iii

BOULOGNE BILLANCOURT, France -- So you think you're a camera expert? Well, when was the last time you evaluated a camera by spending days analyzing hundreds of test photos?

That's what DxO Labs does, over and over, publishing results so far for 185 cameras on its DxOMark Web site. To see what lies behind those performance scores, CNET visited the company as it put one hotly anticipated camera through its paces: Canon's hot new video-capable SLR, the EOS 5D Mark III.

The results might not surprise close watchers of the camera business: Canon's score of 81 … Read more

Canon's EOS 5D Mark III is a hot item in the camera world. It's the successor to the vaunted 5D Mark II, which ignited the video SLR revolution, but with better autofocus, shooting speed, and low-light performance.

Alas for Canon shooters, though, the 22-megapixel image sensor doesn't rate much better than the 21-megapixel one in the 5D Mark II that arrived more than three years earlier, according to tests by imaging technology DxO Labs.

DxO gave the 5D Mark III sensor a score of 81 on the DxOMark test of image sensor performance when shooting raw photos. … Read more

T-Mobile USA customers often feel like they are caught between a rock and a hard place.

They love T-Mobile's affordable pricing plans on its service that beats the competition, but the carrier lacks some of the most popular devices, like the Apple iPhone. And this leaves some T-Mobile customers torn between a desire for hot new devices, like the iPhone, and the prospect of spending more each month on service.

So what's a T-Mobile customer to do? In this edition of Ask Maggie, I help two different T-Mobile customers sort through their options.

T-Mobile customers cope with iPhone … Read more

Good news everyone! Samsung has finally made it known when its much anticipated handset, the Galaxy S III, will be launched. While rumors had earlier pegged the event to be held on May 22 in London, the official invite sets a much earlier date of May 3.

While no specs have been revealed so far, earlier rumors suggest it'll sport a 4.6-inch Super AMOLED Plus display with a quad-core Exynos chipset. … Read more

Samsung's Galaxy S III has yet to be revealed. But that hasn't stopped the rumor mill from churning out new reports on what the device might offer.

South Korea newspaper Korean Digital Daily is reporting today (Translate), citing sources, that the Galaxy S III will come with Samsung's familiar home button under the display. There has been some speculation that the device would ditch the home button, since its functionality is replicated in Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), the operating system believed to be coming to the handset.

The decision wasn't so easy, according to … Read more

Though Samsung has yet to even release the phone, LG could be prepping a new flagship smartphone to rival Sammy's upcoming Samsung's Galaxy S III. According to a source close to Korea's Digital Daily, the LG D1L will offer comparable features and will make its debut in May.

The early specifications for the D1L aren't that remarkable when compared with other recent LG products like the Optimus 4X HD. It will bring a 4.7-inch, 1,280x720-pixel display, and a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor (the Galaxy S III also may have a 1280x720-pixel display, though Samsung could add a quad-core Exynos chip). Expected to run Android 4.0 Ice Cream and support 4G LTE, it's difficult to forecast why this particular model is a would-be killer. … Read more

Evidently the Canon 5D Mark III SLR must be a pretty hot item.

Because Apple just released an update to its Mac OS X camera support whose sole purpose is to let iPhoto, Aperture, and other photo applications view and edit the new camera's raw images.

Usually such Apple updates add support for a collection of new cameras, but time is of the essence now that the 5D Mark III is shipping. Many photographers who use this class of camera shoot raw images (data taken directly from the image sensor, not processed into JPEG by the camera) for the … Read more

Consumers awaiting the next Galaxy S smartphone could be treated to an eye-catching resolution.

Rumors from Korean news site Digital Daily (English translation) claim that the Galaxy S III will come with a 4.65-inch Super AMOLED Plus display with a resolution soaring to 1280x720.

If true, this would represent a healthy bump up from the Galaxy S II, which offers a 4.52-inch Super AMOLED Plus display with a resolution of 800x480 pixels.

As noted by The Verge, the Galaxy S III be the first non-Pentile OLED phone display to offer HD resolution.

Samsung has already indicated that … Read more

Well, that didn't take long.

Less than four weeks after Adobe Systems released Lightroom 4, the company has issued a release candidate for Lightroom 4.1 to squash bugs and add support for one of the hottest cameras going right now, the Canon 5D Mark III.

The 22-megapixel, full-frame SLR brings new low-light sensitivity, faster performance, overhauled autofocus, and other improvements over its 3-year-old predecessor. But until now, Lightroom fans who have the coveted $3,500 camera could only see its raw files by converting them into the Digital Negative format with Adobe's DNG Converter software.

Other improvements … Read more