$899.99
us.acer.com
It wouldn’t be Christmas without a little Grinch thrown in, so here goes...
No doubt, you’ve got the gist of Intel’s Ultrabook effort by now: like a MacBook Air, only different. Officially, today’s Ultrabooks should be less than 0.8” thick , under 3.1 lbs., and deliver five to eight or more hours of runtime. In part, this is possible through the use of smaller screens, no integrated optical drive, SSDs rather than hard drives, and one of Intel’s late-model 17 W Sandy Bridge-based Core i5 or i7 chips with HD Graphics 3000. So far, so good.

A few years ago, we would have called these “ultralight” designs, but since the MacBook Air pretty much blew competing ultralights out of the water, we needed something fresher, cooler...something more like an ultrabook! The result, of course, was a MacBook Air that ran Windows and was sold by top-tier OEMs like Acer, Asus, HP, Lenovo, and Toshiba.
Let’s be fair. Acer has four S3 Ultrabook models, and this one seeks to give you the benefits of a $1299 MacBook Air for $400 less. Apple has a 100 MHz advantage on the Core i5 (1.7 GHz dual-core to Acer’s 1.6 GHz). Both have a 13.3” display, but Apple’s native resolution is 1440 x 900 against Acer’s 1366 x 768. Height and weight are nearly identical. Both use 4 GB of DDR3-1333. We won’t debate Thunderbolt and HDMI or battery runtime here. The biggest difference is that whereas Apple uses a 128 GB SSD, Acer opts for a 20 GB SSD backed by a 320 GB, 5400 RPM hard drive. The Grinch’s heart may have been two sizes too small, but so is Acer’s SSD. We’d fill that little thing up by New Year’s for sure.
And the one speck of NAND
Acer left in the house
Was a crumb that was even too small for a mouse
Still, if you don’t mind the storage situation and you’re not married to Mac OS, Acer’s S3 has a build quality that’s roast-beast-alicious, and you get to pocket four bills toward paying off that January Visa bill. We would declare that plenty fair...almost.

On Black Friday, this author braved the 6:00 AM cold outside of Office Depot and bought himself a beater of a laptop—a Toshiba Satellite with 2.4 GHz Sandy Bridge Core i3-2330M, 6 GB of DDR3, 15.6” display, 640 GB hard drive, and a DVD-Supermulti optical drive. It weighs 5.3 lbs. and has a cheap plastic feel rather than luscious aluminum. But the final cost was $399. So if we’re going to play the price versus value game, let’s play it to the finish.
Should you pay $500 to give up two pounds, two screen inches, 2 GB of memory, and step into a Core i5 over an i3? Maybe. If you’re a stylish little Who, you may not value all those twos. But if you’re a penny-pinching Grinch oh so grinch-ish-ly humming, you may already know that price cuts are a-coming. Acer president Jim Wong has already stated that he believes Ultrabooks will drop to $500 by 2013. Think of the sound of those savings in your stocking! Now, that’s a noise that we simply must hear.
Don’t be too quick to judge an SSD by its cover. Super Talent’s RC8 may look, feel, and smell like any other USB flash drive, but it’s actually a bona fide solid-state drive with the throughput specs to prove it: reads up to 270 MB/s and writes up to 240 MB/s. The device uses an eight-channel memory architecture and a DRAM caching system that, as Super Talent describes it, “excels in USB 3.0 by elevating small block performance while improving large block reads and writes.”
In other words, the RC8 uses the architecture of an SSD right down to its MLC blocks, but Super Talent packages the device in a flash drive form factor and uses a USB 3.0 bus rather than SATA. You still get integrated ECC and global wear leveling. Super Talent specifies an operating shock of 1500 Gs and warranties the drive for five years. Data integrity is rated at 10 years.

Now the obvious question: why? Who needs to shell out nearly $200 for only 50 GB of external storage? Not many people, probably. And that’s why we would argue that external storage is not the RC8’s key application.
If you’ve used flash drives for long enough, you know that a few models come pre-installed with self-contained, automatically executing operating systems, such as SanDisk’s old U3 and the more current and robust Ceedo Personal. Simply install apps under the mobile OS on the flash drive, pile in your data, and you’ve got a boot drive in your pocket. In the days of USB 2.0, such systems were horrifically slow for running modern apps. But with USB 3.0, and particularly with a device that is effectively an SSD, suddenly this sort of mobile usage becomes blissfully feasible and practical. Especially for those with spotty connectivity or an inherent distrust of cloud computing, an RC8 with Ceedo may be exactly what’s needed in order to be independent from any particular PC.
Dell has emerged as one of our favorite monitor brands over the last few years, and it wasn’t an affection that we gave willingly. The company’s doldrums of a decade ago left us needing to be impressed, but the UltraSharp LCD series, with its IPS panels and stunning color accuracy, has done exactly that.
The U2410 is a luscious 24” widescreen (16:10) display with 1920x1200 native resolution and a specified 80 000:1 dynamic contrast ratio. Dell lets the typical color gamut of 110% look its most riveting by being one of the few vendors that color calibrates its premium displays at the factory. Of course, you can still tweak colors or opt for preset modes. There are parameters for hue, gain, saturation, offset, and other variables. Also note that Dell has a zero defective pixel policy for this unit. The advance exchange warranty is good for three years.
Now, with so much hullaballoo about LED backlighting and its environmental benefits, you may be surprised to learn that the U2410 still uses CCFL tubes. This is why the monitor sports a 75 W normal power consumption. We would refer you back to our backlight comparison analysis published last May (CCFL Versus LED: Is There A Downside To Going Green?). With a 400 cd/m2 typical brightness, 1000:1 true contrast ratio, and 100% coverage of the sRGB color space, Dell has positioned this IPS display toward an audience that appreciates color accuracy. As we found, the accuracy of CCFL remains superior to today’s LCD implementations. It may be somewhat less dazzling at first glance, and the U2410’s 6 ms refresh time may strike some gamers as merely adequate, but for those who demand precision, the U2410 delivers. Support for VGA, DVI-D, DisplayPort, component, composite, HDMI, a media card reader, and integrated four-port USB 2.0 hub is merely decoration on the tree.
$5711
www.falcon-nw.com
Unless you’ve been really, really good, we’re not sure if Santa can afford to leave one of these under your tree, but we can sure see such a machine powering his elven workshop. There’s no point in being coy about the specs, so, in one mad rush, here they are:
- Chassis: Falcon Northwest ICON2
- Chassis logo insert: White light
- Chassis fan kit: Noiseblocker overclocking fan pack
- Power supply: 1200 W modular
- Motherboard: Asus Rampage IV Extreme X79
- Processor: Intel Core i7-3930K (3.2 GHz)
- Processor cooler: Mach V liquid cooling
- Processor overclock: Mach V processor overclock
- Memory: 16 GB (4 x 4 GB) DDR3-1600
- Video card #1: Evga GeForce GTX 580 (3 GB) Classified Edition
- Video card #2: Evga GeForce GTX 580 (3 GB) Classified Edition
- Sound Card: On-board
- Networking: Dual integrated Ethernet
- Primary drive: Crucial M4 256 GB SSD (6 Gb/s)
- Secondary drive: WD Caviar Black 2 TB (7200 RPM, 6 Gb/s)
- Optical drive: LG 12x Blu-ray
- Media reader: Internal media reader with USB 3.0
- 64-Bit OS: Windows 7 Professional
- Warranty: Three years parts and service

Sure, those are phenomenal specs, but they do no justice to the machine as a whole. Underneath its sleek, black, brushed aluminum exterior, punctuated by the illuminated falcon logo on the reversible front door, the ICON2 takes a new spin on heat dissipation. The motherboard is oriented 90 degrees clockwise from most every other tower configuration. After all, heat rises, so why not let most of the heat escape straight from the top rather than wasting so much fan energy and noise trying to push it out the back? So yes, the I/O ports are on the top of the system, hidden under a vented top panel. The cables route through a gap at the top of the back panel, still hidden from view.
CPU water cooling is standard, but the pump is pushing the water straight up from nearly the floor of the case—no small feat and one that required significant study by Falcon Northwest engineers. The pump and power supply have their own chamber apart from the motherboard, and a 180 mm fan helps to keep up to two graphics cards cool at very low acoustic levels (a third card can be added). Despite the liquid cooling, there are still five fans in the ICON2, including two for the voltage regulator and supplemental CPU cooling. Fortunately, the system stays fairly quiet overall thanks to its design optimizations.
Toolless design abounds here, from the sliding side panel locks to the five external and six internal drive bays. Notably, the hard drives are made swappable through a series of snap-out sleds, much like a business-class JBOD appliance, rather than a single pull-out cage. Elegant, powerful, and replete, you couldn’t recommend a finer system for the coming year.
$199.99
homestore.cisco.com
These days, many families have at least one computer guru whose thankless job is to make tech recommendations for the rest of the family. And then install said purchases. And then support them…at any hour, day or night. For free. But we’re not bitter. Quite often, this leads to a dichotomy. On one hand, there’s the gear you would buy for yourself because it has the most features and is wicked fast. Then there’s the gear you recommend for your family, which is idiotproof simple and comes backed by 24x7 free tech support. In the latter case, performance is the least of your concerns. You just don’t want another reason to be IT support.
The amazing thing about Cisco’s Linksys E-series routers is that they satisfy both polar opposite groups. As we’ve seen from in-house testing, the E-series has the ability to blow most other consumer-class routers off the map on performance. Its reception range and sustained throughput are simply epic. However, Linksys' instructions are simple and largely automated, and we’ve always found the 24x7 phone support (usually off-shore) to be competent and effective.

Moreover, this premium Linksys offering comes stocked with loads of power user perks. Like what? At the top of the list you have four gigabit Ethernet ports and a USB connection for turning add-on storage into a mini-NAS. A UPnP server comes built in for streaming your media to gaming consoles or similar reception devices, plus you can tweak packet stream prioritization (QoS) within the router’s settings for improving media playback, videoconferencing, VoIP, gaming, or any other app type you please.
The E4200 v2 uses a 3x3 transmit/receive antenna system for both radio bands, enabling theoretical throughput of up to 450 Mb/s. The original E4200 did 3x3:3 (three spatial streams) in the 5 GHz band, but only two streams (3x3:2) in 2.4 GHz, which is why you see it listed as 300 + 450 rather than the v2’s 450 + 450. Of course, this won’t matter if your client devices aren’t capable of handling three streams, so make sure to keep your eyes open for this spec in your clients heading into 2012. In general, 5.0 GHz Wi-Fi will provide more solid video performance as needed, free from interference by other common Wi-Fi devices. You can set up a guest access account for better Wi-Fi security and implement WPA2 to prevent unwanted snooping.
Last but hardly least, we love the slender, simple aesthetic the Linksys group has brought to the E-series. Keeping things sleek and all of the antennas internal is such an improvement over the functionally excellent, but clunky-looking, W-series of yore.
$279.99
www.seagate.com
To think, it seems like only last holiday season that we were setting up our 4 TB Seagate BlackArmor NAS box, outfitted with a 4 x 1 TB drive configuration. The beast retailed in the four-figure range and finally gave us the sort of capacity and security we wanted for our primary data backup. Now, a seeming blink later, Seagate gives us the GoFlex Desk 4 TB.

We’ve lost too many files over the years to ever trust a single drive with anything ever again, so we won’t recommend this capacious black monolith as a primary storage device, although with USB 3.0 speeds, it can certainly serve in that role. Rather, in a single-user environment where a network-attached storage device is less needed, we would use this sexy behemoth as a backup target for all of our internal drives, including bare metal backup of the boot volume. Naturally, this assumes that your internals will all fit in a 4 TB drive. If not, well...let’s hope Santa can afford two.
Speaking of bare metal backup, a word of caution: we love GoFlex drives, but the bundled Memeo Instant Backup software does not support system imaging, only file backup. To get bare metal, Seagate would have you buy the Autobackup software with its Replica drives. See the software matrix here. You’ll need to bring your own bare metal app if you want to pursue this function. That aside, the Memeo bundle and Seagate’s Dashboard management software are excellent. We particularly like the Memeo apps for file/folder synchronization and sending jumbo-sized files. Note also that the GoFlex Desk can encrypt your stored data with 192-bit Triple DES, so your data will stay private even if the drive is stolen.
$679.99
www.thecus.com
The holidays arrive at businesses, too, only it’s called using the year-end budget. Many organizations have policies such that if the IT budget doesn’t get used, it vanishes. One of the highest priorities for any business now is data storage, so if money has to get spent, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better application for it than centralizing information. Obviously, a five-drive NAS like the Thecus N5200XXX isn’t aimed at data centers. It’s meant for SMBs, enterprise branch offices and/or workgroups, and even single power users who might be supplying Web services. Stocked with 3 TB drives, one N5200XXX can store up to 15 TB of data, although buyers may wish to start with a much smaller pool.

Unlike many NAS boxes that use low-end SoCs, the N5200XXX is fueled by a 1.8 GHz Intel Atom D525 accompanied by 1 GB of DDR3 memory for improved RAID processing performance. Thecus supports RAID modes 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, and JBOD, along with drive hot-swapping, online RAID migration and expansion, hot sparing, and auto-rebuilding. In-system volume encryption is handled with AES-256, so data protection is bulletproof against theft.
Thecus throws in a copy of Acronis True Image for data and bare metal image backup. Native rsync support lets users back up to remote locations. You can copy bi-directionally with attached USB devices. The NAS also supports UPnP AV streaming, iTunes Server, and photo Web serving via Piczza! Other standard issue services, such as USB print serving, FTP, and secure FTP support, are present.

More advanced, business-oriented features include power management scheduling and Wake-on-LAN support. This may only account for a few dollars in savings per year, but it remains a notable feature as part of a broader green office policy. RAID volume management can be done while the drive is active and accessible by users, thus saving considerable downtime. Admins will appreciate the inclusion of iSCSI thin provisioning, and those concerned about security should make use of having a USB flash drive act as the key that unlocks the NAS device’s AES-256 encryption.
With dual gigabit ports for failover and balancing, plus an eSATA port to accompany the four integrated USB 2.0 ports, the N5200XXX comes loaded with all of the expansion capability and storage power a small office could ask for.
$79.95
www.microsoft.com
If you’ve used Apple’s Magic Mouse, the Touch Mouse from Microsoft may seem like a cloning effort done in black rather than white. The central idea is the same: you have an optical mouse (based on Microsoft’s BlueTrack technology, in this case) with a sloping, buttonless, touch-sensitive top surface. The textured top surface works much like the gesture-enabled touchpad on a laptop...minus the left and right buttons along the bottom, of course. A tiny USB wireless dongle tucks into the mouse’s underside.
In Microsoft’s PC world, gestures are largely a Windows 7 affair, although there’s much to indicate that Windows 8 will be much more reliant on the feature. Microsoft has yet to make any official statements about Touch Mouse support under next year’s OS. For now, though, the Touch Mouse is little more than a door stop unless you take a few seconds to download its drivers from Microsoft.
With the drivers and Windows 7 in play, the Touch Mouse comes alive. With one finger, you can tap on the left or right, just as you would in a conventional left- or right-click (not having your index finger resting on the left while tapping with your right may take some getting used to). You can also drag one fingertip around to perform scrolling and panning. There are no side-mounted thumb buttons. Instead, you can sweep your thumb right for Forward or left for Back.

Two fingers on the pad controls windows rather than apps. A two-finger swipe to the left or right snaps the active window to that side of the screen. Likewise, a two-finger swipe up will maximize a window while swiping down will minimize or restore. Three fingers controls the desktop. Sweeping up opens all windows while down shows the desktop with all apps minimized.
All told, it’s a very slick arrangement. Getting used to scrolling sensitivity can take some adjustment, but otherwise the Touch Mouse is very intuitive and terrific to use. Just don’t confuse it with the Microsoft Explorer Touch Mouse or Microsoft Arc Touch Mouse, which are both very different animals.
$334.99
www.zotacusa.com
Looking for a gift for the gadget lover on your holiday shopping list? Check out the Zotac's ZBOX nano AD10 Plus, a miniature computer that literally fits in the palm of your hand.
The ZBOX nano AD10 Plus is powered by AMD's E-350 APU, which combines the serial processing power of a traditional CPU with the parallelism of a GPU. The result is an SoC that can handles desktop apps and graphics workloads with similar adeptness.
Unlike compact computers, such as Apple's Mac Mini, which isn't supposed to be user-serviceable, the ZBOX can not only be opened, but disassembled with ease thanks to a tool-less design. Four thumbscrews are all that stand between you and the back of the unit, where you'll find an SO-DIMM memory slot, a 2.5" hard drive bay, and a PCI Express slot.

Zotac's ZBOX ships with 2 GB DDR3 memory and is expandable to 4 GB. There's a 320 GB SATA hard drive occupying the hard drive bay, which can be easily upgraded to a higher-capacity disk. The PCI Express slot is populated by a Wi-Fi card enabling 802.11 b/g/n, plus Bluetooth 3.0 connectivity. Fortunately, you don't have to worry about discrete graphics, since the E-350 APU includes Radeon HD 6310 graphics built-in, facilitating DirectX 11 and accelerated video decoding support.
The back of this little machine delivers a surprising amount of connectivity. You get an IR port, two USB 2.0 connectors, a pair of USB 3.0 ports, gigabit Ethernet, and eSATA, in addition to audio (headphone/mic jacks) and video outputs. Additionally, you can get eight-channel sound through box's HDMI connector. A second display can be added via DisplayPort, too.

The ZBOX ships with a Windows Media Center-compatible remote (batteries included), a USB infrared receiver, a Wi-Fi antenna, a four-way VESA mount, AC adapter, power cord, user manual, and driver CD. Zotac's hardware accommodates Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Linux.



