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Hardware and design

You can purchase the G3 as body only ($600) or, for an additional $100, in a kit with either a 14-42mm lens or a 14mm lens. It’s available in black, red, brown, or white. The compact body measures 4.54 by 3.29 by 1.84 inches and weighs about 19.20 ounces with an SD card, battery, and a 14-42mm lens.

In addition to a large and bright EVF, the G3 offers a 3-inch, articulated touchscreen LCD that works well both indoors and outside in bright light. There’s no eye sensor to automatically switch between LCD and EVF when you put the camera up to your eye; instead, you activate the LCD and EVF manually.

With fewer external controls than its predecessors, the G3 is slightly more touchscreen dependent, but the screen is quite responsive to a tap of your fingertip. And, icons are larger so they’re easier to read and activate. For the touchscreen-phobic, a handful of touch settings can be disabled and accessed instead through the camera’s standard assortment of buttons and menus.

Notable features and performance

As expected, the G3 offers full manual, semimanual, and automatic exposure modes, as well as a solid assortment of advanced features. To handle all the features, the G3 is equipped with custom options, a quick menu, and dual function buttons, which create a smooth and convenient shooting workflow for more experienced users.

Photographers who prefer a more basic approach are welcomed with automatic features, including a new intelligent auto “plus” mode. This provides the simplicity of automatic shooting but with the added ability to manually adjust parameters such as exposure compensation, background defocusing, and white balance via on-screen sliders. An added bonus is the live preview of how each adjustment affects the image.

The G3’s performance is more than respectable, with little shutter lag and minimal shot-to-shot time. Overall, autofocus (AF) speed has been increased and AF tracking is accurate more often than not, although it can be fooled depending on the subject matter. The new Pinpoint autofocus mode ensures that a specified area is in focus. Just tap on the main subject area to enlarge it on the screen and use manual or AF + MF to fine-tune the focus point. It’s much more accurate than using the camera’s AF points and works quite well, especially for close-up and fine detail images.

Full resolution JPEG continuous shooting clocks in at almost 4 frames per second, although the burst rate slows considerably after about 8 shots. Burst mode can be bumped to 20 frames per second but with a drop in resolution to 4 megapixels. Unfortunately, the camera chokes a little when shooting RAW + JPEG, so be prepared to wait until the buffer clears before capturing more images.

Not surprisingly, the more expensive GH2 model is better equipped for video capture, but the G3 is a capable moviemaker. In addition to a red dedicated video button, the G3 offers full 1080i HD, as well as 1280 by 720 standard definition capture, both of which can be recorded in AVCHD or Motion JPEG. Motion JPEG also offers 640 by 480 and 320 by 240 options. All video capture is at 30fps.

A good selection of video recording options include metering, single, continuous, and manual focus, flicker reduction, as well as the ability to choose a photo style. Although the external microphone jack has been eliminated, the G3 records stereo sound and offers several microphone controls, including a wind filter.

Image quality

Still image quality is good, with above average color rendition that’s well-saturated without being overly vivid. Of course, you can tweak the settings if you prefer brighter colors. Exposures and dynamic range were fairly accurate, although auto white balance outdoors tends to produce slightly cool (bluish) images, But that, too, can be adjusted via the G3’s white balance controls. Using the 14-42mm kit lens, the G3 produced images that were sharp and well detailed, with minimal distortion. Image noise is kept pretty well under control up to about ISO 800, but nice mid-sized prints can be had at around ISO 1600 as well.

Video quality earned an only “fair” word score in Macworld’s subjective analysis and, as mentioned earlier, the Panasonic GH2 is a better option for video. Still, other than rolling shutter when panning, the G3’s video capture isn’t bad, particularly in bright light.

Macworld’s buying advice

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-G3 lost a few features in order to slim down its size, weight, and price, but most photographers looking for a small, DSLR-like camera shouldn’t mind too much. On the plus side, unlike many other cameras in its class, the G3 is equipped with an on-board flash and a built-in EVF. Add a well-rounded feature set and pleasing image quality, and the G3 certainly maintains its place as a player in the mirrorless interchangeable lens category.

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Impressive offers like this one are helping to make a great success of our newly launched Lenovo coupon webpage.

Houston, TX (PRWEB) February 22, 2012

Today CouponBuzz.com featured a 15% off Lenovo Coupon for Thinkpads on their recently launched webpage dedicated to special offers from Lenovo. The 15% off coupon results in significant savings for online shoppers, from $50 to $150 off the already low online retail price for a brand new Thinkpad.

As one of the top retailers for notebooks and desktops worldwide, their focus on innovation and quality continue to accelerate Lenovo to the top of their industry. As they explain on their website Lenovo “…develops, manufactures and markets reliable, high-quality, secure and easy-to-use technology products and services for customers who want technology that does more— because people have a lot more to do.”

Lenovo is the product a 2005 merger between the China-based company Legend Holdings and the US-based Personal Computer Division of IBM. Today, Lenovo is a global Fortune 500 company, with manufacturing and research centers around the world and headquartered in Beijing, China and Morrisville, North Carolina. They are the number one PC company in China and Japan, and number one world wide for the public sector and large businesses. Their focus on new designs, creative marketing, and top-quality products has produced significant success. For example Lenovo has sold over 60 million Thinkpads, the world’s fasted booting notebook, in the 18 years since the launch of the Thinkpad line. The Ideapad, a notebook targeted to individual consumers, is also enjoying significant success.

“We are exciting at the attention this special 15% off promotion for Lenovo Thinkpads is getting across the industry,” said Justin Bowen, head of marketing for CouponBuzz.com. “When you are looking at the large initial investment a new personal computer involves, 15% off can result in considerable savings. Impressive offers like this one are helping to make a great success of our newly launched Lenovo coupon webpage.”

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I’m not crazy about changing to Windows 7 and having to buy Office again. I have Office 2003. I have looked at the Task Manager, but can’t find any culprit that is using up the CPU I don’t need.

My computer is an Intel Pentium, 2.00 GHz, 4 CPU, 1.99 GHz, 512 MB of RAM. The hard drive has 140 GB of space, of which 123 GB is free. Which of the above numbers is most necessary to increase for my computer to speed up?

— Rita Cline

A: First of all, I can tell you that you’ll get significantly better performance out of Windows 7. As for bottlenecks, the most critical shortage in your current system is RAM.

When Windows doesn’t have enough system memory for what you’re trying to do, it moves data to “virtual memory.” That means it writes the data to your hard drive. That’s very slow compared with RAM. So adding RAM should give your computer a real boost.

I am a little concerned, however, that you may have some malware running for your CPU to be maxing out. I’d make sure your anti-virus software is up to date and try scanning with an anti-malware program, such as Malwarebyte’s Anti-Malware. Download a free version at www.malwarebytes.org.

If you decide to upgrade to Windows 7, check the system requirements on the Microsoft website. Among other things, you’ll note Windows 7 requires a minimum 1 gigabyte of RAM.

Finally, while I think you’d like Office 2010 a lot more than Office 2003, you don’t need to upgrade your version of Office when you move to Windows 7.

Q: You wrote recently that you can count on burned CDs being reliable only for three to five years. Does this hold true for burned DVDs as well? And if so, how does one store indefinitely original digital photographs and scanned hard-copy photos and slides? Does one need to recopy these “treasures” every three or four years to the latest medium?

— Dan Keller

A: Yes, the life span of both burned CDs and DVDs is only a few years. The exception to that is archival CD/DVDs, which claim a life span of 100 years. (I’m a little skeptical about that figure, however.) Unfortunately, they are more costly, running about $5 per disc.

Whatever medium you use for long-term storage, someone likely will have to transfer the data to an updated format long before 100 years comes to pass. After all, when is the last time you saw a computer with a floppy drive?

In other words, we need to start thinking more of data-storage management rather than just storage media.

Q: Can cables be used to adapt my Atrix 2 to an Atrix 1 laptop dock? Motorola seems to have made a mistake when it designed the Atrix 1. The orientation of the jacks built into the Atrix 1 face in one direction and fit snugly into an Atrix 1 laptop dock.

However, Motorola reoriented the Atrix 2 jacks the other way, and I found to my dismay that my laptop dock will not fit my new Atrix 2 phone. When I called Motorola, it had nothing to suggest, and there is no adapter for this purpose.

Will using cables allow me to use my original laptop dock? Can you as a journalist get on Motorola’s case and get it to offer us a fix for this?

— Paul Zohav, Bellevue

A: I hear you. And while we’re at it, how come every model of laptop requires its own, unique AC power supply?

Can’t we have a little more standardization? Or is it part of a marketing strategy? I have asked but have never gotten an answer.

As for using cables to attach your Atrix 2 to the Atrix 1 dock, I haven’t tried it myself but have found at least one other user who said he succeeded in making it work..

Questions for Patrick Marshall may be sent by email to pmarshall@seattletimes.com or pgmarshall@pgmarshall.net, or by mail at QA/Technology, The Seattle Times, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/

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Nearly three in every 10 smartphone users have an iPhone, according to the data, but Android is still the most popular choice.

Dominic Sunnebo, global consumer insight director, saids: “Android holds on to its lead but Apple is making inroads, increasing its share of the British market from 21.7 percent a year ago to 29.1 percent now. Windows Phone 7 is also creeping up, taking over 2 percent of the market for the first time with the Nokia Lumia 800 taking the lion’s share.”

Symbian’s market share now stands at 2.8 percent, Kantar Worldpanel ComTech’s data shows, though many former Symbian users seem to be staying loyal to Nokia, with over a quarter of Windows Phone 7 customers – most of which own the Nokia 800 – having owned Symbian handsets in the past.

“One of the real positives for Microsoft Windows Phone 7 is how engaged its users appear to be with its devices. Eighty one per cent of handset owners have used social networking on their device in the past month, higher than both iOS Android. Meanwhile, three quarters have used GPS, indicating that its decision to include Nokia maps for free was a price worth paying to drive user engagement,” Sunnebo said.

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According to Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, the jump in Apple’s UK market share isn’t just down to the release of the iPhone 4S.

“Although the majority of growth is coming from the new handset, Apple’s latest pricing structure is also working in its favour with no discernable drop in sales of older iPhone 4 and 3GS models,” Sunnebo said.

The data also shows that smartphones made up 71.4 percent of UK mobile phone sales in the 12 weeks ending 22 January 2012, Kantar Worldpanel ComTech said.

However, trends in the UK market are not replicated in the US, where the iPhone is king, with 48.4 percent of the smartphone market. Android is just behind on 42.6 percent.

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