Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2019 i Computer Shopper

Speed and convenience rule the world today. Waiting on a customer service phone line is being replaced by talking to a chat bot; the paper boy or girl was long ago put out of a job by the arrival of smartphones, which so many of us turn to as our first task of the day to catch up on the headlines; and going to the supermarket to stock up on items for a favourite dish has been switched for the online shop or meal delivery service. But all this comes at a cost. Recipe packs carry a higher price tag than buying your own ingredients, while relying on AI software to help with your query rather than waiting to speak to an actual person can mean missing out on a…

Go with the fold? With a wave of foldable smartphones about to hit shops, we explore whether it’s worth waiting to upgrade your handset, along with a rundown of the current best devices that offer a great deal now Rocket science Forty years after NASA took delivery of its first launch-ready Space Shuttle, we investigate the software and systems that helped to make the space plane fly Use a Password Safe Bin your book of unique, ultrastrong passwords and use a Password Safe instead – it’s easier and more secure Go wild We explore how the latest advances in artificial intelligence and drone technology are helping to protect wildlife and their habitat COMPUTER SHOPPER ISSUE 377 ON SALE IN NEWSAGENTS FROM 9th MAY…

“We are rushing 5G. The promise is not there yet, to be honest”Regius Professor Rahim Tafazolli, of the Institute of Communication Systems and 5G Innovation Centre at the University of Surrey, seems sceptical about 5G “It will be difficult to appropriately risk-manage future products in the context of UK deployments, until the underlying defects in Huawei’s software engineering and cyber-security processes are remediated”GCHQ foresees long-term risks from using Huawei equipment “I’m very concerned about nastiness and misinformation spreading”Father of the World Wide Web Sir Tim Berners-Lee is worried about his creation “We’re quite surprised that the government is continuing to take such an experimental approach to human rights”Big Brother Watch’s legal and policy officer Guy Ferris isn’t impressed with the government’s plan to roll out biometric technology to UK prison…

£800 • From www.very.co.uk VERDICT The Akoya E23401 makes up for its bland display with good performance, a competitive price and a sleek design IT’S EASY TO see the appeal of budget all-in-one (AIO) PCs, even more so than a low-cost conventional desktop. A fully working Windows 10 system, sleek monitor, mouse and keyboard, all for well under £1,000? For someone looking to buy their very first PC or upgrade from a laptop, the entire concept is close to perfect. And yet, the limitations of shopping cheaply are in effect just as strong with AIOs as they are with any kind of computer. Last year’s Acer Aspire S 24 (Shopper 371) is a good case in point: despite looking the business, with its sleek chassis and gold finish, a flawed…

£1,100 • From www.overclockers.co.uk VERDICT A responsive, colour-accurate IPS panel and platform-agnostic syncing make the LG 34GK950F something special £1,100 IS SERIOUS money, so it’s at least fitting that the LG 34GK950F is a serious ultrawide monitor. Specced mainly for gaming, it features a large 34in curved IPS panel that runs at 3,440x1,440, with a fast native refresh rate of 144Hz and a 21:9 aspect ratio. The inclusion of HDR shouldn’t go unnoticed, either; it’s the VESA-certified DisplayHDR 400 standard. It also supports FreeSync 2, the latest version of AMD’s display technology that syncs the refresh rate to a compatible Radeon GPU’s frames-per-second output to eliminate tearing. Nvidia graphics card owners don’t have to be left out, either – the green team’s equivalent, G-Sync, also works if you’re connected to…

£139 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT A good freebie with Samsung smartphones, but on their own, sound quality falls short SAMSUNG HAD A surprise in store at its Galaxy S10/Galaxy Fold reveal event in February: the Korean firm would also be launching its own, completely wireless in-ear headphones, the Galaxy Buds. These are promised as a free extra for anyone who pre-ordered one of the new handsets, but you can also buy them completely separately for £139. That price puts the Galaxy Buds into RHA TrueConnect (Shopper 375) territory, so competition is already tough. Still, ergonomically they’re close to perfect: they’re lightweight and only barely protrude from your ears. We happily wore them for hours at a time without discomfort, and since small, medium and large silicone tips are included in…

£240 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT A well-crafted smartphone with a fantastic camera, but its cheaper sibling is the smarter buy NOW WE’VE SEEN the Moto G7 Power establish itself as the best budget smartphone around, the question is what the standard, more expensive Moto G7 has to offer. It’s certainly a clear upgrade on the Moto G6: display size has increased from 5.7in to 6.2in, and the old Snapdragon 450 is replaced by the Snapdragon 632. The fingerprint reader has been moved from the front to the rear, allowing for a better screen-to-body ratio even with the front-facing camera notch. The camera specs are unchanged – the main snapper still comprises a 12-megapixel lens and a 5-megapixel depth sensor lens – but that’s not much of a worry, as the…

£20 • From shop.neos.co.uk VERDICT The Smartcam isn’t the most technically advanced camera, but it’s incredibly well equipped for the price SMART SECURITY CAMERAS generally aren’t cheap: a mid-tier camera such as the TP-Link Case Cam (Shopper 375) can set you back more than £130, and top-end systems can require an outlay of £250 or more, not even counting running costs. The underlying idea is that you can’t put a price on security, but the Neos Smartcam shows that this price doesn’t have to be high. It’s only £20, but it shoots at 1080p, has a night-vision mode and free cloud storage. Smart cameras have offered free cloud storage before, only to withdraw the perk at a later date when it proves to be unsustainable. This may or may not…

01 A basic PC costing around £350 will be able to run everyday office, multimedia and education software and will easily cope with surfing the internet. It might even be able to run some modern games. Many PCs can be sold either with or without a monitor. If you don’t like the display the manufacturer is offering, you can always use your current one, or buy another one separately. 02 If you want to play games, you’ll have to upgrade the graphics card. Budget cards such as the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 will cope well with many 3D games, but to play the latest 3D games smoothly (and enjoy the best-quality graphics) it’s worth upgrading to a more powerful card such as the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070. 03 All modern…

01 It’s essential that you buy the right type of motherboard for your processor. For example, Intel’s Skylake, Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake processors all use the same LGA 1151 socket, but because each CPU generation introduced new chipsets, you’ll need to get a Z370 motherboard for a Coffee Lake chip, a Z270 board for a Kaby Lake chip and so on. 02 All current Intel processors have built-in graphics chipsets, so if you want to use your chip’s built-in graphics, make sure the motherboard has the video outputs, such as DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort. If you want to play the latest games, you’ll need to fit a dedicated graphics card in the motherboard’s PCI Express x16 slot, although this may block one of your other slots. 03 Normal tower…

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

01 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…

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 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…

letters@computershopper.co.uk Plugging the Wi-Fi gap @ I really do not know why everyone is getting so concerned about Wi-FI (‘Get the Best from Your Router, Shopper 375). I solved this years ago when Wi-Fi would not reach my wife’s computer, probably because of the construction of the walls, even though we live in a modern house. I invested in HomePlugs. They are brilliant as they pass the internet signal throughout our house via the electricity wiring and at a higher frequency. Nobody can eavesdrop on us as it is perfectly secure. Why depend on Wi-Fi? Mike Claydon @ Once upon a time we had Sky Broadband here in the Chew Valley, Somerset. It was slow and unreliable (1.5-3Mbit/s) with Netflix and Amazon Prime; I was not happy. Then we reverted…

Tech pioneer and all-round good egg letters@computershopper.co.uk I’M NOT A great fan of celebrating birthdays and anniversaries, unless they involve personal events and really mean something. But some people love to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries just for the sake of it, and who am I to spoil their fun. For example, on a personal level it is exactly 50 years since I programmed my first proper computer, but I don’t expect anyone else to celebrate that fact. And before you start making jokes about hot valves and punched cards, yes, it involved both of those elements. I remember walking around inside the computer, which was about the size of a tennis court. I also remember it took me five months to develop a program that generated hideous music in synchronisation…

Facebook admits storing user passwords in plain text SAY WHAT? 2018 WASN’T GOOD for Facebook when it came to data security and privacy. But recent history appears to be repeating itself as the social network was found to have stored passwords belonging to hundreds of millions of users in plain text. Security expert Brian Krebs was tipped off by an anonymous senior Facebook worker, who revealed that, through an internal investigation, the company had discovered that its staffers had been creating apps that harvested and stored encrypted data in plain rather than encrypted text on internal servers. As a result, more than 20,000 Facebook employees could have searched and gained access to the passwords of between 200 and 600 million account holders. Facebook has more than two billion users. Krebs’…

£1,600 • From www.palicomp.co.uk VERDICT An extremely capable gaming system with great storage and a stable CPU overclock IT’S BEEN A while since we’ve had a high-spec gaming desktop come into the Shopper labs, and Palicomp’s Intel i7 Supernova is suitably up to date: it has a 9th-gen Intel CPU, the octa-core Core i7-9700K, with graphical muscle from an EVGA-made GeForce RTX 2070. At £1,600, it’s quite the investment – in our guide to speccing your own PC on page 78, we’ve devised a comparable system for under £1,400 – but given the two key components, and that it comes pre-built, this is standard pricing. The Scan 3XS Gamer RTX costs the same and Overclockers has its £1,700 Gaming Kalash system, both of which are equipped with the same processor…

RECOMMENDED £1,699 • From www.wexphotovideo.com VERDICT A superb screen for colour-accurate HDR video editing, with hardware calibration to help justify the price TO SAY THAT the Eizo ColorEdge CG279X is a niche monitor would be a considerable understatement. Besides costing the best part of £1,700, the CG279X has a very narrow focus: it’s built for professionals who work in video post-production, image processing and pre-printing. If you have to be 100% confident that the colours you see on the screen are the same that will appear on calibrated movie screens and final prints, you need a monitor like this. With that in perspective, the CG279X doesn’t look such a crazy investment. If you’re spending thousands of pounds on a print job, then you want, for instance, whites to jump out…

£501 • From www.ballicom.co.uk VERDICT If you don’t like waiting for scans to complete, the FastFoto FF-680W could be ideal – but you’ll need deep pockets AS A SENSIBLE, sheet-fed document scanner, Epson’s FastFoto FF-680W looks every bit the boring office device. It has sturdy input and output trays, a spattering of buttons, and a mechanism that springs open to let you clear paper jams. You can connect it via USB3, and share it over Wi-Fi. So far, so humdrum, but Epson has designed the FF-680W to capture photos as well as documents. It arrives with SmartScan, an office-focused archival and workflow package, and FastFoto, which is designed to make photo captures fast and easy. Together, they make things far more interesting. GET SORTED SmartScan, for one, lets you choose…

£399 • From www.weybridge-audio.co.uk VERDICT Bowers & Wilkins has reimagined its classic 600 Series, and the 607 offer a thrilling sound profile WHILE SOME DESIGNS fade into history, others leave a permanent mark. The striking yellow Kevlar drivers of Bowers & Wilkins’ 601 speakers made them an example of the latter, and now, two decades later, the 600 Series has grown up, just as many 601 owners will have. The 607 is the smallest and cheapest speaker set in Bowers & Wilkins’ new 600 Series family. Taking the place of the previous 686 S2, the 607 sits alongside the slightly larger 606 (£549) and the floorstanding 603 (£1,249). There’s also a matching centre speaker, the HTM6 (£399), and a trio of active subwoofers. DIAMOND CUT The 607 are genuinely compact…

£799 • From www.carphonewarehouse.com VERDICT The Find X has a pop-up camera like none you’ve seen before, but it costs a fortune and skimps elsewhere LIKE ASUS WITH the ROG Phone (page 48), Chinese firm Oppo is also trying its hand at a high-end smartphone with an unusual twist. In this case, it’s a motorised camera unit that pops up from inside the phone, revealing both the front and rear cameras – and hiding them when not in use. It’s an elaborate but effective way of avoiding a notch from cutting into the display, and as such contributes to a beautifully minimalistic look. There’s no protruding camera housing on the rear, either. The placement of the buttons and other physical features is as sensible as the design is attractive. The…

£145 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Mobvoi has opted for refinement over revolution, but there’s still nothing better than the E2 at its price THE TICWATCH E was one of our favourite smartwatches of 2017. It delivered flagship features, including GPS and heart-rate monitoring, at a more affordable price than most – and just by looking at the new TicWatch E2’s price, we can tell Mobvoi hasn’t changed course for this update. Indeed, the TicWatch E2 is clearly an evolution of its predecessor rather than a complete overhaul. For one thing, it still has a simple, black plastic case that you’d expect of a device that costs less than £150. Even so, Mobvoi has done a great job of fixing the main design flaws of the TicWatch E. Where the original…

01 A basic laptop costing around £300 will run everyday office, multimedia and education software, but it won’t be suitable for 3D gaming or processor-intensive tasks such as video editing. Many laptops at this price have a 15.6in screen and weigh over 2kg, so they’re best used around the house and for occasional journeys. 02 If you want to play modern games, you’ll need a laptop with a dedicated graphics chip such as the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060M. Good gaming laptops tend to have large 15.6 or 17in screens and weigh around 3kg, so they’re best suited to use at home. 03 If you want a laptop that you can take everywhere, look for a model that weighs less than 2kg. For the best portability, buy one that has a…

01 Building your own PC is often cheaper than buying a pre-made system, and gives full control over the components. You don’t need any special computer knowledge: just a few spare hours, a screwdriver and your choice of parts. Even things such as liquid-cooling systems can be found in user-friendly, easy-to-install packages, and for the most part it’s as simple as inserting each component into a particular slot. 02 Arguably the most important component is the CPU. These days you can get a quad-core chip even on a tight budget, which should provide more than enough brainpower for simple tasks such as web browsing, but hexa-core and octa-core chips are better for tougher jobs such as media editing, gaming and content creation. The CPU will also determine which motherboards 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…

01 All tablets rely on an operating system (OS) to run apps. You have three main choices: Apple’s iOS, which runs on the iPad; Android, which Google licenses to various manufacturers; and Windows 10, which has become common in hybrid tablets and convertibles. If you own an Apple or Google smartphone, you can download your apps, music and so on to a tablet that runs the same OS, so it makes sense to stick with a compatible device. 02 It’s important to pick a tablet that has a good-quality, high-resolution screen. Many budget tablets have 1,280x800-resolution displays, but better tablets have Full HD 1,920x1,080 panels, and we’re starting to see tablets that have even higher screen resolutions. Some are as high as 2,560x1,600 or even 4K. Entry-level tablets typically use…

01 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…

• BUILDING A DREAM MACHINE Computer historian David Murray, aka the 8-Bit Guy, is currently collaborating with like-minded souls in the hope of producing a dream retro machine. He has launched a Facebook group to discuss design concepts, but it looks set to be based on a 6502 CPU, run Commodore Basic, have VGA or HDMI video out, and go by the name Commander 16. Murray intends the 8-bit computer to be a fresh platform for people to code direct (as opposed to, say, the Raspberry Pi, which requires the use of a modern language). He believes this would allow programmers to set their own standards, enabling it to gain strong support among enthusiasts. Given his desire to create the computer for less than a maximum limit of $100, it’s…

Use Excel like a pro Microsoft Excel is packed full of powerful tools to process, analyse and present data, but it can be slow or confusing to use. Clive Webster shows you how to tame the beast, with the help of 007 SPREADSHEETS ARE INCREDIBLY useful for all kinds of tasks, even beyond number crunching and graphing, and Microsoft’s Excel is probably the most powerful and popular example. But all that complexity and sophistication comes at a price: it can be awkward to use. There are plenty of tricks, tips and tools to make Excel faster and easier to use, but as so often with software packages they’re buried or hidden from view. We’ll take you through some of our favourites so you can produce what you want quicker, to…

LAN ahoy! @ Congratulations on your great Wi-Fi article (Shopper 375). Your writers undertook an almost impossible task… and came out victorious. When I say ‘almost impossible’, I’m referring to the fact that almost anything you say in relation to a router has to be qualified by ‘depending on the make and model of the router you have, who is your ISP, if it’s raining…’ Your writers even took on the issues of the Wi-Fi side of most routers, another topic fraught with more of the same perils. A follow-up point. Apologies if this was mentioned, or deliberately skipped over as too specific (though I suspect the instance I am aware of represents something present in many anti-malware suites). There are at least two reasons to want to know what…

Software guru and Shopper legend letters@computershopper.co.uk IT’S BEEN ONE of those weeks when I’ve had to check the date isn’t the first of April while checking the tech news, especially when reports arrived of an app for tightening or loosening the laces on trainers – and changing the colour of the lights on the trainers too (see Zygote, page 138). Seriously? I know the question ‘is there an app for that?’ is a constant among phone users, but an app to change how tight your laces are when you can’t be that far from your feet strikes me as an app too far. LACE VENTURA I was even more convinced this was app overkill when people began reporting they needed to do a hard reset of their trainers following software…

Virgin Media’s Intelligent WiFi aims to wipe wireless blackspots at home SLOW WI-FI CAN neuter a speedy broadband connection and quickly make day-to-day home life a misery. Virgin Media hopes to change that with its Intelligent WiFi. By connecting back to a cloud-based system, Intelligent WiFi works to optimise wireless channels to ensure that all the gadgets on a home network have the best-performing connection available for them. The smart software allows for devices on the network to seamlessly bounce between 2.4GHz and 5GHz connections using a process called band steering, which in Virgin Media’s own testing has resulted in a claimed 25% boost in connection speeds when swapping to a 5GHz frequency. The tech also contains what Virgin Media is calling ‘Airtime Fairness’, which is the means by which…

DELL XPS 13 (2019) ULTRAPORTABLE LAPTOP £1,399 • From www.dell.com VERDICT There’s a new CPU and a new top-mounted webcam for this updated XPS 13, the latest in a line of great Windows 10 laptops Dell claims to have made “the world’s smallest HD webcam” – it measures just 2.25mm across – and this has allowed it to fit above the screen without thickening the XPS 13’s famously thin bezels DESPITE FEW CHANGES over the years, Dell’s XPS 13 series has long been setting the standard for ultraportable laptops. With the American tech titan choosing to make slight adjustments with each new model, rather than completely reinventing it every time, the XPS 13 hasn’t changed quite as dramatically as some of its rivals in a similar timeframe. It’s no surprise,…

£1,500 • From consumer.huawei.com VERDICT The MateBook 14 has all the power of the new MateBook X Pro, at a much lower price IT WOULD HAVE been easy to overlook the MateBook 14 when Huawei unveiled it at MWC 2019 in Barcelona in February. With both the Mate X foldable smartphone and a new version of the top-of-the-line MateBook X Pro also making their debuts, the less flashy MateBook 14 had to contend for attention with its own stablemates, let alone everything else at the show. And yet, actually using this laptop has revealed it to not just be an excellent ultraportable, but quite possibly better than the MateBook X Pro itself, at least in terms of how worthy it is of your cash. PORT REPORT The MateBook 14 isn’t…

£85 • From www.overclockers.co.uk VERDICT This competent case has improved airflow, but cable management could be better IT’S BECOMING INCREASINGLY clear that, should your eye ever be caught by a PC case with a solid plastic front panel, you should wait for the inevitable mesh version instead. Cooler Master went back to the drawing board for the MasterCase H500P Mesh White, following complaints about the original’s airflow, and the BitFenix Enso Mesh is also simply a more perforated remake of the plastic-fronted Enso. This instantly makes it a more attractive prospect; we haven’t tried the Enso, but for a chassis with up to 360mm worth of fan and radiator space at the front, an airier mesh panel makes more sense. There’s no dedicated dust filter, but the panel itself is…

£280 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT A neat solution to the growing problem of too many devices in our homes, but there are some limitations to Alexa DEVICE OVERLOAD IS something that most homes are familiar with. It’s a growing trend to walk into any room of a house and see a wireless mesh satellite and smart speaker. While these devices have arguably improved our lives, nobody likes to see such clutter. Step forward the Netgear Orbi Voice, which gives you an Alexa-powered smart speaker and wireless satellite in one. It’s available as a two-pack, complete with an Orbi RBK50 router for £429, although you can also buy a standalone Orbi Voice (the RBS40V) for £280 and integrate it into your existing home network. Given that the RBK50 is our mesh…

£180 • From www.carphonewarehouse.com VERDICT Cheaper than the Moto G7 and packing superlative battery life, the Moto G7 Power is the new budget phone to beat MOTOROLA IS REALLY stretching the idea that you can’t have too much of a good thing. It’s low-cost Moto series has long been filled by excellent smartphones, but this year there are no fewer than four models to consider: the Moto G7, Moto G7 Plus, Moto G7 Play and this, the Moto G7 Power. This has the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 632 processor as the standard Moto G7 and the Moto G7 Play, but sits between the two on specs, having more RAM (4GB) than the Moto G7 Play but a lower display resolution (1,520x720) than the Full HD Moto G7. Where the Moto G7…

£850 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The ROG Phone makes some appealing optimisations for gaming, but other Android handsets offer superior value IF YOU READ Shopper, you’re likely familiar with Asus’s ROG brand, which spans a range of gaming-focused PC hardware from keyboards to motherboards. Now there’s the ROG Phone as well, a so-called ‘gaming’ smartphone. With a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor, much as you’d find in half the high-end handsets out there, its specialist gaming credentials mainly come from the 6in display, which has an usually high 90Hz refresh rate for smoother-looking games. There are also ‘air trigger’ shoulder buttons (which aren’t really buttons, but pressure-sensitive areas on the edge, like on Google’s Pixel phones) and a clip-on fan to actively cool the ROG Phone under heavy load. STATE OF PLAY…

£269 • From www.fossil.com/uk VERDICT Despite an internal upgrade and good design, the Sport’s performance and battery life underwhelm THE FOSSIL SPORT is the most exciting Wear OS smartwatch in recent memory, for one reason: it uses the Snapdragon Wear 3100 chip, a long-due replacement for the old 2100. It’s a great-looking smartwatch, too, with a subtle aluminium and colour plastic casing, and matching silicone rubber strap. Measuring 43mm in diameter, the Sport is noticeably smaller than the 4th-gen Fossil Q Explorist (Shopper 372), and should suit a much larger range of wrist sizes as a result. The only issue is that those with the skinniest of wrists might be left wanting an additional hole or two on the strap, but you can swap in a different 22mm strap if…

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…

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 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 32in Full HD TV costs around £200, but premium larger 4K models can be closer to £2,000. 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…

01 A basic digital camera will suit someone who wants to take pictures to view on their computer and create 7x5in prints. It should cost around £80, but there may be hidden downsides such as slow performance and very basic user controls. 02 Spend a little more and you’ll get a higher resolution. A 16-megapixel sensor has the potential to produce sharp prints up to A3 size, but only if it and the lens are of a suitably high quality. Very high resolutions in compact cameras tend to boost noise more than detail levels, so many of the best models strike a sensible balance by using a 12-megapixel sensor. Back-illuminated CMOS sensors tend to produce less noise than CCDs, but check our reviews to find out how a particular model…

Chat and Communication Evernote 6.17.6.8292 Store your notes, ideas and plans in the cloud, and synchronise them between computers. UPDATED Mailbird 2.5.34.0 A free desktop email client for Windows. Miranda IM 0.10.80 Chat with friends across multiple messaging platforms, including AIM, Facebook, IRC and MSN, all from one simple interface. UPDATED Skype for Windows 8.41.0.54 Make internet voice and video calls for free, and buy credit to make calls to mobiles and landlines. UPDATED Telegram 1.5.15 This free IM app synchronises your conversations across multiple devices, and can spruce up chats with stickers and GIFs. UPDATED WhatsApp Desktop 0.3.2386 A free PC and Mac version of the popular messaging app, letting you chat from your desktop. Customisation iolo System Mechanic Free 18.5.1 Speed up your system with iolo’s PC optimisation…

Random access memory (RAM) is tasked with making sure that any information the CPU has to process is readily at hand. Currently used data is stored in this ultra-fast form of memory to ensure it can be accessed by the CPU as quickly as possible. If the RAM fills up, however, then the CPU must spend additional time fetching new data from the PC’s SSD or hard disk, slowing things down. This is why it’s better to have more total RAM than less, especially if you’re multitasking or using software that can utilise multiple CPU threads. The lowest you should go for is about 8GB, while more performance-minded builds should aim for 16GB. Even 32GB wouldn’t be excessive for a workstation-esque productivity PC, though this is where it starts to…

Primary importance I’m on the parent-teacher association of our local primary school, and our next project is to update the ageing desktop PCs in the information and communications technology (ICT) suite. We’ll need 30 computers, but beyond that there are few specific requirements; online safety is handled by a school-wide system, and I don’t think there are any specific applications that the students need to run. We haven’t set a formal budget, but we’re expecting that we might need to spend from £20,000-£30,000. Can you offer any advice? Sam Stevens Microsoft, Apple and Google are all keen to court educators: all of them offer discounted products, and specialised management packages designed to support teachers and students. Additionally, there are multiple education-orientated Linux releases, such as Edubuntu. You shouldn’t overlook the…

We’ve used Excel 2010 for our walkthrough as its features will be available to almost every Excel user. However, later versions of Excel have added really handy tools to speed up data analysis and presentation. Excel 2013 added the Flash Fill feature, which predicts new entries based on surrounding data in a much more sophisticated way than 2010’s dumb replication method. There’s also the Quick Analysis Button, which can generate a basic Chart almost as soon as you’ve inputted some data. Finally, PivotTables and Charts are easier to create, and look better with the Recommended PivotTable and Recommended Chart tools. Excel 2013 was also the first version to ditch the ‘cute’ XL motif from its logo; all previous versions used an L to make up the second stroke of the…