Indholdsfortegnelse for September 2016 i PCWorld

AMD FINALLY UNVEILED its new Zen microarchitecture, with a pair of CPUs that could put the company back into the fight with Intel’s best. AMD said its Summit Ridge CPU, aimed at high-performance desktops, will pack 8 cores and feature simultaneous multithreading technology to give it 16 threads of processing power. Summit Ridge is targeted for Q1 2017, though a trickle of chips could appear sooner. A second chip for servers, code-named Naples, will feature an astounding 32 cores with SMT, giving it 64 threads per CPU. SMT is similar to Intel’s Hyper-Threading technology, which splits a single core into two virtual cores for more performance. If other tests back up AMD’s demonstration, however, it appears to run neck-and-neck with the newly released Broadwell-E. To prove that Zen has the…

MICROSOFT’S PLANNING A BIG BASH for Windows 10’s first birthday, and you’re the one receiving presents. On August 2, the company pushed out the (boringly named) Windows 10 Anniversary Update to Windows 10 PCs, and the update’s chock-full of all sorts of new goodies for you to play with—some niche, some helpful, and all free. Windows Insiders who don’t mind living dangerously with unfinished software tested these new features in Windows 10 preview builds for months, and now the Anniversary Update has hit the masses. You’ll find our overarching thoughts and impressions in PCWorld’s Windows 10 Anniversary Update review, but if you want to just cut to the chase and know about the best new goodies right now, this article’s for you. Let’s dig in! Bash shell This will only…

YEARS BACK, MICROSOFT began paying people to use its Bing search service via a program called Bing Rewards. Now, Microsoft will do the same with its Edge browser and other products. Microsoft announced recently that over the next few weeks, Bing Rewards (bing.com/rewards) will become Microsoft Rewards. The concept remains the same: The more you use or buy Microsoft products, the more freebies you’ll receive in return. With the debut of Microsoft Rewards, you’ll also be able to accrue points by browsing with Edge or purchasing items at brick-and-mortar Microsoft Stores. Why this matters: At the end of July, Google Chrome held over 50 percent of the world’s browser market share; Edge is at 5.09 percent, according to NetApplications. Microsoft clearly wants to lift that number. Locking down Cortana…

WITH AT&T’S MOBILE Share Advantage, the telecom giant follows a new trend: Customers who switch to this new shared mobile plan (available August 21) will be spared bandwidth overage fees. Instead, the firm said, after available bandwidth is used up, its Mobile Share Advantage customers will be throttled to 128Kbps for the rest of the current billing cycle. AT&T joins T-Mobile and Sprint among the big four U.S. carriers in shifting to throttling instead of causing customers to rack up fees at $10 per gigabyte above plan totals. The Mobile Share plans pool bandwith among devices that can include smartphones, feature phones, tablets, gaming devices, wearables, laptops, hotspots, and other hardware. A monthly charge per device is paired with a charge for a tier of bandwidth. Why this matters: AT&T…

PEN COMPUTING HAS been part of the Apple Newton, the Tablet PC, the Surface Pro 3, and other devices. But the PC world has never really answered the central question concerning the pen: What exactly do you do with it? Virtually everything about Windows Ink was designed for the Anniversary Update. OneNote used to be Microsoft’s great inking application; now, a collection of native Windows Ink–powered apps (which originated from the massive Surface Hub)—Sticky Notes, Sketchpad, and Screen Sketch—is elbowing into its territory. And if those aren’t good enough, a curated collection of inking apps are now in the Windows Store. A few years ago, Microsoft executives showed a Surface Pro 3 tablet that could be written upon just by clicking the stylus, even without unlocking the PC. Today, that…

WHERE ARE THE CUSTOM CARDS? The question’s been reverberating throughout Internet forums and various subreddits since the launch of AMD’s revolutionary $200 Radeon RX 480 (go.pcworld.com/radeonrx480rev) graphics card. The chorus grew after weeks of radio silence on AMD’s part; amplified when Asus revealed its Strix RX 480 (go.pcworld.com/strixrx480reveal) wouldn’t be available until mid-August; and downright exploded into a cacophony when Nvidia’s $250 GeForce GTX 1060 (go.pcworld.com/ge forcegtx1060rev) launched with a full complement of custom designs. Where are the custom cards? Well, here’s a custom RX 480 card that AMD aficionados have been drooling for: Sapphire’s Nitro+ RX 480. It’s hitting online stores at $219 for a 4GB model (go.pcworld.com/nitro rx4804gb) (which we tested) and $269 for an 8GB version (go.pcworld.com/nitrorx4808gb). And yes—the wait was worth it. Sapphire definitely put its…

NVIDIA’S MORE MODESTLY priced graphics cards often roll out months after the more luxurious GeForce models. Look at the last generation: The GeForce GTX 960 (go.pcworld.com/nvidiagtx960rev) debuted four months after the GTX 980 and GTX 970 exploded onto the scene. A few generations before that, the GTX 660 launched a full half-year after the GTX 680. But not the GeForce GTX 1060 (go.pcworld.com/geforcegtx1060). Nvidia recently announced its new sweet-spot graphics card, a mere month after the launch of the GTX 1080 (go.pcworld.com/gtx1080 rev) and GTX 1070 (go.pcworld.com/geforcegtx1070rev), and hot on the heels of AMD’s surprisingly powerful, shockingly cheap (go.pc world.com/radeonrx480rev) Radeon RX 480—which no doubt spurred the speedy release. And get this: The GTX 1060 is even faster than AMD’s $200 stunner and Nvidia’s former $500 flagship, the GTX 980,…

LOGITECH HAS BEEN pushing hard to win back the gaming crowd in recent years—and I’ll be damned if the G933 (go.pcworld.com/ logitechg933) isn’t one of its best shows yet. How good? Well, I’d probably save a $100 (or more) and take this headset over our long-standing high-end recommendation of the Astro A50 (go.pcworld.com/astroa50) and the SteelSeries Siberia 800, barring a few exceptions. Indeed the G933 can currently be found on Amazon (go.pcworld.com/logitechg933amz) for well below its MSRP. Modern looks As an update to Logitech’s G930, the G933 sports a familiar look. It’s got the same bulky air traffic control heft, the same coffin-shaped earcups instead of traditional round ones. It’s easily identifiable as the heir to Logitech’s old gaming headset. Nevertheless, the G933’s been prettied up. Logitech has added RGB…

THE ANNIVERSARY UPDATE for Windows 10 has been rolling out, and with it comes the ability to install browser extensions on Microsoft Edge (go.pcworld.com/w10edge). The new feature is just one of many tweaks that Edge needs to compete with more popular browsers such as Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. At this writing, the number of extensions available for Edge are very limited, but you’ll find a few notable ones, including AdBlock, AdBlock Plus, LastPass, and Pocket. Once the Anniversary Update rolls out to your PC, here’s how to download and install extensions in Edge. First, open Edge and click on the menu icon (three horizontal dots) in the upper right corner. Next, select Extensions from the drop-down menu. This will open a second panel that will show any extensions you…

FEW FEATURES IN Windows have as colored a history as AutoPlay (go.pcworld.com/w10autoplay≠–). In its early days, the setting was infamous for passing viruses from errant USB drives to PCs. In more recent versions of Windows, AutoPlay is off by default to prevent malicious files from automatically executing on a PC. AutoPlay is handy because it tells Windows to automatically carry out a specific action when you plug in some kind of removable media such as an SD card, a USB drive, or an external CD player. AutoPlay can be set to automatically import photos or videos, play any media, open File Explorer, or do nothing at all. Even in the age of Windows 10, the best practice for AutoPlay is to leave it off or to have it ask…

After being frankly astounded by AMD’s recent demonstration of its Zen microprocessor, we simply had to sit down with AMD chief technical officer Mark Papermaster to find out more. Here is our interview, lightly edited for length and clarity. (Confused by what we’re talking about? You might want to read our Zen performance report on page 8 before diving in.) PCWorld: Wow. Leading up to this, there were a lot of doubts on the Internet about Zen’s performance, that it could be lower than Intel’s Ivy Bridge. Clearly, you guys have demonstrated that you can run with Intel’s biggest dogs. Papermaster: What we said a year ago—I guess it was in May, at the financial analysts’ meeting, and I know when I put down that 40-percent IPC number, I got…

THE WINDOWS 10 ANNIVERSARY UPDATE is full of great new features like a more powerful Cortana, deeper integration with mobile devices, and new inking features designed to make the stylus cool again. But as with any new version of Windows, the Anniversary Update also removes a few features and functionality that some of you might miss. Amid all the excitement over what’s coming to AU, here’s a look at what Microsoft sent to the Recycle Bin. The impersonal login page A small, but nice, cosmetic change—now, when you click or swipe away the lock screen background picture, you don’t end up on a login screen with a plain colored background or the default Windows background. Instead, you get the same picture as your lock screen by default. The new animation…

MICROSOFT IS FACING two more lawsuits over the company’s questionable Windows 10 upgrade tactics. Both suits are seeking class-action status. The first suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Florida. It alleges that Microsoft’s Windows 10 upgrade prompts “violated laws governing unsolicited electronic advertisements,” as reported by The Seattle Times. The suit also says Microsoft’s tactics are against the Federal Trade Commission’s rules on deceptive and unfair practices. The second suit was filed in June in Haifa, Israel, alleging that Microsoft installed Windows 10 on users’ computers without consent. Microsoft already paid out a $10,000 award in a previous U.S. suit over similar circumstances. Microsoft told the Seattle Times it believes the suits won’t succeed. The Times also reports that Microsoft said Windows 10 upgrades (the Times report called…

VERIZON’S CONTINUING ITS ongoing mission to pare down the number of customers on unlimited data plans by migrating them to ones with hard limits. Recently, the company came up with a way to get rid of its biggest data hogs. Verizon is notifying customers using an “extraordinary” amount of data per month that they must move off their unlimited data plan by August 31. If they don’t switch, the carrier will disconnect their accounts, though they’ll have 50 days to reactivate them on a limited plan, as first reported by Droid Life. Verizon ceased offering unlimited data plans in 2011. The impact on you: “Extraordinary” usage appears to be people who are sucking down more than 100GB every month. Verizon told Ars Technica that a very small number of users…

IN MAY, MICROSOFT launched a UWP OneDrive app (go.pcworld.com/uwponedrive), which helped address the loss of “smart” or “placeholder” files in the original release of Windows 10. Windows 10’s Anniversary Update improves OneDrive in important ways. In my original review of Windows 10 last year, I wrote of OneDrive (go.pcworld.com/win10onedrive): “One feature has disappeared, though: the confusing ‘placeholder’ files that resided on your PC as a timesaving device. And that’s good.” No, it’s not. That was simply wrong. OneDrive is a mess, and the placeholder files simply should be there today. Fortunately, OneDrive meets me halfway: It’s an app that functions like the OneDrive website, listing the files you’ve stored in the cloud. It’s also slow. But you can drag files into the app and OneDrive will upload them, so it’s…

AS ALWAYS, WE TESTED the Sapphire Nitro+ RX 480 on PCWorld’s dedicated graphics card benchmark system (go.pcworld.com/pcw benchmark), which is loaded with high-end components to avoid potential bottlenecks in other parts of the machine and show unfettered graphics performance. Key highlights of the build: • Intel’s Core i7-5960X ($1,016 on Amazon go.pcworld.com/amz i75960x) with a Corsair Hydro Series H100i closed-loop water cooler ($97 on Amazon go.pcworld.com/amzcorsaircooler). • An Asus X99 Deluxe motherboard ($360 on Amazon go.pcworld.com/amzasusx99). • Corsair’s Vengeance LPX DDR4 memory ($65 on Newegg go.pc world.com/nwegcorsairveng), Obsidian 750D full-tower case ($155 on Amazon go.pcworld.com/amzobsidian750d), and 1,200-watt AX1200i power supply ($308 on Amazon go.pcworld.com/amz corsairax1200i). • A 480GB Intel 730 series SSD ($248 on Amazon go.pcworld.com/amzintel730) • Windows 10 Pro (go.pcworld.com/win10pro) ($199 on Amazon go.pcworld.com/amzwinprodrive) We benchmark every game using…

ANOTHER YEAR, ANOTHER Razer Blade. Just swap out a few of the internals, tweak the design, and presto—you’ve got yourself a new-ish computer. Don’t expect huge surprises or massive leaps in power. This here is what we call an “incremental upgrade.” Details, details, details Most people won’t notice or won’t care about the kind of visible (and tangible) changes Razer has made to the 2016 Blade (go.pcworld.com/razerblade). At the very most, they’re adjustments that might elicit a muttered “Ah, cool” as you read this. They include: A new typeface: Razer made this update on its peripherals and the Blade Stealth (go.pcworld.com/bladestealthrev) earlier this year, and now it’s come to the Blade. Gone is the heinous “gamer-friendly” typeface that Razer used to slap on its products. In its place is a…

ONCE UPON A time, a wireless gaming headset would cost you $300. That’s quite a premium, considering you can find a quality wired headset for under $100. But over the last few years, the push for affordable wireless headsets has grown. Corsair in particular has spearheaded the push for cheaper wireless, and the Void Wireless (corsair.com/void) is its latest iteration. The price is phenomenal—only $100 on Amazon (go.pcworld.com/corsairvoidamz) (and sometimes even less)—but it’s so low that it’s hard not to be suspicious. Can you really get a quality wireless headset for that cheap? An unconventional approach The answer is “sort of.” It’s important to point out that I think the Void Wireless is a solid improvement on Corsair’s previous wireless model, the H2100—and not just because Corsair ditched the tribal…

TAKE THE TIME to customize typing, browsing, and other settings from the get-go. When you’re setting up a new or existing PC with Windows 10, Microsoft will offer to install the operating system with “Express settings.” Although Windows 10 Express settings will get you up and running quickly, that convenience comes at a cost: By skipping over custom settings, you’re agreeing to all kinds of data collection and behavior tracking, much of which didn’t apply in earlier versions of Windows. Here’s our advice: Instead of blindly enabling Express settings in Windows 10, take some time to understand what you’re agreeing to. Click the Customize Settings link (in tiny text at the bottom of the setup screen), and disable the options you don’t want. Here we’ll walk through all of the…

SURE, YOU’VE GOT plenty of choices when it comes to picking a new keyboard for your Android phone, but you shouldn’t overlook the growing list of customization options available on the “stock” Android keyboard. Not only can you change the color of the keypad, you can also create your own background using an image from your camera roll. You can even toggle key borders on and off, raise or lower the height of the keyboard, change the timing of a “long-press,” get easier access to your favorite emojis, and more. Change your keyboard’s theme and background Back in the early days of Android, the stock keyboard was something of an ugly duckling, with boxy, chunky keys and a single white-on-black theme. Luckily, the Android keyboard got a makeover a couple…

You can safely use Windows 7 until 2020, but I won’t be answering your questions Eva R. doesn’t like Windows 10. She asked how long she can keep using Windows 7. Microsoft angered a lot of people by tricking them into upgrading to Windows 10. But those who successfully resisted can continue to use Windows 7 for the rest of the decade. In one sense, Microsoft has already stopped supporting Windows 7, but not in a way that should worry you. Mainstream support ended in January of 2015. But that only means Microsoft won’t add new features or change the user interface. I suspect most current Windows 7 users are probably thankful that the look and feel won’t change. The real problem comes when Microsoft ends Extended support, which…

YOUR PC IS bored. Your smartphone is, too. While you’re reading this story, your digital device is twiddling its thumbs, waiting for you to do something. When a smartphone can offer enough computing power for most tasks without breaking a sweat, you can understandwhy PC sales are tanking—and why Intel’s so enamored with virtual reality. Intel announced the Project Alloy (go.pcworld.com/projectalloy) virtual-reality headset last month at its Intel Developer Forum, as well as the next-generation Kaby Lake (go.pcworld.com/kabylake) microprocessor. Kaby Lake PCs are scheduled to ship in the fall. Intel executives positioned both announcements in the context of VR: Alloy for consuming VR content, and Kaby Lake for producing it. Pinning the PC’s hopes upon VR A few months ago, Intel executives began promoting virtual reality as the leading edge…

SINCE THE LAUNCH of the Raspberry Pi in 2012, the hobbyist community centered on low-cost, open-source, ARM-based computers has exploded dramatically. Every year, these small, hackable devices get cheaper and more powerful. In 2015, Oakland-based Next Thing Co. upped the ante by successfully Kickstarting a $9 computer it called CHIP to the tune of $2 million in funding. As part of its pitch, Next Thing Co. also showcased the PocketCHIP (go.pcworld.com/pocketchip), a handheld version of the CHIP with a built-in keyboard and touchscreen display. The PocketCHIP includes a 1GHz ARM CPU (with a Mali 400 GPU), 4GB of flash storage, 512MB of RAM, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a 4.3-inch touchscreen display, a primitive keyboard, and a five-hour LiPo battery. With this device now shipping to Kickstarter backers, I thought it would be…

MICROSOFT MADE AN interesting decision with Windows 10’s Anniversary Update, which is now available. Cortana, the personal digital assistant that replaced Windows 10’s search function and taps into Bing’s servers to answer your queries with contextual awareness, no longer has an off switchin Windows 10 Home and Pro. The impact on you at home: Similar to how Microsoft blocked Google compatibility with Cortana (go.pcworld.com/cortanaedge), the company is now cutting off the plain vanilla search option. That actually makes a certain amount of sense. Unless you turned off all the various cloud-connected bits (go.pcworld.com/w10privacy) of Windows 10, there’s not a ton of difference between Cortana and the operating system’s basic search capabilities. Microsoft even says as much: “With the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, the search box is now Cortana,” Microsoft said…

I JUST SPENT MORE than a week diving deep into Windows 10’s Anniversary Update. As a birthday present of sorts to users who’ve upgraded to Windows 10 in the past year since the OS launched, it’s a pretty nice one. Here’s what’s in the box: Cortana, which is now accessible from the lock screen, is more ubiquitous than ever. Extensions finally make Microsoft Edge usable. Windows Hello improves, Skype’s reboot seems to be on the right track, and underneath it all are even more thoughtful tweaks that improve Windows 10’s overall experience. The new Windows Ink is intriguing, if only partially baked. One or two features you may have expected aren’t quite ready. But if you’re a Windows user still on the fence, the Anniversary Update won’t sway you. This…

THE HP CHROMEBOOK 13 I’m reviewing just got a big compliment: “If HP doesn’t want that back when you’re done, let me know.” That came from one of my coworkers, who uses a MacBook Pro. He admitted he was lured by the Chromebook 13’s (go.pcworld.com/hpcb13) slender profile and brushed-aluminum sheen. No doubt about it, HP made a beautiful-looking laptop that no one will mind showing off. The Chromebook 13 also very powerful, however, and that helps it outshine the similarly priced Dell Chromebook 13 (go.pcworld.com/chromebk13rev) in speed as well as looks. The Acer Chromebook 14 (go.pcworld.com/chromebk14rev)looks similar and costs a lot less, but it can’t match the HP Chromebook 13’s performance. As for Google’s Chromebook Pixel (go.pcworld.com/chromebkpixel)flagship (specifically, the second-generation, 2015 model), the HP Chromebook 13 is its first serious…

SteamVR and 3DMark Time for some synthetic benchmarks! First up: The SteamVR performance test, which serves as the only major virtual reality standard until more benchmarking tools hit the streets. The SteamVR performance test is better thought of as a gauge for your graphics card’s relative virtual reality performance—and as a pass/fail test for determining whether your rig can handle VR whatsoever—than it is for making head-to-head GPU comparisons. The Nitro+ RX 480 clocks in with a higher average fidelity rating than the reference RX 480 and is definitely VR-ready, although it doesn’t score quite as high as the pricier GTX 1060. That’s not a big surprise, though, as Nvidia’s cards score consistently higher across the board in the SteamVR performance test than AMD hardware does. 3DMark Fire Strike and…

IF YOU’RE A PC-first type of person, there’s really only one reason to buy Microsoft’s Xbox One S: You own or plan to own a 4K HDR TV, and want a relatively affordable but feature-packed media box to show it off. As a gaming machine, the Xbox One S fills an awkward niche in Microsoft’s lineup. At $299 for 500GB of storage (go.pcworld.com/amzxboxone), it’s $50 more than the existing Xbox One for the same 1080p gameplay. Microsoft says the One S will upscale games to 4K, but this slimmer Xbox One will almost certainly be eclipsed in a year’s time, when Microsoft’s more powerful Project Scorpio (go.pcworld.com/projectscorpio) and its promise of 4K console gaming launches holiday 2017. But unlike Sony and its PlayStation 4 (go.pcworld.com/amzplaystation500gb), Microsoft has always seemed to…

PUTTING CHROMEBOOKS TO WORK The Google Play Store is coming to a Chromebook near you. But for this to really make a major difference in how we use Chrome OS, it’s going to take the right apps. And they need to do more than just look and perform like blown-up phone apps. Shoot, you can have that on an Android tablet. Instead, for Chrome OS to be a game changer, it will need Android apps that are repurposed to offer more than their web counterparts. Time’s running out for developers, because the Google Play Store is already rolling out to the Asus Chromebook Flip in the developer channel version of Chrome 53. After a stopover on the Chromebook Pixel (2015 model only) and Acer Chromebook R11/C738T, Google will start to…

THERE’S NO SUCH thing as too fast when you’re crunching numbers on deadline in Excel. Any of these power tips will speed up your tasks. 1. FORMULATEXT() adds notes to formulas If you and your colleagues share spreadsheets, it’s nice to have notes that explain what your formulas are doing (plus a copy of the formula). Some organizations even require it, especially if you’re a programmer or analyst. This little formula and the +N function are the quick answer to your spreadsheet documentation needs. Move your cursor to the column beside the formula column. If that column of cells has additional data in it, you can insert another column (which you can hide when you’re working or printing the spreadsheet), or you can create a separate FORMULATEXT matrix out to…

FROM THE BAY Area’s BART to the New York Subway and parts in-between, there’s a universal question that comes to all commuters: when is the train coming? Google Maps usually has the answer. If you’re tired of looking around for signage inside the station, then it’s time to get to know the transit features of Google Maps (go.pcworld.com/gmaptips). The first step is to find your station. Search for the specific location or find it on your map if you’re already there. Then tap on that location to pull up its profile page. Scroll down and you’ll see the specific transit lines that operate here. Then, touch on the section with the name of that city’s service. In our example, it’s Metro Services. You’ll then see the routes and arrival times…