What's the fastest smartphone 2015/2016 UK

Which smartphone to buy is a highly personal choice: If you're after the fastest phone or the best phone for games or web browsing the answers you need are in our benchmark results. Here we break down the processor-, graphics- and web performance results of each smartphone to find out what's the fastest smartphone 2015/2016 UK. 

We all have our own opinions on which is the best smartphone, as is evident from the comments on our best smartphones article.

While opinions and reviews are subjective, the one thing you should be able to count on is that the benchmarking numbers do not lie. Except they do. Benchmark boosters are not a conspiracy theory by advocates of rival smartphones and platforms; they are real. There's little we can do about that, except point out that even benchmarks should be taken with a pinch of salt. 

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In this article we hope to show you which is the fastest smartphone 2015/2016 by listing the numbers we've recorded in our own tests using Geekbench, SunSpider and GFXBench. You can also keep an eye on our chart of the best smartphones on the market. We'll update this page with every new smartphone that we review, so keep on coming back to keep in touch with the latest in smartphone performance.

Note that until recently Windows Phone did not support two of the three benchmarking apps we use, Geekbench and GFXBench. GFXBench support has recently been added so we will be using it to test phones from the Microsoft Lumia 640 onward, and you'll find SunSpider scores for Windows Phone below.

What's the fastest smartphone 2015/2016 UK: Processor performance 

We use Geekbench 3 to chart the single- and multi-core performance of each smartphone we review. In Geekbench a higher score is better. More recently we've also begun running AnTuTu, although we have few scores with which to compare phones for now.

GFXBench T-Rex test results

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The 25 worst bad habits with technology and how to fix them

We've all got bad habits when it comes to technology, whether it's relying on 'password' as your password or shutting down via the power button and not the Windows Start Menu. However, there are some tech bad habits that will cause permanent damage. We've rounded up the 25 worst tech habits that are guaranteed to cause you all sorts of hassles.

We've all got bad habits when it comes to technology, whether it's relying on 'password' as your password or shutting down via the power button and not the Windows Start Menu.
However, there are some tech bad habits that will cause permanent damage. We've rounded up the 25 worst tech habits that are guaranteed to cause you all sorts of hassles.

1. Avoiding security software

So you thought you could get by without security software, just by being mindful of what web links you click and what email you open. How's that working out for ya? Use something – anything - to protect your PC from the bad guys, who are happy to have you as a target. You can even start with free antivirus software.

2. Failing to back up your computer

The funny thing about people who admit that they don't back up is that they always preface it by saying, 'I know it's bad, but...'. Listen: All hard drives crash eventually. All of them. Yours will, too. For help, see our simple guide to getting started with backup.

3. Neglecting offsite backup

A thief breaks into your house and steals your laptop. No problem: You just backed it up last night. Oh, wait, he stole your backup drive too, because it was sitting right next to the laptop. Store your data in multiple locations, with automatic backups scheduled for hard drives kept away from your PC - and make a backup plan to prepare for worst-case scenarios.

4. Replying to spam

Why do spammers do their dirty work? Because enough people respond to it to make sending junk worth their while. Yes, clicking the 'remove me' link counts as a response - though on rare occasions, if a message is clearly from a legitimate brand-name company, using that link is worth a try. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. In addition to following this commonsense advice, you can take an extra step to harness the spam-fighting powers of your email service.

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5. Travelling with an operating computer

Taking your computer from the kitchen to the living room while it's running? No problem. Taking your running PC from the office, on the subway, for a mile-long walk, and up the stairs to your house? Terrible idea. Spinning hard drives can crash, and computers can easily overheat in cramped quarters. Shut the PC down. (Extra demerits if your hot, whirring laptop is sweating it out in a closed briefcase for the entire ride.) Windows offers custom settings for the power button and lets you tell a laptop to power off when you shut the lid.

6. Using a laptop on a bed

Use your laptop in bed all you want - it's when you leave the machine running on your feather pillows that the problems begin. Fluffy cushions and the like can block ventilation ports, overheating (and ruining) your PC. Use a lap desk or a coffee-table book to keep some airflow between the two. Plus, you can hurt your body if you're typing in an unnatural position, so pay attention to ergonomics.
NEXT PAGE: Printing everything

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• Internet & broadband news

1. The worst tech bad-habits
2. Printing everything
3. Waiting in line
4. Ignoring the specs

We've all got bad habits when it comes to technology, whether it's relying on 'password' as your password or shutting down via the power button and not the Windows Start Menu. However, there are some tech bad habits that will cause permanent damage. We've rounded up the 25 worst tech habits that are guaranteed to cause you all sorts of hassles.

7. Printing everything

You already have a digital record - why do you need to print it out? Even forms that require signatures often can accept a 'digital' signature that you create in Microsoft Paint. Save completed files as PDFs for even easier transportation and archiving.

8. Taking a camera to the beach

One grain of sand in the shutter or zoom mechanism, and it's toast. If you must shoot beachside, put the camera in a waterproof case or a plastic bag. Better yet, get a waterproof camera.

9. Leaving a laptop in the car

Thieves stake out hot parking spots and wait for fancy-pants business types to leave their laptop bags in the car, even just for a few minutes. All they have to is smash a window and grab it, and they're gone in 10 seconds flat. Or, maybe you thought you got smart, and you put your laptop in the boot, out of sight - too bad you waited until you got to the dodogy part of town to do it, where the bad guys watched you every step of the way. Boots are even easier to pop open than windows. Stow your rig in the boot before you embark on your trip. Better yet, take the laptop with you, or try a travel lock.

10. Keeping all of your email

Every email message you've ever received is sitting in your inbox in chronological order. Congratulations! You now have an unassailable historical record of your communications...and a guarantee that you will never find anything of any importance whatsoever. Use folders or tags to organise your inbox, and be liberal with the Delete key.

11. Failing to learn keyboard shortcuts

Did you know that some people out there still aren't aware that Ctrl-C is copy and Ctrl-V is paste? I'm not saying you need to learn every Alt-Ctrl-Shift combo, but the more Alt-F4s you pick up, the sooner you can go home. Drop the mouse and try a few essential shortcuts for shutting down a PC and more, and several specific shortcuts for Windows 7.

12. Installing too much junk

Why is Windows so slow? You installed three instant messaging clients and seven browser toolbars on your machine. Once some of this stuff is installed, the damage is already done, as many of these apps leave behind traces that are impossible to eliminate. You can try uninstalling as much as possible, but a clean Windows setup is often your best bet.

13. Discarding receipts

Murphy's Law dictates that consumer products will always break immediately after the warranty has expired - but once in a while they break sooner. You might be able to get the thing fixed...if you saved your receipt. Keep a folder next to your medical records. Once you collect some receipts, you can scan and organise them with the Neat Receipts system.
NEXT PAGE: Waiting in line

• Broadband speed test
• Internet & broadband news

1. The worst tech bad-habits
2. Printing everything
3. Waiting in line
4. Ignoring the specs

We've all got bad habits when it comes to technology, whether it's relying on 'password' as your password or shutting down via the power button and not the Windows Start Menu. However, there are some tech bad habits that will cause permanent damage. We've rounded up the 25 worst tech habits that are guaranteed to cause you all sorts of hassles.

14. Waiting in line for tech stuff

Remember when you slept in a tent so that you could be the first guy in your 'hood to own a PlayStation 3? Your parents are probably just proud of that achievement as when you finally completed Angry Birds. Trust us: The gadget works the same 24 hours later. You can probably even pre-order it online and let it come to your door.

15. Hitting your computer

Be mad. Seriously, Windows aggravates everyone - get angry! Remember, though: We can offer a lot of aid, but throwing, kicking, or otherwise abusing a PC physically will not help. And shelling out a few hundred quid for a new computer will actually make you feel even worse in the end. Meditate, and restrain yourself. If your laptop is sick from a latte that you tossed on it in a fit of rage, clean it carefully. Luckily, you can try a few emergency tech fixes that can restore hardware to health if your tantrum goes too far.

16. Saving files anywhere and everywhere

When you get your electric bill, do you just throw it on the table, mixing it in with family photos, flyers, the Sunday paper, and your CDs, or do you take 20 seconds to file it away where it really ought to go? Wait, don't answer that. As with your inbox, folders are your friend.

17. Checking in with location-based services

The only people who care that you're at the pub or on your high-street are people you really don't want to know. Exceptions: If you're someplace really cool - like Mount Fuji, Versailles, or Chernobyl - check in all you want. We've looked at some practical uses for services like Foursquare; stick to those.

18. Citing Wikipedia

When you need a fact to make a point, the perfect place to go is a gargantuan website that anyone can edit anonymously, and where hoaxes and gag entries can have a life span of years. If you must use Wikipedia, click the links in the footnotes on the page to get the real story, and to see how credible the information digested there really is.

19. Posting hilarious pictures online

'Hey, co-worker! Looks like you had a great time at your friend's stag do. Oh, is that you posing with a Heineken in your hand? How original! Yeah, you and that girl look pretty drunk in that one. At least, that's what our boss said when he emailed it to me. Good luck with that evaluation!' Save such moments for posterity in private - or else. Pay close attention to the privacy settings on Facebook (and untag yourself in those compromising pictures) and on photo-sharing sites. On Flickr, for example, click Edit your profile privacy from the 'Manage your profile' page to control who can see what.

20. Believing the salesperson

Let's put it this way: If that guy really knew a lot about computers, would he be wandering the aisles in a blue shirt asking if you need help? No. No, he would not. Do your research by googling for consumer reviews and comments before you get to the store, and learn which stores offer the best services and deals.
NEXT PAGE: Ignoring the specs

• Broadband speed test
• Internet & broadband news

1. The worst tech bad-habits
2. Printing everything
3. Waiting in line
4. Ignoring the specs

We've all got bad habits when it comes to technology, whether it's relying on 'password' as your password or shutting down via the power button and not the Windows Start Menu. However, there are some tech bad habits that will cause permanent damage. We've rounded up the 25 worst tech habits that are guaranteed to cause you all sorts of hassles.

21. Ignoring the specs

The big idea in tech today is to offer three classes of product: A bare-bones version, a power-user version, and an 'extreme' version, each with an escalating price tag. The problem is, the extreme edition may not really do anything that the bare-bones version can't do - or it has features you don't actually need - but you buy the expensive one anyway, because you didn't really read the specs. It can take a lot of web research time to figure out the which of the jargon translates to something that's really important - but this is time well invested.

22. Using one password for everything

All it takes is a single data leak at your mobile phone company for a crook to get into your email, bank, investing and online shopping accounts. It's one-stop shopping for identity thieves! Having a unique password for every site is unrealistic, but use a series of several passwords and save your best for the most critical sites. Password managers can help.

23. Not having a disposable email address

Don't give out your regular email address to newsletters, iffy web services and girls or boys you meet after midnight. A disposable email address that you check once a fortnight is a better solution. This is why Gmail was invented.

24. Failing to lock your smartphone

When an unsavoury type finds a lost phone, his first order of business is to call as many international numbers that he humanly can. Then he harvests all the data on it for identity theft and spam purposes. Or you could, you know, prevent all of that by putting a simple PIN on the thing. You can find tools built to manage security for Android and other mobile operating systems.

25. Commenting online

I know: You have the perfect bon mot to counter one of the points on this list, and you're going to enter it painstakingly into the web form at the bottom of this article so you can be clever comment #86 on page four. Congratulations, sir or ma'am. Touché. Seriously, people, this is 2010. If you have something snarky or inflammatory to say, at least have the common courtesy to tweet it (politely).
See also: 15 technology myths: what's nonsense and what's not?

• Broadband speed test
• Internet & broadband news

1. The worst tech bad-habits
2. Printing everything
3. Waiting in line
4. Ignoring the specs

Most Secret Twitter Tricks and Hacks (That You Don’t Know)

So you think you know everything about Twitter?
I thought I did, too. Then I discovered this amazing, secret Twitter hack. Then another one! It was like being part of a club for years and then finding out that there’s a hidden, inner part of the club that’s only for very special members.
I wanted more. I was hooked. I had to find out more secret Twitter tips. More hidden tricks. More crafty hacks.
And so I did. Check the list below for 10 secret Twitter tips, tricks and hacks that you probably don’t know.

1. You Can Schedule Tweets On Twitter

Scheduling tweets is a huge Twitter timesaver, as it allows you to plan out your day – or even your week or month – well in advance and not have to worry about always being on Twitter to take care of business. You might already be using apps such as Hootsuite, Buffer or TweetDeck to schedule your tweets, which are all great tools.
But did you know you can also schedule tweets on Twitter.com? Yep: simply head on over to ads.twitter.com, login (or signup if you haven’t already done so), click on the ‘compose tweet’ button and then the ‘scheduling’ tab. Et voila!

To view your scheduled tweets, click on ‘Creatives’ and then ‘Tweets’ and then the ‘Scheduled’ button. You can schedule both organic and promoted tweets up to one year in advance.

2. Twitter Has Keyboard Shortcuts

Some people are die-hard keyboard users and occasionally you get the feeling that they would rather touch a real mouse than the computerised one on their desk. Twitter feels their pain and has a ton of keyboard shortcuts that can have you whizzing around your tweets in no time.
For example, if you hit the ‘N’ on your keyboard whilst on Twitter.com, you’ll be able to immediately start writing a new tweet. Hit F to mark a tweet as a favourite, R to reply and T to retweet.
Check the visual below for all the details, which comes courtesy of James Traf.

3. You Can Embed Tweets Into Any Website

Embedding tweets into your website or blog is brilliant way to drive engagement back to your Twitter profile. Why? Because an embedded tweet is interactive, and anyone logged into Twitter can do all sorts of cool things (like reply, retweet, favourite etc) to your tweet when it’s embedded on your site (or any site). It’s also a far more elegant solution than doing a screen grab of a tweet and pasting that on your site, and even if somebody deletes the original tweet the embedded tweet will still be visible.
To embed a tweet, find the tweet you want to embed, click on the more button (…) below the tweet (which is the ellipses symbol – the three dots in a row) and select ‘Embed Tweet’. Now just copy and paste the supplied HTML into the desired location on your website.

4. Twitter Supports Advanced Search Operators

Twitter Search is a super powerful but criminally underused part of the Twitter core. You’ve probably searched for one or two things in the past using the search box at the top of the screen on Twitter.com, but did you know that this also supports really advanced search operators?
For example, if you want to search for just tweets with links, you can use the filter:links operator.
Example: amazing filter:links
Click on the link above and see what happens (it opens in another tab). This is a search for any tweets published on Twitter that contain the word amazing and also contain a link. This is good stuff!
I wrote a whole article about Twitter search hacks – check here for all the details!

5. You Can Setup Multiple Twitter Accounts Using The Same Email Address

This one’s a real time saver. When you setup a new account on Twitter it wants you to use an original email address – that is, an email that isn’t in use anywhere on the system. If you work in a business or agency that manages lots of Twitter profiles this can be a real pain. Thankfully, there’s a fairly elegant way around it.
This tip requires you to have a Gmail account as your main email (or, at least access to a Gmail account). Most people don’t know that Gmail supports the use of the ‘+’ character to let you filter your main email. You don’t have to do anything on your Gmail account. All you do is add the ‘+’ and another word after the first part of your email address – the part before the @gmail.com – and you can use this as a “new”, standalone email address around the web. Here’s the sweet part: all emails sent to this “new” email will still go to your main Gmail inbox.
For example, if your email address was johnsmith@gmail.com, if you use johnsmith+twitter@gmail.com on any website, any email sent to the latter would go to your inbox (johnsmith@gmail.com). Gmail knows that the part before the plus symbol is your username, but Gmail understands the part after the plus symbol, too.
If you use Gmail you can try this yourself now – fsimply send an email to yourusername+whatever@gmail.com, where yourusername = your Gmail username.
(You could even use the word whatever if you wanted!)
Now you can go ahead and use yourusername+twitter@gmail.com for a new Twitter profile, even if yourusername@gmail.com is already in use on Twitter. You could also set up Twitter profiles using yourusername+twitter2@gmail.com, yourusername+clientname@gmail.com, yourusername+facebook@gmail.com, and so on.
Even better, you can configure Gmail as usual so that it filters and labels these “new” email addresses however you want.
Cool, eh?

6. You Can Turn Off All Twitter Emails With A Single Click

When you join Twitter all the emails you receive can be a real PITA, and it seems like a month doesn’t go by without Twitter adding yet another email notification to its roster. Thankfully, you can turn all of them off with a single click: simply log on to Twitter.com, visit your profile settings and click on the ‘Email notifications’ tab. From here click on the ‘Turn off’ button to disable all email. Nice!

7. If You Start A Tweet With @Username, It’s A Reply

This is a mistake I see people who have been using Twitter for years and years make every single day. If you start a tweet with @username it’s a reply, and will ONLY be seen by the person you’re sending the tweet to and anyone else on Twitter who is following BOTH of you. Nobody else will see that tweet in their timeline as Twitter assumes it’s a reply and won’t deliver it (although it will be visible on your profile and in Twitter search results to everybody).
If you put someone’s @username ANYWHERE ELSE in the tweet but right at the very beginning, it’s a mention and will be seen by everyone who follows you. You’re welcome!

8. You Can Send a Promoted Tweet That’s Invisible To Your Followers

Twitter’s Promoted Tweet advertising tool is a powerful way to reach a targeted audience and drive engagement, awareness and clicks. But did you know that you can select to show a Promoted Tweet only to your target audience, and not your existing followers?
To do this, simply select the ‘Promoted-only’ option when you’re constructing your Promoted Tweet.

Why would you want to do this? Showing very specific content to a select group of people is a very effective way to drive new business, especially if it’s a promotion that may not be as valuable to your existing fans, or might be something they’ve already seen. Or, it might be something you only want to give to new customers – for example, 25 percent off of their first order. With a promoted-only Promoted Tweet, you can do that!
(Note: while promoted-only tweets won’t be visible on your timeline or be delivered to your followers, they will show up in Twitter search.)

9. Twitter Gives You Free Advanced Analytics For The Last Month Of Your Tweets

Did you know that Twitter gives free analytics tools to everybody? Yessir, they do, and you can get all the goodness by simply visiting analytics.twitter.com and logging in with your account.
From here you want to choose the ‘Tweets’ option which lets you look at detailed analytics for the last 28 days of your tweets, including overall impressions, engagement rate, link clicks, retweets, favorites and replies.
But here’s the best stuff – click on any tweet to load a pop-up of all the key metrics for that tweet, including impressions, clicks, favorites, follows, retweets and more.

Magnifico!

10. You Can Pin A Tweet To The Top Of Your Profile… Permanently

Twitter came relatively late to this party – Facebook has supported pinned messages on its Pages for quite some time now – but anyone can pin any tweet to the top of their profile, where it will sit permanently until it’s unpinned or replaced by another pinned tweet.
To do this, find the tweet you can to pin, click on the more button below the tweet (which is the ellipses symbol – the three dots in a row) and select ‘Pin to your profile page’. Click the ‘Pin’ button on the pop-up and that tweet is now permanently fixed to the top of your profile.
To unpin a tweet, click on the more button again and choose ‘Unpin from profile page’.

Conclusion

I hope you’ve enjoyed these 10 secret Twitter tips, tricks and hacks – I’ll bet there was at least one that you didn’t know! Do you have any Twitter secret hacks of your own? Hit the comments to let us know!

10 Secret Facebook Features You Need To Be Using

We all use Facebook, and we all get annoyed by the miscellaneous new "features" Facebook often imposes upon us.
But what about the awesome features that don't get as much attention?
We put together a list of our favorite Facebook features to help you take advantage of everything Facebook has to offer.

Create a group of people to hide your photos from

Using Facebook's "Lists" feature, it's easy to make a list of people you want to hide your pictures from.
Whether it's parents, coworkers, or anybody else, all you need to do is put them all into a "List." To do it, click Account in the top right corner, then click "Edit Friends."
Click "Create a List," then find friends and add them to your new list and name your list something you can remember. Next, click Account again but this time click Privacy Settings afterwards.
Click "Custom" in the left panel, then "Customize settings" below the chart. Scroll down to anything you want to hide, click the drop down menu next to it, then click "Custom" yet again. Yes--this takes a while. Facebook likes people to be open.
Finally, under "Hide" enter in the name of the group you just created, and you're done. To be extra sure, go back to the top of this screen and click "Preview my Profile," then enter the name of a person in the list you created to see how your profile will look to them.

Use these quick tips to make viewing photos a lot better experience.

Does anyone actually like the new photo viewer on Facebook?
I'm talking about the one that makes Facebook look like a slideshow.
If you hate it, all you need to do is wait for the picture to finish loading, then click refresh in your browser. You'll be taken to the old fashioned photo page that looks like the one pictured at right.
Another useful photo-browsing tip is using your arrow keys to navigate a ton of pictures. Hold down the left or right arrow key to see your life flash before your eyes.

Remove apps you aren't using anymore--they still have access to all your information

When you install Facebook apps or permissions, the apps often get access to your wall, pictures, friends, and more.
It's easy to change your privacy settings, but not as easy to remember that apps can still mine your information even when you're not using them.
Click Account in the top right corner, then Privacy Settings, then "Edit Your Settings" under Apps And Websites in the bottom left of the privacy screen. Then click "Edit Settings" to the right of the Apps You Use panel.
Click the little gray "x" to the right of any apps you no longer use, and they'll no longer have access to your information.

Enable these handy security features to make sure your account doesn't get compromised

Two features we had no idea existed (until we scoured Facebook's settings) were the HTTPS setting and the Login Notifications setting.
If you enable HTTPS, it greatly reduces your chance of getting your password swiped when logging into Facebook on a public Wi-Fi at Starbucks.
If you enable Login Notifications, you'll get an email whenever someone logs onto your Facebook account from an unrecognized.

Personalize your Facebook URL, making it easier for people to find you

Many people use Facebook and LinkedIn as the bases of their business lives, and it's nice to have an easy to remember URL you can refer people to.
Click "Account" in the top right, then click "change" next to Username. Type in something you like, then check the availability to see if anyone has taken it.
Your new username will create a URL for you, facebook.com/ellishamburger is an example.

See a picture you like? Download it in full quality

Since Facebook switched gears to their new slideshow-ish picture browser, you can no longer drag pictures to your desktop to save them.
Screen grabbing is annoying, so look down in the bottom corner of the picture viewer and click "Download" to get a full-quality copy of the image you're looking at.

Wish you could see all your friends' birthdays in iCal, Outlook, or Google Calendar?

This could be a little overwhelming for people with tons of Facebook friends they don't talk to, but for many, this quick tip could be a big time-saver.
All you need to do is access your birthday page by clicking here, then scrolling down to the very bottom and clicking "Export Birthdays."
Click the link to subscribe to the Birthdays calendar using your computer's default calendar app. Or, open up your favorite calendar app and add a calendar subscription. If you don't know how, Google how to add subscriptions for your calendar. Then, copy in the link from Facebook.

Grab Facebook's Desktop Notifications apps to always stay up to date

Facebook

MAC
Using the official desktop notifier for Mac, you'll get a Facebook icon in your menu bar that turns blue when you have a new notification. It's a
PC
Grab Internet Explorer 9 and pin the Facebook website to your taskbar. You'll see a red asterisk whenever you have a new notification. Or, try Facebook Desktop, a more feature-packed solution.

Wish you could post to several friends' walls at once?

via Tech Explorer

All you need to do is tag friends in a post on your wall, or on anyone else's wall. Your post will show up on every persons' wall that you tag.
When you're typing a status or wall post, type the @ sign and then a friends' name. It will tag them in your post, and they'll see it on their wall as if it were a normal wall post.

Facebook's new Groups feature is a lot more powerful than it used to be

With Facebook's new Groups (which you create by clicking "Create Group" in your left navigation bar), you can essentially create your own listserv for a group of friends.
When you view a group, you'll see updates from friends, have the ability to edit documents together ("Create Doc" in right bar inside your group), chat together in a private chat room, and send out updates.
Create a group for your closest friends, or for your fantasy baseball team, or for anything else. If you want to leave a group, all you do is click the little gray "x" next to its name in the left navigation bar of Facebook.

Now that you've seen the best secret Facebook features....

20 best laptops 2016 UK reviews

20. Aorus X3 Plus

• Rating: 
• Reviewed on: 7 November 14
• RRP: £1550 inc. VAT

The Aorus X3 Plus works well as a portable games station, providing fast framerates with modern games at high details settings. Its high-resolution screen is less obviously useful for its gaming role as fewer games may benefit from its high 262 ppi pixel density, and the Windows platform does not support absurdly high resolution displays well. When it does work you're rewarded with a pin-sharp image but remember that for gaming there's arguably little need to exceed 2560 or even 1920 screen pixel widths. Overall there's definite room for improvement by its maker but the X3 Plus should prove popular with Windows gamers looking to combine performance and portability.

Read our Aorus X3 Plus review.

19. Dell Inspiron 15-5558

• Rating: 
• Reviewed on: 2 October 15
• RRP: £586.80 inc VAT

The Inspiron 15-5558 straddles budget and midrange laptop camps, depending on configuration, asserting excellent build quality and decent performance as you’d expect of a £500+ design. The screen is one of the best you’ll find on a laptop around this price too.

Read our Dell Inspiron 15-5558 review.

18. Dell Precision M3800

• Rating: 
• Reviewed on: 9 June 15
• RRP: £1978 inc VAT

The Precision M3800 is Dell’s take on the ‘Ultrabook’ portable workstation notebook. It’s made from a mixture of materials, and has an undersized battery in order to stay fashionably trim. In its favour, the quad-core processor and midrange pro-certified graphics chipset provide useful performance, and without too much histrionics from the cooling fans. This year’s model now has a UHD 4K display although this still serves to exaggerate problems in some Windows programs, while the overly reflective touchscreen facility results in a heavier panel with poorer viewing that drains the battery faster. For professional users even more so than with consumer laptops, we here question the real worth of a touchscreen on a laptop. Ultimately the Dell’s circa-3 hour battery life means the M3800 is seriously compromised as a mobile productivity tool. If you don't mind staying tethered to the mains, it is a good clothes horse.

Read our Dell Precision M3800 review.

17. HP ZBook 15u G2

• Rating: 
• Reviewed on: 20 May 15
• RRP: From £1320 (this model price TBC)

Hewlett Packard has done well to build a lighter weight 15-inch mobile workstation laptop with much of the strength and integrity of its traditional models that are far less mobile in real terms. Sacrifices have been made to the main CPU by fitting dual-core rather than quad-core, and the AMD GPU is a middleweight part rather than fire-breathing FirePro. But importantly the 15u runs cool and quiet enough not make itself a nuisance, even under load. Assuming the version we tested will cost under £2000 it could provide decent value, majoring on resilience more than style and sheer performance, but well enough equipped to prove attractive to the target professional audience.

Read our HP ZBook 15u G2 review.

16. Aorus X7 Pro

• Rating: 
• Reviewed on: 29 January 15
• RRP: £2100 inc. VAT

With the help of nVidia's recent push to make powerful mobile graphics processors that consume less energy, the Aorus X7 Pro now turns in gaming performance once only available to desktop machines. Just make sure you pack some sound-deadening headphones to block out the white noise of high-speed fans required to keep this slim chassis cool. If you can deal with the noise you'll be able to enjoy incomparable mobile gaming.

Read our Aorus X7 Pro review.

15. Gigabyte P37X

• Rating: 
• Reviewed on: 13 May 15
• RRP: £1750 inc. VAT

The Gigabyte P37X is built for gaming speed, based on a large 17-inch display chassis but in a thinner than traditional case. With the help of the best single-chip mobile graphics processor currently on the market it can play any game you want, up to very high rendering quality. It may not stand out in style but it gets the job done, albeit at a high price.

Read our Gigabyte P37X review.

14. MSI GE62 2QD Apache Pro

• Rating: 
• Reviewed on: 11 August 15
• RRP: £999 inc VAT

Sensibly powered for great games action, while remaining portable and comfortable to use, the GE62 is only compromised by tricky upgrade potential and disappointing battery life. It has a great display and respectable keyboard for gaming, and crucially plays games at high detail without distress.

Read our MSI GE62 2QD Apache Pro review.

13. MSI GS60 2QD-470UK

• Rating: 
• Reviewed on: 14 May 15
• RRP: £1299 inc. VAT

While still not especially petite by the standards of some 15-inch laptops – its footprint is 14 percent larger than a MacBook Pro despite its smaller display – the MSI GS60 2QD-470UK does manage to keep within the magic size and weight figures of 2.0 kg and 20 mm, making it the most totable gaming laptop in its category. It has the graphics processor to take on modern games up to their highest detail settings, and is only let down by noisy fans and a relatively short battery life.

Read our MSI GS60 2QD-470UK review.

12. Asus G751T-T717H

• R
• Reviewed on: 12 October 15
• RRP: £1559 inc VAT

At around £1500 the G751 is a battleship in mobile gaming, in build quality, looks and firepower. We’ve seen costlier machines but this Asus is a bargain in relative terms, a solid desktop replacement and a bruiser of a games station.

Read our Asus G751T-T717H review.

11. 13-inch MacBook Air (early 2015)

• Rating: 
• Reviewed on: 22 April 15
• RRP: £849 (with 128GB storage), £999 (with 256GB)

After some extensive testing, we found the MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2015) to be little different overall to the 2014 model. The Thunderbolt 2 update will prove useful for connecting to high-resolution UHD displays, and a few percent of added processor power is never unwelcome. But hoped-for improvements in graphics performance and battery longevity did not arise in our testing, in spite of a new Intel processor which was expected to shepherd benefits in both areas. Launched at the same price as last year’s model it still deserves attention as one of the finest ultraportable laptops available - doubly so now that its flash-drive speed has shot up another 100 percent - and it will remain the more affordable option in lightweight notebooks when the new MacBook launches this month.

Read our 13-inch MacBook Air (early 2015) review.

10. MacBook Air (11 inch, early 2015)

• Rating: 
• Reviewed on: 14 April 15
• RRP: £749 (128GB model), £899 (256GB model). More expensive build-to-order options available

Available at the same price as last year, the new 11-inch MacBook Air has the same super-fast storage as before, and around 10 percent increase in performance. Gaming performance was always borderline, and now we find it no better and even fractionally slower. But overall battery runtime increased by almost a third in our tests, a very useful upgrade on the already very decent 10 hour-plus battery life of the previous generation.

Read our MacBook Air (11 inch, early 2015) review.

9. Asus ZenBook UX305F

• Rating: 
• Reviewed on: 1 April 15
• RRP: £650 inc. VAT

The new ZenBook is a great home for Intel’s new Core M processor, which proved up to basic daily tasks in Windows with no obvious lag in the interface. Good battery life and decent screen quality are further plus points to a well-made case with a familiar design to Apple fans. At a price of £650 this is an attractive package as a carry-anyway Windows laptop.

Read our Asus ZenBook UX305F review.

8. Microsoft Surface Pro 3

• Rating: Reviewed on: 31 October 14
• RRP: From £639 inc VAT

A very decent laptop replacement, and an okay tablet, the Surface Pro 3 is undeniably impressive. If you need a single device to do everything we can't think of any better device. And when you consider the cost of buying a discrete laptop, tablet and desktop PC the Surface Pro 3 is priced to shift. The question remains as to whether people want a single device rather than multiple gadgets that are better at their individual tasks. Microsoft's latest results suggest that Surface Pro 3 is winning hearts and minds. Has it won yours?

Read our Microsoft Surface Pro 3 review.

7. Acer Aspire V3-574G

• Rating: 
• Reviewed on: 24 August 15
• RRP: £579.99 inc VAT

For under £600 the Aspire V3-574G is easy to recommend. It's a commendable balance of virtues from the IPS screen, to the precise trackpad and highly regarded CPU. Nvidia graphics allow fluid gameplay up to 720p. The five-hour battery life, while half that of the best, may even get you through half a day’s use away from the mains.

Read our Acer Aspire V3-574G review.

6. Dell XPS 13 9343

• Rating: 
• Reviewed on: 30 March 15
• RRP: £1099 inc. VAT

The Dell XPS 13 9343 stands as a shining beacon of hope in the world of Windows laptops, a compact laptop that outdoes the obvious competition in some key respects like screen quality and near-borderless display. Here is a 13.3-inch laptop that takes up little more space than an 11.6-inch model. Poor thermal management needs to be improved, while a non-touchscreen version could answer other outstanding issues.

Read our Dell XPS 13 9343 review.

5. 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro (early 2015)

• Rating: 
• Reviewed on: 30 March 15
• RRP: From £999

While it looks just like every Retina-screened 13-inch MacBook before it, the Early 2015 revision is streets ahead of earlier models. Its storage speed is up to double the already ground-breaking speed of the 2013 model. The new Force Trackpad brings tangible benefits in touch control, with an intelligent coprocessor that helps interpret our digital movements. And the Broadwell processor, with other running changes too, has spearheaded just about the greatest upgrade any mobile computing user could ask for, namely insanely long battery life. Improvements in graphics performance were less emphatic in our tests, but at least always positive changes. The world’s finest 13-inch notebook is now unassailable, especially given it’s kept the same sub-£1000 price point as its predecessor.

Read our 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro (early 2015) review.

4. HP EliteBook Folio 1040 G1

• Rating: 
• Reviewed on: 13 January 15
• RRP: £2116 inc. VAT

Most ultraportables we test are dumbed-down MacBook Air clones with cheap construction and low-grade components. That's why it makes a particularly refreshing change to find a Windows laptop that not just matches but surpasses Apple's popular ultraportable in a key area like screen quality. The price is much higher than even the Retina-display 13-inch MacBook but if you must have a laptop built for Windows that can make a statement in build quality and top-class components, check out EliteBook Folio 1040 G1.

Read our HP EliteBook Folio 1040 G1 review.

3. Retina MacBook Pro review (15in, 2015)

• Rating: 
• Reviewed on: 8 June 15
• RRP: From £1,599

Read our Retina MacBook Pro review (15in, 2015) review.

2. Alienware 13

• Rating: 
• Reviewed on: 13 May 15
• RRP: £1100 inc. VAT

The Alienware 13 is a compact yet very powerful laptop, suited to playing all modern Windows games. It’s chunky thick but relatively light in weight, and has been well designed and equipped to be a premium yet still portable powerhouse.

Read our Alienware 13 review.

1. Aorus X7 V2

• Rating: 
• Reviewed on: 14 October 14
• RRP: £1725 inc. VAT

The Aorus X7 v2 is a sturdily made all-metal gaming laptop that keeps its waistline to around 1in, even if it still tips the scales beyond 3kg. With its dual-GPU setup it proved itself the fastest gaming laptop in the group, albeit with an unsurprising price premium.
Read our Aorus X7 V2 review

What Intel’s New Processors Mean for Your Next Computer

The sixth generation of Intel’s Core processors, known more approachably as Skylake, will start invading new laptops and desktops over the following weeks and months. With them, they’ll bring a few enhancements you should know about—especially if your current rig is starting to show some rust.
Before we get started, though, it’s probably healthy to manage some expectations. Better processors will always be welcome, but chips aren’t progressing in a way that results in huge performance leaps the way they did a decade ago, says 451 analyst Peter Christy. Rather than raw computing power, the focus has shifted to size and efficiency.
“What you have to do is take these better transistors, which is the right way to think about what Intel does, and purpose them in a different way,” explains Christy. “A way you can purpose them is by shrinking them, or making them cheaper, or more power efficient.”
Fortunately, cheaper, thinner, and more efficient are all traits that are still very much worth chasing. And Skylake should provide all three.

A Big Leap From Your Old Box

Intel has focused its Skylake comparisons on notebooks from five years ago, which is a bit like comparing standardized test scores between a five-year-old and his 15-year-old sister. Even still, the gaps are impressively wide.
Next to those rickety 2010 machines, Skylake delivers more than double the speed, triple the battery life, and wakes up four times faster. It also enables features like WiDi (Intel’s mirroring solution), Cortana, and touch interactions that would not have been possible five years ago.
Of course, all of these specs and facts are also mostly true of Broadwell, last year’s latest and greatest Core processor, next to which Skylake marks far less significant gains; a 10 percent speed boost, the ability to scratch out a bit more battery, and a graphical bump that will mostly be appreciated by serious gamers.
Still, Intel’s choice to point to older machines isn’t simply a marketing ploy, says Patrick Moorhead, president and principal analyst of Moor Insights & Strategies. It’s legitimately the most helpful point of comparison for a huge number of people.
“There are literally over 600 million PCs out there that are over four years old,” says Moorhead. “It’s not that people aren’t using their PCs, they’re just using them less because they’re spreading their computing across phones, tablets, and watches.” In other words, the number of people to whom Intel’s gaudier comparisons apply is nearly twice the population of the United States. If you’re one of them, you may feel a bit like Rip Van Acer.
“The right comparison is to look at what those 600 million people are using,” Moorhead continues, citing the bulk and dilapidated batteries of those computational dinosaurs. “What they’re looking at now is for $499 to $699 they can get a very thin PC, with touch, more than likely seven to eight hours of battery life, weigh maybe 40 percent less. It will probably be able to rotate back, if you want to use it as a tablet.” Throw in features like Intel’s RealSense camera, which obviates the need for a system password by logging you in based only on your face, and the convenience factor of fewer cables, and you’ve got a strong case finally to upgrade.
So no, it’s not a surprise that Skylake is significantly better than the Core processors of 2010. What might catch you off-guard, though, is just how much more PCs can do overall.

A Little Better Than Broadwell

For those who bought a laptop or desktop in the last year or so, the good news is you’re not going to be missing out on much by having pulled the trigger then. Still, there’s a little more to Skylake than just the small spec bumps cited above.
Intel emphasizes that Skylake has been optimized for Windows 10—good, given how big a jump Windows 10 is from Windows 8—in substantive ways. Intel Speed Shift technology improves latency up to 30x, and impvoes overall system level performance 20-25 percent. It includes a digital signal processor (DSP) that was designed with Cortana in mind. And perhaps most significantly—especially given that you’ll likely keep this PC for four years as well—it’s able to play 4K media with low power consumption, which will come in handy just as soon as there’s 4K media to consume.
None of this should prompt you to ditch the Dell you bought last year (did you… buy a Dell?). It’s an iterative enough move that you’re fine with what you’ve got for now. There’s a small segment of computing society, though, that might actually consider trading up already: gamers.
“If you’re into esports, and literally at $499 to $699 you could improve your performance two to three times, that’s where regardless of when you bought your PC you should consider one of these,” says Moorhead, although it’s worth noting that most people in that position will likely have a discrete graphics solution.
In either case, we’ve already seen a few Skylake PCs announced at this week’s IFA show in Berlin; you should expect to see those and more hit shelves in October, with plenty of time to make holiday shopping lists. Keep in mind, too, that not all Core processors are created equal; there’s an abundance of models to sift through that offer a range of performance and purpose here (pdf).
Oh, one last note for Apple fans; you’ll get your Skylake as well, although likely not until early next year, due to MacBook and iMac product cycles. If you’ve waited a few years already, a few more months won’t kill you—and they’ll be well worth it.

What's Germany's Top Tech Hub?

 

The European Commission’s latest attempt to corral the continent’s tech hubs into a list from best to least best placed Munich on top. Sure, it is a thriving city with a strong tech culture, but does it really deserve to represent its nation alongside London and Paris ahead of the very compelling Berlin?
Serial entrepreneur Adeo Ressi doesn’t think so, and he knows a thing or two about tech entrepreneurs and business climates all over the globe. As head of The Founder Institute – a successful startup incubator that operates in 100 cities worldwide and growing – it’s kind of his thing. Berlin is a top beneficiary of tech investment in Europe, alongside London and Paris, but it beats out Munich in other categories as well, he says.
“If you look at startups that have the greatest impact on the world and where they’re coming from, Berlin is definitely number one,” Ressi says. The reason that Berlin is so successful lately is because it’s become a European melting pot of sorts, with a strong cultural and business draw. Cost of living, too, is easy on the wallet, says Ressi, who gauges city costs of as head of Founder Institute. “Berlin’s cost of living is parallel with Athens.”
City infrastructure has also been built up since the nation reunited its east and west portions in 1990. What’s been created is a thoroughly modern metropolis with a strong cultural backbone. There’s a seedier side too, one that generates a coolness, a creativity, says Ressi. “It still has a huge area of art and squatters and dereliction that has been inhabited by random artists that have taken over giant buildings. It’s very inexpensive, it’s very modern and it’s attracting artists and creative types from all around the world.

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“There’s a theory in startups that great startups are built by a confluence of different kinds of people,” Ressi explains. “You’ve have a very strong designer and a very strong programmer and a very strong project manager come together and create an amazing startup. That happens in Berlin.”

Your Next Phone Needs a MicroSD Card Slot — Here’s Why

The argument over microSD cards isn’t a new one in the Android world. But maybe you’re buying your first or second smartphone, and you don’t know what all the fuss over microSD cards is about because you’ve never used one.
Here’s what makes those little memory cards so awesome and why you may want the option to use them in your next phone.

1) Save Money

Want to know the best part about microSD cards? They’re cheap. You get all of the advantages mentioned below, and you get them for less than the cost of cloud services. By the time you’ve paid $10 a month for online storage and another $10 for a music subscription, you could’ve already bought a microSD card that you could use for years.
Better yet, expandable memory drops in price rapidly, and it regularly goes on sale. A whopping 200GB card may be prohibitively expensive this year, but it will most likely be reasonable within the next couple years.
Until then, it’s a great time to pick up the 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB cards that retailers want to move off their shelves. 8GB and 16GB cards go for under $10 these days, and they’ve basically become necessary to go with phones that only ship with a couple GBs of usable internal space.

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Even the cheapest microSD cards would give you plenty of extra breathing room.

These are the kinds of microSD card prices you can expect on Amazon.

2) Store More

How much internal memory did your phone come with? 8GB? 16? 32? More? You probably paid a pretty penny if you got a phone that can carry around 64GB or 128GB worth of files. It would have been cheaper if that phone had come with a microSD slot.
If you don’t have enough space, get a bigger card. Or just buy a second one. Swap them out if you need to. You have the option. You can store as much data as you have cards. No matter how much storage space a manufacturer sticks into a mobile device, something with a memory card slot will always be able to handle more.

This is my phone’s limited internal storage (left) compared to the amount available on a microSD card (right).

3) Have Reliable Access

Companies advertise cloud services as a way to access files wherever you are. But this is only a partial truth. If you don’t have a solid Internet connection, whether through cellular data or WiFi, then you’re not accessing anything other than what you’ve stored offline.
And being online is no guarantee that you can still get to your data. Sometimes servers go down and you can’t do anything but wait. That can really put a damper on your plans to listen to your favorite album as you put on your running shoes and hit the pavement for a jog.

MicroSD cards keep that music right where you expect it to be. The same is true of those photos you took at the last birthday party — those ones you tried storing only on Google Photos but re-downloaded after you couldn’t show them to your friend in the car thanks to spotty signal.

4) Take Control

As more people find their passwords being leaked, celebrity photos being stolen, and credit card data being compromised following yet another massive data breach, they’ve become increasingly aware of the risks of trusting so much of their data to the Internet and the companies that power it.
MicroSD cards, however, offer a feeling of control. You have your data literally in your own hands. And unless your card breaks or gets improperly formatted, you know you can access your files whenever you want.
Whether you store data locally or in the cloud, someone has control over it. Do you trust yourself to manage your files or the employees of a distant company?
Is there a chance you might lose your data? Yes, but that’s life. You can lose irreplaceable thoughts by misplacing a notebook. A fire can wipe out most of the possessions in your home. We kid ourselves if we think anything will last forever.

5) Maintain Your Privacy

Speaking of data breaches, storing files locally also limits just how much information companies get about you. Every time you access a file from a cloud storage provider, they have a log of that. It’s both a drawback and a feature — an inherent part of making things work.
The same is true of music and video streaming sites. Whether or not a company ties your activities to your specific identity, nothing you do online is truly private, and if a service is free, there’s a likelihood it’s making money marketing your data. But those files you have saved on a microSD card? No one knows what you’re doing with those.

Sure, you can never have complete privacy. A thief may still get your photos if they steal your phone and take your card, but that risk that doesn’t go away if you auto-upload all your photos to the cloud (unless, that is, you’re diligent about deleting your local copies immediately afterward).

Fortunately, some Samsung phones offer the ability to encrypt everything on your card in addition to internal memory. Better yet, Google has made this feature a core part of Android 6.0.

Still, MicroSD Cards Aren’t Perfect

It’s true. Sometimes microSD cards die, causing you to lose all of the data you’ve stored. If your device has limited storage, figuring out which apps you can move to external storage pre-Marshmallow isn’t exactly intuitive or fun.
Making a little extra money off of you isn’t the only reason many manufacturers have switched to relying on internal memory — it’s easier to troubleshoot problems when you know what space you’re working with.
But that hasn’t stopped customers from wanting USB ports and SD card slots on their laptops (well, MacBook buyers aside). Expandable memory simply gives you more functionality to work with. Heck, you can even use a microSD card slot to give your device more RAM.

Want Something with a MicroSD Slot?

Phones with microSD card slots are available all across the spectrum. Approaching the end of 2015, the latest flagship phones from HTC, LG, and Sony all come with them. But you’re going to want to avoid the Nexus line, Samsung’s Galaxy S6 and Note 5, along with those phones from OnePlus.
As phones go down in price, microSD slots are all but guaranteed. Each of the great devices I recommended in a recent post about Android’s awesome affordable handsets support expandable memory.
To summarize, most phones still come with microSD slots. It’s just that a select few of the most popular models sometimes do without, and that can be disappointing.