Table of contents for July 2016 in Tech Advisor

The rivalry between AMD and Intel peaked during the first decade of this century, when the companies consistently challenged each other with a stream of chip innovations. Since then, AMD has lost its way, and today it barely registers as a threat to Intel. But the competitive landscape could start changing as early as next year. Intel’s x86 chips are installed in most PCs and servers, while AMD has been losing market share for years. The latter’s chip technology has fallen behind Intel’s after some ill-advised architectural changes, acquisitions, and manufacturing problems. Intel’s x86 processor market share was 87.7 percent the fourth quarter of 2015, growing from 86.3 percent a year earlier. AMD had a 12.1 percent share, falling from 13.6 percent, according to Mercury Research. AMD has, however, made…

To accelerate developer momentum around VR, in April Samsung gave away 2,600 Gear VR kits to Facebook coders at the social network’s F8 developer conference Virtual reality technology (VR) was very much the center of attention at the fourth annual Samsung Developer Conference (SDC). The company’s day one keynote address kicked off with futuristic video clips that showcased its various VR products, including the Gear VR headset and the new Gear 360 VR camera, which lets Galaxy S7 users capture 360-degree video. The company talked up its Milk VR service, designed to help users discover compelling VR content. Samsung also announced a number of developer-related VR enhancements to its SDKs, including a feature that lets coders add the equivalent of hyperlinks within their 360 video that connect to other video…

£529 inc VAT Contact lg.com/uk Specifications 5.3in Quad HD IPS (2560x1440); Android 6.0 Marshmallow; Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor; 4GB RAM; 32GB storage; microSD card slot (up to 200GB); Dual-rear cameras 16/8Mp with OIS and laser auto focus; 8Mp front camera; 11ac dual-band Wi-Fi; Bluetooth 4.2; GPS; NFC; infrared; Fingerprint scanner; Cat 9 4G LTE; USB Type-C; 2800mAh removable battery; 149x74x7.7mm; 159g Alongside Samsung’s Galaxy S7 and S7 edge (see page 19), the LG G5 is one of the biggest phone launches of 2016 – and we’re not just talking in the Android world. It’s one of the heavyweights and LG will be looking to set the market alight with the G5’s alternative and innovative modular design. Design It’s great to see LG doing something different with the design of the…

We found menus quick to navigate, apps speedy to launch, transitions fast, and even the E-touch button sped up navigation once we’d got used to it £193 inc VAT Contact elephone.cc Specifications 5.5in full-HD (1920x1080) LG LTPS OGS screen; Android 6.0 Marshmallow; 2GHz MediaTek MTK6755 (Helio P10) 64-bit octa-core processor; ARM Mali-T860 GPU; 4GB RAM; 32GB storage; microSD up to 256GB; 13Mp Sony IMX258 camera with laser autofocus; OV8858 8Mp selfie camera; 4G LTE (supports FDD-LTE 800/900/1800/2100/2600MHz); Dual-SIM dual-standby (both Micro-SIM); dual-band 802.11a/b/g/n; Bluetooth 4.0; GPS; NFC; USB OTG; fingerprint sensor; wireless charging; Quick Charge 2.0; 3000mAh non-removable lithium-polymer battery; USB-C; 148.4x7.3x73.2mm; 145g Well, the Elephone P9000 has certainly been a pleasant surprise. Chinese smartphones tend to come in a great deal cheaper than their UK counterparts, but usually with…

£99 inc VAT Contact fitbit.com/uk Specifications 3-axis accelerometer; vibration motor; 1.4in (128x36) OLED tap display; sweat, rain and splash proof; 5-day battery life; 1-to 2-hour charge time; radio transceiver: Bluetooth 4.0; tracks 5 days of detailed motion data, daily totals for past 30 days; Bluetooth 4.0; 20-feet syncing range: text and call notifications via Bluetooth 4.0; requires: Windows Vista and later, Mac OS X 10.6 and up, iPhone 4s and later, iPad 3 and later, and leading Android and Windows devices; 32g Fitbit’s Alta is a stylish, slim wristband that will appeal to people who prefer their activity tracker to be discreet but fashionable. Design It’s the company’s slimmest wristband activity tracker yet: just 15mm in width. Like Fitbit’s Flex and Blaze, you can remove the tracker itself from the…

£114 inc VAT Contact joovuu-x.com Specifications 2.5K, 30fps video resolution (max); 155- to 60-degree field of view; MOV (H.264); N/A Wi-Fi; GPS; G-sensor; speaker; 80 minutes at 1080p battery life; belt/cap clip; car power cable with GPS module; Mini-USB; Micro-HDMI; microSD slot; 71x42x14mm These days, it’s not difficult to get hold of a GoPro clone for considerably less money than the real thing. And these knock-offs can be pretty good. We’ve previously looked at the SJCam SJ5000X, which shoots great-quality video for the money and also doubles as a dash cam. However, capturing action is its primary aim. The JooVuu X does things in reverse: it’s a dash cam, which you can also use as an action cam. Price There are two models of the camera. The dash cam…

As the old adage goes, the best camera is the one that’s with you. Since most people carry a smartphone with them just about everywhere, it’s no wonder we’re taking more photos on phones than cameras these days. And now that phone cameras can actually take decent photos and videos, we’re using them to record special events such as weddings and birthdays instead of lugging around a DSLR. But which smartphone has the best cameras? Which handset takes the best photos? Is it also the best for taking videos? What about selfies? We’ve rounded up eight of the latest flagship phones in order to put their cameras to the test and find out the answers to these questions: • Apple iPhone 6s • Google Nexus 6P • HTC 10 •…

KEY FEATURES Rear: 12Mp, 4K video, 1080p at 30fps Optical stabilisation: Yes, front and rear Front: 5Mp, 1080p video Panorama: Yes Slo-mo: 720p at 120fps Time-lapse: Yes It may have the UltraPixel branding, but the HTC 10’s rear 12Mp camera has a normal sensor. Each pixel is relatively large at 1.55µm; this and the optical stabilisation help to give decent photos both day and night. There’s an auto HDR mode along with a decent manual mode, and you have the option to shoot in RAW and then process the DNG files yourself. However, you can’t tap to set a metering point, which is disappointing. In auto mode, the HTC 10 is capable of some excellent photos and our portrait shot (below) is a good example of a well-exposed scene with…

If you haven’t treated yourself to a new monitor in a while, then now is the perfect time to do so. Great image quality is available at affordable prices, while monitors are slimmer and lighter than ever before. Here we’ve picked six impressive displays, all of which are available for under £200. They offer a variety of features to suit every need whether you’re working on spreadsheets, Word documents, gaming or looking for an all-round multimedia experience. Design and ergonomics All the displays reviewed here are roughly the same size, with most measuring 24in along the diagonal. Other sizes are, of course, available, so you can adjust your purchase to suit both your pocket and the size of your desk. With the size nailed down, you’ll need to think about…

Just how many CPU cores do you need for PC gaming? The conventional wisdom for the past few years has been four or even two cores – if you have Hyper-Threading. That convention got upended with DirectX 12’s ability to use multicore CPUs more efficiently than previous DirectX versions. But how many more? We broke out the latest gaming benchmarks to find the answer. How we tested For our tests we used the latest build of Windows 10 on a PC, with an eight-core Core i7-5960X, 32GB of DDR4/2133 RAM and an AMD Radeon Fury X GPU. To see the effect of losing cores, we manually switched off cores and Hyper-Threading while running the test. Note that as you scale back the core count on the chip, Turbo Boost reacts…

We wouldn’t usually recommend removing security, but when it comes to the computers you use only at home having to enter a password every time they go into standby mode is a pain. Fortunately, bypassing the Windows 10 password login is easy. To use Windows 10 without entering your Microsoft account password complete the following steps. START Type netplwiz in the Start menu search bar, then click the top result to run the command. Remove the tick from the box next to ‘Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer’ and hit Apply. 2 Enter your username and password, then re-enter your password. Click OK. Click Ok again to save the changes.…

Best autocue apps for Android tablets First, you’ll need to decide which teleprompter app to get. One such offering is the £2.99 Teleprompter Pro for Android, a reliable option whose counterpart iOS app was featured in Apple’s ‘Make a film’ ad campaign. It offers standard teleprompter functionality, including the ability to import scripts via Dropbox, mirror the text for a teleprompter system and control playback via a Bluetooth keyboard. A free Lite version is also available, for those that want to get a taste of the app before purchasing it. If you’re looking for a free, no-thrills teleprompter app, then Simple Teleprompter is a good option. Offering the ability to import text, change scrolling speed, colours and more, it even has a mirror mode to be used with a professional…

Microsoft is adding a new weapon to its aggressive Windows 10 push – or at least it appears that it is. The company added what sounds a lot like an advertisement for Windows 10 to its Patch Tuesday release for Internet Explorer, bundling it in with a critical security patch. The new update affects only Windows 7 and 8.1 PCs and brings an upgrade prompt to Internet Explorer 11. In its description of update KB3146449, Microsoft says it “adds functionality to Internet Explorer 11 on some computers that lets users learn about Windows 10 or start an upgrade to Windows 10.” Or as everybody else calls it, an ad. This update will supposedly put a blue banner on the IE11 new tab page that says, “Microsoft recommends upgrading to Windows…

£719 inc VAT Contact hp.com/uk Specifications 15.6in (1920x1080) 276dpi IPS LCD matt anti-glare; 2.6GHz Intel Core i7-6700HQ four cores, 8 threads; nVidia GeForce GTX 950M 4GB; 8GB DDR3 RAM; 1TB 5400rpm HDD; Gigabit Ethernet; 802.11b/g/n/ac dual-band 2x2 MIMO; Bluetooth 4.0; DVD±RW; 2x USB 3.0; 1x USB 2.0; HDMI; SDXC card slot; stereo Bang & Olufsen speakers; HD webcam single mic; 3.5mm headset jack; UK tiled keyboard; 48Wh lithium-ion battery; 384x265x29mm; 2.32kg The HP Pavilion Gaming 15 is designed for people who want to wander into a shop and get hold of a gaming laptop with as little bother as possible, and come away with plenty of change from £1,000. It’s a sensible system that knows its owner may use this as their main computer, not just as pure gaming machine.…

£359 inc VAT Contact apple.com/uk Specifications 4in (1136x640) Retina display; iOS 9; A9 processor with M9 motion co-processor; 16/64GB storage; 12Mp iSight rear camera; 1.2Mp FaceTime front camera; Touch ID; 802.11a/b/g/n/ac; Bluetooth 4.2; NFC; Siri; 123.8x58.6x7.6mm; 113g An iPhone with no number in its model name? That’ll be the new SE, which ditches the number 5 but retains everything that iPhone 5 and 5s owners loved about their 4in phones – and upgrades all the bits which are out of date. At a glance, only the new rose gold finish differentiates the SE from its predecessor, the 5s. We had expected a miniature version of the iPhone 6s with rounded edges, but instead Apple has decided to simply bring the 5s up to date. It’s clever thinking: any cases or…

From £319 inc VAT Contact samsung.com/uk Specifications 5.2in full-HD (1920x1080, 424ppi) SuperAMOLED display; Gorilla Glass 4 front and rear panel; Android 5.1.1 Lollipop with TouchWiz; 1.6GHz Exynos 7580 (Cortex-A53) octacore processor; Mali-T720 MP2 GPU; 2GB RAM; 16GB storage; up to 128GB via microSD; 4G LTE (single-SIM); dual-band 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi; Bluetooth 4.1; GPS, GLONASS; NFC; Micro-USB; fingerprint scanner; 13Mp, f/1.9 rear camera with OIS and LED flash, records 1080 video at 30fps; 5Mp, f/1.9 front camera, records 1080 video; 2,900mAh non-removable lithium-polymer battery; adaptive fast charging; 144.8x71x7.3mm; 155g Last year, Samsung put a lot of effort into upgrading its top-end S-series with the then-flagship Samsung Galaxy S6. In 2016, amid criticism that there’s not a lot new in the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge (see page 17), we can now see…

£99 inc VAT Contact devolo.com/uk Specifications 500Mb/s wired Powerline adaptor; 300Mb/s wireless functionality; wireless hotspot; 128-bit encryption; passthrough socket; 2 adaptors; 68x68x41mm; 3-year warranty Devolo has updated its old dLAN 500 WiFi Powerline adaptor kit with the dLAN 550 WiFi Starter Kit. It offers faster Wi-Fi and better wireless range. Powerline is a neat technology that uses the power cables in your home to create a home network, as if you had ethernet cables snaked through your house. This means you can enjoy much faster download times in your living room, for example, compared to using a ropy Wi-Fi connection that’s shared by everyone else in the house. Powerline adaptors are simple to set up. Plug one into a power socket near your router, then connect the adaptor to…

£1,229 inc VAT Contact dji.com Specifications 28 minutes flight time; 1 hour charging time; £129 for spare battery; 5350mAh battery; obstacle sensing system; 0 to 10m vision positioning system range; 4K (up to 4096x2160p/30fps/60Mb/s); Slo-mo, 1920x1080 at 120fps; 12Mp stills resolution; single shot, burst shooting 3/5/7 shots; auto exposure bracketing (AEB) 3/5 frames; bracketed frames at 0.7EV bias; time-lapse max ascent/ descent 6- and 4m/s; max speed 20m/s (Sport mode); 1.38kg The Phantom 4 was something of a surprise, launched not even a year after the first Phantom 3 models: the Pro and Advanced. In fact, it has only been mere weeks since the Phantom 3 4K was unveiled at CES 206, but the Phantom 4 has quite a few nifty tricks up its sleeve that’ll tempt you. It’s…

KEY FEATURES Rear: 12Mp dual camera, 1080p at 60fps Optical stabilisation: No Front: 8Mp, 1080p video Panorama: Yes Slo-mo: 720p at 120fps Time-lapse: Yes The highlight of the Huawei P9 is undoubtedly its cameras – all three of them. The rear dual-camera arrangement is a tie-in with Leica, although the hardware is actually manufactured by Sunny Optical Technology in China with Leica’s say so. One of the rear cameras has a standard RGB sensor, while the other is monochrome. Images are taken with both cameras and combined to give better light sensitivity, but you can shoot high quality black-and-white photos using only the mono camera. The camera app has been influenced heavily by Leica and has plenty of options including a manual mode and the option to shoot in RAW…

KEY FEATURES Rear: 23Mp, 4K, 1080p at 60fps Optical stabilisation: No Front: 5Mp, 1080p video Panorama: Yes Slo-mo: 720p at 120fps Time-lapse: Yes Sony makes the sensor for the Z5’s 23Mp camera, but somehow the Z5 gets it wrong on quite a few levels. While some – notably DxOMark – rate the Z5 very highly, we’ve tested both the Z5 and Z5 Premium and come to very different conclusions. First up, that massive megapixel rating. Sony has been cagey about revealing specific details about the sensor and the phone defaults to 8Mp so you have to actively change it to 23Mp. And as you can plainly see from our landscape comparison crops, there’s less detail in the Z5’s photo than you get from phones with 12Mp cameras. Really, that high…

Everyone wants a faster PC or laptop. If you are reading this, then the chances are that you have one of only a few needs. Perhaps you have a relatively new PC or laptop that works fine, but you would like it to be faster. That may be for general use, or something specific such as browsing the web or gaming. Or possibly you have an older PC or laptop that used to be fine but now crawls. In order to speed up your laptop or PC you first need to know what’s slowing it down. In many cases, you can restore performance by uninstalling buggy applications, checking there are no viruses causing problems, clearing out junk files and defragging the hard drive, and performing hardware upgrades such as increasing…

Flickr recently announced that its very useful Uploader feature, one that allows you to back up entire photo libraries from Dropbox, iPhoto, local hard drives and other services, would no longer be available for free accounts. You can still, of course, upload images to the site, but this will now be achieved manually rather than by the conveniently automated way that Uploader allowed. Before you move all your photos though, it’s worth considering the fact that Flickr still continues to offer 1TB of free storage for your images, and any photos you take on your mobile devices will still automatically upload if you have the feature turned on. The Pro account is hardly a rip-off either, as it offers the Uploader, no ads, advanced stats regarding who is viewing your…

It used to be DVDs and now it’s on-demand movies streamed online, but all of us will have at some point sat down with friends to enjoy a film. Previously your friends needed to be in the same room to share a Netflix movie; now you can watch and chat about the same film wherever you are. Netflix Party is a Chrome extension that allows you to watch the same film as your friends at exactly the same time and chat onscreen while you do so. It’s not flawless – for instance, we were unable to see which of our friends we were chatting to without asking who they were – but if you are the kind of person who can’t watch a film without discussing the plot line it…

The message has trickled down in speeches, earnings calls, and analyst presentations, but Intel chief executive Brian Krzanich has drawn a line in the sand: Intel is not a PC company any more. In what can only be called a manifesto of Intel’s new values, he has described how Intel is transforming itself “from a PC company to a company that powers the cloud and billions of smart, connected computing devices.” To drive the point home, Krzanich noted that the PC is just one among many connected devices. What might be called the ‘new’ Intel will be built upon five pillars, he said: • The cloud, including servers, data centres, and virtualisation • Connected ‘things’, such as sensors, autonomous vehicles or PCs • An evolving memory business, from 3D XPoint…

The Galaxy S7 edge offers a rating of IP68, which means it’s totally dust tight and can be submerged in up to 1.5m of water for up to 30 minutes From £639 inc VAT Contact samsung.com/uk Specifications 5.5in Quad HD display (1440x2560); Android 6.0 Marshmallow; Dual curved edge display; Exynos 8890 octa-core processor; 4GB RAM; 32GB internal storage; microSD card slot (up to 200GB); 12Mp rear-facing camera with OIS; 5Mp front camera; fingerprint scanner; heart-rate monitor; 11ac dual-band Wi-Fi; Bluetooth 4.2 with aptX; GPS; NFC; 4G LTE Cat 9; 3600mAh non-removable battery; IP68 dust and waterproof rating; 73x151x7.8mm; 157g Samsung has played around with a few smartphones with curved screens and what at first felt like a gimmick is now a legitimate technology. Although the Galaxy S6 is the best…

£286 inc VAT Contact xiaomi-mi.com Specifications 5.15in full-HD (1920x1080, 428ppi) IPS display, Gorilla Glass 4; MIUI 7 (based on Android Marshmallow); 1.85GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 64-bit quad-core processor; Adreno 530 graphics; 3/4GB RAM; 32/64/128GB storage (no microSD); Dual-SIM dual-standby (2x Nano-SIM); 4G LTE bands 3 and 7; dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi; Bluetooth 4.2; GPS and GLONASS; NFC; IR blaster; 16Mp Sony IMX298 camera with dual-LED flash; 4Mp selfie camera with f/2.0 aperture and large 2µm pixels; USB-C; 3000mAh non-removable battery with Quick Charge 3.0; 144.55x69.2x7.25mm; 129g Xiaomi’s phones are rare sightings in the UK, but the company’s market dominance in China and increasingly India means many more people are starting to hear of Xiaomi. Not officially sold here, the only way you’ll get your hands on one is through unofficial channels.…

The keyboard is a scaled down version of the larger iPad Pro’s, and the smaller (very small) keys make it fiddly to touch type on From £499 inc VAT Contact apple.com/uk Specifications 9.7in (2048x1536, 264ppi) LED-backlit Multi-Touch display; iOS 9 (able to use all iOS 9 tablet features, including Split View); Apple A9X processor with M9 coprocessor; 32/128/256GB onboard storage; Touch ID fingerprint sensor; four-speaker audio; Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band with MIMO; Bluetooth 4.2; 12Mp (rear-facing) with True Tone flash; 5Mp (front-facing) with Retina flash; Smart Connector; 170x240x6.1mm; 437g (Wi-Fi-only model) or 444g (Wi-Fi plus cellular) The new 9.7in iPad Pro combines the best of the larger, original 12.9in model with the size and style of the Air 2, and adds some impressive new technology and features. But does it…

From £179 inc VAT Contact hivehome.com System requirements One free ethernet port on router; mains socket; broadband internet Historically thermostats were small, uninspiring boxes installed by a plumber, set to 21 degrees and largely forgotten. British Gas (the maker of Hive) is known for many positive things but style, until Hive 2, has never been one of them. Whoever said “Hive needs a world class designer” and hired the external team at FuseProject (led by Yves Béhar) deserves a promotion. It’s one of the best-looking smart thermostats on the market. When inactive it has a glass mirror-like surface; touching the dial illuminates the device with space-age controls. Who can use Hive Just about anyone with a boiler can have Hive installed. You don’t need to be a British Gas…

From £31 inc VAT Contact lego.com/en-gb Specifications PC; Nintendo 3DS/Wii; PlayStation 3, 4, Vita; Xbox 360/One You might be feverishly awaiting the launch of Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but Lego Marvel’s Avengers is more than just a decent game to tide you over. You start out at the beginning of Age of Ultron, then jump into the storyline of Avengers Assemble. As well as covering these films, Lego Marvel’s Avengers combines elements from Captain America: The First Avenger, Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World and Captain America: The Winter Soldier – and not in a way that makes sense. It’s perhaps a little too much to fit into one game and doesn’t make for the smoothest playing experience. While this is a downside, the game makes…

KEY FEATURES Rear: 16Mp + 8Mp wide-angle, 4K and 1080p at 30fps (both cameras) Optical stabilisation: Yes (both rear cameras) Front: 8Mp, 1080p video Panorama: Yes Slo-mo: 720p at 120fps Time-lapse: Yes Although the G5 is modular and allows you to plug in a separate camera, the built-in cameras are very capable. One is a ‘standard’ 16Mp offering, which is slightly unusual in that it has a 16:9 sensor rather than the typical 4:3, and the other is an 8Mp camera, with a 135-degree wide-angle lens. It’s easy to swap between the cameras is all the shooting modes in which they’re available, and while the wide-angle offering doesn’t even come close to the main camera for quality, it opens up a whole load of interesting shooting options which would either…

KEY FEATURES Rear: 16Mp, 4K, 1080p at 30fps Optical stabilisation: Yes Front: 4Mp, 1080p video Panorama: Yes Slo-mo: 720p at 120fps Time-lapse: Yes Xiaomi takes the cameras seriously on the Mi 5 and uses a 16Mp Sony sensor and a sapphire cover for the main camera. It has what the Chinese company calls 4-axis optical stabilisation and can record video at 4K. It has its limits, though. There’s no 1080p60 mode and slo-mo is a mere 120fps at 720p. But these minor gripes aside, this is a surprisingly good camera on a phone that’s half the price (or less) than the other flagships on test here. The app is a little confusing at first because you have to swipe in from the left to change modes and options. Also, settings…

Most of us are pretty familiar with WhatsApp Messenger. You install the app on your handset, verify it with your phone number, then get busy sending free texts and picture messages over Wi-Fi. But you can also make calls using WhatsApp. Or, at least, some of us can. If you’ve ever shopped around for a better phone tariff and put a new SIM in your phone without transferring your old number to it (this applies to those of you with ‘disposable’ PAYG SIMs), you may find that people are having trouble getting hold of you. This is because WhatsApp lists your old number rather than your new one, and your friends will be able to see your account only if they keep your old number on their phone or have…

The best way to see what you’re publicly sharing is to put yourself in the public’s shoes. Go to your profile page, tap the three-dot icon on your cover photo and choose View as. By default, you will see your Facebook profile as seen by a random member of the public with whom you’re not friends, but you can also click ‘View as specific person’ if there is a certain friend for whom you have limited your posts (see below). If you’re not happy with what you see, follow the tips below to secure your Facebook profile. Don’t accept all Friend requests: If you don’t know them, don’t add them. It’s worth going through your friends list every so often and weeding out all the randoms. Keep an eye on…

Amazon Video is increasingly a better alternative to Netflix, especially if you want to download shows and watch them offline. Previously you could do this only on Amazon’s tablets and phone, but these days you can use an Android phone or tablet. You’ll need to jump through a few hoops though, and here we’ll explain what you need to do to get the Amazon Video app and start watching. You won’t find the app in the Play store. Instead, open a web browser and head to tinyurl.com/ocq2zym where you can install the Underground app. This gives you access to ‘truly free’ apps and games on Android with no-in app purchases. You may have to change a setting to allow your phone to download apps from unknown sources, but Amazon Underground…