Crave

Perhaps you are aware that we conduct power consumption testing across a number of review categories.

David Katzmaier started it with TV reviews in 2006. We rolled it out to desktops, laptops, and monitors in 2009. At least for most desktops, measuring power consumption no longer makes sense. So we're going to stop.

I wish we'd started testing energy usage on desktops earlier, particularly with Intel's old power hog Pentium D chips. The problem is Moore's Law. Intel's Sandy Bridge chips (sorry, "second-generation Core") are too damn efficient. They're also pretty much everywhere.

The result is that our power draw tests aren't all that interesting anymore for mainstream PCs. The chart below helps illustrate the point.… Read more

This week, Ty demos Sony's strap-on 3D visor, which we've dubbed the "Headman," while Scott shows us how the OnLive Desktop brings cloud PC computing to the iPad. Also, check out a cool new laptop backpack, and find out what our favorite MacBook Air substitutes are.

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All the PCs in the world couldn't compete with the popularity of smartphones--literally.

IT research firm Canalys released its shipment estimates this morning for each country for the final quarter of 2011. When it tallied the annual numbers and did some quick cross-referencing it found vendors shipped 488 million smartphones in 2011, compared to 415 million client PCs during the same period. The definition of client PCs in this case includes not just laptops and desktops, but also Netbooks and "pads" or tablets, which were the fastest growing segment by far.

But even with the successful launch … Read more

Speak now, or forever hold your chance to win this week's Crave giveaway. The prize: Nuance's Dragon Dictate 2.5 for Mac. The speech recognition software boasts some enhancements over earlier versions, including full support for Microsoft Word 2011 and new Facebook- and Twitter-sharing capabilities.

Dragon Dictate 2.5 also takes advantage of the recently introduced Dragon Remote Mic App, a free application that lets you use an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad as a wireless microphone for Dragon via Wi-Fi.

Normally, Dragon Dictate 2.5 would cost you $179.99, but you have the chance to get it for nada, nothing, zip, zilch. So how do you go about snagging this week's freebie? There are a few rules, so please take a moment to stop talking and read them carefully. … Read more

This week, we go over some Super Bowl TV tips, including what to do if you're not going to be near a TV at all. Julie talks about developing new battery life tests, and Josh laments the decline of the compact point-and-shoot camera.

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We already met Olly, a Web-connected robot from Mint Digital that emits odors according to social-media alerts. Well, meet Olly's cousin Molly, also a generous social-media bot.

Instead of doling out smells, however, she hands out candy when you reach a set number of retweets. It's the sweet tweet life.

Think of it as having your own personal Pavlovian experiment. Molly will encourage you to create ever-more-interesting tweets to get your candy faster. … Read more

Back from CES, we show off some video clips of our favorite products, Ty tells us why OLED matters, and Scott and Dan debate the best laptop for covering trade shows.

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I expect Alienware will sell a lot of these.

There's very little about the new Alienware X51 gaming slim tower a mainstream buyer won't appreciate. You can buy a reasonably fast configuration, like our review unit, for less than $1,000. It's on an aesthetic par with an Xbox 360 or a PlayStation 3. You can even put it on its side and slide it into your media rack.

It's still a PC, of course, with all the content benefits and interface and software hang-ups implied therein. And in spite of Alienware's clever work cramming in a full-size 3D card, the X51 will make a finicky upgrade platform. You get no other expansion card slots, there's room for only one hard drive, and the 330-watt power supply (an upgrade over the 230-watt default) limits you to mainstream graphics cards.

Still, the bumped-up GeForce GTX 555 card in our review config can run Battlefield 3, Skyrim, or pretty much any other game at 1,920x1,080-pixel resolution with smooth frame rates and respectable quality settings. That's all many gamers will ask for, particularly those shopping for a PC like this one.

Read the full review of the Alienware X51.… Read more

To its credit, Alienware's new x51 has introduced some real innovation to slim tower desktop design.

I was wary of the x51. Slapping an alien-themed case around a Core i-series motherboard doesn't really bring anything new to the table. This system does more than the slim towers we've seen from Acer, Lenovo, HP, Gateway, and others. Its competitors all have standard motherboard layouts, and because of their size, they require half-height, lower-power graphics cards. The x51 has a full-size card inside of it. In the case of our review unit, it has a respectable double-wide GeForce GTX … Read more