Sommaire pour June 2017 de Computer Shopper

I’VE HEARD ABOUT THIS BITCOIN… Yes, we’re sure you have. Bitcoin is increasingly becoming an alternative payment method at a range of stores. It is quite possible that you have come across it, but not held it in your hands. It is a virtual currency, which is generated and held electronically. There is no physical version of Bitcoin; it’s a decentralised peer-topeer payment network with no-one in control. The currency first appeared in 2008 and was released as open source in 2009. Bitcoins are produced as a reward to people called Miners, who offer up their computing power to the creation of collections of coins called a block. Created Bitcoins and Bitcoin transactions are recorded in the blockchain and are stored by users in digital wallets. They can be used…

£108 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Tiny, cheap and quick, Ricoh’s SP 150SUw is a great little laser MFP for light home use IF YOU THINK laser printers belong only in the office, Ricoh’s SP 150SUw is here to convince you otherwise. For a start, it’s tiny – about the size of two loaves of bread side by side – but it’s also an all-in-one device that’s able to print, scan and make copies. The SP 150SUw’s diminutive stature leaves little room for fancy features. If you want to print on both sides of the page you’ll have to do it manually, and the only controls are a power switch and a button that makes single photocopies. Its 50-sheet paper input tray is basic, too, and there’s no paper output tray:…

£165 • From www.houseoffraser.co.uk VERDICT The Misfit Phase has the design of a classic watch but with a fitness tracker built in – and serves both purposes well SMARTWATCHES AND FITNESS trackers usually focus more on the ‘smart’ and tracker elements than the watch part. What you don’t really get with devices like the Apple Watch or Fitbit, then, is the feel of a traditional analogue watch with a long-lasting battery. Enter the Misfit Phase, with the looks and style of a more classic timepiece along with a rather impressive (for a smartwatch, anyway) six-month battery life. When you need to replace the battery, you just use the plastic tool included in its box. The Phase display is made from stainless steel and aluminium, and it’s water resistant to 50m.…

£207 • From www.shop.bt.com VERDICT A neat and fast way to expand your home network, but you can do it cheaper if you don’t mind a bit more hassle IN RECENT ISSUES of Shopper, our networking pages have been dominated by the latest whole-home Wi-Fi products, including BT’s Whole Home Wi-Fi, the Linksys Velop (both Shopper 351) and the Netgear Orbi (Shopper 348). These smart devices create a super-fast wireless mesh network, with satellites located around your home to boost range and coverage. Looking at the Devolo GigaGate, it would be easy to bundle it in with whole-home Wi-Fi kit, but that would be a mistake. Rather than trying to boost Wi-Fi all over your home, the GigaGate is a more simple product, designed to give you additional Ethernet ports…

£280 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Innovation is the key to success for this hybrid console, but games are currently thin on the ground LETTING THAT INNER child run free is a mantra that’s been at the heart of everything Nintendo has ever done, and that hasn’t changed with the firm’s latest console. Just as the Wii pushed gaming convention aside back in 2006, the Nintendo Switch takes the lead at the forefront of console evolution, putting the full living-room console experience in the palm of your hands. That’s because the Switch is, in effect, two consoles in one. When sat in its dock, it connects for play on your TV, just like the more conventional Xbox One or PlayStation 4. Pull it out, however, attach the two controllers to each…

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

01 It’s essential that you buy the right type of motherboard for your processor. Intel’s older Haswell processors require a motherboard with an LGA1150 socket, but newer, fourth-generation Skylake chips need an LGA1151 socket. A board for a Haswell processor must also have an H97 or a Z97 chipset, while Skylake processors use the new Z170 chipset. Skylake CPUs also use newer, faster DDR4 memory. 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 you need, such as VGA, 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…

£602 • From www.ballicom.com VERDICT Excellent image quality, fantastic looks and a handy IR sensor to help save power make this monitor a real winner FOR MOST PEOPLE, a 27in 4K monitor strikes the right balance. At this size, you’ve got a big enough display to take advantage of the extra pixels, but one that’s still small enough to sit comfortably on your desk. In the case of the Philips Brilliance P-Line 272P7, the latter aspect is helped by the fact that the monitor has such thin bezels (just 2mm) that it looks and feels even more compact. Don’t let the minimalist frame deceive you, as this display is packed with technology. For instance, at the bottom of the screen is what Philips calls the PowerSensor: an IR sensor that…

£269 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT A 40x zoom in a compact body is an outlandish concept, but the SX720 HS serves a purpose THE CANON POWERSHOT SX720 HS hit a minor milestone when it launched last year: its 40x optical zoom smashed the 30x record jointly held by Canon, Nikon, Panasonic and Sony, and even now, you won’t find a bigger zoom in a camera this small. It all sounds great for people who like to shoot distant subjects but who don’t want to lug a bulky camera around. However, this extra zoom is only useful if the camera can produce sharp photos at the full zoom extension; it’s a challenge not just for the lens optics but also for stabilisation and noise handling. Noise is perhaps the biggest challenge…

£849 • From www.johnlewis.com VERDICT It’s technically advanced, but the Sony a6300’s controls aren’t in line with the high price LIKE THE FUJIFILM X-T2, Sony’s a6300 is a mirrorless camera and the follow-up to a great CSC of 2014, in this case the a6000. There are quite a few similarities between the old and new Sony cameras. They both use a 24-megapixel APS-C sensor – the same size that’s found in consumer SLRs – and they’re virtually identical to look at, too, with a slim, rangefinder-style design that’s common to all Sony CSCs. There’s just enough room for an electronic viewfinder, flash hotshoe, integrated flash, mode dial and command dial along the top plate. Power, shutter release and a custom button are mounted on top of the handgrip, which is…

Mobile chips have evolved at a heady pace thanks to the rise of the smartphone. This was mostly catalysed by Apple’s iPhone, even if Steve Jobs didn’t invent the touchscreen machines we spend a solid portion of our lives tapping away at. With an estimated two billion smartphones on the face of the earth and that number growing year by year, it’s no surprise the chips and processing power available in mobile devices have grown from basic slices of silicon with a single central processing unit (CPU) running at a few hundred megahertz to quad- and octa-core behemoths with several gigahertz on tap and graphics processors to power glossy 3D applications. While performance leaps and bounds in desktop CPUs have slowed down over recent years, the evolution of the system-on-a-chip…

FACE OFF If the mirror tells you it’s time for a facial makeover, then why not join the 450 million users of the Meitu app? You can forget about expensive procedures like nips and tucks, because this app gives you a virtual face job for free. All you have to do is photograph your hideousness and let Meitu change your appearance in an instant. Your puffy face is reshaped into a thing of beauty, your bloodshot eyes sparkle, your lousy teeth straighten and gleam, your pimples vanish, and your horrible hair becomes triumphant. One unfortunate side effect seems to be some sort of Ku Klux Klan filter that turns oriental folk an alarming shade of Caucasian, but you can’t win ’em all. Amazingly for a free app, there are no…

£9.60 • From www.modmypi.com VERDICT A big improvement on the original Pi Zero, this model’s integrated Wi-Fi makes it even more flexible YOU’VE GOT TO hand it to the Raspberry Pi Foundation. Not content with making hobbyist computing cheap and cool again, the Foundation did something rather unexpected last year: it released an even cheaper model. Priced at a ridiculously low £4, the Raspberry Pi Zero was effectively an original Raspberry Pi in a smaller form factor. In fact, it was so cheap that the Pi Zero become the first entire computer to be given away for free with a magazine. Getting the size of the Raspberry Pi down to the Zero’s diminutive size (65x30x5mm) meant that a fair few things had to be cut out. But progress is an…

£222 • From www.morecomputers.com VERDICT In the ET-2600, Epson has fitted its brilliant EcoTank ink system to a humdrum MFP EPSON’S ET-2600 looks like any other basic home MFP, but as an EcoTank printer there’s an important difference. It arrives with bottles containing enough ink for about two years’ worth of typical use, the contents of which go in four big tanks at the right-hand side. This model is a modest update of the outgoing ET-2500, but Epson has greatly improved its ink tanks: integrated into the printer body, they no longer look like a bulky afterthought. The EcoTank system slashes typical inkjet print costs of around 7p per page. On the ET-2600, these fall to less than 0.5p per page, applicable only after you’ve used up the very generous…

£150 • From www.y-cam.com VERDICT A simple-to-install alarm system, but the app could be a bit more helpful, and a few more sensor options would be good THE PROBLEM WITH traditional alarms is that if you’re not home when they go off, you’re unlikely to know anything until you get back. It’s no wonder that internet-connected alarms are becoming more popular, letting you see what’s going on from anywhere in the world. Y-Cam, best known for its security cameras, is the latest company to release a kit, with Y-Cam Protect Alarm System. The basic starter kit ships with the Protect Hub (which doubles as the siren), a keyfob to arm and disarm the system, a door/window sensor and a motion sensor. Additional bundles include more sensors and keyfobs, and even…

£280 • From uk.creative.com VERDICT A small, beautiful-looking soundbar that delivers good audio for under £300 UNTIL NOW, SOUNDBARS have mainly been associated with televisions. That’s despite modern incarnations offering not only TV inputs but wireless streaming, Bluetooth connectivity and even USB playback. The Creative Labs Sound BlasterX Katana offers an extra trick: it can be connected to a Windows PC through USB and even provides a line out/mic in for your headphones. Creative even describes the speaker’s primary purpose as an ‘Under Monitor Audio System’ (the not-so-catchy UMAS for short). At £280, it’s up against some tough competition as a TV soundbar, including some cheaper models: the Cambridge Audio TV2 (v2), for instance, sounds excellent for £200. Creative packs in a lot for the price, though, including a dedicated…

£48 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Move over, Ocarina of Time – Breath of the Wild is the new apex of the Zelda series BREATH OF THE WILD couldn’t have a more fitting opening: as Link emerges from a cave high up on Hyrule’s Great Plateau struck with amnesia we, the players, are left standing in the same shoes. The great, vast world of Hyrule is laid bare before us and nobody knows what to expect. Rather than drop back into established tropes, Breath of the Wild is a hurricane ripping up the old order of a series now in its 30th year; a fresh start worthy of its status as the Nintendo Switch’s first must-have game (though it’s out on the Wii U as well). As The Legend of Zelda…

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 960M. 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 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…

01 If you don’t have space in your home cinema setup for a set of surroundsound speakers, a soundbar is the next best thing. Whether you opt for a soundbar (which typically sits in front of your TV stand) or a soundplate (which sits underneath your TV), you’ll be getting significantly better audio than the weedy speakers today’s flatscreen TVs provide. 02 If you want to cut down on cable clutter, look for a soundbar with multiple HDMI inputs and outputs as well as Audio Return Channel (ARC). Not all soundbars use HDMI, with many making do with digital optical audio connections instead. This means you’ll have to connect Blu-ray players, games consoles and set-top boxes to your TV and run all audio through a single cable. Also look for…

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 expand the number of 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…

COMPUTER SHOPPER’S REVIEWS use some of the most exhaustive testing procedures you’ll find in any PC magazine. Every product is subjected to qualitative and quantitative tests that show how it performs in practical use. Graphs for performance, battery-life scores and costs are used in the Reviews section, as shown on the right. Look in the ‘Summary of tests’ table (below) for details of each test we run. For PCs and laptops, we evaluate performance using our own custom benchmarking suite. See below for a brief description of our benchmarking software and game tests. SUMMARY OF TESTS BENCHMARKS SHOPPER BENCHMARKS Our benchmark suite uses open-source software that runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux systems. This lets us use objective results to compare PCs and laptops, no matter which operating…

High-resolution displays came to tablets, smartphones and laptops first, leaving desktop PC owners out in the cold a little. Fortunately, times have changed, and 4K Ultra HD (3,840x2,160) monitors are now available in larger numbers than before. With four times the number of pixels of a Full HD display, an Ultra HD monitor gives you a sharper picture that can show much more detail. Given the amount of time that you spend looking at your monitor, this is one upgrade that most PC users should take advantage of. We’ve rounded up four of the best models and put them through our usual tests. We also have a guide to choosing the right model, plus advice on how to use Windows 10’s built-in support for these types of displays. 4K MONITORS…

£550 • From www.ebuyer.com VERDICT Decent image quality, but an inflexible stand and the lack of a USB hub is a little disappointing at this price ASUS’S LATEST ULTRA HD monitor is part of its Designo series, and is one good-looking monitor. Its super-thin bezels help reduce the size of the screen to the point where this 27in model doesn’t look at all overbearing. We also like the Designo MX27UQ’s silver-effect finish, which runs from the bottom of the display into the ring stand. It certainly looks every bit the premium display. However, the Designo MX27UQ’s stand isn’t as flexible as the other 4K monitors we’ve looked at, and it’s fixed in height. There’s also no VESA mount at the rear, so you can’t wall-mount the display or attach it…

WE APPRECIATE A good digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera as much as anyone, but for anyone outside of professional photographers, they’re not exactly the most practical devices. Chunky and relatively heavy, it’s hard to justify carrying them around unless you’ve already got a subject in mind; there’s rarely any sense in keeping one stashed in your bag or pocket, ready to whip out to capture an unexpected scene or candid moment with friends. Of course, either of those situations could be reasonably handled with a smartphone camera, but it’s possible to have the best of both worlds with either a compact camera – which includes an integrated lens – or a compact system camera (CSC), which can take detachable DSLR-style lenses. Proper compact cameras and CSCs are a step up…

£1,399 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Comprehensively capable, the Fujifilm X-T2 is the best mirrorless camera on the market 2014’S FUIJIFILM X-T1 was a high watermark for mirrorless camera design, though its video capture wasn’t up to much and shooting speeds weren’t the best. The X-T2 builds on its predecessor with 4K video recording, faster performance, dual card slots and a new 24-megapixel sensor with 169 phase-detect autofocus points built in. The controls have also been improved. The X-T2’s ISO speed and shutter-speed dials are a little chunkier and easier to grip, and there’s a new mini joystick on the back for shifting the autofocus point. The 3in screen tilts up and down as before, but on the X-T2 it also tilts out to the side by 45 degrees, which is…

£973 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT A technical triumph, the RX100 V is the ultimate compact camera for those who can afford it THE SONY CYBER-SHOT RX100 V delivers something previously thought to be impossible: true SLR quality in a camera small and light enough to fit in a jeans pocket. It’s all thanks to the combination of a 1in sensor and an f/1.8 to f/2.8 lens, which is around four times brighter than what you’d get on a conventional compact, giving the equivalent of a f/4.9-7.6 lens on a full-frame camera. That’s slightly better than a consumer SLR and kit lens – a staggering achievement. Panasonic’s LX15 has a fractionally better zoom than the RX100 V’s 24-70mm (2.9x), but Sony hits back with incredibly fast 23.1fps burst shooting (with continuous…

Recent mobile processor development has yielded some pretty impressive technology. These are solid examples of how far computing on mobile devices has come from its meagre single-core processor origins. SAMSUNG GALAXY S8 Samsung revealed its latest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S8, at the end of March. Its predecessor, the Galaxy S7, was a capable if unremarkable evolution of the Galaxy S6. The Galaxy S8 has the Snapdragon 835 or Exynos 8895 at its heart, so along with the fancy 2,960x1,440 edge-to-edge display, the handset also boasts impressive power and capabilities, including console-bothering graphics, a retina-searing display, support for Samsung’s own AI assistant, and enough computing grunt to keep the latest version of Android moving smoother than a snake. QUALCOMM SNAPDRAGON 835 Talking of the Snapdragon 835, this octa-core FinFET, big.LITTLE-based…

The biggest stories from the tech world, and what they mean for you MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS (MWC) is named appropriately. The world’s technology companies land on Barcelona, Spain, with all the latest mobile and cellular technology. This year’s MWC was no different, except for the fact that Nokia was there with a rebooted 3310 handset, sending everyone in attendance into a retrospective apoplexy. The show was a mix of the new and the old, but held few surprises. Even the return of the 3310 was much expected. HANG ON, NOKIA DID WHAT? Yes. Nokia did the one thing that really makes sense for the firm – it released a new phone. The company has struggled with handset relevance for some time now, and is more often spoken about in terms…

£141 • From www.ebuyer.com VERDICT Another top-quality motherboard for Kaby Lake chips, with enviable overclocking credentials AT ALMOST THE same price and having a good few features in common, MSI’s Z270 SLI Plus motherboard faces tough competition from the Asus Prime Z270-A (Shopper 350). Both are mid-range motherboards designed for Intel’s latest Kaby Lake chips, including the updated Z270 chipset, and we already love the Prime Z270-A for its high performance and versatile hardware. Still, the Z270 SLI Plus is quick to win favour. It’s beautifully made, showing minimal flex and lots of metal reinforcement – all four RAM slots (DDR4, naturally) and two of the three PCI-E x16 slots have been toughened up in this way, reducing the likelihood of them bending or breaking when you swap out components.…

£120 • From www.johnlewis.com VERDICT A neat and flexible way to control your smart home kit, but the starter kit is quite expensive ONE OF THE most frustrating things about smart home kits is that they invariably expect you to control them via an app, which can be incredibly inconvenient. Wouldn’t it be better if you could have physical buttons for a lot of jobs instead? Logitech thinks the same thing, and has thus created POP Home Switch. These devices can be programmed to interact with a whole host of smart home devices, performing a range of actions from turning on the lights to making a Sonos player start your favourite tracks. The kit consists of a hub, which plugs into a wall socket – the middle of your house…

£389 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Small but welcome improvements make the Nikon D3400 the best entry-level SLR on the market DIGITAL SLR IS a relatively mature technology, so finding something new and exciting to put into entry-level models isn’t easy. It’s debatable whether Nikon has risen to this challenge with the D3400, which despite shedding 15g of weight, shares its looks and dimensions with the D3300 (Shopper 319). There’s a new kit lens with a stepping motor for smoother video focusing, plus Bluetooth for wireless transfers, and battery life has shot up to 1,200 shots – impressive, considering it’s the same battery as the 700-shot D3300. The more efficient sensor might have something to do with this, but it’s also likely to be reduced flash range, down from 12m to…

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 is mainly used on Lumia phones. 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…

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

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, you should buy a standalone streamer such as a Roku or Amazon Fire TV device.…

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…

While a higher resolution is good, with a 4K monitor you can get to the point where icons, text and menus are all a little too small to see properly. To counter this, Windows 10 has built-in support for high dpi screens. Using its scaling settings, Windows will make most parts of the screen bigger, including text, menus, windows and icons; however, some items are still displayed natively, such as photos. The result is that you get the full detail where it’s important, but your display becomes much easier to read. Using scaling means that your monitor looks as though it’s running at a slightly lower resolution in terms of physical space. In other words, you’ll get less on the screen at once. Don’t let this put you off, though,…

£385 • From www.ebuyer.com VERDICT A few little calibration foibles don’t get in the way of this excellent value Ultra HD display THE NOT SO succinctly titled Iiyama G-Master GB2888UHSU Gold Phoenix is a gaming monitor bargain. For less than £400, you get a 28in 4K screen with a claimed 1ms pixel response time and FreeSync adaptive sync support for smooth gaming. Before we get too carried away, we should point out that the Phoenix uses a 3,840x2,160 TN panel rather than an IPS screen. IPS is the standard for accurate colours and wide viewing angles, while TN has long been seen as the cheaper, lower-specification cousin. The narrower viewing angles aren’t hard to spot: go a few degrees too low and you’ll see a red tinge, while too high…

£599 • From www.wexphotographic.com VERDICT The pocket-sized LX15 excels for both photos and videos, and the price is right ONE-INCH SENSORS are the best thing to happen to compact cameras in a long time. They’re about four times larger than those used in cheap compact cameras, and while SLR sensors are bigger, cameras such as the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX15 make up for it with their wide-aperture zoom lenses. That means more light, which in turn means better image quality. The LX15’s core specs are quite similar to another 1in camera, Sony’s RX100 V. Videos, for instance, can be recorded at 4K or 1080p, the latter at 100fps for 4x slow motion when played back at 25fps. That’s not as dramatic as Sony’s 250fps capture (it reaches even higher at reduced…

W hen Microsoft launched Windows 10, its goal was to continue to develop, improve and evolve the OS, with big updates to come regularly. Gone are the days of minor updates while we had to wait for the next version number. Following last year’s Anniversary Update (see Shopper 342) – a mostly successful release – comes the Creators Update. The release had been available to those on the Windows Insider track (see page 106) for a while, but Microsoft released the final version of the Creators Update to all users on 11th April, so you should be able to get it today. As with the Anniversary Update, the Creators Update is available for free: go to Settings, Update & Security, and the update will be available. It can take a…