Inhoudsopgave van July 2016 - Computer Shopper

The Gadget Show Live has become a highlight of the tech calendar, mostly because it’s often a chance for the great British public to get their hands on the toys that thus far have only been the stuff of foreign shows such as CES and MWC. This year, in spite of being disappointed by the absence of a lot of big names, and horrified by the catering (£6.95 for a sandwich? Really?) there was plenty to see and do, whether you wanted to try out a cutting-edge connected home or just trawl around the glorified market stalls. Chris Merriman packed his sandwiches and a flask of lukewarm Vimto and headed to Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre for a look at some of the more weird and wonderful offerings. EYEJUSTERS www.eyejusters.com, from…

£499 • From www.apple.com/uk VERDICT Apple’s best-ever tablet is the perfect work companion, but it doesn’t come cheap THE IPAD PRO was something of a revelation when Apple released it last year, successfully proving that tablets could be used for creating, rather than just consuming. With its excellent Pencil, the iPad Pro was more than just a laptop replacement, too, taking over as a way for artists to draw and for everyone else to take notes in a more natural way. However, as good as the iPad Pro is, it’s not the ultimate device for portability, which is why Apple has decided to revamp the iPad Air 2 into Pro status, creating the 9.7in iPad Pro. Taking the much-loved iPad Air 2 as a starting point has given Apple many…

£1,149 • From www.dell.co.uk VERDICT Dell’s 4K 2-in-1 has a fantastic screen but its design and battery performance are hugely flawed SHEDDING THE PREVIOUS model’s rotating hinge in favour of a more standard 2-in-1 design, the new XPS 12 is just 8mm thick and weighs 790g. It’s a bit cumbersome to hold in one hand, but not impossible, and the 12.5in display gives you plenty of screen to work on. As this is a hybrid 2-in-1, you can transform the XPS 12 into a laptop by connecting its separate mobility base keyboard. Dell gives you a choice of two: the XPS 12 Premier Keyboard with Magnetic Folio, or an XPS 12 Slim Keyboard, which knocks £9.60 off the overall price. We tried the former, but quickly noticed that the folio…

£849 • From www.very.co.uk VERDICT A decent first attempt at a 2-in-1 hybrid from Samsung, but it’s not without its flaws MICROSOFT SURFACE RIVALS are becoming a dime-a-dozen, and now Samsung has entered the ring with the Galaxy TabPro S. That’s not to say a bit of competition isn’t a good thing, as the Galaxy TabPro S offers far more than your typical two-in-one hybrid. First, there’s a 12in, 2,160x1,440 Super AMOLED display. It’s the same type of panel as the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge smartphones, and its rich, vibrant colours jump out of the screen. The 4:3 aspect ratio is unorthodox, but the extra vertical screen space does make web browsing and editing documents more pleasurable. A 16:9 aspect ration is still better for watching films, though, as…

£590 • From www.overclockers.co.uk VERDICT Excellent image quality and Nvidia G-Sync make smooth 4K gaming a reality WE LOVED THE Acer Predator XB270HU – a 2,560x1,440, G-Sync-enabled 144Hz gaming monitor reviewed in Shopper 332 – so we were excited to see the new XB271HK. This 27in IPS G-Sync screen has a lower 60Hz refresh rate but, by way of compensation, a huge 3,840x2,160 resolution. It’s similar to the Asus PG27AQ in capabilities, but is £60 cheaper. Predator branding and a sharp-angled, red and black stand make this unashamedly a gaming monitor. Still, we like the design; the stand is rock-solid and the screen is easy to adjust for height, tilt and rotation from left to right and from landscape to portrait. The stand may be stable, but it’s also a…

Starting at £169 • From www.smappee.com/uk VERDICT Complex setup and expensive initial outlay are the only negatives in a great hybrid of energy monitor and home control via IFTTT THERE’S ONLY SO much you can say about a regular energy monitor. Fortunately, Smappee is far more than that and can actually use the data it collects to control your home and make intelligent decisions based on the behaviour of your appliances. Although the original device has been available for around 18 months, we felt this was a great time to look at it because it has just extended its reach from monitoring electricity to cover gas and water as well. It also now offers a dedicated monitor for solar, which reads the yield of your solar panels as well as…

01A basic laptop costing around £300 will run everyday office, multimedia and education software, but it won’t be suitable for 3D gaming or processor-intensive tasks such as video editing. 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. 02If you want to play modern games, you’ll need a laptop with a dedicated graphics chip such as the Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M. Good gaming laptops tend to have large 17in screens and weigh around 3kg, so they’re best suited to use at home. 03If you want a laptop that you can take everywhere, look for a model that weighs less than 2kg. For the best portability, buy one that has an 11in or 13in screen. In…

01 A basic digital camera will suit someone who wants to take pictures to view on their computer and create 7x5in prints. It should cost around £80, but there may be hidden downsides such as slow performance and very basic user controls. 02 Spend a little more and you’ll get a higher resolution. A 16-megapixel sensor has the potential to produce sharp prints up to A3 size, but only if it and the lens are of a suitably high quality. Very high resolutions in compact cameras tend to boost noise more than detail levels, so many of the best models strike a sensible balance by using a 12-megapixel sensor. Back-illuminated CMOS sensors tend to produce less noise than CCDs, but check our reviews to find out how a particular model…

01 Bluetooth speakers come in all shapes and sizes, so you’ll need to decide what you want to do with the speaker before you buy. If you don’t plan to take your music outdoors or around the house, look for a wired speaker. These are typically cheaper than speakers with built-in batteries. If you do want a portable speaker, however, pay particular attention to how much it weighs. Ruggedised models should be able to survive accidental drops, water spills and unexpected rain showers. 02 Many of the cheapest Bluetooth speakers use the lossy A2DP Bluetooth protocol, which is prone to compressing your music and discarding detail compared with the original recording. It’s hard to tell the difference when listening to pocket-sized speakers, but if you’re looking for a speaker to…

01Wireless routers each use a number of Wi-Fi standards, so you shouldn’t have any trouble connecting your computer or phone wirelessly if you get an 802.11n or 802.11ac router. Nearly all routers support 802.11n, so even a cheap model should provide decent performance. You can expect a transfer speed of around 40Mbit/s at a distance of 10m from any modern 802.11n router. The very latest routers use the 802.11ac standard, which provides tremendously fast transfer speeds. Some devices still don’t support the 802.11ac standard, so check the specifications before you buy. 02 If you subscribe to an ADSL broadband service, you should buy a wireless router that has a built-in ADSL modem. This will cost more than the equivalent cable router, but it allows you to connect your router directly…

XARA Web Designer 11 Premium £70 • www.xara.com/uk Web Designer was already excellent, but version 11 gets a slew of incremental updates that ensure it remains our favourite one-box web design tool. OS SUPPORT Windows XP or later • MINIMUM Intel Celeron/AMD Sempron • MINIMUM GPU DirectX 9 • MINIMUM RAM 500MB • HARD DISK SPACE 300MB • DETAILS www.xara.com/uk • FULL REVIEW Sep 2015 ADOBE Photoshop Lightroom 6 £102 • www.ebuyer.com Lightroom 6 might be a relatively modest update, but Adobe’s photography toolbox still sets the gold standard for Raw photo processing and image enhancement. OS SUPPORT Windows 7/8 • MINIMUM CPU Intel or AMD with 64-bit support • MINIMUM GPU 1GB, OpenGL 3.3, DirectX 10 • MINIMUM RAM 2GB • HARD DISK SPACE 2GB • DETAILS www.adobe.com/uk • PRODUCT CODE…

GETTING STARTED The download instructions on the card insert (after page 74) show you how to connect to the download site. Make sure you type in the web address exactly as shown. You’ll need your coupon code the first time you log on to the site. 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 In order to provide us with free software, publishers now require us to offer the applications as a download and to require online registration. You need to use the unique code printed in the box on the card insert to register and download the software in…

£80 • From www.printerbase.co.uk VERDICT The MFC-J5320DW is a cheap way to tackle any print, scan, copy or fax job a small firm might need EVEN WITH PRINTER prices dropping across the board, the Brother MFC-J5320DW’s price prompted a double-take when it launched last year. For well under £100 this compact inkjet MFP can print, scan, copy and fax, all controlled via a colour touchscreen. You can share it over a wired or wireless network and scan directly to an inserted USB stick, or even to a cloud-based service. It has a 35-page automatic document feeder (ADF), and can automatically print on both sides of each page. If all that wasn’t enough, it can even print on A3 paper. That’s some list, so it’s understandable if it feels as if…

£75 • From www.box.co.uk VERDICT The right balance of features, performance and quality makes the Pixma MG5750 a winner Photo prints are as good as you’ll get from a mid-range inkjet: free of grain, and impressively sharp CANON’S PIXMA MG5750 is, like many of the printers in this group test, an inkjet MFP designed for the home. It’s a squat, smartlooking device, made from high-quality black plastic. It’s also quite well specified: it can print, scan and copy, print automatically on both sides of a sheet of paper (a feature known as duplex printing), and you can connect and share it on a wireless network. There’s no fax modem, however. As you might expect, there’s support for printing from or scanning to cloud services including Google Drive, Dropbox and OneDrive,…

£70 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT Microscopic screen aside, Epson’s XP-530 is a good home MFP for creative work THE XP-530 IS the cheapest model in Epson’s Expression Premium range of inkjet MFPs for the home. Geared toward creative users, it uses Epson’s five-ink engine, which combines a pigment-based black for text printing, with dye-based black, cyan, magenta and yellow inks for graphics and photos. You can share it via a wired network, print from or scan to an inserted SD memory card, or print automatically on both sides of a sheet of paper (duplex printing). But as is common for cheap MFPs, there’s no fax modem. On first impressions, ‘Premium’ isn’t a word we’d use for the XP-530. It looks smart, with a squat stance and shiny black plastics, but…

£94 • From www.viking-direct.co.uk VERDICT The Officejet 7510 is a cheap way to print on A3 paper, but it made us grumpy HP IS ALONE in describing A3 printers as ‘wide format’ but, daft name aside, the Officejet 7510 Wide Format All-in-One Printer seems like a sensible device. For well under £100 it can scan, fax and copy A4 originals, and print with or without borders on anything up to A3+ (322x475mm). The Officejet 7510 supports wired and wireless networking, and is controlled via a colour touchscreen. There’s also a 30-page automatic document feeder (ADF) on the top for making unattended copies and faxes. The Officejet 7510 is a big and chunky device, with a strong 250-sheet paper tray captive in the base. The tray’s heavy-duty lid also forms the…

NO MATTER HOW advanced computers get, there’s one inevitability: they all get slower over time. When the issues build up, a slow PC can be infuriating to use and, in the worst cases we’ve seen, even cause the computer to be abandoned. In most cases, the slowdown is not because of old hardware not being able to cope, but rather the cumulative effect of lots of minor things going wrong. These can be as simple as old software taking up resources on startup or dust building up inside the case, making your computer hotter and thus causing the CPU to slow down to protect itself, to hidden malware running rampant. The good news is that all these problems can be fixed. So, before you decide your old computer has had…

£180 • From www.pcworld.co.uk VERDICT A great Windows 10 laptop that can match its Chromebook rivals for value GOOGLE’S CHROMEBOOKS HAVE helped create a whole new type of entry-level, budget-friendly laptop. With their focus on web-based tasks and storing files in the cloud, Chromebooks have become a great low-cost option for anyone who spends most of their computing time inside an internet browser. However, affordable laptops aren’t just limited to Chromebooks; there have been lots of Windows-based alternatives popping up lately as well, including Acer’s Aspire One Cloudbook 14. This 14.1in laptop costs just £180, and manages to tick all the right boxes. Admittedly, the Aspire One Cloudbook 14’s rather bland, utilitarian design is hardly going to get your pulse racing. While the outer lid’s textured, perforated finish feels great…

£299 • From www.jessops.com VERDICT A 40x zoom in a compact body is an outlandish concept, but the Canon SX720 HS serves a purpose CANON’S SX720 HS is a compact camera with a 40x zoom lens, smashing the record of 30x held by Canon, Nikon, Panasonic and Sony. This is great if you like to shoot distant subjects but don’t want to lug a bulky camera around. However, this extra zoom extension is only useful if the camera can produce sharp photos at the full zoom extension; it’s a challenge not just for the lens optics but also for stabilisation and noise handling. Zooming in also shrinks the maximum aperture; in this case from f/3.3 for wide-angle to f/6.9 for telephoto, or a quarter the amount of light. Thus the…

£650 • From www.overclockers.co.uk VERDICT The design is lovely and G-Sync remains impressive, but cheaper rivals have better image quality LIKE THE ACER Predator XB271HK (page 42), the ROG Swift PG27AQ is a 4K monitor with Nvidia’s G-Sync technology, which is designed to sync your Nvidia graphics card with your monitor’s refresh rate to reduce stuttering and tearing in games – providing smoother motion – at both high and low frame rates. If you have an Nvidia graphics card, G-Sync is an absolute joy, particularly when the frame rate dips below the monitor’s standard refresh rate; the elimination of stutter makes games appear to be running at a higher frame rate than they actually are. On a screen such as this, with a 60Hz, 3,840x2,160 panel, it’s likely you’ll dip…

£78 • From www.pcworldbusiness.co.uk VERDICT A low price and souped-up error protection help compensate for disappointing speeds WITH ITS HYPERX division holding down the fort as far as enthusiast-targeted storage is concerned, Kingston’s own focus has turned to business buyers and intensive home users, producing the modestly named but highly specced KC400 SATA SSD. Available in 128GB, 256GB, 512GB and 1TB varieties (we tested the 256GB model), it can serve – depending on your choice – as either a main drive or as part of a multidrive setup, with the operating system and some key software saved on the KC400 and everything else on a larger 1TB or 2TB drive. Much of the KC400’S business credibility comes from its controller, a quad-core Phison PS3110-S10, which offers a few key features…

£40 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT Brilliant co-operative shooting, but The Division fails to make the most of its setting THE DIVISION BLENDS genres like a video-game smoothie. It’s a third-person shooter with a prevalence for cover mechanics, but also mixes in RPG and both co-operative and PVP multiplayer elements. Part Gears of War, part Borderlands, part Destiny, it’s radical yet familiar. It’s also not without some curious design choices. For starters, while The Division is an RPG on many recognisable levels – from its XP-based skills and perks system to the abundance of lootable gear – it bucks genre convention by having no fleshed-out ‘quest-giver’ characters populating the world. Yes, there are characters stuck in your headquarters who give you mission orders over your radio, but they don’t come out…

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, which is mainly used on Lumia phones. Apple iOS and Google Android have the most apps available but Windows Phone is slowly catching up. 02All 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 apps to replace these with better versions later. The image quality of…

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 for the best picture quality. Its colour accuracy may not be very good, either. 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-to-analogue or analogue-todigital 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 HDCP,…

01 Action cameras are typically much smaller than a regular camcorder, as they are designed to be mounted to a bike, board or car, or worn on your person. As the name suggests, they are designed primarily for shooting action footage, but because of their small size they are ideal for strapping on to your pet’s collar or your children’s toys for a different perspective. 02 Almost all action cameras will shoot Full HD video, and some will even shoot 4K, but frame rate is arguably more important than resolution when it comes to action video. Higher frame rates will mean smoother clips, and super-high frame rate videos can be played in slow motion to emphasise exciting shots. Keep an eye out for 4k/30, 1080p/60 and 720p/120 models for the…

01 A basic 1TB internal hard disk should cost around £40. This will be fast enough for general use and will 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…

Fallout 4 £25 • www.cdkeys.com Exploring a post-apocalyptic wasteland has never been more fun. Bethesda has expanded the Fallout universe with base building and crafting mechanics, making this the definitive entry in the series. AVAILABLE FORMATS PC, Xbox One, PS4 • OS SUPPORT Windows 7/8.1/ 10 64-bit • MINIMUM CPU Quad-core 2.8GHz Intel, quad-core 3GHz AMD • MINIMUM GPU Nvidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti, AMD Radeon HD 7870 • MINIMUM RAM 8GB • HARD DISK SPACE 30GB • DETAILS www.fallout4.com • FULL REVIEW Feb 2016 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt £20 • www.cdkeys.com The Witcher 3 has an involving plot, an amazingly well-realised world and beautifully drawn characters. It’s the ultimate fantasy RPG for anyone that prefers action to turn-based strategy. AVAILABLE FORMATS PC, Xbox One, PS4 • OS SUPPORT Windows…

£86 • From www.viking-direct.co.uk VERDICT The MFC-J680DW is compact and has fair running costs, but it’s all a bit so-so THE MFC-J680DW is the second of Brother’s home and home office inkjet MFPs we’ve looked at in this group test. It’s similar to the older MFC-J5320JW, in both specs and price. For £86, you get print, scan, copy and colour fax functions, with automatic duplex (double-sided) printing and a 20-page automatic document feeder (ADF) for unattended multi-page copies, scans or faxes. This MFP’s other features include support for wireless, but not wired networking, and control through a large colour touchscreen. The MFC-J680DW might be a relatively new model, but Brother’s inkjet MFPs remain resolutely boxy when compared to their rivals. Despite a slightly smaller size than the model it replaces,…

£52 • From www.ebuyer.com VERDICT The MX495 isn’t perfect, but it’s great if you’re setting up a home office on a budget CANON’S PIXMA MX495 is a small inkjet multifunction peripheral aimed at home offices: accordingly, it can print, scan or copy, and send or receive faxes. It’s a smart, compact device with a 20-page automatic document feeder (ADF) built into the scanner lid, so you can leave it alone to copy longer documents, or send a multi-page fax. There’s support for USB connections and wireless networking, but no front-panel USB or wired Ethernet port, although we wouldn’t necessarily expect either at this price. Despite the cheap price and compact design, the MX495 is reasonably satisfying. When not in use, the ADF’s input tray can fold shut to keep dust…

£298 • From www.ukofficedirect.co.uk VERDICT The WorkForce Pro WF-5690DWF is a great office MFP, but it’s too expensive EPSON’S WORKFORCE PRO WF-5690DWF is an inkjet multifunction peripheral for a busy small office. It’s extremely well specified, with Gigabit Ethernet and wireless networking fitted as standard, along with a huge 10.9cm colour touchscreen. Not only can it print automatically on both sides of a sheet of paper, but its 35-page automatic document feeder can pull off the same trick: you can make a double-sided copy or fax of a double-sided original without having to feed the sheets manually. The main difference between this and the cheaper WF-5620DWF is that this model supports print languages including PCL6 and Adobe PostScript 3. A 250-page paper cassette sits at the base of the printer,…

£160 • From www.ebuyer.com VERDICT Fast and robust, with good print quality and low costs, Ricoh’s SP 3600DN is a winner RICOH’S SP 3600DN is a fast mono printer for a small office or workgroup. It’s designed for fairly hard use, with a maximum duty cycle of 50,000 pages per month, and a claimed speed of up to 30 pages per minute (ppm). It doesn’t support wireless networking and there’s no front-panel USB port for walk-up printing, but there is a wired Ethernet port at the rear. Moreover, duplex (double-sided) printing is standard, and the maximum print resolution is 1,200dpi – more detailed than the 600dpi you get on entry-level printers. Unlike the other printers tested here, the SP 3600DN uses LED printing instead of more conventional inkjet and laser…

SINCE ITS LAUNCH in 1999, the humble Secure Digital (SD) card has fought off competition from Sony’s Memory Stick format and CompactFlash cards to become the de facto standard for expandable storage. Nowadays, that means you’ll find SD cards in many guises and in a multitude of devices, with differing sizes and speeds to consider. This can make buying the right SD card a confusing affair, so we’re here to explain just what all those different labels mean. SD CARD TYPES The standard SD card is the ‘full-size’ variant. It’s typically used in most modern digital cameras, and nearly all laptops will come equipped with an SD card reader slot. You’ll also see ‘SDHC’ and ‘SDXC’ variants. The first stands for ‘Secure Digital High Capacity’, referring to cards with a…

PLAY BUILD Microsoft kicked off its Build 2016 show in San Francisco with a focus on the Xbox and developers, explaining that soon the console would be more hackable and open to change. Head of the Xbox division, Phil Spencer, took the honours at the show, introducing the exciting developer features for both the gaming console and Windows 10, the latest version of Microsoft’s operating system. He introduced the Xbox Dev Mode, which he said could be used to turn any console into a full developer kit. This is out in preview now, with a wider release expected later. Microsoft suggested that one does not merely walk into developing for the Xbox One, explaining that perhaps those with the most experience should move first. Still on the Xbox, and closer…

£650 • From www.johnlewis.com VERDICT A stylish and well-built ultra-portable, but its battery life could be better 2015’S ZENBOOK UX305 (Shopper 328) was the first Asus ZenBook to use Intel’s new Core M processors, and gave Windows-based laptops a suitable rival to Apple’s latest MacBook, which also opted for the same processor family. A year on, and Intel has upgraded its Core M range to the Skylake generation, providing modest clock speed increases. The Core m3-6Y30 inside the UX305CA has had a base clock speed increase to 0.9GHz, up from 0.8GHz. Such slow clock speeds may make you think you’ve stepped into the past, but it makes more sense when you realise Intel’s Core M processors are designed to Turbo Boost to far nippier speeds. The UX305CA’s processor has a…

£549 • From www.wexphotographic.com VERDICT It’s far from amazing, but the TZ100 does a lot of things right for such a small camera THERE’S A SAYING that goes: children, a tidy house, your sanity – choose two. It’s not unlike the choice people have to make when buying a camera. You can have a big zoom, high image quality and a pocket-sized design, but only two of these in the same camera. The TZ100 attempts to disprove that theory. First, it uses a 1in sensor, which has five times the surface area of conventional compact cameras’ sensors. Second, it has a 10x optical zoom, which can’t compete with the 30x and 40x zooms gracing other pocket ultra-zooms but is more versatile than the 4x and 5x zooms on other premium…

£999 • From www.johnlewis.com VERDICT With excellent picture quality and a full lineup of catch-up services, this is a great choice SINCE LAUNCHING IN 2015, the Samsung UE48JS8500 has enjoyed a hefty £550 price cut. It’s the entry-level set in Samsung’s premium SUHD series, so you get a quantumdot display instead of regular LCD as well as High Dynamic Range (HDR) support, giving it some much-needed futureproofing for the influx of 4K HDR content – including Ultra HD Blu-rays – about to hit the market. While the UE48JS8500 has to make do with one of Samsung’s One Connect Mini boxes to provide the bulk of its ports, between this and the ports on the TV itself you’ve got all the modern connections you’ll need. This includes four HDCP 2.2-compatible HDMI…

£165 • From www.superfi.co.uk VERDICT A Bluetooth speaker with a delightful design and the sound quality to match WE WERE RATHER fond of the colourful, great-sounding Audio Pro Addon T10 speaker when it arrived in the offices last year (see Shopper 327), so it was with some excitement that we approached the smaller, batteryoperated Addon T3. It doesn’t look that different to its larger sibling, maintaining a similar speaker arrangement that gives it a slightly aghast anthropomorphic expression, but it lacks the IR receiver that made the T10 look as if it had a beauty mark on its cheek. Like the T10, the T3 comes in various colour finishes, including green, white, black and orange, and all models include a useful leather handle on top. Since there’s a built-in battery,…

£118 • From www.ebuyer.com VERDICT A plethora of connectivity and expansion slots makes up for limited overclocking potential YES, IT’S ANOTHER red and black gaming motherboard. In fact, the Dennis the Menace colour scheme and metal-plated PCI-E x16 slots may seem particularly familiar, as it was only recently (see Shopper 339) we reviewed the GA-990FX-Gaming’s similar-looking Intel-based counterpart, the Z170-Gaming K3. This is an AMD board designed for the most recent AM3+ socket, though as is the standard, it’s compatible with AM3 chips as well. We tested it with our usual reference PC, but swapped out the Intel Core i5-4670K CPU for the AMD FX-8350, an AM3+ processor which achieved comparable (if slightly lower) scores in our Windows benchmark tests. The Gigabyte board’s scores were about what we expected: 86…

01A basic PC costing around £350 will be able to run everyday office, multimedia and education software and will easily cope with surfing the internet. It might even be able to run some modern games. Many PCs can be sold either with or without a monitor. If you don’t like the display that the manufacturer is offering, you can always use your current one, or buy another one separately. 02If you want to play games, you’ll have to upgrade the graphics card. Budget cards such as the Nvidia GeForce GTX 950 will cope well with many 3D games, but to play the latest 3D games smoothly (and enjoy the best-quality graphics) it’s worth upgrading to a more powerful card such as the Nvidia GeForce GTX 970. 03All modern PCs come…

01 All tablets rely on an operating system (OS) to run apps. You have three main choices: Apple’s iOS, which runs on the iPad, Android, which Google licenses to various manufacturers, and Windows 10, which is slowly becoming more common in hybrid tablets and convertibles. If you own an Apple or Google smartphone, you can download your apps, music and so on to a tablet that runs the same OS, so it makes sense to stick with a compatible device. 02 It’s important to pick a tablet that has a good-quality high-resolution screen. Many budget tablets have 1,280x800-resolution displays, but better tablets have Full HD 1,920x1,080 panels, and we’re starting to see tablets that have even higher screen resolutions. Some are as high as 2,560x1,600 or even 4K. Entry-level tablets…

01A 32in Full HD TV costs around £200 and will suit smaller living rooms. TVs look much smaller in the shop than in your home, so measure the space available before you buy. Curved TVs are becoming increasingly more common, but bear in mind that these typically take up more floor space than a traditional flat set. 02A 1,920x1,080-resolution TV can display a 1080p image. You can still buy TVs with a 720p (1,366x768) resolution, but they’re no cheaper and the image won’t be as sharp. 3,840x2,560 Ultra HD resolution, or 4K, TVs are finally available at reasonable prices, although you’ll still pay a premium for one over a 1080p model. 03Consider the number of inputs you’ll need to connect the rest of your equipment. Two HDMI ports should be…

01You should be able to buy a decent inkjet printer for less than £40. High-quality printing is possible on such a printer, but it will be slow. The actual print speed of an inkjet can be half the quoted (maximum) speed for text documents, and even slower when printing graphics. Budget inkjet printers such as these are designed only for light use and can be expensive to run. 02For £60 you can buy a much more capable printer that’s either faster and better built or better at reproducing photos. If documents are your priority, you’ll want a high minimum speed and low print costs. Look for inkjets that can handle all your office media, such as envelopes and labels. 03If photos are your priority, speed is less important. Choose a…

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 the latest games. A good mid-range gaming graphics card is the Nvidia GTX 950, 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…

COMPUTER SHOPPER’S REVIEWS use some of the most exhaustive testing procedures you’ll find in any PC magazine. Every product is subjected to qualitative and quantitative tests that show how it performs in practical use. Graphs for performance, battery-life scores and costs are used in the Reviews section, as shown on the right. Look in the ‘Summary of tests’ table (below) for details of each test we run. For PCs and laptops, we evaluate performance using our own custom benchmarking suite. See below for a brief description of our benchmarking software and game tests. SUMMARY OF TESTS BENCHMARKS SHOPPER BENCHMARKS Our benchmark suite uses opensource software that runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux systems. This lets us use objective results to compare PCs and laptops, no matter which operating…

IN MANY WAYS, printers are the unsung heroes of the technology world. It’s tempting to think that in a world of smartphones and the cloud, we can all go completely paper-free. But from students printing out essays to legions of office staff creating vital documents, few machines are as utterly essential as the printer. What’s more, there are more than a few good reasons to upgrade to a new one. First, it’s quite difficult to buy a printer these days which isn’t also a scanner and a photocopier – hence ‘multifunction peripheral’, or MFP. Second, both standalone printers and MFPs have been amazingly cheap for a few years now, with entry-level models costing little more than £40. Even at the opposite end, you can pick up a fully business-ready machine…

£40 • From www.currys.co.uk VERDICT HP’s DeskJet 3630 is a bargain, but suffers from some truly awful software THE GLOSSY WHITE curves of HP’s DeskJet 3630 are a stylish change from the rows of black printers that usually fill these pages, even if from certain angles it reminds us of bathroom furniture. It’s not a bad trick for such a cheap device; it’s hard to spend less on an MFP, yet the DeskJet 3630 neither looks nor feels cut-price. There’s no duplex (double-sided) printing, but the simple blue paper trays look good and keep everything tidy enough. There’s no fancy screen, but if all you’ll do is make the odd photocopy, the basic controls and simple LCD are just fine. As you’d expect, you can connect this MFP to your…

£70 • From www.ebuyer.com VERDICT Ricoh’s SP C250DNW is as cheap as colour laser printers get. Surprisingly, it’s not bad at all IT’S HARD TO spend less on a colour laser printer than the £70 or so that Ricoh’s SP C250DNW will set you back. You’d imagine, then, that it might be rubbish, but with both wired and wireless network connections and automatic double-sided (duplex) printing, it looks pretty promising. Its 250-sheet paper tray is enough for most home or micro-office users, and there’s a single-page bypass feed for when you need to print on specialty media such as an envelope or headed paper. The SP C250DNW isn’t the smallest colour laser and, at about 24kg, it’s good to have a friend help you unpack it. Despite the bulk, it’s…

3D printing is a game-changer in computer innovation, and it’s growing cheaper, faster, easier and more accurate every day. The technology has already crossed over from specialist niches into the mainstream, and industrial production is being revolutionised. But why should big business have all the fun? You can already buy the next best thing to a Star Trek Replicator for the price of a smartphone, and print out almost anything you like in the privacy of your own home. Join Mel Croucher as he gets to grips with the third dimension. 3Dor not 3D, that is the question. And the answer is data. The 3D printing technology that is changing our entire world can be reduced to three words, and the words are scan, slice and assemble. First an object…

GIRL POWER Microsoft says it is very keen to make the video game industry more inclusive for women. To prove the point, it hosted the Women in Gaming Luncheon in San Francisco at this year’s Game Developers Conference. The very same night, Microsoft threw a huge party, and because it wanted everyone to have a nice inclusive time, the firm hired a cohort of young women to jolly things along. The women were dressed in soft-porn versions of Catholic schoolgirl uniforms, with boob tubes and micro-skirts revealing as much flesh as the budget allowed, and they were paid to jiggle around to “encourage delegates”. Zygote is delighted to report that as a gesture of solidarity with the declared Microsoft policy of female inclusion, a significant number of female delegates exercised…