3D printing our

past and future

Richard III’s skeleton to
a robot lawnmower…
Reviews • Advice • Projects • Opinion • News What’s next? p110

p98

Cut your printing

costs NOW!
12 printers tested with costs
from 0.8p per page p82

Welcome!
WE LIVE IN a throwaway
culture. Long gone are the
days when you’d buy
anything – a house, a car, a
washing machine, a
lawnmower – and expect it
to last a lifetime.
Now items are made to
last for a lifetime, as long as you’re a gerbil.
New-build flats get erected and within weeks
repair works begin; owners of old bangers are
coerced into upgrading to newer cars by
punitive road tax and insurance fees;
consumer electronics advance so quickly that
you’ve just about set up your latest TV when
the next HD/3D/4K/Ultra HD version comes
along and you just have to go out and buy a
replacement, not least because your current
one goes on the blink after a few years.
And don’t even think about taking your
broken-down item to be fixed, as the cost of
repairs are generally almost as much, or more,
as buying a new – and better – one.
But here at Shopper we’re taking a stand.
We think you should be able to buy the latest
computer or electronics kit and use it for as
long as you want to. So for those of you
faced with a PC that has slowed down over
QUESTION OF THE MONTH
The Arch of Palmyra and Richard III’s skeleton
have been 3D-printed. What would you 3D-print?
Madeline Bennett
A FIFA World Cup trophy –
it’s the only way England will
get one in my lifetime
Seth Barton
A kitchen extension for my
house – it’s got to be quicker
than my builders
least they’re cheap!
Richard Easton
A car to show the
Motion Picture Association
who’s boss
David Neal
Wings and legs so that it
could, if it wanted, fly off
Lee Bell
A house, because I’m
never going to afford one
at this rate
ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016
the years, don’t consign it to the EU-
responsible-waste-recycling bin just yet.
Instead, turn to our comprehensive guide
to the 21 things killing your PC on page 98.
Carry out these steps to breathe new life into
your computer, from digging out hidden
malware lurking in the depths of your
machine, to slimming down your Windows
OS and giving the parts a spring clean.
But sometimes it is worthwhile taking the
plunge and going for an upgrade. Printers are
the oft-forgotten item in home computing or
office environments, churning out page after
page with little thought given to efficiency.
We’ve put 12 of the best head to head on
page 82, so now your PC is running like new,
it’s time to take a look at your printer’s
per-page running costs and see if one of the
latest crop offers an overall better package.
Mel Croucher has also taken a delve into
the past to see how 3D printing can bring
back lost treasures on page 110, and we’ve put
digital assistants Siri, Cortana and Google
Now through their paces on page 116. Enjoy!
Madeline Bennett, Editor
madeline@computershopper.co.uk
MEET
THE
TEAM
David Ludlow
A life-sized Martin Freeman.
It would be a better actor and
more human
Katharine Byrne
Some tables and chairs
for my new house – they
might not be comfy, but at
James Archer
A full set of bionic
appendages, just in case
Chris Merriman
A 3D printer printer, so I can
print cheap 3D printers on a 3D
printer and sell them on eBay
WELCOME PAGE
CONTACT US
Editor Madeline Bennett madeline@computershopper.co.uk
Reviews Editor James Archer james@computershopper.co.uk
News Editor David Neal daveneal@computershopper.co.uk
Contributing Editor Seth Barton seth@computershopper.co.uk
Contributing Editor Katharine Byrne katharine@computershopper.co.uk
Senior Staff Writer Richard Easton richard@computershopper.co.uk
DESIGN & PRODUCTION
Art Editor Colin Mackleworth
Production Editor Steve Haines
CONTRIBUTORS
Bill Bagnall, Lee Bell, Barry Collins, Mel Croucher, Kay Ewbank,
Chris Finnamore, Simon Handby, Gordon Holmes, Chris Merriman,
Ben Pitt, David Robinson, Clive Webster
ADVERTISING
Email ads.shopper@dennis.co.uk
Group Advertising Manager Andrea Mason 020 7907 6662
Advertising Manager Charlotte Milligan 020 7907 6642
COVER GIFT CONTACT
Chris Wiles coverdiscs@computershopper.co.uk
SUBSCRIPTIONS
Tel 0844 844 0031 / 01795 592905 Web www.subsinfo.co.uk
UK £44.99, Europe £70, Rest of world £90
PHOTOGRAPHY
Adrian Volcinschi, Natalie Tkachuk, Svetlana Bardarska
LICENSING AND SYNDICATION
Ryan Chambers 020 7907 6132 Ryan_Chambers@dennis.co.uk
Anj Dosaj-Halai 0207 907 6132 anj_halai@dennis.co.uk
MANAGEMENT
Tel 020 7907 6000
Group Editor David Ludlow david@computershopper.co.uk
Group Managing Director Ian Westwood
Managing Director John Garewal
Group Advertising Director Julian Lloyd-Evans
Newstrade Director David Barker
Finance Director Brett Reynolds
Group Finance Director Ian Leggett
Chief Executive James Tye
Company Founder Felix Dennis
PRINTING
Printed by Polestar, Bicester, Oxon
Distributors Seymour 020 7429 4000
LIABILITY
While every care was taken preparing this magazine, the publishers
cannot be held responsible for the accuracy of the information or
any consequence arising from it. All judgements are based on
equipment available to Computer Shopper at the time of review.
‘Value for money’ comments are based on UK prices at time of review.
All prices include VAT unless otherwise stated. Computer Shopper
takes no responsibility for the content of external websites whose
addresses are published in the magazine.
COMPUTER SHOPPER INCORPORATES UPGRADE SHOPPER,
GAMES SHOPPER, INTERNET SHOPPER, MOBILE SHOPPER, PC
SHOPPER, PORTABLE SHOPPER AND SOFTWARE SHOPPER
A DENNIS PUBLICATION
Computer Shopper is published by Dennis Publishing Ltd, 30 Cleveland
Street, London W1T 4JD. Company registered in England. All material
© Dennis Publishing Limited licensed by Felden 2016, and may not be
reproduced in whole or part without the consent of the publishers.
ISSN 0955-8578
© Copyright Dennis Publishing Limited
SUBSCRIBE
AND SAVE
CALL 0844 844 0031
OR SEE PAGE 122
3

Contents
p98
Regulars
6 Letters
Your regular monthly missives of wit and
wisdom, tips and tricks
10 Under Development
We may be living in the Age of Austerity,
but fortunately for David Robinson the
government is still prepared to fund an
upgrade to his internet connection
12 Cybercop
If you’ve been a victim of cybercrime,
currently your bank will reimburse you.
But the country’s top policeman has
signalled that this policy may be about to
change, much to Gordon Holmes’s dismay
14 Rants & Raves
We’ve a special message for phone
scammers from International Goat Rescue,
plus we revive the lost art of letter-writing
while waiting for our superfast broadband
138 Zygote
Think your smartphone is secure because
it has a fingerprint sensor? Think again,
says Zygote. It only takes a scanner, an
inkjet printer and about 30 minutes
to create a fake print
4 JULY 2016
Issue 341 July 2016
p110
p82
News
16 Newsfile
Our round-up of all the latest news, views
and previews from the tech world, including
a special report from the Gadget Show Live
2016 in Birmingham
22 In Depth
Microsoft’s annual Build developers’
conference provided plenty of glimpses of
where the company is headed –and it’s all
about AI, VR and Xbox integration
Features
98 The 21 things killing your PC
Time to get rid of that old, slow computer
sitting in a dusty corner and buy a spanking
new one? Don’t bin it just yet – follow our
spring-cleaning tips and you can deal with
all the malware, adware, bloatware and dust
that’s slowly killing your PC
Learn
124 Business Help
Our expert answers your software queries
126 Helpfile
Your hardware and Windows problems solved
128 How to…
Choose an SD card
129 Multimedia Expert
Photographing children can test the patience
of a saint. Ben Pitt offers some tips for making
kids’ portraits memorable for the right reasons
134 Advanced Projects
If you can’t – or don’t want to – upgrade to
Windows 10, Clive Webster has the solution
110 3D printing
It may not be a new idea, but 3D printing is
now mainstream, capable of reproducing
everything from the Arch of Palmyra to a
foetus. Mel Croucher looks at the past,
present and future of the technology
116 Digital assistants shoot-out
We’ve all got our own PAs these days, in
the shape of Siri, Cortana and Google Now.
But which one is the most helpful? We ask
them some tough questions to find out
| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341
 p82 CONTENTS

p116 p110

p98

Reviews Group Tests

82 Printers
24 This month’s hot product Upgrading your printer could save you a
Apple has made its best tablet yet with the new 9.7in iPad Pro, fortune in running costs – and with
bringing the extreme power and brilliant screen of the original inkjets available from just £40 and
12.9in iPad Pro to a smaller, more portable design lasers from an incredible £70, there’s
never been a better time to buy

26 PCs and laptops 50 Networks

Dell makes a rare misstep with the XPS 12
(p29), a 4K-equipped but deeply flawed 2-in-1
that has too many shortcomings to ignore
33 Handhelds
It may be cheaper than its flagship cousins,
but the iPhone SE’s build and performance
are premium-quality
39 Photography
Panasonic’s TZ100 (p40) packs a huge sensor
and zoom into a tiny top-notch compact
42 Displays
The Acer Predator XB271HK and Asus
ROG Swift PG27AQ (p44) battle for 4K
G-Sync supremacy
46 Home cinema
Superb picture quality and full catch-up
service integration make the Samsung
UE48JS8500 a curvy success
47 Audio
The Lindy BNX-60 Bluetooth headphones
offer active noise cancelling and decent
sound quality on a budget
IOT meets IFTTT in the Smappee smart home
energy monitor – just prepare for some faff
52 Storage
The Kingston KC400’s wobbly performance is
redeemed by a decent set of bonus features
53 Components
Mediocre overclocking capabilities aside,
the Gigabyte GA-990FX-Gaming is a fine
motherboard for high-end rigs
76 Your software*
54 Software Bring some order to your digital photo
Nuance goes mobile with its highly capable collection with PhotoDirector 6, the
Dragon Anywhere speech-recognition software complete tool for editing, organising
and sharing your snaps
56 Games
The Division is a genre-blending, entertaining
action-RPG excursion into a ravaged and
weirdly empty New York 6 FULL
PACKAGES
58 Best buys
Looking for the best kit we’ve reviewed
recently? It’s all in our Best Buys section
74 How We Test * FREE SOFTWARE
EDITION
EDIT ONLY
Our tests, ratings and awards explained

ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016 5

 LETTERS
Letters
Everyone’s getting a pasting this month: Microsoft for Windows 10,
Cybercop for his views on privacy, and us for our advice on, er, pasting
CONTACT
LETTERS
letters@computershopper.co.uk
ARDUINO THAN
YOU THINK
Many thanks for
another great issue. In
the excellent, very welcome
Advanced Projects on using the
Arduino, IDE is interpreted as
‘independent development
environment’. I believe it is more
usually and usefully interpreted
as ‘Integrated DE’.
Thank you for continuing to
help people learn about
Arduinos, alongside the
Raspberry Pi articles. I’m a
recent convert to the Pi, due in
part to your recent article, and in
part to its successful maturing.
Both are good things, both have
a place in our world. They
address different wants and
needs. It is easy to confuse them
in our minds: small, inexpensive,
have GIO pins, but they are very
different and not just alternative
ways to do the same thing. I
hope articles on both of them
will continue to appear in your
excellent magazine, so multiple
audiences will be served.
TK Boyd
After some consideration we
think you’re right: it is ‘integrated
development environment’. We’ll
make sure everyone in the office
knows it. And we hope you enjoy
trying out our Raspberry Pi
projects with your new purchase.
CUT THE PASTE
How horrified I was to
read on page 97 of
Shopper 339 the wrong advice
being given when applying
thermal paste to a CPU: “Use a
thin bit of card to spread the
thermal paste evenly across
the top of the processor”. This
is incorrect and will only
encourage pockets of insulating
air to be trapped, not what we
are trying to achieve.
6 JULY 2016
See Intel’s ‘How to Apply TIM’
page at tinyurl.com/341letters.
Neil Dave
Thank you, Neil. We’ll consider
our own options based on that,
which advises that when the
processor is operating, the heat
spreads the paste across the top
of the processor’s integrated
heat spreader and the bottom of
the fan heatsink.
DESKTOP TO
DECKCHAIR
I have just returned
from a month in
Madeira and among the pile of
post was Computer Shopper 340.
Turning to the Helpfile page, I
was surprised to read my query
about taking a desktop Palicomp
Mini as carry-on luggage. I did
get a ‘Yes’ answer a little sooner,
after a friend, who lives about
half a mile from Southend
Airport, suggested we could ask
the security people there.
In Madeira, I bought an HP
24in IPS monitor, which has an
attractive aluminium frame and
a good picture, with a 20%
discount. Food is cheap but
capital goods are expensive there,
so the discount was welcome.
Everything connected
together easily and worked first
time. I am amazed at the startup
speed of the Palicomp Mini.
With Windows 10, from pressing
the startup button to a loaded
screen takes on average about
50 seconds, with a 35-second
best time. The model I ordered
was a little different from the
one you reviewed – I had a
double boot with Windows 7
and Windows 10, because my
wife found Windows 10 difficult
and I was used to Windows 7
too. However, I have found my
way through its blind alleys and
use it as a preference now.
And yes, you can take a
desktop as carry-on luggage.
John Hibell
Happy return from your travels.
It looks like we were too late to
help you out, but we’re glad to
hear that you had satisfaction
and hope our advice proves
useful for other readers. We also
thank you for the information
about taking a desktop on board
as flight luggage. Though most of
us hope to never have to use it.
ROUTER MASTER
I’ve been a subscriber to
Shopper for many years,
and find the reviews and advice
particularly helpful. What would
be even more helpful would be a
cumulative index so I could find
articles that I vaguely remember,
but cannot find in my stack of
back numbers.
A few months ago you
reviewed the ‘free modems’
provided by ISPs and compared
them with commercial products.
I am currently considering
switching my ISP. Reliability has
been poor recently, and I pay a
lot every month for TV channels I
don’t watch, and a TIVO recorder
that gives poorer definition than
the Freeview tuner built into my
new UHD/4K TV.
However, the broadband
speed is excellent (probably
more than I need), and the
5GHz Wi-Fi link to my TV gives
superb pictures on BBC iPlayer,
so I am nervous about switching
to another provider.
David Fanshawe
You must have read our minds,
as we’re investigating producing
an interactive back issues CD for
just this kind of purpose; details
to follow soon. In the meantime,
we’re here to help and can
confirm the article you’re
⬆ If you’re looking for a new router,
TP-Link’s Archer C9 is our choice
referring to was in Shopper 331.
Our recommendation is the
TP-Link Archer C9 router, which
was the only product to achieve
an award in the group test, with a
Best Buy. You can get this from
Currys for £99. Of the free ISP
modems, TalkTalk performed
best for broadband speeds.
GOOD CYBERCOP,
BAD CYBERCOP
In Cybercop (Shopper
340), Gordon Holmes
asks for readers’ views on his
comments on national security.
His argument is fine within its
boundaries but fails to look at
the wider picture. This is a
common problem.
We can look at history and
we can look at the present day.
The basic problem is: do we
allow people to have privacy or
not? In a modern democratic
society, it’s easy to argue that
people shouldn’t have privacy
because it is detrimental to the
enforcement of security and
would aid criminals and
terrorists. The major unseen
assumption here is that the
government and security
services are benign, law abiding
| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341
 LETTERS

and supportive of freedom of boundary between the two is

speech and democracy.
We especially tend to take
this for granted in the UK, even
though we know that even
some police officers have been
found to be corrupt.
However, you don’t have to
look far in terms of history or
geography to find some
problems with this approach. By
their very nature, governments
tend to be strongly supportive
of their own views and critical of
anyone who disagrees with
them. There is a strong tendency
to see anyone who disagrees as
a terrorist. You will note that
around the world there are a
number of governments that
spend a lot of time arresting,
torturing and executing people
who don’t support them.
There is a fine line between
an opposition party supporter
and a terrorist. You might think
it obvious but if you look at
world politics, you may see that
it isn’t that clear a distinction.
You could argue that by
preventing privacy you are
either destroying democracy or
preventing terrorism, but the
very fine. One man’s terrorist is
another man’s freedom fighter.
A backdoor is simply an
open door and an invitation to
criminals. How do you ensure
that it’s closed to the criminal
community? I suggest this is
impossible and therefore
shouldn’t be an option. At the
end of the day, a door is a door
and has no way of seeing the
difference between a benign and
responsible security authority,
and a criminal or violent and
despotic government.
There seems to be a law that
if you allow the balance of
power to move too much in
favour of the state and against
the individual, at some point the
state will become authoritarian.
This has been happening in the
UK for at least a decade and is
continuing. One way of
destroying a democracy is to
gradually force it to turn into an
authoritarian state and it
effectively destroys itself.
Apart from that, I enjoy
reading Cybercop. Just remember
that law and order on its own is
no good without freedom of
speech, privacy and human
rights. It isn’t an end in itself.
Stan
DO YOU HAVE ISSUES?
I think my line manager
has a Computer Shopper
addiction (see photo, above).
These date back to 2007.
James Mills
Wow, thank you James. Your line
manager is our kind of man. We
wonder if any other readers can
beat this haul. Anyone sitting on
a total collection?
AVAST CONSPIRACY
There are few cases of
genuinely free software.
Can you beat this
Shopper collection?
But for some, companies that
offer us ‘free’ versions of their
products and then force us to
purchase additional software to
fully uninstall features that we
didn’t even ask in the first place
for is akin to receiving a free
sandwich followed by a kick in
the stomach.
For example, the very popular
free version of Avast Antivirus
also installs the company’s
‘SafeZone Browser’ on your
system. This is a product I didn’t
want nor was able to deselect
during the update of the
antivirus. I couldn’t find an
uninstall feature and, when
removed by a third-party
software uninstaller, Avast told

Star letter ★
WINDOWS 10 IS A DOG
I have listened to the hype about
Windows 10 and must respectfully
disagree. It is a dog. Not perhaps an Italian
mastiff like Windows 8, but certainly a
demanding, high-maintenance springer
spaniel. For most office users, Windows 7 is
a much superior operating system.
First, despite the fact that Microsoft has
killed the intrusive Charms bar and
reinstated the Start menu, it’s still clear
that Windows 10 desperately wants you to
have a touchscreen and believes you are
mentally defective if you don’t have one. I
don’t have any touchscreen devices (not
even a phone) as I am way too ham-fisted.
Microsoft appears to hold the view that
I should immediately throw my existing
hardware away and get with the program,
and then the software will be fine. I use my
computer at work and at home for (gasp!)
typing and calculating. I don’t need it to
play music or take photos; a touchscreen is
an irrelevance. Neither do I need or want
the cloud. I have no use for it as I don’t
access my work documents at home or my
home documents at work. If I am at neither
place, I don’t need any documents.
As far as I can tell, while you can disable
the cloud service, you can’t remove it as it is
embedded as a file destination. Occasionally,
by accident I click on the cloud (which comes
up as the default save destination) and the
computer stops while it tries really hard to
discover why the cloud isn’t there. (As an
aside, why would all these commercial
organisations try so hard to persuade me I
should keep my data on their servers
anyway? I am trying so hard not to be a
conspiracy theorist. Perhaps I am doing
them an injustice; maybe they are really
only being philanthropic.)
Then there is the amount of talking to the
web Windows 10 and the current Office suite
insist is necessary. I was running through my
download limit on my internet contract while
hardly using the web. I solved that problem
by telling my firewall to refuse all the various
modules and gizmos access to the internet.
And yes… Windows Update still worked fine.
I found Microsoft Edge really hard to use,
and I soon reverted to Opera. As far as I can
tell, Edge can’t be deleted. I can’t work out
what Cortana is for and why I need it. The
point is that Windows 10 is a solution to a
problem most desktop computer users do
not have. It
may be great for
people who take
their tablet with
them everywhere and need instant
access to their documents wherever they
are but for me, all my colleagues and in fact
everyone I know, it is about as much use as
a chocolate fireguard.
In the end, after divorce levels of
frustration, I used FDisk (remember DOS?),
wiped the drive and booted from my
original Windows 7 CD. Karma is restored.
You may be thinking I’m some old stick
in the mud. Old I am: I built a Spectrum and
had an Amstrad with 16-colour VGA
graphics and a 36MB hard disk. I do,
however, keep up with technology. I just
hold the (I accept radical) view that
technology should serve the man – not
the other way round.
Howard Shelley
Windows 10 has divided users and will
probably continue to do so. We applaud
your thorough investigation of the new OS;
you deserve the star letter, and probably a
better operating system.

ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016 7

 LETTERS

me that there were “60 residual important; it’s a shame if they

files left from uninstall…
[leaving] behind 128.22MB files
after being uninstalled”. I was
then offered the chance to
‘Optimise my PC’, and on clicking
the button I was taken – yes, you
guessed it – to the Avast shop to
pay for the service.
I have been able to delete
these unwanted files using other
free software, but the whole
experience has left a sour taste
in my mouth, notwithstanding
an otherwise great anti-virus
program.
Great magazine, by the way.
Aki Turan
These are the sorts of things
that engage and then enrage
computer users. Some of these
solutions are good and
lose their impact through their
mishandled marketing efforts.
STAYING UP TO DATE
WITH OLDER DEVICES
I read with interest Tony
Sparkes’ letter in Helpfile
340 regarding the lack of
updates for older devices as
newer devices are released.
Your answer seemed rather
lacking in my opinion. There is a
strong community of third-party
developers who support and
enhance both old and new
hardware. I would in some
instances say the firmwares
provided are better than the
originals in that they can provide
both optimisations and
enhancements, as well as
removing the ‘bloatware’ and
⬆ The XDA developers’ site is a great place to look for updates for older devices
customisations that some
hardware manufacturers bundle
with their devices (some of
which can slow a device down
and drain the battery).
I also find the idea that there
is a security risk somewhat
overstated. There is a risk, of
course, but not as large as some
seem to believe. Any security
risk would be picked up by users
and the community and revealed
quickly. To many, the benefits far
outweigh those risks.
The biggest risk is from a
bad flash, which can result in
bricking a device. However,
even that can be recovered from
a lot of the time with failsafes
built into most devices that
allow a reflash.
There’s still an active
community of developers
working on Android updates
and enhancements for the Asus
The Motorola Xoom has less
development (I couldn’t see
anything past Android 4, but I
only looked briefly), but Tony
may still find something of use
at tinyurl.com/341xdaxoom.
As always, it’s best to read
through the various FAQs and
understand that it is at the
user’s own risk when they
flash a third-party firmware.
Despite this, I have yet to have
a bad flash and any issues I
have encountered I have
always been able to fix with the
help of the community. I hope
this helps Tony.
Darrin Maunders
Thanks Darrin, for that very
useful advice there for Tony
and for other readers.

WRITE IN
EeePad T101 at xda-developers.
com, which includes the latest

AND WIN
Android Marshmallow – see
⬆ You can get a lot more than you bargained for when you install free software tinyurl.com/341eeepad.
Do you wish your computer
was faster when booting and
loading applications? Thanks

NEXT MONTH
in

O LEnts fre

to Crucial, you can achieve

SAwsageh Jun
ne 16

your dream of a faster PC or

t

laptop with the BX200 SSD.

❱ PCs ON TEST ❱ WINDOWS 10 UPDATE The writer of our Star Letter
om

Despite falling sales, desktop PCs are still the Microsoft’s most popular operating will be awarded one of these
machine of choice for millions, and there are system since the much-loved XP, Windows solid-state devices, which
some real bargains to be had. We test a batch of 10 is about to hit its first birthday. We round can be installed in a desktop
£500 PCs to see who’s offering the best deal. up the best Windows 10 tips, and find out what PC or a laptop.
changes for the OS are on the horizon. This fast SSD is 15 times
❱ COOL CUSTOMER faster than a hard disk, and
We investigate the latest advances in cooling ❱ ROAMING CHARGES will make your computer
techniques, from the liquid-cooling technology The summer holidays are fast approaching, and if boot incredibly quickly and
used in data centres to help big business go you’re travelling to foreign climes, you’ll want to make applications load faster.
green, down to practical guidance for PC users read our round-up of the best mobile packages With 480GB of storage, there’s
on how you can best keep your PC cool. for using your phone abroad. plenty of room for Windows
and all your apps, too.
STAR
PRIZE
480GB
SSD

8 JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

 UNDER DEVELOPMENT
Fibre pass
After years of battling with an unreliable internet connection, David Robinson finally
makes the move to fibre – and is delighted to find it’s been funded by the taxpayer
I COULD BEGIN this month with
a series of bad puns related to
precipitation, but I’ll resist the
temptation. Which should be a
clue for regular readers that I’m
about to revisit the topic of
Repetitive Electrical Impulse
Noise (REIN). (For a detailed
explanation of REIN and its
associated terrors SHINE and
PEIN, see tinyurl.com/ud-rein.)
REIN is a pain. You may
remember from issue 326 that it
disabled my home ADSL –
sometimes for only an hour or so
but, on occasions, for days on
end. When quizzed about a fix,
DAVID ROBINSON the best the ISP’s ‘technical
Software and systems developer support’ could come up with was
letters@computershopper.co.uk “dunno”. They finally suggested
dropping our contracted nominal
rate of 12Mbit/s to a miserable
4Mbit/s, which improved general
reliability but didn’t eliminate the
line drop. And they didn’t drop
the price. Very frustrating.
Last November I received a
phone call from an ISP sales rep
offering to upgrade our ADSL
line to a speedier setting. At a
price. I wasn’t best pleased, but
managed to restrain my response
I smelt a rat but, to mix a metaphor, didn’t
want to look a gift horse in the mouth
to a small sub-set of Effin’ Jeff’s
best vocabulary. I told him I was
seriously thinking of changing to
a different provider altogether.
Thinking seriously turned out to
be a good strategy as, later in the
day, I received a call from Harry,
who also works for the ISP. His
job title indicated that his role is
to ‘sweet talk’ customers who are
likely to jump ship.
“Why not upgrade to fibre?”
suggested Harry.
“Can I do that?” It seemed
unlikely, as there’s no fibre
backbone near our village.
“What’s your postcode?”
Hmm – Harry hasn’t done his
homework. So I told him, he
10
checked and, indeed, fibre wasn’t
an option. If it was, we’d have
done it months ago. “Pity you
can’t designate the line as one
used for business,” said Harry. He
really hadn’t done his homework.
The tariff we subscribe to is
called Teleworker and paid for by
my company as it’s often used
for out-of-hours support.
“You could pay for fibre to be
installed to your building,”
suggested Harry.
“How much would that be?”
He said he’d check, but I doubt
there would be enough arms and
legs to meet the bill. Harry then
called back with “good news”.
There’s a government scheme
where the taxpayer contributes
£3,000 towards laying new fibre
links to businesses. “How much
will this cost?” Well, would you
Adam and Eve it, exactly £3,000.
I smelt a rat but, to thoroughly
mix a metaphor, didn’t want to
look a gift horse in the mouth.
Send me the paperwork, I tell him.
Surely it can’t be that simple?
BOX CLEVER
Six weeks later and an engineer
from the ISP comes to do a
survey, which reveals there’s a
small box on the wall of our front
porch and a manhole cover on
the pavement at the end of the
drive, both belonging to the ISP.
And both already indicated on
his street plan. Seemed a waste
of time to me.
Two weeks later I find a man
in hi-viz gear poking about near
the porch. He’s trying to connect
the box to a port in the manhole
but can’t get the cable through
the duct. He has to send for
another man (presumed
expertise, duct unbunging)
before he can complete the
connection. We never saw the
unbunger but a week later Mr
Hi-Viz returned to finish off. Then
the ISP Planning Department (oh,
the irony) phoned to make an
appointment for another
engineer to come and connect
the new cable in the porch box to
JULY 2016
the inside of the house and
install a new router. Two weeks
later, he turns up and runs
another cable from the porch
box to a place next to the old
ADSL router. Installation involved
removing the new router (a nice
Zyxel one with dual-band Wi-Fi)
from its box and plugging it into
the mains. Hmm, says the man
– it won’t connect to the internet.
Yet another man comes to
investigate. He proclaims that the
problem is simple. Nobody
remembered to connect the
manhole to the fibre backbone.
Where’s that? “Dunno.”
REEF ENCOUNTER
In the short term, it was no great
inconvenience as I was off on
holiday to Australia, to dive the
Great Barrier Reef before I get
too old. I emailed the router
engineer to see if he would need
access to the inside of the house
when they’d finally connected
the manhole to goodness knows
where. He replied: “No – if the red
light on the interior end of the
fibre line goes green then it’s all
ready to go and you can start
using it.” Fortunately, in the
interim, the old, slow ADSL
router was still connected.
Returning home from Oz was
a shock, moving from 34˚C in
Cairns to 34˚F in Yorkshire. I was
nithered. But the indicator light
had turned from red to green
and, whoopee, we now have
mega-fast internet. Three weeks
on and, so far, we haven’t had a
single dropout. The Zyxel Wi-Fi
seems effective, although the
range is still limited. That’s what
you get for living in a 200-year-
old house with thick walls.
Initially I thought £3,000 was
a ridiculous cost. If there was
fibre near enough to make it
worthwhile for the ISP to install,
it shouldn’t cost that for an extra
connection. And if the backbone
wasn’t near enough, then £3,000
doesn’t sound nearly enough.
But what do I know? At least I’m
not footing the bill.
| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341
 CYBERCOP

Who pays for fraud?

Banks should put their own houses in order before considering changing their policies
on reimbursing the victims of cybercrime, says Gordon Holmes

GORDON HOLMES
With more than 30 years of
experience in law enforcement,
our retired cop gives a police
officer’s perspective on the
sticky subject of cybercrime
letters@computershopper.co.uk
PICKING UP THE paper the
other day, I was not surprised to
see headlines quoting my old
boss Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe,
the commissioner of the
Metropolitan Police (no, I won’t
tell you what we used to call him;
suffice to say his nickname was
hyphenated as well). Sir Bernard,
never one to court publicity for
its own sake, was quoted as
saying that banks shouldn’t
reimburse customers who
become victims of cyberfraud
unless they can demonstrate
they’ve taken reasonable steps to
protect themselves.
He went on to say that
customers must keep passwords
safe, have up-to-date anti-virus
and that the present policy of
banks refunding all fraud victims
is tantamount to rewarding bad
practice. Well, that’s one way of
looking at it, I suppose, but I can’t
help but think that this is a very
simplistic standpoint and that Sir
Bernard should have been better
briefed before coming out with
such a statement.
It’s true that a few high-street
banks have a clause in their
not to reimburse, a full forensic
examination would have to take
place to determine whether
software was correctly updated.
Who would bear the cost of that
examination? Second, it would be
commercial suicide for any bank
to break ranks and implement
this policy, as losses to internet
fraud are relatively low and
customers would leave in droves
once this change was announced.
POLICY OFFICER
Perhaps the commissioner knows
all this, and the reason he came
out with this statement was to
herald a policy change from the
banks, in the same way that
government trails bad news from
unlikely sources to soften us up
before implementing an
unpopular measure. I would hope
not, as he has always struck me
as a person of principle and this
would be a very political move. I
would prefer to think that he
hasn’t been briefed very well.
Of course, if you run a
business and transact online, you
will be aware that banks don’t
reimburse business account
holders that fall victim to online
banking fraud at all. The onus for
Having worked closely with
the banks in the past, I can say
that they do an awful lot to
mitigate cyberattacks against
their customers and are at the
forefront in the collation and
sharing of actionable e-crime
intelligence. They employ teams
of very proficient online fraud
banking staff who do their level
best to frustrate cybercriminals
and, to a large extent, are very
successful in their efforts.
MALPRACTICE
The problem of banking malware
will never be fully addressed by
the enforcement of anti-virus
software or good password
management alone, despite this
being good practice.
The internet has become
much more than a platform for
individuals to express their
opinions; it is now a critical part
of the national infrastructure, and
as such deserves to be actively
policed. At the very least, proper
enforcement of existing terms
and conditions could knock out a
large number of criminal
registrations of different parts of
the internet’s infrastructure.
For example, I have seen

Most banks know if the device connecting cybersecurity is thrust exactly

where the commissioner wants
reports of a rise in anonymous
registration of domain names

to their server is infected by malware and, personal banking to be: squarely

on a business’s shoulders.
ending .om – the top-level
domain belonging to Oman –

if it is, they never let the customer know
terms and conditions stating that
when a customer signs up to
online banking, they agree to
keep all software updated and
deploy up-to-date anti-virus
products. If a fraud occurs that is
a direct result of the customer
not updating software or
anti-virus then that omission
could breach the terms and
conditions, resulting in the bank
not having to reimburse the loss.
The banks choose not to
implement this clause for a
couple of reasons. First, if the
customer was to query a decision
It is odd that we haven’t heard
much from the banks in response
to the commissioner’s remarks. I
suspect that has a lot to do with
a topic we’ve discussed before:
most high-street banks know if
the device connecting to the
online banking server is infected
by malware and if it is, they never
let the customer know. In other
words, the online fraud engine
used at the server end can
determine if your computer is
infected and then often makes
the decision as to allow the
transaction to go ahead anyway.
The banks are accepting the risk
that the transaction could be
fraudulent, and that’s why they
reimburse you if it is.
together with names that are
typo-squatting some well-known
financial institutions. Stand by
for floods of malicious spam
containing links pointing to spoof
and malicious banking sites with
the sole purpose of relieving you
of your login credentials. Why do
we allow such registrations?
The commissioner’s words
are well meant. We should all
take responsibility for our
online security. But in my view,
the banking industry should
also wake up and realise that it
has a duty of care to you and I
as users, and stop turning a
blind eye to online criminals by
the robust enforcement of its
own rules.

12 JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

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 Writing a letter and talking on a landline may seem old-fashioned, but they’re our
only ways of communicating with the world while we wait for our internet connection

David Neal

Working from home can be a solitary business, but having fun at the
phone scammers’ expense helps relieve the loneliness
MY RAVE MAY come as a surprise to
some people because I suspect it is mostly
the cause of rants. I’m referring to the
Microsoft support services call – that
unwelcome intrusion which I, and a great
whack of the population, receive on a
regular basis.
They’re a terrible thing, a money-sucking
trick from a criminal underworld that wants
to steal from you, confuse you and probably
ruin your computer. They don’t care if
you’re a policeman or a pensioner. As long
as you might fall for their confidence trick,
you are just their kind of person.
I am not likely to fall for their confidence
trick, I have some time on my hands, and
the call doesn’t cost me anything, so I have
taken to see it as something of a daily, or
bi-daily, treat.
I work at home in what a lot of people
would call the sticks. I am married, my wife
works – not at home – and I spend a great
deal of my time not talking to anyone
except the dog and my laptop.
e
The laptop is the worst of the pair to talk
to, but it has never upped and walked away
while I discussed my day with it, and it has
never leapt up and started barking at the
car park or a passing neighbour.
My laptop has also never begun to wash
itself during a chat, nor has it ever farted in
the way that only a dog can while in the
confines of my small, packed office.
However, I can take the dog out and she is
usually good for some interaction.
Home-based interaction is low, though,
so I pretty much look forward to the
interruption of the shrill landline ringtone.
Not just because of the scam-baiting, but
also because sometimes my wife will ring,
or my parents. Whoever’s calling, I always
rush to that phone.
Early disappointments – caused by
non-mum or wife calls, but sub-continental
enquiries into my Microsoft PC – rather
took the shine off these calls and for a while
I stopped answering the home phone. This
worked well until I missed a very important
call – not quite a ‘phone a friend’ on
Millionaire, but important nonetheless.
So over time I have honed my telephone
answering skills. If I’m not expecting a call,
having already spoken to my mother or wife
that day, and the phone rings, I quickly
check my list of made-up companies with
which to answer the phone, take a deep
breath and give them my best response.
A quick burst of “International Goat
Rescue. What is the nature of your goat
emergency?”, a blast of “Microsoft
Support Services: Criminal Investigation
Division”, or something like “David Neal’s
Linux Emporium and Microsoft Vacuum”
will usually cool off the caller and send
down the handset.
It’s fun for me, and probably annoying
for them. The important thing to remember
is that it keeps me amused, and that
Microsoft would never, ever, ever, ever
call you up about a problem with your
computer. It is far more likely to avoid
wanting to talk about it.

14 JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341


r
Mel Crouche
No wonder letter writing is becoming a lost art – have you seen
how much a book of stamps costs these days?
AT THE BACK of the cupboard, in an old
cigar box, are letters that my parents sent to
one another in the first flush of love in 1946.
They are a handful of the eight billion
personal letters entrusted to the Royal Mail
that year, and I cannot throw them away. I
suppose if they were courting today, my
parents would lob emoticons at one another
and drivel Snapchat into oblivion. But of
course, nobody could read their words 70
years later. As for me, I haven’t received a
proper letter through the post for a long
time. I mean a letter written by another
human being for me. Neither have I written
one. That’s because, like you, I use email.
Compare the eight billion letters posted
in 1946 to the eight billion emails that will
wing their way around the world during the
next hour. Delivery will be instant, and cost
will be negligible. Some of them will even be
worth reading. Of course I miss the detuned
nnett
Madeline Be
Superfast broadband is finally available even in the furthest outposts ts of
the country. Sadly, getting ISPs to connect you to it is another matter
I’M LUCKY TO be the happy new owner of
a house in Cornwall; Falmouth to be precise.
Lucky because I’m a complete Kernow-phile,
and a huge fan of everything from pasties
and cream teas to walks along the coastal
path and roaring log fires in a cosy pub.
As well as traditional Cornish delights,
Falmouth is blessed with some newer
attractions: the National Maritime Museum,
its very own hipster bar-cum-bookshop,
Beerwolf, and ultra high-speed broadband.
Yes, even in the darkest depths of the
South-West, you can now get speeds up to
300Mbit/s with fibre to the premises (FTTP),
and BT has just increased the maximum
theoretical speeds of its cheapest Infinity
fibre broadband package to 52Mbit/s.
ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016
whistle of the postman on his rounds, but
thanks to email I can be bombarded day and
night by unwanted communications from
pedants, crooks, bores and lunatics, and I
can send off abuse and indiscretions to the
wrong mailing list at the touch of a button.
A couple of months ago, Ray Tomlinson
snuffed it, having invented email and
changed the way the world communicates.
And all hail to him. He changed it for the
better in 1971, when he wrote a simple
program that allowed one person with
access to a server to send a message to
another person with access to a different
server. Nonetheless, the death of Ray
Tomlinson triggered something in me. I
resolved to write a short, hand-crafted love
letter to each one of my living relatives while
I can still hold a pen, and they can still open
an envelope. And just maybe they would
want to keep it and put it in an old cigar box
The problem is the waiting time to get
the thing installed. Even though broadband
speeds have far surpassed expectations
across the whole of Cornwall – clearly more
than a few BT execs must have holiday
homes in the region – you still face the long,
arduous wait to start taking advantage.
I completed on the house on 24th March.
I contacted both the previous broadband
provider, Plusnet, and BT to try to get an
early appointment secured to get my
superfast speeds hooked up from day one.
But due to the unfathomable internet
changeover process, nothing could be done
until the previous owner’s Plusnet contract
had run out on 15th April, almost a month
after purchase. This was despite the vendor
RANTS & RAVES
at the back of the cupboard, where
someone from the 22nd century might
stumble across it and think fondly for a
moment about the author and the recipient.
It took me the best part of the weekend
to write my love letters, mostly because I
seem to have forgotten how to do joined-up
writing, or even sign my own name. Not to
mention the time it took to find their
sodding postal addresses. But on Monday I
popped along to my local Post Office to buy
24 stamps. Unfortunately it was now an
Oxfam shop. A passing scavenger told me I
could buy stamps at the Co-op a few doors
down, and sure enough they were willing
to sell me two dozen stamps for £15.36.
Fifteen quid! That’s nine bottles of Fursty
Ferret on special offer in the very same
Co-op! I bought the beer of course, scanned
my letters and sent them by email. I hope
they get printed out. I suspect they won’t.
assuring us they’d made calls to Plusnet to
try to get things moving sooner. In the end,
Plusnet simply cut off the broadband on
28th March, so nobody got to use the last
three weeks of paid-for service.
BT informed me that there was also
nothing it could do until the old contract
had run its course. To give credit to BT, it
did come and do the initial site survey on
the earliest possible date, 15th April, and an
engineer came to switch on the 52Mbit/s
broadband at the house on 29th April.
So full marks to the Superfast Cornwall
consortium and BT for providing such
speedy infrastructure, but operators should
get together and find a way of speeding up
the handover process for new customers.
15
 NEWS

From the floor of

The Gadget Show
Live 2016
From picture frames to control a smart home to vintage pub
F
games, there was plenty of fascinating tech on show in Brum
g

T he 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 bunch of options in a single lock, which include a PIN code, key card,
key tag, remote fob or smartphone app. This means that although
www.eyejusters.com, from £69 it’s all just as secure, you can keep tabs on who’s going in and out,
EYEJUSTERS ARE off-the- perhaps giving a cleaner access for a set period in the week, and if
shelf glasses with a difference. you get locked out, someone else can arrange to let you in without
Thanks to two handy little them having to rush home from work.
dials, you can actually adjust There’s even a failsafe that, if the power goes out, a hidden recess
the lenses to fix your lets you plug in a 9V battery for long enough to type in your PIN.
prescription – ideal if you’ve
got a particular blind spot
when you’re zapping aliens
for extended periods. GAME TIME 60 TABLETOP
They’re not a replacement
for proper eye care from an
ARCADE MACHINE
www.bespoke-arcades.co.uk, from £995
optician, especially if you’re
long-sighted rather than short-sighted, but if you want something to BACK IN THE 1970s, the pride e of place
boost your eyes at work, or to cause less tiredness during an extended in the local pub might be Space
pace
gaming session, they could be just what you’re after. Invaders or Pac-Man built into
nto a
Designed and manufactured in the UK, Eyejusters are available in a cocktail cabinet, so you could
variety of frames and materials, which manage to look cool rather than play and still have a flat surface
e
hideously prosaic, as with similar products we’ve seen. for your drinks. As games got
more complicated they fell
out of favour, and are now

YALE KEYLESS CONNECTED prized collectors’ items,

SMART LOCK
www.yale.co.uk, from £79
WE’RE SO ACCUSTOMED to using keys that it’s easy to forget there
might be an alternative. After all, locks have been traced back to as
early as 25BC. Yale has been forthcoming in taking forward the concept
into the Internet of Things era and has
launched a range of Z-Wave locks.
These state-of-the-art locks not only
unlock without a key, but can talk to
other smart home items, making them
an active part of the security system.
We’ve been using combinations for
safes and swipe cards for hotels for
years, so why are we so nervous
about doing the same for our homes?
Rather than deciding what’s going to
succeed the key, Yale has given us a
prone to breakdown.
If you don’t fancy paying
over a grand for one game,
these reproduction ones
were going down a storm
with the youngsters at The
Gadget Show, as well as the
people who remember them from
first time around. Offering 60 games
from the era – including Frogger, Donkey Kong
and Arkanoid, among others, as well as the ones we’ve already
mentioned – these are full-sized reproductions with two sets of play
controls, and the option for a coin mechanism if you want to turn it
into an investment. Or a money-box.
As each one is custom built, you can even have your own logo on
the home screen. With not much change from a thousand pounds,
you won’t have much money left to go in it, but you only have to be in
their presence for a few minutes to want one more than anything in
the world. Yes, including oxygen.

16 JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

 NEWS

BOOSTY SPEED BOOSTER

www.boosty.com, £69 + £39 per following year
BOOSTY, WE ARE told, is the answer to a question that shouldn’t
need raising, but does. For most of us, even in big cities, our broadband
connection is too slow. Not all the time, but for those crucial moments
such as trying to bag those Glastonbury tickets, or win an end of level
challenge in an online game.
Boosty solves all that by using the untapped potential of the other
internet connection we have ave at home: our mobile data. The Boosty
box connects to your router ter and communicates with an
app on your phone when n you’re connected to the
same Wi-Fi connection. Then, hen, and only when
absolutely necessary, it will syphon off your
mobile data either to speedeed up your
connection, boost your bandwidth
andwidth or
fend off a blackout.
If you have more than one
mobile device, Boosty willll
poll for the one with the
best reception at that
moment, but more importantly,
rtantly,
FIBARO SWIPE if it can avoid using your data plan,
www.fibarouk.co.uk, £130 it will, or you can cap it in the settings.
It’s not a one-size-fits all plan, and if
REMEMBER FIVE YEARS ago, when electronic picture frames were all you’ve got a 76Mbit/s fibre bre connection
the rage? That got old fast. But here’s a new twist on the idea from you’re not going to notice ce much difference. But if you’ve got a
Polish smart home stalwarts Fibaro. The Swipe is a regular picture bottleneck of 2Mbit/s then en it can make things such as streaming a
frame with hidden depths. It responds to swipes and can control a video significantly smoother.ther.
myriad of household items with a gesture. Read our full Boosty review in Shopper 342, on sale 16th June.
It’s a Z-Wave device so it’s compatible with a range of devices from
different manufacturers. Thankfully, given that it’s going to take a fair
beating, it’s scratch and shockproof, and it comes with its own stand.
The Swipe can also be used to control audio devices, so you can change
volume, skip tracks and play/pause with different combinations of
NVIDIA VR SHOWCASE
touch, all of which you choose. Once you’re feeling confident you can NOT A PRODUCT as such, but a chance for visitors – most of whom
combine actions into a scene and using a single swipe tell the house won’t have been able to play around with virtual reality – to get up close
you’re going to bed and that it’s time to turn off the lights, lock the with the best in the biz. Nvidia has been very vocal about putting its
doors, close the blinds and turn on the electric blanket. stock into virtual reality of late, and shortly after the show gave the first
With so many devices relying on our phones to work properly demonstrations of virtual visits to the top of Everest and the surface of
these days, it’s good to have a backup plan, and something more Mars. Nvidia GPUs power both the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift VR devices.
attractive than yet another remote has got to be a good thing. Events such as this are important for everyone who has a stake in
VR because the computing power required to have a device in our
homes is in excess of what Joe Public already has. As such, this is a
chance to impress them enough to buy that superfast computer.
iFIT DUO What’s almost as much fun as the virtual reality, however, is
watching people standing in black boxes interacting with thin air.
www.ifit.com, from £199
WITH THE RIDICULOUS number of fitness devices on the market now,
most of which are fairly mediocre, companies have got to find some
message seems to be high-end
way of making a mark. For iFit, the mes
build quality and extremely specific me metrics for runners.
We were already excited when we saw the iFit
gorgeous, if hefty, analogue fitness watch.
Classic, a gorgeou
then we were shown this little
But th
marvel, due to arrive in late May, and
marvel
likely to turn the fitness tracker market
on its head. Literally.
See the pretty luxury watch? Isn’t
it lovely? So shiny. But what if you
want more information than the dial
wan
offers? No problem. Release a catch
offers
and fl flip the whole watch over in its
housing and it becomes a digital readout,
housin
taking on a workout. There’s no
ideal for takin
that manufacturers are going to
question tha
become mo more and more desperate to impress,
and that can lead to gimmicks. This isn’t a
it’s absolutely lovely.
gimmick, it’

ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016 17

 NEWS

LG SmartThinQ brings smart tech

to your dumb appliances
LG’S LATEST SMART home product is
designed to turn your dumb old appliances
into smart appliances. The aggravatingly
named SmartThinQ system consists of a hub
and a number of sensors. The sensors can be
placed on or in existing devices in order to
bring smart features to older appliances.
For example, you can place a SmartThinQ
sensor on your existing washing machine
and it will detect the vibrations given off by
the machine and then inform you, via a
smartphone app, when the cycle ends. It can
also be used as a door sensor, so you can see
when people are coming or going, or even
press it into service as a makeshift security
sensor. The sensor includes an infrared (IR)
blaster that can be used to communicate
with a wide range of devices that accept IR
signals, such as air conditioners.
It’s a neat idea, allowing you to make a
start on a smart home without replacing all
your devices straight from the off. However,
until we try it out it’s impossible to know how
well it will work compared to native smart
devices. The SmartThinQ system is natively
built into many of LG’s more recent devices,
allowing for communication with your
smartphone, or the hub detailed next,
without additional sensors.
LG hopes its SmartThinQ
system will make smart
home owners of us all
The SmartThinQ Hub is reminiscent of
Amazon’s Echo device and can communicate
with both its matching sensor and other
compatible smart home devices. It supports
the AllJoyn Alliance standard, which has
been led by Qualcomm and has numerous
big-name partners, so compatibility
shouldn’t be a major issue for most devices.
It supports Wi-Fi, ZigBee and
Bluetooth communications.
“The LG SmartThinQ Hub is
just another example of the
open approach we believe is
the future of the smart home,”
said Jo Seong-Jin, president
and CEO of the LG Electronics
home appliance company.
“Openness and strong
partnerships with industry
leaders is what will make
smart home technology more
accessible and more
convenient to consumers.
And at the end of the day,
that is what our smart home
strategy is all about.”
The Hub also has a built-in
speaker to both provide
spoken alerts from devices
and reminders from synced personal
calendars. It can also play music, stream
internet radio and provide spoken weather
reports if desired. A tilted LCD screen on the
top lets you look at information and access
the various settings across various devices.
The hub is available in two colours,
Champagne Gold and Black.

Let it stream: the Facebook captions

Beatles hit Spotify
FOR THE FIRST time ever, songs by the Beatles have been appearing
on Spotify. According to the streaming service, the band kept the fans
bobbing steadily through the first 100 days of availability.
“The Beatles appeared on Spotify on Christmas Eve, to the delight of
everyone from hard-core Beatles fans to casual listeners,” said Spotify
as it counted down the mop-tops’ top streams for the period.
“Approximately 6.5 million people have listened to The Beatles
on Spotify – 67 percent under the age of 35, and 65 percent male.
Spotify has streamed 2,793 years of the Beatles and has 4.2 million
playlists with their music.”
That is a lot of Beatles, an infestation maybe. Still Spotify will not
be breaking out the exterminators, particularly as it doesn’t have
exclusive rights to the Fab Four, and shares streams with other firms
including Apple and Google.
Spotify’s findings also revealed that the most popular day for
listening to Beatles’ songs is a Thursday, and the most commonly
streamed number is
Here Comes the Sun.
The most listened
to album is the
greatest hits
compilation 1,
followed by Abbey
Road in second place
and the album known
as the White Album
I’m only streaming: the Fab Four are on Spotify in third position.
photos for blind people
FACEBOOK CAN NOW describe photos to blind
people, using a tool called Automatic Alternative
Text to provide audio captions for pictures.
The tool uses text-to-speech engines that rely
on object-recognition technology to identify a
photo’s features, such as cars, food types and even
people’s facial expressions and appearances. It
then reads a description out to the blind user.
Machine learning, rather than metadata,
underpins the technology, and Facebook has fed it
millions of pictures, and input billions of parameters,
in an effort to ensure it describes photos accurately.
Facebook’s head of accessibility, Jeffrey
Wieland, and one of its software engineers,
Shaomei Wu, said: “With more than 39 million
people who are blind, and over 246 million who
have a severe visual impairment, many people may ⬆ Facebook can
feel excluded from the conversation around determine what’s
photos on Facebook. We want to build technology in your photos
that helps the blind community experience
Facebook the same way others enjoy it.”
Facebook’s previous service to blind users simply said the word
‘photo’ when a friend had uploaded a picture. Previous features aimed
at the visually impaired included closed captioning for videos and
options for increasing font size on the iOS platform.
Facebook claimed that its object-detection algorithm can retrieve at
least one concept for more than half of people’s photos.

18 JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

Google opens up Nik Collection
to photo fans everywhere
GOOGLE IS OFFERING to retouching and
photographers of all creative effects, to image
skills and styles free sharpening that brings
access to its Nik
Collection of editing
out all the hidden details,
to the ability to make
HP unveils
tools for the desktop.
Google said that this
adjustments to the colour
and tonality of images,” the world’s
should appeal to all
photo enthusiasts and
provide them with a level Boost your photos with Google’s
said the firm, as it made
these once professional-
only tools available to all.
thinnest laptop
playing field of tools that will professional image-editing tools The Nik Collection HP HAS UPPED the ultra-thin laptop
help them compose their includes colour-conversion stakes by releasing the brand-new Spectre, a
shots and improve their results. and noise-reduction tools including Analog device so thin that people will probably say
“The Nik Collection comprises seven Efex Pro, Color Efex Pro, Silver Efex Pro, that you could shave with it, although
desktop plug-ins that provide a powerful Viveza, HDR Efex Pro, Sharpener Pro and hopefully no-one will ever try to do so.
range of photo-editing capabilities, from filter Dfine. Google is promising a full refund to any At just 10.4 mm thick, the device is a
applications that improve colour correction, users who have bought the collection in 2016. serious beast in a small package. HP calls it a
premium PC experience and was keen to
stress the “exceptional” engineering when

New Vivaldi web browser aims discussing its design. The suggestion is that
this is a laptop to be proud of, to avoid

to hit the right note dropping, and to be envied. HP is over the

STALWART BROWSER SOFTWARE people
who used to work at Opera have released
version 1.0 of their Chrome-
challenging Vivaldi browser after
lengthy testing with early adopters.
“After more than a year of
public development, we’re
honoured to share Vivaldi 1.0 with
you. You’re the reason we’ve made
it this far,” said Jon von Tetzchner,
co-founder and CEO at the new browser firm.
“When we started building a browser, we
wanted to do it on our terms and for our
users. So far, we’ve kept that promise. Vivaldi
isn’t like any other browser. We’re not trying
to make it simple in an effort to appeal to
every user. We’re introducing features and
customisations that browsers today don’t
have. We’re making it for you, and you
deserve more from your browser.”
Tetzchner said that Vivaldi will start
offering users the chance to customise right
from the download process. The browser
includes a wide range of personalised
settings and bookmark functions.
Vivaldi was developed by the same group of
engineers who produced the Opera browser
“That focus is very important. Vivaldi
should adapt to you. It shouldn’t feel like a
browser for everyone. Because it isn’t. It’s for
you,” he added.
For those keen to try a new browsing
experience, Vivaldi also offers tab stacks, so
you can drop tabs on top of each other to
create a stack and reduce clutter; Speed Dial,
which lets you access favourite sites and
bookmarks from any blank tab; and Web
Panels, which let you view websites in the
Vivaldi sidebar.
moon with it and what went into it.
“The HP Spectre is the thinnest notebook
in the world and, unlike the majority of other
super-thin PCs on the market, this laptop
doesn’t compromise on power or features,”
said Kevin Frost, vice-president and general
manager, consumer personal systems, at HP.
“A beautiful Full HD edge-to-edge display,
Intel Core i processors coupled with Bang &
Olufsen sound, and a sexy and thin design,
HP’s amazing engineers set a new standard
with the all-new Spectre.”
‘Sexy’ may be in the eye of the beholder,
but the Spectre is undoubtedly a nice-looking
machine. It boasts a CNC-machined aluminium
chassis of just 10.4 mm, a choice of Intel Core
i5 or Core i7 processors, a Full HD 13.3in
diagonal edge-to-edge display, Thunderbolt
connections, a 4K screen option, 512GB
storage and 8GB of memory, along with Bang
& Olufsen speakers and HPsound technology.
It’s light, too, thanks to a carbon fibre bottom,
weighing in at 1.1kg. Battery life is said to be in
the nine-hour range.
There are no pricing or availability details
yet, but you can expect its price to be as
spooky as its name.

WordPress extends free HTTPS to all domains

POPULAR BLOGGING PLATFORM WordPress is to make the security
feature used on standard WordPress internet addresses the de facto
option across all sites. This should make for a more secure
blogging experience.
“We are excited to announce free HTTPS for all custom
domains hosted on WordPress.com,” said the company.
“This brings the security and performance of modern
encryption to every blog and website we host. Best of all,
the changes are automatic – you won’t need to do a thing.
“Strong encryption protects our users in various
ways, including defending against surveillance of
content and communications, cookie theft, account hijacking and
other web security flaws,” it explained.
WordPress has supported this level of encryption for sites
such as https://barry.wordpress.com since 2014, but will now
allow the same service for https://barry.com, for example.
“Our latest efforts now expand encryption to the
million-plus custom domains hosted on WordPress.com,”
the company said. “For you, the users, that means you’ll
see secure encryption automatically deployed on every
new site within minutes. We are closing the door to
unencrypted web traffic (HTTP) at every opportunity.”

ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016 19

 NEWS
Microsoft gets tough
on Adobe Flash
REPEATEDLY BASHED SOFTWARE Adobe
Flash is getting the Windows cold shoulder
from Microsoft and will be automatically
frozen on the Edge browser unless the user
specifies otherwise.
“One of our top priorities in building
Edge has been that the web should be a
dependably safe, performant and reliable
place for our customers,” said John Hazen,
principal program manager lead for Microsoft
Edge. “To that end, we’re introducing a change
to give users more control over the power and
resources consumed by Flash.
“With the Anniversary Update to Windows
10, Microsoft Edge will intelligently auto-
pause content that is not central to the web
page. Windows Insiders can preview this
feature starting with Windows 10 build 14316.”
Important Flash functions – if they’re
central to a games site, for example – won’t
be paused, but otherwise the grinding impact
of slow-to-load Flash adverts or animations
will be history for Edge users.
IT professionals’ password security
is ‘open invitation to hackers’
OVER HALF OF IT professionals – 55% –
make their users change their passwords
more regularly than they change the
administrative credentials that they are
responsible for, according to a new survey.
The research, carried out by Lieberman
Software, found that 10% never change their
administrative credentials at all. Meanwhile,
74% change administrative passwords on
only a monthly or less frequent basis.
The survey of 200 IT professionals at the
recent RSA security conference also revealed
that, according to 36% of people, there are
IT professionals don’t
practise what they
preach when it comes
to password security,
according to a new study
20
Microsoft isn’t the first to suggest that
Flash should be put on leave, and the Edge
team knows it.
“Flash has been an integral part of the
web for decades, enabling rich content and
animations in browsers since before HTML5
was introduced. In modern browsers, web
standards pioneered by Microsoft, Adobe,
Google, Apple, Mozilla and many others are
now enabling sites to exceed those
experiences without Flash and with improved
performance and security,” added Hazen, as
he explained that if it is good enough for
them, it is good enough, or should that be bad
enough, for Microsoft to worry about.
Adobe Flash has been the subject of
numerous security attacks and weaknesses,
which other browser providers are not
willing to put up with any more. Google had
already warned that as of January 2017, it
will no longer run any Flash adverts,
pushing developers to the newer and less
buggy HTML5.
cases where the same passwords are shared
among a number of IT staff. More worrying,
perhaps, is the revelation that a further 15%
of respondents thought that if they left their
current companies, they could still gain
remote access with their admin credentials.
Lieberman’s research also found that
77% of those questioned believe passwords
are failing as an IT security method and 53%
think modern hacking tools could easily
break passwords within their organisations.
Nearly half of respondents – 45% – said
that despite all the IT security technology
“This transition to modern web standards
has benefited users and developers alike,”
Hazen said. “Users experience improved
battery life when sites use efficient web
standards, lowering both memory and CPU
demands. Developers benefit as they are able
to create sites that work across all browsers
and devices, including mobile devices where
Flash may not be available.
“We’re aligned with other browsers in this
transition from Flash towards a modern
standards-based web. Over time, we will
provide users additional control over the
use of Flash (including content central to
the page) and monitor the prevalence of
Flash on the web.”
their organisation has deployed, they are
unprepared to defend against a cyberattack.
Lieberman says the least a company can
do is make sure that it has its administration
passwords in check and that they’re secure.
“Administrative passwords are the most
powerful credentials in an organisation – the
keys to the IT kingdom,” said Philip Lieberman,
president and CEO of Lieberman Software.
“The fact that 10% of IT professionals
admit they never change these credentials is
astounding. It’s almost like an open invitation
to hackers to come in and stay a while. In the
meantime, the intruders are nosing their way
around the network. They can anonymously
help themselves to information and remain
undetected until it’s too late.”
He added that shared passwords is a
practice that needs ending.
“Given that insider threats are one of the
biggest concerns for chief information
security officers, knowing that more than a
third of IT professionals share privileged
passwords is ludicrous,” Lieberman continued.
“The same can be said about so many
ex-employees who can still access
administrative credentials. Automated
privileged access management solutions can
prevent these types of cyber-threats related
to unsecure credentials.”
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

Console yourself,
the game is afoot
All the movers and shakers from the world of gaming
BAFTA lauds Fallout 4 with
best game title
POST APOCALYPSE STROLL-A-THON Fallout 4 won the award for
best overall game at the 2016 BAFTA awards, giving the developers
Bethesda their first gong for the title after six previous nominations.
That, though, was the sole prize given to Fallout 4, and it was a mix
of independent and British firms that did the best out of the ceremony.
Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, another slow-moving, what-
happened-to-everyone game that takes place in a small English village,
won three BAFTAs: Audio Achievement, Performer for Merle Dandridge
as Kate Collins, and Music for the score by Jessica Curry.
Hey Story, a novel mystery-style approach to gaming, won in the
Debut Game, Game Innovation, and Mobile and Handheld categories.
Though these excellent games are all made in the UK, it was
Rocksteady Studios’ Batman: Arkham Knight that won the award for
Best British Game, adding another gong to an already laden awards
shelf for the company and its batty series.
Rocket League, the speedy spin on football that lit up the
PlayStation 4 and is now available for Xbox One, won three awards,
picking up trophies for Best Family, Multiplayer and Sport Game.
Fallout 4 picked up
the game of the year
award at the BAFTAs
The Commodore C64 is back
YOU SHOULD NEED no introduction to the Commodore 64, but just in
case we’ll give you one anyway. It’s a home computing marvel, and was
only recently still the UK’s biggest-selling computer.
You might have had a Spectrum, but one of your mates might have
had the Commodore 64, which led you into a world of similar but very
different games. Maybe. They’re murky memories now, and the passing
of time has moved things like centipede techniques out of your mind
and replaced them with tricks for dealing with slugs in an actual garden.
The good news is that you can get that whole nostalgic
feeling back with the crowdsourced The 64. The 64
comes in two forms, one where the machine is
represented as the old-fashioned keyboard and a
more gamer friendly option that looks like it
fell off the back of Nintendo. It costs $150
(around £103) for the handset, and a
bit more for the keyboard
option and joystick.
NEWS
We’re all Doomed
PREPARE FOR MAYHEM. Doom, the original shoot and smash game,
is spinning towards consoles in a multiplayer version that could knock a
lot more than the socks off the other players in the MPG arenas.
Bethesda announced the rebirth in 2015 and immediately people
began buzzing about the buzzsaw and the infamous BFG. No-one quite
as much as the companies behind it, though.
“Doom returns as a brutally fun and challenging modern-day
shooter experience. Relentless demons, impossibly destructive guns,
and fast, fluid movement provide the foundation for intense, first-
person combat – whether you’re obliterating demon hordes through
the depths of Hell in the single-player campaign, or competing against
your friends in numerous multiplayer modes,” says the developer.
There are futuristic guns, upgrades and melee attacks for stomping,
slashing and crushing your puny opposition.
“Dominate your opponents in
Doom’s signature, fast-paced
arena-style combat,” is the offer.
“In both classic and all-new game
modes, annihilate your enemies
using your personal blend of skill,
powerful weapons, vertical
movement and unique power-ups
that allow you to play as a demon.”
Doom is out in May.
All the colours of
the Spectrum
IT WOULD BE amiss to mention the rebirth of the Commodore 64
without talking about its chief bedroom rival, the Spectrum 48.
Fortunately the Speccie is back and it is back in two forms, at least one
of which has the backing of no less than Sir Clive Sinclair.
That model, the Spectrum Vega Plus console, looks least like a
Spectrum and more like the sort of handheld that you could lock
yourself into on a train journey. It was even designed with the aid of
Rick Dickinson, who aided the build of the original models, and comes
brimming with 1,000 games – many of which you may still remember
the cheat codes for.
The rival option doesn’t have the backing of a knighted personality,
but it does have games on its side. Initially put on Kickstarter with Jet
Set Willy livery, the Elite Systems Recreated ZX Spectrum really does
look like a ZX Spectrum, except the kind you would keep in an iPhone
case, and is likely to take the bulk of the retro attention because of this.
It has also managed to score
the rights to a couple off key
Spectrum titles, includingng
Jet Set Willy and Chuckie e
Egg as exclusives.
Which is nice.
Of course,
the Sinclair Vega
alternative does not
need a television to play y it.
21
 IN DEPTH

Microsoft builds on Windows ties

with Xbox integration, AI and VR
David Neal rounds up the key announcements from the annual developers’ event

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 Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella
kicked off the Build 2016
experience should move first.
developers’ conference
Still on the Xbox, and closer ties between it
and Windows 10 are forthcoming following
the release of the desktop software’s Xbox, according to Spencer, along with you interact with the world around you –
anniversary edition. When this happens, the background music features for people who using your pen, presence and voice.”
separate Xbox and PC stores will merge, like to groove while they update games and Key Windows 10 updates include Windows
creating a new market for developers and a perform other admin tasks on their Xbox. Hello adding biometric security to apps and
new marketplace for players. Build 2016 was not all games and fun, Microsoft Edge, and Windows Ink, which lets
“The best of the Xbox Store comes though, and Microsoft had a lot to say about users write on their device as they do on paper.
together with the best of the Windows Store the desktop part of its business, not to
beginning this summer with the Windows 10 mention its plans for virtual reality and IT’S ALL IN THE EYES
Anniversary Update,” said the firm. “The store artificial intelligence. Build gave Microsoft a good chance to show
will work across all devices in the ecosystem off its go at the world of virtual reality (VR)
and provide developers more choice in how 10 TIMES 27 MILLION headsets with a demonstration of HoloLens
and where they deliver their content and It was no surprise that sales figures for and the promise that it would soon be in
monetise their customers. Windows 10 were announced. “With Windows developer hands. Microsoft HoloLens, which
“New support will include features that 10 now running on over 270 million active looks like cycling glasses as opposed to diving
game developers have come to expect and devices, we’re celebrating with our fans by goggles, is described as being a natural way of
require from Xbox One into the Windows delivering the Windows 10 Anniversary interacting with the virtual space around you.
Store, including support for bundles, season Update,” said Terry Myerson, executive It’s not cheap, though, at a reported
passes, pre-orders and more.” vice-president of Windows and devices group. $3,000. Mind you, you do get a thing called a
Cortana, once limited to Halo but now “This significant update will help you interact clicker that appears to be a virtual mouse and
almost omnipresent, is also heading for your with your Windows 10 devices as naturally as a fancy pouch, plus developer kit and tools.

WHAT WAS BIG AT BUILD 2016

BOT BUTLERS FACE NEVER MIND TEENAGE FORWARD
A digital Jeeves to HUGGING THE QUALITY TEARAWAY TAY CORTANA
order your pizza The HoloLens, a virtual- Windows 10 has Teaching AI to be a Microsoft’s voice
reality challenger shipped 270 teen is tricky assistant is heading
million copies to the Xbox

22 JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341


Latest Windows 10 Mobile insider preview
build reveals raft of new features
Gabe Aul, corporate vice-president for the
Windows engineering systems team,
announced the latest Windows 10 Mobile
insider preview build just after Build ended,
and promised developers a raft of updates,
new features and tools.
Windows insiders and developers will get
a boat full of new features. There is a lot to
the release, and updated elements include
more support for emoji, which will be big
news to some, and updates to problematic
old dictionaries that may have affected users
and their text messages.
Better options from the lock screen are
included, as are more refined camera tools.
PEOPLE? SCHMEOPLE!
It would be fair to say that the non-human parts
of modern day computing got most of the
spotlight at Build, what with Cortana breezing
her way on the Xbox and the HoloLens taking
people out of the real world. Capping this was a
concerted lurch in the direction of human-like
language and interaction for machines.
“As an industry, we are on the cusp of a new
frontier that pairs the power of natural human
language with advanced machine intelligence,”
said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, as the firm
showed off updates to Cortana and other bots.
“At Microsoft, we call this Conversations as a
Platform, and it builds on and extends the power
of the Microsoft Azure, Office 365 and Windows
platforms to empower developers everywhere.”
Unfortunately, experiments in this area are
not going well, and a teenage-like bot called Tay
has proved to be a bit of a problem for
Microsoft. So much so that the firm was forced
to apologise after the AI turned racist and sexist
and started talking about drugs after going live
on Twitter and being led astray by teens.
“We are on the cusp of a new frontier that pairs the power of
natural human language with advanced machine intelligence”
“As many of you know by now, we launched
a chatbot called Tay. We are deeply sorry for the
unintended offensive and hurtful tweets from
Tay, which do not represent who we are or what
we stand for, nor how we designed Tay,” said
Peter Lee, corporate vice-president for research.
“Tay is now offline and we’ll look to bring Tay
back only when we are confident we can better
anticipate malicious intent that conflicts with
our principles and values. Looking ahead, we
face some difficult – and yet exciting – research
challenges in AI design. AI systems feed off of
both positive and negative interactions with
people. To do AI right, one needs to iterate with
ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016
IN DEPTH
There are also a number of visual changes –
to the way that screens look, for example –
and some less obvious behind-the-scenes
changes, such as a better copy and paste tool.
many people and often in public forums. We
must enter each one with great caution and
ultimately learn and improve, step by step, and to
do this without offending people in the process.”
BABY BOTS
Bots were everywhere at Build, even those
that could order a pizza. Cortana might ask if
you want to order a takeaway and pop up the
Just Eat bot or the Domino’s bot to take your
order, depending on what she already knows
about your eating habits.
Behind the scenes, the Domino’s bot will be
using Microsoft’s Cognitive Services APIs to
understand what you’re saying, typing or
talking about. This should help the bot
understand that ‘send a pizza to my crib’
means ‘deliver a pizza to my house’. You could
end up with a terrible pizza if this goes badly.
CRASH, BASH, WALLOP
In a surprise announcement, far removed from
pizzas and bots, Kevin Gallo, CVP for Windows,
unveiled a full Bash shell implementation for
Windows that has been developed in
partnership with Canonical and brings the full
Linux command line to the Windows experience.
Hosted in a new Windows subsystem, it runs
native Ubuntu commands and applications, and
developers can access familiar command-line
tooling with support for a VT100-style terminal.
This finally allows editors such as GNU Emacs
to run on Windows, along with bringing SSH
connections to remote hosts, something Gallo
described as offering “the power of open-source
command-line tools to Windows”.
Developers will be able to download the
Bash shell from the Windows Store.
23
 REVIEWS
YOUR TRUSTED GUIDE TO WHAT’S NEW

PREMIUM iOS 9 TABLET

APPLE iPad Pro 9.7in

★★★★★
£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
advantages: first, the metal case is gorgeous
and it’s this iPad, more than any other, that
stands out as the premium tablet. Apple has
clearly done some strengthening work as well:
tapping the back of the iPad Air 2 sent ripples
through the LCD screen, but the new iPad Pro with subtler details. In comparison, the iPad The main keys are more compact than the
doesn’t suffer from that problem at all. Air 2 managed a brightness of 390cd/m2 and original Pro’s keyboard, and some of the
only 90.1% of the sRGB colour gamut, proving punctuation keys are tiny, but this doesn’t
ON REFLECTION the new iPad is a definite step up in quality. make much difference during everyday use.
On the face of things, the display hasn’t The one thing it’s missing is a button to
changed that much. It’s the same size and TRUE STORY bring up the onscreen keyboard. That might
resolution (2,048x1,536) as before, with the Apple has also introduced an ambient light sound a bit superfluous, but if you use two
high pixel density of 264ppi still making text sensor for its new True Tone mode. This fingers on the onscreen keyboard it turns
and images look super sharp. However, Apple measures the ambient light and adjusts the into a giant touchpad, which makes moving
has boosted image quality for the 9.7in Pro, as colour temperature of the screen so that the cursor a lot easier than it is using the
it has a new low-reflective surface to make it whites always look pure, making for a more arrow keys. Still, even without that, the 9.7in
easier to see under any lighting conditions. natural viewing experience regardless of the iPad Pro’s keyboard remains one of the best
Picture quality has improved, too. We surrounding lighting conditions. tablet keyboards around.
measured the 9.7in iPad Pro at a maximum The screen has also been upgraded so it
brightness of 495cd/m2, giving colours plenty works with the Apple Pencil, which is an MULTITASK MASTER
of punch, and its contrast ratio of 1,122:1 optional £79 extra. Our resident artist found The tablet ships with iOS 9.3, which contains
provides lots of fine detail. Likewise, with the the smaller size of this iPad better for writing some multitasking modes that make the iPad
screen able to cover 97.4% of the sRGB colour notes on, as it’s closer to a notepad in size, but that bit better for work use: Slide Over, which
spectrum, it’s easily one of the most accurate not quite as handy for drawing or painting. lets you peek at a compatible app by sliding in
LCD screens we’ve seen on a tablet. Apple has also released a Smart Keyboard from the right-hand edge of the screen; and
In fact, it actually goes way past that when Cover for its new iPad Pro, a smaller version Split View, which lets you run two compatible
it comes to supporting the DCI-P3 wide colour of the one that was available for the original. apps side by side. In landscape mode, there’s
depth, which was introduced with the 5K It’s a little expensive at £129, but well worth it, enough room to do this comfortably, although
Retina iMac. This produces more colours than providing plenty of feedback (haptic and the screen is a little more cramped than on
before, which means images can be encoded audible) that makes it a pleasure to type on. the larger 12.9in iPad Pro.

24 JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

p28 Chillblast Fusion 3 p30 Acer Cloudbook 14
Apple has fitted its new tablet with four
speakers (as it did with the original iPad Pro),
with two at the top and two at the bottom.
These have a wider frequency range than the
old iPad and give much better stereo
separation. In fact, we could comfortably
watch a film and didn’t feel the need to
switch over to a set of headphones. It’s a big
improvement on the old system and makes
this tablet a better all-rounder.
As with the larger model, the 9.7in iPad
Pro has Apple’s dual-core A9X processor.
Scoring 5,417 in Peacekeeper –
around the same as the original
iPad Pro – the 9.7in iPad Pro
is one of the quickest
mobile devices for
browsing, and it
managed a huge 5,221 in
Geekbench 3’s multicore test as well.
Unsurprisingly, iOS 9.3 is perfectly designed for
the tablet and runs exceptionally smoothly.
Games won’t pose a problem, either: the
iPad scored a massive 3,170 in the GFXBench
offscreen Manhattan 3.0 test, showing that
this tablet can easily cope with the most
graphically demanding mobile games.
The only area where this model loses out
to the bigger 12.9in iPad Pro is RAM; the latter
has 4GB, while the 9.7in model has only 2GB.
This is easily one of the most accurate
LCD screens we’ve seen on a tablet
It’s only something you tend to notice while
working on larger files or switching between
apps, though, when the new iPad Pro isn’t
quite as snappy as the larger model.
SIZE MATTERS
The 7,306mAh battery is slightly smaller than
the 7,340mAh battery in the iPad Air 2. As a
result, this new iPad lasted just over 30
minutes less in our video playback test with
the screen set to our standard brightness level
of 170cd/m2, running for a total of 8h 56m.
That’s not brilliant compared to other
top-end Android tablets, such as Samsung’s
Galaxy Tab S2 9.7, which lasted 12h 9m under
the same conditions, but it’s still enough for a
full day’s use, and it charges quickly via the
Lightning port on the rear.
ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016
p33 Apple iPhone SE p44 Asus ROG Swift PG27AQ
Touch ID is included, so you can quickly
unlock your tablet with a fingerprint. It
integrates with Apple Pay, too, so you can
authorise in-app payments quickly, but as
there’s no NFC you can’t use Apple Pay in
store. Given the size of the tablet, though,
doing so would be rather awkward.
The 9.7in iPad Pro is
equipped with the same
12-megapixel camera as
the iPhone 6s, including
the True Tone LED flash.
This means the f/2.2 lens
protrudes from the rear
of the case by a few
millimetres, but this isn’t too irritating,
particularly as the trade-off is excellent photos.
Apple’s cameras are some of the best in
the business, ably coping with any lighting
conditions to give well-balanced photos with
plenty of dynamic range. Getting this quality
on an iPad is a novelty, albeit an enjoyable
one: using the large screen as a viewfinder
makes taking shots very easy. The results are
fantastic, too, with perfect exposure in
outdoor shots and natural-looking indoor
shots courtesy of the True Tone flash. Noise
can be an issue in low lighting, but this is a
problem for most mobile devices.
At the front is a 5-megapixel FaceTime HD
camera. This borrows the iPhone 6s’s Retina
Flash: the screen flares up its brightness to
make sure that you’re perfectly lit when
p46 Samsung UE48JS8500
⬅ The new Smart Keyboard Cover
and Apple Pencil are optional
extras, but are both well worth it
taking a selfie. It uses similar
technology to the True Tone
flash for more natural images.
MONEY TROUBLES
Apple has upped the ante with
storage for the 9.7in iPad Pro, as the
top-end model is fitted with a
whopping 256GB for £739. The
entry-level 32GB model (£499)
or 128GB model (£619) might
be better value for some, but it
depends on how you intend to use it: if
it really is your main computer, 256GB of
storage may come in handy.
These prices are for the
Wi-Fi-only versions; if you
want the cellular version,
you’ll have to pay £100 more per model.
There’s no getting around the fact that
this is an expensive product. If you buy the
32GB model, the Pencil and keyboard cover,
you’re looking at £707, while the top-end
model with cellular and the peripherals would
set you back more than £1,000.
As a result, we can’t give the 9.7in iPad Pro
five stars, but that doesn’t stop it being the
best tablet Apple has made, as well as a pretty
strong contender for the best tablet you can
currently buy. As a traditional iPad, its power,
screen quality, speakers and camera simply
have no competition at this price range, and
the optional Pencil and Smart Keyboard Cover
can also turn it into a fully fledged and
powerful computer – one that’s brilliantly
small and light, perfect for moving between
meetings or working while travelling.
David Ludlow
SPECIFICATIONS
PROCESSOR Dual-core 2.16GHz Apple A9X • SCREEN SIZE
9.7in • SCREEN RESOLUTION 2,048x1,536 • REAR CAMERA
12 megapixels • STORAGE 32/128/256GB • WIRELESS DATA
4G (cellular version) • DIMENSIONS 240x170x6.1mm •
WEIGHT 437g • OPERATING SYSTEM iOS 9.3 •
WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.apple.com/uk •
PART CODE 9.7-inch iPad Pro
Battery life 8h 56m
0% -50 Reference +50 +100
See page 74 for performance details
25
 GAMING PC
BOX Cube Republic
★★★★★
£1,600 • From www.box.co.uk
VERDICT
There’s lots to love about this fast, cool and quiet
gaming system, but you can get more PC for less
APPROPRIATELY FOR A system with both
‘Box’ and ‘Cube’ in its name, this premium
gaming PC is small, square and squat. It has a
conventional form factor and internal layout,
but is definitely at the smaller end of the
mid-tower spectrum, which gives it a far more
unassuming look than most £1,000+ gaming
rigs, while improving portability to boot.
It’s far from cramped on the inside; in fact,
it’s beautifully tidy, with plenty of room for
airflow. It also benefits from a hinge-mounted
transparent side door that’s easier to get out
of the way than the usual screwed-in panels.
Sadly, compact cases usually come with
drawbacks as well, and in the Cube Republic’s
case, the main cost is upgradability. The
microATX motherboard, an Asus ROG Z170
Maximus VIII Gene, includes four RAM slots
(two of which are free) and two PCI-E x16
slots (one of which is free), but there’s room
for only one additional PCI-E x4 expansion,
and even the remaining PCI-E x16 input is only
barely accessible thanks to the bulk of the
Asus GeForce GTX 980 STRIX graphics card.
BAY WATCH
There’s also nowhere in the case to securely
mount an optical drive, and while there’s a
neat little row of 2½in bays, they’re
inaccessible via the hinged door; you’ll need to
unscrew the other side panel to get to them.
To be fair, the Cube Republic is already
equipped with an extremely respectable
combination of a 256GB Samsung 950 Pro
26
SSD – mounted on the motherboard’s
M.2 slot – and a huge 2TB hard disk drive.
There are also five spare SATA and two
spare SATA Express sockets; again they’re
a tad obscured by the graphics card, but
if you can reach them you’ll have few
issues with adding SSDs.
It also compensates for its modest
internal capabilities with a wealth of
external ports. The Cube Republic has a
USB3.1 and USB Type-C connector, five
USB3 ports, one USB2 port, an S/PDIF
socket for audiophiles, rear speaker and C-Sub
ports (in addition to the standard mic in, line
in and line out ports), four DisplayPorts, two
HDMI connectors, dual-link DVI-I, Gigabit
Ethernet and a legacy PS/2 socket. And that’s
just on the rear – there are two additional
USB3 ports at the front, as well as extra
headset and microphone inputs.
CORE CONSIDERATION
Box hasn’t skimped on power, either – though
we’d expect nothing less for £1,600. The Intel
Core i7-6700K is a fine quad-core chip out of
the box, but here it’s been overclocked to an
imposing 4.6GHz per core, and the Asus
GPU is a dual-fan variant of one of Nvidia’s
high-end 4GB enthusiast cards. Even the 16GB
of DDR4 RAM runs at 3,000MHz, higher than
what we’re used to seeing in gaming systems.
It put up a very strong fight in our
intensive 4K benchmarking test, where it
scored 158 for image editing, 172 for video
editing, 191 for multitasking and 179
overall – great scores all round,
ultimately beating the £1,500
systems we reviewed in Shopper
340, the Falcon Predator Pro SLI
and the Yoyotech Warbird RS12.
However, in our gaming tests,
the pricier Cube Republic actually
performed a little worse than those
two PCs. In Dirt Showdown, for
instance, it managed 124fps at
1,920x1,080 resolution and 52fps
at 4K, both at Ultra settings; the
Falcon and Yoyotech machines, on
the other hand, scored 77fps and
71fps respectively at 4K.
It’s a similar story with the
tough Metro: Last Light Redux
test, where at the maximum
settings Box’s effort scored 54fps
at 1,920x1,080 and just 13fps at
4K. Under the same conditions,
the Predator Pro SLI achieved
85fps at 1080p and 22fps at 4K, while the
Warbird RS12 managed 72fps and 19fps.
It should be said that the Cube Republic’s
scores are still seriously good, and well within
expectations for a system of its calibre. We
could even get an enjoyable 38fps from Metro
at 4K, by dropping texture quality from Very
High to High, turning off SSAA, turning down
texture filtering to AF 4X and switching from
Very High tessellation to High; a compromise
that still allowed for good-looking gameplay.
It’s a fairly quiet system as well: it faintly
hums under heavy load, rather than roaring,
and the GPU fans don’t even spin while
performing low-demand tasks like browsing
the web. The CPU watercooler is appreciably
hushed, too, resulting in a lovely balance of
high performance and low volume that makes
the high price tag much easier to swallow.
It’s just that for the same money – less, in
fact – you could get a PC that’s both easier to
upgrade and, even without further tinkering,
capable of superior gaming performance.
The Cube Republic’s marginally better
Windows and multitasking performance
don’t quite make up for this disparity.
James Archer
SPECIFICATIONS
PROCESSOR Quad-core 4.6GHz Intel Core i7-6700K • RAM
16GB DDR4 • FRONT USB PORTS 2x USB3 • REAR USB
PORTS 1x USB3.1, 5x USB3, 1x USB2, 1x USB Type-C •
TOTAL STORAGE 256GB SSD, 1TB hard disk •
DISPLAY None • OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 10 •
WARRANTY Two years RTB • DETAILS www.box.co.uk •
PART CODE CU-I7REB16GBW10
Windows overall 179
Multitasking 191
Dirt Showdown 124fps
Metro: Last Light 54fps
0% -50 Reference +50 +100
See page 74 for performance details
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341
 WINDOWS 10 WORKSTATION
CHILLBLAST Fusion Projection 3
★★★★★
£1,367 • From www.chillblast.com
VERDICT
Fast, quiet and superbly equipped, this is an outstanding
choice for anyone doing design and editing work
UNLIKE MOST OF the (usually gaming-
focused) PCs that grace these pages,
Chillblast’s Fusion Projection 3 is a machine
for getting serious work done – particularly of
the computer-aided design (CAD) variety.
It’s brimming with all the hardware a
professional 3D designer might need. Chief
among these is the 4GB Nvidia Quadro K2200
graphics card, which unlike the more popular
GeForce line is optimised for 3D modelling
and graphic design. There’s also a quad-core
Intel Core i5-6600K – this normally runs at
3.5GHz, but here is overclockable to 4.4GHz
– 16GB of speedy 2,133MHz RAM and even a
versatile optical card reader. This supports
almost every card imaginable, from SD and
microSD to CompactFlash and Sony’s M2.
DISPLAY TIME
On the workstation’s rear, there are enough
display outputs to cope with all but the most
ludicrous of multi-monitor setups. There’s one
HDMI, one dual-link DVI-D and one VGA on
the motherboard panel, plus a dual-link DVI-I
and two DisplayPorts on the graphics card: a
very good mix. The same goes for the rest of
the connectivity options, with a grand total of
five USB2 ports, three USB3 ports, one USB3.1
and one USB Type-C socket apiece, five audio
inputs, an Ethernet port and two good
old-fashioned PS/2 connectors for anyone
still attached to their vintage keyboard.
All these places to plug in peripherals
won’t mean much if the Fusion Projection 3
fails to hold up as a high-performance
workstation. Fortunately, it achieved some
28
respectable – and remarkably consistent
– scores in our benchmark tests: 139 for
image editing, 135 for video editing, 135
for multitasking and 135 overall. The
M.2-mounted Samsung SM951 SSD (a
256GB variant, our review unit’s sole
upgrade on the most basic configuration,
which includes a 128GB drive) also did
well in the AS SSD test, where it managed
an extremely high overall score of 1,512.
We also ran our gaming benchmarks,
where the Fusion Projection 3’s CAD
focus became apparent. Despite its high
scores in our Windows benchmarks, it could
squeeze out only 42fps in Dirt Showdown
(on Ultra settings and at 1,920x1,080), as well
as just 16fps in Metro: Last Light Redux (at
Very High settings and the same resolution).
This wasn’t much of a surprise, as Nvidia’s
Quadro cards aren’t nearly as well optimised
for games as the GeForce series.
TOP MODEL
When running the software it was actually
designed for, on the other hand, the Fusion
Projection 3 feels excellent. Blender runs like a
dream, and we could happily tinker away with
3D models without so much as a hint of
slowdown. We were particularly impressed
with how much responsiveness was
maintained when viewing models in Blender’s
Rendered view – on lesser systems, this tends
to slow the application to a crawl.
If such effective fulfilment of its core
purpose wasn’t enough, the Fusion Projection
3 is also one of the best-equipped mid-tower
PCs we’ve seen. Besides that
optical card reader, the hinged
front panel also hides a DVD-R/W
drive, something that never seems
essential until you inevitably find
yourself needing one, and four of
the aforementioned USB ports
(two USB2 and two USB3) are
located at the very front of the
case for easy access.
Inside, there’s plenty of scope
for future upgrades. A massive
rack provides seven spare 3½in
drive bays, in addition to the one
already occupied by a 1TB hard
disk, and a further two 2½in bays
can be accessed behind the right
side panel. On the motherboard,
there is one free PCI-E x16 slot
(the other is taken by the GPU),
two empty PCI-E x1 slots and two
legacy PCI slots. While it lacks fancy cable
management systems and partitions, the case
is nicely tidy; installing a discrete sound card,
for example, won’t be an issue in the slightest.
The case has also been fitted with
sound-insulating foam linings, making it
wonderfully quiet even under load. We weren’t
sure about how the basic air cooler on the
CPU would cope with demanding modelling
work, but the whole system manages to stay
near-silent even under load. The caveat is
that you’ll need to make sure the side panel
thumbscrews are nice and tight, as the
spinning of the case fans can cause the inside
of the case to vibrate slightly, which produces
a faint whine if one of the panels is loose.
When the most annoying thing about a
PC is an easily fixable noise issue, though,
you know you’re on to a winner – especially
when it comes with an exceptional five-year
warranty. The Chillblast Fusion Projection 3
is a powerful, robust and competitively
priced desktop for professional use, and a
deserving recipient of a Best Buy award.
James Archer
SPECIFICATIONS
PROCESSOR Quad-core Intel Core i5-6600K • RAM 16GB
DDR4 • FRONT USB PORTS 2x USB2, 2x USB3 • REAR
USB PORTS 2x USB2, 1x USB3, 1x USB3.1, 1x USB Type-C •
TOTAL STORAGE 256GB SSD, 1TB hard disk • DISPLAY
None • OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 10 Home •
WARRANTY Five years RTB including two years collect
and return • DETAILS www.chillblast.com •
PART CODE Fusion Projection 3
Windows overall 135
Multitasking 135
Dirt Showdown 42fps
Metro: Last Light 16fps
0% -50 Reference +50 +100
See page 74 for performance details
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341
2-IN-1 CONVERTIBLE
DELL XPS 12
★★★★★
£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 cover doesn’t cover the
entirety of the base, leaving an area exposed
at the front where it doesn’t reach all the way.
An even bigger concern is the weak
magnetic dock; it’s very easy for the tablet to
wobble around or even fall out completely.
These magnets disengage when the tablet
and keyboard are closed together, clamshell-
style, but sometimes fail to re-engage when
opening up again. The keyboard groove isn’t
adjustable either, so the tablet is propped up
at a fixed angle of 110˚ when docked,
providing no flexibility whatsoever.
Keep in mind, though, that these issues are
only inherent to the Premier Keyboard. The
Slim Keyboard has a kickstand, which does let
you tilt the screen back further, but
we haven’t been able to
test it yet to see if it’s
any more comfortable.
At least typing on the
SPECIFICATIONS
PROCESSOR Dual-core 1.1GHz Intel Core m5-6Y57
RAM 8GB
DIMENSIONS 193x291x8mm (tablet); 198x291x25mm (laptop)
WEIGHT 790g (tablet); 1.27kg (laptop)
SCREEN SIZE 12.5in
SCREEN RESOLUTION 3,840x2,160
GRAPHICS ADAPTOR Intel HD Graphics 515
TOTAL STORAGE 256GB SSD
OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 10 Home
PARTS AND LABOUR WARRANTY One year collect and return
DETAILS www.dell.co.uk
PART NUMBER XPS 12 9250
ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016
Premier Keyboard is
pleasant; the keys are
backlit with a respectable amount of
travel and feedback, and the Precision-
certified touchpad is smooth and responsive.
4K OK
The XPS 12’s impracticalities are a shame, as
its display is gorgeous. If you opt for anything
but the most basic configuration, which runs
at 1,920x1,080, you get a 3,840x2,160 (4K)
resolution, which is the first of its kind for a
2-in-1 device. On a 12.5in display, this equates
to a phenomenal 352 pixels per inch (ppi).
It’s an IGZO IPS panel, which covered an
incredible 100% of the sRGB colour gamut in
our calibration tests, and its contrast ratio of
1,283:1 is excellent. Blacks of 0.32cd/m2 aren’t
the deepest, but there’s no denying that
everything looks incredibly sharp and crisp.
Colours are vibrant and well saturated, and it’s
also ludicrously bright at 418cd/m2.
We tested the mid-range, Intel Core
m5-6Y57 model of the XPS 12. This dual-core
chip has a base clock speed of 1.1GHz but can
Turbo Boost to a much more impressive
2.8GHz, and is paired with 8GB of RAM in this
configuration. In our 4K tests, it managed an
overall score of 21, which is two points shy of
the HP Spectre X2 (Shopper 339). This is
disappointing, as the X2 only had a dual-core
900MHz Intel Core m3-6Y30 processor.
Heat is an issue, as the back of the XPS 12
becomes very warm to the touch when
under load. It’s simply not efficient
when it comes to dissipating its
heat production, and it’s this that
is likely causing it to throttle. In
291mm
Windows overall
Multitasking
198mm 12.5in
Dirt Showdown Fail
1.27kg
Battery life
25mm
closed
lighter, everyday use,
the XPS 12 is responsive
enough, as it didn’t miss a step
when opening up a number of tabs
and editing documents throughout the day.
DRAIN WRECK
However, battery life is very disappointing. In
our standard video playback test, it lasted an
incredibly poor 3h 13m. General use will
extend this somewhat, as video playback is
one of the more draining tasks you can do,
but even then you’re still a far cry from all-day
battery life. The XPS 12’s charger is, at least,
reasonably small and light; you’re definitely
going to need to carry it around with you.
In keeping with the current XPS range, the
XPS 12 includes two USB Type-C ports, both
running at USB3.1 Gen 2 speeds. Thoughtfully,
a USB Type-C to USB-Type A adaptor comes
in the box, so you can use your standard,
full-size USB devices. You’ll need to buy an
optional USB Type-C to HDMI/VGA/Ethernet/
USB3 adaptor if you want those connections,
though, which costs an additional £80.
A microSD card reader is hidden behind a
plastic flap, but we found it so hard to prise
open that we bent it out of shape. Below that
you’ll also find a 3.5mm headset jack.
After the Best Buy-winning XPS 13 and
XPS 15 (Shopper 337 and 338), the XPS 12 is
a real misstep from Dell. There’s no
doubting the quality of its gorgeous screen,
but its shortcomings are hard to ignore. Its
inferior performance and battery life mean
there are very few reasons to recommend
the XPS 12 over its competitors.
Richard Easton
21
3
3h 13m
0% -50 Reference +50 +100
See page 74 for performance details
29
 BUDGET LAPTOP
ACER Aspire One Cloudbook 14
★★★★★
£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 to the
touch, it lacks the bright, vibrant colours of
other models. At least it’s fairly portable,
though: the whole laptop weighs only 1.6kg
and measures 17.9mm thick. The 14.1in form
factor also allows for a decent-sized keyboard,
The Cloudbook 14 offers decent build quality and great
battery life for a device at such a low price
though shallow keys and a loud action mean
it’s not particularly comfortable to type on.
The touchpad, on the other hand, is
surprisingly good. It’s generously sized and
very responsive, with the applied coating
allowing your swipes and gestures to glide
effortlessly over its surface. The integrated
mouse buttons have a distinct click action,
too, making them very easy to use.
There’s a decent set of ports, too,
including one USB3 and one USB2 port plus a
full-sized HDMI output and a headset jack.
More importantly, it has an SD card reader,
which is vital when the device has just 32GB
SPECIFICATIONS
PROCESSOR Dual-core 1.6GHz Intel Celeron N3050
RAM 2GB
DIMENSIONS 235x339x17.9mm
WEIGHT 1.6kg
SCREEN SIZE 14.1in
SCREEN RESOLUTION 1,366x768
GRAPHICS ADAPTOR Intel HD Graphics
TOTAL STORAGE 32GB eMMC
OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 10 Home
PARTS AND LABOUR WARRANTY One year RTB
DETAILS www.acer.co.uk
PART NUMBER AO1-431-C2Q8
30
of eMMC storage, of which just 10GB is left
once you’ve taken Windows 10 and Acer’s
pre-installed software into account.
KEEPING STORE
Of course, the focus is on cloud storage
rather than storing files locally, so it comes
with 1TB of free OneDrive storage as well as a
year’s subscription to Office 365 Personal,
which normally costs £60. This makes the
Cloudbook 14 even more of a bargain, but it’s
still useful to have the SD card reader on hand
if you need to add extra capacity.
The Cloudbook 14 is powered by an Intel
Celeron processor rather than a more
powerful Core model. The dual-core 1.6GHz
Intel Celeron N3050 is paired with 2GB of
RAM and performance is as we’d expect for
such a low-end specification. If all you’ll be
using it for is basic low-intensity tasks such as
editing documents and browsing the web, the
Cloudbook 14 will do just fine. Anything more
taxing, however, and it will start to struggle.
It wasn’t able to complete our 4K
benchmarks, but when we re-ran the tests
using 1080p video instead, it only managed an
overall score of 30, a distinctly average result.
Thankfully, the Cloudbook 14 more than
makes up for its performance shortfall with its
excellent battery life. It managed 11h 20m of
339mm
Windows overall Fail
Multitasking Fail
235mm 14.1in
Dirt Showdown Fail
1.6kg
Battery life
17.9mm
closed
continuous video playback in our battery life
test, so you should be able to get even more
battery life out of the Cloudbook 14 under
more general use.
STRAIGHT AND NARROW
The 14.1in display has a 1,366x768 resolution,
which again is pretty standard for budget
laptops. It’s perfectly usable, but viewing
angles are rather narrow, especially on the
horizontal plane, and its sRGB colour gamut
coverage of just 61.8% means it isn’t ideal for
colour sensitive work such as photo editing.
Combined with its low contrast ratio of
423:1 and mediocre black levels of 0.56cd/m2,
everything ends up looking a little washed out
and uninspiring. This won’t be a problem if
you’re going to spend the day looking at text
documents, but it nevertheless leaves
something to be desired. It’s also not
particularly bright, reaching just 241.2cd/m2
on its maximum settings.
Still, you need to make some allowances
when you’re only spending £180, and the Acer
Aspire One Cloudbook 14 certainly puts
forward a compelling case. The Cloudbook 14
offers decent build quality and great battery
life for a device at such a low price, and the
year’s free subscription to Office 365 Personal
and 1TB of OneDrive storage add extra value.
It may not be particularly fast or have the
best display, but as long as you can work
within the Cloudbook 14’s limitations, this is
as good as you’re going to get for under
£200. It wins a Recommended award.
Richard Easton
11h 20m
0% -50 Reference +50 +100
See page 74 for performance details
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341
Chillblast
sales@chillblast.com ULTRA-SLIM LAPTOP
01202 068 333 ASUS ZenBook UX305CA
★★★★★
£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
Chillblast SAMURAI 15.6” clock speed increases. The Core m3-6Y30 inside the
UX305CA has had a base clock speed increase to
PROCESSOR: INTEL CORE i7-6700HQ
DISPLAY: 15.6" LED FULL HD (1920x1080)
0.9GHz, up from 0.8GHz.
MEMORY: 16GB DDR4 2133MHZ Such slow clock speeds may make you think
GRAPHICS: NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 970M 3GB you’ve stepped into the past, but it makes more
OS DRIVE: 256GB SAMSUNG M.2 PCIe SSD sense when you realise Intel’s Core M processors
HARD DRIVE: 1TB SSHD HYBRID DRIVE
DIMENSIONS: 390MM x 266MM x 19.9MM are designed to Turbo Boost to far nippier speeds.
SYSTEM: WINDOWS 10 HOME 64-BIT The UX305CA’s processor has a Turbo speed of
2.2GHz, 0.2GHz quicker than the older model.
PRICE FROM £1499.99
LIGHT SHOW
Even with its sturdy aluminium chassis, the
www.chillblast.com UX305CA is as delightfully light and svelte as its
predecessor. It weighs 1.2kg with a thickness of
12.3mm, marginally thinner but slightly heavier than
the MacBook. This gives you all-day portability
without being a burden. It’s classy-looking, too, but
it’s a shame the chiclet-style keyboard isn’t backlit.
It is, at least, comfortable to type on, with a
respectable amount of travel to the key action.
Keys are well spaced and there are no puzzling key
placements to throw your fingers into flux. The
hinge rounds over and under when the lid is
opened, propping the keyboard up by a few
millimetres. This angles the keyboard slightly,
making for more comfortable typing.
There are three USB3 ports, one of which is
powered even with the laptop turned off so you
can charge other devices. There’s also an SD card
FUSION CENTURION reader and a headset jack. There’s no USB Type-C,
but that seems to be standard for laptops around
PROCESSOR: INTEL CORE i5-6600K this price. Micro HDMI is available for outputting to
CASE: ZALMAN Z3 PLUS CASE - BLACK an external display. In terms of networking, there’s
CPU COOLER: CENTURION DIRECT CONTACT
802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0.
MOTHERBOARD: ASUS Z170-K
MEMORY: 8GB DDR4 2133MHZ Despite the updated processor, the UX305CA
GRAPHICS CARD: NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 750Ti 2GB performed slightly worse than its predecessor. It
OS DRIVE: 128GB SAMSUNG M.2 PCIe SSD managed an overall score of 19, which is a point
HARD DISK: 1TB SEAGATE 7200RPM
OPTICAL DRIVE: 24x DVD-RW less than last year’s model. Still, this was in our
POWER SUPPLY: AEROCOOL 80 PLUS 500W tough 4K-based benchmarks, so it will have
SYSTEM: WINDOWS 10 HOME 64-BIT enough power for general everyday computing.
Expecting more demanding tasks from a laptop of
PRICE FROM £739.99 this size and weight is unrealistic, especially with
the integrated Intel HD Graphics 515.
Battery performance during our video playback
5 YEAR WARRANTY test was a little underwhelming at 6h 4m. This was
with the screen set to 170cd/m2, our standard
WITH indoor-use brightness at which we test all displays.
Under more general everyday use you will probably
2 YEARS COLLECT AND RETURN be just about able to eke out all-day battery life of
WITH ALL PURCHASES eight hours with more general tasks.
Terms and conditions are on the website.
32 All trademarks are acknowledged.
Pictures are for illustration only.
Prices are correct at time of going to press (31-03-16) E&OE
The blame for this laptop’s lack of longevity can
largely be pinned on its high-resolution screen. The
UX305 had a comparatively bog-standard, but
perfectly acceptable, 1,920x1,080 resolution display;
the new model maintains the 13.3in screen size, but
there’s now a 3,200x1,800 resolution panel option,
which is what we reviewed. The extra resolution
makes everything appear incredibly crisp, though
you’ll probably need to tweak Windows 10’s scaling
to get text and icons up to a viewable level.
BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL
It’s also incredibly bright. Asus states it has a
brightness of 300cd/m2, but the model we tested
had white levels of a stunning 409cd/m2. This had
an adverse effect on black levels, which were very
high at 0.77cd/m2. A contrast ratio of 513:1 sounds
a little low, but isn’t bad for a matte panel.
Under more superficial scrutiny, the panel
appears vibrant with bold colours. The panel’s
sRGB coverage of 90.2% is certainly very
respectable for a laptop at this price, and its
Delta-E average of 2.79 is fine provided you’re not
looking for a colour-accurate screen. Viewing
angles are slightly acute but the ridiculous
brightness makes it seem worse than it is.
The ZenBook UX305CA’s build quality and
design are excellent, and the high-resolution screen
is equally great. It’s a shame, then, that the new
model’s performance has taken a step backwards
and its battery life is a little disappointing. Still,
considering it remains around the same price as
its predecessor, it’s worthy of recommendation
for those looking for a thin, light and extremely
portable laptop, especially for those not wanting
to stretch to the pricier Apple MacBook.
Richard Easton
SPECIFICATIONS
PROCESSOR Dual-core 900MHz Intel Core m3-6Y30 • RAM 8GB
• DIMENSIONS 324x226x12.3mm • WEIGHT 1.2kg • SCREEN
SIZE 13.3in • SCREEN RESOLUTION 3,200x1,200 • GRAPHICS
ADAPTOR Intel HD Graphics 515 • TOTAL STORAGE 128GB SSD •
OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 10 Home • PARTS AND LABOUR
WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.asus.com/uk •
PART CODE UX305CA
Windows overall 19
Multitasking 3
Dirt Showdown Fail
Battery life 6h 04m
0% -50 Reference +50 +100
See page 74 for performance details
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341
4in iOS 9 SMARTPHONE
APPLE iPhone SE
★★★★★
£359 • From www.apple.com/uk
VERDICT
Well built and with a top camera and great battery
life, the iPhone SE is the small phone to buy
THERE WERE PLENTY of iPhone users that
missed having a 4in phone when Apple went
bigger with the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s. The
old iPhone 5c remained an option but looked
plastic and slow next to the flagship models.
By contrast, Apple seems to have nailed
everything with the iPhone SE: it has the build
quality, the processing power and the camera,
all packed into a neat metal chassis.
Weighing 113g and 7.6mm thick, the iPhone
SE is exactly the same size as the 5s and is
compatible with the same range of cases and
covers. While the SE is the lightest iPhone
currently available, it’s actually the thickest.
This, however, makes the handset easier to
grip, and it means the camera sits flush with
the rear of the case. Besides, overall the
iPhone SE is comparatively tiny by today’s
standards, slipping easily into any pocket.
As with all Apple phones, the combination of the processor,
iOS and Safari makes web browsing super-smooth
Apple has re-used the iPhone 5s’ 1,136x640
resolution on the 4in screen. This is one of the
lowest-resolution phones available, but the
pixel density of 326ppi actually matches that
of the iPhone 6s, which has a resolution of
1,334x750. Both phones are definitely sharp
enough, and text is clear and easy to read.
GETTING BETTER
Display quality isn’t quite as good as Apple’s
pricier iPhones, but the iPhone SE’s screen
performs better than stated: Apple claims
maximum brightness of 500cd/m2 and a
contrast ratio of 800:1, but we measured it at
577cd/m2 with a contrast ratio of 892:1. While
this contrast ratio still isn’t great, its colour
accuracy coverage of 94.6% of the sRGB
gamut goes some way to make up for it.
Sadly, the SE doesn’t have the fancy 3D
Touch features of the iPhone 6s, but this
ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016
cost-saving omission isn’t a deal breaker; we
could still use iOS 9 perfectly well.
Apple has fitted a 12-megapixel camera in
the iPhone SE, the same as the iPhone 6s. It’s
a great all-rounder, ably adapting to most
situations to produce well-exposed shots with
plenty of detail. The HDR mode captures a
particularly excellent dynamic range, without
overprocessing the final shots.
There’s also a True Tone LED flash, which
measures ambient light then fires the flash at
the same colour temperature, reducing the
tell-tale signs of a regular flash. You also get
all the shooting modes that the iPhone 6s
has, including panoramic shots and 4K video.
Performance is excellent, thanks to the
iPhone SE having the same 1.8GHz A9
processor and 2GB of RAM as the 6s line-up.
In Geekbench, the iPhone SE scored 2,550 in
the single-core test, the same as the iPhone
6s and faster than the 2,115 scored by the
Samsung Galaxy S7. In the multicore test, the
S7 takes the lead with a score of 6,437, but
that’s a quad-core device: the iPhone SE has a
dual-core processor and still scored 4,444.
As with all Apple phones, the combination
of the processor, iOS and Safari makes web
browsing a super-smooth experience: the
Peacekeeper browser test score of 4,761 is
one of the best we’ve seen on a smartphone.
POWER TRICK
The iPhone SE delivers on battery life, too. Its
1,624mAh battery might sound pretty tiny
compared to the 3,000mAh+ batteries found
in Android phones, but its smaller screen
requires a lot less power. As a result, it lasted
an incredible 16h 46m at a brightness of
170cd/m2 in our battery test. This is just shy
of the Galaxy S7’s time, and 1h 48m longer
than the iPhone 6s lasted.
The iPhone SE also benefits from the
new features of iOS 9.3, the latest
version of Apple’s mobile OS. These include
Night Shift, which tones down the blue in the
display at night to aid sleep, and password-
protected Notes, which you can unlock with
Touch ID. The iPhone SE uses an older
fingerprint sensor than the iPhone 6s, so it’s a
bit more error-prone than the flagship, but
this wasn’t too much of an irritation. It can
still be used with Apple Pay as well.
There are only two models of the iPhone
SE: 16GB (£359) or 64GB (£439). By today’s
standards, 16GB is really too small and we
would have preferred a 32GB entry-level
model. As such, we recommend buying the
64GB model. It’s still excellent value, as a
64GB iPhone 6s costs £619 by comparison.
Besides the lack of a 32GB model, the
iPhone SE surpasses our expectations. The
only thing it really lacks compared to the
iPhone 6s is 3D Touch. If you hanker after a
powerful 4in smartphone, it’s a great choice.
David Ludlow
SPECIFICATIONS
PROCESSOR Dual-core 1.8GHz Apple A9 • SCREEN SIZE 4in •
SCREEN RESOLUTION 1,136x640 • REAR CAMERA 12
megapixels • STORAGE 16GB/64GB • WIRELESS DATA 4G •
DIMENSIONS 124x59x7.6mm • WEIGHT 112g • OPERATING
SYSTEM iOS 9.3 • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS
www.apple.com/uk • PART CODE iPhone SE
Battery life 16h 46m
0% -50 Reference +50 +100
See page 74 for performance details
33
 ANDROID 5.1 SMARTPHONE
SAMSUNG Galaxy J5
★★★★★
£150 • From www.johnlewis.com
VERDICT
With its incredible battery life and beautiful
display, this is Samsung’s best budget phone yet
THIS IS A bit embarrassing. The Galaxy J5,
one of Samsung’s new budget handsets, has
beaten the flagship Galaxy S7 we reviewed in
Shopper 340 in our battery-life test – only by
two minutes, but it goes to show you don’t
necessarily need to pay hundreds of pounds
for a smartphone with plenty of stamina.
With the screen brightness set to our
standard measurement of 170cd/m2, the J5
lasted an incredible 17h 50m in our
continuous video playback test, just edging
out the S7. That’s amazing for a smartphone
that only costs £150 SIM-free or £13.50 per
month on contract, and it blows other budget
smartphones such as the Motorola Moto G
3rd Gen (Shopper 334) out of the water.
However, Galaxy S7 owners needn’t be too
worried, as the J5 makes other compromises
in order to help keep the price as low as
possible. Its plastic frame, for example,
doesn’t protect against water damage, and
its glossy finish can’t help but look and feel
a little tacky after the beautifully sculpted
metal frames on Samsung’s mid-range A
series. Still, when the latest version of the
A5 is almost double the price of the J5, a
plastic chassis is fairly forgivable, and the
latter still feels well made overall.
BLACK OPS
Where the J5 leaps ahead of the Moto G is in
its 5in, 1,280x720 Super AMOLED display,
which makes other budget LCD-based
displays look positively insipid. Its 100% sRGB
colour gamut coverage, perfect 0.00cd/m2
blacks and ultra-high contrast ratio mean
images on the J5 look absolutely stunning,
and we’ve yet to see an LCD screen at this
kind of price that can beat it.
The downside of AMOLED screens is that
they’re nowhere near as bright as LCD.
However, the J5’s peak brightness of
357.72cd/m2 is still pretty respectable, and
should be more than enough for most
lighting conditions. Only in bright sunshine
will you need to have it on maximum.
Admittedly, it’s not the fastest handset
around, as its quad-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm
Snapdragon 410 processor and 1.5GB of RAM
34
put its day-to-day
performance on a par with
almost every other budget
smartphone. In Geekbench
3, the J5 scored 459 in the
single-core test and 1,343 in
the multicore test, putting
it just behind the Moto G.
That said, Samsung’s
Android 5.1.1-based
TouchWiz interface still
feels relatively smooth and
responsive, and apps don’t
take an age to open either.
The Moto G proved quicker at
loading games, but web browsing was more
or less a level playing field, as evidenced by
the J5’s Peacekeeper score of 634, which is
only around 100 points short of the Moto G.
Scrolling was a little jerky in places, and
browsing could be rather stop-start when
pages were still loading, but otherwise surfing
the web was pretty hassle-free.
The J5 isn’t really capable of playing the
latest games, as it managed only 113 frames
Images on the J5 look absolutely stunning, and we’ve yet
to see an LCD screen at this kind of price that can beat it
(or 1.8fps) in the offscreen Manhattan 3.0
test in GFXBench GL. This is to be expected
on a budget smartphone, so Hearthstone
fanatics should look elsewhere. However, we
were able to play simple games such as
Threes! without any trouble.
UNLUCKY NUMBER
Like a lot of recent budget smartphones, the
J5 is equipped with a 13-megapixel rear
camera. More pixels doesn’t necessarily mean
better photos, though, and we found the J5
could be quite temperamental depending on
the lighting conditions; a problem
compounded by the lack of an HDR mode.
In bright sunshine, for instance, the J5
struggled to expose the sky correctly, often
blowing out its whites to create large halos of
light around anything else in the frame.
However, point the camera at a well-lit object
when the sun’s behind you, and pictures look
sharp and crisp with accurate colours.
Inconsistent camera aside, the J5 is
great value. Its excellent screen and
amazing battery life far exceed
anything else in this price range, and it’s
certainly got enough speed to get you
through most of your daily smartphone tasks.
The only other slight downside is that it’s
unlikely to receive an upgrade to Android 6.0
Marshmallow, which is something new Moto
G 3rd Gen owners can download without
delay. Even the Galaxy S6 has only just been
updated Android 6.0, and Samsung
traditionally drags its feet bringing software
updates to its lower-end smartphones, so
you may wish to consider the Moto G if you
want all the latest Android features.
If this doesn’t bother you, the Samsung
Galaxy J5 is a fine choice. The Moto G is still
the phone to beat in our eyes, with Android
6.0, a better camera and more stylish design.
However, the J5’s amazing screen and battery
life make it a fine choice as well, especially if
you’re switching from another Samsung
handset. It wins a Recommended award.
Katharine Byrne
SPECIFICATIONS
PROCESSOR Quad-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 •
SCREEN SIZE 5in • SCREEN RESOLUTION 1,280x720 • REAR
CAMERA 13 megapixels • STORAGE (FREE) 8GB (4.6GB)
• WIRELESS DATA 4G • DIMENSIONS 142x72x7.9mm •
WEIGHT 146g • OPERATING SYSTEM Android 5.1.1 •
WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.samsung.com/
uk • PART CODE SM-J500FN
Battery life 17h 50m
0% -50 Reference +50 +100
See page 74 for performance details
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341
 MODULAR ANDROID 6.0 SMARTPHONE
LG G5
★★★★★
£500 • From www.carphonewarehouse.com
VERDICT
The modular G5 is an incredible handset that stands
shoulder to shoulder with the Samsung Galaxy S7
THEY SAID IT couldn’t be done. There was no
way you could have a smartphone with a full
metal unibody and an interchangeable battery,
yet not only has the LG G5 managed it, but its
removable lower section also allows for an
unusual modular configuration.
LG has only announced two modules for
the G5 so far – the £80 Cam Plus, a camera
grip that adds physical buttons and a zoom
wheel; and the £150 Hi-Fi Plus, a Bang &
Olufsen-made portable hi-fi player that
supports 32-bit 384kHz high-definition audio
and B&O Play – but more are sure to follow.
LG hasn’t provided us with final units yet,
but we tried them both at this year’s Mobile
World Congress, and were impressed with the
Hi-Fi Plus’s lack of bulk, and the traditional
The G5’s screen has a built-in always-on feature, which
can show you the time, date and notification icons
camera controls and huge 1,200mAh battery
upgrade afforded by the Cam Plus.
Even without the latter, the ability to easily
swap out batteries makes the G5 a compelling
alternative to the Samsung Galaxy S7. In our
video playback test, for instance, the G5’s
2,800mAh battery lasted 11h 10m when we set
the screen brightness to 170cd/m2. While not
fantastic compared to the S7’s 17h 48m,
anyone with another G5 battery module could
theoretically extend that to 22h 20m,
providing more than enough juice to get you
through the day and long into the next.
CORE WORKOUT
The G5 is the first smartphone we’ve seen
with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 chip.
Paired with 4GB of RAM, the G5 scored an
impressive 2,325 in Geekbench 3’s single-core
36
test and a massive 5,422 in the
multicore test. The latter isn’t quite
as high as the S7’s score of 6,437,
but the G5’s single-core score is
almost 200 points faster.
In GFXBench GL’s offscreen
Manhattan 3.0 test, the G5 produced
2,844 frames, which translates to a
smooth 46fps. This is significantly
higher than both the S7 and S7 Edge,
which managed only around 37fps in
the same test. In practice, it handled
complex games such as Hearthstone
beautifully, and with a Peacekeeper score of
1,514, the same goes for web browsing.
The G5’s screen matches the S7’s, too, as
its 5.3in, 2,560x1,440 Quantum IPS display has
a built-in always-on feature. This can show the
time, date and notification icons, though you
can’t interact with these notifications.
The screen looks superb thanks to LG’s
Quantum IPS panel. Its sRGB gamut coverage of
97.1% means images look stunning, as colours
are both rich and vibrant without looking too
oversaturated. Black levels are also super low
for an IPS display, measuring just 0.19cd/m2.
Combine this with an excellent contrast ratio
of 1,621:1, and the G5 definitely has one of the
best IPS displays you can currently buy.
The only slight niggle is brightness levels,
as our colour calibrator recorded a maximum
brightness of just 354.05cd/m2. This is below
average for an IPS screen, and is more akin to
what we’d expect to see from an AMOLED
panel, such as those found on the Galaxy S7.
SEEING DOUBLE
LG has made some pretty great smartphone
cameras in the past, but the G5 g goes one step
further with a dual-sensor setup. One is a
the other is a
large 16-megapixel sensor, and th
wide-angle 135˚ 8-megapixel sesensor.
Sadly, the quality of our
wide-angle test shots wasn’t
Colours were
great. Colou
accurate and it coped
well with capturing a
decent amount of
and cloud
sky an
detail without
making darker objects too dingy, but images
were often a bit soft and lacking in detail.
The 16-megapixel camera, by contrast, is
excellent. Detail levels are extremely high and
while images were perhaps a little dark in
places when shooting in bright sunshine,
things improved immeasurably when we
switched on HDR mode, as this produces
wonderfully exposed images with plenty of
bright, rich colours as well as lots of contrast
and shadow detail. Indoor shots are even
better, with minimal visible noise.
The only slightly worrying thing about the
G5 is LG’s new UX 5.0 interface for Android
6.0 Marshmallow. It’s lacking the apps tray,
and while this can be brought back by
switching to LG’s Easy Home-style interface,
this makes fonts and icons much bigger.
UI flaws aside, the G5 is an impressively
ambitious device. For most people, the
convenience of a long battery life on the S7
will trump the replaceable battery of the G5,
but the latter is a good bet in the long term
since the S7’s sealed battery will inevitably
fade with time. This, plus the wide-angle
camera, superior gaming performance and
the potential of those interchangeable
modules, makes the LG G5 just as much of a
Best Buy as its Samsung counterpart.
Katharine Byrne
SPECIFICATIONS
PROCESSOR Quad-core 2.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon
820 • SCREEN SIZE 5.3in • SCREEN RESOLUTION
2,560x1,440 • REAR CAMERA 16 + 8 megapixels •
STORAGE (FREE) 32GB (23.5GB) • WIRELESS DATA 4G •
DIMENSIONS 149x74x7.7mm • WEIGHT 159g • OPERATING
SYSTEM Android 6.0.1 • WARRANTY One year RTB •
DETAILS www.lg.com/uk • PART CODE LG-H850
Battery life 11h 10m
0% -50 Reference +50 +100
See page 74 for performance details
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341
BROADEN YOUR PERSPECTIVE

ProLite XUB3490WQSU

34” IPS ultra-wide screen with a height adjustable stand.

ProLite XUB3490WQSU is a 34” LED monitor featuring UWQHD
(Ultra Wide QHD) resolution and offering 21:9 viewable area.
Broaden your perspective by using side-by-side applications
or watch a movie shot in widescreen format.

34’’ ULTRA
WIDE HUB

www.iiyama.com
 WINDOWS 10 TABLET
SAMSUNG Galaxy TabPro S
★★★★★
£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 a 4:3 screen will
have thicker black bars along the edges.
The Super AMOLED technology means
the TabPro S has top-notch image quality,
Super AMOLED means the TabPro S has top-notch image
quality, including pure blacks and perfect contrast ratio
including pure 0.00cd/m2 blacks and perfect
1:1 contrast ratio. Its colour accuracy is almost
perfect, too, with 99.5% sRGB colour gamut
coverage and Delta-E of 1.75. Brightness is
high at 363.4cd/m2, and its 2,160x1,440
resolution leaves images and text looking
sharp. As a result, the TabPro S has one of the
most beautiful tablet screens you’ll see today.
TIGHT ANGLE
The screen’s only major problem is the limited
viewing angle adjustment of the keyboard
cover. The display is propped up at one of
three fixed angles – either 115˚ or two
almost-flat angles – which gives it two more
positions than the XPS 12, but pales in
comparison to the Surface Pro 4’s fully
adjustable kickstand. The magnetic clamp is
strong, but the undocking process is fiddly
38
and the whole assembly is worryingly
prone to toppling backwards on your lap.
While the keys are full-size and include
dedicated Function keys, the keyboard feels
cramped, and we don’t like the Backspace key
being uncharacteristically the same width as
the Enter key below. At least the touchpad is
pretty good; it’s Precision-certified and feels
swift and responsive in use, handling
multitouch gestures without much fuss.
Again, the limited space does mean it can feel
a bit confined, but it doesn’t suffer as a result.
As far as the tablet component goes, the
TabPro S is svelte at just 6.3mm, which is
thinner than any of its rivals. It weighs just
693g, too, but this jumps to 1.09kg with the
keyboard attached. It’s still travel-friendly,
however, and the tablet feels well balanced.
It’s lacking in ports, though, with just one
lone USB-C connection. This is used for both
charging and data transfer. Worse, there’s no
USB-C to USB-A cable in the box, so if you
have USB flash drives or any peripherals you
want to connect to the TabPro S, you’re out
of luck until you buy an adaptor.
Those looking to take notes using a stylus
will also be disappointed, as you’ll need to
purchase Samsung’s optional Bluetooth C
pen. The stylus comes as standard with the
Surface Pro 4, although the TabPro S’s
keyboard cover is included in the box.
The sole specification includes
the same processor as the
entry-level Surface Pro
4 – a dual-core 900MHz Intel Core m3-6Y30
CPU that can Turbo Boost to 2.2GHz – plus
4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD.
The fanless m3-6Y30 proves a capable
performer for basic Windows tasks but, as
evidenced by its score of 32 in our difficult
4K-based benchmarks, it’s going to strain
under anything more taxing.
Its integrated Intel HD Graphics 515 will get
you by with some light gaming, but you’ll
need to make sacrifices where it comes to
image quality to get playable frame rates.
SERVICE CHARGE
As for battery life, the Galaxy TabPro S
managed to last 6h 53m when the screen
brightness was set to our usual figure of
170cd/m2. It’s quick to charge, too, capable of
going from flat to 100% in just 2h 30m.
Samsung has had a decent crack with the
Galaxy TabPro S. Its beautiful display comes
top of its class, it has decent battery life, and
its superior performance came as a very
welcome surprise. As an inaugural 2-in-1,
Samsung has got off to an impressive start.
However, it’s difficult to overlook some of
its shortcomings, such as the disappointing
keyboard cover, the lack of ports and wobbly
docking mechanism. As a Windows-based
tablet, it’s wonderful; as a laptop replacement,
you’re better off with a Surface Pro 4.
Richard Easton
SPECIFICATIONS
PROCESSOR Dual-core 900MHz Intel Core m3-6Y30 • RAM
4GB • DIMENSIONS 290.3x198.6x6.3mm • WEIGHT 693g
(tablet), 1.09kg (laptop) • SCREEN SIZE 12in • SCREEN
RESOLUTION 2,160x1,440 • GRAPHICS ADAPTOR Intel HD
Graphics 515 • STORAGE 128GB SSD • OPERATING SYSTEM
Windows 10 Pro • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS
www.samsung.com/uk • PART CODE SM-WE700XZKABTU
Battery life 6h 53m
0% -50 Reference +50 +100
See page 74 for performance details
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341
ULTRA-ZOOM COMPACT CAMERA
CANON SX720 HS
★★★★★
£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 SX720 HS has its work cut out if
it wants to impress. It makes a good first
impression, with a smart appearance in a
choice of gunmetal grey or dusky red finishes.
The layout of the buttons is geared towards
point-and-shoot users, but it’s good to see an
exposure mode dial and a rear wheel for quick
adjustment of settings.
There’s not much of a handgrip, but the
rubber texture and position of the mode dial
means it feels secure in the hand. We found
the optical stabilisation was just as useful
when composing shots as when taking them.
Tracking moving subjects at the full 960mm
(equivalent) zoom is almost impossible, but
there’s a button that quickly zooms out to help
find the subject. Releasing the button zooms
back in again. The same button can be used to
make the camera zoom automatically to
frame a person’s face or body.
NEED FOR SPEED
Big zooms are useful for sports and wildlife
photography, but require fast performance.
The SX720 HS fared reasonably well in this
respect, taking around half a second to focus
and 0.9 seconds on average between shots.
Flash photography was less impressive, taking
8.5 seconds to recharge at full flash power.
ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016
Continuous mode ran at 6fps till the card was
full. Enabling continuous autofocus delivered
2.8fps shooting, but we saw little evidence of
it successfully tracking moving subjects.
Autofocus options are frustratingly limited.
There’s a choice of multi with face detection,
centre or tracking, but no option to position
the autofocus point anywhere in the frame.
Most compact cameras don’t really need this
but focus becomes more critical for telephoto
shots where there’s a narrow depth of field.
We selected the Centre AF mode and
regularly had to focus on the subject, reframe
it off-centre and then take the shot.
We’re not convinced the 40x zoom is a big asset compared
to the 30x and smaller zooms in other ultra-zoom cameras
Video mode can be a pocket ultra-zoom
camera’s secret weapon, as the smaller
2-megapixel resolution of 1080p video is more
forgiving of lens sharpness and sensor noise
issues. We certainly appreciated the 40x
zoom when shooting wildlife videos, and
video stabilisation worked well, although the
results were invariably better when we had
something solid to prop our arms against.
Video quality was good rather than great,
with a slight coarseness to details. Shooting in
low light resulted in a fair amount of noise but
noise reduction kept it under control. It’s
disappointing that there’s no option to
control the video exposure manually, though.
The SX720 HS punched well above its
weight in photo quality. Colours were vibrant
and flattering, although even in bright
conditions there was some evidence of noise,
particularly in skin tones, and dense foliage
and grass lacked clarity. These problems are
hard to avoid with a small 1/2.3in sensor.
Focus was pretty good through
most of the zoom range, but
telephoto shots weren’t so
impressive, with a distinct
haziness to details. We also
found that the autofocus in
telephoto shots was often slightly off the
mark, and sometimes completely off.
SHAKE IT OFF
Overall exposure levels were expertly judged,
but the camera sometimes chose odd shutter
and ISO speeds. This appears to be down to
the camera attempting to raise the shutter
speed to avoid motion blur in moving
subjects. Sometimes this worked well, but on
other occasions it appeared to be confused by
camera shake just before taking a picture.
The ISO speed also rarely ventured beyond
800, which sometimes meant excessively slow
shutter speeds, particularly for telephoto shots.
Raising the ISO speed to its maximum 3200
setting resulted in heavy, detail-smudging
noise reduction, but the results were still on
the right side of acceptable.
We’re not convinced the 40x zoom is a big
asset compared to the 30x and smaller zooms
in other pocket ultra-zoom cameras. We did
manage to capture a few telephoto shots when
everything came together, but its best photos
are taken at more modest zoom positions.
The extra bit of zoom is there when you really
need it, but don’t expect pixel-perfect shots.
Ben Pitt
SPECIFICATIONS
• SENSOR SIZE / in
SENSOR RESOLUTION 20 megapixels 1
2.3
• VIEWFINDER None • LCD SCREEN 3in (922,000 pixels) •
OPTICAL ZOOM (35mm-EQUIVALENT FOCAL LENGTHS)
• 35mm-EQUIVALENT APERTURE
40x (24-960mm)
• WEIGHT 258g • DIMENSIONS 66x110x38mm •
f/18.4-38
WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.canon.co.uk
Battery life 250 shots
0% -50 Reference +50 +100
See page 74 for performance details
39
 PREMIUM COMPACT CAMERA
PANASONIC TZ100
★★★★★
£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 compacts.
Third, it weights 310g and measures 48mm
thick, which isn’t tiny but is just about small
enough to fit into most pockets.
The compromise is the lens aperture,
which is f/2.8 for wide-angle shots and f/5.9
for telephoto. The Sony RX10 II’s constant
This camera is an impressive technical achievement, but
we must admit we weren’t bowled over by it in use
f/2.8 aperture means it matches the TZ100
for wide-angle shots but is over four times
brighter for telephoto shots. What this means
in practice is that the TZ100 excels in low light
for wide-angle shots but isn’t so good at the
long end of the zoom. Still, it’s significantly
better than the pocket ultra-zoom cameras
that use 1/2.3in sensors and f/3.3-6.9 lenses.
BACK INTO FOCUS
A pop-up flash is included but there’s no hot
shoe for flashguns or wireless triggers.
Panasonic has managed to squeeze in an
electronic viewfinder, but magnification is
only 0.46x (equivalent). We preferred to use
the 3in LCD touchscreen, although we like the
40
ability to move the autofocus point using the
touchscreen while composing shots with the
viewfinder. It doesn’t work so well for people
who use their left eye, though. The viewfinder
window is only a few millimetres proud of the
screen, so you may accidentally move the
autofocus point with the tip of your nose.
The Post Focus feature captures a scene
by sweeping through the focus range and
saving it as a 4K video file. It’s then possible to
save individual frames by tapping the part of
the frame you want in focus, the downside
being that it takes 10 seconds between shots.
The 4K Photo function is similar but without
the variable focus, and is useful for capturing
subjects with split-second timing. The camera
records a 4K video file and then lets you
choose which 8-megapixel frames you want
to save as JPEGs after the event.
In normal use, the TZ100 takes 0.6 seconds
between shots, while Continuous mode ran at
10fps for 85 JPEGs or 14 Raw frames before
slowing. Enabling continuous autofocus, it
managed an impressive 5.9fps. It took around
two seconds to switch on, though. Switching on,
zooming in and taking a shot took five seconds.
The TZ100 is an outstanding video camera.
4K capture uses an 8-megapixel crop of the
20-megapixel sensor, which
means the 25-250mm lens for
photos becomes a 37-370mm
lens for 4K video. This extra
telephoto extension is
particularly welcome for
shooting wildlife or people
without invading their personal
space. Footage quality is top
notch as well, with pin-sharp
details and little evidence of
noise except in very low light.
Slow-motion 1080p
recording is also available,
recorded at 100fps and played back at 25fps.
Details aren’t quite as sharp as in the
normal-speed recordings as lower-quality
anti-aliasing is used, but it’s a minor criticism.
In our image-quality test, focus was
generally excellent, and while it deteriorated
towards the edges of the frame at certain
focal lengths, this was rarely significant.
Automatic settings used conservative ISO
speeds, seldom breaking ISO 1600. When we
increased it to ISO 6400, quality was still good
enough to share online at modest sizes.
JACK OF ALL TRADES
This camera is an impressive technical
achievement, but we must admit we weren’t
bowled over by it in use. It manages to deliver
on three key fronts – a decent zoom range,
high image quality and a pocket-sized design
– but it doesn’t truly excel in any of them.
You’ll need more zoom for shooting sports
and wildlife, and the image quality doesn’t
have the wow factor of a camera with a
significantly bigger sensor or wider aperture.
This, then, isn’t a camera for enthusiasts.
It’s competent, but keen photographers will
prefer the extra zoom range of the Panasonic
FZ1000 or the luscious image quality of the
Fujifilm X70. However, it’s ideal for casual
users who want a pocket-sized camera that
can take dependable photos and excellent
videos in a wide range of conditions. It might
be a tad too expensive for that market, but if
the concept appeals, so too will the camera.
Ben Pitt
SPECIFICATIONS
SENSOR RESOLUTION 20 megapixels • SENSOR SIZE 1in •
VIEWFINDER Electronic (1,166,000 dots) • LCD SCREEN 3in
(1,040,000 dots)• OPTICAL ZOOM (35mm-EQUIVALENT
FOCAL LENGTHS) 10x (25-250mm) • 35mm-EQUIVALENT
APERTURE f/7.7-16 • WEIGHT 310g • DIMENSIONS
65x114x48mm • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS
www.panasonic.com/uk
Battery life 300 shots
0% -50 Reference +50 +100
See page 74 for performance details
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341
 4K G-SYNC MONITOR
ACER Predator
XB271HK
★★★★★
£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
substantial 445mm wide and 235mm deep, so
make sure your desk has enough space,
though the tiny bezels would make it easy to
have a near-seamless desktop with two of
these screens side by side. There are HDMI
and DisplayPort inputs, a headphone output
and a USB3 hub with two ports on the bottom
of the monitor and two on the left.
Five buttons on the bottom bring up the
onscreen menus. As with most displays
(the Asus ROG Swift PG27AQ on page 44
excepted), these are tricky to navigate until
you get used to the control system.
The options are, at least, arranged
anged
in logical categories. You can select
lect
from Acer’s Movie, Graphics and d Eco
presets, or tweak colours, contrast
trast
and brightness yourself. There are
some special functions such as Dark
Boost, which lightens darker areas
reas to
give you the edge in gloomy games mes at
the expense of contrast. You can an also
reduce the amount of blue lightt the
monitor gives off, to avoid disrupting
pting
sleep patterns. Knocking the bluelue
light down to 50% made the monitor
more pleasant to use when working.
orking.
AIM HIGH
There are some gamer-specific
functions as well, including threee
‘game mode’ presets, where you
can save custom monitor settings gs
to recall at the touch of a buttonn–
though we’re not sure how thesehese differ from
standard monitor presets. You can also
toggle a crosshair in the middle
of the screen for shooting from
the hip, but this feels old-schooll
and can spoil immersion.
42
The screen has a pixel overdrive (OD)
function. This is designed to reduce ghosting,
where pixels cannot keep up with the action
onscreen, resulting in blurred images.
However, ghosting is more of a problem at
refresh rates higher than 60Hz, and we didn’t
The XB271HK is an excellent 4K gaming monitor, and should
be on the shortlist of anyone with a powerful Nvidia card
see much improvement using the tests at
testufo.com/ghosting. Setting OD to Extreme
also added significant artefacts to the image.
G-Sync, however, is fantastic. This is
designed to sync the frame output rate of
your Nvidia graphics card with the refresh
rate of your monitor, to avoid both tearing
(when the graphics card outputs more
frames per second than the screen can
display) and stutter (when the graphics card
lags behind, so the sscreen has to show the
same frame more than once).
G-Sync is at its m most impressive when a
game is running at less than the standard
refresh rate of the monitor, when it
can make frame rates around 35fps
look far smoother. This monitor’s
resolution is a challenge for
4K resolu
graphics card, so G-Sync is
any graph
particularly useful. In Dirt Rally,
particula
running at 3,840x2,160 with Ultra
runnin
detail and G-Sync off, we saw a
regular 35-40fps and significant
regula
stuttering, but with G-Sync
stutte
turned on the game was
perfectly smooth: even once we
perfec
turned down the detail and
turned on V-Sync to lock the
game to 60fps, we could barely
gam
tell tthe difference between the
lower and higher frame rates.
The screen acquitted itself
well in our image-quality
tests. Before calibration, it
was covering 100% of the sRGB colour gamut
with a low Delta E colour deviation of 0.54.
Results after calibration were similar, but the
calibration program brought the screen much
closer to the ideal colour temperature of
6500K, with 6539K compared to 6727K
pre-calibration. Image quality is still great out
of the box, with a high contrast ratio of 1,018:1
helping our test photos shine.
LET IT BLEED
There was one significant problem, and that
was visible backlight bleed at the bottom-left
of the screen. This was confirmed by our
colour calibrator: in the middle of the screen it
recorded a black level of 0.272cd/m2, but at
the bottom-left this rose to 0.555cd/m2, which
in turn reduced the contrast ratio to 401:1. It’s
a shame, but won’t affect most users.
The Acer Predator XB271HK is an excellent
4K gaming monitor, and it should be on the
shortlist of anyone with a powerful Nvidia
graphics card who fancies a bit of stutter-free
4K gaming. Those into twitchy shooters may
find the 60Hz refresh rate isn’t enough,
however, so should consider the 144Hz
XB270HU instead.
Chris Finnamore
SPECIFICATIONS
SCREEN SIZE 27in • RESOLUTION 3,840x2,160 • SCREEN
TECHNOLOGY IPS • REFRESH RATE 60Hz • VIDEO INPUTS
HDMI, DisplayPort • WARRANTY Two years RTB •
DETAILS www.acer.co.uk • PART CODE XB271HK
CONNECTION PORTS
HDMI DisplayPort USB3 x4
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341
 4K G-SYNC MONITOR
ASUS ROG Swift
PG27AQ
★★★★★
£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 below 60fps, so G-Sync is ideal.
In Dirt Rally, at the monitor’s native
resolution and with Ultra detail levels, we saw
between 35-40fps. As with the Acer Predator
One impressive aspect is that Asus has designed an
onscreen menu system that’s easy to use
XB271HK, the game stuttered with G-Sync off,
but with G-Sync turned on it looked almost as
smooth as if it were running at 60fps.
Although casual gamers will be generally
happy with sub-60fps frame rates as long as
the game looks smooth, more serious players
and competitive types would be better off
with a lower-resolution, 144Hz screen – such
as the Acer Predator XB270HU – to ensure
the best frames-per-second possible.
PLUG AND PLAY
For a gaming device, the ROG Swift PG27AQ
has a rather subtlee design; you can even
switch off the red lights
ghts in its base. The stand
feels sturdy, the screen
een is height-adjustable
and can rotate and tilt and turn 90˚ clockwise
into portrait mode.. On the back, you get
DisplayPort and HDMI MI inputs, a
headphone sockett and two USB3
ports; while these are fine
for your keyboard and
mouse, we missed
having a couple on
the side of the screen
reen
for flash drives and
external hard disks.
One impressive
aspect is that Asuss has
designed an onscreen en
44
menu system that’s easy to use. There’s a tiny
clickable joystick on the rear-right of the
monitor, which makes navigating the menus a
breeze. A button next to a gamepad icon also
brings up gaming-specific functions: an FPS
meter, a game timer and a crosshair option.
The FPS meter displays your screen’s
current refresh rate, so only shows a game’s
frame rate if you have G-Sync enabled. The
Timer sets a countdown for 30, 40, 50, 60 or
90 minutes, so you can keep an eye on how
long you’ve gone without food, water or social
contact. The crosshair slaps a large gunsight
in the middle of your screen, to help with
hip-firing in shooters; it’s a little ugly, but the
crosshairs are more visible than Acer’s version.
There’s also a pixel overdrive option, which
is meant to remove ghosting at high frame
rates. Ghosting is less of a problem at 60Hz
than at 144Hz, and in the Testufo test we saw
only mild improvements using overdrive, with
the disadvantage of added image artefacts.
PALETTE CLEANSER
PA
The ‘G’ button brings up
the ‘GameVisual’ menu.
This has six modes:
Thi
Scenery, Racing, Cinema,
Sce
RTS/RPG, FPS and sRGB.
RTS
These have varying effects
The
on the image; Scenery
enhances greens and blues,
enhanc
Racing reduces input lag,
Cinema enhances contrast and
saturation, RTS/RPG jacks
colour satur
saturation and contrast, while
up saturatio
enhances contrast to help
FPS enhan
spot enemies in dark
you sp
places. Finally, sRGB is for
places
displaying photos.
displa
After a reset, the screen appears to default
to Racing mode. Profiling this mode with an i1
Display Pro colour calibrator, the screen was
displaying 99.3% of the sRGB colour gamut,
with a colour temperature of 6976K versus the
ideal 6500K. This is good, but the Predator
XB271HK had 100% and 6727K out of the box.
The FPS and RTS presets were similar, while
Scenery boosted blues and greens at the
expense of reds, bringing its sRGB coverage
down to 92.4%. Cinema had a freezing colour
temperature of 10702K, making everything
rather blue, while sRGB mode had a near-
perfect colour temperature of 6512K, but
knocked brightness down to a dingy 112cd/m2
and locked out the brightness controls.
In fact, the range of image adjustments is
rather limited; depending on the selected
GameVisual mode, you can adjust brightness,
contrast, saturation and colour temperature,
but not individual colour levels. There’s also
significant backlight bleed at the bottom-left
of the screen, which is a problem common to
Acer’s 4K G-Sync monitor.
There’s a great deal to like about Asus’s
ROG Swift PG27AQ, from its well-made stand,
to its excellent menu system and smooth 4K
gameplay with G-Sync. However, Acer’s
Predator XB271HK has the same advantages
and better overall image quality. It’s also £60
cheaper, so remains our 4K G-Sync choice.
Chris Finnamore
SPECIFICATIONS
SCREEN SIZE 27in • RESOLUTION 3,840x2,160 • SCREEN
TECHNOLOGY IPS • REFRESH RATE 60Hz • VIDEO INPUTS
HDMI, DisplayPort • WARRANTY Three years collect and
return • DETAILS www.asus.com/uk • PART CODE PG27AQ
CONNECTION PORTS
HDMI DisplayPort
USB3 x2 3.5mm headphone
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341
WWW.ESET.CO.UK/BUSINESS

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 CURVED 4K TV
SAMSUNG
UE48JS8500
★★★★★
£999 • From www.johnlewis.com
VERDICT
With excellent picture quality and a full line-
up 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 quantum-
dot 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 2.0 inputs, an optical S/PDIF output
and two USB2 ports, plus component and
composite inputs, a 3.5mm headphone jack,
an Ethernet port, ports for your aerial and
satellite and a single USB3 port. It’s a shame
the USB3 port isn’t on the Connect box, but
it’s a pretty minor quibble overall.
PRECEDING HAIRLINE
The TV itself looks stunning. Available in 48in
(the model we tested), 55in and 65in screen
sizes, its curved base and slim bezels have a
hairline metallic finish, and the recessed stand
that sticks out at the back almost makes it
look like the TV is floating. Minimal branding
and a subtle, 3,000mm curvature radius
only add to its elegant design.
The ‘quantum-dot’ panel can
supposedly produce much brighter,
more vibrant colours than standard LCD. CD.
This certainly seemed to be the case in
our calibration tests, as the default
Movie settings produced an incredible e which migmight not be ideal if you’re
black level of 0.05cd/m2 and its sRGB
colour gamut coverage hit a full 100%. %.
Admittedly, Movie mode can’t hit the
same brightness levels as other
Samsung picture presets, such as
Standard or Dynamic, but it definitely
had the most accurate colours.
With the backlight turned up to
maximum, the UE48JS8500 achieved a
respectable 258.53cd/m2 in Movie mode,
but this also increased the black level to
0.11cd/m2. Still, its contrast ratio of
2,434:1 is incredibly impressive, and this
his
superb picture quality translates into
some brilliant-looking film footage.
The UE48JS8500’s 120Hz panel
also handles fast-moving objects
46
incredibly well, showing few signs of any
obvious judder. However, for those who like
their camera pans to be silky smooth, then
Samsung’s Auto Motion Plus settings do an
excellent job of eliminating any jerky
movement. While it has a couple of preset
modes available, the best option is Custom,
which allows you to set the blur and judder
reduction manually.
With a native resolution of 3,840x2,160,
the UE48JS8500 looks best when viewing 4K
The Samsung UE48JS8500 is a stunning TV. Its picture
quality is superb and its excellent suite of catch-up apps
means you’ve always got something to watch
content. Even though the just-released
Ultra HD Blu-ray players will give the ultimate
picture quality, our test clips looked as lovely
as ever, and HDR clips provided a noticeable
boost in brightness, making everything feel all
the more impressive
impres and immersive.
The only slight hitch is that the curved
panel’s viewing
view angles tend to peter out
when you don’t sit slap-bang in the
slightly whe
Viewing from the sides, colours
centre. View
definitely llose some of their vibrancy,
planning to put it in a large living room.
The do downward-firing 40W speakers
leave something to be desired, as
also leav
voices in particular seemed to be rather
muffled ccompared to the rest of our film
soundtracks. They’re fine for general TV,
soundtrac
you’ll probably want to consider a
but you’l
sound bar or dedicated sound system.
One th thing you don’t need to worry
about is the UE48JS8500’s upscaling
capabilities. Blu-ray discs looked great
capabilit
on its 4K panel, and HD TV channels
surprisingly good level of detail
had a sur
present, too. You’ll probably need
presen
to enable the MPEG noise
reduction and Digital Clean
View settings for standard-
definition channels, but this is pretty standard
practice on all modern, big-screen TVs.
PLAYING CATCH-UP
Aside from its excellent picture quality, the
other reason to consider the UE48JS8500 is
its superb line-up of catch-up services. BBC
iPlayer, ITV Hub, All 4, Demand 5, Netflix,
Amazon Instant Video, TalkTalk TV (formerly
Blinkbox), Wuaki, Plex, Vimeo, YouTube,
Dailymotion and TuneIn radio are all included
as individual apps, as are BFI Player and TED.
The only noticeable omission is Sky’s Now TV,
but when a separate Now TV box costs just
£15, it’s a small sacrifice. Samsung’s Tizen
interface is a pleasure to use, as well.
The Samsung UE48JS8500 is a stunning
TV. Its picture quality is superb and its
excellent suite of catch-up apps means you’ve
always got something to watch. We’re not
convinced its curved screen adds anything to
your overall viewing experience – in which
case, you might want to opt for the flat but
otherwise identical JS8000 model – but if
you’re after a great-looking 4K TV for under
£1,000, the UE48JS8500 is a great choice. It
wins a Recommended award.
Katharine Byrne
SPECIFICATIONS
SCREEN SIZE 48in• NATIVE RESOLUTION 3,840x2,160•
•
VIDEO INPUTS 4x HDMI, component, composite
•
TUNER Freeview HD, Freesat HD DIMENSIONS
308x1,083x689mm • WARRANTY Five years RTB •
DETAILS www.samsung.com/uk • PART CODE UE48JS8500
CONNECTION PORTS
HDMI x4 Component Composite
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341
GAMING HEADSET
ASTRO GAMING A40 + MixAmp M80
★★★★★
£135 • From www.argos.co.uk
VERDICT
A great set of cans for Xbox One owners, but
anyone nearby will hear your games too
THE A40 + MIXAMP M80 combo has been
designed with Xbox One owners in mind. It
can be used with other consoles thanks to the
3.5mm audio cable, but only Xbox One users
can take advantage of its M80 MixAmp
attachment, which slots into the Xbox One
controller’s accessory port. This gives access
to the headset’s volume controls, three EQ
modes and two buttons to adjust the volume
of in-game audio and voice chat conversations.
Setup is easy: plug them in, mute the TV’s
sound and start gaming. The wired connection
means you don’t have to charge them first.
The MixAmp is better than Microsoft’s
dedicated Xbox One audio controls, as the
buttons have a great touch action, and the
SPECIFICATIONS
HEADPHONES SUBTYPE Over-ear • PLUG TYPE 3.5mm
• WEIGHT 324g • CABLE LENGTH 1m •
headset jack plug
WARRANTY Two years RTB • DETAILS www.astrogaming.
co.uk • PART CODE A40-M80-GEN2
NOISE-CANCELLING BLUETOOTH HEADPHONES
LINDY BNX-60
★★★★★
£90 • From www.amazon.co.uk
VERDICT
A respectable and budget-friendly pair of
wireless, active noise-cancelling headphones
THE LINDY BNX-60 offer a comparatively
budget-friendly pair of active noise-cancelling
(ANC) headphones. The ear cups have a
soft-touch plastic backing and there’s a
generous amount of padding that sits around
your ears. There’s ample padding on the
headband, too, allowing for a comfortable fit.
The BNX-60 support Bluetooth wireless
and the aptX codec, which has better
compression than standard Bluetooth. This is
a pleasant surprise considering the cost.
The left earcup has media playback
controls for skipping and pausing tracks, and
the play/pause button is used to turn the
headphones on and put them in Bluetooth
SPECIFICATIONS
HEADPHONES SUBTYPE Over-ear headset• PLUG TYPE
• WEIGHT 998g • CABLE LENGTH 1.5m •
3.5mm jack plug
WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.lindy.co.uk •
PART CODE BNX-60
ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016
small LED bars give useful feedback on which
EQ mode you’re currently using and how high
the volume is. The extra bulk of the MixAmp
may seem obsolete now that Microsoft has
released an Xbox One controller with a proper
3.5mm audio jack, but it doesn’t get in the
way of your fingers while you’re gaming,
and it’s much better than having to dive
into Microsoft’s onscreen settings menu
every time you want to adjust the volume.
The foam head band is comfortable for the
most part, but it can feel like it’s pressing on
your head after prolonged use. The ear
cushions are comfier, their large enclosure
preventing any pressure on the ears.
Sound quality is excellent. Everything from
rustling grass to sweeping battle themes is
crystal clear on the A40s, and they provide a
more immersive experience than our
standard TV speakers. The middle EQ setting
provides the best balance between its bass
and treble performance, particularly if a game
has an orchestral soundtrack, but the third
mode’s emphasis on bass certainly helps give
explosions and vehicle sections a welcome
sense of extra grunt without becoming too
muddy. The first mode, however, sounds
pairing mode. You can also
hold the track skipping
buttons to adjust the volume
on your device, but making
small volume changes is fiddly.
A 3.5mm jack lets you use
the included airline adaptor as
well, which is handy if you want
to use the headphones with
in-flight entertainment. A 3.5mm
to 6.3mm adaptor is also included.
On the right earcup, there’s a toggle
switch to turn on active noise cancelling as
well as a retro volume adjustment wheel. To
avoid this slightly clunky control, we typically
left our smartphones set to maximum volume
and adjusted the volume on the headphones.
Battery life is rated at up to 30 hours for
ANC and 15 hours for Bluetooth. In testing, we
didn’t have to charge them more than once a
week. Charging is done over Micro USB.
The ANC isn’t as pronounced as on rival
headsets, and we’d estimate that it reduced
about 80-85% of the ambient sound. There’s
quite a pronounced effect on sound
production when you have ANC turned on,
very tinny across all games, so we would
recommend sticking to modes two and three.
Voice chat is equally clear in multiplayer
games, and those who like to focus on the
task at hand will appreciate the Game/Voice
equaliser buttons; turning this all the way
down to the Voice end of the spectrum will
filter out all in-game sound entirely.
The only real downside is terrible sound
isolation. The use of an open-back rather than
a closed-back system means some of your
game audio, particularly high-pitched sounds,
will still be audible from across the room even
at normal volume levels. This is a problem
with pretty much all open-back headphones,
though, so if you’re keen to spare the ears of
your friends and family, you’ll be better off
looking for a closed-back system.
Katharine Byrne
too. With it off, the sound is
rather muddy and the volume
decreases. Turn it on, and the
mids and trebles become more
prominent, aided by the
reduction in ambient noise
and the filtering out of
low-frequency drone. The
tuning of the 40mm neodymium
drivers doesn’t seem to change
whether you switch between
having the noise cancelling on or off.
You still get a decent presence in the lower
frequencies, although at times it was a little
too boomy on certain hip hop test tracks.
As the battery life for ANC exceeds that of
Bluetooth, we can’t see many occasions when
you’d want to turn off the noise cancelling. As
such, it’s irritating that you have to remember
to turn off the noise cancelling manually.
Control quirks aside, the BNX-60 are a
good value pair of ANC headphones. They
sound decent and, while its noise cancelling
isn’t the best, it’s still good enough to cut out
a substantial amount of ambient noise.
Richard Easton
47
 PORTABLE BLUETOOTH SPEAKER
AUDIO PRO Addon
n T3
★★★★★
£165 • From www.superfi.co.uk
.co.uk
VERDICT
A Bluetooth speaker with a delightful design
esign
and the sound quality to match
WE WERE RATHER fond of the colourful,
great-sounding Audio Pro Addon T10 speaker peaker
when it arrived in the offices last year (see
Shopper 327), so it was with some excitement ent
that we approached the smaller, battery-
operated 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, ion,
but it lacks the IR receiver that made the T10
look as if it had a beauty mark on its cheek.
ek.
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, the handle makes more sense than on
the heavier, bulkier mains-powered T10, as
you’re more likely to be moving it around.
It’s still not something you’ll want to throw
in a backpack to take on the road, though, as
The T3 delivers a sound that is confident and powerful
for a speaker of this size and price
it weighs a hefty 2kg. However, as a speaker
you can move freely around the house or take
down the end of the garden, it’s a comfortable
weight. Measuring 215x135x115mm, it’s not
overly large, either, and takes up less space on
a shelf or sideboard than the T10.
The T3’s solid cabinet gives it a reassuring,
premium feel which helps with its weighty,
confident acoustic delivery. It’s very well
finished, with nicely rounded corners and
edges, and there are two short feet on the
front which angle the front of the speaker
upwards, giving it some clearance to help
disperse the sound.
48
On the top of the speaker, you’ll find a row
of control buttons finished in an attractive,
metallic rose gold. We feel it could do with
fewer buttons, though, as there’s not only a
dedicated button for pairing the speaker with
your phone, but also separate buttons for
switching to Bluetooth and the speaker’s
auxiliary connection.
The latter two could easily be combined
into one button, for example, and the pairing
button seems excessive and superfluous when
so many other Bluetooth speakers can enter
pairing mode simply by holding down the
Bluetooth button. What’s slightly aggrieving
is that, even with all these buttons, there
aren’t any media playback controls, so you
can’t pause or skip tracks on your Bluetooth-
connected device.
A SMALL CHARGE
Control niggles aside, it does have a handy
USB port on the back of the speaker which
you can use to charge your smartphone.
However, it only outputs at 5V/1A, so it won’t
charge the unit particularly quickly, and you
can’t use it for playing tracks off a USB stick
either,, w
which is a shame. That said, you could
use it to neatly power a
Chromecast Audio, letting
you cast your tunes to
the speaker without an
additional power adaptor.
Inside, the T3 has a
Digital Class D amplifier
that delivers 2x5W to the
two 2.75in textile dome
tweeters and 15W to the
3.5in woofer. A bass reflex
port is found on the back
of the cabinet, and the
speaker has a frequency
range of 60-20,000Hz.
The T3 delivers a sound that is confident
and powerful for a speaker of this size and
price. However, it’s not the most detail-driven
speaker, as its low frequencies arguably
become a little boomy on certain tracks. On
First Aid Kit’s My Silver Lining, some of the
violins became a bit lost amidst the other
instruments, but otherwise there wasn’t a lot
to complain about, especially considering the
speaker’s reasonably low price.
Its audio quality has a rather warm sound
to it, which some people might find preferable,
but we prefer our songs with a slightly more
transparent sound. Still, there’s certainly a lot
to like about the T3’s sound signature, and the
well-weighted cabinet keeps what could have
otherwise been some rather unruly bass in
check without any reverberation. There’s no
hint of any distortion, either.
PARTY TRICK
Battery life is rated at an excellent 30 hours
on medium volume, or 12 hours with music
blaring at full volume, so it should have more
than enough longevity to get you through a
party or barbecue. Mind you, the speaker isn’t
water resistant in any way, so bring it indoors
if the great British weather strikes and your
next garden party becomes a washout.
Overall, the Addon T3 is a capable,
affordable and good-looking device for blaring
out music at home. It has the same charming
design heritage of the equally impressive T10,
and the inclusion of a battery makes it more
versatile than the T10. Likewise, its sound
quality is more than respectable for the price,
and its battery life is excellent. It’s a top-notch
all-round Bluetooth speaker, one that’s fully
deserving of a Recommended award.
Richard Easton
SPECIFICATIONS
SPEAKERS 2• RMS POWER OUTPUT 25W • DOCK
CONNECTOR None • WIRELESS Bluetooth (SBC) •
DIMENSIONS 215x135x115mm • WEIGHT 2kg •
WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.audiopro.com
• PART CODE Addon T3
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341
Like a rocket
from the socket.
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BUY IT!
★★★★★ RECOMMENDED

The devolo dLAN® 1200+ WiFi ac Starter Kit enables

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• 3-year manufacturer’s warranty

www.devolo.co.uk
 SMART ENERGY MONITOR
SMAPPEE
IOT Energy Monitor
★★★★★
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 the drain, and an option for businesses
offers even more enhanced data.
We tested the £169 Energy Monitor with
the new £99 Gas and Water add-on.
What makes Smappee so unique is that, as
well as monitoring your supply as a whole, it is
able to see the individual “signatures” of each
appliance that draws power. It then uses this,
with your help, to create a complete profile of
every appliance in your house.
By doing this, as well as showing you
where the main power drains are, it can be
programmed to take action using the popular
IFTTT platform. We managed to get it to turn
the beside lamp on when it detected we had
turned the main bedroom light off, and set up
the TV to turn off completely after two hours
in standby. We then used a Flic Bluetooth
button to allow it to be turned on again when
we were ready.
50
This control requires the use of
smart plugs and, in the case of Smappee,
they are proprietary Comfort Plugs. These will
set you back £35 for three plugs, although a
free one comes included with the Energy
Monitor and the £259 Solar Energy Monitor.
Alternatively you can use any other smart
plugs that support IFTTT. Comfort Plugs can
also be controlled using a provided remote.
METER MADE
The Smappee connects to your electricity
meter’s main cable via a clamp over the
incoming wire. This means it’s incredibly easy
and safe to fit. Even the basic model offers
three clamps for three-phase provision, so
you can detect the main supply, a secondary
supply such as Economy 7 and solar.
The Smappee requires a power supply to
be within cable distance of the meter, but we
found it interfered with the Wi-Fi connection
if the meter, plug and device were too close
together, so a bit of experimenting is needed.
Gas and water monitoring are provided by
an add-on device, which uses either a direct
connection to a socket in your meter, or an
optical sensor that reads the numbers on the
screen, even if it’s a rotary dial. Theoretically,
there are two sensor points, but if your water
meter and gas meter are too far away from
each other, you’ll need to buy one for each.
Smappee claims the savings in electricity
alone will pay for the device in two years if
used properly, but the initial outlay is huge.
The £259 solar edition of the base unit, six
Comfort Plugs and separate attachments for
water and gas will set you back over £500.
Initial setup is also a faff. You only have to
do it once, but it involves going around to
every single appliance you own and turning it
off and on again, sometimes several times, so
that Smappee can read what has been added
to and removed from your power profile.
Once this is done, you can use the
comprehensive app for web, iOS and Android
to create rules and trigger alerts, or add in the
IFTTT channel to interact with other smart
devices. This makes it particularly versatile for
if you are leaving the house empty. Combining
sudden light activation with a security sensor
could make a very accurate alarm system.
SMART DECISION
Once the initial setup is completed, Smappee
is an incredibly elegant and versatile addition
to any smart home. The app offers you
rewards for lowering your power consumption
and the interaction with a wide range of other
apps offers options for controlling your smart
home that no other device to date can do
without tearing large chunks of wall out.
We’d describe this as a project. That’s not
necessarily a bad thing, but if you’re looking
for something that just works, this isn’t for
you. And although the £500 we mentioned
sounds a lot, that’s cheaper than purchasing
equivalent Z-Wave or ZigBee kit.
If you’re willing to invest the time and
money, the long-term benefits are huge, both
for your energy bills and the planet. We found
that energy-saving becomes quite compulsive,
and there’s a little thrill when the app tells you
about a 3% reduction in your ‘always-on’
usage as a result of your awareness.
Chris Merriman
SPECIFICATIONS
WIRELESS STANDARD Proprietary but with IFTTT •
INCLUDED SENSORS Electricity, solar, with options for gas
and water • SUPPORTED OPERATING SYSTEMS Android,
iOS, Web • WARRANTY Not given but payback period
estimated at one year of savings • PART CODE 118344
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341
 BUSINESS SSD
KINGSTON
KC400 256GB
★★★★★
£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
aimed at safeguarding saved data from errors.
One of these is SmartECC, which provides
automatic data reconstruction via a fourth
level of NAND RAID redundancy – a handy
backup plan for when the NAND memory’s
standard error-correcting code (ECC) can’t
fix an issue itself.
CLEANUP CREW
Another new feature is SmartRefresh. This
attempts to reduce the effects of NAND wear
over time by having a controller scan
individual blocks for performance issues and
refreshing them if required. For even more
security, any data transferred between the
controller and the flash itself is verified by a
cyclic redundancy check.
Between these failsafes and a stated
lifespan of 300TB worth of data writes, this
is very much an investment to last a good
few years; indeed, it would be a good fit for
smaller businesses disinclined to drop the
cash on repeated hardware purchases. The
impressively lengthy five-year warranty is a
nice little bonus as well.
Our review unit arrived on its lonesome,
without any brackets, screws or SATA cables
to set it up, but all these are included in an
optional ‘upgrade bundle’, which includes the
KC400 itself. We found this for about £10
more than the base unit, so it’s definitely
worth picking up if you’re adding it to an
SSD-less PC, but you won’t need to pay extra
if you’re replacing an existing drive and thus
have all the necessary kit ready.
Aimed as it is at professionals and power
users, you’d expect some top-notch
performance from the KC400, and this
appears to be reflected in its advertised read
52
and write speeds: up to 550MB/s and
540MB/s respectively. However, in our
file-transfer benchmarks, its occasional haste
was marred by some of the most inconsistent
scores we have on record for an SSD.
You’d expect top-notch performance from the KC400, but
in our file-transfer tests its occasional haste was marred by
some of the most inconsistent scores we’ve seen on an SSD
For instance, when writing a single 2.5GB
audio file, it achieved an excellent speed of
573.5MB/s – it’s hard to beat that without
getting into much pricier NVMe territory.
Sadly, it only averaged 244.3MB/s when
reading the same file, less than half of what
we were roughly expecting.
TRANSFERRED MALICE
It’s even worse at moving a group of smaller
but still large files, only managing 193.4MB/s
write and 129.2MB/s read speeds; again, you
can get double or triple that from other SATA
SSDs. At this point we were becoming
concerned that perhaps something was amiss,
and repeated the tests using different SATA3
ports on our PC’s motherboard, but received
similar results each time, confirming the
KC400’s sluggishness with large files.
That said, the KC400 did much better
when moving small files, which is both
commendable and surprising considering this
is where most storage drives slip up. It scored
a particularly good 162.6MB/s write speed,
plus 102.6MB/s read speed. That’s still a big
drop off from its best possible performance,
but to put it in perspective, the KC400’s read/
write speeds in this small files test average
out to 132.6MB/s; most SATA SSDs we’ve
tested hover around the low 90s.
Overall this is not a dependably fast
enough SSD to compete with its rivals – both
business-class and consumer – purely on
speed. Our file-transfer test results were
backed up by a run through the AS SSD
benchmark, which granted the KC400 rath rather
uninspiring – not bad, but not brilliant –
scores of 143 read, 130 write and 354 overall.
Fortunately, it does have some other
things going for it, including the formidable
anti-error protection mentioned above. It’s
seriously affordable; we found this 256GB
model for £78, which works out at a very
reasonable 30.4p per GB. That’s less than
most consumer SSDs, let alone one with
data protection that can benefit enterprise
and home users alike.
That value certainly dulls the sting of its
wildly mixed speeds, and even the added
expense of the upgrade bundle only pushes
it up to 34p per GB, which remains an
extremely reasonable sum. It’s up to you
whether the KC400’s affordability and bonus
features outweigh its performance issues; if
you save a lot of valuable or sensitive data,
rather than just music and pictures of
kittens, this might just be the SSD for you.
Everyone else, on the other hand, won’t
struggle to find speedier hardware with
enough ECC protection for everyday use.
James Archer
SPECIFICATIONS
CAPACITY 256GB (238GB formatted) • COST PER GIGABYTE
£0.30 • INTERFACE SATA3 • CLAIMED READ 550MB/s •
CLAIMED WRITE 540MB/s • WARRANTY Five years RTB •
DETAILS www.kingston.com • PART CODE SKC400S37/256G
408.9MB/s
Huge files
Large files 161.3MB/s
Small files 132.6MB/s
0% -50 Reference +50 +100
See page 74 for performance details
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341
AMD AM3+ MOTHERBOARD
GIGABYTE
GA-990FX-Gaming
★★★★★
£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 for image editing, 87
for video editing, 83 for multitasking and 85
In terms of features, ports and expansion possibilities, the
GA-990FX-Gaming justifies its price – in particular, the
added USB3.1 ports make it a compelling alternative
overall. The setup also managed 52fps in
Dirt Showdown at 720p, which is actually on
a par with more expensive Intel boards such
as the MSI Z170A Gaming M5.
If the other scores seem low, don’t worry
– that’s more the fault of the AMD processor,
as while motherboards are essentially a PC’s
central nervous system, the CPU and GPU are
much bigger factors in how many frames per
second you can squeeze out of a game or
how smooth your system will be when
performing intensive design work. It’s a
motherboard’s features that are most
important and, luckily for the GA-990FX-
Gaming, Gigabyte hasn’t skimped here.
BUILDING BLOCKS
For instance, there are all the expansion slots
you could want, including four RAM sockets
(supporting up to 32GB of DDR3 memory in
total), three PCI-E x16 slots and three PCI-E x1
ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016
slots. Be warned that one of the PCI-E x16
sockets actually runs at a slower x4 speed,
but it’s the lowest one on the board, leaving
the faster two available for a dual-GPU
configuration. You also get an ultra-fast M.2
slot, for a smaller 20GB/s SSD.
The rear panel is lacking any display
connectors, such as HDMI or DisplayPort, but
since this is a gaming-focused board intended
for PCs with a dedicated graphics card, we’ll
let this omission slide. What you do get is a
plentiful six USB2, two USB3, one USB3.1 and
even a USB Type-C port, which has USB3.1
support. The panel also includes an S/PDIF
output for high-end audio gear and, if your PC
case allows it, there’s the capability to add a
further six USB2 ports and two USB3 ports
via the internal headers.
It would be an understatement, then, to
say that all the basics are covered, but the
GA-990FX-Gaming has even more handy
features. One of the best is dual BIOS chips,
which provides a reassuring redundancy in
case one fails. On the design front, the PCI-E
x16 slots have been reinforced with steel,
reducing the risk of heavy graphics cards
stressing the plastic sockets, and we like the
look of the thin, winding strip of red lighting
that runs up the left edge.
Gigabyte’s BIOS is sensibly laid out, and
allowed us to overclock the FX-8350 easily
by upping the CPU clock multiplier. Sadly,
actual post-overclocking performance was
disappointing; for a base 4GHz chip such as
the FX-8350, we try to aim for a boost up to
4.7GHz, but at speeds of 4.5GHz and above
our testing machine simply shut down at the
desktop. At 4.4GHz, it managed to complete
our Dirt Showdown benchmark, but dropped
slightly to 50fps and subsequently crashed
again during the image-encoding section of
our own benchmark software.
It bears repeating that there’s only so
much a motherboard can do for performance,
and we were testing with some fairly old
AMD silicon. At the risk of stating the
obvious, you’d probably have better luck
overclocking with a newer chip and perhaps a
water cooler instead of the air cooler we were
using, an Arctic Freezer A30. Still, we only
really felt comfortable with a modest
overclock to 4.2GHz, which yielded just a
five-point increase in the Windows overall
benchmarking score – to 90 – and produced
the exact same 52fps in Dirt Showdown as
when the CPU was running at its base speed.
STOCK BROKER
All that said, there are worse issues to
have than underwhelming overclocking
performance, especially when such an issue
can be avoided simply by choosing parts with
sufficiently speedy stock specs in the first
place. In terms of features, ports and
expansion possibilities, the GA-990FX-Gaming
justifies its price – in particular, the added
USB3.1 ports, including USB Type-C, make it a
compelling alternative to its more generic
cousin, the GA-990FXA-UD3.
For PC builds based on an AM3+ CPU, you
could get away with the £51 MSI 97OA-G43
(see Shopper 338) if you’re building a
budget-minded, single-GPU rig, but those
willing to dip their toes in the high end will get
plenty of value out of the GA-990FX-Gaming.
James Archer
SPECIFICATIONS
PROCESSOR SOCKET AM3+ • DIMENSIONS 305x244mm
• CHIPSET AMD 990FX (Northbridge), AMD SB950
(Southbridge) • MEMORY SLOTS 4 • PCI-E x16 SLOTS 3 •
PCI-E x1 SLOTS 3 • PCI SLOTS 0 • USB PORTS 6x USB2, 2x
USB3, 1x USB3.1, 1x USB Type-C • VIDEO OUTPUTS None •
WARRANTY Three years RTB • DETAILS www.gigabyte.
com • PART CODE GA-990FX-Gaming
85
Shopper overall
Multitasking 83
Dirt Showdown 52fps
0% -50 Reference +50 +100
See page 74 for performance details
53
 VOICE-RECOGNITION APP
NUANCE Dragon Anywhere
★★★★★
£14.99 per month, £149.99 per year, free one-week trial •
From shop.nuance.co.uk
VERDICT
Not the full Dragon experience, but a good
mobile companion with lots of promise
NUANCE DRAGON ANYWHERE is the
mobile companion to Dragon Naturally
Speaking, generally recognised as ‘the daddy’
when it comes to speech recognition.
It’s worth pointing out that this is an
entirely new product, not related to the
existing Dragon Go app, which uses the
mobile device as a remote Bluetooth
microphone for Dragon Naturally Speaking.
Rather, this is a new dictation app in its own
right, which allows you to create documents
using just your voice. We tested the Android
version, which you can download from the
Play Store, but an iOS edition from the Apple
App Store is also available.
VOICE SQUAD
Setup is easy, but unfortunately that’s partly
because there’s no way of fine-tuning your
voice as in the desktop version. Instead, it
relies on the Google voice-recognition engine.
That’s no bad thing, as any Android user
will know it’s pretty good. But it’s not as good
as Nuance’s after you’ve read aloud to it for
half an hour and let it read your documents to
learn your vocabulary and writing style.
Nevertheless, we were able to dictate this
review more than passably well enough to
create a document for quick editing. If there’s
There are plenty of ways to
share your finished dictation
54
something you want dictated
in a certain way, you can
create rules to treat, say, a
percentage as ‘per cent’
rather than a symbol.
The command syntax is
shared with other Dragon
products, so regular users will
be able to dive straight in to
terms for adding punctuation,
correcting mistakes and
formatting the text.
Commands such as
“Scratch that”, “Insert after”
and “Transfer text” as well as
our favourite “Go to sleep” will
be familiar to previous users
and generally, its contextual understanding
means it does treat them as commands rather
than simply adding them as text.
If you get stuck you can always say, “I need
help” or “What can I say?” to bring up a list of
commands. At the moment the options are
limited, but the fact that there is an option for
“specialty” suggests that others will come,
such as the facility to transcribe an interview
or conference straight to text.
Although Dragon Anywhere’s speech
recognition doesn’t learn beyond the
capacity of the Google engine, it can spot
accents and adjust to them.
TRANSFER WINDOW
Once you’ve got your working document, you
can transfer it in a variety of ways. If you want
to continue working in Android, a dedicated
button transfers the text to the clipboard. If
you want to move to the big screen, there’s
full compatibility with Evernote, which opens
up a lot of possibilities. You can also send it to
yourself as a word-processing document,
selecting the format from .docx .doc and .odf.
The biggest hurdle we came across was
syncing to Dragon Naturally Speaking as the
username we were assigned was too long for
the window on the desktop. Otherwise, syncing
is quick and painless and allows you to carry
on working seamlessly on the same document
with the benefit of Dragon’s speech engine.
Our biggest criticism of Dragon Anywhere
is that as a subscription service it doesn’t
add the level of value that we would expect.
It would be virtually impossible to have the
full Dragon experience on a phone, but with
that comes a question as to whether the
rather high fees are justified.
Asking the program
“What can I say?” brings
up a list of commands
Dragon can already accept dictation from
a recording in its full version, so the need to
do the same on the go is reserved for fairly
specific uses, and given that Naturally
Speaking is a one-off purchase, we’re not
convinced that a rolling contract for Dragon
Anywhere is justified.
SLEEK MOVES
That said, the layout is sleek, the results are
above and beyond anything we’ve previously
seen in dictation software for Android, and
the integration with Office, Evernote and
Dragon itself are extremely nice touches,
though we’d love to see even more.
As such, we feel the best is yet to come
from this software. It had been in beta for
some time before release, but even at this
stage there’s more to do to justify its costs.
The end game for dictation software,
especially on a mobile, is to be able to reliably
dictate an article, transcribe a lecture,
interview or conference and if necessary be
able to send it off in its current form for
time-critical cases. In that sense, Dragon
Anywhere isn’t quite there yet.
Even so, it’s the best game in town, and
we’re expecting big things from it over time.
We would be looking at something more in
the region of a one-off cost of a tenner
though, rather than £14.99 a month.
Chris Merriman
SPECIFICATIONS
OS SUPPORT iOS 8.1+/Android 4.4+ • DISK SPACE
(ANDROID EDITION) 13.79MB plus data and cache •
REQUIREMENTS Access to contacts, microphone, phone,
storage and Wi-Fi • DETAILS www.nuance.co.uk
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341
OPEN-WORLD ACTION RPG
UBISOFT
The Division
★★★★★
£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 into
New York themselves. Instead, any missions
appear on your (incredibly well-conceived and
hugely fancy) heads-up display.
Even the denizens of safe houses strewn
across post-apolocalyptic New York will only
place a bunch of small icons on your map for
minor quests. Each of these safe house desk
jockeys do have their own personality quirks,
which make for some amusing radio chatter,
but these aren’t their own personal missions,
and they don’t involve recognisable characters
who have identifiable problems.
In fact, all the missions in The Division
suffer from a lack of personality, a lack of
heart, and a lack of character – or, indeed,
Your mission is to save
New York, but it looks
like you might be too late
characters. Most missions simply boil down
to ‘go somewhere and kill something’.
BOOM TOWN
As an agent of the titular Division, you’re here
to save New York, but frankly it looks long
past saving. The population has been reduced
to a handful, with as many gun-toting lunatics
as survivors on the streets, and there’s a strict
line drawn between them. Civilians can’t be
robbed or shot for any effect, and they never
come to your aid or attack you if threatened.
The only grey area is stray dogs, as you can
shoot them for experience points or let them
wander on their way.
The Division requires an appreciation for looting and
shooting, plus an openness to playing nicely with others
Even the big missions and the big bad guys
don’t have cut scenes to introduce them, and
they don’t die with any particular visual
flourish. They chatter at you, they die, and you
move on to the next firefight. There are some
grander locations, such as the brilliant visual
spectacle of a department store on fire, but
they can’t make up for a lack of character.
However, though The Division may revel in
its grim-but-thin narrative, the core gameplay
is great fun. Playing alone at lower levels, it’s
pretty straightforward stuff: stay in cover, use
your abilities to heal yourself or hurl out a
sentry gun to distract your enemies and
occasionally make a quick dash to flank your
opponents or dodge an incoming grenade.
It’s not the most varied experience, even
with the range of skills and weapons on offer,
but it’s tightly designed and gunning down
enemy after enemy is strangely compelling.
You can switch out your skills and weapons
on the fly, so you can go from sniping and
healing to getting stuck in with a shotgun and
riot shield in an instant. There’s excellent
variation between the different weapons, too.
As you rise in levels, enemy AI gets
smarter and fights get tougher, and you’ll
need to act quickly to survive the more
elite opponents. Eventually, enlisting an
ally or two becomes near essential.
Hopefully, you’ll have friends to play with,
but the game can also match you with other
suitable players at safe houses or at the start
point of each major mission. What you won’t
find is other agents wandering the streets of
New York; you’re on your own unless you
choose otherwise, which makes the world
seem even emptier for those playing solo.
DISTRUST EXERCISE
All that changes in the Dark Zone, which runs
down the centre of The Division’s Manhattan.
Here, every player is fair game. You can shoot
allies in the back and then scoot with their
loot, but you must still exit the zone via a
chopper extraction in order to make use of
the gear you’ve stockpiled.
It’s not all dog eat dog, though. That loot
has to come from somewhere, and the Dark
Zone is populated by tougher AI enemies who
must go down before you can claim your
prize. Players are thus forced into uneasy
alliances, working together to take down a
greater foe, then trying to get out before
getting killed by rogue agents.
Enjoying The Division does require a
pre-existing appreciation for looting and
shooting, plus at least an openness to playing
nicely with others, but despite this and a few
oddities it remains a great game and,
technically speaking, a fantastic piece of
software engineering. Just don’t think for a
second that you’re going to do anything that
recognisably resembles saving New York.
Seth Barton
SPECIFICATIONS
AVAILABLE FORMATS Xbox One, PS4, PC • OS SUPPORT
Window 7, 8.1 and 10 (64-bit only) • MINIMUM CPU Intel
Core i5 or AMD FX-6100 • MINIMUM GPU Nvidia GeForce
GTX 560 or AMD Radeon HD 7770 with 2GB • MINIMUM
RAM 6GB • HARD DISK SPACE 40GB • DETAILS
tomclancy-thedivision.ubi.com/game/en-gb/home •
PRODUCT CODE B00BT9DURQ
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341
 Choosing a... PC system
01 A 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.
03 All modern PCs come with at
least a dual-core processor and
are capable of most tasks. Anyone who
peripherals attach to these ports. Most
new PCs come with the latest USB3 ports,
which provide faster data transfers when
regularly undertakes demanding tasks used with supported devices than the
such as video editing and encoding older USB2 standard.
should consider a quad-core or even a
hex-core processor.
06 Most new PCs now come with
Windows 10 pre-installed. Don’t
04 There are plenty of good reasons to
upgrade the PC’s memory or hard
disk. If you’ll use your PC for gaming, video
be too easily swayed by the inclusion of
other software, though, as it may be that
you’ll never use it.

02 If 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.
editing or other demanding tasks, you’ll
need at least 8GB of RAM and a large hard
disk; 1TB should suffice. Many new PCs have
an SSD, which speeds up the time it takes for
your PC to boot and programs to load.
05 Having plenty of USB ports is
always useful, as most computer
07 While most PCs come in cases
of a similar size, some have more
compact mini tower or mini PC cases.
These smaller PCs will fit under your TV
or on your desk more easily, but bear in
mind that they’re significantly harder to
upgrade than full-size machines.

PCs
LENOVO Ideacentre 700 YOYOTECH Warbird RS10
★★★★★ NEW ★★★★★
ENTRY
£700 • www.pcworld.co.uk £640 • www.yoyotech.co.uk
This all-in-one If you’re after the
combines a fast complete package,
processor, a Yoyotech has
massive 2TB hark disk, depth- managed to squeeze in everything
sensing Intel RealSense camera you’ll need for a gaming PC, including a powerful quad-core CPU,
and a huge range of connectivity mid-range graphics and a decent monitor. Yoyotech has also
ports, all for far less cash than a updated the chassis and motherboard since our review.
comparable iMac.
PROCESSOR Quad-core 4.4GHz Intel Core i5-6600K (overclocked) • RAM 8GB • FRONT USB
6400 • RAM 8GB • SIDE USB PORTS 2x USB3 •
PROCESSOR Quad-core 2.7GHz Intel Core i5-6400 PORTS 2x USB3 • REAR USB PORTS 6x USB3 • TOTAL STORAGE 1TB hard disk • GRAPHICS
REAR USB PORTS 2x USB2, 2x USB3 • TOTAL STORAGE 2TB hard disk • GRAPHICS CARD 2GB CARD 2GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 • DISPLAY 22in Iiyama ProLite E2283HS • OPERATING
Nvidia GeForce GT 930A • OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 10 Home • WARRANTY One year RTB SYSTEM Windows 10 Home • WARRANTY Three year (one year parts & labour RTB, two years
• DETAILS www.lenovo.com/uk • PART CODE F0BE001FUK • FULL REVIEW May 2016 labour RTB) • DETAILS www.yoyotech.co.uk • PART CODE ER0815WRS10 FULL REVIEW Nov 2015

SCAN 3XS Z170 APPLE 27in iMac with 5K

Performance GTK6 Retina Display
★★★★★ ★★★★★
£1,031 • www.scan.co.uk/3xs £1,599 • www.apple.com/uk
An incredibly powerful Skylake It’s not often Apple
system that can cope with just represents best-in-class
about any desktop task, and can handle gaming at value, but the 5K iMac is an exception. It has the
2,560x1,440. The Z170 motherboard is future-proof too, with USB 3.1 best screen we’ve seen on an all-in-one, along with the best
and an M.2 slot for PCI-Express storage. processor performance and some handy graphics capabilities.

PROCESSOR Quad-core 4.6GHz Intel Core i5-6600K (overclocked) • RAM 8GB • FRONT USB PORTS
4x USB3 • REAR USB PORTS 2x USB3.1, 1x USB Type-C, 2x USB2 • TOTAL STORAGE 256GB SSD,
1TB hard disk • GRAPHICS CARD 4GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 • OPERATING SYSTEM Windows
10 Home • WARRANTY Three years parts cover: first year onsite, years two and three RTB •
DETAILS www.scan.co.uk/3xs • PART CODE Performance Z170 GTK6 • FULL REVIEW Nov 2015
PROCESSOR Quad-core 3.2GHz Intel Core i5-6500 • RAM 8GB • FRONT USB PORTS 0 •
REAR USB PORTS 4x USB3 • TOTAL STORAGE 1TB fusion drive • GRAPHICS CARD AMD
Radeon R9 M390 • DISPLAY Apple 27in integrated • OPERATING SYSTEM Apple OS X 10.11
El Capitan • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.apple.com/uk • PART CODE 27-inch
iMac • FULL REVIEW Feb 2016

58 JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

Choosing a... Laptop
01 A 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.
that weighs less than 2kg. For the best
portability, buy one that has an 11in or 13in
screen. In general, the smaller and lighter the
will do the job, but if you want better
performance, you should look for an
Intel Core i5 or Core i7 model instead. We
laptop, the more expensive it is, especially if recommend a minimum of 4GB of RAM,
it has plenty of processing power. although 8GB is better for multitasking.
04 Battery life is extremely important
for a laptop, particularly if you’ll be
carrying it around. We’d expect all but the
06 Most budget and mid-range laptops
use a mechanical hard disk for
storage. You’ll want at least 500GB, but

02 If 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.
biggest and heaviest to last for at least five
hours on a single charge, but for an ultra-
portable that you carry everywhere, eight
1TB or more is better. Solid-state drives
(SSDs) have faster performance, making
your computer quicker to boot and more
hours and above is more desirable. responsive. They have lower capacities,
though. You’ll need at least 128GB.
05 Laptops use mobile versions of
processors to conserve power,
and these lag behind desktop chips when 07 Netbooks are a type of small,
low-cost ultra-portable laptop.

03 If you want a laptop that you can

take everywhere, look for a model
it comes to performance. For a budget
Windows laptop, an Intel Core i3 processor
They’re fine for light use, but avoid them if
you want to do complicated tasks.

LAPTOPS
MICROSOFT Surface Book DELL XPS 15
★★★★★ ★★★★★
£2,249 • www.johnlewis.com £1,599 • www.dell.co.uk
Microsoft’s first laptop combines The new Dell XPS 15
a superb display and powerful is the ultimate
components to create Windows 10
one of our favourite Windows laptops laptop. From its superbly vibrant and
in some time. The eye-watering price is a accurate InfintyEdge touchscreen display to its
sticking point, but is worth it if you opt for the top-notch performance, it’s the new laptop to beat and even puts
discrete Nvidia GPU. Apple’s 15in MacBook Pro to shame.

PROCESSOR Dual-core 2.6GHz Intel Core i7-6600U • RAM 16GB • DIMENSIONS 312x232x23mm
• WEIGHT 1.6kg • SCREEN SIZE 13.5in • SCREEN RESOLUTION 3,000x2,000 • GRAPHICS
ADAPTOR Unspecified Nvidia GeForce GPU • TOTAL STORAGE 512GB SSD • OPERATING
SYSTEM Windows 10 Pro • PARTS AND LABOUR WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS
www.microsoft.com/surface • PART NUMBER Surface Book • FULL REVIEW May 2016
PROCESSOR Quad-core 2.6GHz Intel Core i7-6700HQ • RAM 16GB • DIMENSIONS
357x235x17mm • WEIGHT 2kg • SCREEN SIZE 15.6in • SCREEN RESOLUTION 3,840x2,160 •
GRAPHICS ADAPTOR Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M • TOTAL STORAGE 512GB SSD • OPERATING
SYSTEM Windows 10 Home • PARTS AND LABOUR WARRANTY One year next business day •
DETAILS www.dell.co.uk • PART NUMBER BNX5515 • FULL REVIEW Apr 2016

ACER MSI GE72 6QF Apache Pro

Chromebook R 11 ★★★★★
★★★★★ £1,170 • www.saveonlaptops.co.uk
£230 • www.currys.co.uk The MSI GE72 6QF Apache
Pro is an eminently
The Acer powerful gaming
Chromebook laptop with top specifications, including
R 11 is the most attractive the latest Intel Skylake processor. There’s a
and practical budget Chromebook you can buy, with top-notch Nvidia GeForce 970M graphics card,
exceptional build quality, top processing and a lovely display. which can tackle even the most taxing games.

PROCESSOR Dual-core 1.6GHz Intel Celeron N3050 • RAM 2GB • DIMENSIONS 20x295x203mm •
WEIGHT 1.2kg • SCREEN SIZE 11.6in • SCREEN RESOLUTION 1,366x768 • GRAPHICS ADAPTOR Intel
HD Graphics • TOTAL STORAGE 16GB eMMC • OPERATING SYSTEM Chrome OS • PARTS AND
LABOUR WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.acer.co.uk • PART NUMBER ND.20411.07Q •
FULL REVIEW Apr 2016
PROCESSOR Quad-core 2.6GHz Intel Core i7-6700HQ • RAM 16GB • DIMENSIONS
383x260x27mm • WEIGHT 2.7kg • SCREEN SIZE 17.3in • SCREEN RESOLUTION 1.920x1,080 •
GRAPHICS ADAPTOR Nvidia GeForce GTX 970M • TOTAL STORAGE 128GB SSD, 1TB hard disk •
OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 10 Home • PARTS AND LABOUR WARRANTY Two years collect &
return • DETAILS uk.msi.com • PART CODE GE72 6QF-014UK • FULL REVIEW Feb 2016

ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016 59

 Choosing a... Smartphone
01 A smartphone’s operating system
(OS) dictates its basic features and
which third-party software you can install.
pages. Don’t worry too much about built-in
media players or Office document editors;
you can always install apps to replace these
variety of custom onscreen keyboards so
you can find one that suits you.

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.
with better versions later.
The image quality of smartphone cameras
has improved tremendously in recent years,
and resolutions have increased to as high as
20 megapixels.
03 Very few modern smartphones have a
physical keyboard for entering text;
they almost exclusively use touchscreens
04 Be careful when choosing a contract.
Look for one that includes a large
data allowance if you want to use the
internet regularly or you’ve set your phone
to synchronise your contacts, calendar and
email through online services.
Built-in Wi-Fi can help you avoid high data
charges by connecting to the internet
through wireless hotspots when you’re out,

02 All 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
now. Physical keyboards can aid heavy
emailing, but today’s touchscreen keyboards
work just as well.
Android smartphones and iPhones
running iOS 8 or 9 allow you to install a
or your router when you’re at home. Android
and iPhone handsets can operate as wireless
hotspots, letting you connect your laptop to
the web over your mobile data connection.
There may be an extra charge for this.

SMARTPHONES
SONY Xperia Z5 Compact SAMSUNG Galaxy S7 NEW
ENTRY
★★★★★ ★★★★★
£380 SIM-free; free on £24-per-month contract £569 SIM-free; free on £40-per-month contract •
• www.johnlewis.com (SIM-free); www.carphonewarehouse.com
store.virginmedia.com (contract)
Samsung’s latest flagship is the best
With its excellent screen, superb Android smartphone money can buy. It’s
performance, long battery life and not cheap, but you get superb build quality, an
great camera, the Z5 Compact is excellent display, top-tier performance and outstanding battery life.
the complete pint-sized package.
PROCESSOR Quad-core 2.3GHz Samsung Exynos 8890 • SCREEN SIZE 5.1in • SCREEN
PROCESSOR Octa-core 2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 • SCREEN SIZE 4.6in • SCREEN RESOLUTION 2,560x1,440 • REAR CAMERA 12 megapixels • STORAGE 32GB/64GB •
RESOLUTION 1,280x720 • REAR CAMERA 23 megapixels • STORAGE 32GB • WIRELESS WIRELESS DATA 4G • DIMENSIONS 142x70x7.9mm • WEIGHT 152g • OPERATING SYSTEM
DATA 4G • DIMENSIONS 127x65x8.9mm • WEIGHT 138g • OPERATING SYSTEM Android 5.1 • Android 6.0 • WARRANTY One-year RTB • DETAILS wwww.samsung.com/uk • PART CODE
DETAILS www.sonymobile.com • PART CODE E5823 • FULL REVIEW May 2016 SM-G930F • FULL REVIEW Jun 2016

MOTOROLA Moto X Force GOOGLE Nexus 5X

★★★★★ ★★★★★
£480 SIM-free; free on £31.50-per-month contract • £300 SIM-free; free on £25-per-month contract •
www.carphonewarehouse.com (SIM-free), www.carphonewarehouse (SIM-free), www.idmobile.co.uk
www.idmobile.co.uk (contract) (contract)

With its incredible shatterproof display,
you need never worry about dropping
BEST BUY
your phone ever again with the Moto X
Force. It also has great battery life and a super-fast processor.
PROCESSOR Octa-core 2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 • SCREEN SIZE 5.4in • SCREEN
RESOLUTION 2,560x1,440 • REAR CAMERA 21 megapixels • STORAGE 32GB • WIRELESS
DATA 4G • DIMENSIONS 150x78x7.6mm • WEIGHT 169g • OPERATING SYSTEM Android 5.1
DETAILS www.motorola.co.uk • PART CODE XT1580 • FULL REVIEW Mar 2016
It might not be the prettiest phone
around, but the Nexus 5X is quick, has a great
camera and comes with Android 6.0 Marshmallow.
PROCESSOR Hexa-core 1.8GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 • SCREEN SIZE 5.2in •
SCREEN RESOLUTION 1,920x1,080 • REAR CAMERA 12.3 megapixels • STORAGE 16GB •
WIRELESS DATA 4G • DIMENSIONS 147x73x7.9mm • WEIGHT 136g • OPERATING SYSTEM
• Android 6.0 • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.google.com/nexus/5x • PART CODE
Nexus 5X • FULL REVIEW Feb 2016

ONEPLUS 2 MOTOROLA Moto G (3rd Gen)

★★★★★ ★★★★★
£249 (SIM-free only) • oneplus.net/uk £132 SIM-free; free on £13.50-per-month contract •
www.amazon.co.uk (SIM-free),
Now cheaper than ever, the OnePlus www.carphonewarehouse.com (contract)
2 is a fantastic flagship smartphone
at a rock-bottom price. You won’t The 3rd Gen Moto G has an improved
find anything faster for less, and its camera is superb. camera, longer battery life and an
all-new design, making it our go-to
budget smartphone.
PROCESSOR Octa-core 1.8GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 • SCREEN SIZE 5.5in •
SCREEN RESOLUTION 1,920x1,080 • REAR CAMERA 13 megapixels • STORAGE 64GB • PROCESSOR Quad-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 • SCREEN SIZE 5in • SCREEN
WIRELESS DATA 4G • DIMENSIONS 152x75x9.9mm • WEIGHT 175g • OPERATING SYSTEM RESOLUTION 1,280x720 • REAR CAMERA 13 megapixels • STORAGE 8GB • WIRELESS DATA 4G •
OxygenOS (Android 5.1) • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS oneplus.net/uk • DIMENSIONS 142x72x6.1mm • WEIGHT 155g • OPERATING SYSTEM Android 5.1.1 • DETAILS
PART CODE OnePlus 2 • FULL REVIEW Apr 2016 www.motorola.co.uk • PART CODE XT1541 • FULL REVIEW Dec 2015

60 JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

 Choosing a... Tablet
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.
starting to see tablets that have even higher
screen resolutions. Some are as high as
2,560x1,600 or even 4K. Entry-level tablets
04 Tablets rarely include a SIM card slot.
This means you’ll have to rely on
Wi-Fi to get online, although some tablets
typically use TN panels, which don’t have let you access the internet through your
particularly good viewing angles. The viewing smartphone. If you want mobile access to
angles of IPS panels are much better. the internet, look for 3G- and 4G-ready
devices. These almost always cost more
03 If you want to listen to music, watch
films and play games, make sure your
tablet has plenty of storage. Many tablets
than Wi-Fi-only models but they’re great
if you use your tablet while commuting
or travelling.
come with 8GB or 16GB of internal storage,

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
although some budget models have less.
You’ll typically pay more for a higher storage
capacity. Many tablets also have microSD
slots that let you add extra storage, although
you won’t find one on an iPad. This is a cheap
way of boosting storage capacity.
05 Your choice of tablet determines the
apps you can use on it. You may find
that some of the apps you want are available
on iOS but not Android and vice versa.
Windows 10, meanwhile, runs traditional
desktop applications.

TABLETS
SONY Xperia Z4 Tablet NVIDIA Shield Tablet K1
★★★★★ ★★★★★
£450 • www.expansys.com £150 • www.ebuyer.com NEW
ENTRY
It’s expensive, but the Z4 Tablet is a stunning bit of An immensely powerfulful
kit. It’s lighter than the iPad Air 2, has a super-high- Nvidia Tegra K1 processor
resolution screen with the most acccurate colours makes this 8in device not just
we’ve seen from an LCD panel, runs Android 5 beautifully and has the best tablet for serious gaming, but one of the best
the longest battery life of any tablet we’ve tested. sub-£200 slates on the market. Battery life is surprisingly good, too.

PROCESSOR Octa-core 2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 • SCREEN SIZE 10.1in • SCREEN
RESOLUTION 2,560x1,600 • REAR CAMERA 8.1 megapixels • STORAGE 32GB • WIRELESS DATA
4G (optional) • DIMENSIONS 167x254x6.1mm • WEIGHT 389g • OPERATING SYSTEM Android 5 •
WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.sonymobile.com • PART CODE Xperia Z4 Tablet •
FULL REVIEW Aug 2015
PROCESSOR Quad-core 2.2GHz 64-bit Nvidia Tegra K1 • SCREEN SIZE 8in • SCREEN RESOLUTION
1,920x1,080 • REAR CAMERA 8 megapixels • STORAGE 16GB • WIRELESS DATA No •
DIMENSIONS 221x126x9.2mm • WEIGHT 390g • OPERATING SYSTEM Android 5.1 •
WARRANTY Two years RTB • DETAILS shield.nvidia.co.uk/tablet/k1 • PART CODE Shield Tablet K1
• FULL REVIEW Jun 2016

APPLE iPad Air 2 MICROSOFT Surface Pro 4

★★★★★ ★★★★★
£349 • www.apple.com/uk From £749 (£1,079 as reviewed) • NEW
ENTRY
www.microsoftstore.com
The iPad Air 2 is even thinner and
lighter than its predecessor and The most compelling ‘laptop replacement’ tablet yet.
still feels beautifully made. It’s Thinner, powerful and equipped with a gorgeous
the fastest iPad yet, and now has TouchID screen, this is a fantastic Windows 10 tablet. The
fingerprint recognition for added security and Surface Pen and optional Type Cover have been improved as well.
more convenient unlocking.
PROCESSOR Dual-core 2.4GHz Intel Core i5-6300U • SCREEN SIZE 12.3in • SCREEN RESOLUTION
PROCESSOR Tri-core 1.5GHz Apple A8X • SCREEN SIZE 9.7in • SCREEN RESOLUTION 2,048x1,536 2,736x1,824 • REAR CAMERA 8 megapixels • STORAGE 256GB • WIRELESS DATA No •
• REAR CAMERA 8 megapixels • STORAGE 16GB • WIRELESS DATA 4G (optional) • DIMENSIONS DIMENSIONS 292x201x8mm • WEIGHT 1.37kg inc Type Cover and power brick • OPERATING
240x170x6.1mm • WEIGHT 437g • OPERATING SYSTEM iOS 9 • WARRANTY One year RTB • SYSTEM Windows 10 • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.microsoft.com/surface •
PART CODE Apple iPad Air 2 • DETAILS www.apple.com/uk • FULL REVIEW Feb 2015 PART CODE Surface Pro 4 • FULL REVIEW Jun 2016

LENOVO Yoga Tab 3 SAMSUNG Galaxy Tab S2 9.7

★★★★★ ★★★★★
£150 • www.pcworld.co.uk NEW £370 • www.currys.co.uk
ENTRY
A superb-value multi-purpose Thanks to its amazing
tablet with a unique rotating camera and d screen, strong performance
surprisingly high-qualiy speakers. It’s not the most and slimline chassis, the
powerful handheld around, but its integrated kickstand makes it Galaxy Tab S2 9.7 is the most desirable
ideal for watching video. Android tablet you can buy for around £400.

PROCESSOR Quad-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 212 • SCREEN SIZE 8in • SCREEN
RESOLUTION 1,200x800 • REAR CAMERA 8 megapixels • STORAGE 16GB • DIMENSIONS
146x7x210mm • WEIGHT 420g • OPERATING SYSTEM Android 5.1 • WARRANTY One year RTB •
DETAILS www.lenovo.com/uk • PART CODE 146591 • FULL REVIEW Jun 2016
PROCESSOR Octa-core 1.9GHz + 1.3GHz Samsung Exynos Octa 5433 • SCREEN SIZE 9.7in •
SCREEN RESOLUTION 2,048x1,536 • REAR CAMERA 8 megapixels • STORAGE 32GB •
WIRELESS DATA 4G (+£90) • DIMENSIONS 169x5.6x237mm • WEIGHT 389g • OPERATING
SYSTEM Android 5.0.2 • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.samsung.com/uk •
PART CODE SM-T810 • FULL REVIEW Dec 2015

62 JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

 Choosing a... Digital camera
01 A basic digital camera will suit
someone who wants to take pictures
to view on their computer and create 7x5in
check our reviews to find out how a
particular model performs.
921,000-dot resolutions for a sharper picture.
A touchscreen is useful for moving the
autofocus point.
prints. It should cost around £80, but there
may be hidden downsides such as slow
performance and very basic user controls.
03 A 3x zoom lens provides you with
reasonable scope for framing your
shots, but a larger range can do wonders 05 Leave some room in your budget for a
memory card, as the bundled memory
for your photography. Most compact provided with a camera is never enough. A

02 Spend a little more and you’ll get a

higher resolution. A 16-megapixel
sensor has the potential to produce sharp
cameras can manage a 5x zoom, while
pocket-size ultra-zoom cameras can
provide 24x zoom ranges.
16GB card costs less than £10. You may also
need to buy batteries.

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
Numbers such as 28-105mm tell you the
wide-angle and telephoto limits of the zoom
range. Big zooms require optical image
stabilisation to avoid blur due to camera
shake when zoomed right in.
04 Most cameras now have a 3in screen.
Look out for 460,000-dot or
06 Don’t forget that a camera’s
specification tells you very little
about its image quality. You’ll need to read
our reviews for that. With a compact
camera, we believe the user shouldn’t have
to grapple with complicated controls in
order to take great pictures in a range of
lighting conditions.

PHOTOGRAPHY
NEW
PANASONIC Lumix DMC-G7 FUJIFILM X70 ENTRY
★★★★★ ★★★★★
£500 (inc. 46mm kit lens) • £549 • www.jessops.com
www.parkcameras.com
The X70 is an unusual
With sophisticated autofocus, mix of retro and modern design with its exposure
superb controls and 4K video capture, the Panasonic dials and articulated touchscreen, but its great image
G7 packs a serious punch for both video and stills. quality, good price and charming looks is a winning combination.

SENSOR RESOLUTION 16 megapixels • SENSOR SIZE 17.3x13mm • FOCAL LENGTH MULTIPLIER
2x • VIEWFINDER Electronic (2,360,000 dots) • LCD SCREEN 3in (1,040,000 dots) • OPTICAL
ZOOM (35mm-EQUIVALENT FOCAL LENGTHS) 3x (28-84mm) • 35mm-EQUIVALENT APERTURE
f/7-11.2 • LENS MOUNT Micro Four Thirds • WEIGHT 525g • DIMENSIONS 87x135x108mm •
WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.panasonic.com/uk • FULL REVIEW Nov 2015
SENSOR RESOLUTION 16 megapixels • SENSOR SIZE 23.6x15.6mm (APS-C) • FOCAL LENGTH
MULTIPLIER 1.5x • VIEWFINDER None • LCD SCREEN 3in (1,040,000 dots) • OPTICAL ZOOM
(35mm-EQUIVALENT FOCAL LENGTHS) 1x (28mm) • 35mm-EQUIVALENT APERTURE f/4.2 •
LENS MOUNT Fujifilm X Mount • WEIGHT 349g • DIMENSIONS 66x125x47mm •
WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.fujifilm.eu/uk • FULL REVIEW Jun 2016

PANASONIC Lumix DMC-FZ330 CANON EOS 750D

★★★★★ ★★★★★
£449 (inc £50 cashback) • www.wexphotographic.com £529 (with 18-55mm kit lens) • www.currys.co.uk
A bridge camera with a huge The new mainstay of Canon’s SLR
25-600mm zoom range that line-up has better autofocus,
maintains a fast F2.8 aperture D5500-beating image quality
across the whole focal range. and decent video. It’s the mid-range SLR to buy.

SENSOR RESOLUTION 12 megapixels • SENSOR SIZE 1/2.3in • VIEWFINDER Electronic (1,440,000
dots) • LCD SCREEN 3in (1,040,000 dots) • OPTICAL ZOOM (35mm-EQUIVALENT FOCAL
LENGTHS) 24x (25-600mm) • 35mm-EQUIVALENT APERTURE f/15.6 • WEIGHT 703g •
DIMENSIONS 93x133x122mm • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.panasonic.com/uk •
FULL REVIEW Jan 2016
SENSOR RESOLUTION 24 megapixels • SENSOR SIZE 22.3x14.9mm (APS-C) •
FOCAL LENGTH MULTIPLIER 1.6x • VIEWFINDER Optical • LCD SCREEN 3in • OPTICAL ZOOM
(35mm-EQUIVALENT FOCAL LENGTHS) 3x (29-88mm) • 35mm-EQUIVALENT APERTURE f/5.6-9
• LENS MOUNT Canon EF-S • WEIGHT 771g • DIMENSIONS 104x132x148mm • WARRANTY One
year RTB • DETAILS www.canon.co.uk • FULL REVIEW Oct 2015

NEW
CANON G9 X ENTRY NIKON D7200
★★★★★ ★★★★★
£357 • www.wexphotographic.com £714 (body only) • www.jessops.com
A tiny compact that can keep Best-in-class image quality
up with heavier SLRs and CSCs whe
when and sublime ergonomics take
it comes to image quality, while squeezing in all the the Nikon D7200 to the top of
shooting settings and features you’ll need. the pack for enthusiast DSLRs, whether you’ve already
invested in the Nikon ecosystem or not.
SENSOR RESOLUTION 20 megapixels • SENSOR SIZE 1in • FOCAL LENGTH MULTIPLIER 2.75x •
VIEWFINDER None • LCD SCREEN 3in (1,040,000 dots) • OPTICAL ZOOM (35mm-EQUIVALENT SENSOR RESOLUTION 24 megapixels • SENSOR SIZE 23.5x15.6mm (APS-C) • FOCAL LENGTH
FOCAL LENGTHS) 3x (28-84mm) • 35mm-EQUIVALENT APERTURE f/5.5-13.5 • WEIGHT 207g • MULTIPLIER 1.5x • VIEWFINDER Optical TTL • LCD SCREEN 3.2in (1,229,000 dots) • LENS
DIMENSIONS 62x101x31mm • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.canon.co.uk • MOUNT Nikon F Mount • WEIGHT 765g • DIMENSIONS 107x136x76mm • WARRANTY Two years
FULL REVIEW Jun 2016 RTB • DETAILS www.europe-nikon.com • FULL REVIEW Aug 2015

64 JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

Choosing a... Display
01 A basic 24in LCD monitor costs
around £100. It will be fine for typical
Windows work but is likely to have poor
Many DVI and all HDMI connections
support HDCP, which lets you watch
protected video content, such as Blu-ray
cable or either HDMI or DisplayPort to use a
monitor at these resolutions.

viewing angles, so you’ll need to sit straight

on for the best picture quality. Its colour
accuracy may not be very good, either.
movies. DisplayPort is becoming more
popular, but you’ll need a graphics card with
a DisplayPort output (mini or full-size) to
04 If you want better picture quality,
look for a monitor with a high
contrast ratio. The higher the ratio, the
use this input on your monitor. whiter the whites and the blacker the blacks.

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-to-
digital 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.
03 A larger monitor will be easier on the
eye and may have a higher resolution.
Most monitors have a resolution of at least
1,920x1,080 (1080p), which provides lots of
room for working with multiple windows at
the same time. For even higher resolutions,
you’ll need a larger display. Some 27in and
30in screens have 2,560x1,600 or even 4K
resolutions. You’ll need a graphics card with
a dual-link DVI output and a dual-link DVI
You’ll also be able to see more fine detail in
images with high contrast levels. Viewing
angles are important, as wider angles mean
you don’t have to sit directly in front of the
monitor to get the best picture. Wider
viewing angles also allow more people to
view the screen at the same time.
Fast response times reduce ghosting,
but don’t be dazzled by the numbers. A
response time of 25ms or quicker is fine
for all applications.

DISPLAYS
BENQ GW2765HT VIEWSONIC VX2363Smhl-W
★★★★★ ★★★★★
£277 • www.ebuyer.com £115 • www.dabs.com
This 27in 2,560x1,440 The 23in VX2363Smhl-W
IPS monitor is one of stands out from the crowd
the best-value screens with its white stand, IPS
we’ve ever seen. With near-perfect screen and great overall image quality.
sRGB colour accuracy out of the box, It’s a good budget buy for those who have
it’s a steal for less than £300. modest needs.
SCREEN SIZE 27in • RESOLUTION 2,560x1,440 • SCREEN TECHNOLOGY IPS • VIDEO INPUTS SCREEN SIZE 23in • RESOLUTION 1,920x1,080 • SCREEN TECHNOLOGY IPS • VIDEO INPUTS
VGA, DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort • WARRANTY Two years onsite • PART CODE 9H.LCELA.TBE • VGA, HDMI, MHL-compatible HDMI • WARRANTY Two years collect and return • PART CODE
DETAILS www.benq.co.uk • FULL REVIEW Jan 2015 VX2363Smhl-W • DETAILS www.viewsoniceurope.com • FULL REVIEW Jan 2015

IIYAMA ProLite GB2488HSU-B1 ASUS PB279Q

★★★★★ ★★★★★
£213 • www.box.co.uk £569 • www.laptopsdirect.co.uk
Gamers need look no If you’re remotely serious
further than the Iiyama about design, photography y or
ProLite GB2488HSU-B1. gaming and want an Ultra HD
It’s a no-nonsense Full HD panel with a n to
screen, this is the monitor to choose. It’s plain
144Hz refresh rate for lightning-fast look at and has no USB hub, but in terms of pure image quality,
games performance. nothing beats it at this price.
SCREEN SIZE 24in • RESOLUTION 1,920x1,080 • SCREEN TECHNOLOGY TN • VIDEO INPUTS 2x SCREEN SIZE 27in • RESOLUTION 3,840x2,160 • SCREEN TECHNOLOGY AHVA • REFRESH RATE
HDMI, DVI, DisplayPort • WARRANTY Two years onsite • PART CODE ProLite GB2488HSU-B1 • 60Hz • VIDEO INPUTS 4x HDMI, DisplayPort, Mini DisplayPort • WARRANTY Three years RTB •
DETAILS www.iiyama.com • FULL REVIEW Aug 2014 DETAILS www.asus.com/uk • FULL REVIEW Apr 2015

SAMSUNG S32D850T AOC U3477PQU

★★★★★ ★★★★★
£375 • www.laptopsdirect.co.uk £500 • www.currys.co.uk
It’s not cheap, but this Ultra-wide monitors are
32in monitor is actually best suited to those who
great value. Images are want to multitask on
sharp and vibrant on its 2,560x1,440 two full-size windows at once, but also kick back with a film or game
panel, and the stand is among the most in the evening. AOC’s U3477PQU is the best example we’ve seen so
attractive we’ve seen. far, with an incredible panel and excellent build quality.
SCREEN SIZE 32in • RESOLUTION 2,560x1,440 • SCREEN TECHNOLOGY VA • VIDEO INPUTS SCREEN SIZE 34in • RESOLUTION 3,840x1,440 • SCREEN TECHNOLOGY IPS • REFRESH RATE
HDMI, DVI, DisplayPort • WARRANTY Two years collect and return • PART CODE S32D850T • 60Hz • VIDEO INPUTS DisplayPort, DVI, HDMI, VGA • WARRANTY Three years RTB • DETAILS
DETAILS www.samsung.com/uk • FULL REVIEW Jan 2015 www.aoc-europe.com • FULL REVIEW May 2015

ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016 65

 Choosing a... TV
01 A 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.
03 Consider the number of inputs
you’ll need to connect the rest of
your equipment. Two HDMI ports should be
and the brightest shades that the screen
will be able to display. The higher the
number, the darker the blacks and the
the bare minimum, but many TV sets come brighter the whites. A screen with a high
with four HDMI connectors. You’ll need contrast ratio is more likely to show a
HDMI 2.0 if you want a future-proof 4K TV, wider range of detail.
as this is the only way to get 60fps video
playback from external sources at such
a high resolution.
If you want to plug a PC into your TV,
05 HD content is now becoming fairly
widespread, but if you want Ultra
HD content your options are more limited.

02 A 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.
you’ll need to use either HDMI or VGA
inputs. Be aware that some TVs only let you
use a PC on an analogue input, and others
won’t display the Windows desktop at the
TV’s highest resolution.
04 The contrast ratio tells you the
difference between the darkest
Most Ultra HD TVs have Netflix built into
their smart TV systems, but only BT is
currently providing live Ultra HD video,
with BT Sport Ultra HD.
Ultra HD Blu-ray players are due to arrive
in 2016, but in the meantime Amazon’s Fire
TV set-top box will stream its Instant Video
service at Ultra HD resolutions.

HOME CINEMA
PANASONIC TX-55CX700B SAMSUNG UE32J6300
★★★★★ ★★★★★
£879 • www.currys.co.uk £315 • www.hillsradio.co.uk
Even before Currys It might look expensive for
slashed the price by £100, the screen size, but the
this was a great-value TV. UE32J6300 is jam-packed with
Outstanding 4K and Full HD image quality, features, including one of the best smart TV systems
a great smart TV operating system and a brilliant line-up of around and every major UK catch-up TV service. It’s the ideal
streaming and catch-up services make this TV a no-brainer. small TV for a bedroom, kitchen or office.
SCREEN SIZE 55in • NATIVE RESOLUTION 3,840x2,160 • VIDEO INPUTS 3x HDMI (2x ARC), SCART, SCREEN SIZE 32in • NATIVE RESOLUTION 1,920x1,080 • VIDEO INPUTS 4x HDMI, component,
component, composite • TUNER Freeview HD • DIMENSIONS 762x1,237x242mm • WARRANTY composite • TUNER Freeview HD • DIMENSIONS 428x370x91mm • WARRANTY One year RTB •
One year RTB • DETAILS www.panasonic.com • PART CODE TX-55CX700B FULL REVIEW Jan 2016 DETAILS www.samsung.com/uk • PART CODE UE32J6300AK • FULL REVIEW Dec 2015

SAMSUNG BD-J7500 LG LHB725

★★★★★ ★★★★★
£150 • www.currys.co.uk £329 • ao.com
4K upscaling, A 3D-capable
fantastic image home-cinema
quality and a wealth of surround system with a Blu-ray player that has
streaming service support makes the BD-J7500 so fantastic image quality and speakers that deliver powerful sound, all
much more than just a Blu-ray player: it can turn any TV into housed in an attractive package.
a smart one, or replace a streaming media stick.
HDMI INPUTS/OUTPUTS 2/1 • HDMI 2.0 INPUTS/OUTPUTS 2/1 • OUTPUT RESOLUTIONS 720p,
BLU-RAY PROFILE 5.0 • 3D CAPABLE Yes • DIMENSIONS 360x224x39mm • NETWORKING 1080p • WIRELESS SUPPORT 802.11n, Bluetooth • SPEAKER CONFIGURATION 5.1 •
Ethernet, 802.11ac Wi-Fi • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.samsung.com/uk • RMS POWER OUTPUT TOTAL 1,200W • DIMENSIONS 410x55x260mm • WARRANTY One year
PART CODE BD-J7500 • FULL REVIEW Nov 2015 RTB • DETAILS www.lg.com/uk • PART CODE LHB725 • FULL REVIEW Oct 2015

SONY HT-XT3 PHILIPS Fidelio XS1 SoundStage

★★★★★ ★★★★★
£349 • www.superfi.co.uk £360 • www.amazon.co.uk
The HT-XT3 is a classy-looking Stage
The Fidelio XS1 SoundStage
soundbase that delivers great audio, is a beautiful-looking
with its integrated subwoofer helping to soundbase with sound
pump out seismic bass. It also provides a degree of future-proofing quality that matches its stunning design. There
with its 4K pass-through support, and can be linked together with are plenty of connections, including Bluetooth, and the wireless
other Sony speakers for a multiroom audio setup. subwoofer delivers the lower frequencies with aplomb.
SPEAKERS 2+2 • RMS POWER OUTPUT 350W (total) • DIMENSIONS 750x358x83mm • WEIGHT SPEAKERS 3 • RMS POWER OUTPUT 60W • DIMENSIONS 730x331x40mm • WEIGHT 5.3kg •
10.5kg • DOCK CONNECTOR None • NETWORKING Bluetooth (SBC, LDAC) • WARRANTY One DOCK CONNECTOR None • NETWORKING Bluetooth (SBC, aptX, AAC) • WARRANTY One year
year RTB • DETAILS www.sony.co.uk • PART CODE HT-XT3 • FULL REVIEW Mar 2016 RTB • DETAILS www.philips.co.uk • PART CODE Fidelio XS1/12 • FULL REVIEW Jan 2016

66 JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

Choosing a... Bluetooth speaker
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.
AUDIO
PHILIPS Fidelio M2BT
★★★★★
£200 • www.amazon.co.uk
The Philips Fidelio M2BT
are premium Bluetooth
headphones that sound
great, look fantastic and are supremely
comfortable to wear. Battery life is pretty
reasonable, too, at around 10 hours.
HEADPHONES SUBTYPE On-ear Bluetooth • PLUG TYPE 3.5mm jack plug • WEIGHT 190g •
CABLE LENGTH 1.2m • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.philips.co.uk •
PART CODE Philips Fidelio M2BTBK • FULL REVIEW Apr 2015
RAZER Leviathan
★★★★★
£160 • www.box.co.uk
Soundbars are
usually built for
TVs, but Razer’s
Leviathan is ideal for sliding underneath a computer
monitor. It sounds great and is more than loud enough to fill a room.
It also has built-in Bluetooth streaming.
SPEAKERS 4 • RMS POWER OUTPUT 30W • WEIGHT 2kg (bar), 2.3kg (subwoofer) •
NETWORKING Bluetooth (SBC, aptX) • WARRANTY Two years RTB • DETAILS www.razerzone.
com • PART CODE RZ05-01260100-R3G1 • FULL REVIEW Jul 2015
GIBSON Trainer Ti100
ENTRY
★★★★★
£150 • www.johnlewis.com
Not only do the Trainer Ti100 sound
great and include handy little extras
such as NFC support and weather-
sealing, but they’re equipped specifically for runners;
an integrated LED, for instance, provides extra
visibility when jogging at night.
HEADPHONES SUBTYPE In-ear neckband • PLUG TYPE N/A • WEIGHT 100g • CABLE LENGTH
N/A • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.gibsoninnovations.com • PART CODE Trainer
Ti100 • FULL REVIEW May 2016
ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016
It’s hard to tell the difference when listening
to pocket-sized speakers, but if you’re
looking for a speaker to fill a room, an
Single-driver speakers with larger driver
cones can be just as capable of producing
fantastic audio, however.
aptX-compatible device is a better option.
This Bluetooth protocol retains more detail
than the A2DP profile, although you’ll need
to use it with a compatible smartphone in
04 Most Bluetooth speakers have at
least one auxiliary input for a wired
3.5mm audio jack, in case you want to
order to get the benefits. listen to music from a device that doesn’t
have Bluetooth.
03 As with any audio product, the
number and size of speaker drivers
can have a significant impact on the quality
There are other extra features to look out
for, though. Speakers with built-in batteries
may have a USB port for charging your
of sound you get from a Bluetooth speaker. smartphone, or a built-in microphone to turn
Typically, the presence of multiple drivers
enables the manufacturer to tune each one
for specific frequencies, directing high-end
it into a speakerphone when a paired
smartphone receives a call. Not all speakers
have physical controls; many rely on your
sounds towards a tweeter and sending the paired device’s controls for adjusting the
mid-range frequencies to the main driver. volume or muting playback.
RAUMFELD One S
★★★★★
£160 • uk.raumfeld.com
The One S is a great
compact speaker that
sounds great solo or even
better as a stereo pair, and it has a classy
design that matches its refined sound.
SPEAKERS 2 • RMS POWER OUTPUT 30W • DOCK CONNECTOR None • NETWORKING 802.11n
Wi-Fi, Ethernet • DIMENSIONS 180x110x130mm • WEIGHT 1.4kg • STREAMING FORMATS UPnP,
Mesh Network • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS uk.raumfeld.com • PART CODE One S •
FULL REVIEW Nov 2015
MONITOR AUDIO Airstream S150
★★★★★
£149 • www.superfi.co.uk
The Airstream S150 may have a
simple, unfussy charm, but it’s
absolutely capable of filling a room
with well-balanced sound. Straightforwad operation,
fantastic sound quality and an affordable price make
this a Best Buy.
SPEAKERS 3 • RMS POWER OUTPUT 60W • DOCK CONNECTOR None • WIRELESS Bluetooth
(SBC, aptX) • DIMENSIONS 137x120x274mm • WEIGHT 2.26kg • WARRANTY One year RTB •
DETAILS www.monitoraudio.co.uk • PART CODE S150 • FULL REVIEW May 2016
NEW
BOWERS & WILKINS
Zeppelin Wirelesss
★★★★★
£499 • www.johnlewis.com
An update to a design classic, the Zeppelin Wireless
improves on its predecessor with Bluetooth and a
sleeker design but retains its fantastic sound quality.
SPEAKERS 5 • RMS POWER OUTPUT 150W • DOCK CONNECTOR None • NETWORKING
Bluetooth (SBC, aptX), 802.11n Wi-Fi, Ethernet • DIMENSIONS 660x183x188mm • WEIGHT 6.5kg
• STREAMING FORMATS AirPlay, Bluetooth • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.
bowers-wilkins.co.uk • PART CODE Zeppelin Wireless • FULL REVIEW Feb 2016
67
 Choosing an... Action camera
01 Action cameras are typically much
smaller than a regular camcorder, as
they are designed to be mounted to a bike,
Keep an eye out for 4k/30, 1080p/60 and
720p/120 models for the widest possible
choice of resolutions and frame rates.
If you want to be able to see exactly
what you’re pointing the lens at, keep an
eye out for cameras with companion
board or car, or worn on your person. As the smartphone apps, or wrist-mounted
name suggests, they are designed primarily
for shooting action footage, but because of
their small size they are ideal for strapping
03 Most action cameras rely on flash
memory for storing your video,
letting you swap out memory cards on the
viewfinders that also let you start and
stop shooting remotely.

on to your pet’s collar or your children’s toys

for a different perspective.
fly when you fill one up with clips. More
expensive devices can have integrated
flash memory as well as a card slot, but
05 Action cameras typically have a huge
range of accessories, with specific
mounts and harnesses for different activities

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.
it’s typically cheaper to buy the basic
version of a camera and pick up memory
cards separately.
and sports. If the camera itself isn’t water
resistant, a weatherproof case will protect it
from the elements, while a tripod mount will
let you lock it firmly in place.
04 Not all action cameras have LCD
displays; in fact, many deliberately
don’t include a sceen in order to extend
Spare batteries are essential for longer
shoots, and some decent video-editing
software will help you to produce a more
battery life. polished result.

VIDEO
AMAZON Fire TV Stick GOPRO Hero4 Black
★★★★★ ★★★★★
£35 • www.amazon.co.uk £348 • www.argos.co.uk
This bargain media- The GoPro Hero4 Black doesn’t
streaming device excels for deviate from the existing GoPro
Amazon Prime subscribers. template but it’s an excellent action camera
Even if you’re not, you’ll get good mileage out of it with platforms that introduces stunning 4K video at 30fps. You also get support
such as Plex. It’s our favourite discrete streaming device. for a wide range of mounts and accessories.

VIDEO OUTPUTS HDMI 1.4 • NETWORKING 802.11n • DIMENSIONS 115x115x17mm • SENSOR 1/2.3in CMOS • SENSOR PIXELS 12,000,000 • MAX RECORDING RESOLUTION 4K
STREAMING FORMATS UPnP, AirPlay, DLNA • INTERNET STREAMING SERVICES iPlayer, Netflix, (30fps) • AV CONNECTIONS Micro HDMI output, 3.5mm microphone to Mini USB (optional) •
Sky News, Spotify, TuneIn Radio, Amazon Instant Video, TVPlayer • WARRANTY One year RTB • DIMENSIONS 41x59x30mm • WEIGHT 89g (152g with housing) • WARRANTY One year RTB •
DETAILS www.amazon.co.uk • PART CODE Fire TV Stick • FULL REVIEW Aug 2015 PART CODE CHDHX-4-1-EU • DETAILS www.gopro.com • FULL REVIEW May 2015

HUMAX HDR-1100S 500GB VEHO Muvi K2 NPNG

★★★★★ ★★★★★
£190 • www.johnlewis.com £200 • www.amazon.co.uk
The Humax The K2 packs in plenty of
HDR-1100S is action camera features
an attractive for a budget price, and
Freesat+ PVR that’s easy to use comes with a generous number of accessories,
and integrates catch-up TV seamlessly including a useful hard transport case. Image
through Freetime. quality is very respectable, too.
TUNERS 2x DVB-S2 Freesat • DIMENSIONS 280x48x200mm • NETWORKING Gigabit Ethernet, SENSOR PIXELS 16,000,000 • MAX RECORDING RESOLUTION 1080p (60fps) • AV
802.11n Wi-Fi • INTERNAL DISK CAPACITY 500GB • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS CONNECTIONS Mini HDMI • DIMENSIONS 40x23x60mm • WEIGHT 84g • WARRANTY One year
www.humaxdirect.co.uk • PART CODE HDR-1100S-White • FULL REVIEW Dec 2015 RTB • DETAILS www.veho-muvi.com • PART CODE K2NPNG • FULL REVIEW Dec 2015

PANASONIC HC-VX980 SONY FDR-X1000V NEW

★★★★★ ★★★★★ ENTRY
£649 • www.photospecialist.co.uk £253 • www.amazon.co.uk
This 4K-capable camcorder Sony looks to take on GoPro with
lets you capture 8-megapixel this miniscule action cam capable of
stills from 4K video. It has fantastic image recording 4K video at 30fps. The Hero4
stabilisation and its HDR video mode can help with exposing difficult Black wins out on image quality, but image stabilisation and a flexible
scenes. The newest model has been updated with more useful 4K range of shooting modes means Sony’s camera still has lots to offer.
cropping modes and slow-motion features, too.
SENSOR 1/2.3in CMOS • SENSOR PIXELS 8,800,000 • MAX RECORDING RESOLUTION 4K (30fps)
OPTICAL ZOOM 20x • SENSOR 1/2.3in BSI MOS • LCD SCREEN 3in, 460,800 dots • • AV CONNECTIONS Micro HDMI, 3.5mm microphone input • DIMENSIONS 24.4x51.7x88.9mm •
DIMENSIONS 73x65x139mm • WEIGHT 351g • WARRANTY One year RTB • WEIGHT 114g • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.sony.co.uk • PART CODE
DETAILS www.panasonic.com • PART CODE HC-VX980 • FULL REVIEW Apr 2016 FDR-X1000V • FULL REVIEW May 2016

68 JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

Choosing an... Inkjet printer
01 You should be able to buy a decent
inkjet printer for less than £40.
High-quality printing is possible on such a
03 If photos are your priority, speed is
less important. Choose a printer that
reproduces subtle tones well. You can’t
sided) printing or A3 capabilities are now
much more affordable.

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.
determine this by looking at the
specifications – only hands-on testing will
do, so remember to check our reviews
before you buy.
Borderless printing (up to the edge of
the paper) should also be possible. Pay
particular attention to running costs:
photos use three times as much ink as
05 Pricier photo printers let you print
from memory cards plugged straight
into the printer, so you don’t need to use a
PC. An LCD preview screen offers greater
control for this method of printing. Many
inkjet printers now have a PictBridge USB
port, which you can use to print images
directly from most digital cameras.

02 For £60 you can buy a much more

capable printer that’s either faster and
regular colour documents.

06 If you’re really serious about

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.
04 Heavy-duty office inkjets can cost
up to £1,000 and their build quality
is improving. They use large individual ink
tanks, which can cut running costs.
Printers with automatic duplex (double-
photography, consider buying an
inkjet that can produce borderless prints
up to A3 size. The best devices can print
photos that look nearly as good as those
from professional labs.

PRINTERS & SCANNERS

RICOH SP 3600DN CANON i-Sensys LBP7780Cx
★★★★★ ★★★★★
£159 • www.ebuyer.com £412 • www.printerland.co.uk
The SP 3600DN can It’s somewhat expensive
print up to 50,000 pages to buy, but the Canon
per month at 30ppm. i-Sensys LBP7780Cx is very
The quality is good, and each page costs cheap to run, and produces impressively
only about 1.2p. It’s a good choice for a high-quality prints.
busy small firm.
TECHNOLOGY Single-pass colour laser • MAXIMUM PRINT RESOLUTION 600x600dpi •
TECHNOLOGY Mono LED • MAXIMUM PRINT RESOLUTION 1,200x1,200dpi • DIMENSIONS DIMENSIONS 401x517x530mm • WEIGHT 31kg • MAXIMUM PAPER SIZE A4/legal •
268x370x392mm • WEIGHT 14.5kg • MAXIMUM PAPER SIZE A4/legal • WARRANTY Two years WARRANTY One year onsite • DETAILS www.canon.co.uk • PART CODE 6140B010AA •
RTB • DETAILS www.ricoh.co.uk • PART CODE 906231 • FULL REVIEW • Oct 2015 FULL REVIEW Mar 2015

EPSON Expression Premium XP-530 CANON Pixma MG5750

★★★★★ ★★★★★
NEW
£80 • www.currys.co.uk ENTRY £66 • www.photospecialist.co.uk
een
Other than a tiny screen The MG5750 is good
and slightly high running value with a great
costs, the XP-530 is a balance of features
welcome addition to Epson’s Expression Premium range. It prints and and quality. Its strong performance
scans incredibly quickly, while maintaining high quality throughout. lets us forgive less-than-perfect controls.

TECHNOLOGY Piezo inkjet • MAXIMUM PRINT RESOLUTION 5,760x1,440dpi • SCANNER TECHNOLOGY Thermal inkjet • MAXIMUM PRINT RESOLUTION 4,800x1,200dpi •
RESOLUTION 2,400x4,800dpi • DIMENSIONS 138x390x341mm • WEIGHT 6.2kg • SCANNER RESOLUTION 1,200x2,400dpi • DIMENSIONS 148x455x369mm • WEIGHT 6.3kg •
MAXIMUM PAPER SIZE A4/legal • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.epson.co.uk • MAXIMUM PAPER SIZE A4/legal • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.canon.co.uk •
PART CODE XP-530 • FULL REVIEW May 2016 PART CODE 0557C006 • FULL REVIEW Apr 2016

HP Officejet Pro X476dw PLUSTEK eScan A150

★★★★★ ★★★★★
£230 • www.ebuyer.com £305 • www.ebuyer.com
It may be an inkjet, but HP’s A very easy-to-use
MFP beats many colour document scanner that
lasers in terms of speed, can scan both sides of a
print quality and running costs. It’s ideal for document at once, and lets you organise
homes and small offices alike. your scans onscreen before saving them
to a computer, USB disk or Android device.
TECHNOLOGY Thermal inkjet • MAXIMUM PRINT RESOLUTION 2,400x1,200dpi •
SCANNER RESOLUTION 1,200x1,200dpi • DIMENSIONS 517x517x399mm • WEIGHT 24kg • SCANNER TYPE Document scanner • MAXIMUM OPTICAL SCAN RESOLUTION 600x600dpi •
MAXIMUM PAPER SIZE A4/legal • WARRANTY One year onsite • DETAILS www.hp.co.uk • DIMENSIONS 189x318x170mm • WEIGHT 2.8kg • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.
PART CODE CN461A • FULL REVIEW March 2015 plustek.com/uk • PART CODE 0263UK • FULL REVIEW Feb 2016

ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016 69

 Choosing a... Wireless router
01 Wireless 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
NETWORKS
TP-LINK Archer C9
★★★★★
£99 • www.currys.co.uk
It doesn’t have a modem, so
you’ll need to pair it with your
ISP’s cable, ASDL or fibre modem,
but the Archer C9 is an incredibly capable router
with plenty of features and fantastic wireless
performance, at a very reasonable price.
MODEM None • WI-FI STANDARD 802.11ac • STATED SPEED 1,900Mbit/s • USB PORTS 1x USB3,
1x USB2 • WALL MOUNTABLE No • WARRANTY Three years RTB • DETAILS uk.tp-link.com •
PART CODE Archer C9 • FULL REVIEW Sep 2015
DEVOLO dLAN 1200+ Starter Kit
★★★★★
£90 • www.amazon.co.uk
The fastest Powerline
networking kit we’ve seen, and
even though you’re limited to
a single Gigabit Ethernet connection, it’s the
ideal way to network a single computer. The
passthrough sockets are very convenient, too.
POWERLINE NETWORKING STANDARD HomePlug • STATED SPEED 1,200Mbit/s •
ADAPTORS IN BOX 2 • WARRANTY Three years RTB • DETAILS www.develo.com/uk
PART CODE 09378 • FULL REVIEW Feb 2015
CANARY
All-In-One Security
★★★★★
£160 • www.currys.co.uk
It’s expensive, but the Canary is a great one-box,
cloud-based home security camera that’s easy to
use and produces high-quality footage.
SENSOR Not disclosed • VIEWING ANGLE 147˚ wide angle • VIDEO RECORDING FRAME
RATES 1080p (30fps) • NIGHT VISION MODE Infrared LEDs • DIMENSIONS 152x76x76mm •
WEIGHT 400g • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS canary.is • PART CODE CT100UKWT •
FULL REVIEW Mar 2016
70
a wireless router that has a built-in ADSL
modem. This will cost more than the
equivalent cable router, but it allows you
Alternatively, a high-gain antenna can
boost signals and improve ranges and
throughputs to the entire house. You can
to connect your router directly to your also add a high-gain antenna to a PC’s
broadband connection without having to network adaptor. If wired network speeds
use a separate modem. are a priority, you should look for a router
with a Gigabit Ethernet connection.
03 Most 802.11n wireless routers use
the 2.4GHz frequency band. This has
good range but it can be prone to 04 Many routers come with built-in USB
ports that let you connect a USB
interference if it’s positioned close to a lot drive and use the router as a network storage
of other 2.4GHz devices, such as other device. If you want to share a USB printer
routers and baby monitors. If you have over your network, look for a wireless router
trouble getting a consistent signal or you that has a USB print server.
want faster speeds for video streaming, for Finally, if you’re interested in making voice
example, it’s worth buying a dual-band calls over the internet, buy a router with
router that can use both the 2.4GHz and
5GHz bands.
built-in VoIP support (and phone sockets)
because this can save you money.
BT Dual-Band
Wi-Fi Extender 1200
★★★★★
£40 • www.currys.co.uk
This fast wireless extender is very
easy to set up and is the perfect
companion to an 802.11ac router.
The wired LAN port lets you connect a wired device to
your wireless network, too.
WI-FI STANDARD 802.11ac • STATED SPEED 867Mbit/s • LAN PORTS 1 • WARRANTY Three
years RTB • DETAILS www.shop.bt.com • PART CODE 80462 • FULL REVIEW Aug 2015
ASUS EA-AC87
★★★★★
£110 • www.box.co.uk
It’s much larger than
the average range
extender, but that’s only
to make room for a whopping five Gigabit
Ethernet ports. The EA-AC87 can also act as an access point,
replacing your router.
MODEM None • WI-FI STANDARD 802.11ac • STATED SPEED 1,734Mbit/s • USB PORTS 0 •
• WALL MOUNTABLE Yes • WARRANTY Two years RTB • DETAILS www.asus.com/uk •
PART CODE 90IG01A0-BU9000 • FULL REVIEW Sep 2015
NETGEAR Arlo
★★★★★
£240 • www.currys.co.uk
Incredibly flexible camera
placement and great image
quality make Netgear’s
Arlo a fantastic home security system,
even if the base station is a tad expensive.
SENSOR CMOS (size not stated) • VIEWING ANGLE Horizontal 130˚ • VIDEO RECORDING
(FRAME RATES) 720p (24fps) • NIGHT VISION MODE Infrared LEDs • DIMENSIONS 71x40x63mm
• WEIGHT 110g • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.arlo.com/uk • PART CODE 131178 •
FULL REVIEW Sep 2015
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341
Choosing an... Internal hard disk
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
STORAGE
SAMSUNG 850 Evo 500GB
★★★★★
£127 • www.scan.co.uk
Samsung’s 850 Evo is simply
the fastest SATA SSD around,
and it’s available in a wide
range of capacities. The 2TB model might be
expensive at around £527 (from www.scan.co.uk),
but it means saying goodbye to mechanical storage for good.
CAPACITY 500GB • COST PER GIGABYTE £0.26 • INTERFACE SATA3 • CLAIMED READ 540MB/s
• CLAIMED WRITE 520MB/s • WARRANTY Five years RTB • DETAILS www.samsung.com/uk •
PART CODE MZ-75E500BW/EU • FULL REVIEW Oct 2015
SYNOLOGY DiskStation DS215J
★★★★★
£127 • www.ebuyer.com
Synology’s latest NAS is faster
than its predecessor thanks to
an upgraded CPU, and is capable
of rapid file transfers. DSM is still the best NAS
operating system we’ve used, too.
3½in HARD DISK BAYS (FREE) 2 (2) • NETWORKING 2x 10/100/1,000 Ethernet •
DLNA MEDIA SERVER Yes • PRINT SERVER Yes • DIMENSIONS 165x100x226mm •
WEIGHT 870g • WARRANTY Two years RTB • DETAILS www.synology.com •
PART CODE DS215J • FULL REVIEW Jun 2015
TOSHIBA Canvio Connect II 2TB
★★★★★
£83 • www.dabs.com
There’s plenty of
choice when it comes to
portable hard disks, but
Toshiba’s Canvio Connect II has an
excellent bundled software package and
impressive USB3 speeds. Considering the
price, there’s no reason not to have one.
CAPACITY 2TB • COST PER GIGABYTE £0.04 • INTERFACE USB3 • WARRANTY One year RTB •
DETAILS www.toshiba.eu • PART CODE HDTC820ER3CA • FULL REVIEW Nov 2015
ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016
in USB flash drives, and although they tend
to provide less capacity than mechanical hard
disks, they’re significantly faster.
duplicate your data for better protection.
RAID arrays require hard disks of the same
size. In theory, they can be from different
manufacturers, but it’s better to buy identical
03 Buy a hard disk that provides more
capacity than you think you need, as
disks if you can.
your storage requirements are likely to grow.
A 3TB disk strikes the best balance between
capacity and low cost per gigabyte, but in
05 A hard disk’s spindle speed
determines how quickly it can
transfer data. A spindle speed of 7,200rpm
general you should aim to buy the largest is common in desktop drives and is fast
disk you can afford. enough for most purposes. Desktop hard
disks with 5,400rpm spindle speeds are
04 If you want more disk space or you
want to protect your data against
disk failure, think about buying several hard
quite slow but use less power and generate
less heat and noise.
To strike the best balance between
disks to create a RAID array. These use
multiple hard disks to create one large
logical disk with better performance, or to
speed and storage capacity, use an SSD as
your system disk and store your files on a
larger mechanical disk.
WESTERN DIGITAL Red 6TB
★★★★★
£210 • www.dabs.com
The Red 6TB
combines excellent
performance with a
high capacity and special firmware to
make a hard disk that’s perfect for use in NAS
enclosures. It’s guaranteed for three years, too,
which should provide peace of mind.
CAPACITY 6TB • PRICE PER GIGABYTE £0.03 • INTERFACE SATA3 • WARRANTY Three years
RTB • DETAILS www.wdc.com • PART CODE WD60EFRX • FULL REVIEW Nov 2014
SAMSUNG T1 500GB
★★★★★
£134 • www.ebuyer.com
The T1 is
significantly faster
ash
than any USB3 flash
drive as it has its own SD controller.r.
Combined with a USB3 connection, it’s able to transfer files at
unbelievable speeds, then slips into a pocket for taking on the move.
CAPACITY 500GB • COST PER GIGABYTE £0.34 • INTERFACE USB3 • CLAIMED READ 450MB/s •
CLAIMED WRITE 450MB/s • WARRANTY Three years RTB • DETAILS www.samsung.com/uk •
PART CODE MU-PS500B/EU • FULL REVIEW Apr 2015
SAMSUNG 950 Pro
ro 256GB
★★★★★
£138 • www.ebuyer.com
A true sign of
things to come
for storage: it’s
the fastest, most affordable NVMe
SSD yet. If your motherboard is compatible
ompatible
with PCI Express storage, you absolutely
olutely need one.
CAPACITY 256GB • COST PER GIGABYTE £0.57 • INTERFACE M.2 (2280)/NVMe •
CLAIMED READ 2,200MB/s • CLAIMED WRITE 900MB/s • WARRANTY Five years RTB •
DETAILS www.samsung.com/uk • PART CODE MZ-V5P256BW • FULL REVIEW Jan 2016
71
 Choosing a... Graphics card
01 You really don’t have to spend much
to buy a decent graphics card that
can drive multiple monitors. The AMD
03 Check that your chosen card has
the graphics outputs you need.
Only low-end cards now have VGA
card with 2GB of RAM at the very least, as
this should allow you to select the highest-
quality textures in games.
Radeon R7 250 costs less than £60, for outputs, but many come with a DVI-to-VGA
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
adaptor. Depending on your monitor, you
may also want an HDMI output or even a
DisplayPort connection.
05 A card’s size, noise output and
power requirements are the final
considerations. Make sure your PC’s case
playing basic games. Bear in mind that AMD’s Eyefinity has enough room to accommodate your
triple-monitor gaming mode requires at chosen card. Double-slot cards with large

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.
least one DisplayPort monitor, which
means your AMD graphics card must have
at least one DisplayPort output. Nvidia’s
Surround three-monitor mode needs only
DVI and HDMI ports.
04 The amount of memory a card has
is important if you want games to
look their best at high resolutions. Get a
fans tend to be quieter than single-slot
cards with small fans but will block other
expansion slots on your motherboard.
Also check that your power supply can
provide the power the card needs and that
it has the right connectors. Many cards
require a six-pin PCI Express power
connector, and some also need an
additional eight-pin connector.

COMPONENTS
MSI GTX 970 Gaming Twin Frozr 5 GIGABYTE Radeon n
★★★★★
£276 • www.scan.co.uk R9 380 Windforce
★★★★★
For most people, this £187 • www.scan.co.uk
card is the high-end
model to buy. It will The Radeon R9 380 has a great deal of power for
easily cope with high-detail gaming at 1080p, the price. It costs about the same as the Nvidia
and it’s also capable of playing games at higher GeForce GTX 960 and performs almost identically at
resolutions as well, making it a great choice for enthusiasts. 1,920x1,080, but uses more power and isn’t as quiet.
GPU Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 • MEMORY 4GB GDDR5 • GRAPHICS CARD LENGTH 264mm • GPU AMD Radeon R9 380 • MEMORY 4GB GDDR5 • GRAPHICS CARD LENGTH 234mm •
WARRANTY Three years RTB • DETAILS www.msi.com • PART CODE GTX 970 Gaming Frozr 5 • WARRANTY Three years RTB • DETAILS www.gigabyte.com • PART CODE GV-R938WF2-4GD •
FULL REVIEW Apr 2016 FULL REVIEW Apr 2016

INTEL Core i5-6600K AMD A10-7700K

★★★★★ ★★★★★
£204 • www.novatech.co.uk £85 • www.scan.co.uk
The Core i5-6600K is the first The A10-7700K strikes an
of Intel’s latest processor excellent balance between
generation, previously desktop and graphics
codenamed Skylake. The unlocked multiplier means you can performance, making it the ideal all-rounder for an
push it further when overclocking, and energy efficiency has never inexpensive PC build. Even once you factor in memory and a
been better, which means less power draw when using your PC. motherboard, the total cost will be cheaper than many Intel CPUs.
SOCKET LGA1151 • CORES 4 • FREQUENCY 3.5GHz • INTEGRATED GRAPHICS Intel HD Graphics SOCKET FM2+ • CORES 4 • FREQUENCY 3.4GHz • INTEGRATED GRAPHICS Radeon R7 •
530 • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.intel.com • PART CODE BX80662I56600K • WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.amd.com • PART CODE AD770KXBJABOX •
FULL REVIEW Nov 2015 FULL REVIEW May 2015

ASUS Z170-A CORSAIR Carbide Series Air 240

★★★★★ ★★★★★
£122 • www.dabs.com £80 • www.novatech.co.uk
The Asus Z170-A is the This microATX case is very well
best-value Skylake made. It’s light and compact,
motherboard around right now, with performance but its cuboid shape means
and features that easily match more expensive boards without there’s plenty of room inside for all your
making a big dent in your wallet. components, so it’s easy to work with.

PROCESSOR SOCKET LGA1151 • DIMENSIONS 302x244mm • CHIPSET Intel Z170 • MEMORY CASE TYPE microATX • MOTHERBOARD COMPATIBILITY microATX, Mini-ITX • SUPPLIED
SLOTS 4 • PCI-E x16 SLOTS 3 • PCI-E x1 SLOTS 3 • PCI SLOTS 1 • USB PORTS 2x USB2, 2x USB3, FANS 3x 120mm • MAX 3½in DRIVE BAYS 3 • MAX 5¼in DRIVE BAYS 0 • DIMENSIONS
2x USB3.1 • VIDEO OUTPUTS HDMI, DVI, VGA, DisplayPort • WARRANTY Three years RTB • 320x260x397mm • WEIGHT 5.6kg • WARRANTY Two years RTB • DETAILS www.corsair.com •
DETAILS www.asus.com/uk • PART CODE 90MB0KX0-M-EAY5 • FULL REVIEW Nov 2015 PART CODE CC-9011070-WW • FULL REVIEW Apr 2016

72 JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

 SOFTWARE
XARA Web Designer 11 Premium ADOBE Premiere Elements 14

Vid iting
We sign

ed
de

eo
b
★★★★★ ★★★★★
£70 • www.xara.com/uk £65 • www.wexphotographic.com
Web Designer was already excellent, but version 11 Lots of features to keep advanced users happy and
gets a slew of incremental updates that ensure it even more to help new users make the most of it.
remains our favourite one-box web design tool. It’s the consumer video editing package to buy.
OS SUPPORT Windows XP or later • MINIMUM Intel Celeron/AMD Sempron • MINIMUM GPU OS SUPPORT Windows 7/8/10 • MINIMUM CPU 2GHz with SSE2 • MINIMUM GPU DirectX 9 •
DirectX 9 • MINIMUM RAM 500MB • HARD DISK SPACE 300MB • DETAILS www.xara.com/uk • MINIMUM RAM 2GB • HARD DISK SPACE 5GB • DETAILS www.adobe.com/uk • PRODUCT
FULL REVIEW Sep 2015 CODE 65234288 • FULL REVIEW Jan 2016

ADOBE Photoshop Lightroom 6 SERIF Affinity Designer

Gra esig
ma
Ph gem

ph n
oto en
na

d
ic
★★★★★ ★★★★★
£102 • www.ebuyer.com £40 • www.apple.com/itunes

t
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 65237576 FULL REVIEW Feb 2015
The first real competition to Adobe’s Illustrator
might be an OS X exclusive, but Affinity Designer
is a seriously powerful graphic design tool that
costs an incredible £40.
OS SUPPORT Apple OS X 10.7.5 • MINIMUM CPU Core 2 Duo (64-bit) • MINIMUM GPU Intel HD
Graphics • MINIMUM RAM 1GB • HARD DISK SPACE 325GB • DETAILS affinity.serif.com •
PRODUCT CODE Affinity Designer • FULL REVIEW Mar 2015

STEINBERG Cubase Artist 8 XARA Photo & Graphic Designer 11

Im iting
Mu uctio
pro

ag
ed
sic n
d

e
★★★★★ ★★★★★
£119 • www.steinberg.net £50 • www.xara.com/uk
Music production software usually saves the best Powerful new warping and brush tools
features for the priciest version, but that’s not the take Photo & Graphic Designer to new heights,
case here, making Cubase Artist 8 an excellent making it a genuine rival to Adobe’s Photoshop and
investment for musicians aspiring to the highest standards. Lightroom. It’s cheaper, too.
OS SUPPORT Windows 7 or later • MINIMUM CPU Intel Core/AMD dual-core • MINIMUM GPU OS SUPPORT Windows 7/8/8.1/10 • MINIMUM CPU Celeron, Sempron or newer • MINIMUM
DirectX 10 • MINIMUM RAM 4GB • HARD DISK SPACE 15GB • DETAILS www.steinberg.net • GPU N/A • MINIMUM RAM 500MB • HARD DISK SPACE 300MB • DETAILS www.xara.com/uk •
PRODUCT CODE 45550 • FULL REVIEW May 2015 FULL REVIEW Dec 2015

GAMES
Op adve

Fallout 4 Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

en ntu

Ste ction
-w re

alt
a
★★★★★
orl

★★★★★ h
d

£25 • www.cdkeys.com £23 • www.cdkeys.com

Exploring a post-apocalyptic wasteland has never Whether the story was ever really finished before
been more fun. Bethesda has expanded the Fallout director Hideo Kojima’s infamous departure or not
universe with base building and crafting mechanics, remains a mystery, but the Phantom Pain’s open-
making this the definitive entry in the series. world stealth gameplay is simply without fault.

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
AVAILABLE FORMATS PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PS4 • OS SUPPORT Windows 7/8.1
64-bit • MINIMUM CPU Dual-core 3.4GHz Intel, quad-core AMD • MINIMUM GPU Nvidia GeForce
GTX 650, AMD Radeon R9 270x • MINIMUM RAM 4GB • HARD DISK SPACE 28GB •
DETAILS www.konami.jp/mgs5 • FULL REVIEW Dec 2015
Tur strat

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt XCOM 2

Fan RPG

n-b egy

NEW
tas

ase

★★★★★ ENTRY
y

★★★★★
d

£20 • www.cdkeys.com £23 • www.cdkeys.com

The Witcher 3 has an involving plot, an amazingly Turn-based strategy is rarely this punishing, this
well-realised world and beautifully drawn characters. cerebral, or this thrilling. XCOM 2 is a masterful
It’s the ultimate fantasy RPG for anyone that prefers blend of sci-fi firefights and intricate base-building,
action to turn-based strategy. making it utterly essential for strategy fans.

AVAILABLE FORMATS PC, Xbox One, PS4 • OS SUPPORT Windows 7/8.1 64-bit • MINIMUM CPU AVAILABLE FORMATS PC • OS SUPPORT Windows 7 and above • MINIMUM CPU Intel Core 2
Quad-core 3.3GHz Intel, quad-core 3GHz AMD • MINIMUM GPU Nvidia GeForce GTX 660, AMD Duo E4700 2.6GHz or AMD Phenom 9950 quad-core 2.6GHz • MINIMUM GPU 1GB AMD Radeon
Radeon HD 7870 • MINIMUM RAM 6GB • HARD DISK SPACE 40GB • DETAILS www.thewitcher. HD 5770 or 1GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 • MINIMUM RAM 4GB • DISK SPACE 45GB
com/witcher3 • FULL REVIEW Aug 2015 DETAILS www.2k.com • FULL REVIEW May 2016

ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016 73

 REVIEWS

How we test
Find out how well products perform with the help of
Computer Shopper’s comprehensive tests
COMPUTER SHOPPER’S REVIEWS use some The actual scores in each test are shown
of the most exhaustive testing procedures inside each bar
you’ll find in any PC magazine. Every product
is subjected to qualitative and quantitative
tests that show how it performs in practical Bigger is better for all
Normal speed 11ppm
use. Graphs for performance, battery-life bars except the red
scores and costs are used in the Reviews ones, which show
Mono costs 2.2p running costs
section, as shown on the right. Look in the
‘Summary of tests’ table (below) for details Colour costs 6.7p A product hitting the
of each test we run. +100 per cent mark
0% -50 Reference +50 +100
For PCs and laptops, we evaluate performed twice as well
performance using our own custom as our reference
benchmarking suite. See below for a brief
This line represents the performance of a reference product in each
description of our benchmarking software test. All graphs for components and systems are relative to our
and game tests. reference PC (see below for specifications)

SUMMARY OF TESTS
PC SYSTEMS & GAMING LAPTOPS
Windows overall Average speed across numerous demanding tasks BENCHMARKS RATINGS & AWARDS
Multitasking Speed when running simultaneous applications
Computer Shopper rates
Dirt Showdown Frames per second at 1,920x1,080, 4xAA, SHOPPER BENCHMARKS products out of five:
(1080p) Ultra detail
Metro: Last Light Frames per second at 1,920x1,080, SSAA,
Our benchmark suite uses open-
Redux Very High detail source software that runs on Avoid ★★★★★
LAPTOPS
Windows, Mac OS X and Linux
Windows overall Average speed across numerous demanding tasks
systems. This lets us use objective Below average ★★★★★
Multitasking Processor-intensive multitasking test
Dirt Showdown Frames per second at 1,280x720, 4xAA, results to compare PCs and laptops, Good ★★★★★
(720p) High detail no matter which operating system they run. It’s designed to test
Battery life Run time in minutes for continuous video playback
each computer to its limit, using a combination of intensive Very good ★★★★★
SMARTPHONES/TABLETS
image-editing, video-encoding and multitasking tests.
Battery life Run time in minutes for continuous video playback
Excellent ★★★★★
PRINTERS AND MFPs We ran the tests on our reference PC, which has an Intel
Mono text speed Pages per minute for correspondence-quality text
Core i5-4670K processor, 8GB of DDR3 RAM and an AMD
Mixed colour speed Pages per minute for presentable text and graphics
Mono page cost Running costs expressed as pence per page
Radeon R7 260X graphics card. We normalised our results The best products can win the
Colour page cost Running costs expressed as pence per page so this PC had a score of 100. This makes it easy to draw following awards:
DIGITAL CAMERAS comparisons between test systems.
Battery life Number of shots from full charge
The resulting overall score is shown at the bottom of BEST BUY
CAMCORDERS
Battery life Run time in minutes for recording
every PC and laptop review. As we use the same tests in our Products with outstanding
MP3 PLAYERS standalone and group test reviews, you can compare the quality and performance for the
Battery life Run time in minutes for continuous playback performance of any computer, whether it’s a netbook, money win our Best Buy award.
ROUTERS
laptop or desktop, from both sections of the magazine.
Laptop 2.4GHz 10m Mbit/s at 10m with 802.11n laptop on 2.4GHz band
Laptop 2.4GHz 25m Mbit/s at 25m with 802.11n laptop on 2.4GHz band To see how your computer compares, you can download the
Laptop 5GHz 10m Mbit/s at 10m with 802.11n laptop on 5GHz band suite from www.shopperdownload.co.uk/benchmarks. Versions
Laptop 5GHz 25m Mbit/s at 25m with 802.11n laptop on 5GHz band are available for 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems.
802.11ac adaptor 10m Mbit/s at 10m with an 802.11ac adaptor
802.11ac adaptor 25m Mbit/s at 25m with an 802.11ac adaptor
NETWORK-ATTACHED STORAGE
Large files Average MB/s for read/write of 100MB large files 3D BENCHMARKS RECOMMENDED
Small files Average MB/s for read/write of 100MB small files Products that don’t quite qualify
HARD DISKS
DIRT SHOWDOWN for a Best Buy award but are still
Extra large files Average MB/s for read/write of a single 2.5GB file Dirt Showdown is a cracking racing game highly rated by our reviewers.
Large files Average MB/s for read/write of 2.5GB of large files that makes good use of DirectX 11’s
Small files Average MB/s for read/write of 2.5GB of small files
fancy graphical effects. You’ll want at
PROCESSORS
Windows overall Average speed across numerous demanding tasks
least 30fps for smooth racing.
Multitasking Speed when running simultaneous applications
Dirt Showdown Frames per second at 1,280x720, 4xAA, TOMB RAIDER
(720p) High detail
With the ultra-demanding Super-
MOTHERBOARDS
Sampling Anti-Aliasing (SSAA) enabled,
Windows overall Average speed across numerous demanding tasks
2013’s Tomb Raider reboot is a great
BUSINESS
Multitasking Speed when running simultaneous applications
The very best products
Dirt Showdown Frames per second at 1,920x1,080, 4xAA, indicator of mid-range performance.
(1080p) Ultra detail for work win our
Dirt Showdown Frames per second at 1,280x720, 4xAA, Business Buy award.
(720p) High detail METRO: LAST LIGHT REDUX
GRAPHICS CARDS Our most demanding graphics test
Dirt Showdown Frames per second at 1,920x1,080, 4x MSAA,
(1080p) Ultra detail
uses tessellation, SSAA and massive
Tomb Raider Frames per second at 1,920x1,080, SSAA, Ultra detail textures to give even high-end cards a
Metro: Last Light Frames per second at 1,920x1,080, SSAA, thorough workout.
Redux Very High detail

74 JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

 PRODUCT INDEX

Product Reviews
Our guide to all the products reviewed
in this month’s Shopper

Hot Product 24 Samsung Galaxy J5

1 1
Samsung Galaxy TabPro S

9
Apple iPad Pro 9.7in

PCs & Laptops 26 Photography 39

Acer Aspire One Canon SX720 HS
Cloudbook 14
Asus ZenBook UX305CA
Panasonic TZ100
Reviews
Box Cube Republic Displays and
Chillblast Fusion Projection 3 Home Cinema 42
Dell XPS 12 Acer Predator XB271HK
Asus ROG Swift PG27AQ
Handhelds 33 Samsung UE48JS8500
Games 56
Apple iPhone SE The Division
LG G5 Audio 47
Astro Gaming A40 +
Printers 82
MixAmp M80
SUBSCRIBE Audio Pro Addon T3
Brother MFC-J5320DW
Brother MFC-J680DW
AND SAVE Lindy BNX-60
Canon i-Sensys MF724Cdw
Canon Pixma MG5750
Networks 50 Canon Pixma MX495
Smappee IOT Energy
Dell H825cdw
Monitor
Epson Expression
Premium XP-530
Storage 52 Epson WorkForce Pro
Kingston KC400 256GB
WF-5690DWF
HP DeskJet 3630
Components 53 HP Officejet 7510
Gigabyte GA-990FX-Gaming
Ricoh SP 3600DN
Ricoh SP C250DNW
CALL 0844
44 844 0031 Software 54
OR SEE PAGE 122 Nuance Dragon Anywhere

ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016 75

 Free software guide
It’s easy to access your free software. Just go to www.shopperdownload.co.uk/341 and
register with the code from the card insert. Please be aware that you need to have
bought the ‘Free Software Edition’ and not the ‘£4.50 Edition’ to access the downloads
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 this issue. The
unique code means we stop the deals
leaking online, so only Shopper readers
get the software.
NO CODE?
If you don’t have the card insert with the
unique code, you must buy the £4.99
‘Free Software’ print version of the
magazine. If you have this edition and
still don’t have a card, please contact
letters@computershopper.co.uk.
REGISTER YOUR SOFTWARE
BY 23rd JUNE 2016
REQUIREMENTS Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8 or
10, 32/64-bit, 100MB hard disk space
WEBSITE www.iobit.com
NOTES Includes a six-month licence
76
CyberLink PhotoDirector 6
Deluxe
PHOTODIRECTOR 6 IS a capable tool for
organising, editing and sharing your digital images.
Launch the program and you’ll find it’s split into
five sections. The Library is where you import, view,
rate, tag and generally organise your photos. There
are plenty of time-saving tools on hand (such as
face tagging and the ability to exclude duplicates
when importing), and it’s all very easy to use.
The Adjustment section provides manual and
fully automatic tweaks for colour, white balance,
sharpness and more, as well as crop and rotate
tools, healing brushes and a red-eye remover.
The Edit tab ramps up the creative possibilities. helps turn your photos into a video file, or a
The People Beautifier provides options to whiten slideshow you can share directly on YouTube.
teeth, remove wrinkles, or perhaps reshape your Finally, the Print tab provides a great deal of control
subjects for a more slimline look. The program can over any printouts you might want to make.
remove unwanted objects from pictures, There’s plenty to explore, and the new panorama
automatically filling in the and sharing options are particularly
background. There are some REQUIREMENTS Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8 or welcome. If you’re an existing user,
simple effects, frames, a 10, 32/64-bit, 500MB hard disk space or just looking for a powerful but
watermarking tool, and more. WEBSITE www.cyberlink.com user-friendly tool for managing and
NOTES Get your registration code at
When you’ve finished your editing your photo collection,
phd6.disc.computershopper.co.uk
work, the Slideshow section PhotoDirector 6 is worth a look.
IObit Malware Fighter Pro 4
IOBIT MALWARE FIGHTER is a straightforward
anti-spyware tool that can protect your PC in
several different ways.
For example, you can run an on-demand scan to
look for spyware, adware, Trojans, bots and other
threats that your regular anti-virus software might
have missed. The Smart Scan checks only the most
critical areas of your PC, and runs fairly quickly
(around seven minutes on our test PC). You can
run a complete system scan if you prefer, while
the Custom Scan allows you to choose exactly
what you’d like the program to examine.
Malware Fighter also includes real-time
protection in the shape of five guards, which
variously monitor your startup programs,
browser settings, cookies, the web pages you of two entirely safe files. And it’s also a little short
view, and the files you access. on features. If you want scheduled scans, protection
Our first brief tests left some questions over for USB viruses, process scanning or technical
the program’s accuracy, with Malware Fighter support then you’ll want the Pro version, which
missing a real threat, and incorrectly warning us we’re offering you here with a six-month licence.
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

REQUIREMENTS Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8 or
10, 32/64-bit, 30MB hard disk space
WEBSITE www.f-secure.com
NOTES Includes a one-year Premium
licence after registration
REQUIREMENTS: Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8
or 10, 32/64-bit, 50MB hard disk space
WEBSITE: www.abelssoft.net
NOTES: Get your registration code within
the application (note that if you have
previously registered an Abelssoft product,
you will not need to register again)
ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER
F-Secure Key Premium
F-SECURE KEY is a password
manager with clients for
Windows, Mac, iOS and Android.
After installation you create a
new Key account, which is as
simple as entering a password.
You can then import your
passwords, at least in theory (the
program can only import XML
files exported by other password
managers, including KeepPass
and Password Safe).
If you can’t access your
existing passwords, it’s easy to
enter them manually. Provide the
login URL, your username and
password (there’s a good secure
password generator, if you need
one), and repeat the process for
as many sites as you like.
There are several ways to
enter passwords at a later point.
You can, for instance, copy them
to the clipboard. Click the
password field and a button
appears; click it, choose the site
from the list, and the password
will be entered. Or you can have
both the username and password
entered automatically on Android,
JetDrive 8 Professional
YOUR HARD DISK is in constant
use from the moment you switch
on your PC, so it’s important to
take good care of it. The process
of defragmentation is one of the
best maintenance steps you can
take, and Microsoft includes a
simple defrag tool in Windows.
JetDrive 6 Professional takes
things to the next level, enabling
you to optimise the performance
of your drive by performing deep
defragging as well as other tasks.
| JULY 2016
Windows and Mac (select the
user field, press Ctrl-F2, choose
the site; on Android, tap the
username field, switch to
F-Secure Key’s virtual keyboard
and select your login details).
Syncing passwords across all
your devices requires a Premium
licence, which we’re offering you
here. Once you’ve set this up,
clicking the Generate Code
button on one device creates a
sync code, and entering this on
Handy visualisation tools can
be used to gain a quick insight
into how much of your hard disk
space has been used up and how
much is still available. If you find
you’re running low on space or
want to clear out the clutter, the
option to quickly delete temp
files free up some megabytes
before you set about the task of
defragging. You can defragment
any of your drives whenever you
want, but to save time you can
another synchronises the two.
Repeat as often as necessary.
You don’t have to worry
about the security of your
synchronised passwords;
they’re AES-encrypted and
F-Secure never sees any user’s
information. What’s more, the
Key servers are “owned and
operated by F-Secure within the
European Union”, which is a good
thing as the EU’s privacy rules
are extremely strict.
use the option to defrag only the
ones that are heavily fragmented.
If you’re looking for the best
performance, you’ll want to
perform the extensive complete
defrag option, but you should
be warned that this can take
many, many hours to complete.
Quick defragging is also available
for quick fixes, and there’s also
the option of scheduling for
ongoing maintenance.
In addition to these options,
JetDrive 8 Professional can be
used to defragment the Registry.
There is some argument about
how much the Registry should
be optimised, but it could make
a huge difference to a machine
that’s been used and left
unmaintained for many years.
There’s also a useful
drive-checking tool that can be
used to scan for drive errors
which could be indicative of
imminent hard disk failure,
making this a far more advanced
and impressive tool than
Windows’ built-in defragger.
77

REQUIREMENTS Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8,
10 32/64-bit, 200MB hard disk space
DETAILS www.pandasecurity.com
NOTES Six-month licence
REQUIREMENTS Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8
or 10, 70MB hard disk space
WEBSITE www.bitreplica.com
NOTES Includes one-year licence after
registration
78
Panda Internet
Security 2016
PANDA INTERNET SECURITY protection (via an
2016 is a capable security suite optional toolbar), a
with protection for Windows, firewall and Wi-Fi protection
Android, iOS and Mac. to detect intruders on your
The Windows module offers network. The Data Shield
accurate anti-virus, browser prevents sensitive data falling into
Auslogics BitReplica 2
AUSLOGICS BITREPLICA IS a capable and
straightforward backup tool that makes it easy to
protect your most important files from disaster.
The program has a list of predefined backup
sources so if, for instance, you’d like to back up
your Firefox profile, Internet Explorer favourites,
Documents folder and so on, then it’s as easy
as ticking a box. You can, however, add other
custom folders, too.
BitReplica also offers a good selection
of backup types: simple backup, exact
backup (where obsolete files are
removed from the destination folder),
and full, incremental or differential
backups. A simple scheduler allows
you to run the job manually, hourly,
daily or weekly.
There are a few useful configuration
options, too: you get some predefined
‘exclude’ file filters; the program is able
to back up alternate data streams; and
you can have specific applications run
before and after the backup job runs.
Your backup can then be saved
locally. But that’s just the start. You
can also store it on a local drive,
upload it to Box.net or SkyDrive, or
use Auslogics’ own cloud storage
service at a small extra cost.
the wrong hands, parental
controls keep your kids
safe online, and there’s a virtual
keyboard to bypass keyloggers.
Mac and iOS protection is
more basic, with anti-virus and
an iPhone location service, while
the Android tools take this a little
further: there’s anti-virus, device
optimisation, a location service,
and the option to lock or wipe
your device remotely.
All this is easy to set up, but
look out for the option to install
a browser toolbar: it will change
your home and search pages
unless you clear some tickboxes.
After that, the program
proves as reliable and accurate as
ever. The 2016 edition brings new
checks for Wi-Fi vulnerabilities, a
new engine, and smarter
Collective Intelligence, offering
greater protection with less
impact on performance.
There are also a few downsides, though. You’re
only able to choose particular folders to back up,
for instance; it’s not possible to select specific files
in a folder. There’s no support for saving your
backups to optical discs or an FTP server. And there
are no options to compress, encrypt or password-
protect your archive.
Still, Auslogics BitReplica is fast and very easy to
use, and if your needs are simple then it could make
an excellent backup choice.
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341
 Resources
Chat and Communication
Digsby (Build 92) Access all your instant
messaging services from one application;
there’s support for Windows Live!, Yahoo!,
AIM, Google Talk, ICQ and Jabber.
UPDATED Evernote 5.9.9 Store your notes,
ideas and plans in the cloud, and
synchronise them between computers.
UPDATED Mozilla Thunderbird 38.7.2 A
powerful email client from the organisation
best known for the Firefox web browser.
Customisation
7 Taskbar Tweaker 5 Customise the
Windows 7 taskbar so that it works
exactly to your liking.
Metro UI Tweaker for Windows 8
Tweak the Windows 8 user interface.
Mosaic Desktop Beta 1 Refresh
Add Windows 8’s mosaic-tiled
desktop to your computer without
having to upgrade.
General
UPDATED Free Studio 6.6.5.323 An easy
way to convert your video and audio files
into different formats.
Paragon Partition Manager 14 Free
Create, format, split, merge and reorganise
all your hard disk’s partitions.
PeaZip 6.0 A tremendously powerful
archive-management tool.
Internet and Network
UPDATED CarotDAV 1.12.7
Manage all your online storage services
with one simple application.
UPDATED Cyberduck 4.9
A powerful but easy-to-use FTP client for
uploading and downloading your files.
Easy WiFi 4.0
Find free Wi-Fi hotspots while you’re out
and about.
Tweaking and Performance
UPDATED CCleaner 5.16 Remove unwanted
information, temporary files, browsing
history, huge log files and even the settings
that uninstalled software leaves behind.
UPDATED Defraggler 2.21 Ensure your
system is defragmented properly and
improve its performance.
Finestra Virtual Desktops 2.5 Set up four
or more virtual desktops on your PC.
ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016
Postbox Express 1.0.1 An email client that
provides a comprehensive array of tools to
help you manage your messages more easily.
UPDATED Skype for Windows 7.22 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; this program
has support for Windows Live!, AIM, Yahoo!
and Google Talk.
UPDATED Rainmeter 3.3.1 Customise the
desktop quickly and easily with your choice
of information, tools and shortcuts.
Windows 8 Transformation Pack 9.1
Emulate the look of Windows 8 on an earlier
version of the operating system.
Windows 10 Transformation Pack 6
Bring some of Windows 10’s new features
to your current operating system.
Screenshot Captor 4.16 Create and manage
screenshots the easy way.
UPDATED SUMo 4.3.7.310 Quickly scan your
PC’s installed applications and find any
updates that are available for them.
ZipGenius 6.3 A flexible file-compression
tool with support for a huge number of
compressed file formats.
UPDATED NetBalancer 9.2.6 Make the most of
your internet connection by assigning
download and upload priorities to
web applications.
TeamViewer 11.0.56 Remote-control your
computer from anywhere in the world.
Vuze 5.7.1 A BitTorrent client to help
you locate, share and download
torrent files.
UPDATED IObit Advanced SystemCare 9.2
A complete computer security, maintenance
and optimisation suite.
Revo Uninstaller Free 1.95 Remove installed
applications completely, including all their
folders, system files and Registry entries.
Simple Performance Boost 1.0.5 Tweak the
Windows Registry to give your PC a
performance boost.
79
 PRINTERS

FRESH PRINTS
Printers and multifunction
peripherals
From £40 home machines to hulking business-spec workhorses,
we’ve tested the best printers available today

CONTENT REVIEWS IN MANY WAYS, printers are the unsung

Page 84 Page 90
heroes of the technology world. It’s tempting
BROTHER MFC-J5320DW EPSON Expression Premium XP-530 to think that in a world of smartphones and
the cloud, we can all go completely paper-free.
Page 85 Page 91
BROTHER MFC-J680DW EPSON WorkForce Pro WF-5690DWF But from students printing out essays to
legions of office staff creating vital
Page 86 Page 92
documents, few machines are as utterly
CANON i-Sensys MF724Cdw HP DeskJet 3630
essential as the printer.
Page 87 Page 93 What’s more, there are more than a few
CANON Pixma MG5750 HP Officejet 7510 good reasons to upgrade to a new one. First,
Page 88 Page 94 it’s quite difficult to buy a printer these days
CANON Pixma MX495 RICOH SP 3600DN which isn’t also a scanner and a photocopier
Page 89 Page 95 – hence ‘multifunction peripheral’, or MFP.
DELL H825cdw RICOH SP C250DNW Second, both standalone printers and MFPs
have been amazingly cheap for a few years

82 JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341


now, with entry-level models costing little
more than £40. Even at the opposite end, you
can pick up a fully business-ready machine
– with features such as double-side duplex
scanning and huge paper trays that hold
hundreds of sheets – for well short of £300.
Here, we’ve rounded up 12 printer and
MFP contenders for your consideration,
ranging from budget home printers to fully
fledged enterprise aids.
THEORY OF RESOLUTION
It’s important to note a printer’s maximum
printing resolution; as with a monitor or TV,
a higher resolution means better detail and
more sharpness, which can be crucial if
you’re printing out photos and images as
well as text documents.
Printing resolution is measured in dpi, or
dots per inch. As you can imagine, this
refers to the number of dots (which is how
an inkjet printer transfers its ink to the
page) that can fit in a straight line measuring
1in long. A maximum resolution of
4,800x1,200dpi is fairly common, and is just
fine for home use plus some business uses,
but you can go higher; Epson in particular is
fond of the 5,760x1,440dpi resolution.
TOUCH THE SKY
The ability to add print jobs over Wi-Fi is
mightily convenient at home, and is borderline
essential for office use. It’s the same with
scanning – you’ll need to be physically present
at the printer, obviously, but once you’ve got
the document in the tray, you can create a
digitised version and save it straight to your
laptop or mobile device.
Happily, Wi-Fi connectivity has become
commonplace, though some devices go one
further and include built-in compatibility with
major cloud storage services, such as Google
Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, Evernote and more.
Once you’ve set up and logged in, this allows
you to print off a file directly from your
service of choice. It doesn’t need to be saved
on any particular device so, for instance, a
document you added to Google Drive on a
Chromebook can later be printed from your
smartphone. Again, you can use cloud storage
with an MFP’s scanner as well, saving any
scans straight into your account.
SPEED AND WRITE
Printing speed can vary greatly depending on
whether a document is monochrome or in full
colour. It’s quicker to print out a black-and-
white page than a sheet of colour, but a good
printer can close the gap significantly.
The standard measurement for printing
speed is pages per minute, or ppm. We test
printers and MFPs in this regard by printing
out a 25-page letter, recording the total time
taken and calculating the average ppm.
Generally speaking, you should be looking
for at least 14ppm in mono and at least
4ppm in colour, though it can be worth
skimping on one if the other is considerably
above average. The Epson Expression
ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016
PRINTERS
Premium XP-530, for example, has a fairly That doesn’t mean that shoddy software
underwhelming 9ppm in mono, but we still should be let off the hook, however. The
like it for its great 6.4ppm in colour printing. worst offenders will not only make unwanted
changes to your PC, such as altering your
BUTTON UP default browser, but will make it difficult to
Most printers include a small LCD screen. At opt out from the manufacturer harvesting
the most basic level – around the £40-£50 details about how you use its products.
range – this will display some token but still Keep an eye out, then, for printers and
useful information about ink levels, Wi-Fi MFPs with more user-friendly software,
status and the number of print jobs queued particularly any with robust controls over
up, but even relatively affordable printers printing, scanning and copying settings.
can include a touch-enabled display that
acts as its own little control panel. If you BLEEDING DRY
plan on printing off a lot of photos, a good Of course, the retail price of a printer is
screen will display a preview of the image just the beginning; you’ll continually need
you’re about to print – an essential inclusion to invest in replacement ink cartridges or,
if, as many machines allow, you’re selecting if plumping for a laser, toner bottles.
Wi-Fi connectivity is common, but some devices go further
and include compatibility with cloud storage services
files straight from an SD card inserted Depending on how long you keep it, you’ll
directly into a port on the MFP itself. likely end up spending more on these
It goes without saying that a good control running costs than on the MFP itself.
setup will make it much easier to operate That’s why it’s also important to keep in
printing, scanning and copying functions, so mind how much a printer, and its compatible
make sure that the device you’re interested in cartridges, will cost per individual page.
has the capability to suit your needs. A good Fortunately, it’s easy to find decent
touchscreen, for instance, is incredibly useful machines with running costs of less than 1p
for managing cloud storage integration. per page in mono; printing in colour is
always more expensive, but anything below
INSTALLING CONFIDENCE 4p per page remains a very good deal.
Mobile Wi-Fi printing and cloud capability If possible, try to keep under 4p per
mean that it is theoretically possible to avoid mono page and 7p per colour page –
dealing with an MFP’s associated PC software, anything above this isn’t necessarily a
but since this usually includes important rip-off, especially if it’s laser toner, but you
options for maintaining and managing the can get more pages for less without any
printer, we don’t recommend ignoring it. real drop in capacity or quality.
Inkjet VS Laser
There are two main types of printer technology to consider: inkjet and laser. Inkjet printers
create text and images by simply pressing thousands of tiny ink dots directly on to the
paper; lasers are a bit more complex, as they create an electrostatic image of whatever is
being printed, and then use the heat of a laser to fuse toner particles to the paper in the
shape of that image.
The choice between inkjet or laser printers has, traditionally, not been much of a
choice at all: if you wanted high-quality but affordable prints made at home, inkjet was
the only logical choice, as both the printer and the individual toner cartridges had a lower
immediate cost while allowing for cleaner and more natural-looking colours that made
them ideal for printing photos.
On the other hand, if you were a business buyer looking for a speedy printer that could
handle bulk loads, laser was the way to go. Compatible toner might have been more
expensive per unit, but their larger capacity allowed for less frequent changes than an
inkjet would have required for the same amount of paper.
Nowadays, however, the lines have been blurred somewhat. A laser printer’s entry costs
have dropped to the point of comparison with upper- to mid-range inkjets, which themselves
have become efficient enough that professionals are increasingly forgoing the crisper blacks
of lasers in favour of inkjet’s superior all-colour performance.
Many differences do remain. Consumer inkjets are still, generally, the cheapest devices to
buy off the shelf, but the higher printing speed of laser printers means they continue to be
the first choice for businesses with large loads. We’ve included a mix of inkjet and laser
printers in this test, so read on and decide which is most suitable for your purposes.
83
 PRINTERS
INKJET MFP
BROTHER
MFC-J5320DW
★★★★★
£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 money has been saved elsewhere.
This isn’t a pretty MFP, and its paper input
tray feels particularly clattery and unpleasant
to handle. To load it up with A3 paper you
need to release a catch and extend it fully
outwards, which is fiddly, while different paper
sizes are loaded with different orientations,
which could quickly get confusing.
Although the USB port is concealed
behind a flap, it’s next to an empty slot
where the SD card reader would go on more
expensive models.
⬆ Brother’s menu system is clear, and you can create your own shortcuts via the touchscreen
84
There’s plenty to like about this MFP, such as the ADF lid
that clicks shut, keeping out dust
Fortunately, there’s plenty more to like
about this MFP. There are neat bits of design,
such as the ADF lid that clicks shut, keeping
out dust. Its touchscreen might not be the
biggest and it doesn’t respond to swipe
gestures, but it’s generally responsive and the
menu system is clear; we particularly like the
ability to add your own shortcuts. One
frustration is that you can only print photos
from an inserted USB drive, not PDF files or
other office documents.
While the printer’s 12.8 pages per minute
text speed isn’t that impressive, 7.1ppm on our
colour graphics test is quick for an inkjet at
this price. It took only two-and-a-half minutes
to duplex 10 sides of graphics on to five
pages, while copying a 10-page document
took only 66 seconds in black, or 83 seconds
in colour. Scans were very quick, with a
preview completing in just 10 seconds, and a
300dpi A4 scan needing only 12 seconds. Even
over an Ethernet connection, it took just 27
seconds to capture a 6x4in photo at 1,200dpi.
There’s more good news when it comes to
running costs. The MFC-J5320DW comes with
ink cartridges rated for a reasonable 550
pages each, and you can replace them with XL
items good for 2,400 black pages or 1,200
pages in each colour. Using these, costs work
out at just 3.4p per page, of which the black
component is just 0.8p. That’s extremely
competitive for such a cheap device.
We weren’t expecting great results from
this MFP, but for most purposes they were
fine. Print quality certainly wasn’t bad on
plain paper, with bold text and reasonably
bright colours in graphics. Our scan tests
revealed a slightly drab colour bias, and poor
preservation of detail from among dark
regions, but the results were good enough
for general office work.
This is far from the best MFP we’ve tested,
but with its wealth of features, cheap price
and low running costs we’d recommend it
where value takes precedence over quality.
SPECIFICATIONS
TECHNOLOGY Piezo inkjet • MAXIMUM PRINT
RESOLUTION 6,000x1,200dpi • MAXIMUM OPTICAL
SCAN RESOLUTION (OUTPUT BIT DEPTH) 1,200x2,400dpi
(24-bit)• DIMENSIONS 240x490x290mm • WEIGHT
10.8kg • MAXIMUM PAPER SIZE A3 • WARRANTY One
year RTB • DETAILS www.brother.co.uk • PART CODE
MFCJ5320DWU1
Mono speed 12.8ppm
Mixed colour
speed 7.1ppm
Mono page cost 0.8p
Colour page
cost 2.6p
0% -50 Reference +50 +100
See page 74 for performance details
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

INKJET MFP
BROTHER
MFC-J680DW
★★★★★
£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, this MFP still looks more
functional than stylish, and it doesn’t exude
an air of quality: the paper tray, for example, is
clattery, and can be a fiddle to load.
We haven’t noticed a build quality issue on
a Brother product before, but on our test
Brother’s print interface is a great example of making
advanced functions easy to use
⬆ Brother’s print interface is one of the best: the main tab covers almost everything you’ll need
ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016
sample one of the scanner lid’s extending
hinges was impeded by the lack of slack in the
cable running to the ADF.
There’s not much wrong with the
touchscreen, fortunately: while it may not be
as slick as some, the menu system it controls
is, for the most part, intuitive. Likewise,
Brother’s print interface is a great example of
making advanced functions easy to use, and
its TWAIN scan interface, while basic, is
simple for the majority of jobs.
While we’ve no complaints about the
software or its setup, you do have to be
careful when inserting the colour ink
cartridges: without physical keying, it’s
possible to put one into the wrong slot.
PRINTERS
Surprisingly, this newer model is slightly
slower than the MFC-J5320JW, particularly in
our colour tests. Printing graphics, it managed
5.5ppm – still impressive, but not as fast as
the MFC-J5320JW’s 7.1ppm. The MFC-J680DW
was also slightly slower in our black text test,
managing 12ppm, or 15.5ppm at draft quality.
The MFC-J680DW is also slightly slower at
scanning. It previewed an A4 page in 10
seconds, and could scan it at 300dpi in 15
seconds. Capturing a 6x4in photo at 1,200dpi
took a competitive 53 seconds. A single mono
photocopy completed in 17 seconds, while the
same job in colour took 22 seconds. Copying
10 mono pages took 151 seconds, while in
colour this rose to 181 seconds.
This MFP generally produces good results.
Printed text was dark black, although those
with sharp eyes might spot a little jaggedness
in the outline. Colour graphics were strong,
but bleed was evident on thinner papers –
something to watch if you’re duplexing.
Scans were sharply focused, and their colours
generally accurate, but darker shades tended
to merge together, with a loss of detail.
The MFC-J680DW takes Brother’s LC223
cartridges, with a capacity of 550 pages each.
Using these, print costs work out at about 7p
per page, which is competitive, if
unexceptional – much like the MFC-J680DW
itself. Consider the MFC-J5320JW instead.
SPECIFICATIONS
TECHNOLOGY Piezo inkjet • MAXIMUM PRINT
RESOLUTION 6,000x1,200dpi • MAXIMUM OPTICAL
SCAN RESOLUTION (OUTPUT BIT DEPTH) 1,200x2,400dpi
(24-bit) • DIMENSIONS 172x400x341mm • WEIGHT 8.3kg
• MAXIMUM PAPER SIZE A4/legal • WARRANTY One
year RTB • DETAILS www.brother.co.uk • PART CODE
MFCJ680DWZU1
Mono speed 12ppm
Mixed colour 5.5ppm
speed
Mono page cost 2.4p
Colour page 4.7p
cost
0% -50 Reference +50 +100
See page 74 for performance details
85
 PRINTERS
LASER MFP
CANON
i-Sensys MF724Cdw
★★★★★
£289 • From www.ballicom.co.uk
VERDICT
Canon’s i-Sensys MF724Cdw is a competent
colour laser MFP
CANON’S I-SENSYS MF724CDW is a colour
laser MFP aimed at home or small office
users. It costs more than an entry-level device,
but the extra outlay buys a better
specification: the MF724Cdw has a 50-page
automatic document feeder (ADF) and can
print and scan automatically on both sides of
a page (duplex printing and scanning), so you
can sit back while it makes a double-sided
copy of a double-sided document.
You can connect it to a wired or wireless
network, and it has a front-panel USB port for
direct scans and prints.
Even for its type this is quite a heavy MFP;
you’ll need two people to unpack and move it
about. We weren’t overly keen on its large
touchscreen, which seemed slow to respond,
and not always accurate. As a matter of
course we tried to update the firmware, but
over several attempts the MFP reported either
that the server wasn’t available or that there
had been a communication error.
While it might have a good range of
features, the MF724Cdw isn’t especially fast:
The print engine is unusually quiet, with the comparative
hush spoiled only by a loud cooling fan
⬆ The i-Sensys MF724Cdw’s desktop interface is much easier to use than its touchscreen controls
86
Canon quotes a modest 20 pages
per minute print speed, and we
recorded 16.5ppm in our letter test.
We were more impressed by its
colour graphics speed of 14.8ppm, however.
The flipside of this relaxed pace is that the
print engine is unusually quiet, with the
comparative hush spoiled only by a loud
cooling fan.
Connected over wired Ethernet, the
scanner needed 25 seconds to capture an A4
page at 300dpi, but only 15 seconds at 150dpi.
Single-page photocopies were quite quick for
a laser device, taking just 15 seconds in black
or 18 seconds in colour.
Using the ADF, we made 10 single-sided
mono copies in 43 seconds – quick enough
– while the same job in colour was less
competitive, needing 77 seconds.
Our test results were
impressive. Black text
prints were predictably good,
but colour graphics were great,
with strong colours, a consistent toner finish
and no obvious artefacts or jaggedness.
Unfortunately, the printer’s tendency toward
lively colours was less welcome on photos,
which seemed warm and a little too saturated.
The MF724Cdw’s scanner, on the other
hand, is much better than the majority of
office-focused devices. Despite a maximum
600dpi resolution, its scans were sharply
focused and packed full of detail, with the
Auto Tone feature ensuring great exposure
on a range of originals.
Unlike Dell’s H825cdw, the MF724Cdw has
just four consumables, which each combine
toner and drum. Those supplied in the box are
good for a meagre 1,200 black and 1,400
pages, but normal capacity replacements
should print around 3,400 black pages and
2,900 in colour, giving running costs of
around 9.3p per page. Buy the black value
pack, which contains two toners giving 6,800
pages, and this falls to 8.9p.
A comparable inkjet would still be much
cheaper to run, but if you’re set on a laser
device there’s little between this and the Dell
H825cdw. Both are good: buy the latter if
speed is a priority, or the MF724Cdw for
slightly lower costs.
SPECIFICATIONS
TECHNOLOGY Single-pass colour laser • MAXIMUM
PRINT RESOLUTION 600x600dpi • MAXIMUM OPTICAL
SCAN RESOLUTION (OUTPUT BIT DEPTH) 600x600dpi
(24-bit) • DIMENSIONS 479x430x484mm • WEIGHT 31kg
• MAXIMUM PAPER SIZE A4/legal • WARRANTY One
year onsite • DETAILS www.canon.co.uk • PART CODE
9947B044
Mono speed 16.5ppm
Mixed colour 14.8ppm
speed
Mono page cost 2.1p
Colour page 7.3p
cost
0% -50 Reference +50 +100
See page 74 for performance details
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

INKJET MFP
CANON
Pixma MG5750
★★★★★
£75 •
From www.box.co.uk
VERDICT
The right balance of features, performance and
quality makes the Pixma MG5750 a winner
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, smart-
looking 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, but signing the printer up is far
more involved than it is for products from
rival manufacturers such as HP.
The Pixma MG5750 has Canon’s unusual
five-ink print engine, which combines
dye-based black, cyan, magenta and yellow
inks with a bigger, pigment black tank for
better text printing. While that’s a good thing,
we’re disappointed that the MG5750 is
lumbered with a clunky control system.
Rather than touch input, its menus are
navigated with a four-way rocker switch
paired with three dedicated buttons below
⬆ The MG5750 doesn’t have the best controls, but its printouts are excellent
ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016
Photo prints are as good as you’ll get from a mid-range
inkjet: free of grain, and impressively sharp
the screen; we’ve long criticised this setup,
which can be inconsistent and confusing.
The MG5750 inherits another feature
we’ve bemoaned before. Its ink cartridges
are reached by raising up the cantilevered
control panel, but the access is a little
restricted at the rear of each slot. What’s
more, although the slots are clearly marked, it
is physically possible to insert the dye-based
cartridges in the wrong slot; we’re not sure
why there’s no keying to prevent this.
The printer’s paper trays have an
unusual layout where printed pages spill on
to a stop that pivots out of the input tray. It
looks basic, but the neat design does keep
everything tidy.
Fortunately, these fairly minor grumbles
couldn’t spoil another great mid-range home
PRINTERS
MFP. While it isn’t exactly fast, it delivered
standard-quality text at 11.5 pages per minute,
and produced our complex colour graphics
test at 3.6ppm, which is fine at this price.
The scanner is quick at low resolutions,
with a 300 dots per inch (dpi) A4 scan
needing just 19 seconds, but even using a USB
connection, we needed 103 seconds to
capture a postcard-sized photo at 1,200dpi.
Making a black photocopy of an A4 page took
just 13 seconds, rising to 30 seconds in colour.
Undoubtedly, this MFP’s best feature is
the all-round high quality of its results.
Text and graphics printed on plain paper are
bold and crisp, while its photo prints are as
good as you’ll get from a mid-range inkjet:
free of grain, and impressively sharp.
Photocopies were faithful to the original,
while scans were also sharp, with accurate
colours and a high dynamic range.
Stick to Canon’s XL ink cartridges and this
MFP will print each A4 page of mixed text and
graphics for about 6.3p, which is competitive.
While we’ve a couple of minor reservations
about its design, the MG5750 is affordable to
buy and run, has decent speeds and delivers
great-quality results. It’s a fine all-rounder for
the home, and wins our Best Buy award.
SPECIFICATIONS
TECHNOLOGY Thermal inkjet • MAXIMUM PRINT
RESOLUTION 4,800x1,200dpi • MAXIMUM OPTICAL
SCAN RESOLUTION (OUTPUT BIT DEPTH) 1,200x2,400dpi
• DIMENSIONS 148x455x369mm •
(24-bit)
• MAXIMUM PAPER SIZE A4/legal •
WEIGHT 6.3kg
WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.canon.co.uk •
PART CODE 0557C008
Mono speed 11.5ppm
Mixed colour 3.6ppm
speed
Mono page cost 2.2p
Colour page 4.1p
cost
0% -50 Reference +50 +100
See page 74 for performance details
87
 PRINTERS
INKJET MFP
CANON
Pixma MX495
★★★★★
£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 out. In the base there’s
a 100-sheet paper tray that slides out, but
can’t be removed, and printed pages are spat
into a decent, if flexible, output tray above it.
While this MFP can’t automatically print on
Given its low price, capable features and good results,
this is a great budget office MFP
⬆ Scans produced by the MX495 were much better than most budget devices
88
both sides of a sheet of paper, duplex-style,
the driver will help you do it manually.
To the left of the ADF is a neat control
panel with a mono display, but this proved a
little fussy in use; we often found it involved
one more step or confirmation than
expected. It’s also a bit of an arduous
mission to connect the device to Canon’s
Pixma Cloud Link service: you need to print a
code directly from the printer which is valid
only for an hour, visit a URL that’s hard to
type out, register, answer an email and
create a username before you can get
started. Other manufacturers’ equivalents
are far less involved.
Even when connected via USB, printing
was very much on the slow side. It delivered a
first page of text in just 14 seconds, but could
manage only 8.4ppm over 25 pages. Colour
pages crept out at a glacial 1.6ppm, in part
due to regular pauses between sheets. We’ve
seen facial hair appear more quickly than this
printer’s 6x4in photo prints, each of which
needed almost six minutes to complete.
Photocopies were slow as well, particularly in
colour where we saw more pauses: 10 A4
pages took seven-and-a-half minutes. Happily,
scan speeds were much more competitive,
with even a 1,200dpi scan of a 6x4in photo
completing in less than a minute.
Fortunately, there was little to criticise
about the quality of our results. Scans were
much better than average for a budget device,
with sharp focus and great detail. Photocopies
were also great, and text and graphics were
both fine on plain paper. Those with sharp
eyes might spot a touch of grain in photos,
but they certainly weren’t bad.
Ink cartridges for the MX495 come in a
choice of two sizes. Using the larger of these,
costs work out at a very reasonable 6.9p per
A4 page of text and graphics, although the
black component of this is a steep 2.9p.
Given its low price, capable features and
good results, this is a great budget office
MFP, but with slow print speeds and high
black page costs, we’d only recommend it
for light to moderate use.
SPECIFICATIONS
TECHNOLOGY Thermal inkjet • MAXIMUM PRINT
RESOLUTION 4,800x1,200dpi • MAXIMUM OPTICAL
SCAN RESOLUTION (OUTPUT BIT DEPTH) 600x1,200dpi
• DIMENSIONS 189x435x295mm • WEIGHT 5.9kg •
(24-bit)
MAXIMUM PAPER SIZE A4/legal • WARRANTY One year
RTB • DETAILS www.canon.co.uk • PART CODE 0013C008
Mono speed 8.4ppm
Mixed colour
speed 1.6ppm
Mono page cost 2.9p
Colour page 6.9p
cost
0% -50 Reference +50 +100
See page 74 for performance details
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

LASER MFP
DELL H825cdw
★★★★★
£278 •
From www.ballicom.co.uk
VERDICT
Dell’s H825cdw is a good compromise
between speed, quality and cost
WITH INKJETS GETTING ever faster and
cheaper to run, it gets harder to find laser
printers we’d recommend. Dell’s new
H825cdw is in with a shout, though: it’s a
colour laser multifunction peripheral with a
great set of features, including all the
interfaces you could need, automatic duplex
printing and scanning, NFC, and integration
with various cloud services.
At 28 pages per minute, it’s fast, and if
the need arises you can buy an extra
550-sheet paper tray to supplement its
standard 250-sheet cassette and 50-page
multipurpose tray.
That all sounds great, but it’s unlikely to
be love at first sight. The H825cdw is big,
black and monolithic, although it’s livened
up by a big colour touchscreen mounted in
front of the scanner bed. Below this is a
USB port for scanning to, or printing from,
a USB stick. At the top there’s a 50-sheet
automatic document feeder capable of
scanning both sides of a sheet in a single
pass – ideal if you need to make fast
double-sided copies or faxes.
Dell’s software install is a bit clunky, but
seems fairly foolproof, and much the same
⬆ Dell’s software interface isn’t the friendliest, but it’s fairly foolproof
ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016
could be said for the
printer’s own control panel.
Unusually, settings changes such as enabling
or disabling the built-in Wi-Fi interface require
a reboot before they’ll take effect.
It’s not the friendliest interface at first,
but after a short period of use it begins to
show recently used functions, which we
found helpful. Create a Dell Document Hub
account, link it with your accounts on cloud
services such as Dropbox or Google Drive,
and you can access these directly from the
printer via a single login.
The H825cdw isn’t too noisy during prints,
although it takes 20 seconds or so after a job
for its cooling fans to step down. The hush
is surprising given its impressive speed: it
completed our 25-page text test in exactly
one minute from a standing start, and
PRINTERS
needed only 90 seconds for our more
complex colour graphics test.
Photocopies were impressively fast, with
10 mono pages completing in 29 seconds, and
10 colour pages in 50 seconds. Scans, too,
were very quick, with a document scan
needing just eight seconds at 150 dots per
inch (dpi), or twice that at 300dpi.
Aside from very slightly sombre colour
output, print quality was uniformly excellent,
as were photocopies. Scans were also good,
demonstrating sharp focus and high dynamic
range to capture almost the full range of
shades in our tests. We weren’t enamoured
with the layout or usability of Dell’s TWAIN
scan interface, but it clearly did the job.
It’s not often that we see a colour laser
printer that uses separate toners and drums,
but the H825cdw is one such machine. Many
users won’t need to replace the latter, as each
is rated for 50,000 pages, but the supplied
toner will be gone within about 1,200 pages.
Using Dell’s extra-high-capacity replacements
and factoring in the cost of drums and the
30,000-page waste toner box, ongoing
running costs work out at about 10.1p per
colour page, which is broadly competitive.
We’d still go for a good office inkjet, but
if we were choosing a laser, the H825cdw
would be near the top of our list.
SPECIFICATIONS
• MAXIMUM PRINT
TECHNOLOGY Single-pass colour laser
RESOLUTION 600x600dpi • MAXIMUM OPTICAL SCAN
RESOLUTION (OUTPUT BIT DEPTH) 600x600dpi (24-bit)
• DIMENSIONS 500x429x504mm • WEIGHT 31.7kg •
MAXIMUM PAPER SIZE A4/legal • WARRANTY One year
next business day onsite • DETAILS www.dell.co.uk •
PART CODE 210-AFRN
Mono speed 25ppm
Mixed colour 16ppm
speed
Mono page cost 1.7p
Colour page 8.5p
cost
0% -50 Reference +50 +100
See page 74 for performance details
89
 PRINTERS
INKJET MFP
EPSON Expression
Premium XP-530
★★★★★
£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 its control panel has one of the smallest
colour screens we’ve seen: a 3.7cm panel that
looks like it belongs in a camera viewfinder.
It’s been paired with four-way navigation
and an OK switch, and at the highest,
icon-based level it works fine. Dive into
sub-menus, however, and there’s only room
on the screen to display one option at a
time, meaning you’ll often have to scroll to
find what you want. Entering our Wi-Fi
password was tortuous, but the MFP does
also support the Wi-Fi Protected Setup
⬆ The XP-530 has such a tiny screen that you’ll need to use the desktop software to enter your settings
90
The XP-530 is an incredibly quick colour printer for the
price, spitting out 6x4in colour photos in around a minute
(WPS) process for a much more simplified
configuration. We should note that the
screen was very quick to preview photos on
an SD card, so it’s not all bad.
While it looks like there’s an input tray
folded up at the rear, you actually load paper
into a 100-sheet tray slung underneath.
We found it fiddly to restock this without
knocking the output tray above it; on more
than one occasion the printer nagged us to
extend it properly again.
Fortunately, things quickly improve when
you actually start printing with the XP-530.
For a start, it’s an incredibly quick colour
printer for the price, spitting out 6x4in colour
photos in around a minute each, and
dispatching our colour graphics test at 6.4
pages per minute (ppm) – that’s about 50%
quicker than what we’d expect.
Its black text speed of 9.0ppm is less
impressive, but switching to draft quality
produced faint but acceptable results at
16.3ppm. A single black A4 photocopy took 16
seconds, while a colour copy took 24 seconds.
The scanner is similarly quick, needing just
10 seconds to preview an A4 page or to
capture it at 150 dots per inch. Capturing a
6x4in photo at 600dpi took just 25 seconds,
but repeating the job at 1,200dpi was slow, at
two minutes and 16 seconds. While we’ve
seen sharper results, the XP-530 captured
colours faithfully, and was able to distinguish
the full range of shades in our tests.
Print quality is impressive, with crisp black
text and vivid colour graphics on plain paper,
as well as natural, detailed photos on coated
paper. While not a match for Epson’s more
expensive six-ink printers, pictures compare
well to those from five-ink Canon printers.
Epson says the XP-530 doesn’t use its
photo black ink in plain paper printing, so it’s
not included in our 8.7p per page running
cost calculation. Even so, this is more than
2p higher than we calculated for this MFP’s
main rival, Canon’s Pixma MG5750.
Ultimately, there’s not much to pick
between the two. For us, the Canon is the
better all-rounder, and while the Epson is
faster to print in colour, its higher running
costs and miniscule screen just rob it of a
fifth star. It’s still a very good buy for
occasional creative use, however.
SPECIFICATIONS
TECHNOLOGY Piezo inkjet • MAXIMUM PRINT
RESOLUTION 5,760x1,440dpi • MAXIMUM OPTICAL
SCAN RESOLUTION (OUTPUT BIT DEPTH) 1,200x2,400dpi
• DIMENSIONS 138x390x341mm • WEIGHT 6.2kg •
(24-bit)
MAXIMUM PAPER SIZE A4/legal • WARRANTY One year
RTB • DETAILS www.epson.co.uk • PART CODE XP-350
Mono speed 9ppm
Mixed colour 6.4ppm
speed
Mono page cost 2.7p
Colour page 6p
cost
0% -50 Reference +50 +100
See page 74 for performance details
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

INKJET MFP
EPSON WorkForce
Pro WF-5690DWF
★★★★★
£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, while a specialty feed at the
back handles another 80 sheets when needed.
The WF-5690DWF seems built to last: Epson
says it’s good for a one-time maximum print
duty of 35,000 pages a month, which is
comparable to the small colour laser devices
with which it’s competing.
This is an easy MFP to use from a PC or
mobile device, with Epson’s software
When it comes to speed, there’s not much between this
and a comparable laser printer
⬆ Epson’s excellent software makes the WF-5690DWF easy to use from a PC or a mobile device
ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016
combining advanced options with ease of use.
We’re not enamoured with the touchscreen,
however. Although the picture is clear it isn’t
always perfectly responsive, and the menu
system is more complex than necessary.
When it comes to speed, there’s not much
between this and a comparable laser printer.
The WF-5690DWF delivered our 25-page
letter tests at 19.2 pages per minute, and
managed 13.1ppm on our graphics-heavy
colour test. Duplexing 10 colour sides on to
five pages took 99 seconds.
It was particularly quick on our scan tests,
completing an A4 preview in just six seconds,
capturing a page at 300dpi in 14 seconds, and
needing only 37 seconds to scan a 6x4in
colour photo at 1,200dpi. Single page
PRINTERS
photocopies took just nine seconds in black
or 14 seconds in colour, although multipage
copies weren’t quite as competitive, with 10
sheets needing around a minute and
three-quarters in black or colour.
Scan, print and copy quality is uniformly
good, as we’d expect for the price. While black
text isn’t quite laser-sharp, it’s as good as
we’ve seen from an inkjet. Colour graphics
have more impact on plain paper than most
rivals’ efforts, but there was a trace of bleed-
through on duplex prints on 80gsm paper.
This printer has a cheap ‘maintenance box’
rated for 50,000 pages, and its consumables
are available in several sizes up to 4,000-page
‘XXL’ items. Overall costs of 3.8p per A4 page
are cheaper than any directly competing laser,
but ink prices have been falling, and running
costs of the WorkForce ranges are no longer
exceptional among office inkjets.
With low running costs and great all-round
performance, this MFP makes more sense
than a colour laser, but it’s too expensive. If
you can do without PostScript 3, the Brother
MFC-J5320DW costs less than a third of the
price, while still offering above-average
printing speeds, faxing capability and even
lower running costs than the WF-5690DWF.
SPECIFICATIONS
TECHNOLOGY Piezo inkjet • MAXIMUM PRINT
RESOLUTION 4,800x1,200dpi • MAXIMUM OPTICAL
SCAN RESOLUTION (OUTPUT BIT DEPTH) 1,200x2,400dpi
(24-bit) • DIMENSIONS 342x461x422mm • WEIGHT 14.3kg
• MAXIMUM PAPER SIZE A4/legal • WARRANTY Three
years onsite • DETAILS www.epson.co.uk • PART CODE
C11CD14301BY
Mono speed 19.2ppm
Mixed colour 13.1ppm
speed
Mono page cost 0.9p
10h 16m
Colour page 3.1p
cost
0% -50 Reference +50 +100
See page 74 for performance details
91
 PRINTERS
INKJET MFP
HP DeskJet 3630
★★★★★
£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 wireless network, which lets you
share it among several people, or access it
from mobile devices. With only basic controls
available, this is done via a temporary USB
connection when you’re installing HP’s
software on to a PC. Unfortunately, that’s
where our criticisms just begin.
The default installation choices result in
Google Chrome being installed and set as
your default browser – something we’d only
expect to see supporting a free app.
And while HP is by no means alone
among printer manufacturers in wanting to
collect anonymised information about how
you use its products, its installer makes it
harder than most to opt out of the service.
If you install the Android app, you’ll need to
opt out again there.
Elements of HP’s PC software for inkjet
MFPs have long been easy to criticise, from
⬆ Annoyingly, HP’s software will attempt to install Google Chrome and set it as your default browser
92
On plain paper, black text was bold and crisp, and colour
graphics were reasonably vivid, and unusually free of
inkjet artefacts such as grain or streaking
an oversimplified print driver that hides basic
choices away in an unfriendly advanced
options menu, to the even more simplistic
scan software, which survived a recent
redesign to remain almost wilfully irritating.
Unfortunately, nothing has changed here. By
default, the printer is set to its slower ‘quiet
mode’: you must unset this from the HP
Toolbox app, as counter-intuitively there’s no
option in the driver.
Given its low price, it is at least much
easier to forgive this MFP’s other weaknesses.
Despite a decent 11.2ppm result when printing
text, it could deliver only two pages of colour
graphics per minute. Photos were very slow,
too, with each 6x4in print taking more than
four minutes to appear.
It’s not a quick copier, either, needing a
minute to duplicate a colour A4 page, or 40
seconds in black only. HP’s TWAIN interface
wouldn’t let us complete our 150dpi test, but
at 300dpi, scanning an A4 page took 25
seconds. A 1,200dpi photo scan took three
minutes, which is very slow.
Fortunately, there’s no need to make
excuses for the quality of its results. On plain
paper, black text was bold and crisp, and
colour graphics were reasonably vivid, and
unusually free of inkjet artefacts such as
grain or streaking.
Scans were fine for most purposes, with
details preserved from even the lightest and
darkest regions, but again it was frustrating
to see that photos appeared to have been
sharpened, and the TWAIN interface has no
option to turn this off.
We often find that the cheapest MFPs are
saddled with the highest running costs, but
that’s not the case here. Buy cartridges
yourself and an A4 page of mixed text and
graphics will cost about 9.3p, but you can
lower this – and save hassle – by subscribing
to HP’s Instant Ink service, which delivers
replacement cartridges straight to your door.
This is a good budget MFP that won’t
make you feel like you’ve scrimped and
saved; it’s just a shame that HP hasn’t
paired it with better software.
SPECIFICATIONS
TECHNOLOGY Thermal inkjet • MAXIMUM PRINT
RESOLUTION 4,800x1,200dpi • MAXIMUM OPTICAL
SCAN RESOLUTION (OUTPUT BIT DEPTH) 1,200x1,200dpi
• DIMENSIONS 158x438x310mm •
(24-bit)
• MAXIMUM PAPER SIZE A4/legal •
WEIGHT 4.2kg
WARRANTY One year RTB • DETAILS www.hp.co.uk •
PART CODE K4T99B#BEV
Mono speed 11.2ppm
Mixed colour 2ppm
speed
Mono page cost 3.7p
Colour page 5.6p
cost
0% -50 Reference +50 +100
See page 74 for performance details
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

INKJET MFP
HP Officejet 7510
★★★★★
£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 75-sheet output tray, but
we found it extremely fiddly to fit properly
in the first place, and just as difficult to
replace after we accidentally pulled it off
when reloading paper.
We had a similar problem when fitting
the supplied standard black ink cartridge,
which didn’t seat easily. We suspect it’s
easier to fit the XL version, which fills the
full width of the slot.
As with the HP DeskJet 3630 opposite,
HP’s setup program wanted to install Google’s
The frustrating software is a shame, because in many ways
the 7510 is very good. Its mono and colour photocopies are
fantastic, and black text is excellent
⬆ HP’s oversimplified and unfriendly software interface lacks many advanced functions
Chrome browser and set it as our default,
which is something we’d associate with
freeware. It installs HP’s most recent scan
interface, which is as frustratingly over-
simplified as the one it replaces.
There’s a depressing lack of advanced
features, and a limited selection of pre-
defined scan resolutions. Like some other HP
products we’ve tested, scanning at 1,200 dots
per inch produced a completely black image.
The print driver is similarly oversimplified.
You’ll need to fish around in its unfriendly
Advanced settings to find options such as the
maximum print resolution. Bizarrely, you’ll
also need to head here to select the A3 and
A3+ paper sizes that are this MFP’s key selling
point, although at least once you find them
you can set up a shortcut. Unfortunately, the
Officejet 7510 doesn’t support automatic
double-sided prints, scans or copies.
PRINTERS
These frustrations are a shame, because in
many ways the 7510 is very good. Its mono
and colour photocopies are fantastic, black
text is excellent, and colour graphics and
photos are also pretty good.
Document scans were fine, but our 600dpi
photo scan appeared to have been sharpened,
leaving colour boundaries looking artificial
when viewed at 100%.
This is quite a rapid MFP, managing to
print both draft and standard quality text at
14.6 pages per minute in our tests; the results
looked identical, too. Preview scans took just
10 seconds over a USB connection, a 300dpi
A4 scan took 13 seconds, and our 600dpi
photo just 24 seconds.
Single photocopies were swift, but the
substantial-looking ADF buzzed irritatingly in
use, slowed a 10-page mono copy to
two-and-a-half minutes and needed 45
seconds longer for the same job in colour.
Using the available high-capacity ink
cartridges, this printer’s running costs come
in at a reasonable 4.3p per A4 page of text
and colour graphics. Unfortunately, this isn’t
quite enough to save the Officejet 7510 when
for even less money you can buy the Canon
Pixma MG5750 or Brother’s MFC-J5320DW.
The Brother MFP in particular may be
uglier and feel less well made, but it’s
generally quicker, even cheaper to buy and
run, and it has duplex printing. Helpfully, it’s
also less frustrating to use.
SPECIFICATIONS
TECHNOLOGY Thermal inkjet • MAXIMUM PRINT
RESOLUTION 4,800x1,200dpi • MAXIMUM OPTICAL
SCAN RESOLUTION (OUTPUT BIT DEPTH) 1,200x1,200dpi
• DIMENSIONS 287x615x727mm • WEIGHT 13kg •
(24-bit)
MAXIMUM PAPER SIZE A3+ • WARRANTY One year RTB
• DETAILS www.hp.co.uk • PART CODE G3J47A
Mono speed 14.6ppm
Mixed colour 4.2ppm
speed 10h 16m
Mono page cost 1.6p
10h 16m
Colour page 2.7p
cost
0% -50 Reference +50 +100
See page 74 for performance details
93
 PRINTERS
LASER PRINTER
RICOH
SP 3600DN
★★★★★
£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
technology. LED printing is broadly similar to
laser, except that it uses – you guessed it – a
light-emitting diode to draw the electrostatic
image instead of a laser beam.
The SP 3600DN feels built to cope with
clumsy office use. The 250-sheet paper tray
is sturdy and comes with a handy gauge to
let you know when it’s running low on paper.
The SP 3600DN feels built to cope with clumsy office use.
The 250-sheet paper tray is sturdy and comes with a handy
gauge to let you know when it’s running low on paper
⬆ The Ricoh SP 3600DN is built for heavy use, with a maximum duty cycle of 50,000 pages per month
94
At the right there’s
also a size wheel,
which serves to tell you
and the printer what size
paper is loaded, provided you remember to
change it when necessary. Above, the
100-sheet bypass tray feels bullet-proof, while
the stop at the front of the 125-sheet output
tray feels similarly robust. Unusually at this
price, you can upgrade this printer with an
additional 250- or 500-sheet cassette, for a
maximum 850-sheet capacity.
This printer arrives with a standard
20,000-page drum and a 1,500-page starter
toner, after which replacements for the latter
can be had with either a 3,000- or 6,000-page
capacity. Stick to the bigger cartridge and
costs work out at a low 1.2p per page, or 1.3p
if you include the maintenance
box you’ll need after 120,000 pages.
We doubt many home users will get that far,
but heavy users could buy this printer and
produce 100,000 A4 pages for about £1,300.
We found the SP 3600DN quite slow to
start printing unless its cooling fans were still
running from a previous job, in which case
the time to first page (TTFP) was about 16
seconds. Once they had stopped, we timed
this at 20-25 seconds, depending on how
long the printer had been idle. It soon made
up for the hesitant start, though, despatching
our 25-page text test at a rate of 23.8ppm.
Over 100 pages it reached 28.6ppm.
Text quality was predictably excellent, with
dark black characters and razor-sharp
outlines. Graphics were also good, although
the deep black toner made them a little too
dark in places, and there was a slight trace
of banding – an issue this LED printer has
in common with some laser-class printers.
We saw the same issues with photos, but
otherwise these were unusually good for this
class of printer, with crisp details and subtle
shading without obvious half-toning artefacts.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t print DL envelopes
without bad creases appearing in them.
This printer is overkill for light home use,
but its speed, durability, duplex printing and
low costs make it ideal for anyone wanting to
print a lot on a modest budget. In particular,
the availability of paper tray upgrades means
it could grow with a small business, provided
that colour printing isn’t required of it.
SPECIFICATIONS
TECHNOLOGY Mono LED • MAXIMUM PRINT
RESOLUTION 1,200x1,200dpi • MAXIMUM OPTICAL SCAN
RESOLUTION (OUTPUT BIT DEPTH) N/A • DIMENSIONS
268x370x392mm • WEIGHT 14.5kg • MAXIMUM PAPER
SIZE A4/legal • WARRANTY Two years RTB • DETAILS
www.ricoh.co.uk • PART CODE 906231
Mono speed 23.8ppm
Mono page cost 1.2p
0% -50 Reference +50 +100
See page 74 for performance details
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

LASER PRINTER
RICOH
SP C250DNW
★★★★★
£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 a pleasant enough design, with a couple
of white panels seemingly wrapped around a
black plastic core. There are some nice
touches, too, as the vents over its two
cooling fans can be rotated to blow hot air
to the front or back.
It’s not perfect, though. While the display
is backlit, it’s a basic two-line LCD. There are
no orientation markings in the main paper
tray, which is a pain if you want to print on
the flipside of a previous single-sided job.
In our testing, the SP C250DNW was some
way off Ricoh’s claimed 20ppm speed. It
produced a first page of black text in 23
seconds, and went on to deliver 25 pages at
a rate of 16.0ppm.
In common with most printers, it was far
slower to deal with the complex graphics
⬆ Ricoh’s SP C250DNW has surprisingly low running costs for a laser printer
ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016
Print quality is very high. Graphics and photos alike had
neutral colours, and the toner gave an even, satin finish
contained in our 24-page colour test: the
whole test completed at 5.8ppm. Timed over
just the last 10 pages, which represent
printing off typical web pages, it reached
10.5ppm, which is much faster than a similarly
priced inkjet would manage.
Duplex printing 10 sides of colour graphics
on to five pages took the best part of three
minutes, but repeating this with the less
complex pages took just 70 seconds.
Happily, print quality is very high. Graphics
and photos alike had neutral colours, and the
toner gave an even, satin finish. Those with
sharper eyes might detect some half-toning
patterns among subtly different colours,
though, and on thin paper stock we could
see some bleed-through in duplexed pages.
Text quality was exemplary, as you might
expect from a laser.
PRINTERS
PRINTE
Despite vents that could spare you from
an unwelcome draft, this is quite a loud
printer, particularly so given its modest speed.
While there isn’t much clattering from the
paper transport mechanism, those fans are
loud, and occasionally while they were running
we heard a sudden, short-lived buzz, as
though an unfortunate insect had just been
sucked into the blades.
This is usually the part of a laser printer
review where we’d point out the high running
costs, and say that in most cases you’d be
better off with an inkjet. However, while this
printer’s page costs do work out at a steep
12.6p for a page of mixed text and graphics,
that’s only about 35% higher than some
inkjet printers at this price.
Interestingly, it costs the exact same 2.2p
per black-and-white page as the Canon Pixma
MG5750 inkjet MFP.
If you’ll be printing in moderate volumes
we’d still recommend an inkjet, but for when
fast printing is a priority, the SP C250DNW is
a cheap printer that’s well specified and
produces great results. It’s a Best Buy.
SPECIFICATIONS
• MAXIMUM
TECHNOLOGY Single-pass colour laser
PRINT RESOLUTION 2,400x600dpi • DIMENSIONS
320x400x450mm • WEIGHT 23.8kg • MAXIMUM
PAPER SIZE A4/legal • WARRANTY Two years swap out •
DETAILS www.ricoh.co.uk • PART CODE 901630
Mono speed 16ppm
Mixed colour 5.8ppm
speed
Mono page cost 2.2p
Colour page 10.4p
cost
0% -50 Reference +50 +100
See page 74 for performance details
95
 PRINTERS

RECOMMENDED RECOMMENDED BEST BUY RECOMMENDED

BROTHER BROTHER CANON CANON CANON

MFC-J5320DW MFC-J680DW i-Sensys Pixma MG5750 Pixma MX495
MF724Cdw

Rating ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★

HARDWARE
Technology Piezo inkjet Piezo inkjet Single-pass colour laser Thermal inkjet Thermal inkjet

Maximum print 6,000x1,200dpi 6,000x1,200dpi 600x600dpi 4,800x1,200dpi 4,800x1,200dpi

resolution
Maximum optical scan 1,200x2,400dpi (24-bit) 1,200x2,400dpi (24-bit) 600x600dpi (24-bit) 1,200x2,400dpi (24-bit) 600x1,200dpi (24-bit)
resolution (output bit
depth)
Mono print speed 12.8ppm 12.0ppm 16.5ppm 11.5ppm 8.4ppm
Mixed colour 7.1ppm 5.5ppm 14.8ppm 3.6ppm 1.6ppm
print speed
Number of colours 4 (4) 4 (4) 4 (4) 5 (5) 4 (4)
(cartridges)
Maximum colours 4 (4) 4 (4) 4 (4) 5 (5) 4 (4)
(cartridges)
Standard interfaces USB, USB host, USB, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi USB, USB host, USB, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi USB, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi
Ethernet, 802.11b/g/n Ethernet, 802.11b/g/n
Wi-Fi Wi-Fi
Optional interfaces None None None None None
Dimensions 240x490x290mm 172x400x341mm 479x430x484mm 148x455x369mm 189x435x295mm
Weight 10.8kg 8.3kg 31kg 6.3kg 5.9kg
Duty cycle (pages per Not stated Not stated 750-2,000 Not stated 1,000 maximum
month) recommended, 40,000
maximum
PAPER HANDLING
Maximum paper size A3 A4/legal A4/legal A4/legal A4/legal
Maximum paper weight 220gsm 300gsm 220gsm 300gsm 300gsm
Standard paper trays 2 (251) 3 (121) 2 (300) 1 (100) 2 (100)
(capacity)
Maximum paper trays 2 (251) 3 (121) 3 (500) 1 (100) 2 (100)
(capacity)
Duplex Yes Yes Yes Yes No
FEATURES
Borderless printing A3 A4 No A4 A4
Direct (PC-less) printing USB No USB No No
Memory card support No No No No No
Supported operating Windows XP or later, Windows XP or later, Windows Vista or later, Windows XP or later, Windows XP or later,
systems Mac OS X 10.7.5 or later, Mac OS X 10.7.5 or later, Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later, Mac OS X 10.7.5 or later, Mac OS X 10.7.5 or later,
Android, iOS Android, iOS Linux, Android, iOS Android, iOS Android, iOS

Display Colour touchscreen Colour touchscreen Colour touchscreen Colour LCD Mono LCD
BUYING INFORMATION
Warranty One year RTB One year RTB One year onsite One year RTB One year RTB

Price inc VAT £80 £86 £289 £75 £52

Mono page cost 0.8p 2.4p 2.1p 2.2p 2.9p
Colour page cost 2.6p 4.7p 7.3p 4.1p 6.9p
Supplier www.printerbase.co.uk www.viking-direct.co.uk www.ballicom.co.uk www.box.co.uk www.ebuyer.com

Details www.brother.co.uk www.brother.co.uk www.canon.co.uk www.canon.co.uk www.canon.co.uk

Part code MFCJ5320DWU1 MFCJ680DWZU1 9947B044 0557C008 0013C008

96 JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

 PRINTERS

RECOMMENDED RECOMMENDED BUSINESS BUY BEST BUY

DELL EPSON EPSON HP HP RICOH RICOH

H825cdw Expression WorkForce DeskJet 3630 Officejet 7510 SP 3600DN SP C250DNW
Premium Pro WF-
XP-530 5690DWF
★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★

Single-pass colour Piezo inkjet Piezo inkjet Thermal inkjet Thermal inkjet Mono LED Single-pass colour
laser laser
600x600dpi 5,760x1,440dpi 4,800x1,200dpi 4,800x1,200dpi 4,800x1,200dpi 1,200x1,200dpi 2,400x600dpi

600x600dpi (24-bit) 1,200x2,400dpi 1,200x2,400dpi 1,200x1,200dpi 1,200x1,200dpi N/A N/A

(24-bit) (24-bit) (24-bit) (24-bit)

25.0ppm 9ppm 19.2ppm 11.2ppm 14.6ppm 23.8ppm 16.0ppm

16.0ppm 6.4ppm 13.1ppm 2.0ppm 4.2ppm N/A 5.8ppm

4 (4) 5 (5) 4 (4) 4 (2) 4 (4) 1 (1) 2 (251)

4 (4) 5 (5) 4 (4) 4 (2) 4 (4) 1 (1) 3 (751)

USB, USB USB, 802.11b/g/n USB, USB USB, 802.11b/g/n USB, Ethernet, USB, Ethernet USB, Ethernet,
host, Ethernet, Wi-Fi host, Ethernet, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi
802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi
None None None None None None None
500x429x504mm 138x390x341mm 342x461x422mm 158x438x310mm 287x615x727mm 268x370x392mm 320x400x450mm
31.7kg 6.2kg 14.3kg 4.2kg 13kg 14.5kg 23.8kg
700-3,500 Not stated 35,000 maximum 1,000 maximum 800 recommended, 50,000 maximum 30,000 maximum
recommended, 12,000 maximum
50,000 maximum

A4/legal A4/legal A4/legal A4/legal A3+ A4/legal A4/legal

220gsm Not stated 256gsm 300gsm 250gsm 162gsm 160gsm
2 (300) 1 (100) 2 (330) 1 (60) 1 (250) 2 (350) 2 (251)

3 (850) 1 (100) 3 (580) 1 (60) 1 (250) 3 (850) 3 (751)

Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes

No A4 No A4 A3+ No No
Mobile, USB, NFC Memory card USB No USB USB USB, mobile
No SD No No No No No
Windows Vista or Windows XP or later, Windows XP or later, Windows Vista or Windows Vista or Windows XP or later, Windows XP or later,
later, Mac OS X 10.7 Mac OS X 10.6.8 or Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later, Mac OS X 10.8 later, Mac OS X Mac OS X 10.6 or Mac OS X 10.6 or
or later, Linux, SAP later, Android, iOS later, Android, iOS or later, Android, iOS 10.8 or later, Linux, later, Android, iOS later, Android, iOS
R/3 release 4.6B Android, iOS
onwards
Colour touchscreen Colour touchscreen Colour touchscreen Mono LCD Colour touchscreen Mono LCD Mono LCD

One year next One year RTB Three years onsite One year RTB One year RTB Two years RTB Two years swap-out
business day onsite
£278 £70 £298 £40 £94 £160 £70
Prices correct at time of going to press

1.7p 2.7p 0.9p 3.7p 1.6p 1.2p 2.2p

8.5p 6.0p 3.1p 5.6p 2.7p N/A 10.4p
www.ballicom.co.uk www.currys.co.uk www.officedirect. www.currys.co.uk www.viking-direct. www.ebuyer.com www.ebuyer.com
co.uk co.uk
www.dell.co.uk www.epson.co.uk www.epson.co.uk www.hp.co.uk www.hp.co.uk www.ricoh.co.uk www.ricoh.co.uk
210-AFRN XP-350 C11CD14301BY K4T99B#BEV G3J47A 906231 901630

ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016 97

THE 21 THINGS KILLING YOUR PC

98 JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

 THE 21 THINGS KILLING YOUR PC

THE 21 THINGS
KILLING
YOUR PC
Your computer is slowly dying, throttled by malware,
bloatware, old components and dirt. But it doesn’t have
to be that way: our guide shows you how to reverse the
ageing process and make your PC run like new again

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 it and it’s time to upgrade, you should follow our
instructions over the next 10 pages as we show you
how to reinvigorate your PC.
Our in-depth step-by-step instructions will help
you identify and fix the 21 most common culprits for
a slow computer, and many of the not-so-common
ones, too. You should think of this feature as a
regular maintenance guide: repeat the steps every
few months and you’ll ensure that your computer
always stays in tip-top condition.
Even if it is time to make a new purchase, these
instructions should still prove invaluable, as you can
give your old computer a massive tweak to make it
usable for someone else; perhaps it can go to a family
member or even be donated to charity.

THE 21 THINGS KILLING YOUR PC

▶ Hidden malware p100 ▶ Five programs to
uninstall now p103
▶ Adware p101
▶ Bloated Windows 8 and 10 p104
▶ Utilities, links, security software,
old software, Modern UI p102 ▶ Low memory and
slow hard disk p106
▶ Toolbars, startup apps,
free software p103 ▶ Heat and dust p109

JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341 99

 THE 21 THINGS KILLING YOUR PC
Hidden malware
Not all malware can be detected by your AV software. Here we show
you how to find the bad stuff you probably don’t even know is there
THE AMOUNT OF malware in the wild is truly
terrifying. In 2015 alone, Kaspersky detected
that 34.2% of users’ computers were subject
to a web attack. That statistic only takes into
account the PCs protected by Kaspersky
Internet Security and where malware was
detected and blocked. By definition, hidden
malware won’t even feature on that list, so
there’s a good chance you, a friend or a family
member have fallen prey to a silent PC killer.
The truth is that this kind of attack
doesn’t affect just the naive computer user
but experts, too, and we’re all equally
vulnerable to this kind of threat.
Doesn’t security software stop this?
In a perfect world, all malware would be
stopped by your security software, but we
don’t live in a perfect world. That’s not to say
you shouldn’t bother with security software: it
will protect you from the majority of threats.
You should run high-quality protection, such
as Kaspersky Internet Security, which is
Shopper’s security suite of choice.
However, cybercriminals are always coming
up with new threats that security companies
have yet to detect. Viruses, Trojans, worms,
ransomware and other types of malware are
constantly evolving, and new threats can stay
one step ahead of the protection.
On top of that, there are threats that fall
into grey areas. For example, when you
install some free software you’ll get a
message box asking if you want to install
another bit of software, such as a browser
toolbar. Often these dialog boxes are
pre-configured for your agreement, with many
of us installing additional software by mistake.
These additional bits of software can often
include adware or other features that we
consider to be malicious. As the software has
to be agreed to be installed, most security
software won’t pick them up and remove
them, even if they’re resource hogs.
It doesn’t even have to be software that
you’ve installed. Lenovo was caught out when
it came to light in 2015 that it had been
pre-installing the Superfish adware on all its
computers. This software injected adverts into
web pages and made secure connections
insecure, yet it was undetected and
untouched by security software.
FIND HIDDEN MALWARE
Investigate mystery processes
There are many obvious signs that your PC
is infected, such as if it crashes all the time or
if your browser homepage has changed and
you can’t change it back. The kind of malware
that we want to hunt down doesn’t do that.
100
Instead, it hides its files and its processes
don’t turn up in Task Manager.
As clever as the malware thinks it is, the
fact is that there has to be an instruction
somewhere that tells it to start up with your
computer. To find this, we recommend using
Autoruns, which scours your entire PC to
discover startup applications. We’ll use it
on page 102 to clear down unwanted
applications, but we can also use it now to
find and detect malware.
Download Autoruns (tinyurl.com/
DownloadAutoruns) and extract the Zip file
to your computer. Double-click autoruns.exe
to run the software (there’s no need to install
it on your PC); alternatively, right-click and
select Run as administrator to get more
thorough results. You’ll need to wait a few
seconds while Autoruns discovers and lists
every process and application that starts
with your PC, including Registry entries,
browser extensions and drivers.
Even on a relatively new and clean
computer, the list of startup items can look
intimidating, so we need to narrow down the
list a little. To do this, select Hide Empty
Locations and Hide Microsoft Entries from
the Options menu. You’ll be left with a list of
third-party entries. Scroll through this list to
spot any entries that you don’t recognise.
⬆ Autoruns will find all the applications that
automatically start with your PC
When you see an unknown item, right-click
it and select Search Online. This will open
your browser with a Google search for the
name of the process. You’ll see various
search results. The ones to look out for are
links to file.net, which tells if you a file is safe;
processlibrary.com, which tells you what a
process is and why it’s running; and
shoudiblockit.com, which tells if you if you
should kill a process.
Find suspicious hidden processes
Autoruns also has the ability to detect
malicious processes thanks to its integration
with the file-checking database, VirusTotal.
⬆ File.net tells you if a process is safe or not
Annoyingly, the service isn’t enabled by
default. To get it working, right-click any
entry in the Autoruns list and select Check
VirusTotal. You’ll see a pop-up dialog box
telling you that you need to agree to the
terms of service to enable VirusTotal; agree,
and your browser will load the terms and
conditions. You can just close this page down,
as you’ve enabled the VirusTotal features.
At the moment, you’ll have scanned only
the one file. To check your entire list, go
back to Autoruns and select Options, Scan
Options. Select the ‘Check VirusTotal.com’
and ‘Submit Unknown Images’ tickboxes
and click Rescan.
Autoruns will now run through the entire
list of processes again, but will submit every
one to VirusScan. This is all done over the
internet, so it can take a few minutes for the
VirusTotal scores to appear.
⬆ VirusTotal scores help you find malicious
software and stop it from running
When VirusTotal has finished, each
process will be given a score out of a
maximum. The maximum value can change
between 53 and 57 in our experience, and is
down to the way that VirusTotal works: it
checks 57 sources to see if a file is listed as
suspicious. The more databases the file is in,
the higher the maximum score; the higher the
VirusTotal score, the higher the chance that a
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

file is malicious. It’s not unusual to find a few
files on your computer that score one or two
in total, but the odds are that these are safe.
For more information, just click the score
next to a process and you’ll be taken to the
virustotal.com page, which lists information
about that particular bit of software.
Stopping malware from running
To prevent a process starting automatically,
just remove its tick from Autoruns and that’s
it. We recommend removing anything that
has a high VirusTotal score, or which you
discovered was malicious when using the
internet search option. Now reboot your
computer and re-run the steps above to see
if the malware has gone for good; in some
cases, the malware finds a way to come
back, in which case you’ll need to follow the
information below.
Root out rootkits your AV can’t see
Every operating system has a restricted root
level access, which is used to perform
administrator tasks that should be hidden
from the user. This is typically low-level stuff,
such as dealing directly with drivers and
hardware. Rootkit malware takes advantage of
this by installing itself at a lower level in the
OS, effectively cloaking it from detection with
normal tools and even anti-virus software.
The problem with this kind of malicious
software is that it can be used to steal data or
even to give hackers remote control of it, so
they can use it for nefarious purposes, such
as sending spam email.
To get rid of a rootkit, you need software
that can detect it. Despite the ‘Beta’ in the
name, the free Malwarebytes Anti-Rootkit
Beta (tinyurl.com/AntiRootkitBeta) is ideal, as
it’s extremely easy to use.
Download the software and run it to start
the extraction process. Select which folder
you want to extract the files to (the Desktop
is the default option) and click OK. When
the extraction has completed, the software
will run automatically.
Click Next and then click the Update
button to get the latest malware definitions.
Click Next when done. Finally, click Scan and
let Malwarebytes scan your entire computer.
It’s a thorough scan, so will take a while
to do properly. Our advice is to walk away
from your computer while the scan continues.
⬆ You need to download the latest malware
definitions to discover the latest rootkits
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341
THE 21 THINGS KILLING YOUR PC
Hopefully, when you come back you’ll see the
message, “Scan Finished: No malware found!”.
If the scan does detect a rootkit, click the
Cleanup button and restart your computer to
destroy it. When your PC loads Windows
again, re-run Malwarebytes to see if the
rootkit has truly gone; you may need to
repeat the entire cycle a number of times.
⬆ AdwCleaner is simple to use, and will remove a
lot of malicious software
Even this won’t find everything, though, so
run Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Free (tinyurl.
com/AntiMalwareFreeDownload). Run the file
you downloaded to install the software. When
you click Finish at the end of the installation,
Anti-Malware will start automatically. Click
the Scan button to start scanning your
computer. If it detects any malware, you can
click ‘Review Detected Items’ to investigate
the infection while the scan is still running.
⬆ Malwarebytes Anti-Rootkit scan can take a while, You can then remove the selected items.
but it will find most malware lurking on your PC
Remove stubborn malware
As good as it is, Malwarebytes’ Anti-Rootkit
can’t defeat all infections, so you may need to
up the ante with GMER. It’s not a very friendly
app, but it’s recommended by professionals.
Go to the GMER website (www.gmer.net)
and click the Download EXE button. This will
download a file with seemingly random letters
and numbers (at the time of writing the file
was called 1yiztw69.exe, but this changes ⬆ Anti-Malware Free will clear up anything other
regularly). When it’s downloaded the file, run software might have missed
the software. Click the Scan button to start
searching your computer. Fix hidden malware damage
This deep scan takes a while and uses a lot Malware can cause a lot of damage that
of system resources, so we recommend won’t necessarily be undone when you
walking away from your computer while it’s remove the offending software. As such,
doing it. If you get any problems, a message clearing up at the end of the clean-up process
will pop up that says, “Warning!!!”. Click OK is vital. If you’ve downloaded Malwarebytes’
to remove the troublesome file, restart your Anti-Rootkit Beta then you’ve already got
computer and start the scan all over again. the FixDamage application. To find this, go
Repeat as many times as required. to the Plugins folder in the mbar folder.
This will be on your desktop if you left the
Adware and PUPs default options alone; otherwise, it will be
As well as malware, there are adware and where you chose to install it.
other potentially unwanted programs Run FixDamage and it will start a new
(PUPs). Adware can change system settings Command Line window. Type ‘Y’ and
and insert adverts into web pages, and can FixDamage will restore Windows’ main
be hard to remove; other PUPs are often settings back to their defaults.
installed by accident when you install free
software and can have a negative impact on
system performance.
To find and remove adware, run the free
portable program AdwCleaner (tinyurl.com/
DownloadAdwCleaner). Run the downloaded
application (it doesn’t need installing). Click
‘I agree’ on the first dialog box, then click the
Scan button to search your PC for adware,
Trojans, browser hijackers and more. If
AdwCleaner finds anything malicious, click
the Clean button to remove the software.
Reboot your computer and re-run the scan ⬆ FixDamage will restore settings back to default
to be sure that everything has gone. and fix damage caused by malware
101
 THE 21 THINGS KILLING YOUR PC
Bloatware and
unwanted applications
From the junk that was installed when you got your PC to the free utilities
you’ve tried and forgotten about, old software can hog resources and
really drag your computer down. Here’s how to remove it
INSTALLED SOFTWARE CAN be among the
worst offenders when it comes to slowing
down your PC. Whether it’s the cumulative
effect of lots of new applications being
installed and removed, or simply just all the
bloated software that manufacturers see fit to
install on our new computers, from free trials
to ‘helpful’ utilities, software can be a real
killer. Even worse, some software is either
dangerous and open to hackers, or installs
adware or other junk with it. They’re the main
reasons why you should uninstall the top five
bits of rubbish software (see box, opposite).
As such, it makes sense to be harsh in the
treatment, weeding out old junk completely.
For the software you want to keep,
there’s a secondary threat: start-up items.
These launch automatically with your
computer, often putting icons into the
Windows Notification Area (bottom-right,
near the clock). Everything running in here
takes up precious system resources, so
preventing these applications from running
will make your computer run faster. We’ll
show you how to fix everything.
Most software that you don’t want can
easily be removed from the Control Panel,
but the default Windows options don’t
always get rid of everything. Instead, we
recommend using the free IOBit Uninstaller
(tinyurl.com/IOBitUninstallerDownload).
This application will also clear out the
hidden junk left behind by applications.
REMOVE UNWANTED
APPLICATIONS
Go to the All Programs area of IOBit
Uninstaller. When you see an application you
want to remove, click the green rubbish bin
102
icon. This will start the normal uninstall
routine, but when you’re done you’ll be asked
if you want to run the Powerful Scan, which
will track down junk files and remove them.
Branded services and utilities
PC manufacturers often load up a computer
with dozens of additional utilities. Some are
designed to make using your computer easier,
others are designed to get you to sign up for
premium services, such as cloud storage, with
the manufacturer taking their cut. Other bits
of software are slightly more nefarious, such
as web toolbars that change your search
engine and homepage (again, the PC
manufacturer gets paid for this).
The difficulty here is that in the midst of
the annoying software, there are genuinely
useful programs that you shouldn’t remove.
Scroll through the list in IOBit Uninstaller
The difficulty is that in the midst of the
annoying software, there are genuinely
useful programs you shouldn’t remove
and leave any software created by your PC’s
manufacturer, at least for now. It should be
safe to remove all other applications from
your computer, once you’ve read our advice
on Drivers below.
It’s better to remove too little when you
start. As you use your computer more and
more, note down the name of any software
that’s annoying and displays too many pop-up
messages. Once you’ve got a good list
together you can find this software and
uninstall it, regardless of who the publisher is.
Drivers
Driver software is genuinely very useful and
will make your computer work properly, so
don’t remove any of this. The most common
drivers are branded Realtek, AMD, Nvidia,
Intel, Qualcomm and Broadcom, but there
may be others depending on the model of
your computer.
Also look out for device-specific drivers,
such as ones for your keyboard, which will
make sure that all the shortcut buttons are
working properly. These include device-
specific button mappings (such as Alt-key
commands) and audio software that might
provide enhancements to sound designed
for your device’s speakers.
Finally, look out for any manufacturer-
provided update software. This will download
the latest driver and software updates for
your computer automatically.
Links and uninstalled software
You’ll often find that a new computer has
various bookmarks, desktop shortcuts and
trial software installers on it. These generally
can’t cause any harm, but they’re annoying
and eat up disk space. Feel free to delete
anything like this that you find.
Security software
Security software is one of the biggest
culprits of bloatware, as computer
manufacturers can make good money if you
convert the trial version of the software into a
paid-for subscription. The warning in that
statement is that manufacturers care more
about how much money they can make than
they do about giving you the best protection.
We recommend uninstalling all security
software that you’re not paying for or
haven’t installed on purpose. Once you’re
done, install proper security software, such
as Kaspersky Internet Security.
Old software
You can see when you installed software, so
you can remove applications you no longer
use. Even better, if you click Infrequently Use
in IOBit Uninstaller, you can remove software
that you don’t use very often.
MODERN UI/START
SCREEN APPS
If you’re a regular visitor to Windows 8.1’s
controversial Modern UI Start screen or the
improved Windows 10 Start menu, you’ll
probably find several applications here
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

installed by your computer’s manufacturer.
These tend not to be so annoying (they can’t
launch automatically, or interfere with the
rest of your computer, for example), but
they do eat up disk space.
They don’t appear in the traditional Add/
Remove Programs or Programs and Features
windows and instead can be removed from
within the Start screen by right-clicking the
offending item and selecting Uninstall.
Alternatively, you can use IOBit Uninstaller’s
Win Manager, Windows Apps section to
remove the software that you don’t want.
This way has the advantage that you can see
which applications are the largest.
TOOLBARS
Browser toolbars are some of the worst
offenders. They’re often resource hungry,
don’t do anything useful and sometimes
come with nasty payloads. We recommend
that you uninstall all of them.
Most proper toolbars from reputable
sources can be removed via All Programs in
IOBit Uninstaller. However, you can also click
the Toolbars & Plug-ins option to view all
installed Toolbars. This list is sorted into
toolbars that are safe and those that aren’t.
Remove all the unsafe toolbars by selecting
them and then hitting Uninstall. You can clear
out toolbars in the safe list, but only pick the
ones that you recognise, as there are some
helpful things in there, too, such as Google
Update, which keeps Chrome up to date.
STARTUP APPLICATIONS
Some of the software that you do want to
keep can be really annoying and start when
your computer does, hogging resources
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341
THE 21 THINGS KILLING YOUR PC
without need. If this is the case, the best thing
to do is to clear them out. Autoruns can be
useful for detecting unwanted applications
(see page 100), but for legitimate software,
there are better ways.
For Windows 10 users start the Task
Manager (press Ctrl-Shift-Esc) and then
click Start-up. You can right-click any
application that you don’t want to start and
select Disable. Reboot your computer when
you’re done. If you want to re-enable a bit of
software, follow the previous instructions
and select Enable.
For Windows 8 and below, you have to
press Windows-R, type ‘msconfig’ and press
Run. This will load the System Configuration
utility. Click on the Startup tab and you’ll see
a list of applications that start with your
computer. Remove the tick from the box for
the applications that you don’t want to run
and click OK. Restart your computer. You can
reverse these instructions to re-enable an
application if you’ve accidentally disabled
something useful.
Not all startup applications are so easy to
deal with, as some launch as services. To stop
these in Windows 7, 8 and 10, start the
System Configuration utility as above. Click
Services and then click the Manufacturer tab
to sort by manufacturer. To prevent a service
starting at startup, remove the tick from its
box. Do not stop any Microsoft service
(you can hide these by selecting Hide all
Microsoft services). We recommend leaving
any service from a manufacturer that has
anything to do with hardware (your PC’s
manufacturer, AMD or Nvidia, for example).
Also, leave any service alone that is from the
manufacturer of your security software.
Click OK when you’re done and restart your
computer. If you’ve stopped a useful service
by mistake, you can reverse these instructions
to re-enable the affected service.
FREE SOFTWARE
Free software can be just as bad as the
rubbish that PC manufacturers put on your
computer, with many applications also
installing additional toolbars and bits of
bloatware. For that reason, when it comes
to installing free software we recommend
using Ninite (ninite.com).
This clever utility automatically downloads
and installs spyware-free software: just tick
the software you want and hit the download
button. Finally, once you’ve cleaned out your
computer and if you haven’t already done so,
follow our anti-malware guide on page 100.
Get rid! Software
you should
uninstall now
Flash
Adobe’s Flash is a massive
target for hackers and it’s
also a resource hog, slowing down a
computer when you visit a Flash-
heavy website.
The good news is that you don’t
need it any more, as the majority of
good websites have switched to
alternative technologies. YouTube,
for example, doesn’t need Flash for
you to play videos.
Java
Java is another old web
technology. Again, it’s
often a target for hackers and can
be insecure. Updates to the
software don’t remove old
versions either. Even Minecraft
has moved to a version that doesn’t
need Java, so ditch this software
now, using IOBit Uninstaller to
remove the old versions, too.
Thunderbird
Once one of the best
email clients available,
Thunderbird has stopped being
updated, making it a target for
hackers. If you have this software
installed, ditch it now and either
switch to a web client or the
excellent MailBird (available from
www.getmailbird.com).
CamStudio
This free screen-recording
software usually has an
installer that’s packed with adware
and other unwanted applications.
Remove it using IOBit Uninstaller,
then follow our malware guide on
page 100 to make sure you’ve got
rid of everything bad.
DVDVideoSoft
DVDVideoSoft makes
utilities, such as screen
recorders and YouTube downloaders,
but its software installers come with
lots of nasty hidden extras. You
should avoid anything by this
manufacturer and remove all its
software using IOBit Uninstaller and
our malware guide on page 100.
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 THE 21 THINGS KILLING YOUR PC
Bloated Windows
operating system
Over time, Windows can become so bloated and messed up that the only
thing to do is to start again from scratch. Here’s how you do it
THE MORE YOU add and install applications
and use Windows, the more orphaned files
you get, the more startup applications you
have hogging resources, and the more bloated
your PC gets. Sometimes it makes more sense
to start again. If you’re running Windows 7
you can only do this by doing a clean install.
If you have Windows 8 or Windows 10, it’s
better news: you can restore your computer
from inside Windows. Here’s how to do it.
Windows 8
While it’s generally very easy to
restore Windows 8, the utility can
run into problems if you’ve upgraded to
Windows 8.1. This is because the upgrade
doesn’t refresh the files that Windows
needs to restore factory default settings –
annoying, huh? Fortunately, Microsoft has
made it fairly straightforward to download
and create your own Windows 8 or Windows
8.1 installation discs, so we can show you
how to get around this.
Start the restore process
Go to the Start screen and type Remove to
bring up the search box. In the results that
appear, you’ll see an option called ‘Remove
everything and reinstall Windows’. Click this
to start the clean-up utility, which you’ll use to
flash your computer back to factory defaults.
The Windows 8 app that starts gives you
two cleaning options. The first is a refresh,
which will leave your personal files alone, but
clears out your applications and settings; the
second option removes everything and gives
you a clean installation of Windows. This is
104
the choice to make if you’re getting rid of
your PC, or it’s so hopelessly slow and
cluttered that you want to go back to day
zero with it. Both work in roughly the same
way, so select the option that applies to you;
the rest of this guide follows the ‘Remove
everything and reinstall Windows’ option.
Fix the ‘Some files
are missing’ error
If you upgraded from Windows 8 to 8.1, you
may find that you get an error message telling
you that “Some files are missing”. It tells you
to insert your Windows installation disc,
which you mostly likely don’t have.
Fortunately, there’s a way round this
problem. Download the Windows 8 Upgrade
tool (tinyurl.com/Win8ISODownload). When
you run the file select the ISO file option to
download the Windows 8.1 disc image to
your hard disk. Next, find the ISO file,
right-click it and select Mount. Now, re-run
the Remove everything utility and you’ll no
longer get the error message.
If this doesn’t work, it’s because the app
doesn’t realise you have a Windows disc
installed. This is easy to fix: reboot your PC,
mount the ISO file that you downloaded and
then run the Remove everything tool.
Reset your computer
You’ll now see a message telling you that all
your files and applications will be removed
and that your PC’s settings will be restored
to their defaults. Click Next to continue.
If you have more than one drive in your
computer, you’ll be asked if you want to
clean only the drive where Windows is
installed or all drives. Select the one that
applies to you. If you only have one drive,
you’ll go straight to the next option.
You’ll now see two choices: ‘Just remove
my files’, which deletes your files but not
securely; and ‘Clean the drive fully’, which
performs a full secure wipe. The latter option
takes longer, but is the right choice if you’re
going to be selling your computer or throwing
it away, as it stops anyone from recovering
your private data. With the first option your
files are just marked as deleted, but still exist
and can be accessed on the hard disk by
anyone using recovery software.
This is your last chance before your
computer is wiped. Windows will tell you
what you’re going to do; if you’re sure you’re
ready, click Reset and your computer will
reboot and reset itself back to its factory
defaults, ready for you to start from scratch
or pass on to another person. If you’re
keeping your computer, you’ll need to
reinstall all your applications and any files
you need from a backup.
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Windows 10
We’ll show you two methods for restoring your PC: the first uses the built-in
Windows 10 tool, which gives you a clean install; the second lets you take a system
image, so you can restore your PC back to this point in time at any point in the future.
METHOD 1
Factory reset
Click the Start menu and type ‘reset’. Click
‘Reset this PC’ and the Reset window will
open. If you’re encountering problems you
didn’t have on Windows 7, 8 or 8.1 and you
upgraded to Windows 10 less than a month
ago, you can go back to your old OS. If you
want to stay on Windows 10, click ‘Get
started’ under ‘Reset this PC’.
You’ll see a dialog box that gives you three
choices. Note that if you use any of these
METHOD 2
Use a system image
If you don’t want to reset Windows at this
time but think you might want to in the
future, it’s worth creating a backup of your
system now in case it develops a fault in
the future. This takes a copy of your files,
settings and applications at this specific
point in time. If you’ve just got your
computer the way you want it, this is a
handy way of being able to get back to that
point at any time in the future.
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341
options (bar the last one), you’ll lose the
ability to go back to Windows 7, 8 or 8.1 in
future. We’ve explained what each option
does below so you can choose the right one.
Keep my files
This setting will uninstall all the programs on
your PC but won’t touch other files such as
your documents and settings. It will uninstall
programs you downloaded from the internet
and installed from discs, but when you
return, any apps you’ve installed from the
Windows Store will be reinstalled. This is a
In the Start menu, type ‘backup’. Click File
History and wait for it to load. Click ‘System
image backup’ at the bottom, then ‘Create a
system image’ from the menu on the left.
You’ll be given a choice of where to place this
system image: on a hard disk, an optical drive
or a network. When you’ve selected a drive,
click Next and then Start backup.
To use your system image, return to
the ‘Reset this PC’ menu we were using
THE 21 THINGS KILLING YOUR PC
handy way to refresh your computer if it’s
not running properly and you don’t want
the hassle of having to restore your files.
Remove everything
Remove everything does the same as above,
but it also removes all your files. This is the
best way to freshen up your PC without
going back to your old operating system
and acts like a clean install of Windows 10.
If your computer shipped with Windows 10,
this option keeps programs that came
installed with your PC, so you won’t get a
completely clean slate.
Restore factory settings
This option is similar to Remove everything,
but if your PC didn’t come with Windows
10, you’ll be downgraded back to Windows
8 or 8.1. You’ll lose all programs, files and
settings, but programs that came with
your PC will remain.
before. This time, click Restart now under
Advanced start-up. When your PC restarts,
you’ll be given the option to reinstall
Windows from the system image you
created. This is probably the best option,
as it puts Windows into a state you were
happy with at one point in time.
This option will remove any files created
after the system image was made, so make
sure you back up your PC first.
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 THE 21 THINGS KILLING YOUR PC

Low memory and

slow hard disk
UPGRADE YOUR RAM
One of the principal causes of PC slowdowns is a lack of memory.
Fortunately, adding more RAM is a simple and cost-effective solution
MEMORY IS AN often forgotten part of a PC,
but it’s a vital thing to look at if you’re trying
to speed up an old machine. Increasing the
amount of RAM can make a huge difference
when playing games and using intensive
software, such as photo editors. Newer
operating systems also tend to need more RAM,
so if a Windows upgrade has reduced your PC
to a crawl, memory could be the problem.
RAM keeps all the data your system is
currently using in a volatile but immediately
accessible state, making your PC run faster. If
you have too many programs open you’ll start
to run out of RAM and your PC will use a page
file, which is a hard disk-based RAM overflow.
Hard disks are much slower than RAM, and
your PC will slow to a crawl. If you have an
SSD, you won’t even have a page file, as these
quickly wear out the solid-state storage.
We recommend a minimum of 4GB of
RAM for running Windows 8 or 10 smoothly,
with 8GB preferable. Those who play games,
edit videos and carry out other heavy-duty
tasks will see the benefits of 16GB of RAM.
8GB RAM kits for desktop PCs cost as little
as £66 while 4GB SODIMM kits for laptops are
around £30, making them one of the cheapest
and easiest-to-fit components.
Can I upgrade?
The first questions you need to ask when
you’re looking to upgrade RAM is whether
your RAM is accessible, and if it’s removable.
If it’s completely inaccessible, you can’t go
further without significant risk of damaging
your computer. If you can access it, you have
a greater chance of success but it’s still not
guaranteed you’ll be able to do anything.
Check the underside of your laptop for any
removable panels (the same applies to the
back of all-in-one PCs). On a laptop without
such panels, check if the RAM is under the
keyboard tray. You’ll know whether the
keyboard tray is removable if there’s a gap
around the board with small notches big
enough for a small flat-head screwdriver.
If your RAM is accessible, you’ll need to
find out if it’s removable or not. If one stick of
RAM is soldered to the motherboard but you
can see a spare slot for a second module, or
the second module is removable, you can still
replace it. You won’t be able to increase the
capacity as much as you would have if you’d
replaced both sticks, but it will still work.
Things are usually slightly easier with
desktops thanks to the huge amount of space
they typically have available inside their

REPLACING LAPTOP MEMORY

Removing old RAM
If the RAM is on the bottom, turn off your laptop and flip it over. For
RAM under the keyboard, turn off your laptop and push a small
flat-head screwdriver into the notches around the keyboard, using
the screwdriver as a lever to unfasten the clips attaching the
keyboard to the chassis. Remove carefully without stressing the
ribbon connecting the keyboard to the motherboard. A
Once you’ve removed the panel, you’ll see one or two modules.
They’ll either be facing each other or on top of one another, with each
stick held in place by two small clips. Pull the clips away from the
module by pushing them sideways one at a time. If the module
doesn’t flip up by itself, put a finger under it and push up until it’s at
roughly a 30˚ angle. Pull the RAM out with two fingers. B
Installing new RAM
Ensure the module is the correct way up by checking that the notch
separating the two sections of electrical contacts is lined up with the
divider in the RAM slot. Insert the new module at a 30˚ angle. You’ll
know it’s fully inserted when you can no longer see the electrical
contacts. Push the stick into a horizontal position until the holding
arms click back into place. Carefully reattach the panel and secure all
screws, or reattach the keyboard by matching the clips and notches.

A B

106 JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

 THE 21 THINGS KILLING YOUR PC

chassis. Some desktop motherboards have

four slots for RAM, and a few have eight. REPLACING DESKTOP MEMORY
Some only have two, however, so you’ll have
to buy higher capacity sticks if you want to How to remove desktop RAM
boost your RAM significantly. If you don’t Switch off and unplug your PC. Remove the side of the case to gain access to the
have any free slots, you’ll have to replace all motherboard. Locate the RAM on the motherboard and pull back the clips holding the
the existing RAM to get an upgrade. RAM in place. Firmly pull the RAM modules out with two fingers. Note that you won’t
need to follow this step if your PC has free RAM slots.
How much RAM can my
computer handle? How to install desktop RAM
Download and install CPU-Z (tinyurl.com/ Pull back one of the clips and insert the RAM stick starting on that side. Push one end
shoppercpuz) and select the Memory tab to of the RAM until it clicks into place and the clip moves to hold the stick in place.
see how much RAM you have. Once you know Repeat with the other end of the RAM. Repeat for each stick of RAM. Reattach the
how much memory you have, you need to case panel and turn your PC back on.
confirm whether you can actually upgrade.
You’ll need to check if your computer can
handle more memory. If you’re using a laptop,
the manual that came with it should tell you
this, or you can find the laptop guide on the
manufacturer’s website. If you’re using a
desktop, check your motherboard
manufacturer’s website for the maximum
amount of RAM it can handle.

What RAM should I buy?

Laptop memory modules, known as SODIMM,
are smaller than desktop ones and may be
used in all-in-one PCs. Your laptop’s SODIMM
memory will either be DDR2 or DDR3, and
you’ll need to find out which. Again use CPU-Z
for this: its Memory tab tells you what type of
RAM you need. This is important, as these
two types of RAM are physically different,
with a notch to prevent the wrong type of
RAM being used in the wrong slot.

SPEED UP WITH AN SSD

An old mechanical hard disk can really hold your computer back.
A fresh SSD can give you a much-needed speed boost
AN OLD MECHANICAL hard disk may give
you a lot of storage, but it’s a lot slower than
an SSD and can seriously affect your
computer’s performance. Fortunately, adding
an SSD to a desktop PC or a laptop is a
cost-effective way of improving performance:
in our tests, boot speeds can be, at worst,
halved and, at best, cut to just a few seconds.
To make the most of an SSD we
recommend upgrading to Windows 10:
Windows 7 needs a fair bit of configuration to
play nicely with SSDs, while Windows 8 is,
well, a bit rubbish. The easiest way to do this
is by installing Windows 10 from scratch.
It’s possible to clone your old hard disk to
your new SSD, but only if the used storage
space on your disk is the same size or smaller
than an SSD, which is unlikely. A clean install
gets round this, although it means reinstalling
your applications and copying any files that
you want back when you’re done. For laptops,
visit the manufacturer’s website to see if
Windows 10 drivers are available; if not, you
won’t be able to upgrade easily.
We recommend a minimum SSD size of
256GB, although 512GB will give you more
space for key applications. Make a backup of
your files first, though as you’ll still have
access to your old hard disk, you shouldn’t
need it. Finally, create the Windows 10 boot
USB drive (you need a 4GB or larger flash
drive) with the Windows Media Creation Tool
(tinyurl.com/Win10MediaCreationTool) and
using the option to create a boot drive.
Will this work for me?
A hard disk upgrade is only possible if you
have access to the drive. The vast majority
of older laptops have easily removable
panels on the bottom of the machine that
grant you access to the hard disk. If your
laptop’s components are sealed in, as they
are on many Ultrabooks, you simply won’t be
able to upgrade the storage.
If you have a very old desktop or laptop,
you should check that it’s compatible with
Serial ATA (SATA) hard disks. Some very old
laptops come equipped with IDE connectors,
which is an outdated serial connector that
won’t be able to take advantage of the data
transfer speeds SSDs offer. We’d expect
most laptops less than seven years old to
have SATA connectors, but check anyway in
case your laptop’s manufacturer was dragging
its heels or using old components.
To check, shut down your laptop, open up
the bay door on the bottom (usually the
largest one) and compare the disk connector
to those pictured on the left.

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 THE 21 THINGS KILLING YOUR PC

INSTALLING A NEW HARD DISK

Installing a new hard disk in a laptop
Most laptops use 2½in mechanical hard disks, and most SSDs are
the same size. This makes things very easy when installing an SSD in
place of the mechanical disk. If you’re installing a new mechanical
disk, you should have already checked that it isn’t thicker than the
bay into which you’re placing it.
Turn your laptop off and flip it over. Unscrew the flap to reveal
the hard disk, then remove any screws holding it in place. Pull out
the disk; this may require you to slide it out from the SATA
connectors first before lifting it clear of the laptop. A If the disk
was in a caddy, unscrew and remove it.
Put your new hard disk in the caddy and secure it with the
screws (if required). B Insert the new hard disk into the laptop’s
drive bay. Reattach the panel and switch on your laptop.
To get files off your old laptop’s hard disk, you’ll need an
external USB-to-SATA connector, which can be bought fairly
cheaply. We used a Silverstone EP02B USB3-to-SATA connector,
which can be bought from www.scan.co.uk for £11.

A B

Installing a new hard disk in a desktop PC
Switch off and unplug your PC and detach both sides of the case.
Slide the SSD into a drive bay. Cases vary: some have mounting
points for small 2½in drives but others do not. Most SSDs ship
with a 3½in caddy, which you can attach to your PC case, and they
always come with screws, too.
Plug in the power and data connectors for your SSD. A If your
motherboard has SATA3 ports, make sure the SSD is plugged into
one of these. They’ll either be labelled on the board itself or in the
manual. Make sure the cables are neatly routed through the case
so that it will be easy to identify them if you ever need to perform
maintenance on your PC.
If your case is designed in this way, slide the disk tray back into
the disk mounts and secure it, before reattaching the case panels. B
Now turn on your computer, go into the BIOS and make sure that
your new SSD is set to be the primary boot disk.

A B

INSTALLING WINDOWS 10
Plug the Windows 10 install media
into your computer and restart your PC or
laptop. Follow the installation instructions to
install Windows 10 from scratch. When you
get to the desktop, you’ll need to re-install
your applications. You may need to re-install
drivers, too. For a laptop, you’ll need to go to
the manufacturer’s website and download
the latest Windows 10 drivers. For a PC, you
should visit the manufacturer’s page for each
component (motherboard, graphics card)
and get the Windows 10 drivers directly.
For PC owners, your old hard disk will be
available in Windows Explorer, so you can
copy your documents straight to your SSD
or just access them through your hard disk.
For laptop owners, plug in your old hard disk
via USB and copy over the files you want.

108 JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341


Heat and
dust
It’s not just digital junk you need to bin – all the dirt
that builds up inside the case also cuts efficiency
IT’S COMMON TO give your house a
spring-clean, and you should devote the same
love and attention to your PC – you may be
surprised by how much dust is dragged inside
by the case fans. Dirt you can’t see may not
seem a problem, but it can build up and clog
the fans, making them less efficient at cooling.
Dust also acts as an insulator, so your PC will
run hotter and may even crash as a result.
So grab a pair of Marigolds, delve into
your case and follow these easy steps to clean
it out. By the time you’ve finished, your PC
will be sparkling and, more importantly,
running cooler and more efficiently.
Case lift
Cleaning the outside of the case with foam
cleaner is simple, but don’t spray the foam on
the front or rear of your PC, as it could get into
your drives, power supply and ports. Spray the
foam on a cloth and apply it to the front of the
case, including the optical and floppy drives.
The rear of the case will be mainly metal,
but rub a foam-covered cloth over the parts
of the case that wrap round the rear of your
PC. Leave the foam for 15 minutes, then use a
separate cloth to wipe the case clean.
Fresh air
Cleaning the inside of your PC is the biggest
challenge, as dust can build up in hidden areas.
Remove the side of the PC and any expansion
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341
cards from the motherboard. If the PC is
particularly filthy, you may have to remove the
motherboard, hard disk and optical drives too.
Don’t vacuum the motherboard, as it has
too many sensitive components. Instead,
spray an air duster over the motherboard –
starting at the top – so the dust collects in the
base of the case, or in a bin if you’ve removed
the motherboard from the case.
Use a vacuum cleaner to remove the worst
of the dust from the bottom of the case and
from the processor’s heatsink, fan and case
fans. Finally, use plastic safe wipes to remove
any dust from the cables inside your case.
Blown away
Dust on expansion cards can be removed with
the air duster. Make sure you’ve removed all
the dust wedged beneath components, such
as capacitors, and check the heatsink and fan
on your graphics card are free from dust.
Blow the air duster into your expansion cards’
ports and sockets for extra cleaning power.
Paint job
Removing dust helps, but there are other
things you can do to help prevent overheating.
There’s a thin layer of thermal compound
between the processor and the heatsink,
which smooths over any imperfections in the
two metal surfaces and makes sure that heat
from your processor is dissipated efficiently.
You should clean your
motherboard carefully
with an air duster
THE 21 THINGS KILLING YOUR PC
shopping list
To follow our simple instructions
for
cleaning up your computer, you’
ll need
these products from www.maplin.co
.uk:
1 can of computer air dust
1 can of computer foam clea
er £5
ner £4
1 pot of plastic safe wipe
s £3
1 packet of cable ties
£3
1 pot of silver-thermal comp
ound £3
1 bottle of isopropyl alco
hol £4
............................
.............
TOTAL
£22
You’ll also need a lint-free cloth, avail
able in a
five-pack from www.amazon.co.uk
for £3.77
Eventually, thermal compound dries out and
reduces the efficiency of your cooling, so it
needs replacing from time to time. This is a
simple job that can have a dramatic effect.
To do this, first remove the heatsink from
the processor as per the manufacturer’s
instructions. Remove the existing thermal
compound using a lint-free cloth dabbed
with isopropyl alcohol.
Apply a small blob of thermal compound
to the top of the processor. Once the
processor is operating, the heat will spread
the paste. Re-attach the heatsink, making
sure it fits tightly. If it isn’t fitted properly,
you run the severe risk of overheating,
which can be fatal for your PC.
Invisible wire
There are lots of power and data cables inside
your PC, which can be messy. They can also
impede airflow through your case. Fortunately,
you can solve this problem using cable ties.
First, find any cables that aren’t in use;
there are normally a few unused power cables
in a PC. Fold them up and secure them with a
cable tie attached to the chassis to keep them
out of the way. Now find any cables that run
between roughly the same points and bunch
them together before tying them up and to
the chassis. Finally, find any cables that have
excess amounts of slack; you may find your
flat IDE ribbon cables are too long, for
example. Put a kink in the cable and tie it up.
Ventilate than never
Case fans should draw air over your PC’s
components and out of the case. As the
power supply already blows air out of the
back of the case, your rear case fan should be
oriented so it blows air in the same direction.
Make sure any front-mounted fans are
pulling cool air in and blowing it over your
motherboard. Fans have an arrow on them
that shows the direction of airflow. If any fans
are mounted incorrectly, undo the screws and
turn the fan around before reattaching it.
109
 3D P
PRINTING
RINT
RINTIN
ING
G

The brilliant, the beautiful

and the downright bizarre
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.

110 JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341


3D
or 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 or design is scanned and turned into data. Next the
data gets sliced any which way into the thinnest of digital
layers. Then, when the slices of data are fed into a printer
using a plasticised material instead of ink, a three-
dimensional object is produced, layer by painstaking layer.
And if the next question is what can 3D printing be used
for, then the answer is – anything we want! Before we take
a look at the ordinary and extraordinary range of things
3D printers can produce, let’s examine the origins.
The story of 3D printing begins a surprisingly long time
ago. The year is 1859, and we make our way to the Paris
studio of Monsieur François Willème, a seriously dapper
photographer who provides a unique service. He offers to
clone us. We pose on a special platform in a domed glass
chamber, surrounded by 24 cameras wired to capture our
image in three dimensions. The data is analogue, but it’s
detailed enough to be read by a mechanical tracing device
called a pantograph, producing layers of body scans that
can be scaled to any size. These layered slices are then
assembled to make what Willème calls ‘une photosculpture
en galvanoplastie’. It works like a dream, and we are
presented with our clone in clay, wood or resin. We are
also presented with a bill for 280 francs, which is about
two months’ average wages. If the price is too steep, we
can opt for a 60mm diameter medallion of our own face
for around £50 in today’s money. And if we need to
understand how today’s 3D printers work, then it’s
comforting to know that nothing much has changed.
First scan, next slice, then assemble. C’est tout.
Sci-fi choice
Now skip forward to 1947, and the September issue of
Astounding Science Fiction magazine. In a short story by
British author Eric Frank Russell called The Hobbyist, he
predicts the arrival of 3D printing for both inanimate
objects and living tissue as something horrific. Here’s how
he introduces the concept: “He found himself facing a
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341
3D PRI
PRINTING
⬆ Stranger than fiction: a
1947 short story predicted
a frightening 3D future
machine. It was complicated and bizarre, and it was
making a crystalline growth. Near it, another machine was
manufacturing a small, horned lizard. There could be no
doubt about the process of fabrication, because both
objects were half-made and both progressed slightly even
as he watched. He commenced to run. Endless machines,
all making different things. It was done by electroponics,
The 3D printing technology
that is changing our entire
world can be reduced to three words
atom fed to atom like brick after brick to build a house. In
each of these machines, he knew, was some code or cipher,
some weird master-control of unimaginable complexity,
determining the patterns each was building, and the
⬇ 3D printing has patterns were infinitely variable.” Gosh! Whatever next?
its origins in a Well, in 1984, American engineer Chuckie Hull claims to
19th-century photo invent stereo-lithography, which he patents three years
studio in France later. He uses a laser beam to etch a copy of a 3D model
int
into liquid plastic. Almost exactly what François
Willème managed in the middle of the 19th century,
except Willème had no laser. As soon as the laser
genie gets out of the plastic bottle, things happen
fast. Over the next decade, commercial 3D printers
appear. They can extrude plastics, powders and living
cells. Even humble inkjet technology gets in on the
act, and by 2008 the predictions of Eric Frank Russell
are overtaken. A tabletop 3D printer called the
RepRap Darwin is given the ability to reproduce all its
own parts. Obviously that includes the ‘off’ switch,
otherwise the world as we know it would have ended.
Tragically, for some people the world as we know
it has ended. In the ruined city of Palmyra, 134 miles
north of Damascus, a triumphal arch stands for
2,000 years, marking the entrance to the Syrian
World Heritage site of the Temple of Bel. When the
lunatics of ISIS overrun the ancient city, they set
about destroying this unique area, and the civilised
world weeps. But in an act of global solidarity, the
Institute for Digital Archaeology collects as many
tourist images of the archway as possible, crunches
111
 ⬆ Chip off the old block: the tabletop RepRap Darwin 3D
printer is capable of reproducing all its own parts

da Vinci AiO, will only set you back £600. And outside of
the home, cost is also the key to the future of 3D printing;
specifically, the cost of robotics versus human sweat. For
example, debate still rages over allegations of child slave
labour by brand leaders who produce sports items. But
even compared with economies such as Pakistan, where
kids are paid £3 for a 14-hour working day in the brand-
name sweatshops, Nike can produce its Vapor Laser Talon
football boots more cheaply using 3D printers.
So, apart from ludicrously overpriced footwear and
Mesopotamian triumphal arches, let’s take a look at what
else is currently being produced by 3D printing. And none
of this is science fiction. It has already happened.

A womb with a view

the data, and commissions the world’s biggest 3D printer ⬆ The arch from The fact that NASA has been using a 3D printer on the
the ancient Syrian
to reproduce the original. In 2016, it’s erected in Trafalgar International Space Station comes as no surprise, and
city of Palmyra has
Square as an act of hope and defiance. Right now, 5,000 neither does the fact that it works perfectly in zero
been re-created in
volunteer photographers equipped with 3D cameras are at gravity. Space missions are among the most obvious
Trafalgar Square
work throughout the conflict zones of the Middle East applications, because 3D printing cuts down on the
and North Africa. Their mission is to digitise as many enormous cost of transporting cargo payloads through
threatened cultural objects and structures as possible, in space. Instead, standard tools and components are printed
case the need ever arises for 3D printing to recreate them. out on demand, and any new or experimental item is
If gigantic archaeological treasures can be conjured designed on the ground for printing in orbit within the
from the past, then anything is possible. It’s all a matter of hour. It’s not only plastics that can be manipulated for
technical innovation, the will to succeed, and money. And use in spaceflight, or for sub-orbital flight come to that.
the good news is that the cost of 3D printing is getting 3D metal printing is already in use by the Chinese, South
cheaper all the time. 3D print media for the home has Koreans and Americans for crucial jet engine parts. And
dropped to around £20 for a 1kg cartridge of plasticised savings have been massive, with high-pressure turbine
⬇ It’s all kicking
gloop, and the creation of something simple such as a components that originally cost £24,600 being replaced
off: Nike’s Talon
customised smartphone case takes around 30 minutes to football boots can by printed metal spares for £1,800.
print and costs pence, not pounds. As for home-printing be produced more Although the 3D printing revolution is driven by cost,
materials, they include electro-conductive, touch-sensitive, cheaply using a saving money can never be as important as saving lives.
metal alloy, fluorescent, UV-reactive, scented, transparent, 3D printer than in The Organovo Corporation has been using 3D printers to
biodegradable, dental, thermal, carbon fibre and edible. a sweatshop produce living cells since 2007. An incubated printer
When the Peachy 3D Printer was crowd-funded on cartridge is filled with a suspension of living
Kickstarter in 2013, it broke the $100 barrier, using a structural gel, so printed skin
cells and a str
structura
light-sensitive resin that solidifies when hit by a built-in le can be used for replacement
and gristle
laser beam. At around £200, Ex3D’s Phoenix 3D Printer s, noses and dangly bits. When
ears,
is among the cheapest with a rewind option, which human kidney tissues
the first hu
drastically reduces the cost of cartridge refills if there’s a were prin
wer printed just over a year
glitch in the printing process. 3D printers are now so ago, they survived for only two
ago
common that you can pop down to your local weeks. Bu
wee But last November,
electronics shop and pick up a machine from an three-year-old Lucy Boucher,
three-yea
thr
ever-expanding range, or order online for next from Antr
fro Antrim in Northern Ireland,
day delivery. Even sophisticated models became
ame the fi first person in the
with a built-in scanner, such as the world to have a life-saving kidney

112 JULY 2016

016 | COM
COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341
 3D TIMELINE
3D P
PRINTING
RINTING

3D A brief history of
PRINTING

Frenchman François Willème captures

1859
an object in 3D, using cameras, then
Foetal
⬆ Foet
oetal first: you too can have a reconstructs the scanned object in layers
3D-printed
3D-pri
printed model of your unborn baby

1892
transplant thanks to 3D printing, because her surgeons Hungarian Joseph Blanther patents a
already knew exactly what would be involved. Diagnosed layering method for 3D maps
as terminally ill, a printed kidney had been modelled on her
dad’s from detailed CT and MRI scans, and the entire
procedure was already well rehearsed for when she was
born. Today, Lucy is looking forward to starting nursery
school. Here’s looking at you, kidney.
And on an equally joyous note, the advent of ultra-
high-resolution foetal scans means that 3D models of
unborn babies are now commonplace. Babies with
1947 Englishman Eric Frank Russell predicts
congenital diseases such as ventricular heart defects can’t universal 3D printing in his sci-fi short
story The Hobbyist

A macabre little Japanese Mitsubishi engineer Mie

1972
Matsubara proposes the use of photo-
replica of a foetus is hardened layers of resin for prototypes

becoming a must-have fashion

accessory in certain circles
Hideo Kodama of the Nagoya Industrial
1981

be operated on in the womb, and immediately after birth

the risks are high. But now, exact copies of the defective
organ can be scanned and printed for the surgical team to
practise on as many times as they like, weeks before the
birth. Lives are being saved. Of course trash merchants
Research Institute gives the first account
of a working photopolymer system
Charles Hull invents stereo-lithography,
1984

will exploit 3D printing of unborn babies, and morons will which takes a 3D model and uses a laser
pay them. A macabre little replica of your foetus is
to etch copies into a special liquid
becoming a must-have fashion accessory in certain circles.
Instead of a grainy ultrasound image for parents to coo
over, companies like 3D Baby will print your unborn foetus
in “light, medium, or dark” plastic for around £275, and
deliver it in something that looks like a tacky silk-lined
mini-coffin. And if you’re not even pregnant, no problem.
A 3D print-on-demand copy of the foetus spawned by
Stratasys produces the world’s first
1991

Kanye West and Kim Kardashian is even cheaper.

fused deposit printer. It extrudes plastic
Print your own king into layers on a print bed
For citizens who think the Prince of Wales is a bit flakey,
how about a return to the House of Plantagenet, when
1992

kings were prepared to ride into battle against their foes DTM produces the first 3D printer that
as opposed to writing rude letters to politicians? It’s been uses a powder instead of a liquid
four years since the discovery of King Richard III under a
council car park in Leicester, and now his entire skeleton
has been re-created in gleaming white plastic, thanks to
3D printing. This has enabled pathologists to establish that
the limping king had a sword shoved right through his
buttocks and his pelvis was sliced in half. Proving that even
in 1485 a royal male could be a bit of an arse.
1994

Model Maker’s wax printer is released

and 3D printed kidneys become possible
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341 113
 3D PRINTING

⬆➡ Bones of contention: the hunchbacked skeleton ⬆ Sure footing: a prosthetic leg for an injured duck
of Richard III, re-created using 3D printing techniques has been created in India

Obviously printing a whole king costs an which they might prefer for a long-term
whi
arm and a leg, but if you want something a little relationship and which for a one-night stand.
rel
more modest, then how about printing out a The printed penises were all bright blue, for
false limb for a duck? Sandeep Reddy works at reasons best known to the boffins.
rea
the Ramakrishna Mission Wildfowl Sanctuary in As for drugs, the first 3D-printed drug has
the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. When a already been approved for treating humans. It’s
alr
one-legged duck tugged at his heartstrings, he called Spritam and is used in the treatment of
cal
created a fully articulated spare by scanning the epilepsy in children. It can be extremely cheap
epi
original, making a mirror image and adding to punch out pills using traditional moulds,
flexible joints. He then printed out and fitted the but computerised 3D printing allows customised doses of
replacement duck leg in an hour and a half. So, as the old the drug, and this is vital with babies and youngsters.
canard has it, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and Variations in composition can specify the exact size of the
quacks like a duck, then it must be Richard III. dose, how porous a pill is, and how fast it dissolves. Kids
can even select the colour and shape of their treatment,
Sex and drugs and rock’n’roll and pop a Peppa Pig or snort a Spiderman. But the real
If the claim that 3D printers can produce anything we like, drugs revolution is that 3D printing can allow local
then sex and drugs and rock’n’roll are right there in the pharmacies to print any variety of treatment from free
mix. The University of California Los Angeles has proved blueprints, dramatically increasing availability and
that size really does matter. Researchers scanned a load of effectiveness, and greatly reducing costs and waste.
personal anatomical attributes, then used 3D printing to So, that’s the sex and drugs taken care of. What about
re-create 100 penises of varying length and girth, which the rock’n’roll? One look at the magnificent Sunrise
were field-tested by groups of volunteers to discover 3D-printed guitar from London-based Customuse is all you

ANDREAS HAEUSER 3D VISIONARY

The German aerospace engineer Andreas Haeuser now devotes his time to harnessing 3D printers for green energy.
Here are just three of his groundbreaking innovations, all using cheap, first-generation assembly kit printers.

THE 3D PRINTED SOLAR ENGINE
This uses nothing more than the Sun’s heat
to turn a flywheel. Haeuser’s engine can be
used for generating electricity or pumping
water. It works from the deserts of Sudan to
the gardens of Japan, and the all-purpose
design costs a measly £7.75.
THE 3D PRINTED WIND TURBINE
It may look like an overgrown child’s toy,
but Haeuser’s turbine can harvest
electrical energy from any passing breeze
and generate a continuous output of 55W.
The design for this little beauty is priced at
just £8.50.
THE 3D PRINTED ROBOT LAWNMOWER
Haeuser’s 3D alternative does everything a
£750 Flymo Robotic Lawnmower does at a
fraction of the price. You’ll need three kilos of
whatever colour filament you fancy, a 12V
lithium polymer rechargeable battery and an
Arduino microprocessor. Total cost: £140.

114 JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

 3D TIMELINE
3D P PRINTING
PRI G
Human organs are grown from donor

1999
cells, using a 3D-printed scaffold to
support them

The first 3D inkjet printer is marketed by

2000
Object Geometries, while Z Corp markets
the first multicolour 3D printer

2008
The RepRap Darwin is the first 3D printer
that can reproduce its own parts
No strings attached: the
Customuse Sunrise guitar
(top), and a 3D-printed
ukulele (bottom)

need to know. It will set you back a cool £1,500, but if your

2008
budget doesn’t quite run to that you can print your own The Thingiverse website is set up
ukulele from a free pattern at www.thingiverse.com.
for free 3D file-sharing
Off your face
Faces can be changed by expert surgeons, using printed

2009
bone, cartilage, blood vessels and skin, but now you can 3D-printed blood vessels are produced
change your own face with a cosmetics face-printer from by Organovo
Swedish beauty company Foreo Moda. You select your
new look from an app, connect via Bluetooth, stick your
head in the £210 printer for a scan, and let it get to work
using 2,000 superfine nozzles to spray primer, foundation
and colour cosmetics to create your new look in as little as
30 seconds. And if you need new earrings to go with your
new face, prices start from £1.39p for a 3D-printed pair.
In 2012, then business secretary Vince Cable declared
2011

that 3D printing was the way to rebuild the economy. To Urbee, the first 3D-printed car, is
be specific, 3D printable chocolate. He was speaking in launched by Kor Ecologic
Exeter at the launch of the Choc Creator 3D printer, a
£2,888 machine that melts chocolate te ready for printing,
2012
and tempers it so layers can be created
reated as
thin as 0.05mm. This allows 60mm
The first 3D-printed jaw is produced in
diameter portraits of human faces to Holland by LayerWise
be printed in chocolate at a cost of
£50, which happens to be the
identical price charged by François
Willème in 1859 for an identical-
sized product using the identical
technology of scan, slice and
reassemble. Plus ça change. The WinSun factory of Shanghai
2014

prints a fully functioning six-storey

apartment block
2015

Work on 3D printable bionic eyes

begins at MHOX in Italy

A full-scale 3D print of the great archway

2016

of the destroyed Temple of Bel in

Palmyra is erected in Trafalgar Square
⬆ Give yourself a makeover with the Foreo Moda printed makeup app

JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341 115

 THEDIGITAL
ASSISTANT
DECIDER:
SIRI VS CORTANA
VS GOOGLENOW
DIGITAL ASSISTANTS ARE NOW
W
e’re all chief executives now – at least, that’s what the mobile
manufacturers would have us believe. We’ve all been given our very own

PART AND PARCEL OF EVERY personal assistants courtesy of Apple Siri, Google Now and Microsoft
Cortana for iOS, Android and Windows devices respectively.
MAJOR MOBILE OS, BUT WHICH IS But are any of these digital assistants really invaluable? Do they do anything

THE BEST? BARRY COLLINS

more than inform you where your next meeting is? Here, we’ve put all three of
them through a stern test, pushing their capabilities across seven categories and

PUTS THEM THROUGH A seeing how they handle requests that are out of the ordinary. Can they put us in
touch with our local MP? Tell us when to look out for the International Space

RIGOROUS TEST Station flying overhead? Or advise us on the ingredients of a Bloody Mary?
For each query posed we’ve given the digital assistants a mark out of three, top
TO FIND OUT marks being awarded when the correct answer is given directly, without the need
to click on web links. Which is the smartest of them all? You’re about to find out.

116 JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

 DIGITAL ASSISTAN
ASSISTANTS
ANTS FACE-OFF
AN

JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341 117

 SPORTS
Who is the top scorer in the
Premier League?
SIRI 3 POINTS
A nice easy starter to get the test under way
and Siri smacks the back of the net with this
answer, providing an audio reply that confirms
Jamie Vardy was the top scorer at the time of
asking, as well as a table of the top scorers,
with little profile pics of some of the players.
GOOGLE NOW 2 POINTS
Google’s voice tells us “here is information
from the BBC” before showing the top four
scorers on screen. Oddly, it doesn’t tell us how
many goals the players have scored, just their
rank and club. The correct answer, if not
exactly John Motson levels of detail.
CORTANA 1 POINT
Cortana’s clearly not a footy fan. It simply
transcribes our question straight into a Bing
search, the top link for which is the BBC’s top
Premier League scorers’ page. You get the
correct answer if you click on the link, but
unlike Siri or Google, Cortana can’t be
bothered to extract the information for us.
FOOD DRINK
How many calories
in a Mars Bar?
SIRI 2 POINTS
“The answer is about 234 dietary calories,”
replies Siri, while also displaying data from
WolframAlpha, which refers to a “Mars
almond bar”. The Mars Bar site says each bar
contains 250 calories, so it’s not far off.
GOOGLE NOW 2 POINTS
Google announces it has dragged in its
information from MyFitnessPal, before
displaying a table of data showing calories
(pegged at 260), total fat, saturated fat, and
other dietary information. Again, the answer
varies slightly from the official count, but
what’s 10 calories between friends?
CORTANA 2 POINTS
As is already becoming something of a habit,
Cortana bungs our query over to Bing, where
the top search result shows the
answer 242 in its preview. It’s the
closest of the three, but once
again Cortana doesn’t go out of
its way to be helpful.
118
How many points does it
take to win a volleyball set?
GOOGLE NOW 3 POINTS
Google spikes this home, reading out an
answer from the sport’s governing body that
confirms: “The first four sets are played to 25
points, with the final set being played to 15
points. A team must win a set by two points.”
Correct, comprehensive and well sourced.
SIRI 1 POINT
“Hmm… let me think. Sorry, I don’t know much
about volleyball,” confess Siri, before returning
a page of search results, the top answer for
which is Yahoo! Answers – a source that’s
generally about as reliable as Tony Blair’s
dossiers on weapons of mass
destruction. The answer given is
correct, however: 25 points.
CORTANA 1 POINT
It’s straight back to Bing for
Microsoft’s assistant, which
shoves up the same set of search
results as Siri, indirectly getting us
to the correct answer.
What’s the recipe for
a Bloody Mary?
GOOGLE NOW 2 POINTS
“Bloody Mary ingredients!” Google exclaims
cheerfully, before showing us a card listing
Worcestershire sauce, pepper, ½oz of lemon
juice, 1.5oz of vodka, salt, 3oz tomato juice
and Tabasco sauce, along with a pic. The
quantities are a little vague in places, but
Google clearly loves a drink.
CORTANA 2 POINTS
It’s back to Bing for Cortana, listing the
Wikipedia page. Unlike Siri’s reformatted
search answers, however, the actual Bing
homepage displays a card listing ingredients,
with precise quantities of the ingredients.
SIRI 1 POINT
Siri decides it’s no Tom Cruise and refers us
to web results from Bing. Top is Wikipedia’s
Bloody Mary page, on which we find the
“IBA specified ingredients” – the IBA
being the International Bartenders
Association. Wikipedia even tells us
what type of glass to put the drink in.
ROUND SCORES:
GOOGLE NOW 8 • SIRI 5 • CORTANA 3
Who are Harlequins
playing next?
GOOGLE NOW 3 POINTS
“Harlequins is playing Sharks on Saturday at
14.30,” says Google’s audio reply, before
showing a card of information confirming
Harlequins’ league position in the Aviva
Premiership and the venue of the game.
Top stuff for fans of egg chasing.
SIRI 1 POINT
“Let me check on that,” says Siri, before
dishing up a lazy page of search results. The
top link is to the Harlequins homepage, where
upcoming fixtures are published – but that’s
more by luck than judgement.
CORTANA 1 POINT
It’s another sideways pass
from Cortana, which
pumps the query straight
into Bing, leading us back
to the Harlequins home page.
It seems that Cortana’s as
much use to sports fans as a
pulled hamstring.
ROUND SCORES:
GOOGLE NOW 7 • CORTANA 5 • SIRI 4
How long does it take to
cook a soft-boiled egg?
GOOGLE NOW 3 POINTS
Google reads out an answer from thekitchn.
com, which states: “Cook the eggs for five to
seven minutes: for one to two eggs, cook five
minutes for a very runny yolk or up to seven
minutes for a barely-set yolk.” You can’t fault
the comprehensiveness of the answer, but
the timing differs from Siri, so we go to our
independent adjudicator – Delia – who says
you should simmer eggs for a minute before
turning the heat off and leave them in the
water for six minutes for a soft-boiled finish.
SIRI 1 POINT
Siri offers a page from the BBC website, which
reckons between three-and-a-half and four
minutes is plenty. That could be a runny egg,
if Delia knows her, er, onions.
CORTANA 1 POINT
Cortana relies on the same Bing search
results as Siri, and this time there’s no extra
information in the results page to give
Microsoft’s mouthpiece the edge.
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

ENTERTAINMENT
What’s on at my nearest
cinema tonight?
SIRI 2 POINTS
Although our test location of Burgess Hill in
West Sussex has a small cinema, Siri’s never
heard of it. “Here’s the Cineworld Brighton,”
Siri exclaims, before adding: “It isn’t in
Burgess Hill, though.” Quite. Nevertheless, the
results page is excellent: thumbnails of movie
posters, start times and even review scores.
GOOGLE NOW 1 POINT
We accidentally say the word “local” rather
than “nearest” when we ask Google, and it
brings up nothing but bland search results.
When we ask the exact question above, it
shows local cinemas within 13 miles, although
it also omits our local independent. There are
no film listings, just a list of venues.
CORTANA 0 POINTS
Poor Cortana. Ask it for “local” or “nearest”
cinema and it relies on the bland Bing search,
top of which is a Time Out page showing
cinema listings for London – roughly 50 miles
from here. Best we fire up Netflix.
TRAVEL
When does the next train
leave London for Brighton?
SIRI 1 POINT
Siri bats this one to the web, the top link being
thetrainline.com, which shows exactly when the
next departure is. As Apple Maps (supposedly)
provides public transport directions, it’s a little
disappointing Siri relies on the web, yet when
we look up Victoria on Apple Maps, it tells us
“there are no upcoming departures”. Hmm…
GOOGLE NOW 1 POINT
Google disappoints, too. Google Now cards are
brilliant at letting you know when your next
train home is, but given our specific query, it
too passes us straight to thetrainline.com to
get the information. Admittedly, if we were at
Victoria, Google would tell us the next train
home, but it doesn’t feel like this query should
be beyond its reach.
CORTANA 1 POINT
We didn’t hold out much hope of Cortana
providing a direct answer to this one and we
were right – it too passes the query off to the
thetrainline.com. Disappointing all round.
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341
DIGITAL ASSISTANTS SHOOT-OUT
How many UK number ones
did INXS have?
GOOGLE NOW 2 POINTS
This question is really a test of whether the
voice services can correctly transcribe “in
excess” to “INXS” and Google passes (or
should that be parses?) with flying colours.
It doesn’t have a direct answer but top of its
search results is a link to officialcharts.com,
where we immediately find out that the band
didn’t have any UK number ones, and indeed
only one song in the top 10. Who knew?
SIRI 1 POINT
Siri doesn’t stumble over the band name
either, but likewise it doesn’t have an
immediate answer, referring us to the
band’s Wikipedia page. If the answer’s on
there, we can’t find it.
CORTANA 1 POINT
As with Siri, we’re giving Cortana a
point for correctly interpreting
INXS, but as with Siri, there’s no
joy on the Bing results page. C’mon
Cortana: we need you tonight.
What’s the cheapest petrol
station near me for diesel?
SIRI 1 POINT
Siri ponders for a couple of seconds, before
returning a map of a Shell station just down
the road from us in Burgess Hill. There’s no
indication of price in the results, although the
driving directions are handy. We don’t know
how Siri’s getting its information, but it’s
wrong. Tesco is 2p per litre cheaper for diesel.
GOOGLE NOW 1 POINT
Google delivers a batch of data on UK petrol
prices from petrolprices.com, revealing the
average and cost of various types of fuel.
That’s interesting, but doesn’t answer our
question. If you click through, you can enter
your postcode on the PetrolPrices website, but
to get the results you need to register.
CORTANA 1 POINT
Unlike Siri or Google Now, Cortana makes no
attempt to engage with the question, waving
us off to Bing search once more. As with
Google, we’re directed to petrolprices.com
and its lengthy registration page.
ROUND SCORES:
SIRI 6 • GOOGLE NOW 5 • CORTANA 2
How old is David Bowie?
SIRI 3 POINTS
This is a trick question, designed to see if the
assistants would spot that Bowie has sadly
passed away. “Here is what I found on the
web for how old is David bowel we,” replies
Siri to our initial query, pointing us to the Thin
White Duke’s Wikipedia page despite the duff
transcription. We try again, changing our
pronunciation of ‘Bowie’ slightly, and Siri tells
us Bowie died on 10 January 2016, aged 69
and giving us a page of neatly formatted info
from his Wikipedia page.
GOOGLE NOW 2 POINTS
“David Bowie died at the age of 69,” replies
Google Now, sounding suitably sombre. The
information on offer is nowhere near as
comprehensive as Siri’s though.
CORTANA 1 POINT
This is one of those rare occasions
when Cortana delivers an answer;
sadly, it’s less comprehensive than
its rivals, with ‘69 years old’ written
at the top of the window.
ROUND SCORES:
CORTANA 2 • GOOGLE NOW 2 • SIRI 2
Show flights from Gatwick
to Barcelona on 21st July
SIRI 0 POINTS
Siri goes back to Bing for the answer, with the
top search result clicking through to Monarch
airlines. This pulls up flights from Gatwick to
Barcelona, but not on the date we specified.
Indeed, it’s just a list of flights in price order.
GOOGLE NOW 0 POINTS
Google’s having none of this specific
requirements nonsense either, again pinging
us off to the search results page. Monarch has
bought the top slot here, too, but the lead
organic result is for EasyJet. However, all we
get from that page is a warning that the
Chrome mobile browser isn’t up to snuff for
EasyJet’s site and a link to download Chrome,
Firefox or Internet Explorer. It’s no holiday.
CORTANA 0 POINTS
Like Siri, Cortana palms us off on Bing, but this
time KLM is top of the search results. When
we click through, we’re offered flights from
London City airport, not Gatwick, and are
asked the dates we wish to fly. Nil pois.
119
 POLITICS
Who is the MP for
Romford?
GOOGLE NOW 3 POINTS
Google’s happy to answer our question
directly, telling us the answer is, “According
to Wikipedia, Andrew Rosindell,” before oddly
going on to repeat his full name (including
middle name) and then spell out his name,
albeit incorrectly because it seems to have
picked up the phonetic spelling, thus claiming
his surname is spelt R, Z, N, D, L. Google also
reveals that he’s a Tory.
SIRI 2 POINTS
Siri doesn’t do politics and shoves our
query over to Bing search, where the top
answer reveals it’s Andrew Rosindell, who
is a Conservative.
CORTANA 2 POINTS
Cortana’s not about to sully itself by
answering political questions
directly, either, but the full Bing
results page includes a mini-profile
of Rosindell and a small pic. By
golly, he’s an attractive man.
FINANCE
What is the Bank of
England interest rate?
GOOGLE NOW 3 POINTS
“According to Santander, the Bank of
England base rate is currently 0.5%,” chirps
Google’s voice assistant in response to our
question. It’s a slightly curious choice of
source, but the answer is correct, and
there’s a fuller explanation of what the
rate means and how it changes on the
Google Now card.
SIRI 2 POINTS
Siri pauses for thought once more, before
relying on Bing to deliver the answer. The
search results go straight to the horse’s
mouth, with the Bank of England website
at the top of the list and the current base
rate of 0.5% listed in the preview text, so
there’s no need to click through in order
to get the answer.
CORTANA 2 POINTS
It’s another Bing job for Cortana, with exactly
the same result as Siri and the interest rate
printed in the result’s preview.
120
What is Nicholas Soames’
telephone number?
GOOGLE NOW 3 POINTS
If we wanted to call our local MP, could the
assistants help? Google could. It brought up a
map, his address, buttons to press to place a
call to his office, directions and a website link.
It even prompted us to say “Call Nicholas
Soames MP (Mid Sussex)” to place the call,
which was a bit of a mouthful, but it worked.
CORTANA 1 POINT
Cortana deferred to Bing; top of the results
was the Contact page of the MP’s website.
SIRI 0 POINTS
Siri bombed on this question. It correctly
transcribed Nicholas Soames, but after
thinking about it said: “You have two
contacts named Nicole Kobie. Tap
the number of the one you’d like to
see.” Siri, it seems, will only dish up
a phone number if it’s already in
your contacts. Technology journalist
Nicole, meanwhile, was uninterested in
our complaints about Southern Rail.
What price did Vodafone
shares close at last night?
GOOGLE NOW 3 POINTS
We were confident all the assistants could tell
us the current share price of companies, but
could any tell us what the stock closed at last
night? Google could. It gave an audio answer
with the current stock price, but on the graph
that accompanied it, the previous close was
clearly marked along with the precise figure.
CORTANA 2 POINTS
Huzzah! Cortana speaks, at last! Microsoft’s
assistant decided to answer this one directly,
though not with precise information. Cortana
read out the current share price and the
percentage increase on today’s trading, but
we’d need a calculator to work out the exact
closing price. Close, but no pin stripes.
SIRI 1 POINT
Siri betrayed its American roots by delivering
results from Vodafone’s US listing on the
NASDAQ, not its London price (although we
had to work that out for ourselves). Nor was
there any close price on the graph it displayed.
ROUND SCORES:
GOOGLE NOW 8 • SIRI 5 • CORTANA 4
Who was president of the
United States in 1969?
SIRI 3 POINTS
This was another question designed to trip
up the assistants, as there were two US
presidents in that election year: Lyndon B
Johnson and Richard Nixon. Siri called upon
WolframAlpha to deliver the right answer.
GOOGLE NOW 2 POINTS
“Lyndon B Johnson and Richard Nixon were
both presidents of the United States in 1969,”
replied Google, also side-stepping our trap. It
didn’t deliver quite as full an answer as Siri,
failing to offer handover dates, although
there were little pics of both presidents.
CORTANA 1 POINT
Oh, Cortana. Is there anything you won’t
shunt off to Bing? The top result linked to a
Wikipedia page called “1969 in the United
States”, which did deliver the answer at the
top of the page. The lower search results
also revealed the Johnson/Nixon handover.
But again, Cortana stops short of giving a
straight answer to a factual question.
ROUND SCORES:
GOOGLE NOW 9 • CORTANA 5 • SIRI 3
Where is the nearest
cash point?
GOOGLE NOW 3 POINTS
The phrase “cash point” bamboozled Google,
which seemed only to find ATMs operated by
a company “cashpoint” – then tried to send us
15 miles to get our hands on a £20 note. When
we asked for the “nearest ATM”, Google got its
act together, pointing us to the cash machine
200 yards away, along with a little map.
CORTANA 1 POINT
Clearly suffering from a sore throat after
speaking up last time, Cortana returns to its
modus operandi, punting the query to Bing,
which lists a Link ATM finder. It directs us to
Tesco, but it’s more work than Google requires.
SIRI 0 POINTS
Maybe Siri expects us to pay for stuff with
Apple Pay, because trying to find a cash
machine with the iPhone assistant proved
troublesome. Despite asking for “cash point”
and “ATM”, Siri directed us to a company
called Sussex Asset Finance. It doesn’t have a
cash point. The Tesco over the road does…
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341
 DIGITAL ASSISTANTS SHOOT-OUT

GENERAL ROUND SCORES:

GOOGLE NOW 5 • CORTANA 4 • SIRI 4

What were the EuroMillions When will the Space Station How do you spell
winning numbers on Friday? next be visible in the sky? ‘bureaucracy’?

SIRI 1 POINT GOOGLE NOW 1 POINT SIRI 3 POINTS

You’d have thought that all the digital Google doesn’t attempt to answer the A silly question, you might argue, but if you
assistants would have been able to deliver question directly, using search results to can’t spell something, attempting to type it
something as popular and rudimentary as divert us to NASA’s Spot The Station website, into a search engine may not work. Siri is
the winning lottery numbers, but seemingly which is at least mobile friendly. superb: it spells the word out slowly, and
not. Siri falls back on Bing search to send provides a dictionary definition on the screen.
you to the latest results page on the CORTANA 1 POINT
EuroMillions website. Cortana plays it safe too, providing a link GOOGLE NOW 3 POINTS
to the NASA site at the top of the Bing It’s an almost identical performance from
GOOGLE NOW 1 POINT search results. Google, which does everything Siri does and
You’re not going to learn whether you can then adds extra information such as
afford a yacht directly from Google Now, SIRI 0 POINTS translations into other languages and a
either, which also punts gamblers to the When Siri says, “Hmm… let me think” that’s graph showing the word’s usage over time,
EuroMillions website. usually a bad sign. But here Apple seemingly if you want it.
comes up trumps, telling us the next flyover
CORTANA will be at “6.57am GMT on Friday March 4 CORTANA 2 POINTS
1 POINT 2016.” There’s only one problem: NASA Even on this rudimentary query, Cortana must
And it’s a clean doesn’t agree. The space agency says the lean on Bing for the answer, and unlike the
sweep of barely station won’t be visible from our location other two, it doesn’t read the spelling aloud.
competent from until almost 24 hours later, and all other That may be preferable if you’re in public, but
Cortana, which sources we can find online agree. if you’re trying to scribble a word into a
also diverts Apple’s data is sourced from the crossword or form, the audio option is worth
users to the normally uber-reliable WolframAlpha. having. Still, the spelling and definitions are
official website. Houston, we have a problem. printed nice and large at the top of search.

RESULTS&VERDICT
A
s you can see from the results table below,
Google Now was the runaway winner of our
test. It recorded the top score in all but one
category, coming second best to Siri when it comes
to entertainment-related queries.
Google Now scores consistently because it bothers
to delve into websites and extract the information
you’re looking for, reading aloud answers or displaying
them on ‘cards’ at the top of the screen. It’s the
service that behaves most like an actual PA, offering to
place calls, provide directions to venues or deliver
extra information that may be relevant to your query.
Cortana, on the other hand, did little more than
parse most of our queries to the Bing search engine,
more often than not requiring extra effort on our
behalf to get to the correct answer. It’s not so much
an assistant as a text-to-speech engine.
Siri excels in some areas – often those where
Apple has accompanying services it can sell you –
but falls flat in others. Siri’s dependence on the Bing
search engine is one reason why it struggles to
match Google’s efficiency, but Apple’s keen eye for
presentation means onscreen results were often
presented more attractively than Google’s.
The good news is that Google Now is available
to users of every platform. It’s an integral part of
Android, but is also available on iOS via the
Google app and via the Chrome browser on
Windows devices. Nobody need settle for a
second-rate assistant.

SPORT FOOD & ENTERTAINMENT TRAVEL POLITICS FINANCE GENERAL OVERALL

DRINK

CORTANA 3 5 2 2 4 5 4 25

GOOGLE NOW 8 7 5 2 8 9 5 44

SIRI 5 4 6 2 5 3 4 29

JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341 121

 Business Help
If you have database, office application or macro issues, Kay Ewbank can
help. Send your problems to businesshelp@computershopper.co.uk

Getting a good report in Access

Q
I manage an Access database that is
used (among other things) to keep
track of progress information for our
company. Each week, departmental managers
are supposed to do a report (in Word) of
progress on the various projects we’re
working on. My manager wants a report
showing how the different managers have
done, colour-coded to show those reports
that have not been marked as completed.
I thought of having two queries: one of all
the managers who have to prepare reports,
and one of the managers who’ve submitted a
report in the current week. If someone is on
the first list but not the second, they should
appear in red. If they’ve done their report,
they show up in green. However, I’m stumped
on how to achieve this. I have the two queries,
but I don’t know how to go any further.
The first query (of everyone who has to
prepare a report) looks like this (there are
other fields but I’ve omitted them for clarity):
SELECT [StaffID], [PositionID],
[LastName], ForeName] FROM Staff
WHERE ([PositionID]=3);
The second query (of people who have
submitted a report) looks like this:
SELECT Reps.RepWriterID,Reps.RepDate,
Staff.LastName, Staff.StaffID FROM
Staff RIGHT JOIN Reps ON Staff.StaffID
=Reps.RepWriterID
SELECT AllRep.StaffID,
AllRep.LastName,
IsNull(RepDone.
RepWriterID) AS RepMissing
FROM AllRep LEFT JOIN
RepDone ON AllRep.StaffID
= RepDone.RepWriterID
This returns the StaffID and
last name of the manager,
along with a field called
RepMissing that is True if the
equivalent ID in the second
query is a Null, indicating the
report hasn’t been created.
You can use conditional formatting in Access reports to You can take the result and
differentiate important data
use it as the data source for an
Access report. Use conditional
WHERE (((Reps.RepDate)>=[Forms]![frmRep formatting to show rows where RepMissing is
orts]![txtdatefrom] And (Reps.RepDate)< True in Red, and RepMissing is False in Green.
=[Forms]![frmReports]![txtDateTo]))); Select the text fields (last name and
Janet Wright StaffID), then choose Conditional Formatting
in the Format tab while designing the report.
The easiest way is to use a Left Join Create a new rule that has the expression:
A
with the query listing all the report
writers on the left of the join, and the [RepMissing]=False
query returning the writers on the right. The
writers who haven’t returned a report will and set the colour to green. Repeat the
have a null value in all the fields on the right. process with a rule with the expression:
So if the query above that returns all the
report writers is called AllRep, and the second [RepMissing]=True
query that returns the people who’ve
submitted the report is called RepDone, then and set the colour to red, and you should get
third query involving the left join might be: the effect you want.

Creating a message template in Outlook

Q
I want to create a template in Outlook for people to fill in. For
example, at the start of the email I want to have:
Dear <client’s name>
When you click on the <client’s name> placeholder, I want it to
disappear so that the person creating the email can type the name. Is
there any way to do this without using a macro, as by default macros
are disabled in our version of Outlook? We’re using Outlook 2007.
Gordon Peacock
The good news is that because Outlook shares a number of
A features with Word, you can use a Field Code just as you
would in a Word document. In this case, you could use a
MacroButton field.
Insert a field in an Outlook template by pressing Ctrl-F9. Curly
brackets will appear, with the entry point between them. In the gap, type:
MACROBUTTON NoMacro <Click to enter the client’s name>
Don’t worry that the field is called MacroButton; it doesn’t require
macros to be enabled to work. Right-click the field, choose Toggle Field
from the options in the context menu, and you’ll see <Click to enter the
client’s name> appear. Save the message as a template by choosing File,
Save As, and choosing Outlook Template in the Type choices.
If you then create a message using that template and click where it
says ‘Click to enter the client’s name’, you’ll be able to overtype the
prompt and type the name as required.

124 JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

 BUSINESS HELP

Don’t quote me Hyperlinks in Excel

Q Q
I find one of Word’s habits irritating. If I type a word such as I want to create an image in Excel 2010 that allows a user to
can’t or won’t, Word autocorrects the apostrophe to a single click on different parts of the image, then be taken to the
quote. The only way to stop this is to click the Undo arrow corresponding data table. So if they click on area 1, they go to
after typing the apostrophe. This slows my typing down considerably. table 1, on area 2 to table 2, and so on. Is this possible?
Is there a way to replace all single quotes with an apostrophe? Andrew Hargreaves
Gary Shepherd
It requires a certain amount of fiddling, but it is possible.

A
If you don’t use single quotation marks as quotation marks,
one option would be to remove straight quotes from the
A The first thing you need to know is that in Excel, you can set
up an ‘open this when you click’ Hyperlink. Right-click the
AutoCorrect options. From the File menu, choose Options, image and, in the context menu that appears, select Hyperlink. In the
Proofing, AutoCorrect Options. Select the AutoFormat As You Type tab, dialog that appears, choose ‘Place in This Document’ from the list in
and take the tick out of the box for replacing straight quotes with the left-hand panel.
smart quotes. However, this will also mean that Word won’t replace In the next dialog box that appears, choose the option to enter a
double quotes with the smart quote equivalent. cell reference, and in that field enter the address of the start of the
If you don’t like that idea, remember you can use Ctrl-Z rather than data table.
clicking on the Undo symbol; if you’re a good typist that will be less The problem with this method is that you can only have one
disruptive than taking your fingers away from the keyboard. hyperlink per image. To achieve the effect you want, you need to
Finally, you can carry out a search and replace operation. Copy one create separate mini images for each area where you want to insert a
of the offending smart quotes, then choose Replace from the Home tab hyperlink, then one large
of the Office Ribbon. In the Find What box, paste your single quote. In full-size background
the Replace box, type a normal straight quote, then choose Replace All. image to make it appear
If you want to be more selective in your replacing, you could work to the user as though it’s
out which word contractions you want to replace; most common ones just a single image.
are followed by a d, l, m, r, s, t or v, as in we’d, we’ll, I’m, we’re, he’s, don’t You’d then insert the
and we’ve. In the Find What box, you’d use: background image first,
lay the smaller images
(’)([dlmrstv]) over the top of the
background image in the
And in the Replace With box, you’d enter: appropriate locations,
then use the Insert
'\2 Hyperlink technique
described above multiple
Overlay multiple images in Excel
This finds a smart quote followed by d, l, m, r, s, t or v and replaces it times, one for each area
to have multiple hyperlinks from
with a straight quote, followed by the character that followed the smart where you want to have a
what is apparently a single image
quote, so the character that was second in the found string. clickable link.

How do I update data in a presentation?

Q
I have a PowerPoint presentation
that I run on a repeating slideshow
in our reception area showing
various figures and charts. The data is stored
in Excel, but I enter it manually. My problem
is that the information changes as people
update the underlying sales figures. At the
moment I stop the slideshow every day, edit
the slides with the information from Excel,
then restart the slideshow. Is there a way to
automate this so I don’t have to update the
figures manually? Ideally I’d like it to update
while the show is running, but if that’s not
possible I’d live with it being updated
automatically when I stop and start the show.
Sunnil Rushtie
You can do this, including automatic
A updating. First, make sure the data is
inserted as linked data rather than
just as figures. To do this, select the data in
Excel and copy it. Then click the PowerPoint
slide where it should be displayed, and click
the drop-down arrow on the Paste button on
the Home tab of the Office Ribbon. From the
Use Paste Link to have data updated in
PowerPoint Presentations
options you’re offered, choose Paste Special,
and on the next screen choose Paste Link and
set the type of link to Excel Worksheet Object.
You can do the same thing with charts.
Next, you can automate the update using
the following macro. To enter the macro, click
the View tab of the ribbon, click Macros, and
enter OnSlideShowPageChange as the name
of the macro. Enter the code below:
Sub OnSlideShowPageChange()
Dim i As Integer
Dim oslide As Slide
Dim oshape As Shape
i = ActivePresentation.SlideShowWindow
.View.CurrentShowPosition
If i <> 1 Then Exit Sub
For Each oslide In
ActivePresentation.Slides
For Each oshape In oslide.Shapes
If oshape.Type =
msoLinkedOLEObject Then oshape.
LinkFormat.Update
Next oshape
Next oslide
End Sub
This code runs whenever a page changes
in your slideshow. It looks at the current
position in the show, and if it’s anything other
than the first slide, the macro ends. When the
slide is on slide one, the macro goes through
all the slides, and all the shapes on the slides.
If the type of a shape is msoLinkedOLEObject,
the shape is updated. When your slide gets to
an Excel object, it’s updated with the current
values from the underlying spreadsheet,
keeping your figures up to date.

ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016 125

 Helpfile
Whatever your general PC, hardware and software woes, Simon Handby
is here to help. Send your problems to help@computershopper.co.uk
Updating Windows Vista
Q
I have a self-built desktop PC with an
MSI P45 NEO motherboard, running
Windows Vista SP2. In May 2015 I
installed a Crucial CT512MX SSD to give the
machine a new lease of life, which it did. I
successfully cloned the SSD from the existing
HDD and adjusted the partition sizes.
I recently noticed I hadn’t had any
Microsoft updates for months. When I select
Windows Update from the Control Panel I get
a message saying the update service isn’t
running, but I’ve checked and it is.
I tried stopping and restarting the service,
rebooting and running the Microsoft ‘Fix it’
troubleshooter for Windows Update with no
luck. Various sources on the net suggested
that the lack of AHCI on my SATA interfaces
is the problem, but I don’t see anything in the
BIOS relating to AHCI. It seems a BIOS
upgrade may help, but I am aware of the
possibility of ‘bricking’ my PC if it fails. Is the
lack of AHCI the likely cause of my problems?
Should I start saving for a new PC?
David Holden
We’ve not heard of any Windows
A Update problems that might relate to
AHCI mode, and it doesn’t sound
likely. That said, you can probably rule out the
feature by switching it on. Your motherboard
has the Intel P45 Express chipset, which
incorporates the ICH10 Southbridge, which
should support AHCI mode. It sounds as if you
Very well documented
Q
I’m running Windows 10 on two PCs,
and I use Google Drive to sync my
Documents folder between them. If I
leave a File Explorer window open I get
multiple links to Documents in the navigation
pane. This happens on either PC, regardless
of whether the other PC is on or not. Clicking
any of the links takes me to my Documents
folder, where no duplicate files or folders
appear: the problem seems limited to the
extra shortcuts only. Closing and re-opening
File Explorer gets rid of the extra instances,
but they reappear over time. What’s going on?
Tim Nelson
126
Edit this Registry key before enabling AHCI in the BIOS
either know this is turned off or you aren’t
aware that it’s available. Either way, try turning
it on: reboot the computer and hit Del to enter
the BIOS setup, then from the main menu
select Integrated Peripherals, scroll down to
On-Chip ATA Devices and look to see if RAID
mode is set either to RAID or AHCI.
If it isn’t, don’t change it yet or you won’t
be able to boot. Quit the BIOS without making
changes, boot into Windows, open the Start
menu, type regedit in the search box, hit Enter,
then navigate to HKey_Local_Machine\
System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci.
In the right-hand pane, double-click Start,
change the value data to 0, then click OK.
Now quit Registry Editor, reboot into the BIOS
again and retrace your steps to enable AHCI
mode. Save the changes and reboot, then see
if the update issue is fixed. If you still can’t
find anything in the BIOS about AHCI mode,
or you make the change and it doesn’t help,
We understand this issue can arise
A with any cloud storage program
that’s making changes in the
Documents folder, including Microsoft’s own
OneDrive. With Google Drive, if you create a
new file or folder anywhere within Documents
then watch its status, you’ll see a duplicate
link appear in the Navigation pane once the
new item has been synced. Wait 10 seconds
or so, hit F5 to refresh the view and the
duplicate(s) will disappear. It’s a long-standing
issue in Windows 10, but you can work round
it by selecting View, clicking the Navigation
button and ticking Show all folders.
try updating to the latest BIOS release; while
there’s nothing specific to AHCI mentioned in
the release notes, it’s still worth trying.
If Windows Update still doesn’t work, give
the Windows Update troubleshooter another
go, but the widely available troubleshooter
seems to be an update of an earlier one that
may have been more thorough in trying to fix
the problem. If you still haven’t managed to
get things working, try running the earlier app
from tinyurl.com/341helpfile: select the
aggressive options tickbox.
Finally, try the manual instructions for
resetting Windows Update at tinyurl.
com/341helpfile2. These are rather involved,
but may do the job where the automated fixes
have failed. It’s worth noting that Vista is now
incredibly long in the tooth, and that Windows
7 onwards is markedly more responsive.
You’ll notice a significant performance gain
by upgrading to Windows 10.
Cloud storage software can
cause duplicated shortcuts
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

iPhone trouble in Windows 10
Q
I hated Windows 8.1, but it took me a
long time to be convinced that
Windows 10 would be any better.
Eventually I upgraded, but I’ve encountered a
problem with my iPhone 5: while the PC
recognises when it’s connected, and I can
browse files stored on the phone, iTunes
doesn’t detect it. As such I’ve been unable to
update or back up the phone’s content. Use Windows’
Elaine McNamara AutoPlay settings
to control what
This seems to be a common issue happens when you
A with the Windows 10 upgrade, and
we’ve seen reports of it affecting all
plug in a device
iPhone models, not just the iPhone 5. It’s Connect your phone, open the computer’s
always worth checking that you’re on the Start menu, type ‘device manager’ and run
latest version of iTunes and that Windows 10 Device Manager in the results. Expand
is up to date, but in our experience neither of Universal Serial Bus controllers; we suspect
these is likely to be the issue. you won’t find an entry for Apple Mobile
Can’t clone drive
Q Q
I’ve been using SSDs for my computer’s operating system and
a conventional hard disk for data for a few years now.
Previously I used Acronis True Image to clone the active SSD
to a spare SSD, which I could use as a backup in the event of a failure.
I’ve achieved the cloning by booting from a True Image recovery CD.
This all worked well until I recently had a motherboard failure. As
my system was getting rather long in the tooth, I decided to upgrade
to more recent technology, including an ultra-fast Samsung NVMe M.2
drive for the operating system. The new system works well, but I have
since discovered that it isn’t possible to clone the NVMe drive to my
spare SSD: it appears that the latest version of True Image is unable to
detect NVMe drives. Do you know of a way around this issue?
Martin Powell
Our understanding is that currently the Linux-based rescue
A media created in Acronis True Image can’t see NVMe drives,
but the alternative WINPE-based media can. Unfortunately,
creating the latter involves about 3.2GB of downloading: if you have a
second desktop PC with True Image installed, it may be quicker to put
both new and old SSDs in that computer, and clone the new to old
using the Disk Clone app within the Acronis program group; this should
be able to see both drives. If your second computer doesn’t have a
native M.2 slot, however, you’ll need to buy a SATA-to-M.2 converter,
which is probably more trouble than it’s worth.
Even if it is feasible to use a second PC, we’ve experienced some
failed clone operations using the Acronis Clone Disk app from within
Windows. If you don’t get anywhere with that option, instead create the
WINPE-based media by running Bootable Rescue Media Builder from
the Acronis program group and selecting WINPE-Based Media With
Acronis Plug-in. You’ll need to download both the Acronis True Image
add-on pack, and the Windows Assessment and Deployment kit. With
the latter you can unselect all features except Windows Preinstallation
Environment and Deployment tools, but it’s still a tedious download.
Insert a blank USB drive or CD before the downloads have finished.
When the required components are installed you should find that the
Rescue Media Builder prompts you for a destination for the WINPE
media; choose the USB drive or your optical drive and click Proceed.
Once the media is created, boot from it, wait for Acronis True Image to
load, select Tools & Utilities and the Clone Disk applet should appear
and behave just as in the Linux-based rescue media, with the crucial
difference that it now recognises your NVMe drive.
ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016
HELPFILE
Device USB Driver. If it’s there, right-click it
and select Uninstall. Now expand Portable
devices, under which you should find Apple
iPhone. Right-click this, click Update Driver
Software, select ‘Browse my computer for
driver software’, select ‘Let me pick from a list
of device drivers on my computer’, click Have
Disk, then browse to C:\Program Files\
Common Files\Apple\Mobile Device Support\
Drivers, double-click usbaapl64.inf and click OK.
You told us the above instructions solved
the problem you originally had, after which
you asked if there was a way to stop Windows
automatically synchronising your photos each
time you connect the iPhone. To do this, open
Start menu, type autoplay and select AutoPlay
settings. You should see an entry for your
iPhone in the right-hand pane: expand the box
underneath and select Ask me every time.
Help select a printer
I have searched, and searched again, for a 3-in-1 printer to
replace my Canon Pixma MG5350. What I need is one that
can duplex print, and which has a rear feeder. I gather Canon
no longer produces a similar multifunction with a rear feeder.
I only use the MG5350 for home use, but I do print quite a lot for
an association for which I am treasurer. Much of my printing is draft
copies for checking; these I print on the reverse side of printed
sheets to save paper, hence the need for a rear feed. Few printer
specifications list this option, so it is hard to identify which one will
fit the bill. Can you help?
Dennis Walker
If we’ve understood your requirements correctly, you need
A neither a rear paper feed, nor duplex, although we’d always
recommend the latter anyway. In any tray, on any printer, you
should be able to load paper that you’ve already used once: markings in
the paper tray will tell you how to orientate it so that you’re printing on
the blank side, rather than the side you’ve already used.
If you do need a printer with both duplex and a rear paper tray, we’re
not aware of one with the same creative bias as your Pixma MG5350.
Instead you’ll need a more office-biased device, such as the Epson
WorkForce WF-3620DWF. We haven’t reviewed this specific model, but
it costs about £90, has a single-page rear feed and can duplex print.
If you need a tray capable of accepting more than a single page,
you’ll need to spend more. Epson’s WorkForce Pro WF-5620DWF won a
Best Buy in Shopper 320, and it has an 80-sheet multipurpose tray at
the rear. With cash back,
it’s currently available for
as little as £144. If you
can afford to pay more,
we’d recommend HP’s
Officejet Pro X476dw,
which has a 50-page
feed at the left side
and is incredibly fast.
HP appears to be in the
process of replacing it,
however: we hope to
review the new model
within the next couple ⬆ Epson’s WorkForce Pro WF-5620DWF is a
of months. great inkjet MFP for the home office
127
 SD CARDS EXPLAINED

How to...
Choose an SD card
Picking the right SD card can be a minefield, with a confusing plethora of acronyms
and standards. Richard Easton explains what all those little markings mean

SINCE ITS LAUNCH in 1999, the humble Secure Digital (SD) card in many guises and in a multitude of devices, with differing sizes
has fought off competition from Sony’s Memory Stick format and speeds to consider. This can make buying the right SD card
and CompactFlash cards to become the de facto standard for a confusing affair, so we’re here to explain just what all those
expandable storage. Nowadays, that means you’ll find SD cards different labels mean.

SD CARD TYPES Cards can be rated as Class 2 (with a

The standard SD card is the ‘full-size’ variant. It’s typically used in minimum write speed of 2MB/s),
most modern digital cameras, and nearly all laptops will come Class 4 (4MB/s), Class 6 (6MB/s) or
equipped with an SD card reader slot. Class 10 (10MB/s). Since these are
You’ll also see ‘SDHC’ and ‘SDXC’ variants. The first stands for the minimum, it’s entirely possible
‘Secure Digital High Capacity’, referring to cards with a capacity above that a card can achieve faster
2GB and below 32GB. The latter stands for ‘Secure Digital eXtra speeds, but these give you an
Capacity’, which go beyond 32GB in size, up to a whopping 2TB. impression of the least you can
All three will fit in a regular SD card slot, although older devices that expect. Class ratings are denoted by
pre-date SDXC’s introduction might not be compatible with it, so check a number inside of a C symbol.
your product’s specifications. Devices are backwards-compatible, so an Many SD card manufacturers also
SDXC-compatible device can use SDHC and SD cards. An SDHC- list a specific speed. This means a
compatible device can use SDHC and SD cards, but not SDXC cards. card can be Class 10 but also be
listed as ‘up to 80MB/s’ – note the
The number inside the ‘C’
wording of ‘up to’. You might also
symbol denotes a card’s speed
see a description such as ‘533x’.
This refers to a multiplication of the
speed of an old CD-ROM (150KB/s). So in this case 533 x 0.15 =
80MB/s (as there are 1,000KB in a MB).

UHS SPEED CLASS

This stands for Ultra High Speed and refers to a minimum sustained
writing performance for recording video. According to the SD
Association, UHS Speed Class 1 supports a minimum 10MB/s write
speed, whereas UHS Speed Class 3 supports at least 30MB/s write
speed. The UHS Speed Class is denoted by either a ‘1’ or ‘3’ inside a
bucket ‘U’ symbol. 4K-capable camcorders will usually require at least
a U3-rated SD card.
MiniSD cards are about half the height of a standard SD card. You
can also find larger-capacity miniSDHC cards, though again, you’ll need UHS BUS SPEED
to make sure your device supports miniSDHC rather than just miniSD. UHS Speed Class-rated devices should also be listed as either UHS-I or
Since devices that use it are relatively uncommon, miniSD cards will UHS-II, to show which UHS Bus Interface is used. UHS-I devices have a
often come with an adaptor that can convert it into a full-size SD card. maximum read speed of 104MB/s, whereas a UHS-II card has a
MicroSD, microSDHC and microSDXC cards are the smallest maximum read speed of 312MB/s. Note that, unlike the UHS Speed
versions. They are, as the name implies, physically tiny and are Class, these are not sustained speeds.
predominantly used in smartphones.. Again, SDXC-comp
SDXC-compatible devices
are backwards-compatible with microSDHCroSDHC and microSD cards, VERDICT
VERDIC
and microSD cards can be used in microSDHC Obviously the safest way to mamake sure you buy the correct card
devices. You’ll usually get a full-size SD card product’s user guide or specifications,
is to first consult your produ
adaptor in the packaging, too. to ensure both that you’re choosing a compatible card and
that the card will meet your product’s performance
SPEED CLASSES Sony FDR-X1000V action camera,
requirements. The Son
Speed classes are how SD, miniSD and clearly states that it needs a Class 10 U3
for example, clear
microSD cards are rated in terms of read and microSD card in order to record in 4K.
write speeds. These are important particularly your needs are more basic, Class 10
Even if y
when the cards are used in camcorders
ders or action don’t cost much more, so it’s usually
cards don
cameras, as the speed of the card will limit the video paying the extra: a faster-rated card
worth pay
resolution and bit rate at which you’re able to record. will make for more responsive expanded
The SD Association devised a way to standardise storage in a smartphone or laptop, and in
storag
cards’ speed ratings. These are defined
efined as ‘Speed Class’ SDXC cards can hold up mode, still image cameras will be able
burst mod
to a massive 2TB of data
and refer to the minimum sustained
ined write speeds. to take more photos, more quickly.

128 JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

Multimedia
EXPERT
Photographer, musician, sound engineer, designer and video
producer Ben Pitt guides you through a multimedia project

ben@computershopper.co.uk

Photographing
children
Children are always a
popular photographic
subject, but they’re
surprisingly tricky to
capture. Ben Pitt reveals
how to take photos
worth savouring

ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016 129

 MULTIMEDIA EXPERT

FOR MANY PEOPLE, the birth of a child or Ambient sunlight through the
grandchild is the perfect excuse to upgrade to trees creates an ethereal light,
a new camera. However, capturing photos and the lush vegetation makes
worth framing isn’t always as easy as it seems. for a fine backdrop, too
Everyone thinks their own kids are gorgeous,
but one person’s angelic cherub is another’s
snot-encrusted rugrat.
As babies get older, they get faster and
less predictable. As any wildlife photographer
will tell you, capturing fast-moving,
unpredictable subjects is no mean feat – and
most of the time they get to work outdoors
with plenty of sunlight. Kids’ portraits are
often taken indoors in much lower lighting.
So the challenge is set. Let’s see how
we can go about capturing some great
children’s portraits.

SETTING THE SCENE

Choosing a location is a good place to start.
Ideally you want somewhere with plenty of
light to maintain high image quality. Children
rarely sit or stand still for long so you’ll
probably need a shutter speed somewhere
between 1/100s and 1/250s in order to freeze
motion. In low light that will require a fast ISO
speed, which pushes up grainy noise levels,
but outdoors that isn’t so much of an issue.
Indoors, it’s usually possible to gett enough
light on to your subject by placing
them next to a window.
Another issue is the quality of
the light. Direct sunlight creates
harsh shadows, and this can lead
to over- and underexposed areas
of the image. Direct sunlight can
work well just before sunset or
after sunrise, though. The sunlight
isn’t as strong and it creates more
interesting highlights and shadowss
as it falls across faces from the
side rather than straight down.
Position yourself and your subject
so the sun is behind them and to
the side. This makes the sunlight
catch the side of the face and
creates a glow around the hair,
but avoids them squinting at the
sun. Avoid having direct sunlight avoided at all costs, but it’s generally easier to
in the frame, though. If the backlight
light manage if you have one type of light source.
is making your subject’s face too Light is critical, but so too is the look of
dark, enable the camera’s flash to your scene. For a portrait the background
lift the shadows a little. shouldn’t be particularly noticeable, but it will
Overcast weather turns the entire always play a part unless you crop so much
sky into a light source, creating very ry Babies who aren’t yet crawling are easy that the face fills the frame. Even a plain white
targets, and it usually doesn’t take
little light and shade so subjects look
ook or black background is still a background, and
much to get a beaming smile from them
flat and uninteresting. In general, will contribute to the mood or your photo. A
the best lighting for portraits is camera with a large sensor and wide-aperture
where there’s a diffuse light sourcerce lens will give a shallow depth of field, throwing
that gives some light and shade but ut the sky to shine through the window and the background out of focus to help draw the
doesn’t create hard shadows. Shooting in a effectively turn it into a large area of light eye to the subject but, even then, the
shady spot on a sunny day is a great way to source. This gives soft gradations from backdrop still plays an important role.
achieve this. If the weather is overcast, find a highlight to shadow, which in turn gives skin a Try to pick something that sets the right
bit of cover so the sky illuminates only one luminescent quality. It also creates a reflection mood without being too intrusive. A backdrop
side of the subject’s face. of the window that produces a charismatic of trees or rolling countryside is a safe bet.
You can follow the same principle when sparkle in subjects’ eyes. It’s best to switch Indoors, find a spot that gives a bit of form to
shooting indoors near a window. You’re not the house lights off, as a mixture of sunlight the background without being too distracting.
looking for direct sunlight to fall on the and artificial light can lead to odd colour Whether you go for indoors or out, look out
subject, but rather for ambient light from casts. Mixed lighting doesn’t need to be for trees, lamps or anything else that looks

130 JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

 MULTIMEDIA EXPERT

Light from a window gives soft shadows and a diffused A full-frame camera and 35mm lens at f/2 gives an extremely
glow to skin. This shot also benefitted from a second narrow depth of field, giving a dreamy soft focus to the hair
window further away and behind the subject to act as a rim and shoulders while keeping the eyes, nose and mouth sharp.
light, illuminating the edge of the shaded side of the face I’ve cropped this shot to give a field of view closer to 50mm

like it’s growing out of the subject’s head.
It’s also worth tidying up as much as possible
and avoiding brightly coloured objects. Toys
littering the floor or piles of newspapers may
be a fact of everyday life but they can be a
big distraction in a photo.
WORKING WITH YOUR SUBJECTS
Once you’ve got your scene in order, it’s time
to turn your attention to your subject. Kids’
adorable faces are harder to appreciate when
they’re covered in chocolate, dribble, snot and
who knows what else, so make sure
they’re clean. You may also want to
choose clothes carefully and sort out
their hair. I think it’s best not to go
Kids’ faces are harder to appreciate
smile that’s utterly unconvincing. Others insist
on pulling a crazy face, will sulk or run from
the room. The challenge is to get them
looking relaxed and happy long enough for
you to get a few shots to choose from. If
you’re taking a photo of two or more children,
it becomes exponentially harder to get
everyone simultaneously looking their best.
If you know your way around an image editor,
you could always create a composite shot of
the best poses of each child, but we’ll save
that for another month.
something else – or simply step back and
shoot candidly – and you might find you get
more interesting results. You’ll probably want
to keep them in the same spot, though. A
prop that they can interact with should help
with this. Avoid giving them things that they
will need to look downwards to use, as this
will hide their faces. Food is a bad idea, as
chewing isn’t a great look for portraits.
Preparing food is a good option, though, and
it should keep them occupied for a while.
Children interacting with each other can
produce great photos but it can be
hard to keep them both in shot and
facing towards the camera.

too far with this as you run the risk

of polishing all the personality out of
when they’re covered in chocolate, snot
pictures, but it’s worth picking a
nice, clean outfit and making sure
and dribble, so make sure they’re clean
hair doesn’t cover the face.
The next challenge is getting them to pose.
Babies don’t know what a camera is and will
sit or lie there lapping up the attention you
give them. A game of peekaboo with a small
soft toy or puppet can keep them enthralled
for many minutes. If you want them to look at
the camera, holding a toy just above the
camera looks better than holding it to the
side. If you’ve got your hands full operating
the camera, ask someone to make the toy
appear from behind your head.
As kids get older they become wise to
what’s going on. Some will develop a fake
Asking a child to sit on the sofa and smile
at the camera is unlikely to work. You need
some strategies to make them smile. If they’re
too old for peekaboo, it’s time to crack a few
jokes. Fortunately, children’s humour isn’t too
hard to master. Asking them what they’re
going to have for dinner and then suggesting
a few disgusting dishes usually works. Once
you’ve worked through that, ask them which
superhero they’re going to marry, or which
dinosaur they’d prefer as a pet.
Child portraits don’t have to be big smiles
into the lens. Turn their attention to
AIM AND SHOOT
So the scene is set, your subjects are
looking at their best, and all that
remains is to take the shot. I
recommend shooting Raw for any
photo project, as it gives far greater scope for
colour correction and noise processing using
desktop software such as Adobe Lightroom.
White balance is critically important for
portraits as colour casts are particularly
noticeable on skin tones. Most cameras’
automatic white balance modes tend to be
pretty reliable but, to be sure, select manual
white balance and calibrate it by pointing at a
white or grey object.
I’m often happy to use the camera’s
automatic exposure settings, but it’s
sometimes worth setting the aperture

ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016 131

 MULTIMEDIA EXPERT
Props are great for
bringing out children’s
personality in a photo
manually to a wide setting (with a low
f-number) to blur the background. It’s also
worth keeping an eye on the shutter speed.
Values slower than 1/50s are likely to cause
motion blur, so set it to 1/100s for relatively
static poses and 1/250s if there’s more
motion. These are just ballpark figures; you
may have your own preferred settings. If the
ISO speed starts shooting up as a result,
you’ll need to find a location with more light
to avoid grainy images.
Get down to your subject’s eye level and
make sure the camera’s autofocus is trained
on the eyes. It doesn’t matter if everything
else is out of focus as long as the eyes are
sharp. Some cameras offer face detection
with automatic focusing on eyes. Otherwise,
move the autofocus point to line it up with
the subject’s eye.
If you have a single subject, it’s usually
best to shoot them in portrait orientation.
Think about whether you want to go for a
close-up of the face, head and shoulders,
upper body or full length. There’s a big
difference between zooming in or out and
moving yourself nearer to or further from
the subject. Typical focal lengths for
portraits are from 50mm to 100mm (in
35mm-equivalent values), but there’s no
right or wrong way to do it. A wide-angle
zoom position will mean you need to get
closer to your subject, which can make
132
them feel self-conscious, so that’s as good a
reason as any to step back and zoom in.
Alternatively, shoot with plenty of space in
the frame around the subject and crop the
photo later. This lets you take your time to
find the best composition. Considering that
you can create a sharp A4 print from an
8-megapixel photo, today’s 24-megapixel and
higher sensors have plenty of pixels to spare.
Leaving some space for cropping later can
also be useful when mounting photos in
frames that use a different aspect ratio to
your camera’s sensor.
For group portraits, get them to bunch up
as close as possible to avoid lots of empty
space between their heads. If you’re shooting
a group of children engaged in an activity,
make sure that subjects are either in or out of
the shot; it doesn’t look good to have people
falling off the edge of the frame. You could
always crop them out later, of course.
Most importantly,
take masses of
photos. I find that
one in 10 photos
are worth keeping,
and one in 1,000 are
worth framing
Most importantly, take masses of photos. I
generally find that one in 10 photos are worth
keeping, perhaps one in 100 are worth sharing
and one in 1,000 are worth framing. Burst
mode is useful to capture fleeting smiles and
avoiding blinks but you don’t want scores of
virtually identical shots, so move around a
little and try a few different ideas out.
TECHNICAL ADVANTAGE
All of the above techniques can be achieved
with whatever equipment you have, but there
are a few bits of kit that can help bring your
portraits up another notch.
I’ve mentioned a shallow depth of field a
couple of times in this article, and how it can
help a portrait shot by blurring the
background and parts of the subject, giving a
dreamy quality to the image. The depth of
field (DOF) depends on the size of both the
sensor and the aperture, with larger sensors
JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

BEFORE
and wider apertures giving a narrower DOF.
If you own a camera with interchangeable
lenses but are using the kit lens, a wide-
aperture lens is an extremely shrewd
investment. 50mm f/1.8 lenses are available
for all SLR brands for around £100 (similar
ones for CSCs cost a little more). The f/1.8
figure means 10 times more light entering the
lens compared to a typical kit lens with its
f/5.6 maximum aperture at 50mm. That
means a far shallower DOF, and also the
ability to shoot at faster shutter speeds and
slower ISO speeds in low light.
A 50mm lens on a consumer SLR gives the
same field of view as a 75mm lens on a
full-frame camera, which is ideal for head-and-
shoulders portraits. However, if I were to
recommend one lens upgrade, I’d go for a
35mm. These vary in price depending on the
lens mount, but the wider view is more
versatile and you can crop photos later.
Another big asset for indoor portraits is a
flashgun. Most cameras’ integrated flashes
fire directly forwards to create a harsh light
that flattens contours. Some integrated
flashes can be tiled upwards to bounce light
off the ceiling. This works much better, but
tends to be limited by the power of the flash.
Most dedicated flashgun units offer this
same tilt function, but will be anything from
four to 10 times more powerful than a typical
integrated flash. Many can also pan left or
right, allowing you to bounce light off walls
as well as ceilings.
For even greater flexibility, go for a wireless
trigger. These comprise a wireless transmitter
that sits on the camera’s hotshoe and another
Bouncing light from a flashgun off the
ceiling or wall is a great way to freeze
motion without the rabbit-in-headlights
look that comes from a direct flash
ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016
AFTER
that acts as a seat for the flashgun. Big-brand
models such as PocketWizard are quite pricy,
but there are models from companies such as
Yongnuo and Neewer on Amazon for under
£20. The only downside is that the flash
power and the camera’s exposure settings
must be set manually, but a bit of trial and
error should lead you to a balanced exposure.
Earlier I warned about combining sunlight
with artificial light, as the variation in colour
temperatures can result in tricky colour casts.
MULTIMEDIA EXPERT
I was almost ready to discard
this shot, which was taken
without much care. However,
with some cloning in Photoshop
to remove smudges of food and
the woman’s arm, plus some
colour correction to lift the skin
tones, particularly around the
eyes, I’ve been able to salvage a
respectable portrait shot
However, sunlight and flash light are much
closer in temperature and so they can be
combined without much trouble. Using one as
a main light source in front of the subject and
to one side, and the other behind the subject
and over on the other side, is a classic
technique for portrait lighting. The main light
should ideally be diffused to create soft
shadows, either by using a window or
bouncing flash light off the wall. The rear light
is known as a rim light as it illuminates the
edge of the subject, and helps to give some
definition to the shaded side of the subject.
You don’t necessarily have to invest in
off-camera flash systems to achieve this,
though. A strategically placed mirror or even
some white card will reflect light back from a
window to create a rim light effect. It’s
probably unrealistic when trying to
photograph a restless toddler or older child,
but it can work brilliantly for baby portraits.
NEXT MONTH
PRODUCE THE PERFECT VOCAL
The vocal is the centrepiece of
virtually every pop music production.
Our workshop will help you make sure
that it hits the right note
133
 Advanced
PROJECTS
Clive Webster has been tinkering with computers ever since
Windows 98 forced him to manually install his drivers

clive@computershopper.co.uk

Adopt Don’t let a lack of Windows 10 hold

you back – adopt a cutting-edge

Linux Linux distro and keep up to date.

Clive Webster shows you how

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134 JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341

 ADVANCED PROJECTS

GET THE CODE

PREPARING YOUR UPDATE
We’ve chosen Linux Mint because it’s robust,
regularly updated, feels familiar and is free.
There are other versions of Linux, but
whichever version you choose the installation
process will be much the same as with Mint.
First, head to www.linuxmint.com/download.
php and click the link for Cinnamon 64-bit
unless your PC or laptop is particularly old
or underpowered. Our dual-core 1.2GHz
Intel Pentium U5400 (released in mid-2010)
with 4GB of RAM was plenty fast enough
for the flashy effects of the Cinnamon
version of Mint.
If you have serious concerns regarding
your processor and RAM, choose the Xfce
version; you’ll lose out on some graphical
effects, but at least your system should run
this streamlined version smoothly.
Once you’ve chosen a version of Mint,
you’ll be taken to a list of ‘mirrors’. This refers
to download sources that ‘mirror’ the master
download file. A UK source will make a UK
download faster; click a source to begin the
1.5GB ISO file download.
While Mint is downloading, check that
you’ve copied all your valuable files, photos
and so on from the system that’s about to
receive Mint. This is also a good time to
download a couple of tools: SD Formatter
(see tinyurl.com/sdformat) and Win32 Disk
Imager (see tinyurl.com/win32di). You should
use SD Formatter to wipe a 4GB or larger USB
drive (make sure you save any precious data
on the USB drive first).
Once the Mint file has downloaded, you
can use Win32 Disk Imager to install the ISO
file to the USB drive – to do this, you’ll first
need to change the file association from
Installing an ISO file to a USB drive in Win32 Disk Imager
3 2
1 Find the Mint ISO file
2 Must be the USB drive’s drive letter
3 Click to create a bootable USB drive
‘.img’ to ‘*.*’. Just copying the ISO file to the
USB drive will not make it bootable.
Insert the bootable USB drive into the PC
or laptop you want to update to Mint and
turn the machine on. Hit either Delete or F2
(or whatever the manual instructs) to enter
the BIOS, and change the primary boot device
to the USB drive. This option is usually in the
Boot menu; you may have to enable booting
from an external device before the BIOS will
accept a USB drive as a boot device. Hit F10 to
save your changes, exit and reboot. Hopefully
your PC or laptop will boot into a Linux Mint
desktop. If not, consult your laptop or
motherboard manual to see if there’s a
specific way to boot from USB flash drives.
1
SUDO INSTALL
TEST-DRIVE YOUR NEW OS
Seeing a Mint desktop just 20 seconds after
restarting your computer might be a surprise,
but Mint is actually running from the USB
drive in ‘Live’ mode; this allows you to
test-drive Mint before committing. You only
start to install Mint once you double-click the
Install Linux Mint icon on the desktop. As
Mint is running ‘Live’ from a USB drive, it will
be a little sluggish; once installed on a hard
disk Mint is very responsive, even on our
ageing Pentium laptop mentioned earlier.
The install process for Mint is fairly
straightforward, with only a few options to
confirm (most of which are detected
automatically, such as language, location and
keyboard layout). At one point you’ll be asked
about the ‘Installation Type’, with two main
options: install Mint alongside Windows or
erase Windows and install Mint on its own.

LINUX MINT vs WINDOWS 10

LINUX MINT WINDOWS 10
Office suite (free forever) (free for one year, then £60)

Media software

Online storage (5GB, free)

Virtual desktops

Start menu

Digital assistant

App store Comprehensive Limited

Hardware/software support Strong Comprehensive

Gaming support Patchy Comprehensive

Biometrics support

Touchscreen support Limited

Scaling (high-res screens)

User-controlled updating

Personal data encryption (with Microsoft account)

Install size 5.5GB 20GB

⬆ Unless you’ve got specific hardware or
Price Free £85 (free upgrade from Windows 7
software requirements, you should choose the
and 8 until 29th July)
Cinnamon 64-bit version of Mint

ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016 135

 ADVANCED PROJECTS

⬅ The Mint desktop

is a totally familiar
environment for
Windows users

⬆ Choose the fastest sources to make updating

Mint as quick as possible

While the first option may be tempting, store since the late 1990s, although Mint calls overwhelming. If LibreOffice annoys you, try
‘dual-booting’ can be a hassle and we would this store the Software Manager. standalone packages such as Gnumeric
only recommend it if you regularly use spreadsheets, AbiWord or Calligra Stage.
particularly intensive programs that cannot MINT CONDITION: CUSTOMISATION Clementine can take over your music library
be installed on Linux. This might be a To install new software, open the Software if Banshee isn’t to your taste. And while
professional video editor, for example, or a Manager from the Mint Menu. The Mint Thunderbird is popular, you can try Claws
collection of games (Windows is still the king Menu works just like the Windows 7 Start Mail or Evolution if you find it lacking.
of PC gaming). Whichever installation type menu, so you could press the Windows key One change we recommend for everyone
you choose, the rest of the install is intuitive. and type ‘soft’ to search for the Software is to drop Firefox in favour of Google Chrome,
When asked to create a password, make it Manager, for example. While there’s usually a as Google’s browser supports media formats
secure yet short and memorable, as you’ll be free version of popular software, you’ll need and HTML5 better, allowing you to watch
asked to input it quite often. to know the names of these alternatives. If Netflix on Linux, for example. Head to
The first thing to do after installing any you don’t know the name of the package you Google’s download site at tinyurl.com/
operating system is to update it. Click the blue want, you can use the categories of the ap-dl-chrome to download the 64-bit Debian/
shield icon in the System Tray area (bottom- Software Manager, but we’ll help you with a Ubuntu version. Once you’ve read every word
right) and the Update Manager will launch. few common recommendations. of the terms and conditions and clicked
There should be a blue section asking if you’d For example, Pinta gives you Paint.net-like Accept and Install, Mint’s Package Manager
like to switch to a local mirror; click OK. image editing should the GIMP prove will handle the download and install. When
There are two update sources: Main (rosa)
and Base (trusty) – click on the button next to
each and Mint will speed-test the sources,
listing the fastest at the top. Select the fastest
update sources, close the Software Source
window and click Install Updates on the
Update Manager. Once mintupdate and
mint-upgrade-info have been updated, you’ll
see a much longer list of updates; click Install
Updates again to ensure that Mint and all its
pre-installed software is updated.
Like most Linux distros, Mint comes with a
set of applications to allow you to get to work
straight away. There’s LibreOffice for word
processing, spreadsheets, drawing and
presentations; Thunderbird covers email;
Firefox browses the web; the GIMP handles
Photoshop-like image- and photo-editing
tasks; Banshee plays your music; and VLC and ➡ You’ll need
Videos share video-playback duties. Chrome if you
It’s easy to install alternatives to these want to watch
applications should you wish, or to add Netflix on
further software, as Linux has used an app Linux Mint

136 JULY 2016 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341


⬆ Half an hour of fiddling and we have a desktop just as pretty and streamlined as any Windows install
the file has downloaded, click Install. You can
then launch Chrome from the Mint Menu.
Other applications to consider installing
are steam-launcher (for Valve’s Steam
service), Skype, Picasa, Scribus (for desktop
publishing), Dropbox (agree to install the
‘proprietary daemon’), WINE and VirtualBox.
WINE allows you to run Windows applications
on Linux at full speed; many people use it to
run games and intensive applications. However,
only certain versions of certain programs run
under certain versions of WINE, so research
wiki.winehq.org/Main_Page thoroughly.
VirtualBox allows you to create virtual
computers on to which you can install whole
Like most Linux distros, Mint comes with a set of
applications to allow you to get to work straight away
operating systems; if you have an old Windows
application you use occasionally that isn’t too
resource-hungry, consider setting up a virtual
machine to host Windows and this essential
application. (We covered VirtualBox in more
depth in Shopper 313.)
Beyond new or alternative software, Mint
is highly configurable: half an hour of fiddling
will produce an attractive and productive
environment. Right-click an application’s icon
in the Mint Menu and you can pin it to the
Panel (towards the bottom-left of the
desktop) or the Favourites (the vertical list
of icons on the left of the Mint Menu). You
can rearrange your Favourites by dragging
them around, or right-click to remove them.
ISSUE 341 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | JULY 2016
If the default Mint wallpaper is too bland,
open Backgrounds to choose from four
photographic collections or your own picture
library. Open the Setting tab to set slideshow
mode for backgrounds. If you’re lucky enough
to have a high-res screen (above 1,920x1,080),
open the General settings and play with the
interface scaling option. You can fine-tune via
the Fonts settings by altering text scaling.
We altered the way windows behave via
the Windows settings options, preventing
windows from stealing focus and setting the
focus to follow the mouse pointer rather than
require a click. We preferred the ‘Sloppy’
setting, which moves focus to a window that
we mouse-over but doesn’t drop focus if we
mouse on to the desktop (unlike the ‘Mouse’
mode, which would drop the focus). With
‘Automatically raise focused windows’
enabled, we could move around a cluttered
desktop quickly without clicking the mouse.
If you like Windows Snap, change the special
key from Ctrl to ‘Super’ (the generic name for
the Windows or Mac Command key) so
Windows-Left ‘snaps’ the active window to
the left of the screen. You can choose from
six methods of alt-tabbing between windows.
While Mint allows you to ‘peek’ at open
windows like Windows 7 (and onward), you
can’t interact with those ‘peeks’ as you can on
Windows. Open windows also aren’t gathered
ADVANCED PROJECTS
by application, as Windows 7 introduced so
neatly. To add this ability to Mint (albeit in a
slightly messy workaround fashion) head to
Applets and add ‘Window List with App
Grouping’. While this applet does nothing to
eliminate the clutter in the Taskbar area of
Mint, the Windows 7-like icons in the System
Tray area (bottom-right) do aid multitasking
by grouping open windows under a single
icon. We left single-instance applications such
as Banshee in the Panel (bottom-left).
Like most versions of Linux, Mint supports
virtual desktops, just like Windows 10. To see
your virtual desktops – called Workspaces in
Mint – press Ctrl-Alt-Up; you can drag
windows from one Workspace to the other
in this ‘Expo’ view. To move quickly between
Workspaces, press Ctrl-Alt-Left or Right.
Possibly the best thing about being a
newcomer to Linux these days is that it’s
almost impossible to break a Linux installation
unless you know how; noodling around with
your mouse won’t reveal any low-level
hardware or software options that can
irreparably crash a vital subsystem. Compare
that to even Windows 10, where you’re three
mouse clicks away from reconfiguring your
TCP/IP stack or reformatting your hard disk.
Linux is also inherently more secure and less
resource-hungry; there’s never been a better
time to give Mint a try.
NEXT MONTH
KEEP YOUR PC COOL
With summer imminent (fingers crossed),
it’s time to sort out your PC’s cooling and
reduce the risk of heat-related crashes
137
 PARTING SHOTS
Zygote
You can print out anything these days, says Zygote, from fake fingerprints to 3D albums
made from your own ashes. Sadly, creating a more inclusive IT industry is a little harder
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 their right to walk out.
PRINTS CHARMING
If you think your smartphone is
secure because it has a
fingerprint sensor, think again.
Students at Michigan State
University have cracked
smartphone security by
harnessing an inkjet printer to
create spoof fingerprints. All a
potential hacker needs to do is
lift the victim’s fingerprint from
any suitable surface, scan it, and
then print it out with a standard
electrical circuit cartridge.
It used to take about half an
hour to create a fake print with
the so-called ‘gummy bear’
method, because the mould
made from the rubbery sweet
needed to set, and even then
success was touch and go. But
using an inkjet, the whole
process of hacking a fingerprint
reader takes a few seconds and
achieves a 100% success rate.
Speaking of which…
TOUCHY FEELY
Down at the Scuola Superiore
Sant’Anna in Switzerland, they
have developed bionic fingertips
138
for amputees. In a brilliant
technology that marries
engineering, surgery and
computing, artificial hands have
been created with sensors that
generate signal patterns when
moving over a textured or
uneven surface. These signals are
fed to a nerve graft in the
patient’s arm, and register with
the brain exactly as if the missing
fingertips were touching the
same surface.
The success rate at defining
all sorts of touchy-feelies is a
remarkable 96%, and now the
technology is set to be applied to
robotics for use in hazardous
environments such as search and
rescue missions, as well as
mainstream manufacturing.
Zygote looks forward to the
Swiss integrating their bionic
fingers with the range of bionic
noses that have been available
since 2009, from which they can
take their pick.
SIN TAX ERROR
George Osborne’s last Budget
was such a PR disaster that one
element went almost unnoticed.
This was the new £1,000 digital
tax break for what the chancellor
called “Britain’s micro
entrepreneurs”. Under the new
incentive, people who sell
services or goods online and
receive payments via virtual
banks such as PayPal will be able
to fill in an innocent little box on
their tax returns and pay no
annual tax on the first £1,000
they make online.
Zygote wonders how many
micro entrepreneurs will be
honest enough to admit to such
online trading, seeing as there is
no way the chancellor can tax
any such invisible dealings. Any
UK digital trader who uses a
PayPal account that is based in
Luxemburg can receive money
and then use the balance in the
same account to buy other
goods and services online. This
keeps the whole business under
the fiscal radar. To claim the tax
benefit, they would need to
reveal their online trading to
George Osborne in the first place.
Meanwhile, the government’s
much-heralded £450m Digital
Strategy has been delayed yet
again. Culture secretary Ed
Vaizey has tried to blame the
EU referendum, which is
bonkers, but says he still wants
us all to live in “gigabit Britain”.
Zygote notes that gigabit is an
anagram of ‘a big git’.
CLEAR COMMAND
Zygote has discovered a brilliant
operating system, and it is
controlled by a single command
switch. It is Windows, but not as
you know it. A sheet of glass is
fused between two transparent
rubberised layers, which are
JULY 2016
sprayed with a coating of
extremely thin wires. In fact, they
are so skinny they cannot scatter
light, and so the glass appears to
be transparent. When a low
voltage is applied, the wires on
either side of the glass get frisky
and move towards one another
in a split second. This causes
light to scatter and turns the
glass from clear to opaque, and it
can be controlled for any degree
of cloudiness in between.
Whoever said Windows had to
be unnecessarily complicated?
VINYL SOLUTION
If you want to be cremated after
you die, but you aren’t quite sure
where you want your ashes to
go, how about turning them into
a long-playing record? The UK
company And Vinyly is dead
pleased to be able to transform
your mortal remains into a
3D-printed vinyl record of your
very own music.
Zygote thinks this is an
excellent afterlife opportunity
because it allows you to play with
your loved ones, and join in their
fun from beyond the groove.
Your ashes will be enough to
make about 30 discs at a cost of
£3,000, including bespoke cover
artwork and notes. The company
also offers exactly the same
service for your pet’s ashes, so
even with Rover passed over you
can still take him for a spin.
| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 341
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