Innehållsförteckning för February 2021 från Tech Advisor

As Microsoft moves past the Windows 10 October 2020 Update, speculation has begun: what is the future, exactly? A new Windows Insider build that removes features is raising more questions. Microsoft released Windows Insider Preview Build 20246 into the Dev Channel in October, with the usual caveat that the Dev Channel includes code that may or may not ever come to light. It’s possible, then, that removing some of the features Microsoft had previously tested simply represents a tidying up of sorts, or a recognition that they weren’t viable for future releases. Microsoft isn’t saying. The new build removes some improvements that Microsoft rolled out previously, including a new emoji picker Microsoft showed in September; a Windows 10X-like touch keyboard; and a new voice typing interface. Interestingly, these were all…

Intel has confirmed that its 11th-gen next-generation desktop processor, Rocket Lake, will ship during the first quarter of 2021, and with double-digit IPC performance improvements. Rocket Lake-S, as Intel is referring to it, will include PCI Express 4.0, to boot. Intel added more details to its disclosure of Rocket Lake on 29 October, disclosing the double-digit instructions-per-clock (IPC) performance improvements that the new desktop architecture, called Cypress Cove, will bring. Since Intel is referring to Rocket Lake as an 11th-gen part, Intel is essentially saying that the Rocket Lake-S family will deliver more than 10 per cent more IPC performance than Ice Lake-S, which includes the Intel Core i9-10900K. In terms of overall performance, though, Intel was much more cagey, promising a rather obvious ‘better’ generation-over-generation improvement. Intel said that…

Price: £549 (inc VAT) from fave.co/2SWVPXI OnePlus is breaking all its own rules this year. First came the Nord, a step away from its numbered line and a return to the company’s mid-range roots. And now here comes the OnePlus 8T, but on its own – with no 8T Pro in sight. That leaves the brand in an odd position where its biggest new feature – 65-watt charging – isn’t available in its most expensive phone, still the 8 Pro. Beyond that fast charging – and it is fast – there’s little new in the 8T. It has the same processor as the 8, and basically the same cameras, even if they have moved to the side now. It bumps the display refresh rate to 120Hz to match the 8…

Windows 10 offers many other power tools for enthusiasts – if you know where to find them. Some are older, yet still obscure. Others are relatively new, added during the twice-annual major upgrades Microsoft’s been pushing out since Windows 10 launched over five long years ago (though most recent feature upgrades, like the October 2020 Update, tend to be minor). But all 10 of these little-used tricks and tools can help hardened PC users save time or eliminate headaches. 1. TIMELINE Microsoft rolled out Windows 10’s Timeline feature as part of the April 2018 Update, and it’s awesome. It’s basically like a browser history for your desktop programs, showing files you’ve opened previously in chronological order. Selecting one opens the file once again. Paired with the ‘Pick up where…

Why do people get so heated about the node that different companies use? Intel gets a lot of flak for being on 14nm, and so has Nvidia for being on Samsung’s 8nm process. It’s as if anyone not on TMSC 7nm has made a fatal error. You can chalk up much of the uproar to human nature. For the same reason that people align themselves with a particular sports team or burger joint, they’ll loyally defend a CPU manufacturer – or go on the attack against any critiques. As my colleague Brad Chacos often points out, no one likes feeling as if they chose the wrong product, especially when it’s an expensive electronic investment. That sensation (or even the hypothetical threat of it) tends to spark fiery wrath in staunch…

If Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser fails to open your favourite sites soon, there’s a reason: Microsoft will block those sites from opening in Internet Explorer, and will require them to be opened in Edge instead. Although Microsoft has long tried to get rid of Internet Explorer for years for security’s sake, the ancient browser clings to 5 per cent of the worldwide browser market. Preventing sites from opening within Explorer is a new way for Microsoft to ‘encourage’ users to abandon Microsoft’s legacy browser and adopt Edge instead. The change, however, doesn’t actually mean that you have to stop using Internet Explorer; you just have to stop using the Internet Explorer browser. (We’ll explain.) Microsoft described the changes in a support document (fave.co/3lkUgiZ), and indicated that the change in behaviour…

Price: £899 (inc VAT) from fave.co/3ll5NPj The Surface Laptop Go is Microsoft’s second try at an affordable Surface, and it hits the mark better than the original Surface Go tablet did. It still offers compromises, with strategic cuts to keep the price competitive with a Chromebook. Still, they’re mostly smart decisions – even a sub-1080p display and Windows 10 in S Mode didn’t turn us off. Although the Surface Laptop Go lacks the easy expansion of some competing laptops, it’s otherwise a solid budget offering. Still, be picky in what you consider buying. We wouldn’t recommend the Surface Laptop Go’s minimum £549 configuration, but the middle £699 option (which we didn’t test) seems like the best bang for the buck. At £899, the 12.5in Surface Laptop Go review unit we…

Price: £599 (inc VAT) from fave.co/2SYhfnc Hot on the heels of the Pixel 4a, Google has expanded its 2020 mobile portfolio yet further to now include the Pixel 4a 5G and the long-rumoured Google Pixel 5. On the surface, the Pixel 5 serves to right the wrongs made by last year’s erroneous Pixel 4; namely by dropping the experimental Motion Sense gesture tech, trading its secondary telephoto camera in for an ultra-wide sensor and almost doubling battery capacity so that the phone actually lasts beyond a few hours at a time. While these changes may seem obvious, the Pixel 5 – and where it sits in the wider smartphone landscape – is indicative of a shift in Google’s smartphone strategy and points to a very different future to the one…

Apple’s announcement of the first Macs running on its own M1 Arm silicon just might be the boost that Windows on Arm needs to pass the finish line. Or so we can hope. Granted, there was some tap-dancing during Apple’s launch of a MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and Mac mini that all use Apple’s first M1 processor, based on the Arm architecture. With eight cores inside (four cores for efficiency, four more for higher-power loads) we’re seeing big promises, including longer battery life (18 hours for the new 13in MacBook Air) and faster performance. All of this should sound familiar to those who have watched Windows on Arm evolve over the past few years, especially as you start to drill down and look for hard numbers. What we can hope…

Looking at common CPUs for PC building and the specs for the upcoming next-generation consoles, I’ve found myself wondering: Will we need 8-core, 16-thread CPUs for gaming soon? No, not in the near future. High core-count processors with simultaneous multi-threading may be more common now, thanks to AMD, but gaming won’t require today’s more expensive processors just yet. Single-threaded performance is still a strong factor, and also, game development take years. Titles launching soon have been influenced by common hardware of the past. In the mid-to-longer term future, we will likely see an increase in games making use of more cores and threads – a growing number already exist in the wild, and PC hardware only continues to outdo itself every year. But the change will still be gradual for…

On 31 December, Adobe Flash Player will go out of support. A new Windows patch, however, will allow you to get a jump on things. Microsoft detailed the process to remove support for Adobe Flash Player as part of a new support document (fave.co/2UfZAZ5), which links to the patch itself for various Windows platforms. As Microsoft warns, however, the process is a one-way street: once installed, the patch cannot be uninstalled – though you could reinstall Windows if you were desperate. Adobe, in conjunction with browser makers Microsoft and Google, announced three years ago that Adobe Flash Player would be shelved by the end of 2020. Adobe said at the time that enough progress had been made within open web standards like HTML5 that it was time to phase out…

Price: £1,299 (inc VAT) from fave.co/2Isq4E7 The Asus ZenBook Flip 13 is a beautiful laptop that offers decent battery life, very good graphics, and a lot of pep for most of what you’d do on a small 13in convertible laptop. Unfortunately, you probably won’t remember it for its impressive 11th-gen Intel Tiger Lake Core i7-1165G7 chip, nor its drop-dead-gorgeous OLED screen. Nope, instead you’ll fixate on something it doesn’t have: a 3.5mm audio jack. COURAGE OR COST-CUTTING? Yes, the same move that Apple claimed as “courageous” on the iPhone 7, Asus has now done to a laptop. And just as other smartphones followed Apple’s lead, we expect other PC vendors are watching closely to see how users react to this eviction. We have no idea why Asus did this. While…

Price: £449 (inc VAT) from fave.co/3eRsGXT The Xbox Series X is a somewhat paradoxical console. It’s the most powerful black box Microsoft has ever produced to play games on, launched at the same time the company keeps saying that hardware doesn’t matter, and all Xboxes are created equal. It’s a new console launching without a single major exclusive game – nope, not even a Halo – but instead the promise that it’ll play just about every Xbox game ever made, and make most of them look better than ever. This is an Xbox that doesn’t really do anything that your current Xbox doesn’t. But it will do most things better, faster, and at more frames per second (if you have one of the few TVs that supports over 60fps, that…

How do you decide when it’s to time upgrade your PC vs replacing it altogether? Most PC builders (we included) operate on a gradual shift toward new systems. When assembling a brand-new system, we buy the best hardware we can at the time. Then we extend the machine’s usefulness for as long as possible, be it through upgrading select pieces or overclocking parts. Finally, we replace the whole system when it no longer can keep up with tasks thrown at it, and we can’t stretch it any further. Note: this approach applies equally to pre-built systems. However, with a pre-built system, you may find it more difficult to make upgrades – some vendors use custom parts that don’t easily accommodate changes. That line between choosing an upgrade and a full…