Table of contents for October 2018 in Computer Shopper

It’s late July, and we’re now several weeks into the UK heatwave. I’m looking out on to some very brown grass and being choked by the smoke from another wildfire that has hit my patch of East London. Hopefully by the time you’re reading this, we’ll be back to a typical British summer with plenty of downpours interspersed with a bit of sunshine. Just as the British summer started early this year, the traditional ‘back to school’ shopping season began even before most kids had broken up for their summer holidays. High-street stores were proudly displaying their latest ranges of school uniforms, PE kit and pencil cases from June, in the hope of convincing concerned parents into rushing out to buy the necessaries early in case stocks ran out. I…

Tech pioneer and all-round good egg letters@computershopper.co.uk I’VE BEEN TALKING to my friend Peter the Printer. Peter is ever so upset because someone tried to hack into the accounts package he uses for his business. I had to agree with him that it’s been a wild few days in the wacky world of data security, and being something of an expert in this field, I was able to give him some sound advice. Obviously the most important advice is never to be one of those suckers who lend the crooks a helping hand. I told Peter to count himself lucky he wasn’t caught up in the National Lottery breach. After the latest hack attack on the EuroMillions database, the National Lottery had to warn all 10 million of us players…

Microsoft reveals new cut-price Surface Go hybrid SAY WHAT? WINDOWS 10 HYBRID laptops-cum-tablets started life in the form of the interesting if lacklustre Surface, with its rather limited Windows 10 RT operating system. Since then, Microsoft has improved the Surface range, which now includes the Surface Pro, the MacBook Air rival Surface Laptop, the powerful Surface Book 2 and the big-screen Surface Studio. Now Redmond’s engineers have decided to go after the likes of the iPad Pro with the Surface Go. By the time you read this, the 10in Surface Go hybrid device should be available, with prices starting at £380. That’s considerably less than the fifth-generation Surface Pro, which sits around the £750 mark. That more affordable price means access to the top end Intel processors isn’t forthcoming. But…

Pre-order problems Germany has moved to block product and game pre-orders with vague release windows, saying they aren’t consumer-friendly Trailer trip-up Sony accidentally posted the whole of the Khali the Killer film online, instead of just the theatrical trailer TalkTalk’s reputation TalkTalk is the most complained about broadband provider in the UK, according to Ofcom’s figures, having received 29 complaints per 100,000 customers What the Zuck? Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg believes that Holocaust deniers and fake news sites belong on his social network, despite acknowledging the controversy of such content…

London’s Met Police facial recognition trial proves to be a farce THE METROPOLITAN POLICE’S controversial facial recognition trial has proved fruitless, with the force revealing it has resulted in no arrests. The equipment was positioned on a prominent pedestrian bridge in a bid to identify criminals using autonomous technology. Critics asked the Met not to use it and cited human rights laws, believing the use of facial recognition systems constituted an invasion of privacy. But the police went on using the system regardless. However, it didn’t prove to be a particularly useful crime-fighting tool, as Scotland Yard noted the system didn’t contribute to a single arrest, although it remained tight-lipped on how many people were flagged for questioning. “This deployment formed an important part of ongoing trials and a full…

£164 • From www.box.co.uk VERDICT The sleek I1601FWUX will serve you well, as long as you stick to basic tasks PORTABLE MONITORS ARE and will probably continue to be niche products, but it’s a perfectly valid niche: in a desktop setup, they can be an inexpensive means to give yourself a second screen, and at the office they can be great for showing something in a meeting without needing to pass around your laptop. The AOC I1601FWUX is one of the sleekest portable monitors yet. It weighs just 824g, is 8.5mm thin, and gets both power and video signal from a single USB Type-C port. It evokes the Asus MB169C+, which is just as thin, and has the same 1.5in screen size and 1,020x1,080 resolution. However, AOC’s monitor is both…

£310 • From www.ebuyer.com VERDICT A lower price saves this M.2 SSD, which isn’t as fast as expected, from a mediocre fate NEARLY TWO YEARS on, the Samsung 960 Evo (Shopper 349) and 960 Pro (Shopper 348) remain the yardsticks for consumer NVMe storage. The 960 Pro has been the outright fastest M.2 SSD since its release, while the 960 Evo has been an even more attractive option by combining almost-as-high speeds with a more affordable price. Their 2018 replacements, the 970 Evo and 970 Pro, come in a similar vein: the 970 Pro claims slightly higher sequential read and write speeds, and is more expensive. Its 512GB model, for instance, costs £203, whereas a 500GB 960 Evo is £160. (DON’T) GO PRO However, the 970 Evo still declares itself…

£699 • From www.johnlewis.com VERDICT Samsung’s slender soundbar and wireless subwoofer combine to present dynamic 5.1 sound without the bulk SAMSUNG IS CONSTANTLY adding new features and technology to its range of soundbars. Its recent HW-MS650 (Shopper 367), for instance, harnessed the company’s distortion-cancelling technology to great effect. The all-new HW-N650, however, attempts to reach similar heights without the aid of such fancy tech. This premium soundbar measures 1,100mm wide, stands 59mm high and is 100mm deep, which makes it noticeably slimmer than the HW-MS650. This makes it easy to accommodate in most living room spaces: you can pop it in front of your TV without it taking up too much room on your AV stand, and it can be wall-mounted, too. MULTITASKER Usability is a highlight. The HW-N650 comes…

£199 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The 1440p-shooting Hero is a very tempting alternative to more expensive GoPro cameras HERE’S SOME GOOD news for anyone searching for an action camera on a budget: there’s a new entry-level GoPro, simply named the GoPro Hero, and it’s not even a cut-down, display-deprived model like the Hero 5 Session. It looks and handles much more like the full-fat Hero 6 Black (Shopper 362), even if it only shoots at a resolution of 1440p at 60fps instead of reaching 4K. On the outside, the Hero is pretty much identical. It has the exact same dimensions of 45x62x32mm, as well as USB Type-C ‘supercharger’ port, a Micro HDMI port for video output and a removable battery. The power and shutter buttons remain in their familiar places…

£579 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The BlackBerry Key2 struggles to make a case for a keyboard phone revival, despite some improvements FOLLOWING ON FROM the BlackBerry KeyOne (Shopper 355), one of 2017’s surprise Android hits, the Key2 is a natural progression: the touchscreen has stayed at 4.5in, but otherwise the Key2 is slimmer and more attractive, and it receives a new dual-camera setup, a faster Snapdragon 660 processor and an improved version of the KeyOne’s signature physical keyboard. The handy, customisable convenience key also makes a return, and since this is meant to combine classic BlackBerry functionality with the trappings of a modern handset, most of the usual smartphone staples are present and correct, too. The Key2 isn’t water- or dust-resistant but it does have microSD expansion, and the 4.5in…

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 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…

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

01 A smart thermostat can save you a lot of money by intelligently controlling your heating. Most smart heating devices are designed to be used with hot water central heating systems, with the boiler directly controlled by the system. These typically require a relay to be wired into your boiler, with a wireless thermostat giving you direct control. Smartphone apps then tie into the system to give you remote control. While it’s possible to fit controls yourself, you may want to pay an experienced plumber to do the job: expect to pay around £150 for a typical installation. 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 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…

£1,649 • From www.dell.com VERDICT Thinner, lighter and faster, the new XPS 13 is an impressive Windows 10 laptop THE LATEST INCARNATION of the XPS 13 is Dell’s first real attempt at a full redesign in years. Besides coming equipped with various Intel Coffee Lake CPU options, the 2018 XPS 13 is the most portable model yet, and also comes in a new white and gold colour scheme. While you can still opt for the classic black and grey colour scheme, to our eyes the white look is absolutely beautiful, and there are functional benefits to the overall redesign as well: as we plugged in the charger, we noticed a small white LED that illuminates the cable and a small LED strip running along the front strip of the laptop.…

£1,580 • From www.lenovo.com VERDICT Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Carbon is a superior business-class ultrabook with a lofty asking price LENOVO IS AN old hand at business notebooks and has been producing top-class laptops and convertibles for years. However, with the rise of devices such as the Dell XPS 13 and HP Spectre 13 – laptops that aren’t necessarily built specifically for enterprise users, but cope very well in an office environment – Lenovo is facing competition like never before. Not that you’d know it to look at the firm’s fifth-generation ThinkPad X1. It may be Lenovo’s thinnest, most powerful laptop to date, but it still looks like a ThinkPad of old. Perhaps that’s not such a bad thing in a world that seems to value glamour before everything else. At…

£1,699 • From www.dell.com VERDICT Immense power and a fascinating keyboard design help make this the best convertible laptop we’ve ever seen DELL HAS NEVER shied away from Windows-powered greatness. In recent years alone the Texas-based firm has delivered two bona fide classics, the XPS 13 and the larger-screened XPS 15 alternative. Both these conventional ultraportables have also been given the rotating convertible treatment, but while the XPS 13 2-in-1 has been around for a while, we’ve only just got our hands on the XPS 15 2-in-1. Not that such a wait was down to extensive design reworks: imagine the XPS 13 2-in-1, but a couple of inches bigger, and that’s exactly what this new convertible looks like. The brushed lid is still made of the same anodised aluminium with…

£649 • From www.johnlewis.com VERDICT Samsung’s Galaxy Book is affordable, compact and refined. At this price, it’s the Windows hybrid to beat SAMSUNG ISN’T THE first name that comes to mind when thinking of affordable hardware, but its Galaxy Book hybrid is one of the better 2-in-1s you can get this far below £1,000. Like its spiritual predecessor, the Galaxy TabPro S (Shopper 346), the Galaxy Book is a Windows-powered productivity device rather than an entertainment-focused Android slate, and comes in both 10.6in and 12in varieties. We reviewed the smaller model. SPACE AGE If you’ve seen the TabPro S, then the Galaxy Book will look very familiar indeed: put the two side by side and you’d struggle to tell them apart, aside from the Galaxy Book’s more powerful hardware making…

£129 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The Slim’s rock-bottom price is alluring, but you soon learn that you get what you paid for HERE’S SOMETHING YOU might not expect to see among a bunch of budget laptops: something with, outwardly at least, all the trappings of a sleek ultraportable. And yet the Slim costs an almost laughably low £129 – even by the standards of the Acer Aspire 3 and Asus Chromebook Flip C101PA, that’s absolutely dirt cheap. If you were to stencil an Apple logo on the lid, you’d be hard-pushed to tell the difference between the Slim and a MacBook Air. Just like the Apple machine, the Slim is built from matt-silver aluminium, has chamfered edges and softly rounded corners all round; even the Air’s trademark wedge-shaped side-profile and…

£700 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT Thanks to its AMD Ryzen processor, the Swift 3 is enticingly powerful – we just wish its battery lasted longer ALTHOUGH THE SWIFT 3 is the second-lowest-ranking member of Acer’s clamshell line-up, it’s no plasticky entry-level laptop: it has a 1080p, 15.6in IPS display, an attractive and durable aluminium build, and even an integrated fingerprint reader. It’s also one of the vanguard units for AMD’s mobile Ryzen processors, challenging Intel’s dominance with a quad-core, 2GHz AMD Ryzen 5 2500U. The Swift 3 weighs the same as the Aspire 5, at 2.1kg, but comes in a little slimmer at 18.9mm. It’s still more on the hefty side than something we’d want to lug about in a bag every day, but otherwise it’s a well-designed laptop, with…

£1,150 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT This laptop can handle 1080p gaming with ease, but it’s let down by a poor-quality display NOT MANY LAPTOPS below £1,200 can offer a smooth, slick Full HD gaming experience; modern integrated graphics might be able to cope with less demanding games on lower settings, but for something that will get you consistently high frame rates on the best settings, you’ll need something with a dedicated graphics chip. Enter Dell’s Inspiron 15 7000, which comes in an overwhelming range of configurations. We tested one with an Intel Core i7-7700HQ processor, a 4GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti GPU, 16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD, coupled with a 1TB hard disk. The Inspiron 15 7000 looks quite stylish, with a tasteful matt black and red…

Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire might prefer to be known for its industrial heritage of textiles and clog making or its current artisan culture but, in recent years, its claim to fame has been the catastrophic floods of 2012 and 2015. Now, flood prevention initiatives, including a monitoring system utilising The Things Network, aim to make these all-too-frequent events a thing of the past. The system, which covers key sites in the Upper Calder Valley, is based around Multitech Conduit LoRaWAN gateways with cellular backhaul. These gateways serve water level sensors in the valley, as well as those that monitor streams in the surrounding hills. This isn’t an official Environment Agency initiative, but a collaborative project supported by local business AB Open, Flood Network and community-led natural flood management initiative,…

Excel is out of line I am completely baffled. I’m using Windows 10 and Microsoft Office XP Small Business Edition 2002. When I open any of my existing spreadsheets, try to enter numeric data and press Enter, the spreadsheet immediately closes. When I re-open it, it shows the recovery items. I attach a copy of one of my spreadsheets. I am trying to enter into boxes B12 and G12. I can enter alphabetical data OK outside of the Bordered fields and it will accept a numerical entry. I have copied the spreadsheet on to a thumb drive. I can open it and it operates perfectly when I load it on my laptop, which has exactly the same version of XP Small Business 2002 and Windows 10. I’ve checked online and,…

Clive Webster has been tinkering with computers ever since Windows 98 forced him to manually install his drivers clive@computershopper.co.uk WE’RE NOT MUCH closer to the promised nirvana of teleworking than we were 20 years ago. But poor broadband, cabin fever and a confusing mish-mash of software hasn’t stopped many of us trying. Being able to work when and where you want is just too appealing. The main problems when coordinating a team of people that can’t physically meet every day are organising the workflow and keeping everyone up to date. Thankfully, there is a free service that solves these problems rather well. THE MAIN PROBLEM with distributed groups of people all working on the same project is organising yourselves. Where previously this might have required constant meetings and copious notes…

letters@computershopper.co.uk Don’t mine me @ Back in April this year, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) was infected via a third-party app with crypto-currency mining software. Anybody visiting the ICO site without good anti-virus software would have been infected via their web browser. Those unlucky people will see very little sign of the infection other than a slight slowdown. Given the recent updates to Windows 10, a slight drop in performance may have been attributed to that. However, their GPU/CPU usage rate will now be very close to 100%. Did the recent reviews of internet security software (Shopper 366) test these programs against such attacks in addition to the usual viruses, and what is the best method of detecting and disinfecting a computer that has been compromised? Dave Sheppard ● We…

JUST OVER A year ago, Google appeared to be doing the right thing. It announced that it would no longer scan the content of personal emails in order to customise messages. The company explained the move in a blog post, talking about how it wanted to improve privacy and confidence in its services, even the free ones. Writing in the blog, Diane Greene, CEO of Google Cloud, said, “Gmail users can remain confident that Google will keep privacy and security paramount as we continue to innovate”. What the post neglected to mention was that its terms and conditions specifically allow for third parties to do what Google has stated it won’t do. Even worse, it has come out that not only have third-party apps been reading your data, actual people…

For the wallet Previously, if you wanted a cheap GoPro, your best option was the Hero 5 Session. Its 4K recording support is great, but without a touchscreen or direct video output, the Session has always been trickier to use than the flagship Black range. Thankfully, then, the approach with the £200 GoPro Hero has been basically to give it the same design as the Hero 6 Black, including the useful touchscreen and Micro HDMI port. 4K support is gone, which is a shame, but even at 1,920x1,440, the Hero’s smooth, 60fps video and detailed audio recording are pretty special for a budget action camera. (Page 41) For the shelf Apologies to physical keyboard purists, but the BlackBerry Key2 needs more to compete with 2018’s best smartphones. Compared to other…

Algeria Exams blackout Cheats never prosper, as the saying goes, but to ensure they never do, Algeria has imposed a nationwide internet blackout to prevent pupils from using the web to look up answers to tricky questions. After the start of each exam, the country shuts off internet access for around an hour, in a bid to stop exam questions popping up online before students have sat them. Algeria had previously asked ISPs to block access to social networking sites to prevent any sharing of answers during exam times. But that never happened, so the Algerian authorities decided to take tougher measures. India In defence of net neutrality While the US may have killed net neutrality laws that force internet companies to treat all online traffic equally, India has taken…

“I don’t want to sound callous for people who are at risk of losing their jobs to automation, but that’s the history of civilisation”Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov warns the impact of AI on humans is inevitable “We know that the ability to block someone is important – and we’d like to apologise and explain what happened”Facebook’s chief privacy officer Erin Egan’s mea culpa over a bug that unblocks blocked users “The same team that delivered unprecedented performance with Xbox One X is deep into architecting the next Xbox consoles”Xbox Boss Phil Spencer confirms that a new Microsoft games console is in the works “52 years of hurt hasn’t stopped me dreaming! I hope it doesn’t go to penalties again in the quarter-final, though. My circuits can’t take the…

£250 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT It’s brilliantly affordable and fine for basic computing, but this tiny Chrome OS system has some practicality issues ASUS’S CHROMEBOX SERIES has been the last word in desktop Chrome OS devices for years (not that there’s been a great deal of competition), and while they’ve never been particular performance-focused, Asus has decreed it time for a hardware upgrade. The Chromebox 3, resultingly, looks only mildly dissimilar to the Chromebox 2, while improving brainpower with a mix of Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake Intel processors. We tested the entry-level model, comprising a dual-core Celeron 3865U chip, 4GB of RAM and a 32GB SSD. For £450, you can have a Core i3-7100U CPU with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, while £570 gets you a Core…

£70 • From www.scan.co.uk VERDICT It’s better value than most H-series cases, but the H500 still isn’t NZXT’s best work IS SOMEONE AT NZXT a Shopper reader? We’ve previously complained that the component maker’s H700i (Shopper 361) and H400i (Shopper 363) PC cases had limited their own appeal, specifically by massively inflating prices via the inclusion of dubiously useful ‘smart devices’ – essentially souped-up fan hubs with RGB lighting and cooling controls built-in. In practice, the smart device doesn’t do much a decent piece of system monitoring software can’t do, leaving you with an otherwise-good case that nonetheless costs more than it should. At least someone who’s aired this grievance is being listened to, as you now have the choice to buy NZXT’s latest H-series mid-tower either with the smart…

£260 • From www.morecomputers.com VERDICT The WorkForce Pro WF-C5790DWF is a brilliant small business inkjet MFP… but not the best EPSON’S WORKFORCE PRO WF-C5790DWF proves that inkjets can compete with colour lasers in an office. Aimed at busy home offices or moderately busy small businesses, the WF-C5790DWF is a four-in-one multifunction peripheral (MFP) with two paper inputs, support for wired and wireless networking and duplex (double-sided) everything. Its specs are a good match for colour laser MFPs at this price, but what’s the reality? There’s no doubt that inkjets have some advantages over laser printers: they’re quieter, run at lower temperatures, and use much less power in operation; we measured a peak of 29W, about 3% of what we’d expect from a laser equivalent. Inkjets are usually more compact, too,…

£430 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Sennheiser revives a classic design with a more modern, bass-rich sound HOLLYWOOD TELLS US that remaking classic films is big business, and the same approach can apply to classic hi-fi products, if the HD 660 S headphones are any indication. Essentially, Sennheiser has taken the design DNA of its legendary trio of open-backed headphones, the HD 580 Precision, HD 600 and HD 650, and added the latest driver tech. So, although the HD 660 S look familiar, they’re looking to add some meat to the mid-range and low frequencies, while trying to retain the beautifully detailed, natural-sounding balance of these classic headphones. Sennheiser has also made the HD 660 S less demanding of partnering amplification, so you can feasibly connect and listen from a phone…

Chillblast Leggera Ultrabook for students chillblast.com/leggera £999 The Chillblast Leggera is a slimline aluminium Ultrabook that’s small enough to carry everywhere you go comfortably. Its svelte 1.3kg design belies its incredibly powerful components: an Intel Core i7 CPU, 1TB M.2 SSD and 8GB of DDR4 RAM. Then, to top it all off, a battery that lasts all day. Students save 5% off the £999 price with code STUDPUB18. Apple iPad apple.com/uk FROM £319 The new 9.7-inch iPad and Apple Pencil (£89) give students the ability to be even more creative and productive, from sketching ideas and jotting down handwritten notes to marking up screenshots. For extra protection, consider buying a keyboard/case combo too. iiyama ProLite XB2474HS-B1 amazon.co.uk £129.99 The iiyama XB2474HS-B1 is an ideal solution for teachers and students, featuring…

£699 • From www.htc.com/uk VERDICT HTC’s latest flagship follows the crowd, but mostly manages to compete DON’T WORRY, YOU haven’t missed the launch of the HTC U12, because such a phone doesn’t exist. Bucking convention for smartphone manufacturers releasing a more expensive, Plus-branded version of their main flagship, HTC has decided to jump in with its best effort and leave it at that. Unlike the previous U11 (Shopper 355), the U12+ brings things up to date with a larger 18:9 ratio display. It’s a gorgeous 6in panel running at a resolution of 2,880x1,440, and is framed by minuscule bezels so that the screen – which is notch-free – stretches almost right up to the edges. GLOSSING THE LINE The back of the phone is less accomplished. The awkward placement of…

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 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 Media streamers have come a long way from the hard disk-based set-top boxes of a few years ago. They now come in two main forms: flash drive-sized dongles that plug directly into the HDMI port in the back of your TV, and larger microconsoles that sit under it. Whichever model you choose, it will stream content from the internet rather than storing media files locally. 02 Most streamers use their own operating system, which you can navigate with a bundled remote control, but Google’s Chromecast dongle requires a paired smartphone, tablet or laptop to stream content on the big screen. If you’re looking to set up Netflix for someone who doesn’t have a smartphone, buy a standalone streamer such as a Roku or Amazon Fire TV device. 03 A…

01 Laser printers used to be much more expensive than inkjets and were typically restricted to offices. They are now much more affordable, however, and offer several benefits over inkjets, including lower per-page printing costs and faster print speeds. 02 A decent laser printer will typically cost around £80, and will happily print hundreds of black-and-white pages per hour. If documents are your priority, you’ll want a high minimum speed and low print costs. However, you’ll probably be limited to black-and-white printing at this price. 03 Although you can still buy single-function laser printers, multifunction peripherals (MFPs) are now far more common. These models can scan and photocopy documents as well as print them, and some of them also have fax capabilities. Laser MFPs start from around £200. 04 Heavy-duty…

01 You don’t have to spend much to buy a decent graphics card that can drive multiple monitors. The AMD Radeon RX 550 costs about £100, for example, and while it isn’t suited to playing the latest games in Full HD, it is perfect for watching videos, browsing the web and playing basic games. 02 You’ll need to spend more money if you want to play the latest games. A good mid-range gaming graphics card is the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060, which is powerful enough to play all modern games at Full HD resolution. High-powered cards tend to be more expensive, so expect to pay over £400 if you want to play games in Ultra HD at the highest quality settings. 03 Check that your chosen card has the graphics…

£1,500 • From www.laptopsdirect.co.uk VERDICT The ZenBook 3 Deluxe looks good and runs well, but is too expensive to fully recommend THE ZENBOOK 3 Deluxe is a follow-up to one of Asus’s better laptops, the ZenBook 3 (Shopper 350). Featuring a larger, 14in screen, more ports and a handful of other improvements, the ZenBook 3 Deluxe is a premium ultraportable, and it certainly looks like one. While many manufacturers opt for an understated, business-like black or silver colour scheme for their sleekest laptops, Asus has done the opposite, cladding the ZenBook 3 Deluxe in a rich, midnight-blue chassis with gold detailing, just like the original ZenBook 3. Not only is this significantly more eye-catching than other, more common colour schemes, it also makes the device feel pleasingly extravagant without being…

£1,199 • From store.google.com VERDICT A beautifully designed laptop with plenty of power, but it won’t be flexible enough for everyone CHROME OS LAPTOPS aren’t all the dirt-cheap, plasticky clamshells they once were. Now we have the likes of the Google Pixelbook, a staggering bit of design work at just 10.3mm thick with a distinctive, hard-edged profile. Make no mistake; this is the type of laptop that you immediately want. There’s not much room on a chassis this thin, so you get just two USB Type-C ports. They’re Thunderbolt 3 models, however, so can be used with converters to hook the Pixelbook up to an external screen. Of course, the Pixelbook will also elicit gasps when the price is revealed: it starts at £999, and can go up to £1,699…

£450 • From www.very.co.uk VERDICT This budget Windows hybrid has some good qualities, but fails to excite ACER’S LIQUID-COOLED Switch 5 seemed as if it could be a viable low-cost alternative to more expensive detachable hybrids, but a combination of small issues meant that it was ultimately wiser to just spend a little extra. Perhaps the Switch 3, which ditches some of the 5’s fancy features (including liquid cooling) in pursuit of an even lower price, will have more luck. It’s mostly a well-built machine, and feels reassuringly solid, even if it’s rather chunky by 2-in-1 standards: with the keyboard attached, it’s a whole 16.2mm thick. Sadly, there’s one problem it can’t shrug off, and that’s the metal bar-style kickstand. KNOW WHEN TO FOLD The bar itself has some literal…

£1,300 • From www.lenovo.com VERDICT This ultra-thin convertible has an imperfect screen but brilliant design, performance and battery life CONVERTIBLE LAPTOPS COULD have been an ill-fated concept when they first started popping up some years ago: they have a similar appeal of versatility to detachable 2-in-1s of the Microsoft Surface Pro variety, but the inability to remove the keyboard (rather than simply flipping it around the back of the screen) means they tend to make better laptops than tablets. Lenovo, however, has played a big part in helping convertibles stay relevant, regularly updating its Yoga line with genuinely great products, such as the Yoga Book (Shopper 348) and the original Yoga 900 (Shopper 344). More recently, it’s launched the 13.9in Yoga 920, the Yoga 900’s replacement. It’s a bit more…

£300 • From www.ebuyer.com VERDICT A pleasantly potent clamshell that’s held back by a nasty keyboard and trackpad EVEN JUST A few hundred quid can net you all kinds of devices, but we suspect that the Aspire 3 is close to what most people will imagine when they hear the words ‘budget laptop’. This is not a compact hybrid or an ultraportable: it’s big, heavy (at 2.1kg, more than the Gigabyte Aero 15X gaming laptop) and built from thin plastic throughout. We wouldn’t say it’s ugly, however. The cross-hatch effect on the lid exudes a certain charm, and despite what the weight would suggest, it’s not too thick; 21.6mm when closed is reasonable enough. Still, carrying it around can feel like a chore, and it’s not particularly well made. The…

£199 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT A bona fide 2-in-1 bargain, the 12X64 balances low speed with a Full HD touchscreen and bundled keyboard WE’VE ALREADY LOOKED at a couple of affordable detachable-style 2-in-1s, the Acer Switch 3 and the Samsung Galaxy Book, but you may wish to go even cheaper. If so, the Linx 12X64 might be just the thing, combining a removable keyboard with a 12.5in, Full HD tablet for a touch under £200. Admittedly, it’s uninspiring in the design department. The 12X64’s hard plastic shell is bland and nowhere near as attractive as the Switch 3, or even the Galaxy Book, which is uncharacteristically cheap-looking to start with. We do, however, like the kickstand, which is made out of aluminium. It’s fully adjustable, so you’re not forced to…

£3,000 • From uk-store.acer.com VERDICT It’s as powerful and portable as gaming laptops come; if the competition wasn’t so much cheaper, we’d recommend the Triton 700 FIRST UP IN the battle of the thin gaming laptops is Acer’s Predator Triton 700. At £3,000 it’s easily the most expensive of the contenders on test here, and since it weighs 2.6kg it’s also the second-heaviest after the Dell Inspiron 15 7000. What, then, does it have to offer? The most immediately striking thing is the design under the lid. The trackpad initially looks like it’s gone missing, but it’s actually incorporated into the long strip of Corning Gorilla Glass that runs between the keyboard and the bottom of the screen. This does have its complications, for the simple reason that the panel…

£2,400 • From www.scan.co.uk VERDICT High performance and a brilliant display overpower the foibles of this skinny gaming notebook THE ORIGINAL GIGABYTE Aero 15 (Shopper 354) was among the very best of the slimline gaming laptops that popped up early last year, which is why we don’t mind the new Aero 15X resembling more of a Coffee Lake refresh than a brand-new device. Even so, there are other upgrades besides the hexa-core, 12-thread Core i7-8750H. Most important is the GTX 1070 Max-Q graphics chip, which runs at lower clock speeds than the desktop-grade GTX 1070 in exchange for a more efficient TDP, but even this should be a step up from the GTX 1060-equipped Aero 15 we reviewed in 2017. The 3,840x2,160 resolution option is also available immediately, rather than…

If you fancy getting some experience of sensor applications via The Things Network, you can start with only a modest financial investment. Setting up your own gateway is reasonably expensive but, if there’s already a gateway within range – check the coverage maps at www.thethingsnetwork.org – you can start sensing the environment with a single-board computer for just a few pounds. Many single-board computers have Wi-Fi connectivity and a few provide a cellular interface, but increasingly, LoRaWAN-enabled products are appearing on the market. We expect prices to drop further, perhaps significantly, but investing in a Seeeduino LoRaWAN (£29 from www.mouser.co.uk) would be a good way to start your voyage of discovery now. This Arduino-compatible board has a 48MHz ATSAMD21G18, 32-bit ARM Cortex M0+ processor, with 32KB SRAM and 256KB flash…

Where’s my NAS gone? I’ve got a five-year-old laptop, which came with Windows 8. I upgraded it to Windows 10 as soon as it came out, and it’s been through several updates since. Recently I’d been struggling to free up space on its small drive, and I’d been thinking that perhaps it was time to reinstall it from scratch. Then, stupidly, I downloaded a utility that came with loads of junkware, and that was the final straw. I reinstalled, wiped the hard drive, and everything went without a hitch until it came to restoring my network connection. If I go into the Network section in File Explorer I can see our other PC, but I can’t see our network-attached storage (NAS) drive. It’s definitely there: I can access it from…

Photographer, musician, sound engineer, designer and video producer Ben Pitt guides you through a multimedia project ben@computershopper.co.uk VIDEO IS OFTEN described as moving images, but that’s only half the story. The soundtrack is just as important. Indecipherable dialogue is a common problem with amateur videos, and it requires some careful attention to overcome this challenge. Meanwhile, the soundtrack has the potential to convey extra layers of meaning: background sounds that give a sense of where the scene is set, sound effects that bring the environment to life and music that rouses an emotional response from viewers. Whether you’re shooting home videos or ambitious dramatic productions, this tutorial will help you to achieve high-quality recordings while shooting video. ON LOCATION There’s a fundamental problem with video cameras. The ideal location for…

High-street blues @ Madeline Bennett discusses the demise of high street retailers (Rants & Raves, Shopper 366), offering an alternative reason to online shopping. However, my recent experience of buying a washing machine highlights one of the major issues of today’s retail environment. I went to our local Currys; where else can you buy a washing machine these days? As I walked through the door I was immediately greeted with an ‘Are you all right there?’, which seems to be Currys speak for ‘can I help you?’. I hadn’t even got four yards into the shop. After perusing the various washers we decided on two possibles. I looked around for a salesperson – none! I walked around the entire store and saw three: one immediately darted into the stockroom as…

James Archer RANTS THANKS TO THE reliable journalistic tool of unconfirmed leaks, we now know that Nvidia’s next-generation GeForce graphics cards may (or may not) be called the GTX 1180, GTX 1170 and the GTX 1160. This saddens me, if only because it reminds me how rubbish the technology industry is at naming things. In fact, there are several different schools of rubbishness: the first, exemplified by Nvidia here, is that of the number salad. Something like ‘GTX 1180’ looks short and sweet on paper, but try sounding it out: that’s eight syllables from only seven characters. As far as awkward pronunciations go, that’s lifetime achievement material. The second approach is just to give successive products the exact same name with no distinguishing onomastic features whatsoever. Samsung is particularly bad…

Dust buster Apple has quietly added a membrane around the butterfly key mechanism of its new 2018 MacBook Pros to stop the keys failing because of dust, crumbs and grime getting stuck in them Retro remake Nintendo might have a Classic Mini reboot of its GameCube console in the works, going by the trademarks the firm has recently registered Robotic eSports athletes Google’s DeepMind artificial intelligence team have created a system that can play competitive online game Quake III just like humans Harder, stronger, glassier Corning has boasted its Gorilla Glass 6 can help smartphones survive up to 15 one-metre drops by butterfingered folks…

£850 • From www.argos.co.uk VERDICT It’s got the latest parts, but the Erazer P66019 has the classic problem of there being something better for similar money THE LAST TWO Medion Erazer PCs we’ve reviewed, the Erazer P4408 D (Shopper 361) and Erazer X5361 G (Shopper 362), were great value if you primarily cared about gaming performance. Otherwise, they felt somewhat old hat, opting for last-gen processors and relying on mechanical hard disks for storage. Therefore, we’re pleased to see the brand-new Erazer P66019 getting with the times. At last there’s an Intel Coffee Lake chip: the Core i5-8400, which offers a full six cores and a clock boost up to 4GHz. While there’s still a 1TB hard disk, the main drive is an M.2 SSD, which should speed things up.…

£110 • From www.scan.co.uk VERDICT If you don’t mind some cable tidying, this is a desirable AIO watercooler that blends efficient chilling with RGB flair WHETHER YOU APPRECIATE its boldness or are repulsed by its showiness, there’s no doubting that RGB lighting is here to stay. Swathes of the recent Computex show in Taiwan were bathed in the rainbow glow of fans, cases and motherboards alike, and one small part of this light show was the Castle 240 RGB, which we’ve been testing just in time for its UK release. It’s a fairly straightforward all-in-one (AIO) watercooler for the most part. There’s a set of two 120mm fans, an average-width 240mm radiator to attach them to and a copper-bottomed CPU block. That leaves it up to the fully addressable RGB…

£100 • From www.richersounds.com VERDICT This portable DAC might be appreciated by some, but for most people it’s a luxury masquerading as a necessity CYRUS MADE A big splash last year with its soundKey USB digital-to-analogue converter (DAC), a product that built upon the firm’s knowledge of sound to bring cleaner audio to the masses through a stick about as long as your little finger. Now, the company is back at it again, relaunching the soundKey as a PC gaming peripheral. But is this just another attempt to prey on gamers who don’t know any better? We’re inclined to say it is. For the uninitiated, a USB DAC is an external audio-processing device designed to free your headphones from the noisy electrical signals running through your PC; the kind that…

£2,499 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT Sharp design and superlative processing, but a slight lack of brightness holds it back UNLIKE MANY RIVAL TV manufacturers, Sony has kept its panel options open, embracing both OLED and LED LCD technologies in its Bravia lineup. We’ve seen a great recent addition on the LCD side with the KD-55XF9005 (Shopper 366), and now there’s a new OLED model in the KD-55AF8. On paper, its specifications are almost identical to last year’s Sony A1, including a UHD OLED panel, the top-of-the-range X1 Extreme picture processor, the Android Smart TV platform, Acoustic Surface technology (which lets the screen act as a speaker) and HDR support for HDR10, HLG and Dolby Vision. The main difference is in the KD-55AF8’s design, which is wonderfully minimalist. The OLED panel…

£590 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT A return to form, the LG G7 offers excellent all-round performance at a reasonable price WE WERE INITIALLY very impressed by last year’s LG G6 (Shopper 353), not least because it was the first high-end phone to feature an 18:9 screen. However, it quickly became somewhat irrelevant in the flagship arms race, for one reason: the Korean manufacturer made the mistake of sticking with the Snapdragon 821 chip, where all its rivals equipped their flagships with the faster, more power-efficient Snapdragon 835. This time around, LG has taken a more conservative approach, releasing the LG G7 ThinQ after many of its rivals, and it has included the very best processor it possibly can in the Snapdragon 845. The question is, does that make the G7…

£186 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The Forerunner 235 offers oodles of options, but accuracy can be off the mark AWKWARDLY, THE FORERUNNER 235 serves to demonstrate not just why Garmin’s reputation for quality running watches is so richly deserved, but also how tenuous this position at the top actually is, and how easily the company could be knocked off its perch by the right device. Looks-wise, the Forerunner 235 does a good job of juggling the demands of fitness tracker and regular watch. That is to say, it combines a decent-sized 1.77in screen into a circular frame. It’s chunky and definitely more running watch than fashion item, but this isn’t like walking around the office with a Polar M430 (Shopper 363) or TomTom Spark 3 on your wrist: it just…

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

01 A network-attached storage (NAS) device lets you store documents, media, and other files on its hard disks so you can share them with other devices on your network. Some have disks already installed, while others are empty enclosures into which you install your own disks. Buying an empty NAS can often be the more cost-effective option, as they’re usually less expensive and give you the freedom to add disks at a later date. You should buy one with a Gigabit Ethernet interface, as these provide the highest transfer speeds. To use a NAS device at these speeds, you’ll need computers with Gigabit Ethernet network adaptors and a Gigabit Ethernet switch or router. Computers with Fast Ethernet adaptors can still access the NAS device, but only at the much slower…

Chat and Communication UPDATED Evernote 6.13.13.7425 Store your notes, ideas and plans in the cloud, and synchronise them between computers. Mailbird 2.5.8 A free desktop email client for Windows. Miranda IM 0.10.80 Chat with friends across multiple messaging platforms, including AIM, Facebook, IRC and MSN, all from one simple interface. UPDATED Skype for Windows 8.25.0.05 Make internet voice and video calls for free, and buy credit to make calls to mobiles and landlines. UPDATED Telegram 1.3.9 This free IM app synchronises your conversations across multiple devices, and can spruce up chats with stickers and GIFs. UPDATED WhatsApp Desktop 0.2.9998 A free PC and Mac version of the popular messaging app, letting you chat from your desktop. Customisation iolo System Mechanic Free 17.0.1 Speed up your system with iolo’s PC optimisation…

£900 • From www.johnlewis.com VERDICT Slender design, impressive performance and a superb fingerprint sensor make this 13.3in laptop a cracking buy HERE’S SOMETHING YOU don’t see in an ultraportable every day: a discrete graphics card. With so many desirable slimline laptops around, Asus has chosen this as the ZenBook 13’s standout feature and includes it in all available specs. We tested one of the cheaper models, with an Intel Core i5-8250U, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. It’s not as plush as Asus’s other great ultraportable, the ZenBook 3 Deluxe, but the ZenBook 13 is still a looker. Gentle curves and anodised metal stretch around the chassis, the trackpad is encircled with a silver trim, and the glossy coating across the ZenBook 13’s lid looks stunning. At 13.9mm thick…

£1,349 • From www.johnlewis.com VERDICT This updated ultraportable remains a class act, but its battery life is disappointingly short THE ORIGINAL HP Spectre 13 (Shopper 345) wasn’t just a brilliant laptop; its balance of swish looks, light weight and high performance set the standard that other ultraportables would have to follow. Two years later, there’s finally a new model, with updated internals and a flashy 4K display. This Spectre 13 looks every bit as gorgeous as the first, with pale gold detailing on the hinge and surrounding the edges. Every aspect of the design is fabulous: the ceramic white, carbon fibre and aluminium chassis is reassuringly sturdy and, at a mere 10.4mm with the lid closed, it’s both thinner and lighter than even the Apple MacBook Pro (Shopper 356). Relegated…

£1,300 • From www.box.co.uk VERDICT The ZenBook Flips S is an incredibly thin convertible that packs in the features BUILDING ON LAST year’s ZenBook Flip UX360CA (Shopper 345), the ZenBook Flip S is a truly gorgeous machine to behold. Asus’s main selling point for the 13.3in laptop is its ludicrously thin design but, despite the fact that it’s only 10.9mm thick (making it the slimmest 2-in-1 on the market), Asus has somehow managed to squeeze in a 360° hinge and full-fat Kaby Lake Core i5 U-series processors as well. Could this be the ultimate 2-in-1 laptop? Just like the Asus ZenBook 3, the ZenBook Flip S’s all-metal 6013 aluminum alloy unibody is gorgeous. According to Asus, it’s built from ‘automotive and aerospace’ grade materials and is 50% stronger than a…

£2,999 • From www.microsoft.com VERDICT A great all-round laptop with a unique feature set, but it’s expensive for non-gamers THE SURFACE BOOK 2 is Microsoft’s halo product: a do-it-all, 2-in-1 laptop you can use for office work and on the road, as a graphics, video- or photo-editing workstation, a sketch or notepad or even a games console. You’ll need to brace yourself when it comes to prices, because the Surface Book 2 is painfully expensive. In fact, the cheapest 13.5in model is £1,499, which nets you a Kaby Lake Core i5, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of SSD storage. The most expensive model – the one we’re reviewing here – costs £2,999. That includes a quad-core, 1.9GHz Intel Core i7-8650U CPU, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD and a discrete…

£300 • From www.johnlewis.com VERDICT A flawed Chromebook, rescued by its sleek build, long battery life and modest but reliable performance A LOT OF Chromebooks have attempted to move away from the original idea of basic hardware for minimal cost, hence devices such as the Google Pixelbook. The tiny, 10.1in Flip C101PA does not tread this path, instead staying closer to the Chromebook concept’s roots, but it does make some attempts to go above and beyond the absolute basics. For example, it’s a convertible, thanks to the touchscreen and 360° hinge; this combination lets you flip the screen all the way around, and use the whole device like a flattened tablet. A tablet with chunky bezels and the ever-present feel of a keyboard on the underside, but a tablet nonetheless.…

£550 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Some elements could be improved, but the Aspire 5’s performance and battery life make it a winner THE ASPIRE 5 sits in Acer’s ‘everyday computing’ range and it’s the epitome of the no-nonsense laptop. It’s a little on the chunky side, not especially attractive to look at, yet it delivers the goods when it comes to performance and usability. For anyone looking for a no-thrills Windows 10 machine, could the Acer Aspire 5 be the perfect mid-priced laptop? The range starts at around £450, which gets you a 1,366x768 HD screen, an Intel Core i3-6006U processor, 8GB of RAM and a 1TB HDD. The mid-spec model we tested houses an Intel Core i5-8250U processor, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD, and costs £550. Throw…

£2,230 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT One of the earliest slimline gaming laptops is also the best one you can buy today IT WASN’T VERY long ago that gaming laptops like the ROG Zephyrus seemed like pure fantasy; surely there was no way of getting proper end-graphics power into a truly thin-and-light chassis? And yet Asus’s head-turning clamshell (along with the original Gigabyte Aero 15) showed up last year, doing exactly that. Despite containing an Intel Core i7-7700HQ and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Max-Q (a less powerful but more efficient cousin of the desktop GTX 1080), the ROG Zephyrus manages to keep its thickness down to 17.9mm and its weight down to 2.2kg. That might sound heavy by general laptop standards, but for a gaming machine it’s almost featherweight. At…