Computer Shopper的November 2019目录

The Royal Society of Chemistry has been doing some digging (pardon the pun) into the rare elements mined from the depths of the Earth in order to manufacture our favourite technology products. And what it has found is alarming: natural resources of rare-earth elements such as indium, yttrium and tantalum – all crucial in making our mobile phones, tablets and computers – are set to run out within the next 100 years. More worrying, the research reveals that most of us leave old kit dotted around our homes, unwanted and unused. The Society is calling for better recycling facilities to ensure that these rare elements can be reused, rather than gather dust in a bottom drawer. If you want to do your bit for the environment by reusing rather than…

Build your perfect PC Our step-by-step guide to building your own computer from scratch, with expert tweaks for specific uses, from multimedia editing to keeping to a budget Are we alone? How the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is using technology to discover other life forms in the universe, from radio telescopes to the Drake Equation Paper trail We put the latest and best printers to the test to find out which best suit your needs and wallet Cool customer We take you through how to measure, assess and upgrade your PC’s cooling to prevent overheating and temperature based slowdown COMPUTER SHOPPER ISSUE 382 ON SALE IN NEWSAGENTS FROM 10th OCTOBER…

Roland Moore-Colyer RAVES AS A TECH journalist, it’s my duty to be objective, which I unfailingly achieve in my day job. But I have to admit there are some brands I’m partial to. I may have babbled on these very pages that I’m a big fan of OnePlus phones, find Huawei an interesting company, like Microsoft’s Surface efforts, and tout Apple as the best tablet maker. However, one tech giant has always had my affection, and that’s Samsung. My first telly was a Samsung flatscreen CRT I adored, and my second and current gogglebox is a lovely 4K slab of screen from the South Korean tech giant. My first LCD monitor came courtesy of Samsung and saw me through nearly a decade of use. And my second smartphone – after…

BOOTING UP Sugar-free Google is to stop using sweet and dessert-themed names for Android, with the 10th version of the mobile operating system simply being called ‘Android 10’ Smartphone streaming In keeping-up-with-the-Joneses fashion, Nvidia has revealed that it will bring its GeForce Now game streaming service to Android phones, much like Microsoft’s xCloud and Google Stadia services Leather laptops To celebrate its 30th anniversary, Asus has released the ZenBook 13 Edition 30, which takes its premium ultraportable and swaddles it in a leather finish with laser-etched rose gold accents and a logo that looks like a Federation insignia from Star Trek Samsung showcase At Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked event, the company showed off a host of devices, notably the Galaxy Note 10, Note 10 Plus and Galaxy Tab S6 tablet CRASHING…

FLYING IS HELL at times, what with cramped seats and noisy people. But British Airways is trialling the use of virtual reality (VR) headsets on flights between London and New York, with the idea that frequent flyers can escape from the rigours of trans-Atlantic air travel. Working with VR specialist SkyLights, BA is giving first-class travellers the option to pop a VR headset on and zone out to “a selection of award-winning films, documentaries and travel programmes in 2D, 3D or 360° formats”. For those stressed by flying, there’s the option to listen to sound therapy or have guided meditation experiences in VR. One might wonder why folks in first class would need VR escapism, given they have the best seats in the house. This could be down to VR…

ANDROID 9.0 SMARTPHONE £63-per-month contract • From www.vodafone.co.uk VERDICT This is the most affordable of the first 5G smartphones, but even with great hardware, the service isn’t yet worth the expense LAST YEAR’S XIAOMI Mi Mix 3 was a competent, mid-priced flagship alternative that ultimately wasn’t quite as good as its biggest rival, the venerable OnePlus 6T (Shopper 373). The differences between the two phones were marginal, but the OnePlus 6T’s superior rear camera and less fiddly software made it a Shopper Best Buy. However, following the arrival of the very first wave of 5G-equipped smartphones in UK shops, the now eight-month-old Mi Mix 3 has returned, but this time with a bit of a facelift. Not only is Xiaomi’s mid-range handset now more powerful, but it has a bigger…

£1,000 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT What the MateBook 13 lacks in flourish, it makes up for in value and performance THERE’S NO SHORTAGE of ultraportables to sift through, but that hasn’t discouraged Huawei from adding more to the pile. In fairness, the MateBook 14 (Shopper 376) and MateBook Pro X (Shopper 377) are both superb laptops, and with the MateBook 13 offering many of the same design ideas for a lower price, it could be another strong addition to the Chinese firm’s line-up. There are a trio of models on sale in the UK: an entry-level model with a Core i5-8265U processor, 8GB RAM and 256GB of storage; a Core i7-8565U model with 8GB of memory and 512GB of SSD space; and a top-end model that adds Nvidia’s GeForce MX150…

£520 • From www.ebuyer.com VERDICT A record 12 cores imbues the Ryzen 9 3900X with unrivalled multitasking prowess. It’s hard to overclock, but you won’t need to YOU CAN NEVER have too many CPU cores, or at least that’s what AMD is suggesting with the Ryzen 9 3900X. As the very first Ryzen 9 CPU, it goes even further than the premium Ryzen 7 line-up by including 12 physical cores and 24 threads, an obscene amount for what is ostensibly a mainstream processor. Yes, despite the price and the specs, this is intended as simply the next step forward for the Ryzen family, without teetering over into the enthusiast space occupied by Threadripper. It’s for gaming and content creation alike, with a view to being better at both than the…

£492 • From uk.insight.com VERDICT If you want the benefits of a mono laser MFP, Epson’s EcoTank ET-M3180 is a good pick, despite being an inkjet THE EPSON ECOTANK ET-M3180 is the latest model in a range of inkjet devices designed to compete with entry-level mono lasers in small and home offices. When we reviewed the EcoTank ET-M2140 from the same range (Shopper 374), we found that its strengths were diluted by the lack of essential office features, such as an automatic document feeder (ADF), network interface and fax modem. The ET-M3180 has them all, so does that make it strong all round? SPEED FREAK While a competing laser device might cost less than a third as much to buy as the ET-M3180, its higher running costs would soon leave…

£200 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT They’re not cheap, but these well-designed earphones deliver superb sound quality BRITISH HEADPHONE MANUFACTURER RHA has produced some stellar earphones over the past few years, from the impressive true wireless TrueConnect (Shopper 375) to the excellent-sounding wired T20i. Building on the success of the latter, the Glaswegian firm has now developed the T20 Wireless, which take the sonic components of the T20i and add wireless connectivity to the mix. The RHA T20 Wireless employ a neckband design, where the two earpieces are connected by a cable that hooks around your neck. This cable has a single-button remote on the right side and a rechargeable battery pod with a USB Type-C port for charging on the left. The earphones don’t have active noise-cancelling, relying instead on…

£230 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT It’s not much of an upgrade from the previous model, but the Kindle Oasis is still the best e-reader you can buy THERE WAS ONLY one thing missing from the last Kindle Oasis (Shopper 361): a blue light filter. While every smartphone manufacturer on the planet was accepting the medically recognised fact that beaming blue light into your eyes just before you go to sleep isn’t ideal, Amazon ploughed on with regular LEDs in its premium e-reader. Finally, however, the retail giant has seen the warm, orange light, and added this filter to the new 2019 model. You can now read at bedtime safe in the knowledge that it won’t be your reading habit that’s disturbing your sleep. SWITCHING SIDES The new Kindle Oasis is…

£479 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The Fenix 5 Plus achieves a combination of features that you simply won’t find anywhere else THE FENIX 5 Plus is one of a trio of multisport devices (alongside the 5X Plus and 5S Plus) that make up the Fenix 5 Plus family, which offers a substantial update over the Fenix 5 line. It’s a watch that’s built for getting active in the great outdoors, with full-colour maps and brilliant routing capabilities, including the ability to create round-trip courses on the fly and get directions home. It’s also an absolute beast of a wearable, with a chunky steel body that weighs 86g. That’s a lot heavier than any plastic fitness tracker like the Garmin Forerunner 935, but irrespective of its bulk it’s a good-looking, comfortable…

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 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…

£239 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The C27G1 is vibrant and good value for a 144Hz monitor, but poor brightness is hard to overlook THE C27G1 IS aimed at gamers who want a responsive panel without compromising too much on picture quality. As with the larger CQ32G1, AOC’s panel of choice is also based on vertical alignment (VA) technology. In practice, VA is supposed to merge the best of both worlds by offering an incredible contrast ratio, good picture quality and a fast response time but, as we’ll see in this test, there are some limitations. The C27G1 is a 27in curved Full HD monitor with a 144Hz refresh rate and, on paper, a 1ms response time. That’s only its moving picture response time (MPRT) figure, however – the tougher grey-to-grey…

£529 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The AD27QD has plenty to offer, but it’s a tough sell against strong rivals with lower prices THE AD27QD IS components manufacturer Gigabyte’s debut in the monitor market, and a it’s a confident one: a fully fledged gaming monitor with all the bells and whistles. It even has some unique tricks of its very own. The best is OSD Sidekick, a Windows application that – once you’ve hooked up a simple USB cable from your PC to the monitor – lets you access the AD27QD’s settings from the comfort of your desktop. The result is a far smoother experience than traditional OSD control schemes, which invariably involve manipulating multiples buttons and tiny joysticks. There’s also the RGB Fusion app, which allows you to customise the…

£400 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Superb colour performance and 4K sharpness at an almost irresistible price WHEN A MANUFACTURER claims that a screen is designed for ‘creative professionals’ – as Iiyama does with this 27in, 4K display – you expect some supporting evidence. A promise about colour accuracy would be good; all Iiyama states on its website is that 100% of the sRGB gamut is covered. You also expect the screen to be calibrated before it leaves the factory, with a report supplied in the box. There are no such reassurances here. Then again, there’s another thing you’d expect from a professional-grade monitor and that’s a price nudging £700, £800, even £1,000. That’s certainly what we’re accustomed to seeing with professional 4K screens. With the XUB2792UHSU, Iiyama has slashed the…

£399 • From www.weybridgeaudio.co.uk VERDICT Bowers & Wilkins has reimagined its classic 600 Series, and the 607 offer a thrilling sound profile WHILE SOME DESIGNS fade into history, others leave a permanent mark. The striking yellow Kevlar drivers of Bowers & Wilkins’ 601 speakers mark them as an example of the latter, and now, two decades after they were launched, the 600 series has grown up, just as many 601 owners will have. The 607 is the smallest and cheapest speaker set in Bowers & Wilkins’ new 600 series family. Taking the place of the previous 686 S2, the 607 sits alongside the slightly larger 606 (£549) and the floorstanding 603 (£1,249). There’s also a matching centre speaker, the HTM6 (£399), and a trio of active subwoofers for adding the…

£270 • From www.marshallheadphones.com VERDICT Sound quality has some kinks, but this ampstyled speaker is a real rock’n’roll hero MUCH LIKE THE first Kilburn speaker, released in 2015, the Kilburn II is Marshall’s attempt at a wireless Bluetooth speaker that mimics – at least in looks – one of its larger, iconic guitar amplifiers. It’s a successful attempt, too. The Kilburn II is nothing short of beautiful, with its leather exterior, wiry speaker grille and red-lined carrying strap, and it ditches the slightly over-lavish gold plating of the original Kilburn for a cooler, more composed look. Durability has also been improved, mainly through the addition of hard corner caps, which help it endure knocks. It’s also IPX2-certified, which means it can withstand water drops – some light drizzle, if not…

£99 • From www.johnlewis.com VERDICT The Boom 3 looks good, sounds great, and is so well waterproofed that it can float THE UE BOOM 2 was an instant classic: this distinctively cylindrical Bluetooth speaker was built with IPX7 waterproofing, looked fantastic and sounded excellent, all of which set it apart from its competitors. It’s taken a few years and a few spinoff devices, such as the Wonderboom and Megaboom series, but now there’s a true successor in the Boom 3. It’s even more stylish than the Boom 2. The knitted fabric mesh that wraps around the speaker has a much finer weave than before, and it has a natty two-tone colour that shifts under bright ambient light. At the front of the Boom 3 are two large, stylised plus and…

If you keep your computer up to date, not only do you patch the latest security threats and get the latest features, you can also make your computer run faster thanks to better-optimised software and bug fixes. One of the biggest issues that Computer Shopper readers have had is getting Windows 10 to update properly. As of the May 2019 update, Microsoft has improved Windows 10’s update system, although you first need to get your computer to that stage. Here’s what you need to do. Fix storage space problems As of the May 2019 update, Windows will automatically reserve 7GB of storage space for updates. That fixes the issue of users running out of storage space and, therefore, not being able to update. Before you can update to the May…

Random errors are a hallmark of owning a computer. Fortunately, Microsoft has been trying to make things easier with its automatic troubleshooting tools, which are designed to look for common problems. As of the May 2019 Windows update, the list of tools has expanded, letting the system do more than before. Using these tools can be useful, particularly when you have a specific issue causing you problems, such as slow download speeds from one computer, despite the internet connection being fine. You can even use these tools to fix issues that you perhaps didn’t know about. Launching the Windows Troubleshoot tools Open the Start menu and type Troubleshoot, then select Troubleshoot Settings. At the top of the Troubleshoot page, you may see a list of recommended troubleshooting options to run.…

DNA has been described as the blueprint of life, the molecule that defines the characteristics of all life forms on Earth. But just as natural DNA contains the essential information necessary for human reproduction, there’s potential for synthetic DNA to be used as data storage and, in so doing, offering unprecedented levels of data longevity. This was demonstrated by the use of DNA sequencing in identifying the skeleton in a Leicester car park as that of Richard III. And useful information has been obtained from much older DNA. It might sound like the stuff of science fiction, but DNA-based data storage has already been demonstrated in the lab, and several companies are now aiming to roll it out as a commercial service. Boston-based company Catalog has high hopes for the…

Subscribe to COMPUTER SHOPPER today and save on the single issue price. Each issue of Computer Shopperwill be delivered directly to your device each month. SEE NEXT PACiE FOR SET-UP INSTRUCTIONS HOW TO SUBSCRIBE… … on an iPad or iPhone STEP 1 Return to the Computer Shopper library STEP 2 Choose your subscription term and tap twice on the 'price' box STEP 3 Choose whether to create an optional PixelMags account STEP 4 Enter your Apple ID password to confirm … on a Kindle Fire Kindle Fire subscriptions come with a FREE one month trial. STEP 1 Tap 'Free Trial Subscription' in the Computer Shopper library STEP 2 Chose your subscription term from the drop down menu on the popup that appears STEP 3 Tap 'Subscribe' … on an Android…

Size matters I am in the market for a new laptop, so when I saw your issue (Shopper 379) proclaiming the testing of 24 laptops, I bought it with great enthusiasm. Being an OAP, I am not in the market for a gaming machine, but neither am I a student on a tight budget. I am your ‘average’ consumer, looking for a sub-£1k clamshell-style with good specs for the price. Reading your reviews, I read all the technical data but found one important feature missing, namely the size of the screen. I became very excited when I read the review of the HP Envy 13, but once again that important measurement was missing. It was not until I turned to the table at the end of your review that I…

Tech pioneer and all-round good egg letters@computershopper.co.uk UNCLE DOUG IS dead. There’s no doubt about it. I’ve just addressed the masses at his funeral, but I only did it because he made me. A while back, when he was still cracking jokes this side of the grave, he made me promise to deliver what he called his ‘urology’ when the time came. Well, the time came. And now it’s gone and went. Uncle Doug was 93, which is great. But he was the last of his generation whose family name I share. And that means I’m next in line, which is not great. There were three of us up there, addressing the congregation of munchkins below, and we three were a lot like Dorothy’s companions in The Wizard of Oz.…

“If two credit cards are placed in the same slot, your card could become scratched”Apple doesn’t want its titanium Apple Card rubbing shoulders with run-of-the-mill cards “Three’s claim to be the only real 5G network is entirely false, and deliberately aimed at misleading consumers”An EE spokesperson isn’t impressed with Three’s 5G advertising claims “We have neither the contracts nor the capabilities to do so”Huawei denies accusations it helped African governments spy on dissidents “The collusion between police and private companies in building these surveillance nets around popular spaces is deeply disturbing”Silkie Carlo, of Big Brother Watch, on the use of facial recognition technology by UK authorities “You trust us to follow your choices and we failed here. We’re sorry this happened, and are taking steps to make sure we don’t…

£2,200 •From www.chillblast.com VERDICT Few expenses are spared in this potent and well-connected desktop system NEW AMD CHIPS mean new AMD-based PCs, the first of which we’re looking at is the Fusion Axion. Like the CCL Paladin opposite, it’s based around the Ryzen 7 3700X, an octa-core CPU that’s only one step down from the premier Ryzen 9 3900X (page 30). This being £525 more expensive than the Paladin might raise eyebrows, but there’s a lot more about the Fusion Axion that makes it a true high-ender. It has a more powerful GPU, in the form of an MSI-made GeForce RTX 2080, and it also completely ignores slow mechanical storage in favour of dual SSDs. LUCKY SEVEN Still, the Ryzen 7 3700X is the star of the show. Although it…

£280 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The Chromebook 315 may look like a steal for a 15.6in laptop, but it comes with serious drawbacks IF YOU’VE EVER happily used a Chromebook but wished for one with more screen space, the most disappointing thing about Acer’s Chromebook 315 might be that it stops that ambition in its tracks. Yes, this is a 15.6in laptop for well under £300, and there’s room in the market for such cheap notebooks that also provide plenty of room for multiple applications. It’s just that the Chromebook 315 isn’t the one to fulfil that role. Your £280 gets you a 1,366x768 display, with a dual-core 1.6GHz AMD A4-9120C processor backed by 4GB of RAM. This is the spec we’ve been testing – pretty wimpy for a Windows…

£389 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT A loaded and forward-thinking motherboard, but not one that fully justifies its high price IT’S A GRAND old tradition for major CPU releases to be accompanied by new motherboard chipsets, and while AMD’s 3rd-gen Ryzen processors are maintaining this routine, they’re doing so on a much smaller scale then usual. This time, there’s only one new chipset at launch, the high-end X570. This is, it should be said, quite a big deal. X570 is the first chipset from AMD or Intel to support PCI-E 4.0. On all recent motherboards, the default version of PCI-E – the interface that allows individual components to communicate with the motherboard – was 3.0. PCI-E 4.0 has double the bandwidth, which on X570 motherboards is made available to graphics cards,…

£121 • From www.lambda-tek.com VERDICT A very fast, simple-to-use router that you can expand into a full mesh system NOT SURE IF you need a wireless mesh system to get coverage around your house, or if an updated router would be the best way to go? With the D-Link DIR-1960, you get something in the middle: a regular router, but one to which you can also add wireless mesh access points to boost performance. AERIAL VIEW The DIR-1960’s plain black case is less striking than D-Link’s gaming-focused routers, though the four large antennas on top jump out. It can be placed flat on a surface or wall-mounted. At the back, the DIR-1960 has everything you’d expect from a router: there’s a Gigabit Ethernet LAN port for connecting the router to…

£369 • www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Even with competition from within, the Galaxy A70 is Samsung’s best mid-ranger THE GALAXY A70 is a fairly unassuming handset by 2019 standards. As yet another addition to Samsung’s mid-range A series, it doesn’t exactly represent a masterpiece in smartphone engineering, although it doesn’t feel cheap, either, even compared to the £579 Galaxy A80 or £799 Galaxy S10 (Shopper 379). Constructed from a ‘3D glasstic’ fusion of metal and glass, the Galaxy A70’s subtly curved sides fit well in the hand despite its large size. It’s also quite slender, measuring just 7.9mm, even though it has a massive 6.7in notched display and stacked triple-camera array on the rear. Mercifully, Samsung has decided to include a 3.5mm audio jack – a connector that’s missing on the more…

£110 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT Blue light reduction and easy reading make this a strong rival to the Kindle Paperwhite JUST AS THE Kobo Forma (Shopper 375) took on the Kindle Oasis, the Kobo Clara HD aims to usurp a different Amazon e-reader: the midrange Kindle Paperwhite (Shopper 372). The two certainly look similar: take away each device’s front logo and you could be fooled into thinking they were the same product. The differences are there, however, such as the way in which the Kobo Clara HD’s 6in display is slightly inset behind the bezels. We admittedly prefer the flush design of the Kindle Paperwhite. DOT WATER The bigger problem isn’t how it looks, but how it feels. There’s no Forma-style rubberisation to provide extra grip, making it easier to…

From £2.10 per month • From www.cyberghostvpn.com VERDICT CyberGhost VPN does a fine job of unblocking over 30 streaming services while safeguarding your privacy THERE ARE MANY valid reasons to use a VPN; you might be accessing or inputting sensitive data that you don’t want tracked, when online banking, for instance, or you may wish to use the internet unencumbered when visiting a country that censors it. Sometimes, you might just want to watch a geo-blocked video streaming service, and that’s fine too. CyberGhost is a complete VPN package, but it has an interesting focus on unblocking video. The interface includes a For Streaming tab, where you’ll find a list of country names and streaming services, which you can simply click on to unblock. Alternatively, you can search for a…

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-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 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…

01If 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 and…

Chat and Communication UPDATED Evernote 6.20.2.8626 Store your notes, ideas and plans in the cloud, and synchronise them between computers. UPDATED Mailbird 2.6.1.0 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. UPDATED Skype for Windows 8.50.0.38 Make internet voice and video calls for free, and buy credit to make calls to mobiles and landlines. Telegram 1.7.14 This free IM app synchronises your conversations across multiple devices, and can spruce up chats with stickers and GIFs. UPDATED WhatsApp Desktop 0.3.4157 A free PC and Mac version of the popular messaging app, letting you chat from your desktop. Customisation iolo System Mechanic Free 18.7.3.176 Speed up your system with iolo’s PC optimisation…

£340 • From www.overclockers.co.uk VERDICT With its huge, high-quality panel and excellent gaming performance, this superb display outshines far pricier rivals WHEN IT COMES to gaming monitors, a 27in display tends to be the sweet spot: big enough to make you feel immersed, while remaining reasonably affordable. AOC’s new CQ32G1 gaming monitor keeps the price down but generously delivers a curved, 31.5in, 1440p panel with a 144Hz refresh rate: a formula that will whet any gamer’s appetite. It’s also FreeSync-certified by AMD, and unofficially supports Nvidia G-Sync with GeForce GTX 10-series cards or above. Aside from that, the spec sheet isn’t exactly packed with features, but it’s a well-rounded package that will satisfy whether you’re running desktop applications, watching films or gaming competitively. OUT OF TURN The CQ32G1’s bargain price…

£380 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT A connectivity-rich companion for laptops, but be prepared for its smaller panel WHEN HP DESCRIBES the EliteDisplay E243d as a docking monitor, it isn’t joking. It has packed this display with everything you would normally associate with a docking station, with the idea being that all you need to do is plug in your laptop using the supplied USB Type-C cable and start working. It’s largely intended for businesses that use hotdesking environments, but the breadth of connectivity could be a big help to individual home users as well. It goes further than the Dell UltraSharp U2719DC by providing not just a display connection via USB Type-C, but catering for other cables and peripherals, too. While HP has its own EliteBook range in mind to…

£408 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Samsung’s clever design minimises clutter, but it comes with sub-par image quality and a steep price IN THE BAD old days before LCD screens became affordable, your monitor was the biggest thing on your desk. It was a couple of feet deep and weighed as much as a sack of potatoes. By comparison, most modern LCD monitors are positively skinny, but even these can still have space-hogging stands. That’s where the Samsung Space Monitor comes in. It’s a monitor for people who hate clutter, with an arm that cleverly minimises the amount of space the screen takes up on your desk. It’s not the first time a manufacturer has done this – Dell’s U2717DA is among a handful of examples to have come and gone…

£99 (bookshelf); £150 (lamp) • From www.ikea.com VERDICT Ikea’s expertise may be in furniture, but its Sonos-powered speakers are outstanding THERE’S NO QUESTION that speakers have become a lot more complicated: once intended solely for playing music, they can now answer trivia questions, set alarms and even help out with your weekly shop. As a result, smart speakers haven’t just come into prominence figuratively, but physically, too. They tend to be best positioned as centrally in a room as possible, both for sound dispersion and for optimum microphone performance. Ikea’s new Symfonisk speakers aren’t smart per se, but they do attempt to reverse this trend by disguising themselves as furniture. The cheaper £99 model, for example, is designed to slot seamlessly into a bookshelf, while the £150 model hides in…

£1,299 • From www.johlewis.com VERDICT A luxurious and fine-sounding slab of metal, but for most homes it won’t be worth the expense A FULL FIVE years after launching the original Mu-so, its flagship wireless speaker, hi-fi specialist Naim has finally decided it’s time for a redesign. The result is the Mu-so 2. From the outside, not much has changed. Naim’s brutalist slab is still striking in its own unique way: its precise, squared-off edges and glowing Perspex base are softened judiciously by the rippled fabric weave stretching across the front grille and the large rotary volume dial on the top panel. Delve deeper, however, and you’ll find there have been extensive changes under the hood. During development, Naim enlisted the help of French speaker manufacturer Focal to hone the Mu-so…

£85 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Even if it’s only a minor upgrade, the water-and dust-proof Wonderboom 2 is a fine go-anywhere speaker IT’S BEEN TWO years since the release of UE’s fully waterproof speaker, the Wonderboom (Shopper 354). It became a favourite among many, including Shopper, for its fun sound signature, affordability and its ability to float in water. Following on from its success, the American manufacturer is back with a refresh: the Wonderboom 2. The Wonderboom 2 is in many ways similar to its predecessor. It’s a baseball-sized Bluetooth speaker that is not only waterproof, but also floats if you drop it in water – handy for retrieval if it accidentally drops into a bath or swimming pool. It comes in a selection of similarly vibrant colours, too. GET…

The biggest culprits of a slow computer are those applications sitting in the background sucking up resources. These can be old applications that you’ve installed, but they can also be caused by free software installing software that you don’t really want - called potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) - or even hidden malware or crypto hijackers sucking up resources. Even for software that you find useful, there’s a danger that it’s affecting your machine’s performance by installing a startup item. You can get a rough idea of how many startup items you have by clicking the up arrow next to the clock to view the Notification Area. If this is full of icons, then you’ve probably got a problem; what’s more, not all applications show an icon, so this may just…

Send your problems to help@computershopper.co.uk Don’t bank on it… The impending demise of support for Windows 7 has got me worried. I manage my accounts with Bank Manager, produced by Contex Computing many moons ago. It does everything I want in an accounts program, but it was written for computers running DOS. My current PC runs Windows 7 Professional and I have to run Bank Manager via a Windows XP emulator. I don’t want to continue running Windows 7 when it’s unsupported, and I don’t want to stop using Bank Manager: it holds all my banking and savings information as far back as 1987! It does everything I might want, and can in theory hold over a million bank or analysis codes, so it’s not about to run out of…

Guilty as charged Much as I, and I am sure other readers, appreciate your mobile phone reviews, there is frequently, probably invariably, one glaring omission from both the text and the specification box. For example, in Shopper 380, you review two expensive phones: the OnePlus 7 and the Sony Xperia 1. In neither case do you point out that these flagship phones lack wireless charging. As far as I am concerned, that is an Achilles heel for both. I suspect the same for anyone else who has become used to putting their phone down on a charging stand as soon as they get to the office or return home. Therefore, however good or bad, they would simply not get into a short list. If a smartphone fails a basic convenience…

Software guru and Shopper legend letters@computershopper.co.uk MOST OF THE emails I receive are extremely boring, so once in a while I check my spam folder for a bit of light relief. At the moment, there are lots of scammers offering me ways to make a fortune by investing in bitcoins – yeah, right. These are almost matched in number by those telling me they know my passwords and will lock down my machine if I don’t hand over the readies (in bitcoin format, natch). Alongside the spammers and the scammers, my more normal news feeds have big headlines about how bitcoin is heading for massive gains, having already tripled in value since the turn of the year. Bitcoin seems to be the season’s hot topic. So just what is bitcoin?…

DELL ISN’T ALWAYS a front-runner when it comes to tech innovation. The Dell XPS 13, for instance, hasn’t changed much over the years. But sticking a small form-factor PC into a modular monitor stand is something a bit different from the PC maker. Through the use of clever cable management and the power of USB Type-C, the OptiPlex 7070 Ultra is a machine that can fit into a monitor stand. And despite its diminutive size, it can be specced with up to a 25W Intel Core vPro i7 CPU, 64GB of RAM, a 1TB NVMe SSD and 2TB hard disk. We’ve seen powerful PCs in small packages before, but what’s clever here is that the stand in which the PC is placed comes with add-ons to support displays up to…

£1,675 •From www.cclonline.com VERDICT Another strong showing for Ryzen’s 3rd gen, with strong graphics and acres of storage space THE SECOND OF this month’s Ryzen 7 3700X desktops is the CCL Paladin. Like the Chillblast Fusion Axion, it matches the Ryzen 7 processor with all-in-one watercooling, an up-to-date X570 motherboard, 16GB of RAM and a powerful gaming GPU. This time, however, it doesn’t even come close to the £2,000 mark. Not that it’s a cheap PC, but the relatively low cost of the Radeon RX 5700 XT (next to the Fusion Axion’s GeForce RTX 2080) undoubtedly helps keep the price down. As we saw from its standalone review (Shopper 380), the RX 5700 XT is a comfortable 1440p graphics card and can even have a fair crack at 4K –…

£350 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The Chromebook 514 looks the part, even if it has a weak screen and an old CPU THESE DAYS, THERE are two types of Chromebooks: the original concept of simple laptops that are cheap to produce and cheap to buy; and the more recent, more powerful premium Chomebooks, embodied by Google’s own Pixelbook (Shopper 368). The Acer Chromebook 514 is the first we’ve seen to take a third approach, aiming to occupy the space in between. How does Acer square that circle? Essentially, by putting basic innards into a chassis with elegant looks, plus some nice little extras, aiming for a stylish and feature-rich Chromebook that won’t break the bank. To that end, a 1.1GHz dual-core Intel Celeron N3350 processor is paired with 4GB of…

£100 • From www.scan.co.uk VERDICT Some qualities shine through, but this is an underwhelming case from a maker we know can do better TO BE HONEST, we’d hoped that NZXT’s Smart Device cases were just a phase. It wasn’t that these fan-hub-meets-RGB-controller boxes were useless, but they also didn’t do much that free desktop software couldn’t do, and their inclusion bumped up the price of every i-suffixed case that contained one. The H500 (Shopper 368), for example, was £70: a significant £30 saving on the H500i. However, NZXT has decided it’s time for a refresh, and the Smart Device is back, as the Smart Device V2. There’s still a choice between the H510i and the non-smart H510 (both have the same launch prices as their H500 series counterparts), but only…

£349 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Bose’s gorgeous ANC headphones are great, but they can’t quite dethrone the Sony WH-1000XM3 BOSE IS A pioneer in noise-cancelling technology, but it’s been nearly two decades of the QuietComfort series since a new flagship headphone design has been released. That finally changes with the new Noise Cancelling Headphones 700. For a pair of over-ear headphones, the 700s are extremely stylish. The stainless steel headband arcs gracefully around the top of your head, before making its way seamlessly down to the hinge. This, in turn, attaches to the driver housing with a distinctive and highly adjustable pivot mechanism. There is a catch to this design, however. If you use them while jogging – or if you’re just someone who walks at a reasonable pace –…

£270 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The One Vision comes close to being a brilliant mishmash of tech – shame about the camera MOTOROLA’S MOTO G series is arguably the most consistent budget smartphone line in the business, so the firm could be forgiven for sticking to what it knows. The One Vision, however, takes a radically different approach to cut-price Android design. The adoption of a 21:9 screen aspect ratio has made it taller, thinner and generally more modern-looking than any Moto G handset, something that’s only aided further by a contoured glass back that shimmers in the light. Even with the elongated shape, you don’t need to pull off any hand gymnastics to use it: it fits rather snugly. The left edge hosts the nano-SIM card slot, which is…

£899 • From www.wexphotographic.com VERDICT Despite being pitched as a mid-range travel camera, the Lumix G90 is a great all-rounder SITTING IN THE middle of Panasonic’s Lumix G series lineup, the G90 has some great features that will appeal to photographers and videographers alike. With its lightweight construction and wide range of compatible lenses and accessories, it’s a camera that should make sense to snappers across the spectrum. However, in a camera world seemingly obsessed with full-frame models, has the Micro Four Thirds format lost its way? GOING PLACES You’d be forgiven for thinking that Panasonic was thinking of abandoning its MFT lineup, what with all the fanfare given to the S1 and S1R cameras introduced at the end of 2018. However, Panasonic is keen to show it’s still thinking…

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 As with Intel motherboards, you’ll need to make sure you match an AMD processor with a compatible motherboard. This is relatively simple for AMD hardware, as most of its recent chips use the same AM4 socket, and the most recent second-generation Ryzen processors are backwards-compatible with first-generation chipsets, such as the X370 and B350. 02 Budget APU and a minority of Ryzen processors have integrated graphics, so to make use of this, ensure that your motherboard comes with video outputs such as DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort. For Ryzen chips that lack integrated graphics, or if you want more graphics power, install a dedicated graphics card into one of your motherboard’s PCI-E x16 slots. This also has the benefit of providing a greater range of video outputs to choose from.…

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…

01A 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. 02All 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 later. The…

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…

£390 • From www.ebuyer.com VERDICT Sleek design, USB Type-C connectivity and superb colour accuracy help justify this monitor’s high price WHILE THERE ARE far more expensive displays than the UltraSharp U2719DC, £390 for a 27in, 2,560x1,440 office monitor is the kind of premium that Dell will have to work hard to justify. It starts with the relatively rare and very office-friendly quality of a USB Type-C connector. This hugely simplifies a desk setup, as you can power the monitor via the single power cable (there’s no external power brick) and then use USB Type-C both to transmit data and charge laptops that need a maximum of 65W of power. You can even hook up a second 1440p monitor via the DisplayPort connector, which is neat. Dell appears to have put…

£136 • From www.scan.co.uk VERDICT With a higher refresh rate on a lower budget, the GB2530HSU-B1 is great for cheap gaming THE THOUGHT OF buying a gaming monitor might put off those on a tight budget, but Iiyama’s GB2530HSU-B1 sits at an attractive price while offering a great set of features. On paper, it might just be one of the best budget monitors on the market. Let’s find out if it lives up to its expectations. The GB2530HSU-B1 is a 24.5in monitor with a 1,920x1,080 TN panel. It runs at a native 75Hz refresh rate, not 144Hz like more premium gaming monitors, but still faster and smoother-looking than the industry default 60Hz. Official support for AMD FreeSync, as well as unofficial support for Nvidia G-Sync, also means this refresh rate…

£229 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT With top-quality sound and a versatile design, this is a great – if expensive – rugged Bluetooth speaker OWNING A WATERPROOF speaker has its advantages. Even if you’re not into watersports or regularly hitting the pool, a weather-resistant speaker is a lot more versatile than a regular plug-in speaker that might sit next to your living-room sofa. The Xtreme 2 is one such portable device. It’s only JBL’s second-ever attempt at a waterproof Bluetooth speaker, but it’s been built with confidence: not only is it IPX7-certified, which allows it to be submerged at a depth of one metre for 30 minutes, but it also has two metal bars that allow you to hook on the bundled strap. CARRY ON This is more useful than it…

£179 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Q Acoustics upgrades its excellent 3010 speakers, and the new 3010i deliver a welcome injection of power and poise Q ACOUSTICS HAS earned quite the pedigree across its family of affordable audio gear over the years and, while its soundbars are a firm favourite in Shopper’s testing lab, the freshly released 3010i bookshelf speakers show that it’s not just TV audio at which the firm excels. Basically, the 3010i are the new, improved version of the Q Acoustics 3010. These passive bookshelf speakers sit in the middle of Q Acoustics’ range, and promise full-bodied sound from a very compact design. The driver specifications are similar to the previous model, partnering a 100mm mid/bass driver with a 25mm ring dome tweeter, although the speaker cabinet has…

When Windows gets really slow, rather than trying to fix the problems individually, it’s often easier to start over again, wiping out everything and reinstalling the applications and files you need. There are several ways to do this, and we’ll take you through them. Before we get started, you should back up all of your documents, just in case. Our preferred method is to use a cloud service, such as Google Drive or Dropbox, constantly synchronising our files. That way, if we ever get into trouble, we know that we can just wipe our computer, install the synchronisation software and all of our files will come back. Alternatively, you can back up to a NAS or external hard drive. Refresh your computer Windows 10 has a tool to help you…

REMOVE Old applications If you have an application that you no longer use or you only installed for one purpose, you should remove it. Bundled applications If you have any trial software that came installed with your computer or utilities that you don’t want or use, then it’s safe to get rid of these. Old drivers Peripherals such as printers often install a load of software when you set them up. If you spot software for a piece of hardware you no longer have, then it’s safe to remove this. KEEP Branded software If you see software that’s made by the manufacturer of hardware you’re using, such as for your motherboard, monitor, mouse, keyboard or sound card, then keep this software as it’s probably doing something useful. Useful utilities Keep…

Any problems with hardware in your computer can cause issues. One of the biggest issues can be heat, particularly around the CPU. Every processor is designed to run more slowly when it starts to overheat to prevent damage. That’s good for not causing fatal flaws, but it can mean that your computer runs more slowly than it should. Using a vacuum cleaner to suck dust out of your computer’s fans, and dust filters if fitted, is a good starting point. However, you may want to look at your computer’s cooling system (next month’s Advanced Projects will cover this in detail). Heat’s not the only issue: out-of-date drivers can cause more problems than you may think. Newer drivers can do two things. First, they can give you a speed increase, as…

NEXT-GEN NEO GEO IS ON ITS WAY Released in 1991 for the Japanese and American markets, the Neo Geo AES was a fascinating console since it was effectively an arcade unit stuffed into a box for the home. Indeed, it was based on the coin-operated Neo Geo MVS machine, making it the most powerful console around, but excellence certainly came at a high price. The machine rolled in at an eye-watering $649 (around £350 at the time) and the arcade-perfect games (mainly fighters) cost up to half as much again. But it was a desirable, luxury product, which is why gamers were not only excited about getting their mitts on last year’s Neo Geo Mini console packed with 40 classic games, they’re now looking forward to a surprise next-gen offering.…

clive@computershopper.co.uk IFTTT connects almost every bit of technology with almost every online service for smooth automation and a tech-powered, no-fuss lifestyle. Clive Webster shows you how to get the best out of it IF THIS THEN That (IFTTT – it just wouldn’t be the same as ‘ITTT’) is a staple of any geek’s toolkit, used to connect strange services with odd devices and to fill the gaps in an app or service’s abilities. IFTTT can do everything from automatically adding erudite quotes to your Twitter stream or flashing your smart lights when it starts raining. The free service has outlived promising rivals such as Stringify and has more support than ever. It’s also recently received a facelift, so now is the perfect time to get stuck in. MANY SMART DEVICES,…