IdeaPad S205 hits Lenovo webstore, starts at $499

The first of Lenovo's CES-announced S Series, the S205, sauntered into the computer manufacturer's online store this week, albeit lacking the 8GB DDR3 SDRAM option mentioned at its announcement. The base model sells for $499, sporting a 1.60Ghz dual-core AMD Fusion E-350 CPU, an 11.6-inch (1366 x 768 resolution) 16:9 widescreen panel, 3GB of DDR3 SDRAM, ATI Mobility Radeon 6310 graphics, and a 350GB HDD. Two higher cost configurations score an extra gig of RAM, an optional Bluetooth radio, and a 500GB or 750GB HDD. The lesser of the higher end models can be had for a $429 at LogicBuy until Wednesday, if you can live without Bluetooth (which man did for thousands of years, but you know what we mean).

T-Mobile 4G Mobile Hotspot review

Better late than never, right? Two years after Verizon started selling its first MiFi device, T-Mobile is dipping its toes into the mobile hotspot market with the eponymous 4G Mobile Hotspot, which packs an HSPA+ radio and, like other hotspots, doubles as a USB storage device. As an HSPA+ device, of course, it claims slower rates than "true" 4G devices that run on LTE or WiMAX networks -- but, really, typical download speeds of 8Mbps should hardly be a deal-breaker for those who like the idea of paying less for the hotspot and the data plans that go with it. And what tempting pricing it is. Though rates vary depending on whether you're also a voice subscriber, T-Mo is far more generous in both its prices and definition of "unlimited" than its competitors. So is this discreet hotspot speedy enough to keep up with a nomadic routine of traveling and floating from meeting to meeting? And is it worth straying from a bona fide 4G device? You'll have to head on past the break to find out.

T-Mobile 4G Mobile Hotspot review

Hardware and setup

We wouldn't blame you if you mistook this ZTE-sourced hotspot for a phone. Its narrow build, rounded edges, microSD card slot, satiny back cover, and small OLED display all make it look like a handset-- albeit, a thin clamshell from the mid-2000s. Once we started using the hotspot as a storage device, we came to appreciate the side-loading - it made it easier to swap in the microSD card we were already using with our smartphone. As for ports and buttons, there are power and WPS buttons tucked on the same side as the memory card slot, with an external antenna port on the opposite side, though, as you'll see, we got fast service without having to use any of these. Rounding out this quick tour, you'll find a miniUSB port on the bottom edge, allowing you to connect it to any computer for either charging or accessing whatever you've stored on your microSD. Alas, though, it's not possible to access the card wirelessly.

But more than the pocketable hardware, its the OLED screen that you'll get the most intimate with. It neatly displays up to five bars of service, four bars of battery life, as well as the kind of service you're getting. (Even when our service crawled the screen said 4G, though it's also possible to see 3G or "E," for -- gasp -- EDGE.) Given that stumbling upon fast service was largely a matter of luck (more on that later), we found ourselves glancing at the screen about as often as we'd whip out our phone to check the time.

Getting set up is a short, painless affair requiring you to pull away the back cover. You'll find a battery and SIM card and will then have to pop out the battery to find the password printed on a label pasted underneath. Jot that down then enter it when you find the hotspot in your list of wireless networks. Et voila! A fast, foolproof process, though admittedly, it wouldn't have been obvious that the password was written inside the device had we not cracked the instruction manual.

Speed

Rather than get rehash stale questions about whether T-Mobile should be calling its HSPA+ hotspot a 4G device, we'll just focus on what it promises to deliver. T-Mobile says it's a 21Mbps capable device, although a company rep warned us that average download rates of 5Mbps to 8Mbps with peak speeds of 10Mbps are more likely.

We say, that's about right. During a week of testing, we consistently saw an indicator for so-called 4G service, as opposed to 3G, though speeds varied wildly. In short, when it was good, it was very, very good -- with all five bars of service, we noted average download speeds ranging between 6.09Mbps and 8.4Mbps, and upload rates hovering around 1.72Mbps. At its best, tabs loaded briskly, we handily uploaded resized pictures to our blog, and we streamed YouTube videos without worrying that we'd run out of buffer. In fact, we wrote sections of this review while sitting in a cafe and barely waited for our server to save our work.

The problem is, it's impossible to predict when you'll happen upon such speedy service -- or when you'll manage a connection at all. In Brooklyn -- an outerborough of New York City -- our connection slowed to an average of 2.22Mbps for downloads and 1.26Mbps for uploads, though the indicator on the hotspot consistently claimed we were getting 4G service, as opposed to plain old 3G.. That was enough to keep us logged into a group chat in Colloquy, but refreshing a single web page was painstaking. (Loading three or four sites at once just made us throw up our hands.) That didn't mean we couldn't get work done -- we were still able to upload compressed photos, though this was definitely a pokier ordeal than it was in areas where we got all five bars of service.

Worse, there were a few times when the hotspot failed to come through at all, and left us hunting for free public WiFi networks. In one instance, we couldn't get online in a Brooklyn test spot where we had previously made a connection -- albeit, a perfunctory one. Later in our testing, we tried to get online in New York's Herald Square, an outdoor area with seats and tables -- precisely the kind of spot you might tote your laptop during your lunch hour on a sunny day. What did we get? Zilch. Ditto when we relocated to the lobby of a nearby building. Throughout, our Verizon phone showed full 3G service in that part of town, so it's not like we would expect any cellular device to turn up dry. Even stranger, Herald Square is about a mile and a half north of some of the spots where we got the fastest service. The troubling thing, of course, is that this isn't information you'll learn by looking at a coverage map. T-Mobile might promise HSPA+ service in New York City, but it won't tell you that you'll get golden performance in the Lower East Side, but not West 34th Street in Midtown. If that's the case, we don't see how T-Mobile can guarantee that anyone anywhere will get consistently strong service from block to block, or neighborhood to neighborhood.

Battery life

T-Mobile claims the hotspot can withstand up to four hours of continuous use, which is pretty accurate. After two and a half hours of nonstop use, we were down to two bars of battery life out of four. Still, don't feel like you have to rush to turn it off to save juice: after three hours of letting the hotspot sit idly, the battery life indicator hadn't budged from two bars. Then, when we forgot to charge it overnight, we still had a bar left. And, the good news is that the hotspot will still work while charging via USB, so assuming you've got a port to spare and don't mind packing the cable, there's no reason you should find yourself stranded without a connection.

Pricing

Like a subsidized phone, the hotspot will cost less up front if you commit to a two-year contract. If you make that commitment, the hardware itself will cost $80, though the price of the monthly data plan will vary depending on whether you opt for a 5GB or 10GB plan and whether you plan on purchasing it along with a T-Mobile voice plan. Both plans allow you to connect wirelessly to up to five devices at once, with a UBS tethering option for tablets, in particular. And neither plan imposes any data overage fees, though depending on the plan, speeds will slow significantly after you've consumed either 5GB or 10GB during a given month. All that said, a 5GB monthly plan costs $50 per month by itself, and $40 in conjunction with a voice plan. The 10GB plan costs $85 alone and $68 with a voice plan.

Of course, we'd be remiss if we didn't point out that there's also a 200MB monthly plan for $24 with a voice plan ($30 without). Then again, if you opt for this plan you'll be at the mercy of overage fees to the tune of 10 cents for every megabyte beyond 200MB. Needless to say, that can add up, and 200MB won't get you very far, particularly if you plan on streaming video.

Meanwhile, if a monthly contract is too large a commitment when you don't even know how often you'll be traveling, you can purchase the hotspot off contract for $130. If you take the no-strings-attached approach, you'll be purchasing service in weekly or monthly increments. The offerings include a 100MB weekly plan for $10, a 300MB monthly plan for $30, and a 1GB monthly plan for $50. All of these plans allow for USB tablet tethering along with five simultaneous wireless connections. And just to warn you: they also include overage charges.

To put all these numbers in context, none of this is so bad when you consider that Verizon is charging $100 for its (admittedly faster) LTE hotspot, even after rebates. But even where the data is concerned, T-Mobile undercuts Big Red slightly. A 5GB and 10GB plan cost $50 and $80, respectively -- and come with the threat of $10-per-gigabyte overage fees.

Wrap-up

On paper, T-Mobile's 4G hotspot isn't as fast as a so-called true 4G device, and in practice its speeds aren't always bustling. The question with this device isn't whether you'll get service -- because you almost always will -- but whether you'll happen to park yourself in an area where you can really make the most out of its HSPA+ radio. When you do, the speeds will be as brisk as promised, and we're betting many people won't find themselves pining for an LTE or WiMAX device. It's clear that the occasional disappointment of 2Mbps speeds is the trade-off for a lower up-front cost and more generous data plans. We say, take a hard look at T-Mobile's data coverage map. Depending on where you fall, that could be a compromise well worth making.

Sidekick 4G review

It's been nearly two years since we last reviewed a T-Mobile Sidekick, and it would be a vast understatement to say things have changed. Then, they were designed by Danger and manufactured by Sharp, and were the messaging phone of choice. Today, following fiasco and failure, the Sidekick empire is in ruins. But good ideas and their originators live on, and several of Danger's brightest wound up in Mountain View, California. Danger's Andy Rubin founded Android, design director Mattias Duarte built Honeycomb (after helping craft the Helio Ocean and webOS for Palm) and now, the Sidekick itself has joined its founders in the house that Google built. In many ways, the Sidekick 4G is a return to form, but in an ecosystem filled with similar Android devices, can it stand out from the crowd?

T-Mobile Sidekick 4G unboxing and hands-on

Hardware

We're tempted to say "yes" based on looks alone. Android's got no shortage of landscape QWERTY sliders, and some of them even boast pretty fancy builds, but the Sidekick 4G's matte, soft-touch plastic frame, accented sparingly with a dark brushed metal trim, manages to simultaneously be stylish and utilitarian. It's a thick plastic phone in a world that increasingly idolizes supermodels like the iPhone 4 and Xperia Arc, but every part of its shell is purpose-built for tactile control, and we're mostly happy with the trade-offs.

Samsung may have not seen fit to equip the Sidekick 4G with one of its fancy AMOLED displays, but it certainly dug up a pretty fantastic standard LCD here, which washes out slightly at off-angles but otherwise aquits itself admirably. Of course, it's only got 3.5 inches of real estate, which can be quite the adjustment if you're used to 4+ inch slate phones or even 3.7-inch QWERTY sliders like the Droid 2, and there's enough more than enough bezel on the Sidekick 4G to suggest that the smaller screen might be a cost-cutting measure. That said, you're looking at 267 pixels per inch here -- which means you're rarely looking at pixels at all -- so it's not bad, just not really suited to multimedia. It's pretty nice for touchscreen input, though, with a responsive capacitive digitizer (tracking five points of contact) underneath a smooth Gorilla Glass sheet.

Whether held in the left or right hand, the Sidekick 4G is comfortable to grip in portrait mode, and most critical controls are easy to reach -- the bottom (or left) positions the nice, firm volume rocker right beneath your upper digits, a 3.5mm headphone jack at the very top, and the power button at the bottom where you can press it with pinky or palm. Up top (or right) there's a rotating flap covering the microUSB port, and a somewhat squishy two-stage camera shutter button that can nonetheless assist in taking single-handed pics. There's also an optical trackpad on the front that makes a little bit of sense in portrait mode, but isn't really sensitive (nor accessible) enough to scroll through more than the occasional webpage. We miss our trackball.

Landscape mode is where the Sidekick's hardware is obviously designed to shine, as the handset's large, clicky face buttons don't make much sense in the vertical -- and of course, once you spin the phone ninety degrees, you'll be able to access the Sidekick's famous QWERTY keyboard, though sans the familiar hinge. Historically, the only Hiptop that ever shipped without that trademark swiveling display was dead on arrival, but we can joyously announce that that stigma is no more, as the Sidekick 4G has one of the most ingenious and rock-solid sliding hinges we've seen on a smartphone yet. Push the bottom lip of the display upward roughly a single centimeter, and the mechanism leaps forward with a satisfying snap, propelled by an spring-loaded, all-metal crossbar that simultaneously props up the display at the correct angle and shields its cable ribbon. There's not a hint of play in any direction, nor any question about whether the device is fully opened or closed and though we initially missed our spinning screen we eventually had to admit this one is nearly as cool.

We've tried every Hiptop keyboard made, and while this isn't the best we've ever used -- the Sidekick II's all-rubber matrix is hard to surpass -- Samsung's Sidekick 4G beats the pants off any QWERTY keyboard we've used on an Android machine. You pay a hefty premium to get this kind of real estate, but look at the result: a spacious, staggered five-row keyboard with a dedicated number row, easy access to commas, periods, questionmarks and the all-important @ symbol, and if you're 15 years old (or 15 at heart), an emoticon key too. The domed keys are rather noisy in use, a little shallow and a tad stiff, which can lead to some thumb fatigue after a while -- a little extra padding might have been nice -- and the placement of the Search key tripped us up from time to time when we intended to hit Shift instead. Overall, though, Sidekick lovers will be right at home; with just a couple days of re-training ourselves, we were touch-typing 35WPM (without errors) on the QWERTY keyboard.

Though still decidedly made of plastic, even the back cover of the phone shows some thoughtful design. It sports larged textured grips to make absolutely sure you won't easily drop the phone while typing, and it's thin and flexible enough to easily pry off the rear without requiring excessive pressure. Underneath, you'll find the same user-replaceable 1500mAh battery Samsung uses in all its mid-range smartphones (Transform, Intercept, Craft, etc.) which should make finding replacements easy and cheap, as well as easy access to the included 2GB microSD card (but unfortunately not the SIM slot).

Software, performance and battery life

Samsung's never been particularly shy about skinning Android -- replacing parts of the stock user interface with ideas of its own design -- and for the most part, we've tolerated its TouchWiz skins without really understanding the point. Starting with the stellar Galaxy S II, however, it seems there's finally a mandate to make change exceedingly functional and pleasing to use, and we have to say, the Sidekick 4G's interface (based on Android 2.2.1) is pretty dang cool. Filled with translucent blue parallelograms and text that vaguely evoke Honeycomb (and by association, Tron), every part of the UI has seen a stylish overhaul, and it's both seriously eye-catching and fairly useful. The lock screen, for instance, returns you to your content when you slide the lower blade down, but fling the upper blade skyward and it can automatically launch any app or shortcut of your choice.

T-Mobile Sidekick 4G software walkthrough

Threaded conversations don't just look nice, but also let you communicate a whole variety of things without leaping into other apps -- a couple presses and you can attach a quick voice recording, upcoming calendar event, GPS location, picture or video to anything you send, or send an email, Tweet or status update from the same interface, and there's also a Group Text app to let you blast SMS out to all your friends. The Contacts page has similarly seen an overhaul, and it's much like the one we enjoyed using in the Galaxy S II -- there's an alphabetical directory at right for quickly scrolling through your friends, relatives and acquaintances, and a quick swipe right on their name will immediately call them (or swipe left will text them) without further ado. Though Android has had Sidekick-like jump shortcuts since the very beginning, actually tapping the Jump button by itself does something rather cool -- it pulls up a scrolling list of your last eight tasks in order and displays their keyboard shortcuts to make multitasking even less painless than it was by default.

All that said, the UI overhaul isn't without its issues, like how the Dialer and Contacts app is only usable in portrait view, and the way some third-party apps didn't like Samsung's translucent blue text and rendered it invisible. Samsung's worst misstep, though, is arguably its social networking integration. The Sidekick 4G uses Samsung's Social Networking Sync (SNS) service to drop your friends Twitter, Facebook and MySpace updates in a variety of useful places (like a tasteful homescreen widget and a browsable list on the contacts page) and lets you post updates directly from the notifications bar to any of the same. The problem is, the service syncs a maximum of once per day. Needless to say, you'll probably be using dedicated social networking apps instead, but none of them can leverage the same device integrations, and in fact you'll find all of your Twitter and Facebook contacts each listed twice in your contacts list if you have both the apps and Samsung SNS set up simultaneously.

Also, the UI is occasionally a bit slow -- not lethargic by any means, but considering the Sidekick 4G has the guts of a Galaxy S (including a 1GHz Samsung C110 Hummingbird SOC with 512MB of RAM and PowerVR SGX540 graphics) and Froyo on board, we expected a bit more speed when scrolling around, and despite pulling down 5Mbps speeds over T-Mobile's HSPA+ network, the web browsing experience is a little off. Pages loaded and rendered slower than we anticipated, and trying to scroll around while pages are loading resulted in an unsightly checkerboard pattern -- painful if you're trying to read just one of the entries in a lengthy scrolling blog. Benchmarks also suggest that speed has taken a hit in favor of something else, as our review unit managed only 12.5 MFLOPS in Linpack and a score of around 940 in Quadrant. However, gaming performance should still be pretty snappy, as that PowerVR chip still pumped out 49.9fps in Nenamark, and we played some Cordy and AirAttack HD with only modest slowdown, and stability seems good -- we've yet to see a single crash to homescreen or spontaneous Force Close.

Call quality was just fine over the earpiece, speakerphone or Bluetooth, and cellular reception was mostly consistant with the phone sitting still, and we found battery life fairly average but better then some. After a full 15-hour day of moderate use, we hit the pillow with 27 percent remaining charge, while the same test found our Droid 2 (with a recently replaced, but smaller 1370mAh Li-ion pack) barely holding on at the 15 percent mark. You'll still be charging this one at least nightly, but there's a little extra wiggle room.

Camera

Don't let the specs deceive you -- despite clocking in at a seemingly pedestrian 3 megapixels, the Sidekick 4G camera is extremely competent thanks to quality autofocus optics, a good sensor, and top-notch image processing. It takes really nice pictures, with lots of detail, excellent color balance, and accurate exposure. Low-light performance is surprisingly decent, with noise only becoming a problem in extreme circumstances. While there's no flash, you'll find a dedicated two-stage shutter key on the edge of the device, something that we'd like to see on every handset.

T-Mobile Sidekick 4G sample shots

The Sidekick 4G captures video at a smooth 30fps, but resolution is limited to 720x480 pixels (SD). While the resulting videos are reasonably crisp, there's no autofocus during video recording, and audio quality is only average.


The camera interface is typical Samsung, and similar to what we've encountered on the company's many Galaxy S phones. It's pretty intuitive to use and provides features like touch-to-focus and a panorama mode. Overall we're quite pleased with the Sidekick 4G camera; it's easily one of the best 3 megapixel shooters we've used in recent months, and we don't mean that in an anachronistic sense. There's not much to say about the unit's front-facing camera, which is merely passable, but even as a token offering for T-Mobile's Qik-powered video chat, it's appreciated.

Wrap-up

The growing Android empire has legions of slatephones big and small, and a growing stable of physical QWERTY devices led by the likes of HTC's G2 / Desire Z, Samsung's Epic 4G, and of course the Motorola Droid 2. All of those play at the higher end of the market, though, where folks can afford phones built from metal or filled with organic LEDs, while this perfectly passable Sidekick 4G rings up at just $100 on contract. It's solid, stable, feature-packed and incredibly stylish for the price, and we don't think it's an exaggeration to say it might single-handedly raise the bar for what a mid-range smartphone can be -- compare to the Samsung Transform we reviewed last year. Is it worthy of the Sidekick name? That's a little harder to say, but we've long thought the best features of Danger's Hiptop OS (like email, calendar and contacts storage in the cloud) were present in Android anyways. We think the best test is this -- head over to a T-Mobile store, and get your thumbs on that five-row QWERTY and fantastic sliding hinge.

Nikon D5100 impressions, head-to-head with D7000

Nikon has stirred up the camera crowds once again with its newly released D5100, filling the industry with the buzz of a new high-resolution articulating screen. In terms of consumer DSLR options, the D5100 has taken on the role of the mid-range model in Nikon's product line between the D3100 and the D7000 and we think it assumes the part rather nicely. In terms of price, the D5100 fits right in as well, fetching an MSRP of $900 (vs. $700 and $1600, respectively for the two aforementioned camera kits). Of course, the D7000 lands you the better 18-105 f/3.5-5.6G ED AF-S VR lens, a larger and brighter viewfinder, built-in focus motor, weather-proof sealing, and a few other internal upgrades. But don't judge too quickly, because we've had some time to play with Nikon's latest creation and the D5100 can certainly shoot along with the big boys of consumer cameras -- read on past the break for our impressions and comparisons with the D7000.

Nikon D5100 impressions

Design

To the untrained eye, the D5100's body seems pretty mundane compared to its predecessor (or any other DSLR for that matter) but whip out its articulating screen and you'll find that it swings out the left side of the camera. The new model is about 10% smaller and lighter than the D5000 – while 30 grams isn't a whole lot on paper, we sure do appreciate it after a day of walking around town with the D5100. The grip also has been redesigned slightly and we have to say that despite this camera being on the small side, the new grip still makes it extremely comfortable to hold while shooting due to its shape and material. You'll also notice that then entire button layout has been shifted over to the right to accommodate that new flippy screen, allowing full access to the camera's functions with one's right hand. Still plaguing the D5xxx models is their plasticky-ness, but this flaw is neither surprising nor unwarranted for the price range – it's just a constant reminder that you're still in the amateur and novice section of digital SLRs.

D5100 vs. D7000... fight!

That said, we're still impressed with the overall feel and design of the D5100. One glaring problem with the D5100 is the location of both the live view toggle (directly to the right of the mode dial) and the movie record button, which finds itself placed near the shutter. We're big fans of the way Nikon did the D3100 and the D7000's Live View layout on the back of the camera, combining both the Live View dial with the record button into a conveniently placed, single sleek switch, but unfortunately we can't say the same for the D5100. It's just so easy to toggle live view on the either the D3100 or the D7000 by just slightly moving our thumbs in natural opposable motions. The D5100 however, requires the photographer to move their entire hand to toggle live view, not to mention that in order to hit record, you have to use your shutter finger -- this is a disaster when trying to maintain framing or take photos while recording movies.

Display

Like the model it's replacing, the hallmark feature of the D5100 is its articulating screen, and rightfully so. As the company's second DSLR with a movable screen, Nikon has listened to the criticism from D5000 users – mainly that it could not be used effectively when attached to a tripod due to its downward position; therefore, Nikon has followed its Canon rivals and placed the screen to the left -- now users can mount the camera on a tripod and still have all of the range of the screen as intended. Nikon has increased the screen size, replacing the 2.7-inch screen with a much beloved 3-incher (found on Nikon's previous D90), while quadrupling the resolution, giving it a total of 920,000 dots (versus 230,000 dots on the D5000). Colors are remarkably sharp, brightness is outstanding even in direct sunlight, and the high resolution truly makes it a joy to use in live view mode. The built-in accelerometer, which enables the contents on the display to rotate around as the camera moves laterally, is also carried over from the D5000, and we still find it very useful for situations that call for portrait orientations.

So, is the articulating screen enough of a reason to purchase the D5100? Well, not really... The main reason is that there are plenty of better reasons to own this camera than just that horizontal screen -- it really just sets the D5100 apart from other cameras and lets Nikon sell us another prodigious camera. Like we've mentioned in our D5000 review, the swivel screen is still only useful in a handful of situations – i.e. mainly video recording, or when trying to get awkward shots that you're extending limbs and extremities to get. It does not eliminate the shutter lag from shots in Live View, and often times it makes the camera a lot bigger and more obtrusive if you're working in tight areas (concerts and gardens in our experiences).

The overall execution of the screen on Nikon's part is still very, very impressive. The hinge glides and moves as if on rails. The screen locks into position and is very stable at all viewing angles. Combined with Nikon's new auto focus system that is extremely welcomed when shooting video, the D5100 shines for amateur cinematographers – which definitively fills the void we missed with the D5000, as we'll explore in just a moment.

Image and video quality

While the D5100 and D7000 share the same sensor, that's pretty much where the similarities end. The D7000 has 39 auto focus points, nine of which are cross types, where as the D5100 has only 11 points, and has a single lonely cross type. The viewfinder is also about half as small, and darker in the D5100 – this is really only noticeable if you are shooting with the two side by side, but for the hardcore Nikonians, framing from the viewfinder is key. That said, the overall image quality of the D5100 isn't too dissimilar to that of the D7000. In most situations, particularly for DSLR newbies, the D5100's image quality is more than adequate and will still have that wow-factor in sharpness and depth of field control. In the test image above, both the D5100 (left) and the D7000 (right) had the 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 VR kit lens attached, and were shooting at 6400 ISO speeds. We found that the high ISO performance of the D5100 fantastic, and were generally pleasantly surprised when shooting above 1600 ISO speeds (where we found lots of noise in shot taken by the D5000). For $900, the D5100 certainly holds its own against the D7000 and other models in the DSLR market. Don't just take our word from it, Check out the sample images in our mini-trip to Battery Park.

D5100 sample images

The D5100 also includes an effects mode, which you can toggle on the main mode dial on top of the camera. One particular effect that Nikon placed a heavy focus on was the night vision mode, where the camera would shoot at a ridiculous 102,400 ISO speed. We initially thought night vision on an mid-range consumer DSLR to be pretty gimmicky, but after testing, we found that it actually works – if you're the black and white, with lots of grainy noise type of person -- check em out in our sample image gallery. The coolness of night vision aside, we found ourselves more drawn to another effects which Nikon included like the miniature effect (provides tilt-shift like images), the selective color effect and our favorite, the color sketch effect (image below).

Also worth noting is that the Nikon D5100 also includes a built in HDR (High Dynamic Range) mode, where the Camera shoots two images sequentially at two different exposures, then merges the images to create a single photo that brings details to both the shadows and the highlights of the picture (example below).

Nikon just kept the ball rolling with the upgrades from the D5000, as we come to one of the biggest and most noticeable ones: video. After Nikon had released the D3100 and the D7000, both having 1080p 24fps video capabilities, it was only natural to assume that the D5100 would follow. Well, Nikon took it one step further, including 1080p at 30fps, which is sorely missed especially on the D7000, and gone is the five minute video cap we despised in the D5000.


We are extremely happy and surprised with the D5100's video capabilities. Coupled with an articulating screen, "full time" auto focus, and the aforementioned effects to play with, we can't help but to think that a lot of people are gonna get their 'creative' on with this camera. We do have to say that video auto focus, like the D3100, doesn't work all the time, often missing when tracking subjects, and if accompanied with non-silent motor lenses (like some third-party that Tamron and Sigma lenses offer), the resulting videos tend to have rather annoying audio. We unfortunately did not get a chance to test the Nikon ME-1 microphone with the D5100 during our time with it, but look forward to other users' reactions and reviews of its performance.

Wrap-up

So, is the D5100 worth it for previous owners of the D5000 and new buyers alike? Well, unless you have the green to pony up the $900 (kit)/ $800 (body only), the $600 D3100's similar feel and performance might steer you to go the cheaper route. We are still anxiously waiting to get our hands on a Rebel T3i, Canon's direct competitor to the D5100 so we can definitively answer the old Canon / Nikon question, but we're fairly confident that the D5100 can hold its own against its counterpart. With that said, the older D5000 is still a very capable model (especially with reduced pricing), but the D5100 decisively takes the reigns with it's 1080p video capabilities, great image quality, high ISO noise performance and high-res articulating screen.

Would we recommend this over the outgoing D90? Of course. You are getting a D7000, with a better screen, better video performance in a less weather-sealed, but lighter and smaller body for around the same price. Would we recommend this over the D7000? Well, it really depends on your needs, but realistically, if money was no object, we'd scream D7000 every time. If you need something to snap a few shots of your kids on the playground, and record a birthday song or two in high definition, then the D5100 will do your memories justice. If you're thinking about getting serious about photography, and doing some portraits and or landscapes for some dough, then you'll appreciate the D7000's weather sealing, built-in auto focus motor (so you can use lenses dating back to the 70's), top mounted LCD and a far superior kit lens (if you're the kit type of person). Either way, the D5100 is a winner in our books, especially for the price.

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