Latest Posts in From the Lab

Review: iStoragePro Pocket portable hard drive

With so many big developers updating their product lines, small tech companies often get lost in the shuffle. To stand out during the Fall hard drive push, your drive has to have a real wow factor. The iStoragePro Pocket, developed by CI Design, is an unlikely candidate to turn heads. It’s an external drive with a generic aluminum enclosure and a lack of name recognition. Pricey and heavily-built, the iStoragePro Pocket could easily be relegated to the piles of similar drives that launch every year.

But storage shoppers shouldn’t overlook this obscure drive. Equipped with a strong warranty and a 7200 rpm mechanism that produces some of the fastest connection speeds we’ve ever recorded on a portable drive (we tested the 320GB version), the iStoragePro Pocket may resemble a Ford Taurus on the outside, but on the inside it’s all Formula-1.

The front of the iStoragePro Pocket’s aluminum enclosure is reminiscent of the Mac Pro’s trademark perforated front. The drive weighs roughly one and half pounds and has similar dimensions as LaCie’s Starck Mobile Hard Drive, making it one of the bulkier portable drives on the market. You could fit this drive into your pants pocket, but the “pocket” in the drive’s name really should refer to a backpack pocket.

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Review: Raidon Stardom DeckRAID DR4

When was the last time you saw a hard drive designed with the iMac (or even the Mac mini) aesthetic in mind? Raidon addresses this by offering a RAID 5 solution with the Stardom DeckRAID DR4. The quad interface, four-bay, hot swappable external storage device can provide up to 6TB of easily installed storage that is sure to please audio/visual professionals and high-end users.

The first thing you’ll notice about the DeckRAID DR4 is its shape. Instead of a conventional desktop tower, the flat four-bay design is meant to fit underneath your display or iMac. Setting it up is as easy as populating the drives and then plugging the device into your computer with your connection type of choice. The DeckRAID DR4 is a quad interface drive, supporting eSATA, FireWire 400, FireWire 800, and USB 2.0 connectivity. Though ideally suited for your iMac or Mac Mini, Mac Pros with eSATA expansion cards can take advantage of the DeckRAID DR4’s eSATA connectivity.

The DeckRAID DR4 is stackable and its aluminum design is designed to coordinate with the metallic shades of the recent line of iMacs. The DeckRAID DR4 has multiple fans on the back of the unit, so the unit is cool to the touch but a bit noisy. You’ll also want to make sure you don’t block the back of the unit against a wall or else the unit may overheat.

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Review LaCie Starck Mobile Hard Drive

LaCie’s Starck Mobile Hard Drive is a stylish, Mac-friendly aluminum USB drive that features a sturdy aluminum exterior, unconventionally slick curves, and a wealth of enticing features that should excite hardware enthusiasts.

Over the years, LaCie has worked with a number of high-profile designers to make drives that range from simple and modern F.A Porsche designs to more whimsical designs of Ora Ito. This latest collaboration continues that trend. This new drive combines the hearty security of an aluminum armor case with the curved style of something Iomega might produce.

When I first connected the Starck Mobile Hard Drive, the LaCie Setup Assistant started up and asked how I would like to format the drive. I clicked on Mac and in seconds it was reformatted to Mac Journaled HFS and therefore also Time Machine compatible. The drive also comes with the LaCie Mac utility Intego Backup Assistant for Mac.

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Review: Samsung SyncMaster 2233SW LCD

Measuring less than 22 inches, Samsung's SyncMaster 2233SW certainly won't replace your big-screen HDTV. But in our subjective tests, this 21.5-inch LCD monitor showed impressive image quality.

Text on both black and white backgrounds looked crisp and easy to read, even at small font sizes. We also saw nuanced color, particularly in photographs, and our test portrait showed realistic skin tones and shading without any distracting contrast.

The 2233SW fared well in our motion tests, too, showing little jarring or flutter. It performed admirably when displaying a video, exhibiting no noticeable jitter. When viewed from each side, the 2233SW displayed a consistent image; the screen did not fade or gray out when we looked at it from either the left or the right.

You manage the on-screen controls via push buttons located on the right part of the bezel. Moving through the menus seemed a little confusing at first, but pressing random buttons eventually helped with the maneuvering. The 2233SW includes controls for adjusting color; the choices include cool, normal, warm, and custom. These controls will likely appeal to graphic designers and to other users who want to fine-tune an image, but with the 2233SW's color accuracy, such tweaks might not be all that necessary.

The display has a shiny, piano-black finish. It tilts only with a very strong push—and that's all it offers in terms of adjustments. Ports are another shortcoming: It has just DVI and RGB-in ports, leaving off HDMI.

Macworld's buying advice

The SyncMaster 2233SW is certainly a good deal, especially considering its solid image quality across the board in our tests, but it lacks extras. If you're shopping for a well-priced LCD monitor that delivers sharp text and bright colors and little else, this would be a good choice.

Review: Canon Selphy CP790 snapshot printer

At first glance, Canon’s Selphy CP790 snapshot printer looks more like a lime-green lunch pail. With its convenient handle, it begs you to take it to your next children’s party or family get-together. The trade-offs are a high purchase price and oddly designed, wasteful consumables.

The 3.2-pound printer acts as the top-heavy lid of an oval bucket. Plastic latches secure the printer to the bucket. The bucket is divided into two compartments for storing the AC adapter, paper caddies, and supplies. To make the Selphy CP790 truly portable, you’ll need to buy the rechargeable lithium ion battery pack ($80). A Bluetooth adapter costs $50.

The Selphy CP790’s top control panel consists of compass-style navigation controls and five logically labeled and intuitive control buttons. Menu items display on a 3-inch color LCD above the buttons. You can print directly from one of three media card readers or from a PictBridge-connected device. You can also transfer images via an infrared port on the front panel. You can connect the printer to a Mac via USB, but Canon does not include a USB cable. Once you install the printer driver on your Mac and select the Selphy in the Print & Fax system preference, it is ready to go and can print from various sources like Preview, Photoshop, and iPhoto.

The Selphy CP790 needed about a minute to print one 4-by-6-inch photo in our tests, which is similar to Canon's Selphy CP770 (). If you get antsy, you can be mildly entertained by seeing a yellow, cyan, and magenta version of your photo as it prints. Be careful though—the uninitiated would be tempted to grab the photo as it peeks through the back of the printer before it’s actually finished. Print quality was mostly good: Grayscale photos and portraits with various skin tones looked natural, but landscape shots were excessively yellow and lacked detail.

The dye-sublimation technology of the Selphy CP790 is distinctive—but not in good ways. The paper-tray design is clumsy, for one. The printer’s two cassettes hold postcard- or credit card-size paper (18 sheets maximum). The cassettes’ double-layered, clear plastic lids require juggling: To load paper, you lift both lids; to insert the cassette into the printer, you replace just the inner lid, while the exterior lid acts as the output tray. The printer’s ink cartridge only has an estimated capacity of 36 printouts, making it a pain to switch out ink so frequently.

The design of the dye used for printing is wasteful, too. It comes in rolls of film, containing successive sections of cyan, magenta, and yellow, plus a clear finishing coat to protect the photo’s longevity from normal wear and tear likes spills and heat. During printing, each section of color passes over the paper and then rolls up for disposal, regardless of how much might be left. Also, you need dedicated rolls for each paper size. Canon doesn’t have a recycling program for these plastic-encased dye supplies, though curiously you can recycle the printer itself by sending it back to Canon with a check for $12.

At least the consumables costs are tolerable. A five-print starter kit with postcard-size photo paper comes with the printer. A 108-sheet replacement kit costs $35, or a respectable 32 cents per print. A 36-print kit is only $15, but its 41.6-cent per-print cost makes me wince.

Macworld’s buying advice

The Selphy CP790 succeeds in being portable, capable, and even amusing. Still, the awkward paper handling and plastic-intensive ink cartridges are design drawbacks. Given that there are better printers in terms of photo quality, ease of use, and convenience, the Selphy CP790 just barely makes par.

[Susan Silvius is a freelancer writer. Macworld Lab's Lynn La contributed to this review.]

Review: Synology Disk Station DS409slim network-attached storage device

The extensive features offered by network-attached storage (NAS) devices are garnering more interest from consumers, but the difficulty in setting up the devices have kept them out of the mainstream. Synology’s Disk Station DS409slim DS409slim is a uniquely-designed NAS device that has four bays for laptop-size hard drives, numerous RAID configurations, multiple features that advanced users will enjoy, and—a welcome improvement over other NAS systems—a simple setup system.

The compact, black DS409slim is smaller than your average NAS device, due to the unit’s use of 2.5-inch laptop hard drives as opposed to the bulkier 3.5-inch drives normally associated with NAS units. According to the press materials, the 2.5-inch drives and the Disk Station’s unique design allow it to consume less energy than competing NAS units, thereby reducing your carbon footprint.

On the front of the DS409slim, six LED lights denote the status of various features; the bottom four lights indicate the activity of the four hard drives, while the top light denotes the overall unit’s status and the second light shows the LAN’s status. A USB port under the lights provides the ability to augment your storage capacity. On the side of the DS409slim, a blue LED light displays activity for the entire unit.

The back of the device has an Ethernet port and the four drive bays for the hard drives. The back also has a USB and eSATA port for expanding your storage capacity or for backing up the DS409slim with an external hard drive.

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Review: Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W290 digital camera

If you’re looking for fun in-camera extras and editing tools in a point-and-shoot digital camera, Sony’s Cyber-shot DSC-W290 is a great option. A wide-angle lens, a sharp 3-inch LCD screen, and a 720p HD movie mode also add to its overall appeal, but we have seen better image quality from similarly priced cameras in 2009.

The 12-megapixel DSC-W290 has a 5X optical-zoom Carl Zeiss lens, starting at 28mm on the wide-angle end to 140mm on the telephoto end. It’s a bit thicker than many competing point-and-shoots, but still pocketable: about 4 inches wide, 2.5 inches high, and an inch deep.

Overall image quality was rated as Good, according to our lab’s jury evaluations. The DSC-W290 fared well in terms of overall exposure in our tests, but image sharpness and distortion were shortcomings.

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Review: Fujifilm FinePix F200EXR digital camera

Fujifilm’s FinePix F200 EXR is an good pocket camera for relatively advanced photographers, either as a more-portable backup to a digital SLR camera or as a versatile primary point-and-shoot. The basic specs are nice: You get a 5X optical zoom lens with wide-angle chops (28mm to 140mm), optical image stabilization, a bigger-than-most 12-megapixel sensor (1/1.6 inches), and ISO levels of up to 12800 at reduced resolution. But the biggest draw for photographers is the sensor itself.

The first Fujifilm camera equipped with the Super CCD EXR sensor (the second wave is coming soon), the FinePix F200 EXR offers some unique sensor-tweaking settings: You can shoot in resolution-priority mode for full detail; a high-ISO/low-light mode knocks down the resolution for less-noisy low-light images; and a dynamic-range mode is optimized for capturing even detail in shots containing both shadowy zones and well-lit areas.

The FinePix F200 EXR definitely takes nice, colorful shots; but in my hands-on tests, there was no dramatic difference in the look of images taken in various EXR modes. Across the board, the camera errs on the side of vibrance: Macro shots of flowers or glowing neon signs are dramatically colorful, which makes for stunning shots in most conditions but may displease photographers who prefer a more natural look. I also noticed distortion to vertical lines in wide-angle shots--a subtle but visible fish-eye effect.

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Review: LaCie Starck Desktop Hard Drive

Open an application by using a button from your desktop...hard drive. That’s the promise of the new LaCie Starck Desktop Hard Drive, a creatively-designed USB drive that features an unconventional aluminum case design and some equally distinct features.

Over the years, LaCie has worked with a number of high-profile designers to make drives that range from simple and modern F.A. Porsche designs to more whimsical designs of Ora Ito. This latest collaboration with Philippe Starck and the Starck Desktop continues that trend.

When I first connected the Starck Desktop, the LaCie Setup Assistant software started up on the Mac and asked how I would like to format the drive. I clicked on Mac and in seconds it was reformatted to Mac Journaled HFS  (which also makes the Starck Desktop compatible with Time Machine). Both the Desktop and Mobile versions of the drive come with Intego Backup Assistant for Mac.

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Review: Canon PowerShot SD1200 IS digital camera

Canon’s PowerShot SD1200 IS is pocketable, has an interesting variety of shooting modes, produces very good image quality, and comes equipped with optical image stabilization. I found a few design flaws, however, and image quality did suffer with certain manual settings.

The SD1200 IS received a Very Good rating in our lab’s jury tests for imaging quality, earning particularly high marks in terms of lack of distortion, color accuracy, and overall exposure quality.

The SD1200 IS doesn’t have much in terms of wide-angle capabilities or optical zoom range, as its bare-bones 3X optical zoom reaches from 35mm on the wide-angle end to 105mm telephoto.

The button layout is typical of Canon point-and-shoots, with a switch for toggling between three shooting modes (automatic, program/scene, and video) and, to the left of it, a play button for reviewing photos. Beneath those buttons is a four-way directional pad with a center button, as well as dedicated buttons for the display (for controlling text that appears on the LCD) and the menu.

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