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The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 is a tablet like no other but instead of making a big splash it's busy making up for lost time. With its launch pushed back shortly after the unveiling, Samsung's top-of-the-line tablet returns to a market that isn't what it used to be.
Voice call support, memory expansion and the brilliant S Pen s
eemed like the right cards to play against the new iPad but it was soon clear that Acer and Asus were a threat that Samsung may've underplayed. And as if the Iconias and Transformers weren't enough of a headache already, the Nexus 7 popped up right when Samsung was getting ready to give their finest tablet the reboot it deserves.
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 official photos
Fierce competition to meet ever-increasing user demands has produced a fine selection of premium tablets and, to stay in the game, Samsung had to throw everything it's got at the Galaxy Note 10.1. Yes, it was sent back to the shop but we can think of a lot worse reasons than an engine upgrade.
So, a quad-core Exynos 4412 chipset coupled with 2GB of RAM is no joke but there's more to the Note than just raw power.
Key features
10.1" 16M-color PLS TFT capacitive touchscreen of WXGA resolution (1280 x 800 pixels)
1.4 GHz quad-core Cortex-A9 CPU, Mali-400MP GPU, Exynos 4 Quad chipset, 2GB of RAM
Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich with TouchWiz UX UI
S Pen input with well-designed gestures
One of a kind split-screen multitasking and pop-up mini apps
Quad-band GPRS/EDGE and quad-band 3G with HSPA connectivity (HSDPA, 21 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps)
Voice calls
16/32/64 GB of built-in memory
5 MP autofocus camera, 2592?1944 pixels, geotagging
1.9 MP front-facing camera; native video calls
720p HD video recording @ 30 fps with stereo audio
Front-mounted stereo speakers
Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi Direct, dual-band, Wi-Fi hotspot
Stereo Bluetooth v3.0
HDMI TV-out (adapter required), USB host (adapter required)
microSD card slot
Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
Infrared port
Adobe Photoshop Touch and Adobe Ideas come pre-installed
GPS with A-GPS support; digital compass
1080p DivX/XviD/MKV video support with subtitles
Accelerometer and proximity sensor; three-axis Gyroscope sensor
Polaris office document editor preinstalled
7,000 mAh Li-Po battery
Main disadvantages
Below-par screen resolution for the class
Proprietary 30-pin connector for charging and connectivity
No Full-HD and poor 720p video recording
Poor outdoors visibility
There's horsepower to spare but, frankly, Samsung is not going to focus on Android power users only. The quad-core processor will mostly see to it that the tablet is future-proof and covered against the main competition.
On the other hand, that very same competition has moved on to Full-HD screens and Samsung is seriously disadvantaged here. The display may do a fine job but just hasn't got the numbers to back it up. And even though the sub-par screen resolution does the device no justice, the Note is a good looking slate, especially in white.
It's running Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich, with an official commitment to a Jelly Bean update. The Galaxy Note 10.1 comes chock-full of useful features and a fantastic selection of home-brewed and third-party apps to get the best out of the S Pen stylus.
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 live photos
So, in the end, there could be a lot of appeal to users who insist on the latest in gear, but also artists and other professionals who know what to do with a proper graphics tablet. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. We're about to have another go on the design and build quality, before moving on to the software and equipment of the Galaxy Note 10.1.
Design and build quality
In its second version (after the one shown at the MWC that was later scrapped), the Galaxy Note 10.1 still looks a lot like the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1. There are some minor changes all over the design, which have led to slightly improved handling, but it's basically the same package.
The metal frame houses the two speakers on the sides (in landscape position) and has gotten wider at the top and bottom. In addition, the speakers themselves are now on the inside edge of the frame, rather than the center.
The hardware design changes continue at the back, where the frame extends to fit the camera lens and the LED flash. The nest of the camera lens is now rectangular, rather than a circular.
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 display
The 10.1-inch PLS LCD screen with a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels gets the job done but fails to impress. Android slates such as the ASUS Transformer Prime TF700T and the Acer Iconia Tab A700 are rocking full HD resolution, and the iPad 3 is in a league of its own with its 3.1MP screen.
As a result pixel density on the Note 10.1 is nothing to be excited about (149ppi), but big tablets like the are viewed at a bigger distance than phones, so it's not as much of an issue as you might have thought. Still, if you've seen the new iPad, the difference in sharpness is quite noticeable.
Numbers aside, the image quality is decent. Viewing angles are very good and blacks look reasonably deep. We put the Galaxy Note 10.1 through our usual display test and here are the results:
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 has no hardware controls at the front - it doesn't need any with Ice Cream Sandwich inside. All you get here is the front camera and some sensors.
A close-up of the front-facing camera and sensors
There's no earpiece but the slate is capable of receiving and making phone calls in either loudspeaker mode or with a headset (wired or wireless).
The two front-facing speakers are either side of the screen. We found this location to much better suit gaming and movie watching than the sides or the back of the slate. Since the speakers are positioned in the upper half of the tablet, covering them with your palms when holding the slate is not likely to be an issue.
The 10.1" PLS TFT display on the Galaxy Note 10.1 • Stereo speakers
At the top (in landscape) we find the 3.5mm audio jack along with the SIM compartment and microSD slot, both protected by plastic lids. There's also the Power/Lock button next to the volume rocker.
The busy top side houses the SIM, microSD slots along with 3.5mm audio jack, volume rocker, power/lock key
The microphone is at the bottom, which is something to consider if you're going to make calls in loudspeaker mode (the mic might get muffled depending on where you place the tablet). Unlike the previous version of the tablet, the new design features a slot for the S Pen. It's located at the bottom right, just like on the 5.3-inch Galaxy Note.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 uses a proprietary 30-pin connector for charging and connectivity, which is centrally placed at the bottom of the tablet.
The bottom has the primary mic, the connectivity port and the stylus housing
Single, multi-function ports like the 30-pin connector on the Note 10.1 mean you'll need a proprietary cable for computer connections, charging and TV-out, which is hardly ideal. You get a cable and charger supplied in the retail package, of course, but if you want to have spares to keep in your office, for example, you'll have a much harder time getting them.
At the back of the Galaxy Note 10.1 we find an updated 5MP camera with an LED flash next to it. The camera is quite capable of shooting the occasional photos and HD videos as long as you are willing to put up with looking ridiculous doing it with a 10-inch slate.
The back of the Galaxy Note 10.1 • A close-up of the camera
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 is powered by a 7000 mAh Li-Ion battery. By Samsung's estimates, it will give you 2490 hours of standby in 2G mode and 2080 hours in 3G. Talk time is 74 hours on 2G and 37 hours on 3G.
The plastic used is the glossy kind rather than the matte used in the MWC-born Galaxy Note 10.1. It feels very nice to the touch, but can be quite slippery and takes a lot of fingerprints. The good thing is they are not as easy to spot on our white test unit. You cannot pop the back cover open to access the battery, but that's to be expected from a tablet.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 can be held with one hand and operated with the other, but at just under 600g you will soon need to find some kind of support. The thickness of 8.9mm feels better in the hand than 9.7mm of the Tab 2 10.1, though the portability of both devices is practically the same.
The build is decent, but there are some occasional creaks around the sides when you apply more pressure and that's a bit disappointing coming from a tablet in this class. It's not damaging to the user experience, but it takes away some of the high-end feel, which is quite important with this type of devices.
The Galaxy Note 10.1 held in hands
The redesigned S Pen
The S Pen stylus is what gives the tablet its name. Having debuted on the 5.3-inch Galaxy Note, and later in a new shape on the original Note 10.1, the S Pen has been redesigned yet again.
The biggest difference is it's now square in shape, with softly rounded corners, for a much more comfortable hold. It's shorter too and has gotten rid of the attaching clip found on the previous Note tablet's stylus. Not that anyone will miss it - the stylus compartment is by far the better solution. There's a button on the side of the S Pen, which can be used to perform certain actions and enable gestures, but we'll get to that later on.
The white tip is on a spring too, and you can press it against the screen of the Note 10.1 without worrying you'll damage it. That's good to know as chances are you'll be pressing it quite often - the digitizer can sense various degrees of pressure, which is an important feature when drawing. The Galaxy Note 10.1 also supports palm rejection - it can sense when your palm rests on the display when writing or drawing and ignores it.
The new S Pen
Another cool feature of the S Pen is that it doesn't need to be touching the screen for the tablet to know where you are pointing it. This is especially useful in apps like the preinstalled Adobe Photoshop Touch, which displays a cursor to help you make selections and aim. It's like the hover touch technology of the Xperia sola, except that it's much more accurate and responsive here.
User interface
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 runs Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich with a few extra touches courtesy of Samsung's own TouchWiz UI. It adds several cool customization options, some really useful shortcuts here and there and the mini apps are a great multitasking boost.
Before we get started, here's a short video of the UI in action. The newly designed S Pen also makes an appearance.
The Ice Cream Sandwich interface is probably well familiar already, but Samsung has made some UI changes to the overall experience.
Starting on the homescreen, the navigation keys are placed in the bottom left corner: Back, Home and Task switcher (plus a screenshot key courtesy of TouchWiz). The search shortcut is visible on all homescreens in the top left, the app drawer in the top right and finally, the notification area with quick toggles (again, a TouchWiz thing) in the lower right corner.
The homescreen panes may look like default ICS homescreens, but it's got a nice trick up its sleeve - the pinch gesture familiar from TouchWiz phones has been added to the Note 10.1 and it lets you add, delete and rearrange homescreen panes easily.
The same pinch gesture can be used in the app drawer to again let you rearrange pages. You cannot delete or add new pages this way though.
The taskbar at the bottom has an arrow that flips up a row of what Samsung calls Mini Apps. The Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 had them too, so they're not new, but they're still exclusive to the Samsung tablet family.
The pinch gesture works on the homescreen and app drawer, just like on a TouchWiz phone
Mini Apps are small, independent windows that are overlaid over anything else - the homescreen, regular full-screen apps, anything. You can fit two or three of those on the large 10.1" screen and they really improve the multitasking abilities of the tablet.
Available Mini Apps include a dialer, messaging, email, calculator, music player, S Memo and S Planner, even a task manager. If you're not using some of those apps, you can always choose to hide them.
Each Mini App has a button in the top left that launches the corresponding full-featured app and a close button in the top right. Such overlaid windows have been a staple of desktop OSes, but they feel a little odd in Android at first.
Several of the available Mini Apps
The notification area has the connectivity toggles that we've come to know from the smartphone edition of TouchWiz. They offer more functionality than the stock ICS quick settings - including GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth controls - which saves you the extra effort of entering the extended settings menu. The rest of the toggles are Notifications, Sound, Auto-rotation and Flight mode.
The notification area has been improved too • The task switcher
The screenshot button available in the bottom left corner can be quite useful in combination with the S Pen - once you've snapped a screenshot (you can press and hold the S Pen's button to do that too), it appears on the screen and lets you scribble some notes over and save the image for later, share it or queue it up to print.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 comes with a rich package of pre-installed apps - the S Memo, S Note, S Planner, Social Hub, Music hub, Pulse reader, AllShare, Polaris Office, Video player, Video maker and My files. The Photoshop Touch and Adobe Ideas are a nice perk too, which we'll cover in more detail later.
One feature that certainly many will appreciate is the split screen view mode, which allows you to work with two apps simultaneously. Sadly it's not just any two apps, but two out of the Video player, Polaris Office, web browser or the S Note app.
Split screen view mode
You can copy text across apps, which can be quite convenient at times. Or you could simply open the web browser to check something without interrupting the video you were watching. Now add the Mini apps, and the Galaxy Note 10.1 becomes a true multitasking king among the slates.
Efficient phonebook
The Phone and Contacts app are separated on the Galaxy Note 10.1, as opposed to the Honeycomb approach on tablets with voice call support. What was essentially 5 tabs of the same app are now split into two.
Groups, Contacts and Favorites are in the Contacts app, while Dialer and Logs are part of the Phone app.
There is no History tab for every contact like there used to be in the Honeycomb phonebook, instead individual contacts logs are accessed via the settings menu in the upper right corner.
The contact management is fairly straightforward on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1. Your contacts get automatically synced with your Google account unless you explicitly disable this and you can also let the Galaxy Note 10.1 sync your social network contacts if you want.
The Galaxy Note 10.1 contact manager
You get your contacts listed by either first or last name in the left part of the screen, while the details of the currently selected contact appear on the right. There is a handy search field in the top left corner, as well as a shortcut for adding a new contact or deleting the selected one at the opposite side.
Search the contacts
The advanced menu offers a few more options: edit contact, import/export, join contacts, send or print namecards, get friends via social services, etc.
Editing a single contact is done in a popup window, where the available fields are displayed, with plus and minus signs on the right that let you remove or duplicate details.
Edit a contact
There's also an Add another field button at the bottom that lets you insert a field that hasn't existed so far for the specific contact.
Voice and video telephony
Unlike most other tablets, the 3G-equipped Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 can do calls. Both voice and video calls are natively supported and you won't even need to download to make use of them. You can use the built-in microphone and loudspeaker for the actual calling, you can attach a wired handsfree or you can go with a Bluetooth headset.
The dialer and call log are found in the dedicated Phone app. There's a Favorite contacts tab as well. Smart Dial is available and works like a charm - it searches names and numbers simultaneously. Voice dialing is also enabled.
Smart dial works like a charm
The available options during a call include using the keypad, muting, holding the call or adding another call to this conversation.
The call log is the tab next to the dial pad. It displays all the dialed, received and missed calls in one list sorting your call history by contacts.
The Galaxy Note 10.1 snatched a Very Good rating in our loudspeaker test putting most of the tablets out there to shame. You can find more about the test itself here.
Speakerphone test
Voice, dB
Pink noise/ Music, dB
Ringing phone, dB
Overall score
Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus
Below average
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 3G
Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7
Google Nexus 7
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
Very Good
Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1
The messaging app (yes, the Note 10.1 does native messaging, too) is similar to that of the phonebook - you get contacts on the left and the conversations on the right. There's an application-specific search that lets you quickly find a given message among all your stored SMS and MMS.
Texting Dexter on the Galaxy Note 10.1
To add message recipients, just start typing the corresponding name or number and choose from the contacts offered.
When you add multimedia content to the message, it is automatically transformed into an MMS. You can either quickly add a photo or an audio file to go with the text or compose an MMS using all the available features (like multiple slides, slide timing, layout, etc.). The multiple slides are all shown inside the compose box.
Samsung Email and Gmail
The Galaxy Note 10.1 comes with two familiar email applications out of the box - one for your Gmail and a generic one to use with any POP3/IMAP account.
They both have a split-screen interface. Initially, your folders are listed on the left and the emails in the currently selected one appear on the right. Upon clicking on a single message, the list of emails moves to the left tab while the body of the selected one pops up on the right.
The default email client
Bulk actions are supported too, so you will easily manage mailboxes that get tons of messages.
You can schedule automatic email retrieval or you can disable it completely and only check your mail manually. There's also a handy setting for the client to only download attachments automatically over Wi-Fi.
The Gmail app
It's basically the same treatment you get on Android smartphones with a few further optimizations permitted by the larger screen.
Digging into the settings menu
Writing emails is reasonably comfortable with the virtual Samsung QWERTY keyboard occupying about half of the screen. Now, this is no match for a hardware keyboard, but you won't notice any big difference when handling short emails. Samsung has added a fifth numeric row to the keyboard.
Samsung have thrown in two additional keyboard layouts to try and suit everyone's taste. With a quick pinch on the full-size keyboard you can chose to switch to a small floating keyboard and a split keyboard. Choosing the latter allows you to quickly thumb-type while holding the tablet without stretching your thumbs too much.
The big and small keyboards • handwriting is also supported
There's auto correction and auto capitalization available, and you can enable sounds on key presses. There's haptic feedback too.
The Galaxy Note 10.1 gallery is a pretty standard Android affair in terms of functionality, feeling pretty comfortably on the large screen. Naturally, your Picasa web albums are automatically synced with your tablet.
There is one difference between the Honeycomb and the ICS gallery - the latter offers bigger album thumbnails.
The Galaxy Note 10.1 image gallery is performing nicely
You can sort your images by album, date, location or tag. You can also choose between displaying images, videos or both.
The upper left corner holds the sorting options while the right one has the shortcuts to the camera, and some extra settings (like the option to make Picasa albums available offline).
When you are browsing a specific album/date/location/tag the shortcuts change a bit - the camera shortcut is replaced by a button that starts a slide show. The icon in the very top left corner becomes active and clicking it brings you back to the full gallery view.
Checking out a single image
The gallery app of the Galaxy Note 10.1 displays the images in full resolution and a double tap zooms to fullscreen.
Image details can be checked from the tablet itself
There is one more fancy way to zoom in and out using multi-touch. Just place two fingers on a picture and tilt the tablet up or down to zoom in and out.
Great looking music player
The Galaxy Note 10.1 has the custom TouchWiz music player, which is more functional than the stock Android app, but lacks the cover-flow-like browsing.
You can now sort your tracks by album, artist, genre, folders, composer or year. Playlists are enabled too: the most played and recently added lists are automatically generated. Naturally, there's also a search option, which will be appreciated by those with large music collections. It gets activated by pressing the magnifying glass icon in the upper right corner.
The home-baked music player
When you select a specific album (or a group of tracks based on any filter) the interface splits into three screens - the filters on the left, the album in the middle and the now playing track on the right.
Tapping on the song name brings you to a dedicated now playing screen where you have a repeat (one or all) and shuffle options, as well as a setting to add the currently playing track to favorites.
The now playing interface • equalizers
Equalizers are available too, along with various sound effects like concert hall, clarity etc.
Finally, if there is a track playing in background a dedicated row appears in the notificationarea showing its name along with the usual music shortcuts (something missing on the Honeycomb 3.1 version on the bigger Galaxy Tabs). There is also an option to shut down the music player directly from this menu.
Pretty great video player
Stock Android doesn't have a dedicated video player app, but Samsung always provides one for its Galaxy slates.. Allowing thumbnail, list and folder view modes, it's a pretty capable application. There's also search enabled so even if you fill that ample storage with short clips you should be able to find the one you need.
The Galaxy Note 10.1 supports DivX/XviD/MKV files out of the box. Even high-res videos are handled trouble-free - the tablet played anything we tried, including 1080p videos. Subtitles are also available and there is rich codec support. There was nothing the Note 10.1 wouldn't play.
There are several full-screen options too - normal, fill and stretch.
The video player is quite good
5MP worth of stills
A 5 megapixel main camera and a 1.9 megapixel front-facing camera (with 720p videos each) is what you get with the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1. Given tablets aren't the most photography-friendly devices, the two cameras are mostly there to cater for video-chatting and augmented reality, and the possibility to snap a label or two as a memory aid comes as a welcome bonus.
The camera interface is an upscaled version of what you find on the Galaxy line of smartphones, with the available settings on the left and the shutter key and the video/stills switch on the right.
The still camera interface
We've got a few samples to demonstrate the image quality of the Galaxy Note 10.1. We've seen better 5 MP cameraphones and... well... tablets. Color rendering is off and even the amount of resolved detail is average at best. Noise levels are also fairly high, so don't expect the slate to replace your digicam. It's not like most users will get too excited to snap away with their 10.1" slates, anyway, but we still expected better from a flagship device.
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 camera samples
Photo quality comparison
The Galaxy Note 10.1 enters our photo comparison tool to clash with the new iPad and the LG Optimus Pad. It's somewhat of an underdog in this competition.
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 in our Photo Compare Tool
Disappointing video recording
The camcorder interface is not much different, really. There are fewer options available here, but the layout is basically the same. Somewhat strangely, the Galaxy Note 10.1 video recording capabilities max out at 720p footage at 30fps. We would expect 1080p footage with that kind of chipset, but maybe it's just a limitation of the sensor.
The video camera interface
And that's not the only nasty surprise the flagship tablet brought here. Unlike the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1, the Note 10.1 produces really poor videos. The videos all come out unpleasantly soft and looking out of focus. Normally, we'd suspect that such a major issue is due to a faulty unit, but it appears our unit is not alone in doing this, so it might be a software bug that Samsung needs to addres.
Video quality comparison
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 will butt heads with the iPad 3 and the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 over video recording. With the issues it has though, it doesn't stand much chance here.
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 in our Video Compare Tool
Rich connectivity
To begin with, the 3G-enabled Note 10.1 gets you quad-band GSM with 3G speeds of up to 21 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA. It is GPS equipped as well.
There's a/b/g/n Wi-Fi support, with both 2.4GHz and 5GHz band compatibility. Wi-Fi Direct and DLNA support are also available.
There is a microSD card slot as well, on top of the 16/32/64GB of internal storage.
Naturally, Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 supports USB-on-the-go, but you will need to buy an adapter for that. Using one you can connect card readers, USB flash drives and other compatible devices to your tablet and access their contents through the file manager. Mice and keyboards are supported as well.
You can also buy an HDMI adapter and connect the tablet to your HDTV with a regular cable. There's no NFC connectivity on the Galaxy Note 10.1, though.
Excellent web-browsing
The web browser is another key app as far as tablets are concerned. There is full Flash 11 support and tabbed browsing. This is an area where the 2 gigs of RAM really earn their keep, you'll seldom get slow-downs with the Galaxy Note 10.1's browser, no matter how many tabs you've opened.
The tabs are kept in a bar on top, much like on a desktop browser. The address bar and search bar are incorporated in a single field - typical Android - which scores another point for the Galaxy Note 10.1.
Bookmarks and History have their own split-screen interface. In History you can check the pages browsed today, yesterday or over the past week. There's also a most visited and today tabs.
Pressing and holding a link lets you open it in a new tab
Synchronizing the browser with your desktop Google Chrome doesn't need any extra software - you check a box in the settings menu and you are done.
Some of the available browser settings
There's also auto-complete for forms and passwords.
A neat feature allows you to access quick page controls (back, forward, refresh, bookmark etc.) by a swiping gesture performed near the right edge of the screen. You cannot have that and the classical interface though.
The alternative user interface
As for the Flash performance - the Galaxy Note 10.1 does great at 360p, 480p and 720p videos right in the browser. Flash games run well too.
Flash videos are now possible
By the way, if you find Flash content to slow down your page load times or cause panning stutter, you can switch it to on-demand in the settings menu (or even turn it off all together).
Organizer has everything
A good set of organizer apps are available on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, including the Polaris Office with both viewing and editing documents enabled. It has a nice user interface and solid file management. It supports both internal and web storage (via Box.net).
Polaris Office
Viewing and editing word documents, spreadsheets and Power Point files is hassle-free. There's a PDF reader in the bundle as well.
Printing options are also available.
The calendar has five different types of view: daily, weekly and monthly.
Calendar app
Adding a new event is quite straightforward and you can also set an alarm to serve as a reminder.
List view • Creating an appointment
The calculator app is nicely touch optimized with huge, easy to hit buttons.
Calculator app
The Alarm app is optimized for big-screen use and is pretty intuitive. You can set multiple alarms.
Clock app • Alarm clock
The World Clock app is full of eye-candy. You get an animated globe where you can pick time zones or cities, there are country flags, day and night animations, etc.
World Clock app
S Pen and S Apps
The S Pen sports the same wealth of features as before. You can use it for writing or drawing, but it can also be used to navigate the UI. With the button on its side, you can do gestures - a swipe to the left is back, a swipe down opens up the context menu and a double tap opens the S Memo mini app. A press and hold captures a screenshot.
The S Memo app lets you scribble notes with the S Pen (or your finger). There are various pen styles and colors, as well as undo/redo buttons and an eraser if you don't fancy the look of your work. You can insert images from the gallery, other memos and even part of a map.
The app also has some pretty advanced functionality. It can recognize shapes, for example, so our squiggly squares and circles looked perfect. It can do standard text recognition too and, more impressively, recognize and calculate mathematical formulas! Furthermore, it'll give you a solution to a particular mathematical problem as well.
S Memo is an easy way to jot down notes
The S Note offers several templates that you can use to design professional looking cards that you can later export as an image file or PDF. They can have multiple pages too - PDFs are more convenient here as they keep all pages in one document. S Note is a great way to prepare presentations on the Galaxy Note 10.1.
While in edit mode, you can use two fingers to pan around a document (using just one would draw a line instead).
S Note is a capable tool for creating colorful cards of slideshows
The S Planner is a custom calendar that has a lot of different views - Year, Month, Week, Day, Agenda and Task. It can sync up with several calendars (including the one from Facebook) and you can choose which ones are visible.
The app is beautifully designed and quite handy - with the month view in portrait, you can select a day and all events for that date will be listed at the bottom of the screen.
S Planner is a comprehensive calendar
Photoshop Touch and Adobe Ideas
Adobe launched Photoshop Touch as part of its Touch Apps suite and it is preloaded on the Galaxy Note 10.1. It's fairly simple to use with an intuitive interface, but there's a set of 13 tutorials just in case to teach you how to use the app. They come with all the required photos preloaded too.
Photoshop Touch features most of the core things you're used to in the desktop apps - layers with opacity and blend modes (no layer styles though), various image adjustments and effects, selection tools, clone stamp tool and so on.
Photoshop Touch comes preloaded on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
One cool thing about the S Pen is that you can hover - keep the stylus a few millimeters away from the screen and the app will display a cursor tracking the S Pen. This will really help you aim better.
Another thing that improves accuracy is that you can rest your hand on the screen and it won't register as a touch. Having to keep your hands above the screen gets pretty tiring, so this is a great feature. It also gives you better accuracy with the S Pen.
Using a stylus is already a more natural way to draw than with your fingers, but the S Pen has one extra feature - it allows you to use different amounts of pressure, which dynamically control the brush width. It's very sensitive and there are a lot of pressure levels available.
The other app from the Adobe Touch Apps suite is Ideas. It is a much more basic sketching and note-taking tool and has two layers - one to draw on and another one as a background image. The only tools you get are a brush (with customizable size, color and opacity) and an eraser.
Adobe Ideas
Ideas is meant to let you quickly sketch things to later upload to Adobe's Creative Cloud. There are other applications available for purchase such as Debut for presentations, Proto for designing website prototypes and more.
Both apps, even though intensive, run smoothly on the 1.4GHz quad-core Exynos 4412 chipset and its 2GB of RAM.
Google Maps and unlimited navigation, in supported countries
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 comes with a GPS receiver, which got a satellite lock in under two minutes with A-GPS turned off. A-GPS can speed this up quite a bit, but requires Internet access. We gotta say, we didn't experience any issues with signal reception.
The Galaxy Note 10.1 comes with Google Maps and Navigation. Voice-guided navigation has become a viable solution since the v5.0 update. Vector maps are smaller and way easier on your data plan and 3rd party SatNav apps are in danger.
For now though, turn-by-turn voice guidance using Google Maps Navigation is only available in select countries and unless you live in one of them, the best you can do is plan a route in advance and keep an eye on your current location during travel.
Google Maps with vector maps does a bit of 3D
Quite naturally, the app also supports the Street View mode. If it's available in the area you're interested in, you can enjoy a 360-degree view of the surroundings. When the digital compass is turned on it feels like making a virtual tour of the location.
Vector graphics
If Google Maps Navigation doesn't do it for you, you can grab an alternative app from the Android Market - there are both free and paid ones.
Google Play and Samsung apps, Hubs for books and music
The Google Play Store offers a huge number of apps, so you can be sure that you won't be having a shortage of software to install on your Galaxy Note 10.1. The only problem is the portion of the apps designed to work on a 10" WXGA screen is relatively small, especially when compared to the number of apps in the Apple App Store optimized for the iPad. S
Google Play store
There are featured apps, editors' picks and staff-recommended apps in addition to the usual top free and top paid.
The top new paid and top new free lists are worth checking out too and you shouldn't forget the trending apps. Naturally, there is a built-in search and categories for the different types of apps so you don't get lost. Recommendations are also based on your location to make it even easier to spot a quality app in the new Android market.
And if by some reason, the Google Play repository on the market isn't enough for you, you might want to check out some of the alternatives. Amazon has set up its own appstore and so has Opera, plus a few more minor app stores here and there. Choice is one of the best parts of the open platform.
Samsung's own store called Samsung Apps is also on board. There you can get a lot of free apps for your tablet.
Samsung Apps
Music Hub is here too. It has quite the music collection and the prices are pretty much the same as on the iTunes Store.
Another interesting store is the Readers Hub. There you can purchase subscriptions (or single issues) of newspapers (PressDisplay service), magazines (Zinio service) and e-Books (Kobo service). It's really comfy to have this entire functionality in a single reading app - good job, Samsung!
The Readers Hub
Final words
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 is perhaps the most powerful of slates. It has RAM that no tablet can match and multi-tasking capabilities better than anything we've seen so far. Heavy browsing and memory-intensive apps, which are key to the tablet experience, are handled with unprecedented ease.
Then comes the special pressure-sensitive stylus and an array of well-designed software to put it to good use. Photoshop Touch and Adobe Ideas in the Galaxy Note's bundle add an extra dimension to an already impressive device.
In short, the Galaxy Note 10.1 handles all typical tablet workload with ease and throws in a little extra. The thing is that all premium tablets have a few aces up their sleeve and it's really down to how important the pen functionality and that multitasking prowess are to you. Because if you can live without the 2 gigs of RAM and the Samsung software tricks, you can have any of the following devices without paying extra.
The most popular tablet around is the Apple iPad and the latest, third generation, offers an outstanding display of 1536 x 2048 pixels and a potent GPU for unrivalled graphics performance. It only has two CPU cores and non-expandable storage, but beats the Galaxy Note 10.1 for build quality and choice of (tablet-optimized) apps. Of course, your preference for OS also counts here.
Apple iPad 3 Wi-Fi
If you prefer to stay in the Android camp, the Acer Iconia Tab A700 will gladly offer you a 1080p screen for a slightly lower price than the Galaxy Note 10.1. The A700 is powered by the quad-core Tegra 3 processor and even though it's a bit heavier than the Samsung flagship tablet, it has a beefier battery to show for it.
Acer Iconia Tab A700
Asus has emerged as a prominent player in the Android tablet game and for a good reason. Its Transformer Prime TF700T flagship comes with a quad-core Tegra processor clocked at 1.6 GHz, a 1920 x 1200 Super IPS+ LCD and that all so sweet optional keyboard. It costs as much as the Note (without the keyboard dock) but it offers 32GB of storage. And for all the usefulness of an S-Pen, we would prefer the Transformer Prime TF700T with its high-res screen and optional dock as a viable laptop replacement.
Asus Transformer Pad Infinity 700 3G
And if you don't see the need of a 1080p screen on a tablet that you'd be viewing at an arm's length, there are some even better-priced options. The Acer Iconia Tab A510 and the Asus Transformer Pad 300 are both reasonably powered slates that can match the Galaxy Note 10.1 screen resolution and processing power, while going easier on your wallet.
Asus Transformer Pad 300 • Acer Iconia Tab A510
In general, the Galaxy Note 10.1 just isn't as attractive a package as you'd expect from someone of Samsung's calibre. To put it bluntly, the Note 10.1 isn't the Galaxy S III of tablets. It seems Samsung had their eyes on the iPad 3 and tried to respond to its revolutionary screen with the S Pen but the Android competition - which Samsung somewhat underestimated - stepped up its game and is now leading by a couple of laps.
If Samsung is to achieve in tablets what it did in smartphones, it would need to probably re-consider its pricing strategy. The wrong turn to the pit stop on its way to the shelves clearly points to the fact that the Note 10.1's development didn't exactly go as planned. Yes, it emerged with a massively improved engine, but the delay did the competition a huge favor. It's not too late just yet, but unless Samsung acts quickly, the Note 10.1 will be relegated to a niche product for people who have a use for a pen tablet. Now, that would be a shame for such a powerful device.


text:
CHICAGO — Chicago police say a man they believe shot and killed four people – three of them children – and wounded two others is in custody.
Police spokesman Roderick Drew would not identify the suspect but says he's being questioned by detectives and that officers have recovered a weapon at the scene.
Drew says police believe the shootings occurred in a domestic situation and that the suspect is related to the victims.
Police say the shootings happened at about 4:30 a.m. Wednesday in a home in southwest Chicago.
Those killed were a 7-month-old boy, a 3-year-old girl, a 16-year-old girl and a woman. Officials at Advocate Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn say a 13-year-old victim is in fair condition while an adult woman is in critical condition.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Genetically Modified Foods: Our Uphill Struggle
The Irish and Bhutanese governments' have made progressive steps towards protecting their population's food supply. For example, measures have been taken against the potential health and environmental dangers of genetically modified seeds and food stuffs. However, national efforts resisting the unrelenting spread of these 'Frankenstein' foods remain public policy aberrations.
Genetically modified foods have not only been proliferated under the guise of free trade, but in recent development aid rhetoric, have been painted as the solution to global hunger. The Canadian government has failed (on numerous occasions) to protect the rights of its citizens. They have truly failed to help us understand if the food we purchase for ourselves and our families has been genetically modified!
Not only does this represent a gross violation of consumer sovereignty rights, but also presents potential ethical dilemmas for various religious and moral groups against the consumption of animals, as GM foods are often spliced with animal genes.
In April 2008, the private house bill C-517 was presented by the Bloc Quebecois, calling for the mandatory labelling of all products containing, or having been produced with, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). The Bill was defeated in its first reading, with an overwhelming majority of votes by Canadian MPs, leaving Canadian consumer's to rely on 'voluntary' labelling by corporations.
The fight to protect Canadian eco-systems and consumers against the spread of GMOs has heated up with the proposition of bill C-474, which demanded the protection of Canadian agricultural markets against the potential dangers to export revenues posed by the use of GM wheat and alfalfa.
The bill required that "an analysis of potential harm to export markets be conducted before the sale of any new genetically engineered seed is permitted". However, on February 9th 2011, the bill was voted down, thwarting another effort by Canadian health and environmental activists to protect Canadians from the threats posed by GM crops.
Ironically, the Liberal Agricultural critic, Wayne Easter, along with several other voting members of the House of Commons were absent for the vote. They were sadly drawn away from the nation's capital by a conference featuring the President of Monsanto Incorporated (arguably the largest biotechnology firm in the world) was giving a speech. It appears that Canadian MPs have once again sided with corporate interest over the protection of their constituents' health.
Canadians need to rally together and petition our MPs to overturn these gross violations of our rights to health and a sound environment. Take a second and go to the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network's website (www.cban.ca) and find out how your MP voted!


text: The biggest news at Sherwood Island is that the new Nature Center has opened, and it's terrific! The kiddo and I attended a shark dissection this morning, and learned lots. From touch tanks to interesting exhibits to many hands-on demonstrations during the season, you'll find plenty to like there. Open Wednesdays through Sundays. Don't miss it.


text:
Fresh from the factory, we're happy to announce Fennec 1.0 Beta 3 for Maemo to the world! This release features major improvements to performance and a fancy new theme. We've made big improvements to kinetic panning and added the ability to scroll iframes. A lot of work has been done to make our theme more robust, taking advantage of things like media queries to support various devices, orientations, and platforms which you'll see more of in the next Windows Mobile release. Overall, this beta is a major improvement to previous Fennec betas.
In addition to Maemo build, you can also download desktop builds for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
We've changed quite a bit under the hood to make things faster including putting in place a tile-based rendering system to cache the areas of the page you've been to. Roy Frostig has a great blog post about this. The work that Robert O'Callahan has done on compositor phase 1 has been a big help and is allowing us to do things with scrolling that were previously rocket science.
Moving forward, we're going to focus on fixing polish bugs, rough edges, and taking advantage of things like our new tile system to help avoid the user seeing a checkerboard while panning.


text: Collaboration with Creative Director Dennis Freedman of BARNEYS for their 2013 Interactive Holiday Windows at the Madison Avenue Flagship Store. Presenting Santa as the "Ultimate Gift Giver" with hand-made Swarovski crystal-embellished toys, and "Mrs. Claus" as the "Ultimate Gift Bow" with hundreds of hand-made oversized pearls. Onlookers could enter the window that was extended out onto the sidewalk and experience a virtual sleigh ride throughout New York City with the Clauses.


text:
Castelli has really continued to show their commitment to Oregon racing and will be providing a $1000 cash purse for the 1/2/3 team competition for the month of May. Details can be found here: http://tuesdaynightpir.com/castelli-team-competition/
Online registration is available on Athletepath and each week's registration can be found here: https://www.athletepath.com/river-city-bicycles-tuesday-pir/2015-08-25. The cost is $15 and there'll be no surcharge. That means that the cost is the same online as it is in person. You can preregister online up until 2pm on the day of the race and you can then head straight to the start line, no need to check in at registration.
Race day, on site registration is located at the finish line in the middle of the main straight away.
If you have an individual or team pass, you'll just need to check in with us before heading to your start.
Juniors (18 and under racing in open categories) - $5
Single Race for all others - $15
You can find all of the information about the series on our website at www.tuesdaynightpir.com and also keep up with us on Facebook and Twitter.
Tomorrow night's schedule look's like this:
5:15pm - Registration open
6:00pm - Juniors (Hosted by PDX DEVO) This race is free for all juniors and will be 20 minutes.
6:20pm - Category 4/5 - 7 Laps
6:25pm - Category 5 - 5 Laps
6:40pm - Category 1/2/3 - 15 Laps (Three hot laps)
6:45pm - Category 3/4 - 12 Laps (Three hot laps)
This week all categories will be racing in a COUNTER-CLOCKWISE DIRECTION - ONE NUMBER ON THE LEFT. You can always find this info for the entire season at http://tuesdaynightpir.com/weekly-details/
Still not sure.
See you all out there tomorrow!


text:
Ask me for the password!
Submitted by koppie on Tue, 03/28/2006 - 02:06
Only one person has asked me for the password to the private posts. Maybe you guys didn't get it: I'm giving the password away! It's the same password every time. Just ask and I'll give it to you. I want people to read my blog, it's just there are certain posts I wouldn't want strangers to read.
Also, you should sign my guestbook.
- Log in to post comments


text:
How to fix Zip File error message "Compressed Folder is invalid or corrupted"
When I have downloaded the compressed zip folder to my desktop & trying to open it.. It says the 'compressed (zipped) folder is invalid or corrupt'.
In my research to verify downloaded zip files, I have discovered that zipped files seems to be corrupted. However, re-downloading the zip file on system is also showing the same error message. What's going on?
So now what do i do? I tried to find the exact cause of this error message.
Most Possible Causes:
1.If you download file in Mozilla Firefox, you may experience this error message.
2.This error can be occur if you download file in Microsoft Internet Explorer & using Windows XP. To open compressed file, you use the Compressed Folders feature & may also experience this error message.
3.This error can be occur if the problem with the compressor tool that I used to create the ZIP. it does not decompress properly on Windows.
4.The download file is truncated.
5.The download file is probably corrupted.
- If you download file in Mozilla Firefox, then you should try to open it again and unzip the file or use internet explorer.
- If you download file in Internet Explorer & using windows XP then you got this error message if 'Confirm open after download' check box is not selected. To resolve this issue follow this path: Start>>Settings>>Control Panel>>Folder Options>>File Types>> .zip>>Advanced. After that verify 'Confirm open after download' option is selected or not.
- As we all know that Microsoft has their own ZIP tool so you should switch to that. It would be fix the problem.
- The download process could be truncated due to the connection being dropped during downloading. It might be happen in very few cases. In this case, You have to re-download the file again.
- Corruption can occur if the zip folder contains any virus infected file. If the file get corrupted then to fix corruption, you can choose third party Compressed File Repair Tool.
Hope the article will help you to solve the error message 'Compressed Folder is invalid or corrupted'!!


text:
We spend so much time and effort in improving our vehicles, everything from suspension and tires to full out drive train swaps, all the while ignoring the easy bolt on "high performance" modifications that truly count. We will go and put bigger brakes and roll cage while being blissfully ignorant of true safety modifications. I will just cut through the fluff, we forget about our headlights.
Come awn, headlights? Ya, headlights. You know those lights that you are required to have, the ones that get you to work every day, the ones that you forget about until one burns out and then you spend a half hour looking at the bulbs in the part store trying to justify if those $10 more a set are worth it.
Headlights are one of the most important items on your rig, they are more important than bigger tires, having a winch or even having 4wd but people care more about the "toys" they can add to their vehicle instead of the items they use every day for some odd reason. What about your daily driver or tow rig? Think about it, every night and every time the weather sucks you need headlights. The safety of yourself and your passengers hinges on those 2 little items on the nose of your rig. Do you really want to skimp there? Do you really want to pinch pennies on that? Then again, do you want to waste time and money on a worthless or substandard product? Well that's where I come into play, I am going to let you know with no sugarcoating what the quality of some of the headlights on the market really are.
I have been given tons of crap for my addiction to lighting around our forum, so I figure it is time I used all that information stuffed in my head to some use. Today we are going to evaluate a large selection of aftermarket headlight replacements and upgrades. These companies were selected by two very simple requirements:
Lastly I needed uniformity in size so I went with "normal" 7" round headlights as everyone makes these, they are easy to adapt to any rig and present no surprises. I also used the stock Jeep JK housing because, well, it's a 7" round headlight and this article is also written for JKOwners.com! Ya, you may have square headlights and some of these companies do offer them, but the testing here is based off round
So soon enough I had a pile of boxes from everyone who stepped up to the plate and I had to start the evaluation. But first I had to know what I was looking for, so here is a primer on lighting for you to get you more educated. Mind you I am going to simplify this a bit for you but not "dumb it down". If you want to learn more then go for it, but I warn you that some of the research out there is not exactly light reading…..hehehe "light" reading.
Light Terminology
Watts is a measure of total power output, this not to be confused with total LIGHT output. Not all of the energy emitted by a light source is visible light, heat and invisible light waves are also emitted. A LOT of heat is produced by most lights seeing as nearly melting something (filament) or creating a plasma envelope (HID) is how you are getting the light.
Lumens, on the other hand, will tell you the total visible light output of a source. For this reason, lumens (not watts) is one of the relevant unit of measure when you're concerned about headlights. You can really get into a whole new level of claims when you start throwing lumens around. But lumens are the TOTAL output of light from the source, NOT the total light you "see". You catching the little caveat there? Lumens require you to basically stick the entire light inside a sphere with a meter, then get a measurement.
Candlepower = old school measurement, candela = new school, both close enough to the same meaning. One candela is about the light intensity produced by an ordinary candle as perceived by the your eye. It is used to addresses how bright a light source is in a particular direction, in our case, forward.. The candela is similar to the lumen in that both deal with light output as perceived by the eye, but the key difference is that the lumen measures the total visible light output, whereas the candela addresses directional intensity only. You lose light in reflection, refraction, stray aimed light and dispersion via whatever is in the air including the air itself.
To be honest, I could care less about watts, lumens and candela. Its like saying I have an engine that puts out 800hp at the crank but only 400 at the wheels. I want useable, reality based light and not a sales plug.
Foot-Candles and lux, Both units measure the same thing, the amount of visible light that falls on a surface. The key difference between the two is that the foot-candle uses the Imperial measuring system ('merica, hell ya), while the lux uses the metric system. To better understand the foot-candle, imagine that you have a one candle (candela) light source located in the center of a sphere and the radius of that sphere is a distance of one foot, a foot-candle is the amount of light that falls on the inside surface of that sphere. For the lux, take that same example and simply change the radius of the sphere to a distance of one meter. This is "real world" light, you can see it, segregate it by pattern and measure it easily. I will be doing quite a bit of this.
Think of this all like a vehicle as mentioned before: Your engine is producing 500 lumen at the crank but you are only getting 200 candela at the rear wheels due to internal losses. You only have one gear so when you start on the line you get 20 foot candles to the road and this gradually drops as you get further down the track.
The point: You are now well educated on lighting so it will be a lot harder to pull something over on you. There are ways to accurately measure light from the source, in route to the area it will contact and at the area it is hitting. Does every company measure their light? Yup. Does every company measure it the same way? Who knows, but I am. Every light gets measure using the same tools, same distance, same day, same everything. Ya, someone will try to say I did it wrong but I don't care. Even if I did it "wrong" I did it wrong all the same, all across the board.
Now lets cover something that I will NOT be spending a whole lot of time on: Color
Color temp is thrown around by most every company and I am going to not make friends with the following paragraphs. There are a lot of claims this color or that color is "better" Well I am here to tell you its not, and its not that simple. Yes, there are slight performance variables depending on light temp but at the same time being HIGHLY subjective on clarity. You can go and buy headlights with a color temp from 3 to 30 thousand degrees Kelvin with some of those temps being usable and others being pretty much a purple joke. But a lot of what is "good" is entirely up to you the viewer. First, just to make sure its clear: color temp and/or nanometers are a SET measurement and are irrelevant how we "see them".
The sheer fact of the matter is you will see perfectly clear in the same illumination in most color temps. You will even perceive things as "white" until you toss another light source of a different temp in there. Even the people driving at you will perceive the color of your lights different than your do because their eyes are adjusted to the color of their own headlights. You see, your eyes will actually adjust to a single source light and perceive that as white whithin reason. So someone driving with regular sealed beam bulbs will see their own light as white, you driving with HID's will see your light as white, but when you see their lights you will perceive then as "yellowier" and they will see yours as "bluer". So when companies start tossing around words like "best" or "optimum" you may wish to take it with a grain of salt. Even the sun itself changes color temp throughout the day, but once again, you see a white paper page as a white paper page all day long. Heck, perceived color will even shift as the brightness changes..
I will make this plain and very generic. Your eyes are very adaptive to light, much more so than most people realize. Inside your eyes are photoreceptors that are made of rods and cones. Rods are multicolor sensitive (contrary to old belief they only saw black and white) but are more sensitive to blue end of spectrum. Cones are very selective and they are tuned to red/green/blue. Your rods also control pupil restriction/constriction (this comes into play with a high power lighting) So you know that low light causes a bigger pupil, bright light closes it up, this is basic biology. Well here is some higher level biology. A big open pupil causes all sorts of stray non focused light in the eye, causing things to be not sharp (along with glare), a closed down pupil, just like a camera aperture, gets rid of these aberrant rays and things are sharper (depth of field increased as well). So you crank up the light and things get sharper, right? well sometimes. If you crank up the red end of the color the rods don't close the pupil as much (remember the rods are more blue sensitive) so now you get a LOT of out of focus light and that's not good. Ok, so lets crank up the blue end ! Well now you shift the color out of the happy area of the cones and colors looks like crap. That and your eyes do not process blue light well, the more blue light something is the less clear and your eyes strain to crisp the image.
The Point:
There is this happy area that is very subjective where YOU the viewer (because you are the one using the light) see things clear, in what you feel as a correct color in THAT light and also not so "blue" that it causes eye strain. So don't get into a pissing match over color when there are so many more things with headlights to care about.
1. There is actually a lot more into headlight design and development than most people notice. You can't just toss a light bulb behind some glass, add some aluminum foil and call it a "headlight", even though some of the ones I found available were almost nothing more than that. DOT (Department of Transportation) and also tied in with SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) along with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) have guidelines of how the light should be thrown out there and in what way. I will just make this sort by saying "DOT" from now on as it covers most of it. Ok, so design has to follow rules, only so much above a set height, only so much to one side and things like that. I have no desire to nuke this and will just say you have to play their rules to get their approval. There are so many ways to skin this cat and every company has a different way of achieving it, some more effectively than others. This can be done with the exterior lens, the rear reflector, a front reflector, an internal lens, bulb placement or any combination of them. This is why for example the factory JK has that huge clear dome while older CJ's did not and both run DOT approved headlights while using entirely different ways of aiming the light. Also we drive on the right side of the road here, so light can be thrown more to the side and less in the middle so you are not blinding oncoming traffic but still see that jogger.
The goal is to get a good uniform lighting with it being weighted slightly centrally in brightness and no dark spots. A decent horizontal cut-off when on low beam because this helps in rain, snow and fog along with not tossing stray light at oncoming drivers. This is the goal, how well it is met is a different matter all together. Just because you meet the minimum standards in the points they tell you do does not necessarily mean you did a good job.
So now that you are learned on some lighting knowledge, that allows me to give you an idea what the plan was here. I needed to take these makers of bulbs, housings and headlights and figure a way to run them against each other. I figured it would be best to do a combination of both hard facts and also subjective input. Then I would tally it up or something like that and pick a winner or winners.
Here are the judging points:
Let's Get Started!
First thing I had to do was even out the playing field and remove my Jeep itself from the equation. Yes, these are going in a JK but the Jeep has all sorts of little electrical quirks that could mess up the test. The voltage varies depending on engine RPM and voltage changes the brightness of lights, so that will not do. The jeep also has a built in "self testing" that tells when a light is out and can cause lights to flicker, also something not needed in this part of the test. Also changing the lights a bunch of times in the JK will take a lot of time. So what I did was make a stand alone "jeep" to be my test stand. A pair of headlight buckets was welded square to a steel frame the same width and height as the headlight centers factory JK with a small lift on 35's like the average vehicle. I am a lot taller than that in my Jeep and the centerline to the ground does make a diffrence. Then I went and used an ARB headlight harness for all the powering duties connected to simple switches for high and low beam. This was all ran through a DC voltage regulator set at 14 volts (the average voltage in a vehicle while the engine is running) that also removed any pulses/whatever from messing up the test. Then I drug the setup down to the local auto shop and yes, I had them put it on the headlight machine and adjust them to make sure that it could be aimed correctly. I do not want any company saying I was being bias or anything different for any light. This gave me a solid, simple, non variable test stand with the ability to quickly change headlights and also a great place to mount the camera for images.
Its even got a laser, that makes you know I am serious.
Ok, I will lay this right out there: I am not a scientist or a lighting engineer. I do not work in the lighting industry nor do I have millions of dollars to spend on technical measuring equipment. But I understand light in the real world and I know how to measure light, so that is exactly what I did. The first thing I made was blank plates that were half flat white and black, these would be used to get an average measurement of light at known distances of 25', 50', 100', 200', 300' and 500' and also a "can I see it from the driver's seat" test. The readings were taken at 3 different locations and 2 heights in a 10 foot wide "road". Two readings were taken at ground level 6 inches up on both sides of the "road" to simulate the centerline and the shoulder, both very important things when driving. The 3rd measurement was taken at 48 inches off the ground to simulate a deer, drunk person, tree or whatever random object made its way into the center of your lane. The centerline of the lane and the height were marked with a 30mW green laser because I love being able to justify fun toys. Actually it was done with a laser so it would be exactly the same plane for the entire distance I was working. What I measured was once again, "real world" light importance, so keep this in mind. I know I will have someone or some company getting in a huff saying my numbers are wrong or whatever.
Well, the numbers don't lie.
Armed with a pile of tools and energy drinks I set to my mission.
The numbers I will show you are an AVERAGE as each reading was taken 5 times with the high and low being thrown out and the remaining 3 averaged. Yes, there was a LOT of math. All readings were taken with a hand held meter, on a new moon night with no light pollution to contaminate the testing. Testing was done on an evening with unlimited visibility, no low level atmospheric conditions and 73F ambient temp. In other words it was a very nice night for me to stand outside for a bunch of hours getting chewed up by mosquitoes while the random local law enforcement stopped by to wonder exactly what the heck I was doing while writing lots of numbers in a yellow note pad in a neglected dirt lot.
But first lets get the subjective input out of the way.
Brand: Factory JK (no picture, go to the mall or catholic girls school and find one to see for yourself)
Brand: Hella replacement bulbs (no picture, they look like H13 bulbs)
Brand: Silvania Silverstar replacement bulbs (no picture)
Brand: IPF H4 conversion housings and bulbs.
Brand: Delta Tech H4 (DOT) conversion housing and bulbs
Brand: HIDprojector HID complete replacement housings.
Brand: Truck-Lite LED replacement headlights (2nd generation)
Brand: J.W. Speaker 8700 Evolution LED replacement headlights
Rebel Off Road drop in HID conversion.
I got these for 2 reasons:
Next is the actual hard data.
Here are 2 charts to show you the actual measured light output of all headlights in this test. Now pay attention to this next statement:
Do not automatically assume the "big spikes" are the "best", look at the readings and at what distance!
You can also tell what lights had a smooth output that was uniform in shape and brightness. For example if you look at all the ones that use the factory JK housing you can see how the pattern is obviously split and weighted to one side. So once again, look at all of the distances and brightness before you pass judgment. The color tells you the distance measured and the max spike tells you the brightness measured at that distance. And just like in real life, the brightness decreases when the distance increases. This is not an overhead "picture" like what the headlight companies use for advertising, and after this testing I have very little faith in those at all.
Also if anyone wants the full excel spreadsheet with all of the numbers I will gladly send it to them, but most of the data is right here for you to see. Numbers don't lie kids.
The next "test" was getting shots of the beam pattern. Now there are so many companies that will tell you that "beam shots don't mean a thing", and they are correct...mostly. Beam shots are worthless if everything is not exactly the same. You have to have the same distance, height, background and time with the same camera settings of light balance, aperture, shutter speed, ISO/ASA, and well you get the point. All shots were taken at 25' with camera settings being exactly the same, I even whipped out the laser to make sure. Remember what I was saying about color not being all that important? Well you want use that unbiased view here because the "colors" are based on the camera setting. The color variation is because the camera was set with a daylight white balance, so the color your seeing is caused by that setting. Remember what I said about your eyes automatically making "white" white? Most all the lights appeared "white" once my eyes adjusted to them. The main purpose of this was to show the cut-off, any random beams and the transition of brightness. Well that and everyone always asks for beam shots.
Low beam first.
Stock JK (pattern is exactly the same with Hella and Silvania bulds so multiples of this image are a moot point):
J.W. Speaker:
Next is high beams:
So now some results, winners, losers and stuff.
The Losers
The factory JK headlights with any H13 bulb at all, be it factory, Hella, Silvania or whoever. The H13 bulb and factory housing combo sucks in my professional opinion. The pattern is blotchy and horrible and even with lighting companies touting some 11tybillion percent increase from factory you can tell that is just a sales line just by looking at the chart. With less than 1 footcandle difference anywhere between bulbs, if you are going to spend the money you may as well just save a little more and really upgrade the entire housings. This article was a real eye opener for me in regards to replacement bulbs and money I have wasted over the years.
The Winners
Yes, plural, winners. Did you think it was just that easy to call one winner? There are too many variables and I will explain.
Best Overall: J.W. Speaker
They outshone the Truck-lite and pretty much all of the competitors. Better output and better clarity but you get a smack in the face of price that makes people pause. The price to me is not the issue, you see a LED is going to last as long as 50+ Halogen bulbs. So even if you are spending $20 a light for replacement bulbs you are still above the price of an LED headlight. So this is one of those buy and forget about it purchases. Don't get me wrong, the Truck-lite did very good and would be a nice entry into the LED market. The difference between the two is what you can achieve with solid optics vs. reflector design with a LED. The light from the J.W. Speaker just left it and everything else in in the dust. Look at the chart, the even transition from side to side and the output at 500. You see down the bottom where the 500 foot readings are? Yes, other lights may have put out more light up close (100' or less) but that is where they stopped performing. The J.W. 8700 Evolutions put out more light at distance and much, much more evenly.
But wait...didn't you have flicker problems? What is up with that?
Easy, If you are upgrading your lights then you should be upgrading your harness. You are limiting the performance of whatever you buy when you use the factory wiring. Should the J.W. Speaker's not filickered? I mean ya, come awn guys, for the price of these you guys could make a little inline adapter that has a couple of capacitors and diodes so I do not have to do it myself. That would be nice, But I am running a stand alone harness in my Jeep directly off the battery so its moot anyway.
Best halogen replacement housing: Delta Tech
Yes, it was very close between Delta and IPF but at a lower cost with more output it came out the winner. For around $100 the Delta Tech H4 conversion is a better option than any H13 bulb. Don't even bother buying a set of replacement bulbs when your H13's burn out, just get a new set of housings, its money better spent.
Best HID: HIDprojectors HID complete replacement projector housings
The light output was impressive and clean and they worked perfectly out of the box.
They had a significant output to price ratio that you could not argue with, also the ability for the vendor to customize the housings is a very nice touch.
The J.W.'s beat them out as they were better in overall lighting at distance and smoothness of pattern. Then again it is kinda hard to beat the level of optics in those things. Yes, they are still an "off-road only" item till they submit for an approval, but this is pretty much high end OEM tech stuffed in JK housings. You make the call.
The "You have to get an honorable mention": Hellfire HID, rebel Off-Road
Holy crap I never would have thought that a bare HID in a JK housing would work that good! Stupid good product! The light simply should not work that well, its almost like Jeep designed the factory housing to use an HID and then went "naa, lets just toss an H13 in there and be cheaper". They are not as high tech as the HIDprojectors so the beam pattern suffers, but not nearly as bad as I thought it would.
Ok, to show you, here is what I was talking about with HID is tossed in a housing not designed for it and blinding oncoming drivers.
This picture is the Hellfire HID inside the IPF housings and look at the light going everywhere. See those huge vertical beams and "starburst" patterning? This is the "normal" action when tossing an HID bulb in the "wrong" housing. This is the crap that blinds you from people with those annoying HID kits, this is the reason why DOT is cracking down on them as well.
And this is the Hellfire bulbs in the factory JK housings.
You see what I am saying! Ok, done with that, you form your own opinions and use on this one.
Winner of the biggest improvement you can make to your lighting for under $100 that was not shown here but you should know:
Make or buy a stand alone harness that runs directly off the battery and uses the factory light wires/plug to trip the new relays. Make sure it is well made and has diodes and capacitors to prevent relay flutter. There are a few vendors out there who make them or they are not hard to do yourself.
Plain and simple, drawing the power from the battery instead of the factory wiring makes a huge difference in voltage drop and brightness. Also this is one way to get rid of the flicker for LEDs and some HIDs. Here is a how-to thread by Venom on JKO:
Protect Your Investment!
The last thing I tested while out here was Xpel headlight protection film. It is a thick, clear adhesive backed plastic. Think of it like a screen protector for your headlights. Great product, kinda difficult to put on but worth all of the effort.
Here is a little write-up I did on installing it.
And here is a video to show you exactly why I put it on.
Think about it, you just spent a good chunk of money to upgrade your headlights only to have one taken out by a stray rock on the road while driving to the marriage counselor for spending all this money on your Jeep. Do you need that stress? Cheap, simple insurance. Get some Xpel protection film.
Helpful links and information:
I took a bunch of these lights and sent them out to JKO members for them to test and give unbiased input. This way you get true information from average jeep owners who have no horse in this race. Read what they have to say about some of these products here:
Lastly, what ones did I chose to run and why?
I chose the J.W. Speakers.
Why? Because I can easily fix its only little glitch by upgrading the wiring harness anyway. So to me it was a moot point, The lighting pattern and smoothness is like nothing I have ever seen, it is like a carpet of light out in front of you.
They are ridiculously well made and designed and are worth that kind of money. The problem is justifying that kind of money to an average owner. I, on the otherhand, am not an average owner. I have a 50" Rigid LED bar on the windshield and many other high end lighting and electronics. I understand the value over time of owning them, they last as long as 50+ halogen bulbs or 20 something HID's and that is a LONG time. With no moving parts or bulb to break it takes a stupid amount of effort to kill an LED. The very low amp draw is a nice selling point as well, these can be easily left on for hours with little battery draw. They are an install and never worry about again product, for pretty much the life of your Jeep. I also learned a while ago that rarely sometimes you do get what you pay for. I was seriously skeptical of the value of these lights and I am glad I was proven wrong.
And to be blunt, they look evil ! They totally go with the appearance of my JK and that was a nice benefit.
Well thank you all for reading this and I would like to thank the following vendors and companies for their assistance in getting me these products in a swift and painless manner. Please visit our forums for more technical information and have a good day!
Gil "usmcdoc14"
1028 Saunders Lane
West Chester, PA 19380
J.W. Speaker
1-800 558-7288
N120 W19434 Freistadt Road
PO Box 1011
Germantown, Wisconsin 53022
Rebel Off Road
20602 Pascal Way
Suite B
Lake Forest, CA 92630
310 E. Elmwood Ave.
Falconer, NY 14733
618 W. Sunset Road
San Antonio, Texas 78216


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Inside the cupboards of a vegetarian
Remember this week is National Vegetarian Week. Which is why I keep posting about being a vegetarian. Every day this week.
Morag x
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Locate an SIOR | MySIOR | Style Shop
The SIOR Center for Career Advancement provides a number of educational resources geared toward the busy brokerage professional. Real estate professionals can access SIOR content, including conference presentations, webinars, courses, Professional Report articles, brokerage minute segments, and more using the links below.
Professional Report Articles
SIOR's dynamic quarterly magazine addresses the concerns of industrial and office real estate practitioners. Articles by industry experts focus on topics from the evolving paradigm in commercial real estate brokerage to effectively managing offices and technology. Professional Report will reinforce your professionalism and give you the tools to excel in sales and leasing.
Brokerage Minute Audio Segments
The Brokerage Minute is a production of the SIOR Center for Career Advancement and features thought provoking industry concepts, delivered in a quick and easy to consume format. These audio segments are suitable for both industry practitioners and their clients. Archived Conference Presentations
SIOR's meet each spring and fall to increase their professionalism and enhance their business networks. These meetings include sophisticated educational programming. Audio and PowerPoint presentations are available from most conference sessions.
Online education offered by the SIOR Center for Career Advancement provides cutting-edge, real-time training for the busy commercial real estate practitioner.
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Preparing Pipes For Vacation
Your pipes at home need to be given as much consideration as every other aspect of your vacation planning. After all the best vacation could be easily ruined by the sight of broken pipes and a flooded home when you return. If you're vacationing in the summer simply shutting off the water might be all you need to do but there will need to be a lot more preparation if you go on vacation during the winter. Here are some tips for preparing your pipes before you leave for vacation.
For Warm Climates
As previously stated there won't need to be a lot of preparation when vacationing in the summer. You can ask the utility provider to shut off the water supply to the house while you're away. You'll also need to:
- Open all the faucets in the house so that all the excess water is drained.
- Remove the garden hose from the outdoor spigot and drain outdoor faucets. Turn on the sprinkler and drain as well.
- Drain the water heater by opening the valve and letting the water run off through a hose or into a tub. Turn off the power before you begin draining the heater.
- Make sure to leave at least one valve open while you're away for air to get in and drive excess water out. The valve that you leave open should be from the lowest level in the house.
For Cold Climates
When it's cold outside it is very common for pipes to freeze and break. Prevent damage to your pipes by following the steps below:
- Clear out the sink traps by removing it completely or opening the cleanout valve to remove waste.
- Weatherproof the traps in your toilet, bathtub and basement drain with windshield fluid. For the toilet pour a gallon of fluid in the tank and flush.
- Drain the water completely out of dishwashers and washing machines.
- Ensure that windows and doors are sealed tightly when closed.
- Leave the heat on at a low 55 degrees.
- Leave the water heater on running at the lowest setting possible. Make use of the vacation setting on your heater if it has one.
- Leave the cabinets doors in the bathroom open to ensure that warm air flows in there. Do the same for the door to your water heater.
- Leave your hot and cold water faucets running on a slow drip if there will be a freeze while you're away.
- You might want to shut off the water to the house if you're gone for a long period.
- Remove the garden hose from the outside faucets.
- Make sure that all your exposed pipes are properly insulated before you leave.
- Drain out any water storage units to reduce the likelihood of any water stored there freezing.
With proper planning you can come back from your vacation and meet your home intact if you prepare your pipes well. These tips will help to prevent any unforeseen problems but still ask a neighbor to check in so that any mishaps could be identified before you are left with costly repairs.
How do you prepare your pipes before leaving on vacation?


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According to a report released last week by the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness, as a result of state initiatives like Zero: 2016, the total homeless population in Connecticut is down to historic lows.
The sheltered population is down 4 percent, unsheltered homelessness is down 32 percent, and chronic homelessness is down 21 percent since last year.
The count registered the lowest total since statewide counts started in Connecticut in 2007, and identified 4,038 homeless individuals (down from 4,506 counted in 2013).The state is part of the national Zero:2016 initiative to end veteran homelessness by 2015, a goal set by President Obama, and to end chronic homelessness by 2016.In a statement, Governor Dannel Malloy said, "As we grow jobs, do more on affordable housing than has been done in decades, and take strategic approaches on ending homelessness, we're taking steps like never before to help residents get back on their feet. Our methods are working. This report demonstrates that our commitment to ending homelessness, particularly among veterans, is seeing success."The full report released by the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness can be found on the organization's website.
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Rhinology/Skull Base Surgery
Patient Services
Macquarie University Hospital is fortunate to have a highly skilled skull base surgical team who can perform common skull base tumour surgery to address meningioma, pituitary tumours, craniopharyngiomas and chordomas. In addition, Macquarie University Hospital provides endoscopic approaches to some vascular lesions and the latest management of nose and sinus tumours. Skull base surgery is a dynamic subspecialty and the last decade has also witnessed the application of endoscopic techniques to the ventral skull base using an endonasal corridor. Our surgeons have been part of the transition from external approaches to the endonasal corridor, which has seen significant improvements in patient outcomes.
We are also able to offer patients novel treatment using topical therapies. With a strong research program in topical therapies behind them, Macquarie University Hospital specialists can offer many patients with Chronic Respiratory Syndrome (CRS) a non-surgical means of controlling their condition.
Our Research
Our research – through links to the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences – has focused on the management of certain pathologies, endoscopic access to various areas on the skull base, and reconstruction of the defect, ensuring that clear anatomical landmarks can be identified during surgery and improving quality of life and function after treatment. The focus of surgical treatment in rhinological conditions is always to control disease and cure patients; however, we continue to make efforts to reduce the impact of the therapies we use. A priority of surgery is not just on reducing recovery time and peri-operative morbidity, but also on decreasing the long-term impact of having a tumour removed. Retaining good nose and sinus function from the area in which the tumour was located is a secondary but critical endpoint.
The rhinology and skull base research program has a focus on defining the role of epithelial mediated eosinophillic inflammation in CRS. Understanding the pathophysiology of why patients develop chronic inflammatory disease in the sinuses – often persisting well after bacteria have been removed – has dramatically changed in the past decade. One key area of research is looking at the interaction between the innate and adaptive immune systems that maintain a homeostasis to the mucosal surface. Epithelial derived cytokines (IL25 and IL33) have been linked to underlying eosinphillia in CRS patients where the same is not true for TSLP, a mediator not exclusively produced from the epithelium. There is growing acknowledgement of the presence of innate non-B, non-T immune cells that may possess the ability to develop into local tissue eosinophilia in inflammatory airway disease. The mechanism of activation of these cells is a focus for future work by our group.
Defining CRS sub-populations, or endotypes, that may benefit from specific novel topical therapies and avoid the need for multiple sinus surgeries has been very successful in recent years. The DHM Pathology department has assisted our researchers in establishing a unique reporting system that identifies these sub-groups. This system has been subsequently used in the US and Canada. The novel delivery of topical steroid to the paranasal sinuses is an important research focus at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. The increased distribution of anti-inflammatory agents to the sinuses has been associated with a dramatic increase in the clinical success of managing patients with chronic rhinosinusitis. Along with research into alternative or adjunct topical agents, such as antiobiotics, we are now able to offer patients a 90 per cent success of controlling their condition with simple topical therapies and thus avoid systemic therapies or multiple surgeries.


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Today, James and I traded in our Toyota Prius, which was starting to have some problems, for a Volkswagen Jetta TDI (diesel). This evening, after dinner, we took it out to get some dessert.
Thank you for all your nice comments on our kitchen!!!!
- Current Mood: happy
( 8 comments — Leave a comment )
( 8 comments — Leave a comment )


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GPM Large Instrument Kit
GPM Model 113 Price: $7,239
Product Details
The GPM Large Anthropometric Instrument Kit contains all the necessities for your practice to ensure the highest level of precision in all distance measurements. The range of instruments included in this kit enable maximum versatility in capturing those measurements.
The GPM Anthropometer and the interchangeable Recurved Measuring Branches capture accurate measurements up to 2,100 mm. For measurement of length and depth up to 200 mm, the kit includes the GPM Martin type Sliding Caliper. The kit also includes a Small Spreading Caliper for measurement between distances where one or both points may not be on a flat surface. The purchaser can select either the Small Spreading Caliper with rounded ends, or pointed ends. If the instrument will be used on patients we recommend selecting rounded ends. No matter which ends of the curved branches you choose, the Small Spreading Caliper will provide measurement up to 300 mm.
The Large Instrument Kit comes packaged inside a rigid canvas carrying case. Along with the above instruments, the kit also includes GPM's anthropometric Plastic Tape Measure and Dermographic Pencil.
Weight: 6.94 lbs. / 3.15 kg
Included Instruments
Recurved Measuring Branches 102
Sliding Caliper (Martin type) 104
Small Spreading Caliper (rounded ends) 106
Small Spreading Caliper (pointed ends) 107
Plastic Tape Measure 111
Dermographic Pencil
Other Kits
GPM anthropological instruments are high-precision instruments, manufactured for decades to the highest levels of Swiss quality craftsmanship. These instruments are exported worldwide and are based on the anthropology developed by Rudolf Martin. Ongoing work on new technology and development ensures an assortment of GPM instruments that are always up-to-date and meet every demand.


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When it comes to such complex systems as the human body, I doubt there could be a single root cause for a problem like obesity. I know Gary Taubes (among others) tends to see the argument that obesity is multi-factorial as an excuse to do bad science. But even though much of what the average layperson knows about obesity and how to deal with it is inadequate and often based on bad science, that does not mean the problem of obesity can be reduced to one root cause. Reducing complex problems to the most simple explanation works better in math and physics; it does not work so well with human biology. Perhaps the best chance for success in treating obesity is to address the problem from many angles at once – diet, exercise, stress management, improved sleep, treatment of deficiencies, treatment of emotional problems, etc.
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This diwali gift your loved ones and friends this attractively decorated marble tray with 2 dibbi and handle and get appreciated.
This elegantly decorated marble tray with 2 dibbi and handle is made comprehensively with marble and enhanced with fine decorative work. Gift your near and dear ones this elegant decorative piece this Diwali and etch a place in their hearts. The gift resonates with the festive mood of people and serves as a memento of your love, affection and respect towards them. It also speaks a lot about your choice.


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A qualified NLP Master Practitioner, trained in hypnosis and timeline techniques, I am passionate about my work. With an MA in Professional Voice Practice from Birmingham School of Acting in association with the RSC and a BA in Acting Studies from Manchester University I have a thorough working knowledge of voice and presentation - and all of the opportunities and pitfalls that go with them. I am also a qualified Prince2 practitioner project manager and have a great deal of business experience to draw upon.
I specialise in Personal Change, Voice Coaching, Corporate & Business Coaching and Dialect Coaching.
I am lucky to work with some wonderful clients helping them to achieve their personal and career goals or in their transition from being 'stuck' to moving forward once again. Voice-wise I cover most areas of the speaking voice, with particular success in helping people overcome their speaking fears or taking them from a passable performance to a memorable one - for all the right reasons! I also go into businesses and coach individuals and groups in presentations, voice skills, sales and performance coaching.
Aside from my successful coaching practice, I have worked as a voice/accent coach and professional actress for theatres such as The Royal Court, London, The Orange Tree in Richmond and Birmingham Rep, amongst many others. In my business life my roles have included working as a Senior Marketing manager, Senior Project and Communications manager and as a consultant. I have project managed strategic planning processes and training strategies. I have also led many business workshops & presenations on a wide range on topics.
With my background in the arts, I have worked with several well known clients and discretion is at the core of my ethos. I also work in the media, both print and broadcast as a personal change, NLP & voice expert.
I am fully insured and belong to the following professional bodies; the ANLP, Equity & Prince.
My reward is seeing my clients succeed and carry on to achieve their ambitions and goals.
I had never done anything like this before and was unsure what to expect. Rachel really listened to me, its like she just 'got' who I really am.
Amy, 28, South London


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Sell Winners And Buy Losers – Asset Rebalancing
Isn't this the craziest, most counter-intuitive investment advice you've ever heard? Why would I sell a stock if it's making me money…LOTS of money? Long ago, I used to think in this type of way, but there are many reasons why it is important to take this advice.
Now I believe this is valuable advice that I learned from author Ric Edelman in his book "The Lies About Money: Why You Need to Own the Portfolio of the Future".
Actually, I kind of knew it before too in the back of my head from Warren Buffet's famous quote "I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful." This is basically to buy low and sell high. Of course, it's easy to understand, but hard to do like so many other things, like mastering a backhand in tennis or a hook shot in basketball.
Art of Rebalancing
The act of asset allocation or rebalancing, which is another term is simply selling some of your stocks that made money and buying some more of the stocks that lost money (hoping that they will bounce back and do well). How often should you do this seemingly ridiculous exercise?
According to Market Watch, it recommends every quarter. The author of this article did an experiment and found out that a portfolio which is rebalanced quarterly ends up with the highest account value: Market Watch Recommendation
Importance of Rebalancing
Ric Edelman stresses the importance of rebalancing. What if you set your investment strategy to have 40% in mid-cap stocks, 40% in large cap and 20% in bonds three years ago? Now in 2017, the percentage you have in mid-cap has shot up to over 60% AND your large-cap went down 10%.
Your asset allocation is misaligned with your original investment strategy. Furthermore, if you don't sell some of those winning mid-cap stocks, you won't be able to lock in those gains. And if you don't buy some of those loser stocks, you may miss out on the chance of those stocks bouncing back and getting in on a cheaper price. Edelman says the main reason to do this exercise is to reduce risk. If you make a profit in the process, that's a byproduct. I'm not saying to time the market.
I'm simply illustrating the importance of rebalancing to reset to your original investment strategy. Here's an excerpt from The Lies About Money: Why You Need to Own the Portfolio of the Future which explains it better than I can (click to expand):
It's very hard to sell something that is doing well. I don't disagree with that statement. But it's also the responsible thing to do if you are over-allocated in a particular position. I recently had to do this for a few shares of Amazon and…..man that was a tough one. It is doing crazy good and I bought it several years ago so you can imagine.
In Edelman's book The Lies About Money, he talks about a client of his. He suggests to this client that he should reallocate some of his earnings to adjust to his original investment plan based on new circumstances that have been presented. The client agrees that the plan makes sense. Edelman then says the tax liability for the profits as a result of the proceeds of the proposed transactions will amount to $60k to which the client is shocked!
Long story short, the client decides to leave the portfolio as is. A couple of months later, his portfolios which were worth over a million dollars has dropped to six digits because he did not reallocate his holdings just to avoid the tax liability. Edelman goes on to say that paying taxes is a good thing. You can either get profits and pay taxes or have no profits and no taxes. Rebalancing forces you to buy low and sell high and as illustrated by Forbes can result in a higher value as compared to a portfolio which has never been rebalanced at all – "25 year period, the rebalanced portfolio ended with a higher return: a $10,000 investment became $97,000 vs. $89,000 for the un-rebalanced portfolio".
Apart from this, rebalancing also forces you to revisit your portfolio, see if the fees being charged in your funds are what you expected them to be. Or maybe check if dividends are being reinvested or placed in your cash account, whichever option you selected.
If you're investing on a consistent basis, it's important to rebalance your investments too on a consistent basis. Both go hand in hand. How about creating a quick checklist to make sure your portfolio is proper:
- Is my portfolio mix appropriate based on my age/expectation (i.e. 70% stocks 30% bonds)?
- If not steps to take:
- _______________
- _______________
- If not steps to take:
- Are dividends being reinvested (check a couple to see if amount paid and reinvested is accurate)?
- Are fees what I expect them to be?
So do you rebalance your portfolio? If so, how often and do you have any suggestions to make the process more efficient?
I use Personal Capital because (1) it's free, (2) it tracks all of my accounts and overall net worth, (3) my account balances automatically update, (4) it shows how my investments are diversified and allocated in various sectors, and (5) can use built-in tools like "Investment Checkup" to get….wait for it…free personalized advice!


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The Red Cross touches lives in our state every day through programs and services such as Disaster Relief; Service to the Armed Forces; and Preparedness and Health & Safety Training. As an organization committed to helping people prevent, prepare for and respond to emergencies in our communities, the Red Cross is honored to salute individuals who make a difference.
Each year, the Red Cross accepts nominations from the public for recognition of people who go above and beyond in service to others, exemplifying the spirit of our own mission. These heroes are honored in recognition of their good works.
At the breakfast, we are proud to showcase how local heroes change lives. Selfless heroics- whether through saving a life or enriching and transforming lives over years of service to our community- make a difference in the Cape, Islands and Southeast MA communities.
Please join us as we celebrate these heroes & hear their inspiring stories.
At this event, the American Red Cross along with members of the community will come together to honor local heroes who have exemplified the mission of the Red Cross over the past year.
Join us at this breakfast to honor local heroes who have exemplified the mission of the Red Cross over the past year.


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$32k blog question on Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?.
Reader comments
Jun 19, 2003 at 4:30PM
If anyone has a vidcap of this, I'd love to hear Regis say "blog."
Jun 19, 2003 at 5:32PM
Regis doesn't host the show anymore. It's just a syndicated daytime version of the show with a woman (Merdith something?) as a host.
Jun 19, 2003 at 6:07PM
Viera. Meredith Viera. The old, not-so-old chick from "The View."
Jun 19, 2003 at 9:48PM
I'd still love to see a screencap of the question and (especially) the multiple-choice answers.
This thread is closed to new comments. Thanks to everyone who responded.