Year End 2012 - Reviews & Rankings (Part 5)

The iPhone 5 offers numerous small changes and new features that cumulatively make it a better phone than its predecessors. One significant innovation is multiple microphones to cancel noise and improve voice quality. In a few test phone calls I made, people commented on the excellent audio quality—even when I was walking down a busy sidewalk with loud trucks rumbling by.

The iPhone 5 offers numerous small changes and new features that cumulatively make it a better phone than its predecessors

The iPhone 5 comes with a set of Apple's new EarPods headphones, which sound a lot better to me than the previous default set.

And of course, the iPhone 5 is powered by the latest version of Apple's mobile operating system, iOS 6.

When Apple releases a new iPhone, people understandably wonder whether, if they have last year's model, an upgrade makes sense. In general, the answer is no. The iPhone 5 is a nice upgrade from the 4S, but it hardly justifies paying a massive penalty to upgrade underan existing phone service contract. On the other hand, this iPhone represents a massive improvement over the iPhone 4 and 3GS,the models that most upgraders will be leaving.;$199;Apple; qo.pcworld.com/iphone5

Droid Razr M: Great Specs at a Great Price

For a budget phone, the Droid Razr M packs a lot of features— among them, an 8-megapixel camera, a high-resolution display, and a top-notch dual-core processor. It ships running Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich, though Motorola promises to update it to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean by the end of 2012.

Motorola Droid Razr M

At 4.82 by 2.40 by 0.33 inches, the M is the smallest phone in the new Razr family. The phone is comfortable to hold in one hand, and you should have no trouble fitting it into any of your pockets. It feels durable enough to withstand occasional drops.

Its 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm S4 processor (which the Samsung Galaxy S III also uses) ensures that the M can handle most apps or tasks you throw its way. Menus flew beneath my fingers, games ran smoothly, and the phone multitasked like a champ.

Call quality on Verizon’s voice network in New York was surprisingly good. Crosscontinent calls came through with no hint of static or hiss, though I did notice a slight echo on some of my calls. The FCC-approved Ookla Speed Test app reported download speeds of around 12 megabits per second and upload speeds of around 2.13 mbps over Verizon’s LTE network.

After 4 hours of downloading apps, displaying HD videos, and handling long-distance phone calls, the M’s 2000mAh battery dropped by about 60 percent, which should work out to about 6 or 7 hours of normal use on a charge.

The M's qHD display handled HD videos and graphicsintensive games well. The phone offers 8GB of internal storage, plus a MicroSD card slot (but no card).

The M's 8-megapixel camera is serviceable, but nothing more. In addition, the M can shoot rather lackluster 1080p video: $100with two-year contract; Motorola: go. pcworld.com/droidrazrm

EDITOR’S CHOICE: All-Purpose Laptops

MODEL	Rating	Performance	Features and specifications
ES5 Dell XPS 14z $1199	Very Good	WorldBench 6 score: 136 WorldBench 6 rating: Superior Overall design: Very Good Tested battery life: 5:29	2.8GHz Intel Core i7-2640M 14.0-inch widescreen 4.4 pounds 750GB hard drive
Asus U46SV $899	Very good	WorldBench 6 score: 123 WorldBench 6 rating: Very Good Overall design: Very Good Tested battery life: 6:41	2.4GHz Intel Core Ì5-2430M 14.0-inch widescreen 4.9 pounds 750GB hard drive
Lenovo ThinkPad T420 $1249	Very good	WorldBench 6 score: 124 WorldBench 6 rating: Very Good Overall design: Very Good Tested battery life: 8:37	2.5GHz Intel Core ¡5-2520M 14.0-inch widescreen 5.2 pounds 500GB hard drive
MSIX460DX $849	Very good	WorldBench 6 score: 120 WorldBench 6 rating: Very Good Overall design: Very Good Tested battery life: 6:04	2.3GHz Intel Core Ì5-2410M 14.0-inch widescreen 4.5 pounds 500GB hard drive
Acer Aspire Timeline Ultra M5-581T-6666 $829	Very good	WorldBench 7 score: 104 WorldBench 7 rating: Good Overall design: Very Good Tested battery life: 7:24	1.7GHz Intel Core ¡5-3317M 15.6-inch widescreen 4.5 pounds 500GB HDD plus 20GB
HP Pavilion dm4 Beats Edition $1149	Very good	WorldBench 6 score: 120 WorldBench 6 rating: Very Good Overall design: Very Good Tested battery life: 5:23	2.5GHz Intel Core ¡5-2450M 14.0-inch widescreen 4.5 pounds 500GB hard drive
Dell Inspiron 15R 7520 $1149	Very good	WorldBench 7 score: 137 WorldBench 7 rating: Very Good Overall design: Very Good Tested battery life: 3:43	2.5GHz Intel Core Ì7-3612QM 15.6-inch widescreen 6.4 pounds 1TB hard drive
Lenovo IdeaPad Y580 $1099	Very good	WorldBench 7 score: 111 WorldBench 7 rating: Very Good Overall design: Very Good Tested battery life: 4:30	2.3GHz Intel Core Ì7-3610QM 15.6-inch widescreen 6.2 pounds 1TB HDD plus 64GB SSD that
Samsung Series 7 Chronos $1099	Very good	WorldBench 6 score: 118 WorldBench 6 rating: Good Overall design: Very Good Tested battery life: 5:54	2.4GHz Intel Core ¡5-243M 14.0-inch widescreen 4.6 pounds 750GB hybrid hard drive
Lenovo IdeaPad U400 $840	Very good	WorldBench 6 score: 112 WorldBench 6 rating: Very Good Overall design: Very Good Tested battery life: 4:45	2.4GHz Intel Core Ì5-2430M 14.0-inch widescreen 4.3 pounds 750GB hard drive

Reclmg Manager Simplifies Win 8 Disk Imaging

Recimg manager helps you manage tjie new windows 8 recimg.exe command-line utility—and the recovery images that it creates—in a slick interface that matches the Windows 8 aesthetic.

This free utility enables you to avoid using the command prompt window to run the new OS’s recimg.exe file, so you can more comfortably enter the details, such as the name and the storage location, for recovery images. It also offers the handy options of scheduling their creation and managing the number of images that are retained.

Reclmg Manager’s interface blends smoothly with Windows 8.

One small issue: After I cancelled a backup, I was unable to quit the program; instead, I received warnings that a backup was still in progress. After ending the recimg.exe process in Task Manager, however, I was able to quit Reclmg Manager.

Reclmg Manager is undeniably useful and puts a much-needed friendly face on this Windows 8 command line backup and recovery feature. Indeed, I wish that Slimware Utilities would perform the same service for Windows' xcopy.exe so that we could all more easily perform file and folder backups; free; Slimware Utilities; go.pcworld.com/ reclmqmanager