relation to laser printers, we got everything from $120 single-function monochrome devices to full-blown multifunction color lasers around $500. But whatever it meant to you (and to us) until now, Samsung’s $129.99 ML-2165W, the smallest laser printer to pass through our labs, may have just redefined the term—or at least changed the conversation.

Sure, we’ve seen relatively small, single-function monochrome laser printers before. (Take Brother’s $149.99 HL-2279DW, the $179.99 Dell 1130n, or the $149.99 HP LaserJet Pro P1102w.) But at roughly 15 inches deep and wide, and weighing around 15 to 16 pounds, these models, compared to what came before them, just weren’t all that small. On the other hand, the ML-2165W, as you’ll see in the “Design & Features” section of this review, is much smaller and lighter than the norm—so much so, that when you close up the paper trays, it’s slim and slight enough to carry under one arm.

In addition to the ML-2165W taking up very little space on even the smallest of desks, we found some other advantages to owning a laser-fast, relatively high-volume printer this small. Its portability makes it ideal for road warriors—traveling accountants, salespeople, and other professionals—who might need the ability to print quick and easy laser-quality documents on the road, in a hotel room, a client’s office, or at the next trade show. We’re not sure you’d take it in your luggage on a flight, but it’s easy to carry in a vehicle or to ship ahead. (Also, it’s wireless.)

As with any budget-level device, of course, the ML-2165W has a few drawbacks. It is, after all, a monochrome printer. For its $129.99 suggested retail price, you can buy a relatively feature-rich multifunction color inkjet printer. However, as we wrote this in mid-April 2012, we found the ML-2165W at several outlets for as little as $79.99, making it a far more enticing deal at that price if you can find it close to that. In addition, as we discuss in the “Design & Features” section, its per-page cost of toner is a bit high, especially compared to similarly priced inkjet models. But its street price could change that equation.

We’d assume, though, that users who buy such a diminutive laser printer have reasons other than its cost per page for doing so. For these folks, putting aside the printer’s size, the speed and print quality would probably also rank high. Don’t let the ML-2165W’s petite body fool you—it prints monochrome text, business graphics, and gray-scale images with the high quality you’d expect from a laser printer, and it does so at respectable, laser-grade speeds.

See the full review at Computer Shopper.

After spending some days with the Le Pan II tablet, we realized we needed to look at it through that same lens. At first glance, it has some similarities to the tablet-king Apple iPad, minus some of the panache of the Apple brand. But it also comes in at a much lower price.

At only $299, the Le Pan II is sure to catch the eye of many bargain hunters. Like the iPad, it has a 4-to-3 aspect ratio, a 9.7-inch screen, and solid build quality. A quick, uninformed comparison of the two might seem like a no-brainer—in Le Pan’s favor—when the price difference is a whopping $200. (Apple’s iPads start at $499, unless you count the last-generation iPad 2, whose 16GB base model now sells for $399.)

Le Pan isn’t the only tablet maker to bring a quality budget slate to the market, however. Acer’s sturdy $349 Iconia Tab A200, which we recently reviewed, also impressed us with its performance and build quality, giving us hope that the days of cheap, insubstantial-feeling plastic chassis on bargain-priced tablets are over. On the other hand, all three have attributes we don’t like. With Apple’s iPads, not including HDMI and USB ports is a design choice that we dislike but tolerate because of the lack of direct competition, whereas with Acer and Le Pan, eliminating ports is a sacrifice in the name of price. (Note, though, that the A200 does have a mini-USB port.) The other area where a choice that works for Apple doesn’t necessarily work for an Android tablet is the 4-to-3 screen aspect ratio. (We’ll talk more about that in a bit.)

All told, our biggest gripes with the Le Pan II are the lack of four things: an HDMI port, a USB port, a rear-facing camera, and the latest Android operating system. The last is the most fixable; instead of Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich, or ICS), you get Android 3.2 (Honeycomb), but it’s possible a future update will fix this. Regardless of the feature set and the price, however, every tablet should perform well, and in this regard, the Le Pan II delivers. It turned in respectable scores on most of our benchmark tests, and it impressed us during our hands-on evaluation. For couch-bound Web surfers and Facebook users—or anyone who won’t mind any of the missing features we listed—the Le Pan II is a surprisingly good deal.

See this review at Computer Shopper.

Nowadays, though, high-volume inkjet AIOs, such as the $399.99 Epson WorkForce Pro WP-4540 and the $299.99 HP OfficeJet Pro 8600 Plus, print at comparable speeds, have similar duty cycles, and are—relatively speaking—inexpensive to use. In addition, inkjet AIOs do some things, such as print near-lab-quality photographs and borderless pages, that laser-class devices just can’t. This raises the question, then, why your small office or business should choose a laser multifunction machine over a less-expensive inkjet one with a similar feature set and capabilities.

That brings us back to the MFC-9325CW. First, we should point out that technically this Brother printer is not a “laser” device, but a light-emitting diode (LED) printer. The difference between LED and laser printers is that, instead of using lasers to charge the page image onto the print drum (the part of the printer that attracts the toner and transfers it to your paper), LED-based machines achieve basically the same results with an LED array. (See our feature story “How It Works: Laser Printers.”) Printer makers use LEDs instead of lasers because they cost less to manufacture, are smaller and lighter, and have fewer moving parts. These differences aside, LED-based machines are otherwise similar to laser printers, right down to their reliance on toner, rather than ink.

Compared with competing laser and LED multifunction printers in its price range, the MFC-9325CW is a capable business machine. It prints, copies, and scans nice-looking business documents at respectable speeds. It’s well-outfitted, too, with nearly every productivity and convenience feature most small businesses want. And it’s well-built, as well as easy to set up and use.

Overall, we liked this machine, but it has one hard-to-forgive caveat: Its printing cost per page (as discussed in the “Design & Features” section of this review, following) is prohibitively high, especially compared with several high-volume inkjet AIOs we’ve looked at lately. That’s hard to ignore unless you have very modest print-volume needs.

The cost difference between a high-end, full-featured Android-based tablet with a 10.1-inch screen (such as the $499 Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime) and a budget model, like Acer’s recently released $349 Iconia Tab A200, typically runs between $100 and $150. The question, of course, is what you sacrifice for the savings. Some low-cost tablets are constructed with inexpensive materials and feel cheap, or they come with older versions of the Android OS. One way or another, an entry-level price means a compromise or two.

You won’t see these trade-offs at first sight on the Iconia Tab A200. It looks and feels sturdy and well-built. It’s also the first $350 slate to come with the latest version of Android, version 4.0 (more commonly known as Ice Cream Sandwich, or ICS). But the trade-offs are there.

This value-priced little slate is well-built, runs the latest version of Android, and is a pleasure to hold and use.

On this slate, they come in the form of a mediocre display, the lack of a rear-facing camera, and the absence of an HDMI port. In addition, the A200 is built around Nvidia’s Tegra 2 dual-core processor, which, now that the quad-core Tegra 3 is coming into wider use, will soon become a last-generation CPU.

Aside from these trade-offs, we found the Iconia Tab A200 a well-performing, capable slate. However, considering the state of today’s tablet market, its timing is somewhat concerning. Right now, full-size slates at around $350 with 16GB of storage and running ICS, like our review unit, are rare—but for how long? (Acer also offers an 8GB model for $329, but opting for twice the storage for only $20 more seems like a no-brainer to us.) Plenty of ICS slates are on the horizon, and we expect to see a few under-$400 entry-level models before long running quad-core Tegra 3 processors.

While we’re not overly excited about the A200 in terms of technology and features, we still think it’s a good buy—at least for now.

Read the full review at Computer Shopper.

Here in early 2012, the new ones are three low-cost, business-centric units: the $79.99 Pixma MX372, the $99.99 Pixma MX432, and (the subject of this review) the $149.99 Pixma MX512. These new Pixma multifunction machines all print, copy, scan, and fax, and they come right behind three other similarly priced, photo-centric AIOs: the Pixma MG4120, MG3120, and MG2120. (We tested all three in recent months; click the links for the individual reviews.)

Apart from Canon’s “MX” designation in their names (which indicates that these printers are intended for office use), what sets these new Pixmas apart—specifically, what makes them home- and small-office AIOs—are two features not found on the MG models: the ability to send and receive faxes, and an automatic document feeder (ADF). An ADF allows you to copy, scan, or fax a multipage document without intervention.

Canon's Pixma MX512 - long on useful features and output quality, but the exceptionally high cost per page (CPP) of ink will get you.

While these three new Pixmas look a lot alike, the higher-priced MX512 has, as you’d expect, the most features. For the extra $50 over the $99.99 Pixma MX432, you get a 2.5-inch color LCD, support for printing from most popular memory devices, automatic duplexing (that is, unassisted two-sided printing), and a few other options not found on the other MX models. Of these three new AIOs, the Pixma MX512 offers the best range of productivity and convenience features at a reasonable price.

In our tests, the Pixma MX512 printed, scanned, and copied documents and images in exceptional quality. It and the other two MX models are certainly not speed demons, however. A few competing models in this price range, such as the $149.99 Brother MFC-J825DW, do print faster, especially with business documents. If speed is what you’re after, you’d do better spending a little more for a higher-volume AIO, such as the $299.99 HP OfficeJet 8600 Plus.

Overall, the Pixma MX512 is a good little business machine. Our only real concern is this model’s per-page cost of operation, in terms of its ink cartridges. (We’ve got more on that in the Design section of this review.) The trend in the inkjet AIO market of late has been toward lower costs per page (CPPs). This model runs against that. As a result, this printer is a good choice only if your small or home office has modest print and copy requirements, but the prints you do need to make must be top-notch quality.

Read the full review at Computer Shopper.

This is a complete, hands-on class in creating Websites with CSS3. Here’s what we’ll cover:

Syllabus

Week 1 – Introduction to CSS3

• What are Styles?
• What are Style Sheets?
• How do Style Sheets Cascade?
• Evolution of CSS
• CSS and HTML
• CSS—A  Bunch of Rules
• The Anatomy of a CSS Rule
• Why CSS3?

Week 2 – CSS3 and HTML5

• What is HTML5?
• HTML5 Page Structure
• HTML5′s Built-In Containers
• Create an HTML5 Page
• CSS3 and HTML5 Working Together
• CSS3 and Earlier Versions of HTML

Week 3 – In Depth CSS

• Class, Type, ID and Compound Selectors
• Inline, Internal and External Styles
• CSS Containers
• CSS Rules for Adapting to Display Size and Device Type
• CSS Print Media Formatting

Week 4 – Formatting a Page with CSS3

• CSS3 Page Sections and Includes
• Format Boxes with CSS3
• Format Text with CSS3
• Format Images and other Media with CSS3

Week 5 – CSS3 Special Effects

• CSS3 Shadow and other Text Effects
• CSS3 Box Shadow and other Box Effects
• CSS3 Color Gradients and Fills
• CSS3 Menu and Navigation Formatting Effects
• CSS3 Background Effects
• Use WebKit, Mozilla and other Browser Extensions with CSS3

Week 6 – CSS3 Animations, Transitions and Transformations

• Create and Animate Simple 2D Shapes
• Create Page and Object Transitions
• Create Object 2D and 3D Transformations
• WebKit and other Browser Extension Transformations

Week 7 – CSS3 and Mobile Devices

• CSS3 Formatting Based on Screen Size and Device Type
• Integrate CSS3 and JavaScript
• Integrate CSS3 and jQuery
• Media Quires
• Viewport
• Device Orientation

Week 8 – CSS3 Advanced Techniques

• Fluid, Multicolumn Pages
• Stylized Links
• Format Form Fields with CSS3
• CSS3 Sprites
• CSS3 Drop-Down Menus

Sony Tablet P - a slate with a different view.

We were wowed by last year’s debut of the Sony Tablet S—a remarkable feat of slate engineering that remains our favorite Android tablet to date. The Tablet S is beautiful and extremely comfortable to hold and use. Plus, it has a gorgeous screen and performs wonderfully. Still, as unique as it is, it looks pretty much like what it is: a tablet.

We can’t quite say that about Sony’s latest offering, the Tablet P. From a distance, there’s no telling what it is. It’s not until you have it in hand and are using it that you realize it’s an Android-based slate. Even then, it’s so profoundly different from what’s come before in tablets that you might find yourself doubting its usefulness. (At first, we did, too.)

As you can see in the image below, the Tablet P is two things. It’s a tablet that folds in the center to make it more compact and easier to carry. But, depending on how you look at it and use it, it’s also a slate with two discrete screens…

Read this review at Computer Shopper

Brother HL-3075CW Review and Ratings

As we’ve noted in a few printer reviews of late, 2012 has seen the line between sharp-printing color lasers and color inkjets get mighty blurry. Some inkjet models claiming “laser-quality output,” such as the $399.99 Epson WorkForce 520 and $199.99 HP LaserJet Pro 8600 Plus, really do print business documents on par with high-volume laser models, in terms of quality and speed. In addition, these new high-volume inkjets perform their magic at very reasonable per-page costs.

Historically, small and home offices have chosen laser printers because they print faster and cost less to use over the long haul, despite their somewhat hefty upfront purchase price. Nowadays, though—due to the trend of high-volume, low-cost-per-page inkjet models—you typically have to buy a relatively high-volume (and high-priced) color laser printer to see much speed or per-page cost benefit. Many lower-volume (and lower-cost) color lasers no longer have the speed and operational-cost advantages over their inkjet counterparts. The case in point is Brother’s $299.99 HL-3075CW, a color LED printer.

Although technically an LED printer is not a laser printer, it looks and acts just like one. The difference between LED-based devices and laser printers centers on the basic print technology. Instead of lasers, LED-based machines use an LED array (an array of light-emitting devices) that charges the page image onto the print drum. Printer makers substitute LEDs for lasers because they have fewer moving parts, are smaller and lighter, and cost less to manufacture. Otherwise, LED models are much the same as laser printers, including their use of toner.

Overall, we liked the HL-3075CW. It printed great-looking business documents and images at respectable speeds for an entry-level LED printer. However, it has a relatively low recommended monthly print volume, and the high cost of its toner cartridges make for, compared to its inkjet counterparts, a high cost per page for both monochrome and color prints. We wouldn’t recommend it as a serious pound-’em-out workhorse printer; it’s best for occasional and light-duty color printing.

Read this review at Computer Shopper

Somebody woke up the giant. In desktop and laptop PCs, it’s been a quiet last couple of years for Nvidia, but the big graphics powerhouse isn’t keeping it down any longer. Nvidia’s big-splash news in early 2012 was its new-to-market, long-awaited revision of its graphics architecture, code-named “Kepler.” Touted since 2010, Kepler showed up in the company’s speed-monster (but power-stingy) GeForce GTX 680 desktop video card, an able competitor to AMD’s best. (See our March 2012 review of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 680, as well as a look at AMD’s leading 2012 video card, the AMD Radeon HD 7970.)

In early March, two of our editors ventured to sunny San Francisco to attend Nvidia’s 2012 Editors’ Day conference, where the company gave us a sneak peek at the GTX 680. But there, they were surprised to see something that’s potentially even more of a game-changer: the GeForce 600M Series, a suite of new graphics-processing units (GPUs) for laptops.

Of course, manufacturers always tout new hardware of this kind as an epochal breakthrough, destined to change the tech landscape. Sometimes it’s true, sometimes, less so. This time, though, we have to say that the new graphics processors Nvidia showed us looked, at least from the claims on the table, nothing short of impressive. And our preliminary tests bear some of this out.

Read the full article at Computer Shopper.

Lexmark OfficeEdge Pro4000 - not everything it could be, but fast.

While most printer manufacturers released better, faster, and cheaper inkjets models in fast succession through 2011, it’s been more than a year since we’ve seen a new multifunction inkjet printer from Lexmark. (Multifunction models, by definition, are capable of printing, copying, scanning, and faxing.) Hence, we were excited to get our hands on the company’s newest offering, the $249 OfficeEdge Pro4000, the smaller and less expensive of two small- and home-office models that Lexmark introduced recently.

The other model, the $499 OfficeEdge Pro5500, offers a wider range of features, such as a duplexing automatic document feeder (ADF), a touch screen, a second high-capacity paper tray, and several other convenience and productivity features. However, its feature list and print-speed ratings aren’t much different from a few other competitors at lower prices, such as the $399.99 Epson WorkForce Pro WP-4540 and the $199.99 HP OfficeJet Pro 8600 Plus. (You can get the latter with a second paper tray for under $300.)

The OfficeEdge Pro4000 prints nice-looking business documents at exceptional speeds, and (if you buy Lexmark’s extra-large ink cartridges) it prints them at a competitive per-page cost. However, it struggles a little when printing photographs, but not so much as to make the output unusable.

Read the review at Computer Shopper.

HP Pavilion dm4 Beats Edition - great notebook, great price!

Blame, or thank, the MacBook: Most of the notebooks showing up in our labs lately are coming encased in brushed- or polished-metal chassis—an understated, elegant look that catches the eye. The only problem with the big move to metal: It also makes them look very much alike.

That can’t be said of HP’s Pavilion dm4 Beats Edition, though. This stylish laptop’s all-black aluminum chassis, with a bright-red Beats Audio logo in the center of the lid, definitely distinguishes it from the pack. Its hip appearance gives it a charm all its own, and it definitely won’t be mistaken for any other laptop, HP or otherwise.

The Pavilion dm4 Beats Edition’s different-drummer design is not all it has going for it, though. Lately, you’ve probably seen the Beats Audio logo bobbing around on the sides of the heads of plenty of hipsters and regular folks; the over-ear Dr. Dre Beats headphones are phenomenally popular. The Beats Audio technology has been integrated into the sound system of this laptop, and it makes for a top-notch media-playback machine with excellent sound reproduction. Plus, the generous 1,600×900 resolution on the 14-inch display allows for more screen real estate than on several other similarly priced 14-inch laptops. And the machine has a respectable selection of ports.

In addition, compared with similarly priced and equipped notebooks (such as the $999 Dell XPS 14z), the dm4 Beats Edition performs well. All told, this laptop offers a well-rounded set of features for a very reasonable price, making it a terrific value for the student in your life.

Read the review at Computer Shopper.

RIM BlackBerry PlayBook (OS 2.0, 2012 Update) - right the second time around.

Without question, the first release of the BlackBerry PlayBook was a constant and acute migraine for Research in Motion (RIM). Reviewers Internet-wide, including us here at Computer Shopper, were largely unimpressed with the BlackBerry maker’s first hack at the tablet market. The general consensus? This solidly built 7-inch tablet had some impressive hardware, but its weak operating system (OS) and lackluster selection of apps added up to a half-baked product.

Now, nearly a year later, much has changed. The BlackBerry PlayBook has a lower—much lower—price of $199, compared with the original $499, and a new-and-improved operating system. RIM also took the opportunity of the new OS to add in some key features that were missing before.

But a year in the tablet market is a very long time—practically forever—and things change quickly. 2012 has started with a new version of Android (4.0, also dubbed “Ice Cream Sandwich”) and the promise of a soon-to-be-released Windows 8 optimized for tablets. In addition, rumors of an Apple iPad 3 emerging by mid-2012 seem to be gelling into a near-certainty. (Indeed, we expect Apple to have some news on that front on March 7.) Is RIM’s revision of the PlayBook OS too little, too late?

Read the review at Computer Shopper.

Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime - what a wonderful slate!

In the highly competitive tablet market, the big news in early 2012 has been the emergence of Android 4.0–based slates. (You might also have heard about Android 4.0 via its code-name, “Ice Cream Sandwich,” or ICS.) To our delight, we got our hands on one of the first tablets that feature the new operating system right out of the box: Asus’s $499.99 Eee Pad Transformer Prime TF201. (Certain older tablets will see updates from 3.0 to ICS in the coming weeks.)

The Transformer Prime is a re-engineered replacement for 2011′s Asus Eee Pad Transformer TF101. In addition—as if the new operating system weren’t notable enough—the Transformer Prime is the first tablet we’ve seen that makes use of Nvidia’s Tegra 3 quad-core processor.

All told, we found a lot to like in the Transformer Prime. It’s built well, and it has a gorgeous 10.1-inch screen, a thin design, and strong performance. And because the Transformer Prime makes use of the newest tablet core processor and operating system, it stands out as one of the most impressive Android-based tablets to date.

Granted, $499 may seem like an average price for a high-end slate with a screen this size, but it’s actually something of an aggressive price, in this case. Keep in mind that you get 32GB of storage, not the standard 16GB you see in slates of this price, as well as the up-to-date Tegra 3 processor. (The only major shortfall, for some buyers, will be that the Transformer Prime is Wi-Fi only; if you’re looking for a 3G or 4G tablet, you’ll have to keep looking.)

Read the review at Computer Shopper.

Epson WorkForce Pro WP-4540 - an impressive high-volume workhorse.

Every now and then, an all-in-one (AIO) inkjet printer arrives at our labs that makes us scratch our head shortly after unboxing it. No, it’s not a hygiene thing; it’s because the printer blurs the line between a color laser and an inkjet.

The $299 HP OfficeJet Pro 8600 we looked at in early 2012, a Editors’ Choice winner, is a classic example. Like any multifunction color laser worth its salt (or rather, toner), the OfficeJet Pro 8600 is fast, it’s designed for high-volume printing, and its per-page ink cost is low. But…it’s an inkjet. And furthermore, since, like most of today’s inkjets, the OfficeJet Pro 8600 prints excellent photos, you get the best traits of the inkjet- and laser-printing worlds for a relatively low price.

We consider this trend—that is, high-volume inkjet AIOs with low ink costs and tons of productivity features—an excellent one, providing great value for one-person and small offices alike. Hence, we were excited to receive Epson’s $399.99 WorkForce Pro WP-4540 and put it through its paces. It promised to be another category-bending multifunction printer.

Like the OfficeJet Pro 8600, the WorkForce Pro WP-4540 is serviced by two huge paper trays (though the second tray on the HP model is an added-cost option), and it uses inexpensive, high-volume ink cartridges. Both models have just about every feature any color-printing small office would need, and each of them churns out excellent prints at impressive speeds.

Read the review at Computer Shopper.