Table of contents for 694 in Computeractive

When I bought my first TV over 30 years ago I think the only question I asked the sales assistant was whether it had Ceefax. If I’d asked about OLED, QLED, HDMI or HDR he’d have thought I was mad, speaking Polish, or complaining about a poor set of Scrabble letters. You don’t have to worry about Ceefax these days, but otherwise you need much more tech knowledge to be sure you’re buying the kind of TV you want. Screens, resolutions, speakers, panels, ports, dynamic ranges, viewing angles – it can be bewildering, and that’s before you start thinking about what to watch on them. We demystify all this in our Cover Feature, starting with five golden rules of buying a TV before recommending the best budget, mid-range and top-end…

I want to congratulate Virgin Media for the efficient way it transferred me to its digital phone service. My router was upstairs and my landline was in the living room. This had been the situation ever since my first dial-up connection with NTL, back in the days when companies provided a second line for a computer at no extra cost. Virgin sent me an email about the switch, telling me that if I needed more than the small adapter it provided, I should call its customer services. I did this and three days later an engineer arrived to connect a new line to the outside box, which entailed drilling through my bay window. They then moved my phone line downstairs and connected it. The entire operation took less than 50…

TeraCopy Pro www.snipca.com/52196  Price: $29.95 (£22.40)  Free trial period: N/A  What you need: Windows 7, 8.1, 10 or 11 TeraCopy has been around since 2007, launching shortly after Windows Vista. Back then, Windows Explorer (as it was then called) was notoriously slow at copying files between drives, partitions and even folders, and TeraCopy provided a speedier and more reliable alternative. Nowadays, File Explorer is generally better at file transfers, but many tech experts still swear by TeraCopy and it’s not hard to see why. It’s incredibly fast at copying large amounts of data from one location to another – completing transfers while File Explorer would still be making you watch its progress graph. Just add items to your file list (see screenshot), select the target drive or folder, then click Copy…

The OnePlus Nord 4 has a striking all-metal case that makes it look more expensive than it is. At just 8mm thick, this smooth, slim device slips comfortably into a pocket. The 6.74in AMOLED screen goes right up to the edges of the phone, leaving very little bezel. The picture is sharp, crisp and bright enough to view comfortably indoors and out, with a 120Hz refresh rate that makes scrolling feel smooth. OnePlus has also applied its AquaTouch technology – typically reserved for its more expensive phones – so you can use it even when the screen is wet. This is backed up by the phone’s IP65 weather-proof rating, which means you can safely use it in a rainstorm. “Slim and stylish, with slick performance and good battery life” The…

You may recognise the Doro brand from its range of phones, which are designed for older people who find modern smartphones unnecessarily confusing. The Doro Hemma Doorbell is the company’s take on video doorbells, making them perfect for those who don’t want all the confusing features and options found on other smart doorbells. It comes with both a sticker and a wall mount that you can screw in next to your front door, so you can have it up and running in 10 minutes. It also includes a USB-C cable for recharging, which is necessary after about 10 days of use, and a Doro Hemma Chime, which plugs into a power socket and produces a loud ring. “An excellent and simple smart doorbell with no hidden costs” The 1080p camera…

Winner of a Buy It award in Issue 692 (page 24), Philips’ 27E1N1600AE is our new favourite PC monitor. It’s made to keep you connected. With features like USB-C 3.2 with power delivery, you can charge your linked devices and work seamlessly, all with one cable. It has crystal-clear images, with Quad HD 2560x1440 pixels. Utilising high-performance panels with a high-density pixel count, enabled by high bandwidth sources like USB-C, Displayport and HDMI, these new displays will make your images and graphics come alive. Its High Dynamic Range delivers astonishing brightness, incomparable contrast and captivating colour, while the IPS panel gives you extra-wide viewing angles of 178/178 degrees, making it possible to view the display from almost any angle. To enter this competition, answer the question at www.snipca.com/52120 and submit…

DEVICES Use Yale’s tamper siren to deter burglars For the past few years, I’ve been using Yale’s Keyless Connected smart lock (pictured right), which you recommended in Issue 693’s feature on protecting your home (page 60). It’s an excellent device and I’ve had no problems with it. As well as the benefits you explained, it has two features that make it a great purchase. First is the 80-decibel ‘tamper’ siren, which is activated if someone tries to remove or disable the lock. While not deafening, this is loud enough to make a burglar think twice. Second, for peace of mind, is that I can ask Amazon Alexa whether my front door is locked. I always do this upstairs as the last thing before going to bed. Tony Sullivan SOFTWARE Change…

WINDOWS 10 & 11 Remove unwanted items from PowerToys workspaces The best new tool in PowerToys 84.0, released in September, is Workspaces. This lets you save a set of programs, including browsers, in a layout of your choice, and launch them with a single click. It’s great for saving specific groups of programs you need in different situations, such as at home and at work. Open PowerToys then click Workspaces in the left menu and check that the Enable Workspaces slider is on (blue). Next, click ‘Launch editor’ if you want to create a workspace now, or do it later by pressing the keyboard shortcut Windows key+Ctrl+’ (apostrophe). Click the top-right Create Workspace button, then launch and move programs to create your workspace. Click Capture when done, name it, then…

We’ve all felt the sense of creeping unease that comes with being faced by an advert for the exact same product we were talking about with friends or family only a day or two before. Before you shout “conspiracy theory”, bear in mind that only very recently (see Named & Shamed, Issue 693, page 21) we reported on fresh evidence that marketing firms are brazenly promoting software that can listen into customers’ conversations via their phone’s microphone. And that’s before we’ve even considered all the malicious apps and programs that could allow scammers and hackers to eavesdrop on you without your consent. It’s not just phones, either. Tablets, computers, smart speakers and even TVs all now have the potential to snoop on you via built-in mics designed for features such…

Torrent and magnet links? Q I noticed that LibreOffice is available via BitTorrent, so I thought I’d give that a try – as I’ve always been curious about the system. I downloaded a program called qBittorrent and downloaded the ‘.torrent’ file from the LibreOffice website at www.snipca.com/51900 (pictured). When I opened this in qBittorrent, LibreOffice began downloading. Later, I thought I’d explore other things to download. I found links to both Torrent files and also Magnet links. I don’t know the difference, so I’ve stuck with Torrent files for now. I’m also a bit worried about the legality, but presumably a company like LibreOffice wouldn’t offer a BitTorrent option if it was a dodgy system? Can you advise. George Barnes A Let’s work in reverse. There’s nothing inherently illegal about…

More than two million VPN passwords have been stolen in the past year, according to new research. Analysis from Swedish security firm Specops found that over 1.3 million of the stolen passwords were for Proton VPN, which is one of the world’s most popular VPNs and a Computeractive favourite. Nearly 95,000 of the passwords were for ExpressVPN, while nearly 90,000 were for NordVPN – see the full list at www.snipca.com/52189. Specops examined 2,151,523 passwords stolen in the 12 months to 20 August 2024. Most of them were unique or considered strong, though 123456 was the most common, being used more than 5,000 times. The next five most common were also strings of consecutive numbers. Once they’ve got your password a hacker can disable all the protection you get from using…

LEAD CASE Do I have to put up with another repair? Q I bought a Citizen watch for £78.99 from Hogies Online (www.hogiesonline.co.uk). It stopped working the day after it arrived, and Hogies said it was probably a battery problem so I returned it for repair. But more faults occurred after it was returned to me, so do I have to send it back again for another repair? David Townsend A No, David doesn’t have to send the watch back for another repair. Under the Consumer Rights Act, retailers are allowed only one attempt to repair a product, and if it fails they must process a refund if the customer wants this. It doesn’t matter whether the fault is the same as before or a different one. You have 30…

How can I make stop-motion videos? Q Can you recommend software for creating stop-motion animation? I’m not looking to challenge Aardman studios – I just want to create some short films for my own amusement. I’m using a Canon PowerShot SX70 camera and a Dell Inspiron 5593 PC running Windows 11. Erik Sorensen A If you’re looking to incorporate stop-motion animation into a more general-purpose camera-control tool (one that lets you set up the camera and control its positioning via a USB cable on your PC), try the free digiCamControl (www.snipca.com/52076). But if you’d prefer something simpler, where you shoot a scene with your camera fixed in one position, then we recommend qStopMotion – also free from www.snipca.com/52077. Download the setup file and follow the prompts to install it. Make sure…

Those of us with longer memories might recognise HP’s OmniBook brand, but this is the first HP laptop to carry the name since 2002. It’s also HP’s first to be built around Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite AI processor. This means it’s part of Microsoft’s Copilot+ range of computers (see www.snipca.com/52094), with its TOPS exceeding the minimum of 40 set by Microsoft (see page 62). This is only the second laptop we’ve reviewed with this chip – following the Asus Vivobook S15 reviewed in Issue 688 (£999 from www.snipca.com/51051) – so it’s worth repeating how these processors differ from rivals. “A Copilot+ machine with a decent screen and long battery life” The X Elite uses its own ARM architecture rather than the more familiar x86 architecture of Intel and AMD chips.…

What does it do? PCIe stands for Peripheral Component Interconnect Express, and it’s a type of interface on a PC’s motherboard that lets you add internal components. This could be something basic like a Wi-Fi card, or a more sophisticated component such as a graphics card, which requires the fastest possible interface your PC can provide. How does it work? Your PC’s motherboard, like the MSI B550 Gaming Gen3 (pictured), will have a selection of PCIe expansion slots. These come in several sizes because different types of expansion card require a different number of connections. Graphics cards use larger PCIe x16 slots because they need 16 times as many connections as PCIe x1 slots – meaning graphics cards can process more data all at once. What are the specs? As…

What you need: VLC Media Player  Time required: 20 minutes plus processing time YouTube, Vimeo and other video-streaming sites are brilliant resources for learning new skills and picking up interesting facts. They are also packed with content that’s purely entertaining, engrossing and hard to ignore. If there’s a downside to these services, it’s that there’s simply too much good content for any of us to sit down and watch in our spare time. However, with some videos it’s more important that you can listen to them rather than watch the footage, such as with comedians’ stand-up shows, book-review discussions, lectures and celebrity or political interviews. Here, we’ll show you how to extract the audio track from online videos so you can listen to them them while getting on with something else.…

FIREFOX Try experimental tools – including an AI chatbot Firefox 130, released at the beginning of September, introduced a new feature called Labs. This lets you try experimental tools before they’re officially added to the browser, without having to delve into its (rather confusing) ‘about:config’ preferences. To access the new Firefox Labs section, click the browser’s three-line menu button and choose Settings. You’ll find it below Sync in the menu on the left. The most interesting Labs experiment is currently ‘AI chatbot’, which brings Firefox in line with Edge, Brave and Opera by adding an AI-powered assistant to the browser. Tick the ‘AI chatbot’ box (1 in our screenshot below) to choose from five chatbot options, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Anthropic Claude. A chat sidebar will then open on the…

ONLYOFFICE Add ‘confidential’ watermarks to your documents You can add a watermark to OnlyOffice documents to indicate they’re confidential. Click the Layout tab (1 in our screenshot below), followed by Watermark then ‘Custom watermark’. Now choose whether you want your watermark as text or as an image – we’ve selected text 2 Next, type your own word in the Text box, or choose one from the dropdown menu (this includes Confidential 3). You can also choose the font, orientation, and whether the text is semi-transparent. Once that’s done, click OK and you’ll see the watermark appear across your document 4. LIBREOFFICE WRITER Stop words being hyphenated at the end of lines LibreOffice 24.8, released in August, makes it easier to prevent words from being hyphenated at the end of lines in…

As AI software becomes ever more powerful and sophisticated, standard PCs are struggling to meet its demands. Though you can comfortably run tools such as ChatGPT on your current device, more resource-intensive AI tasks require hardware to match. In this feature, we explain why you should consider upgrading to one of the many new AI laptops that have gone on sale recently. What defines an AI PC? The main difference between a standard home computer and an AI PC is that the latter has a neural processing unit (NPU) in addition to a CPU and GPU. This new type of PC component is designed specifically to accelerate neural-network operations, which mimic the behaviour of the human brain, and other AI tasks – as we’ll explain later. According to Microsoft’s definition,…

FULL-SCREEN ADS APPEAR ON LG TVs LG TVs are now showing full-screen adverts even when you’re not watching any programmes. They’ve been spotted in the company’s new G4 OLED TV, but you can turn them off by opening Settings, then selecting General followed by System Settings, Additional Settings. Now scroll down to and turn off Screen Saver Promotion so the bar is no longer green. PAY TO SHARE DISNEY+ PASSWORDS Disney+ has launched its Extra Members scheme, letting you share your password with people outside your household. You can only add one member and they can stream to only one device. It costs £3.99 a month on the ‘Standard with Ads’ package, and £4.99 a month on both Standard and Premium. Each member must be over 18 and live in…

WATCH OUT FOR… ‘Bank’ emails about new anti-fraud scheme What’s the threat? Scammers posing as banks are sending emails that claim to contain details of a new scheme that offers more protection to victims of Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud. This is when criminals impersonate a company or tradesperson that you’re expecting an invoice from, and ask you to transfer money into their bank account. The scam emails, first spotted by Which? in early September, pretend to be from NatWest and ask you to “verify” your mobile phone number so you can “get notified of any transactions carried out via your account right away”. They were sent by ‘dilbectkolumbus.fi’, which has nothing to do with the bank. The ‘fi’ suffix indicates an email address registered in Finland. Clicking the link…

We managed to get a full refund for reader Billy Hamilton after Argos was unable to deliver a PC to his home in Northern Ireland (see Issue 693). However, we had to go through its parent company Sainsbury’s, which bought Argos in 2016. Billy thought the problem might have been due to the fact that he agreed to pay in installments over three months using the credit service Klarna (www.klarna.com). Klarna was only able to refund the amount Argos told it to, which was just £163. This was almost half the cost of the first installment (£319.99) and didn’t include the £154.99 he’d paid for the warranty. Sainsbury’s told us it had made a mistake by not cancelling the warranty contract, though it didn’t explain why the first refund was…

VIRTUALISATION SOFTWARE VirtualBox 7.1 www.snipca.com/52181 What you need: Windows 10 or 11, macOS or Linux The safest way to try a different operating system is to run it in a virtual machine (VM), because you won’t have to replace your current one. VirtualBox is our favourite free software for this purpose, but it can be intimidating if you’re new to VMs. Version 7.1 makes the program friendlier to use, thanks to a redesigned interface that gives it a more modern feel. This includes larger buttons, clearer labelling of options and better use of colour to highlight settings. Best of all, VirtualBox now lets you choose between Basic and Expert mode. The latter has extra functions for advanced users, such as disk encryption, hardware acceleration and configuring network adapters, while the…

SOFTWARE WARNING! ZipoApps injects ads into Simple Mobile Tools My heart often sinks when an independent software developer sells out to a bigger firm. I don’t blame them for profiting from their work, but it rarely results in their tools improving. Indeed, it usually means they end up plastered with adverts and endless messages to upgrade as the new owners try to squeeze every penny from their new purchase. That’s precisely what’s happened with Simple Mobile Tools (SMT), a set of superbly useful Android apps made by Slovakian developer Tibor Kaput. He summed them up perfectly as “simple, open-source Android apps without ads and unnecessary permissions, with customizable colours”. These included calendars, cameras, file managers and music players – all designed with ingenious simplicity. But it’s all gone wrong since…

Traditional monitors tend to be something of a fixture on your desk, because they have large stands and need to be plugged into a wall socket. If you’re looking for something more portable, either as a second screen for a laptop or something you can stash away when you’ve finished working, then the Lenovo ThinkVision M14t Gen 2 is well worth considering. “An extra screen that offers more room to work wherever you go” It has a 14in touchscreen, so similar in size to the panel on a small laptop. It uses IPS technology and has a built-in foldaway stand that can be orientated in landscape or portrait mode. Much like a tablet, if rotated it will automatically detect its orientation and change the screen appropriately. The hinge that holds…

iOS Customise your home screen in iOS 18 Apple has released the latest versions of its mobile operating systems, iOS 18 and iPadOS 18, to all compatible iPhones and iPads. If you haven’t already installed the update, open the Settings app on your device and choose General then Software Update. One of the most useful new features is the ability to customise the location and appearance of the apps on your Home screen. Unlike Android, which lets you place apps anywhere on your Home screen, iOS and iPadOS have traditionally forced them into a grid layout. Apple has now removed this restriction, so you can move the apps you use most often to prominent locations where they’re easier to access. Simply long-press your Home screen to make your app icons…