Table of contents for August 2015 in Computer Shopper

WE’RE USED TO technology dropping in price as time goes on, but some of the bargains to be had in the world of tablets took us by surprise. Top-of-therange models from less than a year ago can now be had for the same price as a mid-range tablet, meaning Ultra HD screens and the latest version of Android can be yours for just £250. If you’re willing to put up with a still-super-sharp Full HD display, you’ll even get change from £100, and for those who must have the best, the very latest models from Microsoft and Sony really push the envelope when it comes to design. Find the perfect tablet for you in our group test, starting on page 78. After a few years in the doldrums, Microsoft seems…

HOW PCs DON’T WORK I was very interested in the article ‘How Processors Really Work’ in Shopper 329, and especially how it’s possible to build a simulated machine in Minecraft. Unfortunately, although the description of a D-Type Latch in the article was well explained, the logic diagram at the top of page 99 was wrong. The device shown in the diagram wouldn’t work as described and would transfer whatever was on the Data input to the Q output whenever the clock was at a 1, and not just on the transition from 0 to 1. The latch in the diagram passes the D input to the Q output whenever the clock is 1, and latches the current state of D as the clock switches from 1 to 0. The circuit…

Software and systems developer letters@computershopper.co.uk “THAT’S £20, PLEASE,” said the shop assistant. My Visa card went into the machine. I entered the PIN and the machine said “transaction denied”. I must be getting clumsy in my old age, I thought, and tried again. Same result. “Sometimes it plays up,” said the assistant. I tried another card and it worked just fine. Not the machine, then. I met Mrs R outside the shop and we went to eat. Out came the Visa card and in went the PIN – very carefully this time. “Transaction denied,” said the machine. Uh-oh. Then a text arrived from the card company asking me to call customer services. So I did, only to be told that I can’t call the number from a mobile. Argh! This…

THE NEXT SONY Xperia smartphone will not be called the Xperia Z4 in the UK. In a surprise move, Sony has announced that its next flagship Xperia handset will be called the Xperia Z3+ when it launches this summer, although bizarrely it will still be known as the Z4 in Japan. It’s not a huge upgrade from Sony’s existing Xperia Z3 handset, but the new phone will add 64-bit processing to the mix, two brand new colours and an even slimmer, lighter chassis. Measuring just 6.9mm, the Xperia Z3+ will be Sony’s thinnest flagship Z series smartphone to date. This is the same thickness as the iPhone 6, but the Xperia Z3+ is a little heavier, weighing 144g rather than Apple’s 129g. Like previous Xperia Z phones, the Xperia Z3+…

THREE HAS ANNOUNCED plans to extend its 4G network coverage by switching on a new 800MHz spectrum in September. Dubbed VoLTE (or Voice over LTE), the low-frequency spectrum will run alongside its existing 2,100MHz 3G and 1,800MHz 4G spectrums to help improve its coverage footprint, namely by getting those 4G bars to finally appear on your smartphone from inside your own home. Three’s 4G network currently only runs data services, so if you want to make a call, you’ll automatically fall back on to its 3G network. VoLTE, however, will enable voice services to run on 4G as well, enhancing the quality of your calls while speeding up connection rates and set up times. Speaking to Shopper, Three’s chief technical officer Bryn Jones likened the VoLTE service to the thumping…

WITH ITS CASH coming from search and advertising, Google could easily have been a very dull company indeed. Instead it has chosen to invest in a mind-boggling range of technologies, some of which may not come to fruition for decades. Google I/O is the company’s big annual event where it shows off what its engineers have being working on. Over a packed two days we saw lots of cool new stuff, some of which you can play with today, while other bits won’t reach us for years to come. The new version of Android led the way, with the first developer build of Android M being launched. The company also announced its new Google Photos service, with unlimited free online storage. Looking further ahead we saw Google’s latest developments in…

£1,300 inc VAT • From www.palicomp.co.uk VERDICT Plenty of gaming gusto, but the oversized case isn’t really taken advantage of THERE’S NO DENYING the Intel i7 Elite cuts an imposing figure. Its Thermaltake Core V51 Window mid-tower case measures 540x236x560mm, so there’s plenty of space inside. However, given its components, there’s really no need for such a gargantuan case. We could understand it if Palicomp had filled it with fans to keep the system cool, but none of the mounts in the top of the case, which can accommodate either two 200mm fans or three 120/140mm fans, is filled. The 120mm exhaust on the back and two 120mm intakes on the front are fairly quiet, though. Granted, you’re left with plenty of space for a big graphics card and multiple…

£330 inc VAT • From www.pcworld.co.uk VERDICT Despite a fair few shortcomings the Asus X555LA is a reasonable budget laptop for those with modest demands SUB-£400 LAPTOPS don’t typically excel at specific tasks but are perfectly capable of basic web browsing, document editing and multimedia playback. The Asus X555LA is one such machine, with a reasonable set of specifications that should suit most everyday needs very nicely – exactly what you want from a laptop at this price. Build quality is a mixed bag, which will be no surprise to anyone who’s used a budget Asus laptop in recent years. The concentric circles surrounding the Asus badge on the lid is a nice touch, as is the lightly dotted texture on the silver keyboard tray, but it all feels distinctly…

£140/£186 inc VAT • From www.expansys.com VERDICT The Lumia 640 XL brings Windows Phone phablets back from the dead. The smaller Lumia 640 is less impressive but still good value THE LUMIA 535 was the first phone to bear Microsoft’s name after the company bought Nokia, but it was such a disappointment that we were worried we’d never see a decent Lumia Windows phone ever again. Since then, Microsoft has clearly got its act together as the colourful Lumia 640 and larger Lumia 640 XL are some of the best-value Lumia phones we’ve seen in a long time. The Lumia 640 a big step up from its 4½in predecessor, the Lumia 630, as it has a huge 5in screen with a 1,280x720 resolution. Meanwhile, the Lumia 640 XL’s 5.7in display…

£279 inc VAT • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT The XQ2 strikes an excellent balance between image quality, compactness and price THE XQ2 MAY look like a typical compact camera but it shouldn’t be underestimated. The two most significant specifications for image quality are sensor size and lens aperture, and the XQ2 ups the ante for both. The sensor measures ⅔in from corner to corner, with twice the surface area of the usual ½.3in sensors. Meanwhile, the f/1.8 lens is four times brighter than a typical f/3.3 lens. That means eight times the light gathering ability of a conventional compact camera. The caveat is that the XQ2’s aperture quickly narrows as it zooms in: f/1.8 at 25mm is fantastic but f/3.6 at 35mm and f/4.9 at 100mm are less so. Other premium…

£2,099 inc VAT • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT Comprehensive Smart TV features make this a superb, if expensive, Ultra HD TV LG MAY BE turning its attention to OLED technology and curved screens, but that doesn’t mean it is neglecting LCD sets. The 60UF850V is LG’s latest: a 60in, 4K model that looks great before you even switch it on. With almost no bezel around the top and sides, brushed metal trim at the bottom and a curved metal stand, the TV is undeniably sleek. However, the stand’s shape, with a flat bar at the front and legs that point out at the back, gives it a rather large footprint. The brushed metal extends to the remote control, too. The revised Magic Remote places all the important buttons at your fingertips,…

£164 inc VAT • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT This headphone amp, USB sound card and DAC performs well but is bulky CREATIVE HAS PACKED a lot into the Sound Blaster E5, a headphone amp, USB sound card and DAC that’s no bigger than a portable hard disk. It has all the outputs you could need, with dual headphone jacks and an optical out port that doubles as a 3.5mm line out. The headphone amp supports headphones with sensitivities as low as 2.2ohms and up to 600ohms using a high gain switch on the side. We had no trouble driving our Sennheiser HD700 over-ears set, but it’s a shame there’s no 6.3mm headphone jack for truly high-end headphones. A 6.3mm to 3.5mm adaptor costs only few pounds though. As well as the…

€130 (around £94) inc VAT • From www.rollei.com VERDICT The Rollei Actioncam 400 is a fully featured budget action camera, but its image quality disappoints IT MAY BE boxier than some of Rollei’s other action cameras, but the Actioncam 400’s keen price makes it a tempting prospect – especially as it includes a comprehensive array of accessories as well as a camera that shoots 1080p video at 30fps. Despite the entry-level price, the 78g camera is light enough to be unobtrusive when mounted to a helmet. The rubbery exterior provides plenty of grip, making it ideal for handheld use if you take it out of its waterproof case. The case enables you to submerge the camera to depths of 40m. Plenty of other accessories are included, such as a bike…

£79 inc VAT • From www.ebuyer.com VERDICT A compact and affordable way to print on A3 paper, but doing so is a faff THE DCP-J4120DW IS an A4 inkjet MFP that offers A3 printing, which could make it ideal for those without room for a full A3 printer. It’s quite attractive and not much bigger than a typical office inkjet MFP, but the price is keen given that it includes Wi-Fi, a colour touchscreen, front USB and memory card slots and duplex (double-sided) A4 printing. The reality, however, is somewhat disappointing. To accommodate the width of A3 sheets, the DCP-J4120DW unusually loads A4 paper sideways in the 150-sheet paper cassette. This isn’t a problem, but A5 or 6x4in media loads with a portrait orientation, which could be confusing. A3 doesn’t…

£50 inc VAT • From shop.bt.com VERDICT Very fast and easy to set up – an ideal companion for any 802.11ac Wi-Fi router 802.11ac WI-FI SPEEDS have jumped considerably over the past year, although some wireless networking kit is significantly faster than others. If your broadband router is theoretically capable of 800Mbit/s or more, you don’t want to hobble it with adaptors and range extenders that can’t match these kind of speeds. BT’s 11ac Dual-band Wi-Fi Extender 1200 is rated for up to 1,200Mbit/s, so should be able to extend the range of 802.11ac Wi-Fi networks without impacting their speeds. The extender works with any router, not just BT’s. The all-in-one device plugs straight into a wall socket, although its elongated shape may mean you struggle to make it fit…

£133 inc VAT (barebones)/Approx £230 inc VAT (Plus) • From www.kikatek.com VERDICT The compact Zbox Nano CI321 is easy to upgrade and powerful enough for simpler Windows tasks LONG BEFORE INTEL’S Core i5-powered NUC arrived, Zotac’s Zbox range of compact PCs were the go-to choice for anyone looking for a seriously small computer they could hide behind a monitor or under a desk. The Zbox Nano CI321 is the latest, and the first we’ve seen with an Intel processor at its heart rather than an AMD chip. It’s available as either a barebones kit with no RAM or storage, or as a Plus model with 4GB of RAM and a 64GB SSD. The Nano CI321 CPU is a 1.1GHz Celeron 2961Y, a dual-core chip based on Intel’s Haswell architecture. It…

£50 inc VAT • From www.gog.com VERDICT A great plot, a fantastic yet believable world, and beautifully drawn characters RPG MECHANICS MAY have been purloined by nearly every game under the sun in recent years, but there’s a lot more to the genre than loot, experience points and the slow grind to god-like abilities. The other half of the equation is a fully fleshed out character, rather than just a faceless combatant. The Witcher 3 has no character-creation system, and no millions of nose, hair and eye-colour combinations. You are simply Geralt of Rivia, a hulking great slab of machismo and dry wit. Generating a hero of your own making in the typical pen-and-paper model can leave your character lacking a place in the world they inhabit. Even allowing for…

01 A basic 24in LCD monitor costs around £100. It will be fine for typical Windows work but is likely to have poor viewing angles, so you’ll need to sit straight on to achieve the best picture quality. Its colour accuracy may not be very good, though. 02 A VGA input lets you use the monitor with any PC, but the quality may not be as good as it is over DVI or HDMI. Both are digital connections and require a compatible graphics card but they avoid the need for digital-toanalogue or analogue-to-digital conversions, which can reduce image quality. A digital connection achieves the best picture automatically, so you won’t have to adjust clock or phase settings as you do with analogue connections. Many DVI and all HDMI connections support…

01 If you want to shoot simple home movies, buy a basic flash memory camcorder. This should cost around £140 and will produce decent results in most lighting conditions. Check the battery life, which should preferably provide enough power for at least 90 minutes of recording. 02 Most camcorders are described as HD, but that’s no guarantee of good image quality. Ignore the number of pixels the sensor has and concentrate on the size of the sensor itself. The smallest sensors are usually 1⁄6in, and sizes increase in fractions to around ½in. A larger sensor gives you higer video quality and enables you to capture better footage in poor lighting conditions. An alternative technology often found in Panasonic camcorders uses three small sensors instead of one large one to produce…

GETTING STARTED The download instructions on the opposite page show you how to connect to the download site. Please make sure that you type in the web address exactly as shown. You’ll need your coupon code the first time you log on. ANY PROBLEMS If you need help with any of the software this month, please send an email to letters@computershopper.co.uk. We check this inbox regularly. Please include the issue number of the magazine and your coupon code. WHY DOWNLOADS Software manufacturers have been requiring us to use online registration for some time now, but increasingly we’re being asked to provide the program as a download. In order to continue bringing you the best free software, we’ve revamped our download site. You need to use the unique code printed in…

£80 inc VAT • From www.argos.co.uk VERDICT The Acer Iconia One 7 is fast for its price and has a decent screen, but disappointing build quality and battery life THE ACER ICONIA One 7 packs a surprising punch for a sub-£100 tablet. With an Intel quad-core Bay Trail Atom Z3735G processor and 1GB of RAM, the Iconia One 7 is deceptively quick for an entry-level tablet, and its performance levels aren’t too dissimilar from our budget favourite, the Tesco Hudl 2. In our Basemark OS II tests, for instance, the Iconia One 7’s score of 869 is just 37 points behind the Hudl 2’s score of 906, so you’re unlikely to notice any difference when using its Android 4.4.4 operating system. Menu transitions are extremely smooth and lag-free and apps…

£150 inc VAT • From www.johnlewis.com VERDICT With its fast internals, excellent screen and long-lasting battery, Asus has struck gold WITH ITS NEW ‘clutch bag’ design, there’s no prize for guessing the demographic Asus wants to target with its latest MeMO Pad 7 tablet. However, despite looking like a purse from behind, this is an excellent all-round tablet for all genders, with a powerful chipset, excellent screen and brilliant battery life. It’s a slightly odd design, not least because of the two different textures on the sides, but this slim, lightweight tablet really is great for popping in your bag. Despite the size and weight the MeMO Pad 7 feels fantastically built, and its solid chassis feels as if it could take its fair share of knocks. Its sharp, angular…

From £290 inc VAT • From www.expansys.com VERDICT The fastest Android tablet to date, the Nexus 9 raises the bar for Google-powered slates WITH ITS FIRST tablet, the Nexus 7, Google provided a brilliant bargain alternative for those unwilling to spend £400 on an iPad. Larger Android tablets, including Google’s own Nexus 10, had less success against the iPad, and it appeared for a while that Google had no stomach to take on Apple head to head. The 8.9in Nexus 9 changes all that. Its 4:3 ratio display makes it more iPad-like than any other major Android tablet, and the highquality design and materials are also a match for Apple’s finest. In size, it’s a reasonable alternative to both the 9.7in iPad Air 2 and the 7.9in iPad Mini 3,…

£350 inc VAT • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT An incredible screen at a reasonable price; if you don’t need the best possible performance, it’s a great 10in tablet SAMSUNG HASN’T ANNOUNCED a new crop of big-screen tablets yet this year, but after 2014’s superb Galaxy Tab S range, we can understand why. With its high-resolution 2,560x1,080 Super AMOLED panel, the Galaxy Tab S 10.5 still has one of the best screens around, putting up serious competition to the iPad Air 2, Google’s Nexus 9 and even the new Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet. It’s also received a £50 price drop since it first launched, too, making it better value than ever. The Tab S 10.5’s screen uses a slightly different AMOLED technology to Samsung’s smaller Tab S 8.4, which has a pentile…

£99 inc VAT • From www.tesco.com VERDICT The Hudl 2 is a thoroughly grown-up tablet that’s now even better value than ever THE TESCO HUDL 2 continues to be the best budget Android tablet you can buy today. Despite there being no news on when it will be updated to Android 5.0 Lollipop, the Hudl 2 still outperforms every other budget tablet we’ve managed to get our hands on – and it’s now even cheaper at an astounding £99. Version 2 is a huge improvement on the original Tesco Hudl: it’s now bigger, faster, has a higher-resolution screen and is even more of a bargain than before. The first thing you notice is the tablet’s size. The Hudl 2 is an 8in tablet compared to its 7in predecessor. We’re seeing…

The ultimate collision between computers and reality will be when they can read our minds – and for some small aspects that’s already possible, says Professor Sriram Subramanian of the University of Bristol. “You can certainly wear a brain computer headset and you can think of a specific action that can be controlled by the computer or the system,” he explained. “But to be able to imagine you want to lift a cup and the cup lifts or imagine to move a cursor, that’s going to take some time. “We are able to detect specific signals that the brain sends out,” he said. “Let’s say, for example, you’re going down the road and GPS tells you turn left, then turn right and you’re confused because you’ve been [that way] and…

You might be surprised to learn that the number on the Windows box no longer matches up to the version number of the operating system itself. It all started well enough with Windows 1.0 back in 1985, and Windows 2.0 and 3.0 followed the logical pattern. Windows 95 changed tack from a marketing point of view, but under the hood the name Windows 4.0 made perfect sense. Windows 98 was 4.1, while Windows XP was called 5.1 (as technically speaking it followed on from Windows 2000 NT 5.0). Things started to go wrong with the introduction of Windows Vista in 2007, which was named version 6.0. The problem was that many of the mass of applications written during the lengthy XP years simply couldn’t cope with an operating system that…

Price Free/£9.99 per month (Premium+) Bit rate 1,411Kbit/s FLAC (Sonos only); 320Kbit/s; 128Kbit/s Apps Web player, Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, Windows Phone DEEZER LAUNCHED IN 2007, and with six million paying subscribers and more than 35 million tracks it’s one of the biggest services around. It’s available in more countries than Spotify, both as a restricted Free account and Premium+ for £9.99 a month. A Free account lets you play unlimited music on computers and tablets, while you’re restricted to radio channels and Deezer’s tailored recommendation service Flow on smartphones. The Free service is supported by ads, and you’re limited to skipping up to six tracks per hour. You’ll also get the occasional video advert overlay that takes over the site. It’s intrusive and means you can’t navigate the page…

Price £5 per month (Napster Unlimited); £10 per month (Napster Unlimited Plus Mobile) Bit rate 320Kbit/s; 192Kbit/s; 128Kbit/s; 64Kbit/s Apps Web player, Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Windows Phone IF YOU REMEMBER the internet in the late 1990s, you might associate Napster with obtaining music through slightly unscrupulous means. Nowadays it’s a legitimate musicstreaming service with a catalogue of over 30 million tracks. Although arguably it’s been around the longest, at least in name, it’s not as well known or popular as some of its rivals. NAPSTER UNLIMITED Napster’s subscription service is divided into Unlimited and Unlimited Plus Mobile. The latter is more expensive but provides access to mobile streaming from the Napster apps on mobile devices, whereas the cheaper plan only provides streaming from a PC. Napster has improved its…

Chris Finnamore “The excitement of playing ‘hunt the settings menu’” David Ludlow “Files opening in random and usually rubbish Modern apps “ Katharine Byrne “Fighting the charmless Charms Bar for screen space every time I try to close a window” Michael Passingham “The heroic efforts of third-party programmers to make the interface usable “ Seth Barton “How the whole OS was only usable thanks to the tackedon WIN+X command” Tom Morgan “The blatant insult to users that was the Windows 8.1 Start button” Richard Easton “The incredibly longwinded process of going from a fresh Windows 8 install to Windows 8.1”…

Do you wish your computer was faster when booting and loading applications? Thanks to Crucial, you can achieve your dream of a faster PC or laptop with the BX100 SSD. The writer of our Star Letter will be awarded one of these solid-state devices, which can be installed in a desktop PC or a laptop. This fast SSD is 15x faster than a hard disk, and will make your computer boot incredibly quickly and make applications faster to load. With 500GB of storage, there’s plenty of room for Windows and all your applications, too. PLUS We’re offering every reader who has a letter published and supplies their address a Computer Shopper ‘Ranter’ or ‘Raver’ mug.…

With more than 30 years of experience in law enforcement, our retired cop gives a police officer’s perspective on the sticky subject of cybercrime letters@computershopper.co.uk IN THE LIGHT of my experience of working with both the Met and the City of London police forces in the areas of fraud and cybercrime, it was interesting to read the comments of City Commissioner Adrian Leppard at a recent TechUK conference. Leppard told his audience that UK banks aren’t admitting the scale of the cyberattacks on their systems, reporting only one in five online crimes, and only one in five of these reported crimes receiving a proper response from law-enforcement agencies. His comments are backed up by Dr Richard Clayton, a security researcher at Cambridge University. He told the Treasury Select Committee in…

MICROSOFT HAS REVEALED that Windows 10 will launch on 29th July. Announced on the Microsoft Blog, the company’s new operating system will be available globally in 190 countries. Microsoft also reiterated that the free upgrade to Windows 10 from Windows 7 or 8.1 will be available for one year from the launch date. After a computer has been upgraded to Windows 10, Microsoft will support it for the life of the product at no additional cost. To reserve a free upgrade of Windows 10, Windows 7 and 8.1 users should look for a small Windows icon in the notification area in the bottom right of their screen. This is the Get Windows 10 App; you simply click on the icon and select ‘Reserve your free upgrade’. You’ll get a notification…

CARPHONE WAREHOUSE HAS launched its brand new iD mobile network in the UK. The service, which runs off Three masts to provide free 4G at no extra cost, aims to provide some of the best-value 4G plans on the market, with contracts starting at just £7.50 per month. These ‘Shockproof’ plans are automatically capped to avoid any nasty surprises at the end of the month. They also have a £5 buffer, which customers can view and change through their account. However, iD’s Shockproof deals only go up to 1GB of data, so anyone wanting more will likely need one of the more flexible ‘Go To’ plans. These include 12-month contracts starting from £13.50 per month. iD will also be good news for those who use their phone abroad, as its…

MICROSOFT’S CORTANA VOICE assistant will be launched as an app for both iPhone and Android, the company has announced. Although the rival operating systems already have their own voice assistants – Siri and Google Now – Microsoft is hoping to muscle them aside with the system that’s also built into Windows 10. “Part of the power of a personal assistant comes from being available on the device you carry with you everywhere,” wrote Microsoft corporate vice-president Joe Belfiore on the Windows blog. “And for people who don’t have the benefit of a Windows phone, we want to extend the advantage of Cortana in Windows 10.” Microsoft says the iOS and Android versions of Cortana will be able to do “most” of the things that the Windows Phone version can, such…

TALKTALK HAS been reprimanded by the Advertising Standards Authority for claiming that its broadband connections are “99.9% reliable”. Four complainants challenged whether TalkTalk could substantiate the claim. It turns out it couldn’t. The company based the claim on the reliability of telephone exchanges, rather than actual broadband connections. In its defence, TalkTalk said it had “measured the availability of telephone exchanges from January to August 2014, which was calculated to be 99.9986%”. The company added that “other factors beyond TalkTalk’s control might affect availability, which was explained in the promotion’s terms and conditions”. Given that BT is responsible for maintaining telephone exchanges, and that TalkTalk is only responsible for maintaining its own equipment in exchanges where the lines are ‘unbundled’, it’s hard to fathom how TalkTalk could possibly extrapolate that…

A SERIOUS BUG in iOS is allowing pranksters to crash other people’s iPhones simply by sending them a text message. Users who receive the message can find themselves locked out of their Messages app or have their phone switched off automatically when receiving the text. The message, which comprises a specific string of symbols and Arabic symbols, first came to light on Reddit at the end of May. Users who received the message saw their iPhones crash instantly. Once the phone had rebooted, the Messages app would also crash if users tried to open it. Computer Shopper wasn’t able to replicate the bug, but several reputable tech publications verified that the message was indeed effective, including The Verge and Mac Rumours. Twitter was also awash with users complaining they had…

A new version of Android would usually be huge news, but the first build of the Android M Developer Edition makes only relatively small changes to the current Lollipop incarnation, and some of those changes aren’t available in this first build. Now on Tap is a headline Android M feature notable for its absence. This takes the Google Now personal assistant and makes it accessible across the whole operating system. You simply hold down the home button and the personal assistant pops up and offers services based on the content you’re looking at. For example, if a friend sends an email about going to see a film, Now on Tap will offer reviews of the movie and places to book a ticket. It’s a powerful-looking tool, but we’ve yet to…

£400 inc VAT • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT A clever design means storage isn’t an issue for Acer’s brilliant Revo One mini PC THE REVO ONE is one of the least traditionallooking PCs we’ve seen in a long time, but Acer’s thinking that it would make a great living-room PC goes some way to explaining its unconventional design. The cuboid design and rounded corners don’t demand your attention, making the Revo One the kind of object you won’t mind leaving on display in your AV cabinet, but it’s small enough to hide out of the way if you prefer. It looks equally attractive in either glossy white or black, and Acer has kept branding to a minimum. The white activity LEDs on the top aren’t too distracting, either. The fact that…

£280 inc VAT • From www.carphonewarehouse.com VERDICT Battery life is disappointing, but for the price you get a useful camera and a great screen FEW PHABLETS COME close to matching the speed, gorgeous screen or long battery life of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 4, but you pay a fortune to own one. Big-screen phones at the budget end of the market rarely stand up to scrutiny, but HTC’s Desire range continues to buck that trend. The latest, the Desire 820, is one of the best yet. The Desire 820 takes several design cues from the Desire Eye, with a gorgeous dual-colour unibody design. There’s not a single break in the handset, despite the multiple colour highlights, as HTC has injected the secondary colour directly into the phone’s soft touch surround for…

£399 inc VAT • From www.wexphotographic.com (price and verdict based on 12-32mm kit) VERDICT Dependable and feature-rich, but the Panasonic GF7 is beaten by cheaper rivals THE GF7 IS the sixth generation of Panasonic’s entry-level compact system camera. It’s not quite the smallest – the GM5 (see Reviews, Shopper 329) takes that accolade – but at 341g and 62mm deep with its kit lens, it’s hard to imagine anyone rejecting it for being too bulky. This is thanks in part to the slimmer lens, which we’ve seen on the GM5 but wasn’t included with the GF6 (see Reviews, Shopper 310). There’s no focus ring, leaving manual focus to the rear buttons, but it’s amazingly slim for a lens with a mechanical zoom. Other slim zoom lenses use a motorised zoom,…

£442 inc VAT • From avpartsmaster.co.uk VERDICT Vibrant colours and compact size from this competent – if rather loud – office projector THIS COMPACT OFFICE projector is ideal for use in smaller rooms, and at 316x228x104mm and 2.2kg it’s easy to take on the move. The chassis is best described as plain, with a brushed black plastic exterior. The manual focus and 1.51-1.97m throw adjustment wheels produce a large image from a distance of around two metres. Vertical and horizontal keystone adjustment and a height-adjustable foot on the front make it easy to obtain a perfect rectangular projection without too much effort, although using digital keystone degrades the picture compared with setting the device face-on to the projection surface. TOP TRUMPS Buttons on the top control basic functions including keystone…

£299 inc VAT • From www.crystalaudio.com VERDICT It looks basic, but clever internals make the Teevy 6 sound great SOUNDBARS, SOUND BASES and any other speaker systems where the drivers all point in one direction typically suffer from the same problem: the audio they produce sounds right only from a single point, or ‘sweet spot’. Crystal Acoustics claims its WiSound range of audio gear, of which the Teevy 6 is a part, directs sound around a room more effectively, with no need for multiple speakers. The Teevy 6 sound base is the first device we’ve seen with this technology. It’s not the most attractive speaker to place your TV on, as it’s chunky, black and made almost entirely from MDF. It’s designed for 55in TVs, but as long as your…

£236 inc VAT • From www.ballicom.co.uk VERDICT A bassy, powerful Bluetooth speaker, but the UE Megaboom has a few design quirks WHEN IT COMES to describing the volume and sound signature of Ultimate Ears’ latest Bluetooth speaker, the clue is in the name. If your music collection largely consists of heavy tracks with plenty of bass, the UE Megaboom should definitely pique your interest. It sounds warm and impactful, and is particularly loud near its maximum volume, making it perfect for an outdoor party but not necessarily for those who want a more critical, flat sound. The cylindrical design also helps it project sound in almost every direction, avoiding the directionality inherent to some portable Bluetooth speakers. We like the look of our black review sample, but the Megaboom is…

£55 inc VAT • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Comparatively slow and basic, but print results are good for the money EPSON CALLS THE Expression Home XP-422 a ‘small in one’, which made us wince, but to be fair it’s a very compact inkjet multifunction peripheral (MFP). It’s fairly attractive, with an angled control panel featuring a colour screen and touch-sensitive keys. It has Wi-Fi and an SD memory card slot but no automatic duplex (double-sided) printing. Paper is fed from an uncovered 100-sheet tray at the rear, and printed pages end up in a simple but sturdy tray at the front. The XP-422 is more sophisticated than an entry-level device but misses out some of the features of mid-range MFPs. NFC support isn’t a major omission but there are no downloadable…

£100 inc VAT • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT A great all-round MFP for the home THIS SMART-LOOKING inkjet MFP can print, scan and make copies, but not send or receive faxes. There’s no USB port for direct prints, but it does offer SD and Memory Stick card slots, as well as support for scanning to and printing from cloud services such as Dropbox. Wi-Fi support lets you share the printer easily over a home network too. The compact design is attractive but it’s not perfect, with a very short output tray. Access to the five ink cartridges is cramped and there’s no physical keying to stop you inserting tanks in the wrong slot. These grumbles aside, this is a great device. It costs only around £20 more than the excellent Pixma…

£218 inc VAT • From www.scan.co.uk VERDICT It uses more power than the competition, but it’s undeniably fast HARD DISKS OPTIMISED for NAS devices didn’t really exist before Western Digital released the WD Red, a series of disks built for reliability and low operating temperatures. Now HGST has delivered the Deskstar NAS. HGST’s disk should have the edge in terms of performance, with a faster 7,200rpm spindle speed and 128MB of cache, compared to 5,400rpm and 64MB in the WD Red 6TB. Western Digital does sell a 7,200rpm WD Red Pro, but it’s not yet available in a 6TB capacity. HGST matches Western Digital’s generous three-year warranty, and is confident in the reliability of its disks, claiming that the disks can be active for 24 hours a day, seven days…

£94 inc VAT • From www.kikatek.com VERDICT A relatively modest update, but Lightroom still sets the standard for Raw processing ADOBE LIGHTROOM HAS been our favourite photo editor ever since we first clapped eyes on version 1. Adobe already had Raw processing in the bag with its Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) engine for Photoshop, and Lightroom packaged it with elegant library management, printing and sharing facilities. Version 6 brings relatively modest changes to the image-editing tools. It’s now possible to modify the shape of a linear or radial graduated filter using brush strokes, which is ideal for darkening skies without inadvertently also darkening the tallest trees in a scene. Lightroom has previously worked only on individual photos, but this update opens up the possibility to merge them. An HDR mode…

01 A basic laptop costing around £300 will run everyday office, multimedia and education software, but it won’t be suitable for 3D gaming. Many laptops at this price have a 15.4in screen and weigh around 2.4kg, so they’re best used around the house and for occasional journeys. 02 If you want to play modern games, you’ll need a laptop that has a dedicated graphics chip such as the Nvidia GeForce GTX 860M. Good gaming laptops tend to have large 17in screens and weigh around 3kg, so they’re best suited to the home. 03 If you want a laptop that you can take everywhere, look for a model that weighs less than 2kg. For the best portability, look for one with an 11in or 13in screen. In general, the smaller and…

01 If you simply don’t have room in your home cinema setup for a set of surround sound speakers, a soundbar is the next best thing. Whether you opt for a soundbar – which typically sits in front of your TV stand – or a soundplate, which sits underneath your TV, you’ll be getting significantly better audio than the weedy speakers today’s flatscreen TVs provide. 02 If you want to cut down on cable clutter, look for a soundbar with multiple HDMI inputs and outputs as well as Audio Return Channel (ARC). Not all soundbars use HDMI, with many making do with digital optical audio connections instead. This means you’ll have to connect Blu-ray players, games consoles and set-top boxes to your TV and run all audio through a single…

01 You really don’t have to spend much to buy a decent graphics card that can drive multiple monitors. The AMD Radeon R7 250 costs less than £60, for example, and while it isn’t suited to playing the latest games in Full HD, it is perfect for watching videos, browsing the web and playing basic games. 02 You’ll need to spend more money if you want to play games, though. A good mid-range gaming graphics card is the AMD R9 270X, which is powerful enough to play any of the latest games. High-powered cards tend to be more expensive, so expect to pay over £300 if you want to play games in Ultra HD at the highest quality settings. 03 Check that your chosen card has the graphics outputs you…

Chat and Communication Digsby (Build 92) Access all your instant messaging services from one application; there’s support for Windows Live!, Yahoo!, AIM, Google Talk, ICQ and Jabber. UPDATED Evernote 5.8.6 Store your notes, ideas and plans in the cloud, and synchronise them between computers. UPDATED Mozilla Thunderbird 31.7 A powerful email client from the organisation best known for the Firefox web browser. Postbox Express 1.0.1 An email client that provides a comprehensive array of tools to help you manage your messages more easily. UPDATED Skype for Windows 7.4 Make internet voice and video calls for free, and buy credit to make calls to mobiles and landlines. Trillian 5.5.0.19 Use all your instant messaging accounts with one application; this program has support for Windows Live!, AIM, Yahoo! and Google Talk. Customisation…

From £399 inc VAT • From store.apple.com/uk VERDICT Thinner, lighter and a lot more powerful, the iPad Air 2 is the best Apple tablet you can buy today AFTER THE iPAD Air, we wondered where Apple could go next. The answer is the iPad Air 2, which is even thinner, lighter and more powerful than its predecessor. Impressively, Apple has managed to shave 1.4mm off the previous model’s thickness, taking it down to an astounding 6.1mm. It’s shed a bit of weight, too, slimming down 32g to just 437g. Combined with the thinner case, that makes the iPad Air 2 much more comfortable to hold. Build quality hasn’t suffered either, and its precision-cut aluminium case looks just as stunning as on the original Air, giving it the look and feel…

£400 inc VAT • From www.pcworld.co.uk VERDICT The successor to one of our favourite tablet hybrids fails to keep its crown with an increased price and some questionable design decisions THE ASUS TRANSFORMER Book T100 was one of the best-value and most attractive laptop/tablet hybrids we saw last year. However, things have moved on since then and Asus’s latest Transformer Book T100 Chi has introduced a string of new changes to try and help it keep up with its latest rivals, such as the Microsoft Surface 3. However, we feel not all the changes have been successful, and it’s these questionable updates that sadly unseat the new T100 from its throne. The 10.1in Transformer Book T100 Chi uses the same basic design as the old model, with the tablet section…

£499 inc VAT • From www.microsoftstore.com VERDICT It’s expensive, but the Surface 3 is a superb Windows tablet with a first-class display WE DIDN’T THINK we’d see another Surface tablet before Microsoft launched Windows 10, so the Surface 3 comes as a welcome surprise, particularly if you thought its big brother, the £639 Surface Pro 3, was too expensive. The Surface 3 works as a tablet, but comes into its own when paired with a Type Cover keyboard, which turns it into a tablet/laptop hybrid. Unlike previous Surface models, which ran the limited Windows RT operating system, the Surface 3 runs full 64-bit Windows 8.1 (with a free upgrade to Windows 10 later this year), letting you download and install any thirdparty Windows program just as you would on an…

From £279 inc VAT • From www.handtec.co.uk VERDICT The Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact is a supremely stylish razorthin Android tablet with great performance and battery life SONY’S XPERIA TABLETS have long been among our favourites, but the Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact was the first one to shrink its winning formula to an 8in screen size. We find this size is a good compromise between portability and big-screen entertainment, but some may prefer the 4:3 aspect ratio of an iPad or Google Nexus 9, which can feel more natural when used in portrait mode. There’s no doubt the Z3 Tablet Compact looks great. It’s amazingly slim at 6.4mm and weighs just 270g, which is a whole 140g less than the 8in Tesco Hudl 2. More impressively, this tablet is 1.1mm…

£150 inc VAT • From www.vodafone.co.uk VERDICT The Vodafone Tab prime 6 is a well-made tablet, but its poor screen and sluggish performance make it one to avoid IT’S NOT STRICTLY necessary to have a tablet with built-in 4G if you want to get online away from a Wi-Fi hotspot, as depending on your mobile contract you can simply use your phone as a wireless hotspot. However, there’s little to beat the convenience of having wireless data built into your tablet, and the Vodafone Tab prime 6 is a pretty cheap way to get it. At least it is if you buy one on Vodafone’s Pay As You Go service, where the tablet costs just £150 and you can top up with 30-day data allowances when you need them. Go…

Price Free/£9.99 per month (Google Play Music All Access) Bit rate 320Kbit/s; VBR Apps Web player, Android, iOS GOOGLE SELLS MUSIC via its Google Play Store but also offers a streaming service that combines cloud storage for your own music with access to Google’s catalogue of tracks. Even with a free account, you’re able to upload up to 50,000 of your own tracks to the cloud, which you can then access from any number of devices or locations. This was recently bumped up from an already generous 20,000-track storage capacity. This is a huge boon for those looking to fill gaps in Google’s library by using their own music. Google matches your uploaded music with its own catalogue, so if you upload an album it already has available, Google will…

Digital downloads are slowly going out of fashion as more and more of us choose the convenience that streaming provides. That doesn’t mean to say it’s a completely smooth transition, though. There’s a lot of controversy around the low royalties being paid to artists from streaming services, for example, which means that not all the music you might want to listen to is available online at present. Even ignoring the issue of availability, it’s still hard to recommend a single service that will suit all needs and tastes. Thankfully, the good news is that most of the services offer free trials so you can take them for a test run to decide which is best for you. Keeping that in mind, here are our recommendations. Spotify has a good combination…

CONTACT LETTERS letters@computershopper.co.uk London W1T 4JD OPEN TO ATTACK Before typing this I read an interesting – but to me obvious – article about Wi-Fi security in hotels. Some hotels provide encryption codes specific to your room, some give a general encryption code and others use open Wi-Fi. I’ve tried to explain this to others, who don’t understand that having an unencrypted connection is like leaving your front door open. If you can get on to someone’s network, for example, you can see what devices are connected. Anyone who then connects to your network can try to access your computers, and if those computers have no passwords, the intruder will have access to your data and can install software on your computer such as a keylogger. Many users are happy…

ON SALE In newsagents from 16th July BIN YOUR ISP ROUTER A router upgrade can improve transfer speeds, eliminate deadspots and make your network more flexible. We test the best NEW HORIZONS We examine the tech behind Nasa’s $700 million mission to Pluto, and see how it will send photos from billions of miles away START AGAIN FOR WINDOWS 10 Face it – your digital life is a mess. You have files scattered all over the place, applications you don’t need and your operating system is grinding to a halt. With a free upgrade to Windows 10 just around the corner, it’s time for a spring clean, with our guide to revitalising your computing world with cloud services, free software and new hardware THE HDMI CABLE RIP-OFF It’s official. Expensive…

Mel Croucher RANTS A relationship with a control freak can soon turn sour, unless you’re the neurotic and gullible type I WOKE UP with him on Sunday morning. He’s in a band, his name is Surge, he is sleek and black, and he only charges two hundred quid to take me in hand. He came with the enigmatic instruction, “Give your wrist a rest by taking the band off every now and then. If the band gets wet or if you sweat in it, completely dry the band before putting it back on.” How very wise. Surge is the brand name of one of those wearable health apps on a band, designed to develop a special relationship between me, my guilt and my bank balance. With the Apple Watch being…

LG DISPLAY HAS shown off its latest OLED TV in Korea: a 0.97mm thick ‘wallpaper’ TV that weighs just 1.9kg and can be pressed on to your wall via a magnetic mat. To remove the TV, all you need to do is peel it off the mat like a sheet of paper. That’s pretty impressive for a 55in set, especially when LG’s current flagship OLED TVs measure 4.3mm thick. This is mainly because the wallpaper TV doesn’t have any of the traditional circuitry you’d normally find in a TV, as the vast majority of it was hidden away off-screen during LG’s unveiling event. Still, even if the wallpaper TV never makes its way to shop floors, it’s a clear indicator of where LG Display (LG’s dedicated OLED subsidiary) wants to…

NEW FIGURES RELEASED by Ofcom confirm the forthcoming merger of BT and EE will see two of the worst customer service records in the industry combined. The regulator’s latest figures make painful reading for the two companies, which are midway through a £12.5bn takeover. Ofcom has lowered the threshold for its latest customer satisfaction round-up, now including companies with as little as a 1.5% share of the market in its reports. That means EE is included in the figures for landline telephone complaints for the first time. EE went straight to the top of the landline complaints charts, recording 0.33 complaints per 1,000 customers in Q4 2014. That put it just above another a new entrant, BT-owned Plusnet. Plusnet, TalkTalk, BT and Post Office HomePhone all consistently generated levels of…

£1,049 inc VAT • From store.apple.com/uk VERDICT Incredibly small and light, without compromising usability, but the performance and price may put some off NOT SINCE STEVE Jobs pulled the original MacBook Air out of an envelope have we been so impressed by a new laptop as we are with the new 12in MacBook. Apple claims it’s the smallest and lightest laptop it’s ever made, but it’s not until you get one in your hands that you realise what this means. Thanks to some clever construction there’s barely any depth to the laptop at all, with the thickest part measuring just 13.1mm. Then there’s the weight: just 920g, which is just shy of 300g less than the 11in MacBook Air. That means you can carry this laptop around with you all…

£950 inc VAT • From www.scan.co.uk/3xs VERDICT Screen and build improvements make this chunky gaming laptop a top mid-range choice ALMOST ALL THE laptops we review from specialist manufacturers are built using the same unremarkable-looking Clevo chassis, but Scan has switched to a new, overhauled design for the 3XS Graphite LG157. The result isn’t eye-popping, but it’s thinner, lighter and better made than its predecessors, with a classy, understated design. A simple 3XS logo on the soft-touch, matt black lid is the only branding present outside, and it’s the same once you open the lid. The angled speakers are a nice touch, but lack any real bass or mid-range presence. There’s a numerical keypad in addition to the keyboard, and both are backlit with white LEDs for working in low…

£522 inc VAT (leather version) • From www.handtec.co.uk VERDICT With its gorgeous screen, versatile camera and surprisingly comfy leather rear, the LG G4 is a genuine alternative to the Samsung Galaxy S6 2015 LOOKED LIKE the beginning of the end for plastic smartphones, with both HTC and Samsung opting for metal and glass, but LG has gone down a different route. The G4 has gone full leather, using vegetable-tanned, full-grain cow hide on the rear to set it apart. The stitching down the centre is a classy touch, and the smooth tan leather provides excellent grip. It’s not the slimmest phone, but LG says customers were willing to put up with a few extra millimetres for a more ergonomic design – and we’re inclined to agree. Leather adds £20 to…

£849 inc VAT (body only) • From www.jessops.com VERDICT Best-in-class image quality and sublime ergonomics take the Nikon D7200 to the top of the pack WITH BIG VIEWFINDERS, sophisticated autofocus and metering systems, lots of physical controls and superb ergonomics, Nikon’s 7000-series cameras have always been ideal for photographers who want professional-level features but can’t justify the cost of a full-frame digital SLR. Two years after the launch of the D7100 (see Reviews, Shopper 308), our first impression of the D7200 is that little has changed. The two cameras look identical except for the name badge, Wi-Fi and NFC logos, although the layout of the D7100’s controls was superb so there’s no reason to change a winning formula. There’s no dedicated Wi-Fi button, but enabling this in the menu is…

£210 inc VAT • From www.scan.co.uk VERDICT This display for console gamers can’t deliver the image quality we’d expect at this price BENQ’S RL MONITOR range is aimed primarily at gamers, with reasonably priced panels that cost only slightly more than their non-gaming equivalents. BenQ wants the RL2755HM to tempt console gamers away from their TVs, which are lumbered with relatively lethargic response times in comparison with a decent gaming monitor. The 27in RL2755HM is somewhat underwhelming from a technical standpoint, with a mere Full HD resolution and 60Hz refresh rate, although admittedly these specifications match the capabilities of the current console generation. Its design is, for the most part, fairly standard too, with textured black plastic on the monitor frame, a glossy material on the back and a few…

£400 inc VAT • From www.richersounds.com VERDICT Gives speech a real boost in films and TV, but the Polk MagniFi isn’t designed for music TV SPEAKERS ARE typically hampered by the fact that they have to be tiny to fit behind ever-thinner panels, but they also suffer because they don’t point directly towards the viewer. Down-firing and rear-firing TVs bounce sound off walls, but this can make it tricky to hear certain aspects of a sound mix. Polk’s MagniFi soundbar not only points the speaker drivers directly at you, but has been configured to improve speech comprehension in films and TV programmes. At 960mm the MagniFi is the perfect size for a 47 to 50in TV, although whether or not it fits under one will depend on the shape of…

£35 inc VAT • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The Amazon Fire TV stick is a bargain-price streamer that excels if you’re an Amazon Prime subscriber GOOGLE KICKED OFF a media streaming revolution with its Chromecast, which launched at a very reasonable price and transformed the way we share content from our phones to the big screen. It was swiftly followed by the similar Roku Streaming Stick, and now Amazon has thrown its hat into the ring with its own a media streaming stick. Much like the Chromecast, the Fire TV Stick is no larger than a typical USB flash drive. An HDMI connection on one end plugs into your TV, and a Micro USB port on the other provides power. Unlike the Chromecast, however, the Fire TV Stick draws too much…

£79 inc VAT • From www.hp.co.uk VERDICT Looks alone don’t make a good small office MFP HP’S OFFICEJET 5740 is essentially a version of the great-looking Envy 5640 with a fax modem and a compact, 25-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF) added. It’s not quite as sleek as the Envy 5640 but has similar colour touchscreen controls and the same excellent build quality. The scanner tilts up on heavily damped hinges to grant access to the ink cartridges, while the USB and SD card slots are hidden behind a neat rotating door. The colour display is perfectly responsive, and you can use a mix of tap, drag and swipe gestures in the intuitive menu system to control web features as well as core functions. The feature set isn’t exhaustive, however, as…

£45 inc VAT • From www.ebuyer.com VERDICT A simple and cost-effective way to boost your Wi-Fi signal, but not as versatile as the competition WI-FI DEAD ZONES can be a problem if you don’t want to festoon your home with cables and Wi-Fi access points. TP-Link’s latest range extender is designed to fill those gaps in your coverage with both 802.11n and 802.11ac Wi-Fi for fast speeds wherever you are. The RE210 can extend both 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks simultaneously, and despite being limited to a theoretical maximum speed of 450Mbit/s compared with the 802.11ac standard’s current 2,600Mbit/s maximum, the adaptor should still provide a speed boost to any 802.11ac devices on your network. The RE210 is small and boxy, and plugs directly into a power socket. Its two wireless…

£84 inc VAT • From www.modmypi.com VERDICT A neat, but expensive, project printer for the Raspberry Pi THERE ARE A huge number of software distributions, project tutorials and accessories available for the Raspberry Pi. Pipsta wants to add printing to that list. The Pipsta printer is a tiny kit comprising a flat-pack case for your Raspberry Pi and a thermal printing module that slots in the top, letting you print text and images on to receipt-style paper rolls. The case is made from acrylic and slots together without screws, but it’s a little fiddly. The Raspberry Pi screws into four standoffs in the base, while the printer module sits on top. Once assembled it’s rather difficult to remove the top of the case, which could make using the GPIO headers…

£24 inc VAT • From www.cdkeys.com VERDICT Ambitious and beautiful, but not as fun nor as finished as it should be SLIGHTLY MAD STUDIOS turned to crowdfunding in 2012 to finance a racing game without pressure from the huge publishers that funded its previous efforts. In the intervening years, what started life as a serious simulation has morphed into something that more casual players can enjoy, yet Project CARS has still managed to retain its hardcore, PC gaming roots. There’s a decent, rather than huge, car list, with road cars such as the Caterham Seven and Audi’s R8 V10 Plus, fictional Formula 1 and Formula 3-style open-wheel racers, tin tops such as the Ford Sierra RS500 and GT-class cars such as the Ginetta G55 and Aston Martin Vantage GT3. All…

01 A smartphone’s operating system (OS) dictates its basic features and which third-party software you can install. There are three main contenders: Apple’s iOS, which is found on the iPhone; Google’s Android, which is used by various handset manufacturers; and Windows Phone 8, which is becoming more widespread and is a great alternative to Apple’s and Google’s operating systems. Apple iOS and Google Android have the most apps available but Windows Phone is slowly catching up. 02 All smartphones have colour screens, but their resolutions vary. Basic models have 800x480 pixels, but text can be indistinct. Look for a display that has at least 1,280x720 pixels so it’s easy to browse web pages. Don’t worry too much about built-in media players or Office document editors – you can always install…

01 A basic 1TB internal hard disk should cost around £40. It’ll be fast enough for general use and provide enough storage for most users. Make sure the hard disk you choose has the appropriate interface type for your PC. Some mechanical hard disks still come with SATA2 interfaces, but newer models and most solid-state drives (SSDs) have faster SATA3 interfaces. You’ll need a motherboard with a SATA3 port if you want to benefit from SATA3’s faster speeds – SATA3 disks will work with SATA2 ports but can only transfer files at SATA2 speeds. 02 SSDs can make the most of SATA3’s extra bandwidth for fast file transfers. They use flash memory similar to that found in USB flash drives, and although they tend to provide less capacity than mechanical…

From £319 inc VAT • From store.apple.com/uk VERDICT The iPad Mini 3 is a great tablet, but with the largely identical iPad Mini 2 available for less, it’s hard to justify the price WE’VE BECOME USED to each new Apple tablet model being significantly better than the previous generation. As a result, the iPad Mini 3 is rather a shock. It’s not that it’s a bad tablet, but there are hardly any significant changes over the company’s previous model, the iPad Mini 2. In fact, there are just three new things about the iPad Mini 3: it’s available in gold, it has the TouchID fingerprint reader, and the Wi-Fi+Cellular version now has the Apple SIM, which is designed to work on multiple networks so you can switch between them to…

£369 inc VAT • From www.dell.co.uk VERDICT The Venue 8 7840 is a super-stylish Android tablet with an innovative camera WE HAVEN’T SEEN many Android tablets from Dell; the company’s last attempt, the Venue 8 Android, was highly competent but hardly set our hearts aflutter with its design. The Venue 8 7840 is a different kettle of fish. It’s a truly desirable Android tablet, with a gorgeous slim aluminium chassis and a super-high-resolution AMOLED display. At just 6.1mm thick, the metal chassis is cool to the touch, and the rounded corners don’t dig into your hands. The screen has slim bezels on three sides, but the bottom bezel is significantly larger. This is where you’ll find two of the tablet’s party tricks: incredibly loud MaxxAudio speakers and three cameras for…

£250 inc VAT • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT A stunning screen, but the competition has hotted up since the Tab S 8.4 launched YOU CAN’T HELP but be impressed by the Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4’s display. As soon as you’re greeted by the lock screen it’s apparent the tablet has an incredibly high-res panel. With a 2,560x1,600 resolution crammed into an 8.4in display, this equates to a pixel density of 356ppi, which makes it nigh-on impossible to spot any individual pixels. The Super AMOLED display is the Galaxy Tab S 8.4’s crowning feature, eclipsing displays on other similarly sized tablets such as the Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact and Apple iPad Mini 3. AMOLED provides rich and vibrant colours, with fantastic contrast and saturation, so much so that our colour…

£499 inc VAT • From www.sonymobile.com VERDICT Expensive, but the gorgeous display, incredible battery life and keyboard make it the ultimate Android slate JUST WHEN YOU thought tablets couldn’t get any more desirable than the iPad Air 2, Sony reveals the Xperia Z4 Tablet, the world’s thinnest, lightest 10in Android tablet. Tipping the scales at just 389g, the Xperia Z4 Tablet is a real featherweight, beating Apple’s iPad Air 2 by 48g (or 44g if you opt for the 393g 4G model). It’s slim, too, measuring a mere 6.1mm, making it one of the most comfortable-tohold big-screen tablets we’ve encountered. Available in black and white, the Xperia Z4 Tablet is a stunning piece of kit. The tablet’s soft, textured chassis feels just as luxurious as those of its metallic rivals,…

Although computers have changed our world immeasurably, the relationship between what happens in the virtual and the real worlds remains stark. That divide is starting to be eroded, though. Soon our PCs will populate our homes with virtual Soo objects; we’ll be able to reach inside virtual spaces obj to manipulate digital objects; and your PC will even to respond by reaching out and touching you back. Gesture recognition and haptic feedback, 3D cameras and scanners, and augmented reality are cam blurring the lines between the digital world and the blu physical one. Soon, instead of sitting at a laptop phy with a keyboard and touchpad, you’ll be using wit natural gestures seen with 3D cameras to interact nat with your computer, with the results overlaid on wit the physical…

A long time ago, back in 1980, IBM was the top dog in computing. However, other companies’ personal computers (as opposed to the big business mainframes) were starting to appear and were undercutting IBM’s product. In response the company came up with its platform-defining IBM Personal Computer, but time was tight and so it turned to a variety of external companies for the various elements. While the processor came from Intel, the operating system was sourced from Microsoft. However, the company didn’t have the necessary code and so it looked around for someone who did. Its first efforts were to broker a deal between IBM and a company called Digital Research, but when this fell through Microsoft quickly purchased the rights to Seattle Computer Products’ Quick and Dirty Operating System…

Price Free/£9.99 per month (Spotify Premium) Bit rate 320Kbit/s (Spotify Premium); 160Kbit/s; 96Kbit/s Apps Web player, Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Windows Phone SPOTIFY HAS BECOME synonymous with music streaming since its launch in 2008. It has grown to over 10 million users, 2.5 million of which are paid subscribers. It’s also the most supported music-streaming service when it comes to multiroom audio and media streamers. Spotify does lots exclusive work with performers, so is a potential goldmine for those looking for live performances as part of its ‘Spotify Sessions’ series. Spotify Free, as the name implies, costs nothing and is instead ad-supported on PCs. You’re able to create and listen to playlists and albums, but you’ll intermittently hear adverts between tracks, which can rather kill the party, or your romantic…