Samsung Smart Camera WB350F

+POINT The Samsung Smart Camera WB350F is like having a bunch of smartphone camera apps built into the interface of a point-and-shoot camera that has a 21x zoom lens and optical image stabilization. The camera's wireless features make it easy to shoot and share your photos to Android or iOS devices or straight to Web sites.

-POINT  There's no improvement in photo or video quality or shooting performance from the previous version, which was just good. While its wireless options are still plentiful, its remote viewfinder function lags behind competitors'.

The Bottom Line The Samsung Smart Camera WB350F is a good package if you want to add an affordable long-zoom point-and-shoot to supplement your smartphone photography.

SPECIFIACTION

The Samsung Smart Camera WB350F is a good reason why you shouldn't shop by specs alone.

When it was announced at CES 2014, it seemed the WB350F was a redesign of 2013's WB800F camera, a higher-end compact megazoom that featured a similar 16-megapixel BSI CMOS sensor and a 21x, f2.8-5.9, 23-483mm lens. The WB350F is actually, as the model name might suggest, an update to the lower-end 18x zoom WB250F. Or to be more succinct: this camera, despite what its specs might imply, is not as good as the WB800F and really offers little improvement over the WB250F beyond having a longer zoom lens.

      
Basically, you'll want to consider this camera for its features more than for its photo quality. The photos aren't bad, especially if your priority is to share them online. If you need a camera that can take photos for prints larger than 8x10 in all lighting conditions or for something like birding, where you'll want to enlarge and crop in to examine fine details, this likely won't be enough camera for you. The camera's strengths are in its novel shooting options and Wi-Fi capabilities (though even those are starting to slip behind the competition).

The camera's video quality is good enough for posting online or viewing at small sizes on a computer screen, and having a zoom lens with optical image stabilization gives it an edge over a smartphone. However, depending on which smartphone you have, there's a good chance you'll get better video from it than the WB350F.

Like its pictures, the video isn't particularly good in low light. There is some judder when panning the camera, and you'll see some ghosting with fast-moving subjects (which aren't uncommon for the category). The zoom lens does work while recording, but you will hear it moving and focusing. (There's a Sound Alive feature that will dampen this sound, though it will muffle the rest of the audio, as well.) The camera is relatively fast to refocus and adjust to exposure changes.

SCREEN SHO

SHUTTER SPEED

If you like to control shutter speed and aperture, shutter speeds can be set from 16 seconds to 1/2,000 second. Available apertures at the wide end are f2.8, f3.2, f3.5, f4.0, f4.5, f5.0, f5.6, f6.3, f7.1, and f8.0; in telephoto you have just f5.9, f6.9, f7.5, and f8.5.

Being a Smart Camera, the WB350F's wireless features are a key part of the package here. If you connect the camera directly to a Wi-Fi network, you can send pictures and video by e-mail; upload to Evernote, Facebook, Picasa, YouTube, and Dropbox; and share content to DLNA-enabled devices as well as sync to a personal Samung Link cloud storage account, which you can also access from other devices.

If the camera is connected to a wireless network with a Windows PC on it, you can set up Samsung's i-Launcher software and do wireless auto-backups to your computer (though you're probably better off connecting via USB). If you connect to the same network as the camera with a smartphone or tablet, you can use the camera as a baby monitor, which is fine if you're on vacation or just in a pinch, but the performance isn't good enough for regular use.

What you'll probably use most, though, are the camera's Remote Viewfinder, AutoShare, and MobileLink features. MobileLink lets you transfer files from a smartphone or send files from the camera to one or more smartphones. AutoShare gives you the option to automatically send photos to a smartphone as you shoot them with the camera. The Remote Viewfinder turns your smartphone or tablet into a viewfinder, and you can also move the camera's zoom lens as well as hit the shutter release. However, that's about all you can do with this feature, and you're limited to capturing 12- or 2-megapixel images. Other camera manufacturers allow you to capture at full resolution, start and stop video, and use shooting modes other than auto.

Establishing a Wi-Fi connection with Android and iOS devices is pretty straightforward: Start the feature that you want to use on the camera, use your device's Wi-Fi settings to connect to the camera, and launch the Samsung Smart Camera app on your device. But, for Android devices with NFC, the procedure is even easier -- you just have to tap the two together, and they'll start the connection.

Conclusion
The Samsung Smart Camera WB350F is a good package if you want to add an affordable long-zoom point-and-shoot to supplement your smartphone photography. Just don't look too closely at the photos

GoPro Hero3+ Black Edition

+POINT The GoPro Hero3+ Black Edition produces some of the best -- if not the best -- video we've seen from an action cam. Its abundant resolution and frame rate options will satisfy beginners and experienced shooters.

- POINT Navigating the on-camera settings menus still isn't the best experience. Battery life can be brief depending on the features you're using. Plan to buy accessories including a microSD card.

The Bottom Line Like the Hero3, the GoPro Hero3+ Black Edition's strongest attributes are its excellent video quality and impressive list of shooting options. If that's what matters most to you, this is the action cam to get.

HERO3

Depending on whom you ask, GoPro's action cameras are the best available or they're all marketing.

Regardless of where you fall -- or if you're still undecided -- it's impossible to ignore GoPro's position in the category. The release of 2012's Hero3 models seemed to propel them far in front of competitors and the 2013 Hero3+ models aim to keep them there.

The GoPro HERO3+: Black Edition is the top of the GoPro lineup, followed by theHero3+ Silver Edition, and the Hero3 White Edition, with the White being the only one unchanged from 2012. (Oh, and despite the colorful names, the cameras are all silver and black with just the "3" on front in the corresponding color.)

As the highest-end model, the Black Edition has the most shooting options including a Protune mode for high-bit-rate video with neutral color and 24 frames per second recording for professional video production, the highest resolution capabilities up to 4K at 15fps, and includes a Wi-Fi remote.

In the box
GoPro doesn't exactly shortchange you on accessories for your $400, but at the very least you'll need to get a microSD card up to 64GB. That's really the only thing that you'll need in addition to what's in the box to get you shooting.

The camera's waterproof housing is good to depths of 131 feet (40 meters); the Hero3's dive housing was good to 197 feet (60 meters). If you don't need the camera to be dust- or waterproof and would like a bit more audio to reach the built-in mono mic, you can swap out the standard backdoor for the skeleton backdoor.

Design and features
There are some differences between the bodies of the Hero3 and Hero3+, but you'd pretty much have to have it side by side to see them. The Hero3+ remains a little box that is not rugged without its housing, unlike competitors from iON , Garmin , and Drift. Don't get me wrong, the camera feels very well constructed and might survive a minor tumble, but its GoPro's housing that keeps the camera dry and safe.

The camera can sit up on its own, but without an integrated tripod mount there's no way to easily attach the camera to anything without using a housing. Being a leader, if not the leader, in action cams, there's no shortage of mounting options available from GoPro and third-party accessory makers. It's certainly an advantage to getting a GoPro, but not a big one since other action cams either have tripod mounts or available adapters to use with GoPro mounts.

Video quality
The Hero3+ Black Edition produces some of the best quality video I've seen from an action cam. With few exceptions, bit rates on action cameras tend to be around 15Mbps or lower. The Black Edition passes double that amount of data, giving you nice detail -- even when you're moving fast.

Performance

Battery life is a concern for all action cams; they're small cameras with small batteries that capture high-res video at fast frame rates. GoPro claims better battery life with the Hero3+ and going by its engineering estimates, you can get up to 2 hours of battery life shooting at 1080p 30fps with Wi-Fi off. Using higher resolutions or faster frame rates, as well as using the Wi-Fi with the included remote or GoPro mobile app, will bite into that time. Also, Wi-Fi doesn't shut off when you turn the camera's power off. If you don't turn Wi-FI off separately it will continue to drain your battery.

Basically, if you're going out for extended shooting, you'll want to get extra batteries. At least it has a replaceable battery, unlike other action cams that have built-in batteries. (By the way, the longest battery life I've seen is from the Drift Ghost-S with up to 3.5 hours recording at 1080p30, and its battery is replaceable, too.)

Though I never experienced it during testing, it is possible for the camera to get hot enough during use that it will pop up a warning to let you know that it needs to cool down. According to the manual, the camera will not allow itself to overheat and damage the camera.

Conclusion
Like the Hero3, the GoPro Hero3+ Black Edition's strongest attributes are its excellent video quality and impressive list of shooting options. If that's what matters most to you, this is the action cam to get. However, if you're just looking for something to play with and post videos online or watch on mobile devices, it's overkill and there are plenty of other options out there.

3 Reasons You Shouldn't Buy an iPhone 5C From Walmart for 97 Cents

To be fair, Walmart is far from the only retailer trying to trap you into a mobile phone contract with low prices. It's just one of the most pervasive. Walmart, along with Costco and Target, account for 12% of all cellphone sales in the U.S. Walmart is particularly popular with families, which is why Sprint recently chose the retailer as the launchpad for its family-oriented Custom plans.

A free (or nearly free) iPhone — one of the current models — sounds like a great deal, and it would be... if this were 2013. Or even early 2014. But right now, you're way better off skipping Walmart's cheapo iPhone. Here's why:

1. You can already get it for $0.

Yep, 97 cents is a great deal. You know what's a better deal? No cents. You can buy the iPhone 5C right now — with no contract — from T-Mobile for $0 down. In fact, you can do the same at AT&T, Verizon and Sprint under their various programs.

The big catch? To get those deals, you have to pay for the phone with incremental payments every month, which are usually about $25 to $35. But at least those payments stop after two years, whereas a new contract — which the Walmart deal requires — would mean your phone's true cost ($549 for the iPhone 5C) is built into the rates you pay, which don't automatically cease when the contract expires.

Either way, they get your money. And if you really want the iPhone 5C with a contract, Sprint actually already offers it for $0. At least you'll save nearly a buck.

2. It's really just a colorful iPhone 5.

The reason the iPhone 5C exists at all is because Apple wanted to offer the previous year's model (as it always does) as a "step-down" version of the iPhone for budget-conscious consumers, but it also wanted to build it cheaper so it would still produce decent profit margins.It might not have been the most impactful part of Apple's iPhone strategy, but it did succeed in packaging "last year's tech" — namely the iPhone 5.

You may be thinking "I don't need the latest and greatest," and you're right, you don't. But you also don't want to be too far behind either, and two years is a dog's age in mobile. Both platform makers and app developers design for the most recent hardware, and adapt their experiences for older models.

Just ask anyone running iOS 7 on an iPhone 4 what the experience is like. Even the iPhone 4S struggles to deal with an iOS 7 world, and that, in terms of the "tech gap," is basically the equivalent of what you'll have if you settle for the iPhone 5C now. For two years.

3. Everyone is going to discount it in a couple of weeks.

If you haven't heard, Apple is planning an event for early September. Even absent the report about the unconfirmed Sept. 9 event, Apple is always poised to unveil a new iPhone in the fall. When the new models arrive, it changes pricing for the previous models.

The Walmart discount is really just a harbinger of what's going to happen to all iPhones right then. When the iPhone 6, iPhone 6L or whatever the new models are called get here, you won't be able to throw a Bluetooth earpiece in a wireless store without hitting a discounted iPhone 5C. Apple and its retail partners need to clear out inventory to make room for the new models, and the most surefire way to do that is to cut prices.

If you're dead-set on signing a wireless contract to buy a two-year-old phone (see No. 2 above) for no money down, then just hold out a couple of weeks and you won't need to do it at Walmart.

CyberPOWER Raven X6

The market for gaming notebooks has been expanding at the speed of light in recent times. While there are countless options available from companies like Razer, Origin, Dell, ASUS, Eurocom or MSI, new models just keep coming out.

The trouble is that they seem to be bounding pretty much the same specs. Which could be a good thing if you’re driven to choose a gaming laptop based on looks or customization options.

CyberPOWER is another manufacturer of gaming system solutions which is teasing gaming enthusiasts with a new model as of this week.

The notebook is called the Raven X6 and the producing company calls it “sleek and mean” and capable of handling whatever task you throw at it. 

The Raven X6 excels at gaming, but it can easily be converted in an all-purpose notebook. For example, the existence of the HD webcam and dual digital microphones implies that the lappy can be used for video chatting and teleconferencing purposes.

The Raven arrives with a 15.6-inch display with full HD resolution, but if you want to go bigger in screen size (maybe a 17-incher), there are possibilities available on the market like the Eurocom X7.

CyberPower Raven is a new Gaming laptop 

Under the hood lies a 4th-generation Intel Core i7-4710HQ mobile processor working in concert with a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M GPU. 

While this is not half bad, more demanding users might want to push things all the way up to 880M in the graphics department, but if that’s the case, then you’ll need to be looking somewhere else. 

The MSI GT Dominator Pro takes advantage of the NVIDIA GeForce 870M/880M GPU and the Razer Blade ships out with the GTX 870M card.

Going back to the Raven, the laptop boasts 8GB of RAM, which is in league with what is being offered on the market today.

Like any gaming system, the Raven abounds of different ports including 2 USB 3.0s, HDMI out, 4-in-1 media card reader and more. Also, the laptop comes with a backlit keyboard that makes gaming during the late hours of the night possible.

CyberPOWER says the notebook is customizable with options covering a variety of storage possibilities (including mSATA SSDs), gaming memory and OS-s. 

The base model includes 8GB of RAM, 1TB 7200RPM HDD, Microsoft Windows 8.1 as default operating system. All of this can be yours for the price of $1,199 / €895.

This is a good place to remind you that Acer also launched a similar gaming notebook, in the form of the Acer Aspire V Nitro which comes with FHD display, Haswell and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M.