PCWorldApril 2018的目錄

Intel’s revised patches for its Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge processor families have begun rolling out to address Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities. With the release of the new code, just a few older processor families remain in the patch queue. According to Intel’s microcode update document, patches for several processor families have entered production, most notably the second-generation Core (Sandy Bridge) and third-generation Core (Ivy Bridge) families. The patches also cover several, more niche architectures, such as the Gladden Xeon of the Sandy Bridge generation, and the Broadwell Xeon chips. On deck are the Westmere Xeons, based upon 2010’s first-generation Core architecture, as well as Westmere’s predecessors, the Nehalem Xeon chips. Intel has issued beta patches for these, as well as some of the Arrandale and Clarkdale chips. The latter…

Huawei’s Matebook X Pro is what happens when designers boil down Microsoft’s Surface Book line to its essentials, sprinkling a bit of paranoia on top for extra flavor. Huawei’s flagship notebook improves upon the Huawei Matebook X that the company launched last year. Now with a 3,000x2,000-pixel display that takes after the Surface Book line, the 13.9-inch notebook will be sold in three configurations, with prices beginning at 1,499 Euros ($1,845 USD). Huawei will ship it to North America this spring, the company said. Three features distinguish the Matebook X Pro. First, the company is offering a discrete graphics option within a 0.57-inch (14.6 mm) form factor—not ultrabook-thin, but not as chunky as the 0.9-inch thick Surface Book 2, either. Huawei also achieved a 91-percent screen-to-body ratio, which helps pare…

Hot on the heels of the recent Firmament announcement, Cyan teased another project in the works. This year marks the 25th anniversary of Myst, and it looks like Cyan’s preparing…something. Hard to say what, exactly, but something. It all started when Cyan’s Twitter account showed a series of messages in the familiar handwriting of Myst mainstay Atrus. The message, in its entirety: “Perhaps the ending has not yet been written…” This was then followed up by a shot of the Myst Island linking book, a pen, and a sticky note with 25 on it, underlined. Hmm? It didn’t take long for the theories to start flying. But according to a fresh post on Myst.com, there’s news, of sorts. It looks like Cyan has reacquired the rights (or at least come to some…

Packing a quad-core 8th-generation Intel processor and a robust battery into an impressively thin and light shell, the peppy but pricey LG Gram cranks all day without weighing you down. While we love the Gram’s lithe design and exceptional battery life, laptop shoppers looking for sheer speed may be disappointed by the system’s relatively casual pace. We also had some quibbles with the Gram’s cramped keyboard. PRICE AND SPECIFICATIONS We tested the top-of-the-line model of the LG Gram, which costs a cool $2,000 and boasts a 15.6-inch touch display, a quad-core 8th-generation Intel Core i7-8550U processor, 16GB of DDR4 RAM, and a pair of 512GB solid-state drives. If you’d rather not spend two grand on a laptop, there are three cheaper versions of the Gram to consider, including (at the…

It took quite a while for Final Fantasy XV to finally make its way to PC—almost a year and a half after the console launch, to be exact. But in the end it made it over, and as of yesterday you can find the game on an oddball selection of storefronts, including Steam (sure), the Windows 10 Store (okay fine), and Origin (…what?). A non-EA game on Origin? Pretty sure that makes Final Fantasy XV the Dr. Pepper of video games. Anyway, I’ve barely dipped my toe in. The game’s reputedly around 100 hours long and I’m on hour four, so there’s quite a bit of road trip ahead of me. It’s at least enough time to formulate some opinions on the state of the PC port though. In short: It’s great, for…

Picking a gaming laptop today isn’t as easy as it was five years ago when a “real” gaming laptop meant 12 pounds of back-breaking hardware to haul around. With major advances in laptop video cards and CPUs, you can now get great gaming performance from laptops ranging from light to super heavy and from super expensive to budget. The problem these days: too many choices. A luxury problem, to be sure. Still, you need to know how to navigate this bounty. In this handy-dandy buyer’s guide, we’ll not only name the best gaming laptops currently available, we’ll also highlight what to look for when buying a gaming laptop. THE ‘BEST’ SCREEN FOR A LAPTOP When you buy a gaming laptop, one of the most important decisions you’ll need to make regards…

Microsoft’s Mouse without Borders app is an unsung productivity tool whose ability to let a mouse and keyboard hop from one Windows device to the next is worth checking out. It unlocks a versatility similar to that of Logitech’s Flow, but for far, far cheaper—because it’s free to use with any Windows device. Mouse without Borders originally launched in 2011, long before Logitech debuted Flow. The app resurfaced recently as part of Microsoft’s inaugural Microsoft Garage Wall of Fame, a celebration of smaller apps developed within Microsoft. You should try it out. Like Flow, Microsoft’s Mouse without Borders allows you to use the same mouse and keyboard (yes, keyboards too) across multiple PCs. Once you move the mouse cursor to the edge of one screen, it hops over to the…

Microsoft expects that the “majority of customers” will enjoy Windows 10 in its new S mode, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Windows wrote in a recent blog post. The stunning endorsement of Windows 10’s S mode—which was formally confirmed as a mode of Windows 10 only very recently—was made by Joe Belfiore, who told me via Twitter that he expected the transition to take place in 2019. Belfiore’s blog post set an even more aggressive timetable, claiming that customers would be able to buy a PC with Windows 10 S mode at or near the time when the next feature update to Windows 10 drops. That update, known as Redstone 4, is expected to appear on PCs in early April. But for those who don’t want Windows 10’s S mode, there’s another…

With the first deployments of 5G high-speed wireless technology within the U.S. scheduled for later this year, Intel and its PC partners are already thinking about the next step: rolling out 5G-equipped PCs late in 2019. Intel, along with Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Microsoft said recently that the companies expect the first 5G Windows PCs to become available during the second half of 2019. That’s about the same time that Intel plans to begin shipping its XMM 8000 commercial modems, marking the company’s entrance into the 5G market. Intel will show off a prototype of the new 5G-connected PC at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona. In addition the company will demonstrate data streaming over the 5G network. At its stand, Intel said that it will also show off…

If the first round of test results is an indication, the iPhone X’s reign as the best handset in the world could be coming to an end. DisplayMate and DxOMark, two of the most respected names in smartphone testing, have put the Galaxy S9’s display and camera through a litany of paces, and the results might surprise some Apple fans. On the display side, Raymond Soneira of DisplayMate concludes the Galaxy S9 has “the most innovative and high performance smartphone display that we have ever lab tested.” Among the records it broke was absolute color accuracy, where it scored a mark “visually indistinguishable from perfect,” and peak brightness with 1,130 nits. DisplayMate says the Galaxy S9 is the first phone to receive Very Good to Excellent ratings in every category. On the camera…

Samsung’s Galaxy S9 is a strange breed of smartphone. With a Snapdragon 845 processor, great camera, and 18:9 screen, it has all the trappings of a fantastic 2018 handset. Yet, at the same time, it’s remarkably similar to the Galaxy S8 that it replaces. In fact, it’s so much like its predecessor, issues we might normally overlook become all the more obvious this second time around. Samsung’s Notebook 7 Spin is not the fastest quad-core convertible to harness Intel’s game-changing 8th-generation CPU, but the midrange laptop proves that speed isn’t everything. Boasting a gorgeous 13-inch touch display, solid quad-core performance and—best of all—impressive battery life, the Spin should please budget-conscious laptop shoppers who value stamina over speed. PRICE AND SPECIFICATIONS The latest version of the Notebook 7 Spin is—at launch,…

Xiaomi has yet to launch any of its phones in the United States, but that hasn’t stopped the Chinese company from slowly introducing consumers to its brand and products. The latest arrival on American shores is the Mi Power Bank Pro. This 10,000 milliamp-hour battery pack is sleek and well-designed. Its sturdy housing feels like it can withstand a drop or six. There are two ports on the front of the pack: one USB-A port for charging your phone or tablet, and a USB-C port for charging the pack itself. Next to the ports is a power button that’s easy to press, along with four white led buttons. Each one represents about 25 percent of the battery’s capacity. In our testing, the 10,000mAh (38.5Wh) battery pack had an impressive 90.99-percent…

VPN (virtual private network) technology lets a computer using a public internet connection join a private network by way of a secure “tunnel” between that machine and the network. This protects the data from being seen or tampered with by bad actors. The two most common use cases are consumer VPN services that allow individuals to surf privately from home or a public setting, and business-oriented solutions that allow employees to securely connect to a corporate network remotely. For the most part, VPN connections are handled by custom software such as the many consumer VPN services we’ve reviewed, or by third-party generic software such as the OpenVPN client or Cisco AnyConnect. Another option that’s generally supported by most virtual private networks is to use Microsoft’s built-in VPN client. This is…

Buying cheap ink is a choice you should make with your eyes wide open. Third-party cartridges cost less than the manufacturer brands, which is why people buy them. A list of third-party retailers currently selling remanufactured ink cartridges is below. But even if you ignore the dire warnings from the original printer vendors about voided warranties and subpar print quality, it can be difficult to tell whether the third-party ink you buy is any good. We can’t give you any promises, but we can tell you how to shop smarter for cheap ink. GO WITH A BIG NAME One time-tested method is to shop at an established retailer (online or brick-and-mortar) that guarantees the quality of its products. Obvious examples include office supply chains that carry their own branded third-party…

AMD released Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition 18.3.1 late on March 19 with support for Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition and Warhammer: Vermintide 2. Providing day-one drivers for such hotly anticipated games proves yet again that Radeon has left its dark days of buggy, late software far in the rearview mirror, but newfound optimizations for e-sports games are even more intriguing. Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition 18.3.1 marks the debut of Project ReSX (“Radeon eSports Experience”). “The goal of this project was to optimize the performance of some of the most popular PC games in the world on Radeon graphics cards,” AMD says. The company worked with developers for in-game optimizations, and tweaked its drivers to support the initiative. The result? Faster, smoother gameplay, AMD claims. Compared to the original Radeon Software Adrenalin…

With this year’s I/O still on the horizon, Google has given us our first sneak peak at Android P, and there’s a lot to digest. While it’s light on major front-facing features, there are a lot of changes that will impact flagship phones in 2018 and beyond, starting with the Google Pixel 3. Here are five things we learned from the first developer preview: 1. IT WILL PROBABLY HAVE A NOTCH It was previously rumored that Android P would include support for notched displays, but now we have some confirmation. And it’s more than a simple resolution shift. Google is baking support for “display cutouts” deep in Android P, with new platform and API layouts that help developers build immersive apps that work around the notch and use it to their…

Samsung’s Galaxy S9 is a strange breed of smartphone. With a Snapdragon 845 processor, great camera, and 18:9 screen, it has all the trappings of a fantastic 2018 handset. Yet, at the same time, it’s remarkably similar to the Galaxy S8 that it replaces. In fact, it’s so much like its predecessor, issues we might normally overlook become all the more obvious this second time around. Samsung’s hook with the Galaxy S9 is a “reimagined” camera, but the camera’s new features—namely Dual Aperture, Super Slow-mo, and AR Emoji—are equal parts gimmick and catch-up to competing models. And because Samsung is limiting the dual camera and Live Portrait mode to the larger Plus model, the S9 (the phone I’m reviewing here) feels less like a new phone than a mid-cycle refresh.…

Intel’s Optane SSD 800P, like previous Optane products, boasts best-in-class longevity and very fast random access. But the rest of its performance numbers are mundane at best, it’s only available in two very small capacities, and the price is, ahem, up there. Even die-hard early adopters will experience some sticker shock paying $129 for 58GB or $199 for 118GB, or $2.22 and $1.68 per gigabyte, respectively. Compared to the other NVMe drives in our SSD buying guide, which average around 50 cents per gigabyte, the 800P is over-priced and under-powered. After the lightning-fast Intel 900P we recently reviewed (currently $600 on Newegg), it’s a real disappointment. DESIGN AND SPECS We tested the 58GB version of the M.2, PCIe/NVMe 800P. Both capacities ship in the common 2280 (22 millimeters across, 80 mm…

Your laptop’s built-in speakers aren’t doing any favors for the gigs and gigs of music and movies on your hard drive. Even the best ones can leave your audio sounding thin and lifeless. External speakers—along with a good set of headphones—are a must for getting the best fidelity from your media files. A trip online or to your favorite electronics store will reveal a head-spinning variety of options in this category, with some systems costing as much or more than you paid for your laptop. You don’t need to take out a personal loan to upgrade your audio, though. Quality speakers can be found even with a budget of around $50. And while there is a certain degree of “you get what you pay for” at this price level, you’ll…

By now, a dual-monitor setup has become commonplace. Multitasking on a single screen is just way too confining. But why stop at two displays? I can speak from experience: Having multiple monitors (and I’m talking three, four, five, or even six) is just…awesome, and something you totally need in your life. Right now, my main PC has a triple-monitor setup: my main 27-inch central monitor, with a 24-inch monitor on either side. I use my extra monitors for a number of things, such as comparing spreadsheets side-by-side, writing articles while also doing research, keeping tabs on my social media feeds, and, of course, watching Netflix. Using one of your monitors in vertical orientation can make a big difference for scrolling long documents. If you’re a gamer, well, surely you can see…