Computer Shopper -julkaisun April 2019 -irtonumeron sisällysluettelo

The Raspberry Pi is a fantastic British technology success story. Since the first model of the mini computer launched in February 2012, it has shifted more than 23 million units, and offered a way for millions of users young and old to discover the worlds of coding and making. For those of you who haven’t yet tried out the Pi, we highly encourage you to splash out on a board – when you can get one for under a tenner, why wouldn’t you? Our guide on page 108 will take you through everything from setting up your chosen model to the best accessories. For those already equipped with one of the mini computers, we’ve got step-by-step camera and LED projects to try out, along with our pick of other top…

Tech pioneer and all-round good egg letters@computershopper.co.uk I HAVE A confession. I have been pimping a young model. My pimping is the result of a moment of weakness. I’ve had models before, and I understand their capricious nature. One moment they are willing to perform across my desk, the next they freeze and refuse to let me do what I want. It has not been any fantasy performance that’s got me hooked, it’s been the fantasy looks. I was bored. I wanted colour. I wanted make-up. I wanted dazzle and glitter. I wanted tribal tattoos, hot bubbles, glowing tubes and a whirling fan-dance. Forgive me, but I’ve pimped my new PC. In 1909, Henry Ford declared: “I will build a motor car for the great multitude. It will be constructed…

£1,300 • From www.scan.co.uk VERDICT This luxury laptop has both impressive gaming credentials and a near-perfect design THE ORIGINAL RAZER Blade Stealth (Shopper 349) was a great ultraportable, but its use of integrated graphics was a bit incongruous given Razer’s identity as a gaming-focused hardware firm. The 2019 edition fixes that: as well as a myriad of improvements elsewhere, the new Blade Stealth has a dedicated Nvidia GeForce MX150 chip. It does so without losing the original’s sleek design, too. The matt black aluminium chassis looks and feels impeccable, it weighs just 1.3kg, and at 305x210x15mm it’s beautifully compact. In fact, it’s actually narrower than the old model, thanks to the screen bezels slimming down, although as a trade-off, it’s a little taller when opened. Razer’s entwined-serpents symbol is embossed…

£155 • From www.ebuyer.com VERDICT Keenly priced and rammed with features, this is an excellent foundation for up-to-date Intel PCs THE ABILITY TO stick one of Intel’s latest 9th-generation processors into an 8th-gen Z370 motherboard hasn’t stopped an avalanche of new Z390 motherboards, even with this chipset’s lack of significant feature upgrades. Nonetheless, there are models we’d be quite happy to build a Coffee Lake Refresh system around: the £296 Asus ROG Maximus XI Hero WiFi (Shopper 371) proved a fitting base for high-end PCs, and now MSI’s MPG Z390 Gaming Edge AC successfully delivers a wide feature set for a far more accessible price. It’s a full-size ATX board with Intel’s LGA1151 socket, so will hold any mainstream Coffee Lake and Coffee Lake Refresh CPU. It’s not entirely without…

$50 (around £38) • From www.yubico.com VERDICT A smart tool to boost security, but mobile support is quite limited and it’s a little expensive DESPITE BEING AROUND since the dawn of computers, passwords really aren’t the best way to protect your accounts. Once they’re compromised, anyone with your passwords can access the accounts they protected. For that reason, many online services also offer two-factor authentication, which requires a secondary, one-time code or password to be entered after your main password. Without both, there’s no access. The secondary authentication method is typically generated by your phone, which is fine but leads to additional hassle when trying to log into accounts, as you first have to unlock your handset to retrieve the code. That’s why we’ve long been fans of the Yubico…

£329 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT Small and (almost) perfectly formed, the Osmo Pocket is a fine life-logging camera with effective mechanical stabilisation BEST KNOWN FOR its drones, DJI has been branching out lately, dabbling in quadcopters as well as stabilisers for smartphones and cameras. The Osmo Pocket is the latest in its non-airborne range: a video camera attached to a tiny, mechanical three-axis gimbal, enabling shake-free video in the smallest of packages. It’s not really an action camera in the vein of the GoPro Hero 7 Black (Shopper 372), as it lacks waterproofing and is shaped as such that it’s tricky to mount on helmets and clothing. Instead, it’s more of a life-logging and vlogging camera, something to replace the common but unwieldy combo of a smartphone and separate gimbal.…

£229 • From www.johnlewis.com VERDICT The Lenovo Smart Display delivers all the functionality of the Google Home Hub, but its extras don’t justify the higher price THE LENOVO SMART Display is, for all intents and purposes, a large Google Home Hub (Shopper 372). Powered by Google Assistant, it runs the same software as the smaller Google-branded smart screen, and you can use it in all the same ways. Ask it questions, search for recipes, play YouTube videos, radio stations and Spotify playlists – you name it, it can probably do it. Available in 8in and 10in variants, you get more screen real estate than on the £139 7in Google Home Hub but it’s also more expensive, costing £179 and £229 respectively in the two different sizes. It also looks different,…

£350 • From shop.vodafone.co.uk VERDICT Intriguing but flawed, this tiny smartphone isn’t quite the comeback device Palm needs TINY PHONES STILL carve a particular niche. With smartphone screens steadily increasing and pockets bulging, there’s a bit of free space in the market for a phone that fits comfortably within the palm of your hand. Sony’s Xperia Compact line-up of smartphones have successfully offered flagship performance in a pint-sized chassis in the past, but even that won’t prepare you for a phone as small as this one. Palm, best known for the PalmPilot PDA from the mid-1990s, is hoping for a grand resurgence, and it’s betting on a brand-new device. This is a fully fledged smartphone squeezed inside a tiny chassis, but is the Palm Phone just another throwaway gimmick? LITTLE…

£10 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The latest version of this oft-maligned security suite is a startlingly improved affair In a matter of months, McAfee has rocketed from the bottom of the malware-detection league to the top FOUNDED WAY BACK in 1987, McAfee is one of the best-known names in computer security. Its reputation hasn’t always been stellar, however – its anti-malware products have been routinely outperformed by rival security packages in terms of the proportion of threats it can protect against. This time around, however, things are different. In 2017, McAfee was officially spun off into an independent company by former owner Intel, and the change appears to have had a salutary effect on the company. Believe it or not, in a matter of months, it’s rocketed from the bottom…

01 A network-attached storage (NAS) device lets you store documents, media, and other files on its hard disks so you can share them with other devices on your network. Some have disks already installed, while others are empty enclosures into which you install your own disks. Buying an empty NAS can often be the more cost-effective option, as they’re usually less expensive and give you the freedom to add disks at a later date. You should buy one with a Gigabit Ethernet interface, as these provide the highest transfer speeds. To use a NAS device at these speeds, you’ll need computers with Gigabit Ethernet network adaptors and a Gigabit Ethernet switch or router. Computers with Fast Ethernet adaptors can still access the NAS device, but only at the much slower…

01 A basic 24in LCD monitor costs around £100. It will be fine for typical Windows work but is likely to have poor viewing angles, so you’ll need to sit straight on for the best picture quality. Its colour accuracy may not be very good, either. 02 A VGA input lets you use the monitor with any PC, but the quality may not be as good as it is over DVI or HDMI. Both are digital connections and require a compatible graphics card but they avoid the need for digital-to-analogue or analogue-todigital conversions, which can reduce image quality. A digital connection achieves the best picture automatically, so you won’t have to adjust clock or phase settings as you do with analogue connections. Many DVI and all HDMI connections support HDCP,…

01 A smart thermostat can save you a lot of money by intelligently controlling your heating. Most smart heating devices are designed to be used with hot water central heating systems, with the boiler directly controlled by the system. These typically require a relay to be wired into your boiler, with a wireless thermostat giving you direct control. Smartphone apps then tie into the system to give you remote control. While it’s possible to fit controls yourself, you may want to pay an experienced plumber to do the job: expect to pay around £150 for a typical installation. If you have electric heating, there are very few choices, and the big names (Nest, Honeywell and so on) do not directly support these systems. 02 Want smart hot water control? If…

01 A 32in Full HD TV costs around £200, but premium larger 4K models can be closer to £2,000. TVs look much smaller in the shop than in your home, so measure the space available before you buy. Curved TVs are becoming increasingly more common, but bear in mind that these typically take up more floor space than a traditional flat set. 02 A 1,920x1,080-resolution TV can display a 1080p image. You can still buy TVs with a 720p (1,366x768) resolution, but they’re no cheaper and the image won’t be as sharp. 3,840x2,560 Ultra HD resolution, or 4K, TVs are finally available at reasonable prices, although you’ll still pay a premium for one over a 1080p model. 03 Consider the number of inputs you’ll need to connect the rest of…

01 A basic digital camera will suit someone who wants to take pictures to view on their computer and create 7x5in prints. It should cost around £80, but there may be hidden downsides such as slow performance and very basic user controls. 02 Spend a little more and you’ll get a higher resolution. A 16-megapixel sensor has the potential to produce sharp prints up to A3 size, but only if it and the lens are of a suitably high quality. Very high resolutions in compact cameras tend to boost noise more than detail levels, so many of the best models strike a sensible balance by using a 12-megapixel sensor. Back-illuminated CMOS sensors tend to produce less noise than CCDs, but check our reviews to find out how a particular model…

Chat and Communication Evernote 6.16.4.8094 Store your notes, ideas and plans in the cloud, and synchronise them between computers. UPDATED Mailbird 2.5.27.0 A free desktop email client for Windows. Miranda IM 0.10.80 Chat with friends across multiple messaging platforms, including AIM, Facebook, IRC and MSN, all from one simple interface. Skype for Windows 8.34.0.78 Make internet voice and video calls for free, and buy credit to make calls to mobiles and landlines. Telegram 1.4.3 This free IM app synchronises your conversations across multiple devices, and can spruce up chats with stickers and GIFs. UPDATED WhatsApp Desktop 0.3.1850 A free PC and Mac version of the popular messaging app, letting you chat from your desktop. Customisation UPDATED iolo System Mechanic Free 18.0.2 Speed up your system with iolo’s PC optimisation suite.…

£699 • From www.laptopsdirect.co.uk VERDICT It’s pleasantly compact and very well connected, but the Nitro N50-600 falls behind on performance and storage REGULAR READERS MIGHT find the Nitro N50-600 familiar. It’s a lower-specced version of the £1,149 Nitro 50 we looked at in Shopper 373. It was a respectable mini-tower desktop, but our main complaint was that its selection of components was poor compared to the competition. Perhaps the N50-600, with its much lower price, will be a better investment. A hardware downgrade was inevitable: this has only a basic graphics card in the 2GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050, and SSD capacity has shrunk from 256GB to 128GB. Still, it’s nice to see an SSD included at all, and there are a few other promising specs, too. The CPU, Intel’s…

£700 • From www.meshcomputers.com VERDICT Even if it’s not the best performer, the Matrix Ryzen Pro has plenty to make it stand out THERE’S A LOT to talk about with the Matrix Ryzen Pro – the big SSD, the choice of Windows 10 Pro over Windows 10 Home, the 802.11n Wi-Fi card – but what’s most immediately striking about this PC, especially once it’s turned on, is the cooling. Compared to the other PCs here, which generally have only a couple of case fans (or fewer), the Matrix Ryzen Pro is stuffed with them. There are two at the front, another in the roof and one at the rear for venting hot air outwards. None of the other systems in this test comes close, and the front two fans even…

£700 • From www.pcspecialist.co.uk VERDICT The graphics card and SSD in this PC are top-notch, and the rest is good, even if not the very best IT’S A SHAME that the Apollo S2 has the chassis it does – an unsightly, plasticky box that marries an over-designed front panel with such archaic design notes as the PSU being mounted in the roof instead of the base. It’s a shame because within this case is a seriously respectable assortment of midrange components. Proof, not that it was necessary, that looks aren’t everything. The CPU is the same hexa-core Ryzen 5 2600 that the Mesh Matrix Ryzen Pro uses, and the graphics card is an RX 570-beating GTX 1060 – the 3GB version, not a 6GB model as in the Overclockers Gaming…

TIGHT BUDGETS Q ACOUSTICS Media 4 For the relatively small cost of £200 and some slightly questionable styling, the Media 4 is a remarkably well-featured soundbar. An integrated subwoofer and Bluetooth aptX support are things you can’t take for granted, even on soundbars costing several multiples as much, yet they’re both here. Most importantly, it sounds great. The Media 4 keeps a much better grip on its low-end frequencies than its budget rival, the Samsung HW-MS550, and its drivers disperse the sound with a very tangible sense of width and depth, despite there being only two of them, not counting the subwoofer. SUBWOOFER SETUPS SAMSUNG HW-N850 Samsung has no shortage of great soundbars, and the HW-N850 might just be its best ever. It’s expensive, at £899, but absolutely worth it:…

Although the mini computer is usually referred to in the singular (a Raspberry Pi), there’s actually quite a range of products to choose from, with three main models now available. Although this gives you choices, it makes the decision a little more complex, as you have to buy the right model for your budget and how you want to use the computer. Here, we’ll take you through the options. We’ve focused on the three current models, the Raspberry Pi 3 B+, Raspberry Pi 3 A+ and Raspberry Pi Zero W. Raspberry Pi 3 B+ £34 thepihut.com Although it’s been out for over a year, the Pi 3 B+ is the current top-of-the-range mini computer, providing everything you need for any project, plus enough power to run as a basic desktop…

The Raspberry Pi camera is one of the most useful accessories. Whether you want to turn your Pi into a rudimentary security camera, record some wildlife or just take pictures on demand, it’s a neat add-on to the Pi. For this project, you’ll need to buy the Raspberry Pi camera (or compatible model). We’ve picked the 5-megapixel version as it’s a bit cheaper, but there’s a newer 8-megapixel model available if you want to take higher-resolution images. Both are installed and controlled in the same way. If you have a Pi Zero then you’ll need the adaptor cable, as this model has a smaller CSI interface; the other Pi models have the larger connector. INSTALLING THE CAMERA First, you need to install the camera. Make sure you’ve turned off your…

clive@computershopper.co.uk Retro-style Windows While Windows 10 might have loads of flashy features and graphics, you might just want your computer to look and feel familiar. Clive Webster shows you how to turn back the clock IT CAN BE EASY to get lost in a new version of Windows, or even after one of the big annual Windows 10 updates. The new visuals, icons and names can disrupt your digital orienteering, with familiar landmarks such as the Start menu, Control Panel or even My Computer rendered unrecognisable. There are plenty of people who rate previous versions of Windows more highly than the current incarnation, and handily there are plenty of tools that allow you to time-warp Windows back to the 98, XP or Windows 7 era. If anyone asks, just say…

letters@computershopper.co.uk Caravan man @ Thanks for reminding me of the joys of the ZX81 and BBC Micro that are stored in my loft (Retro, Shopper 373). A warning to those who have also kept those early computers: they output to TV sets of that vintage; in other words, they need an analogue TV. Modern TVs are digital, so are no good. I have an all-singing caravan TV, so I’m OK. Tony Sparkes China crisis @ In the light of the charges filed against the Chinese firm Huawei by the US Justice Department, including fraud and the theft of technology from T-Mobile, should Computer Shopper withdraw its five-star recommendation for the Huawei Mate 20 Pro (Shopper 373) and refrain from reviewing other products from the same company until these charges are dismissed?…

Software guru and Shopper legend letters@computershopper.co.uk ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER data breach, and yet again one of my email addresses is on the list. Whether it’s news of a big hotel chain admitting millions of its customer accounts have been hacked or some online site that was insistent I could only use its software if I handed over enough data to create a bionic me, it seems that big companies are no better than the rest of us at keeping their (or rather our) data safe. While my initial reaction to such news is usually to put my head back under the duvet and vow never to sign up for any loyalty schemes or online stores ever again, I’ve resolved from now on to use such announcements as my own electronic…

Fetch! Robot delivery dogs ready to take to the streets IT MIGHT SOUND barking mad, but the next big thing in robotics tech could be robo-dogs that deliver packages, courtesy of renowned tyre manufacturer Continental. At CES 2019, the company showcased its pack of delivery robots that look distinctly like canine automatons. While autonomous delivery has already been shown off plenty of times with self-driving cars and other vehicles, Continental’s robo-dogs have been designed to tackle the problem of getting a package from the roadside to the recipient’s door. Continental’s vision for the mechanical mutts is to have them exit a driverless vehicle when it rolls up outside the house and take the package to the door. If no-one is in to receive the package, then the robo-pooch will be…

£1,599 • From store.hp.com VERDICT A well-balanced combination of power and portability, at a lower price than similar gaming systems HP’S OMEN 15 sits somewhere in the middle ground of modern gaming laptops. It’s not as chunky as the likes of the Acer Predator Helios 500 (page 28), but neither is it a slim-and-light stunner like the Razer Blade 15 (Shopper 370) or Asus ROG Zephyrus (Shopper 368). Instead, it attempts to combine power and portability with a price that’s lower than the skinniest gaming clamshells. At 2.5kg and 25mm thick, it adds some weight to your bag, but if you’re not constantly on the go, it’s a decent compromise. We were more put off by the power brick, which weighs 670g – something to bear in mind if you’re…

£250 • From www.scan.co.uk VERDICT The RX 590 is the most powerful mid-range GPU, but noisiness, power consumption and impending obsolescence all pose problems NVIDIA MAY BE several graphics cards deep into its new Turing architecture, but AMD isn’t quite ready to move on from Polaris, the 2016 architecture behind its low-end and mid-range Radeon cards. Its newest GPU, the RX 590, is a mid-ranger aiming to take down Nvidia’s GTX 1060 (Shopper 345) even before the upcoming RTX 2060 can do the job itself. This would be an accomplishment that its predecessors – the RX 480 and 2017’s RX 580 – notably failed at. The RX 590, however, is better positioned for success. It uses a new, more power-efficient 12nm manufacturing process, so while the underlying architecture is the…

£427 • From www.epson.co.uk VERDICT Epson has built an inkjet to beat cheap mono laser MFPs, but it’s lacking some key features Ongoing costs are a paltry 0.2p per page – roughly a quarter of what we’d expect from the best mono lasers EPSON’S ECOTANK INKJETS ditch cartridges in favour of refillable ink tanks, reducing hassle and plastic waste while dramatically cutting running costs. Until now the range has included only home devices, but the ET-M2140 is one of three new models aimed at small businesses. Mono only, it’s ready to pick a fight with entry-level mono laser multifunction peripherals (MFPs), while the ET-M1100 (USB-only) and ET-M1120 (USB and Wi-Fi) are gunning for single-function mono laser printers. At this price you might expect bells and whistles, but the ET-M2140 is…

£1,134 • From www.wexphotovideo.com VERDICT Despite terrible battery life, this is a great camera for serious filmmaking on a budget ALTHOUGH PROFESSIONAL VIDEO quality has been widely accessible for some time now, pro video cameras have remained somewhat out of reach. You can buy DSLRs that capture great 4K video, particularly from Panasonic and Olympus, but those rarely provide all the facilities used by professional videographers. For this, you’d normally have to pay around £1,500 at the very least. That’s where the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K comes in. It aims to provide the image quality, tools and all the capabilities a professional videographer needs, but at the sort of price you would pay for a consumer-level DSLR. To be able to shoot in Raw and ProRes at 4K and…

£297 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The Galaxy A7 brings triple-lens photography to the masses, complemented by a sumptuous display DUAL-LENS SMARTPHONE cameras are quickly going from exciting innovation to downright old hat. Following on from Huawei’s three-camera flagships, the P20 Pro (Shopper 366) and Mate 20 Pro (Shopper 373), the Samsung Galaxy A7 brings a versatile triple-camera configuration down to the mid-range. Specifically, the main 24-megapixel sensor is accompanied by an 8-megapixel ultra-wide sensor and a 5-megapixel depth sensor for fancy bokeh-effect portraits. That’s not the only enticing hardware, either: there’s also a lovely 6in, Full HD+, 18:9 Super AMOLED screen, Samsung’s new octa-core Exynos 7885 processor, 4GB of RAM and the ability to add up to 400GB of storage capacity via microSD, on top of the 32GB onboard storage.…

£115 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The Vivosmart 4 is a capable exercise companion for anyone looking to improve their fitness GARMIN’S LATEST FITNESS tracker brings some pretty sophisticated features for a sub-£150 wearable. The main one is the new Pulse OX sensor, which measures your blood oxygen saturation levels. Although it’s not medically approved, the technology can help you to better understand what’s going on with your body, especially during sleep. The other starring feature is that the wearable can calculate your body’s overall resources – the Body Battery measurement – so you know when to exercise and when to rest; a handy feature for fitness novices and enthusiasts alike. GIVEN A PUSH The Vivosmart 4’s design doesn’t deviate too far from the fitness tracker stereotype: it’s a rubber strap…

01 You don’t have to spend much to buy a decent graphics card that can drive multiple monitors. The AMD Radeon RX 550 costs about £100, for example, and while it isn’t suited to playing the latest games in Full HD, it is perfect for watching videos, browsing the web and playing basic games. 02 You’ll need to spend more money if you want to play the latest games. A good mid-range gaming graphics card is the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060, which is powerful enough to play all modern games at Full HD resolution. High-powered cards tend to be more expensive, so expect to pay over £400 if you want to play games in Ultra HD at the highest quality settings. 03 Check that your chosen card has the graphics…

01 Laser printers used to be much more expensive than inkjets and were typically restricted to offices. They are now much more affordable, however, and offer several benefits over inkjets, including lower per-page printing costs and faster print speeds. 02 A decent laser printer will typically cost around £80, and will happily print hundreds of black-and-white pages per hour. If documents are your priority, you’ll want a high minimum speed and low print costs. However, you’ll probably be limited to black-and-white printing at this price. 03 Although you can still buy single-function laser printers, multifunction peripherals (MFPs) are now far more common. These models can scan and photocopy documents as well as print them, and some of them also have fax capabilities. Laser MFPs start from around £200. 04 Heavy-duty…

01 A smartphone’s operating system (OS) dictates its basic features and which third-party software you can install. There are three main contenders: Apple’s iOS, which is found on the iPhone, Google’s Android, which is used by various handset manufacturers, and Windows Phone, which has few options, especially since Microsoft has discontinued support for its OS. Apple iOS and Google Android both have thousands of apps available. 02 All smartphones have colour screens, but their resolutions vary. Basic models have 1,280x720 pixels, but text can be indistinct. Look for a display that has at least 1,920x1,080 pixels so it’s easier to read text and watch Full HD videos. Don’t worry too much about built-in media players or Office document editors; you can always install apps to replace these with better versions…

01 Bluetooth speakers come in all shapes and sizes, so you’ll need to decide what you want to do with the speaker before you buy. If you don’t plan to take your music outdoors or around the house, look for a wired speaker. These are typically cheaper than speakers with built-in batteries. If you do want a portable speaker, however, pay particular attention to how much it weighs. Ruggedised models should be able to survive accidental drops, water spills and unexpected rain showers. 02 Many of the cheapest Bluetooth speakers use the lossy A2DP Bluetooth protocol, which is prone to compressing your music and discarding detail compared with the original recording. It’s hard to tell the difference when listening to pocket-sized speakers, but if you’re looking for a speaker to…

01 Wearable tech can include anything from chest-strap heart-rate monitors to augmented reality glasses, but the two most common types are smartwatches and fitness trackers. Both are designed to sit unassumingly on your wrist, and are almost always meant to be used in tandem with a paired smartphone. 02 Smartwatches are typically more complex and expensive, though more closely resemble a traditional wristwatch. You can use them to receive and reply to text messages and emails, quickly check maps and even play games – like a smartphone, most smartwatches allow you to install your own choice of apps. 03 Fitness trackers are much more dedicated to healthy pursuits. Step counters, heart-rate monitors and even sleep tracking are all common, and the data collected is fed back to you so you…

£700 • From www.chillblast.com VERDICT This handsome desktop specialises in processing power and multitasking, by way of a Ryzen 7 CPU THE FUSION RECOIL sees Chillblast take a heavily CPU-favoured approach to PC building. Not that the graphics processor, storage and general design have all been ignored, but the GPU in particular is the same lowly GTX 1050 as seen in the Acer Nitro N50-600. By contrast, the processor is the mighty AMD Ryzen 7 1700, a true high-end chip with eight cores, 16 threads and a full 16GB of RAM backing it up from the sidelines. Sure, this particular Ryzen chip is last-gen nowadays, having been replaced by the Ryzen 7 2700X, but that’s not going to be making it into any £700 desktops any time soon. Looking slightly…

£700 • From www.overclockers.co.uk VERDICT A weak processor and basic storage complicate this PC’s gaming superiority, but there’s big scope for upgrades THIS PC IS something specifically for the gaming crowd: it has, on paper, the most powerful GPU of any system in this group test, Nvidia’s full-fat 6GB GeForce GTX 1060. There was a time not long ago when you could have expected to pay around £1,000 for a GTX 1060 desktop, and while it will have been superseded by the RTX 2060 by the time you read this, it’s still the most capable card that could realistically feature in a £700 pre-build. VELVET REVOLUTION Sure enough, if it’s gaming prowess you want, the Gaming Vision VR is the fastest PC here in the Metro: Last Light Redux and…

£700 • From www.wired2fire.com VERDICT This is a competent compact system, but the case isn’t the only thing that’s small THE WIRED2FIRE TEMPEST adopts the bold strategy of including only a single, unaccompanied 240GB SSD, and a SATA model at that. There are no additional SSDs or hard disks – 240GB is your lot, and that includes the space for Windows 10. If this was a move to save costs, it was mostly likely in aid of the CPU, the same Intel Core i5-8400, with six cores and up to 4GHz boost clock speed, as the Acer Nitro N50-600. BRAINS OF THE OPERATION As such, it beats the Overclockers Gaming Vision VR and Cyberpower Ultra 5 RX in our 4K benchmarks: the Tempest scored 135 in the image test, 176…

Raspberry Pi Official Cases From £5 thepihut.com Keep your Pi looking neater with the official cases, available for the Zero W, A+ and B+. Raspberry Pi Camera Module £7.99 www.amazon.co.uk The 5MP camera module is great for simple projects; the 8MP version costs £24. Official Raspberry Pi 7in Touchscreen Display £60 thepithut.com Want to operate your Pi by touch? This official touchscreen display gives you that option and is perfect for many projects. It’s not compatible with the Pi Zero W. Aukru Micro USB on/off switch £4.99 www.amazon.co.uk The Raspberry Pi has no on/off button, but use this cable’s in-line switch to toggle power to your computer. Kingston SDCS/32GB MicroSD Canvas Select Class £5.35 www.amazon.co.uk With 32GB of storage, you’ll have enough room for most projects on your Pi 3 or Pi Zero…

AMSTRAD ANTICS A short-lived magazine from the 1980s, which covered game reviews for the Amstrad CPC, looks set to make a comeback as a hardback annual. Fusion Retro Books is planning to bring back Amtix, which lasted for 18 issues between 1985 and 1987, and it has created a Facebook group (tinyurl.com/374retro1) to assess potential demand. Should the Amtix book get off the ground, it will follow in the footsteps of two other Newsfield Publications, Zzap!64 and Crash, both of which were created as annuals following successful crowdfunding on Kickstarter. It will be edited by Roger Kean, who helmed the original, and artwork will be provided by the original art editor Oliver Frey. PLAY A GAME FROM BANDERSNATCH Netflix’s interactive film Black Mirror: Bandersnatch has already become a cult classic,…

Stubborn software @ Recently I decided that I ought to upgrade my antivirus software from AVG Free to the one you made a strong recommendation for (Kaspersky Total Security). I have to say that I had been using AVG for years, and it had provided me with protection. First of all, I found it hard to remove AVG even after following the instructions, but it was clear that this was a common problem. I then loaded the package I had purchased, and on the face of it, it was working. However, it was soon obvious there was a problem connecting to the internet, and it simply totally shut off all use after 30 to 60 minutes. It gave me no clues as to why or what it found wrong: it…

Madeline Bennett RAVES THE WORLD WIDE Web has lots of things to answer for: selling our data, snooping on our every move, and bombarding us with way too many pictures of other people’s holidays, babies, pets and lunches. But the other day, I came across one of those silly yet life-affirming stories that could only ever happen because of the web. In January, William (Will) Novak of Phoenix, Arizona, received an email meant for a different William (Bill) Novak. The message was an invite to Angelo’s bachelor party skiing in Vermont 11 days later. Will replied, explaining that while he’d love to come, “I do not know who Angelo is. Vermont seems like a very far way for me to travel for the bachelor party of a guy I’ve never…

“If a person cannot be compelled to provide a passcode because it is a testimonial communication, a person cannot be compelled to provide one’s finger, thumb, iris, face or other biometric feature to unlock that same device”Judge Kandis Westmore rules US cops can’t compel suspects to unlock their phones via biometrics “Performance is lousy”Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang predictably pulls no punches when critiquing AMD’s new Radeon 7 graphics cards “My challenge for 2019 is to host a series of public discussions about the future of technology in society – the opportunities, challenges, hopes and anxieties”Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg hopes for a better year than 2018 “Today, with Kunpeng 920, we are entering an era of diversified computing embodied by multiple cores and heterogeneity”Huawei spouts gobbledygook about what it claims is the…

£1,500 • From www.lenovo.com VERDICT A speedy and versatile 2-in-1 that’s good value, even with a short-lived battery ON PAPER, THE Yoga 730 is a convertible laptop that has it all: a 4K display, fast CPU and PCI-E SSD, powerful discrete Nvidia graphics and generous connectivity options. Unless Lenovo has got something horribly wrong, this could be the Dell XPS 15 2-in-1 (Shopper 368) alternative we’ve been waiting for. As ever, it’s not quite that simple, although there are certainly a lot of things going in the Yoga 730’s favour. Like any 15.6in laptop it’s not going to be as portable as a svelte 13.3in or 14in model, but even at 1.9kg it’s no heavier than the XPS 15 2-in-1. It can also be loaded with an enviably potent mix…

£2,099 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT The big and brash Helios 500 is a gaming powerhouse with superlative processing speed, but there are better alternatives SOME LAPTOPS WERE never meant to sit on your lap, and the Acer Predator Helios 500 is one of them. Unlike the HP Omen 15 (page 26), this is a gaming laptop that doesn’t hold anything back in pursuit of maximum performance – and that means both powerful components and equally powerful cooling. As a result, it’s imposingly bulky and back-achingly heavy, totalling 3.7kg with a 1.3kg power brick to match. Being a 17.3in laptop, it’s also very wide, measuring 428x298x39mm. It’s therefore difficult to use anywhere other than a desk, especially since even with its two fans, five heatpipes and massive exhausts, the underside gets…

£150 • From www.skullcandy.co.uk VERDICT With built-in tracking tech, these are a great pair of ANC headphones for the forgetful SKULLCANDY’S HEADPHONES ARE often cheap but garish, so the tastefully understated Venue is an interesting change of pace, even if they cost £150. That money gets you not just good looks and Bluetooth connectivity, but the kind of features that could give Sony, Bose and others a fright: 40mm drivers, active noise cancellation (ANC), voice assistant compatibility, quick charge and a 24-hour battery life. They even have Tile’s clever Bluetooth location technology built in, letting you find them even when they’re switched off. In terms of design, the Venue headphones are hard to fault. Skullcandy’s favoured bright colours are replaced by a stylish all-matt black (or white) design, while raised…

£2,399 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT Philips combines OLED technology, excellent image processing and Ambilight magic to create a very special TV ADDING TO ITS formidable line-up of LCD TVs, Philips has joined LG, Sony and Panasonic in adopting what looks like the future of premium TVs: OLED. The flagship 903 series and less expensive 803 series use this panel tech, which can switch off pixels individually to produce better contrast and perfect blacks. Key features on the 803 series, represented here by the 65OLED803, include LG Display’s 2018 OLED panels powered by Philips’ second-generation P5 video-processing engine, Ultra HD Premium certification and three-sided Ambilight integrated bias lighting technology. It runs on an Android-based Smart TV platform, too. HDR support for the HDR10, broadcast-friendly HLG and HDR10+ formats are present and…

£459 • From www.mi.com VERDICT It’s not as outrageously good value as the Pocophone F1, but this is another well-priced phablet from Xiaomi XIAOMI HAS ALREADY proved it has what it takes to shake up the UK smartphone scene. Its Pocophone F1 (Shopper 373) packs in top-end features such as a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 CPU, dual-lens camera and huge 6.2in display for just £279. The Mi 8 Pro provides all three of the same features for a flagship-beating price, although this is quite a bit more than the Pocophone F1 at £459. Why, then, is the Mi 8 Pro worth it? WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY For starters, it has one of the most unusual designs we’ve seen on a smartphone in ages. The rear glass panel isn’t textured or coloured, but…

£50 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The original PlayStation has returned, but has a high price to pay for a cobbled-together nostalgia hit FOLLOWING IN THE footsteps of Nintendo’s reimagined games consoles, the Classic Mini NES and Classic Mini SNES, Sony has come up with the PlayStation Classic. A miniaturised version of Sony’s original gaming machine, preloaded with 20 of its games, this too looks to administer a heavy dose of nostalgia. The console comes bundled with two retro PlayStation controllers, an HDMI cable and Micro USB power lead. As with Nintendo’s Classic consoles, you’ll have to supply your own USB power adaptor to get it running – we had to dig out an old Apple adaptor. Even with this inconvenience, however, the PlayStation Classic is unashamedly adorable. Aside from being…

01 A basic laptop costing around £300 will run everyday office, multimedia and education software, but it won’t be suitable for 3D gaming or processor-intensive tasks such as video editing. Many laptops at this price have a 15.6in screen and weigh over 2kg, so they’re best used around the house and for occasional journeys. 02 If you want to play modern games, you’ll need a laptop with a dedicated graphics chip such as the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060M. Good gaming laptops tend to have large 15.6 or 17in screens and weigh around 3kg, so they’re best suited to use at home. 03 If you want a laptop that you can take everywhere, look for a model that weighs less than 2kg. For the best portability, buy one that has a…

01 Building your own PC is often cheaper than buying a pre-made system, and gives full control over the components. You don’t need any special computer knowledge: just a few spare hours, a screwdriver and your choice of parts. Even things such as liquid-cooling systems can be found in user-friendly, easy-to-install packages, and for the most part it’s as simple as inserting each component into a particular slot. 02 Arguably the most important component is the CPU. These days you can get a quad-core chip even on a tight budget, which should provide more than enough brainpower for simple tasks such as web browsing, but hexa-core and octa-core chips are better for tougher jobs such as media editing, gaming and content creation. The CPU will also determine which motherboards you…

01 Wireless routers each use a number of Wi-Fi standards, so you shouldn’t have any trouble connecting your computer or phone wirelessly if you get an 802.11n or 802.11ac router. Nearly all routers support 802.11n, so even a cheap model should provide decent performance. You can expect a transfer speed of around 40Mbit/s at a distance of 10m from any modern 802.11n router. The very latest routers use the 802.11ac standard, which provides tremendously fast transfer speeds. Some devices still don’t support the 802.11ac standard, so check the specifications before you buy. 02 If you subscribe to an ADSL broadband service, you should buy a wireless router that has a built-in ADSL modem. This will cost more than the equivalent cable router, but it allows you to connect your router…

01 All tablets rely on an operating system (OS) to run apps. You have three main choices: Apple’s iOS, which runs on the iPad; Android, which Google licenses to various manufacturers; and Windows 10, which has become common in hybrid tablets and convertibles. If you own an Apple or Google smartphone, you can download your apps, music and so on to a tablet that runs the same OS, so it makes sense to stick with a compatible device. 02 It’s important to pick a tablet that has a good-quality, high-resolution screen. Many budget tablets have 1,280x800-resolution displays, but better tablets have Full HD 1,920x1,080 panels, and we’re starting to see tablets that have even higher screen resolutions. Some are as high as 2,560x1,600 or even 4K. Entry-level tablets typically use…

01 Media streamers have come a long way from the hard disk-based set-top boxes of a few years ago. They now come in two main forms: flash drive-sized dongles that plug directly into the HDMI port in the back of your TV, and larger microconsoles that sit under it. Whichever model you choose, it will stream content from the internet rather than storing media files locally. 02 Most streamers use their own operating system, which you can navigate with a bundled remote control, but Google’s Chromecast dongle requires a paired smartphone, tablet or laptop to stream content on the big screen. If you’re looking to set up Netflix for someone who doesn’t have a smartphone, buy a standalone streamer such as a Roku or Amazon Fire TV device. 03 A…

A HOME OFFICE CHILLBLAST Fusion Recoil It has the most gaming PC name imaginable, and it comes with a GeForce GTX 1050 graphics card, but the Fusion Recoil is still the most capable PC for getting real work done, even if it’s relatively hardware-intensive. This is overwhelmingly thanks to its processor, an AMD Ryzen 7 1700. True, Chillblast may have delved back into yesteryear for this, but that’s actually a smart way of getting a high-end CPU into an affordable system. It’s still powerful enough to outperform newer, far more common Ryzen 5 and Intel Core i5 chips in multithreaded tasks, and with a generous 16GB of RAM and NVMe storage, there’s nothing to slow down your productivity. HIGH-QUALITY GAMING PC SPECIALIST Apollo S2 This was a tough one, because…

£699 • From www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk VERDICT An eye-catching system with good gaming ability and storage, but a bit short on processing muscle GOOD NEWS FOR those who prefer their desktop PCs with more than a touch of style: the Ultra 5 RX is even more modern and modish than the Chillblast Fusion Recoil. The front and side panels are made of dark, tempered glass – no faux aluminium finishes here – and the blue-lit intake and exhaust fans add an attractive soft glow to the interior. For an added flourish, the intake fan is mounted to the right of the chamber, not at the front. Vents are cut into the corresponding area of the right-side panel to allow it to breathe in. It’s not a unique chassis layout, but it does…

£700 • From www.palicomp.co.uk VERDICT Well-specced in almost every regard, this is a nicely balanced, do-anything PC with standout storage IT’S NEITHER UNCOMMON nor surprising when two rival PCs share the odd component, as these very systems show with their matching motherboards and graphics cards. Still, the visual aspect makes it impossible to gloss over how the AMD Abyss has the exact same case – the Kolink Strong – as the Chillblast Fusion Recoil. If it weren’t for the little Chillblast logo added to the latter, things could become very confusing very quickly. The AMD Abyss doesn’t have the HAL 9000-esque red circle glowing through the tinted, tempered glass side panel, but some cycling RGB effects on the motherboard give it something to admire through the pane. This also takes…

Our initial instructions have shown you how to get started with the Pi, demonstrating how the GPIO port can be used to control external devices and how the camera can be used. With the electronics kit we’ve recommended, you’ve got enough to plan some fun projects. If you’re looking for a bit more variety, here’s our pick of the best Raspberry Pi projects around. USE A RASPBERRY PI AS AVPN SERVER A virtual private network (VPN) allows you to mask your online identity so your activity can’t be tracked as you browse the internet, download content or participate in conversations. VPNs can be used on regular computers too, and the process is pretty much the same when using a mini-computer like the Raspberry Pi. There are lots of VPN programs…

Given that the power of many top supercomputers is being harnessed in the quest to limit climate change, it would be somewhat ironic if those computers had a massive energy footprint. This is a serious concern, and headline figures for power consumption are barely reducing. In 2005, the Top500’s third-placed ASC Purple consumed 16.7MW, while the 2013 world’s fastest Tianhe-2 clocked up a figure of 18.5MW. Against these figures, it would appear that today’s Summit supercomputer, which consumes 13MW, is little better than its predecessors. However, we’re not comparing like with like. ASC Purple achieved 79 teraflops compared to Summit’s 201 petaflops, and even the more recent Tianhe-2 managed little more than a quarter of the speed of today’s latest and greatest. In terms of performance per watt, therefore, we’ve seen…

Send your problems to help@computershopper.co.uk Must I edit the Registry? I bought PaintShop Pro X9 from Amazon and it worked fine for a couple of weeks until I got a popup message asking me either to pay a certain amount in order to ‘legalise’ my copy, or to provide my serial number and proof of purchase. I wondered if this could be a scam so didn’t follow the link, but I then found that PaintShop Pro had been disabled. I contacted Corel’s support department and they directed me to edit the Registry. Specifically, they asked me to run RegEdit and export its contents to my desktop. Once completed, they asked me to navigate to HKey_Current_User/Software/Corel/PaintShop Pro, and rename the folder ‘19.0’ to ‘Old19.0’. I’ve never touched the Registry before. Not…

If your hankering for a bygone era of computing is on the extreme side, you might be tempted to transform your Windows 10 PC into an homage to Windows 3.1. Before you start altering your main PC, there is a much easier way to slake that thirst. Head to archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_win3 and you can not only see the Internet Archive’s catalogue of Windows 3.1 software, but you can run all of it in your web browser. There are hundreds of applications to play with, from games and long-forgotten office suites to those quirky bits of home-baked software that proved so invaluable to so many. In fact, the Internet Archive’s announcement of its Windows 3.1 repository even tells of a French airport that until circa 2016 still used a Windows 3.1 PC…