Tag Archives: samsung

It’s not about the specs – dumping my fancy pants camera

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relectFor the past year or so, I’ve been taking pictures with one of the most well-reviewed and highly spec-ed out digital cameras on the market, the Sony NEX-7. It didn’t come cheap and a couple of additional lens added to the bill but this was supposedly one of the great cameras out there. Considerably smaller and lighter than a D-SLR, the mirrorless NEX-7 had a largest-in-class sensor to pick up tons of detail, a real view finder, extensive video capabilities, a built-in flash and a highly customizable array of dials, buttons and other controls.

There was only one problem: I couldn’t seem to get it to take the pictures I wanted. Despite the accolades and endless list of killer specifications, the Sony was a beast to actually use — more like a complicated, poorly thought out computing device than a camera. Too many of the dials and buttons were poorly placed leading to frequent accidental changes in settings. Otherwise, the whole process slowed down as you hit a button to lock our changes, then unlocked the lock out to make changes, then locked out again. The video button was a particular villain in this regard. There were other significant issues too, especially the lack of great, affordable lens. That amazingly detailed sensor cries out for great glass, but Sony was deaf to the need.

So the other day, I put the NEX-7 up for sale on eBay. And, after a ton of research, I bought a much simpler camera that hardly compares on paper with the Sony, a Fujifilm X-E1. The Sony has a bigger sensor with way more pixels, higher ISO range, more autofocus points, more video settings, a larger and higher resolution LED screen on the back, weighs less and on and on. But the Fujifilm is one well-designed mother fucker, no two ways around it.

Instead of covering the camera body with a bevy of blank-faced, multi-function, programmable doo-dads like Sony, Fuji chose to have just a few dedicated controls on the X-E1. On top, set the shutter speed and exposure compensation. On the lens, set the F stop. Done. Both dials also have an automatic setting, which means no more messing around with “aperture priority mode” and “exposure priority mode.” And because the dials are labeled, you can see with your own eyes instantaneously how the camera is set for the next picture. I feel like I am taking pictures again, not trying to remember how to work some crazy-complex gizmo. It doesn’t hurt that the camera came with a great prime lens and a fast zoom lens, neither of which were available for the NEX-7 (at least in my price range).

And, as you can see above, now I can take the cool pictures I always wanted to get with no muss and no fuss — and I’m having fun doing it.

A Mac user’s travels in Ultrabook land

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I spent the long weekend with my family tooling around Cape Cod, which ended up offering two unexpected opportunities to sample the latest and greatest light weight laptops, or ultrabooks as they’re known, in Windows land. My 13″ MacBook Pro is getting near replacement age and I’m keeping an open mind so far about which way to go with my next machine.

Saving the best for first, the most impressive potential piece of kit was a pre-release Lenovo X1 Carbon Thinkpad running Windows 8. This was a fascinating and attractive piece of gear, extremely light in the hand yet with a solid feel from the carbon fiber shell. Lenovo specs say it weighs 3 pounds, just a hair over the weight of a 13″ MacBook Air. But it felt a lot lighter than the Mac perhaps because the weight was spread out over a larger area. The 14″ screen was gorgeous and bright at 1600 by 900 pixels.

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I am bored and out of love with Apple’s aluminum unibody styling, an unergonomic and occasionally knife-like pain in the wrists. It’s a turn-off from the legions of Windows laptop makers who have aped it, too. So I also especially liked the Lenovo’s more grippable and stylish black outer jacket. The keyboard was as good as any laptop I’ve tried lately, too. The trackpad was very nice although a bit smaller than I’d like. I’m not a big fan of the Lenovo stick mouse, or whatever that little red nib is officially called, but if you are, this is the laptop for you.

Windows 8 is a strange creature on a laptop. You must start in what used to be called the “Metro” view, where icons to activate programs are mixed on a grid of widgets and other kinds of active panels, showing you the weather, incoming emails, and so on. I love that kind of mixed display on my phone but at least at first blush it wasn’t doing much for me on a laptop. One click takes you to a traditional Windows style desktop, just as good as the one you see in Windows 7. I felt like I’d need a few weeks of use, really trying to get the most out of the Metro interface, to render a proper verdict. To be clear, the X1 does not have a touch sensitive screen so you have to operate Metro, which seems more apt for tablets, with the mouse pointer, track pad etc.

A day later, due to a cousin’s need to return an ill fitting pair of shorts at Macy’s, my son and I had an hour to wander the aisles of a local Best Buy. While he shopped for new Xbox games to put on his wish list, I perused the laptop offerings. At one end of a row, getting prominent play, were three recent Ultrabooks, all running the current issue Windows 7 operating system. If memory serves, they were the Samsung Series 9 15″ model, Toshiba’s Satellite U845W with a very wide 14″ screen and a 13″ MacBook Air clone from Acer, I think the Aspire S3.

These were all slightly to much less appealing than the X1 in my brief examination. The Samsung was just too darn big and heavy. Close to 4 pounds in weight and just massive when folded shut and held in one arm, it’s not what I need for my next flagship, I don’t think. And the screen’s resolution is the same as the X1 just spread over slightly more screen space so the actual gain in productivity from the larger screen would be small.

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The Toshiba had some very appealing features. I really liked the grippy, rubberized outer skin that covered a portion of the outside and the bits where you rest your hands inside. One of my biggest gripes about the MacBook Airs is their hard metal and sharp edges. But I couldn’t quite get my head around the screen dimensions. Already many laptops and monitors have gone from the traditional 4 by 3 scale to a more HD-movie friendly 16 by 9. The Toshiba takes the screen another step into Hollywood dream land with a scaling of 21 by 9. The actual pixel count is 1792 by 768, so you are only getting the height of an 11″ MacBook Air screen, for example, with the width more commonly seen on a 17″ notebook. Playing around with a few programs, I could probably get used to using two short, wide windows next to each other instead of the narrower, taller dimensions I typically use now.

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Unfortunately, other aspects of the Toshiba seemed less than cutting edge. It had an old-fashioned, spinning disk drive instead of a solid state drive. And battery life of four hours is among the weakest for this niche. The giant screen also left you with an awkward and heavy bundle of tech to tote around when you closed the screen and picked it up.

The Acer was seemingly a 13″ MacBook Air for people who really don’t like Apple. You can run Windows on any current Apple laptop these days thus reducing the decision-making dilemma to one of hardware. Price wise, the Acer running a prior generation of Intel CPU and graphics chips was about $900 versus $1,200 for the entry-level Air.

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And that gets to one of the big changes in purchasing decisions from years gone by, the cheapie Acer not withstanding. It used be that Apple offered premium products at a premium price. Today, thanks in part to the company’s amazing efficiencies and massive buying power, Apple offers premium products at the best price. Comparably equipped competing laptops cost more, especially when you start to add to base configurations. A 13″ MacBook Air with a 256 GB SSD and 8 GB of RAM is $1,600 versus $1,960 for the Thinkpad X1 Carbon, similarly specced. Apple also lets you go up to 512 GB on the SSD, not even an option on the X1.

The were some key questions for my needs which I could not answer in these brief peeks, such as how well the laptops worked in “clamshell” mode, sitting closed on a desk hooked up to a full size monitor and keyboard. That’s a real strength of my current MacBook Pro. Some of the tech web sites that get advance releases of these laptops have already posted their reviews, so for a more detailed and less impressionistic run down, check them out:

Wired: Paint it, Black: Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon

Engadget: Samsung Series 9 review (15-inch, mid-2012)

Theverge: Toshiba Satellite U845W and U845 review

Pocket-lint: Acer Aspire S3 Ultrabook review - External elegance, functional design averageness

Note: I usually like to post pictures I’ve taken myself on the blog but stores frown on photogs and the pre-release X1 seemed a little out of bounds to be snapped.

Phone to Desktop Computing, Nexus style

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I got a little excited by some recent experiments of folks hooking their Galaxy Nexus phones to desktop computer set-ups: big monitor, speakers, full keyboard and track pad. Pretty sure that within a few years, we’ll have just one computing device in a phone form factor that can hook up to different size screens and is powerful enough to do all we need. So has the future arrived, Nexus style?

Well, it’s pretty cool at a rudimentary level. Using a Samsung-made HDMI adapter cable, I hooked my Galaxy Nexus up to a 23″ HP monitor. The screen is bigger than needed since the phone can only output video at a 1280 by 720 pixel resolution. But the HP was the smallest inexpensive monitor I could find with an HDMI port. I also wirelessly linked via Bluetooth an Apple portable keyboard and magic trackpad to the phone. As soon as you connect the HDMI cable to the monitor, the phone shifts to a horizontal orientation.

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The trackpad lets you use the computing set up without touching the phone. When you put a finger on the trackpad, a small white dot appears on the monitor signifying where your virtual finger would be on the screen. Taps, double taps and drags all work as expected. It’s easy to watch videos, read via a browser or other app or do pretty much anything you would do on the phone — even make calls using the speakerphone.

The bigger screen and full size keyboard also make it a breeze to get serious writing done — something that’s challenging to say the least using any smart phone keyboard.

Caveats and issues? As mentioned, the resolution is not that great for a desktop computer. I think some of Motorola’s Android phones have a separate operating system or shell called Webtop that can use more screen real estate. Also, the set up at least with the cables and adapter I have was incredibly sensitive to being jostled. In fact, I had to try three different HDMI cables before I got a solid connection. And you’re limited to Android apps. That’s less of a limitation than I thought initially. But with things like Linux for Android on the horizon, that won’t be a barrier for much longer, it seems.

And, by the way, I wrote this post using the set up as described with the WordPress for Android app and it was pretty easy. Adding photos might be even easier than using the full blown WordPress editor.

What it’s really like to switch to the Nexus S Android phone from an iPhone

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My just-out-of-warranty iPhone 3GS has been acting a little wonky for a couple of months now but last week it started randomly turning itself off and then it wasn’t charging anymore. Given that I’ve been trying to wait out my AT&T contract and switch to a Verizon iPhone sometime next year, the choice of Apple/AT&T sanctioned replacement or repair options were unappealing. So I decided to buy an unlocked Samsung Nexus S, aka the Google phone. Though it’s made to work on T-Mobile’s network, it also works with AT&T, albeit without access to the faster 3G broadband speed. Popped my SIM card out of the iPhone and into the Nexus, hit the “on” switch, logged in with my Google account and there I was — one of the few, the proud, the iPhone/Android switchers.

There have been plenty of reviews of the hardware and software (the Nexus S is the first phone with the “Gingerbread” 2.3 upgrade of Android), so I’m going to concentrate on the switching experience for any slightly dissatisfied iPhone users out there. I’ll start by describing a few of the cooler features on the main home screen that appears every time you turn on the phone. The home screen is far more customizable than the iPhone’s opening screen. Here’s what mine looks like after about 48 hours of tweaking:

The first big difference I noticed was the notification system in Android 2.3 which is light years better than what’s available on the iPhone. All notices appear as tiny icons across the top, left side of the screen (#1 above). But simply drag your finger down and a page of all the notices unscrolls before your eyes. The notices are only moderately detailed but tap on one and you’re taken straight to the related app — read an email, check a Facebook comment, an SMS text message or whatever. Or just ignore the icons and let them pile up. Contrast this with the iPhone’s in-your-face pop-up boxes that have to be dealt with immediately and one at a time.

The second major difference is the broader range of items than can live on the home screen (or any of the side screens). Instead of just holding apps, in Android the home screen can contain widgets, shortcuts, contacts and even mini-macros. Above, the #2 is pointing to the contact for my lovely wife. If you tap the icon, a little menu pops up offering to start a call, text message or email to her. Very handy! The #3 is pointing to a widget for Google Voice showing messages and texts in my in box. I can scroll through and read the first few words of each message (Google Voice transcribes all my voicemails) without leaving the home screen. Click on a message to jump to the full app. At #4, I’ve inserted a shortcut to a music playlist. On an iPhone, I’d have to tap the iPod icon, tap playlists, scroll to my fave and select it. Here, I just hit the shortcut and it starts playing.

The big Google search box at #5 is more than just a typical web search field. Besides earching for things on the web or on the phone, you can start typing something you want to do (“Send email to Oren”). And you don’t even have to type. Hit the microphone icon and Google’s amazing voice recognition software kicks in. You can ask for directions home, dictate an email or call up some music to start playing. Truly amazing.

What’s not to like? I have certainly come to appreciate the iPhone’s simplicity of buttons, or should I say button. The Nexus S has no physical, permanent buttons on its face. But it has four unchangeable virtual buttons at the bottom of the screen as soon as you turn it on, seen in #6 above, which are back, menu, search and home. The problem is that the availability of four buttons has quickly become a crutch for app writers, even Google’s own. Instead of thinking of the most elegant, obvious and simple on-screen controls for an app, too often developers stuff a bunch of options onto the buttons. Further, because every app writer can interpret the uses of the buttons as they see fit, there’s an annoying lack of consistency from app to app.The same problem seems to have proliferated into the Nexus S’s settings app which has way, way too many settings buried in a multitude of categories and sub-categories. Luckily, there are some great control widgets you can place on the home screen or a side screen to get easy and fast access to key settings like turning wifi on and off.

I’ll do a separate post on Android apps I’ve discovered so far versus the iOS apps I was using on my iPhone, but one key discovery recommended by Oren, my brother-in-law and Android pioneer, was the doubleTwist program, which acts as a command center and syncing platform on your computer much like iTunes. I am bummed that some absolute basics like LinkedIn and Instapaper don’t have native Android apps yet. Angry Birds and Paper Toss are there, though — go time wasters!

There’s a robust debate going about the breadth and quality of Android apps versus iOS apps (for example, John Gruber’s pro-iPhone and Fred Wilson’s pro-Android) and I’ll need a lot more time to develop my views. I’m also discovering that getting legal commercial video content on Android is a huge pain and millions of eons behind what you can buy or rent on iTunes.

Overall, though, I’m quite happy with the switch so far. But I’ve barely begun to scratch the surface of the Nexus S and I’m sure there are some great and not-so-great experiences ahead. Stay tuned.

Caught up with too many remote controls for the home theater

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One of the biggest problems so far with our home theater set-up is juggling the three remote controls plus keyboard/track pad needed to operate all the various devices.

The Samsung TV has a control as does the Samsung Blu-Ray player. Each of those two controls can sort of control some of the functions of the other’s but there are maddening gaps in functionality. The Tivo also has a remote that partially control the TV set, but not the disc player (oh how I miss my first generation Tivo Toshiba box with built in DVD player).

Seems maddening that even the two remotes from Samsung aren’t interchangeable. For example, either the TV or the disc controller can switch input sources. But one particularly annoying problem is when you change the input, a hideous semi-transparent pop-out menu continues to block more than half of the screen for 5 minutes after you’ve made your selection unless you hit the “exit” key on the TV remote. There’s an exit key on the disc player remote, too, but it doesn’t make the menu go away. The TV remote has no “menu” button for skipping annoying previews on DVDs. And the Tivo remote can change inputs but can’t make the ugly menu disappear. All three can change the TV volume. Hooray!

Using the attached Mac mini requires changing the input source via one of the three remote controls, hitting the “exit” button on the TV remote and then picking up our Logitech Novo keyboard. That was to be expected, but seeing as it’s the fourth input tool, it’s not helping our perception problem here.

Possible solutions? One would be to shell out for yet another remote, a universal remote. Logitech’s Harmony remotes seem to have a lot of functions but the versions that are simplest to operate cost a lot of money. For even more money, Phillips has its line of Pronto universal remotes that look really cool (pictured below) and can even control your lights, your thermostat and so on. May be hard to program, however, according to some reviewers. Samsung makes a universal remote but it’s not Tivo compatible. I wonder if it has an “exit” button.

Phillips Pronto universal remote

Another angle of attack is the doo-hicky you can attach to an iPhone or iPod touch that will allow it to send out signals just like the TV remotes. One called the L5 Remote includes a cool red plastic doo-hickey. Thinkflood’s RedEye seems to translate controls commands sent over wifi from your iPhone into IR codes that your TV can understand. The problem here is keeping your iWhatever in the vicinity of the TV or some kid detaching the doo-hickey and losing it.

So any suggestions out there in the peanut gallery? Anybody have experience with any of these alternatives?

This post is part of a continuing series about using a brand new Mac Mini with an HDMI port (purchased in June 2010) connected to a high-definition television. To read all of our adventures jumping through hoops, losing remotes and forgetting the password to bypass parental controls, see this page with all my DIY home theater posts.

Find the best Blu-Ray movies ’cause some don’t look so good

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As the super-duper-hyper-amazing home theater plan moves into high-gear, I’m discovering an unfortunate side-effect from high-definition television. Lots and lots of shows and movies don’t look any better in high-def and, in fact, many look worse. We have a couple of sources of HD programming including HD shows on our Verizon Fios cable, HD downloads from the iTunes store and Blu-Ray disks via a Samsung BD-C6500 player.

The other night we were flipping through HD movie channels and hit on a movie we really like, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. But in high-def, there was too much snap to some of the colors and the actors faces frankly looked a little too real. Then again, the Blu-Ray copy of James Cameron’s epic western in space, Avatar, looked stunning and fantastic in HD while the also-included DVD paled in comparison.

This all ties in to a great post Jason Kottke wrote after some people started giving one-star reviews to the Blu-Ray version of the Lord of the Rings trilogy because the included movies were the theater cuts and not the director’s cuts. Some people, particularly people in the content producing business, whined that it wasn’t fair to trash a disk just because a desired version wasn’t yet available. But Jason made the absolutely brilliant point that in this day and age, formats and versions matter, especially when big book publishers and Hollywood studios want you to pay two, three or four times for the same basic content. He concludes:

Newspaper and magazine reviewers pretty much ignore this stuff. There’s little mention of whether a book would be good to read on a Kindle, if you should buy the audiobook version instead of the hardcover because John Hodgman has a delightful voice, if a magazine is good for reading on the toilet, if a movie is watchable on an iPhone or if you need to see it in 1080p on a big TV, if a hardcover is too heavy to read in the bath, whether the trailer is an accurate depiction of what the movie is about, or if the hardcover price is too expensive and you should get the Kindle version or wait for the paperback. Or, as the above reviewers hammer home, if the book is available to read on the Kindle/iPad/Nook or if it’s better to wait until the director’s cut comes out. In the end, people don’t buy content or plots, they buy physical or digital pieces of media for use on specific devices and within certain contexts. That citizen reviewers have keyed into this more quickly than traditional media reviewers is not a surprise.

So at least as far as collecting HD content to own, where is a poor Blu-Ray buyer to turn? Here are a couple of ideas and please — please — add more of your suggestions in the comments.

1. Amazon.com customers have posted zillions of different kinds of lists and in the Blu-Ray area everyone is focused on Kottke’s exact point: which movies are worthy of Blu-ray treatment. To find some of these lists, go to pretty much any product page and scroll down until on the extreme left side of the page you see the box called “listmania” which includes two relevant lists and a search box. Type “blu-ray” into the search box. Some great lists come up including ones I’ve perused by Elizabeth Hinton (“This is a list of Blu Ray films that I have found to be worth spending the extra money for– Even if you already own it on DVD”), Porfie Medina (“Blu-ray Disc movies you can show off on your 1080p HD TV”) and Thivanka Rukshan Perera (“The myth: old movies won’t look good in high-def”).

2. Obviously, movies that have won — or even been nominated for — the Oscar award for best cinematography are likely to be great choices for HD viewing. Sure, you can go to the official Oscars site but that’s not nearly as user friendly as the CinemaSquid site’s search engine. Here, you can find all the winners and nominees for any award that are already out on Blu-Ray in a sortable list with viewer ratings specific to HD features, links to buy in different countries and so on. Check out their best cinematography listings to see what I mean.

3. Ask around. Early adopters have been watching Blu-ray movies for a couple of years now so before you buy a disk, ask a friend. I can tell you that so far, I am 3 for 3. I bought Blu-Ray versions of Avatar, Star Trek (the recent rebooted version with Chris Pine) and Pride and Prejudice (the recent one starring Keira Knightley) and all three look magnificent in high-definition.

Other suggestions for sources of Blu-Ray advice are, as I said, extremely welcome in the comments.

Using a new HDMI Mac Mini with my TV: Early days

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This will be the first in a continuing series of posts about using a brand new Mac Mini with an HDMI port (purchased in June 2010) connected to a high-definition television. To read all of our adventures jumping through hoops, losing remotes and forgetting the password to bypass parental controls, see this page with all my DIY home theater posts.

Searching along with my fellow TV and movie junkies for the home theater holy grail, I’ve wandered in the wilderness for many years. We have a pretty typical 21st century entertainment consuming household with adults and kids watching cable TV, DVD movies and stuff from the Internets including Youtube videos, purchased movies, shows and music videos and, increasingly, rented movies. Hardware-wise, we’ve been hooked on Tivo for a few years now, we obviously have many iPods, the occasional iPad and, though our music collection is entirely digital at this point, a gazillion DVDs. For purchased downloadable content, iTunes is our go-to choice though increasingly we rent from Amazon Unbox which can send flicks straight to our Tivo.

When Apple TV hit the scene in 2007, I took a long, hard look. In many ways, it seemed like just what I wanted: an easy to set-up, easy-to-use digital storage box for all our digital photos, videos and music that could be played back via HDTV or stereo. But the limitations were much too limiting — only compatible with a few video formats, — and the tiny storage capacity was even more ridiculous. So I passed.

I also began avidly followed the niche crowd that was trying to use Mac Minis as souped up Apple TVs. The challenges involved get clean digital signals with sound to the TV screen as well as finding a good software interface to manage a multimedia library. It never quite seemed simple enough to be worth all the trouble.

Until now…

When Apple recently unveiled a new, souped-up Mac Mini with an HDMI connection — the exact port needed to send both sound and video to an HDTV set — I jumped. It was time to get off the sidelines and join the experimenters.

The first choice was which Mac Mini to buy. I opted for the server version which has two speedy 500 GB 7200 RPM hard drives (totaling 1 TB) and no DVD drive. Since the plan was to rip all our DVDs to the hard drive, the only physical disks I’d be wanting to play would be Blu-Ray and Apple’s drives aren’t compatible with that higher definition format. The server Mac Mini’s double the storage and faster drives made it the more logical choice.

Once the little guy — and I do mean little — arrived, I hit the next challenge. The server operating system had no iLife programs — no iTunes or iPhoto. Luckily, iTunes is a free download and I own a “family pack” of iLife 2009, so it was easy to load up the new server with those two critical programs. The server mini did come with Apple’s limited if serviceable front-end for playing media on big television sets known as Front Row.

After installing the software, I copied all the media files from my laptop where they currently live to one of the server’s drives and imported them into a brand new iTunes library. That went pretty smoothly, though some audiobooks purchased long ago wanted to be authorized by Audible.com and my account had apparently used up its allotment of authorized computers. A quick email customer service sorted that out.

Then I brought the mini into the family room and connected via an HDMI cable to our Samsung HDTV. The display automatically configured itself to the proper 1080P output although the edges of the screen, including the critical top menu bar, were out of view. But there’s now a simple setting to fix that problem in System Preferences > Displays called Overscan. There’s a slider control you adjust until the invisible outside edges become visible. I believe that was one of the issues that drove folks crazy a few years ago trying to get minis and HDTVs connected. I also had at the ready a Logitech diNovo Edge bluetooth keyboard (Mac edition). This guy has a touchpad built-in so you can sit on the couch and wirelessly operate your TV-connected Mac without a mouse. Very handy. It also has dedicated buttons to bring up Front Row, control the iTunes player etc. (You have to install Logitech’s control center program to get the special buttons working properly).

I called up Front Row and it played everything just fine. Sound initially emanated from the mini’s own tiny speaker until I went to System Preferences > Sound > Output and selected the TV.

I had an old Apple infrared remote, the one that looks like a pack of gum, lying around but it seems unable to make a connection to the 2010 Mac Mini. I verified that the Mini does indeed have an infrared receiver, so that’s just a matter of grabbing the newer Apple remote that’s more tubular in shape at some point. UPDATE: No — as commenter Mikeo below points out, the server mini just has communication with the remote turned off by default. To turn it back on, head to System Preferences > Security and unclick the check next to “Disable remote control infrared receiver.”

Alright — well, that’s as far as I’ve gotten in the first couple of days. Future plans include ripping a whole bunch of DVDs, experimenting with other user interfaces like Plex, seeking out some streaming web video and using an iPhone or ipad as a remote control. Check back later…

Better to choose form or function for new printer

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Where is fantasy bred, in the heart or in the head?

-Willie Wonka (channeling The Merchant of Venice)

My basic office printer, an HP Deskjet 6980, is having major problems seeing its ink cartridges and out-of-warranty repairs cost more than a new printer so…time for something new. As HP values ink more highly than gold, it would be logical to switch to a laser printer since I mainly print long documents and web articles and the total per-page cost would be much lower. The deskjet has both wifi and ethernet networking capability but that’s not essential for its replacement.

The $100 to $150 laser printer category has been growing in leaps and bounds and it’s amazing what you can procure for a relatively minimal sum. Old fogey that I am, I remember driving to New Hampshire to avoid paying sales tax on my $750 original issue HP Deskjet back around 1990 or so. These days, HP is hardly at the top of the printer innovation game. So I started looking around Amazon and found  two interesting possibilities. One is your basic, inexpensive workhorse, the Brother HL-2170w. The other is a gorgeous, super-quiet model, the Samsung ML-1630.

Check out the photos below. The Samsung is even placed in a mod living room setting to demonstrate just how groovy it looks.

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Both have very good ratings from Amazon buyers and both would meet my needs. The main difference is largely one of form over function. The Samsung is easy on the eyes while the Brother is hideously ugly. On the other hand, the Brother has wifi and ethernet connections, holds more than twice as much paper, prints faster and costs less. It’s also considerably larger.

So which way to go? Any suggestions from the peanut gallery?

UPDATE: I went with form over function and got the Brother!