Table of contents for July 2020 in PCWorld

If AMD’s new mobile Ryzen 4000 CPUs are on your radar, you’re probably facing a laptop buying decision you haven’t considered in a long time (if ever): AMD or Intel? The bigger question some are asking is this: “Should I even buy an Intel-based laptop anymore?” Ryzen 4000’s mobile performance has been so impressive, we can understand why people are pondering something formerly unthinkable. The answer isn’t cut and dry. Unlike a desktop, where you can pick and choose your parts, laptops are total packages. As compelling as Ryzen 4000 mobile is, it doesn’t matter if the rest of the laptop isn’t up to snuff. So before you buy, we’ll run you through the reasons why an Intel-based laptop may still be justified. YOU WANT A PREMIUM FEATURE From GeForce RTX 2080…

There might not have been an I/O keynote to stream in May, but some new hot Google hardware might still be on the way. All rumors and signs suggest that Google will celebrate the first anniversary of the launch of the bodaciously budget Pixel 3a with an equally affordable Pixel 4a follow-up. Here’s what we already know about it. DESIGN While the Pixel 3a was basically a plastic version of the high-end Pixel 3, the Pixel 4a will reportedly deviate from the bezel-heavy design of Google’s Pixel 4. Based on leaked images, the Pixel 4a may be Google’s first phone to adopt a hole-punch camera, which will be aligned in the upper left corner of the screen. The 4a design was seemingly confirmed by Google exec Rick Osterloh, who tweeted about his…

Microsoft has begun rolling out the “new” Microsoft Edge to Windows 10 PCs, as part of its planned replacement strategy outlined earlier this year. Microsoft began updating PCs to the new Edge in January. It began with PCs still running the April 2018 Update, also known as version 1803. Now, the new Microsoft Edge is being made available to the Windows 10 versions after 1803, up through the Windows 10 May 2020 Update, aka version 2004. (Microsoft’s “new” Edge is now just officially Microsoft Edge, and the older Edge is referred to as “legacy” Edge. We really like Microsoft’s new Chromium-based Edge browser [go.pcworld.com/ched], though it has inexplicably lagged in certain areas, such as saving the user’s history to the cloud. Right now, it’s my full-time browser.) According to Techdows, the…

Intel’s 10th-gen Core i9-10900K is—without a doubt—exactly as Intel has described it: “the world’s fastest gaming CPU.” Intel’s problem has been weaknesses outside of gaming, and its overall performance value compared to AMD’s Ryzen 3000 chips. With the Core i9-10900K, Intel doesn’t appear to be eliminating that gap, but it could get close enough that you might not care. WHAT IS CORE I9-10900K? Despite its 10th-gen naming, Intel’s newest desktop chips continue to be built on the company’s aging 14nm process. How old is it? It was first used with the 5th-gen Core i7-5775C desktop chip from 2015. Many tricks, optimizations, and much binning later, we have the flagship consumer Core i9-10900K, announced April 30. The CPU features 10 cores and Hyper-Threading for a total of 20 threads, with a…

The Razer Kraken has long been a favorite of people buying a gaming headset on the cheap. Listing at $80, and often discounted even lower, it’s one of the cheaper name-brand headsets on the market. But what if it were even less expensive? The new Razer Kraken X retails for a mere $50, or $30 cheaper than its sibling. That’s proving to be a popular price lately, with both HyperX’s Cloud Stinger and Astro’s A10 vying for budget-conscious buyers in recent years. The Kraken X boasts a few advantages over the competition though, including rudimentary 7.1 support and the classic Kraken look. It’s still not an amazing headset, mind you—but for $50? You could do (a lot) worse. TAKING ANOTHER CRACK AT IT I’ve said in the past: Just because you want…

Forget remasters. Gone are the days where developers could stretch new textures over old games and call it a day. These days it’s all about remakes, raiding the late ‘90s and early ‘00s for games that need more than just a new coat of paint. Resident Evil 2 set the bar pretty damn high, allowing old fans to relive a beloved game the way they remembered it, while also creating a thoroughly modern horror game for newcomers. It’s not on PC (yet), but by all accounts Square’s Final Fantasy VII Remake does the same. Activision created slightly more faithful remakes with Spyro and Crash Bandicoot, and is doing the same with the upcoming Tony Hawk 1+2. The Black Mesa Project injected new life into Half-Life. 2K’s releasing a Mafia remake this summer. Who’s next?…

If you’ve ever heard your laptop mysteriously start screaming or feel your phone warm up while you’re browsing the web, rogue ads could be the culprit—and now Google’s acting against them. The rise of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies sparked a rise in malicious ads that sneakily use your computer’s resources to mine Internet coins. Other ads can be poorly coded, or just plain unoptimized. Near the end of August, Google Chrome will start blocking nasty ads that vulture your computer’s resources, and you can opt to enable the feature manually today. “In order to save our users’ batteries and data plans, and provide them with a good experience on the web, Chrome will limit the resources a display ad can use before the user interacts with the ad,” Chrome product…

If you were waiting for another laptop besides the Dell G5 15 SE gaming laptop to feature AMD’s new SmartShift technology this year—don’t hold your breath. SmartShift, which can dynamically shift performance resources between a Radeon GPU and Ryzen CPU, is one of the highlights of a new era for AMD-based laptops, led by the impressive Ryzen 4000 mobile CPUs. But in a Twitter response asking where the other SmartShift laptops are, AMD’s Frank Azor responded with bad news for AMD fans. “It’s a brand new technology and to Dell’s credit, they jumped on it first,” Azor said. “No more SmartShift laptops are coming this year but the team is working hard on having more options ASAP for 2021.” Azor, who currently works as AMD’s Chief Architect of Gaming Solutions, explained the…

Google showed off a live demo of its new noise-cancellation feature for Google Meet, and well, it’s just amazing. Unfortunately, consumers won’t see it anytime soon. Google said in late May that the company would be rolling it out to G Suite Enterprise and G Suite Enterprise for Education customers first, starting with web users and later, mobile users. Google hasn’t said when, or if, its other messaging apps would receive it. Serge Lachapelle, G Suite director of product management, demoed the new feature in a video posted to YouTube on June 8: He also detailed how the technology worked in a separate interview with VentureBeat. In the video, Lachapelle shows how Meet’s new “denoiser” takes common noises that occur during a call—such as the crinkling of a potato-chip bag, the…

The HP Reverb G2 might be the savior Windows Mixed Reality (MR) so desperately needs. Hopefully. Announced recently but not available until the fall, HP has a lot to prove and a lot of skeptics to convert, myself included. I’ve spoken often, and loudly, about my issues with the Windows MR ecosystem. Even in 2017 the hardware was a bit underwhelming, and the ensuing “upgrades” never rectified some of the fundamental problems with the platform. Last year’s HP Reverb featured a best-in-class display and an Oculus-like design—but paired with the Windows MR platform’s busted tracking solution, you might as well have been driving a Ferrari with square wheels. But then I heard Valve was involved with the Reverb G2. Valve, who helped HTC launch the original Vive. Valve, who now…

Kingston’s KC2500 is an NVMe SSD that can run with the top-tier drive in any performance scenario—even long sustained writes. It’s also affordable compared to drives such as Samsung’s 970 Pro and WD’s Black SN570, etc., though it has some tough competition pricewise from Adata’s SX8200. DESIGN AND SPECIFICATIONS The KC2500 is available in 250GB (currently about $75 at Newegg.com), 500GB (currently about $123 at Newegg.com), and 1TB (our tested capacity, currently about $222 on Amazon). To sweeten the deal, Kingston includes a license for Acronis True Image HD backup software. The NAND on the 2280 (22mm wide, 80mm long) KC2500 is 96-layer TLC (Triple-Level cell/3-bit), and the controller is a Silicon Motion SMI 2262EN. There’s also primary DRAM cache to the tune of 1MB for every 1TB of NAND. TLC…

Cease your magic, before the hourglass shatters!” When last we left Mortal Kombat 11, Liu Kang had saved the world. Having been granted the powers of a god by Raiden himself, Liu Kang defeated the time-bending deity Kronika and prevented her from remaking the Mortal Kombat universe in her own image. It would be Liu Kang who reshaped the timeline instead, ushering in a kinder and (perhaps) less kombat-filled world. Roll credits. Or don’t. It’s in this moment, as Liu Kang prepares to reset the timeline, that a warning reverberates through Kronika’s chamber. A portal appears, and out walks Nightwolf, Fujin, and perennial Mortal Kombat antagonist Shang Tsung. Mortal Kombat 11 needed an after-credits stinger, and it gets one with the Aftermath expansion. A three-hour after-credits stinger. MARTY, WE HAVE TO…

It’s been a long time since I used a phone with a 4.8-inch screen and a home button for more than a few minutes. But when the iPhone SE arrived on my doorstep last month, I popped the SIM out of the Galaxy S20 Ultra and stepped back into 2016. After the initial shock—which was like leaping from a luxury car to a motor scooter—I settled in and immediately began to learn some important things about Android versus iOS. I knew the camera would be way better on the Galaxy S20 Ultra so you won’t find any shootouts here, but such a drastic switch made the two phones’ strengths and weaknesses crystal-clear, and in some cases painfully so. 1. SIZE DOESN’T REALLY MATTER Over the past however many years, we’ve…

Many people play games on PC with a mouse and keyboard, but some genres are just better suited to controllers. If you’ve got a Nintendo Switch Pro controller, you can put it to work with your Windows computer in barely any time at all. Our step-by-step instructions cover using a Switch Pro controller with a PC via wired or wireless connection—as well as how to make it work properly with your games. HOW TO CONNECT A SWITCH PRO CONTROLLER TO YOUR PC Wireless The Nintendo Switch Pro Controller supports standard Bluetooth, allowing you to pair it wirelessly with your PC. (If your PC doesn’t support Bluetooth, you can use the wired method we discuss later.) Your controller must be at least partially charged before beginning the Bluetooth pairing process. Windows…

With the debut of the Dell XPS 17, the company will bring its popular XPS brand to a 17-inch laptop this summer, with a bezel-less design, H-class 10th-gen CPU, and up to RTX 2060 graphics. There’s an updated XPS 15, too. While the laptops were officially announced May 13, we actually got a sneak peek at prototypes of the XPS 17 in late 2019. We’ll walk you through everything we know about it. PRICE AND AVAILABILITY Dell said the XPS 17 9700 will go on sale this summer with a starting price of $1,499. Starting obviously means a version that doesn’t include the top-end components. SCREEN OPTIONS The XPS 17 9700’s most distinctive feature is its 17-inch screen, and not just because of the size. While most 17.3-inch displays…

Facebook recently introduced what it’s calling “Manage Activity,” a way for Facebook users either to archive or entirely delete older posts that they simply want expunged from the social network. Facebook, which came under fire for refusing to take down a controversial post by President Trump, now offers users the ability to delete their own controversies. The Manage Activity feature will launch first on the mobile version of Facebook, then on the desktop and on Facebook Lite in the future. “Whether you’re entering the job market after college or moving on from an old relationship, we know things change in people’s lives, and we want to make it easy for you to curate your presence on Facebook to more accurately reflect who you are today,” Facebook wrote in a blog…

You’ve set your sights on a Dell XPS 13. The only problem: Which one do you buy? The XPS 13 7390 clamshell or its 2-in-1 version, or the “new” XPS 13 9300? All three are great laptops—ignore the model numbers, which are confusingly non-sequential—but there are key differences. We’ll walk you through the models and weigh their strengths and weaknesses. What’s your priority? Versatility? Performance? Connectivity? Overall value? We’ll call a winner for each, and you can skip to the section that interests you most by clicking a link on the left. Note that this story is based primarily on the high-end XPS 13 models Dell sent us to test. We do have some advice for those looking at lower-cost XPS 13 versions—check out the budget XPS 13 section for…

Logitech’s new Powered line of wireless chargers includes a 3-in-1 charger that will charge your phone, wireless earbuds, and an Apple Watch at the same time. There’s also a Stand and a Pad. All three devices have the same core Logitech-like design—minimal but with a subtly elegant flare. Logitech’s design approach here imbues the Pad with a satisfying combination of competence and class—not overly done, just all of the expected parts and pieces in the expected places. There’s an indicator light on the front, and a power connector on the back that, unfortunately, uses a barrel connector instead of a USB-C port. Meaning you won’t be able to use the included wall adapter to quickly charge your phone—a convenience many competing wireless chargers have adopted. The pad itself is slightly oversized,…

If you’ve tried to buy a nice Windows laptop in the past few years, there’s a good chance you’ve agonized over display resolutions. Buy a laptop with a 4K display, and you’ll get a picture so sharp that individual pixels become indiscernible, but both battery life and performance will suffer as a result. Get a 1080p laptop instead, and you’ll get more battery life at the expense of that glorious picture. There is, of course, a middle ground in the form of 1440p (2560x1440) displays, also known as QHD. You just wouldn’t know it from today’s selection of laptops. Even though 1440p hits the sweet spot between a crisp picture and long battery life, most laptops instead make you choose between extremes. We asked some PC makers why, and the…

There’s a reason that unboxing videos and the phrase “new car smell” are firmly ensconced in the public groupmind. New stuff is exciting! New stuff is (theoretically) better! New stuff is just plain cool. But new stuff also costs an arm and a leg—at least if you’re talking about a new PC. And you might not even truly need a new PC to accomplish what you’re looking to do, because most everyday tasks don’t require much processing power, especially now that so many services have moved onto the web. Fortunately, there are a slew of ways to breathe new life into an older PC that’s starting to feel a little pokey. Even better: Most are outright free, a couple of (still low-cost) hardware upgrades aside. Sure, these tweaks and tips…