Category: Tech news

Purists will tell you the Porsche Cayenne S Hybrid is not a true Porsche. It is an affront to all that is sacred, the continued desecration of an icon by heathens. They will barely contain their piety as they catalog the heretic’s sins: It is big. It is heavy. And not only is it an SUV, it’s a freakin’ hybrid.

But the most un-Porsche of Porsches is very much a Porsche. Which is to say, it is remarkably fast, exquisitely engineered and a joy to drive. Whatever its sins, the Cayenne S Hybrid nicely balances performance and frugality in a sporty package that’s fun to drive.

It’s a remarkable accomplishment. Just about everyone is meeting tightening fuel economy and emissions regulations by slapping an electric motor into something. But too often high-end hybrids feel like half-hearted attempts to squeeze a few more miles from a gallon of gas and a lot more money from customers.

Not so with the gas-electric version of Porsche’s best-selling model. The all-wheel-drive Cayenne hybrid performs almost as admirably as its V8 sibling while getting an EPA-certified 20 mpg city and 24 mpg highway. I averaged 21.6 during a week of Bay Area commuting, putting the Cayenne hybrid within striking distance of the four-cylinder Honda CR-V.

But the Cayenne is oh so much more fun.

The parallel hybrid features a corker of an engine. It’s the same 3.0-liter supercharged V6 you’ll find in the brilliant Audi S4, with a 34-kilowatt motor bolted to it. All that hardware is good for 380 horsepower and an impressive 428 pound-feet of torque.

Most of that grunt is yours at 1,000 RPM, providing locomotive-like pull if you so much as glare at the accelerator. Stomp on it and 60 mph arrives in 6.1 seconds. That’s half a sec behind the 400-hp V8 Cayenne S. Keep it floored and you’ll see 150 mph. Impressive numbers for a car one keg of hefeweizen short of 5,000 pounds.

The Cayenne hybrid’s frugality is equally impressive. Federal fuel economy figures aside, my personal best was 25 mpg during a day of city and highway driving. I undoubtedly would have done better had I not wantonly relished the kick in the pants all that torque provides. Greater self-restraint probably would have yielded 27 mpg — but not nearly as much fun.

The Cayenne hybrid features a slick decoupling clutch that disengages the engine from the drivetrain so the electric motor isn’t fighting the mechanical drag. Cooler still, back off the throttle while cruising at up to 97 mph and the car coasts — Porsche calls it “sailing” — vastly boosting fuel economy. Hit the gas and the engine comes to life in a heartbeat. Stop-start tech shuts off the engine when you stop moving, further saving fuel.

It’s all mind-bogglingly complex but works smoothly, seamlessly and almost silently. You’d never know what’s happening under the hood if weren’t for a dashboard display telling you when you’re using gasoline, electricity or some combination of the two.

You can tool around on electricity alone at up to 37 mph, but it requires a light touch to avoid waking the V6. If you just have to roll on electricity, pushing the “E Power” button rejiggers the throttle map to buy you more time on the juice. Still, the 1.7 kilowatt-hour nickel-metal hydride battery has a range of just 1.5 miles, so you aren’t going far. Regenerative braking and the engine keep it charged.

Drive the Cayenne like a car and the gasoline engine provides most of the propulsion. Drive it like a Porsche, though, and the engine and motor work together, providing optimal acceleration. The “Sport Mode” button — Porsche loves buttons — stacks the deck in favor of maximum performance. The result is a hybrid that is — dare I say it — fun to drive.

The Cayenne S Hybrid is faster and more nimble than anything this big should be. Hustling 2.5 tons through twisting tarmac is always a workout, especially when the steering is a bit light and the suspension a bit soft, but Porsche’s sporting heritage is evident. The brakes are excellent, if you remember that anything this big needs lots of room to slow down. The eight-speed gearbox is always in the right gear, though shifts were a bit slow using the steering-wheel-mounted buttons.

That steering wheel, like everything else about the interior, is wonderful. Whoever designed the seats deserves a raise. The gorgeous center console looks like it was pulled from a jet and has almost as many buttons, and some are wee little things. Still, even the smallest switch has heft to it, and everything feels like it was milled from blocks of aluminum. Nothing about this car feels cheap.

That’s appropriate, because the Cayenne S Hybrid starts at $68,675 and goes stratospheric when you start adding options. Ours came in at $86,110 with, among other things, leather, 19-inch wheels, 14-way adjustable seats, adjustable suspension and a trailer hitch. Yes, a trailer hitch. That was a purist you heard screaming.

Let him scream. The Cayenne S Hybrid is a hybrid worthy of the name Porsche.

WIRED It’s the Prius of Porsches — at least until the Panamera S Hybrid arrives. More comfortable than your favorite jeans. Sailing feature lets you pulse-and-glide, Porsche-style.

TIRED Anything this big should come with a backup camera. Navigating the navi/infotainment system takes patience and practice. Pricey.

Odds are you’ll never hear the phrase, “I sure wish I had my Chumby right now.”

We’ll admit the notion of a dedicated display for consuming RSS feeds was pretty nifty when it launched in 2006. By 2008, we even named Chumby one of the top 10 gadgets of the year.

And we meant it. Heck, a single-serving, Linux-based device for news can still be a useful addition to any bedroom or kitchen.

But the fact that the latest incarnation, the Chumby 8, is billed as “Only $149.95″ says a lot. For starters, the re-tooled hardware more closely resembles a digital photo frame. The original Chumby is the size of an alarm clock radio or a mini-Nerf football. Hence, it was easy to stash on a nightstand or kitchen counter. The Chumby 8 does offer a larger display, but the device’s clunky footprint is all kinds of awkward. The screen is built into a base that’s four inches deep and extends the entire width of the device. Thus, Chumby 8 takes up ample real estate, and there’s no option to mount it or position it flush against wall.

My gripes don’t end there. The eight-inch touchscreen is laggy. The LCD could be crisper. And — get this — there’s no internal battery. So, not only did this thing bogart my kitchen counter, but it required another wall-wart and sat tethered to one location. On the plus side, the Chumby is DIY-friendly, and can run more than 15,000 apps out of the box, including all the obvious ones like Facebook and Twitter.

Nevertheless, the most telling aspect of my Chumby 8 experience? A week later, I replaced it with a 16GB iPad 2 on a dock in the same location. It provides the same updates on the weather, news, social networks, and streaming photo libraries and music — but isn’t tethered or awkward. Sure I spent $500 instead of $150. But pretty much any tablet at any price point would seemingly be a better option than the Chumby 8.

WIRED Port Authority: SD and CF slots, two USBs and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Handles Flash. Doubles as a killer night-light. Hardware also available in red. 1500+ pre-stocked apps, including Facebook, Twitter, Pandora, Wired.com (huzzah!), Reddit Headlines (ditto!), David Letterman’s Top 10 and Chuck Norris Facts (thanks?).

TIRED $100 more expensive than it should be, even after its recent $50 price drop. Bulky hardware. No internal battery. Dull screen. Setup was long and laborious and required entering a 31-digit code online. Dearth of content: The only dating app is Craigslist personals? Each content “channel” contains so many different apps that navigating around can be a bit of a time-suck, which sort of defeats the purpose.

Photos courtesy Chumby

The best home theaters are the ones that make you scoff at the very notion of going to an actual theater.

The key ingredient: a pro-grade projector, something that bathes the dark end of your living room in such jaw-dropping color and clarity, you’ll routinely find neighbors at your door holding popcorn and candy.

The M-Vision Cine 230 is among the few projectors to accomplish that without the need for a second mortgage. Digital Vision’s big, homely black box relies on a single chip, so it costs significantly less than most three-chip models. But you’d never know that from the eye-drenching colors it splashes on the screen.

The big screen, that is. The Cine 230 pairs nicely with 10-footers — its bundled 1.85-2.40 lens offers plenty of zoom variety to help with placement. The company also offers substitute lenses if you need shorter or longer throws.

Your installer will especially appreciate the ample horizontal and vertical lens shift, which is adjusted manually using a special wrench. You probably won’t need to fiddle with these settings more than once, but obviously it would be easier if you could control them using a remote rather than an easily misplaced tool.

The 1080p, 1,000-lumen Cine 230 has all the connectivity basics covered, though it comes with just two HDMI ports. This is a potential problem if you plan to venture beyond, say, your TiVo and Xbox. Sure, you could always hook up an overpriced switch box, but this projector’s hulking shell could easily have accommodated two or three more ports.

Just for kicks, I paired the projector with a cheapie Insignia Blu-ray player and a not-so-cheap ZVOX Z-Base 575 for audio. Watching Toy Story 3 with this setup was enough to make me weep — and not just because Andy turned out to be such a great kid. The color saturation was spot-on enough to please a Pixar animator.

Other demo movies, including Inglourious Basterds and Star Trek, looked equally bedazzling, though the latter revealed the Cine 230’s only real shortcoming: even with a 3,000:1 contrast ratio, it can’t do really deep blacks. The void of outer space looked more like the void of outer dark-gray.

Only the most persnickety videophiles will care or even notice. For everyone else, the Cine 230 offers cinema-quality images for a matinee price.

WIRED Costs thousands less than comparable pro-grade projectors. Razor-sharp 1080p images. Near-perfect color saturation. Logical, easy-to-navigate on-screen menu system. Backlit remote glows a futuristic red.

TIRED Blacks could be blacker, an important consideration for fans of space operas. Not as bright as you’d expect, meaning you’ll need to pull the shades for optimum results. Lens-shift mechanicals require top-side access, which could be a problem depending on how the projector is mounted. Zero aesthetic value.

Photo courtesy of Digital Projection

The best home theaters are the ones that make you scoff at the very notion of going to an actual theater.

The key ingredient: a pro-grade projector, something that bathes the dark end of your living room in such jaw-dropping color and clarity, you’ll routinely find neighbors at your door holding popcorn and candy.

The M-Vision Cine 230 is among the few projectors to accomplish that without the need for a second mortgage. Digital Vision’s big, homely black box relies on a single chip, so it costs significantly less than most three-chip models. But you’d never know that from the eye-drenching colors it splashes on the screen.

The big screen, that is. The Cine 230 pairs nicely with 10-footers — its bundled 1.85-2.40 lens offers plenty of zoom variety to help with placement. The company also offers substitute lenses if you need shorter or longer throws.

Your installer will especially appreciate the ample horizontal and vertical lens shift, which is adjusted manually using a special wrench. You probably won’t need to fiddle with these settings more than once, but obviously it would be easier if you could control them using a remote rather than an easily misplaced tool.

The 1080p, 1,000-lumen Cine 230 has all the connectivity basics covered, though it comes with just two HDMI ports. This is a potential problem if you plan to venture beyond, say, your TiVo and Xbox. Sure, you could always hook up an overpriced switch box, but this projector’s hulking shell could easily have accommodated two or three more ports.

Just for kicks, I paired the projector with a cheapie Insignia Blu-ray player and a not-so-cheap ZVOX Z-Base 575 for audio. Watching Toy Story 3 with this setup was enough to make me weep — and not just because Andy turned out to be such a great kid. The color saturation was spot-on enough to please a Pixar animator.

Other demo movies, including Inglourious Basterds and Star Trek, looked equally bedazzling, though the latter revealed the Cine 230’s only real shortcoming: even with a 3,000:1 contrast ratio, it can’t do really deep blacks. The void of outer space looked more like the void of outer dark-gray.

Only the most persnickety videophiles will care or even notice. For everyone else, the Cine 230 offers cinema-quality images for a matinee price.

WIRED Costs thousands less than comparable pro-grade projectors. Razor-sharp 1080p images. Near-perfect color saturation. Logical, easy-to-navigate on-screen menu system. Backlit remote glows a futuristic red.

TIRED Blacks could be blacker, an important consideration for fans of space operas. Not as bright as you’d expect, meaning you’ll need to pull the shades for optimum results. Lens-shift mechanicals require top-side access, which could be a problem depending on how the projector is mounted. Zero aesthetic value.

Photo courtesy of Digital Projection

The best home theaters are the ones that make you scoff at the very notion of going to an actual theater.

The key ingredient: a pro-grade projector, something that bathes the dark end of your living room in such jaw-dropping color and clarity, you’ll routinely find neighbors at your door holding popcorn and candy.

The M-Vision Cine 230 is among the few projectors to accomplish that without the need for a second mortgage. Digital Vision’s big, homely black box relies on a single chip, so it costs significantly less than most three-chip models. But you’d never know that from the eye-drenching colors it splashes on the screen.

The big screen, that is. The Cine 230 pairs nicely with 10-footers — its bundled 1.85-2.40 lens offers plenty of zoom variety to help with placement. The company also offers substitute lenses if you need shorter or longer throws.

Your installer will especially appreciate the ample horizontal and vertical lens shift, which is adjusted manually using a special wrench. You probably won’t need to fiddle with these settings more than once, but obviously it would be easier if you could control them using a remote rather than an easily misplaced tool.

The 1080p, 1,000-lumen Cine 230 has all the connectivity basics covered, though it comes with just two HDMI ports. This is a potential problem if you plan to venture beyond, say, your TiVo and Xbox. Sure, you could always hook up an overpriced switch box, but this projector’s hulking shell could easily have accommodated two or three more ports.

Just for kicks, I paired the projector with a cheapie Insignia Blu-ray player and a not-so-cheap ZVOX Z-Base 575 for audio. Watching Toy Story 3 with this setup was enough to make me weep — and not just because Andy turned out to be such a great kid. The color saturation was spot-on enough to please a Pixar animator.

Other demo movies, including Inglourious Basterds and Star Trek, looked equally bedazzling, though the latter revealed the Cine 230’s only real shortcoming: even with a 3,000:1 contrast ratio, it can’t do really deep blacks. The void of outer space looked more like the void of outer dark-gray.

Only the most persnickety videophiles will care or even notice. For everyone else, the Cine 230 offers cinema-quality images for a matinee price.

WIRED Costs thousands less than comparable pro-grade projectors. Razor-sharp 1080p images. Near-perfect color saturation. Logical, easy-to-navigate on-screen menu system. Backlit remote glows a futuristic red.

TIRED Blacks could be blacker, an important consideration for fans of space operas. Not as bright as you’d expect, meaning you’ll need to pull the shades for optimum results. Lens-shift mechanicals require top-side access, which could be a problem depending on how the projector is mounted. Zero aesthetic value.

Photo courtesy of Digital Projection

Dell isn’t letting the 3-D craze go quietly into the night, and with its XPS 17 3D, there’s a case to be made that maybe it shouldn’t.

Dell’s 17.3-inch, 1920 x 1080-pixel laptop is a beast of a machine, an 8.2-pound monster that is unlikely to ever see an actual lap. Specs are pretty much on the cutting edge across the board: 2-GHz Core i7, 12 GB of RAM, dual 500-GB hard drives and a Blu-ray optical drive. The Nvidia GeForce GT 555M is blazing, powering some of the best video game framerates I’ve ever achieved. General app benchmarks were solid, though considerably short of record highs.

All of that pales, however, next to the XPS’s glorious LCD. It’s not just the brightest laptop screen I’ve ever tested, it’s brighter than the screen of every all-in-one desktop PC I’ve ever reviewed, too. It’s almost as bright as the monster 22-inch flat panel on my desk. And it doesn’t just light up the night, it looks good at just about every angle, too.

Connectivity includes two USB 3.0 ports and one USB 2.0 port, a USB/eSATA combo port, dual headphone jacks, HDMI and a mini-DisplayPort jack.

While performance is good, what you really need to see is how well adding that extra dimension works. The 3-D is effective and didn’t stutter, no matter what 3-D-capable games we played or movies we watched. If you can stomach sitting a few feet from your PC with funky shades on your face, you’ll enjoy the entertainment experience. I found it to be the most effective 3-D laptop I’ve worked with to date.

What’s not to like? Mostly cosmetics: The keyboard is pretty, especially with the backlighting on, but the ultra-flat, island-style keys are awfully slick. I goofed more while touch-typing than I should have. Other issues come across as simple, weird design quirks, like the way the volume buttons are designed: To tick the audio up or down you have to hold down the Fn button and hit a function key. But muting the sound has a dedicated button of its own, no Fn required. None of that, however, is a nuisance that reaches the level of the chicklet-sized arrow keys on the XPS 17: There’s just no excuse for a machine this big to have essential buttons this ridiculously small.

In the end, Dell’s latest XPS is a solid entry into this venerable laptop series, and if you really need 3-D capabilities, it stands up as perhaps the market’s machine to beat. But at a price that approaches two grand and with some distinct drawbacks in its “con” list, you probably have to ask yourself one question before you whip out your Diner’s Club: Do you really need 3-D? Well, do ya, punk?

WIRED Great performance and a top-notch 3-D experience. High-end feature bundle, just as you’d expect at this price level. One of the best LCDs on the planet.

TIRED Gets moderately warm to the touch even under minimal load. Huge fan noise. Questionable keyboard design. Overloaded with Dell shovelware and an unnecessary quick-launch system. Pricey. Awfully heavy.

Photos courtesy Dell

When the chips are down and the cards have been dealt, do you go big or go home?

With the debut of its TouchPad tablet, HP’s answer is clear: “We’re all in, baby.”

As a hardware device, it’s competitive and solid. The software is impressive — it sports webOS, the company’s proprietary mobile platform. But the real question is, when drawing down against other tablets, does HP have a winning hand?

First things first: In the tablet market, hardware specs alone don’t win the war. Tablets from all of the major contenders — Apple, Motorola, RIM, Samsung — boast similar stats. Things like dual-core processors, front-facing cameras, and brilliant, hi-res touch displays aren’t bragging points. At this point in the game, they’re table stakes.

Thankfully, the TouchPad’s hardware doesn’t stray far from the pack. It sports a 1.2-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon chip backed by a gig of RAM, more than enough to let me zip through menu screens and open applications with relative ease. With Bluetooth compatibility, a 9.7-inch display and a slick-yet-durable plastic exterior shell, the TouchPad’s specs stand up to competitors.

It isn’t exactly easy on the arms. Similar to Motorola’s Xoom at 1.6 pounds and a little over half an inch thick, the TouchPad is the antithesis of skinny, airy tablets like the iPad 2 or the Galaxy Tab 10.1. This isn’t as much of a problem while I’m on the couch with an arm rest. But if you’re casually browsing or reading during, say, a 30-minute commute on the subway, you’ll start to feel that extra heft.

The TouchPad plays well with other HP mobile hardware, too. If you’re a Palm/HP loyalist with one of the new Veer smartphones, or the forthcoming Pre 3, you’ll soon have the option of pairing the phone to the tablet via Bluetooth — after an OTA update, that is. When paired, any calls or texts received will show up on the TouchPad, which you can then use to respond.

There’s also “Touch to Share,” a new feature that lets your TouchPad send an open web page to your HP smartphone. Wave the phone in front of the tablet, and the same browser window pops up on your phone. Ideally, it’s for when you want to leave the tablet at home while taking your web content with you to read later.

The system isn’t fully baked. I tested Touch to Share with a preproduction Pre 3 phone, and it took multiple waves and awkward angling for the TouchPad to send a page to the phone. Also, you’re supposed to be able to send an open page on your phone back to the tablet with another wave of the phone, but I wasn’t able to do this.

One more problem: you’ll need a new phone to do any of this. Older Palm devices like the Pre and the Pixie aren’t capable of Touch to Share — only the Veer (after an unspecified future software update), the Pre 3 and whatever phones HP releases in the future.

For media consumption, it’s about average. The sound on the external speakers is fine enough, but quality isn’t the problem — it’s the placement. The stereo speakers are along the bottom and behind the screen, which means all sound is pushed out away from your face. It’s a problem that plagues audio on tablets as a whole. Aside from the BlackBerry PlayBook, which has fantastic audio because of front-facing speakers, listening to most anything on a tablet without headphones isn’t very enjoyable.

Boasting a “full web” experience, the TouchPad is capable of playing Adobe Flash content on the 10.3 beta version of Flash Player. And just like our past experiences with Flash on tablets, it’s nowhere near perfection. It took me forever to load content on PopCapGames.com, a popular Flash gaming web site. When I finally did get a game up and running, performance was choppy at best, a gaming experience punctuated with pauses and stuttering. YouTube videos ran somewhat better, but it wasn’t exactly what I’d call reliable.

Battery life is on par with most other Android tablets currently available. Under heavy use — including continuous browsing and lots of Flash movie viewing — I wore the battery down close to zero in about 7.5 to 8 hours. If you use it casually and intermittently, add another hour or two to that lifespan.

HP’s ace in the hole isn’t Flash, battery life or even Touch to Share. It’s the operating system.

First introduced in 2009, webOS was the “secret sauce” to Palm’s then-new Pre, Pre Plus and Pixie smartphones. (HP acquired Palm in 2010, scooping up webOS with it.)

Along with a sexy user interface, webOS brought users two fantastic new features — multitasking and Synergy.

With multitasking, open applications are sorted on the desktop as “cards,” all of which are able to run simultaneously in the background. A simple swipe of your finger from the bottom of the screen brings up the open applications in your hand, as it were. Shuffling between your open apps is as easy as swiping from side to side.

I’ve loved multitasking since the Palm Pre first appeared, and the increased screen real estate of the TouchPad does the interface justice. Switching between cards is effortless.

Synergy is nifty, too. It does away with the idea of updating and syncing personal data through a central PC hub. Instead, updates across your disparate accounts come wirelessly, whether you’re making the change to your data on your TouchPad or your desktop.

Example: After entering my Facebook and Gmail account info into the TouchPad, my Facebook events and Google Calendar appointments automatically showed up in HP’s calendar app (color-coded, even). And if you’re paired to an HP Veer or Pre 3 smartphone via Bluetooth, SMS text conversations with a friend will show up in the messaging application in one long thread, alongside of any Google Talk chatting you’ve done.

There’s just one big problem with the webOS platform: Nobody freaking uses it.

As of May 2011, Android is on 36 percent of all U.S. smartphones, while iOS runs on 26 percent, according to Nielsen research data. WebOS is at 2 percent.

This is a huge issue. As a rule, the fewer devices there are running an operating system, the less developers will want to create apps for it. Consider the app ecosystems of the two market giants: Android currently hosts over 200,000 apps in its Market, and as of late May, Apple boasts half a million. When the TouchPad hits shelves on July 1, HP says there will be about 6,200 apps available for webOS phones, which the tablet can run, and another 300 apps optimized specifically for the TouchPad. How can HP ever hope to catch up to those numbers?

Essentially, they’re not even going to try (at least, not immediately). Instead, HP is taking a curated approach with “Pivot,” a monthly e-publication that features articles on select webOS applications and the developers behind them. It’s an effort to lure in developers with the promise of exposure, more than an app would get after being buried in the sprawling Android or Apple markets. That means more apps for the webOS platform, and more sales for the small-time developer. In theory, at least.

To be fair, the TouchPad launches with more tablet-specific apps than both the Apple and Android tablet launches combined. And fast-paced growth is certainly possible: It took Android around four months to break the 200 tablet apps mark, and a little over a year for Apple to host tens of thousands. With the right support, the app ecosystem on webOS can grow.

There is, of course, the problem of the mobile music service. In and of itself, the TouchPad’s music app is fine. It functions well, and the user interface is unobtrusive. (Read: not fugly.) But consider what the others are offering: Google’s Music Beta allows wireless streaming to any device running Android version 2.2 and above, free of local storage. Apple’s upcoming iCloud requires that you store your files locally, but you can wirelessly sync any iTunes data you already own to your iOS devices from its cloud servers, though it doesn’t do this automatically. Getting music onto your TouchPad is USB-only, and an HP-backed cloud service isn’t exactly in the cards for the near future.

To be fair, if you’ve got a Google Music invite, you can access it through a browser window on the TouchPad. And perhaps HP will coax Amazon into bundling its Cloud Player music app with the TouchPad at some point.

But it speaks to a larger question that HP still hasn’t answered: What’s the major draw HP offers that I can’t get in Android or iOS — two established competitors with more customers, more apps and more time in the market?

I’m not saying HP is betting on a weak hand with the TouchPad itself. It’s well-built, easy on the eyes and I dig the card-based OS running on a tablet even more than I had anticipated.

The problem is, it’s squaring off against some expert gamblers.

WIRED One of the first platforms to have a tablet-optimized Facebook app — take that, Apple. Pair with a Pre 3 or Veer smartphone to receive texts or calls on the tablet itself. JustType navigation bar allows for quick device search from the home screen.

TIRED No back-facing camera means no awkward tablet picture-taking, for better or for worse. Beta version of Flash runs like an alpha version of Flash. No SD card slot means no room for easy expansion. Bundled QuickOffice app has difficulty displaying Google Docs. No tabbed browsing? For shame.

Photos by Jon Snyder/Wired

When the chips are down and the cards have been dealt, do you go big or go home?

With the debut of its TouchPad tablet, HP’s answer is clear: “We’re all in, baby.”

As a hardware device, it’s competitive and solid. The software is impressive — it sports webOS, the company’s proprietary mobile platform. But the real question is, when drawing down against other tablets, does HP have a winning hand?

First things first: In the tablet market, hardware specs alone don’t win the war. Tablets from all of the major contenders — Apple, Motorola, RIM, Samsung — boast similar stats. Things like dual-core processors, front-facing cameras, and brilliant, hi-res touch displays aren’t bragging points. At this point in the game, they’re table stakes.

Thankfully, the TouchPad’s hardware doesn’t stray far from the pack. It sports a 1.2-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon chip backed by a gig of RAM, more than enough to let me zip through menu screens and open applications with relative ease. With Bluetooth compatibility, a 9.7-inch display and a slick-yet-durable plastic exterior shell, the TouchPad’s specs stand up to competitors.

It isn’t exactly easy on the arms. Similar to Motorola’s Xoom at 1.6 pounds and a little over half an inch thick, the TouchPad is the antithesis of skinny, airy tablets like the iPad 2 or the Galaxy Tab 10.1. This isn’t as much of a problem while I’m on the couch with an arm rest. But if you’re casually browsing or reading during, say, a 30-minute commute on the subway, you’ll start to feel that extra heft.

The TouchPad plays well with other HP mobile hardware, too. If you’re a Palm/HP loyalist with one of the new Veer smartphones, or the forthcoming Pre 3, you’ll soon have the option of pairing the phone to the tablet via Bluetooth — after an OTA update, that is. When paired, any calls or texts received will show up on the TouchPad, which you can then use to respond.

There’s also “Touch to Share,” a new feature that lets your TouchPad send an open web page to your HP smartphone. Wave the phone in front of the tablet, and the same browser window pops up on your phone. Ideally, it’s for when you want to leave the tablet at home while taking your web content with you to read later.

The system isn’t fully baked. I tested Touch to Share with a preproduction Pre 3 phone, and it took multiple waves and awkward angling for the TouchPad to send a page to the phone. Also, you’re supposed to be able to send an open page on your phone back to the tablet with another wave of the phone, but I wasn’t able to do this.

One more problem: you’ll need a new phone to do any of this. Older Palm devices like the Pre and the Pixie aren’t capable of Touch to Share — only the Veer (after an unspecified future software update), the Pre 3 and whatever phones HP releases in the future.

For media consumption, it’s about average. The sound on the external speakers is fine enough, but quality isn’t the problem — it’s the placement. The stereo speakers are along the bottom and behind the screen, which means all sound is pushed out away from your face. It’s a problem that plagues audio on tablets as a whole. Aside from the BlackBerry PlayBook, which has fantastic audio because of front-facing speakers, listening to most anything on a tablet without headphones isn’t very enjoyable.

Boasting a “full web” experience, the TouchPad is capable of playing Adobe Flash content on the 10.3 beta version of Flash Player. And just like our past experiences with Flash on tablets, it’s nowhere near perfection. It took me forever to load content on PopCapGames.com, a popular Flash gaming web site. When I finally did get a game up and running, performance was choppy at best, a gaming experience punctuated with pauses and stuttering. YouTube videos ran somewhat better, but it wasn’t exactly what I’d call reliable.

Battery life is on par with most other Android tablets currently available. Under heavy use — including continuous browsing and lots of Flash movie viewing — I wore the battery down close to zero in about 7.5 to 8 hours. If you use it casually and intermittently, add another hour or two to that lifespan.

HP’s ace in the hole isn’t Flash, battery life or even Touch to Share. It’s the operating system.

First introduced in 2009, webOS was the “secret sauce” to Palm’s then-new Pre, Pre Plus and Pixie smartphones. (HP acquired Palm in 2010, scooping up webOS with it.)

Along with a sexy user interface, webOS brought users two fantastic new features — multitasking and Synergy.

With multitasking, open applications are sorted on the desktop as “cards,” all of which are able to run simultaneously in the background. A simple swipe of your finger from the bottom of the screen brings up the open applications in your hand, as it were. Shuffling between your open apps is as easy as swiping from side to side.

I’ve loved multitasking since the Palm Pre first appeared, and the increased screen real estate of the TouchPad does the interface justice. Switching between cards is effortless.

Synergy is nifty, too. It does away with the idea of updating and syncing personal data through a central PC hub. Instead, updates across your disparate accounts come wirelessly, whether you’re making the change to your data on your TouchPad or your desktop.

Example: After entering my Facebook and Gmail account info into the TouchPad, my Facebook events and Google Calendar appointments automatically showed up in HP’s calendar app (color-coded, even). And if you’re paired to an HP Veer or Pre 3 smartphone via Bluetooth, SMS text conversations with a friend will show up in the messaging application in one long thread, alongside of any Google Talk chatting you’ve done.

There’s just one big problem with the webOS platform: Nobody freaking uses it.

As of May 2011, Android is on 36 percent of all U.S. smartphones, while iOS runs on 26 percent, according to Nielsen research data. WebOS is at 2 percent.

This is a huge issue. As a rule, the fewer devices there are running an operating system, the less developers will want to create apps for it. Consider the app ecosystems of the two market giants: Android currently hosts over 200,000 apps in its Market, and as of late May, Apple boasts half a million. When the TouchPad hits shelves on July 1, HP says there will be about 6,200 apps available for webOS phones, which the tablet can run, and another 300 apps optimized specifically for the TouchPad. How can HP ever hope to catch up to those numbers?

Essentially, they’re not even going to try (at least, not immediately). Instead, HP is taking a curated approach with “Pivot,” a monthly e-publication that features articles on select webOS applications and the developers behind them. It’s an effort to lure in developers with the promise of exposure, more than an app would get after being buried in the sprawling Android or Apple markets. That means more apps for the webOS platform, and more sales for the small-time developer. In theory, at least.

To be fair, the TouchPad launches with more tablet-specific apps than both the Apple and Android tablet launches combined. And fast-paced growth is certainly possible: It took Android around four months to break the 200 tablet apps mark, and a little over a year for Apple to host tens of thousands. With the right support, the app ecosystem on webOS can grow.

There is, of course, the problem of the mobile music service. In and of itself, the TouchPad’s music app is fine. It functions well, and the user interface is unobtrusive. (Read: not fugly.) But consider what the others are offering: Google’s Music Beta allows wireless streaming to any device running Android version 2.2 and above, free of local storage. Apple’s upcoming iCloud requires that you store your files locally, but you can wirelessly sync any iTunes data you already own to your iOS devices from its cloud servers, though it doesn’t do this automatically. Getting music onto your TouchPad is USB-only, and an HP-backed cloud service isn’t exactly in the cards for the near future.

To be fair, if you’ve got a Google Music invite, you can access it through a browser window on the TouchPad. And perhaps HP will coax Amazon into bundling its Cloud Player music app with the TouchPad at some point.

But it speaks to a larger question that HP still hasn’t answered: What’s the major draw HP offers that I can’t get in Android or iOS — two established competitors with more customers, more apps and more time in the market?

I’m not saying HP is betting on a weak hand with the TouchPad itself. It’s well-built, easy on the eyes and I dig the card-based OS running on a tablet even more than I had anticipated.

The problem is, it’s squaring off against some expert gamblers.

WIRED One of the first platforms to have a tablet-optimized Facebook app — take that, Apple. Pair with a Pre 3 or Veer smartphone to receive texts or calls on the tablet itself. JustType navigation bar allows for quick device search from the home screen.

TIRED No back-facing camera means no awkward tablet picture-taking, for better or for worse. Beta version of Flash runs like an alpha version of Flash. No SD card slot means no room for easy expansion. Bundled QuickOffice app has difficulty displaying Google Docs. No tabbed browsing? For shame.

Photos by Jon Snyder/Wired

When the chips are down and the cards have been dealt, do you go big or go home?

With the debut of its TouchPad tablet, HP’s answer is clear: “We’re all in, baby.”

As a hardware device, it’s competitive and solid. The software is impressive — it sports webOS, the company’s proprietary mobile platform. But the real question is, when drawing down against other tablets, does HP have a winning hand?

First things first: In the tablet market, hardware specs alone don’t win the war. Tablets from all of the major contenders — Apple, Motorola, RIM, Samsung — boast similar stats. Things like dual-core processors, front-facing cameras, and brilliant, hi-res touch displays aren’t bragging points. At this point in the game, they’re table stakes.

Thankfully, the TouchPad’s hardware doesn’t stray far from the pack. It sports a 1.2-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon chip backed by a gig of RAM, more than enough to let me zip through menu screens and open applications with relative ease. With Bluetooth compatibility, a 9.7-inch display and a slick-yet-durable plastic exterior shell, the TouchPad’s specs stand up to competitors.

It isn’t exactly easy on the arms. Similar to Motorola’s Xoom at 1.6 pounds and a little over half an inch thick, the TouchPad is the antithesis of skinny, airy tablets like the iPad 2 or the Galaxy Tab 10.1. This isn’t as much of a problem while I’m on the couch with an arm rest. But if you’re casually browsing or reading during, say, a 30-minute commute on the subway, you’ll start to feel that extra heft.

The TouchPad plays well with other HP mobile hardware, too. If you’re a Palm/HP loyalist with one of the new Veer smartphones, or the forthcoming Pre 3, you’ll soon have the option of pairing the phone to the tablet via Bluetooth — after an OTA update, that is. When paired, any calls or texts received will show up on the TouchPad, which you can then use to respond.

There’s also “Touch to Share,” a new feature that lets your TouchPad send an open web page to your HP smartphone. Wave the phone in front of the tablet, and the same browser window pops up on your phone. Ideally, it’s for when you want to leave the tablet at home while taking your web content with you to read later.

The system isn’t fully baked. I tested Touch to Share with a preproduction Pre 3 phone, and it took multiple waves and awkward angling for the TouchPad to send a page to the phone. Also, you’re supposed to be able to send an open page on your phone back to the tablet with another wave of the phone, but I wasn’t able to do this.

One more problem: you’ll need a new phone to do any of this. Older Palm devices like the Pre and the Pixie aren’t capable of Touch to Share — only the Veer (after an unspecified future software update), the Pre 3 and whatever phones HP releases in the future.

For media consumption, it’s about average. The sound on the external speakers is fine enough, but quality isn’t the problem — it’s the placement. The stereo speakers are along the bottom and behind the screen, which means all sound is pushed out away from your face. It’s a problem that plagues audio on tablets as a whole. Aside from the BlackBerry PlayBook, which has fantastic audio because of front-facing speakers, listening to most anything on a tablet without headphones isn’t very enjoyable.

Boasting a “full web” experience, the TouchPad is capable of playing Adobe Flash content on the 10.3 beta version of Flash Player. And just like our past experiences with Flash on tablets, it’s nowhere near perfection. It took me forever to load content on PopCapGames.com, a popular Flash gaming web site. When I finally did get a game up and running, performance was choppy at best, a gaming experience punctuated with pauses and stuttering. YouTube videos ran somewhat better, but it wasn’t exactly what I’d call reliable.

Battery life is on par with most other Android tablets currently available. Under heavy use — including continuous browsing and lots of Flash movie viewing — I wore the battery down close to zero in about 7.5 to 8 hours. If you use it casually and intermittently, add another hour or two to that lifespan.

HP’s ace in the hole isn’t Flash, battery life or even Touch to Share. It’s the operating system.

First introduced in 2009, webOS was the “secret sauce” to Palm’s then-new Pre, Pre Plus and Pixie smartphones. (HP acquired Palm in 2010, scooping up webOS with it.)

Along with a sexy user interface, webOS brought users two fantastic new features — multitasking and Synergy.

With multitasking, open applications are sorted on the desktop as “cards,” all of which are able to run simultaneously in the background. A simple swipe of your finger from the bottom of the screen brings up the open applications in your hand, as it were. Shuffling between your open apps is as easy as swiping from side to side.

I’ve loved multitasking since the Palm Pre first appeared, and the increased screen real estate of the TouchPad does the interface justice. Switching between cards is effortless.

Synergy is nifty, too. It does away with the idea of updating and syncing personal data through a central PC hub. Instead, updates across your disparate accounts come wirelessly, whether you’re making the change to your data on your TouchPad or your desktop.

Example: After entering my Facebook and Gmail account info into the TouchPad, my Facebook events and Google Calendar appointments automatically showed up in HP’s calendar app (color-coded, even). And if you’re paired to an HP Veer or Pre 3 smartphone via Bluetooth, SMS text conversations with a friend will show up in the messaging application in one long thread, alongside of any Google Talk chatting you’ve done.

There’s just one big problem with the webOS platform: Nobody freaking uses it.

As of May 2011, Android is on 36 percent of all U.S. smartphones, while iOS runs on 26 percent, according to Nielsen research data. WebOS is at 2 percent.

This is a huge issue. As a rule, the fewer devices there are running an operating system, the less developers will want to create apps for it. Consider the app ecosystems of the two market giants: Android currently hosts over 200,000 apps in its Market, and as of late May, Apple boasts half a million. When the TouchPad hits shelves on July 1, HP says there will be about 6,200 apps available for webOS phones, which the tablet can run, and another 300 apps optimized specifically for the TouchPad. How can HP ever hope to catch up to those numbers?

Essentially, they’re not even going to try (at least, not immediately). Instead, HP is taking a curated approach with “Pivot,” a monthly e-publication that features articles on select webOS applications and the developers behind them. It’s an effort to lure in developers with the promise of exposure, more than an app would get after being buried in the sprawling Android or Apple markets. That means more apps for the webOS platform, and more sales for the small-time developer. In theory, at least.

To be fair, the TouchPad launches with more tablet-specific apps than both the Apple and Android tablet launches combined. And fast-paced growth is certainly possible: It took Android around four months to break the 200 tablet apps mark, and a little over a year for Apple to host tens of thousands. With the right support, the app ecosystem on webOS can grow.

There is, of course, the problem of the mobile music service. In and of itself, the TouchPad’s music app is fine. It functions well, and the user interface is unobtrusive. (Read: not fugly.) But consider what the others are offering: Google’s Music Beta allows wireless streaming to any device running Android version 2.2 and above, free of local storage. Apple’s upcoming iCloud requires that you store your files locally, but you can wirelessly sync any iTunes data you already own to your iOS devices from its cloud servers, though it doesn’t do this automatically. Getting music onto your TouchPad is USB-only, and an HP-backed cloud service isn’t exactly in the cards for the near future.

To be fair, if you’ve got a Google Music invite, you can access it through a browser window on the TouchPad. And perhaps HP will coax Amazon into bundling its Cloud Player music app with the TouchPad at some point.

But it speaks to a larger question that HP still hasn’t answered: What’s the major draw HP offers that I can’t get in Android or iOS — two established competitors with more customers, more apps and more time in the market?

I’m not saying HP is betting on a weak hand with the TouchPad itself. It’s well-built, easy on the eyes and I dig the card-based OS running on a tablet even more than I had anticipated.

The problem is, it’s squaring off against some expert gamblers.

WIRED One of the first platforms to have a tablet-optimized Facebook app — take that, Apple. Pair with a Pre 3 or Veer smartphone to receive texts or calls on the tablet itself. JustType navigation bar allows for quick device search from the home screen.

TIRED No back-facing camera means no awkward tablet picture-taking, for better or for worse. Beta version of Flash runs like an alpha version of Flash. No SD card slot means no room for easy expansion. Bundled QuickOffice app has difficulty displaying Google Docs. No tabbed browsing? For shame.

Photos by Jon Snyder/Wired

If you’re old enough to remember the energy policies of the Carter administration, green enough to have donated to the Nature Conservancy and young enough to get a rush of testosterone from dusting that polo-shirt-wearing jerk in his BMW, Nissan has the car for you.

And though its styling walks a fine line between “grandpa’s luxury sedan” and “soccer mom sports car,” the 2012 Infiniti M Hybrid pulls off this delicate balancing act with grace.

The result isn’t superb on looks. As you’d expect, meeting so many different design goals results in a car that looks a little, well, melted-together. It’s not going to make anyone’s heart race on the inside, either, with slightly old-fashioned styling exemplified by the quaint analog clock in the dash.

But it is one fun ride.

The sedan’s seats ease into position when you press the ignition button, cradling your butt cheeks — and optionally warming them. The low seats and slightly bulging hood give it a sportier feel on the inside than its looks let on. The car silently backs out of its parking space on electric power alone, while a rear-view camera gives you a clear look at what’s behind you and where the car is tracking. The sound system pumps out your favorite tunes from your iPhone, which you’ve plugged into a USB port in the center console. And when you stomp on the accelerator, the 360-horsepower gas- and-electric power plant presses you back into the leather seats like nobody’s business.

Under the hood, there’s a hybrid engine similar to what’s inside the Toyota Prius: An electric motor drives the car at lower speeds and short distances until the battery is depleted to a certain level, then a bigger gasoline engine takes over.

You can choose between three driving modes with a simple dial: An eco mode saves gas, a sport mode emphasizes performance, and the “why bother” mode is somewhere in the middle.

Handling is excellent for a car that weighs more than 4,000 pounds. It hurls itself forward, into the passing lane, and around corners with ease, especially in sport mode.

For all its conservative styling, there are nice, techie touches throughout the M Hybrid, at least with the options our test vehicle had. Blind spot indicator lights on the right and left front window pillars light up to alert you when a car is sneaking up next to you. (You’ll need those lights, too, since the rear quarter windows are tiny portholes.) The touch-screen dashboard display provides a wealth of data (fuel economy, maps, what’s on your iPod) without getting over-cluttered. And it’s got a respectable sound system.

And did I mention it’s comfy?

In short, everything about the M Hybrid is smoooooooth. Even at 100mph, you feel like you’re sitting in your grandpa’s living room, eating hard candies as you watch that BMW disappear in your rear-view mirror.

Not bad for a relatively economical hybrid.

WIRED Sporty performance reminds you that you’re still alive. Comfortable interior keeps your body cradled in soft, warm leather. Console can control playback of music on an iPhone, iPod or thumb drive plugged into the USB port. Blind-spot indicator lights quickly become an indispensable safety feature. Fun to throw around on twisty country roads. Fuel economy averaged 24.5 mpg over a week of mixed driving.

TIRED Fronts seats are individually heated, but don’t actually massage your back. Rear-view camera easily obscured by raindrops. Poor rear visibility. If you don’t have at least a few gray hairs, you’ll probably feel awkward in such a grown-up-looking vehicle.

Photos: Jim Merithew/Wired

While most shoe companies are chasing the minimalist craze and removing the bottoms of their shoes, Mizuno is going against the trend by doing away with the middle.

There’s a big hole right where the cushioning should be on Mizuno’s Wave Prophecy road shoe. In lieu of the usual EVA foam midsole — usually the first part of running shoes to break down — Mizuno has substituted the Wave Infinity Plate, a system of the company’s own design that consists of two TPU plates connected at ten points along the shoe by rubber baffles. In addition to potentially lasting longer than traditional soles, the plate is meant to provide better cushioning and a more responsive stride for a variety of different running styles. And for $200 a pair, these shoes had certainly better knock one’s socks off.

I wasn’t convinced at first. Initially, the shoe’s firm ride was a little off-putting. But it wasn’t long before I started appreciating the tough love. The foamless sole acts kind of like a leaf spring, compressing with the impact of each strike, and it adapted to a variety of strikes. I felt supported and cushioned whether I ran with my usual forefoot strike or the plodding heelstrike that I devolve into after mile ten or so. But I was able to pull double-digit miles without feeling like my feet were getting beaten up.

I felt quicker in the shoes, too. On the toe-off end of the footstrike, the plate bends to about 15 degrees, then becomes rigid and snaps back just in time to add a bit of “oomph” to every step. During my runs, this helped me maintain a high turnover rate, making the shoe feel a lot lighter than the 15 ounces my size 11s weigh in at.

With all the craziness going on under the foot, it can be easy to overlook the Wave Prophecy’s upper. The main component is a stretchy, mesh fabric — Mizuno calls it Dynamotion Fit — which is designed to mimic the foot’s skin, stretching and compressing with it during a run. The fabric is light and airy, and it gives the shoe’s upper a comfortable, sock-like feel. On hot-weather runs, the upper’s mesh construction let heat escape and prevented moisture from building up within the shoe.

A few weeks after running in the Wave Prophecys, I went back to my old running shoes with the EVA cushioning. I thought I’d appreciate the extra padding, but the old shoes felt too soft. I felt as if I was getting less distance out of every step, sort of like running in mud.

After getting used to the responsiveness of the Prophecys, my feet were begging to go back. It was like driving a Porsche, then suddenly being asked to swap it for a crappy old minivan. I’ll stick with the Porsche.

WIRED Stiff, dual-plate midsole system gives a subtle snap to every step. Responsive, comfortable upper. Potentially the most durable running shoe ever.

TIRED May be too firm for some runners. Potentially the most expensive running shoe ever.

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired

While most shoe companies are chasing the minimalist craze and removing the bottoms of their shoes, Mizuno is going against the trend by doing away with the middle.

There’s a big hole right where the cushioning should be on Mizuno’s Wave Prophecy road shoe. In lieu of the usual EVA foam midsole — usually the first part of running shoes to break down — Mizuno has substituted the Wave Infinity Plate, a system of the company’s own design that consists of two TPU plates connected at ten points along the shoe by rubber baffles. In addition to potentially lasting longer than traditional soles, the plate is meant to provide better cushioning and a more responsive stride for a variety of different running styles. And for $200 a pair, these shoes had certainly better knock one’s socks off.

I wasn’t convinced at first. Initially, the shoe’s firm ride was a little off-putting. But it wasn’t long before I started appreciating the tough love. The foamless sole acts kind of like a leaf spring, compressing with the impact of each strike, and it adapted to a variety of strikes. I felt supported and cushioned whether I ran with my usual forefoot strike or the plodding heelstrike that I devolve into after mile ten or so. But I was able to pull double-digit miles without feeling like my feet were getting beaten up.

I felt quicker in the shoes, too. On the toe-off end of the footstrike, the plate bends to about 15 degrees, then becomes rigid and snaps back just in time to add a bit of “oomph” to every step. During my runs, this helped me maintain a high turnover rate, making the shoe feel a lot lighter than the 15 ounces my size 11s weigh in at.

With all the craziness going on under the foot, it can be easy to overlook the Wave Prophecy’s upper. The main component is a stretchy, mesh fabric — Mizuno calls it Dynamotion Fit — which is designed to mimic the foot’s skin, stretching and compressing with it during a run. The fabric is light and airy, and it gives the shoe’s upper a comfortable, sock-like feel. On hot-weather runs, the upper’s mesh construction let heat escape and prevented moisture from building up within the shoe.

A few weeks after running in the Wave Prophecys, I went back to my old running shoes with the EVA cushioning. I thought I’d appreciate the extra padding, but the old shoes felt too soft. I felt as if I was getting less distance out of every step, sort of like running in mud.

After getting used to the responsiveness of the Prophecys, my feet were begging to go back. It was like driving a Porsche, then suddenly being asked to swap it for a crappy old minivan. I’ll stick with the Porsche.

WIRED Stiff, dual-plate midsole system gives a subtle snap to every step. Responsive, comfortable upper. Potentially the most durable running shoe ever.

TIRED May be too firm for some runners. Potentially the most expensive running shoe ever.

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired

While most shoe companies are chasing the minimalist craze and removing the bottoms of their shoes, Mizuno is going against the trend by doing away with the middle.

There’s a big hole right where the cushioning should be on Mizuno’s Wave Prophecy road shoe. In lieu of the usual EVA foam midsole — usually the first part of running shoes to break down — Mizuno has substituted the Wave Infinity Plate, a system of the company’s own design that consists of two TPU plates connected at ten points along the shoe by rubber baffles. In addition to potentially lasting longer than traditional soles, the plate is meant to provide better cushioning and a more responsive stride for a variety of different running styles. And for $200 a pair, these shoes had certainly better knock one’s socks off.

I wasn’t convinced at first. Initially, the shoe’s firm ride was a little off-putting. But it wasn’t long before I started appreciating the tough love. The foamless sole acts kind of like a leaf spring, compressing with the impact of each strike, and it adapted to a variety of strikes. I felt supported and cushioned whether I ran with my usual forefoot strike or the plodding heelstrike that I devolve into after mile ten or so. But I was able to pull double-digit miles without feeling like my feet were getting beaten up.

I felt quicker in the shoes, too. On the toe-off end of the footstrike, the plate bends to about 15 degrees, then becomes rigid and snaps back just in time to add a bit of “oomph” to every step. During my runs, this helped me maintain a high turnover rate, making the shoe feel a lot lighter than the 15 ounces my size 11s weigh in at.

With all the craziness going on under the foot, it can be easy to overlook the Wave Prophecy’s upper. The main component is a stretchy, mesh fabric — Mizuno calls it Dynamotion Fit — which is designed to mimic the foot’s skin, stretching and compressing with it during a run. The fabric is light and airy, and it gives the shoe’s upper a comfortable, sock-like feel. On hot-weather runs, the upper’s mesh construction let heat escape and prevented moisture from building up within the shoe.

A few weeks after running in the Wave Prophecys, I went back to my old running shoes with the EVA cushioning. I thought I’d appreciate the extra padding, but the old shoes felt too soft. I felt as if I was getting less distance out of every step, sort of like running in mud.

After getting used to the responsiveness of the Prophecys, my feet were begging to go back. It was like driving a Porsche, then suddenly being asked to swap it for a crappy old minivan. I’ll stick with the Porsche.

WIRED Stiff, dual-plate midsole system gives a subtle snap to every step. Responsive, comfortable upper. Potentially the most durable running shoe ever.

TIRED May be too firm for some runners. Potentially the most expensive running shoe ever.

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired

This phone was made to be seen.

No, really. The Samsung Infuse 4G’s huge 4.5-inch Super AMOLED Plus screen not only looks great, but practically begs for video playback.

Of course, that raises the question: Is that enough to differentiate the Infuse from Android’s numerous oversized offerings? For the most part, yes.

Samsung has packed this lithe handset with pretty much everything necessary for delivering entertainment on the go. Front and center is its spacious, yet ever-so pixel-challenged 800 x 480 display, a 1.3-megapixel forward-facing camera (with an 8-MP heavy hitter on the rear), and a row of capacitive Android navigation keys.

Inside its slinky 0.35-inch frame is a 4G data radio, and a beefy 1,750-milliampere-hour battery and a 1.2-GHz processor. The processor is powerful, but only single-core. I was surprised by this — Android phone manufacturers are rapidly switching to dual-core processors, as the beefier chips are a marquee differentiating feature in a crowded market. And while this phone doesn’t have a dual-core chip, it had more than enough guts for my typical smartphone needs. E-mailing, task management, light calling and even heavy app and web use was reasonably smooth within the phones somewhat outdated Android 2.2 Froyo OS. In fact, once I got over the pocket-stretching size of the device, the multimedia-minded battery made the Infuse a solid performer for marathon productivity sessions.

However, the real fun of the Infuse lies in goofing off.

Bloatware is rarely worth celebrating, but the video-centric apps that ship on the handset aren’t a complete waste. AT&T’s U-Verse app brought both live TV and on-demand downloads of favorite series like Parks and Recreation, while Samsung’s movie rental store and the generic video player supplied access to feature-length content.

It’s worth noting that none of these options are exactly free (save for the video player, which let me play my ripped movies). Despite that predictable hitch, the Infuse mostly handled playback like a champ. Streaming live TV over the 4G connection produced the occasional hiccup, but pretty much anything I downloaded locally played back flawlessly on the device.

An integrated kickstand or dock would’ve helped for longer viewing sessions, but that’s a minor gripe for a phone that actually has the muscle and endurance to rain down serious flickage at a moment’s notice. And that screen! It’s gorgeous.

Is this enough to dethrone hulking competitors like the Droid X2? Probably. Though we’ve all seen a lot of the Infuse’s individual elements before, it’s rare that they’re packed into such a single cohesive package. Even the mildly girth-conscious will likely balk at the size, but it’s hard to take issue with a handset infused with this much win.

WIRED Form+Function+Fun. Oversized touchscreen is great for flicks. Fantastic battery life regardless of use patterns. Preternaturally light at 4.5 ounces. Ships with a $25 voucher for movie rentals. Great photos (8MP) decent video (720p).

TIRED Speaker is fine for calls, anemic for movies. Plastic chassis and volume rocker are pure chintz. Getting video onto a TV is dongle-reliant. All this downloadable video sweetness ships with a tiny 2GB card.

Odds are you’ll never hear the phrase, “I sure wish I had my Chumby right now.”

We’ll admit the notion of a dedicated display for consuming RSS feeds was pretty nifty when it launched in 2006. By 2008, we even named Chumby one of the top 10 gadgets of the year.

And we meant it. Heck, a single-serving, Linux-based device for news can still be a useful addition to any bedroom or kitchen.

But the fact that the latest incarnation, the Chumby 8, is billed as “Only $149.95″ says a lot. For starters, the re-tooled hardware more closely resembles a digital photo frame. The original Chumby is the size of an alarm clock radio or a mini-Nerf football. Hence, it was easy to stash on a nightstand or kitchen counter. The Chumby 8 does offer a larger display, but the device’s clunky footprint is all kinds of awkward. The screen is built into a base that’s four inches deep and extends the entire width of the device. Thus, Chumby 8 takes up ample real estate, and there’s no option to mount it or position it flush against wall.

My gripes don’t end there. The eight-inch touchscreen is laggy. The LCD could be crisper. And — get this — there’s no internal battery. So, not only did this thing bogart my kitchen counter, but it required another wall-wart and sat tethered to one location. On the plus side, the Chumby is DIY-friendly, and can run more than 15,000 apps out of the box, including all the obvious ones like Facebook and Twitter.

Nevertheless, the most telling aspect of my Chumby 8 experience? A week later, I replaced it with a 16GB iPad 2 on a dock in the same location. It provides the same updates on the weather, news, social networks, and streaming photo libraries and music — but isn’t tethered or awkward. Sure I spent $500 instead of $150. But pretty much any tablet at any price point would seemingly be a better option than the Chumby 8.

WIRED Port Authority: SD and CF slots, two USBs and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Handles Flash. Doubles as a killer night-light. Hardware also available in red. 1500+ pre-stocked apps, including Facebook, Twitter, Pandora, Wired.com (huzzah!), Reddit Headlines (ditto!), David Letterman’s Top 10 and Chuck Norris Facts (thanks?).

TIRED $100 more expensive than it should be, even after its recent $50 price drop. Bulky hardware. No internal battery. Dull screen. Setup was long and laborious and required entering a 31-digit code online. Dearth of content: The only dating app is Craigslist personals? Each content “channel” contains so many different apps that navigating around can be a bit of a time-suck, which sort of defeats the purpose.

Photos courtesy Chumby