Содержание выпуска: June 2016 — Tech Advisor

It seems that AMD hasn’t truly said goodbye to mobile devices. According to Raja Koduri, senior vice president and chief architect of AMD’s Radeon Technologies Group, the company is open to making a graphics processor for mobile devices based on its Radeon product line, but only in select circumstances. AMD could make a mobile GPU as part of a partnership or a licensing deal, but otherwise has no active plans to build an end product for mobile devices, he revealed. The company currently makes GPUs for PCs and embedded devices. AMD sold its mobile graphics division in 2009 to Qualcomm, which uses the technology in its mobile Adreno GPU, an anagram of Radeon. Graphics chips are expensive and difficult to produce, though AMD could make one as part of a…

Microsoft’s recent campaign to force-feed the Windows 10 upgrade to older PCs appears to have been successful, generating a short but sustained increase in usage, according to a pair of data sources. In March, users of Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 systems began reporting that the automatically-downloaded Windows 10 upgrade had been installed, with an accompanying glut of complaints that they had not had the opportunity to decline the offer, or if they did see a way to reject 10, were stuck in a loop where the demand endlessly reappeared (see page 6). In some cases, users were unable to regain control of their machines until they acquiesced and let Windows 10 install. Although the automatic download of Windows 10 and its upgrading a PC from older operating systems has…

£649 inc VAT Contact asus.com/uk Specifications 13.3in (3200x1800, 276dpi) IPS LCD matt anti-glare; Windows 10; 900MHz Intel Core i5-6300HQ (2.2GHz boost) 2 cores, 4 threads; Intel HD 515 integrated GPU; 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 RAM; 128GB M.2 SSD; 802.11b/g/n/ac; 2x2 MIMO; Bluetooth 4.0; 3x USB 3.0; Micro-HDMI; SDXC card slot; stereo Bang and Olufsen speakers; HD webcam; single mic; 3.5mm headset jack; UK tiled keyboard; 44Wh lithium-ion battery; 324x226x12.3mm; 1.2kg The Asus ZenBook UX305CA is a laptop that takes up the slack left by the MacBook Air series, whose design and hardware is now a little out-of-date in certain areas. What you get is a slim and light laptop that’s perfect for portable work. It’s not overly expensive either, particularly for a machine with a 3K-resolution screen. Such a high resolution…

£189 inc VAT Contact hihonor.com/uk Specifications 5.5in (1920x1080) Full HD IPS screen; Android 5.1 Lollipop with EMUI 3.1; Qualcomm Snapdragon 616 octa-core processor; 16GB storage; 2GB RAM; microSD card slot (up to 128GB); Dual-SIM slots (Micro and Nano); 13Mp rear camera with dual-tone LED flash; 5Mp front camera; fingerprint scanner; 11b/g/n Wi-Fi; Bluetooth 4.1; 3000mAh non-removable battery; 15x76x8.2mm; 158g Continuing its effort to crack the worldwide smartphone market, Huawei, under the guise of Honor, is bringing another budget-priced handset to our attention. The ‘no-nonsense’ Honor 5X is another great-looking device that offers much better specifications than you would expect for the price. Design The 5X is the successor to last year’s Honor 7 and has a very similar design. The back and sides are constructed from metal, while the strips…

£259 inc VAT Contact fossil.com/uk Specifications Android Wear (Android 4.4 or later) and (iPhone 5 onwards, with iOS 8.2 or later); 1.5in (360x326, 240ppi) display; Intel Atom Z34XX CPU; 1GB RAM; 4GB internal storage; Bluetooth 4.1 LE; Wi-Fi; accelerometer; ambient light sensor; gyroscope; vibration/ haptics engine; microphone; wireless charging with included dock; IP67 dust and water resistant; 400mAh battery; 47mm case; 13mm thick; 156g with metal strap Smartwatches have been around for a while now, but it’s taken some time for existing watch makers to get in on the game. Fashion brand, Fossil, has launched a range of Q smartwatches, with the Founder, which runs on Android Wear, rivalling the like of the Moto 360, LG Watch Urbane and Huawei Watch. Price Although we’ve seen devices such as the Tag…

The Edge can also share its data with the Apple Health Kit if you prefer to use Apple’s app – something you can’t do with Fitbit’s trackers £47 inc VAT Contact ihealthlabs.com Specifications Android, iOS and Windows Phone; lithium-polymer battery; Bluetooth 4.0 The iHealth Edge (AM3S) is an activity tracker that looks like a regular watch, but measures the number of steps you walk or run each day, distance travelled and calories burned. At night, it analyses the quality of your sleep, so it offers 24-hour personal monitoring. Activity trackers are making a lot of us fitter – or at least more active – with their encouraging statistics of our exercise and sleeping patterns. Following in the steps of Fitbit, Jawbone and the Apple Watch, the Edge is actually just…

£449 inc VAT Contact dji.com Specifications 25 minutes flight time; 55 minutes charging time; £105 for spare battery; claimed range of 500m (open field, limited by CE rules); 2.7K (up to 2704x1520p/30fps at 40Mb/s) camera resolution; 12Mp Photo functions; single shot, burst shooting 3/5/7 shots, auto exposure bracketing (AEB) 3/5 frames; bracketed frames at 0.7EV bias, time-lapse; 1.22kg With the Phantom 4 just announced, now is a great time to buy a Phantom 3. And if this will be your first ‘proper’ drone, the Phantom 3 Standard is the best bargain. We’ve already reviewed the Phantom 3 Professional, which wowed us not only with its stable, powerful flight, but also the excellent video quality which runs to 4K resolution at 30 frames per second. The Phantom 3 Standard (P3S) was…

A few years ago, it was all but impossible to install Google’s ChromeOS on to a Windows laptop. Now, though, there’s a tool called CloudReady which is free for home use and uses a version of Chromium that’s very similar to ChromeOS. Here’s how to install it on your old laptop or desktop PC. Make a bootable USB drive The first thing to do is to head to CloudReady’s website (tinyurl.com/zeb4qoc) and download the free version – around 640MB. It’s based on Chromium, just as ChromeOS is, so while it isn’t – strictly speaking – Google ChromeOS, it’s so similar you might not notice the difference. Next, get the Chromebook Recovery Utility (tinyurl.com/LLjsl4o), which is an extension for the Google Chrome browser. Once installed, you’ll find it in your Start…

You haven’t truly customised Windows 10’s Start menu unless you’ve added deep links. Sure, you’ve rearranged the left side of Windows 10’s Start menu, placed your tiles the way you like them on the right, and even added some website shortcuts to the mix. But with deep linking, you can pin specific pages from within a Windows Store app to your Start menu. Let’s say you’re reading an ebook with the Kindle for Windows 10 app. You can pin the book itself to your Start menu instead of the entire Kindle app. That way you can always jump right back into your book even if the last time you closed the Kindle app you were looking at something else, which is pretty handy. Here are a few more examples of…

Have you just built yourself a PC or have an old CPU cooler you want to replace? You’ll need to apply some new thermal paste on your processor. Thermal paste is essential for the heat dissipation between the die (CPU cores) and your CPU cooler’s heatsink. In this guide, we will be using the Intel Core Haswell i7 4770K and the Intel Desktop Board DZ87KLT-75K, which might not be the latest CPU and motherboard combination, but the vertical line thermal paste method doesn’t vary through different generations of Intel CPUs. We will also explain the best thermal application for AMD CPUs, as the pea-dot thermal paste method yields different results. We would like to thank Overclockers UK (overclockers.co.uk) for supplying the Thermal Grizzly Hydronaut Paste, which can be found for…

We haven’t had many reasons to use Google’s reverse image search, but some people find it invaluable. Put simply, you can search using an picture you already have instead of entering a text search term. You get visually similar images as a result, the same image in different sizes, and websites that feature the image or those similar to the one you’ve searched with. For some reason, Google doesn’t allow you to upload an image if you’re using a phone, even if you’re using the Chrome browser. All you can do in Chrome for iOS or Android is to long-press on an image you’ve found in the search results and use that to find similar images. Fortunately, someone has created a web app that gets around this limitation. Android or…

If you use Google Now to initiate phone calls or send texts, adding nicknames to your Google contacts can make the process feel more natural. A great example of this is when you call your mum. You’re not going to ask Google Now to call Rosemary (or whatever your mum’s name might be). That’s just weird. Give your mum the nickname ‘mum’ and you can ask it to call mum instead. START You’ll first need to open Google Now or the Google app on your phone. Either say “Okay Google,” tap the microphone to speak, or tap in the text field to begin your query. Tell Google about a contact and their relationship to you. For example, ‘Rosemary is my mum’, or ‘Michael is my boyfriend’. If you have more…

Back in February 2014, almost 13,000 Asus routers were compromised when hackers realised that they could easily take control of the flawed devices remotely. The vulnerabilities were well documented, but it’s entirely possible that your own router is still at risk from attack. Here’s what you need to do to stop an Asus router being hacked. The problem Like many router manufacturers (but by no means all), Asus uses some basic default credentials so you can easily set up the router when you unbox it. The problem is that a lot of people don’t bother or don’t realise the risks, so leave the username and password both set to admin. The company’s AiCloud and AiDisk services allow you to remotely access the router, as well as files on a hard…

As Microsoft auto-upgrades more PCs to Windows 10, some users are complaining that they weren’t adequately notified. Reports of unwanted Windows 10 upgrades have been circulating on Reddit and Twitter, after March’s Patch Tuesday. These users say they didn’t approve or initiate the upgrade, and were dragged away from their Windows 7 (or perhaps 8) installs anyway. This is all part of Microsoft’s plan, of course. In October, the company announced it would reclassify Windows 10 as a ‘Recommended’ update from older versions starting in early 2016, at which point many more users would get the upgrade without explicit permission. That reclassification began on 1 February, and auto-upgrades have been rolling out ever since. First, users will receive a notification saying their PCs are scheduled to receive Windows 10 in…

AMD has unveiled a liquid-cooled, dual-GPU card called the Radeon Pro Duo that it says is the most powerful VR GPU on the market. In essence, it is two of the company’s Radeon R9 Fury X GPUs shoehorned into the same card. AMD said it will be priced $1,500 (£999). While that sounds like a lot, it’s the same as its previous dual-GPU card, the Radeon R9 295 X2. This was considered a bargain compared to nVidia’s dual-GPU GeForce Titan Z, which costs £1,999. You may, however, have some time to save up. The card was originally meant to be launched late last year, and all AMD will promise now is a “planned” launch for the second quarter. The Radeon Pro Duo has a single 120mm radiator and will require…

While the minimal design approach of this laptop has some appeal, it has none of the specific style of the more bolder, brasher machines From £1,799 inc VAT Contact uk.gigabyte.com Specifications 15.6in (1920x1080, 142dpi) IPS matt anti-glare; 2.6GHz Intel Core i7-6700HQ 4 cores, 8 threads; nVidia GeForce GTX980M 8GB GPU; 16GB DDR4 2133 RAM; 256GB SSD; 1TB 7200rpm SATA HDD; gigabit ethernet 802.11b/g/n/ac; single-band 2x2 MIMO; Bluetooth 4.0; DVD±RW drive; 3x USB 3.0; 1x USB 3.1; HDMI 2.0; VGA; Mini DisplayPort; Kensington security slot; SDXC card slot; stereo speakers; HD webcam; single mic; 3.5mm headset jack; UK tiled keyboard with numberpad; two-button trackpad; 75.81Wh lithium-ion battery; 385x270x21mm; 2.26kg The appeal of Gigabyte’s gaming laptops is that they get you the same sort of specifications as an Alienware machine, but with…

£235 inc VAT Contact elephone.cc Specifications 5.5in Quad-HD (1440x2560, 534ppi) IPS LCD; Android 5.1 Lollipop; 1.85GHz Helio X10 (MediaTek MT6795) octa-core processor; 4GB RAM; 32GB storage (26GB available); microSD support up to 128GB or 4G dual-SIM dual-standby; PowerVR Rogue G6200 graphics; 4G: FDD-LTE 800/1800/2100/2600MHz;802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi; Bluetooth 4.0; GPS: NFC; OTG; 20.7Mp Sony IMX230 rear camera, dual-LED flash, phase-detection autofocus (0.3s), 4K video recording, 120fps slo-mo video; 8Mp front camera; fingerprint sensor; 4000mAh non-removable lithium-ion battery; Micro-USB; 3.5mm headphone jack; 76.8x9.5x153mm; 156g It’s no secret that you’ll get much more bang for your buck when you buy from China, but on paper the Quad-HD Elephone mid-range Android phone has truly astounding specifications for its £235 price tag. A 5.5in pin-sharp Quad HD screen, MediaTek’s beefy octa-core Helio X10 processor, a healthy…

£149 inc VAT Contact asus.com/uk Specifications 1.45in (280x280, 273ppi) or 1.63in (320x320, 278ppi) AMOLED display; Wi-Fi and Bluetooth compatible; iPhone and Android compatible; IPX68 rating; two-day battery life with quick charging; variety of watch straps; available in three colours; 40.7x49.6x10.9mm; 50- or 60g The first-generation Asus ZenWatch was a nice smartwatch, but we thought it needed a little work. Thankfully, the designers at Asus went back to the drawing board and have released a new model, with more powerful specifications and unique features such as a ‘flick-to-swipe’ system that allows you to browse your notifications without swiping on the screen, and even an app that lets you design your own watch face. Design The ZenWatch 2 is a sleek device and, in our opinion, a huge leap forward from the…

£29 plus shipping Contact thetintag.com Specifications Requires compatible iOS or Android device with Bluetooth 4.0; 45x30x7mm For a short while, Tile had the Bluetooth tracker market all to itself. Now, though, there’s plenty of competition including the new Tintag which is rechargeable. A Bluetooth tracker is the kind of gadget you’ll only need when you lose something. So if you’re always misplacing your keys, wallet or something else that’s small – but not too small – then it’s ideal. While some trackers claim to help you find lost glasses, for example, no current tracker is small enough unless you happen to have a chain or strap already, and you can attach the tracker to that. Tintag has created one of the larger trackers we’ve tested, but it’s still smaller than…

£179 inc VAT Contact devolo.co.uk Specifications Windows 7 or later, OS X 10.6 or later, Linux 12.04; iOS and Android apps; 868.42MHz frequency range; range up to 20m; 2x 1.5V AA batteries; LED display; 51x91mm While companies are releasing smart home products left, right and centre, offering to control everything from your kettle to your light switch, Devolo is one of the few we’ve come across that offers an accessory that allows you to control your radiators via your smartphone or tablet. Home Control isn’t just a smart heating system though, it’s a collection of smart home products that will likely expand over time. You can buy just the Starter Kit (see the image below), which includes a main hub, door/window sensor and a smart metering plug. But there are…

It was hard work, but we’ve put a small mischief of g8aming mice through their paces. We’ve assessed their skills in general day-to-day use and gaming, from browsing Reddit and video editing, to searching Spotify and playing Fallout 4 and Star Wars Battlefront. We also looked at the preferred grip. It’s probably not something you think about, but it’s important nonetheless. People generally fall into three grip types: Palm grip: This is probably the most common grip, and it’s what the vast majority of mice are designed for. Your entire hand makes contact with the mouse at the same time, with your arm driving most of the movement. This is the most ergonomically comfortable grip, with the mouse shaped specifically to fill and complement your palm. Claw grip: Claw grippers…

1 Drag-and-drop files Normally when you want to upload a file to Google Drive, you go hit the big red New button, select File Upload, and then navigate the folders on your computer to grab the file you need. Here’s a simpler method: Drag the file(s) from Windows Explorer or the Mac OS Finder into your Google Drive file list. Google’s drag-and-drop icon will appear and you’ll see a progress bar showing you the upload status. 2 Bookmark ‘quick creation’ links Here’s another shortcut, and one that doesn’t even require you to open Google Drive. If you want to create a new word document, spreadsheet or slideshow, you can do it from any browser window by using ‘quick creation’ links. Copy the following links into your browser toolbar, and click…

Data is a precious thing. Whether it be personal files, photos, music, or a large download of an operating system, it’s always wise to create secure backups to avoid disaster. Over the past few years we’ve seen an increase in ransomware such as CryptoLocker, which can have devastating effects, plus the everyday hazards of spilling water on a PC or suffering a hard drive failure. Backups are essential. Here we show you how to protect against data loss by using Windows 10’s built-in tools or through cloud storage services. Using File History There are a few different ways to create backups in Windows 10. One of the easiest is File History, which will allow you to make regular copies of the personal data on your PC and store it on…

Overclocking your monitor is very simple. Often companies reduce the clock speed (overall refresh rate) of a display, in order for it to run smoothly and without any problems on certain computers. It’s only recently where companies have started shipping out monitors that run slightly faster than the normal 60Hz refresh rate. This is why you will see budget screens being shipped out with a refresh rate of 75Hz. There are gaming-specific monitors that cost more and come with an impressive 120-, 144-, 160-, 165- and even 200Hz refresh rate. A full list of capable monitors can be found at tinyurl.com/jnmtpg7. In this guide we’ll explain how you can overclock your monitor, specifically for nVidia and AMD graphics cards. Warning: First and foremost we should state that overclocking your monitor…

WhatsApp is a fantastic service for letting you chat with and send picture- or video messages to your contacts for free over a data connection without using up your tariff allowances. The new Documents feature is rapidly rolling out to WhatsApp users around the globe. It doesn’t seem to matter which version of the app you are using in order to see the new feature, but if the contact you want to send a document to has not updated their app, then they won’t be able to receive it. It’s a good idea to keep your apps up to date in any case, since you’ll benefit from new features and bug fixes. You can update WhatsApp on an Android smartphone by launching Google Play and tapping the three horizontal lines…

In February, Facebook rolled out its Reactions feature, which lets you use new buttons for Love, Haha, Wow, Sad and Angry for when a Like just doesn’t cut it. They work in exactly the same way as the Like button used to, which is both good and bad. The good: They are simple to use. You tap on the Like button to access Reactions, and if you later change your mind you can tap on it again to recall your support. Facebook will show the three most popular Reactions underneath each post. It’s now much easier to work out what to do when you want to show support for a post but don’t want to appear crass. For example, you’re not really happy that your best friend’s cat has died…

Experts believe that millions of us will buy VR headsets over the next few years to play games and view 3D content, and that those sales could spark a real-world war among chipmakers. Some of the models announced at the recent Game Developers Conference in San Francisco are full-on computers, while others need to be hooked up to PCs with powerful graphics cards. This sets up a battle among chipmakers, such as AMD, Intel, Qualcomm and nVidia, to dominate the market. The war comes with a twist because it places a large on emphasis on GPUs, which are important for rendering 4K video and 3D content. The Sulon Q, for example, is a computer in a headset for VR and augmented reality, and runs on AMD’s Carrizo chips. The headset…

The budget for 2016 committed the UK government to delivering a 5G strategy next year and delivering a “big data hub” for the Office for National Statistics, as well as plans to relax regulation surrounding connected cars. However, apart from these initiatives, Chancellor George Osborne’s speech was rather light on the technology sector. The government will deliver a 5G strategy in 2017 based on an assessment from the National Infrastructure Commission. This assessment will explore how the UK can become a “world leader” in 5G deployment and how it can “take early advantage of the potential benefits of 5G services”, including a case study based in the South West. A network planning tool will be on trial in Bournemouth. Osborne mentioned the Broadband Investment Fund – first revealed in November…

Like Apple, Samsung is trying to link its devices so they work better together. A new effort bridges the gap between the company’s Android handsets and Windows devices. A new feature called Flow in Samsung’s new Galaxy TabPro S helps the Windows 10 tablet work smoothly with Galaxy smartphones running Android. Until now, Samsung’s Windows PCs and Android devices didn’t work hand-in-hand. Flow provides some interesting hints on Samsung’s plan to link Windows and Android devices. Flow will allow Android smartphone users to use their devices to log in to Windows PCs. Users can swipe a finger on a smartphone’s fingerprint reader, logging a user into the TabPro S, which doesn’t have a fingerprint reader. Similarly, users can log in to the TabPro S by pattern authentication – by drawing…

£569 inc VAT Contact samsung.com/uk Specifications 5.1in (1440x2560) Quad HD IPS; Android 6.0 Marshmallow; Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor; 4GB RAM; 32GB storage; microSD card slot (up to 200GB); 12Mp rear camera with f/1.7; 5Mp front camera; 11ac dual-band Wi-Fi with MU-MIMO; Bluetooth 4.2; GPS; NFC; heart-rate monitor; fingerprint scanner; 4G LTE; Micro-USB; 3000mAh non-removable battery; IP68; 142x70x7.9mm; 152g The Galaxy S6 was the best phone of 2015, and with the return of microSD and waterproofing and some other useful tweaks Samsung’s lining up its S7 as the best phone of 2016. Design If you read some early reviews of the Galaxy S7, you might have been led to believe not much has changed in the its design over the S6. But while the S7 still follows Samsung’s familiar design blueprint,…

Once you’ve installed the app you’ll be able to track your activity and sleep, receive alerts for calls, use the watch as a silent alarm, and more £59 inc VAT Contact elephone.cc Specifications Android 4.3 Jelly Bean or later, iOS 7 or later compatible; Rhonda 762 analogue watch; Stainless steel and Sapphire Crystal glass; Bluetooth 4.0; G-sensor; 210mAh Maxcell 2032 battery; 30m waterproof rating; 41x20x10.3mm; 130g We’ve seen a few smartphones from Chinese brand Elephone, such as the Vowney on page 30, but not a smartwatch. The W2 is an analogue watch combined with smart features such as activity tracking and a three-month battery life to take on Android Wear rivals. Design The Elephone W2 doesn’t have a battery-draining touchscreen. Instead, it combines a traditional analogue watch with LEDs and…

A Chromebook is a laptop that runs Google’s Chrome operating system (ChromeOS) rather than Windows or OS X. It offers pretty much the same experience as using the popular Chrome web browser, which you might well already use on a Windows PC or laptop, but with a few extra features added to the mix. An internet connection is central to how a Chromebook functions. Nearly all its apps and services are online and don’t run locally. There are a few exceptions to this, with Google’s own Document and Spreadsheet apps capable of working offline and then seamlessly syncing any work you’ve done to the cloud once you’re back on Wi-Fi. This simplicity allows Chromebooks to use less powerful hardware than many Windows laptops, without it affecting the overall performance. You…

Intel has confirmed a bug in some Skylake CPUs could cause them to lock up under complex workload conditions, but noted that a fix is on the way. The bug was initially reported only with the Core i7-6700K desktop CPU with Hyper-Threading enabled, but Intel’s confirmation seems to indicates it impacts more CPUs in the lineup. In a post on Intel’s Forums (tinyurl.com/gsc5ve3), an Intel community manager writes: “Intel has identified an issue that potentially affects the 6th Gen Intel Core family of products. This issue only occurs under certain complex workload conditions, like those that may be encountered when running applications like Prime95. In those cases, the processor may hang or cause unpredictable system behaviour. Intel has identified and released a fix and is working with external business partners…

The ability to make video calls on WhatsApp would be fantastic. Unfortunately, this option isn’t available. However, as with many tech problems, there’s an app for that. Called Booyah, it’s available for iPhone and Android. Make video calls Booyah is available in the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Download the app, which will then have access to your WhatsApp contacts. In terms of permissions on Android, the app will require you to access your photos/media/ files, camera, microphone, Wi-Fi and have full network access. Once the app has successfully installed, you’ll be able to directly video call any of your WhatsApp contacts through the app, providing they also have Booyah on their device. As you initiate a call, it will provide you with a link to a video…

Do you own in your Steam library that you no longer play and just want gone? Maybe you bought something that turned out to be awful and you just don’t want to see it ever again. No problem: You can now easily remove games from your Steam library for good. To get started, you’ll need to visit the Steam support site (tinyurl.com/jeepr64), then log in with your account information. Click Games, Software, and so on, then select the game you wish to delete (you may need to search for it). Next, select ‘I want to permanently remove this game from my account’. Follow the prompts, and the game will be removed from your Steam library. Alternately, you can open the Steam client on your PC and then select a game…

Retro square photos with filters aren’t for everyone, and Instagram’s ties to Facebook might give the privacy-conscious cause for concern. However, before you start you should note that, unlike Facebook, Instagram doesn’t have an account deactivation feature that allows you to revive your account later. Once you take the plunge, your account will be gone. For this reason you might want to temporarily disable it instead – you can do this once per week. Temporarily disable your account This is the best option if you think that you may one day want to go back to all those photos you’ve posted online. Choosing to temporarily disable your Instagram account means it is hidden until you reactivate it by logging back in. First, sign in and head to the settings by…