Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2023 i PCWorld

The Consumer Electronics Show remains a singular event for PC laptop enthusiasts. Aside from Dell, which ditched the show in recent years, every major PC laptop maker is present, and most use it to reveal their best and brightest for the coming year. AMD, Intel, and Nvidia also come packing new mobile hardware heat. Dozens of powerful laptops were revealed this year—but these 10 stood out from the crowd. ACER SWIFT X 14 Arguably the least glamorous laptop on this list, Acer’s Swift X 14 still showcases key trends of CES 2023: the broad reach of OLED displays and newer, quicker hardware from Intel and Nvidia. Let’s talk displays. The Swift X packs an optional 14-inch OLED screen with 2,880 x 1,800 resolution and a refresh rate of up 120Hz, as…

Tom Hanks didn’t just call me to pitch me a part, but it sure sounded like he did. Ever since PCWorld began covering the rise of various artificial intelligence applications like AI art, I’ve been poking around in the code repositories in GitHub and links within Reddit, where people will post tweaks to their own AI models for various approaches. Some of these models actually end up on commercial sites, which either roll their own algorithms or adapt others that have published as open source. A great example of an existing AI audio site is Uberduck.ai, which offers literally hundreds of preprogrammed models. Enter the text in the text field and you can have a virtual Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Peggy Hill, Daffy Duck, Alex Trebek, Beavis, The Joker, or…

The annual Consumer Electronics Show has teased PC enthusiasts and gamers craving OLED monitors for years now, but has never left them satisfied. This was true even at last year’s show. Yes, the Alienware AW3423DW is excellent, but I hoped its release would be the beginning of an OLED tidal wave. That never happened. CES 2023 might be different. LG came to the show with a flashy 45-inch ultrawide and a more practical 27-inch 1440p, both of which are available for preorder right now. Samsung has fired back with the Odyssey OLED G9, a flashy 49-inch super-ultrawide due for release in early 2023. They’re impressive monitors, and the OLED panels in them will go mainstream in displays from Asus, Acer, Alienware, Dough, and MSI, among others. OLED COMPETITION IS COMING…

Screen size and travel weight are likely at or near the top of every laptop buyer’s list of priorities, where you want the most of the former and the least of the latter. The Acer Swift Edge lets you have your display and travel weight, too, supplying a roomy and modern 16-inch 16:10 wrapped in a thin magnesium alloy chassis that’s a mere ½ inch thick and roughly 2.5 pounds. We’ve not seen a laptop with a larger screen that weighs less—although I’d happily accept an extra ounce or two of carrying weight to get a more rigid lid for the display. The 16-inch display—an OLED panel with a crisp 4K resolution—is outstanding and worth protecting. The image quality is stellar, offering brilliant color and outstanding contrast with inky blacks…

Monoprice may not be a household name, but for decades it has quietly sold tech gear that rivals brand-name goods in quality—in a fashion. Rather than undercutting more expensive brands by pumping up a few key features and dramatically paring back others, items with Monoprice’s label go for a solid but no-frills approach. The Monoprice DT-3BT firmly upholds that philosophy. At $100, these 50W desktop speakers offer an understated appearance and clear audio, and blend in well with a typical computer desk setup. They also focus more on function, rather than control over audio tuning. You get Bluetooth 5.0 support in addition to TRS and RCA jacks, allowing you to use them with a wide array of devices. Each speaker measures 5.5×8.0×5.9 inches (140×204×50mm) and weighs 3.5 pounds (1.6kg). No wood…

Making the switch from the office to working from home has become the new normal, but some users might feel like their setup is not as well appointed or productive as at the office. It’s time to change that. With the proper equipment and gear, you can turn your boring old home setup into a workstation powerhouse—ensuring you’ll never need to return to the office. At PCWorld, we’ve had to adjust to remote work just like the rest of the world. Our staff has spent countless hours testing and reviewing hardware, which means we’ve been lucky enough to find the best gear and accessories available. Below you’ll find our favorite work-from-home essentials. LOOK SHARP DURING ZOOM MEETINGS: LOGITECH C920E BUSINESS WEBCAM Price: $70 from here Working from home means you’ll…

To create a simple handout that only needs a few visuals or maybe a basic flyer, Microsoft Word can be your go-to. However, putting an image into Microsoft Word exactly as you have it in your head can be difficult if you don’t know exactly how. Getting the images in can be handled in a few ways depending on how you want it to look with your text. Once it’s in place, you can even change the size and angle of the image. Read on to learn more. INSERTING AN IMAGE INTO MICROSOFT WORD Place your cursor where you’d like your image to go and left click. Then go to the Insert tab (1) at the top of Microsoft Word. In the Insert tab, there’s an Illustrations section where you…

Microsoft is celebrating 10 full years of Microsoft 365 by adding a new Microsoft 365 tier: Microsoft 365 Basic, which will cost just $1.99 per month or $19.99 per year when it launches on January 30. It’s clear that Microsoft 365 Basic is designed to add new users to the ongoing treadmill that is Microsoft’s subscription model. But the offerings aren’t half bad, though there’s a catch: Subscribers won’t have access to the desktop versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint—just the web and mobile versions of those apps. Apart from that, Microsoft is making 100GB of OneDrive cloud storage available, rather than the 1TB that accompanies the Microsoft 365 Personal ($6.99 per month) and Microsoft 365 Family ($9.99 per month) plans. Microsoft’s pitch is that the new Basic plan will…

The PC market collapsed during the fourth quarter of 2022, analysts said, with an unprecedented drop in sales due to inflation and other factors. IDC reported that PC unit sales fell by 28.1 percent to 67.2 million units, while Gartner said that sales fell by 28.5 percent to 65.3 million units. (IDC is owned by International Data Group [IDG], which owns PCWorld.) According to Gartner, the drop is the largest since the firm began its PC coverage in the mid-1990s. Analysts blamed a perfect storm of pandemic-related issues. “The anticipation of a global recession, increased inflation, and higher interest rates have had a major impact on PC demand,” said Mikako Kitagawa, the director analyst at Gartner. “Since many consumers already have relatively new PCs that were purchased during the pandemic,…

The rise of consumer-focused artificial intelligence applications (like AI art and ChatGPT) was the most dynamic trend of 2022. But don’t get too excited quite yet—buying new laptops from AMD and Intel with AI functions built in aren’t worth opening your wallet. Given the breakneck pace of AI development, though, they may very well be come next year’s CES. Here’s what’s going on. Deep within the confusing mishmash of processor architectures that make up AMD’s latest mobile Ryzen chips lies XDNA, the new AI hardware architecture that AMD is launching within the Ryzen Mobile 7040 Series as “Ryzen AI.” (Think of XDNA as the AI version of RDNA, the foundation of AMD’s Radeon graphics cores.) Intel has similar plans, though right now it’s using a discrete Movidius AI card as a placeholder until its…

As of our latest look, iDrive remains the most comprehensive online backup and sharing service we’ve tested. It’s not the cheapest, but it’s still affordable, it comes with backup clients for nearly every PC and device, and it is more than competent at local backup. The company also provides additional storage for syncing all your devices and PCs, allows sharing of files with anyone, and has the ability to back up to a local drive. See how well it compares to the competition in our big online backup roundup. PLANS AND PRICING Believe it or not, iDrive still offers a free storage plan, which has increased from 5GB to 10GB since our last look at the service. As far as we’re aware, it’s the only free repository not associated with…

Do you want a huge amount of usable display space, but also want to stick with a single monitor? If so, an ultrawide monitor is the ticket. These have a wider display panel that’s far more impressive, and immersive, than your average widescreen. We’ve tested a bunch of ultrawide monitors in order to name the best picks in various categories. You can learn more about our evaluation process and what to look for in an ultrawide monitor in our recommendations. BEST ULTRAWIDE MONITOR: ALIENWARE AW3423DWF The Alienware AW3423DWF is a legendary monitor. It packs the incredible contrast and realism of OLED in a 34-inch widescreen panel, yet it’s priced at just $1,099. That’s not inexpensive, but it’s better value than other OLED monitors available right now. Image quality is where…

We’re finally getting back to normal. Most major PC players returned to the Las Vegas desert for CES 2023 after sticking to the safety of remote events last year—and they brought some very enticing shiny new tech along with them. Big names like AMD, Intel, and Nvidia all made splashy announcements, and PC manufacturers revealed a barrage of large and in-charge laptops that are taking advantage of the unprecedented power. Computer monitors witnessed revolution like never before. Heck, we even saw a PC case that breathes. Yep, CES is back. No time to sift through all our CES coverage? No problem! Read on for our Best of CES 2023 picks—the most intriguing and innovative products that impressed PCWorld’s staff at the show. AMD RYZEN 9 7950X3D The hotly anticipated Ryzen 9…

Last Pass is no stranger to data breaches. It’s suffered several high-profile leaks, with the most recent (and alarming) incident happening just last year. When news first broke in August, the developer assured everyone that customers were unaffected. But in a complete reversal, the company’s December updates were grim—customer data had been taken after all. If you’re feeling like you want to leave the service, you can hardly be blamed. In this latest breach, not only was personally identifying information like billing addresses, telephone numbers, and IP addresses stolen, but vault data as well. Most damning: Some of that vault data was unencrypted. The good news is that exporting your data is quick and relatively straightforward. You get the entire vault in a single file that you can then use…

Intel’s long-awaited Core i9-13900KS will officially be the first x86 consumer CPU to hit the 6GHz barrier. You will pay a premium for the barrier-breaking privilege, as the chip will cost $699. The 24-core Core i9-113900KS is essentially a special-edition version of the already released (and unapologetically fast) Core i9-13900K. It features eight performance cores and 16 efficiency cores. The original Core i9-13900K could reach 5.8GHz on single-core loads, while the Core i9-13900KS will round that up to a smooth 6.0GHz on single-core loads. “The Core i9-13900KS continues our 13th Gen Intel Core desktop processor family excellence, showcasing the new performance heights made possible by our performance hybrid architecture,” Intel Client Computing Group manager Marcus Kennedy said in a statement. “Extreme gamers and enthusiasts can now push their everyday performance…

Experian, one of the biggest consumer credit reporting bureaus, likely put your full credit history into the hands of identity thieves last year. On Monday, news broke of a major flaw in the company’s website, which allowed anyone with your name, address, birthdate, and Social Security number to bypass a security check and get to your report. First discovered by security researcher Jenya Kushnir, the exploit had an unknown duration and was only patched in late December 2022—seemingly after Brian Krebs of Krebs on Security, having been notified by Kushnir about the issue, brought it to Experian’s attention. (You can read the full details in Kreb’s post about the matter.) Given how many data breaches have leaked all the information needed by identity thieves (including the massive 2017 Equifax hack),…

AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile may seem like your only cell phone plan options, but they’re not. And sticking with the familiar could be costing you hundreds per year. Alternative providers use the same networks as the big companies, offering almost identical service but with lower prices, still no contracts, and often more perks. With a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), an unlimited plan can be had for as little as $30 per month for a single line, and $25 per line for group plans. And that includes 5G coverage. Light cell phone users can enjoy big savings, too. Where you live doesn’t matter either—AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile MVNOs all exist. The only real catch is that deciding on the right alternative carrier takes a little more consideration (see below), but…

This review will be short and sweet. Nvidia’s new $799 GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is a technically hobbled, drastically overpriced graphics card that costs $100 more than the higher-tier RTX 3080 did last generation. In exchange for that 14 percent higher price tag, you usually get 14 percent higher performance at 4K resolution and around 20 percent at 1440p. Depending on how you look at it, the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti offers stagnant-at-best value at similar prices to last generation, or a painfully steep markup over last gen’s already overpriced RTX 3070 Ti. It’s a beastly card that can topple the previous RTX 3090 Ti flagship in many games, especially at 1440p resolution or when DLSS 3 swings into action, but at this chest-clutching price, we simply can’t recommend it.…

The $160 DDPai Mini5 is one of the more elegant front dash cams I’ve experienced. It’s of the displayless (and largely buttonless) variety, but with the phone connectivity, most users will barely miss the display or the buttons. It also opts for internal memory and computer connectivity over TF cards. DESIGN The Mini5 is a flattened cylinder approximately 4.15 inches long, 1.45 inches deep, and a hair less than an inch thick. The 140-degree field-of-view, 4K UHD camera is by far the most prominent feature on the main body. The only other notable physical features are an emergency save button on the left and a Type-C port on the right, plus an activity light on the back (green means the camera is active). The mount is a self-adhesive (semi-permanent) cage that…

The best Windows 11 tips are the ones you use—to make you more efficient and productive, and to customize your PC so it’s exactly how you want it to be. But to integrate a tip, you have to actually try it out. So that’s what we’d like you to do: Give each of these tips a quick whirl, see if they work for you, and if they do, great! We want to share what helps us and hope that it helps you as well. The list below includes tips for both older features and newer ones. Either way, enjoy! 1. OPTIMIZE YOUR STARTUP APPS Everyone hits the gym to start off the year. So why not use the time to trim some of the holiday bloat from your PC? There…

By now, your PC should have received the small October update to the larger Windows 11 2022 Update (if you’re using Windows 11). It holds a long-asked-for, much appreciated new feature: tabbed browsing in File Explorer. You don’t need to keep separate windows open to have multiple folders open anymore! Is it necessary? No. Are heated car seats necessary? No. But once you start using File Explorer tabs, you’ll be loath to give them up. They’re dead simple. Tabs within File Explorer are just like tabs within a browser; a compact way of navigating back and forth without needing to open a separate window. But in File Explorer, you’re probably used to opening a folder, using copy or cut to move files from one folder to another, then navigating through the…