PC Magazine - Issue August 2022 by PerpustakaanIIM.Majalah

CONTENTS

FIRST WORD Mobile Networks: A New Era

READER INPUT Past PCs, Future EVs

WHAT’S NEW NOW PCMAG CHEAP 100: 3 DEALS FOR JULY As promised in last month’s cover story, we’ll let you know in each issue going forward about some of the best tech bargains around. All of our deals feature lab-tested products recommended by our expert analysts. Happy shopping!

APPLE REVAMPS MACBOOK AIR, 13-INCH MACBOOK PRO WITH NEW M2 CHIP The M2-powered Apple MacBook Pro and ultrathin MacBook Air arrive this month.

US TAKES SUPERCOMPUTER TOP SPOT WITH FIRST TRUE EXASCALE MACHINE The HPE Frontier system can perform over 1 quintillion calculations per second.

JULY 2022

COMMENTARY MAX EDDY Why Build a Panopticon When You Can Just Buy One?

CHANDRA STEELE Overturning Roe v. Wade Will Make Data-Privacy Laws an Issue of Life or Death

REVIEWS CONSUMER ELECTRONICS Autel Robotics Evo Lite+

Autel Robotics Evo Lite+

Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium Furbo 360 Dog Camera

Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium

Lenovo Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 Furbo 360 Dog Camera

HARDWARE Lenovo Legion 5i Pro Gen 7

Razer Viper V2 Pro

SOFTWARE & APPS Google Workspace SoftMaker Office

Google Workspace SoftMaker Office

FEATURES

COVER STORY We drove more than 10,000 miles across the US, speed-testing AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon 4G and 5G in cities, towns, and rural regions before crowning our 13th annual champion.

25 OF THE WEIRDEST THINGS WE’VE REVIEWED In 40 years, thousands of products have passed through PC Labs for testing. Many were good, some were not so great, and a few were downright bizarre.

TIPS & HOW TOS WINDOWS SANDBOX: HOW TO SAFELY TEST SOFTWARE WITHOUT RUINING YOUR COMPUTER Windows Sandbox is a temporary virtual machine built into Windows 10 and Windows 11 that allows you to run software without it affecting the rest of your system.

HOW TO MAKE REMOTE COLLABORATION WORK FOR YOU Remote collaboration methods give people more ways to participate, and that tends to bring out the best in their work. You don’t even have to be remote to use these tricks.

THE WHY AXIS ‘BUY NOW, PAY LATER’ IS THE NEW NORMAL FOR ONLINE SHOPPERS In a survey of e-commerce shoppers, 80% of respondents say they’ve tried pay-later options in the last year, and almost half do it weekly—or more. Instant gratiﬁcation lives on.

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FIRST WORD

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Mobile Networks: A New Era ,¶P ZULWLQJ WKLV LQ 3&0DJ V 1HZ <RUN &LW\ RIILFH ,W¶V WKH ILUVW WLPH ,¶YH EHHQ EDFN KHUH²DQG WR 1<&²VLQFH , PRYHG WR 3LWWVEXUJK LQ PLG 7KH RIILFH LV YHU\ YHU\ TXLHW 7KH ODVW WLPH , ZDV KHUH LW ZDV SDFNHG ZLWK VWDII IHZ RI XV KDG SULYDWH RIILFHV 0RVW RI XV VDW RXW RQ WKH PDLQ IORRU DW IDPLO\ VW\OH WDEOHV RI VL[ 7KH VXUURXQGLQJ VWUHHWV VXEZD\ WUDLQV EXVHV UHVWDXUDQWV DQG VWRUHV" $OVR IXOO RI KXPDQV $OWKRXJK , DP HFVWDWLF WR EH YLVLWLQJ ¿QDOO\ DQG WR VHH JUHDW IULHQGV DQG ZRQGHUIXO FROOHDJXHV DJDLQ , KDYH WR DGPLW WKH ODFN RI FURZGV LV GLVFRQFHUWLQJ , NQRZ WKDW DOO NLQGV RI DFWLYLWLHV KHUH KDYH SLFNHG XS D ORW VLQFH WKH KHLJKW RI WKH SDQGHPLF 6WLOO LW¶V YHU\ GLIIHUHQW IURP WKH FLW\ , UHPHPEHU %XW ZDLW 1HZ <RUN QHYHU VWD\HG WKH VDPH IRU ORQJ RYHU WKH GHFDGHV , OLYHG KHUH 6R WKH FLW\ KDV HQWHUHG D QHZ FKDSWHU \HW DJDLQ ,¶OO EH FRPLQJ EDFN RIWHQ WR NHHS WDEV RQ LW TESTING THE MOBILE CARRIERS ,I LW¶V -XO\ LW PXVW EH WLPH IRU RXU PRELOH QHWZRUN VSHHG WHVWLQJ VWRU\ 7KLV KDV EHHQ DQ DQQXDO 3&0DJ WUDGLWLRQ IRU \HDUV QRZ HYHQ GXULQJ WKH SDQGHPLF %XW LQ WKLQJV KDYH HYROYHG $ ORW 3&0DJ¶V 0RELOH /HDG $QDO\VW 6DVFKD 6HJDQ²ZKR RULJLQDOO\ FRQFHLYHG RI DQG GHYHORSHG )DVWHVW 0RELOH 1HWZRUNV )01 RUJDQL]HV WKH ZKROH E\]DQWLQH SURMHFW HYHU\ \HDU DQG FUXQFKHV WKH QXPEHUV DV ZHOO²KDV LQWURGXFHG VRPH QHZ WHVWLQJ VRIWZDUH ,Q DGGLWLRQ WR WKH VSHHGV RI DYHUDJH GRZQORDGV GRZQORDGV DERYH 0ESV DYHUDJH XSORDGV DQG XSORDGV DERYH 0ESV DV ZHOO DV ODWHQF\ ZH FDQ QRZ WUDFN GURSSHG FDOOV DQG JHW D EHWWHU PHDVXUH RI D QHWZRUN¶V UHOLDELOLW\ 1HHGOHVV WR VD\ DOO WKLV H[SDQGV WKH VFRSH RI )01 EH\RQG ³IDVWHVW ´ 6R LW KDV D QHZ QDPH %HVW 0RELOH 1HWZRUNV 7KRVH RI XV ZKR KDYH ZRUNHG RQ WKLV SURMHFW IRU \HDUV KDYH EHHQ FRUUHFWLQJ RXUVHOYHV FRQVWDQWO\

2WKHU DVSHFWV RI RXU 02 KDYHQ¶W FKDQJHG :H VHQW GULYHUV ZLWK SKRQHV DQG WHVW VRIWZDUH WR XUEDQ DUHDV DV ZHOO DV VL[ UXUDO UHJLRQV DFURVV WKH 86 $OWKRXJK ZH FDQ¶W FRYHU HYHU\ VLQJOH FLW\ ZH KRSH PRVW UHDGHUV ZKHUHYHU WKH\ OLYH DQG ZRUN ZLOO ¿QG XVHIXO LQIRUPDWLRQ KHUH AND THERE’S MORE… $OVR LQ WKLV LVVXH DV SURPLVHG LV DQRWKHU LQVWDOOPHQW RI RXU WK $QQLYHUVDU\ FHOHEUDWLRQ ³ RI WKH :HLUGHVW 7KLQJV :H¶YH 5HYLHZHG ´ %HOLHYH PH ZH UHDOO\ KDG WR VWUXJJOH WR QDUURZ WKH QXPEHU GRZQ WKDW PXFK , WKLQN ZH QDLOHG WKH VWUDQJHVW VWX̆ $QG RQH PRUH SURPLVHG VWRU\ WKUHH JUHDW GHDOV IRU -XO\ IURP RXU 3&0DJ &KHDS OLVW ,I \RX¶UH VKRSSLQJ IRU VRPHWKLQJ VSHFL¿F SOHDVH GURS PH DQ HPDLO DQG ,¶OO ¿QG \RX D GHDO

Carol Mangis manages the PCMag Digital Edition. Her ﬁrst job in tech journalism was at PCMag; she also worked for Consumer Reports. She’s fascinated by technology’s evolution. @cmangis

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READER INPUT YOUR COMMENTS

Past PCs, Future EVs

Part of our 40th anniversary package, our URXQGXS RI LQÀXHQWLDO 3&V elicited much commenting and reminiscing. Readers also weighed in on the greenness of electric cars.

THE 20 MOST INFLUENTIAL PCS OF THE LAST 40 YEARS The Compaq portable (aka “luggable”) PC was a game-changer for me. The amber screen was easier on the eyes, and with the 300bps modem, I could log into TSO on the mainframe through the Yale ASCII emulator and start data extractions (Easytrieve + HASP) in the middle of the night without going to WKH ṘFH 7KH QH[W GD\ XVLQJ WKH QHWZRUN FDUG , could load the round tapes onto our LAN server for our analysts. And I read PC Magazine. —Bruce Fryer I think the generic IBM-compatible had a major LQÀXHQFH RQ WKH PDUNHWV 0\ ¿UVW 3& ZDV D JHQHULF XT with a hard drive and a monochrome monitor. Bought it for $900 at an appliance store! —Mike McKeaney Sr. The GRiD Compass had a compartment that held a NiCd battery or the AC power supply, which were the same shape & form-factor. There was a cable that allowed the user to insert the battery into the PC, connect the AC supply and run the PC while also charging the battery. UPS devices were rare at best VR WKH ODWWHU FRQ¿JXUDWLRQ ZDV WKH SUHIHUUHG FKRLFH IRU PLOLWDU\ XVHUV LQ WKH ¿HOG RSHUDWLQJ RQ generators. —Ed Leavitt

As usual, the Commodore Amiga is ignored. In the mid-80s, it had built-in voices and 4096 colors to use in programs like Deluxe Paint and others. You could use those abilities to create with Amiga Basic, as I did in creating the Amiga Hockey League. Onscreen was a color ice rink and scoreboard. I had all the existing NHL teams and their full rosters. If there was a goal or penalty, the player’s name was announced using the built-in voice. Games started with a brief version of the US or Canadian national anthem or, if Philadelphia was selected as the home team, God Bless America would randomly play instead. —Joseph Bernardi Sascha Segan replies: This piece was only about PCs covered in PC Magazine. We generally covered computers running OSes by Microsoft and Apple’s Macintosh models. So we did not cover the Amiga, Apple IIgs, Atari ST, or other OS platforms. Thank you for the illustrative article into history. —Andy Cha

ELECTRIC VS. GAS CARS: WHAT ARE THE HIDDEN ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS OF EVS? We’re going too fast in this EV revolution. Perhaps the hybrids are best for now, while we develop all the technologies needed to produce and use electric vehicles. It did take us over a century to develop the conventional vehicle to the point that it’s a relatively low-polluting form of transportation. Given time, EVs will be ready for SULPH WLPH RXU FKDUJLQJ JULG ZLOO EH PRUH ḢFLHQW DQG HQYLURQPHQWDOO\ IULHQGO\ DQG our battery technology will not need illegal mining in Africa. Rushing into new WHFKQRORJLHV ZLOO DOZD\V EH D PXVW KDYH IRU WKH ULFK DQG FRPPLWWHG EXW DQ ḢFLHQW ecosystem for EVs is still a few years down the road. Let’s transition gradually and acknowledge our limitations —CTherapist Folks always forget the burning of fossil fuels to extract oil from the ground, to transport WKDW RLO WR D UH¿QHU\ WR DFWXDOO\ UH¿QH WKH RLO LQWR JDV RU GLHVHO WKH WUDQVSRUW RI JDV RU GLHVHO WR D ¿OOLQJ VWDWLRQ DQG WKHQ WKH HQHUJ\ XVHG WR SXPS WKH JDV RU GLHVHO LQWR D vehicle. EVs are much cleaner when you take all of the factors into consideration. We need to move to more environmentally friendly power stations, including solar, wind and—gasp—nuclear. —John Veach

7KDQNV IRU R̆HULQJ D UHDOLVWLF DVVHVVPHQW RI WKH SURV DQG FRQV RI HOHFWULF FDUV ,W LV OLNHO\ that some of those cons will be diminished or eliminated in years to come as battery technology advances. Electric cars may follow a similar path to that which personal computers followed. As more people bought them, the manufacturers competed to lower prices, increase reliability, and increase performance. The computers we have today are much more powerful, more reliable, more feature-laden, and less expensive than what was on the market in the mid to late 1980s. I hope the same sort of progress awaits electric cars. —Justin Wachin

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Ask us a question

Email us at letters@pcmag.com and we’ll respond to your question here. Questions may be edited slightly for content and clarity.

WHAT’S NEW NOW

6+233,1*

PCMag Cheap 100: 3 Deals for July As promised, we’ll let you know each month about some of the best tech bargains to be found. All our deals feature lab-tested products recommended by our expert analysts. Happy shopping! BY PCMAG STAFF

BEST CHEAP TABLET DETACHABLE Microsoft has set the standard for Windows tablets, and the Microsoft Surface Go 3 proves that it’s still true for Windows 11, even on a budget. The low starting price belies the slate’s overall quality, with deluxe touches including a bright 3:2-aspect-ratio display, support for Wi-Fi 6, and wellengineered accessories (though you must pay extra for the colorful Type Cover keyboard). If you just need a great tablet, the Apple iPad (2021) is arguably a better deal, but for a Windows-compatible laptop alternative, you can’t do better for the cost.

BEST CHEAP MOTHERBOARD Like many PC components, desktop motherboards have been climbing in price in recent years, which is why our budget pick carries a price of $179.99. That’s not dirt-cheap, but it gets you a feature-rich platform for late-model Ryzen chips (themselves ¿QH YDOXHV DW D UHODWLYH EDUJDLQ SULFH 06,¶V 0$* % 7RPDKDZN LV FRPSDWLEOH ZLWK $0' 5\]HQ DQG VHULHV SURFHVVRUV DQG KDV D PCI Express 4.0 x16 slot for modern graphics cards. The board also has a *ESV (WKHUQHW SRUW IRU FRQQHFWLQJ WR WKH LQWHUQHW DQG WZR *ESV 86% Gen 2 ports for high-speed external devices.

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Image: Nokia Image: MSI

BEST CHEAP VOICE PHONE Candy-bar phones forever! Nokia’s model 6300 works on all US 4G networks and is an ideal replacement for an older 3G phone. Its quasismartphone operating system also supports Whatsapp, which unlocks better texting capabilities than most other basic phones.

WHAT’S NEW NOW

/$37236

Apple Revamps MacBook Air, 13-Inch MacBook Pro With New M2 Chip The M2-powered MacBook Pro and ultrathin MacBook Air arrive this month.

Photo: Brian Westover

BY MICHAEL KAN

In early June, during Apple’s WWDC, the company announced the launch of an updated MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro equipped with its secondgeneration M2 chip. Both laptops go on sale this month. The biggest changes are coming to the MacBook Air. Apple managed to reduce the overall volume by 20% when compared with the M1 MacBook Air the company launched in 2020. The product also measures only 11.3 millimeters thick, down from 16.1mm.

Image: Apple

As a result, the company is marketing the 2.7-pound laptop as “remarkably thin.” But the new MacBook Air also promises to pack a punch, thanks to the newly designed M2 chip inside.

Photo: Brian Westover

Apple is using a second-generation 5-nanometer process to fabricate the Armbased processor. This allows the company to pack 25% more transistors on the silicon compared with the M1 chip, which also used an older 5nm process.

The M2 still operates as an eight-core CPU chip, with four cores devoted to high-performance tasks and the remaining cores dedicated for lighter tasks that FRQVXPH OHVV SRZHU %XW WKH KLJKHU FKLS GHQVLW\ PHDQV WKH 0 VLJQL¿FDQWO\ RXWSHUIRUPV WKH 0 ZLWKRXW FRPSURPLVLQJ SRZHU ḢFLHQF\

Images: Apple

$FFRUGLQJ WR $SSOH¶V EHQFKPDUNV WKH 0 SURPLVHV WR R̆HU DQ &38 performance uplift over the M1. The company also claims the M2 easily beats an Intel 10-core i7-1255U laptop while using only one-fourth the power. Meanwhile, the M2’s graphics are bumped up to a 10-core GPU, which should R̆HU D KLJKHU SHUIRUPDQFH LQ YLGHR HGLWLQJ DSSV FRPSDUHG ZLWK WKH 0

Photo: Brian Westover

7KH QHZ 0DF%RRN $LU DOVR R̆HUV WZR PDMRU FRPSRQHQW XSJUDGHV 7KH SURGXFW QRZ KDV D S ZHE FDPHUD D VWHS XS IURP WKH S FDPHUD RI WKH SULRU model. Apple also added a MagSafe charger to the laptop for fast charging. So no need to rely on only a USB-C port for charging.

In addition, the new MacBook Air comes with a slightly larger display, at 13.6 inches. It has a notch for the web camera, making it look more like last year’s LQFK 0DF%RRN 3UR ³:LWK WKH SRZHU ḢFLHQF\ RI 0 DOO RI WKH FDSDELOLWLHV RI MacBook Air are built into a silent, fanless design,” the company said. )RU WKH ILUVW WLPH EX\HUV ZLOO EH DEOH WR FRQILJXUH WKH SURGXFW ZLWK XS WR *% RI XQLILHG PHPRU\ ZKLFK LV EDVLFDOO\ 5$0 7KH QHZ 0DF%RRN $LU ZLOO DUULYH ZLWK a higher starting price at $1,199. Meanwhile, the 2020 M1 MacBook Air will remain on sale at the existing SULFH RI $999. Interested customers will be able to EX\ WKH QHZ 0DF%RRN $LU LQ IRXU FRORUV 6LOYHU 6WDUOLJKW 6SDFH *UD\ DQG 0idnight. Apple is also bringing the M2 chip to the 13-inch MacBook Pro starting at $1,299. Aside from the new silicon, it doesn’t appear Apple has changed the product’s design, though Apple notes the 13-inch MacBook Pro features up to 20 hours of battery life for video playback, which is two hours more than the revamped MacBook Air.

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WHAT’S NEW NOW

SUPERCOMPUTERS

US Takes Supercomputer Top Spot With First True Exascale Machine The HPE Frontier system can perform over 1 quintillion calculations per second.

Photo: Oak Ridge National Laboratory

BY MATTHEW HUMPHRIES

The world’s fastest supercomputer resides at the Department of Energy’s Oak 5LGJH 1DWLRQDO /DERUDWRU\ 251/ DQG FRXQWV DV WKH ¿UVW WUXH H[DVFDOH PDFKLQH ZLWK DQ +3/ VFRUH RI H[DÀRSV SHU VHFRQG The Frontier supercomputer was announced as the fastest supercomputer in June, in the 59th TOP500 list. It uses the Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Cray EX platform and consists of 74 purpose-built cabinets. Contained within WKHP DUH D PL[ RI $0' (3<& & *+] SURFHVVRUV DQG $0' ,QVWLQFW ; SURIHVVLRQDO *38V ,Q WRWDO WKH )URQWLHU V\VWHP KDV PRUH WKDQ &38V DQG *38V IRU D WRWDO FRUH FRXQW RI

The huge amount of processing performance achieved equates to 52.23 JLJDÀRSV SHU ZDWW DQG PRUH WKDQ TXLQWLOOLRQ FDOFXODWLRQV SHU VHFRQG 7KDW¶V combined with 700 petabytes of storage and HPE Slingshot high-performance Ethernet for data transfers. 7R FRRO WKH V\VWHP +3( SXPSV JDOORQV RI ZDWHU WKURXJK )URQWLHU¶V cabinets every minute using four 350-horsepower pumps. 7R SXW WKLV SHUIRUPDQFH OHDS LQ FRQWH[W WKH SUHYLRXV IDVWHVW VXSHUFRPSXWHU was the Fugaku system installed at the RIKEN Center for Computational 6FLHQFH 5 &&6 LQ .REH -DSDQ ,W FRQWDLQV FRUHV DQG KDV D +3/ EHQFKPDUN RI MXVW SHWDÀRSV SHU VHFRQG WHY DO WE NEED SUPERCOMPUTERS, AND WHO IS USING THEM? )URQWLHU KDV D WKHRUHWLFDO SHDN SHUIRUPDQFH RI H[DÀRSV DQG 251/ 'LUHFWRU Thomas Zacharia says it will be put to good use: ³)URQWLHU LV XVKHULQJ LQ D QHZ HUD RI H[DVFDOH FRPSXWLQJ WR VROYH WKH ZRUOG¶V ELJJHVW VFLHQWL¿F FKDOOHQJHV 7KLV PLOHVWRQH R̆HUV MXVW D SUHYLHZ RI )URQWLHU¶V XQPDWFKHG FDSDELOLW\ DV D WRRO IRU VFLHQWL¿F GLVFRYHU\ ,W LV WKH UHVXOW RI PRUH than a decade of collaboration among the national laboratories, academia and SULYDWH LQGXVWU\ LQFOXGLQJ '2(¶V ([DVFDOH &RPSXWLQJ 3URMHFW ZKLFK LV deploying the applications, software technologies, hardware and integration QHFHVVDU\ WR HQVXUH LPSDFW DW WKH H[DVFDOH ´ ORNL is currently carrying out testing and validation of Frontier, with early VFLHQFH DFFHVV WR WKH V\VWHP H[SHFWHG ODWHU WKLV \HDU )XOO VFLHQFH DFFHVV ZLOO VWDUW HDUO\ QH[W \HDU

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Why Build a Panopticon When You Can Just Buy One? Private industry has built the best surveillance system on the planet, and governments are its customers.

Illustration: René Ramos

Max Edd

COMMENTARY

In the late 18th century, theorist Jeremy Bentham created the perfect prison. With cells laid out in a circle around a central guard tower, all the prisoners could be observed by a single guard—or, importantly, would assume they were being observed. He called it the “Panopticon,” but it’s best known (thanks largely to Michel Foucault) as a metaphor for the power of the surveillance state. In 2013, roughly 230 years after Bentham’s conceptual prison, a series RI OHDNV HYHQWXDOO\ DWWULEXWHG WR (GZDUG 6QRZGHQ EOHZ WKH OLG R̆ WKH National Security Agency’s mass wiretap and intercept program. Shock, confusion, and anger followed. The furor led to the bizarre sight of the NSA head as a keynote speaker at the Black Hat security conference and the shuttering of the program. We all slept easier knowing that one less organization was listening to our phone calls.

Max Edd

There is a strong public distaste for these kinds of surveillance programs. If it’s not the NSA snooping on your metadata in 2013, it’s J. Edgar Hoover tapping your phone in 1950. Privacy advocates and everyday people have long pushed EDFN RQ JRYHUQPHQW H̆RUWV WR PRQLWRU WKH populace. Yet nine years after Snowden, the Los Angeles Times reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement spent years and billions of dollars constructing a massive surveillance SURJUDP 7KH NH\ GL̆HUHQFH LV WKDW ,&( GLGQ¶W build this with bugs in phones or spy satellites. In part, it bought it from the same data brokers that have been compiling and selling your personal data for years. To my mind, this is even more obscene than the NSA’s build-your-own surveillance state. ICE not only unnecessarily—and sometimes against the express wishes of state legislatures—gathered huge amounts of data about millions of Americans who were not under investigation, but it also directly funded the surveillance capitalism that has chipped away at our privacy and made us all less safe since the start of the smartphone age. Our government and law enforcement shouldn’t spy on people—regardless of the means of VXUYHLOODQFH $QG FRUSRUDWLRQV VKRXOG QRW SUR¿W from their unjust surveillance or from our personal data. AMERICAN DRAGNET The LA Times article reported on a two-year investigation by the Georgetown Law Center on

If it’s not the NSA snooping on your metadata in 2013, it’s J. Edgar Hoover tapping your phone in 1950.

Max Edd

privacy and technology. That report brought original investigation and analysis in addition to work done by other outlets such as The Washington Post’s 2019 expose on ICE’s use of facial recognition with driver’s license photo databases. According to the Georgetown Law Center report, the surveillance capabilities of ICE are enormous: “ICE has used face recognition technology to search through the driver’s license photographs of around 1 in 3 (32%) of all adults in the US. The agency has access to the driver’s license data of 3 in 4 (74%) adults and tracks the movements of cars in cities home to nearly 3 in 4 (70%) adults. When 3 in 4 (74%) adults in the US connected the gas, electricity, phone or internet in a new home, ICE was able to automatically learn their new address.” Some of this data came from ICE cooperating directly with other law enforcement agencies as well as state agencies such as DMVs. But it also came from private industry. For instance, the Georgetown Law Center report explains that ICE is able to track the movements of millions of Americans, thanks to a database of vehicle-license-plate photos provided by Vigilant Solutions. The report says that the photos come from myriad sources ranging from WROO ERRWKV WR SDUNLQJ JDUDJHV DQG DIIHFWLQJ DQ HVWLPDWHG RI WKH 86 population. ICE was able to get other information from a Thomson Reuters database called CLEAR. This, the Georgetown Law Center report said, contained 400 million names and addresses as well as driver’s licenses; real-time data pulled from the top three credit reporting agencies; and data from utilities including cable, electric, gas, telephone, and water—you know, VWX̆ \RX QHHG WR OLYH Georgetown said that ICE also used LexisNexis Special Services, which purchased data from 12 state DMVs²amounting to records on 88 million drivers.

Max Edd

7KH UHSRUW SDLQWV D FRPSOLFDWHG SLFWXUH RI ,&(¶V H̆RUWV HQFRPSDVVLQJ D massive group of contractors. The contractors are also drawing from a far-reaching web of seemingly innocuous sources. The report says ICE had access to data from credit-rating agency Equifax (already not the best at protecting people’s data) as well as from the National Consumer and Telecom Utilities Exchange (NCTUE). Equifax and NCTUE got their information from a secret list of some 85 companies. Georgetown believes that the list includes utility and services—gas, electric, and sewer—and major corporations you’ve probably crossed paths with, like Verizon and AT&T. NO SUCH THING AS A GOOD MASS-SURVEILLANCE PROGRAM ,W¶V LPSRUWDQW WR UHPHPEHU WKDW DQ\ PDVV VXUYHLOODQFH H̆RUW ZLOO inevitably, infringe on the privacy of people who are not involved in any investigation. If you have a car or have paid utility bills, ICE very likely has access to your data in one form or another and may well have used it without your knowledge or consent. As the Georgetown Law Center report says: ³:KHQ ,&( DQG '09 ṘFLDOV RQ LWV EHKDOI XVH IDFH UHFRJQLWLRQ WR search a state’s license photograph database, everyone’s image is being scanned by ICE, not just those of the person under investigation.” Even if you think this sort of surveillance is appropriate for law enforcement, consider that these are private companies. They do business with just about anyone, not just for the causes that you happen to support. PANOPTICON AS A SERVICE (PAAS) Capitalism, we’re taught, works by supply and demand duking it out in the market. Where there’s demand, eventually there will be a supply. In this case, at least some of that demand comes from restrictions designed to prevent ICE from gathering this information itself. The report cites an instance where the Oregon DMV signed a deal with two data brokers used by ICE shortly after that state passed legislation locking ICE out. We should not accept privacy regulations as a demand creator any more than we should be comfortable with corporations buying and selling our personal information.

Max Edd

8QIRUWXQDWHO\ IRU DOO RI XV IRU SUR¿W VXUYHLOODQFH LV D JURZLQJ EXVLQHVV Companies including Ring, which makes a video doorbell and has actively partnered with law enforcement for warrantless surveillance, were easy to expose and shame. But much data collection that goes on is far more subtle than this. From the websites we visit to the apps on our phones, companies are trying to learn as much as they can about us and our private lives. It’s bad enough when this data is used to send us a cavalcade of soul-crushing advertisements; it’s quite another thing when this gathered data is sold to law enforcement. For years, privacy advocates and security-minded people have agitated for restrictions on the government and law enforcement’s ability to surveil citizens. The outcry and response to the Snowden leaks showed how little tolerance Americans have for mass surveillance. Yet the solution we see from ICE is perhaps the most American of all: Why build the surveillance state when you can just buy it?

PC Magazine Senior Software Analyst Max Eddy has also written for publications such as International Digital Times, International Science Times, and The Mary Sue.

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Overturning Roe v. Wade Will Make Data-Privacy Laws an Issue of Life or Death Apps VXFK DV period trackers can share personal information with a host of sources. It’s time for federal data-privacy laws. Image: iStock/Getty Images Plus/metamorworks

Chandra Steel

COMMENTARY

Privacy is considered a fundamental right, so fundamental that it’s the bedrock of the Supreme Court enforcing the protections of the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. It’s also the basis of Roe v. Wade, a decision that is likely about to be overturned by that same court. Combine the erosion of this legal protection with the many ways that technology infringes on privacy, and women are about to face serious jeopardy from their phones and online behavior.

Chandra Steel

We are, all of us, maps of our anonymized data. The many snippets of information you put out onto the internet, which you’re promised are not traceable to you, when combined make an outline of a person who is unmistakably you. When women use health apps (particularly period-tracking apps), alter their buying patterns on shopping apps, change the types of foods they consume and log in nutrition apps, use GPS navigation to travel to health clinics or out of state, and search for health care, they are now putting themselves at risk of being tracked by law enforcement or turned in by bounty hunters, who only have to buy a bit of data to cash in on reporting women they suspect are seeking abortions. THE CRISIS IS ALREADY HERE A recent Motherboard investigation found that it costs only $160 to buy data showing where groups of people visiting Planned Parenthood came from, how long they stayed at the center, and where they went afterward. A few years ago, The New York Times was easily able to identify and track one woman (with her permission), using the data from just one broker. They followed her to her job teaching math at a middle school, a Weight Watchers meeting, her GHUPDWRORJLVW¶V ṘFH KLNLQJ ZLWK KHU GRJ DQG her ex-boyfriend’s home. Popular period-tracking app Flo has been investigated by the FTC and faced a class-action lawsuit for selling its users’ private health information to third parties for unrestricted use. $FFRUGLQJ WR WKH ¿OLQJ WKLV LQIRUPDWLRQ LQFOXGHG

It costs only $160 to buy data showing where groups of people visiting Planned Parenthood came from.

Chandra Steel

“name, email address, gender, date of birth, password or passcode, place of residence and associated location information, ID, weight, body temperature, menstrual cycle dates, various symptoms related to the user’s menstrual cycle and health, and other private health information including sexual activities, well-being, and related activities, including personal life.” Once Roe v. Wade is overturned, abortion is likely to be banned or restricted in 28 states. In some of those states, abortion will be criminalized, subjecting women who seek the procedure and anyone who aids them, including their doctors, to prison time. Birth control, emergency contraception, and IVF could soon face regulation or bans in the wake of new laws and criminal penalties that go along with them. SOON, IT WILL BECOME MUCH WORSE Data brokers have access to all this information and more, and they can get it from one or more of millions of apps and websites. While Roe v. Wade was a federal ruling that extends the right to privacy to a woman’s decision regarding her pregnancy, no federal law guarantees data privacy, and the data that apps collect is often not regulated at all. And this is where women are JRLQJ WR ¿QG WKDW WKH ODZ LV DJDLQVW WKHP PDQ\ times over. After news appeared of the pending overturning of Roe v. Wade, many women have stopped using period-tracking apps. Yet as the examples above indicate, these apps are only one of the thousands of ways that data can betray women seeking abortions. It is impossible to live in a way that

No federal law guarantees data privacy, and the data that apps collect is often not regulated at all.

Chandra Steel

evades them all. The onus for protecting privacy cannot and should not be on individuals. Federal data-privacy laws have stalled for a long time, mostly because tech companies have fought them. Even in the four states (California, Colorado, Utah, and Virginia) that do have such laws, only California R̆HUV DQ\ UHDO SURWHFWLRQ DV WKH RWKHUV ZHUH SUDFWLFDOO\ ZULWWHQ E\ WHFK lobbyists. Tech companies have banded together under names including WKH 6WDWH 3ULYDF\ DQG 6HFXULW\ &RDOLWLRQ DQG 7HFKQHW WR WU\ WR LQÀXHQFH ODZV WKDW DUH EUDQGHG DV GDWD SULYDF\ EXW ZLOO UHDOO\ DOORZ WKHP WR SUR¿W R̆ SHUVRQDO LQIRUPDWLRQ Now is the time for true federal data-privacy laws that are free from the LQÀXHQFH RI %LJ 7HFK 7KH LVVXH KDV QHYHU EHHQ PRUH YLWDO SDUWLFXODUO\ for women. For more information on data privacy and ways to take action, visit the (OHFWURQLF )URQWLHU )RXQGDWLRQ KWWSV ZZZ H̆ RUJ PCMag Senior Features Editor Chandra Steele got her tech journalism start at CMP/ United Business Media. She also writes ﬁction and has been published in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.

PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION I SUBSCRIBE I JULY 2022

REVIEWS

CONSUMER ELECTRONICS

Autel Robotics Evo Lite+: 6KVideo Drone A competitive drone with 6K video capabilities and obstacle sensors BY JIM FISHER

Photographers and video specialists who want a quality camera drone don’t have too many brand options. Autel Robotics is notable because it doesn’t SUHORDG LWV GURQHV ZLWK JHRJUDSKLF EDVHG WDNHR̆ UHVWULFWLRQV XQOLNH WKH PDUNHW OHDGHU '-, $XWHO¶V SUHPLXP PLGUDQJH HQWU\ WKH (YR /LWH KDV D . YLGHR FDPHUD ZLWK D LQFK VHQVRU WKDW¶V D ELW PRUH FDSDEOH WKDQ WKH RQH RQ WKH '-, $LU 6 EHFDXVH RI LWV YDULDEOH DSHUWXUH ,W¶V ZRUWK FKHFNLQJ RXW SDUWLFXODUO\ LI EDWWHU\ OLIH LV LPSRUWDQW WR \RX²HYHQ WKRXJK WKH $LU 6 LV PRUH D̆RUGDEOH DQG VOLJKWO\ VPRRWKHU LQ RSHUDWLRQ

A MIDSIZE FOLDING DRONE 7KH $XWHO (YR /LWH IDOOV LQWR WKH PLGVL]H FDWHJRU\ IRU IROGLQJ GURQHV ,W¶V ELJJHU WKDQ WLQ\ VWDUWHUV LQFOXGLQJ WKH '-, 0LQL DQG $XWHO 1DQR VHULHV EXW OLJKWHU WKDQ WKH GLVFRQWLQXHG (YR ,, 3UR DQG WKH '-, 0DYLF $W DERXW E\ E\ LQFKHV +:' IROGHG LW FDQ EH carried in a bag or backpack. You also need to take the 7UXVW WHVW DQG SD\ D )$$ UHJLVWUDWLRQ IHH EHIRUH À\LQJ LW LQ WKH 86 EHFDXVH LW ZHLJKV SRXQGV <RX FDQ EX\ WKH GURQH LQ \RXU FKRLFH RI WKUHH FRORUV $UFWLF :KLWH $XWHO 2UDQJH RU 'HHS 6SDFH *UD\

PROS Stabilized 6K30 and 4K60 video 20MP stills in Raw DNG or JPG 1-inch camera with variable aperture Beefy battery for up to 40 minutes of ﬂight Three-way obstacle sensors Automated camera moves and Hyperlapse GPS and automated return-to-home

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CONS Color video profile isn’t configurable 8-bit flat video profile Screenless remote is a step backward from previous generation Doesn’t support autonomous navigation around obstructions

<RX FDQ EX\ WKH /LWH LQ D EDVLF NLW ZLWK D VLQJOH EDWWHU\ and remote control. But you need to use your Android RU L26 VPDUWSKRQH WR UXQ WKH $XWHO 6N\ DSS DQG VHH through the camera.

• • • • • • • • • • •

THE BOTTOM LINE The Polar Pacer Pro helps you plan, track, and analyze your training sessions as you safely work toward your goals, making it one of the best GPS watches for dedicated runners.

The drone folds for storage and includes a protective cover for its camera.

Swing out the propeller arms to get the drone ready for ﬂight.

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The battery loads in the rear and includes a visual gauge to show its charge level.

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$Q LQWHJUDWHG *36 WHOOV WKH GURQH ZKHUH LW LV LQ WKH ZRUOG DQG LW ZRUNV DORQJVLGH GRZQZDUG IDFLQJ YLVXDO sensors so the drone hovers in place when your hands DUH R̆ WKH FRQWUROV $ UHWXUQ WR KRPH RSWLRQ LV DOVR DYDLODEOH D EDVLF VDIHW\ IHDWXUH WKDW EULQJV WKH (YR /LWH EDFN WR LWV WDNHR̆ ORFDWLRQ LI LW ORVHV communication with the remote. 7KH (YR /LWH GRHVQ¶W LQFOXGH WKH JHRIHQFLQJ WKDW OLPLWV ZKHUH '-, GURQHV FDQ À\ ,W¶V XS WR \RX WR PDNH VXUH \RX¶UH DXWKRUL]HG WR XVH D GURQH LQ DQ DUHD ,I \RX¶UH QRW VXUH WKH )$$ % 8)/< ZHEVLWH LV D JRRG UHIHUHQFH DW OHDVW ZKHQ \RX¶UH LQ WKH 86 \RX VKRXOG EUXVK XS RQ ORFDO UHJXODWLRQV ZKHQ À\LQJ DEURDG 7KH /LWH GRHVQ¶W KDYH DQ $'6 % UHFHLYHU WR ZDUQ \RX RI QHDUE\ DLUFUDIW HLWKHU ,I \RX OLYH LQ DQ DUHD ZKHUH VPDOO SODQHV IUHTXHQWO\ À\ DW ORZHU DOWLWXGHV WKH '-, $LU 6 LV OLNHO\ D VDIHU RSWLRQ²LWV $LU6HQVH V\VWHP ZDUQV ZKHQ PDQQHG DLUFUDIW DUH À\LQJ QHDU \RXU GURQH

A return-tohome safety feature brings the Evo Lite+ back to its takeoff location if it loses communication with the remote.

Obstacle sensors are arranged in stereo pairs; the rear sensors are the two black circles below the battery.

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The ﬂat proﬁle captures footage with much less saturation and contrast but also suffers from sharpening artifacts.

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A black-andwhite mode for pilots who don’t want to learn how to use color correction tools is another thing the company should add.

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Overall, I’m happier with the still quality here simply because creators have more control with the Raw DNG format.

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PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION I SUBSCRIBE I JULY 2022

CONSUMER ELECTRONICS

Image: Ecobee

REVIEWS

Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium: Rich in Features Beautifully designed, too BY JOHN R. DELANEY

The Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium is the company’s latest and most advanced connected thermostat. It lets you control your heating and cooling from your phone, and it supports the Alexa, HomeKit, Google Assistant, IFTTT, and SmartThings platforms. This stylish device also houses an air-quality monitor, comes with a remote room sensor, and can function as both a homesecurity device and a standalone Alexa-powered smart speaker. It’s one of the most feature-packed thermostats we’ve tested, and easily earns our Editors’ Choice award for smart thermostats.

STRIKING DESIGN, STRONG THIRD-PARTY SUPPORT Ecobee thermostats have always had attractive designs, and the Smart Thermostat Premium is its most aesthetically pleasing model yet. At 4.1 by 4.1 by 1.0 inches (HWD), it’s a hair smaller than the Ecobee Smart Thermostat With Voice Control (4.2 by 4.2 by 1.0 LQFKHV EXW R̆HUV D ODUJHU LQFK FRORU WRXFK VFUHHQ made of glass with a 540-by-540-pixel resolution. A black display face and Zinc trim with rounded corners complete the look. The back includes a speaker from which you can play tunes from Amazon Music, Spotify, and via AirPlay. In the box, you get the thermostat, a mounting plate with twelve terminals, an optional white wall trim plate, a remote room sensor and stand, a power adapter kit for homes that do not have a C (common) wire, mounting screws, wire labels, and an installation guide. You can place the one included remote sensor in any room to monitor occupancy and control the temperature. A pair of additional sensors costs $99.99, and you can pair up to 32 sensors with the thermostat to help ensure uniform heating and cooling throughout your home. The thermostat uses the sensors to automatically adjust the temperature based on occupancy; they also serve as security devices that send an alert whenever they detect motion. The Smart Thermostat Premium works with most 24V HVAC equipment, including conventional gas and oil furnaces, air-conditioning systems, heat pumps, boilers, KXPLGL¿HUV GHKXPLGL¿HUV DQG YHQWLODWRUV ,W QRWDEO\ features Ecobee’s new radar occupancy and motionsensing technology, which allows the device to detect movement from a greater distance than the PIR sensor on previous models. It even registers motion from around corners.

PROS Supports Alexa, Google Assistant, HomeKit, IFTTT, and SmartThings Doubles as a home security device and smart speaker Monitors air quality Dual-band Wi-Fi Beautiful design

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CONS Pricey Some features require a subscription

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THE BOTTOM LINE The feature-rich Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium controls your heating and cooling, works as a smart speaker and security device, monitors air quality, and supports lots of third-party platforms.

Image: Ecobee

Under the hood are a built-in Alexa voice assistant, an air-quality sensor, a Bluetooth radio, and a dual-band Wi-Fi radio. The air-quality sensor monitors VOC (volatile organic compound), humidity, and carbon dioxide levels and sends an alert when these measurements are in an unhealthy range. It isn’t quite as advanced as a standalone device such as the Amazon 6PDUW $LU 4XDOLW\ 0RQLWRU RU DQ DFWXDO DLU SXUL¿HU EXW it’s a nice extra feature. You can use Alexa voice control, which is built in, or Google Assistant/Siri voice commands with a compatible smart speaker to change thermostat settings, get the news, play music, and check the temperature in rooms with sensors. The Premium model supports Alexa Drop In calls as well as Alexa Calling and Messaging. It also supports the IFTTT and SmartThings platforms. Alternatively, you can use the device’s colorful display WR FRQWURO WKH XQLW DV LW R̆HUV D ZHDOWK RI LQIRUPDWLRQ and settings. In addition to the current indoor temperature, it tells you the indoor humidity level, the current air-quality rating (clean or poor), the system mode, the set temperature, and the local weather. You also get menu and voice-assistant buttons.

The thermostat has potential as a home security hub, too. For instance, you can add Ecobee SmartSensors for doors and windows ($79.99 for a pack of two) and RXW¿W URRPV ZLWK DQ (FREHH 6PDUW&DPHUD )XUWKHUPRUH ZLWK D $5-per-month Standard Smart Security plan, you get 30 days of video storage for one camera, entry and motion alerts, smoke-alarm detection (it uses the camera and thermostat to listen for your existing smoke detector), and freeze detection (via the thermostat). The $10-per-month Complete plan adds 24/7 professional monitoring and 30 days of video storage for an unlimited number of SmartCameras. ECOBEE APP EXPERIENCE This thermostat uses the same mobile app as the Ecobee SmartCamera and earlier thermostat models. It has a panel on the Home screen that displays the name of the thermostat, the current room and set temperatures, and the status (heat, cool, or hold). Tap the panel to see the current humidity level, air quality, room temperature, and set temperature. You also see the current Comfort setting (Home, Away, or Sleep) and buttons for Weather, Mode, and Quick Changes. Tap the Weather button to see current conditions as well as the weekly IRUHFDVW 3UHVV WKH 0RGH EXWWRQ WR WRJJOH EHWZHHQ KHDWLQJ FRROLQJ DQG R̆ modes. In the Quick Changes section, select one of the above-mentioned Comfort settings and see which equipment is currently running.

Tap the gear button in the upper-right corner to access the Settings menu. Here, \RX FDQ FRQ¿JXUH HFR IULHQGO\ VHWWLQJV WKDW DLP WR UHGXFH HQHUJ\ FRVWV E\ pausing the system when doors or windows are open and adjusting the WHPSHUDWXUH EDVHG RQ KXPLGLW\ OHYHOV <RX FDQ DOVR FRQ¿JXUH +RPH DQG $ZD\ settings to help save energy, create heating and cooling schedules, and apply for Community Energy Savings rebates. Other settings let you add sensors, FRQ¿JXUH &RPIRUW VHWWLQJV VHW ¿OWHU DQG PDLQWHQDQFH UHPLQGHUV DQG DOHUWV VHOHFW D WHPSHUDWXUH GLVSOD\ )DKUHQKHLW RU &HOVLXV DQG FRQ¿JXUH $OH[D DQG Spotify preferences. STRAIGHTFORWARD SETUP, EXCELLENT PERFORMANCE Ecobee’s written and video installation instructions are easy to follow, but as is the case with any thermostat, the setup process requires you to work with lowvoltage wiring. If this makes you uncomfortable, hire a professional. 7R VWDUW WKH SURFHVV , WXUQHG R̆ WKH SRZHU WR P\ H[LVWLQJ WKHUPRVWDW DW WKH breaker box, removed the thermostat, and took a picture of the wiring before removing the mounting plate. I ran the wires through the back of the Ecobee mounting plate, attached each wire to its corresponding terminal, and attached the plate to the wall with mounting screws. A built-in level assured me that the SODWH ZDV OHYHO ZLWK WKH ÀRRU DQG FHLOLQJ , VQDSSHG WKH WKHUPRVWDW LQWR SODFH and restored power to the circuit. $V D QH[W VWHS , VHOHFWHG P\ ZLULQJ FRQ¿JXUDWLRQ RQ WKH GHYLFH DQG JDYH LW D name. I also paired the sensor by pulling the tab from it and giving it a name. I VHOHFWHG +RPH $ZD\ DQG 6OHHS &RPIRUW VHWWLQJV DQG , FRQ¿JXUHG :L )L WR complete the connection process. I selected a current mode for my system (heat), set my ideal winter temperature, and selected my country and time zone. $QG ¿QDOO\ , ZURWH GRZQ WKH UHJLVWUDWLRQ FRGH WKDW DSSHDUHG RQ WKH VFUHHQ DQG tapped Finish. Next, I downloaded the Ecobee mobile app, created an account and a home name, and tapped the plus button in the upper right corner of the Home screen WR DGG D GHYLFH , VHOHFWHG 7KHUPRVWDW IURP WKH OLVW DQG FRQ¿UPHG WKDW WKH device was already installed (you can say No and follow the on-screen setup instructions that cover the above steps at this point). After I entered the registration code from the Menu screen, everything was ready to go.

Image: Ecobee

The Smart Thermostat Premium worked beautifully in testing, and I appreciate that the display is bright enough to read from across the room. The thermostat did an excellent job of maintaining my requested temperature and followed my schedule to a tee. It responded instantly to set temperature changes using the app and the onboard controls, and it quickly acted on Alexa voice commands. Both the thermostat and the sensor sent alerts immediately when they detected motion, too. As an Alexa voice assistant, the Premium had no trouble delivering the news, sports, and local weather conditions upon command. It also played songs from my Amazon Music library without issue, though the speaker distorts audio at high volumes. WORTH THE PREMIUM The Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium is a versatile smart home thermostat that also serves as an Alexa voice assistant, an air-quality monitor, and a homesecurity device. It installs easily, performed well in testing, and nicely accents any room with its sleek design. Moreover, it comes with a remote room sensor and works with the Google Assistant, HomeKit, IFTTT, and SmartThings platforms. The Nest Learning Thermostat ($249) is a good alternative if you use other Nest devices, but it doesn’t function as a smart speaker or monitor air quality as does the Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium, earning the latter our Editors’ Choice award. If you don’t want to spend quite so much, the Wyze Thermostat ($73.99) doesn’t support HomeKit or IFTTT but is still a highly capable alternative. PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION I SUBSCRIBE I JULY 2022

REVIEWS

CONSUMER ELECTRONICS

Furbo 360 Dog Camera: Best for Pup-Tracking Free bark alerts and improved treat-tossing BY ANGELA MOSCARITOLO

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PROS 360-degree views with silent panning Automatic dog tracking Color night vision Quieter, more adjustable treat-tosser Free barking alerts Works with Amazon Alexa Attractive design

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CONS Doesn’t tilt vertically No local storage option Some features require a subscription Lacks Google Assistant support

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THE BOTTOM LINE The Furbo 360 Dog Camera lets you see your pet and dispense treats remotely, improving upon the original with color night vision and the ability to pan from side to side for 360-degree views.

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The Furbo 360 has enough room for a 4-ounce bag of small training treats.

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Press the arrow to the left or right of the video stream to pan in that direction.

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The Furbo 360’s picture quality is sharp and colorful in good light.

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The Furbo 360’s color night vision works well in low light.

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Lenovo Legion 5i Pro Gen 7: A Formidable Gaming Laptop Extremely fast, fairly priced BY ERIC GREVSTAD

Lenovo’s Legion gaming-laptop line includes a variety of AMD- and Intel-based ULJV ZLWK DQG LQFK VFUHHQV <RX PLJKW ¿QG LW KDUG WR UHVLVW WKH latest, greatest, and most-specced-out models at the top of the range, but the 16-inch Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 makes a compelling case for moderation. This machine combines Intel’s 12th Generation Core i7 processor with Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3070 Ti for lively performance. It’s not quite as quick as another Intel 12th Gen gamer, the MSI Vector GP66, but it costs less and has a nicer display and keyboard. The Legion 5i Pro is an attractive pick in the uppermiddle of the gaming space.

FOR GAMERS WITH TWO GRAND IN THEIR WALLETS Positioned below the also recently refreshed Legion 7 series, the Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 has a 16-inch IPS nontouch screen with a 16:10 aspect ratio, 2,560-by-1,600pixel resolution, and a 165Hz refresh rate with Nvidia G-Sync support. The CPU is the Core i7-12700H (six SHUIRUPDQFH FRUHV HLJKW ḢFLHQW FRUHV WKUHDGV and standard memory is 16GB of DDR5. :DOPDUW R̆HUV D FRQ¿J ZLWK *H)RUFH 57; 7L graphics and a 1TB solid-state drive for $1,779.99, while a model on Lenovo.com has an RTX 3070 Ti GPU and WZR 7% GULYHV 2XU WHVW XQLW PRGHO 5) 786 PDWFKHG WKH ODWWHU H[FHSW IRU KDYLQJ MXVW a single 512GB SSD; its price and availability was unclear at presstime. Clad in monochromatic Storm Gray with an aluminum lid and bottom and plastic keyboard deck, the 5i Pro has stylishly slim bezels around the display and almost no ÀH[ LI \RX JUDVS WKH VFUHHQ FRUQHUV RU PDVK WKH keyboard. A large Legion logo decorates the lid, which

PROS World-class productivity and gaming performance Attractive medium-highres, medium-fast-refresh 16:10 display Responsive keyboard Plenty of ports

• • • •

CONS No SD or microSD card slot No biometrics

• •

THE BOTTOM LINE An upgrade to 12th Generation Intel silicon makes Lenovo’s 16-inch gaming laptop a formidable competitor.

doesn’t open or let you tilt the screen back very far. At E\ E\ LQFKHV +:' WKH /HQRYR LV DERXW the same size as the HP Victus 16 and the 15.6-inch Vector GP66, though slightly heavier (5.49 pounds YHUVXV IRU WKH +3 DQG IRU WKH 06, Like many gaming laptops, the Legion has neither a ¿QJHUSULQW UHDGHU QRU D IDFH UHFRJQLWLRQ ZHEFDP VR you’re stuck typing passwords instead of using Windows Hello. The keyboard includes a numeric NH\SDG LW VSOLWV WKH GL̆HUHQFH EHWZHHQ RQH FRORU backlighting and per-key RGB illumination with four backlight zones, tweakable via a Spectrum module in the Lenovo Vantage utility software. &RQQHFWLYLW\ LV D VWURQJ VXLW 7KH OHIW ÀDQN KDV WZR 86% 7\SH & SRUWV RQH ZLWK 7KXQGHUEROW FDSDELOLW\ 2Q WKH ULJKW DUH D 86% 7\SH $ SRUW DQ DXGLR MDFN DQG D ZHEFDP RQ R̆ VZLWFK 7ZR PRUH 86% $ SRUWV DQG DQRWKHU 86% & SRUW MRLQ +'0, DQG (WKHUQHW SRUWV DQG the power connector at the rear (with convenient ODEHOLQJ DORQJ WKH ODSWRS¶V EDFN HGJH :L )L ( DQG Bluetooth handle wireless links. COMFORTABLE KEYBOARD, STRANGE FUNCTION KEYS The keyboard has a shallow but snappy and comfortable typing feel. Its colorful backlighting is bright, and its OD\RXW LV ¿UVW FODVV EXW WKHUH¶V DQ DQQR\LQJ VLGH H̆HFW WR WKH FRPPRQ VKRUWFXW RI SUHVVLQJ )Q (VF WR DFWLYDWH Fn Lock: Although the setting lets you press F2 and F3 WR DGMXVW YROXPH RU ) DQG ) WR DGMXVW EULJKWQHVV ZLWK QR QHHG WR KROG GRZQ WKH )Q NH\ WKH +RPH (QG 3DJH Up, and Page Down keys above the keypad stop working, serving as media play/pause and next/ previous track keys instead. The buttonless touchpad JOLGHV VPRRWKO\ EXW KDV D VWL̆ FOLFN

The webcam has the usual skimpy 720p resolution, but it captures above-average images in terms of color and clarity, with accurate hues and reasonable brightness HYHQ LQ XQH[FHSWLRQDO DPELHQW OLJKW 2XU UHYLHZ XQLW¶V sound cut out several times, with Windows reporting there was no audio device installed until I ran the troubleshooter to restart it. But the problem didn’t UHFXU DIWHU D %,26 XSGDWH Bottom-mounted speakers produce moderately loud, slightly hollow sound that’s greatly enhanced by the supplied Nahimic software’s music, movie, gaming, communication, and smart modes and equalizer. Bass is minimal, but you can make out overlapping tracks. /HQRYR 9DQWDJH R̆HUV &38 DQG *38 PRQLWRULQJ system updates, macro key recording, Wi-Fi security, and a choice of performance/cooling modes depending on your tolerance for fan noise. It also pitches annual 6PDUW 3HUIRUPDQFH DQG DQQXDO 6PDUW 3ULYDF\ VXEVFULSWLRQV ZKLOH WKH 0F$IHH VHFXULW\ WULDO provides pop-ups galore.

The keyboard includes a numeric keypad; it splits the difference between one-color backlighting and per-key RGB illumination.

The 16:10 aspect ratio screen provides high brightness and contrast as well as wide viewing angles. Its 165Hz refresh rate and Nvidia G-Sync support will please gamers, and its colors are rich and saturated enough for photo or video editing. Fine details and the edges of letters are sharp, and white backgrounds are clean instead of dingy. X-Rite Color Assistant software lets you switch DPRQJ GHIDXOW V5*% DQG 5HF YLGHR SUR¿OHV EXW QHLWKHU WKH VRIWZDUH QRU the display itself is up to the level of mobile workstation panels that support Adobe RGB and DCI-P3 modes. PERFORMANCE TESTING: ELITE GAMERS GO HEAD TO HEAD For our benchmark tests, we pitted the Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 against four other JDPLQJ ODSWRSV $OO DUH DERYH H[FHSW IRU WKH PRUH D̆RUGDEOH +3 9LFWXV 7KH 06, 9HFWRU *3 DQG WKH LQFK $RUXV ;( DOVR KDYH WK *HQ ,QWHO SURFHVVRUV WKH $RUXV WKH VDPH &38 DQG *38 DV WKH /HJLRQ 7KH ODVW VORW went to the 5i Pro’s 16-inch stablemate, the AMD-powered Lenovo Legion 7 Gen 6. You can see their basic specs in the table below.

Productivity tests: The main benchmark of UL’s PCMark 10 simulates a YDULHW\ RI UHDO ZRUOG SURGXFWLYLW\ DQG FRQWHQW FUHDWLRQ ZRUNÀRZV WR PHDVXUH RYHUDOO SHUIRUPDQFH IRU ṘFH FHQWULF WDVNV VXFK DV ZRUG SURFHVVLQJ FUHDWLQJ and using spreadsheets, web browsing, and videoconferencing. We also run PCMark 10’s Full System Drive test to assess the load time and throughput of a laptop’s storage.

Three benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon’s Cinebench R23 uses that company’s Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, and Primate Labs’ Geekbench 5.4 Pro simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution. 2XU ¿QDO SURGXFWLYLW\ WHVW LV 3XJHW 6\VWHPV¶ 3XJHW%HQFK IRU 3KRWRVKRS ZKLFK uses the Creative Cloud version 22 of Adobe’s famous image editor to rate a PC’s performance for content creation and multimedia applications. It’s an automated extension that executes a variety of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks, including opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image as ZHOO DV DSSO\LQJ PDVNV JUDGLHQW ¿OOV DQG ¿OWHUV The Legion 5i Pro obliterated the PCMark 10 productivity test—though frankly, DOO WKHVH V\VWHPV DUH VKHHU RYHUNLOO IRU WKH OLNHV RI :RUG DQG ([FHO $QG LWV &RUH i7 slugged it out with the MSI’s Core i9 in our CPU benchmarks. Its performance and splendid screen make it a great pick for Photoshop, though it lacks an SD or microSD card slot for transferring digital images.

Graphics and gaming tests: We test Windows PCs’ graphics with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark. The Night Raid simulation is more modest, suitable for laptops with integrated graphics, while Time Spy is more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs. We also run two tests from the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which stresses both low-level routines, such as texturing, and high-level, game-like image rendering. The 1440p Aztec Ruins and 1080p Car Chase WHVWV UHQGHUHG R̆VFUHHQ WR DFFRPPRGDWH GL̆HUHQW GLVSOD\ UHVROXWLRQV H[HUFLVH JUDSKLFV DQG FRPSXWH VKDGHUV XVLQJ WKH 2SHQ*/ SURJUDPPLQJ LQWHUIDFH DQG KDUGZDUH WHVVHOODWLRQ UHVSHFWLYHO\ 7KH PRUH IUDPHV SHU VHFRQG ISV the better. 2XU QH[W WKUHH WHVWV LQYROYH UHDO JDPHV²VSHFL¿FDOO\ WKH EXLOW LQ S EHQFKPDUNV IURP DQ $$$ WLWOH $VVDVVLQ¶V &UHHG 9DOKDOOD D IDVW SDFHG HVSRUWV VKRRWHU 5DLQERZ 6L[ 6LHJH DQG D VSRUWV UDFLQJ VLP ) :H UXQ HDFK EHQFKPDUN WZLFH XVLQJ GL̆HUHQW LPDJH TXDOLW\ SUHVHWV IRU 9DOKDOOD DQG Rainbow and trying F1 with and without Nvidia’s DLSS anti-aliasing technology. 7KH L 3UR JHQHUDOO\ ¿QLVKHG VHFRQG WR WKH 9HFWRU *3 ²SHUKDSV EHFDXVH LW runs its GeForce RTX 3070 Ti at 125 watts to the MSI’s 150—but in all our tests except Rainbow Six Siege, it was a very close second, and it also upstaged the supposedly faster RTX 3080 in the Legion 7 Gen 6. If the 5i Pro isn’t quite a match for top-end gaming rigs with higher-refresh-rate 1080p displays, it’s admirably equipped for brisk gameplay at both 1080p and its native 2,560-by1,600-pixel resolution. Battery and display tests: We test laptops’ battery life by playing a locally VWRUHG S YLGHR ¿OH WKH RSHQ VRXUFH %OHQGHU PRYLH Tears of Steel) with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with both Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting WXUQHG R̆ :H DOVR XVH D 'DWDFRORU 6S\GHU; (OLWH PRQLWRU FDOLEUDWLRQ VHQVRU DQG VRIWZDUH to measure a laptop screen’s color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its DQG SHDN EULJKWQHVV LQ QLWV FDQGHODV SHU VTXDUH PHWHU

7KH /HJLRQ L 3UR *HQ ¶V FRORU ¿GHOLW\ ZDV PHUHO\ JRRG QRW VSHFWDFXODU EXW LW delivered the highest screen brightness and the best battery life in the group, URXJKO\ WULSOLQJ WKH 06,¶V XQSOXJJHG UXQWLPH 2YHUDOO LW¶V KDUG WR WKLQN DQ\ JDPHU ZLOO EH GLVVDWLV¿HG ZLWK HLWKHU LWV REMHFWLYH EHQFKPDUN UHVXOWV RU VXEMHFWLYH LPSUHVVLRQV LQ HYHU\GD\ XVH AN ADMIRABLE ALL-ROUNDER The Lenovo Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 isn’t the very fastest gaming laptop you can buy, but it’s extremely fast and fairly priced. And it’s a stylish and well-built pick for productivity and creative work when you’re not playing games, with an appealing screen and keyboard and all the connectivity you could want. $ FRQ¿JXUDWLRQ ZLWK 7% RU 7% RI VWRUDJH UDWKHU WKDQ RXU WHVW XQLW¶V *% PLJKW KDYH VFRUHG WKLV V\VWHP DQ (GLWRUV¶ &KRLFH DZDUG (YHQ ZLWKRXW RQH WKLV Legion shows why 16-inch gaming rigs are putting the hurt on traditional 15.6inch models. Photos by Molly Flores

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Razer Viper V2 Pro: A Perfect Mouse for Esports Do true pros need an RGB mouse? Razer thinks not BY ZACHERY CUEVAS

You can’t talk about gaming mice without talking about Razer. In 2019, we UDYHG DERXW WKH ZLUHOHVV 5D]HU 9LSHU 8OWLPDWH D KLJK HQG VSLQR̆ RI WKH OLJKW IDVW DQG DPELGH[WURXV 5D]HU 9LSHU &RPSOHWH ZLWK DOO WKH HVSRUWV ¿[LQJV \RX FRXOG DVN IRU LQ D ZLUHOHVV JDPLQJ PRXVH WKH 8OWLPDWH LPSUHVVHG XV ZLWK LWV IDEXORXV IHDWXUH VHW GHVSLWH LWV KLJK SULFH 7KUHH \HDUV ODWHU WKH FRPSDQ\ KDV taken another step toward wireless gaming domination with the Viper V2 Pro, ZKLFK XSJUDGHV WKH 9LSHU 8OWLPDWH LQ DOPRVW HYHU\ ZD\ 7KH QHZ PRXVH LV QR FKHDSHU WKDQ LWV SUHGHFHVVRU GHVSLWH D VLPSOH 86% & FDEOH UHSODFLQJ WKH ODWWHU¶V FKDUJLQJ GRFN EXW LW HDVLO\ HDUQV (GLWRUV¶ &KRLFH KRQRUV

THE VIPER’S BITE GETS MORE POWERFUL 7KH 5D]HU 9LSHU 9 3UR LV PRVWO\ LGHQWLFDO WR WKH ROGHU Viper mouse, but the devil is in the details. First, the V2 GLWFKHV WKH DPELGH[WURXV OD\RXW DQG UHPRYHV WKH WZR ULJKW VLGH EXWWRQV EULQJLQJ WKH WRWDO QXPEHU RI EXWWRQV GRZQ WR VL[ 7KLV KHOSV UHGXFH WKH 9 ¶V ZHLJKW WR RXQFHV IRU RXU ZKLWH WHVW XQLW WKH EODFN YHUVLRQ LV D VOLJKWO\ OLJKWHU 2.05 ounces) while giving it a cleaner, minimalist GHVLJQ 7KH UHPDLQLQJ WZR OHIW VLGH EXWWRQV KDYH KDG D ELW RI D IDFHOLIW WRR WZHDNHG WR EH OHVV ÀXVK DJDLQVW WKH PRXVH FRPSDUHG WR WKRVH RI WKH 9LSHU 8OWLPDWH 5D]HU also upgraded the mouse’s switches, which now SURPLVH WR ODVW IRU XS WR PLOOLRQ FOLFNV YHUVXV PLOOLRQ IRU WKH 8OWLPDWH¶V $W E\ E\ LQFKHV +:' WKH 9LSHU 9 3UR is almost identical in shape to the older model as well as WR RWKHU ZLUHOHVV JDPLQJ PLFH WKDW IDYRU SDOP JULSV VXFK DV WKH +\SHU; 3XOVH¿UH +DVWH ,W IHHOV LQFUHGLEO\ OLJKW HYHQ OLJKWHU WKDQ WKH /RJLWHFK * 3UR ; 6XSHUOLJKW :LUHOHVV *DPLQJ 0RXVH EXW LWV FKDVVLV QHYHU IHHOV OLNH LW¶OO EUHDN LQWR SLHFHV LI GURSSHG

PROS Clean, minimalist design Excellent sensor Durable optical switches Lightweight

• • • •

CONS Expensive No RGB lighting Fewer buttons

• • •

THE BOTTOM LINE Tons of small changes morph the Razer Viper V2 Pro gaming mouse into a perfect match for esports players looking for the lightest and fastest controller.

7KH LQFOXGHG 86% ZLUHOHVV GRQJOH GHOLYHUV DQ LQFUHGLEO\ VWDEOH H[SHULHQFH RYHU D *+] FRQQHFWLRQ WKH VWDQGDUG IRU ZLUHOHVV JDPLQJ PLFH WKRXJK XVHUV ZKR SUHIHU D ZLUHG FRQQHFWLRQ QHHG RQO\ WR SOXJ LQ WKH LQFOXGHG 6SHHG)OH[ FDEOH²LW XVHV D 86% & SRUW LQVWHDG RI WKH PLFUR 86% SRUW WKH 9LSHU 8OWLPDWH KDG )OLSSLQJ WKH PRXVH RYHU \RX¶OO ¿QG D PRVWO\ FOHDQ XQGHUVLGH ZLWK WKUHH 37)( IHHW D SRZHU '3, EXWWRQ DQG WKH QHZ )RFXV 3UR N RSWLFDO VHQVRU 7KLV QHZ GHVLJQ LPSURYHV RQ WKH SUHYLRXV )RFXV 3OXV VHQVRU LQ VRPH LQWHUHVWLQJ ZD\V ,W ZRUNV RQ D YDULHW\ RI GL̆HUHQW VXUIDFHV LQFOXGLQJ JODVV XS WR PP WKLFN DQG SURPLVHV LPSURYHG SRZHU ḢFLHQF\ WKDW KHOSV JLYH WKH 9 3UR D UDWHG EDWWHU\ OLIH RI KRXUV XS IURP WKH 9LSHU 8OWLPDWH /LNH WKH 8OWLPDWH EHIRUH LW WKH 9 3UR PDNHV XVH RI 5D]HU¶V 6PDUW 7UDFNLQJ 0RWLRQ 6\QF DQG $V\PPHWULF &XW 2̆ WHFKQRORJLHV 7KH ¿UVW KHOSV PDLQWDLQ D FRQVLVWHQW OLIW R̆ GLVWDQFH QR PDWWHU WKH VXUIDFH DOORZLQJ IRU JUHDWHU FRQWURO 0RWLRQ 6\QF DOLJQV ZLWK WKH H[DFW LQWHUYDOV \RXU 3& H[WUDFWV LQIRUPDWLRQ IURP WKH PRXVH HQVXULQJ LW JHWV WKH PRVW FXUUHQW XSGDWHV RQ \RXU PRXVH SRVLWLRQ )LQDOO\ $V\PPHWULF &XW 2̆ QRZ IHDWXUHV JUDQXODU OHYHOV RI KHLJKW DGMXVWPHQW²XS IURP WKUHH LQ WKH SUHYLRXV YHUVLRQ :LWK D GSL PD[LPXP UHVROXWLRQ DQG D WRS VSHHG RI LQFKHV SHU VHFRQG WKH QHZ VHQVRU is impressive.

5HSODFLQJ WKH ZLUHOHVV GRFNLQJ VWDWLRQ RI WKH SUHYLRXV 9LSHU WKH 9 3UR KRXVHV D 86% & SRUW ULJKW EHWZHHQ WKH PDLQ FOLFNHUV 8VLQJ WKH IRRW 6SHHG)OH[ FDEOH LV WKH EHVW ZD\ WR FKDUJH DV WKH VRIW SOLDEOH FRUG LV PDGH WR UHVLVW VQDJV EXW DQ\ 86% 7\SH $ WR 7\SH & FDEOH VKRXOG GR ,Q WKH ER[ \RX¶OO DOVR ¿QG D ZLUHOHVV GRQJOH and additional grip tape. HOW TO STIMULATE THE VIPER’S SYNAPSES )RU P\ PRQH\ 5D]HU LV WKH EUDQG WR EHDW ZKHQ LW FRPHV WR 5*% OLJKWLQJ VR LW ZDV D ELW RI D VKRFN WR GLVFRYHU WKH 9 3UR KDV QR 5*% DW DOO²QRW HYHQ RQ WKH LQVLJQLD RU scroll wheel. Razer seems to be leaning into the PLQLPDOLVW DSSURDFK ZLWK WKLV PRGHO DQG LW PRVWO\ ZRUNV WKRXJK , FDQ¶W VD\ , GRQ¶W PLVV WKH EOLQJ 7KDW VDLG ,¶G ZDJHU WKDW HVSRUWV SOD\HUV WKH 9LSHU¶V PDLQ DXGLHQFH ZRXOG KDSSLO\ VDFUL¿FH WKH OLJKW VKRZ LI LW FXW VRPH ZHLJKW IURP WKHLU PLFH But losing RGB doesn’t make Razer’s customization VRIWZDUH 5D]HU 6\QDSVH DQ\ OHVV UREXVW 6XUH WKHUH DUH QR OLJKWV WR FXVWRPL]H EXW \RX FDQ FDOLEUDWH WZHDN DQG adjust sensitivities, power levels, and much more to \RXU KHDUW¶V FRQWHQW 7KH PRXVH R̆HUV ¿YH '3, VHWWLQJV

For my money, Razer is the brand to beat when it comes to RGB lighting, so it was a bit of a shock to discover the V2 Pro has no RGB at all.

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The Razer V2 Pro feels designed for experts who aren’t afraid to wade deep into settings menus, in all the best ways.

VIPER V2: FOR THE PRO IN ALL OF US 7KH 5D]HU 9LSHU 9 3UR IHDWXUHV D ORW RI VPDOO FKDQJHV WR WKH GHVLJQ WKDW DOO FRPH WRJHWKHU WR IHHO OLNH D UHDO VWHS XS IURP WKH 9LSHU 8OWLPDWH HYHQ WKRXJK LW¶V QRW D UHYHODWLRQ WKH ZD\ WKDW PRXVH ZDV ,I \RX WDNH \RXU JDPLQJ VHULRXVO\ \RX ZRQ¶W ZDQW WR VNLS WKH 9 3UR D IDQWDVWLF JDPLQJ PRXVH ZLWK D VXSHUE sensor, great customization options, and a clean design that’s sure to look good RQ \RXU GHVNWRS ,WV IHDWXUH VHW LV H[DFWO\ ZKDW ZH ORRN IRU LQ D ZLUHOHVV HVSRUWV PRXVH ZKLFK LV ZK\ LW¶V RXU QHZHVW (GLWRUV¶ &KRLFH DZDUG ZLQQHU Photos by Zachary Cuevas

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Google Workspace: Powerful and Elegant Google’s cloud-only office suite just keeps getting better BY EDWARD MENDELSON

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PROS Elegant office tools Works the same on any browser Fine-tuned collaboration and revisiontracking features Corporate-friendly user management

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CONS Online-only apps Less powerful than comparable desktop apps Offline editing requires Chrome and advance planning

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THE BOTTOM LINE Google’s excellent Workspace office suite is nearly as powerful and ﬂexible as Microsoft 365, despite offering only online apps. This browserbased approach means its apps are available for and work the same on any platform.

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PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION I SUBSCRIBE I JULY 2022

We’re impressed with the ease, elegance, speed, and depth of Google Workspace.

REVIEWS

SOFTWARE

SoftMaker Office: Affordable Microsoft 365 Alternative And it’s just as nice to use BY EDWARD MENDELSON

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PROS Powerful, elegant alternative to Microsoft 365 Speedy, reliable performance for most tasks Highly customizable ribbon or menu-based interface Opens legacy documents that Microsoft Office apps can’t Optional version backup Apps for Windows, macOS, Linux, plus fullfeatured mobile apps

• • • • • •

CONS Lacks web apps and collaboration features Limited documentviewing options Slow performance with huge worksheets No recorded macros and scripted macros only available for Windows version

• • • •

THE BOTTOM LINE SoftMaker Office 2021 is the closest thing you can ﬁnd to Microsoft 365 at a lower price. It offers an elegant interface and all the capabilities homeoffice and small-business users need.

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The alternate toolbar interface is shown here, with the Windows-only feature that displays Berlitz dictionaries in four languages.

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TextMaker supports variable “fields” with a more accessible interface than you can find in Microsoft Word, which pioneered the field feature but now keeps it well-hidden.

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PlanMaker’s function menu uses the same hard-to-follow one-line display of existing functions found in most other spreadsheets, not the hierarchical display in LibreOffice.

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SoftMaker’s Presentations app has all the transitions you could want, but identiﬁes them only by name, without visual clues to what they will look like.

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TextMaker’s formatting tools include the traditional dialog box and an optional multifunction sidebar.

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TextMaker lets you edit the template content simply by switching from the normal page view to a Master Page view.

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PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION I SUBSCRIBE I JULY 2022

It opens documents created by Microsoft and other apps, including Windows Write, without issue.

Image: Bob Al-Greene

FEATURES

BEST MOBILE NETWORKS 2022 We drove across the US testing speed and reliability for AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon 4G and 5G in cities, towns, and rural regions before crowning our 13th annual champion. BY SASCHA SEGAN

T-Mobile isn’t just America’s fastest network. It’s also the best. For this year’s nationwide network tests, we changed everything. We drove more than 10,000 miles across the country with new software that tracks dropped calls and gives a better measure of reliability. That made this year’s project a search for America’s best mobile network—not just the fastest, as we’ve called it in previous years. This time, we hit 31 cities and six rural regions using the latest Samsung Galaxy S22+ phones to see how AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon compared. T-Mobile won 18 of our 31 cities to Verizon’s seven and AT&T’s six.

/RRN SXUHO\ DW VSHHG DQG WKH GL̆HUHQFH LV HYHQ PRUH VWDUN $7 7¶V HQWLUH advantage was in places where it has greater network reliability than T-Mobile. T-Mobile won 20 cities on speed, to Verizon’s nine and AT&T’s two. T-Mobile is also doing better than ever before in rural areas, although it got docked a little for still having more rural data dead zones outside the Northeast than the other two carriers did.

WHY RATE MOBILE NETWORKS? Mobile internet LV the internet, more than ever. According to Ericsson, between DQG PRELOH GDWD WUḊF LQ 1RUWK $PHULFD TXDGUXSOHG²IURP exabytes to 86 exabytes. Most of that is driven by the revolution in mobile YLGHR ZKLFK KDV ULVHQ IURP WR RI PRELOH GDWD WUḊF 7KDW¶V DOPRVW gigs of usage per person per month. And over the past year, a new use case has shown up: Both T-Mobile and Verizon are now selling 5G home internet service as an alternative to cable. It’s always good to ask your friends and neighbors how well the service works or to get a “test drive” unit. But some good third-party scores can really help you decide whether that’s a product worth considering. Meanwhile, there’s so much noise around 5G. The carriers haven’t made DQ\WKLQJ HDV\ RU FOHDU 7KH\ FRQÀDWH GL̆HUHQW NLQGV RI * WKDW KDYH GL̆HUHQW performance characteristics. They claim very broad coverage for forms of 5G that act just like 4G. 6RPHWLPHV WKH\ SXW LFRQV RQ \RXU VFUHHQ WKDW PDNH LW GL̇FXOW WR WHOO ZKDW ³*´ you’re on—or even why you should care. Someone needs to cut through the marketing language and tell you what’s really out there, and which phone you need to use with it. A lot of ratings are out there, and they’re confusing, because they’re largely RSDTXH , UHVSHFW 5RRW0HWULFV¶ ZRUN EXW , FDQ¶W ¿JXUH RXW HYHQ IURP LWV ORQJ PHWKRGRORJ\ SDJH KRZ VSHFL¿F WHVWV LW UXQV EHFRPH D VFRUH We started Fastest (now Best) Mobile Networks aiming to be as transparent as possible. Each year, we show you exactly where we go, telling you which devices we use and why, and giving you every component of our overall scores. We want to give you as much power here as possible.

5G CONTINUES TO IMPROVE Yes, you’ll need a 5G phone to hit these high speeds. On both T-Mobile and 9HUL]RQ WKH GL̆HUHQFH EHWZHHQ * DQG * LV EHFRPLQJ KXJH QRZ DQG LW FDQ PHDQ WKH GL̆HUHQFH EHWZHHQ D VWDOOHG FRQQHFWLRQ LQ D FRQJHVWHG ODQH DQG VSHHGLQJ DORQJ LQ WKH +29 ODQH RI PRELOH LQWHUQHW $7 7 LVQ¶W TXLWH WKHUH \HW but it probably will be next year.) We chose the Galaxy S22+ because that line has shown the best network performance in our tests. With its Qualcomm X65 modem, the S22+ can hold onto weak signals for longer than the phones from previous years, and it also supports all the new 5G bands carriers are implementing, including the AT&T IUHTXHQFLHV WKDW FDUULHU LV PRVWO\ ODXQFKLQJ ODWHU WKLV \HDU Since we used new software this year, our results aren’t comparable 1:1 to previous years. But some trends are hard to ignore. Both T-Mobile and Verizon saw dramatically increased nationwide speeds this year as they expanded their mid-band 5G networks. But AT&T’s speeds declined, as it added very little capacity while data demands grew. The speed results and dropped-call results look totally decoupled. In general, all three carriers had very low rates of dropped calls in cities. But AT&T was noticeably more reliable on calling in rural areas—able to keep that little bit of connectivity going even if there isn’t massive data capacity for streaming and gaming. :H MXGJH E\ SHRSOH QRW E\ VTXDUH PLOHV 5XUDO DUHDV DUH RI RXU score, much as they’re 14 to 20% of the population depending on which measure you use.

BRINGING NETWORKS HOME Our mobile network measurements matter more than ever because there’s a new use for 5G: breaking your local cable company’s home internet monopoly. 6PDUWSKRQHV DUH XELTXLWRXV LQ $PHULFD QRZ DQG VLQFH ZH¶YH EHHQ JLYLQJ you the most transparent, consistent measurements to help you choose your carrier. But it’s completely legitimate to wonder why you need more than 100Mbps on your smartphone at all. 7KHUH DUH WZR PDMRU UHDVRQV )LUVW WKDW DYHUDJH VSHHG DOVR WHQGV WR GH¿QH WKH ÀRRU <RX PD\ QRW IHHO \RX QHHG 0ESV EXW \RX¶OO SUREDEO\ DOZD\V ZDQW 25Mbps, and those greater average speeds tend to link up with more consistently reliable minimums. But also, both T-Mobile and Verizon are selling home internet service now. That’s where you really will want 100Mbps or more, and our results show where you can probably get it.

GOING ELECTRIC This year we made a big shift not only in how we test America but also in how ZH GULYH DURXQG LW :H ZRUNHG ZLWK +HUW] WR JHW D 7HVOD /RQJ 5DQJH IRU RXU longest leg of the trip, a 4,500-mile loop around the West, to prove that it’s possible to take a truly epic road trip in an electric car.

The blue lines show our driver routes for testing.

+HUW] LV WUDQVIRUPLQJ LWV UHQWDO ÀHHW ZLWK XS WR 7HVOD DQG 3ROHVWDU YHKLFOHV RYHU WKH QH[W IHZ \HDUV PDNLQJ LW WKH ¿UVW ODUJH VFDOH HOHFWULF FDU rental operation.

T-MOBILE’S TRIUMPH You can clearly see T-Mobile’s triumph in these charts of overall results collected by speed bins. In the cities, T-Mobile had by far the fewest connections under 50Mbps, and it really pulled away from the competition in connections EHWZHHQ 0ESV DQG 0ESV ZKLFK LV WKH PLG EDQG * ]RQH 7KDW VLJQL¿HV ZKHUH 7 0RELOH SUREDEO\ KDV VẊFLHQW FDSDFLW\ IRU LWV QHZ SHU PRQWK KRPH LQWHUQHW VHUYLFH WRR ,Q UXUDO DUHDV WKH H̆HFW ZDV OHVV SURQRXQFHG EXW LW was still there.

Looking at dropped calls, in the cities, the results were all over the map; it was really the luck of the draw which carrier would have a bad day. In rural areas, 7 0RELOH VX̆HUHG EHFDXVH RI WZR VSHFL¿F UHJLRQV WKH UXUDO 1RUWKZHVW IURP northern California to Washington, and Georgia. In the Northeast, it was solid.

RURAL NORTHWEST

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MID-BAND RULES T-Mobile’s winning secret is mid-band 5G, which it calls “ultra capacity.” The math of wireless network performance can be pretty simple: Use more airwaves with more reach, and you have more performance. With its purchase of Sprint in 2020, T-Mobile nabbed a PDVVLYH FDFKH RI VSHFWUXP WKDW LW KDV TXLFNO\ repurposed for 5G. That spectrum can reach a few miles from a tower, in best-case circumstances, so it’s great for covering cities and suburbs. We saw that T-Mobile’s mid-band was present not only in cities but in suburbs and rural areas, too. Many interstate corridors nationwide showed T-Mobile’s “UC” LFRQ ZKLFK VLJQL¿HV PLG EDQG FRQQHFWLRQV DQG WKH\ also showed mid-band speed.

The orange spots show where we saw T-Mobile’s “UC” network in our testing.

In a few Northeast cities where we were able to take a sample, we found T-Mobile using 10MHz to 15MHz of low-band n71 and 40MHz to 100MHz of mid-band n41. Sometimes, T-Mobile would combine the two for between 50MHz and 110MHz of n41/n71. Verizon and AT&T are both catching up. Each of those companies bought midband in an auction ending in February 2021; Verizon started building its C-band network immediately, while AT&T has been largely waiting for HTXLSPHQW WKDW ZRXOG FRPELQH LWV & EDQG PLG EDQG ZLWK VRPH PRUH VSHFWUXP it bought in early 2022. :H VDZ D VLJQL¿FDQW DPRXQW RI 9HUL]RQ¶V ³8:´ LFRQ QDWLRQZLGH DQG OHVV RI AT&T’s “5G+.” Both icons can signify mid-band or the even faster high-band spectrum. AT&T’s had the most mid-band-like characteristics in Detroit, Texas, and southern Florida, for now. But both AT&T and Verizon are using less midband, at the moment, than T-Mobile is. While T-Mobile uses up to 110MHz, AT&T generally uses 40MHz and Verizon uses 60MHz. 7KDW DOO D̆HFWV VSHHG %OXQWO\ PRUH PLG EDQG LV JRRG 7 0RELOH KDV WKH PRVW of it right now, so it’s the fastest. Verizon has the second-most, so it’s the second-fastest. AT&T is going to have to hustle to catch up over the next year.

WHAT ABOUT DISH? There’s a new player coming to (hopefully, your) town: Dish. Dish Network aims to be the fourth real national carrier. It’s under an FCC UHTXLUHPHQW WR FRYHU RI WKH 86 SRSXODWLRQ E\ WKH HQG RI -XQH²VR DURXQG when you’re reading this. But when we were running our tests, the Dish network was available only in parts of Las Vegas and didn’t work with the phones we used for testing. Dish isn’t aiming to be America’s fastest network—it’s aiming to provide a reliable, good-enough experience at a reasonable price. Its current service costs SHU PRQWK DQG SULPDULO\ ZRUNV WKURXJK URDPLQJ RQ $7 7¶V QHWZRUN 3ULFHV DUH OLNHO\ WR FKDQJH DV 'LVK ODXQFKHV LQ PRUH FLWLHV We found in our tests that AT&T provides a highly reliable network, and that DGYDQWDJH LV PDJQL¿HG PRUH LQ UXUDO DUHDV ,Q XSVWDWH 1HZ <RUN IRU H[DPSOH where Dish intends to launch seven cities this month, AT&T coverage dominates (although T-Mobile provides much higher speeds where it has coverage.) 6R WKHUH¶V D QLFKH IRU 'LVK LQ D̆RUGDEOH UHOLDEOH MXVW QRW WKULOOLQJO\ SHUIRUPDQW :H¶OO WHVW 'LVK RQFH LW ṘFLDOO\ ODXQFKHV DQG SURYLGH PRUH GHWDLOV

METHODOLOGY Again, a lot changed this year. The biggest shift was switching from our old Ookla software, which we used from 2016 through 2021, to a new package called Ookla Wind. Wind gave us the ability to test phone calls as well as speed. Our phones would run a speed test to the nearest Ookla server, followed by a 30-second phone call to a recorded message, then pause for a minute to cool down before repeating. Wind makes the phones run really hot, despite the cool-down periods. So we VWUDSSHG 5D]HU &KURPD SKRQH FRROHUV WR WKH EDFN RI HDFK GHYLFH ZKLFK FDQ bring down the temperatures by up to 10 degrees. The version of Wind we used on our speed test phones could not tell the GL̆HUHQFH EHWZHHQ * DQG * QHWZRUNV 7R GR WKDW ZH KDG D URXWLQH WKDW WRRN a screenshot of the status bar once a minute. That worked only some of the time, but it worked often enough to provide broad conclusions. We also had a

few additional phones with a more advanced version of Wind that could detect GL̆HUHQW IRUPV RI * ZKLFK ZH XVHG LQ D IHZ FLWLHV As in prior years, we tried to stop in at least 12 locations per city for at least 15 minutes each. Speed results for a city are the average of all locations, with tests UXQ RQ WKH PRYH JLYHQ WKH ZHLJKW RI WZR VWDWLRQDU\ ORFDWLRQV 5HOLDELOLW\ UHVXOWV are simply the success percentage of all tests taken in the city. Measuring dropped calls meant our scoring had to change, too. There’s JHQHUDOO\ D YHU\ VPDOO GL̆HUHQFH EHWZHHQ WKH FDUULHUV¶ GURSSHG FDOO SHUFHQWDJHV EXW LW¶V PHDQLQJIXO WR FRQVXPHUV $QG WKHUH DUH KXJH GL̆HUHQFHV EHWZHHQ average speeds, but they aren’t as meaningful to many people as a small GL̆HUHQFH LQ UHOLDELOLW\ So our scoring is now rank-based. For each component of our score, we ranked the carriers 1, 2, and 3, and assigned points based on rank. So the third-place FDUULHU DOZD\V JRW WKH VDPH DPRXQW RI SRLQWV UHJDUGOHVV RI WKH GL̆HUHQFH EHWZHHQ LW DQG WKH ¿UVW SODFH FDUULHU 7KH H̆HFW RI WKDW ZDV WR PDJQLI\ reliability, which was what we were looking for. :H H[SHULPHQWHG ZLWK IRXU GL̆HUHQW VFRULQJ PHWKRGRORJLHV E\ WKH ZD\ DQG they changed some results city-by-city. But T-Mobile came out on top nationwide every time. This year, our score consisted of:

• Speed (60%) • Average download - 10% • Downloads above 25Mbps - 20% • Average upload - 10% • Uploads above 5Mbps - 10% • Latency - 10% • 5HOLDELOLW\ • Call success - 20% • Data success - 20%

Image: Getty Images/Yevhen Borysov

NATIONWIDE: T-MOBILE

CITY WINNERS ATLANTA: AT&T AT&T has much slower average speeds than competing carriers in Atlanta, but what won it the award was its reliability and consistency. AT&T scored best of the three carriers on all of our reliability measures: acceptable downloads, uploads, dropped calls, and data connections. High average speeds are great, but you don’t often use 300Mbps on your phone. What you want is 25Mbps all the time, which is why we give that “download threshold” 20% of our score. This is also part of why we changed the name of this feature from “fastest” mobile network to “best.” That said, if you want blistering speeds, go with T-Mobile. We saw 575Mbps in Vine City and 659Mbps in Bolton on T-Mobile mid-band, speeds that no other carrier could come anywhere near.

AUSTIN: T-MOBILE All three wireless carriers now have mid-band 5G coverage in the Austin area, but T-Mobile has the best implementation at the moment. T-Mobile’s mid-band coverage is far more reliable and uniform, with consistently good speeds around the metro area. Both the Verizon and AT&T networks in Austin showed many sub-10Mbps slow results, which really concerns me. I know that both networks are under heavy construction in Austin right now, and I can only hope that what we saw were a lot of towers that are in the middle of being improved. Austin still had one of our worst dead zones—at the Stephenson Nature Preserve, where all RXU SKRQHV FXW RXW &HOO0DSSHU QHW FRQ¿UPHG VRPH RWKHU SHRSOH KDYH KDG rough times around there, too.

BALTIMORE: T-MOBILE T-Mobile and Verizon both have what look like mid-band 5G speeds in Baltimore, but T-Mobile’s are still better than Verizon’s. At the moment, T-Mobile has an airwave advantage over its major competitors: As it has 100MHz of mid-band to Verizon’s 60MHz and AT&T’s 40MHz, it can often outcompete Verizon when they’re both giving their all. That said, both AT&T and Verizon appear to have super-fast millimeter-wave 5G set up all over the touristy parts of the Inner Harbor. If you’re standing in the right place, you can see some absolutely amazing capacity—we got up to about 3Gbps on Verizon. That just doesn’t apply across the whole city, though.

BOISE: T-MOBILE We were shocked to see T-Mobile as the leader in Boise, because it’s not known for strength in the Rockies. But T-Mobile took Boise, Denver, and Salt Lake City, so clearly a lot has changed in the past few years. As we’ve seen elsewhere, T-Mobile’s mid-band “ultra capacity” 5G was the key to beating the competition in Boise. Verizon’s top speeds appeared to come from the carrier’s existing highband millimeter-wave network in downtown Boise, which is very fast but just doesn’t have the city-spanning reach that mid-band does.

BOSTON: AT&T AT&T won Boston thanks to our consistency measures: It had the best rate of decent-speed downloads and uploads rather than the highest peak speeds. Verizon showed a cluster of high-speed millimeter-wave results near Fenway, while AT&T showed at least one in Back Bay. T-Mobile delivered excellent 5G mid-band speeds throughout western suburbs such as Newton and Watertown. Ultimately, though, it was AT&T’s reliability that won the day.

CHICAGO: T-MOBILE T-Mobile won Chicago with consistent, fast mid-band 5G coverage throughout the city. Verizon was a close second. Verizon has installed a lot of high-band 5G around Chicago, in part to serve its wireless home Internet service. (One of our H[ VWD̆HUV JRW LW LW¶V IDVW %XW WKDW KLJK EDQG QHWZRUN LV YHU\ SDWFK\ DQG

doesn’t have citywide coverage. AT&T, on the other hand, is way behind the other two carriers in Chicago, and congestion on its 4G network appeared to be an issue. AT&T will install mid-band 5G here later this year (we tested it very HDUO\ LQ LWV SURFHVV DQG WKDW ZLOO FHUWDLQO\ KHOS

CHARLOTTE: T-MOBILE Our speeds in Charlotte look higher than in some other cities, as here we collected less in-motion data and more stationary data. Stationary results tend to be faster, so these results are faster. T-Mobile has really turned around its fate in North Carolina in the past two years with its aggressive mid-band 5G rollout. We saw consistent, extremely high speeds throughout Charlotte on T-Mobile mid-band 5G—in some cases over a gigabit, which you don’t see often. T-Mobile’s results here were so fast that I want to think something is wrong, but we tested Verizon and AT&T in the same amounts in the same places, and the results are in the chart above. T-Mobile just had a great day in Charlotte, and EHWZHHQ WKLV DQG RXU 5DOHLJK UHVXOW LW¶V GH¿QLWHO\ WLPH IRU 1RUWK &DUROLQLDQV WR consider switching.

DENVER: T-MOBILE T-Mobile’s mid-band network led to better performance in Denver than either of the alternatives. Denver has a special handicap for AT&T and Verizon: Because it’s the location for a lot of satellite ground stations, it’s taking longer for them to start using C-band there than in other cities. Verizon has high-band 5G across the downtown area, but not a lot of the rest of the city. This is a case where T-Mobile’s mid-band strategy really rules. We were surprised this year to see T-Mobile leading in all three of our Rocky Mountain cities (Denver, Salt /DNH DQG %RLVH DOWKRXJK WKH FDUULHU VWLOO GLGQ¶W KDYH WKH VWURQJHVW FRYHUDJH LQ outlying rural areas of the Northwest.

DALLAS: T-MOBILE Dallas has always been an intensely competitive wireless city. Like in many other places, T-Mobile is way ahead of the competitors in installing mid-band 5G, which gives it an unimpeachable lead. I’m not sure what happened with our $7 7 UHVXOWV KHUH WKRXJK WKH\¶UH YHU\ ORZ $7 7 KDV DOO VRUWV RI * LQ 'DOODV so we should have seen better performance. What we may be looking at is a situation where the company is mid-upgrade and thus not putting its best foot forward as yet.

DETROIT: T-MOBILE AND VERIZON (TIE) T-Mobile and Verizon have an unusual tie in Detroit, where all three carriers have fast mid-band 5G. Verizon actually had the fastest average download speeds. That’s rare in our study, and it shows the promise of Verizon’s C-Band rollout as it becomes more mature later this year. T-Mobile did better on uploads and latency.

HOUSTON: T-MOBILE All three carriers have fast mid-band 5G in Houston, but T-Mobile’s buildout is the most mature. T-Mobile’s very fast 5G results meant that Houstonians can rely on decent speeds pretty much wherever they go in the metro area. AT&T had several very slow spots in Houston, with disappointing results on the west side and in Pasadena. Most of our AT&T download tests in Houston were well under 100Mbps, whereas both of the competitors were much faster. But a change may be coming. Both AT&T and Verizon are expanding their mid-band 5G in Houston, and as we saw from AT&T’s mid-band 5G in New York.

INDIANAPOLIS: VERIZON Verizon led in Indianapolis with the most consistent and reliable network. While T-Mobile had faster average download speeds, Verizon’s network varied less, with fewer slow tests or slow spots. Indianapolis was one of Verizon’s initial 5G Home cities, and we did see a bit of high-band 5G on Verizon’s QHWZRUN GRZQWRZQ ZH DOVR VDZ VSHHGV WKDW ORRNHG OLNH PLG EDQG * RQ WKH

east side of town. For both T-Mobile and Verizon users, upgrading to a 5G phone will be critical to take advantage of the best performance in Indianapolis.

KANSAS CITY: VERIZON This one is an artifact of our ranking system. T-Mobile has by far the fastest download speeds in the Kansas City area, especially on the Kansas side of the border. Overland Park is the old Sprint headquarters, and T-Mobile speeds over WKHUH DUH WHUUL¿F 7 0RELOH¶V VSHHGV LQ WKH DUHD YDULHG PRUH WKDQ 9HUL]RQ¶V GLG though, and that gave Verizon the “best” moniker this year. At a lot of our spots, we would see some spectacularly fast T-Mobile speed test results—say, 600Mbps or 700Mbps—and then a drop or a single slow result, while Verizon was more consistent. Consistency matters a lot in our scoring.

LAS VEGAS: T-MOBILE Both Verizon and T-Mobile have largely blanketed Las Vegas with mid-band 5G, according to our test results. We hit mid-band 5G consistently across the metro area on both carriers: up and down the Strip, through Spring Valley, Summerlin, and in the southwest Valley. T-Mobile wins with better performance citywide. Las Vegas is a great example of where more bandwidth

leads to higher perceived reliability—T-Mobile has the airwaves in Las Vegas QRZ WR DFKLHYH UHVXOWV WKDW DUH DERYH DFFHSWDEOH ÀRRUV PRUH RIWHQ WKDQ $7 7 DQG 9HUL]RQ GR $7 7 VWUXJJOHG ZLWK GURSSHG GDWD FRQQHFWLRQV RQ DQG R̆ during two days of testing. It wasn’t all in one place or at one time—it was really RQ DQG R̆ DOO GD\ ZKLFK FRQFHUQHG PH

LOS ANGELES: T-MOBILE AND VERIZON TIE Our Los Angeles results are pretty muddled, with each one of the carriers taking the lead in some areas. T-Mobile’s broad mid-band coverage gives it high DYHUDJH VSHHGV EXW LW KDG WURXEOH ZLWK GDWD UHOLDELOLW\ DOO RYHU WKH FLW\ VSHHGV sometimes dipped low, and it had a higher connection failure rate than the other carriers. Verizon had good speeds and reliable calling and downloads. If I were purely using editorial judgment and not math here, I’d take a look at the numbers and say Verizon for Los Angeles. AT&T had the lowest latency and good upload speeds, but T-Mobile and Verizon both had advantages over AT&T in this urban area.

MIAMI: VERIZON In South Florida, we took 441 from Palm Beach to Fort Lauderdale, then we ambled around Fort Lauderdale and Miami before heading to Homestead and Key West. Verizon wins Miami by showing what it can do with mid-band 5G. If \RX GRQ¶W KDYH D SKRQH WKDW VXSSRUWV & EDQG \RX¶OO ¿QG D VLJQL¿FDQW

improvement by switching to a newer device in the area. We saw fast mid-band all over town—in Miami Beach, Biscayne Park, Coral Gables, and near FIU, for example. If you spend time in downtown Miami or South Beach, a phone that supports high-band, millimeter-wave 5G will come in handy, as we found the super-fast system in both places. T-Mobile also has mid-band and was faster at some sites. For example, Verizon’s high-band was super-fast in South Beach, but T-Mobile’s mid-band was faster in Miami Beach. Verizon won when we averaged out our 16 sites around the metro area. We were absolutely shocked to ¿QG PLG EDQG * RQ DOO WKUHH FDUULHUV LQ WKH )ORULGD .H\V 7KLV LVQ¶W MXVW IRU OLYHVWUHDPLQJ \RXU PDUOLQ ¿VKLQJ LW JLYHV .H\V UHVLGHQWV DQRWKHU PDMRU RSWLRQ for home Internet.

NEW ORLEANS: T-MOBILE 7 0RELOH¶V PLG EDQG QHWZRUN R̆HUV WKH EHVW VSHHG DQG SHUIRUPDQFH LQ 1HZ Orleans, according to our rating system. But it’s a very narrow win. Verizon is also speedily building mid-band 5G throughout New Orleans, and its SHUIRUPDQFH LV DOPRVW XS WR 7 0RELOH¶V QRZ 1H[W \HDU FRXOG VKRZ D GL̆HUHQW result. AT&T clearly needs help in the area—we saw very slow results, with even peaks showing no better than 4G-era performance. You’ll notice T-Mobile had a higher rate of dropped data connections than the other carriers, and that’s a FRQFHUQ %XW LW KDG QR GURSSHG FDOOV ZKLFK PDNHV PH PRUH FRQ¿GHQW LQ WKH choice here: You can always just hit Reload.

NEW YORK CITY: T-MOBILE Our hometown of New York City was a Verizon city for many years, until T-Mobile starting making big moves in 2020. T-Mobile’s mid-band 5G network is still the fastest in town, and in a congested city, that capacity also makes it consistent and reliable. Verizon and AT&T are both hustling to catch up in NYC now. Both networks saw a decline in average speeds from 2021 to 2022, although I’m not sure if that’s a real decline or because of our change in software. But both networks are building new 5G so fast that the situation FKDQJHG EHWZHHQ RXU WHVWV RQ 0D\ DQG WKH SXEOLFDWLRQ RI WKLV VWRU\ 6WLOO they have a ways to catch up and a handicap. There’s an “exclusion zone” for Verizon mid-band 5G covering much of northern Queens because of LaGuardia Airport. AT&T is getting some airwaves that aren’t restricted from that area— 2023 could be anyone’s game.

OKLAHOMA CITY: T-MOBILE T-Mobile had vastly better speeds than AT&T or Verizon in Oklahoma City, making it the clear winner on both speed and reliability. All of the carriers reported some form of 5G in OKC, but only T-Mobile reported the faster midEDQG ZKLFK PDNHV D ELJ GL̆HUHQFH IURP * 7KH VSHHG DYHUDJHV IRU $7 7 DQG Verizon look very low here, because we hit noticeably slow spots on both carriers, but they weren’t in the same places. AT&T was fast at the airport, but Verizon was slow. Overall, neither carrier acquitted itself particularly well anywhere in the city, which made T-Mobile’s win clearer this year.

PORTLAND: VERIZON Verizon high-band 5G in downtown Portland and mid-band 5G in the suburbs made for a commanding lead for that carrier this year. Our overall Verizon speeds were juiced by a truly breathtaking result of nearly 4Gbps at a millimeter-wave 5G location just south of Burnside in SW Portland, and speeds really seem to vary around town. But Verizon did well on keeping calls and connections consistent, which helped its score.

PHILADELPHIA: T-MOBILE There’s a lot going on with 5G in Philadelphia this year! We saw mid-band 5G from both AT&T and T-Mobile and high-band 5G from Verizon throughout Philly. T-Mobile won by having the best mid-band coverage citywide—our phone said “5G UC” pretty much everywhere we went in Philadelphia and the nearby suburbs. AT&T hasn’t formally announced its “5G+” in Philadelphia yet, but we saw a lot of it— in Center City, near Penn, and in Cheltenham, for instance. We saw our best AT&T performance near the arboretum. It looks like ZKLOH $7 7 ZDV WXUQLQJ RQ * LW GLGQ¶W KDYH D PDMRU H̆HFW RQ VSHHGV ZKHQ ZH ZHUH WHVWLQJ LQ HDUO\ 0D\ WKDW ZLOO KRSHIXOO\ FRPH ODWHU LQ WKH EXLOGRXW Verizon speeds were boosted by high-speed millimeter-wave near the art museum and on the Temple University campus.

PHOENIX: VERIZON Fast mid-band and high-band 5G made Verizon the best performer in Phoenix this year. Verizon’s spectacular speeds were capped by high results in downtown Chandler and on E Camelback Rd in Scottsdale, outside the Phoenician resort. Verizon has been spreading high-band 5G in Phoenix since 2019, and its big high-band rollout in Phoenix is related to its quest to become a home Internet provider there. T-Mobile, on the other hand, had some very slow spots in town that dragged it down—that test in Chandler was as bad for T-Mobile as it was good for Verizon, and T-Mobile also didn’t do well at Papago Park. As for AT&T, it just hasn’t turned on the right airwaves in Phoenix yet. Its performance was thoroughly 4G, even though our phone popped a “5G” icon WKURXJK FHQWUDO 3KRHQL[ DQG 6FRWWVGDOH ZH QHYHU VDZ ³ * ´ ZKLFK LV $7 7¶V JRRG VWX̆

RALEIGH: T-MOBILE T-Mobile has been improving its performance in the Triangle by leaps and bounds over the past two years. Its very high average speed result shows the upper limit of what T-Mobile can do with its 100MHz of mid-band 5G spectrum. We saw an average download speed of over a gigabit at Meredith College, which seems improbable, but I triple-checked, and we got what we got. T-Mobile has also really improved its reliability over the years. In our tests, it’s

just a little behind formerly dominant AT&T now, and T-Mobile’s data speeds are so much better that there’s really no contest. So if residents of this area haven’t considered switching to T-Mobile, now’s probably the time to take your test drive.

SAN DIEGO: T-MOBILE San Diego was, on average, one of our slowest cities this year. Unlike last year, we didn’t stumble upon Verizon’s high-band network, which really pulls up speeds. T-Mobile’s speed looked suspiciously slow, in part because we were missing data for one of the faster overall spots in town, the SDSU campus. But T-Mobile gave us a reliable experience with no dropped calls and few failed connections, and that ended up pulling it ahead of everyone else’s slow results in San Diego this year.

SEATTLE: VERIZON 9HUL]RQ GLGQ¶W KDYH WKH IDVWHVW GRZQORDGV LQ 6HDWWOH²WKDW ZDV GH¿QLWHO\ T-Mobile, which is based in nearby Bellevue—but Verizon’s network was more reliable. Verizon had the highest rate of uploads and downloads above our PLQLPXP WKUHVKROG DQG ZKLOH WKH GL̆HUHQFH LQ GURSSHG FDOOV DQG FRQQHFWLRQV was minimal, it was there. We also saw Verizon’s mid-band “UW” 5G network all over Bellevue, Redmond, and the U district, according to our phone’s status EDU 7KDW PDGH D ELJ GL̆HUHQFH VR \RX¶OO QHHG D & %DQG FRPSDWLEOH SKRQH WR get the best performance on Verizon in Seattle.

SAN FRANCISCO: AT&T +LJK UHOLDELOLW\ DQG ORZ ODWHQF\ PDGH WKH GL̆HUHQFH IRU $7 7 LQ 6DQ )UDQFLVFR While both Verizon and T-Mobile showed excellent peak speeds, “peaks” were a problem for all the carriers—we did a test in Twin Peaks, and it’s a very weak coverage area for everyone. Verizon also had trouble in McLaren Park, but AT&T’s performance was relatively consistent. While we saw a considerable amount of mid-band 5G down through Silicon Valley and into San Jose with both T-Mobile and Verizon, we didn’t see as much in San Francisco itself. In our experience, where there wasn’t a lot of mid-band 5G, AT&T tended to take a leading position—the carrier’s very solid 4G network really shines when its competitors aren’t putting their best 5G forward.

SALT LAKE CITY: T-MOBILE %OD]LQJ IDVW 7 0RELOH PLG EDQG * PDGH D KXJH GL̆HUHQFH LQ WKH 6DOW /DNH &LW\ area, vaulting our T-Mobile phone to double the average speed of its fastest FRPSHWLWRU 7 0RELOH VSHHGV LQ WKH DUHD ZHUH MXVW WHUUL¿F DQG WKH FDUULHU¶V network was solid and reliable. Verizon appears to be coming up fast, though. We saw a considerable amount of Verizon “5G UW” around the University of Utah and in Murray, and we’re sure that Verizon will spread the technology more broadly over the next year.

SAINT LOUIS: T-MOBILE 7 0RELOH¶V YLEUDQW ³ * 8&´ PLG EDQG QHWZRUN PDGH D ELJ GL̆HUHQFH LQ 6DLQW Louis. The high speeds provided by T-Mobile’s mid-band network gives the FDUULHU D KLJK ÀRRU LQ WKH DUHD VR WKDW FRQQHFWLRQV QHYHU JRW WRR VORZ :H VDZ even faster peak speeds on Verizon, thanks to a high-band millimeter-wave connection in the Central West End. But while Verizon is spreading mid-band around Saint Louis right now, it hasn’t reached the extent or ubiquity of T-Mobile’s broad coverage.

TAMPA: VERIZON Tampa has two great choices right now, and a third seems to be on the way. T-Mobile and Verizon are both very fast in the metro area, and we saw high peak speeds on AT&T as well. Verizon won by showing a more consistent network than T-Mobile did, with fewer blocked data connections. We saw VHYHUDO VWULQJV RI UHSHDWHG EORFNHG FRQQHFWLRQV RQ 7 0RELOH DW GL̆HUHQW locations in the metro area. With the really high speeds we otherwise saw, we GRQ¶W WKLQN LW¶V FRQJHVWLRQ RU VLJQDO VWUHQJWK LW ORRNHG PRUH OLNH D QHWZRUN FRQ¿JXUDWLRQ SUREOHP

WASHINGTON DC: AT&T 5HOLDELOLW\ PDGH WKH GL̆HUHQFH IRU $7 7 LQ WKH :DVKLQJWRQ '& DUHD DV RXU WHVW showed the lowest rate of dropped calls and blocked connections on that carrier. While T-Mobile is the fastest carrier in DC thanks to its powerful midband 5G network, every call we made on AT&T went through, which we couldn’t say for T-Mobile in our test. So this is a case where “fastest’’ and “best” diverged—if you can’t connect at all, it’s not important how fast that connection you aren’t getting is.

REGIONAL WINNERS NORTHEAST RURAL: T-MOBILE In our drive outside the major cities of the Northeast, we went from Boston through Providence, to central Connecticut, down to New Haven, across a middle belt of New Jersey, and through parts of Delaware and the Eastern Shore of Maryland. We also stopped in Keyport, NJ, a town we selected as one RI RXU EHVW ZRUN IURP KRPH ORFDWLRQV VHH RXU $SULO LVVXH 7 0RELOH KDV really kitted out New Jersey and lower New England with its mid-band 5G, and WKDW PDNHV DOO WKH GL̆HUHQFH 6PDOOHU FLWLHV LQFOXGLQJ 1HZ %ULWDLQ &7 DQG

Middletown, DE, are getting real “ultra capacity” 5G from T-Mobile but are still waiting on it from the other two carriers. I know this isn’t the case for the whole region. In upstate New York, for instance, there are big gaps in T-Mobile’s network. But along that highly populated I-95 corridor, for now, T-Mobile absolutely rules.

SOUTHEAST RURAL: VERIZON Our Southeast drive took us from Raleigh to Charlotte, across South Carolina to Atlanta, down to Tallahassee, down the west coast of Florida, across Florida, and all the way to Key West. We tried to use state or county roads as often as possible. T-Mobile has the best mid-band 5G coverage across the area, but its network is extremely inconsistent between the states. Although we saw the highest speeds on T-Mobile, we also saw the most dropped calls and dropped data connections. Verizon had the best balance of reliability and a fast network.

NORTH CENTRAL RURAL: VERIZON Our “North Central” drive took us from Detroit down into Indiana, up to Chicago, down to St. Louis, across Missouri, and then down through Kansas. T-Mobile showed the fastest speeds, but Verizon’s greater reliability and lower dropped connections rate won the day. Unlike in the Northeast, we saw relatively little T-Mobile “UC” mid-band 5G outside the major metro areas, which contributed to T-Mobile not winning this one.

SOUTH CENTRAL RURAL: AT&T “South Central” for us meant driving from Oklahoma down into Texas, around WKH 7H[DV 7ULDQJOH WR +DPPRQG /$ DQG WKHQ WR 1HZ 2UOHDQV 7 0RELOH showed by far the fastest speeds and the most area with mid-band 5G coverage, but AT&T had superior consistency over these rural areas. AT&T’s “5G”, which showed up on almost our entire drive, is basically 4G, but it’s a very solid and UHOLDEOH * DQG WKDW¶V ZKDW PDGH WKH GL̆HUHQFH IRU WKLV VHJPHQW

NORTHWEST RURAL: AT&T The rural Northwest is always the most brutal part of our journey for coverage. 1RUWKHUQ &DOLIRUQLD LV ZKHUH ZH ¿QG WKH PRVW DOO FDUULHU GHDG ]RQHV²WKHUH¶V D stretch between Eureka and Grants Pass, OR where the best network is a satellite phone. Short of a satellite phone, it’s AT&T. As we saw elsewhere, T-Mobile showed the highest speeds but still fell down on reliability in the most rural areas. AT&T had second-place speeds but superior reliability.

SOUTHWEST RURAL: AT&T Our “Southwest” drive went from San Diego to Phoenix via Yuma, AZ, up through Kingman to Las Vegas, and then into southern Utah. Speeds were much more even between the three carriers here because our T-Mobile phone didn’t show the “5G UC” indicator for mid-band, except in the more populated areas. We saw a massive dead zone for all of the carriers in northern Arizona between Phoenix and Kingman, too. AT&T won, as it did in other rural regions, through reliability and consistency. Although none of the carriers acquitted themselves well on network reliability here, in part thanks to that Arizona dead zone, AT&T was the best choice of the bunch on that front.

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FEATURES

25 OF THE WEIRDEST THINGS WE’VE REVIEWED In 40 years, thousands of products have passed through PC Labs for testing. Many were good, some were not so great, and a few were downright bizarre. BY CHANDRA STEELE

PCMag is renowned and trusted for our Labs-based independent reviews. We review over 2,000 hardware and software products and services each year in dozens of categories, and we’ve been at it for 40 years now. Our analysts work hard to let you, our readers, know about the products you plan to purchase and expect to depend on. A product that’s been reviewed here KDV XQGHUJRQH D VHULHV RI GH¿QHG UHSHDWDEOH WHVWV LQ WKH /DEV DQG WKH UHDO ZRUOG )RU SURGXFW FDWHJRULHV LQ ZKLFK ZH FDQ GH¿QH SHUIRUPDQFH EHQFKPDUNV we follow set scripts and look for consistent results. Everything gets rated on a ¿YH GRW VFDOH SURGXFWV WKDW FKHFN DOO WKH ER[HV DQG DUH WKH EHVW LQ WKHLU categories receive the coveted title of Editors’ Choice.

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TIPS & HOW TOS

WINDOWS

Windows Sandbox: How to Safely Test Software Without Ruining Your Computer Windows Sandbox is a temporary virtual machine built into Windows 10 and Windows 11 that allows you to run software without affecting the rest of your system. BY LANCE WHITNEY

Do you want to check out and test new software programs and Windows features but don’t want a potentially risky program or setting to harm your current environment? You need a way to isolate such programs or changes safely, so they can’t interfere with the rest of your operating system. For that, you can turn to Windows Sandbox, which is available in both Microsoft Windows 10 and 11.

Sandbox provides an isolated, temporary virtual environment through which you can download, install, and run unknown and untested apps. The version of Windows accessible in Sandbox is the same version on your host environment, meaning Windows 10 or 11. In addition to using Sandbox to run unknown applications, you can use it to check out websites that seem suspicious, install unfamiliar browser extensions and add-ons, change key settings, and play with other items you might not want to run in your regular Windows environment. You can also use it to install trial software you don’t want cluttering up your core Windows system. If any malware or other dangerous content rears its head, it’s restricted to Sandbox, so the rest of your Windows setup remains safe and protected. After you’re done with the application, setting, or other change, simply close Sandbox, and all is gone and forgotten with no lasting residue. Sandbox is lightweight; it takes up only 100MB of storage space. The main downside is that Microsoft supports Sandbox in Windows 10 and 11 Professional and Enterprise only. Now, let’s dig into Sandbox. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS First, ensure that your PC supports the virtualization required by Sandbox. In Windows 10, right-click the Taskbar and select Task Manager. In Windows 11, press Ctrl+Shift+Esc or click the Search icon, start typing Task Manager, and then select Task Manager from the results. At the Task Manager window, click the link for More details if necessary. Select the Performance tab and make sure the entry for Virtualization indicates that it’s enabled.

The main downside is that Microsoft supports Sandbox in Windows 10 and 11 Professional and Enterprise only.!

ENABLE WINDOWS SANDBOX Now you need to actually add Sandbox as a Windows feature. Open the Control Panel in icon view and select the applet for Programs and Features. Click the OLQN WR 7XUQ :LQGRZV IHDWXUHV RQ RU R̆ WR GLVSOD\ WKH :LQGRZV )HDWXUHV window. You can also reach the Windows Features window by clicking the Search icon and typing optionalfeatures.

At this window, scroll down the list until you see a checkbox for Windows Sandbox. Check the box and click OK. After Sandbox is installed, you’re prompted to restart. Reboot your PC and sign back in. One more way to enable Sandbox is through a PowerShell command. In Windows 10, click the Start menu, scroll down the Apps list, open the folder for Windows PowerShell, right-click the shortcut for Windows PowerShell, and then select Run as Administrator.

In Windows 11, go to All Apps from the Start menu, scroll down the list, rightclick on Terminal, move to the More option, and choose Run as administrator. At the prompt, type the following string: Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName “Containers-DisposableClientVM” -All. Reboot your PC if prompted and sign back in. OPEN WINDOWS SANDBOX Sandbox is now ready for your command. To open it in Windows 10, click the Start button, scroll down the Apps list, and click the shortcut for Windows Sandbox. In Windows 11, go to the All Apps list from the Start menu, scroll down the list, and select the Windows Sandbox shortcut. If you plan to use Sandbox on a regular basis, right-click its shortcut from the All Apps list in Windows 10 or 11 and select Pin to Start to add it to the Start menu. You can also move to the More option and select Pin to Taskbar to add it to the Taskbar. Windows Sandbox opens in its own window with a clean, pristine Windows 10 or 11 environment. Only the built-in Windows features and apps are installed, including File Explorer, Control Panel, Notepad, and Microsoft Edge.

INSTALL PROGRAMS IN SANDBOX When you’d like to try out a particular software program, your next step is to make that program available in Sandbox. You can do this a couple of ways. If you haven’t yet downloaded the program, and it’s accessible online, open Microsoft Edge in Sandbox and download the program from the web. But that’s not your only option.

Though it runs in an isolated mode, Sandbox can interact with the rest of Windows in certain ways. As RQH H[DPSOH \RX FDQ FRS\ DQG SDVWH ¿OHV EDFN DQG forth between the Sandbox and your regular Windows environment. If you’ve already downloaded the application you wish to install, copy it from your host Windows system and paste it into File Manager in 6DQGER[ ,QVWDOO WKH ¿OH DV \RX QRUPDOO\ ZRXOG LQ Windows. Launch it, and you can use it fully.

You can resize the Sandbox window just as you can any other window. Maximize it to take up the full screen. Restart or shut down the Sandbox session via the Windows Start button and shut it down by clicking the X in the upperright corner. Just note that if you restart or shut down Sandbox, you lose any apps you’ve installed and changes you made. But that’s the whole idea.

:KHQ \RX ¿QLVK WHVWLQJ RU XVLQJ DQ DSSOLFDWLRQ RU RWKHU LWHP \RX FORVH WKH Sandbox window as you would any window, and everything you did goes kaput. The next time you rev up the Sandbox again, it will present you with a new, clean virtual session for you to use.

REMOVE SANDBOX If you decide you no longer want to use Sandbox in Windows 11, you can UHPRYH LW D FRXSOH RI GL̆HUHQW ZD\V 5HWXUQ WR WKH :LQGRZV )HDWXUHV ZLQGRZ in your host environment, uncheck the one for Windows Sandbox, and then reboot. Alternatively, open Windows Terminal or PowerShell as an administrator and enter this string: Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature -FeatureName “Containers-DisposableClientVM” –Online.

PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION I SUBSCRIBE I JULY 2022

TIPS & HOW TOS

REMOTE WORK

How to Make Remote Collaboration Work for You Remote collaboration methods give people more ways to participate, and that tends to bring out the best in their work. You don’t even have to be remote to use these tricks.

Illustration: René Ramos

BY JILL DUFFY

The most successful remote teams collaborate in ways that intentionally support people in remote environments. I know that may sound like circular logic, but stick with me. These teams collaborate in a way that strengthens their ability to work together while also bringing out the best ideas from each person on the team.

Here’s the kicker: The same methods also enhance teamwork and promote idea-generation among people who work together in the same location, such as DQ ṘFH MEETINGS AREN’T THE BEST COLLABORATION VENUE Most people assume remote collaboration means getting together on their favorite web-conferencing app for a video call and having a meeting. But meetings are among the worst places to generate ideas, to consider other people’s ideas deeply, or to do other meaningful cognitive work. Meetings are good for discussing ideas in real time and making quick decisions, but that’s only a tiny sliver of what collaboration means. And most workplaces don’t have a culture of keeping meetings ḢFLHQW VR SHRSOH IHHO GUDLQHG E\ WKHP 0RVW LPSRUWDQW PHHWLQJV VWLÀH FUHDWLYLW\ 0RVW SHRSOH DUH more successful and innovative when they showcase WKHLU WDOHQWV DQG LQWHOOHFW LQ D GL̆HUHQW HQYLURQPHQW I’ve been writing about and participating in remote work since well before the COVID-19 pandemic. I also wrote a book called The Everything Guide to Remote Work that talks about the best way to collaborate when people are working remotely, along with other issues related to remote work. The idea that meetings don’t bring out the best in people—and, in many ways, make remote work worse—has come up again and again throughout the years, as I’ve talked to leaders who run remote organizations and read research on productivity in remote organizations. So if a meeting isn’t the best way to collaborate, what is? WHAT REMOTE COLLABORATION LOOKS LIKE Remote collaboration can—and often should—be asynchronous. What that means is that collaboration doesn’t have to happen at the same time for everyone.

Most people assume remote collaboration means getting together on their favorite webconferencing app for a video call.

The best collaboration tools are built to be used both asynchronously and synchronously, so you always have an option. (See our reviews of the best of these tools at https://www.pcmag.com/picks/the-best-onlinecollaboration-software).

Let’s use the example of a team brainstorming ideas for a new campaign. The old way of working would be to have a meeting in which everyone in the room is encouraged to pitch their ideas aloud. The new, remotefocused way of working might be to set up a shared document or virtual whiteboard, such as Mural or Miro, shown above and below. You give all the team members access to this shared online space, explain what you want them to do in that space, and then let them add their ideas and read other people’s contributions over the course of a few days.

7KH EHQH¿WV DUH DOPRVW WRR PDQ\ WR QDPH EXW WKH PRVW SRZHUIXO RQHV KDYH WR do with giving people time and space to work in the way that’s best for them. Here are some:

• Remove time pressure. Instead of feeling limited to generating ideas in

the course of a 45-minute meeting, everyone has time to come up with ideas.

• Brainstorm when we’re sharpest. People can generate their ideas at the

time of day when their minds are sharpest, rather than whenever the meeting happens to be.

• Develop ideas. People also have time to ruminate on their thoughts and GHYHORS WKHP UDWKHU WKDQ IHHOLQJ SUHVVXUHG WR VKDUH WKH ¿UVW WKLQJ WKDW FRPHV to mind in its draft form.

• Edit and present. +DYLQJ OHVV WLPH SUHVVXUH DOVR OHWV SHRSOH ¿JXUH RXW WKH best way to share their ideas, whether it’s editing a written thought or sketching it out.

• 5HÀHFW RQ RWKHUV¶ WKRXJKWV DQG WDNH LQVSLUDWLRQ Each person can also ORRN DW WKH LGHDV WKDW RWKHU SHRSOH DUH VKDULQJ UHÀHFW RQ WKHP DQG SRVVLEO\ use them as further inspiration for their own ideas. As I said before, while these methods of working are much more popular among UHPRWH WHDPV ZKR DUH IRUFHG WR WKLQN GL̆HUHQWO\ DERXW FROODERUDWLRQ WKH\ DUH MXVW DV DFFHVVLEOH WR DQG MXVW DV EHQH¿FLDO IRU LQ SHUVRQ WHDPV

HOW REMOTE COLLABORATION METHODS BENEFIT EVERYONE The other critical reason remote collaboration is so useful is that it removes many of the inherent biases from meeting culture. For a variety of reasons, men tend to speak more than women in mixed-gender settings, and women are more likely to be interrupted by people of any gender than men are. Removing the real-time group dynamic of a meeting from a collaboration session by making it asynchronous eliminates a lot of the “who’s talking more” problem. $V\QFKURQRXV UHPRWH FROODERUDWLRQ DOVR EHQH¿WV VK\ DQG LQWURYHUWHG SHRSOH who don’t like speaking up in meetings but have valuable insights to share. It’s the same for anyone who doesn’t have a strong verbal command of the language, such as non-native speakers or anyone with a speaking disability. Equally, people with disabilities of all kinds are at an advantage when they can take their time to read or listen to what other people have contributed and decide how best to put together their own contributions. SHRINK THE MEETING—EMBRACE REMOTE COLLABORATION Why have we, for so long, expected people to come up with their best ideas in meetings? It doesn’t make sense. The way to work better together is to take what remote organizations have learned about collaborating and use it everywhere. That’s not to say that meetings are pointless. It’s more that too many organizations rely on the meeting to do all the work, when often the meeting is only valuable for a small portion of the collaboration work that needs to be done. In fact, some of the online collaboration tools I’ve mentioned have audio or video meeting tools built into them, so once people have had a chance to come up with some ideas and make their notes, everyone can look at the shared GRFXPHQW DQG VWDUW D PHHWLQJ WR ¿QLVK XS DQ\ ZRUN WKDW ZRXOG EH GRQH EHVW synchronously on a call. So give people more opportunities to bring their best ideas to the table by supporting remote collaboration methods and using collaboration software.

PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION I SUBSCRIBE I JULY 2022

THE WHY AXIS

E-COMMERCE

‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ Is the New Normal for Online Shoppers In a survey of e-commerce shoppers, 80% of respondents say they’ve tried pay-later options in the last year, and almost half do it weekly—or more. Instant gratiﬁcation lives on. BY ERIC GRIFFITH

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