Month: June 2022

The Samsung Galaxy Book Go sounds good on paper, but lots of ports and 4G connectivity can’t make up for a dim screen and dismal performance

The Galaxy Book Go is a lightweight, affordable laptop from Samsung that’s powered by a Qualcomm chip – instead of Intel – and offers the option of 4G connectivity.

On paper that sounds great, but in practice this laptop is abominably slow, with Windows still refusing to play nicely with Qualcomm’s Arm architecture. The result is a laptop that’s difficult to recommend, and undeniably outclassed by most Chromebooks at the same price.

Design and build
Slim and lightweight build
Made of plastic
Only available in silver
While I have my complaints about the Galaxy Book Go’s performance, I can’t really fault the way it looks.

Only available in silver, this is a pretty sleek and attractive laptop for the price. Samsung has kept it slim (just 14.9mm thick) and relatively light (only 1.38kg), which is impressive bearing in mind that it comes with a fairly expansive 14in display.

It’s partly that light because the body is plastic, which is pretty inevitable at this price. That does make the laptop feel a bit cheap – but hey, it is cheap. So you can’t really complain too much about that.

Display and audio
14in HD display
Quite dim
No touchscreen
The 14in display here is large for a laptop of this price, but it comes with drawbacks.

It’s Full HD, at 1920 x 1080, so at least Samsung hasn’t taken any shortcuts there as we’ve sometimes seen in other budget laptops.

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ExpressVPN bills itself as the premium choice, and its prices reflect that. But is it the best choice? Read our review to find out.

ExpressVPN positions itself as a premium VPN service, and that’s why it costs more than a lot of its rivals. You won’t see any crazy deals offering 80% off as you will elsewhere, and the longest subscription is 12 months, not five years.

But is ExpressVPN worth $99.95 (around £75) per year when you can get two, three or even five years of use from rival VPN services for less? Keep reading to find out.

Features
ExpressVPN – as with all consumer VPN services – grants an extra layer of privacy online, extra security on public Wi-Fi networks (such as in cafes and hotels) and the ability to unblock region-locked content, such as videos and websites.

In fact, unblocking it one of its biggest strengths: it claims to reliably unblock over 200 streaming service and also gives you a backup option – the MediaStreamer proxy service – if you find that the VPN isn’t unblocking DAZN, say, at the exact moment you want to watch a live sports event.

ExpressVPN also has its own encryption protocol, Lightway. This offers fast connection times and good speeds. This is important if you have a fast internet connection and don’t want your VPN slowing it down.

If you have any problems, live chat is available round the clock, too.

Apps
One of ExpressVPN’s other strengths is the range of apps it offers: Windows, macOS, iPhone, Android, iPad, Linux and Amazon Fire TV. But it doesn’t stop there. There are browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Microsoft Edge. And unlike virtually all other VPN services, whose extensions are merely proxies masquerading as VPNs, ExpressVPN’s extensions are more akin to a remote control for the main VPN app, so when you use them, you’re getting the full protection of a VPN rather than simply changing your IP address.

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The successor to the popular TS3 Plus docking station, Caldigit’s TS4 Thunderbolt Station 4 dock has a lot to live up to – and, with a multitude of high-end ports and design flexibility, it succeeds by not changing an award-winning formula.

In many ways, the TS3 redefined the docking station and was our long-time favourite Thunderbolt 3 docking station.

Caldigit has waited longer than most to release a Thunderbolt 4 dock, but we are not disappointed as this one is the best we’ve tested. Later, we’ll discuss the differences between Thunderbolt 3 (TB3) and Thunderbolt 4 (TB4) and whether TS3 Plus owners should upgrade to the new TS4.

A docking station allows a laptop owner to create a busy desktop setup with just a single USB-C/TB connection between computer and dock.

All the external devices are connected to the dock: from external monitors to fast SSD drives, printer, webcam, memory sticks, keyboard and mouse (if you haven’t caught up with Bluetooth, of course). Many docks also include a card reader so you can add inexpensive portable storage cards, usually SD or microSD.

A dock also frees you from the vagaries of Wi-Fi with a wired Ethernet Internet connection.

You just walk up, plug in and start working, and unplug when you want to take your laptop elsewhere. Your preferred setup is waiting for you when you return.

Thunderbolt 4 works with the latest Thunderbolt 4 and USB4 computers and is also backwards compatible with Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C.

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NordVPN is a top VPN service which works on all popular devices, offers amazing speeds and represents good value overall.

Even if you’re unfamiliar with VPNs in general, you’ve probably heard of NordVPN. It’s one of the biggest names and one of the most popular choices.

A VPN adds a layer of privacy when you browse the web and helps to prevent websites from tracking you. It’s also an easy way to overcome blocked content online, whether it’s a website or a steaming service that’s not accessible in your region.

NordVPN ticks virtually every box, and those it doesn’t might well be unimportant to you. For example, where Surfshark (now owned by Nord Security, NordVPN’s parent company) lets you use its VPN service on unlimited devices at the same time, NordVPN limits you to six.

But few people need even six devices connected to a VPN server simultaneously.

And though another of NordVPN’s drawback is cost, this is primarily because the price increases after the initial discounted period. But you can get around that by cancelling your subscription and signing up again with a different email address. That’s a minor hassle for what is an excellent VPN service.

Features
It’s easy to compare VPN services on the number of servers, and the number of countries and locations it covers. But this isn’t a sensible metric in many ways.

Typically, you’ll only need to connect to servers near your physical location (for the best speeds) or in regions where you want to unblock content. That tends to be the US, UK and a handful of other countries.

Therefore, you will almost certainly never use servers in most of the countries a VPN offers.

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The latest edition of the XPS 15 looks brilliant, it’s sturdy, it’s got great processing power and an excellent keyboard. If you can afford one, a USB-A port is about the only thing missing

The Dell XPS 15 is the latest addition to the firm’s luxury work range of laptops, and it’s been slimmed down and improved with some sleeker design and a new OLED screen option.

On the inside, the XPS still relies on muscular Intel 11th-gen silicon and discrete Nvidia graphics, and on the outside, it looks and feels as good as ever.

But, as ever, the XPS 15 is not cheap. In the configuration we’ve reviewed, you’ll have to pay £2,249 or $2,249 to get your hands on this machine, and that’s a mid-range XPS 15 configuration.

Since the name of the laptop stays the same with each new edition, this is the 9510 model which arrived late in 2021 and is the most recent XPS 15.

Design & Build
Superb build quality and looks
Relatively slim and light body
Has Thunderbolt 4, but many other parts are missing
Not much has changed about the XPS 15’s broad design, but this remains one of the best-looking laptops around. The base and lid are aluminium, the keyboard deck is carbon fibre, and the XPS 15 is available in two colour schemes – the silver and black I’ve covered or a white finish.

Dell’s new machine weighs between 1.8kg and 1.96kg, depending on the specification, and it’s 18mm thick. Those are impressive figures for a powerful 15.6in notebook. Despite that, it’s easily one of the strongest notebooks in this category and is ideal for life on the road.

You can find plenty of lighter laptops but rarely will they match up to the specs and build on offer with the XPS 15.

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