INSIDE: THE 10 BEST PC GAMES OF 2018 (SO FAR)

AUGUST 2018

NSOR :
IS S U E S P O

Intel Kaby Lake G:

Why Nvidia should be scared
INSIDE: THE 10 BEST PC GAMES OF 2018 (SO FAR)

AUGUST 2018

Intel Kaby Lake G:

Why Nvidia should be scared
 CONTENTS

AU G U ST 2018

» DEPARTMENTS » FEATURES

ƺ News

ƶƸ Reviews & Ratings ƼƳ Intel 8th-gen Core i7 vs. 7th-gen Core i7 CPUs

ƴƴƴ Here’s How

ƴƶƷ Tech Spotlight ƴƳƳ The best PC games of 2018 (so far)

AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 3

MASTHEAD

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:LQGRZVWDEOHWIRUFRQVXPHUV
Yes, the rumors of the smaller Surface are true. But will buyers be satisfied with the
performance of something somewhat faster than the Surface Pro 3? BY MARK HACHMAN

F
or all of Microsoft’s claims about
mobility, the Microsoft Surface
lineup of Windows tablets really
haven’t been all that portable. The
smaller, cheaper, lighter Surface Go
announced in early July hopes to change all
that, with a new 10-inch spin on the traditional
Surface tablet.
No, this isn’t the Surface Mini, or the
rumored two-screen device, “Andromeda”
(go.pcworld.com/andr). The Surface Go is
most reminiscent of the Microsoft Surface 3

IMAGE: MARK HACHMAN AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 7

NEWS MICROSOFT’S $399 TABLET
(go.pcworld.com/msf3), 2015’s quirky $499
Atom-powered tablet that provided a
cheaper alternative to the pricey Surface line.
The Surface Go dives even lower—prices start
at just $399 for a bare-bones model with 4GB
of memory and 64GB of storage when it ships
on August 2. A keyboard will be sold
separately, beginning at $99, and the
optional Surface Pen will cost $99 as well.
As the name suggests, Microsoft
designed the Surface Go for people in
motion: the sales exec who makes a quick
edit or two to a presentation while at her
daughter’s soccer practice, for example. A
Wi-Fi–only model will ship first, followed by
an LTE model later in 2018. According to a
Microsoft spokesman, the difference between
the Surface Go and a device like the Surface
Pro (2017) is a matter of degrees: of price,
performance, and screen size.
It’s also a matter of operating system and
processor. Microsoft will pre-load each
Surface Go with Windows 10 S, specifically
Windows 10 Home in S Mode. A commercial
variant will ship with Windows 10 Pro. The
Surface Go is powered by a Pentium 4415Y
“Gold” chip, the very bottom of Intel’s
7th-generation (Kaby Lake) family of Core
processors.
What this means: The Surface Go enters a
tablet space whose most popular players
include the Android-based 9.7-inch Galaxy
Tab S3 (go.pcworld.com/gt97) for a lofty
8 PCWorld AUGUST 2018
$599 and the far more affordable Amazon
Fire HD 10 (go.pcworld.com/af10) for a mere
$150, as well as, of course, the dominant
Apple iPad, which starts at $329. It appears
that Microsoft is shooting for somewhere in
the middle: a price point low enough to
broaden the Surface user base, and a feature
set that includes a stylus and keyboard to
keep up with the Samsung and Apple
competition (the Fire HD 10 has neither).
A WINDOWS TABLET
FOR CONSUMERS
There’s a big question at the heart of this,
though: Have Windows users been
clamoring for a basic Windows tablet? The
Surface Go does seem to be Microsoft’s
answer to criticism that the Surface lineup
has been just too expensive.
The specs that follow describe a small,
modestly equipped tablet that no one will
mistake for a Surface Pro—small enough to
fit on an airplane tray table with the seat in
front reclined, Microsoft says. It seems to
have enough equipment to handle
Windows 10 S, at least. Remember that
you’ll be limited to using apps from the
Microsoft Store, and browsing with
Microsoft Edge.
SURFACE GO: BASIC SPECS
Display: 10-inch (1,800x1,200) IPS, 10-point
touch
Processor: Intel 1.6GHz Pentium 4415Y
(go.pcworld.com/415y; Kaby Lake)
Graphics: Intel HD 615 (integrated)
Memory: 4GB/8GB
Storage: 64GB eMMC/128GB SSD
(256GB SSD in the commercial model)
Ports: 1 USB 3.0 Type C, 1 Surface Con-
nector, microSD, headphone jack
Wireless: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi, LTE
later in 2018
Cameras: 5MP front (Windows Hello–
capable), 8MP rear (with autofocus)
Battery: 27Wh, 9 hours (estimated) of
battery life
Operating system: Windows 10 Home in
S Mode (Windows 10 Pro for commercial
model)
Dimensions and weight: 9.6 x 6.9 x 0.33
inches, 1.15 pounds (tablet), 1.6 pounds
The Microsoft Surface Go includes both a USB-C port (sorry, no Thunderbolt!) and a Surface Connector.
(tablet plus keyboard)
Price: Starting at $399. Keyboard is $99
(black) or $129 (burgundy, cobalt, platinum)
A NEW, SMALLER
SURFACE TO GO
Microsoft said that there will be two
consumer versions of the Surface Go: one
with 4GB of memory and 64GB of SSD
storage for $399, and an 8GB (memory)/
128GB (storage) version as well. With a
keyboard, the cheapest Surface Go will cost
just under $500. There will also be two
commercial models with some beefier
specs—the same processor, but 4GB to 8GB
of memory and a 256GB SSD. So far, the only
prices Microsoft has released have been for
the LTE versions.
AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 9
NEWS MICROSOFT’S $399 TABLET

Surface Go (consumer): the Surface Pen, with 4,096 levels of

4GB RAM/64GB SSD storage: $399 pressure sensitivity, that will be offered as
8GB RAM/128GB SSD storage: $549 a $99 option.
Type Cover: $99–$129, depending on color In a move that hearkens back to the
Surface Mouse: $39 Surface 3, you’ll have a couple of options to
Surface Pen: $99 choose from when charging: the traditional
Surface connector and power plug, or
Surface Go (commercial): USB-C. The higher-speed Thunderbolt
4GB RAM/64GB SSD storage: $449 interface has not been included.
8GB RAM/128GB SSD storage: $599 Though we didn’t have a chance to use it
Type Cover: $99–$129, depending on color for a long period of time, the Surface Go’s
Surface Mouse: $39 smaller form factor implies a different use case
Surface Pen: $99 compared to its larger and pricier cousins.
Though Microsoft sells the keyboard
Unlike previous Surface iterations — separately on the Surface Pro, its presence is
remember the Surface Book 2? (go.pcworld. virtually assumed. That’s not necessarily true
com/msb2)—the Surface Go launches with the Surface Go.
without fanfare, in
four colors: black,
burgundy, cobalt
blue, and the
silvery “platinum”
of existing Surface
models. Naturally,
the Alcantara-
covered keyboards
are color-coded to
match the chassis,
and there’s a new
Surface Mobile
Mouse to go along
with it, beginning
at $39. There’s also
a new iteration of The new Surface Go (left) compared with the 2017 Surface Pro (right).

10 PCWorld AUGUST 2018

 the size of the Surface
Pro’s, according to
Microsoft.) Key travel is
about 1mm, versus the
1.5mm or even 1.75mm
on competing tablets
and notebooks. All told,
Microsoft believes that
typing rates will be
about 96 percent of
what you can achieve on
the Surface Pro’s Surface
The Surface Go uses a kickstand that’s fixed in two positions. A power Keyboard.
button and volume rocker are on the top. Microsoft also
disclosed details of the
While the compact design has its new, updated wireless Surface Mobile
compromises, such as a kickstand limited to Mouse, the ambidextrous accompaniment to
two positions—the Surface 3 offered three!— the Surface Go. The Mobile Mouse is
it’s still a handy size for anyone who travels relatively flat, and is designed to be carried in
frequently. It fits on a tray table, the Microsoft the same bag or briefcase that the Go is. It’s
spokesman said. Underneath
hides the traditional microSD slot
of most Surface devices.
You may not need the
keyboard, but Microsoft has paid
attention to it nonetheless. A
spokesman said the company has
been busy making small changes
to maximize comfort and typing
speed. Though the keys are
smaller than normal, for instance,
they boast a slight concavity, to
improve the landing area. (The
keyboard is about 85 percent of Microsoft’s new Surface Mobile Mouse ships in four colors.

AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 11

NEWS MICROSOFT’S $399 TABLET
powered by a pair of AAA batteries, with a
battery life of about a year. The 4,000 fps
Bluetooth mouse is also one of the first to use
Swift Pair, the new Windows 10 technology
that allows the mouse to signal the PC that it’s
ready for pairing.
PERFORMANCE WILL BE
MODEST
Microsoft’s Surface lineup offers a range of
processor options, from the powerful 8th-gen
Core chips available within the Surface Book 2
(go.pcworld.com/sb2r), to the Core i7-7660
within the Surface Pro (2017), down to the
6th-gen Core chips within the Surface Studio
(go.pcworld.com/sfst). With the Surface Go,
Microsoft’s carving out an even lower tier.
Expect to hear a number of comparisons
to the Surface 3 and its 1.6GHz Intel Atom
Microsoft’s Surface lineup offers a range of options.
12 PCWorld AUGUST 2018
x7-Z8700. According to Microsoft, the
Surface Go has double the processing power
and 2.5 times the graphics power of the
Surface 3. Versus the Surface Pro 3—the first
Surface Pro product to break out into the
mainstream—the Go has about a third more
performance than the Core i5 SP3, and about
20 percent more than the Core i7 version.
The Go also has enough horsepower to drive
a single 4K monitor at 60Hz, and a pair of 4K
monitors at 30Hz. Compare it to rival tablets
using 8th-gen Core chips, though, and then
Surface Go will lag far behind.
One question, of course, is why Microsoft
chose an X86 part, rather than an Atom or
even one of the new power-sipping
Qualcomm chips. The answer, according to
Microsoft, is simple: because its customers
prefer it.
“We’re standardizing
on X86, because many
of our corporate
customers do, and they
have multiple
generations of apps and
services on X86 that run
on them,” the Microsoft
spokesman replied.
“Surface is X86 across
the board.” According
to the Microsoft
spokesman, that’s
enough performance for
traditional multitasking,
 analysts debated
whether there was a
need for another,
low-cost Surface.
And that’s the
question upon which
hinges the Surface Go’s
success. Microsoft has
always carved out the
upper echelon of
tablets and notebooks
as a way to increase
The original Microsoft Surface 3. The question for customers will be: Do we revenue for the PC
need a cheaper, improved update? market, and to show
what the PC platform
along with browsing in multiple tabs. could achieve. Now it’s heading in a different
direction, exploring whether consumers
WHO’S GOING TO GO might prefer something less expensive.
WITH THE GO? Remember, there’s nothing stopping a
I didn’t have a chance to perform what I’d call Surface Go buyer from attaching a USB-C hub
a full hands-on, though the Surface Go does or Surface Dock and using the Go as a
feel light—together with the keyboard, the “desktop” computer, too.
Surface Go is lighter than just the SP3 alone, Traditional Surface fans tend to look down
without its Type Cover. Typing on it will almost on everything but the highest-performance
certainly require some effort, because the machines. With the Surface Go, Microsoft
keyboard is smaller and its keys are shallower. appears to be making a conscious effort to
We often look back at products to appeal to everyday users as well.
discover a quirky feature that was ahead of its
time. In this case, that was the Surface 3 LTE
(go.pcworld.com/3lte), which shipped with Remember, there’s nothing
support for T-Mobile and Verizon in late 2015. stopping a Surface Go buyer
Now, pervasive connectivity is becoming from attaching a USB-C hub or
more important. When Microsoft killed the Surface Dock and using the Go
Surface 3 in 2016 (go.pcworld.com/s3dd), as a ‘desktop’ computer, too.

AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 13

NEWS
ƶUHDVRQVZK\0LFURVRIWŞV
6XUIDFH*REHDWV$SSOHŞVL3DG
DQGƶUHDVRQVZK\LWGRHVQŞW 
Comparing Apples and Surfaces. BY MICHAEL SIMON
I
t’s no coincidence that Apple released
a series of iPad international video
spots (go.pcworld.com/ipvs) just
hours before Microsoft unveiled its
most affordable tablet (see page 7), the
Surface Go. The four 15-second ads spotlight
the iPad’s ability to make mundane tasks like
paperwork, packing, and traveling easier with
14 PCWorld AUGUST 2018
the low-cost tablet.
But now Microsoft has a strong
competitor to Apple’s entry-level $329 iPad
(go.pcworld.com/elip). With a $399 price
tag and a 10-inch screen, the Surface Go
isn’t just Microsoft’s cheapest Surface
tablet, it’s one of the most affordable
full-featured tablets you can buy. And it just
IMAGE: MICROSOFT
might be a better investment than the
9.7-inch iPad, depending on what you
need. Here’s why (and why not):
WHY THE SURFACE GO
BEATS THE iPAD
It’s a real computer
The basic Surface Go might look a lot like
Apple’s iPad, but inside it’s a real deal
Windows PC, with 4GB of RAM, 64GB of
storage, and an Intel 1.6GHz Pentium
4415Y processor. That’s hardly top-of-the-
line in PC land, but it’s impressive for a
tablet that’s less than half an inch thick. By
comparison, the entry-level 9.7-inch iPad
has half as much RAM, half as much
storage, and a two-year-old processor.
With an Intel processor, that means the
Surface Go runs a full suite of Windows
apps, not stripped-down mobile versions
like you get on the iPad. (Though you’ll
need to shift it out of the default “S Mode”
to full Windows 10—a free upgrade—to do
so, however.)
But what really gives the Surface Go an
edge over the iPad is its input expandability.
Like the 9.7-inch iPad and the Apple Pencil,
the Surface Go includes support for
Microsoft’s Surface Pen, but you can also use
it with a Surface Type Cover keyboard and
Surface Mobile Mouse. That means you can
use it like a laptop on a table when you’re
not holding it. The 9.7-inch iPad can’t do
that so easily.
It can drive a 4K display
The Surface Go wouldn’t be a true PC if it
couldn’t be hooked up to a monitor. But
Microsoft’s newest tablet doesn’t run just any
old display, it can power a full 4K one at
60Hz. Like the Surface Book 2 (go.pcworld.
com/mtb2), you’ll need a USB-C adapter or
Surface Dock to get it up and running, but
that’s a small price to pay to hook up your
10-inch tablet to a giant 3840x2160 display.
You can even use dual monitors if you prefer,
but the refresh rate will drop to 30Hz. Still
though, let’s see the iPad do that.
It has facial recognition
While it may be a foregone conclusion that
the iPad will eventually adopt the iPhone X’s
TrueDepth camera for ultra-secure Face ID
unlocking, the Surface Go tablet has facial
recognition built in right from the start.
Microsoft has added Windows Hello (go.
pcworld.com/whlo) support to its new tablet
so you can unlock it just by looking at it. While
it’s not quite as secure as Apple’s 30,000-dot
3D mapping (go.pcworld.com/3dmp), it’s
still a fast and convenient way to keep your
tablet locked down, and it’s way better than
needing to press your finger on a button
every time.
WHY THE iPAD IS BETTER
THAN THE SURFACE GO
It’s cheaper
While $399 is a fantastic price for this much
AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 15
NEWS SURFACE GO VS. iPAD
Accessories make the Surface Go costlier than it seems.
tablet, when you break it down, the Surface
Go isn’t nearly as inexpensive as it seems. The
real hidden costs come with the accessories.
Add on a Surface Pen, a Surface Mouse, and a
much-needed Type Cover and you’re looking
at another $237, bringing the total price to
more than $600. Apple charges $99 for its
Pencil too, but you’re still getting the whole
package for less than $450—albeit without a
mouse or keyboard. Arguably those
peripherals aren’t crucial to the complete iPad
experience like they are for the Surface,
though.
It’s probably faster
While the processor powering the Surface Go
is an Intel Pentium part rather than an ultra-
low-power Atom chip, the Surface Pro isn’t
going to blow anyone away with its speeds.
16 PCWorld AUGUST 2018
The 14nm chip here is based on
Intel’s Kaby Lake architecture,
which is a generation behind the
newer Coffee Lake chips.
The iPad also runs an older
A10 chip from 2016, but Apple’s
iOS optimizations likely give it a
serious edge over the Surface
Go, both out of the box and
years down the road. We’ll need
to run it through its paces to see
if Microsoft was able to make the
Surface Go fly, but on paper the
chip in the entry-level model
leaves much to be desired.
The battery life is better
On paper, Microsoft rates the Surface Go for
nine hours of battery life, only about 10
percent less than the 10 hours Apple
estimates for the iPad. That wouldn’t be so
bad if not for the reality of Microsoft’s other
Surface devices: Microsoft rated the 2017
Surface Pro (go.pcworld.com/17sp) at up to
13.5 hours of battery life, but in real-world
tests, it only lasted for about eight hours.
Switching the Surface Go from S Mode to
full Windows 10 would likely impact battery
life as well.
It remains to be seen exactly how close
the Surface Go gets to the nine hours
Microsoft estimates, but we’re sure of this
much: It probably won’t beat the iPad’s
tremendous battery life.
+HUHŞVKRZIDVWWKHƵƳƴƻ
0DF%RRN3URƴƸZLOOEH
Apple’s MacBook Pro 15 gets a shiny new CPU, but it still won’t be faster than a PC.
BY GORDON MAH UNG

W
ith Apple announcing
recently that it has dropped
a 6-core 8th-gen Core i7
8750H into the MacBook
Pro 15 (go.pcworld.com/clmp), there are two
things we know for sure: The first is that the
boost in performance (go.pcworld.com/8gip)
will be huge. The second—it still won’t be
faster than the fastest PC laptops.
Sure, you could say we’re just being
haters because we heart PC. But unlike the
iPad and iPhone, Apple doesn’t make its own
CPUs. It relies on the same ones PC laptops
have been using since at least April. All of the

IMAGE: APPLE AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 17

NEWS MACBOOK PRO’S SPEED

testing we’ve done already on Intel’s 8th-gen with the 8th-gen Core i7-8750H in the new
Kaby Lake R (reviewed at go.pcworld.com/ 2018 MacBook Pro 15.
kbrv), the 8th-gen Kaby Lake G (reviewed at Our first comparison runs Maxon’s
go.pcworld.com/kgrv), and the 8th-gen Cinebench R15, which tests 3D modeling
Coffee Lake H (reviewed at go.pcworld.com/ performance. You can see about a 50 percent
chrv) lets us say with high confidence just how increase in performance between the six-core
fast the new 2018 MacBook Pro 15 will be Core i7-8750H and the typical 7th-gen part,
when it ships. such as that Core i7-7700HQ.
The big news for Apple users is the six cores We won’t bore you with too many charts
in the Core i7-8750H.
Those two additional
Cinebench R15.038 nT
cores compared to
MSI G S65 Stealth Thin
quad-core parts means (6-core i7-8750H)
1,144
hefty improvements in 3D Lenovo Legion Y920
Turbo Mode (4-core i7-7820HK)
778
modeling, video editing,
Asus Zephyrus GX501
and many optimized (4-core i7-7700HQ)
743

photo editing tasks. Lenovo Legion Y920

731
(4-core i7-7820HK)
LO N G ER B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T ER P E R F O R M A N C E

WE COMPARE A new 8th-gen Core i7-8750H in the 2018 MacBook Pro 15 would give you
7TH-GEN AND about a 50-percent performance increase over the previous MacBook Pro
8TH-GEN 15 (represented by the Core i7-7700HQ-equipped laptop shown here) in
multi-threaded tasks.
CPUS
To show the
performance we expect, HandBrake 0.9.9 1080p
we’ve compiled the (Seconds)
results from several
MSI G S65 Stealth Thin
laptops equipped with (6-core i7-8750H)
1,985
high-end 7th-gen CPUs, Lenovo Legion Y920
2,533
Turbo Mode (4-core i7-7820HK)
including the quad-core
Asus Zephyrus GX501
2,775
Core i7-7700HQ that’s (4-core i7-7700HQ)

Lenovo Legion Y920

used in the 2017 (4-core i7-7820HK)
3,017
MacBook Pro 15. We’ll 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

compare them to the Handbrakes sees about a 33-percent buff by going from a 7th-gen Core i7
results from a laptop to an 8th-gen Core i7.

18 PCWorld AUGUST 2018

 the CPUs are, but the
Cinebench R15.038 1T story is still the same:
It’s a ton faster.
MSI G S65 Stealth Thin
(6-core i7-8750H)
178 For example, here’s
Lenovo Legion Y920
165 how the same CPU
Turbo Mode (4-core i7-7820HK)

Asus Zephyrus GX501

performs in video
(4-core i7-7700HQ)
164
encoding. While you
Lenovo Legion Y920
(4-core i7-7820HK)
157 don’t get quite a 50
LO N G ER B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T ER P E R F O R M A N C E
percent improvement,
it’s still about 33 percent,
The 8th-gen Core i7 leads the way in single-threaded tasks. which means that a
comparable three-hour
of the 8th-gen Core i7-8750H’s multi- encode could be done in about two hours.
threaded prowess, as you can see them on When you’re in the field on a shoot, and time is
page 91. You’ll see varying amounts of money, then yeah, that’s more money.
performance gains based on how optimized The world isn’t about multi-threaded

Cinebench R15 thread scaling

Thanks to very high clock speeds when given lightly threaded tasks such as browsing or Microsoft Word,
the 8th-gen Core i7 Coffee Lake H CPU in the new MacBook Pro 15 will be faster than its direct predecessor.

AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 19

NEWS MACBOOK PRO’S SPEED

performance, though, and

very few applications Cinebench R15 nT Clockspeeds
actually can use all six
cores in the new MacBook
Pro 15. So to get an idea of
how an 8th-gen Core i7
Coffee Lake H stacks up
against a 7th-gen Core i7
Kaby Lake H part, we also
run Cinebench R15 using
just one CPU core. While
not all applications
perform the same, we do
You can see the clock speed advantage of an 8th gen Core i7 over the 7th
get an idea of how fast the gen Core i7 illustrated above on light loads (left) and heavy loads (right.).
new chip does in
pedestrian, single-threaded tasks, such as MacBook Pro 15 with a Core i7-7700HQ in it.
Microsoft Word, Safari, and most applications. The big unknown in this is how hard Apple
For the most part, the new 8th-gen Core decides to push that CPU. Both results here are
i7 still gives decent performance benefits over from gaming-focused laptops, but both are
the older 7th-gen Core i7 CPUs. also relatively thin, as we expect the MacBook
To get further insight into how the new Pro 15 to be. The Core i7-8750H result is from
8th-gen CPUs behave under particular loads, a four-pound MSI GS65 Stealth Thin, while the
we varied Cinebench R15 from 1 thread to 12. Core i7-7700HQ performance is from the
The verdict is simple: The 8th-gen Core i7 previous-generation Asus ROG Zephyrus.
Coffee Lake H has a decent performance What we do know from previous
advantage on lightly threaded tasks (the left MacBook Pro laptops is that Apple generally
side of the chart below), and a huge does not like to leave performance untapped,
performance advantage once you get to tasks so we expect it to swing for the fences.
that can use all of those CPU cores.
While not all tasks are the same, the secret to THE PC IS STILL FASTER
the performance of the new 8th-gen Core i7 is THAN MACBOOK PRO 15
megahertz. That’s another distinct advantage So after seeing these results, how can we say
the 2018 MacBook Pro 15, with its clock-speed- for a fact that the new 2018 MacBook Pro 15
rich Core i7-8750H, will have over a 2017 won’t be faster than PC laptops? For one

20 PCWorld AUGUST 2018

 of today’s modern graphics
3DMark Sky Diver 1.0 cards. Based on what we’re
Graphics performance seeing with the Polaris-based
Alienware 17 R4
68,170
GPU in the Core i7-8705G,
(Core i7-8820HK)
with 20 compute units buffed
Asus Zephyrus GX501
60,522
(Core i7-7700HQ) with High Bandwidth Cache
Alienware 15 R43
(Core i7-7700HQ) 59,728 and HBM2 RAM, we’d
Gigabyte Aero 15X expect the Polaris-based
(Core i7-7700HQ) 51,255
Radeon Pro 555X, with its 12
MSI Dragon GT72S
(Core i7-6700HQ)
40,947 compute units and GDDR5
Acer Predator 17
(Core i7-6700HQ) 37,872 RAM, to be slower by a bit.
Gigabyte Aero 15
37,553
(Core i7-7700HQ)
LET’S GIVE APPLE
Dell Inspiron 15 7000
(Core i5-78300HQ) 34,697 A SHOUT-OUT
While it’s easy for PC partisans
LO N G ER B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T ER P E R F O R M A N C E

The Radeon Pro 555X in the new 2018 MacBook Pro 15 should fall
below that of the Kaby Lake G-series of chips in the HP Spectre x360
15. That’s not bad, but it ain’t no GeForce GTX 1080.
thing, PCs offer larger form factors that let the
8th-gen CPUs run even faster. Also, the
graphics in the new 2018 MacBook Pro 15
haven’t changed much.
Apple is apparently still relying on the
elderly AMD Radeon Pro lineup for graphics.
In the single laptop our sister site Macworld
saw, the unit had a Radeon Pro 555X in it.
Despite the X, it’s the same old thing. AMD
just added the X to make everyone feel better.
It’s actually a decent discrete GPU, but in pure
performance, it’s not going to win any
contests beyond tasks heavily optimized for it.
To give you an idea how much graphics
firepower are in PC laptops, the above chart
shows the raw gaming performance of most
to issue a Simpsons’ Nelson
Muntz–like “ha ha,” we should
be fair and give Apple its due
credit. Even with its flawed keyboard, the
MacBook Pro 15 has been an impressively thin
laptop with relatively good battery life for its
power ratio.
And yes, PC laptops have been using
8th-gen Core i7 CPUs for more than three
months now. But to have Apple upgrade the
MacBook Pro 15 to a CPU that came out just
three months ago, rather than dragging it out
for another six or nine months, is actually a
huge improvement in responsiveness from
the company.
It’s hard to believe, but it’s entirely possible
that Apple may have finally woken up, which
means PC laptop makers may finally see their
old slumbering foe for another fight.

AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 21

NEWS
6DPVXQJ*DOD[\6ƼVDOHVDUH
VOXPSLQJDQGWKDWŞVDSUREOHP
IRUDOOSUHPLXP$QGURLGSKRQHV
Does anyone want an $800 Android phone anymore? BY MICHAEL SIMON
W
hen Samsung officially
announces its results for
the second quarter, the
numbers (go.pcworld.
com/rcpf) will look plenty good to the
untrained eye: $13 billion in profit on $51.8
billion revenue. However, analysts will tell you
that those figures represent a 0.7 percent
decline in sales compared with the prior
year’s quarter. That might not seem like a
terrible dip, but when you zoom in a little
22 PCWorld AUGUST 2018
further, it spells trouble for one of Samsung’s
most visible products: the Galaxy S9 (go.
pcworld.com/smg9).
According to reports, Samsung sold the
fewest number of S series flagship phones
since 2012’s Galaxy S3 (go.pcworld.com/
sgs3), with a reported 31 million units
shipping in 2018. To put that in perspective,
the Galaxy S7 was the high-water mark for
Samsung’s S flagship, with some 50 million
sales. That means many people are either
IMAGE: DOMINIK TOMASZEWSKI
sticking with their S7s or switching to a
different phone altogether. And that’s a
problem, not just for Samsung but for all
premium Android phone makers.
It’s not just that Apple sold more iPhones
last quarter (go.pcworld.com/rcq2) than
Samsung’s expected S9 sales for the entire
year. That’s no surprise. But it’s becoming
increasingly clear that consumers aren’t
wowed by premium Android phones
anymore. And unless 2019 brings some
serious innovation, the buzz around premium
Android phones may slip away forever.
NOTHING TO SEE HERE
Many critics will point to the Galaxy S9’s
overall lack of innovation as a reason for the
lagging sales, and that’s certainly a factor. The
Galaxy S9 is visually identical to last year’s S8,
and its main improvements—a variable
aperture camera, Super Slo Mo, and AR
Emoji—are hardly gotta-have-it features.
The Galaxy S9 (right) changes the placement of the fingerprint
sensor, but otherwise it’s virtually identical to the S8 (left).
But the S9 is still the year’s best Android
phone so far (go.pcworld.com/ap18). And
that’s where the problem lies. Android phone
makers are so concerned with keeping up
with Apple by adding a camera notch and
facial recognition, none of them are
innovating anymore (go.pcworld.com/inno),
at least not like they were in the days of the
Galaxy S3. The phones’ processors, cameras,
displays, and graphics have dramatically
improved since then, of course, but the
year-over-year improvements are largely
incremental these days. And even for
customers who live on the cutting edge,
there just aren’t many compelling reasons to
plunk down a pile of cash for a new Android
phone each year.
There’s nothing about the S9 that’s
particularly innovative, yet it still paces the
premium field. There’s nothing in the LG G7
(go.pcworld.com/lgg7) or HTC U12+ (see
page 62) to alter the landscape, and even the
rumored Pixel 3 (go.pcworld.com/
p3lk) looks to be another iterative
release. That might change with
the S10, which is rumored to have
a true edge-to-edge screen (go.
pcworld.com/samb), a 3D sensing
camera, and in-display fingerprint
scanning—but with it will probably
come a price tag that tops $1,000.
And I’m not sure the market is there
for a premium Android phone that
costs that much. It’s not just about
AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 23
NEWS GAL A X Y S9 SALES
the best anymore. If people are going to
spend $800 on a phone that’s not an iPhone,
they want to know that they’re getting
features they can’t get anywhere else. And
most Android phones aren’t offering that.
VALUE VERSUS PRICE
It used to be that the premium Android
phones were so far ahead of the pack, it
would take years for the rest of the field to
catch up. That’s not the case anymore. The
relentless pace and competition has
narrowed that gap significantly. You can walk
into a Verizon store today and find a $450
phone with a big HD screen, respectable
processor, and decent camera. Even features
like wireless charging are starting to trickle
down into much cheaper phones.
Even design is less of a factor these days.
Phones like the Nokia 6.1 and the OnePlus 6
are using premium materials in mid-range
phones, and the S9’s all-glass Infinity Display
isn’t quite as lustrous or lust-worthy as it once
was. The latest Samsung smartphone used to
turn heads, but now it’s just another handset
on a sea of shiny rectangles. Even the Pixel
phone, which comes with Google’s stamp of
approval and the promise of three years of
software updates, is struggling to gain much
traction. And its high entry price is the biggest
reason why.
It’s not that premium doesn’t matter
anymore, but the line between the premium
Android phones and the midrange is getting
24 PCWorld AUGUST 2018
The OnePlus 6 looks and acts like a phone that
costs $800.
thinner and thinner. The new OnePlus 6, for
example, costs $529, and has the same
Snapdragon 845 processor, 6.2-inch display,
and 6GB of RAM as the S9+, which costs
$400 more. The camera might not be as
good, but it isn’t $400 worse. OnePlus says it
sold more than a million phones (go.pcworld.
com/1mil) in less than a month, a drop in the
bucket compared to Samsung and Apple, but
still significant.
These days, the best value might be
found in last year’s phone. The Galaxy S8 is
essentially a cheaper S9. The original Pixel
(go.pcworld.com/pxl1) takes pictures that
are just as good as the Pixel 2. People just
aren’t buying the newest premium Android
phones like they once were, and the next
innovation, even if it’s the fabled folding-
screen phone (go.pcworld.com/fold), might
not be enough to bring it back.
Microsoft’s Classic Intellimouse
XSGDWHVƵƳƳƶŞVLFRQLFPRXVHIRU
the modern era
Microsoft faces a ton of competition, but the low $40 price makes it worth a look.
BY MARK HACHMAN
F
ans of the classic Microsoft
Intellimouse 3.0 from 2003 can
now buy an updated version,
which, Microsoft has promised, is
true to the spirit of the original.
In fact, Simon Dearsley, Devices Design
Director at Microsoft, said this week that
some of the components in the new Classic
Intellimouse (go.pcworld.com/imby)
remain the same as those in the original
IMAGE: MICROSOFT
Intellimouse 3.0, its inspiration. The key
improvements are in the switch and tracking
technology, updating the components for
the modern era.
“We’ve reached a point where tracking
and switch technology and price has matured
immensely,” Dearsley said. “We saw this as an
opportunity to improve on an icon by
updating it with modern technology.”
The Microsoft Classic Intellimouse is
AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 25
NEWS MICROSOFT UPDATES INTELLIMOUSE

more accurate mice. Though it was itself

Unlike the Surface Precision based on the Microsoft Mouse 2.0, it added
Mouse, the Classic Intellimouse something new: a scroll wheel. Today,
is wired, reducing the latency according to Dearsley, most of the world’s
for gameplay. mice are patterned off the original
Intellimouse.
priced at $40. The BlueTrack sensor reports According to Dearsley, Microsoft kept the
mouse movements up to 1,000 times per Omron switches for the left and right click
second, with a dpi (dots per inch) setting up buttons, but added three Kailh switches for
to 3,200. That gives it the same precision as the middle wheel button and side buttons.
the Microsoft Surface Precision Mouse (go. Under the hood, the mouse has been
pcworld.com/sfpm), Microsoft’s other recent reworked to make it more rigid, he said.
peripheral.
Unlike the Surface Precision Mouse, What this means for you: Since the release
however, the Classic Intellimouse is wired, of the original Intellimouse, the evolution of
reducing the latency for gameplay. It’s largely the mouse into a true gaming peripheral
ambidextrous, though only right-handers will has exploded. The Classic Intellimouse,
be able to take advantage of the two side- then, is probably just a novelty. However,
mounted buttons. (The scroll wheel functions given the relatively low price, it might be
as a middle button.) worth taking it for a spin the next time
There’s a small catch: Though the new you’re near a Microsoft store.
Intellimouse works with all
flavors of Windows dating back
to Windows 7, it doesn’t work
with macOS. Microsoft’s Mouse
and Keyboard Center software,
which allows the buttons to be
configured, isn’t available for
Windows 10 S.
Microsoft’s original
Intellimouse arrived at a time
when designers and gamers
The Classic Intellimouse favors righties, and it includes the
alike were becoming more traditional wired “tail.” The original red light at its base has
interested in differentiated, been updated to a white light, Microsoft said.

26 PCWorld AUGUST 2018

6Ƹ0DUNLVDŝ931ŞWKDWLV
DFWXDOO\DURRWNLWLQGLVJXLVH
%LW'HIHQGHUVD\V
The best defense, as always, is constant vigilance against what you’re
downloading, and from where. BY MARK HACHMAN
W
hile a form of the Zacinlo
rootkit has been active for
several years, BitDefender
said in June that it has
adopted a more sinister appearance: as an
anonymous “VPN” service, S5Mark, that
worms its way into Windows 10 systems and
can send screenshots of whatever you’re
looking at to its control server.
IMAGE: THINKSTOCK
While it’s not clear how many systems have
been infected in the wild, BitDefender says that
the majority of Zacinlo systems that have been
attacked have been in the United States, and
running Windows 10. Check out PCWorld’s
roundup of the best VPNs (go.pcworld.com/
vp18) before downloading an untested version
from a shady part of the web.
In a report (PDF; go.pcworld.com/adfr),
AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 27
NEWS S5MARK A ROOTKIT IN DISGUISE
BitDefender said that the platform has been
active for several years, usually tagging along
on freeware programs that might claim to
improve the performance of your browser, for
example. But the longevity of the malware has
allowed its developers to quietly give it
extraordinary powers over your PC, including:
•“man-in-the-browser” capabilities that
intercept and decrypt SSL communications,
allowing it to inject custom JavaScript into
webpages the victim visits;
• the ability to redirect pages within
browsers, and quietly load other pages in
hidden background windows;
• inject its own ads;
• the ability to take screenshots, then send
them up to its command-and-control server;
• the ability to detect and disable third-
party antimalware solutions, including Win-
dows Defender;
• and the ability to conceal itself by
copying encrypted versions of itself across
your PC.
Zacinlo also contains sophisticated
abilities to update itself and receive
instructions from its command server to turn
off services within your PC, BitDefender said.
The firm cited its “extremely configurable and
highly modular design” that could be used to
adapt Zacinlo in the future to something even
more pernicious.
That’s important, because Zacinlo appears
to have evolved from a foundation of click
28 PCWorld AUGUST 2018
fraud, where ads are injected and “interacted
with” for the benefit of securing payments
from online ad agencies. The behind-the-
scenes ads that Zacinlo downloads can do
exactly that.
The fact that Zacinlo is now being
distributed via the false S5Mark VPN, though,
preys upon the user’s belief that the product
can be used to secure activities like online
banking. Downloading the VPN (which does
nothing, besides show a fake UI which appears
to show an active VPN application) loads a
“dropper” that begins quietly downloading
and installing the rest of the malware.
Interestingly, BitDefender doesn’t seem to
be claiming that the company can block
Zacinlo from being installed. (In case of an
infection, however, the company says that you
can kick off a system scan using BitDefender’s
Rescue Mode to remove the rootkit and the
adware components.)
What you can do to stop it: The best
defense, of course, is simply to take
precautions about where you (or your kids!)
download software from. “For more than a
decade, adware has helped software
creators earn money while bringing free
applications to the masses,” BitDefender
senior e-threat analyst Bogdan Botezatu
wrote. “Headliner games and applications
have become widely available to computer
and mobile users the world over, with no
financial strings attached.”
Nvidia Shield TV levels up to
full-featured PC gaming with
free GeForce Now beta
The best media streamer for geeks gets even stronger. BY BRAD CHACOS
N
vidia’s dueling GeForce Now
services just got a lot less
complicated—and a whole lot
more appealing for Shield TV
owners. Originally created as a Netflix-like
all-you-can-play subscription service for
Nvidia’s set-top box, the waters became
murkier with the beta launch of the wildly
different (go.pcworld.com/gfno) GeForce
Now for PCs and Macs, which essentially
runs the PC games you already own on an
Nvidia server in the cloud. Recently, Nvidia
announced that the services are unified.
Shield TV now runs the same version of
GeForce Now as the PC and Mac.
Better yet, GeForce Now is still free while
it’s in beta. And while PC and Mac users have
to register for the beta and cross their fingers
AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 29
NEWS S5MARK A ROOTKIT IN DISGUISE

that they’ll be accepted for the service,
“Access to the GeForce Now beta is included
with every Shield TV,” Nvidia says (go.
pcworld.com/frbt). That guaranteed access
makes the $200 Shield TV (go.pcworld.com/
amnv)—already the best media streamer for
enthusiasts (go.pcworld.com/nsh2)—an even
more enticing proposition.
GeForce Now grants you access to a virtual
PC on Nvidia’s servers, and any progress you
make in officially supported games on your
Shield TV will carry over to your computer as
well. Games download instantly, and Nvidia’s
been diligent at adding support for more titles.
When we first examined GeForce Now in
depth in February (go.pcworld.com/nvgs),
150 games were supported. Now it’s up to
225, including the majority of the most-played
games around. Rocket League, Dota 2,
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Fortnite,
League of Legends, Warframe, Witcher 3—
they’re all available to start streaming on Shield
TV now (go.pcworld.com/gnsp). As a
legacy of the previous service, Nvidia
says Shield TV owners can play select
titles for free.
If your network can handle the
bandwidth demands, games should
look much better on the new version of
GeForce Now. While the now-defunct
version for Shield TV relied on the
console’s Tegra chip for visual oomph,
the streaming service simulates full-
blown GeForce GTX graphics cards,
playing games at up to 120 fps with visual
quality cranked. (Don’t forget that the current
Shield TV can display 4K HDR visuals, too.)
Latency has long been the arrow to the
knee for would-be streaming services, but
GeForce Now plays surprisingly smoothly in
our experience (go.pcworld.com/gnhe).
Better yet, the service keeps your games and
graphics drivers all patched and up-to-date,
so there’s none of the usual maintenance
associated with PC gaming.
What you need to know: The only catch?
Nvidia hasn’t announced when GeForce Now
will exit beta, or how much it will cost when it
does. The Shield TV’s prior GeForce Now
subscription cost $8 per month; this
on-demand streaming incarnation has the
potential to cost much more. Regardless, this
is a significant upgrade for the Shield TV, and
further cements its status as the streamer that
geeks should get.

30 PCWorld AUGUST 2018

What this puppy chatbot says
about the friendly future of
fintech for consumers
Intuit thinks this puppy will make finance more fun. BY MELISSA RIOFRIO
T
his puppy chatbot is the most
adorable example yet of the
promise of fintech.
Fintech is a blanket term for
financial technologies. Fintech ranges from
the payment and banking apps many of us
already use, to the AI and machine-learning
applications that crunch transactional data for
IMAGE: MELISSA RIOFRIO
financial companies, to cryptocurrency,
blockchain, and other complete
re-imaginings of how money works. In June, at
Intuit’s Innovation Lab in San Francisco, the
puppy was one of several experiments shown
by the company’s developers that explore
how consumers could experience fintech in
their daily lives—and maybe have more fun
AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 31
NEWS PUPPY CHATBOT AND FUTURE OF FINTECH

with managing money.

A PUPPY (OR KITTEN)

THAT CARES
The puppy chatbot, along with a kitten
and some human-like characters, are an
experiment in what Intuit called
empathetic virtual assistants. Designed
to present a friendly face for answering
your financial questions, these chatbots
can converse using natural language Intuit’s experimental chatbot financial assistant could take
and express one of six emotions based on many personas, including this cute kitten.
on how you seem to be feeling when
you call.
Cindy Osmon of Intuit demonstrated with
a chatbot that looked like a young Asian
woman. As Cindy asked questions and
presented problems, the chatbot’s expression
shifted from alert attention to concern to
smiling resolution.
The chatbots’ emotions are just mimicry,
and they’re working with a script. Still, their
ability to appear somewhat real could make a
customer more likely to discuss their problem
and accept suggested solutions.
A year into developing this concept,
training the chatbot to react appropriately to
people’s emotions remains a big challenge,
Osmon admitted. “We’re using third-party
analysis to determine whether a sentence is
sad or happy,” she explained, “but text-to-
speech isn’t enough. We’re looking at vocal
patterns too.” Even at this early stage, the
chatbot’s smiles, frowns, and slow eye-blinks
clearly engaged and disarmed spectators—
and that could be a path to better tech-
support calls.
A FRIENDLY FINANCIAL APP
Friendliness defined another demonstration
using an app called Shield. Its job is to inject a
little fun into the process of making better
financial decisions.
Intuit’s Sumayah Rahman showed how the
app uses quizzes to define your spending
style and analyze your financial situation.
Armed with this information, the app can help
you set useful goals, such as building up an
emergency fund.
The fictional demo customer, a young
woman named Lily, is an impulsive spender
who likes to indulge in social activities and
basically has no money saved up. Rahman
showed how the app could nudge Lily toward
some financial targets and make it easier to

32 PCWorld AUGUST 2018

meet them by routing money
automatically from Lily’s
paycheck into a savings
account.
What the app and chatbot
experiments have in common
is the personal touch. Intuit’s
goal is to use AI and machine
learning to tailor its financial
planning and management
services to the individual and
bolster customer
engagement. The more
comfortable someone feels
Intuit’s Shield app can be used to reach financial
goals through automated actions and simple
encouragement.
Intuit’s Shield app helps people Take a quiz to find out your
reach financial goals by setting financial style, and Intuit’s
priorities and encouraging experimental app will adjust its
responsible behaviors. advice accordingly.
using a product, the more they’ll use it, Intuit
hopes. This greater comfort could lead to
better financial behavior, and it could also
create opportunities for Intuit to sell people
loans and other financial products, naturally.
PayPal executive Swati Bhatia summed up
the purpose of the helpful app, the disarming
puppy chatbot, and other experiments during
a panel discussion at the event. “What would
it take for financial services to be embedded
so deeply that it’s almost invisible? Trust and
convenience. We can only get to this possible
future if users trust their financial companies.”
It’s interesting how “trust” in financial
services used to be expressed by images of
stability, such as rocks and large animals and
imposing buildings. In the new age of fintech,
it’s puppies and kittens and friendly apps,
reaching out to customers in a way that’s
much more warm and fuzzy.
AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 33
 WHAT I DO
ONLINE IS

MY OWN
BUSINESS.

Secure your personal files, data

and more across all your devices.

Get Kaspersky Total Security

now at kaspersky.com.

© 2018 Kaspersky Lab. All rights reserved. Registered trademarks and service marks and the property of their respective owners.
 TESTED IN PCWORLD LABS
Reviews & Ratings WE PUT HARDWARE & SOFTWARE
THROUGH RIGOROUS TESTING

,QWHO.DE\/DNH*&RUHLƺƻƺƳƸ*
Why Nvidia should be scared
Intel’s combination of Core i7 and Radeon RX Vega exceeds performance expectations
and represents a future threat to Nvidia. BY GORDON MAH UNG

K
aby Lake G’s marriage of Intel
CPU and AMD GPU is an
unusual partnership in the spirit
of peanut butter and chocolate,
R2-D2 and C3PO in Star Wars, and, yes, even
Tom Hanks and the dog in Turner and Hooch.
People love the unexpected.
Built out of an Intel 8th-generation quad-
core CPU and an AMD custom Radeon RX
Vega M (go.pcworld.com/rvgm) graphics
chips, Kaby Lake G shook the PC industry
when Intel announced the chip at CES (go.
pcworld.com/5prc). After putting Kaby Lake
G through the wringer via HP’s Spectre x360

IMAGE: INTEL AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 35

REVIEWS INTEL K ABY L AKE G CORE i7-8705G

15 (go.pcworld.com/
hp15), it’s now clear to
us that this new CPU/
GPU combination may
very well represent the
future of the PC and
deserves the fear it’s
generating (go.pcworld. On the right is a CPU, GPU, and HBM2 graphics memory package in Kaby
com/nvpp) among Lake G. On the left is a traditional CPU, GPU, and GDDR5 graphics assembly.
competitors.
Intel uses its EMIB to connect the custom
WHAT IS KABY LAKE G? Radeon graphics core with 4GB of HBM2
When Kaby Lake G was first announced, many memory. The resulting module is a whole lot
assumed Intel had contracted with AMD to smaller and thinner than a traditional setup.
replace its own graphics cores on the CPU Kaby Lake G also offers more fine-grain power
die. In fact, the module houses an Intel CPU control of the components. With a traditional
with Intel integrated graphics along with an separate CPU and GPU, one part doesn’t
AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL graphics chip know what the other is doing. It’s really up to
and memory. the laptop maker to manage it all.
Rather than connect the chips using With Kaby Lake G, the power and thermal
traditional methods, Kaby Lake G does it all needs of the CPU, GPU, and the RAM for the
with Intel’s Embedded
Multi-Die Interconnect
Bridge (EMIB). Intel
says its EMIB costs far
less than competing
techniques for
connecting multiple
dies and is far easier to
implement as well.
On Kaby Lake G, a
conventional x8 PCIe
3.0 connection joins Intel’s new EMIB is used only to connect the HBM2 memory with the custom
the CPU to the GPU. Radeon graphics.

36 PCWorld AUGUST 2018

Like Darth and Luke working together to bring order to the galaxy, Kaby Lake G allows for far control .
GPU are all managed as one. If the module’s
under a heavy graphics load, the CPU can
back off. If the CPU is under a heavy load, the
GPU can back off. That initially led many to
assume that Kaby Lake G was paired with a
lower power 15-watt “U” series chip. Kaby
Lake G is instead based on an “H” part, which
is rated at 45 watts and can run at 56 watts
until it heats up.
IS IT POLARIS OR VEGA? IT
PROBABLY DOESN’T
MATTER
We reported (go.pcworld.com/lkgm) earlier
this year that although Intel branded Kaby
Lake G with AMD’s newest and best graphics
“Vega” brand, it appears to be based on
AMD’s older stock of Polaris graphics cores
used in the RX 580 series. Intel just spiced up
Polaris with Vega elements, including high-
bandwidth cache and HBM2 memory. Intel
officials declined to comment.
So did Intel lie? Did it misrepresent
something as Vega that’s actually Polaris? No.
Branding is artificial. Intel could, for example,
introduce a new Atom-based CPU and call it a
Core i9 if it wanted to. (Yes, the fallout would
be horrific, but that’d be on them.) In the end,
it’s a custom GPU with a lot of advanced
features.
KABY LAKE G GAMING
PERFORMANCE
Is Intel’s Kaby Lake G good enough for
gaming? The short answer is yes. Intel has
said Kaby Lake G will comfortably compete
AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 37
REVIEWS INTEL K ABY L AKE G CORE i7-8705G

with a GeForce GTX 1050

in gaming performance, 3DMark Sky Diver 1.0 Overall
and for the most part we HP Spectre X360 15
(Core i7-8705G)
18,412
find that to be true.
Dell XPS 15 9560
The longer answer is: It (Core i7-7700HQ)
17,174

depends. As with all Lenovo Yoga 720

15,324
(Core i7-7700HQ)
things, certain games and HP Spectre X360 15
10,540
even certain parts of games (Core i7-8550U)

HP Spectre X360 15
will favor various features of (Core i7-7500U)
6,594
a GPU, such as memory Lenovo Yoga 920
4,361
(Core i7-8550U)
bandwidth or shader
LO N G ER B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T ER P E R F O R M A N C E
performance, as well as the
actual architecture of the With its CPU performance and the Radeon RX Vega M GL, the Spectre
chip. In general, though, x360 15 has a slight edge over GTX 1050 laptops

we’d say that the Radeon

RX Vega M GL compares Tomb Raider
well to a GTX 1050 in Ultimate Quality 19x10 (fps)
performance. MSI G S65 Thin Stealth
(GTX 1060)
97.3
Our first test is
Acer Predator Helios 300
Futuremark’s 3DMark Sky (GTX 1060)
96.1

Diver. It’s a popular, basic Dell Inspiron 15 7000

88.3
Gaming (GTX 1060 Max-Q)
synthetic graphics test. As HP Spectre X360 15
75.5
you can see, when (Radeon RX Vega M GL)

Dell Inspiron 15 7000

compared to other GTX Gaming (GTX 1050 Ti)
62.2
1050 laptops as well as Dell XPS 15 9560
54.2
(GeForce GTX 1050)
machines in its class, it
LO N G ER B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T ER P E R F O R M A N C E
does very well.
Going up against more In some game loads, the Radeon RX Vega M GL punches well out of its class.
typical workhorse laptops
isn’t quite as fun as seeing how the Core Ultimate preset.
i7-8705G stacks up against gaming laptops, We’ve found the circa-2013 Tomb Raider,
so we ran a few games on the Spectre x360 like many older games, can be particularly
15 as well. The first is the venerable Tomb sensitive to CPU performance. The results
Raider at 1080p resolution and set to the here speak well for the Core i7-8705G Kaby

38 PCWorld AUGUST 2018

 Middle-earth: Shadows
Middle-earth: Shadows of Mordor of Mordor also agrees that
Ultra Quality 19x10 (fps) the Radeon RX Vega M GL
Acer Predator Helios 300 in the Kaby Lake G is a
(Core i7-7700HQ)
102.4
pretty decent chip. Middle-
MSi G S65 Thin Stealth
(Core i7-78750H)
91.6 earth also tells us it ain’t no
Dell Inspiron 15 7000
83.8 GeForce GTX 1060.
Gaming (Core i5-7300HQ)

Dell XPS 15 9560

Although Kaby Lake
56.8
(Core i7-7700HQ) G does well in Tomb
HP Spectre x360 15
(Core i7-8705G)
48.3 Raider and Sky Diver, the
Dell Inspiron 15 7000
42
reality of modern gaming
Gaming (Core i7-7300HQ)
is that sometimes it may
LO N G ER B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T ER P E R F O R M A N C E
not beat the competition.
We again see the Kaby Lake G in the Spectre x360 15 in the same ball- In fact, in Rise of the Tomb
park as the GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti. Raider, it’s actually slightly
slower than a GeForce
GTX 1050.
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Very High Quality DX11 19x10 (fps) We could run through a
few more gaming
Acer Predator Helios 300
(GTX 1060)
72.1 benchmarks, but you get
MSI G S65 Thin Stealth
70.7 the gist: It stacks up nicely
(GTX 1060)

Dell Inspiron 15 7000

against the GeForce GTX
Gaming (GTX 1060 Max-Q)
61
1050 in most games.
Dell Inspiron 15 7000
Gaming (GTX 1050 Ti)
44.6 Let’s turn back to
Dell XPS 15 9560
32.6 3DMark Sky Diver, where
(GeForce GTX 1050)
we tallied up pure
HP Spectre X360 15
28
(Radeon RX Vega M GL) graphics scores from
LO N G ER B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T ER P E R F O R M A N C E
various laptops that are
actually “portable.” By
The Core i7-8705G Kaby Lake G is slightly slower than the GeForce GTX
1050 Ti. portable, we mean
laptops that are around
Lake: It easily outpaces a Core i5-7300HQ five pounds, not beefy six- and eight-pound
with GTX 1050 Ti and a Core i7-7700HQ with monsters. Portability limits you to a maximum
GTX 1050 GPU. of a GeForce GTX 1080 Max-Q laptop.

AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 39

REVIEWS INTEL K ABY L AKE G CORE i7-8705G

Clearly, when
you’re looking at a 3DMark Sky Diver 1.0
GTX 1080 Max-Q or Gaming Performance
GTX 1070 Max-Q
Asus ROG Zephyrus
laptop, it’s a ton more (Core i7-7700HQ)
60,522
performance. But Gigabyte Aero 15X
(Core i7-7700HQ)
51,255
those designs come
MSI G S65 Thin Stealth
with weight and (Core i7-8750H)
38,474

battery costs. When Acer Predator Helios 300

(Core i7-7700HQ)
37,615
you look at Kaby Lake Dell Inspiron 15 7000
Gaming (Core i5-7300HQ)
34,697
G in the context of
Dell Inspiron 15 7000
portable laptops, it Gaming (Core i7-7300HQ)
26,569

does quite well. HP Spectre x360 15

21,929
(Core i7-8705G)
On our chart (to Dell XPS 15 9560
(Core i7-7700HQ)
18,050
the right), we also
Dell XPS 15 9550
highlighted three (Core i7-6700HQ)
14,108
previous HP Spectre HP Spectre x360 15
11,458
(Core i7-8550U)
x360 15 laptops. If
Samsung Notebook 9
10,683
we assume that HP Pro (Core i7-6700HQ)

HP Spectre x360 15
used the most (Core i7-7500U)
6,709
powerful parts HP Spectre X2
(Core i7-7560U)
4,651
available at the time
HP Elitebook 745 G3
for the chassis, we’ve (AMD A12 8800B)
4,499
You can see the trajectory
gone from Intel Dell XPS 13 9570
4,358 of graphics performance in
(Core i5-8250)
integrated graphics to the Spectre x360 15 chassis
Samsung Notebook 9
Pro (Core i7-7500U)
4,187 since introduction to the
GeForce 940MX to latest iteration with Kaby
HP Spectre x360 15T
GeForce MX150 to (Core i5-6200U)
3,371 Lake G.
Radeon MX Vega LO N G ER B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T ER P E R F O R M A N C E

M GL.
From the graphics
performance side of things, that’s pretty
respectable. Sure, it’s not GeForce GTX 1060
by any stretch of imagination, but it’s still an
impressive chip.
KABY LAKE G CPU
PERFORMANCE
As important as graphics performance is, we
also want to assess the Core i7-8705G as a

40 PCWorld AUGUST 2018

 Intel Core i7-8750G
with Radeon RX Intel Core Intel Core Intel Core
Vega M GL graphics i7-7700HQ i7-7820HK i7-8750H

ESSENTIALS

Product Collection 8th Generation 7th Generation 7th Generation 8th Generation
Intel Core i7 Intel Core i7 Intel Core i7 Intel Core i7

Vertical Segment Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile

Processor Number i7-8750G i7-7700HQ i7-7820HK i7-8750H

Status Announced Launched Launched Launched

Launch Date Q1 18 Q1 17 Q1 17 Q2 18

Lithography 14 nm 14 nm 14 nm 14 nm

Recommended N/A $378 $378 $395

Customer Price

PERFORMANCE

Number of Cores 4 4 4 6

Number of Threads 8 8 8 12

Processor Bus 3.10 GHz 2.80 GHz 2.90 GHz 2.20 GHz
Frequency

Max Turbo 4.10 GHz 3.80 GHz 3.90 GHz 4.10 GHz
Frequency

Cache 8MB 6MB 8MB 9MB SmartCache

Bus Speed 8 GT/s DMI 8 GT/s DMI 8 GT/s DMI 8 GT/s DMI

TDP 45 W 45 W 45 W

Configurable 35 W 35 W 35 W
TDP-down

CPU. For that we broke out a few that we
think it should compare well to, starting with
the ubiquitous Core i7-7700HQ in the
original Asus ROG Zephyrus laptop (go.
pcworld.com/zphy).
We also wanted to see how a higher-end
chip would perform so we ran a few tests on a
Lenovo Legion Y920 with its Core i7-7820HK
in default stock mode (which was pretty
conservative) and in its manual “turbo mode.”
The Legion has a base default setting and an
overclocked setting, which we also tested on.

AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 41

REVIEWS INTEL K ABY L AKE G CORE i7-8705G

The last chip is the one that’s simply not fair, CINEBENCH R15
but it would be wrong to not include: the new PERFORMANCE
8th-gen 6-core Core i7-8750H in an MSI Our first test is Cinebench R15. This 3D
GS65 Stealth Thin (go.pcworld.com/gs65). rendering test is almost entirely a CPU test
One big caveat: Unlike reviews of and loves threads and clock speed.
desktop CPUs, a review of a laptop CPU isn’t Although the 6-core leads the way by a
just the CPU—it’s really the entire platform yuge margin, you have to respect the
being judged. With a
laptop you have no control
over the cooling, the Cinebench R15.038 nT
motherboard, or any of the MSI G S65 Stealth Thin
(Core i7-8750H)
1,144
other components.
HP Spectre X360 15
Making this even more (Core i7-8705G)
807

difficult is what each laptop Lenovo Legion Y920

778
Turbo Mode (i7-7820HK)
maker decides to tune for. Asus Zephyrus GX501
(Core i7-7700HQ)
743
More noise? Less heat?
Lenovo Legion Y920
More performance? Any of (Core i7-7820HK)
731
these can impact CPU LO N G ER B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T ER P E R F O R M A N C E

performance greatly. Ideally,

you’d want to be able to use The Kaby Lake G surprised us by pushing aside the previous 7th gen
chips.
the same platform for all of
the tests, but that’s just not
possible right now. Cinebench R15.038 1T
Still, that doesn’t mean
MSI G S65 Stealth Thin
comparisons are worthless. (Core i7-8750H)
178

For the Core i7-7700HQ HP Spectre X360 15

174
(Core i7-8705G)
performance, for example, Lenovo Legion Y920
Turbo Mode (i7-7820HK)
165
we made sure to do spot
Asus Zephyrus GX501
checks of the ROG Zephyrus (Core i7-7700HQ)
164
against other Core Lenovo Legion Y920
157
(Core i7-7820HK)
i7-7700HQ results we’ve
seen. For the most part, it’s LO N G ER B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T ER P E R F O R M A N C E

right where that particular Throw shade all you want: The 8th gen Kaby Lake G and the 8th gen
Kaby Lake CPU should be. Coffee Lake H lead the way.

42 PCWorld AUGUST 2018

numbers of the Kaby Lake G Core i7-8705G a dual-core CPU to 45 minutes on a quad-
as it outperforms both 7th-gen CPUs. The core CPU.
reason for this is simple: We’ve noticed Intel What we typically see on Core i7 CPUs is
and vendors are far more comfortable much flatter performance, once the high
pushing 8th-gen chips to higher clock speeds clock speed advantage it has burns off. While
than the 7th generation. most Core i7 CPUs might run at 3.9GHz for a
The world isn’t about multi-threaded code, minute or three, they will usually perform 90
though, so we also run Cinebench using a percent of the work at 3.6GHz or 3.5GHz.
single thread to simulate how the CPUs would The 6-core Core i7-8750H easily wins this
perform in the vast majority of applications. thanks to its two additional cores. On the
When measuring single-threaded Core i7-8705G Kaby Lake G, we see it nearly
performance, the number of cores no longer dead-even with the Core i7-7700HQ CPU.
matters, so we see the 6-core Core i7-8750H Oddly, the performance of the Legion Y920
come back down to earth. Just as we saw with on default speed is pretty sedate. Push the
multi-threaded loads, both 8th-gen CPUs have turbo slider, though, and it’s off to the races.
a significant clock speed advantage. The Core It’s not just HandBrake and Cinebench that
i7-8750H is on top, but nipping at its heels is agree. We also ran the set of laptops through
the Core i7-8705G. Surprisingly, the Core the Chaos Group’s V-Ray benchmark. It’s
i7-7820HK, even in its
manual overclock mode, is
running at lower clock HandBrake 0.9.9 Encode
speeds than the 8th- Seconds
gen parts.
MSI G S65 Stealth Thin
One weakness of (Core i7-8750H)
1,985
Cinebench R15 is that it Lenovo Legion Y920
2,533
Turbo Mode (i7-7820HK)
takes only a minute to run HP Spectre X360 15
2,710
on fast CPUs. To see what (Core i7-8705G)

Asus Zephyrus GX501

happens to the CPU after a (Core i7-7700HQ)
2,775
laptop heats up we turn to Lenovo Legion Y920
(Core i7-7820HK)
3,017
HandBrake, where we
convert a 30GB 1080p file 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

using the Android preset.

On a longer workload, the Kaby Lake G’s high clock speed advan-
This can take anywhere tage starts to evaporate putting it closer to a Core i7-7700HQ CPU in
from a couple of hours on performance.

AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 43

REVIEWS INTEL K ABY L AKE G CORE i7-8705G

another multi-threaded benchmark that can run We get it: 6 cores > 4 cores.
on the CPU or GPU. For this test, we chose the Next is VeraCrypt AES Encryption
CPU test. The result again sees the 8th-gen benchmark. The Core i7-7820HK finally
Kaby Lake G ahead of the 7th-gen CPUs except squeaks out ahead on its default setting, but
when the Core i7-7820HK is overclocked. And let’s just call this a tie all the way around (yes,
yes, Core i7-8750H, you can stop showing off. except for you, 6-core Core i7), and a pretty
good showing for a
convertible laptop with
V-Ray 1.08 Performance Kaby Lake G inside.
(seconds)
Let’s cap this off with
MSI G S65 Stealth Thin
125 our final test (opposite top),
(Core i7-8750H)

Lenovo Legion Y920

where we take Cinebench
Turbo Mode (i7-7820HK)
160
R15 and measure
HP Spectre X360 15
(Core i7-8705G)
162 performance with the
Asus Zephyrus GX501
169 thread load manually set
(Core i7-7700HQ)
from one to eight. It’s no
Lenovo Legion Y920
181
(Core i7-7820HK) surprise that the Core
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
i7-8705G is ahead under
all loads over a 7th-gen
The Chaos Group’s V-Ray CPU test still puts the Kaby Lake G in good
company.
Core i7-7700HQ.
One problem with the
following chart) is that it
VeraCrypt AES Encryption doesn’t actually show the
(GBps)
percent increase, which
MSI G S65 Stealth Thin
might lead you to think the
8.5
(Core i7-8750H) Core i7-8705G’s CPU
Lenovo Legion Y920
Turbo Mode (i7-7820HK)
5.8 performance edge is on the
Lenovo Legion Y920
5.6
far right. The actual
(Core i7-7820HK)
performance edge of the
HP Spectre X360 15
5.5
(Core i7-8705G) Kaby Lake G is on the far left.
Asus Zephyrus GX501
(Core i7-7700HQ)
5.2

LO N G ER B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T ER P E R F O R M A N C E
TL;DR: IT’S ALL
CLOCK SPEED
We’ll call this a tie except for the 6-core Core i7-8750H. It’s no surprise that the

44 PCWorld AUGUST 2018

 The Core i7-
Cinebench R15 scaling 8705G in a con-
vertible laptop
outpaces a Core
i7-7700HQ in
a gaming laptop.

7th-gen CPUs aren’t that much different from WHAT ABOUT THERMAL
the 8th-gen chips. What’s different is the clock LIMITATIONS?
speeds they run at. Intel has been using the You know Kaby Lake G uses Dynamic Power
14nm process for so long now, it’s comfortable Sharing to help goose the CPU performance
pushing far higher clock speeds. To get a feel to top speeds, but you’re probably
for how much higher, we again took wondering how much of a limitation that is
Cinebench and
logged the clock Cinebench R15 clockspeed
speed of the CPU
when it was 20
seconds into the
test. This particular
chart has the scaling
set for readability,
but you’re basically
looking at a
200MHz across-
the-board
performance The performance advantage the Core i7-8705G Kaby Lake G has is more appar-
advantage. ent on light loads.

AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 45

REVIEWS INTEL K ABY L AKE G CORE i7-8705G
when there’s a GPU load, too. To find out, we
ran the graphically intense FurMark stress test
on the Spectre x360 15. We then ran
Cinebench R15 and saw a pretty steep
decline in its score. We don’t want to put a
firm number on the performance because it
never stabilized. That’s a bad thing, right?
That’s what we initially thought, until we ran
the same load on an older Dell XPS 15 9560 with
a Core i7-7700HQ and GeForce GTX 1050. In
actual performance, both are somewhat similar
when the CPU and GPU are tested alone. In a
stress test of both, we actually saw the Core
i7-8705G and Radeon RX Vega M GL manage its
thermals far better than the Core i7-7700HQ and
GeForce GTX 1050 combination. In fact, once it
was heated up, the XPS 15 with traditional
CPU+GPU performed far worse.
While this won’t apply to all Kaby Lake G
laptops, it’s definitely a sign that we can’t
assume the combined package will under-
perform a traditional CPU+discrete graphics
setup, because in some cases, it’s faster.
VERDICT
Overall, we’re pleasantly surprised by Kaby
Lake G. We expected CPU performance
closer to a low-wattage CPU, and GPU
performance below a GTX 1050. Instead, we
saw better performance than a 7th-gen Core
i7 high-wattage chip, and GPU performance
more on a par with a GTX 1050.
Remember, too, that the Spectre x360 15
is a 2-in-1 that converts to a tablet. We’ve seen
46 PCWorld AUGUST 2018
a few 15-inch convertibles with high-power
parts in them, and they generally under-
perform traditional clamshell designs. With
Kaby Lake G, you can apparently have your
cake and still fold it back into a tablet, too.
HERE’S WHY NVIDIA (AND
AMD) SHOULD BE SCARED
OF KABY LAKE G
As good as it is, Kaby Lake G isn’t going to
shake up the CPU+GeForce scene today. But
tomorrow, if there’s a Cannon Lake G or a
Whiskey Lake G with more cores and better
graphics, AMD and Nvidia should be worried.
What’s bad for Nvidia is how the integrated-
CPU-and-GPU design concentrates power with
Intel. If Intel buys the graphics chip and adds it,
the laptop vendor is no longer making the
choice, potentially freezing out Nvidia.
AMD isn’t sitting pretty either. Today Intel
is buying Radeon graphics, but the company
recently announced its intent to make its own
discrete graphics (go.pcworld.com/2020).
It’s entirely possible a future “G” chip will
feature Intel discrete graphics, not AMD’s.
Today though, there are few takers of Kaby
Lake G. In fact, only two vendors have shipped
it: HP, with the Spectre x360 15, and Dell, with
its XPS 15 2-in-1. Some we’ve spoken to have
painted that as a failure of Kaby Lake G to catch
on, while others have speculated politics to be
the cause. Whatever the truth, it’s a shame,
because applied the right way in the right
laptop, Kaby Lake G is a road worth taking.
$OLHQZDUHƴƺ5Ƹ&RUHLƼDQGDQ
RYHUFORFNHG*7;ƴƳƻƳFUHDWHDQ
LQFUHGLEOHGHVNWRSUHSODFHPHQW
Intel’s first Core i9 mobile chips deliver astonishing performance. BY BRAD CHACOS
D
ell already had a winning
formula for its flagship desktop
replacement. The Alienware 17
R4 (go.pcworld.com/r417) sat
atop our guide to the best gaming laptops
(go.pcworld.com/bsgl) ever since we
reviewed it just shy of a year ago. Sure, it was
IMAGE: ADAM PATRICK MURRAY
big and heavy like all the most powerful
gaming laptops are, but the notebook
delivered such blisteringly fast performance
that the trade-off proved worthwhile for
enthusiasts. The classic Alienware design
delivered nice touches (like side RGB accent
lights) you don’t often see elsewhere. It
AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 47
REVIEWS ALIENWARE 17 R5

kicked ass, full stop. RAM: 32GB DDR4/2666 (dual-channel)

The newest iteration largely sticks with
proven success, with one key difference: an
upgrade to Intel’s 8th-gen mobile processors,
which pack more CPU cores than previous
generations did. The Alienware 17 R5 we’re
reviewing today packs Intel’s debut high-
performance Core i9 laptop chip (go.
pcworld.com/hpi9). Friends, the Core
i9-8950HK inside turns this already beastly
gaming laptop into an utter monster. Let’s go.
SPECS, FEATURES,
AND PRICE
The Alienware 17 R5 is available in a variety of
configurations (go.pcworld.com/nw17), from
a $1,560 model (go.pcworld.com/m156)
with a 6-core Core i7-8750H, an overclocked
GeForce GTX 1060, and a 60Hz 1080p
display, all the way up to the price-is-no-
object-I-want-
performance $3,810
version (go.pcworld.com/
m309) we’re testing
today. Optional features
could push that total even
higher. Here’s what’s
inside our review unit.
Spoiler alert: It’s loaded.
Storage: 512GB NVMe SSD, 1TB
7,200rpm hard drive
Wireless: Killer 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.1
Display: 17-inch, 120Hz, 2560x1440
G-Sync display (TN + WVA)
Ports: Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.0 Type-C,
two USB 3.0 Type-A, HDMI 2.0, mini-Display-
Port 1.2, headphone/mic, Noble Lock slot,
ethernet, Alienware Graphics Amplifier port
Weight: 9 pounds, 12 ounces, or 12
pounds, 15.2 ounces with power brick
Dimensions: 16.7 x 13.1 x 1.18 inches
Webcam: Alienware FHD with Tobii IR
eye-tracking
Price: $3,810
As you can see from the spec list, the
high-end Alienware 17 R5 spares no expense
on the internals. The Core i9-8950HK packs

CPU: Core i9-8950HK

(overclockable)
GPU: Overclocked Overclocking controls: The Alienware Command Center app defaults to
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 a light scheme but the dark theme is gorgeous.

48 PCWorld AUGUST 2018


The touchpad on the Alienware 17 R5 thankfully includes physical buttons.
the same six cores and twelve threads as the
8th-gen Core i7 chips, but at higher clocks
that range from 2.8GHz all the way up to
4.8GHz. Even more impressive, it manages to
stay steady at 4GHz even when Cinebench is
stressing every available CPU core and
thread. This thing cranks—and as an HK-series
chip, you can crank it even further by
overclocking it.
The powerful Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080
graphics comes overclocked and kicking butt
out of the box, but you can use the revamped
Alienware Command Center app to tweak
the tuning of your CPU and GPU. The
Command Center includes a pair of one-click
overclock options as well as the ability to
create your own profile. You can also adjust
performance settings based on desired
thermal parameters. Alienware’s app doubles
as the Command Center
for the laptop’s RGB
lighting features, and it
swipes a page from
Nvidia’s GeForce
Experience by acting as
a central hub for all your
installed games.
This 10-pound laptop
is big, but attractive,
largely mirroring the
design of last year’s
Alienware 17. The black
color scheme of our
review model straddles
the line between flashy and professional: The
stark, clean design is augmented with tasteful,
customizable lighting.
Slim RGB LED strips accent both side
edges and the lid, as well as the touchpad
itself—a unique addition that I found myself
appreciating greatly while using the laptop in
bed at night. Backlit keyboards are great, and
it turns out backlit touchpads are too! The
keyboard backlighting is still zone-lit rather
than per-key, which is a slight bummer, but
the keyboard itself feels great, with plenty of
travel and responsiveness. The touchpad is
just as good, as it thankfully includes a pair of
physical buttons at the bottom.
Audiovisuals prove just as impressive. The
Alienware 17 R5 delivers big, booming sound
for a gaming laptop, and unlike its predecessor,
the audio isn’t utterly drowned out by roaring
AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 49
REVIEWS ALIENWARE 17 R5

fans. The fans aren’t quiet while

you’re gaming—not at all—but
they a reasonably pleasant
noise that’s not too high-
pitched or whiny. Bring a
gaming headset (go.pcworld.
com/ghst).
On the visual front you’d be
hard-pressed to identify this as a
TN panel. The 2560x1440
screen pumps out vibrant
imagery with fairly generous
viewing angles, though it starts We aren’t a fan of this hinge-forward design.
to darken once you reach more
extreme slants. The screen hits an impressively
eye-searing 390 nits at full brightness. Playing
on a 120Hz G-Sync panel—which synchronizes
the refresh rates of your GPU and display to
eliminate tearing and stuttering—feels just
as glorious as you’d expect.
It’s the only panel option available for
the black chassis, unfortunately. If you switch to
a silver chassis you can opt to upgrade to a
60Hz 4K IPS panel, with or without G-Sync, for
another $150. Regardless of chassis type,
there’s no ability to save some cash by ditching
the integrated Tobii IR eye-tracking sensor.
Tobii is nifty (go.pcworld.com/tbii) but far
from essential, letting you sign into Windows
10 via face recognition or use your eyes to
control the cursor in a limited selection of
games. Beyond the cost of implementing it,
the Tobii hardware manifests itself as a series
of continuous, rapidly flickering red lights
below the panel whenever you boot up a
game. It’s incredibly distracting and annoying.
We’re still not a fan of the rear of the
Alienware 17, either. It ditches traditional
notebook design and instead places the lid’s
hinge about 1.25 inches in from the rear
edge, creating a huge lip on the back. That
lets Alienware add massive vents that no
doubt help to keep the colossal hardware
inside cool, but it’s butt-ugly and gets awfully
hot during long gameplay sessions.
The power cord, display connections,
ethernet, and proprietary Alienware Graphics
Amplifier ports are all on the rear of the
machine, too. We dislike the ergonomics of
rear-edge ports even in standard laptop
designs. In the Alienware 17, it all but
guarantees your fumbling fingers will brush
those hot vents if you need to plug something
in while you’re working or playing.

50 PCWorld AUGUST 2018

BENCHMARK PC’s EON17-X (go.pcworld.com/e17x), a
PERFORMANCE beast that uses an overclocked 6-core,
The Alienware 17 R5 packs ferocious firepower, 12-thread Core i7-8700K desktop processor
so let’s see how it stacks up versus some other but still manages to come in slightly cheaper
heavy hitters. Let’s start with the Alienware 17 and slightly less heavy than the Alienware—
R4, which packs an Intel Core i7-7820HK, the though much thicker. All of these pack Nvidia’s
previous generation’s overclockable quad-core full-fat GeForce GTX 1080.
flagship. We’ll also compare it against Origin We’ll also include Acer’s Predator Triton
7000 (go.pcworld.com/
apt7), a more portable
Cinebench R15 premium laptop with a
Multi-core performance
quad-core Core
Alienware 17 R5 i7-7700HQ and a power-
(Core i9-8950HK)
1,357
efficient GTX 1080 Max-Q,
Origin PC EON17-X
(Overclocked i7-8700K)
1,313 as well as the MSI GS65
MSI G S65 Stealth Thin
1,144 Stealth Thin 8RE (go.
8RE (Core i7-8750H)

Alienware 17 R4
pcworld.com/gst6). These
(Core i7-7820HK)
871
two laptops cost
Acer Predator Triton 700
(Core i7-7700HQ)
748 significantly less than the
Alienware, at $2,780 and
LO N G ER B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T ER P E R F O R M A N C E
$1,799 respectively. MSI’s
slim four-pound laptop
only has a GTX 1060 inside,
Cinebench R15 but it also has the 6-core
Single-core performance
Core i7-8750H processor
Origin PC EON17-X that many gaming laptops
(Overclocked i7-8700K)
202
opt for over the beefier
MSI G S65 Stealth Thin
8RE (Core i7-8750H)
178 Core i9 chip found in the
Alienware 17 R5
177 Alienware 17.
(Core i9-8950HK)

Acer Predator Triton 700

Speaking of which, this
(Core i7-7700HQ)
163
is the first Core i9 laptop to
Alienware 17 R4
(Core i7-7820HK)
160 hit our test bench, so let’s
kick things off with
LO N G ER B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T ER P E R F O R M A N C E
processor power. Maxon’s

AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 51

REVIEWS ALIENWARE 17 R5

Cinebench R15 measures

raw CPU performance, and HandBrake 0.9.9 Encode
will happily use as many Seconds
threads as you can throw at
Origin PC EON17-X
it. Higher scores are better. (Overclocked i7-8700K)
1,734
The newer laptops with Alienware 17 R5
(Core i9-8950HK)
1,757
Intel’s 8th-gen Core i7 and
MSI G S65 Stealth Thin
Core i9 CPUs absolutely 8RE (Core i7-8750H)
1,985

smoke the older models Alienware 17 R4

(Core i7-7820HK)
2,337
running the Core Acer Predator Triton 700
(Core i7-7700HQ)
2,782
i7-7700HQ, which makes
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
sense: This generation
added two cores and four
threads to high-end chips.
Single-threaded
3DMark Fire Strike Extreme
Graphics Score
performance sees a
notable but more modest Origin PC EON17-X
(Overclocked i7-8700K)
10,494
increase compared to
Alienware 17 R5
previous generation CPUs. (Core i9-8950HK)
10,144

Notably, the Core i9 inside Alienware 17 R4

9,987
(Core i7-7820HK)
the Alienware 17 trades Acer Predator Triton 700
(Core i7-7700HQ)
8,513
blows with the desktop
MSI G S65 Stealth Thin
Core i7-8700K inside of 8RE (Core i7-8750H)
5,524
the Origin EON17-X—a
LO N G ER B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T ER P E R F O R M A N C E
very impressive feat.
But Cinebench’s
benchmark runs in a short duration. The file we design and tuning. We measure results in how
encode in our CPU-intensive HandBrake test many seconds it takes to perform the
(which uses an older version of the software) encoding, so lower scores are better.
takes around 45 minutes on a quad-core No surprise here, either: The 8th-gen
processor. The extended duration reveals how Core i7 and Core i9 chips demolish the
a laptop’s temperature throttling affects last-gen competition thanks to their more
performance over time, something that can abundant CPU cores. The Core i9-8950HK
vary wildly depending on a given laptop’s inside the new Alienware 17 manages to finish

52 PCWorld AUGUST 2018

 chops using the Graphics
Tomb Raider sub-score in 3DMark’s Fire
Quality (fps) Strike Extreme benchmark,
a synthetic benchmark that
Origin PC EON17-X
(Overclocked i7-8700K)
184.3 focuses on pure GPU
Alienware 17 R5 performance.
(Core i9-8950HK)
167.4
Dell managed to crank
Acer Predator Triton 700
(Core i7-7700HQ)
146.2 the GTX 1080 even further
MSI G S65 Stealth Thin
8RE (Core i7-8750H)
97.3 in the Alienware 17 R5
compared to the older R4,
LO N G ER B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T ER P E R F O R M A N C E
with the newer model
turning in an ultra-rare
10,000-plus score. As far as
Middle-earth: Shadows of Mordor single-GPU laptops go, the
Quality (fps)
only other notebook to
Origin PC EON17-X break that lofty barrier is
(Overclocked i7-8700K)
168.5
the thicker Origin
Alienware 17 R5
(Core i9-8950HK)
161.83 EON17-X, which manages
Alienware 17 R4
154.9 to push significantly further
(Core i7-7820HK)

Acer Predator Triton 700

(Core i7-7700HQ)
137.6
MSI G S65 Stealth Thin
8RE (Core i7-8750H)
91.6
LO N G ER B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T ER P E R F O R M A N C E
the job nearly 4 minutes faster than the
8th-gen Core i7 inside the MSI GS65 Stealth,
and almost 10 minutes faster than the 7th-gen
overclockable cream-of-the-crop processor in
the previous Alienware 17 R4. Holy moley. It’s
a few seconds slower than the desktop chip
in the Origin laptop, though.
Gaming laptops need strong graphics
capabilities, of course. We test their visual
on account of the extra
room.
But enough synthetic
benchmarks. Let’s get to
the games! We compare
laptop gaming
performance at 1080p resolution to
standardize results across the board, using
the in-game benchmarks included with each
title. Our current suite mostly consists of older
games so that we can compare new and old
laptops easily. (Note that we don’t have Tomb
Raider results for the older Alienware 17 R4.)
The Alienware 17 pushes these established
games beyond even what its ultra-fast 120Hz

AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 53

REVIEWS ALIENWARE 17 R5

screen can pump out, albeit

at 1080p resolution. The Rise of the Tomb Raider
overclocked GTX 1080 really Quality (fps)
spreads its wings here. Most
Origin PC EON17-X
modern games are (Overclocked i7-8700K)
138.1
bottlenecked by your GPU Alienware 17 R5
(Core i9-8950HK)
120.34
rather than your CPU, so a
Acer Predator Triton 700
Core i7 laptop with a GTX (Core i7-7700HQ)
114.5

1080 will perform in the Alienware 17 R4

(Core i7-7820HK)
102.2
same general ballpark as a MSI G S65 Stealth Thin
8RE (Core i7-8750H)
70.7
Core i9 laptop with a GTX
LO N G ER B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T ER P E R F O R M A N C E
1080 in the majority of cases.
That said, out-of-the-
box overclocking and
thermal design choices can
4K Video Playback Battery Life
Minutes
affect gaming frame rates to
a decent degree, as while MSI G S65 Stealth Thin
8RE (Core i7-8750H)
323
the older R4 also has a GTX
Alienware 17 R5
1080, the new Alienware 17 (Core i9-8950HK)
225

R5 turns in a solid Alienware 17 R4

163
(Core i7-7820HK)
performance lead over its Acer Predator Triton 700
(Core i7-7700HQ)
125
predecessor. The much
Origin PC EON17-X
thicker, desktop CPU- (Overclocked i7-8700K)
120
powered Origin EON17-X
LO N G ER B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T ER P E R F O R M A N C E
once again tops our charts.
Part of the reason that
the Alienware 17 R5 is so big is because Dell percent, until the machine gives up the ghost.
crammed an absolutely massive 99Whr battery The Alienware 17 R5’s 3-hour, 45 minute
inside. That gives it a huge leg up in longevity endurance would be horrible in a mainstream
compared to other ultra-powerful desktop laptop, to be fair. But despite all its extra cores
replacements in PCWorld’s battery run-down and fancy overclocking, it still lasts more than
test, which consists of looping a 4K video in 90 minutes longer than competing high-end
the Windows 10 Movies and TV player, with laptops. Impressive. The included 330-watt
brightness at 250 to 260 nits and audio at 50 power brick charges it pretty quickly, too.

54 PCWorld AUGUST 2018

VERDICT
The old Alienware 17 kicked ass. The new
Alienware 17 R5 blows us away.
The $3,810 version we tested pumps out
more performance than we’ve ever seen in a
gaming laptop with all-mobile parts. It offers
over 55 percent more multi-thread
performance than its already-potent direct
predecessor. CPU benchmarks this fast were
practically unthinkable mere months ago.
Alienware uses the extra headroom to push
the GTX 1080 harder than before, too. And
remember: The Alienware Command Center
lets you overclock the CPU and GPU for even
more potential performance.
It’s not for everyone, though. Make sure
you can use the Core i9’s extra power (go.
pcworld.com/ci9l) before you pay its sizable
premium. All those cores and threads aren’t
fully utilized in most games, so if you plan to
use your laptop mostly for play, you’d be
better off saving your cash and going with a
more affordable option, such as Intel’s new
Core i7-8750H.
The Core i7 chip still surpasses previous-
gen performance by a long shot, and you’ll
save $1,000 or more depending on the
alternative you choose. Another version of the
Alienware 17 R5 with a Core i7, a GTX 1070
(go.pcworld.com/r5i7), and 16GB of RAM
costs $1,900, for example—almost $2,000
less than the luxurious Core i9 loadout we’ve
tested today.
But if you absolutely, positively need as
much portable performance as possible and
are willing to shoulder a big, heavy machine
to get it, the Alienware 17 R5 should be near
the top of your list. Combining a Core i9
mobile chip with an overclocked GTX 1080
results in astounding performance. As a
bonus, the Alienware 17’s slick, sophisticated
aesthetic makes the laptop look more
streamlined than it really is. Its performance is
surpassed only by Origin’s EON17-X in our
testing—a $3,712 beast that packs a powerful
Core i7-8700K desktop processor, but with a
somewhat coarser design that’s almost half an
inch thicker and half as long-lasting.
Refinement or raw power: Pick your
poison. Regardless of which you choose,
Core i9’s arrival means that mobile laptops
can finally rival top-tier tower PCs in
performance. The Alienware 17 R5 heralds
an exciting future. “Desktop replacements,”
indeed.
Alienware 17 R5
PROS
• Incredible desktop-class performance
• Overclockable CPU and GPU
CONS
• Large and heavy
• Annoying hinge/vent design
BOTTOM LINE
The Alienware 17 R5 is a slickly designed gaming
laptop that leverages Intel’s first Core i9 mobile chip
and an overclocked GeForce GTX 1080 to deliver
desktop-class power. It’s heavy and expensive though.
PRICE
$3,810
AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 55
REVIEWS

Trend Micro Maximum Security:

Great security suite, but privacy
protection features need work
A few privacy features need an upgrade. BY IAN PAUL

T
he best antivirus solution is one
that’s as simple as possible. After
all, if a user can’t navigate the
app to take advantage of its
features, then much of the program’s
usefulness is lost. Trend Micro’s Maximum
Security nails this principle with some of the
easiest navigation we’ve seen yet.
The default dashboard is very
straightforward. There’s a large Scan circle in
the middle that changes color based on the
status of the PC. Clicking on the circle initiates
a quick scan, while clicking the downward-
facing arrow to the right of it offers the choice

56 PCWorld AUGUST 2018 IMAGE: TREND MICRO


Trend Micro Maximum Security’s default view.
of quick, full, and custom scans.
Above that circle are the four basic
security categories for the app: Device,
Privacy, Data, and Family.
DEVICE TAB
The Device tab includes the settings for Trend
Micro’s real-time scanning and web filtering.
There’s also a PC Health Checkup option to
help optimize system performance. If you use
the feature, the app ranks your current
optimization level and lets you choose to
“make improvements.” These tweaks range
from fixing security vulnerabilities to
reclaiming disk space.
In my case, it found some saved
passwords in my browser, though I can’t recall
ever saving any. When I clicked on this
particular finding, the program loaded the
Trend Micro Password Manager—making the
Maximum Security’s Mute Mode.
situation feel more like an introduction to the
features of the security suite.
Next up in this section of the app is Mute
Mode, which is a really nice take on the
typical gaming-mode feature. You activate it
from the system tray by right-clicking on the
Trend Micro icon.
When running, Mute Mode stops “non-
critical” notifications from interrupting you.
There are options to disable Windows
Updates, automatically terminate programs,
and even turn off Mute Mode after a specific
interval. That’s great for gamers who, say, want
to shut down their backup program or chat
app when it’s time to play, or for students who
want to get serious about that history paper.
PRIVACY TAB
The Privacy tab has features designed to keep
sensitive data from leaving your PC. The
Privacy Scanner option, which works via
Trend Micro’s browser add-on, automatically
AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 57
REVIEWS TREND MICRO MA XIMUM SECURIT Y

reliable and centralized

Maximum Security’s Privacy tab.
scans social networks like Facebook, Twitter,
and LinkedIn to optimize your privacy
settings, for example. You can also scan your
web browsers to make sure they are as private
as possible too.
In theory, scanning social networks is a
great option, especially given Facebook’s
always confusing privacy settings. However,
its effectiveness was hit and miss in my
experience. In Chrome and Firefox, the app
produced a set of results that claimed I was
offline. Later, I went back to Twitter on
Chrome and Trend Micro displayed a privacy
analysis summary within Twitter. Clicking
through to see the scan’s results took me back
to the browser add-on page that still claimed
it couldn’t connect to the Internet. Thus, no
security summary.
A better approach would be to manage
social networking protection features inside
the Maximum Security desktop app—
including logging in. That would offer a more
experience, similar to how Vipre
Advanced Security handles its
Social Watch feature.
When I asked Trend Micro
about my troubles, the company
said this issue was probably due to
some browser-specific issues. “In
Chrome, the feature will not work
when the user is also logged in
with [a] Google account due to
some possible sync issues,
especially when the account is setup on
multiple devices,” a Trend Micro
representative told me. “[In] Firefox, the
recent browser update has caused an issue
and the fix should be applied [during] the
next Trend Micro update in July.”
Finally, Data Theft Prevention under the
Privacy tab lets you enter specific information
Maximum Security’s data protection in action.

58 PCWorld AUGUST 2018

like a credit card number, email address, or
telephone number that you want protected. If
Trend Micro sees this data entered into a
webpage, email, or instant message, it will
warn you that the data is leaving your PC. Trend
Micro says you don’t have to enter the entire
number either. Just seven consecutive numbers
is enough to monitor your credit card.
In my brief tests, Maximum Security was
able to stop my credit number from going out
in a Gmail message, but didn’t do a thing
when I pasted my numbers into Slack and a
new mail message in Thunderbird.
Trend Micro says the Data Theft Prevention
feature doesn’t support the web sockets
protocol, which is why Slack was able to send
out the data. It should have worked in
Thunderbird, according to Trend Micro. So
perhaps my experience was specific to my PC.
DATA TAB
The Data tab is the meat of Trend Micro’s
security features. Folder Shield protects
specific folders against ransomware, and you
can specify as many or as little folders as you’d
like. Secure Erase gets rid of sensitive data,
while Password Manager is a browser-based
If Trend Micro sees this data
entered into a webpage, email,
or instant message, it will warn
you that the data is leaving
your PC.
Maximum security’s Data tab.
password manager for saving passwords,
form filling data, and secure notes. Vault lets
you encrypt sensitive data.
There’s also an interesting— and perhaps
controversial—feature called Cloud Storage
Scanner. This feature scans Microsoft Office
and PDF files stored in your cloud storage
services for threats. To do this, however, the
files have to be sent to Trend Micro and
afterwards the company says they are securely
deleted. Once the scan is done, you can get
an email report letting you know the results.
This feature works with OneDrive right
now, while Dropbox is in beta. In my tests, the
OneDrive scan failed after a few seconds.
FAMILY TAB
Finally, the Family tab lets you use Trend
Micro’s parental controls for on-device
limitations, such as restricting webpages or
placing time limits on computer time.
Trend Micro also has a settings section
AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 59
REVIEWS TREND MICRO MA XIMUM SECURIT Y

accessible via the settings

cog next to the big Scan
button on the main
dashboard. Here you can
adjust options for scanning
and the PC Health
checkup. There’s also an
exceptions list to prevent
Trend Micro from
monitoring certain
programs, and whitelisting
websites and certain Wi-Fi
networks.
Returning to the
dashboard, next to the
settings option is a button
for displaying security Maximum Security optimizes your PC and gives it a ranking.
reports that show all threats
found or blocked, results of the latest PC 2018 results, Trend Micro scored 100 percent
Health Checkup, a parental controls summary, on both the zero-day and web/email threats
and a security summary of your passwords. test, as well as the widespread and prevalent
malware test.
PRICING AV-Comparatives had similar results.
Trend Micro Maximum Security has an Trend Micro blocked 100 percent of 224
introductory price of $50 for five devices for a sample threats in the April 2018 real-world
single year—the price goes up to $90 after protection test with 10 false positives. Trend
the introductory period. If you need to cover Micro also scored 100 percent in
10 devices, the price goes up to $60 for the AV-Comparatives’ malware protection test for
first year and $100 after that. Overall, these March 2018 with 166 false positives against
subscription prices are on par with many of more than 20,000 malware samples.
the other major antivirus suites. SE Labs also looked at Trend Micro and
gave the company’s protection a AAA
PERFORMANCE rating—the highest possible.
Taking a look at AV-Test’s March and April For our in-house tests, performance in

60 PCWorld AUGUST 2018


In our HandBrake test, the PC
chewed through a transcoding
of our 3.8GB MKV file in one
hour and 15 minutes. With
Trend Micro installed, that
time went up to one hour and
17 minutes.
PCMark 8’s Work Conventional benchmark
improved ever so slightly with Trend Micro
installed. Without Trend Micro installed, our
test PC scored an average of 2417 in Work
Conventional; after the security app was
installed, the average went up to 2424.
In our HandBrake test, the PC chewed
through a transcoding of our 3.8GB MKV file in
one hour and 15 minutes. With Trend Micro
installed, that time went up to one hour and 17
minutes. That’s fairly minor increase, so you’re
unlikely to notice anything except maybe
under the heaviest loads on a mid-range PC.
VERDICT
Trend Micro’s pricing is great and its
protection is viewed as excellent by three
different testing outfits. To get that level of
protection, Trend Micro employs a variety of
different protection layers including regular
scanning, behavioral analysis, and artificial
intelligence—a common theme for security
suites these days.
While its protection is good for standard
malware threats, the data protection feature
needs a little work. It ignored activity inside
some well-known desktop programs,
allowing me to send out purportedly
protected data. The social networking privacy
features could also be more reliable.
Still, the price is right for Maximum
Security, and its subscriptions fall in line with
what many of the other top security firms are
charging. Strongly in its favor is how simple its
interface is. The app itself is very easy to
understand and navigate. It also didn’t bother
me with a lot of notifications and updates,
which is always a plus. Security suites work
best when they only bother you for, you
know, actual problems.
Overall, Trend Micro Maximum Security is
solid security software, and well-worth the
money even if a few of the extra features could
use some further polishing.
Trend Micro Maximum Security
PROS
• Mute Mode is an excellent feature for power users
• PC Health Checkup helps clean-up your PC
CONS
• Some of the privacy features didn’t work reliably
• Data theft prevention not as robust as it could be
BOTTOM LINE
Trend Micro Maximum Security has an easily
navigable interface, great protection, and the price is
right. Some of its privacy features didn’t work reliably
in our tests, but the cloud protection scanning is an
interesting feature, and Mute Mode is a great take on
the usual gaming mode feature. Overall, Maximum
Security is a good choice for antivirus on Windows.
PRICE
$60
AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 61
REVIEWS

+7&8ƴƵ2QHWRRPDQ\
SUHVVLQJSUREOHPV
Smart sides and dumb buttons are a terrible combination. BY MICHAEL SIMON

W
ith the U12+, HTC
somehow manages to
mess up the one thing that
all other phones get right:
the volume and power buttons. I don’t
generally pay much mind to the buttons on
my phone—the Bixby key on the Galaxy S9
notwithstanding—but the U12+’s are so
finicky, I actively tried to avoid them.
The U12+’s buttons notwithstanding, I’d
still have a hard time recommending this
phone. Yes, it improves on the U11 in some
key areas—most notably, the camera—but
it’s also a stark reminder of just how
frustrating HTC’s phones have become.
Ever since the glorious One changed our
perception of what a high-end Android
phone should be, HTC has consistently
taken one step forward and two steps back
with each new flagship phone.
I was hoping the U12+’s fresh design and
mesmerizing transparent blue case would

62 PCWorld AUGUST 2018 IMAGE: DOMINIK TOMASZEWSKI

break that trend, but the phone’s quest to be
different ultimately proves to be too much to
bear. While there are some aspects of the
U12+ that stack up to the Pixel 2 XL and
Galaxy S9+ (its intended targets), HTC seems
to have abandoned the basic rule of design: If
it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
A NEW DESIGN…THAT
FEELS TOO FAMILIAR
HTC gave us a glimpse of the future of the
flagship U phone with last year’s international-
only U11+, so the 18:9, slim-bezel design in
the U12+ is hardly a surprise. Even if you’ve
never seen that handset in the flesh, HTC’s
moves here are mostly predictable, dumping
the home button, bumping the display from
5.5 inches to 6 inches, and upping the
screen-to-body ratio from a paltry 71 percent
to more than 80 percent. It’s definitely more
holdable than the U11, but the bezels are still
thicker than on most other phones in its class,
and I found its weight to be a bit top-heavy.
While the new dimensions certainly put
the U12+ on a par with the other phones in its
class, HTC doesn’t really bring anything new
to the table. The bezels are still pretty chunky
(likely due to new Edge Sense features that
add tapping and holding to its squeezing
repertoire), and the liquid surface aesthetic is
just as slippery and fingerprint-y as it was on
the U11. The back is a bit busier due to the
extra camera and fingerprint sensor, but it still
looks stunning in the right light, particularly
the translucent blue and fire red colors. Even
though it’s made of glass, HTC still hasn’t
added wireless charging, and like the HTC’s U
phone’s of 2017, it also doesn’t have a
headphone jack or a USB-C-to-3.5mm
adapter (though a pair of USB-C U-Sonic
earbuds are included in the box).
On the front, the Quad HD+ 2880 x
1440 display is still LCD rather than OLED.
Even though it’s HDR 10-compatible, I
found the colors to be somewhat dark and
muted, even when using the optimized
DPI-P3 color profile.
Compounding things is a surprisingly dim
display. With the brightness slider pushed to
the max, the U12+ Super LCD 6 can’t hold a
candle to the Galaxy S9 OLED screen and
pales in comparison to the LG G7’s Super
Bright LCD display. I also had weird issues
with force-touching the screen to bring up
options. Either I didn’t press hard enough or I
pressed too hard and the menu quickly
disappeared. I eventually just stopped trying.
PUSHING THE WRONG
BUTTONS
And then we have the buttons. There are just
three of them—volume up, volume down,
and power—and they look unassuming
clustered on the right side. But then you
touch them and discover they’re not
traditional buttons. They’re pressure-sensitive
buttons that don’t actually move when you
press them. In theory that might be helpful for
AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 63
REVIEWS HTC U12+
The U12+ has the worst buttons I’ve ever used on a phone.
water resistance and durability, but in practice
it’s just awful. Haptic feedback is supposed to
mimic the act of pressing, but it rarely synced
and never helped.
It gets worse: Making the three buttons
the same size is just plain cruel. I lost track of
how many times I pressed the volume down
button expecting the phone to turn on. And
because the button is touch-sensitive (so it
does nothing when the phone is off), it took
me several hard presses before I realized my
fingers were askew.
Think I’m exaggerating? HTC has a U12+
support article titled “Do’s and don’ts with
pressure-sensitive buttons,” which includes
this line: “If there’s no response after you’ve
pressed a button, try pressing it repeatedly
until you get the right pressure.” Seriously, it
says that.
Because the buttons need power, they
won’t do anything if the phone is dead. That’s
not a major issue—after all, you’ll need to plug
64 PCWorld AUGUST 2018
it in your phone at
that point anyway—
but it speaks to the
larger issue here:
What’s the point?
What was HTC trying
to accomplish with
these touch-sensitive
buttons? Even if they
worked as
advertised, they’d
still require a
relearning of simple commands like restarting
and taking screenshots. I might have been
able to understand the thought process if
HTC ditched the buttons altogether and
relied strictly on Edge Sense, but as it stands,
it might be the most confounding decision an
Android phone maker has ever made
(including that one time when Samsung
decided to put the fingerprint sensor right
next to the camera).
PERFORMANCE AND
BATTERY LIFE FAIL TO
IMPRESS
The U12+ has a top-of-the-line Snapdragon
845 processor, 6GB of RAM, and a
3,500mAh battery, so it should be one of the
best performers of the current crop of
Android phones. Unfortunately, however, for
a phone with the best possible components,
the U12+ is surprisingly inconsistent.
The issues likely stem from HTC’s
heavy-handed Sense UI. While other
Android phone makers have taken to using
lighter brushes when painting their skins,
HTC’s is thicker and sludgier than ever, with
loads of extra apps, oodles of customization
options, and bogged-down settings. Even
the stock keyboard bucks the muscle-
memory layout. Along with a bunch of
screens imploring you to install apps you
don’t want, HTC continues to install the
awful News Republic app and push
notifications without asking. I’ve already
written at length about why all Android
phones should just switch to Android One
(go.pcworld.com/stck), and the U12+ is a
prime example of how handsets could
benefit from it.
After less than a week of use, signs of lag
and stutter began to creep in. It’s a shame,
because HTC does have a few good ideas
While the Galaxy S9 (center) and the Pixel 2 XL (right) both showed accurate color when shooting these
flowers, the U12+ (left) captured finer and clearer details.
here. The best is Edge Sense, a feature that
was introduced on the U11 and adopted by the
Pixel 2. It does a few new tricks on the U12+,
including a double-tap action and holding
gesture. You can watch the video above for my
impressions, but basically HTC has added
touch sensitivity to the sides of the phone. It’s a
much more intuitive implementation than the
dreadful buttons, but it frequently required
several attempts to activate. Nonetheless,
Edge Sense on the U12+ is still the most clever
and creative way to make a large-screened
phone more manageable.
A MORE-THAN-CAPABLE
CAMERA
I was already impressed with the camera in
the U11, and HTC has upgraded the system in
the U12+. The new phone pairs an existing
12MP, f/1.7 main camera with a 16MP
AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 65
REVIEWS HTC U12+
While all three phones captured the orange hues of this flower, the U12+ (left) was most accurate, while
the Galaxy S9 (center) was a touch oversaturated and the Pixel 2XL a bit too dark.
secondary camera with 2x optical zoom. The
U12+’s camera system is by far its best
attribute, and it more than holds its own
against Android’s 2018 heavyweights. Its app
is great too, with a front-and-center shortcut
to its zoom and excellent pro controls.
In optimal lighting, the U12+ produced
crisp, accurate images with vivid colors and
deep shadows, and in some cases more
detail than the Pixel 2 XL. The optical zoom
performed as well as the iPhone X’s, and
optical image stabilization in the main lens
helps greatly with capturing low-light and
moving images, but it still struggles with
extreme darkness. I also experienced some
focus and processing lag, but overall, the
U12+ is nothing short of a fantastic camera.
As good as the rear camera is on the U12+,
however, the front camera might actually be
better. HTC has added a dual lens for selfies,
66 PCWorld AUGUST 2018
too, and the results are pretty great. Not only
can you take true portraits, there’s also a Bokeh
Mode Editor that lets you adjust the background
blur and change the focal point. (It’s available for
rear-camera portraits too, but it’ll get the most
use with Instagram selfies.)
Watching it work is quite impressive, giving
the U12+ a level of depth-of-field control that
you won’t find on the iPhone X or the Galaxy
S9+. It might end up being a party trick for
most people, but it’s not a cheap one—on-the-
fly adjustments like this are generally reserved
for cameras costing thousand of dollars (go.
pcworld.com/ll16). It’s another feature I’d sure
like to see turn up in the Pixel 3.
As good as the rear camera is on
the U12+, however, the front
camera might actually be better.
 suggests there should
be a cheaper model
with a smaller screen
available, there isn’t.
Nor will there be. The
U12+ will likely be the
only U.S. flagship
from HTC until the
U13 next year,
assuming there even
The U12+’s front camera takes great selfie portraits, but its best trick is its is an HTC flagship in
ability to switch focal points in the bokeh mode editor. 2019. Now that HTC’s
smartphone division
VERDICT has been ravaged by Google, it could be only
Two kinds of people will buy an HTC U12+: a matter of time before the company simply
unabashed HTC fans who still think the stops making flagships.
company makes better phones than Until then, HTC might want to spend a
Samsung, and Verizon or T-Mobile little less time thinking about what it can do
customers who get an offer they can’t and more about what it should do.
refuse. For everyone else, the U12+ is a
conundrum. On one hand, it’s tantalizingly HTC U12+
close in some areas to being one of the
year’s best phones, but on the other, its PROS
• The slim-bezel design is a big improvement over
flaws make it seem like it was designed by the U11.
someone who had never actually used a • The front and rear cameras are very good

smartphone before. The decision to use CONS

touch-sensitive buttons might have seemed
like a good one in theory, but how it
advanced past the prototype stage is
beyond me.
Even if the U12+’s buttons weren’t its
death knell, a 2018 phone with an LCD screen
• The buttons, my god, the buttons.
• The bloated Sense UI makes the phone feel slower
than it should.
• The glass back, while pretty, is slippery and doesn’t
support wireless charging
BOTTOM LINE
The HTC U12+ has the price and specs of a flagship
phones, but its awful buttons and bloated UI are a
deal-breaker.

and an overweight OS is a tough sell at $650, PRICE

$799
let alone $800. Even though its name

AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 67

REVIEWS TOSHIBA RC100 NVME SSD
7RVKLED5&ƴƳƳ190H66'$
JRRGEDUJDLQ66'IRUODSWRSV
It’s thin, short, and energy-efficient, if not particularly fast. BY JON L. JACOBI
E
ven though Toshiba’s RC100 is
the slowest NVMe SSD we’ve
tested, it’s still a kick in the pants
after SATA. And because it’s so
thin and light, it’s a worthy laptop upgrade
(go.pcworld.com/adsd). The RC100 caught
us just a tad off guard. We hadn’t seen a drive
in the 2242 form factor (22mm wide, 42mm
68 PCWorld AUGUST 2018
long) since…well, never. The longer 2280
form factor has been the name of the game
around here since we started covering NVMe
SSDs. Despite its diminutive nature, the
RC100 is available in capacities up to 480GB.
Check out our regularly updated guide to the
best SSDs for other storage options (go.
pcworld.com/ssds).
IMAGE: TOSHIBA
DESIGN AND SPECS for primary caching. Instead, it’s the first drive
As I said, the RC100 is a shorty. One might we’re aware of to take advantage of NVMe’s
even say it’s cute. The drive is PCIe 3.0 using Host Memory Buffer feature. HMB allows a
two lanes, rather than the four that enthusiast drive to use a portion of your computer’s
drives employ. This limits performance, but system memory as a cache. This is largely
also reduces energy consumption, and most what Samsung does with its RAPID software,
likely cost. though Toshiba told me this drive employs
The drive uses Toshiba’s own controller only 38MB’s worth.
(which Toshiba wouldn’t specify after a query) Using HMB obviously lowers costs, and
and 64-bit BiCS 3D (Layered) TLC (Triple-level for the average user, there’s minimal chance of
cell/3-bit) NAND. It’s available in 120GB, losing data if the computer shuts down
240GB, and 480GB flavors. On Newegg unexpectedly. About the only scenario that
they’re currently priced at
$65 (go.pcworld.com/
CrystalDiskMark 6
eg65), $95 (go.pcworld. (MBps)
com/eg95), and $190 (go. 90
Random Write 4KIB
pcworld.com/eg19), (Q=1, T=1) 159
250
respectively. Darn
inexpensive, and we expect 250
Random Read 4KIB
that to drop at least slightly (Q=1, T=1) 29
55
as the market reacts.
The drives carry a three- 106
Random Write 4KIB
544
year warranty, and are rated (Q=8, T=8)
1,010
for 1TBW (TeraBytes Written)
for every 2GB of capacity— Random Read 4KIB
291
(Q=8, T=8) 745
about par for the course. 1,225
Note that the 120GB version
409
is rated as significantly slower Sequential Write
(Q=32, T=1) 1,075
than the other capacities. 1,204
This is often the case with
1,468
smaller capacity SSDs that Sequential Read
1,592
(Q=32, T=1)
have fewer data channels 3,547
and less cache.
TO S H I B A R C 10 0 K I N G S TO N A10 0 0 S A M S U N G 970 E V O
The RC100 has no DRAM

AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 69

REVIEWS TOSHIBA RC100 NVME SSD

could cause data loss is exposure to fluids, bestowed enough secondary NAND cache
which might short-circuit power to main (some of the TLC treated as 1-bit Single Level
memory immediately. Most motherboards Cell/SLC) on the drive—around 20GB—to
retain power even when the power supply is handle the majority of write operations. As
shut off for at least a second or two, which secondary cache (The HMB discussed above
should be plenty of time to clear a cache. being the primary) is generally allotted as a
fixed percentage of capacity, this is likely
PERFORMANCE 10GB for the 240GB version, and 5GB for
While the 480GB version of the RC100 is the the 120GB model.
slowest NVMe SSD we’ve tested, it’s still quite Generous cache or no, the RC100 (gold
a boost from SATA under normal conditions. bars) is no match for a PCIe x4 drive such as
That’s largely because Toshiba actually the Samsung 970 EVO (go.pcworld.
com/97ev), or even
Kingston’s PCIe x2 A1000
AS SSD 2.0
(10GB/MBps) (go.pcworld.com/a100) (red
110
bars), as you’ll note from the
4K Write (64 Threads) 427 results below. However, you
1,355
still get incredible seek times
438 (while on cache), which has a
4K Read (64 Threads) 707 lot to do with the hyper-
1,615
snappy feel that NVMe
43 imparts to your system.
4K Write 126
Write performance does
166
drop quite a bit when the
21 RC100 runs out of cache,
4K Read 19
39
from 1GBps to around
400MBps. Few files or copy
857
operations exceed that size,
Sequential Write 557
2,298 but you’re back to SATA
speeds when they do.
1,237
Sequential Read 1,186
To reiterate, the RC100
2,623 is not a fast NVMe SSD, but
it is fast compared to SATA
TO S H I B A R C 10 0 K I N G S TO N A10 0 0 S A M S U N G 970 E V O
and lightning-fast compared

70 PCWorld AUGUST 2018

 roughly 2.75ms in our tests.
48GB copies Bombarding a drive with
(Seconds) that many consecutive seeks
is not something your OS
162
48GB Folder Write 158 does, however, so take this
150 as merely an informative
192 hardware test—it will never
48GB Folder Read 168 affect you in real life.
140

96 VERDICT
48GB Write 94 If you’re penny-pinching, or
56
on a weight-reduction kick,
55 the RC100 will save you quite
48GB Read 61
a bit of coin and a gram or
28
so. I’m giving it the nod with
TO S H I B A R C 10 0 K I N G S TO N A10 0 0 S A M S U N G 970 E V O
the caveat that it’s not as
suitable for heavy workloads
to the average hard drive while the cache is as the competition. It’s a very nice little
in play. upgrade drive—especially for laptops.
Toshiba claims that the RC100 uses only
70 percent of the juice of an enthusiast drive, Toshiba RC100
though the company didn’t state which drives NVMe SSD (480GB)
they consider enthusiast types. It’s likely true,
as it’s leveraging only half the PCIe lanes and PROS
• Affordable prices
no DRAM. • Small and light enough to fit into a laptop
Above I talked about the seek times, CONS

They’re very good while the the RC100 is in • Slow performance compared to other SSDs (but
much faster than a hard drive)
cache, falling within the 0.1 ms to 0.3 ms • Relatively short three-year warranty
window within which most drives perform. BOTTOM LINE
Even though Toshiba’s RC100 is the slowest M.2
However, as with some other drives, notably NVMe SSD we’ve tested, it’s still a kick in the pants
Apacer’s Commando (go.pcworld.com/ after SATA. And because it’s so thin and light, it’s a
worthy laptop upgrade.
apcd; over 9ms write seek) and Intel’s 760p PRICE
(go.pcworld.com/it76; about 7ms write $190

seek), it nose-dives when off of cache, to

AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 71

REVIEWS
The best GPS trackers for kids:
Locate your little ones with ease
We identify the top devices, plus outline what to look for when shopping.
BY BEN PATTERSON
A
wearable GPS tracker could
strike the right balance between
giving your children increasing
independence while preserving
your peace of mind. You can track where your
kids are, discover if they’re not where they’re
supposed to be, keep in touch, and even get
an SOS if something really bad happens.
GPS trackers come in many shapes and
sizes—some are pocket-sized modules that
can be fastened to bags or clothing; others
72 PCWorld AUGUST 2018
are watch, pendant or necklace designs.
Most of them, however, come bundled with
similar bells and whistles ranging from two-
way calling and text messaging to step
counters and even panic buttons.
Some trackers are even designed
specifically for elderly relatives in mind, though
most can be used by anyone of any age. Of
course, a particular model may lack a desired
feature or two, and you may need to make some
tweaks so that they can be carried securely, due
to differences in child and adult sizing. Read on
for reviews and recommendations for the latest
GPS trackers we’ve tested, plus tips and what to
look for when shopping.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A
GPS TRACKER FOR KIDS
You’ll find that many GPS tracking devices are
tailored for specific age ranges and lifestyles,
but in general, you’ll want to consider a few
key features while shopping for a GPS tracker.
Two-way calling
Many GPS trackers allow for two-way voice
calls between the wearer and a loved one or
guardian. When it comes to GPS trackers for
children, two-way calls are generally only
allowed with a given number of contacts—like
Mommy, Daddy, a family friend, and maybe a
grandparent or two. Calls to and from
strangers are blocked. In our experience,
we’ve found that kids as young as five or six
can use two-way calling features with ease,
although you’ll have to rein in their urge to
call you every five minutes.
Waterproof design
Any type of “wearable” gadget needs to be
able to withstand a certain amount of
punishment, particularly on the playground.
Make sure the GPS tracker you choose for your
child is both reasonably tough and waterproof,
or else their fancy new GPS device won’t
survive the next trip to the water fountain.
Location-based alerts
If your child walks to school alone, you’ll
understand that small feeling of relief each
time you learn that your loved one has safely
arrived at their destination. That’s the beauty
of location-based alerts, which ping your
phone whenever your kid arrives (for
example) at school. Look for GPS devices that
can alert you when the wearer arrives at or
departs a given location.
Wi-Fi support
GPS trackers often depend on a combination
of cellular signals and GPS to determine the
device’s location, but when you head
indoors, all bets are off as far as cellular and
GPS reception goes. Luckily, some GPS
trackers offer Wi-Fi support, which makes up
for a lack of cellular or GPS signal.
Fit and comfort
The most feature-packed GPS tracker on the
market won’t do much good if it’s a pain to
wear. Don’t buy a GPS watch for a little one
before making sure they can wear it
comfortably on their wrist.
Sure, that GPS tracker you’re
circling seems to have all the
boxes checked in terms of
features, but make sure you
read the fine print before
plunking down your credit card.
AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 73
REVIEWS GPS TR ACKERS FOR KIDS
The LG GizmoGadget.
WHAT YOU SHOULD
KNOW ABOUT GPS
TRACKERS FOR KIDS
Sure, that GPS tracker you’re circling seems to
have all the boxes checked in terms of
features, but make sure you read the fine print
before plunking down your credit card.
Consider these factors before snapping up a
GPS wearable.
Most GPS trackers require
monthly fees
All that GPS tracking and two-way calling
doesn’t come for free, unfortunately. Expect
to pay a monthly fee for your GPS tracker use,
ranging anywhere from $5 a month on the
low end (generally for GPS trackers available
through a cellular carrier) all the way up to
$50 a month.
74 PCWorld AUGUST 2018
Frequent GPS
updates come at
the expense of
battery life
Not all GPS trackers
offer constant, real-time
location tracking.
There’s a good reason
for that: The more
frequently a device
checks its location, the
more power it needs to
expend. Generally
speaking, GPS devices
with true real-time
tracking will need larger batteries to make it
through the day, meaning the actual device
might be relatively big and heavy. Users of
smaller GPS trackers (watches, pendants, etc.)
will often have to settle for manual location
checks or periodically scheduled checks, in
order to squeeze as much juice out of the
diminutive battery as possible.
Schools generally allow students to
use gadgets, but not during class
Though kids can usually bring their cell phones
to school, they typically aren’t allowed to use
them in class—and the same goes for GPS
watches and tracking devices. Check the
gadgets policy of your child’s school before
you buy, and make sure the GPS tracker you
pick has a “quiet hours” feature that lets you
silence the device during instruction periods.
ANGELSENSE GPS
Price: Monthly plan
Designed for the guardians of special-needs
children, the AngelSense GPS tracker offers
constant tracking, frequent location alerts,
and a way to call a child who can’t or won’t
pick up a phone call on their own. The device
has the potential to be a lifesaver, but it does
come with a steep monthly bill—along with
thorny privacy and legal issues raised by
AngelSense’s “Listen-in” feature.
Design
Measuring about 4.5 x 2.5 x 0.5 inches and
weighing a little over five ounces, the
AngelSense GPS device is about the size and
weight of a smallish touchscreen phone—and
that’s exactly what it is, as you’ll discover if
you remove the AngelSense device from its
thick nylon sleeve.
The AngelSense GPS device (which is basically a customized LG
touchscreen phone) comes encased in a water-resistant silicone cover.
The AngelSense module is designed to
stay in its sleeve at all times, with the device
itself (a customized LG smartphone) encased
in a water-resistant silicone cover complete
with red “Do Not Remove!” stickers. Though
the touchscreen lights up when you press and
hold the power button—which, incidentally,
only reboots the device rather than powering
it off—the display will go dark again within a
few seconds.
The sleeve itself features a pair of fasteners
on the top and bottom, but no controls at all
save for a power button along the side
(which, when positioned properly, sits atop
the handset’s power button). It also has an
opening in the bottom for a micro-USB
charging cable.
Once inside its sleeve, the AngelSense
can be fastened in a child’s backpack, pocket,
or worn as a belt (using an optional belt-
equipped sleeve). A lockable pin (similar to
the anti-theft devices used
by retail stores) keeps the
AngelSense sleeve securely
in place. I fastened the
AngelSense handset to a
backpack, and it felt like it
wasn’t going anywhere.
Service costs
The AngelSense “Guardian
Kit,” which includes the
device itself, a travel case,
a sleeve, a charger, a trio
AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 75
REVIEWS GPS TR ACKERS FOR KIDS

of fasteners, and a
magnetic key for
unlocking the
fasteners, goes
for $79.
The monthly
service plan, which
covers unlimited GPS
tracking and 60
minutes of voice calls,
costs a $53 a month.
That’s considerably
more than, say, the $5
monthly fee for the LG The AngelSense GPS app keeps constant track of a child, particularly when
GizmoGadget they’re in transit or at a place they don’t regularly visit.
tracking watch, but
the LG device does require a Verizon Depending on your answers, the portal may
Wireless subscription. advise that it’ll take anywhere from a week to
You can knock the AngelSense’s monthly a month or more for your kid to grow used to
fee down to $40 a month with a one-year wearing the AngelSense.
contract, or $33.33 a month for a full year Once you’re done with the questionnaire,
paid in advance (which comes out to about all you need to do is make sure the device is
$400 for the entire year). charged up. Within a minute or so, the
AngelSense’s location should pop up on a
Setup map within the AngelSense app or website.
Getting the AngelSense up and running takes Through the Settings section of the app,
just a few minutes. Once you enter your you can add more caregivers who can track,
username and password into the AngelSense call, or even listen in on your child (more on
GPS portal, a short questionnaire helps you the “Listen-in” feature in a moment). You can
determine how long your child might take to also add a list of first responders, such as
grow accustomed to the device, based on school officials or law enforcement, who can
factors such as age, special needs (from get a text message with a tracking link in
autism and Asperger’s to OCD or general case your loved one isn’t where they’re
anxiety), and degree of sensory sensitivity. supposed to be.

76 PCWorld AUGUST 2018

Tracking and monitoring
Unlike other GPS tracking devices that
pinpoint your child only during scheduled
times or when you manually tap the Find
button, AngelSense GPS updates its position
frequently and automatically, particularly
when your child is in transit or at a location
you haven’t previously labeled.
In my tests, AngelSense’s GPS readings
were timely and, generally speaking,
accurate to within a half-block or less. While
AngelSense is prone to the same cellular
and GPS reception problems as other
devices (particularly when indoors), the
device does support Wi-Fi—handy for
keeping track of your child if their school or
other frequently-visited locations have
spotty cellular coverage.
If you’re worried that your kid is lost or
wandering, you can enable Runner Mode,
which boosts the frequency of GPS tracking
(at the expense of battery life). Optionally, you
can send out an alert to the first responders
you’ve previously designated, complete with
a link that’ll let them track your missing child.
You can also activate either a soft or loud
alarm on the AngelSense device to help
searchers locate your kid.
In my tests, AngelSense’s GPS
readings were timely and,
generally speaking, accurate to
within a half-block or less.
Calling and communication features
AngelSense GPS’s “AngelCall” feature is
designed specifically for special-needs kids
who aren’t able to use a traditional cell phone
or calling device. It lets you call your child
without requiring her to pick up a receiver or
press any buttons. Just tap the Call icon on the
AngelSense app, and the AngelSense GPS
device will ring briefly and automatically put
you on speakerphone. Any calls you make will
count against the 60 calling minutes included
in your monthly AngelSense plan.
This AngelCall feature is what AngelSense
means in its specs by “two-way calling.” Just
keep in mind that your kid can’t initiate a call
using the AngelSense device—it is always a
parent or caregiver with AngelSense access
who makes the call.
“Listen-in” feature
In addition to the calling, the AngelSense
also has a “Listen-in” feature that lets you
discreetly hear whatever’s going on near
your child. The feature works more or less
like AngelSense’s two-way AngelCalls,
except there’s no ringtone or alert to warn
anyone that you’re listening.
Parents with special-needs kids who tend
to walk out of school or otherwise wander off
describe AngelSense’s Listen-in feature as
invaluable and even lifesaving in an
emergency. You could also use Listen-in to
make sure your child is safe while they’re in
transit or visiting an unfamiliar setting.
AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 77
REVIEWS GPS TR ACKERS FOR KIDS

the recording or
“interception” of a
conversation unless one
or all of the participants
are aware they’re being
monitored. While
AngelSense says its
Listen-in feature doesn’t
actually record
conversations, the mere
act of eavesdropping
without the consent of
some or all of the
Understand your state and local privacy laws before using Listen-in. involved parties could
be considered a crime,
While AngelSense’s Listen-in feature is depending where you are.
doubtless reassuring for the parents of While an entire page of AngelSense’s
special-needs children, it also raises privacy support site is devoted to the legal issues
and legal issues. For its part, AngelSense surrounding Listen-in, the service should do
urges its users to disclose the Listen-in a better job of warning parents about state
feature to caretakers and educators. Indeed, and local privacy laws before they use the
the company provides downloadable form feature for the first time. After passing along
letters that describe the capabilities and my feedback, an AngelSense PR rep told me
rationale behind the Listen-in feature, handy the company would make changes to its
for notifying school officials or caregivers initial setup process to highlight Listen-in’s
that you have the ability to eavesdrop on legal issues.
them. For schools that don’t allow Listen-in
at all, you can automatically disable the Battery life
feature during school hours on the Because the AngelSense GPS device is
AngelSense Settings screen. constantly checking in with its location,
Above and beyond the rules of your battery life is relatively short compared to that
school, however, are federal, state and local of other GPS trackers I’ve tried. In my tests,
privacy laws. Some states (including California, the AngelSense handset only lasted about 18
New York, New Jersey, Texas, and Florida) bar hours before its battery ran out. That means

78 PCWorld AUGUST 2018

you’d need to be diligent about charging the
AngelSense every night, just as you would
with a smartphone.
The good news is that you can set the
AngelSense to email or text you when its
battery level falls below 20 percent. You can
also create daily alerts to remind yourself to
charge the device.
Verdict
AngelSense GPS offers some of the most
comprehensive monitoring features we’ve
seen in a GPS tracking device, and it’s the one
of the few designed specifically for special-
needs children and their parents. That said,
the monthly service charge for the power-
hungry AngelSense GPS isn’t cheap, and you
should be aware of the privacy and legals
issues surrounding the “Listen-in” feature
before you start using it
design, two-way calling, and a relatively cheap
monthly charge.
Pricing and monthly plans
As a Verizon exclusive, the $80 GizmoPal 2
requires service through Verizon to purchase
one. Once you’ve paid for the watch itself, a
$5 monthly fee (a.k.a. the “access fee” for
using a device on your Verizon plan) allows
you to use the voice minutes and data of an
established monthly service plan.
Design
Available in either pink or blue, the half-inch
thick, 1.6-ounce GizmoPal 2 feels featherweight
despite its bulky 1.5 x 1.9-inch face.
I was able to strap the GizmoPal to my
six-year-old daughter’s diminutive wrist using
the third-to-last notch, but within an hour or

LG GIZMOPAL 2
Price: $80

Among the GPS tracking

watches available, the
Verizon Wireless-exclusive
LG GizmoPal 2 is one of
the cheaper options. But
being affordable doesn’t
make it notably worse than
its competition: We liked
its simple controls, The LG GizmoPal 2’s wristband was a bit too large for my six-year-old,
lightweight yet rugged but strapping it over her shirt sleeve helped.

AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 79

REVIEWS GPS TR ACKERS FOR KIDS
The face of the GizmoPal 2 is
quite simple: just a big black
screen (non-touch) with a trio
of small icons for Battery, Call,
and Play.
so she was complaining that the wristband
was too tight. Strapping on the watch over
the cuff of a long-sleeved shirt definitely
helped, but parents should keep in mind that
keeping the GizmoPal 2 on a small wrist can
be a challenge.
Both the body and the wristband of the
GizmoPal 2 felt tough, firm, and a bit rubbery.
If you wish to personalize the device, Verizon
sells replacement watch bands—available in
six colors—for $35 each. The GizmoPal 2 is
also water resistant (IPX7-rated), meaning it
can handle being splashed or even dropped
into shallow water.
The face of the GizmoPal 2 is quite simple:
just a big black screen (non-touch) with a trio
of small icons for Battery, Call, and Play. The
blue review unit I received had a protective
face sticker with a nifty sports design and a
cutout that kept the Battery, Call, and Play
icons in view. While you can peel the sticker
off, I decided to leave it on, in part so that the
GizmoPal 2 would look more like a toy and
less like a pricey smartwatch.
A Micro USB charging port sits on the back
of the GizmoPal 2. Just flick up the protective
cover to plug in the charging cable.
80 PCWorld AUGUST 2018
Setup
Getting started with the GizmoPal 2 is a
straightforward process. You first install the
GizmoHub app to an iPhone or Android
phone, then you turn on your new GizmoPal
to obtain its phone number. You plug that
number into the GizmoHub app, follow the
prompts, and wait a few minutes for the watch
to pair with the app.
Once that’s done, you can use the
GizmoHub app to add up to four contacts to
the GizmoPal 2 for two-way calling. (You add
the first one as the primary “caregiver” during
the initial setup process.) First you add the
number, then type in a name, and finally pick
a nickname (like “Daddy,” “Mommy,” or
“Grandma”) from a pull-down menu.
Tracking and monitoring
You can track your child’s current location
at any time simply by opening the Gizmo
Hub app and tapping the Find button in the
bottom corner of the map. In my tests, it
took anywhere from 30 seconds to a few
minutes for the app the pinpoint the
GizmoPal 2’s location.
You can also create up to 10 “Location
Checks,” which check your child’s location at
a predetermined time and day. For example,
you can set a Location Check for 4:30 p.m.
every Tuesday, or at 12:00 noon each
weekday. You’ll get a notification on your
smartphone after each location check,
whether they’re successful or not.
 Finally, you can
create up to five “Place
Alerts,” which let you
know if your child has
entered or left a certain
area within a given time
window. For example,
you could create a Place
Alert to let you know if
your kid made it to
school in the morning,
and another Place Alert The LG GizmoPal 2 will track your child’s location within a few minutes,
for leaving school in once you tap the Find button that sits in the bottom corner of the screen.
the afternoon.
The one weakness of Place Alerts, announce the caller. (For example: “Daddy is
however, is that you can’t set them to stay on calling.”) To pick up, your child just needs to
indefinitely. Instead, you must set a time press the Call button. The only people who
window for each alert, and each window can can call your kid’s GizmoPal 2 are those
be no more than two hours long. whose numbers you previously programmed
Personally, I’d love to be able to set an into the watch’s contact list.
all-day Place Alert for school, just so I’d know If your kid wants to place a call, her first
if my daughter left school in the middle of the step is to press the Call button. When she
day for some reason. However, the likely does, the phone instructs her to press the Call
reason that you’re limited to five Place Alerts button to reach the first contact on her list (like
and ten Location Checks is that adding more “Daddy,” for example) or to press the Play
would unduly tax the GizmoPal 2’s button to hear the next contact. Pressing Play
diminutive, watched-sized battery. will allow her to cycle through the remaining
contacts available. My six-year-old picked up
Calling and communication features the system pretty quickly, and before I knew it,
You can call your child’s GizmoPal 2 from she’d left a half-dozen giggly voicemails on
within the GizmoHub app or simply by my Android phone and her mom’s iPhone.
dialing the watch’s Verizon Wireless phone You can set “quiet times” for school hours
number. When you call, the phone’s ringer and other periods using the GizmoHub app,
will sound, and an automated voice will up to 10 separate times at once. No audio will

AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 81

REVIEWS GPS TR ACKERS FOR KIDS

play, be it a ringtone or a sound effect. If your Battery life

kid gets an incoming GizmoPal call during The GizmoPal 2’s battery is rated for 9 days of
quiet time, a teal Call icon will blink on the standby time and 2.5 hours of solid use. In
phone’s display. Just keep in mind that the practice, I found the GizmoPal 2 could run for
watch lacks a vibration feature, so if your child a few days on a single charge, but that was
doesn’t see the flashing Call light, she’ll with only one or two location checks per day,
probably miss the call. plus a phone call every couple of days. If you
The LG GizmoPal 2 lacks any kind of “panic” set up each and every Location Check and
button or auto-dial 911 feature, although you Place Alert the GizmoPal 2 can handle and
could always add 911 as a contact. make frequent phone calls, the watch’s
battery life will take a serious hit.
Extra features
While LG has curiously omitted a digital clock Verdict
from the face of the GizmoPal 2, the watch Tough, lightweight, and easy to use, the
will read the time aloud if you press and hold Verizon Wireless-exclusive LG GizmoPal 2
the Call button, even during a designated makes for a relatively cheap, simple way to
quiet hour. keep track of your kids. That said, you’ll have
For entertainment, the GizmoPal offers to settle for a meager number of location
“Fun Sounds,” which basically just plays alerts, while older children might be bored by
amusing audio clips whenever your kid hits the the watch’s bare-bones features and activities.
Play button. The selection
ranges from underwater noises
and walkie-talkie sounds
(“Breaker one-nine!”) to space
effects and “DJ” sounds.
While five- or six-year-olds
might be satisfied with Fun
Sounds, older kids will
probably tire of them quickly. If
you’re looking for a kid-friendly
GPS tracking watch with more
robust features, consider
stepping up to the $150 LG The three-icon display on the LG GizmoPal 2’s face is basic but easy
GizmoGadget. to grasp, particularly for little ones.

82 PCWorld AUGUST 2018

 TRUSENSE GPS PENDANT
Price: $129
Small, lightweight, and relatively simple to set
up, the TruSense GPS Pendant allows you to
keep an eye on an elderly loved one who’s
infirm or otherwise in need of assistance. But
while caregivers will appreciate the pendant’s
SOS button and fall detection, they’ll be
frustrated by the lack of a true mobile app to
go with it.
Design
Measuring about 2.5 x 1.75 x 0.6 inches and
weighing about 1.5 ounces, the TruSense
GPS Pendant is about the size of a car key fob.
It comes with both a lanyard and a padded
TruSense GPS Pendant
Velcro wrist strap. Wearing the pendant
around your neck takes a little getting used to,
but it doesn’t get it your way while walking
around the house or taking a neighborhood
stroll. You can even wear the waterproof
pendant in the shower, although you should
probably take it off before doing any laps in
the pool.
On the pendant itself is a power button, a
USB charging port (which is hidden beneath
a flexible plastic flap), and two tiny blue and
green LEDs that indicate charging and signal
status. A compact charging cradle and USB
cable are included in the box.
Price and service cost
The TruSense GPS Pendant itself costs $129, or
AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 83
REVIEWS GPS TR ACKERS FOR KIDS

$49 if you pay for a year’s

worth of service up front.
On top of that, you’ll also
have to shell out $25 per
month for a service plan,
which includes unlimited
GPS tracking and two-way
calls with the TruSense
Emergency Response
Center. To pare down the
monthly bill, you can opt
for a three-month plan at
$22.50 a month, a six-
month subscription at $20 The TruSense Pendant reports its location every few minutes or so.
a month, or a year-long
plan for $17.50 a month. Begin Activation button on the TruSense
website. Assuming you have a good cellular
Setup signal at home, the activation should only take
The first-time setup for the TruSense GPS a few minutes.
Pendant is a relatively simple process. Inside
the packaging is a card with an eight-digit Tracking and monitoring
registration code. Once you’ve created an The TruSense GPS Pendant reports its
account on the TruSense website, you just location every few minutes or so, which you
input the code, then add the name, address, can view on a Google-powered map via the
and phone number for the person who will be TruSense website.
wearing the pendant. Once logged into the TruSense web
Next, you type in the information for the portal, you can view the device’s current
wearer’s emergency contact person (either location, details on its battery life and signal
you or someone else), then enter a credit card strength, a log of recent trips, and whether
number for billing purposes. the device is sitting in its charger.
Finally, you turn the pendant on, put it in You can also set up geofences around an
its charging cradle (which, incidentally, will unlimited number of locations, and you can
automatically turn on the pendant the set the TruSense service to notify you and/or
moment it begins charging), and press a another caregiver via SMS or a phone call

84 PCWorld AUGUST 2018

 TruSense site is
mobile-friendly.)
We’d much prefer a
native mobile app
that allowed for
notifications and
more stable
performance. A
TruSense rep told me
the company is
indeed working on a
The TruSense web portal displays the current location of the GPS pendant,
mobile app, although
along with a log of previous trips. it won’t arrive until
later this year.
whenever your tracked loved one arrives at or
leaves a designated location. Calling and communication
In addition to tracking the pendant’s The TruSense GPS pendant features a large
current location, the TruSense portal keeps a silver ‘SOS’ button. Press and hold the button
log of trips that the device has taken. That’s a for three seconds, and the pendant will
handy feature for keeping track of a loved connect the wearer to TruSense’s 24x7
one’s comings and goings, but it can also emergency response team.
lead to unintended consequences in iffy Using the pendant’s built-in speaker and
cellular coverage areas. During my testing, microphone, the pendant user can talk to the
the Previous Trips log became cluttered with responders and tell them if they need help. If
dozens of trips, each spanning anywhere from you enable an optional setting, the TruSense
150 to 300 feet. The culprit: The spotty monitoring center will contact paramedics if
cellular service in my apartment, resulting in the pendant wearer doesn’t respond, and
herky-jerky location readings that fooled the they can’t reach any of the designated
pendant into thinking it was in transit. emergency contacts.
A bigger problem is the lack of a true The pendant also comes equipped with a
mobile app to go with the TruSense pendant. fall detector, which alerts TruSense’s emergency
For now, those tracking loved ones with team along with any caregivers you’ve
TruSense on an iPhone or Android phone will designated if the device thinks your loved one
have to do so on a browser. (Luckily, the has collapsed. While the fall detector is a

AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 85

REVIEWS GPS TR ACKERS FOR KIDS
reassuring feature for those with elderly parents
living alone, it’s also prone to false alarms,
particularly if you accidentally drop the pendant.
Of course, if the pendant does happen to slip
through your fingers, you can simply tell the
TruSense response team via the device’s built-in
microphone that you’re OK.
For more detailed information about what’s
happening at home, such as whether the friend
or loved one you’re tracking is actually wearing
the pendant, or if they’ve been in a particular
room at home for an worryingly long time, you’ll
need to pony up $300 for the TruSense Home
Starter Kit. The set bundles an Amazon Echo
Dot with a series of motion sensors, wall outlets,
and contact sensors. As you might expect, it
comes with a pricier monthly subscription plan
that starts at $28 a month.
Verdict
The TruSense GPS Pendant makes for an easy,
relatively inexpensive way to keep tabs on an
elderly loved one, but the experience of using
the device would be greatly improved by a
dedicated mobile app. For now, you’ll have
to make do with its mobile web interface’s
sometimes spotty performance.
BEST GPS TRACKER FOR
KIDS: LG GIZMOGADGET
Price: $150
Of all the ways you could track your child’s
location, the LG GizmoGadget for Verizon
86 PCWorld AUGUST 2018
Wireless ranks among the best. Tough, light,
easy to use and packed with features, the
touchscreen device is an enticing watch-style
GPS tracker for kids and parents alike.
Pricing and service plans
Available through Verizon Wireless, the $150
LG GizmoGadget counts as a line of service
on your account—so you’ll have to pony up a
monthly access fee. The good news is that the
access fee for the GizmoGadget is only $5,
versus the $20 monthly fee that Verizon
charges for most phones. Any calls made or
data consumed by the GizmoGadget counts
against your monthly account-wide minutes
and mobile data.
Design
A little more than a half-inch thick and
weighing about 1.8 ounces, the
GizmoGadget looks massive on a small wrist.
Of course, that wasn’t a problem for my
gadget-obsessed six-year-old, who viewed
the chunky form as a plus, not a minus.
While the face of the GizmoGadget
measures about two inches diagonally, the
actual 1.3-inch touch display looks
considerably smaller, with Call and End
buttons sitting below the touchscreen. The
waterproof, slightly rubbery body of the
watch feels light but reassuringly tough,
meaning it should survive roughhousing on
the playground or even a splash from the
water fountain. A micro-USB charging port
sits on the back of the
watch, covered by a
protective flap.
Keeping the
GizmoGadget on a young
wrist can be a bit of an
issue, with my six-year-old
complaining that the
watchband started to hurt
within a half-day of use.
Strapping the
GizmoGadget over the The LG GizmoGadget is a bit bulky for smaller wrists.
cuff of a long-sleeved shirt
certainly helped, and older kids with larger identical to the setup process of the cheaper
wrists might have an easier time finding a GizmoPal 2).
good fit. Once you install the GizmoHub app on an
It should also be said that the iPhone or Android phone, you then pair it
GizmoGadget’s bulky, somewhat striking with the GizmoGadget by plugging in the
look draws a certain amount of attention from watch’s Verizon phone number (which flashes
nearby kids and adults alike, with a surprising on the screen the first time you turn it on).
number of people asking me if my daughter Next, you add yourself as a “primary
was wearing an Apple Watch. All the envious caregiver” contact, entering your name and
looks at my kid’s watch made me a bit whatever your child calls you (anything from
nervous. Then again, if you’re going to strap a “Mommy” and “Daddy” to “Grandma” or
$150 gadget on your kindergartner’s wrist, “Brother”). You can then personalize the
some unwanted attention comes with the phone by adding your child’s name and
territory. If you’d prefer a GPS tracking watch picking a theme (like “Space,” “Underwater,”
that looked more like a toy, consider the or “Princess”). A five-digit PIN delivered via
cheaper LG GizmoPal 2, also available SMS completes the basic setup process.
through Verizon.
Tracking and monitoring
Setup Front and center on the GizmoHub app is a
Getting started with the GizmoGadget is a map that pinpoints the location of your kid’s
relatively simply process (and, incidentally, GizmoGadget. Note that the displayed

AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 87

REVIEWS GPS TR ACKERS FOR KIDS
location isn’t a reflection of real-time position.
Instead, you must manually fetch the watch’s
location by tapping the Find button, or by
scheduling Place Alerts or Location Checks.
Place Alerts trigger notifications when
your GizmoGadget-wearing child arrives at or
departs a designated location, such as
“School” or “Home.” They have a couple of
annoying limitations: You can set up only five
Place Alerts at a time, and each Place Alert
can be active for only two hours at a time. The
only way to track your child’s comings and
goings at school continuously would be to
program a series of two-hour Place Alerts that
cover the entire school day.
In addition to Place Alerts, the
GizmoGadget also offers Location Checks,
which automatically fetch the watch’s location
at predetermined times. For example, you
You can check the location of the LG GizmoGadget manually by tapping the
Find button, or you can create up to five Place Alerts or ten Location Checks.
88 PCWorld AUGUST 2018
could set up a Location Check that pings your
kid’s GizmoGadget every weekday at noon,
or each Tuesday at 2 in the afternoon. As with
Place Alerts, you can set up only so many
Location Checks at a time, although you get
up to ten Location Checks versus only five
Place Alerts.
Presumably, the restrictions on Place
Alerts and Location Checks are to preserve
battery life. If you tried tracking the
GizmoGadget’s every move, its watch-sized
battery wouldn’t last past lunchtime.
Calling and communication features
You can create up to 10 contacts on the
GizmoGadget, including yourself, using the
GizmoHub mobile app. If you like, you can
also flag a contact as a “caregiver,” which lets
them locate and send messages to your child
via GizmoHub.
Making calls from
the GizmoGadget is a
simple matter of
pressing the Call
button and then
tapping the name of a
contact. My eager
six-year-old,
delighted that she
could call me
whenever and
wherever she wanted,
figured out the
process within a split
second. If you’re concerned about your child
calling strangers, don’t worry: The Gizmo
Gadget’s call functions work only for the
contacts you’ve programmed into the watch.
The GizmoGadget also comes with some
basic text-messaging features, including the
ability to send stickies, brief voice messages,
and short pre-written messages (everything
from “I’m home” and “I love you” to
“Where are you?” and “When are you
picking me up?”) to designated “caregivers”
on her contact list. Last but not least, your
kid can also quickly send her location by
swiping up on the screen and tapping a
confirmation prompt.
Interface and extras
The GizmoGadget’s touch-and-swipe
interface is easy to navigate, particularly for
digital natives like my kindergartner.
Besides the main watch face, you can
swipe in one direction for “Fun Sounds,” a
feature that plays fun clips like zippy space
noises, walkie-talkie lingo, or underwater
effects, depending on the setting.
Swiping in the other direction takes you to
a series of tappable icons. The Gadgets icon,
for example, includes a compass, a
stopwatch, and a timer, while the Activity icon
features a jumping game and a step counter.
The latter can send you daily notifications on
how many steps your kid took—my daughter
particularly loved this feature, running up and
down our stairs to boost her total steps.
There’s also a to-do list that you can edit
remotely from the GizmoHub app, and
even a voice recorder that changes the
sound of your voice.
If you’re worried about the Gizmo
Gadget’s various beeps and bops
disrupting class, you can schedule up to 10
“quiet times” that’ll silence the watch’s
sounds and ringtones.
Battery life
The LG GizmoGadget’s rated battery life is eight
days of standby time and two hours of constant
use. During my time with the GizmoGadget, I
found that it lasted two or three days on a single
charge with moderate use—three or four
location checks a day, plus the odd phone call.
If you’re constantly pinging the GizmoGadget
for its location and making frequent phone
calls, you’d probably have to charge the watch
each night.
Verdict
An easy and relatively affordable way to keep
track of your kid, the touchscreen LG
GizmoGadget GPS tracker watch packs in an
impressive number of features—including
two-way calling, text messaging, and plenty
of activities and games—into a tough,
lightweight but somewhat bulky package.
Still, we wish you could program more
location alerts at once, and the watch itself
might prove too big for younger children to
wear comfortable.
AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 89
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 FEATURE

AN
UPGRADE
THAT’S
FINALLY
WORTH IT

INTEL
8TH-GEN
CORE i7
VS. 7TH-
GEN CORE INTEL’S 8TH-GEN CORE i7 COFFEE
LAKE H IS A MONSTROUSLY GOOD
CPU THAT’S FINALLY WORTH AN
i7 CPUS: UPGRADE. BY GORDON MAH UNG

IMAGE: INTEL AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 91

FEATURE 8TH GEN CORE i7 VS. 7TH GEN CORE i7

O
h, Internet. We know you’ve
been throwing shade at Intel’s
8th-gen 6-core Core CPUs
since they were announced
(go.pcworld.com/dbi9). In fact, we bet
you’re snidely commenting in YouTube or
Reddit right now that the CPU is just another
re-badge of the “same old thing.”
Well guess what? While it is essentially a
derivative of the previous CPU, there’s a
whole lot more to the 8th-gen Core i7 than
you think. It’s enough of a difference, in fact,
that it’s probably one of the rare times we can
say it may be worth upgrading over the
previous CPU generation. So yeah, that
means it’s a big deal. We’ll explain why—and
show you benchmarks to prove
it—right here.
largely an improved 6th-gen Skylake CPU,
first introduced to laptops in late 2015.
Along the way though, Intel has made
many improvements. The 7th-gen Kaby Lake’s
video processing engine, for example, was
greatly improved, and it generally ran at
higher clock speeds than 6th-gen Skylake
could. With Coffee Lake, Intel takes the
mature 14nm process and tenderizes the hell
out of it, enough to deserve the 8th-gen
“14++” moniker.
HOW WE TESTED
Unlike removable desktop CPUs, where you
can control just about all of your variables
such as cooling, power, memory, and

WHAT EXACTLY IS
8TH-GEN CORE?
First, we had 8th-gen Core i7
“Coffee Lake S” (go.pcworld.com/
clks) for desktops.
Then we had 8th gen Core i7
“Kaby Lake R” (go.pcworld.com/
klkr) for ultraportable laptops. Why
it’s called Kaby Lake R instead of
Coffee Lake U we don’t know.
Now, we finally get 8th-gen
Core i7 “Coffee Lake H” chips for
larger laptops and gaming laptops.
And yes, you’d be kinda right if you The 6-core 8th-gen Core i7-8750H in the MSI GS65 Stealth
said that 8th-gen Coffee Lake is Thin easily schools larger laptops with 7th-gen CPUs in them.

92 PCWorld AUGUST 2018

Consumer Reports pulled its recommendation of the Surface Laptop, even though the notebook wasn’t
covered in the survey.
storage, laptop CPUs are generally to be
treated as entire packages, because they’re
soldered to the motherboard.
Design decisions by the laptop maker also
greatly impact performance. Certain vendors
may tune for all-out performance, while others
may ratchet things back to control the fan
noise. All this, of course, is influenced by the
cooling in the laptop, which is often
influenced by the sheer size of the chassis.
For this shootout, we decided to compare
the 6-core MSI GS65 Stealth Thin (go.pcworld.
com/mgs5) with the thick-and-large 17-inch
Lenovo Legion Y920 (review forthcoming on
PCWorld.com). The Legion Y920 is rolling a
quad-core Core i7-7820HK CPU. Because the
CPU is unlocked and a showcase feature of it is
overclocking, we also tested the Core
i7-7820HK in the Legion Y920 with the
overclock switch engaged. Representing the
previous generation is the Asus ROG Zephyrus
GX501 (go.pcworld.com/g501). The ROG
Zephyus GX501 is a 17-inch laptop, but
ultra-thin and equipped with the popular 7th
gen quad-core Core i7-7700HQ CPU.
PERFORMANCE
Keep in mind that the three laptops used for
this CPU roundup all feature different GPUs:
The Lenovo Legion Y920 has a GeForce GTX
1070, the Asus ROG Zephyrus GX501 has a
GeForce GTX 1080 Max-Q GPU, and the MSI
GS65 Stealth Thin uses a GeForce GTX 1060.
Due to the disparity of the GPUs and their
outsize influence on graphics, we did not delve
into graphics performance for this review. You
should really make your graphics buying
decision based on other factors, not the CPU.
AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 93
FEATURE 8TH GEN CORE i7 VS. 7TH GEN CORE i7

CINEBENCH R15 8th-gen CPU is still leader of the pack. In fact,

PERFORMANCE
The first result is Cinebench R15. It’s a
benchmark built around Maxon’s Cinema4D
engine and favors more cores and more
cores. No surprise, the increase from 4 to 6
cores yields a pretty huge performance
boost. Although Cinebench R15 is mostly a
predictor of multi-threaded performance, you
should expect to see generally similar results
in other applications that will actually use all
12 threads or 6 cores of the Core i7-8750H
CPU.
The thing is, not all
Cinebench R15.038 nT
applications are multi-
MSI G S65 Stealth Thin
threaded. In fact, we’d (6-core i7-8750H)
even against the overclocked Core
i7-7820HK, it’s ahead by more than 7
percent. And against the far more “normal”
Core i7-7700HQ in the Asus ROG Zephyrus
GX501, you’re looking at a 13-percent
increase in performance.
CORONA 1.3
PERFORMANCE
Our next test is the Corona 1.3 benchmark.
It’s built on the Corona Photorealistic renderer
1,144

argue few are so Lenovo Legion Y920

efficient as to give you
the same results you
see above. It’s probably
far more important for
778
Turbo Mode (4-core i7-7820HK)
Asus Zephyrus GX501
(4-core i7-7700HQ)
743
Lenovo Legion Y920
(4-core i7-7820HK)
731
LO N G ER B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T ER P E R F O R M A N C E

those not rendering 3D, Even the overclocked Core i7-7820HK can’t stand against the latest 8th-gen
editing video, or doing Core i7-8750H, because of the simple math of 6 cores are better than 4.
other intensive content-
creation tasks to look at
Cinebench R15.038 1T
single-threaded
MSI G S65 Stealth Thin
performance of a (6-core i7-8750H)
178
laptop CPU. Lenovo Legion Y920
165
Turbo Mode (4-core i7-7820HK)
To gauge that, we Asus Zephyrus GX501
164
also ran Cinebench R15 (4-core i7-7700HQ)

Lenovo Legion Y920

using a single CPU (4-core i7-7820HK)
157
thread. Predictably, LO N G ER B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T ER P E R F O R M A N C E

things even up quite a Thanks to the higher clock speeds of the 8th-gen Core i7, it has a double-digit
bit, but the newer edge against most standard CPUs.

94 PCWorld AUGUST 2018

for Autodesk’s 3ds Max. Like Cinebench and render a single frame using Mike Pan’s
most rendering apps, it favors more cores. popular BMW benchmark file. The
The results confirm what we saw in performance isn’t quite as dramatic as
Cinebench, which is simple math: 6 cores are Corona’s, Cinebench’s, or other rendering
better than 4. benchmarks we’ve tried, but it’s still a very
decent bump.
BLENDER PERFORMANCE So why does Blender put these CPUs
Our last rendering benchmark uses the free much closer than Cinebench, Corona, or
Blender app to measure how long it takes to V-Ray? (We ran V-ray but didn’t bother with
showing you a chart
because it’s pretty
Corona 1.3 Benchmark much a clone of Corona
(Rays/s)
and Cinebench’s
MSI G S65 Stealth Thin
(6-core i7-8750H)
2,532,300 results). We believe it’s
Lenovo Legion Y920 because of the length
Turbo Mode (4-core i7-7820HK)
1,840,30
of the actual tests.
Asus Zephyrus GX501
(4-core i7-7700HQ)
1,724,900 Cinebench and Corona
Lenovo Legion Y920
1,675,260 run in a minute or two,
(4-core i7-7820HK)
LO N G ER B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T ER P E R F O R M A N C E while the BMW
workload can take
The Corona Renderer is a photo-realistic renderer that confirms more cores
matter when you’re doing rendering. around 10 minutes.
As you heat up a
laptop CPU, the clock
Blender 2,78b Performance BMW speed begins to drop
(Seconds)
slowly to manage the
MSI G S65 Stealth Thin
(6-core i7-8750H)
473 heat. On the Core
Lenovo Legion Y920 i7-8750H, its
Turbo Mode (4-core i7-7820HK)
549
performance advantage
Asus Zephyrus GX501
(4-core i7-7700HQ)
586 over quad-cores mostly
Lenovo Legion Y920
638 derives from core count
(4-core i7-7820HK)
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 and clock speed. On
longer loads, most of
The BMW workload in Blender takes longer to run than most rendering
benchmarks, which neutralizes the high clock speed advantage of the Core
the clock speed
i7-8750H. advantage will burn off.

AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 95

FEATURE 8TH GEN CORE i7 VS. 7TH GEN CORE i7

COMPRESSION
HandBrake 0.9.9 1080p PERFORMANCE
(Seconds) We’ll wrap this up by
looking at the
MSI G S65 Stealth Thin
(6-core i7-8750H)
1,985 performance of the CPUs
Lenovo Legion Y920 in WinRAR’s internal
Turbo Mode (4-core i7-7820HK)
2,533
compression benchmark.
Asus Zephyrus GX501
(4-core i7-7700HQ)
2,775 The first result is the
Lenovo Legion Y920
(4-core i7-7820HK)
3,017 single-threaded
performance of the
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
laptops CPUs. The
More cores help the Core i7-8750H finish our encode in about 33 minutes higher-clock speed of the
compared to 46 minutes of a Core i7-7700HQ. That’s a significant
performance advantage.
Core i7-8750H again
shines through, but like
This is also likely why the Lenovo’s default the single-threaded results of Cinebench, it’s
speeds on the Core i7-7820HK are rather actually pretty close.
unimpressive, while its overclocked Oddly, the Core i7-7700HQ of the Asus
performance gets much closer to the Core ROG Zephyrus GX501 underperformed
i7-8750H’s. Still, chalk this up in the win here. We reran the test multiple times and
column for the 8th-gen Core i7-8750H. the results didn’t vary so it’s not a mistake.
With the Core i7-7700HQ performing quite
ENCODING PERFORMANCE well everywhere else, we suspect this may
For an encoding test, we take a 30GB be the odd memory configuration of the unit
1080P MKV file and transcode it using we tested: 24GB. Asus used a 16GB DIMM
HandBrake 9.9 and the Android Tablet and an 8GB DIMM, which means the
preset. Like the Blender BMW test, it memory bandwidth isn’t always running in
typically takes 45 minutes or so to finish on dual-channel mode. Because WinRAR does
a quad-core laptop, largely nullifying any favor increased memory bandwidth, this
high clock speed advantage. This particular memory configuration may have been
test shows just how valuable the extra cores enough to hurt it.
are, because even with its high clock Running WinRAR in its multi-threaded
advantage gone, it finishes the encode in mode, the results moved back to what we
about 33 minutes versus the 46 minutes of expected. Again, simple math prevails on
the Core i7-7700HQ. multi-threaded tests and 6 > 4. Even the

96 PCWorld AUGUST 2018

 amount of cores on a
WinRAR 5.40 CPU, nor will they all
Single-threaded performance use only a single
thread.
MSI G S65 Stealth Thin
(6-core i7-8750H)
1,880 To dive into that, we
Lenovo Legion Y920 reached for Cinebench
Turbo Mode (4-core i7-7820HK)
1,785
R15 again and ran the
Lenovo Legion Y920
(4-core i7-7820HK)
1,760 test with it set to use
Asus Zephyrus GX501
(4-core i7-7700HQ)
1,328 from 1 to 12 threads on
the Core i7-8750H
LO N G ER B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T ER P E R F O R M A N C E
(green bars on the
In single-threaded performance everything was as expected except for the chart, next page) and
oddly low performance of the Core i7-7700HQ.
from 1 to 8 on the Core
i7-7700HQ (blue bars).
WinRAR 5.40 We used the Core
Multi-threaded performance i7-7700HQ because
this is the chip that will
MSI G S65 Stealth Thin
(6-core i7-8750H)
14,377 most closely compete
Lenovo Legion Y920
10,285
with the Core
Turbo Mode (4-core i7-7820HK)
i7-8750H.
Lenovo Legion Y920
9,794
(4-core i7-7820HK) One problem with
Asus Zephyrus GX501
(4-core i7-7700HQ)
9,077 this chart is it doesn’t
LO N G ER B A R S I N D I C AT E B E T T ER P E R F O R M A N C E scale with the actual
performance gain. In
More cores are better, WinRAR says, and the Core i7-8750H has more cores.
the chart at the bottom
Core i7-7700HQ in the Asus was back to of the next page, we’ve calculated the
normal. advantage the 8th-gen Core i7-8750H has
over the 7th-gen Core i7-7700HQ.
PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS Obviously, most of the performance is on the
So let’s break down the advantage of the right side of the chart, because having six
Core i7-8750H in a little more detail. As you cores is almost always going to be better (if
know, more cores is better, but Core they’re in the same family.) But there’s a very
i7-8750H also runs at far higher clocks most solid double-digit performance gain on the
of the time. Not all apps will use the maximum lighter loads, too.

AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 97

FEATURE 8TH GEN CORE i7 VS. 7TH GEN CORE i7
Cinebench R15 scaling
We use Cinebench R15 and limit the threads to try to suss out how well the CPUs perform on a given load.
Because the Coffee Lake H is essentially the
same micro-architecture as Kaby Lake H, the
gains are mostly Intel’s (and OEMs’) comfort
levels with pushing the chips to higher clock
speeds. To get a little more insight into just
how much of an advantage that is, we re-ran
Cinebench R15 using loads while increasing
the amount of threads the program used. We
recorded the rough clock speed 20 seconds
into the benchmark. We say “rough” because
it’s not exactly 100 percent repeatable, and is a
stopwatch-based and Mark I eyeball recording
of the results.
Still, the data is plenty useful. As you can
98 PCWorld AUGUST 2018
see, the Core i7-8750H (yellow line below)
is cooking along at far higher clock speeds
on lighter loads than the Core i7-7700HQ is.
You can also see that even though there is
no clock speed advantage on the right side
of the chart due to the increased thermal
load, it doesn’t matter because the Core
i7-8750H can call for backup from those two
extra CPU cores.
VERDICT
We’ve all rightly become cynical about Intel’s
laptop CPUs and the “generational” tag. Over
the last few years, there have been few to no
reasons to upgrade. For example, if you bought
a 5th-gen Core i7, you really had no reason to
upgrade to a 6th-gen Core i7. After all, all you’d
really get is a 6- to 7-percent performance
bump. So yeah, yawn.
For the first time in forever, though, there’s
an actual reason you might need, might actually
want, to upgrade from the previous generation.
For example, if you just bought a 7th-gen
Core i7 to do video editing, rendering, or
anything that truly needs more performance,
we can happily say taking a loss on that old
laptop for a new 8th-gen Core i7 is finally
worth it. You’ll get reasonable performance
For the first time in forever,
though, there’s an actual reason
you might need, might actually
want, to upgrade from the
previous generation.
bumps on lighter loads and huge performance
gains on the heavy loads.
Not everyone needs it. For pushing Word
and a browser all day—stick with what you
have. But if you bought a Core i7 laptop to
get real work done, the 8th-gen Core i7 is a
worthy upgrade that is long overdue.

Cinebench R15 nT Clockspeeds

You can see the clock speed advantage the Core i7-8750H has over the Core i7-7700HQ on lightly
threaded apps. Even though there’s no megahertz difference on the heavy loads it doesn’t matter
because the 8th gen part has more cores to use.

AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 99

FEATURE

HALFWAY THROUGH 2018,

THESE ARE THE BEST PC
GAMES WE’VE PLAYED YET.
BY HAYDEN DINGMAN

A
s always, it’s hard to believe we’re already
halfway through 2018. Seems like just
yesterday we were crowning 2017’s best PC
games (go.pcworld.com/17be), and now
there’s six more months of titles swelling the backlog.
This year’s been a bit odd though, with many of the
biggest and most anticipated games (Sea of Thieves)
floundering, and others ending up on this list that I
hadn’t even heard of until they popped up on Steam
(Yoku’s Island Express). We’ll see how many of them
survive for our final Game of the Year list in December,
but for now? Read on for our 10 favorite PC games of
2018...so far.

100 PCWorld AUGUST 2018 ILLUSTRATION: TAYLOR CALLERY

FEATURE THE BEST PC GAMES OF 2018 (SO FAR)

moments without
undercutting the
strengths of its
sandbox. Just
enough direction
to keep you
moving forward.
Or downward, as
the case may be.

WATCH THE TRAILER: A CASE OF

go.pcworld.com/subn DISTRUST
I’m a sucker for a
SUBNAUTICA good detective game, and A Case of Distrust
I’m not much of a fan of survival games ($15 on Steam, go.pcworld.com/dists) is a
normally, but Subnautica ($25 on Humble, great one. Set in San Francisco in the 1920s,
go.pcworld.com/subnh) had me hooked for you play as Phyllis Cadence Malone, a private
weeks. The mysteries of its alien oceans held investigator on the trail of a murder. The game
so much promise, and I fell right into the is almost entirely based around conversations,
familiar loop—crafting gear to go deeper to as you interrogate various members of the
find new loot to craft even better gear, and socommunity and try to catch them in lies.
on, sinking ever
further into the
depths and
encountering
weirder and
weirder creatures.
It’s a marvelous
example of world-
building, blended
with a story that
casually guides
WATCH THE TRAILER:
you to interesting go.pcworld.com/dist
hand-crafted

102 PCWorld AUGUST 2018

 But it’s the art that really earns A Case of
Distrust a spot on this list. Every frame is this
eye-catching monochromatic minimalism,
more suggestions of scenes than anything
else. It’s absolutely stunning, and an excellent
pair to the writing itself.
Despite all that, it’s also one of the most—and
I don’t use this word often—immersive RPGs
I’ve played in a long, long while. By the end, I
felt surprisingly invested in my character
Henry, the blacksmith’s-kid-turned-knight
who helped save a realm. Proof history can be
just as compelling as
fantasy, given the
developers put
enough love and care
into the details.

BATTLETECH
BattleTech ($40 on
Humble, go.pcworld.
com/batlh) is flawed.
WATCH THE TRAILER: Everything about it is
go.pcworld.com/kcd just a hair too slow, its
interface is convo-
KINGDOM COME: luted, and its story not as deep as I’d like from
DELIVERANCE the developers who made the excellent
When I first saw Kingdom Come: Deliverance Shadowrun games.
($60 on Humble, go.pcworld.com/kcdh), I But the core of the game is worth
thought it might be a disaster. It was just so
damn ambitious, an Elder Scrolls-style RPG
set in medieval Bohemia with semi-realistic
melee combat, potion brewing, horseback
riding, and about a dozen other systems on
top. Oh, and it was being made in CryEngine,
which is hardly what I’d picture for an Elder
Scrolls-style RPG.
And yet somehow it works. Kingdom
WATCH THE TRAILER:
Come: Deliverance is janky as all hell, bug- go.pcworld.com/batl
ridden, clumsy, and often poorly voice-acted.

AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 103

FEATURE THE BEST PC GAMES OF 2018 (SO FAR)
overlooking those flaws. BattleTech is one of
the most satisfying tactical games in years (go.
pcworld.com/mstg), as you launch entire grips
of missiles onto an enemy’s head and then
close in to punch one enormous mech fist into
their stupid mech head. There’s also a lot of fun
to be had with the unique managerial layer,
which tasks you with evaluating risk on
freelance mercenary contracts—balancing the
promised rewards with the potential for pilot
death or, worse, the loss of an entire mech.
With more performance fixes on the way,
it’s a game that’ll only get better as the year
goes on.
INTO THE BREACH
Where BattleTech is all about spectacle, Into
the Breach ($15 on Humble, go.pcworld.
WATCH THE TRAILER:
go.pcworld.com/itb
104 PCWorld AUGUST 2018
com/itbh) is the polar opposite type of tactics
game. It’s unrelentingly small, its grand story
of mechs versus giant bugs nevertheless
played out on a eight-by-eight grid.
There’s a ton of depth to it though, and
Into the Breach got me into that “one last
round” mood (go.pcworld.com/olr) more
than any other game this year. Each map takes
maybe 5 to 10 minutes to finish, and the fact
you can see where enemies will move on their
next turn makes each action feel more like a
puzzle than a standard tactics game.
MINIT
Minit ($10 on Humble, go.pcworld.com/
minith) is clever as hell. On the surface it’s a
top-down Zelda-style adventure. There’s a
catch though: Each life lasts only, as you

WATCH THE TRAILER:
go.pcworld.com/minit
might infer, one minute. You keep any weap-
ons or items you collect in that minute, but
any conversations or enemies or obstacles?
They reset. Thus every life requires planning
and pinpoint precision, as you slowly but
surely make your way through the world.
WATCH THE TRAILER:
go.pcworld.com/goat
There have been other games in this vein,
like Half-Minute Hero. It’s still a pretty novel
conceit though, and I had a great time
blasting through Minit’s puzzles, and an even
better time enjoying its writing, which pokes
fun at some longstanding Zelda tropes.
GHOST OF A TALE
As a kid I remember reading the Redwall
books and being fascinated by its miniature
fantasy world, where mice wielded swords
and fought off the rat menace. I bet the
developers behind Ghost of a Tale loved
those books too.
Not that the idea of a miniaturized mouse
world is unique to Redwall, but Ghost of the
Tale ($25 on Humble, go.pcworld.com/
goath) feels like it could’ve been pulled
AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 105
FEATURE THE BEST PC GAMES OF 2018 (SO FAR)

straight from that universe. You play as Tilo, a the residents’ mail and, maybe, save
mouse forced to sneak through an occupied everyone from destruction. It’s a fantastic
castle, avoiding the rats who hunt you and genre mashup and one of 2018’s best
trying to win allies along the way. It’s just a surprises.
wonderful setting, and the stealth side of
things is actually pretty damn robust too. One
of the most charming games of 2018 for sure.

YOKU’S ISLAND EXPRESS

We’re living in a golden era for the so-called
“Metroidvania” genre, what with Hollow
Knight, Axiom Verge, Bloodstained: Curse of
the Moon, SteamWorld Dig 2, and so on.
Yoku’s Island Express ($20 on Humble,
go.pcworld.com/yokuh) is one of my WATCH THE TRAILER:
favorites though, combining the well-worn go.pcworld.com/whv
genre with—of all things—pinball. Rather than
hopping around like a normal platformer, WARHAMMER:
you’ll use flippers to bounce yourself around VERMINTIDE II
every screen, solving puzzles and exploring Warhammer: Vermintide II ($30 on Humble,
the island of Mokumana on a quest to deliver go.pcworld.com/whvh) is empty fluff, but it’s
entertainingly
empty fluff. Oh
sure, there’s a story
of some sort here,
but even after
playing every map
dozens of times I
still couldn’t tell
you what it is. All I
know is it’s Left 4
Dead, but with
WATCH THE TRAILER:
go.pcworld.com/yoku Warhammer
characters using

106 PCWorld AUGUST 2018

great big swords to chop rats and other
nasties apart. Just hordes and hordes and
hordes of enemies, all being massacred.
Rarely does a mindless game like
Vermintide II make it onto a list of mine, and I
don’t know if it’ll survive through December.
But it’s immensely satisfying, and I had a great
time getting together friends for a few weeks
of small talk interspersed with frantic head-
chopping action.
BEST GAME OF 2018 (SO FAR):
CELESTE
Celeste ($20 on Steam, go.pcworld.com/
cels) is the tightest platformer I’ve played (go.
pcworld.com/tpip) since Super Meat Boy.
That’s the first point, and it’s important.
Playing Celeste is a joy, mastering all of its
WATCH THE TRAILER:
go.pcworld.com/cel
intricate movement tricks and trying to scale
the titular Celeste Mountain. And after the
story’s over, there are the B- and C-Sides—“se-
cret” levels, even more difficult than the
originals, for those dedicated few who want a
true challenge. It’s fiendish.
It’s Celeste’s story and attitude that
ultimately put it at the top of this list though.
Unlike Super Meat Boy and other platformers
of that ilk, which often pit game against
player, Celeste wants you to succeed. It’s
constantly reaffirming that it believes in you,
that you can definitely scale this mountain if
you just keep trying, that there’s no shame in
taking advantage of the accessibility options
(like slowing down time or giving yourself an
extra jump for the harder gaps).
And that attitude jibes with its story, in
AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 107
FEATURE THE BEST PC GAMES OF 2018 (SO FAR)
which Madeline battles against her
depression. It’s a more poignant theme than
I ever expected from one of these precision
platformers, and months later I’m still
thinking about some of its best moments.
No small feat.
HONORABLE MENTION:
PREY: MOONCRASH
Mooncrash ($20 on Humble, go.pcworld.
com/pmoh) is technically DLC, and thus
ineligible for honors under our usual Game of
the Year rules. Not a huge deal, because Prey
($30 on Humble, go.pcworld.com/pry) was
on our best games of 2017 list (go.pcworld.
com/bg17), but it’s worth highlighting
Mooncrash anyway. It’s perfect.
WATCH THE TRAILER:
go.pcworld.com/pmoon
108 PCWorld AUGUST 2018
Basically, Mooncrash takes Prey’s systems
and straps them onto a pseudo-roguelike.
The environments are always the same, but
weapons and ammo (and I think enemies too)
are randomized each run. Thus you’re never
quite sure whether you have the right tools for
the job, and the result is some really clever
problem-solving on the part of the player. It
forces you out of the comfort zone that games
like Prey often let you slip into.
Pair that with Mooncrash’s surprisingly
good story, and it deserves a mention here. I
wish Bethesda had made it a standalone
expansion so more people could experience
it without the up-front cost of buying Prey
also—though hey, while we’re at it? Play Prey.
It’s great.
 WATCH THE TRAILER:
go.pcworld.com/acoc
HONORABLE MENTION:
ASSASSIN’S CREED:
ORIGINS: CURSE OF
THE PHARAOHS
Last but not least, another expansion. I
wasn’t expecting much from Curse of the
Pharaohs ($20 on Humble, go.pcworld.
com/acoh). I thought Assassin’s Creed:
Origins ($60 on Humble, go.pcworld.
com/acr) was fine, but it wasn’t my favorite
in the series. Also, it was enormous (go.
pcworld.com/eno). More? I thought that
seemed unnecessary.
But Curse of the Pharaohs succeeds (go.
pcworld.com/cotp) because it’s unlike
anything Assassin’s Creed’s done before. The
series is tied inextricably to its historical
setting, but Curse of the Pharaohs leans into
the Egyptian pantheon and more fantastical
elements, sending Bayek into the afterlife to
hunt down Tutankhamun, Nefertiti, and more.
These areas blend history and myth and
religion into wild dreamscapes, the likes of
which Assassin’s Creed has never attempted.
Giant scorpions, towering statues, fields of
grain and eclipsed suns.
I only hope we see more like it with this
year’s Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey (go.pcworld.
com/acod). It’s a fascinating direction for the
series.
AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 109
LIVE FRIDAY SEPT 7 8 | 7C STANDUPTOCANCER.ORG

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Here’s How HOW TO BUILD, MAINTAIN,
AND FIX YOUR TECH GEAR

ƸZD\VWRPDQDJHHPDLOVDQG
FRQWUROVSDPLQ2XWORRN
You can greatly reduce the amount of spam you get using these tips. BY JD SARTAIN

1. USE BLOCK SENDER

S
pam lives on, despite all our
efforts to snuff it out—but
Outlook has some features to
help slow it down. Here are
some things anyone can do to manage their
email, plus some tips for working within a
corporate Outlook system.
FREQUENTLY
Use Outlook’s Block Sender feature to add
intrusive spam to your Block Sender List, and
then move it to the Junk Email folder. This
works fine if you receive fewer than a dozen
emails a day.

IMAGE: MICROSOFT AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 111

HERE’S HOW MANAGE EMAILS AND CONTROL SPAM

Select the spam email, right-

click on it, choose Junk from the
drop-down menu, and click Block
Sender. Or, Select Home > Junk >
Block Sender. Outlook marks it and
relocates it immediately.

2. SET UP A BLOCKED
SENDER LIST
If you get a lot of spam from a single
ISP or country, or from a phishing
group impersonating a legitimate
organization, such as Yahoo6.com,
epaypal.com, or an email from
Wells Fargo with an EarthLink
address (hbird80@earthlink.net),
you can add these bad actors to
your Block Sender list by company,
group, country, ISP, or other
criteria. Select Home > Junk > Junk 1.
Email Options and click the Use Block Sender frequently to automatically add the senders
Blocked Senders tab. Click the Add to Junk Email folder.
button and enter a country code, a
group domain, or a even a fake company using wildcards may be the solution. This
(epaypal.com). technique addresses the challenge that
As the examples listed in this dialog box hackers are always inventing new email
show, you don’t need wildcards to block all addresses for spamming you. Instead of
email from a group or company. Just enter the entering individual spam email addresses into
group name preceded by the @ sign, or the your Blocked Sender List, just enter this one
name alone. Click OK > Apply > OK. Task “all-inclusive” email address—*@*.com—into
complete. the Blocked Sender’s List. Follow the
If you try these techniques, and you’re still instructions in the first three paragraphs of
getting spam from some of the companies or section 2 above, and your spam problem
individuals you previously blocked, then should be solved—or will be, that is, until the

112 PCWorld AUGUST 2018

 conditions that you define in its virtual
rulebook. Like macros, these rules automate
repetitive tasks that you perform daily, such as
telling Outlook which emails to display in
specific windows, move emails to other
folders, and/or create alerts with custom
sounds.
Select the email you want moved to
another folder. Select Home > Rules > Create
Rule. In the dialog
box, Outlook asks:
“When I get email
with the selected
conditions (From,
Subject, Sent To) do
the following: Display
in New Item Alert
Window, Play
Selected Sound, or
Move Item to Folder.”
Outlook assumes you
want to check all
2. three of the top
Use the Block Sender list to block groups, countries,
boxes, but feel free to
and fake companies. uncheck those that do
not apply. In the bottom pane, check the
hackers write another program to get around boxes that perform the actions you require,
this solution. then click OK.
For example, in Sample 1 (see graphic on
3. CREATE RULES FOR the next page), this rule says flag all emails
SORTING, MOVING, AND from Comcast with the subject, “Your bill is
MORE ready,” sent to XXX@chacha.com. Then I
Outlook has a feature called Create Rule that chose to play the Windows RingIn.wav
offers custom email management based on sound, and then have the email moved to a

AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 113

HERE’S HOW MANAGE EMAILS AND CONTROL SPAM
3.
Use Create Rule for custom email management
based on conditions that you define.
folder named Bills Due. For Play Sound, click
Browse, navigate to the Windows/Media
folder, then choose a sound from the list. For
Move To Folder, click the Select Folder
button, and choose one from your hard
drive’s folder list.
114 PCWorld AUGUST 2018
In Sample 2, all spam
emails with the subject “Jace”
and the Sent To address as
XXX@chacha.com are
flagged and sent to the Junk
Email folder. The subject line
in this sample has too many
words for a good match, so
this field box was unchecked.
4. RULES WIZARD
(ADVANCED
OPTIONS)
You can create rules that
block spam—or set up a
number of other handy
tasks—based on specific
criteria that you set.
For this example: UserKC
receives a lot of spam emails with
attachments in her Inbox that are not
addressed to her email address. In this
case, the email was sent to somebody
named mikeal.victor98@gmail.com, but
she received it instead. This is a common
phishing scam that’s escalated over time,
so she decided to create a rule to automate a
process that kills these spam attacks.Select
Home > Rules > Create Rule. In the Create
Rule dialog box, click the Advanced Options
button.
In the Rules Wizard dialog box, Outlook
asks: “Which condition(s) do you want to
check? Step1: Select Condition(s).” Scroll
 through the list and choose the conditions
that apply to your unique situation. In this
example, UserKC selected where “my name is
not in the To box” and “which has an
attachment.” Outlook enters the conditions in
the Step2 box. Click Next.
In the second Rules Wizard dialog, Outlook
Create
asks: “What do you want to do with the
rules that
block message? Step1: Select Action(s).” UserKC
spam, in checked “move it to the specified folder.”
addition
to a Notice the underlined text here and in the
number Step 2 box: That indicates that you need to
of other
click the link to complete this action. Click
handy
tasks, once, choose the specified folder (Junk Email),
based on and then click OK. Outlook adds this action to
specific
criteria your rule, then redisplays the additional rule in
4a. you set. a new Step2 box. Click Next.
In the third Rules Wizard dialog, you can
Underlined
text means make exceptions to a rule. Here, Outlook asks:
“click this “Are there any exceptions? Step 1: Select
link to
complete Exceptions.” UserKC decided to add a safety
this exception: “except if sender is in specified
action.”
Address Book.” After you check the exception
box, click the underlined “specified,” select
the applicable contact list, then click Add.
Notice the new Step 2 box contains all the
rules you just created. If acceptable, click
Finish. The Finish Rules Setup Wizard dialog
opens and requests that you specify a name
for this rule (or collection of rules, actually).
Enter a descriptive name, check the Turn On
This Rule box, and click OK. Now, all those
misdirected phishing and spam emails will go
4b. directly to your Junk E-mail folder.

AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 115

HERE’S HOW MANAGE EMAILS AND CONTROL SPAM

for protecting users from harmful and/or

unsolicited communications. The often
aggressive techniques
these systems use to filter
out the garbage means
some legitimate emails
may not get through.
Check your spam
folders often at every
level, especially if
you’re expecting a
communication that never
shows up. It’s generally
easy to access your spam
folders at the ISP level,
because most providers
offer an email program
with the service, which
includes a spam folder.
Individual company
policies may not be as
4c. flexible or convenient. Talk
to your network
Enter exceptions and name the rule. administrator if you’re
missing emails to
5. CHECK SPAM FOLDERS determine whether the contents of the spam
OFTEN folders are accessible and available to review.
Spam, phishing, and blocking filters, and the If not, ask your friends, colleagues, and
rules that govern them, come in multiple associates to monitor their communications
levels. In addition to the filters and rules you and call you if you don’t respond in a timely
create on your own computer, your email manner. Or, if your company policies allow it,
software, antivirus program, Internet provider, consider providing a second, backup email
network administrator, individual supervisor, address to catch those drifters that wander
and possibly others all have various systems into corporate traps.

116 PCWorld AUGUST 2018

ƺZD\VWRPDVWHUWKHQHZ
*RRJOHb1HZVDQGXVHLWPRUH
OLNH*RRJOH5HDGHU
Take control of your feed. BY MICHAEL SIMON
I
t’s been nearly five years since Google
shut down its Reader service (go.
pcworld.com/alrd), and we still haven’t
gotten over it. We’ve tried our share of
replacements—Feedly, Inoreader, NewBlur,
etc.—but between subscription fees, cross-
platform compatibility, and interface oddities,
we’ve yet to find anything that completely fills
IMAGE: GOOGLE
the void Reader left in our feeds.
But Google hasn’t given up on organized,
personalized news feeds. Quite the contrary:
After taking several swings with services such
as Google+, Google Now, and News and
Weather, Google unveiled at its I/O
developer conference in May a brand-new
Google News app (go.pcworld.com/nwap),
AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 117
HERE’S HOW MASTER GOOGLE NEWS

with a uniform
experience across
Android, iOS, and the
web, a new
philosophy, and a
completely redesigned
interface.
The new Google
News isn’t quite a
resurrection of Reader.
But with a simplified
interface and a nice
combination of 1.
personalization and AI, Google News looks a lot different with the latest update, but it shouldn’t be
it comprises a lot of too hard to get acclimated.
what we loved about
Google’s original RSS service. Once you topics, and articles you’ve saved. And finally,
master it, it just might help you get over the Newsstand is where you can find any
loss of Reader: magazines you’ve subscribed to.
Beyond the tabs, when you tap your user
1. GET TO KNOW THE icon in the top right corner of the app, you
INTERFACE can see your notification history and sharing
The new Google News app is deceptively activity, and also find settings. Lots of cool
robust. Open the app and you’ll be menus and actions in Google News make it
presented with four tabs: For You, Headlines, more than just a simple news aggregator. For
Favorites, and Newsstand. For You is example, you can tap the colored News icon
essentially an AI-powered collection of stories below a story to see the full coverage page,
based on the data Google has collected (such or tap the weather icon to get a seven-day
as search trends and location). Headlines is a forecast.
collection of the biggest stories of the day
divided into topics (U.S., World, Technology, 2. USE THE SEARCH BAR
Sports, etc.), and are the same for all users Like Google Reader (go.pcworld.com/glrd),
and platforms. Favorites is the closest to Google News works best when you tell it
Google Reader, collecting the sources, what you like. To do that, you’ll need to get

118 PCWorld AUGUST 2018

 appear as a
publication on
your Favorites
page, which will
display a
chronological
feed of
everything that
site has
published.
There’s no limit
on the number of
sources you can
2. follow, so go
The search field is the key to unlocking Google News’s full potential. crazy.
If you want to
friendly with the search bar. You can find it in search a topic, such as Google or iPhone,
the top corner of every screen (or at the top of rather than a source, you can opt to save
the webpage). Tap it without typing and you’ll those for future reference as well. Just like with
see a list of suggested topics and sources. sources, you can follow as many topics as
You can select any of them to follow. you’d like, and Google News will aggregate
If you’re looking for a specific source (like all the news about it that it can find. Topics
PCWorld, for instance), you can type that will appear on your Favorites page just like
query into the search field and tap the Follow sources. You can also search for specific
button that appears next to it. Repeat as article URLs. Because saved topics and
necessary. Any source you follow will then sources are synced across all of your devices
and the web, you’ll be able to keep track of
stories from your phone, iPad, or PC.
Beyond the tabs, when you tap
your user icon in the top right 3. SAVE AND SHARE
corner of the app, you can see Next to each story you’ll see an overflow
your notification history and menu at the far right (or a hover menu on the
sharing activity, and also find web) that contains links for sharing and
settings. saving. Tap Share to send it to an app or a

AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 119

HERE’S HOW MASTER GOOGLE NEWS

contact, or copy the

link inside the app. On
the web you can copy
the link or send it to
Google+, Facebook,
or Twitter. If you just
want to save it for your
own use, you can tap
the bookmark icon and
it’ll be added to your
article list on your
Favorites page.
Because Google News 3.
is always chronological The share sheet and save tab in Google News will help you spread and
and there’s no “read” organize the stories you love.
or “unread” markings,
it can be hard to keep track of every story you news: It’ll show you articles related to things
want to read. Saving for later is a great way to you like, and the more you use it the more
make sure you remember them. personal it’ll get. But you can also give it a

4. TEACH IT
WHAT YOU
LIKE TO
READ
Google Reader was
great for organizing,
but it wasn’t so good
at discovering new
sources of
information. Google
News does both.
Think of the For You
section like a 4.
Pandora station for You can rank sources in Google News or hide them altogether.

120 PCWorld AUGUST 2018

 additional stories on
the main page about
each topic rather than
just one, saving you a
trip into the Full
coverage screen. If
your Favorites page
gets unwieldy, you can
always move a topic to
the end or the
beginning of the list, or
stop following it
5. altogether. You can
You can’t customize too much of the interface, but there are ways to make
also turn off autoplay
Google News your own. videos in settings, and
choose to add any of
little help. Inside the overflow menu below your saved sources or topics to the home
every story you’ll see options for More Stories screen for easy access.
Like This and Fewer Stories Like This, as well
as Hide Stories From [Source] (meaning from a 6. CUSTOMIZE YOUR
particular news source). The more you use NOTIFICATIONS
these buttons, the more Google News will Because you don’t always have time to check
filter out the content you don’t want. Google News diligently throughout the day, it
Here’s a tip: If you ever want to see one of can send you updates on breaking news,
the sources you’ve hidden, you can find them popular topics, and your interests. But it’s not
all under the Hidden In For You tab in Settings. an all-or-nothing option. Inside the app’s
settings you can customize your alerts so
5. PERSONALIZE THE LOOK you’re not peppered with stories all day long.
While you won’t be able to match Google If you only want stories about the sources
Reader’s iconic inbox-style list of stories, and topics you follow, turn off all toggles
Google offers a fair amount of customization except the Your Interests one. You can also
over what you see and how you see it. Inside adjust the frequency of notifications from low
Settings, you’ll see a Turn On Mini Cards to standard to high, with a couple of steps in
toggle. Flip it and you’ll see a couple of between. Generally, the standard setting will

AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 121

HERE’S HOW MASTER GOOGLE NEWS

send five to seven per

day, while high could
be as many as a dozen.
When I slid the bar
down to low, I got only
a couple each day. You
can also turn on daily
briefing alerts and
breaking news. If you
miss any, check your
notification history in
Activity by tapping
your user icon. 6.
Google News notifications don’t have to be a bother.
7. SAVE
STORIES FOR OFFLINE will appear, and when it’s done downloading
READING (after a couple seconds) an arrow will show that
Google News relies on an Internet connection Google News has saved all of the stories inside
to keep everything current. If you’re going to for offline reading.
be on a plane or
without access to a
strong connection,
you can download
any of your favorite
topics or sources for
offline reading.
Head over to the
Favorites tab, tap on
the overflow menu
in the top right of
any of the icons,
and choose
Download. A tiny 7.
download arrow You can download a whole topic’s worth of stories for offline reading.

122 PCWorld AUGUST 2018

ƴƳTXLFNZD\VWRFOHDUVSDFHRQ
DQRYHUVWXIIHG$QGURLGGHYLFH
Zap cached app files in a single tap, clear the Downloads folder, delete offline maps, take
charge of music downloads, and more. BY BEN PATTERSON AND MICHAEL SIMON

F
ew things in life are as annoying
as finding that your Android
handset refuses to install any
more app updates because it’s
run out of storage. Unlike many of life’s little
annoyances, though, this one’s easy to fix.
You can quickly clear out hundreds of
megabytes or even a gig or two by sweeping
up stale downloads, rooting out offline maps
and documents, clearing caches, and wiping
unneeded music and video files. And if these
tips don’t do the trick, check out our picks for
the best Android phones for every need and
budget (go.pcworld.com/banf).
1. CLEAR OUT ALL CACHED
APP DATA
If you dig into the Apps storage setting screen
and tap on an individual app, you’ll notice
that each app has its own stash of cached
data—anywhere from a few kilobytes to
hundreds of megs, or even more.

IMAGE: BEN PATTERSON AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 123

HERE’S HOW CLEAR SPACE ON AN ANDROID DEVICE
1.
The cached data used by your combined Android
apps can easily take up more than a gigabyte of
storage space.
These caches of data are essentially just
junk files, and they can be safely deleted to
free up storage space. Tap the Clear Cache
button to take out the trash.
If poking through each and every app
looking for cached data to clear sounds like a
chore, there’s an easy way to clear all cached
app data in one fell swoop. Tap Settings >
2.
Tap and hold a file in the Downloads folder and then tap the Trash then tap Free Up Device
button to delete it.
124 PCWorld AUGUST 2018
Storage > Cached Data, then tap OK in the
confirmation window.
2. CLEAN UP THE
DOWNLOADS FOLDER
Just like on a PC or a Mac, your Android device
has a Downloads folder (or Files on Pixel and
some Oreo phones). It’s a favorite hideout for
miscellaneous junk files downloaded from the
Web or by your various apps.
Open the app drawer and tap Downloads
or Files to see what’s lurking inside. Tap the
three-line menu icon in the top corner of the
screen and sort the list of downloads by size,
then take a look at what’s hogging the most
storage space. If you see anything you don’t
need, tap and hold the file to select it, then
tap the Trash button.
3. DUMP PHOTOS THAT ARE
ALREADY BACKED UP
One of the best features of Google’s Photos
app is its ability to back up your
entire photo library to your
online Google account. Once
your snapshots are safely
backed up, Photos can zap any
locally stored images to free up
more space.
Open the Photos app, tap
the three-line menu button in
the top left corner of the screen,
Storage. The Photos app will let
 downloaded, or you can let
the app make those decisions
for you. Either way, music
lovers may end up with a
significant amount of their
device storage gobbled up
by their favorite artists.
Same goes with podcasts,
with Play Music’s default
3. setting geared to auto-
Google Photos will quickly delete any pictures on your device that
download the three most
have already been backed up to your Google account. recent episodes of each
subscription. If you subscribe
you know how many pictures it can delete to more than a few podcasts, those
from local storage; tap OK to pull the trigger. episodes—and the space required to store
Note: If you’re using the High Quality them on your handset—can add up quickly.
setting for unlimited but lower-resolution To check exactly how many megabytes or
cloud storage of your backed up photos, even gigabytes of storage Play Music has
keep in mind that the Free Up Device Storage reserved for tunes and podcasts, tap the
feature will delete your full-resolution three-line menu button in the top left corner
originals. Make sure you’ve stored them of the screen, then tap Settings > Manage
elsewhere before you tap the
OK button.

4. MANAGE
DOWNLOADED
MUSIC AND
PODCASTS
Google’s Play Music app gives
you two options when it comes
to storing tunes on your device:
You can manually pick which 4.
purchased or uploaded Google Downloaded tunes and podcasts in the Play Music app can gobble
Play songs and albums get up an impressive amount of storage.

AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 125

HERE’S HOW CLEAR SPACE ON AN ANDROID DEVICE
Downloads. To wipe a song download or a
podcast from local storage, tap the orange
Downloaded button to the right of its name.
You can do the same thing with Spotify,
YouTube Music, or Apple Music, depending
on your streaming app of choice. The process
is slightly different, but each app allows you to
find and delete anything you’ve downloaded.
Bonus tip: You can use the same method
to manage your downloads in the Play Movies
& TV app.
5. ERASE OFFLINE AREAS IN
GOOGLE MAPS
Downloading a map in the latest version of
the Google Maps app is a great way to
navigate when your device is offline,
especially now that both searching and
driving directions are supported.
But those searchable offline “areas” come
5.
Just tap one of your offline maps in the Google Maps app to update it
or—if you’re running low on storage space—delete it.
126 PCWorld AUGUST 2018
at a cost: storage space, and potentially lots
of it. Indeed, a single offline map can
consume more than a gigabyte of storage
depending on the size of the area.
You can check how much space your
offline maps have staked out by tapping the
three-line menu button in the top left corner
of the main Google Maps interface, then
tapping Offline. The storage used by each
offline map is displayed below its name. Tap
the map and tap Delete to reclaim its
storage space.
6. UNLOAD YOUR LEAST-
USED APPS
I love the fact that I can download and install
Android apps to my devices remotely from a
desktop web browser. The downside? My
Android handsets tend to be overstuffed with
too many apps, many of them used only once
(or even never).
The solution, of course,
is to delete some of those
apps—ideally, the ones you
use the least. There are also
several apps that can track
your app usage and tell you
which apps you’re using the
least, among them: App
Usage (go.pcworld.com/
apus), App Tracker, and
QualityTime (go.pcworld.
com/qtme). But the best
judge of the apps you don’t
 7. USE OREO’S
STORAGE TOOLS
If you’re lucky enough to have
a phone that’s been updated
to Oreo, Google has built in
some great tools for tracking
and managing your storage
limits. Head over to the
Setting app and tap the
Storage tab. Inside you’ll find
6. a handy rundown of
You can find out which apps you use the least with help from the Play everything that’s taking up
Store app. space on your phone, just like
on Nougat. But in Oreo, you
want is you. You can either browse your have more control over your files. Tap on any
app drawer to find any apps you don’t need of the sections and you’ll see a list of related
anymore, or check out your library in the apps and how much space they’re using. Tap
Play Store. again, and you’ll be able to clear anything
To find a list of everything on your inside by selecting the Free Storage button.
phone, open the Play Store app, tap the Just keep in mind that this will clear any files
three-line menu button in the top right being held inside the app.
corner of the screen, tap My
Apps & Games, then tap the
Installed tab. Next, tap the Sort
button near the top-right corner
of the screen, then pick an
option, such as Size or—better
yet—Last Used. If you sort your
apps according to Last Used,
scroll to the very bottom of the
list to see which apps you use
the least. See a seldom-used app 7.
you could do without? Tap it, The storage manager in Android Oreo will help you see what’s
then tap Uninstall. eating your phone’s free space.

AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 127

HERE’S HOW CLEAR SPACE ON AN ANDROID DEVICE
You’ll also find a new Free Up Space
button at the top of Oreo’s storage manager.
Tap it and you’ll see a list of your downloads
and infrequently used apps, as well as an
option to clear any photos and videos that
have already been backed up to the cloud. It’s
essentially a shortcut, but it’s a handy one.
8. TURN ON SMART
STORAGE
Oreo includes a new toggle called Smart
Storage that can work wonders without
needing to do a thing. Flip it on, and your
phone will automatically clear out the biggest
space-stealing culprit: photos and videos.
Since we all forget to clear out our photo
8.
Android Oreo’s Smart Storage can free up space without your needing to lift a finger.
128 PCWorld AUGUST 2018
libraries regularly, you can choose to
automatically remove backed-up photos and
videos after 30, 60, or 90 days, making sure
you phone isn’t stuffed with duplicate photos.
9. GET AN SD CARD
Nearly every Android phone you can buy in
2018 has a slot for expandable storage, so
you’ll be able to double, triple, and
quadruple the space on your phone for just a
few bucks. You’ll want to get a micro SD card
from Samsung or SanDisk in at least 32GB
capacity. Prices per gigabyte decrease
substantially as the capacity increases, so you
should buy the biggest card that you can
afford. As a very general rule, around $0.40
 Downloads or Files app
can be jettisoned to your
Google Drive by tapping
the menu button in the
top right corner and
choosing Send To. This
will open the share sheet,
where you can select Save
To Drive to choose which
folder to add it to. Then
you can delete it from your
phone without losing it
9. forever.
The best way to free up space on your Android phone is to add more of it. And if 15 gigs isn’t
enough, you can upgrade
per gigabyte is a good price. to Google One and increase your storage by
Once you select the size you want, an order of magnitude for just a few bucks a
installing it is a snap. There’s no formatting to month. For just $1.99 per month, you’ll get an
worry about, just pop open your SIM card slot extra 100GB of space, and a buck more
and slide in the SD card. Then, you’ll be able ($2.99 per month) will double it to 200GB.
to shift files and apps
onto the card as needed
to free up precious
internal space.

10. TAKE
ADVANTAGE
OF GOOGLE
DRIVE
Google gives 15 gigs of
free cloud storage with
every account, so you
might as well use it. 10.
Anything inside your Your phone comes with 15GB of free space that you might not be utilizing.

AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 129

HERE’S HOW
/HW:LQGRZVƴƳŞV&RUWDQD6KRZ
0HEH\RXUIDPLO\ŞVWHFKVXSSRUW
About the only hiccup in this Windows how-to app is that it needs to be installed.
BY MARK HACHMAN
M
ost how-to articles on a
given subject walk you
through a series of steps,
perhaps with a video
attached. Windows 10’s new free help
feature, Cortana Show Me, is different: It
actually performs basic Windows tasks for you
on your PC while you follow along.
Even better, Cortana Show Me strikes a
130 PCWorld AUGUST 2018
nice balance between showing you what to
do, actually performing those steps, and
providing an “escape hatch” if you need to
slow down. All you need to do is wiggle your
mouse, and Cortana Show Me will stop.
Microsoft’s free app is part of the Windows 10
April 2018 Update (go.pcworld.com/ap10),
and includes walkthroughs for many basic
tasks—we show the full list in this article.
IMAGE:MARK HACHMAN
 Let’s be clear,
though: Most
advanced users won’t
need to use Cortana
Show Me. In general, if
you’re familiar with the
Windows 10 Settings,
you’re already familiar
with what Cortana
Show Me can do. This
is an app for users Cortana Show Me is designed to walk you through common tasks audibly
who can navigate and visually, so make sure your audio is on.
Windows but need
some help diving deeper into what Windows Store app.) The app’s file size is only about
can do. 14MB, so it should download in a snap.
The only thing we wish Microsoft would
change is Cortana Show Me’s HOW TO USE
implementation. Instead of building in CORTANA SHOW ME
Cortana Show Me as a bundled Windows 10 Once installed, Cortana Show Me can be
app, Microsoft annoyingly chose to make it a launched by clicking the app in your Start
downloadable app from the Microsoft Store. menu. As part of the Fall 2018 feature update
That’s the sort of basic task Cortana Show for Windows 10 (whatever it ends up being
Me’s user base may struggle with. called), Microsoft plans to add voice controls,
so you’ll simply be able to trigger your mic
HOW TO GET and orally order Cortana to, say, “Show me
CORTANA SHOW ME how to change my screen brightness.” For
The quickest way to download Cortana Show now, however, you’ll have to select which
Me (go.pcworld.com/cshm) is to click the tutorial you’d like to view manually.
link in this sentence (you’ll need to sign in to Cortana Show Me isn’t the most
your Microsoft account if you haven’t already). thoughtful app at present. It’s a rather dull
That will open Microsoft Edge, with a bright collection of boxes at the moment, and
blue Get The App button. (For some reason, there’s no introduction to welcome you.
the Cortana Show Me app didn’t appear Upon opening it, the app displays a handful
when I searched for it within the Microsoft of the most common tutorials, along with a list

AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 131

HERE’S HOW CORTANA SHOW ME
of categories at the bottom to dive deeper.
Clicking one of these tutorials, though,
launches Cortana, with Jen Taylor’s familiar
voice guiding you through your task. Cortana
Show Me expands to fill the monitor that it’s
launched in, with Cortana alerting you that
you can pause at any time just by wiggling the
mouse.
The magic of Cortana Show Me is that it
doesn’t just appear that the app is moving
your cursor—it actually is, even putting a little
halo around it to make it easier to see.
Virtually every tutorial begins with navigating
to the Settings menu by way of the Cortana
search box.
Menu items are automatically highlighted as the cursor,
which is surrounded by a halo, moves over them.
132 PCWorld AUGUST 2018
If Settings is already open, Cortana
Show Me will navigate through to the
appropriate submenu. As Cortana Show
Me navigates through the steps of, say, how
to change your background, you’ll see
what to click and what choices you’ll have
to make. Each tutorial tends to last less than
a minute, ending at about the time you’ll
need to take some action, such as selecting
the appropriate Wi-Fi router from a list of
nearby devices.
WHAT TUTORIALS DOES
CORTANA SHOW ME OFFER?
Microsoft says there’s about 50 or so tutorials
available within the Cortana Show
Me app, subdivided into a list of
categories. At press time, there were
the 33 tutorials available:
System:
• Change your volume
• Change your power settings
• Change your display brightness
• Change your screen resolution
• Change what notifications you’re
getting
• Turn on Night Light
• Find your version of Windows
• Personalize your lock screen
• Rotate your screen
Devices:
• Add a nearby printer or scanner
• Change mouse settings
• Connect to a wireless display
• Discover Bluetooth devices
Network and Internet:
• Change your Wi-Fi settings
• Set up a mobile hotspot
• Turn on Airplane mode
Personalization:
• Change your background
Apps:
• Change your default apps
• Check if an app is installed
• Uninstall apps or programs
Ease of Access:
• Turn on high contrast
• Turn on Magnifier
• Turn on Narrator
• Turn on the on-screen keyboard
Time and Language:
• Change or add languages
• Change time settings
• Update and Security
• Activate Windows
• Back up your computer
• Run a security scan
• Turn off Windows Defender Security
Center
• Turn off Windows Security
• Update Windows
HOW COULD CORTANA
SHOW ME BE IMPROVED?
Adding voice controls to future versions of
Cortana Show Me demonstrates that Microsoft
considers the app to be a work in progress.
Probably the most important work that needs
to be done is to integrate it more tightly within
Windows, so that a novice user can easily find it
if they get stuck. (If they do, Microsoft can add
a tutorial about downloading and installing
apps from the Store as well.)
At times, Microsoft seems paralyzed, torn
between placating a user base that demands
constant improvement without altering the
familiar way in which Windows works. But
encouraging new users to find their way within
Windows is an important responsibility, too.
With Cortana Show Me, Microsoft has
clearly built a framework that could be pushed
as far as it likes. Some, more-complex content
works better within the framework of a video,
such as creating a detailed scene within Paint
3D. But simpler creative tasks, such as
dropping an augmented-reality dinosaur into a
photo taken with Mixed Reality Viewer, is well
within Cortana Show Me’s capabilities.
For now, though, Cortana Show Me serves
an important niche: freeing you up from
playing tech support at family gatherings.
Instead of trying to teach a cousin how to set
up a mobile hotspot, simply make sure they
have Cortana Show Me installed, then grab
another slice of pie. Why not let Cortana do all
the work?
AUGUST 2018 PCWorld 133
Tech Spotlight A video showcase
of the latest trends

Watch the
video at
go.pcworld.
com/lgxb

What does a ≥ Logitech’s brand-new

Logitech GX GX Blue switch does

Blue sound like? indeed mimic the

legendary Cherry MX
Blue switch. It’s a tactile switch, requiring 50g of force and
with a prominent click at the actuation point (1.9 mm). We
swung by Logitech’s meeting room at E3 to give the new
switch a try.

134 PCWorld AUGUST

MONTH 2017
2018