Table of contents for July 2019 in Windows Help & Advice

This month’s lead feature is all about making the most of the world’s most popular productivity suite: Microsoft Office. In it you’ll discover dozens of tips for Excel, Word and PowerPoint, as well as its arch-rival LibreOffice. Hopefully you’ll come away having discovered new ways to work on all kinds of documents that make using both suites easier and more fun than before. Turn to page 13 to get started. On page 52, you’ll discover whether you really need that new soundcard you’ve been after; while on page 58 you’ll learn how to choose the right motherboard for your next gaming rig. Once you’ve done all that, turn to our Explore section (page 25) for the latest step-by-step guides on doing more with your PC – from creating amazing photo…

So what’s going on? The US government, on advice of its intelligence agencies, has placed sanctions on Chinese technology firm Huawei. It’s been added to a blacklist that effectively prevents it from selling its products in the US and and from any dealings with US companies. What’s the charge? Specifically, Huawei – apparently backed by the Chinese military – is accused of providing Beijing with a backdoor into the communications networks it operates, since China mandates that its national companies must co-operate with the country on national security issues. What has the impact been? Following the ban, things were relatively swift: Huawei was given a three-month reprieve, after which it would no longer be able to trade with US businesses. Google, most notably, has suspended all business with Huawei beyond…

Chipmaker Intel, which likely built the processor at the heart of your PC, can’t catch a break. After word of two potential flaws with its processors came out last year – and the company’s only fix, at least for one of them, caused said processors to run more slowly – it’s been hit by another in the form of Zombieload. To be clear, these aren’t viruses, but they are flaws in the way the increasingly tiny components in processors are laid out and constructed, enabling them to be exploited and overloaded by malware creators, and potentially to be used to steal your personal data. INTEL FATIQUE A fix for Zombieload has already been worked on and has been released to certain machines. Unfortunately, it appears to slow down computers in…

Save to Computer by default Microsoft is incredibly keen for you to save directly to OneDrive in later versions of Office, but it’s sluggish and slow. Open File > Options > Save and ensure ‘Save to Computer by default’ is ticked, then pick a default folder. From the February 2019 update you can do this via the new Save This File dialog that pops up when saving a new document: click the Location drop-down menu for a list of recent folders, right-click one and choose ‘Set as Default Location’. More default save options File > Options > Save is where you go to also change the default location for any personal templates you create in each separate Office application – here, however, you need to manually type (or copy and…

MOVE TOOL Move your layers around, distort and rotate them. AUTO SELECT LAYER Frequently useful, although it’s often just as annoying. EXPERT MODE Elements’ most powerful mode, it gives you no help. LAYERS Your layers live here. Drag them up and down to change how they stack. LAYERS BUTTON Click here to open the Layers palette. GRAPHICS BUTTON Click this to open the Graphics palette. The artist David Hockney – in an experimental 1980s phase away from painting – turned to photography instead, producing collages first with Polaroids, then with 35mm prints. You’ll find at least one of his collages in the National Portrait Gallery, others cost thousands of pounds at auction. We’re not going to suggest you can replicate that level of fame, but you can recreate the look…

QUICK ACCESS A handy toolbar that offers shortcuts to the file and folder tools you use most often, so they are always available. RIBBON TABS Buttons are divided across numerous tabs to keep group-related options together and keep things tidy. NAVIGATION PANE The left-hand pane enables you to browse through the folders on your hard drive, network and removable media. MAIN PANE The contents of the currently selected folder. The type of view you’ve selected will determine how the icons look here. PREVIEW PANE File Explorer is able to show you the contents of some files without you having to open them. Handy. SHOW/HIDE RIBBON Use this to choose between displaying the Ribbon at all times, or hiding it until you need it. When you open a folder on your…

ALL THE OPTIONS When managing multiple accounts, go through each of the tabs to make sure that every little thing is covered. ACCOUNT TYPES You can set access levels for accounts, giving users more or less control over your PC. You can also block them, too. FAMILY MEMBERS Adding family members links them to your Microsoft account, enabling you to manage them online. LOCAL ACCOUNTS If you don’t want users attached to your Microsoft account, add them here. Add a guest account for visitors. ONLINE MANAGEMENT This offers tight control over kids’ actions, including asking permission for purchases. BLOCK APPS If you want to make sure the users of your PC behave themselves, block their access to certain applications. Many people – most, even – use their Windows PCs as…

Photo-editing packages, also known as painting applications, are widely used, but often inappropriately. They’re far from ideal for producing diagrams, flow charts, logos and illustrations for scientific, technical and business purposes. Instead, the tool of choice for this sort of job is drawing software, otherwise known as vector-editing software. Here we’re offering some hands-on guidance on how to use one of these tools for a few typical applications: LibreOffice Draw, which is a very capable package. If you use LibreOffice, Draw is probably already installed on your PC, and it’ll easily work in conjunction with other LibreOffice tools because of the commonality of file formats. Even if you choose to use different software, many of the basic principles covered here still apply. Vector editing principles Before starting with any hands-on…

Gaming PCs emerged in the 1980s (their specifications would make you laugh now); by the 2000s, custom-built gaming machines were everywhere; and now you can buy just about everything you need off the shelf, from coloured cables to whole systems swathed in lights. Tinkering with multipliers and clock frequencies has gone mainstream. If you’re putting together a gaming rig, you’ll want a gaming motherboard – obvious, right? But are these motherboards really worth it? What can a gaming motherboard actually do to improve gaming? In a word: overclocking. This is really what they are all about, squeezing every ounce of performance from your processor and subsystems. You know how this goes: You need a big cooler, an unlocked processor, and the right motherboard chipset. But getting the right motherboard to…

What’s a fancy gaming rig without a multitude of RGB lights? Many boards come with a plethora of lights, but with RGB headers, you can really go to town with extra lighting strips. The four-pin RGB header has individual pins for the three colours, enabling each to be fired as required, and a common ground. This came over from domestic RGB lighting. Gigabyte has used a five-pin header, which has an extra pin for dedicated white LEDs. Four-pin systems run at 12V, and are essentially analogue; variable voltages deliver 256 levels for each colour, but all LEDs of that colour on a strip fire at once. Then came addressable RGB headers – ARGB – which are three-pin: power, ground, and a control line. These run at 5V, and are digitally…

Without warning, Firefox has suddenly decided all my extensions are legacy ones and has disabled the lot. What’s going on? Dara Jones This was caused by an expired security certificate, which invalidated the add-ons. Make sure you’re running Firefox 66.0.4 or later (choose Help > About Firefox) and the problem should be rectified. I need to view emails from an old computer that ran Outlook Express. I have the .dbx files, but no means of opening them in Windows 10. June Quince Try the free Outlook Express DBX Viewer tool (https://turgs. com/dbx/viewer/); if you want to export the files, try a community-built version of OE (https://runasxp.com/) that runs in Windows 10. I can’t get on with Windows’ new Storage Sense feature. Is there a tool I can start to use…

If you regularly tote an external drive around along with your laptop, how would you feel if it got lost or stolen – or, more importantly, the data contained on it? Luckily, you can keep your stuff safe from prying eyes even if the drive falls into the wrong hands. Windows 10 Professional gives you the ability to create encrypted drives with BitLocker – indeed you could protect the entire contents of your laptop this way.…

1 Windows 10 Head to www.microsoft.com/ software-download/windows10 and click ‘Download tool now’. Once downloaded, open MediaCreationTool. exe. When prompted, select ‘Create installation media’ and follow the prompts to create either a USB flash drive or an ISO file (for burning to DVD). 2 Windows 8.1 Download the Media Creation Tool from www.microsoft.com/ software-download/windows8 – input your language, edition of Windows 8.1 and PC architecture (32-bit or 64-bit) and then click Next. Choose to create either a USB flash drive or an ISO file and then follow the prompts to the end. 3 Windows 7 Go to www.microsoft.com/ software-download/windows7 and enter your product key – choose a 32-bit or 64-bit version as required. Once downloaded, double-click the file to burn to DVD, or use the Windows USB Download…

1 Reboot for media If you’re running Windows 7, or have Fast Boot disabled, insert your boot media and start your PC. Look for a ‘Press any key to boot from CD or DVD’ option (even if you’ve booted from a USB flash drive) – press the key and you should find the Windows install process starts. 2 Tweak boot options If you boot back into Windows, restart your PC again, but this time press a key, such as [F11], when prompted to open a boot menu. Do so, select your boot media (choose UEFI if the option appears) to boot; otherwise, enter Setup to change the boot device order. 3 Windows 8.1/10 If Fast Boot is enabled, open Settings in Windows and navigate to ‘Update &…

Sometimes a laptop comes along that you just can’t help fall in the love with, and the HP Spectre x360 15t has us head over heels. It looks fantastic, it’s fast, powerful and easy to use. Best of all, it doesn’t cost a bomb. Read our review on page 78 and we think you’ll love it too. There’s more to admire on page 82, where you’ll discover BenQ’s DesignVue monitor. Aimed at creative pros, it’s a great example of a 4K display done right. For more comfort and joy, check out our group test on page 86 where you’ll find the latest ergonomic mice.…

HP Spectre x360 15t Supplier www8.hp.com Processor 2.2GHz Intel Core i7-8750H (hexa-core, 9MB cache, up to 4.1GHz) Graphics Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti; Intel UHD Graphics 630 RAM 16GB DDR4 SDRAM Screen 15.6-inch 4K IPS; anti-glare micro-edge; WLED-backlit multi-touch (3,840x2,160; 60Hz refresh rate) Storage 1TB NVMe SSD Connectivity 802.11b/g/n/ac (2x2) Wi-Fi; Bluetooth 5.0; 2x USB-C; 1x USB 3.1; 1x HDMI; 1x 3.5mm audio socket; microSD Reader Camera HD webcam (1,280x720) Weight 2.18kg Size 361.1x249.9x19.3mm…

£149.99 | £159.99 https://uk.creative.com We were intrigued when Creative gave us a demo of its SXFI Air headphones at CES 2019, since it introduced a new ‘holographic audio’ technology that the company has been working on for a number of years. Creative, of course, is well-known for its range of gaming headphones and accessories, and these new headphones have a lot to offer. However, Creative has bigger plans for the SXFI technology – which it sometimes refers to as Super X-Fi, or SX-FI – and claims it can enhance sound quality when listening to music or video, too. Price and availability The Bluetooth-equipped SXFI Air headphones are available for £149.99 ($159.99). There’s also a wired version – somewhat confusingly called the SXFI Air Cs – which are available for £119.99…

Easily edit any kind of sound file 1 Audacity  www.audacityteam.org/ Audacity has a huge following, and one that is entirely justified. It’s a powerful tool that would put some paid-for products to shame, and although the interface might initially seem intimidating, it’s approachable even for beginners. Audacity is equipped with an extensive suite of built-in tools, enabling you to edit pre-recorded files, capture sound through an attached microphone, or even stream music and podcasts. There’s also support for a wide range of audio formats, and the range of effects is impressive. There’s also a great selection of third-party plug-ins to make it even more versatile, and a comprehensive manual is available to help you to get to grips with the more complicated aspects of the program. Its sheer power…

TOP 10 PC PROBLEMS  SOLVED! Fast fixes, tips and tricks for the most common computer woes GET A SMARTER HOME The complete guide to kitting out your smart home – without breaking the bank HOW TO ● Make the most of Google Docs ● Change the way your PC looks ● Autoformat your Word docs ● Email photos the smart way * Contents subject to change Catch up with us on… www.facebook.com/windowsmag www.twitter.com/windowsmag www.windowsmag.co.…

Editorial Editor Rob Mead-Green rob.mead-green@futurenet.com Art Editor Jamie Schildhauer Deputy Editor Nick Odantzis Editor in Chief Graham Barlow Senior Art Editor Jo Gulliver Contributors Mike Bedford, Alex Cox, Cat Ellis, Ian Evenden, Neil Godwin, Lindsay Handmer, Jim Hill, Phil Iwaniuk, Cliff Joseph, Chris Lloyd, Nick Peers, Michelle Rae Uy, Mike Williams, Mark Wycislik-Wilson Photography Future Photo Studio, Thinkstock.com All copyrights and trademarks are recognised and respected Advertising Media packs are available on request Commercial Director Clare Dove clare.dove@futurenet.com Advertising Director Richard Hemmings richard.hemmings@futurenet.com Sales Executive – Technology Callum Staines Director of Agency Sales Matt Downs Ad Director – Technology John Burke Strategic Partnerships Clare Jonik Circulation Head of Newstrade Tim Mathers Production Head of Production Mark Constance Production Project Manager Clare Scott Advertising Production Manager Joanne Crosby Digital Editions Controller…

Following its regular twice-yearly schedule of Windows 10 feature additions, Microsoft’s released the May 2019 Update, although it’s most likely you don’t have it yet. After certain updates, notably the one released in October last year, caused problems for users’ computers, Microsoft has slowed the rate at which it pushes its updates out. Head to windowsupdate.microsoft.com and follow the links to the Update Assistant if you’re ready for it now – but do so at your own risk. WHAT’S NEW? The Start Menu has been given a spruce up and it’s now much snappier The most notable and visible change is a new light theme, giving you the option of ousting Windows 10’s traditional gloomy darkness for a grey reminscent of the Windows 95 era. The Start Menu has been given…

1 In the traditional Windows logo, which colour is in the top left? A Red B Purple C Blue 2 In which US state are Microsoft’s Redmond headquarters? A Washington B California C Nevada 3 Which of these has not acted as Microsoft CEO? A Steve Ballmer B Mark Zuckerberg C Satya Nadella 4 What is Bill Gates’ current role at the company? A President B Chairman C Technical Advisor 5 What was Microsoft’s first operating system? A MS-DOS B Xenix C Windows 1.0 6 Microsoft once sponsored Finland’s national team in which sport? A Basketball B Curling C Handball…

Every month in Explore you’ll discover some great ways to do more with your PC, whether it’s mastering the basics, or getting productive with all kinds of apps. This time you’ll learn how to create a brilliant collage effect in Photoshop Elements (page 26); how to sort out your music library, finally, with MusicBee (page 41); and how to create more wriggle room on your PC by finding and eliminating those annoying space hogs (page 44). You’ll even learn how to take control of Windows using mouse gestures (page 32). Have fun!…

While a mouse already makes an ideal companion for a PC, the pointing device’s abilities can be extended if you install an app that enables mouse gestures. These clever flicks of the wrist mean holding down a trigger button, generally the right mouse button, then drawing a line or shape with the pointer. Depending on the shape you draw, you can trigger anything from an app opening to closing your browser tab to a complex script. While Windows has its own touchpad/touchscreen gestures – things like pinch to zoom – you can only access these on a device that has the requisite hardware, such as a laptop or tablet. Those stuck using 20th century tech can, however, extend the usefulness of that mouse. The small number of apps we’re looking…

WINDOWS’ BARS The bars in This PC give a good idea of the amount of free drive space. FOLDER SIZE The floating window generated by the Folder Size app enables you to see what’s taking up the most drive space. WINDIRSTAT The folder tree in this app enables you to drill down into your PC’s storage in search of large folders. LARGE FILES A large folder full of large files that you don’t use is ripe for backup or removal. FILE TYPES WinDirStat lists your largest files by type, so you can see whether it’s videos or images that are taking up space. The problem of where to put your holiday photos has become a more pointed one in recent years thanks to the rise of solid-state drives (SSDs). Before…

Dimensioning shows the sizes of objects as they appear on the page – so nothing larger than 210mm horizontally on an A4 page. This isn’t very useful if you’re designing a kitchen, so use the scale options to adjust this. LibreOffice Draw offers options for editing bitmaps. As you’d expect, you can adjust brightness and contrast, and this basic functionality is enhanced with control over the three primary colours and gamma. Use the Gluepoints feature to add extra attachment points to different objects.…

The maximum frequency response range of the human ear is 20Hz–20KHz, but that optimistic bracket decreases as we get older, spend our weekends standing next to speakers, and our cells give up trying to renew themselves. So, if we can only hear 15KHz, and the digital conversion process of a given MP3 file chops off a lot of the higher frequencies as it’s compressed into a narrower waveform, we won’t hear the loss in sound quality as well as someone with that nigh-superhuman 20Hz–20KHz hearing range. People who profess to be able to tell the difference between MP3s of various bit-rates and lossless WAV files often talk about hearing “the space between the instruments” and other nebulous sonic details that our written language is too blunt an instrument to capture.…

There is a limit of your SATA, USB, M.2, and PCIe lanes that isn’t obvious. It’s defined by the processor and chipset combination, which has a fixed number of High Speed Input/Output lanes, equivalent to PCIe lanes. It is partly down to the mobo designers how these lines are wired, so what you get isn’t standardised, or quite what it seems. Intel’s Z390, Z370, or H370 have 30 HSIO lanes. Your CPU, assuming you’re not running an X-series monster, supplies 16 more. The CPU lanes go direct to the main graphics card; on a gaming board, they run to two suitably spaced x16 PCIe slots, so if you run a two-card rig, each gets a x8 from the CPU. Ryzen chips have 20 spare lanes, so the right board can…

Q I record various satellite audio streams. Is there a way to rename and move all the relevant files (000.ts) to a single directory so that I can edit them to listen to in my car? Yousuf Ebrahim Cat’s solution The tools you need can be found in the brilliant – if complicated – Bulk Rename Utility. Download and install it from www. bulkrenameutility.co.uk and then follow our step-by-step guide. 1 Select files to rename Open Bulk Rename Utility. First, browse to the top-level folder containing all of the files that you wish to rename. Locate the Filters section (12) and type 000.ts into the Mask. Click the Refresh button next to it and then tick Subfolders. 2 Choose renaming convention We’re going to rename each of these files…

So far, we’ve covered both traditional reinstall techniques, but there are other reasons – and methods – for reinstalling Windows. First up is the recovery option. Most pre-built PCs come with a built-in manufacturer’s recovery partition that enables you to restore Windows to its factory shipped condition. The main advantage of this method – aside from being cheaper and easier for the manufacturer, of course – is that your PC is restored to a guaranteed working state, with all the drivers it needs to function. The downsides are that a lot of extra unwanted software is usually installed alongside Windows, you need to exercise extreme caution not to lose everything on the drive, and that if the recovery partition corrupts – typically due to hardware failure – you’re left with…

You can trust our reviews Our reviewers are 100 per cent independent, with years of experience in the world of computing. Our rigorous testing procedures mean that only genuine, high-quality products are awarded high star ratings. If you see an item of hardware bearing a high score, you can be confident that it is an excellent product. We choose the best products Thousands of new PC products are released every year and choosing between them can be an impossible task. Our experts select only the best hardware and software to feature in this magazine. Even better, our star rating system makes it simple to find the best products, giving you a fast, trustworthy guide. How we review Our expert reviewers guarantee to test every piece of hardware rigorously and thoroughly,…

A while back we showed you the Oculus Go – a completely portable VR headset. Now here’s the Oculus Quest – a completely portable VR headset. But wait, it is different: the Quest (which comes in at £399) is a lot more muscular inside, includes Oculus’ fancy wireless controllers, and its depth-sensing cameras mean it can detect the world around you. Draw a virtual line on your floor and the real world fades into view should you leave it.…

www.digitalvolcano.co.uk Has it all got too much? Can’t find what you’re looking for through the clutter? While the free version is a little limited, you might just be tempted to pay up for Duplicate Cleaner if your hard drive is a complete mess. It digs through your drive for all those many copies of your photos, those scattered music files, those documents you saved in three places, and cleans them up. Duplicate Cleaner doesn’t just look for the names of your files – it’ll check the content of files, or the size, or any other metric you want. Once it’s done its work, you can scan through what it’s found (including full image previews) and either delete the copies, or send them onwards to an external drive for safekeeping; it’s…

After Windows, your office application is likely to be the most-used app on your PC. Whether it’s creating written documents, crunching numbers or building slideshows, virtually everyone needs – and uses – an office suite. In the past, that almost invariably meant some flavour of Microsoft Office, and it remains by far the most popular paid-for office app, whether you’ve own a full copy or have an Office 365 subscription. Today, though, Office has been eclipsed by free alternatives, and its biggest rival is now LibreOffice, capable of offering most Microsoft Office features, boasting excellent compatibility with Office file formats and throwing in some clever features of its own. But it doesn’t matter whether you’re an Office or LibreOffice user, we have just the collection of tips for you. We’ll…

Packed with informative tutorials Every issue, we guarantee to pack the magazine with great tutorials teaching you all the best things you can do with your PC. Each article features step-by-step instructions to make learning new skills fast and enjoyable. Customise Windows to work your way We all know how to do the basics but getting the most from Windows isn’t always easy. Our dedication to the operating system means you get the very best tips and tricks for all versions of Windows. Get more from your favourite websites We all have our list of favourite sites but often we miss out on great features because they’re difficult to use or hidden from sight. We’ll show you how to do more online, for a more satisfying web life. Discover new…

SHOW/HIDE MENU Click here to make the menu visible or hidden. Hidden saves space; visible makes it easier to find things. ACCOUNT SWITCHING If you have more than one email address, Mail makes it easy to switch between them. TO DO, CALENDAR, AND CONTACTS Mail doesn’t have an integrated calendar or to-do list, so use these shortcuts to open suitable apps. MAIL SEARCH Use this to search in individual accounts, or across multiple accounts if you have opted to link all your email inboxes. READING PANE There’s no need to open email in a new window – you can view its contents in a dedicated pane within Mail. MAIL SETTINGS From how often Mail checks for messages, through automatic replies, you can configure all manner of options here. There is…

File extension Comprises three or four letters at the end of a filename after a full stop, and indicates the type of a file. For example, .doc indicates a Word document; .jpg indicates a JPEG image; and .txt is a text file. The Quick Access toolbar This customisable toolbar appears in the title bar of File Explorer and gives you easy access to the most frequently used options. While there are a limited number of buttons you can add to the Quick Access toolbar, they can still be incredibly useful. Ribbon The main toolbar in File Explorer is called the Ribbon, just like the one in Microsoft Office. Rather than showing you an huge number of buttons all at once, the Ribbon in File Explorer is divided in a number…

In the walkthrough on page 50, we create a line and a circle and then make several copies of that combination for use elsewhere in the diagram. If you’re doing this sort of thing, when you’re moving a group of objects around it’s notoriously easy for them to become separated because you’ve accidentally forgotten to select one of them. It’s simple to prevent this, however. The secret is to convert those objects into what LibreOffice Draw considers to be a group. To do this, select the objects to be grouped and then select Modify > Group. Once a combination of objects is grouped in this way, it will be treated as a single object – as you’ll discover if you try to select just one constituent part of the group.…

When we’re rolling off our system specs in forum signatures, water cooler chats, wedding speeches, and the like, we don’t tend to go into much detail about the audio components. After all, how many of us know the capabilities of our onboard sound chips? And who can tell the difference between 16-bit and 32-bit audio anyway? “Enough mini-jacks to connect a 5.1 speaker system” just doesn’t roll off the tongue as readily as “four RTX Titans”, and while we’re able to measure the difference between video components almost too easily – hands up who plays every game with an FPS counter in the top corner – the same simply isn’t true when it comes to sound. That makes it tricky when we ask: Should we get a soundcard? We can’t…

Nearly all motherboards have on-board sound; long gone are the days when you had to add a dedicated soundcard. Even the most basic board produces pretty decent sound, too, although not according to the people who make soundcards. Gaming boards often boast of high-end sound systems, but are they worth it? The killer for sound quality is interference; anybody involved in high-end audio will take one look inside a PC and shudder. It is simply the wrong place for proper high-end audio. Some decent EMI shielding, high-quality capacitors, and carefully arranged components go some way to improve things – that’s what to look for first. After that, you’re on a difficult path. Many mobos boast about the swish sound chips fitted – Realtek ALC1150 or ALC1220s, for example. These need…

How do I enable bi-directional support on my printer? Red Lowcroft Open Settings > Devices > ‘Printers & scanners’, select your printer and then click the Manage > ‘Printer preferences’ > Ports tab to access the required setting. Windows has started displaying all dates as D/M/YY instead of DD/MM/YYYY. How do I change this? John Webster Navigate to Settings > Time & Language > Region and click ‘Change data formats’. Click the ‘Short date’ drop-down menu and choose the top option. The change is instant. “As soon as you have it up and running, install Macrium Reflect Media”…

If you’re having problems with your PC, many of them can be solved by performing a repair or reinstall of the operating system – whether you’re running Windows 7, 8.1 or 10. On page 70 we’ll show you how to set about repairing your existing Windows installation – it will leave your existing apps, files and settings in place, but can work wonders if Windows has got its knickers in a twist. Our guide to a full, destructive reinstall on page 72 is more drastic, but can sometimes be the best way to fix your PC. And on page 74 we’ll reveal some other reinstallation options for you to try.…

£879 | $1,100 www.benq.com/ Of BenQ’s broad range of monitors, the DesignVue PD series concentrates on colour accuracy and other features that designers using CAD/CAM and Photoshop rely on. That tends to include 4K resolution and naturally, this top-of-the-line IPS panel is native Ultra HD (UHD), but it also has an elegant design and enough features to attract more than just designers and photographers. With two Thunderbolt 3 ports, the PD2720U is especially easy to hook up a laptop and daisy-chain a second screen, while the steel puck that comes with it enables you to toggle seamlessly either between different sources, or between sRGB and Display P3 settings. With HDR10 built into the spec, this monitor is also well disposed to showing UHD Blu-ray content, or indeed adding the HDR…

Are you experiencing wrist or hand pain? If yes, it could be time for you to alter part of your computing setup. Whereas a standard mouse places your palm flat in relation to the desk, giving your wrist a workout, a vertical design puts more of the emphasis of mousing on your shoulder muscles, which are better equipped to cope with repetitive movements. These devices aren’t about being flashy. They’re meant to reduce the impact a standard mouse has on the causes of musculoskeletal disorders such as RSI. There is, of course, a learning curve to using any vertically oriented mouse, but the long-term benefits are clear to see (and feel). 1 Evoluent VerticalMouse 4 £109.99, evoluent.com Evoluent has been in the game a long time. Such pedigree shows…