Toys "R" Us Tabeo

Kids love tablets. They also love Toys "R" Us. But those two worlds don't combine well in the Tabeo ($149.99 direct), a kid-friendly Android tablet made by Archos for the toy giant. The Toys "R" Us brand name is about the only thing going for the Tabeo, which is plagued by a disappointing display, sluggish performance, and poorly implemented parental controls. The Tabeo is definitely inexpensive, but for $50 more, the Fuhu Nabi 2?and the Amazon Kindle Fire HD?with FreeTime?offer better hardware, more polished interfaces, and more comprehensive parental controls. And for only $10 more there's the Amazon Kindle Fire, which might not be as feature-rich as the Nabi 2 or the Fire HD, but still easily beats the Tabeo.

Design and Features
The Tabeo is an unassuming all-plastic tablet wrapped in a protective rubber bumper. At 8.8 by 5.6 by 0.5 inches and 13.4 ounces, it's smaller and lighter than the Nabi 2, but by no means a thin and light tablet. The all-plastic construction feels sturdy enough, though the bumper is easily removable. All ports and buttons are along the right edge when held in landscape orientation. You get a mini-HDMI out, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a microUSB port, a microSD card slot, and a Power button. There are no hardware volume buttons, which is a bit of a nuisance as the software volume buttons built into Android aren't immediately apparent in every app.?

The 7-inch 800-by-480-pixel screen is subpar, with noticeably jaggy text and an ever-present grain that washes out colors and saps detail. It's made worse by its very narrow viewing angle and relatively low brightness. The displays on both the Nabi 2 and Kindle Fire HD are much sharper, with 1,280-by-800-pixel resolution, and feature more vibrant colors and a wider viewing angle.

This is a Wi-Fi only tablet that connects to 802.11b/g/n networks on the 2.4GHz frequency only. There's a front-facing camera, limited to 320-by-240-pixel images. The Tabeo comes in a single 4GB model, but you can expand storage by 64GB via microSD card.

Performance and Parental Controls
The Tabeo is powered by a single-core 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor with 1GB RAM. As such, don't expect blazing performance. In fact, don't even expect smooth performance?in my tests, the Tabeo rendered choppy animations, stuttered while scrolling simple Web pages, and suffered from generally lethargic performance. You'll be able to play less resource-hungry games, but even Temple Run felt choppy and unresponsive. ?

Toys "R" Us went with a relatively light skin on Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich," which is a bit surprising as most kid-friendly tablets employ heavy-handed modifications. Instead of a sandboxed kid mode and full-featured adult mode, there's simply one mode with a toggle for parental controls. Unfortunately, it's painfully confusing to set up the parental controls. You need to create an account with Mobile Parent Filter, an included app, and then it's not obvious how to enable restrictions and what apps they affect. There are time restriction controls, and filters for adult content, but all of these only apply to the browser. The Tabeo lacks Google Play, so at least there's little chance of kids downloading inappropriate apps. Both the Nabi 2 and Kindle Fire HD both employ multiple, sandboxed modes to keep a tighter limit on how kids use the tablets.

Like most kid-friendly tablets, the Tabeo is preloaded with games and educational content. Angry Birds and Cut the Rope are both included. There are educational apps and ebooks, but they fall short of Fuhu's offering on the Nabi 2. You're also limited to the Tabeo app store, which has only a few hundred apps. You can sideload APKs, but many parents, especially those unfamiliar with Android, could find that too difficult. The Nabi 2 has access to Google Play, and the Kindle Fire has the Amazon App Store, along with Amazon's vast media selection.

Media support is good on the Tabeo. For audio, you get MP3, AAC, FLAC, OGG, and WAV support, but no WMA. For video, the Tabeo supports Xvid, DivX, MPEG4, H.264, and AVI files at up to 1080p resolution. Mirroring onto an HDTV worked fine using a mini-HDMI cable, but performance was very sluggish. On our battery rundown test, which loops a video with Wi-Fi on and screen brightness set to max, the Tabeo lasted a pitiful 2 hours, 52 minutes. The Nabi 2 lasted 7 hours, 42 minutes and the Kindle Fire HD lasted 7 hours on the same test.

Conclusions
The Tabeo enjoys the strength of the Toys "R" Us brand name. Unfortunately that amounts to nothing but a name, as the Tabeo is frustratingly slow, uses a subpar screen, and doesn't have great content or parental controls.?There's also a legal battle between Toys "R" Us and Fuhu, the latter claiming that Toys "R" Us stole Fuhu's intellectual property to bring its own kids tablet to market. Given the results here, perhaps Toys "R" Us should have just stuck with Fuhu.?Compared with competitors like the Nabi 2 or the Kindle Fire HD, the Tabeo falls flat in every respect. If price is your biggest factor, spend $10 more and get the original Kindle Fire, a much better tablet than the Tabeo.?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/X-dS71Jny9Q/0,2817,2417104,00.asp

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Why is Feedly an extension and not just a web app?

Great discussions are par for the course here on Lifehacker. Each day, we highlight a discussion that is particularly helpful or insightful, along with other great discussions and reader questions you may have missed. Check out these discussions and add your own thoughts to make them even more wonderful!

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Canon Pixma PRO-100

The Canon Pixma PRO-100 may be the new junior model in Canon's professional photo inkjet line, but as such it can still output gallery-quality prints at sizes up to 13 by 19 inches. It's a good choice for an amateur photographer who's looking to take the hobby more seriously.

At 8.6 by 27.2 by 15.2 inches (HWD) when closed, it's slightly larger than its Epson counterpart, the Editors' Choice Epson Stylus Photo R2000, and about the same weight. Like the R2000, it lacks an LCD; instructions and data like ink tank levels are displayed on the screen of the computer you're printing from. It offers WiFi and Ethernet as well as USB connectivity.

The PRO-100 uses eight ink tanks for its dye-based inks: black; gray; light gray; yellow; magenta; photo magenta; cyan; and photo cyan. The high-end model in the series, the Canon Pixma PRO-1, sports 12 ink tanks. Although the PRO-100's sticker price is much less than that of the PRO-1, its ink costs?at least in price per milliliter of ink, as there's no good way to measure the cost per printed page for this sort of printer?are considerably higher. Each of its tanks holds 13 ml of ink, at a cost of $1.31 per ml, compared with an even dollar per ml for the PRO-1, which has much higher capacity (36 ml) tanks. The PRO-100's ink costs per ml are also slightly higher than the $1.25 per ml of the Editors' Choice Epson Stylus Photo R2000.

The PIXMA PRO-100 has two paper trays: A rear tray for a variety of fine art and glossy photo papers, and a manual slot for thicker media. It also permits printing onto printable CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs.

Speed
Speed takes a back seat to quality with near-dedicated photo printers, but faster is still preferable, all else being equal. I timed the Canon Pixma PRO-100 (using QualityLogic's hardware and software) at an average of 1 minute 17 seconds to output a 4-by-6 print and 2:01 to output an 8-by-10. This is slightly slower than the 51 seconds per 4-by-6 and 1:42 per 8-by-10 for the Epson R2000, but much faster than the Canon Pixma PRO-1's 2:14 and 3:53 times.

Output Quality
No one buys a photo printer like the PRO-100 to print text, but it's good to know it can do so if you need it to, as it has above-average quality for an inkjet. It did especially well on several of the more common business fonts. Graphics quality was slightly above par for an inkjet, though colors were off on a couple of illustrations.

It's with photos, though, that the PRO-100 really shines. In our standard photo tests, it did very well in capturing detail in both light and dark areas, and in faces. There was the barest hint of a tint in a monochrome image, but only a perfectionist is likely to notice. I also did some ad-hoc testing, including with larger-format (13 by 19 inches) prints. It didn't do quite as well as the PRO-1 in printing images with very dark backgrounds, which isn't surprising as five of that printer's 12 ink tanks are various shades of black or gray. In a couple of prints, the colors were slightly off. Still, the overall photo quality is good enough to produce prints for exhibition or sale.

The Canon Pixma PRO-1 costs twice as much as the PRO-100 and is bigger, heavier, and slower, but has considerably lower ink costs. The PRO-1 did a superior job of printing photos with black or very dark backgrounds, and did slightly better in printing other photos as well.

The Epson Stylus Photo R3000 ($849.99 direct), which prints top-tier photos and graphics, adds a color LCD and the ability to print from paper rolls.

The Epson R2000 is a touch smaller than the PRO-100 and has a slight edge in speed, as well as slightly lower ink costs (per volume at least). That said, they both produce gallery-worthy prints, and choosing between them may come down to whether you prefer the look of Epson or Canon prints, which have slightly different qualities. They both offer WiFi, Ethernet, and USB connectivity.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/rnNTkQCdoLc/0,2817,2417036,00.asp

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Cypriot banks set to reopen after 12 days -- but customers can only withdraw $383 each

Yannis Behrakis / Reuters

A staff member of Laiki Bank, which is to be liquidated, tries to calm customers as the branch in Nicosia prepares to open.

By Ian Johnston, Staff Writer, NBC News

Banks on the tax haven of Cyprus opened Thursday for the first time in 12 days amid the island's continuing financial crisis.

Strict limits on the amount of money that could be withdrawn have been imposed ? people will be able to withdraw 300 euros ($383) a day and no checks will be cashed ? amid fears of a run on the banks.

Account holders showed up hours before the banks were due to open to get in line.

Early indications were that there was no mass rush to withdraw cash, with just 13 people waiting outside one large Bank of Cyprus branch on the island as it opened at noon local time (6 a.m. ET). They were surrounded by a scrum of journalists.

?We need only from you cooperation, understanding and please patience,? the manager of the branch said before opening.

However a small crowd of people did press against the doors of a branch of Laiki Bank, which is being liquidated. CNBC sources estimate those with more than 100,000 euros (about $128,000) in accounts in Laiki Bank could lose 40 to 70 percent of their deposits.

During the banking shutdown, people could only withdraw 100 euros (about $127) a day from the country's two biggest banks, using ATMs.?Most who lined up for the opening Thursday were elderly people and those without ATM cards.?

Deposits above 100,000 euros with the Bank of Cyprus will be frozen and 40 percent of each account will be converted into bank stock. Accounts in both banks with balances under 100,000 euros will be fully protected.

A previous proposal to take less from all bank accounts?was vetoed by the Cypriot parliament.

The country is seeking to meet the terms of a bailout from the European Union of 10 billion euros ($12.9 billion) and, in order to raise enough funds to meet strict conditions imposed by the EU, it is preparing to take money from bank accounts.

CNBC's Michelle Caruso Cabrera reports on banks reopening in Cyprus and the limits they've imposed on depositors. The situation, she says, is calmer than expected.

Ahead of the banks? reopening, money was flown into the island and guards were seen delivering cash to banks in armored vehicles.

The banks were due to close at 6 p.m. local time (12 p.m. ET).

There was some relief on the island that the banks were finally opening again, but this was mixed with fear about what could happen.

'Slow death'
Yorgos Georgiou, who owns a dry cleaning business in Nicosia, told Reuters that "finally people's mood will be lifted and we can start to trust the system again."

But he added: "I'm worried about the poor kids working in the cashiers today, because people might vent their anger at them. You can't predict how people will react after so many days."

Kostas Nikolaou, a 60-year-old retiree, told Reuters that the uncertainty of the past two weeks had been "like a slow death."

"How can they tell you that you can't access your own money in the bank? It's our money, we are entitled to it,? he added.

The country?s president, Nicos Anastasiades, has described the bailout deal as ?painful? but essential.

However, Nobel laureate economist Christopher Pissarides said it was ?extremely unfair to the little guy.?

?For the first time in the euro zone, depositors are (being) asked to bail out failing banks," he said. "Now that used to be the case in the 1930s, especially United States (and) caused big bank runs. It has been decided since then that we shouldn?t allow that to happen again.?

As Cyprus celebrates its Independence Day, the ?government is defending the last-minute bailout deal it's negotiated with the European Union. This means shutting down the country's second biggest bank, with big savers facing ?losses. ?ITV's Emma Murphy reports.

Among other controls, the island's central bank will review all commercial transactions over 5,000 euros and scrutinize transactions over 200,000 euros on an individual basis, Reuters reported. People leaving Cyprus can take only 1,000 euros with them. An earlier draft of the decree had put the figure at 3,000.

Reuters summed up the situation facing the island:

With just 860,000 people, Cyprus has about 68 billion euros in its banks - a vastly outsized financial system that attracted deposits from foreigners as an offshore haven but foundered after investments in neighboring Greece went sour.

The European Union and International Monetary Fund concluded that Cyprus could not afford a rescue unless it imposed losses on depositors, seen as anathema in previous euro zone bailouts.?The bailout looks set to push Cyprus deeper into an economic slump, shrink the banking sector and cost thousands of jobs.

European leaders said the bailout deal averted a chaotic national bankruptcy that might have forced Cyprus out of the euro.

Many Cypriots say the deal was foisted upon them by Cyprus's partners in the 17-nation euro zone within the European Union, and some have taken to the streets to vent their frustration.

CNBC's Michelle Caruso-Cabrera and Katie Slaman, and Reuters contributed to this report.

Related:

Cypriots fear run on banks as branches prepare to reopen

Cypriots: Hope, but also fear they 'will be like slaves' to Russia

EU to Cypriots: Let us raid your savings or no bailout

This story was originally published on Thu Mar 28, 2013 4:52 AM EDT

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653387/s/2a157626/l/0Lworldnews0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A30C280C174975730Ecypriot0Ebanks0Eset0Eto0Ereopen0Eafter0E120Edays0Ebut0Ecustomers0Ecan0Eonly0Ewithdraw0E3830Eeach0Dlite/story01.htm

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Iran's support for Syria still appears strong - but is it hedging its bets?

When the Arab League handed Syria?s long-vacant seat to the Syrian opposition on March 26 and endorsed military aid for anti-regime rebels, the first and loudest complaints came from Iran.

Despite a two-year rebellion that has seen 70,000 deaths and 1 million refugees, Iran has not veered from its staunch support for Syria?s embattled President Bashar al-Assad, whose regime it considers a critical piece of its anti-US, anti-Israel "axis of resistance."

The Arab League's decision set a ?dangerous precedent? that would only ?add to the problems,? warned Iran?s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi. It would even ?bring an end to the [Arab League?s] role in the region,? asserted his deputy, Hossein Amir Abdollahian.

The Iranian complaints are the diplomatic side of an on-the-battlefield proxy war in Syria, with both sides reportedly receiving a surge of weapons from outside powers in recent months. Iranian military and financial support for Mr. Assad has been stepped up with near-weekly flights (and Russia still continues normal sales to its ally). Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, meanwhile, have ferried fresh weaponry to the rebels, with CIA support.

RECOMMENDED: How much do you know about Iran? Take our quiz to find out.

United Nations envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi says the Syrian conflict is becoming a ?playground for competing regional forces.?

As the mish-mash of rebel forces capture more ground, more regime military bases and hardware, and key civilian targets, few analysts predict that Assad?s regime will survive in its current form, or that Syria?s longstanding ruler will be alive when it is over. Even Iran, despite its unbending public support for Assad, appears to be preparing for a post-Assad world.

"Iran so far was successful; without Iran's money and strategic help, Assad would have fallen much earlier," says Mehdi Khalaji, an Iran specialist at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "But in terms of policy, they have a Plan B?. So even if Assad falls, to some extent Iran would be able to protect its interests."

'PLAN B'

That plan may hinge on a pro-regime militia Iran helped to create called Jaysh al-Shabi. The militia could protect Syria's Alawites ? the Shiite Muslim offshoot to which Assad and much of his regime belong ? if they are relegated to only a portion of the country in northwest Syria, along the coast to the border with Lebanon.

It's possible that no side will gain a decisive advantage and, with all sides backed by powerful international friends, the country will break along sectarian and ethnic fault lines, with Alawite and Kurdish sections, and a larger Sunni portion.

Since its 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran has used Syria as a conduit for weapons, cash, and support for the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah, and later Hamas and Islamic Jihad, all of which form a frontline against Israel. If Assad falls, Iran could lose that channel.

Iran?s Revolutionary Guard commander has been quoted as saying that the Jaysh al-Shabi, a mix of Shiite and Alawite groups, is modeled after Iran?s ideological Basij militia, a large volunteer force that has been used to quell street unrest. Senior US officials, who added Jaysh al-Shabi to its list of sanctioned groups last December, have described it as ?an Iran-Hezbollah joint venture.?

?In terms of propaganda, no, I think the Iranians in the near future would not admit this possibility [of Assad falling],? says Mr. Khalaji.

But Iran's Plan B with the pro-regime militia means that even if Assad is removed, as long as an Alawite enclave continues to exist in Syria, Iran may still manage to maintain direct links with militant groups. "By helping them, [Iran would] make sure that some part of Syria can be used as a bridge to reach Lebanon and the Palestinian territories," adds Khalaji."

GULF, WEST COME TOGETHER

At the Arab League meeting in Doha, Qatar, countering any Iranian support for the Assad regime may have been behind the readiness to recognize the anti-government coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people.

?We demand ? all forms of support from our friends and brothers, including our full right for self-defense,? said Syrian opposition chief Moaz al-Khatib after taking Syria's seat at the Arab League meeting.

That has reportedly been happening already. The airlifting of military aid by Arab governments and Turkey to Syrian rebels with CIA help ?expanded into a steady and much heavier flow late last year,? The New York Times reported on March 24. According to the Times, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar ? Sunni Muslim nations wary of Iranian influence in the region ? have carried out 160 military-style cargo flights bringing weaponry to Turkey and Jordan, from which the weapons are smuggled into Syria.

?The intensity and frequency of these [weapons] flights are suggestive of a well-planned and coordinated clandestine military logistics operation,? Hugh Griffiths of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute told the Times.

NOT ENOUGH

Likewise, Iran has ?significantly stepped up? military support for Assad, according to a mid-March report by Reuters.

The Iranian effort ?suggests the Syrian war is entering a new phase in which Iran may be trying to end the battlefield stalemate by redoubling its commitment to Assad? and giving the regime a ?crucial lifeline,? Reuters reported, citing Western diplomats and a Western intelligence report from last September.

The intelligence report described shipments, primarily through Iraqi airspace, ranging from communications gear and drone parts to ?advanced strategic weapons? such as shore-to-sea missiles and ballistic missiles.

?None of this will be decisive; Assad will lose,? says Kenneth Katzman, an analyst for the Congressional Research Service in Washington. ?You?re not going to change the outcome unless you are shipping big-ticket items, which I don?t think anybody is.?

Assad?s military stores are slowly being eroded: Helicopters and planes have been shot down, and many tanks have been taken out and some captured by rebels and turned against government forces.

The Iranians "can?t do much more, because to do more would risk getting things captured and exposed," says Mr. Katzman. ?To some extent the [Iranian] mentality is the same as Assad?s mentality: Just be tough, show as much strength as possible, and you?re going to be able to power through it. I think they?ve overestimated their ability to save Assad.?

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/irans-support-syria-still-appears-strong-hedging-bets-181943891.html

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Army vet accused of fighting alongside al-Qaida

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) ? A U.S. Army veteran, who boasted on Facebook of his military adventures with Syrian rebels, was charged Thursday with firing rocket propelled grenades as part of an attack led by an al-Qaida group against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Eric Harroun, 30, of Phoenix, was charged in U.S. District Court in Alexandria with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction ? specifically, a rocket propelled grenade launcher ? outside the U.S.

According to an FBI affidavit, Harroun, who served three years in the Army before being medically discharged, was engaged in military action in Syria, siding with rebel forces against the Syrian government, from January to March of this year.

Harroun told FBI investigators that he traveled to Turkey in November hoping to join the Free Syrian Army, a rebel group. In January, he crossed the border and made contact with the Free Syrian Army, which outfitted him two Russian rifles, according to the affidavit.

Within days, Harroun participated in an attack on a Syrian army encampment that was carried out jointly by the Free Syrian Army and the al-Nusrah Front, commonly known as "al-Qaida in Iraq" and designated a terrorist group by the U.S., according to the affidavit.

After that battle, Harroun retreated in the back of an al-Nusrah truck. Harroun told the FBI that at the al-Nusrah camp, he was initially treated like a prisoner but was later accepted by the other members and participated in several attacks with them, according to the affidavit.

Harroun said al-Nusrah fighters would ask him why the U.S. had designated them as terrorists, according to the affidavit.

Harroun used RPG launchers in the attacks and once, on his Facebook page, claimed credit for downing a Syrian helicopter. According to the affidavit, Harroun told the FBI that he shot an estimated 10 people in his various battles, though he was unsure if he had ever killed anyone.

On the Facebook page, Harroun also stated that "the only good Zionist is a dead Zionist" and that he intended to travel to the Palestinian territory because of Israeli atrocities there, according to the affidavit. The affidavit states that Harroun served in the Army from 2000 to 2003, when he received a medical discharge after he was injured in a car accident.

An Army spokesman said Harroun served at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri and Fort Riley in Kansas, and that his record listed no overseas deployments.

The federal public defender was appointed to represent Harroun at an initial public appearance Thursday, and a detention hearing was scheduled for Tuesday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Peterson said Harroun faces up to life in prison.

Harroun flew back to the U.S. Wednesday through Dulles International Airport. He was arrested after being questioned by FBI agents there.

The public defender for the Eastern District of Virginia, Michael Nachmanoff, declined comment Thursday, saying he had not yet had time to review the case in any depth.

Last year, Nachmanoff's office represented a northern Virginia man, Mohamad Soueid, who pleaded guilty to spying on U.S.-based Syrian dissidents on behalf of the Assad regime. Soueid said he was motivated to help the Syrian government because of his fear that Islamic extremists would take hold in Syria if Assad's secular regime were overthrown.

Harroun is not charged with providing material support to a terrorist group, but instead conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction outside the U.S., a law that applies to U.S. nationals operating anywhere in the world. The statute makes no distinction or exception for an individual who may be fighting a hostile regime.

Harroun appeared to make no effort to hide his activities in Syria. His Facebook page includes multiple photos of him wielding military rifles and a photo of Assad, with the caption "Wanted Dead or NOT alive!!!!"

Harroun gave several interviews through Skype to journalists Greg Tepper and Ilan Ben Zion, who wrote articles for Foreign Policy magazine and Fox News.

In one interview, Harroun described himself as a "freedom fighter" and said joining up with al-Nusrah is "not rocket science." At other times, though, he disputed a connection with the group.

His father, Darryl Harroun, told FoxNews.com the car accident that led to his son's military discharge left him with a steel plate in his head, and exacerbated depression from which his son already suffered.

Darryl Harroun said that family and friends call his son "Arizona Jones."

Efforts by AP to reach Darryl Harroun Thursday were not immediately successful.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-army-vet-charged-fighting-al-qaida-184044925.html

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Epson PowerLite W16SK 3D 3LCD Dual Projection System

As long as its name is, and as much information as Epson has packed into the name, the Epson PowerLite W16SK 3D 3LCD Dual Projection System, leaves out one critical piece of information: Namely, the W16SK works with passive, rather than active, 3D glasses. That's particularly important for a data projector, because it makes 3D far more economical for an audience of more than a handful of people. The lower cost, in turn, removes the major hurdle to making 3D practical in an office or classroom. And if you need 3D, it also earns the W16SK a spot on your short list.

Support for 3D is common enough to be nearly standard on DLP projectors today, and it's even starting to show up on LCD projectors, including the Editors' Choice Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 3020e home entertainment projector and the Epson PowerLite W16 3D WXGA 3LCD Projector that I recently reviewed. However, the 3D in virtually all of these projectors depends on active-shutter glasses.

Passive glasses are much cheaper. Epson's are $15 (direct) for a pack of five, while its active glasses for the W16 are $99 each. So even though the W16SK costs more than twice as much as the W16, if you need more than about 10 pairs of glasses, the total cost for the W16SK for 3D will be lower. And since passive glasses don't use batteries, you won't be constantly changing or recharging batteries either.

All this makes a 3D data projector for a relatively large audience a lot more practical with passive glasses. That's what the W16SK brings to the table.

Basics
The W16SK is similar to the W16 in some ways. Both offer WXGA (1,280 by 800) resolution, and both are built around LCD engines, which means they share the advantage of not showing rainbow artifacts the way single-chip DLP projectors can. They also share the advantage over most DLP projectors of offering equal color brightness and white brightness.

Both also let you connect directly to a 3D Blu-ray player or other video device for 3D input, even though they don't fully support HDMI 1.4a. According to Epson, they also both work in 3D with a 3D computer equipped with a Quad-buffered, Open GL 3D-compatible graphics card. However, they don't support the 3D format that computers typically use, and they don't support 3D over a VGA connection. To get 3D with a computer, you need third-party software for the computer, and have to connect by HDMI.

Where the two most obviously differ is that the W16 is a single projector while the W16SK consists of two projectors plus a stacking mount. The mount holds the projectors in the right position relative to each other, so their images will be registered, meaning they'll be precisely aligned, pixel by pixel, without one turning into an apparent ghost image of the other.

Setup
Setting the W16SK up is surprisingly easy, considering the need to get the images aligned. However, Epson doesn't supply a splitter for either VGA or HDMI connections, and it doesn't supply any cables, so be sure to order these along with the projector. For my tests, I used a simple Y-cable splitter for VGA, connecting it to the computer and then connecting standard VGA cables between the splitter and each projector. For the HDMI connection, I used a powered splitter and three HDMI cables, with one going to the image source and one going to each projector.

Epson provides clear instructions for every step of the installation, starting with putting the projectors in the mount and adding the polarizing filters. You then plug in the cables, with one cable from each image source going to each projector. There's also a supplied USB cable to plug into both projectors, so you can change settings in both simultaneously with one remote or one projector control panel.

Each projector has independent manual focus and zoom controls. In addition, a Screen Fit feature automatically adjusts the images to correct for any misregistration. Here again, the steps are simple and clearly explained. They consist basically of pressing a button, following the instructions on screen to zoom the two images so one is larger than the other, and pressing the button again.

Once two projectors are set up, you can use them for 2D or 3D images, just as you would use a single projector. If you move them so they get misaligned, you can quickly realign them using the Screen Fit feature. I tried it several times, moving the table the projectors were on between each try, and it worked as promised every time.

A Word about Brightness
Epson rates the W16SK at 3,000 lumens for each projector, or 6,000 lumens for both together. It's important to understand that you actually wind up with fewer lumens to work with, however, which is why you need so much brightness to start with.

Before using the Screen Fit feature, the image in my tests was roughly 78 inches wide. After using the feature, it was 75 inches wide, with Screen Fit scaling the image on one projector to fix the misregistration. This is obviously needed, since the two images need to be aligned, but it works out to a reduction in screen area of about 7.5 percent. So if you assume a true 3,000 lumens per projector, you only get to use about 2,775 lumens with these particular settings for the image size, or a total of about 5,550 lumens.

There's also a reduction in brightness from the polarizing filters. Epson claims they drop the brightness by about 17 percent, but I measured it at 24 percent, bringing the total brightness down to about 4,260 lumens. And if you don't spend the time I did tweaking the zoom settings to give you the largest possible final image, you'll get a still lower brightness level. In one test run I wound up with a 71-inch width, which works out to about 3,820 lumens.

Keep in mind too that for 3D images the left and right lenses in 3D glasses each block out the light meant for the other eye, which effectively cuts the brightness in half again for 3D. So although 6,000 lumens would normally be bright enough for a small auditorium or large classroom, in the W16SK's case the actual brightness level is more appropriate for a suitably large image for a medium-size conference room or classroom with typical levels of ambient light.

One other twist on brightness relates to the screen. Passive 3D depends on polarized light. It won't work with a standard white screen, because the light from the projector loses the needed polarization when it's reflected from the screen. Instead you need a silver screen like the Severtson GP169923D ($1,150 street, 4 stars), which I used for testing. However, screens for 3D also tend to offer a high gain, with a 2.4 gain in the case of the GP169923D. That means the screen increases the brightness for the image by reflecting more of the light back towards the audience and less towards the sides.

Image Quality
The W16SK's 2D data image quality was a little short of excellent, but not by much. On our standard suite of DisplayMate tests, it delivered fully saturated, vibrant color in all modes, and excellent color balance, with suitably neutral grays at all levels from white to black in all modes. It doesn't show fine detail well, however, with black text on white easily readable only down to 9 points in my tests, and white text on black taking some effort to read even at 12 points. This shouldn't be an issue for most people, but if you need show images with fine detail, it could be a problem.

Video quality was far better than you'll get with most data projectors, making it easily good enough to watch a full-length movie. I saw some exceedingly mild loss of shadow detail (details based on shading in dark areas), but only in scenes that are particularly hard to handle and that most data projectors do far worse with.

I didn't see any motion artifacts, posterization (colors changing suddenly where they should shade gradually), or other issues worth mention, and the projector did a good job with skin tones. Colors don't pop they way that would with a better contrast ratio, but that's just another way of saying that the W16SK isn't in the same league as a home theater projector. It also helps that, as an LCD-projector, it doesn't show rainbow artifacts.

3D and Other Issues
The W16SK comes with only one pair of 3D glasses, so plan to buy more. Image quality in 3D is reasonably good overall, with good color quality in particular. I saw some crosstalk in one scene that tends to bring out crosstalk, but I didn't see any 3D-related motion artifacts in scenes that other projectors have problems with. In general, watching 3D with the W16SK was one of the most comfortable 3D viewing experiences I've had outside of an IMAX theater, with a good sense of depth, smooth movement, and no obvious issues beyond the occasional crosstalk.

One feature that's almost not worth having is the W16SK's sound system, with its severely underpowered 2-watt mono speaker. If you need sound, plan on getting an external sound system.

Given the Epson PowerLite W16SK 3D 3LCD Dual Projection System's price, there's little reason to consider it unless you are serious about 3D. But if you need 3D for an audience of 10 or more, it offers a complete, cost-effective option. The problem holding fine detail will be an issue for some people, but shouldn't matter for most. And for that majority, at least, the Epson PowerLite W16SK 3D 3LCD Dual Projection System is a potentially cost-effective solution that will be hard to beat.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/00BheyW8Q_Y/0,2817,2417121,00.asp

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