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Contact us Editor Madeline Bennett madeline@computershopper.co.uk Reviews Editor James Archer james@computershopper.co.uk Contributing Editor David Ludlow david@computershopper.co.uk News Editor Roland Moore-Colyer roland@computershopper.co.uk Senior Staff Writer Nathan Spendelow nathan@computershopper.co.uk DESIGN & PRODUCTION Design Bill Bagnall Production Editor Steve Haines Production Manager Daniel Stark Production Assistant Lewis Small Network Production Manager Kerry Lambird CONTRIBUTORS Jonathan Bray, Mel Croucher, Kay Ewbank, Chris Finnamore, Darien Graham-Smith, Simon Handby, Vaughn Highfield, Mike Jennings, Christopher Minasians, Ben Pitt, Vincent Teoh, Clive Webster, Victoria Woollaston ADVERTISING Email ads.shopper@dennis.co.uk Group Advertising Manager Charlotte Milligan 020 3890 3486 COVER GIFT CONTACT Chris Wiles support@creativemark.co.uk SUBSCRIPTIONS Tel: 0330 333 9493 Email: customercare@subscribe.computershopper.co.uk Web: ManageMyMags.co.uk UK £44.99, Europe £70, Rest of world £90 PHOTOGRAPHY Michael Pheasant LICENSING AND SYNDICATION Ryan Chambers 020 3890 4027 Ryan_Chambers@dennis.co.uk Anj Dosaj-Halai 020 3890 3816 anj_halai@dennis.co.uk MANAGEMENT Tel 020 3890 3890 Managing Director or John Garewal Group Advertising Director or Julian Lloyd-Evans Newstrade Director or David Barker Group CFO/COO Brett Reynolds Chief Executive James Tye Company Founder under Felix Dennis PRINTING Printed by Wyndeham, Bicester, Oxon Distributors Seymour 020 7429 4000 LIABILITY While every care was taken preparing this magazine, the publishers cannot be held responsible for the accuracy of the information or any consequence arising from it. All judgements are based on equipment available to Computer Shopper at the time of review. ‘Value for money’ comments are based on UK prices at time of review. All prices include VAT unless otherwise stated.

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B

y now, I’m betting most of you will be well aware of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which came into force across the European Union on 25th May. In the weeks leading up to the deadline, organisations were busy spamming us all with begging emails, asking us to re-consent to receiving marketing communications from them. Because as of 25th May, any company that contacts you without your explicit consent is basically breaking the law.

While there are certainly benefits in sharing your information with responsible organisations, for too long the balance has tipped in the favour of companies all too willing to collect your data to sell on to third parties.

Turn to page 102 for a full report into GDPR, outlining exactly what it means for you and how you can take back control of your personal data.

If GDPR has prompted you to think about security, our labs team have been busy testing 10 of the most popular security suites, to see which offer the best combination of protection, features and value (page 76).

First, the bad news: the worst performer this year had a protection rating of just 48%, compared to 88% when we last ran our tests. It’s surprising that at a time when GDPR is renewing the focus on data security, some of the products claiming to protect us are getting worse.

But the good news is that we were able to hand out five awards, including one to a free package, making it a lot easier – and cheaper – to ensure you have the best protection.

Madeline Bennett, Bennett Editor Edi madeline@computershopper.co.uk

ISSUE 366 | COMPUTER SHOPPER PPER R

| AUGUST 2018

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CONTENTS

Issue 366 August 2018

Contents p76

p102

p110

p48

News All the latest news and views from the technology world, including:

Regulars 6 Letters

Your monthly missives of wit and wisdom, tips and tricks, and moans and groans

8 Mel’s World

If people could see what Mel Croucher was really thinking, he’d become a social pariah.

Or he’d be locked up. Rest assured he’ll be steering well clear of the latest wearable device that’s able to read your mind

10 Cyber Insider

Features 102 Take Back Control of your Data

The new GDPR law puts the power back into your hands when it comes to your personal data. David Ludlow explains your rights under the regulation and how you can stop companies abusing your information

How can you safely dispose of old tech without compromising your personal data?

Our resident security expert offers some essential tips for getting shot of your redundant kit

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19 The Lowdown: HDR HDR displays promise better contrast and colours than ever before. We cut though the hype 20 From the Lab The latest scientific developments explained 21 Retro: CRT monitors We look back at the big bulky beige boxes that took up oodles of desk space

122 Business Help

Our expert answers your software queries

12 Rants & Raves

Finally, says Zygote, a robot that can take over one of the jobs that everyone hates: assembling flatpack furniture from a certain Swedish store

18 Globe Trotting Offbeat news from around the world

Learn 124 Helpfile

As Marks & Spencer joins the long list of high-street names struggling to keep pace with Amazon, we ask whether the retailers are to blame for their predicament

138 Zygote

14 News Round-up Nvidia brings HDR to the PC world, and the great broadband rip-off continues for UK users

Your Windows and hardware problems solved

126 Advanced Projects 110 Build a Photo-Editing PC

There’s no need to spend a fortune on a pre-built high-spec computer. Chris Finnamore guides you through the hardware and software you need for a picture-perfect PC

You don’t need an Apple computer to run macOS – you can do it on a Windows PC with Clive Webster’s expert help

132 Multimedia Expert

Ben Pitt shows you how to create double exposure portraits, images that combine two photos in a creative montage

AUGUST 2018

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 366

p110

p132

p90

Reviews

Group Tests 76 Security Software

22 Hot Product

AMD’s new Ryzen processors will be a force to be reckoned with, if the monstrously powerful Ryzen 7 2700X is any indication. It’s a superb multitasker and even rivals Intel’s single-core prowess

24 PCs

40 Storage

The Palicomp i5 Cosmos is a 4K-ready gaming PC with hexa-core processing power – and is nowhere near as expensive as that sounds

While its built-in full-disk encryption appeals, the Kingston UV500 is a relatively slow SSD

28 Laptops

The Logitech G560 is an awesomely loud set of desktop speakers with smart RGB lighting

The Dell XPS 13 has finally received a proper design update, and hides some impressive internal upgrades within its slimmer chassis

32 Displays

It’s not easy finding a good monitor for £100 or less, but the Acer KG221Q gives you at least one option

34 Printers

The HP LaserJet Pro M227fdw could have been a mono MFP contender were it not so expensive to buy and to run

36 Components

Fancy lighting or not, the best thing about Cooler Master’s MasterLiquid ML240R RGB cooler is how well it performs

38 Networks

It’s not the best in its class, but the Netgear Orbi RBK40 is still a very respectable mesh Wi-Fi system

ISSUE 366 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| AUGUST 2018

42 Audio

43 Home Cinema

It’s not an OLED model, but few TVs deal with motion as well as the Sony KD-55XF9005

44 Handhelds

A lower price and updated software make the new Apple iPad particularly good for students

How safe is your PC? Our in-depth tests of 10 top security packages reveals how they stand up to real-world threats

90 Action Cameras

Whether you’re an extreme sports fan looking for the perfect footage of your exhilarating exploits or you just want to record your cycle ride into work, we’ve got the action camera for you

72 Your Software* Detect threats that your regular security software might miss with the powerful and easy-to-use Online Security Pro

48 Software

The Windows 10 April 2018 Update is filled with positive changes, even if you won’t always use the all-new features

50 Gaming

A creative platform almost beyond description, Nintendo Labo is a good reason to buy a Switch

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FULL PACKAGES

52 Best Buys

All the best kit we’ve reviewed recently

68 How We Test

* FREE SOFTWARE EDITION ONLY

5

LETTERS

Letters

Building a complete PC on a budget is a tough ask, but one reader has risen to the challenge. And is artificial intelligence driving us all bananas? letters@computershopper.co.uk

Video star

Great to see the latest issue of Computer Shopper arrive on subscription through my letterbox only a few days into May. You guys have clearly been busy testing everything, and Ben Pitt has excelled himself in ‘Telling a story with video’ (Multimedia Expert). It encapsulates almost everything it has taken me a while to learn with the help of a local video club.

Readers who would like to follow up and put Ben’s excellent advice into practice can search online for their local video club by area, or contact the Institute of Amateur Cinematographers at www.theiac.org.uk.

They might also like to check out a handy resource for free and royalty-free music at incompetech.com, a site maintained by professional composer Kevin MacLeod.

Philip Fowler, Mid-Wilts Video Society

Of AI toasters and bananas

The future will be run by sentient AI (or so we are confidently told); self-aware AI software will undoubtedly decide at some point that the human race is defunct, hopelessly inefficient and outmoded. Cue the rise of the machines: your Internet of Things toaster will try to murder you, for starters. The Terminator films will be viewed as documentaries by future generations.

We still have some way to go, however.

The Tesco shopping site believes that if I search for ‘Braun’ it should also suggest (based on my search) two types of breakfast cereal, porridge oats and

Star letter Better budget build?

Your components review (Shopper 365) made for interesting reading in our house, albeit a little late for us to use.

In April, my son and I had worked through a similar exercise for his first PC but we only had a budget of £370 to play with.

Like you, we started with an Intel i3-8100 CPU and put it in a Gigabyte Z370P D3 motherboard. Maybe not quite as well equipped with ports as your choices, but enough to work with. We decided to get one 8GB stick of Crucial 2,400MHz DDR RAM; yes, there’s a performance hit of not using dual-channel memory, but it means when he has saved up some more he can get another stick to upgrade to 16GB without having to throw away the original.

Likewise, we chose a 1TB Seagate Barracuda HDD over an SSD to get the storage space; a decent-sized SSD would have put us too far over budget, so it will have to wait for another time.

We housed the build in an Aerocool SI1501 Advance case, which was very reasonably priced but included two 120mm fans (with LEDs) on the front and with ports on top of the case so it can sit on the floor but still be easily accessible.

Power is from a 500W Aerocool Integrator 80+ PSU with a silent 120mm fan; it isn’t a modular one like your budget buy, but

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because the case has good cable management and plenty of spare space, the cables are not an issue.

We bought all that lot from Aria Technology in Manchester for £339.77, including the shipping charge.

Finally, so we didn’t have to use the onboard graphics, we went to CEX (Entertainment Exchange) and got a second-hand 1GB Radeon R7 260X for £36.50. It may not be a top-spec card any more but it is still man enough for a lot of things, and buying second hand means it hasn’t been affected by the price inflation from the cryptocurrency miners.

That gives a final build price of £376.27 (it was only the shipping charges that pushed us over budget). I don’t know how it compares with your minimum build in terms of benchmarks, but he’s using it to play

Arma 3 at 1080p with reasonably high settings and getting 60fps out of it, so it isn’t doing too bad. It’s surprisingly quiet, too.

You seem to look at the same range of suppliers – Scan, Amazon, Overclockers and so on – so it might be worth extending your searches more widely to find better deals on your next build. In fact, challenging your team to build to a certain price point would be an interesting article, more so than just reviewing individual components actually.

John Parr Thanks for sharing all those details, it sounds like you’ve got a great machine for the money. We’ll certainly consider your idea of working to a particular price point in future.

❱❱ Write in and win

Do you wish your computer was faster when booting and loading applications? Thanks to Crucial, you can achieve your dream of a faster PC or laptop with the BX300 SSD. The writer of our Star Letter will be awarded one of these solid-state devices, which can be installed in a desktop PC or a laptop.

This SSD is 300% faster and 45x more energy-efficient than your typical hard drive, and will make your computer boot incredibly quickly and your applications load faster. With 480GB of storage, there’s plenty of room for Windows and all your apps, too.

AUGUST 2018

STAR PRIZE 480GB SSD

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 366

LETTERS

loose bananas. Hmm, early days for AI in some quarters, it would seem.

I don’t actually buy the idea of self-aware AI at all. It’s just going to be some very clever code that may fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people, er, into buying loose bananas rather than electrical goods, but will never magically become sentient.

Certainly, AI will develop into a major part of our lives, and often in ways that we might never guess, but a computer or robot that knows that it’s ‘alive’, different to its human masters, and able to make all of its decisions on that basis? Get out of here, it’s a load of bananas.

Gavin Hay PS I now fully expect to be proved horribly wrong at some future point and will be first up against the wall for the toaster firing squad.

Storagesqueeze

I just don’t get it. Over the time I have ve been messing around with computers, rs, storage speeds, performance and drive capacities have got bigger and bigger.

From the 85KB of the Sinclair Microdrive rive to today’s 4TB personal NAS drive, capacity city has increased to match requirements.

So can anyone explain to me why storage has gone the other way on laptops? I am a DJ and nowadays almost exclusively play music videos, but they take up a shed load of space.

My current laptop, which cost me around £320 a couple of years ago, has 12GB memory and 2TB onboard storage thanks to the manufacturer’s supplied 1TB and an additional 1TB drive on a caddy, which replaced its internal optical drive.

However, it has been used a lot so I recently started to look at replacing it with a nice shiny new one. No chance! All the laptops I could find in a sensible price bracket have a stupidly small SSD instead of a conventional drive, with no built-in optical drive.

When did this happen and, more to the point, why? Our storage requirements have grown and grown and yet laptop storage has suddenly shrunk and shrunk. It just doesn’t make any sense to me at all.

I know I can use an external drive but trust me, using any plug-in cabled device in an environment with loud bass is not to be recommended. The slightest break in the connection caused by the music vibrations can lead to a floor full of 1,000 people looking at you wondering where the music has gone – and that is a very scary thing when you are the DJ. So please can I appeal to laptop makers: give us back our storage capacity – we need more than a pathetic 128GB SSD. Mark Painter

In the next issue ❱❱Let Let us entertain tertain you

We’ll be reviewing and ranking the best home e entertainment products, ducts, from soundbars ndbars to smart rt speakers

❱❱Preserving the past

❱❱Need for speed

We explore the computing museums dedicated to ensuring our tech history is never forgotten

Make your computer faster with our complete tune-up guide

COMPUTER SHOPPER ISSUE UE 367 ON SALE IN NEWSAGENTS FROM 12th JULY WHAT DENNIS DOES WITH YOUR DATA On 25th May, new data protection laws were introduced across the UK and EU – we cover the impact of GDPR on you and the organisations you deal with on page 102. Wondering what happens to your data when you subscribe to Computer Shopper or another Dennis Publishing magazine?

Cathy Pendleton, Head of Data & GDPR at Dennis, provides her expert insight into how we process your data under GDPR. What information does Dennis collect about its subscribers and why?

We collect and store information so that we can ensure our subscribers receive every issue of their magazines. This includes contact details such as name, address, telephone number and, in the case of a digital subscription, email address. We store other important information relating to a subscription, such as when it starts and ends, whether payment has been made and whether there have been any changes to the details we’ve been given, such as a change of address.

We also collect email addresses and telephone numbers that we may use to contact our

ISSUE 366 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| AUGUST 2018

subscribers to send them information about their subscriptions. This could be reminders about renewing their subscription or to make them aware if there are any problems with delivery.

We may also ask subscribers to allow us to use their data to send them special offers about our other magazines that we think they might be interested in.

How can I find out what personal data the company holds about me?

Details of how to find out what personal information we hold about you can be found in our privacy policy at www.dennis.co.uk/privacy. Under GDPR, you have the right to access your data, as well as the right to correct inaccurate information, request deletion and other important changes.

You can also find details in our privacy policy of how to make these requests.

Will Dennis pass my data to third-party companies for processing?

Yes, Dennis works with trusted partners to send out magazines on our behalf. We do not share individuals’ details with other companies unless

that is required to fulfil the service requested, or they have given us specific permission to do so.

How does Dennis protect my data from security breaches?

We have policies and procedures in place to ensure all the personal data we hold at Dennis Publishing is kept as secure as possible. This includes the security of the data while it’s being processed by our partners who send out our magazines to our customers.

How long does Dennis keep my personal data?

Generally speaking, we keep your data for as long as we need to deliver your subscription, and to comply with various legislation. If you have given us consent to contact you about offers and services from Dennis Publishing, we will store your data to allow us to do this, either until such time as you unsubscribe or stop receiving emails and phone calls from us.

You can unsubscribe from emails from us at any time using the ‘unsubscribe’ link in the messages we send to you or by emailing privacy@dennis.co.uk.

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MEL’S WORLD

Secrets and lies Computers will soon be able to read our minds. And if your innermost thoughts are anything like Mel Croucher’s, that’s more than a little concerning

MEL CROUCHER Tech pioneer and all-round good egg letters@computershopper.co.uk

I’M A BIT of a fibber. Actually, that’s a lie. I fib all the time. It’s mainly because I don’t like to hurt people, and the truth often hurts.

“I know what you’re thinking” is a phrase that makes me uneasy. If people could read my thoughts and listen in on my inner conversations I would not only be a social pariah, I’d be arrested.

When I was a little lad, I became fascinated with an Isaac Asimov story that had been published in a wartime edition of Astounding Science Fiction. The name of that story was Liar! and it concerned Herbie the telepathic robot. The thing is, under Asimov’s laws of robotics an artificial intelligence is not allowed to hurt humans, not even to hurt their feelings, so Herbie tells lies to make people happy.

To cut a short story very short indeed, the robot gets involved with a girl lab worker and a boy lab worker, who may or may not be in love with one another, and

one, of course. A bunch of boffins at Stanford University were busy nailing electrodes into the skulls of paralysed folk, and managed to get them to type at a rate of knots using nothing but mind-control. [Bloody idiots. Why didn’t they just yell at them, and make them talk slowly and clearly?

Anyway, that’s 300-odd words done, so only another 600 to go before I get paid for this month’s column. Okey dokey.]

EGO MANIAC

And now, along comes a wearable device called the AlterEgo that can delve into the human mind and read words you say inside your head. [Bum, poo, willy, plops.]

It looks a bit like the microphones football pundits are forced to wear, and is hooked behind one ear, then follows the jawline down until it reaches the chin. [So you look a total idiot, even worse than those numpties who ponced about wearing Google Glass.]

If we express what we really think, then we reveal all of our latent prejudices, fears, hypocrisy, longing, terror, boredom, anger and desires being unable to hurt either one of them by telling the truth, Herbie goes and blows a fuse.

The silly sod. There are frequent occasions when I know exactly how that robot must have felt.

A few years back, I became aware of an ex-director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency called Regina Dugan [not bad for her age but I’m not sure I’d want to sniff her] who had jumped ship to work in Facebook’s so-called Building Number 8, where mind-reading software was being developed. Her stated objective was to benefit Facebook users by helping them to navigate online applications and complete tasks using only their thoughts [and if you believe that shite Regina, you’ll believe anything]. She wasn’t the only

8

AlterEgo uses four electrodes that make contact with the wearer’s skin, and they’re able to pick up and codify all the tiny neuromuscular signals that people emit when they verbalise internally. In other words, there are no other words. [Careful, Croucher, too much flowery language followed by a smart arse bit of word play. May as well leave it in, though, must be getting close to the 500-word count by now.

Got a bit of pomegranate stuck between my two front teeth. And I need a pee.]

The staggering fact about AlterEgo is that it actually works and achieves a transcription accuracy of over 90%. That’s almost as good as Google’s voice transcription software, but much, much spookier.

The software-based mindreading project has been developed at the MIT Media Lab

by Arnav Kapur, who wanted to create a communications device that was outwardly silent [what was the name of that girl at school with the funny name? I remember, Phillipa Kettle. She had a really deafening whistle, used to put two fingers in her mouth and gob all over the place when she did it] and that nobody else would be aware of [apart from the fact that you’re wearing half a bloody boomerang on your face], which would facilitate some unique applications in the fields of prisoner interrogation, cheating at cards and Tourette’s syndrome.

DAILY TELEPATH

I find the prospect of telepathic communication to be quite attractive in some ways. The continual blather of a world enslaved by smartphones is antisocial and disruptive to all those not participating, and I for one would welcome a bit of hush once in a while. But reading one another’s minds via a computer interface will cause more harm than good, I reckon. The benefits of silent communication will be outweighed by the dangers of our innermost thoughts being released into the wild. Civilisation only keeps going because of the secrets we keep and the lies we tell. [I really do need to evacuate my bladder.] Computerised telepathic communication will bring society to its knees, acting like a nerve agent of unbridled truth-telling. If we express what we really think, then we reveal all of our latent prejudices, fears, hypocrisy, longing, terror, boredom, anger and desires.

[Wanna wee-wee.]

And the continual compromise between truth and lies that keeps everything going on a semi-even keel will soon break down and [that’s it, only 10 words to go before I’m done for another month. I’m off for a]

AUGUST 2018

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 366

CYBER INSIDER

Safe disposal It’s not necessarily remote threats that can cause you the biggest security headaches, but the information people can retrieve locally, warns Cyber Insider

QUITE OFTEN, TALK of security threats is about external threats, of how hackers can attack your computer remotely or how scams can be used to get you to give up personal information. Yet all too often, threats to security come from sources closer to home, and sometimes just forgetfulness.

Recently, a 2010 video has again been doing the rounds on Facebook, showing the dangers of an office photocopier, which kept a record of what was being printed on an internal hard disk.

Since that report, photocopiers digitally shred any information stored locally on them, but it still highlights a common problem: insecurely disposing of personal information.

The truth is that we all often think that throwing something away gets rid of the problem, and the item is gone forever. Sadly,

Examine what else you could be giving away; often, personal data is worth far more than the old hardware that’s not the case, and we’re often just passing on a treasuretrove of information.

OLD PC, CURRENT DATA

In particular, getting rid of an old PC can be fraught with danger.

Whether you’re throwing it in the bin, giving it to a friend or selling it, are you sure you’ve got rid of everything important? In the case of an old PC that has broken, the storage can just be read in another computer, retrieving important files. If your computer was working and you deleted the information, how sure are you that the data has gone for good? File recovery software can often find lots of old files for recovery, bringing back your personal information.

What you should do depends on what you’re planning to do

10

with your PC. If it’s beyond repair and needs to be disposed of, the best thing you can do is take out the drives and smash them with a hammer. That will make them effectively unreadable.

If you’re passing on or selling your computer, you need to securely erase the drive. A secure erase takes the hard disk or SSD and overwrites the data with zeros or, more securely, random data. Every bit of information is thus scrubbed from the hard disk.

Usefully, Windows 10 has a reset option that can restore your computer to factory settings, and it includes an option to ‘Fully clean my drive’. This will wipe your hard disk and write zeros over the data to prevent file recovery. This process takes longer than a traditional restore but gives an extra level of security that will thwart most attempts to get data back.

Likewise, if you have an old external hard disk, you should destroy it if you plan to throw it away, or securely format it if you want to sell it or give it away.

Windows 10 has a secure format tool, which you can access through the command line. It works like this: Format <drive>: /P:<no of passes> Replace <drive> with the drive letter of the storage you want to format. The P: command tells Windows how many times to overwrite the data with zeros.

So format d: /P:3 would format drive D, overwriting each sector three times.

PHONE DANGER

Our handsets are now the home of much of our private data, but they’re also the devices that we’re most likely to pass on or sell. Again, care is required when disposing of any phone.

The most important thing you can do is securely wipe the phone, removing all data and user accounts.

If you do pass on your phone to one of those phone-trading places before you’ve wiped it, do not hand over any PIN or password information. By letting someone else unlock your handset, you’re letting them have access to your data and any information that can be synchronised to it. In this scenario, ask for your phone back; for additional security, change any account passwords.

The iOS wipe procedure is fairly straightforward, but take more care with Android. First, go to Settings, Security and look for the option to encrypt your phone.

Most modern models should be encrypted already, but if your handset isn’t, encrypt it first. This can take a while, but it will lock and hide data and user accounts.

Next, perform the full factory reset under the Backup & reset options. This will restart your phone and delete everything, including all user accounts. You’ll be prompted for your password or phone PIN to do this step.

Now, remove any memory cards and your SIM. Memory cards can be reused or disposed of, but don’t give them away with your phone just in case there’s data that can be recovered.

Finally, you can remove your Android phone from your Google account online at myaccount. google.com/device-activity. This list will show you all connected devices: select one and click Remove to prevent further access.

BEWARE OTHER DEVICES

Old hard disk recorders and smart TV boxes may not sound much of a risk, but they can be linked to online accounts, such as Amazon and Netflix. Before passing on any such device, perform a factory reset following the manufacturer’s instructions.

In all cases, think beyond the physical and examine what else you could be giving away; often, personal data is worth far more than the old hardware.

AUGUST 2018

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 366

RANTS & RAVES

Mainstream gamepads have left disabled users behind, but Microsoft’s new controller is a more accessible solution. And who’s to blame for the crisis on the high street?

nnett Madeline Be

THE INITIALS WACD might not mean much for those ose of us embedded in the world of computing, but for those who work in or follow the retail sector, they will be all too familiar. ‘What Amazon can’t do’ is the ultimate goal for retailers struggling to survive in the era of online shopping.

One of the most recent victims is Marks & Spencer, which has reported a 62% fall in annual profits. In response, M&S plans to close more than 100 stores – equivalent to one in three of its current shops – over the next three-and-a-half years. Ironically, the bulk of the profits slump was caused by a hefty £321m bill to cover the cost of store closures, but M&S clearly sees this as a short-term price worth paying to protect its future prospects.

r JJames Arche

AS VIDEO GAMES have become ever more complex, lex, so too have their controllers: instead of a single joystick and two buttons, b modern console pads have about a dozen different inputs, and even that’s nothing compared to PC gaming on a keyboard.

The price for this shift has been paid for by players with disabilities, especially those without the finger dexterity demanded by contemporary control schemes. Microsoft’s newly revealed Xbox Adaptive Controller, however, could make gaming enjoyable for all.

It incorporates two large circular touchpads and an oversized D-pad, as well as 19 3.5mm jacks on the rear, for connecting assistive aids such as foot pedals and blowing tubes. The idea is that users can customise their setup to a finer degree than with any standard controller, allowing them to compensate for any physical limitations.

This flexibility is apparently the direct result of Microsoft inviting gamers with disabilities to give input on the Adaptive Controller

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Marks & Sparks is just one in a long line of struggling or now-defunct retailers, from BHS to str Map to Toys “R” Us. Even John Lewis, generally Maplin aff afforded the same National Treasure status as Sir David Attenborough, hasn’t avoided the Amazon Da effect, with a 77% drop in profits. eff The blame for this challenging retail environment gen is generally aimed at us shoppers preferring to shop online rather than in actual shops; and more squarely at Amazon, for undercutting traditional high-street names with its cheap prices, speedy delivery options and humongous range.

But is it just down to our love of e-commerce and Amazon?

There certainly seems to be a clue in the John Lewis situation.

Even though sales and customer numbers increased at John Lewis stores and Waitrose supermarkets during 2017, its profits still suffered a big drop. So it’s not that we’re shunning high-street stores and all glued to our PCs, tablets and phones to buy everything from food to clothes. It’s just that when we go into stores, there’s not as much to tempt us to shell out cash.

Perhaps it’s time for retailers to focus on WWCD (the newly coined by me ‘what we can do’) rather than WACD.

dur during its development – an uncharacteristically open app approach for the Redmond firm, which typically shi shields new products from the public until a sufficiently glitzy announcement can be made. Still, suffi by all accounts this candid, collaborative tactic has produced something that really works. pro Controllers built for the less abled are nothing new. It’s been three decades since Nintendo created the mouth-operated Hands Free Controller for the mo NES, and much more recently, engineer Julio Vasquez original NES designed des ed a series of 3D-printable peripherals that would allow both the Nintendo Switch’s Joy-Con controllers to be used in one hand.

And yet, it’s particularly heartening to see Microsoft’s attempt come to light; not because it’s some feel-good change of tune from a typically hard-nosed megacorp, but because of the openness and inclusivity of the design process, the genuinely well-realised result and the commitment to making it widely available, just like any other Xbox pad. The Hands Free Controller, after all, was only ever sold via direct order, and has since – rather uncomfortably – become a kind of high-value collector’s item.

Above all else, we’ve spent the past few years being repeatedly, painfully reminded of how technology can be abused, whether by individuals or unscrupulous groups. It’s always nice to see how tech can be a force for good as well.

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The biggest stories from the tech world, and what they mean for you

Nvidia spearheads HDR display revolution SAY WHAT? HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE (HDR) displays are becoming commonplace in high-end smartphones and TVs (see The Lowdown, page 19), but the colour- and contrast-expanding tech hasn’t really reached the PC world. Until now.

Nvidia recently invited Computer Shopper to see a brace of monitors created by Acer and Asus, which aim to usher in the first HDR gaming-grade monitors to PCs. Without the HDR tech, the Acer Predator X27 and Asus RoG Swift PG27UQ are impressively high-end 27in displays offering 3,840x2,160 resolutions, 144Hz refresh rates – a first for 4K displays – and Nvidia’s G-Sync frame-matching technology.

The displays present razor-sharp images and super-smooth movement when gaming, providing they’ve been hooked up to a powerful PC. Thanks to 384-zone full-array direct backlight, the displays are capable of hitting 1,000 nits, the brightness required to hit the HDR10 standard. In front of the backlighting sits a VA panel with a quantum dot film that covers more than 90% of the DCI-P3 colour gamut, which is what cinema projectors are calibrated to. In combination, the luminance and swanky panel enable the monitors to display the bright, vibrant colours, deep blacks and crisp whites that HDR promises.

And they deliver in spades. Games with HDR modes such as Destiny 2 and Final Fantasy XV look exceptional, with moving footage looking

smooth and bursting with realistic colours. The range of white and black shades lend depth to scenes that are simply not there on standard dynamic range (SDR) monitors.

When the new Acer Predator X27 is compared side-by-side to its SDR predecessor, the difference becomes fiercely apparent. While the older X27 was a decent gaming monitor, its successor blows it out of the water with HDR, leaving the same game on the older monitor looking washed out, dull and flat in comparison.

Nvidia, Acer and Asus have produced truly next-level monitors. But they’ll come at a price.

Nvidia didn’t reveal the prices of the monitors at the event, nor when they’re due to go on sale. But all signs point toward them sitting anywhere between £1,000 and £2,000; these are serious displays for people who take their PC gaming enthusiasm to the next level.

There are a few caveats, the first being that no single graphics card can really power a 4K monitor at 144Hz. A high-end GeForce GTX 1080 Ti can hit 4K at 60Hz, but 120Hz is pretty much out of the GPU’s reach. The second issue is that there are only 30 or so PC games that are properly set up for HDR, meaning game developers need to play catch-up.

But these HDR monitors are really designed for future PCs and the next generation of Nvidia graphics tech that should have the pixel-pushing horsepower to allow 4K HDR in PC gaming to really shine.

OnePlus 6 takes aim at slaying Android giants SAY WHAT? FLAGSHIP-BEATING SMARTPHONES have been the calling card of one-time mobile upstart OnePlus for the past four years. With the original OnePlus One, the Chinese company offered an alternative to Apple’s iPhone and the myriad Android phones in the mobile world.

From there the OnePlus 2, 3, 3T and X all captured the attention of people fed up with smartphones that pushed extraneous features, yet charged a premium for the luxury.

The OnePlus 5 and 5T cemented OnePlus as a brand that could produce phones competitive with the best Android handsets but priced some several hundred pounds cheaper.

That’s not to say OnePlus produced perfect phones. The OnePlus 5T’s dual-camera array, for example, couldn’t compete with that on Google’s Pixel 2 or Samsung’s Galaxy S9. But with the new OnePlus 6, the firm is showing that it will keep nipping at the heels of its competition.

The OnePlus 6 does this by embracing the ‘notch’ trend established by the iPhone X, in that it has a large 6.28in AMOLED 2,280x1,080 display with a small cutout at the very top to house the phone’s front-facing camera. This approach gives the handset a near bezel-less design, expanding on the large display of its predecessor the OnePlus 5T, and with 401ppi, vibrant colours and contrast, it’s striking to behold.

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Round the back of the phone, OnePlus continues to follow design trends, ditching aluminium and instead going for a Gorilla Glass 5 rear, with finishes available in mirror black, midnight black or a limited edition ‘Silk White’ finish, which stuffs crushed pearls into the glass back.

The location of the horizontal dual-camera module has been moved to the upper centre of the handset and stacked vertically, with an oblong fingerprint scanner beneath it. The array houses 16- and 20-megapixel sensors, both with f/1.7 apertures, much like the 5T, only the 16-megapixel camera now has a larger sensor for better low-light photography, as well as optical image stabilisation. The front-facing camera weights in at 16 megapixels with an f/2 aperture.

OnePlus has also fitted in Qualcomm’s top mobile chip, the Snapdragon 845, matched with 6GB or 8GB of RAM. Storage starts at 64GB and goes up to 256GB. The OnePlus 6’s battery has the same 3,300mAh capacity as the 5T, but OnePlus says it’s now 10% more efficient.

Starting at £469 and topping out at £569, the OnePlus 6 is some way from the original sub-£250 price mark of its first phones. But it’s only £19 more expensive than the 5T, and offers a decent upgrade and components that challenge the latest crop of £700+ Android handsets.

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SO WHAT? AT FIRST GLANCE, Nvidia’s work on HDR-certified displays is impressive, but out of the reach of all but the most enthusiastic of gamers who are willing to drop a large wad of cash on the best display tech around and a powerful PC to push pixels to it.

After all, HDR gaming can be had through the Xbox One S and PlayStation 4 when used with a compatible TV, which combined are likely to be cheaper than just the Asus or Acer HDR displays alone.

But Nvidia is at the forefront of PC-gaming HDR, and displays built to its certification offer a level of HDR presentation that is arguably leagues ahead of the competition.

Each game we saw on the HDR displays looked more alive and realistic than any other gaming HDR presentation we’ve previously seen.

And while these monitors are almost certainly too costly for the average PC gaming fan, if the technology gets adopted by professional gamers and high-end enthusiasts, it will eventually filter down into more affordable displays.

While HDR support in games is currently lacking, there’s little reason for it at the moment.

Developers won’t bother to master their games in HDR if there’s no demand for it, and demand won’t increase if there are no games to showcase expensive new monitors.

However, Nvidia is taking the plunge with its HDR push and told us that it has a strong developer community it’s supporting in getting their games suitable for HDR displays.

Apparently, mastering games for HDR isn’t a huge problem given developers often need to squeeze down their games’ colour range to suit SDR displays, so all they would need to do is grade the colours to suit HDR screens.

Furthermore, the HDR games that have come out this year are more impressive than HDR games of 12 months ago.

So Nvidia is confident a wave of HDR gaming for the PC world is coming, and having seen it in action ourselves, we’re pretty convinced as well.

Mastering games for HDR isn’t a huge problem given developers often need to squeeze down their games’ colour range to suit SDR displays”

SO WHAT? YOU MIGHT WONDER why the OnePlus 6 is worthy of attention, as in many ways it’s just a straightforward upgrade to the 5T. The design tweaks, fresh chipset and camera upgrades are hardly revolutionary.

But it’s the ethos that’s noteworthy here. The company has made a handset that improves on its predecessor in every way, reacting to what its loyal army of fans want and the feedback they provide, rather than attempting to forge it own way and introduce features that are interesting but no-one asked for.

This is in polar opposite to something like Apple’s Animoji, animated emojis that use the iPhone X’s fancy Face ID sensors to track a person’s face movements to an emoji, replicating them, say, singing Bohemian Rhapsody as a talking unicorn.

It’s a smart technology demonstration, but hardly something many people were clamouring for.

Now we won’t argue against innovation, but sometimes we’d like products that are

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designed around the end user rather than devices that play to the ego of tech designers.

The OnePlus 6 may lack IP-rated water resistance, but at the same time it doesn’t abandon the 3.5mm headphone jack, which many people peo still use for drowning out the clamour of rush hour when commuting.

Nor does OnePlus try to fill its OxygenOS Android skin with loads of custom apps and replicated features.

Simply put, the OnePlus 6 comes with pretty much everything an Android use user could ask for without any of the fat and tat other phone makers throw into the mix. We’ll have a full review of the handset next issue, so we’ll reserve final judgement until then.

But if more hardware makers follow OnePlus’s example, we could see devices that give us what we want with but the smallest of compromises, which would be a nice change from a lot of the current bloatware, and technology that forces the use of dongles and fiddly accessories.

▶ For

the kids

▶ For

the den

▶ For

the wallet

There have been many great games for the Nintendo Switch, but nothing quite like Nintendo Labo. In fact, this combination of cardboard construction and smart software isn’t so much a game as an all-new platform that teaches kids how to build and create.

At its most basic, Labo can simply be about making cardboard controllers for mini-games, but by exploring its capabilities, even young users can dream up their own programs for each peripheral or discover new feats in existing games. In the future, it could even be possible to design your own controllers, so there’s something for adult makers, too.

(Page 50)

If you’d be happy with a thicker TV as long as it delivers on features, the Sony KD-55XF9005 is worth considering.

Its secret weapons are its direct-lit, full-array local dimming (FALD) backlighting and Sony’s X-Motion Clarity tech, which work together to create a crisp, clear picture for fast-moving content.

(Page 43)

Decent budget monitors are in short supply, so at just £100 the Acer KG221Q is a welcome arrival. What it lacks in adjustability and brightness uniformity, it makes up for with high contrast, surprising colour accuracy, AMD FreeSync support and a 75Hz refresh rate.

(Page 32)

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BOOTING UP Google cloud power

Cloud storage service Google One brings reduced prices, more data options and the ability to share your allowance with family members

Accessible controllers

Microsoft’s Xbox Adaptive Controller is a console and Windows 10 controller designed to make gaming more accessible to people with disabilities

Listening computers

HP’s latest 34in Envy Curved all-in-one desktop PC will come with Amazon’s Alexa virtual assistant built in and ready to receive barked voice commands

AI academics

The Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science has launched a degree in AI, which will emphasise AI ethics and social responsibility

Electronics recycling pioneer jailed for breaching WIndows copyright RECYCLING USED TECHNOLOGY is a worthy cause, but caution is needed if you don’t want to end up on the wrong side of the law.

That was the case with electronics recycling innovator Eric Lundgren, who got hit with a 15-month prison sentence for selling Windows restore discs.

Lundgren produced 28,000 of the discs and then sold them on to computer refurbishers for 25 US cents per disc. His goal was to provide people with access to an easy Windows restore disc without forcing them to create their own.

Creating these discs is not illegal if used with a licensed version of Windows.

The problem is that it can be a fiddly process for people who aren’t so tech savvy, which according to Lundgren resulted in people throwing out their PCs after a Windows malfunction.

Microsoft took exception to the venture and filed a copyright infringement case against

Lundgren, claiming he was selling counterfeit software as legitimate.

Microsoft noted that people can buy Windows restore discs at a discounted price of $25, so Lundgren’s scheme was not only breaching copyright but was also costing Microsoft to the tune of $700,000.

The court came out in Microsoft’s favour.

Lundgren appealed the decision, but another court still found him guilty of copyright infringement and he was slapped with a 15-month prison sentence and a $50,000 fine.

Lundgren has reportedly accepted his fate, noting he hasn’t got the money to fight the decision in the courts, but argued that he was standing up against electronic waste and how wasteful the US is.

He also noted that the courts have sent a precedent that it’s OK for large technology companies to use criminal court proceedings to target people running e-waste schemes to extract life out of old PCs.

Butterfly effect

The Butterfly mechanism in Apple’s MacBook and MacBook Pro keyboards were found to fail twice as fast as older models with more traditional keyboards

Parliament’s pull

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg continued to ignore requests by the UK’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sports Committee to answer more questions on the social network’s approach to data use and privacy

Kaby Lake-X

Intel revealed it will be killing off its Kaby Lake-X Core i processors due to a lack of appetite for the enthusiast-level desktop chips

DRAM price fixers

Samsung, Micron and Hynix have been accused of fixing DRAM prices by trying to artificially limit the supply of memory for use in PCs and mobiles

CRASHING 16

UK households receive less than half the broadband speeds they pay for BRITISH BROADBAND WOES don’t seem to be going away any time soon, as a report has shown that British households get less than half the broadband speeds they pay for.

The report, based on 235,000 users of Which?’s speed-checker tool (broadbandtest.which.co.uk), ), show that on average customers who pay for ‘up to 38Mbit/s’ internet speeds receive half of that (19Mbit/s), while those paying for speeds ‘up to 200Mbit/s’ logged speeds of only 52Mbit/s.

Customers who paid for speeds of ‘up to 50Mbit/s’ fared the best, achieving 35Mbit/s on average, but those paying for ‘up to 17Mbit/s’ received only a paltry 6Mbit/s. Overall, the average customer received broadband speeds 51% slower than those advertised.

New rules from the Advertising Standards Authority have now come into effect that mean ISPs will only be able to advertise the average speed achievable for at least 50% of

households at peak time. As shown by the results of Which?’s research, until now, the rules have been much more lenient, allowing companies to advertise speeds that are available to only 10% of customers.

“This change in the rules is “Th good news for customers, goo who have been continuously let down by con unrealistic adverts and broadband speeds that won’t ever live up to expectations,” said Alex Neill, Which?’s managing director of home services.

“We know that speed and reliability of service really matter to customers, and we will be keeping a close eye on providers to make sure they follow these new rules and finally deliver the service that people pay for.”

Minister for Digital, Margot James, echoed these sentiments: “The new advertising rules are great for consumers – headline ‘up to’ speeds that only need to be available to 10% of consumers are incredibly misleading.”

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Dark web data thieves may have met their match

Facebook suspends 200 apps for misusing user data

THE DARK WEB is a haven for hackers looking to flog data they’ve stolen, but Fujitsu has teamed up with Israeli security company IntSights to help combat the effects of sensitive data being exposed to the darker corners of the internet.

The dark web is much more than a gateway for buying drugs or arranging dastardly deeds: it’s a space where information can be bought or sold, and it’s usually sensitive personal information that could blow a company wide open.

However, the joint Fujitsu and IntSights initiative, demoed at this year’s Fujitsu Forum in Tokyo, allows users to monitor terms and slices of their sensitive information, flagging whenever there’s a match in the data available for sale on the dark web.

While IntSights develops the programme, Fujitsu’s role in the partnership comes into play when that data is flagged online.

Because it’s almost impossible to ensure that information on the dark web isn’t used for malicious reasons, the solution is to mitigate against that damage. One part of that comes from Fujitsu’s own data protection and security services, but thanks to IntSights’ involvement the firms can now actively defend against known data leaks almost as soon as they crop up for sale on the dark web.

A Google Analytics-like dashboard shows at-a-glance information on what’s been detected online. The information ranges from something as low level as a company Facebook or Twitter page log-in cropping up, all the way to high-level data breaches of employee or customer data.

Instead of chasing down the individuals selling the information, Fujitsu and IntSights simply devalue that data. By reacting proactively against the data link before it has been sold on and exploited, the information is rendered essentially worthless to a buyer. Enterprises are still chasing after those stealing the information, but would-be data thieves might start to wonder if it’s worth stealing in the first place.

FACEBOOK HAS SUSPENDED 200 apps following its ongoing investigation into the misuse of data by third parties. Thousands of apps have been examined, pending what the social network describes as a “thorough investigation” into whether these apps misappropriated user information.

The move is part of a Facebook-run audit to examine how many third-party apps had extensive access to user information, and how many used that data inappropriately. This applies primarily to apps created before the firm’s data policies were changed in 2014.

Mark Zuckerberg announced the internal investigation in March, following the revelations that political strategy company Cambridge Analytica had allegedly acquired and misused Facebook user data.

Facebook’s vice-president of product partnerships, Ime Archibong, claims the audit is “in full swing”, and consists of two stages.

“First, a comprehensive review to identify every app that had access to this amount of Facebook data. And second, where we have concerns, we will conduct interviews, make requests for information (RFIs) – which ask a series of detailed questions about the app and the data it has access to – and perform audits that may include on-site inspections.”

Archibong noted that if evidence is found of apps misusing user data, it will show users whether they or their friends installed those apps before 2015.

There’s no word on how long Facebook’s investigation will take, with Archibong saying only that “a lot more work” is needed. Even those 200 suspended apps will need to be further investigated via interviews and RFIs, and we can expect the figure to go up as more third-party apps are audited.

3,500 25% 10Mbit/s Immigrant workers with required tech and STEM skills denied British visas

THE EXPECTED SLUMP IN GRAPHICS CARD PRICES, FOLLOWING A DROP IN PEOPLE BUYING GPUs FOR CRYPTOCURRENCY MINING

Some 3% of Brits are still getting broadband below this speed

583 MILLION 20

THE NUMBER OF FAKE ACCOUNTS FACEBOOK PURGED IN THE FIRST FEW MONTHS OF 2018

Classic NES games will launch with Nintendo’s Switch Online service

60% 13,000 £325,000

The fall in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks across Europe after the WebStresser takedown

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STAFF WILL BE AXED FROM BT OVER THE NEXT THREE YEARS

How much the Crown Prosecution Service was fined for losing police interview recordings

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USA

China

Drone data guzzling Apple has been given the nod from the US government to use drones in North Carolina to suck up data to improve its Maps iOS app.

While this may raise some eyebrows around privacy, Apple is being allowed to use drones for data harvesting as part of the US Department of Transportation’s new drone program, designed to figure out how drones can be regulated and integrated into US airspace.

The company said it will protect people’s privacy by blurring out faces and licence plates before making the data visible in the Maps app.

Face front You’d be forgiven for thinking a gadget company would be China’s headlinegrabbing startup, but it’s in fact an AI firm.

SenseTime, which provides facialrecognition tech used by the Chinese government, has been labelled as the most valuable AI startup in the world. The firm has been valued at £2bn, a huge sum for an artificial intelligence startup.

Chief executive Li Xu said SenseTime will build up its presence outside of China and “widen the scope for more industrial application of AI”.

Iran

Malaysia

Telegram ban Iran’s judiciary moved to ban securemessaging service Telegram in a supposed bid to protect the nation’s national security and prevent anti-government protests.

“Those actions included propaganda against the establishment, terrorist activities, spreading lies to incite public opinion, anti-government protests and pornography,” Iran’s judiciary website Mizan noted.

The ban forces Iran’s ISPs to not only block Te Telegram, but work to prevent techniques such as the use of virtual private networks to bypass the block.

A total of 40 million Iranians will be left without access to the secure messaging app.

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Politicians spammed Malaysian politicians claim their smartphones were hacked on the nation’s election day and were spammed by phone calls.

The calls were allegedly carried out by bots that originated in the US and UK, as well as Malaysia, with the goal of causing communications chaos for all candidates from both the government and the opposition.

“Calls from overseas keep coming in every few seconds! To prevent us communicating hinery,” one with our machinery,” ported. candidate reported.

Defeated PM Najib Razak e calls condemned the ordered and said he’d “ordered for immediate action to be taken”.

South Korea

Killer bots boycott AI experts have called for a boycott of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), claiming its partnership with arms manufacturer Hanwha Systems could lead to the creation of killer robots.

More than 50 academics signed a letter warning they would boycott KAIST unless it guaranteed its new research centre would not develop autonomous weapons.

“If developed, autonomous weapons will be the third revolution in warfare,” the letter said. “This Pandora’s box will be hard to close if it is opened.”

Australia

Brickie bot Created by Perth-based firm Fastbrick Robotics, Hadrian X is a lorrymounted robotic arm than can lay 1,000 bricks per hour. Fastbrick claims the robot can complete the shell of a house in two days. A human crew of builders can generally build a small house in four to six weeks.

The arm works using 3D models to figure out the bricks it needs to cut into shape and essent essentially stick together to form the building she shell, which can then be given the finishing touche touches by human builders.

Rather than steal jobs from Antipodean brickl bricklayers, Fastbrick envisions Hadrian X as a way to address the shortage of brickies.

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Demystifying HDR We cut through the hype around high dynamic range WHAT DOES HDR MEAN? HDR, which stands for high dynamic range, promises to expand the range of colours and contrast that monitors and TVs are able to display. If you think of Full HD and 4K being a measure for the quantity of pixels on display, you could argue that HDR represents the quality of pixels.

OK, BUT WHAT DOES IT ACTUALLY DO? In a nutshell, HDR gives a compatible display and content a greater contrast ratio and a richer colour palette; both important factors in creating image quality that’s striking to behold.

HDR allows for the whites in an image to be whiter, blacks to be blacker and colours to be deeper and more defined.

It’s a distant cousin of the HDR modes you get in the latest smartphone cameras. While those stitch multiple images together to create a vibrant and dynamic image, HDR for monitors and TVs takes a video source signal and applies the colour gamut and contrast-expanding wizardry to it.

In a good implementation of HDR, that means you get more shades of white and black, and more definitions of a wider range of colours.

The idea is that HDR presents a more natural and realistic representation of a scene captured on video or being rendered in a film.

Thanks to the likes of Horizon Zero Dawn, Rise of the Tomb Raider and Forza Motorsport 7, HDR is being better implemented in games, at least those on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

HANG ON, WHAT ABOUT PC GAMERS? Unfortunately, HDR hasn’t really entered the world of PC gaming, certainly when contrasted against an interest in high-resolutions and refresh rates. While graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia have the chops to power HDR, there has been rather tepid support for the technology in PC games, especially as there aren’t a great deal of gaming-centric monitors around that support it.

But that’s beginning to change, with the likes of Nvidia working with hardware makers to create HDR displays with gaming in mind (see ‘Need to Know’, page 14).

However, to get the best HDR experience, you’ll need a display that meets one of several HDR standards.

HDR10 is the most common and accessible, used for 4K displays with 1,000 nits and a 10-bit panel. Dolby Vision is its main rival, with a greater colour depth of 12 bits and support for up to 10,000 nits of peak brightness. Advanced HDR from Technicolor and Hybrid Log Gamma from the BBC and NHK Japan offer alternative but currently less common standards.

So your best bet is to look for a display that’s HDR10-compatible, which should give you an image that wows without completely emptying your bank account.

SO IS HDR WORTH THE BOTHER? Yes and no. HDR is mighty impressive to behold for the first time; on an HDR TV versus a regular TV, colours will look more vibrant, and scenes and footage look more realistic and punchy.

At its very best, HDR gives an almost 3D effect where there are lots of different shades and contrasts. The effect can be so pronounced it can make non-HDR content appear a little flat and dull.

At the same time, not every HDR panel is equal, and some displays, such as those with edge-lit LED panels rather than LED backlighting, can struggle to handle bright objects against very dark backgrounds, creating distracting halos around them. And some can’t separate different shades of black as well as others, leading to a ‘crushing’ effect.

The likes of Nvidia are working with hardware makers to create HDR displays

SO WHAT DO I NEED TO GET HDR? Here’s the bad news: to get full-fat HDR you have to shell out for a display with 1,000 nits – one nit is the light a standard candle gives off – and a 10-bit panel with a resolution around the 4K mark.

These specifications are needed to display the one billion colours that HDR supports, as well as the ability to cover 90% of the cinemagrade DCI-P3 colour gamut. When buying a TV, you’ll want to keep an eye out for the ‘Ultra HD Premium’ sticker to guarantee you’ve got the best display for full HDR. Prices are coming down all the time, but a TV or a monitor with such specifications is not going to be cheap.

The waters have become muddied a little, as some manufacturers have branded their TVs with 8-bit panels as supporting HDR, but in these cases they only support the contrast range needed for HDR, not the one billion colours of true HDR. Displays that can’t reach the 1,000 nits of brightness but have a 10-bit panel can still put in an eye-catching HDR effort.

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WHAT ABOUT HDR CONTENT? While more content is becoming available, thanks to HDR streaming from the likes of Netflix and Amazon, there’s still not a vast amount of compatible videos, games and other content available.

To watch an HDR movie you need an ultra high-definition Blu-ray player, and they’re not cheap. It’s worth noting the Xbox One S and Xbox One X both come with said players built-in, and Samsung HDR TVs have an HDR+ mode that takes a good stab at upmixing non-HDR content into something with better contrast and colours.

To get the most out of HDR you really must be willing to commit to it, which could mean it’s worth waiting for HDR to become a must-have as opposed to a nice extra in display tech.

But more HDR hardware, software and content is being created all the time, helping to drive down the price and expand the product options, so if you’re looking to upgrade your TV or buy a new PC monitor, it’s worth giving HDR some serious thought.

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SOUND

BYTES

Smart robots could be the answer to IKEA flatpack assembly woes YEARS OF TRYING and failing to build flatpack furniture have led Singaporean robotic engineers to design a robot capable of building an IKEA chair in under nine minutes. Using 3D cameras, mechanical arms, force sensors and algorithms, the robot can autonomously assemble IKEA’s Stefan chair without interruption or human intervention.

The droid was built by assistant professor Pham Quang Cuong and his team at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore’s School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. In tests, the robot used three open-source libraries as instruction manuals to identify the pieces and put together a plan of action.

The robot took 11 minutes, 21 seconds to plan the so-called ‘motion pathways’ needed to complete the task, three seconds to locate the parts and eight minutes, 55 seconds to finish the project.

“For a robot, putting together an IKEA chair with such precision is more complex than it looks,” explained Pham.

“The job of assembly, which may come naturally to humans, has to be broken down into different steps, such as identifying where the different chair parts are, the force required to grip the parts, and making sure the robotic arms move without colliding into each other.”

The researchers had been plugging away at this problem since 2015. Although robots on assembly lines are great at repetitive tasks, they aren’t so hot on figuring out a course of action for more random and unique tasks.

It is alarming and utterly reckless that police are using a technology that is almost entirely inaccurate.”

Professor Paul Wiles, the biometrics commissioner, slams the Met Police’s shoddy facial recognition tech

The team’s first attempts at building the chair saw the robot come undone when it tried to insert the different-sized wooden dowels into the relevant slots. It did manage the task eventually, but it was a slow and tedious process.

The robot has been designed to mimic what the researchers call human hardware, namely it has eyes thanks to a 3D camera, arms capable of six-axis motion and grippers that act as fingers to pick up objects. Mounted on the robot’s ‘wrists’ are additional force sensors that know how strongly the ‘fingers’ are gripping and how powerfully they push objects into contact with each other.

By taking 3D photos of laid-out parts, the robot makes a map of the parts’ estimated position. It then uses algorithms to plan out the motions it needs to make to assemble the item.

Google’s AI tech mimics humans to book salon and restaurant appointments ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TECH could soon be masquerading as real people and talking to humans at restaurants, salons and shops, thanks to Google Duplex.

At the recent Google I/O 2018 conference, the search giant revealed a potential feature for its Google Assistant, which enables the virtual assistant to make queries and book appointments on its master’s behalf.

In an impressive stage demonstration, Google showed how the Duplex AI technology uses its intelligence to book an appointment with a salon by making a phone call to a human.

Despite being a set of algorithms, Duplex essentially hoodwinked a human on the other end of the line into believing it was a real person, thanks to using natural-language recognition to respond to questions, as well as filling in conversation gaps with natural sounding ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’.

Duplex could even work out when a human didn’t understand what the Google Assistant was asking.

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Google’s ambition for Duplex is to have it use a person’s data and calendar entries to work out what they have planned and automatically make a booking for a restaurant table, for example, on the day a dinner date is organised, or query the opening hours of a shop on a public holiday.

This might seem pretty creepy to some, especially given the AI-based tech will effectively be talking on behalf of its human overlords.

“We are designing this feature with disclosure built in, and we’ll make sure the system is appropriately identified. What we showed at I/O was an early technology demo, and we look forward to incorporating feedback as we develop this into a product,” Google said in response to concerns around the potentially duplicitous nature of the AI. Google didn’t shed much light on how the disclosure will be used. But then Duplex is only really at its early stages of testing and isn’t expected to crop up in the Google Assistant any time soon.

I will not use this in a house. I will not point this at my spouse. I will not use this in an unsafe way. The best use is creme brûlée… and that exhausts our rhyming ability” Elon Musk gets poetic about his Boring company’s flamethrower Ts&Cs

We think cities are going to go vertical in terms of transportation and we want to make that a reality”

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi discusses the company’s ambitions for flying taxis

Artificial intelligence still isn’t good enough yet to determine whether someone is pushing hate or describing that happened to them so they can raise awareness of the issue.”

Guy Rosen, VP of Facebook’s product management, knows AI currently has its limits

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CRT monitors

We look back at the halcyon days of cathode ray tube displays LOOK AROUND ANY office these days and you’ll likely see sleek LCD displays, with sharp images and vibrant colours squeezed into a panel mere millimetres thick.

But it wasn’t always like this. Until the mid-2000s, cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors were more commonplace.

These big and bulky displays gobbled up desk space and sucked up power, but even with the advent of relatively affordable LCD displays at the turn of the millennium, CRT monitors kept going for a good while after.

They’d already been around for a long time by then. Way back in 1878, the English scientist Sir William Crookes discovered the existence of cathode rays, which he found when observing shadows emitted from negative electrodes, or cathodes, that were cast on to the glowing wall of a vacuum tube holding a cold-cathode; think the light source of neon lamps.

With that discovery and the knowledge that cathode rays travel in a straight line, German scientist Karl Ferdinand Braun created the first cathode ray tube scanning device, comprising a fluorescent green screen known as a cathode ray oscilloscope. This was the precursor to CRT TVs and then the monitors used in computing for decades.

TUBULAR DREAMS While other scientists messed around with cathode rays for decades after Braun’s CRT display, it wasn’t until 1931 that the first commercially available CRT TV was made, given the device had to be practical to make without breaking the bank and durable enough to survive outside of tech labs.

This is how CRT TVs and monitors got their bulky, boxy, misshapen rectangle look.

At the back of a colour CRT display, where the frame is the slimmest, sits a cathode ray gun.

As the name would suggest, it fires rays through the monitor’s body, which is essentially a vacuum tube, towards a screen.

The beams fired correspond to the red, green and blue channels of the display and, in the case of computers, the channels of the graphics card or accelerator. As these beams travel towards the front of the display, they pass through magnetic anodes at the neck of the display, which sends the different colour cathode rays to the correct part of the screen.

Of course, proper RGB colour monitors came quite some time after the first CRT

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displays, with many offering just monochrome or green-on-black displays for some time before colour screen computer monitors made their debut.

While colour TV came first, colour CRT monitors for desktop use lagged behind.

The Apple II computer, which launched in 1977, was arguably a pioneer of colour CRT displays. But that was 80 years or so after Braun’s first foray into CRT display tech.

By the end of the 1980s, colour monitors were more commonplace, and moving into the 1990s they started to improve considerably, increasing resolutions and becoming cheaper to produce and therefore more often used in homes.

By the turn of the millennium, colour CRT monitors were ubiquitous, but LCD displays for consumer computers were beginning to make their debut.

LCD SOUND SYSTEM While LCD and OLED screens are the dominant display tech today, it took some time for LCDs to knock their CRT predecessors off the monitor throne.

A good way into the early 2000s, CRTs were cheaper to produce than the more expensive LCD displays. They could also offer superior contrast and colour depth, variable resolutions and didn’t suffer from the slow

response times that early consumer LCD displays could be blighted by.

As such, CRT monitors were considered better for gaming, due to better refresh rates, making moving images such as a cursor look smoother and less smudged. Professionals such as graphic designers also preferred to use expensive CRT monitors over LCD displays for their advantages in colour depth.

GHOST BUSTERS But like all new technology, LCD panels improved throughout the 2000s, with a reduction in ghosting, and the ability to display higher resolutions, more colours and come in larger sizes.

When LED backlighting became a standard in LCD displays, the time of the CRT monitor was finally over, as LED LCD displays could offer superior image quality and colour over CRT monitors, while being a lot slimmer, lighter and more energy-efficient; CRTs tended to get hot pretty quickly.

These days you’d be hard pressed to find a CRT monitor to use with a modern computer, let alone justify its size, bulk and power consumption when compared to any modern LCD display. But CRTs nevertheless had their well-earned time in the limelight and helped pave the way to the slick screen technology we have today.

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REVIEWS YOUR TRUSTED GUIDE TO WHAT’S NEW

AM4 PROCESSOR

AMD Ryzen 7 2700X ★★★★★

£282 • From www.scan.co.uk

VERDICT

Outstanding performance, low temperatures and an excellent price: the newest top-end Ryzen is a superlative octa-core CPU IT’S ALL TOO rare an occurrence that a product launch truly shakes up the PC hardware scene. Generally, as long as a new component is stronger, faster or sleeker than whatever it replaces, that’s enough.

The 2017 launch of AMD’s Ryzen processors, on the other hand, changed things dramatically. After years and years of trying to catch up with a dominant (if increasingly complacent) Intel, AMD finally had a CPU line-up that could compete at the high end and mid-range. Intel even borrowed Ryzen’s high core count/lower clock speed approach for its 8th-gen Coffee Lake range.

To be sure, the freshly released secondgeneration Ryzen chips have returned to a more iterative upgrade style, rather than being totally reinvented two years in a row.

This new line-up also doesn’t completely replace the first generation, which numbers some dozen chips across the premium Ryzen 7, mid-range Ryzen 5 and budget Ryzen 3 families: to start with, there are just the octa-core Ryzen 7 2700X and 2700, the hexa-core Ryzen 5 2600X and 2600, and the quad-core Ryzen 5 2400GE and Ryzen 2 2200GE.

ZEN PUSHER

That makes the Ryzen 7 2700X AMD’s latest flagship processor, and thus it brings with it the full set of AMD’s updates. While the underlying Zen+ architecture is still in place, the manufacturing process has switched from 14nm to an even more efficient – in theory – 12nm, while clock speeds have been bumped up to 3.7GHz base and 4.3GHz boost clock (although the latter is measured in a slightly different way to previous Ryzen chips, as we’ll soon see).

There’s also a new motherboard chipset, X470, though the only notable advance here is the StoreMI feature. This can be used to

22

group an SSD and hard disk together to act as a single drive, combining the speed of solid-state storage with the capacity of a mechanical HDD. We’ll take a closer look at this technology in a future motherboard review, but the good news for existing Ryzen owners is that all the new chips – including the Ryzen 7 2700X – use the AM4 socket, and are backwards-compatible with firstgeneration chipsets such as X370 and B350.

HOME ON THE RANGE

Part of the reason the boost clock speed seems so high (this chip’s predecessor, the Ryzen 7 1700X, came in at 3.4GHz base and 3.8GHz boost) is that AMD now lists Ryzen boost speeds inclusive of their maximum gains from Precision Boost and Extended Frequency Range (XFR), which have been upgraded for the second generation. Precision Boost still dynamically raises core clock speeds when there’s thermal and voltage headroom to do so, but no longer imposes a lower clock speed on individual cores when two or more are in use. Without this leash, the Ryzen 7 2700X could potentially do even better in multithreaded workloads.

The new XFR is similar to Precision Boost in that it can adjust clock speeds by 25MHz

steps, up to a maximum of 100MHz; it’s just become a bit better at responding to different types of CPU cooler. In other words, you’re more likely to see big XFR boosts with watercooling than with a basic air cooler.

On that note, the Ryzen 7 2700X comes with AMD’s RGB lighting-equipped Wraith Prism cooler, complete with pre-applied thermal paste. For first-time builders that’s an improvement on most of the old Ryzen 7 range, which didn’t come with coolers at all, although for the sake of fair testing we performed our benchmarks with the same Noctua NH-U12S air cooler we used for all our Ryzen reviews.

STRENGTH IN NUMBERS

Regardless of how AMD advertises its boost clocks, the 2700X’s performance makes a much stronger statement. With our testing PC’s relatively modest 8GB of DDR4 RAM, the 2700X scored a high 149 in the image test, an even more impressive 226 in the video-encoding test and 262 in the multitasking test. Overall, it scored 231, so not only does it beat the Intel Core i7-8700K, it even outpaces the first-generation Ryzen 7 1800X (Shopper 352), which was a step up from the 1700X itself.

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Most excitingly, AMD has finally closed the gap on Intel for gaming performance.

Historically, the Core range’s higher clock speeds have given Intel the advantage in games, but when paired with a powerful graphics card, the Ryzen 7 2700X keeps up with Coffee Lake. We used a 6GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 – there are no integrated graphics whatsoever – and saw a suitably smooth 109fps in Dirt Showdown running at 1,920x1,080 with Ultra quality settings. At 3,840x2,160, where we’d expect CPU power to make an even bigger difference, the 2700X/GTX 1060 combo produced 49fps, right on a par with the Core i7-8700K. AMD’s chip also matches Intel’s in the more demanding Metro: Last Light Redux, managing 48fps at 1,920x1,080. The GTX 1060 can’t handle Very High settings at 3,840x2,160, so for this resolution we lowered the settings to Medium and disabled SSAA for an average of, again, 48fps: another great showing.

In short, the 2700X is an incredibly potent chip for media-editing and CAD work – the most

performance out of the 2700X if you used liquid cooling instead of air, but this chip isn’t a complete and total victory for AMD.

KEEP YOUR COOL

Still, the upside of overclocking at or below the maximum boost clock is that you don’t need to upgrade your cooler. When set at 4.15GHz, the 2700X idled at 28°C, a single degree higher than at stock speeds, and even under load it still hovered around the 60°C mark. Somehow its peak temperature was even lower, at 67°C. You won’t see as big an improvement in gaming performance as in more heavily multithreaded tasks when overclocking, and there’s no change at all in Metro: Last Light Redux at 1080p. At 4K, only a single frame-persecond was gained. This was also true in Dirt Showdown running at 4K, although at 1080p, a bigger (but still very small) improvement did occur, with a final average of 113fps.

Power draw has increased from the 1700X’s 95W, up to 105W on the 2700X. Despite the

The 2700X is an incredibly potent chip for media-editing and CAD work – the most powerful mainstream CPU we’ve tested, in fact – and finally overcomes AMD’s gaming weakness powerful mainstream CPU we’ve tested, in fact – and finally overcomes AMD’s gaming weakness, making it a great choice for more leisurely pursuits as well. It’s clear that the decision to simply raise clock speeds was the right one. AMD has managed to do this without losing control of temperatures as well. Idling, the air-cooled 2700X stuck around 27°C, and was pretty consistently around 60°C under sustained load. The highest temperature we recorded with 70°C, and only very briefly. That’s not as chilly as our current high-end CPU Best Buy, the Ryzen 7 1700 (Shopper 353), but absolutely fine nonetheless.

SILICON CEILING

Surprisingly, the clock speeds appear to have been set so aggressively that there isn’t much room left for overclocking, or that the very highest Precision Boost and XFR improvement only kick in very rarely. Our PC crashed when we tried running our benchmarks at a permanent 4.2GHz overclock, so the highest we could go while maintaining stability was 4.15GHz, 150MHz short of the listed maximum boost clock.

This still produced some very decent performance improvements: the image test score crept up a few points to 155, while the video and multitasking test results saw bigger jumps to 242 and 284 respectively. The overall score ended up at 248, so it’s worth doing if you know how.

That said, overclocking is one area where Intel actually wins out: the Core i7-8700K, when running at 4.8GHz, can turn around its lower stock speed performance to achieve a massive 268 overall. It’s very possible that, with the improved water-cooling response from XFR, you could get higher speeds and thus even better

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move to 12nm, the higher clock speeds make this a slightly thirstier chip than the competition but, to be fair, 10W is peanuts for anyone building a PC with a dedicated graphics card in it.

BACK FOR SECONDS

There’s almost nothing to dislike and an awful lot to love about the Ryzen 7 2700X. Even if the Core i7-8700K can go faster, that requires some intense overclocking that’s dependent on both a good watercooler and fine control over voltages.

If you don’t want to pay for the former and don’t have the knowledge for the latter, then it’s good to know that the 2700X breezes past the Core i7-8700K at stock speeds, where air cooling is more than sufficient.

The killer blow, however, is the price. At £283, the 2700X is even cheaper than the Ryzen 7 1700 was at launch – never mind the 1700X or 1800X – and you’re saving a bundle compared to the Core i7-8700K. For powerful new PC builds or just upgrading from a first-generation Ryzen chip, the 2700X takes its place as our CPU of choice.

James Archer

SPECIFICATIONS

• CORES 8 • FREQUENCY (BOOST) 3.7GHz • INTEGRATED GRAPHICS None • WARRANTY Two years RTB • DETAILS www.amd.com • PART CODE

SOCKET AM4 (4.3GHz)

YD270XBGAFBOX

Windows overall

231

Multitasking

262 109fps

Dirt Showdown 0%

-50

Reference

+50

+100

See page 68 for performance details

DESKTOP GAMING PC

PALICOMP i5 Cosmos ★★★★★

£1,100 • From www.palicomp.co.uk

VERDICT

Whether it’s the 4K-ready GPU, overclocked processor or NVMe storage, the i5 Cosmos never slows down FEW PC BUILDERS are as happy to try squeezing extra power out of a CPU as Palicomp: we’ve seen ambitious overclocks on the i5 Luminosity (Shopper 352), the AMD Galaxy (Shopper 360) and now the i5 Cosmos.

This time, the Intel Core i5-8600K has gone from a 3.6GHz base clock up to 4.8GHz. With six physical cores each targeting that higher speed, it could be quite the powerful tweak.

It also means that less demanding games, such as Dirt Showdown, will breeze along.

On Ultra quality with 4x anti-aliasing, the i5 Cosmos put out 146fps at 1,920x1,080, 136fps at 2,560x1,440 and 82fps at 3,840x2,160.

Again, these aren’t significantly different results to the Erazer X5361 G, but that doesn’t stop them being high for a £1,100 PC.

EYE CANDY

If gaming performance is your main concern, the Erazer X5361 G may be the better bet solely because it’s cheaper. However, that’s also where the similarities end, for the i5 Cosmos is a far better system for CPU power, storage, upgradability and aesthetics.

Let’s start with that overclocked hexa-core processor: in our 4K benchmarks, it scored a mightily impressive 168 in the image test, 192 in the video test, 213 in the multitasking test and 199 overall, and that’s just with a middling 8GB of RAM. The Medion system’s overall score of 99 is utterly trounced, and while the CCL Reaper came much closer with 189 overall, it’s still lower while failing to offer equal gaming power in exchange.

It’s a stable overclock, and despite the use of a simple air cooler, temperatures weren’t a problem: the highest we recorded the Core i5-8600K reaching was 90°C, 10°C below its operational maximum, and even then it peaked only briefly during our intensive benchmarks.

Even so, it’s not the best performer around this price. The Pyro Reactor, with its AMD Ryzen 5 1600X, scored 217 overall, even if this did include a lower image test score of 142.

However, the i5 Cosmos has a clear advantage on storage. Its 256GB SSD is an M.2-mounted NVMe model, allowing it to record a breakneck sequential read speed of 2,655MB/s in the AS SSD benchmark, as well as a sequential write speed of 1,372MB/s. To help with capacity, you also get a vast 2TB hard disk, so speed and space are both covered near perfectly.

This is particularly handy as one of the i5 Cosmos’s few weak points is its lack of storage upgrade space; not counting the already occupied hard disk tray, the case and motherboard offer only one spare 3.5in tray, one 2.5in mounting point and one spare M.2 slot between them. There’s much more room for other types of hardware,

What got us really interested is the GPU: an 8GB GeForce GTX 1070, customised by EVGA. In the £900-1,100 range, it’s rare to get a 4K-capable card such as this, with the weaker GTX 1060 being more common. Both the CCL Reaper (Shopper 357) and Wired2Fire Pyro Reactor (Shopper 358) favour it, and these are hardly underpowered PCs for their prices.

That said, the Medion Erazer X5361 G (Shopper 362) also manages to pack a GTX 1070, and that’s a paltry £857. On gaming performance alone, there’s little to separate Medion’s PC from the i5 Cosmos: in Metro: Last Light Redux, for instance, the i5 Cosmos produced 73fps at 1,920x1,080 and 19fps at 3,840x2,160, exactly the same as the Erazer X5361 G. Its 42fps at 2,560x1,440 is also just 1fps lower than the Erazer X5361 G’s result.

That 4K result shows how even the GTX 1070 can struggle with certain games at max settings, but don’t fret: we got a more playable 53fps by switching off SSAA and lowering overall quality to High. Not many games would demand much harsher cuts to settings in order to run well on the i5 Cosmos.

24

SCHOOL OF HARD CLOCKS

however, with a second PCI-Ex 16 slot, four PCI-E slots and two spare RAM slots in addition to the ones already filled.

WATCH THIS SPACE

Admittedly the motherboard doesn’t have much in the way of high-end features on its rear I/O panel; S/PDIF and USB Type-C connections, for example, are missing. Still, you should be able to get by with the two USB2 and four USB3 ports, especially when there are another two USB3 ports on the front of the case, and with a Gigabit Ethernet jack, one HDMI output, three DisplayPort sockets and a DVI port, networking and video are handled well enough, too.

Frankly, we’d be happy to live with some bog-standard rear connectivity if it means having a GTX 1070, overclocked hexa-core CPU and speedy NVMe storage for the exceedingly reasonable price of £1,100.

The Pyro Reactor is still worth a look if you’re going to be splitting time between gaming and multithreaded content creation tasks, but the i5 Cosmos is a better all-rounder.

James Archer

SPECIFICATIONS

• RAM • FRONT USB PORTS 2x USB3 • REAR USB PORTS 2x USB2, 4x USB3 • GRAPHICS CARD 8GB EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 SC Gaming ACX 3.0 • STORAGE 256GB SSD, 2TB hard disk • DISPLAY None • OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 10 Home • WARRANTY Three years RTB • DETAILS www.palicomp.co.uk • PART CODE COF3 PROCESSOR Hexa-core 4.8GHz Intel Core i5-8600K 8GB DDR4

Windows overall

199

Multitasking

213

Dirt Showdown

146fps

Metro: Last Light

73fps 0%

-50

Reference

+50

+100

See page 68 for performance details

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DESKTOP GAMING PC

WIRED2FIRE Pyro Talon ★★★★★

£849 • From www.wired2fire.com

VERDICT

The new Ryzen 5 2600 imbues this otherwise gamingfocused PC with enormous multitasking potential THIS COMPACT GAMING PC gives us our first look at another of AMD’s secondgeneration Ryzen CPUs, the Ryzen 5 2600.

This has the same six cores and 12 threads as its mid-range stablemate, the Ryzen 5 2600X, and trades off slightly lower clock speeds for a lower 6W TDP (the 2600X is rated at 95W).

Out of the box, you’d see it running with a base clock of 3.4GHz and a boost clock of 3.9GHz, inclusive of all its maximum Extended Frequency Range and Precision Boost gains.

Here, Wired2Fire has overclocked it to target a constant 3.8GHz. Setting a CPU to aim for speeds lower than its highest boost clock might not make much sense, but as the Ryzen 7 2700X (page 22) shows, the new Ryzen chips can see decent performance gains under such conditions.

GOT CLAWS

Rounding out the Pyro Talon’s key specs list are its 6GB Inno3D GTX 1060 graphics card, 16GB of DDR4 memory, 250GB SSD and 2TB hard disk. Yet it’s that brand-new processor that demands our attention, so let’s get stuck into how it did in our 4K benchmarks: 137 in the image test, 218 in the video test, 255 in the multitasking test and 223 overall.

This is a fantastic set of results for two reasons. First, it’s a powerful opening statement by the chip itself. With this overclock, which ran stably on the modest AMD stock air cooler, it came awfully close to the high-end Ryzen 7 2700X at default speeds (though that was with our test PC’s 8GB of RAM, not the 16GB here). Second, it gives the Pyro Talon a huge advantage over its older rivals in the mid-range gaming PC space.

26

For example, the PC Specialist Enigma K6 (Shopper 360) and Medion Erazer P4404 D (Shopper 361) only managed overall scores of 106 and 94 respectively, less than half of what the Pyro Talon achieved. Wired2Fire’s own Pyro Reactor (Shopper 358) comes close, with its Ryzen 5 1600X propelling it to 217 overall, but that costs a couple of hundred pounds more.

Gaming performance is less special, but still good – we’d expect nothing less from the GTX 1060 at this point. In Dirt Showdown, it easily put out 134fps at 1,920x1,080, as well as 99fps at 2,560x1,440 and 55fps at 3,840x2,160.

You’ll need to drop some settings to play tougher games at high resolutions, though. In Metro: Last Light Redux, the Pyro Talon’s 49fps at 1,920x1,080 was fine, but 28fps at 2,560x1,440 is a little low, and 12fps at 3,840x2,160 is unplayable. Luckily, the cuts don’t have to be deep: we got 54fps at 1440p with the simple change of disabling SSAA, and at 4K resolution, the game looks good at 51fps with Medium quality and SSAA turned off.

This PC can also be used quite comfortably for virtual reality, scoring a fairly high 7.7 in Valve’s SteamVR Performance Test.

However, the competition is a lot fiercer when taken on GPU power alone. The Enigma K6 and Erazer P4404 D are both more or less even in both games, despite being cheaper than the Pyro Talon. It’s clear that the Ryzen chip is the star here, as while the GTX 1060 is inarguably up to the task of high-quality gaming, it’s not remotely the main reason to consider buying this system.

SMALL WORLD

The Pyro Talon does have another high point, in the form of its storage. No settling for a simple hard disk or hybrid SSHD here: you get both a spacious hard disk and a nippy SSD. It’s worth pointing out, too, that the latter is the Samsung 860 Evo (Shopper 364), our current Best Buy holder. A run through the AS SSD benchmark recorded a sequential read speed of 521MB/s and a sequential write speed of 479MB/s; we’ve seen the 860 Evo go even faster in other tests and conditions, but these are still very good results.

Being a microATX-based system has its benefits, mainly allowing for a smaller, more space-conscious case, although

these are rarely as flexible or as upgradable as a full-size ATX PC. There’s only one PCI-E x16 slot, two PCI-E x1 slots, one 2.5in drive bay and two 3.5in drive bays, and of these, only one PCI-E x1 and one 3.5in bay are free to use.

The motherboard provides an M.2 slot and four RAM slots (two left free), however, so it’s not entirely without useful features.

Furthermore, it has a fairly well-equipped rear I/O panel, with four USB3 ports and two USB3.1 ports, with another USB2 and USB3 port each at the front. There are no fancy audio outputs or included Wi-Fi cards, but the basics are all here, such as Gigabit Ethernet and HDMI, DisplayPort and DVI video outputs.

FIRST WAVE

There are cheaper GTX 1060 systems, should gaming be your focus, but having this much processing power for less than £900 is hard to pass up; it’s certainly worth stretching to instead of the £779 Enigma K6. That said, this is the first second-generation Ryzen PC we’ve had in the labs, so perhaps it’s best to wait a few weeks and see if there are any other great AMD PCs coming, even if the Pyro Talon is going to be a hard act to follow.

James Archer

SPECIFICATIONS

• RAM • FRONT USB PORTS 1x USB2, 1x USB3 • REAR USB PORTS 4x USB3, 2x USB3.1 • GRAPHICS CARD 6GB Inno3D GeForce GTX 1060 • STORAGE 250GB SSD, 2TB hard disk • DISPLAY None • OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 10 Home • WARRANTY Three years labour, inc two years parts • DETAILS www.wired2fire.com • PART CODE Pyro Talon PROCESSOR Hexa-core 3.8GHz AMD Ryzen 5 2600

16GB DDR4

223

Windows overall Multitasking

255

Dirt Showdown

134fps

Metro: Last Light

49fps 0%

-50

Reference

+50

+100

See page 68 for performance details

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WINDOWS 10 WORKSTATION

CCL Terra CPS ★★★★★

£2,000 • From www.cclonline.com

VERDICT

There are cheaper Core i7 PCs, but the Terra CPS is well suited to serious graphical work THIS IS A heavy-duty workstation, literally – the Terra CPS has a solidness far beyond most desktop mid-towers, with chunky metal construction and slabs of sound-insulating foam lining the interior. That’s fine by us: when you’re dropping £2,000 on a PC, the last thing you want is for it to be flimsy and loud.

Workstations are rarely cheap, and this is a professionally minded system. Going through the specs, the only indication of this is the graphics card, a slim-profile Nvidia Quadro P4000. Windows 10 Home and the hexa-core, 3.7GHz Intel Core i7-8700K processor are both consumer-grade, and 16GB isn’t a great deal of RAM for the heaviest workloads.

DRIVE TIME

To be fair, CCL bills this as a ‘graphics workstation’, so there’s sure to be a focus on the GPU over the CPU. What’s more, storage is up to high standards: the best part is the 480GB NVMe SSD, which is big enough to hold more than a few key programs and is also fast. Using the AS SSD benchmarking tool, we measured a sequential read speed of 2,224MB/s, and a slower but still productivity-friendly write speed of 1,556MB/s. In addition, the bulk of the capacity comes from a gigantic 3TB hard disk, a good choice considering you’re likely going to be working with large files.

Sadly, it doesn’t do as the Chillblast Fusion OC VIII (Shopper 358) did and include a second identical hard disk in a RAID setup, so you’ll need to find another way to back up saved data. Nevertheless, it’s a well-rounded configuration as far as storage goes.

General processing performance, however, is a little harder to rave about. On a much

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cheaper system it would be great: the Terra CPS scored 168 in our 4K benchmarks’ image test, 235 in the video test, 278 in the multitasking test and 245 overall, so by most metrics it is a powerful PC. The problem is that it’s not that great for the money. The £1,599 Cyberpower Infinity X88 GTX (Shopper 365), by comparison, utilised overclocking to score 268 overall with the same CPU and RAM amount. The £1,900 Yoyotech Redback N6 (Shopper 359) went even further, managing 270 overall (and a mighty 317 in multitasking) with its own overclocked Ryzen 7 1800X.

RENDER’S GAME

Both these PCs also have the 11GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, which can draw on more video memory and a higher core count than the P4000 for high performance in programs such as Maya, 3ds Max and Photoshop.

Even so, there are some convincing arguments for sticking with the P4000. It will have passed much more stringent reliability testing than any GeForce card, which helps make sure it lasts longer. That’s important for lengthy rendering tasks, which might wear down GPUs not specifically built for them.

Nvidia’s Quadro drivers are also geared towards improving performance in professional software, whereas if you’re using a GeForce card such as the GTX 1080 Ti, updates will focus on gaming performance instead.

We’d therefore consider the P4000 and the GTX 1080 Ti about even in their usefulness for workstations – and for the record, the P4000 outdoes most Quadro models by having the sheer power to play demanding AAA games even at higher resolutions. We tried Dirt Showdown on Ultra settings first, getting 147fps at 1,920x1,080 and 121fps at 2,560x1,440. Even Metro: Last Light Redux didn’t prove too much of a bother, our very High-quality benchmark runs averaging 61fps at 1,920x1,080 and 2,560x1,440. All good results, considering this isn’t meant to be a gaming GPU. It doesn’t provide much choice in the outputs department, with four DisplayPort sockets, but since this is a single-slot card, it’s preferable to wasting space with less capable VGA and DVI ports. Moving upwards a few inches, the rear I/O panel has

much more flexibility, with a healthy six USB3 ports, one USB3.1 port, one USB Type-C port, two legacy PS/2 sockets and a Gigabit Ethernet port. We were particularly glad to see 3.5mm C/SUB, rear speaker and side speaker outputs, on top of the usual audio jacks.

RAYS OF HOPE

If you need even more connectivity, there are also two extra USB2 and USB3 ports apiece on the front, and if you open the hinged front panel, you’ll find a Blu-ray R/W drive, which is great for working with video.

Internal upgradability earns points, too.

Storage capacity is essential in a workstation, and the Terra CPS passes muster by having a stack of six dual 3.5in/2.5in drive trays near the front, plus two separate 2.5in mounts behind the motherboard. Speaking of which, there’s a second spare M.2 slot free for use, along with two extra RAM slots, two empty PCI-E x16 (the top slot is occupied by the P4000) and three free PCI-E x1 slots.

This is a good graphics workstation, then, although for more CPU-intensive work we’d prefer either a more powerful processor or at least an overclocked Core i7-8700K. James Archer

SPECIFICATIONS

• RAM • FRONT USB PORTS 2x USB2, 2x USB3 • REAR USB PORTS 6x USB3, 1x USB 3.1, 1x USB Type-C • GRAPHICS CARD 8GB Nvidia Quadro P4000 • STORAGE 480GB SSD, 3TB hard disk • DISPLAY None • OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 10 Home • WARRANTY Three years collect and return • DETAILS www.cclonline.com • PART CODE Terra CPS PROCESSOR Hexa-core 3.7GHz Intel Core i7-8700K

16GB DDR4

245

Windows overall Multitasking

278

Dirt Showdown

147fps

Metro: Last Light

61fps 0%

-50

Reference

+50

+100

See page 68 for performance details

27

ULTRAPORTABLE LAPTOP

DELL XPS 13 (2018) ★★★★★

£1,649 • From www.dell.com

VERDICT

Thinner, lighter and faster, the new XPS 13 is an impressive Windows 10 laptop DELL’S XPS 13 was the physical embodiment of the mantra, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.

Little has changed over the past few years, with the faithful ultraportable seeing only the occasional internal hardware update.

Frankly, it’s high time for a more thorough makeover, and that’s exactly what the 2018 XPS 13 is, bringing together Intel Coffee Lake CPUs with a new chassis design and the option of a striking white and rose gold colour scheme.

Prices start at £1,249, which nets you a 13.3in Full HD display, an Intel Core i5-8250U processor, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB NVMe SSD. We reviewed the higher-end, £1,649 model, which includes the same display but a more powerful Intel Core i7-8550U processor, along with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. 4K touchscreen variants are also available, with prices going up to £1,800.

NEW CLOTHES

While you can still opt for the classic black and grey colour scheme, to our eyes the white look is absolutely beautiful, and there are functional benefits to the overall redesign as well: as we plugged in the charger, we noticed a small white LED that illuminates the cable, and a small LED strip running along the front

strip of the laptop. This helpfully lets you know when the XPS 13 is charging.

As for physical size, the new model is 30% thinner and lighter than the 2016 XPS 13 (Shopper 351); it’s just 11.6mm slim at its thickest edge and 7.8mm at its skinniest. It also weighs 1.21kg, which is 6% lighter than the outgoing model. To accommodate the

lighter frame, Dell has shrunk the size of the battery, but claims that battery life hasn’t suffered as a result.

There are changes on the connectivity front as well, with Dell completely ditching any full-size USB ports. That’s a pain for attaching peripherals, but the XPS 13 makes up for it by increasing the number of USB Type-C connections. The new XPS 13 has three of these, with one reserved for charging and the others supporting Thunderbolt 3.

There’s also a microSD card reader and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

UNLOCKING POTENTIAL

The webcam is still as awkwardly placed as ever, set into the bezel below the screen, rather than above it. This time, however, it’s fully compatible with Windows Hello, so you’ll be able to log into Windows 10 with facial recognition.

Likewise, the circular power button next to the keyboard now does double duties as a fingerprint scanner, which we found worked flawlessly. Having the ability to unlock the XPS 13 quickly makes it a breeze to sign in and stay secure.

The keyboard has been a strong suit of previous XPS 13s, and that continues here.

Once again, the newest XPS 13 uses a fully backlit (in white) chiclet keyboard, and it’s fantastic – typing on this keyboard, with its

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| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 366

Chillblast perfectly judged 1.3mm of travel, feels so natural and sure that it’s hard to believe you’re working on a very compact 13.3in laptop.

The touchpad is equally impressive, particularly as you can click down anywhere on the surface to left-click on the screen, with the right-click only activated when you click on the bottom-right-hand corner. It’s a small thing, but the kind of small thing that makes the laptop even more pleasurable to use every day.

SUN DOWN

The 16:9 InfinityEdge display makes yet another appearance in the 2018 update, this time with an anti-reflective coating. Use the XPS 13 under bright ambient light, and you’ll find it easy to make out what’s on your screen. Combine this with a very high peak brightness of 454cd/m2, and the XPS 13’s IPS display is usable in almost any situation.

Of course, brightness alone doesn’t make for an ideal display, and with its average delta-E score of 2.49 and maximum of 7.95, the XPS 13 isn’t the laptop you’d choose for professional photo- or video-editing duties. Still, it manages a very respectable sRGB gamut coverage of 90%, as well as a high contrast ratio of 1,565:1, so it’s generally a fantastic-looking screen, even if it’s not the most accurate.

small 13.3in laptop. Once again, it outperforms its competitors and then some: the Spectre 13 lasted for 8h 36, while the cheaper Asus ZenBook 3 (Shopper 356) managed only 4h 52m.

Most impressive is how the new XPS 13, despite having a physically smaller battery than the 2016 model, actually kept going for longer: the old XPS 13 scored 7h 46m in the same conditions, a difference of well over two hours. How Dell (and Intel) were able to squeeze this much juice from a smallercapacity lithium battery is beyond us, but the results should be applauded.

Finally, there’s a 512GB NVMe SSD inside, which achieved sequential read and write speeds of 2,224MB/s and 444MB/s in the AS SSD sequential benchmark. Strangely, that’s a great read speed but a fairly poor write speed, at least

by NVMe standards; 444MB/s isn’t any faster than what the slower SATA platform would allow.

For NVMe/PCI-E, we’d expect to see something much closer to quadruple figures.

LITTLE MONSTER

Dell’s latest XPS 13 might not be a dramatic shake-up, but this 2018 redesign is enough to reignite deserved interest in the range, adding Coffee Lake CPUs, an impressive battery life, a rose gold finish, weight and size reductions, and more USB Type-C ports than you can shake a reversible cable at. The new XPS 13 also hands in exceptional performance.

However, it’s worth remembering that Dell faces stiff competition from its rivals.

Even though the Asus ZenBook 3 and HP

sales@chillblast.com 01202 068 333

FUSION SABRE PROCESSOR: CASE: CPU COOLER: MOTHERBOARD: MEMORY: GRAPHICS CARD: OS DRIVE: HARD DRIVE: POWER SUPPLY: SYSTEM:

INTEL CORE i3-8100 CHILLBLAST ONYX RGB CASE INTEL STOCK CPU COOLER GIGABYTE Z370P D3 16GB DDR4 2400MHz NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1060 3GB 250GB SK HYNIX SL308 SSD SEAGATE 1TB 7200RPM HDD FRACTAL DESIGN 500W PSU WINDOWS 10 HOME 64-BIT

PRICE FROM

£879.99

www.chillblast.com

The combination of the Core i7-8550U CPU and 16GB of RAM is spectacular, transforming the XPS 13 into a mini powerhouse Stacked inside the laptop is a 1.8GHz quad-core Intel Core i7-8550U (this can attain a 4GHz boost clock, temperatures allowing), and 16GB of LPDDR3 RAM to aid with multitasking.

The combination is spectacular, transforming the XPS 13 into a mini powerhouse. In our 4K media benchmarks, the laptop netted excellent scores of 121 in the image test, 99 in the video-encoding test, 85 in the multitasking test and 96 overall. By comparison, the new HP Spectre 13 and Huawei MateBook X Pro managed only 63 and 76 overall respectively.

Considering that all three laptops share the same processor, you might be wondering why their scores are so different. We think it’s down to thermal throttling, with the XPS 13 being better at keeping CPU temperature down.

The downside is that it can get pretty hot under heavy load; during our benchmarks, we found the processor hitting peaks of 100°C, which can’t be good for longevity.

As for noise, the XPS 13 can be heard in a quiet environment, but only when it’s at full load; what hum there is far from unbearable.

Battery life is yet another strength; the new XPS 13 stayed alive for 10h 7m in our continuous video playback test, an incredible result for a

ISSUE 366 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| AUGUST 2018

Spectre 13 are slower and have shorter battery life, they’re both much, much cheaper, and aren’t that far behind on features.

Still, it’s hard to understate the importance of power and battery life in a premium ultraportable, particularly if you’re likely to be subjecting your laptop to particularly intensive tasks. On these grounds, the XPS 13 is a top-tier laptop – and that’s before you get to the exquisite design, lovely keyboard or the bright, bold display.

Christopher Minasians

SPECIFICATIONS

• • DIMENSIONS 302x199x11.6mm • WEIGHT 1.21kg • SCREEN SIZE 13.3in • SCREEN RESOLUTION 1,920x1,080 • GRAPHICS ADAPTOR Intel UHD Graphics 620 • TOTAL STORAGE 512GB SSD • OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 10 Home • WARRANTY One year onsite • DETAILS www.dell. com • PART CODE XPS 13 9370 PROCESSOR Quad-core 1.8GHz Intel Core i7-8550U RAM 16GB

DEFIANT 8 PROCESSOR: DISPLAY: MEMORY: GRAPHICS: STORAGE: NETWORKING: VIDEO PORTS: CONNECTIVITY: DIMENSIONS: SYSTEM:

INTEL CORE i7-7700HQ 15.6" FULL HD DISPLAY 8GB DDR4 2133MHz NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1060 6GB SEAGATE 1TB 2.5" SSHD GIGABIT ETHERNET, WiFi 802.11ac 1x HDMI PORT 2x USB 3.0 PORTS, 2x USB 2.0 387MM X 270MM X 35MM WINDOWS 10 HOME 64-BIT

PRICE FROM

£1149.99

96

Windows overall

85

Multitasking Battery life

10h 7m 0%

-50

Reference

+50

+100

See page 68 for performance details

Terms and conditions are on the website.

All trademarks are acknowledged.

Pictures are for illustration only.

Prices are correct at time of going to press (25-05-18) E&OE

GAMING LAPTOP

GIGABYTE Aero 15X ★★★★★

£2,400 • From www.scan.co.uk

VERDICT

High performance and a brilliant display overpower the foibles of this skinny gaming notebook THE ORIGINAL GIGABYTE Aero 15 (Shopper 354) was among the very best of the slimline gaming laptops that popped up early last year, which is why we don’t mind the new Aero 15X resembling more of a Coffee Lake refresh than a brand-new device.

Even so, there are other upgrades besides the hexa-core, 12-thread Core i7-8750H. Most important is the GTX 1070 Max-Q graphics chip, which runs at lower clock speeds than the desktop-grade GTX 1070 in exchange for a more efficient TDP, but even this should be a step up from the GTX 1060-equipped Aero 15 we reviewed in 2017. The 3,840x2,160 resolution option is also available immediately, rather than coming much later than the 1,920x1,080 model; we tested the UHD version, which runs at a 60Hz refresh rate, but if you go for the cheaper Full HD version, you also get the newly added benefit of 144Hz.

NARROW MINDED

Otherwise, the Gigabyte Aero 15X looks and feels identical to the Aero 15. That’s a good thing – once again, the 15.6in screen’s tiny bezels allow for the kinds of bag-friendly dimensions you’d more commonly get from a 14in laptop, at 356x250x18.9mm. At 2kg, it’s not too heavy, either.

The chassis is impressively well built, with a smooth yet firm hinge and pleasant matt finish throughout. Our only gripe is the webcam positioning, which is too low for anything other than unflattering angles.

Much better is the generous assortment of ports: an Ethernet jack, one USB3 port, one HDMI output, one mini DisplayPort output and a 3.5m headset jack on the left edge, plus an SD card slot, USB Type-C port, two USB3 ports and a Kensington lock slot on the right.

Handily, a USB2 port on the power brick lets you charge a separate device without using up one of the laptop’s own ports.

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The keyboard is great, too, and not just because it glows with RGB backlighting. While squeezing in a tenkey number pad has meant most keys feel slightly narrow, it’s fairly quick to get comfortable with, and the key switches have a satisfyingly decisive action The trackpad is also spacious and generally responsive to swipes and multitouch gestures.

It did present one annoyance: every now and then, the cursor would hang for a moment before jumping to a new position, instead of gliding there smoothly, as if it were struggling to keep up. Since gaming laptops are best used with mice, it’s not the worst thing that could happen, but is a rare fault nonetheless.

SHARP ATTACK

In better news, display quality has improved tremendously: sRGB coverage has shot up from 84.2% on the Aero 15 to a near-perfect 99.3% on the Aero 15X, and that comes with professional-grade accuracy, too: we measured an average delta-E of 0.94 and a maximum of just 1.98. At 1,547:1, contrast has gone even higher as well.

It’s a superb display, although we can’t help but covet the 144Hz refresh rate of the 1080p model. 60Hz is fine, but with such a powerful GPU it would be nice to appreciate the higher frame rates even more.

Indeed, even being a downclocked Max-Q 1070 makes for some slick model, the GTX 107 performance. At its native 4K UHD, the Aero handsome 51fps in Dirt: 15X produced a han Showdown, and that was with its highest settings; switch to 11,920x1,080, and this shoots up to 97fps.

Metro: Last Light Redux, on the hand, proved a bit too much other han on Very High settings. Even with switched off, it managed only SSAA switche which isn’t quite playable; 24fps at 4K, wh turn down quality settings in you’ll need to tur more GPU-intensive titles. It’s fine at Full HD, though, putting out a smooth 53fps with Very High settings and SSAA enabled.

There are more powerful slim gaming laptops around, such as the GTX aro 1080-equipped Asus ROG 108

Zephyrus. But that costs a full £400 more, and has only a Full HD display and a Kaby Lake Core i7-7700HQ. The Aero 15X’s newer Core i7-8750H edged ahead in our 4K benchmarks, scoring 106 for multitasking and 134 overall.

LOW BURNER

The 512GB SSD is good capacity-wise, and is generally very quick even if follows the recent trend of PCI-E laptop SSDs having much higher read speeds than write speeds.

Specifically, we used the AS SSD benchmark to record a sequential read speed of 2,001MB/s and a sequential write speed of 911MB/s, the latter of which is still much higher than any SATA drive could manage.

Sadly, the high-res display and beefier GPU take their toll on battery life. While 3h 35m in our video test isn’t bad for a gaming laptop, it’s an enormous drop from the 7h 17m we got out of the Full HD Aero 15. Understandable, perhaps, but still disappointing.

In fact, knowing the 4K panel’s impact on both battery life and gaming performance, we wonder if it would just make more sense to buy the Full HD model: you get all the same internals and connectivity, and a much higher refresh rate, saving about £200 in the process.

That said, there is a definite appeal to the pristine display of this top-end model, and even at £2,400 it feels like a luxury but never a rip-off. If you can live with the battery life, it’s a fine follow-up to the Aero 15.

James Archer

SPECIFICATIONS

• RAM • DIMENSIONS 356x250x18.9mm • WEIGHT 2kg • SCREEN SIZE 15.6in • SCREEN RESOLUTION 3,840x2,160 • GRAPHICS ADAPTOR Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 • TOTAL STORAGE 512GB SSD • OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 10 Pro • WARRANTY Two years RTB • DETAILS www.gigabyte. com • PART CODE Aero 15X v8-CF1 PROCESSOR Hexa-core 2.2GHz Intel Core i7-8750H

16GB

134

Windows overall

106

Multitasking Battery life

3h 35m 0%

-50

Reference

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+100

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Ultra Wide-Color

with 4K in an immersive design Colours like youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve never seen before. This brilliant 4K UHD resolution display with Ultra Wide-Color offers the richest and most vivid colours wrapped in an immersive curved design for a your best creations yet.

UltraWideColor CurvedDisplay

4K UltraClear 4K Ultra HD

40" 4K curved display (BDM4037U)

BUDGET TN MONITOR

ACER KG221Q

★★★★★

£100 • From www.currys.co.uk

VERDICT

It’s a small TN monitor, but a surprisingly good one thanks to its decent contrast and FreeSync capability CONSIDERING HOW EXPENSIVE monitors can be, with 4K and ultrawide models tending to cost a small fortune, it’s refreshing to see something as affordable as the Acer KG221Q. At just £100, it’s immediately a tempting prospect if you’re on a tight budget.

However, it does also mean compromises.

Its 21.5in diagonal makes it a couple of inches smaller than many of its budget rivals, such as the 23in Asus VC239H (Shopper 349), and it doesn’t have DisplayPort or DVI inputs, just HDMI and VGA. It also has to make do with a basic TN panel, whereas the VC239H – which at £127 is a bit more expensive, but not hugely so – has an IPS panel for better colour reproduction and wider viewing angles.

SYNCING ONE’S PRAISES

However, Acer’s monitor does support AMD FreeSync, which is good news for cashstrapped gaming fans. This active-sync technology, which matches the refresh rate to AMD graphics cards’ frames-per-second output to reduce screen tearing and artefacts, can work all the way up to the KG221Q’s maximum refresh rate of 75Hz; in other words, when games run at 75fps or lower, FreeSync will be smoothing them out.

Admittedly 75Hz isn’t a particularly high refresh rate, but it’s higher than the 60Hz most monitors settle for, and will be more than fine for most people’s needs, especially when used with a mid-range or budget AMD GPU. Either way, it’s a boon to have active syncing in a £100 monitor, and it worked well in our tests, with no evident stuttering or tearing.

Elsewhere, the 1,920x1,080 resolution is somewhat less special, although its gaming credentials are further boosted with a quick 1ms response time, and it’s an 8-bit panel that can render 16.7 million colours.

While the KG221Q is smaller than much of the competition, it also feels as though the general design has taken a hit to keep costs down. There’s no sign of brushed-metal-effect plastic; instead, you get a glossy finish.

The stand is also wide, but the screen is noticeably wobblier than most others we’ve tested.

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This monitor may be cheap, but it punches above its weight in some tests: its contrast ratio result of 1,103:1 is great Meanwhile, its thick bezel means it’s not ideal for multi-monitor setups.

What’s more, as with many other monitors at this price point, it only offers tilt adjustment, not height or rotation. At least the onscreen display is fine; menus load a little slowly, but are well organised and contain all the essential setup options.

FEELING BLUE

This monitor may be cheap, but it punches above its weight in some tests. Its contrast ratio result of 1,103:1 is great, and it’s formed from a black figure of 0.26cd/m2 and a brightness level of 287cd/m2. That means that both darker and lighter areas are detailed and distinct in games and movies.

The KG221Q’s delta-E result of 1.9 is good for the price as well – it’s only 0.2 higher than the IPS-equipped VC239H – and its gamma deviation level of 0.17 is fine. Both of those figures help to create reasonable colour presentation across 93.5% of the sRGB gamut.

In other departments, however, the budget bites. The KG221Q’s 6,986K colour temperature makes the monitor look at little blue and pallid, even with its ‘Warm’ colour temperature setting enabled; we’d normally hope for a monitor to get as close to the 6,500K mark as possible.

As for the screen’s uniformity, the KG221Q manages a mean brightness deviation of 4.4%. Considering its price, that’s not bad, although its brightness was particularly wayward along the bottom and right-hand edges.

Remember that

there’s something of a ‘panel lottery’ involved, so yours might be better or worse than our tested panel.

Viewing angles were underwhelming as well, perhaps not unexpectedly given that it’s a TN monitor. We wouldn’t bother with the gaming modes, either, as the Action mode puts a pointless reticule in the middle of the screen and makes the delta-E a little worse, while the Racing and Sports modes make the contrast and delta-E a tad poorer.

LAYING LOW

We got mixed results following calibration, too. We were never able to align the KG221Q’s colour levels perfectly, and while our tweaks improved the colour temperature and gamma to 6,647K and 2.15 respectively, we couldn’t noticeably improve the monitor’s contrast or delta-E results.

The Acer KG221Q may not have the best colours or uniformity, then, but this surprisingly cheap monitor is fine for gaming.

For everything else, it’s wiser to find an extra £27 and go for the better-looking, betterequipped Asus VC239H, but the fact remains that the KG221Q offers both AMD FreeSync and high contrast at a fantastically low price.

Mike Jennings

SPECIFICATIONS

• •

•

SCREEN SIZE 21.5in RESOLUTION 1,920x1,080 SCREEN TECHNOLOGY TN REFRESH RATE 75Hz VIDEO INPUTS HDMI, VGA WARRANTY Two years carry-in DETAILS www.acer.com PART CODE UM.WX1EE.005

•

•

•

•

CONNECTION PORTS

HDMI

AUGUST 2018

VGA

3.5mm headphone

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 366

Improve Your Gameplan

G2590PX Low Input Lag Mode

aocgaming.com

@aoc_gaming

@aocgaming

@aocgaming

MONO LASER MFP

HP LaserJet Pro M227fdw ★★★★★

£216 • From www.printerland.co.uk

VERDICT

The LaserJet Pro M227fdw is a decent mono MFP, but it quite simply costs too much ONE THE ONE hand, HP’s LaserJet Pro M227fdw is a slick, modern multifunction peripheral (MFP) with features such as wired and wireless networking, automatic duplex (double-sided) printing and a fancy colour touchscreen. On the other hand, it’s built around a mono laser printer, something that these days might as well run on coal.

That said, while a mono laser isn’t for everyone, they’re typically more compact and cheaper to run than an equivalent colour laser. And while the best office inkjets are now very good, only a handful get close to a mono laser printer when it comes to delivering page after page of crisp black text.

If that’s what you’re after, the M227fdw makes a pretty good case for itself. In its base there’s a 250-sheet paper tray, supplemented by a 10-sheet ‘priority’ feed; useful if you often use headed or special papers. Above the 150-sheet output tray, an unusually narrow bezel keeps the scanner small; it looks good, and makes it easy to grab printed pages. On top there’s a 35-page automatic document feeder (ADF), although this only supports single-sided scans, faxes or copies.

KEEP IT SEPARATE

Unusually for an HP device, the M227fdw uses separate toner and drum consumables rather than a single, combined one. Given that drums always last much longer than toner, replacing them separately should reduce waste and

34

There’s good news for anyone who mainly prints text: the M227fdw reached a heady 26.8ppm in our mono letter test, and the quality of the results was excellent save money. In practice, the latter advantage doesn’t often materialise, and that’s the case here: we calculated running costs of 2.5p per page; a good office inkjet would be cheaper.

There’s good news for anyone who mainly prints text: the M227fdw reached a heady 26.8 pages per minute (ppm) in our mono letter test, and predictably, the quality of the results was excellent: bold, sharp and very black.

Whether recently used or stone cold, this printer can deliver a first page of text in just seven seconds, making it fast even in occasional use or for short jobs. Our complex graphical document slowed it down, but it still appeared at a decent 18ppm, including the time taken to spool the job. The results were unusually good, with only very mild banding and no other obvious artefacts.

In our photocopy tests the M227fdw cloned a single A4 page in just seven seconds – about as quick as you’ll get – and copied 10 pages in 49 seconds. Again, the results were about as good as we’ve seen from a mono device. Unfortunately, this MFP is cursed with HP’s oversimplified scan software, which among other things offers a comparatively limited range of preset resolutions. Despite this, capturing documents was

reasonably quick, with a 300dpi A4 scan taking 26 seconds. The results were good, particularly on office documents, but photos appeared artificially sharpened; a longstanding issue we’ve observed with some HP scanners.

LASER GUIDANCE

The LaserJet Pro M227fdw does a lot of things well. It’s easy to use, generally very fast, and makes high-quality prints, scans and copies.

In particular, its combination of quiet running and fast time-to-first-page would make it good for occasional use in a small office.

That said, it’s a shame that it isn’t a bit cheaper to buy and run. It’s not a bad choice if you specifically want a mono laser MFP, but the best office inkjets are cheaper to run, and not far behind on speed or quality.

Simon Handby

SPECIFICATIONS TECHNOLOGY Mono laser

• MAXIMUM PRINT • MAXIMUM OPTICAL SCAN

RESOLUTION 1,200x1,200dpi

RESOLUTION (OUTPUT BIT DEPTH) 1,200x1,200dpi (24-bit)

• DIMENSIONS 312x403x408mm • WEIGHT 9.4kg • MAXIMUM PAPER SIZE A4/legal • WARRANTY One year exchange • DETAILS www.hp.co.uk • PART CODE G3Q75A Mono speed

26.8ppm

Mixed colour speed Mono page cost

18.0ppm 2.5p

Colour page cost N/A 0%

-50

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+50

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AUGUST 2018

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Wirelessly link 2 speakers!

IP66

USB

AUDIO

FLAC

DEEP BASS

ALL-IN-ONE LIQUID CPU COOLER

COOLER MASTER MasterLiquid ML240R RGB ★★★★★

RECOMMENDED

£101 • From www.box.co.uk

VERDICT

It has highly customisable lighting, but the quiet cooling is what really shines THE LAST TIME we reviewed a Cooler Master AIO watercooler was way back in 2016, with the MasterLiquid Pro 240 (Shopper 346) putting in a decent if unremarkable showing.

The MasterLiquid ML240R RGB might seem a fairly radical departure, but we’re not looking at sweeping changes: the pump has been upgraded but still uses Cooler Master’s dual-chamber structure, and those clear plastic fans have the same maximum speeds and air pressure as the Pro 240’s: 2,000rpm and 2.34 mmH2O respectively. The biggest change that this cooler (and its little brother, the 120mm ML120R RGB) bring to bear is, undoubtedly, addressable RGB lighting, which glows from the pump as well as both fans.

REFINED PALETTE

That’s a whole 16.7 million colours for you to mix and match, or combine with various transition effects, and it works together with Asus Aura Sync, ASRock Polychrome Sync and MSI Mystic Light Sync, so if you have a compatible motherboard or graphics card, you can set the same colours and effects to glow from the ML240R RGB simultaneously.

All that said, there are a few touches that make setting up the cooler less stressful. For instance, the two braided tubes are far more flexible than they were on the Pro 240, which meant we could fold the whole unit into our test PC much easier. We also appreciated how the mounting kit for Intel sockets merely required a bit of screwdriver work; there’s nothing like the horribly difficult push-together pump brackets of the Be Quiet!

Silent Loop 360mm (Shopper 358).

The system for attaching the pump to AMD sockets is also much better than the fiddly clips used by most coolers: you can extend the length of the clasps by loosening their thumbscrews, hook them over the mounting plate, then turn the thumbscrews to tighten.

There’s no pre-applied thermal paste, but the little bundled tube (for you to apply yourself) is the next best thing. As with previous CPU cooler reviews, we installed the ML240R RGB on top of a quad-core Intel Core

It’s not fancy flashing lights that make the ML240R RGB so good: it’s the high performance and outstanding quietness Smartly, Cooler Master has included an RGB controller unit, so you don’t need any dedicated RGB headers on your motherboards to make this cooler shine: just a spare USB header and SATA power cable to give it some juice. The controller also includes some buttons for switching between colours and effects, which could be a handy alternative to software control unless you’re not easily able to open up your PC’s case.

Here’s the catch, though: all this RGB connectivity makes installation a messy process. Since both 120mm fans and the pump have separate cables for connecting to the motherboard and to the controller, you’re already dealing with twice as many wires as almost any other 240mm AIO watercooler, and that’s before you factor in the USB and SATA cables. You’ll also need to find space for the controller itself, ideally where it can’t bump into any other internal components.

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i7-4770k, testing at its stock speed of 3.5GHz as well as with an overclock to 3.9GHz.

SIMMER DOWN

At stock speeds, the ML240R RGB acquitted itself well, with the CPU idling at 29-33°C. Under the intense load of our 4K benchmarks, this rose to 51-54°C with a peak temperature of 56°C, and while running Metro: Last Light Redux (where our GTX 1060 graphics card did most of the work), it generally hung around the 38°C mark with a brief peak of 46°C. That’s a big improvement over Intel’s stock air cooler, as you’d expect, and temperatures barely rose once we applied the 3.9GHz overclock. Idle temperatures stayed nice and low, between 30°C and 36°C, and even during the most punishing parts of our 4K benchmarks, the ML240R RGB managed to keep the processor around 57-60°C. The very highest temperature we recorded was 61°C, miles off the Core i7-4770K’s limit.

The post-overclock differences were even smaller in Metro, with temperatures rarely straying beyond the 40-42°C range. At one point the CPU hit 48°C but again, these are seriously good performances, not to mention improvements on the Pro 240.

Indeed, performance-wise this cooler is on equal terms with two of the chilliest AIO units we’ve used, the Silent Loop 360mm and the NZXT Kraken X62 (Shopper 348). The Be Quiet! model keeps peak temperatures lower by a few degrees, but there’s not much in it.

HEARING AID

What’s even more impressive is how quiet the whole thing is. We never heard any water rushing sounds on startup, like our Pro 240 sometimes makes, and the fans were so close to silent that there wasn’t a single point – even during the overclocked 4K benchmark run – that they became louder than the 120mm exhaust fan in our case, or the blower cooler on the GTX 1060.

As such, it’s not fancy flashing lights that make the ML240R RGB so good: it’s the high performance and outstanding quietness.

Truth be told we still slightly prefer the classy looks and simpler installation of the Kraken X62, but for those with more colourful tastes and a willingness to do some extra cable tidying, this is everything you could ask for.

James Archer

SPECIFICATIONS TECHNOLOGY Closed loop

• FANS 2x 120mm • SOCKET

Intel LGA 2066/2011-3/2011/1151/1150/1155/1156/1366/775,

• •

AMD AM4/AM3+/AM3/AM2+/AM2/FM2+/FM2/FM1 RADIATOR DIMENSIONS (NO FAN) 120x277x27mm

• DETAILS www.coolermaster.

• PART CODE MLX-D24M-A20PC-R1

WARRANTY Two years RTB com

AUGUST 2018

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 366

MESH WI-FI SYSTEM

NETGEAR Orbi RBK40 ★★★★★

£199 • From www.amazon.co.uk

VERDICT

A neat mesh system that can replace your existing router, this is a good choice for boosting Wi-Fi throughout the house THE ORIGINAL NETGEAR Orbi (Shopper 348) proved to be the fastest mesh system we’d ever tested, thanks to its dedicated wireless link between the router and satellite. However, it was expensive and, potentially, overkill for a lot of houses. The Orbi RBK40 is a slightly lower-spec system designed for smaller homes.

The kit ships with a router and a satellite, and is designed to cover 2,700 square feet, compared to the original’s 4,000 square feet.

A dedicated router can be advantageous.

While most mesh systems plug into your existing network, the RBK40 lets you replace your router, giving you a neater finish. The router has one WAN Ethernet port, for connecting into a modem, plus three Gigabit Ethernet ports. That’s one fewer than you usually get on a router. The RBS40 satellite has a further four Gigabit Ethernet ports.

LONG HAUL

Getting going with the Orbi system is easy thanks to Netgear’s simple app. It takes you through plugging in the router and satellite, placing the latter in an optimal position. To get more range, you can use an Ethernet backhaul, wiring the satellite into your primary network.

The setup routine also helps you get connected to the internet. It couldn’t connect to our BT Broadband automatically, so we had to use the advanced options to enter the default username and password.

Once hooked up to the internet, we were told that the Orbi system needed an update.

Selecting the update option takes you out of the app and to the web interface, which is a little annoying, and it would be better if all settings were self-contained. Once we’d updated our system the first time, further

38

updates could be handled by the app, but it kept telling us an update was ready even though our system was running the latest firmware.

From the app, you get basic control over the system’s settings. You can change your wireless name and password, and there’s a handy Share feature so that you can send the details to someone else. The Orbi RBK40 uses band steering, using one network name for both its 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks; connecting devices are then pushed to the best band based on ability and range.

866Mbit/s network for the mesh. At close range we saw upload speeds of 203.13Mbit/s and download speeds of 410.54Mbit/s.

Moving to the first floor, we saw upload speeds of 179.1Mbit/s and download speeds of 356.94Mbit/s. On the second floor, we got upload speeds of 134.58Mbit/s and download speeds of 336.01Mbit/s.

GUEST HOUSE

OUTSIDE BROADCAST

You can also speed test your internet connection and configure the guest Wi-Fi network. Parental controls are available via Circle, which lets you configure which devices and people can access which services.

Parental controls have to be configured through a separate app, but it’s easy to use.

It’s the web interface that offers the most control, giving you access to more advanced settings. Here you can change the wireless channel. By default, the 2.4GHz network is set to Auto, but the 5GHz channel can be set manually; if you’re having problems with performance, these are the settings to change.

The web interface also gives you the option to turn on BT IGMP proxying, which is there to give compatibility with YouView boxes for live-stream channels, such as BT Sport. We couldn’t get this to work at all, despite the BT box being plugged directly into the Orbi router, which is frustrating.

There are two options. First, you can buy a different system that plugs into your existing network, such as the BT Whole Home Wi-Fi (Shopper 351), or you can convert the Orbi to Access Point mode and plug it into your existing network. This makes the Orbi RBK40 relatively expensive, but you get the advantage of having lots of Ethernet ports on the satellites; the Whole Home Wi-Fi has one Ethernet port per dish.

Testing the Orbi RBK40, we found that it proved to be very quick. The system uses AC2200 Wi-Fi, which gives 400Mbit/s 2.4GHz networking, 866Mbit/s 5GHz networking for clients, and a third dedicated

For this test, we placed the RBS40 satellite in the middle of the house; moving it to the back of the house, we tested outside performance and saw average throughputs of 187.93Mbit/s at the top of the garden and 165.03Mbit/s at the bottom of the garden.

That puts the RBK40 a little behind the original (RBK50) Orbi overall. Inside, the Tenda Nova MW6 (Shopper 364) was a little faster, but this does have three satellites; the RBK40 proved faster when we moved outside.

You can also expand the RBK40’s range with additional Orbi satellites: the RBS40 costs £140, although cheaper Orbi satellites with lower-rated Wi-Fi are available, which could make sense if you just need to get an internet connection for browsing.

Thanks to the dedicated wireless network for the mesh, the Orbi RBK40 is a powerful mesh system that can replace your existing wireless router, making it neater to install than many rival systems. However, the BT Whole Home Wi-Fi is an easier upgrade, and you get three dishes; and if you want better all-round performance, it may be worth spending the extra £89 on the original Orbi RBK50 instead.

David Ludlow

SPECIFICATIONS MODEM Gigabit Ethernet

• WI-FI STANDARD 802.11ac •

• • WALL MOUNTABLE No • WARRANTY Two years RTB • DETAILS www.netgear.com • PART CODE RBK40

STATED SPEED Dual 866Mbit/s (5GHz), 400Mbit/s (2.4GHz) USB PORTS 0

5GHz close

306.84Mbit/s

5GHz 1 floor

268.02Mbit/s

5GHz 2 floors

235.3Mbit/s

0

200

400

600

See page 68 for performance details

AUGUST 2018

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 366

240GB SSD

KINGSTON UV500 M.2

★★★★★

£68 • From www.ebuyer.com

VERDICT

On this slim M.2 drive, full-disk encryption is the consolation prize for underwhelming speeds FEW NAMES IN the tech world cover as many different products as ‘UV500’: it appears to be the umbrella brand for a new series of 2.5in, M.2 and mSATA SSDs, each offering different storage capacities at slightly different prices (fortunately, usually only by one or two pounds).

Since we have the 240GB model of the M.2 line, let’s focus on the latter. There’s currently a choice of 120GB, 240GB and 480GB capacities, with a 960GB version announced but yet to appear on any UK retailer’s site at the time of writing. As these drives all use the SATA3 interface, quoted speeds are consistent across the entire UV500 range, including the 2.5in and MSATA models: up to 520MB/s read and 500MB/s write, except for the 120GB drives, which come in at 520MB/s read and only 320MB/s write.

LOCK PARTY

It may feel as though you’re not making the most of an M.2 slot if you’re only using a SATA-based SSD instead of a lightning-quick NVMe model, but then the UV500 is priced accordingly – which is to say, less than a 240GB NVMe drive would be. This M.2 form factor could therefore be a good choice if you’re upgrading a laptop or have a PC case without any spare 2.5in bays.

Besides, speeds aren’t even the UV500’s headline feature. That would be the 256-bit AES full-disk encryption, which automatically adds a thick layer of protection to every byte of data you save on it. As a matter of fact, this is Kingston’s first attempt at shipping 3D NAND SSDs with full-disk encryption, having dabbled in both but never combined the two.

The UV500 also meets the TCG Opal 2.0 specification, which basically means it deploys a few extra tools to keep things secure, such as pre-boot authentication and on-disk decryption (which keeps the decryption process separate from the host machine, where it’s easier to compromise).

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Even if all this seems unnecessary to the kind of user whose most valuable saved data consists of some family photos, we can see the appeal. Encrypting your drives usually involves either faffing around with third-party software or relying on something like BitLocker, which is only included in the more expensive Pro version of Windows.

With the UV500, you simply install it as you would any other SSD, and its complete encryption is automatically ready to go.

HITTING THE BRAKES

There’s a catch, however: while full-disk encryption doesn’t affect performance by any noticeable degree, at least on modern PC hardware, this is not a reliably fast SSD. By that we mean it is capable of high speeds, but it seriously struggles to keep them up. Nothing shows this better than our CrystalDiskMark results: we initially recorded a great sequential read speed of 537MB/s, as well as a sequential write speed of 507MB/s, both slightly above Kingston’s own advertised speeds. Once we’d finished the more punishing 4K test, however, the UV500 had collapsed to a 235.8MB/s sequential read and merely a 195MB/s sequential write speed. That’s even slower than the old UV400 (Shopper 353).

Things weren’t much better in our Diskbench file transfer tests. In the huge file test, the UV500 averaged a decent read speed of 408.22MB/s but just a 247.52MB/s write speed, one of the worst on record.

The large files test, which is moderately harsher, dropped things down to an average read speed of 370.06MB/s and an average write speed of 226.19MB/s.

The small file test exacted by far the biggest toll, with read speeds plummeting down to 230.18MB/s and write speeds staying low at 219.92MB/s. In fairness, even the mighty Samsung 860 Evo (Shopper 364) only came out of this particular test with a

write speed of 273.91MB/s, but it’s concerning that the UV500 slows down by more than half when subjected to heavy loads.

STAYING POWER

Endurance is a much more positive story: this 240GB UV500 is rated at 100TBW (terabytes written), so most users should get years and years of service before it naturally starts to degrade. That’s less than the 250GB 860 Evo, which is rated at 150TBW, but still pretty good. The 120GB version only scores 60TBW, but the 480GB model jumps up to an impressive 200TBW. Pricing is also reasonable, coming in below the 2.5in-form factor 860 Evo. The 480GB UV500 is the best value, at 26.9p per gigabyte, and the 120BG model the worst, at 32.5p. Our 240GB drive would set you back 28.3p per gigabyte, which again isn’t too bad.

That said, the WD Blue series includes a 250GB, SATA3 M.2 SSD for just 26.4p per gigabyte, and going on speeds alone we’d rather just pay a little extra for the superlative 860 Evo (which, we note, has an M.2 version as well). That leaves the UV500’s encryption as pretty much the sole reason to choose it.

For anyone truly worried about the security of their files, the unfavourable performance could be an acceptable trade-off. Everyone else can look elsewhere.

James Archer

SPECIFICATIONS

• COST PER GIGABYTE 28.3p • • CLAIMED READ 520MB/s • CLAIMED WRITE 500MB/s • WARRANTY Five years RTB • DETAILS www.kingston.com • PART CODE SUV500M8/240G CAPACITY 240GB

INTERFACE SATA3

327.87MB/s

Huge files

298.13MB/s

Large files

225.05MB/s

Small files 0%

-50

Reference

+50

+100

See page 68 for performance details

AUGUST 2018

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 366

PC SPEAKERS

LOGITECH G560 ★★★★★

£209 • From www.logitech.com

VERDICT

Logitech’s illuminated speakers have smart colourchanging technology and earth-shattering bass IT SEEMS AS if every PC peripheral maker wants to get behind RGB lighting, judging by the fact that it’s even becoming an increasingly common feature on speakers.

Last issue we saw the colourful Razer Nommo Chroma (Shopper 365), and now it’s Logitech’s turn with the G560.

This is an eye-catching, cleverly designed set of speakers. The circular stereo units each have two sets of RGB lights – one facing backwards and one set into a forward-facing loop – creating a total of four independent lighting zones.

COLOUR CODED

You can customise the colour of each zone to your heart’s content through Logitech Gaming Software (LGS), or you can let the Lightsync technology control the lights for you. This works with a selection of games (including Battlefield 1, Fortnite and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive) to reflect what’s happening onscreen, such as by matching the colour of your health bar or changing hue to warn you of approaching enemies.

You can also set up custom lighting-sync effects using the Screen Sampler tool, which lets you define specific areas of your monitor for the lights to follow. For example, you could manually draw a box around your in-game map, and have the speakers track its colour in your chosen zones.

If all this sounds gimmicky, it’s worth mentioning that the G560 have a real, practical benefit, too: unlike the Razer Nommo Chroma, they’re bright enough to significantly light up the wall behind your monitor, which can help reduce eye strain.

As for build quality, the speakers and the subwoofer have plastic shells, but they look

42

classy and feel solid. The downward-firing subwoofer stands on four feet, so it’s not pumping straight into the floor.

There’s a decent set of controls and connections, too. Atop the right-hand speaker is a volume rocker and a textured Logitech G key; this can be programmed to anything you like through LGS, from a simple mute control to a complicated macro. It’s a small thing, but a definite plus point. Around the back, there are also power and Bluetooth buttons, plus a 3.5mm headphone jack.

The G560 connects to your PC via a USB cable that plugs directly into the subwoofer (it will also work with Bluetooth or a 3.5mm jack cable, though there are no coaxial or optical inputs). A dedicated 2.2m cable connects the speakers to the subwoofer, which is long enough to let you position the satellites anywhere on your desk. A 2.5m USB cable is provided, too, so you have a good degree of flexibility in positioning the subwoofer.

Logitech knows it, too: within LGS there’s a pre-made ‘Lower The Bass’ profile, as well as a custom equaliser. We ultimately had to pull the bass down by a huge -10dB to enjoy it.

Even with this done, the low frequencies remain at the forefront of the G560’s sound signature. The mid-bass feels strong, precise and controlled, while a deep rumble fills out the bottom; something you won’t get from the subwoofer-deprived Nommo Chroma.

The highs aren’t bad, either. The treble perhaps feels ever so slightly rolled off, but there’s plenty of energy at the top end; cymbals sizzle without sounding harsh, and snare drums have a sharp impact.

Sadly, mid-range performance is much less confident. Listening to music, we sometimes noticed a distinctive ‘scooped’ sound signature, with the bass overpowering the vocals. This isn’t only a problem for songs: when you’re gaming, dialogue is pushed back in the mix, diminishing the overall experience.

LOUD AND PROUD

SPEAK NOW

The G560 has a quoted 240W peak and 120W RMS output; that’s not as much as some Logitech speaker/subwoofer combos, such as the 400W/200W Z625, but it’s still an awful lot of power. It’s loud enough to fill a large living room, or even entertain an entire flat.

Indeed, if you’re just looking for a PC speaker system, it could well be overkill.

It’s fine during more sociable hours, but even with the volume dialled down to 2% we found it too loud to use during late-night gaming sessions. Of course, you can reduce the application volume within Windows, but it’s annoying to have to mess around with multiple controls.

Aside from loudness, the other thing that’s really noticeable about the G560 sound is how very bassy it is. Again, we love a good bit of bass, but at default settings it was often downright overpowering. We suspect that

Still, the G560 impresses with its open soundstage and great separation. We could clearly hear and enjoy different layers of instrumentation, much more so than with the £150 Nommo Chroma.

At £209, the G560 is the significantly more expensive option, but then no other PC speaker system can do such clever things with its RGB lights. The bass can be overpowering, while the mid-range is somewhat subdued, but the overall sound presentation is good for an all-in-one system, and the subwoofer really fills the room. If you’ve got the budget, go for it.

Christopher Minasians

SPECIFICATIONS

•

•

DRIVERS 3 RMS POWER OUTPUT 120W DOCK CONNECTOR None WIRELESS Bluetooth 4.1 DIMENSIONS 148x166x118mm (speakers), 404x255x207mm (subwoofer) WEIGHT 1.79kg (speakers), 5.5kg (subwoofer) WARRANTY Two years RTB DETAILS www.logitech.com PART CODE 980-001302

• •

•

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| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 366

55in LCD TV

SONY KD-55XF9005 ★★★★★

RECOMMENDED

£1,699 • From www.currys.co.uk

VERDICT

Excellent HDR, motion handling and upscaling make this a stunning 4K TV SITTING BETWEEN THE Bravia A1 and the flagship ZD9 in Sony’s TV hierarchy, the 55in KD-55XF9005 aims to deliver top-notch quality while stopping just short of the truly high-end price bracket.

As such, it comes with an impressive specs list: 4K and HDR are first and foremost, but it also features full-array local dimming (FALD), direct-lit LED backlighting – which is superior to the more common edge-lit backlighting – as well as Sony’s most advanced X1 Extreme processor, which helps power the Android Smart TV platform. Finally there’s X-Motion Clarity, light-boosted backlight scanning technology that’s exclusive to the XF90 family.

WIDE LOAD

The KD-55XF9005 is a fine-looking TV. The bezel is impressively thin, and the aluminium trim and feet look great, but there’s no getting away from the fact that direct-lit LED LCD TVs need a much bulkier backlighting array to do their stuff: peer over the back and you’ll see a sizable bump behind. Still, it’s nice to see that the supplied remote control has also received a welcome minor facelift, with discrete buttons and a slightly weightier feel.

But perhaps the most controversial element of the design is the feet: these splay outwards, to accommodate Sony’s XF9000 soundbar. If you own a narrower AV rack, you can also point the feet inwards to reduce the footprint a little, although this isn’t mentioned in the user manual. Some users may find this a bit of a pain, but it’s not all bad news. There are grooves behind each foot to route cables for a cleaner look, and the

ISSUE 366 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| AUGUST 2018

KD-55XF9005 doesn’t use an external power brick, which tidies things up considerably.

The connections are found on the left rear of the display, and face both sidewards and downwards. There are four HDMI sockets, but just as with previous Sony X1 Extreme TVs, only HDMI inputs 2 and 3 are the full-fat HDMI ports that can do 4K HDR at higher bit depth, frame rate or chroma – and only once you go into the user menu and switch on the ‘Enhanced format’ HDMI signal.

As usual, the Android Smart TV system is entirely usable, if a little clunkier than the competition, and we wouldn’t expect too much from the down-firing speakers.

Unless you’re happy to put up with average sound quality, this is a TV that deserves a quality soundbar at the very least.

EXTREME CONDITIONS

The VA panel is capable of producing deep, inky blacks by LED LCD standards, but there is a downside of narrower viewing angles than you’d get from an IPS panel. Still, it looks good straight on; brightness and colours are uniform across the entire display, and we measured a DCI-P3 colour gamut coverage of 94%, which is very respectable indeed. litt undersaturated out of Colours are a little the box, but this was soon fixed by calibrating the greyscale and adjusting the colour controls. Two-point Two-poin and 10-point white balance controls are a on board, but sadly there’s no advanced advance colour management system for really in-depth tweaking. Still, a inlittle effort ensured that all the colours clicked into place very nicely, and the result was that SDR movies looked supremely accurate and realistic, with ac skin tones looking particularly lifelike. look The X1 Extreme processor serves Ex up the best scaling we’ve seen in a consumer TV. TV It’s capable of extracting crisp detail from less-than-pristine fr sources, and crucially without introducing the excessive visible ringing of lesser less processors.

We’re big fans of the Smooth Gradation feature, which is effective in Gra fe reducing posterisation, the annoying pos patchy effect that’s that occasionally visible on

anything from streaming services such as Netflix and Prime Video to Blu-ray discs.

What’s more, X-Motion Clarity is a revelation: it harnesses the full-array local dimming and peak brightness potential of the TV, and uses the power of the video processor to locally boost the brightness of the LEDs where backlight scanning occurs. The result is a clearer picture that’s not significantly darker, nor flickery, which will please sports fans.

BRIGHT IDEA

The KD-55XF9005 also delivers a dramatic HDR experience. Once calibrated, peak brightness reached over 1,000cd/m2 on a 10% window, and an impressive 680cd/m2 across the whole display. The 48 independently dimmable zones are by no means a classleading number, and overall the effect doesn’t match up to an OLED TV, but Sony’s local dimming algorithm does well to minimise haloing or blooming artefacts, particularly with some gentle ambient lighting.

As for input lag, we measured a competitive 25ms in 4K HDR mode, but that increases to 42ms for 1080p video signal due to the need to scale 1080p images to fit the 4K screen. Anyone with a PS4 Pro or Xbox One X (which send out 4K video by default) doesn’t need to worry, but with something like the Nintendo Switch, which is 1080p only, the KD-55XF9005 is liable to feel slightly sluggish.

The KD-55XF9005 marks a confident step forward from last year’s successful XE90 range. With brighter, more impactful HDR performance, incoming Dolby Vision support, and superbly smooth motion thanks to the X-Motion Clarity technology, this TV is a force to be reckoned with.

Vincent Teoh

SPECIFICATIONS

• NATIVE RESOLUTION 3,840x2,160 • • DIMENSIONS 771x1,228x258mm • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.sony.co.uk • PART CODE KD-55XF9005 SCREEN SIZE 55in

VIDEO INPUTS HDMI, Composite

CONNECTION PORTS

HDMI x4

USB3 x3

Ethernet

43

iOS 11 TABLET

APPLE iPad (2018) ★★★★★

£319 • From www.apple.com/uk

VERDICT

Aimed at schools and students, this modest update is the most affordable iPad to date PRICE INCREASES FOR the MacBook and iPad Pro ranges have left Apple falling behind in the education space, where devices such as Chromebooks offer students a much cheaper alternative.

The new iPad is an attempt to regain that lost ground. Starting at £319 for the 32GB Wi-Fi only model, it costs £80 less than the next-cheapest Apple slate, the 128GB iPad Mini 4, and the new model has a larger 9.7in screen that’s compatible with the Apple Pencil.

Impressively, using this stylus on the iPad feels as smooth and responsive as on an iPad Pro. It adds another £89 to the cost, but the Apple Pencil comes into its own in educationfocused apps. The new Smart Annotation feature on Pages, in particular, is slick, and you almost forget you’re annotating a file on a touchscreen instead of with pen and paper.

QUICK ON THE DRAW

If you don’t want to spend that much on a stylus, Apple has also now opened up its technology to third-party manufacturers, so companies can produce their own alternatives.

The first of these will be the Logitech Crayon, which was announced alongside the new iPad and will retail for $49 (around £35), a big price reduction on the £89 Apple device.

Elsewhere, the new iPad is much less exciting. It’s identical to the discontinued 2017 iPad in terms of its looks, dimensions and weight, which means you still benefit from the excellent display and a highly responsive touchscreen. Unsurprisingly, it feels the same in the hand, too.

On the rear, you get an 8-megapixel f/2.4 camera accompanied by a 1.2-megapixel f/2.2 HD FaceTime camera at the front, and there’s still a Touch ID button below the screen. It must be said, however, that the

44

new tablet’s 9.7in, 2,048x1,536 screen is now beginning to look dated alongside the edge-to-edge displays we’ve seen on many recent phones, tablets and laptops.

The bigger disappointment is that there’s no Smart Connector contact for hooking up an external keyboard; a baffling omission in the age of 2-in-1s. You can still connect a portable keyboard wirelessly, but it’s just not the same as being able to have a fully connected, pseudo-laptop configuration.

SHOOT FROM THE CHIP

The Apple A10 Fusion processor – not to be confused with the iPad Pro family’s A10X – provides a modest performance boost over both the 2017 iPad and the iPad Mini 4. In Geekbench 4, its single-core score of 3,410 and multicore score of 5,744 are both high for a standalone tablet, though any iPad Pro model will greatly outpace it in multithreaded work.

The more expensive tablet is also better for gaming, although with GFXBench Manhattan results of 41fps in the onscreen test and 64 in the offscreen test, the humble 2018 iPad can still happily run demanding 3D games.

The display – despite being surrounded by those chunky bezels – is also pretty good.

The 2,048x1,536 IPS panel is as sharp as you’ll need, and although its SRGB gamut coverage of 91.4% is fine rather than great, the high 1,023:1 contrast ratio and 507cd/m2 peak brightness help out tremendously.

Our battery life test showed that the 2018 iPad doesn’t quite have the endurance of its predecessors. It lasted 8h 43m, which is below average for an iPad. More positive changes are that students now get 200GB of free iCloud storage rather than the measly 5GB they got before, while Apple has also overhauled its core iOS apps. There are new versions of the Pages, Numbers and Keynote apps, complete with extensive support for the Apple Pencil. There are also a whole host of education-focused apps, teacher aids for use in the classroom, an IT management suite and Apple Pencil-focused updates for apps such as GarageBand.

Pages particularly benefits from Apple Pencil integration, and the Smart Annotation features are such an obvious, welcome addition, it’s a

surprise they haven’t been introduced before. Building on the existing markup and annotation features, Smart Annotation lets you select whole chunks of text to mark them up and move them around the page.

Tapping the document with the Apple Pencil brings up the controls along the bottom of the screen, and they’re incredibly straightforward to recognise and use.

FAST LEARNER

Despite some flaws, the new iPad is worthy of your cash. It’s Apple’s cheapest 9.7in iPad ever, it works with the Apple Pencil and, with a more education-focused software offering, it will have greater appeal to teachers, schools and students than ever before – especially that generous iCloud offering.

However, for anyone not interested in the educational apps, it’s a little disappointing that the only hardware improvement comes in the form of a slightly faster processor; after all, not everyone is all that bothered about stylus support. Having said that, you’ll be very hard pushed to find a better, more powerful tablet for less than £320.

Victoria Woollaston

SPECIFICATIONS

• SCREEN SIZE • SCREEN RESOLUTION 2,048x1,536 • REAR CAMERA 8 megapixels • STORAGE 32GB • WIRELESS DATA None • DIMENSIONS 240x170x7.5mm • WEIGHT 469g • OPERATING SYSTEM iOS 11 • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.apple.com/uk • PART CODE iPad PROCESSOR Quad-core Apple A10 Fusion 9.7in

8h 43m

Battery life 0%

-50

Reference

+50

+100

See page 68 for performance details

AUGUST 2018

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 366

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FLAGSHIP ANDROID 8.1 PHABLET

HUAWEI P20 Pro ★★★★★

£799 • From www.carphonewarehouse.com

VERDICT

Huawei’s top-of-the-line smartphone has three rear cameras, shooting the best pics we’ve seen WHEN IT COMES to smartphone features, dual-cameras are now as commonplace as OLED screens, octa-core processors and missing 3.5mm jacks. With secondary lenses each adding their own unique attributes such as extra zoom capabilities or added depth to your Instagram vanity shots, where can smartphone photography possibly head next?

The answer, according to Huawei, is yet another camera. The P20 Pro is equipped with three rear-facing cameras, which to its credit is a genuinely unique trait amidst the current crop of increasingly samey smartphones.

LOOKS FAMILIAR

Case in point, the rest of the P20 Pro is clearly aping the iPhone X (Shopper 361) rather than simply being a larger version of the standard Huawei P20 (Shopper 365). Its 18.7:9 display even has a notch eating away at the screen at the top – although it’s roughly a third the size of Apple’s version – and the vertical camera arrangement on the rear has a ring of similarity about it as well.

It’s a well-designed handset. There’s a fingerprint sensor with built-in swipe controls embedded in the home button, and even with an exposed USB Type-C port on the bottom edge, it’s water- and dustresistant to the IP67 standard.

The massive 6.1in display is gorgeous as well. The 2,240x1,080 OLED panel manages to cover 99% of the sRGB colour gamut and averages an accurate 1.11 delta-E value, so colours invariably look great, and with a peak brightness of 387cd/m2 it can be used out in the sun without issue.

The Kirin 970 chip and 6GB of RAM also help the P20 Pro match or exceed the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835-powered competition: its Geekbench 4 single-core score of 1,919 and multicore score of 6,809 beat those of the Huawei P10 Plus and Google Pixel 2 XL. However, the Samsung Galaxy S9+ does compensate for its higher price with superior scores of 3,629 and 8,848 respectively.

Huawei’s phablet actually beats the Galaxy S9+ in games, scoring

46

The P20 Pro is also capable of super-slowmotion video recording at 960fps. It looks nice enough, but in this mode the resolution is capped at 720p, and overall quality is bested by the 1080p-capable slow-mo mode of the Sony Xperia XZ2. The P20 Pro’s mode doesn’t benefit from motion detection, so you have to press the shutter button at the precise moment you want the slow motion to start, which makes it tricky to set up shots.

55fps in GFX Bench Manhattan’s onscreen test to the Samsung’s 43fps. This is likely down to the P20 Pro’s lower resolution putting less of a strain on the processor.

The P20 Pro also stays competitive with the Galaxy S9+ on battery life, lasting for 14h 35m in our video test. The addition of a 4,000mAh battery was clearly the right call – that’s more than an hour longer than the standard P20, and that has a smaller, less draining display.

TRIPLE THREAT

As for that triple-camera setup, it’s simpler than it might seem. Two of them work as a common dual-camera array, with a standard 40-pixel RGB sensor in one and a 20-megapixel monochrome sensor in the other. The third, an 8-megapixel, 3x telephoto lens, adds optical zoom – and that’s all there is to it.

To be fair, image quality is downright exceptional. No matter the lighting conditions, the Pro’s triple cameras are perfectly capable of capturing intricate details such as wispy cloud layers, distant brickwork and puddle reflections with ease.

Many of the photos we’ve taken are among the best-looking of any smartphone, ever.

However, it’s not perfect. Finer details are frequently lost due to the phone’s tendency to overprocess images in a bid to reduce visual noise, and the P20 Pro can also sometimes struggle with automatic exposure levels.

Photographs are often slightly underexposed in the phone’s default auto shooting mode, but in these cases it’s relatively easy to compensate using the onscreen exposure compensation tool.

OUT OF FRAME

The regular video mode has 4D predictive focus, which helps with live video object tracking, but this leads us to the camera’s big weakness: video capture. Quality is high but, compared to its rivals, there’s a serious lack of features, with 4K recording only being possible at 30fps and without stabilisation.

1080p at 60fps isn’t stabilised, either; you have to drop to 30fps for it to even become available. Next to the entire current iPhone range, which can shoot 4K video at 60fps with stabilisation, it’s on the losing side.

Luckily for the P20 Pro, it’s still an excellent smartphone on the whole, and some missing video modes almost never affected our day-to-day enjoyment of using it. Where the P20 aimed high but repeatedly fell short, this bigger, bolder smartphone almost always manages to deliver on its promise.

For that, it earns a Best Buy award.

Nathan Spendelow

SPECIFICATIONS

• • SCREEN RESOLUTION 2,244x1,080 •

PROCESSOR Octa-core 2.4GHz HiSilicon Kirin 970 SCREEN SIZE 6.1in

REAR CAMERAS 40 megapixels, 20 megapixels, 8 megapixels

• STORAGE 128GB • WIRELESS DATA 4G • DIMENSIONS 155x74x7.8mm • WEIGHT 180g • OPERATING SYSTEM Android 8.1 • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS consumer.huawei.com • PART CODE 51092FGU 14h 35m

Battery life 0%

-50

Reference

+50

+100

See page 68 for performance details

AUGUST 2018

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 366

BUDGET ANDROID 8.0 SMARTPHONE

HONOR 9 Lite ★★★★★

£159 • From www.carphonewarehouse.com

VERDICT

Mid-range features and a low-end price make this one of 2018’s most tempting smartphones HONOR ISN’T EXACTLY the biggest smartphone brand in the UK, but its profile is growing. Last year’s Honor 9 (Shopper 359) was a very fine mid-ranger, while the Honor 7X (Shopper 362) proved you could have a modern 18:9 screen on a phone costing well under £300. Now, in the wake of that success, comes the remarkable Honor 9 Lite.

At £159, nearly half of what the Honor 9 was at launch, this is a true budget smartphone – and yet it takes advantage of an octa-core HiSilicon Kirin 659, the same chip that powers the Honor 7X, and its 3GB of RAM and 32GB of expandable storage also out-spec budget norms.

It even has an upgrade on the Honor 9: dual front cameras, with a similar setup on the back. With all this, as well as an 18:9, 2,160x1,080 display, it’s incredibly heavy on higher-end features for such a low price.

SHINY HAPPY

It’s possible to spot some of its Honor 9 genes in the design; for instance, it incorporates a similarly mirrored ‘2.5D’ curved glass rear.

It’s certainly glitzy, and once again gives the immediate impression of a phone retailing at two or even three times the price.

One unexpected change is that the fingerprint reader, which on the Honor 9 was integrated into the home button, has been moved back to its old position at the rear of the phone, as on the Honor 8. Obviously, this is to accommodate the massive display on the front, but it may also be a response to customer feedback, as the move to the front wasn’t popular with users.

The volume rocker and power button sit side by side on the right edge, with a microSD card and nano-SIM tray on the left. The bottom edge houses a Micro USB port for charging (one of the few instant giveaways that this is a lower-end handset, as Honor hasn’t stretched to adopting USB Type-C), and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

As soon as you switch on the Honor 9 Lite, the 5.65in IPS display makes a statement. Its pixel density of 428ppi is sharp enough to satisfy the most exacting eyes, and the contrast

ISSUE 366 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| AUGUST 2018

ratio is more than up to snuff, with eye-popping images. Peak brightness hits a sunlight-friendly 504cd/m2.

Colour balance and accuracy are slight issues, however: the Honor 9 Lite has a tendency to oversaturate certain colour tones.

Our colour calibrator reported an sRGB coverage of 83.8%, which isn’t abysmal but could be better, and recorded an average delta-E of 3.71, which is some way adrift of the ideal 1.

KIRIN ME SOFTLY

Inside, the Honor 9 Lite is almost identical to the Honor 7X. You’ll find the octa-core 2.36GHz HiSilicon Kirin 659 partnered with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, which is expandable up to 256GB via microSD. This is a spec that promises good performance for the price, even if it’s not exceptional in general terms. Sure enough, its Geekbench 4 scores of 884 in the single-core test and 3,558 in the multicore test – as well as its GFXBench Manhattan onscreen result of 8fps – are about even with those of the pricier 7X, although the Honor 9 soundly beats both in all tests.

Disappointingly, the Honor 9 Lite’s 3,000mAh battery isn’t as long-lasting as we’d hoped. Typically, low-powered internals such as the Kirin 659 can help provide a lengthy battery life, but in our video test, the Honor 9 Lite plummeted to zero in just 9h 9m.

That’s really not great: the Honor 9 gave us 11-and-ahalf hours in the same test, and the similarly priced Motorola Moto G5S lasted over 12 hours.

When it comes to photography, the Honor 9 Lite isn’t as generously specced as its older sibling, but the 13- and 2-megapixel

rear-facing snappers should do just the job for taking quick pics and Instagram snaps.

Indeed, provided you have plenty of light, you can get some seriously impressive shots. In our tests it managed to pick up plenty of detail, correctly reproducing neighbouring brickwork and tricky window reflections, and capturing naturallooking colours.

However, once the light dims, the Honor 9 Lite’s sensors start to struggle, with washed-out colours and lots of visual noise becoming apparent. Our low-light scenes lacked definition, and had no real punch or vibrancy, either.

DEAL MAKER

Where the Honor 9 Lite does stand out is the inclusion of a similar dual-camera arrangement on the front as on the back.

We found selfie shots were well exposed, with crisp, well-defined details. There’s even a decent background-blurring bokeh mode; it isn’t as sumptuous as the Google Pixel 2’s, but it does a good job of bringing finer foreground details into relief.

The key to the Honor 9 Lite is its price.

It may not be the fastest or most long-lived smartphone on the market, but for £159 it’s an outright bargain: nothing else this cheap offers the same combination of edge-to-edge display, dual front cameras, mid-range performance and snazzy design.

Nathan Spendelow

SPECIFICATIONS

• • SCREEN RESOLUTION 2,160x1,080 • REAR CAMERA 13 megapixels, 2 megapixels • STORAGE 32GB • WIRELESS DATA 4G • DIMENSIONS 151x72x7.6mm • WEIGHT 149g • OPERATING SYSTEM Android 8.0 • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.hihonor.com • PROCESSOR Octa-core 2.36GHz HiSilicon Kirin 659

SCREEN SIZE 5.65in

PART CODE 51092CSA

9h 9m

Battery life 0%

-50

Reference

+50

+100

See page 68 for performance details

47

FREE OS UPDATE

WINDOWS 10 April 2018 Update ★★★★★

RECOMMENDED

Free • From Windows Update

VERDICT

The new features aren’t as great as they could have been, but this is still an entirely beneficial upgrade THE FIFTH MAJOR update for Windows 10 is here, and kicks things off with a feature that nearly made it into the last one: Timeline.

Originally planned for the Fall Creators Update (Shopper 359) , Timeline replaces the old Task View menu with a full-screen calendar view, showing apps and documents you’ve been using today, yesterday and in the distant past. Click on one and Windows will reopen it, ready for you to resume work.

It seems a great idea, especially when you sit down at your PC or laptop with a specific task or project in mind. Implementation is slick as well, with nice big visual thumbnails and graphical previews of recently accessed files (including Office 365 files that you’ve opened on other devices).

NEED MORE TIME

It remains to be seen if Timeline can be a true game-changer for how most people use Windows, however. At the very least, it takes some getting used to: the jarring feeling of an interface taking us completely out of the desktop brings back unwelcome memories of Windows 8. There’s also the issue that not all applications work with Timeline straight away: developers will have to update their applications to make them compatible.

We’d also like to see improved support for remembering web pages and Google Docs that have been opened – after all, a lot of work these days is done in browsers.

The next big feature, Focus Assist, might sound as if it belongs on a camera, but it’s actually a refinement of Windows 10’s existing Quiet Hours feature. You can now engage Focus Assist whenever you need to get a

particular bit of work done, set it to come on automatically between certain times, or when you’re mirroring your screen or playing games. This will silence all notifications (except from priority individuals you can nominate) until Focus Assist is switched back off, at which point you’ll get a summary of all the notifications that were suppressed.

It works well, but since it can’t interact with Android and iOS devices, there’s nothing to stop the same notifications popping up on your smartphone. It’s a shame Microsoft never succeeded in building the integrated desktop/mobile platform it aimed for with Windows 10 Mobile; if it did, we suspect Focus Assist would be a lot more powerful.

It’s a similar situation with Near Share, another new feature that lets you beam files directly to and from compatible Windows 10 clients. It’s a pretty obvious copy of Apple’s AirDrop feature, but there’s no shame in that: it’s a nice, easy way to quickly move the odd file from a desktop to a laptop.

Once again, what’s lacking is support for mobile devices, which is disappointing, because the awkwardness of getting files from your smartphone to your PC is surely a more general frustration.

RENOVATION CATALOGUE

The April 2018 Update also brings some subtle visual changes to the desktop. The concept is called Fluent Design, and what it most visibly means is that some windows become slightly translucent, so you can see hints of the colours and content beneath them. The new design also promotes the use of lighting and depth effects to help convey the relationships between controls.

The visual revamp is particularly noticeable in the Settings app, which is finally starting to look and feel like a mature and coherent successor to the Control Panel. The various pages now have a tasteful two-tone design, with a grey sidebar, and more ⬆ The Settings app has had a tasteful makeover and is now more coherent features that were

48

previously scattered about the OS have now been migrated into the app’s various pages.

There’s one page you’ll look for in vain: the HomeGroup feature has finally been removed from Windows. That’s a shame, as there are surely more households than ever wanting an easy way to share files across their home networks. Then again, perhaps it had become an anachronism nowadays when the devices on those networks are as likely to be running Android or Chrome OS as Windows.

Cortana and the Edge browser have received some improvements, too. Cortana’s Notebook page has been revamped, so your lists and reminders are split into a different tab from the smart home-style connected services, while Edge continues to play catch-up to more established browsers with automatic form-filling capabilities and the ability to mute tabs.

ROCK AND ROLL OUT

More interesting are the changes to Windows Update. Finally responding to users’ frustration over unpredictably timed updates, Microsoft has added an icon in the System Tray advising you when there’s an update ready to be installed – another welcome throwback to Windows 7 – and if you’re not ready to deploy it there and then, you can now nominate a specific time for installation. Future updates will also hide the installation process in the background, so there’s less of a lengthy interruption when you shut down and boot up. It’s a much better system overall.

If anything, the more strictly utilitarian additions – both the new Windows Update and the improved UI – do more to make the April 2018 Update worthwhile than the big headline features, which many might not even need to use. Either way, it’s another step in the right direction for an operating system that’s become better and better at no extra cost.

Darien Graham-Smith

SPECIFICATIONS OS SUPPORT Windows 10

• MINIMUM CPU 1GHz • • MINIMUM RAM 1GB

MINIMUM GPU Integrated graphics

• HARD DISK SPACE 16GB for • DETAILS www.windows.com •

for 32-bit, 2GB for 64-bit 32-bit, 20GB for 64-bit

PRODUCT CODE Windows 10 April 2018 Update

AUGUST 2018

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 366

NINTENDO SWITCH GAME AND PERIPHERALS

NINTENDO Labo ★★★★★

RECOMMENDED

£57 • From www.amazon.co.uk

VERDICT

Far more than just cardboard decoration, Labo is the frontier of educational gaming TO MANY, THE Nintendo Switch (Shopper 352) is simply a games console – a unique and well-realised hybrid device you can use anywhere, but still a device only to play games.

Not any more: now your Switch is a piano, a fishing rod, a remote control car: anything and everything you want it to be and, in some cases, even more than you could imagine.

At its core, Nintendo Labo isn’t simply a game. This is a new platform for Nintendo; a new way to inspire minds both young and old to create new things. It’s all down to Toy-Cons, flat-packed cardboard creations you can fold into shape and use to interact with the Switch in a variety of ways.

MAKE BELIEVE

There are currently two Toy-Con sets: the £57 Variety Pack comes with five cardboard toys to assemble and use, while the £70 Robot Kit comes with a single wearable robot suit to build. These kits are designed to be the starting point of working with Labo, as the intention is they’ll act as inspiration for users to come up with their own creations in the future. And if £70 sounds steep for a bunch of cardboard, keep in mind that it includes all the requisite software as well.

Shoehorning Labo into any existing genre or category is essentially impossible. Yes, it has cutesy characters to help you understand how everything works, and impressive 3D construction diagrams you can swoop around and view from all angles. But the simple act of building cardboard models means a lot of your time is spent away from what you might ordinarily consider gaming.

Once you’ve built each Toy-Con, the games you play form only a small part of the experience. It’s great fun zipping about on a motorbike using a handlebar controller

you’ve constructed yourself, but you know there’s more that can be done. There’s a real sense of discovery here, and Labo does a wonderful job of nurturing it.

Many of its best features are tucked away, hidden from the standard line-up of playable Labo mini-games. Fancy catching more fish in the fiendishly difficult Toy-Con Fishing Rod game? You’ll have to use the piano (yes, there’s a piano Toy-Con) to scan in new shapes and customise them via its keys.

Want to create a new racecourse for the motorbike? Well, you’ll need to don a motorbike model for your Joy-Con and fly it around the room to draw out your course.

To an adult it might seem illogical, but for kids it’s yet another opportunity to play.

LIVE AND LEARN

The real meat of Labo is tucked away in the Discover section of the software. Here, Labo’s three child-friendly researcher characters show you how each Toy-Con works and how to make the most of each individual game.

It also provides building instructions, insight into how to repair your creations and details of how to customise them, too.

Discover also hides a brilliant feature known as the Toy-Con Garage. Just as its manhole cover indicates, Toy-Con Garage takes you beneath the surface of how Nintendo Labo works, complete with stripped-back visuals and wire-frame colour-coded nodes.

Unlike the rest of Discover, or Labo’s Make section of building instructions, Toy-Con Garage doesn’t hold your hand. After a brief introduction into what each constituent part is about, you’re left to create your own programs for your Labo models. Nintendo is giving you the keys to absolutely every sensor input the Nintendo Switch has and allows you to create your own set of outputs.

To give an idea of how powerful this is, it’s possible to create an entire musical band using Labo, by way of a Joy-Con, some elastic bands and the Switch’s touchscreen.

Nintendo clearly means for people to utilise Garage as a means to generate their own projects from the ground up, perhaps even fabricate their own Toy-Cons from cardboard or 3D-printed materials.

This may sound too advanced for little ones, but that’s the beauty of Labo. As they play and learn to understand how each Toy-Con is simply more than just a piece of cardboard, they’ll begin to understand how it all works. That knowledge then helps them understand how to create. As they grow older – and more Toy-Cons are undoubtedly released – they’ll be able to understand more, while the logical structure of Toy-Con Garage’s programming environment means these lessons result in transferable coding skills.

BUILDING EXCITEMENT BU

Before Nintendo entered the world of video Bef games it was a toy maker. While it’s left part gam of its history a long way behind, Labo proves that playfulness is still in the company’s DNA. tha Far from being a simple set of cardboard toys, it’s a creation platform that balances immediacy and ease of use with a satisfying imm complexity for those willing to explore. com It’s the freshest idea to come out of the video game industry in years, and is proof vid that few do innovation better than Nintendo. tha Vaughn Highfield

SPECIFICATIONS SP

• HARD DISK • DETAILS labo.nintendo.com •

AVAILABLE FORMATS Nintendo Switch AVA SPACE Not stated SP

PRODUCT CODE Nintendo Labo PR

50

AUGUST 2018 AU

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 366

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Choosing a... PC system 01

A basic PC costing around £350 will be able to run everyday office, multimedia and education software and will easily cope with surfing the internet. It might even be able to run some modern games.

Many PCs can be sold either with or without a monitor. If you don’t like the display the manufacturer is offering, you can always use your current one, or buy another one separately.

02

If you want to play games, you’ll have to upgrade the graphics card.

Budget cards such as the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 will cope well with many 3D games, but to play the latest 3D games smoothly (and enjoy the best-quality graphics) it’s worth upgrading to a more powerful card such as the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070.

03

All modern PCs come with at least a dual-core processor and are capable of most tasks. Anyone who regularly undertakes demanding tasks such as video editing and encoding should consider a hexa-core or even an octa-core processor.

04

There are plenty of good reasons to upgrade the PC’s memory or hard disk. If you’ll use your PC for gaming, video editing or other demanding tasks, you’ll need at least 8GB of RAM and a large hard disk; 1TB should suffice. Many new PCs have an SSD, which speeds up the time it takes for your PC to boot and for programs to load.

05

peripherals attach to these ports. Most new PCs come with USB3 or the latest USB3.1 ports, which provide faster data transfers when used with supported devices than the older USB2 standard.

06

Most new PCs now come with Windows 10 pre-installed. Don’t be too easily swayed by the inclusion of other software, though, as it may be that you’ll never use it.

07

Having plenty of USB ports is always useful, as most computer

While most PCs come in cases of a similar size, some have more compact mini tower or mini PC cases.

These smaller PCs will fit under your TV or on your desk more easily, but bear in mind that they’re significantly harder to upgrade than full-size machines.

PCs

RASPBERRY RRY PI 3 Model B+

LENOVO IdeaCentre 620S LE ★★ ★★★★★

★★★★★ £32

£800 £80

.com • www.thepihut.com

The ultimate micro ro PC gets even better with faster CPU clock speeds and dramatically improved Wi-Fi performance. The differences between this diff b th and the th standard Pi Model 3 probably won’t be enough to be worth a direct upgrade, but since this is no more expensive, it’s the best choice for new projects.

Mini PCs can be overpriced, slow ow or even sold without RAM and storage, but the IdeaCentre 620S 0S is a complete system that’s both reasonably powerful and pleasantly affordable. The quad-core pow core Intel el Core i5-7400T handles office work well enough, while an Intel Optane Memory drive gives ves the hard disk a speed boost, and there’s even a GeForce GTX 1050 Ti for extra graphical capability. ty.

PROCESSOR 1.4GHz quad-core Broadcom BCM2837 • RAM 1GB • USB PORTS 1x Micro USB (power), 4x USB2 • TOTAL STORAGE MicroSD card slot • DISPLAY None • OPERATING SYSTEM Raspbian • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.raspberypi.org • PART CODE Pi 3 Model B+ • FULL REVIEW Jun 2018

PROCESSOR Quad-core 2.4GHz Intel Core i5-7400T • RAM 8GB • FRONT USB PORTS None • REAR USB PORTS 4x USB3 • TOTAL STORAGE 1TB hard disk, 16GB Intel Optane Memory drive • GRAPHICS CARD 4GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti • DISPLAY None • OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 10 Home • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.lenovo.com • PART CODE 90HC0011UK • FULL REVIEW May 2018

CYBERPOWER Infinity X88 GTX

PALICOMP i5 Titanium

NEW ENTRY

★★★★★ £1,599

• www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk

This is about as high-end a PC you can get without adding things such as multiple GPUs and enthusiast 10-core processors. Despite this, it’s good value for the parts and performance; most systems with a Core i7-8700K and GTX 1080 cost at least a couple of hundred pounds more than the Infinity X88 GTX. PROCESSOR Hexa-core 4.8GHz Intel Core i7-8700K • RAM 16GB • FRONT USB PORTS 1x USB2, 1x USB3 • REAR USB PORTS 2x USB2, 4x USB3 • TOTAL STORAGE 256GB SSD, 2TB hard disk • GRAPHICS CARD 8GB MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Aero OC • OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 10 Home • WARRANTY Three years labour, including two years parts and one month collect and return • DETAILS www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk • PART CODE Infinity X88 GTX • FULL REVIEW Jul 2018

52

• www.lenovo.com

★★★★★ £500

• www.palicomp.co.uk

While there’s no dedicated GPU, the i5 Titanium is a brilliantly balanced home office PC, with a capable quad-core processor, compact case and speedy SSD/hard disk combo. It’s not particularly upgradable but, for the price, it offers very good performance right out of the box.

PROCESSOR Quad-core 3GHz Intel Core i5-7400 • RAM 8GB • FRONT USB PORTS 2x USB3 • REAR USB PORTS 2x USB2, 2x USB3x 1x USB Type-C • TOTAL STORAGE 250GB SSD, 1TB hard disk • GRAPHICS CARD None • OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 10 Home • WARRANTY Three years RTB • DETAILS www.palicomp.co.uk • PART CODE KAB3 • FULL REVIEW Aug 2017

AUGUST 2018

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 366

Choosing a... Laptop 01

A basic laptop costing around £300 will run everyday office, multimedia and education software, but it won’t be suitable for 3D gaming or processor-intensive tasks such as video editing. Many laptops at this price have a 15.6in screen and weigh over 2kg, so they’re best used around the house and for occasional journeys.

02

If you want to play modern games, you’ll need a laptop with a dedicated graphics chip such as the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060M. Good gaming laptops tend to have large 15.6 or 17in screens and weigh around 3kg, so they’re best suited to use at home.

03

If you want a laptop that you can take everywhere, look for a model that weighs less than 2kg. For the best

portability, buy one that has a 13.3in or 14in screen. In general, the smaller and lighter the laptop, the more expensive it is, especially if it has plenty of processing power.

04

Battery life is extremely important for a laptop, particularly if you’ll be carrying it around. We’d expect all but the biggest and heaviest to last for at least five hours on a single charge, but for an ultraportable that you carry everywhere, eight hours and above is more desirable.

05

Laptops use mobile versions of processors to conserve power, and these lag behind desktop chips when it comes to performance. For a budget Windows laptop, an Intel Core i3 processor will do the job, but if you

want better performance, you should look for an Intel Core i5 or Core i7 model instead. We recommend a minimum of 4GB of RAM, although 8GB is better for multitasking.

06

Most budget and mid-range laptops use a mechanical hard disk for storage. You’ll want at least 500GB, but 1TB or more is better. Solid-state drives (SSDs) have faster performance, making your computer quicker to boot and more responsive. They have lower capacities, though. You’ll need at least 128GB.

07

Convertibles and 2-in-1 laptops can change from laptop mode to tablet mode. We’ve listed our favourite models later on in this guide in the Tablets section.

LAPTOPS

HP Spectre x360 ★★★★★ £1,550

• www.very.co.uk

ASUS ZenBook UX310UA ★★★★★ £660

Following in the footsteps of the Spectre 13, HP’s Spectre x360 is a convertible hybrid laptop with premium ultrabook sensibilities. That means high igh performance from its Core i7 processor, a lush 4K display and even discrete Nvidia GeForce 940MX graphics.

PROCESSOR Dual-core 2.7GHz Intel Core i7-7500U • RAM 8GB • DIMENSIONS 356x251x17.9mm • WEIGHT 2kg • SCREEN SIZE 15.6in • SCREEN RESOLUTION 3,840x2,160 • GRAPHICS ADAPTOR Nvidia GeForce GTX 940MX • TOTAL STORAGE 512GB SSD • OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 10 Home • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.hp.com • PART CODE 15-bl000na • FULL REVIEW Sep 2017

GIGABYTE Aero 15

• www.saveonlaptops.co.uk

Sadly we can no longer find the UX310UA for the same bargain price at which we reviewed it, but this is still a lovely ultraportable that can last a full working day away from rom the mains. Best of all, this price gets you a more powerful Intel Kaby Lake processor and a larger SSD. PROCESSOR Dual-core 2.4GHz Intel Core i3-7100U • RAM 4GB • DIMENSIONS 323x223x18.4mm • WEIGHT 1.4kg • SCREEN SIZE 13.3in • SCREEN RESOLUTION 1,920x1,080 • TOTAL STORAGE 256GB SSD • OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 10 Home • PARTS AND LABOUR WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.asus.com/uk • PART CODE UX310UA • FULL REVIEW Jul 2017

DELL XPS 13 (2017) ★★★★★

• www.amzn.to/2uirlnL

★★★★★

£1,149

£1,800

Powered by an updated Intel Core i7-7500U, 7500U, the refreshed Dell XPS 13 goes from rom a tantalising purchase to an essential ential one.

The 3,200x1,800 display splay still looks excellent, too, oo, both in itself and surrounded by the razor-thin InfinityEdge bezels.

• www.scan.co.uk

The Aero 15 is another slimline gaming laptop, this time with th the heft of a GeForce GTX 1060 060 inside.

The result is excellent frame rates even in highly demanding games, with unusually long battery life to sweeten the deal.

PROCESSOR Quad-core 2.8GHz Intel Core i7-7700HQ • RAM 16GB • DIMENSIONS 356x250x19.9mm • WEIGHT 2.1kg • SCREEN SIZE 15.6in • SCREEN RESOLUTION 1,980x1,080 • GRAPHICS ADAPTOR Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 • TOTAL STORAGE 512GB SSD • OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 10 Home • WARRANTY Two years RTB • DETAILS www.gigabyte.com • PART CODE Aero 15W-CF2 •

FULL REVIEW Aug 2017

ISSUE 366 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| AUGUST 2018

PROCESSOR Quad-core 2.7GHz Intel Core i7-7500U • RAM 8GB • DIMENSIONS 304x200x15mm • WEIGHT 1.29kg • SCREEN SIZE 13.3in • SCREEN RESOLUTION 3,200x1,800 • GRAPHICS ADAPTOR Intel HD Graphics 620 • TOTAL STORAGE 256GB SSD • OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 10 Home • WARRANTY Three years RTB • DETAILS www.dell.com/uk • PART CODE XPS 13 9360 • FULL REVIEW May 2017

53

Choosing a... Smartphone 01

A smartphone’s operating system (OS) dictates its basic features and which third-party software you can install.

There are three main contenders: Apple’s iOS, which is found on the iPhone, Google’s Android, which is used by various handset manufacturers, and Windows Phone, which has few options, especially since Microsoft has discontinued support for its OS. Apple iOS and Google Android both have thousands of apps available.

02

All smartphones have colour screens, but their resolutions vary. Basic models have 1,280x720 pixels, but text can be indistinct. Look for a display that has at least 1,920x1,080 pixels so it’s easier to read text

and watch Full HD videos. Don’t worry too much about built-in media players or Office document editors; you can always install apps to replace these with better versions later.

The image quality of smartphone cameras has improved tremendously in recent years, and resolutions have increased to as high as 20 megapixels.

03

Very few modern smartphones have a physical keyboard for entering text; they almost exclusively use touchscreens now. Physical keyboards can aid heavy emailing, but today’s touchscreen keyboards work just as well.

Android smartphones and iPhones running iOS 9 or above allow you to install

a variety of custom onscreen keyboards so you can find one that suits you.

04

Be careful when choosing a contract.

Look for one that includes a large data allowance if you want to use the internet regularly or you’ve set your phone to synchronise your contacts, calendar and email through online services.

Built-in Wi-Fi can help you avoid high data charges by connecting to the internet through wireless hotspots when you’re out, or your router when you’re at home. Android and iPhone handsets can operate as wireless hotspots, letting you connect your laptop to the web over your mobile data connection.

There may be an extra charge for this.

SMARTPHONES

MOTOROLA Moto Z2 Play ★★★★★

£297 SIM-free

• www.amzn.to/2IFEoVb

The second-generation version of our favourite modular smartphone takes some small steps back on battery life and display quality, but is still a lot of smartphone for £379, with good performance and a sharpshooting camera. It’s compatible with older Moto Mods, too.

PROCESSOR Octa-core 2.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 626 • SCREEN SIZE 5.5in • SCREEN RESOLUTION 1,920x1,080 • REAR CAMERA 12 megapixels • STORAGE 64GB • WIRELESS DATA 4G • DIMENSIONS 156x76x6mm • WEIGHT 145g • OPERATING SYSTEM Android 7.1 • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.motorola.co.uk • PART CODE XT1710 • FULL REVIEW Nov 2017

HONOR 7X ★★★★★

£239 SIM-free; free on £27-per-month contract www.debenhamsplus.com (SIM-free); www.three.co.uk (contract)

£437 SIM-free; £10 on £29-per-month contract www.amzn.to/2qNy2fT (SIM-free); www.carphonewarehouse.com (contract)

•

The most powerful Android phone ever. The camera is superb, the display is dazzling, and even the base model comes in a beautiful, almost completely bezel-free, design.

PROCESSOR Quad-core 2.3GHz Samsung Exynos 8895 • SCREEN SIZE 5.8in • SCREEN RESOLUTION 2,560x1,440 • REAR CAMERA 12 megapixels • STORAGE 64GB • WIRELESS DATA 4G • DIMENSIONS 149x68x8mm • WEIGHT 155g • OPERATING SYSTEM Android 7.0 • WARRANTY One-year RTB • DETAILS wwww.samsung.com/uk • PART CODE SM-G950FZKABTU • FULL REVIEW Jul 2017

GOOGLE Pixel 2

•

★★★★★

£629 SIM-free; free on £53-per-month contract www.carphonewarehouse.com

•

Don’t fancy paying tons of cash for an edge-to-edge, 18:9 display? The Honor 7X is affordable but has a vast, vibrant screen, and comes with a great dual-camera array.

The larger Pixel 2 XL has a higher-res display and better battery life, but this is the better buy: it’s just as fast and has the same pure Android OS, but doesn’t suffer from the same vibrancy problems as the XL’s screen.

PROCESSOR Octa-core 2.36GHz HiSilicon Kirin 659 • SCREEN SIZE 6in • SCREEN RESOLUTION 2,160x1,080 • REAR CAMERA Dual 16 megapixels • STORAGE 64GB • WIRELESS DATA 4G • DIMENSIONS 157x75x7.6mm • WEIGHT 165g • OPERATING SYSTEM Android 7.0 • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.hihonor.com • PART CODE 51092ADQ • FULL REVIEW Apr 2018

PROCESSOR Quad-core 2.45GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 • SCREEN SIZE 5in • SCREEN RESOLUTION 1,920x1,080 • REAR CAMERA 12.2 megapixels • STORAGE 64/128GB • WIRELESS DATA 4G • DIMENSIONS 146x70x7.8mm • WEIGHT 143g • OPERATING SYSTEM Android 8.1 • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS store.google.com • PART CODE Pixel 2 • FULL REVIEW Jan 2018

SAMSUNG Galaxy J5 (2017)

HONOR 8 Pro

★★★★★

£153 SIM-free; free on £14-per-month contract www.amzn.to/2B6fPjS (SIM-free); www.carphonewarehouse.com

•

The new Galaxy J5 performs well, takes great photos, has an incredibly vibrant screen and looks stylish, but it’s the battery life – over 18h in our tests – that really impresses.

PROCESSOR Octa-core 1.6GHz Exynos 7870 • SCREEN SIZE 5in • SCREEN RESOLUTION 1,280x720 • REAR CAMERA 13 megapixels • STORAGE 16GB • WIRELESS DATA 4G • DIMENSIONS 146x71x8mm • WEIGHT 160g • OPERATING SYSTEM Android 7.0 • WARRANTY One-year RTB • DETAILS www.samsung.com/uk • PART CODE SM-J350FZKABTU • FULL REVIEW Dec 2017

54

SAMSUNG Galaxy S8

★★★★★

★★★★★ £449

• www.debenhamsplus.com

If you can live with the EMUI skin, the Honor 8 Pro is a fantastic phablet. It competes with more expensive flagships on performance, and has a vibrant 5.7in display, plus a sharp rear camera with 4K video capture.

PROCESSOR Octa-core 2.4GHz HiSilicon Kirin 960 • SCREEN SIZE 5.7in • SCREEN RESOLUTION 2,560x1,440 • REAR CAMERA 12 megapixels • STORAGE 64GB • WIRELESS DATA 4G • DIMENSIONS 157x78x7mm • WEIGHT 184g • OPERATING SYSTEM Android 7.0 • DETAILS www.hihonor. com/uk • PART CODE DUK-L09 • FULL REVIEW Aug 2017

AUGUST 2018

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 366

Choosing a... Tablet 01

All tablets rely on an operating system (OS) to run apps. You have three main choices: Apple’s iOS, which runs on the iPad; Android, which Google licenses to various manufacturers; and Windows 10, which has become common in hybrid tablets and convertibles. If you own an Apple or Google smartphone, you can download your apps, music and so on to a tablet that runs the same OS, so it makes sense to stick with a compatible device.

02

It’s important to pick a tablet that has a good-quality, high-resolution screen.

Many budget tablets have 1,280x800resolution displays, but better tablets have Full HD 1,920x1,080 panels, and we’re

starting to see tablets that have even higher screen resolutions. Some are as high as 2,560x1,600 or even 4K. Entry-level tablets typically use TN panels, which don’t have particularly good viewing angles. The viewing angles of IPS panels are much better.

04

Tablets rarely include a SIM card slot. This means you’ll have to rely on Wi-Fi to get online, although some tablets let you access the internet through your smartphone. If you want mobile access to the internet, look for 3G- and 4G-ready devices. These almost always cost more than Wi-Fi-only models, but they’re great if you use your tablet while commuting or travelling.

03

If you want to listen to music, watch films and play games, make sure your tablet has plenty of storage. Many tablets come with 8GB or 16GB of internal storage, although some budget models have less.

You’ll typically pay more for a higher storage capacity. Many tablets also have microSD slots that let you add extra storage, although you won’t find one on an iPad. This is a cheap way of boosting storage capacity.

05

Your choice of tablet determines the apps you can use on it. You may find that some of the apps you want are available on iOS but not Android, and vice versa.

Windows 10, meanwhile, runs traditional desktop applications.

TABLETS

SAMSUNG Galaxy Book 10.6in

HUAWEI MediaPad M3 3

★★★★★

★★★★★ ★★

Good budget 2-in-1s are rare, but Samsung hits the mark with its 10.6in Galaxy Book. The Full HD touchscreen display looks great and, unlike with the iPad Pro or Surface Pro ranges, the excellent keyboard and stylus peripherals come included in the box.

Android slates may have fallen n out of fashion in favour of 2-in-1s, s, but the MediaPad M3 shows they ey can still st be worth your cash. The Kirin 950 chip delivers livers massive processing power, and the sleek design gn and vibrant screen deserve your attention as well.

PROCESSOR Dual-core Intel Core m3-7Y30 • SCREEN SIZE 10.6in • SCREEN RESOLUTION 1,920x1,280 • REAR CAMERA None • STORAGE 64GB • WIRELESS DATA No • DIMENSIONS 261x179x8.9mm • WEIGHT 650g • OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 10 Home • WARRANTY Two years RTB • DETAILS www.samsung.com/uk • PART CODE SM-W620NZKAXAR • FULL REVIEW Nov 2017

PROCESSOR Octa-core 2.3GHz Hisilicon Kiring 950 • SCREEN SIZE 8.4in • SCREEN RESOLUTION 2,560x1,440 • REAR CAMERA 8 megapixels • STORAGE 32GB • WIRELESS DATA 4G • DIMENSIONS 124x215x7.3mm • WEIGHT 320g • OPERATING SYSTEM Android 6.0 • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.huawei.com/uk • PART CODE BTV-DL09 • FULL REVIEW Feb 2017

APPLE iPad Pro 10.5in

MICROSOFT Surface Pro (2017) ( )

£650

• www.johnlewis.com

£300 £30

★★★★★ £619

• www.apple.com/uk

• www.ebuyer.com

★★★★★ £1,999

• www.microsoft.com

While it’s still stuck with a mobile OS, rather than the productivity-friendly macOS, there’s no arguing with the latest iPad Pro’s raw power. An A10X Fusion chip makes it much faster than the 9.7in model in both multitasking and single-threaded applications.

This pricey 2-in-1 earns every ery penny, with its colourful, pin-sharp rp display, best-in-class app performance, lengthy battery life and quality ity keyboard cover. It’s been given welcome design tweaks too, like a more durable hinge and smoothed-off edges.

PROCESSOR Hexa-core 2.36GHz Apple A10X Fusion • SCREEN SIZE 10.5in • SCREEN RESOLUTION 2,224x1,668 • REAR CAMERA 12 megapixels • STORAGE 64/256/512GB • WIRELESS DATA 4G (cellular version) • DIMENSIONS 251x174x6.1mm • WEIGHT 469g • OPERATING SYSTEM iOS 11 • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.apple.com/uk • PART CODE 9.7in iPad Pro • FULL REVIEW Oct 2017

PROCESSOR Dual-core 2.4GHz Intel Core i7-7660U • SCREEN SIZE 12.3in • SCREEN RESOLUTION 2,736x1,824 • REAR CAMERA 8 megapixels • STORAGE 512GB • WIRELESS DATA No • DIMENSIONS 292x201x8.5mm • WEIGHT 784g • OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 10 Pro • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.microsoft.com • PART CODE FKH-00002 • FULL REVIEW Sep 2017

SAMSUNG Galaxy Tab S3

AMAZON Kindle Oasis (2017)

★★★★★ £599

• www.amzn.to/2EJBII0

Yes, it’s incredibly expensive for an Android slate, but the Galaxy Tab S3 is pure luxury: the AMOLED display looks exquisite, the stereo speakers sound great, and Samsung’s S Pen stylus is included as standard.

PROCESSOR Quad-core 2.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 • SCREEN SIZE 9.7n • SCREEN RESOLUTION 2,048x1,536 • REAR CAMERA 13 megapixels • STORAGE 32GB • WIRELESS DATA None (4G optional) • DIMENSIONS 2937x169x6mm • WEIGHT 429g • OPERATING SYSTEM Android 7.0 • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.samsung.com/uk • PART CODE SM-T820 • FULL REVIEW Aug 2017

ISSUE 366 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| AUGUST 2018

★★★★★ £230

• www.amzn.to/2iz8Cge

The premium instalment of Amazon’s eReader line is back with a bigger screen, ambient light sensor and IPX8 waterproofing, though its most interesting improvement is the ability to play Audible Audiobooks.

PROCESSOR Not stated • SCREEN SIZE 7in • SCREEN RESOLUTION 300dpi • REAR CAMERA None • STORAGE 8GB • WIRELESS DATA Optional 3G • DIMENSIONS 159x141x8.3mm • WEIGHT 194g • OPERATING SYSTEM Kindle OS • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.amazon.co.uk • PART CODE Kindle Oasis (2017) • FULL REVIEW Mar 2018

55

Choosing a... Digital camera 01

A basic digital camera will suit someone who wants to take pictures to view on their computer and create 7x5in prints. It should cost around £80, but there may be hidden downsides such as slow performance and very basic user controls.

02

Spend a little more and you’ll get a higher resolution. A 16-megapixel sensor has the potential to produce sharp prints up to A3 size, but only if it and the lens are of a suitably high quality. Very high resolutions in compact cameras tend to boost noise more than detail levels, so many of the best models strike a sensible balance by using a 12-megapixel sensor.

Back-illuminated CMOS sensors tend to produce less noise than CCDs, but

or higher for a sharper picture. A touchscreen is useful for moving the autofocus point.

check our reviews to find out how a particular model performs.

03

A 3x zoom lens provides you with reasonable scope for framing your shots, but a larger range can do wonders for your photography. Most compact cameras can manage a 5x zoom, while pocket-size ultra-zoom cameras can provide 24x zoom ranges.

Numbers such as 28-105mm tell you the wide-angle and telephoto limits of the zoom range. Big zooms require optical image stabilisation to avoid blur due to camera shake when zoomed right in.

04

05

Leave some room in your budget for a memory card, as the bundled memory provided with a camera is never enough. A 16GB card costs less than £10. You may also need to buy batteries.

06

Most cameras now have a 3in screen.

Look out for 900,000-dot resolutions

Don’t forget that a camera’s specification tells you very little about its image quality. You’ll need to read our reviews for that. With a compact camera, we believe the user shouldn’t have to grapple with complicated controls in order to take great pictures in a range of lighting conditions.

PHOTOGRAPHY

SONY RX100 V

★★★★★ £949

• www.amzn.to/2rtLjLf

★★★★★ £1,249

• www.jessops.com

It may be small, but the RX100 V is seriously fast, and because it also captures a surprising amount of light, image and video quality are both top-notch.

The X-T2 is a mirrorless CSC capable of shooting high-quality images at incredibly high burst speeds, making it ideal for wildlife and sports photography.

SENSOR RESOLUTION 20 megapixels • SENSOR SIZE 13.2x8.8mm (1in) • FOCAL LENGTH MULTIPLIER 2.7x • VIEWFINDER Electronic (2,400,000 dots) • LCD SCREEN 3in (1,228,800 dots) • OPTICAL ZOOM (35mm-EQUIVALENT FOCAL LENGTHS) 2.9x (24-70mm) • 35mm-EQUIVALENT APERTURE f/4.9-7.6 • WEIGHT 298g • DIMENSIONS 60x104x41mm • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.sony.co.uk • FULL REVIEW Apr 2017

SENSOR RESOLUTION 24 megapixels • SENSOR SIZE 23.6x15.6mm (APS-C) • FOCAL LENGTH MULTIPLIER 1.5x • VIEWFINDER Electronic (2.36 million dots) • LCD SCREEN 3in (1.04 million dots) • VIEWFINDER MAGNIFICATION (35mm-EQUIVALENT, COVERAGE) 0.77x, 100% • LENS MOUNT Fujifilm X Mount • WEIGHT 507g • DIMENSIONS 92x143x51mm • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.fujifilm.eu/uk • FULL REVIEW May 2017

NIKON D3400

POLAROID Originals OneStep 2

★★★★★ £449

• www.johnlewis.com

A collection of minor improvements to battery life, shooting speed and stills quality y add up to make the D3400 the best entry-level DSLR available.

SENSOR RESOLUTION 24 megapixels • SENSOR SIZE 23.5x15.6mm (APS-C) • VIEWFINDER Optical TTL • LCD SCREEN 3in (921,000 dots) • OPTICAL ZOOM (35mm-EQUIVALENT FOCAL LENGTHS) 3x (27-82.5mm) • 35mm-EQUIVALENT APERTURE f/5.25-8.4 • LENS MOUNT Nikon F Mount • WEIGHT 655g • DIMENSIONS 99x124x135mm • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.europe-nikon.com • FULL REVIEW Jun 2017

PANASONIC Lumix GH5 H5

★★★★★ £1,599

56

FUJIFILM X-T2

• www.wexphotographic.com

★★★★★

£109

• www.jessops.com

The OneStep 2 brings back the simple joys of instant photography.

Although the stock can get quite pricey, your shots will look just as they would on a classic Polaroid – perfect for sharing or simply sticking to the fridge.

PHOTO SIZE 3.1x3.1in • BATTERY LIFE 15-20 packets of film • PORTS 1x Micro USB • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.polaroidoriginals.com • FULL REVIEW Jan 2018

PANASONIC Lumix DMC-G80 MC-G80 ★★★★★ £749

• www.jessops.com

This update to the brilliant GH4 can take great photos, but it’s video capture where the GH5 truly excels. Its 4K, 60fps footage is crisp enough for serious indie filmmaking, and it supports 10-bit recording and an optional flat colour profile as well.

The G80 is ahead of the pack when it comes to video quality, y, and its stills look great as well.. It’s more expensive than the preceding G7, but includes ludes a superior 12-60mm kit lens, among other improvements.

SENSOR RESOLUTION 20 megapixels • SENSOR SIZE 17.3x13mm • FOCAL LENGTH MULTIPLIER 2x • VIEWFINDER Electronic (3,680,000 dots) • LCD SCREEN 3.2in (1,620,000 dots) • LENS MOUNT Micro Four Thirds • WEIGHT 725g (with kit lens) • DIMENSIONS 98x146x88mm • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.panasonic.com/uk • FULL REVIEW Sep 2017

SENSOR RESOLUTION 16 megapixels • SENSOR SIZE 17.3x13mm • FOCAL LENGTH MULTIPLIER 2x • VIEWFINDER Electronic (2,360,000 dots) • LCD SCREEN 3in (1,040,000 dots) • LENS MOUNT Micro Four Thirds • WEIGHT 715g with kit lens • DIMENSIONS 79x137x130mm • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.panasonic.com/uk • FULL REVIEW Jul 2017

AUGUST 2018

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 366

Choosing a... Display 01

A basic 24in LCD monitor costs around £100. It will be fine for typical Windows work but is likely to have poor viewing angles, so you’ll need to sit straight on for the best picture quality. Its colour accuracy may not be very good, either.

02

A VGA input lets you use the monitor with any PC, but the quality may not be as good as it is over DVI or HDMI. Both are digital connections and require a compatible graphics card but they avoid the need for digital-to-analogue or analogue-todigital conversions, which can reduce image quality. A digital connection achieves the best picture automatically, so you won’t have to adjust clock or phase settings as you do with analogue connections.

Many DVI and all HDMI connections support HDCP, which lets you watch protected video content, such as Blu-ray movies. DisplayPort is becoming more popular, but you’ll need a graphics card with a DisplayPort output (mini or full-size) to use this input on your monitor.

03

A larger monitor will be easier on the eye and may have a higher resolution.

Most monitors have a resolution of at least 1,920x1,080 (1080p), which provides lots of room for working with multiple windows at the same time. For even higher resolutions, you’ll need a larger display. Some 27in and 30in screens have 2,560x1,600 or even 4K resolutions. You’ll need a graphics card with a dual-link DVI output and a dual-link DVI

cable or either HDMI or DisplayPort to use a monitor at these resolutions.

04

If you want better picture quality, look for a monitor with a high contrast ratio. The higher the ratio, the whiter the whites and the blacker the blacks. You’ll also be able to see more fine detail in images with high contrast levels. Viewing angles are important, as wider angles mean you don’t have to sit directly in front of the monitor to get the best picture. Wider viewing angles also allow more people to view the screen at the same time.

Fast response times reduce ghosting, but don’t be dazzled by the numbers. A response time of 25ms or quicker is fine for all applications.

DISPLAYS

AOC G2460VQ6 ★★★★★

£126

• www.amzn.to/2IwGidq

NEW ENTRY

BENQ SW2700PT ★★★★★ £599

• www.amzn.to/2fj53dh

Once you switch it to sRGB mode, this is one very good low-cost gaming monitor. Its 75Hz refresh rate means you’ll benefit from higher frame rates more effectively than on a standard 60Hz screen.

After calibration, this professional-grade monitor has near-perfect ect colour accuracy, so it’s ideal for photo and nd video editing. The Quad HD resolution also ensures there’s plenty of room for Windows multitasking.

SCREEN SIZE 24in • RESOLUTION 1,920x1,080 • SCREEN TECHNOLOGY TN • VIDEO INPUTS VGA, HDMI, DisplayPort • WARRANTY Three years collect and return • DETAILS eu.aoc.com • PART CODE G2460VQ6 • FULL REVIEW Jul 2018

SCREEN SIZE 27in • RESOLUTION 2,560x1,440 • SCREEN TECHNOLOGY IPS (AHVA) • VIDEO INPUTS DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort • WARRANTY Three years RTB • DETAILS www.benq.com • PART CODE M352753 • FULL REVIEW Nov 2017

VIEWSONIC XG2700-4K

AOC Q3279VWF ★★★★★ £195

★★★★★ £265

•

www.amzn.to/2oqjuAj

• www.amzn.to/2BjxUGC

Even if this isn’t the most cutting-edge monitor, or, its 4K gaming capability still holds up, with a responsive ive and colourful IPS panel and almost a complete lack of ghosting. AMD graphics card owners can also eliminate tearing with FreeSync.

We never thought you could get so much monitor for this little cash - just £195 for a vast 31.5in MVA panel, with Quad HD resolution, good colour accuracy and high contrast. That’s not to mention its 75Hz refresh rate and AMD

SCREEN SIZE 27in • RESOLUTION 3,840x2,160 • SCREEN TECHNOLOGY IPS • VIDEO INPUTS VGA, HDMI x3, DisplayPort, mini DisplayPort • WARRANTY Three years parts and labour • DETAILS www.viewsonic.com • PART CODE XG2700-4K • FULL REVIEW Apr 2018

SCREEN SIZE 31.5in • RESOLUTION 2,560x1,440 • SCREEN TECHNOLOGY MVA • REFRESH RATE 75Hz • VIDEO INPUTS HDMI, DisplayPort, VGA • WARRANTY Three years collect and return • DETAILS aoc-europe.com • FULL REVIEW Mar 2018

PHILIPS Brilliance 241B7QPJKEB Q J

SAMSUNG C34F791 1

★★★★★ £181

• www.uk.insight.com

★★★★★ £750

• www.ebuyer.com

IPS monitors generally look great, but it’s hard to find one at a low price. Enter the Brilliance 241B7QPJKEB: a colour-accuate IPS display for well under £200. It’s well designed, too, with a collapsible webcam and a greatly adjustable stand.

With its Quantum Dot ot display, the C34F791 can achieve pristine colour coverage and superp accuracy. Its Ultra HD resolution and 34in curved screen make it ideal for multitasking, but a 100Hz refresh rate and AMD FreeSync support ensure it’s even better for 4K gaming.

SCREEN SIZE 24in • RESOLUTION 1,920x1,080 • SCREEN TECHNOLOGY IPS • REFRESH RATE 60Hz • VIDEO INPUTS HDMI, DisplayPort, VGA • WARRANTY Three years RTB • DETAILS www.philips.co.uk • FULL REVIEW Jun 2018

SCREEN SIZE 34in • RESOLUTION 3,840x1,440 • SCREEN TECHNOLOGY VA • REFRESH RATE 100Hz • VIDEO INPUTS DisplayPort, HDMI • WARRANTY Two years RTB • DETAILS www.samsung.com/uk • FULL REVIEW Oct 2017

ISSUE 366 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| AUGUST 2018

57

Choosing a... Soundbar 01

If you don’t have space in your home cinema setup for a set of surroundsound speakers, a soundbar is the next best thing. Whether you opt for a soundbar (which typically sits in front of your TV stand) or a soundplate (which sits underneath your TV), you’ll be getting significantly better audio than the weedy speakers today’s flatscreen TVs provide.

boxes to your TV and run all audio through a single cable. Also look for phono inputs for connecting older devices and 3.5mm audio jacks for tablets or smartphones.

03

As with any speaker, the number of speaker drivers inside a soundbar should give a good indication of its audio capabilities. Although this won’t tell you everything about sound quality, you should still look out for separate mid-range drivers and tweeters, as these should be able to deliver a wider frequency range than full-range drivers alone.

02

If you want to cut down on cable clutter, look for a soundbar with multiple HDMI inputs and outputs as well as Audio Return Channel (ARC). Not all soundbars use HDMI, with many making do with digital optical audio connections instead. This means you’ll have to connect Blu-ray players, games consoles and set-top

04

Bluetooth support is a must if you want to listen to music from a smartphone or tablet without wires.

Most soundbars now include Bluetooth as standard but, if your device supports it, it’s worth looking for a mobile soundbar that includes aptX. This less-lossy codec is capable of higher-quality streaming than the standard A2DP profile.

AirPlay streaming is less common, but iPhone owners should keep an eye out for it.

05

For a little extra bass, be sure to look for a soundbar with a separate subwoofer. Many soundbars include a wired sub, but for extra convenience you should look for a model with a wireless subwoofer instead. These can be placed anywhere in a room near a power socket, without having to run a cable back to the soundbar itself.

HOME CINEMA

PANASONIC Viera TX-50DX802B

★★★★★ £799

• www.johnlewis.com

★★★★★ £800

• www.currys.co.uk

The Viera TX-50DX802B not only looks great and comes equipped with an expansive suite of smart apps, but it also has its own soundbar, allowing for clearer, boomier movie nights.

750 The HW-MS750 doesn’t need a bwoofer; it puts out a thunderous dedicated subwoofer; amout of bass all by itself, and its massive soundstage is perfect for films. It’s the best standalone soundbar around, although you will need to pay a premium for it.

SCREEN SIZE 50in • NATIVE RESOLUTION 3,840x2,160 • VIDEO INPUTS 3x HDMI (1x ARC), component, composite • TUNER Freeview HD • DIMENSIONS 1,115x647x35mm • WARRANTY Five years RTB • DETAILS www.panasonic.com/uk • PART CODE TX-50DX802B • FULL REVIEW Apr 2017

SPEAKERS 11 • RMS POWER OUTPUT 450W • WEIGHT 6.3kg • NETWORKING 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.samsung.com/uk • PART CODE HW-MS750 • FULL REVIEW May 2018

SAMSUNG UE49KS7000

PANASONIC DMP-UB900

★★★★★ £1,099

• www.reliantdirect.co.uk

★★★★★

£389

• www.cramptonandmoore.co.uk

A good-quality 4K TV needn’t cost the earth, as the UE49KS7000 proves. In fact, this Quantum Dot display earned the UHD Alliance’s UHD Premium badge for its rich, detailed visuals.

Together with the Samsung UBD-K8500, this forms the vanguard of a new breed of Ultra HD Blu-ray players.

Samsung’s model is cheaper, but the DMP-UB900 has superior features, particularly where audio delivery is concerned.

SCREEN SIZE 49in • NATIVE RESOLUTION 3,840x2,160 • VIDEO INPUTS 4x HDMI • TUNER Freeview HD, Freesat HD • DIMENSIONS 1,089x634x43mm • WARRANTY Five years RTB • DETAILS www.samsung.com/uk • PART CODE UE49KS7000 • FULL REVIEW Apr 2017

BLU-RAY PROFILE 6.0 • 3D CAPABLE Yes • DIMENSIONS 435x199x68mm • NETWORKING Ethernet, 802.11ac Wi-Fi • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.panasonic.co.uk • PART CODE DMP-UB900EB • FULL REVIEW Aug 2016

CAMBRIDGE AUDIO TV2 (v2)

POLK Audio MagniFi Mini

★★★★★ £200

58

SAMSUNG HW-MS750 W-MS750

• shop.cambridgeaudio.co.uk

★★★★★ £334

• www.hifix.co.uk

The TV2 (v2) is a simple, clean-looking soundbase. What it lacks in multiroom capability, due to its lack of Wi-Fi, it more than makes up in exquisite sound quality, especially with an integrated subwoofer producing strong but controlled bass.

A tiny soundbar with big sound, the MagniFi Mini takes up hardly any space under your TV but is capable of filling the living room with crystal-clear music and dialogue. Best of all, it comes with a standalone subwoofer, empowering bass booms with an extra kick.

SPEAKERS 3 • RMS POWER OUTPUT 150 • DIMENSIONS 100x500x333mm • WEIGHT Not stated • DOCK CONNECTOR None • NETWORKING Bluetooth (aptX) • WARRANTY Two years repair and replace • DETAILS www.cambridgeaudio.co.uk • PART CODE TV2 (v2) • FULL REVIEW Jul 2017

SPEAKERS 7 • RMS POWER OUTPUT 150W • DIMENSIONS 813x340x101mm (soundbar), 366x118x366mm (subwoofer) • WEIGHT 1.76kg (soundbar), 3.68kg (subwoofer) • DOCK CONNECTOR None • NETWORKING 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth • WARRANTY One year repair and replace • DETAILS www.polkaudio.com • PART CODE MagniFi Mini • FULL REVIEW Sep 2017

AUGUST 2018

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 366

Choosing a... Bluetooth speaker 01

Bluetooth speakers come in all shapes and sizes, so you’ll need to decide what you want to do with the speaker before you buy. If you don’t plan to take your music outdoors or around the house, look for a wired speaker. These are typically cheaper than speakers with built-in batteries.

If you do want a portable speaker, however, pay particular attention to how much it weighs. Ruggedised models should be able to survive accidental drops, water spills and unexpected rain showers.

02

Many of the cheapest Bluetooth speakers use the lossy A2DP Bluetooth protocol, which is prone to compressing your music and discarding detail compared with the original recording.

It’s hard to tell the difference when listening to pocket-sized speakers, but if you’re looking for a speaker to fill a room, an aptX-compatible device is a better option.

This Bluetooth protocol retains more detail than the A2DP profile, although you’ll need to use it with a compatible smartphone in order to get the benefits.

03

As with any audio product, the number and size of speaker drivers can have a significant impact on the quality of sound you get from a Bluetooth speaker.

Typically, the presence of multiple drivers enables the manufacturer to tune each one for specific frequencies, directing high-end sounds towards a tweeter and sending the mid-range frequencies to the main driver.

Single-driver speakers with larger driver cones can be just as capable of producing fantastic audio, however.

04

Most Bluetooth speakers have at least one auxiliary input for a wired 3.5mm audio jack, in case you want to listen to music from a device that doesn’t have Bluetooth.

There are other extra features to look out for, though. Speakers with built-in batteries may have a USB port for charging your smartphone, or a built-in microphone to turn it into a speakerphone when a paired smartphone receives a call. Not all speakers have physical controls; many rely on your paired device’s controls for adjusting the volume or muting playback.

AUDIO

BOWERS & WILKINS P7 Wireless Wir

BOSE QuietComfortt 35 II

★★★★★

★★★★★ ★★

Bowers & Wilkins’ second-ever pair of Bluetooth headphones are a triumph – they’re exceedingly comfortable and sound superb, even without any active noise cancelling.

The world’s best ANC headphones get a Google gle Assistant upgrade: you u can search for songs, select playlists and set reminders all via the built-in microphone. ne.

And, of course, they sound splendid.

£325

• www.freemans.com

£299 £29

HEADPHONES SUBTYPE Over-ear headset • PLUG TYPE 3.5mm jack plug (optional) • WEIGHT 323g • CABLE LENGTH 1.2m • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.bowers-wilkins.co.uk • PART CODE FP38954 • FULL REVIEW Feb 2017

PANASONIC SC-All7CD

• www.weybridge-audio.co.uk

HEADPHONES SUBTYPE Over-ear headset • PLUG TYPE PE 3.5mm jack plug (optional) • WEIGHT 310g • CABLE LENGTH 1.2m • WARRANTY Two years RTB DETAILS www.bose.co.uk • PART CODE 789564-0010 • FULL REVIEW Apr 2018

CREATIVE Muvo 2c

•

NEW ENTRY

★★★★★

★★★★★

A focus on good oldfashioned CDs, in addition to the usual digital streaming services, makes the SC-All7CD one of the most versatile versati atile le multiroom speaker systems you can bu buy.

Considering it’s both pocket-sized and dirt cheap, the Muvo 2c’s bass presence and sheer loudness come ba e as a pleasant surprise, and it’s water- and d dust-resistant as well. du

SPEAKERS 2.1 • RMS POWER OUTPUT 40W • WEIGHT 3.4kg • NETWORKING Bluetooth • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.panasonic.com • PART CODE SC-All7CD • FULL REVIEW Dec 2016

SPEAKERS 1 • RMS POWER OUTPUT Not stated • DOCK CONNECTOR None • NETWORKING Bluetooth 4.2 (SBC) • DIMENSIONS 93x38x67mm • WEIGHT 159g • WARRANTY Two years RTB • DETAILS uk.creative.com • PART CODE 51MF8250AA011 • FULL REVIEW Jul 2018

UE Wonderboom

UE Megablast

£300

• www.amzn.to/2I8C88k

★★★★★ £59

• www.amzn.to/2s4lpgH

The Wonderboom may look small, and it is, but this portable, waterproof speaker is capable of blasting out sound that’s both incredibly loud and satisfyingly rich.

SPEAKERS 2 • RMS POWER OUTPUT Not stated • DOCK CONNECTOR None • NETWORKING Bluetooth • DIMENSIONS 40x46x65mm • WEIGHT 425g • WARRANTY Two years RTB • DETAILS www.ultimateears.com • PART CODE 82343342 • FULL REVIEW Aug 2017

ISSUE 366 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| AUGUST 2018

£30

• www.amzn.to/2wzSxB8

★★★★★

£170

• www.johnlewis.com

The Megablast brings Amazon Alexa functionality to UE’s marvellous wireless range, making it a rare smart speaker that can easily be taken outside or used in the shower.

SPEAKERS 4 • RMS POWER OUTPUT Not disclosed • DOCK CONNECTOR None • NETWORKING 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth (SBC) • DIMENSIONS 237x88x88mm • WEIGHT 1.2kg • WARRANTY Two years RTB • DETAILS www.ultimateears.com • PART CODE 984-000923 • FULL REVIEW Apr 2018

59

Choosing a... Media streamer 01

Media streamers have come a long way from the hard disk-based set-top boxes of a few years ago. They now come in two main forms: flash drive-sized dongles that plug directly into the HDMI port in the back of your TV, and larger microconsoles that sit under it. Whichever model you choose, it will stream content from the internet rather than storing media files locally.

02

Most streamers use their own operating system, which you can navigate with a bundled remote control, but Google’s Chromecast dongle requires a paired smartphone, tablet or laptop to stream content on the big screen. If you’re looking to set up Netflix for

someone who doesn’t have a smartphone, buy a standalone streamer such as a Roku or Amazon Fire TV device.

03

A media streamer is only as good as the services it supports, although a device that offers more services won’t necessarily offer more high-quality content than a media streamer with fewer channels.

Instead, look out for major channels such as Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, BBC iPlayer, Sky Go and YouTube. If any of these are missing, the remaining channels aren’t likely to be much cop.

04

Although nearly all streamers now pull content from the web, they’re still capable of playing content stored locally

from a networked PC or NAS device. Not all streamers are capable of playing all media file formats, however. If you have a lot of MKV or MOV files, check that your chosen streamer supports them before you buy.

These are typically the file formats devices struggle with the most.

05

Media streamers aren’t just for video, either. Many support online music services including Spotify, Rdio and TuneIn Radio. Others essentially use the same hardware as a smartphone and are capable of running apps or playing games. Some of the most powerful are compatible with dedicated game controllers, but these are typically sold as optional accessories rather than bundled with the streamer.

VIDEO

AMAZON Fire TV with 4K Ultra HD (2017) ★★★★★ £70

• www.amzn.to/2B72FTN Despite shrinking from a set-top box to an HDMI dongle, this is packed with new features, including a remote that works with Alexa voice commands.

£40

• www.amzn.to/2s4qrKp

Don’t have a 4K TV? No worries – the standard Fire TV Stick is a wonderful little streamer in its own right. The 2017 model has added Alexa, Amazon’s digital assistant, so searching through the vast library is easier than ever.

VIDEO OUTPUTS HDMI 2.0 • NETWORKING 802.11ac Wi-Fi • DIMENSIONS 65x65x15mm • STREAMING FORMATS UPnP, AirPlay, DLNA, Plex • INTERNET STREAMING SERVICES Amazon Video, Netflix, BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, All 4, My5 • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www. amazon.co.uk • PART CODE Fire TV with 4K UHD (2017) • FULL REVIEW Feb 2018

VIDEO OUTPUTS HDMI 2.0 • NETWORKING 802.11ac Wi-Fi • DIMENSIONS 86x30x13mm • STREAMING FORMATS UPnP (via apps) • INTERNET STREAMING SERVICES iPlayer, ITV Hub, All4, My 5, Amazon Prime Instant Video, Netflix • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.amazon.co.uk • PART CODE B01ETRIFOW • FULL REVIEW Aug 2017

NVIDIA Shield TV (2017)

YI 4K+

★★★★★ £190

• www.johnlewis.com

A good media streamer/ Android games console hybrid made even better by a more comfortable controller, a wider range of streaming sources and smart home integration.

VIDEO OUTPUTS HDMI 1.4 • NETWORKING 802.11ac Wi-Fi, 10/100/1,000 Ethernet, Bluetooth 4.1 • DIMENSIONS 159x98x26mm • STREAMING FORMATS Plex, Kodi • INTERNET STREAMING SERVICES Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Google Play Movies and TV, Google Play Music, YouTube, BBC iPlayer • WARRANTY Two years repair and replace • DETAILS www.nvidia.co.uk • PART CODE 945-12897-2505-000 • FULL REVIEW May 2017

APPLE TV 4K ★★★★★ £179

• www.apple.com/uk

This big update adds 4K content (including (including, for the first time, Amazon Video support). The best part is that if there’s a 4K version of content you’ve previously purchased in HD, Apple will upgrade it free of charge.

VIDEO OUTPUTS HDMI 2.0a • NETWORKING 802.11ac Wi-Fi, 10/100/1,000 Ethernet • DIMENSIONS 35x98x98mm • STREAMING FORMATS AirPlay, others via apps • INTERNET STREAMING SERVICES iTunes, Apple Music, Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Now TV, BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, All 4 • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.apple.com/uk • PART CODE Apple TV 4K • FULL REVIEW Jan 2018

60

AMAZON Fire TV Stick

★★★★★

★★★★★ £266

• www.amzn.to/2qLlqoK

At last, a 4K action camera that not only rivals the GoPro Hero range, but surpasses it. The Yi 4K+ is well priced considering its high video quality, wealth of shooting options and responsive UI, and it has electronic image stablisation too.

SENSOR 1/2.3in CMOS • SENSOR PIXELS 12 megapixels • MAXIMUM RECORDING RESOLUTION 4K (60fps) • AV CONNECTIONS USB Type-C • DIMENSIONS 42x65x30mm • WEIGHT 96g • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.yitechnology.com • PART CODE 91107 • FULL REVIEW Jun 2018

SAMSUNG Gear 360 (2017) ★★★★★ £178

• www.amzn.to/2wesOMX

Samsung’s updated 360º camera improves on the original in every way: it’s more portable, supports live video stream, am, and is no longer limited to Samsung Galaxy phones. Bestt of all, it’s cheaper than the previous model was at launch. h.

SENSOR RESOLUTION Dual 8.4 megapixels • SENSOR SIZE Not disclosed • VIEWFINDER None • LCD SCREEN 0.5in 72x32 PMOLED • DIMENSIONS 100x46x45mm • WEIGHT 130g • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.samsung.com/uk • PART CODE SM-R210NZWABTU • FULL REVIEW Oct 2017

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| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 366

Choosing a... Wearable 03

01

Fitness trackers are much more dedicated to healthy pursuits.

Step counters, heart-rate monitors and even sleep tracking are all common, and the data collected is fed back to you so you can see how your workout routine or calorie intake is going.

Many smartwatches also contain health-tracking features, but fitnessspecific wearables tend to be cheaper, smaller and lighter.

Wearable tech can include anything from chest-strap heart-rate monitors to augmented reality glasses, but the two most common types are smartwatches and fitness trackers. Both are designed to sit unassumingly on your wrist, and are almost always meant to be used in tandem with a paired smartphone.

02

Smartwatches are typically more complex and expensive, though more closely resemble a traditional wristwatch. You can use them to receive and reply to text messages and emails, quickly check maps and even play games – like a smartphone, most smartwatches allow you to install your own choice of apps.

04

When it comes to battery life, it’s important for any wearable to last a full day, but if it’s a smartwatch then you can get away with having to charge it overnight. With fitness trackers, it’s better if it lasts for several days off

a single charge, so you can wear it to bed and benefit from sleep tracking.

05

Look out for waterproofing as well.

Wearables that don’t mind a few lengths of the pool can be used for swimming or just timekeeping, and at the very least we expect a fitness tracker to be able to deal with rain or sweat.

06

Different smartwatches use different operating systems, which determine which apps you can install on your device, as well as compatibility with smartphones. Android Wear and Tizen smartwatches will work with both Android and iOS phones, but Apple’s watchOS will only pair with an iOS handset.

WEARABLES

APPLE Watch Series 3

SAMSUNG Gear S3

★★★★★

★★★★★ £306

• www.amzn.to/2ssXHv4

£329

NEW ENTRY

• www.apple.com/uk

The Gear S3 isn’t the cheapest smartwatch, but it is one of the best. It’s ripe with both everyday and serious fitness features, and its rotating bezel is hands-down our favourite method for navigating menus on a wearable.

Much-improved fitnesstracking capabilities, together ther with Apple’s knack for physical design, make this easily the most versatile Apple Watch yet. It’s just a shame it will still only work with Apple’s own iPhones..

PEDOMETER Yes • HEART-RATE MONITOR Yes • DISPLAY SIZE 1.3in • RESOLUTION 360x360 • OS SUPPORT Android, iOS • BATTERY LIFE Five days • WARRANTY Two years RTB • DETAILS www.samsung.com/uk • PART CODE M-R760NDAABTU • FULL REVIEW Apr 2017

PEDOMETER Yes • HEART-RATE MONITOR Yes • DISPLAY SIZE 1.65in • RESOLUTION 312x390 • OS SUPPORT iOS • BATTERY LIFE 18 hours • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.apple. com/uk • PART CODE Apple Watch Series 3 • FULL REVIEW May 2018

MISFIT Phase

HUAWEI Watch 2 Sport

★★★★★

£81

★★★★★

• www.misfit.com

£189

• www.amzn.to/2qLo7qo

An interesting combination of classic timepiece, fitness tracker and connected smartwatch, the Phase doesn’t have a touchscreen or apps but can still control music ic playback and smart home hardware.

It’s worth shelling out for the premium version of this sporty Android Wear smartwatch: it includes built-in 4G connectivity, which when combined with GPS tracking means you can safely leave your smartphone at home.

PEDOMETER Yes • HEART-RATE MONITOR Yes • DISPLAY SIZE 1.6in • RESOLUTION N/A • OS SUPPORT Android, iOS • BATTERY LIFE Six months • WARRANTY Two years RTB • DETAILS www.misfit.com • PART CODE MIS5000 • FULL REVIEW Jun 2017

PEDOMETER Yes • HEART-RATE MONITOR Yes • DISPLAY SIZE 1.2in • RESOLUTION 690x690 • OS SUPPORT Android, iOS • BATTERY LIFE Two days • WARRANTY Two years RTB • DETAILS consumer.huawei.com • PART CODE Huawei Watch 2 Sport • FULL REVIEW Jul 2017

FITBIT Versa

SAMSUNG Gear Fit2

NEW ENTRY

★★★★★ £200

• www.currys.co.uk

★★★★★ £180

• www.argos.co.uk

The Versa is a much more successful smartwatch/fitness tracker hybrid than Fitbit’s previous attempt, the Ionic: this is pleasantly lightweight, highly customisable and backed up p by an active (and competitive) community of Fitbit users.

There’s much to like about this Tizen-powered fitness tracker. GPS is a very welcome inclusion, and you can add widgets to the touchscreen, just like on a smartwatch.

PEDOMETER Yes • HEART-RATE MONITOR Yes • DISPLAY SIZE 1.3in • RESOLUTION 300x300 • OS SUPPORT Android, iOS • BATTERY LIFE Four days • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.fitbit.com • PART CODE FB505RGPK-EU • FULL REVIEW Jul 2018

PEDOMETER Yes • HEART-RATE MONITOR Yes • DISPLAY SIZE 1.3in • RESOLUTION 216x432 • OS SUPPORT Android, iOS • BATTERY LIFE Four days • WARRANTY Two days • DETAILS www.samsung.com/uk • PART CODE SM-R3600DAADBT • FULL REVIEW Sep 2017

ISSUE 366 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| AUGUST 2018

61

Choosing a... Smart thermostat 01

A smart thermostat can save you a lot of money by intelligently controlling your heating.

Most smart heating devices are designed to be used with hot water central heating systems, with the boiler directly controlled by the system. These typically require a relay to be wired into your boiler, with a wireless thermostat giving you direct control.

Smartphone apps then tie into the system to give you remote control. While it’s possible to fit controls yourself, you may want to pay an experienced plumber to do the job: expect to pay around £150 for a typical installation.

If you have electric heating, there are very few choices, and the big names (Nest, Honeywell and so on) do not directly support these systems.

02

Want smart hot water control?

If you want to remotely set schedules and disable hot water while you’re away, choose your smart system carefully, as many don’t have this option.

Hot water control usually requires a second relay to be wired into the boiler.

03

What kind of heating system do you want? There are two main choices: a central system and one with individual radiator controls. The former replaces your existing thermostat, and lets you set one temperature for your entire house. The latter requires each radiator valve to be replaced with a smart valve so that each room and radiator can have its own individual control.

This option is more expensive to install but will provide you with greater savings.

04

Do you use a smart personal assistant? Make sure that your smart thermostat supports the one that you use.

Amazon Alexa, powered by the Echo and Echo Dot, is the best-supported system; Apple’s HomeKit, powered by Siri, isn’t so well supported; Google Assistant, built into Google Home, is just gaining traction and supports Nest only.

05

If you want your smart heating system to do more, look for IFTTT support. With this handy system, you can set automatic rules, such as turning the heating off if the outside temperature rises.

SMART HOME

AMAZON Echo 2nd Generation

NEW ENTRY

★★★★★

★★★★★

The updated Echo is both smaller and cheaper than the original, and while the souped-up £140 Echo Plus is better for listening to music, this model’s blend of value and all-round quality makes it a better buy.

While this is an expensive xpensive replacement for the old Nest Cam Outdoor, its image mage quality is without equal. Facial and sound recognition ecognition have also been improved, and it’s now w much harder for thieves to remove the camera from its mount.

DRIVERS 2 • RMS POWER OUTPUT Not stated • WEIGHT 921kg • NETWORKING Bluetooth, 802.11n Wi-Fi • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.amazon.co.uk • PART CODE Echo 2nd Generation • FULL REVIEW Mar 2018

VIDEO RESOLUTION 4K sensor, 1080p recording • CLOUD STORAGE Yes (subscription required) • NETWORKING 802.11ac • WARRANTY One year RTB • PART CODE Nest Cam IQ Outdoor • FULL REVIEW Jul 2018

TADO Smart Thermostat

HONEYWELL Evohome Security

£90

• www.amzn.to/2DxFEuQ

★★★★★ £199

• www.tado.com

£229

• nest.com/uk

★★★★★

• www.theevohomeshop.co.uk

A flexible and stylish-looking smart heating system, the Tado Smart Thermostat distinguishes itself with a clever geolocation feature that turns on your heating when you enter a room and switches it off, saving money, when you leave.

£300

REMOTE THERMOSTAT Yes • HOT WATER SUPPORT Yes • INDIVIDUAL RADIATOR CONTROL Yes • VOICE ASSISTANT SUPPORT Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri • APPS iOS, Android and web • FULL REVIEW Jan 2018

AVAILABLE SENSORS Motion sensor, door/window sensor, motion sensor with camera • DISARMING OPTIONS Remote keyfob, app, Tags • SIRENS AND CONTROLS External siren, contactless tag reader/internal siren • WARRANTY Two years RTB • FULL REVIEW Aug 2017

GOOGLE Home

NETATMO Presence

★★★★★ £129

62

NEST Cam IQ Outdoor

• store.google.com

This smart alarm system em will notify you of a break-in, and its motion sensors can even take a picture of an intruder so that you can quickly rule out false alarms.

A great range of sensors and full app control make this a top choice.

★★★★★ £210

• www.wickes.co.uk

Amazon Echo may be compatible le with the most smart home products, but Google Home has the smartest assistant. Able to understand context xt and reply to questions in a more conversational way, Google Home is a brilliant personal assistant. nt.

This clever outdoor security camera can recognise the difference between people, es animals and cars, and you can choose which ones to get alerts from. In other words, it’s the ideal camera to monitor the busy front of your home.

DRIVERS 1x 2in driver, 2x 2in passive radiators • RMS POWER OUTPUT Not stated • DOCK CONNECTOR None • WIRELESS 802.11ac Wi-Fi • DIMENSIONS 143x96x96mm • WEIGHT 477g • WARRANTY One year RTB • PART CODE Home • FULL REVIEW Jul 2017

VIDEO RESOLUTION 720p/1080p • CLOUD STORAGE Yes (can upload footage to Dropbox) • NETWORKING 802.11n (2.4GHz) • WARRANTY One year RTB • PART CODE Presence • FULL REVIEW Feb 2017

AUGUST 2018

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 366

Choosing a... Laser printer 01

Laser printers used to be much more expensive than inkjets and were typically restricted to offices. They are now much more affordable, however, and offer several benefits over inkjets, including lower per-page printing costs and faster print speeds.

02

A decent laser printer will typically cost around £80, and will happily print hundreds of black-and-white pages per hour. If documents are your priority, you’ll want a high minimum speed and low print costs. However, you’ll probably be limited to black-and-white printing at this price.

03

Although you can still buy singlefunction laser printers, multifunction

peripherals (MFPs) are now far more common. These models can scan and photocopy documents as well as print them, and some of them also have fax capabilities.

Laser MFPs start from around £200.

04

Heavy-duty office lasers designed for printing thousands of pages per month can cost thousands of pounds. They use large individual toner drums, which can cut running costs. Automatic duplex (double-sided) printing is also common here.

05

Although laser printers are more suited to printing text than graphics, many are still able to produce high-quality photographs. Speed isn’t a priority here – instead choose a printer that reproduces

subtle tones well. You can’t determine this by looking at the specifications; only hands-on testing will do, so remember to check our reviews before you buy.

Borderless printing (up to the edge of the paper) should also be possible.

06

If you want to print from multiple devices, make sure you look for extended connectivity. Decent laser printers can be shared on your local network and have USB ports for direct printing, memory card slots for printing images from a digital camera, and iOS, Android or Google Cloud Print support for printing from mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets.

An LCD preview screen offers greater control for this method of printing.

PRINTERS & SCANNERS

EPSON Expression Photo HD XP-15000

XYZPRINTING da Vinci Minimaker X

★★★★★ ★★ £196 £19

★★★★★ £252

• www.amzn.to/2u36B4U

It’s not as fully featured as the da Vinci Jr 1.0w, but the Minimaker prints at identical speed and quality, and costs much, much less. In fact, it’s the qua he most affordable 3D printer we’ve ever used. mos

The Expression Photo HD XP-15000 is, as the name suggests, a photographer’s ’s friend: it can print out shots in exceedingly gly high quality, on paper sizes all the way up to A3+.

TECHNOLOGY Piezo inkjet • MAXIMUM PRINT RESOLUTION 5,760x1,440dpi • DIMENSIONS 159x439x370mm • WEIGHT 8.5kg • MAXIMUM PAPER SIZE A3+ • WARRANTY One year RTB DETAILS www.epson.co.uk • PART CODE C11CG43401 • FULL REVIEW Apr 2018

• www.amzn.to/2HBRNzN

•

HP OfficeJet Pro 7720

TECHNOLOGY Fused Filament Fabrication • MAXIMUM PRINT RESOLUTION 100 microns • TE MAXIMUM BUILD SIZE 150x150x150mm • DIMENSIONS 390x360x335mm • WEIGHT 11.5kg • FILAMENT 1.75mm PLA • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS eu.xyzprinting.com • PART CODE 3FM1XXEU00D • FULL REVIEW Apr 2017

CANON Pixma TS3150

★★★★★

★★★★★

The OfficeJet Pro 7720 strikes a fine balance between price, performance and features, making it ideal for home offices and small businesses – especially those that could use A3 printing.

If you only print or scan infrequently, you probably don’t need a load of fancy features. The Pixma TS3150 does the job for hardly any money – it’s a bit slow, but the results are of a higher quality than we’d expect from a budget MFP.

TECHNOLOGY Thermal inkjet • MAXIMUM PRINT RESOLUTION 4,800x1,200dpi • SCANNER RESOLUTION 1,200x1,200dpi • DIMENSIONS (HXWXD) 307x445x585mm • WEIGHT 15.5kg • MAXIMUM PAPER SIZE A3 (print only) • WARRANTY Three years RTB • DETAILS www.hp.co.uk • PART CODE Y0S18A • FULL REVIEW Dec 2017

TECHNOLOGY Thermal inkjet • MAXIMUM PRINT RESOLUTION 4,800x1,200dpi • SCANNER RESOLUTION 600x1,200dpi • DIMENSIONS 126x373x315mm • WEIGHT 3.9kg • MAXIMUM PAPER SIZE A4/legal • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.canon.co.uk • PART CODE 2226C008 • FULL REVIEW Jan 2018

CANON imageFormula DR-C230

RICOH SP 150SUw

£104

• www.ebuyer.com

£36

★★★★★ £323

• www.ebuyer.com

nner This sheet-fed document scanner is perfect for getting through stacks ack off documents d without having to manually scan each page. It’s pleasantly fast and pairs with Canon’s powerful CaptureOnTouch Pro software, which does a fine job of processing your scans.

TECHNOLOGY Dual CIS sheet-fed scanner • SCANNER RESOLUTION 600x600dpi • DIMENSIONS 231x291x530mm • WEIGHT 2.8kg • MAXIMUM PAPER SIZE A4/legal • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.canon.co.uk • PART CODE 2646C003 • FULL REVIEW Feb 2018

ISSUE 366 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| AUGUST 2018

• www.ebuyer.com

★★★★★

£30

• www.printernet.co.uk

Buying a mono laser printer for your home may sound strange, but the SP 150SUw’s printing speed, quality and quietness make a lot of sense at this price.

TECHNOLOGY Mono laser • MAXIMUM PRINT RESOLUTION 1,200x600 • SCANNER RESOLUTION 1,200x1,200dpi • DIMENSIONS 137x350x275mm • WEIGHT 7.5kg • MAXIMUM PAPER SIZE A4/legal • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.ricoh.co.uk • PART CODE 408005 • FULL REVIEW Jun 2017

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Choosing a... NAS device 01

A network-attached storage (NAS) device lets you store documents, media, and other files on its hard disks so you can share them with other devices on your network. Some have disks already installed, while others are empty enclosures into which you install your own disks.

Buying an empty NAS can often be the more cost-effective option, as they’re usually less expensive and give you the freedom to add disks at a later date.

You should buy one with a Gigabit Ethernet interface, as these provide the highest transfer speeds. To use a NAS device at these speeds, you’ll need computers with Gigabit Ethernet network adaptors and a Gigabit Ethernet switch or router.

Computers with Fast Ethernet adaptors

can still access the NAS device, but only at the much slower speed of 100Mbit/s.

Synology’s barebones NAS kits have spare disk trays for cheaper and faster upgrades.

02

04

The amount of network storage you need depends on the types of files you use. If you want to store Word and Excel documents, for example, a 1TB device will be fine. In fact, a 1TB device should be sufficient for a family’s entire media collection, regardless of how many music and video files everyone owns. Small businesses should consider higher storage capacities, depending on the nature of the business.

If you want extra protection for your data, look for a device that supports RAID. RAID 1 and RAID 5 arrays reduce the available capacity by duplicating data, but you won’t lose it if a disk fails.

05

03

If you can see no end to your storage needs, you should buy an upgradable NAS device. Many have a USB port for adding an external disk. Devices such as

If you need access to your files while you’re away, look for a NAS device with an FTP server. Some can also share a USB printer across your network.

A NAS device with a Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) or DLNA media server can stream your music, photos and videos to a network media player, so you can enjoy your media collection in another room.

NETWORKS

D-LINK DIR-842 ★★★★★

£50

• www.amzn.to/2AyE8G6

★★★★★ £250

• www.currys.co.uk

This budget dual-band router is fast enough to serve as an affordable upgrade to your ISP router, and it’s easy to set up, too.

Although this isn’t the fastest £200-plus router, it’s still speedy, and comes with an impressive array of features, from parental controls and filters to BT YouView support and smart home integration.

WI-FI STANDARD 802.11ac • STATED SPEED 867Mbit/s (5GHz), 300Mbit/s (2.4GHz) • USB PORTS None • WALL MOUNTABLE Yes • WARRANTY Two years RTB • PART CODE DIR-842 • FULL REVIEW Jan 2018

MODEM Gigabit Ethernet • WI-FI STANDARD 802.11ac • STATED SPEED 2x 2,167Mbit/s (5GHz), 2x 1,000MBit/s (2.4GHz) • USB PORTS 1x USB2, 1x USB3 • WALL MOUNTABLE Yes • WARRANTY One year RTB • PART CODE C5400 • FULL REVIEW May 2018

YUBICO YubiKey 4

TP-LINK Deco M5

★★★★★

★★★★★

This isn’t your standard networking device: it’s a USB key that stores the cryptographic data required to log into your devices and services via two-factor authentication. This adds a secure and convenient second layer of protection, wherever you are.

Provided you’re willing to tinker with a few settings, the Deco M5 is the most feature-rich mesh Wi-Fi system around, even if it’s not strictly the fastest. Get the triple pack ack for the best coverage throughout the house.

USB TYPE Type-A • SUPPORTED SERVICES Google, Facebook, Dropbox, Windows, macOS Sierra, LastPass, Dashlane • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.yubico.com • PART CODE YubiKey 4 • FULL REVIEW Aug 2017

MODEM Gigabit Ethernet • WI-FI STANDARD 802.11ac • STATED SPEED 867Mbit/s (5GHz), 400Mbit/s (2.4GHz) • USB PORTS 0 • WALL MOUNTABLE No • WARRANTY Three years RTB • DETAILS www.tp-link.com • PART CODE 210380 • FULL REVIEW Dec 2017

D-LINK DIR-895L

GOOGLE Wifi

£39

• www.amzn.to/2vfQhtC

★★★★★ £349

• www.dlink-direct.co.uk

If you can stomach the price, D-Link’s DIR-895L will make it worth your while with staggeringly fast speeds and exceptionally long range. It also lets you connect to your home network remotely, via an L2TP VPN. MODEM Gigabit Ethernet • WI-FI STANDARD 802.11ac • STATED SPEED 2x 2,166Mbit/s (5GHz), 1,000Mbit/s (2.4GHz) • USB PORTS 1x USB2, 1x USB3 • WALL MOUNTABLE Yes • WARRANTY Two years RTB • PART CODE DIR-895L • FULL REVIEW Dec 2017

64

TP-LINK Archer C5400 400

£230

• www.currys.co.uk

★★★★★

£229 (twin pack) store.google.com

•

Arguably the most user-friendly mesh yst yet, G l networking system Google Wifi trades long-range speed for supreme ease of use and excellent configuration tools.

MODEM N/A • WI-FI STANDARD 802.11ac • STATED SPEED 1,200Mbit/s • USB PORTS 0 • WALL MOUNTABLE No • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS madeby.google.com • PART CODE Google Wifi • FULL REVIEW Jul 2017

AUGUST 2018

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 366

Choosing an... Internal hard disk 01

A basic 1TB internal hard disk should cost around £40. This will be fast enough for general use and will provide enough storage for most users.

Make sure the hard disk you choose has the appropriate interface type for your PC. Most hard disks and solid-state drives (SSDs) use the SATA3 interface, which enables faster speeds than the older SATA2.

Pretty much every motherboard released in recent years will have multiple SATA3 ports, allowing you to connect several storage drives at once.

02

SSDs can make the most of SATA3’s high bandwidth for fast file transfers.

They use flash memory similar to that found in USB flash drives, and although they tend

to provide less capacity than mechanical hard disks, they’re significantly faster. More expensive SSDs use the NVMe standard, which is even faster than SATA3, but require an M.2 slot on the motherboard.

duplicate your data for better protection.

RAID arrays require hard disks of the same size. In theory, they can be from different manufacturers, but it’s better to buy identical disks if you can.

03

05

Buy a hard disk that provides more capacity than you think you need, as your storage requirements are likely to grow.

A 2TB disk strikes the best balance between capacity and low cost per gigabyte.

04

If you want more disk space or you want to protect your data against disk failure, think about buying several hard disks to create a RAID array. These use multiple hard disks to create one large logical disk with better performance, or to

A hard disk’s spindle speed determines how quickly it can transfer data. A spindle speed of 7,200rpm is common in desktop drives and is fast enough for most purposes. Desktop hard disks with 5,400rpm spindle speeds are quite slow but use less power and generate less heat and noise.

To strike the best balance between speed and storage capacity, use an SSD as your system disk and store your files on a larger mechanical disk.

STORAGE

SYNOLOGY DiskStation DS418j

INTEL Optane Memory 32GB

★★★★★

★★★★★

When a tiny two-bay NAS won’t cut it, the fast, high-capacity DiskStation DS418j is an excellent upgrade, especially as it can automatically convert old hard disks to be compatible with this NAS’s hardware and features.

An interesting twist on M.2 SSDs, Optane Memory isn’t sn’t so much a dedicated storage drive as a large cache for your existing hard disk, isk accelerating its read speeds to NVMe levels at a much lower price.

£280

• www.broadbandbuyer.com

3.5in HARD DISK BAYS (FREE) 4 (4) • NETWORKING 1x 10/100/1,000 Ethernet • DLNA MEDIA SERVER Yes • PRINT SERVER Yes • DIMENSIONS 184x168x230mm • WEIGHT 2.21kg • WARRANTY Two years RTB • DETAILS www.synology.com • PART CODE DS418j • FULL REVIEW Jan 2018

SAMSUNG 860 Evo 250GB

★★★★★ £73

• www.ebuyer.com

£55

• www.ebuyer.com

CAPACITY 32GB • PRICE PER GIGABYTE £1.72 • INTERFACE M.2/NVMe • WARRANTY Five years RTB • DETAILS www.intel.com • PART CODE MEMPEK1W032GAXT • FULL REVIEW Sep 2017

WD Red 6TB ★★★★★ £168

The 860 Evo, fittingly, replaces the old 850 Evo as the best 2.5in SSD around. Its read and write speeds push the limits of what SATA drives can do, and it’s had a big upgrade to endurance, nce, meaning you can write far more data to this SSD before it wears out.

CAPACITY 250GB • COST PER GIGABYTE 29p • INTERFACE SATA3 • WARRANTY Five years RTB • DETAILS www.samsung.com/uk • PART CODE MZ-76E250BW • FULL REVIEW Jun 2018

SAMSUNG TS 500GB

• www.ebuyer.com

This is pricier than most 6TB hard disks, even those created specifically for NAS drives, but the WD Red’s performance makes it a worthwhile investment. Despite its 5,400rpm spin speed it manages to outperform 7,200rpm drives such 5, as the Toshiba N300 in read/write tests.

CAPACITY 6TB • COST PER GIGABYTE 0.03p • INTERFACE SATA3 • CLAIMED READ 175MB/s • CLAIMED WRITE 175MB/s • WARRANTY Three years RTB • DETAILS www.wdc.com • PART CODE WD60EFRX • FULL REVIEW Nov 2017

SAMSUNG 960 Evo vo 250GB

★★★★★

★★★★★

Samsung’s easily pocketable SSD can reach breakneck transfer speeds; in fact, it’s the fastest portable SSD we’ve tested. This makes it worth your attention even with its high cost per gigabyte.

While it’s not quite as ro, quick as the 960 Pro, the 960 Evo is still the second-fastest NVMe SSD we’ve ever tested, and since it’s much more affordable, ordabl able, abl e, it’s the one most people should go for.

CAPACITY 500GB • COST PER GIGABYTE £0.38 • INTERFACE USB3.1 • WARRANTY Three years RTB • DETAILS www.samsung.com/uk • PART CODE MU-PA500B • FULL REVIEW Dec 2017

CAPACITY 250GB • COST PER GIGABYTE £0.44 • INTERFACE M.2/NVMe • CLAIMED READ 3,200MB/s • CLAIMED WRITE 1,500MB/s • WARRANTY Five years RTB • DETAILS www.samsung.com • PART CODE MZ-V6E250BW • FULL REVIEW Mar 2017

£190

• www.overclockers.co.uk

ISSUE 366 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| AUGUST 2018

£109

• www.ebuyer.com

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Choosing an... AMD motherboard 01

As with Intel motherboards, you’ll need to make sure you match an AMD processor with a compatible motherboard.

This is relatively simple for AMD hardware, as most of its recent chips use the same AM4 socket, and the most recent secondgeneration Ryzen processors are backwardscompatible with first-generation chipsets, such as the X370 and B350.

02

Budget APU and a minority of Ryzen processors have integrated graphics, so to make use of this, ensure that your motherboard comes with video outputs such as DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort. For Ryzen chips that lack integrated graphics, or if you want more graphics power, install a dedicated graphics card into one of your

motherboard’s PCI-E x16 slots. This also has the benefit of providing a greater range of video outputs to choose from.

03

Normal tower cases can accommodate ATX motherboards, which provide the most expansion slots. A microATX motherboard will let you build your PC in a smaller case, but if you opt for a microATX board, make sure it has all the features you need built in, as there won’t be much room for expansion cards.

04

If you want to install lots of expansion cards, look for a motherboard that offers plenty of PCI and PCI-E x1 slots. Some motherboards also have PCI-E x4 slots and extra PCI-E x16

slots. PCI-E x1 and x4 cards also work in PCI-E x16 slots. If you need a lot of storage, a motherboard with plenty of SATA2 and SATA3 ports is essential. SATA2 is fine for optical drives and hard disks, but to make the most of an SSD, you need SATA3.

05

All motherboards have built-in audio chipsets, but some support only 5.1 surround sound rather than 7.1. If you’re connecting to older surround-sound amplifiers that don’t have HDMI, look for an optical or coaxial S/PDIF output.

All motherboards have Ethernet ports and most have the faster Gigabit version. You may also find it useful to buy a board with built-in Wi-Fi so you don’t have to use up a USB port or PCI slot with an adaptor.

COMPONENTS

GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1050 D5 2G NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 ★★★★★ £120

★★★★★

• www.overclockers.co.uk

£279

Based on the same Pascal architecture as the fearsome GTX 1080 and GTX 1070, the mid-range GTX 1060 is unmatched when it comes to marrying price with 4K and VR-readiness.

It’s surprisingly power-efficient, too.

Nvidia’s GTX 1050 is the best-performing entry-level GPU, and Gigabyte has made some nice tweakss to its own version, including a near-silent ilent fan cooler. It also sips power, with a tiny TDP rating of 75W. GPU Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 • MEMORY 2GB GDDR5 • GRAPHICS CARD LENGTH 172mm WARRANTY Three years repair and replace • DETAILS www.gigabyte.com • PART CODE GV-N1050D5-2GD • FULL REVIEW Mar 2017

•

AMD Ryzen 7 1700 ★★★★★ £210

• www.ebuyer.com

The cheapest of AMD’s octa-core Ryzen 7 processors is also the best mix of price and performance.

It’s highly overclockable, but even at stock speeds can come close to the £500 Ryzen 7 1800X in multithreaded tasks.

It’s also incredibly efficient, with a TDP of just 65W.

GPU Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 • MEMORY 6GB GDDR5 • GRAPHICS CARD LENGTH 250mm • WARRANTY Three years repair and replace • DETAILS www.geforce.co.uk • PART CODE GTX 1060 Founder’s Edition • FULL REVIEW Nov 2016

COOLER MASTER MasterCase H500P Mesh White ★★★★★ £135

• www.ebuyer.com The two intake fans are a monster 200mm wide, and there’s room for plenty more inside.

SOCKET AM4 • CORES 8 • FREQUENCY 3.0GHz • INTEGRATED GRAPHICS None • WARRANTY Three years RTB • DETAILS www.amd.com • PART CODE YD1700BBAEBOX • FULL REVIEW Jul 2017

CASE TYPE Mid-tower • MOTHERBOARD TYPE ATX, EATX, microATX, Mini-ITX • SUPPLIED FANS 2x 200mm, 1x 140mm • MAX DRIVE BAYS 2x 3.5in, 4x 2.5in • TY Two years RTB • DETAILS www.

DIMENSIONS 542x242x544mm • WEIGHT 11.3kg • WARRANTY GNN-500 • FULL REVIEW Jun 2018 coolermaster.com • PART CODE MCM-H500P-WGNN-500

HYPERX Alloy Elite

MSI B350M Mortarr

★★★★★ £96

• www.currys.co.uk

This is a brilliant do-it-all gaming keyboard; the agile Cherry MX Red key switches provide a strong foundation, upon which HyperX has built a comfortable, detachable wrist rest, dedicated media keys and customisable red backlighting.

The USB pass-through port is handy, too.

KEYBOARD SHAPE Full size • NUMBER PAD Yes • CONNECTION 2x USB2 • MEDIA KEYS Pause/ play, mute, skip, volume • USB PORTS 1x USB2 • WARRANTY Two years repair and replace • DETAILS www.hyperxgaming.com • PART CODE HX-KB2RD1-UK/R1 • FULL REVIEW Mar 2018

66

• www.geforce.co.uk

★★★★★ £73

• www.amzn.to/2HyP1Zr

A near-perfect motherboard therboard for AMD Ryzen-based,, microATX systems. It’s remarkably rkably well equipped for connectivity and upgradability, and comes close to much more expensive mobos in performance benchmarks.

PROCESSOR SOCKET AM4 • DIMENSIONS 244x244mm • CHIPSET AMD B350M • MEMORY SLOTS 4 • PCI-E x16 SLOTS 2 • PCI-E x1 SLOTS 2 • PCI SLOTS 0 • USB PORTS 2x USB2, 3x USB3.1, 1x USB Type-C • VIDEO OUTPUTS 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort, 1x DVI-D • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.msi.com • PART CODE B350M Mortar • FULL REVIEW Aug 2017

AUGUST 2018

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 366

SOFTWARE • www.adobe.com

KASPERSKY Security Cloud ★★★★★ £50

• www.kaspersky.co.uk

It’s just as effective as Kaspersky Total Security, but Security Cloud goes a step further by learning your bad security habits and warning you about them.

There’s a lot to love in this update, especially the improved support for collaborative editing and a host of new tools for producing VR-ready 360° content.

OS SUPPORT Windows 7/8.1/10, OS X 10.11, macOS 10.12 and later • MINIMUM CPU Multicore • MINIMUM GPU Integrated graphics • MINIMUM RAM 8GB • HARD DISK SPACE 8GB • DETAILS www.adobe.com • FULL REVIEW Jun 2018

£6 per month

• www.expressvpn.com

ExpressVPN allows you to easily dodge region restrictions on online content while encrypting your connection, and is fast enough to handle 4K Netflix streaming. Its great software support and huge number of endpoints makes it the most flexible service, too.

OS SUPPORT Windows 7/8/10, OS 10.11/macOS 10.12, Android 4.1 and later, iOS 10/11 • MINIMUM CPU 1GHz • MINIMUM GPU None • MINIMUM RAM 1GB (32-bit), 2GB (64-bit) • HARD DISK SPACE 1,020MB (Windows), 1,110MB (Mac) • DETAILS www.kaspsersky.co.uk • PRODUCT CODE Security Cloud • FULL REVIEW Jan 2018

MICROSOFT Windows 10 Anniversary Update

OS ate d up

★★★★★

l rk tua wo Vir e net vat pri

EXPRESSVPN

ty uri re Sec ftwa so

£20 per month

g itin -ed re eo twa Vid sof

ADOBE Premiere Pro CC 2018

★★★★★

★★★★★

• www.microsoft.com

Free

This update adds UI improvments, new features and apps for stylus users, and a host of bug fixes, making Microsoft’s OS even more worthwhile.

ABBYY FineReader 14

MAILBIRD Mailbird Pro 2.0

★★★★★ £249

• www.abbyy.com

★★★★★

£9 per year or £28 lifetime

ail Em lient c

OS SUPPORT Windows 10 • MINIMUM CPU 1GHz • MINIMUM GPU DirectX 9 or later with WDDM 1.0 driver • MINIMUM RAM 1GB (32-bit), 2GB (64-bit) • HARD DISK SPACE 16GB (32-bit), 2GB (64-bit) • DETAILS www.microsoft.com • PRODUCT CODE Windows 10 version 1607 • FULL REVIEW Nov 2016

R OC ware t sof

OS SUPPORT Windows, macOS, iOS, Android • DETAILS www.expressvpn.com • PRODUCT CODE ExpressVPN • FULL REVIEW Jan 2017

• www.getmailbird.com

The more feature-rich Corporate edition is expensive, but FineReader 14 is perfect for turning paper notes and documents into digital, editable files using optical character recognition (OCR).

While the free version of this email client is good, upgrading to Pro is even better – you get a unified view of all your mailboxes, loads of themes and extensive integration with other apps and productivity software.

OS SUPPORT Windows 7/8/8.1/10 • MINIMUM CPU 1GHz • MINIMUM GPU DirectX 10 • MINIMUM RAM 1.5GB plus 512MB per additional CPU core • HARD DISK SPACE 2.4GB • DETAILS www.abbyy.com • PRODUCT CODE FineReader 14 • FULL REVIEW May 2017

OS SUPPORT Windows XP/7/8/8.1/10 • MINIMUM CPU N/A • MINIMUM GPU N/A • MINIMUM RAM N/A • HARD DISK SPACE 50MB • DETAILS www.getmailbird.com • FULL REVIEW Nov 2016

GAMING £229

• www.amzn.to/2okLvJg

£48

HDR support is great, but it’s the 4K Blu-ray player that makes this sleeker, smaller Xbox One really stand out against the competing PS4 Slim.

PROCESSOR Octa-core 1.75GHz Jaguar • RAM 8GB DDR3 • FRONT USB PORTS 1x USB2 • REAR USB PORTS 2x USB2 • STORAGE 500GB/1TB/2TB • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.xbox.com • PART CODE Xbox One S • FULL REVIEW Dec 2016

£8

• www.cdkeys.com

Breath of the Wild’s vision of Hyrule is a beautifully intricate open world – one you have total freedom to explore right from the off. Charming and challenging, this is both a brilliant game and the single best reason to buy a Nintendo Switch.

AVAILABLE FORMATS Ninetendo Switch • DISK SPACE 13.4GB (Switch), 13GB (Wii U) • DETAILS www.zelda.com • FULL REVIEW Jun 2017

SONY PS4 Slim ★★★★★ £249

A bloody and breathless FPS, Doom is a worthy entry into one of gaming’s most hallowed series.

Open-ended levels, agile enemies and gory but satisfying takedown moves make every demon battle rewarding.

AVAILABLE FORMATS PC, Xbox One, PS4 • OS SUPPORT Windows 7/8/8.1/10 • MINIMUM CPU Intel Core i3-550, AMD Phenom II X4 955 • MINIMUM GPU Nvidia GeForce GTX 670 2GB, AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB • MINIMUM RAM 4GB • HARD DISK SPACE 55GB • DETAILS doom.com • FULL REVIEW Sep 2016

ISSUE 366 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

• www.tesco.com

| AUGUST 2018

s me e Ga nsol co

★★★★★

n rso pe r st- ote Fir sho

BETHESDA Doom

NINTENDO The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild ★★★★★

ion re Act entu v ad

★★★★★

s me ga le 4K conso

XBOX One S

• www.johnlewis.com

Sony has made the PlayStation 4 even better with a slimmer, neater chassis and superior power efficiency. It’s as cheap as the PS4 has ever been as well.

PROCESSOR Octa-core 1.6GHz AMD Jaguar • RAM 8GB GDDR5 • FRONT USB PORTS 2x USB2 • REAR USB PORTS None • STORAGE 500GB/1TB/2TB • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.playstation.com • PART CODE B01GVQVQH2 • FULL REVIEW Jan 2017

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REVIEWS

How we test

Find out how well products perform with the help of Computer Shopper’s comprehensive tests

COMPUTER SHOPPER’S REVIEWS use some of the most exhaustive testing procedures you’ll find in any PC magazine. Every product is subjected to qualitative and quantitative tests that show how it performs in practical use. Graphs for performance, battery-life scores and costs are used in the Reviews section, as shown on the right. Look in the ‘Summary of tests’ table (below) for details of each test we run.

For PCs and laptops, we evaluate performance using our own custom benchmarking suite. See below right for a brief description of our benchmarking software and game tests.

The actual scores in each test are shown inside each bar

Normal speed

Bigger is better for all bars except the red ones, which show running costs

11ppm

Mono costs

2.2p

Colour costs

6.7p 0%

-50

Reference

+50

+100

A product hitting the +100 per cent mark performed twice as well as our reference

This line represents the performance of a reference product in each test. All graphs for components and systems are relative to our reference PC (see below for specifications)

SUMMARY OF TESTS PC SYSTEMS & GAMING LAPTOPS Windows overall Average speed across numerous demanding tasks

BENCHMARKS

RATINGS & AWARDS

Multitasking Speed when running simultaneous applications Dirt Showdown Frames per second at 1,920x1,080, 4xAA, (1080p) Ultra detail Metro: Last Light Frames per second at 1,920x1,080, SSAA, Redux Very High detail LAPTOPS Windows overall Average speed across numerous demanding tasks Multitasking Processor-intensive multitasking test Dirt Showdown Frames per second at 1,280x720, 4xAA, (720p) High detail Battery life Run time in minutes for continuous video playback SMARTPHONES/TABLETS Battery life Run time in minutes for continuous video playback PRINTERS AND MFPs Mono text speed Pages per minute for correspondence-quality text Mixed colour speed Pages per minute for presentable text and graphics Mono page cost Running costs expressed as pence per page Colour page cost Running costs expressed as pence per page DIGITAL CAMERAS Battery life Number of shots from full charge CAMCORDERS Battery life Run time in minutes for recording ROUTERS Laptop 2.4GHz 5m Mbit/s at 5m with 802.11ac laptop on 2.4GHz band Laptop 2.4GHz 1 floor Mbit/s 1 floor up with 802.11ac laptop on 2.4GHz band Laptop 2.4GHz Mbit/s 2 floors up with 802.11ac laptop on 2 floors 2.4GHz band Laptop 5GHz 5m Mbit/s at 5m with 802.11ac laptop on 5GHz band Laptop 5GHz 1 floor Mbit/s 1 floor up with 802.11ac laptop on 5GHz band Laptop 5GHz Mbit/s 2 floors up with 802.11ac laptop on 2 floors 5GHz band NETWORK-ATTACHED STORAGE Large files Average MB/s for read/write of 100MB large files Small files Average MB/s for read/write of 100MB small files HARD DISKS Huge files Average MB/s for read/write of a single 2.5GB file Large files Average MB/s for read/write of 2.5GB of large files Small files Average MB/s for read/write of 2.5GB of small files PROCESSORS Windows overall Average speed across numerous demanding tasks

SHOPPER BENCHMARKS Our benchmark suite uses open-source software that runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux systems. This lets us use objective results to compare PCs and laptops, no matter which operating system they run. It’s designed to test each computer to its limit, using a combination of intensive image-editing, video-encoding and multitasking tests.

We ran the tests on our reference PC, which has an Intel Core i5-4670K processor, 8GB of DDR3 RAM and an AMD Radeon R7 260X graphics card. We normalised our results so this PC had a score of 100. This makes it easy to draw comparisons between test systems.

The resulting overall score is shown at the bottom of every PC and laptop review. As we use the same tests in our standalone and group test reviews, you can compare the performance of any computer, whether it’s a hybrid, laptop or desktop, from both sections of the magazine.

Computer Shopper rates products out of five:

★★★★★

Avoid

Below average ★★★★★ Good

★★★★★

Very good

★★★★★

Excellent

★★★★★

The best products can win the following awards:

BEST BUY

Products with outstanding quality and performance for the money win our Best Buy award.

RECOMMENDED

3D BENCHMARKS

Products that don’t quite qualify for a Best Buy award but are still highly rated by our reviewers.

DIRT SHOWDOWN Dirt Showdown is a cracking racing game that makes good use of DirectX 11’s fancy graphical effects. You’ll want at least 30fps for smooth racing.

Multitasking Speed when running simultaneous applications Dirt Showdown Frames per second at 1,280x720, 4xAA, (720p) High detail MOTHERBOARDS Windows overall Average speed across numerous demanding tasks Multitasking Speed when running simultaneous applications Dirt Showdown Frames per second at 1,920x1,080, 4xAA, (1080p) Ultra detail Dirt Showdown Frames per second at 1,280x720, 4xAA, (720p) High detail GRAPHICS CARDS Dirt Showdown Frames per second at 1,920x1,080, 4x MSAA, (1080p) Ultra detail Tomb Raider Frames per second at 1,920x1,080, SSAA, Ultra detail Metro: Last Light Frames per second at 1,920x1,080, SSAA, Redux Very High detail

68

TOMB RAIDER With the ultra-demanding SuperSampling Anti-Aliasing (SSAA) enabled, 2013’s Tomb Raider reboot is a great indicator of mid-range performance.

BUSINESS BUY

The very best products for work win our Business Buy award.

METRO: LAST LIGHT REDUX Our most demanding graphics test uses tessellation, SSAA and massive textures to give even high-end cards a thorough workout.

AUGUST 2018

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 366

PRODUCT INDEX

Product Reviews 132

Our guide to all the products reviewed in this monthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Computer Shopper Networks

Hot Product

AMD Ryzen 2700X

22

PCs Palicomp i5 Cosmos Wired2Fire Pyro Talon CCL Terra CPS

24 26 27

Netgear Orbi RBK40

Storage Kingston UV500 M.2

Dell XPS 13 (2018) Gigabyte Aero 15X

28 30

Displays Acer KG221Q

32

Printers HP LaserJet Pro M227fdw

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Gaming 42

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Handhelds Apple iPad (2018) Huawei P20 Pro Honor 9 Lite

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Software

Components Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML240R RGB 36

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Security Software

Home Cinema Sony KD-55XF9005

reviews

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Audio Logitech G560

Laptops

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Avast Free Antivirus AVG AntiVirus Free Bitdefender Total Security BullGuard Internet Security ESET Internet Security F-Secure Safe Kaspersky Security Cloud Personal Microsoft Windows Defender Symantec Norton Security Deluxe Trend Micro Maximum Security

78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87

Action Cameras

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GoPro Hero 5 Black GoPro Hero 5 Session GoPro Hero 6 Black GoXtreme Vision 4K Nikon KeyMission 360 Sony DSC-RX0 Sony FDR-X1000V Yi 4K+

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Free software guide It’s easy to access your free software. Just go to www.shopperdownload.co.uk/366 and register with the code from the card insert. Please be aware that you need to have bought the ‘Free Software Edition’ and not the ‘£4.50 Edition’ to access the downloads

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ANY PROBLEMS If you need help with any of the software this month, please send an email to support@creativemark.co.uk.

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WHY DOWNLOADS In order to provide us with free software, publishers now require us to offer the applications as a download and require online registration. You need to use the unique code printed in the box on the card insert to register and download the software in this issue. The unique code means we stop the deals leaking online, so only Shopper readers get the software.

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REGISTER YOUR SOFTWARE BY 19th JULY 2018

Watchdog Online Security Pro 2018 ONLINE SECURITY PRO 2018 is a smart tool that uses multiple anti-virus engines to detect threats your regular security software might miss.

It’s all very easy to use. To get started, just select the Smart (quick) or Deep (thorough) option, click Scan, and sit back as Watchdog goes to work.

The program crawls over your hard disk, and when it finds something suspicious, passes a fingerprint (not the whole file) to its cloud scanner for further analysis. The Cloud Scanning Platform then checks your file using multiple anti-virus engines, detecting threats that individual packages might miss. You’ll then see a report that lists the threats.

When the scan is complete, you can browse the report, choose to delete individual items, quarantine them (or exclude them if you’re sure they’re safe), before cleaning up your entire system with a click.

REQUIREMENTS Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10, 32/64-bit, 50MB hard disk space WEBSITE www.watchdogdevelopment.com NOTES Get your registration code from watchdogpro.disc. computershopper.co.uk. Includes a one-year, one-PC licence

Watchdog also offers simple real-time protection, analysing files before they’re executed, and running a quick Smart Scan when your system starts.

This worked well for us, but if you don’t need that level of protection then it can be tweaked or disabled in the Settings dialog (you might run a Smart Scan once a week, for example).

Most important of all, Watchdog Online Security Pro will sit synchronously alongside your existing security suite, so you can use this as a second-layer suite for checking against the latest threats.

Emsisoft Anti-Malware 2018

REQUIREMENTS Windows 7, 8 or 10 32/64bit, 200MB hard disk space WEBSITE www.emsisoft.com NOTES Get your registration code at eam2018.disc.computershopper.co.uk.

Includes a one-year, one-PC licence

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THIS SECURITY TOOL can both detect and remove viruses and spyware. It uses a dual-layer engine with multiple layers of protection: the Bitdefender scanner and Emsisoft’s proprietary engine make for a formidable combination.

A web monitor blocks attempts to reach malicious websites; the real-time file guard checks the files you access for threats; and if that fails, the Behavior Blocker watches programs for suspect actions, detecting and blocking even brand new, previously undiscovered threats.

If you don’t want to run scans while you’re working, a scheduler gives you plenty of options. You can set up a scan to run daily, weekly or monthly, at regular intervals, or after your PC starts.

There’s just as much configurability elsewhere.

The program’s Surf Protection feature doesn’t just blindly block sites on a list; you can define the type of sites it checks and the action it takes (such as Alert, Block and Notify or Block Silently), as well as customise the list.

The Behavior Blocker panel offers even more possibilities. It’s a Task Manager-type module that by default only displays running programs it doesn’t trust, highlighting potential threats. In a few clicks you can search for its name online, open the program’s folder in Explorer, close it down, even create a rule which will block it from ever running again.

You also get protection against ransomware, a safeguard against installing potentially unwanted programs (PUPs), banking protection and much more.

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Abelssoft PC Fresh 2018 BUY A NEW PC and it will generally be fast and reliable, with everything working just as you would expect. But as you use the system – installing, running and removing programs – this begins to change. Performance tails off, your system might crash occasionally, and some features may no longer work at all.

You don’t have to live with this situation. If your system seems slow, then just install PC Fresh 2018, and the program will quickly help you restore your PC to its original performance.

This starts with PC Fresh asking questions about your computer: whether you have a printer, if you’re connected via Wi-Fi, if you use Windows Search and so on. Answer where you can and this helps the program tailor its advice to suit your exact needs.

The main PC Fresh console then allows you to optimise the system in many different ways. You can configure your startup programs, turn off resourcehungry Windows services, optimise key Windows performance settings and more.

This process is surprisingly easy, too. Unlike some similar tools, you’re not left alone to figure out what you should do. PC Fresh will highlight any problems it’s found in a particular area, and

REQUIREMENTS Windows 7, 8 or 10, 32/64-bit, 50MB hard disk space WEBSITE www.abelssoft.de NOTES Get your registration code within the application

you can view its recommendations – and make the changes you need – with ease.

Once you’ve got your system running smoothly again, PC Fresh 2018 provides several other tools to help you tune it even further. One, for instance, finds particularly large files that might be wasting hard disk space, while the Defragment option can reorganise your files to improve system speed.

The Power Now! module also temporarily turns off every non-essential item to help deliver the maximum performance, which is very useful if you’re about to launch a demanding application such as a game.

Ashampoo Snap 9 THERE ARE MANY reasons why you might want to take a picture of the contents of your desktop. Such images can be useful when putting together a website, creating tutorials, demonstrations or manuals, or just to record something for posterity. Windows makes it easy to create simple screen captures by simply pressing the Print Screen key, but Ashampoo Snap opens up a number of additional options.

ISSUE 366 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

As well as capturing precisely what you see on screen at any given moment, Snap can also be used to capture timed shots from within games. These captures can then be joined together to create a video. Recording can be paused and resumed at any time, so you can compose your screen so everything looks exactly as you want it to.

Snap can also be used with a multi-monitor setup, so huge screen captures can be created

| AUGUST 2018

as easily as capturing a single window. If you want to highlight a particular area of a screen capture, then resizable shapes, text and other graphics can be added in.

There will be circumstances in which it is not possible to compose your screen to show everything you would like to include in a screen capture, such as when working with a lengthy website. Snap enables you to perform scrolling captures so such lengthy documents can be captured with much less fuss than if you manually stitched together numerous screenshots.

With the ability to capture nonstandard-shaped portions of the screen, the option of adding voice-overs to video captures and support for a range of video codecs, Ashampoo Snap is one of the most versatile screen capture tools available.

REQUIREMENTS Windows 7, 8, 10, 32/64-bit, 200MB hard disk space WEBSITE www.ashampoo.com NOTES Get your registration code within the application

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iolo System Mechanic 17 SYSTEM MECHANIC 17 is an amazingly comprehensive tool that provides everything you’ll need to clean and speed up your PC, fix system problems and protect your privacy.

If your PC isn’t performing, for instance, then System Mechanic will help you defragment your hard disk, optimise your internet connection for faster downloads, defragment and compact the

Registry, optimise the boot process by removing unnecessary startup programs, and provide a temporary performance boost by closing down selected background processes.

Each of these functions in turn delivers far more than you might expect. For one thing, you don’t just get a defrag module: System Mechanic also uses the Program Accelerator, optimising

REQUIREMENTS Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10 32/64-bit, 50MB hard disk space WEBSITE www.iolo.com NOTES Get your registration code at sm17.disc.computershopper.co.uk.

Includes a six-month licence

applications by grouping related files together, while enhanced AcceleWrite technology helps to improve the efficiency of your drives, and the SSD Accelerator keeps solid-state drives running at their optimum performance levels.

It’s the same across the suite, with powerful features and functionality everywhere you look. There are tools here to defragment and compact the Registry, repair hard drive problems, enhance system security, locate unnecessary duplicate files, or recover from disaster if Windows won’t boot.

A Windows tweaking tool provides easy access to more than 100 key Windows settings, and an Advanced Uninstaller completely removes apps to free up hard disk space – and you could still create a very capable maintenance suite from the other tools we haven’t got space to mention.

O&O SafeErase 11 Professional

REQUIREMENTS Windows Vista, 7, 8 or 10, 50MB hard disk space WEBSITE www.oo-software.com NOTES Get your registration code at safeerase11.disc.computershopper.co.uk

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WHEN YOU DELETE a file from your PC, it’s not necessarily gone forever. To minimise performance loss, and reduce wear and tear on your hard disk, Windows simply marks the file as deleted. This means its header is overwritten and the space in which it resides is marked as available for writing to. Until that space is physically overwritten by other data, it remains accessible and retrievable.

This can be a worry for those with sensitive data they want truly deleted for good. That’s where O&O SafeErase 11 Professional comes in: it uses methods recognised by the US Department of Defense to delete files in such a way that they can never be recovered.

SafeErase also includes tools for securely wiping all traces of your internet browsing, from cookies and downloaded files to the pages you’ve visited.

There’s also a component for wiping insecure Windows and program files, such as temporary files and Flash Player cookies.

As for files you’ve already ‘deleted’ in Windows, SafeErase can wipe all that supposedly free space where the remnants of past files still reside. Rather than just wipe everything, SafeErase will search for what it considers are unsafe deleted files, speeding up the process. You can also

delete entire partitions and hard disks, essential if you’re planning to sell on, recycle or otherwise dispose of an old PC or drive.

All of this raw power is wrapped up in a single, simple-touse interface. Click Start Analysis, and SafeErase will go to work.

You can then review its findings and clean up your PC with a single click or opt to work with specific tools, such as the SafeErase files and folders option for deleting selected files.

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Resources

Chat and Communication Evernote 6.11.2.7027 Store your notes, ideas and plans in the cloud, and synchronise them between computers.

UPDATED Mailbird 2.5.8 A free desktop email client for Windows.

UPDATED Miranda IM 0.10.80 Chat with friends across multiple messaging platforms, including AIM, Facebook, IRC and MSN, all from one simple interface.

Customisation

iolo System Mechanic Free 17.0.1 Speed up your system with iolo’s PC optimisation suite.

Rainmeter 4.1 Customise the desktop with your choice of tools and shortcuts.

Windows 8 Transformation Pack 9.1 Emulate the look of Windows 8 on an earlier version of the operating system.

General

Genie Timeline Free 2017 Protect your most valuable files with this easy-to-use backup tool.

Paragon Partition Manager 14 Free Create, format, split, merge and reorganise all your hard disk’s partitions.

UPDATED PeaZip 6.6.0 A tremendously powerful archive-management tool.

UPDATED Skype for Windows 8.21.0.9 Make internet voice and video calls for free, and buy credit to make calls to mobiles and landlines.

Telegram 1.2.17 This free IM app synchronises your conversations across multiple devices, and can spruce up chats with stickers and GIFs. UPDATED WhatsApp Desktop 0.2.9229 A free PC and Mac version of the popular messaging app, letting you chat from your desktop.

Windows 8 UX Pack 9.1 Get a glimpse of the Windows 10 UI without committing to a full OS upgrade.

Windows 10 Transformation Pack 7.0 Bring some of Windows 10’s new features to your current operating system.

Winstep Xtreme 18.3 Freshen up your system with this suite of desktop and UI replacement applications.

Screenshot Captor 4.29 Create and manage screenshots the easy way.

UPDATED SUMo 5.6.4.394 Quickly scan your PC’s installed applications and find any updates that are available for them.

ZipGenius 6.3.2.3116 A flexible filecompression tool with support for a huge number of compressed file formats.

Internet and Network CarotDAV 1.14.6 Manage all your online storage services with one simple application.

UPDATED Cyberduck 6.5.0 A powerful but easy-to-use FTP client for uploading and downloading your files.

UPDATED Glasswire 2.0.112 Keep tabs on your network usage with this simple monitor.

UPDATED FileZilla 3.33 A fast and reliable FTP client with lots of useful features.

NetBalancer 9.12.2 Make the most of your internet connection by assigning download and upload priorities to web applications.

TeamViewer 13.1.3629 Remote-control your computer from anywhere in the world.

Tweaking and Performance UPDATED CCleaner 5.42 Remove unwanted information, temporary files, browsing history, huge log files and even the settings that uninstalled software leaves behind.

Defraggler 2.21 Ensure that your system is defragmented properly and improve its performance.

Finestra Virtual Desktops 2.5.4501 Set up four or more virtual desktops on your PC.

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UPDATED IObit Advanced SystemCare Free 11.3.0.221 A complete computer security, maintenance and optimisation suite.

Revo Uninstaller Free 2.0.5 Remove installed applications completely, including all their folders, system files and Registry entries.

Simple Performance Boost 1.0.5 Tweak the Windows Registry to give your PC a performance boost.

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HIGHLY INFECTIOUS Securitysoftware

Cyber threats are on the increase, but is your security suite really protecting you?

We pit 10 of the best products against each other to find out CONTENT REVIEWS Page 78

AVAST Free Antivirus Page 79

F-SECURE Safe Page 84

AVG AntiVirus Free

KASPERSKY Security Cloud Personal

Page 80

Page 85

Page 81

Page 86

BITDEFENDER Total Security

MICROSOFT Windows Defender

BULLGUARD Internet Security

SYMANTEC Norton Security Deluxe

Page 82

Page 87

ESET Internet Security

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Page 83

TREND MICRO Maximum Security

EVERY YEAR THE risk of attack goes up, with cyber criminals finding newer, smarter ways of attacking you. While Windows 10 has boosted base security levels, you’re still not completely safe.

Nothing shows this as much as the results of our testing. The last time we tested security suites (Shopper 348), the lowestrated product managed a protection rating of 88.1%; this year, the worst product managed just 48%. That’s quite terrifying.

Fortunately, there are better products out there that can dramatically improve your

AUGUST 2018

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SECURITY SOFTWARE

The last time we tested security suites, the lowest-rated product managed a protection rating of 88.1%; this year, the worst product managed just 48% should block malware before it runs, but some products let an exploit attack, stopping it after it’s detected. To show this, products that block a threat completely are rated higher than those that don’t. Products that allow malware through are heavily penalised.

The scoring system works like this: Detected (+1) If the product detects the threat with any degree of useful information, it is awarded one point.

Blocked (+2) Threats that are disallowed from even starting their malicious activities are blocked. Blocking products score two points.

Neutralised (+1) Products that kill all running malicious processes ‘neutralise’ the threat and win one point.

Complete remediation (+1) If, in addition to neutralising a threat, the product removes all significant traces of the attack, it gains an additional one point.

Compromised (-5) If the threat compromises the system, the product loses five points. This loss may be reduced to four points if it manages to detect the threat (see Detected, above), as this at least alerts the user, who may now take steps to secure the system.

protection and stop you getting hacked or your private details being stolen.

HOW WE TEST

Testing security software means turning to the experts. This year all the tests were performed by SE Labs, run by Simon Edwards – formerly of this very magazine.

SE Labs uses the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization (AMTSO) standard for testing. What this means is that all of the products have been tested thoroughly in a way that the results demonstrate real-world performance.

All products are tested using a double form of attack. First, there are threats collected in the wild, which means the kinds of threats that your computer is exposed to.

These should be relatively straightforward for a product to deal with. Second, products are exposed to targeted attacks. These are created using publicly available free hacking tools, so no unique malware was written and there’s no technical reason why any software should do poorly here.

When it comes to blocking a threat, there are degrees of success. Ideally, a product

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Protection ratings are then weighted, scoring products that protect against threats far higher than those that were compromised. This information is then scored as a percentage.

It’s important that any security product lets legitimate programs carry on without being blocked. After all, any AV software that proves too annoying to use will likely be turned off. Products were also tested to see how they dealt with false positives.

Again, there are degrees of success here.

A product that blocks the latest version of Word was given a lower score than a product that blocked an obscure utility. How the information is presented to the user is also taken into account. It’s rare for security software to simply block software, and it will usually flag up a warning with either a recommendation to block or continue.

All of this information is put together as a total accuracy rating, scored as a percentage, demonstrating the overall effectiveness of a product. We’ve graphed the total accuracy rating on page 88. We’ve also graphed each suite’s accuracy in identifying legitimate software, so you can see which are the best for avoiding annoying false positives.

VERSION CONTROL

SE Labs tested the current versions of products available, performing tests for three months between January and March 2018.

Typically, version upgrades don’t affect the performance of a product, but new features are added. Instead, most security software is updated at least daily to improve its threat detection and blocking.

For our reviews, we’ve used the best-value version of a product available. Typically, higher-cost suites just pile on the features and number of supported devices; lower-cost packages have the same basic protection.

EXTRA FEATURES

Security software isn’t just about malware, and manufacturers have added lots of features over the years to cover all areas.

Some add-ons are a waste of time; others are surprisingly useful. You’ll often get credential/ password managers that integrate into your web browser. These can do some useful things, including generating impossible-toguess passwords, autofilling password forms and autofilling other web forms, such as store checkouts. These are all protected by a master password known only by you.

Parental controls vary slightly, and aren’t available with all packages, but they let you set up filters for adult content, with preset filters and customisable lists of URLs to block.

Many of them also allow you to limit the time your children spend online.

GOING MOBILE

Many of the packages we’ve reviewed this year have mobile versions available. Some packages include mobile as standard, but with many, protecting your smartphone or tablet requires an additional subscription. Generally available for Android, some also work on iOS. It’s arguable how useful these products are, as mobile operating systems are well locked down, and apps are mostly available only through official stores, so it’s far harder to get a mobile virus. We don’t recommend prioritising mobile protection over desktop protection, and the mobile performance of each product has not been tested.

THE PRICE IS RIGHT

We’ve listed the official manufacturer’s pricing for each product, but you may be able to find a better deal online by buying a boxed copy of a product. Don’t worry if the product you buy seems out of date, such as the 2017 version; all software will update to the latest current version on installation. You can used boxed software for future updates, too, rather than having to renew your licence through the manufacturer after a year.

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SECURITY SOFTWARE

AVAST Free Antivirus ★★★★★ Free • From www.avast.com

VERDICT

Great protection, but you don’t get a lot of features and other free software does better AVAST FREE ANTIVIRUS is one of the best-known names in free anti-virus protection. Avast also has paid-for software available, which provides additional tools.

Upgrade to Internet Security, Premier or Ultimate and you get fake shopping site detection, a sandbox option to safely test dodgy-looking programs, an advanced firewall, spam filtering, and ransomware protection.

The top two tiers also add webcam blocking to stop people spying on you, and an option to update your other apps.

Given the popularity of the free version, we’ve once again stuck with this for testing.

Avast has improved its protection over the years, and a total accuracy rating of 94% puts this software ahead of some paid-for suites.

That score was made up of a protection rating of 82% and a score of 100% in the legitimate software test. For malware protection, four threats were allowed through, with the remainder blocked or neutralised.

Impressively, the legitimate software test showed that Avast allowed everything non-harmful through. You may see this as a good thing, given how much other software is loaded up with extra programs, but Avast Free Antivirus doesn’t ship with a lot else.

Instead, the free version often acts as an advert for the paid-for versions. Several options in the interface link to a screen that tries to get you to upgrade. You get a free 60-day trial of Avast’s SecureLine VPN (a free seven-day trial is available if you download

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the VPN standalone). If you want to give a VPN a go, then two months’ protection could make SecureLine a more interesting choice.

ILL REPUTE

More usefully, you can run quick scans for outdated software, and for browser extensions in Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer that have a ‘poor reputation’.

The Passwords feature could be useful, securely storing and synchronising your passwords across your devices. With Avast Free, you can use Passwords to automatically fill in web forms, although you’ll need the Chrome or Firefox extension to use this feature. Usefully, Passwords can import your passwords from your browser and let you know how secure you are, by telling you how strong your passwords are and if you’ve re-used them. Upgrade to the Ultimate version of Avast, and Passwords can also warn you if one of your accounts has been leaked online.

Avast will also offer to scan your PC for junk files and system settings that could be

slowing down your computer. It claimed to have found 46.8MB of junk files and four system settings that should be tweaked.

Clicking the Resolve button brings up a nag screen for a service that costs £1.67 a month.

It’s not worth the upgrade, in our opinion.

The settings menu is well stocked and, for the most part, free of hints trying to get you to pay for things. You can make granular changes to the way Avast scans by, for example, choosing whether it scans programs when you first start them up or not. You can also choose which elements you want to run: File shield, which scans programs and files as they’re opened or added to your hard disk; Behaviour shield, which monitors applications for suspicious behaviour; Mail shield, which scans email attachments; and Web shield, which monitors websites and internet traffic. Our advice is to leave all the protection turned on.

HARD CHOICE

A dedicated Hardened mode beefs up the protection even further, making it more difficult for malware to get on to your computer. This is recommended for inexperienced users only.

The potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) scanner can cut down on the sneaky toolbars and applications that come bundled with some free software.

For gamers, there’s a dedicated Game mode. This disables popup messages, intensive scans and the like, so you can play away without being disturbed. Neatly, you can add games for Avast to watch for, so that Game mode launches automatically.

The Wi-Fi inspector is a new component, scanning your network for any devices that may have security issues. None was found on our test network, which was reassuring at least.

Protection from Avast is very good and, the odd nag screen aside, the interface is simple and slick. The only thing holding the software back is that AVG Antivirus Free scores higher. For the best protection, we recommend Kaspersky Security Cloud.

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SECURITY SOFTWARE

AVG AntiVirus Free ★★★★★ Free • From www.avg.com

VERDICT

Excellent protection across the board, but you don’t get that many features, and paid-for software has better protection WHEN AVAST BOUGHT a majority stake in AVG at the end of 2016, it looked as though it could be curtains for one of the most popular free anti-virus packages: it seemed as though the two products would merge, creating a single, more powerful app.

That hasn’t happened, and AVG Antivirus Free Edition actually scored higher than Avast Free Antivirus in our testing.

In fact, the two products superficially look the same, but under the hood, the two managed different results.

As with most of the free packages, AVG offers a paid-for version of its virus suite.

Upgrade to Internet Security and you get personal folder protection to thwart ransomware, webcam protection to stop people from hijacking your feed, fake website avoidance for shopping protection and an enhanced firewall. At the top is AVG Ultimate, which also adds a tune-up package to keep your PC in tip-top condition.

Unsurprisingly, these features aren’t that different to the line-up in the paid-for Avast suites. However, given the popularity of the free suite, we’re focusing on that here.

Protection is excellent, with AVG getting a Total Accuracy score of 96%. That score comes from a protection rating of 90%, a full eight percentage points higher than Avast.

In more detail, AVG AntiVirus Free managed to block or neutralise 99 threats, only allowing one bit of malware through and on to the test computers.

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Impressively, AVG managed to let all good software through, with a clean 100% record.

With these kinds of scores, it’s no wonder that AVG AntiVirus Free is so close to the top of the league tables.

KEEPING IT SIMPLE

As with Avast, AVG doesn’t ship with a lot extra, with the free version focused on quality malware protection. That could be a good thing if you’re not worried about getting a load of extra software.

AVG would clearly like you to upgrade, as the main information screen shows you that you only have Basic protection. No surprises that the Full protection heading lists a bunch of features that you have to upgrade for.

Even so, the neat interface makes it easy to control your software. Under PC protection, you get the chance to choose how your computer is kept safe. You can toggle the two protection components on and off: File shield scans applications and files added to or opened from your computer, while Behaviour shield monitors your computer for suspicious activity, alerting you if anything is found. You may recognise these names from the Avast software.

You also get similar web protection components: Web shield monitors your internet connection, blocking web attacks and dodgy downloads; Email shield cuts out infected attachments.

Having the ability to toggle these protections is nice, but we recommend leaving them all turned on for the best protection.

AVG bundles fewer features with its free version of software than Avast does. So you don’t get the built-in password manager that Avast has. However, you do get a free file shredder, which securely erases files and folders that you don’t want; be careful with this tool, as once you remove a file you won’t be able to recover it.

VIRTUAL REALITY

There’s a VPN option, with a 60-day trial.

That’s a decent amount of time if you just want to try out a VPN or you need one temporarily while you’re away. After that, it’s £2.39 a month.

There’s an optional PC Tune-up utility that is designed to look for ‘inefficient’ PC settings, junk files and redundant apps.

This costs £1.75 a month to run. It’s not the kind of service that we’d sign up to.

There’s a gaming mode built in, which suppresses popups while you play and stops intensive tasks. It’s a bit harder to turn on than the one Avast has, and we couldn’t find an automatic setting to run it.

Scans of your entire computer can be run, and you have full control over which folders and items are looked at.

The potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) scanner could be useful, cutting down on the hidden junk that some applications try to install.

Overall, AVG AntiVirus Free doesn’t have the same range of features as Avast, and its interface isn’t as easy to navigate. However, its protection is better, making this the security suite to install if you don’t want to pay for a subscription. If you want the best protection, go for Kaspersky Security Cloud.

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SECURITY SOFTWARE

BITDEFENDER Total Security ★★★★★ £40 • From www.bitdefender.co.uk

VERDICT

Powerful protection and lots of features, but protection lags behind this year’s leaders BITDEFENDER DID WELL when we last reviewed it, with security being beefed up from the previous time. Can the company keep it up with yet another solid result?

The answer is, for the most part, yes.

This year, Bitdefender Total Security put in a good showing, with a total accuracy rating of 96%, putting it in the same league as AVG AntiVirus Free. Drilling down into the results reveals the full picture behind this quality score.

Bitdefender managed a protection accuracy rating of 91%. It blocked 94 threats, defended against five further threats and allowed a single bit of malware through.

That makes the overall protection better than AVG, which also let one bit of malware through, but only managed a complete block on 85 bits of damaging software.

Where Bitdefender slightly slipped up was with its legitimate software rating.

A score of 98% is still very good, but this meant that some good software was blocked along the way.

PACKAGE DEAL

Bitdefender has several packages available.

Internet Security costs £30 and supports up to three Windows PCs, but has the most basic protection. Pay an extra tenner and you get Bitdefender Total Security, which we think is the best-value product. Here, you get support for up to five devices (Android, macOS and Windows), and more advanced protection.

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At the top end is the Family Pack, which costs £50. This gives you unlimited devices, so could be good for large households; otherwise the protection level is the same.

The clean interface makes it easy to access all of Bitdefender Total Security’s features.

With the Vulnerability Scan, you get a quick security health-check, with Bitdefender looking for critical Windows and application updates, checking your Windows account’s password security, and even scanning your router to make sure that it’s not weak.

This scan works well and gives you a quick overview, highlighting the simple things that you can change.

Remember, hackers usually go for the easiest route in, so fixing the simple issues can really boost your security. Think of it this way: if you had the world’s most expensive lock put on your front door, but routinely left your windows open, your house would soon be robbed.

There’s also a built-in VPN, although you only get 200MB of data per day, which isn’t going to go very far. You can buy a

subscription instead, but you’re probably better off going with a dedicated VPN service instead.

Ransomware protection is presented as a simple on/off switch, with Bitdefender looking for suspicious activity and protecting your files. However, you can boost protection with Safe Files, which lets you set the folders that you want to protect from corruption and harmful manipulation. By default, your Documents, Photos and Video folders are kept safe, with untrusted applications prevented from making any changes.

Under Privacy, there’s the SafePay option, which fires up a hardened browser, so you can pay safely without worrying about your details being stolen. Bitdefender will warn you when you come across fraudulent pages.

STOP THIEF

Physical security is taken care of with the Anti-theft monitoring system. It tracks your device’s location, based on its internet connection. So a stolen computer that’s connected to a foreign network should dial home and let you know where it is.

Startup and OneClick Optimizers are there to help boost your PC’s performance.

These aren’t the kinds of tools that we use often, and we prefer a manual cleanup to really get our PC back to its best shape.

Likewise, the Disk Cleanup tool could be useful, but you can get free tools that show you this, such as the excellent WinDirStat.

Security software can get in the way of everyday tasks, so Bitdefender Total Security has multiple profiles that let you choose what you want to stop, such as background tasks, Windows updates and popup messages. Profiles are there for work, films and games, and you can set a list of applications for each that triggers each mode.

With this level of protection, existing Bitdefender users can rest easy knowing that their computers are safe. However, if you’re coming up for renewal or want to move up to paid-for software from free protection, Kaspersky Security Cloud is a better choice.

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SECURITY SOFTWARE

BULLGUARD Internet Security ★★★★★ £50 • From www.bullguard.com

VERDICT

Below-par protection puts this software well off the pace of its rivals BULLGUARD HASN’T HAD a very good time of it in our recent tests, and we’re sad to say that this year hasn’t seen things improve at all. In fact, BullGuard Internet Security has done exceptionally poorly.

With a total accuracy score of 88%, BullGuard Internet Security comes above only Windows Defender in this test. Since Windows Defender is something that we refer to as baseline protection only, that’s not good.

To put this in perspective, every other bit of free software, and every other paid-for suite did better than BullGuard in our tests.

Drilling down into the results to find out where things went wrong, it soon became clear. Looking at the protection accuracy rating, BullGuard scored just 75%. While BullGuard Internet Security correctly detected 96 out of 100 threats, it blocked only 85, neutralised a further eight and let seven bits of malware through. Again, only Windows Defender’s poor protection let more through.

When it came to legitimate software, an accuracy rating of 96% puts BullGuard near the bottom of the table, too. Overall, it’s not a great result from this anti-virus company this year.

VALUE ADDED

We decided to review Internet Security, as it’s the best-value package, currently on sale for £50 for three devices. The Premium Protection jumps up to £70, which is a lot more to pay. The subscription covers multiple devices, which BullGuard says is for all of your equipment: PC, Mac and Android.

The protection is a shame, as the software is one of the easiest-to-use applications. The

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main screen is split into seven clearly labelled sections. Each section has a primary action (such as Quick scan for the Antivirus menu) and then a menu of secondary options (such as Full Scan and Scan Folder), making it easy to find the tools you’ll use most often.

Away from the anti-virus and firewall, BullGuard also scans for out of-date-software and other known vulnerabilities, and cleans up what it perceives as junk files.

for different child ages, unblocking more categories for older children.

AHEAD OF SCHEDULE

There’s an easy-to-use scheduling tool that lets you schedule hours during which your children are allowed to use the internet and the PC itself. You can also block specific applications, although these are blanket blocks that are always active, instead of

BullGuard Internet Security comes above only Windows Defender in this test. Since Windows Defender is something that we refer to as baseline protection only, that’s not good BullGuard is set to enable background PC optimisations. These automatically clean browser caches, and delete log, memory dump and crash dump files. These are features that we believe should only be enabled by a user and should not be the default setting.

BullGuard has all the parental controls you’d expect from a security package. You can block broad website categories, as well as specific URLs. BullGuard has a set of presets

timed. You can also stop the transmission of specific number and text strings, such as credit card numbers. All of this information has to be entered manually, so it’s quite a laborious job to get it all done.

Game Booster works on systems with four or more cores, automatically detecting when a game is playing, and reducing BullGuard’s resource usage, so you don’t get any slowdown. This could be a neat feature, but it would be nice to see a traditional game mode, where popups are suppressed, so that your gaming session isn’t interrupted.

There’s a built-in backup utility, and the destination can be set as Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive or an external HDD/NAS. However, if you’re using any of the former cloud services, you may as well install the client software and make sure that all your important files are stored there. This is far more convenient than relying on BullGuard.

Ultimately, despite the competitive pricing and simple interface, BullGuard didn’t do well enough in this round of tests for us to recommend it. Instead, we recommend using Kaspersky Security Cloud, which topped the table and gave us the best overall protection score in this year’s test.

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SECURITY SOFTWARE

ESET Internet Security ★★★★★ £40 • From shop.eset.co.uk

VERDICT

ESET Internet Security’s great protection and simple interface impress, but this security suite is very expensive LAST YEAR WE were incredibly impressed with ESET Internet Security. This year, the level of protection has stayed the same, and so has the price. Prices start at an unappetising £40 for a single user, dramatically increasing with the more computers that you add, making this product very expensive. Cheaper pricing and a single bundle for multiple computers would be good to see; currently, you have to choose how many computers you want to protect at checkout.

In this year’s tests, ESET Internet Security came second overall, with a total accuracy rating of 99%. Looking at how this security suite scored so highly, we found its malware protection was top notch, scoring a protection accuracy rating of 98%: it detected, and blocked or neutralised all 100 threats.

When it came to legitimate software accuracy, ESET scored a perfect 100%. In other words, all software that should make it through the security software came through properly. Again, that’s a great result. Certainly, from a protection point of view, ESET Internet Security is a great product to choose.

TOOLED UP

Malware prevention aside, ESET Internet Security has a whole host of other tools available to keep your PC in tip-top condition.

Detection of potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) is good to see. These can be installed with other software, doing things that you don’t want, such as adding browser toolbars, changing your homepage or even displaying adverts. They’re a true curse on modern Windows users, so blocking them at source is a good choice.

ESET also provides a sandboxed version of the Chrome browser, which is a safer

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way of entering sensitive data such as financial information. If you do a lot of online shopping and are worried that your details could be stolen, this is a good way to get around the problem.

A simple parental controls interface lets you choose the categories of sites that your kids can look at. If you’d like to extend protection to Android, you need the ESET Parental Control for Android app. This costs another £20 a year, although it’s included in the Multi-Device option (from £45 a year for

a web-based interface. GPS info, screenshots and webcam snapshots are available, and the tool will also let you know what programs are currently running on your missing device.

WELL CONNECTED

A Connected Home Monitor can scan your entire network, looking for problems with your connected devices. As these can potentially act as a route into your network, it’s good to know about problems so that you can fix them.

If you have the software already, then you’re well protected and can carry on using it, or renew your licence. For new users, the high price makes ESET a tough sell two devices). Multi-Device is a good option if you want mobile apps, too, but it would be easier if there was just one multi-device option, letting you choose which computers or phones you want to install ESET on.

The software also offers an anti-theft tool, which you can activate on all the PCs and handhelds that are licensed to run ESET. Simply log into your Anti-Theft account on each device, and you can track them through

If you decide to upgrade to Premium Security, you get a couple of extra features.

First, a password manager is useful, creating and storing secure passwords and sharing them between all of your devices.

Second, for your most precious files, there’s Secure Data, which lets you create encrypted folders that prying eyes won’t be able to read. If you’ve got sensitive data on your computer, this is an extra level of protection, although make sure that you remember the password; without this, your files will be gone forever.

Overall, ESET Internet Security is a top performer. If you have the software already, then you’re well protected and can carry on using it, or renew your licence. For new users, the high price makes ESET a tough sell. The competition is fierce and, overall, Kaspersky Security Cloud just sneaks in at the top, and is the best choice for most people.

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SECURITY SOFTWARE

F-SECURE Safe ★★★★★

£60 • From www.f-secure.com

VERDICT

Decent protection and a clean interface, but the high price and high number of false positives detract F-SECURE MAKES A return to these pages with its Safe suite, which starts with a package for up to three devices (including Windows, macOS, Android and iOS) for £60.

That makes it one of the more expensive suites in this test.

If you want to cover more devices, then the price rapidly goes up, with five devices coming in at £80 and seven devices at £100.

This level of pricing would be fair enough if the protection was the best on the market, but F-Secure Safe didn’t fare so well in our tests. With a total accuracy rating of 90%, F-Secure Safe was near the bottom of the table and fell behind the free security suites, bar Windows Defender.

The low total score is mostly down to the way that F-Secure handled the legitimate software. With an accuracy of just 89% it meant a fair amount of good software was blocked by F-Secure. From a user point of view, this heavy-handed approach to security could be quite annoying.

That’s a shame, as the core protection proved to be very good, and the software scored a protection accuracy rating of 92%.

F-Secure Safe managed to detect all 100 threats, blocked 96 of them, neutralised a further two and let two bits of malware compromise the test computer. That actually puts F-Secure in the upper leagues of the table, beaten by only three other suites.

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If the false positives could be reduced, F-Secure Safe could be an excellent all-round product. It has a clean and attractive interface that makes it easy to use. The main screen tells you if your computer is safe and has two buttons: one to scan your computer, and one to configure a few options. F-Secure has deliberately kept the options to a minimum, which is a good thing: a security suite should effortlessly protect your computer without having to be configured.

BANK ON IT

Banking protection is built in. When you connect to your online bank, F-Secure Safe shuts down all connections on your computer that the software doesn’t consider safe. That way, other apps are prevented from spying on or interfering with your connection.

Next, there’s the Family Rules tab, which is the new home for parental controls.

Family Rules is configured through a web

portal, letting you configure browsing restrictions and time limits for your entire family. It’s a convenient and easy way of managing your home. For mobile users, Family Rules hooks into the Android and iOS versions of F-Secure, too. Watch out for one major restriction: on iOS, browser filtering works only on the F-Secure browser, not Safari.

CLEAN CUT

Click on Tools, and you’ll find that there are few options here. You can adjust the scanning options, view quarantined files, manage which websites are blocked, check for updates and that’s about it. There are none of the extras that other security suites have, such as PC tuning features. That could be a blessing in some ways, and F-Secure’s refreshing and clean approach to security is good to see.

At the bottom of the main window is a link for you to get F-Secure’s password manager, Key. The version that you download will work on a single computer, but that’s it. If you want to synchronise your secure passwords across multiple devices, then you have to upgrade to the premium version, which costs £11 a year.

Given the high price of F-Secure Safe, we’d expect this kind of utility to be bundled for free. Likewise, a free subscription to F-Secure’s VPN, Freedome, would have been nice at this price.

Overall, F-Secure has managed to get a lot right. We love the simple, stripped back interface, which makes Safe feel friendly and easy to use.

Other vendors should take note.

Sadly, the negatives stack up too.

The high number of false positives detract from the experience and reduced the overall accuracy rating.

Then there’s the price: Safe is one of the most expensive suites.

Our recommendation is to buy Kaspersky Security Cloud instead.

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SECURITY SOFTWARE

KASPERSKY Security Cloud Personal ★★★★★ £35 • From www.kaspersky.co.uk

VERDICT

With unbeaten protection and a great bundle of features, this is our top security suite KASPERSKY HAS TAKEN the top spot in our security suite tests for many years. This time it’s no different, and Kaspersky has once again proved itself to be the top security vendor.

This year, there’s a new package on the block, Kaspersky Security Cloud. This has all the features that you get in Kaspersky Total Security, but it costs the same as the entry-level Kaspersky Internet Security.

The big difference is that Security Cloud does a lot of the processing and management in the cloud, reducing the burden on your physical devices. There’s also adaptive security built in, which analyses what you’re doing and puts the right level of protection in place. For example, connect to unsecure Wi-Fi, and Security Cloud will boost the protection.

Security Cloud’s Personal package covers three devices (a five-device package is also available) and gives you a single user account.

There’s a Family package for £70, too, which protects 20 devices and user accounts, and bundles in parental controls as well.

Key to any security suite’s success is its ability to defend against attacks. In this regard, Kaspersky is the best product you can get, with a 100% accuracy rating.

Unsurprisingly, this rating meant that Kaspersky managed to defend against all attacks, letting nothing through. It blocked no legitimate software, either, proving that it’s not annoying to use.

When you install Kaspersky Security Cloud, you’re asked if you want to turn on ad protection. This scans for potentially unwanted programs (PUPs), preventing those annoying bundled utilities from sneaking on to your computer. We recommend leaving this option enabled.

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Visually, Kaspersky Security Cloud looks very much like previous versions of Internet Security. If you’re used to Kaspersky’s software already, this is a good thing as you’ll know where everything is.

Kaspersky packs its security packages full of extras and utilities, many of them exceptionally useful. So alongside the anti-virus and web protection modules, there are several useful features.

PLAY IT SAFE

Safe Money is Kaspersky’s hardened browser, which is presented as an option when you try to log into banking websites or check out from a store. It works neatly, but you can easily override it and stay in your current browser if you prefer.

We’ve all seen the shot of Mark Zuckerberg covering his webcam for security reasons. Kaspersky’s webcam protection will tell you the second an app starts to access your webcam, so you can deny access. You can even turn off access permanently, denying any application from being able to see you.

Private browsing requires a browser plug-in (IE, Firefox, Chrome or Edge) and stops websites from tracking you. In particular, you should see an end to those annoying tracking adverts that follow you around the web.

Kaspersky actively prevents unknown programs from taking control thanks to its

Trusted Applications module. Turn this on, and it only allows digitally signed applications and those categorised by the Kaspersky network to run automatically; other apps will be blocked. You can manually adjust which apps you trust. For novice computer users or where you really want to lock down a computer, this is an excellent option to have.

YES WE SCAN

Kaspersky Security Cloud can scan your computer, looking for any weak settings.

With our fresh install, it highlighted that file extensions were hiding (an annoying default setting), which can let malware disguise itself.

Kaspersky can also scan your computer and let you know when software needs updating. That’s quite useful, particularly if you’re running software that doesn’t have a built-in automatic updater.

A software cleaner helps you remove stubborn programs that won’t uninstall properly, and scans for adware and PUPs. Less usefully, it will recommend that you uninstall software if it hasn’t been used in a while.

If you want parental controls, you need to upgrade to the Family edition or buy one of the traditional software packages. If you do opt for this, the parental-control module is flexible, giving you highly granular control over what your child can do and when. You can blacklist or whitelist contacts on Facebook and Twitter, and block the transmission of certain key phrases, so your little one can’t be tricked into sharing your credit card details.

There’s even a built-in VPN, which can be used to cover your tracks online or access blocked content. But unless you pay an extra £20 for an annual subscription, your usage is capped at just 300MB per day, and you don’t get to choose your exit node.

The only problem with Kaspersky is that trying to create a rescue disc just links you to an ISO file, with the expectation that you create your own bootable media.

That said, the quality of the software, the excellent price and perfect protection score mean there’s no better security suite.

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SECURITY SOFTWARE

MICROSOFT Windows Defender ★★★★★ Free (included with Windows)

VERDICT

It’s there to keep you protected while you install proper security, but that’s about it WINDOWS DEFENDER HAS long been bottom of our testing table, and this year things have not improved. If anything, things have got worse. Really, the only positive thing that we can say about Windows Defender is that it’s there when you first get a new computer or do a fresh install of Windows 10. You then get just enough protection to get online and get yourself a proper bit of security.

We simply can’t stress enough just how bad the protection you get from Windows Defender is. If you’re using it, switch to something else immediately, even if it’s another free application that we’ve tested here.

How bad exactly is the protection?

Well, with a total accuracy rating of just 81%, Windows Defender hit rock bottom of the table, proving itself to be far and away the worst bit of security software that we’ve tested.

HORROR STORY

Looking at the results reveals the full horror, with a protection rating of just 48%.

While Windows Defender detected 94 of the threats, it blocked only 75 of them and neutralised a further one. This meant that 24 threats compromised the test system, which is simply abysmal.

Windows Defender did better in the legitimate software accuracy test, with a perfect 100% score. That means all good bits of software were let through the software’s defences. Even so, this doesn’t come close to making up for the awful initial showing.

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Unsurprisingly, as Windows Defender is really base-level protection, there are few options in the application. That means you don’t get web filtering, a password manager or a cleanup tool. Nor do you get an advanced firewall, as Windows Defender uses the built-in Windows one.

By default Windows Defender is turned on, giving you real-time protection against threats. Should you install a different package, Windows Defender is disabled, although you can re-enable the on-demand scanner and run it in tandem. Not that there’s much point, as

The last option reboots your computer and connects to Windows Defender online, scanning your computer without Windows running. Without the full Windows in the way, it can be easier to remove stubborn infections from your computer. Updates are handled through Windows Update, with regular definition files downloading to your computer.

RANSOM DEMAND

Microsoft has added to Defender’s features over the years. Controlled folder access adds ransomware protection to Windows. Once

With a total accuracy rating of just 81%, Windows Defender hit rock bottom of the table, proving itself to be far and away the worst bit of security software that we’ve tested the protection score is so low that it’s unlikely that Windows Defender will spot anything that another package had missed.

If you do want to run a scan, there are three options: Full, which scans your entire PC; Custom, in which you choose which folders to scan; or Offline, which is designed to remove stubborn threats.

you’ve set the folders you want to protect, unauthorised apps can’t modify any files.

That’s a neat trick, but not one that’s worth sticking with Defender for.

Apps and downloads are protected by SmartScreen, which scans files to see if they’re dodgy or not. It’s an extra level of protection, but not one that made a bit of difference in our tests.

And that’s it for this bit of software. Given its poor-quality malware detection and lack of features, it’s impossible to recommend. If you are relying solely on Windows Defender, all we can say is stop now, and choose one of the full packages that we have on test right here.

If you really don’t want to pay for protection, AVG AntiVirus Free has significantly better security and some great features. Paying for security is the only way to get the best protection, and Kaspersky Cloud Security is great value and protected against all threats in this test.

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SECURITY SOFTWARE

SYMANTEC Norton Security Deluxe ★★★★★ £30 • From uk.norton.com

VERDICT

Great protection and a great price, this suite is only slightly below the best available SYMANTEC’S NORTON SECURITY suites have always performed well in our tests, and this year the trend is continued. However, Symantec sells Norton Security in a fairly confusing array of packages, which you’ll need to sift through first.

At the bottom is the Basic version, which isn’t worth bothering with, as it currently costs the same as the Standard version. The Deluxe version is the best value; it’s the same as Standard, but gives you the option to install on five devices: PCs, Macs and mobile.

At the top is the Premium version, which gives you 10 devices to install on and adds 25GB of online storage, plus a few extra family-protection features.

Symantec Norton Security scored a 97% total accuracy rating in our tests, placing it third overall. Looking into how this was achieved, Norton scored a protection accuracy rating of 95%. It managed to detect 99 threats, blocking 97, neutralising two, but allowing one to compromise our test computers. That’s still an impressive performance and shows that you’re getting a high level of protection.

When it came to legitimate software, Norton Security managed a rating of 98%.

It blocked a few applications from running, but is far from annoying or over the top when it comes to blocking.

Many of Norton Security Deluxe’s additional features are browser extensions.

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This makes a certain amount of sense, as they’re then at the source of where infections can come from.

SAFE ZONE

Norton Identity Safe is one additional feature you’re likely to want. It works as a password manager and an anti-phishing tool, firing up warnings if you enter credentials into an untrusted site. Then there’s the Norton Security Toolbar, which gives each site you visit a security rating, adding colour-coded results into Google, Yahoo! and Bing.

In the main Norton Security app, you get access to the suite’s range of tools. It’s fair to say that over the years more features have been added simply as a way to pad out the features list. In this day and age, a disk defragmenter, temporary files cleanup tool and startup manager aren’t that useful.

Windows 10 has better versions of all of these. In many cases, these tools are outdated: if you use an SSD, then a defragmenter is pointless.

That’s not to say that it’s all a complete wash-out. Among the less useful add-ons,

there are plenty of very useful features. Silent mode is something that will appeal to anyone that needs to crack on with some work and doesn’t want to be interrupted, or just for gamers. This mode suppresses popups and the like, so you can keep going uninterrupted.

CONFIGURE IT OUT

While the main interface is very plain, the settings menu lets you get your hands dirty and completely configure how the entire system works. That’s great for power users that want to tweak everything; if you just want Norton Security to do its job, you can simply sit back and let it carry on.

As you’d expect, you can also start custom scans from the interface, looking for issues and malware already on your computer. It’s worth running one of these scans regularly.

With Premium, you also get Norton Family, a surprisingly powerful tool for the price. It lets you set rules and monitor your children’s online activity on both PCs and Android smartphones. It runs as a separate application to Norton Security, monitoring web activity, watching for flagged phrases such as credit card numbers and also lets you monitor where your child is via GPS. Compared to some other suites, Norton Security Deluxe lacks some of the more powerful add-ons and tools. However, it’s very good value for multiple devices, so we can forgive this. Protection is excellent, too, with the suite coming third overall in our tests.

However, if you want the best protection at the best price, then once again we have to point you to Kaspersky Security Cloud.

All that said, if you’re a current Norton subscriber, then you can rest easy, knowing that your computer remains well protected.

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SECURITY SOFTWARE

TREND MICRO Maximum Security ★★★★★ £30 • From www.trendmicro.com

VERDICT

Great protection, price and features, but a slightly annoying interface gets in the way TREND MICRO SCORED well last year, but the main thing that put us off was the high price. This year, Trend Micro has reduced its pricing, making its software quite a bargain.

We reviewed Maximum Security, which has support for up to three devices (a five-device option is available), but you can save a bit of cash if you go for Internet Security instead, which gives you protection for a single device.

Maximum Security also contains mobile protection, if that’s something you require.

While the price has gone down, the level of protection hasn’t. In our tests, Trend Micro Maximum Security scored a total accuracy rating of 97%, which shows just how good this software is.

Maximum Security scored a protection accuracy rating of 94%, managing to detect all 100 threats, blocking 97 and neutralising one further threat. However, that meant that two threats compromised the test systems. Even so, that puts its protection just under the top performers in this test.

Scoring a 98% accuracy rating in the legitimate software test showed that Trend Micro didn’t stop too many bits of good software from being installed, either.

OFF THE MENU

Trend Micro Maximum Security comes with a whole host of add-ons and extras. Sadly, Trend Micro hasn’t updated its interface, and all of the options are buried in annoying, animated menus that take several seconds to whizz

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around the screen each time you click a button. Simpler menus should be par for the course for any bit of software.

The interface is divided into four sections: Device, Privacy, Data and Family. Device lets you configure the anti-malware elements of the software, with options for both its real-time and scheduled scans. Most options are explained reasonably well, so you won’t have to go looking for explanations online.

From Device, you can also perform a PC Health scan, which looks for resource-heavy startup programs, junk files and out-of-date versions of Internet Explorer and Flash Player.

It also checks your user account settings to see if there are any ways you can easily bolster security. It’s not particularly pushy or over-dramatic about these ‘threats’, which is refreshing. The Mute mode is handy, stopping Trend Micro from bothering you with popups and the like if you’re gaming or just concentrating on work.

The Privacy section offers up a privacy scanner that checks your social media feeds via a browser toolbar. It also checks your browsers for privacy settings such as Do Not Track. Finally, there’s a data-protection tool that will prevent you and other people who use your PC from typing in personal information, such as credit card numbers, and sending it over the internet.

You can turn on social media protection, which scans links shared on popular networks, preventing you from being tricked into visiting malware-infected sites.

SHRED OF EVIDENCE

The Data tab contains a file shredder, password manager and a tool that can scan your OneDrive files for malware without having to download them locally. It’s an interesting if rather niche idea that lets you keep files you don’t trust at arm’s length, in the cloud, before downloading them. Then again, if you’re that worried about a file’s security implications, you should probably avoid it altogether.

The Data tab also has ransomware protection, with Folder Shield. Once enabled, the folders you’ve set to watch are monitored

by Trend Micro; any suspicious activity is blocked and reported.

It’s good to see a password manager included, which lets you create and share secure passwords between all of your devices.

The final tab lets you set up parental controls, with the ability to set adult content filters, limit the use of certain programs and generate reports about what your children get up to online.

With the new lower price but high levels of protection, Trend Micro Maximum Security is now a great choice. Certainly, if you’re running this software already, there’s no reason to change to something else. However, Kaspersky Cloud Security has the best protection and range of features, all for a similar price.

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SECURITY SOFTWARE

Award

RECOMMENDED

RECOMMENDED

Manufacturer

AVAST

AVG

BITDEFENDER

BULLGUARD

ESET

Model

Free Antivirus

AntiVirus Free

Total Security

Internet Security

Internet Security

Rating

★★★★★

★★★★★

★★★★★

★★★★★

★★★★★

Desktop OS

Windows XP, Vista, 7,

Windows XP, Vista, 7,

Windows 7, 8, 10

Windows XP, Vista, 7,

Windows XP, Vista, 7,

support

8, 10

8, 10

8, 10

8, 10

Anti-virus

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Firewall

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Parental

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

PC cleaning

No

No

Yes

Yes

No

Email

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

*Prices are taken from the manufacturer’s website at the time of writing. Boxed versions of products can often be cheaper, and don’t worry about a product looking out of date: a ‘2017’ version will upgrade to the current version, for example.

OS DETAILS

FEATURES

controls

protection Gaming mode

BUYING INFORMATION Free version

Yes

Yes

30-day trial

60-day trial

30-day trial

Price

Free

Free

£40 per year

£50-£70 per year

£40-£55 per year

Devices

Unlimited

Unlimited

5

3 to 10

1 to 4

www.avast.com

www.avg.com

www.bitdefender.co.uk

www.bullguard.com

www.eset.com/uk

protected Details

BENCHMARK RESULTS TOTAL ACCURACY Kaspersky Security Cloud Personal

100% 99%

ESET Internet Security Symantec Norton Security Deluxe

97%

Trend Micro Maximum Security

97%

AVG AntiVirus Free

96%

Bitdefender Total Security

96%

Avast Free Antivirus

94% 90%

F-Secure Safe

88%

BullGuard Internet Security

81%

Microsoft Windows Defender 0

88

20

40

60

80

AUGUST 2018

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| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 366

SECURITY SOFTWARE

BEST BUY

RECOMMENDED

RECOMMENDED

VERDICT

F-SECURE

KASPERSKY

MICROSOFT

SYMANTEC

TREND MICRO

Safe

Security Cloud Personal

Windows Defender

Norton Security Deluxe

Maximum Security

★★★★★

★★★★★

★★★★★

★★★★★

★★★★★

Windows 10

Windows XP, Vista, 7,

Windows XP, Vista, 7,

8, 10; macOS 10.7+

8, 10; macOS 10.8+

Windows XP, Vista, 7,

Windows Vista, 7,

8, 10; macOS 10.11+

8, 10

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

No

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

30-day trial

30-day trial

Yes

30-day trial

30-day trial

£60-£100 per year

£35-£70 per year

Free

£30 per year

£30-£45 per year

3 to 10

3 to 20

Unlimited

5

3 to 10

www.f-secure.com

www.kaspersky.co.uk

windows.microsoft.

uk.norton.com

www.trendmicro.co.uk

com

LEGITIMATE SOFTWARE ACCURACY Avast Free Antivirus

100%

AVG AntiVirus Free

100%

ESET Internet Security

100%

Kaspersky Security Cloud Personal

100%

Microsoft Windows Defender

100%

Bitdefender Total Security

98%

Symantec Norton Security Deluxe

98%

Trend Micro Maximum Security

98% 96%

BullGuard Internet Security

89%

F-Secure Safe 0

ISSUE 366 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

20

| AUGUST 2018

40

60

80

100

The threat landscape has changed, and our more in-depth tests really highlight the differences between security suites. By injecting targeted attacks, of the kind that happen every day, we could see how security suites deal with the unknown. Overall, this year’s tests give a far better view of which products will protect you.

There have to be winners. While we strongly recommend that you use paid-for software for the best protection, we have to start by mentioning AVG AntiVirus Free. This software managed to defend against most attacks, and it’s lightweight and easy to use. It wins a Recommended award.

Next, we have two products with a high level of protection. If you run these already or can find them online for a lower price, these suites will keep you safe.

Symantec Norton Security Deluxe and Trend Micro Maximum Security both win a Recommended award. For the best protection, it’s a fine line between ESET Internet Security and Kaspersky Security Cloud.

Overall, ESET’s higher price makes it less competitive, so it wins a Recommended award; Kaspersky’s price, protection and range of features wins it our Best Buy award.

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SHOOTING STARS Action cameras CONTENT REVIEWS Page 92

GOPRO Hero 5 Black Page 93

Forget shaky smartphone footage and boring holiday snaps – with an action camera, you can shoot stunning videos without even using your hands

GOPRO Hero 5 Session Page 94

GOPRO Hero 6 Black Page 95

GOXTREME Vision 4K Page 96

NIKON KeyMission 360 Page 97

SONY DSC-RX0 Page 98

SONY FDR-X1000V Page 99

YI 4K+

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ACTION CAMERAS ARE perhaps the biggest thing to happen in videography since the advent of digital. While the general concept is most commonly associated with market leader GoPro, there are heaps of different models from a bunch of different manufacturers, and sales have been surpassing those of traditional camcorders for years.

It’s easy to see why. Compact and durable, action cameras can be worn on a helmet or affixed to bicycle handlebars, surfboards and skateboards, giving them an all-weather, hands-free flexibility that bigger, more delicate conventional cameras can’t match. They’re perfect for extreme sports fans (or just anyone who enjoys the occasional skiing holiday), but not exclusively so: their small

size is ideal for filming anything in cramped conditions, and urban cyclists often wear action cameras to log their daily commutes.

Best of all, action cameras are intentionally simple to use and – compared to high-end DSLRs – fairly inexpensive, with even top-tier flagships costing a few hundred pounds rather than a couple of thousand. This means almost anyone can pick one up and get filming. But what qualities should you be looking for, and which cameras are the best? Read on to find out.

RAIN KILLER

It’s pretty much a given that action cameras will be small and light, as their entire purpose is to be portable and capable of attaching to a

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ACTION CAMERAS

helmet, board or bike without getting in the way. The only one we’ve tested that might prove a little too chunky for some is the Nikon KeyMission 360, and that’s only because it has a second lens for shooting 360° video.

A more pressing concern is how well the camera can stand up to the elements.

Since being exposed to rain, snow or the sea is highly likely, expect either built-in waterproofing or a bundled waterproof case.

The former is preferable, as putting the camera in a sealed container will reduce the integrated microphone’s ability to record sound. Most action cameras can survive – even if it’s only with a case – in up to 10m of water, which should suffice unless you want to film some deep-sea-diving exploits.

Integrated displays are more common on action cameras. These aren’t always going to be useful for instantly playing back footage – if a camera is attached to the top of your helmet, you’d have to faff around removing it first – but it’s worth having, especially if it’s a touchscreen.

A HELPING HANDHELD

Since action cameras typically aim for a simple, immediate approach, this is reflected in their physical controls: you won’t find a plethora of buttons and wheels here, as you might on a traditional digital camera.

On some cameras, the only obvious button is the record button.

This does, however, raise the issue of how you go about changing the camera’s settings to get the footage looking how you want it.

Even if there are navigation and settings buttons, they’ll probably be quite small and fiddly, so look out for a touchscreen or a good mobile companion app. These will enable you to pair the camera with your smartphone or tablet, and use the handheld device as a somewhat more intuitive tool for changing settings and viewing footage at decent resolutions.

STEADYING INFLUENCE

When it comes to video quality, the two most important specs are resolution, which will determine how sharp the footage is, and frame rate, which determines how smooth it looks in motion. The current gold standard is 4K (3,840x2,160) resolution at 60fps, though this is quite rare; 4K at 30fps is much more common. It’s generally best to avoid going any lower than 1,920x1,080 and 24fps, unless you’re desperate to save on SD card space.

If so, you can usually lower the resolution manually. On the subjects of 4K and memory cards, you’ll need a sufficiently fast card to be able to record at such a high resolution: specifically, one classified as UH3 Speed Class 3 (U3) or better.

Things such as colour reproduction and low-light performance are harder to judge from specs alone, so check each camera’s review to see how they perform in different conditions. Don’t be surprised if most models struggle in the dark; the widespread

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use of small 1/2.3 in sensors means that low-light recording is seldom an action camera’s strong suit.

We’d also recommend holding out for electronic image stabilisation (EIS). This is what many models use to ensure footage captured while the camera is moving doesn’t end up as an unwatchable shaky mess, so it’s essential for filming most sports.

However, not every camera has EIS, which is typically a sign that they’re designed for less strenuous activities, or that they should just be used with a gimble. Note also that stabilisation might only be offered for some resolution/frame rate combinations, not every one the camera is capable of.

PAY PER VIEW

There’s a bit of debate around whether things such as Wi-Fi and GPS are really necessary on an action camera. With GPS in particular, you can use it to automatically tag footage or add speed and altitude data to your most dramatic clips, but it’s true that these are more like nice extras than must-have functionality. If a really good camera has GPS,

feel free to explore its uses, but you probably shouldn’t base your buying decision on it.

Some have even more outlandish features, such as the Sony FDR-X1000V’s wrist-mounted, wirelessly connected live feed display. We actually can see this being useful, especially if you want to keep an eye on what’s recording but the camera itself is mounted in such a way that you can’t watch the integrated display directly. Alternatively, many mobile apps support a similar live view via your smartphone.

SWAP TEAM

Unfortunately, small cameras mean small batteries, and even the longest-lasting action cameras struggle to get past two hours of continuous recording. For the rest, you’re likely looking at around 1h 30m to 1h 45m.

Knowing this, it’s almost more important for an action camera to have removable batteries than for those batteries to last: you’re going to get short lifespans either way, so the best-case scenario is that you can keep a supply of spares handy, allowing you to keep filming throughout the day.

THE BEST ACTION CAMERA FOR… VERSATILE SHOOTING MODES

YI 4K+

There’s plenty to love about the 4K+, but its wealth of different resolution and frame-rate options deserve a special mention. Besides being able to shoot at 4K 60fps, itself a great achievement considering how cheap the 4K+ is, you get unrivalled flexibility for selecting how sharp and how smooth you want your footage to be.

This extends to some ultra-high frame rates at the lower resolutions, for dramatic slow-motion shots, but even at 1,920x1,080 you can go up to 120fps. Whether you want to max out quality or lower it to save storage space, you’ll always have the freedom to choose.

EXTREME OUTDOOR USE

GOPRO Hero 5 Black

While the latest GoPro Hero 6 Black is a very good action camera indeed, it’s not a massive step up from the Hero 5 Black, which happens to be much cheaper. The Hero 5 Black is also just as good for the kinds of strenuous, sporty uses that many of its rivals can’t handle without a protective case.

For instance, it has built-in waterproofing up to 10m, so you can happily take it surfing, skiing or simply on a bike ride in typical British weather.

The integrated microphone won’t be hampered by a sealed case, either.

UNIQUE HOLIDAY VIDEOS

NIKON KeyMission 360

There are better 360° cameras out there, but the KeyMission 360 is a respectable attempt to combine such a device with an action camera: it can shoot at 4K, has electronic image stabilisation and features built-in waterproofing that surpasses even that of the GoPro range.

It’s therefore not a bad camera to have if you want to make your travel logs a bit more interesting by recording them as explorable 360° videos. And don’t worry, this doesn’t require any special hardware to make footage viewable: you can upload and play back 360° videos on YouTube, or open them in the Windows 10 Movies & TV app.

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ACTION CAMERAS

GOPRO Hero 5 Black ★★★★★

£261 • From www.amazon.co.uk

VERDICT

Even though there’s a newer model, the Hero 5 Black still holds up – especially at this price WHEN YOU GET so many models deep into a product series, it’s not too surprising when last year’s model ends up looking as good as its latest, modestly upgraded successor. So it is with the GoPro Hero 5 Black; it’s not that the Hero 6 Black is bad, as we’ll see in a couple of pages, but the improvements it offers don’t always seem worth the extra £140 or so you’d be paying for them. As a result, the Hero 5 Black – which has dropped in price to undercut even the Yi 4K+ – could be a much more sensible option for GoPro purists.

For extra irony, this was a relatively radical departure from previous models when it launched. It’s still rectangular, like its older brothers, but also slightly less box-like, thanks to its curved edges and semi-rubberised body.

Being a few more millimetres thick in all directions, it’s a little easier to hold, especially with gloves on, and it should withstand a few more drops and bumps than its predecessors.

This redesign does mean that many older GoPro accessories won’t fit, including waterproof cases, but that’s no problem when the Hero 5 Black has built-in waterproofing up to 10m. The underwater sound quality is much better, too; the lack of a case means it won’t sound like you’re stuck in a vacuum. Admittedly, the water-tight seals make it a little trickier to access the battery, microSD slot, USB Type-C and Micro HDMI ports, but at least they’re much safer from water damage.

TOUCHY SUBJECT

The Hero 5 Black also does away with having to remember each GoPro button’s action for navigating the menus. The physical shutter and mode buttons are still here, but the old triple-button scheme is officially dead and buried thanks to the Hero 5 Black’s 2in touchscreen. Swiping right will bring up the gallery, swiping left will access additional settings (such as video stabilisation and the option to capture images in Raw format for easier editing) and, most usefully, you can look through the lens without needing a smartphone app.

Touch gestures are a little finicky to begin with, especially if you’re used to the old GoPro way of doing things, but it isn’t too long before they feel perfectly natural. You can also still use your phone for some fine-tuning after you’ve finished shooting. The main issue, however, is that there’s a brief yet noticeable delay when switching between modes and swiping to access special settings, plus an annoying

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delay between each image capture. It’s not terrible by any means, but it nevertheless feels as though your swipes and touches aren’t always being registered correctly.

Luckily, you can still use the physical buttons to switch between modes and capture footage if you prefer, or you can go completely hands-free with the Hero 5 Black’s new voice controls. Whether it’s ‘GoPro turn on’ or ‘GoPro start video’, the Hero 5 Black picked up our orders with minimal fuss, even in noisy environments.

STEADY SET GO

On the inside, the Hero 5 Black is more conservative, sharing much in common with the Hero 4 Black. It still has a 1/2.3 in CMOS sensor, and it can still only record 4K video at 30fps – the Hero 6 Black, notably, can handle 4K at 60fps. Higher frame rates are available at lower resolutions, and here you get 2.7K, 1440p, 1080p, 960p, 720p and 480p options.

Dropping the resolution can increase the frame rate to a maximum of 240fps, too, allowing for some super slow-motion footage.

There’s also electronic image stabilisation to help smooth out any unwanted camera shake. It functions reasonably well for the most part, but again, this is one of the few areas where the Hero 6 Black makes a clear

step forward; the stabilisation feature simply works better on the newer camera.

Video quality at 4K resolution is wonderful, with fantastic levels of detail and minimal noise. As was the case with the Hero 4 Black, colour saturation is a tad muted, but this was during some pretty cloudy weather conditions. It’s a decent performer in low-light conditions, too, even if noise levels are somewhat higher.

In terms of stills, its 12-megapixel lens produces clear and crisp images with wonderfully vibrant colours and little noise.

Again, some of the low-light shots of our still life arrangement were a little fuzzy, but were otherwise fine, with good exposure levels. You can shoot in RAW, too, for easier editing.

The Hero 5 Black also sits among the best action cameras for audio quality. There are three integrated microphones, enabling wide soundscape with effective wind reduction.

The only disappointing thing is battery life.

Heavy stop/start use netted 1h 45m on a single charge, about the same as on the Hero 4 Black. The battery is replaceable, however, so you can always carry spares.

TAKE FIVE

Ultimately, the extent to which the Hero 5 Black stands up to more recent action cameras is remarkable. We still slightly prefer the Yi 4K+, particularly where its 4K support and image quality is concerned, but this is still a very well-rounded device indeed.

If you’re set on buying a GoPro, there are some good arguments for choosing this instead of the Hero 6 Black. Being able to shoot at 60fps on 4K resolution is nice, as is the enhanced image stabilisation, but it’s not like 30fps looks terrible, and EIS is already implemented here. The biggest draw of the Hero 5 Black is its price: at £261 it’s incredibly cheap for such a feature-rich 4K camera, and represents a particularly enormous saving compared to the Hero 6 Black.

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ACTION CAMERAS

GOPRO Hero 5 Session on ★★★★★

£179 • From www.amazon.co.uk .uk

VERDICT

The super-portable GoPro Hero 5 Session lacks a touchscreen but is a great pick for those with a tight budget UNLIKE THE HERO 5 Black, the entry-level Hero 5 Session is yet to be directly replaced by a new Session model. Not that we’re complaining, as this is a fine action camera for the sub-£200 crowd – indeed, it’s GoPro’s first budget camera to be able to shoot at 4K, albeit only at 30fps.

It’s significantly smaller and lighter than most higher-end alternatives, an upside of its more limited feature set. At 74g and 38x38mm, it’s larger than the old Hero 4 Session but, bar the change in chassis colour, is essentially the same cube we’re familiar with.

SPLASH COURSE

The Hero 5 Session has a monochrome display on top, next to the Record button, as well as a button for switching shooting modes at the back. It’s waterproof to 10m as well, although now this feature is shared with the flagship Black series, it feels a bit less special than when it was the Session series’ defining selling point.

There’s no microSD card in the box, so you’ll have to provide one yourself (cards up to 128GB are supported). What you do get is a helmet mount, which is easy enough to set up and should give the camera a little extra protection from bumps and drops.

Sadly, the 1,000mAh battery is nonremovable, so you can’t carry around spares to swap in on the move. Still, you can fully recharge it in just over an hour via the suppled USB Type-C cable, so at least it won’t take long to top up.

As with all of GoPro’s cameras, its one-touch controls make the Hero 5 Session a doddle to use. Simply press the shutter button on the top and it will power on in just a couple of seconds and start recording.

Press it again to save the footage and turn the camera off. You can cycle through video and photo modes on the fly with just a push of the Mode button at the back, and you can see which settings you’ve applied along with battery information and storage info on the LCD display.

However, unlike the Hero 5 Black, the Hero 6 Black or the Yi 4K+, the Session doesn’t come with a helpful touchscreen, so you won’t be able to dig deep into the settings unless you open up GoPro’s Capture app on your phone. We did miss GoPro’s touch controls, as finicky as they can occasionally be, but at least the app is responsive and easy to use. It can adjust the field of view, video quality, ISO and exposure levels, as

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well as make ke simpl dit splici simple edits, splicing togeth together footage with just a few taps.

As for that big addition of 4K video, it’s limited to 30fps – unlike the Hero 6 Black’s 60fps – but otherwise, quality is top-notch.

Our test footage looked impressively sharp and detailed, clearly a step up from the Hero 4 Session. Video is recorded at a bit rate of 60Mbit/s, up from 25Mbit/s, making a huge difference to its overall quality.

FRAME AND FORTUNE

Higher frame rates are available at lower resolutions, up to a maximum of 120fps at 720p. Some of the frame rate and resolution pairings are a little limited compared to the Hero 5 Black, such as 1440p maxing out at 60fps instead of 80fps, but there’s still plenty to keep you satisfied on your adventures.

Like the Hero 5 Black, the Session’s colour saturation is a touch cold for our tastes, although we were hampered by some gloomy British weather when recording. It’s not such a good performer in low light, either, with noise issues being far more commonplace

than foot tural footage taken with plenty of natural light, and colours looking a little muted. The good news is that its dual microphone is now much louder and clearer than its predecessor, thanks to its improved wind-noise reduction.

You can take stills with the 10-megapixel camera, but while colours are vibrant enough, they’re noticeably lacking in detail.

Several shots were also quite underexposed, especially when compared with photos taken on the Hero 5 Black. There’s little chance of rescuing unusable shots taken with the Session, either, as it lacks the Black’s Raw exporting options.

One thing the Session has in its favour is its battery life. Recording a morning commute, we got 1h 40m of stop/start footage with the battery only just dipping below 40%.

Next to the Hero 5 Black’s 1h 45m for the same journey, you’re looking at a noticeable improvement. Expect almost two hours of solid recording time, storage space permitting.

FAIR AND SQUARE

GoPro’s Hero 5 Session might not have all the fancy features of its rivals, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t a great piece of kit. Aside from a couple of niggles, most notably with its still image quality, the Session is a barebones action camera that does the job well.

It’s not quite as well rounded as GoPro’s own Hero 5 Black and Hero 6 Black, nor the Yi 4K+, but then that’s to be expected given that these are all at least £80 more expensive. What’s more, its entry-level rival – the GoXtreme Vision 4K – suffers by not actually shooting at native 4K, as the Hero 5 Session can. Instead, it shoots at only 2,880x2,160, then stretches the footage out to 3,840x2,160 during playback. To our eyes, the Hero 5 Session also beats the Vision 4K on overall image quality, further cementing it as our budget pick.

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ACTION CAMERAS

GOPRO Hero 6 Black ★★★★★

£399 • From www.amazon.co.uk

VERDICT

A fantastic, if only mildly improved, action camera, with great image quality and improved stabilisation KNOWING HOW MUCH the Hero 5 Black switched things up, it was a surprise to see how little the latest Hero 6 Black has changed.

The two even look exactly the same.

There are some changes, most notably the ability to record 4K footage at 60fps, and to shoot electronically stabilised video at up to 4K 30fps. There’s improved stabilisation in general, plus marginally better image quality.

Not that you’d guess this just from looking at it. The rectangular design, 2in touchscreen, button placement and ports are all unchanged from the Hero 5 Black, and waterproofing – welcome as it is – hasn’t progressed past 10m.

This means that if you’re upgrading from the older model, all your accessories will still fit, but then we’re not entirely convinced that it’s worth nearly £400 to do so.

SWEET SIXTY

The exception would be if you absolutely have to shoot in 4K 60fps. You still can’t use electronic image stabilisation (EIS) in this mode, but at least you can with 4K at 30fps or 25fps. It records this footage in HEVC format (H.265), the same more efficient format used in 2017’s new iPhones, which is both good and bad news – files take up less space in storage, but you may need to convert them to make the footage compatible with your existing editing and playback software.

In other modes, the camera records in regular H.264 format, which is much easier to deal with, including the new slow-motion 240fps frame rate, which can be applied to 1080p footage and below. And there’s plenty more to play around with besides, with additional resolutions of 1440p and 720p available and frame rates starting from 24fps.

The other major improvement, superior image stabilisation, gives your videos a superbly smooth, near-Steadicam stability.

As with all electronic stabilisation, you sacrifice some of the frame, but the payoff is more than worth it: handheld shots when you’re standing still are incredibly stable, and even walking shots are reasonably smooth, though there’s still some evidence of shimmer as your feet hit the ground.

In fact, we’d say that if you stick to 4K at 30fps and below, there’s no need to supplement the Hero 6 with a gimbal-based stabiliser such as the Karma Grip. It really is that good.

Alas, although the usability of the touchscreen and camera is pretty good, the mobile app isn’t the greatest piece of work.

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We had to try two different smartphones before we could even connect to the camera, and even once we were up and running, the app still presented problems: for instance, previewing clips works fine when your phone is in portrait mode, but hold it in landscape orientation and the view disappears off to the left of the screen.

FREEZE FRAME

We also found the camera would freeze at random and, no matter what, it would always lock up when we set the resolution and frame rate to 2.7K/4:3 at 30fps. The only way to get it going again, frustratingly enough, was to remove and re-insert the battery.

The Quik desktop software is better, fortunately. It has a simple interface, lets you do basic editing and overlay data such as your speed, elevation, GPS track and compass heading on top of footage before exporting.

It also pulls out automatic highlights based on the camera’s interpretation of movement and various other parameters, and will put together a quick and dirty edit for you with very little effort.

Besides the added stability, general image quality is only slightly up on the Hero 5 Black.

The colours are perhaps a tad richer here and there, but largely the GoPro’s strengths and weaknesses remain the same.

It’s great when you have ample light, and the Hero 6 Black’s reproduction of colour and auto-exposures are brilliant. Sunsets look glorious, especially in timelapse mode, and there’s enough bit rate to make sense of complicated textures such as distant tree foliage, foaming water and pisted snow without the camera becoming confused.

And for those who need to colour-match video footage between different cameras, the GoPro Hero 6 Black’s ProTune mode is perfect, providing fine-grained control over ISO sensitivity levels, shutter speed, white balance and colour balance, while Raw image capture gives keen photographers a similar level of control over stills.

EXPENSIVE TASTES

Where the Hero 6 Black doesn’t impress so much is in low light. Ugly grain is visible in stills as well as video footage, and while you can you can at least control the ISO and shutter speed to reduce the worst of it, it’s still far from suitable for night-time shooting.

Battery life is pretty good. We got about two hours of use out of it, including an hour’s worth of 4K, 30fps footage with both GPS and EIS enabled, so you should get more on lower settings. You can hot-swap batteries, too, as long as you keep spares to hand.

The Hero 6 Black is generally a cracking camera, but whether you should actually buy it or not is a tricky question. It’s certainly the most technically capable GoPro available, but then it comes at the high cost of £399, a long way off the £261 Hero 5 Black – and that’s only really inferior in the image stabilisation and 4K 60fps departments. Even more convincing is the Yi 4K+. Obscure brand or not, it matches the Hero 6 Black’s array of shooting modes, while managing to surpass it slightly in image quality.

We’d sooner recommend the 4K+, then, unless you’re a GoPro fan dead-set on having the latest model.

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ACTION CAMERAS

GOXTREME Vision 4K ★★★★★

£102 • From www.amazon.co.uk

VERDICT

At such a low price the Vision 4K looks a fantastic deal, but this camera is not all it seems IF THERE’S ONE thing that’s slowed or otherwise limited the popularity growth of action cameras, it’s the pricing. Even ones we’d consider good value, such as the Yi 4K+, cost at least a couple of hundred pounds, and while there are cheaper options, such as the simply named GoPro Hero or the GoXtreme Pioneer, these aren’t going to come close to meeting the 4K resolution standard that’s been set by more expensive models for years.

Perhaps the GoXtreme Vision 4K can offer a genuine alternative: it costs only £102 but has a lot of hardware you’d sooner expect to see on a premium model, including a 2in display and a 12-megapixel sensor capable of shooting 4K footage.

GOING UP

Look into the specs and the truth is that the Vision 4K’s footage only reaches that 3,840x2,160 resolution through interpolation: it actually shoots at a native 2,880x2,160, then upsamples the results to 4K for playback. It’s still sharper than 1080p or 1440p footage, but it’s not true, native 4K. Otherwise, it’s a pretty decent action camera. You get a 170° wide-angle lens on the camera and a large set of accessories in the box, including several mounts and a waterproof case that allows the Vision 4K to be submerged in depths up to 30m.

By itself, the Vision 4K measures in at a very compact 59x41x29mm, about the size of a matchbox, and the buttons are positioned as such that they’ll be familiar to anyone who’s used a GoPro before. At the front, next to the protruding wide-angle lens, sits the power button and a blue-and-red LED that conveniently indicates when the camera is recording or broadcasting a Wi-Fi signal.

There’s also a yellow status LED and the all-important recording button placed on top.

Tucked on the left edge are a Mini HDMI video output and a Micro USB port, plus a microSD slot that accepts cards up to 64GB. The 1,050mAh battery is removable, handy if you’re doing a long shooting session and want to swap in spares; to do so, all you have to do is open the latched flap on the Vision 4K’s underside.

Lastly, the right edge houses two buttons used for navigation.

You’ll come to rely on these, because although the Vision 4K does have a 2in LCD display, sadly it’s not a touchscreen. This makes navigating through settings menus a bit fiddly, but there is another option: the

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OKCAM companion app for Android and iOS. This lets you tweak things more easily on the screen of your smartphone, and also offers a live preview; great if the Vision 4K is mounted on top of a helmet, where you won’t be able to see the integrated display.

GPS has also been left out, presumably to help keep costs low. To be fair, even the Yi 4K+ neglected to include this as well, but it’s still a mild shame that you can’t overlay positional and speed data on top of your clips once captured.

SMUDGING THE BOOKS

Unsurprisingly, the Vision 4K doesn’t bother any of the big guns – the Go Pro Hero 6 Black, the Yi 4K+ and the Sony DSC-RX0, for instance – on image quality. The fact that it doesn’t shoot true 4K, relying on interpolation instead, is one part of this – and the maximum frame rate at this resolution of 24fps is even lower than the 30fps reached by older and mid-range cameras. In fact, the Vision 4K can’t record higher than 30fps at any of its supported resolutions, including 2.5K, 1080p and 720p.

Compared to a proper 4K camera, the difference in detail is immediately noticeable.

Videos are much less sharp-looking in both the foreground and the background, while other textures and details (especially foliage)

suffer considerably from visual noise, all while lacking definition. In other words, you get what you pay for.

On the other hand, when dialled down to 1080p resolution, the Vision 4K stacks up a lot better; we compared videos shot on this camera to some taken on the much more expensive Yi 4K+, and the differences in detail were much harder to pick out. This is down to both cameras actually using the same resolution, not with one presenting an upsampled version of 1080p.

As for colour reproduction, the GoXtreme Vision 4K doesn’t wash out or oversaturate anything, in stills nor video recordings. HDR certainly helps, as once we turned it off, colours became less vivid and punchy.

Speaking of stills, the camera’s 12-megapixel sensor also uses interpolation to upsample images, this time to a resolution of 16 megapixels (4,608x3,456). However, unlike with video, the results are a pleasant surprise: the difference between our test shots and those taken with the Yi 4K+ was negligible. There was a bit more noise visible when cropped in at around 300%, but it was still a pretty good showing.

SHORT SIGHTED

Even so, it’s hard to get excited about the Vision 4K, even if it does prove itself a decent budget action camera in certain ways. The lack of true native 4K is a letdown, and it’s worth remembering that the only situation where video quality stands up to scrutiny is when it’s recording at 1080p – and if that’s the case, why not get an even cheaper model where that’s the highest resolution available?

If possible, you should aim to save for the £179 GoPro Hero 5 Session. While this doesn’t have a touchscreen either, it’s still relatively affordable for a 4K action camera, it’s a bit more flexible with higher frame rates at lower resolutions and it has built-in waterproofing.

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NIKON KeyMission 360 60 ★★★★★

£199 • From www.currys.co.uk

VERDICT

Nikon sets its sights on VR with the KeyMission 360, but a poor app lets down its high performance SO FAR, WE’VE looked exclusively at action cameras that shoot simple photos and video, but what if you want to be more ambitious and capture footage that can be viewed in a full 360 degrees, and even in virtual reality?

For that, you’ll need a 360° action camera, which typically involves having two 180° lenses on either side of the device. Our favourite 360° camera isn’t so good for action; the Samsung Gear 360 (Shopper 356) shoots great-looking 4K footage but is built to be held in a hand, not strapped to a helmet.

Nikon’s KeyMission 360 appears to be more ready for adventure, being waterproof to 30m, shockproof and dustproof.

The even better news is that this is a much more attractive deal than when it launched last year, plummeting in price from £377 to £199. That wipes out one of our biggest initial concerns: that compared to most other 360° cameras, it was too expensive. Now, it’s even cheaper than the GoPro Hero 5 Black, and can still shoot at a competitive 4K up to 24fps.

The KeyMission 360 doesn’t work with the normal Nikon SnapBridge app app. Rather it uses a specific action camera app – SnapBridge 360/170 – and this isn’t great. For starters, we experienced frequent Bluetooth connection issues on startup, leading to much cursing as we attempted to pair the devices together.

HEAVY METAL

SET ASIDE

Design-wise, however, several issues with the KeyMission 360 remain. Despite the cube shape it’s seriously bulky, a chunky square with a 66x61mm footprint and a considerable weight of 196g. That’s nearly three times as heavy as the Hero 5 Session; it’s inevitable that essentially having two cameras in one will add weight, but for cyclists and climbers it’s a likely burden that most could do without.

On the upside, the Nikon 360 stands up well against the elements. Waterproof up to a depth of 30m and shockproof against a 2m drop, it’s a robust camera. There’s also a rubber case provided for added protection.

The huge Record button dominates the top edge of the camera, along with a battery-level indicator and two status lights that let you know which lens is currently recording. There’s also a photo button on the left edge for taking still shots.

The other side houses the 1,050mAh removable battery, and offers a microSD slot, a Micro USB port for charging and a Micro HDMI port for displaying your recent footage on an external display. There’s an airplane mode toggle switch here, too.

There’s no onboard display, as offered by the Gear 360 and most traditional action cameras, so if you want a proper insight into what you’re shooting, you’ll have to resort to the companion smartphone app. That shouldn’t be too much of an issue, but sadly this is where the KeyMission 360 falls short.

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Once you’ve finally paired the two, you can delve into camera-specific settings, but don’t get your hopes up: there’s very little on offer.

All you can do is set recording and still image resolutions, and turn on wind noise reduction – that’s your lot, at least until you lose the Bluetooth connection again. Considering most action camera apps allow you to control almost every aspect of shooting, it’s not a very comprehensive tool at all.

The app may be poor, but it at least supports most Android and iOS devices.

Samsung, rather cheekily, locked the original Gear 360 to just a select few of its own high-end smartphones.

While the app is frustrating, the KeyMission 360 is somewhat redeemed by its image quality. It wields two 20-megapixel

CMOS sensors with f/2.3 lenses, able to record 30fps video at a 4,096x2,160 resolution.

That’s a step up from the Gear 360, which maxed out at 3,840x1,920. Battery life is rated at 1h 10m of video recording, or 230 stills.

Even in gloomy weather, video quality is astounding. Both lenses pick up plenty of rich, vibrant detail when recording, and stills quality is also impressive. Even wind noise reduction, which is often overbearing, was surprisingly effective at cutting down those annoying gusting sounds. The KeyMission 360’s image quality won’t challenge a decent DSLR, but it’s the best we’ve seen from a 360° camera, and can even give the Yi 4K+ a run for its money.

Even the app manages to claw back some favour, as it excels at smoothly stitching front and rear images together. While the Gear 360 struggled with this, often leaving a white line at the join, the KeyMission 360 blends the two images cleanly. The join can appear slightly softened, but not distractingly so.

OUT OF ACTION

Nikon’s first stab at a VR-ready camera is a strong contender, but it still feels a bit like an experimental effort. Image quality is superb, but underdeveloped controls and a finicky app mean that actually using the KeyMission 360 can be a frustrating experience, and as an action camera, it’s heavier and more unwieldy than we’d like.

Let’s not forget that 360° video and VR remain niche pursuits; for simply sharing your skiing holiday videos, or recording bike commutes dashcam-style, a good-quality 2D action camera will do the job. That said, the KeyMission 360 isn’t useless; its drastically lowered price has made it a closer competitor to the Gear 360, so if you’re planning to shoot recreational 360° video at home, rather than out in the wild, it’s a viable alternative.

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| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 366

ACTION CAMERAS

SONY DSC-RX0 ★★★★★

£659 • From www.amazon.co.uk

VERDICT

With its 1in sensor, this tiny video camera aims to do things differently, but its hardware limits as often as it excels THE DSC-RX0 IS something of an oddity: it has the same 1in sensor as the Sony RX100 V III DSLR, which sounds great (most competing cameras only have a dinky ¼in sensor), but despite being so incredibly expensive, it can’t even shoot 4K video without an external recorder. It’s also shockproof and waterproof to 10m, but lacks any kind of electronic image stabilisation, so it’s not even clear if this is trying to be a conventional action camera.

Fortunately, it does have some cool tricks.

Besides the sensor, which can take in four times as much light as most rivals, one of our favourites is slow-motion shooting at 1,000fps, something other premium action cameras simply can’t do. The DSC-RX0 also supports zebra striping, a professional-level feature where the camera indicates overexposed areas of the image, so you can address the problem.

With this and the rectilinear wide-angle lens, there’s no visible distortion.

The downside is that without an external 4K recorder, the best you can do natively is 1080p, albeit at a high 60fps if you use the XAVC-S, AVCHD or H.264 MP4 formats.

1,000fps footage can only capture in bursts of about a second, and the 500fps and 250fps slow-mo modes are of limited duration as well.

PEAK PRACTICE

More positively, you can connect an external microphone and control audio levels manually.

Likewise, it’s possible to focus the camera manually, with the camera zooming in and employing focus-peaking to help you get everything as sharp as possible.

These features are complemented by a full range of modes, from the fully automatic Intelligent Auto and Intelligent Auto+ for still shots and movies, right down to fully manual mode and a flat S-LOG 2 colour profile so the footage can more easily be colour graded in post-production. You can also control the camera from Sony’s PlayMemories smartphone app, which has finally been updated with Android 8.0 compatibility.

Video quality is the best of any camera here. The sizable sensor makes a difference: in low light, there’s a slight degree of noise, but it’s nowhere near as distracting or as intrusive as it is on the Hero 6 Black or Yi 4K+. In automatic mode, the DSC-RX0 adapts beautifully to extremes of brightness and darkness in a scene, capturing sunsets nicely without the highlights blowing out.

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But the Sony DSC-RX0’s problem isn’t with image quality; rather with practicality. First, the screen is tiny and, when the sun hits it, it’s very difficult to see. The buttons surrounding the display – two on the right edge and three underneath – are absolutely tiny, and using them to select the camera’s various options is an exercise in precise digit positioning.

Second, because of its 24mm lens, it’s trickier than usual to compose your shots; you can’t simply point the camera at a scene and be reasonably sure that everything is in shot. The f/4.0 aperture and large sensor mean the depth of field is narrower, too, so it’s harder to get things in focus.

MANUAL LABOUR

This is easily the most awkward aspect of the DSC-RX0, and it’s exacerbated by the fact that there’s no autofocus while recording. So, while it’s great to have manual focus, if you’re shooting from the hip, which is part of the appeal of such a compact camera, focusing manually using the tiny buttons isn’t practical.

Instead, you’ll find yourself, as we did, toggling the camera’s Near mode on and off, depending on the circumstances. With Near mode on, subjects between 0.5m and 1m away will be in focus; with it off, it will focus on everything beyond a metre. It works, but is

cumbersome in the extreme and you’ll probably also find that you forget which mode you’re in half the time, rendering shots in the wrong mode blurry and useless.

The battery lasts hardly any time at all, with Sony rating it at 35 minutes for on-off shooting and 60 minutes of continuous capture. That’s hardly surprising given how small the battery is, but if you’re on an all-day shoot, you’ll need to carry spare batteries or budget time to charge via a battery pack.

Lastly, we were seriously unimpressed with the memory card cover on the rear of the camera; it’s held on with only a tiny strip of plastic, which detaches from the body of the camera with alarming ease. Given that removing it means the camera is no longer waterproof, it’s a bit of an issue.

MISSED SHOT

Overall, the DSC-RX0 is a very confused device, and it certainly confused us. On the one hand, Sony has seemingly achieved the impossible, squeezing the big sensor from its excellent RX100 cameras into a body little bigger than a matchbox. Raw image quality, as a result, is truly impressive, and Sony also bestows the DSC-RX0 with a full array of professional tools, from zebra-striping to focus peaking and all sorts in between.

However, for every big positive, the DSC-RX0 strikes back with an equally unfortunate negative. It lacks in-camera 4K recording and, more importantly, the tools needed to make it a practical proposition for shooting out and about. Sure, you can get great shots from it, but you’ll only be able to truly make the most of it if you mount it on a gimbal stabiliser and take the time to set up the point of focus before your shots.

That, coupled with the tiny screen, fiddly buttons and ridiculous port flap cover severely undermines what might otherwise have been a groundbreaking camera.

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000V SONY FDR-X1000V ★★★★★

£312 • From www.photospecialist.co.uk o.uk

VERDICT

A fine action camera with great stabilisation, tabilisation, but it’s outmatched by newer rivals ls lder action THE FDR-X1000V IS one of the older cameras on the market; it launched in 2016, its sights aimed at the GoPro Hero 4 Black. y well: it Nonetheless, its specs hold up pretty can shoot 4K video at 30fps (but not 60fps), t/s, higher and that’s with a bit rate of 100Mbit/s, than even the latest Hero 6 Black. esign to The FDR-X1000V has a similar design AZ1. It has Sony’s other action cam, the HDR-AZ1. the same glossy white finish and there’s a ce as well large shutter button on top the device as a pair of menu buttons on the side next to its small LCD screen. The display is purely for changing settings, so you won’t be able to use ge. it to frame shots or play back footage.

PUT TO WRIST

he Sony Instead, you’ll either need to use the PlayMemories app on your iOS or Android phone, or the wrist-based RM-LVR2 live-view mote viewer remote. This slightly unwieldy remote has a colour LCD screen and dedicated shutter button, and it pairs with the camera through Wi-Fi Direct. It can also pair with up to five different cameras, which is useful if you’re on a multi-camera shoot.

It gives you a feed from the camera sensor, so you can frame your shots and play it back afterwards. The live-view has a very marginal delay, which compares favourably with many action cameras that pair with smartphones.

The remote also lets you change camera settings using the same menu structure as the camera. It’s slightly quicker, but has the irritating habit of taking you back to the main menu whenever you change a setting. This can make it rather frustrating to use, as most options are found within nested menus, and many aren’t where you might think.

The bare camera is splashproof, but the FDR-X1000V can survive submersion to 10m when inside its waterproof housing. This puts it on par with the most recent GoPro cameras, but if you want to go even deeper, you can buy Sony’s AKA-DDX1 Replacement Dive Door, which increases maximum operational depth to 60m.

In terms of recording modes, there are plenty to choose from. In MP4 format at 1080p, you can record at up to 60fps, while dropping to 720p allows up to 100fps. 240p (800x480) opens up super slow-motion 200fps video.

There’s also 4K video at 100Mbit/s or 60Mbit/s, which goes up 30fps when shooting in XAVC S format. XAVC is Sony’s own video codec, which is incredibly versatile as it lets you record at up to 120fps in 1080p and 240fps in

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720p. As well as video, you can capture 8.8-megapixel still images and take time-lapse photos at 1, 2, 5, 10, 30 and 60s intervals.

Both the Hero 6 Black and the Yi 4K+ have moved on to offering 4K recording at 60fps, so Sony’s camera falls behind in this regard.

Still, the selection of modes and settings is pretty impressive for a two-year-old device.

LIVE AND UNCUT

When connected to a suitable Wi-Fi hotspot, you can also broadcast live through Ustream.

You’ll need to connect the FDR-X1000V to your PC and use Sony’s bundled software to add your wireless details and Ustream account, but once this is done you can select the Live option and begin broadcasting. In testing, this worked without a hitch, making it much better than the 4GEE Capture Cam. On the front of the FDR-X1000V is a Zeiss Tessar lens with an aperture of f/2.8. It has a variable field of view of either 120° or 170°, but the latter introduces a significant amount of barrel distortion. This can be used to stylistic effect if you’re looking for that distinct ‘shot on an action camera’ look, but it’s not best suited to standard footage.

In both 1080p and 4K resolutions, the FDR-X1000V delivers crisp and sharp images around the centre of the frame. It becomes a little soft in the corners, but nothing too detrimental. However, despite recording at a higher bit rate than the Hero 6 Black, the FDR-X1000V can’t quite match it in terms of detail, particularly in the shadows – and the Yi 4K+ beats both, on quality as well as bit rate.

One advantage it does have is Sony’s SteadyShot electronic image stabilisation.

It’s a shame this isn’t available when you shoot in 4K, but when the FDR-X1000V was mounted, the EIS did an excellent job of reducing low-level vibrations.

OLD BLOOD

The front of the camera has a pair of microphones that record in stereo, and these are reasonably sensitive. There’s built-in wind noise reduction, too, and this worked very well when the camera was taken out on a bike ride. Capturing 8.8 megapixel stills was also respectable. Detail was again lacking, but colours were nice and vibrant and there was plenty of contrast.

Battery life is excellent, too. At 1080p, 30fps and 50Mbit/s, we managed an excellent 2h 5m. Shooting in 4K at 100Mbit/s and 30fps saw a still very respectable 52 minutes, which is on a par with the Hero 4 Black.

There’s a lot to like about the Sony FDR-X1000V, but things have changed since 2016, and most of those things mean this isn’t the excellent choice it once was. The Yi 4K+ beats it on performance and price, and even if you don’t care for 4K 60fps, the GoPro Hero 5 Black is better value overall – particularly since, bizarrely, the FDR-X1000V hasn’t got any cheaper since launch.

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ACTION CAMERAS

Y 4K+ YI ★★★★★

£266 • From www.amazon.co.uk

VERDICT VERD

Better than the GoPro Hero 6 Black and Bett cheaper che too, this camera is superb value HAI HAILING FROM CHINA, the Yi 4K+ sets itself up as a cheaper alternative to the GoPro Hero 6 Blac Black, matching it on the ability to shoot 4K video at 60fps, and it can handle 120fps at 108 1080p and 240fps at 720p, too.

Ad Admittedly, the lower price comes at the cost of things such as GPS or built-in wat waterproofing; there’s a waterproof case in the box, for rainy days and underwater sho shooting, but placing the camera inside hurts aud quality. Still, it’s smaller than the GoPro, audio 42x at 42x65x30mm, and manages to fit in a 2.2in touchs touchscreen as well as a multifunction button, which whi helpfully flashes red when recording.

On the left side there’s a flap covering a USB Type-C port, which is used for charging and audio input. Connect the bundled USB Typ Type-C-to-3.5mm adaptor and you can add an extern external microphone. You can also purchase a Typ Type-C to RCA adaptor. Underneath is a ¼in tripod mount, and you’ll find the battery and microSD compartment down here as well.

FINGERTIPS AND TRICKS

We found the 4K+’s onscreen interface easy to understand, yet it still provides a deep level of customisation for budding enthusiasts.

From the home screen, if you swipe from top to bottom, you get a set of quick toggles.

Swipe from either side and you can quickly switch between video and photo modes.

Scroll upwards and you can switch to other modes, such as Time Lapse Video, Slow Motion, Burst, Timer and Live. This last option is perhaps the most interesting, as it enables livestreaming direct to your Facebook page or YouTube channel, provided you download and install the Yi Action Camera App on your phone to set it up.

If you prefer to go hands-free, there’s a remote voice control option, too. This lets you start and stop recordings, snap stills and switch off the camera, all of which could come in handy if you’re using the device on a helmet mount or in a car. You do need to be in a quiet environment ent and speak clearly for it to work, however, and the touchscreen controls worked so smoothly we seldom felt the need to switch to voice controls.

So far, so good, but it’s image quality where the 4K+ truly surpasses the Hero 6 Black. The Sony-made CMOS sensor and f/1.8 lens capture pictures that are rich in colour, with good contrast and oodles of detail. In comparison to both the

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Hero 6 Black and the older Hero 5 Black, we found the Yi 4K+ produced slightly more colour-accurate images and videos. The Hero 6 Black’s footage looked somewhat softer and warmer, and this itself was a slight improvement on that of the Hero 5 Black.

The Yi 4K+’s still image quality is extremely impressive, and low-light performance isn’t bad either. Of course, there is image noise in the background, but that’s to be expected.

Enabling Auto Low Light mode reduces image noise a touch.

BIT BY BIT

Video capture is what it’s all about with this camera, however, and that’s sensational.

As with still image quality, the Yi 4K+ records videos with superior colour accuracy and contrast to the GoPro range at 4K and 1080p resolutions alike.

It records at a much higher bit rate, too, which results in crisper videos and better detail retention. Using the MediaInfo app to extract this information from our test clips, we saw the 4K+ hit a bit rate of 135Mbit/s at 4K 60fps, as well as 105Mbit/s at 4K 30fps; the Hero 6 Black, by contrast, tops out at around 80Mbit/s. In practice, this meant cleaner lines, less blurring and more crisply rendered details.

The only downside of this superior quality is the sheer size of the resultant files. For a 56-second clip ip recorded at 4K 60fps ps on the Yi

4K+ you’re looking at 917MB, while a 49-second clip recorded on the Hero 6 Black at 4K 60fps is much smaller, at 353MB. For movement, the 4K+ uses EIS to provide a more stable image. Unfortunately, like the Hero 6 Black, EIS doesn’t work at 4K 60fps, but will smooth out footage at lower frame rates and resolutions. Stabilisation is pretty effective, but the Hero 6 Black wins out here; we’d be much more inclined to use a gimble with the 4K+ than with GoPro’s camera.

While image quality is great, audio quality isn’t so good. Despite all three cameras recording in 48kHz at 128Kbit/s, the 4K+ doesn’t sound as wide or deep as either the GoPro Hero 6 Black or the Hero 5 Black.

DROWNED SOUND

On the plus side, with the bundled USB Type-C-to-3.5mm adaptor, you can plug in an external microphone. This will then provide far superior audio quality, even if it’s a cheap clip-style mic such as the Sony ECM-CS3.

Since the 4K+ is so cheap, it’s worth spending a little extra for better audio recording.

Something else worth noting is that sound quality on the Yi 4K+ gets worse when it’s used with the waterproof case, with audio becoming tinny and claustrophobic. The same can be said with the GoPro’s waterproof casing, but remember you don’t need to buy that particular accessory unless you plan to go deeper per than 10m underwater.

Otherwise, the Yi 4K+ proves that even if GoPro continues to dominate the world of action cameras, it’s possible to get something that’s just as good, if not better, than the competing top-of-theline model – all for less cash.

Not that £266 is terribly cheap, but compared to the Hero 6 Black, it’s an outstanding bargain, and only £5 more than the lower-spec Hero 5 Black.

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Award

RECOMMENDED

RECOMMENDED

RECOMMENDED

Manufacturer

GOPRO

GOPRO

GOPRO

Model

GOXTREME

Hero 5 Black

Hero 5 Session

Hero 6 Black

Vision 4K

Rating

★★★★★

★★★★★

★★★★★

★★★★★

App control

Android, iOS

Android, iOS

Android, iOS

Android, iOS

Sensor

1

1

1

1

Sensor pixels

12,000,000

10,000,000

12,000,000

12,000,000

LCD screen size

2in

N/A

2in

2in

Touchscreen

Yes

N/A

Yes

No

Video recording format

MP4

MP4

MP4

MP4

Video recording resolutions

4K (24/30fps), 2.7K (24/30/48/60fps), 2.7K 4:3 (30fps), 1440p (24/30/48/60/80fps), 1080p (24/30/48/60/80/90/120fps), 960p (60/120fps) 720p (30/60/100/120/240fps), 480p (240fps)

4K (30fps), 2.7K (48/30/24fps), 2.7K 4:3 (30fps), 1440p (60/48/30/24fps), 1080p (90/60/30/24fps), 960p (100/60/30fps), 720p (120/60/30fps)

4K (24/30/60fps), 4K 4:3 (24/30fps) 2.7K (24/30/48/60/100fps), 2.7K 4:3 (24/30/60fps), 1440p (24/30/60fps), 1080p (24/30/60/120/240fps), 720p (60fps)

Upsampled 4K (24fps), 2.5K (30fps), 1080p (30/60fps), 720p (30/60/120fps)

Max recording resolution

4K (30fps)

4K (30fps)

4K (60fps)

2.8K, upsampled to 4K (24fps)

Time-lapse mode

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Video recording media

MicroSD

MicroSD

MicroSD

MicroSD

Electronic image stabilisation

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Sound

Stereo

Stereo

Stereo

Stereo

Maximum still image resolution

4,000x3,000

3,648x2,736

4,000x3,000

4,608x3,456

Memory slot (card supplied)

MicroSD (no)

MicroSD (no)

MicroSD (no)

MicroSD (no)

HARDWARE /2.3 in CMOS

/3.2in

/2.3 in CMOS

/2.3 in CMOS

Data connections

USB Type-C

USB Type-C

USB Type-C

Micro USB

AV connections

Micro HDMI output

N/A

Micro HDMI output

Mini HDMI output

Battery type

Li-ion

Li-ion

Li-ion

Li-ion

Replaceable battery

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Waterproof depth

10m

10m

10m

30m with case

GPS

Yes

No

Yes

No

Dimensions

45x62x32mm

38x38x37mm

45x62x32mm

41x59x29mm

Weight

117g

74g

117g

48g

Prices correct at time of going to press

BUYING INFORMATION

100

Warranty

One year RTB

One year RTB

One year RTB

One year RTB

Price

£261

£179

£399

£102

Supplier

www.amazon.co.uk

www.amazon.co.uk

www.amazon.co.uk

www.amazon.co.uk

Details

www.gopro.com

www.gopro.com

www.gopro.com

www.goxtreme-action-cams. com

Part code

CHDHX-501

CHDHS-502

CHDHX-601

20129

AUGUST 2018

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 366

ACTION CAMERAS

BEST BUY

NIKON

SONY

SONY

YI

KeyMission 360

DSC-RX0

FDR-X1000V

4K+

★★★★★

★★★★★

★★★★★

★★★★★

Android, iOS

Android, iOS

Android, iOS

Android, iOS

2x 1/2.3 in CMOS

1in CMOS

1

1

21,140,000

15,300,000

8,800,000

12,000,000

/2.3 in CMOS

/2.3 in CMOS

N/A

1.5in

1.5in

2.2in

N/A

No

No

Yes

MP4

MP4

MP4

MP4

4K (24fps), 1080p (24fps), 720p (30fps), 480p (120fps), 240p (240fps)

1080p (24/30/60fps), 720p (30/120fps)

4K (25/30fps), 1080p (24/25/30/50/60/ 100/120fps), 720p (25/30/100/120/ 200/240fps)

4K (24/25/30/48/50/ 60fps), 2.7K (24/25/30/ 48/50/60fps), 1440p (24/ 25/30/48/50/60fps), 1080p (24/25/30/48/50/ 60/100/120fps), 960p (50/60/100/120fps), 720p (50/60/100/120/200/ 240fps), 480p (200/240fps)

4K (24fps)

1080p (60fps)

4K (30fps)

4K (60fps)

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

MicroSD

MicroSD, Sony Memory Stick Micro

MicroSD

MicroSD

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Stereo

Stereo

Stereo

Stereo

7,744x3,874

4,800x3,200

3,952x2,224

4,000x3,000

MicroSD (no)

MicroSD (yes), Sony Memory Stick Micro (no)

MicroSD (no)

MicroSD (no)

Micro USB

Micro USB

Micro USB

USB Type-C

Micro HDMI output

Micro HDMI, 3.5mm microphone jack

Micro HDMI, 3.5mm microphone jack

USB Type-C (3.5mm microphone adaptor included)

Li-ion

Li-ion

Li-ion

Li-polymer

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

30m

10m

10m with case

40m with case

No

No

Yes

No

66x61x60mm

41x59x30mm

24x52x89mm

42x65x30mm

198g

110g

114g

96g

One year repair and replace

One year RTB

One year RTB

One year RTB

£199

£659

£312

£266

www.currys.co.uk

www.amazon.co.uk

www.photospecialist. co.uk

www.amazon.co.uk

www.europe-nikon.com

www.sony.co.uk

www.sony.co.uk

www.yitechnology.com

NK360

DSCRX0D1.YG

FDR-X1000V

91107

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| AUGUST 2018

VERDICT It’s understandable that GoPro and action cameras are almost synonymous, as judging by how the company’s most recent models stack up to the competition, it’s easily the most consistently highachieving brand in the game.

The Hero 5 Black excels in almost every area, mixing high picture quality with a durable yet user-friendly design and a wide choice of shooting modes, while the Hero 5 Session gives up a few luxuries (such as touchscreen controls) to deliver sharp, smooth 4K recording at an even more accessible price.

The Hero 6 Black is also a worthy choice, adding 60fps recording at 4K as well as improved stabilisation, although it’s quite pricey compared to the Hero 5 Black, and all things considered is only a minor upgrade. The Hero 5 Black is therefore better value, even if the Hero 6 Black is better technically.

However, if we had to pick a favourite, it wouldn’t be a GoPro at all: it would be the Yi 4K+. Although sitting roughly in the middle of the pack price-wise, this is undoubtedly a top-quality action camera, offering 4K 60fps recording and image quality that beats everything short of the Sony DSC-RX0 (which gets an advantage from its 1in sensor). Waterproofing isn’t built in, but at no extra cost you get a case that does the job up to a diving-friendly 40m.

As for the rest, the Nikon KeyMission 360 gets points for its high-fidelity 360° footage, but it’s bulky by action camera standards and can be difficult to use.

The GoXtreme Vision 4K and DSC-RX0 also have their own tempting qualities – respectively, a low price and a high-performance sensor – but both come with a few too many limitations or compromises to make those strong points worth it.

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TAKE CONTROL FEDUPWITHBIGCOMPANIES MISUSING YOURPERSONAL DETAILS?THENEW GDPRHELPS STOPSABUSEANDPUTS THEPOWERBACKINYOURHANDS. DAVIDLUDLOWSHOWSYOUHOW TOREGAINCONTROL OFYOURDATA

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B

usinesses are often told that data is the new oil; the raw resource that will power them to new heights. No wonder, then, that they’re so interested in accumulating our personal information. By targeting advertising at us, collecting our information and reselling it, and a whole range of other abuses, our data is big business.

This wealth of data is not just valuable to companies, either. Hackers want your information to sell or to use to break into valuable accounts. And personal data can even be used for shady purposes, with companies such as Cambridge Analytica harvesting 87 million Facebook profiles.

Well, enough is enough. The excesses of the last few years haven’t gone unnoticed by European Union (EU) policymakers, who have introduced the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to curb data misuse, force companies to boost security and put control back in your hands.

The GDPR, which came into force on 25th May, applies to any company operating and processing data in any EU country.

There are no loopholes in it, and companies such as Facebook can’t just ship your data off to a foreign destination to carry on as they were. Also important to note is that, however Britain ends up exiting the EU, the UK government has already confirmed that GDPR rules will continue to apply.

Within GDPR there are eight individual rights enshrined that set out how your personal data can be collected, processed and used. Most importantly, it puts this control into your hands, with businesses, from the smallest to the largest, responsible for protecting your information and, if you ask, divulging what’s stored or deleting it forever.

In this feature, we’ll show how GDPR applies to you and how you can use its new powers to keep control of your data.

WHATISGDPR?

While the UK and other EU member states have had data protection rules for a long time, they haven’t been particularly effective in preventing mass data collection and processing. Nor have they pushed companies

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into boosting their security, with large-scale hacks of the likes of Yahoo! and TalkTalk seemingly taking place all too regularly.

GDPR aims to rectify that, forcing companies to boost security to prevent hacks

having an impact, while reducing the amount of processing that can be done on your data.

Finally, the control over data has been pushed back into your hands, where it belongs.

To show that the regulators are serious about the new rules, the maximum fines for companies found to be in breach of the regulations, or that lose personal data, are now €20m, or 4% of worldwide turnover, whichever is greatest.

These fines apply whether data has been lost accidentally or through a massive hack.

Take TalkTalk, which was fined a record £400,000 in 2016 when it was hacked; under the new rules, this could have been up to £70m. That’s a good incentive for companies to take security more seriously and protect their customers’ data. It will be up to UK privacy watchdog the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to manage fines, with the worst and most negligent offenders likely to get the biggest financial penalties.

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PERSONALDATACANBE USEDFORSHADYPURPOSES, WITHCOMPANIESSUCHAS CAMBRIDGEANALYTICA HARVESTING87MILLION FACEBOOKPROFILES

AT A GLANCE:

THEEIGHTINDIVIDUALRIGHTS

(see pages 106-109 for full details)

1. THE RIGHT TO BE INFORMED You have to be told how your data will be used, and who will have access to it 2. THE RIGHT OF ACCESS You can receive a copy of your data for free 3. THE RIGHT TO RECTIFICATION Incorrect data has to be updated

HOWDOESGDPRAFFECTME?

GDPR is a big issue for businesses, with every company from the multi-global enterprise to the one-man band having to overhaul their privacy statements and the ways they process data and deal with security. Most information about GDPR has, as a result, focused on helping business owners get things right.

Yet the regulation is there to protect individuals, and give them the data privacy and control that they need. As such, GDPR has a set of rights that give you more control over your data, and the option to prevent your data from being used by a company.

It’s the biggest shake-up to privacy laws that we’ve ever seen, and GDPR is designed to give us the power to look after our data and hold companies that don’t take the responsibility seriously to account. Here, we’re looking at how GDPR affects companies, your eight rights and the way that you can use them.

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MOREINFORMATION

Under older data protection laws, only a certain set of companies legally had to report a breach of personal data. Typically, reported breaches tended to be large-scale hacks, such as with Yahoo! or TalkTalk. With GDPR, companies now have to be more open, and all breaches where personal data was at risk have to be reported to the authorities and communicated to customers.

That’s great news, as it forces companies to disclose information about threats and how your data could have been misused. After the large-scale breaches we’ve seen, trust in firms is at an all-time low. With GDPR, the details about how your data is treated comes to you.

While knowing that your data may have been hacked isn’t great news, it’s better to know than have a company try to hide the information. Wider breach reporting means it will be easier to keep an eye on which companies to trust, and which ones to avoid.

4. THE RIGHT TO ERASURE You can make companies delete your personal data 5. THE RIGHT TO RESTRICT PROCESSING You can prevent your data from being processed 6. THE RIGHT TO DATA PORTABILITY You can transfer your data between companies and services 7. THE RIGHT TO OBJECT You can object to the way your data is processed and to direct marketing, stopping both 8. RIGHTS IN RELATION TO AUTOMATED DECISION-MAKING AND PROFILING You should not be subject to decisions based on profiling and an entirely automated process

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YOUR 8 CORERIGHTS 1 THERIGHTTOBEINFORMED

One of the biggest changes with GDPR is how companies have to signpost the way that they collect and use your data. How many times have you signed up for a new website or service, only to be met with an impenetrable block of text that you’d have to be a legal genius to interpret?

No more is this allowed. Thanks to the right to be informed, companies have to present clear terms and conditions, written in natural language. These terms and conditions must explain exactly what your data is being collected for, how it will be processed, where else it will be shared and how long it will be stored for.

You’ve probably noticed over recent months that companies have been revamping their terms and conditions, requiring you to agree to the details.

Facebook, for example, has had a big splash page asking its users to consent to processing images for automatic tagging.

All of this is to ensure that the company stays within its GDPR obligations. Similar moves have been made by other companies.

For example, Waitrose has sent out a clear email stating how data will be collected, RIGHT: Waitrose is one of many firms that has updated its terms and conditions for GDPR

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how it will be used and how it will be shared.

Other companies are following suit.

All of this clear information is a good opportunity to review what you share with companies and to examine if you’re happy to continue receiving communications from them. When you sign up for new services, you’ll have a clearer idea of how your data will be used, letting you choose if you want to carry on.

HOWCANCOMPANIESPROCESSYOURDATA?

There are several ways companies can process your data. For many tasks, it’s a matter of getting your consent. GDPR is very clear that consent has to be willingly given; which means opting in, with pre-ticked boxes banned.

Consent has to be granular, too, giving you the option to agree to something, but to deny consent elsewhere. Importantly, there’s no wriggle room when it comes to consent. So if a company seeks and gets your permission for one task, that consent does not apply to a new service or new way of using your data.

Rather, the company needs to seek your consent for any new type of processing.

Failure to do any of the above means that a company is potentially in breach of GDPR and can be reported.

ALEGITIMATEINTEREST

While most companies will look to get consent for collecting and processing your data, there are some methods where companies don’t need consent to process your data. For example, shops don’t have to gain consent to process your data for the purposes of taking payment; a shop can also share your details with a courier in order to get an item delivered.

This type of consent is known as a legitimate interest.

Under this part of GDPR, if a company believes that there’s a legitimate interest for processing your data or contacting you, then it can do without seeking permission. For example, if you buy a car and there’s a safety concern with it, the manufacturer would be able to contact

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THE END OFPHONESPAM?

you with a recall notification even if you’d opted out of marketing emails. Here, you would legitimately be interested in the information being sent to you.

Or a company fighting fraud may run checks that don’t affect privacy, but that could stop funds being stolen or your credit card being falsely charged.

However, it’s important for a company to have documentation proving that it has thought about legitimate interest, and has a good reason for using this to process your data. It’s clear that the ICO will not be happy with companies that send out spam under the pretence that the recipients would be legitimately interested in the marketing message. However, honest direct marketing can be a legitimate interest; fortunately, GDPR provides easy opt-out methods for this type of communication.

NOMORESHARING

A hugely important change is that GDPR could kill off third-party marketing. Before the regulation, it was perfectly acceptable for a company to put a tickbox on their sign-up page that said something like, “You consent to related third parties communicating with you”. So sign up for car insurance, and you may accept breakdown companies emailing you.

Well, no more. Thanks to GDPR, if you sign up to any kind of contact, all of the companies RIGHT: Shops can legitimately share your details with a courier in order to get an item delivered

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Unfortunately not. Telephone marketing is one of those areas that’s partly covered by GDPR and will also be covered by the upcoming ePrivacy Regulation. The main thrust is that telephone marketing is still completely valid and that cold calls are allowed.

However, there’s no carte blanche for companies simply to call you repeatedly, and there are ways to prevent marketing calls. First, you can ask a calling company to remove you from its contact list, preventing future calls.

It’s usually better to stem the tide, rather than dealing with companies individually.

To do this, sign up for the Telephone Preference Service (TPS). By registering online (www.tpsonline.org.uk), you can add your landline and mobile phones to a no-call database. Any number listed with the TPS can’t be called by any company or charity, unless you have specifically given your consent to do so. However, as discussed, under GDPR you can withdraw your consent for future communications.

Any calls that you get after you register with the TPS can be reported on the website.

You’ll need the name of the company that called you and the telephone number used.

Finally, you have to have been registered with the TPS for 28 days or longer before you can make a report.

that may contact you or have access to your data must be listed on the sign-up form; if they’re not, then they can’t contact you. The truth is that anyone faced with a huge box full of thousands of potential companies that may want to contact them will run a mile.

Companies may be bemoaning this change, as it affects the number of people that they can contact; as consumers we should be rejoicing, as this change should dramatically improve unsolicited marketing.

THERIGHTTOREMOVEACCESS

While GDPR should cut down on the amount of data sharing and processing that goes on, giving us all some much-needed privacy back, that’s not the end of the matter. Importantly, GDPR requires that it’s as easy for someone to withdraw consent to processing as easily as they sign up for it.

So if you want to stop getting marketing emails, being contacted by named third parties or just don’t want to use a service any more, there has to be a simple way for you to remove your consent.

Strictly speaking, the withdrawal method should be offered in the same way as the sign-up process. So if you signed up for a service over the phone, there should be a phone option to withdraw consent.

All this information should be easy to find. Companies that hide the opt-out information in an obscure part of their website are going to find themselves in a lot of trouble.

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YOUCANASKACOMPANYTODELETEALL DIGITALRECORDSTHATITHOLDSONYOU 2 THERIGHTOFACCESS

While we’ve looked at how companies should treat you and your data, there are parts of GDPR that put power firmly in your hands.

One of the key tenements of GDPR is the right to data access. In other words, you now have the right to request any data that a company holds on you, from electronic notes and emails to any other database records.

What’s more, the information has to be provided for free. Under the older Data Protection regulation, requests such as this were charged at £10 each.

Strictly speaking, GDPR does allow companies to make a charge, but this is only allowed in order to prevent widespread misuse of the power.

GDPR only allows companies to make a reasonable charge for data access if “a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive, particularly if it is repetitive”.

By “reasonable cost”, the ICO says that this must be based on the administrative cost of processing the data.

For example, asking for a data dump of everything that concerns you is a fair request; asking for a filter of information that specifically relates to you, mentioned in emails to specific people, between two dates, may be considered harder to achieve. Likewise, going

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back and repeatedly requesting the same information will land you with a charge.

The main thing to remember is that you shouldn’t be fobbed off or asked for money for legitimate requests.

3 THERIGHTTORECTIFICATION

If you spot anything that is misleading or wrong with any bit of information that a company holds on you, you have the right to ask for it to be corrected. Companies are given one month to respond to this.

Having the right to ask for changes doesn’t mean that everything has to be updated to the way that you want it. For example, trying to get a company to change its credit rating for you because you think it’s wrong probably won’t get you far.

4 THERIGHTTOERASURE

One of the most powerful rights under GDPR is the right to erasure, commonly known as the right to be forgotten. Under this right, you can ask a company to delete all digital records that it holds on you, and that further communication is prohibited.

There are restrictions to this right. The main one is that companies may retain documents and records for legal reasons. For example, shops may need to store records for tax purposes. Or there may be regulatory reasons why information has to be retained, such as banks needing to keep financial records for a set period of time.

However, while some data may be retained, it should only be stored for a situation when it’s required, and further processing and communication should stop. Companies have one month to reply to a request of this type.

5 THERIGHTTO

RESTRICTPROCESSING

Under GDPR, the right to restrict processing is similar to the right to erasure, with companies unable to continue processing your data, only your personal data is not deleted.

Why would you want this? It could be that you’ve noticed an error in your records, so you can ask for processing to be paused while your information is corrected. Or you may need the company to hold on to your data, which you may need for a legal claim.

There are times when restrictions don’t apply. For example, a company could process your data in the pursuit of a legal claim.

6 THERIGHTTO

DATAPORTABILITY

There’s another reason why you can request and get your data: portability. Rather than companies hanging on to all your data, GDPR requires more open access to your information. The idea is that you can take your data from one company and use it elsewhere.

The important aspect of this right is that your data has to be provided to you in a

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MAKINGA COMPLAINT

If you think that your data is being misused or processed unlawfully, then your first port of call should be with the company. With the right to access your data, you can find out what the company holds on you, and the proof that the company can process your data.

For example, if you’re getting marketing emails from a company that you don’t know, then you can ask for proof that you should be receiving the communications.

If there’s no proof that your data should be processed, then the company is potentially in breach of GDPR. At this point, you should inform them of this, and ask to be removed from further dataprocessing. If you’re not happy with the response, you can make a formal complaint to the ICO. If the company believes that it has a legitimate right to process your data, it may write back to you with the proof that it’s using. However, even with this, you can object to your data being used.

If your data is being used for direct marketing, then your objection prevents all further communications of this type. For other types of processing, you can use the right to restrict your data or the right to erasure to prevent further processing.

You can also object to a company claiming that it has a legitimate interest to contact you, asking them to prove that they do. Note that, aside from direct marketing, your objections may not be upheld. Instead, you may want to pursue either the right to erasure or the right to restrict processing.

8 RIGHTSINRELATIONTO

simple, secure way that doesn’t hinder its reuse elsewhere. So a company can’t provide you with a dump of its proprietary systems in a file that you can’t open; instead, open formats such as CSV files need to be used.

You may be thinking, why would you want to do this? The ICO has a good example with banking: “Midata is used to improve transparency across the banking industry by providing personal current account customers access to their transactional data for their account(s), which they can upload to a third-party price comparison website to compare and identify best value. A price comparison website displays alternative current account providers based on their own calculations.”

In some cases, companies may be able to share data directly with other companies, based on your permissions. However, companies are under no obligation to change their systems to make them compatible with their competitors’.

Requests of this type should be processed within one month.

AUTOMATEDDECISION MAKING ANDPROFILING This is a point that’s more for regulators looking into a company, but this right is designed to reduce the damage that profiling and automated decision-making can produce.

Specifically, fully automated decisions can’t be made that result in legal effects. The example given in the GDPR documentation is of someone being automatically turned down for a credit card or online recruiting processes.

Companies instead have to have a human involved at some point to make things fairer.

Profiling is used by many companies to build up a picture of what you’re like using

statistical analysis. This information can be used to set pricing, such as with insurance.

Profiling is not specifically outlawed by GDPR, but the controls are tighter. In particular, any profiling has to be free of discrimination. Recently, some insurance companies were found to have increased the cost of car insurance to people with Muslim-sounding names, for example.

What effect this part of GDPR will have on companies remains to be seen, but it’s not something you can generally use yourself, unlike the other rights we’ve looked at.

AFAIRERSOCIETY

GDPR is a huge improvement to data protection laws, giving us one of our most valuable assets back: our data. It should prevent large-scale misuses of data and, for the biggest offenders, there are massive fines waiting.

The new powers that we’ve outlined are yours to use, and they should be. Only when companies are properly held accountable for their actions will we start to see a change and a fairer use of our data.

7 THERIGHTTOOBJECT

The right to object is similar to the right to erasure and the right to restrict processing.

It’s there to give you an opportunity to object to how your data is being used. Importantly, if your objection is about direct marketing, then the company has to stop immediately.

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Build a

PHOTOEDITING

PC

The right combination of software and hardware will make organising and editing your thousands of digital snaps a breeze. Chris Finnamore takes you through how to build the ultimate photo-editing PC

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M RIGHT: The standalone version of Lightroom is no longer supported

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anaging thousands of digital images, importing large batches of Raw format photos and applying corrections to hundreds of images isn’t a job for a low-powered laptop. A PC with the proper specification will make light work of the number crunching, leaving you free to tweak your photos without waiting around for the results.

Over the next few pages we’ll show you the best software, PC components and peripherals to build the ultimate photomanagement and editing PC.

THE SOFTWARE

We’ll cover the software we think you should have first, as which packages you use to edit your photos will inform the specification of your PC. When it comes to photo editing, one package stands head and shoulders above the rest: Adobe Lightroom.

This is an all-in-one image organiser and editor, which makes it easy to import photos from your camera, preview them, edit them and then keep them organised so you can

find and share them easily later.

It has excellent Raw image support, too – photographers serious about making the most of their photos should be shooting in Raw, as it provides you with far more control over the processing of your images.

Lightroom also used to have one more killer feature, compared to most of Adobe’s other products: you could buy it outright for £120, without needing to subscribe to anything for a monthly fee. While this is still the case, as

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version 6 is still on sale, Adobe will no longer support the standalone product. This means that you’ll miss out on any future bug fixes, and the software may not work with any new cameras or lenses you buy.

Those who want updates will need to move to a subscription package, and this is where things get confusing – mainly as which package you buy will depend on which version of Lightroom you want. For £9.98 a month you can either have Lightroom CC and 1TB of cloud photo storage (the Lightroom CC plan), or Lightroom CC, Lightroom Classic CC, Photoshop CC and 20GB of cloud storage (the Creative Cloud Photography plan).

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Lightroom Classic CC is the evolution of Lightroom 6, and is a standard Windows desktop application designed for working on locally stored files. By contrast, Lightroom CC has a friendlier interface and works on multiple devices, but only with photos stored in Adobe’s cloud.

Lightroom CC is also missing some of Classic CC’s more powerful features, but the main problem is its reliance on cloud storage. Depending on how many photos you have in your collection and whether you like to shoot in Raw format, you may find yourself quickly eating into your allowance and having to give Adobe

| AUGUST 2018

a small fortune each month for enough space to store your pictures.

Unless you really need to edit your photos wherever you are in the world, and on whatever device you have handy, you’re probably better off sticking with the Classic CC version of the software, as supplied with the Creative Cloud Photography plan, and editing photos stored on your hard disk. This plan has the added advantage that it comes with an Adobe Photoshop licence, which is the most powerful application available for more in-depth photo editing and fixing.

If you’re determined to avoid paying a subscription to use

ABOVE: Lightroom is still the best way to manage and manipulate large numbers of images, but buying it is more complicated than it used to be

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ALTERNATIVES TO ADOBE

Lightroom may be king when it comes to digital photo organising and editing, but there are free alternatives. The most powerful is Darktable (darktable.org), an “open-source photography workflow application and Raw developer”.

It’s immensely powerful, quite hard to learn, and on our Windows 10 PC at least, a little unstable (it’s apparently better on Linux). It’s hugely promising and improving all the time, however.

A friendlier free alternative to Darktable is DigiKam (www.digikam.org), while RawTherapee (rawtherapee.com) is highly regarded for raw processing. When it comes to Photoshop-style editing, Gimp (www.gimp.org) is the obvious free option, but those with £50 to spend and a liking for a prettier user interface should try Serif’s Affinity Photo (affinity.serif.com) . A free trial is available at tinyurl.com/affinitytrial.

RIGHT/FAR RIGHT TOP: Darktable and DigiKam are both promising free alternatives to Lightroom FAR RIGHT BELOW: Serif’s Affinity Photo is only £50

RIGHT: Intel’s processors offer the best performance when it comes to Lightroom

Lightroom, there is a way to make sure an older version of Lightroom will work with newer cameras: Adobe’s Digital Negative gative Converter.

This tool will convert the Raw output from many different cameras into a DNG format that can be used with Lightroom.

THE HARDWARE: RE: PROCESSOR

We’ll assume you’re going to use Lightroom for your ur photo organisation and editing diting tasks, so our example PC builds will be specified accordingly.

The first choice you ou need to make is which processor to buy. For Lightroom, you’ll wantt at least four cores, as found in most st desktop PC chips. There’s also evidence vidence that Lightroom benefits from more than four cores in certain situations.

HardWare.fr has tested Lightroom 6.7 on several Intel and AMD processors (see tinyurl.com/benchlightroom), and the six- and eight-core chips have a definite advantage when exporting Raw photos to JPEG with lens correction applied.

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The fastest processor to export a batch of 96 Canon 5D Mark II photos (excluding any truly silly £500-plus models) is the Intel Core i7-8700K, part of the Coffee Lake series. This has six cores, and 12 ‘virtual’ cores thanks to Intel’s Hyper-Threading technology, and managed the task in 297 seconds. This is a £340 chip, however, and it’s possible to get almost as much performance for significantly less cash.

The Core i5-8600K does without Hyper-Threading, so only appears to Windows as a six-core processor processor, but this made little difference in HardWare.fr’s benchmark: the chip completed the test in 306 seconds, so is only 3% slower than the Core i7.

What’s more, the Core i5 costs £230, so is over 30% cheaper. When it comes to Lightroom, the Intel Core i5-8600K provides the biggest bang for your buck.

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If you’re after something a little cheaper, there are some performance bargains to be had.

The Core i5-8400 is a standout example, with 88% of the performance of the Core i7-8700K at less than half the price. If you don’t fancy making Intel even richer, AMD’s Ryzen 5 1600 is a contender; it’s 21% slower than the top Intel chip in the Lightroom test for half the cash.

THE HARDWARE: RAM

Once you’ve chosen your processor, and a motherboard to go with it (see Best Buys, page 66) you need to decide how much memory, or RAM, you need. Adobe claims a minimum of 4GB for Lightroom Classic CC, but that’s barely enough for Windows 10 and a browser, let alone complex photo manipulation.

Ideally, you’ll want to fit your PC with 16GB RAM. An easy way to find compatible sticks is to use the Crucial Advisor tool at uk.crucial. com. This will let you enter the manufacturer and model of your chosen motherboard, and will only show you compatible RAM.

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For the best performance, you should get a RAM kit, consisting of a couple of modules. Almost all motherboards support dual-channel RAM, which makes two memory modules work in parallel for improved data transfer speeds to and from the processor. For dualchannel to work, matching RAM modules need to be installed in matching slots on the motherboard.

Getting two 8GB DDR4 modules is only a pound or so more expensive than a single 16GB module, so is well worth doing. You should get the fastest RAM your motherboard can support without overclocking; this will

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be explained in the manual. For example, the Asus Prime Z370-P board supports up to 2,666MHz DDR4 RAM as standard, so the ‘Crucial 16GB Kit (2 x 8GB) DDR42666 UDIMM’ kit (part number CT11009728) would be a good fit.

Don’t worry too much about getting fancy gamer-oriented RAM with heatspreaders and low latencies, as these will make little difference in Lightroom. If the £160 or so you need for 16GB RAM is beyond the budget, then 8GB will just about do, but you may hit the occasional slowdown (especially if flicking between Lightroom and Photoshop).

BELOW: Ideally you’ll want two 8GB sticks of matching RAM for your photoediting PC

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ABOVE: You won’t need the latest and greatest graphics card for your setup

RIGHT: The £80 GeForce GT 1030 is ideal if you need a DisplayPort output for 4K

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THE HARDWARE: GRAPHICS

There is some debate over whether a powerful graphics card, or GPU, can improve Lightroom’s performance.

Lightroom does have optional GPU acceleration, but this only makes a difference in the Develop (editing) module, and then only when it comes to certain functions.

What’s more, according to Adobe, GPU acceleration is really only there to help when running at very high resolutions, such as 4K or 5K. If you’re using Lightroom on a standard 1,920x1,080 monitor, the difference will be negligible (and performance may actually be worse, due to bugs in some graphics card drivers).

Adobe has some recommended graphics card specifications: it has to support DirectX 12 or OpenGL 3.3 (which all new cards do) and have a recommended minimum 2GB of memory on board, or 4GB for a highresolution 4K or 5K monitor.

However, a cheap card with 2GB of memory probably won’t be quick enough to use with GPU acceleration enabled; there are plenty of stories online of users with low-end and mid-range

cards getting better performance in the Develop module with acceleration switched off.

The Adobe support page is a little out of date, as it recommends a minimum of Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 and GTX 900-series cards, and cards from the AMD Radeon R9 series.

These are the equivalent of current mid-range Nvidia and AMD cards such as the GeForce GTX 1060, and AMD Radeon RX 570 and 580.

Back in the good old days before the explosion of Bitcoin mining (and Ethereum, Litecoin and Dogecoin mining), you could pick up such cards for around £150. Now, reams of cards are bought up and shipped off to near hydroelectric power plants in

Siberia, to be condemned to run 24/7 producing virtual wealth.

The resulting stock shortages mean that many cards have doubled in price. If you’ve bought an Intel Core processor with built-in graphics, we’d recommend just using that, and not worry about some small performance improvements in specific-use cases. However, if you’re planning to buy a 4K monitor, make sure your chosen motherboard has a DisplayPort output.

If you’ve gone for an AMD Ryzen chip, you’ll need a dedicated card, but just get the cheapest modern one you can with the necessary outputs for your monitor. The £30 AMD Radeon R3 230 is a good example, or an £80 Nvidia GeForce GT 1030 if you need DisplayPort for a 4K monitor.

THE HARDWARE: STORAGE SSDs are fantastic, high-speed storage devices, which make Windows run like an absolute dream. They are, however, expensive when compared to conventional hard disk drives. In an ideal world (or one in which you had an unlimited PC budget), you’d just

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buy a 1TB or larger SSD and use it to store Windows, Lightroom and all your photos, and so be sure that you were getting the best possible performance.

This would cost you anything between £220 and £430, however.

A more realistic option is to use a 250GB or 500GB SSD for Windows and your applications (£67 or £117 for the highly rated Crucial MX500 drive) and store your photos on a separate 1TB or 2TB hard disk. Even a 2TB WD Blue disk, which would store about 45,000 raw images, is only £55.

The performance difference between storing your photos on an SSD or a hard disk is, by most accounts, negligible. A detailed test at tinyurl.com/ lightroomssd, involving creating previews from 300 Canon 5D MkII photos, showed a maximum 1% difference in time taken between our SSD/hard disk combination and having everything on an SSD. You’ll also want to have some kind of backup regimen in place, preferably with a

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network-attached storage (NAS) device sited away from your main PC (so the whole lot doesn’t get fried by lightning). Many NAS manufacturers, such as Qnap with its Qsync app, provide automatic backup and synchronisation software for Windows, or you can do it yourself with the excellent FreeFileSync (freefilesync.org). To be really sure, upload your photo catalogue to the cloud with a service such as Google Drive (£8 a month for 1TB).

THE HARDWARE: MONITOR

To make sure you get the image just right when editing, and to make the resulting images a joy to view, choose your monitor carefully. There are four main aspe aspects to consider: size, resolutio resolution, screen technology and colour coverage.

When it comes to size, a 24in model with a 1,920x1,080 resolution is the smallest you should consider. This will be fine for viewing photos, but when editing you’ll find that much of the screen space is taken up by toolbars, leaving less room for your picture.

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If you can afford it, we recommend moving up to a 27in model with 2,560x1,440 pixels. This will give you much more space for all Lightroom’s interface elements, without squeezing out your beautiful picture.

There are plenty of 27in (or 28in) monitors available with bigger pixel counts, such as 3,840x2,160, but bear in mind that this increased resolution won’t give you more space to work. This is because the operating system and applications will scale up their onscreen elements to fit the higher number of pixels; if they didn’t do this, everything onscreen would be unusably small.

Squeezing a higher number of pixels into the same-size panel means that each pixel will be smaller, which in turn will make everything onscreen appear smoother, as the human eye is unable to discern the individual pixels. This can make your photos more pleasing to look at, but there won’t be a huge improvement over a 2,560x1,440 panel.

SCREEN TECHNOLOGY

When it comes to your monitor’s screen technology, there’s really only one way you should go: IPS. TN panels are cheaper, but can’t match

ABOVE: BenQ’s SW2700PT offers superb colour accuracy – essential for editing photos

LEFT: Backing up photos to a NAS means you won’t lose your snaps if disaster occurs

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colour for one that it isn’t capable of showing. Failing that, get a screen as close to 100% as you can.

If this specification isn’t listed, search Google for the monitor model number and ‘sRGB’ – you’ll likely find someone who has tested the screen with a colorimeter. You may find that the screen can only display 100% of sRGB after calibration (see the Calibration section below).

Some high-end monitors can display 100% of sRGB, and also some or all of the Adobe RGB standard.

This is a wider colour space that covers more of the colours produced during professional printing. If you’re mainly planning to view your images on monitors, TVs or tablets, with the professional print, a high occasional p coverage will be fine, especially sRGB covera calibrate your monitor properly. if you calibrat

RIGHT: DisplayCAL is a powerful free monitor calibration tool that works with a number of colorimeters

RIGHT: Datacolor makes some relatively inexpensive colorimeters to help you make sure your monitor is as colour-accurate as possible

IPS for colour accuracy. What’s more, they’re not brilliant when it comes to viewing angles. es.

When looking at a TN panel from anything other than straight-on, you’re likely to see a shift in colour and contrast, rast, making it tricky to judge exactly xactly what your photos look like. ke.

You’ll also see some VA or MVA panels. Broadly speaking, these sit somewhere in between TN and IPS screens in terms of colour accuracy and viewing angles, but still aren’t really suitable for photo editing.

The final thing you should consider is colour coverage. There are several standards that describe how much of the colour space visible to the human eye a monitor can display. By far the most common is sRGB, which is

CALIBRATION CALIBRA

the default for many computer monitors and digital cameras.

You can often find the percentage of the sRGB colour space that a monitor is capable of displaying listed on its specifications page. Ideally, you’ll want a screen that can display 100% of sRGB, so you know that a screen isn’t substituting another

ABOVE: Some monitors display the wider Adobe sRGB colour space, but these are mainly of interest to professionals

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sure colours in your photos To make sur accurate as possible, you are as ac calibrate your monitor. need to c Windows has some simple Window calibration tools, which built-in ca access by searching for you can a Management’, going to the ‘Color Ma Advanced tab and clicking display. You can also Calibrate di make sure your monitor is set to an sRGB, or 6500K, colour temperature, rather than temper anything too warm (reddish) or cool (blueish). These tools are better than nothing, but for properly accurate colours you’ll need a colorimeter.

This is a small sensor that sits on the monitor’s panel, and measures the colours, brightness and contrast of the image your monitor produces.

This can help you do two things. First, you can use your monitor’s controls to adjust its image to suit a reference set of colour values. Second, you can use the measurements to produce a corrections profile, which will help your graphics card translate the colour values in a particular image to suit your monitor’s particular characteristics, and so produce a more accurate representation.

There are several colorimeters on the market, but a relatively inexpensive option with easy-to-use software is the Datacolor Spyder5EXPRESS. This costs £89 from Amazon, and is also compatible with the free, and highly advanced, DisplayCAL application (displaycal. net), in case you find the supplied software a little limiting.

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Business Help If you have database, office application or macro issues, Kay Ewbank is here to help Send your problems to businesshelp@computershopper.co.uk

To sum up I have a column of scores in Excel and I’d like to find the sum of the five smallest values in the range. Because of the other data in the columns, I can’t sort the scores into order. Is there a way to do this?

Geoff Campbell

⬅ Use SumProduct to find the smallest x values in a range in Excel

You can find and sum the smallest values in a set of data using a combination of three Excel functions: SumProduct, Small and Column. The first function to be explained is Small. Used in a simple way: Small(array,4) returns a value from a set of data in array.

The value it returns is the one that is in position 4 in terms of smallness, so if the values in the set of data were 5,3,2,6,9, Small would return 6, as that’s the fourth smallest value.

However, you can supply an array constant to Small as the second argument, so if you had: =(Small(B2:B20,{1,2,3}) then you’d get the smallest, second smallest and third smallest. However, you’d see only the first value from this in the cell into which you entered this. If you’re familiar with array

formulae in Excel, you’ll know that you create them by pressing Crtrl-Shift-Enter at the same time where you’d normally press Enter. This adds a set of curly brackets round the formula, denoting it’s an array formula. Entering part of the formula as an array constant adds a level of complexity because you enter the curly brackets round the constant by hand, then press Ctrl-Shift-Enter for the whole thing, and Excel will put a second set of curly brackets round the outside of everything.

So far, we’ve got the smallest numbers returned by Small. You can add these together using SumProduct. SumProduct can be used for a wide variety of things, all to do with summing ranges or arrays. You can think of SumProduct as giving you similar results to those you’d get by having a ‘helper’ column

where you work out individual answers, then sum the result together at the end. So you can see how we could use Small to find the smallest, second smallest and so on values, and put them into a range of cells, then use Sum to find the overall total.

SumProduct does that in a single step.

So if we say: =SumProduct(Small(B2:B12,{1,2,3,4,5}) that will give us the sum of the five smallest values in the range B2:B12.

Because it’s a pain to enter array constants, many people use the Row or Column function to get the values 1,2,3 and so on derived by Excel. This accounts for why you’ll encounter formulae such as: =SumProduct(Small(B2:B12,Row(1:5)) Row returns the row number, and Row(1:5) when used in an array formula such as SumProduct returns 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Indented confidence I’m using Microsoft Word to create a document where I have a numbered list. I can set up the list to look good so long as the text is straightforward, but what I really want is to have the numbered list with the ‘headings’, and within the headings have more text on other lines, each line with an extra indent from the already indented list. Is there a way to do this?

Gregory Simpson Yes, you can get the effect you describe. First, create the list, including the text for the lines that should be more indented. Once you’ve done this, select the first entry in the list, right-click and choose ‘Adjust List Indents’ from the context menu that appears.

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On this menu, check that the option ‘Follow number with’ is correctly set to ‘Tab character’. Look at the indent value for the Text Indent; it will probably be something like 1.27cm. Change it to a larger value that is the sum of the original indent plus the amount you’d like your text to be further indented, so if you’d like your extra indented lines to be a centimetre in from the first line, set it to be 2.27cm, for example.

Next, set the value for ‘Add tab stop’ to be the same as the original text indent value, which would be 1.27cm in our example.

This should get the effect you want.

The Text Indent value is used for all the lines apart from the first line, where the value you entered for the Tab stop is used.

⬆ You can adjust the values for where items in an indented list are shown in Word

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BUSINESS HELP

Categorical answer I’ve got an Access database with a combo box on a form that shows the available choices for categories for our products.

In normal use, you click on an existing category when creating an order, but I’d like a way to let the users create a new category by typing it in. Can you do this?

Tom Davis You can add some code to your combo box to handle being able to add new items, but I’m not sure I’d recommend doing it because of the risk of people creating unnecessary items that then become redundant. If you really want to do it, you can do so by using the Combo box’s NotInList event. This is triggered when a user enters text that isn’t in the combo box’s list of valid entries, and you can use it to add a new item to the RowSource table where the entries for the Combo box are stored.

If your combo box is called Categories, and the table is tblCategory with a column called CategoryName, you could add a new category using code such as this:

Private Sub Categories_NotInList(NewVal As String, Response As Integer) Dim strTmp As String strTmp = "Do you want to add '" & NewVal & "' as a new product category?"

If MsgBox(strTmp, vbYesNo, "Not in list") = vbYes Then strTmp = "INSERT INTO tblCategory ( CategoryName ) " strTmp = strTmp & "SELECT """ & NewVal & """ AS CategoryName;" DBEngine(0)(0).Execute strTmp, dbFailOnError Response = acDataErrAdded End If End Sub

The macro puts the new value that has been entered into a string and uses that as the text for a message box. If the user says they want to add the new product category, the SQL string for inserting the new value is built up as:

⬆ You can use VBA and the NotInList event to add entries to a combo box in Access INSERT INTO tblCategory ( CategoryName ) SELECT "Shopper" AS CategoryName;

(assuming you’d entered Shopper as the new category). The line: Response = acDataErrAdded

returns a value that tells Access that data has been added so the combo box source data is required.

Why doesn't Outlook download images?

I use Outlook for my email (proper Outlook, 2010, not Express or online).

I find it irritating to have to always ask to have pictures downloaded in my emails.

Why does Outlook not download the pictures anyway, and is there a way to make it just download them? I’m sure my old copy of Outlook used to just make the images available.

Ben Hart Your old version of Outlook might well have downloaded pictures, but the problem is that spammers used to use embedded pictures to see whether an email address actually works. What happened was that a tiny, inconspicuous image – a single white dot, say – was embedded as part of spam that was sent as an HTML email. If you opened the email, bingo, the spammers knew your email address really worked, so they could send you all those ‘interesting’ offers, and also sell your email address on to other would-be spammers as a working email address.

There are three ways that images can be included in emails: as attachments, pasted within the email (inline) or referenced by HTML code. It’s this last option that spammers tend to use. Because of this, Outlook is set by default not to automatically download images.

You can change this default; the problem is how to do this in a safe way that won’t leave you open to the problem of letting spammers track that your email address is valid. The recommended way to go about

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you want to add). Outlook will tell you that the sender of the selected message has been added to your Safe Senders List and ask you to confirm that this is correct. Click on the ‘Don’t show this message again’ tickbox to disable this notification in the future.

If the Info bar isn’t showing (it only appears when it is needed), you can do the same thing by clicking the Junk button on the Home tab of the Office Ribbon.

From the options that appear, ⬆ Use the Safe Senders list to ensure images are downloaded from people you trust in Outlook choose Junk Email Options, and from the dialog that appears, this is to tell Outlook that certain email choose Safe Senders. Click Add to add an addresses or domains are safe, and have the email address to the list of Safe Senders. images in emails from those addresses You can also tick the box on this dialog to downloaded automatically. There are a couple automatically add people to whom you of ways to do this. First, you can add people to send emails to your Safe Senders list if you whom you send emails to what is referred to think that’s sensible. Note that you can as the Safe Senders List. This is a list of people always delete people from the Safe Senders that Outlook will never treat as having sent list from this dialog if you wish. junk emails to you, and whose email messages If you always want to see images, no will always have images downloaded. matter who sends the email (and I don’t To do this, open an email from a person recommend you do this as there are too who you know is a contact from whom you many spammers out there attempting to find want to see email images. Right-click on the ways to get to you), you can alter the way info bar at the top of the email just below the Outlook behaves by right-clicking on the menu, and choose Add Sender to Safe Senders information bar and choosing to ‘Change List. If you want all the email addresses from a Automatic Download Settings’. Take the tick particular company to be treated as safe, you mark out of the box labelled ‘Don’t download can choose the alternative option of ‘Add the pictures automatically in HTML e-mail Domain @domain.com to Safe Senders List’ messages or RSS items’ and click OK. After (where @domain is the name of the domain this, you’ll see all pictures in your emails.

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Help Helpfile

Whatever your general PC, hardware and software woes, Simon Handby is here to help Send your problems to help@computershopper.co.uk

Sync or swim I have a laptop and desktop PC, both running Windows 10. I want to be able to save, say, a spreadsheet on one computer, and have the latest version automatically available on the other one. I realise I could do this by saving my files to a USB memory stick and swapping it over between machines, but I’d like to try something a bit more modern.

My router has a USB port so I thought I could leave a memory stick in there, save the files to it and access them from both machines, but after searching through forums I’m told that TalkTalk has advised against using the port in this way.

After a bit more research I found that someone had solved the same problem by using Google Drive. I downloaded Google Backup and Sync to the PC and it uploaded the contents of the Documents folder to my Drive. I decided to empty the Documents folder on the laptop, as I thought Backup and Sync would want to download the contents of my Drive into it, but when I installed Backup and Sync on the laptop nothing happened.

I accessed Google Drive via its web interface and found that my files were there, but downloading even a single small file took ages. Google Drive also wanted to open OpenOffice spreadsheets with Google Sheets, which just resulted in a ‘corrupt file’ message.

I copied the desktop PC’s Documents folder to the laptop’s Documents folder, hoping Backup and Sync would recognise that the files were the same as it had

⬆ Configure backups here. If you want to synchronise files, use the Google Drive page

already uploaded. Unfortunately it just uploaded the contents of this folder into my Drive as well. Now in Google Drive I have a Computers-My Computer-Documents folder, and a Computers-My LaptopDocuments folder, with identical contents.

Can you let me know what I’m doing wrong?

Kevin Bone Google added cloud backup features when it rebranded the Google Drive app as Google Backup and Sync. As the name suggests, it can now manage a cloud backup of selected files and folders, separately to synchronising the contents of your Google Drive between the web and one or more devices. It sounds as though you’ve set up Backup and Sync so that it’s backing up the contents of the Documents folder from each PC, rather than synchronising them via your Google Drive as a single coherent set of files and folders.

In the notification area on your desktop PC, right-click the Google Backup and Sync

icon, drop down the Settings menu and choose Preferences. The default page shows the files and folders you’ve chosen to back up to Google Drive; from your description you’ve selected your Documents folder, but you should use this page only to configure folders you wish to back up, rather than sync. Deselect Documents, select any files and folders you do want to back up, then click Google Drive in the left-hand pane.

On the Google Drive page, select to synchronise your Google Drive to this PC, set its location to be your Documents folder and click OK. Backup and Sync will spend some time indexing the folders, then begin uploading files. To avoid duplicating files, wait for uploads to finish before repeating the same steps on your laptop. Provided the desktop PC has completed its uploads, Backup and Sync on your laptop should compare your files and folders, and sync only those that are different. From now on, any changes saved to one PC will be synchronised to the other via Google Drive.

Drive’s web interface can be slow, particularly when loading large spreadsheets with many formulae, or documents with multiple images. If you’re on one of your own PCs, you should just work on the local copy of the file. If not, you may need to download the file via Drive’s web interface, edit it locally in OpenOffice, then upload it again to your Drive when you’ve finished.

Regarding the advice you read not to use the router’s USB port to share files, we’d be inclined to disregard it: the port is there for exactly this purpose.

Locked out Ages ago my son gave me his old ADSL Fortunately, there’s an easy answer. Most wireless router, a BIPAC 7800N, and helped routers have a small reset button hidden me set it up for my ISP. I recently changed somewhere on the back panel. Jabbing this broadband provider and have been using with a ballpoint pen or a straightened paper their router, but it’s only got 100Mbit/s clip typically reboots the router, but if you hold network ports; I miss the Gigabit Ethernet it in for around 10 seconds you’ll reset the ports on the BIPAC. I decided to switch back, ⬆ Like most routers, hold in the reset button to return device to its factory settings. Unfortunately only to find that I can’t remember the login this will mean you’ll need to configure the BIPAC 7800N to factory defaults details. I’ve tried everything I can think of, everything from scratch, but also that you’ll but I can’t get in to configure it for my new ISP. Any ideas? be able to log in with the default credentials. In the case of the 7800N, David Henderson the username and password are both ‘admin’.

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HELPFILE

Gone, but not forgotten Recently a friend of mine passed away, and as we tried to get the word out and sort out his affairs we discovered that we were locked out of his social media accounts.

We couldn’t guess his passwords, so there was no way into cloud-based services such as Google Drive, where his family might have been able to find details of his financial and other affairs. Having access to his Facebook account might have made it easier for us to notify all of his friends.

Sadly, it’s too late for my friend, but is there anything I can do to make things easier for my loved ones if the worst happens to me?

Michael Lee Sites and services have different policies governing the rights families have once a loved one has died. One constant is that no service will share a deceased person’s login details, even to family members. Below we’ve briefly outlined what family members can do with major services: Google can work with family members and authorised representatives to close an account and release any funds associated with it; for example, if there’s a Google Pay balance. On request it may provide content from that account. The first step is to visit tinyurl.com/366helpfile1.

We understand that Apple won’t provide data, but it will close down a deceased person’s account. The first step is to contact Apple Support; see tinyurl.com/ 366helpfile2.

Microsoft has a next-of-kin process, which can provide representatives with a deceased person’s data. Email msrecord@microsoft.com.

LinkedIn can remove the profile of a deceased person: visit tinyurl.com/366helpfile3.

Twitter and Facebook will also remove accounts on request: visit tinyurl.com/ 366helpfile4 for Twitter or tinyurl.com/366helpfile5 for Facebook.

Some services allow you to plan for your own death. In Facebook, you can appoint a legacy contact who will have some limited powers to administer your account when you’re no longer able to: visit tinyurl.com/366helpfile6. Google users can set up Inactive Account Manager to control what to share and whether to delete the account: see tinyurl.com/366helpfile7.

If you want to give a friend or relative more control over your affairs after you die, you could consider entrusting them with your login information. But while this might sound like a good plan, it’s fraught with potential problems: you might not trust the same people by the time you die, and even if you did they’d be breaching the terms of most services by logging in as you.

If, as we hope, you have many years and password changes ahead of you, it raises the practical problem of keeping your trusted representatives updated. Without doubt the best way to do this is to use a password manager that allows you to automatically share passwords or other personal information with one or more people. In Dashlane, for example, you can set up an emergency contact for this purpose. Your nominated contact won’t actually get access to your passwords unless something happens to you, but provided you continue using the password manager, the passwords you pass on will be up to date.

Remember Windows 2000?

I previously had Windows 2000 installed on my computer, and it worked perfectly (or as well as Windows does) for many months. Following some issues caused by a driver update, I reinstalled it.

Again it worked fine for a few weeks, but then it produced a message saying that my licence key was invalid, and gave me the option of buying a new licence via an automated telephone system.

There was no option to speak to an actual person.

I most certainly will not buy a new licence when I own a perfectly legal one. I bought it from Amazon, it came with the authentic holographic CD and licence key. How might I resolve this issue?

Leopardtail It’s hard to say what’s happening without further information, but we can confidently say that it’s a bad idea to still be using Windows 2000. It was a decent operating system until Windows XP came out, but Microsoft stopped supporting it in 2010.

In today’s environment it puts you at risk of all kinds of exploits.

⬆ Installing Windows 2000 – not something we’d recommend 18 years later

Putting that to one side, it’s not clear whether Windows accepted your licence key after you re-installed it, only to subsequently tell you that it was invalid, or whether the problem arose when you first tried to provide the licence key. In the latter case, it may be that you used a different disc or disc image to your own. Licence keys aren’t widely interchangeable between specific Windows versions; for example, an original key may not be accepted by a later disc containing the Service Pack 4 (SP4) installation.

If the licence definitely relates to the installation media you’ve used, the only thing we can suggest is probably rather obvious: be sure you’ve typed in the key correctly, particularly that you haven’t, say, mistaken a ‘5’ for an ‘S’ or similar. If you still have no luck you might try contacting Microsoft support on 0344 800 2400; while it’s unlikely they’ll be able to help, at least then you’ll have covered all bases. ⬆ Tell Facebook if you want someone to be able to manage your account when you die

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Advanced

Projects

Clive Webster has been tinkering with computers ever since Windows 98 forced him to manually install his drivers clive@computershopper.co.uk

Run macOS on a Windows PC If you only need to run macOS occasionally, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a pain to have to use a whole separate computer to do so. Clive Webster shows you how to run Appleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s OS on a Windows PC 126

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ADVANCED PROJECTS

YOU’LL HAVE NO doubt heard Mac fans eulogise about the benefits of macOS (previously called OS X): the reliability, the design, the focus on creativity and work, that somehow the wealthiest public company on the planet is morally superior to the third wealthiest. But the problem with macOS is that you have to buy a Mac to use it.

However, if you feel more comfortable with Windows, there is a way to leave that MacBook in your desk drawer and run your copy of macOS on a Windows PC. As Macs use Intel processors, this guide will only work if your PC also uses an Intel chip. Running macOS in a virtual machine requires a physical PC with at least 8GB of memory and a quad-core processor such as a Core i5 or i7. You’ll also need between 30GB and 80GB of free storage space on a fast hard disk, or preferably an SSD.

EXTRACTING MACOS

BaseSystem.dmg data from the High Sierra installer to this newly mounted image: asr restore -source /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/SharedSupport/BaseSystem.dmg -target / Volumes/install_build -noprompt -noverify -erase

As the above command has renamed the mount point to macOS Base System, you need to unmount the image with: hdiutil detach /Volumes/OS\ X\ Base\ System

Next you can convert the image into an ISO file and move this file to the desktop for easy copying:

The first stage in consigning your Mac to a drawer is to extract macOS from it. This isn’t the easiest of processes, but we have all the commands and tricks you’ll need. First, open the App Store, search for Sierra and download the High Sierra update; this is the latest version of macOS. Once the High Sierra update has downloaded, quit the install process by pressing Cmd-Q. Then open Finder, head to Applications, Utilities and open Terminal. In Terminal you’ll need to type these lengthy commands to create an ISO image of a High Sierra installation disc – or for ease we’ve put all the commands you need on a Google Doc, which you can access at tinyurl.com/366projects (no password required) and copy/paste the text in the right order.

First, we’ll need to create a blank disc image and then mount it:

hdiutil convert /tmp/HighSierra.cdr.dmg -format UDTO -o /tmp/ HighSierra.iso mv /tmp/HighSierra.iso.cdr ~/Desktop/HighSierra.iso

hdiutil create -o /tmp/HighSierra.cdr -size 7316m -layout SPUD -fs HFS+J hdiutil attach /tmp/HighSierra.cdr.dmg -noverify -nobrowse -mountpoint /Volumes/install_build

MACOS ON WINDOWS

Both commands will take a while to complete, but it will be obvious if something went wrong. All being well, you can now copy the

You should see a file called HighSierra.iso appear on your Mac’s desktop. You can transfer this ISO file directly to your Windows PC via a shared folder, or via a NAS; the 7.7GB file will take a while to transfer.

However, if you want to use a USB drive, it will need to be at least 8GB and formatted with the exFAT file system; macOS can’t write to NTFS disks, and FAT32 can’t handle files of 4GB or greater.

Once the ISO file is on your Windows PC, you can shut down your Mac and pack it away.

Now we have a macOS ISO image, we can set up our ‘virtual’ Mac. For this we’ll use ‘virtual machine’ software to create a software-only (virtual) Mac (machine) that runs on our Windows PC. The term ‘virtual machine’ is usually shortened to ‘VM’, which we’ll use from now on.

A VM uses hardware from your main PC (the host) to run, hence the need for plenty of RAM, disk space and some extra CPU cores.

⬆ Download the latest version of macOS from the App Store to get started

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ADVANCED PROJECTS ➡ Use Terminal to create an ISO image from the downloaded macOS update

We prefer Oracle’s VirtualBox, but VMWare’s Workstation Player is also free and a decent alternative (see tinyurl.com/ap-vmware-player).

Download and install the latest version of VirtualBox from www. virtualbox.org. When you launch VirtualBox, you’ll be asked to install the Extension Pack; do so and you’re ready to make a virtual Mac. Click New (the blue-star icon) and name your VM something memorable: macOS, for example.

VirtualBox will pick up that you’re making a virtual Mac and will automatically switch the Type to Mac OS X; you’ll need to select macOS 10.13 High Sierra (64-bit) from the Version menu. Then click Next to give the VM at least 2GB of your main computer’s RAM, but we recommend giving it 4GB if your host PC has 8GB or more. Click Next and you’ll be asked to create a virtual hard disk. Leave the setting as ‘Create a virtual hard disk now’ and click Create. On the next screen, leave the option as VDI and click Next. Leave the setting ‘Dynamically allocated’ and click Next.

The next screen lets you set the ‘virtual’ hard disk size for your VM. As you won’t be storing large video, photo or music libraries, 50-80GB is plenty. Use the slider to allocate the disk space; the number entry box is in bytes, which is confusing. Use the browse button above the slider to house the VM to your fastest storage device, then click Create.

TWEAKING THE VM

You should see your new VM appear in the VirtualBox right-hand pane, but you need to tweak it a little for macOS. Right-click on the VM and choose Settings. Click System and untick Floppy from the Boot Order list; open the Processor tab and set the count to 2 (any more seems to

cause compatibility issues). Click on Display and increase the Video Memory slider to the maximum 128MB, and then click OK. Even after that, the VM needs more tweaking, and these tweaks can only be done through the Command Line. Close VirtualBox first, right-click on the Windows Start button, then select ‘Command Prompt (Admin)’. In the black Command Prompt window, enter the following commands (remember, all this text is available at tinyurl.com/366projects): cd "C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox" VBoxManage.exe modifyvm "<Your VM’s Name>" --cpuidset 00000001 000306a9 04100800 7fbae3ff bfebfbff

⬅ ⬆ Use the free VirtualBox application to create a software-only ‘virtual machine’ to run macOS on your Windows PC

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⬆ Once the virtual machine has been created, you can install macOS on it VBoxManage setextradata "<Your VM’s Name>" "VBoxInternal/ Devices/efi/0/Config/DmiSystemProduct" "MacBookPro11,3" VBoxManage setextradata "<Your VM’s Name>" "VBoxInternal/ Devices/efi/0/Config/DmiSystemVersion" "1.0" VBoxManage setextradata "<Your VM’s Name>" "VBoxInternal/ Devices/efi/0/Config/DmiBoardProduct" "Mac-2BD1B31983FE1663" VBoxManage setextradata "<Your VM’s Name>" "VBoxInternal/ Devices/smc/0/Config/DeviceKey" "ourhardworkbythesewordsguard edpleasedontsteal(c)AppleComputerInc" VBoxManage setextradata "<Your VM’s Name>" "VBoxInternal/ Devices/smc/0/Config/GetKeyFromRealSMC" 1

You might need to wait a few seconds after each command, and if you see an error you’ll need to try again.

The VM will have a fixed resolution of 1,024x768, but you can change that at this stage, too. Enter the following command: VBoxManage setextradata "macOS" VBoxInternal2/ EfiGraphicsResolution [x]x[y]

You’ll need to replace the [x] and [y] with a set of resolution values, for example 1440x900 or 1280x1024, depending on your screen. And change the "macOS" part for the name that you called your VM. Once done, you can close the Command Prompt and re-open VirtualBox. Click on your VM and find the Storage section in the

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⬆ Use Disk Utility to ‘erase’ the VirtualBox disk and create a partition on which you can install macOS

right-hand pane. Click SATA Port 1: [Optical Drive] Empty, then Choose disk image…, then find your HighSierra.iso file.

Double-click your VM and a new window will open with the VirtualBox logo: your VM is booting. A second or two later you should see some code appear, a bit like your PC’s POST text when you first turn it on. The boot process will seem to throw up an awful lot of errors, and will probably pause at least once; just be patient. If all is

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ADVANCED PROJECTS ⬅ You’re not actually erasing the disk – you’re simply creating a new disk partition and formatting it

⬇ Installing macOS to your virtual machine can take a while, so take a break

well, the VM window should go grey, and then a few seconds later the macOS installer should appear to guide you through setting up the virtual Mac. Once the installer has launched, you can choose your language and click Next. However, rather than click Reinstall macOS on the next screen, you need to choose Disk Utility and then Continue. Select the VirtualBox disk from the left-hand pane and then click Erase from the Disk Utility menu. ‘Erase’ here actually means you’re creating a new disk partition and formatting it, so give the new partition a name (we used Macintosh HD) but leave the other options as they are. Once the disk has been ‘erased’ and formatted, close Disk Utility via the red X button and you can now select Reinstall macOS. The install might take ages, so you’ll most likely walk away and return to find the VM has rebooted to the installer’s main menu, as the virtual computer is still set to boot from the ISO image. Shut down your VM via the Apple button and then remove the macOS ISO file by right-clicking on it in the VirtualBox main screen and selecting remove. Reboot your Mac VM and you will see what looks like an unpromising EFI Internal Shell. This is fine; type: fs1: cd "macOS Install Data/Locked Files/Boot Files" boot.efi

Some more white text will flow; if you see the yellow command prompt again, enter boot.efi and the macOS setup guide should launch after some more scrolling white text, but you might have to be patient and possibly shut down and reboot the VM. The macOS setup process is pretty obvious – set your location, keyboard layout and so on – but there a few options we’d not bother with. For example, automatically transferring files to the VM and signing into your Apple account.

When the option comes to accept the standard setting, click Customize Settings instead. This will let you turn off features that might slow down your VM, such as localisation, sharing Mac Analytics (data gleaned from macOS running on a VM are unlikely to be helpful to Apple anyway) and Siri.

Once the setup process is complete, you should drop into the standard macOS desktop.

Once you’ve configured your basic settings (disabling Natural scroll direction, for example) and installed ⬅ Don’t panic when you see this unpromising screen – just follow our instructions to get the macOS installer back on track. You’ll only have to do this once

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⬆ The best of both worlds: macOS, running as a virtual machine on a Windows PC

⬆ If you can’t use your network or the internet to transfer files between your Windows and macOS systems, use a trusty old USB drive

your essential software, shut down the VM via the Apple menu.

Wait for the VM window to close, then right-click on the Mac VM in VirtualBox. Select Clone, and then Full Clone, to create an exact copy of your VM, complete with the Command Line tweaks and your macOS settings and installed apps. This ‘clone’ can act as a backup should something disastrous happen. After the clone process is complete – it can take quite a while – you can fire up your original VM and start using macOS for real.

VIRTUAL FINISHING TOUCHES

To keep the Mac VM as responsive as possible, you might want to exclude the folder in which the VM file is stored from your anti-virus check. Your anti-virus program won’t be able to inspect the VM for viruses (you’ll have to install anti-virus on the VM for that) but will try to check the file, leading to potential slowdown.

VirtualBox typically allows a set of tools to be installed on a VM, collectively called Guest Additions. These allow easy file sharing between the VM and the host and other streamlining. However, VirtualBox doesn’t support Guest Additions for macOS, so you’ll need

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to use workarounds. You could use a file-sharing service such as Dropbox to share files between the host and the VM, but that would be limited by your broadband’s upload speed. A quicker method might be to use a NAS as an intermediary.

The third alternative is to use a USB drive plugged into your host.

When you want to transfer files from host to VM, copy the files to the USB drive. Then switch to your VM and click Devices, hover over USB, then select your USB drive. This should make the USB drive ‘disappear’ from your host PC and appear as a drive on macOS. Copy files to the USB drive, unmount it, then untick the drive from the Devices menu and it will disappear from your macOS VM and reappear back on your Windows PC.

NEXT MONTH DO DIGITAL ARCHIVING PROPERLY

Don’t just scan those handy magazine articles – use free tools to make your archive searchable

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Multimedia

Expert

Photographer, musician, sound engineer, designer and video producer Ben Pitt guides you through a multimedia project ben@computershopper.co.uk

Double exposure portraits Combine photos in creative ways to create artistic portraits that are more than the sum of their parts

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MULTIMEDIA EXPERT

DOUBLE EXPOSURES MAY look like a product of the Photoshop generation, but in fact the technique dates back to the advent of analogue photography. It was achieved simply by capturing two photos on the same piece of film. When film rolls became popular, many of these images were probably accidents, where the photographer forgot to wind the film on between exposures. But some people rather liked the effect, with scenes taking on a dream-like quality as people, objects and environments blended mysteriously into each other.

Digital image editing has made it easy to combine photos in all sorts of creative ways,

⬆ Pinterest is a great source of inspiration for double exposure portraits

one of which is to simulate the double exposure film technique. Virtually all layer-based image editors support blend modes, which give various options for how colours on different layers interact.

The Screen blend mode works in the same way as a double exposure, adding the brightness values of each layer together (we’ll explain this in more detail later). Some cameras include a Multiple Exposure mode, so you can see the effects of layering up images as you shoot. That’s ideal for posing your

subjects carefully so the two images interact with each other. However, it may be easier to combine them afterwards in software so that you can be really precise about the exposure levels of each layer. Upmarket Canon SLRs such as the EOS 7D Mark II include a Multiple Exposure mode with an option to save frames separately as well as together, giving the best of both worlds.

You can get a taste of what’s possible in the images on these pages, and you’ll find plenty more inspiration online. Search Google Images, Flickr, 500px or Pinterest for phrases such as ‘multiple exposure’ or ‘double exposure portrait’ and you’ll find a huge range of examples.

For us, the ones that work best are where there is a close affinity between the two shots, either in terms of the compositional interaction of the shapes or on a more semantic level. The very best examples manage both, with contours that interact with each other to create a compound image that says something interesting about its two subject matters.

Double exposure images can be made up of any two subjects, or indeed two images of the same subject. For this month’s tutorial we’ve focused on combining a studio portrait shot with a landscape shot, but the same techniques can be applied to pretty much anything.

PORTRAIT SHOTS

⬆ There are various adjustment layers and masks employed here to produce the final image

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It’s helpful to understand how the Screen blend mode works, and the film analogy is quite helpful. Let’s ignore negative film and think about positive film to keep things simple. The film starts off completely black, and brightens up as light is exposed on to it.

For a double exposure, this happens in two discrete bursts, but the effect is the same.

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⬅ ⬆ We extended the foliage beyond the outline of the hair so it resembles a garland of flowers

If parts of the image are overexposed in the first image, they appear completely white, and nothing in the second image will make any difference as that area can’t get any brighter. The same applies to any white areas in the second image; this will mask any detail from the first image. Meanwhile, parts of the image that are black will allow that part of the other image to appear unaltered.

This interaction between the two layers is a key consideration when setting up your shots. A head-and-shoulders portrait against a white background means the other image will only be visible within the outline of the portrait subject. The background will be white.

Meanwhile, it’s helpful for the portrait subject to appear fairly dark in the frame.

The darker the skin tones, the more visible the subject matter on the other layer will be.

Consider the other extreme: a bright, evenly lit portrait on a white background. The other image will make it even brighter, so the resulting composite is washed out. Keeping plenty of shadow on the portrait will help to deliver some contrast in the final image.

You can tweak the colours in an image editor later, but you can’t adjust which parts of the portrait are lit and which are in shadow.

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To capture this shot you’ll need two light sources: one for the subject and another to illuminate the background. A white wall is ideal but off-white works well enough. The important thing is that this wall is bright so it appears as solid white in the photo.

FLASH OF INSPIRATION

The easiest way to achieve this is with an off-camera flashgun as it’s really bright. It’s possible to use household lamps, but you may have to use a long exposure to ensure that the background is overexposed. In that case, use a tripod and ensure that your model is still to avoid blur, unless you want it as a creative effect. You may need to position a piece of card or an item of furniture to avoid this light spilling on to the subject, but be careful not to put anything flammable near to a hot lightbulb.

The other light source is for your subject.

This should be placed to one side of the subject, so only half of his or her face is illuminated. A single, direct light source creates harsh shadows, which can be effective if you want something really dramatic, but it isn’t terribly flattering. To avoid this, diffuse the light by reflecting it off a large, white

surface such as another wall, or shining the light through a translucent material. The latter will give you more control, allowing for precise placement of the light and the diffuser to get the effect you want.

You can buy 5-in-1 reflectors for about £10 to £20 from photographic stores (or Amazon). They comprise a circular hoop with a translucent white material stretched across.

They come with a reversible sleeve that zips up around the hoop, with four sides (inside and out) with black, white, silver and gold finishes. You can choose to reflect light off one of these four surfaces, or not use the sleeve and shine light through the translucent material. You’ll probably need a clamp on a stand to hold it in place. If you have a spare tripod, you can buy a clamp with a tripod thread for about £10.

The disadvantage of taking studio portraits in a domestic room with light-coloured walls is that the light bounces off all surfaces.

Everything becomes bathed in light, so it’s hard to achieve dark shadows. The solution is to hang dark-coloured drapes where you want to avoid reflections, such as the wall facing the shaded side of the subject’s face. A cheap source of black material is weed-proof

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⬅ ⬆ Various manual tweaks are used here to restore the facial features and extend the branches beyond the outline of the head. A Hue/Saturation adjustment layer has been used to maintain the pink blossom, while suppressing the green leaves

membrane. This is the material used in gardens to stop weeds growing between plants. It’s a little shiny but it’s black, cheap and comes in long rolls. A 10x2m rolls costs around £10, and should be enough to cover a whole wall or two.

Once everything is set up, it’s time to capture some portraits. As always, it’s best to use your camera’s Raw mode to give more scope for dramatic colour processing without

setting and adjust the shutter speed as required to set the exposure.

We found that it’s best to go for plain clothing to avoid it being too distracting with so much else going on. Medium-coloured clothing that’s not too light or too dark will ensure that it picks up the same highlights and shadows as the subject’s skin.

Beyond that it’s down to you and your model to capture some interesting poses.

The landscape shot could be almost anything: rolling countryside, a seascape, cityscape, aerial shot, or a closeup. The key is to look for scenes with plenty of contrast revealing JPEG compression artefacts and colour banding. It’s also worth setting exposure values manually. If you’re using flashguns, set the ISO speed to its lowest value (usually 100), the shutter speed to 1 /250s and use the aperture to adjust the overall exposure level. If you’re using continuous light sources, set the ISO speed to its lowest value, the aperture to its widest

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Because these shots are of an artistic bent, big smiles don’t really work so well, but there are no strict rules. Profile shots can look really strong, with the model facing towards the light source so his or her features are clearly visible. Try to create strong, simple shapes with the highlights, shadows and contours of the head and body. People who aren’t used to modelling may feel self-conscious when you

ask them to adopt stylised poses; make sure you keep them happy and relaxed or else it will show in their expressions. It’s also worth experimenting with the positions of your lights and camera as you shoot.

LANDSCAPE SHOTS

The landscape shot could be almost anything: rolling countryside, a seascape, cityscape, aerial shot, or a close-up of a plant, building or textured surface. The key is to look for scenes with plenty of contrast. Remember the white parts will mask that area of the other photo while the black parts won’t affect the other photo at all. It’s good to have some shades in between so this image isn’t just reduced to a cut-out shape, but a high-contrast image with plenty of dark and light areas will prevent the portrait shot becoming obliterated with details from the landscape shot.

Try to capture shots with interesting borders between light and dark areas. You might even look out for shapes that suggest the contours of a person’s head and shoulders. Areas of high-contrast texture provide a way to apply a new outline to parts of your portrait shots, and foliage is a great source for this. Overcast weather is ideal, as

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⬅ ⬆ A willow fence flipped on its side produces an edgy, torn effect for this portrait. The fence image has been skewed so that the horizontal lines align with the model’s eyes, apex of her top and waist. The colours are reduced but not removed to complement the distressed appearance

the white clouds are easy to overexpose compared to the branches and leaves of a tree. Shooting into the sun ensures the sky is really bright, but watch out for lens flares (a series of circles caused by direct sunlight bouncing around the lens elements). Again, go for variety so you have lots to experiment with when you’re back at your computer.

to another, while Photoshop CC maintains 16-bit colour when working with layers. Most other layer-based editors convert Raw images to 8-bit colour, which isn’t immediately noticeable but may result in colour banding if heavy colour processing is applied later on.

Start with a portrait image, then open the second image, copy it and paste it as a layer

over the portrait. In the Layers panel, change the upper layer’s Blend mode to Screen. It’s worth spending some time carefully adjusting the size and position of the upper layer to create the most interesting composition. In many cases we rotated it through 90 or 180 degrees, and sometimes chose to skew the shape, too. In Photoshop CC or Elements, type

LAYERING UP

Creating double exposure images is a mixture of skill and good fortune, and perhaps the most rewarding part of the process is layering images up to see what works.

You can use any software that supports layers and blend modes; that includes Photoshop CC, Photoshop Elements, Paint Shop Pro and Affinity Photo. We used Lightroom Classic to sort through images and perform some initial colour correction before sending images over to Photoshop CC for layering. The advantage of this approach is that Lightroom Classic makes it easy to copy and paste processing settings from one image ➡ This relatively simple composite image maintains the colour from the landscape image while the portrait is converted to black and white

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⬅ ⬆ This technique isn’t limited to nature shots – it can work for cityscapes, too

Ctrl-T to enter transform mode. Holding down the Shift key maintains the layer’s aspect ratio as you resize it. Holding down the Ctrl key allows you to skew the edges or corners.

You may find a bit of manual intervention is required to hide or reveal parts of the images, particularly when it comes to the main facial features. To hide part of the upper (landscape) layer, select it in the Layers panel, click the Mask button (represented by a circle inside a rectangle) and use the Eraser tool to remove parts of the mask. This is better than erasing the layer itself as the pixels are hidden rather than permanently deleted. Type X to flip the eraser to reinstate pixels. Right-click to adjust the brush, and use a low Hardness setting to create a soft edge to brush strokes.

Another useful trick is for some parts of the upper layer to extend beyond the outline of the portrait subject. This can be achieved by creating a new layer between the existing two and painting with a black brush; type B to select the Brush Tool. This will reveal the upper layer in its original form wherever you apply brush strokes.

The final task is to apply colour correction.

Adjustment layers let you do this nondestructively, so settings can be tweaked at

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any time rather than permanently overwriting the image data. Combining two images using the Screen blend mode tends to produce washed-out colours, so darkening shadows using the Curves or Levels adjustment layer is a good place to start. It’s worth spending some time experimenting with applying these to the lower, upper or both layers, as the results will be different in each case.

Adjustment layers are normally applied to all layers below it in the Layers panel, but there’s a small button at the bottom of the Adjustment Layers Properties panel that clips the adjustment layer to the layer below so it only applies to that layer and not any further down the stack.

MONO CULTURE

Converting to black and white can help to clean up distractions and concentrate on the shapes. However, you may choose to maintain the colour from one image and not the other, or just allow a little colour through. The Black White adjustment layer converts colour to black and white, and includes controls to adjust how much of each hue is used to create the greyscale image. Alternatively, you can use the Hue and Saturation adjustment

layer to reduce but not eliminate colour information from the image. Click on the word Master and select a specific colour to adjust the saturation for just that colour. We found this useful for maintaining the pink tones of blossom in the image on page 135 while eliminating the green of the leaves, which looked a little sickly when applied to skin tones.

The most important challenge is creating a composite image that is more than the sum of its parts. Try to find shapes that are complementary. Hair that morphs into a tangle of branches often works well, but it’s also rewarding to come up with something more unexpected. Remember that it’s not just about shapes, but also about the content.

Foliage will suggest a connection with nature.

Clouds and seascapes might have a dreamy quality, while cityscapes give the impression of being modern and industrial.

NEXT MONTH PHOTO PROJECTS FOR CHILDREN

Keep the kids entertained this summer with our round-up of creative projects that the whole family can enjoy together

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PARTING SHOTS

Zygote With his feet up on a smart sofa and a robot putting together his IKEA furniture, Zygote is kicking back and relaxing in the ideal tech home SOFA, SO GOOD

Attention, attention, calling all couch potatoes: the robot recliner has arrived. There was a time when seating units were just dumb beasts of burden, but now Italian furniture designer Natuzzi has partnered with Korean electronics giant LG to create the sentient sofa.

Exhibited at the Milan Design Expo, Natuzzi smart sofas will soon be hitting UK high streets at outlets including Fenwick and House of Fraser. According to the sales blurb, you’ll be able to lounge on a piece of Natuzzi furniture, and order it to turn on your LG TV and adjust the settings. Your smart sofa will also interact with other devices to control lighting and temperature, and adjust itself to give “the best viewing experience”.

Zygote looks forward to enhanced seating intelligence, which includes finding loose change down the back, chucking the dog off the cushions, and nipping into the kitchen to fetch the beer and crisps.

ICO PO KO

A sinister organisation has been fined by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for breaching Privacy and Electronic Regulations. The crime involves sending out 340,000 nuisance emails, and the spam perpetrator is believed to have its HQ at 100 Victoria Embankment, London EC4Y 0HQ, where it operates under the brazen codename of Her Majesty’s Royal Mail.

According to its website, the guilty party masquerades as “the UK’s most trusted delivery company”, and rubs salt into the wounds by asserting that “trust is a vital asset for our business”.

In condemning the accused, the ICO said that the so-called Royal Mail knew very well it was sending unsolicited emails to members of the public who had opted out of receiving such junk, because it has “an intricate and very expensive

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robust suppression system in place to ensure opted-out customers do not receive marketing communications”.

Royal Mail tried to argue that what it was promoting was merely a temporary price change, and that it had been forced to send out vast quantities of junk mail by the Postal Services Act. To which the Commissioner’s Head of Enforcement replied that if it couldn’t tell the difference between a service message and promotional spam then “this compounds the serious nature of the breach”. Guilty as charged.

EU NIX

The drama that is Brexit continues to unfold, as the European Commission announces it will cancel every one of the top-level .eu internet domains registered in the UK or registered to a UK citizen. This is likely to happen at midnight on 29th March next year, with no right of appeal. Which means up to 317,000 websites and email addresses will vaporise, with devastating effect on UK-based businesses and individuals.

Zygote is amazed there has been virtually no publicity about this to warn the business world, but Brexit doesn’t only affect commercial internet domain holders. Theresa May has categorically stated that Britain

will leave the digital single market, and she has gone on to state that the UK will need to strike a special deal with the EU to prevent a return to roaming charges on all mobile phone calls.

Unfortunately, the EU and World Trade Organisation rules make it impossible to come to any such standalone agreement.

This will be hugely irritating for British holidaymakers visiting EU countries, who will either have to stump up for a foreign SIM card or pay the roaming ransom.

But it will be crushingly expensive for UK business personnel who need to access a lot of data on a daily basis while working in Europe. Zygote predicts many UK enterprises will choose to turn to messenger services such as WhatsApp, with all the inherent security risks involved.

CORE VALUES

Zygote has a nasty feeling that certain Apple personnel are being rounded up, clad in orange jumpsuits and shipped off to correction centres. An internal memo contains the dire warning that “in 2017 Apple caught 29 leakers. 12 of those were arrested.

Among those were Apple employees and partners in Apple’s supply chain.”

The memo adds the following thinly veiled threat: “These people not only lose their jobs, they can

face extreme difficulty finding employment elsewhere.”

Readers will be amused to know that Zygote has been made aware of this memo about Apple leakers thanks to a leaked document from Apple HQ.

SCREW UP

The last time Zygote tried to assemble an IKEA chair, there were several wooden pegs and a range of washers left over, and the end result wobbled like Long John Silver after a barrel of rum.

Now experts in Singapore have taught off-the-shelf robots to do the job as well as most humans and a whole lot better than some (see News, page 20).

Assistant professor Pham Quang Cuong of the Nanyang Technological University harnessed a digital camera and some simple open-source coding to allow the robots to assemble a flat-pack IKEA unit codenamed Stefan. The robots worked out a “two-handed motion that is fast and collision-free” for “integration with visual and tactile perception, grasping and execution”. The mechanical carpenters even managed to work out the exact force needed to stuff the right sized dowels into the appropriate holes, not to mention the correct end of an Allen key to use.

Something Zygote failed to master after numerous attempts.

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