Computer Shopper -julkaisun January 2020 -irtonumeron sisällysluettelo

If you look carefully through Shopper this issue, you’ll spot a bit of a recurring theme. Kay Ewbank extols the virtues of Cobol, a program that’s been around for 60 years (page 10); Roland Moore-Colyer despairs at smartphone manufacturers’ obsession with rushing out new devices every year rather than improving existing ones (page 12); and I’m raving about an application about to celebrate its 35th birthday (also page 12). The technology world is so fast-paced and focused on the next big thing, that often older products are dismissed as irrelevant. We’re under constant pressure to upgrade to the latest version of every application we’re using, and shell out yet more cash to buy another device to replace the one we bought only recently. We don’t want to risk missing out…

Good things come in small packages We test out the latest mini PCs to see which offer the best performance and value in their tiny package Divided we fall Mel Croucher explores the digital divide, from a cashless society and the loss of basic services to measures we can all take to help bridge the gap Security for free We round up the best security tools for everything from checking network security to encryption, and they’re all available at no cost COMPUTER SHOPPER ISSUE 384 ON SALE IN NEWSAGENTS FROM 6th DECEMBER…

Madeline Bennett RAVES ONE OF THE past criticisms of computing education has been that it focuses too much on ‘dull’ aspects such as spreadsheets, which puts off students from selecting technology subjects. In my schooldays, we were fortunate to have a computer lab at all. But with around 20 PCs for 700 students, we didn’t get to use it much. And as Microsoft had only recently launched its core Office apps when I was a schoolgirl, I never had the chance to sit through these ‘dull’ lessons, being taught how to master Excel spreadsheets. And how I wish I’d had that opportunity. There have been countless occasions in my working life where advanced Excel skills would have been a boon. Instead, I’ve managed to pick up the basics by using…

On the Spectrum Eve, the company behind the Surface Pro-like, crowdsourced Eve V, has tapped up its community to come up with the Eve Spectrum, a 4K monitor that takes the desires of its 2,000 members into account Double duty Google has revealed a pair of new Pixel phones, with the fourth-generation Android handset dropping the single-camera setup for a dual-camera array Charging ahead The Oppo Reno Ace handset can charge its 4,000mAh battery from empty to full in a mere 30 minutes thanks to a 65W SuperVOOC charger, potentially setting the standard for faster phone charging Yee-core Rockstar has revealed that its hit console title Red Dead Redemption 2 is coming to the PC and will tap into the power a gaming rig can bring to bear with enhanced…

PROTECTING MEDICAL DATA is an important part of ensuring that sensitive information stays private. But such data can help deliver useful insights to the medical world to deliver better diagnosis and care. Now Nvidia has joined forces with King’s College London (KCL) to create artificial intelligence systems to extract insights from medical data without actually taking that information from its source. The technique, known as federated learning, uses multiple parties to train a centralised deep neural network. Nvidia and KCL use this method for a central system, which contains the algorithms to analyse medical imaging data at a local hospital rather than sucking up data into a central server. Instead, a client is installed on the hospital’s systems, which processes the imaging data locally and only sends back what it…

£1,749 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT Form beats function on the latest Swift 7, an amazingly portable yet underpowered Windows laptop 14in LAPTOPS SIMPLY don’t come smaller than the Acer Swift 7. At 10mm thin, it’s almost as slim as a smartphone, and it’s noticeably short, too: just 192mm from front to back. That’s not to mention its feathery weight of just 890g. Unsurprisingly, however, some extreme slimming has some knock-on effects. Take the ultra-slim bezels: these look smart and help keep the total dimensions low, but because they don’t leave room for a webcam, this has to be shunted on to the base. The Swift 7’s camera thus has a pretty neat pop-up design, allowing for privacy when not in use, but the low angle shows more of the user’s…

£1,100 • From www.box.co.uk VERDICT Mid-range gaming laptops can be hard to get right, but the Nitro 7 finds a winning formula AFTER THE BITTER disappointment of the underpowered, poorly made Nitro 5 (Shopper 375), Acer’s affordable gaming notebook series was in need of redemption. Happily, that’s exactly what the new Nitro 7 provides. This is a pricier laptop than the £699 Nitro 5, but it’s clearly cut from finer cloth. Metal covers on the lid, base and keyboard prevent the chassis from feeling too plasticky, and while the Nitro 7, like the Nitro 5, has a 15.6in display, it has a slightly slimmer profile at 260x363x23mm. However, it could be smaller still, were it not for some chunky top and bottom bezels, and at 2.5kg it’s pretty heavy, too.…

£283 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT A very fast router that’s ready for the future, but you’ll need to pay a premium for it today WITH WI-FI USAGE ever increasing and broadband speeds on the up, the challenge for router manufacturers has been to create products that deliver more throughput and better cope with more devices. After pushing the 802.11ac standard (Wi-Fi 5) to its limits, it’s time for a new standard: 802.11ax, or Wi-Fi 6. The Netgear Nighthawk AX8 is the first 802.11ax router we’ve seen, designed to be future-proof. GO FASTER Before we get into the router itself, here’s a quick primer on Wi-Fi 6. The new standard isn’t just about delivering faster speeds; it’s also designed to make the most of the capacity available, so that multiple devices…

£1,699 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT A capable QLED TV for fairly sensible money, although it cuts some corners to achieve this SITTING BELOW THE Q90R, Q85R and Q80R series, Samsung’s Q70R range aims to deliver QLED magic for less cash than its stablemates. We tested the 55in QE55Q70R, but whether you choose this or the 49in, 75in or 82in variants, they all have the same high-end panel tech. These are also the cheapest Samsung QLED TVs to use full array local dimming (FALD) backlighting, giving them an advantage over sets that use basic edge-lit backlighting. Admittedly, FALD comes in a simpler form here – there are just 50 lighting zones, not hundreds as there are on the Q80R range and above – and the Q70R series also misses out on…

£550 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The OnePlus 7T introduces a host of improvements, but its new camera proves to be a fundamental flaw T-BRANDED ONEPLUS PHONES tend to only present minor upgrades on their non-T counterparts, so the 7T is an exciting change of tact: there are so many changes and additions here, it’s hard to know where to start. On the rear, for example, the vertically stacked dual cameras on the OnePlus 7 (Shopper 380) have been replaced by three lenses arranged horizontally. Granted, it’s not the most attractive piece of design – the black housing surrounding the lenses is huge, and pokes out too far from the back – but on the whole, this is still a very good-looking handset, and the display has been improved, too. GO…

£199 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT The Fitbit Versa 2 is a well-judged update, although the lack of GPS holds it back THE ORIGINAL VERSA (Shopper 365) almost single-handedly turned around a beleaguered Fitbit’s fortunes, so it’s no wonder the firm is looking for repeat success with the sequel. The Versa 2 is every bit as attractive as the old model, with its sleek square face, gentle rounded edges and single, unobtrusive button. TRICKS OF THE TRADE It’s actually quite remarkable how stylish it looks on the wrist, because to some extent its good looks are an optical illusion. First of all, it’s 12mm thick, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but that’s actually close to twice as thick as the average smartphone. Because of the way it tapers inwards, however,…

£3,399 • From www.wexphotovideo.com VERDICT A combination of smart design and technical trickery, the Sony A9 is the pinnacle of stills cameras THE TOP END of the mirrorless camera market is a very different place to the bottom: exotic sensor technology is blended with immense processing power, producing incredible images than can withstand aggressive reproduction. The Sony A9 is a prime example. It has a 24.2-megapixel, full-frame sensor, and is capable of shooting up to 20fps. Impressively, this number includes mid-burst autofocus and auto-exposure adjustment, theoretically allowing you to track subjects not only as they move through space, but also as they move through different light. There’s also in-body image stabilisation, all housed in a weather-sealed, magnesium-alloy body designed to survive all but the most wilful abuse. AT YOUR FINGERTIPS…

01 A basic 1TB internal hard disk should cost around £40. This will be fast enough for general use and will provide enough storage for most users. Make sure the hard disk you choose has the appropriate interface type for your PC. Most hard disks and solid-state drives (SSDs) use the SATA3 interface, which enables faster speeds than the older SATA2. Pretty much every motherboard released in recent years will have multiple SATA3 ports, allowing you to connect several storage drives at once. 02 SSDs can make the most of SATA3’s high bandwidth for fast file transfers. They use flash memory similar to that found in USB flash drives, and although they tend to provide less capacity than mechanical hard disks, they’re significantly faster. More expensive SSDs use the NVMe…

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-to-digital 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 If you don’t have space in your home cinema setup for a set of surround sound speakers, a soundbar is the next best thing. Whether you opt for a soundbar (which typically sits in front of your TV stand) or a soundplate (which sits underneath your TV), you’ll be getting significantly better audio than the weedy speakers today’s flatscreen TVs provide. 02 If you want to cut down on cable clutter, look for a soundbar with multiple HDMI inputs and outputs as well as Audio Return Channel (ARC). Not all soundbars use HDMI, with many making do with digital optical audio connections instead. This means you’ll have to connect Blu-ray players, games consoles and set-top boxes to your TV and run all audio through a single cable. Also look…

01 If you’re ready to step beyond the basic controls of a compact camera, or you want greater flexibility than an ultra-zoom can offer, a compact system camera (CSC) is the next logical upgrade. With interchangeable lenses, manual controls and stellar image quality, these cameras give proper digital SLRs a run for their money. 02 There are three competing types of CSC mount, and the one you buy determines the number of compatible lenses and accessories you have available. Samsung’s NX-mount is arguably the most limited in terms of lens selection, and the company has confirmed that it’s shutting down its European camera business, so it’s best to avoid these altogether if possible. Sony’s E-Mount has a slightly wider range, but Micro Four Thirds offers the widest variety. Both Panasonic…

£130 • From www.awd-it.co.uk VERDICT Don’t be fooled by its age: the heavily discounted RX 570 will outpace any ‘true’ budget GPU THE RX 570 is easily the odd one out of all these GPUs. Although it hasn’t been directly replaced, making it current-gen in a certain sense, it’s not based on the same Navi architecture as AMD’s Radeon RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT, and it’s not even from last year. In fact, it launched all the way back in April 2017, and it’s based on the old Polaris architecture that originated with the long-gone RX 480 (Shopper 345). You can still buy it, however, and price drops over time means that this erstwhile mid-range GPU has been enjoying a new lease of life as a powerful budget card.…

£143 • From www.ebuyer.com VERDICT The GTX 1650 is Nvidia’s most powerful budget GPU yet, but it faces a strong challenge from the RX 570 IT’S BEEN ALMOST a year since Nvidia first announced its GeForce RTX 20-series cards, but we finally have a replacement for the entry-level GTX 1050 as well. The GTX 1650 is a world away from the monster frame rates and real-time ray-tracing of its RTX cousins, joining the GTX 1660 Ti (overleaf) and GTX 1660 in the more affordable 16-series, but it’s still an interesting position, especially when it’s in the tiny form factor of this Zotac GeForce GTX 1650 OC model. The GPU within is the cheapest of Nvidia’s current crop, and without a GTX 1650 Ti to compete with, is the only truly…

£540 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Despite costing more than the RX 5700 XT, higher performance and a far better cooler make this card worth the cash EVEN AS NVIDIA’S GeForce range has become bigger, more complicated and potentially more confusing – what with all the Ti suffixes and Super variants – its ‘70 cards have always been reliably good buys. We therefore have high hopes for the RTX 2070 Super, even if it doesn’t go as far as the RTX 2060 Super in upgrading the memory. Here, you get the same 8GB of GDDR6 as the standard RTX 2070, but clock speeds have risen across the board – base speeds are up from 1,410MHz to 1,605MHz, boost speeds up from 1,620MHz to 1,770MHz – and the CUDA core total has…

When it was found on a wreck in the sea off the coast of the Greek island of Simi by sponge divers in 1900, it initially looked like nothing more than a piece of corroded bronze junk. However, there is more to the Antikythera Mechanism – as it’s now called, named after the ship from which it was taken – than first appeared. The artefact remained largely ignored in the National Museum of Archaeology in Athens until 1951, when it came to the attention of a British science historian who, following X-ray and gamma ray images, came to the astonishing conclusion that it was a 2,000-year-old analogue computer. Containing 37 gears, the purpose of this, the world’s first known computer, was to solve the models that define the movement of…

Send your problems to help@computershopper.co.uk A novel approach I’m a truck-mounted crane operator, and as such I often find myself twiddling my thumbs as I wait for supply boats, trains, lorries and joiners. To tide myself over, I read books (lots of books!), which have the handiness of being easily put aside when I’m required to do some actual work. As a bit of a puritan, I have so far refused to ‘upgrade’ from paper to an ebook reader. Lately I’ve had an increasing urge to try writing my own novel, but my typing ability is best described as ‘glacial’, so I would prefer to write with a stylus. I can also see the advantage in having something that can carry an electronic library around with me. I’m after a…

letters@computershopper.co.uk Chemical effect @Regarding Madeline Bennett’s welcome letter (Shopper 381), the problem for the future is that all resources of the planet are being used up. All metals except a few such as sodium and iron will be gone in 50 to 150 years. Electric cars use huge nickel batteries and cobalt for the magnets, mainly found in Congo. They will not happen. I read the other day that lead will run out in 47 years. Anyone for a dry cave? And a horse or two? Tony Allsop (chemist) The way the cookies crumble @The internet experience is being ruined by pointless cookie warnings and video pop-ups. I am sure that everyone now realises that websites contain cookies, and if you want to go further you have to accept them…

Tech pioneer and all-round good egg letters@computershopper.co.uk I’VE BEEN THINKING about apps and slavery. Not bad thoughts, like how humanity has become enslaved by apps, but good thoughts, like how apps can help slaves shake off the shackles of their oppressors. Me? I’m a willing slave. I’ve uploaded over 200 apps on all sorts of devices. I like their little coloured icons, and I often rearrange them by colour or by function, which I find therapeutic. I don’t actually use the apps, but I do obey all the prompts to update them as soon as they appear onscreen, which I admit is time-consuming. Come to think of it, what I really need is an app that tells me which apps I don’t really need. A useful app to help me…

Chip partnerships Intel is killing off the Kaby Lake-G chips, which saw the chip maker team up with rival AMD to create a chip that mixed an Intel Core CPU with AMD Vega graphics, yielding some capable slices of silicon Foul play Game giant EA exposed the personal details of FIFA 20 players on its website when gamers signed up for the football game’s Global Series competition Auto motors Nvidia has teamed up with Toyota and GM, among others, to work on chips for self-driving cars in the Autonomous Vehicle Computing Consortium, further paving the road ahead for a time when computers, not humans, will be the motorists of the future Not Scot free Two teenagers thought to have been involved in a hack on the Metropolitan Police’s website and…

TESLA HAS UNVEILED a feature that allows users to remotely ‘summon’ their car to their location. However, the tech has already run into problems, with cars crashing into objects and other vehicles. Social media posts relating to the Smart Summon feature show Teslas driving into a garage door, being struck by a reversing vehicle and more. The software update to the Tesla app was rolled out to select users on 26th September. “With Smart Summon, customers who have purchased Full Self-Driving Capability or Enhanced Autopilot can enable their car to navigate a parking lot and come to them or their destination of choice, as long as their car is within their line of sight,” said the company. “It’s the perfect feature to use if you have an overflowing shopping cart,…

iOS 13 SMARTPHONE APPLE iPhone 11 Pro £1,049 • From www.apple.com/uk VERDICT Apple’s latest flagship phone is unbeatably fast, full of new features and has an unbelievably good set of cameras EVEN THOUGH HE’S long gone from Apple, the design influence of Jony Ive can still be seen in the new iPhone 11 Pro, particularly in its set of three rear cameras. Contained within a large glass square, which is actually part of the backplate rather than a separate housing, the asymmetrically positioned lenses are an eye-catching feature in their own right. Otherwise, however, this is a very familiar smartphone to last year’s iPhone XS. There’s the same abundance of glass, the same colour-matched stainless steel frame surrounding the edges, and the same wide notch. This last touch is still…

£610 • From www.dell.com VERDICT Cheap, durable and surprisingly fast, the Latitude 3300 is a proficient studying aid BACK-TO-SCHOOL season may have come and gone, but whether you’re a parent looking to give your kid an advantage or a student yourself, it’s not too late to pick up a suitable laptop. The Dell Latitude 3300, an affordable prospect even at the nearly-top-spec £610 model we’ve tested, is an excellent contender. This configuration has a 13.3in, 1,366x768 HD display, an Intel Core i5-8250U CPU, 8GB of RAM and an all-plastic chassis that’s about as inspiring as a calculator. For storage space, it uses a 256GB PCI-E SSD, and – unusually for such a cheap laptop – it runs Windows 10 Pro. GREY MATTER Dell has certainly gone for a utilitarian design…

£110 • From www.box.co.uk VERDICT An adequate mech board, but also one that doesn’t fully develop its own features STORAGE SPECIALIST ADATA is attempting a big push into enthusiast PC hardware at the moment, branching out from the usual SSDs with cases such as the XPG Invader and XPG Battlecruiser, alongside the XPG Summoner, a full-size gaming keyboard with mechanical Cherry switches. Design-wise, it’s fairly simple – standard black keycaps sit on top of a grey metal plate, which in turn covers a plastic underside – but that’s also just the foundation upon which Adata has made some nice additions. The biggest, literally, is the padded leatherette wrist rest, which can be quickly attached or detached via magnets. This is, as you can imagine, a lot comfier than any solid…

£161 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT A smart idea for where traditional mesh systems won’t reach, but the app and interface are frustrating to use WHILE WIRELESS MESH networks can improve the signal throughout your home, they’re typically only any good if you have a decent Wi-Fi or Ethernet connection between the wireless satellites. The Devolo Magic 2 WiFi is designed to be different, using Powerline networking to connect the Wi-Fi satellites around your home, producing, in theory, a more stable connection. PLUGGING AWAY The Devolo Magic 2 WiFi is available in two kits. Both have a single Powerline adaptor with a single Ethernet port that plugs into your home router. The difference is that the Starter Kit (£161) has a single Wi-Fi adaptor, while the Whole Home kit (£263) has…

£399 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT It’s heftier than most portable speakers, but the Sonos Move has the smarts and audio quality to make up for it A PORTABLE BLUETOOTH speaker has long been the missing piece of Sonos’s multiroom catalogue. That changes with the Sonos Move, which also brings smart speaker capability via Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. The design is a departure, too. Unlike the squat Sonos One (Shopper 378), the Move is tall and elegant, with an oval top plate and a profile that tapers at the bottom end. All the main controls sit on the top panel, which also plays host to the speaker’s far-field microphone array. The controls are touch-sensitive, which can sometimes spell trouble, but these work reliably and quickly; they comprise a microphone on/off…

£99 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT For its tiny price, it’s hard to find ways in which the Redmi 7A disappoints HOW GOOD CAN a £99 phone be? Obviously there are limits, but Xiaomi has form for crafting a quality product for relatively little cash: just look at the Pocophone F1 (Shopper 373). The Redmi 7A is an even cheaper proposition, but it’s also a showcase of how far budget smartphones have come over the years. This is a handset that’s every bit as handsome as the iPhone 5c was back in the day, and while you’d be unlikely to mistake it for one of the latest flagships, the gap between top-end and budget models has narrowed considerably in terms of looks. AFFORDABLE HOUSING Like most recent phones, the whole thing…

01 A basic PC costing around £350 will be able to run everyday office, multimedia and education software and will easily cope with surfing the internet. It might even be able to run some modern games. Many PCs can be sold either with or without a monitor. If you don’t like the display the manufacturer is offering, you can always use your current one, or buy another one separately. 02 If you want to play games, you’ll have to upgrade the graphics card. Budget cards such as the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 will cope well with many 3D games, but to play the latest 3D games smoothly (and enjoy the best-quality graphics) it’s worth upgrading to a more powerful card such as the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070. 03 All modern…

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 You should be able to buy a decent inkjet printer for less than £40. High-quality printing is possible on such a printer, but it will be slow. The actual print speed of an inkjet can be half the quoted (maximum) speed for text documents, and even slower when printing graphics. Budget inkjet printers such as these are designed only for light use and can be expensive to run. 02 For £80 to £90 you can buy a more capable printer that’s either faster and better built or better at reproducing photos. If documents are your priority, you’ll want a high minimum speed and low print costs. Look for inkjets that can handle all your office media, such as envelopes and labels. 03 If photos are your priority, speed is…

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…

£290 • shop.amd.com VERDICT AMD finally claims the mid-range GPU crown with this brilliantly powerful, and surprisingly cheap, Navi card IN MANY WAYS, the RX 5700 is everything you’d expect from the lesser model in a two-strong GPU launch. Where the RX 5700 XT is grooved and interesting-looking, this is a plain grey box without so much as a backplate to cover the circuit board. Where the RX 5700 XT is running at its full capacity, the RX 5700 is intentionally hobbled with a lower core count and clock speeds than its GPU can allow for. And yet, of these two graphics cards – the long-awaited Navi line-up that introduces AMD’s revamped RDNA architecture – the RX 5700 ends up as an arguably even better deal than its more capable…

£305 • From www.box.co.uk VERDICT Once a great mid-ranger, better-value alternatives end up leaving the GTX 1660 Ti behind IT WAS ALWAYS likely that Nvidia’s Geforce RTX graphics cards wouldn’t entirely kill off the older GTX series: RTX cards are defined by their baked-in support for ray-tracing and DLSS anti-aliasing, but these still require at least fairly beefy GPUs to pull off, so cheaper cards without these features would still be a viable option unless Nvidia wanted to abandon the budget market completely. What we didn’t expect, however, was that there would be a GTX successor to the mid-range GTX 1060, something that’s already been replaced by the RTX 2060 and now the RTX 2060 Super as well. There are two, in fact: the GTX 1660 and the slightly faster…

£750 • From www.ebuyer.com VERDICT A better overall GPU than the RTX 2080, bu still not the best premium card to buy THE ORIGINAL RTX 2080 was stuck in a difficult position. While undeniably a very powerful GPU, in practice it wasn’t sufficiently faster than the RTX 2070 to justify its far higher price, and at the same time, it couldn’t match the outright ground-breaking performance of the RTX 2080 Ti. Flanked on both sides by better value and better power respectively, there was little convincing reason to choose the RTX 2080. The new RTX 2080 Super at least seems to have the right idea on how to avoid a simila fate. The core specs have been upgraded to hopefully bring it closer in line with the RTX 2080 Ti.…

If you’ve just made the jump to Windows 10, or you’re still debating whether to make the move from Windows 7, you’ll find there’s a lot to like about the new operating system, particularly with the most recent May 2019 update. This latest version of Microsoft’s operating system fixes a lot of issues with older software and introduces some smart new features. Here’s our rundown of Windows 10’s best features. TROUBLESHOOTING Got a problem with your computer? No trouble. With the latest version of Windows 10, there are now a lot more troubleshooting tools. Click on the Start menu and go to Settings, Update & Security, Troubleshoot. Here, you’ll find a long list of tools that are designed to find and fix problems automatically, from Windows Update to recording audio…

It’s a science that was known to the ancients. What’s more, the earliest computing device ever discovered, dating back over 2,000 years, was built for this purpose. But unlike much of the so-called wisdom of times gone by – and here we could mention alchemy, sorcery and numerology – this know-how is alive and well, and a driving force behind much of today’s science and technology. The discipline in question is simulation, something that became ever more achievable with the advent of electronic computers. Here we investigate the technology of computer simulation, illustrating it with examples where a near-perfect representation of reality is achieved, allowing engineers to make decisions with confidence. It has to be admitted, however, that there are some aspects of the world around us that defy all…

• CLASSIC AMIGA PINBALL GAME PINGS ON TO CPC Originally created by Digital Illusions for the Commodore Amiga in 1992, the simulation game Pinball Dreams has finally made its way to the Amstrad CPC. In doing so, it has nudged away naysayers who claimed the computer wasn’t capable of smooth-scrolling games, with a faithful version that includes four tables – Ignition, Steel Wheel, Beat Box and Nightmare – and amazing 8-bit sound. The game has been a labour of love by the acclaimed Batman Group, which rose to prominence with a jaw-dropping demo called Batman Forever that tested and pushed the Amstrad’s abilities. “People were saying the techniques applied in Batman Forever couldn’t be applied in games,” group member Alejandro del Campo Gomez tells us. Pinball Dreams proves otherwise. “It’s…

clive@computershopper.co.uk Make a touchscreen jukebox Building a touchscreen unit to control your music has never been easier, whether you’re using old hardware or making a bespoke console. Clive Webster shows you how THE INTERNET IS full of retro-fitted, 1950s jukeboxes – old units rescued from diners and bars, stripped down and rebuilt with Raspberry Pis and Arduinos to make steampunk-style retro-future party pieces. But you don’t need to be a vintage restoration expert to make your own touchscreen jukebox. To make your own jukebox, you can either use old PC hardware or a Raspberry Pi: simply add a cheap touchscreen and a neat ready-made case and you’re ready to host some great parties. There are three general options, so we’ll go through each and let you choose which is best…

WhatsApp, doc? @After reading your security article (‘Reclaim your online privacy’, Shopper380) I checked up on the services I use and I’d already set them as recommended. However, there is an issue with WhatsApp. I did a GDPR data request and received two files: one, a readable file that stated my name, email and a few other basic details in readable format. The other was a large file – portability.json – with a covering email that said it could be opened and read. It couldn’t, because it was encrypted. I then had a long-running email conversation with WhatsApp, asking what app or program I could use to read the file. Result, zero, complete stonewall. By this time I had the feeling that there was information in this file it didn’t…

Software guru and Shopper legend letters@computershopper.co.uk I USUALLY BASE these columns around what’s fun, new and trendy in my area of computer use, and this month is no exception: the programming language Cobol has just celebrated its 60th birthday. OK, so Cobol isn’t really fun, new or trendy, but what’s odd is that it’s still really important. It was already seen as boring and unfashionable when I first learned it back in the 80s. These days, hardly any universities include Cobol on their courses, and most people in IT probably think of it as a historical curiosity. So you might be surprised to learn that you’ve almost certainly interacted with a Cobol program recently. If you’ve got money out of an ATM, used online banking, interacted with a government department,…

Vodafone trials experimental UK networking tech to boost rural broadband RURAL BROADBAND BLACKSPOTS could become a thing of the past after Vodafone launched what it claims is experimental network-sharing technology to broaden the number of suppliers that can offer 4G access in less populated areas of the UK. Collaborating with Intel, the network giant’s system of open radio access networks (OpenRAN) is a project devised to release cutting-edge networking equipment from the stranglehold of a small number of companies, in what is believed to be the first of its kind in Europe. With OpenRAN, Vodafone is hoping the design of hardware and software in networking infrastructure becomes standardised so that it can be used by a wider number of providers to more easily deliver mobile data services to rural areas.…

“We know people are dying on smart motorways… Understanding whether they are less safe, the same or safer – I want all of those facts and recommendations” Transport secretary Grant Shapps is reviewing the safety of smart motorways, which use the hard shoulder for traffic at busy times “Let’s call up Jeff and talk about this” Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg is unhappy about his company’s Amazon Web Services bill “Ultimately, we think in a year or two we’ll have games that are running faster and feel more responsive in the cloud than they do locally” Google Stadia’s Majd Bakar has big ambitions for the game-streaming service “If we don’t do something, this is not going to be an inclusive era” IBM CEO Ginni Rometty warns that new tech could create…

£1,400 •From www.overclockers.co.uk VERDICT Colourful and capable, the Titan Falcon is a very good-value Ryzen 7 system THE TITAN FALCON is a prebuilt PC that takes advantage of AMD’s brilliant 2019 output, with a Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics card and a Ryzen 7 3700X as the CPU. This octa-core chip also comes overclocked to 4.2GHz, up from its 3.6GHz base speed. This performance is at first outshone by one of the most rainbow-heavy RGB settings we’ve ever seen. The case, the GPU, the motherboard and RAM sticks are all equipped with full-spectrum RGB lighting that gently but vividly rotates through different hues. This is a bold design choice, which won’t be to everyone’s tastes. It’s not an ugly PC: we like how the white interior chamber contrasts with the…

£2,022 • From www.ebuyer.com VERDICT A few small steps forward aren’t enough to make the ThinkPad X1 Yoga an essential convertible ANOTHER YEAR, ANOTHER ThinkPad X1 Yoga. Lenovo’s rotating 2-in-1 is now in its fourth generation, and outside of the expected internal upgrades, is a remarkably similar laptop to last year’s model (Shopper 372). That includes the design. There’s no denying that the ThinkPad X1 Yoga looks classy, just as it did last year, and the year before that. The sturdy grey chassis is lovely if a tad dull, and it would be nice to see some more interesting colours on offer. Comprising aluminium and magnesium alloy, the case is light but strong, and the laptop’s overall weight has been cut from 1.4kg to 1.34kg since last year. It’s smaller…

£330 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT This pin-protected drive is smart and fast, although with such high pricing it’s best as a business expense CONSIDERING HOW EASY it is to lose a USB stick, using them to store sensitive information can be a risky business – just ask the Heathrow staff member who famously misplaced a drive allegedly containing the Queen’s travel and security details in 2017. Even if you don’t routinely deal with matters of national security, you can at least make sure lost or stolen USBs go unread by using one with built-in, PIN-protected encryption. iStorage has been a big producer of such devices, spanning the USB-based datAshur range as well as the diskAshur series of external hard disks. Its newest flash drive, the datAshur Pro2, cuts an imposing…

£119 • From uk.insight.com VERDICT There are cheaper home MFPs than the XP-8600, but few can touch it when it comes to photo printing EPSON’S EXPRESSION PHOTO XP-8600 is a compact inkjet multifunction peripheral (MFP) aimed at creative home users – and if shiny black plastic is your thing, you’re going to love it. Business users, on the other hand, should look elsewhere: this MFP misses out key home office features such as a fax modem or an automatic document feeder. Instead, the XP-8600 focuses on home and creative users, and photographers in particular will be delighted by its balance of features. At the front, for example, there’s a huge colour touchscreen with SD card and USB interfaces to support direct printing from digital devices. In the base are cassettes…

£219 • From store.google.com VERDICT The Nest Hub Max is just a bigger version of the Google Home Hub, but that’s no bad thing DON’T LET THE new Nest branding throw you off; this is a direct successor to the Google Home Hub (Shopper 372), one of our favourite smart displays. The Nest Hub Max is therefore a familiar device, albeit a significantly larger one – its display is 10in diagonally, up from 7in – and with a camera nestled in the top bezel. For those who fear the privacy implications of this, there is a switch round the back that disables both the camera and the two far-field microphones. It’s a pity there’s no switch for turning off the camera while leaving the microphones on, although you can do…

£399 • www.apple.com/uk VERDICT The Apple Watch Series 5 is the best smartwatch out there, if only for iPhone users EVEN BY APPLE’S conservative standards, the Apple Watch Series 5 is a small update. Besides extra storage space, a magnetic compass and an upgraded altimeter, the biggest change between this and the Series 4 (Shopper 371) is the always-on display. When you’re not looking directly at the watch, the display dims and the data shown on complications and during workouts refreshes more slowly. Turn your wrist, and it brightens instantly. However, for now, this feature only works on the main watch face and Apple’s Workout app. With other apps, the display blurs and a simple digital time is shown when not in use. The design is otherwise largely unchanged, with…

£522 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT This entry-level model from Olympus is a fun camera for vlogging and holiday snaps A BASIC MODEL at the bottom of Olympus’s mirrorless line-up, the PEN E-PL9 is designed to tempt those looking to upgrade from their smartphone’s integrated camera. It includes a full complement of automatic and creative modes, as well as more advanced options. Olympus has gone big on styling, with the E-PL9’s gorgeous retro look making it as much a fashion statement as a photographic tool. It doesn’t represent a huge upgrade from the older E-PL8: many of its specs and features are identical, including a 16.1-megapixel Micro Four Thirds sensor, 3-axis in-body image stabilisation and the 3in tilting touchscreen. 4K video is a big addition, and it’s facilitated by an upgrade…

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…

01 Action cameras are typically much smaller than a regular camcorder, as they are designed to be mounted to a bike, board or car, or worn on your person. As the name suggests, they are designed primarily for shooting action footage, but because of their small size they are ideal for strapping on to your pet’s collar or your children’s toys for a different perspective. 02 Even basic action cameras will shoot Full HD video, and many will even shoot 4K, but frame rate is arguably more important than resolution when it comes to action video. Higher frame rates will mean smoother clips, and super-high frame rate videos can be played in slow motion to emphasise exciting shots. Keep an eye out for 4K/30, 4K/60, 1080p/60 and 720p/120 models for…

Full reviews start over the page, but these are our top picks for gaming at different resolutions 1080p AMD Radeon RX 570 Once upon a time this GPU merely bridged the gap between the entry-level RX 560 and the mid-range RX 580, but while there have always been preferable alternatives to those cards, the RX 570’s drastic price drops have seen it settle as a powerful budget option. It’s cheaper and faster than Nvidia’s much newer GTX 1650, and can even make a fair go of 1440p in certain games. It excels as a 1080p card, however, performing as well as it needs to make lower-end GPUs look underpowered and conventional mid-range cards look like overkill. 1440p AMD Radeon RX 5700 An obscenely good-value graphics card at £290, this cruises…

£329 • From shop.amd.com VERDICT A much more affordable RTX 2070 Super alternative for 1440p and 4K THE SECOND AND more expensive of AMD’s 2019 GPUs is the full, unshackled Navi experience: it’s the same underlying processor as the RX 5700 with none of the hardware switched off. That means a higher stream core count of 2,560, as well as higher base and boost clock frequencies of 1,605MHz and 1,905MHz respectively. The RX 5700 XT also has 40 compute units, essentially clusters of stream processors, while the RX 5700 only has 36. Both have the same 8GB of GDDR6 memory, however, running at a maximum memory bandwidth of 448GB/s in both cases. FRESH STARTS When it launched a few months ago, these specs were enough to make the RX 5700…

£390 • From www.ebuyer.com VERDICT The RX 5700 is cheaper and the RX 5700 XT is faster, but this is still a powerful and well designed graphics card NOT TO COMPLAIN about an already-good graphics card being relaunched with even better specs, but the RTX 2060 Super risks taking things a bit too far – with the price, anyway. The original RTX 2060 was already pushing the definition of ‘mid-range’ with its £329 tag, and this £390 model – Zotac’s GeForce RTX 2060 Super Mini – is one of the cheapest options available. That’s a risky move when both the RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT can be had for less. That said, sometimes you’re paying for qualities besides performance. This Super Mini design is a beauty: it’s short enough…

£1,170 • From www.ebuyer.com VERDICT Nothing beats the RTX 2080 Ti for sheer performance, although its pricing and power consumption are just as high UNLIKE THE REST of the RTX line-up, there’s been no Super-branded do-over for the RTX 2080 Ti. Perhaps that’s because it simply doesn’t need one: for all the improvements introduced by its more recent GeForce brethren, including the RTX 2080 Super, the RTX 2080 Ti remains in a league of its own for price and performance. That said, there have been some developments since we first looked at Nvidia’s own Founders Edition of the RTX 2080 Ti back in Shopper 371: mainly, the launch of partner card models. For the purpose of this group test, then, we’ve done a fresh round of testing with the MSI…

The even older Windows XP is still popular, with nearly 3% of users using this 18-year-old operating system, according to the latest stats. Some of the options that we recommend for Windows 7 apply to Windows XP, although the latter operating system hasn’t been supported for a much longer time, so there’s now less choice when it comes to security software: AVG Free and Avast Free are two decent options, but there’s no Kaspersky or Norton software available. As such, it’s hard to recommend still using Windows XP seriously if you’re going to go online, as it is not a safe operating system. Any computer running Windows XP has far more limited upgrade options, too: you could install Windows 7, although moving from one unsupported OS to another isn’t a…

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