Índex per May 2017 a Computer Shopper

I WENT FOR lunch a few months ago at my fallback Italian restaurant, one of a chain. I was looking forward to tucking into my normal lunch choice, reasonably priced and tasty – and just before ordering I noticed the price had increased by a couple of quid. I had my suspicions about the reason for the rising cost (the ‘B’ word), but also thought it could just be down to the cost of doing business in central London, with its ever-increasing prices. Not long after, I visited my local branch of said restaurant chain and the price increases had hit there, too. The waitress told me they’d also stopped doing their cut-price lunch specials at that time. While the restaurant didn’t reveal the reason behind the price hikes, all…

Screening blue murder I enjoyed your rundown of some of the technology howlers presented in films and television shows (Shopper 349). Of those you listed, my favourite has to be the Jurassic Park “I know this – it’s a UNIX system”. I thought I’d submit a few of my personal favourites that you didn’t mention. First, there’s the overly complicated file manager that has to be accessed through a VR headset and data gloves in the film Disclosure. Michael Douglas has to walk through huge virtual hallways to find some virtual filing cabinets, open a virtual drawer and pull out virtual folders to be able to access documents. In the VR sequence in the film, he is digitally rendered so we know it’s him, and his digital self is wearing…

1 Internet balloons Google can now tell its Project Loon balloons to hover in a particular area that needs high-speed internet access, thanks to a new algorithm 2 Nokia The Finnish phone firm is rumoured to be bringing back the historic 3310 3 Nintendo NES Classic The 30-game console is hackable and can play as many as 700 games, including SEGA titles 4 Crash helmets Amazon has filed a patent for delivery by parachute 1 BlackBerry The firm’s OS has a 0% mobile market share 2 Spy dolls German parents have been warned to destroy talking Cayla dolls over hacking fears 3 Mobile users EE, 02 and Vodafone are to raise prices for millions of customers 4 Human beings Elon Musk reckons that people will have to become cyborgs to…

In space, no-one can hear the fire alarm AN AUDIT AT Nasa has found that a fire that ultimately damaged craft destined for space burned for over three hours before anyone realised, after a bad security update caused computer systems to fail. A report from the space agency’s inspector general found that a security patch that had been applied to a large oven facility used in engineering was faulty. The upgraded systems caused monitoring software to fail, and the increased heat was not spotted. “[A] security patch caused monitoring equipment in a large engineering oven to stop running, resulting in a fire that destroyed spacecraft hardware inside the oven,” said the report. “The computer reboot caused by the software upgrade also impeded alarm activation, leaving the fire undetected for 3.5…

£1,229 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT This next-gen improvement sees the Dell XPS 13 move from a tantalising purchase to an essential one THERE ARE PLENTY of reasons to love the 2015 iteration of the XPS 13 (Shopper 329); back when we originally reviewed it, Dell’s premium ultra-portable felt like the closest thing to a perfect Windows laptop. Even throughout the entirety of 2016, only the HP Spectre 13 (Shopper 345) could really rival it. Now, there’s finally one more laptop that can go toe-to-toe with the old XPS 13 – and it’s another XPS 13, in the form of an Intel Kaby Lake refresh. Put the new and old models side by side, and there’s barely a jot of difference between them. Unless you opt for the updated laptop’s rose…

£219 • From www.wileyfox.com VERDICT The larger, higher-resolution Swift 2 X is a decent Swift 2 Plus successor, but it’s still no Moto G4 IT HASN’T BEEN long since Wileyfox launched its Swift 2 and Swift 2 Plus handsets (Shopper 349), but there’s already a more upmarket version of the former. The Swift 2 X, for a big price jump to £219 (from £159), adds a larger, 5.2in Full HD display and an upgraded 16-megapixel rear camera. Since our primary issues with the Swift 2 family were their 720p displays and low-quality cameras, this puts the Swift 2 X – theoretically – in good stead. It’s still the same slightly rounded rectangle with a navy blue tinge and chamfered edges. In fact, aside from that screen size bump to 5.2in,…

£300 • From shop.bt.com VERDICT A smart and easy way to upgrade your home’s Wi-Fi, but the price is a little high GETTING FAST AND reliable Wi-Fi all over your house used to be incredibly difficult, but times are changing, with a spate of whole home wireless products coming out. These products give you multiple wireless access points, linked together in a wireless mesh network, so you get coverage exactly where you need it. The first product we saw was the Netgear Orbi (Shopper 348), and now it’s BT’s turn with its unimaginatively, yet highly descriptively, named Whole Home Wi-Fi. What’s different about this product, compared to the competition and rather unusual coming from BT, is that Whole Home Wi-Fi doesn’t have a router. Instead, you should see it as…

£69 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT It’s cheap and beautifully easy to use, but the Chromecast Ultra is largely redundant THE CHROMECAST ULTRA is a peculiar product. On paper, it ought to be a must-buy: it’s the cheapest 4K HDR TV streamer on the market, and it inherits all the things that made the original and second-generation Chromecasts great. Just like its predecessors, the Chromecast Ultra makes the business of streaming video and audio from your phone, laptop or tablet to your TV incredibly simple, and the library of Chromecast apps is enormous. With a few notable exceptions, if you can stream something to your phone, you can cast it to your TV via Chromecast. It’s also cheaper than any 4K Blu-ray player, including the Xbox One S; it’s £10 less…

£59 • From www.tado.com VERDICT Neat looking controls and great presence detection make this a great way to take full control of your home’s heating SMART HEATING SYSTEMS are proven to save money. Most just replace your existing thermostat with a smart version, replicating the heating system you have already. A better option is to have room-by-room control via smart thermostats. The first system to do this, Honeywell’s Evohome, was very powerful, but comparatively expensive to get started with. With its Smart Radiator Thermostat, Tado has created a more flexible system. There are two ways of installing the Smart Radiator Thermostat. First, you can keep your existing heating system and only replace your existing thermostatic radiator valves (TRVs) with Smart Radiator Thermostats. You can replace as many TRVs as you…

Chat and Communication Evernote 6.4.2.3788 Store your notes, ideas and plans in the cloud, and synchronise them between computers. UPDATED Mailbird 2.3.42 A free desktop email client for Windows. UPDATED Miranda IM 0.10.66 Chat with friends across multiple messaging platforms, including AIM, Facebook, IRC and MSN, all from one simple interface. UPDATED Skype for Windows 7.32.0.103 Make internet voice and video calls for free, and buy credit to make calls to mobiles and landlines. Trillian 5.6 Use all your instant-messaging accounts with one application. Supports Windows Live!, AIM, Yahoo! and Google Talk. UPDATED WhatsApp Desktop 0.2.2732 A free PC and Mac version of the popular messaging app, allowing you to chat straight from your desktop instead of using the web app. Customisation UPDATED iolo System Mechanic Free 16.5.1.27 Speed up…

RAM simply doesn’t make any noticeable difference to performance speed in our tests. As a result, we don’t see the point in reviewing RAM kits. Instead, it’s more important to choose memory that suits your build. First, you need to determine the amount, speed and type of RAM that you want. DDR4 RAM is now the most common for new PC builds and works with new Intel processors. Older, slower DDR3 RAM is suitable for old Intel processors and the current AMD range. RAM comes in lots of different speeds. Currently DDR4 2,400MHz is the best value, with 3,200MHz the best choice for high-end, high-performance systems. For DDR3 systems, 1,866MHz RAM is the best value and will work with all types of computers. Your motherboard may not run your memory…

£121 • From www.ebuyer.com VERDICT A premium case with excellent cooling and storage support, only slightly let down by some less thoughtful design quirks AS YOU CAN probably guess from the name, German component maker Be Quiet! likes its cases to be more hush-hush than most. To this end, the Silent Base 800 comes with a few little additions to minimise any humming and whining. For example, both side panels and a good chunk of the front of the case are all covered internally by sheets of soft, soundinsulation material. The included fans (more on these later) are also affixed with rubber washers in order to reduce vibration, and the 3.5in drive mounting brackets go even further by being made entirely of rubber, under the same principle. Even the empty…

£220 • From www.ebuyer.com VERDICT It’s spectacularly expensive, but at least the Maker 5t makes an effort to earn its price tag THE COOLER MASTER MasterCase Maker 5t is, for all intents and purposes, the modular flagship Maker 5 with tempered glass windows – hence the ‘t’. These add an appropriately top-end look to a chassis that was already imposing, but not ghastly – a good fit for design-conscious, well-moneyed gamers in particular. We do have to bring attention to that price, which is an enormous amount to hand over for a PC case. Especially so when it only comes fitted with two 3.5in drive bays, a fraction of what many cheaper alternatives have managed. Everything else about the Maker 5t, however, exudes opulence. From the stealth bomber fascias to…

£110 • From www.scan.co.uk VERDICT Fetching and flexible, the NZXT Manta is an outstanding case for Mini-ITX systems UNLIKE MANY OTHER Mini-ITX cases, including the Raijintek Metis Plus, the NZXT Manta adopts a more traditionally tower-like form factor – save for its main distinguishing feature, the convex side, front and top panels. This affords it a truly unique look, without any overly flashy decorations. There is a pretty massive side window, but otherwise the Manta manages to pair its shape with a likably minimalist aesthetic. Even the power and disk status LEDs have been combined into one thin, sleek light strip at the front. The curved panels also give a bit more room for any cables tucked behind the motherboard. On that note, the Manta wins points for its cable…

£133 • From www.cclonline.com VERDICT The Enthoo Mini XL is an interesting chassis that can contain two PCs at once, yet bizarrely fails to support this as standard TEMPTING AS IT is to focus on that oxymoronic name, the Enthoo Mini XL has a doozy of a party trick to consider instead: it can accommodate two motherboards, and thus effectively two PCs, at once. To fit both inside its mid-tower proportions, you are limited to one microATX or Mini-ITX board plus one Mini-ITX, but that also leaves room for separate power supplies (one SFF and one full-size ATX), one mounted sideways along the bottom and one in a separate chamber behind the upper motherboard tray. It’s a clever layout, and with six dualpurpose 3.5in/2.5in toolless drive bays plus another two…

Madeline Bennett Daley Thompson’s Decathlon. But it has to be the authentic joystick version with the manic two-finger tapping David Ludlow The Sony Aibo – the world is crying out for robot pets Nathan Spendelow The NES power glove. Frustratingly flailing your arm about never looked so cool James Archer Phone batteries that just won’t die, no matter how many games of Snake you play Dave Neal The Sinclair C5. But self-driving models so that I can eat and roll Nicole Kobie Netbooks. Cheap and cheerful, light and long-lasting battery, what more do you want out of tech? Roland Moore-Colyer Nintendo 64. The nostalgia of huddling around a TV for multiplayer and blowing on game cartridges to get them working Simon Handby Orange LEDs. Are they all gallium arsenide phosphiding…

MEL CROUCHER Tech pioneer and all-round good egg letters@computershopper.co.uk AMERICA SPENDS $600bn a year on defence. Yet an insane gang of hijackers can attack the Pentagon and Twin Towers with impunity. The UK spends $46bn a year on nuclear weapons and Trooping the Colour, which are completely useless against a couple of Afghans armed with home-made rockets strapped to the back of a Toyota pick-up. And the Bad Guys don’t even need to hijack aircraft or trucks any more. They can attack us from the comfort of their own bedrooms. Governments tell us that cyber warfare is the new threat. And you know what? I tend to agree with them. If our mobile networks go down, there will be riots. If our supermarket checkouts go down, there will be cannibalism.…

An embarrassment of breaches at Yahoo! SAY WHAT? 2017 IS A bad time to be a Yahoo! customer. Although, to be fair, the past few years haven’t been great. The company, which also provides email for Sky and BT, has revealed that its users’ security has been breached yet again, and the numbers run into the millions. The firm has alerted users to a forged cookies problem that could lead to accounts being compromised. The cookies can be traced back to a hack in 2013. Yahoo! said the cookies had been invalidated but added that its investigations are ongoing. “As we have previously disclosed, our outside forensic experts have been investigating the creation of forged cookies that could have enabled an intruder to access our users’ accounts without a password,”…

FACEBOOK FOUNDER Mark Zuckerberg has decided his company is perfectly placed to solve all the world’s problems. The social networker has penned a 5,500-word essay outlining his thinking on how to solve everything from terrorism to cyber bullying. “Today’s threats are increasingly global, but the infrastructure to protect us is not. Problems like terrorism, natural disasters, disease, refugee crises, and climate change need coordinated responses from a worldwide vantage point. No nation can solve them alone,” Zuckerberg notes. He went on to outline the various initiatives Facebook has set up to deal with some of these problems. “To prevent harm, we can build social infrastructure to help our community identify problems before they happen. When someone is thinking of suicide or hurting themselves, we’ve built infrastructure to give their friends…

France Hold on A man has used a mobile phone to call the police following a car theft. No news there, you might think, but he did it from the roof of his moving stolen car while it was being driven around the French Swiss border. Osama Aoukili launched himself on to the roof of the car because it was his dad’s car, and he wasn’t going to stand by. He and his mobile phone got away relatively unscathed, but the thief was apprehended. The car is described as an “ageing Renault Clio”. Denmark Diplomatic core The country of Denmark has a world’s first, it claims: it has established the position of Tech Ambassador, a vacancy that is yet to be filled but is waiting for a person who can…

SEE YOU IN COURT” US president Donald Trump goes full CAPS on Twitter as he reacts to a court decision about immigration by threatening to take the court to another court You know, times are not really awful, there’s some great things happening. It gives me a lot of energy to talk to developers, or meet students in classrooms who are using our technology to help learn faster and better. Watching them pursue their passion.” Apple’s Tim Cook on Brexit fears Browsing history is a very sensitive set of data. It reveals people’s interests, concerns, worries and in many cases their every fleeting thought. It’s vital that people are able to trust they can be in control of that kind of information.” Jay Stanley of the American Civil Liberties Union…

£936 • From www.yoyotech.co.uk VERDICT Decent performance, great connectivity options and a fantastic lightshow WE’VE TESTED A lot of PCs that have been spruced up with a spot of coloured LED illumination, but never one that puts on the kind of lightshow the Warbird G2 does. First, there are the two front fans, which can be switched between seven colours via a button on the front or the included remote control. Then there’s the Gigabyte motherboard, which is dotted with individual RGB LEDs around the PCI-E slots and CPU socket as well as having longer, thicker strips down the right and along the RAM slots. Even the graphics card, a 6GB GTX 1060, has a touch of white light shining out through the clear side window. BRIGHT CLUB Having this…

£730 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Super-thin, powerful and seriously portable, HP’s latest Chromebook 13 is in a league of its own ANYONE MORE USED to Intel Core-powered Windows laptops might start reading this with a deep-rooted cynicism toward Chromebooks. While they can be temptingly cheap, opinions have been sullied over the years due to plastic-ridden, Celeron-powered devices with sub-par screens. HP’s latest Chromebook 13 is here to rewrite your perceptions, and it does so – on the whole – quite magnificently. Inside and out, HP makes few sacrifices. Its looks are bewitching, with its dark grey, brushed-aluminium chassis accompanied by a backlit keyboard. This sophisticated Chromebook leaves our previous favourites, the Acer Chromebooks 14 (Shopper 344) and R 11 (Shopper 338), looking even more basic. Standing a mere 12mm tall…

£420 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT An impressive 2,560x1,440 gaming monitor, with a 144Hz refresh rate and good all-round performance THE NUMBER OF dedicated gaming monitors on the market continues to rise, and AOC’s new AGON line of monitors adds another fair few to the list. The TN-panelled AG271QX is the first we’ve seen from the range, and with its aggressive red and black design, it certainly looks the part of a serious gaming display. The specs suggest it has a lot to offer performance-wise, too. Running at 144Hz and 2,560x1,440, at £420 it’s simultaneously expensive for a 1440p screen and significantly cheaper than our current favourite 27in gaming monitor, the Acer Predator XB271HK – that does have a 4K resolution, but the AOC’s higher refresh rate (plus the fact that…

£500 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT Neat and easy to configure, performance at the edge isn’t quite as good as rival systems IT SEEMS YOU can’t move for whole home Wi-Fi systems at the moment, with the Linksys Velop following hot on the heels of the Netgear Orbi (Shopper 348) and the BT Whole Home Wi-Fi (page 38). Velop can replace an existing router, as the Orbi can, or it can be used to upgrade your existing wireless network leaving your router alone, as with the BT Whole Home Wi-Fi. On paper, this flexibility would seem to give Linksys the edge. It’s possible to buy the Velop in one of three configurations: a single device, a twin pack or a triple pack. The single device is a little pointless on its…

£899 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Atmos without the atmosphere: the Philips Fidelio SkyQuake is expensive and disappointing DOLBY’S ATMOS surround-sound technology is becoming both increasingly prevalent (even laptops and smartphones have begun integrating it) and steadily cheaper. The Philips Fidelio SkyQuake (previously known as the Fidelio B8/12) is the latest sub-£1,000 soundbar to join the fray, following the Samsung HW-K850. An Atmos soundbar is still an investment, however, and the SkyQuake demonstrates that you don’t currently get a huge amount for your money. Just like the HW-K850, it keeps the price down by not including any rear or side speakers – you just get the soundbar, a wireless subwoofer and a remote control in the box. That’s slim pickings for almost £900. ALTERNATE DIMENSIONS Nonetheless, there’s a reason Atmos costs…

£152 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT The Huawei Fit is a far more convincing fitness band than the Chinese company’s previous effort – even at over double the price LAST YEAR’S HONOR Band Z1 (Shopper 343) was a likeable fitness tracker, albeit a very forgettable one – the kind of wearable that’s fine in general but doesn’t excel in any particular area. This may have had something to do with the fact that it tried to squeeze quasi-smartwatch niceties on to what could have been a dedicated workout aid. Fortunately, Huawei (which owns the Honor brand) has fully embraced fitness for its latest wearable. You could argue that this is a response to how the wearables market is shifting; casual smartwatches are struggling, while trackers for fitness fanatics have become dominant.…

Best for The ultimate performance While Kaby Lake processors have proved to be only around 5% faster than the older Skylake models, they’re still the fastest you can buy. So, if you want the absolute best, the Core i7-7700K is the model for you. Quick in every task, this model is unlocked, so that it can be pushed even further. Its efficient architecture ensures that the CPU stays cool, even at extreme clock speeds. Buyers looking for a fast computer for less should choose the Skylake Core i7-6700K: it’s almost as fast, but will work more easily with cheaper Z170 motherboards. Best for Budget builders If you want to build a budget computer that’s still capable of running pretty much every task, you need an Intel Skylake CPU. With a…

Best for 4K gaming NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 If you want the best graphics card available, the GeForce GTX 1080 offers unparalleled performance. Using the Pascal architecture, it’s a card that’s powerful and efficient. Indeed, it stays very quiet under normal use, only spinning up its fans when the card comes under load. Performance is fantastic, with the card blasting through our tests. In fact, the GTX 1080 is so good that it’s overkill if you only have a 1080p monitor. Rather, this is a card for high-resolution displays, especially 4K monitors. It’s also ready for VR. Running at a resolution of 3,840x2,160 we measured a frame rate of 98fps in Dirt Showdown and 60fps in Tomb Raider. Only the ever-demanding Metro caused problems, running at 21fps. No other graphics…

£75 • From www.overclockers.co.uk VERDICT BitFenix’s Aurora tower flicks between mediocrity and greatness, depending on where you look WHEN WE THINK of cases that can take Extended ATX (EATX) motherboards – which are significantly wider than the more common ATX form factor – we usually think of ones much larger than the modestly proportioned BitFenix Aurora. The colourful name is fitting, since besides EATX compatibility, it also comes with one of BitFenix’s RGB Chroma covers for your SSD. This small strip of plastic and LEDs affixes over the bottom of the main chamber’s sole 2.5in drive mounting plate, and lights up the drive with your choice of colours and flashing/pulsing effects. It supports Asus’s Aura system as well, so if you have an Aura-ready graphics card, motherboard or standalone lighting…

£50 • From www.scan.co.uk VERDICT A decent budget case that doesn’t always play nicely with more expensive components FRACTAL DESIGN’S CORE range is all about pure, no-frills functionality on a reasonable budget, and the Core 1500 – one of the smaller models – is no exception. This does mean that, in the grand scheme of PC case design, there aren’t any real standout features to it – though we don’t want to sound dismissive here, because there’s lots to like about it as well. Here’s the basic of the basics: the Core 1500 is a microATX/Mini-ITX case with straightforward steel construction and a compact mid-tower form factor. In fact, at 195x450x370mm, it’s both shorter and narrower than the Mini-ITX-only NZXT Manta, so should easily find a place on top of…

£90 • From www.novatech.co.uk VERDICT The Source 340 Elite is a compact tower case that’s bursting with useful upgrades over the standard model THE ORIGINAL SOURCE 340 was never the best-value case, nor the most extensively equipped, yet we’ve always had a soft spot for it on account of how good an all-rounder it is. We’ve been just as fond of its upgrade, the Source 340 Elite, ever since seeing it on the CCL Theia VR (Shopper 348). At the time, we remarked how well suited the Source 340 Elite was for the role of a VR-ready rig, and that still holds true. The main attraction is an added HDMI port on the front I/O panel; this forms part of an internal HDMI extension lead, which can extend out of…

£53 • From www.overclockers.co.uk VERDICT This dinky Mini-ITX chassis makes creative use of its limited available space THERE ARE MANY reasons for choosing a small form factor (SFF) case, such as the adorably tiny Metis Plus, over a traditional tower. Besides their minimal footprint, they’re easily portable and can fit much more comfortably into the average AV cabinet, making them ideal for multimedia PCs. Indeed, it’s hard go smaller than the 277mm long, 254mm tall Metis Plus without crossing over into palm-sized mini PC territory; this doesn’t lock down your component choices so firmly, so you can still swap parts in and out. That said, its size does mean it relies on some geometric trickery to fit everything inside, which in turn makes for a slightly more complex build process.…

SAMSUNG In September 2016 the Korean manufacturer was forced to recall around 2.5 million of its Note 7 phablet phones globally after an increasing number of reports emerged that they were catching fire. Just one month later the firm announced it had permanently scrapped production of the Note 7 device after replacement models issued to customers also began catching fire. There was even an incident in October in which a Southwest Airlines plane travelling from Kentucky to Maryland had to be evacuated before take-off due to one of the batteries combusting. Samsung eventually admitted it was unable to fix the issue. HP/COMPAQ AND SONY HP issued a recall in the summer of 2016 after admitting some of its laptop batteries could become a fire hazard. Anyone who bought a ProBook,…

Send your problems to help@computershopper.co.uk Guest what Windows 10 can’t do? My PC runs Windows 10 Pro. No matter how I try to create user accounts, they don’t work. When I try to log in to them I get the message, “The User Profile Service failed the sign-in. User profile cannot be loaded.” I have tried to enable the built-in Guest account in various ways, including from a Command Prompt (Admin) session. Everything appears to have worked, but there’s no Guest option on the login screen. What’s going on? Pete Clough We’re not clear if you’re trying to enable guest access as a workaround to the first problem. A couple of issues can cause problems with creating new accounts, but the most likely one is that the default user profile…

VIRTUAL WINDOW If the view from your desk, kitchen or living room isn’t particularly inspiring, why not use an old phone or tablet as a virtual window? Install Webcams (by EarthCam) to show a live stream from some of the most amazing webcams in the world. Whether it’s Times Square or the Abbey Road zebra crossing, Hawaii surfers or the Aurora Borealis over Iceland, your virtual window is probably an improvement over next door’s overgrown back garden. ALARM CLOCK There are some clever apps to make waking up more pleasant or more effective. Timely Alarm Clock (Android) has a fade-in for the alarm sound and looks gorgeous. Good Morning Alarm Clock (iOS) uses the microphone of your phone to determine when, within half an hour of your desired wake-up time,…

ben@computershopper.co.uk TAKE A STROLL around the virtual shopping aisles of eBay, Etsy or Amazon Marketplace and you’ll see how important high-quality product photography can be. Attractive photos not only make the product look its best, but also demonstrate that you take customer satisfaction seriously. Poor-quality photos suggest the opposite. Whether you’re selling your old phone, homemade cushions or your company’s latest high-tech product, the attractive photos are a crucial part of closing the deal. It doesn’t matter how well you’ve looked after your phone and kept it free from scratches; if the photo looks murky and grubby then everyone will assume the phone is in a similar state. Not so long ago, consumers had the luxury of visiting a shop, holding products in their hands and inspecting them carefully before…

letters@computershopper.co.uk Psion of the times Your latest Retro (Shopper 350) had me licking my lips with delight and pouring out my love for that five-letter word, Psion. I was reasonably late to the Psion world, acquiring my first PDA, the Psion Siena, second-hand in 1999. Sadly it didn’t last very long so I turned to the Psion Revo, which was glued to my pocket for the next five years in the same way that mobiles are now. I used it for everything: calendar, contacts, emails, spreadsheets, and even wrote a whole novel (unpublished) on it while commuting to and from work. I could hold it with both hands and type at the same time with each thumb very fast. I thoroughly loved my Revo. So much so that I bought…

WHEN WE THINK about IT security, the primary focus has always been our PCs. To be fair, this was the right route to take, as the PC was the primary focus for hackers. Times are changing, though: it’s clear that hackers aren’t just interested in attacking our computers, but want to attack every bit of kit we’ve got. In early February, 150,000 printers sprang into life and printed the same message: —-> YOUR PRINTER HAS BEEN OWNED <—- stackoverflowin the hacker god has returned, / your printer is part of a flaming botnet, / operating on Putin’s forehead utilising BTI’s (break the internet) complex infrastructure... hacked / hacked / lol just, / kidding For the love of God, please close this port, skid. FROM MICHAEL JENSCH, ROSENWEG, UNNA, DEUTSCHLAND. The…

For the den The new Nvidia Shield TV is a lesson on how to improve a product. It’s not a complete overhaul – the original was a pretty good hybrid media streamer/Android games console in its own right – but it fixes almost all of our issues with its chunkier predecessor. That bloated gamepad? Redesigned with a more comfortable model. The small library of streaming services and compatible games? Expanded with new channels to watch and AAA titles to play. That’s not to mention its newfound ability to act as a smart home control hub. (Page 22) For the wallet It’s taken the best part of a year, but there’s finally a sub-£250 smartphone to rival the Moto G4: the Honor 6X. It’s the cheapest handset yet to include a…

MICROSOFT IS LOOKING to help developers create and model drone and robotic experiences in a virtual environment through GitHub and its own freshly launched Aerial Informatics and Robotics Platform. The idea is to make machines and robots safer before we come face to face with them. The effort creates a sandbox environment where people can, if they want to, make drones and robots go around crashing into each other. Alternatively, they could use it to better understand machine learning. Much of the research needed is out of the reach of some of the community. “Machine learning is becoming an increasingly important artificial intelligence (AI) approach to building autonomous and robotic systems,” said Microsoft. “One of the key challenges with machine learning is the need for many samples – the amount…

£730 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT A good-looking and great-sounding PC, this is one computer we’d be proud to have on display EVER SINCE THE first PC came out, nearly every single one has come in a rectangular box, and few manufacturers have made any efforts to innovate on the design. So it’s refreshing to see HP do something a little different with the Pavilion Wave: built into a triangular case with rounded edges, it looks very different to your average tower. In fact, from a distance, you wouldn’t even think the Wave was a PC at all. With its soft material finish, the Wave looks more like a fancy Bluetooth speaker rather than a traditional PC. The B&O sticker on the front certainly doesn’t dispel that image. We rather like…

£225 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT With fantastic performance at a great price, Honor’s 6X shouldn’t be ignored REGARDLESS OF WHETHER Honor appreciates being pigeonholed as a budget smartphone brand, its latest device – the Honor 6X – may be its finest work yet. It squeezes a 5.5in, Full HD screen into an all-metal body, and comes with 32GB of integrated storage and 4GB of RAM. The rear is curved, so it sits nicely in your hand, and the glass on the front also tapers slightly at the edges for a slicker look. As for connectivity, the 6X has a dual SIM slot, perfect for travelling abroad or using as a dual work/leisure device. There’s no USB Type-C connector for fast charging, with Honor opting for an older Micro USB port…

£200 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT A versatile, A versatile, A3-capable small office MFP with decent print and copy quality, but the scanner is underwhelming THE MFC-J5730DW IS the middle model in Brother’s new range of office inkjet multifunction peripherals (MFPs), aimed at small and home offices. It’s very well specified, supporting wired and wireless networking as well as walk-up scanning and printing. It has great paper-handling features in particular, with a 50-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF) supporting automatic duplex (double-sided) scanning and faxing. There’s duplex printing and copying, too This MFP comes with two 250-sheet paper cassettes and a 100-sheet multipurpose feed at the rear. Although it’s only a little bigger than a regular A4 inkjet, all three of these can hold A3 paper, making it particularly versatile. We loaded…

£1,999 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT A giant UHD Premium TV with great all-round performance; gamers and sports fans will love it THERE’S A GOOD reason why Samsung is arguably the world’s number one TV manufacturer. Not only does the South Korean firm offer more models within its 4K TV lineup than any other brand, but Samsung screens routinely serve up good all-round picture quality at entry-level, mid-range and high-end price points alike. We’ve seen this in the company’s Best Buy-winning UE49KS7000 (Shopper 350), the UE55KS9000 (Shopper 347) and the Samsung UE48JS8500 (Shopper 341), and now there’s one more for the pile: the UE65KS8000, a 65in HDR-capable television that delivers UHD Premium-certification quality for a whisker under £2,000. LEVITATE MODERN The design is attractive: the 65in flat panel is framed by…

£1,399 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Comprehensively capable, the Fujifilm X-T2 is the best mirrorless camera on the market THE FUJIFILM X-T1 was a high watermark for mirrorless camera design and has remained among our favourite cameras since its launch in 2014. Its video capture wasn’t up to much, and rival cameras were faster, but sublime ergonomics meant taking photos was an absolute pleasure and inspecting the resulting photos was an equally rewarding experience. The X-T2 builds on its predecessor with 4K video recording, faster performance, dual card slots and a new 24-megapixel sensor with 169 phase-detect autofocus points built in. The X-T1’s top plate was covered with dials and switches for direct access to drive mode and exposure-related functions; the X-T2’s ISO speed and shutter-speed dials are a little chunkier…

£249 • From www.abbyy.com VERDICT Fast, accurate and packed with features, this is the best optical character recognition software we’ve seen yet OPTICAL CHARACTER RECOGNITION, or OCR, is the process of a computer identifying printed characters and re-creating them digitally – so you can create, save and edit digital copies of paper notes and documents. ABBYY’s FineReader series has arguably been the king of consumer-grade OCR software for a few years now, thanks largely to 2015’s excellent FineReader 12. FineReader 14 (we don’t know what happened to number 13 either – maybe it’s superstitious) promises improved performance and a new suite of PDF editing tools, albeit at a steep starting price of £169. We reviewed the £249, SMB-targeting Corporate edition, which also adds a document comparison tool and automated processing…

…A GAMING PC NZXT Source 340 Elite It isn’t the kind of case to house enormous open-loop liquid-cooling systems, but that’s only a niche concern. As far as most users will be concerned, the Source 340 Elite packs in a lot of great features for something so compact. It’s wonderfully neat, can take all-in-one watercoolers and has a clever magnetic puck for storing a headset – not to mention the added HDMI port and USB connectors, making it perfect for playing in virtual reality. It has a surprisingly decent number of storage drive slots, too, so you won’t have to worry about gigabyte-hogging game files too much. …A WORKSTATION BITFENIX Shogun Serious compute-heavy workloads demand a strong CPU and plenty of RAM, and for that, EATX motherboards are perfect. Wider…

£145 • From www.overclockers.com VERDICT It’s expensive, but the EATX-capable Shogun is a highly configurable case with all the trimmings BITFENIX SAYS THAT the Shogun continues “the theme of simplicity” of arguably its most recognisable chassis, the Shinobi. That, however, was a £50-ish budget product; with the Shogun’s fearsome £145 asking price, the BitFenix name and references to the Sengoku period might be all they share. Indeed, there’s very little that’s cheap and cheerful about the Shogun, from its thick, tempered glass panels on either side to its support for hefty Extended ATX (EATX) motherboards and two pre-installed Chroma SSD bays (as seen on the BitFenix Aurora, though that only has one, which you need to fit yourself). Measuring 250x525x565mm, it’s of a rather imposing stature in general. Of course,…

£47 • From www.overclockers.co.uk VERDICT Matched with the right motherboard, the Aviator V has a lot to offer at a relatively small price THE AVIATOR V is an updated version of Kolink’s standard Aviator mid-tower chassis. That’s already one of the better-equipped budget PC cases out there, costing £45 and including such features as three pre-installed fans, toolless optical drive bays and red LED decoration, and for a modest bump up to £47 the Aviator V offers one rather tempting addition: a full-size acrylic side window. This window doesn’t have the premium sheen or feel of glass, but is plenty sturdy and has a pronounced tint. This means it works best with components that have their own built-in lighting (such as higher-end graphics cards and certain watercooling pumps). In any…

£69 • From www.overclockers.co.uk VERDICT Out-of-the-box noise dampening and plenty of fan mounts make this a superb case for keeping things cool but quiet THE ECLIPSE P400S is the ‘silenced’ version of the P400, which – whether on purpose or by accident – seems destined as a rival to NZXT’s Source 340 family of mid-towers. It’s certainly easy to make comparisons: next to the Source 340 Elite, the Phanteks Eclipse P400S has similarly compact dimensions, support for ATX and smaller motherboards, an internal PSU shroud and seven PCI/PCI-E slots. Phanteks’ case has a good few tricks of its own, though. The defining one is its soundproofing: the front panel and both side panels are all lined with a thin layer of soft material to absorb the hum of case fans…

£140 • From www.overclockers.co.uk VERDICT This glassy bench table case will grab your attention, but it’s better for regular tinkerers than everyday users LIKE THE STYLE of poem for which it is named, the Raijintek Paean is all about honouring something: namely, the PC system inside of it. With its semi-open design and tempered glass side panels, it’s very much a case for showing off your personal selection of components. It’s actually a bench table case, which for the uninitiated is a chassis built to make it particularly easy to swap parts in and out – ideal for, say, quickly testing a stick of RAM to see if it still works, or benchmarking multiple GPUs in succession. This focus on access and functionality over aesthetics means that most bench tables…

Send your problems to businesshelp@computershopper.co.uk A straight answer for quote marks I have a large Word document that was scanned and converted to text using optical character recognition. This worked relatively well, but there are some ‘sillies’ left in there. One of the areas that is causing me the most problems is text in quotation marks. The OCR program has converted the quotes to a mix of straight (') and smart (’) quotes, and because of the layout of the original material, has inserted spaces after the opening quote and before the closing quote, so I’m left with sentences such as: “ Oh for the wings of a dove. “ I therefore have two problems: first, how can I convert straight to smart quotes when the text has already been…

clive@computershopper.co.uk AN OLD SMARTPHONE or tablet might not be fast enough for your favourite games or apps anymore, but it’s still an amazing device packed with sensors and gadgetry. The camera might not be up to scratch for family photos, but it’s plenty for a surveillance camera or baby monitor. The GPS on an old phone still works even if the phone has no SIM card installed, so chuck your car’s paper map book and use an offline map app to navigate. Even a smartphone or tablet that never leaves your desk or kitchen counter has many uses, from decorative to indispensable. So why not put a retired smartphone or tablet to new use with some free apps and a little trickery? SYSTEM SUPPORT Exactly what you can do with…