Computer Shopperの September 2020 の目次

The lockdown is gradually easing. By the time you read this, pubs, restaurants, cinemas and campsites will have begun reopening. People will be making tentative steps back out into these social spaces. But the landscape out there will look very different. Pubs and restaurants won’t be allowing walk-ins, and will be restricting bookings to no more than six people. Orders will be made via an app where possible. Cinemas will be leaving some seats empty to minimise human contact. As Kay Ewbank and David Ludlow both note (Kay’s Corner, page 10; Rants & Raves, page 11), even as the UK starts to open up, the workplace will continue to feel very different, too. Indeed, your office will mostly be your home where possible for the foreseeable future. For those of…

Raspberry Pi projects special Our guide to the best Pi projects to get stuck into this summer, from the brand-new 12.3-megapixel High Quality Camera, to a nitfy online ad blocker, and lots more 25 gadgets you can’t live without With many of us spending more time at home and adopting new ways of working, we’ve rounded up the best gadgets you can buy to make your home smarter and more connected, both for work and play The games that weren’t The man on a crusade to track down the world’s lost video games On display We put the latest and best monitors to the test, to see which are most worth your cash, and what to look for when choosing one for home working COMPUTER SHOPPER ISSUE 392 ON SALE…

David Ludlow RAVES IF THERE’S ONE good thing to come out of this pandemic, it’s reinvigorated people’s interest in technology. Previously, most people would have used the standard router that shipped with the cheapest broadband they could buy, and put up with the dodgy connection as they weren’t using it all the time. Now, Wi-Fi and good broadband are two of the most important aspects of home life. Since lockdown began, I’ve had many conversations with friends, explaining the benefits of wireless mesh systems, and advising on the best kit to buy and how to get everything working correctly. A few months ago, I may have been a bit of a dullard, but today everyone cares about wireless and mesh systems. After installation, I’ve had messages from people telling me…

“I’m kind of surprised some of it is focused on me. We are just giving money away, we write the cheque… and yes, we do think about protecting children against disease but it has nothing to do with chips and that type of stuff”Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates dismisses conspiracy theories linking him to Covid-19 “Surge forward, killing as you go, to blaze us a trail of blood”In a leaked transcript from 2018, Huawei co-founder Ren Zhengfei urged employees to crush rivals in the Chinese telecoms giant’s battle for supremacy “We will showcase our exhibitors’ products, technology breakthroughs and ideas to the world, both physically in Las Vegas and digitally”The Consumer Technology Association has confirmed that next year’s CES will go ahead as an in-person event “There will be a major…

£949 • From www.pcspecialist.co.uk VERDICT It’s not the fastest mid-range PC, but the Sigma I has plenty more to offer YET ANOTHER MEMBER of Intel’s new 10th-gen line-up is the Core i5-10400F. This is basically the hexa-core Core i5-10400 without integrated graphics, and since it comes from the same lineage of great-value, mid-range Intel CPUs as the Core i5-8400 and Core i5-9400F, we were keen to see how it would perform in PC Specialist’s Sigma I desktop. This system places the new processor alongside 16GB of RAM, a giant 1TB SSD and a GeForce GTX 1660 Super graphics card. Yes, this is a gaming PC, though in theory the Core i5-10400F should be a much better multitasker than the Core i5-9400F, as in addition to a higher maximum boost clock…

£464 • From www.apricorn.com VERDICT As tough and secure as this PIN-protected SSD is, it’s just too expensive THE AEGIS PADLOCK is the solid-state cousin of Apricorn’s Aegis Fortress L3 (Shopper 390). It’s also an encrypted, PIN-protected external drive for your most sensitive files, but being an SSD rather than a mechanical hard disk, it’s smaller, faster and even more expensive. Much, much more expensive: a 1TB Aegis Fortress L3 is no bargain at £215, or 21.5p per gigabyte, but a 1TB Aegis Padlock – like the one we were sent for testing – is a bank-bothering £464, or 46.4p per gigabyte. There are a few other capacity options, but only the 2TB model – which, of course, has a greater outlay – works out with a lower per-gigabyte cost…

£413 • From www.scan.co.uk VERDICT A powerful and feature-packed Wi-Fi 6 mesh system; this is the latest technology at a great price IF THERE’S ONE thing putting most people off upgrading to Wi-Fi 6, it’s the price of the routers and mesh systems. The TP-Link Deco X60 starts to redress the balance, as this mesh system costs a little over half as much as the Netgear Orbi WiFi 6 RBK852 (Shopper 387), and you get three satellites here rather than just two. The satellites are identical, with two Gigabit Ethernet ports on each. For the first device, you must configure it as the router, using one Gigabit Ethernet port to connect to your internet modem. We’d like to have seen a 2.5Gbit/s port, ready for faster internet connections, but this…

£299 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Unruly bass puts a dampener on what is otherwise a well-priced Atmos soundbar NOT EVERYONE HAS the space for a multispeaker surround-sound system, which is why soundbars like the Sharp HT-SBW460 exist. It’s a neatly designed soundbar and subwoofer that saves space on your AV rack and is simple to set up, yet doesn’t sacrifice features or sound quality. Indeed, this is one of the cheapest soundbars we’ve tested to have support for Dolby Atmos, which adds height audio channels to the usual centre, stereo and other channels. It comes with a separate wireless subwoofer, too, and while this is something you’ll need to find space for, the soundbar itself is nicely compact, at 70mm tall and 950mm wide. READING DIFFICULTIES The HT-SBW460 is also…

£140 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The AfterShokz Xtrainerz aren’t cheap, but you won’t find better bone-conduction headphones for swimming WATERPROOF MP3 PLAYERS and headphones have been around for a while, but it’s not all that often you see a pair utilising bone-conduction technology as their method of audio delivery. AfterShokz has been pioneering this technology since 2011, and its Xtrainerz implement it superbly for those wanting to liven up their aquatic training regime. ALL IN YOUR HEAD Traditional headphones use speakers to generate sound, emitting sound waves that pass through the ear canal and eardrum on their way to the inner ear. In contrast, bone-conduction headphones create mini vibrations that move through bones in your skull – typically the cheekbones – and into the inner ear. Sound pressure impulses are…

£899 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Another much-improved OnePlus phone that goes toe-to-toe with even more expensive handsets THIS SMARTPHONE IS another step along the road to the mainstream for a firm that started out in life as an upstart. Ironically this means going more expensive than ever, but by fully moving into the rarefied air of the polished, premium smartphone market, the OnePlus 8 Pro is good enough to rub shoulders with the very best. HIGH AND DRY Probably the most visible change to the OnePlus 8 Pro is that there is no longer a pop-up selfie camera. Instead, it has a small, single hole-punch unit hiding away in the top-left corner of its edge-to-edge screen. That’s not a major change from a usability perspective, but it does mean that…

£250 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The TicWatch Pro 4G adds cellular capabilities to Mobvoi’s flagship smartwatch, with some drawbacks THIS IS MOBVOI’S first smartwatch with built-in 4G connectivity, which could be a very big deal if you want to make calls, read messages and stream music on your smartwatch without it needing to be tethered to a smartphone. It’s Mobvoi’s most expensive wearable, although your £250 does buy you a watch with a nicely minimalist design. It’s also, surprisingly, lighter than the standard TicWatch Pro (Shopper 369), despite both the added 4G functionality and a better ratio of metal to plastic, including an aluminium rear and a stainless steel bezel. Front and centre is the very same 1.39in dual-layer display as the original TicWatch Pro, and this comprises a 400x400…

01 A basic laptop costing around £300 will run everyday office, multimedia and education software, but it won’t be suitable for 3D gaming or processor-intensive tasks such as video editing. Many laptops at this price have a 15.6in screen and weigh over 2kg, so they’re best used around the house and for occasional journeys. 02 If you want to play modern games, you’ll need a laptop with a dedicated graphics chip such as the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060M. Good gaming laptops tend to have large 15.6 or 17in screens and weigh around 3kg, so they’re best suited to use at home. 03 If you want a laptop that you can take everywhere, look for a model that weighs less than 2kg. For the best portability, buy one that has a…

01 Building your own PC is often cheaper than buying a pre-made system, and gives full control over the components. You don’t need any special computer knowledge: just a few spare hours, a screwdriver and your choice of parts. Even things such as liquid-cooling systems can be found in user-friendly, easy-to-install packages, and for the most part it’s as simple as inserting each component into a particular slot. 02 Arguably the most important component is the CPU. These days you can get a quad-core chip even on a tight budget, which should provide more than enough brainpower for simple tasks such as web browsing, but hexa-core and octa-core chips are better for tougher jobs such as media editing, gaming and content creation. The CPU will also determine which motherboards you…

01 Wireless routers each use a number of Wi-Fi standards, so you shouldn’t have any trouble connecting your computer or phone wirelessly if you get an 802.11n or 802.11ac router. Nearly all routers support 802.11n, so even a cheap model should provide decent performance. You can expect a transfer speed of around 40Mbit/s at a distance of 10m from any modern 802.11n router. The very latest routers use the 802.11ac standard, which provides tremendously fast transfer speeds. Some devices still don’t support the 802.11ac standard, so check the specifications before you buy. 02 If you subscribe to an ADSL broadband service, you should buy a wireless router that has a built-in ADSL modem. This will cost more than the equivalent cable router, but it allows you to connect your router…

01 All tablets rely on an operating system (OS) to run apps. You have three main choices: Apple’s iOS, which runs on the iPad; Android, which Google licenses to various manufacturers; and Windows 10, which has become common in hybrid tablets and convertibles. If you own an Apple or Google smartphone, you can download your apps, music and so on to a tablet that runs the same OS, so it makes sense to stick with a compatible device. 02 It’s important to pick a tablet that has a good-quality, high-resolution screen. Many budget tablets have 1,280x800-resolution displays, but better tablets have Full HD 1,920x1,080 panels, and we’re starting to see tablets that have even higher screen resolutions. Some are as high as 2,560x1,600 or even 4K. Entry-level tablets typically use…

01 Action cameras are typically much smaller than a regular camcorder, as they are designed to be mounted to a bike, board or car, or worn on your person. As the name suggests, they are designed primarily for shooting action footage, but because of their small size they are ideal for strapping on to your pet’s collar or your children’s toys for a different perspective. 02 Even basic action cameras will shoot Full HD video, and many will even shoot 4K, but frame rate is arguably more important than resolution when it comes to action video. Higher frame rates will mean smoother clips, and super-high frame rate videos can be played in slow motion to emphasise exciting shots. Keep an eye out for 4K/30, 4K/60, 1080p/60 and 720p/120 models for…

O&O FileBackup 1 EVERYONE NEEDS SOME form of backup, and relying on Windows’ own tools isn’t always the best option. Third-party backup software is plentiful, and O&O already offers a comprehensive tool in the form of its O&O AutoBackup software for those who want a set-it-and-forget-it solution. O&O FileBackup differs from AutoBackup in a couple of ways: one, it’s portable, with no installation required (just make sure you don’t lose the configuration file created on startup, which resides in the same directory by default). And two, you don’t need to link it to a specific external device for triggering backups; instead, you can back up on demand to any visible location or create schedules. After downloading, launch the app, select your target backup folder, either choosing a drive from the…

£280 • From uk-store.acer.com VERDICT A Chrome OS convertible that never excels, but still ticks along decently THE CHROMEBOOK 514 opposite may be affordable, but it’s not as comprehensively cheap and cheerful as its 2-in-1 convertible stablemate, the Chromebook Spin 311. Other than the 360° hinge, this makes little attempt to masquerade as anything other than a bargain laptop for students and light home use. BORDER FORCE Fundamentally, it’s no different from more premium rotating laptops. The screen folds back either partially or all the way, for various tent-shaped and tablet configurations, and that makes it more – if you’ll pardon the phrase – flexible than most Chromebooks. However, it’s somewhat thick, at 24mm when closed, and while its 1.5kg weight is manageable, there’s a suspicion that it could be…

£619 • From www.microsoft.com VERDICT Microsoft’s new budget 2-in-1 is a refined and beautifully portable success story MICROSOFT’S NEWEST 2-IN-1 is, admittedly, mainly a ‘budget’ device insofar as it’s a lot cheaper than the rest of the Surface range. A higher-spec model such as the one we’re testing here is £619, and prices start from just £399, but the Type Cover keyboard is sold separately. To actually get 2-in-1 capability, then, you’ll have to fork out another £100 for a standard keyboard, or £125 for the hydrophobic, Alcantara-coated version. SHOULDERS OF GIANTS Even so, the Surface Go 2 absolutely succeeds in replicating the Surface Pro family’s design qualities for much smaller budgets. From the sturdy magnesium alloy chassis to the fully adjustable kickstand, this is very much like a scaled-down…

£829 • From store.google.com VERDICT Google’s latest premium Chromebook strikes the perfect balance between performance, portability and usability WHEREAS MOST LAPTOP makers have opted to go in at the low end with their Chromebooks, historically, Google has chosen to do the opposite: to use its own-brand products as standard-bearers. So it is with the Pixelbook Go, which starts at £629, and is sold in the tested configuration – which includes an Intel Core i5-8200Y processor with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage – for £829. This is no budget laptop, then, although Google seems to have at least partly attempted to keep costs down with a simpler design than the previous 2-in-1 Pixel Slate (Shopper 374) and the use of older, 8th-gen Intel chips. BACK TO BASICS Nevertheless, the…

£1,399 • From www.dell.com VERDICT The latest XPS 13 2-in-1 is a superb convertible laptop, but no longer the absolute best of its kind THE LATEST VERSION of Dell’s flagship convertible looks very similar to the previous iteration, but it introduces a few key upg as well. Besides the expected update to Intel 10th-gen chips, the screen has switched from a letterboxed 16:9 ratio to a slightly squarer 16:10 format, and the webcam has – than – moved to the top bezel, for a better angle thankfully the old keyboard-mounted camera. Wi-Fi 6 connectivity has been added, too We tested one of the mid-tier specs, which includes a Core i7-1065G7 CPU and 1,920x1,200 touchscreen; 3,840x2,400 variants are also available, but are £350 more at the minimum. For the screen’s 13.4in…

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

£2,199 • From www.scan.co.uk VERDICT An updated CPU, quality GPU and fully mechanical keyboard make this one of the best gaming laptops ever WHEN IT COMES to gaming PCs, the mechanical keyboard is king; you rarely, however, see one adorning a gaming laptop. Not so the Gigabyte Aorus 15G, which manages to incorporate mechanical keyswitches while keeping the weight to a manageable 2.3kg. The model we reviewed costs £2,199 and comes with a 240Hz display (running at 1,980x1,080), an octa-core 2.3GHz Intel Core i7-10875H processor, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super Max-Q graphics card. This is a lot of cash indeed – much more than the £1,699 base model – but it’s not necessarily poor value, as long as it performs in practice.…

£3,789 • From www.apple.com/uk VERDICT This mildly upsized MacBook Pro is expensive, but high-performance laptops don’t get much better than this THE INTRODUCTION OF a 16in MacBook Pro isn’t technically as much of a departure as it might seem: the 15in model released last year actually has a screen that measures 15.4in diagonally, and since this one is dead-on 16in, it’s only 0.6in bigger. Still, it’s easy to embrace even small improvements when this new MacBook Pro is among the most portable and compact high-power laptops money can buy. It’s a mere 16mm thick, 246mm deep and 358mm wide, and while its 2kg weight makes it no featherweight, considering the power squeezed inside – including an octa-core Intel Core i9-9980HK CPU – that’s not enough to be offputting. FLY AWAY…

Anyone who has enjoyed a game on an original NES, SNES or Nintendo 64 console will have encountered a non-working cartridge. The traditional first fix has been to pull it out of the machine and blow on the contacts in the hope of removing some dust – a solution that has become part and parcel of gaming’s history, regardless of how effective it has been. Likewise, pencils would be used to wind spilling tape back into their cassettes, new drive belts would ensure floppy disks could be read again, and some people still squirt toothpaste on to CDs to remove scratches. Given such faffs, it’s fair to say that physical media hasn’t always provided great joy. But it hasn’t stopped modern-day creators from blowing off the cobwebs in the name…

clive@computershopper.co.uk Make a media server Building a robust compact device to stream video and audio around your home is pretty easy and quite cheap. CliveWebster shows you how HAVING ALL YOUR films, shows and music trapped on physical discs is a shame: we bet there are more screens in your home than there are physical media players. There are whole shelf-fulls of entertainment in each home, just waiting to be watched. Rip those discs, and save those video and audio files to a media server, and everyone can enjoy them whenever they like, wherever in the house they are, and on whatever screen they happen to have. Building a media server is an easy job that takes very little time, effort or money. WE’LL OUTLINE TWO different ways to build…

IT SEEMS LIKELY that a lot of us are going to be spending a lot of time at home in the garden this summer, so why not turn yours into the ultimate entertainment hub with an outside cinema? Here’s our guide to getting the perfect big-screen experience. 1 CHOOSING A PROJECTOR The first step is to get a decent projector. Any projector can be used outside, but it’s worth pointing out some of the limitations before we get into the main setup guide. Brightness is just about the most important feature for using a projector outside. Mini portable projectors, such as the BenQ GV1 (left, £400, www.amazon.co.uk), have the advantage of being battery-powered and come with built-in Netflix, but they’re not very bright. The GV1 has a maximum brightness when mains…

letters@computershopper.co.uk Localheroes While PC firms will have enjoyed bursting order books during lockdown, one-man-and-his-dog outfits such as local phone repairers must have taken a big financial hit. Can I suggest that Shopper becomes a champion for these small tech businesses, running articles about them, and asking them for other ideas as to how best to promote their services? Thinking of small shops and businesses in general, perhaps Shopper could provide them with advice on how to use the internet to drive sales: setting up a website, how to take payments, how to sell on eBay and Amazon, that kind of thing. Alan Thomas • Thanks for this idea, Alan, it’s a really useful suggestion and here at Shopper we’d be very pleased to start supporting high-street shops and small companies…

Tech pioneer and all-round good egg letters@computershopper.co.uk MOBILE PHONES ARE intrinsically safe. Unless they’re used in a Southern Rail quiet carriage and I am forced to lob my can of McEwans at the user. To be honest, I admit the first mobile phone I ever used was a bit of a health hazard, but only because the power pack was so heavy it nearly caused a rupture. There have been conspiracy theorists blaming mobiles for all sorts of ailments since the days of 2G, with brain tumours regularly topping the bill. About 20 years ago, just after the first 3G models were released, Stephen King came up with a horror story called Cell, where he had a rogue mobile phone signal turning half of the American nation into a bunch of…

£419 • From www.apple.com/uk VERDICT The iPhone SE gets an upgrade at long last, and it’s now as powerful as the iPhone 11 A NEW VERSION of the iPhone SE (Shopper 341) has been a long time coming. So long, in fact, that we’d given up on it ever seeing the light of day. But here it is, a completely new-for-2020 iPhone SE in all its tiny-screened, easily pocketable glory, and you have to wonder why Apple didn’t do it sooner. The answer, of course, is that it would prefer its customers to spend more on an iPhone 11 (Shopper 385), iPhone 11 Pro (Shopper 383) or iPhone 11 Pro Max than the cheaper iPhone SE. But with iPhone sales declining recently and threatening to be engulfed by Android rivals,…

£530 • From www.ebuyer.com VERDICT It’s expensive and not as multitalented as the Ryzen 9 3900X, but Intel’s premier CPU is an unbeatable gaming specialist AT THE VERY top of Intel’s new, 10th-gen Core line-up – codenamed Comet Lake – sits the Core i9-10900K. This 10-core, 20-thread monster of a CPU looks like a pseudo-workstation chip in the same vein as the AMD Ryzen 9 3900X (Shopper 381), but Intel has instead bigged it up as ‘the world’s fastest gaming processor’. This is smart and strange at the same time. As the mid-range Core i5-10600K (Shopper 390) demonstrated, Intel has seemingly regained its gaming edge over the more multitasking-focused Ryzens, and there’s nothing wrong with sticking to a strength. Then again, few current-gen games will be able to take advantage…

£180 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT If you don’t need top-tier speeds, this is a very decent alternative to more expensive NAS drives IF YOU’RE ENTIRELY new to the world of NAS drives, something like the LinkStation 520 is a natural starting point. It’s not rammed with features and it won’t reach the fastest speeds, but that also means it’s simple to set up and understand, especially if you choose one of the many options with both of its two hard disk slots already filled. It’s also quite cheap. The enclosure alone is worth £85, and the basic 2x 1TB model we were sent is £180. Other than the similarly simple Synology DS220j, more affordable NAS drives are very hard to find. DUAL WIELDING Its straightforwardness begins with the enclosure itself,…

£121 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Another superb low-cost screen, this time with an IPS panel as standard A COUPLE OF months ago, the BenQ GL2780 (Shopper 389) set a new standard for budget monitors by offering an extremely colour-accurate 27in panel for under £150. The AOC 24BXH2 is even cheaper, and while in some ways it’s as simple as monitors come – it only measures 24in diagonally, for instance – it delivers on the basics. It has a good-quality panel that produces a calibre of image that’s more than acceptable for such a low price. If you want or need a bigger screen then you’ll inevitably have to pay more, but as far as cheap desktop displays go, this is a worthy alternative to the GL2780. MONITORS SANS FRONTIERES To…

£450 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT This home speaker sounds great, but it’s been launched without promised smart functionality DENON’S HOME 250 is one of a trio of new multiroom wireless speakers, sitting alongside the smaller Denon Home 150 and larger Denon Home 350. With support for Spotify, Amazon Music HD, TuneIn, Deezer and more via Wi-Fi, plus AirPlay 2 and Bluetooth connectivity, it’s a versatile and excellent-sounding speaker, albeit one that’s yet to fulfil its potential. LATE TO THE PARTY Measuring 295x216x120mm, the Home 250 is a fairly sizable unit. Beneath the grille are four separate drivers – two 19mm tweeters and two 100mm woofers – which are accompanied by a 133mm passive radiator. Each driver has its own dedicated class D amplifier, and the speaker offers stereo playback, although…

£550 • From www.motorola.co.uk VERDICT Motorola’s first high-end handset in years has some nice touches, but ultimately disappoints MOTOROLA HAS CORNERED the budget smartphone market in spectacular fashion, but it’s been a long time since we’ve seen a flagship of any sort from the company. Aside from the foldable Moto Razr, which launched last year, and the mid-range Moto One lineup, Motorola has kept its distance from the high-priced end of the smartphone spectrum – until now. Despite an increasingly bloated list of sub-£200 handsets coming from Motorola’s factories, the company has embarked on a tentative return to the flagship arena. The Motorola Edge is a gratifying first attempt at breaking out of its budget comfort zone, but with more established rivals from Samsung, Xiaomi and OnePlus already available, it’s…

£349 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT With cuts in mostly the right places, the Galaxy Tab S6 Lite is the mid-range Android tablet to beat ANDROID TABLETS HAVE been very much left in the wake of 2-in-1s, not to mention the continued dominance of Apple’s iPads. The recent Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 (Shopper 389) proved that good standalone slates can still exist, but at £629 that particular model won’t compete for the attention of those who want something affordable. Thankfully, Samsung is trying to address this particular predicament with the stripped-back Galaxy Tab S6 Lite. This is also clearly intended as an answer to the cheapest, 10.2in iPad (Shopper 384): it includes a bundled S Pen stylus at no extra cost, unlike the iPad, and its 10.4in, FHD+ screen is slightly…

From £3 per month • From www.nordvpn.com VERDICT One of the best VPN services has become faster, easier to use and even more secure TWO YEARS AGO, NordVPN completed an independent audit to back up its claims that it doesn’t log identifiable user data. Taking a leaf from its book, other VPNs have since followed suit. This is great news for user privacy, and has since set a benchmark for us when we review VPNs. Apart from the all-important audit, NordVPN has also added a fresh coat of paint to its PC client and mobile apps, making them much more user-friendly in the process. As such, we thought it time to check in and see how this VPN stacks up in 2020. WHERE IN THE WORLD It starts off well;…

01 A basic 1TB internal hard disk should cost around £40. This will be fast enough for general use and will provide enough storage for most users. Make sure the hard disk you choose has the appropriate interface type for your PC. Most hard disks and solid-state drives (SSDs) use the SATA3 interface, which enables faster speeds than the older SATA2. Pretty much every motherboard released in recent years will have multiple SATA3 ports, allowing you to connect several storage drives at once. 02 SSDs can make the most of SATA3’s high bandwidth for fast file transfers. They use flash memory similar to that found in USB flash drives, and although they tend to provide less capacity than mechanical hard disks, they’re significantly faster. More expensive SSDs use the NVMe…

01 A basic 24in LCD monitor costs around £100. It will be fine for typical Windows work but is likely to have poor viewing angles, so you’ll need to sit straight on for the best picture quality. Its colour accuracy may not be very good, either. 02 A VGA input lets you use the monitor with any PC, but the quality may not be as good as it is over DVI or HDMI. Both are digital connections and require a compatible graphics card but they avoid the need for digital-to-analogue or analogue-to-digital conversions, which can reduce image quality. A digital connection achieves the best picture automatically, so you won’t have to adjust clock or phase settings as you do with analogue connections. Many DVI and all HDMI connections support HDCP,…

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

01 If you don’t have space in your home cinema setup for a set of 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 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…

Enter www.shopperdownload.co.uk/391 into your browser’s address bar. In the New user section, enter your email address and the coupon code printed on the spine into the relevant boxes, then click the Register button. Browse through this month’s choices and follow the online instructions to download and register the software. You may need to register a user account for our software store and enter your coupon code more than once. The registration process varies from program to program, so read the instructions carefully – they explain exactly what you need to do for each program. YOUR UNIQUE COUPON CODE FOR £4.99 ISSUES: CHECK THE SPINE ANY PROBLEMS? If you need help with any of the software this month, please send an email to support@creativemark.co.uk. We check this inbox regularly. Please include…

£450 • From www.ebuyer.com VERDICT Avita’s UK debut brings an affordable and surprisingly decent ultraportable to the market AVITA ISN’T A household name in the UK, but its Liber 14, with its Core i3 processor, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of SSD storage and Full HD display, is a pleasingly affordable alternative to more expensive ultraportables. PATTERN RECOGNITION Where the Liber 14 really stands out is its aesthetics, with the aluminium chassis coming in a choice of striking designs: Pearl White, Angel Blue, Ornament on Gold, and Paisley on Lilac. The first colour is a fairly standard white, but the light blue is certainly vivid, while the other two finishes add a textured design to the laptop’s lid that sits somewhere between a rug pattern and an intricate tattoo. It’s well…

£450 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT A 1440p, all-metal laptop for this little money sounds too good to be true – but, for the most part, the quality is real AN INTERESTING SIDE effect of so much of the world’s gadgets being manufactured in or near the Chinese city of Shenzhen is that small, local manufacturers can spring up seemingly from nowhere and deliver really rather impressive products. It’s one of the benefits of having a supply chain on your doorstep that’s as deep as it is long and wide. Case in point: the Xidu Tour Pro. As with Avita and its Liber 14, you might not have heard of this company or its laptop before, but the Tour Pro is a force to be reckoned with. It’s incredibly cheap, yet…

£1,200 • From consumer.huawei.com VERDICT Small, sharp and speedy, the MateBook 13 is a pleasantly quintessential ultraportable IN THE ABSENCE of a refreshed MateBook 14, this new MateBook 13 is the only cheaper option in a 2020 ultraportable range it shares with the MateBook X Pro (Shopper 389). This is no bargain basement notebook, however. The updated MateBook 13 aims to deliver the same fast internals and slick build quality as the MateBook X Pro, in a smaller and slightly more accessibly priced package. SAME AGAIN PLEASE Design-wise, it’s identical to the previous MateBook 13 (Shopper 381). That means the dimensions (286x211x14.9mm) and weight (1.3kg) are unchanged, and the same Huawei hallmarks are present and correct. There’s the little dip in the bottom edge of the base, the circular power…

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

£1,150 • From www.box.co.uk VERDICT Mid-range gaming laptops can be hard to get right, but the Nitro 7 finds a winning formula AFTER THE BITTER disappointment of the underpowered, poorly made Nitro 5 (Shopper 375), Acer’s affordable (or at least, less expensive) gaming notebook series was in need of redemption. Happily, that’s exactly what the new Nitro 7 provides. This is a pricier laptop than the Nitro 5, but it’s clearly cut from finer cloth. Metal covers on the lid, base and keyboard prevent the chassis from feeling too plasticky, and while the Nitro 7 also has a 15.6in display, it has a slightly slimmer profile at 260x363x23mm. Granted, it could be smaller still, were it not for some chunky top and bottom bezels, and at 2.5kg it’s pretty heavy,…

£2,100 • From www.lenovo.com VERDICT Clever design, superb cooling and a powerful spec make the Legion Y740 a top gaming laptop THE LEGION Y740 is yet another 15in gaming contender trying to bring plenty of power to bear without being back-breakingly heavy. Lenovo has refrained from the sharp angles and red accents synonymous with many gaming laptops, instead opting for a tasteful grey finish. This classy design extends to its materials, with a mix of aluminium and hard plastic that gives it a premium feel. It’s not as slick as a Razer Blade 15 (Shopper 380) but, aside for a little flex in the lid, it’s a solid, subtly refined build, and is thinner and lighte than the Gigabyte Aorus 15G. Indeed, while it measures 361x267x20mm and weighs 2.2kg, the…

£2,799 • From www.johnlewis.com VERDICT Dual displays make this an intriguing laptop, but usability and battery life need improving IT’S FINALLY HERE: a laptop with not one, but two UHD touchscreens. Multi-display devices aren’t a new concept, of course, but the Asus ZenBook Pro is the most ambitious one to date. The primary display is a 15.6in, 3,840x2,160 OLED touchscreen, while the lower display, known as the ScreenPad Plus, is an LCD touchscreen with a distinctly letterbox-shaped resolution of 3,840 x 1,100. The latter spans the full width of the base, positioned above the keyboard: it’s not a tiny display squeezed into the touchpad, although this can be turned into a numberpad on the ZenBook Pro Duo. The catch, besides the price (we’re reviewing the top-spec model, but the absolute…

A recruitment tool that favours men over women. Sentencing software that keeps one race in jail longer than others. A computer vision system that looks at a turtle and sees a gun. Artificial intelligence (AI) could ease our workloads, spark scientific advances, and help prop up our ailing public services, from policing to health – but there are plenty of challenges, from bias to bad data. Here, we’ll look at the current state of artificial intelligence, revealing the hurdles to making the technology work in our everyday lives, and a few ways to fix some of the problems. THE STATE OF AI Artificial intelligence is an umbrella term that covers a range of technologies, but at its heart is the idea of a machine being able to make sense of…

DISPLAY PIXEL ART ON A MINI COMPUTER If you haven’t yet woken up to the delights of pixel art, then a fun bedside gadget by Divoom may be the fix you need. The Retro Pix Art Portable Speake is a Bluetooth device that looks like a miniature all-in-one PC and, as well as being able to display 16x16 pixel art on its tiny LED screen, it doubles as a smart alarm clock. Available from Amazon for £70, it comes in a range of colours and has six keyboard-like keys alongside a miniature joystick. The speaker pumps out 10W of audio via its amplified DSP processor, and the device allows you to play MP3s from a microSD card, as well as streams from internet radio stations and services such as Spotify.…

If you’re going to stream what you want to watch, you’ll need a good internet connection on your laptop. Typically, most of us don’t have a quality signal outdoors, but there are a few things you can try. First, try moving your laptop closer to your house and using a longer HDMI cable to run down the garden to your projector. Just make sure your laptop remains within range of your Bluetooth speaker. Second, if you have a mesh system, you can reorganise your satellites, placing one near a window that overlooks the garden: this should get you decent coverage outside. Finally, you can resort to using an Ethernet connection: you can have a cable run of up to 100m, so you can run a cable through your house and…

Software guru and Shopper legend letters@computershopper.co.uk ONE OF THE most fascinating aspects of the lockdown has been the glimpses it has given us into the working conditions of people interviewed on TV from their homes. One government minister seems to work at the end of a corridor with sports kit hanging up, and a surprising number choose the kitchen as their backdrop. Far too many are looking down at a really close laptop, giving us a lovely view up their nostrils. What stands out is that few seem to have thought about good working conditions at home, but it’s something many people ought to be considering. You may be expecting to return to ‘standard’ office work, but a recent survey of chief financial officers found that 74% are planning to…

£449 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT It may be dirt cheap, but the Aspire XC doesn’t disappoint on processor power, connectivity or even its desk footprint QUALITY BUDGET DESKTOPS can feel all too few and far between. Component prices are high right now, pushing up the cost of finished PCs in turn, and those that do keep the total outlay down tend to cut an unappealing amassment of corners. Fortunately, the Aspire XC is different, managing to stay compellingly cheap while tossing in some better-than-basic specs and a conveniently compact design. ALL IN ONE We tested the XC-885 model, which comprises a hexa-core Intel Core i5-9400 processor, 8GB of RAM and a 1TB hard disk, as well as a mouse and keyboard in the box. The lack of an SSD might…

£140 • From uk.creative.com VERDICT A nicely feature-rich audio upgrade for certain motherboards, even if some of the sound profiles need work MOST PC OWNERS won’t need a dedicated sound card or digital-to-analogue converter. Onboard sound, a part of the motherboard, will always be able to handle straightforward microphone, headphone and desktop speaker setups, and in terms of straight sound quality you’d get better results from spending more on the output devices than on an internal expansion card. Why bother, then? For one thing, entry-level and most mid-range motherboards won’t offer the same range of outputs – including optical S/PDIF sockets – as a halfway decent sound card, which can limit you from connecting to more expansive audio setups such as surround-sound speakers or even desktop soundbars. And, particularly if…

£316 •From www.printerbase.co.uk VERDICT It’s not perfect, but Brother’s MFC-J1300DW All in Box is an economical MFP for a busy home office IT WON’T BE love at first sight; Brother’s MFC-J1300DW All in Box is made from unpromising, light grey plastic, and it looks every inch the chunky inkjet multifunction peripheral – and an expensive one at that. Dig a little deeper, however, and things quickly look up. Brother’s new ‘All in Box’ branding signifies a printer that arrives with plenty of bundled ink or toner. In the case of the MFC-J1300DW, that means heavy cartridges containing 7,200 pages’ worth of ink. Brother says that’s enough for three years of typical printing; it’s certainly at least 20 times what you might get with a typical home office MFP. Importantly, the…

£503 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The TX-40GX800B delivers highly competitive all-round performance for sensible money IT MAY BE possible to have a debate about what ‘affordable’ means in the context of TVs, but where 4K models are concerned, the TX-40GX800B is inarguably towards the more wallet-friendly end of the scale. Granted, it’s no OLED – you get a VA-type LED panel, with edge-lit backlighting – and design and connectivity are both largely unremarkable. There are only three HDMI 2.0b ports, all located at the rear of the panel towards the left-hand side, and the only HDMI 2.1 feature supported is Auto Low-Latency Mode. This automatically switches the TV to its Game mode when compatible gaming consoles are connected. The speakers’ sound quality is also utterly average. Few high-end TVs deliver…

£199 • From www.johnlewis.com VERDICT A comfortable pair of headphones that manage highly effective ANC even with on-ear cups BEATS’ SOLO HEADPHONES are about as recognisable as headphones get, having shifted more than 30 million units in the past decade. That’s quite a feat, and with the noise-cancelling Solo Pro, that number deserves to get a bit higher, too. These headphones look and feel as good as you’d hope for their £199 price tag, which incidentally puts them close to the excellent Bose QuietComfort 35 II (Shopper 362). Although the Solo Pro are still predominantly plastic, all variants have a matt finish as standard, and anodised aluminium arms connecting the earcups to the headband. STAY ON TOP The Solo Pro are on-ear headphones, so they don’t have the largest earcups,…

£170 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT With countless Moto smartphones to choose from, the Moto G8 is the best of the bunch MOTOROLA IS REALLY pushing the limits of the belief that you can’t have too much of a good thing. This year, we’re being treated to no fewer than five Moto G8 handsets, all of which have been steadily trickling on to the shelves over the past few months. The grand finale, the standard, suffix-less Moto G8, might well be a case of saving the best for last. This uses the same HD+ screen as the cheaper Moto G8 Play and Moto G8 Power Lite, but it has double the storage of the G8 Play. It’s also awash with design improvements on the previous Moto G7, from the introduction of…

£388 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The Grit X delivers great sports tracking and analysis, but just falls short on polish ON FIRST IMPRESSIONS it would be easy to dismiss the Polar Grit X. Its display is dull, its touchscreen is sluggish and it looks nondescript. However, this is a sports watch with hidden depths. Besides being perfectly comfortable, it’s easy to control even with that slow touchscreen, thanks to its five circular buttons on the sides. Combine this with water resistance down to 100 metres and excellent screen readability outdoors, and you have a watch that’s as well suited to sports tracking as any other on the market. As you’d expect of a high-end sports watch, the Polar Grit X is brimming with sports tracking and analysis features. This includes…

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 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…

01 You should be able to buy a decent inkjet printer for less than £40. High-quality printing is possible on such a printer, but it will be slow. The actual print speed of an inkjet can be half the quoted (maximum) speed for text documents, and even slower when printing graphics. Budget inkjet printers such as these are designed only for light use and can be expensive to run. 02 For £80 to £90 you can buy a more capable printer that’s either faster and better built or better at reproducing photos. If documents are your priority, you’ll want a high minimum speed and low print costs. Look for inkjets that can handle all your office media, such as envelopes and labels. 03 If photos are your priority, speed is…

01 A smartphone’s operating system (OS) dictates its basic features and which third-party software you can install. There are three main contenders: Apple’s iOS, which is found on the iPhone, Google’s Android, which is used by various handset manufacturers, and Windows Phone, which has few options, especially since Microsoft has discontinued support for its OS. Apple iOS and Google Android both have thousands of apps available. 02 All smartphones have colour screens, but their resolutions vary. Basic models have 1,280x720 pixels, but text can be indistinct. Look for a display that has at least 1,920x1,080 pixels so it’s easier to read text and watch Full HD videos. Don’t worry too much about built-in media players or Office document editors; you can always install apps to replace these with better versions…

01 Bluetooth speakers come in all shapes and sizes, so you’ll need to decide what you want to do with the speaker before you buy. If you don’t plan to take your music outdoors or around the house, look for a wired speaker. These are typically cheaper than speakers with built-in batteries. If you do want a portable speaker, however, pay particular attention to how much it weighs. Ruggedised models should be able to survive accidental drops, water spills and unexpected rain showers. 02 Many of the cheapest Bluetooth speakers use the lossy A2DP Bluetooth protocol, which is prone to compressing your music and discarding detail compared with the original recording. It’s hard to tell the difference when listening to pocket-sized speakers, but if you’re looking for a speaker to…

01 Wearable tech can include anything from chest-strap heart-rate monitors to augmented reality glasses, but the two most common types are smartwatches and fitness trackers. Both are designed to sit unassumingly on your wrist, and are almost always meant to be used in tandem with a paired smartphone. 02 Smartwatches are typically more complex and expensive, though more closely resemble a traditional wristwatch. You can use them to receive and reply to text messages and emails, quickly check maps and even play games – like a smartphone, most smartwatches allow you to install your own choice of apps. 03 Fitness trackers are much more dedicated to healthy pursuits. Step counters, heart-rate monitors and even sleep tracking are all common, and the data collected is fed back to you so you…

Chat and Communication Evernote 6.24.2.8919 Store your notes, ideas and plans in the cloud, and synchronise them between computers. UPDATED Mailbird 2.8.14.0 A free desktop email client for Windows. Miranda IM 0.10.80 Chat with friends across multiple messaging platforms, including AIM, Facebook, IRC and MSN, all from one simple interface. UPDATED Skype for Windows 8.61.0.87 Make internet voice and video calls for free, and buy credit to make calls to mobiles and landlines. UPDATED Telegram 2.1.10 This free IM app syncs your conversations across multiple devices, and can spruce up chats with stickers and GIFs. UPDATED WhatsApp Desktop 2.2023.2 A PC and Mac version of the messaging app, letting you chat from your desktop. Customisation NEW VERSION iolo System Mechanic Free 20.3.2.97 Speed up your system with iolo’s PC optimisation…

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

£550 • From www.argos.co.uk VERDICT A finely crafted slimline laptop with premium power, all for surprisingly little money THE MAGICBOOK 14 is Honor’s first laptop to launch worldwide and, like many of the Chinese firm’s smartphones, it arrives with a rather attractive price. There’s more than a touch of MateBook – the ultraportable line of Honor’s parent company, Huawei – in the MagicBook 14’s design, though it’s mostly for the better. NICE TOUCH Besides a generally slim and smart-looking aluminium chassis, there’s a familiar, minimalist power button/fingerprint sensor to the right of the keyboard. This works quickly and reliably, as it does on the MateBook family. The Honor Magic-link feature also functions identically to Huawei Share: by holding a compatible smartphone against the MagicBook 14, you can transfer files from…

£1,799 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT Form beats function on the latest Swift 7, an amazingly portable yet underpowered Windows laptop 14in LAPTOPS SIMPLY don’t come smaller than the Acer Swift 7. At 10mm thin it’s almost as svelte as a smartphone, and it’s noticeably short, too: just 192mm from front to back. That’s not to mention its weight of just 890g, which is even less than the Samsung Galaxy Book S. Unsurprisingly, however, this extreme slimming has had some knock-on effects. Take the ultra-slim bezels: these look smart and help keep the total dimensions down, but because they don’t leave room for a webcam, this has to be shunted on to the base. The Swift 7’s camera thus has a popup design, allowing for privacy when not in use, but…

£999 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT A lightweight, long-lasting masterclass in physical design, though some software issues remain THE SAMSUNG GALAXY Book S marks an important step for the Korean electronics giant: it’s the first laptop Samsung has launched in Europe for more than five years. In fact, the only laptop-like devices it has sold since have been the tablet-based 2-in-1 Samsung Galaxy Book and Galaxy Book 2. With the lightweight, slimline Galaxy Book S, however, Samsung is now well and truly back in the game. AIRY STORY Emphasis is due on ‘lightweight’ – at only 960g, the Galaxy Book S is wonderfully easy to lug about, and it’s so thin that even at its thickest point it measures only 11.8mm deep. There’s some plastic around the keyboard, but otherwise, a…

£1,349 • From www.microsoft.com VERDICT Improved in some ways and weakened in others, the Surface Pro 7 is a tablet in increasing need of a rethink BETWEEN THE MUCH improved, affordable Surface Go 2 and the ARM-based Surface Pro X, the latest standard Surface Pro tablet isn’t exactly the most exciting member of Microsoft’s current-gen hardware line-up. Major changes amount to Intel’s 10th-gen Ice Lake chips and the addition of a USB Type-C port; otherwise, the Surface Pro 7 is largely unchanged from the Surface Pro 6 (Shopper 372). COVER THE BASES That’s not entirely a bad thing in itself. The Surface Pro series has long represented the best implementation of 2-in-1 design around, with a 3:2 aspect ratio, 12.3in screen providing plenty of space, and the fully adjustable kickstand…

£1,400 • From uk.store.asus.com VERDICT Very nearly an excellent gaming laptop, but a dull screen makes it harder to enjoy THE ASUS TUF Gaming A15 is among a wave of AMD-powered laptops set to appear throughout 2020, courtesy of the new Ryzen 4000 Series chips. The general idea is to achieve lower price points than Intel-based equivalents, while still going toe-to-toe on performance. The TUF Gaming A15 definitely gets the value aspect right: for a relatively middling £1,400, you get a GeForce RTX 2060 graphics card, a 15.6in, Full HD IPS screen running at 144Hz, 16GB of RAM, a huge 1TB SSD and, of course, an eight-core AMD Ryzen 7 4800H CPU. GENEROUS PROPORTIONS That’s an awful lot of power on paper, though there are some visible signs of cost-cutting…

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

£1,750 • From store.hp.com VERDICT Lightweight, sophisticated and long-lasting, the Elite Dragonfly is a joy HP HAS AN unfortunate knack of producing 2-in-1s that, while often very fine devices in their own right, don’t quite meet the standards set by Apple or Dell. That might change, however, with the Elite Dragonfly: a rotating convertible with very specific designs on serious productivity usage. It’s an exquisitely designed laptop, from the water-based ‘dragonfly blue’ paint to its incredible lightness. The Elite Dragonfly weighs a mere 990g, so it’s one of an incredibly small number of sub-1kg 13.3in laptops. Far from just a difference on paper, we could really feel the impact this had on day-to-day use, especially while taking the laptop with us on commutes. HIGHER PURPOSE The Elite Dragonfly is available…

Send your problems to help@computershopper.co.uk Dastardly database We had a company website served on an old and uncompetitive web hosting platform. We decided to redesign it, and in the process move to a WordPress hosting package that supports up to three domains. We were advised to develop the new website in a subdomain of our main domain (dev.example.com) while we kept the old site (www.example.com) live. We don’t have any real web expertise, and it was only when it was time to switch over that we discovered it wasn’t as simple as getting our new hosts to change dev.example.com to www.example.com. Eventually I understood that I’d need to create a new www.example.com domain in our hosting package and copy the WordPress site across. Following a guide I found on the…

If all of this sounds a bit tedious and long-winded, there is a quick and easy way to create a network share: just install LibreElec to your microSD card. LibreElec is a media centre OS designed specifically for the Raspberry Pi, and as such is set up with shared folders, a file structure, DLNA and UPnP. You might even like to run a LibreElec system as a hybrid server, as it incorporates a neat interface perfect for a TV and remote control: you could put the hybrid server under your TV to play media stored on its large hard disk directly, while also streaming media to other devices in your household. Whether you want the hybrid server under your TV permanently, you have to plug into a screen for the…