Computer Shopperの September 2018 の目次

My smartphone is on its last legs. I’ve been using my iPhone 6 since October 2014, just a few weeks after its launch, but it’s now almost unusable. A couple of times a week the keyboard will just disappear, so I can’t type emails or search the web; the battery, which used to last almost two days, now struggles to make it to the end of a day; the battery meter will show 13% but then the phone will just die; and even when the phone is fully charged and working, it’s just so slow. Apple has admitted that the performance slowdown is deliberate, enacted by an iOS update to ensure that “as they age over time”, iPhones don’t suddenly shut down. Arguably my device might be classed as ageing,…

Tech pioneer and all-round good egg letters@computershopper.co.uk ONE BRIGHT AUTUMN morning, my grandfather was killed by a rubbish truck. He got run over crossing the road on his regular walk to work. He was 84. And I am comforted to know that he loved his work as much as he loved his walk. As for me, I have yet to reach that ripe old age but I am still working most hours, most days. It’s not so much that I love my work, more that I don’t know what else to do. When I was younger, so much younger than today, I was promised a sci-fi world where all labour would be performed by robots, leaving us humans to enjoy a more meaningful existence. Before my grandfather was born, Karl…

ADATA brought along its latest SATA SSD, the 560MB/s read-speed X950U, but that was announced way back in March. The firm’s big reveal at the show itself was the HD830, a rugged external hard drive with IP68 waterproofing and its very own heatsink for improved heat dispersion. It’s pretty chunky as a result, but could make a reliable partner for road warriors. ALPHACOOL specialises in open-loop watercooling components, but the all-in-one (AIO) Eisbaer Extreme caught our eye: it has all the beginner-friendliness of an AIO cooler, but takes the unusual step of placing the water pump inside the radiator housing instead of the CPU block, allowing the latter to be much more compact. There’s no pricing yet, but the Eisbaer Extreme will come in 240mm and 360mm varieties. AMD, not…

PC revival With a slew of new PC and laptop designs and components coming out of Computex 2018, the PC market is seeing innovation once again. Card supremacy Card transactions have now overtaken cash as the most frequently used payment method. Serene streaming Google has finally launched YouTube Premium in the UK, bringing a no-ads streaming service with exclusive content to video-hungry Brits, albeit for a monthly subscription. Robo healthcare Automation could save the NHS £12.5bn per year, according to the Institute of Public Policy Research think tank.…

AI learns to spot movement behind walls using wireless signals MIT SMART FOLKS have created an AI system that can see through walls using nothing more than wireless signals. Dubbed RF-Pose, the system uses deep-learning neural networks – think artificial equivalents of the neurons and synapses found in human brains – to spot human motion from radio frequency signals reflected from human bodies, even if the AI can’t see a person. There are no infrared or radar signals, as is the case with other tech that can spot movement. The AI system picks up the RF signals, which can travel through walls, and creates a virtual heat map of the movements of people, which it then represents as colourful stick figures. The technology could be used to monitor the movements…

£519 • From www.oneplus.com/uk VERDICT Once again, OnePlus has delivered the best smartphone for getting top-tier features at a sensible price ‘THE SPEED YOU NEED’. The focus group that combined those four words to create the OnePlus 6’s vague, unfocused tagline haven’t done the Chinese firm’s eighth smartphone justice. Suggesting that the OnePlus 6 only offers the processing power that’s absolutely necessary, and no more, well, is definitely underselling it. In reality, this is OnePlus’s beefiest smartphone by a wide margin. As the first OnePlus phone to be powered by Qualcomm’s latest (and fastest) octa-core Snapdragon 845 processor, the OnePlus 6 reprises a familiar role: that of the flagship-killer, a smartphone capable of competing with the best of the best without the enormous price to match. As such, the OnePlus…

£1,400 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT This updated ultraportable remains a class act, but its battery life is disappointingly short THE ORIGINAL HP Spectre 13 (Shopper 345) wasn’t just a brilliant laptop; its balance of swish looks, light weight and high performance set the standard that other ultraportables would have to follow. Two years later, there’s finally a new model, with updated internals and a flashy 4K display. This Spectre 13 looks every bit as gorgeous as the first, with pale gold detailing on the hinge and surrounding the edges. Every aspect of the design is fabulous: the ceramic white, carbon fibre and aluminium chassis is reassuringly sturdy and, at a mere 10.4mm with the lid closed, it’s both thinner and lighter than even the Apple MacBook Pro (Shopper 356). ADAPT…

£227 • From www.scan.co.uk VERDICT Dull BIOS aside, Gigabyte has crafted a fine higher-end motherboard for the latest Ryzen chips YOU DON’T NEED an X470-chipset motherboard to use one of AMD’s 2nd-gen Ryzen processors, or even the cheaper B450 models. Backwards compatibility means older 300-series chipsets, such as X370 and B350, will work with the new CPUs just fine. That said, with the updated chipsets promising better power efficiency and more stable overclocking, they’re absolutely worth a look. The X470 Aorus Gaming 7 WiFi is a premium option, but it certainly looks the part. Gigabyte has slathered this motherboard with chunky heatsinks and customisable RGB lighting, everywhere from the PCI-E x16 slots to a strip running down the right edge and on top of the I/O panel cover. Some decorations…

£240 • From www.scan.co.uk VERDICT A classy interface and excellent QoS settings, but wireless performance could be better at range WITH THE ADVENT of wireless mesh systems, there’s less imperative to upgrade your main router. After all, a mesh system improves the one part of your router that’s likely to cause the most issues: the wireless connection. The Nighthawk Pro Gaming XR500 is completely different, using the DumaOS operating system to provide features not seen before on a consumer router. Many of the features are aimed at gamers, but the advanced bandwidth controls and simple interface could well appeal to anyone that wants a stable internet connection. SCREW FIX Considering it’s a gaming router, the XR500 isn’t overblown or too large. In fact, it has a rather refined, angled look…

£1,099 • From www.johnlewis.com VERDICT This mid-ranger benefits from class-leading input lag and superb image processing, but the 60Hz panel lets it down WHILE THE UPPER echelons of Samsung’s TV ranges keenly demonstrate the very latest in quantum dot technology (also known as QLED), the UE49NU8000 proves that Samsung hasn’t abandoned the more affordable LED LCD end of the market. However, if you were hoping for an eye-catching new physique for Samsung’s latest mid-range set, then prepare to be disappointed. The NU8000’s design steadfastly refuses to break the mould that’s been so successful in recent years, with a slim black bezel, rounded corners, and a slightly thicker bottom border finished in light grey. It would be churlish to complain about the results, however: the classy two-tone appearance and brushed metal…

£229 • From www.carphonewarehouse.com VERDICT Nokia continues its comeback with this potent, all-metal budget phone WHETHER YOU CALL it the Nokia 6, the Nokia 6.1 (as is printed on the box) or the Nokia 6 2018 (as Carphone Warehouse does), the first thing to know about this handset is that it sits near the bottom of Nokia’s newly refreshed smartphone range. That’s above the nostalgia-baiting Nokia 8110 4G, but well below the flagship Nokia 8 Sirocco. It’s no cut-rate plastic slab. The new Nokia 6 is crafted from a single piece of aluminium and finished in two-tone anodised paint, with either a copper or silver trim around the sides and surrounding the rear camera module – and it looks very swish indeed. HIGH AND DRY It’s solidly built, too, and…

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 A 32in Full HD TV costs around £200, but premium larger 4K models can be get closer to £2,000. TVs look much smaller in the shop than in your home, so measure the space available before you buy. Curved TVs are becoming increasingly more common, but bear in mind that these typically take up more floor space than a traditional flat set. 02 A 1,920x1,080-resolution TV can display a 1080p image. You can still buy TVs with a 720p (1,366x768) resolution, but they’re no cheaper and the image won’t be as sharp. 3,840x2,560 Ultra HD resolution, or 4K, TVs are finally available at reasonable prices, although you’ll still pay a premium for one over a 1080p model. 03 Consider the number of inputs you’ll need to connect the rest…

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 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…

£279 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT A small soundbar with remarkably big sound WE’VE NEVER SEEN a soundbar quite like the Polk Audio MagniFi Mini. It’s absolutely tiny – no bigger than a large loaf of rustic bread – and it comes with a separate subwoofer shaped like an oversized air freshener. Despite its size, it packs in plenty of features, including Google Cast and Bluetooth support. The MagniFi Mini costs £279, which makes it the cheapest soundbar included in this round-up by far. That’s not to say it’s amazingly cheap in the wider context of soundbars in general – for about the same amount, you can get the Orbitsound One P70 (Shopper 353), Q Acoustics M3 (Shopper 352) or the Yamaha MusicCast YAS-306 (Shopper 350), all of which are at…

£209 • From www.logitech.com VERDICT Logitech’s illuminated speakers feature smart colour-changing technology and powerful bass DESKTOP SPEAKERS ARE the latest PC peripherals to be caught up in the RGB lighting craze, but thankfully this has produced some good hardware instead of just me-too tat. Take the Logitech G560, an eye-catching set of speakers (including a subwoofer) with four independent lighting zones. You can customise the colour of each zone through Logitech’s Gaming Software (LGS), or you can let Logitech’s Lightsync technology control the lights for you. The latter works with certain games and can, for example, warn you of approaching enemies. There are practical benefits, too: the lights are bright enough to light up the wall behind your monitor, which can help reduce eye strain. The speakers and subwoofer have…

£180 • From www.johnlewis.com VERDICT A water-resistant Bluetooth speaker with rich 360° audio, but you pay through the nose for it THE SOUNDLINK REVOLVE looks, at first, to be in danger of suffering the same issues with value as the SoundLink Micro: it’s £180 but it lacks the typical bells and whistles of high-end Bluetooth speakers, such as Wi-Fi and integration with smart assistants. The good news, then, is that this is still a seriously good device with a few tricks of its own. It projects audio in 360°, it’s water-resistant to the IPX4 standard and, as long as you keep it in connected to your phone via Bluetooth, you can at least pretend it’s a Google Home or Apple HomePod by holding down the button at the top and…

£90 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Even if it’s not the best-sounding smart speaker, the Echo 2nd Generation is a versatile and well-priced update HOW DO YOU follow up a device like the Echo, which almost single-handed took voice assistant speakers into the mainstream? Amazon’s answer is to make a brand new Echo that’s smaller, lighter and considerably cheaper than the original. At £90, when the original cost £150, the 2nd-gen Echo seems like a fantastic deal. Stand the new Echo next to the old and you can see that it’s about two-thirds of the height, although roughly the same diameter. This makes placing the new Echo that little bit easier, as it will fit on to most shelves with ease. The fabric finish also looks better than the original’s plain…

£120 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT With its circular display, the Echo Spot is an interesting mix of smart speaker, intercom and alarm clock THE ECHO SPOT is both the latest and the most unusual instalment in Amazon’s Echo range. It’s spherical in shape and about the size of a grapefruit, with a portion of the bottom sliced off so you can stand it on a flat surface, and a section of the front has been cleaved away and replaced with a circular 2.5in, 480x480 touchscreen and VGA camera. It’s almost like a grown-up Echo Dot, and is the perfect size to use on your desk as a smart speakerphone-cum-intercom. You can even use it, as Amazon suggests, as a voice-driven alarm clock, but you’ll need to make sure you mute…

£39 • From store.google.com VERDICT It’s the cheapest way to get the excellent Google Assistant, but don’t expect stellar sound IT’S CLEAR WHERE Google found its inspiration for the Home Mini: as a smaller, cheaper alternative to the standard Home, with a view towards buying multiple units to spread around the house, it’s a Google Assistant-powered rival to Amazon’s Echo Dot. It’s more handsome than the bland, plastic Echo Dot, adopting a sleek pebble-like shape with a robust-feeling fabric covering the top. When you talk to it, a screen lights up and shines through the fabric; a nice touch that provides necessary visual feedback without spoiling the Home Mini’s unobtrusive looks. Around the back is a Micro USB input, used to power the smart speaker, and a switch to disable…

£220 • From www.very.co.uk VERDICT Attractive and waterproof with great sound, the Megablast is one of the most versatile smart speakers you can buy MOST SMART SPEAKERS require a power lead and can’t be taken on the go, unless you pair the Ninety7 Vaux with an Amazon Echo Dot, but the UE Megablast is different. It has a built-in battery and is waterproof, like a conventional Bluetooth speaker, so you can play your favourite songs by the pool, check the weather with Alexa and even order goods with your voice. The Megablast is built like a tank, and looks beautiful, especially its textured mesh cover. Altogether, it weighs 1.2kg, is 237mm tall and has a diameter of 88mm. It’s not something that will fit in a jacket pocket but it…

£169 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT From their fantastic sound quality to their generous range of accessories, the B400 are must-haves THE BRAINWAVZ B400 replace the Best Buy-winning Brainwavz B200 (Shopper 362), bringing an impressive four balanced-armature drivers per earpiece but a much higher price. What hasn’t changed is the treasure trove of bundled accessories. You get a carrying case, a standard cable with a straight 3.5mm plug and a mic/remote cable with an off-angle 3.5mm plug. There are six sets of small and wide hole silicone ear tips in small, medium and large, a set of Comply T-100 foam tips, a shirt clip, a cleaning kit and a Velcro cable tie. For an additional cost, you can upgrade the bundled cables to ones that are terminated differently or made from…

Send your problems to help@computershopper.co.uk Why can’t I scan? I recently purchased an Epson WorkForce WF-7720DTWF multifunction peripheral (MFP) to replace an ageing HP Photosmart C6280. My initial experience is that its printing and scanning are very good, but I have a problem that sours the whole experience. If I try to scan from a computer as a standard user (ie, without administrator privileges), I get a series of error messages, which is extremely inconvenient and makes it impossible to import into another program. I have a similar issue if I try to scan on the device itself and choose the computer as the destination. As a family, we have several computers that currently run Windows 10 version 1709. The systems are set up with an admin account, but everyday…

letters@computershopper.co.uk Brave the Elements Great feature on building a photo-editing PC (Shopper 366). It’s unfortunate you had to spend so much time explaining the labyrinthine complexities of Adobe Lightroom licensing. Their user forums are awash with grumbles. But there’s an alternative you didn’t mention that has none of the pricing complexity that forces you into using Adobe’s cloud service, at which point you are its hostage. Adobe Photoshop Elements has not (yet) been forced down the subscription route. I buy a copy every few years because the incremental updates are only meaningful after that interval. It does all the editing I need and, better still, allows me to flip between guided and expert mode depending on my ability. Lightroom is only for advanced users. I’ve used both, a lot, and…

THERE’S A DISTURBING new trend going on with smart devices: domestic abuse. According to a report in the New York Times, this kind of abuse is on the increase. Women reported how their air conditioning would suddenly turn off, or their smart lock would change codes on a daily basis. In all cases, there was confusion until the truth came out: a partner who had access to the technology was deliberately changing settings to confuse, harass and deliberately scare their victims. Beyond this, there have been cases of smart cameras being used to spy on people, further breaching trust and confidentiality. It’s a terrifying situation and one that could well spread further. HOME ALONE As smart devices get installed into more houses, imagine buying a new one only to find…

For the den Virtual reality has never really taken off beyond a small band of cash-rich enthusiasts, and as fun as the technology can be, it’s not hard to see why. Many require either a high-powered (ie, expensive) PC or a specific games console to function, and even the ones that don’t will need a premium smartphone slotted inside. The Oculus Go, however, finally offers an all-in-one VR platform for everyone. Everything you need (except the controllers, naturally) is contained in the headset itself, no phone or PC required, and starting at just £199 it’s far more affordable than an Oculus Rift or HTC Vive. (Page 52) For the wallet The Motorola Moto G6 sees one of the premier budget smartphone lines back on track, following the Moto G5’s missteps.…

Office romances Intel CEO Brian Krzanich has stepped down after it came to light he was having a consensual workplace fling, which breached the chipmaker’s non-fraternisation policy. West Country connections Exeter has been named the worst place in the UK for broadband and 4G connectivity, with paltry speeds and patchy network coverage. VR support Microsoft has admitted that support for virtual reality headsets won’t be coming to the Xbox One, despite previous spoutings to the contrary. Creepy copper tech South Wales Police have been given an ultimatum to drop the use of facial recognition technology that ‘violates privacy rights’ or face legal action.…

Canada Unearthing earthquakes Halifax, Nova Scotia, will host the world’s largest offshore earthquake centre within two years, and will see hundreds of sensors placed offshore to monitor seismic activity. Around 90% of the earthquakes that affect Canada happen off its coasts. But little is understood about the seismic activity, which makes it difficult to prepare for quakes. With the sensors and a new research centre, it’s hoped that boffins can glean more information to pinpoint areas vulnerable to seismic activity and put early-warning systems in place. US Neutering net neutrality The US has now fully pulled the plug on net neutrality, ending the Obama administration’s protections whereby all traffic on the internet was treated equally within the US. Despite fierce opposition, the US Federal Communications Commission overturned the net neutrality…

“We want to be clear that we are not developing AI for use in weapons”Google CEO Sundar Pichai tries to ease concerns over weaponised machines “No-one’s going to challenge them; they look the part, they’re spending the part, they’ve got the cards, they’re all going through”Ex-Met cyber crime leader Charlie McMurdie notes cyber crooks love to splash their ill-gotten gains in swanky UK shops like Harrod’s “It’s indeed frustrating that there was no investigation, no evidence of any wrongdoing from our side, just references to false allegations from anonymous sources”Eugene Kaspersky isn’t happy with the EU branding his cyber security software as malicious “We [AMD] appreciate the advancements they’ve helped drive with the x86 architecture over the last four decades. But we’re ready to take it from here”AMD trolls Intel…

£1,440 •From www.scan.co.uk VERDICT It’s svelte for a gaming PC, but the MEK1 doesn’t compromise on graphical power THE SKINNY MEK1 is new ground for Zotac, which has produced some great compact barebones systems such as the Magnus ER51060 (Shopper 360) but until now hadn’t applied its knowledge to a fully built tower. It’s still on the small side, to put it mildly. At 418mm tall and just 118mm thick, it’s narrow enough to grab either side with a single hand, yet it includes an 8GB GTX 1070 Ti graphics card – and that’s no small-fry GPU. In fact, it’s a gaming powerhouse, delivering the 4K performance that its price of £1,440 essentially demands. In Dirt Showdown, running on Ultra settings, the MEK1 produced 110fps at 1,920x1,080, 109fps at 2,560x1,400…

£900 • From www.johnlewis.com VERDICT Slender design, impressive performance and a superb fingerprint sensor make this 13.3in laptop a cracking buy AT THIS YEAR’S Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Asus unveiled the new ZenBook 13. This, the company’s latest attempt to surpass its ultraportable rivals, is set to go toe to toe with the talented likes of the Dell XPS 13 (Shopper 366), HP Spectre 13 (page 27) and Apple’s 13.3in MacBook Pro (Shopper 356). The burning question: has Asus done enough to set the ZenBook 13 apart from the rest of the pack, especially when it already has its own premium ultraportable in the ZenBook 3 Deluxe (Shopper 363)? There is at least one thing working in the ZenBook’s favour, and it’s not obvious from the outside: it…

£104 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT This SSD uses SLC trickery to keep write speeds high, but don’t expect industryleading performance all the time THROUGHPUT LIMITS MEAN that it’s only going to get harder for a SATA-based SSD to innovate. The best drives in the business, particularly the Samsung 860 Evo (Shopper 364), are already getting close to the maximum speeds allowed by the SATA3 interface. Today’s SSDs need ways to stand out, and one of SanDisk’s favoured tools for doing so has been its nCache 2.0 system. It works very similarly to the tiered SLC/TLC memory setup of the WD Black (page 36), which is unsurprising considering how many SanDisk parts are inside that drive: all data writes are sent through a layer of fast SLC NAND before data is…

£550 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT Quick and capable, the EcoTank ET-7750 is a great MFP for busy amateur snappers ON THE FACE of it, the ET-7750 is the perfect candidate for Epson’s EcoTank system, which shuns cartridges in favour of refillable ink tanks. Photo printing is a notorious drain on ink, and an A3+ capable photo multifunction peripheral (MFP) even more so. Thanks to EcoTank, the ET-7750 arrives with enough ink for a claimed 3,400 6x4in prints, and after you’ve printed those, the extra bottles work out at about 3p per photo. If you only consider purchase price, the ET-7750 has a slightly disappointing specification. It’s certainly not bad: there’s support for wired and wireless networks, A4 scans and copies, and automatic double-sided (duplex) prints. You can make borderless A3+…

£399 • From www.carphonewarehouse.com VERDICT Honor’s latest premium handset is slick and powerful, but the OnePlus 6 pips it IF YOU’RE KEEPING count, the Honor 10 is Honor’s sixth device launch in as many months, and thanks to the View 10 (Shopper 363) it’s not even the first highend model of the bunch. It’s not a particularly challenging game of spot-the-difference, however. The Honor 10 is slimmer and lighter than the more expensive View 10, partly thanks to its smaller 5.84in display, which also fills more of the phone’s front. It also has an iPhone X-style camera notch at the front; you can add a black bar to fill out the top of the screen if you don’t like the look, which is exactly what we did. The Honor 10…

£9 per month • From www.nordvpn.com VERDICT A superb all-round VPN, with strong security, great performance and hassle-free streaming WE DON’T USUALLY get all that excited about VPN services, but NordVPN’s offering is undeniably impressive. As well as the normal global exit nodes, it offers a whole slew of specialist servers: P2P-friendly servers for torrent-sharing purposes, Onion-over-VPN and double VPN servers for robust anonymity, anti-DDoS servers and even servers that give you a unique, persistent IP address in the country of your choosing. The double VPN option is perhaps the most interesting. Your traffic goes over a VPN to one server, which then connects to another VPN, through which your data emerges from a second server. This makes it even harder to link the websites and services you’re using to…

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 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…

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. 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…

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…

Only care about having the best possible audio quality? These are, independent of other factors, the best-sounding products in each category SOUNDBAR SAMSUNG HW-MS750 A true money-no-object purchase, the HW-MS750 is crushingly expensive and doesn’t even have a separate subwoofer – but then, this soundbar sounds so immaculate by itself, with powerful bass and a wide yet intricate soundstage, that you won’t really need one. DESKTOP SPEAKERS LOGITECH G560 Although the G560’s dual speakers are loud to an outright unnecessary degree, there’s no denying they do a great job in bringing movies and PC games to life. Bass presence is a particular highlight, thanks to the bundled subwoofer. BLUETOOTH SPEAKER UE Wonderboom The Wonderboom deserves its name: it manages to deliver rich, full-sounding audio in 360 degrees, despite being small…

£419 • From www.cramptonandmoore.co.uk VERDICT A clean, accurate sound and top-quality connectivity make the HW-MS650 an outstanding premium soundbar IF YOU’RE LOOKING for supercharged movie audio without the clutter of multiple speakers and trailing cables, Samsung’s latest soundbar might be just the ticket. At £419, it’s a little pricier than some, but with nine drivers and a raft of audio-wrangling technology hidden beneath its jet-black exterior, the HW-MS650 promises serious bass from a single box. The brushed aluminium design and rounded edges make for a lovely-looking soundbar, but be warned that this is no MagniFi Mini in the size department; at 1,060mm across, 131mm deep and 78mm tall, it won’t fit under every TV. If you already have a wall-mounted TV, you can get a rather ingenious bracket for the…

£150 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT These cylindrical desktop speakers have customisable RGB lighting, but don’t sound great for the money IF YOU DON’T fancy dropping £500 on the subwoofer-equipped Nommo Pro, the Nommo Chroma represents a much more affordable set of Razer desktop speakers. Not that they look like the budget option: they have a striking cylindrical profile, pointing out and towards you when you’re at the desk. The drivers are held up by a plastic support that raises the speakers to a height of 215mm, and a circular RGB strip sits under the base, which you can customise through software. On the right-hand speaker, there are bass and volume knobs, and you can switch off the speakers entirely by pressing down on the latter. At the rear are 3.5mm…

£23 • From www.ebuyer.com VERDICT The Muvo 2c is affordable, compact, weatherproof and sounds better than you’d think CHEAP, PORTABLE BLUETOOTH speakers usually suffer from weak sound, low build quality or a dearth of features. It would be understandable, then, to approach Creative’s Muvo 2c with a degree of trepidation. At £23, it’s certainly cheap, and at 93x38x67mm, it’s not like there’s much room to fill with top-quality tweeters. Its six-hour battery life is also decent rather than extraordinary. However, it quickly becomes apparent that the Muvo 2c isn’t just bargain-bin rubbish. It’s rated at the IP66 standard for dust- and water-resistance, and has a fair few connection ports, including a 3.5mm auxiliary input, a Micro USB port for both charging and data, and a microSD slot, which works hand-in-hand…

£40 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The Echo Dot has all the benefits of Alexa at an exceptionally low price UNLIKE THE MAIN Echo, the Echo Dot is yet to be updated; in fact, with the launch of the alarm clock-esque Echo Spot, it has a bit of internal competition for which can be the best compact smart speaker Still, there are several things working in the humble Dot’s favour. Firstly, it costs just £40 – a third of the Echo Spot’s price – making it easily the cheapest smart speaker around. It also has the same seven-microphone array as the original Echo, so despite being the size (and shape) of an ice hockey puck it’s no worse at picking up commands from across the room. Where it falls behind the…

£319 • From www.apple.com/uk VERDICT The HomePod is a triumph of audio engineering – it’s just a shame its smart features aren’t on the same level APPLE’S FIRST ATTEMPT at a smart speaker takes a different approach to the Amazon Echo range, prioritising sound quality over smart functionality. This is clear from the frankly outstanding engineering found within the HomePod’s spongy fabric covering. At the top is a 4in, high excursion woofer, which is monitored by a low-frequency calibration microphone, with the aim of preventing distortion and clipping. Below it, in a ring surrounding the middle of the speaker, is an array of six further microphones – broadly equivalent to the seven-mic far-field array in the Amazon Echo 2nd Generation and Echo Plus – which are used to sense the…

£50 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT A nifty upgrade for the Echo Dot, boosting sound and making the smart speaker portable OK, SO THIS isn’t actually a standalone speaker: it’s a battery-powered dock for the Amazon Echo Dot, providing the usually wired speaker with wireless capability as well as much better sound quality. It’s still worthy of inclusion here, however, because it helps fill a gap in the smart speaker market that would otherwise be occupied solely by the UE Megablast. Indeed, if there’s one problem with the Amazon Alexa range of products, it’s that there’s no portable model that you can take everywhere with you. By popping your Echo Dot into the top of the Vaux, however, you can turn this usually wired speaker into a wireless one. OFF THE…

£499 • From eu.audio-technica.com VERDICT They’re expensive, but the ATH-DSR9BT put even the best wired headphones into a tangle IN THE AUDIOPHILE world, cables are not an afterthought: true devotees often spend many thousands of pounds in pursuit of perfection. Audio Technica’s latest headphones, the ATH-DSR9BT, are keen to turn that upside down. Thanks to the wireless trickery of aptX HD and Audio Technica’s all-new Pure Digital Drive system, this is a pair of headphones that doesn’t need cables to sound stupendous. There’s no ANC, but these are the first headphones we’ve seen that transform the digital stream of 1s and 0s into sound. While most sets use a DAC to convert the bitstream into an analogue waveform, feeding that to an amp that powers the drivers in each earpiece,…

£238 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT Great sound quality goes hand in hand with portable design, despite stiff competition WITH ACTIVE NOISE cancellation, Bluetooth, and a host of other features, the PXC 550 Wireless promise to muzzle the roar of modern cities and put your music centre stage. They’re not built as solidly as some over-ear headphones, but as they weigh only 227g, it’s hard to be too critical; that’s even lighter than our favourite ANC headphones, the Bose QuietComfort II (Shopper 362). Battery life is high, too: around 20 hours on Bluetooth and 30 hours on a 3.5mm wired connection, both with ANC enabled. Cleverly, swivelling the PXC 550 Wireless’s earpieces around from their flattened position (which they’ll need to be in to fit inside the bundled carry case) will…

We all rely on the internet, resulting in more browser windows. At the same time, websites have become more complicated and more laden with advertising, videos and the like, slowing down our computers. In fact, in our experience, slow computers are often down to browsers running away in the background eating up resources. Here’s how to fix the issues. It’s often the extra junk in a website that brings your PC to its knees, so blocking the junk while allowing the good stuff through makes a huge difference. STOP AUTO-PLAYING VIDEOS Chrome 66 and higher has a new feature that will automatically stop auto-playing videos that have the sound turned on. This should cut down on a lot of annoyances, but not all sites are caught in the net. An…

clive@computershopper.co.uk Archive your files and clippings Using free software, you can convert your scanned letters, records and magazine clippings into searchable documents. Clive Webster shows you how MANY HOMES HAVE a scanner these days, whether it’s a standalone flatbed or part of an MFP device. However, the promise of a paperless office and home still eludes us, with stacks of bills, letters, documents, magazines and newspapers cluttering up cupboards, shelves and drawers. Even if you scan your documents, finding a particular clipping or letter in a dense digital archive can be even harder than finding a physical document in a filing cabinet or desk drawer. Thankfully, you can now convert scanned documents to make them searchable, so finding that crucial correspondence requires only a few keystrokes. THE WHOLE POINT of…

Support in a storm I read your recent test of security software with interest (Shopper 366). But one of the things yours and the other magazines never go into in these reviews is the vendor’s technical support. I used Kaspersky for years and then gave up as, at the time, it had so many issues keeping it going that it was practically a constant hobby that I didn’t want. I then moved back to Norton, where years later I still am, but its technical support isn’t much better, although it does have reasonably good forums, which sort of compensate. So I think in such reviews you need to look at the whole package, and that might put a different angle on it. Also, even if your PC does get compromised,…

David Ludlow RAVES WE’VE JUST HAD a new kitchen built. Four months of turmoil, filth and eating whatever could be cooked in an oven resting precariously on top of a fridge have proved to be a nightmare. But with the problems has come a small sliver of light: the opportunity to intelligently design the space we’re using, creating a smart environment that’s neater than before. Into the new cavity wall went the speaker cable, running to the outside speakers powered by a Sonos player cunningly tucked under the floor. No more do we have to put up with unsightly plastic wires trailing across the floors and up walls. Inside, the internal Sonos players are wall mounted, plugged into the handy high-level sockets that we have put in place. It’s goodbye…

£8,649 •From store.hp.com VERDICT Dual CPUs give the Z6 incredible power, but you’d have to be rich or mad to buy it IT MAY LOOK sober and sensible on the outside, but the Z6 Workstation is hiding a big secret: dual 14-core Intel Xeon processors, which alongside 96GB of DDR4 memory delivers a level of performance that makes Intel Core and AMD Ryzen-powered ‘workstations’ look like toasters. Just look at its scores in our 4K benchmarks: 474 in the video-encoding test and 595 in the multitasking test, both record-setters, as is its overall score of 479. Its image test score of 144 is the lone humdrum result, though not a terribly surprising one: it relies primarily on single-core strength, and while you do have a total of 28 cores from…

£194 • From www.scan.co.uk VERDICT Improved stock speeds make for improved performance from AMD’s top mid-range CPU THE NOVELTY OF being able to get your hands on a hexa-core desktop CPU for under £200 may have worn off, but anyone interested in home computing should be glad to see successors to the Ryzen 5 1600 and 1600X (both Shopper 357): the Ryzen 5 2600, which comes in at £167, and the £194 Ryzen 5 2600X, which we’ve been sent for review. As with the 1st-gen Ryzen 5 chips, the key difference between the two is clock speed; both have six cores and 12 threads, and both are based on the same 12nm manufacturing process, so they’re otherwise very similar parts. Once again the ‘X’ suffix signifies higher Extended Frequency Range…

£380 • From www.overclockers.co.uk VERDICT Tiered 3D NAND gives this M.2 SSD a speed boost, though seemingly only for lighter loads THE ORIGINAL WD Black, released last year, was a pretty underwhelming M.2 SSD: with sequential read and write speeds up to 2,050MB/s and 800MB/s respectively, it was easily outpaced by Samsung’s blistering 960 Pro (Shopper 348) and 960 Evo (Shopper 349). This 2018 update is a different story. For one thing, it’s the first 3D NAND SSD released under the Western Digital brand, and it doesn’t just use the most common Triple Level Cell (TLC) variety; it also includes Single Level Cell (SLC) blocks, which is a more expensive technology but can generally read and, especially, write faster than TLC. LEVEL BEST This combination works somewhat like an octa-core…

£625 • From www.ebuyer.com VERDICT An attractive, well-built monitor that’s set up and ready to go for HDR content HDR-CAPABLE TVs have been growing in popularity since the technology hit games consoles, and Microsoft has been trying to keep pace on the PC side of things as well, adding native HDR support to Windows 10. Many desktop monitor manufacturers have embraced the shift, leading to displays such as the BenQ EX3501R. It certainly looks the part: it has a three-side borderless design with a sleek silver and black colour scheme. Its design helps it stand out, with an all-metal stand and an elegant cable management hole situated around the bottom. The stand is sturdy and provides 120mm of height and -5/+20? tilt adjustment, but if you want more freedom, you…

£219 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Motorola is back on form with the Moto G6, a robust and affordable handset with a marvellous camera THE MOTO G6 is an Android smartphone with a lot of baggage. Five years ago, Motorola was a company struggling to find its identity, but it hit upon a golden strategy almost by accident with the original Moto G. Since then, the G series has – for the most part – gone from strength to strength. With last year’s Moto G5 (Shopper 353), however, Motorola essentially stood still, offering no compelling reason – be it design, performance or battery life – to choose it over its excellent predecessor, the Moto G4 (Shopper 343). It followed up with the more accomplished Moto G5S (Shopper 360) in an attempt…

£199 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT No PC? No smartphone? No problem – the all-in-one Oculus Go is the best way to get started in VR THE APPEAL OF virtual reality is hard to describe in words. Manufacturers have struggled, too: Sony’s PlayStation VR (Shopper 348) and the Samsung Gear VR (Shopper 340) have brought the technology to the largest audience yet, but no one company has managed to convey VR’s appeal to the masses. Now, however, Oculus and Xiaomi have joined forces, and the fruit of their collaboration, the Oculus Go, is set to change the face of VR forever. One barrier to VR’s wider adoption is just how much effort it takes to start using it. Console and PC-powered headsets require myriad cables, sensors, cameras and chargers before you…

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 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…

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 It’s essential that you buy the right type of motherboard for your processor. For example, Intel’s Skylake, Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake processors all use the same LGA 1151 socket, but because each CPU generation introduced new chipsets, you’ll need to get a Z370 motherboard for a Coffee Lake chip, a Z270 board for a Kaby Lake chip and so on. 02 All current Intel processors have built-in graphics chipsets, so if you want to use your chip’s built-in graphics, make sure the motherboard has the video outputs, such as DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort. If you want to play the latest games, you’ll need to fit a dedicated graphics card in the motherboard’s PCI Express x16 slot, although this may block one of your other slots. 03 Normal tower…

Chat and Communication Evernote 6.11.2.7027 Store your notes, ideas and plans in the cloud, and synchronise them between computers. Mailbird 2.5.8 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 8.23.0.10 Make internet voice and video calls for free, and buy credit to make calls to mobiles and landlines. UPDATED Telegram 1.3.7 This free IM app synchronises your conversations across multiple devices, and can spruce up chats with stickers and GIFs. UPDATED WhatsApp Desktop 0.2.9737 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 suite.…

£449 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT A slim soundbar that punches above its weight, but it’s sonically flawed THE LG SJ8 is one of the most attractive soundbars we’ve ever come across. Not because it’s ostentatious or showy, or because it lights up like a Christmas tree when you switch it on, but because it’s incredibly, implausibly thin. It stands a mere 38mm tall, so it will fit under most TVs without obscuring the power switch or the infrared receiver. Most importantly, it’s unobtrusive; a soundbar that really does blend into the background. SUBBING ON The LG SJ8 costs £449, which despite having dropped from an initial £500 is still quite a lot to spend on a TV speaker system with no rear speakers. It also lacks the kind of high-end…

£699 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT A brilliant soundbar that’s versatile, sounds great and produces phenomenal bass without a subwoofer AS THE NEWEST and most expensive of Samsung’s HW-MS soundbars, the HW-MS750 has the tough job of following the HW-MS650. Both are single-body models without a dedicated subwoofer, and although the HW-MS750 costs nearly £300 more, at first glance it’s hard to see why. Once you start listening to it, however, it becomes clear that the HW-MS750 is a big step up in terms of sheer sound quality, especially when it comes to the lower frequencies. Once again, this is a Samsung soundbar that’s best suited to larger TVs and rooms: it measures 1,150mm across, so pairs well with TVs 49in and larger in size, and it can be wall-mounted using…

£100 • From www.johnlewis.com VERDICT It’s rugged and portable, but there are far better-sounding speakers than the SoundLink Micro BLUETOOTH SPEAKERS COME in all shapes and sizes, but the SoundLink Micro is unusual. It’s a square-ish, rubberised speaker about the size of your palm, with soft, rounded edges belying its rugged IPX7 waterproofing. At 290g it’s easy to carry, and under the silky-feeling rubber are some nifty hardware features. Alongside the speaker grille at the front, there’s a microphone for taking calls, as well as plus and minus buttons for volume adjustment and a multifunction key, which can be used to activate Siri or Google Assistant or simply to play and pause music. The SoundLink Micro charges via Micro USB via a port on the side, and there’s a neat…

£70 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT You get incredibly loud audio and thumping bass from this clever waterproof speaker WITH ITS DISTINCTIVE barrel shape and the cross on the front, the UE Wonderboom looks a little like a modern interpretation of Monty Python’s Holy Hand Grenade. Rather than physically blowing things up, the Wonderboom portable Bluetooth speaker offers an explosion of audio. The design is tough and practical, too, being IP67 certified. This means that it’s dust-proof, drop-tested from five feet, and can survive total submersion in water up to 1m deep for as long as 30 minutes. The latter is actually rather difficult to achieve, as the UE Wonderboom floats, so to submerge it you’d need to attach a few weights. Even though UE Bluetooth speakers are well known for…

£140 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Adding a smart home hub to the Echo is a neat idea, but the implementation’s not quite there yet ALL OF AMAZON’S Echo devices have a degree of smart home control capability, but the premium Echo Plus is the only one with a built-in Zigbee smart hub. This allows you to connect compatible devices, such as Philips Hue bulbs, without needing additional hubs. Physically, the Echo Plus looks similar to the original Echo. It’s the same size and has the same rotating top, which controls the volume, along with the standard Alexa wake and mute buttons. The main advantage of the Echo Plus is that it can talk directly to Zigbee smart home devices. It’s a shame there’s no support for the similar Z-Wave system,…

£109 • From store.google.com VERDICT As a speaker, it’s merely decent, but the Google Home has the smartest digital assistant in the business CONSIDERING THE BREADTH of Google’s product catalogue, it was inevitable the tech giant would produce not just smart speakers but its very own digital assistant as well. The Google Assistant, which had already appeared on Android phones by the time Google Home launched, is by some degree the best of its kind. This is mainly thanks to how context-aware it is, which makes querying easy: for instance, if you ask ‘What’s the weather like tomorrow?’ and follow up with ‘And at the weekend?’ after receiving the initial reply, the Assistant will understand that you want additional weather information. Siri and Alexa aren’t that smart, and require each…

£199 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT Sonos, Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant join forces in this great-sounding smart speaker WHEN IT COMES to multiroom audio, Sonos stands head and shoulders above the competition. The reason for its success is simple: the company’s family of speakers blend superb sound quality, an easy-to-use mobile app and mesh Wi-Fi networking to spread music effortlessly around the home. Now the Sonos One has taken that one step further: it combines Sonos’s multiroom talents with Alexa smart functionality and, coming later in 2018, Google Assistant as well. The One is a compact speaker, outwardly similar to the Sonos Play:1 (Shopper 345), but on the inside there’s an array of microphones to pick up vocal commands. Sonos has also gone for touch-sensitive controls instead of the Play:1’s…

£179 • From www.johnlewis.com VERDICT An energetic-sounding yet bulky pair of completely wireless in-ear headphones LAST YEAR’S BOSE SoundSport Wireless (Shopper 358) sounded good but didn’t entirely live up to the name: a behind-the-neck cable connected the left and right in-ear units, so the headphones didn’t deliver the kind of true wire-free experience you might want when you’re trying to exercise. The SoundSport Free, then, look like the perfect update, being wireless earphones with no cable connections at all, instead working solely with Bluetooth. Sadly, the design means they don’t get off to the best start: each bud sticks some way out of your ear, which means you often hear the wind catching on them. The weight is noticeable, too, with each earbud coming in at 15g. Included in the…

REMOVE: BUNDLED UTILITIES Most PC manufacturers stick trial software on your computer, particularly security software. The hope is that you’ll subscribe to a full version, giving them a kick-back. You can safely remove any trial software and utilities you didn’t install. REMOVE: OLD APPLICATIONS Any applications you remember installing but that you no longer use regularly can and should be deleted from your computer. These should be easy to spot. REMOVE: OLD DRIVERS If you find drivers for old bits of hardware that you no longer have, then you can safely delete these. Old printers are key to remove, as the drivers are often bundled with startup items and utilities that are a waste of resources. KEEP: BRANDED SOFTWARE Anything that has the name of your PC’s manufacturer, or a common…

Mechanical hard disks may give you more storage per pound, but their performance has peaked, and solid-state drives (SSDs) are far quicker, making your PC faster to boot and more responsive. In fact, the improvement is so vast that in our eyes an SSD is an essential upgrade. Installing Windows 10 from scratch is the easiest method for adding an SSD, but you can clone your old disk to a new SSD if the used storage space on your disk is the same size or smaller than an SSD, which is unlikely. A clean install gets round this, although it means reinstalling your applications and copying back any files you want when you’re done. We recommend a minimum SSD size of 240GB, although a 480GB drive or larger will give…

Android is a great operating system, but just as a Windows PC slows down with age, so can your smartphone. Adding and removing apps, filling the phone up and simply using it can all cause issues. There are three key signs to look out for. Number one is poor battery life. If your phone used to last all day but now seems to drain away in your pocket, the chances are that you’ve got apps sucking power. If your phone is quite old, the battery could be going, but our explanation is still worth checking out. If it’s unresponsive and won’t load apps quickly, it’s another sign something is wrong. While Android isn’t quite as easy to clean up as Windows, it still has plenty of tools that can help…

Send your problems to businesshelp@computershopper.co.uk Not good form I have an Access database with a number of forms that have subforms within subforms. I want to be able to move around the forms both upwards and downwards to specific controls. I’ve tried using the Tab Order on the Arrange tab of the ribbon, but it only has options for moving around on the form you’re editing. What I want is to tab from a specific control on subform 3 (say), back (or forwards) to a control on subform 2, or maybe even subform 1. For example, if I’m on frmAttendance in the RoomChoice control, I might want to go to the frmRooms form to the RoomName control, or I might want to go back to the CourseType control on the…

ben@computershopper.co.uk Photo projects for kids (and grown-ups too) Keep the kids – and yourself – entertained this summer with our round-up of creative projects that the whole family can enjoy THE SUMMER HOLIDAYS: six long weeks of fun and relaxation. That’s the theory, at least. In practice, the kids are bored by 1st August and climbing the walls a week later. There’s no need to buy them off with expensive trips or to park them in front of the TV or games console. The creative photography projects described on these pages are mostly free, will provide many hours of fun and may just spark their interest in a new hobby. Older children may prefer to do them with friends, while those with younger kids, grandchildren, nieces or nephews can enjoy…