Tabla de contenidos para 699 en Computeractive

HEADSET | £50 from Amazon www.snipca.com/52910 All talk We live in an increasingly wireless world, but there are times when cables make more sense. To that end the Logitech H570e headset avoids the need for fiddling around with Bluetooth setup or worrying about battery levels. Instead you simply plug the device in and it works immediately. The H570e comes with a choice of standard USB or USB-C connectors, and is a simple headset designed for anyone who makes regular video calls. If you use them for work in Microsoft Teams calls, there’s a version that’s certified to work with that, too. Using USB rather than a 3.5mm headphone jack allows for the inclusion of a remote control (pictured right), which is conveniently located on the cable, so you’ll never lose…

What you need: Glow Time required: 30 minutes Having a thorough understanding of your PC and its components can help you diagnose problems, compare it with other machines when it’s time to buy a replacement, or select compatible components if you want to give it an upgrade. Most of this information is available through Windows, but only if you know where to look. You can make thewhole process quicker by using system-analysis tool Glow instead, which is easy to use and has recently been updated to a new version (24.20) with improved tools to check your RAM. We’ll explain those, and also reveal how to check the condition of your hard drive, processor and network connection, so you have accurate information to resolve any problems. STEP 1 Download Glow for free…

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Download YouTube videos on his phone If I could travel back in time – just like Marty McFly – I think I’d jump back 20 years and launch my own version of YouTube. The video-sharing service was founded in February 2005, which would give me two months to steal its thunder. YouTube must have one of the most ingenious business models in history. Invite everyone to upload their videos for free, then earn money from other people’s work by making viewers sit through adverts. Keep showing more and more ads, then launch an expensive Premium subscription that generates further revenue by offering ad-free streaming. Ker-ching! “Streaming videos on the train means relying on the flaky on-board Wi-Fi and my even flakier 4G/5G signal” I realise it’s not quite that cynical,…

Sky has launched a budget TV package for £15 a month that comes with Sky Atlantic, Netflix (with adverts) and Discovery+. Called Sky Essential (www.snipca.com/53119), it’s available on the company’s Glass and Stream devices, which deliver TV through broadband. It also includes over 100 channels you get on Freeview, plus Sky Arts and Sky News. However, it lacks channels available in the £22-a-month Ultimate package, such as Sky Max, Sky Comedy and Sky Documentaries, as well as Comedy Central and National Geographic. The £15 cost is for viewers who subscribe on a 24-month contract, though you can pay £18 a month for a rolling 31-day contract. Prices are likely to go up for both every April. You can pay to add Sky extras like Sports, Cinema and Kids. Essential is…

Cyber-criminals are using photos of their potential victims’ homes and work locations in a new spate of ‘sextortion’ email scams. They also include the person’s full name, phone number and address in order to make the threat appear more credible. The scammers claim that if you don’t pay a fee in Bitcoin they’ll publish sexually explicit content of you. Researchers at US firm Barracuda said the photos are usually taken from Google Maps 1. They added that sextortion scams now make up three per cent of all phishing attempts worldwide. They said most emails start with a threat such as: “I know that calling [telephone number] or visiting [street address] would be a better way to have a chat with you in case you don’t cooperate. Don’t even try to…

Asus ProArt PZ13 LAPTOP-TABLET | £1,200 from Currys www.snipca.com/52834 Preaching to the converted This Copilot+ laptop-tablet is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus X1P-42-100 processor, which uses ARM architecture, not Intel or AMD. This means it runs a version of Windows that doesn’t work with some security programs, games and professional creative software, including Adobe Premiere Pro. To check, visit https://windowsonarm.org and look in the second column from the left. Anything other than ‘Not supported’ means it’ll work fine. “A versatile device that’s lightweight, robust and has a vibrant and accurate screen” If you can get past these, its performance is pretty impressive. The X Plus processor isn’t as powerful as the Snapdragon X Elite chips we’ve seen in most of the Copilot+ PCs we’ve reviewed recently – the…

SOUNDBAR | £79 from Amazon www.snipca.com/53005 Doesn’t speak volumes We’re getting very familiar with low-cost sound equipment from little-known Chinese brands, but it’s good to know that more recognisable companies are keeping up. This soundbar from Japanese brand Panasonic isn’t the cheapest way to boost your TV’s audio, but it still looks like good value for money – at least on the surface. “It handles dialogue well, but it lacks bass, while its remote and display are basic” Its standout feature is its ability to enhance the clarity of speech. It brings dialogue right to the forefront in the overall sound mix when watching films and TV series. If you like drama, current affairs, and documentaries with lots of talking heads, this really hits the spot. You won’t get the…

When the FBI issues a security warning, it’s not just US citizens that need to pay attention. In early December the agency revealed that the China-backed group Salt Typhoon is hacking US phone networks with a view to steal sensitive information from text messages (SMS), including political communications and national security data. The attack, one of the biggest in US history, began earlier this year and has targeted dozens of companies, including the three biggest networks in the US: AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon. FBI officials, backed by the CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency), said the attacks are ongoing and it’s not known how much data has been stolen – though they confirmed texts sent by both the Democrat and Republican campaigns during the November Presidential election were infiltrated. “SMS…

LAPTOP | £849 from Dell www.snipca.com/52857 Spot the difference If this machine looks and sounds familiar, that’s because it’s a variation on our current favourite laptop. Confusingly, it has the same name and uses a similar case (though this has an extra pair of speaker grilles flanking the keyboard) – but it is at least different on the inside. In an attempt to distinguish the two further, each has a different product code. This release is the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441, while our favourite laptop is the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7440 (£699 from www.snipca.com/51831, see page 30). “An upgrade on our favourite laptop, but but doesn’t work with some software” The 7441 has been branded as a Copilot+ PC because it uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus X1P-64-100…

What is it? The amount of time on average UK adults spent online every day across all types of devices in 2024. Isn’t that rather a lot? Yes it is. But what’s more significant is that it’s a big jump (39 minutes) from the three hours, 41 minutes adults spent online in 2023 – especially when you consider the jump from 2022 to 2023 was only eight minutes. Where do the figures come from? They’re in Ofcom’s annual Online Nation report for 2024 (www.snipca.com/53068), which it releases every year to show how the UK uses the internet. It conducted surveys of over 2.7 million people, and also took results over 10 days in May and June from a “nationally representative sample” of 7,280 internet users aged between 13 and 84.…

PROBLEMOF THE FORTNIGHT Why does System Configuration miscount my processor’s cores? Q I read some advice online recently that suggested a way to speed up an old laptop. The first step was to open the System Configuration box by pressing Windows key+R, typing msconfig (see screenshot 1) and then pressing Enter. Next, choose the Boot tab, click the ‘Advanced options’ button 2 then tick the ‘Number of processors’ box before choosing the highest number available from the dropdown menu 3. I tried this on my 2012 Dell laptop, but I didn’t see any improvement. However, I did notice something odd. This laptop has an Intel Core i7-2630 with four cores and eight threads. However, the maximum number of processors I could select was eight, not four. The same thing happened…