A holiday gift to all: Recycle your old electronics (and get cash back)

With early Black-Friday deals abounding, maybe you're planning on getting some sleek, new electronic item to replace an old clunker. And you’re probably planning on heaving that old computer, TV, printer, or whatever to the curb, right? Do us all a favor and recycle it.

"Cell phones can be loaded with toxic metals, such as arsenic, cadmium, and mercury," says Urvashi Rangan, the director of technical policy at Consumers Union. "Old televisions and computer monitors can contain up to eight pounds of lead. When they break in a landfill, then can pose an environmental and a neurological hazard."

Unfortunately, our recent survey of green behavior found that only 12 percent of consumers are recycling large electronics and 17 percent recycle small electronics.

You don’t even have to be a complete altruist. Sears is offering cash (in the form of a Sears gift card, of course) for your old electronics. Value is based on the quality of the trade-in.

So, please, keep us neurologically sound. GreenerChoices.org offers help in finding places to recycle computers, cell phones, TVs, and more. A number of manufacturers and retailers (like Best Buy, Staples, and Office Depot) also offer recycling services. For more, check out our video: “Getting Rid of Old Electronics." —Nick K. Mandle

Extra Extra: Consumer Reports Electronics Buying Guide is on sale

(Click to enlarge.)

It may be a tad early to start your holiday shopping, but there’s a good chance you’ve at least been thinking about it. Maybe you’ve had a big-ticket gift—like a new TV or home theater—in mind for a while now, but are putting off the purchase till November or December. If it’s sales you’re waiting for, you probably know what you want and how much you’re willing to pay. On the other hand, you might just a teeny bit leery of throwing so much cash at something you know very little about. Which is better: a plasma or LCD TV? Should you upgrade to a Blu-ray player or stick with standard-def DVDs?

If you find yourself in need of expert advice, consider the newest edition of the Consumer Reports Electronics Buying Guide. Inside you’ll find a wealth of information on everything from televisions and computers to smart phones, GPS units, and much more. For each product, the Consumer Reports editors walk you through the basics, explaining what’s available, which features matter, brand profiles, and offering tried-and-true shopping tips.

In addition to product information, the guide offers advice on how to shop smarter, including:

• Netting the best deals online, and protecting yourself when you shop on the Web


• When to repair and when to replace a broken item


• How to haggle effectively


• Finding the best electronics retailer based on our comprehensive annual survey


• How to save—and what to be wary of—with refurbished or open-box products on store shelves


• Where to get free office software, free computer security programs, and more useful freeware

Cut your printing costs in half

Consumer Reports lab techs recently ran tests on several printers from different brands to see whether we could appreciably save ink, paper, and time by tinkering with the printers’ settings. The answer is “Yes,” especially for black-and-white documents. Our tests showed that you can cut the cost of printing a page in half by following the suggestions below.

Print in draft mode. Try printing out a page of text on the printer’s “draft” setting (sometimes also called “fast” or “quick print” modes). The print quality will be reduced, but if you don’t need the document for any professional use, chances are that the lower quality will suffice for everyday tasks. Not only will your ink cartridges last longer, in this mode pages usually print faster.

Get the most out of each sheet. Many printers have a setting letting you print double-sided pages. The printer will print the odd pages first, then prompt you to return the printed stack, blank side up, into the paper feed to print the even pages. Some printers now even flip the page automatically. It’s a great technique for printing longer docs.

If you can handle reading slightly smaller text, you can also adjust your setting to print two pages side by side on a piece of horizontally oriented paper. —Nick K. Mandle

Are cameras and printers getting smarter?

Samsung TL225 (Click to enlarge)
[PHOTO: Courtesy of Samsung]

In the past several weeks, there have been lots of new digital imaging products announced, including cameras, camera accessories and printers. What's intriguing is that some claim to have special smart features that can automatically improve picture or print quality, or snap photos. Here are some examples:

• Two new Casio point-and-shoots, the EXILIM Zoom EX-Z450, $200, and EXILIM Zoom EX-Z90, $150, are taking face detection in a new direction: both include an intelligent autofocus feature, which, in addition to the usual face detection technology, will automatically detect non-human photo subjects and determine the focus and exposure area. So, now, your pets, plants, and still-life objects can also be perfectly exposed.
• Two recent subcompacts, the Samsung TL225, $350, (above) and Samsung TL220, $300, include LCDs on the front of camera, which, in my view, isn't all that smart. But Samsung says it uses a Smart Gesture User Interface with built-in gravity sensor, which means that once the camera is on, a simple tap on the front LCD activates it and the camera is automatically set to Self Portrait mode with smile detection. So, if users want to take a self-portrait, they only need to tap and smile, and the picture will be taken automatically without pressing the shutter button.

These Samsungs also use similar motion features found on some Olympus cameras (called Tap technology): Samsung says that by tilting the camera in a certain direction, you can go directly to a different mode or view their saved images. Also, their Smart Face Recognition technology memorizes up to 20 faces and adjusts focus and exposure to the most highly-ranked faces on the camera. It also lets you sort images by registered faces and scroll through to find images of people in your Smart Album instead of having to view every single photo.

New printers Ratings: Something for everyone

We’ve just posted our latest Ratings of 72 printers.

Do you need a regular inkjet or an all-in-one? A multifunction laser or a regular model that does nothing but print, and does it quickly? Or perhaps all you require is a portable snapshot printer. Whatever your needs, we’ve got recommended models for you: Four regular inkjets or lasers, four all-in-ones, and a couple of great snapshot printers.

All the lasers print excellent text; some are quite a bit faster than others. With many of the inkjets, you can print very good to excellent photos for 35 cents apiece, or less. Check out our Ratings to find the model that best suits your needs and budget. —Donna Tapellini

Earth Day tips: 7 ways to greener printing

1. Print on both sides of the page. Some new printers offer automatic two-sided printing (many manufacturers call this feature “automatic duplexing"), but if your printer doesn’t, print the odd pages in your document first, then turn the paper over and print the even ones.

2. Instead of printing out e-mails, Web pages, and other documents, read them on your computer screen. A free application called CutePDF makes that simpler by turning such items into easy-to-read PDFs. 

3. Download the free application GreenPrint, which analyzes what you’re printing and skips pages with little or no content.

4. If you’ve got an inkjet and you’re printing text-only or Web pages that you don’t need in color, set your printer to use only black ink. If you’re printing pages that don’t need to be highest quality, choose draft mode or a similar setting that uses less ink.

5. Ink monitors can be inaccurate. Don’t change your ink cartridge as soon as the monitor says you’re running low. Wait until you actually see a decrease in the quality of your prints.

6. Recycle used ink cartridges and old printers. Policies vary among manufacturers. For example, some companies recycle their own brand of ink cartridges for free but charge a small fee for other brands.

7. Check our printer Ratings (available to subscribers), which include an evaluation of how effectively a model conserves power when it’s inactive. —Donna Tapellini

Ratings: All-in-one and regular printers

Need a printer to go with your new desktop or laptop computer? We’ve updated our printer Ratings (available to subscribers) with all-in-one and regular models. You can spend as little as $50 for a regular printer (that prints very good photos and text, fast), as long as you don’t mind that it’s very much a no-frills model with no LCD viewer, no PictBridge connection for your camera, and no memory-card slots. Or you can shell out close to $300 for an all-in-one that faxes, copies, scans, and prints excellent photographs. But there are also plenty of models in between.

Whatever you decide, give a little thought to what you want to do with the printer before you buy it. Do you print a lot of text? Look for a model that can churn out seven to 10 very good or excellent pages for less than four cents per page. If you want to add faxing, copying, or scanning to your printer’s capabilities, check the all-in-one Ratings.

If you’re a photo buff, look for a print time of under two minutes for a 4x6 photo. Consider the tradeoffs if you want to save some cash: For example, some lower-cost models might print average-looking text, but still perform very well printing photographs.

More importantly, make sure you choose a printer with low photo-printing costs. The best of those we tested will provide excellent photos for 35 cents apiece. And if all you want to print are snapshots, check our Ratings of snapshot printers. The Recommended models print 4x6 photos for a quarter each.
Don’t forget to look for extra features like a separate tray for 4x6 paper, or automatic two-sided printing. Also take a few minutes to view our video on choosing a printer.

—Donna Tapellini

Two digital photo frames that try to do more

The creep of convergence—that is, of devices that take on extra tasks once done by separate, standalone units—has now reached the digital photo frame, with mixed results. Yesterday, we blogged about the Sony DPF-V700, $189, a decent-performing 7-inch frame that's also a fine slide-show player for your HDTV. Today's post covers two more attempts to integrate a digital photo frame with another device: the SmartParts SP8PRT, $279, an 8-inch frame with a built-in printer, and the GE 27956FE1, $130, a 7-inch frame with a built-in cordless phone.

Both are the first of their kind that we've seen and tested in our labs. And an electronic picture frame that does more than just show off digital photos might sound cool—and a seemingly perfect gift for Father's Day or recent graduate.

Unfortunately, neither the SmartParts or the GE digital picture frame fulfills the promise of convergence.

PMA2008: Two serious printers for serious photographers

HP and Epson, as well as other printer manufacturers, showed a variety of printers, from the very inexpensive snapshot models to very large-format models costing thousands. Two in particular caught my eye: The Epson Stylus Photo R1900 (right) and the HP Photosmart Pro B8850 Photo (below). (Click on the images for a closer look.)

The pair have several things in common. Both were announced in January and are targeted at the advanced amateur, one who most likely owns a digital SLR and wants to get the most from those photos. Both can print up to 13- x 19-inch prints (or longer panoramas). They each use an 8 pigment-based cartridge system, as opposed to a dye-based one, since the longevity of pigment is supposedly twice as long. Both are priced around $550. And from the specs and product demos, both offer quite a variety of printing options that will be quite exciting for most any photographer, from the ability to print on paper of varying texture to traditional black-and-white prints.

One of the improvements on the Epson R1900, the successor to Epson's R1800, is (according to Epson) enhanced gloss in the ink, making it much smoother than the R1800's gloss coating. The ink set itself has also undergone an overhaul: the new Ultrachome Hi-Gloss 2 ink set now includes a new red and orange cartridge, which Epson says offers more accurate facial color tones. Epson's also says that it has improved the printer's speed, which can now produce photos (in the highest quality mode) from 37-41 percent faster than its predecessor. Among other improvements on this model are two USB 2.0 ports. (The new HP printer includes one port.) The R1900's highest resolution is 5760 x 1440 dpi.

The HP Photosmart Pro B8850 Photo printer (left), which has a maximum resolution of 4800 x 1200 dpi, is roughly the same size as Epson's R1900, although a bit heavier. Like Epson, HP claims that its new-pigment based inks are more water-resistant and resilient than dye-based inks from previous printers. HP claims to have a better color system for handling black-and-white prints, since it includes not only matte black and photo black ink cartridges (as does Epson), but also a light gray cartridge (Epson does not have a gray cartridge).

HP also said that they've worked with Adobe and other software companies to make the B8850 (and its driver software) integrate more seamlessly with image editing programs like Photoshop CS3. For many photographers, color management can be tricky and time-consuming HP claims that they've reworked their system to make that easier, too.

To show the value of using its branded inks, HP offers an online demo showing the effects of aging on two versions of the same photograph: one using HPs inks, the other a third-party ink. You can upload your own image to see how it might age. It's an intriguing visual demo on how digital color photographs can age and fade.

The Epson R1900 will be available later in February, the HP PhotosmartPro B8850 in April.

—Terry Sullivan

PMA 2008 Preview: What's incoming in cameras and more

Each year, camera enthusiasts and pros wait to see what the major camera manufacturers will introduce at the annual Photo Marketing Association trade show (PMA), which will take place this year in Las Vegas from Jan. 31 through Feb. 2. And while some companies opted to unveil some products at CES, just three weeks ago, most have chosen to stick with PMA08 to introduce not only cameras, but also lenses, printers, software, and photo accessories.

Starting Wednesday, I'll be at the show, posting the latest news about cameras and related products and services to this blog.

Although I expect a few surprises at the show, some developments and trends are already evident. Here's what I expect to see, by camera type or technology: