Latest Posts in From the Lab

Review: Konica Minolta magicolor 1690MF multifunction device

Konica Minolta’s magicolor 1690MF is a compact multifunction device with a color laser printer, flatbed scanner, and fax. It connects to your Mac either via USB or 10/100 Ethernet.

The beige and dark gray 1690MF has a 50-sheet automatic document feeder, making it easy to copy or fax multipage documents. The 100-sheet input tray for the printer may be adequate for small or home offices, but if you plan to approach the 35,000-page-per-month duty cycle (as rated by Konica Minolta), you might want to purchase the optional 500-sheet paper tray for $99. Another option worth considering is the automatic duplexing unit ($99) that allows you to print on both sides of a sheet of paper.

Konica Minolta magicolor 1690MF

Color printer

Many color laser printers these days use a single-pass method of color printing, where the paper goes through the printer once as the toner is placed. The 1690MF uses four passes for color prints, however, so its rated speed for color documents is just 5 pages a minute. When it comes to monochrome documents, the 1690MF needs only a single pass, so the rate speed is a quick 20 pages per minute.

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Review: Kodak Easyshare Z980 digital camera

As manufacturers produce more megazoom cameras with similarly astounding capabilities, pinpointing the features that make a camera unique becomes more difficult. For the Kodak EasyShare Z980, the standouts are ergonomics and battery life.

My first thought on seeing the Z980: “Yikes, this is bulky.” When I loaded the four AA-type rechargeable batteries, I felt the same apprehension about the weight. But once I started using the camera, I came to appreciate the solidness and comfort that the extra heft gives this 12-megapixel point-and-shoot.

It gets a lot of mileage out of the AAs, as well. In our lab’s battery tests, the Z980 fired off a stunning 500 shots on four fresh batteries. It may have kept going too; that 500-shot count is the maximum number we test for.

I really liked the Z980’s vertical shutter release button, a secondary button that’s easily accessible when you’re holding the camera sideways (the LCD screen also switches orientation in that scenario). Coupled with the detachable vertical grip, the design element makes portraits and other vertical shots a pleasure to shoot. The camera’s lens barrel is also larger than that of many of its megazoom siblings, which gives the Z980 the in-hand comfort of a digital SLR.

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Review: HP MediaSmart Server LX195

There was a buzz earlier this year about HP’s MediaSmart Server LX195, a network-attached storage (NAS) device you can use to store music, videos, and more on your home network. Its intuitive interface, well-thought-out instructions and setup process, and user-friendly controls make it an enticing model for consumers in mixed computer settings.

But first, the bad news. The LX195 requires Windows to set up; we were successful using a Mac running Windows via Boot Camp, as well as Windows on a Mac running virtualization software. This inability to work with the Mac for setup will be a deal breaker for some Mac-only users. And you’ll need to use Windows anytime you want to alter the settings for many of the LX195’s main features including Time Machine, remote access, iTunes sharing, and streaming through a DLNA player. Once the LX195 is set up, however, Macs can access the files on the LX195 easily.

HP MediaSmart Server LX195

The HP software is either the most useable or the least useable on the market, depending on your perspective. It’s the least practical option for dedicated Mac users because the Windows Home Server Console that the LX195 uses for administration can only be accessed through Windows. However, the software controls are varied, intuitive, and beautifully laid out. Colorful tabs greet you on the left; when you first open the console, you see tabs where you can set up the key features: Remote Access, Features For Mac, Server For iTunes, Server Online Backup, and HP’s Photo Publisher all get individual tabs. A help menu is ever present and easy to read. Intuitively designed icons tell you how the device has been configured, what updates are available, and more.

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Review: Canon PowerShot SX200 IS digital camera

For $350, Canon’s PowerShot SX200 IS serves up a heaping helping of camera. The marquee feature in this point-and-shoot is its 12X optical zoom lens, which reaches from 28mm on the wide-angle end to 336mm on the telephoto end. That alone is a major selling point for this camera, and it just gets better when you factor in its image quality and fun features.

To get this kind of power in a fixed-lens model a little over a year ago, you needed to buy a megazoom camera that was nearly the size of a digital SLR. These days, the SX200 IS represents a growing trend among point-and-shoot digital cameras: high-zoom models (10X optical and above) that are merely a bit bigger than average compact cameras but still stowable in a bag, purse, or large pocket.

Canon PowerShot SX200 IS

The SX200 IS is certainly bulkier than a typical point-and-shoot; it looks like it just ate three ultraslim cameras for lunch, and the body is big enough to accommodate a roomy, 3-inch LCD screen on the back. The display is sufficiently bright for composing shots in sunlight, but in direct sun the on-screen colors were a bit hard to distinguish.

When you zoom in to the full extent of the SX200 IS’s 12X-optical-zoom lens (the circumference of the lens is about that of a can of Red Bull), the result can look downright comical: The lens is about twice as long as the camera is deep (1.5 inches).

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Review: Promise Technology SmartStor NS4600

Home media servers are an emerging market, combining the utility of network-attached storage (NAS) with the consumer-focus of external hard drives. Designers have many visions for the home media server, and Promise’s is perhaps the most ambitious we’ve seen yet. Rich in features and capable of RAID configurations and storage capacities others can’t match, the SmartStor NS4600 is easily the most high-end home media server on the market currently.

The NS4600 will easily appeal to power users who have in-depth experience with RAID and network configuration. However, the thick instruction manual and use of removable hard drives configured in a RAID array will likely deter most midlevel consumers who want a no-nonsense server.

The SmartStor NS4600 is on the pricey side for a home media server ($499 without hard drives), but is one of the most feature-heavy units we’ve seen. Unlike other home media servers, the NS4600 supports different RAID levels. You have to populate the SmartStor NS4600 with up to four hard drives (which you have to purchase separately from a third party) and format the drives using Apple’s Disk Utility before attaching the server to the network and allowing user access.

Promise Technology SmartStor NS4600

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Review: LaCie d2 Network

LaCie has offered network-attached storage (NAS) for years, and the most feature-rich and home focused of LaCie’s current NAS lineup is the d2 Network drive. This solid gray brick of a device is a surprisingly versatile, feature rich, and easy to understand unit you can use to store media files so that they are available to everyone on your home network.

The d2’s setup was relatively painless, at first. The six-step process is easy to understand and designed with both Mac and PC users in mind. However, when setting up the administrator account using the Web interface in Safari, initially the login wouldn’t accept the preset passwords. It turns out that Bonjour adds a dot (.) to the URL in Safari. Once we deleted the excess dot, login worked. As of this writing, LaCie is working on a solution to this bug and hopes to create a fix.

LaCie d2 Network Hard Drive

While not as approachable as Iomega’s Home Media Network Hard Drive () or Western Digital’s Western Digital My Book World Edition (), LaCie’s software interface is nonetheless easy to use and provides plenty of power. You use a desktop application to see which folders on the LaCie are shared and to adjust network settings. The browser-based software interface has seven blue tabs on the left of the screen to denote the server’s various control options. You can create and configure users, groups, and volumes within seconds. Set up a shared folder in the Shares tab and you can also use the drive with Time Machine. The higher-end features of the drive, such as using it to download files via BitTorrent, are available through this interface. However, they require more explanation and are less intuitive, so you’ll have to consult the instruction manuals on the software CD.

The d2 requires you to use its Web-based software to access the music on the drive, so you have to log in with the LaCie Web software each time you reconnect to the iTunes server. But once you log in, the volumes appear in your shared folder in iTunes.

The d2 supports BitTorrent downloads, but it was designed for small files, not the large ones associated with BitTorrent videos. BitTorrent sites that specialize in large media files often use complicated and demanding protocols that the LaCie is not designed to handle. The LaCie’s BitTorrent download capabilities skip a step in the download process by downloading to the drive itself rather than to the host computer, which frees up the computer for other functions.

Compared to other home media servers we’ve tested, the d2 drive was the easiest to configure for Time Machine; you authorize a folder to be Time Machine compatible when you create it in the Shares tab of the LaCie software interface. Select the newly created folder as your destination for backup, and you’re all set. The LaCie also comes with Intego Backup Manager Pro backup software.

The d2 is equipped with a USB 2.0 and an eSATA port for connecting a hard drive to augment the storage capacity of the d2 network unit. That said, a 1TB capacity should be plenty of space for at least a couple of consumers’ Time Machine backups.

While feature rich, the d2 still has room to improve. Currently, the d2 does not have remote access. Remote access is a nice feature that allows you to view and use data stored on their home media server over the Internet. The d2 also doesn’t support a print server, a feature that is helpful for home or office settings that want to enable sharing of a single printer throughout the network.

Macworld’s buying advice

The home media server evolved from the NAS devices that LaCie had mastered and so the company clearly knows how to produce a sleek and versatile machine in the d2 Network. LaCie may have lost a little of their edge over the last year (given the release of similar products by Iomega, HP, Western Digital, and others) but LaCie still produces a solid performer with a rich set of features, a large capacity, and a satisfactory interface.

[Chris Holt is a Macworld assistant editor. Photo by Peter Belanger.]

Review: Western Digital My Book World Edition

You and your family have a lot of media files; digital photo albums, thousands of MP3s, and hundreds of video clips are stored on your many hard drives. What if there was a way you could store them all in one place and share them with everyone in the family? That’s just what a home media server such as Western Digital’s My Book World Edition intends to do. Ideally suited for home networks, the My Book World is a simple, intuitive, and great introductory model for home users.

The My Book World Edition’s marketing materials stress its simplicity and its instruction menu reflects an “easy-to-use” approach. The instructions simply tell you how to hook up the My Book World Edition to your network router via Ethernet and your router to your computer.

During the setup, I was eventually able to detect the My Book on our lab’s network, but it did not initially mount on my Mac’s desktop. I was able to access the My Book through Bonjour, and the My Book’s folders then appeared as network devices on our Mac. Just like other home media servers we’ve reviewed, by altering your Finder preferences, the folders can then appear on your desktop.

Western Digital My Book World Edition

The My Book has the most streamlined interface of the media servers we’ve reviewed. While others have interactive desktop-based programs, the My Book doesn’t come with desktop-based software. Instead, you configure the server through a Web browser. The server appears as a network device, and you can access the video, music, and pictures folders as you would those on a typical network server in OS X. Anything dropped in the music folder automatically appears as shareable in iTunes, and anything dropped in any of the folders is DLNA ready.

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Review: Iomega Home Media Network Hard Drive

Home media servers like Iomega’s Home Media Network Hard Drive are network-attached storage (NAS) devices that provide a centralized location on a network to store your videos, audios, and photos. You can access files on the home media server through any computer (Mac or PC) on the network. You can even control what each user on the network can access.

The Iomega’s compact grey curved block shape is about the size of a typical desktop hard drive and comes equipped with a USB 2.0 port to augment its storage capacity. It connects to your network router via Ethernet.

Iomega Home Media Network Hard Drive

The server’s software interface is very intuitive and it has a useful set of controls, but initially, we had difficulty detecting the drive on our network. A recent downloadable software fix enabled us to correct this issue. You use Iomega’s desktop-based application to detect the drive, while the Web-based application configures the drive. If you just want to access the files on the server, the Iomega appears as a network device, so you don’t need to use any of its software initially. The Home Storage software interface allows you to manage the folders on the drive by populating the server with more folders and configuring them as you’d like. The administrator can set who can access the folders with simple clicks of a button, and it’s also easy to set a folder for use with iTunes or DLNA media. The Home Storage Web interface enables the user to easily reset the settings on the drive, check for updates, reset the media servers on the drive, and schedule tasks for the drive.

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Review: Western Digital My Book Mac Edition 1TB

For some, a roomy amount of storage space at an affordable price is top priority in a hard drive-you don’t care if a hard drive looks functional but not stylish. If this is the case, Western Digital’s My Book Mac Edition fits the bill. The My Book Mac Edition is bulky but offers faster-than-expected USB connectivity.

The My Book Mac Edition is thick, about as wide and tall as a hardcover book. It’s a heavy desktop drive and will likely spend its life perched on your desk. Should it fall, I wouldn’t trust it to survive a drop of more than a few feet; the exterior seems poorly equipped to cushion the mechanism inside.

Western Digital My Book Mac Edition

As the name implies, the My Book Mac Edition is designed for the Mac and is Time Machine-ready. The 1TB capacity in the unit I tested ensures that everyone, save professional video and audio editors, will have plenty of storage space for documents, files, and folders.

Even at its fastest, USB connections are still much slower than FireWire 800, 400, or eSATA. Yet, USB is the most universal connection on the market currently and is compatible with everything from old MacBook G4s to new MacBook Airs.

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Review: Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S980 digital camera

What’s not to love about a $150 camera? The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S980 is a bare-bones but well-designed pocket camera that offers some nice-looking specs for the price: a 12-megapixel sensor, a 4x-optical-zoom lens ranging from 33mm to 132mm, digital image stabilization, red-eye reduction, face detection, a 2.7-inch-diagonal LCD screen, and ISO equivalencies up to 3200.

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S980

Those aren’t groundbreaking specs, but they hit many sweet spots for a sub-$200 camera. Alas, the cost-cutting measures needed to happen somewhere, and in the case of the DSC-S980, the trade-off is lackluster image quality.

In our lab jury evaluations, we pitted sample images from the DSC-S980 against those from a slew of other bargain-priced cameras. The samples from the DSC-S980 were noticeably darker and, when the flash was turned on, less evenly lit than those of the competition. Overall, the DSC-S980 earned an imaging score of Fair.

Battery life was a much brighter note, however. The DSC-S980 took a whopping 379 shots on a single charge of its lithium ion battery, enough for a battery-life rating of Very Good.

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