Having been a somewhat early adopter of SSDs, I got bitten a couple of time by the JMicron bug
Everything I've read so far suggests that if you are buying SSDs you want to go with Intel.
Note that this new Intel SSD is the first Intel-branded SSD that uses a non-Intel controller. It uses the same Marvell controller used in the well-regarded Crucial RealSSD C300.
I've also read about Intel's great combo of performance and robustness, but that reputation is mostly a result of Intel's controllers. JMicron, a manufacturer of SSD controllers, got its buggy reputation from early JMicron-based SSDs. Marvell's controller performance has been proven in many reviews, but Intel's "endorsement" gives me more confidence in Marvell's reliability and robustness.
I think that I'm going to switch to either a Nexus 2 phone or a Nokia N900, then buy a prepaid contract with AT&T or Tmobile.
In case you haven't heard, Dell recently dropped the price of their unlocked 5-inch Streak to $400 and updated its OS to Android 2.2 Froyo (updated review with photos and video here).
I personally like the larger screen for "tablet" stuff, even though I might look like a dork holding a "large" phone against my ear for phone calls.
Apple said in February 2007 that they would offer DRM free music if allowed. EMI allowed them in May 2007.
Yahoo Music chief Dave Goldberg said in February 2006 (at the Music 2.0 conference) that the music companies should sell DRM-free music: "Rights management restrictions have created a barrier for consumers, he said, making it a hurdle to transfer music to portable devices, and creating incompatibility between music services and MP3 players."
Bill Gates also expressed his problems with the state of music DRM in December 2006 in an informal Q&A discussing the Mix Conference: "People should just buy a cd and rip it. You are legal then."
Actions speak louder than words I guess. Amazon didn't offer it until January 2008. So technically Apple was the first to offer DRM-free music.
"Technically," eMusic and Amie Street offered DRM-free music way before Apple, but I understand why we aren't counting them in this thread.
However, Yahoo Music acted ("experimented," actually) by offering Jessica Simpson's "A Public Affair" as a DRM-free MP3 file in July 2006, offred an entire Jesse McCartney album in September 2006, and a Norah Jones single in December 2006.
All this before Steve Jobs made his "bold" statement in Febraury 2007.
That dispels your theory that Amazon was the leader.
Interestigly, Amazon was rumored to be considering an MP3-only music download store in January 2007 (at the latest), before Steve Jobs made his statement.
Re:Popcornhour Networked Media Players are the Bes
on
Apple vs. Google TVs
·
· Score: 1
The C-200 supports NFS, SMB, FTP, and multiple streaming protocols.
This looks like what I'd like -- do you ever have it play DVDs from ISOs over SMB shares, and does it do it OK without barfing/freezing/etc?
Another option you might want to look at is Patriot's $99 Box Office Media Player. I don't have one, but I just read about it in Anandtech's new Apple TV review as an alternative that "will play virtually everything you have, regardless of container or format."
The specs page lists support for UPnP streaming and "[MPEG-2] MPG/MPEG/VOB/ISO/TS/TP/M2TS", but this avsforum post indicates it might meet your needs. From the post:
"Will not see any of my.iso or.mkv when using the UPnP feature, but sees all when using the "NET" feature (SMB share)."
"Handles DVD.iso very well, menu functionality is retained for those that have it."
Yes, that's a $20 discount per month for a talk/text/data plan. However, T-Mobile's cheapest talk/text/data plan seems $10 more expensive ($80 with contract, $60 without contract) compared to other carriers (e.g. Sprint's $70/mo with contract).
This is why I purchased my Nexus One from Google up front instead of the T-Mobile and Google deal with reduced pricing.
What I like about an unsubsidized Nexus One is the option to only buy a calling plan and just use Wi-fi for the other functions (like an iPod Touch). Subsidized smartphones require you to have a $30 per month data plan, but the Nexus One would allow me to buy data only when I need it, right?
If you don't want to click a YouTube link, it's a cringe-worthy song by a self-described "huge, huge Apple fan". The Engadget live blog commented on how weird that moment was ("Oh my." "Wow."), but you really need to see and hear it to get the full brain-shrinking experience.
And according to a Business Insider story, the Wall Street Journal also has a story (with an anonymous source) that makes similar claims:
"Apple engineers were aware of the risks associated with the new antenna design as early as a year ago, but Chief Executive Steve Jobs liked the design so much that Apple went ahead with its development, said another person familiar with the matter."
So I guess both Bloomberg and the WSJ have anonymous sources who are full of shit.
ironically, CR still rates it HIGHER than any other smart phone for the US market!"
TFA linked to in the summary (I know, nobody reads it) explains it better than that snarky blog post:
"The iPhone scored high, in part because it sports the sharpest display and best video camera we've seen on any phone, and even outshines its high-scoring predecessors with improved battery life and such new features as a front-facing camera for video chats and a built-in gyroscope that turns the phone into a super-responsive game controller. But Apple needs to come up with a permanent--and free--fix for the antenna problem before we can recommend the iPhone 4." (emphasis added)
ATi's numbering has been pretty easy to follow lately.
I agree, but the key word is lately. I despised product names like Radeon X600 (based on Radeon 9600) and Radeon 9200 (based on Radeon 8500).
The first number is the series, this tells you the basics in terms of features, process, and so on. 5 series are DX11 40nm parts, 4 series are DX 10.1 40nm parts, etc.
Still mostly true. My heart broke a little when I read about Mobility Radeon HD 5165/5145, which are DX 10.1 parts.
Nvidia GPU, Flash 10.1. That's why it didn't suck.
ATI GPUs are unsupported right now, Intel GPUs never will be, for Flash 10.1 acceleration.
I think your info might be outdated. In early betas, recent NVIDIA GPUs had the best support, but support for ATI and Intel GPUs were added and improved with every beta and release candidate.
The final version of Flash 10.1 (for Windows) supports hardware acceleration for ATI Radeon HD 3000, 4000, and 5000 series.. It also supports Intel GMA 4000 series (e.g. G45 chipset), HD Graphics, and GMA 500.
Microsoft now owns and controls the netbook segment and they are doing a good job at killing it off. More specifically, they dictate what screen size a "netbook" has, what the maxium processor size can be and other specifics which pin the device down.
This claim is more than a year and a half out-of-date. Before September 2008, cheaper "netbook pricing" for Windows XP Home limited the screen size to 10.2", hard drive to 80GB, RAM to 1GB, and CPU to single-core. In September 2008, MS updated the screen limit ot 14.1" and hard drive to 160GB.
Besides, Windows 7 Starter has gradually replaced Windows XP Home as the most popular pre-loaded netbook OS. Also, as another replier mentioned, Intel sets hardware limits for Atom netbooks, probably because they don't want to cannibalize sales of higher margin Core-based processors.
My biggest complaint is the market's price fixing on text messages. There is no way in hell that unlimited texting warrants a $30 price tag when the iPhone comes with a $30 unlimited data plan. Yes, you can play FPS, stream music, videos, browse the web, etc, but those 8 digit text messages are somehow made separate and charged at the same price?
If you include Sprint in "the market," then the price of text messages (when you have a data plan) is not "fixed." Sprint's $30 data plan (which does seem to be price-fixed) includes unlimited text messages. Too bad they don't have the "coolest" phones right now.
If you plan to see the 3D IMAX version (seems worth it for this movie), make sure you know whether or not you're getting the huge 72-foot version or the "just a slightly bigger than normal" version (called "IMAX Digital"). Both versions cost extra, but many unwitting customers have been feeling ripped off by the smaller "IMAX Digital" version.
A local (to me) example: the Metreon in San Francisco is showing Avatar: An IMAX 3D Experience on its huge "real" IMAX screen. Just across the Bay Bridge, AMC Bay Street is showing Alice in Wonderland: An IMAX 3D Experience on its smaller "fake" IMAX screen. Note that AMC will sell you tickets online, but they don't clearly indicate which IMAX version is being used.
So they found something in 4 of 7 B samples. They found NOTHING in 7 of 7 A samples.
Sounds like the test is bullshit. Results appear non-repeatable with identical samples.
Actually, the poorly-written ESPN article says 1 of 7 "A" samples tested positive using a different testing method from the "B" samples:
July 20: Stage 17, a mountain stage finishing in Morzine: This was Landis' comeback stage in which he left the peloton behind with a solo breakaway. He made up 8 minutes and scrambled back into second place overall, 30 seconds behind Pereiro.
USADA: Landis' "A" and "B" samples exceeded the allowable 4-to-1 testosterone-to-epitestosterone ratio and showed the presence of synthetic testosterone.
Also, as this article explains, different tests are used for the "A" and "B" samples. The "A" tests are just a "rough" test that measures the ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone (T/E ratio) to see if it's abnormal enough to trigger the more stringent "B" test (which actually measures for synthetic testosterone). A "normal" T/E ratio is 1-to-1, but anything below 4-to-1 is declared "negative," so a steroid user can pass the "A" test as long as they don't overdo it.
During the initial Tour de France testing, only 1 "B" sample was tested at all because only 1 "A" sample tested positive (triggering the "B" test). All of the "B" samples were tested later because the USADA requested it for the trial.
Can someone who knows these products tell me if these laptops will work well with free software, or are they are disaster like the Intel GMA500(right?) based laptops?
Since no one who "knows" these products is giving good answers...
By "free" do you mean free drivers as well as OS? If you're okay with proprietary drivers, then Phoronix's articles on ION/Atom seem to show that they work well (by Linux standards) with Ubuntu and NVIDIA's proprietary drivers. 3D acceleration and video acceleration (VDPAU) both seem to work.
Newegg: $105 I'm still a little confused though as to what, exactly it is that you don't get with the system builder edition that you would get with the full retail version.
An OEM or "system builder" version of Windows is tied to the computer on which it is initially installed. Unlike retail versions, OEM versions cannot be transferred to another computer, even if you remove it from the first computer.
OEM versions include either 32-bit Windows or 64-bit (not both), so you must choose before you buy. Retail versions come with both.
OEM versions cannot be returned once opened. That makes the 32/64 bit decision important.
No pretty box, no user manual, and no free support. Experienced computer users don't need that stuff, anyway. OEM users still get free windows updates, MS's support web site, knowledge base, and paid support options.
OEM versions only allow clean installations. No "in place upgrades" are allowed, which no sane techie would do anyway. Windows Easy Transfer is available for those that want to easily transfer files, settings, and accounts.
To me, the only important limitation is the no-transfer limit. However, since the OEM version is roughly half the price of the full retail (not upgrade) version, I don't think it's a big deal. Also, I've read in many forums (including Slashdot) that MS will provide a new activation code for OEM versions if you say you "had to replace the motherboard" on your PC.
The patent application was filed on June 30th 2008. Google released Latitude February 4th, 2009. This would seem to indicate Apple was first,
To be more clear, on that date Google released Latitude for 4 mobile platforms (Android, Blackberry, Symbian, and Windows Mobile) in 27 countries and 42 languages. Apple hasn't released a product yet.
but there's a key difference between the products. The Apple patent specifically deals with sharing location information by text message and only by text message, Google Latitude makes use of mobile internet connections.
That sounds very similar to Dodgeball, which was aquired by Google in 2005. From the Wikipedia page:
Dodgeball was a location-based social networking software provider for mobile devices. Users text their location to the service, which then notifies them of crushes, friends, friends' friends and interesting venues nearby.[1] Dodgeball was shut down by Google in March 2009 and replaced with Google Latitude.
At first I was excited and expected different iPhones set to play sounds of different instruments along with a piece that had some sort of melody or at least interesting harmonics. 5 minutes of variations on a sine wave was underwhelming.
I don't find pop music very exciting, but The Mentalists (a 4-woman quartet) sound like four Wendy Carloses compared to those Michigan students:
The apps they used were DigiDrummer Lite (drums), Retro Synth (bass), MiniSynth (two keyboards on two iPhones), and Ocarina (electric flute-like instrument that required blowing into the iPhone's mic). They sang with their real voices, of course.
According to consumer reports, the opposite has been true for a long time. Dell used to have terrible rates, and as of the last study, was doing poorly for desktops, but near the top for laptops. Apple consistently scores the highest for laptop reliability among all companies.
That's not true. According to the 2009 Consumer Reports Buying Guide (page 221), Apple laptops had the lowest reliability (but not "meaningfully" worse) among the eight companies listed from their Annual Product Reliability Survey.
The data was based on 75,576 survey responses and showed "the percentage of the following brands of computers bought between
2003 and 2007 that have ever been repaired or had a serious problem. Differences of less than 3 points are not meaningful." The brands, in order of fewest repairs to more repairs, were: Lenovo (20%), Compaq (20%), Sony (21%), Toshiba (21%), Dell (22%), HP (22%), Gateway (22%), and Apple (23%).
The buying guide (and other Consumer Reports articles) can be downloaded for free by most public library card holders (EBSCO database).
How about testing some malware removal programs? Malwarebytes, Adaware, Spybot?
How should we define "malware?" AV-Comparatives.org chose (for now) not to include "adware, spyware, dialers, tools and rogue programs" (which they define as "Potentially Unwanted Applications"). They do include viruses, trojans, backdoors, rootkits, exploits, DDoS, flooders, sniffers, and nukers (from their "methodology" pdf file).
Also, their "Removal-Test" page makes it clear that they are testing "Anti-Virus" products. I guess they are using the term "malware" because we expect "anti-virus" products to detect/remove more than just viruses (e.g. trojans, rootkits, etc.)
From what I've seen it's probably one of the best distros for KDE, better than Fedora and Kubuntu.
I agree that Mandriva is a great distro for users that prefer KDE, but some users are more comfortable with a "big name" distro like openSUSE (which should be mentioned with Fedora and Kubuntu).
KDE will now be the "default" desktop in openSUSE 11.2 (due in 7 days). That link also describes "KDE integration" for GNOME-based apps like Firefox and OpenOffice.org.
Anyhoo, I think it's worth trying both in "live distro" form.
Slashdot Mirror
Having been a somewhat early adopter of SSDs, I got bitten a couple of time by the JMicron bug
Everything I've read so far suggests that if you are buying SSDs you want to go with Intel.
Note that this new Intel SSD is the first Intel-branded SSD that uses a non-Intel controller. It uses the same Marvell controller used in the well-regarded Crucial RealSSD C300.
I've also read about Intel's great combo of performance and robustness, but that reputation is mostly a result of Intel's controllers. JMicron, a manufacturer of SSD controllers, got its buggy reputation from early JMicron-based SSDs. Marvell's controller performance has been proven in many reviews, but Intel's "endorsement" gives me more confidence in Marvell's reliability and robustness.
I think that I'm going to switch to either a Nexus 2 phone or a Nokia N900, then buy a prepaid contract with AT&T or Tmobile.
In case you haven't heard, Dell recently dropped the price of their unlocked 5-inch Streak to $400 and updated its OS to Android 2.2 Froyo (updated review with photos and video here).
I personally like the larger screen for "tablet" stuff, even though I might look like a dork holding a "large" phone against my ear for phone calls.
Apple said in February 2007 that they would offer DRM free music if allowed. EMI allowed them in May 2007.
Yahoo Music chief Dave Goldberg said in February 2006 (at the Music 2.0 conference) that the music companies should sell DRM-free music: "Rights management restrictions have created a barrier for consumers, he said, making it a hurdle to transfer music to portable devices, and creating incompatibility between music services and MP3 players."
Bill Gates also expressed his problems with the state of music DRM in December 2006 in an informal Q&A discussing the Mix Conference: "People should just buy a cd and rip it. You are legal then."
Actions speak louder than words I guess. Amazon didn't offer it until January 2008. So technically Apple was the first to offer DRM-free music.
"Technically," eMusic and Amie Street offered DRM-free music way before Apple, but I understand why we aren't counting them in this thread.
However, Yahoo Music acted ("experimented," actually) by offering Jessica Simpson's "A Public Affair" as a DRM-free MP3 file in July 2006, offred an entire Jesse McCartney album in September 2006, and a Norah Jones single in December 2006.
All this before Steve Jobs made his "bold" statement in Febraury 2007.
That dispels your theory that Amazon was the leader.
Interestigly, Amazon was rumored to be considering an MP3-only music download store in January 2007 (at the latest), before Steve Jobs made his statement.
Popcornhour http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/index.php?pluginoption=catalog is was ahead of the game. The model C200 networked media player will play back any file format and has provision for a local hard drive or blue ray drive.
The C-200 supports NFS, SMB, FTP, and multiple streaming protocols.
This looks like what I'd like -- do you ever have it play DVDs from ISOs over SMB shares, and does it do it OK without barfing/freezing/etc?
Another option you might want to look at is Patriot's $99 Box Office Media Player. I don't have one, but I just read about it in Anandtech's new Apple TV review as an alternative that "will play virtually everything you have, regardless of container or format."
The specs page lists support for UPnP streaming and "[MPEG-2] MPG/MPEG/VOB/ISO/TS/TP/M2TS", but this avsforum post indicates it might meet your needs. From the post:
There is such a carrier in the US. T-Mobile offers the same plan at $20 less per month and no contract when you just ask for a SIM.
Here's a link to T-Mobile's "Individual Plans" showing the no-contract, no-subsidy discounts: http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/plans/Cell-Phone-Plans.aspx?catgroup=Individual&WT.z_shop_plansLP=individual
Yes, that's a $20 discount per month for a talk/text/data plan. However, T-Mobile's cheapest talk/text/data plan seems $10 more expensive ($80 with contract, $60 without contract) compared to other carriers (e.g. Sprint's $70/mo with contract).
This is why I purchased my Nexus One from Google up front instead of the T-Mobile and Google deal with reduced pricing.
What I like about an unsubsidized Nexus One is the option to only buy a calling plan and just use Wi-fi for the other functions (like an iPod Touch). Subsidized smartphones require you to have a $30 per month data plan, but the Nexus One would allow me to buy data only when I need it, right?
Someone has to post the oblig. link: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/5/01/
This whole press conference was weird, including the errors in the slides he was showing...
You don't know just HOW weird it was until you've seen/heard the video/song that Apple played at the press conference as Steve took the stage:
If you don't want to click a YouTube link, it's a cringe-worthy song by a self-described "huge, huge Apple fan". The Engadget live blog commented on how weird that moment was ("Oh my." "Wow."), but you really need to see and hear it to get the full brain-shrinking experience.
So I guess both Bloomberg and the WSJ have anonymous sources who are full of shit.
ironically, CR still rates it HIGHER than any other smart phone for the US market!"
TFA linked to in the summary (I know, nobody reads it) explains it better than that snarky blog post:
I agree, but the key word is lately. I despised product names like Radeon X600 (based on Radeon 9600) and Radeon 9200 (based on Radeon 8500).
Still mostly true. My heart broke a little when I read about Mobility Radeon HD 5165/5145, which are DX 10.1 parts.
I think your info might be outdated. In early betas, recent NVIDIA GPUs had the best support, but support for ATI and Intel GPUs were added and improved with every beta and release candidate.
The final version of Flash 10.1 (for Windows) supports hardware acceleration for ATI Radeon HD 3000, 4000, and 5000 series.. It also supports Intel GMA 4000 series (e.g. G45 chipset), HD Graphics, and GMA 500.
Source: http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/systemreqs/#video
Microsoft now owns and controls the netbook segment and they are doing a good job at killing it off. More specifically, they dictate what screen size a "netbook" has, what the maxium processor size can be and other specifics which pin the device down.
This claim is more than a year and a half out-of-date. Before September 2008, cheaper "netbook pricing" for Windows XP Home limited the screen size to 10.2", hard drive to 80GB, RAM to 1GB, and CPU to single-core. In September 2008, MS updated the screen limit ot 14.1" and hard drive to 160GB.
Besides, Windows 7 Starter has gradually replaced Windows XP Home as the most popular pre-loaded netbook OS. Also, as another replier mentioned, Intel sets hardware limits for Atom netbooks, probably because they don't want to cannibalize sales of higher margin Core-based processors.
My biggest complaint is the market's price fixing on text messages. There is no way in hell that unlimited texting warrants a $30 price tag when the iPhone comes with a $30 unlimited data plan. Yes, you can play FPS, stream music, videos, browse the web, etc, but those 8 digit text messages are somehow made separate and charged at the same price?
If you include Sprint in "the market," then the price of text messages (when you have a data plan) is not "fixed." Sprint's $30 data plan (which does seem to be price-fixed) includes unlimited text messages. Too bad they don't have the "coolest" phones right now.
I can't wait to see this shit posted again (and modded up) in a few months!
If you plan to see the 3D IMAX version (seems worth it for this movie), make sure you know whether or not you're getting the huge 72-foot version or the "just a slightly bigger than normal" version (called "IMAX Digital"). Both versions cost extra, but many unwitting customers have been feeling ripped off by the smaller "IMAX Digital" version.
A local (to me) example: the Metreon in San Francisco is showing Avatar: An IMAX 3D Experience on its huge "real" IMAX screen. Just across the Bay Bridge, AMC Bay Street is showing Alice in Wonderland: An IMAX 3D Experience on its smaller "fake" IMAX screen. Note that AMC will sell you tickets online, but they don't clearly indicate which IMAX version is being used.
So they found something in 4 of 7 B samples. They found NOTHING in 7 of 7 A samples.
Sounds like the test is bullshit. Results appear non-repeatable with identical samples.
Actually, the poorly-written ESPN article says 1 of 7 "A" samples tested positive using a different testing method from the "B" samples:
USADA: Landis' "A" and "B" samples exceeded the allowable 4-to-1 testosterone-to-epitestosterone ratio and showed the presence of synthetic testosterone.
Also, as this article explains, different tests are used for the "A" and "B" samples. The "A" tests are just a "rough" test that measures the ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone (T/E ratio) to see if it's abnormal enough to trigger the more stringent "B" test (which actually measures for synthetic testosterone). A "normal" T/E ratio is 1-to-1, but anything below 4-to-1 is declared "negative," so a steroid user can pass the "A" test as long as they don't overdo it.
During the initial Tour de France testing, only 1 "B" sample was tested at all because only 1 "A" sample tested positive (triggering the "B" test). All of the "B" samples were tested later because the USADA requested it for the trial.
Can someone who knows these products tell me if these laptops will work well with free software, or are they are disaster like the Intel GMA500(right?) based laptops?
Since no one who "knows" these products is giving good answers...
By "free" do you mean free drivers as well as OS? If you're okay with proprietary drivers, then Phoronix's articles on ION/Atom seem to show that they work well (by Linux standards) with Ubuntu and NVIDIA's proprietary drivers. 3D acceleration and video acceleration (VDPAU) both seem to work.
Newegg: $105 I'm still a little confused though as to what, exactly it is that you don't get with the system builder edition that you would get with the full retail version.
Ars Technica had a nice article explaining the differences when Vista was released: "Buying OEM versions of Windows Vista: the facts"
My summary (in order of importance):
To me, the only important limitation is the no-transfer limit. However, since the OEM version is roughly half the price of the full retail (not upgrade) version, I don't think it's a big deal. Also, I've read in many forums (including Slashdot) that MS will provide a new activation code for OEM versions if you say you "had to replace the motherboard" on your PC.
The patent application was filed on June 30th 2008. Google released Latitude February 4th, 2009. This would seem to indicate Apple was first,
To be more clear, on that date Google released Latitude for 4 mobile platforms (Android, Blackberry, Symbian, and Windows Mobile) in 27 countries and 42 languages. Apple hasn't released a product yet.
but there's a key difference between the products. The Apple patent specifically deals with sharing location information by text message and only by text message, Google Latitude makes use of mobile internet connections.
That sounds very similar to Dodgeball, which was aquired by Google in 2005. From the Wikipedia page:
All of Apple's notebooks at least are in fact machined from a single slab of aluminum.
In fact, Apple's $1000 notebook is still made of plastic. It's supposedly a good polycarbonate plastic (think CD/DVD plastic, but thicker).
At first I was excited and expected different iPhones set to play sounds of different instruments along with a piece that had some sort of melody or at least interesting harmonics. 5 minutes of variations on a sine wave was underwhelming.
I don't find pop music very exciting, but The Mentalists (a 4-woman quartet) sound like four Wendy Carloses compared to those Michigan students:
The apps they used were DigiDrummer Lite (drums), Retro Synth (bass), MiniSynth (two keyboards on two iPhones), and Ocarina (electric flute-like instrument that required blowing into the iPhone's mic). They sang with their real voices, of course.
That's my plan. I've got the cheap, big disk... I just have to buy the small, fast SSD.
You have heard about Kingston's 40GB SSD that uses Intel's X25-M G2 controller, right?
It's supposed to be $115 ($130 with 3.5" adapter kit), but it's hard to find in stock now.
According to consumer reports, the opposite has been true for a long time. Dell used to have terrible rates, and as of the last study, was doing poorly for desktops, but near the top for laptops. Apple consistently scores the highest for laptop reliability among all companies.
That's not true. According to the 2009 Consumer Reports Buying Guide (page 221), Apple laptops had the lowest reliability (but not "meaningfully" worse) among the eight companies listed from their Annual Product Reliability Survey.
The data was based on 75,576 survey responses and showed "the percentage of the following brands of computers bought between 2003 and 2007 that have ever been repaired or had a serious problem. Differences of less than 3 points are not meaningful." The brands, in order of fewest repairs to more repairs, were: Lenovo (20%), Compaq (20%), Sony (21%), Toshiba (21%), Dell (22%), HP (22%), Gateway (22%), and Apple (23%).
The buying guide (and other Consumer Reports articles) can be downloaded for free by most public library card holders (EBSCO database).
They tested Anti-virus software for malware
How about testing some malware removal programs? Malwarebytes, Adaware, Spybot?
How should we define "malware?" AV-Comparatives.org chose (for now) not to include "adware, spyware, dialers, tools and rogue programs" (which they define as "Potentially Unwanted Applications"). They do include viruses, trojans, backdoors, rootkits, exploits, DDoS, flooders, sniffers, and nukers (from their "methodology" pdf file).
Also, their "Removal-Test" page makes it clear that they are testing "Anti-Virus" products. I guess they are using the term "malware" because we expect "anti-virus" products to detect/remove more than just viruses (e.g. trojans, rootkits, etc.)
From what I've seen it's probably one of the best distros for KDE, better than Fedora and Kubuntu.
I agree that Mandriva is a great distro for users that prefer KDE, but some users are more comfortable with a "big name" distro like openSUSE (which should be mentioned with Fedora and Kubuntu).
KDE will now be the "default" desktop in openSUSE 11.2 (due in 7 days). That link also describes "KDE integration" for GNOME-based apps like Firefox and OpenOffice.org.
Anyhoo, I think it's worth trying both in "live distro" form.