Month: July 2022

The RTX 3080 delivers incredible gaming pace, and PC Specialist’s system is attractive, sturdy, accessible and capable – and it has a low price. AMD chips might tempt you elsewhere, though

The PC Specialist Obsidian I is the first review system to arrive at Tech Advisor with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080, and this fearsome Ampere GPU is paired with an Intel Core i7-10700KF processor, a super-fast SSD and loads of RGB LEDs.

Surprisingly, the PC Specialist Obsidian I only costs £1,899. That’s still a huge amount to spend on a PC, but it’s relatively affordable considering the sheer performance on offer – especially when you consider that a PC like this can keep you gaming smoothly for years.

Design & Build
The high-end hardware is packed inside a Lian Li Lancool II. It’s a bold, impressive case – the front panel is dominated by strips of mesh that are illuminated by RGB LEDs, and both sides have tempered glass panels on hinges – which makes it easier to get inside. There are buttons on top of the chassis to alter the lighting, and build quality is tremendous: the glass, metal and plastic are rock-solid.

The lower thirds on both sides of the case are covered with sleek metal shrouds. They’re hinged, and flipping them down reveals some extra features, like hard disk and SSD mounts. They’re a smart addition, although those hinges are the only weak point in this case – they’re a bit too flimsy.

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A good all-rounder but costly for the spec. Find out if the Dell Ultrasharp U2421E perfect for your home office in our full review

Due to an increase in home working and the limited space that entails, smaller monitor designs are making something of a resurgence. Where once bigger-is-better was once the mantra, now considerations like blue-light protection, power consumption and efficient use of space are given greater weight in monitor choices.

Dell, never one to ignore a developing opportunity, has produced the stylish Dell UltraSharp 24 (U2421E) to address this market. A USB-C Hub Monitor big enough for general office work and perfect for those who use a laptop as their daily workhorse.

Did Dell get the mix of functionality and performance right with the U2421E, or could it have been better?

Out of the box
Dell deserves a gold star for the packaging alone. The tray that holds the U2421E, its support arm and all the cables uses pressure-formed cardboard and not that horrible, expanded foam so beloved by many monitor makers.

Not only is this better for the environment, but this option doesn’t coat the display with excessive amounts of static electricity that then attract all the dust from the room within hours.

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Apple’s long-awaited redesigned iMac is finally here for 2021 and it brings with it the impressive M1 chip, too. The price might have gone up, but a splash of colour and various upgrades mean this might be the most everyman’s iMac yet.

Design & Build
Seven colours with two-tone finish
Thinner than the original iPhone
A little too light
Writing about a new iMac design is a rare thing and is therefore one of the major talking points for this year’s model. For 2021 we get an overhauled design with a modern completely flat body with a splash of colour, reminiscent of the early iMac G3.

While I like the colour options, I’m not totally sold on the two-tone finish. The bold striking colour on the back and edges looks amazing but this is paired with a soft pastel companion that I’m not so keen on. Cables also sport this pale tone and the metal base and accessories mirror it in a metallic finish.

Unless you have a mirror behind the iMac or it’s going on a reception desk, you’ll rarely see the darker colour which is a shame. There are seven colours to choose from including pink, green and orange so there should be something to suit everyone, but one of them is a basic silver option if you’d rather something more plain.

It’s worth noting that the Apple logo has gone from the chin below the screen which makes things look slightly plain and unfinished. You can also only have a white bezel around the display rather than opting for black.

I’d rather have the darker colour everywhere and a black bezel but that’s not the fun, family-orientated style Apple has gone for here.

Viewing from the side, the new iMac looks stunning with its tablet-like design. It’s only 11.4mm thick which is actually thinner than the original iPhone. It’s so thin, Apple has had to move the headphone jack to the side, which is a happy enforced change if you ask me.

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The Apple iMac is the all-in-one computer and screen that’s spawned many imitators in the Windows world. We put the entry-level Apple iMac 21.5in (Mid 2010) through its paces

In this year’s refresh, the quintessential all-in-one PC is once again available in two models. Last month we reviewed the larger iMac with 27in display, and in its configured-to-order guise had performance to see off most of the Windows-only competition in our Top 5 group test.

This month we sample the smaller Apple iMac 21.5in (Mid 2010), taking the entry-level pret à porter edition, priced at just £999.

In respect of its design and features, the Apple iMac 21.5in (Mid 2010) is almost same highly specified PC, with a fabulous high-definition IPS screen that drips colour. But where the 27in had 2560×1440 pixel resolution, equivalent to four 720 high-defintion panels combined together, the baby Mac has ‘only’ full-HD 1920×1080 resolution.

Included with the Apple iMac 21.5in (Mid 2010) are Bluetooth keyboard and a Magic Mouse with its touch-sensitive top surface. Webcam and mic are effectively hidden in the screen bezel.

Around the back of the flawless aluminium frame are a row of connection ports. Four USB 2.0 are joined by a high-speed FireWire 800 and gigabit ethernet. There’s a Mini DisplayPort again, although this time it only provides a video output to a second monitor rather than doubling as an input to turn the screen into a nearby notebook’s second display.

As the cheapest iMac in the line, this Apple iMac 21.5in (Mid 2010) comes with the slowest graphics, an ATI Radeon HD 4670 with just 256MB video RAM. Pay more for the iMac 21.5in with 3.2GHz Core i3 (£1249), and you get an ATI Radeon HD 5670 with double the video memory.

In our graphics benchmarks it still managed a nippy 78fps in the older FEAR test, but newer games stretched it too far. Crysis at low settings was playable at 35fps; up the detail to Very High and 1680 resolution, and gameplay crawls at 10fps.

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Apple’s new MacBook Air marks the day we can expect true all-day battery life from a performance laptop. Read our review of the Apple MacBook Air 11in and 13in (Early-2014) laptops to find out…

Apple hit two notable ‘firsts’ with the 2013 incarnation of the iconoclastic MacBook Air. It packed several game-changing revisions. Not only was it the first mainstream laptop you could buy with an Intel Haswell processor, it was also the first production laptop supporting the new ‘three-times-faster’ 802.11ac Wi-Fi draft standard.

The updated 2014 models feature small processor speed bumps and price reductions but little else has changed. For reviews of the previous versions see 13-inch MacBook Air (2013) and 11-inch MacBook Air (2013) over at our sister site Macworld.

The use of a low-power Intel Core i5 processor (in both 2013 and 2014 models) means that the MacBook Air lasts longer than ever before – and quite possibly by a significant margin: Apple’s figures, based on wireless web browsing, spell out a total runtime that has been stretched from an already handy seven hours, all the way to 12 hours for the 13-inch Air (9 for the 11-inch model).

Externally there’s nothing different in the 2014 MacBook Air models from the Mid-2013 MacBook Air laptops, and even little to differentiate it from the last refresh before that. Indeed there’s little cosmetically to separate it from the previous two generations, since the notebook’s main design revamp in 2010.

Apple MacBook Air 11in and 13in (Early 2014): Build and Features
The Apple MacBook Air (Early 2014) sports the same supreme all-metal build quality that we’ve yet to see surpassed in other brands’ laptops, styled with a wedged taper from rear to front edge.

Apple MacBook Air 2014 has the same familar tapered profile as the past few generations

Despite Apple’s reputation for assembling premium products at premium prices, we’ve not seen any Microsoft hardware partner match the features, build and attention to detail, either at the same price or higher.

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