Computer Shopperの August 2018 の目次

By now, I’m betting most of you will be well aware of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which came into force across the European Union on 25th May. In the weeks leading up to the deadline, organisations were busy spamming us all with begging emails, asking us to re-consent to receiving marketing communications from them. Because as of 25th May, any company that contacts you without your explicit consent is basically breaking the law. While there are certainly benefits in sharing your information with responsible organisations, for too long the balance has tipped in the favour of companies all too willing to collect your data to sell on to third parties. Turn to page 102 for a full report into GDPR, outlining exactly what it means for you and…

COMPUTER SHOPPER ISSUE 367 ON SALE IN NEWSAGENTS FROM 12th JULY WHAT DENNIS DOES WITH YOUR DATA On 25th May, new data protection laws were introduced across the UK and EU – we cover the impact of GDPR on you and the organisations you deal with on page 102. Wondering what happens to your data when you subscribe to Computer Shopper or another Dennis Publishing magazine? Cathy Pendleton, Head of Data & GDPR at Dennis, provides her expert insight into how we process your data under GDPR. What information does Dennis collect about its subscribers and why? We collect and store information so that we can ensure our subscribers receive every issue of their magazines. This includes contact details such as name, address, telephone number and, in the case of…

For the kids There have been many great games for the Nintendo Switch, but nothing quite like Nintendo Labo. In fact, this combination of cardboard construction and smart software isn’t so much a game as an all-new platform that teaches kids how to build and create. At its most basic, Labo can simply be about making cardboard controllers for mini-games, but by exploring its capabilities, even young users can dream up their own programs for each peripheral or discover new feats in existing games. In the future, it could even be possible to design your own controllers, so there’s something for adult makers, too. (Page 50) For the den If you’d be happy with a thicker TV as long as it delivers on features, the Sony KD-55XF9005 is worth considering.…

BRITISH BROADBAND WOES don’t seem to be going away any time soon, as a report has shown that British households get less than half the broadband speeds they pay for. The report, based on 235,000 users of Which?’s speed-checker tool (broadbandtest.which.co.uk), show that on average customers who pay for ‘up to 38Mbit/s’ internet speeds receive half of that (19Mbit/s), while those paying for speeds ‘up to 200Mbit/s’ logged speeds of only 52Mbit/s. Customers who paid for speeds of ‘up to 50Mbit/s’ fared the best, achieving 35Mbit/s on average, but those paying for ‘up to 17Mbit/s’ received only a paltry 6Mbit/s. Overall, the average customer received broadband speeds 51% slower than those advertised. New rules from the Advertising Standards Authority have now come into effect that mean ISPs will only be…

£849 • From www.wired2fire.com VERDICT The new Ryzen 5 2600 imbues this otherwise gaming-focused PC with enormous multitasking potential THIS COMPACT GAMING PC gives us our first look at another of AMD’s second-generation Ryzen CPUs, the Ryzen 5 2600. This has the same six cores and 12 threads as its mid-range stablemate, the Ryzen 5 2600X, and trades off slightly lower clock speeds for a lower 6W TDP (the 2600X is rated at 95W). Out of the box, you’d see it running with a base clock of 3.4GHz and a boost clock of 3.9GHz, inclusive of all its maximum Extended Frequency Range and Precision Boost gains. Here, Wired2Fire has overclocked it to target a constant 3.8GHz. Setting a CPU to aim for speeds lower than its highest boost clock might…

£2,400 • From www.scan.co.uk VERDICT High performance and a brilliant display overpower the foibles of this skinny gaming notebook THE ORIGINAL GIGABYTE Aero 15 (Shopper 354) was among the very best of the slimline gaming laptops that popped up early last year, which is why we don’t mind the new Aero 15X resembling more of a Coffee Lake refresh than a brand-new device. Even so, there are other upgrades besides the hexa-core, 12-thread Core i7-8750H. Most important is the GTX 1070 Max-Q graphics chip, which runs at lower clock speeds than the desktop-grade GTX 1070 in exchange for a more efficient TDP, but even this should be a step up from the GTX 1060-equipped Aero 15 we reviewed in 2017. The 3,840x2,160 resolution option is also available immediately, rather than…

£101 • From www.box.co.uk VERDICT It has highly customisable lighting, but the quiet cooling is what really shines THE LAST TIME we reviewed a Cooler Master AIO watercooler was way back in 2016, with the MasterLiquid Pro 240 (Shopper 346) putting in a decent if unremarkable showing. The MasterLiquid ML240R RGB might seem a fairly radical departure, but we’re not looking at sweeping changes: the pump has been upgraded but still uses Cooler Master’s dual-chamber structure, and those clear plastic fans have the same maximum speeds and air pressure as the Pro 240’s: 2,000rpm and 2.34 mmH2O respectively. The biggest change that this cooler (and its little brother, the 120mm ML120R RGB) bring to bear is, undoubtedly, addressable RGB lighting, which glows from the pump as well as both fans.…

£209 • From www.logitech.com VERDICT Logitech’s illuminated speakers have smart colour-changing technology and earth-shattering bass IT SEEMS AS if every PC peripheral maker wants to get behind RGB lighting, judging by the fact that it’s even becoming an increasingly common feature on speakers. Last issue we saw the colourful Razer Nommo Chroma (Shopper 365), and now it’s Logitech’s turn with the G560. This is an eye-catching, cleverly designed set of speakers. The circular stereo units each have two sets of RGB lights – one facing backwards and one set into a forward-facing loop – creating a total of four independent lighting zones. COLOUR CODED You can customise the colour of each zone to your heart’s content through Logitech Gaming Software (LGS), or you can let the Lightsync technology control the…

£799 • From www.carphonewarehouse.com VERDICT Huawei’s top-of-the-line smartphone has three rear cameras, shooting the best pics we’ve seen WHEN IT COMES to smartphone features, dual-cameras are now as commonplace as OLED screens, octa-core processors and missing 3.5mm jacks. With secondary lenses each adding their own unique attributes such as extra zoom capabilities or added depth to your Instagram vanity shots, where can smartphone photography possibly head next? The answer, according to Huawei, is yet another camera. The P20 Pro is equipped with three rear-facing cameras, which to its credit is a genuinely unique trait amidst the current crop of increasingly samey smartphones. LOOKS FAMILIAR Case in point, the rest of the P20 Pro is clearly aping the iPhone X (Shopper 361) rather than simply being a larger version of the…

£57 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Far more than just cardboard decoration, Labo is the frontier of educational gaming TO MANY, THE Nintendo Switch (Shopper 352) is simply a games console – a unique and well-realised hybrid device you can use anywhere, but still a device only to play games. Not any more: now your Switch is a piano, a fishing rod, a remote control car: anything and everything you want it to be and, in some cases, even more than you could imagine. At its core, Nintendo Labo isn’t simply a game. This is a new platform for Nintendo; a new way to inspire minds both young and old to create new things. It’s all down to Toy-Cons, flat-packed cardboard creations you can fold into shape and use to interact…

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

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

01 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.…

THIS SECURITY TOOL can both detect and remove viruses and spyware. It uses a dual-layer engine with multiple layers of protection: the Bitdefender scanner and Emsisoft’s proprietary engine make for a formidable combination. A web monitor blocks attempts to reach malicious websites; the real-time file guard checks the files you access for threats; and if that fails, the Behavior Blocker watches programs for suspect actions, detecting and blocking even brand new, previously undiscovered threats. If you don’t want to run scans while you’re working, a scheduler gives you plenty of options. You can set up a scan to run daily, weekly or monthly, at regular intervals, or after your PC starts. There’s just as much configurability elsewhere. The program’s Surf Protection feature doesn’t just blindly block sites on a list;…

SYSTEM MECHANIC 17 is an amazingly comprehensive tool that provides everything you’ll need to clean and speed up your PC, fix system problems and protect your privacy. If your PC isn’t performing, for instance, then System Mechanic will help you defragment your hard disk, optimise your internet connection for faster downloads, defragment and compact the Registry, optimise the boot process by removing unnecessary startup programs, and provide a temporary performance boost by closing down selected background processes. Each of these functions in turn delivers far more than you might expect. For one thing, you don’t just get a defrag module: System Mechanic also uses the Program Accelerator, optimising applications by grouping related files together, while enhanced AcceleWrite technology helps to improve the efficiency of your drives, and the SSD Accelerator…

£40 • From www.bitdefender.co.uk VERDICT Powerful protection and lots of features, but protection lags behind this year’s leaders BITDEFENDER DID WELL when we last reviewed it, with security being beefed up from the previous time. Can the company keep it up with yet another solid result? The answer is, for the most part, yes. This year, Bitdefender Total Security put in a good showing, with a total accuracy rating of 96%, putting it in the same league as AVG AntiVirus Free. Drilling down into the results reveals the full picture behind this quality score. Bitdefender managed a protection accuracy rating of 91%. It blocked 94 threats, defended against five further threats and allowed a single bit of malware through. That makes the overall protection better than AVG, which also let…

£60 • From www.f-secure.com VERDICT Decent protection and a clean interface, but the high price and high number of false positives detract F-SECURE MAKES A return to these pages with its Safe suite, which starts with a package for up to three devices (including Windows, macOS, Android and iOS) for £60. That makes it one of the more expensive suites in this test. If you want to cover more devices, then the price rapidly goes up, with five devices coming in at £80 and seven devices at £100. This level of pricing would be fair enough if the protection was the best on the market, but F-Secure Safe didn’t fare so well in our tests. With a total accuracy rating of 90%, F-Secure Safe was near the bottom of the…

£30 • From uk.norton.com VERDICT Great protection and a great price, this suite is only slightly below the best available SYMANTEC’S NORTON SECURITY suites have always performed well in our tests, and this year the trend is continued. However, Symantec sells Norton Security in a fairly confusing array of packages, which you’ll need to sift through first. At the bottom is the Basic version, which isn’t worth bothering with, as it currently costs the same as the Standard version. The Deluxe version is the best value; it’s the same as Standard, but gives you the option to install on five devices: PCs, Macs and mobile. At the top is the Premium version, which gives you 10 devices to install on and adds 25GB of online storage, plus a few extra…

£179 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The super-portable GoPro Hero 5 Session lacks a touchscreen but is a great pick for those with a tight budget UNLIKE THE HERO 5 Black, the entry-level Hero 5 Session is yet to be directly replaced by a new Session model. Not that we’re complaining, as this is a fine action camera for the sub-£200 crowd – indeed, it’s GoPro’s first budget camera to be able to shoot at 4K, albeit only at 30fps. It’s significantly smaller and lighter than most higher-end alternatives, an upside of its more limited feature set. At 74g and 38x38mm, it’s larger than the old Hero 4 Session but, bar the change in chassis colour, is essentially the same cube we’re familiar with. SPLASH COURSE The Hero 5 Session has…

£199 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT Nikon sets its sights on VR with the KeyMission 360, but a poor app lets down its high performance SO FAR, WE’VE looked exclusively at action cameras that shoot simple photos and video, but what if you want to be more ambitious and capture footage that can be viewed in a full 360 degrees, and even in virtual reality? For that, you’ll need a 360° action camera, which typically involves having two 180° lenses on either side of the device. Our favourite 360° camera isn’t so good for action; the Samsung Gear 360 (Shopper 356) shoots great-looking 4K footage but is built to be held in a hand, not strapped to a helmet. Nikon’s KeyMission 360 appears to be more ready for adventure, being waterproof…

£266 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Better than the GoPro Hero 6 Black and cheaper too, this camera is superb value HAILING FROM CHINA, the Yi 4K+ sets itself up as a cheaper alternative to the GoPro Hero 6 Black, matching it on the ability to shoot 4K video at 60fps, and it can handle 120fps at 1080p and 240fps at 720p, too. Admittedly, the lower price comes at the cost of things such as GPS or built-in waterproofing; there’s a waterproof case in the box, for rainy days and underwater shooting, but placing the camera inside hurts audio quality. Still, it’s smaller than the GoPro, at 42x65x30mm, and manages to fit in a 2.2in touchscreen as well as a multifunction button, which helpfully flashes red when recording. On the left…

To sum up I have a column of scores in Excel and I’d like to find the sum of the five smallest values in the range. Because of the other data in the columns, I can’t sort the scores into order. Is there a way to do this? Geoff Campbell You can find and sum the smallest values in a set of data using a combination of three Excel functions: SumProduct, Small and Column. The first function to be explained is Small. Used in a simple way: Small(array,4) returns a value from a set of data in array. The value it returns is the one that is in position 4 in terms of smallness, so if the values in the set of data were 5,3,2,6,9, Small would return 6, as…

letters@computershopper.co.uk Video star @ Great to see the latest issue of Computer Shopper arrive on subscription through my letterbox only a few days into May. You guys have clearly been busy testing everything, and Ben Pitt has excelled himself in ‘Telling a story with video’ (Multimedia Expert). It encapsulates almost everything it has taken me a while to learn with the help of a local video club. Readers who would like to follow up and put Ben’s excellent advice into practice can search online for their local video club by area, or contact the Institute of Amateur Cinematographers at www.theiac.org.uk. They might also like to check out a handy resource for free and royalty-free music at incompetech.com, a site maintained by professional composer Kevin MacLeod. Philip Fowler, Mid-Wilts Video Society…

I’M A BIT of a fibber. Actually, that’s a lie. I fib all the time. It’s mainly because I don’t like to hurt people, and the truth often hurts. “I know what you’re thinking” is a phrase that makes me uneasy. If people could read my thoughts and listen in on my inner conversations I would not only be a social pariah, I’d be arrested. When I was a little lad, I became fascinated with an Isaac Asimov story that had been published in a wartime edition of Astounding Science Fiction. The name of that story was Liar! and it concerned Herbie the telepathic robot. The thing is, under Asimov’s laws of robotics an artificial intelligence is not allowed to hurt humans, not even to hurt their feelings, so Herbie…

Google cloud power Cloud storage service Google One brings reduced prices, more data options and the ability to share your allowance with family members Accessible controllers Microsoft’s Xbox Adaptive Controller is a console and Windows 10 controller designed to make gaming more accessible to people with disabilities Listening computers HP’s latest 34in Envy Curved all-in-one desktop PC will come with Amazon’s Alexa virtual assistant built in and ready to receive barked voice commands AI academics The Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science has launched a degree in AI, which will emphasise AI ethics and social responsibility Butterfly effect The Butterfly mechanism in Apple’s MacBook and MacBook Pro keyboards were found to fail twice as fast as older models with more traditional keyboards Parliament’s pull Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg continued to…

THE DARK WEB is a haven for hackers looking to flog data they’ve stolen, but Fujitsu has teamed up with Israeli security company IntSights to help combat the effects of sensitive data being exposed to the darker corners of the internet. The dark web is much more than a gateway for buying drugs or arranging dastardly deeds: it’s a space where information can be bought or sold, and it’s usually sensitive personal information that could blow a company wide open. However, the joint Fujitsu and IntSights initiative, demoed at this year’s Fujitsu Forum in Tokyo, allows users to monitor terms and slices of their sensitive information, flagging whenever there’s a match in the data available for sale on the dark web. While IntSights develops the programme, Fujitsu’s role in the…

USA Drone data guzzling Apple has been given the nod from the US government to use drones in North Carolina to suck up data to improve its Maps iOS app. While this may raise some eyebrows around privacy, Apple is being allowed to use drones for data harvesting as part of the US Department of Transportation’s new drone program, designed to figure out how drones can be regulated and integrated into US airspace. The company said it will protect people’s privacy by blurring out faces and licence plates before making the data visible in the Maps app. China Face front You’d be forgiven for thinking a gadget company would be China’s headline-grabbing startup, but it’s in fact an AI firm. SenseTime, which provides facial-recognition tech used by the Chinese government,…

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TECH could soon be masquerading as real people and talking to humans at restaurants, salons and shops, thanks to Google Duplex. At the recent Google I/O 2018 conference, the search giant revealed a potential feature for its Google Assistant, which enables the virtual assistant to make queries and book appointments on its master’s behalf. In an impressive stage demonstration, Google showed how the Duplex AI technology uses its intelligence to book an appointment with a salon by making a phone call to a human. Despite being a set of algorithms, Duplex essentially hoodwinked a human on the other end of the line into believing it was a real person, thanks to using natural-language recognition to respond to questions, as well as filling in conversation gaps with natural sounding…

£282 • From www.scan.co.uk VERDICT Outstanding performance, low temperatures and an excellent price: the newest top-end Ryzen is a superlative octa-core CPU IT’S ALL TOO rare an occurrence that a product launch truly shakes up the PC hardware scene. Generally, as long as a new component is stronger, faster or sleeker than whatever it replaces, that’s enough. The 2017 launch of AMD’s Ryzen processors, on the other hand, changed things dramatically. After years and years of trying to catch up with a dominant (if increasingly complacent) Intel, AMD finally had a CPU line-up that could compete at the high end and mid-range. Intel even borrowed Ryzen’s high core count/lower clock speed approach for its 8th-gen Coffee Lake range. To be sure, the freshly released second-generation Ryzen chips have returned to…

£2,000 • From www.cclonline.com VERDICT There are cheaper Core i7 PCs, but the Terra CPS is well suited to serious graphical work THIS IS A heavy-duty workstation, literally – the Terra CPS has a solidness far beyond most desktop mid-towers, with chunky metal construction and slabs of sound-insulating foam lining the interior. That’s fine by us: when you’re dropping £2,000 on a PC, the last thing you want is for it to be flimsy and loud. Workstations are rarely cheap, and this is a professionally minded system. Going through the specs, the only indication of this is the graphics card, a slim-profile Nvidia Quadro P4000. Windows 10 Home and the hexa-core, 3.7GHz Intel Core i7-8700K processor are both consumer-grade, and 16GB isn’t a great deal of RAM for the heaviest…

£100 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT It’s a small TN monitor, but a surprisingly good one thanks to its decent contrast and FreeSync capability CONSIDERING HOW EXPENSIVE monitors can be, with 4K and ultrawide models tending to cost a small fortune, it’s refreshing to see something as affordable as the Acer KG221Q. At just £100, it’s immediately a tempting prospect if you’re on a tight budget. However, it does also mean compromises. Its 21.5in diagonal makes it a couple of inches smaller than many of its budget rivals, such as the 23in Asus VC239H (Shopper 349), and it doesn’t have DisplayPort or DVI inputs, just HDMI and VGA. It also has to make do with a basic TN panel, whereas the VC239H – which at £127 is a bit more expensive,…

£199 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT A neat mesh system that can replace your existing router, this is a good choice for boosting Wi-Fi throughout the house THE ORIGINAL NETGEAR Orbi (Shopper 348) proved to be the fastest mesh system we’d ever tested, thanks to its dedicated wireless link between the router and satellite. However, it was expensive and, potentially, overkill for a lot of houses. The Orbi RBK40 is a slightly lower-spec system designed for smaller homes. The kit ships with a router and a satellite, and is designed to cover 2,700 square feet, compared to the original’s 4,000 square feet. A dedicated router can be advantageous. While most mesh systems plug into your existing network, the RBK40 lets you replace your router, giving you a neater finish. The router…

£1,699 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT Excellent HDR, motion handling and upscaling make this a stunning 4K TV SITTING BETWEEN THE Bravia A1 and the flagship ZD9 in Sony’s TV hierarchy, the 55in KD-55XF9005 aims to deliver top-notch quality while stopping just short of the truly high-end price bracket. As such, it comes with an impressive specs list: 4K and HDR are first and foremost, but it also features full-array local dimming (FALD), direct-lit LED backlighting – which is superior to the more common edge-lit backlighting – as well as Sony’s most advanced X1 Extreme processor, which helps power the Android Smart TV platform. Finally there’s X-Motion Clarity, light-boosted backlight scanning technology that’s exclusive to the XF90 family. WIDE LOAD The KD-55XF9005 is a fine-looking TV. The bezel is impressively thin,…

£159 • From www.carphonewarehouse.com VERDICT Mid-range features and a low-end price make this one of 2018’s most tempting smartphones HONOR ISN’T EXACTLY the biggest smartphone brand in the UK, but its profile is growing. Last year’s Honor 9 (Shopper 359) was a very fine mid-ranger, while the Honor 7X (Shopper 362) proved you could have a modern 18:9 screen on a phone costing well under £300. Now, in the wake of that success, comes the remarkable Honor 9 Lite. At £159, nearly half of what the Honor 9 was at launch, this is a true budget smartphone – and yet it takes advantage of an octa-core HiSilicon Kirin 659, the same chip that powers the Honor 7X, and its 3GB of RAM and 32GB of expandable storage also out-spec budget…

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 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 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 for…

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…

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

BUY A NEW PC and it will generally be fast and reliable, with everything working just as you would expect. But as you use the system – installing, running and removing programs – this begins to change. Performance tails off, your system might crash occasionally, and some features may no longer work at all. You don’t have to live with this situation. If your system seems slow, then just install PC Fresh 2018, and the program will quickly help you restore your PC to its original performance. This starts with PC Fresh asking questions about your computer: whether you have a printer, if you’re connected via Wi-Fi, if you use Windows Search and so on. Answer where you can and this helps the program tailor its advice to suit your…

WHEN YOU DELETE a file from your PC, it’s not necessarily gone forever. To minimise performance loss, and reduce wear and tear on your hard disk, Windows simply marks the file as deleted. This means its header is overwritten and the space in which it resides is marked as available for writing to. Until that space is physically overwritten by other data, it remains accessible and retrievable. This can be a worry for those with sensitive data they want truly deleted for good. That’s where O&O SafeErase 11 Professional comes in: it uses methods recognised by the US Department of Defense to delete files in such a way that they can never be recovered. SafeErase also includes tools for securely wiping all traces of your internet browsing, from cookies and…

Free • From www.avast.com VERDICT Great protection, but you don’t get a lot of features and other free software does better AVAST FREE ANTIVIRUS is one of the best-known names in free anti-virus protection. Avast also has paid-for software available, which provides additional tools. Upgrade to Internet Security, Premier or Ultimate and you get fake shopping site detection, a sandbox option to safely test dodgy-looking programs, an advanced firewall, spam filtering, and ransomware protection. The top two tiers also add webcam blocking to stop people spying on you, and an option to update your other apps. Given the popularity of the free version, we’ve once again stuck with this for testing. Avast has improved its protection over the years, and a total accuracy rating of 94% puts this software ahead…

£50 • From www.bullguard.com VERDICT Below-par protection puts this software well off the pace of its rivals BULLGUARD HASN’T HAD a very good time of it in our recent tests, and we’re sad to say that this year hasn’t seen things improve at all. In fact, BullGuard Internet Security has done exceptionally poorly. With a total accuracy score of 88%, BullGuard Internet Security comes above only Windows Defender in this test. Since Windows Defender is something that we refer to as baseline protection only, that’s not good. To put this in perspective, every other bit of free software, and every other paid-for suite did better than BullGuard in our tests. Drilling down into the results to find out where things went wrong, it soon became clear. Looking at the protection…

£35 • From www.kaspersky.co.uk VERDICT With unbeaten protection and a great bundle of features, this is our top security suite KASPERSKY HAS TAKEN the top spot in our security suite tests for many years. This time it’s no different, and Kaspersky has once again proved itself to be the top security vendor. This year, there’s a new package on the block, Kaspersky Security Cloud. This has all the features that you get in Kaspersky Total Security, but it costs the same as the entry-level Kaspersky Internet Security. The big difference is that Security Cloud does a lot of the processing and management in the cloud, reducing the burden on your physical devices. There’s also adaptive security built in, which analyses what you’re doing and puts the right level of protection…

£30 • From www.trendmicro.com VERDICT Great protection, price and features, but a slightly annoying interface gets in the way TREND MICRO SCORED well last year, but the main thing that put us off was the high price. This year, Trend Micro has reduced its pricing, making its software quite a bargain. We reviewed Maximum Security, which has support for up to three devices (a five-device option is available), but you can save a bit of cash if you go for Internet Security instead, which gives you protection for a single device. Maximum Security also contains mobile protection, if that’s something you require. While the price has gone down, the level of protection hasn’t. In our tests, Trend Micro Maximum Security scored a total accuracy rating of 97%, which shows just…

VERSATILE SHOOTING MODES YI 4K+ There’s plenty to love about the 4K+, but its wealth of different resolution and frame-rate options deserve a special mention. Besides being able to shoot at 4K 60fps, itself a great achievement considering how cheap the 4K+ is, you get unrivalled flexibility for selecting how sharp and how smooth you want your footage to be. This extends to some ultra-high frame rates at the lower resolutions, for dramatic slow-motion shots, but even at 1,920x1,080 you can go up to 120fps. Whether you want to max out quality or lower it to save storage space, you’ll always have the freedom to choose. EXTREME OUTDOOR USE GOPRO Hero 5 Black While the latest GoPro Hero 6 Black is a very good action camera indeed, it’s not a…

£399 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT A fantastic, if only mildly improved, action camera, with great image quality and improved stabilisation KNOWING HOW MUCH the Hero 5 Black switched things up, it was a surprise to see how little the latest Hero 6 Black has changed. The two even look exactly the same. There are some changes, most notably the ability to record 4K footage at 60fps, and to shoot electronically stabilised video at up to 4K 30fps. There’s improved stabilisation in general, plus marginally better image quality. Not that you’d guess this just from looking at it. The rectangular design, 2in touchscreen, button placement and ports are all unchanged from the Hero 5 Black, and waterproofing – welcome as it is – hasn’t progressed past 10m. This means that if…

£659 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT With its 1in sensor, this tiny video camera aims to do things differently, but its hardware limits as often as it excels THE DSC-RX0 IS something of an oddity: it has the same 1in sensor as the Sony RX100 V III DSLR, which sounds great (most competing cameras only have a dinky ¼in sensor), but despite being so incredibly expensive, it can’t even shoot 4K video without an external recorder. It’s also shockproof and waterproof to 10m, but lacks any kind of electronic image stabilisation, so it’s not even clear if this is trying to be a conventional action camera. Fortunately, it does have some cool tricks. Besides the sensor, which can take in four times as much light as most rivals, one of our…

DAVID LUDLOW SHOWS YOU HOW TO REGAIN CONTROL OF YOUR DATA PERSONAL DATA CAN BE USED FOR SHADY PURPOSES, WITH COMPANIES SUCH AS CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA HARVESTING 87 MILLION FACEBOOK PROFILES Businesses are often told that data is the new oil; the raw resource that will power them to new heights. No wonder, then, that they’re so interested in accumulating our personal information. By targeting advertising at us, collecting our information and reselling it, and a whole range of other abuses, our data is big business. This wealth of data is not just valuable to companies, either. Hackers want your information to sell or to use to break into valuable accounts. And personal data can even be used for shady purposes, with companies such as Cambridge Analytica harvesting 87 million Facebook…

Sync or swim I have a laptop and desktop PC, both running Windows 10. I want to be able to save, say, a spreadsheet on one computer, and have the latest version automatically available on the other one. I realise I could do this by saving my files to a USB memory stick and swapping it over between machines, but I’d like to try something a bit more modern. My router has a USB port so I thought I could leave a memory stick in there, save the files to it and access them from both machines, but after searching through forums I’m told that TalkTalk has advised against using the port in this way. After a bit more research I found that someone had solved the same problem by…

Photographer, musician, sound engineer, designer and video producer Ben Pitt guides you through a multimedia project ben@computershopper.co.uk DOUBLE EXPOSURES MAY look like a product of the Photoshop generation, but in fact the technique dates back to the advent of analogue photography. It was achieved simply by capturing two photos on the same piece of film. When film rolls became popular, many of these images were probably accidents, where the photographer forgot to wind the film on between exposures. But some people rather liked the effect, with scenes taking on a dream-like quality as people, objects and environments blended mysteriously into each other. Digital image editing has made it easy to combine photos in all sorts of creative ways, one of which is to simulate the double exposure film technique. Virtually…

Better budget build? @ Your components review (Shopper 365) made for interesting reading in our house, albeit a little late for us to use. In April, my son and I had worked through a similar exercise for his first PC but we only had a budget of £370 to play with. Like you, we started with an Intel i3-8100 CPU and put it in a Gigabyte Z370P D3 motherboard. Maybe not quite as well equipped with ports as your choices, but enough to work with. We decided to get one 8GB stick of Crucial 2,400MHz DDR RAM; yes, there’s a performance hit of not using dual-channel memory, but it means when he has saved up some more he can get another stick to upgrade to 16GB without having to throw…

QUITE OFTEN, TALK of security threats is about external threats, of how hackers can attack your computer remotely or how scams can be used to get you to give up personal information. Yet all too often, threats to security come from sources closer to home, and sometimes just forgetfulness. Recently, a 2010 video has again been doing the rounds on Facebook, showing the dangers of an office photocopier, which kept a record of what was being printed on an internal hard disk. Since that report, photocopiers digitally shred any information stored locally on them, but it still highlights a common problem: insecurely disposing of personal information. The truth is that we all often think that throwing something away gets rid of the problem, and the item is gone forever. Sadly,…

SAY WHAT? FLAGSHIP-BEATING SMARTPHONES have been the calling card of one-time mobile upstart OnePlus for the past four years. With the original OnePlus One, the Chinese company offered an alternative to Apple’s iPhone and the myriad Android phones in the mobile world. From there the OnePlus 2, 3, 3T and X all captured the attention of people fed up with smartphones that pushed extraneous features, yet charged a premium for the luxury. The OnePlus 5 and 5T cemented OnePlus as a brand that could produce phones competitive with the best Android handsets but priced some several hundred pounds cheaper. That’s not to say OnePlus produced perfect phones. The OnePlus 5T’s dual-camera array, for example, couldn’t compete with that on Google’s Pixel 2 or Samsung’s Galaxy S9. But with the new…

RECYCLING USED TECHNOLOGY is a worthy cause, but caution is needed if you don’t want to end up on the wrong side of the law. That was the case with electronics recycling innovator Eric Lundgren, who got hit with a 15-month prison sentence for selling Windows restore discs. Lundgren produced 28,000 of the discs and then sold them on to computer refurbishers for 25 US cents per disc. His goal was to provide people with access to an easy Windows restore disc without forcing them to create their own. Creating these discs is not illegal if used with a licensed version of Windows. The problem is that it can be a fiddly process for people who aren’t so tech savvy, which according to Lundgren resulted in people throwing out their…

FACEBOOK HAS SUSPENDED 200 apps following its ongoing investigation into the misuse of data by third parties. Thousands of apps have been examined, pending what the social network describes as a “thorough investigation” into whether these apps misappropriated user information. The move is part of a Facebook-run audit to examine how many third-party apps had extensive access to user information, and how many used that data inappropriately. This applies primarily to apps created before the firm’s data policies were changed in 2014. Mark Zuckerberg announced the internal investigation in March, following the revelations that political strategy company Cambridge Analytica had allegedly acquired and misused Facebook user data. Facebook’s vice-president of product partnerships, Ime Archibong, claims the audit is “in full swing”, and consists of two stages. “First, a comprehensive review…

“It is alarming and utterly reckless that police are using a technology that is almost entirely inaccurate.” Professor Paul Wiles, the biometrics commissioner, slams the Met Police’s shoddy facial recognition tech “I will not use this in a house. I will not point this at my spouse. I will not use this in an unsafe way. The best use is creme brûlée… and that exhausts our rhyming ability” Elon Musk gets poetic about his Boring company’s flamethrower Ts&Cs “We think cities are going to go vertical in terms of transportation and we want to make that a reality” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi discusses the company’s ambitions for flying taxis “Artificial intelligence still isn’t good enough yet to determine whether someone is pushing hate or describing that happened to them so…

£1,100 • From www.palicomp.co.uk VERDICT Whether it’s the 4K-ready GPU, overclocked processor or NVMe storage, the i5 Cosmos never slows down FEW PC BUILDERS are as happy to try squeezing extra power out of a CPU as Palicomp: we’ve seen ambitious overclocks on the i5 Luminosity (Shopper 352), the AMD Galaxy (Shopper 360) and now the i5 Cosmos. This time, the Intel Core i5-8600K has gone from a 3.6GHz base clock up to 4.8GHz. With six physical cores each targeting that higher speed, it could be quite the powerful tweak. EYE CANDY What got us really interested is the GPU: an 8GB GeForce GTX 1070, customised by EVGA. In the £900-1,100 range, it’s rare to get a 4K-capable card such as this, with the weaker GTX 1060 being more common.…

£1,649 • From www.dell.com VERDICT Thinner, lighter and faster, the new XPS 13 is an impressive Windows 10 laptop DELL’S XPS 13 was the physical embodiment of the mantra, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. Little has changed over the past few years, with the faithful ultraportable seeing only the occasional internal hardware update. Frankly, it’s high time for a more thorough makeover, and that’s exactly what the 2018 XPS 13 is, bringing together Intel Coffee Lake CPUs with a new chassis design and the option of a striking white and rose gold colour scheme. Prices start at £1,249, which nets you a 13.3in Full HD display, an Intel Core i5-8250U processor, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB NVMe SSD. We reviewed the higher-end, £1,649 model, which includes the…

£216 • From www.printerland.co.uk VERDICT The LaserJet Pro M227fdw is a decent mono MFP, but it quite simply costs too much ONE THE ONE hand, HP’s LaserJet Pro M227fdw is a slick, modern multifunction peripheral (MFP) with features such as wired and wireless networking, automatic duplex (double-sided) printing and a fancy colour touchscreen. On the other hand, it’s built around a mono laser printer, something that these days might as well run on coal. That said, while a mono laser isn’t for everyone, they’re typically more compact and cheaper to run than an equivalent colour laser. And while the best office inkjets are now very good, only a handful get close to a mono laser printer when it comes to delivering page after page of crisp black text. If that’s…

£68 • From www.ebuyer.com VERDICT On this slim M.2 drive, full-disk encryption is the consolation prize for underwhelming speeds FEW NAMES IN the tech world cover as many different products as ‘UV500’: it appears to be the umbrella brand for a new series of 2.5in, M.2 and mSATA SSDs, each offering different storage capacities at slightly different prices (fortunately, usually only by one or two pounds). Since we have the 240GB model of the M.2 line, let’s focus on the latter. There’s currently a choice of 120GB, 240GB and 480GB capacities, with a 960GB version announced but yet to appear on any UK retailer’s site at the time of writing. As these drives all use the SATA3 interface, quoted speeds are consistent across the entire UV500 range, including the 2.5in…

£319 • From www.apple.com/uk VERDICT Aimed at schools and students, this modest update is the most affordable iPad to date PRICE INCREASES FOR the MacBook and iPad Pro ranges have left Apple falling behind in the education space, where devices such as Chromebooks offer students a much cheaper alternative. The new iPad is an attempt to regain that lost ground. Starting at £319 for the 32GB Wi-Fi only model, it costs £80 less than the next-cheapest Apple slate, the 128GB iPad Mini 4, and the new model has a larger 9.7in screen that’s compatible with the Apple Pencil. Impressively, using this stylus on the iPad feels as smooth and responsive as on an iPad Pro. It adds another £89 to the cost, but the Apple Pencil comes into its own…

Free • From Windows Update VERDICT The new features aren’t as great as they could have been, but this is still an entirely beneficial upgrade THE FIFTH MAJOR update for Windows 10 is here, and kicks things off with a feature that nearly made it into the last one: Timeline. Originally planned for the Fall Creators Update (Shopper 359), Timeline replaces the old Task View menu with a full-screen calendar view, showing apps and documents you’ve been using today, yesterday and in the distant past. Click on one and Windows will reopen it, ready for you to resume work. It seems a great idea, especially when you sit down at your PC or laptop with a specific task or project in mind. Implementation is slick as well, with nice big…

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

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

01 A 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…

Chat and Communication Evernote 6.11.2.7027 Store your notes, ideas and plans in the cloud, and synchronise them between computers. UPDATED Mailbird 2.5.8 A free desktop email client for Windows. UPDATED 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 8.21.0.9 Make internet voice and video calls for free, and buy credit to make calls to mobiles and landlines. Telegram 1.2.17 This free IM app synchronises your conversations across multiple devices, and can spruce up chats with stickers and GIFs. UPDATED WhatsApp Desktop 0.2.9229 A free PC and Mac version of the popular messaging app, letting you chat from your desktop. Customisation iolo System Mechanic Free 17.0.1 Speed up your system with iolo’s PC optimisation…

Free • From www.avg.com VERDICT Excellent protection across the board, but you don’t get that many features, and paid-for software has better protection WHEN AVAST BOUGHT a majority stake in AVG at the end of 2016, it looked as though it could be curtains for one of the most popular free anti-virus packages: it seemed as though the two products would merge, creating a single, more powerful app. That hasn’t happened, and AVG Antivirus Free Edition actually scored higher than Avast Free Antivirus in our testing. In fact, the two products superficially look the same, but under the hood, the two managed different results. As with most of the free packages, AVG offers a paid-for version of its virus suite. Upgrade to Internet Security and you get personal folder protection…

£40 • From shop.eset.co.uk VERDICT ESET Internet Security’s great protection and simple interface impress, but this security suite is very expensive LAST YEAR WE were incredibly impressed with ESET Internet Security. This year, the level of protection has stayed the same, and so has the price. Prices start at an unappetising £40 for a single user, dramatically increasing with the more computers that you add, making this product very expensive. Cheaper pricing and a single bundle for multiple computers would be good to see; currently, you have to choose how many computers you want to protect at checkout. In this year’s tests, ESET Internet Security came second overall, with a total accuracy rating of 99%. Looking at how this security suite scored so highly, we found its malware protection was…

Free (included with Windows) VERDICT It’s there to keep you protected while you install proper security, but that’s about it WINDOWS DEFENDER HAS long been bottom of our testing table, and this year things have not improved. If anything, things have got worse. Really, the only positive thing that we can say about Windows Defender is that it’s there when you first get a new computer or do a fresh install of Windows 10. You then get just enough protection to get online and get yourself a proper bit of security. We simply can’t stress enough just how bad the protection you get from Windows Defender is. If you’re using it, switch to something else immediately, even if it’s another free application that we’ve tested here. How bad exactly is…

The threat landscape has changed, and our more in-depth tests really highlight the differences between security suites. By injecting targeted attacks, of the kind that happen every day, we could see how security suites deal with the unknown. Overall, this year’s tests give a far better view of which products will protect you. There have to be winners. While we strongly recommend that you use paid-for software for the best protection, we have to start by mentioning AVG AntiVirus Free. This software managed to defend against most attacks, and it’s lightweight and easy to use. It wins a Recommended award. Next, we have two products with a high level of protection. If you run these already or can find them online for a lower price, these suites will keep you…

£261 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Even though there’s a newer model, the Hero 5 Black still holds up – especially at this price WHEN YOU GET so many models deep into a product series, it’s not too surprising when last year’s model ends up looking as good as its latest, modestly upgraded successor. So it is with the GoPro Hero 5 Black; it’s not that the Hero 6 Black is bad, as we’ll see in a couple of pages, but the improvements it offers don’t always seem worth the extra £140 or so you’d be paying for them. As a result, the Hero 5 Black – which has dropped in price to undercut even the Yi 4K+ – could be a much more sensible option for GoPro purists. For extra…

£102 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT At such a low price the Vision 4K looks a fantastic deal, but this camera is not all it seems IF THERE’S ONE thing that’s slowed or otherwise limited the popularity growth of action cameras, it’s the pricing. Even ones we’d consider good value, such as the Yi 4K+, cost at least a couple of hundred pounds, and while there are cheaper options, such as the simply named GoPro Hero or the GoXtreme Pioneer, these aren’t going to come close to meeting the 4K resolution standard that’s been set by more expensive models for years. Perhaps the GoXtreme Vision 4K can offer a genuine alternative: it costs only £102 but has a lot of hardware you’d sooner expect to see on a premium model, including…

£312 • From www.photospecialist.co.uk VERDICT A fine action camera with great stabilisation, but it’s outmatched by newer rivals THE FDR-X1000V IS one of the older action cameras on the market; it launched in 2016, its sights aimed at the GoPro Hero 4 Black. Nonetheless, its specs hold up pretty well: it can shoot 4K video at 30fps (but not 60fps), and that’s with a bit rate of 100Mbit/s, higher than even the latest Hero 6 Black. The FDR-X1000V has a similar design to Sony’s other action cam, the HDR-AZ1. It has the same glossy white finish and there’s a large shutter button on top the device as well as a pair of menu buttons on the side next to its small LCD screen. The display is purely for changing settings,…

(see pages 106-109 for full details) 1. THE RIGHT TO BE INFORMED You have to be told how your data will be used, and who will have access to it 2. THE RIGHT OF ACCESS You can receive a copy of your data for free 3. THE RIGHT TO RECTIFICATION Incorrect data has to be updated 4. THE RIGHT TO ERASURE You can make companies delete your personal data 5. THE RIGHT TO RESTRICT PROCESSING You can prevent your data from being processed 6. THE RIGHT TO DATA PORTABILITY You can transfer your data between companies and services 7. THE RIGHT TO OBJECT You can object to the way your data is processed and to direct marketing, stopping both 8. RIGHTS IN RELATION TO AUTOMATED DECISION-MAKING AND PROFILING You should…

If you think that your data is being misused or processed unlawfully, then your first port of call should be with the company. With the right to access your data, you can find out what the company holds on you, and the proof that the company can process your data. For example, if you’re getting marketing emails from a company that you don’t know, then you can ask for proof that you should be receiving the communications. If there’s no proof that your data should be processed, then the company is potentially in breach of GDPR. At this point, you should inform them of this, and ask to be removed from further data-processing. If you’re not happy with the response, you can make a formal complaint to the ICO. If…

Clive Webster has been tinkering with computers ever since Windows 98 forced him to manually install his drivers clive@computershopper.co.uk YOU’LL HAVE NO doubt heard Mac fans eulogise about the benefits of macOS (previously called OS X): the reliability, the design, the focus on creativity and work, that somehow the wealthiest public company on the planet is morally superior to the third wealthiest. But the problem with macOS is that you have to buy a Mac to use it. However, if you feel more comfortable with Windows, there is a way to leave that MacBook in your desk drawer and run your copy of macOS on a Windows PC. As Macs use Intel processors, this guide will only work if your PC also uses an Intel chip. Running macOS in a…