Page 24 - Computeractive - January 2, 2018 UK

R e v i e w s

H e r o e s & z e r o e s o f 2 0 1 7

Obscenely e xpensive phones, scorchingly h ot PCs a nd the r eturn o f b uttons -
what we lik e d a nd disliked in 2017

WHAT W E L IKED…

BEST TECH BATTLE MOST UNEXPECTED BARGAIN MOST IMPROVED F ORMAT
Ryzen v s BTWhole T o uchscreen

CoffeeLake HomeWiFi PCs

“These tariffs are s o s imple, my bills are
smaller t han I t hought a nd their
customer s ervice i s b rilliant,” s aid no BT
customer e ver. But t he former telecoms
monopoly s howed i t c ould innovate as
well as infuriate i n 2 017 w hen i t j umped
into the l atest h ome t ech t rend – mesh
routers. N ot only w as its Whole H ome
WiFi the fi rst c onsumer option in the U K, We’ve b een s ceptical a bout Windows 1 0’s
Just as Kaby Lake had u s g iving u p o n but its distinctive dishes r emained t he drift f rom s tandard l aptops to tablets and
processor upgrades, a long c ame A MD best value a t u nder £200 for t hree units. laptop-tablets, b ut this year we were
with Ryzen, a n ew CPU series with lots of almost convinced. Microsoft’s revamped
cores and g reat performance levels. Surface Pro w as expensive ( from £799),
Desktop P Cs with these chips w eren’t but cheaper r ivals f rom t he likes of Acer,
clocked quite a s f ast a s I ntel’s, b ut when Asus and L enovo s howed a t ablet c ould
we threw h eavier w ork a t t hem t hey b eat be practical, while t he Linx 12X64
i7 performance but cost the s ame a s i 5 (pictured) o ffered a b asic version for j ust
processors. I ntel finally got i ts act £200. E ven t wo-in-ones started l ooking
together with Coffee L ake c hips that decent, w ith H P’s E liteBook x360 G2
delivered the s peed boost w e’d b een undercut by Dell’s Inspiron 1 3 5 000
waiting f or. A s l aptops catch u p t oo, 2 018 2-in-1, now w ith t he latest quad- c ore
looks like a g reat time to buy a c omputer. processors for w ell u nder £1,000.

MOST GRUDGINGLY ACCEPTED INNOVATION BIGGEST C OMEBACK
Smartspeakersrs Knobs& b u t tonss

As 2017 began, we were just getting The last 1 0 y ears have belonged t o t he
used to the i dea o f t he Amazon Echo, touchscreen, w ith t aps a nd swipes replacingg
a d igital assistant t hat s at in your clicks and k ey presses. A pps e ven m imic thee
home and c onstantly listened f or your dials a nd sliders of synthesisers and m ixingng
commands. Th e p rivacy concerns desks. B ut it’s not quite t he same – a nd this
haven’t g one a way, b ut as prices have year saw t he return of the k nob. Microsoft’s’s
dropped and o ptions have expanded, Dial ( www.snipca.com/26440) a rrived w ith th
PC,
millions of us have installed a n E cho the r idiculously expensive S urface Studio PC,
Craft
(pictured) o r G oogle H ome. The era o f but also sells separately, w hile Logitech’s Craft
always-on artificial i ntelligence is Keyboard mimics i t i n m iniature. A nd while le
lackBerry’s
here, a nd, a s w ith s martphones, we’ll the N okia 3310 r evived the b utton p hone, B lackBerry’s
soon rely on it more than we thought. KEY o ne (pictured) b rought i t u p t o d ate. We’d be happy w ith
more to twiddle in 2018.

24 20 December 2017 – 2 J anuary 2 018