Our Internet experience has become irreversibly mobile, and the stakes couldn’t be higher. It’s not unusual for a family to pay $2000 a year in wireless-service bills alone. For anyone living in the United States, in fact, the cost of moving 1MB of data over a cellular network is among the highest in the developed world.

The real speed at which smartphones and tablets connect to the Internet couldn’t be more important. That’s why PCWorld (and now TechHive) regularly conducts the nation’s largest independent-media study of real-world wireless network performance.

Focusing on the four major U.S. wireless networks, we seek to arm you with the information you need to judge the carriers’ marketing claims about their networks, weigh the relative value of each carrier’s offerings, and ultimately make a more informed decision when buying a device and signing up for service.

This year’s study is our largest to date. TechHive, in partnership with testing firm OpenSignal, visited 20 medium-size and large U.S. cities in April and May to measure the speeds of the AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon 3G and 4G wireless data services. Our mission was to capture a real-life snapshot of the performance of each company’s service.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Amazon.com is expanding the distribution of its tablets in a big way with the Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire HD 8.9 now available for preorder in over 170 countries, and its Appstore open in nearly 200 countries.

The Kindle Fire HD has been the best-selling item for Amazon since it was launched, and Amazon is now hoping to copy that success around the world. The tablets are available for preorder on Amazon.com from $214 and $284 respectively, and will start shipping on June 13.

The 8.9-inch display on the larger Kindle Fire HD has 1920 x 1200 pixel resolution, while the resolution on the smaller 7-inch model is 1280 x 800 pixels. Both models have either 16GB or 32GB of storage.

Amazon is all about its content ecosystem, so the availability of the tablets is closely linked with the Appstore becoming available in more countries as well, according to Peter King, director of tablet strategies at market research company Strategy Analytics.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Penguin has settled with U.S. states in an e-book price-fixing lawsuit, leaving only Apple now in the fray.

Four other publishers accused of price-fixing with Apple settled earlier with the 33 states and territories and the U.S. Department of Justice. Penguin had earlier settled in December with the DOJ in a case that is currently scheduled to go to trial in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on June 3.

Penguin said in a statement on Wednesday that it had reached an agreement with the US state attorneys general and private class plaintiffs to pay $75 million in consumer damages plus costs and fees to resolve all antitrust claims relating to e-book pricing. It also committed to the states to abide by the same injunctive relief as previously agreed in its settlement with the DOJ.

Apple and the five publishers were accused of working together to raise prices of e-books, in retaliation for competitor Amazon.com pricing most e-books at $9.99 beginning in late 2007. The five publishers are Hachette Book Group, Macmillan, Penguin Group, HarperCollins Publishers and Simon & Schuster.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

There’s little else as annoying as trying see your phone's screen while your big sausage fingers block the view because you have to tap everywhere. A Cambridge, Massachusetts company called 3dim feels your pain, and has won MIT’s prestigious Robert P. Goldberg award of $100,000 to create the first gesture control and 3D sensing camera for mobile devices.

3dim claims the interface, which will read facial expressions as well as a wide range of hand or body gestures, could make touch screens “obsolete.” The company is confident that the broader range of “natural” input options will allow a touch-free method of interaction that won't require you to obscure your screen with your fingers or styluses.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Even as we move into spring, it's still chilly enough many mornings that gloves are a welcome addition. And while out daily with my two small dogs before work, I still need check in on email and Facebook via my smartphone, even while holding a double leash.

But when my fingers are cramped with cold, it's difficult to manipulate my phone's touchscreen. I also fear that stiff fingers in thin gloves, combined with jerks by my pets, will send my phone tumbling to the sidewalk.

So, I tried a pair of Isotoner's Smartouch 2.0 matrix nylon ultra plush gloves, which have conductive threads woven into the tips of three fingers on each glove (that's one more finger than the previous version of the gloves provided).

The conductive threads on the tips of the thumb, first, and second fingers of the gloves conduct electricity to your touchscreen in much the same way your fingers do—so opening bookmarks, such as email, Google, and calendar, on the touch screen was as easy as doing so with ungloved fingertips.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Galaxy Note 8.0 will set you back $400, and I'll admit that I had some trouble figuring out why. It certainly isn't the aesthetic appeal, as the Note 8.0's white plastic shell—standard fare for Samsung's Galaxy lineup—doesn't evoke much in the way of gadget envy. Although it’s appreciably light at just shy of 12 ounces, the tablet is wholly generic, a Wi-Fi-only plastic slab with an 8-inch, 1280-by-800-resolution display that could be anything, save for the humble Samsung branding sitting on the top bezel.

What the tablet lacks in looks, however, it makes up for in other areas. The Note 8.0 centers its user experience on the S Pen stylus, once a curio, now a staple of the Galaxy Note family. Coupled with Samsung’s “Premium” suite of supporting apps and a few clever tricks, the latest entry in the Galaxy Note lineup just might prove to be a compelling contender. Let’s see how it stacks up against the competition.

Eye of the beholder

Nate Ralph

The plain plastic shell doesn’t do much to help this model stand out from competing tablets. But that's all right; the Note 8.0 is sturdy, and while it’s technically a bit heavier than Google’s Nexus 7 (by about 5 grams), you’ll be hard-pressed to notice much of a difference. My hands are admittedly a bit large, but the 8-inch device is no more cumbersome than the Nexus 7 or Apple’s iPad Mini, and I had no trouble toting it while sitting or lounging about.

The accoutrements are fairly standard: The headphone jack sits on the top edge, and the Micro-USB port sits on the bottom. The right side offers a power button, volume control buttons, and an IR blaster for controlling your television with Samsung’s WatchOn app. The left side hosts the MicroSD card slot; you can use 32GB MicroSD cards to bolster the 16GB tablet’s paltry 10GB of available storage space.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Despite all the Microsoft Surface hype, Windows 8 tablets have yet to find their niche. It’s difficult, after all, to be more expensive than Apple’s ever-cool iPad, yet less usable than a reasonably cheap laptop.

So what can the Asus VivoTab Smart—a slim little 10.1-inch tablet with a Clover Trail processor—bring to the table? Well, for one thing, it’s relatively cheap: the VivoTab starts at just $499, and that includes 64GB of built-in storage. It also runs the full version of Windows 8, so you don’t have to settle for Windows RT.

Good tablet performance and battery life

Just because it runs a desktop OS doesn't mean it runs like a PC, of course. Compare it to a low-powered Ultrabook, and it's toast. It’s moderately powerful for a tablet, however, scoring higher than similarly appointed models with Intel Pentium 6 CPUs and 2GB of memory, such as the Samsung XE500T1C-A01 and the Acer Iconia W510-1422. Battery life is good and long, at 7 hours and 36 minutes in our tests.

Of course, the $499 price tag doesn’t include the VivoTab’s accessories: a Smart Cover-esque magnetic screen protector that folds into a stand, and a separate, Bluetooth keyboard and touchpad. The screen protector/keyboard combo costs an additional $130, which means it’s about $629 for the full VivoTab Smart experience. This is still a fairly good deal—the Dell XPS 10 tablet with keyboard bundle also costs $629, but it has half the built-in storage.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Will the HP Envy x2 evoke jealous thoughts in the coffee shop? Given its sleek, brushed-silver looks and thin clamshell design, probably. Will it stir the deeper emotions that other, faster convertible Windows 8 tablet/laptops do? Sorry HP, no. Still, this thoughtfully designed portable delivers enough battery life and performance to more than adequately fill the roles of both tablet and small laptop.

Light, usable design

The Envy x2 sports a 1366 by 768 (16:9), 11.6-inch display that shows off video well and delivers more than enough usable brightness. The tablet portion weighs a comfortable (given its wide nature) 1.54 pounds, with the 1.56-pound keyboard/port dock bringing that up to 3.1 pounds. All told, toting the package is no great feat. The tablet portion locks into the keyboard dock, and is released via a slide switch.

Most of the EnvyxX2's ports reside on the dock, including a headset jack, HDMI video output, and two USB 2.0 ports. The lack of USB 3.0 or any other high-speed interface for backing up is a minor quibble given the light-use nature of the product. There's also a SDHC car reader, and a large power connector jack. Connectivity (all on the tablet) includes 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, as well as Near-Field Communication, though there are few applications for the latter at the moment.

The tablet portion sports the usual features: a 1080 display-side Webcam, an 8-megapixel back camera, plus an ambient light sensor. There are only two ports--the power jack and the headset jack. With no USB or card reader, you'll need to load or offload data docked or via Wi-Fi. The tablet also has a power button and rocker-volume switch which are placed handily on the back, just a short reach from where your fingers fall when holding the tablet with both hands.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Barnes & Noble Nook HD is more than just an excellent color e-reader: It’s based on Android, which makes it possible to add many great apps and extend the functionality of these tablets far beyond simple reading.

Barnes & Noble provides a curated app store full of apps. You'll have to look closely though, since most, but not all of the apps in the Nook App Store are compatible with the HD and HD+, which runs the same software but has a larger display.

Some apps only work on the Nook Color and Nook Tablet. Before buying, be sure to check the device list to make sure the HD and HD+ are included.

Some developers also offer free trials of their paid apps, a convenience that competing app platforms generally don’t provide. While shopping, look for a "Get Free Trial" link next to the buy button, or peruse the Nook App Store’s consolidated listings of free trials.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Sub-$200 tablets are commonplace today. Kobo’s Arc, a 7-inch Wi-Fi-only tablet, is the latest entrant to this party, but it's hardly revolutionary.

None of its physical specs, except for its built-in 64GB of memory, help it stand out against the competition, which includes the Amazon Kindle Fire HD, the Barnes & Noble Nook HD, and the Google Nexus 7. Where the Kobo Arc does stand out is in its software: It runs a skinned—but not totally transformed—version of Android 4.0. In other words, the Arc offers the full Android experience (including access to Google Play, unlike the Kindle Fire HD and the Nook HD), but with a couple of unique Kobo touches. Only the Google Nexus 7 can compete with that.

Ordinary design

The Kobo Arc is best described as solid. It’s not an unattractive tablet, but compared with its competitors it looks and feels bulky and, well, sturdy. At half an inch thick, the Arc is thicker than the Kindle Fire HD, Nook HD, and Nexus 7; and at 0.8 pound, it’s heavier than the Nook HD and the Nexus 7. The Nexus 7 is about half an ounce (or 0.04 pound) lighter than the Arc, but that half an ounce makes a big difference when you’re holding the tablet in one hand. And ultimately, that difference weighs heavily against the Arc.

Kobo was going for rugged design, though: The company claims that the Arc can withstand drops from up to 1.5 meters (about 4.9 feet), more than its competition.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Galaxy S III? Nexus 7? In any case, congratulations on your new Android phone or tablet. What’s that? Someone told you there were no decent games on Android? Well, as 2013 rolls in, not only have most iPhone developers ported some of their best titles to Google's mobile OS, but we’re also seeing many great games that are available only on Android. Read on for a list of fun, accessible, and affordable Android games that will keep you glued to your phone or tablet wherever you go.

Angry Birds

Angry Birds is, by anyone’s count, the once and future king of mobile games—three years after its release, it’s still impossible to ride the subway for a week without seeing someone playing this game. The premise is simple: Pigs have stolen the Birds’ eggs, hence the Birds are Angry; use the touchscreen to slingshot your Angry Birds at the pigs. The levels are creative, you can use birds with special abilities, and the game's theme song will stick in your head for the rest of your life. Highly recommended—and if you ever finish it, you can move on to Angry Birds Seasons, Angry Birds Rio, and Angry Birds Star Wars.

Price: Free

Pac-Man Championship Edition

Who doesn’t love Pac-Man? No fair answering “people born after 1990.” Okay, who doesn’t love Pac-Man with high-definition retro graphics and a weird trance-rave aesthetic? Also people born after 1990? Huh. Well, tell you what—Pac-Man is a classic, and this is a great, stylish, fast-paced remake of a classic. The ghosts are faster, the levels are more varied, and Pac-Man himself is more agile, skidding around corners like a 1972 Trans Am.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Now that you have an Amazon Kindle Fire HD, you’re ready to load it up with apps. The trick is finding the apps in the Amazon Appstore that are "optimized" for the Kindle Fire HD’s display. That list is short and full of mostly games, but it's growing as more apps embrace the world of high-pixel density tablets. The best part: Most of these apps are free, though some require you to tough out the ads or sign up for a service.

Reading

Kindles are for reading, right? These apps will enhance your reading experience both by giving you more things to read and more ways to keep track of the things you like to read.

OverDrive Media Console

You can supplement the books in your Kindle library with books from your local library, or one of many libraries across the country that will lend to nonresidents, with the OverDrive Media Console (free). This app lets you browse and check out eBooks and MP3 audiobooks which can be read or played back inside the app. You can also share what you're currently reading with Facebook friends or through Goodreads. The text renders cleanly and is easy to read on the HD screen.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Just got an Android tablet? Congratulations: You now have a device that can do pretty much everything your computer can, and more. But you need to grab some apps to get the most out of your new tablet, as the real fun starts when you download and install software from the Google Play store. Here are our picks for the essential apps that every new tablet user should try, the apps that can make your tablet faster, cooler, more flexible, and more useful than it was when you first fired it up.

SwiftKey 3 Tablet Keyboard

The on-screen keyboard that comes with Android is okay for typing short notes, but typing anything longer gets old pretty quickly. A better keyboard such as SwiftKey ($4) can make you a faster, more accurate typist by allowing you to customize the keyboard to your typing style. These customization features include how the software autocorrects typos, and how it produces predictions that guess the word before you finish it. When you type a couple of letters, SwiftKey offers a number of guesses at the word, any of which you can select with a touch. If you frequently use unusual terms, you can easily add them to a custom dictionary, allowing the software to recognize the words after a few letters.

SwiftKey also provides two keyboard layouts: the conventional full keyboard and a split layout that puts all of the letter keys under the thumbs; it's ideal for typing when you want to keep both hands on the tablet.

Although SwiftKey is more comfortable to use and more flexible than Google’s standard on-screen keyboard, it is still not as good as a physical keyboard, especially for longer typing sessions. Another option to help with that is Swype, which comes preinstalled on many tablets and is available as a free download. Swype doesn't have quite the same selection of features (and the current freely available beta version crashed occasionally in our tests), but it does offer the same layouts, a one-handed key-swipe mode, and speech-recognition typing.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Online fan fiction (or "fanfic") has long been a bizarre literary sideshow where crazy people go to explore completely impractical scenarios and insane sexual fantasies involving established characters from all the branches of the pop culture tree. All the branches. However, this darkened surreal corner of the Internet may soon find itself dragged out into the light of legitimacy. Amazon has announced that it is jumping into the officially licensed fan fiction business with its new Kindle Worlds publishing platform.

Amazon has partnered with Warner Brothers Television Group to offer aspiring fanfic-ers the chance to create original works based on the popular book-cum-TV series Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and The Vampire Diaries and promises that additional “licensed worlds” will follow.

Accepted works can be as short as 5000 words and will be published for the Kindle platform with royalties being shared amongst the rights-holders and the fiction authors (fanfic authors will receive 35% of net sales for works of at least 10,000 words, and 20% for works between 5000 and 10,000 words). Aspiring authors will be able to upload and self-publish their own novels, novellas, and short stories directly through the Worlds site.

The 50 Shades phenomenon

For most of its existence, fanfic has occupied its own weird little corner of the Web and was, for the most part, allowed to wallow in its weirdness in peace. But then two years ago, something truly crazy happened. A sprawling piece of BDSM-soaked Twilight fic was scraped of all its copyright-infringing content and adapted into the mom-porn epic Fifty Shades of Grey. Against all good logic, the Fifty Shades series became a gigantic hit and would go on to sell more than 70 million copies in 37 countries.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Toshiba said it will soon begin mass producing a new type of 64Gbit NAND flash that is the smallest and fastest in its class, though it still lags rival Samsung Electronics in the development of an even denser flash technology.

Toshiba said Tuesday that it will begin mass production this month of a 64Gbit chip with an area of 94 square millimeters that can write data at 25MB per second. The new chips, made using a 19-nanometer process, are the fastest and smallest to use 2-bit-per-cell technology, Toshiba said.

Main rival Samsung is already a step ahead. The South Korean company said last month that it began mass-producing a 128Gbit NAND chip with 3-bit-per-cell technology, also using a process smaller than 20 nanometers.

Toshiba said it is also working on 3-bit-per-cell technology, and aims to begin mass production by September. The company said it would first focus on smartphones and tablet memory with the chips, then expand to notebook PCs.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Samsung will soon release its first Android tablet based on an Intel Atom processor, according to a source familiar with the plan, in what would be a vote of confidence for Intel chips in mobile devices.

The tablet, a Galaxy Tab 3, will have a 10.1-inch display and run on a version of Intel’s Atom chip known as Clover Trail+, the source said. Samsung hasn’t announced such a product, but a Galaxy tablet running Android 4.2 appeared on several benchmark websites this month, sparking rumors of its existence.

According to the GFXBenchmark site, the tablet’s display will have a screen resolution of 1280 by 800 pixels.

A Samsung spokeswoman declined to comment, saying the product hasn’t been announced. No release data was available.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

In the face of a slump in PC sales and industry debate over whether the smartphone or tablet is now the preferred tool for a large segment of domestic and even small business users, Asus continues to release a number of combined and flexible devices that try to play on both sides of the dividing lines.

The most recent, announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in January and starting to ship worldwide, are the FonePad, a large-format smartphone—or small tablet—with a 7-inch touchscreen, and an "all-in-one" desktop doubling as a tablet, the Transformer AiO.

The Transformer AiO (All-in-One) has an 18.4-inch detachable display, which runs as a stand-alone tablet, albeit a rather cumbersome one. Based on an Intel Core processor, it runs either Windows 8 or Android operating systems.

The Transformer AiO's base station is a fully functional desktop in itself independent of the tablet-style screen and can be used through a separate monitor.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

To hear the headlines scream it, mobile security is already a lost cause. Android is the king of mobile malware! Umpteen gazillion rogue apps found! THE HACKERS ARE SNOOPING YOUR SNAPCHATS AND SEXTING YOUR GRANDMA!

It's enough to make you want to wrap your phone in tinfoil and cower in a corner somewhere—but don't believe the hype.

The sky isn't falling, and your phone isn't sending illicit photos to your grandmother. While you may want to slap a security app on your phone, it probably isn't for the reason you think. And those rogue apps? If you aren't an idiot, the odds of your installing a malicious mobile app are almost infinitesimally small.

Welcome to your mobile security reality check.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

[As tablets get more powerful, with more memory and sharper-looking screens, their apps are getting a makeover. Increasingly, mobile apps employ multimedia—combining words, pictures, audio, and video—in new and interesting ways. In our Digital Reading Room series, we’ll look at some eye-catching multimedia apps and tell you which ones deserve a place on your mobile device.]

A legendary ’60s rock band, the game of basketball, and our nation’s capital wouldn’t seem to have much in common. But they’re all the subjects of apps that would be terrific additions to your iPad. (In another bit of commonality, these three apps are only available for Apple’s tablet.) And the timing is right for all three apps: The Doors’ official app has just made its debut, the NBA playoffs are in full swing, and Kids Discover’s Washington D.C. app is perfect for planning that upcoming summer trip. Good apps, good content, good prices. Spring is bounteous!

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google I/O is a developer-centric conference, so it’s perhaps no surprise that one of the leading topics at Wednesday’s keynote event was new application programming interfaces, or APIs.

Hugo Barra, the vice president of Android product management, took the stage at Moscone Center to detail several new frameworks to soon be available for developers on Google’s mobile platform. With these new Google Play services, developers can use the same APIs that Google takes advantage of in its own apps.

First up were three new location-based APIs. Fused Location combines data from a device’s cellular radio, GPS, and Wi-Fi to provide more uniform location features in apps. In particular, Barra stressed, the API for these often very power-hungry features is exceptionally efficient—it uses less than 1 percent of battery per hour.

The second new location-based API is geofencing, a feature that will be familiar to users of iOS. A geofence allows you to set up a geographical area, then trigger events when users enter or leave it; apps can maintain up to 100 active geofences per app.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google didn't blow people away with its Wednesday morning keynote at the Google I/O developer conference. No new version of Android, no talk of Google Glass, no skydiving Fred Armisen (bummer). Instead, Google gave developers a host of new goodies and announced new features and services that seemed impressive, even if they didn't knock people's socks off. Get a look at the big stories to come out of this year's keynote.

A new look for Google Play

During Wednesday's keynote, engineering director Chris Yerga spoke briefly about a redesign for the Google Play Store. The most obvious change is a host of updates to the store's visual appearance, but there are also a number of improvements under the surface. Google Play will now give suggestions based on your personal preferences, chosen by Google's algorithms. It’s a quick way to get a glance of something you might like if you’re just browsing the store.

Not only that, but the top charts section will spotlight apps that are designed for tablets, a much-anticipated and much-requested addition to the store. Also, Google announced Google Play for Education, a curated version of the Play store specifically for schools and other educational institutions coming this fall. This version of the store will only feature apps handpicked by a group of editors, so unfavorable apps won’t sneak in by accident.

Location-based APIs mean new features in future apps

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

In springtime, people’s fancies may turn to love, but their to-do list turns to cleaning. Make this the year that you finally recycle all the ancient MP3 players, toner cartridges, ethernet cables, and bulky monitors out of the closets, garages, and spare rooms where they’ve been lurking. Your home will feel more modern, and you’ll be doing your part to boost the 27 percent electronics recycling rate in the U.S.—just in time for another spring constant, Earth Day.

Why recycle at all?

Sure, it would be easier just to dump all your old, unwanted electronic stuff in the trash. However, old computers and their related peripherals contain a lot of heavy metals—lead, cadmium, mercury—that are bad for people’s health when they get into the soil and water. In addition, when old electronics hit the trash heap, they’re out of a recycling stream that can cut the energy costs for production of future electronics.

But if the environmental concerns don’t grab you, consider the business benefits to recycling electronics: According to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, compared to disposal, computer reuse created 296 jobs per every 10,000 tons of material disposed of each year. The Electronics TakeBack Coalition estimates that the U.S. generates approximately 1.7 million tons of electronic waste annually—so imagine the job potential that’s still there. And if those arguments don’t sway you, maybe the long arm of the law can: It’s illegal in 25 U.S. states to simply trash your old electronics.

Now, don’t you want to avoid breaking the law? Don’t you also want to employ people and keep the planet clean by recycling your old stuff? Of course you do, so let’s get started.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Back in January I wrote about the "inconvenient truth" of trying to charge your iPad from a USB port: there's not enough juice.

My recommendation at the time was Digital Innovations' ChargeDr, a USB dongle that allows tablets and other devices to charge more quickly. It works (quite well, in fact), but it's a $30 solution.

If you fancy free workarounds instead, check out Asus Ai Charger. This free utility promises to charge iPhones, iPods, and iPads up to 50 percent faster using your PC's existing USB ports.

That's a pretty lofty claim: software that can boost the effective power output of hardware? It sounds almost impossible, but I'm here to tell you: it works.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

If you’re planning to sell or give away your iPad, then it is essential that your personal information and data be erased from it. If it’s running sluggish after a few years, sometimes backing up your data, erasing it from the tablet and restoring it might improve performance.

First, you need to make sure that you have the most current version of iTunes.

Once you’re up to date, plug your iPad into your computer. On the iPad screen click “back up now.” This may take some time depending on how much data and applications you have on your tablet.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Though Android’s global market share is intimidating, two other numbers are enlightening: 22 percent of Android users eventually switch to an iPhone, while only 9 percent of iPhone users go the other way. As those numbers suggest, switching from Android to iPhone isn't that difficult. Here’s how to make that transition as painlessly as possible.

Keeping contacts

Users switching phones often worry first about retaining their contacts. But help is available: Most carriers are happy to assist you in moving contacts from one device to another. They usually handle this task in-store when you activate your new iPhone. If you’re activating at home, check your carrier’s support page for its contact transfer service.

Even if you've already bought and activated your iPhone, your carrier should be able to transfer your contacts, as long as you still have your old phone or you’ve backed up your contacts.

If for some reason you can’t get your carrier to help, you can move your contacts yourself. Assuming that you synced your contacts with Google or a Microsoft Exchange server, you can retrieve your information from there.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

When you buy an ebook from Amazon, it's yours, right? Technically speaking, Amazon is merely licensing the book to you. And the company can, seemingly on a whim, close your account and delete all your books.

This isn't likely to happen, but it gives me pause. Indeed, it makes me want to back up the books I bought and paid for, just in case. What's more, if I ever decide I want to read those books using, say, another reader (be it an app or device), I'd like the option of converting them to another format.

Both options require the removal of Amazon's DRM -- the digital lock the company puts on its books to prevent unauthorized sharing.

I have no intention of sharing. I simply want to exercise my fair-use rights. Luckily, it's possible to remove Amazon's DRM (at your own risk, of course) using free book manager Calibre and a couple plug-ins.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The batteries that your mobile devices contain are miracles of engineering. They hold amounts of energy that their predecessors couldn’t come close to equaling. Properly using this potential can help your mobile batteries last longer on the road. Here are our tips for obtaining optimum battery performance.

1. For the quickest Tablet charge, use the original charger or a charger specifically designed for it.

iPads and other tablets have large batteries, so they come with chargers that can output lots of juice to recharge them quickly. For example, the iPad's adapter can output up to 2100mA (2.1 Amps), which is more than double the amperage that a typical USB port can support. This extra power output makes a huge difference. In our tests, charging an iPad took 5 hours, 9 minutes with the iPad charger (which can deliver up to 2100mA), but it took 10 hours, 13 minutes with an iPhone 5 charger (which maxes out at 1000mA). In a similar test with a generic USB travel charger, the charger took more than 24 hours to build up a full charge in the same iPad.

As these tests demonstrate, to reduce charging time to a minimum, you need to use either the original charger or one designed specifically for your device. Some devices contain circuitry that won’t allow the battery to use the charger's full capacity unless the charger contains a special authorization chip: otherwise, the device will charge at a much slower rate. For instance, when we tried to charge an iPad 4 with a Samsung Tab 10.1's charger, the process took over 19 hours to complete, even though the Samsung charger can deliver the same amount of juice as the original iPad 4 charger. That’s because the iPad 4, not recognizing that the charger could deliver a larger flow of power, limited the incoming current to an unnecessarily low level. The same was true of the reverse situation: When we tried to charge a Samsung Tab 10.1 tablet with an iPad 4 charger, the process took more than 15.5 hours. In contrast, the original Samsung charger completed its work on the Tab 10.1 in 4 hours, 46 minutes.

2. Most cell phones don’t need a specific charger.

Cell phones, which carry smaller batteries than tablets use, don’t require high-current chargers. As a result, you can use a generic charger to transfer power to them, without suffering a severe slowdown in charging time. When we timed how long an iPhone 5 took to reach a full charge when fed by various chargers, the differences ranged from 2 hours, 4 minutes with an HTC travel charger to 2 hours, 59 minutes with a Samsung charger. The original iPhone 5 charger took 2 hours, 16 minutes—so you won’t suffer much of a penalty for using a third-party charger with your cell phone or other small device.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The world is a filthy, filthy place. Just look at your mobile device, and you can see on-screen evidence of what happens when gadgets continually get poked by grubby fingers, pushed against sweaty ears, and parked on tables covered with crumbs and other contaminants. How do you keep your phone or tablet shiny and clean in the face of this onslaught?

Cleanliness is next to gadgetness

Alpine Products packages its Spudz microfiber cloth inside a small, attachable case.

Adopting a routine of cleaning your mobile device every day will help. For daily cleaning, apply a microfiber cloth with the minimum possible force to remove dirt and stains. Between cleanings, store the cloth in a bag or other container to prevent it from picking up dirt or other foreign matter along the way, especially as these could scratch the screen when you use the cloth. Replace the microfiber cloth with a new one regularly, to avoid spreading the very stains you're trying to remove. Several companies, such as Alpine Products, offer small microfiber cloths that tuck into a cover and clip onto the device itself, or onto a bag or key ring. Keeping the cloth with your regular gear kit (chargers, cables, extra battery, and the like) will help you stay on top of cleaning.

If your screen has food or other dried-on stains on it, dip a corner of your microfiber cloth into water, and then use this to try and gently moisten and remove the stain. Do not apply water to the screen directly: Drops can easily slip inside your device—and that won’t end well.

Regular cleaning

Once a month, you should clean your devices thoroughly, including each device's screen, ports, and buttons. Such cleaning can extend the effective life of your equipment, but some caution is required.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Smartphone photography keeps getting better. The Camera and Gallery apps that come with Android 4.2 (still called Jelly Bean) have evolved into powerful tools for taking, viewing, editing, and sharing photos.

Before you take a picture, you can fine-tune the exposure, set the white balance, and tell the camera where to focus. You can photograph the entire world around you, 360 degrees horizontally and vertically. Afterward, you can add filters, tweak the exposure some more, fiddle with the colors (or remove them), crop the image, straighten it in both 90- and 1-degree increments, and put a frame around it. And when you're happy with the result, you can upload it to whatever social media sites you choose.

I spent some quality time with a Google Nexus 4 smartphone to find out just what Android 4.2's photography apps can do. This is a pure Android phone, with no manufacturer additions or alterations to the operating system. In other words, anything I could do here should be available on other smartphones running Android 4.2.

(A personal note: You might think, looking at the photos ahead, that I'm obsessed with my cats. Not so. It's just that, unlike people, they never object to having their photos appear on the Internet.)

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Out with the old, in with the new. The way tech changes and evolves these days, it’s not uncommon to want to unload your old gear every few years in favor of newer, better, shinier stuff: a faster laptop, a slimmer tablet, or a more-powerful smartphone.

Of course, in order to make way for that new gear, you’ll have to decide what to do with your old hardware. Instead of just tossing it in a drawer, many users opt to sell it, which can help defray the cost of new stuff.

But where’s the best place to sell used tech? How can you keep your devices in good shape so you get maximum resale value? And, most importantly, how do you wipe away all traces of your personal data?

The good news is that these important questions don’t have complicated answers. With a little know-how, you can easily get a healthy return on your old gear and make sure it’s as empty of data as the day you bought it.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here