PC Proの February 2020 の目次

I’M STILL NOT sure what I think about the novel – it has uncomfortable echoes of Lolita – but Robert A Heinlein’s The Door into Summer is a curious read for technogeeks. Published in 1957, it sets out Heinlein’s vision for two futures: the first in 1970, the second in 2000. Our protagonist is an inventor who has created a domestic robot, but who is forced by his conniving business partners to take the “long sleep” – being cryogenically frozen for 30 years – so they can take charge of the company. You could easily argue that it’s one of the world’s most influential books when it comes to shaping technology. It was certainly one of the inspirations behind Chuck Peddle’s creation of the 6502 processor: Peddle had been a…

1 Microsoft pushes out Windows10 improvements Microsoft’s second Windows 10 update of 2019 has landed, with the company promising improved OneDrive integration, easier access to calendars via the taskbar and voice controls for third-party assistants from the lockscreen. However, certain users may have to wait because Microsoft has imposed a “safeguard” feature to delay updates to machines with known compatibility issues. 2 Wikipedia founder eyes socialmedia crusade Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is hoping that a community-funded social media platform could clean up the market. The WT:Social platform will be “news focused” and funded by a pay-what-you-can model to beat the “amplified the voices of bad actors”. Wales says it will never sell user data. 3 Apple lifts lid on 16 in MacBook Pro Apple launched a chunkier MacBook Pro, replacing…

PREMIUM LAPTOPS HP Envy 13 (2019) Sleek ultraportable for a price that’s right, £1,149 from store.hp.com/UKStore Last year’s top bargain buy becomes this year’s top all-round choice thanks to a high-quality Full HD screen, Nvidia MX250 graphics and a stylish design. This price includes a Core i7, 16GB of memory and a 1TB SSD, but you can save £400 by buying the Core i5 model with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD direct from HP’s website. REVIEW Issue 303, p57 ALTERNATIVES Apple MacBook Pro 15in (2018 A machine for true power users with amazing specifications, including that infamous Core i9 CPU and up to 4TB of SSD storage. From £2,399 from apple.com/uk REVIEW Issue 288, p48 Razer Blade 15 Mercury White A beautifully made gaming laptop with a Max-Q…

Barry Collins is a former editor of PCPro. He is temperamentally unsuited for government. @bazzacollins I’ve checked on Google Images and the building of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) doesn’t have a revolving door, but it wouldn’t be a massive waste of public money to get one fitted. Since the Conservatives came to (joint) power in 2010, there have been eight secretaries of state for DCMS, and four since “Digital” became part of its name in 2017. There’s about to be another name added to the list too, as the current incumbent – Nicky Morgan – is standing down at the general election, when she will have been in the post for all of five months. Of the four digital cabinet ministers since 2017, only one…

Also cropping up, but not in large enough numbers to make it into the graph, were a whiteboard, a fax server (for a firm that provides fax tech to various industries) and Microsoft Money 97. Paul Bamberger even missed MS-DOS. “A single-tasking text-based environment was often so efficient,” he wrote. “Using key shortcuts in business applications (WordPerfect, Sage Line 100 and Lotus 1-2-3) is much quicker compared with mouse-based menu systems. Only using one application at a time guaranteed focus, though the arrival of SideKick-type apps was an interesting development.” When we asked which old office old you missed the most, you said… “Dial-up modems; I just loved the comforting collection of pings and crackles which showed that it was successfully making the connection!”Anonymous “I miss the ability to have…

Manufacturers’ warranties cover parts and labour, but rarely data, so be aware that your photos and documents may be gone when the laptop returns from a warranty repair. Most warranties also include caveats that the machine may be replaced. Repeat after me: “I must back up”. Sometimes it’s better to seek professional help, even for a bit of advice. Most independent computer shops will perform diagnosis work, so you can still fix the machine if you want to. If you’re seeking an impossible-to-find part, they may be willing to source it from a trade-only supplier, but they have no legal obligation to refund the price if you have misdiagnosed the issue and bought the wrong component. Research local repair shops. Ask friends for recommendations then study Google and Facebook reviews, particularly the…

The idea of buying secondhand computer equipment makes many of us understandably nervous – especially if it’s for business use. Yes, you can save a lot of money, but you’re normally foregoing a warranty and taking a chance when it comes to the condition and longevity of your purchase. There’s a smarter alternative, though: refurbished kit, which comes with a lot more reassurances, backed up by an established company rather than a random individual on the internet. Here’s what you need to know about buying cheaper technology without the risk. A SAFER PURCHASE A lot of the refurbished kit you’ll see for sale will never have been used, or may have been used only for a matter of hours. Typically, these are items that were ordered by accident, or found…

SCORE PRICE £2,500 (£3,000 inc VAT) from johnlewis.com Multi-display laptops are not a new concept. Apple has the Touch Bar, Lenovo the Yoga Book and HP the Omen X 2S. Indeed, Asus itself has previously released ZenBook Pro models that feature a secondary display, or ScreenPad, housed within the touchpad. But the ZenBook Pro Duo is the most ambitious take on the dualscreen concept yet. The primary display is a 15.6in, 3,840 x 2,160 OLED touchscreen with a reflective glass coating. The lower display, known as the ScreenPad Plus, is a 14in LCD touchscreen with a matte finish and an unusual letterbox-shaped resolution of 3,840 x 1,100. Asus sent us the top-spec ZenBook Pro Duo UX581GV for review. It’s powered by an octa-core Intel Core i9-9980HK CPU, supported by 32GB…

SCORE PRICE £1,291 (£1,549 inc VAT) from store.microsoft.com While Apple left the MacBook Air (see issue 292, p50) to stagnate for years without an update, the Surface Laptop valiantly filled the hole at a reasonable price. Now that Apple has reintroduced its popular ultraportable, this third iteration of the Surface Laptop has serious competition: can it still triumph? To give it a shot, Microsoft introduces the same two notable new features we see on the Surface Pro 7 (see p56). First, it includes Intel’s latest 10th-gen CPUs with their much-improved integrated graphics. Second, Microsoft has at long last added a USB-C connector to replace the single-purpose mini-DisplayPort output. Only a year late. Note that a 15in model is on offer for the first time, too, although Microsoft is taking its…

SCORE PRICE From £1,000 (£1,200 inc VAT) from emea.dynabook.com The Tecra has been a stalwart of Toshiba’s business laptop range for years, with the promise of stoic reliability, solid specifications and – in corporate terms at least – an affordable price. Think of it as the dependable Michael Atherton of business laptops. Now that Dynabook has taken over the Toshiba laptop reins, it will be hoping for much of the same from the Tecra range. There’s little to get excited about at first glance. The Tecra comes in the onyx blue, full magnesium chassis that’s fast becoming a Dynabook trademark, but without the ultra-slim dimensions of the Portégé range, this will never draw gasps from passers-by. Rather than come-to-bed eyes, this laptop has come-to-the-boardroom eyes. At 1.25kg, it’s surprisingly light,…

SCORE PRICE Router and point,£199 (£239 inc VAT) from store.google.com We were big fans of the original Google Wifi mesh system back in 2017, but rivals have since overtaken it on price, performance and features. Now, Google has responded with an updated, rebranded mesh Wi-Fi platform, featuring faster hardware and a built-in voice assistant. You can buy the Nest Wifi as a router-only package for £149, and then add satellites (which Google calls “points”) for £129 apiece, but it makes most sense to buy the router and point bundle for £239, which promises coverage over 210m2. The two bulbous, largely featureless white units look similar, but not identical: the hub is slightly larger, standing 90mm tall with a diameter of 110mm, while the speaker node is 87mm high, with a…

SCORE PRICE £158 (£190 inc VAT) from pcpro.link/304studio The Amazon Echo Studio aims to fill an obvious hole in the army of Echo speakers: top-end audio quality. While other Echo speakers are solid affairs that meet most people’s audio needs, an audiophile would snigger in derision at the sound it produces. Amazon wanted a true rival to the Apple HomePod (see issue 283, p62) and, being Amazon, it wanted to do it for less: £100 less, to be precise. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that the Echo Studio bears more than a slight resemblance to the HomePod. Both are dustbin-shaped, cylindrical devices that conceal a number of different speaker drivers behind dark mesh fabric covers. However, the key differences are that the Echo Studio has what Amazon calls a “bass aperture”…

Prices inc VATfrom amazon.co.uk Huawei’s spat with Donald Trump resulted in the retraction of its Android licence earlier this year, meaning all future Huawei (and Honor) phones lost access to the crucial Google Play store and core Google apps. Existing models such as the P30 Pro still work, though, and Huawei has pledged they will continue to receive support. Will they still a year from now? That’s a question we can’t answer, so buying a phone like this is a risk. However, it feels wrong to ignore a phone that, without the political baggage, would be right at the top of the tree. Its three cameras are simply superb: the 40-megapixel f/1.7 primary, complete with RYYB sensor, produces images that are sharp and well-exposed in all light conditions (even virtual…

Pricesinc VATfrom amazon.co.uk The Reno 10x Zoom is Oppo’s flagship smartphone and it has everything you’d want from a premium handset. It looks smart, it’s fast – with a Snapdragon 855 SoC and 8GB of RAM – and it has a fine trio of cameras, giving owners ultrawide, wide and zoom lenses to choose from. In fact, of the group of phones this month the Reno’s telephoto lens has the longest reach, although it’s actually a 5x optical telephoto; the “10x” refers to a hybrid digital zoom that combines data from the 48-megapixel main camera with the image from the 5x optical zoom. At 10x, images don’t look great – they’re noisy and not much more detailed than those shot at 5x. The 6.6in AMOLED display has no notch thanks…

Prices inc VATfrom amazon.co.uk If all you’re looking for is a fast phone for the minimum amount of cash, the Xiaomi Pocophone F1 (officially titled the “Pocophone F1 by Xiaomi”) is worth considering. While other phones around the £300 mark compromise on performance, the Pocophone goes all out and includes a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 accompanied by 6GB of RAM. This chip may have been superseded by the quicker, more efficient Snapdragon 855 since the Pocophone first appeared in 2018, but it’s a former Qualcomm flagship and still rapid. Most importantly, it helps the Pocophone to benchmark performance that’s far faster than any other phone at this price. There’s nothing that fazes this cut-price handset. Sure, the plastic body may feel a little cheap (and scuffs up easily), but you can…

Price inc VAT from amazon.co.uk The Motorola One Vision sits in the same price bracket as the Xiaomi Pocophone F1, but it takes a different approach. Instead of cramming in as much power as possible and disregarding the design, this Motorola is all about delivering modern touches instead. Rather than plastic, the body is clad in glass, the rear curving towards rounded edges that fit perfectly in the palm. The gradient finish, in bronze or sapphire, glitters subtly in the light and the whole effect is of a phone that’s a lot more expensive than £265. It has a large, edge-to-edge 1080p 6.3in IPS display topped with Gorilla Glass and a punch-hole selfie camera peers out from the top-left corner, obviating the need for an unsightly notch. Elsewhere, it’s less…

Prices inc VATfrom amazon.co.uk We’ve complained for what seems like forever about short battery life in our smartphones. “Put a bigger battery in,” we’ve pleaded, “we don’t mind if it’s a little bit heavier.” And, yet, manufacturers insist on producing skinny supermodels that last little more than 24 hours. Finally, it seems that one phone maker has listened, with the Motorola Moto G7 Power employing an absolutely enormous 5,000mAh battery. Naturally, this adds to the bulk and weight somewhat, but the Power is far slimmer than a normal phone with an extra battery attachment. It has an edge-to-edge display that measures 6.2in across the diagonal and a notch at the top housing the front-facing camera and earpiece speaker. Both of these elements keep the size down to a manageable 76…

Price inc VAT from motorola.co.uk The Moto E6 Plus is the latest in a long line of impressive budget offerings from Motorola and it has many features you might not necessarily expect at this price. Up front is a large 6.1in, edge-to-edge display with a small, teardrop notch housing the selfie camera. There’s a fingerprint reader at the back along with a pair of cameras, although the secondary sensor is of the depthmapping variety rather than a telephoto or ultrawide one. It isn’t a top-flight phone, but it’s impressive for the money. For instance, the 6.1in screen lacks sharpness at 720 x 1,560, but it’s bright with good contrast and balanced, reasonably accurate colours. There’s a budget MediaTek Helio P22 SoC inside, but performance is acceptable. In fact, it’s nippier…

Price inc VAT from mi.com/uk If you have around £100 to spend but still want something that looks good and feels responsive to use, consider the Redmi 7A. It doesn’t have the heft and feel of a flagship, but the spangly plastic case at the rear and 5.45in IPS display up front do a fine job of impersonating a much more expensive phone. There isn’t much, truth be told, between this and the Vodafone Smart X9. The Redmi 7A has a different SoC – a Qualcomm Snapdragon 439 chip – but the same level of performance. It has a larger 4,000mAh battery but this lasted a similar length of time in our video-rundown test: 13hrs 24mins versus 13hrs. And although the Redmi 7A has a smaller, lower-resolution 720p display than…

SCORE PRICE 1yr, 10 users, £20 exc VAT per month, billed monthly from ionos.co.uk One of Europe’s largest hosting companies, 1&1 Ionos is a relative newcomer to the file-sharing party, with its HiDrive service offering a simple cloud file syncing and collaboration solution. Three plans are available: we tested the top-dog Pro option, which starts at ten users and dishes up 2TB of cloud storage for £20 per month on a one-year contract. That may sound like a bargain, but note that your 2TB isn’t per user, but a total that’s shared across all users. One notable thing about HiDrive is that it includes a backup service that creates copies of all of your cloud data and retains them for up to a year. This isn’t as smart as the…

SCORE PRICE £8 exc VAT per user per month, billed yearly from tresorit.com Swiss cloud specialist Tresorit takes data privacy and security very seriously. Its file storage and sharing solution encrypts everything at the client, in transit and on its cloud servers – and the company has a strict zero-knowledge policy, which means it has no access to the encryption keys that protect your company’s data. Tresorit’s entry-level Small Business plan starts at just two users. It costs £12 per user (if you pay yearly), and each team member gets 1TB of cloud storage, along with file sharing, syncing, collaboration and Outlook integration. We tested the Business plan, which starts at ten users: this includes the same storage allocation, but adds extras such as custom portal branding, access-tracking logs, Active…

It’s been a mixed month. Some good things on one hand, but frustrations and annoyances on the other. Let’s start with Windows. The latest half-yearly build of Windows 10 is pretty much finished, although it can be hard to know exactly what is a “released” version any more given the rate at which Microsoft throws out updates. I have an aged Dell desktop tower in the lab that’s used every few days – it runs the software for our Audiomatica Clio audio analyser. It seems every time I walk up to this Dell, it has a bunch of Windows updates that need applying. And, curiously, it always seems to stick at around 8% for a few minutes when doing the update. Maybe the machine is haunted, maybe it’s doing the…

Ionce had a teacher at school, who shall remain nameless as I’ve forgotten, that regularly told me that I was “too clever for my own good”. What he meant was that I was too quick to counter his often flimsy arguments with logical takedowns. I mention this merely by way of an introduction to a technology that fits the description. I’m talking about the Samsung Galaxy S10 and Note 10 devices, specifically the in-display fingerprint sensor technology they both feature. The technology isn’t just about the aesthetics; as far as security is concerned, it goes far deeper than that. Or, at least, it should have done. The ultrasonic scanner uses sound wave pulses to read the ridges and valleys of your fingerprint in three dimensions. This 3D map is far…

Brendan Walker is a professor at Middlesex University London – but also the founder of Studio Go Go, which uses VR to add excitement to existing fairground rides. Think that merry-go-round is too dull for you? Strap on one of his headsets and you’re in for a thrill. He spoke to PC Pro about his work – and why smartphone headsets aren’t going anywhere. ARE SMARTPHONE HEADSETS IN TROUBLE? My feeling with VR is it’s not the technology that people are interested in – there are lots of technologists who quite rightly will be looking at what’s next, but it’s always about the content and engaging the public. A smartphone headset is absolutely perfect for loads of jobs. Anybody who looks to that hardware to blame it for VR not…

Nik Rawlinson Want to improve communication in your business? Nik examines the free and low-cost tools that can help, from 3CX to Facebook to Slack on p104 Steve Cassidy After years of lecturing firms on cyber-resilience, Steve almost gets caught out after being “stranded” in California during the forest fires. See p120 Nicole Kobie Maybe VR isn’t dead after all. Nicole talks to analysts, academics and a man who makes VR experiences for funfair rides to see where VR is going next on p127 Lee Grant At some point in time you’ll have a broken laptop sitting in front of you. Our tame repair shop owner shares his secrets so you can fix it yourself on p30…

Dell UltraSharp 27 4K PremierColor UP2720Q Dell is hoping to attract content creators who crave the ultimate in colour accuracy with the announcement of the first 27in 4K monitor with a built-in colorimeter and Thunderbolt 3. The UltraSharp 27 4K PremierColor is targeted squarely at photographers and video editors. Dell claims the display provides 100% cover across the Adobe RGB gamut, as well as 98% of the DCI-P3 standard. To ensure those figures are maintained, there’s a built-in colorimeter for calibration, which can be scheduled to run when the display is not in use and is designed to work with the CalMAN calibration software. The UltraSharp is an IPS panel with a 3,840 x 2,160 resolution, 250-nit brightness, a 1,300:1 contrast ratio and a 6ms response time. In picture-by-picture mode,…

The insidious practice of data harvesting that has corrupted the internet is heading for the television like a “tsunami”, according to researchers and privacy experts. Reports based on network traffic analysis of smart TVs and dongles show a worrying level of data shared with advertisers, manufacturers and social media platforms – and these devices offer consumers no way to take control. “It’s not a creep, it’s more like a tsunami,” said Rowenna Fielding, head of individual rights and ethics at data protection compliance consultancy Protecture. “The economy is structured around getting people’s attention and data powers it all – TVs are now a part of that.” While most people grudgingly accept that the web necessitates surrendering a degree of privacy, that’s not necessarily the case with connected TVs. “Most people…

Dick Pountain is editorial fellow of PC Pro. He is always fully aware of both his location and his velocity. When Google announced, on 24 October 2019, that it had achieved “quantum supremacy” – that is, it had performed a calculation on a quantum computer faster than a conventional computer could ever do – I was reminded that quantum computing is a subject I’ve been avoiding in this column for 25 years. That prompted a further realisation: it’s because I’m sceptical of the claims that have been made. I’m not sceptical about quantum mechanics per se, nor am I sceptical of the theory of quantum computation itself. No, what I’m sceptical about are the pragmatic engineering prospects for its timely implementation. The last 60 years saw our world transformed by…

Short passwords I’ve been with ISP Plusnet for some years now. Its prices, relative to competitors, have generally been fair and I’ve enjoyed a consistently good service. The only issues have been an iffy connection where my phone line entered the house (resulting in intermittent broadband), and an ageing Vigor 2800 series router slowing throughput a little (to around 52Mbits/sec, versus the 65Mbits/sec I get if I use the standard Plusnet-bundled VDSL box; no thanks). What astounds me, though, is its security. It only allows for username and password protection on your ISP management account logon, and limits the latter to just 16 characters. Just for good measure, there’s no provision for 2FA or similar, either, as confirmed by calling tech support. If you are an old IT hack like…

How’s your laptop doing? Running like a finely tuned Ferrari or in desperate need of a service and de-grease? Thought so. This is a whistle-stop tour of laptop troubleshooting, packed with handy tips you can use at your own kitchen table. I’ll provide a methodology for hunting down the fault, before running through how to dismantle your machine without destroying it – all based on my years of experience as a PC fixer. Sections will have a broad-brush feel as, obviously, I’m clueless as to which model’s in front of you, but my method is universal. Don’t worry if the pictures don’t look like the laptop in front of you – I’ll talk you through different approaches for different models. I’ll discuss Windows repairs, quick fixes for faults such as…

Now you’ve discovered that getting inside your machine isn’t too difficult, let’s go through the most common problems that arrive in our shop. SCREEN REPLACEMENTS Screen replacements are usually simple. In most cases, you’ll be able to remove the bezel from around the screen with a guitar pick without much trouble. Most modern bezels are screwless but, as mentioned above, look under rubber caps for hidden ones. Once the panel is unscrewed, drop it forward onto the keyboard and you’ll spot at least one connector that will release easily – these are fragile, so be gentle. Here’s a tip. I’ve encountered many laptops fitted with “not as advertised” displays, so don’t search for a replacement using the laptop’s model number – use the codes on the rear of the panel.…

Buying refurbished kit – rather than allowing it to be dumped while you buy a brand-new item – means you’re doing your bit to reduce waste. Quite aside from the issue of landfill, the UN has calculated that the construction of an average computer and monitor requires “at least 240 kilograms of fossil fuel, 22 kilograms of chemicals and 1,500 kilograms of water – or 1.8 tons in total, the equivalent to a rhinoceros or sports utility vehicle (SUV)”. Keeping an old computer in service reduces the need for new computers to be built, saving fossil fuels, avoiding the release of additional environmental carbon and reducing the use of raw materials. Buying refurbished kit can also help businesses faced with the challenge of responsibly disposing of unneeded hardware. Even those…

Laptops and PCs We run our own benchmarks on every Windows and macOS system we test. These are based around image editing, video editing and multitasking (where we run the video-editing benchmark while simultaneously playing back a 4K video). At the bottom of each laptop and PC review, you’ll find the system’s score in each of these tests, plus an overall score. If a laptop scores 70, say, then it’s 30% slower than our reference system – a PC with a Core i7-4670K and 8GB of RAM. If it scores 160, then it’s 60% faster. We test laptop battery life by playing back a full-screen video until the battery runs out. We set the screen brightness to 170cd/m2, or as close as we can get using its settings, and switch…

SCORE PRICE £125 (£150 inc VAT) from pcpro.link/304fire At a glance, you may wonder why anyone would care about this late-2019 update to the Fire HD 10: it still has enormous thick bezels and chunky matte plastic casing. The only obvious change is to the colour palette, with plum, white and blue joining the traditional black. Closer examination reveals a cleaner-looking product, as Amazon has taken a small step towards de-branding the Fire HD 10: gone is the full embossed Amazon logo on the back, leaving just the familiar curved arrow. It makes you feel less like a walking billboard when reading on public transport. More importantly, the micro-USB port has been replaced by USB-C. That not only means faster charging times, but also increases the likelihood of having a…

FOR AUDIOPHILES Creative Outlier Gold Where to buy www.uk.creative.com UK RRP £94.99 Go on wild adventures without worrying about subpar audio quality or short-lived battery life! The Outlier Gold, with its impressive 39 hours of battery life, ensures that you’ll always be on your A game while on the go. Together with Software Super X-Fi®, experience unmatched audio clarity even while you’re out and about. FOR UPGRADERS HyperX DDR4 FURY RGB Where to buy www.ebuyer.com UK RRP £60.11 for kit of two HyperX® FURY DDR4 RGB delivers a boost of performance and style with speeds of up to 3,466MHz, aggressive styling, and RGB lighting that runs the length of the module. FURY DDR4 RGB is XMP-ready and available in 2,400MHz to 3,466MHz speeds, CL15–16 latencies, single module capacities of 8GB…

Pricesinc VATfrom apple.com/uk Apple has tweaked the names of its cheapest phone, dropping the “R” and calling it, instead, the iPhone 11. In a move that no one expected, it also dropped the price. By anyone else’s standards, £729 is still a lot to pay for a phone, but it’s good to see some acknowledgement from Apple that not everyone is willing to spend over £1,000 on a new iPhone. Nor has Apple made big sacrifices: the iPhone 11 is still a very good phone and it’s better than the £320 price gap to the Pro might suggest. The only things it’s missing compared with its pricier siblings are an AMOLED screen (it’s IPS instead), the 2x telephoto camera and 4m water resistance – the 11 is “only” 2m water-resistant.…

Pricesinc VATfrom amazon.co.uk Sony has been producing the camera modules in other smartphones for years but consistently failed to make a top phone camera itself. With the Xperia 1, however, the smartphone arm of the company worked with the Alpha camera department to change that. Thus, its ultrawide, wide and 2x telephoto cameras have grown-up features such as eye-tracking, a 10fps burst mode and advanced RAW noise-reduction tech. Image quality is impeccable, although 4K video recording is limited to 30fps. The other unusual thing is the skinny 21:9 aspect ratio, 6.5in display. This looks odd and makes using top and bottom-edge swipe gestures awkward, but it’s ideal for watching films. Screen quality is great, too: it produces 97.7% of the DCI-P3 gamut in the Standard setting and even has a…

Prices inc VATfrom store.google.com We always love using Google’s Pixel phones because, in the words of the manufacturer, they deliver “the best of Google”. The Pixel Launcher, sitting on top of the latest version of Android, normally adds a host of clever features that other mobile phone makers then spend the next 12 months copying. The trouble is that a year ago, when it launched the Pixel 3 and 3 XL, Google seemed to forget about the hardware. Poor battery life and just a single camera were never going to be enough to justify such a high price; that’s why we’re much more keen on the follow-up, cut-price Google Pixel 3a and 3a XL phones. These cheaper Pixels do compromise in some key areas. They employ the second-tier Snapdragon 710…

Pricesinc VATfrom apple.com/uk Believe it or not, there is an iPhone you can buy for less than £500. Launched alongside the iPhone X two years ago, it’s not as old as its name suggests – just bear in mind that if you buy one on contract it will be four years old by renewal time. We normally don’t recommend buying older handsets for this reason, but the iPhone 8 should see out its 24 months gracefully. That’s because its A11 Bionic SoC remains quick. In the CPU benchmarks, it’s up there with the Samsung Galaxy 10 phones and, for graphics performance, it matches the Kirin 980-equipped Huawei P30 Pro. The iPhone 8’s single 12-megapixel, f/1.8 camera can’t match the Google Pixel 3a XL’s but it’s capable of delivering decent results…

Priceinc VATfrom johnlewis.com The OnePlus flagship was once a shoo-in for best value phone, but it’s been undermined by Xiaomi over the past year. While this means no award here, there’s little wrong with OnePlus’ latest offering. It’s a gorgeous phone that’s clad in moody grey glass uninterrupted at the front apart from a small, teardrop notch and with a smooth matte finish at the rear. It’s large but not oversized, with an edge-to-edge, super-smooth 90Hz 6.4in OLED display up front. It comes with three rear cameras: a 48-megapixel primary, 12-megapixel telephoto and 16-megapixel ultra-wide. The telephoto and primary cameras take good photos in default mode, but the wide-angle’s shots are heavily distorted. Performance is superb, courtesy of the Snapdragon 855 Plus SoC, but it’s battery life that’s most notable.…

Price inc VAT from vodafone.co.uk; mustbebought with £10 minimum top-up Time was that spending £100 on a phone wouldn’t get you much. While costs have skyrocketed at the top of the market, however, at the other end of the scale phones have improved without the price hikes. The Vodafone Smart X9 is a case in point. Here is a phone with features that, three or four years ago, you’d only have seen on phones costing £500 or more. Yet it costs just £99. Truthfully, the cost is £109 considering you have to buy a £10 top-up voucher from Vodafone, but you do at least get that value back in data, calls and texts. Those features include a large, mostly body-filling 5.7in 18:9 IPS display with a resolution of 1,080 x…

Price inc VAT from amazon.co.uk The One range is in danger of cannibalising Motorola’s G-series phones, so high has the quality been in recent months. The One Action is a case in point. For a £220 handset, it’s well made with a narrow 1080p 6.3in IPS display. But its crowning glory is its set of cameras. While most phones below £300 have one camera, the One Vision has two dedicated cameras and a depth sensor. There’s a twist here, though – where flagship multi-camera phones add the choice to shoot wide-angle and/or telephoto images, the One Action’s second camera is a dedicated ultra-wide-angle 1080p video camera. Oh, it also shoots landscape video while you hold the phone in portrait. Camera image quality is very good for this price – better…

I’ve been wondering for some time if the smartphone industry has plateaued, but every year manufacturers defy my expectations and make their phones better. The past 12 months have continued in this familiar vein, with a huge number of great new phones and a succession of intriguing features. We’ve seen triple cameras with ultrawide and telephoto lenses become widespread, even in midrange phones; we’ve seen the advent, at last, of phones that reliably last longer than a day of moderate use, thanks to the Snapdragon 855 system on a chip (SoC); and we’ve seen 5G phones arrive, albeit at high prices. We’ve also witnessed the debut of Xiaomi in the UK with its relentless focus on delivering phones that, seemingly, no other manufacturer can match at the price. The high…

SCORE PRICE £19 exc VAT per user per month, billed yearly from box.com Box is one of the most capable file-sharing services on the market, offering a great range of cloud collaboration features. Those come at a price, mind you: the Business Plus version on review costs £20 per user each month, with a modest 5% discount if you pay yearly. Still, we can’t complain too much when every user gets a classy selection of file-sharing and syncing services, and unlimited cloud storage. Or, to be precise, there’s no limit on total usage; – there’s a 5GB limit on the size of each uploaded item, which is a long way short of Citrix ShareFile’s 100GB cap, but for the average small business that won’t be a problem at all. Administrators,…

SCORE PRICE £ 93 exc VAT from printerbase.co.uk Lexmark’s new “GO Line” family of printers sets out to bring enterprise-class reliability, security and features within reach of smaller businesses. And the entrylevel C3224dw is certainly affordable: even though this 22ppm colour laser features an integrated duplexer and supports wired, wireless or USB 2 connections, it costs only £93 exc VAT. As you’d expect, for that money, the design is quite basic. The C3224dw sports a two-line backlit LED control panel, but doesn’t include an NFC sensor for tap-to-print operations. And while the 250-sheet lower tray may be fine for a light office printing role, you can’t add extra trays to increase choice and capacity. Still, the printer has a decent web interface, which you can use to set up wired…

Take a standard networking device into a shower? Not Paul, who finds that the FireBrick is unlike any other kit he’s tested Imentioned a few columns ago that I’d been playing with a FireBrick (firebrick.co.uk). The model I have on test here is the FireBrick FB2900, which is about the same size as a typical external desktop hard drive. There are also several larger (1U rack-sized) and considerably more expensive FireBrick models that are intended for ISP-type applications. The FB2900 is designed more for businesses, large and small. But its pricing (from around £500 plus VAT) makes it attractive for power users in a domestic environment, too. The FB2900 sports four gigabit-capable traditional copper Ethernet ports and one small form-factor pluggable (SFP) port. You can plug small modules in that…

REBUILDING CORAL REEFS Climate change is damaging networks of coral reef that are home to plenty of fish and other animals. Researchers have trialled the idea of filling in gaps of destroyed coral with 3D printed replacements – and a study from the University of Delaware suggests it actually works. Not only were fish willing to move into these new 3D-printed coral homes, but they weren’t bothered about the material used to print the coral, meaning biodegradable materials such as cornstarch can be used instead of more robust plastic. “Offering 3D-printed habitats is a way to provide reef organisms a structural starter kit that can become part of the landscape as fish and coral build their homes around the artificial coral,” said researcher Danielle Dixson in a statement. “And since…

LABS NAS drives Keep all your files, photos and videos safe – and easy to access – by investing in a high-performance NAS drive. We test the best units on the market. Subscribe today Start your subscription today and claim an exclusive 16GB PC Pro USB drive. You can read PC Pro in print, on your iPad, iPhone or Android device. See p108 for details. FEATURES Deepdive:EventViewer Find out what’s really going on under Windows’ bonnet. We demystify the Event Viewer and show you how to find and fix system errors and more. Sickofficesyndrome We all know how bad it is for us to sit in front of computers all day, but what are the real threats? And how can you avoid them? Nicole Kobie investigates. Windows7:the survivor’sguide Still running…

G.FAST, THE TECHNOLOGY intended to be a stepping stone to full-fibre broadband, has been dropped by a British ISP amid complaints about its speed and range. G.fast is an interim measure that theoretically pushes the speeds of fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) copper connections into triple figures. It’s being deployed by BT Openreach in lieu of full-fibre connections. During the autumn, Openreach scaled back plans to make the technology available to ten million homes by 2020, with a revised figure of only 2.5 million, and critics believe the technology may never recover. According to ISP Aquiss, continuing with G.fast would be a waste of money as it simply provides “another excuse for Openreach not to deploy full fibre into certain areas”. Aquiss has more concrete concerns over the technology itself. “What we discovered…

FITBIT USERS FEAR their medical data will be used by Google after the tech giant agreed to pay $2.1 billion for Fitbit, with many observers saying the deal’s value lay in the data. Health-tracker maker Fitbit has 28 million users and gathers data as sensitive as sleep patterns and menstrual cycles. Many customers have expressed concerns over how Google might use the data. One Fitbit user we spoke to on condition of anonymity explained why they were unhappy, saying that neither Google nor Fitbit could explain how they would use details. “I was just offered a link to the press release – and it said that Google wouldn’t use Fitbit data, but only for advertising,” they said. “There isn’t a clear plan for the future of how it will be…

Advertising companies have always wanted to know which programmes are the most watched, but smart TV services can turbocharge this data, offering insight into what viewers are watching in real-time. Princeton University’s IoT Inspector research, for example, highlighted how some Samsung smart TV traffic suggested it was using automatic content recognition (ACR) techniques to analyse what viewers were watching. “Three Samsung domains are prevalent for observed smart TVs,” the Princeton researchers found. “Based on the website of these domains, we speculate that Samsung TVs contact them to transmit pixel information from the smart TV screen for ACR, gather data on viewing habits, and/or to serve adverts.” The advertising and TV industries make no secret of their plans to improve their insights and targeting, with a consortium of media and technology…

Nicole Kobie is PC Pro’s Futures editor. She reinstalled Uber for a family visit, but is uninstalling it again after CEO Dara Khosrowshahi called the murder of Jamal Khashoggi a forgiveable “mistake”. @njkobie We don’t know why Elaine Herzberg pushed her bicycle across Mill Avenue in Tempe, Arizona one evening in March 2018. However, we now know what the Uber automated car was “thinking” when it crashed into and killed her. Almost two years later, the US National Transport Safety Board (NTSB) has finished its investigation, publishing hundreds of pages of documents ahead of a public hearing on the incident. The detailed documents include a timeline of the five seconds before the crash, revealing that the driverless system didn’t know what to do when its cameras spotted Herzberg on the…

I read the article “Life ends at 40 in the tech industry” (see issue 303, p14) and, while I agree with many of your findings, I think there is a way for older developers to still find work – by contracting. I’m in my 60s and in the last few years I have worked on many contracts running from a few weeks to six months, mostly for American companies, and always working remotely. I get these jobs because I’m an expert on the new software coming out of Microsoft. My clients are interested in what I know, not my age. Contracting works for me as I have some control over when I work. This gives me time to keep up to date in my area of expertise and write tech…

You don’t need a toolbox full of expensive screwdrivers. In fact, you might be surprised by how little you need to prise apart a laptop. You will need couple of small screwdrivers – a Phillips and a flathead – but the most useful tool you can have is a guitar pick. Picks are for prising the laptop plastics apart, minimising the damage that’s easily inflicted with metal openers or fingers. Round-ended tweezers are also useful for fiddly cable work. You’ll probably need a USB drive and access to a working computer to download software. More job-specific tools include a small paintbrush for de-fluffing a fan, a multimeter to test charger voltages and thermal compound for refreshing the cooling system. Isopropyl alcohol is also good at removing residues from liquid spills.…

The components in your laptop have been engineered specifically for that range of machines. Other motherboards won’t have the same shape and the screw holes will be in a different location. Your replacement must be identical and, to increase the difficulty factor, many manufacturers don’t waste profit making spares. Those that do rarely put stock into the retail channel. Companies to try for general parts are Zand Group AB (zandparts.com), which is based in Sweden and AJ Parts (ajparts.co.uk) in Middlesex. Accupart (accupart.co.uk) has an extensive selection of replacement screens and Duracell Direct (duracelldirect.co.uk) is useful for batteries and chargers. Sourcing certain laptop parts is akin to scouring a scrap yard for an undamaged car wing mirror. If you’re using eBay, use reputable sellers with good reviews and favourable returns…

Most of us use a combination of a one-time code generating app such as Google Authenticator for two-factor authentication, with those codes sent by SMS if the more secure app option isn’t available. I say “more secure” as neither is totally safe. If someone has physical access to your smartphone, or a device that for all intents and purposes is your smartphone, such as is the case if they have convinced your network provider to transfer your number over to them in a “SIM-swapping” hijack attack, it’s game over. Which is why Google and others offers a more secure Advanced Protection authentication option for high-profile users who want to make taking over their Google account much more difficult. This involves authenticating the user with a hardware token as the second…

If I had a pint every time I’m asked “so why is Microsoft killing Windows 7?” in my local pub, I would never need to buy a drink again. This is usually followed by: “There’s nothing wrong with it, I know what I’m doing, and I don’t like that fancy-schmancy Windows 10 touch nonsense”. If I am truly lucky, there’s an almost inevitable “they just want to force me to use me to feed their advertising, sniffing everything I do”. It’s a hard thing to argue against. The reality is that, to the man in the street, a Windows 7 laptop or desktop is capable of perfectly good work. Being forced to upgrade, or to buy new hardware, for no meaningful perceived benefit, is something that jars to a small…

Recommended This, quite simply, is a product we would recommend you buy – if it meets your needs A-List The best buy in its category right now. The product will also feature on our A-List, starting on p16. It’s updated each month. Labs Winner Each month we run a group test, or Labs. This product has managed to beat all others to top position. The pcpro.link Throughout the magazine you’ll see pcpro.link shortcuts. Enter these into the address bar of your browser and it will take you to a particular page, which will either be too long or awkward for us to publish or will take you to the precise shop from which to buy. If it’s Amazon, note that we have an affiliate deal in place so we will…

SCORE PRICE £2,250 (£2,700 inc VAT) from uk-store.acer.com The Acer ConceptD 5 Pro has one aim: to tackle high-end creative tasks such as 4K video editing, photo editing and professional design. It isn’t here to dazzle you with its looks, but the sturdy magnesium alloy shell, subtle logos and neatly angled corners deliver a fine first impression. However, its angular exhaust vents at the rear look out of place on a professional machine. The Acer tips the scales at 2.5kg and measures 23mm thick, which might lead you to expect bundles of connections. While there are three USB-A slots, only two are USB 3.1 with the third using the slower USB 2 standard. The full-size HDMI output and single USB-C port are welcome, but there’s no Thunderbolt 3, no card…

TEST RIG Nvidia RTX 2060 graphics, 16GBRAM, 512GB PCIe M.2SSD AMD Ryzen 3 3200G SCORE PRICE £75 (£90incVAT) from scan.co.uk The Ryzen 3 3200G has the same 3-series branding as the other AMD chips here, but uses the older Zen+ architecture. It has a graphics chip alongside a processing core and is designed for day-to-day computing, not 4K gaming. In contrast, AMD’s Zen 2-based processors don’t include integrated graphics because they expect buyers to invest in powerful discrete GPUs. The 3200G has four cores with no multithreading, with base and boost speeds of 3.6GHz and 4GHz. Unsurprisingly, its PC Pro benchmark result of 106 points is half that of the 3600, and way behind Intel’s parts. In Cinebench and Geekbench’s single-threaded tests, the 3200G fell behind every other chip on…

1 Visit the PC Pro download site at pcprodownload.co.uk. You’ll need to enter the coupon code printed on the card, along with your email address. We’ll send you an email to confirm that your code has been registered. On subsequent visits, you’ll be able to access the download area by entering only your email address. 2 Once you’re into the download area, you can access this month’s bonus software by navigating to the relevant product page and clicking the red Install button. For trial software, freeware and other downloads, click the Install button below the product description, or follow the onscreen instructions (please read these carefully). 3 If the software needs registering, click the purple Register button, or follow the instructions on the left of the product page (again, please…

Prices inc VAT from johnlewis.com Samsung has been making its stylus-equipped digital-notepad phone since 2011, when it had a 5.3in display and a 1.4GHz dual-core processor. In those days, 5.3in was considered outlandishly large for a phone but the concept was successful and Samsung has been making the Note ever since. The Note’s display has now grown to an absolutely enormous 6.8in but it hasn’t got much bigger, gaining a mere 15.4mm in height, 5.8mm in width and 18g in weight. Remarkably, it’s also narrower, slimmer and lighter than the 6.5in Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max opposite. That seemingly impossible feat has been brought about by developments in edge-to-edge screen technology, of which the Note 10+ is the best example today. If you hate bezels, this is absolutely the phone…

Pricesinc VATfrom johnlewis.com We weren’t hugely impressed with the OnePlus 7T thanks to its distortion-heavy wide-angle camera, but the OnePlus 7T Pro suffers no such issues. In fact, this T-series OnePlus isn’t a huge amount different to the OnePlus 7 Pro launched earlier this year. It has an upgraded Snapdragon 855 Plus SoC inside, but otherwise it’s very similar to the original. That’s not a bad thing. There’s plenty to like about the 7T Pro, not least its smooth, 90Hz 6.7in AMOLED display and the presence of Android 10. These combine to produce a phone that feels slick to use. A motorised pop-up front camera means there’s no notch, too. On the rear is a triple camera setup with an ultrawide and 3x telephoto camera with OIS in addition to…

Price inc VAT from mi.com/uk If you have last year’s smartphone Labs to hand (see issue 292, p76), you’ll notice one key difference compared to this year’s: there wasn’t a single Xiaomi phone on test. Since then, the firm has made an explosive UK debut with an aggressive approach to pricing and some real gems. Take the Xiaomi Mi 9T Pro: this uses the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC, a chipset employed in most of this year’s top smartphones, yet the price is half as much as many of its more established rivals. This leads to flagship-matching performance, but Xiaomi doesn’t stop there with this cut-price marvel. Coupled with a sizeable 4,000mAh battery, the Mi9 achieved the fifth-best battery life result this month, lasting 18hrs 53mins in our test. And,…

Prices inc VATfrom amazon.co.uk The Honor View 20 was the first phone to include a holepunch selfie camera: instead of a notch or tab that eats into the top of the screen, the frontfacing camera peers out through a small hole bored into it. It’s an elegant solution to the problem of maximising screen space and it looks just as good here as it does in Samsung’s pricier handsets. That’s not the only good thing about the Honor View 20, though. There’s also an f/1.8, 48-megapixel camera on the rear that produces high-quality photos, a 6.4in edge-to-edge 1080p display at the front and responsive, fast performance, courtesy of an octa-core Kirin 980 processor. It’s the same chip you’ll find inside flagships such as the Huawei P30 Pro. The rather garish,…

Pricesinc VATfrom amazon.co.uk The Redmi Note 7 sums up Xiaomi in a nutshell. Simply put, if you went on specifications alone, you’d wonder if Xiaomi had made a mistake with the price. And then you’d buy ten of them before the company realised and put the price back up. Just take a look at what you can get for £199: a 6.2in, 1,080 x 2,350 notched edge-to-edge display; a Snapdragon 660 SoC with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage; an f/1.8, 48-megapixel rear camera with 5-megapixel depth-sensing secondary sensor; and a large, 4,000mAh capacity battery. That’s an insanely good lineup for the money and, unlike the Moto G7 Power, the Redmi Note 7matches its impressive specswith flagship-class design. The front and rear are cladin Gorilla rillaGlass 5, which fomerly…

Prices inc VAT(converted from Euros) from buy.realme.com Historically, one area where budget phone buyers have had to take a hit is raw performance. Spend under £200 and you’ve usually had to put up with a 400-series Qualcomm chip (or worse). The Realme 3 Pro is an outlier, including a 2.2GHz Snapdragon 710 SoC for less than £200–the same chip as the £399 Google Pixel 3a. Coupled with one of the best displays we’ve seen on a sub-£200 phone, it’s a tempting proposition. Yet the Realme 3 Pro doesn’t feel as fast and responsive as the Pixel phones: animations and screen-to-screen transitions don’t have the same snap. Nor are we fans of Realme’s “ColorOS” UI, which isn’t as elegant as Motorola’s and Google’s software. Other niggles include a cheap-feeling glossy, bright…

SCORE PRICE Standard, from £38 exc VAT per month, billed yearly from sharefile.com ShareFile used to be one of the more expensive cloud services, but Citrix recently cut its pricing substantially, making it now one of the best-value platforms around. The Standard plan costs just £38 per month for five users, with additional users costing an extra £8 a month per head. The price gets you unlimited cloud storage with support for massive file sizes up to 100GB, along with business-class features including custom portal branding, free mobile apps and two-factor authentication. When you sign up, Citrix also creates a custom subdomain for your account. Give this the same name as your company and it creates a nicely professional impression when sharing links with clients and customers. For more demanding…

SCORE PRICE £144 exc VAT from broadbandbuyer.com Just when you thought wireless access points (APs) couldn’t get any smaller, along comes the UniFi UAP FlexHD. Measuring only 156mm tall with a 49mm radius, the FlexHD is compact enough to place wherever you need it – which is a big help when it comes to delivering the best wireless performance. To that end, the base cover comes with a rubber ring to hold it steady on a desktop, while the box includes wall and pole-mounting kits – and an optional recessed ceiling mount can be purchased separately. The FlexHD isn’t waterproof, however, so if you want to put it outdoors it will have to be in a sheltered location. Despite its small size, this little tube houses a full-strength Wave 2…

Iwas scrabbling around, scanning some documents to a customer’s USB stick, when he started telling me his latest computer saga. Some weeks earlier, he’d taken a machine to his local repair shop. Some would label it as a competitor, but I have a different view. This business is within ten miles of us and, with breathtaking efficiency, consistently provides some of the worst and most incompetent repairs known to humanity. To assure you that this isn’t professional jealousy or corporate sniping, let me present some recent evidence. Have a look at the graphics card pictured. This was supplied as “new” and your eyes are not playing tricks – that’s a CPU cooler bolted to it. If this competitor was a restaurant, it would have closed years ago. This customer’s laptop…

IF YOU WANT the famously high level of protection that Norton 360 offers plus 75GB of cloud storage’and you want to protect up to ten devices’then take note of this phenomenal deal. In addition to protection against all the latest threats when you bank, browse or shop online, Norton 360 Premium offers many additional features, including: Cloud Backup 75GB of cloud storage to safe guard your most important files and data Password Manager Generate, store and access your passwords across your devices Secure VPN Create a secure tunnel between your device and the internet Virus Protection Promise A Norton expert is on hand 24/7 to help keep your devices secure and virus’free or get your full subscription refunded Norton 360 Premium10’Device 1-Year: RRP £89.99, our launch price £19.99 (save 78%)…

It was the first coffee of the morning. I had arrived in the lab at 5.30am with a ton of work to do, but that initial beverage allows a small moment of calm before the storm of the day. And, in that allocated slot, I like to throw random interesting questions at Google’s search engine, just to see what falls out. Like any result from a search engine query, many of the answers have to be taken with a shovel full of salt. But even if the result is within the right order of magnitude, it can certainly cause one to ponder whilst enjoying the first ground beans of the day. So the question of “how many photos are uploaded each day to Facebook?” brought forth an answer of about…