Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2018 i Computer Shopper

ANOTHER NEW YEAR, and another opportunity to make resolutions that I probably won’t stick to anyway. For 2018, my wishes are pretty unambitious and pretty standard – get a better work/life balance, start a new exercise regime, bring about world peace. But one resolution that is a new one for me is to learn to code. I’ve been a technology journalist for almost two decades now, and while I’m used to trying out the latest smartphones or smart home kit, the one area that has so far eluded me has been programming. But I think now could be an ideal time to start. There is a real shortage of IT specialists in the UK, and indeed across Europe, and this is only set to worsen as more and more of…

Undercover agent? @ There have been recent reports saying that the UK government is to ban all anti-virus products from Kaspersky from being used in ‘sensitive’ areas. This apparently follows a similar ban by the US authorities. I have been a long-term user of Kaspersky anti-virus software, and it has consistently been in the top two rated products in your lab tests. Should the home user be concerned about our own ‘sensitive’ data such as passwords and bank account details being passed on to some other organisation? Dave Sheppard With worries about the Russian government meddling in foreign elections, any company from the country is likely to garner a lot of attention, including Kaspersky. The truth is that if Kaspersky had been compromised or was sending information to the Russian…

James Archer RANTS PATREON, THE ONLINE crowdfunding platform favoured by starving artists and journalists the world over, recently retracted a fairly terrible-sounding plan to add service charges to patrons’ pledges – raising the amount the donors would pay, without the creators they were funding seeing a single additional penny. It’s a relieving and rare case of a major tech firm actually listening to the concerns of its user base, with the initial outcry proving forceful enough that the plans were scrapped within days of being announced. Sadly, this rarity is what makes it so notable: 2017, perhaps more than any other year, was peppered with companies just not seeming to give a hoot. Twitter was, and remains, one of the worst culprits. Its issues with harassment and other abusive behaviour…

GOOGLE HAS RELEASED its annual Year in Search, revealing the top trending search terms of 2017. In the UK, the top search terms were Meghan Markle, iPhone 8, Hurricane Irma, Fidget spinner and Manchester bombing. This didn’t differ too wildly from the top five global search terms: Hurricane Irma, iPhone 8, iPhone X, Matt Lauer and Meghan Markle. So at least we’re not the only nation obsessed with the royals and their marital habits. We’re also turning to the web for esoteric hobbies and leisure pursuits. The top ‘How to’ search phrase was ‘How to make slime’, followed in second and third place by ‘buy Bitcoin’ and ‘stay young’. Politics led the ‘What is’ searches, with the top five made up of What is a hung parliament; an exit poll;…

COMPUTERS ARE BETTER than humans at a lot of tasks, and now they may be better than us at developing artificial intelligence. With no physical input, Google’s AI has created and trained its own ‘child’ AI, which has proved better at image detection than any other human-based system. The project demonstrates the power of AI, and has triggered concerns about what computers can do. Back in May 2017, Google unveiled its AutoML project, which was designed to automate the design of machine-learning algorithms. As Google explained at the time, with AutoML “a controller neural net can propose a ‘child’ model architecture, which can then be trained and evaluated for quality on a particular task. That feedback is then used to inform the controller how to improve its proposals for the…

£200 • From www.scan.co.uk VERDICT A massively expensive but beautifully made PC chassis, with ultimately superfluous fan-controlling tech NZXT HAS DELIVERED a massive update to its H series of premium cases, perhaps most recognisably represented by the curvy-edged H440 (Shopper 317). The H700i is a mid-tower that can take full ATX, microATX and Mini-ITX motherboards, but has found a little extra space for bigger EATX boards as well. Nonetheless, out of all of NZXT’s output, this chassis seems to have more in common with the borderline-compact Source 340 Elite (Shopper 351) than the H440. The corners are sharper, there’s a similar tempered glass window covering the entirety of the left side, a wire-obscuring cable bar now runs down alongside the motherboard bay, and the H440’s top-to-bottom stack of 3.5in drive…

£90 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Smaller and cheaper than the original, this is the general-purpose Echo device to buy HOW DO YOU follow a device like the Echo, which almost single-handedly took voice assistant speakers into the mainstream? Amazon’s answer is a brand new Echo that’s smaller, lighter and considerably cheaper than the original. At £90, when the original cost £150, the 2nd-gen Echo looks a fantastic deal. LITTLE BROTHER Stand the new Echo next to the old and you can see that it’s about two-thirds the height, although roughly the same diameter. This makes placing the new Echo that little bit easier, as it will fit on most shelves with ease. Amazon has improved the range of finishes for its smart speakers, too. While the original Echo was available…

£140 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Adding a smart home hub to the Echo is a neat idea, but the implementation’s not quite there yet IF THERE’S ONE problem with building a smart home, it’s having lots of different bridges to plug into your network to make everything work. Wouldn’t life be easier if you had one device that could handle everything? That’s what Amazon aims to do with the Echo Plus, which has an integrated Zigbee hub, so you can hook up compatible devices (such as Philips Hue light bulbs) without needing additional hubs. Look at the Echo Plus and you’ll be hard pushed to tell it from the original Echo. Both are exactly the same size, although the Plus also ships in silver, as well as the original black…

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. Apple iOS and Google Android have the most apps available but Windows Phone is slowly catching up. 02 All smartphones have colour screens, but their resolutions vary. Basic models have 800x480 pixels, but text can be indistinct. Look for a display that has at least 1,280x720 pixels so it’s easy to browse web pages. 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…

01 A basic 24in LCD monitor costs around £100. It will be fine for typical Windows work but is likely to have poor viewing angles, so you’ll need to sit straight on for the best picture quality. Its colour accuracy may not be very good, either. 02 A VGA input lets you use the monitor with any PC, but the quality may not be as good as it is over DVI or HDMI. Both are digital connections and require a compatible graphics card but they avoid the need for digital-to-analogue or analogue-to-digital conversions, which can reduce image quality. A digital connection achieves the best picture automatically, so you won’t have to adjust clock or phase settings as you do with analogue connections. Many DVI and all HDMI connections support HDCP,…

01 Action cameras are typically much smaller than a regular camcorder, as they are designed to be mounted to a bike, board or car, or worn on your person. As the name suggests, they are designed primarily for shooting action footage, but because of their small size they are ideal for strapping on to your pet’s collar or your children’s toys for a different perspective. 02 Almost all action cameras will shoot Full HD video, and some will even shoot 4K, but frame rate is arguably more important than resolution when it comes to action video. Higher frame rates will mean smoother clips, and super-high frame rate videos can be played in slow motion to emphasise exciting shots. Keep an eye out for 4k/30, 1080p/60 and 720p/120 models for the…

01You should be able to buy a decent inkjet printer for less than £40. High-quality printing is possible on such a printer, but it will be slow. The actual print speed of an inkjet can be half the quoted (maximum) speed for text documents, and even slower when printing graphics. Budget inkjet printers such as these are designed only for light use and can be expensive to run. 02 For £60 you can buy a much more capable printer that’s either faster and better built or better at reproducing photos. If documents are your priority, you’ll want a high minimum speed and low print costs. Look for inkjets that can handle all your office media, such as envelopes and labels. 03 If photos are your priority, speed is less important.…

01 You really don’t have to spend much to buy a decent graphics card that can drive multiple monitors. The AMD Radeon R7 250 costs less than £60, for example, and while it isn’t suited to playing the latest games in Full HD, it is perfect for watching videos, browsing the web and playing basic games. 02 You’ll need to spend more money if you want to play the latest games. A good mid-range gaming graphics card is the Nvidia GTX 950, which is powerful enough to play any of the latest games. High-powered cards tend to be more expensive, so expect to pay over £300 if you want to play games in Ultra HD at the highest quality settings. 03 Check that your chosen card has the graphics outputs…

STEGANOS PASSWORD MANAGER is a one-stop system for managing all your web passwords, bank account details, credit cards and more. The program is based around the idea of keychains – secure lists of passwords. You could create one keychain for your home logins and another for work, or have separate keychains for different family members. Each keychain gets its own password, so having access to one doesn’t necessarily mean you can see any of the others. There’s just as much flexibility in deciding how your keychain is structured. If you only have a few passwords you might keep them in a single list, but otherwise you can organise them into whatever pattern of folders and subfolders you need. Your stored credentials can be automatically entered on visiting a supported site,…

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 applications by grouping related files together, while enhanced AcceleWrite technology helps to improve the efficiency of your drives, and the SSD Accelerator…

£380 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT This sleek mid-ranger is a fine alternative to overpriced flagships, even with some flaws THE HONOR 9 joins the mid-range smartphone market at an intriguing time. With OnePlus raising its prices, Google abandoning the middle ground entirely and almost every other manufacturer seemingly adding £50 to £100 to the cost their phones, there’s a big £350-£400 gap to be filled. Honor, which is no stranger to the reasonably priced smartphone sector, has helpfully stepped in over the past year or so to fill that void. Last year’s excellent Honor 8 laid the groundwork, but the Honor 9 takes things a stage further, offering design standards previously unheard of in the sub-£400 smartphone sector. Indeed, its flat glass front, ‘3D’ curved glass at the rear, and…

£100 • From www.carphonewarehouse.com VERDICT Nokia’s first budget Android phone is a decent first effort, but a handful of niggles hold the Nokia 3 back IN 2014, NOKIA left the smartphone arena. After years of producing great phones, the once-dominant mobile firm had let it all slip through its fingers, selling up to Microsoft after a disastrous few years as the only big firm making Window Phone handsets. Now, however, Nokia is back. Not only is there the Nokia 3310 remake (Shopper 355) on the feature phone side, but there’s also a new range of true smartphones, powered by Android. The simply named Nokia 3 is the cheapest of these devices, coming below the only slightly pricier Nokia 5 and Nokia 6, as well as the higher-end Nokia 8. Aimed…

£79 • From shop.vodafone.co.uk VERDICT The ultra-cheap Smart N8 is good value, even with a few rough edges THE VODAFONE SMART N8 is the Smart Prime 7 successor we’ve been waiting for. Again, it costs well under £100, but comes with an improved camera, fingerprint reader and Android 7.0 out of the box. Despite being cheap, the Smart N8 is rather nicely made, from its textured rear cover to its beautifully crafted edges. However, at 8.6mm thick and weighing 151g, it is both chunkier and heavier than the Smart Prime 7. At the front, there’s a 5-megapixel camera, an unusual front-facing flash, and a single forward-firing speaker, which sounds surprisingly good. You’ll find a textured power button and volume rocker on the right, a 3.5mm headphone jack at the top…

£799 • From store.google.com VERDICT Despite its slightly lacklustre screen, the pure Android experience and quality camera make this a phablet to contend with AFTER YEARS OF dishing out cheap (but good) plain-Android handsets, Google switched tack in 2016 with the altogether more high-end Pixel and Pixel XL. Its recent updates, the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL (the phablet version we’re covering here) have upped the design game even further. Sticking with the current trend, the front of the phone is practically all screen, with just a thin strip across the top for the front-facing camera and speaker, and the same at the bottom for the microphone. The Gorilla Glass 5 is curved at the edges, blending the front into the main case, and with a new textured material…

£259 • From www.motorola.co.uk VERDICT An upgrade of style and construction above all else, but the Moto G5S Plus is still good value YOU’VE PROBABLY NOTICED that most of the phablets in this group test cost big bucks – luckily, the Moto G5S Plus is on hand to offer a more budget-friendly alternative. From a distance, the Moto G5S Plus looks similar to the Moto G5 Plus (Shopper 354). The style and build are quite different, however. The older Moto G5 Plus was sold as an aluminium unibody phone, but substantial parts of its frame were plastic. The G5S Plus has an all-aluminium frame that looks and feels a lot more like those of phones costing much more. It feels great in the hand, its slightly curved back minimising the…

£534 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Pairing speed and power with a sophisticated and attractive design, the Galaxy S8 runs rings around its competition THE SAMSUNG GALAXY S8 was one of the most anticipated phones of all time before it launched last year. It quickly earned that reverence with its sheer quality on almost every regard and, over time, it’s become significantly cheaper, making it an even better buy – and also better, arguably, than the Galaxy S8 Plus, which now sits awkwardly between the standard (but still technically phablet-sized) Galaxy S8 and the huge Note 8. The Galaxy S8’s standout feature is its screen. The bezels of the display have been almost entirely shorn off, leaving a screen that extends to almost every edge of the device, save for thin…

The Raspberry Pi has taken the world by storm, with the cheap computer proving to be a great way both to learn how to code, and to create some amazing projects (see page 104 for some of the best). Although the Raspberry Pi launched as a single computer, there are now several models to choose from. We recommend picking either the Raspberry Pi 3 or Raspberry Pi Zero W, depending on what you want to do. Here are the benefits of each. Raspberry Pi 3 £30 uk.rs-online.com The latest and greatest full-size model, the Pi 3 is the ultimate learning computer. It ships as a bare board that contains a quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM, four USB ports, an HDMI output, built-in Ethernet networking, and Wi-Fi. It’s the most powerful…

One of the best ways to get into coding is to work with an existing project. As well as building something useful that works, using someone else’s project is a good way to find out how it works, and you can apply the skills that you learn to your own projects further down the line. Here we’ve provided our run-down of the best Raspberry Pi projects currently available, and a link to full instructions online. NAS drive Making your own DIY network storage device is one of the original uses for the Raspberry Pi, but it’s still one of the best. Get yourself a couple of ‘dumb’ external hard drives, and by following the detailed instructions (tinyurl.com/361piguide1) you can save yourself a couple of hundred quid on an expensive NAS…

clive@computershopper.co.uk JUST AS YOU can add extra abilities and functions to Windows, so too can you enhance Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Microsoft’s other Office offerings. That might sound like madness given the zillions of options, but there are all kinds of gaps in that seemingly comprehensive set of tools. These extra abilities are called add-ins, and range from pet projects created by individual people to integrations for major services and software. Microsoft introduced an app store for add-ins for Office 2013 applications. Don’t worry if you’re still running Office 2010 software or earlier, as you should still be able to install add-ins the old-fashioned way (see the ‘Installing add-ins’ box on page 128 for details). AN ADD-INS’ CAVE Depending on how the add-in was made, it will launch either as…

ben@computershopper.co.uk Recording acoustic instruments Whether it’s an acoustic guitar or a full orchestra, our guide will ensure your arrangements sound as good on record as they do in the flesh ALMOST EVERY PIECE of recording studio equipment has been replaced by a plug-in, but there’s one part of the chain that remains reassuringly old-fashioned. Recording acoustic instruments still requires microphones, and it’s a job that hasn’t really changed since the invention of multitrack recording. It might be easier to load up a sample library, but there’s nothing quite like the real thing. Most people don’t have a symphony orchestra at their disposal, so sometimes a plug-in is the only option. There will be times when a plug-in might sound better, too. Why bother trying to record the piano in your…

Madeline Bennett “The development of augmented reality tech like Google ARCore into something useful, rather than gimmicks” David Ludlow “Wi-Fi that actually works reliably – surely we’re due for such a product?” Nathan Spendelow “Bendy phones; Samsung says they’re the future – we’ll find out soon enough” James Archer “Nvidia Volta GPUs which aren’t the $3,000 Titan Vt” Roland Moore-Colyer “Nintendo; let’s see it build upon the Switch’s success and please, please release an N64 Classic Mini” Simon Handby “Smart home, smart lighting, smart controls – dumb 40-something human with his feet up”…

Tech pioneer and all-round good egg letters@computershopper.co.uk Today’s AI sex robots are programmed to accommodate even the most discerning of Hollywood sex pests or priapic parliamentarians I AM ALMOST completely human, apart from my artificial eyes and an assortment of titanium pistons, levers and bolts. After a lot of thought, and given the choice, no matter what physical state I found myself in I would not consent to have my consciousness uploaded to a computer. Not even a better-looking computer than me, with a full head of hair, smooth skin, and straighter teeth. I like sci-fi movies, but I don’t particularly want to take part in their most common theme, which involves artificial intelligence getting too big for its boots. When the original Blade Runner was released back in 1982,…

For the den It’s common for annual product updates to get more compact, but they almost never get much cheaper as well. Yet that’s exactly what’s happened with the Amazon Echo 2nd Generation: whereas the original, 2016 model launched at £150, this costs just £90 brand new. As a speaker, it doesn’t sound as nice as the Echo Plus, and it’s not as versatile as the touchscreen-equipped Echo Show. Nonetheless, it’s a balanced and newly affordable tool for getting the Alexa voice assistant into your living room, ready to answer queries and manage any smart home kit you’ve got set up. (Page 42) For the shelf It almost hurts that we can’t advocate a purchase of the Google Pixel Buds; the ambition behind their built-in, Babelfish-style translation tech is admirable.…

SMARTPHONES ARE PROBABLY the computing device we use the most. While they’ve been getting more powerful in recent years, they’ve lagged behind desktops in terms of available storage, with the biggest handsets having 256GB. If your large media and app collection is filling your phone, Samsung has good news for you: it has begun mass production of 512GB embedded Universal Flash Storage chips, designed for next-generation phones and tablets. Samsung’s 512GB chips have eight 64-layer 512GB V-NAND chips all stacked on top of each other, combined with a controller chip. Despite doubling the maximum amount of storage available, the new chips don’t take up any more room. Additionally, the 512GB flash storage chip can read data at 86MB/s and write it at 255MB/s, eight times faster than a standard microSD…

“Robots can set us free… A former prime minister once famously said ‘hug a hoodie’. Today, I’m asking you to embrace an android” Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson wants us to embrace the rise of automation “My staff log on to my computer on my desk with my login everyday. Including interns on exchange programmes” Conservative MP Nadine Dorries reveals some lax security practices while defending fellow Tory MP Damian Green “One-wave-wandordering is very exciting technology. It takes that feelgood moment of being able to order your favourite meal at the touch of a button to the next level” Graham Corfield, UK MD at Just Eat, explains how the firm’s 3D-printed wand will add magic to ordering a takeaway “We advise that where it is assessed that access to the…

£1,550 • From www.overclockers.co.uk VERDICT This Vega-based PC costs a lot, but it’s beautifully built and has an excellent SSD/hard disk combo THERE ARE ONLY so many processors, graphics cards and motherboards in the world, which is why we sometimes end up testing a series of PCs with similar features, not to mention performance that barely differs from machine to machine. It’s the desktop equivalent of how nearly every single flagship smartphone on the market uses the same Snapdragon 835 chip (though, perhaps thankfully, not quite to the same extent). Overclockers’ Gaming Oxygen system doesn’t have any key internals we haven’t seen before – there’s an Intel Core i5-8600K processor, Vega RX 56 graphics card and 16GB of DDR4 RAM – but it does, at last, have the air of…

£299 • From www.johnlewis.com VERDICT The Gear Sport is Samsung’s first fully waterproof smartwatch, but it falls short of being a proper multisport watch LAST YEAR’S GEAR S3 (Shopper 350) was an outstanding smartwatch; we were particularly impressed by its whopping five-day battery life. Samsung hasn’t replaced it or improved it; instead, the Gear Sport slots into Samsung’s smartwatch line-up just below the S3. This means it costs a bit less, but crucially also makes a few compromises in terms of features. It’s not all bad news. The Gear Sport is Samsung’s first smartwatch that can track your swims, recording lap time, stroke type and even heart rate. So could it be that Samsung has finally succeeded in creating a watch that resembles a traditional timepiece, but also caters to…

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 that 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…

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 is slowly becoming more common in hybrid tablets and convertibles. If you own an Apple or Google smartphone, you can download your apps, music and so on to a tablet that runs the same OS, so it makes sense to stick with a compatible device. 02 It’s important to pick a tablet that has a good-quality high-resolution screen. Many budget tablets have 1,280x800- resolution displays, but better tablets have Full HD 1,920x1,080 panels, and we’re starting to see tablets that have even higher screen resolutions. Some are as high as 2,560x1,600 or even 4K. Entry-level…

01 A 32in Full HD TV costs around £200 and will suit smaller living rooms. TVs look much smaller in the shop than in your home, so measure the space available before you buy. Curved TVs are becoming increasingly more common, but bear in mind that these typically take up more floor space than a traditional flat set. 02 A 1,920x1,080-resolution TV can display a 1080p image. You can still buy TVs with a 720p (1,366x768) resolution, but they’re no cheaper and the image won’t be as sharp. 3,840x2,560 Ultra HD resolution, or 4K, TVs are finally available at reasonable prices, although you’ll still pay a premium for one over a 1080p model. 03 Consider the number of inputs you’ll need to connect the rest of your equipment. Two HDMI…

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

01 Wireless routers each use a number of Wi-Fi standards, so you shouldn’t have any trouble connecting your computer or phone wirelessly if you get an 802.11n or 802.11ac router. Nearly all routers support 802.11n, so even a cheap model should provide decent performance. You can expect a transfer speed of around 40Mbit/s at a distance of 10m from any modern 802.11n router. The very latest routers use the 802.11ac standard, which provides tremendously fast transfer speeds. Some devices still don’t support the 802.11ac standard, so check the specifications before you buy. 02 If you subscribe to an ADSL broadband service, you should buy a wireless router that has a built-in ADSL modem. This will cost more than the equivalent cable router, but it allows you to connect your router…

KEYDEPOT 2018 IS an easy-to-use tool for creating secure passwords, storing them in an encrypted vault, and (optionally) syncing them across your PCs. A simple wizard walks you through the setup process. Create your starting vault, enter a master password, and you’re ready to go within seconds. Enter the logins for your favourite sites, and KeyDepot 2018 automatically checks them for security. If a password is too short or too simple you can easily create another; a built-in password generator creates something secure with a click. Websites are organised by category – music, banking, news and so on – which lets KeyDepot 2018 double as a bookmark manager. Browse the list, click a button and the website launches right away. KeyDepot 2018 won’t automatically fill a login page. Instead you…

IF YOU HAVE an old system you want to upgrade, one of the best improvements is to swap your old hard disk for a super-fast SSD. With no moving parts, a modern SSD is much faster than your old drive, meaning your PC boots more quickly, applications open more swiftly, and moving files around takes seconds and not minutes. It’s a huge upgrade for any PC. But how do you migrate your system to the new SSD? One way is to install everything from scratch, but this can take ages, and no-one wants to try to find all their old installation discs. The better solution is a tool such as Migrate OS to SSD 4. Simply put, this tool enables you to take your system drive and transfer the entire…

SAVING SPACE SONY Xperia XZ1 Compact No-one could blame you for thinking truly petite smartphones had become a thing of the past – how often do you see something smaller than 5in diagonally? – but the Xperia XZ1 Compact proves that minuscule handsets can still have a lot to give. Specifically, you get the same Snapdragon 835 processor, 4GB of RAM and 19-megapixel rear camera as the standard Xperia XZ1, but with the added portability of being built around a 4.6in display. The drawback is that this only runs at 1,280x720, but colour accuracy, brightness and contrast are all high enough to meet flagship standards. TAKING PHOTOS GOOGLE Pixel 2 XL Put simply, the Google Pixel 2 XL has the best rear camera on any smartphone or phablet ever made.…

£400 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT This photographer’s companion is a powerful Android handset and a worthy upgrade to the P9 THE LEICA-BRANDED Huawei P9 (Shopper 342) was a pleasant surprise when it launched back in 2016. Much of that was down to its dual rear cameras, which Huawei has wisely decided to carry over to the new P10 unchanged. It also raises the issue of what’s actually new, especially since the P10 was pricier at launch than the P9 was (though since the former has plummeted from £550 to £400 in just a few months, that’s effectively a moot point). The biggest difference lies in the P10’s improved physical appearance, which is uncannily iPhone-like in design. Huawei has tossed away the easily scratched all-metal silver back of the P9, in…

£480 • From www.carphonewarehouse.com VERDICT The Nokia 8 is a handsome, long-lasting high-end smartphone that’s cheaper than might be expected THE NOKIA 3 may be an underwhelming budget phone, but the Nokia 8 aims much higher. It’s equipped with a 5.3in, 2,560x1,440 display, 4GB of RAM and the latest Snapdragon 835 processor, all for an extremely reasonable price; only the OnePlus 5T, a phablet, offers more for less. The display gets things off to a good start. That 1440p resolution amounts to a pixel-perfect density of 554ppi, and Nokia has wisely opted to protect it with a sheet of Gorilla Glass 5. It’s a tad disappointing to note that the Nokia 8 lacks the snazzy edge-to-edge displays of the Galaxy S8 and LG G6, but it’s a decent screen nonetheless.…

£799 • From www.apple.com/uk VERDICT The latest plus-sized iPhone is faster, better, but ultimately more of the same IF THE NEWER iPhone X is a big step forward for Apple, the iPhone 8 Plus is at best a tentative shuffle. So while it has some new tricks, such as its glass back, A11 Bionic processor and wireless charging, it’s clearly based on an old template, with the Force Touch fingerprint-sensor home button in the same place it’s always been. One of the few ways it couldn’t be mistaken for a 2014 iPhone 6 Plus is that there’s no headphone jack. Still, that glass back has a bigger impact than you might think. Not only does it mean the removal of those ugly antenna strips, but it allows for the introduction…

£699 • From www.carphonewarehouse.com VERDICT With great battery life and an utterly gorgeous design, the Mate 10 Pro is a great phablet CONFUSINGLY, HUAWEI HAS released two versions of its latest premium phablet: the 5.9in Mate 10 and the 6in Mate 10 Pro. Each employs Huawei’s latest flagship processor, the Kirin 970, and they’re similar in look and feel, with a glossy metallic glass back and a slightly different coloured strip highlighting the dual cameras on the rear. There are differences, but they’re subtle. The Mate 10 has a regular 16:9 aspect ratio IPS display, which runs at a resolution of 2,560x1,440, while the Mate 10 Pro has a 6in 18:9 AMOLED screen at a (surprisingly, lower) resolution of 2,160x1,080, so it’s slightly narrower and slightly taller. There’s also a…

£449 • From oneplus.net/uk VERDICT A swanky screen and new low-light camera make this the best OnePlus smartphone yet ONEPLUS PHONES HAVE always been reasonably priced, but when the OnePlus 5 launched at £449 we were worried it was the thin end of the wedge. Thankfully, the OnePlus 5T arrests the price rise and holds it steady at £449, while adding some significant hardware upgrades. Chief among these is the screen: it’s now a 6in edge-to-edge display, with a high 2,160x1,080 resolution and bold AMOLED panel. Colour reproduction is particularly good, covering 98.4% of the sRGB colour gamut, with high accuracy throughout. Peak brightness, on the other hand, is slightly disappointing, reaching only 420cd/m2 even with auto-brightness enabled, meaning in really bright conditions it will be difficult to read without…

VERDICT With most companies focusing on their big-screened output, today’s selection of smaller smartphones has yielded an unlikely pair of champions. At the budget end is Vodafone’s Smart N8. While it’s slow and a bit plasticky, that’s to be expected for £79, and it transcends its low-end nature with features such as its fingerprint sensor. For those with more expensive tastes, the 4.6in Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact is hard to beat. Sure, its signature 3D scanning trick is a gimmick at best, but it’s as powerful as a much more expensive flagship, and the shrunken display still looks bright and bold. The Honor 9 and Huawei P10 are also very respectable (and remarkably similar) mid-range alternatives. As for phablets, we’ve been extremely impressed by the OnePlus 5T – it offers…

Raspberry Pi 3 Official Case £6 thepihut.com Keep your Pi 3 looking smart with this neat, cheap and well-made case. Raspberry Pi Zero W Official Case £6 thepihut.com As with the Pi 3, the official Pi Zero W case keeps your computer neater, and for an exceptionally low price. Raspberry Pi Camera Module V2 £24 thepihut.com The official camera add-on turns your Pi into a security camera, digital camera or more. Add the optional adaptor (£4) if you have a Pi Zero W. Official Raspberry Pi 7in Touchscreen Display £60 thepihut.com Want to operate your Pi by touch? This official touchscreen display gives you that option and is perfect for many projects. It’s not compatible with the Pi Zero W. Hapurs Micro USB On/Off switch £5.59 www.amazon.co.uk The Pi has…

Send your problems to businesshelp@computershopper.co.uk Chapter and verse I have a document in Word in which I want to have two page numbers for each page: an overall page number and a section or chapter page number. I want to have the overall page number in the footer, and the section page number in the header. The overall page number should go up by one as normal for all pages, but the page number in the header, the section page number, will go 1, 2, 3, 4… until the end of section one, then restart from 1 for section two, and go up again. Is there a way in Word to do this? I’m using Word 2010. Chris Sykes The tricky part, obviously, is the section page numbering – for…

OFFICE 2013 AND NEWER The latest method of installing add-ins uses an app store. Open the Insert tab of the Ribbon and click Apps for Office. Choose Store and wait while the add-in app store loads. You can search for an add-in if you know its name, or browse for something using the categories listed down the left of the app store window. However, the app store is application-specific, so if you launch it from Word, you’ll only see Word-compatible add-ins. Once you’ve found an add-in you want, click Add. You’ll either see the add-in’s sidepane open, or it will appear as an object on your page, slide or sheet. OFFICE 2010 AND OLDER In some ways, this method is easier – you simply find the installation file, download it,…

@ letters@computershopper.co.uk Photo Shopper @ In the February 2018 issue of Computer Shopper (Letters, 360), you invited readers to write in with ideas for a feature on photo editing. Here are some suggestions for things that I would be pleased to see covered: ■ Choosing the right kit, from computer to accessories and printers. ■ Setting up everything, including colour calibration. ■ The best editing software, and how to use it. ■ How to organise and catalogue photos. ■ Photo file formats and resolutions to use for different purposes. I know there are a lot of ideas here, but they do not all have to go in one issue. The theme could be developed in a number of articles over several months. Martyn Sandford @ Recent letters to Computer Shopper…

During a nine-month period, it was discovered that 10,000 German citizens had been approached by fake accounts on LinkedIn GERMANY’S INTELLIGENCE service has just published a report, warning about a set of fake social media accounts. It’s not just a matter of people using false names for these accounts, however: German authorities believe they were created by Chinese intelligence as a method of getting personal information about German officials and politicians. The German authorities said: “Chinese intelligence services are active on networks like LinkedIn and have been trying for a while to extract information and find intelligence sources in this way.” During a nine-month research period, it was discovered that 10,000 German citizens had been approached by the fake accounts on LinkedIn. Most of the fake accounts had been set…

United States Net neutrality threatened The US has taken steps to allow broadband providers to prioritise customer services and charge different amounts. The Federal Communications Commission voted to change the way net neutrality is governed. ISPs will now be allowed to speed up or slow down different companies’ data, and charge consumers according to the services they access. Many argue the reversal of net neutrality rules introduced under former president Barack Obama will make the internet less open and accessible. France Amazon under fire The French government has filed a complaint with the Paris Commerce Court against Amazon for abusing its dominant position with some suppliers. The Economy Ministry is seeking a fine of €10m against Amazon, following a two-year investigation by the DGCCRF consumer fraud watchdog. The complaint centres…

GRAPHENE, THE 2D material that’s 200 times stronger than steel, could be used to create a limitless supply of clean power. Researchers at the University of Arkansas have discovered that the movement of the carbon atoms that make up the material could power devices indefinitely. Examining the movement of the atoms, the researchers discovered there was Brownian motion (the random motion of particles), but also larger movements with atoms moving together. Paul Thibado, physics professor at the University of Arkansas, explained: “The [graphene] membrane is kind of shaking around and vibrating, but every now and then this local convex section… would flip its curvature over and become concave. “If we place a charge on that ripple and it moves suddenly near a grounded conducting electrode, charge will flow in that…

£670 • From www.debenhamsplus.com VERDICT Big gaming power for a small outlay elevates this otherwise unremarkable compact PC THERE WAS A time, not so long ago, when if you wanted a pre-built PC with a GeForce GTX 1060 graphics card, you could expect to pay around £1,000, perhaps £900 at the least. Medion’s Erazer P4408 D is a sign of how things have changed: it’s a GTX 1060 system costing less than £700, making it the cheapest PC with a true mid-range GPU to have graced these pages since the current GeForce generation was launched. It should be said that this is the slightly slower 3GB version of Nvidia’s GPU, not the full 6GB version, and the price is further explained by only having an Intel Kaby Lake processor –…

£230 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Amazon’s luxury eReader is bigger and tougher than ever, and adds Audible audiobook playback too AMAZON MAY HAVE led the charge over the years when it comes to eReaders, but one thing the Kindle line has been missing is waterproofing. While Kobo is now into its second generation of bath-proof devices, Amazon has only just introduced the feature, and even then it’s only the latest, pricey flagship Kindle Oasis that benefits. Like the previous Kindle Oasis (Shopper 342), it’s wedge-shaped with a cutout at the rear that helps you grip the reader more comfortably one-handed. It is a little bigger, making it a bit of a stretch to hold edge-to-edge with one hand on the rear. Luckily, the matt gun-metal grey finish adds enough grip…

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 15.4in screen and weigh around 2.4kg, 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 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 an 11in or…

01 If you’re ready to step beyond the basic controls of a compact camera, or you want greater flexibility than an ultra-zoom can offer, a compact system camera (CSC) is the next logical upgrade. With interchangeable lenses, manual controls and stellar image quality, these cameras give proper digital SLRs a run for their money. 02 There are three competing types of CSC mount, and the one you buy determines the number of compatible lenses and accessories you have available. Samsung’s NX-mount is arguably the most limited in terms of lens selection, and the company has confirmed that it’s shutting down its European camera business, so it’s best to avoid these altogether if possible. Sony’s E-Mount has a slightly wider range, but Micro Four Thirds offers the widest variety. Both Panasonic…

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

01 A smart thermostat can save you a lot of money by intelligently controlling your heating. Most smart heating devices are designed to be used with hot water central heating systems, with the boiler directly controlled by the system. These typically require a relay to be wired into your boiler, with a wireless thermostat giving you direct control. Smartphone apps then tie into the system to give you remote control. While it’s possible to fit controls yourself, you may want to pay an experienced plumber to do the job: expect to pay around £150 for a typical installation. If you have electric heating, there are very few choices, and the big names (Nest, Honeywell and so on) do not directly support these systems. 02 Want smart hot water control? If…

01 A basic 1TB internal hard disk should cost around £40. This will be fast enough for general use and will provide enough storage for most users. Make sure the hard disk you choose has the appropriate interface type for your PC. Some mechanical hard disks still come with SATA2 interfaces, but newer models and most solid-state drives (SSDs) have faster SATA3 interfaces. You’ll need a motherboard with a SATA3 port if you want to benefit from SATA3’s faster speeds; SATA3 disks will work with SATA2 ports but can only transfer files at SATA2 speeds. 02 SSDs can make the most of SATA3’s extra 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…

WebSite X5 Start 14 WEBSITE X5 START 14 is a powerful application that makes it easy to create top-quality responsive websites, even if you’ve got no design or coding experience at all. The Start edition offers more than 50 professional templates covering just about every site type and topic area: e-commerce, blogs, sports sites, animals, food, movies, web portals and more. Choose a design that appeals, and you can then start planning your site’s structure using a map. From here, it’s simply a case of populating each page in turn by dragging and cropping various elements on to your page. Again, there are plenty to choose from, including text blocks, images, galleries, tables, video and audio widgets, maps, Flash animations, product catalogues, email forms and more. Each element can be…

Chat and Communication Evernote 6.7.5.5825 Store your notes, ideas and plans in the cloud, and synchronise them between computers. Mailbird 2.4.24.0 A free desktop email client for Windows. UPDATED Miranda IM 0.10.76 Chat with friends across multiple messaging platforms, including AIM, Facebook, IRC and MSN, all from one simple interface. Skype for Windows 8.11.76.3 Make internet voice and video calls for free, and buy credit to make calls to mobiles and landlines. Telegram 1.1.23 This free IM app synchronises your conversations across multiple devices, and can spruce up chats with stickers and GIFs. WhatsApp Desktop 0.2.6967 A free PC and Mac version of the popular messaging app, letting you chat from your desktop. Customisation iolo System Mechanic Free 17.0.1 Speed up your system with Iolo’s PC optimisation suite. Rainmeter 4.1…

£419 • From www.carphonewarehouse.com VERDICT BlackBerry is back with another Android-powered smartphone and a touch-sensitive keyboard THE DECLINE OF the BlackBerry brand has been well documented, meaning new handsets such as the KEYOne have their work cut out. It’s essentially a reimagining of the firm’s glory days, combined with a modern kind of pragmatism: it has a physical keyboard, which makes it unusual, but like many smartphones, it’s also equipped with a touchscreen display (albeit a small 4.5in one). Toss in the fact that it runs Android, the way it functions and the apps it can run, and this phone is about as normal as they come. As for looks, it sadly doesn’t get off on the right foot. It’s a dumpy 9.4mm thick and, despite only having a 4.5in…

£179 • From www.johnlewis.com VERDICT The G5S is a step in the right direction, but it still isn’t the essential budget phone the Moto G4 was AFTER THE DISAPPOINTING Moto G5 (Shopper 353), Motorola has gone back to the drawing board. Its latest ‘budget’ handset, the Moto G5S, seeks to learn from the mistakes of its predecessor, with a larger battery, an upgraded camera and a newly refined design. What’s more, one of our biggest problems with the Moto G5S at launch – that at £220, it was clearly too expensive – has been alleviated by this drop to £179. That’s only £10 more than the Moto G5 it replaces, but what do you get for this money? Design-wise, the G5S marks a big step up from its predecessor. Where…

£399 • From www.johnlewis.com VERDICT Sony’s Xperia XZ1 Compact squeezes top-tier features into a 4.6in smartphone THE XPERIA XZ1 Compact tries to prove that a 4.6in smartphone can still be relevant. With displays getting bigger, phones getting larger and trouser pockets bulging, small-screened phones are at risk of becoming relics. Sony’s Xperia XZ1 Compact not shows that pocket-friendly phones still exist, but it does everything so spectacularly well that it forces you to wonder where our obsession with big-screened phones started in the first place. As the name suggests, the XZ1 Compact is the smaller version of its Xperia XZ1 handset. It has a tiny 4.6in 1,280x720 display, slips into any pocket with ease and, best of all, it’s considerably cheaper than its larger cousin. It doesn’t scrimp on the…

£999 • From www.apple.com/uk VERDICT The iPhone X finally brings some innovation to the brand, but it’s far too expensive THE IPHONE X is one of the most controversial smartphones in years. There are various reasons for this – it’s the first time Apple has used OLED display tech, the first time it’s removed the home button, and the first time an iPhone has included facial recognition authentication – but perhaps most significant of all is the £999 price. And that’s just for the base 64GB version; the 256GB model costs £1,149. Frankly, neither the black or white colour options look as good as a £999 phone ought to. The trim picks up greasy fingerprints upsettingly easily, as does the rather plain rear panel, and the main camera module juts…

£400 • From www.johnlewis.com VERDICT The LG G6’s sprawling display makes it a pleasure to use, but it falls short against the competition EDGE-TO-EDGE displays are all the rage, but let’s not forget the first phablet to adopt this practically bezel-free, 18:9 aspect ratio design: the LG G6. This 5.7in, 2,880x1,440 screen covers an impressive 78.6% of the entire front panel, and because there’s so little bezel space, this phone is easily small enough to use one handed, and weighs just 163g. It’s not unnervingly delicate, though, being rated IP67 for water and dust resistance. The display itself is undeniably the star here. Dolby Vision and HDR10 – previously only seen on expensive TVs – are both supported, resulting in blinding whites and seriously deep blacks. Obviously, your content will…

£789 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The Galaxy Note 8 rises from the ashes of its predecessor to become a great, if highly expensive, phablet KNOWING THE FATE of the Galaxy Note 7, with its overheating batteries, Samsung needed to come up with something special to save the phablet-focused Note line – and with the stunning Note 8, that might just be exactly what it’s done. Adopting the same edge-to-edge design as the Galaxy S8, the Note 8 treats us to a huge 6.3in, 2,960x1,440 display, which benefits, like everything else in the Galaxy family, from Samsung’s Super AMOLED technology. As a result, contrast is absolutely perfect, and while peak brightness is surprisingly low at 330cd/m2, that’s only with adaptive brightness switched off; turn it on, and that figure shoots up…

As good as the Raspberry Pi is, it’s barebones approach can make assembling a handy coding station for projects a little tricky. With the Pi-Top, things are far simpler, providing you with a laptop chassis into which you can build your Raspberry Pi (a Pi is not included). The original Pi-Top project was crowdfunded, but for this second iteration, it’s built by the Pi-Top company. This time around, the kit is designed to be even easier to assemble, and it includes everything you need to get going with your own projects. It even ships with the Pi-TopOS on a microSD card, so you can be up and running in a matter of minutes. Avengers assemble The Pi-Top feels light when you pick it up. Don’t let that put you off,…

Send your problems to help@computershopper.co.uk Upsetting lack of settings I have a Lenovo IdeaPad U310 laptop, running Windows 10 1607 (OS Build 14393.447). It’s mainly used as a travel laptop, but it is occasionally used at home. Recently when I tried to connect to the internet at home, I received an ‘unidentified network, no internet access’ message on the wireless icon. If I right-click on the icon it shows that my router’s wireless network is available, but it won’t connect. I’ve thrashed around the laptop trying to follow various suggestions from the internet, but to no avail. I decided that the time had come to take the ultimate action and reset the PC, only to find that the Settings menu doesn’t seem to exist, presumably as a result of all…

The first barrier to installing add-ins for Outlook is that you need an Outlook.com email address or be connecting to Exchange 2013 SP1 (or newer) or Exchange Online. If you have an Outlook.com address, or can accept the change (you could set your other email accounts to forward automatically to your Outlook.com address to help the change), you still can’t install add-ins in the usual way. The easiest way of expanding Outlook’s abilities (at least for 2013 onwards) is to head to appsource.microsoft.com. Search for your add-in and click Get it now. You’ll be asked to sign in (use your Outlook.com address), and to agree to the add-in’s terms and conditions. Click Continue and you’ll be taken to your Outlook.com email web page to verify the installation of the add-in.…