PCWorldの March 2021 の目次

After months of silence about Apple’s impressive M1 chip, Intel just clapped back with a carefully crafted takedown of the Arm-based chip. Its perspective on the M1 isn’t pretty. Intel said its testing shows: • An 11th gen Core i7-1185G7 can match or greatly exceed the M1’s performance in a MacBook Pro in both native and non-native applications. • In battery life, it’s pretty much a wash. • The MacBook Pro wouldn’t pass muster to be certified as an Evo laptop. • The M1 just won’t run a lot of software. • The new MacBooks have a range of compatibility issues, from multiple monitors to game controllers, as well as many documented software plug-in problems. In the parlance of our time, it’s “shots fired” yet again, with Intel highlighting problems…

HP’s updated Pavilion x360 14 and Pavilion x360 15 will get Intel’s newest 11th-gen CPUs and—perhaps more importantly to some—will be more sustainable. How sustainable? HP said the new Pavilion x360s will use ocean-bound recycled plastic for the bezel, keyboard keycaps, and speaker enclosures. (Ocean-bound plastic is plastic intercepted before it floats into the ocean.) Perhaps more sustainable is the recycled aluminum keyboard deck that will be available on the Pavilion x360 14. By using recycled rather than mined aluminum for the keyboard, HP said it will save an estimated 341 tons of carbon dioxide emissions, and avoid burning more than 376,000 tons of coal over its production life. The Pavilion x360 15 will start at $749 with an 11th-gen Core i3, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, and…

If you’re one of the few remaining users whose PC contains an Intel Pentium 4 or an AMD Athlon 64, bad news: You’re about to lose access to Google’s Chrome browser. As noted by TechRadar, Google is warning that in Chrome 89, it plans to drop support for processors that lack Streaming SIMD Extensions support (SSE3). (The current version is Chrome 88.) If your PC includes one of those processors and tries to run Chrome, running the browser will result in a crash. Otherwise, Chrome simply won’t install. Google’s betting that the population impacted by this change is small. “Our analysis…indicates that there is a very small number of Windows devices running Chrome with x86 processors that do not support SSE3,” Google said. The company added that it will give fair…

The only real problem with Nvidia’s new GeForce RTX 30-series laptops is that they can’t live up to their stunning RTX 30-series desktop cousins. No matter how impressively fast the mobile CPUs are—and our first tests show they offer everything from good to outrageous performance—they will never measure up to full-fat GPUs. Nor should they be expected to, except in the messy stew of modern marketing and consumer expectations. So don’t expect this mobile GPU to be a desktop GPU. But do expect RTX 30-series laptops to offer very impressive graphics performance, even compared to some of the biggest and heaviest laptops around. WHAT IS GEFORCE RTX 30-SERIES MOBILE? Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 30-series is the highly anticipated mobile version of its stellar 30-series desktop GPUs. Built on the same 8nm…

Samsung’s been at the top of the SSD storage food chain since the day the company entered the market, and the 870 EVO honors that tradition. It’s the fastest SATA SSD we’ve tested, it’s available in up to 4TB of capacity, and it’s exceedingly affordable given its speed. SPECS AND PRICING The 870 EVO is a 2.5-inch, SATA 6Gbps SSD employing Samsung’s own TLC (Triple-Level Cell/3-bit) V-NAND. The company is typically coy as to the actual controller technology or number of layers, but it’s likely an in-house Samsung-designed controller with, judging from the capacities, 92 or 96 layers. The drive will ship in 250GB for $40, 500GB for $70, 1TB for $130, 2TB for $250, and 4TB for $480 flavors. There’s 512MB of primary DRAM cache for every 250GB of…

Protecting your personal data isn’t just smart these days—it’s a necessity. As the world grows more and more connected, your private info becomes more and more valuable. Whether it’s using leaked info from website breaches to hack into your other accounts or holding your personal computer ransom for money, malicious attackers won’t hesitate to ruin your day if it puts profits in their pockets. Following some basic security principles can help protect you from most of the attacks you’ll find on the World Wild Web. Better still, these five easy security tasks should take only a short while to set up. Do them now and you’ll sleep easier at night. 1. USE A PASSWORD MANAGER On of the biggest security risks these days is password reuse. Major websites and services…

You can stop using your smartphone at night with a little help from Android. We know it’s hard to let go—even when research shows it’s better for your sleep if you unplug and wind down. Android 11 includes a raft of features that can help you set some commonsense limits. Here’s how to get started. 1. CHECK YOUR USAGE The first step is to face facts by checking how long you’re using your phone each day and what you’re doing with it. To get started, head into your system settings and scroll down to Digital Wellbeing, which should be available on virtually all Android phones. The Digital Wellbeing hub contains many of the tools we’ll use to make your phone less distracting at night, but for now, just check out…

When the first GeForce RTX 30-series gaming laptops launched in January, you could—and still can—find abundant stock available for RTX 3070- and 3080-powered machines starting at $1,700 and up. More affordable RTX 3060 laptops recently hit the streets, but they seem much scarcer than the more expensive models. Nvidia’s own listing of RTX 3060 laptops highlights just four models, all from MSI: the $1,000 GF65, $1,500 Stealth 15M; a more potent $1,600 Stealth 15M, and the $1,800 GS66. The GF65 and GS66 are available to buy March 1, with the rest in preorder status until later in the month. Heading over to Newegg, you’ll find several MSI RTX 3060 laptops, some still in preorder status. But good news! A trio of Gigabyte offerings can be purchased right now: the $1,500 Aorus…

Either the GPU shortage really is that bad, or maybe Intel’s DG1 is really that good, because the company announced Tuesday morning that its first-generation Iris Xe desktop graphics cards are shipping to partners. The company said its Iris Xe, previously code-named DG1, will be sold to system integrators—basically PC companies smaller than OEMs such as Dell and HP—who will use the graphics cards in PCs aimed at mainstream users as well as small- and medium-sized businesses. The Iris Xe is basically the same part as the Irix Xe Max GPU that’s being sold in a limited number of laptops after originally being previewed on desktop PCs as the developer-only DG1 graphics card at CES 2020. Intel created the desktop DG1 to help developers get their feet wet in making applications and…

If you’re a tinkerer who needs a new machine for machine learning or exotic maker creations, the diminutive CuBox-M Micro Desktop PC from Israel-based SolidRun might be up your alley. This addition to the CuBox line is designed specifically for application development and maker projects like a smart home hub. Prices start at $99. The CuBox-M is based on the i.MX 8M Plus system-on-module (SoM) from NXP Semiconductors. It features up to a quad-core Cortex A53 CPU with a Cortex M7 core, plus a Cadence Tesilica HiFi 4 digital signal processor for voice and natural language tasks. There’s also an integrated neural processing unit for AI and machine learning, as well as an optional power-over-ethernet feature. The SoM is integrated into a carrier board boasting a number of ports, including one…

The second time’s the charm for the Porsche Design Acer Book RS, a slim, light Porsche-branded laptop that lacks its predecessor’s flash but nails it in the performance department. While 2017’s Porsche Design Book One (go.pcworld.com/pbk1), the first laptop with a detachable display and a 360-degree hinge, took a shock-and-awe approach in terms of its form factor, the elegant but much more traditional Porsche Design Acer Book RS keeps the fireworks under the hood. Packing an 11th-gen Intel Tiger Lake CPU, this new Porsche absolutely tears it up when it comes to multicore CPU performance, all without compromising battery life or portability. The peppy integrated Iris Xe graphics should keep content creators busy. Even better, the Porsche Design Acer Book RS is priced more like a Honda (well, one of…

Dash cams are all about capturing the action, and few do it better than the front and interior Cobra SC 201 Smart Dash Cam (currently $179.95 on Amazon). The exterior night video especially is unsurpassed in its ability to show details in dark surroundings, and the cam offers a laundry list of features including GPS and cloud uploads. It even includes a 16GB SD card. It’s well worth the money for what you get—just don’t try to use the cloud functionality with an older phone OS. DESIGN AND FEATURES Dash cams generally come in two basic shapes: rectangular and cylindrical. The SC 201 opts for the latter, which allows the most space for an interior camera. Both the front and interior cameras capture at 1080p. Most interior cameras are 720p,…

Coming up with a strong, unique password and storing it in a browser or password manager isn’t good enough. You need to know if and when it was stolen in a password breach, so you can act quickly enough to change it before your personal information is potentially compromised. Here’s how. It’s been some time since the massive Collections breaches of 2019 leaked literally billions of email addresses and passwords to the web, putting the security of those accounts at risk. The problem users faced at the time was a limited number of ways to tell if they were actually at risk. Now, there are many password monitoring services that will reveal if your password has been stolen. Most are designed to let you quickly take action and change passwords.…

Do you need a faster graphics card? Only if your games aren’t running as smoothly as you’d like. Fortunately, Steam includes a feature that displays the current frame rate of the game you’re playing in the corner of the screen, and you can turn it on very easily. I wouldn’t advise using frame rate counters normally, lest you give in to the insidious desire to upgrade based on raw numbers rather than actual playability. Most PC gamers consider 60 frames per second (fps) to be the gold standard for smoothness, while others demand nothing less than 100 fps, but console gamers or people who prefer maxed-out visuals over responsive speeds can be happy with as little as 30 fps, as long as those frames get delivered smoothly. What works for…

Microsoft’s Windows 10X has leaked, and it’s boring. Well, it’s designed to be boring. Simple, really—uncomplicated, straightforward, without the fuss and clutter of “traditional” Windows. We wrote last year that Windows 10X now appears to be the new Windows 10 S (Windows 10 in S Mode [go.pcworld.com/n10s]); after spending some hands-on time with the leaked build, we believe those impressions have been confirmed. We’d like to say that Windows 10X has been graphically overhauled with a variety of new features. However, the fact is that if you read our early Windows 10X coverage a year ago—when Microsoft was visualizing Windows 10X as the future of dual-screen devices—little has changed. (Here’s our original Windows 10X hands-on video for reference.) Well, there’s been one major tweak, of course: Windows 10X is now…

Comcast said Wednesday that it will suspend its data caps in over a dozen states and the District of Columbia for at least six months, apparently because of a deal the company struck with the state of Pennsylvania. If you live anywhere else in the United States, your reaction was probably the same as mine: Why isn’t Comcast doing the rest of us the same favor? Though Comcast services most of the United States, only these 14 states will see a suspension of their data caps for six months: Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, and parts of North Carolina and Ohio, as well as the District of Columbia. The suspension apparently has come about because of a deal struck between…

We’ve already tested AMD’s Ryzen 5000 mobile against Intel’s current Core i7 chips in laptops, and Ryzen easily wins. But what everyone really wants to know is how it stacks up against Apple’s impressive M1 silicon chip in the new MacBook Pro. The M1 is a 5nm, TSMC-built chip based on the Arm architecture—a hard pivot by Apple after ending its 15-year relationship with Intel. Despite the performance hit of dealing with translating x86 instructions to Arm, when we tested the MacBook Pro M1 against Intel 10th-gen and 11th-gen CPUs and AMD’s Ryzen 4000, we were genuinely impressed. Cribbing from all those performance results, we decided to compare benchmarks run by our sibling site, Macworld, as well as results from respected workstation builder Puget Systems, to see just where the CPUs…

Microsoft’s Surface Pro 7+ (or Surface Pro 7 Plus) launched unexpectedly last month, stepping up from the Surface Pro 7’s 10th-gen Intel Ice Lake chips to 11th-gen Tiger Lake Core chips. The question we immediately had was: Is the Surface Pro 7+ worth the upgrade? We’ll have to wait until we complete our Surface Pro 7+ review to answer that question fully. But so far, we’ve been somewhat shocked by the performance we’ve seen from the new model. In this story, we begin to answer two related questions: How much faster is the Surface Pro 7+ compared to the Surface Pro 7, and how much faster is the tablet version of Intel’s 11th-gen Tiger Lake chip versus its predecessor, the 10th-gen Ice Lake? The answer is: a lot faster, and…

The year is still young and we are already seeing our first heavyweight smartphone battle of 2021. Samsung has released its lineup of Galaxy S21 phones a little earlier than usual this year, and it clearly has Apple’s newest phone in its sights. Samsung hasn’t reinvented the S21 so much as it’s retooled it to take on the iPhone 12, with a lower price point, sharper design, and some new camera tricks. I’ve had a chance to review both, and here’s how the two $800 phones stack up. DESIGN Samsung’s Galaxy S is always at the forefront of Android smartphone design, and the S21 continues that tradition. Samsung has crafted a truly unique design where the metal sides seamlessly blend into the camera array, as if it were snapped onto the…

Back in the day, conventional wisdom said to never store your passwords in your browsers. That’s not true anymore. Modern browsers are much more secure, tied to accounts protected by two-factor authentication. Most of the major ones can now double as a basic password manager, complete with the ability to create strong, random passwords—Microsoft’s Edge browser is the latest to support the feature. Most people will still probably be better off using a third-party password manager, though. There’s no doubt that using your browser’s password manager can solve some headaches. It makes it easy to use strong, unique passwords for every site and service you use, eliminating risk from reusing passwords. (If a website gets breached, criminals can use your leaked login to sign into other sites if you reuse passwords.)…