Table of contents for April 2020 in Tech Advisor

Another CES is in the books, and this time around, the annual techstravaganza served as a harbinger for the disruption aimed at PCs in 2020. Things are about to get funky, friends. AMD opened a new front in the war against Intel, Intel fired shots at AMD and Nvidia, and monitors were being pushed to blazing-fast new limits left and right. Laptops embraced newfound form factors. Desktops got weird. Heck, we even saw a détente in the battle between consoles and PC gamers in bold, badass fashion. We were there to capture it all. Here’s a recap of the CES 2020 reveals that PC enthusiasts need to know about. AMD vs Intel vs Nvidia Let’s start with the heavy hitters powering the chips inside the PCs you buy. After claiming…

Price: Free update The new Edge browser is here. Microsoft is pushing it out to Windows 10 PCs, a complete revamp built on the Chromium technology of Google Chrome. This review, based on a late beta version available via the Windows Insider program, is a solid, mainstream browser with a few tempting features. But it’s facing a real uphill battle. By any estimate, Microsoft’s Edge – new or old – won’t make a splash. That’s because, at least where market share is concerned, it’s Google Chrome’s world, and we’re just living in it. As of December 2019, Chrome commanded over 67 percent of the browser market, as measured by NetMarketShare. Firefox, currently the second most popular browser, captured just 9 percent. Edge’s thin market share is an opportunity for Microsoft…

It’s time to compare Apple’s iPhone to the leading Android handsets, and it should be a close race. From the launch of the first folding phone to the rise of 5G, dual screens, waterfall displays, and cameras, cameras, cameras, 2019 has delivered a dizzying array of new features. Apple may have surprised everyone with a price cut to its entry-level handset, but can it stack up to the best Android has to offer? Let’s go through the major specs and find out. The phones Three phones compete against the iPhone 11 this year: Samsung Galaxy S10+: I chose this model because it’s cheaper than the official flagship Note 10+. Also, compared to the S10, it’s a) only £100 more, and b) equipped with a much bigger battery. Google Pixel 4…

Another year, another CES in the books. Once again, the halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center were filled with folding PCs, helpful smart home gadgets, and futuristic AI dreams. But among all the hype that may or may not ship, we found some truly useful and exciting Android-related things at CES this year: 1. Wacom One In the age of tablets, styli, and Bluetooth pencils, a dedicated drawing tablet might seem unnecessary, but Wacom has other ideas. The newest member of its family of computers, displays, and tablets is the Wacom One (£359), which brings the usual Wacom accoutrements: a 13in display, pressure-sensitive stylus, an integrated stand, handwriting recognition. There’s one thing this tablet has that the others don’t, though: Android support. It’s somewhat limited (supported handsets include…

Price: £119 from fave.co/2uFG6Dn With Stadia, there are no easy answers. Every compliment I want to pay Google’s game streaming service – and there are quite a few actually – is shackled to a caveat, a complication, or a complaint. Sometimes all three. That’s a problem. The biggest problem, really. Google intended Stadia to simplify the way people consume games. No hardware. Play your games anywhere, at any time. And yet the reality, at least for now, is a labyrinth of potential pitfalls. Does Google Stadia work? Sure, under the right circumstances and with the right game. Will it work for you, though? That’s a harder question, or rather a hundred questions, any one of which could prove fatal to Stadia’s chances. Let’s dig in. The best case scenario Those…

Price: £2,499 from fave.co/2NOBuBO You can usually rely on Asus to come up with something a little different for its laptops, and Computex 2019 was no different: the company unveiled what it calls the future of laptops: the ZenBook Pro Duo, a high-end creative device that boasts not one, but two 4K displays. Thanks to a 4K OLED main panel and RTX 2060 GPU backed by up to 32GB of RAM and a Core i9, the specs are about as premium as it gets, making this a veritable portable powerhouse. With a secondary display built into the main body, the ZenBook Pro Duo is built for multitasking and heavy duty creative work – think Apple’s MacBook Pro Touch Bar on steroids – but that brings with it design changes and…

There’s a massive hole in 2020. A blind spot, if you will. Next autumn, new consoles arrive. That doesn’t affect us much on the PC side, but it does mean everyone’s playing cards close to their chest at the moment. Holding onto surprises. Keeping quiet about quite possibly the biggest games of 2020. So as we look towards the coming year, keep in mind we’re only seeing half the picture – if that. And yet it’s still pretty impressive. These are exciting times. 1. Ori and the Will of the Wisps Release date: 11 March When Microsoft announced Ori and the Will of the Wisps at E3 2017, I don’t think I ever imagined it would take until 2020 to release. Here we are though, and at least it’s…