Table of contents for October 2016 in Computer Shopper

THE SUMMER IS flying by, as it always does, and soon it will be the traditional back-to-school/work panic before normal routines resume come September. This is often the time when parents, grandparents or other kindly and generous relatives are put upon to invest in a shiny new laptop for their offspring to start the new school or university year with. But it’s also a good time for us all to consider upgrading from our current model to a newer machine, as there are some great deals to be had. To save you wading through countless competing websites offering price cuts and daily deals, we’ve done the leg work for you with our mammoth laptops group test. From the dozens of latest models we tested, we’ve chosen the 22 best, along…

BEEN SOLD A PUP Your article about potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) (Shopper 342) details what they are and how they’ve developed over time. It’s plain that their aim is to disrupt the user’s enjoyment and legitimate use of both the web and their computer. You say that if we don’t untick the tick box, we’re agreeing to the installation. My own experience is that the pop-up with the tick box is generally only onscreen for a fraction of a second, disappearing so quickly it is impossible to click to untick regardless of how quickfingered or observant you are, or it is covered up by a further pop-up window with the download you were actually waiting for. You also say that installers now use Open Candy to do the installation for…

THIS MONTH I’ve been speaking with a team of researchers in the anti-virus testing industry, whose job is to surf the internet with unprotected (usually virtual) machines. It will come as no surprise that they find a ton of bad stuff out there just waiting for a chance to latch on to the unwary. However, what is surprising is that, at the moment, the majority of malware being discovered is of one particular flavour, and the flavour of the month is ransomware. This type of malware has received a lot of publicity over the past couple of years and its various iterations have seen a concerted effort by the security industry to provide a solution. According to F-Secure chief research officer Mikko Hypponen, who spoke at this year’s InfoSec conference,…

Florida, USA Burglar bungles getaway via Facebook Don’t panic if you can hear a rustling sound; it’s just the noise of people everywhere using dictionaries to remind themselves what the word ‘schadenfreude’ means. Here we are laughing at the misfortune, or rank stupidity, of a Floridian burglar, who bragged about his efforts on Facebook. Someone once said criminals always return to the scene of the crime, but flagging them up on social media, leading to their arrest, is the kind of face-palm that leaves a lasting mark. Halifax, Canada Reddit, where’s my troosers? A man who got drunk at his gran’s 80th birthday party and lost his trousers turned to Reddit to locate them. “I lost my pants Friday night. They’re charcoal Calvin Klein chinos. Inside my pants are my…

VERDICT It’s not amazing value, but this water-cooled PC delivers strong performance in soft tones YOU CAN PROBABLY guess what PC Specialist’s Liquid Series PCs are all about, even before peeking inside at all the red tubes. While the water-cooled series is customisable (including the coolant colour), we were sent a system based around the ‘Mid Kit’ configuration: a single radiator, reservoir and pump each, plus an Intel Core i5-6600K and an 8GB GeForce GTX 1070 GPU from EVGA. That’s the kind of processing power you’d find in an upper-mid-range rig, but at £1,799, it’s even more expensive than the Palicomp i7 Predator (see page 30), and that comes with significantly higher specs. The open-loop liquid cooling system is the clearest contributor to that high price. Fortunately, it works a…

VERDICT With its blistering speed, incredible battery life and mid-range price, the OnePlus 3 is a true flagship killer ONEPLUS PHONES HAVE always been great, but – at least at first – you always needed an invite in order to buy one. That system has, thankfully, been ditched for the OnePlus 3, which is fantastic news considering this is one of the most powerful handsets on the market. Armed with a quad-core 2.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 chip and a massive 6GB of RAM, the OnePlus 3 is just as well equipped as the LG G5 and HTC 10, despite costing just £329. This begs the question of why you’d pay hundreds more for its rivals; indeed, not only does OxygenOS (based on Android 6.0.2) feel lightning fast on the OnePlus…

VERDICT A great concept expertly realised, the Canon G7 X Mark II is very close to perfection THE CANON G7 X was our favourite camera of 2015. With its 1in sensor and wide-aperture lens, its image quality was a match for consumer SLRs (with their kit lenses at least), yet it was small and light enough to slip into a trouser pocket. Since then, the market for 1in sensor CSCs has picked up in pace, and we’ve seen a number of great cameras, including the 10x zoom-equipped Panasonic TZ100 (Shopper 341), the 4K-capable Sony RX100 IV (338) and Canon’s own G9 X (340). Now, Canon hopes to up the ante yet again with the G7 X Mark II. The improvements are relatively subtle: it has a faster processor, a proper…

VERDICT Fantastic for games, but image artefacts in Windows apps make this a poor all-rounder WHEN 24in, FULL HD screens can be bought for as little as £100, you may be wondering how ViewSonic can justify the XG2401’s £248 price. The answer is a slew of gaming features, including a 144Hz refresh rate, a 1ms response time, pixel overdrive to reduce motion blur and support for AMD FreeSync. It’s seriously well made. The plastics in the screen surround and stand feel tough, and the industrial-feeling stiffness in the adjustment mechanisms means the panel will stay exactly in the position you want. There’s plenty of tilt, height and rotation adjustment, too. The base sits on a rotating disc, making it easy to rotate the entire monitor, but we’d prefer the stand…

VERDICT The E700M headphones are great value, very comfortable and sound superb IT’S NOT OFTEN that you see high-resolution support for in-ear headphones under £100, but that’s precisely what you get with Onkyo’s E700M. They’re also beautifully designed. Onkyo has used a semi-closed design for the E700M, with a small grille at the top to help with the low-end bass performance. Sound leakage isn’t a problem. The twisted wire cable looks rather thin, but feels robust, and its contrasting colour scheme makes the E700M look more like professional in-ear monitors than £75 headphones. The E700M is one of the most comfortable pairs of in-ear headphones we’ve worn, thanks to its dual earbud-like structure. It has three pairs of standard silicone tips of varying sizes (or one pair of Comply foam…

VERDICT Fast, flexible and fairly economical, the HL-L6300DWT is let down only by some slightly iffy graphics IF YOU JUST want to print lots of plain black text, nothing beats a mono laser. Brother’s HL-L6300DWT is built to chuck out a lot of text: it comes with 8,000 pages’ worth of toner, has three paper inputs totalling 1,090 sheets, and can spew out a claimed 46 pages per minute (ppm). It’s clearly overkill for a typical home office, but it could be perfect for a small company or workgroup. The boxy, grey HL-L6300DWT comprises the main HL-L6300DW printer with its 520-sheet paper cassette and 50-page multipurpose feed, and a second 520-sheet cassette on to which you simply drop the printer. On top is a 250-page output bin, and a fold-down…

VERDICT A competent Wi-Fi repeater let down only by the lack of Devolo trademark features DEVOLO HAS ALWAYS claimed that its Powerline products are ‘better than a repeater’, so it’s strange that its newest product is a Wi-Fi repeater. On paper, the specs are good. It comes with dual band, 802.11ac (as well as b/g/n), four internal antennas and a Gigabit Ethernet port for good measure. It’s also sleeker than the rather blocky design of the German company’s usual efforts. We also love the five-segment signal meter in classic white light without irritating blinking LEDs. Setup turned out to be a faff. Repeated attempts to set it up over Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS), which should be as simple as pushing one button on the router and another on the repeater,…

VERDICT A step up from the last few Lego games, The Force Awakens is a welcome return to form for the franchise THE LEGO GAMES began in the Star Wars universe, so there has been much anticipation about TT Games’ grand return to this world. Thankfully, it’s been worth the wait. For a series that’s often accused of simply re-skinning those first Star Wars games with whatever blockbuster heroes happen to be in the cinema that summer, there’s a nice selection of new ideas here. Star Wars classic blaster battles are better captured now you can head for cover. While a little clunky, it’s great to see your little Lego characters duck behind cover from incoming fire, having to dispatch enemy foes one by one. SPACE ODDITY The introduction of…

VERDICT The Dell Inspiron 11 is a well-built budget laptop but it’s let down by its terrible screen FOR A BUDGET system, Dell’s Inspiron 11 is surprisingly well put together. As you’d expect at this price, there’s an abundance of plastic and some flex in the screen, but the chassis is fairly rigid and – at 1.2kg – it’s practical to carry around without undue strain. The touchpad, too, is generously sized and supports configurable multitouch gestures. The keyboard isn’t great for extended use, though – the chiclet keys are a reasonable size, but lack travel, feedback and a comfortable action. Inside is a dual-core 1.6GHz Intel Celeron N3050 processor, paired with just 2GB of RAM and 32GB of eMMC storage. Unsurprisingly, this is not a system for strenuous work,…

VERDICT A welcome premium Chromebook option, but the top-end model is highly expensive DELL’S CHROMEBOOK 13 is one of the new breed of ‘premium’ Chromebooks that started to appear after Google introduced the Chromebook Pixel. Prices start at £405 for an Intel Celeron 3205U model with 16GB of storage and 4GB of RAM, but we tested the top-end model, which offers a dual-core 2.3GHz Intel Core i5-5300U, 32GB of storage and 8GB RAM for £756. That’s a lot of money for what is essentially a souped-up internet browser. All models share the 13.3in 1,920x1,080 resolution display, but this can’t match the Pixel’s 2,560x1,700 display. Google’s laptop has superior internals as well, packing a Core i7 processor, 16GB RAM and 64GB of storage. Dell makes up for this with its premium…

VERDICT A faster processor and better battery life means you can finally justify the purchase THE MACBOOK IS back, retaining the things that made the 2015 model brilliant while adding a quicker Core M processor, faster RAM and a faster SSD. The 13.1mm thick aluminium chassis is both beautiful and sturdy, and at just 920g, we could comfortably hold it by one corner without fear of dropping it. The new MacBook has only two ports: a 3.5mm headphone jack and a USB Type-C port. This lack of connection options takes some getting used to, as does the shallow stroke of the keys, but there’s still enough feedback for fast, accurate typing. We love the individual LED backlighting, too. The Force Touch trackpad is Apple’s best trackpad yet. It uses haptic…

VERDICT The Yoga 900 has a Skylake processor and a subtle design, but it faces tough competition IT WOULD BE remiss to talk about the Yoga 900, Lenovo’s ultra-slim, ultra-light (1.29kg) convertible, without addressing its signature watchband hinge. While no longer cutting edge, it certainly looks interesting, and has been improved on previous Lenovo models to deliver a smoother action when opening, closing or rotating the lid 360˚. Other additions include a leather palm rest – soft, but likely to get scruffy in a couple of years – and a larger touchpad. However, this still feels too small and, worryingly, left-clicks sometimes failed to register. They keyboard, too, is far from the best at this price; keys have very little travel, making them unpleasant to type on, and the Shift…

VERDICT It’s huge, heavy and expensive, but the ROG G752VY is an absolute gaming monster YOU WON’T BE taking the Asus ROG G752VY anywhere in a hurry, what with its huge footprint of 416x322x45mm and colossal weight of 4.4kg. Still, it manages to feel distinctly premium, not least because of its PC-grade components: a quad-core 2.7GHz Intel Core i7-6820HK, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M graphics chip and 32GB of DDR4 RAM. It was no surprise that the ROG G752VY achieved an excellent 117 overall score in our 4K benchmark, nor that it averaged 80fps in Dirt Showdown running at 1,920x1,080 on Ultra settings. In Metro: Last Light Redux, it managed 65fps with Very High settings and SSAA disabled, a very competitive showing. Happily, the keyboard is very comfortable to use…

VERDICT The iPad Pro is powerful, flexible and has an amazing screen, but it won’t suit everyone THIS IS DEFINITELY one of the more tablet-leaning 2-in-1s in this group test, but then the iPad Pro is much more than just an oversized iPad Air 2 – though they do share a whopping 2,732x2,048 resolution. Indeed, the iPad Pro’s 12.9in display offers much more room for single applications, or two programs running side-by-side, and image quality is top-notch; we measured an excellent 98.2% sRGB colour gamut coverage, and above-average brightness of 393cd/m2. A contrast ratio of 1,552:1 is fantastic, and a black point of 0.25cd/m2 is one of the lowest we’ve seen from a non-OLED display. iOS isn’t the best operating system for getting serious work done, but it is improving…

VERDICT A decent first attempt at a 2-in-1 hybrid from Samsung, but it’s not without its flaws SAMSUNG SEEMS TO have looked inwards when designing the TabPro S. Its 12in, 2,160x1,440 Super AMOLED display uses the same type of panel as its Galaxy smartphones, and its rich, vibrant colours really jump out of the screen. The 4:3 aspect ratio is unorthodox for a Windows device, but it does make for more comfortable web browsing or document editing. Super AMOLED means the TabPro S has top-notch image quality, including pure 0.00cd/m2 blacks and a perfect 1:1 contrast ratio. Even its colour accuracy is almost perfect thanks to its 99.5% sRGB colour gamut coverage and Delta-E of 1.75. Brightness is very high at 363.4cd/m2, and its 2,160x1,440 resolution leaves images and text…

A LITTLE OFF THE TOP In 2015 a South Korean woman who was sleeping on the floor found herself being eaten hair-first by her iRobot Roomba automatic vacuum cleaner. Reports at the time said it took 30 minutes to separate the victim from her attacker, and that she lost some hair in the altercation. The 52-year-old victim was reportedly distressed at waking up and finding herself entangled in this way. She probably doesn’t sleep on the floor any more. Many saw this as a peak into our dystopian future. TAY OR LEAVE IT Microsoft’s Tay experiment with artificial intelligence was derailed by people, but while it was live, the project was something of a nightmare for the company. The AI bot was supposed to learn from communication with people, but…

WE MAY BE a few years away from a full-on robot butler, but specialised robots that focus on one task are here and ready to help, taking over some of life’s more mundane jobs. Top of that list for many is vacuuming, which is a thankless task at the best of times. While robot vacuum cleaners have been around for a while (including the hair-eating iRobot Roomba, page 112), the reality has not lived up to the promise, with most models little more than automated dusters. Until now: step forward the Dyson 360 Eye. Tall story About the same size as a cake tin, the 360 Eye is taller than previous robot cleaners, but not as wide. This means it won’t fit under some furniture, but it can squeeze into…

Fifteen minutes of fame in Excel Q I’m keeping track of how long particular jobs take in Excel, and I need to have the answer calculated to the nearest 15 minutes because that’s the smallest amount of time we charge for. The information isn’t coming in as proper times, just 0730 type of entry. I don’t really know how to go about the various stages; I could probably work out rounding if it wasn’t working with times, but I’m stumped. Julian Kent A The main thing to work out is if you want the answer to be calculated in terms of hours and decimal parts of hours (1.5 hours being 90 minutes), or as hours and minutes (1:30 being 90 minutes). If you’re planning on using the answer for a…

Clive Webster has been tinkering with computers ever since Windows 98 forced him to manually install his drivers clive@computershopper.co.uk WITH A £17 CamJam kit, a Raspberry Pi and a few odds and ends you’ve probably already got lying around, you can make an autonomous robot to whizz around the kitchen floor. Best of all, the kit is designed to be used by children so there’s no soldering required – just plug-in components and screw-down connections. CamJam provides online worksheets to take you from a box full of bits to a fully working robot, but we found these a touch long-winded. There are also a few intentional mistakes, presumably because debugging code is fun. Or possibly to instill the next generation with a healthy scepticism for experts. We show you the…

Madeline Bennett “Rick Deckard. All robots should look like Harrison Ford c1980. And yes, he was a replicant/andy” Seth Barton “Me GRIMLOCK, me KING – all other robots are scrap!” Katharine Byrne “K9 from Doctor Who – who says robots can’t be man’s best friend as well?” Nathan Spendelow “It’s gotta be BB-8, there’s just so much to love about that little spherical guy” Lee Bell “Johnny Five from Short Circuit – what I’d do for his moves!” David Ludlow “Arnie from Terminator 2 – who doesn’t want a killing machine that does exactly what you say?” James Archer “Anything by Boston Dynamics. Can’t wait to see them up close when they conquer us” David Neal “Huey, Dewey and Louie from Silent Running, 1972” Chris Merriman “Marvin the Paranoid Android.…

Mel Croucher RAVES It’s an ill wind that blows no-one any good, and Brexit is providing golden opportunities for techies in the Emerald Isle There’s a crock of gold at the end of the Brexit rainbow, and the rainbow’s end is in the Republic of Ireland. As the UK continues to flail and froth, 105,000 Irish techies are quietly sipping the black stuff and waiting for a warm stream of techno benefits to fall into their waiting laps. And many, many more could soon be joining them. On the eve of the referendum, Britain’s status was above every other nation in the EU when it came to attracting inward technological investment. On the day after, the multinational gaze had already begun to flicker toward the Emerald Isle. Three days later,…

VERDICT Loud and proud, the i7 Predator will stroll through VR and high-resolution gaming AS YOU CAN probably guess from the name and recent PC retail trends, the Palicomp i7 Predator comes equipped with an Intel Core i7-6700K processor. Having been overclocked to a ferocious 4.8GHz, this ever-popular chip exemplifies the system’s more-is-more attitude to premier components. For £1,700, the i7 Predator comes with the aforementioned Core i7, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080, 16GB of 3,200MHz DDR4 RAM, CPU water cooling and a 512GB NVMe SSD, as well as a 2TB hard disk. That’s remarkably similar to the Scan 3XS Z170 Vengeance 1080 (Shopper 343), which does admittedly cost a decent chunk of change more than Palicomp’s effort – although here, the GPU runs at stock speeds instead of coming…

VERDICT An ambitious design for a £220 smartphone, but the Sony Xperia XA misses the mark THE SONY XPERIA XA might sit below the Xperia X in the range, but if you didn’t know better, you probably wouldn’t notice with the two side by side. This is a good-looking phone. In fact, to our eyes, the Xperia XA is the more attractive device: from the front, the phone’s slightly curved glass edges and narrow bezels really do look the part, and although the rear of the phone is clad in matt-white plastic, the overall impression is of a high-quality handset. Along with those super-skinny bezels, the phone is light and slim, weighing a mere 137g and measuring 7.9mm from front to back. Although there’s no fingerprint reader here – just…

VERDICT Outstanding quality across the board, the Nikon D500 is fast, feature-packed and takes beautiful photos THE D500 IS the flagship model in Nikon’s cropped-sensor SLR range. With a body-only price of £1,490, it’s fair to expect great things, and it doesn’t disappoint. The features and performance on offer have much in common with the £5,200 Nikon D5, including a 153-point autofocus system, 4K video capture, a 3.2in, 2.4-million-dot articulated touchscreen, backlit buttons and an XQD card slot (the high-speed replacement for CompactFlash), though there’s an SDXC slot too. The 10fps burst speed isn’t a match for the D5’s 14fps, but it’s faster than the 6.5fps on the similarly priced Nikon D750 (Shopper 327). It weighs only 860g, too. A cropped-sensor SLR extends the effective focal length of a lens,…

VERDICT The UE55KS7500 packs in 4K and HDR but its image quality is a little so-so for the money MEET THE KS7000 series, which sits at the bottom of Samsung’s 2016 SUHD TV range. We’ve tested the curved model, though a flat variant (which otherwise has identical specs) is also available for £200 less. The KS7500 has ‘branched feet’, similar to many of Philips’ TVs. This makes it quite different to Samsung’s other SUHD TVs, as these tend to have a central stand design. Which you prefer will be a matter of personal taste, but at least the feet are easy to set up. While we’d prefer a central pedestal stand, the separate feet do at least provide ample clearance below the screen for a soundbase or soundbar. Otherwise, the…

VERDICT The QuietComfort 35 will have you revelling in the sound of silence BOSE IS SYNONYMOUS with noisecancelling headphones, but until now its QuietComfort range has had one big drawback: the wire. That changes with the QuietComfort 35, which cuts the cord and is the better for it. Design-wise, the QC35 isn’t too different to the QuietComfort 25 or SoundLink Around-Ear Wireless II. The earcups use a wellconstructed plastic backing and the inside is nicely padded. There’s more padding on the underside of the headband, which provides enough grip that they won’t feel like they’re about to fall off if you lean backwards. The QC35 can be easily adjusted to fit your head, too, as the earcups slide up and down a rail and can rotate within their hinge. They…

VERDICT Incredibly fast and great value, the Smart Hub is a great choice for BT customers, but it’s slightly short on features THE FAST, EASY-to-use BT Home Hub 5 was something of a revelation for ISP-bundled routers. True, it was a little limited on features, but for most users that didn’t matter. However, times are changing, and with broadband and wireless speeds on the up, BT wants to be prepared, so it’s brought out a newer, faster router: the Smart Hub. As the Smart Hub is designed specifically for BT Broadband, getting it up and running couldn’t be easier: simply spring out its little legs and plug in your RJ11 telephone cable at the rear. You can ditch an older OpenReach modem if you have BT Infinity; if you have…

VERDICT The best wireless hard disk we’ve seen, but it’s still significantly flawed WD WAS LATE to the party when it came to wireless hard disks. Previous models were playing catch-up, whereas the My Passport Wireless Pro feels a lot more like a product WD has stamped its own mark on. Having said that, the whole concept of take-anywhere Wi-Fi-powered hard disks is still a long way from perfect and there are a couple of howlers that need sorting. Weighing 500g and with the dimensions of an external optical drive, the Wireless Pro manages to squeeze in 2TB or 3TB of storage. Build quality is excellent, but the outer shell feels as though it’s designed to protect the drive within, not for it to actually survive a drop. Given that…

VERDICT Combat is still rather woolly, but Catalyst’s huge open world really brings the city of Glass to life BACK IN 2008, it felt as if DICE was on the verge of something brilliant with the original Mirror’s Edge. After Assassin’s Creed shook the world of third-person action games with its smooth, parkour moves, here was a game that did all that and more in the first person. Sadly it never quite lived up to that heady promise of free-rolling, uninterrupted action, as it repeatedly stumbled over its fiddly controls, tight environments, poor signposting and a penchant for throwing its heroine, Faith, into rooms full of heavily armed guards. It was one of the biggest false starts in recent years, and we would have happily let it slink off into…

VERDICT A great Windows 10 laptop that can match its Chromebook rivals for value QUALITY AFFORDABLE LAPTOPS aren’t just limited to Chromebooks. There have been plenty of Windows-based alternatives popping up lately, including Acer’s Aspire One Cloudbook 14. Its rather bland, utilitarian design is unlikely to get your pulse racing, but it is reasonably portable, as the whole laptop weighs only 1.6kg and measures 17.9mm thick. The 14.1in form factor also allows for a decent-sized keyboard, though its shallow keys and a loud action mean it’s not particularly comfortable to type on. The large touchpad is better; it responds smoothly and its integrated buttons have a nicely tactile click action. There’s a decent set of ports, too, including one USB3 and USB2 port apiece plus a full-sized HDMI output and…

VERDICT It won’t break any performance records, but the Satellite C40-C is great for working on the move WITH A 1.6GHz, dual-core Intel Celeron N3050 processor on board, the Toshiba C40-C is far from fast. It has other advantages for its price, however: its 14in screen size makes it much more suited to working on the move than other netbook-style laptops. The chassis has a fair amount of flex, but it feels well made where it counts. The keyboard, for example, has reasonable feedback, while the touchpad is responsive and can handle two-fingered scrolling without stuttering. Its brushed metal-style look is also much nicer than the plastic of its rivals. The processor isn’t fast and the 2GB of RAM means the laptop will struggle running multiple tasks, as demonstrated by…

VERDICT The best-specced Chromebook available, but make sure Chrome OS meets your needs AT £999, IT may be hugely expensive for a Chromebook, but Google’s second attempt at the Pixel certainly builds upon what made the original so desirable. At 15.3mm it’s not the thinnest laptop, but the Pixel is still fairly svelte, and 1mm thinner than its predecessor. The weight has remained the same at a shoulder-friendly 1.5kg, making it comfortable enough to carry around. Comparisons with Apple’s MacBook are inevitable, particularly because both use USB Type-C, although where Apple makes do with a single port, the Pixel has two. With one on each side of the laptop, you can choose which side to run your power cable. The Type-C connection can also carry video, but you’ll need to…

VERDICT A stylish and well-built ultra-portable, but its battery life could be better EVEN WITH ITS strong aluminium chassis, the ZenBook UX305CA is as delightfully classy, light and svelte as its predecessor, the UX305. It weighs 1.2kg with a thickness of 12.3mm – marginally thinner but slightly heavier than the MacBook – giving you all-day portability without ever becoming a serious burden. It’s a shame the chiclet-style keyboard isn’t backlit, but it is easy to type on, with good spacing and a respectable amount of travel. The hinge rounds over and under when the lid is opened, propping the keyboard up by a few millimetres. This angles the keyboard slightly, making for more comfortable typing. There are three USB3 ports, one of which is powered with the laptop turned off,…

VERDICT Big and brash, the Predator 17 is a powerful gaming laptop with an excellent keyboard ACER’S GARGANTUAN PREDATOR 17 is easily one of the most ostentatious laptops we’ve ever seen, with its 17.3in display, red highlights and backlit red logo. Nevertheless, you can use it on your lap without any discomfort. Its huge fans and rear vents mean it stays cool under load, and while the fans are set to run permanently – and loudly – at full speed, they can be reduced to a whisper with the pre-installed software. This won’t upset performance, as its quad-core Intel Core i7-6700HQ – which runs at a base clock speed of 2.6GHz but can Turbo Boost to a speed of 3.5GHz – is an extremely competent multitasker. Together with 16GB of…

VERDICT The P55W v5 is a mighty gaming laptop, but its display and construction hold it back SITTING JUST BENEATH the P57W v5 in Gigabyte’s flagship gaming laptop range, the P55W v5 is essentially a slightly smaller version of its premium big brother. While this means it effectively puts what we liked about the P57W v5 in a smaller 15.6in chassis, it also inherits some of its flaws, most notably poor build quality. The plastic chassis isn’t exactly sturdy, and we noticed a fair amount of flex when typing on the keyboard. The upside is that at 2.6kg, it’s fairly light as far as gaming laptops go. Compare that to the mammoth 4.4kg ROG G752VY, and a bit of flex starts to look slightly more forgivable. The keyboard is at…

VERDICT A well-judged 2-in-1, but there are a fair few compromises in the push for a cheaper price IN ORDER TO create this cheaper alternative to Microsoft’s Surface series (see below), HP has had to make a few compromises. The kickstand, for example, is inelegant and fiddly to flip out, while the only ports are two USB Type-C connectors. Thankfully, HP supplies a USB-C to USB-A adaptor in the box, but you’ll need to buy a dock to hook up to an external display. Nonetheless, the Spectre x2 does come with its keyboard in the box, unlike the Surface Pro 4. It has a sensible layout and its backlit buttons provide a decent amount of tactile feedback. We wish the touchpad was slightly larger, though – it’s plenty wide enough,…

VERDICT A hybrid with a lot to love, but the Toshiba Satellite Click’s battery life is well below average WITH A SCREEN just 8.9 inches diagonally, the Satellite Click Mini is a seriously tiny device. Even the chunky bezels only increase this to 11 inches, though this does leave little room for the keyboard. Toshiba has done its best with this, adding secondary functions to most keys, including F keys on the bottom two rows of letters, and brightness, volume and media controls on the number keys, though having to press the fn and backspace keys simultaneously to use the Delete function is a pain. Otherwise, typing is nowhere near as bad as we expected. It’s perfectly adequate for entering data, even if you have large hands, and if you’re…

ROBOTS, IN THEIR autonomous and semi-autonomous forms, are probably more familiar to most people from sci-fi films and books, but their use is about to become a lot more apparent. In the UK, a food delivery company is about to start using robots to take care of the core part of its business; just one small example of how robots are being increasingly used in consumer technology. So how did we get here? Pretty slowly, actually. Automaton, or basic mechanical movement, can be seen in early devices such as clapping, cymbal-clashing monkeys, but the word ‘robot’ is less than 100 years old. It first appeared in the 1920 play R.U.R. by the Czech writer, Karel Čapek, and was used to describe a humanoid creation. It was a few more years…

IN SCI-FI NOVELS and films, you’ll probably find robots doing everything for humans. While we’re still not living in an age where super-intelligent, human-like robots are tending to all our needs, robotic technology is advancing and beginning to show its uses, as we have already seen. Technologists and organisations around the world are developing innovative robots capable of changing our lives. From getting trauma victims to walk again to delivering fast food, here are some of the ways robots are helping us, demonstrating where the industry could be headed. GETTING TRAUMA VICTIMS TO WALK If there’s one area where robots are already showing their uses, it’s in the medical world. Exoskeletons, in particular, are gaining a lot of tracking in this field. California-based tech firm Ekso Bionics has been making…

Windows 10 won’t upgrade Q I have two computers running Windows 10: an old Gateway MX8716b laptop, which I had previously upgraded from Vista to Windows 7, and a Dell Vostro 260 desktop, which had Windows 7 from new. The laptop is running the 32-bit version of Windows, while the desktop is running the 64-bit version. My problem is that the laptop gets frequent updates and indicates that it is on version 1511 (build 10586.164), but the desktop seems to get fewer updates, and still reports its version as build 10240, predating the major update in November 2015. On the desktop I have checked back through the last couple of months’ updates, and found only one update for the OS itself; all the others were for Defender and Office software.…

CONTACT LETTERS letters@computershopper.co.uk RETRO RECORDING ’Retro’ (Shopper 343) is a good start. My wife has a soft spot for her Recording Walkman, which recorded to cassette tape before the later versions you mention. I have a soft spot for the British-made Fi-Cord, but couldn’t afford one at, I believe, around £70 in 1959. The BBC was pioneering Wish You Were Here travel programmes with it. A tape speed of 7.5in per second gave it acceptable broadcast quality. The significance of the many recording machines that were appearing at that time is that anyone had been able to make pictures, even moving ones, for decades. Recording sound, however, as opposed to simply listening to it, was elusive – the province of a fortunate few with access to disc cutters or wire…

THE GERMAN LANGUAGE has a wonderful word, schadenfreude, which literally means ‘harm joy’ and is used in the context of someone taking pleasure in the discomfort of others. Not a pleasant trait, you might think, but come on, who among us has not at some time felt a flush of satisfaction when some obnoxious oik gets their comeuppance? I do, of course, have a specific oik in mind. Last week I received a phone call from somebody at Tremendous IT Support Ltd. I suspected it was going to be one of those “I’m monitoring your PC and I see you have a problem” type of scam calls, but it wasn’t. “Do you know Darryl Farrell of Tornado Services?” he asked. Well there was a blast from the past. I hadn’t…

Pokémon Go: the critters are everywhere SAY WHAT? THE WORLD HAS gone Pokémon crazy since the game went augmented reality and dragged it, and the public, into the streets. Pokémon Go is the newest version of an old game that has enthralled fans of cartoony animals for years. Usually found on Nintendo handhelds, in a variety of colours and options, Pokémon has moved on to mobile software platforms, and with an injection of augmented reality, on to roads, shops and other locations. Pokémon are cartoon creatures that were created by a chap called Satoshi Tajiri in 1995, and roundly commercialised by Nintendo, Game Freak – which Taijiri founded – and Creatures, a Japanese video game company. The name Pokémon is an abbreviation of Pocket Monsters, which was the original title…

VERDICT Powered by AMD’s new Radeon RX 480 GPU, the Chillblast Fusion Everest is immensely potent for its price NVIDIA ISN’T THE only one with big new graphics cards going on sale. AMD has launched the first of its Polaris architecture cards, the Radeon RX 480, promising vastly improved power efficiency and slick performance from its 14nm FinFET manufacturing process and nippy 1,266MHz boost clock. The RX 480 isn’t directly competing with the GeForce GTX 1080 and 1070 for the cash of top-end-minded enthusiasts, though – it’s closer to the more recently revealed GTX 1060, a mid-ranger that’s much more about bringing 4K and VR gaming to the masses, even if that doesn’t necessarily involve superlative frame rates. This is evident in the price: the 8GB model of the RX…

VERDICT Beautifully made, but its sluggish performance and terrible battery life fail to make sparks fly LAST YEAR, BRITISH smartphone maker Wileyfox took aim at the Motorola Moto G with its cut-price Wileyfox Swift; now, it’s doing the same thing to the Moto E with the even cheaper Spark. There are three Spark models available: the entry-level Spark reviewed here; the £115 Spark+, which has a larger 13-megapixel camera than the regular Spark as well as 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage; and the £130 Spark X, which shares exactly the same specs as the Spark+ but has a larger 5.5in display and a bigger 3,000mAh battery. Even the basic Spark sounds quite promising for £90, and with its slim 8.7mm-thick design and soft touch rear panel, it’s much…

VERDICT The Alba Tablet has great battery life and won’t break the bank, but its performance is lacking EVER SINCE TESCO discontinued the Hudl 2, there hasn’t been another great budget tablet to replace it. Argos is trying to change that with its Alba 10 Inch Tablet, a £90 Android slate that offers a big screen for a low price. From the outset, it’s clearly an entry-level tablet. Its simple, plastic chassis feels reasonably well built for the price, but apply too much pressure and it will bend and creak under your fingers, so it’s probably not ideal for young children, even if you do wrap it in one of the two rather poorly fitting silicone cases that come bundled in the box. Its soft-touch rear is comfy to hold,…

VERDICT The perfect screen for multitasking, if you can find it at the right price PC DISPLAYS WITH a 21:9 aspect ratio used to be an oddity, but the ultra-wide form factor is becoming increasingly common. Most monitors we’ve seen with this screen shape have been huge gaming monitors with 144Hz refresh rates or above, but relatively low 2,560x1,080 resolutions. This makes them great for fast-paced games, but not for office work, where clear text and plenty of resolution for multiple applications is vital. The Iiyama ProLite XUB3490WQSU, by contrast, is a 34in, 21:9 screen with a 3,440x1,440 resolution. This means you have almost as many horizontal pixels as two 1,920x1,080 monitors placed side by side, and a useful 25% extra vertical space to show more of a web page…

VERDICT The One Click looks fantastic and its accessories make it a great travel companion LIBRATONE’S NEW ONE speaker range comes in two forms: the One Style and the One Click. The speaker is the same in both, but while the One Style has a simple silicone frame that has a small loop on one corner that can be used as a grab handle, the Click has a frame with protruding bumpers for protection and a larger, handbag-style handle. The speaker is about the size of a hardback book, so you can easily throw it in a rucksack. At 900g, it’s not the lightest speaker in the world, but it’s not prohibitively heavy either. The touch controls are located on a large circular knob. To adjust the volume, you draw…

VERDICT It’s quick and cheap to run with great results, but it’s a shame the ProXpress C3060FR costs so much SAMSUNG’S PROXPRESS C3060FR is a colour multifunction peripheral that can print, scan, copy and fax double-sided documents. Although it looks compact enough for the home, it’s primarily aimed at small offices. Business-friendly features include a Gigabit Ethernet port for fast data transfers and a USB host function, but bizarrely there’s no dedicated port for it at the front; you need to reach around the back to plug in a USB stick. This is a quick printer – Samsung claims it can deliver up to 30 black or colour pages every minute – but there are other gaps in its specifications. Chief among these is the meagre 250-sheet paper tray fitted…

VERDICT Powerline and Wi-Fi extender in one for a cracking price, but its range is limited POWERLINE EXTENDERS are one of the most secure and reliable ways to boost your Wi-Fi network. The fact that you can get a 1200ac starter kit that offers both Powerline and Wi-Fi for £115 is impressive. Setup is straightforward, either through the web interface or via the tpPLC app for iOS and Android. It lacks flair but gets the job done. One of the joys of Powerline networking is that there’s actually a standard involved. This kit is fully compliant with Powerline AV standards, which means you can mix and match brands in different parts of the house and decide which one works best for you. You can then add to your existing network,…

VERDICT Asus’s overclocked take on the GeForce GTX 1080 manages to improve on excellence THE ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1080 OC is the first partner variant of Nvidia’s newest GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card we’ve seen. It’s an ambitious prospect: the GTX 1080 was already the most powerful enthusiast GPU around, and here Asus has upped the 1,607MHz base clock and 1,733MHz boost clock speeds to a mighty 1,759MHz and 1,898MHz respectively, or 1,784MHz and 1,936MHz in OC Mode. That’s on top of the GTX 1080’s whopping 8GB of GDDR5X VRAM, which has also had a slight clock speed boost from 10,000MHz to 10,010MHz. Asus has left few stones unturned when looking for ways to tune up Nvidia’s GPU, which is the flagship of the Pascal architecture series – the…

Chat and Communication Evernote 6.1.2 Store your notes, ideas and plans in the cloud, and synchronise them between computers. UPDATED Mailbird 2.3.18 A free desktop email client for Windows. UPDATED Miranda IM 0.10.54 Chat with friends across multiple messaging platforms, including AIM, Facebook, IRC and MSN, all from one simple interface. UPDATED Skype for Windows 7.25 Make internet voice and video calls for free, and buy credit to make calls to mobiles and landlines. Trillian 5.6 Use all your instant-messaging accounts with one application. Supports Windows Live!, AIM, Yahoo! and Google Talk. UPDATED WhatsApp Desktop 0.2.1061 A free PC and Mac version of the popular messaging app, allowing you to chat straight from your desktop instead of using the web app. Customisation iolo System Mechanic Free 15.5 Speed up your…

VERDICT A great-value laptop/tablet hybrid with an excellent battery life that won’t break the bank TABLETS ARE GREAT when you’re out and about, but sometimes you need something more versatile to get some work done. Enter the Asus Transformer Book Flip TP200SA, a laptop-tablet hybrid with the option to rotate the screen around however you see fit. At 1.2kg and 18.4mm with the lid closed, this A4-sized slab of brushed plastic can easily be stored in a backpack. The 360˚ reversible screen hinge means you can fold the keyboard round the screen to protect it when you’re not using it. The hinge is robust, but the screen can wobble in the laptop configuration. The keyboard keys are relatively small, but they have a decent amount of travel and feel responsive…

VERDICT Minor touchpad issues aside, the Chromebook R11 is a well-built, bargain laptop DESIGN IS USUALLY the biggest casualty of Chromebook cost-cutting, but Acer happily bucks this trend with the genuinely attractive and robust-feeling Chromebook R11. Amazingly, it also packs in a 360˚ hinge and a touchscreen to transform it into a makeshift tablet. The matt white 11.6in chassis is about as refined as budget laptops come, and at 1.2kg and 20mm thick, it’s very portable – exactly what you need for something that can act as a tablet. It’s a bit wanting in terms of ports, though, with just one USB2 and one USB3 socket. There’s an HDMI output, an SD card reader and a 3.5mm headset jack. There’s no Ethernet port, but you do get 802.11ac Wi-Fi. The…

VERDICT The Chromebook 14 is improved in all the right ways, but its mediocre display is disappointing DESPITE ITS COPIOUS amounts of plastic, the HP Chromebook 14 feels well constructed. It’s a little lighter than its predecessor, the 2014 Chromebook 14, at 1.69kg to the latter’s 1.9kg, and it’s also marginally thinner, measuring 17.8mm rather than 20.6mm. Otherwise, the two models feel very similar. The keyboard has the same comfortable springiness to it as before, and the touchpad is fairly spacious with smooth coating. The only mild annoyance is its super-thin Enter key, which can be easy to miss when typing at speed. The processor has been upgraded to a dual-core 2.16GHz Intel Celeron N2840 model, though the 4GB of RAM remains unchanged and you still only have 16GB of…

VERDICT It’s expensive, but the XPS 15 is the ultimate Skylake-based Windows 10 laptop THE XPS 15 takes much of what we loved about Dell’s XPS 13 (Shopper 329) – particularly the InfinityEdge display – and applies it to a much larger form factor. With bezels measuring just 5.7mm, it’s a beauty to behold, and at 2kg it’s almost as light as the MacBook. Those razor-thin bezels are accompanied by a gorgeous aluminium chassis and carbon fibre composite keyboard and palm rest; the palm rest did get slightly warm sometimes, but not uncomfortably so. There’s a decent amount of travel to the keys and the large touchpad makes good use of the available space, while responding beautifully to stroke, tap and multitouch gestures. We tested the premier model, with a…

VERDICT A powerful gaming laptop with a great screen that’s let down slightly by its mediocre keyboard THERE ARE TWO versions of Aorus’ ludicrously high-spec X5s v5 to choose from: the standard model, and this Camo painted limited edition, which costs £50 extra. For that cash, you get a certain uniqueness; every laptop is hand-dipped in the paint, so no two models are the same. Only 500 are being made, though, so you’ll need to be quick. Otherwise, the hardware is shared between both models, including the 15.6in, 3,840x2,160 IPS display. With its wide viewing angles and impressive 93% coverage of the sRGB colour gamut, the Aorus X5s certainly has one of the better gaming displays we’ve seen. Its contrast ratio of 1,286:1 is also excellent, giving plenty of detail…

VERDICT So close to being a Surface 3 beater, but the Switch 11 V’s battery life is lamentable ACER’S SWITCH 11 V is an 11in Windows 10 2-in-1 that, spec-for-spec, eclipses the Surface 3 for roughly the same price as the basic model. Acer has nailed the design; plastic construction keeps costs down but its crosshatched, faux-brushed aluminium finish looks and feels great. It’s reassuringly solid and weighs 1.46kg with the keyboard dock, which isn’t that light, but still easy to carry around. Inside said keyboard dock is a 500GB hard disk, complementing the tablet portion’s 128GB SSD. It adds a much-needed USB3 port and attaches securely with magnetic prongs. It’s not perfect, though: the hinge mechanism is too stiff to open with one hand, and there’s no quick-release button…

VERDICT The Surface Book is expensive and isn’t for everyone but it is a wonderful piece of engineering WHEREAS THE SURFACE Pro 4 (Shopper 340) is a tablet that can act as a laptop, the Surface Book is a laptop – Microsoft’s first, in fact – that can act as a tablet. The first thing you’ll notice is the caterpillar-like fulcrum hinge. Instead of bending at a pivot, the internal mechanism unfurls and uncoils, which actually extends the depth of the Surface Book by nearly 20mm when it’s opened. This makes it more stable, but does mean that there’s an exposed gap at the rear of the laptop when the lid is closed. Unusually, the screen uses the 3:2 aspect ratio, and a 3,000x2,000 resolution spread across a 13.5in screen…

WE TYPICALLY ASSOCIATE robots with sci-fi films where they play either a helpful or evil role in the plot. Although we aren’t living among robot companions just yet, robotic technology is constantly evolving and becoming more advanced. In a few years, you may be able to buy a bot to make the tea and put the kids to bed. But even now, there’s a wealth of fun, useful robots you can buy. Whether you’re a robot hobbyist or you just want a taste of what the future holds, these bots are worth checking out. JIBO £529 • www.jibo.com While you may not be able to go to your local electronics store and buy an advanced domestic bot, JIBO is the next best thing. Described as the first ‘social robot’, it…

Save our seals Researchers from the University of St Andrews in Scotland attached telemetric tags to a group of harbour seals to gather information on their whereabouts, behaviour and the environments in which they live. This data is sent back to the research unit via Vodafone’s M2M network and will be used to influence the Scottish government’s wildlife and environmental policies. Racing robots Puma recently teamed up with New York ad agency J Walter Thompson and MIT to develop a robot that can help runners boost their performance and career goals. Kitted out with nine infrared sensors, it scans the track line and monitors wheel movement to calculate overall speed and distance. Racers enter a speed/distance of their choosing, and can try to outrun the robot. Mini computer Last year,…