Table of contents for Feb-14 in PCWorld

ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES is looking to move away from providing CPU-only chips for gaming PCs, instead switching to the manufacture of accelerated processing units that integrate CPUs with graphics cores. For many years AMD has sold the FX series, which consists of CPUs that lack integrated graphics processors. Those chips—the company’s fastest—have been popular with gamers who overclock their CPUs, use discrete graphics cards, and build high-end gaming rigs. Intel’s Core Extreme Edition lineup of high-end CPUs is similar. Now, however, AMD is strategically moving over to the production of APUs, to take advantage of the integration of CPUs and graphics cores in a single piece of silicon, says Bernd Lienhard, corporate vice president and general manager of the client business unit for AMD. “It’s not like we’re deemphasizing the…

1 Lenovo N308 Table PC go.pcworld.com/n308 Are you ready to run Android on a desktop machine? This all-in-one runs Android Jelly Bean 4.2 and is built around an upcoming quad-core Tegra processor. With a 19.5-inch display, a 500GB hard drive, and 2GB of memory, the $450 N308 is designed to be a low-intensity system, with a price to match. 2 EA Titanfall www.titanfall.com Tired of shooters? The Xbox One game Titanfall, due for release on March 11, promises to bring you back into the fold. Created in large part by the team that made Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, this is your standard military shooter—aside from the part where you can call down gigantic mech suits from the sky, clamber in, and terrorize the battlefield as an enormous robot. Oh,…

SCANNING LOADS OF documents can be a complex process that requires solid hardware, plenty of storage (either offline or online), and no small amount of personal dedication. Here’s how to streamline the job. Select the right hardware Most printer manufacturers now produce capable all-inone devices that will give you quality scanning in the same chassis as a color printer, copier, and fax machine, often for $200 or less. PCWorld regularly reviews such multifunction devices (go.pcworld.com/mfpscanners). Consider only devices with a sheet feeder and a duplexer. Otherwise, you may waste a lot of time. Scanning speed should be another prime consideration. The more people who’ll be using the scanner, the faster and more feature-filled you’ll want it to be. Our top-rated Lexmark OfficeEdge Pro5500 (go.pcworld.com/lmpro5500) can scan up to ten single-sided…

Watch the video at go.pcworld.com/xboxvid THE XBOX ONE (xbox.com) aims high. It promises to be your always-on living-room hub that plays nicely with your cable box, runs the latest and greatest games, streams, shares, and makes video calls. That it succeeds at all is somewhat amazing, though in some ways Microsoft has bitten off more than it can chew. The Xbox One is a truly nextgeneration device, enjoyable by a wide audience without alienating the core enthusiasts, but its software lacks polish and refinement. Maybe you don’t have a cable or satellite subscription. Maybe you’re a cord-cutter, and you get everything you want from Netflix, Hulu Plus, or Amazon Instant Video. Those apps and more are nicely integrated into the Xbox One environment, though it leaves me wanting more. There’s…

A FULLƪFEATURED PHONE system capable of handling multiple phone lines, conference calls, voicemail, and other features can lend a small office a larger and more professional air. But such a system can be expensive and require professional installation. Ooma (http://ooma.com) has a better idea. The company has developed a business-oriented version of its successful home-based VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) system. Ooma Office is a fullfeatured virtual PBX (Private Branch Exchange) that can support multiple phone lines, 5 extensions, and 15 virtual extensions at a very low cost. It also provides excellent voice quality. The Ooma Office starter pack includes a central Ooma base station, two Linx modules, one phone number (you can port your business’s existing phone number for free), an online fax capability, and three physical extensions. The…

HIDDEN INSIDE YOUR LIVE LIFE INTHE CLOUD As our digital lives shift more and more to the cloud, more and more of the Web merges into the desktop. Consider the humble Web browser: Once a mere renderer of static HTML, today’s browsers come chock-full of capabilities that can transform webpages into something downright desktopian. Think I’m laying it on thick? Check out these eight killer features found in modern browsers and see for yourself. Fair warning: When you’re done, any preconceptions you have about the impossibility of living life in a browser may well be shattered. GET 3-D GRAPHICS Today’s browsers take full advantage of hardware acceleration and the powers of WebGL—a JavaScript API (application programming interface) that lets your browser tap your graphics processor—to deliver robust 3D graphics with…

BESIDES BEING DISORDERLY and slow, a cluttered hard drive can pose a security hazard. Here are some tips to help you purge all that dreck from your PC and make your system safer and more responsive. Uninstall unused applications In Windows’ Control Panel, under Programs, click Uninstall a program. A window will display a list of all applications installed on the PC. The list is alphabetical by default; you can click the ‘Publisher’, ‘Installed On’, ‘Size’, or ‘Version’ column heading to sort the list accordingly. To see which software is taking up the most space on your hard drive, sort the list of applications by size. Then remove space-hogging applications that you don’t need or use. Sometimes the built-in Windows uninstall tool leaves traces of applications behind. For a more…

DO YOU KEEP a phone or tablet at the ready when you’re watching television? I do. I imagine that TV executives get giddy at the thought of fans tweeting and liking and otherwise “engaging with the brand,” but I’m mostly just scouring Wikipedia to figure out what aging actors are up to nowadays. The industry calls a phone or tablet used in this way a “secondscreen device.” You can find plenty of third-party apps and services (go.pcworld.com/second) that will work all sorts of dark magic, analyzing audio streams and the like from your television set in an attempt to serve up episode guides and contextualized socialnetworking fluff on your “second screen.” In mid-November 2013, however, Amazon announced Kindle Fire OS 3.1, and Sling Media upgraded its SlingPlayer app to version…

YOUR WIRELESS CARRIER is ripping you off. And it may even be putting your life at risk in the process. For instance, law enforcement agencies have pleaded with phone manufacturers to include “kill switches” to thwart smartphone-driven street crime. But most phones don’t have a kill switch. Why? Including one would eat into profits the carriers make from selling device insurance (go.pcworld.com/killswitch). Though the carriers have no respect for their customers, they do have to compete for our business. So we decided to grade the Big Four and determine which ones have made things a bit easier for consumers and which ones have introduced new annoyances lately. A-T-Mobile In recent times T-Mobile’s occasionally profane chief executive officer, John Legere, has made the carrier wars interesting to people who aren’t device…

LENOVO MAKES A lot of laptops, but the supremely thin ThinkPad X1 Carbon and the notebook/tablet hybrid IdeaPad Yoga 11S have achieved near-icon status. Taking design cues from both models, the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 14 (go.pcworld.com/flex14) is a relatively slim, modestly priced 14-inch laptop. The display pivots 300 degrees, so you can operate the system in tent mode or lay it keyboard-down on your desk to present it to someone sitting across from you. Unlike with the Yoga 11S, however, you can’t flip the Flex 14’s lid all the way back to use it as a tablet. The Flex 14 also echoes the X1 Carbon’s tapered shape, but whereas that Ultrabook measures just 0.7 inch high at its thinnest edge, the Flex 14 is 0.85 inch. Then again, the Flex…

MICROSOFT RECENTLY ACQUIRED Nokia, so it’s curious that Nokia has launched a Windows RT 8.1 tablet that competes directly with Microsoft’s Surface 2. What if the new Nokia Lumia 2520 (go.pcworld.com/lumia2520) is better than the Surface 2? Ultimately, though, that may not matter, since Microsoft just wants happy Windows RT users. The Lumia 2520 is a decidedly un-Surface-like slab of industrial design. Decked out in glossy red plastic, the Lumia 2520 evokes the pop-art whimsy of 1970s product design. Sitting next to the Surface 2, the Lumia tablet looks like Andy Warhol sitting next to Darth Vader. The Lumia’s 10.1-inch screen is dazzling when set at full strength. It’s exactly as thick as the Surface 2, at 0.35 inch, but it weighs a bit less—1.35 pounds to the Surface 2’s…

APRICORN’S AEGIS PORTABLE 3.0 is a handsome 2.5-inch, silver-andblack, USB 3.0 external drive with an integrated cable—and it ships in both hard-drive and SSD flavors. Apricorn (go.pcworld.com/aegis3) thoughtfully shipped us both versions so we could compare them. We saw no outward difference between the SSD test unit (with a 256GB SanDisk SD6SB1M256G1022I) and the hard-drive one (with a 1TB, 2.5-inch Toshiba MQ01ABD100), though the SSD version did weigh an ounce or two less. (Apricorn offers units in other sizes; see the box on the next page.) The Lab ran both models through PCWorld’s 10GB-file stress tests, copying data to and from a 16GB RAM drive, and the differences were as vivid as Apricorn’s advertising claims—at least when writing data to the drives. The 256GB SSD version wrote our single 10GB…

1 Desktop applications The year-long waiting period between the launch of Windows 8 and the release of Windows 8.1 gave us plenty of time to thank the world for desktop applications. Lacking a boot-to-desktop function, the scary, unfamiliar new Start Screen stared us in the face unblinkingly. Fortunately a click to the desktop put us back on safer footing. Hello, Chrome. Hello, HipChat client. Hello, 64-bit Photoshop. Hello games, media players, and sundry other applications and utilities. You all stuck with us when times got tough. 2 IFTTT We’re always on the lookout for workarounds, shortcuts, and ways to get technology to do stuff for us. IFTTT—aka “If This, Then That”—helps automate a multitude of Web services (go.pcworld.com/iftttautomate), so we can take advantage of their abilities without wasting time fiddling…

NO COMPONENT OF your PC is more vulnerable to heat than your graphics card. But if you take the time to refurbish the card safely, it can run like new—or even better than new. Tools of the trade To perform this project successfully, you’ll need a bit of knowhow, a screwdriver (or two) for disassembly, canned air, alcohol, and cotton swabs. You may also need a small brush to whisk away dust and old thermal paste, and some new thermal paste. For this project, I used a several-years-old ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphics card (go.pcworld.com/atihd5870). Though your card will probably be different, the instructions that follow should work with appropriate adjustments. My ATI card uses three different sizes of Phillips-head screws to secure its case bracket, heat sink, and fan…

IN WHAT COULD be one of the more startling reversals since New Coke, Microsoft may bring back a Windows 7–style Start menu in what is currently being called Windows 8.2. Paul Thurrott of WinSuperSite recently reported (go.pcworld.com/win82start) that Windows 8.2, also known as “Threshold,” will include a Start menu, as well as the option for Windows 8 “modern” apps to run on the desktop. As of this writing, Microsoft has yet to confirm the report, and given that rumors suggest Windows 8.2 will be an early-2015 release, the company certainly has time to cancel such a decision (or to redesign the Start menu several times). As a technical achievement, adding a Start menu to Windows 8 would be small potatoes. But if the report is accurate, the move seems to…

A SWITZERLANDƪBASED STANDARDS group wants to stop the madness of having to manage a different charger for every laptop, and will publish a technical specification for universal laptop chargers this year. The specification from the International Electrotechnical Commission will cover “a wide range of notebook computers and laptops,” and will define elements such as the connector plug, safety concerns, and environmental considerations, according to a press release (go.pcworld.com/ieccharger). The IEC already deserves some credit for its role in defining a standard for mobile phones about two years ago, but that effort was largely assisted by the prevalence of Micro-USB connectors in smartphones. Creating a standard for laptop chargers could be trickier. Today’s laptop chargers come in all shapes and sizes, and cater to a wide range of power requirements. For…

SHOPPING ONLINE LETS you dodge crowds, avoid aching feet, and skip the drama of parking at the mall. By staying at home, you also get access to a secret weapon: rebate sites. Such sites work on the principle that retailers will do just about anything—including shelling out cash—to gain paying customers. The rebate sites refer you to a retailer’s website, and if you then make a purchase, the retailer gives them a bonus. To inspire you to go through them, the rebate sites offer you a small portion of that bonus. In other words: free money. If you make large purchases online, and if you can find a rebate site that partners with your chosen retailer, you can earn anything from 1 percent to 45 percent of your money back.…

THANKS TO SIRI and Google Now, we’ve embraced the idea of the smartphone as an aide, and a virtual secretarial pool of apps can do everything from scheduling meetings and paying bills to giving you the day’s box scores. These five apps put the “do” in your to-do lists. 24me iOS; free 24me (twentyfour.me) automates the process of making to-do lists. With help from the Check.me service, 24me integrates with hundreds of U.S. banks and thousands of utility and service providers. By accessing your accounts, it will determine when your bills are due and populate your calendar with reminders. It can link with your social networks to remind you of friends’ birthdays or anniversaries, and suggest gifts and online stores. 24me works with Apple maps, Google maps, or Waze to…

TODAY’S BEST TABLETS emphasize portability, speedy specs, easy access to content, and high-definition screens that let you view anything at any time. Of the tablets available on the market today, we like these five the best. Apple iPad Air How do you improve on a tablet that’s already hugely successful? You lower its weight by a few ounces so that it now weighs only 1 pound. Everything about the iPad Air (go.pcworld.com/ipadair) is a step up from what its predecessors offered. Its battery is smaller, yet its powerful A7 processor improves its energy efficiency. And because it includes the same M7 coprocessor that the iPhone 5s uses, it can monitor motion-sensor data without fully engaging the main processor. It’s thinner, too, so it fits in with the pile of books…

WITH WINDOWS 7 as its operating system, Dell’s Latitude E6540 (go.pcworld.com/e6540) feels like a throwback. Whether that’s a good thing depends on what you’re looking for in a business-class laptop. If you want a comfortable, expandable machine to take the place of a desktop, this might be just the ticket. But you’ll have to contend with a dull, dated design and a high price tag. I’d also recommend a little weight training if you intend to travel with this beast. The E6540 is a big system, measuring 1.3 inches thick and rocking the scale at 6.7 pounds. That leaves plenty of room to accommodate the 15.6-inch screen, a full-size numeric keypad, and a DVD+RW drive. But it doesn’t make for a very travel-friendly laptop. Business users will find this Dell…

Components List Motherboard: Asus A88XM-A Socket FM2 $85 Memory: G. Skill Ripjaws 8GB DDR3-2133 $82 Graphics: XFX Double D R9-280X-TDFD Radeon R9 280X (in two 4GB sticks) $310 Primary storage: Samsung 840 EVO $101 Secondary storage: Western Digital 1TB $55 120GB SSD Caviar Blue 7200-rpm Optical drive: Asus SATA DVD-R $17 Chassis: Rosewill FBM-01-450P Case with 450-watt PSU $50 Operating system: Windows Pro 8.1 64-bit $140 Total cost $980 AMD LOVERS, WE HEAR YOU. After building a $1000 Intelbased Windows 8.1 PC (go.pcworld.com/intelpc), we’ve assembled a $1000 PC around a cheaper, more powerful AMD accelerated processing unit. (See also “AMD’s Kaveri promises improved performance for gaming PCs,” page 20.) Besides describing how to build such a PC, we’ll look at how our Intel-and AMD-based systems performed on benchmark tests. Let’s…

WINDOWS XP IS more than a decade old. Though it may still appear to work fine, it’s broken in many ways—and Microsoft will officially stop supporting it next April. Here are three reasons why you should make the jump from XP now, whether you move up to Windows 7 or to Windows 8. 1. Productivity Windows XP handles applications, email, and browsing reasonably well, but features that debuted in newer versions of Windows can help you work more efficiently. Aero Snap, which appeared in Windows 7, makes maximizing, minimizing, and organizing windows a simple matter of dragging them to the edge of the display—up to maximize, down to minimize, and left or right to snap the window to that half of the display. Using Aero Snap streamlines your work to…