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Asus Memo Pad ME172V review: Cheap Jelly Bean tablet not worth its performance headaches

Regardless of the Asus Memo Pad ME172V's attractively low $149 price, you shouldn't buy it. Its performance is slow, it crashes when attempting to play some of the latest games, and the narrow viewing angle and low resolution of the screen make it look like a hologram sticker placeholder rather than a quality screen with solid colors.

The Memo Pad does include a microSD slot, something the Nexus 7 (also manufactured by Asus) doesn’t have; however, even at $50 more, the Nexus 7 is clearly the better product. It’s faster, includes the very latest version of … Read more

Surf the Web with Chromium FreeSMUG build for Mac

Those who want to surf the Web without using Safari have many options. Chromium FreeSMUG build for Mac is a functional program, but does not add anything new to the browsing experience.

Downloading Chromium FreeSMUG's build for Mac takes a bit longer since the program is 46 MB. Installation occurred without any problems or user actions, though. There were no instructions, but the interface is fairly easy to interpret for those familiar with Web browsing. Support did not appear to be available. After starting, the program's interface was what one would typically expect from a basic Web browser. … Read more

Fast flicks

Flixster is a popular Web site that combines movie reviews and listings with social networking. Flixster Movies is a Chrome extension that makes selected Flixster content easily accessible from within your browser. Although the full range of Flixster's features isn't represented, it's still a good way to integrate movie showtimes into your browser.

Like most Chrome extensions, Flixster installs easily, appearing as an icon to the right of Chrome's address bar. Click on the icon and a menu appears with tabs for popular movies, movies that are coming soon, and movies that are now on DVD. … Read more

Lacks music-related resources

From the sound of its name, we expected this 2-in-1 toolbar to have more music-related links and gadgets, but that proved not to be the case.

Hottest Tracks Radio Toolbar looks and acts just like every other toolbar out there, with a customizable user interface, search field, e-mail notification, weather forecast, and pop-up blocker, and all of them worked without any problems. You can easily add your favorite applications and gadgets to the toolbar. In terms of extras, the toolbar throws in a media player gadget and a toolbar radio player, both of which played without interruption. In addition to … Read more

Browser offers a fresh change of scenery

This freeware browser has two components--the browser, and a menu bar that strongly resembles Apple's dock. The browser, while not perfect, performed well. We could have done without the menu bar.

As soon as Aw2 Explorer Flex was installed, our computer's performance slowed down considerably. The menu bar appeared at the top of our desktop window, and contained shortcuts to IE, Control Panel, and our Recycle Bin. The programs were slow to launch using the menu bar, and we couldn't empty our Recycle Bin using the bar. The browser itself was slow to load, but as soon … Read more