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Nokia E71 3G smartphone
Oct. 10, 2008
As Nokia's very first 3G phone with a full QWERTY keyboard, the US$500 E71 is an all-around improvement on its predecessor, the E61. It not only has a sleeker and more sophisticated curved design, but it packs a ...
Lenovo IdeaPad S10 netbook
Oct. 10, 2008
Lenovo, one of the top notebook PC manufacturers, has hit a home-run with the IdeaPad S10, as it enters the fast exploding segment of mini-laptops. At first glance, it looks like a cross between the compact Acer Aspire ...
Nero 9 disc-burning suite
Oct. 09, 2008
Nero 9 is an extremely competent suite for burning CDs and DVDs of all types, as well as for playing, importing, and manipulating video and audio, including HD. But Nero 8 was competent, too, and while the improvements ...
Corel VideoStudio Pro X2
Oct. 09, 2008
Video is moving to high definition faster than a dog to a doughnut. So which do you buy first: a new HD camcorder, or a powerful new computer on which to edit its footage? If you choose the camcorder, Corel's US$100 ...
Pentax Optio S12 digital camera
Oct. 09, 2008
What do you get when you cram 12 megapixels and great battery life into a very tiny, very durable, and sublimely easy-to-use camera? You get the Pentax Optio S12, a solid competitor for the upper echelons of our Top 10 ...
Slacker G2 portable radio
Oct. 09, 2008
With the Slacker G2, Slacker introduces some key navigational, design, and usability improvements to its second-generation portable radio player. That said, it's still a flawed device--though far less flawed than its ...
Sonos Zone Player 120
Oct. 08, 2008
In early 2005 Sonos introduced the basic building block of its multiroom digital music system: the ZonePlayer 100, a combination digital music streamer and amplifier. Since that time, the ZP100 has gained lots of new ...
Adobe Premiere Elements 7
Oct. 07, 2008
Who needs a big hard drive when everyone's videos will eventually live online? Neat new Web services, such as the ones offered by Adobe and linked to from its new Premiere Elements 7 video editor, may incline folks to ...
The 17-inch-monitor showdown
Oct. 07, 2008
LCD monitors have become the de-facto standard for home users, but most businesses still choose to run on CRT monitors. This is mostly down to CRTs being cheaper than LCDs. However, LCDs have quite a few advantages over ...
Palo Alto's performance holds steady as security measures increase
Oct. 06, 2008
In August, we tested Palo Alto Networks' PA-4020, the first fully application-aware firewall to be commercially marketed. When we attempted to test performance on the PA-4020 we ran into a hitch: Palo Alto's application ...
Browser surf wars
Oct. 06, 2008
Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Internet Explorer, Safari... We rate the Big 5 of the browser brigade to help you decide which should be your window to the cyber-world.
HP Photosmart D5460 inkjet printer
Oct. 06, 2008
HP's Photosmart D5460 inkjet printer is a bargain that you can brag about. Though it's a bare-bones printer in most respects, it has a few standout features that any photo enthusiast would love to have.
iHome Audio iH70SRC iPod/PC speaker set
Oct. 02, 2008
There's no need to purchase one set of speakers for your PC and another set to play back audio from your iPod. iHome Audio's iH70SRC speakers do both--with good sound quality and an attractive design to boot.
Everyday shooting gets cheaper and better
Oct. 01, 2008
Far from burning a hole in your pocket, these cameras fit in rather easily, have nifty features and deliver good performance.
Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 Professional
Sep. 30, 2008
Never mind fussing with a mouse: Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 Professional lets you talk to your PC to take care of all kinds of business. Dictate directly into Word and Excel; whisk off e-mail messages; create calendar ...
How we tested the virtualization products
Sep. 29, 2008
We used the same host platform, an HP DL580 G5 (4-socket, 16-core Intel Xeon CPUs) server – for the qualitative portion of this test as we did in the quantitative portion of our test published earlier this month.
The virtual winner: VMware's ESX KOs a roughly built Hyper-V package
Sep. 29, 2008
When the dust settled in the lab after two long months of testing Microsoft's Hyper-V and VMware's ESX in the areas of performance, compatibility, management, and security, it all boiled down to two issues: experience ...
The issue of virtual compatibility
Sep. 29, 2008
Both hypervisors have requirements for the hardware they can run on and the VMs they can support.
User lauds AirWave multivendor WLAN management wares
Sep. 22, 2008
Neal Shelton, Network Engineering Supervisor for the Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) in Virginia, looks to the Airwave Management Platform to help him deal with the daily ups and downs of managing the district's ...
Navigating the WLAN management maze
Sep. 22, 2008
With enterprise-class wireless LANs well on the way to becoming the preferred -- if not default -- access for organizations across all industries, it's imperative that the software available to manage WLAN gear is up to ...
AirWave provides multi-vendor WLAN monitoring
Sep. 22, 2008
While it's usually desirable to have a completely homogeneous WLAN deployment, it is also perhaps unrealistic to assume this state of affairs can be maintained for an extended period of time.
Browser battle: Firefox 3.1 vs. Chrome vs. IE 8
Sep. 18, 2008
Mozilla's second alpha of Firefox 3.1 is upping the ante in the next-generation browser battle. So how do the main contenders stack up so far now? One thing's for sure, the Firefox team has taken note of Google's recent ...
How we tested Avaya's unifed communications gear
Sep. 08, 2008
Testing was conducted on the above listed Unified Communications components configured to provide UC for a network topology consisting of a main office and three branch office locations. The four-site deployment was ...
Avaya offers wide array of unified communications wares
Sep. 08, 2008
There is a lot to like about Avaya's one-X Unified Communications platform.
Cisco Nexus 7000 aims for data center dominance
Sep. 01, 2008
Building a big data center and looking for a switch to match? How do 256 10G Ethernet ports and nearly 1.7 terabits of capacity sound?
Applications
Collaboration, E-mail, Instant messaging, Multimedia.
Operating Systems
Linux, NetWare, Windows
Security
Firewalls, Intrusion prevention/detection, Patch mgmt., VoIP, VPNs
Network World Lab Alliance members have years of experience reviewing networking products and work to construct real-world test beds for the products they test. Look for the Lab Alliance logo on reviews, or get more information on our Lab Alliance reviewers.
All Network World reviews are based on hands-on testing conducted by independent testers who belong to the Network World Lab Alliance. All tests are commissioned and paid for solely by Network World. No reviewer may accept any form of compensation from a vendor in the course of reviewing one of the vendor's products.
As standard operating procedure, Network World issues an invitation letter to all vendors whose products we're requesting for a given review. In it, we request the materials we need them to supply, answer their questions about our policies, and inform them of our deadlines.
Typically we ask vendors for products, and they provide them for review. However, we reserve the right to review products we acquire through other channels, including purchase. If we test a product a vendor has not tendered us, we notify the vendor of that fact. Once a vendor has sent a product we will review it and publish an article on that testing, unless we find technical problems that make it impossible for us to complete the process.
We try to review currently available production code for all products, because it represents what's available to our readers. However, we will look at beta code in the early stages of the review process in order to speed our final evaluation of the gold or released code.
For high-end hardware and software, we offer vendors the opportunity to visit the testing site to help us configure their products. If we invite one vendor, we issue the invitation to all vendors participating, though not all will choose to avail themselves of the opportunity.
If a reviewer uncovers performance results that deviate from our expectations, we advise that tester to contact the vendor and share his or her findings with the vendor in question. This gives the vendor the opportunity to verify our findings independently. We want to make sure that any unusual results we uncover can be attributed to the product and not to errors in our testing procedures. Where appropriate, we can include the vendor's feedback in a review to explain unexpected results. However, vendors' requests to read the text of a review article before it appears in print are not granted, and no vendor may influence the test results.
We respond immediately to vendors or readers who question our results or methodology. Accuracy is the primary criterion for every review, and any time we fail to meet that criterion, we make the appropriate corrections on our Web site and in print.
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