Computer Shopper的May 2020目录

So Windows 7 is officially over. Microsoft switched off support for the operating system on 14th January as planned, with no reprieve for its millions of users. If you’re planning to invest in a new PC rather than plough on regardless with Windows 7 or upgrade your old machine, we’ve got a group test of £600 models (page 70). These home/office PCs are ideal for upgrading to a brand new Windows 10 machine without breaking the bank. Once you’ve taken delivery of your new machine, turn to page 92 for our full guide on a pain-free switch from one PC to another. This way, you’ll ensure that all your files and applications are transferred smoothly across, your security processes all stay in place and any hardware such as printers continue…

Flipped off Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip phone appears to have compromised on durability in order to fit in a foldable display, as gadget botherer JerryRigEverything found that the screen is prone to scratching Mac attacks Cyber threats aimed at Macs have outpaced those targeted at Windows PCs for the first time, signalling that Apple’s computers are not as secure as they once might have been Windows woes Microsoft was forced to pull the latest Windows 10 update – labelled KB4532693 - as it was found to be deleting files on some PCs Malware museum The National Portrait Gallery received 347,602 emails containing phishing, scams and malware in 2019, with a volume so large there’s a chance the malware could have affected thousands of devices connected to its network…

£2,299 • From www.acer.com VERDICT The ConceptD 7 delivers almost anything a serious content creator could wish for MUCH LIKE THE desktop ConceptD 500 (Shopper 385), the ConceptD 7 is a workstation for creative types – only this time, in laptop form. We’ve tested the mid-range spec, which includes 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, Intel’s Core i7-9750H CPU and a 6GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 for extra graphical muscle. BALANCE OF POWER It’s sturdily built, with a reassuringly robust aluminium chassis measuring 359x255x17.9mm. Given what the Concept 7 has under the hood, cramming everything into such a slim package and keeping the weight to 2.21kg is an impressive feat. However, it is worth noting that the 628g power supply is pretty chunky, and will add to your load when…

£699 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT With its immaculate design, vivid IPS panel and terrifying price, the Raptor 27 aims high HAVING ALREADY PLANTED flags in mice, keyboards, headsets, speakers, soundbars and questionably useful light-up mousepads, Razer is continuing its attempts to take over PC hardware with its first-ever desktop monitor. The Raptor 27 targets the sweet spot of a 27in screen at 2,560x1,440, with a fast refresh rate of 144Hz. The matt-finish panel also uses IPS tech, which traditionally offers better-looking colours than VA or TN panels at the cost of higher response time, although Razer claims the default 7ms can be lowered to 4ms with pixel overdrive enabled, and as low as 1ms with the motion blur reduction setting. Refresh rate syncing is also included, in the form of…

£120 • From www.overclockers.co.uk VERDICT Simple to install yet powerful and customisable, the Kraken X53 is a brilliantly complete cooler AS ENTERTAINING AS we found the Kraken Z73 (Shopper 387) and its GIF-slinging onboard display, £250 is hardly a sensible amount to pay for an all-in-one watercooler, even one with the Z73’s superlative cooling. Hopefully the new X-3 series, represented here by the 240mm Kraken X53, can match that level of performance for a more accessible outlay. The entire series is positioned below the Z-3 range, while building on the previous X-2 range with new hardware and design features. There’s no screen, but you do get a new pump and the integrated lighting has been upgraded from all-white to addressable RGB. The top of the pump unit can be rotated,…

£200 • From www.harmankardon.co.uk VERDICT A quality Google Assistant-based smart speaker, albeit one that might prove too bassy for some THIS REVAMP OF last year’s Citation One – Harman Kardon’s first Google Assistant smart speaker – makes it even smarter. The MKII addition may offer some additional colour options, but the big change is that it now supports Apple AirPlay. SAME GAME Outwardly, the design hasn’t changed at all. The Citation One MKII still has the look and feel of a premium speaker, largely thanks to the woollen fabric that wraps around most of the exterior, and while its 188mm height makes it slightly taller than the Apple HomePod (Shopper 364), it’s not too imposing a sight in your living room. It’s reasonably heavy, at 2kg, but since it’s a…

£440 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT An ingenious modular frame lets the One R play many roles, but its most conventional action camera function lets it down IT MAY LOOK like just another GoPro clone, but the Insta360 One R is actually multiple cameras in one. Its modular design lets it act as either a 360° camera or, by swapping in a different mod, a 4K, wide-angle action cam. You can even add a 1in sensor for even better image quality, though this is a separate purchase on top of the outlay for this dual-mod bundle. Still, £440 isn’t expensive at all when you’re getting two very distinct cameras in one, so the price could easily be worth paying if the One R delivers on its promise of maximum flexibility without…

£378 • From shop.fairphone.com VERDICT The Fairphone 3 is a noble project, but in pure hardware terms it charges more for less IT’S AN OPEN secret that smartphones are environmentally costly. Both the materials they use and the waste of producing them amounts to an ecological nightmare, one that only gets worse with two-year upgrade cycles and components you can’t replace without voiding the warranty. The Fairphone 3 takes a different approach, aiming to put sustainability and humans first. The former by designing its handsets to be repairable by users, with components that can be reused to reduce e-waste; the latter by sourcing conflict-free (and ideally recycled) minerals, and by focusing on good working conditions in its factories. Fairphone openly admits that this is a work in progress, but it’s…

£196 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT A fine hybrid smartwatch, but the new features aren’t entirely worth the extra cost THERE ARE PLENTY of people who like the idea of a smartwatch, but don’t like what it often means in practice: bulky watch faces with bright screens and batteries that need charging several times per week. These are the people at whom the Garmin Vivomove 3 is aimed: it’s a watch with actual moving hands protected by glass, but there’s also a small OLED screen under there, which flashes to life with notifications when called upon. The display itself takes up less than half of the watch face’s surface area, granting certain smart capabilities with much slower battery drain. The preceding Vivomove HR (Shopper 377) had the same concept, of course,…

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 surroundsound 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 for…

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…

Chat and Communication UPDATED Evernote 6.23.1.8853 Store your notes, ideas and plans in the cloud, and synchronise them between computers. UPDATED Mailbird 2.7.13.0 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 8.56.0.102 Make internet voice and video calls for free, and buy credit to make calls to mobiles and landlines. UPDATED Telegram 1.9.13 This free IM app syncs your conversations across multiple devices, and can spruce up chats with stickers and GIFs. UPDATED WhatsApp Desktop 0.4.315 A free PC and Mac version of the popular messaging app, letting you chat from your desktop. Customisation iolo System Mechanic Free 19.1.4.107 Speed up your system with iolo’s PC…

£600 • From www.alphabetapc.com VERDICT Heaps of memory and a premium chassis disguise what is ultimately vanilla performance NO PRIZES FOR guessing which processor is at the heart of this verbosely titled system, but it’s not devoid of surprises either. Besides the choice of a case, a glowing multicolour cube amidst the sea of plain black towers that are the other five PCs on test, AlphaBetaPC has maxed out the motherboard’s RAM limit with a workstation-grade 32GB of DDR4. That’s an incredible amount of memory for a £600 PC of any kind, but for now let’s keep attention on the chassis; it’s certainly capable of grabbing it. It’s the same Tsunami Gorilla case as seen containing the AlphaBetaPC Intel i5 RTX (Shopper 384), which means the same boxy, Gorilla Glass-covered…

£600 • From www.palicomp.co.uk VERDICT The Intel i5 Mercury goes big on both CPU speed and storage capacity, with superb results IT’S NO SECRET that hardware overclocking can, if done carefully, wring extra performance out of a PC without adding anything to the cost. That’s why we’re a little surprised that only the Intel i5 Mercury has tried it. It’s an ambitious tweak, too. The Intel Core i5-9600K usually runs at a 3.7GHz base clock speed with a Turbo Boost clock of up to 4.6GHz, but in this PC it’s set to target 5GHz at all times. Palicomp’s approach also has a knock-on effect on other individual components, all for the better: the motherboard uses the high-end Z390 chipset, as cheaper Intel chipsets don’t support overclocking, and instead of a…

£70 • From www.johnlewis.com VERDICT The Inspire HR’s simplicity, stylishness and superb app make it a great fitness tracker for more casual users FITBIT ISN’T THE fitness band dominator it once was, but devices such as the Inspire HR show why the firm has been so successful in the first place. It’s a well-balanced blend for people who want to get fitter, but don’t want to spend hours analysing their form. As such, it’s not as fully featured as the likes of the Fitbit Charge 3, though the design will be pretty familiar to anybody who has used a Fitbit band from the past few years. A small plastic lozenge is the brain of the device, and it clips in between two silicone rubber straps. Rather neatly, two bands come…

£28 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Upgraded features and an incredibly long-lasting battery ensure you get plenty for your money THE NEW AND improved Mi Smart Band may be a few pounds more expensive than the £20 Mi Smart Band 3, but that £8 sure seems to pay for a lot of extra features. The screen is bigger, has a higher resolution and is colour, it’s gained connected GPS and, unlike the Mi Smart Band 3, it actually pairs its full waterproofing with swim-tracking capability. Despite these improvements, Xiaomi claims that the battery life is the same impressive 20 days, too. That’s because the battery cell has also grown a little, from 110mAh in the Mi Smart Band 3 to 135mAh in the Mi Smart Band 4. BACKWARDS COMPATIBLE This is…

Every person that uses a computer should have their own user account. This holds their own apps, settings, files and preferences, giving each person a unique view of their computer. Transferring old user accounts from your old PC is possible with software, but it’s often easier to start over and configure your new computer from scratch. First, for your new computer, you should set up a new user account. We’ll assume that you’re moving to Windows 10 for this one, as all new computers (bar Apple ones) will run this operating system. When you first turn on your computer, you’ll be prompted to use the wizard to create a new Microsoft user account. This type of account uses an email address for login, but has the advantage that key settings…

SAMSUNG BALLIE Ballie is a unique-looking robot that, as the name suggests, is a wee ball. Samsung videos show it rolling around a sleeping home – ominous as that may sound – and controlling smart home features such as opening curtains. After interacting with a human via a built-in camera, it follows its owner around the house (again, creepy), helping with her yoga position, entertaining her dog by showing it YouTube videos, and telling the Roomba to clean up a mess. Is the future of home robotics a rolling camera to control the smart home? That remains to be seen, as Ballie is still a prototype, so no release date or prices are yet available. ELEPHANT ROBOTICS MARSCAT You know how cats never do what you want or expect? This…

GOOGLE DOODLES www.google.com/doodles The first Google Doodle was designed in 1998 by the tech giant’s co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to mark their attendance at the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert. There have been more than 4,000 doodles since then, each playing around with the Google logo, and you can see the whole lot in this searchable archive. WORLD OF SPECTRUM www.worldofspectrum.org World of Spectrum is not the prettiest of websites and it’s certainly showing signs of age, but it’s a goldmine for fans of Sinclair’s finest. Packed with thousands of games, utilities, books, adverts, loading screens, game maps, magazine pages and more, it provides a great trip down memory lane. Improvements also appear to be on the way (see live.worldofspectrum.org). INTERNET ARCHIVE archive.org Not only is…

Send your problems to help@computershopper.co.uk Virtually there In ‘The End of Windows 7’ (Shopper 383), you cover the possibility of turning a Windows 7 PC into a virtual machine (VM), and running it under a different operating system. I’ve considered doing this before, but have never been able to establish whether it’s possible to do exactly what I’m after. Rather than create a new virtual disk for the virtualised PC to live on, I would like to turn my Windows 7 PC into a virtual machine, using all of its existing devices and physical drives. Once I’ve done this, I want to add another drive to the computer and use it as the destination for a fresh install of Windows 10. Once I’d finished, the PC would boot into a…

letters@computershopper.co.uk Where’s Panda? Thanks for a very useful and sometimes great magazine. I intend to keep up my subscription despite the situation that I’ve described below. In your article on free security software (Advanced Projects, Shopper 384), the Panda package was described as “the best free antivirus” package by Clive Webster. On the strength of this, I declined to renew my Norton Deluxe Security software licence and installed the Panda set as instructed. When I received Shopper 385, I was glad to see a group test on security software and related matters. ‘Now I can see how well the Panda product compares with all the well-known offerings,’ I thought. Can you imagine my surprise/dismay/annoyance to see that the Panda product was not even mentioned in the whole article? Would you…

Tech pioneer and all-round good egg letters@computershopper.co.uk BEFORE I ARRIVED here, I couldn’t even spell Colombia. But here I am, and now I can. I am heading for Commune 13 in the fabled city of Medellín, which Time magazine once dubbed “the most dangerous district of the most dangerous city in the most dangerous country on earth”. Blimey! My destination has been awarded the accolade of drugs and murder capital of the world, which is what made it the natural choice for the location of the hideously violent and massively long Netflix series called Narcos. But I don’t really approve of Netflix or box sets, so I haven’t watched it. I am on a green bus, high up between the cloud forests and coffee country in the Andes mountains. The…

Nvidia’s ‘Netflix for games’ launches amid controversy SAY WHAT? NVIDIA’S GEFORCE NOW game-streaming service has finally launched, leaving its lengthy beta version to pipe demanding games across the internet to low-powered devices. In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past year or so, GeForce Now is effectively a form of ‘Netflix for games’ in that you can stream select games to all manner of devices, from the Nvidia Shield console and PCs, to laptops with integrated graphics and smartphones. Nvidia achieved this by setting up a cloud-based game streaming service created by filling data centre servers with powerful graphics cards and other hardware to effectively take care of the graphics rendering, heavy lifting and computing tasks, and then using a decent internet connection to pipe a video…

MIT develops AI to edit outdated Wikipedia articles ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) technology could be used to rewrite outdated Wikipedia articles, reducing the workload for human editors, thanks to a system developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). While AI systems are now capable of generating text and can check facts, and bots have been used to edit Wikipedia in the past, they aren’t always the most capable or able to mimic the tone of human writers. By training its system on two databases, one with pairs of sentences and another with a relevant Wikipedia sentence, the researchers at MIT were able to generate an AI that can find outdated text in Wikipedia pages, and then rewrite them similar to how a flesh-and-blood editor would. The AI system works by looking…

£1,335 • From www.lenovo.com VERDICT This powerful hybrid manages to outperform and outlast the best of its competition LAPTOP MAKERS ARE beginning to adopt Intel’s 10th generation processors en masse, and the latest to do so is Lenovo, with its Yoga C940 series of laptops. Available with a 14in display, the company’s flagship convertible goes head to head with the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 (Shopper 386), which has also recently updated to Intel’s latest silicon. Both laptops have fully rotating hinges, which allows for usage in several different, tablet-like configurations, but the Yoga C940 differs in that it comes with an active stylus stowed away neatly in a slot in the spine of the machine. The Dell is stylus-compatible, but doesn’t come with one in the box and doesn’t have…

£710 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The fastest mesh system we’ve ever seen, but the high price and a few missing features mean it’s not quite ready for most homes yet WE’VE LONG BEEN admirers of the Orbi range of mesh Wi-Fi products, particularly the RBK50 (Shopper 358). With the system running on the older 802.11ac technology, however, it’s time for a change with the Netgear Orbi WiFi 6 RBK852. As you can tell from the name, this model is a Wi-Fi 6 product, built using the latest 802.11ax wireless specification, designed for the largest homes and the greatest number of wireless devices. As you might expect, this kind of technology doesn’t come cheap, and the system starts at £710, more than double the current price of the RBK50. CROSS THE…

£500 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT Its HDR support isn’t great, but there are plenty of other reasons to buy this affordable 4K TV AN AWFUL LOT of budget TVs these days carry the HDR label, but it’s fair to say that none of them deliver the eye-popping spectacle of pricier sets. Trickle-down technology has done its bit to steadily improve HDR performance for some budget TVs, however, so when the UE50RU7470UXXU – the 50in model of Samsung’s new, HDR10+ supporting RU7470 series – landed in our labs, we were hopeful it might be able to serve up a little high-dynamic magic on the cheap. Its VA-type LED edge-lit LCD panel is fairly typical of TVs in this price range and, being 4K UHD, it has a resolution of 3,840x2,160. So…

£55 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The MH630 doesn’t need perfectly balanced audio when it’s got such a great mic and appealing price THE MH630 IS the entry-level model in Cooler Master’s new headset range. As such, there are few of the more premium features seen on the pricier MH650 and MH670 models, such as virtual surround sound, RGB lighting or wireless capability; instead, the MH630 focuses on simple sound quality and microphone performance. It’s not purely basic, however. Inside each cup is a sizable 50mm neodymium driver, and both the microphone and 3.5mm cable are detachable, making the MH630 easier to fit in the included carrying pouch. The earcups’ ability to rotate flat also helps with this, although they can’t fully fold inwards as well. Still, the lower price is…

£100 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT There are better smartphones than the Moto E6 Plus, but they all cost a fair bit more MOTOROLA ALREADY MAKES one of the best budget smartphones, the Moto G7 Power (Shopper 376), but now it has a couple of new models for those who want to spend even less: the Moto E6 Plus and Moto E6 Play (opposite). The slightly pricier Moto E6 Plus doesn’t really stand out on looks, although that doesn’t mean it can’t pass for a more premium handset. The screen bezel may be a little thicker than most flagships, but it’s still thin enough to necessitate a little half-notch for the front-facing camera. OPEN WIDE Flip it over and you’ll find a shiny and unapologetically plastic backplate. The dual-camera array is…

£700 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The Xperia 5 reproduces the Xperia 1’s features for a lower price, and for the most part it succeeds SONY’S ‘COMPACT’ SMARTPHONES used to offer flagship-grade features, more palatable prices and dinkier sizes. However, following the launch of the Xperia 1 (Shopper 380), it looked like Sony had ditched these smaller handsets in favour of pricier big-screened behemoths. The Xperia 5, thankfully, partially resembles the Compact models of old; sure, it isn’t much smaller than Sony’s top-shelf handsets, but the Xperia 5 is cheaper while offering similar functionality. The 6.1in screen, for instance, is another HDR OLED display that benefits from Sony’s Bravia X1 enhancement tech; this gives a colour and brightness boost to SDR content. The resolution doesn’t match the Xperia 1’s 4K, but…

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…

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…

£590 • From www.aria.co.uk VERDICT Storage is plentiful, but the Gladiator Paradigm’s performance is far from the best STRAIGHT OUT OF the box, the Gladiator Paradigm presents itself as a more compact kind of home desktop. It’s a mini tower, not an outright mini PC, but at only 358mm tall and 410mm deep it’s a lot shorter and squatter than most of the other systems here. It’s also unusual (though not unique) in using an Intel CPU and motherboard chipset, rather than being AMD-based. Inside is a hexa-core, 2.9GHz Core i5-9400F – basically the same chip as the mainstream mid-range Core i5-9400, but without integrated graphics – and 16GB of DDR4 RAM, with a 2GB GeForce GT 1030 on video duties. For basic browsing, this setup works well. There’s none…

£599 • From www.pcspecialist.co.uk VERDICT Good but not quite great, the Magma S1 shines in some places but coasts along in others LIKE THE CHILLBLAST Fusion Dauntless, the Magma S1 also looks back towards AMD Ryzen’s second generation for its centrepiece CPU, but plumps for a lot more storage too. The hexa-core, 12-thread Ryzen 5 2600X is accompanied by 16GB of DDR4 RAM, both a 250GB NVMe SSD and a 1TB hard disk, and a relatively powerful graphics card in Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1650. Emphasis on the ‘relatively’ – it’s still only an entry-level gaming GPU, so won’t take the performance of video and photo-editing software to another level. It’s mainly there as the Ryzen 5 2600X lacks an integrated graphics processor of its own. OLD FRIEND Following on from…

HEART RATE Heart-rate tracking is very nearly a standard feature on all fitness trackers, with only very basic models (such as the Fitbit Inspire) going without them. That’s because for such a simple metric, it can tell you a lot about how healthy you are. The better your cardiovascular fitness, the lower your heart rate will be, so you’ll be able to tell quickly if your exercise routine is working, as both your resting and active pulse will get slower over time. If you know the ideal rates for your weight and age (most adults, for instance, should have a resting heart rate of between 60 and 100 beats per minute), you can also tell immediately if you’re not as healthy as you should be. VO2 MAX This is the…

£30 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The Honor Band 5 proves that you don’t need to spend the earth to get a reliable fitness tracker THE HONOR BAND 5 is another fitness band for those who want to be a bit more active, but don’t need the advanced features of a running watch. That means no onboard GPS, but you do get a heart-rate monitor, a step counter and notifications showing up on the 0.95in OLED screen. Fairly thick bezels surround this 282ppi touchscreen, which is par for the course with this type of fitness wearable, and you can bring it to life with a quick tap of the touch-sensitive panel beneath it. Because all the backgrounds are black, it’s not obvious where bezels end and screen begins, so those bezels…

The coronavirus outbreak has accelerated the adoption of medical and assistance robots in China, with reports suggesting their use has been sparked by a shortage of staff, as well as concerns about the spread of the disease. In some areas, telepresence or videoconferencing bots are being used to monitor patients or allow physicians to communicate remotely, which is helpful when so many patients are under quarantine. But the use of robotics is going further than ferrying a camera and tablet between beds. Local reports say that disinfecting bots are cleaning two hospitals, while others are using robots to deliver meals and medicine to patients, and to collect dirty bed sheets and rubbish. Robots are also making deliveries in areas under quarantine outside of hospitals. Chinese media reports show videos of…

clive@computershopper.co.uk Beyond Google search In the same way as we clean with a Hoover, Google has become synonymous with internet searching. But Clive Webster will show you it’s not always the best, as some of these alternatives demonstrate MONOPOLIES ARE BAD (the board game’s not great, either; try Machi Koro, Splendor or Concordia instead). Monopolies lead to complacency, a lack of innovation, entrenched behaviours and giant mega-corps that manipulate life, the world and everything. A recent study by the Business Insider website showed that 90% of web searches were routed through Google’s services (including YouTube). But there are two questions when it comes to searching the internet: whether there’s a better search engine than Google, and whether a typical search engine is even the best tool for what you’re trying to…

Reopening Windows When Windows XP eXPired, I decided to solve that problem with a Windows 7 machine sourced, used, from eBay. £50 was not much of a risk, and I did not intend to keep it for long anyway. I got to like it and carelessly did not go for the free upgrade to Windows 10. With the January deadline approaching, I made another decision. I got a nice used Core i3 machine with Windows 10 and an SSD from my local computer shop. More than £50, but less than the sum of its parts. It was a spontaneous act as I could see no real benefit in 10, but the faster PC was a bonus and the world was not going to stand still for me. It sat in…

Software guru and Shopper legend letters@computershopper.co.uk HAVE YOU COME across the term ‘dark data’? It sounds good, doesn’t it? The sort of thing that would turn up on The X-Files, or that Brian Cox would talk about meaningfully while sitting by a camp fire in the Serengeti. However, before you get too excited, it’s the online equivalent of the ‘miscellaneous’ file in your filing cabinet – the stuff you create, save, then never look at again. Old word processor documents, emails, photos, all the stuff gathering digital dust on your hard disk drive or in cloud storage. A more accurate if rather less impressive term for dark data is dusty data. The term ‘dark data’ was dreamed up by analyst firm Gartner, which defines it as “the information assets organisations…

Maps milestone Google Maps had its 15th birthday in February, which pre-dates smartphones, but the mapping service is still going strong. 5G whizz Researchers at Ericsson boasted that the company has smashed the maximum 5G speed record, achieving download rates of 4.3Gbit/s on the millimetre wave spectrum We’re jammin’ University of Chicago researchers have built a bracelet that uses ultrasonic noise to quietly jam smart speakers and other microphone-equipped devices that could listen in on the wearer Cyber punked Nvidia has teamed up with game developer CDProjekt Red to create the limited edition GeForce Cyberpunk 2077 RTX 2080 Ti graphics card, which comes clad in a striking yellow livery…

“It’s not for us to adapt to this company, it’s for this company to adapt to us” European Commissioner Thierry Breton on Facebook’s desire to dictate how it should be regulated “The Colonel was passionate about his fried chicken and this new Skill makes re-ordering your favourite KFC menu items easier than ever but in a fun and memorable way” Jason Cassidy, marketing director for KFC Canada, on the fast-food joint’s adoption of Amazon Alexa “Creating unique and previously impossible opportunities for private citizens to experience space is why Space Adventures exists” Space Adventures chairman Eric Anderson on a partnership with Elon Musk’s SpaceX “For those who fail to embrace change, there is a real risk of being left behind” Baroness Martha Lane-Fox highlights the danger of a digital skills…

£1,269 • From www.microsoft.com VERDICT An upgraded design and lovely display are overshadowed by Windows compatibility issues with the mobile-style processor AN INSTANT CONCERN about the Surface Pro X, Microsoft’s new premier tablet, is that it recalls 2012’s Surface RT. This was a fabulous piece of hardware but couldn’t run a lot of regular Windows apps and this, ultimately, proved its undoing. Microsoft quickly changed its mind and reinstated full Windows on its future hybrids with the Surface Pro. More recently, however, Microsoft has changed its mind once again and decided it’s time for another try. Thus, we have the Microsoft Surface Pro X, which runs full Windows 10 but, once again, can’t run all Windows 10 apps. Is history about to repeat itself all over again? CLEAN UP Outwardly,…

£800 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Great quality, features and size, but it’s not necessarily the biggest or the best option THE PHILIPS BRILLIANCE 439P9H is an ultrawide display that aims to improve productivity by offering a vast amount of space – handy if you work with loads of windows or with huge spreadsheets Design-wise, it looks good, with a smart, minimalist stand and slim bezels. It’s robust and versatile, too: you get 130mm of height adjustment, tilting and swivelling movement and 100mm VESA compatibility. The only concern is making sure you have room for it, as it’s a gigantic 1,058mm wide. LOST IN SPACE That’s a diagonal 43in worth of screen space, presented in a 32:10 aspect ratio with a conventional 1800R curvature. Both this size and the resolution of…

£412 • From www.morecomputers.com VERDICT The fi-800R is a good, if specialised, compact document scanner, but its powerful software can be obtuse FUJITSU’S FI-800R IS a fast, compact document scanner, aimed at front-of-house use, or any business where desktop space is at a premium. It’s focused on fast and reliable document archival, but it also has a party trick: quick passport scans. The fi-800R is rated at 40 duplex pages (80 images) per minute, a speed so rapid that it seemed as though scanned pages would shoot out of the front slot. In fact, this is a second input for passports. Regular documents are fed from the rear tray, pass through a U-path, and arrive almost back in the input. They’re separated by a flap that extends only during scanning.…

£230 • www.meethue.com VERDICT This gadget adds a new immersive layer to films, games and TV programmes, but it will cost you PHILIPS HAS ESTABLISHED Hue as the world’s leading smart lighting system; the one with the best line-up of bulbs, lights and accessories, and the strongest range of automation, lifestyle and entertainment features. On that last count, however, Hue had one persistent weakness. The system has long featured the ability to sync coloured lights in the room to video on your TV, replicating the experience of its Ambilight TVs. Sadly, this only worked when streaming video from a connected PC or laptop, meaning you couldn’t use the sources that would actually work best with lighting: Blu-ray players, games consoles, streaming sticks and set-top-boxes. The Hue Play HDMI Sync Box…

£84 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT As long as you keep them at home, these dynamic and detailed-sounding headphones are a joy to listen to HERE’S SOMETHING OF an anomaly in today’s headphones market: not only are the Grado SR80e hand-built in Brooklyn, New York, but they’re proudly non-techy. There’s no Bluetooth connectivity, no in-line microphone or active noise-cancelling and, thanks to their open-backed design, they’re hopelessly impractical for use on the commute or in the office. For all those flaws, however, the Grado SR80e offer a peerless listening experience at their price and represent unbeatable value, providing you know what you’re getting. HOUSE BOUND The SR80e are the latest iteration in a line of headphones, following on from the SR80i and the legendary SR80 before them. Compared to their predecessors,…

£90 • From www.motorola.co.uk VERDICT With slow performance, a rubbish camera and a much better phone looming over it, the Moto E6 Play should be ignored IF THE MOTO E6 Plus (opposite) is the souped-up instalment in Motorola’s latest budget range, the Moto E6 Play is the ‘standard’ version, if only by default. This is £10 less than the Motor E6 Plus, and at first the design differences are noticeable but not terribly drastic. The Moto E6 Play has fuller top and bottom bezels, so there’s no notch, although this does mean a smaller display size of 5.5in diagonally. On the back, a discrete single camera and flash sit in the top left, while a circular fingerprint reader with Motorola’s ‘M’ logo sits slightly indented near the top. The back…

£170 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT There’s no need to ask what the catch is with this excellent budget smartphone; there isn’t one GIVEN XIAOMI MANAGED to make the £99 Redmi 7A (Shopper 383) look like a high-end handset, it should be no surprise that the Redmi Note 8T – which is more expensive, but still within budget territory – also appears much more premium than it actually is. It’s quite hefty in the hand, weighing in at 200g, but then it is packing 6.3in of screen, which does a good job of minimising the bezel all the way around. The sides are curved around the edges, contrasting with the flat back, where you’ll find not just a fingerprint reader, but a four-lens camera array. It’s not the most practical of…

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…

GETTING STARTED The download instructions on the card insert (opposite) show you how to connect to the download site. Make sure you type in the web address exactly as shown. You’ll need your coupon code the first time you log on to the site. ANY PROBLEMS? If you need help with any of the software this month, please send an email to support@creativemark.co.uk. We check this inbox regularly. Please include the issue number of the magazine and your coupon code. WHY DOWNLOADS? In order to provide us with free software, publishers now require us to offer the applications as a download and require online registration. You need to use the unique code printed in the box on the card insert to register and download the software in this issue. The…

MONITOR AOC Q3279VWFD8 (£198, www.ebuyer.com) There are loads of Full HD monitors, some half as expensive (or less) as the Q3279VWFD8, but this is at least a few steps up on specs and performance while still costing less than most other Quad HD displays. The spacious 31.5in screen provides plenty of room for working with multiple applications, while the high resolution means everything stays sharp and readable in the process. The Q3279VWFD8 also uses an IPS rather than a cheap TN panel, so viewing angles are nice and wide, and in our testing we recorded an average delta-E of just 1.29, making it sufficiently colour-accurate for serious image editing. MOUSE Microsoft Classic Intellimouse (£25, www.ao.com) This remade and remastered version of the legendary Intellimouse Explorer 3.0 is affordable, ergonomically comfortable…

£600 • From www.chillblast.com VERDICT The Fusion Dauntless is incredibly powerful for the price, though it comes at the cost of storage space HERE’S ANOTHER PC that’s on the smaller side – exactly as small as the Aria Gladiator Paradigm, in fact, thanks to both systems using Fractal Design’s short-statured Fractal 1100 chassis. There’s some shared DNA on the inside, too, as both PCs use Nvidia’s 2GB GT 1030 graphics processor. Otherwise, these two desktops take remarkably different routes in approach of home office success. The Gladiator Paradigm is based on a current-generation Intel CPU with an SSD/hard disk combo for storage, but the Fusion Dauntless goes back in time with the 2018 AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, plus a single, unaccompanied 500GB SSD. GOLDEN OLDIE There’s a good reason to…

£600 • From www.wired2fire.co.uk VERDICT An outstanding processor and high-end SSD join forces in this outstanding system THE ULTIMA WS is another option for those preferring a smaller PC, although this is mainly only ‘compact’ in its short 385mm length; it’s still taller than Aria’s and Chillblast’s identically tiny desktops. Nevertheless, it’s the insides of this PC that make it not just stand out, but stand above the rest. The brains of the operation is AMD’s Ryzen 5 3600, a hexa-core, 12-thread CPU from the most recent third generation of Ryzen chips, with clock speeds of 3.6GHz at minimum and up to 4.2GHz with sufficient thermal headroom to boost. Alongside it is 16GB of DDR4 RAM – no complaints there – and, similar to the Palicomp Intel i5 Mercury, a…

£50 • From www.johnlewis.com VERDICT The Fitbit Inspire is a perfectly decent wearable, but with the Inspire HR you get a whole lot more OF FITBIT’S THREE newest wearables – the Inspire, the Inspire HR and the more smartwatch-like Versa Lite – the Inspire is both the cheapest and the least interesting. Still, that’s more down to its comparative weaknesses rather than being a poor tracker in its own right. The Inspire is a stripped-down version of the Inspire HR. That means it shares the same form factor, the same screen and – for the first time in living memory – the same charger. The element that’s been stripped out is the heart-rate sensor, hence the lack of ‘HR’ in the title. That means it can’t tell you your heartbeat,…

£50 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The fitness band isn’t the most accurate at tracking, but for the low price it’s still a good buy THE HUAWEI BAND 3 Pro has nearly everything you could plausibly want in a fitness band, including integrated GPS, a heart-rate monitor and a vibrant AMOLED screen. More importantly, it has all this at a price where you’ll get change from three £20 notes. Like smartphones, fitness bands are all beginning to follow the same design cues. A rubber band encases a small unit with a touchscreen on the front, with a heart-rate sensor and charging ports on the back. THE QUIET TYPE There are no physical buttons on this otherwise conventionally designed wearable. The closest thing is a single touch-sensitive button under the main screen;…

With Windows 7 no longer getting any updates from Microsoft as of February 2020, we all face having to upgrade at some point, whether that’s to a new Windows 10 PC or by using a different operating system on our existing computers. As painful as this sounds, it doesn’t have to be this way. Windows 10, for example, has got a lot better since launch. It’s now fast, stable and will have updates for years to come. The main issue that most of us face is getting our new PC or operating system to work the way that we want, which is where we come in. In this guide, we’ll show you how to transfer everything from your old computer, including files, applications, peripherals and more. We’ll even show you…

Out of everything that you might want to keep from an old computer, files are going to top anyone’s list of items that you’ll want to transfer. There are many ways to do this, and we’ll cover our favourite ways to do so here. USE A CLOUD SERVICE We find that the best way to transfer and protect files is to use a cloud-synchronisation service, such as Google Drive or Dropbox. These services constantly make backups of files as they’re created or saved, with everything going to the cloud. Not only does this mean that your files are protected in the event of an error, but you can also use these cloud services to synchronise files between multiple computers. Here, we’re using Google Backup and Sync, which comes with 15GB…

Subscribe to COMPUTER SHOPPER today and save on the single issue price. Each issue of Computer Shopper will be delivered directly to your device each month SEE NEXT PAGE 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 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…

Search engines are exactly that: mechanisms to search a pool of information for specific information. How they do that varies, but the basic theory is by checking as many external web pages as possible to find the most relevant results. The process is rather parasitic, and is based on the assumption of crowd-sourcing answers: the answer to any question is probably online, and the most trustworthy answer is probably correct. Assessing the ‘trustworthiness’ of an answer or site is where the algorithm wars occur. Wolfram Alpha (see www.wolframalpha.com) always aimed to do things differently. Rather than search the whole web, it searches only a small pool of highly trusted external sources. A large library of built-in data and algorithms are added to the mix, before Wolfram Alpha applies ‘dynamic computations’…