Sommaire pour September 2019 de PCWorld

Intel’s eleven new Ice Lake chips are betting big on graphics. Intel claims that its new 10th-gen Core family, launched at the start of August, will offer the best integrated graphics experience of any thin-and-light notebook PC—about equaling what some discrete chips offer in PCWorld tests. Intel began setting up Ice Lake expectations in May, positioning its first mass-market 10nm parts as improvements for the notebook PC as a whole, including AI, communications, and I/O. The overarching message is “new”: a new process technology, a new CPU core, and a new graphics engine, along with “new” advancements in communications and I/O. Here are Intel’s mobile Ice Lake chips, in a nutshell: 11 processors, most sporting 4 cores and 8 threads, in either a 9W, 15W, or 28W power tier.…

Samsung couldn’t wait until its Unpacked show to unveil all of the new things it’s been working on. Ahead of the big show, Samsung took the wraps off the Galaxy Tab S6, a high-end Android tablet aimed at competing with Apple’s iPad Pro and featuring top-of-the-line specs, a Bluetooth S Pen, and the first in-display fingerprint sensor on a tablet. After launching the affordable Galaxy Tab S5e earlier this year, Samsung has skipped right to version 6 for its new premium tablet. Design-wise, it looks a lot like the Galaxy S4 that it replaces, with slim, uniform bezels all around and a wide 16:10 aspect ratio. You’ll also notice that there isn’t a headphone jack this time around, helping Samsung trim 1.4mm from the thickness. Here’s how the Galaxy Tab S6 stacks…

If you update Google Chrome today, you’ll be able to witness a milestone in real time: the next step in the slow death of Flash. Google Chrome 76 takes the process of eliminating Flash a step further: instead of simply blocking Flash objects, Flash simply isn’t allowed to load. You can still turn it on via the settings menu, though each site must explicitly be given permission to run Flash. By the end of 2020, Flash should be removed entirely by Chrome, according to the Chromium road map. As VentureBeat notes, the arrival of Chrome 76 also brings with it two additional key features: a simpler installation of Progressive Web Apps, or PWAs; and a new way for Chrome to block a website’s ability to detect whether Chrome is in incognito…

AMD promised that custom Radeon RX 5700 graphics cards would arrive in mid-August, and they are here. The wait was worth it. Sapphire’s kicking things off with its budget-friendly Pulse lineup. Like its predecessors, it offers some nice features and solid cooler designs at prices that won’t break the bank. But one of Sapphire’s most intriguing additions has nothing to do with hardware. We’re highly impressed by the new performance-enhancing, resolution-tweaking “Trixx Boost” feature in the company’s Trixx software suite, which leverages AMD’s Radeon Image Sharpening technology to great effect for everyday gamers. Both the $359 Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 5700 and $409 Sapphire Pulse RX 5700 XT go on sale today, with each commanding a mere nine dollar price premium over AMD’s Radeon RX 5700 series reference models. Now that’s…

It looks like we’ll have to stop joking about Intel’s integrated graphics. With the arrival of the 10th-gen Ice Lake CPU, we’re finally seeing impressive graphics performance. Sure, we called out just how much faster it is in our performance preview, but to appreciate how much of a jump 10th-gen Ice Lake brings, you have to take a few steps back. We went to our database of reviewed laptops and cobbled together 3DMark Sky Diver scores from various laptop generations. The chart includes 2013’s 4th-gen Haswell U and its HD4400 graphics, as well as 2015’s 5th-gen Broadwell U’s HD 5200. We also included the lone and fairly rare Iris 540, used in 2015’s 6th-gen Skylake U. We didn’t include low-power chips, such as Cherry Trail’s HD and Core M variants,…

Last week I received an email notice from Microsoft informing me that, as of January 14, 2020, they will no longer support Windows 7, which I still have on one of my desktop computers. Why? Because I have some legacy software that is incompatible with Windows 8 and 10: dBase III+, Paint Shop Pro 7, PageMaker, several graphics programs and plug-ins—one is the first version of Andromeda, which offers some amazing graphic effects—and a few other applications that were originally DOS-based. WE’RE NOT ALONE I know I’m not alone in clinging to an ancient software program that’s exactly what I need. Allen Bonde, VP and research director at Forrester, told me that, “Where SaaS (Software as a Service) applications don’t have a foothold, we often still see customers sticking with…

Yes, your Amazon Echo and Google Home devices are listening to you, and it turns out that the smart speakers can record what you say and share those recordings with Amazon and Google employees. The reason: so Amazon and Google can analyze the responses of their virtual assistants and “manually review them” (in the obtuse parlance of too many privacy disclaimers) to “help improve our services.” In other words, someone may be listening, and while it’s a given that smart assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant can’t improve without help from humans analyzing their accuracy, tech companies need to do a far better job of telling users what they’re up to. In the wake of revelations that Apple was letting contractors listen to Siri recordings without properly notifying users, Amazon and Google…

Be wary if you’re browsing hardware deals with an eye toward upgrading your gaming PC. Many of the “sales” we’re seeing on graphics cards and desktops aren’t really deals at all, and if you’re not careful, you could wind up spending much more money than you should to get the performance you want. That’s because the new Radeon RX 5700 series and GeForce RTX Super graphics cards released in early July drastically realigned the value proposition for all high-end graphics cards. You can get a lot more for your money with high-end GPUs than you could a scant few days ago. The $400 GeForce RTX 2060 Super delivers performance on a par with the original $500 RTX 2070, while the $500 RTX 2070 Super is almost as fast as the original $700…

Creators, start your engines. Nvidia’s kicking off Siggraph, an annual professional graphics conference, with a pair of announcements designed to make life easier for industry diehards and amateur video producers alike. The company revealed 10 new RTX Studio laptops from a variety of partners, and new Studio drivers that bring capabilities formerly locked to Quadro GPUs alone over to the more mainstream GeForce and Titan lineups. Nvidia introduced RTX Studio laptops at Computex in May. These laptops run powerful Max-Q hardware to make intense video and image editing as painless and portable as possible, backed by drivers devoted to optimizing creative software rather than games. These are the minimum requirements for Nvidia RTX Studio laptops: GPU: RTX 2060, Quadro RTX 3000 or higher CPU: Intel Core i7 (H-series) or higher RAM:…

Nothing would say failure more than killing a new graphics card a month after introducing it. So no, Internet, AMD did not kill its reference Radeon 5700 and Radeon 5700 XT after releasing the cards on July 7. Well, not really anyway. This all appears to have been kicked off by a report on French site Cowcotland.com posted on a Thursday in early August that said, “Nous avons appris ce matin, par nos sources, que les cartes graphiques de référence AMD RADEON RX 5700 et RX 5700 XT étaient donc déjà en fin de vie.” Translated by machine it apparently says: “We learned this morning, from our sources, that the AMD RADEON RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT reference graphics cards were already at the end of their life.” The…

As our headline trumpets, the big news here is a new low in NVMe SSD prices, at 10 cents per gigabyte. The drop comes courtesy of Kingston’s new A2000, which also offers surprisingly good performance the vast majority of the time. DESIGN AND FEATURES The A2000 is a 2280 (22mm wide, 80mm long) M.2, PCIe 3.0 x4, NVMe SSD, that’s available in 250GB (currently $40), 500GB (currently $60 on Amazon) and 1TB (currently $100 on Amazon) capacities. I must admit I did a double-take when I saw those prices, as they’re considerably lower than those of the Addlink S70, which itself set a price record not long ago. Commodity items at last! Mostly: 1TB seems to be the sweet spot in price per gigabyte these days. At the time of…

Logitech’s Zone Wireless headset is designed to address a specific situation: open offices. This design trend might be great for collaboration, but it can be a hindrance when you’re just trying to work. Noise and lack of privacy can kill productivity and raise stress levels, ultimately leading to lower job satisfaction. Many workers already combat the distraction by donning a pair of ear buds or headphones. But this workaround creates its own hassles, requiring separate headsets for music and phone calls. The Zone Wireless headset uses active noise cancellation to block out distractions, and a self-muting microphone that makes it easy to switch between listening to tunes and talking on the phone. DESIGN The headset weighs 6.4 ounces and has a silicone-padded metal headband that provides a snug fit without…

When you’re trying to focus on a specific task, the right display settings can make a big difference. Dimming or disabling secondary monitors, cutting down on harsh screen lighting, or even eliminating color altogether can help draw your eyes to the job at hand and reduce eyestrain. With the right tools, Windows can make managing these display settings practically effortless. Here are five screen manipulation tools and tricks to help you concentrate: 1. AUTOMATIC DARK MODE With the May 2019 update for Windows 10, Microsoft added a “light” mode to complement its existing dark theme, rendering the taskbar, Start menu, and certain app menus in a bright shade of gray. Unfortunately, Microsoft provides no way to switch automatically between light and dark modes, so your display vibes might be too…

Facebook’s record $5 billion fine that it will pay to the Federal Trade Commission will do little to stop Facebook from trying to slurp up as much of your data as it can, with two exceptions: facial recognition and telephone numbers. Instead, the Facebook-FTC agreement is primarily intended to stem the tide of your data flowing through Facebook and out to third-party developers. In late July, Facebook agreed to pay a $5 billion fine and submit to a 20-year oversight program as part of an FTC order agreed to by both companies—punishment for Facebook’s unwillingness to adhere to another, separate 2012 FTC order that also governed user data privacy. As many have noted, the $5 billion fine is a slap on the wrist: Facebook recorded $15 billion in revenue for the…

When I picked up the Samsung Galaxy Note 10, it felt like I was holding the most powerful and beautiful phone on the planet. A 6.3-inch display, near-bezel-less design, triple-camera array, and supercharged S Pen are all crammed into an impossibly compact design. And then I picked up the Note 10+. For the first time in the Note’s storied history, there are two sizes to choose from, and the difference between the two models couldn’t be clearer. While Samsung has set up the Galaxy S10 and S10+ smartphones to be mostly larger and smaller versions of the same device, the Note 10+ is a clear upgrade from the Note 10—so much so that many fans likely won’t even consider the smaller, lower-end model. First, let’s review the specs, which…

If you’re looking for an inexpensive quad-core laptop that’s less than three-quarters of an inch thick, the Acer Aspire 5 A515-54-51DJ might fit the bill. This slim laptop packs in more than enough power for everyday computing tasks, and its quad-core performance is respectable, if shy of awe-inspiring. A fingerprint reader and nearly all-day battery life will appeal to productivity-minded road warriors, although they’ll have to settle for a display that’s on the dim side. PRICE AND SPECIFICATIONS Acer packs a bewildering number of configurations into its budget Aspire 5 line—at least 22 by my count, ranging from $350 (at press time) for a dual-core AMD Ryzen 3 3200U-powered model with a bare-bones 4GB of RAM and a 128GB solid-state drive, all the way to a considerably beefier quad-core Core…

To outsiders, AMD’s triumphant launch of Ryzen 3000 looks like total victory with the only thing left to do is schedule the ticker-tape parade down Broadway. Intel, meanwhile, has to look for an impoverished nation to dump a truckload of 2019 CPU Champions shirts onto. Fortunately, the truth is a lot more nuanced. And while we’d also name AMD’s Ryzen 3000 the overall champs, reality requires a lot more context on the CPU that’s right for you. So to keep you from having to sift through dozens of reviews and hundreds of forum posts, we’ll sum up the strengths and weaknesses of these two power house CPUs and when they’re right for you. IF YOU DO MULTI-THREADED WORK, BUY… RYZEN 3000 This should come as no shock to anyone…

Whether you treat your computer as the centerpiece of your home office or just stuff it under your desk, buying the right PC case matters. At a minimum, you want to pick a PC case that’s the right size for your needs and has room for all your hardware and USB devices. But some PC cases offer much, much more. Spacious innards, lower temperatures, muffled sound, extensive water-cooling support, and fancy-schmancy tempered glass panels or RGB lighting are just the tip of the iceberg. Here’s a guide to buying a PC case that’s perfect for you. This is just the first step in your DIY journey; be sure to check out PCWorld’s guide to building a PC, too. PC CASE NEWS Pricing for cases have slipped upward in the wake…

Yes, you can “magically” remove people and objects out of photos using Adobe’s expensive Photoshop application. But did you know that a simple version of the same tool is hidden within Windows 10, for free? Let’s introduce you to Paint 3D’s Magic Select tool, and teach you how to use it. I’m a fan of simple, free tools that don’t require any installation or setup, and Magic Select is one of my favorites. You would think Magic Select would be found with Windows 10’s Photos app, or even Paint, but no—Microsoft hoped that one day we’d all be editing 3D objects, not 2D photos, and reserved Magic Select for the Paint 3D app within Windows 10. Fortunately, it’s as easy to edit a 2D photo within Paint 3D as Paint,…