Indholdsfortegnelse for October 2018 i PCWorld

We now know when the next Windows 10 update is coming, and if you forget, it’s right there in the name. Microsoft’s fall update to Windows 10 will be known as the Windows 10 October 2018 Update. It’s expected to be a collection of improvements and updates rather than any earth-shattering new features. Microsoft made the announcement at the IFA show in Berlin, Germany, where the company also continued its tradition of highlighting exemplary PC hardware from its hardware partners. They included the Lenovo Yoga C630 WOS, a convertible that uses the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 chip; and the Lenovo Yoga Book C930, an innovative dual-screen laptop. Executives also highlighted the Dell Inspiron 13 7000 2-in-1 (go.pcworld.com/dl70) and the Acer Predator Triton 900, a gaming laptop with a pivoting hinge.…

Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Extreme has a mission: to kill the MacBook Pro 15. I’m not just saying that to manufacture drama, either. A Lenovo representative straight-out told me, “this is our MacBook Pro killer,” during our briefing on the product. I could say, “crummy MacBook butterfly keyboard vs. legendary ThinkPad keyboard? No contest. End of story.” But the struggle is real: Even though the latest MacBook Pro 15 suffered some performance issues before Apple found a fix, the brand still carries some cachet with corporate users. Heck, it’s still what I see most often on my fellow commuters’ laps as I take the train to work. To face down this formidable foe, Lenovo has stretched its new, top-of-the-line ThinkPad X1 Extreme to accommodate a 15-inch display (14 inches had been the maximum…

If you’ve been coveting an 8th-gen Dell XPS 13 but couldn’t quite justify the price, here’s some good news for you: The company has just added a Core i3 version that’s a hundred bucks cheaper. Announced at IFA in Berlin, Germany, the XPS 13 9370 features a dual-core 8th-gen Core i3-8130U, 4GB of LPDDR3 RAM, a 128GB SATA SSD, and 1080p panel for $900. Don’t turn your nose up at the thought of a low-rent Core i3. It’s likely to be nearly as fast if not faster than the previous XPS 13 model with a midrange Core i5 inside of it. We can say this with some confidence because Dell’s redesigned XPS 13 9570 (reviewed here) hammered the previous version, thanks to its enhanced cooling. Dell likely used the same…

The Galaxy Note 9 is Samsung’s passionate love letter to Note fans. It has insane specs, a gigantic, gorgeous screen, a Bluetooth-powered S Pen, and a headphone jack—all critical features for the kind of Android user that Samsung is targeting with a Note update. For devotees of the phablet, the Note 9 is a dream come true. But once you get past the megahertz and gigabytes, the Galaxy Note 9 doesn’t bring much to the table beyond what’s in the Note 8. Granted, that phone was one of 2017’s best handsets, but a lot has changed in a year. In a post-iPhone X world, a recycled design, been-there camera, and gimmicky S Pen aren’t really enough to justify a price hike that pushes the phone firmly into four-figure territory. Even…

Prey is one of 2017’s most underrated games, and as an expansion that makes Mooncrash an even more niche prospect, a game that will be played by a small subset of a small subset. Which is a shame, because strip away its “expansion” status and Mooncrash is one of the best, most innovative games of 2018. It’s Arkane’s masterpiece, a true testament to what a talented team can do with systems-first design. Every Prey fan should play it. And those who haven’t yet become Prey fans? You should be. DEUS EX MACHINA Here’s the conceit: It’s Prey as a roguelike. You play as a KASMA Corp. technician, floating in orbit around the moon. Down on the lunar surface there’s been a disaster. The Pytheas Moonbase has gone dark, all occupants presumed…

Two and a half long years after the launch of the GeForce GTX 10-series, Nvidia’s next generation of graphics cards is finally here, and the GeForce RTX 2080 and 2080 Ti top our performance charts. But should you upgrade to the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti ($1,200 at Best Buy or GeForce.com) if you already own a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti? As always, the answer is, “it depends.” It’s easier to explain than the decision to buy a GeForce RTX 2080 or GTX 1080 Ti, though, since those graphics cards offer virtually identical performance. Let’s dig in. GEFORCE GTX 1080 TI VS. GEFORCE RTX 2080 TI In our performance tests across a suite of various games, the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition outpunched an overclocked PNY GTX 1080 Ti XLR8 by…

When it works, controlling your TV with Amazon’s Alexa digital assistant can feel like magic. Using voice commands keeps you from having to thumb through menus and lets you get to what you want to watch much faster. But using Alexa as your TV remote requires a bit of know-how. Alexa won’t understand everything you might want to do, and controlling your actual television and sound system requires specific equipment. To avoid potential frustration, we’ll go through what you can and can’t do with Alexa on the Fire TV and other television devices, and explain how to set it all up. FIRE TV AND ALEXA SETUP With the exception of the first-generation Fire TV Stick, all Fire TV devices include an Alexa remote, which lets you issue voice commands by…

Samsung has been threatening to release a folding phone for the better part of five years, and now it looks like it might actually happen. In an interview with CNBC at the IFA trade show in Berlin, mobile CEO DJ Koh, who has been talking up the company’s folding phone project any chance he gets, all but announced that we’ll get a first look at the new handset before the year is up. According to CNBC, Koh “hinted that more details of the device could be unveiled this year at the Samsung Developer Conference in November in San Francisco,” but stopped short of divulging when it would actually go on sale. Koh said that the new phone’s development process has “nearly concluded.” Based on his rather vague comments, it will…

Netgear is upping the ante in the gamer-oriented router arena with the XR700 Nighthawk Pro. This 802.11ad router’s signature feature is a 10-gigabit-per-second ethernet port that, when connected to Netgear’s SX10 Nighthawk Pro switch, provides a whopping 15 wired gigabit ports for the ultimate LAN party. If you’re lucky enough to have an insanely fast broadband connection, that 10G port can be configured as a WAN port. As with Netgear’s previous gaming router, the XR500, the XR700 features the DumaOS quality-of-service engine that automatically prioritizes gaming traffic on your home network. But the firmware also allows power users to get deep into the router’s settings, twisting virtual dials and knobs to optimize the router’s performance for whichever applications you wish. For multiplayer games, for instance, there’s a geo filter that…

Have about 200MB of bandwidth to spare and a taste for the nostalgic? Why not download Windows 95—as an app? Felix Rieseberg constructed one of Microsoft’s iconic operating systems as an Electron app, which is downloadable from GitHub for Windows, Mac, or Linux. It’s unknown whether Rieseberg received any help from Microsoft itself, or whether or not what he constructed is technically legal. At this point, really, who cares? Windows 95 v1.0, as it’s referred to, isn’t totally functional. Apps like Notepad and Solitaire work, but Internet Explorer can’t break out of the virtual machine and access the Internet. That’s a shame, because there’s an AOL executable just waiting to be used. (PCWorld can confirm that Windows 95 v1.0 runs just fine on a Microsoft Surface Book 2 with 16GB of RAM—see screenshot…

The Dell G3 15 gaming laptop delivers solid performance in a package that’s a little less than an inch thick. It’s very affordable, too, at just $850 from Dell (at this writing) for the Model 3579 configuration we tested. The G3 15 has its downsides, including a Full-HD display that isn’t as bright as we’d like, frame rates that struggle to reach 60 fps on top-tier games, and a weight exceeding five pounds (although it’s not as massive as some gaming laptops). But when we compared it to the Acer Nitro 5, another budget gaming laptop we like, with an even lower price point, there was no contest. The G3 15 posted stronger benchmarks and battery life. In particular, its GTX 1050 Ti graphics showed the limitations of the Nitro…

Rakuten Kobo’s Clara HD e-reader ($130 from Rakuten Kobo) costs $10 less than its main competitor, the ad-free version of the Kindle Paperwhite (reviewed here and available, of course, from Amazon). The casual observer could be forgiven for mistaking one for the other, as they share similar dimensions and the same display size. But Kobo’s done something with the Clara HD that Amazon hasn’t bothered to do with its Kindle Paperwhite in some time: innovate. Boasting a number of needful features that the current generation Paperwhite can’t match, the Clara HD is a superior device in almost every way. Whether you should buy it—or dump your Kindle Paperwhite for it—is a more complex question that we’ll wrestle with as you keep reading. HARDWARE The Clara HD definitely wins on hardware. With…

It’s been a rough month for Google. A new report by Digital Content Next reveals some troubling news: Android phones, even when idle, send data to Google at an alarming pace. In fact the study found that an Android phone “communicated location information to Google 340 times during a 24-hour period” with the Chrome browser merely active in the background. That’s 10 times more data than iPhones give up. If that’s not enough to scare you, this report comes on the heels of a class-action lawsuit filed after Google was accused of being less than clear about how, when, and where it tracks your location. In response to an AP report that showed Android phones still tracked location even with Location History turned off, Google changed some of the verbiage on its privacy…

Your Kindle provides more than one way to devour a good book. If you own a set of Bluetooth headphones or a Bluetooth-enabled speaker, you’ve got everything you need to start enjoying audiobooks streamed from your Kindle e-reader (we review the best Kindles here). Let’s get started! INTRODUCING AUDIBLE, AMAZON’S AUDIOBOOK BUSINESS If you have even a passing interest in audiobooks, you’ll likely have heard of Audible. If not, here’s your chance to get acquainted. Founded in the mid-1990s, Audible is, arguably, one of the largest purveyors of audiobooks and other aural consumables in the world. While there are a number of ways to enjoy Audible content, including smartphone and tablet apps or on your computer via Audible’s website, this guide focuses on how to do so with your Amazon…

While Intel’s new Whiskey Lake and Amber Lake mobile Core chips differ from their predecessors mainly in terms of available boost speed, Intel’s marketing spin will emphasize something else: an “optimized for connectivity” tagline in marketing materials for notebooks and tablets sold with these new 8th-gen U- and Y-series chips. Rather than pitch the new processors as simply faster, Intel’s messaging will emphasize the Gigabit Wi-Fi connectivity Intel built into its six new chips. That may be because Intel’s chips are simply becoming harder to tell apart. These new 14nm Core chips are essentially the third iteration of the original Skylake 14nm processor, though Intel has shipped 14nm chips since 2014’s Broadwell generation. Here’s the number that matters, though: Intel is promising that Whiskey Lake/Amber Lake will deliver a 10-percent…

Consider the 60Hz barrier for ultra–high-definition screens officially broken. Acer announced not one, but two new 4K, 144Hz gaming monitors at IFA in Berlin, for folks who like their frame rates high and temperatures low. One, the $1,299 Predator XB273K, supports Nvidia’s gameplay-smoothing G-Sync technology. The other, the $899 Nitro XV273K, plays nice with AMD’s rival FreeSync tech. On paper, the Predator XB273K matches many of the key specifications of Acer’s Predator X27, a $2,000 display that we dubbed the Holy Grail of gaming monitors (see page 29) in our review. It’s got 4K resolution, a blazing-fast 144Hz maximum refresh rate (though that’s probably when overclocked), G-Sync, and even DisplayHDR 400 certification. Despite being a monitor with 4K, G-Sync, and HDR, Acer hasn’t branded the Predator XB273K with Nvidia’s official…

Nvidia’s groundbreaking G-Sync HDR monitors aim for the sun, but unlike Icarus, these dazzlingly bright displays never fall back to earth. On paper, the Acer Predator X27 ($2,000 on Newegg) and its G-Sync HDR cousin, the Asus ROG Swift PG27UQ (also $2,000 on Newegg) are the Holy Grail of PC monitors. These are among the first monitors to support 4K resolution at refresh rates higher (significantly higher) than 60Hz, and two of only three monitors certified to achieve DisplayHDR 1000 certification. They’re the first displays ever to support both 4K/120Hz and DisplayHDR 1000, with Nvidia’s gameplay-smoothing G-Sync technology as the cherry on top. They have quantum dots. No other monitors push as hard or tick as many checkboxes as the first round of G-Sync HDR displays, full stop—which may explain…

While it may not have a marquee name, PDF Complete is a capable—and currently very affordable (at $59.95)—alternative to Acrobat and other powerful PDF editors. Pairing the basic tools of its Corporate Edition with users’ most requested Office Edition features, it’s a one-stop shop for all your PDF needs. PDF Complete’s interface hews pretty closely to Adobe Acrobat’s, with a toolbar running across the top and controls for navigating individual PDFs down the right side. Each PDF opens in its own tab so you don’t have to shuffle through multiple windows to find the one you need. But like Acrobat Pro DC, PDF Complete includes a wealth of features you’d need to manipulate documents in a business setting. You can create PDFs from a variety of file types, including images.…

AMD’s 32-core Threadripper 2990WX is the fastest consumer CPU ever sold. And let’s be clear: We’re in full agreement with anyone who said that. But we would also be the first ones to say it has its limitations, too. The most glaring is the lack of consumer applications that can truly exploit the cores available. The other limitation is apparent in the diagram below, which shows how AMD built this 32-core monster. Rather than a single chip with every single CPU core on it, AMD connects four dies using its high-speed Infinity Fabric. WHY MEMORY BANDWIDTH AFFECTS THE 32-CORE THREADRIPPER If you look closer at the diagram, you can see that two of the dies don’t have their own memory controllers or PCIe access. Instead, they have to talk to…

Who knew Microsoft Word could give you a power rush? That’s what you feel when you create a one-click, customized Style Sheet that automatically applies font, paragraph, layout, and other settings to any document. It’s a great way to create consistency for monthly reports or other routine pieces of content. Once you get the hang of Style Sheets, formatting text one paragraph or section at a time will feel as primitive as Sumerians writing cuneiform on wet-clay tablets. Style Sheets also work in PowerPoint, and we’ll show you those as well. In Word 2016, the process for creating styles and Style Sheets is similar to the processes in Word 2010 and 2013. Veterans will recognize most of the commands, and novices should catch on quickly, especially in the user-friendly Word 2016.…