HTC One

Smartphone giant HTC unveiled its latest smartphone HTC One. One of the most powerful smartphones on the planet the HTC one will surely make the life a tough for its competitors. Here's how.

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Crisis 3

If you've never liked light-gun games, it won't change your mind. But, if you've grown tired of the genre, Time Crisis 3 might just bring you back in.

If you've been to an arcade within the past few years, you'll likely have noticed that they're now dominated by games featuring proprietary peripherals instead of joysticks. Elaborate cockpit-style driving games, those crazy dancing games, and, of course, light-gun games, have become the norm. The attraction of these games is that they make sense to the nongaming mind. The joystick and button combination is a pretty abstract concept, really, but driving a car or pointing and shooting a gun are things most people know about. But, contrary to the mind-set of many hardcore gamers, just because it's accessible, doesn't mean it's not fun. Take, for example, Time Crisis 3, Namco's latest, and arguably one of its best, light-gun games.

The whole weapon-switching system works itself pretty seamlessly into the existing gameplay mechanics.

The narrative that drives Time Crisis 3 involves a pair of superagents sent to a small Mediterranean nation to beat back an invasion. The story isn't particularly impressive or engaging, but it provides enough context for your actions that it's excusable. As a sequel, the game doesn't mess with the fundamentals. Throughout the game, your objective is to shoot your way down a set path, using the "duck" feature to both dodge incoming fire and reload your pistol, all the while racing against a ticking clock. But the devil is in the details, and Time Crisis 3 adds a few twists to the gameplay, creating a more dynamic experience than was offered by its predecessors. Most apparent is the new weapon-switching system, which gives you instant access to a machine gun, a shotgun, and a grenade launcher, in addition to your standard pistol. Though these secondary weapons are more effective than the pistol in different situations, and don't require as much reloading, they also have a finite amount of ammo, unlike the pistol. The only way to replenish your armaments is by plugging a special yellow-suited strain of bad guy. The whole weapon-switching system, which requires you to pull the trigger while ducking, works itself pretty seamlessly into the existing gameplay mechanics and helps bring some variety into a genre plagued by repetition.

This should be a given by now, but in case you were unclear, do not play Time Crisis 3 with a standard PlayStation 2 controller. It's a light-gun game, it's meant to be played with a light gun, and the game is simply dumb without one. You can even buy the game with the GunCon 2 packed in.

More subtle than the addition of some new guns is the game's expanded use of scripted events. The Time Crisis games have always made good use of explosions, falling rocks, and other corporeal hazards to spice up the sometimes-predictable process of shooting bad guys as they slide out of doorways and pop up behind rocks, but Time Crisis 3 takes it to another level. There are some great set pieces where the environment around you changes dramatically, creating some thrilling action-movie moments. Take, for example, one sequence that puts you on a train while fighting guys with guns and ninjas--which, in and of itself, isn't that amazing. But, as the train crosses a bridge, a rocket blows the bridge out from underneath the train, leaving much of the train, including the part you're on, dangling over the river, hundreds of feet below. Now, you have to climb your way up to the bridge, dodging the bullets and loose containers. The game is peppered with great sequences like this, including an homage to Time Crisis 2 that replaces boats with jeeps, and it's this sort of inventive, enthusiastic level design that puts Time Crisis 3 head and shoulders above most other rail-based shooters.

Staying true to its arcade roots, Time Crisis 3 is very short--if you know what you're doing, you can blow through the story mode in under an hour. Though, the first time you pick up the game, it's highly unlikely that you'll get that far, thanks to the game's inherent difficulty, as well as its brutal credit system, which limits the initial number of continues you'll have. As you replay the game, you're gradually granted additional continues, making it easier to actually finish the game. It sort of artificially extends the length of the game, but the game is legitimately engaging enough that replaying the game is not only excusable, it's actually rather fun. You can also play the game in a two-player split-screen mode, though due to the letterbox presentation of the split-screen, you'll need a pretty big TV to really get a good sense of what exactly is going on.

Time Crisis 3 is the best-looking game in the series by a mile, and it's also one of the best-looking light-gun games period--the game just looks solid, top to bottom. The environments change radically from stage to stage, starting you off on a beach, then running you through the bowels of an abandoned ship, and down a deserted beach boardwalk, and that's just the first level. Though varied in content, the overall style remains consistent, helping maintain the feel that you're on a small Mediterranean island. The opponents you'll fight wear the kind of brightly colored, stylized uniforms that soldiers in an evil organization in a comic book might wear--let's call it the faux-Cobra look. The actual uniforms vary, depending on what sort of weaponry the enemy carries, but the overall look stays consistent, and all of the bad guys you'll face off with have great motion-captured death animations. The cherry on top for Time Crisis 3 is some really great explosion effects, which add extra satisfaction when you take out a jeep or a tank.

Time Crisis 3 is the best-looking game in the series by a mile, and it's also one of the best-looking light-gun games period.

The sound effects aren't as impressive, but they're still passable. The in-game sounds of mayhem, ranging from gunfire to death knells, sound sharp, and they ride the fine line between realistic and cartoony. The action is underlined by a dramatic but forgettable orchestrated score, though when you're in the moment it really helps accentuate the overall action-movie feel of the game. Some of the voice acting found in the between-level cutscenes can be a little stilted, but it's far from being out-and-out bad.

Time Crisis 3 is a solid, visceral action game and an absolutely superb light-gun game. Instead of just resting on its laurels, Namco has introduced some genuinely interesting new mechanics, creating a game that's deeper and more action-packed than its predecessors, but without sacrificing accessibility. If you've never liked light-gun games, it won't change your mind. But, if you've grown tired of the genre, Time Crisis 3 might just bring you back in.

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Google Goggles

I thought that glasses with “augmented reality” would be hopelessly dorky and could never go mainstream—until I saw the technology in action.

• By Farhad Manjoo on June 19, 2012

Also featured in:
MIT Technology Review Magazine
July/August 2012
More in this issue »

Google cofounder Sergey Brin wore a Project Glass prototype at a charity function in San Francisco in April.

At first glance, Thad Starner does not look out of place at Google. A pioneering researcher in the field of wearable computing, Starner is a big, charming man with unruly hair. But everyone who meets him does a double take, because mounted over the left lens of his eyeglasses is a small rectangle. It looks like a car’s side-view mirror made for a human face. The device is actually a minuscule computer monitor aimed at Starner’s eye; he sees its display—pictures, e-mails, anything—superimposed on top of the world, Terminator-style.

Starner’s heads-up display is his own system, not a prototype ofProject Glass, Google’s recently announced effort to build augmented-reality goggles. In April, Google X, the company’s special-projects lab, posted a video in which an imaginary user meanders around New York City while maps, text messages, and calendar reminders pop up in front of his eye—a digital wonderland overlaid on the analog world. Google says the project is still in its early phases; Google employees have been testing the technology in public, but the company has declined to show prototypes to most journalists, including myself.

Instead, Google let me speak to Starner, a technical lead for the project, who is one of the world’s leading experts on what it’s like to live a cyborg’s life. He has been wearing various kinds of augmented-reality goggles full time since the early 1990s, which once meant he walked around with video displays that obscured much of his face and required seven pounds of batteries. Even in computer science circles, then, Starner has long been an oddity. I went to Google headquarters not only to find out how he gets by in the world but also to challenge him. Project Glass—and the whole idea of machines that directly augment your senses—seemed to me to be a nerd’s fantasy, not a potential mainstream technology.

But as soon as Starner walked into the colorful Google conference room where we met, I began to question my skepticism. I’d come to the meeting laden with gadgets—I’d compiled my questions on an iPad, I was recording audio using a digital smart pen, and in my pocket my phone buzzed with updates. As we chatted, my attention wandered from device to device in the distracted dance of a tech-addled madman.

Starner, meanwhile, was the picture of concentration. His tiny display is connected to a computer he carries in a messenger bag, a machine he controls with a small, one-handed keyboard that he’s always gripping in his left hand. He owns an Android phone, too, but he says he never uses it other than for calls (though it would be possible to route calls through his eyeglass system). The spectacles take the place of his desktop computer, his mobile computer, and his all-knowing digital assistant. For all its utility, though, Starner’s machine is less distracting than any other computer I’ve ever seen. This was a revelation. Here was a guy wearing a computer, but because he could use it without becoming lost in it—as we all do when we consult our many devices—he appeared less in thrall to the digital world than you and I are every day. “One of the key points here,” Starner says, “is that we’re trying to make mobile systems that help the user pay more attention to the real world as opposed to retreating from it.”

By the end of my meeting with Starner, I decided that if Google manages to pull off anything like the machine he uses, wearable computers seem certain to conquer the world. It simply will be better to have a machine that’s hooked onto your body than one that responds to it relatively slowly and clumsily.

I understand that this might not seem plausible now. When Google unveiled Project Glass, many people shared my early take, criticizing the plan as just too geeky for the masses. But while it will take some time to get used to interactive goggles as a mainstream necessity, we have already gotten used to wearable electronics such as headphones, Bluetooth headsets, and health and sleep monitoring devices. And even though you don’t exactly wear your smart phone, it derives its utility from its immediate proximity to your body.

In fact, wearable computers could end up being a fashion statement. They actually fit into a larger history of functional wearable objects—think of glasses, monocles, wristwatches, and whistles. “There’s a lot of things we wear today that are just decorative, just jewelry,” says Travis ­Bogard, vice president of product management and strategy at Jawbone, which makes a line of fashion-conscious Bluetooth headsets. “When we talk about this new stuff, we think about it as ‘functional jewelry.’” The trick for makers of wearable machines, Bogard explains, is to add utility to jewelry without negatively affecting aesthetics.

One criticism of Google’s demo video of Project Glass is that it paints a picture of a guy lost in his own digital cocoon. But Starner argues that a heads-up display will actually tether you more firmly to real-life social interactions.

This wasn’t possible 20 years ago, when the technology behind Starner’s cyborg life was ridiculously awkward. But Starner points out that since he first began wearing his goggles, wearable computing has followed the same path as all digital technology—devices keep getter smaller and better, and as they do, they become ever more difficult to resist. “Back in 1993, the question I would always get was, ‘Why would I want a mobile computer?’” he says. “Then the Newton came out and people were still like, ‘Why do I want a mobile computer?’ But then the Palm Pilot came out, and then when MP3 players and smart phones came out, people started saying, ‘Hey, there’s something really useful here.’” Today, ­Starner’s device is as small as a Bluetooth headset, and as researchers figure out ways to miniaturize displays—or even embed them into glasses and contact lenses—they’ll get still less obtrusive.

At the moment, the biggest stumbling block may be the input device—Starner’s miniature keyboard requires a learning curve that many consumers would find daunting, and keeping a trackpad in your pocket might seem a little creepy. The best input system eventually could be your voice, though it could take a few years to perfect that technology. Still, Starner says, the wearable future is coming into focus. “It’s only been recently that these on-body devices have enough power, the networks are good enough, and the prices have gone down enough that it’s actually capturing people’s imagination,” Starner says. “This display I’m wearing costs $3,000—that’s not reasonable for most people. But I think you’re going to see it happen real soon.”

One criticism of Google’s demo video of Project Glass is that it paints a picture of a guy lost in his own digital cocoon. But Starner argues that a heads-up display will actually tether you more firmly to real-life social interactions. He says the video’s augmented-­reality visualizations—images that are tied to real-world sights, like direction bubbles that pop up on the sidewalk, showing you how to get to your friend’s house—are all meant to be relevant to what you’re doing at any given point and thus won’t seem like distracting interruptions.

Much of what I think you’ll use goggles for will be the sort of quotidian stuff you do on your smart phone all the time—look up your next appointment on your calendar, check to see whether that last text was important, quickly fire up Shazam to learn the title of a song you heard on the radio. So why not just keep your smart phone? Because the goggles promise speed and invisibility. Imagine that one afternoon at work, you meet your boss in the hall and he asks you how your weekly sales numbers are looking. The truth is, you haven’t checked your sales numbers in a few days. You could easily look up the info on your phone, but how obvious would that be? A socially aware heads-up display could someday solve this problem. At Starner’s computer science lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology, grad students built a wearable display system that listens for “dual-purpose speech” in conversation—speech that seems natural to humans but is actually meant as a cue to the machine. For instance, when your boss asks you about your sales numbers, you might repeat, “This week’s sales numbers?” Your goggles—with Siri-like prowess—would instantly look up the info and present it to you in your display.

You could argue that the glasses would open up all kinds of problems: would people be concerned that you were constantly recording them? And what about the potential for deeper distraction—goofing off by watching YouTube during a meeting, say? But Starner counters that most of these problems exist today. Your cell phone can record video and audio of everything around you, and your iPad is an ever-­present invitation to goof off. Starner says we’ll create social and design norms for digital goggles the way we have with all new technologies. For instance, you’ll probably need to do something obvious—like put your hand to your frames—to take a photo, and perhaps a light will come on to signal that you’re recording or that you’re watching a video. It seems likely that once we get over the initial shock, goggles could go far in mitigating many of the social annoyances that other gadgets have caused.

I know this because during my hour-long conversation with Starner, he was constantly pulling up notes and conducting Web searches on his glasses, but I didn’t notice anything amiss. To an outside observer, he would have seemed far less distracted than I was. “One of the coolest things is that this makes me more socially graceful,” he says.

I got to see this firsthand when Starner let me try on his glasses. It took my eye a few seconds to adjust to the display, but after that, things began to look clearer. I could see the room around me, except now, hovering off to the side, was a computer screen. Suddenly I noticed something on the screen: Starner had left open some notes that a Google public-relations rep had sent him. The notes were about me and what Starner should and should not say during the interview, including “Try to steer the conversation away from the specifics of Project Glass.” In other words, Starner was being coached, invisibly, right there in his glasses. And you know what? He’d totally won me over.

Farhad Manjoo is the technology columnist at Slate and contributes regularly toFast Company and the New York Times. He is the author of True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society.

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Apple's iWatch

Apple’s wearable wristwatch rumors are heating up again, and this time both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are chiming in with their own un-named sources saying that Apple is working on an iWatch concept of some kind in a top secret lab in Cupertino, California. Both publications independently claim that Apple is already testing the iWatch concept with curved glass display and running on the iOS platform, though neither can provide any hints as to when such a watch may be available for consumers to purchase.

The idea of a wearable computing device is not new, and Apple may quietly have enabled the concept even before the iWatch with its sixth generation iPod Nano tapping ecosystem partners to create wrist straps for the diminutive square-shaped music player that can run basic pre-loaded apps.

The success of the sixth generation iPod Nano made it even more curious as to why Apple re-designed the music player to bear a rectangular shape in its most current iteration, moving the device away from the wearable watch concept. However, the move may be pre-emptive if Apple is to go Dick Tracy on us with a James Bond-worthy watch that can potentially open the doors to new avenues that were not possible with the iPhone.

The Need for Wearable Computing

A wearable watch could potentially make and receive calls, link with an iPhone to display text messages, show body activity via sensors on your clothing, tap into Siri, connect to the Internet, and discretely display maps and nearby points-of-interest as you’re out traversing the city. The technology, and perhaps the need, for discrete, wearable computing technology is here.

In recent years, the increase in technology thefts, muggings, and burglaries surrounding Apple’s iconic and visible white headphones that are bundled with the iPod of yore and the iPhone of now have raised visibility for the devices. Local law enforcement officials continue to advise constituents to not use their iPhones in public–what good is an iPhone that has ubiquitous connectivity to the treasure trove of knowledge that we know as the world-wide web if we cannot use it at will?–to avoid muggings and thefts. Certainly, a more discrete iWatch would help mitigate some of the dangers of using your iDevice in public if it’s hidden, discrete, and can be commanded when you need it.

So perhaps we need an iWatch to avoid thefts and muggings, and perhaps our bodies need to tap into an iWatch to warn us that we’re leading unhealthy sedentary office lifestyles. There have beencountless accessories in recent years that attempt to make us lead healthier lifestyles from Nike’s popular FuelBand that’s been worn by Apple CEO Tim Cook to challengers like Jawbone Up, Fitbit,LarkLife, and others. Fitness-oriented hiking and trekking watches made by Garmin also tap into the iPhone–and compatible Android devices–via a smart app and some Bluetooth pairing as well. And the beauty of this is that the iWatch can reduce the clutter on your wrist with an always-on device that can monitor everything your body does, potentially even your pulse, blood pressure, activity level throughout the day, and more.

The Maturing Market

And with our needs, Apple is closely monitoring the market and waiting for the moment to arise when it could introduce such a device. This is guided by a number of complex economical factors, but at the heart of it all, Apple wants to ensure that the technologies that power the iWatch will be mature enough to create a smooth user experience while at the same time hoping that an iWatch doesn’t cannibalize the lucrative iPhone and iPod profits.

The screen technology for wearable computing is certainly here. Corning has made its Gorilla Glass 3 even thinner and more scratch-resistant than ever, and the company’s bendable Willow Glass technology can allow glass to be bended and worn. Combined with flexible display panels, this could potentially allow Apple to even create an all-glass shell for the iWatch and have the glass molded to fit each user’s wrist.

Advances in micro-processor designs are allowing smaller circuitry to be introduced to conserve space, and Apple has shown that it could push the battery life bar. Given the iPhone 5′s paltry battery size and the longevity between charges the device can sustain–compared to rival Android devices with the same battery capacity–Apple is showing that it could stretch battery life in the harshest of environments, including powering LTE radios, a larger display, and more connected apps.

Battery Life May Be the Bottleneck

But battery life will remain the single largest issue plaguing wearable computing technologies. While I typically don’t mind charging my smartphone overnight every night, I think that stems from the belief that we recognize smartphones as tools for doing things today, rather than as an extension of our body. Smart watches, to which the iWatch will belong to, is a category where the devices will always be on our bodies and will therefore be viewed as an extension of our bodies physically.

These devices will need to last multi-days on a single charge and Apple and other challengers will need to develop apps and technologies into the watch that make sense. Sure, playing Angry Birds on a watch may be cool and could make the iWatch entertaining, but if it draws battery faster, then the iWatch concept may not be meaningful.

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And while battery life remains to be a challenge for Apple in the iWatch space, advances in battery technology could help pave the way for the iWatch. New bendable lithium batteries can have battery packs that can bend to fit your wrist and save space and allow for a more natural design.

What is an iWatch?

A watch, by its nature, is a tool that is utilitarian with the constant tik-toks providing the key to accurate timekeeping. Solidified in Swiss history with its artful craftsmanship and reimagined by the fashion industry as a status symbol, the watch was facing obsolescence with the rise of smartphones–why carry two things when you can carry one item that does so much more? The iWatch then must bridge the gap between timeless timekeeping with its utilitarian approach and the accessibility of a smartphone, and reports are suggesting that Apple will be bridging that gap by loading its iWatch with the iOS software.

As the iWatch looks forward to joining the ranks of the iPhone and iPad before it, the device that is worn around your wrist will potentially serve as a gateway to the world around you, and Apple will need to define what gets into the watch through its software design–allowing too much in would be a traffic jam on a small screen, and allowing in too little information would lead to a crippled device. Pebble and MetaWatch are two devices that allow information from the phone to be sent to the watch so the watches are companion products. There are other designs, like the Neptune Pine, can make calls and are standalone products. And another option is a hybrid approach, like that from i’m Smart where the watch runs the full Android OS, but is crippled to make it a companion product. Apple could be exploring all three approaches.

Meaningful Design to Stay Relevant

As the smartphone and tablet markets are now maturing, Apple will need to find new revenue sources to stay relevant and profitable. Investors have become worried if Apple could sustain the growth it has been demonstrating the last few years with increasing numbers of challengers to this competitive space. And much like how Apple had diminished its reliance on the Mac, then on personal computing (it had dropped ‘Computer’ from its ‘Apple Computer’ name to rebrand to ‘Apple Inc.’), and more recently the iPod to focus on the iPhone. So too Apple must keep evolving and rely less on the iPhone in favor of new markets. Whether this is the much rumored Apple iTV rumor of recent years, or the speculated Apple Car that Steve Jobs wanted to create before his untimely death, or the iWatch that Tim Cooks and company have been working on in some secret lab is unclear. What is clear is that Apple must define and redefine this market so that it’s easy and accessible to consumers and remove all the technology to make it seamless.

With an iWatch, consumers don’t want to look like the bionic human that Verizon so often depicts in its Droid commercials, especially with an Apple brand attached to it. They want something that’s meaningful and simple, much like how the Nest thermostatremoves all the technologies and things just work so you can control the temperature in your home while you’re there next to the thermostat or at your office manipulating your home’s AC from your phone’s app.

The challenge with the iWatch, as I’ve touched on, is that it’s an extension of the human body and is personal. With San Francisco hippies having challenged cell phone radiation policies, I cannot imagine my neighbors on the Left Coast will be thrilled if it poses more harm than good, and Apple will need to be cognizant of any risks and benefits to the human body given the increasing scrutiny that it has received from its factories in China through partner Foxconn.

Another iDevice

Whether the iWatch will be a standalone device that takes and receives calls or one that connects to the larger iEcosystem is unknown, and Apple’s research team will have to explore what makes sense in terms of costs, design, size, and functionality. One thing that seems to be known is that the iWatch, according to the Times and the Journal, is that the iWatch will be running on the iOS software. Existing wearable technologies today have used Bluetooth technology to pair with a user’s current smartphone. Apple’s iWatch could be a companion to an iPhone or a standalone device, and we probably won’t know until Apple announces this product.

iOS Integration Provides Yet More Revenue

iOS integration makes sense. Apple came out with iOS with a tablet UI and tablet UX with the iPad, and we can imagine an iWatch-centric iOS where apps will need to be slightly tweaked to make them compatible and meaningful for the iWatch form factor. Being a relatively new computing category, Apple would not have to imagine every scenario of how the iWatch would work–its loyal band of third-party developers can share in that burden and Apple could share in the profits through app sales.

More importantly, where the numbers count in terms of Android versus iOS activations, Apple could claim an even higher number for iOS and help to boost its market share and attract and retain developers. The iWatch would be yet another avenue for iOS growth.

Google

And Apple’s chief rival in the Android space, Google, has already been tinkering with its own wearable computing form factors. Google-owned Motorola Mobility had released the MOTO ACTV, a smart watch that is mostly used to track your runs and workouts while at the same time displaying notifications for text messages, Twitter alerts, and Facebook notifications. Google more recently is working on trying to commercialize its efforts with the Google Glass project to make it a meaningful piece of consumer tech.

Information and Privacy

For someone who has heart disease, a smart watch could potentially monitor pulse and blood pressure continuously and notify the wearer’s doctor if there are any sudden spikes or increases. The benefits for a wearable computing device are certainly there as it is constantly with you and can constantly collect information through an array of sensors. However, the challenge for large tech companies like Apple and Google is increasing public distrust. Privacy issues and certainly medical privacy issues may be challenges for Apple to overcome with its iWatch if it wants to enter the medical segment with its watch concept.

Disruption

Apple likely has the pieces to a disruptive piece of technology on the market right now, and potentially one that is cheaper and more affordable than the iPhone or iPod Touch today. This could potentially solve the problem to Apple entering emerging markets with its iPhone and help the company grow in a different direction as smartphone sales are bound to show slowdowns in established markets like the U.S. and Europe. The iWatch is Apple’s new iPhone, much like how the iPhone was Apple’s answer to a slowing PC market. And given that Apple didn’t invent the smartphone but pieced together various technologies in a way that made sense, the iWatch could

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Apple's Mac Book Pro 13

The new 13-inch Apple MacBook Pro brings a lot of new features to the table from the previous generation. Users now get a large battery that gives pretty amazing life, a better display, faster processor, FireWire, SD-card slot, and best of all a lower starting price. Getting more for less seems to be the trend during this slow economy, so is there any reason not to buy the new 13" MacBook Pro? Read our full review to find out.

13-inch Apple MacBook Pro Specifications:

• Mac OS X v10.5.7 (9J3032)
• Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 2.26GHz (3MB L2 cache, 1066MHz frontside bus)
• 2GB 1067MHz DDR3 SDRAM
• 160GB 5400rpm SATA hard disk drive
• 13.3" glossy widescreen TFT LED backlit display (1280 x 800)
• NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics (256MB of DDR3 shared memory)
• 8x slot-loading SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
• iSight webcam
• AirPort Extreme WiFi (IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n)
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR (Enhanced Data Rate)
• Mini DisplayPort, Ethernet, two USB 2.0 ports (480Mbps), FireWire 800, Audio out and microphone in, SD-Card reader
• Dimensions : 0.95" x 12.78" x 8.94" (H x W x D)
• Weight: 4.51 pounds
• Integrated 58-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery
• 60W MagSafe power adapter with cable management system
• MSRP: $1,199

Build and Design
The 13.3" MacBook Pro is very sleek and classy, which is what we have come to expect from Apple. The design is sharp with the unibody chassis showing no panel lines or breaks except on the bottom for the huge panel that covers the internals. Apple gives us a very simple interface with little clutter (and ports) turning what is usually a mindless appliance into a work of art. To further simplify the design they switched to an internal battery for this model, instead of having a cover and release bar like in the previous revision.

Build quality is excellent thanks to the very strong and rigid unibody chassis that is machined out a solid block of aluminum. Unless you were going to clamp the MacBook Pro in a vise and try to bend it, you can't really find any flex anywhere on the main half of the notebook. The screen cover does flex slightly under strong pressure, but with something that thin it was expected. Without any plastic panels, except at the screen hinge, there are no parts to squeak or creak under normal use. Outside of a few rugged models I can't think of a single notebook that has a stronger chassis than the unibody MacBooks.

Normally simple upgrades such as swapping in a faster hard drive or upgrading the system memory (or changing the battery) take a few additional steps on the new 13.3" Macbook Pro. To access user-serviceable components you must buy a precision Phillips head screwdriver, and remove 10 screws around the perimeter of the notebook. With the cover off you get access to the battery, hard drive, optical drive, and tightly stacked system memory. Once you overcome the fear of ripping off the bottom of your new shiny MacBook Pro, upgrading the components isn't that bad. The only problem that might come up is going against the recommended advice from Apple to not disconnect the main battery when swapping out components. Usually you want to unplug AC and the battery from notebooks before you change the RAM or hard drive to prevent damage.

Screen and Speakers
The screen on the MacBook Pro is average compared to other glossy panels, and has the downside of having the highly reflective glass layer over the LCD. This increases the amount of reflection from other objects, including you sitting right in front of the notebook. While you do adjust to it after a while, it can still be annoying. Pictures and movies look great thanks to the glossy surface and a healthy 60% bump in color gamut over the previous generation MacBook, which gives vibrant colors and deep blacks. Overall brightness is excellent for viewing in brightly lit rooms like in an office building or lecture hall. If you were able to find a spot of shade you could also use it outdoors as long as you find a strategic position away from any glare. Viewing angles are average for a TN-panel LCD, with colors starting to show signs of inversion when titled 20-25 degrees forward or back. Horizontal viewing angles are much better, with colors staying accurate at steep angles, right up until the point where reflections overpower screen.

The speakers sound weak compared to other notebooks, with little bass or midrange sound. The enclosed position of the speakers doesn't help with stereo separation, so it ends up sounding like one mono speaker. For enjoying some iTunes music or watching a movie headphones are the best option. The MacBook Pro also supports digital audio out through the headphone jack, so hooking it up to a stereo for surround sound is another option you could go with.

Keyboard and Touchpad
The 13" MacBook Pro offers a full-size Chiclet-style keyboard that is fully backlit for typing where overhead light might not be the best. While Sony originally created this style of keyboard, I think Apple really perfected it and made the better version. The keyboard is comfortable to type on and easy to transition to if you are used to typing on a standard notebook keyboard with tighter key spacing. Individual key action is smooth with less than average pressure required to activate each key. Key noise is low, with a smooth almost-muted click when pressed. If you enjoy stealth typing, look no further. The backlight is nice even when your room isn't completely dark. If you are not used to an Apple keyboard, it makes it easier to spot keys since everything is lit up. The backlight is also fully adjustable, to be brighter when the room is brighter, and dimmer when you don't need the keys blindingly-bright in a pitch black room.

One trade-off to the shape of the unibody MacBook Pro is the sharp edges around the perimeter. The palmrest on most notebooks have a slightly rounded or sloped edge for the front of the palmrest, whereas the MacBook Pro is a perfectly flat surface with a sharp edge. If you normally hang your wrists off the edge like I do, one thing you notice over time is the edge digging into your wrist. If you have small hands this might not be a big deal, but for someone like me it gets painful quick. This is just another example of form having a higher priority than function.

The touchpad is a large multi-touch surface with no separate touchpad buttons. The clicking action is through a clicker button under the touchpad, which allows the entire surface to "click". If you are used to other touchpads, it takes a while to get used clicking the surface itself, instead of a button below it. In OS X the touchpad sensitivity is excellent, offering no lag on the default sensitivity settings. Contrast this with Windows, where the driver support doesn't give you the same fluid experience. Movement is choppy and over-sensitive, where the cursor will sometimes release an object mid-drag or take many tries to double click. Another problem we ran into is the touchpad sometimes detected a slight increase in fingertip pressure as a double click, opening applications when moving over a list in the start menu. None of these problems happened within OS X.

Ports and Features
The new 13" MacBook Pro offers two USB ports, one mini-DisplayPort, LAN, and the return of FireWire 800. While eSATA is generally the best when it comes to fast external storage, more Mac-targeted storage devices offer FireWire from the long standing Apple support of the standard. The Macbook Pro also offers a headphone jack and a new SD-card slot, bringing it to the same level that most PC's have been at for a number of years.
The most notable feature on the MacBook Pro is a handy battery gauge mounted on the side of the notebook. Pressing the button lights up a number of eight LED's showing the current charge level of the battery. This is a handy feature if you are thinking about grabbing the computer before you head out the door without an AC adapter ... just in case the battery is actually dead.

Performance
System performance is excellent, even with the NVIDIA 9400M integrated graphics. While most Intel integrated graphics options have greatly reduced performance compared to dedicated options, NVIDIA has broken that trend with the 9400M. With an average 3DMark06 score of more than 2,100 3DMarks, it is comparable to low-end dedicated options and can handle previous generation games with some tweaking of the resolution and detail settings. In our test of the game Portal, the 13" MacBook Pro delivered 38-42 frames per second (FPS) at 1280x800 resolution on high settings looking through a single portal. Looking through no portals the framerate would be as high as 55FPS, and if you were looking through two it would drop down to about 22-23FPS.

Outside of gaming performance the system handled 720P and 1080P HD movie decoding with ease, perfect for a home theatre hub with a mini-DisplayPort to HDMI adapter. While we didn't see any significant slowdowns related to the 5400rpm hard drive in our review model, upgrading to a 7200rpm drive would decrease boot and application load times. Battery impact should be minimal, but you will probably see a drop of 15-30 minutes. One interesting hard drive related quirk we noticed with the new MacBook Pro was the drive was working on SATA-150 mode only. Some of our forum members are experiencing this problem as well, which you start to see after you upgrade to a fast SSD that is capable of pushing more than 150MB/s. It is too early to say if this is a hardware or software bug, but we are leaning towards a software problem.

XBench 1.3 summary results:

Model	Overall Score
MacBook Pro 13 (2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo)	135.52
MacBook 2008 (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo)	126.23
MacBook Pro (2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo)	106.05
MacBook (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo)	95.89
MacBook Air (1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo)	50.76
PowerBook G3 Pismo (500MHz G3)	18.47

wPrime processor comparison results (lower scores mean better performance):

Notebook / CPU	wPrime 32M time
HP Pavilion dv4t (Core 2 Duo T9600 @ 2.8GHz)	26.972 seconds
Dell Studio XPS 13 (Core 2 Duo P8600 @ 2.4GHz)	31.951 seconds
Apple MacBook Pro 13 (Core 2 Duo P8400 @ 2.26GHz)	34.209 seconds
Toshiba Satellite U405 (Core 2 Duo T8100 @ 2.1GHz)	37.500 seconds
HP Pavilion dv3510nr (Core 2 Duo P7350 @ 2.0GHz)	38.656 seconds
Dell Inspiron 13 (Pentium Dual Core T2390 @ 1.86GHz)	44.664 seconds

PCMark05 measures overall system performance (higher scores mean better performance):

Notebook	PCMark05 Score
HP Pavilion dv4t (2.8GHz Intel T9600, Nvidia 9200M GS 256MB)	5,463 PCMarks
Dell Studio XPS 13 (2.4GHz Intel P8600, Nvidia 9500M GE 256MB)	5,450 PCMarks
HP Pavilion dv3510nr (2.0GHz Intel P7350, Nvidia 9300M GS 512MB)	4,920 PCMarks
Lenovo ThinkPad X301 (1.6GHz Intel SU9400, Intel 4500MHD)	4,457 PCMarks
Toshiba Satellite U405 (2.1GHz Intel T8100, Intel X3100)	4,145 PCMarks
Apple MacBook Pro 13 (2.26GHz Intel P8400, Nvidia 9400M)	4,136 PCMarks
Dell Inspiron 13 (1.86GHz Intel T2390, Intel X3100)	3,727 PCMarks

3DMark06 graphics comparison against notebooks @ 1280 x 800 resolution (higher scores mean better performance):

Notebook	3DMark06 Score
Dell Studio XPS 13 (2.4GHz Intel P8600, Nvidia 9500M GE 256MB, Hybrid SLI)	3,542 3DMarks
Apple MacBook Pro 13 (2.26GHz Intel P8400, Nvidia 9400M)	2,139 3DMarks
Dell Studio XPS 13 (2.4GHz Intel P8600, Nvidia 9500M GE 256MB, Integrated)	2,090 3DMarks
HP Pavilion dv3510nr (2.0GHz Intel P7350, Nvidia 9300M GS 512MB)	1,865 3DMarks
Lenovo ThinkPad X301 (1.6GHz Intel SU9400, Intel 4500MHD)	712 3DMarks
Toshiba Satellite U405 (2.1GHz Intel T8100, Intel X3100)	539 3DMarks
Apple MacBook Air (1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P7500, Intel X3100)	502 3DMarks
Dell Inspiron 13 (1.86GHz Intel T2390, Intel X3100)	470 3DMarks

HDTune for the built-in hard drive:

Heat and Noise
Heat output is always a touchy subject when it comes to the newer aluminum-body Apple notebooks. When under stress the entire system acts as one huge heatsink, making it very unfriendly for your lap in those conditions. Under normal daily activity the MacBook Pro stays relatively cool, shedding heat into the air quite well, keeping the body cool to the touch. Fan noise under these conditions is non-existent. One situation that warmed up the notebook considerably was installing Windows Vista through BootCamp. The back section of the notebook, bottom, and keyboard had recorded temperatures as high as 115F. Unlike warm plastic, the aluminum body was quick to transmit this excess heat to your hands or legs making things quite unpleasant. Thankfully it was only during the installation that we saw temperatures get that high, but if you were gaming for a few hours or encoding lots of video you might experience the same thing. Below are two temperature readings taken from the 13" MacBook Pro during our tests. One shows how hot it can get while running Portal for 20 minutes, and the other shows what it is like under normal non-stressful conditions.

External temperatures after light use	External temperatures after light use
External temperatures after heavy use	External temperatures after heavy use

Battery
Battery life was excellent ... even when running Windows Vista where MacBooks tend to have less-than-impressive battery life. The 58Wh battery is similar in capacity to most 6-cell batteries, but the times we saw were in line with notebooks having larger 9-cell extended batteries. In OS X with the backlight set to about 70%, wireless active, and the hard drive set to never turn off we found the 13" MacBook Pro to last 7 hours and 59 minutes. With the same testing conditions in Bootcamp, the MacBook Pro stayed on for 5 hours and 1 minute, still respectable for a 13" notebook, but far from optimal. Apple driver support inside Windows leaves much to be desired--making the notebook consume far more power than it should. It appeared the lower power states of the processor were disabled, keeping system power consumption between 12-13 watts for the length of the test. Another problem that kept recurring is the keyboard backlight wouldn't stay off. Under OS X you can completely turn off the backlight, but in Windows it is forced into automatic mode. You can't adjust the brightness of the keyboard until the computer detects less-than-optimal lighting conditions, then when you do it completely forgets the setting minutes later when another shadow is cast over the keyboard. Bottom line is if you want longer battery life for the MacBook Pro, keep using OS X unless Apple corrects this problem with an update.

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Conclusion
The new 13-inch MacBook Pro has many strengths that make it a good notebook you should consider buying. It gets excellent battery life while running OS X, it can game on integrated graphics, its screen looks excellent, and it has fantastic build quality. With that said its all-aluminum design causes heat to be quickly transmitting into your skin acting as a huge heatsink, driver support inside Windows isn't the best, and the sharp edges of the palmrest can be painful to lean your wrists across. For its intended market most people won't care about the Window's driver problems and the substantial increase in battery life from the previous model is worth the internal battery. Overall if you can get past some of its design quirks it is a great notebook with a feature set that is hard to beat.

Pros:

• Excellent battery life
• Screen has excellent color and contrast
• Great build quality
• SD-card slot!

Cons:

• When the system is running hot you can really feel it
• Good looks put in front of ergonomics
• Poor Windows driver support
• Hard drive is limited to SATA-150 speeds

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