Computer Shopper -julkaisun February 2017 -irtonumeron sisällysluettelo

£900 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT A good ultra-portable, though inferior battery life means it falls short of the Surface Pro 4 WITH ITS ADJUSTABLE kickstand, folio keyboard and super-slim chassis, the Transformer 3 Pro looks unashamedly like Microsoft’s Surface Pro 4, but Asus’s 2-in-1 brings a few additions to the table. The most obvious is the USB Type-C port. This allows for superfast data-transfer speeds and can also output video. You get a full-sized USB3 port as well, so you don’t need to shell out for an adaptor for any older peripherals. Asus has also squeezed a full-sized HDMI output and microSD slot, giving you almost as much flexibility as a standard desktop replacement laptop. That’s pretty impressive, as far as 2-in-1 hybrids go. It certainly makes the Transformer 3…

COMPUTER SHOPPER RECOMMENDED £69 • From store.google.com VERDICT A clever bit of hardware capable of delivering some truly amazing VR experiences GOOGLE MAY HAVE kickstarted mobile phone VR with its fun Cardboard project, but it is taking things a lot more seriously with Daydream View. Similar to the Samsung Galaxy Gear VR, Daydream View is a headset that you slip your handset into for a full 3D virtual reality experience. Currently Daydream View works only with the Pixel and Pixel XL handsets, but Google has big plans for compatibility, releasing a set of specifications that a phone needs to be certified as Daydream Ready. Beyond running Android Nougat, Google hasn’t made it clear what the full Daydream Ready specifications are. We know the rough details: a handset has to have…

£449 • From www.vegascreativesoftware.com/gb VERDICT A sure-footed update, if a little dull, but Vegas Pro remains a fine choice for video enthusiasts AS LONG-TIME users of Sony Vegas Pro, we were slightly alarmed by the news in May 2016 that Magix had bought the product. Sony had been a good custodian of the Vegas brand, keeping the software lean, streamlined and ready for serious work. As the news broke, we felt like parents whose teenage daughter was dropping out of college to join a band. The launch of Vegas Pro 14 gives us our first bit of tangible evidence as to whether the software is in safe hands. Reassuringly, changes to the core interface are minimal: various icons have been redesigned, with no obvious benefit, but they’re all in the…

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…

GETTING STARTED The download instructions on the card insert (opposite) show you how to connect to the download site. Make sure you type in the web address exactly as shown. You’ll need your coupon code the first time you log on to the site. ANY PROBLEMS If you need help with any of the software this month, please send an email to support@creativemark.co.uk. We check this inbox regularly. Please include the issue number of the magazine and your coupon code. WHY DOWNLOADS In order to provide us with free software, publishers now require us to offer the applications as a download and require online registration. You need to use the unique code printed in the box on the card insert to register and download the software in this issue. The…

Don’t use simple, easy-to-guess passwords (see ‘The dangers of common passwords’, opposite), and don’t re-use the same passwords across every site. Both of these scenarios leave you wide open to further exploitation, particularly for services that don’t support two-factor authentication. Ideally, you should use long, hard-toguess passwords that are unique for each site. That way, a breach of one password no longer has an impact elsewhere. USING DIFFERENT SECURE PASSWORDS Passwords are a pain. We’ve all got lots of online accounts these days: email, banking, cloud storage, shopping, holiday and travel bookings, work logins, social media, gaming sites and many, many more. You just want to be able to get online and get stuff done, but every site requires you to have a password, and the general advice is to…

As the recent Yahoo! breach showed, more and more accounts are getting hacked every year, and it’s probably only a matter of time before you lose some important data. Acting quickly can help prevent massive losses and stop your other accounts being breached. Here’s what you need to do. STEP 1 FIND OUT IF YOU’VE BEEN HACKED Most of the time, it’s easy to know if you’ve been hacked, as you won’t be able to log into an account. However, not every theft of login details results in this. Look out for emails from any company you’re signed up with, warning you of a hack. You can also sign up for haveibeenpwned.com. You enter your email address or usernames and the site will tell you if your login details have…

Free • From www.avast.com VERDICT Impressive protection for a free product, but it’s slightly lacking in features AVAST FREE ANTIVIRUS is a popular choice with a lot of people, though the company does offer paid-for software with additional tools. Upgrade to Internet Security or Premiere and you also get a firewall, an anti-spam tool and automatic updates to insecure apps. Given how many people use it, we’ve once again stuck with the free version of the software. In last year’s test, quite a few bits of malware made it through Avast’s protection; this year, things have improved, and 83 threats were blocked, with just one making it through. We were pleased to see that there were no false positives either, with all of our test software installing without comment. SUDDEN…

£40-£55 per year • From shop.eset.co.uk VERDICT ESET Internet Security is reliable, but you pay a premium for it ESET’S SECURITY SUITE has ranked consistently highly in our tests in recent years. This year the company has rebranded its product, changing the name from Smart Security 9 to Internet Security, which makes some sense as it’s a more recognisable title. There are other ESET products available with slightly different tools, such as the lightweight ESET NOD32 Antivirus software and a mobile app. Smart Security Premium is the top-of-the-range product now and adds in password management for a rather expensive £50 per year. Not that ESET Internet Security is particularly cheap compared to its big-name rivals; £40 per year for one device is a fair whack of cash. It gets better…

Free (included in Windows) VERDICT Useful when you have a clean PC, before you install a different security suite, but little else WE GUESS THAT some security is better than nothing at all, and that’s about as good as it gets for Windows Defender. Built into Windows 8 and 10, Microsoft’s free anti-virus application is useful when you have a clean PC so you can go online with confidence and buy a proper security package. For older versions of Windows, Microsoft still provides Security Essentials, which is similar to Defender. Windows Defender was by far the worst package for protection in our malware tests, managing to protect against just 74 attacks. That meant that it let through a staggering 10 pieces of malware straight. This simply isn’t good enough and…

Protection scores Trend Micro Maximum Security Symantec Norton Internet Security Deluxe Kaspersky Total Security ESET Internet Security Bitdefender Internet Security Intel Security McAfee Internet Security Avast Free Antivirus BullGuard Internet Security Microsoft Windows Defender Impact rating (smaller is better) Symantec Norton Internet Security Deluxe Kaspersky Total Security Trend Micro Maximum Security Intel Security McAfee Internet Security BullGuard Internet Security Bitdefender Internet Security Microsoft Windows Defender ESET Internet Security Avast Free Antivirus…

KANO Fairly strong reliance on text and typing means Kano is best for curious and patient learners £150 From kano.me Kano mashes together just about every seminal landmark of computing from the early days to hacking Minecraft: you must first build your computer (it’s a Raspberry Pi 3, so that’s easily done) before chasing a white rabbit into a Zelda-like representation of the Pi. Wander around, chat with the people (who usually have an amusing pun-laden explanation of how a computer works) and play games that introduce various coding concepts. Even these games are cute mash-ups of themes: you learn Python by modifying the classic Snake game, while Linux Terminal commands are introduced via a clever text adventure. The various games and activities of Kano are quite text-based and therefore…

I KID YOU NOT The National Pupil Database holds information on 20 million UK schoolchildren, including who gets free school meals, details of disabilities, records of exclusions and where our kids are born. Twice this year, the Minister of State for Schools, Nick Gibb, has assured parliament this data will not be passed on to other departments. He claims “data is collected solely for internal departmental use for analytical, statistical and research purposes”. But according to information uncovered via the Freedom of Information Act, this is a lie. Multiple requests for database information have been granted to the Home Office, often to provide evidence in deportation cases. Teachers are being turned into border guards and informers, without their knowledge and without their consent, and Zygote thinks this is a shameful…

1 Mars tourism Richard Branson says that booking enquiries are up after the US election 2 Nintendo A Mini SNES and the Nintendo Switch? Is it Christmas? 3 TalkTalk Telco enjoyed a whopping £22m jump in profits, post-hack 4 BBC Robot Wars Confirmed for a new series CRASHING 1 Windows Defender Eugene Kaspersky doesn’t like it and we don’t rate it 2 Banking with Tesco An unlikely option at the moment 3 Internet freedom Apposite watchdog Freedom House says that internet freedom has declined for the sixth consecutive year 4 Google Pixel phone Hacked in 60 seconds at PwnFest…

WHAT’S ALL THE HURRY ABOUT? Have you ever wished you could order something at the touch of a button? Not a couple of taps on your smartphone, but a real, physical button, with no passwords, no logins, and no credit card information? Well, Amazon’s new Dash Button service is here to do just that. WHAT’S AN AMAZON DASH BUTTON? That’s simple. They’re small devices, designed to be dotted around your home so you can reorder your favourite products with just a click. They’re only available to Amazon Prime customers at the moment, and you’ll need to buy one button for each specific brand of product you use around the house. If you get through a lot of Play-Doh, for instance, you could get an appropriate button. Each one costs £4.99,…

THE ZX SPECTRUM was released on 23rd April 1982 with a choice of two memory sizes, 16KB and 48KB RAM. The two models cost £125 or £175 respectively, and they were very highly respected indeed, with their splash of colour, soft-touch keys and compact size. Though an earlier model – the ZX81 – had been released in the previous year, the Spectrum offered colour graphics. The ZX Spectrum was designed by Sinclair’s industrial designer Rick Dickinson, and filled with hardware by Richard Altwasser. It had an RF connection, making it compatible with televisions, an image resolution of 256x192, and 8-bit graphics. IN THE BEGINNING Its predecessor, the ZX81, was available for mail order and home assembly, and was the first affordable home computer you could buy in the shops. It…

COMPUTER SHOPPER RECOMMENDED £450 (Android); £550 (Windows) • From www.johnlewis.com VERDICT With its virtual keyboard and fantastic writing surface, Lenovo’s Yoga Book paves the way for the next generation of ultra-portables LENOVO’S 2-IN-1 YOGA Book is one of the most unique hybrids we’ve ever seen. For starters, there’s no physical keyboard – instead you get a fancy virtual one with illuminated, futuristic-looking keys that give a reassuring buzz of haptic feedback when pressed. The real party trick, though, is that this keyboard turns into a electromagnetic resonance (EMR) writing surface. This means that with a flip of a switch, the keys disappear and you can start drawing and scribbling on the surface with the bundled stylus. This makes the Yoga Book incredibly versatile as an artistic, design or note-taking tool.…

COMPUTER SHOPPER RECOMMENDED £350 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The resolution could be better, but the PSVR still delivers a brilliant VR experience without breaking the bank AFTER YEARS OF waiting, 2016 has granted us three major virtual-reality headsets: the poster child, the Oculus Rift, the 360-degree room-scale HTC Vive (Shopper 342) and now the Sony PlayStation VR, which has been built from the ground up for the PS4. Unfortunately, a lack of must-have games for the Vive and Oculus has deflated excitement for VR somewhat. This paints a rather gloomy picture for the PSVR, but then again, it could just be the headset to give VR the shot in the arm it needs. Not only is it significantly cheaper than its rivals, but there’s also far less rigmarole involved in…

COMPUTER SHOPPER RECOMMENDED £247 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT There’s hard-hitting sound aplenty, though a lack of features weakens the Go + Play’s charm SPEAKER MANUFACTURERS ARE piling on the features these days, but the Harman Kardon Go + Play harks back to a time when simply having wireless capability was a bonus. Its only connection, besides the 3.5mm aux input, is Bluetooth. There’s no Wi-Fi and thus no Apple AirPlay, Spotify Connect or Google Cast support. It doesn’t even have NFC or support for the aptX Bluetooth audio codec. It isn’t particularly portable, either. The 3.4kg weight and awkward shape mean it’s better suited to being carted from room to room than being slung in a bag. Still, what the Go + Play lacks in features and portability it makes…

COMPUTER SHOPPER RECOMMENDED £312• From www.scan.co.uk VERDICT Pushing the limits of what flash storage can do, the 960 Pro is the ultimate performance SSD WE’VE SEEN THE price of SSDs plummet in recent years, with a deluge of low-cost SATA3 models. While all of these can easily outpace a mechanical hard disk, don’t expect to see any more speed improvements, as the SATA3 connection has been maxed out. Going faster and delivering the incredible speeds that flash storage can really offer means using a different storage interface specification: non-volatile memory express (NVMe). This is the route that Samsung has taken for its high-end drives, delivering the incredible 950 Pro (Shopper 335) last year, which blew all other SSDs away. This year, Samsung is back with the 960 Pro, aiming for…

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 tablets…

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…

Your online accounts are a prime target for being breached, with hackers often looking to steal large databases of usernames, email addresses and passwords. The danger comes from what the hackers do with the information they’ve stolen, as a breach in one place can have knock-on effects elsewhere. For example, if a hacker can get a list of email addresses and passwords from one service, they can see if the same combination can be used to gain access to other services or even the email address itself. Let’s face it, most of us are guilty of re-using passwords all over the internet, making this kind of attack very effective. Access to your email address is the worst outcome: once they’re in, the hackers can physically see which other services you’re…

Preventing most hacks requires you to run up-to-date security software while ensuring that online accounts have long passwords and two-factor authentication. But you also need to lock down all your other bits of kit at home, to prevent hackers from having an easy ride. Here are the things to look out for. STEP 1 CHANGE DEFAULT WI􀀿FI PASSWORDS Router security has improved, with secure random passwords protecting them. If you have an older model and haven’t updated the Wi-Fi password or admin password, you could be in trouble, as it lets hackers join your network and change settings. Make sure that you’ve moved away from the defaults. This applies to any other device that ships with a default password, such as a NAS. STEP 2 UPDATE FIRMWARE In Kaspersky researcher…

£40-£60 per year • From www.bitdefender.co.uk VERDICT Excellent protection and a clean interface make Bitdefender a reliable security suite, but you can get cheaper packages elsewhere BITDEFENDER MAKES A welcome return to Shopper, after we didn’t include it in last year’s group test. And it returns with style. When we reviewed the 2015 version of the product, we were taken with its features and design, but rather disappointed by its protection. What a difference a couple of years makes, as Bitdefender managed to protect against every single bit of malware, offering 100% protection against the test threats. On the flip side, Bitdefender raised three false positives against legitimate software. That’s not a terrible result, but we prefer our security software to warn only against the malicious. Bitdefender had a system…

£70 per year • From www.mcafee.com/uk VERDICT An improvement on previous years, but McAfee Internet Security is expensive, and you can get better protection elsewhere McAFEE IS STILL one of the best-known names in internet security, regularly coming bundled with new PCs. Bought by Intel a few years ago, McAfee is now an official Intel Security product. Over the past few years, we’ve seen McAfee go from being one of the worstperforming products, to one of the better ones. A perfect protection score wasn’t quite achieved, but McAfee Internet Security protected against 83 threats, letting just one bit of malware slip through undetected. This puts McAfee on a par with the free version of Avast. In previous years that might have been enough, but with five products this year getting…

COMPUTER SHOPPER RECOMMENDED £30 per year • From uk.norton.com VERDICT Top-notch security software with a great user interface, Norton Security is a fine choice SYMANTEC CLEARLY WANTS a lot of people to sign up for its services, as it’s revamped the pricing for all its security suites. Norton Internet Security Deluxe costs just £30 for the first year, with support for up to five devices (PC, Mac, smartphone and tablet). For people that already have Norton (or those entering their second year), the standard price of £50 applies, but this is still good value. If you just have one PC to protect, Norton Internet Security has the same protection for £25 a year for the first year (and £40 for subsequent years). Right at the top is Norton Internet Security…

For the past month or so, we’ve been busy at Shopper HQ putting our heads together to sort through the dozens of products we’ve reviewed this year, along with some recently launched items, to select the best your money can buy. From desktop PCs and laptops, to gaming and smart home kit, only the most brilliant, innovative or best-value products made it on to our list, so if you’re looking for gift ideas for Christmas or the new year, or just an upgrade for yourself, you’ve come to the right place. We’re also looking ahead to 2017 and have rounded up the most exciting products due for release next year that are worth waiting for.…

Technology plays a crucial role in sustaining health. Whether it’s in areas such as surgery, prosthetics or pharmaceuticals, the development of medical devices and equipment over the years has made significant contributions to improving the health of people around the world, enabled by advances in technology. The fusion of information technology with medicine, often dubbed ‘med tech’, has made significant contributions to the health industry, with innovations ranging from the small and relatively simple, such as adhesive bandages and ankle braces, to larger, more complex technologies including MRI machines, artificial organs and robotic prosthetic limbs. Thanks to an increased use of electronic medical records (EMR), tele-health services, and mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones, healthcare professionals and patients are starting to benefit from med tech. But while the health…

WEB SUMMIT IS a technology show that originated as a tiny Dublin event aimed at startups. It has now morphed into a giant gathering of more than 50,000 people, coming together to hear about the latest advances in everything from sports technology to robotics, and to try out upcoming products in areas such as virtual reality and wearable tech. We headed over to Lisbon to scour through the hundreds of sessions and show-floor stands, to report on the most innovative and potentially life-changing tech on display. Casas em Movimento www.casasemmovimento.com This was one of our favourite finds at the show. Who wouldn’t want a moveable house able to follow the sun? Casas em Movimento (Houses in Motion) is a Portuguese building design company focused on developing rotating buildings that owners…

COMPUTER SHOPPER RECOMMENDED £1,249 • From www.apple.com/uk VERDICT Apple takes the MacBook Pro into the future, even if the changes aren’t all for the better APPLE HAS FINALLY redesigned the MacBook Pro for 2016, making it lighter, sleeker, and packed with a whole slew of tweaks and upgrades – not to mention some alreadyinfamous omissions, despite a price bump. Sadly, we weren’t provided a model with perhaps the biggest new inclusion, the Touch Bar. This strip of OLED touchscreen replaces the function keys (which were thus still present on our review unit) and presents a context-sensitive range of buttons, sliders and shortcuts for any supported application, responding to both taps and multitouch gestures. This allows you to personalise the Touch Bar to present the quick actions you use the most,…

COMPUTER SHOPPER RECOMMENDED £2,080 • From www.scan.co.uk VERDICT Scan’s latest Carbon G-Sync gaming laptop ticks all the right boxes, so long as you can afford it EVER SINCE NVIDIA announced that its latest 10-series of GTX graphics cards were coming to laptops without that dreaded M-suffix, we’ve been dying to try one out. This is an important moment for gaming laptops as, historically, they’ve never been quite as good performance-wise as their proper desktop counterparts. Now, with the full benefit of Nvidia’s new 16nm FinFET Pascal architecture at their disposal, we were excited to see if that would change. Scan’s mouthful of a gaming laptop, the 3XS LG15 Carbon G-Sync, isn’t exactly a looker. While high-performance laptops have never been particularly impressive aesthetically, what with garish decals and strange LEDs…

COMPUTER SHOPPER RECOMMENDED £292 • From www.alza.co.uk VERDICT Huawei’s MediaPad M3 tablet is miles ahead of its predecessors, even if it is a little pricey HUAWEI HAS BEEN on strong form in 2016, with a clutch of quality smartphones, and now the Chinese firm’s MediaPad M3 aims to snatch the premium Android tablet crown as well. Imagine a supersized version of Huawei’s P9 smartphone, and you’re halfway there. The familiar curved metal back is complemented by subtle white detailing running across the width and sides, and while it doesn’t look dramatically different to its predecessor, the MediaPad M2 (Shopper 343), those little design tweaks have seen it emerge looking even more handsome. The logo has changed a touch; the speakers have shifted around a bit; and a new fingerprint reader…

£2,299 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT LG’s C6V is a beautiful OLED TV that’s let down by mediocre contrast, unintuitive menus and an astronomical price LG’S OLED TVs have always known how to make an impression, and the new C6V is no exception. Its razor-thin 5mm panel and attractive, see-through stand design make it look as though it’s simply floating in mid-air. It bulks out toward the bottom of the set, where you’ll find all its ports and connections, but that doesn’t detract from its overall loveliness. The 55in model we tested looks almost every bit as good as you’d want, given its eye-watering £2,299 price. We say almost, as its plastic stand is actually quite flimsy. Its brushed, metal-effect finish does go some way to help mask this, but at…

COMPUTER SHOPPER RECOMMENDED £150 • From www.scan.co.uk VERDICT It’s expensive, but the Kraken X62 is a compellingly luxurious watercooler THERE’S NO DISPUTING NZXT’s thoroughness when it comes to upgrading its Kraken series of closed-loop liquid coolers; among the improvements to this latest generation are a new pump, designed to shift more water with less noise; fluid bearing fans with chamfered intakes; and even slightly longer tubing that’s been decked out in protective nylon sleeves. There are certainly a lot of tweaks here, and to find out whether they add up to a system that’s truly worth the high £150 price, we tested out the premier Kraken X62 model. This comes with two 140mm fans, compared to the X42’s single 120mm fan and the X52’s dual 120mm fans. The Kraken X62…

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 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 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…

The actual scores in each test are shown inside each bar Bigger is better for all bars except the red ones, which show running costs A product hitting the +100 per cent mark performed twice as well as our reference A product hitting the +100 per cent mark performed twice as well as our reference 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…

It’s practically impossible not to get hacked at some point. Your user accounts and data are worth a fortune to cyber criminals – for ransom, for sending spam, for installing malware and more – making the internet a dangerous place to go. It’s nigh on impossible to avoid all threats. As big breaches have shown, such as the attacks on TalkTalk, Yahoo! and Dropbox, even if the security on your PC is top-notch, your details can still get stolen. Approaching the problem means looking at things in a different way. While it’s still important to have the best security software on your computer (see page 90 for our group test), you need to think about how you deal with anything outside of your PC and, possibly, outside of your direct…

When you go out with your laptop or phone, there are plenty of dangers to avoid, both in terms of physical theft and of people stealing your passwords. To prevent any such problems, follow our guide to staying safe. STEP 1 DON’T SHOW YOUR PASSWORDS Out and about in the real world, you’re in just as much danger of getting hacked, and it pays to be vigilant. There have, for instance, been cases of people on trains having their passwords stolen by an observant passenger watching what they’ve been typing. Likewise, the same can happen at Wi-Fi hotspots or in airports, with people looking over your shoulder. Every time you have to enter a password, make sure there’s nobody looking, and shield your screen and keyboard from view. STEP 2…

A LOT HAS changed since we reviewed anti-virus suites last year (Shopper 336). For starters, Windows 10 has come into its own, and is more reliable and secure than previous versions of Windows. Given the enormous number of readers that have taken the free upgrade (or bought a new PC), this is the first year that we’ve tested all of the security suites on Windows 10. A second important change is just how good security suites have become at blocking threats. A perfect score in our tests used to be relatively rare, but this time five products completely defended against every threat. And the worst product of the lot still managed a protection rating of 88.1%. That’s good news, as it means you have an excellent choice of high-quality products.…

£50 per year • From www.bullguard.com VERDICT Below-par protection and a comparatively high price let BullGuard down BULLGUARD DIDN’T DO well in last year’s tests, coming joint-bottom for protection. Given that any security software should, first and foremost, protect against malware, we were hoping this year BullGuard would do better. Unfortunately, things haven’t really improved, as the test system was compromised by four bits of malware, with BullGuard defending against 80. It also gave us three false positive warnings for legitimate software. That is far from terrible, although it’s best if security suites allow the good stuff through. Besides, false positives pale in comparison to actual breaches by malware. That’s not to say the company hasn’t made some improvements to its software. BullGuard has improved system performance, with the current…

COMPUTER SHOPPER BEST BUY £32-£48 per year • From www.kaspersky.co.uk VERDICT Top protection levels and a great range of tools makes Kaspersky Total Security a great security suite KASPERSKY HAS ALWAYS done well in our group tests, combining excellent features with brilliant protection, all at a low price. This year, Kaspersky’s pricing is even better, to the point where it’s worth buying the high-end Total Security. This costs between £32 and £48 depending on whether you want support for one or five Windows, Mac, iOS and Android devices. Below this, Internet Security loses a couple of features and is more expensive for three devices or more. At the bottom is Anti-Virus, which loses some of the features of the other two packages, and costs the same as Total Security for…

COMPUTER SHOPPER RECOMMENDED £42 per year • From www.trendmicro.co.uk VERDICT Great protection and a decent array of features make this a top security suite TREND MICRO OFFERS two packages for Windows PCs: Internet Security and Maximum Security. Both products use the same underlying technology, with Internet Security the more basic product with fewer extra tools, priced at £35 for a single licence. For £7 a year more, Maximum Security also provides protection for mobile devices and adds some useful extra features, including a sandboxed browser and a password manager. Last year, Trend Micro let four bits of malware through in our tests, but it has improved this year, blocking all 84 of our attacks, to give perfect protection. Impressively, it also only flagged one piece of legitimate software as malware.…

AOC Q2781PQ This 27in monitor offers great desktop image quality £290 From www.ballicom.co.uk There’s plenty to be said about the Q2781PQ’s picture quality, from the razor sharpness of its 2,560x1,440 resolution to the vibrant out-ofthe-box colour coverage and clean, crisp whites. We said as much in our five-star review, which also granted it our Recommended award, yet it’s this monitor’s physical design that makes it such a wise addition to anyone’s office desk. Both the minimalist stand and the tiny bezels, which measure just 8mm across, add up to a display that looks the part when it’s not switched on. It’s a great buy, particularly if you want to avoid the fuss of having to calibrate it. IIYAMA PROLITE XUB3490WQSU Ultra-wide dimensions are perfect for multitasking £568 From www.amazon.co.uk Monitors…