JA N UA RY 2017

Ryzen
How AMD’s
INSIDE:
new chip could change everything

What to do about Yahoo’s billion-account breach

 Be the breakthrough.
Breakthroughs are the patients
participating in clinical trials, the
scientists and doctors working
together to advance the fight
against cancer, and the brave
survivors like Tonya who never
give up. Let’s be the breakthrough.
To learn about appropriate
screenings and clinical trials
or to help someone with cancer,
go to su2c.org/breakthrough.
#cancerbreakthrough

TheCWordMovie.com
 TABLE OF
JANUARY 2017 CONTENTS
» DEPARTMENTS » FEATURES

7 News

155 Surface Book i7 vs. MacBook Pro: Fight!

57 Reviews & Ratings

187 Here’s How 173 The iPhone switcher’s guide: Move from iOS to Android

» COLUMNS
209 Hassle-Free PC
211 Answer Line

41 Consumer Watch 214 Tech Spotlight


About Us

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THE CLOSER WE GET, THE MORE WE SEE
Experience the world’s most amazing animals
in one app. WWF TOGETHER – the new free app
from World Wildlife Fund. Download it today.

worldwildlife.org/together
9 AMD shows how Zen— 29 Microsoft: Don’t worry,
now renamed Ryzen— MS-DOS will live on
is its best chip family after all

18 What we know about 31 New Synaptics

AMD’s Ryzen so far fingerprint sensor sits
under glass
24 How much will AMD’s
Zen cost? Here’s what 33 Google may partner
we think with auto makers

27 Samsung to brick 35 The new Apple TV

remaining Galaxy update is no friend to
Note7s cord cutters


 Ready.gov/business

Up to 40% of businesses never recover after experiencing a major disaster.

Do you have a plan to keep your business running if disaster strikes?
For a free online tool that helps you develop an emergency plan,
visit Ready.gov/business.
Tech and trends that will affect you today and beyond. NEWS

AMD shows how Zen—now

renamed Ryzen—is its best
chip family in a decade
BY MARK HACHMAN

AMD'S ZEN IS finally here. In August, AMD stunned the hardware

industry by showing that its Zen architecture could compete with
Intel’s best. Now AMD has revealed more details about what
executives call its most exciting processor in 20 years, including its
brand name, its clock speed, and the five underlying “SenseMI”
technologies that make the chip so efficient.


 What AMD has previously referred to as its Zen architecture now has Lisa Su oversees
a formal brand name: Ryzen, which unfortunately sounds like the title a Blender
of a bargain-bin videogame. The first chip in the desktop family, code- benchmark test;
AMD’s new Ryzen
named Summit Ridge, will be AMD’s focus for 2017.
chip is rendering
Using Handbrake and ZBrush benchmarks, AMD recently
on the left
demonstrated that its 8-core Summit Ridge chip can keep up with, or screen, while
even potentially exceed, Intel’s 8-core, 3.2GHz Core i7-6900K that Intel’s Core
launched this past May. That’s due in part to the Summit Ridge chip’s i7-6900K is to the
higher 3.4GHz clock speed, according to AMD. right. Both
The story behind the story: AMD declined to disclose two key completed in
Summit Ridge details: the chip’s “boost” speed, or maximum potential, about the same
time.
and its price. In doing so, AMD avoids revealing too much to Intel’s
marketing team, said analysts. Keep in mind, although it didn’t attract
much attention at the time, Intel executives said in August they
hadn’t ruled out increasing the core count of its Core i7-6900K—just
as it did with the10-core Core i7-6950X (go.pcworld.com/10corei7-
6950X). That could help Intel maintain its performance edge over any
upcoming Zen chips. All these machinations are to the consumers’
benefit, of course—this is the essence of competition!


 NEWS

More Ryzen benchmarks fuel anticipation for 2017

Here’s where we stand right now: Intel has begun shipping its first dual-
core Kaby Lake chips—a third-generation 14nm chip, and for the time
being, strictly for notebooks (go.pcworld.com/kabylakerv). In January,
Intel is expected to release its quad-core H-series processors, kicking off
the desktop PC race in earnest. AMD, meanwhile, has slated its 14nm
Summit Ridge chip for the first quarter, its 32-core Naples server
processor for the second quarter, and what it now calls its Raven Ridge
notebook chip for the second half of 2017. Remember, you’ll need
Windows 10 to run all of them.
Despite some analyst speculation that the PC market is slowing,
AMD is aiming Ryzen at three markets that seem poised for growth:
PC gaming, which some analysts say could see 35 percent growth from
2015 through 2020; virtual-reality PCs, with expected 10X growth by
2020; and e-sports, which is experiencing a strong uptick in audience.
“If you look at 2017, I don’t think we’ve seen anything this exciting
since, honestly, back towards the 90’s,” said Jim Anderson, senior vice
president and general manager of AMD’s Computing and Graphics
business, hearkening back to the AMD K6 series.
AMD set out four years ago to design a “clean sheet” processor
architecture that could deliver 40 percent more instructions per clock


than the previous generation. It seems that AMD has achieved that goal.
Previous AMD architectures were optimized for multicore
performance. “That just didn’t work out because there’s a lot of stuff
that needs single-threaded
performance, “ said Kevin
Krewell, principal analyst with
Tirias Research. “They had
functional units that were split
between two different cores...
With Zen, you get this very
wide execution engine, and
then when you want to run an
extra thread on it, you share
components, but you also
have all the functional units at Summit Ridge’s basics: Eight cores at 3.4GHz-plus, 20MB
of combined L2+L3 cache, and SenseMI underneath it all.
the bequest of that one
thread. In a sense, they went
back to square one, with the
original Hammer processor.”
In three demonstrations—
using processor-intensive
Handbrake, Blender, and
ZBrush (zbrushcore.com)
benchmarks—the 3.4GHz
Summit Ridge (with boosting
turned off) either met or
exceeded Intel’s 3.2GHz
Yes, you’ll need a new motherboard to use Zen, but here’s
6900K, which can boost to
what it gets you.
3.7GHz. In Blender, AMD’s chip
consumed 187.6W under load, while the Core i7 consumed 191.8W.
Update: The 8-core, 16 thread Ryzen chip will also pack a far lower
TDP than Intel's 8-core, 16 thread chip, at 95 watts versus 140 watts,
CEO Lisa Su said during AMD's New Horizon event.


 NEWS

A closer look at Zen’s gaming performance

For further convincing, we were shown Ryzen’s performance
running DICE’s shooter hit Battlefield 1—and Ryzen still held up, big time.
The 3.4GHz Ryzen system we saw contained a custom AM4
motherboard that probably will never see the light of day, plus 16GB
of RAM and a pair of Nvidia Titan X cards. Yes, Nvidia cards—AMD
representatives explained that they wanted to show how AMD and
Nvidia technology could be mixed and matched, and that Ryzen
could handle any gaming configuration you threw at it. On the other
side was the same Intel Core i7-6900K AMD used for the Blender
demo, with an Asus ROG X99 board, and 32GB of quad-channel
memory, just to avoid claims that it was running with a subpar
memory configuration. AMD’s Ryzen
went head-to-
We were allowed to try a head-to-head playthrough of the first
head with an
chapter of Battlefield 1, comparing the two machines. The catch: There
Intel Core
was no on-screen overlay with frame rates. Instead, we had to go on i7-6900K and
what AMD product manager Jim Prior told us: Both systems were came out
running at between 100 and 130 frames per second, at 4K resolution unscathed.


under DirectX 11, using ultra settings. AMD turned off the overlay AMD’s latest
because DICE has been frequently patching the game, and the hard processor
performance numbers could change between our hands-on and generations
have
AMD’s livestream of the Ryzen announcement (go.pcworld.com/
increasingly
newhorizon), Prior said.
emphasized
Our conclusion? There were no functional or visible differences efficiency, the
between the Ryzen and Intel systems. Both felt and looked exactly the company says.
same, whether actually playing on the PCs or peering over the
shoulder of another player to watch the action side-by-side. In
premium gaming, Ryzen hung like a boss. By contrast, AMD’s current
FX-6xxx/8xxx chips are notably slower than comparable Intel
budget parts in gaming, depending on the specifics.

Under the hood: How SenseMI changes the game

In a way, AMD’s Ryzen opens up another vector of consideration when
buying a chip: efficiency. Most PC enthusiasts consider price, core
count, the speed of the chip, and the power each chip consumes
before buying. Chip manufacturers, meanwhile, talk about the
instructions per clock (IPC) as a way to measure effectiveness. Ryzen,
though, proposes a new approach.
According to Mark Papermaster, AMD’s chief technology officer,

 NEWS

AMD set out to ensure that Ryzen had what he called the best Here’s one of
“intelligent performance,” an adaptive technology that continually the secrets to
Ryzen’s higher
assesses the processor to deliver the best performance at a given
performance:
power level. AMD calls this “SenseMI.”
fine-grained
SenseMI consists of five different technologies: Pure Power, clock control.
Precision Boost, Extended Frequency Range (XFR), Neural Net
Prediction, and Smart Prefetch. The technologies all work together,
using what AMD calls its Infinity Fabric—an on-chip network of
connections—to constantly loop back and reassess how they’re doing.
Pure Power and Precision Boost, for example, are like two sides of
the same coin. Pure Power monitors the chip’s temperature using
hundreds of temperature sensors embedded in the chip and fabric,
constantly seeking to bump down the power by milliwatts at a time
while maintaining the same level of performance. On the other hand,
Precision Boost is a fine-grained frequency control that can nudge
performance up by 25MHz increments (versus 100MHz for Intel) to
boost performance without consuming more power.
And if a user has a cooler installed—using air, water, or liquid
nitrogen—the chip can sense it, via Extended Frequency Range (XFR),
a fancy name for auto detection that allows the Ryzen chip to run at a


higher frequency than normally permitted. AMD’s Ryzen
If designing a chip was like training a football player, than the first dynamically
three SenseMI technologies would be like hitting the gym: improving examines its
power usage
speed, power, and endurance. Think of the latter two, Neural Net
and makes
Prediction and Smart Prefetch, as the mental aspects of the game:
adjustments on
anticipation and awareness. the fly.
Papermaster described AMD’s Neural Net Prediction capabilities as
“scary smart” branch prediction, intended to remove pipeline stalls. A
microprocessor’s instructions typically work on conditions: if this, then
that. But executing those instructions, then waiting for the next one,
can take several clock cycles where the chip is essentially doing
nothing. To compensate, modern processors “cheat” by trying to guess
the way the conditional jump will go. If it’s right, then the processor
can save time and improve the overall performance. If it’s wrong, then
everything stalls while a new instruction is fetched. AMD’s technology
uses a “massive amount of data” to retrain AMD’s branch predictor on
the fly, minimizing those pipeline stalls, Papermaster said.
Likewise, Smart Prefetch makes that same bet, but in a different
manner—it tries to guess what data Ryzen will need next, then grab it

 NEWS

before the chip can act upon it. “That’s what we live for,” Papermaster
said. “This inspires every designer.”

What’s next? A glorious battle for your wallet

After years of scratching and clawing to stay afloat—restructuring
debt; leasing and then moving its headquarters from Sunnyvale, CA,
to Santa Clara; layoffs—AMD is smartly doubling down on what it
sees as a winning hand. Naples is just the first step toward a push
back into the enterprise market,
where higher margins can help
fund future growth.
What isn’t clear, though, is how
AMD will price its first Ryzen chip,
Summit Ridge. Typically, Intel has
applied the screws, forcing AMD to
lower prices to gain market share. In
August, Intel executives predicted
that more than 350 new PC designs
would be predicated on the various
versions of Kaby Lake, beginning in January. For AMD’s part, Chief Intel is waiting
Executive Lisa Su predicted a “very, very strong lineup” of motherboards, in the wings
hardware partners, and system builders, but didn’t disclose any with Kaby
Lake.
numbers. (Want to learn more? AMD’s special Ryzen livestream: go.
pcworld.com/newhorizon) is just for enthusiasts.)
Will Intel up its core count? Drop prices? Offer to assist with the
marketing costs of hardware partners who sell Kaby Lake? And what’s
the boost speed of AMD’s Summit Ridge? Will AMD be able to satisfy
its customer demand? Will there be (gulp) bugs? All these questions
remain unanswered.
One thing is clear, however: AMD’s back at the table, and it finally has
a good hand to play. “2016 was a very strong year; we’re very pleased
with all the progress that we’ve made,” Su said. “But with 2017, the
best is truly yet to come.”


 What we know about
AMD's Ryzen so far
BY GORDON MAH UNG

EVEN AMD FANBOYS have to admit that the company's CPUs

haven’t been competitive with Intel’s chips in a decade. With AMD
finally unveiling its official CPU brand, Ryzen, as well as the first
chip’s base clock speed, there are signs Intel might actually have a
fight on its hands. Here’s every single thing we know about AMD’s
Ryzen CPU so far.
CREDIT: AMD

Your conspiracy theory? Wrong

AMD shocked the PC world in August by showing its 8-core Summit
Ridge CPU (featuring Zen architecture) matching the performance of

 NEWS

an 8-core Intel chip in the open-source Make Intel AMD

Blender application. The internet, of Model Core i7-6900K Ryzen
course, immediately spawned
Process 14nm 14nm
conspiracy theories that AMD
Cores 8 8
“probably” used Blender because it
Threads 16 16
could recompile the open-source
Base frequency 3.2GHz 3.4GHz
program to run better on the Zen
Turbo Boost 3.7GHz Unknown
architecture. Wrong.
Turbo Boost Max 4GHz Unknown
PCWorld asked AMD officials if this
was true. We were told that all of the Cache 20MB 20MB

demos were done using the compiled TDP 140 W Unknown

binary file from the Blender website. Memory Type DDR4 DDR4

Recently, AMD doubled down on its Memory Channels 4 2

performance claims by running not Socket LGA-2011 V3 AM4
only the Blender test, but also TDP 140 watts 95 watts
additional demos of a Handbrake Price $1,100 Unknown
encode and Pixologic’s ZBrushCore
Here are all the specs we know about AMD's
benchmark. All highly multithreaded
upcoming Ryzen CPU next to its counterpart: the
applications. And, yes, all performed Broadwell-E Core i7-6900K.
using the binary downloads sans any
alterations, the company insists.

Performance matches or exceeds

Intel’s 8-core CPU
In the fall Blender demo, AMD showed that Zen could go toe-to-toe with
its Intel counterpart when clock speeds were exactly the same—3GHz in
that instance. That raised the question of whether AMD could actually
meet Intel’s maximum speed. The answer is yes.
AMD says it expects the Ryzen CPU to have a base clock of at least
3.4GHz, which is about 5 percent higher than its Intel counterpart, the
8-core Broadwell-E 3.2GHz Core i7-6900K CPU. That same Intel chip,
however, will boost to 3.7GHz, and even hit 4GHz under single-
threaded loads.
AMD hasn’t divulged Ryzen’s boost speed, so how do we know it will


 Intel’s 6th-gen,
Cinebench R15 Single-Thread all CPUs @ 2.5GHz 5th-gen, 4th-gen,
and 3rd-gen CPUs
compared.
Core i7-6700K/
Skylake/ 14nm 106
Core i7-5775C/
Broadwell/ 14nm 105
Core i7-4790K/
Haswell/ 22nmt 101
Core i7-2600K/
Sandy Bridge/ 89
32nm

0 25 50 75 100 125

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

be as fast, or possibly even faster, than Intel’s Broadwell-E? For

starters, in AMD’s demos, Ryzen at 3.4GHz (with boosting turned off)
ran every bit as fast as the Core i7-6900K in Blender, Handbrake, and
ZBrushCore—and that was with the Core i7-6900K’s boost mode on.
If we believe AMD’s tests so far, and that Ryzen is the equal of Intel’s
Broadwell-E, then it comes down to clock speeds that primarily
separate these chips. Given AMD’s statement that Ryzen will be at
least 3.4GHz, it seems that its CPU will have a slight edge over Intel’s.

Ryzen vs. Skylake vs. Kaby Lake

Okay, so Ryzen looks good, but it’s being matched against Intel’s
5th-gen Broadwell core. What about Intel’s 6th-gen Skylake and the
soon-to-arrive 7th-gen Kaby Lake desktop chip?
In pure efficiency, Skylake should have a small advantage over Ryzen.
Kaby Lake, which is mostly a clock bump from what we’ve seen in
laptops, builds on that lead.
The problem, for Intel, is that the efficiency advantage isn’t that
substantial at equal clock speeds. As I noted in my review of Skylake
(go.pcworld.com/skylakechips), when I set four generations of Intel
chips to the same clock speed and disabled any boost advantage, the


 NEWS

differences were pretty incremental (see chart).

Of course, these parts don’t all run at the same speed. Skylake has a
base clock speed of 4GHz. Kaby Lake, which is mostly a refined Skylake
core, should have a little more speed still.
The first problem for Skylake (and probably Kaby Lake) is the ability
of the 8-core chips to also run at pretty high speeds on light loads.
My review of the 10-core Broadwell-E (go.pcworld.com/10corei7-
6950X) shows how that chip’s Turbo Max feature can mostly nullify any
clock-speed advantage the Core i7-6700K chip has in light loads. If This AMD
AMD can do the same with its boost modes, the base-clock differences reference board
between Ryzen and Skylake could be too minimal to matter. for Ryzen from
The second problem with Skylake and Kaby Lake is that both are the unveil in the
only quad-core parts with no ability to add more cores. fall had four
DIMM slots and
This isn’t the last word on performance, but the general upshot—if
that’s because
you accept AMD’s demonstrations at face value—is that Ryzen looks
Ryzen is a dual-
poised to put the company back into the ballpark for the first time in channel-memory
a long, long time. CPU.


 AMD demon-
strated its new
8-core Ryzen
CPU running a
Handbrake
encode and
slightly
outpacing an
Intel 8-core
Core i7-6900K
CPU.

It’s dual-channel
One thing we haven’t been sure about up until now is whether Ryzen
would be a quad-channel-memory CPU like its Intel counterpart.
Today, I can say for certain that it’s a dual-channel configuration.
That’s because the demo we witnessed was equipped with a pair of
8GB DDR4 DIMMs, versus the Intel box with four 8GB DDR4 DIMMs.
AMD’s recently announced Bristol Ridge chips are also dual-channel
and use the same AM4 socket, and compatibility with Zen cores has
been touted as a feature.
Afraid that’ll hobble Ryzen’s performance? My own testing (go.
pcworld.com/dualchannelram) last year shows the impact to be
mostly minimal.
The one negative to a dual-channel configuration is the limited
amount of RAM you can pack into a system (128GB on Intel versus
64GB with Ryzen). Intel might have a slight price advantage here as
well since smaller DIMMs are usually cheaper.
AMD has the possible advantage of cheaper motherboard
construction. Adding more memory channels to a motherboard
means running more wires or traces and also more layers. More layers
means more cost.

 NEWS

Motherboard, cooler, and power consumption

For many technical reasons, Ryzen just won’t work in older AMD FX
motherboards. A new mounting system means you’ll need a new
cooler too, or at least an adapter to make your existing cooler fit.
AMD’s most recent CPUs have a reputation for running hotter
than their Intel equivalents but that doesn’t look to be true
anymore. The company showed Ryzen running ZBrushCore while
consuming slightly less power than the Intel Core i7-6900K running
the same workload. AMD hasn’t actually disclosed the amount of
heat, or TDP, the chip generates but did say people would be
“surprised.”
UPDATE: AMD said during its New Horizon livestream that the
8-core Ryzen chip will have a 95W TDP, far less than the Core
i7-6900K's 140W.

Yes, SLI works

AMD knows that people who buy 8-core CPUs tend to like cranking
their systems to 11. In a nod to enthusiasts, the company
demonstrated a Ryzen PC using a pair of Nvidia Titan X cards in SLI to
run Battlefield 1 against a similarly configured Core i7-6900K PC.
AMD said it wanted to prove that even with high-end configurations,
Ryzen won’t be a bottleneck.
The other good news for enthusiasts is the assurance that we won’t
see some walled-off AMD motherboard that forces you to run Radeon
for multicard configurations. This isn’t without precedent. Most high-
end AMD motherboards support Nvidia SLI.

It’s not really a CPU

AMD actually considers Ryzen to be an SoC, or system on a chip,
because each chip will have some south bridge functions such as USB,
PCI-E, and SATA. You can read more about the reasons (go.pcworld.
com/zensoc), but the gist is it was made to scale from laptops to
servers so, please, dude, proper nomenclature.


 Watch the
video at
go.pcworld.
com/pwfull
nerd7

How much will AMD's Zen

cost? Here's what we think
BY GORDON MAH UNG

YOU KNOW HOW many cores it has (eight). You know what
motherboard socket it will fit in (AM4). But one tantalizing thing you
don’t know about AMD’s much-hyped and highly-anticipated Zen CPU
is just how much it’ll cost.
All the benchmarks and all the talk of a clean-sheet design and 40
percent IPC increase, be damned. You just want to know if Zen (aka
Summit Ridge) will be affordable.


 NEWS

AMD isn’t doing this just to play with your emotions, though. The
company is currently engaged in a high-stakes poker game with Intel,
the all-time reigning world-champion of CPU pricing, so this isn’t the
time to act like a shirtless drunk in a Reno casino with the hole card.
The good news is AMD's reluctance doesn’t stop us from making
guesses as to just where the 8-core Zen chip will be priced. Rumors
have put it as low as $300 but I wouldn’t put too much faith in that
number at this point.

One shot Core/Thread Volume Street

Frankly, AMD has one shot to get Count Pricing Price

this right and I’d expect it to Core i7-6950X 10/20 $1,723 $1,650

shoot to be as disruptive as Core i7-6900K 8/16 $1,089 $1,050

possible. That means getting Zen 8/16 Unknown -
the 8-core Zen as comfortably Core i7-6850K 6/12 $617 $610
close to the Intel 6-core CPUs as
Core i7-6800K 6/12 $434 $440
it can. That forces Intel to lower
Core i7-6700K 4/8 $339 $340
the price of the 6-core chips to
be competitive with Zen but Core i5-6600K 4/4 $242 $230

which means Intel must then

also cut the price of its quad-core chips too. So just where
If an 8-core Zen came in at $500 as some leaks would suggest, Intel will AMD price
really would have very little maneuvering room. And if that happens, Zen against
Intel’s lineup?
does Intel actually chase Zen on price and cut the price of its own
$1,100 8-core CPU too?
Even worse for Intel (potentially), Internet rumors say AMD is also
working on a quad-core chip that somewhat competes with Intel’s
$340 Core i7-6700K—but at the unbelievable price of $150. Imagine
an incredible CPU price war that would leave the balance sheets
sloshing with blood-red ink.

Or maybe not
An entirely plausible alternative scenario could also see Zen slot in
right where there’s a hole: $800. At that price, Zen wouldn’t mess


with Intel’s lower core count lineup and Intel might feel comfortable
enough to just let AMD take some well deserved profit for once. Intel
could continue to make bank on its CPUs, perhaps trimming its
8-core core offering to $900, and both would happily watch the cash
registers ringing. Yes, the collective Internet of gamers and
enthusiasts would groan in disappointment but such a scenario is also
entirely possible too.
Why? Between of Win32 on ARM (go.pcworld.com/w10arm) and its
new found love of self-driving cars and the Internet of Things, Intel
may no longer have the stomach for a CPU war in computers, too.

So what's the likely scenario?

My gut tells me old habits die hard and Intel, like AMD, is a competitive
company—which means an 8-core Zen at a disruptive place is a likely
course (though maybe not as low as some of the rumors suggest).
Witness the aggressive $200 MSRP of the Radeon RX 480 (go.pcworld.
com/radeonrx480rev) as AMD battles Nvidia for graphical supremacy
for precedent.
So brace yourselves. I think we're in for a price war sure to make the
PC stronger in the end.


 NEWS

Samsung to brick Galaxy

Note7s through software
BY MICHAEL SIMON

THE DAYS ARE numbered for the last remaining Galaxy Note7
holdouts. In an effort to safeguard any devices that are still in
circulation, Samsung announced it will be pushing out a software
update that will prevent charging, effectively bricking the
beleaguered handset.
In a press release, Samsung said that while it has had “overwhelming
participation” in the Note7 U.S. recall program, some 7 percent of devices
remain in customers’ hands. Starting Dec. 19 and continuing over the
following 30 days, the company will be working with carriers to ensure
any outstanding devices are rendered inoperable and returned, though it
remains to be seen how smoothly the rollout will go.
In a statement released shortly after Samsung’s announcement,
Verizon initially said it would not be taking part in the update


“because of the added risk this could pose to Galaxy Note7 users that
do not have another device to switch to..” However, the company has
since changed its tune, announcing that the update will indeed be
delivered to customers on Jan. 5.
Additionally, CNet reports that all other major carriers are
participating in the update, with T-Mobile’s update landing Dec. 27,
AT&T’s coming on Jan. 5, and Sprint delivering its update on Jan. 8.
The update coincides with a move by Samsung to place “functional
limitations” on battery charging, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth in Canada, as
well as restrict access to any Canadian cellular network.
After Samsung’s own voluntary recall of the device failed to stop the
phones from catching fire and exploding, the U.S. government issued
an official recall of the Note7 in September to prevent further
incidents. Samsung has been mum on what caused the issue, but signs
point to a case that was too thin for the battery.
Samsung also plans to disseminate updates to the remaining Note7
users in the UK and Australia as it continues to tie up any loose ends.
Beginning on Dec, 15, the company says that all UK devices “will
receive a new battery software update that will limit the maximum
charging capacity to 30 percent,” while Samsung Australia is “working
with local telecommunications operators to discontinue Australian
network services for Galaxy Note7 devices that are still being used.”
The impact on you at home: If you are one of the people still
clinging to your Galaxy Note7, give it up. This is an issue of safety, and
Samsung is doing the right thing to make sure all Note7s are safely
returned. Those who still have one can find Samsung’s guidelines for
returning it.


 NEWS

Microsoft: Don't worry,

MS-DOS will live on after all
BY STEVEN J. VAUGHAN-NICHOLS

IT SURE LOOKED like Microsoft was putting MS-DOS out to pasture.

Now it’s saying that the MS-DOS command prompt cmd will continue
to live on.
According to a Microsoft spokesperson, “Microsoft is not removing
Cmd from Windows, but rather changing the default shell, launched
via File Explorer and the [Win] + [X] power-user menu, from Cmd to
PowerShell. Users can opt to change the default shell back to Cmd via
Settings and can continue to launch whichever shell they prefer, be it
Cmd, PowerShell, or Bash (if enabled) via the Start menu. The
Windows Cmd shell has a long heritage and is an essential tool used by
millions of businesses, users, and developers every day. It remains an
integral part of Windows.”
Microsoft may be making this move because, while to most of us the
last pieces of MS-DOS hidden within Windows 10 are a historical
curiosity, others still use them. These people were not happy about


cmd being replaced by PowerShell.
One Computerworld reader explained, “I use command prompt
almost every day for small stuff. PowerShell does a lot more but for
some reason every time I try to do some easy stuff with the old
commands I know it doesn’t always work out and I end up in a long
internet search about how to just get it to work.”
Some system administrators still like it as well. One wrote, “I have 5+
CMD windows open all the time. I’m hitting remote systems across the
country with ease. No need to learn a bloated PS if I already have all the
tools I need at my finger tips.”
On Reddit, a reader added, “the convenience of a .BAT [MS-DOS
Batch file] is unparalleled by a PS1 {PowerShell Script]. Not in
functionality, but in usability and ‘quick and dirty is fine — just do it’
kind of way. Kind of like how inherently glue is more diverse, more
rugged, more specialized than duct tape.”
Another Computerworld reader added, “If they don’t implement
some kind of emulation environment they are going to really tick off
businesses with DOS based software; backwards compatability (or lack
of it) is why so many still use Windows XP.
XP? Yes, XP is still alive, albeit sickly, in China, the U.S. Navy and healthcare.
XP, however, really is heading out the door. But MS-DOS, or its final bits,
will still be living on. They won’t be as easy to get to, but cmd will live on.
If you really, really love MS-DOS and still want to run WordStar
(wordstar.org), the first popular PC word processor, or play Doom, the
first great first-person shooter game, you may want to look to FreeDOS
(freedos.org). This is an open-source version of DOS. It’s compatible with
most MS-DOS programs.
So, while Microsoft is keeping cmd around, albeit on the back burner,
if you still must have the full MS-DOS and your floppy disks have long
since given up their magnetic ghosts, FreeDOS will let you keep
running your DOS programs for years, maybe decades, to come.
If, however, you want to manage modern Windows systems, it’s well
past time that you picked up PowerShell. Sooner or later, cmd.exe is
going to disappear into that great bit-farm in the sky.


 NEWS

New Synaptics fingerprint

sensor sits under glass for
smoother phone screens
BY MARTYN WILLIAMS

A SILICON VALLEY biometrics company says it has developed a

fingerprint sensor that can sit under glass so smartphone screens
don’t need a cutout or extra button to accommodate the sensor.
The Synaptics FS9100 sensor can sit under a millimeter of glass and
C R E D I T : SY N A PT I CS

still provide accurate fingerprint readings, so it should be easier to

integrate one under a display.
At present, most fingerprint sensors have to sit above the glass,
necessitating a cutout in the face of the phone or a dedicated button


that houses the sensor. That’s the case on market-leading handsets
like the iPhone 7 and Samsung Galaxy S7.
And while there are some fingerprint sensors that work under glass,
that glass needs to be thinner than 1mm, so the glass needs to be
shaved in the area of the sensor.
Eliminating cutouts and shaving won’t just mean cleaner industrial
design but should also reduce the amount of glass wasted due to
cracking during production.
Synaptics is already showing the sensor to smartphone
manufacturers in the hope of getting orders. It will begin offering
samples in the first quarter of next year and will be able to begin mass
production as soon as the second quarter.


 NEWS

Google may slam the brakes

on its self-driving car to
partner with auto makers
BY PETER SAYER

GOOGLE’S PARENT COMPANY does not yet have the courage to build
a car with no steering wheel or pedals, preferring to put its self-driving
technology into existing cars from traditional auto manufacturers.
That is the conclusion of news site The Information in a report
published recently citing people close to Alphabet’s autonomous
CREDIT: GOOGLE

vehicle project.
The technology is moving closer to market, and the company no
longer considers it a “moonshot,” the head of its “X” research lab Astro
Teller told The Wall Street Journal in October.

 It’s over a year since it appointed former head of Hyundai U.S. John
Krafcik to oversee its autonomous driving activities, which it began
accounting for as a separate business on Jan. 1, 2016.
But now, The Information said, the company is moving away from
plans to build and sell cars itself, preferring to partner with existing
auto manufacturers to put its technology in their cars alongside
traditional driver controls.
Apple’s secretive self-driving car efforts have followed a similar
wavering course between full-on construction and add-on smarts. In
October reports emerged that it was scaling back its plans for a car of
its own, instead looking to develop its own autonomous driving
system and partner with manufacturers to get it on the road.
Auto manufacturers including Audi (go.pcworld.com/selfdriveaudi),
Volvo (go.pcworld.com/selfdrivevolvo) and Tesla are working on self-
driving cars of their own, but there are other companies—besides
Google and Apple—that want a share of that market. Auto equipment
maker Delphi (go.pcworld.com/selfdrivedelphi) has a self-driving car
platform on the road, and even Intel (go.pcworld.com/selfdriveintel) is
investing in the market.


 NEWS

The new Apple TV update is

no friend to cord cutters
BY JARED NEWMAN

APPLE TV RECEIVED a major update recently, but cord cutters aren’t

its target audience. The latest version of tvOS includes a new “TV” app
that pulls together videos from across dozens of other video apps,
including Hulu, ABC, and Comedy Central. Think of it as a modern take
on the TV guide, letting you browse through movies and TV shows
without having to bounce between apps.
Apple clearly sees the TV app as the interface of the future for Apple
TV. But right now, it doesn’t support enough video sources, especially
if you don’t have a cable TV login.


No free ride
With the new version of tvOS, Apple has changed the default behavior
of the Siri remote. Pressing the home button now takes you straight
into the TV app—from now on I’ll just call it “TV”—and you must press
the button a second time to reach the old home screen. (You can
make the home button go back to the home screen by visiting
Settings > Remotes and Devices, and clicking Home Button to switch
from TV App to Home Screen.)
The new behavior can be jarring, because TV doesn’t initially display
any content or apps on its main screen. To set things up, you must
install an app that supports TV, then log into that app, then return to
TV, where you must approve of connecting the app you just installed.
The connection step is supposed to be a privacy measure—Apple
Apple errs on
wants your explicit permission to study your viewing habits—but
the side of
having to repeat this step for every app seems like overkill.
extreme
Once you’ve approved some apps, the TV menu will populate with caution with
recommendations. You can browse through shows by genre, see permission to
what’s popular, and add your favorites to a watchlist, called “Up Next,” access your
that helps you pick up where you left off. viewing habits.


 NEWS

You’ll still need

the old home
screen to
access many
streaming
apps.

It’s a pretty slick system, but cord cutters will quickly notice the
problem: Of the 37 streaming apps that support TV, 26 of them are
“TV Everywhere” apps that require a pay-TV login to watch all of
their content.
As I’ve written before, TV Everywhere apps aren’t just for cable
subscribers (go.pcworld.com/freetvapps). Many of them—including
ABC, NBC, Watch Food Network, Watch HGTV, Discovery Go, and
Animal Planet Go—offer plenty of TV episodes without a login. But
that notion seems lost on Apple, which will not connect any of these
apps to TV unless you enter some pay-TV credentials.
If you’re a PlayStation Vue subscriber, you might still get some utility
out of this system, because many TV Everywhere apps support
authentication with a Vue account. Even so, not all TV Everywhere
apps work with TV yet (HBO Go, Showtime Anytime, and Disney
Channel are a few examples), and Vue doesn’t support Apple TV’s new
single sign-in (go.pcworld.com/atvsso) feature, so you must re-enter
your credentials for every app you install.


Where’s the love for cord cutters?
As for standalone subscription services, TV currently works with nine of
them: HBO Now, Hulu, Starz, Showtime, CBS All Access, Tribeca Shortlist,
Mubi, Crunchyroll, and CuriosityStream. Netflix is a major omission from
TV app right now, and Amazon doesn’t support Apple TV at all.
Free streaming services are another weak point, with TV only
supporting CW and CW Seed at launch. It doesn’t pull in content from You can add
Crackle, PBS, PBS Kids, Tubi TV, or Shout! Factory TV. Over-the-air DVR shows from
users are also out of luck, as TV won’t pull in show recordings from supported
Tablo or anything in your Plex library. sources (such
as HBO Go) to
Streaming-bundle subscribers won’t get much use from TV either.
the TV app’s
The app doesn’t include any content—either on-demand or live—
“Up Next” list,
from Sling TV, DirecTV Now, or PlayStation Vue. (Again, Vue subscribers but they’ll only
can access dozens of individual TV Everywhere apps, but support from take you as far
Sling TV and DirecTV Now is much more limited.) as Apple’s info
I did discover one workaround that makes TV a bit more useful: If you page.
 NEWS

search for a show through Siri, you can add it to the “Up Next”
watchlist even if that show isn’t available directly through TV. When
you select that show from the watchlist, you’ll return to Apple’s info
page, where you can jump into any source that surfaces content
through Siri search—including Netflix, HBO Go, and PBS.
But even this trick has downsides. Unless the content source
supports TV, you can’t automatically pick up where you left off, and
just getting to the next episodes requires clicking through a couple
extra menu prompts.

The future of “TV”

Although Apple’s TV app isn’t that helpful to cord cutters today, it
does have some potential. Perhaps in the future, Apple could cut out
the cable-TV middleman and bundle TV Everywhere access on its own,
turning the TV app into the primary destination for traditional cable
channels. Apple could also bundle standalone streaming services such
as Netflix—on the condition that they supported the TV app in full.
The TV app lays a foundation for bigger plans, but until Apple starts
making moves—or puts some public pressure on the streaming
services that don’t want to participate—cord cutters are better off
avoiding the new app and sticking to the standard the Apple TV
home screen.
Sign up for Jared’s Cord Cutter Weekly newsletter (go.pcworld.com/
cordcutweekly) to get this and other cord-cutting news, insights, and deals
delivered to your inbox.


Welcome to Greenbot,
a website for
Android enthusiasts.

We’ve got the ’droid info you’re looking for.

Helpful tips, critical reviews, and expert
analysis for passionate Android users
of every experience level.

www.greenbot.com
Make smart purchases, CONSUMER
stay safe online.
WATCH

Yahoo’s billion account

breach: 5 things you should
do to stay safe
The massive data breach can be an opportunity to do some
cleanup and implement security recommendations
BY LUCIAN CONSTANTIN


I NTERNET GIANT YAHOO announced a massive data breach
recently that affected over one billion accounts, making it by
far the largest data breach in history. This follows
the disclosure in September of a different breach
that affected more than 500 million of the company’s
customers.
What stands out with this new security compromise is
If you’re a
Yahoo user you
should consider
that it occurred over three years ago, in August 2013,
your password
and that hackers walked away with password hashes compromised
that can be easily cracked. If you’re a Yahoo user you and should take
should consider your password compromised and should all the necessary
take all the necessary steps to secure your account. You
should follow all of Yahoo’s recommendations (go.
steps to secure
pcworld.com/yahooacctsecurityfaq), but here are a few your account.
more that you should have in mind:

1. Don’t save emails you don’t need

Because space is no longer a problem with most email services, users
tend to never delete emails. While that’s extremely convenient, it’s
not a very good idea, because it allows hackers to easily discover what
other online accounts are tied to that address by searching for sign-up
or notification emails from various online service providers.
Aside from exposing the link between your email address and
accounts on other websites, sign-up and notification emails can also
expose specific account names that you’ve chosen and are different
from the email address.
You might want to consider cleaning your mailbox of welcome
emails, password reset notifications, and other such communications.
Sure, there might be other ways for hackers to find out if you have an
account on a certain website, or even a number of websites, but why
make it easier for them to compile a full list?


 CONSUMER
WATCH

2. Check your email forwarding

and reply-to settings
Email forwarding is one of those “set it and forget it” features. The
option is buried somewhere in the email account settings and if it’s
turned on there’s little to no indication that it’s active.
Hackers know this. They only need to gain access to your email
account once, set up a rule to receive copies of all your emails and
never log back in again. This also prevents the service from sending
you notifications about repeated suspicious log-ins from
unrecognized devices or IP addresses.
Another technique that attackers might use to get a copy of your
emails is to change the reply-to address in your email settings,
although this is noisier and can be spotted more easily than a
forwarding rule.
The reply-to field is included in every email message that you send
and allows the recipient’s email client to automatically populate the
To field with an address you chose when they hit reply. If a hacker
changes the reply-to value with an address that they control, they will
receive all email replies intended for you and these typically include
the original emails that you sent.
In order to ensure that you also get those replies, the attacker can
set up a forwarding rule in their own email account and automatically
forward those replies to your address.

3. Two-factor
Turn on two-factor
authentication everywhere authentication—
Turn on two-factor authentication—this this is sometimes
is sometimes called two-step called two-step
verification—for any account that
supports it, including Yahoo (go.pcworld.
verification—for
com/yahoo2step). This will prompt the
any account that
online service to ask for a one-time-use supports it,
code sent via text message, phone call, including Yahoo.

email or generated by a smartphone app when you try to access the
account from a new device. This code is required in addition to your
regular password, but Yahoo also has a feature called Account Key (go.
pcworld.com/yahooacctkey) that does away with regular passwords
completely and instead requires sign-in approval via phone notifications.
Two-factor authentication is an important security feature that
could keep your account secure even if hackers steal your password.

4. Never reuse passwords There’s really no excuse for

There are many secure password
management solutions (go.pcworld. not having unique, complex
com/4passwmanagers) available today passwords for every single
that work across different platforms. account that you own.
There’s really no excuse for not having
unique, complex passwords for every single account that you own. If
you do want memorable passwords for a few critical accounts, use
passphrases instead: sentences made up of words, numbers and even
punctuation marks.
According to Yahoo, this breach happened in August 2013, at a time
when the company hadn’t yet switched to the more secure bcrypt
password hashing algorithm. As a result, most passwords that were
stolen are in the form of MD5 hashes, which are highly vulnerable to
cracking.
If you made the mistake of using your Yahoo password elsewhere
and haven’t changed it yet, you should do so immediately and review
the security settings of those accounts too. It’s very likely that hackers
have already cracked your password and had three years to abuse it.

5. Phishing follows breaches

Large data breaches are typically followed by email phishing attempts,
as cybercriminals try to take advantage of the public interest in such
incidents. These emails can masquerade as security notifications, can
contain instructions to download malicious programs that are passed
off as security tools, or can direct users to websites that ask for


 CONSUMER
WATCH

additional information under the guise of

“verifying” accounts.
Don’t provide real
Be on the lookout for such emails and make sure answers to security
that any instructions you decide to follow in questions, if you
response to a security incident came from the can avoid it.
affected service provider or a trusted source.
Official Yahoo emails are easily recognizable in the Yahoo Mail
interface because they are marked with a purple Y icon.
In the future, be selective in what personal information you choose
to share and which websites you choose to share it with, even when
those websites are legitimate. There’s no guarantee that they won’t
be hacked in the future and you simply don’t know how securely they
store your details.
In Yahoo’s case, the compromised account information includes
names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth and, in
some cases, unencrypted security questions and answers. These
details can be used to impersonate you or to authenticate you on
other websites.
Don’t provide real answers to security questions, if you can avoid it.
Make something up that you can remember and use that as an
answer. In fact, Yahoo doesn’t even recommend using security
questions anymore, so you can go into your account’s security settings
and delete them.


How to replace 5 major
Yahoo services and delete
your Yahoo account
BY IAN PAUL

OH, YAHOO. It was bad enough that the company already announced a
breach exposing 500 million user accounts two years after it happened.
Then late one recent night Yahoo revealed that it had uncovered another
unrelated hack exposing the account details of one billion users. It’s not
clear how much of that is overlap, but at this point does it really matter?
I don’t know about you, but I’m done. I wasn’t much of a Yahoo user
to begin with but the uses I do have for the company are over.
I know that’s easy for me to say. I have a single account that I only
use to play fantasy football. But what about those of you who are
more fully invested in Yahoo? Here’s a guide to replacing Yahoo’s


 CONSUMER
WATCH

major services with alternative options, then deleting your Yahoo MSN
account.

Yahoo the Portal

Yahoo’s an old-school Internet portal from the days when everyone set
a default homepage in their browser. If the most important thing from
a new service is that you have a jumping off point from which to access
news, weather, stock information, and email then there are two other
big-name options.
Yahoo’s closest clone is Microsoft’s MSN.com. It’s packed with news,
stocks, and weather. At the top you have easy access to everything
available in Microsoft’s world, including Outlook.com, Skype, Office
Online, OneDrive, as well as Facebook and Twitter.
Anyone looking for a more Spartan look to their homepage should


check out AOL—the original Internet portal. Here you’ll get almost
everything you get with MSN and Yahoo, just with a more stripped
down aesthetic.

Mail
The options for switching away from Yahoo are limitless. The more
recognizable names include Gmail, Outlook.com, AOL Mail, GMX, and
Proton Mail. Really it all comes down to which interface you prefer and
whether you’re more tied to a specific online ecosystem like Google’s
or Microsoft’s.
Check out our earlier tutorials on how to make the switch (go.
pcworld.com/switchemail) to a new email account (go.pcworld.com/
newemailacct) if you want to make the transition as seamless as possible.

Weather
You’ll find tons of places with weather updates. They’re built into the
aforementioned portal sites, but there’s also weather.com, Weather

Windows 10
weather.


 CONSUMER
WATCH

Underground (wunderground.com), and Forecast.io.

If you’d rather use an app there are a number of them in the Windows
Store for Windows 10 users, including AccuWeather, The Weather Channel,
and Microsoft’s own built-in Weather app. Anyone already using Outlook
2016 can have weather appear at the top of their calendar by going to File
> Options > Calendar > Weather > Show Weather on the calendar.

Stocks and finance

Windows 10 users also have a built-in Money app for tracking stocks
and getting financial news. If web-based stock updates are more your
thing, consider MSN Money (msn.com/money), Google Finance
(google.com/finance), and Seeking Alpha (seekingalpha.com), to name
just a few.

Fantasy football
For those of you into fantasy sports, there are many Yahoo Sports ESPN fantasy
rivals to choose from. ESPN (espn.com/fantasy) is the obvious choice football.


since it’s already a large fantasy site and covers pretty much every Delete your
sport, not just football. The NFL (nfl.com/fantasyfootball) has its own Yahoo account.
fantasy football offering, and CBS Sports (cbssports.com/fantasy) is
also a good fantasy destination.

Delete your account

Now that you know how to replace Yahoo, here’s how you delete your
Yahoo account.
First, go to Yahoo’s specialized account cancellation page, which is
not accessible through your account settings. Once you’re there,
confirm the name of the account you’re deleting, read the fine print
warning, enter your password, and then fill out the captcha. Once
that’s done, click Terminate This Account.
After that, Yahoo will confirm that your account termination was
successful. You’ll now be locked out of your account, but Yahoo says it
will take about 90 days to purge your account data from the system.


 CONSUMER
WATCH

Hacker shows how easy

it is to take over a city’s
public Wi-Fi network
BY LUCIAN CONSTANTIN

IN A PERFECT example of how public wireless networks can be

dangerous for privacy and security, an Israeli hacker showed that he
could have taken over the free Wi-Fi network of an entire city.
On his way home from work one day, Amihai Neiderman, the head of
research at Israeli cybersecurity firm Equus Technologies, spotted a
wireless hotspot that he hadn’t seen before. What made it unusual
was that it was in an area with no buildings.
It turned out that the hotspot he saw, advertised as “FREE_TLV,” was
part of the citywide free Wi-Fi network set up by the local administration
of Tel Aviv, Israel. This made Neiderman wonder: How secure is it?
For the next few weeks, finding a way to compromise this network
became a side project to do in his free time. First he connected to the
network through one of the access points spread around the city and


checked what his new IP (Internet Protocol) address was. This is usually
the public address assigned to the router through which all Wi-Fi
clients access the Internet.
He then disconnected and scanned that IP address from the
Internet for open ports. He found that the device was serving a web-
based login interface over port 443 (HTTPS).
This interface displayed the manufacturer’s name—Peplink—but not
other information about the device type or model. An analysis of the web
interface didn’t reveal any basic vulnerabilities either, such as SQL injection,
default or weak log-in credentials, or authentication bypass flaws.
He realized that a more thorough analysis of the device’s actual
firmware was required. Identifying the device and finding the exact
firmware to download from the manufacturer’s website was not easy,
because Peplink creates and sells
many types of networking devices for The flaw could be exploited
various industries. However, he
eventually pinned it down to firmware
by sending a very long
version 5 for Peplink’s Balance 380 session cookie to the script
high-end load balancing router. and successful exploitation
The firmware used basic XOR-based resulted in arbitrary code
encryption to make it harder for third-
parties to reverse-engineer the
execution and full control
firmware’s file system, but this was over the device.
relatively easy to bypass. Once
everything was unpacked and loaded into an emulator, Neiderman
was able to access the CGI (Common Gateway Interface) scripts that
made up the router’s web interface.
It didn’t take long until the researcher found a buffer overflow
vulnerability in the CGI script that handled the log-out process. The
flaw could be exploited by sending a very long session cookie to the
script and successful exploitation resulted in arbitrary code execution
and full control over the device.
Neiderman presented his findings and reverse-engineering efforts
at the DefCamp security conference in Bucharest, Romania. He


 CONSUMER
WATCH

declined to say whether he While finding vulnerabilities in

actually tested his exploit on
the live Peplink Balance routers
routers is not uncommon, this
used to operate Tel Aviv’s free case stands out because it
Wi-Fi network, because that shows that skilled hackers could
could land him in legal trouble. potentially attack thousands or
However, when he reported
the flaw to Peplink the
tens of thousands of users by
company confirmed and compromising large public
patched it in a subsequent Wi-Fi networks like those run
firmware update, so the
firmware on FREE_TLV’s routers
by municipalities.
was certainly vulnerable when Neiderman found the flaw.
While finding vulnerabilities in routers is not uncommon, this case
stands out because it shows that skilled hackers could potentially
attack thousands or tens of thousands of users by compromising large
public Wi-Fi networks like those run by municipalities.
By controlling a router, attackers can snoop on all unencrypted user
traffic that passes through it and capture sensitive information. They
can also launch active attacks, like redirecting users to rogue web
servers when they’re trying to access legitimate websites or injecting
malicious code into non-HTTPS web pages.
Large networks are typically standardized and use the same type of
equipment throughout to allow for easier management. A
vulnerability that allows a compromise of one of the network’s access
points is likely to allow the compromise of all of them.
Attacks like these are why users are strongly encouraged to use a VPN
(Virtual Private Network) service (go.pcworld.com/5thingsvpn) when
they’re accessing the Internet over public or untrusted Wi-Fi networks.
Neiderman said that he was impressed with how Peplink responded
to his report and how the company handled the vulnerability. He
stressed that this attack was also possible because of the insecure way
in which the network’s routers had been deployed. Their administra-
tion interfaces shouldn’t have been exposed to the Internet.


Google brands malicious
websites with ‘repeat
offender’ warnings
BY IAN PAUL

GOOGLE’S ADDING A new weapon to its Safe Browsing arsenal (go.

pcworld.com/safebrowse) to fight back against dodgy websites. Sites
now can be labeled as “repeat offenders ” (go.pcworld.com/ggl
protect) if they repeatedly switch between operating a clean site and
one filled with malware or unwanted software.
Why would a website do that? Simple. Unscrupulous sites can make
money with deceptive practices such as forcing unsuspecting
downloads on users. Eventually Google flags these sites as unsafe,
which reduces site traffic since users see giant red warning signs in
their browsers with no obvious way to continue. To get around that
problem, sites clean up their act, apply to Google to get the site


 CONSUMER
WATCH

warning lifted, and then—once the warning is gone—the malware or

unwanted software returns.
Google didn’t say how often sites use this strategy, but it must be
often enough that the search giant felt
compelled to take action. From now on, if a Google’s harsh stand
site gets caught reintroducing unsafe
elements Google will flag it as a repeat
on harmful sites will
offender. Once that happens, the sites will be undoubtedly protect
flagged with the big red warning screen once many people from
again. On top of that, the site owners will not being unwitting victims
be able to apply for a repeal of the harmful
site warning for 30 days. During that time,
to malicious software.
the large red warning screen will remain.
It’s a response that will hopefully deter some sites from continuing
their shady behavior. Google also says the new measures won’t affect
sites that have been hacked. The new measures are only for “sites that
purposefully post harmful content.”
The story behind the story: Google’s harsh stand on harmful sites
will undoubtedly protect many people from being unwitting victims
to malicious software. But I wonder if it’s an approach that is truly fair.
It’s one thing to enforce a thirty-day waiting period for sites that
deserve it, but what if a second offence is explicable? Perhaps it’s too
little too late for those sites, but a 30-day sentence to purgatory
without any chance of appeal seems almost guaranteed to ensnare
sites that don’t deserve it.


 The Hunger Is campaign is a collaboration between The
Safeway Foundation and the Entertainment Industry Foundation
to raise awareness and improve the health of hungry children.
The Safeway Foundation and the Entertainment Industry Foundation are 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations. Photo by: Nigel Parry
REVIEWS
& RATINGS
59 Google Wifi: Mesh 108 LG V20: The Android
networking made easy phone for hardcore
enthusiasts
67 Dell XPS 13 Kaby Lake:
Yes, this is the best one 123 Brix Gaming UHD
so far (GB-BNi7HG4-950) : A
lot of performance in a
77 HP Spectre x360: little PC
Faster, smaller, and
better than before 137 Tyranny: Obsidian’s
RPG ponders the
90 Acer Swift 7: The nature of evil
world’s thinnest laptop
is starving for power 145 Daydream View: Sparse
content is all that
101 Amazon Echo Dot (2nd stands between Google
generation) : This is the and VR greatness
Echo most people
should buy


 News, tips, and reviews about smart homes,
home security, and home entertainment.

TechHive helps you find your

tech sweet spot.
We steer you to smart-home tech products you’ll love
and show you how to get the most out of them.

www.techhive.com | Follow us
TESTED IN PCWORLD LABS
In this section, hardware & software
REVIEWS
go through rigorous testing. & RATINGS

Google Wifi:
Mesh networking
made easy
BY MICHAEL BROWN


G
oogle delivers much more router than you’d expect for
$129, but just one Google Wifi won’t be enough for
Each Google
most people. Unless you live in a studio apartment, you’ll
Wifi node has
want to avail yourself of two or three of these devices so two gigabit
you can deploy a mesh network. The master router and a single node ethernet ports.
probably would be adequate for the 2800-square-foot home we When config-
tested in, but adding a third node delivered a significant boost to the ured as a rout-
farthest corners of the house. Google encourages this approach by er, one port is
offering a substantial per-unit discount when you order a three-pack used to con-
nect to your
for $299.
broadband
The Google Wifi is a dual-band router, of course, operating on both the
gateway and
2.4GHz and 5GHz frequency bands. Google describes it as an “AC1200 the other is
2x2 Wave 2” device, which means it supports two spatial streams available for
simultaneously, and that it delivers maximum theoretical throughput of connecting to a
300Mbps on the 2.4GHz band and 867Mbps on the 5GHz band. switch.


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

Google Wifi
TCP throughput with one, two, and then three nodes. Client: HP Envy x360 with 2x2 Intel
Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265 Linksys EA9500 router as baseline

500

450
447.0
443.7

400
401.3

375.7

350
355.3

300

250

200

150
129.0

100
114.7

39.0
99.3

92.8
88.5
13.3

11.1
50

67.3

64.1
5.1

0
Bedroom (client 9 feet Great Room (client 33 Home Theater (client Sun Room (client 65
from router) feet from router) 35 feet from router) feet from router)

Linksys Google Wifi Google Wifi Google Wifi

EA9500 (one) (two) (three)

This chart shows how the Google Wifi performs when operating with one, two, and three mesh
nodes, respectively.

Unfortunately, the Google Wifi does not currently support one

important 802.11ac Wave 2 feature: MU-MIMO (you can read about
multi-user MIMO in this story go.pcworld.com/mumimo). Google tells
me a firmware update will enable MU-MIMO down the road, but it
doesn’t work now. That won’t be a big deal for most people, because
there are so few MU-MIMO client devices on the market, and the ones
that are available are limited to 1x1 spatial streams.
In any event, your wireless devices will see just one SSID, and the
router will automatically choose which Wi-Fi channels it will occupy

and which network your wireless clients should join. As with Google’s
FBSMJFS
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
 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

Mesh Wi-Fi router comparison

Three paired computers performing TCP throughput tests while a Roku Ultra
streams 4K UHD video from the Internet. Client computers located in the Great
Room, Linksys EA9500 router as baseline.
250

230.9
200

150

100

104.3

91.3
82.6
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Linksys Eero WiFi Google Wifi Luma Surround Securifi Almond

EA9500 System (three) (three) WiFi (three) 3 (three)

You’ll need an Android or iOS device with a camera to install a Google In this stress
Wifi as either a router or a node. The app scans a QR code printed on test, we per-
the bottom of the router to identify it. The next step is to assign a formed TCP
throughput
location-based name for the router (Office, Kitchen, Den, and so on),
tests between
so you can identify it later. The final steps in the process are to give
three paired
your new Wi-Fi network a name and create a password for it. computers
If your ISP gave you a broadband gateway/router, as is common while simulta-
these days, the app will helpfully inform you that the new router is neously
now behind another router, which might adversely impact its streaming 4K
performance. Google’s suggestion to remove the other router isn’t video from the
going to work in most scenarios. And Google’s other suggestion, to Internet.

put the Google Wifi into bridge mode, comes with a “not


recommended” footnote. Personally, I get around the double-NAT
situation by configuring my ISP’s gateway to pass the public IP address
through to my main router, so that it can handle network address
translation.

Mesh Wi-Fi router comparison

TCP throughput, with each mesh router using three nodes.
Client: Late 2013 MacBook Pro with 3x3 Broadcom BCM4360.
Apple Airport Time Capsule and Linksys EA9500 routers as baselines.

900

800
822.4
802.6

700

600

500
471.7
446.8

400
380.9

378.3

300
315.6
293.6

119.3

200
103.8

88.6
71.9
169.1
159.0

44.5

40.5
135.8

31.4

34.3
125.2

100
17.5
19.1
19.5

0.0

0
Windows PC (1x1 Windows PC (1x1 Windows PC (1x1 Windows PC (1x1
Linksys WUSB6100M) Linksys WUSB6100M) Linksys WUSB6100M) Linksys WUSB6100M)

Linksys Eero WiFi Google Wifi

EA9500 System (three) (three)
Luma Surround Securifi Almond Securifi Almond
WiFi (three) 3 (three) 3 (three)

The Google Wifi was able to provide more than 100Mbps of throughput to a room that was 65 feet
away from the router, a distance an Apple AirPort Time Capsule couldn’t reach at all.


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

The installation process takes just a few minutes and you don’t really
need to know anything about how networks operate to get it done
quickly. The router will even automatically download and install the
latest available firmware, so that you’re protected from whatever
exploits might be out there. Once your router is set up, you can
perform an Internet speed test to make sure you’re getting the
upload and download speeds you’re paying
your ISP for. You can also test your local Google’s focus is clearly
network itself, but where the first test on everyday folk, not
yields actual numbers, the second one just
characterizes your network speed as
router enthusiasts, but it
“good” or what have you. Expanding the did leave some doors
size of your mesh network with additional open for tweaking.
nodes is just as easy.
Google’s focus is clearly on everyday folk, not router enthusiasts, but
it did leave some doors open for tweaking. You can create rules for
port forwarding, make DHCP reservations, and choose which DNS
servers are to be used, for example. And there are a number of
features that both classes of users will appreciate, including the ability
to assign specific network clients higher priority than others, so that
you can ensure your Roku box gets all the resources it needs while
streaming 4K UHD video. Creating a guest network is as easy as
pushing a button, and you can display your Wi-Fi network’s password
on your phone or even text it to friends right from the app. You can
manage your Google Wifi network from anywhere you have Internet
access, and you can assign other users to be managers as well.

Performance
A single Google Wifi was nearly as fast as the more conventional
Linksys EA9500 we compared it to—at least when the client was in the
same room as the router. That Linksys router costs about as much as
three Google Wifi’s. Throughput dropped considerably when the
client was moved further away, but adding nodes consistently yielded
higher performance at the more distant locations. The Linksys could


not deliver acceptable performance in the
home theater and the sun room, for
example, but the network of three Google
Wifi’s made it possible to wirelessly stream
HD video into those rooms. If you’re looking
to get rid of dead spots in your home, this
should do the trick.

Who’s it for?
The Google Wifi is for people who don’t
want to fiddle with a router. It’s super-easy
to install and it delivers very good
performance across the board. You might
have heard that the Google Wifi can control
Philips Hue smart bulbs, too—it can—but if
you’re looking for a router that can pull
double-duty as a smart-home controller, you
should take a long look at Securifi’s Almond
3 (securifi.com/almond3) before you buy
anything else. It is much more sophisticated
in that respect than what Google is offering
here.
The Google Wifi will warn you if you fall into a
double-NAT situation.


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

Dell XPS 13 Kaby Lake: Yes,

this is the best one so far
BY GORDON UNG

WE CAN ALL agree that Dell’s latest XPS 13 with Kaby Lake (go.
pcworld.com/dellxps13kaby) is an incremental update. But when your
ultrabook is the one that’s being copied by everyone, that’s not such a
bad thing, is it?
Externally, you’d be hard-pressed to tell the difference between the
latest XPS 13 and its direct predecessor. You still get that beautiful
InfinityEdge, nigh-zero bezel that lets Dell put the guts of a 13-inch
laptop into the body of an 11-incher. The outside is still brushed


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
 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

3.1 (10Gbps) Type A ports. There’s also a cowardly (go.pcworld.com/

nojacks) headphone jack and SD card reader too.
Like the previous version, charging is done via the legacy Dell barrel
charger or by using a USB-C Dell charger. Our unit came with the
legacy barrel charger, but I’ve tested the XPS 13 with USB-C chargers The trackpad
from Dell, HP, Google, and Innergie with no issues. It’ll also work with on the latest
Dell’s own USB-C external battery pack brick. XPS 13 has less
What this really comes down to is Intel’s Kaby Lake so let’s get on to friction than
it. The review model here was equipped with an Intel Core i5-7200U, more rubbery-
8GB of LPDDR3/1866 in dual-channel mode, and a 256GB M.2 NVMe feeling prede-
cessors. I think
PCIe drive. The screen is a 1920x1080 IPS non-touch panel with a light
the keyboard is
anti-reflective coating. Dell offers touch and 4K display options, but
still a tad small,
they cost more money and eat the battery, too. though.


Cinebench R15 Performance The newest XPS
13 (top) has the
Our first test is Cinebench R15, a 3D rendering benchmark using the
same ports as the
same engine that Maxon uses in its Cine4D application. For
previous iteration
comparison, we have a Broadwell Core i5, a Skylake Core i5, and finally, I (middle) and lets
threw in the Gold XPS 13 with Intel’s higher-performance Skylake Core you charge via
i7 and Iris graphics aboard. USB-C. The oldest
The Kaby Lake is based on the same 14nm process as the Broadwell XPS 13 (bottom)
and Skylake—Intel’s backup plan when it couldn’t move to a smaller has a mini-
process as planned. Intel took its experience making the Broadwell DisplayPort.

and Skylake and squeezed higher clock speeds out of the chip while
using nearly the same amount of power.
As Cinebench R15 is a CPU benchmark, all the performance gains
you’re seeing come from the higher megahertz of the Kaby Lake—
about 10 percent more clock speed and performance over the
Skylake. Here’s a bonus: The Core i7 Skylake, with its fancy eDRAM
cache, can’t pull away from the Kaby Lake chip either.

HandBrake performance
Cinebench R15 takes just a few minutes to run. To see how laptops
fare under a longer load, we use the free and popular encoder
HandBrake to convert a 30GB high-resolution MKV video file using the
Android Tablet preset. The entire process can take up to two hours on
a dual-core Core i5 or Core i7 CPU.
On a desktop or larger laptop, cooling generally is not an issue. On
tiny little laptops, this test can function as a performance test or an


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

indicator of how well the laptop handles heat. Some laptop makers
will opt to reduce performance to keep the laptop cooler and the fan
noise down. Dell, generally, favors performance. That pattern doesn’t
change here, as the Kaby Lake–based XPS 13 comes in well ahead of
its siblings and again bests even the pricier Core i7/Iris-based XPS 13.

Cinebench R15 Multi-Threaded Performance

Dell XPS Broadwell (Core
i5-5200U/HD 5500) 259

Dell XPS 13 Skylake (Core

i5-6200U / HD 520) 286

Dell XPS 13 Kaby Lake (Core

i5-7200U / HD 620) 320

Dell XPS 13 Skylake w/ eDRAM

(Core i7-6560U / Iris 540) 307

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

The 7th-gen Kaby Lake in the latest XPS 13 comes out on top in the Cinebench R15 CPU test.

HandBrake 0.9.9 1080p encode (sec)

Dell XPS Broadwell (Core
i5-5200U/HD 5500) 7,952

Dell XPS 13 Skylake (Core

i5-6200U / HD 520) 6,827

Dell XPS 13 Kaby Lake (Core

i5-7200U / HD 620) 6,231

Dell XPS 13 Skylake w/ eDRAM

(Core i7-6560U / Iris 540) 6,402

0 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000 5,000 6,000 7,000 8,000

SHORTER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

The Kaby Lake outpaces even the Core i7–based Skylake chip with its fancy-pants Iris
graphics and eDRAM.

 3DMark Cloud Gate
Dell XPS Broadwell (Core
i5-5200U / HD 5500) 5,024

Dell XPS 13 Skylake (Core

i5-6200U / HD 520) 5,811

Dell XPS 13 Kaby Lake (Core

i5-7200U / HD 620) 6,250

Dell XPS 13 Skylake w/ eDRAM

(Core i7-6560U / Iris 540) 6,397

0 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000 5,000 6,000 7,000

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

The Iris graphics and eDRAM don’t give the Core i7 much of an advantage in Cloud Gate.

3DMark Cloud Gate Graphics

Dell XPS Broadwell (Core
i5-5200U / HD 5500) 6,351

Dell XPS 13 Skylake (Core

i5-6200U / HD 520) 7,752

Dell XPS 13 Kaby Lake (Core

i5-7200U / HD 620) 8,295

Dell XPS 13 Skylake w/ eDRAM

(Core i7-6560U / Iris 540) 9,251

0 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000 5,000 6,000 7,000 8,000 9,000 10,000

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

Cloud Gate favors the XPS 13 with 6th-gen Core i7 when only graphics is factored in.

3DMark Cloud Gate performance

For graphics performance, I tested all four units using Futuremark’s
synthetic gaming test, 3DMark Cloud Gate. It’s a test made for lower-
ambition laptops that lack discrete graphics—all models tested here
rely on the graphics integrated directly into their Intel CPUs.


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

The Kaby Lake chip comes out well ahead of the 5th-gen Broadwell
and 6th-gen Skylake. I’d say it does pretty well against the Dell XPS 13
with its fancy 6th-gen Core i7 and Iris graphics, too.
To be fair to Iris graphics, the overall Cloud Gate performance score
does factor CPU performance into its final score. When you look at
only the graphics performance, the Iris graphics and the 64MB of
eDRAM used as a buffer give it a respectable 10-percent advantage.

Battery life
I expected to get pretty good run time out of the slightly larger
battery on this laptop, and I did. Our test loops a 4K video file in
Airplane mode with sound enabled (using ear buds). The screen is set
to a fairly bright 250 to 260 nits, which is a good setting for watching
a movie in a typical office or home.
While you might look at the results and decide Kaby Lake gives you

Battery life 4K video playback (minutes)

Dell XPS 13 Kaby Lake (Core
i5-7200U / HD 620 / 59 WHr) 681

Dell XPS 13 Broadwell FHD (Core

i5-5200U / HD 5500 /54 WHr) 644

HP Spectre X360 (Core

i5-5200U / HD 5500U / 55 WHr) 544

Asus Zenbook 3 (Core i7-7500U

/ HD 620 /39 WHr) 529

Dell XPS 13 Skylake QHD -T

(Core i7-6560U /Iris 540 / 56 WHr) 486

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 OLED (Core 464

i7-6600U / HD 520 / 57 WHr)

0 60 120 180 240 300 360 420 480 540 600 660

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

The Kaby Lake XPS 13 has pretty great battery life while playing video.


 The 7th-gen
Kaby Lake CPU
in the latest
Dell XPS 13 can
play 10-bit
color video files
without
breaking a
sweat.

more battery life over Skylake, there are differences between the two
Core i5 XPS 13 units in SSD power consumption. The Lite-On SSD in
the Kaby Lake XPS 13 is far more power-efficient than the one in the
Skylake XPS 13. SSD performance may also play into the battery life of
the 5th-gen Broadwell: That particular generation of XPS 13 used an
M.2 SATA drive rather than the more power-hungry NVMe PCIe drives
of the newer models.
If you’re wondering just how much of a power hit you can take from
a higher-resolution screen with touch, just look at the loser in all this:
the gold XPS 13, which gives you about six hours of video versus the
11 hours of the Kaby Lake XPS 13.

One more thing

Perhaps the most significant improvement with the 7th-gen Kaby
Lake chip is the video engine. Intel basically added hardware support
for 10-bit HEVC video, and a boatload of other encoding and decoding
features. Of course, 10-bit HEVC and other support (go.pcworld.com/
kbylk4k) doesn’t yet matter for most of us, but it’s something to keep
in mind. The practical upshot is you can actually play video encoded
using 10-bit color on the Kaby Lake, while a Skylake or a Broadwell
machine would just spit fur balls. Here’s the proof in pictures: Playing a


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

1080p file encoded with 10-bit color saw the Kaby Lake XPS 13
basically at idle.
Without the hardware support in the GPU, that means the CPU is
doing all the work. Decoding that Tears of Steel video file with 10-bit
color depth isn’t easy, either. It took battery life on the Skylake-based
XPS 13 to a dismal three hours. That higher clock speed means more
power consumption, which means less battery life. The Kaby Lake XPS
13, though, took a minimal hit and could loop the video for 10.5 hours.
Skylake can’t
Should you upgrade? handle video
If you’re already aboard the Dell XPS 13 train, you don’t need to be files encoded
told how great of a laptop it is. The question you’re probably asking is at 10-bit color
whether you should upgrade. I’d say it depends. depth without
cranking up the
If you own a 6th-gen Skylake-based XPS 13, I’d say no. The
CPU and even
performance bump you’re getting is maybe 10 percent or so. Because
then will drop a
that revision of the XPS 13 already has Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C massive
charging and NVMe drive support, upgrading just doesn’t make sense amount of
for anyone who isn’t made of stacks of $100 bills. frames.


 When you step back one more generation to a 5th-gen Broadwell-
based XPS 13, then it starts to get interesting. You get roughly a 20
percent or more performance increase, a much faster NVMe drive and
Thunderbolt 3, plus the ability to do USB-C charging. Coming from
that generation of XPS 13, it’s a very decent upgrade, especially if you
can sell your older unit to a friend or family member.

Conclusion
In the end, you can look at Dell’s latest XPS 13 as a “if nothing’s broken,
don’t fix it” moment. It’s arguably one of the best laptops, if not the
Some may ding
best laptop, that’s available. You get that beautiful InfinityEdge
the XPS 13 for
display, a super-compact body, and oodles of performance.
not changing
Not that Dell should rest on its laurels, because the competition isn’t much, but it’s
going to sit still for much longer. For now, though, it would be hard to clear the latest
beat the XPS 13. one is the best.


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

HP Spectre x360:
Faster, smaller, and
better than before
BY GORDON MAH UNG

COMPUTER MAKERS, MUCH LIKE Hollywood filmmakers, love sequels.

But just as with movies, there’s always a risk with sequels. Will it be a
franchise-killing dud like Ghostbusters II or a modern masterpiece like
The Godfather Part II?
The good news, folks, is that the next-gen HP Spectre x360 13 (go.
pcworld.com/hpspectrex36013) leans toward the latter, and is
arguably even superior to the original.
That’s not to say the original Spectre wasn’t a great convertible


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
 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

This time around, HP nearly eliminates the screen’s side bezel,

cutting the width down to 12 inches. Even better, the weight is
reduced to 2 pounds, 13.2 ounces.
You might think seven ounces isn’t much, but it’s quite noticeable. In
fact, the Spectre x360 13 is so small and light now, it’s practically on a
par with the diminutive Dell XPS 13, which clocks in at 2 pounds, 11.3
ounces. The Spectre x360’s extra couple ounces is likely due to its
touchscreen, something the Dell XPS 13 in question lacks.
The Spectre x360 is thinner than before too, at just about 13.5mm
at its hind end. While we don’t think the pursuit of thinness is worth

The new Spec-

tre x360 gives
up HDMI and
DisplayPort for
the newfan-
gled Thunder-
bolt 3 USB-C
ports.

You can see just

how much HP
chopped off the
original’s size.
Despite the
screen being
the same size,
it’s down almost
7.5 ounces in
weight.


sacrificing all else (see Apple corporate policy), the proportions feel The bezel is
just right on the new HP. almost gone on
the sides, but
Ports the top leaves
room for an
The original Spectre x360 was very generous with ports, offering full-
infrared camera
size HDMI and DisplayPort plus three USB Type A ports. With the move
that works with
to USB-C and Thunderbolt 3, the new Spectre x360 is far stingier. You Windows Hello.
get two Thunderbolt 3 ports that take over for HDMI and DisplayPort
duties. They also double as USB-C ports with 10Gbps transfer rates. On
the opposite side, you get a single USB Type A 5Gbps port. Gone from
the Spectre x360 is the integrated SD card reader—but, hell, Apple
even left that off its “pro” laptops, so why shouldn’t everyone else?

What’s inside
Inside the Spectre x360 you get top-of-the-line parts. Our $1,300
review sample includes Intel’s newest 7th-generation Core i7-7500U.
It’s roughly 10 to 15 percent faster, depending on workload, than its
predecessor and includes Intel HD620 integrated graphics with an
updated video engine, which destroys older chips playing video with
10-bit color depth. It’s a good chip and you can read more about it in
my review of the Kaby Lake laptop chips.


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

The CPU is paired with 16GB of LPDDR3/1866 in dual-channel mode

and a Samsung 512GB PM951 NVME M.2 drive. A spot-check with
Crystal Disk Mark 5.02 put the drive’s performance at 1.7GBps read and
581MBps write for sequential loads. Not bad, but not class-leading.

No pen, but Windows Hello

The screen on our review sample is a 1920x1080 IPS panel with
10-point touch. Its backlighting is fairly even, and I measured its
maximum brightness at about 350 nits. HP says the initial version of
the updated Spectre x360 won’t support pen input. It’s not just a
matter of a pen not being included either—HP decided against
adding a digitizer for any pen support in this model. Future versions of
the laptop with different screens may have pen support, however.
Like the origi-
As a consolation prize, you get an integrated IR camera that supports
nal Spectre
Windows Hello facial recognition. If you haven’t used a laptop with
x360 13 (right),
Windows Hello, you should. It’s a far better experience than biometric the new x360
fingerprint readers. We also like that the web camera, in addition to the (left) has an
Windows Hello camera, is placed at the top of the bezel rather than down excellent key-
in a corner where it could get continually fingered—*cough* XPS 13. board.
Keyboard, trackpad, and speakers
The original keyboard was always excellent and I have no complaints here
either. The wide-aspect-ratio piano-hinge-style trackpad is by Synaptics
and also pretty good. It’s very smooth (which I prefer) and I didn’t have
many problems with palm rejection once I became accustomed to the
wider format. I should note that I couldn’t find anywhere to tune the
palm rejection in the Synaptics driver, but maybe that’s just me.
The speakers in the original Spectre x360 13 were excellent and
continue to be in the update. Up against Dell’s XPS 13, I’d give the
Spectre x360 a slight edge in audio for having a little more presence.
For ultrabooks, both are still quite good, provided you expect small
laptop sound from a small laptop.

USB-C charging too

This review wouldn’t be complete
without touching on USB-C charging.
Laptops, if you don’t know, are slowly
moving away from proprietary
chargers to “universal” USB-C chargers.
While Dell supports both USB-C and
the typical barrel charger, its laptops
continue to ship with the latter. HP The Spectre x360 will warn you if you use a non-HP
finally dumps the barrel charger and charger and then it charges anyway.
ships a small 45-watt USB-C charger.
The problem with HP has been its conservative approach to USB-C
charging, which you can read about here. HP still says it only trusts its
own chargers not to blow up its laptops, but it no longer shuts out
third-party chargers like it did in the past. In my tests, the Spectre
x360 kinda supported both a Dell USB-C charger and an Innergie
USB-C charger. I say kinda because plugging in a non-HP charger pops
up a warning, but the laptop charged anyway.
What would be cool in the future—especially with these smarter
chargers—is to provide information on the charge rate and what
voltage rail it’s pulling from for a particular power brick. Too nerdy? For


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

most users, probably, but as we sort out the mess of “universal” USB-C
charging over the next two years, it would help isolate the problems.

Performance
As much as people say performance doesn’t matter anymore, it does.
If it didn’t, you wouldn’t be paying $1,300 for a laptop, you’d be paying
$300. So let’s find out how the new Spectre x360 does.

PCMark 8 Work Conventional

Dell XPS 15
(Core i7-6700HQ / GTX 960M) 3,394

HP Spectre x360 13 2016

(Core i7-7500U) 3,330

Dell XPS 13
(Core i5-7200U /HD620) 3,161

HP Spectre 13.3
(Core i7-6500U / HD520)
3,056

Dell XPS 13
(Core i5-6200U / HD520)
2,887

Surface Book i7 (Core i7-6600U

/ GeForce GTX 965M)
2,857

Dell XPS 13
(Core i5-6560U / Iris 540)
2,744

Surface Book
(Core i7-6600U /GeForce)
2,744

Surface Pro 4
(Core i5-6300U / HD520)
2,651

Razer Blade Stealth

(Core i7-6500U / HD520)
2,426

Surface 3
(Atom X7-8700 / HD)
1,717

0 500 1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500 3,000

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

In office tasks, there is little variance among most laptops.


 3DMark Sky Driver Overall
Dell XPS 15
(Core i7-6700HQ / GTX 960M) 13,142

Microsoft Surface Book i7

(Core i7-6600U / GTX 965M) 11,314

Microsoft Surface Book

(Core i7-6600U /GeForce) 6,220

Dell XPS 13
(Core i7-6560U / Iris 540)
4,427

HP Spectre X360
(Core i7-7500U /HD620)
4,129

Dell XPS 13
(Core i5-7200U /HD620)
3,808

Toshiba Radius 12
(Core i7-6500U / HD520)
3,801

Dell XPS 13
(Core i5-6200U / HD520)
3,679

Dell XPS 13
(Core i5-5200U / HD5500)
2,791

0 2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000 12,000 14,000

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

No other 13-inch Ultrabook can touch the Surface Book i7. But is it still an Ultrabook?

PCMark 8 Work Conventional performance

First up is PCMark 8 Work Conventional. This synthetic test simulates
how “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” with office document
chores, browsing, and video conferencing. With modern hardware,
even ultra-tiny laptops, there’s not much of a difference among
competitors in these tests, as the neck-and-neck results indicate.
There are still some good signs for the Spectre x360 though. Its Core
i7 Kaby Lake chip hangs right in line with a quad-core Skylake chip in
this office drone test. And yes, that 1,717 score for the Surface 3 and
its Atom X7 is right about where a system starts to feel less responsive.


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

Sky Diver performance

Performance muscle might not matter much for office drone tasks, but
it matters in other areas. To measure it, we run Futuremark’s 3DMark
Sky Diver test, which isolates the GPU. You can see from our chart that
laptops with discrete graphics all rule here, but the Spectre x360
represents well. Among the integrated-graphics laptops, it’s the second
fastest behind the Dell XPS 13 with fancy Iris 540 graphics. Will you be
playing Rise of the Tomb Raider at 1920x1080 and Very High settings?
No. But Minecraft, League of Legends, and other less taxing games at
lower resolutions and lower image-quality settings should be tolerable.

HandBrake performance
While most people with ultraportable laptops don’t encode video
for a living, we like to run this heavy-duty task to see how a laptop
performs under a worst-case-scenario load. To do that, we turn to
the free and popular HandBrake program,
which we use to encode a 30GB MKV file Convertible laptops, like
using the Android Tablet preset. That can
take two hours or more on a typical dual-
hybrid tablet-laptops,
core laptop. For context, I include a quad-
typically give up some
core Dell XPS 15 and an Atom X7–powered performance because
Surface 3 tablet. they can be held like a
A shorter bar shows better performance,
and the quad-core wins hands down. You may
tablet and PC makers
be surprised to see the Dell XPS 13 with its don’t want them to get
7th-gen Kaby Lake chip as the first dual-core too scorching hot.
laptop to cross the finish line, but I’m not.
Dell tends to run the fans faster if the laptop gets hotter, while other
PC makers favor keeping the noise low and slowing performance
accordingly. As this test takes two hours or more to run on a dual-core
laptop, the performance advantage of the Core i7 in shorter burst
workloads usually doesn’t matter as much either.
As for the HP Spectre x360, it’s not bad when you consider that it’s
thinner than the XPS 13 and is a convertible form factor. Convertible


 HandBrake 0.9.9 1080p encode (sec)
Surface
(Atom X7-8700 / HD) 10,906

Dell XPS 13
(Core i5-6200 / HD 520) 6,839

HP Spectre 13.3
(Core i7-6500U /HD520) 6,750

HP Spectre x360
(Core i7-7500U)
6,539

Surface Pro 4
(Core i5-6300U / HD520)
6,428

Dell XPS 13
(Core i7-6560U / Iris 540)
6,402

Surface Book
(Core i7-6600U / GeForce)
6,360

Surface Book i7 (Core i7-6600U

/ GeForce GTX 965M)
6,295

Razer Blade Stealth (

Core i7-6500U / HD 520)
6,255

Dell XPS 13
(Core i5-7200U / HD620)
6,231

Dell XPS 15
(Core i7-6700 / GTX 950M)
3,226

0 2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000 12,000

SHORTER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

A dual-core CPU is pretty much a dual-core CPU on our lengthy HandBrake encode test.

laptops, like hybrid tablet-laptops, typically give up some performance

because they can be held like a tablet and PC makers don’t want them
to get too scorching hot.

Cinebench R15 single-threaded performance

One last performance test worth nothing is Cinebench R15, set to test
just a single CPU thread. It gives you an idea of how well a laptop will do


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

in workloads that don’t tax all of the CPU cores. This is valid because
the vast majority of tasks we do on the PC don’t actually push it that
hard. The winner? The HP Spectre x360 with its 7th-gen Core i7 chip.
That score is slightly better than the larger and heavier Dell XPS 15
as well as Apple’s new MacBook Pro 15. It’s also faster than the
exorbitantly priced Microsoft Surface Book i7. The pair of MacBook
Pro’s were run with macOS Sierra, not Windows 10, in the interest of
full disclosure.

Battery performance
Our last test is perhaps the most important in an ultraportable laptop:
battery life. For that, we loop the open-source 4K-resolution movie Tears
of Steel with the screen brightness set to 250 to 260 nits. That’s a setting
that would be used in a typical office in the daytime. All of the laptops
have wireless turned off and audio is on but we use earbuds to minimize

Cinebench R15 CPU Single-threaded CPU performance

HP Spectre X360 13
(Core i7-7500U / HD620) 146

Microsoft Surface Book i7

(Core i7-6600U / GRX 965M) 142

MacBook Pro 15
(Core i7-6700HQ / Radeon 450) 142

Dell XPS 15
(Core i7-6700HQ / GTX 960M)
137

Dell XPS 13
(Core i7-6560U / Iris 540)
127

MacBook Pro 13
(Core i5-6600U / Iris 540)
125

Dell XPS 13
(Core i5-7200U / HD620)
122

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160

Under loads that don’t stress all of the CPU cores, the Spectre x360 surprisingly leads the pack.

 Battery Life 4K Video Playback (minutes)
Surface Book i7 (Core i7-6600U /
GeForce GTX 965M / HD520 / 81 Whr) 786

Dell XPS 13 Kaby Lake FHD (Core

i5-7200U / HD620 / 59Whr) 681

Dell XPS 13 Broadwell FHD (Core

i5-5200U / HD5500 / 54 Whr) 644

Surface Book (Core i7-6600U /

GeForce / HD520 / 68 Whr) 605

HP Spectre X360 (Core i5-5200U /

HD5500U / 55Whr) 544

MacBook Pro 15 (Core i7-6700HQ /

Radeon 450 / 76 Whr) 536

MacBook Pro 13 (Core i5-6360U /

HD Iris 540 / 54 Whr) 532

Dell XPS 13 Skylake FHD (Core

i5-6200U / HD520 / 57Whr) 529

Asus Zenbook 3 (Core i7-7500U /

HD 620 /39 Whr) 486

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 OLED (Core

i7-6600U / HD 520/ 57 Whr) 464

Dell XPS 13 Skyake QHD-T (Core

i7-6560U / Iris 540 / 56 Whr) 361

Dell XPS 15 (Core i7-6700HW /

GeForce GTX 960M / 56 Whr)
312

MSI GS3VR (Core i7-6700HW /

GeForece GTX 1060 / 64Whr)
238

0 60 120 180 240 300 360 420 480 540 600 660 720 780 840

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

Battery life on the MacBook Pro 13 and MacBook Pro 15 is respectable when you consider
their high-resolution panels, and the quad-core in the MacBook Pro 15. However, the Dell, HP,
and Microsoft Surface Book i7 are the winners.

the sound system’s drain on the battery. For Windows 10, we use
Microsoft’s Movies & TV player and on macOS Sierra we used QuickTime.


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

A lot of different factors come into play for battery life, such as the
efficiency of the display, the resolution of the screen, whether there is
a touchscreen digitizer, and the battery’s size. Driver hardware
optimizations by each vendor can also come into play somewhat.
If we look at the results for just the Spectre x360, it’s pretty damned
good. It’s not as good as the newest Dell XPS 13, but the Spectre x360
has a touchscreen. The most impressive score is the Microsoft Surface
Book i7 with its high-res panel, pen support, and touch. But it also has
a giant battery and weighs quite a bit more too.
Performance and
Conclusion battery life are
The real question we have about HP’s Spectre x360 isn’t
whether it’s the best convertible laptop out there—we’re
excellent and the
wondering if it’s the best ultrabook laptop period. With form factor
its reduced weight and size, it’s a vast improvement on makes it truly
the original Spectre x360. competitive with
Performance and battery life are excellent and the
form factor makes it truly competitive with its arch-
its arch-nemesis,
nemesis, Dell’s XPS 13. Dell’s XPS 13.
If we had to pick two things to complain about, the
first would be the wide-aspect-ratio trackpad. Again, I think I could get
used to it, but that large trackpad increases the chances of phantom
palm taps.
The other niggle is the ports. Yes, USB-C is great and wonderful and
all, but the previous Spectre x360 had six ports that allowed to you
charge with three USB devices plugged in, plus two monitors. With
the updated Spectre x360, once you have a charger plugged in, you
really only have two ports left. If one of those is connected to a
monitor, you have one left.
To be fair to HP, fewer ports are really the future, but that doesn’t
mean we have to be happy with it.
Still, it’s hard to argue with the new Spectre x360. It’s clearly the
convertible to be beat today and possibly the laptop to beat as well.


 Watch the
video at
go.pcworld.
com/acer
swiftrevvid

Acer Swift 7: The

world’s thinnest laptop
is starving for power
BY ALAINA YEE

ACER BOASTS THAT its Swift 7 is the “world’s thinnest notebook PC.”
While technically true, that marketing angle sells only one aspect of the
machine—and it’s not the most important one.
PC vendors love to sell the idea of thin, and for good reason. Thin implies
light, portable, and attractive. But a notebook can end up spreading outward
(making it larger and more difficult to pack) or sacrificing performance in the
quest to be the thinnest. The Acer Swift 7 does both.

 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

So while this $1,100 13-inch notebook (available at Amazon, HP

pcworld.com/swift7amz
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Spectre 13.3 (12.8 x 9 x 0.41 inches) and almost an
inch wider and deeper than the Dell XPS 13 (11.98
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
thinnest point, which was the hinge at the back of the laptop, it’s Unlike the HP
9.9mm. At its thickest point (the center of the chassis), it’s 10.9mm. Spectre 13.3
None of that equals Acer’s given measurement of 0.4 inches (bottom), which
has two
(10.16mm), by the way.
Thunderbolt 3
That said, the Swift 7 is slimmer than the Spectre 13.3, which has a
ports in addition
thinnest point of 10.4mm and a thickest point of 12mm. But that to a USB-C port,
margin is pretty narrow. We’re talking tenths of a millimeter. the Acer Swift 7
As for ports, you don’t get many because this notebook is so thin. You’ll (middle) has just
find all the Swift 7’s inputs on its right side: two USB 3.1 Type C Gen 1 those two
(5Gbps) and a headset jack. One of the Type C ports supports DisplayPort USB-C ports.
over USB-C in addition to data and power, while the other supports just
data and power. In a very nice touch, Acer provides two dongles with the
Swift 7: one USB-C to USB-A, and one USB-C to ethernet.

Display, keyboard, and trackpad

The 13.3-inch display is a non-touch IPS panel with a native resolution
of 1920x1080 and a Gorilla Glass 4 layer. Images look sharp and crisp,
and aside from the general complaints I have about glossy or glass
screens, the Swift 7’s is pleasant to use. Just be aware that you’ll
encounter some glare.
The Chiclet-style keyboard feels responsive and satisfying when
touch-typing, providing adequate key travel and a discrete sensation
when you press down. It does lack crispness in its feedback, but the
sensation is more soft than mushy. That said, for my personal taste, I


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

prefer the Spectre 13.3’s keyboard, which has a similar layout but with
a firmer key press when typing.
I liked the Swift 7’s trackpad a little less. It’s impressively huge (5.5
inches wide, a full inch more than the XPS 13’s trackpad and 1.5 inches
more than the Spectre 13.3’s), and it offers decent palm rejection and
tactile feedback. It can be frustratingly sensitive on default settings,
though, and traditional right-clicking doesn’t always register. You can
adapt to both situations by fiddling with settings and using a double-
finger tap, but it’s still a little annoying.

Specs
Powering the Swift 7 is a brand-new 7th-generation Kaby Lake Intel Core
i5-7Y54 processor that runs at a stock clock speed of 1.2GHz, boostable
to 3.2GHz. Its equivalents in previous generations were part of Intel’s
Core M (Broadwell) and Core m (Skylake) lines, but Intel’s done away with
that naming for these successors to its Skylake m5 and m7 chips. Instead,
the company calls this a Core i5 part, with the stance that the
performance has improved enough to warrant that designation.


 Paired with that processor are 8GB of LPDDR3/1866 RAM and a
256GB Kingston SATA 6Gbps solid-state drive. Running AS SSD’s
storage benchmark showed sequential read speeds of 418.12MBps
and sequential write speeds of 372.05MBps.

Performance
The CPU inside the Swift 7 might be brand-new, but this particular
laptop doesn’t showcase any of Kaby Lake’s modest gains (go.pcworld.
com/kbylkrev). Older machines running its previous generation
equivalent, the Core m5-6Y54, outperformed it.

PCMark 8 Work Conventional

Asus Zenbook 3
(Core i7-7500U) 3,273

Acer Swift 7
(Core i5-7Y54) 2,719

Dell Kaby Lake XPS 13

(Core i5-7200U) 3,161

HP Elite X2
(Core m5-6Y54)
2,722

HP Spectre 13.3
(Core i7-6500U)
3,056

HP Spectre x2
(Core m7-6Y75)
2,795

Lenovo LaVie Z
(Core i7-5500U)
3,044

LG Gram 15
(Core i5-6200U)
2,847

Samsung Notebook 9
(Core i5-6200U)
2,859

Surface Pro 4
(Core i5-6300U)
2,613

0 500 1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500 3,000 3,500

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

Cinebench R15 (All Threads)

Asus Zenbook 3
(Core i7-7500U) 329

Acer Swift 7 (
Core i5-7Y54) 206

Dell Kaby Lake XPS 13

(Core i5-7200U) 320

HP Elite X2
(Core m5-6Y54)
260

HP Spectre 13.3
(Core i7-6500U)
295

HP Spectre x2
(Core m7-6Y75)
195

Lenovo LaVie Z
(Core i7-5500U)
283

Samsung Notebook 9
(Core i5-6200U)
275

Surface Pro 4
(Core i5-6300U)
307

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

For the most part, though, that gap in performance extends to more
intensive tasks. The Swift 7 is still fast enough for basic office work. In
PCMark 8’s Work Conventional benchmark, which simulates tasks like
word processing, web browsing, light spreadsheet editing, and video
conferencing, the Swift 7 scored a 2,719.
If you look at the numbers, you can see that you’re getting the same
level of performance as the HP Elite x2’s m5-6Y54. The Swift 7 also
manages to edge out the higher-wattage Core i5-6300U in the Surface Pro
4 by a hair, which is interesting given the results in our more intensive
benchmarks. (More on those in just a moment.) In real-world terms,
though, these tiny differences in results don’t mean much. Any score above
2,000 in Work Conventional means the machine will handle basic everyday

tasks just fine. You might feel a minor difference in snappiness between
this i5-7Y54 and faster CPUs, but not enough to warrant a complaint.
The difference in performance begins to open up as we move to
testing pure CPU performance with Maxon’s Cinebench R15
benchmark. This test involves rendering a 3D scene, but because it
only takes a few minutes, it’s a good way to see how a laptop will
handle short, CPU-intensive tasks.
The i5-7Y54 begins to fall more dramatically behind the HP Elite x2,
with a performance drop of about 20 percent. The combination of tight
spacing and a fanless processor puts higher constraints on how fast the
Swift 7 can perform as the CPU’s core temperatures begin to rise.
The HP Spectre x2 also seems to suffer from these limitations.

HandBrake Encode 0.9.9 (sec)

Asus Zenbook 3
(Core i7-7500U) 6,633

Acer Swift 7 (
Core i5-7Y54) 9,935

Dell Kaby Lake XPS 13

(Core i5-7200U) 6,231

HP Elite X2
(Core m5-6Y54)
7,839

HP Spectre 13.3
(Core i7-6500U)
6,750

HP Spectre x2
(Core m7-6Y75)
9,898

Lenovo LaVie Z
(Core i7-5500U)
7,748

Samsung Notebook 9
(Core i5-6200U)
11,818

Surface Pro 4
(Core i5-6300U)
6,428

0 2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000 12,000 14,000

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

3DMark Cloud Gate Overall

Asus Zenbook 3
(Core i7-7500U / HD620) 6,795

Acer Swift 7
(Core i5-7Y54/ HD615) 4,409

Dell Kaby Lake XPS 13

(Core i5-7200U/ HD620) 6,250

HP Elite X2
(Core m5-6Y54/ HD515)
5,210

HP Spectre 13.3
(Core i7-6500U/ HD520)
6,112

HP Spectre x2
(Core m7-6Y75/ HD515)
4,507

Lenovo LaVie Z
(Core i7-5500U/ HD5500)
5,393

Samsung Notebook 9
(Core i5-6200U/ HD520)
5,658

Surface Pro 4
(Core i5-6300U/ HD520)
5,868

0 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000 5,000 6,000 7,000

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

Despite being a step up from the Elite x2’s m5, its m7-6Y75 processor
performs even more slowly during this rendering test than the Swift 7.
That same pattern plays out again in our HandBrake benchmark. This
encoding test involves converting a 30GB MKV file into a smaller MP4
using HandBrake’s Android Tablet preset, and it hammers hard on a CPU.
For thin-and-light laptops, HandBrake is a torture test—one that reveals
whether a machine will maintain similar performance under extended
stress as during short bursts of intense activity, or if the vendor has
decided to throttle back clock speed as the notebook heats up.
The Swift 7 throttles back pretty hard. When we fired up Intel’s XTU
software to look at the clock speed during HandBrake, the Core
i5-7Y54 inside the notebook only managed to hit around 2.1GHz


before almost immediately throttling down to about 1.83GHz. It held
steady there for the rest of the test.
In contrast, the Elite x2 didn’t throttle at all during the HandBrake
test, and the results show the difference: The Elite x2 finished its task
about 35 minutes faster. On the other end of the spectrum, you have
Samsung’s Notebook 9, which has a more powerful dual-core
processor but throttles the CPU’s clock speed so hard that it finishes
slower than its Core m siblings.
Gaming performance is also fairly modest. In 3DMark’s Cloud Gate
benchmark, which simulates playing games at 720p, the Swift 7 scored
4,409 overall. The breakdown of its graphics score showed frame rates
of 27.94 fps during the first graphics test and 23.76 fps during its

Battery Life (Minutes)

Asus Zenbook 3
(40 Whr Battery / 1920x1080) 486

Acer Swift 7
(42.7 Whr Battery / 1920x1080) 436

Dell Kaby Lake XPS 13

(60 Whr Battery / 1920x1080) 681

HP Elite X2
(37.6 Whr Battery / 1920x1080)
424

HP Spectre 13.3 (37.6 Whr

Battery / 1920x1080)
439

HP Spectre x2
(41 Whr Battery / 1920x1080)
375

Lenovo LaVie Z (44 Whr Whr

Battery / 2560x1440)
365

Samsung Notebook 9
(30.4 Whr Battery / 1920x1080)
300

Surface Pro 4 (38 Whr Battery /

2736x1824)
386

0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

second graphics test.

The short summary is
The Swift 7 has a premium feel, with a
that you can try to play
sturdy frame, a decent and enormous
very lightweight titles on trackpad, a pleasant keyboard, and a
the Swift 7, but don’t aim black-and-gold finish.
much higher.
As for battery life, the Swift 7 managed about 7 hours and 20 minutes
during our video rundown test, in which we play a 4K video file on repeat
using Windows 10’s native Movies & TV app. (The sound is left on, with
earbuds plugged in.) For transcontinental and shorter international flights,
that’s more than enough time to get work done and binge-watch movies.
Still, given that the Swift 7 has a bigger battery and a less power-
hungry processor than the Spectre 13.3, I would have expected a
slightly longer runtime. Instead, these two ultra-thin machines are neck-
and-neck with each other. It speaks well of HP’s engineering.

Conclusion
Thin might not be a substitute for portability or performance, but it does
turn heads. Acer goes beyond that gimmick, though: The Swift 7 has a
premium feel, with a sturdy frame, a decent and enormous trackpad, a
pleasant keyboard, and a black-and-gold finish. (Of course, tastes vary, so
that inner coat of gold could be viewed as either elegant or gaudy.)
However, the Swift 7’s design means that it best serves people who care
about looks and silence more than performance. Your workload will need to
fall within the usual, everyday range that includes web browsing, YouTube
videos, and light photo editing for the trade-off to seem worthwhile.
Even then, though, I’d be hard-pressed to pick this laptop over the
Spectre 13.3, its most obvious competition, and that’s even with the older
processor in the HP rival. It’s hard to ignore a beefier chip and Thunderbolt
3 when you can get it in a notebook the same size, weight, and price as the
Swift 7. You get more performance and features in exchange for a
tolerable amount of fan noise. Thin would be a lot more impressive (and
the lower performance more understandable) if the Acer had kept the
Swift 7’s weight but matched the XPS 13’s width and depth.


 ON’T HAVE TO BE PERFECT
YOU D TO BE A PERFECT PARENT.

There are thousands of kids in foster care who will take you just the way you are.

888. 200. 4005 AdoptUSKids.org

 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

Amazon Echo Dot:

This is the Echo most
people should buy
BY MICHAEL BROWN

WHEN I REVIEWED the Amazon Echo 13 (go.pcworld.com/

azechodot2) months ago, I predicted that people would want one in
every room. The Echo can control your home’s lighting, play music,
estimate your commute time, operate a timer, answer trivia
questions, read books and news bulletins to you, tell you which movies
are at your local theater, and so much more. You can order a pizza from
Dominoes, a ride from Uber, or virtually anything
from Amazon. You’d want one in every
room so you didn’t need to walk to
the room it was in to use it, or
yell “Alexa!” from across the
house to get its attention. I’m
sure Amazon loved my idea,
but it was never going to
happen on a broad scale at
$180 a pop.
So Amazon got wise and
iterated on the concept,
introducing the battery-
powered Echo Tap and the puck-
sized Echo Dot in March 2016. But
the Dot still cost $90, and the $130 Tap
lacked the voice activation that made the Echo so useful. It was easy
to take the Tap from room to room, but needing to push a button to

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Neither is a terrible inconvenience.


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

The Echo Dot

like the original
Echo with most
of its bottom
sliced off.

Music options
So the Echo Dot can do
anything its more-expensive
siblings can do for much less
money. But there’s one thing
you won’t want it to do: play
music—at least not on its
own low-end speaker. It’s
just fine for playing Alexa’s
voice or even listening to
weather forecasts or news
bulletins, but it doesn’t have
the dynamic range to
reproduce music with any
kind of fidelity. There’s an
easy fix for that: Pair it with
a self-amplified speaker or
an A/V receiver using either
a cable or Bluetooth.
A home full of Echo Dots
is no substitute for a
You can stream music to any Echo from genuine multi-room audio
services such as Spotify, but we recommend system, however, because
connecting an external speaker to an Echo Dot. you can’t play the same


music in sync on multiple Echos of any type. Each one plays music
independently. And while you can connect your Spotify Premium
account to Amazon and play music on an Echo, Spotify will only stream
music to one device at a time. That’s a restriction imposed by Spotify.
With more sophisticated speaker systems—Sonos is a good example—
you can group speakers together to play the same music. You can’t do
that with any of Amazon’s Echos. Certain other applications are
synchronized. You can verbally add appointments to your calendar and
items to your shopping list and to-do lists on any of your Echos, and
they’ll all be combined on one list.
You’ll see the aggregate results in the
Alexa app on your phone.
Adult members of your household
can create their own profiles and
maintain their own calendars and
lists, but each person will need to
have their own Amazon account.
This is one of the reasons that
children can’t have profiles—they
can’t have Amazon accounts. I
imagine there’s a legal thicket of
other reasons for Amazon’s policy to
not allow children to have profiles.
Meanwhile, managing multiple
profiles for adults sounds like it would
be a pain in the neck, because you’d
need to ask Alexa which profile is
active each time you want to manage
your lists, use a connected service like
Spotify, or order something.

Multiple adults can have discrete

shopping and to-do lists, but each person
must have their own Amazon profile.


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

The Echo Dot is

a fraction of
the height of
the original
Echo, so it’s
much less likely
to get tipped
over.

The Echo ecosystem

Amazon has been aggressively building an expansive Echo ecosystem
by encouraging third parties to develop “skills” that enable the Echo
family to work with their products. Amazon doesn’t make thermostats,
for example, but any of the Echos can control Nest, Ecobee, Honeywell,
and other brands of smart thermostats. Amazon doesn’t make smart
lighting products, but any of the Echos can control Philips Hue (go.
pcworld.com/phillipshuerv), Lutron Caseta Wireless (go.pcworld.com/
casetahub), and other brands of smart lighting. I’ve linked the Echo to
my Logitech Harmony Elite universal remote control (go.pcworld.com/
eliteremote) and can control all the gear in my entertainment system.
Install a smart-home hub—either a DIY solution (Samsung
SmartThings, Wink, Iris by Lowe’s, and others) or a professionally
installed one (Vivint, Alarm.com, etc.)—and the number of products
you can control with your voice expands to include pretty much every

category of smart-home product you can think of, from door locks, to
irrigation systems, to garage-door openers, and more.
I built my own smart home about 10 years ago and had the
contractor install Z-Wave lighting controls and smart plugs
throughout, including in the garage. The devices cost more than twice
as much as their dumb counterparts at the time, but it wasn’t a huge
expense in the grand scheme of things and it didn’t cost any more to
have them installed; they were no different
to the electricians. Spending $50 for an
I replaced most of these with Leviton Echo Dot was a lot
products a few years later, after a new and
better generation of Z-Wave chips came to
cheaper than hiring an
market. Today, I have 32 smart dimmers electrician to change
and switches, 11 smart AC receptacles, the wiring in the garage.
three smart ceiling fan controllers, three
smart entry locks, a smart thermostat, and a smart garage door
opener. These are all tied into my Vivint smart-home system, and I can
control each of them—or predefined groups of them—with a voice
command from my kitchen, master bedroom, great room, home
theater, enclosed patio, and yes, even the garage.
Actually, putting an Echo Dot in the garage solved a big problem for
me. The architect I hired goofed when he laid out my home’s electrical
plans: He neglected to put a switch to control the interior garage light
next to the door leading to my front porch. I’ve had to stumble
through the garage in the dark ever since we moved in to reach the
door going into the laundry room, where there is a switch). Now that I
have an Echo Dot in the garage, I can just ask Alexa to turn on the light
(she can close the garage door for me, too, via my Vivint system).
Spending $50 for an Echo Dot was a lot cheaper than hiring an
electrician to change the wiring in the garage.
Wisely, Alexa can’t unlock any of my smart locks or open the garage
door, or disarm my security system. I wouldn’t want a burglar to yell
“Alexa, unlock the front door,” gain entry to my house, and then tell her
to disarm my security system.


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

The digital-assistant horse race

I predict that Google Home will be the better digital assistant for the
smart home—eventually. Google has better speech recognition and a
stronger AI effort. And you can ask contextual follow-up questions
without having to say “Okay Google” again. But Amazon has a
tremendous lead when it comes to linking third-party products to the
Echo series; Google didn’t even have third-party developer tools for its
Google Assistant (go.pcworld.com/gglasstdev) until December.
Viewed another way, Amazon has a less than 18-month lead on
Google, but I can’t imagine that Amazon will simply stand still and wait
for the competition to catch up.
Let’s not forget how inexpensive the Echo Dot is, whether you deploy
one or many. One Echo Dot is plenty useful on its own, but you’ll want
one in several rooms—especially if you have a lot of smart devices that
you want to control. It’s a great product and a solid value.


LG V20:
The Android
phone for
hard-core
enthusiasts
BY JON PHILLIPS

LG HIRED JOSEPH GORDONLEVITT

to market its V20 phablet, but I think a
better pitchman would have been Stefon
from Saturday Night Live: “2016’s hottest
phone is the LG V20 (lg.com/us/mobile-
phones/v20). It’s got everything. A
removable battery, two displays, three
microphones, knock knock codes, and don’t
worry about shooting videos, because with a wide-angle lens and
electronic image stabilization, you can capture an entire breakdance
crew of Shetland ponies wearing hazmat suits.”
OK, I kid the V20. But the phone is packed with a ridiculous amount
of features, the bulk of which are focused on content creation. LG
promises pixel-perfect photos, action videos free of camera shake, and
music recordings with pristine sound. It sounds awesome on paper,
but I’ve been testing the V20 for several weeks, and found the phone
falls short in some key content-creation areas.

 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

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
 The V20 (left)
is just about as
wide as the
Pixel XL, but
stands a bit
taller.

Industrial design, ergonomics,

and battery system
The V20 is slightly longer than the Pixel XL, but I find it easier to hold.
Perhaps LG’s aluminum rear panel has just a bit more “tooth” to it.
Regardless, the V20 cradles nicely in my hand, while the Pixel XL
always feels too slippery. I’m bummed that LG ditched the grippy,
textured polycarbonate backing of the V10, but the new design looks
more up-market, and the plastic chins at the top and bottom of LG’s
packaging don’t detract from a generally premium appearance.
You’ll find thinner bezels compared to the Pixel, but if you think
camera bumps are ugly, you’ll hate the big, oval projection that
surrounds the V20’s considerable camera apparatus (two rear cameras,
dual flash, and a laser autofocus sensor). The bump makes the V20
look more like a piece of “equipment” than a fetish-worthy object d’art
like the Pixel XL or iPhone 7 Plus.
LG has a combination power button/fingerprint sensor on the rear
panel. This rear placement makes it impossible to use the button as an


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

unlocking trigger when the phone is lying flat on a table, but that’s OK
because the V20 implements LG’s excellent “knock knock” feature:
From a completely dark screen, you tap a personalized, six-part
pattern onto the display, and the phone unlocks. It’s an awesome
quality-of-life feature that other manufacturers should steal.
Like so many previous LG phones, the V20 has an SD card slot behind
a removable battery (3200 mAh). The battery-swapping scheme is
better than the G5’s—which required a violent snap to separate the
battery from its chin—but still presents challenges. In the new scheme,
you press a button on the side of the phone, then pry the aluminum
back panel off the chassis. It’s difficult to tell when the two pieces
disengage, and I frequently had to press the button multiple times The knock
before the phone would separate. knock code
invites you to
On a positive note, when the V20 is assembled the seam between
tap a specific
the two pieces of the body is virtually imperceptible to the touch. For
six-part pattern
a phone with so many body panels of varying materials, the V20 is to unlock the
built to very tight tolerances. phone.


 Press this but-
ton, and the
V20’s back panel
will disengage.
From there you
can fiddle off
the panel to
eventually
remove the
phone’s battery.

An interesting take on dual displays

With a 5.7-inch display, the V20 delivers the biggest screen size
among contending flagship phones now that the Note7 is dead. Pixel
density is a whopping 513 pixels per inch, care of a 2560x1440
resolution, and the display is bright with a white balance that errs on
the cool side.
The phone runs Android 7.0, so it doesn’t yet have the Night Mode
feature built into Android 7.1. Nonetheless, LG provides a Comfort View
feature that warms up the display’s color temperature at the push of a
button. Comfort View even has three intensity settings so you can
customize the look for eye-soothing reading before going to bed.
All in all, the display is great if unremarkable. Pretty much all flagship
phone displays are great nowadays. Some phones (like the V20 and
iPhone) use IPS LCD technology, while others (like the Pixel and all of
Comfort Mode
replicates the
Night Light
feature built
into Android 7.1,
and even adds
three steps of
blue light
filtering.


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

Samsung’s phones) use AMOLED. The user-experience differences

between the two technologies are negligible for most people, which
may explain why LG distinguished the V20 with a 1040x160, always-on
Second Screen right above the main display.
Think of the Second Screen as a helpful little control panel that stays
active and actionable whether your main display is on or off. For
example, when the phone is dark and locked, you can still swipe
around the 2.1-inch strip to see icons of your most recent
notifications; the date and time; and controls for the music player if
you’re currently listening to a song. I think the Second Screen’s quick-
launch buttons for the flashlight and camera may be particularly
useful for some, as these features can sometimes take a bit too long
to access from a locked screen.
When your main display is on, the Second Screen adds a bit more
functionality. You can set the display to show the content of recent
notifications; details of upcoming calendar events; shortcuts to recent

The Second
Screen above the
main display may
come in handy—if
you can train
yourself to use it.


 Yep, that’s a
camera bump. LG
clearly had to
make some design
compromises in
order to add dual
flash, two rear
cameras, and a
laser autofocus
sensor.

apps; and even shortcuts to call or text up to five different contacts.

The text and icons are small (though larger than in LG’s V10 model),
but the Second Screen is still a useful value-add. It’s not a reason to
buy the phone, but if you can remember to actually use the Second
Screen, it comes in handy.

Content creation: Features galore

Content creation—gah, where to begin? The V20 is packed with so
It wouldn’t be
many damn cameras, microphones, and fancy-sounding multimedia
an LG phone
algorithms, I could spend 5,000 words just describing it all. But you
without a full
don’t want that, and I don’t want that, so here are the top-line details. suite of DSLR-
On the back of the phone, you’ll find two cameras: a 16-megapixel style manual
standard-angle lens that has a 75-degree field-of-view and f/1.8 controls in the
aperture; and an 8-megapixel, f/2.4 aperture wide-angle lens that camera app.
increases field-of-view
to 135 degrees. A
5-megapixel, f/1.9
selfie cam rounds out
the camera offerings.
Unlike Google or
Apple, LG provides a full
suite of DSLR-style
manual controls for still
images (though for
comparative testing

 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

purposes, we shot all photos in LG’s auto mode.) On the video side, the
V20 taps into Steady Record 2.0, an electronic image stabilization
technology that enlists the phone’s gyroscope to smooth out videos
taken with a shaky hand.
LG also put a lot of thought into the V20’s sound-recording
capabilities. The phone boasts three high AOP microphones for high-
fidelity audio pickup, and both the video camera interface and an HD
Recorder App offer deep controls to fine-tune audio capture. In the
video camera alone, you can adjust the directivity of the mics fore and These are crops
aft; toggle on a Wind Noise Filter; and move sliders for Gain, a Low Cut of much larger
Filter (to reduce background noise), and LMT (a filter that determines images. The
the loudest volumes the mics will record). cross is 103 feet
tall, and I was
Still image performance shooting about
40 feet from its
It all sounds wonderful, but real-world testing doesn’t bear out all of
base. Notice how
LG’s content-creation promises. Pitting the V20 against the Pixel XL,
much more
iPhone 7 Plus, and Samsung Galaxy 7, we found that LG’s phone does detail we see in
indeed offer the best sound recording, but falls short of the Pixel XL in the striations on
still image capture, and really falls down in video image stabilization. the cross in the
Check out youtu.be/pBEQEKlgXNU for the full test results, or just keep Pixel’s image.
reading for a bit
more detail.
First up: still
images in
daylight. Using
the V20’s
standard-angle
lens in auto
mode, we found
that the phone
delivered solid
color
reproduction
V20 PIXEL XL
and dynamic


range, but really fell apart when we looked at definition and image
Below: These are
clarity. Just look at how the V20 compares to the Pixel XL in this shot
crops of much larger
of the cross on the top of Mount Davidson in San Francisco. The
images shot about
striations on the cross are sharp and defined in the Pixel’s photo, but six feet away. I was
appear blurry and impressionistic in the V20’s image. shocked by the V20’s
The following shots of succulents really drive home how much lack of sharpness.
clarity the V20 gives
up to the Pixel XL
when shooting under
brighter morning
sunlight. We’re
getting sharper detail
and more vivid colors
from Google’s camera.
I was actually pretty
happy with how the
V20 captured
sunbeams peeking
through the fog on
the top of Mount V20 PIXEL XL

Davidson. I was
focusing both
cameras on the
sunbeams, and not
the trees in the
foreground. The Pixel
certainly created a

Right: These images are

more of a toss-up. I think
the Pixel XL delivers a
more dramatic image,
while the V20 erred
toward greater dynamic
V20 PIXEL XL
range.


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

Right: The V20

matched the Pixel XL
in terms of sharpness
and clarity, but its
color accuracy is off
in this low-light
scenario. Below: The
V20’s wide-angle lens
has a 135-degree
field-of-view and
captures dramatic
colors, but I don’t like
the barrel distortion.

more atmospheric V20 PIXEL XL

shot, but the V20
retained more
dynamic range
across the entire
scene.
Finally, I shot an
abstract painting
under extremely
low light
conditions in my
living room. Both
phones were
locked down on a
tripod to
eliminate variables
under very challenging circumstances. By and large, the V20 delivered
strong clarity and definition, and retained more information in the
darkest areas of the image, but was off on color accuracy. The blues in
the Pixel XL photo, for example, are much more true to life.
If we look at all my photos, and add in the tests conducted by our
video team, we find that the V20’s camera isn’t bad it’s just that the


Pixel XL’s images are better. And that’s relevant because LG has
positioned the V20 as the go-to phone for content creators.
All that said, the V20 does have a second wide-angle lens, which
none of the other manufacturers offer. It’s arguably useful for taking
sweeping environmental panorama shots, but images will suffer barrel
distortion on the edges, and when you zoom into fine detail, you’ll find
a disturbing lack of clarity. That edge distortion looks particularly bad
when shooting group photos up close. I’d rather ask people to squeeze
in tightly instead of using this lower-spec’d, 8-megapixel sensor.
On the plus side, LG still includes a full suite of DSLR-style manual
controls for both of its rear-facing cameras, and they help cement the
V20 as the perfect phone for tinkerers who really want explore their
tech toys. I love the ability to manually control focal length, and set a
30-second shutter speed for night-time shots on a tripod.

Video and audio recording

During my hands-on with the V20, LG talked up Steady Record 2.0, an
electronic image stabilization technology that uses the phone’s gyro
sensor to make shaky videos appear smooth and fluid. Steady Record
2.0 also uses digital “image stream analysis,” in which “objects are
adjusted to appear in the same position between each frame by

When in manual
video mode, you
get access to a
generous suite of
audio controls.
You can even
adjust whether
your mics pick up
more sound in
front of the
camera, or
behind the
camera.


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

The built-in HD
Audio Recorder
app lets you fine-
tune your
recordings—
legal or
otherwise.

analyzing 15-20 frames.” LG put on an impressive presentation, but

multiple weeks of testing showed me that LG’s video image
stabilization can’t touch Google’s or Apple’s.
Check out the video embedded at the top of the previous section.
Our video stabilization testing begins at the 11:40 mark. The V20
demonstrated some of the worst camera shake of all four cameras
tested, pretty much debunking LG’s claims. What’s more, I found the
You’ll need wired
earphones to use
the Hi-Fi Quad
DAC.


 Viewed from
behind, you may
not guess the
V20 has a remov-
able back panel.

same poor performance during my own anecdotal testing: The V20’s

video was prone to a fair amount of stutter and jelly effects.
On the other hand, LG’s claims of superior audio recording are
completely legit. Videos shot with the V20 sounded markedly louder,
richer and altogether better than content shot with all the other
phones we tested. And with the V20’s extensive audio recording
controls—available to video recording in the camera’s manual video
mode—you can really drill down and fine tune your recordings
(assuming you know what you’re doing).
Check out our audio recording results in this video (youtu.be/
uftLRwisqbs).
The irony, of course, is that if you’re really serious about content
creation, you’ll be using discrete microphones, and not rely on the
mics on a smartphone. Still, it’s nice that LG adds these recording
controls to the V20’s extensive toolkit.
The phone also comes with an HD Audio Recorder app that records
in stereo, just like in the camera app. There are audio profile presets for
“normal” and “concert,” or you can opt to adjust the Gain, LCF and LMT
sliders yourself. The bottom line is there’s not a better phone for
capturing bootleg concert recordings. Not that you’d ever do that.


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

Rounding out the audio story is Hi-Fi Quad DAC. Obviously, the
DAC—literally, a digital-to-analog converter—won’t work with
Bluetooth earburds, but if you still have wired earphones, you can
toggle it on for potentially better sound. I only tested the feature with
Spotify and Google Play Music playback, and couldn’t hear much
improvement in audio quality. Nonetheless, I love the DAC’s volume
controller, which lets you fine-tune 75 steps of loudness.

OS experience, performance, and the bottom line

Unfortunately, the V20 failed to run our standard PCMark battery
benchmark. I gave up after three attempts, so I don’t have a specific
battery score to share with you. I can tell you, however, that the
phone’s battery lasted relatively long, even during extended video
recording tests. So, anecdotally, I was quite happy with battery life.
The V20 runs a skinned version of Android 7.0, making it the only
phone other than the two Pixels to run a version of Nougat, Google’s
latest operating system. In terms of core silicon, the V20 includes
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 processor, 4GB of RAM, and either 32GB
or 64GB of storage. All of this would pretty much be state-of-the-art

LG V20 vs. Pixel XL

1,654
LG V20 5,064
2,775

1,687
Pixel XL 4,654
2,988

0 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000 5,000 6,000

Geekbench 4 PCMark 3DMark Sling

single-core Work 2.0 Shot ES 3.0

We run 11 different performance tests, and they all tell the same story: In terms
of raw benchmarks, the V20 and Pixel XL run neck and neck.


for Android phones, if not for the fact that the Pixels run a slightly
more advanced Snapdragon 821 chip, as well as Android 7.1.
The Pixel XL feels palpably zippier than the V20, and this is a major
reason why I prefer Google’s phone in a two-way battle. The Pixel’s OS
and app behaviors just feel quicker
and more fluid than the V20’s,
perhaps due to system tuning on
From its app icons to its
Google’s part. Our benchmarks didn’t wallpapers to its weather
expose dramatic performance deltas widget, the V20 experience
between the two phones, but simply feels older—and that
everything about the Pixel XL feels
faster, cleaner, and more modern—
matters a lot when you’re
and that includes the vibe of the using your phone multiple
system software. times an hour, every day.
LG deserves kudos for not junking
up its UX 5.0 skin with a bunch of unnecessary apps and annoying
interface decisions. Nonetheless, the V20’s system experience is
simultaneously busy and clinical, at least relative to the Pixel, where
Google has made strides toward simplicity and whimsy. From its app
icons to its wallpapers to its weather widget, the V20 experience
simply feels older—and that matters a lot when you’re using your
phone multiple times an hour, every day.
The V20 also lacks Google Assistant. So while it’s an awesome
Android phone, it’s just not the most advanced expression of an
Android phone, and all its sundry content-creation tools and extra
little doodads can’t push past the Pixel on that score.


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

Brix Gaming UHD (GB-

BNi7HG4-950): A lot of
performance in a little PC
BY ALAINA YEE

BELIEVE IT OR not, the gamer who buys Gigabyte’s latest Brix Gaming
mini-PC (go.pcworld.com/brixgaminguhd) has a lot in common with
the gamer who rolls a full-sized tower stuffed with overclocked parts.
Both have the same hunger for power.
It’s a quest to maximize what you can get out of the space available,
and given just how small this ultra-compact tower is, the Brix Gaming

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Specs and Cost

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
 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

DisplayPort, gigabit ethernet, full-sized HDMI, two USB 3.0 Type A, two
USB 3.1 10Gbps ports (one Type A, the other Type C), separate
headphone and microphone jacks, and a Kensington lock slot. Both
the HDMI port and all three of the mini DisplayPorts support up to 4K
resolution (hence the “UHD” reference in this Brix’s name) at 60Hz.
Of course, you’ll spend more than that, since you still have to add
your own storage and memory. Our review unit, which arrived
equipped with a Transcend 128GB SATA III M.2 SSD, Western Digital
Blue 1TB 2.5-inch HDD, and 8GB of DDR4/2133MHz RAM, runs about
$1,165 at current street prices. Expect to shell out about $1,285 if you
plan to run a retail copy of Windows.
You can pony up even more cash, though, if you really want to go all
out. The Brix Gaming UHD has four slots for storage: two PCIe-NVMe
M.2 (one also supports SATA 6Gbps), and two 2.5-inch SATA 6Gbps.
There are also two SO-DIMM slots that can take up to 32GB of
DDR4/2133 RAM.
So, for example, if you wanted to put in a 512GB PCIe-NVMe SSD and


16GB of DDR4/2133 RAM to
match the same configuration
as the Intel Skull Canyon NUC
we reviewed in mid-2016, the
Brix Gaming UHD would be
about $1,400. Max out the
RAM at 32GB and toss in two
1TB 2.5-inch hard drives
(because why let that space
go to waste?), and you’re
looking at $1,615.

Performance
Price isn’t the whole story, of
course. Sure, that Skull
Canyon NUC starts at $650
for the bare-bones system
and is a lot more portable, but
it also lacks discrete graphics.
You can (in theory) add an
external video card to the
system using a Thunderbolt 3
cabinet like the Razer Core,
but that’ll start running you
as much as a Brix with a lot of
storage. Plus, you know, you’ll
actually have to get your
hands on such a dock.
Then there’s the $950 Core i7
version of the Alienware Alpha
R2, which offers better gaming
performance for about $200
less than this Brix. However, it
gets pretty loud. As in, “put on


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

some headphones to drown out those shrill fans” loud. That alone can be From top to
a deal-breaker for some people. Also, with its wider footprint, the R2 is bottom (zig-
also more of an ultra small-form-factor PC than a mini-PC. zag): The
The Brix Gaming UHD experience falls between those two, but not Alienware X51,
Gigabyte Brix
exactly in the middle. On the one hand, its discrete GTX 950 creamed
Gaming UHD,
the Skull Canyon’s integrated Iris Pro 580 by as much as 227 percent in
Intel Skull
our gaming benchmarks. On the other, that same GPU has a 10- to Canyon NUC,
18-percent drop in gaming performance relative to the Alpha R2’s GTX Alienware
960. The Brix UHD’s fan noise is softer and lower-pitched than the Alpha R2, and
R2’s, though. Gigabyte Brix
Let’s dig into the numbers: BXA8-5557.

3DMark Fire Strike

3DMark’s Fire Strike benchmark simulates DirectX 11 gaming on ultra-
high settings at 1080p. These numbers primarily reflect GPU
performance, so the CPU in each system doesn’t have as much effect
as it might in real-world games.
I’ve included results from our PCWorld Zero Point desktop (which
runs a GTX 980) to show a fuller range, but the key data points are
those of the Alienware X51, Alienware Alpha R2, and the Brix Gaming
UHD. The X51 runs a full desktop version of the GTX 960, while the


Alpha R2 sports a custom GTX 960—both belong to the grade above
the Brix Gaming UHD’s GTX 950 in the Nvidia GTX 9-series lineup.
The X51 does only a bit better than the R2 here, which you’ll see
repeated again to varying degrees in the next set of benchmarks. The
real comparison here, however, is between the R2 and the Gaming
UHD, because the X51 is not a mini-PC. (Plus, it’s discontinued.) Opting
for the Brix Gaming UHD instead of the Alpha R2 means a drop of
about 14.6 percent in performance. As you’ll see below, that usually
works out to about 10 frames per second or so in actual games.
If you’re curious about how the Brix Gaming UHD’s GTX 950 would do
against the desktop counterpart, I unfortunately didn’t have one on
hand during testing. All I can share is that Gigabyte has said this GTX 950
is a custom part, and its specs look very similar to that of the GTX 965M.
(For reference, the desktop GTX 950 has 768 CUDA cores with a base
clock of 1,024MHz and a boost clock of 1,188MHz, while the Gaming
UHD’s 950 has 1,024 CUDA cores with a slower base clock of 935MHz
and a boost clock of 1,150MHz.)

3DMark Fire Strike 1.1 Overall

Alienware Alpha R2 (Core
i7-6700T / Nvidia GTX 960) 6,076

Alienware X51 (Core i7-6700K /

Nvidia GTX 960) 6,458

Brix Gaming UHD (Core

i7-6700HQ / Nvidia GTX 950) 5,184

Intel NUC6i7KYK Skull Canyon

(Core i7-6700HW / Iris Pro 1,933
Graphics 580)

PC World Zero Point desktop

(Core i7-4770K / Nvidia GTX 980)
10,878

0 2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000 12,000

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

Tomb Raider Ultimate 1920x1080 (fps)

Alienware Alpha R2 (Core
i7-6700T / Nvidia GTX 960) 54.9

Alienware X51 (Core i7-6700K /

Nvidia GTX 960) 55.9

Brix Gaming UHD (Core

i7-6700HQ / Nvidia GTX 950) 46.7

Intel NUC6i7KYK Skull Canyon

(Core i7-6770HW / Iris Pro 16.5
Graphics 580)

PC World Zero Point desktop

(Core i7-4770K / Nvidia GTX 980) 101.8

0 20 40 60 80 100 120

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

It’s pretty much a given, though, that the desktop GTX 950 will
outperform the Brix. Larger parts in bigger chassis can run hotter, so
thermal constraints on performance won’t be as severe. You can look
at the difference between the X51 and the Alpha R2 for a very rough
idea of what that delta would be.

Tomb Raider
At this point, Tomb Raider is an aging game, but all the better to see how
the Brix Gaming UHD will handle a backlog of older titles purchased
during Steam sales. This particular game leans a bit more on the CPU, so
if you somehow get your hands on the Core i5 version of the Brix UHD,
performance won’t be exactly the same as with this model.
With the settings cranked to Ultimate, the Brix Gaming UHD falls
under the golden minimum of 60 fps, though 46.7 fps is still fairly
playable. If you don’t mind dropping down to Ultra, the framerate
jumps up to about 68 fps. The Alpha R2 also can’t quite make it to 60
fps on Ultimate, but it’s much closer at 54.9 fps.


BioShock Infinite
This three-year-old game can still give the GTX 950 and GTX 960 a run
for their money on Ultra settings with DDoF turned on.
The Alpha R2 just manages to hit over 60 fps, while the Brix Gaming
UHD manages a little over 50 fps. While that extra 10 frames per
second might sound like the better deal, don’t forget about the
piercing sound of the Alpha R2’s fans under load.
For its part, the Skull Canyon NUC gives an old college try with 16.4
fps. We still have to wait before integrated graphics can manage even
30 fps in three-year-old games with everything cranked up. It’ll be
interesting to see how AMD’s Zen APUs manage.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

Here we begin to see the limits of the GTX 950 and GTX 960. With the 4K
texture pack installed, this newer title can ask a fair amount of a GPU.
What’s most surprising is that the Skull Canyon NUC’s Iris Pro
manages about the same level of performance here as in BioShock

BioShock Infinite Ultra DDoF 1920x1080 (fps)

Alienware Alpha R2 (Core
i7-6700T / Nvidia GTX 960) 65.39

Aliebware X51 (Core i7-6700K /

Nvidia GTX 960) 72.9

Brix Gaming UHD (Core

i7-6700HQ / Nvidia GTX 950) 53.7

Intel NUC6i7KYK Skull Canyon

(Core i7-6700HW / Iris Pro 16.4
Graphics 580)

PC World Zero Point desktop

(Core i7-4770K / Nvidia GTX 980) 116.3

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

Shadow of Mordor Ultra w 4K textures 1920x1200

Alienware Alpha R2 (Core
i7-6700T / Nvidia GTX 960) 45.57

Alienware X51 (Core i7-6700K /

Nvidia GTX 960) 47.35

Brix Gaming UHD (Core

i7-6700HQ / Nvidia GTX 950) 39.22

Intel NUC6i7KYK Skull Canyon

(Core i7-6700HW / Iris Pro 16.64
Graphics 580)

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

Grand Theft Auto V Normal, No AA 1920x1080 (fps)

Alienware Alpha R2 (Core
i7-6700T / Nvidia GTX 960) 115.75

Brix Gaming UHD (Core

i7-6700HQ / Nvidia GTX 950) 104.15

Intel NUC6i7KYK Skull Canyon

(Core i7-6700HQ / Iris Pro 50.79
Graphics 580)

Intell NUC6i7RYH (Core i7-557U 19.58

/ Iris Graphics 6100)

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

Infinite and Tomb Raider. The step down for the Alpha R2 to the mid-
40-fps range, and the Brix Gaming UHD to just under 40 fps, is less
startling, but it does begin to show the trade-off of performance for
size. The newer the game, the more you’ll have to dial down graphics
settings to get smooth gameplay at tolerable framerates.


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

Grand Theft Auto V

That trend is clearest in Grand Theft Auto V. For this benchmark, I
cranked down all the settings, then used FRAPS to capture the
framerate as I played the first mission. It’s not the prettiest, but it’s
playable. The Skull Canyon NUC manages 50 fps, while the Brix
Gaming UHD steams along at over 100 fps.
However, if you step up the graphics one notch on all settings and
turn on MSAA to a factor of x2, the Brix Gaming UHD’s framerate
drops in half to an average of about 52 fps. That’s not bad at all, but I’d
be a lot more enthusiastic if I weren’t spending so much time with the
new mobile versions of Nvidia’s 10-series parts. This system could pack
a much stronger punch with a GTX 1050 or even 1050 Ti—if Nvidia
ever makes mobile equivalents of those parts.

General Performance
You won’t find any surprises on the CPU side of performance. The Brix
Gaming UHD’s Core i7-6700HQ spars comfortably with the socketed

PCMark 8 Work Conventional

Alienware Alpha R2 (Core
i7-6700T / Nvidia GTX 960) 3,204

Alienware X51 (Core i7-6700K /

Nvidia GTX 960) 3,487

Brix Gaming UHD (Core

i7-6700HQ / Nvidia GTX 950) 3,357

Intel NUC6i7KYK Skull Canyon

(Core i7-6770HW / Iris Pro 3,458
Graphics 580)

PC World Zero Point desktop

(Core i7-4770K / Nvidia GTX 980) 3,349

0 500 1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500 3,000 3,500 4,000

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

Cinebench R15 (All Threads)

Alienware Alpha R2 (Core
i7-6700T / Nvidia GTX 960) 682

Alienware X51 (Core i7-6700K /

Nvidia GTX 960) 879

Brix Gaming UHD (Core

i7-6700HQ / Nvidia GTX 950) 677

Intel NUC6i7KYK Skull Canyon

(Core i7-6770HW / Iris Pro 709
Graphics 580)

0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1,000

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

35W Core i7-6700T in the Alpha R2 as well as with the Core i7-6770HQ
in the Skull Canyon, which is almost the same chip but with better
integrated graphics along with a large embedded DRAM cache.
In PCMark 8’s Work Conventional benchmark, which simulates
everyday tasks like web browsing, video chat, word processing, and
light spreadsheet use, the Brix Gaming UHD fell slightly below the
Skull Canyon NUC and the X51 (the latter of which uses a socketed
Core i7-6700K processor), and slightly edged out the Alpha R2’s 6700T.
With about 100 points between the UHD and its competitors, it’s too
small of a difference to matter much. All of these systems will feel
snappy during basic work.
The gulf widens predictably when you lean more on the CPU. In
Cinebench R15’s 3D rendering test, which takes just a few minutes,
the 91-watt Core i7-6700K in the X51 takes a clear, dominating lead
over the lower-watt parts. Here, the Brix slips slightly behind the Alpha
R2, which is likely due to its lower clock speeds. The 6700T has a base
speed of 2.8GHz and a Turbo speed of 3.6GHz, while the 6700HQ has a
base speed of 2.6GHz and a Turbo speed of 3.5GHz.
Under longer CPU loads, though, things flip. In our HandBrake


benchmark, which involves converting a 30GB MKV file into a smaller
MP4 using the Android Tablet preset, the Brix repeatedly edged out
the Alpha R2. It’s a small margin—barely a minute—so it implies that
the 6700T’s higher clock speeds count more only during short bursts
of intense activity. Unfortunately, I sent the Brix back to Gigabyte
before I had a chance to look at the clock speeds under load and how
long they held. I’ll hazard a guess that the 6700T might not hold that
peak of 3.6GHz for long before dropping down to just a hair below the
Brix’s 6700HQ.
Finally, to round out our benchmarks, I looked at the maximum power
draw. One of the appeals of having a mini-PC instead of a larger system
is the lower power consumption. That may be of no concern to
someone whose rig could function as a boat in the event of a
cataclysmic flood, but it does matter to those of us who like to plug
everything in the house into a Watts Up meter and make a spreadsheet

HandBrake Encode 09.9 (sec)

Alienware Alpha R2 (Core
i7-6700T / Nvidia GTX 960) 3,069

Alienware X51 (Core i7-6700K /

Nvidia GTX 960) 2,325

Brix Gaming UHD (Core

i7-6700HQ / Nvidia GTX 950)
3,010

Intel NUC6i7KYK Skull Canyon

(Core i7-6770HW / Iris Pro 2,882
Graphics 580)

PC World Zero Point desktop

(Core i7-4770K / Nvidia GTX 980) 3,059

Velocity Micro (Core i7-6700) 2,750

0 500 1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500 3,000 3,500

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

Max Power Draw (Watts)

Alienware Alpha R2 (Core
i7-6700T / Nvidia GTX 960) 190

Alienware X51 (Core i7-6700K /

Nvidia GTX 960) 202

Brix Gaming UHD (Core

i7-6700HQ / Nvidia GTX 950) 124

Intel NUC6i7KYK Skull Canyon

(Core i7-6770HW / Iris Pro 95
Graphics 580)

0 50 100 150 200 250

SHORTER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

of the resulting data. (Ahem.)

Measuring max power draw is an inexact science.
If you’ve picked up
To get these results, I ran two different torture tests: on a recurring
Furmark, which pounds on the GPU, and Prime95, comment—that this
which hammers on the CPU. For the systems with mini-PC could be
discrete GPUs, running Furmark drew the most
power, but the Skull Canyon NUC was the opposite.
more amazing with
Its result in the chart is from running Prime95. an Nvidia 10-series
It’s impressive that the Brix Gaming UHD GPU—then you
consumes just 30 watts more than the Skull Canyon already know the
NUC but can push out so many more frames while
gaming. Thing is, newer parts could probably do
lone thing I could
better. The GTX 1050 desktop part is rated at 75W, point to as an issue.
which is already lower than the 950, which was rated
at 90W. A custom 1050 likely would have a lower TDP than the GTX
950 as well.


Final thoughts
If you’ve picked up on a recurring comment—that this mini-PC could
be more amazing with an Nvidia 10-series GPU—then you already
know the lone thing I could point to as an issue. Buying the Brix
Gaming UHD now might not give you the most bang for your buck. For
example, if you’re willing to go bigger, Zotac has launched GTX 1060
and 1070 versions of E series bare-bones systems, with a GTX 1080
model on the way.
Granted, the GTX 1060 and 1070 Zotac machines are only equipped
with Core i5 processors, and all of them are about the size of the
Alienware Alpha. Still, those systems reinforce the idea that newer
components are already available to make a just-right mix of
performance, size, and acoustics even better. Hopefully, Gigabyte will
release a successor to this Brix Gaming UHD sooner rather than later—
with a Kaby Lake processor and a GTX 1050.


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

Tyranny: Obsidian’s RPG

ponders the nature of evil
BY HAYDEN DINGMAN

IMAGINE A WORLD in peril. Kyros, the overlord, dominates everything

in the known world—except for one tiny realm, that is. Known as the
Tiers, this last bastion of goodness, of freedom, holds out in the face
of impossible odds. Armies clash, and Kyros’s overwhelming forces
handily dispatching the desperate populace until all hope seems lost.
In a normal video game, this would be the point where your untrained,
unskilled, and unknown Joe Nobody enters the picture to save the day, to
beat back the tides of darkness, confront Kyros, and eventually defeat him.
Not in Tyranny (tyrannygame.com), though.


Sympathy for the devil
In Tyranny, the latest isometric CRPG from Obsidian (following Pillars of
Eternity), you work for Kyros. You are the bad guy, or at least one of his
many servants. You play as a Fatebinder, an enforcer
of the empire’s (often heinous) laws. Obsidian
likened the Fatebinders to Judge Dredd the first Tyranny
time they showed us the game, and I’m going to AT A GLANCE
stick with that. It’s an apt description—police force Tyranny is flawed, but more in
for a brutal and absolutist regime. the vein of a future cult classic
How brutal? Well, you start the game by going than a failure. It’s got great
through the brief “Conquest” section. It’s essentially ideas, just not the depth to let
a Choose Your Own Adventure where you make key them shine.
decisions about the invasion of the Tiers—what
PROS
cities did you visit, which tactics did you use, that
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sort of thing. Two purposes are served here: 1) You’re
and fleshed-out than in most
setting up the state of the actual world you’re about
games
to play in and 2) It gives you an idea of the stakes
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nice break from rote medieval
One place you could potentially visit is the proud
fantasy
realm of Stalwart, ruled by a group of Regents.
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and refuse to fight, Kyros sends you to proclaim an interesting backgrounds
Edict, a powerful piece of magic that in this case
CONS
summons a storm. And “storm” is putting it lightly.
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story seems strangely linear at
Proud Stalwart becomes known as “The Blade
times
Grave.” What’s more, the storm still rages. It’s
perpetual, unending. Only when the last Regent dies t

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will the terms of the Edict be satisfied and the cumbersome and repetitive
storm die down. $45
So yeah, pretty brutal. But it’s an interesting sort
of evil. What drew me to Tyranny in the months


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

before release was the idea that evil can be complex, can be more
than just the saint-or-devil moral paradigm we see in so many games.
I gave up long ago on playing the “Evil” character in most BioWare-
esque games—not because of some moral aversion, but because it
was boring. The “Good” characters always got long and engaging
quests, full of dialogue and skill checks and intrigue. The bad guys
usually got…well, to kill people. That’s it, really.
But Tyranny promised something more. Here in this world you would
navigate between different evil factions, some chaotic, some merely
tools of the bureaucracy, some overtly evil, some more insidious.
And to some extent that’s what Tyranny delivers. Especially in the
first few hours. Oh, those first few hours are wonderful.
Once you’ve made your choices in the Conquest you’re kicked into
the world your actions created. Out of six cities you’re allowed to visit
three during the Conquest, and your actions in each city can be either
merciful or murderous. In Stalwart, for instance, you can either read
the Edict and summon the storm immediately or give the population
three days to evacuate ahead of time. Any city you don’t visit? Assume
the most murderous, horrible thing happened to those three by
default.
That’s not your concern yet though. You’re sent to Apex, where a few


last bands of resistance have risen up in revolt. Immediately, your
Conquest actions come into play. I’d managed to negotiate a
surrender in Apex in my Conquest, so the rebels called me
“Peacebinder” and were generally more willing to talk, while my own
soldiers were annoyed with me—“If you hadn’t spared them two years
ago, we wouldn’t have to fight them again.”
But they’re not doing much fighting anyway. Kyros’s armies are in
disarray, thanks to a conflict between the two main factions—the
organized, Roman-esque legions of the Disfavored and the chaotic
horde of the Scarlet Chorus. Kyros sends you to read another Edict to
the leaders of these two armies: “Defeat the rebels in eight days or
everyone in the whole region, friend or foe, will die.”
The ensuing hours, which constitute the game’s first act, are
masterful. Not since Fallout: New Vegas has faction warfare been
handled so skillfully, with you inevitably drawn into the machinations
of both the Disfavored and the Scarlet Chorus’s leaders and forced to
somehow rise above it, force the two to work together, and play the
factions off each other.
It’s a complicated balancing act, and one I really enjoyed for five or


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

six hours. But Tyranny is less Fallout: New Vegas as far as I can tell and
more like The Witcher 2. Rather than letting you continue to play
factions off each other for the rest of the campaign, Tyranny soon
forces you (as far as I can tell) into choosing a side.
From there, it’s all a bit downhill for me. I sided with the Disfavored,
given that the Scarlet Chorus seem like an unholy nightmare. But the
Disfavored have their own problems—think Lawful Evil to the Chorus’s
Chaotic Evil. There were times the Disfavored asked me to do
something so heinous that I would’ve gladly defected, and yet the
opportunity doesn’t present itself. The Chorus would attack on sight,
as well as any Rebel factions, leaving me to either finish the
Disfavored’s quest as asked or…quit the game, I guess?
That’s not necessarily a bad thing—I rather like that The Witcher 2
put a hard lock on its story, saying “Regardless of how you make this
choice, you won’t see half the game.” And I am looking forward to
replaying Tyranny at some point.
It does feel somewhat artificial though, in this case. Maybe I just
didn’t figure out a way to get the two factions to work together for a
longer period of time, but if I’m indeed not missing something (and I
don’t think I am) the game forces your hand really early.
You’re often not even allowed subtle ways to undermine your


faction. A late-game Disfavored quest told me I needed to fight off
some foes and then repair the damage they’d done for a spell to
complete. “Ah,” I thought, “a chance for me to do purposefully-shoddy
repairs and foil the Disfavored’s plan.” But no, there’s no moral
salvation. Clicking on the device in question, I could either fix it and
finish the quest or not.
Again, it felt artificial. There’s just not enough depth to Tyranny at
times, and the remaining 10 to 15 hours felt a bit like being railroaded
to an inevitable conclusion—one dependent on which of the three
main factions I sided with, sure, but still inevitable.
This review is perhaps overly negative, in that I still enjoyed Tyranny
quite a bit. The dialogue is excellent. There’s still a lot to digest, but it’s
overall less cumbersome than Pillars of Eternity. The fact you can
mouse over key terms in the dialogue to see background info?
Brilliant. Plus the world and the locales are often creative as hell,
though the maps themselves are a bit empty at times.
And I came to love the new Skill system. While some abilities are
gained in the usual manner, by leveling, you attain some depending on


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

your standing with various factions. Getting the Disfavored to like you,
for instance, might grant a spell that protects a party member from
damage. This system also means there can even be a benefit to a
faction disliking you, which is interesting.
Oh, and the companions. I’m disappointed there aren’t specific
sidequests for each, but they’re some of Obsidian’s best work even
as-is. My favorite is Barik, a man caught up in the storm at Stalwart
who awoke to find out he’d basically been fused with his armor
forever, but all six made a compelling argument for me to take them
along on adventures.
There’s a lot of potential in Tyranny. A lot. I just don’t think all of it is
fulfilled. Great premise, great world, great characters, but it feels like
there needed to be twice as much inter-faction politicking in the latter
half to keep the story lively. And it doesn’t help that the ending is blatant
sequel-bait, dangling a bunch of loose threads right when it feels like
you’re getting a glimpse of the overarching plot. It felt to me like the
story needed maybe one more standout scene to wrap up properly.

Bottom line
There’s a lot to love here, though. Tyranny is flawed, but I suspect it’s
flawed in the manner of Alpha Protocol, to cite another Obsidian


project—a game that garners a cult following despite some clear
issues, a game that’s later hailed as an “important” experience.
Because I keep coming back to those initial few hours: A game where
you’re the villain, but not in the usual mustache-twirling cartoon way
we see so often. There is gray, here. This is a world where evil is the
norm, where you’re the villain in an objective sense but not in the
context of the world itself.

Those are ideas worth exploring, just as we might ponder the plight
of Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment. Is Tyranny on that level? Nah.
But games owe evil—if players choose to take that path—a depiction
of that caliber. Not just “The Guy Who Wears Black And Kills Puppies.”
Tyranny, in that regard, is a step in the right direction.


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

Daydream View: Sparse

content is all that stands
between Google and VR
greatness
BY JASON CROSS

VIRTUAL REALITY ISN’T yet a mainstream phenomenon. Sure,

Samsung has sold (and given away) a lot of Gear VR (go.pcworld.com/
gearvrapps) headsets. The Oculus Rift (go.pcworld.com/oculusriftrev)
HTC Vive (go.pcworld.com/htcviverv) are building momentum, and
Playstation VR is off to a strong start. It’s all good news for VR fans, but
we’re still a long way from hundreds of millions of daily users.


 Daydream View’s
soft, pliable build is
extremely light and
comfortable, but a
bit of light leaks in.

Google thinks it has a solution: Daydream VR (go. Daydream View

pcworld.com/daydreamview). It’s not a single product,
AT A GLANCE
but rather a set of requirements and standards.
Google’s Daydream VR platform
Phones that meet the right specs (high-end GPUs, is off to a good start, but
accurate and speedy sensors) and run the right quality content will have to
software (Android 7.1 with Google’s services) can be pour in rapidly.
labeled “Daydream ready.” Any of these phones can be
used in any Daydream VR headset. Over the next few PROS
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Plastic is out, fabric is in $79

A VR headset isn’t worth much if it’s a pain to use,

 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

literally and figuratively. But Daydream View is one of the most Google’s VR
comfortable VR headsets I’ve used, thanks in part to its fabric headset looks
enclosure. It’s soft and pliable, and incredibly lightweight. The face quite small
next to a Gear
mask is comfortable, and easily removed to wash.
VR.
Sure, it’s not exactly fashion-forward. I mean, if you’re strapping a
phone to your face, you’re going to look kind of goofy. Still, it’s less
embarrassing than the Gear VR’s big plastic chunk, or even the sleek
and deliberate Oculus Rift.
The Pixel XL is a fairly large and heavy phone, and weighs down the
front of the headset. I often found myself adjusting the headset’s
position on my face, trying to find the perfect focus. Some of this is
due to the fact that, like Gear VR, there’s no way to adjust the
interpupillary distance, or IPD. This terms refers to how far apart the
lenses are from each other, and adjustment helps the lenses conform
to those with wider or narrower set eyes.
I have a small and narrow head with a small IPD, and find that most
VR headsets are a bit of a struggle to adjust. I can get Daydream View
to fit right and look clear, but just like with Gear VR, I have to fiddle
with it a bit. Once it’s in place, though, Daydream View is the most
comfortable phone-based VR headset I’ve used.
There’s a bit of a gap along the sides, at least on my narrow head,

which is good news for those that wear glasses but bad news for
everyone else. As light leaks in through the gap, it creates noticeable
reflections on the lenses. If you’ve got a bright lamp or window in the
room, you’ll notice it as you turn your head around. It may be less of a
problem for those with larger or wider heads, but I found myself
looking for a darker environment to really immerse myself.

Incredibly easy to use

If Google is going to get hundreds of millions of phone users to become
Lay your
VR fans, it needs to make everything easy as possible. In this regard,
phone on the
Daydream View is leaps and bounds over Gear VR and other VR headsets.
door, close it,
This is how you use it: You put your phone the face flap, and then you and go. No
close it with the little elastic loop latch. That’s it. You’re done. No plugs, ports,
plugging anything in. No making sure you have the version of the springs, or
headset with the right USB connector. No plastic spring-loaded latches.


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

latches. Just lay it on the flap,

close the flap, and stick it on
your face.
Even the head band is easy
to adjust when you’re all
strapped in. The Daydream
system software takes care of
everything, including
rendering the VR display on
your phone at just the right
spot, and adjusting for
different phone sizes.
A simple intro tutorial steps
you through the basics of operation—adjusting the fit to get a clear The controller
view, using the controller, and re-centering your view. Then you find has nothing on
Oculus Touch
yourself in a stylized cartoon forest, staring at the VR menu.
or Vive, but it’s
light years
The magic wand ahead of other
If there’s a problem with phone-based VR solutions, it’s the limited mobile-based
way in which you interact with the environment. Google Cardboard VR.
has essentially one button, and all interaction demands you press it
while you look at something. Gear VR has a touch-sensitive pad and a
back button, but you have to hold your hand up to the side of the
headset to use it. Some Gear VR apps support gamepads, but now
you’re talking about a separate purchase, Bluetooth pairing, and hit-
or-miss app support.
The Daydream approach is a big step up. You hold a small remote
with a concave circular click-pad at the top, a single button beneath
that (usually used to get to an app’s menu), and a system menu
button down a little further (press to return to Daydream menu, or
hold to re-center view). Volume buttons sit along the right edge.
The controller isn’t precisely tracked in 3D space the way HTC Vive’s
controllers or Oculus Touch are. Rather, it relies on motion sensing,
sort of like a Wii controller. As a result, it’s accurate enough to point at


and select items, swing around like a sword or magic wand, or tip and
tilt. It’s a great and inexpensive way to interact with VR apps and
games—highly intuitive, small, simple, and light.
I found it to be just a little laggy, though. The movement of the
controller in my VR view was just a split-second behind my movement
in the real world. This, along with the fact that it’s precise position
isn’t tracked, is enough to break the immersive feeling of directly
manipulating the virtual world. It also has a tendency to drift a bit,
slowly going off-center as you use the system. Re-centering is trivial
There’s even a
(just hold the home button), but it’s a problem I’d rather not deal with.
little divot and
I’d love a highly accurate, latency-free, position-tracked motion control band to store
solution, but that’s just not possible with today’s phone-based VR the controller
technology. While Google’s solution has its drawbacks, it’s leaps and inside the
bounds ahead of the interaction model for Gear VR and similar headsets. headset.


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

VR quality on par with Gear VR VR performance

Getting into VR with the Daydream View is easy, the headset is and visual quality
is as good as any
comfortable, and the motion-sensitive remote is the best phone-based
I’ve seen from a
control method yet. None of that matters if the VR experience itself is
mobile VR
sup-par. Fortunately, Google absolutely nailed this crucial criterion. solution. Right up
In order for VR to make you feel like you really are in a virtual place, it there with Gear
needs to meet certain minimum performance standards. Chief among VR.
these is motion-to-photon latency—the time it takes to go from
moving your head to showing your eyes a new view of the world. This
needs to be combined with a very high, very stable frame rate, and a
low-persistence display that won’t blur or smear your view. Fail at any
of this, and you’ll be pulled out of the VR experience, or worse, get sick.
This is one reason why I maintain that Google Cardboard—while
interesting, cheap, and fun—isn’t real VR. It doesn’t achieve that sense
of “presence” that really makes you feel like you’re in another place.
I’ve often had to explain that Gear VR isn’t just a fancy Google
Cardboard, but instead meets minimum “real VR” standards. With
Daydream, Google has achieved a similar level of performance. The
graphics rendering is just as immediate and responsive to your head
movements, and the visual quality and field of view is quite similar.
All phone-based solutions are currently a big step behind the Rift,
Vive, and Playstation VR. The inability to track head and controller


position, rather than just movement, is a big issue. This won’t be
solved until someone figures out how to reliably do “inside out”
position tracking on phone hardware. Daydream VR is still real VR,
though, and can provide great experiences. It’s just necessarily more
limited than the “full” VR experiences of the more expensive, high-end
setups.
If there’s a real problem with Daydream VR, it’s the lack of content.
The launch selection is extremely limited, with half of the Day One
apps coming from Google itself. Yes, Google photos, YouTube, and
Street View are really slick in VR, but there are only about five non-
Google apps and games ready at launch.
Luckily, there’s plenty more on the way. Must-have video services like
Netflix, HBO Go, and Hulu should land in the next few weeks. Big-
brand apps like LEGO are mixed in with nearly 20 other less-well-
known titles, all promised by the end of the year. The launch software
is slim pickings, but early adopters shouldn’t have to wait too long for
The app
a more robust selection. The offerings on tap for Gear VR are certainly
selection at
more extensive, if not higher quality.
launch is pretty
thin. Half of
At this price, it’s a no-brainer what you see
Daydream View is $79. That undercuts the price of Gear VR ($99), while here is not yet
offering generally superior quality and ease-of-use, though with a available.


 REVIEWS
& RATINGS

much smaller content library. Given that the only phones to currently Do I want to
support Daydream are the Pixel and Pixel XL, which cost $650 or more, play with LEGO
you’d be crazy not to drop another $80 on such a fun accessory. in VR? You bet I
do! It’s a shame
In time, there should be more Daydream-compatible gear: more
it’s not yet
headsets to choose from, and more Daydream-ready phones at a
available.
range of prices. For now, it’s hard to view Daydream View as anything
other than a great accessory for the Pixel phones. In that capacity, the
headset is is quite good, with the potential for greatness if the apps
really start flowing.
The long-term prospects of the Daydream VR platform, however, are
hard to predict. There are lots of variables: How many Pixel phones will
Google sell? How quickly will other Daydream-ready phones hit the
market? What about other compatible viewers? Can developers
expect to ever make money on this stuff, or will this particular VR
platform fizzle before it has a chance to expand? Google is going to
have to stick with it for some time, investing in content while
continually making hardware and software improvements. If they do,
it has the potential to be a great smartphone-based VR platform. All
the pieces are there.


IWitnessBullying.org
 vs.

FIGHT!
ALI VS. FRAZIER, RED SOX VS. YANKEES, KIRK
VS. KHAN. AND OF COURSE, MAC VS. PC.
B Y G O R D O N M A H U N G


 FEATURE SURFACE BOOK i7 VS. MACBOOK PRO

Now that Apple’s introduced the first major update It’s benchmarks at
dawn between the
to its MacBook Pro lineup (go.pcworld.com/ new MacBooks,
mbp2016lineup) in years, it’s time to square off the the new Surface
best of the best in Mac and PC laptops to see who Book i7, and a
posse of other
currently prevails in this age-old rivalry. Windows laptops.

The contenders
For this comparison I reached for the newest Surface Book (go.pcworld.
com/sbooki7rv). It’s a top-of-the-line model with a Core i7-6600U, a
GeForce GTX 965M, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. The updated product
line varies from $2,400 to $3,300 (our model) in price. All three net you
a 6th-gen Skylake dual-core Core i7 chip, and all three get you the same
Performance Base with a GeForce GTX 965M. From what I can tell, the
only differences are in the size of the SSD and how much RAM you get.
Only the SSD would affect performance significantly.


 FEATURE

On the Apple side, I turned to a $2,400 MacBook Pro 15 with a

quad-core Core i7-6700HQ, 16GB of LPDDR/2133, and a 256GB SSD. I
also had partial access to two MacBook Pro 13’s. The first was the non-
touch bar model with a Core i5-6360U, 8GB of LPDDR/1866, and a
256GB SSD ($1,500). The second was the Touch Bar version (go.
pcworld.com/mbptouchrv) with a Core i5-6267U, 8GB of LPDDR/2133,
and a 256GB SSD ($1,800). I used the performance results from our
sister site Macworld’s review for this article.

Why this contest isn’t rigged

Let’s make it clear from the outset: This isn’t a direct comparison of
the laptops based on cost, but an attempt to compare the
That Surfaced
performance of the new MacBook Pros to that of similar PC laptops.
Book cleaned the
For those who’ve noticed the considerable price delta between the clock of the
Surface Book i7 and the 15-inch MacBook Pro, the stack of other PCs MacBook Pro 13
used in this comparison will help smooth out that line. You might last year. Can it do
argue that it’s silly to compare a $3,300 Surface Book i7 against an the same again?


 FEATURE SURFACE BOOK i7 VS. MACBOOK PRO

We opted to test
on the operating
system that
people will run on
the computer
they buy.

$1,800 MacBook Pro 13, or a $1,100 Dell XPS 13 against an $1,800

MacBook Pro 13, or a $1,400 Dell XPS 15 against a $2,400 MacBook
Pro 15. But these are all real-world models that you’ll find in a store,
rather than configurations contrived to hit a number. Price differences
are just part of the comparison puzzle.
For the same reason, we’re not loading the same OS on all the
laptops—no OSX on PCs, no Windows on Macs. Real people wouldn’t
do that, and neither will we.

Cinebench R multi-threaded performance

Our first test is Cinebench R15. This is a 3D rendering test based on
Maxon’s Cinema4D engine. The test is heavily multi-threaded, and the
more cores or threads you can throw at it, the better the performance.
The test is is a pretty harsh reminder that if your tasks demand a
quad-core, listen to them.
Between the two quad-cores, the Dell XPS 15 crosses the finish line
first—but not by much. Let’s just call it mostly a tie.


 Cinebench R15’s
Cinebench R15 CPU Multi-threaded CPU Performance multi-threaded
benchmark shows
Dell XPS 15
(Core i7-6700HQ / GTX 960M) 681 you the clear
Macbook Pro 15
difference
(Core i7-6700HQ / Radeon 450) 668 between quad-
HP Spectre x360 13 core and dual-
(Core i7-7500U / HD 620) 324
core CPUs.
Microsoft Surface Book i7
321 Longer bars
(Core i7-6600U / GTX 965M)
indicate better
Dell XPS 13
320 performance.
(Core i5-7200U / HD 620)

Dell XPS 13
(Core i7-6560U / Iris 540) 307
MacBook Pro 13
(Core i5-6600U / Iris 540) 306

0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700

L O N G E R B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T E R P E R F O R M A N C E

Among the dual-cores, the Core i5-based MacBook Pro 13 is last,

but not by much. It’s basically the same as the last-gen XPS 13 with a
similar Core i7-6560U.
The surprise is where the Surface Book i7 finishes. Its 6th-gen CPU
is hanging right with the 7th-generation Kaby Lake CPUs in the new
HP Spectre x360 13 and the new Dell XPS 13.

Cinebench R single-threaded performance

Cinebench R15 has an optional test that lets you measure the single-
threaded performance. It’s a valuable way to gauge how fast a laptop
will be in applications or tasks that don’t use all the cores available.
The surprise to many will be the result from the Dell XPS 13. Its
7th-generation Core i5 CPU could hang with the Core i7 chips on heavier
loads, but on lighter loads, it ends up being last. That’s because Core i7
chips in laptops excel at short, “bursty” loads. Once you heat them up,
the clock speeds crank back. When running a test in single-threaded
mode, the Core i7’s advantage with short burst loads shows up big-time.


 FEATURE SURFACE BOOK i7 VS. MACBOOK PRO

We switched
Cinebench R15 CPU Single-threaded CPU Performance Cinebench R15
into a mode where
HP Spectre x360 13
(Core i7-7500U / HD 620) 146 it measures single-
threaded CPU
Microsoft Surface Book i7
(Core i7-6600U / GTX 965M) 142 performance.
Macbook Pro 15 Overall, there’s
(Core i7-6700HQ / Radeon 450) 142 little difference in
Dell XPS 15 single-threaded
(Core i7-6700HQ / GTX 960M) 137
loads.
Dell XPS 13
(Core i7-6560U / Iris 540) 127
MacBook Pro 13
(Core i5-6600U / Iris 540) 125
Dell XPS 13
(Core i5-7200U / HD 620) 122

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160

L O N G E R B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T E R P E R F O R M A N C E

The real shocker is how the HP Spectre x360 with a 7th-gen CPU
comes out the clear winner. I would’ve expected the quad-core
MacBook Pro 15 or Dell XPS 15 to lead the pack, but nope. That Kaby
Lake CPU is indeed pulling its weight.

Cinebench R OpenGL performance

Our last Cinebench R15 test measures performance with OpenGL, a
popular graphics API used for rendering professional CAD/CAM
applications and a few games.
The results here break down into three bands. At the bottom is the
new MacBook Pro 13 and an older Dell XPS 13 model. Both use Intel’s
Skylake CPU and include “faster” Iris 540 graphics with 64MB of
embedded DRAM inside the CPU. Both are nearly dead-even, which
validates this test for comparing OSX to Windows 10 performance.
The second band up is a shocker to me. The pair of 7th-gen Kaby Lake
laptops from Dell and HP are a good 25 percent faster than the 6th-gen
Skylake laptops in OpenGL. I really expected the Iris 540 laptops to come


 Maxon’s
Cinebench R15 OpenGL Performance (fps) Cinebench R15
can also
Dell XPS 15
(Core i7-6700HQ / GTX 960M) 89.7 measure
OpenGL
Microsoft Surface Book i7
(Core i7-6600U / GTX 965M) 85.6 performance.
Macbook Pro 15 The MacBook
(Core i7-6700HQ / Radeon 450) 71.6 Pro 15’s Radeon
HP Spectre x360 13 Pro 450 is
(Core i7-7500U / HD 620) 45.7
competent, but
Dell XPS 13 the Surface
(Core i5-7200U / HD 620) 45.7
Book i7 and XPS
Dell XPS 13
(Core i7-6560U / Iris 540) 36.5 prevail.

MacBook Pro 13
(Core i5-6600U / Iris 540) 35.5

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
L O N G E R B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T E R P E R F O R M A N C E

out in front. The results make me wonder whether this isn’t some driver
optimization that Intel put into Kaby Lake but not Skylake.
The last band is the graphics performance of the discrete-GPU
laptops. Unexpectedly, the GeForce GTX 960M in the XPS 15 finishes
just ahead of the GTX 965M in the Surface Book i7. The MacBook Pro
15, with its Radeon Pro 450, finishes in a firm third place. Some
MacBook Pro reviews have said the graphics don’t measure up in
games, while in “work”-related tasks, they rules. So far, I’ve not seen
that to be true.

GeekBench . multi-threaded performance

Another popular cross-platform benchmark is Primate Lab’s
GeekBench. Experts may disdain its cross-platform results between
ARM and x86. Within the same micro-architecture, however, I think it’s
pretty kosher, especially when running the newest 4.01 version of the
popular test. I also have a score to report for the MacBook Pro 13 with
Touch Bar, as I cribbed the performance of the version with Core


 FEATURE SURFACE BOOK i7 VS. MACBOOK PRO

The PC laptops
GeekBench 4.01 Multi-Threaded Performance win a moral
victory in
Dell XPS 15
(Core i7-6700HQ / GTX 960M) 12,850 GeekBench
Macbook Pro 15
4.01, but they
(Core i7-6700HQ / Radeon 450) 12,689 virtually tie
HP Spectre x360 13 with the
(Core i7-7500U / HD 620) 8,100
MacBook Pros.
Dell XPS 13
(Core i7-6560U / Iris 540) 7,574
MacBook Pro 13 Touch Bar
(Core i5-6267U / Iris 550) 7,541
Microsoft Surface Book i7
(Core i7-6600U / GTX 965M) 7,467
Dell XPS 13
(Core i5-7200U / HD 620) 7,341
MacBook Pro 13
(Core i5-6600U / Iris 540) 7,294

0 2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000 12,000 14,000

L O N G E R B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T E R P E R F O R M A N C E

i5-6267U and Iris 550 from Macworld’s review.

The first result we’ll look at is the multi-threaded performance. Like
Cinebench R15, you can see the quad-core XPS 15 and MacBook Pro
15 step away from the dual-core laptops. It’s just more proof that if
your tasks really need a quad-core chip, pay for it.
On the dual-cores, the redesigned HP Spectre x360 13 again shows the
newest 7th-gen Core i7’s clock speed advantage over the Skylake models.
The Surface Book i7 and MacBook Pro are pretty much dead-even. For
MacBook Pro 13 fans that might be something to crow about, because
we’re talking about a Core i5 MacBook Pro 13 vs. a Core i7 Surface Book.

GeekBench . single-threaded

performance
Moving on to the single-threaded performance in GeekBench 4.01, there
are a few patterns we can discern. First, that 7th-gen Core i7 in the HP


 When we used Geek
GeekBench 4.01 Single-Threaded Performance Bench 4.01 to
measure single-
Dell XPS 15
(Core i7-6700HQ / GTX 960M) 4,193 threaded
Macbook Pro 15
performance, there
(Core i7-6700HQ / Radeon 450) 4,143 was scant difference
HP Spectre x360 13 between dual-core
(Core i7-7500U / HD 620) 4,138
and quad-core
Microsoft Surface Book i7
3,992 laptops in lighter
(Core i7-6600U / GTX 965M)
loads.
MacBook Pro 13 Touch Bar
(Core i5-6267U / Iris 550) 3,946
Dell XPS 13
(Core i5-7200U / HD 620) 3,816
MacBook Pro 13
(Core i5-6600U / Iris 540) 3,786
Dell XPS 13
(Core i7-6560U / Iris 540) 3,786

0 500 1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500 3,000 3,500 4,000 4,500

L O N G E R B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T E R P E R F O R M A N C E

Spectre x360 13 is indeed faster in lighter loads, outpacing the Surface

Book i7 and the Core i5-equipped MacBook Pro 13 with Touch Bar.
The Dell XPS 15 inches over the MacBook Pro 15, but the real
takeaway is this: If you don’t do many multi-threaded tasks on your
laptop, you don’t need a quad-core CPU.

GeekBench . OpenCL performance

GeekBench also has an OpenCL test that simulates popular Computer
Language tasks on a GPU that would normally be handled by the CPU.
The first takeaway: Unlike in the OpenGL performance tests, the older
Iris 540 in the Skylake dual-cores is faster than the Kaby Lake integrated
graphics for whatever tasks Prime Labs thinks best represent OpenCL.
The second takeaway: OpenCL loves fast GPUs. The Surface Book i7
and its GTX 965M run away with this test, and trash the MacBook Pro
13. For those who didn’t pony up for the MacBook Pro’s faster Radeon


 FEATURE SURFACE BOOK i7 VS. MACBOOK PRO

Geek Bench 4.01

GeekBench 4.01 OpenCL Performance can also be used to
measure OpenCL,
Microsoft Surface Book i7
(Core i7-6600U / GTX 965M) 64,323 which uses the GPU
Dell XPS 15
to perform tasks
(Core i7-6700HQ / GTX 960M) 49,363 typically done on a
Macbook Pro 15 CPU.
(Core i7-6700HQ / Radeon 450) 41,559
MacBook Pro 13 Touch Bar
(Core i5-6267U / Iris 550) 30,263
MacBook Pro 13
(Core i5-6600U / Iris 540) 28,064
Dell XPS 13
(Core i7-6560U / Iris 540) 26,114
HP Spectre x360 13
(Core i7-7500U / HD 620) 19,577
Dell XPS 13
(Core i5-7200U / HD 620) 19,214

0 10,000 20,000 30,000 40,000 50,000 60,000 70,000

L O N G E R B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T E R P E R F O R M A N C E

Pro 455 or 460 GPU, it’s hard to watch how thoroughly the the Surface
Book i7 smokes the 450-equipped MacBook Pro. The Surface Book’s
GTX 965M even makes a mockery of the GTX 960M in the XPS 15.

LuxMark . OpenCL GPU

Render Performance
When you play the benchmarketing game, one truth that's often
overlooked is that no one test defines the entire category. You can’t
take the results from Geek Bench 4.01 OpenCL and declare it
representative of all OpenCL performance.
To balance Geek Bench 4.01, I also ran the free LuxMark 3.1 OpenCL
test. This takes a scene and renders it using the LuxRender engine on
the GPU (or CPU if you ask it to.) I decided to skip the integrated-
graphics laptops because I couldn’t wait days for them to render
(kidding) and focused solely on the laptops with discrete graphics.


 LuxMark 3.1 LuxBall OpenCL GPU Render (sec)
Macbook Pro 15
(Core i7-6700HQ / Radeon 450) 4,001
Dell XPS 15
(Core i7-6700HQ / GTX 960M) 4,479
Microsoft Surface Book i7
(Core i7-6600U / GTX 965M) 4,873

0 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000 5,000

We used LuxMark 3.1 to measure the OpenCL performance of the graphics

chips. The higher the score, the better the performance. In this one test, the
MacBook Pro 15 is at least competitive.

The results put these GPUs a lot closer than the OpenCL numbers
from Geek Bench 4.01 would have you believe. In the end, both the
XPS 15 and Surface Book i7 again both clearly win. But would this be
true if it were a Radeon 460 in the MacBook Pro 15? Probably not.

Blender . Performance

The last “work”-related graphics test we’ll run is Blender 2.78. This a free
rendering application popular in a lot of indie movies. For a test render
file, I used Mike Pan’s BMW Benchmark (go.pcworld.com/bmwbench)
and set Blender to ray-trace the scene on the GPU rather than the CPU.
Something isn’t
Blender 2.78a BMW Benchmark GPU (sec) right on the
MacBook Pro 15
Microsoft Surface Book i7 because while the
(Core i7-6600U / GTX 965M) 483.2
Surface Book i7
Dell XPS 15
(Core i7-6700HQ / GTX 960M) 592.1 took eight minutes
Macbook Pro 15
to render a scene,
(Core i7-6700HQ / Radeon 450) 3,660.5 the MacBook Pro 15
struggled for an
0 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000 5,000
hour. An hour.
S H O R T E R B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T E R P E R F O R M A N C E


 FEATURE SURFACE BOOK i7 VS. MACBOOK PRO

The result is, frankly, beyond ugly. The Surface Book i7 finished in about
eight minutes, and the XPS 15 took another two more minutes. The
MacBook Pro 15 took more than an hour to complete the task.
The GPU
Tomb Raider 16x10 Normal (fps) performance of
Microsoft Surface Book i7
the MacBook Pro
(Core i7-6600U / GTX 965M) 126.0 15 fared better in
Dell XPS 15 OpenGL tests. In
(Core i7-6700HQ / GTX 960M) 118.0
Tomb Raider, it’s
Macbook Pro 15
55.8 far, far behind the
(Core i7-6700HQ / Radeon 450)
Surface Book i7
Dell XPS 13
37.6 and XPS 15.
(Core i7-6560U / Iris 540)

MacBook Pro 13
(Core i5-6360U / Iris 540) 32.0
Dell XPS 13
(Core i5-7200U / HD 620) 27.6

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140

L O N G E R B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T E R P E R F O R M A N C E

This doesn’t mean the MacBook Pro 15’s Radeon Pro 450 is a dog.
The other benchmarks should tell you that the Apple isn’t that bad in
some tasks. Still, this kind of performance disparity indicates a serious
problem at the OS or driver level, or something with this compile of
Blender. Unless or until that mystery is solved, you’ll want to do your
Blender renders on a PC laptop.

Tomb Raider performance

The last graphics test I ran is Tomb Raider. It’s an older game available in
both OSX and Windows and includes a built-in benchmark. While I
could set the graphics settings the same on both platforms, I couldn’t
quite sync the resolutions. Depending on the laptop, I could set the
horizontal resolution at 1680-, 1650-, or 1600x1050 (the latter, for the
Macs). The graphics setting on all of the laptops was Normal.
If you can’t bear to look, don’t: The Surface Book i7 and XPS 15
soundly thrashed the MacBook Pro 15. I don’t think the Radeon Pro


460 would make a difference here, either. If you want gaming
performance at any decent levels, no surprise—buy a PC.

Battery life
The final test is for all-important battery life. I used the same
4K-resolution, open-source Tears of Steel short video, looping
continuously. On the Windows laptops, I used the Movies & TV player,
and on OSX Sierra, I used QuickTime. I wanted to use iTunes, as Apple
The Surface
Battery life: 4k video playback book i7 sets the
bar with 13
Microsoft Surface Book i7
Core i7-6600U / GTX 965M / HD 520 / 81Whr
786 hours of battery
Dell XPS 13 Kaby Lake FHD
life, compared
Core i5-7200U / HD 620 / 59W hr
681 to nine hours or
Dell XPS 13 Broadwell FHD so for the
Core i5-5200U / HD 5500 / 54Whr
644
MacBook Pros.
Microsoft Surface Book
Core i7-6600U / HD 520 / 68Whr
605
HP Spectre X360
Core i5-5200U / HD 5500U / 55Whr
544
MacBook Pro 13
Core i5-6360U / Iris 540 / 54.5Whr
536
MacBook Pro 15
Core i7-6700HQ / Radeon Pro 450 / 76Whr
532
Dell XPS 13 Skylake FHD
Core i5-6200U / HD 520 / 57Whr
529
Asus Zenbook 3
Core i7-7500U / HD 620 / 39Whr
486
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 OLED
Core i7-6600U / HD 520 / 57Whr 464
Dell XPS 13 Skylake QHD-T
Core i7-6560U / Iris 540 / 56Whr 361
Dell XPS 15
Core i7-6700HQ / GTX 960M / 56Whr 312
Samsung Book 9 Pro 4K
Core i7-6700HQ / GTX 950M / 56Whr 260

0 120 240 360 480 600 720 840

L O N G E R B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T E R P E R F O R M A N C E


 FEATURE SURFACE BOOK i7 VS. MACBOOK PRO

does, but there appears to be no way to loop video in iTunes.

All of the laptops had their screens set at 250 to 260 nits in brightness.
All laptops had the adaptive brightness setting turned off. All were tested
with Wi-Fi disabled and with earbuds plugged into the analog ports. One
thing to note: The Windows laptops are left in their default power settings,
which means they use their last bits of battery life to shut off unused apps
and slightly dim the screen. OSX was set not to dim the display on
battery—otherwise, it immediately dims the screen once unplugged.
My results on the pair of MacBook Pros were amazingly similar. I
started both early in the morning and watched until they died in the
early evening. Both were minutes apart.
Apple claims about 10 hours of run time in iTunes. We were pretty
close in QuickTime at nearly 9 hours. The variance can be attributed to
the video file and the settings the company uses.
For the MacBook Pro 15, I’m going to say that’s pretty impressive. The
battery life for 15-inch laptops with quad-core CPUs, discrete graphics,
and high-resolution screens tends to be mediocre. For example, look at
the XPS 15 and its six hours of run time. (Dell offers an XPS 15 battery
with about 50 percent more capacity—but it’s also heavier.)
Even worse is the Samsung Notebook 9 Pro, another quad-core
laptop with the addition of a 4K screen. Ouch. Overall, I’d say the
MacBook Pro 15 has decent battery life for a quad-core.
Moving to the MacBook Pro 13, the result is a little more nuanced.
With roughly nine hours of run time, it compares well to some laptops,
such as the XPS 13 with a QHD+ touchscreen. But there are a lot more
PCs ahead of it. You know, like the Surface Book i7, which sets the bar
at an amazing 13 hours of video run time. Other laptops with better
video stamina include the newest XPS 13, HP’s redesigned Spectre
x360 13, and even the older Surface Book. When you consider that all
three are also generally faster, it’s not good.

The cost equation

The most important question for users isn’t related to an obscure
OpenCL benchmark but to how much these laptops cost. To help you


 How much do they cost?
MacBook Pro 15
Core i7-6820HQ / 16GB Ram / 2TB / Retina
$4,300
Microsoft Surface Book i7
Core i7-6600U / 16GB Ram / 1TB SSD / Pen
$3,300
MacBook Pro 15
Core i7-6700HQ / 16GB Ram / 1TB / Retina
$3,200
MacBook Pro 13 Touch Bar
Core i7-6567U / 16GB Ram / 1TB SSD / Retina
$2,900
Dell XPS 15
Core i7-6700HQ / 32GB Ram / 1TB SSD / Touch
$2,600
MacBook Pro 15
Core i7-6700HQ / 16GB Ram / 256GB / Retina
$2,400
MacBook Pro 13 Touch Bar
Core i5-6267U / 8GB Ram / 256GB SSD / Retina
$1,800
Dell XPS 13
Core i7-6560U / 8GB Ram / 256GB SSD / Touch
$1,750
MacBook Pro 13
Core i5-6600U / 16GB Ram / 256GB / Retina
$1,500
Dell XPS 15
Core i7-6700HQ / 8GB Ram / 256GB SSD / FHD $1,400
HP Spectre x360 13
Core i7-7500U / 8GB Ram / 256GB SSD / Touch $1,160
Dell XPS 13
Core i5-7200U / 8GB Ram / 256GB SSD / FHD $1,150

0 $1,000 $2,000 $3,000 $4,000 $5,000

understand just how much of a premium Apple and Microsoft are

charging, I mapped out the cost of most of the laptops that appeared
here, along with other configurations worth highlighting.
That top-spec Surface Book i7, formally known as Surface Book
with Performance Base, really pushes the boundaries of what people
will pay for a dual-core laptop. To be fair, this is no ordinary laptop. It
has a 1TB SSD and 16GB of RAM, plus pen support, a tablet mode, and
probably class-leading GPU performance. But umm, yeah, 3,300 bucks.
Apple is no stranger to nose-bleed altitudes. When you throw a
Core i7, 1TB SSD, and 16GB of RAM into the MacBook Pro 13 with
Touch Bar, you’re looking at $2,900. And you don’t even get the

 FEATURE SURFACE BOOK i7 VS. MACBOOK PRO

discrete GPU, touch, and tablet or pen support of the Surface Book.
Apple’s most powerful MacBook Pro 15 tilts the meter all the way to
$4,300. Granted, that’s with one of Intel’s priciest mobile CPUs and a
whopping 2TB SSD, but that’s also the price of a modest used car.
Compared to a “normal” PC, both Microsoft and Apple give you a lot
less performance for your cash. The Dell XPS 15, which pretty much
aces the new MacBook Pro 15 except in battery life, is $1,400.
Take that Dell XPS 15 and load it up with a 1TB M.2 SSD, 32GB of
RAM (which isn’t available on the MacBook Pro 15), a GTX 960M, 4K
touchscreen, and a larger battery: $2,600. That’s only $200 more than
what Apple charges for a machine with 16GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD,
and the slowest Radeon Pro GPU.
You can do the same with the new HP Spectre x360 or Dell’s
current XPS 13. Both give you a lot more value than either the
MacBook Pro 13 or the MacBook Pro 13 Touch Bar.
Numbers don’t lie. Apple’s MacBooks are overpriced, and so are
Microsoft’s premium Surface Book devices. The PC OEMs give you a lot
more for your money.

Conclusion
Ten tests and one price comparison later, the PC wins. Again. That’s no
surprise. The MacBooks are caught in a tough spot—even if they were
running higher-performance configurations. They’re both ultra-
expensive compared to most PCs, and at the top-end, outclassed in GPU
performance by Microsoft’s comparably expensive Surface Book i7.
It’s not all bad news for the Mac, though. The MacBook Pro 15’s battery
life is impressive for a 15-inch laptop with a quad-core CPU and discrete
GPU. Comparably powerful quad-core laptops we’ve seen can’t touch it in
battery life. Even the MacBook Pro 13s do relatively well in battery life
compared to a similar PC.
The problem for Apple and Mac fans is PC makers just don’t ever
stand still. And as we know, Apple seemingly does that now with its
Macs.


SHELTER PET
& LIFE OF
P

HAMILTON 75K+ Instagram Followers

6$9($/,)('21·7'5,9(+20(%8==('
%8==(''5,9,1*,6'581.'5,9,1*
FEATURE

The iPhone switcher’s guide:

Move from iOS to
Android and keep
all your stuff

We can help move

your photos, contacts,
calendars, mail, music,
and messages over to
their new home.
BY MICHAEL SIMON

I M AG E CO U RT ESY O F G O O G L E

FEATURE The iPhone Switcher’s Guide

So you’ve decided to switch to Android.

We can’t say we blame you—as you’ll see, the grass over
here is pretty green—but we know that starting from
scratch can be scary. There’s all sorts of information on
your old iPhone that you’re going to want to transfer to
your new phone, and let’s face it, Apple isn’t exactly
going out of its way to help. But we are!

Whatever your reason for getting your head out of the iClouds, we’re
here to support you through this difficult breakup. And before you can
say “no headphone jack” we’ll have your new phone up, running, and
packed with all the stuff you were afraid you’d have to leave behind.

Getting ready
Before your new phone even arrives, there are things you can do to
prepare. Just as your iTunes and iCloud accounts are the keys to
keeping your iOS devices humming in unison, a Google account is

Before you
even turn on
your new
phone, make
sure you have a
Google
account.


necessary on your new Android phone. You probably already have a
Gmail account, but if you don’t, go get one (accounts.google.com/
SignUp?hl=en). While you’re at it, you should enable 2-step
verification (go.pcworld.com/2stepggl). Your Google account will hold
all your personal information, including contacts, calendars, and
Chrome passwords, so the more protection you can add to it the
better off you’ll be.
And we’re sorry to say but you’re going to need to turn off iMessage. If
your contacts send you an iMessage instead of an SMS text, and you
don’t have an iPhone to receive it, it will get lost in the ether. So you’re
going to want to tell Apple to stop trying to send them. (You can find the
toggle inside the Messages tab in the Settings app on your iPhone.) And
besides, you don’t want people to think you’re ignoring them when their
lonely message is really just sitting unread on Apple’s servers.
And finally, it’ll also be helpful to sign up for a Dropbox account
(dropbox.com), if you don’t already have one. There are a number of
cross-platform apps that use
Dropbox rather than Google
Drive as their syncing engine,
and one of your old apps will
likely need it to transfer your
data.

Use your
Google Drive
While your iCloud Drive will
pretty much be useless the
minute you turn off your
iPhone, Google Drive can
actually help with the
transition process. Not only
will it be useful in storing and It’s not comprehensive, but there’s a backup system built
transferring documents, but right into Google Drive.


FEATURE The iPhone Switcher’s Guide

while we were preparing this guide, Google unveiled (go.pcworld.com/

gdriveupdate) a simple backup system right inside its Google Drive
iOS app. It won’t bring over everything (and we still recommend
following the steps in this guide to ensure a seamless transfer), but if
you’re happy with just grabbing contacts, calendar entries, and
photos, it’s worth a try.
To get started, download the Google Drive app on your iOS device
and head into Settings (inside the hamburger-menu button). Select
Backups and you’ll be taken to a screen where you can choose whether
you want to save your contacts, calendar events, or photos. Tap Start
Backup and it’ll begin running, though you’ll need to keep your phone
on and the app open, so it’s best to do it overnight with your phone
plugged in.
The Google Drive method works well,
but it’s an all-or-nothing situation, so if you
don’t want every single calendar entry and
contact coming over to your new phone,
you’ll need to trim them down in their
respective apps first. And as we describe
later, you’ll still want to change the
defaults on your old iPhone to keep
everything up to date. But it will get some
of the data onto your new phone quickly so
you can start using it.

Pixel power
If your new phone happens to be a Pixel or
Pixel XL, moving in is easier than it is with
any other phone. That’s because of
Google’s included Quick Switch Adapter, a
simple, speedy method for pulling your
data over to your new phone. Google’s new Pixel is the best way to transfer
During the setup of your Pixel, you’ll be your information from your old iPhone.


given an option to copy your data from your iPhone. Dig through your
Pixel box to find the tiny USB-C adapter, attach your Lightening cable
to it, and plug the appropriate ends into each phone. Then, after you
log in to your Google account, the Pixel will search your iPhone for any
contacts, calendar events, photos, videos, non-DRM-protected music,
texts, and even iMessages, and bring them all safely over to their new
home. (One thing, though: If you use an iTunes backup instead of
iCloud, Google recommends that it is an unencrypted one. To check,
open iTunes on your computer, plug in your iPhone, go to the
Summary tab, and make sure the Encrypt iTunes Backup option is
unchecked. If it was turned on, you’ll need to run it again.) You can export
It’s all pretty magical, and the process is much easier than Apple’s all of your
Move To iOS (go.pcworld.com/moveiosapp) app. And it’ll save you a calendar
entries by
whole lot of time by skipping most of the steps you’ll need to take
taking a trip to
with just about every other phone.
iCloud.com.

Calendar
When you open your calendar app for the first time on your Android
device and sign in to your new Google account, it’s probably going to
be empty. But moving all your appointments from your Apple calendar
to your Google one is easier than you think.
If you have a Mac, the first thing you’ll need to do is open the


FEATURE The iPhone Switcher’s Guide

Calendar app on your computer. Select the calendar you want to

export, head to the File menu, and click Export to create an ICS file.
(Repeat if you have more than one calendar to copy over.) If you’re
using a PC, however, you’ll need to jump through a few small hoops.
First, log in to iCloud.com (iCloud.com) and open the calendar app.
Select the calendar you want to share and click the broadcast icon to
the right. In the accompanying dialog box, select Public Calendar and
copy the address that appears. (The address will be too long to view,
so you’ll need to click the email link button to copy the whole thing.)
Paste the entire link into a new tab, change webcal at the front to
Make sure you
http, and press Enter. That will download the ICS file you need. Finally,
select all of the
go back to your iCloud Calendar and uncheck Public Calendar, then
contacts you
repeat the process for any other calendars you want to copy over. want to bring
Then log in to your Google calendar (go.pcworld.com/gglcal) on the over before you
web and import the file you downloaded by clicking on the gear icon hit the Export
in the top right corner of the screen. Go down to Settings, click button.
Calendars, and find the
Import Calendar button.
Then all you need to do is
find the file you exported
and your iPhone’s dates
will show up on your
Android phone. Just don’t
forget that you’ll need to
do this for each of the
calendars you’ve exported
(Home, Work, Birthdays,
etc.).
When all that’s done,
the last thing you need to
do is change the default
calendar account on your
Apple devices (including


your old iPhone) from iCloud to Google. On iOS, you can switch it in
the Calendars tab inside the Settings app, while on OS X you’ll find it
inside the app’s preferences. From there, you can simply log in to your
Google account and your events will forever remain perfectly in sync.

Don’t be
alarmed—
before you can
import your
contacts, Google
will send you
back to the old
version of
Contacts.

Contacts
Now that you’ve got your appointments in order, you’re going to need
some people to communicate with. And since you’re already an expert
in importing calendar files, you’ll just need to do the same with your
contacts.
Once again, you’re going to start with your computer, but things
are a little different. On your Mac, jump into the Contacts app, and
choose Select All so you make sure to grab all the names in your
address book (or go through and select the ones you want). Then
navigate over to File > Export, and select Export vCard. Check to make
sure the file reads something like “Amy Andrews and 200 others,”
choose where you want it to go, and hit the Save button.
It’s just as easy on your PC. Go back to iCloud.com and this time
select the Contacts app. Select all of your contacts, click the gear icon
at the bottom left of the screen, and find the Export Vcard option.
Then go back to your Google account on the web, but this time
you’re going to open Contacts (it’s in the second batch of icons). Click

FEATURE The iPhone Switcher’s Guide

Gmail doesn’t
include a
dedicated
iCloud tab, but
you can still use
to set up your
iCloud account.

on the More option under your account icon on the left, scroll down to
the Import button, and select the CSV or vCard File option. However,
since Google is currently in the process of redesigning Contacts, you
can’t actually complete the import here. Instead, it will prompt you to go
back to the old app where you can click on the Import Contacts button at
the bottom of the left-hand column. Once the box opens, choose the
vCard file, and your Google address book will instantly populate with all
of the names from your iOS one.

Mail
Of course, if you’re already using a Gmail account as your main email
address, you can skip right to the next section. When you sign in to your
new Android phone with your Google account, all your mail will be there.
But setting up your iCloud account isn’t too much more difficult. And
even though you won’t see an option for iCloud when you go to add a

new account, you can still use the Gmail app to manage your Apple mail.
To get started, open the Gmail app on your new phone, go to Settings
(at the bottom of the sidebar), and tap Add account. On the Set Up
Email screen, select Other, and follow the prompts to enter your iCloud
email address and password. (If you have 2-step or 2-factor
authentication enabled for your iCloud account, you’ll need to create
an app-specific password first on your Apple ID account page.)
That should be enough to get your account up and running, but if
you’re still getting error messages, you might need to tweak the
server settings. You can find the incoming IMAP and outgoing SMTP
server settings on Apple’s website (support.apple.com/en-us/
HT202304). And if you don’t want to use the Gmail app that came
with your phone, you can download any number of great ones from
the Play Store, including Alto (go.pcworld.
com/altoapp), Newton (go.pcworld.com/
newton), Outlook (go.pcworld.com/
outlookplay), and others that you may be
familiar with on iOS.

Messages
Here’s the only real stumbling block with
switching between iOS and Android: Your
messages don’t play nice between the two
operating systems. Even if you’re moving
between Android phones, the system is
less than ideal, mostly relying on third-
party solutions that may or may not work.
As we already discussed, Google offers an
excellent solution baked into the Pixel, and
Samsung offers something similar with its
Smart Switch (go.pcworld.com/smrtswtch)
app, but otherwise there’s no guarantee
that you’ll be able to bring your messages
over. The most popular tool is iSMS2droid Don’t forget to turn off iMessage!


FEATURE The iPhone Switcher’s Guide

(go.pcworld.com/isms2droid), but it relies on making an unencrypted

iTunes backup (isms2droid.com), digging into your drive to find the SMS
database file, and renaming it and converting it. Not exactly the easiest of
solutions.
So, unless you use WhatsApp (go.pcworld.com/whtapp), Facebook
Messenger (go.pcworld.com/fbmessenger), or some other over-the-
top service, your iMessages will likely be forever locked on your old
iPhone. But a clean slate might be for the best anyway since you’re
going to be a green bubble from here on out. Because you’ve already
turned off iMessage, right?

Photos
Now that the important information is all ported over, it’s time to get
into the fun stuff. We know you’re going to be using your new phone to

Your Android
photo library
will look just
practically the
same as the
one on your old
iPhone.


take tons of photos and videos, but all the ones you took with your old
iPhone can come along too. And you won’t need to attach any cables
to transfer them.
All you need to do is download and run Google Photos on your old
iPhone. Really, that’s it. Once you log in to your Google account, the app
will do all the heavy lifting for you, scanning the entire contents of your
photo library and dutifully copying everything that’s inside (including any
photos and videos that reside on your iCloud Drive). And that’s not even
the best part. Google Photos won’t even count the space it uses against
your Google Drive storage limit, so long as you opt to store High Quality
shots rather than full-size ones. If you used the Google Drive transfer
process mentioned earlier in this article, Google already put all your
photos and videos in Google Photos, so you’re all set.
It might take a few hours for larger libraries to upload, but once it’s
finished, you’ll never be more than a tap away from a lifetime of
memories. So whether it’s your next Android phone, a new iPad, or the
web, you need only sign in to the Google Photos app to access every
picture and screenshot you’ve ever taken, no matter how or where
they were shot.

Music
Just like your photos,
getting the tunes
from your old iPhone
onto your Android
phone is quick and
easy. Of course, if you
subscribe to a
streaming service, it
won’t take any time at
all—just download
your app of choice,
sign in, and start Google Play Music will store 50,000 tracks for you, all for free.


FEATURE The iPhone Switcher’s Guide

rocking out. And if you’re using a service that supports uploads

(including Apple Music go.pcworld.com/aplmusic), your entire library
will be at your disposal.
But even if you have a ton of ripped tracks on an external drive,
Google has you covered. You don’t have to be a subscriber to Google
Play Music (play.google.com/music) to take advantage of its best
feature—storing up to 50,000 of your own tracks. And it won’t cost
you a dime. Just log in to Google Play Music web app (play.google.com/
music), go to the menu in the upper left, and select Upload Music. Your
entire collection will be ready to stream in minutes (or hours,
depending on the size) on any and all of your devices.

Anything else
For the rest of the apps you use on your phone, you’ll need to hit up
the Play Store to find replacements or Android counterparts. All the
major apps are represented, of course—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
Snapchat, etc.—and you’ll need only sign in to your account to pick up
where you left off. And of course, if your favorite game uses Facebook
or some other cloud platform to sync, your progress will be restored
Once you meld
Safari with
Chrome, all of
your book-
marks will be
available on
your new
phone.


once you log in (so don’t freak out, Candy Crush addicts).
If you were already using Chrome on your old iPhone, your
bookmarks, open tabs, and search history will all be synced to your
new device, along with any passwords you’ve stored as soon as you
sign in. And if you were using one of the main password managers
(1Password, LastPass, or Dashlane), you’ll be able to grab a copy in the
Play Store.
To get your Safari bookmarks into Chrome on your new phone,
you’ll need to download the iCloud app for Windows (go.pcworld.com/
icloudwin). Once it’s all set up and you’re signed in, click the Options
button next to Bookmarks and select Chrome. Press Apply, and select
Merge in the pop-up dialog box. (If prompted, allow Chrome to
install the iCloud Bookmarks extension.) Once it’s done, all of your
Safari bookmarks will appear in Chrome’s Bookmark’s tab on your
Android phone (and everywhere else).
You can do that right in Chrome on a Mac. Launch Chrome, open
the menu at the top right, and click Bookmarks. Select Import
Bookmarks and Settings, choose Safari, and press Import.
And that should be it. Other than a stray document or file that you
can just toss in your Google Drive, your new phone will be all ready to
go. And we don’t think you’ll miss it all.


 digital edition

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HERE’S
HOW
188 Everything you need 201 9 free ways to get the
to know about most out of Google’s
Windows 10 recovery Play Music app
drives
209 Hassle-Free PC
192 8 Android gestures Google Drive dumps
that speed up Windows XP and
everyday tasks Vista, now what?

198 How to use Skype 211 Answer Line

without an account How to reinstall
Windows 10 without
any bloatware


How to build, maintain,
and fix your tech gear.
HERE’S
HOW

Everything you need to

know about Windows 10
recovery drives
BY JOSH NOREM

YOU NEVER KNOW when you’ll need a Windows recovery drive, so the
time to make one is now—and it’s very easy to do.
A recovery drive is similar to the media you’d receive if you bought a
pre-built system. Back in the day, PCs would ship with a CD or DVD
that included an image of the system as it left the factory. If your PC’s
OS went sideways, you could easily revert to the way things were on
day one (though you’d lose all of your subsequently created data and


applications, obviously).
Nowadays manufacturers
usually just put an image of
the system as it left the
factory on a hidden partition
of your main drive.
A Windows recovery disk
builds on this idea. In addition
to letting you reinstall
Windows, it includes several
troubleshooting tools, which
can be a lifesaver if your
system won’t boot.
Some of these tools used to
be part of the OS. If your PC
failed to boot you were
presented with a menu
allowing you to try and boot
into Safe Mode, or use “last
known good configuration.”
That’s no longer the case with
Windows 10. Now you need
these tools to reside on a
separate, bootable USB key,
and every person running
Windows should keep one in a
safe place with the label “in
You can easily create a recovery drive using Windows 10’s
case of emergency.” built-in tool.
Here’s how you create one
and what it can do for you.
First, obtain an 8GB to 16GB USB key (go.pcworld.com/w10usbkey).
Next, go into Windows’ Control panel (right-clicking the Windows icon
is the easiest way) and type create a recovery drive into the search
bar. The manual method would be to go to System & Security > Security


& Maintenance > Recovery.
You may need to enter
your admin password to go
further. In the resulting
dialog box, check the box
labeled Back up system files
to the recovery drive.
With your recovery drive
created, you’ll have to boot
from it in order to use it.
How your PC boots from
USB (go.pcworld.com/
usbboot) varies according
What you’ll see when you boot from the Recovery Drive,
to your PC’s age and
allowing you to either fix Windows or reinstall it completely.
motherboard, but typically
you can press one of the
F-keys during boot to arrive
at a boot selection window.
From there you select the
USB key you're using, and it
should proceed to boot
from the recovery drive.
When you successfully boot
from it you’ll see the
following options. Here’s
what each of them does:
The first window gives
you essentially two options: The Advanced Options offer quite a few useful troubleshooting
Recover from a drive, and and PC repair tools.

Advanced options.
The first option lets you re-install Windows. Note that it says you
will lose all your data and installed applications. This is a clean
installation of Windows, not a restore from backup or something
along those lines. This is the nuclear option, in other words.


 HERE’S HOW

The second option, which is labeled Advanced Options, lets you fix

your Windows installation in several ways, and brings you to the
following menu:
The Advanced Options menu allows you to do the following:
System Restore: Use this to revert your PC to a happier time, when
things were working normally. This does not affect your data, but it
does affect installed programs as it replaces the registry with an
earlier version.
System Image Recovery: If you’ve used the image backup tool in
Windows 10 (go.pcworld.com/w10backup), this would be where it
would come in handy. You can restore the image of your PC at the
time you created the image, which includes all your data and installed
programs at that time.
Startup Repair: This is sort of a “black box” in that it tries to fix
whatever issue is preventing the system from booting, but it doesn’t
tell you what it’s doing or, if successful, what the problem was. This is
the first thing you should try, as it’s the quickest and least invasive.
Command Prompt: This can be useful for a wide array of tricks and
tactics, most especially running the SFC /Scannow command to scan
and fix corrupted system files. We all know the command prompt is a
wizard’s toolbox, and if you know what you’re doing the possibilities
are almost endless.
Go Back to the Previous Build: Though worded a bit cryptically, this
lets you revert your PC to the previous build of Windows, meaning the
one before whatever update turned everything pear-shaped.
As you can see, it’s quite useful to have one of these recovery drives
handy. Do yourself a favor and make one now.


 You can quickly delete
large swaths of text on
your Android handset by
swiping left from the
backspace key.

8 Android gestures that

speed up everyday tasks
BY BEN PATTERSON

NAVIGATING YOUR WAY around a new Android device will get a lot
easier once you’ve mastered a few handy touchscreen gestures.
For example, you can switch between Chrome tabs with a single
swipe, while a two-finger swipe will add a whole new perspective to
Google Maps. No sign of the virtual Home button? There’s a gesture
that’ll bring it back.


 HERE’S HOW

Swipe down
A quicker way to get to your Quick Settings
with two fingers
When you swipe down from the top of the screen on your unlocked
to reveal all your
Android device, you’ll see a small row of buttons sitting at the top of Quick Settings
your various notifications (or in the very top corner of the screen, on on an unlocked
pre-Nougat handsets). These are your so-called “quick settings”—a Android device.
series of one-tap buttons that’ll let you do things like turn Wi-Fi on and
off, switch on your phone’s flashlight mode, or toggle Airplane Mode.
Swipe down again and you’ll see even more quick settings, such as
(depending on your setup) the screen’s auto-rotate setting,
Bluetooth, and your device’s hotspot feature.
If you’d rather jump directly to all your quick settings rather than
having to swipe once and then again, try this: Swipe down from the
top of the screen with two fingertips instead of just one. When you do,
you’ll reveal an expanded view of your various quick settings.

Swipe to get the Home button back

It can be a little disconcerting when you’re viewing a video or doing
another full-screen activity on your Android device, and the virtual
Home button goes AWOL.


 In many cases, the Home button
will reappear by simply tapping
the screen. But that doesn’t
always work, depending on the
app you’re using. With YouTube,
for example, tapping the screen
while watching a video in full-
screen mode only pauses the clip,
leaving the Home button hidden.
If your Android device’s Home
button has deserted you, try this:
Swipe down from the top of the
display. The three main navigation
buttons at the bottom of the Missing Home key? You can get it back with a
simple swipe.
screen—including the Home
button—will slide back into view.

Double-click for
the camera
Whether clicking a physical button
on your Android phone counts as a
gesture may be a matter of debate,
but this particular shortcut is so
handy it’s worth mentioning here.
Basically, you can jump to the
Android camera app anytime—
even when your phone is unlocked
and you’re deep within an app—by You can quickly delete large swaths of text on your
double-clicking the power button Android handset by swiping left from the backspace key.
(assuming your Android device is
running on Lollipop or better).
That’s in stark contrast to iOS, which lacks a camera shortcut in its
unlocked state—meaning you’ll need to scramble to the Camera app
if that Kodak moment arises while actively using your phone.


 HERE’S HOW

Get a new perspective

in Maps
The Maps app for Android offers
such an eyeful of information
that it’s easy to forget the whole
different way of looking at the
world—or at least, the world
according to Maps.
Just drag two fingertips down
the screen to make the view in
Maps tilt for a 3D perspective, Give Google Maps a little depth by swiping down with
complete with 3D buildings two fingers.
(depending on the city).
To go back to a flat view, slide
two fingertips back up the screen.

Refresh Chrome
with a pull
There’s no obvious way to refresh a
page when you’re browsing in
Chrome for Android—or at least,
not unless you open the main
menu by tapping the button in the
top-right corner of the screen. Tugging down on a webpage in Chrome for Android for
That said, there’s an easy way to a quick refresh.
refresh a Chrome webpage in a flash:
Just pull down on the page with your fingertip.
Bonus: If you’re holding your phone with your right hand, you can
quickly open the main Chrome menu by swiping down in an arc with
your thumb, starting from the top-right corner of the display.


Swipe address bar to
change Chrome tabs
Unlike the missing refresh button in
Chrome, there is a small Tabs button
at the top of the screen, but there’s
an easier way to switch tabs than
trying to tap that tiny target.
Just swipe one way or another
across the Chrome address bar.
When you do, the next tab will
slide onto the screen. Keep You can cycle through all your open tabs in Chrome for
swiping to cycle through all your Android by repeatedly swiping the address bar.
open tabs.

Slide across space bar

to move the cursor
When I was initially writing about
my own recent switch (go.pcworld.
com/missios) from iOS to Android,
I complained about missing the
magnifying glass that appears
when you tap and hold a word you
want to edit.
Well, turns out Android has its Editing text on your Android device will get a lot easier
own answer to iOS’s magnifying once you start swiping the space bar to move the cursor.
glass. With the stock Android
keyboard, you can move the cursor by sliding your finger back and
forth across the space bar. It’s not quite as elegant as Apple’s
magnifying glass, but it’s far easier than trying to move the cursor
with your fingertip.
If you want to try Android’s space bar trick, you’ll need to have the
right setting enabled. Tap Settings > Languages & input > Virtual
keyboard > Google Keyboard > Gesture typing, then make sure the Enable
gesture cursor control setting is toggled on.

 HERE’S HOW

Slide left from the delete key to delete words

If tapping the Android backspace key or selecting passages of text to
delete feels almost as tedious as dealing with the cursor, there’s
another keypad gesture that might make your day.
Tap the backspace key and then start swiping to the left. As you do,
Android will start selecting more and more text from the left of the
cursor. When you’re ready to delete, just release the keypad. To
change your mind, slide your finger back to the right before
releasing.


 How to use Skype
without an account
BY IAN PAUL

SKYPE RECENTLY ADDED an interesting new feature that allows

anyone to use the free version of the messaging app without an
account. To use it without an account, you must use Skype for Web;
however, account holders can still join in using a regular Skype client.
This is an extension of a feature Skype rolled out in October 2015,
C R E D I T : M I C ROS O F T

which allowed Skype users to add non-Skype users (go.pcworld.com/

skypeallchat) to their conversations.
When you use Skype’s account-free options, you’re considered a
guest. All conversations are based on a unique link that you can share


 HERE’S HOW

Get started on
Skype’s website.

with anyone you want to talk to over Skype. Guest conversation links
last for 24 hours and allow up to 300 people to have a text chat, or up
to 25 people to participate in a voice or video call.
Guest conversations have most of the features you get with a free
account such as screen and file sharing. Skype Translator (the service’s
real-time translation tool) is out, as are paid-account features such
as phone calls to landlines or mobile phones.

Getting started with account-free Skype

Since this is a web-based service,
you start on Skype (skype.com).
When you land on the webpage
you’ll see a button labeled Start a
conversation.
Click that and a small window
will pop up asking you to enter
your name. Since this is not tied to
an account you can use any name
you like. I wouldn’t necessarily
count on Skype as a way to have a
sensitive, anonymous Pick the username you’d like to use for the
conversation. Just don’t sweat it if conversation.
you’d rather use a pseudonym.


 Once your name is entered, click the Start a conversation button Skype for Web
again. Once that’s done, you’ll eventually see a Skype loading screen as without an
Microsoft prepares the account-free conversation. account.
When everything is ready, a Skype for Web conversation window
appears. To get other people to join, you have to share the unique web
address created for your conversation. You can either copy the link in
the left-hand panel or from the big blue box in the main part of the
screen. Now share that link as you would any other—via email,
Facebook, Twitter, SMS, WhatsApp, etc.
If you’re sending the link to someone on a PC, when they click the
conversation link they will have an option to open the Skype app on their
PC. If they’d rather not use their account for the conversation, they can
just click the Join conversation button to use Skype for Web as a guest.
Mobile users can also use the Skype URL to join the conversation from
their smartphone or tablet using Skype’s mobile apps.
Enjoy your account-free Skype chats.


 HERE’S HOW

9 free ways to get the

most out of Google's
Play Music app
BY BEN PATTERSON

“SUBSCRIBE NOW!” BLARES the banner at the bottom of Google’s

Play Music control panel, and indeed, everything about the just-
revamped app seems to be shilling for its subscription streaming
service, particularly the new auto-generated radio stations that sit
CREDIT: GOOGLE

(quite stubbornly) in Play Music’s Home tab.

But even if you don’t want to cough up $10 a month to play a
streaming shuffle on your phone, there’s still plenty of free stuff to
like in Google’s Play Music app for Android and iOS.


 For example, you can bring pretty much your entire music collection
wherever you go once you upload your tunes and create and save
“instant mixes” based on any of your songs. There’s also an offline
mode and bandwidth settings to keep you from blowing through your
mobile data, an equalizer for teasing the best sound out of your
headset, and even a sleep timer so you can doze off to your most
soothing playlist.

Upload your music collection

One of the most powerful features of Play Music—namely, its ability
to stream your music collection to your Android or iOS device—
demands a lengthy, tedious chore on your desktop PC, but the results
are worth the time and effort.
Google offers a downloadable ”Music Manager” tool (go.pcworld.
com/gmusictool) that’ll upload music from your PC or Mac to your
Play Music account, or you can simply drag and drop music files into
the Upload window of Play Music for Chrome.
Google’s Music Manager tool does its best to “scan and match” your
tunes with existing tracks in the cloud, but it’ll end up uploading many
of your songs, a process that could take hours or even days depending
on the speed of your broadband connection and the size of your
music collection.

You can upload up to 50,000 tracks to Google Play Music for free.


 HERE’S HOW

Once you’re done with all the uploads, though, your tunes will be
available for streaming or download in the Play Music app for iOS and
Android, and even on Play Music in a web browser—and best of all,
Google will let you upload up to 50,000 tracks for free.
Note: Any music you’ve previously purchased from the Google Play
Music store will already be sitting in your online music library, and they
won’t count against your free 50,000 song uploads.

Create and save an 'instant mix'

Sure, the free version of Google Play Music will let you listen to streaming
radio stations, but you’ll have to deal with some ads and limits to how
often you can skip, and downloading a station for offline listening is out
of the question.
If you’ve got your music collection sitting in the cloud, though, you
can create “instant mixes” of your tracks based on your favorite songs,
albums, and artists, and then save and download those mixes to your
Android or iOS device.
Just go to any song, album, or artist in your music library, tap the
three-dot menu button and, and select Start instant mix; when you do,
Play Music will generate a mix and start playing the first tune. Tap the
mini-player at the bottom of the screen, tap the three-dot menu
button again, tap Save queue, then save the songs in the queue to a
new playlist.

Just tap “Start instant mix” to create a mix of tunes based on a specific song,
album, or artist.


 Now, navigate back to the main Music Library screen, tap the
Playlists tab, tap the three-dot menu button on the playlist you just
created, then tap Download to save your mix for offline listening.

Switch to offline mode

Once you’ve saved a few instant mixes to your device, you’ll be ready to
tee them up wherever you are, even if you’re offline—and indeed, if
you’re intent on burning as little mobile data as possible while listening
to your tunes on the go, your best bet is to switch the Play Music app
to offline mode.
Tap the main menu button in the top-left corner of the screen, then
toggle on the Downloaded only setting. Once you do, Play Music will
only drop the needle on tracks that are already downloaded on your
Android or iOS device, perfect for listening on the subway or keeping
your mobile data use in check.

Google Play Music’s offline mode lets you listen to downloaded tracks when
you’re out of range of cellular or Wi-Fi, or simply to cut down on your mobile
data use.

Use as little mobile data as possible

Say you’re out and about and you’re itching to play an album that you
never bothered to download in advance. With the right settings
enabled, you can still stream your music without taking too big a bite
out of your mobile data allowance.
Tap the main menu button in the top-left corner of the screen, tap


 HERE’S HOW

Settings, then scroll down and tap Mobile networks stream quality.
Now, pick a setting. Low uses the least amount of cellular bandwidth
but leaves your music sounding muddier than you might like. Normal
strikes a decent balance between sound quality and mobile data use,
while High spares no expense when it comes to delivering crystal-clear
sound quality.

If you don’t mind losing a little audio quality, you can set Google Play Music to
stream your tunes at a lower bit rate.

Tweak your equalizer settings (Android only)

Speaking of audio quality, you can make your own adjustment to how
your tracks sound by fiddling with Play Music’s equalizer levels.
On an Android device, tap the main menu button, then tap Settings >
Equalizer, and toggle on the main Equalizer switch. The drop-down

You can get your music to sound just right with a little help from Play Music’s
equalizer settings.

menu in the top corner of the screen lets you choose from 11
equalizer presets, ranging from Normal and Classical to Hip-Hop and
Jazz, or you can pick User to mess with the quintet of EQ sliders.
Below the main equalizer settings are a couple more audio settings:
one for Bass Boost and another for Surround sound, handy for giving
Play Music’s audio some extra punch and presence. (Note: If the Bass
Boost and Surround sound sliders are grayed out, try plugging in a pair
of headphones.)

Fall asleep to your tunes

There’s nothing like a mix of mellow tunes to help you doze off, and Play
Music has a feature that’ll help you get some shut-eye without playing
your music on all night.

Google Play Music’s sleep timer can help you snooze to your most soothing tunes.

Tap the main menu button, tap Settings > Sleep Timer, then select
how many hours and minutes you’d like to snooze to.

Tinker with your music queue

Just like the Music app on iOS (go.pcworld.com/iosmusic), Play Music has
a queue of “up next” songs—in other words, a list of all the songs that are
queued up depending on the album, playlist or artist you’re playing.
As you’re playing a track, tap the mini-player at the bottom of the
display to zoom it to full-screen view, then tap the queue button (the


 HERE’S HOW

You can change the order of songs in your music queue by dragging the little
handles to the left, or just swipe a track away to take it off the list.

one with three lines and a little music note icon) in the top-right
corner of the screen.
Now that you can see your music queue, time to tinker. First, tap and
drag a handle next to a song to shuffle its position in the queue, or
swipe away the song to nix it from the queue.
To jump any song, album, or artist in your music library to the front of
the queue, tap the three-dot menu button next to its title and tap
Play next—or, if you want your selection to play after everything else in
your queue, tap Add to queue instead.

Check out your 'cached' music

One of the tricks that Play Music has up its sleeves is the ability to
automatically download a playlist of your recently played songs. If you
ever get caught offline without having downloaded any music
manually, you can count on your cached music to tide you over.
First, make sure you’re in offline mode: Tap the main menu button,
then toggle on the Downloads only switch.
Back on the main menu, tap Home—and when you do, you’ll find a
“cached music” playlist, all downloaded and waiting for you.
If you’re short on storage space and you actually don’t want Play
Music automatically downloading any music, tap the main menu
button, tap Settings, then toggle off the Cache music while streaming
setting (or Cache during playback on iOS). You’ll lose your cached-


 You’ll never be
caught without
something to
listen to thanks
to Play Music’s
“cached music”
playlist.

music playlist, but at least you’ll conserve precious storage space on

your handset.

Clear out old cached data and downloads

Running out of storage space? There’s an easy way to instantly zap all
of Play Music’s downloaded tunes, along with any auto-downloaded
“cached” music.
Head for the main menu, then tap Settings > Clear cache. That’s a
move that could instantly free up hundreds of megabytes of storage,
depending on the size of your “cached music” playlist.
Next, tap Manage downloads. You’ll jump to a screen that shows all
the downloaded music and podcasts on your device. Just tap the
little orange buttons next to each track, album, or artist to instantly
wipe them.


 HASSLE-FREE PC HERE’S
BY IAN PAUL HOW

Google Drive dumps

Windows XP and Vista,
now what?
STRIKE ANOTHER PROGRAM down for Windows XP (and Vista) fans.
Google recently announced that the Google Drive desktop utility (go.
pcworld.com/gdrutility) would cease support for Windows XP, Vista,
and Server 2003 beginning January 1, 2017. This is the second major
desktop-cloud sync program to dump older versions of Windows after
Dropbox did so in April (go.pcworld.com/dropbwinxp).
With Google Drive going away, what’s an XP (or Vista) fan to do?
Here are some solutions.


Just keep on, keepin’ on
Unlike Dropbox, Google isn’t turning off Google Drive for the desktop.
As long as you have the utility up and running on an XP and Vista
computer before January 1, 2017 you
can continue to use it. Even though it will
Even though it will continue to work, continue to work,
Google says the program “will not be
actively tested and maintained.” That
Google says the
means if a serious security flaw is program “will not
discovered the XP- and Vista- be actively tested
supporting versions of Google Drive and maintained.”
will not be patched, leaving you at risk
of being hacked. Of course, if you’re still running Windows XP, which
also isn’t being updated, then the threat of another critical flaw
running on your system probably isn’t worrying you—even though it
should.

Use the website

As with Dropbox, you can continue using the website version of
Google Drive. As long as your browser continues to support the
technology and features that Google uses on its website, you should
be good to go. Google Drive began as a web-only service with no
desktop component (that came along in 2012, go.pcworld.com/
gdrwebonly), so in some ways it will be like going back in time—kind
of like running an XP machine. Sorry, couldn’t resist.

Find another service or upgrade to Windows 10

If using a desktop-cloud sync program integrated with Windows
Explorer is a must, then XP and Vista users will have to look elsewhere,
such as the paid service Sugar Sync.
The reality, however, is that other sync services will eventually cease
support for Windows XP, too. Like it or not, if you want to continue
using modern versions of cloud sync you’ll have to upgrade to a
Windows 10 machine at some point.

 ANSWER LINE HERE’S
BY JOSH NOREM HOW

How to reinstall Windows

10 without any bloatware
PATRICK SCOTT BOUGHT some laptops for his kids, but they were so
slow the kids stopped using them. This is a common issue with
bloatware-laden consumer laptops, sadly. He performed a “factory
reset,” with the hopes of reinstalling the OS without all the crap that
was preinstalled. To his horror he discovered the factory reset
reinstalled all the bloatware, leaving him back where he started.
Luckily for Patrick, there’s a way to get a clean installation of
Windows 10, without all the apps that came with your PC. Here’s how
it works.


1. From Windows 10’s Start menu, go to Settings > Update & security >
Recovery. You can also get there from the traditional Control Panel by
clicking Recovery. At the bottom of that window, click the long
hyperlink that reads, “If you’re having problems with your PC, go to
Settings...”

Windows 10
has what we
used to call a
“repair install”
built-in, also
known as an
in-place
installation.

2. Either way, you end up in the Recovery section of Settings. Under

More recovery options you’ll see a long hyperlink that reads, “Learn how
to start fresh with a clean installation of Windows.” Click that and this web
page (go.pcworld.com/
This text will
w10startfresh) will open. take you to a
3. That webpage has a tool webpage that
you can download which lets you
will “...install a clean copy of download the
the most recent version of tool you need.
Windows 10 Home or
Windows 10 Pro, and
remove apps that you
installed or came pre-
installed on your PC.”
Let’s be completely clear here, as Microsoft is in the further
explanation: “Using this tool will remove all apps that don’t come
standard with Windows, including other Microsoft apps such as Office.
It will also remove most pre-installed apps, including manufacturer
apps, support apps, and drivers.” Don’t use this tool unless you’re ready


 HERE’S HOW

Here is
Windows 10
“fresh start”
reset tool - it’s
free and works
beautifully.

to let go of everything.
4. Run the tool, and get some coffee or go for a walk. When it
completes you’ll have a fresh installation of Windows 10, sans
bloatware (or anything else).


 Tech Spotlight
A video showcase of
the latest trends

Watch the
video at
go.pcworld.
com/2016
dronesvid

8 drones that
delighted » Drones are still getting into
us in 2016 dumb and dangerous situations,
but others are moving in better
directions. There’s a drone that can avoid crashing into things, for one,
but also check out the DHL drone that’s already making deliveries, the
small army of Intel drones that can light up the night, and more.

