Inhaltsverzeichnis für June 2019 in PCWorld

We get it. You’ve already decided that folding screen devices are a Mach 3 flame-out at 85,069 feet. But hear us out, because Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 foldable prototype (it has no official name yet) just might have you thinking that you’ll never want to buy another laptop again. Seriously. The ThinkPad X1 foldable prototype concept is simple: Take a 13.3-inch, Intel-based, full-service Windows OS–-running PC/tablet/device and fold it in half, with a diagonal corner-to-corner measurement of about 10 inches. At about an inch thick, it has the feel of a medium-sized journal. If you’re on the train or plane, you can simply open it and do your pleasure reading or browsing. While Lenovo didn’t disclose the weight, it felt close to or lighter than Apple’s iPad Pro 13, which comes…

Windows XP may be dead, but Microsoft refuses to leave it to the worms. Today, the company warned users to apply a critical patch for a remote code execution vulnerability that could open older versions of Windows to attack. Common-sense caution isn’t enough, because the exploit can trigger even with no action taken by the user. “In other words, the vulnerability is ‘wormable’, meaning that any future malware that exploits this vulnerability could propagate from vulnerable computer to vulnerable computer in a similar way as the WannaCry malware spread across the globe in 2017,” Microsoft’s Simon Pope warns. As with the nasty WannaCry, a widespread attack that locked computers and held them ransom, Microsoft is taking the rare step of issuing security patches for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003—two…

Data breaches are almost always tied to a site, service, or subscription, which gives you some control over your fate: You can change your password, monitor any suspicious activity, or delete your account. But a new reported breach has seemingly exposed the personal information of some 80 million U.S. households—and no one seems to know who’s to blame. There’s a lot we don’t know yet, but there’s enough evidence to suggest that the breach is incredibly widespread. It was unearthed by security researchers Ran Locar and Noam Rotem of vpnMentor, who only know that the unencrypted data is hosted by a Microsoft cloud server and appears to be limited to people over the age of 40. In dissecting the data, the researchers found that it “seems to itemize households rather than…

Amid a growing crowd of super-thin, super-light and super-fast gaming laptops, HP’s Omen X 2S 15 just jumped above the noise. Sure this sub-five-pound laptop features an 8-core, 9th-gen Core i9-9880H CPU and a GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q GPU—those specs are a given on any high-end laptop. But all those other laptops don’t have a six-inch touchscreen in the keyboard deck. The Omen X 2S 15 does. Dual-screen laptops aren’t new, but they’re rare. Lenovo tried it way back in 2009 with its beefy W700ds, with a screen that slid out from behind the main screen. Asus did it recently with the ZenBook Pro, which integrated a screen into the trackpad. Add in any number of dual-screen attempts along the way, such as Acer’s 2011-era Iconia 6120, and it’s a pretty old…

It’s not enough for LG that the G8 ThinQ has the best processor, a great screen, an impressive battery, and a solid camera. Like nearly every G phone that came before, the G8 also has to be different, and that’s where it gets tripped up. Had LG focused on the things that matter while undercutting its Samsung and Google rivals, it might have had a hit on its hands. Instead, the LG G8 is filled with gimmicks that might be fun initially, but their persnicketiness and general uselessness ultimately frustrate and cheapen the experience. That’s a shame, because underneath all of the gimmicks is a really good phone. Maybe even a great one. Mind you, the G8 is still saddled with LG’s overly staid design language and UI deficiencies. But…

There was a time when “free-to-play” was a dirty term in the games industry. There are still terrible, exploitative free-to-play games on the market—more every day, in fact. But occasionally—occasionally—we get something…miraculous. We get a free-to-play game that doesn’t try to con players out of money or make the design intentionally boring in order to make those purchasable unlocks more exciting. Here, you’ll find a list of games so good the developers could’ve charged money (or, in some cases, did charge) before going free-to-play. These aren’t just good free-to-play games, they’re good games, full stop. 1. FORTNITE Last time we updated this list, we had to specifically refer to “Fortnite: Battle Royale” to distinguish it from its horde-mode predecessor. I hardly think that’s necessary now. In the ensuing year, Fortnite’s become…

A recent study of hard drives purchased on eBay found that 42 percent of them contained data, even though the sellers claimed that they’d been formatted to prevent that from happening. It’s a good reminder: You need to do more than format hard drives before you sell, give away, or destroy your old PC. The study was conducted by Blancco, a company that provides hard drive and SSD format tools. It was obviously set up to encourage users to download the company’s tools and services. But it also serves as a useful reminder that merely “erasing” a drive isn’t necessarily wiping it clean of data. Between September and October 2018, Blancco staffers bought 159 hard drives and SSDs from eBay, purchasing them in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany,…

I guess it’s true what Kenny Rogers said: You gotta know when to fold ‘em. After announcing recently that it was delaying the Galaxy Fold launch events in Hong Kong and Shanghai, Samsung has now also reportedly pushed back the U.S. release date of its next-generation handset following a flurry of poor reviews and problems with the device, according to a statement from the company. The Wall Street Journal initially reported that the Fold would be delayed “at least until next month,” but Samsung’s statement is even less concrete: “While many reviewers shared with us the vast potential they see, some also showed us how the device needs further improvements that could ensure the best possible user experience. To fully evaluate this feedback and run further internal tests, we have decided…

If you’re in a panic to figure out how to turn off Intel’s Hyper-Threading feature to prevent ZombieLoad, the latest Spectre-like CPU security exploit, then take a deep breath: Intel’s official guidance does not actually recommend that. The bad news? None of what we tell you is going to make you feel any better. ZombieLoad is similar to previous “side channel” attacks, which trick Intel processors into coughing up potentially sensitive information that otherwise would be kept private by the CPU. The exploit hits most Intel chips and can be used on Windows, macOS, and Linux, the ZombieLoad researchers said. ARM-based and AMD-based CPUs aren’t impacted. “While programs normally only see their own data, a malicious program can exploit the fill buffers to get hold of secrets currently processed by…

To celebrate the 10th major release of Android, Google has a present for all of us: a dark theme. After several starts and stops and half-efforts, Google is finally bringing full dark mode to all Android Q phones, and from what we’ve seen, it’s glorious. But while dark mode will probably be the most popular feature of Android Q, it’s only a small part of what the next-generation OS will deliver. From security and privacy to folding screens and 5G, Android Q is packed with features that will transform your phone. Here are the six features we’re most excited about (other than that sweet, sweet dark theme) after witnessing the Google I/O keynote on May 7: 1. LIVE CAPTION If you’ve ever been in a quiet room and needed to…

Acer’s Predator Triton 500 is a gaming laptop we’d actually want to carry around. Sure, we may look hungrily at a monster gaming laptop that’s nearly as fast as a desktop gaming PC. But if you have to take it with you, the era of thin, light and powerful gaming laptops is a godsend. SPECS AND FEATURES The Predator Triton 500 is one of the first gaming laptops we’ve tested with Nvidia’s RTX mobile chip. Even though its CPU is “merely” 8th-gen when 9th-gen CPUs have recently become available, that GPU matters a lot more when it comes to gaming. Here are the details: CPU: Intel 8th-gen Core i7-8750H Memory: 16GB DDR4/2666 in dual-channel mode GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Display: 15.6-inch, 144Hz, 1920x1080 screen Storage: 512GB NVMe SSD Dimensions:…

For nearly two years, every meeting I had with Logitech ended the same way: “So uh, any news on a wireless G502?” and for nearly two years the answer to my question was no. It was only a matter of time though. After all, you don’t pivot your focus to wireless mice and leave your best-selling wired model behind. Well, the day’s finally here and the answer was finally “Yes, we do have something to share.” Today, Logitech officially unveils the G502 Lightspeed. I’ve had one sitting on my desk for about a week now, and I’ll tell you this: It’s going to stay for a while. CUTTING THE CORD The Logitech G502 Lightspeed looks exactly like its predecessors except, you know, it doesn’t have a cable. And that’s exactly…

Now that Intel’s latest 9th-gen Core mobile chips are on their way, it’s time to figure out whether it’ll be worth it to pay top dollar for the new chip; buy or keep a laptop with an 8th-gen CPU (plenty of current models remain available), or upgrade from your 6th-gen or 7th-gen model. The issues differ from generation to generation. In many cases, we’ve said you can wait a few years before upgrading. The 8th-generation jump was an exception: It represented one of the biggest laptop CPU improvements in a long time, worthy of upgrading () even from a 7th-gen chip. With the 9th gen, however, we’re mostly back to the incremental clock speed upgrades we’ve seen from Intel for years. That’s not to say it’s all underwhelming—because you can…

Sadly, our friends don’t all have iPhones. That means some of our Messages chats are peppered with green bubbles and send over regular SMS instead of via Apple’s ultra-fast iMessage system. But it’s not just the color and speed that makes iMessage superior: it’s also the clarity and downright watchability when dealing with videos. If you thought the latest Game of Thrones episode was hard to see, clearly you’ve never sent a video from Messages on your iPhone to a friend with an Android phone. If they responded with something like, “What is this?!,” it probably wasn’t because of the content—it’s because they could barely see what was going on in the clip. By the time it reached their device, the video is a blurry, garbled mess. That carefully edited…

Sayonara, Siri. During Google’s I/O keynote on May 7, the company revealed several jaw-dropping new features coming to Google Assistant, and the AI-enhanced software on Android phones appears ready to run laps around Apple’s still-too-simple rival. Google calls it “the next-generation Assistant.” The secret sauce? Moving Google Assistant’s processing from the cloud to your device. CEO Sundar Pichai claims that the company managed to condense Assistant’s speech recognition models from 100GB in size all the way down to a mere 50MB, letting it run directly on your phone. “This breakthrough enabled us to create a next-generation Assistant that processes speech on-device at nearly zero latency, with transcription that happens in real time, even when you have no network connection,” Google crowed in its announcement post. Google says the shift allows…

The GTX 1060’s years-long reign over the mainstream gaming laptop market is ending. Nvidia recently announced that its GeForce GTX 1660 Ti and GTX 1650 GPUs are coming to gaming notebooks, where they’ll join the more powerful mobile GeForce RTX options introduced earlier this year. (Haven’t heard of the latter GPU? Surprise!) Nvidia concurrently announced the GeForce GTX 1650 desktop graphics card. Interestingly, Nvidia did not announce a non-Ti mobile version of the GTX 1660. Based on previous pricing trends, we’d expect the GTX 1650 to slip mostly into systems costing less than $1,100, while the GTX 1660 Ti will likely be reserved for laptops in the $1,000 to $1,600-or-so range. Beyond that lies the mobile RTX 2060’s territory. These new GPUs should provide a substantial boost over their predecessors. While…

Microsoft’s Windows 10 May 2019 Update offers some badly needed improvements to Windows Update, a much speedier search function, and troubleshooters that solve problems on their own. There’s even an updated emoji keyboard with symbols and the more sophisticated kaomoji . The best feature, however, is the cool new Windows Sandbox. The May 2019 Update (also known as 19H1 or version 1903) may not officially be pushed to your PC until later in May, but it’s already available if you want to manually download it via Windows Update. We’ve also compiled a separate roundup of the best hidden features of the Windows 10 May 2019 Update that lurk beneath what we’ve talked about here, including a better Focus Assist and reserved storage. WINDOWS SANDBOX: A SAFE SPACE FOR NEW…

When it comes to gaming PCs, nothing matters more than your graphics card. To push as many pixels as possible, you’re going to want the fastest graphics card you can afford—but ever-shifting prices and product lineups make it difficult to keep track of what’s available. In honor of keeping frame rates high, we decided to rank all the major available discrete GPUs from Nvidia GeForce and AMD Radeon, starting with the fastest graphics card available and working on down. This list focuses on each company’s most current GPU lineup, and doesn’t include older graphics cards. We’ve verified this information through hours of blood, sweat, and benchmarking. Feel free to hit up the individual reviews to see our work in greater detail. Or, if you want more concrete buying advice for…

After years of endless jokes, 2019 is truly, finally shaping up to be the year of Linux on the desktop. Laptops, too! But most people won’t know it. That’s because the bones of the open-source operating system kernel will soon be baked into Windows 10 and Chrome OS, as Microsoft and Google revealed at their respective developer conferences in early May. Microsoft is overhauling its Windows Subsystem for Linux, which surprisingly debuted in the operating system three years ago. It allows users to run the iconic Bash application and other Linux software via the command line, but because it relies on emulation, performance often suffered. The cleverly named Windows Subsystem for Linux 2, announced at Microsoft’s Build event, shakes things up by shipping a full Linux kernel (version 4.19) within…

Avoiding spoilers for popular shows and movies—like Game of Thrones and Avengers: Endgame—on social media is downright hard. You can take steps, however, to keep yourself in the dark. On Facebook, it’s as simple as installing a desktop browser extension, while on Twitter, you can mute keywords you don’t want to see in your timeline. While these methods aren’t 100 percent bulletproof, they should filter out the majority of spoilers. HOW TO AVOID YOUR FAVORITE SHOW’S SPOILERS ON FACEBOOK This method involves adding the Social Fixer extension to your browser, which allows you to filter out spoiler-ridden posts based on keywords or phrases. Social Fixer only works when viewing Facebook in a desktop browser, though you can also install it on the Android version of Firefox because that particular mobile…