Best 802.11ac routers

The 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard (aka 5G Wi-Fi) is the latest on the market and offers up to 1.3Gbps of wireless connection speed. First introduced during CES 2012, the new standard can now be found in many routers. These routers, for backward compatibility, also come with Wireless-N (802.11n) and hence support all existing Wi-Fi clients. Hardware clients that are 802.11ac-capable, however, are still very scarce on the market. Following are the top routers that support the new 802.11ac standard on the market. Since there are not many of them, all of those on this list are the best of their kind.

Asus RT-AC68U Dual-band Wireless-AC1900 Gigabit Router

For advanced and professional users, the Asus RT-AC68U Dual-band Wireless-AC1900 Gigabit Router is worth every penny thanks to its stellar performance, solid build, and bounty of useful features.

Price: $219.99 (check prices)

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Asus RT-AC66U 802.11ac Dual-Band Wireless-AC1750 Gigabit Router

The Asus RT-AC66U is an excellent router and is currently one of the best options among those that support the latest 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard.

Price: $181.99 - $299.35 (check prices)

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Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11ac)

Home users, especially Apple fans who own 802.11ac-enabled devices, will love the new AirPort Extreme for its all-new elegant design, ease of use, and great performance; advanced users should look elsewhere for more features and customization.

Price: $194.00 - $346.02 (check prices)Read full review

D-Link DIR-868L Wireless AC1750 Dual Band Gigabit Cloud Router

The D-Link DIR-868L delivers as an advanced 802.11ac-enabled home router despite its underwhelming mobile apps and usage inflexibility.

Price: $159.99 - $300.53 (check prices)

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Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 Smart Wi-Fi Router (R7000)

The Netgear is expensive, but earns its $200 asking price with incredibly fast speeds and useful features.

Price: $199.00 - $199.99 (check prices)

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Netgear R6300 WiFi Router

The Netgear R6300 WiFi Router is for a high-standards, low-ego type of user: it's not something you can show off aesthetically, but it's a powerhouse for a robust, fast home network, both for now and tomorrow.

Price: $178.69 - $293.64 (check prices)

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Trendnet TEW-812DRU AC1750 Dual Band Wireless Router

The Trendnet TEW-812DRU is the most affordable 802.11ac-enabled router on the market, and it offers excellent performance.

Price: $136.99 - $147.21 (check prices)

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Networking Without Limits: SDN

After nearly 40 years of creating enterprise software, there are few companies who have come to appreciate the importance of infrastructure in the quite the way we have at Microsoft. We recognize that to host great software and great apps, you need an equally great infrastructure for your datacenter.
At Microsoft, we create and deliver first party apps (both on-premises and in our cloud datacenters), as well as host the apps that our customers and partners build. All of this runs on our own network infrastructure alongside workloads like Exchange, SQL, SharePoint, Xbox Live, and Office 365.
Our experiences with key workloads like these help us to deeply understand what is required to deliver infrastructure and networking that is optimized for the apps that enterprises need most. The cloud has been an incredible learning experience for us. Over the last 10+ years, as we have built and operated some of the world’s largest services like Xbox Live, Bing, Outlook.com (in total more than 200 cloud services), we have developed a set of skills and experience that enable us to build better applications, platforms, and infrastructure. Not only do these services operate better on our end, but the things we learn while building and refining them at scale are then included in the products we deliver for use in your datacenters.
From this experience, there are a key set of beliefs and understandings that form our point of view on the cloud, as well as the architecture of what we build. For example:

• We believe infrastructure is deployed and exists to support applications. Windows Server has become the most used operating system in the datacenter in large part due to what we learned as we built Exchange, SQL, Sharepoint, and all the Microsoft workloads. We are doing this again as we continue our journey by operating cloud services of Exchange, SQL, Sharepoint and more. Our cloud platform (Windows Azure) is better because of the 1st party services that we operate. And, every step of the way, we take what we learn in the cloud and deliver it to you in Windows Server and System Center.
• We believe that every single element of an infrastructure should be programmable – storage, compute, network – and be automated, and software-controlled so that you can automate the infrastructure in support of the application’s needs. This approach allows for a level of responsiveness and scalability (e.g. scale out apps on demand, optimize connectivity, etc.) that is not possible any other way.
• We are building the infrastructure that operates our public cloud to come together in support of the applications that we are hosting. The infrastructure can be optimized to enable innovation in the applications. Our infrastructure is application-centric.
• We are delivering consistent capabilities across public, private and service provider clouds (aka infrastructure) to enable the innovation happening across the industry in compute, storage, security, and networking.

Networking in particular is an area where people are looking for innovation. That’s why we have been working to make powerful and extensible software-defined networking (SDN) a reality.
SDN allows organizations to use the cloud to overcome traditional hardware problems. The result are things like flexibility (movement between public/private clouds and on-premises), scale (capacity that is effectively bottomless), and efficiency (abstracting hardware with software). This use of SDN enables enterprises to go well beyond simple network virtualization, and it allows them to leverage existing infrastructure investments.
Our approach to supporting SDN is straightforward: Put the best possible technology in the hands of enterprises all over the world. We do this in four primary ways: We simplify adoption, we provide deep integration between the cloud and on-prem infrastructure, we support great workload performance, and we simplify interoperability.
This approach makes Microsoft’s role in cloud industry very exciting; we are the only company to provide apps and infrastructure for both on-premises and cloud-based workloads and operations.
SDN is particularly top of mind right now because last week we released the latest versions of Windows Server and System Center which are foundational to help customers realize Microsoft’s Cloud OS vision. Core to our vision is the notion of where customers can transform their infrastructure into a shared, elastic resource pool that can deliver on-demand capacity in a boundary-less manner.
In that context, I noted earlier how these new products include innovative new functionality that enable IT teams to use Windows Server and System Center for high-scale virtualization, high-performance storage at dramatically lower costs, as well as in-the-box SDN.

I promised in that earlier post to write more about each of these areas, and today I’ll focus specifically on SDN.
SDN is a frequent topic in my meetings with partners and customers. Many CIO’s, IT Decision Makers, and IT Implementers that I talk with are looking to develop an approach that can support the growing apps and services their businesses deploy. They want scale on demand, cost efficiencies, and continuous availability. They are also working to deliver more with less.
The simple fact of the matter, however, is that to deliver more services you need more resources – whether these resources are physical or virtual.
The number of servers is growing (onsite or offsite, virtual or physical), the volume of services and workloads are proliferating, and the devices that consume these services are increasing exponentially.
This is leading to an incredible amount of IT complexity in three areas:

1. Compute
2. Storage
3. Networking

With hypervisors and virtualized servers becoming the norm, the adoption of compute innovation is now mainstream, and I’ll cover storage innovation in another post. Networking, however, (specifically traditional hardware-based solutions) has not kept pace with these complexities, thus making it a growing burden on IT. Datacenters with traditional networking architectures are just too rigid for cloud-based computing.
For example, provisioning and configuring networks continues to be time consuming, cumbersome and error-prone. This makes getting a holistic view of the network for diagnostics and troubleshooting difficult since network operations continue to be done on a per-device basis. I’ve had many conversations with enterprise customers about providing IT teams with the ability to deliver a truly shared infrastructure (including a shared network fabric) where IT can host internal LOB constituents (or ‘tenants’) in a cost-effective manner while still meeting their unique business requirements. Many of these enterprise infrastructures, however, are constrained, end up “physically” isolating tenants, and/or the administrators have to make peace with inflexible VLAN-based approaches.
The biggest limiting factor with today’s networking approaches is that they don’t focus nearly enough on the application or workload requirements. This is critical because, after all, applications are what your business really cares about, and infrastructure exists to support them. Tight coupling between workloads and the physical network makes it difficult to efficiently deploy and migrate them dynamically, thereby limiting agility. I firmly believe the network has to dynamically adapt to application and workload demands and not be constrained by the shortcomings in today’s networking approaches. In addition, public clouds have added to the demands of IT by requiring an easy way to extend networks across datacenters so that applications and workloads can be deployed or moved at a dynamic pace to keep up with today’s business requirements.
As a company, we are very confident in our ability to impact these challenges – after all, we already deliver top-tier enterprise applications like SQL, Exchange, SharePoint as well as fantastic infrastructure assets that are widely deployed across our customers’ datacenters (both in private and public cloud computing models).
Many in the industry believe the solution is limited to virtualized networking, but our experience tells us that it’s much more than that.  The solution is to go beyond virtualized networking and deliver software-defined networks.
Our experience running Windows Azure globally using SDN to support industry-leading scale and flexibility has convinced us about the practical applicability & benefit of SDN for enterprises and service providers. Windows Azure runs on a massive global network that is constantly and dynamically modified to meet the needs of services and customers. SDN technologies enable us to manage and update our networks with ease and at scale. It is really exciting to bring this technology from Windows Azure to our customers. This will enable network automation from the ground up, delivering a software-defined network and integrating policy control driven by application requirements and patterns.
So, let me talk a bit more about how we are bringing these SDN principles we use in Windows Azure to our enterprise customers and service providers.
At its core, SDN is all about using software to make your network a pooled, automated resource that can seamlessly extend across cloud boundaries. This allows optimal utilization of your existing physical network infrastructure, agility and flexibility resulting from centralized control, and business-critical workload optimization from deployment of innovative network services.
SDN begins with abstracting your applications and workloads from your underlying physical network through network virtualization. It then provides a consistent platform to express and enforce policy across all clouds – in-built services such as gateways seamlessly extend your datacenters across these clouds. Finally, SDN provides for a standards-based mechanism to automate deployment of both your physical and virtual networks (not just virtual!), while being extensible enough to allow deep integration with existing networking solutions that may already be deployed.
Delivering on the above-described SDN functionality in an easy-to-consume manner is core to our mission to democratize technology transformations.
To deliver on our mission with SDN, below is our four-pronged approach to help our customers leverage the technology and the skills they have today to get to a transformed tomorrow:

1. Simplify adoption by delivering customers an in-box solution with Windows Server Hyper-V and System Center (including the ability to seamlessly extend to Windows Azure)
• Windows Server already runs 3 out of 4 workloads on the planet. We want to help our enterprise and service providers reduce complexity by consuming SDN as “just another feature of Windows.” We also support the use of existing hardware without having to plan, deploy, and integrate multiple layers of additional products – or pay for them.
• With Windows Azure you can extend your datacenter to benefit from the scale, speed, and the economics of the public cloud.
• The ability to plan and deploy hybrid cloud computing models holistically across your datacenter, service providers, and Windows Azure is something that only Microsoft delivers today.
• Said another way: SDN is a core capability of a true cloud platform – NOT something you should have to pay extra for.
2. Provide customers with best-in-class, deep integration between our solutions and physical network infrastructure
• We believe it’s critical for many workloads and application classes to have the flexibility of software combined with the scale and performance of hardware. It’s essential to have the ability to define network policies that span physical and virtual, as well as enable real-time control and visibility into the health of the physical network fabric. We do this in a way that carries forward our customers’ significant investments in the physical network fabric.
• For example, you can use the Microsoft stack to build your datacenter, or you can work with the stack you’ve already built. Either way, the Microsoft SDN solution can support your cloud-based networking strategy.
• To do this, we continue to work closely with our hardware partners (e.g., Cisco, Juniper, HP, Arista – to name a few) to enable the broadest possible support for our platform while enabling them to showcase their own differentiated hardware solutions. Through these efforts, we want to ensure co-operative efforts between server and networking professionals as they plan their organization’s unique path to hybrid cloud computing. We are all well aware of the impact such transitions have on our customer’s organizations, and our goal is to equip them to choose a cloud solution on their terms.
• Said another way: Deep physical and virtual integration is critical to what our customers workloads need today – and we will deliver on that.
3. Deliver best-in-class performance for first-party Microsoft workloads on our networking stack
• Most of our enterprise and service provider customers use Microsoft applications and workloads like SharePoint, SQL, Exchange, and Lync.
• Our goal is to make sure that we optimize the performance and diagnostics of these top-tier workloads by having the network adapt to their requirements – rather than the other way round. Some requirements that are particularly valuable include network security, load balancing, service quality guarantees, adaptive traffic flow engineering, and application health diagnostics (across physical and virtual networks).
• Said another way: We will ensure that Microsoft applications run best on Microsoft networking solutions.
4. Enable simplified interoperability by using extensible, standards-based protocols to change the landscape of networking solutions
• We are committed to promoting industry innovation around Microsoft platforms by adopting an extensible, standards driven approach. Our goal is to drive industry standardization so that our customers (and the industry at large) can benefit from the simplicity and economics this will create.
• Our approach is deeply informed by our work architecting and operating large scale software-driven public cloud networks like Windows Azure – in fact, the standardized schemas we have helped develop for managing physical infrastructure through OMI, cover Windows Azure-scale use cases and scenarios and are, therefore, well proven in practice. Looking around the industry, I believe that such knowledge and expertise is unique to Microsoft. We take the responsibility of democratizing this knowledge very seriously.
• Said another way: We want to make our solutions so easy to evaluate, adopt, deploy, and maintain that literally any organization can benefit from its “plug-and-play” simplicity

Over the last year we’ve made a ton of progress on our four-pronged approach and our customers rolling out the latest versions of our products are seeing the benefits of SDN.
First, Windows Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2 deliver a hybrid cloud-enabled, built-in, SDN solution that is inspired by, based on, and consistent with the technology we use in Windows Azure. Through Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Network Virtualization and System Center 2012 SP1, we delivered the abstracted data plane and centralized control to transform your network into a pooled, automated resource. We also delivered multi-tenant isolation and network policy deployment for optimal workload placement/mobility, as well as comprehensive network policy enforcement through an extensible logical switch. As promised throughout the “What’s New in 2012 R2” series, we have built on these innovations in our new R2 releases via fully enabled hybrid cloud scenarios, and through our unique multi-tenant software gateway that supports site-to-site VPN, forwarding and NAT capabilities in highly-available configurations. This gateway will allow enterprise customers to extend their datacenter to service providers seamlessly, while enabling them to consume virtual networking infrastructure in a way that’s similar to how they would with Windows Azure (through the Windows Azure Pack). Put another way, service providers can deploy this built-in gateway to deliver easy and efficient connectivity for multiple enterprise customers to access their hosted resources. Of course, enterprises can extend their datacenters seamlessly to Azure through the Windows Azure Virtual Network.
Again, these technologies are built-in, so you get the benefits without spending an additional dime.
Another major accomplishment has been the work we’ve done to deliver integration across the networking ecosystem. For example, we’ve integrated Windows Server Hyper-V Extensible Switch and System Center with the Cisco Nexus 1000V switch. Our goal is to integrate Cisco networking solutions deeply within our platform so that network administrators at our enterprise customers can continue to operate a virtual networking environment that’s familiar. As mentioned above, we intend to support our customers’ diverse datacenter investments and skill-sets by working with other networking partners to achieve this level of deep integration. See how EmpireCLS is benefiting from our joint solutions.
We also work with a variety of ecosystem partners to build joint solutions so that customers have choice at each layer of the networking solution they deploy. We’ve worked with chipset extensions partners (Broadcom, Emulex, Mellanox, Intel) to help maximize virtual network performance by taking advantage of native hardware offloads. We’re also working with some key partners (F5, Huawei, and Iron Systems, etc.) to create gateway appliances that will support a broader set of cloud-based scenarios. Network security and manageability is yet another important area, and the Hyper-V Extensible Switch has enabled our partners (like 5NINE or inMon) to extend our platform.
SDN is also a critical factor for Microsoft Lync, the market leader for enterprise Unified Communications. Lync uses SDN to signal out-of-band its requirements and performance information to the network for active real-time media flows. This unique approach allows SDN networks to become aware of the demands for real-time media (like voice and video) so that networks can dynamically diagnose, traffic engineer, and orchestrate themselves. This automation lowers the cost of ownership and increases the quality of the end-user experience. In this context, a great example of how SDN truly modernizes applications and networks was demonstrated at the last Open Network Summit (ONS) in April 2013 and can be viewed here. What this means for you is that the network can dynamically prioritize real-time communications as per your business requirements – to illustrate, if you’re in the customer support business, then Lync can support higher quality experiences for your top-tier customers.
Finally, over the last year we’ve also defined and evangelized standards-based schemas for managing networking elements. Specifically, we’ve open sourced a version of WMI (OMI) that enables Windows Server and System Center to manage network devices in a consistent manner, thus allowing administrators to plug and play with network devices without fear of lock-in. Today, Cisco Nexus 3000 switches and Arista TOR switches can be managed using OMI via System Center, and we’re working hard to drive broader industry adoption and compatibility. We’ve worked with NEC to integrate Hyper-V and System Center with their switches using OpenFlow extensions.
To see these attributes in action, consider this diagram.

I am really excited by this progress, but, as we all know, in the technology industry your work is never really done. In this industry, our jobs don’t end with delivering the best possible solutions today – we’re responsible for identifying what our organization is going to need tomorrow.
As our customers’ infrastructure (virtual, physical, or in the cloud) continues to grow in an effort to keep up with the rapid growth of services/apps/data/devices, the complexity of their networks will continue to increase. At each of these steps, Microsoft is committed to helping them successfully address each of these challenges.
Teams throughout this company are already hard at work on new innovations for in-box SDN solutions, improved integration between these solutions, and support for the entire networking ecosystem of switches, chipsets, and gateways (physical, virtual, or in the cloud).
Perhaps the most important work we’ll be doing is our work with the industry to deliver a truly extensible and interoperable approach to the full SDN stack. Pursuing this idea is what makes me so excited about how we’ve joined with Open Networking Foundation to work on standardized northbound API’s for third party controller integration, the work we’ve done with DMTF to develop standardized southbound API’s to interface with physical infrastructure, and our work with OpenDaylight to build open implementations of these standards. We place incredible emphasis and importance on delivering standardized API’s to enable first-party and third-party network services.
Customers shouldn’t wait for that day to get into software-defined networking – the challenges they’re encountering today are real and the solutions are already here. IT teams around the world now have the flexibility to scale, the ability to integrate with public clouds, and gain the efficiency an SDN solution provides.
With the solutions we have in-market today, customers can begin benefitting from the advantages of SDN right now:

• They can virtualize their network with our built-in solution.
• They can leverage their existing investments in networking infrastructure.
• They can be assured of a solution that supports hybrid cloud scenarios.

These are three incredibly exciting opportunities for enterprise IT and service providers – and they are all currently available in-market within Windows Server 2012 R2, System Center 2012 R2, and Windows Azure.
This is an awesome time to work in the IT industry, and it’s a genuinely game-changing moment in technology. IT teams have a big opportunity to set themselves apart as decision makers and difference makers in their organization, and my team is committed to providing all the products, tools, and support to enable this. The Cloud OS approach to enterprise IT is a great way to get the most power and flexibility from your infrastructure while leveraging the knowledge we’ve gained from operating a massive worldwide datacenter network.

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Network Switching Tutorial

Network Switching

Switches can be a valuable asset to networking. Overall, they can increase the capacity and speed of your network. However, switching should not be seen as a cure-all for network issues. Before incorporating network switching, you must first ask yourself two important questions: First, how can you tell if your network will benefit from switching? Second, how do you add switches to your network design to provide the most benefit?
This tutorial is written to answer these questions. Along the way, we'll describe how switches work, and how they can both harm and benefit your networking strategy. We’ll also discuss different network types, so you can profile your network and gauge the potential benefit of network switching for your environment.

What is a Switch?

Switches occupy the same place in the network as hubs. Unlike hubs, switches examine each packet and process it accordingly rather than simply repeating the signal to all ports. Switches map the Ethernet addresses of the nodes residing on each network segment and then allow only the necessary traffic to pass through the switch. When a packet is received by the switch, the switch examines the destination and source hardware addresses and compares them to a table of network segments and addresses. If the segments are the same, the packet is dropped or "filtered"; if the segments are different, then the packet is "forwarded" to the proper segment. Additionally, switches prevent bad or misaligned packets from spreading by not forwarding them.
Filtering packets and regenerating forwarded packets enables switching technology to split a network into separate collision domains. The regeneration of packets allows for greater distances and more nodes to be used in the total network design, and dramatically lowers the overall collision rates. In switched networks, each segment is an independent collision domain. This also allows for parallelism, meaning up to one-half of the computers connected to a switch can send data at the same time. In shared networks all nodes reside in a single shared collision domain.
Easy to install, most switches are self learning. They determine the Ethernet addresses in use on each segment, building a table as packets are passed through the switch. This "plug and play" element makes switches an attractive alternative to hubs.
Switches can connect different network types (such as Ethernet and Fast Ethernet) or networks of the same type. Many switches today offer high-speed links, like Fast Ethernet, which can be used to link the switches together or to give added bandwidth to important servers that get a lot of traffic. A network composed of a number of switches linked together via these fast uplinks is called a "collapsed backbone" network.
Dedicating ports on switches to individual nodes is another way to speed access for critical computers. Servers and power users can take advantage of a full segment for one node, so some networks connect high traffic nodes to a dedicated switch port.
Full duplex is another method to increase bandwidth to dedicated workstations or servers. To use full duplex, both network interface cards used in the server or workstation and the switch must support full duplex operation. Full duplex doubles the potential bandwidth on that link.

Network Congestion

 

As more users are added to a shared network or as applications requiring more data are added, performance deteriorates. This is because all users on a shared network are competitors for the Ethernet bus. A moderately loaded 10 Mbps Ethernet network is able to sustain utilization of 35 percent and throughput in the neighborhood of 2.5 Mbps after accounting for packet overhead, inter-packet gaps and collisions. A moderately loaded Fast Ethernet or Gigabit Ethernet shares 25 Mbps or 250 Mbps of real data in the same circumstances. With shared Ethernet and Fast Ethernet, the likelihood of collisions increases as more nodes and/or more traffic is added to the shared collision domain.
Ethernet itself is a shared media, so there are rules for sending packets to avoid conflicts and protect data integrity. Nodes on an Ethernet network send packets when they determine the network is not in use. It is possible that two nodes at different locations could try to send data at the same time. When both PCs are transferring a packet to the network at the same time, a collision will result. Both packets are retransmitted, adding to the traffic problem. Minimizing collisions is a crucial element in the design and operation of networks. Increased collisions are often the result of too many users or too much traffic on the network, which results in a great deal of contention for network bandwidth. This can slow the performance of the network from the user’s point of view. Segmenting, where a network is divided into different pieces joined together logically with switches or routers, reduces congestion in an overcrowded network by eliminating the shared collision domain.
Collision rates measure the percentage of packets that are collisions. Some collisions are inevitable, with less than 10 percent common in well-running networks.

The Factors Affecting Network Efficiency

Amount of traffic Number of nodes Size of packets Network diameter

Measuring Network Efficiency

Average to peak load deviation Collision Rate Utilization Rate

Utilization rate is another widely accessible statistic about the health of a network. This statistic is available in Novell's console monitor and WindowsNT performance monitor as well as any optional LAN analysis software. Utilization in an average network above 35 percent indicates potential problems. This 35 percent utilization is near optimum, but some networks experience higher or lower utilization optimums due to factors such as packet size and peak load deviation.
A switch is said to work at "wire speed" if it has enough processing power to handle full Ethernet speed at minimum packet sizes. Most switches on the market are well ahead of network traffic capabilities supporting the full "wire speed" of Ethernet, 14,480 pps (packets per second), and Fast Ethernet, 148,800 pps.

Routers

Routers work in a manner similar to switches and bridges in that they filter out network traffic. Rather than doing so by packet addresses, they filter by specific protocol. Routers were born out of the necessity for dividing networks logically instead of physically. An IP router can divide a network into various subnets so that only traffic destined for particular IP addresses can pass between segments. Routers recalculate the checksum, and rewrite the MAC header of every packet. The price paid for this type of intelligent forwarding and filtering is usually calculated in terms of latency, or the delay that a packet experiences inside the router. Such filtering takes more time than that exercised in a switch or bridge which only looks at the Ethernet address. In more complex networks network efficiency can be improved. An additional benefit of routers is their automatic filtering of broadcasts, but overall they are complicated to setup.

Switch Benefits

Isolates traffic, relieving congestion Separates collision domains, reducing collisions Segments, restarting distance and repeater rules

Switch Costs

Price: currently 3 to 5 times the price of a hub Packet processing time is longer than in a hub Monitoring the network is more complicated

General Benefits of Network Switching

Switches replace hubs in networking designs, and they are more expensive. So why is the desktop switching market doubling ever year with huge numbers sold? The price of switches is declining precipitously, while hubs are a mature technology with small price declines. This means that there is far less difference between switch costs and hub costs than there used to be, and the gap is narrowing.
Since switches are self learning, they are as easy to install as a hub. Just plug them in and go. And they operate on the same hardware layer as a hub, so there are no protocol issues.
There are two reasons for switches being included in network designs. First, a switch breaks one network into many small networks so the distance and repeater limitations are restarted. Second, this same segmentation isolates traffic and reduces collisions relieving network congestion. It is very easy to identify the need for distance and repeater extension, and to understand this benefit of network switching. But the second benefit, relieving network congestion, is hard to identify and harder to understand the degree by which switches will help performance. Since all switches add small latency delays to packet processing, deploying switches unnecessarily can actually slow down network performance. So the next section pertains to the factors affecting the impact of switching to congested networks.

Network Switching

The benefits of switching vary from network to network. Adding a switch for the first time has different implications than increasing the number of switched ports already installed. Understanding traffic patterns is very important to network switching - the goal being to eliminate (or filter) as much traffic as possible. A switch installed in a location where it forwards almost all the traffic it receives will help much less than one that filters most of the traffic.
Networks that are not congested can actually be negatively impacted by adding switches. Packet processing delays, switch buffer limitations, and the retransmissions that can result sometimes slows performance compared with the hub based alternative. If your network is not congested, don't replace hubs with switches. How can you tell if performance problems are the result of network congestion? Measure utilization factors and collision rates.

Good Candidates for Performance Boosts from Switching

Utilization more than 35% Collision rates more than 10%

Utilization load is the amount of total traffic as a percent of the theoretical maximum for the network type, 10 Mbps in Ethernet, 100 Mbps in Fast Ethernet. The collision rate is the number of packets with collisions as a percentage of total packages

Network response times (the user-visible part of network performance) suffers as the load on the network increases, and under heavy loads small increases in user traffic often results in significant decreases in performance. This is similar to automobile freeway dynamics, in that increasing loads results in increasing throughput up to a point, then further increases in demand results in rapid deterioration of true throughput. In Ethernet, collisions increase as the network is loaded, and this causes retransmissions and increases in load which cause even more collisions. The resulting network overload slows traffic considerably.
Using network utilities found on most server operating systems network managers can determine utilization and collision rates. Both peak and average statistics should be considered.

Replacing a Central Hub with a Switch

This switching opportunity is typified by a fully shared network, where many users are connected in a cascading hub architecture. The two main impacts of switching will be faster network connection to the server(s) and the isolation of non-relevant traffic from each segment. As the network bottleneck is eliminated performance grows until a new system bottleneck is encountered - such as maximum server performance.

Adding Switches to a Backbone Switched Network

Congestion on a switched network can usually be relieved by adding more switched ports, and increasing the speed of these ports. Segments experiencing congestion are identified by their utilization and collision rates, and the solution is either further segmentation or faster connections. Both Fast Ethernet and Ethernet switch ports are added further down the tree structure of the network to increase performance.

Designing for Maximum Benefit

Changes in network design tend to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary-rarely is a network manager able to design a network completely from scratch. Usually, changes are made slowly with an eye toward preserving as much of the usable capital investment as possible while replacing obsolete or outdated technology with new equipment.
Fast Ethernet is very easy to add to most networks. A switch or bridge allows Fast Ethernet to connect to existing Ethernet infrastructures to bring speed to critical links. The faster technology is used to connect switches to each other, and to switched or shared servers to ensure the avoidance of bottlenecks.
Many client/server networks suffer from too many clients trying to access the same server which creates a bottleneck where the server attaches to the LAN. Fast Ethernet, in combination with switched Ethernet, creates the perfect cost-effective solution for avoiding slow client server networks by allowing the server to be placed on a fast port.
Distributed processing also benefits from Fast Ethernet and switching. Segmentation of the network via switches brings big performance boosts to distributed traffic networks, and the switches are commonly connected via a Fast Ethernet backbone.

Good Candidates for Performance Boosts from Switching

Important to know network demand per node Try to group users with the nodes they communicate with most often on the same segment Look for departmental traffic patterns Avoid switch bottlenecks with fast uplinks Move users switch between segments in an iterative process until all nodes seeing less than 35% utilization

Client/Server Traffic

Distributed Traffic

Advanced Switching Technology Issues

There are some technology issues with switching that do not affect 95% of all networks. Major switch vendors and the trade publications are promoting new competitive technologies, so some of these concepts are discussed here.

Managed or Unmanaged

Management provides benefits in many networks. Large networks with mission critical applications are managed with many sophisticated tools, using SNMP to monitor the health of devices on the network. Networks using SNMP or RMON (an extension to SNMP that provides much more data while using less network bandwidth to do so) will either manage every device, or just the more critical areas. VLANs are another benefit to management in a switch. A VLAN allows the network to group nodes into logical LANs that behave as one network, regardless of physical connections. The main benefit is managing broadcast and multicast traffic. An unmanaged switch will pass broadcast and multicast packets through to all ports. If the network has logical grouping that are different from physical groupings then a VLAN-based switch may be the best bet for traffic optimization.
Another benefit to management in the switches is Spanning Tree Algorithm. Spanning Tree allows the network manager to design in redundant links, with switches attached in loops. This would defeat the self learning aspect of switches, since traffic from one node would appear to originate on different ports. Spanning Tree is a protocol that allows the switches to coordinate with each other so that traffic is only carried on one of the redundant links (unless there is a failure, then the backup link is automatically activated). Network managers with switches deployed in critical applications may want to have redundant links. In this case management is necessary. But for the rest of the networks an unmanaged switch would do quite well, and is much less expensive.

Store-and-Forward vs. Cut-Through

LAN switches come in two basic architectures, cut-through and store-and-forward. Cut-through switches only examine the destination address before forwarding it on to its destination segment. A store-and-forward switch, on the other hand, accepts and analyzes the entire packet before forwarding it to its destination. It takes more time to examine the entire packet, but it allows the switch to catch certain packet errors and collisions and keep them from propagating bad packets through the network.
Today, the speed of store-and-forward switches has caught up with cut-through switches to the point where the difference between the two is minimal. Also, there are a large number of hybrid switches available that mix both cut-through and store-and-forward architectures.

Blocking vs. Non-Blocking Switches

Take a switch's specifications and add up all the ports at theoretical maximum speed, then you have the theoretical sum total of a switch's throughput. If the switching bus, or switching components cannot handle the theoretical total of all ports the switch is considered a "blocking switch". There is debate whether all switches should be designed non-blocking, but the added costs of doing so are only reasonable on switches designed to work in the largest network backbones. For almost all applications, a blocking switch that has an acceptable and reasonable throughput level will work just fine.
Consider an eight port 10/100 switch. Since each port can theoretically handle 200 Mbps (full duplex) there is a theoretical need for 1600 Mbps, or 1.6 Gbps. But in the real world each port will not exceed 50% utilization, so a 800 Mbps switching bus is adequate. Consideration of total throughput versus total ports demand in the real world loads provides validation that the switch can handle the loads of your network.

Switch Buffer Limitations

As packets are processed in the switch, they are held in buffers. If the destination segment is congested, the switch holds on to the packet as it waits for bandwidth to become available on the crowded segment. Buffers that are full present a problem. So some analysis of the buffer sizes and strategies for handling overflows is of interest for the technically inclined network designer.
In real world networks, crowded segments cause many problems, so their impact on switch consideration is not important for most users, since networks should be designed to eliminate crowded, congested segments. There are two strategies for handling full buffers. One is "backpressure flow control" which sends packets back upstream to the source nodes of packets that find a full buffer. This compares to the strategy of simply dropping the packet, and relying on the integrity features in networks to retransmit automatically. One solution spreads the problem in one segment to other segments, propagating the problem. The other solution causes retransmissions, and that resulting increase in load is not optimal. Neither strategy solves the problem, so switch vendors use large buffers and advise network managers to design switched network topologies to eliminate the source of the problem - congested segments.

Layer 3 Switching

A hybrid device is the latest improvement in internetworking technology. Combining the packet handling of routers and the speed of switching, these multilayer switches operate on both layer 2 and layer 3 of the OSI network model. The performance of this class of switch is aimed at the core of large enterprise networks. Sometimes called routing switches or IP switches, multilayer switches look for common traffic flows, and switch these flows on the hardware layer for speed. For traffic outside the normal flows, the multilayer switch uses routing functions. This keeps the higher overhead routing functions only where it is needed, and strives for the best handling strategy for each network packet.
Many vendors are working on high end multilayer switches, and the technology is definitely a "work in process". As networking technology evolves, multilayer switches are likely to replace routers in most large networks.

Read More

Device Servers Tutorial

Device Server Technology -
Understanding and Imagining its Possibilities

For easy reference, please consult the glossary of terms at the end of this paper.*

The ability to manage virtually any electronic device over a network or the Internet is changing our world. Companies want to remotely manage, monitor, diagnose and control their equipment because doing so adds an unprecedented level of intelligence and efficiency to their businesses. 
With this trend, and as we rely on applications like e-mail and database management for core business operations, the need for more fully-integrated devices and systems to monitor and manage the vast amount of data and information becomes increasingly more important. And, in a world where data and information is expected to be instantaneous, the ability to manage, monitor and even repair equipment from a distance is extremely valuable to organizations in every sector.
This need is further emphasized as companies with legacy non-networked equipment struggle to compete with organizations equipped with advanced networking capabilities such as machine-to-machine (M2M) communications. There’s no denying that advanced networking provides an edge to improving overall efficiencies.
This tutorial will provide an overview and give examples of how device servers make it easy to put just about any piece of electronic equipment on an Ethernet network. It will highlight the use of external device servers and their ability to provide serial connectivity for a variety of applications. It will touch on how device networking makes M2M communication possible and wireless technology even more advanced. Finally, as any examination of networking technologies requires consideration of data security, this paper will provide an overview of some the latest encryption technologies available for connecting devices securely to the network.

Moving from Serial to Ethernet
An Introduction to Device Server Technology

For some devices, the only access available to a network manager or programmer is via a serial port. The reason for this is partly historical and partly evolutionary. Historically, Ethernet interfacing has usually been a lengthy development process involving multiple vendor protocols (some of which have been proprietary) and the interpretation of many RFCs. Some vendors believed Ethernet was not necessary for their product which was destined for a centralized computer center - others believed that the development time and expense required to have an Ethernet interface on the product was not justified.
From the evolutionary standpoint, the networking infrastructure of many sites has only recently been developed to the point that consistent and perceived stability has been obtained - as users and management have become comfortable with the performance of the network, they now focus on how they can maximize corporate productivity in non-IS capacities.
Device server technology solves this problem by providing an easy and economical way to connect the serial device to the network.
Let's use the Lantronix UDS100 Device Server as an example of how to network a RAID controller serial port. The user simply cables the UDS100 's serial port to the RAID controller's serial port and attaches the UDS100's Ethernet interface to the network. Once it has been configured, the UDS100 makes that serial port a networked port, with its own IP address. The user can now connect to the UDS100 's serial port over a network, from a PC or terminal emulation device and perform the same commands as if he was using a PC directly attached to the RAID controller. Having now become network enabled, the RAID can be managed or controlled from anywhere on the network or via the Internet.
The key to network-enabling serial equipment is in a device server’s ability to handle two separate areas:

1. the connection between the serial device and the device server
2. the connection between the device server and the network (including other network devices)

Traditional terminal, print and serial servers were developed specifically for connecting terminals, printers and modems to the network and making those devices available as networked devices. Now, more modern demands require other devices be network-enabled, and therefore device servers have become more adaptable in their handling of attached devices. Additionally, they have become even more powerful and flexible in the manner in which they provide network connectivity.

Device Servers Defined

A device server is “a specialized network-based hardware device designed to perform a single or specialized set of functions with client access independent of any operating system or proprietary protocol.” 
Device servers allow independence from proprietary protocols and the ability to meet a number of different functions. The RAID controller application discussed above is just one of many applications where device servers can be used to put any device or "machine" on the network. 
PCs have been used to network serial devices with some success.  This, however, required the product with the serial port to have software able to run on the PC, and then have that application software allow the PC's networking software to access the application. This task equaled the problems of putting Ethernet on the serial device itself so it wasn’t a satisfactory solution. 
To be successful, a device server must provide a simple solution for networking a device and allow access to that device as if it were locally available through its serial port. Additionally, the device server should provide for the multitude of connection possibilities that a device may require on both the serial and network sides of a connection. Should the device be connected all the time to a specific host or PC? Are there multiple hosts or network devices that may want or need to connect to the newly-networked serial device? Are there specific requirements for an application which requires the serial device to reject a connection from the network under certain circumstances? The bottom line is a server must have both the flexibility to service a multitude of application requirements and be able to meet all the demands of those applications.

Capitalizing on Lantronix Device Server Expertise and Proven Solutions

Lantronix is at the forefront of M2M communication technology.  The company is highly focused on enabling the networking of devices previously not on the network so they can be accessed and managed remotely.

Lantronix has built on its long history and vast experience as a terminal, print and serial server technology company to develop more functionality in its servers that “cross the boundary” of what many would call traditional terminal or print services. Our technology provides:

• The ability to translate between different protocols to allow non-routable protocols to be routed
• The ability to allow management connections to single-port servers while they are processing transactions between their serial port and the network
• A wide variety of options for both serial and network connections including serial tunneling and automatic host connection make these servers some of the most sophisticated Ethernet-enabling devices available today.

Ease of Use

As an independent device on the network, device servers are surprisingly easy to manage. Lantronix has spent years perfecting Ethernet protocol software and its engineers have provided a wide range of management tools for this device server technology. Serial ports are ideal vehicles for device management purposes - a simple command set allows easy configuration. The same command set that can be exercised on the serial port can be used when connecting via Telnet to a Lantronix device server.
An important feature to remember about the Lantronix Telnet management interface is that it can actually be run as a second connection while data is being transferred through the server - this feature allows the user to actually monitor the data traffic on even a single-port server's serial port connection while active. Lantronix device servers also support SNMP, the recognized standard for IP management that is used by many large network for management purposes.
Finally, Lantronix has its own management software utilities which utilize a graphical user interface providing an easy way to manage Lantronix device servers. In addition, the servers all have Flash ROMs which can be reloaded in the field with the latest firmware.

Device Servers for a Host of Applications

This section will discuss how device servers are used to better facilitate varying applications such as:

• Data Acquisition
• M2M
• Wireless Communication/Networking
• Factory/Industrial Automation
• Security Systems
• Bar Code Readers and Point-of-sale Scanners
• Medical Applications

Data Acquisition

Microprocessors have made their way into almost all aspects of human life, from automobiles to hockey pucks. With so much data available, organizations are challenged to effectively and efficiently gather and process the information. There are a wide variety of interfaces to support communication with devices. RS-485 is designed to allow for multiple devices to be linked by a multidrop network of RS-485 serial devices. This standard also had the benefit of greater distance than offered by the RS-232/RS-423 and RS-422 standards.
However, because of the factors previously outlined, these types of devices can further benefit from being put on an Ethernet network. First, Ethernet networks have a greater range than serial technologies. Second, Ethernet protocols actually monitor packet traffic and will indicate when packets are being lost compared to serial technologies which do not guarantee data integrity.
Lantronix full family of device server products provides the comprehensive support required for network enabling different serial interfaces. Lantronix provides many device servers which support RS-485 and allow for easy integration of these types of devices into the network umbrella. For RS-232 or RS-423 serial devices, they can be used to connect equipment to the network over either Ethernet or Fast Ethernet.

An example of device server collaboration at work is Lantronix's partnership with Christie Digital Systems, a leading provider of visual solutions for business, entertainment and industry. Christie integrates Lantronix SecureBox® secure device server with feature-rich firmware designed and programmed by Christie for its CCM products. The resulting product line, called the ChristieNET SecureCCM, provided the encryption security needed for use in the company’s key markets, which include higher education and government. Demonstrating a convergence of AV and IT equipment to solve customer needs, ChristieNET SecureCCM was the first product of its kind to be certified by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

M2M and Wireless Communications

Two extremely important and useful technologies for communication that depend heavily on device servers are M2M and wireless networking.
Made possible by device networking technology, M2M enables serial-based devices throughout a facility to communicate with each other and humans over a Local Area Network/Wide Area Network (LAN/WAN) or via the Internet. The prominent advantages to business include:

• Maximized efficiency
• More streamlined operations
• Improved service

Lantronix Device Servers enable M2M communications either between the computer and serial device, or from one serial device to another over the Internet or Ethernet network using “serial tunneling.” Using this serial to Ethernet method, the “tunnel” can extend across a facility or to other facilities all over the globe.
M2M technology opens a new world of business intelligence and opportunity for organizations in virtually every market sector. Made possible through device servers, M2M offers solutions for equipment manufacturers, for example, who need to control service costs. Network enabled equipment can be monitored at all times for predictive maintenance. Often when something is wrong, a simple setting or switch adjustment is all that is required. When an irregularity is noted, the system can essentially diagnose the problem and send the corrective instructions. This negates a time-consuming and potentially expensive service call for a trivial issue. If servicing is required, the technician leaves knowing exactly what is wrong and with the proper equipment and parts to correct the problem. Profitability is maximized through better operating efficiencies, minimized cost overruns and fewer wasted resources.

M2M technology also greatly benefits any organization that cannot afford downtime, such as energy management facilities where power failures can be catastrophic, or hospitals who can’t afford interruptions with lives at stake. By proactively monitoring networked-enabled equipment to ensure it is functioning properly at all times, business can ensure uptime on critical systems, improve customer service and increase profitability.

Wireless Networking

Wireless networking, allows devices to communicate over the airwaves and without wires by using standard networking protocols. There are currently a variety of competing standards available for achieving the benefits of a wireless network. Here is a brief description of each:

Bluetooth

is a standard that provides short-range wireless connections between computers, Pocket PCs, and other equipment.

ZigBee

is a proprietary set of communication protocols designed to use small, low power digital radios based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard for wireless personal area networking.

802.11

is an IEEE specification for a wireless LAN airlink.

802.11b (or Wi-Fi)

is an industry standard for wireless LANs and supports more users and operates over longer distances than other standards. However, it requires more power and storage. 802.11b offers wireless transmission over short distances at up to 11 megabits per second. When used in handheld devices, 802.11b provides similar networking capabilities to devices enabled with Bluetooth.

802.11g

is the most recently approved standard and offers wireless transmission over short distances at up to 54 megabits per second. Both 802.11b and 802.11g operate in the 2.4 GHz range and are therefore compatible.

For more in-depth information, please consult the Lantronix wireless whitepaper which is available online.
Wireless technology is especially ideal in instances when it would be impractical or cost-prohibitive for cabling; or in instances where a high level of mobility is required.

Wireless device networking has benefits for all types of organizations. For example, in the medical field, where reduced staffing, facility closures and cost containment pressures are just a few of the daily concerns, device networking can assist with process automation and data security. Routine activities such as collection and dissemination of data, remote patient monitoring, asset tracking and reducing service costs can be managed quickly and safely with the use of wireless networked devices. In this environment, Lantronix device servers can network and manage patient monitoring devices, mobile EKG units, glucose analyzers, blood analyzers, infusion pumps, ventilators and virtually any other diagnostic tool with serial capability over the Internet.
Forklift accidents in large warehouses cause millions of dollars in damaged product, health claims, lost work and equipment repairs each year. To minimize the lost revenue and increase their profit margin and administrative overhead, “a company” has utilized wireless networking technology to solve the problem. Using Lantronix serial-to-802.11 wireless device server “the company” wirelessly network-enables a card reader which is tied to the ignition system of all the forklifts in the warehouse. Each warehouse employee has an identification card. The forklift operator swipes his ID card before trying to start the forklift. The information from his card is sent back via wireless network to computer database and it checks to see if he has proper operator’s license, and that the license is current. If so, forklift can start. If not – the starter is disabled.

Factory Floor Automation

For shops that are running automated assembly and manufacturing equipment, time is money. For every minute a machine is idle, productivity drops and the cost of ownership soars. Many automated factory floor machines have dedicated PCs to control them. In some cases, handheld PCs are used to reprogram equipment for different functions such as changing computer numerically controlled (CNC) programs or changing specifications on a bottling or packaging machine to comply with the needs of other products. These previously isolated pieces of industrial equipment could be networked to allow them to be controlled and reprogrammed over the network, saving time and increasing shop efficiency. For example, from a central location (or actually from anywhere in the world for that matter) with network connectivity, the machines can be accessed and monitored over the network. When necessary, new programs can be downloaded to the machine and software/firmware updates can be installed remotely.
One item of interest is how that input programming is formatted. Since many industrial and factory automation devices are legacy or proprietary, any number of different data protocols could be used. Device servers provide the ability to utilize the serial ports on the equipment for virtually any kind of data transaction.
Lantronix device servers support binary character transmissions. In these situations, managing the rate of information transfer is imperative to guard against data overflow. The ability to manage data flow between computers, devices or nodes in a network, so that data can be handled efficiently is referred to as flow control. Without it, the risk of data overflow can result in information being lost or needing to be retransmitted.
Lantronix accounts for this need by supporting RTS/CTS flow control on its DB25 and RJ45 ports. Lantronix device servers handle everything from a simple ASCII command file to a complex binary program that needs to be transmitted to a device.

Security Systems

One area that every organization is concerned about is security. Card readers for access control are commonplace, and these devices are ideally suited to benefit from being connected to the network with device server technology. When networked, the cards can be checked against a centralized database on the system and there are records of all access within the organization. Newer technology includes badges that can be scanned from a distance of up to several feet and biometric scanning devices that can identify an individual by a thumbprint or handprint. Device servers enable these types of devices to be placed throughout an organization's network and allow them to be effectively managed by a minimum staff at a central location. They allow the computer controlling the access control to be located a great distance away from the actual door control mechanism.
An excellent example is how ISONAS Security Systems utilized Lantonix WiPort® embedded device server to produce the World’s first wireless IP door reader for the access control and security industry. With ISONAS reader software, network administrators can directly monitor and control an almost unlimited number of door readers across the enterprise. The new readers, incorporating Lantronix wireless technology, connect directly to an IP network and eliminate the need for traditional security control panels and expensive wiring. The new solutions are easy to install and configure, enabling businesses to more easily adopt access control, time and attendance or emergency response technology. What was traditionally a complicated configuration and installation is now as simple as installing wireless access points on a network.
One more area of security systems that has made great strides is in the area of security cameras. In some cases, local municipalities are now requesting that they get visual proof of a security breach before they will send authorities. Device server technology provides the user with a host of options for how such data can be handled. One option is to have an open data pipe on a security camera - this allows all data to be viewed as it comes across from the camera. The device server can be configured so that immediately upon power-up the serial port attached to the camera will be connected to a dedicated host system.
Another option is to have the camera transmit only when it has data to send. By configuring the device server to automatically connect to a particular site when a character first hits the buffer, data will be transmitted only when it is available.
One last option is available when using the IP protocol - a device server can be configured to transmit data from one serial device to multiple IP addresses for various recording or archival concerns. Lantronix device server technology gives the user many options for tuning the device to meet the specific needs of their application.

Scanning Devices

Device server technology can be effectively applied to scanning devices such as bar code readers or point-of-sale debit card scanners. When a bar code reader is located in a remote corner of the warehouse at a receiving dock, a single-port server can link the reader to the network and provide up-to-the-minute inventory information. A debit card scanner system can be set up at any educational, commercial or industrial site with automatic debiting per employee for activities, meals and purchases. A popular amusement park in the United States utilizes such a system to deter theft or reselling of partially-used admission tickets.

Medical Applications

The medical field is an area where device server technology can provide great flexibility and convenience. Many medical organizations now run comprehensive applications developed specifically for their particular area of expertise. For instance, a group specializing in orthopedics may have x-ray and lab facilities onsite to save time and customer effort in obtaining test results.  Connecting all the input terminals, lab devices, x-ray machines and developing equipment together allows for efficient and effective service. Many of these more technical devices previously relied upon serial communication or worse yet, processing being done locally on a PC. Utilizing device server technology they can all be linked together into one seamless application. And an Internet connection enables physicians the added advantage of access to immediate information relevant to patient diagnosis and treatment.
Larger medical labs, where there are hundreds of different devices available for providing test data, can improve efficiency and lower equipment costs by using device server technology to replace dedicated PCs at each device. Device servers only cost a fraction of PCs. And, the cost calculation is not just the hardware alone, but the man-hours required to create software that would allow a PC-serial-port-based applications program to be converted into a program linking that information to the PC's network port. Device server technology resolves this issue by allowing the original applications software to be run on a networked PC and then use port redirector software to connect up to that device via the network. This enables the medical facility to transition from a PC at each device and software development required to network that data, to using only a couple of networked PCs doing the processing for all of the devices.

Additional Network Security

Of course, with the ability to network devices comes the risk of outsiders obtaining access to important and confidential information. Security can be realized through various encryption methods. 
There are two main types of encryption: asymmetric encryption (also known as public-key encryption) and symmetric encryption. There are many algorithms for encrypting data based on these types.

AES

AES (Advanced Encryption Standards) is a popular and powerful encryption standard that has not been broken. Select Lantronix device servers feature a NIST-certified implementation of AES as specified by the Federal Information Processing Specification (FIPS-197). This standard specifies Rijndael as a FIPS-approved symmetric encryption algorithm that may be used to protect sensitive information.  A common consideration for device networking devices is that they support AES and are validated against the standard to demonstrate that they properly implement the algorithm. It is important that a validation certificate is issued to the product’s vendor which states that the implementation has been tested. Lantronix offers several AES certified devices including the AES Certified SecureBox SDS1100 and the AES Certified SecureBox SDS2100.

Secure Shell Encryption

Secure Shell (SSH) is a program that provides strong authentication and secure communications over unsecured channels. It is used as a replacement for Telnet, rlogin, rsh, and rcp, to log into another computer over a network, to execute commands in a remote machine, and to move files from one machine to another. AES is one of the many encryption algorithms supported by SSH. Once a session key is established SSH uses AES to protect data in transit.
Both SSH and AES are extremely important to overall network security by maintaining strict authentication for protection against intruders as well as symmetric encryption to protect transmission of dangerous packets. AES certification is reliable and can be trusted to handle the highest network security issues.

WEP

Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is a security protocol for wireless local area networks (WLANs) which are defined in the 802.11b standard. WEP is designed to provide the same level of security as that of a wired LAN, however LANs provide more security by their inherent physical structure that can be protected from unauthorized access. WLANs, which are over radio waves, do not have the same physical structure and therefore are more vulnerable to tampering. WEP provides security by encrypting data over radio waves so that it is protected as it is transmitted from one end point to another.  However, it has been found that WEP is not as secure as once believed. WEP is used at the data link and physical layers of the OSI model and does not offer end-to-end security.

WPA

Supported by many newer devices, Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) is a Wi-Fi standard that was designed to improve upon the security features of WEP. WPA technology works with existing Wi-Fi products that have been enabled with WEP, but WPA includes two improvements over WEP. The first is improved data encryption via the temporal key integrity protocol (TKIP), which scrambles keys using a hashing algorithm and adds an integrity-checking feature to ensure that keys haven’t been tampered with. The second is user authentication through the extensible authentication protocol (EAP). EAP is built on a secure public-key encryption system, ensuring that only authorized network users have access. EAP is generally missing from WEP, which regulates access to a wireless network based on the computer’s hardware-specific MAC Address. Since this information can be easily stolen, there is an inherent security risk in relying on WEP encryption alone. 

Incorporating Encryption with Device Servers

In the simplest connection scheme where two device servers are set up as a serial tunnel, no encryption application programming is required since both device servers can perform the encryption automatically. However, in the case where a host-based application is interacting with the serial device through its own network connection, modification of the application is required to support data encryption.

Applications Abound

While this paper provides a quick snapshot of device servers at work in a variety of applications, it should be noted that this is only a sampling of the many markets where these devices could be used. With the ever-increasing requirement to manage, monitor, diagnose and control many and different forms of equipment and as device server technology continues to evolve, the applications are literally only limited by the imagination.

Glossary of terms *

Serial server

traditionally, a unit used for connecting a modem to the network for shared access among users.

Terminal server

traditionally, a unit that connects asynchronous devices such as terminals, printers, hosts, and modems to a LAN or WAN.

Device server

a specialized network-based hardware device designed to perform a single or specialized set of functions with client access independent of any operating system or proprietary protocol.

Print server

a host device that connects and manages shared printers over a network.

Console server

software that allows the user to connect consoles from various equipment into the serial ports of a single device and gain access to these consoles from anywhere on the network.

Console manager

a unit or program that allows the user to remotely manage serial devices, including servers, switches, routers and telecom equipment.

Read More

The Best Products of 2013

 

Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines the word "best" as "better than all others in quality or value." That's something we see a lot of at PCMag: every year our analysts review and rate over 2,000 products. They look at computer systems, cameras, mobile devices, software, games, networks, and much more. And every year products improve on the previous year's offerings, both in quality and value. That's why we share with you an annual list of the greatest products.
Of course, you can always consult specific product categories and check our Editors' Choices, and sometimes one category will have many excellent offerings. But oftentimes that's not good enough. You want things narrowed down; you want the winner amongst the winners. That's why we badger the analysts to pick one and only one device in every category for this list.
You won't see just the same old categories as previous years either. We've got several new types of products this year as we keep up with changing technology. For example, 2013 is the first time we're including wearables because smartwatches and digital health/fitness devices (and apps) have come a long way. We also include a high-end toy that's fun for mature children and playful adults alike. The cloud is also making a huge impact on daily life, so we've added our first cloud storage product to the list. We were sure to include everyone—even nascent 3D printers make the cut this year.
One category sadly missing is game consoles. The current crop of consoles is long in the tooth and the new generation—specifically PlayStation 4 and Xbox One—were not available for testing as we published this list. But check back on PCMag in the coming days for full coverage and reviews.
In our list you'll find 100 products in 99 categories. We had one tie, and the products were so great we decided to include both. Of those products, 95 earned our Editors' Choice seal of approval. What's more, 10 of the products earned a perfect score of five stars: Apple MacBook Air 13-Inch, Grand Theft Auto V, Lego Mindstorms EV3, Spaceteam for Android, ifttt, Photoshop, Flipboard for iPad, Synology Diskstation DS1812+ NAS, a Leica camera lens, and the amazing Olympus OM-D mirrorless camera. Those are all products our testers consider flawless in their current incarnations—and they're only likely to get better. The remaining products in this list all boast an impressive 4-star rating at least.
To be eligible for consideration the product had to be reviewed by analysts in our Labs between November 1, 2012 and November 1, 2013. Our experts use industry-standard benchmarks and several tests developed in-house to get quantifiable, reliable, and reproducible results. Only products that are put through the paces and come out on top make it into "The Best Products of 2013."
And now, we proudly present PCMag's list of the Best Products of 2013. Drumroll please! 

 

DESKTOPS

BUDGET DESKTOP Gateway DX4870-UB2B    $499.99 $539.99 at Amazon

The Gateway DX4870-UB2B is a basic tower desktop PC that checks all the boxes you need from a new desktop, particularly if you already have an LCD display you're carrying over. It's speedy for its segment, has spacious storage, will let you keep many documents open simultaneously, and is relatively inexpensive. It's also expandable so it can grow with your family. A great bang for the buck, it's a solid choice.—Joel Santo Domingo

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	MAINSTREAM CONSUMER DESKTOP Velocity Micro Vector Z25    $999.99 $759.00 at Velocity Micro
The Velocity Vector Z25 is an old-school midtower desktop. It has multimedia and 3D gaming chops, all for a sub-$1,000 price tag. It's the kind of PC you would've paid $2,500 for back in the day, and for multimedia users it comes highly recommended; it has the power to quickly complete tasks with photos and video, while keeping a little in reserve for moderate to hardcore gaming.—JSD

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	ALL-IN-ONE/TOUCH-SCREEN DESKTOP Vizio 27-Inch All-in-One Touch PC (CA27T-B1)    $1,549
With its great features and performance, the Vizio 27-inch All-in-One Touch PC (CA27T-B1) delivers on the promises made by its futuristic design. A touch screen, hybrid drive setup, quad core processor, and improved trackpad help elevate the system to our highest honors.—JSD

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GAMING DESKTOP Falcon Northwest Fragbox (GeForce GTX 780 SLI)    $4,499

High-end gaming rigs like the Falcon Northwest Fragbox (GeForce GTX 780) are made to play premier AAA gaming titles at the highest resolution possible with the highest-quality settings. The Fragbox is certainly capable of that, and it's semi-portable to boot. The latest Fragbox gives users a high-powered fourth-generation Intel Core i7 plus a pair of Nvidia's latest GTX 780 graphics cards. It's smooth as butter on the gaming benchmark tests.—JSD

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	COMPACT/SLIM DESKTOP Polywell B8500    $499.99
The Polywell B8500 small form factor desktop provides time-critical control and business info, and with its size goes where plain business desktops would fear to tread. It's a good choice for the factory control desk, prepress proof desk, or the broker's workspace.—JSD

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BUSINESS/WORKSTATION DESKTOP HP Z230 SFF Workstation    $2,045 $1,601.50 at Amazon

When you buy a workstation PC, you're buying more than just a desktop equipped with powerful components; you're also getting better reliability, tested and certified compatibility with professional software, and a design that lets you fix things quickly and minimize downtime. The HP Z230 SFF Workstation does all of that, and in a notably compact package, giving you a full-featured single-processor workstation you can actually fit on your desk with room to spare.—JSD

 

LAPTOPS

	BUDGET LAPTOP Acer C7 Chromebook (C710-2055)    $279.99 £240.00 at Amazon Marketplace
Google's Chromebooks have long promised affordability and simplicity, and the Acer C7 Chromebook (C710-2055) delivers in spades. It's faster, better, and lasts longer than other Chromebooks on the market, plus it offers a host of online and offline tools with a healthy mix of local and cloud storage.—Brian Westover

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	BUSINESS LAPTOP Dell Latitude 6430u    $1,328 $1,199.75 at Dell Small Business
Road warriors who prefer travelling with a light footprint will dig the Dell Latitude 6430u, a Windows 8-equipped business ultrabook that deftly blends style and performance. With its slick design, excellent keyboard, and great battery life, it's an easy choice for those who want productivity for work without having to settle for a drab, utilitarian business ultrabook.—BW

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DESKTOP REPLACEMENT Apple MacBook Pro 15-Inch (2013)    $1,999 $1,994.00 at Amazon

The Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch (2013) is the Retina display-equipped system that power users have been waiting for. It takes last year's excellent Retina display upgrade and thinner chassis and adds a powerful Intel Core i7 processor with integrated graphics that performs like discrete graphics. Plus the nine-hour battery life is more than adequate for a day's work. It's the pinnacle of laptops designed for uber-picky power users who need to take their time-sensitive projects with them.—BW

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	GAMING LAPTOP Razer Blade (2013)    $1,999.99 $1,999.00 at Amazon
The oh-so-portable 14-inch Razer Blade has you covered when you want to take your gaming on the road, with six hours of battery, an Intel Haswell processor, and the latest Nvidia graphics.—BW

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	ULTRABOOK Acer Aspire S7-392-6411    $1,449.99 $1,519.99 at Amazon
If you're looking for a svelte laptop to show off, yet still be able to do real work in Windows 8, the Acer Aspire S7-392-6411 is the ultrabook you want. It's the current pinnacle of the ultrabook trend and shows the brilliance PC makers can return under Intel's increasingly stringent standards for ultrabooks.—BW

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	ULTRAPORTABLE LAPTOP Apple MacBook Air 13-Inch (Mid 2013)    $1,099 Best Price at Amazon
Equipped with a fourth-generation Intel Core i5 processor, the latest MacBook Air 13-inch shows decent performance gains. But it's the ultraportable's 15-plus hours of battery life that blows away the competition.—BW

 

TABLETS & EBOOK READERS

	LARGE-SCREEN TABLET Apple iPad Air    $499 and up $499.00 at Apple Store
Apple's iPad Air isn't a radical break from previous iPads, but it doesn't need to be. It's a well-built, slim, and light platform for a terrific range of tablet apps, with an unusually fast processor and a much lighter frame than last year's model, but no loss of battery life. As with previous iPads, it's close to a no-brainer.—Sascha Segan

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	SMALL-SCREEN TABLET Google Nexus 7    $269.99 £209.99 at amazon.co.uk
The Nexus 7's $229 price is an amazing value. Its high-res screen is extremely sharp, the battery life is long, and the tablet's body is narrow enough to hold comfortably in one hand. This tablet makes a perfect e-reader or backseat entertainment gadget.—SS

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EBOOK READER Amazon Kindle Paperwhite    $119 (with Special Offers) $119.00 at Amazon

Amazon rewrites the Kindle again to great effect. The revised Kindle Paperwhite is considerably faster and more refined than last year's model, with brighter edge lighting and a useful new Page Flip feature that makes it easier to locate your spot. It's comfortable to hold and lasts for weeks on a battery charge. Plus, Amazon's ebook store and overall app ecosystem remain the best in the business.—Jamie Lendino

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	IPAD ACCESSORY Belkin Ultimate Keyboard Case    $99.99 $82.94 at Amazon
Keyboard cases for the iPad generally come in either traditional folio or thin-and-light cover styles, but both have their drawbacks. The Belkin Ultimate Keyboard Case splits the difference, combining great protection, sleek design, and a comfortable keyboard all in one great package.—Eugene Kim

 

MOBILE NETWORKS & DEVICES

	BEST MOBILE NETWORK Verizon Wireless 4G LTE
AT&T's network is the fastest, but Verizon's is the best. How'd that happen? The two big carriers weren't far apart in our Fastest Mobile Networks study, but the huge differential in our Reader's Choice study landed Verizon in a solid first place. As the only truly national LTE network, Verizon has you covered.—Sascha Segan

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BEST PHONE (TIE)

	Apple iPhone 5s   $199.99
The Apple iPhone 5s may be the same size as last year's iPhone but its more powerful hardware and software makes a major difference. This is the first 64-bit phone on the market, the first with a usable fingerprint reader, one of the two best camera phones out there, and of course, it runs Apple's unparalleled library of third-party apps.—SS
	Samsung Galaxy S4   $199.99
Samsung's flagship smartphone is the Microsoft Office of mobile phones: it has something for everyone. Light and slim, the S4 is nonetheless laden with an amazing number of features, from a simplified Easy Mode to special camera modes that let you insert yourself into a shot, and erase photobombers.—SS

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	IPHONE ACCESSORY Unu DX Protective Battery Case for iPhone 5   $79.95 $79.99 at Amazon
Find yourself scrambling for a charge by midday? Cast your worries away with the Unu DX battery case, which will more than double your iPhone's battery life without adding much bulk. It outperforms many more expensive options, making it excellent value.—Eugene Kim

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	BLUETOOTH HEADSET Plantronics BackBeat Go 2   $79.99 £68.00 at Amazon
Plantronics stepped up its well-respected BackBeat stereo Bluetooth line this year with the BackBeat Go 2, delivering solid sound quality, a sweat-proof nano-coating, and a comfortable fit at an eminently reasonable price. While there are other solid choices at higher and lower price points, the BackBeat Go 2 hits the sweet spot.—SS

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	CELLULAR MODEM OR HOTSPOT Verizon Jetpack 4G MHS291L   $49.99 $39.99 at Amazon
A hotspot should always be able to connect. Verizon's Jetpack 4G MHS291L made by Pantech has the longest battery life of any hotspot we've tested: more than 14 hours of solid LTE streaming on a charge. Combined with the nation's biggest LTE network, that means the MHS291L can keep you online almost anywhere.—SS

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GPS NAVIGATION Garmin nüvi 3597LMTHD   $379.99 $318.96 at Amazon

Garmin has been in the GPS navigation game for a long time and it shows with the top-end nüvi 3597LMTHD. This model includes a 5-inch glass capacitive display with a sharp (for a GPS) 800-by-480-pixel resolution. In a world of free smartphone GPS apps, the expensive nüvi 3597LMTHD really has to earn its keep—and it does, thanks to beautiful 3D terrain mapping, a brilliant magnetic mount, and improved natural-language voice prompts that are accurate and well-timed. Split-screen, photorealistic 3D lane assistance makes exiting complex highway interchanges a cinch.—Jamie Lendino

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	SMARTWATCH Pebble   $150 $149.99 at Best Buy
Smartwatches are still in their infancy but the Pebble is the closest to realizing their potential. Its good looks, useful notification support, and growing list of features (thanks to third-party development) make it a far better choice than any other smartwatch currently available.—EK

 

PERIPHERALS & COMPONENTS

	KEYBOARD Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Desktop    $129.95 $70.00 at Amazon
The Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Desktop combines an excellent ergonomic layout with Windows 8 features to power-up your regular PC use in addition to making it more comfortable. Throw in the simplicity of wireless and a distinctive, stylish design and it's one of the best ergonomic wireless keyboards we've ever seen.—Brian Westover

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	MOUSE Corsair Vengeance M65    $69.99 $59.99 at Amazon
The Corsair Vengeance M65 may be made for gaming, but with its contoured aluminum construction, adjustable 8200 DPI tracking, and rock solid design, it's also one of the best mice, period. Buy it whether you're gearing up for hours of FPS gaming or just want a well-built mouse for work and play.—BW

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MONITOR Acer B296CL    $599 $560.99 at Amazon

If you're tired of dealing with the clutter of multiple monitors and their associated cables and power bricks, the time is right to upgrade to an ultra-wide monitor such as the Acer B296CL. It's a reasonably priced 29-inch ultra-wide monitor offering a generous selection of ports, solid IPS color performance, and an ergonomic stand. The panel loses some luminance when viewed from an extreme vertical angle and the monitor does not have an auto-rotate feature, but these are trivial issues. —Laarni Almendrala Ragaza

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	PROCESSOR Intel Core i7-4770K    $339 $338.98 at Amazon
The quad-core Intel Core i7-4770K is the company's new top-end chip based on its Haswell microarchitecture, and its second processor built on the 22nm process node. It's a 3.5GHz chip with a 3.9GHz Turbo speed and formal support for up to DDR3-1600. The CPU includes a number of new capabilities and enhancements and is a notable step forward in CPU efficiency.—LAR

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	VIDEO CARD Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan   $999 $1,059.99 at Amazon
Nvidia's supercomputer-inspired GK110 comes to Nvidia's high-end consumer business as the Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan. This $1,000 single-GPU card packs seven billion transistors, 6GB of RAM, and 2,688 shader cores. This is the first time Nvidia has brought a specialized niche product over to the general consumer market. It supports supercomputer technologies like Hyper-Q, Dynamic Parallelism, and GPU virtualization, and is capable of executing any CUDA workload that the high-end Tesla K20/K20X chips support.—LAR

 

STORAGE

	HARD DRIVE LaCie 5big    $2,199 £1,509.99 at Amazon
The LaCie 5big Thunderbolt Series desktop-class external drive gives you a huge 20TB of storage, available instantly. It's the drive to use when you need constant access to all your work or project data. It's also the drive to use if server-based storage is too slow, but you need the gargantuan capacities that a server would provide.— Joel Santo Domingo

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	SOLID-STATE DRIVE SanDisk Extreme II 480GB SSD    $449 £309.99 at Amazon
The SanDisk Extreme II internal solid-state drive is a great opening volley into the high-end consumer market. It offers enthusiast-level performance from a historically OEM-focused company.—JSD

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	PORTABLE DRIVE Seagate Wireless Plus    $199.99 Best Price at Amazon
Carrying your entire media library just became a bit easier with the Seagate Wireless Plus drive. It's a 1TB hard drive with a built-in battery, media server, and Wi-Fi router, so you can share videos, photos, and music on the road.—JSD

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	USB FLASH DRIVE LaCie XtremKey USB 3.0 (32GB)    $84.99 £69.20 at Amazon
The LaCie XtremKey USB 3.0 (32GB) might be the roughest, toughest USB flash drive we've ever dealt with. The LaCie XtremKey USB 3.0 will survive insane amounts of abuse, it looks good, and it's a great flash drive as well.—JSD

 

AUDIO

MP3 PLAYER Apple iPod touch    $229 $292.22 at Cost Central

Smartphones are hogging the spotlight now, but there's still plenty of demand for dedicated music players. The Apple iPod touch (16GB) delivers much more than that. It's basically an iPhone stripped of its calling capability and GPS—meaning you can still run almost all of the 900,000-plus third-party apps and games in Apple's App Store. A dual-core A5 processor, 1,136-by-640-pixel 4-inch display, and excellent-sounding Apple EarPods help seal the deal. Oh, and it's great for playing music and watching TV shows and movies.—Jamie Lendino

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HEADPHONES Bowers & Wilkins P7 Mobile Hi-Fi Headphones    $399.99 $292.22 at Cost Central

Bowers & Wilkins, long known for its luxurious high-end audio speakers, takes its first shot at an over-the-ear (circumaural) headphone—and nails it. The P7 sounds exemplary with all kinds of music. Not only that, but the black leather and aluminum design exudes luxury, and is extremely comfortable to wear for long periods of time. The P7 isn't cheap by any means, but you get everything you pay for, and more.—JL

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EARPHONES Klipsch Image X7i    $199.99 $199.99 at Amazon

The Klipsch Image X7i delivers amazing audio quality for its price range, with tight bass, crisp highs, and a neutral, well-balanced timbre. It's one of the smallest in-canal earphone pairs we've tested, and it's extremely lightweight. The inline microphone and three-button remote control makes it perfect for your smartphone. Sonically, it's more of a flat-response pair than one for those who love boosted bass response; if that sounds good to you, the X7i is the set to get.—JL

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PC SPEAKERS KEF X300A    $799.99

Easily one of the most striking sets of stereo speakers we've tested, the KEF X300A is as close to perfect as we've heard in its price tier. It's an ideal pair of speakers for an apartment, office, or study, and its digital USB connection and 96kHz/24-bit digital-to-analog (D/A) converters ensure pristine sound when connected to a PC or Mac. A switch on the back panel lets you select between "desk" and "stand" (or free space) placement, and KEF throws in a pair of baffles in the box—use them to plug up the rear-facing ports for positioning the X300A system closer to a wall.—JL

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WIRELESS SPEAKER Bose SoundLink Bluetooth Mobile Speaker II    $299.95 $299.00 at Amazon

It's a modest evolution of the first version and that's fine, since the original was great to begin with. At just under three pounds, the Bose SoundLink Bluetooth Mobile Speaker II is compact and easy to tote. It folds up nicely with the attached cover which doubles as a power switch, and delivers smooth, balanced sound throughout the frequency spectrum. It also gets surprisingly loud and can easily fill a sizable room with music.—JL

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PORTABLE WIRELESS SPEAKER Bose SoundLink Mini    $199.95 $199.00 at Amazon

For a speaker that's only seven inches long, we won't blame you for thinking the Bose SoundLink Mini expensive. But of all the tiny portable Bluetooth speakers we've tested, it simply sounds the best, with surprisingly full, rich bass and a smooth midrange. The sturdy aluminum enclosure recalls the design of 1960s tabletop radios, yet sleeker and updated for today. It's ideal for a desk or nearby bookshelf, and thanks to the included charging cradle, the SoundLink Mini is easy to bring along for tunes on the go.—JL

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SOUNDBAR Sony HT-CT260 Home Theater Soundbar    $299.99 $199.00 at Amazon

The Sony HT-CT260 soundbar is one of the most well-rounded speaker systems we've tested. You get a lot for your money here, including stereo Bluetooth streaming, a blue LED status display, three sets of inputs, and a remote control. With powerful bass response and a warm overall sound signature, the HT-CT260 is an excellent buy and an easy upgrade for anyone looking to augment their HDTV in a small living room or den.—JL

 

CAMERAS & CAMCORDERS

	POINT-AND-SHOOT CAMERA Canon PowerShot Elph 330 HS    $229.99 Best Price at Amazon
The Canon PowerSHot Elph 330 HS is the camera to get if you're looking for something compact without breaking the bank. It's the best camera we saw this year for less than $250, thanks to sharp optics, impressive performance in low light, an 8x zoom lens, and built-in Wi-Fi.—Jim Fisher

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	BUDGET POINT-AND-SHOOT CAMERA Canon PowerShot A1400    $109.99 £59.79 at Amazon
If you're looking to spend around $100 for a digital camera, the AA-powered Canon PowerShot A1400 is a solid choice. Like other CCD cameras it's not the best in low light, but it does pack a sharp 5x zoom lens, and it's one of the few compact cameras with an optical viewfinder.—JF

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	HIGH-END MIRRORLESS CAMERA Olympus OM-D E-M1    $1,399.99, body only $1,399.00 at Amazon
The OM-D E-M1 isn't a perfect camera, but it's about as close as it gets. The top-end Micro Four Thirds body is an all-weather shooter with an outstanding EVF, 5-axis image stabilization, fast autofocus, and impressive burst shooting. It does well in low light, and even packs Wi-Fi for remote camera control and easy image transfer to your smartphone. —JF

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MIRRORLESS CAMERA Samsung NX300    $799.99 with 18-55mm lens $697.99 at Amazon

The Samsung NX300 packs a big APS-C image sensor into a svelte body. Its image quality is impressive in all kinds of light, and the autofocus system is impressively quick. There's a sharp tilting rear display with touch input, and built-in Wi-Fi so you can transfer images to your phone or upload directly to social networks. The only thing missing from the NX300 is support for an add-on EVF—you'll need to go with a different camera if that's a must-have feature—JF

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SUPERZOOM CAMERA Canon PowerShot SX280 HS    $279.99 A$212.00 at CameraSky

Lots of folks are hooked on SLRs with image sensors and lenses to match. But if you want a lot of zoom in a form factor that can slide into your pocket, you'll need to look at a compact camera like the Canon PowerShot SX280 HS. Its 12-megapixel, 1/2.3-inch image sensor isn't the largest you'll find in a pocket camera, but you can still shoot at moderate sensitivity settings without significant detail loss. It's impressively small, especially when you consider that it houses a 20x zoom lens and packs built-in Wi-Fi and GPS. —JF

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FULL-FRAME D-SLR CAMERA Canon EOS 6D    $2,099, body only $1,299.00 at RytherCamera

Full-frame cameras feature image sensors that match 35mm film in terms of size—that's roughly twice as big as the sensors in entry-level SLRs. They've long been the tools of pros, but the Canon EOS 6D brings full-frame to the masses at a price point that, while not cheap, is within reach of enthusiastic photographers. The huge image sensor does a great job in low light, and when paired with a wide-aperture lens delivers an impressively shallow depth of field. The 6D can shoot at 4.5fps and adds an integrated GPS and Wi-Fi—and its body is impressively compact, not that much bigger than top-end APS-C (Advanced Photo System type-C) SLRs. —JF

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	D-SLR CAMERA Nikon D7100    $1,199.95, body only £619.99 at eGlobaL Digital Store
Nikon's D7100 is everything a premium APS-C D-SLR should be. It's got a bright pentaprism viewfinder, a lightning-quick autofocus system, and loads of physical controls. Wildlife and sports shooters will appreciate the 6fps burst rate, and there's a vertical battery grip available for anyone who prefers a beefier camera. —JF

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RUGGED POINT-AND-SHOOT CAMERA Olympus Tough TG-2 iHS    $379.99 £215.99 at eGlobaL Digital Store

The TG-2 isn't that different from Olympus's first fast-lens rugged camera, the TG-1, but a few modest improvements and a lower price point make it a winner. The lens opens to f/2 at its widest angle, and the TG-2 is rated for use in up to 50 feet of water. It's also rated to survive 7-foot drops, operate in temperatures as low as 14°F, and to withstand external pressure of up to 220 pounds. This is the go-anywhere, survive-anything camera to get. —JF

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LENS Leica APO-Summicron-M 50mm f/2 ASPH.    $7,195 $7,350.00 at Amazon

I've shot with dozens of 50mm lenses over my life, and you simply won't find one better than the Leica APO-Summicron-M 50mm f/2 ASPH. It's absurdly sharp from edge-to-edge, shows no distortion or chromatic aberration, and is impressively compact. Yes, you'll have to pay for the privilege of using it. At close to $7,200 it's one of the most expensive lenses in Leica's catalog, and you'll need to pair it with a full-frame (or 35mm) rangefinder to get the most out of it—but it's worth it.—JF

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PRIME-LENS COMPACT Ricoh GR    $799.99 $754.89 at Amazon

The Ricoh GR puts a D-SLR-sized APS-C image sensor into the body of a camera which slides snugly into your jeans pocket. The prime lens doesn't zoom, instead giving you a fixed 28mm-equivalent field of view. It's an f/2.8 design that's sharp from edge-to-edge, with a 16-megapixel sensor that is impressive through ISO 3200. Couple that with an excellent set of physical controls and a sharp, bright rear LCD and you have a camera that will wow you, both with its size and the quality of the photos it captures.—JF

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PREMIUM POINT-AND-SHOOT Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 II    $749.99 $748.00 at Amazon

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 II is an upgraded version of the RX100, which found itself in this spot last year. It still features a compact body with a 1-inch image sensor and 28-100mm f/1.8-4.9 Zeiss lens, but adds a titling rear display, a hot shoe, and Wi-Fi. The image sensor is still 20-megapixels, but its backside illuminated design showed a 1-stop advantage in low-light image quality in our lab tests. It's the best compact digital camera with a zoom lens we've seen, but you'll have to pay a premium for it.—JF

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CAMCORDER GoPro Hero3 Black Edition    $399.99 $329.98 at Gander Mountain

Adventurous outdoorsmen love GoPro cameras for good reason. They're tough yet small enough to mount on your body, or on a snowboard, surfboard, or skateboard. Add a waterproof housing and this camera can capture your extreme, possibly insane, hobby of choice. The Hero3 Black Edition ups the video quality and adds Wi-Fi. It's not without its issues, however—the Wi-Fi can be a little tricky to use, and while the Hero3 can record footage at 4K, it's limited to 15fps at that resolution.—JF

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WEBCAM Dropcam Pro    $199 $199.99 at Amazon

Dropcam's approach to the surveillance market is software first. Its CVR, or "cloud video recording," is proof of that, and the service costs you a few bucks per month to store a few days of footage. But the hardware also shines. The latest Dropcam improves on the old in every way with better optics, a wider-angle lens, and a slick-looking black paint job. You don't need to pan or tilt when you use a Dropcam Pro; the sensor is so big that even zooming digitally looks pretty amazing. Ease of use, PC-free setup, sharing video streams, and monitoring from anywhere make the Dropcam Pro a winner. You can buy one at the Apple Store, too.—Eric Griffith

 

HDTVs & HOME THEATER

BUDGET HDTV Vizio M551D-A2R    $1,099.99 $1,048.00 at Amazon

You don't need to spend a lot of money for a great, 3D-capable HDTV. The Vizio M551D-A2R can be found for just over $1,000 and its 55-inch LED screen offers very good contrast and color accuracy for the price. It's a passive 3D screen and comes with four pairs of glasses so you can watch 3D movies and play 3D games with your friends and family right out of the box. Plus it's loaded with plenty of online services and apps.—Will Greenwald

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HIGH-END HDTV Samsung PN60F8500    $2,799.99 $2,465.00 at TVSuperStores.com

Plasma might be dwindling but that isn't stopping the technology from producing some amazing screens. Samsung's high-end PN60F8500 is a beautiful 60-inch plasma HDTV that gets very bright and very dark for a contrast ratio of 55,779:1, one of the best we've tested. It's loaded with features and stylish design aspects, including online media services, social network services, voice commands, a touchpad remote, and even a built-in camera for video chat.—WG

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BLU-RAY PLAYER Oppo BDP-103    $499 $499.00 at Amazon

Blu-ray players have become a perfunctory, everyday item not many people pay attention to, but there are still a few models targeted at high-end home theater enthusiasts. The Oppo BDP-103 is built like a tank, features 4K upscaling and 2D-to-3D conversion, and has both dual HDMI outputs and 7.1-channel analog audio outputs. If you want to integrate a Blu-ray player into your high-end surround sound system and projector, this is the one for you.—WG

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MEDIA HUB Roku 2    $79.99 $78.00 at Amazon

For less than $100, the Roku 2 offers more than 1,000 different content channels including big names like Netflix and Hulu Plus as well as niche services like Crunchyroll and Midnight Pulp. It doesn't have motion controls for playing Angry Birds like the Roku 3, but it does have an even better feature carried over from its higher-end version: a headphone jack in the remote so you can watch what you want without disturbing your significant other.—WG

 

PRINTERS

	SMALL-OFFICE INKJET HP Officejet Pro X551dw Printer    $599 £444.42 at Amazon Marketplace
A winning balance of speed, output quality, paper handling, low cost per page, and additional features such as mobile printing makes the HP Officejet Pro X551dw Printer a smart pick over its direct competition. The closest it comes to having a weakness is its print quality, but for most workplaces the HP Officejet Pro X551dw Printer hits all the right marks.—Tony Hoffman

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PERSONAL MONO LASER Samsung Xpress M2625D    $120 $139.99 at Office Depot

The Samsung Xpress M2625D printer offers unusually capable paper handling for personal use. In addition to an automatic duplexer, it includes a 250-sheet paper tray and a one-page manual feed slot so you don't have to swap out paper every time you want to print a page on a different paper stock. Its paper handling, solid scores for speed and output quality, and small size make a highly attractive printer for the price.—TH

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SMALL OFFICE MONO LASER MFP Samsung Multifunction Xpress M2875FW    $280 £209.99 at Amazon

The Samsung Multifunction Xpress M2875FW has lots of strong points and no notable weaknesses. Its particular balance of speed, output quality, paper handing, multifunction printer (MFP) basics, and small conveniences—like Wi-Fi Direct and the ability to copy single-sided originals to double-sided copies—adds up to the proverbial more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts. That's enough to make it an excellent fit for a micro or small office.—TH

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SMALL OFFICE COLOR INKJET MFP HP Officejet Pro X576dw    $799 $718.48 at Amazon

The HP Officejet Pro X576dw Multifunction Printer's mix of fast speed, high-quality output, excellent paper handling, and the convenience of a 4.3-inch touch screen, combined with a long list of MFP features put it way out in front of the pack. That's before considering its low cost per page. It's a laser-class inkjet: the X576dw looks like a laser, feeds paper like a laser, and performs like a laser.—TH

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SMALL OFFICE COLOR TABLOID SIZE MFP Brother MFC-J6920DW    $499.99 $229.99 at Amazon

If you need a tabloid-size (11-by-17 inch) multifunction printer that's both inexpensive and loaded with features, the Brother MFC-J6920DW may be what you're looking for. It's the flagship model of Brother's new Business Smart Pro series and is perfect for a micro or small office needing to print and scan at tabloid size. Its combination of duplex scanning, NFC, and large touch screen make it an appealing choice for users who need any or all of these features.—TH

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3D PRINTER Type A Machines Series 1    $1,695

The Type A Machines Series 1 is geared toward professionals and hobbyists. It's well-suited for that role, being relatively easy to set up and operate, versatile, and capable of printing good-quality 3D objects. It's able to print at a range of resolutions and has a large print area. There's a lot to like about the Type A Machines Series 1 and we encountered very few problems in testing it. All this is enough to make it the best 3D printer for designers, hobbyists, and makers.—TH

 

PROJECTORS

	INTERACTIVE DATA PROJECTOR Epson BrightLink 436Wi    $1,490 $1,490.00 at Epson
The Epson BrightLink 436Wi Interactive WXGA 3LCD Projector brings Epson's leading-edge interactive features to a more affordable projector. The 436Wi offers an attractive balance of image quality, brightness, and price. Unless you need 3D support, it's the short-throw, interactive projector you want. —TH

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MOBILE PROJECTOR NEC NP-M311W    $899 $1,490.00 at Epson

The LCD-based NEC NP-M311W projector delivers a bright image, WXGA (1,280-by-800) resolution, 1.7x zoom lens, long lamp life, near-excellent data image quality, and better video quality than most data projectors can offer; plus it is reasonably portable. Unless you require 3D capability or a short-throw lens, its long list of attractive features makes it a compelling choice for a WXGA projector. —TH

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HOME ENTERTAINMENT PROJECTOR WITH 3D Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 3020e    $1,899 $1,899.00 at Epson

The Epson Home Cinema 3020e offers high-quality 2D and 3D at full 1080p, both as a home theater projector and as a home entertainment projector that stands up to ambient light. It works directly with HDMI 1.4a devices like Blu-ray players and cable TVs. In most ways the Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 3020e is the 2D and 3D home entertainment projector we've been waiting for. It's an excellent low-cost 3D home theater projector as well.—TH

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HOME THEATER PROJECTOR WITH 3D Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 5020Ube    $2,899 $851.85 at Amazon

The Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 5020UBe is an impressive projector for the price. It delivers a high-quality image for both 2D and 3D and a wide range of brightness settings suitable for both theater-dark lighting and a family room with ambient light. Its advanced features include an unusually large zoom and lens shift, an auto-iris, frame interpolation, and super-resolution. Taken together, this constellation of features makes it a highly capable home theater projector for both 2D and 3D.—TH

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SCANNERS

SMALL OFFICE DOCUMENT SCANNER Xerox Documate 5445    $1,195 $762.99 at Amazon

The highly capable Xerox DocuMate 5445 desktop scanner delivers fast speed with duplex (two-sided) scanning, an assortment of world class software, and features such as a 75-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF). Its balance of speed, input capacity, duty cycle, and price, along with its well-chosen set of application programs and capable scan utility make the Xerox DocuMate 5445 an excellent choice for moderately heavy-duty use in a small office or workgroup.—TH

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PERSONAL PORTABLE PHOTO SCANNER Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner    $149.99 $149.99 at Amazon

The Flip-Pal mobile scanner offers an innovative design with PC-free scanning, a 4-by-6 flatbed, and a 2GB SD card. It has a neat trick for scanning originals that won't fit under the flatbed lid: take off the lid, turn the scanner over, and place the glass on top of the item to be scanned. It offers good scan quality and as a flatbed scanner it eliminates the risk of mangling photos or delicate documents possible with a sheet-fed scanner. Its 1.7-inch LCD lets you preview scans on the spot.—TH

 

NETWORKING

ROUTER Buffalo AirStation Extreme AC 1750 Gigabit Dual Band Wireless Router    $189.99 $139.99 at Amazon

Buffalo's AirStation Extreme AC1750 Gigabit Dual Band Wireless Router offers good performance and the latest wireless networking standard, 802.11ac. An extremely well-designed and feature-rich user interface caps off this premium, dual-band router, which can also operate as an access point or wireless bridge. Takeaway features include Web filtering and parental controls, Quality-of-Service, scheduled Internet access, and Eco mode, an energy-savings option that allows you to turn off LED, wired LAN, or WLAN on a schedule. Buffalo Technologies stepped up its game since its debut 11ac router, delivering a more mature 11ac router complete with great new management software, good performance, and lots of cool features.—Samara Lynn

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NAS (SOHO/PROSUMER) Seagate Central    $159.99 to $219.99 $129.99 at Amazon

The Seagate Central is simply the best fixed, single-drive NAS devices we've tested. It ships in 2TB ($159.99 street), 3TB ($179.99 street), and 4TB ($219 street) models, and supports Windows XP (and later) and Mac OS X 10.4.9 (and later). Use it to share and stream files throughout your home network. Seagate also provides customers a complimentary remote access service; all that's required is setting up an online account for anywhere, anytime access to any data stored on your Central devices.—SL

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NAS (SMB) Synology DiskStation DS1812+   $1,000 $839.99 at Amazon

Synology's DiskStation DS1812+ is one of the select products in the annals of PCMag history to achieve a perfect 5 stars out of 5 score. With capacity of up to 32TB (expandable up to 72TB!), and great performance, particularly with write speeds, this box can take just about anything an SMB could think to throw at a NAS. The often-dreary task of storage management is brightened by Synology's Hybrid RAID technology and the ease of configuring its fault tolerance.—SL

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NETWORK UTILITIES WD My Cloud (for Android)   Free

The WD My Cloud app is a companion app to Western Digital's My Cloud NAS device. The app delivers a surprisingly robust level of data management as well as anywhere, anytime, remote access. It's a must-have software addition for users of the My Cloud NAS, especially as we ease into the post-PC era and need our mobile devices to interact seamlessly with our home networking devices. A well-designed interface makes managing the My Cloud from any smartphone a snap, letting you perform tasks such as uploading and downloading files, adding folders, sharing files with others, and more.— SL

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NETWORK APPLIANCES Kerio Operator 1210   $900

The Kerio Operator Box 1210 is a full-featured VoIP for small business in a compact box. Testing proved that Kerio paid attention to security, with features such as blocking an IP address after a specified number of incorrect SIP login attempts, and changing SIP passwords for specific extensions to block malicious activity. We also like that all call-related data is available for reports and all system activity is logged. VoIP administrators can also look at server health, review recorded calls, and look at information about how long customers are spending in call queues.—SL

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NETWORK MANAGEMENT TOOLS Network Toolbox (for iOS)   $5.99

The well-designed Network Toolbox for iOS turns an iOS device into a networking toolkit. It's a one-stop central console chockfull of networking utilities and tools such as SHODAN, FTP, Telnet, Ping, and more. It's so potentially powerful in fact, that upon install, the app flashes the warning: Not intended to assist with analyzing remote sites with the intention of breaking into or exploiting services on those sites. The warning makes sense: Network Toolbox provides just about every utility a would-be hacker needs to access a poorly secured network.—SL

DIGITAL HEALTH/FITNESS

	HEALTH GADGET Withings Pulse    $99.95 $99.00 at Amazon
The Withings Pulse takes everything you love about existing top-notch activity trackers and adds a nifty built-in heart rate sensor, giving you a more comprehensive picture of your overall health. Its elegant design, informative display, and wealth of features make it our new favorite activity tracker.—Eugene Kim

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	HEALTH APP Runtastic PRO (for Android)    $4.99
The Runtastic PRO app tracks running, cycling, hiking, and walking. It spits out incredible maps and graphs about your activities and routes accurately and consistently. The PRO version ensures you get auto-pause extra modes, and the ability to search new routes uploaded by other users.—Jill Duffy

 

MOBILE APPS

IPHONE APP Evernote for iPhone    Free

When it comes to staying organized and keeping track of ideas and other information, Evernote for iPhone does the heavy lifting for you. Integrate it with one or two other apps and you can't do better. Its online synchronization is effortless and the search is outstanding; it'll even use OCR to search terms inside images, even with the free version. (A premium account with lots of extras is $5 a month or $45 a year.)—Jill Duffy

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	IPAD APP Flipboard    Free
It's been years since Flipboard came out on the iPad and it's still the best aggregator of news, social networking, links, video, and images on the platform. Even the page swiping is impressively fast. In version 2, users can create and share personalized magazines—and recipients don't even need to have Flipboard installed to read them.—Eric Griffith

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ANDROID APP Swype    Free

The walled-garden of iOS has grown some amazing apps, but the open field of Android has invited incredible innovation at even the most basic level—such as Swype. This application lets you drag ("swype") your finger between letters to create words (no special hand gestures required), and even predicts your next word before you type or swype. Swype also supports gestures for actions like cut and paste and features several other input methods. It sounds simple but it's revolutionary and quickly makes thumb-typing feel antiquated.—Max Eddy

 

SECURITY

PASSWORDS Dashlane 2.0    Free on a single device or $19.99

Dashlane manages and protects all of your passwords. Version 2.0 is better than ever, with automatic form field capture, security breach alerts, secure sharing of login credentials, and a new browser extension for Firefox and Chrome. It generates strong passwords, rates passwords as you type, helps you replace weak passwords, and even keeps a record of your online purchases. You can securely share logins with other Dashlane users and double-secure your data using Google Authenticator. New to Dashlane? It includes built-in training to walk you through all its password management features.—Neil J. Rubenking

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SECURITY SUITE Norton Internet Security (2014)    $79.99 $19.00 at Amazon

Norton's excellent blocking of malicious and fraudulent websites will keep you away from danger; it's the touchstone we measure other anti-phishing tools against. Its intelligent firewall sets permissions for known good programs and monitors unknowns for risky behaviors, without ever popping up a confusing query. Multi-layered antivirus protection fends off new threats and roots out those already present. It keeps almost all spam out of your inbox without discarding valid mail. All the components of this suite are top-notch and it does the job without trampling your system's performance.—NJR

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STANDALONE ANTIVIRUS Bitdefender Antivirus Plus (2014)    $39.95

Bitdefender's antivirus technology routinely takes top scores in tests by independent antivirus labs, and also scored well in PCMag's hands-on testing. It's one of a very few products that detects phishing sites better than Norton and it can optionally prevent transmission of private data out of your computer. The new Bitdefender Wallet stores passwords and personal data, the SafePay secure browser protects financial transactions, and Bitdefender SafeGo flags dangerous links in your Facebook profile. It even finds unpatched security vulnerabilities. There's definitely a reason for the "Plus" in this product's name.—NJR

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PARENTAL CONTROL OME-Kids    $9.95

Setting up OME-Kids email accounts for your children gives them access to spam-free email while enabling you to keep a watchful eye on their correspondence. Each OME-Kids account gets the same extremely accurate spam filtering as the Editors' Choice OnlyMyEmail Personal. In addition you can control your child's email activity at different levels. You can hold all incoming mail pending parental approval, review received mail, or get a BCC of all messages your child sends. As your child gets older you can step down the monitoring level and allow more privacy.—NJR

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MOBILE SECURITY Bitdefender Mobile Security and Antivirus 1.2.3 (for Android)    Free app; $9.99 per year

To fully protect your phone, a security app needs to bring together protection from malicious software as well as tools to keep your phone safe from loss and theft. Bitdefender for Android does both gracefully, and at a reasonable $9.99 per year—far less than many other big-name competitors. With it, you can also use SMS commands to take control of your phone when it's missing and evaluate how much of your private information each app accesses. It's lightweight and laser-focused on security.—Max Eddy

 

SOFTWARE & INTERNET

	CLOUD STORAGE & SYNC Google Drive    Free
Part office suite and part file-syncing service, Google Drive retains all the best features and core functionality of its predecessor, Google Docs, while also upping the ante on how much collaboration it enables. That it takes on Dropbox and Skydrive so well to sync files between computers and the cloud is almost just icing on the cake. It is one sweet package.—Jill Duffy

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PHOTOGRAPHY/DESIGN Adobe Photoshop CC    $19.99 per month

The gold standard in digital image editing never ceases to amaze us with its ability to top the previous year's release. Not only is 2013's Photoshop CC the first version to be offered in subscription-only format for a reasonable $19.99 a month, but it offers exciting new imaging possibilities with the impressive Camera Shake Reduction feature, Smart Sharpen, Intelligent Up Sampling, and Camera Raw as a filter. Many of the new features target professional designers with more CSS support, automated asset slicing, and conditional actions. No longer are high-end tools restricted to Photoshop Extended edition; you get every Photoshop tool with the subscription, including 3D, video, and image analysis.—Michael Muchmore

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OPERATING SYSTEM Apple OS X 10.9 Mavericks    Free

Microsoft made some impressive strides this year with Windows 8.1, but OS X remains the smoothest, most reliable, most convenient, and most manageable consumer-level desktop operating system on the planet. Top-notch, unobtrusive security is a major plus; so is its tight integration with social media and the ability to run Windows applications through third-party apps. Mavericks is loaded with useful features and, best of all, it's completely free.—MM

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UTILITY VMWare Fusion 6    $49.99

There comes a time in every Mac user's life when they just have to access something on Windows. Okay, maybe not every Mac user, but more than enough to account for the proliferation of programs out there that allow you to run a full version of Windows (or Linux) virtually, right on your Mac. The smoothest-running and least obtrusive on the market is VMWare Fusion 6. It's compatible with hundreds of operating system "guests," so try them all.—Eric Griffith

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VIDEO CyberLink PowerDirector 12    $99.99 $84.99 at CyberLink

CyberLink PowerDirector is a longtime favorite among prosumer video editors. It offers impressive performance, an intuitive interface, and lots of editing goodies. The latest version now has multicam viewing (up to four angles), 3D and 4K editing and output, direct uploading to sharing sites, and can even author a Blu-Ray disc. Considering its price, even serious video editors should look no further.—EG

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WEB BROWSER Google Chrome 27    Free

Our speedy Editors' Choice browser made impressive strides in 2013, offering new support for WebRTC which lets the browser act like Skype, using your PC's camera and microphone for real-time communication. The search ad giant also added a new set of "app" capabilities, with new desktop widgets that actually run outside of the browser window. All this is added to the ever-increasing lead in HTML5 support, speed, and simplicity that distinguish Chrome.—Michael Muchmore

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	WEB APP ifttt    Free
If This Then That, or ifttt, is all you need to remember because this amazingly simple yet powerful service can automate just about anything you do with other Web-based apps, from backing up your photos on Facebook to sending you text message reminders of upcoming appointments.—JD

 

GAMES & TOYS

XBOX GAME Grand Theft Auto V    $59.99 $54.95 at Amazon

GTA V represents the pinnacle of Rockstar Games' design talent. Neighborhoods, mini-games, animations, voice-overs, radio stations—anything you can think of—are wonderfully realized in the fictional city of Los Santos. GTA V even has multiple protagonists you can switch between at nearly any time—a first for the series. As always, Rockstar Games delivers a killer GTA soundtrack, one that contains a satisfying mix of pop, rock, rap, and other genres. Factor in a gang-centric online mode and Grand Theft Auto V becomes the ultimate crime caper of this console generation.—Jeffrey L. Wilson

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	PORTABLE GAMING DEVICE Nintendo 2DS   $129.99 $141.70 at Amazon
Nintendo's newest handheld is a scaled-back, kid-friendly version of the excellent 3DS and 3DS XL systems. It can't display 3D pictures, but it can play every game and run every app the 3DS can. Its lower price and hinge-free design makes it very tempting for gamers on a budget or parents who don't want to spend $170-$200 on a device their kids will throw around.—Will Greenwald

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	PC GAME Bioshock Infinite   $39.99 $31.98 at Amazon
The third installment in Irrational Games' impressive saga exploring the devastating effects of isolation (and isolationism) on the human psyche, BioShock Infinite combines familiar gameplay elements with exciting new mechanics, an engrossing story, and stunning graphics that make it surprisingly complex and powerful even by the high standards of the BioShock series.—Matthew Murray

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PLAYSTATION GAME The Last of Us   $59.99 $58.32 at Amazon

Naughty Dog, the development house behind the Uncharted and Jax and Daxter series, has created what many have hailed as "the last great PlayStation 3 game." The Last of Us combines action and survival gameplay to tell a character-driven tale about a world destroyed by the Cordyceps fungus, a growth that transforms humanity into zombie-like monsters. (The fungus actually exists in the real world and has unusual effects on its hosts.) Moving and action-packed, The Last of Us deserves to be in all PlayStation 3 gamers' libraries.—JLW

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3DS/VITA GAME Fire Emblem: Awakening   $39.99 $39.48 at Amazon

The Nintendo 3DS' Fire Emblem: Awakening isn't radically different from the other games in the strategy RPG series, but there's a refinement on display that makes the title worth picking up. Awakening, like other Fire Emblem games before it, focuses on tactics more so than the grind-heavy gameplay of the Final Fantasy Tactics and Disgaea series. Combat units have their own unique classes, and almost every fighter in your squad has a name, unique art style, personality, and story. A big part of the Fire Emblem experience is perma-death; when your units die, they die for good, so don't get too attached to any one character.—JLW

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ANDROID GAME Spaceteam   Free

Originally an iPhone-only title, Spaceteam debuted this year on Android and simply blew away the competition with its sheer oddity. You play over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth with people in the same room, and the game centers around shouting things aloud to your teammates. Things like "jiggle emergency whittler!" or "set Shiftsanitizer to one!" It's a very silly game, and the lively nature of it makes it a joy to play. Bust it out any time you're around others with cell phones (i.e. all the time).— Max Eddy

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IPHONE/IPOD TOUCH GAME Year Walk   Free

Year Walk is not like most other mobile games. Instead of brief, almost disposable interactions, this Swedish horror game pulls you in and challenges you with devilish puzzles that require you to use your phone in unusual ways. With starkly beautiful cut-out graphics, the game does a great job establishing a moody atmosphere. It has a few cheap (though effective!) scares, but it feels like a self-conscious effort to make the game scarier. And don't forget to investigate the Year Walk Companion app.— ME

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IPAD GAME XCOM: Enemy Unknown $19.99

XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a hit console game about a paramilitary organization tasked with defending Earth from an alien invasion. It made its mobile debut this year and it's as good as its bigger brother (minus the detailed graphics of course). You recruit new troops, discover new high-tech weaponry for vanquishing the enemy, and battle it out in randomly generated levels. A recent update added an asynchronous multiplayer mode for mixing it up with friends on the digital battlefield.—JLW

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IPAD GAME LEGO Mindstorms EV3 $349.99 $349.95 at Amazon

The newest version of LEGO's Mindstorms robotics kit is also the best, with a more powerful brain you can program to do anything. The sample robots start deceptively simple and become increasingly complex, and soon you'll find yourself (or your kids) building unique creations and programming them from the ground up. It's an excellent tech toy for adults and a fantastic science and learning toy for children.—WG

Source : PCMag

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