Computer Shopperの November 2020 の目次

I made a rare trip outside the house this week to pop to my nearest Apple store to get my iPhone fixed. Luckily for me, my phone is still covered by the warranty and the fix was free, although it’s unclear yet whether the fault has been fully resolved by a new screen or if the device requires a factory reset and manual restore. While I was in the store, a nervous-looking customer – fully masked and gloved up – came over to the table I was sitting at. She listened intently to the blue-T-shirted employee trying to reassure her he could fix her phone, which hadn’t been charging. She really hoped so, she explained, as it was her only lifeline to the outside world. Sitting opposite, another iPhone user…

COMPUTER SHOPPER ISSUE 394 ON SALE IN NEWSAGENTS FROM 8th OCTOBER…

David Ludlow RAVES WITH APPLE ANNOUNCING that it’s shifting away from Intel processors to focus on its own ARM-based chips in its MacBooks, now could be seen as a sad time, heralding the decline of the dominant desktop architecture. Yet it’s a move I believe we should celebrate, as it injects some much-needed competition into the market, and changes the way that processors are developed and used. Today, computing, as with most tech, is as much about efficiency as it is about power. Only using the amount of power that’s needed to do the job at hand is far more important than having an always-on, full-throttle system. That’s what Apple’s silicon will do, using the super-efficient ARM architecture for devices that use less power, last longer on battery life, yet…

£439 • From www.studio.co.uk VERDICT A surprisingly potent budget laptop, let down by its plasticky build and dull display UNEXPECTEDLY, GIVEN ITS relative lack of laptop pedigree, we quite liked the Avita Liber 14 (Shopper 382). It was, and still is, a very respectable budget clamshell, with a solid-feeling aluminium chassis and other higher-end features such as a built-in fingerprint reader. Avita’s newest laptop, the Pura 14 R5, is even cheaper; there certainly aren’t many 14in laptops this close to £400, especially not with mid-range Ryzen 5 processors as this one has. However, with this affordability, the Pura 14 R5 also retreats from the plusher features of its Liber 14 cousin. CRYING OUT LOUD At a glance, the Pura 14 R5 does a good job of at least replicating the…

£40 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Although it doesn’t entirely leave your own speech unaffected, this adaptor’s noise cancellation works a treat THIS DIMINUTIVE DONGLE is the rarest of technology products: one you might buy to benefit others, rather than yourself. A 3.5mm-to-USB Type-C adaptor, it’s designed not to enhance the audio output of your headphones, but to cut down on ambient noise that your microphone might pick up. It’s probably true that, especially in recent months, a good chunk of us have been on the end of a phone or video call where a washing machine is whirring away in the background, or heard a friend’s housemate’s TV bleed though voice chat during a gaming session. The AI Noise-Canceling Mic Adapter aims to intercept these distractions, using machine learning to…

£90 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Amazon’s budget-priced tablet adds a faster processor, more RAM and USB Type-C for its best version yet NEVER ONE TO shy away from a hardware update, Amazon has brought back two of its budget Fire OS tablets for another round: the Fire HD 8 and Fire HD 8 Plus (opposite). You can probably guess that the Fire HD 8 is the cheaper of the two, and at first it doesn’t look like much has changed. The 8in, 1,280x800 display and matt plastic chassis are largely unchanged from the previous model, so it takes a look inside to find the new stuff: it’s powered by a faster MediaTek MT8168 processor, and the total RAM has been given a slight boost from 1.5GB to 2GB. Amazon has…

£90 • From www.argos.co.uk VERDICT The Indy Evo are a solid pair of true wireless earbuds, but they struggle to stand out from the crowd KEENLY PRICED AND highly adjustable, the Indy Evo are one of four new pairs of true wireless earbuds from Skullcandy. They’re an update of the US firm’s original Indy earbuds, which were released in 2019, and have received a number of tweaks, including improved battery life, built-in Tile tracking and the ability to use each bud separately. Your £90 nets you a pair of Bluetooth 5.0, IP55-rated (sweat, water and dust resistant) true wireless earbuds, a plastic charging case, one USB Type-A-to-Type-C charging cable, three sets of eartips and two pairs of gels that help stabilise the buds in the outer sections of your ears.…

£13 per month • From www.vyprvpn.com VERDICT A reliable VPN service with the latest protocols and strong privacy protection EVERY VPN SERVICE is configurable to some degree, but VyprVPN pitches itself as one that truly puts you back in control, and it’s not hard to see why. Not only is it a VPN with a focus on protecting privacy and security, but it’s one of the most customisable we’ve seen. The service has an impressive list of supported protocols and a strong set of features, many of which can be tweaked to your specific requirements. Factor in the polished user interface, and you have a service that makes a great first impression. GOLDEN TOUCH Based in Switzerland, VyprVPN has been around since 2009, making it one of the longest-running VPNs…

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

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

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

01 If you don’t have space in your home cinema setup for a set of surroundsound speakers, a soundbar is the next best thing. Whether you opt for a soundbar (which typically sits in front of your TV stand) or a soundplate (which sits underneath your TV), you’ll be getting significantly better audio than the weedy speakers today’s flatscreen TVs provide. 02 If you want to cut down on cable clutter, look for a soundbar with multiple HDMI inputs and outputs as well as Audio Return Channel (ARC). Not all soundbars use HDMI, with many making do with digital optical audio connections instead. This means you’ll have to connect Blu-ray players, games consoles and set-top boxes to your TV and run all audio through a single cable. Also look for…

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

Chat and Communication Evernote 6.25.1.9091 Store your notes, ideas and plans in the cloud, and synchronise them between computers. UPDATED Mailbird 2.8.30.0 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 8.63.0.76 Make internet voice and video calls for free, and buy credit to make calls to mobiles and landlines. UPDATED Telegram 2.3.0 This free IM app syncs your conversations across multiple devices, and can spruce up chats with stickers and GIFs. UPDATED WhatsApp Desktop 2.2033.7 A PC and Mac version of the messaging app, letting you chat from your desktop. Customisation iolo System Mechanic Free 20.5.0.1 Speed up your system with iolo’s PC optimisation suite. Rainmeter…

£729 • From www.apple.com/uk VERDICT While not quite as fabulous as the iPhone 11 Pro, the standard model is still superb DITCHING THE PREVIOUS generation’s XR model, the iPhone 11 sees Apple bringing its cheapest smartphone back into the fold. The look and feel of the phone, though still distinct, is definitely a lot closer to the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max than the XR was to the XS and the XS Max. Case in point, it has the same rear camera plinth as its more expensive siblings, and once again the entire rear is made from one piece of glass, so there’s no ugly trim surrounding that square. However, it’s also not quite as pretty: the only part that’s matt glass is the camera bump, and…

£400 • From shop.fairphone.com VERDICT The Fairphone 3 is a noble project, but in pure hardware terms it charges more for less IT’S AN OPEN secret that phones are environmentally costly, especially with so many manufacturers aiming for a one- or two-year upgrade cycle. The Fairphone 3 takes a different approach, adopting a user-upgradable design with recycled and recyclable components that won’t produce as much waste. Admirable as this approach is, if you’re thinking that the result won’t be cutting-edge technology, then you’re 100% correct. The Fairphone 3’s specs are distinctly middle of the road: namely, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 632 processor and 4GB of RAM. SHOW YOUR WORK The Fairphone 3 also has a somewhat dated look from the front. It has the kind of bezels that haven’t been seen…

£250 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Great hardware, but without Google apps the Honor 9X Pro is seriously hobbled THE FIRST THING you need to know about the Honor 9X Pro is also the most worrying: thanks to an ongoing set-to between the United States and China, this phone has been blocked from using Android as you know it, falling back on the open-source version. That doesn’t sound too bad, even if it’s not good news for security updates, but the devil is in the details. The ban on US companies dealing with Huawei (Honor is a sub-brand of the Chinese giant) means Google can’t provide its apps to go with it. That means no Gmail, no YouTube and no Google Maps; there isn’t even a Play Store so you can…

£150 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The Moto G8 Power Lite makes some deep cuts to save money, though its longevity is the real deal EVEN AMONG THE widely-expanded Moto G series, the Moto G8 Power Lite is new territory for Motorola. Just like the Moto G7 Power, the current generation has a Moto G8 Power focused on battery life, but this time there’s a new version that cuts the price even further. The Moto G8 Power Lite sticks with a massive battery, then – 5,000mAh, to be exact – but swaps in a weaker MediaTek MT6765 Helio P35 processor and lowers the screen resolution. In exchange, it only costs £150, a full £70 less than the standard Moto G8 Power. FINGERS CROSSED For such a cheap handset, the Moto G8…

£150 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT This a decent budget Android phone, but you can do better while staying under £200 OPPO AND XIAOMI are both Chinese firms making inroads to the UK smartphone scene, and sometimes comparisons between the two run remarkably deep: the Oppo A5 budget handset is almost identical to the Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T on specs. However, since the A5 was released, the Redmi Note 8T has been replaced by the Redmi Note 9. So can the A5 still stack up against Xiamoi’s updated handset? IN BULK The first thing you notice about the Oppo A5 is that it’s pretty chunky. That’s not just down to it having to make room for a 6.5in display, as at 195g, it’s only a gram lighter than the enormous Samsung…

£700 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The Xperia 5 reproduces the Xperia 1’s features for a lower price, and for the most part it succeeds SONY’S ‘COMPACT’ SMARTPHONES used to offer flagship-grade features, more palatable prices and dinkier sizes. However, following the launch of the Xperia 1 (Shopper 380), it looked like Sony had ditched these smaller handsets in favour of pricier big-screened behemoths. The Xperia 5, thankfully, partially resembles the Compact models of old; sure, it isn’t much smaller than Sony’s top-shelf handsets, but the Xperia 5 is cheaper while offering similar design functionality. SAME AGAIN PLEASE Very similar design, in fact. Physically, the Xperia 5 heavily cribs from the Xperia 1: the screen (almost) fills the entirety of the front of the phone, it’s water- and dust-resistant to the…

VIEW A MINIATURE MODEL OF A MAINFRAME COMPUTER The IBM 1401 mainframe computer was introduced in 1959, selling more than 12,000 units over the course of 12 years. It didn’t have a screen, but it had 16KB of six-bit core memory, six tape drives and punch-card input. It was also so big that it filled an entire room. Nicolas Temese fancied having one of his own, so he’s built a replica – albeit in miniature. Rather than 3D print his model, he’s spent more than 300 hours on the design and construction, cutting most of the pieces out of polystyrene and assembling it all by hand. The level of detail has to be seen to be believed. There’s a punch-card reader, as well as extremely small punch cards, along with…

Clive Webster has been tinkering with computers ever since Windows 98 forced him to manually install his drivers clive@computershopper.co.uk HOW MANY TALKS start with the phrase, “I’ve got some slides, but don’t worry, not that many”? How many times have you said that yourself? Death by PowerPoint is now so common that most of us feel a need to apologise before launching our slideshow. But don’t let those bad presenters put you off: PowerPoint is still a great tool to convey information, keep attention and help people understand why you’re worth listening to. This article focuses on how to create professional, impactful and high-quality PowerPoint presentations quickly and easily. With our basic tips and a few design principles, you’ll soon be wowing the crowds or impressing your colleagues. WE STARTED OUR…

letters@computershopper.co.uk A solution to Kay’s bossyboots I sympathise with Kay Ewbank’s issues with Windows 10 ‘Bossy bootups’ (Shopper 392). The answer is simple: Linux. With Linux, you are in control of when to install updates, and no software can be installed without your explicit consent. Her favourite browsers, Firefox and Chromium (Chrome’s open-source sibling), are both available, with Firefox usually being the default browser in new Linux installs. Best of all, most of the software you use is free and open source. Word & Excel – use LibreOffice; personal finance – use HomeBank; image editing – use GIMP; emails – use Thunderbird; Spotify – well, use Spotify, it has a Linux app. Christopher Bowser 7up With reference to the letter from Gareth Williams on encrypting a USB stick (‘Hello Vera’,…

BLACK LIVES MATTER. Unless black lives feature in a videogame, in which case they don’t matter a toss. I still remember the feeling of hope and despair when I played Daley Thompson’s Decathlon for the first time. That was way back in the Olympic year of 1984, and it was a primitive sports simulation from Ocean software for a little home computer called the 48k Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Daley Thompson was an Olympic gold medal winner from Notting Hill. He had a fine body, and a great moustache, and according to his skin he was the son of his assassinated Nigerian dad. Anyway, I fired up the game and there on my glowing colour monitor was the pixellated figure of Daley, the great black athlete, running along a red cinder…

AI algorithm controversy forces exams U-turn SAY WHAT? STUDENTS IN ENGLAND were given exam grades estimated by their teachers, rather than by an algorithm, after a government U-turn. The about-turn followed uproar after about 40% of A-level results were downgraded by exams regulator Ofqual, which used a formula based on schools’ prior grades. Students in the UK didn’t sit exams this year because schools were closed following the coronavirus lockdown. In England, they were given grades by the official exam regulator, Ofqual. Teachers had been asked to supply an estimated grade and a ranking against other pupils at the school within that same estimated grade, for each student and subject. These were then put through an algorithm, which also factored in the school’s performances in each subject over the previous…

£849 • From www.pcspecialist.co.uk VERDICT A competent and cleanly designed gaming notebook, though its display isn’t as vivid as it is fast CUSTOM DESKTOPS AREN’T the only machines under PC Specialist’s purview. Its Cosmos XR, for one, is a ready-made gaming laptop, and a reasonably priced one at that, even if that means a mix of mid-range and more basic components, like the Intel Core i5-10300H CPU, 8GB of RAM and GeForce GTX 1650 graphics chip. Measuring 359x238x22mm, it sits between the slimmest gaming laptops and the chunkier designs of yesteryear. It’s manageably sized in any case, and is just light enough to be comfortably carried with one hand. REAR LOADER There’s also an appealing simplicity to the magnesium alloy chassis; there’s no gaming overdesign here. It’s equipped with a…

£158 •From printerbase.co.uk VERDICT Xerox’s B205 is a good laser MFP, but it could be cheaper to buy and run EAGERLY JOINING THE Xerox B215 mono laser MFP (Shopper 382) is the much cheaper B205. Its more illustrious sibling has a showy colour touchscreen and automatic duplex (double-sided) printing, but the B205 makes do with a basic mono display and expects you to manually turn the paper over. Despite these limitations, it has many good features. The B205 supports both wired and wireless networks, and despite its basic screen there’s a front-panel USB port supporting walk-up prints and scanning. Its 30-page-per-minute (ppm) print engine should be more than fast enough for a home office, while it’s built for an impressive 30,000-page monthly duty cycle (although that’s the one-off maximum). Unusually…

£110 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Wireless charging, extra RAM and a faster charger are nice upgrades, but the cheaper Fire HD 8 is the better buy IN ADDITION TO the standard Fire HD 8 (opposite), this year Amazon has released another souped-up version, offering a handful of extras for a bit more money. The Fire HD 8 Plus is still a very cheap tablet, and most differences are relatively minor. Design-wise, they’re practically identical. Both have a 1,280x800-resolution screen, a drop-friendly plastic chassis, and USB Type-C charging. Both tablets also benefit from a new MediaTek MT8168 processor and run a tweaked version of Android 9.0 with Amazon’s Fire OS 7 launcher placed on top. CHARGING AHEAD Where, then, does your extra £20 go? First, the Fire HD 8 Plus includes…

£79 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Another set of cable-free headphones that mostly sound good and are comfortable to wear BESIDES SKULLCANDY’S EFFORT opposite, yet another pair of true wireless headphones is seeking to cash in on the trend: the OnePlus Buds. At £79, these are a good deal cheaper than a set of Apple AirPods, despite having a very similar design. They sit in the outer part of your ear rather than needing to be inserted into your ear canal, and have long tails that dangle outside your ears. Just like AirPods, they come with a small case that charges the headphones when you drop them in. Quick-pairing tech helps you get connected in double time, and it’s even quicker if you own a OnePlus phone: just flip the earbud…

01 A basic PC costing around £350 will be able to run everyday office, multimedia and education software and will easily cope with surfing the internet. It might even be able to run some modern games. Many PCs can be sold either with or without a monitor. If you don’t like the display the manufacturer is offering, you can always use your current one, or buy another one separately. 02 If you want to play games, you’ll have to upgrade the graphics card. Budget cards such as the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 will cope well with many 3D games, but to play the latest 3D games smoothly (and enjoy the best-quality graphics) it’s worth upgrading to a more powerful card such as the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070. 03 All modern…

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

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

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

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

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

£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 IF YOU WANT a reference point for the new, 2020 edition of the iPhone SE – the cheapest of Apple’s current-generation handsets – then look no further than Apple’s own iPhone 8. The iPhone SE essentially duplicates the physical appearance of the iPhone 8, right down to identical dimensions and even the same 138g weight. REPEAT BUSINESS When you’ve spent the past two years looking at phones with edge-to-edge displays, a handset with clearly visible bezels at the top and bottom comes as something of a shock. While many prefer a smaller smartphone, and for good reason – many contemporary phones struggle to fit in a pocket…

£349 • From store.google.com VERDICT A fabulous streamlined smartphone that competes fiercely with the iPhone 11 and OnePlus Nord IT’S ARRIVED IN the UK couple of months after its US launch, but the Pixel 4a – a cheaper, more pocket-friendly spin-off from Google’s Pixel 4 – is worth waiting for. Like the Pixel 3a before it, the 4a has a simple polycarbonate body and opts for a processor one rung below the top-end Qualcomm Snapdragon chips powering Google’s flagships. In this case, it’s the octa-core Snapdragon 730G, accompanied by 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. There’s also no 5G support, although a Pixel 4a 5G is expected to launch alongside the Pixel 5 later this year. That still might seem like a questionable omission when the similarly cut-price OnePlus…

£700 • From www.argos.co.uk VERDICT This phone’s hardware is good, but Android without Google apps takes some serious getting used to UNFORTUNATELY, THE Honor 9X Pro is far from the only smartphone to suffer from issues with US-China relations. Both the flagship Huawei P40 and its even more expensive upgrade, the P40 Pro, will run Android 10 but also completely lack native support for Google apps or the Play Store. This might, understandably, be an instant dealbreaker for anyone already absorbed in Android, Google’s services or both. If you think you can live without, however, you’ll at least find the P40 a very competent smartphone. STYLE AND SUBSTANCE It’s a hefty £200 cheaper than the P40 Pro, albeit due to a pared-down feature list. For example, it lacks the P40…

£599 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Despite its changes staying modest, the OnePlus 8 makes improvements where it needs to WITH A £100 price jump on the OnePlus 7 (Shopper 380) and a £50 increase on the 7T (Shopper 383), you might argue that OnePlus’s newest smartphone doesn’t manage the same cut-throat value proposition of past handsets. Don’t worry too much, however, as while the OnePlus 8 is a little more expensive than the 7T, it’s also much, much better. It all starts with the design. The OnePlus 8’s rear triple-lens camera array is now arranged in a neat vertical line, a much more elegant touch than the 7T’s large circular camera bump, especially as the lenses don’t poke out as far. The front camera, which includes facial recognition support, has…

£150 • From www.carphonewarehouse.com VERDICT One of Samsung’s cheapest smartphones, the Galaxy A21s is a generally worthy pick PROBABLY THE ONLY smartphone maker that matches Motorola in pumping out new models is Samsung, the latest Galaxy handset arriving in the form of the relatively low-priced A21s. In design terms, the Galaxy A21s is just as eye-catching as Samsung’s other recent releases. Sure, it’s made of plastic and it isn’t sandwiched between protective layers of glass, but the Galaxy A21s is still a sleek-looking phone with minimal screen bezels and an unobtrusive hole-punch notch in the top-left corner. The back of the phone is slightly curved, with the four cameras and LED flash arranged in a tidy rectangle in the top-left corner. A rear-mounted fingerprint sensor also sits in the centre,…

£170 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Another competent, affordable Xperia – but other budget phones do it better IF YOU’VE BEEN following Sony’s releases, then the budget-friendly Xperia L4 will be a breath of fresh air – and especially so if you can’t stump up the funds for the £1,100 Xperia 1 II. While it might not have all the niceties of a flagship phone, Sony’s newest budget blower is hardly light on features. The burning question, however, is whether it does enough to stand out from the rest of the sub-£200 crowd. Despite the increase in screen size from the Xperia L3, Sony hasn’t changed much when it comes to the Xperia L4’s design. We were sent the rather drab black model for review (the blue variant is slightly more…

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PowerPoint was launched in 1987, but it wasn’t Microsoft that made it. Instead, Microsoft acquired its publisher, Forethought Inc, for $14m three months after PowerPoint hit the shelves. The first Microsoft version of PowerPoint was part of the Office suite for Macintosh in 1989 and was launched in the same way for Windows a year later. The first incarnation of PowerPoint helped us design overhead projector transparencies; version 2.0 could create colour 35mm slides, delivered by mail order once the files had been sent via modem to an imaging centre. It was only the third version of PowerPoint (launched in 1992) that could output directly to a digital projector or large screen. In 1993, PowerPoint was integrated into the Microsoft Office development stream and started to share common interface features…

Take back control I smiled when I read Kay Ewbank’s article ‘Bossy bootups’ (Shopper 392). Like Kay, I have been having issues with Microsoft and other software providers. I suppose it all started a few years ago, when Apple decided I could no longer use my Final Cut Pro Studio video-editing software following an upgrade to its operating system. It was a great program, and I have now reinstalled this on my iMac by going back to an older operating system and taking the machine off the internet. It’s up and running, and a good standby for any edits I want to do on video. The other day, I wanted to print an address on an envelope for a birthday card – I have Windows 10 Professional as my operating…

AS YOU MAY have read in Shopper last month, GitHub is putting a copy of every piece of open-source code into cold storage in Svalbard, Norway. The idea is that by depositing all the open-source software on archival film in a decommissioned coalmine deep under the permafrost of the Arctic island, generations to come will be able to access it if they need to at some point in the next 1,000 years. As the proud possessor of a wide variety of archives on formats no longer supported by current computers (5.25in floppy diskettes, anyone? Zip disks, Sony Minidiscs?), I have my doubts. It sounds a good idea, but the software is being stored in a format called piqlFilm that uses QR codes as the data format. I suppose a future…

The big Apple Apple has become the first US-based company to reach a valuation of $2 trillion, only two years after hitting a $1 trillion market cap Swine theft A nudist bather who chased a wild boar near a Berlin lake after it stole his laptop was applauded by onlookers after a successful pursuit Telly addicts Adults spent 40% of their waking day watching TV during lockdown, according to comms regulator Ofcom BlackBerry fans The BlackBerry brand has been licensed by Texas startup OnwardMobility, which is promising to release a 5G BlackBerry device with Android and a physical QWERTY keyboard next year Trump’s royal disapproval Rock band Queen is trying – and failing – to get US President Donald Trump to stop using its songs in his online campaign videos…

£812 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The Swift 3 is a highly portable, speedy laptop with a lovely Full HD display and just a few rough edges KEEPING WITH ITS role as the least expensive of the Swift range, the Swift 3 could be seen as a more sensible choice of ultraportable. Unlike the latest Dell XPS 13 (Shopper 392) or Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 (Shopper 385), it won’t inspire the awe and jealousy of your friends and colleagues, but it’s the laptop to buy if you want a competent, well-made machine that gets the job done without breaking the bank. While it may not be the most luxurious Windows 10 ultraportable on the market, it’s one of the most keenly priced. The question is, can you spend less and do…

£399 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The appeal of this fast and strongly curved gaming monitor manages to endure a few foibles CURVED SCREENS AREN’T just for titanic ultrawide monitors you’d struggle to fully see otherwise. Even on a mid-sized monitor such as this, the 27in Optix MAG272CQR, a rounded shape can provide a certain immersive effect that’s particularly well suited to gaming or watching films. At £399 it’s expensive for its size, but with its curved VA panel – running at a 2,560x1,440 resolution and with a speedy 165Hz refresh rate – it’s highly specced, too. ARC RIVAL This is unmistakably a gaming monitor, what with the swooshing finish on its plastic back panel and accompanying strip of RGB lighting. Viewed from the front, there’s no such pomp, though the…

£1,699 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT LG’s latest OLED effort combines incredible colour accuracy with top-notch HDR performance and excellent response times SINCE IT FOLLOWS the LG C9 range, which contained some of 2019’s best OLED TVs, the firm’s new CX line has an awful lot to prove. The good news is that it lives up to our every expectation, and then some. We tested the 55in model, the OLED55CX6LA. Or one of them, anyway – there’s also an OLED55CX5LB with a silver stand instead of dark grey. Either way, there are also 48in, 65in and 77in sizes available, all with a 4K (3,840x2,160) resolution. The OLED55CX6LA runs LG’s WebOS and supports HDR10, Dolby Vision and HLG, but not HDR10+. Sadly, while most of the major content-streaming platforms are present and…

£283 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The screen and sports-tracking features are impressive, but the Venu lacks the smarts to really compete with the Apple Watch YOU ONLY NEED a second with the Venu to appreciate its main point of appeal: its bright AMOLED screen. This display is really all that separates the Venu from the Vivoactive 4 (Shopper 385). Both watches deliver equally impressive everyday activity and sports tracking, alongside music storage. While it’s a delight to look at, however, the Venu isn’t without compromises. To be specific, it will cost you more than the Vivoactive 4 and last fewer days between charges. OLED BY EXAMPLE In the past, Garmin always opted to prioritise function over fashion with its smartwatches. The Venu breaks this mould by offering a 390x390 AMOLED…

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…

F-Secure SAFE 2020 F-SECURE SAFE 2020 is a mid-range security suite, which can protect Windows and Mac desktops, as well as up to two Android and iOS devices. While the range of tools it includes is relatively lightweight, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it means you receive a fast security suite that focuses on protecting your devices. The program uses minimal system resources, and is extremely simple to use. Independent testing shows that F-Secure’s protection is worth having, too. The previous engine is ranked third out of 25 at AV-Test, just behind Bitdefender and Avira. With F-Secure developed in Finland, you can be assured that its servers are locked down and audited by the European Union if recent news about other security manufacturers has left you feeling nervous…

£100 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Tough, lightweight and dirt cheap, the Kingkong Mini is an ideal backup smartphone THE THREE BIG problems with a lot of modern smartphones is that they’re big, delicate and expensive. Definitely not the kind of things you’d want to risk dropping in the mud at a festival, or having bounce out of your pocket during a run. One solution is to have a backup phone: one that’s smaller, lighter, cheaper and much more rugged. A phone like the Cubot Kingkong Mini. HARD CASE This is the smallest ‘durable’ smartphone we’ve tested. A lot of rugged phones have massive screens, but the Kingkong Mini only has a dinky 4in display, and it’s much more pocketable as a result. Importantly, of course, if it does happen to…

£200 • From www.johnlewis.com VERDICT An elderly CPU overshadows the good work Honor has done with this handset’s design IF THERE WAS ever a phone designed to catch the eye, it’s the Honor 9X. On the surface, our glittering blue review model appeared to tick all the boxes, with a great-looking screen, no notch in sight, a 3.5mm headphone jack and somewhere to stow a memory card to expand its already reasonable 128GB of memory. For £200, falling for its charms is easy. Even beyond the exterior, there are still plenty of things to like. The 9X supplies a massive 4,000mAh battery and a 48-megapixel camera, while the 16-megapixel selfie camera pops out of the top of the handset with a friendly mechanical whir. As is so often the case,…

£80 • From www.argos.co.uk VERDICT There are better smartphones than the Moto E6 Plus, but not without spending a fair bit more MOTOROLA HAS ONE of the most illustrious histories of all companies in the budget smartphone market. The Moto G series has consistently delivered, with the sole exception of the overly conservative Moto G5, and with recent generations it’s expanded the range considerably to include models dedicated to larger displays or longer battery life. Just below the Moto G series, however, sits the Moto E series, and this too has been ripe with success stories, the latest of which is the Moto E6 Plus. E MARKS THE SPOT Launched recently alongside the even cheaper Moto E6 Play, the Moto E6 Plus doesn’t really stand out on looks, though that…

£379 • From www.oneplus.com VERDICT OnePlus’s return to the mid-range market is packed with enticing hardware THE NORD IS the most reasonably priced phone OnePlus has produced for years, costing a mere £379 for the basic variant with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, or £469 for the model with 12GB and 256GB. It’s also a knowing attempt on OnePlus’s part to return to its roots: high-spec components in affordable handsets, something it’s drifted away from in favour of more conventional flagship design and pricing. The iPhone SE and Google Pixel 4a provide tough competition, but immediately the Nord feels like less of a cut-back device than either of those phones. Both the front and back are clad in Gorilla Glass 5, and all the same buttons and ports…

£799 • From www.samsung.com VERDICT While not the best smartphone ever, the Galaxy S20 is the best-value of Samsung’s latest lineup THE GALAXY S20 is the smallest and cheapest of Samsung’s 2020 flagship range, which says a lot about how the Galaxy S brand has progressed: with a 6.2in display it’s not particularly small, and at £799 it’s not very cheap. Nevertheless, its relatively manageable dimensions allow it to sit very comfortably in the hand. It definitely looks and feels like a premium product, although there are some questionable changes that mean it doesn’t look quite as good as the Galaxy S10: the rear camera sensors are squashed into an oblong in the top-left corner, and the front pinhole camera now sits in the middle, where it seems more in…

£150 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Not only is this an accomplished follow-up to a great phone, it’s easily among the best in its class FOLLOWING ON FROM the Redmi Note 8T, the Redmi Note 9 starts off on surprisingly tenuous footing. The greyish-blue colour of its plastic chassis is rather dull, and the way the fingerprint reader and quad-lens camera are all rammed into a single box on the rear makes for a less appealing design than what came before. The camera module isn’t flush with the back, either, so it doesn’t rest flush against a flat surface when placed face up. The body itself feels cheap to the touch, and it’s quick to collect greasy fingerprints. That’s less of an issue on the front, where the display is protected…

Send your problems to help@computershopper.co.uk Lenovo oh no We bought a Lenovo V110 laptop from Ebuyer.com in November 2018. In September 2019 it developed a fault, and Lenovo repaired it under warranty. Unfortunately, in the process its disk was wiped, and I lost many documents and family pictures. The laptop worked fine again until June this year, when it developed a similar fault. I contacted Lenovo, which concluded that the laptop again needed to be sent in for repair. Unfortunately, however, I was informed that because the laptop was now out of warranty, this would be chargeable. While I understand that the original manufacturer warranty expired in November 2019, I’m disappointed that the original repair didn’t entitle us to any extended warranty. I wrote a complaint to Lenovo, who simply…