What if Microsoft had just branded the Surface as an Office-dedicated device? Let's call it the Microsoft 'Officebook'. It's the thinnest and lightest portable computer for full Office. It's not a device for tech geeks; it's a device for the average consumer with simple requirements, and Office.

Users are increasingly turning to services that claim to be secure from the prying eyes of the NSA and law enforcement. In this article, we take a look at some of the privacy-focused email and cloud storage services that have either sprung up or gained popularity in the wake of what's popularly been referred to as the Summer of Snowden.

We asked TechSpot's staff what they thought of the Windows 10 announcement and what changes they would like to see on Microsoft's new OS iteration.

Today I'll refer to how I recently set up my email accounts for best efficiency leveraging one service you probably already use: Gmail, but in a specific context. To combat spam and unify my inboxes everywhere.

The press is speculating that Microsoft is acquiring Minecraft so it can "tap into a cultural phenomenon" and entice players to Microsoft's platforms. I don't buy either explanation.

I don't even know why Apple bothered with the iPhone 6, because it will go the way of the iPhone 5C: a niche product; a consolation prize; the budget choice for Apple loyalists; something you get begrudgingly and regret later.

The common refrain has been that tablets are for consumption and that laptops are for productivity, and never the twain shall meet. But it's a different world today, and now Apple and Google want to cross that bridge, too, into Microsoft territory. Apple with the iPad Pro, and Google with the new Nexus.

Adobe Photoshop has long been the gold standard for image editing among professionals and photo enthusiasts. But for the average user who just wants to touch up the occasional photo, it can be hard to justify the cost and it probably does more way than you really need or care to do. There are plenty of free alternatives and we've rounded out our picks.

The fear of running out of battery wields such an extraordinary influence over how we use smartphones. We are never too far from a charger, and many of us carry a heavy, cumbersome power bank. I have good news: we are on the verge of true all day battery life.

A SED, or self-encrypting drive, is a type of hard drive that automatically and continuously encrypts the data in it without any user interaction. What may surprise many is that a decent potion of the drives currently in the market are in fact SEDs. The method involves a Data Encryption Key that encrypts and decrypts data whenever data is written to the drive or read from it.

On an absolute basis, one device is clearly better than the other; but the expectations for what a Chromebook is supposed to do is so much lower that, relatively, Acer's C720 Chromebook feels like a better device than it really is. Asus' popular T100 budget hybrid, on the other hand, gets compared to other Windows laptops (or the iPad Air) and doesn't look as good in the comparison.

Unlike Windows and OS X, Linux allows you to fully customize not only the look and feel of your desktop, but also its functionality as well as settings, through different desktop environments. We do a brief overview of the most popular Linux desktop environments to give you an idea about what each has to offer and what suits you the best.

I've wanted to write this for some time, but hadn't because there was no solid data to back-up my assertions. I do now. This is about why I believe the future of tablets (and by extension, computing) is 15-inches in display size, perhaps even 17-inches.

Leaving aside its wackier conspiracy theories, it's the quality - the prescience - of Deus Ex's story that makes it such a great game to play in 2014. Somehow, it seems timely: moment after moment of sneering, political philosophising about money, health, corporations and the poor, punctuated by regular, 400-volt jolts of: wait, when was this written?

The TechSpot PC Buying Guide offers an in-depth list of today's best desktop PC hardware, spanning four unique yet typical budgets.

Small Chinese companies like Xiaomi and OnePlus were able to create markets even while competitors like Apple and Samsung spend billions in advertising their smartphones. Their success is a blueprint for others to follow, whether they're running an established smartphone company or starting one.

The big thing most people misunderstand about Ballmer is that he's unbelievably smart. They see him going crazy on the stage and assume the man is a joke. I can assure you he's anything but.

The spread of broadband Internet is changing the way we watch TV and movies. A lot of people are cutting the cable company cord or dropping that satellite service in favor of online streaming. If you've been wondering where you can find movies and TV shows to watch for free online without breaking the law, then we've got you covered.

For many people smartphone cameras have replaced standalone point-and-shoots as the go-to device for everyday photography. But just what goes in to making a good smartphone camera? What hardware do companies use? What do pixel sizes and f-stops really mean? In this article I'll be exploring the hardware, key terms associated with photography, and some comparisons along the way.

We take a look some of the more common advantages and disadvantages of virtual desktops, give our general impressions on setting up and using virtual desktops for a variety of uses and make some educated guesses as to whether virtual desktops truly are the future of computing or if they will likely remain a niche technology.

Much of the ECC versus Non-ECC argument comes down to speed versus reliability. The reliability argument at least is easy to validate, but to settle the question of whether ECC actually lowers system performance, we ran a series of benchmarks with standard RAM, ECC RAM, and Registered ECC RAM that all run at the exact same frequency, timings, and voltage.

Didn't clear your schedule to track E3? Here are 40 plus PC game trailers from the event along with expected release dates and launch platforms for each title, ordered alphabetically. Some highlights include Batman: Arkham Knight, The Division, Star Wars: Battlefront, Far Cry 4 and the much anticipated PC version of Grand Theft Auto V.

Over the past few years, we've heard a litany of gloomy stories about layoffs at game development studios. Even mega-publishers regularly downsize, shutting down studios and laying off staff on what seems to be a cyclical basis. Yet, paradoxically, the video game industry is booming. So why is this such a common occurrence?

In general, totally free high quality VPN services are few and far between. The current business model being used by some is to offer a free basic application with the option to upgrade to a paid, more feature rich version. However, for users simply looking for some extra privacy or sporadically accessing a geo-restricted website these free versions get the job done.

If you've got a gaming PC capable of playing most modern-day games at Ultra settings, there's a good chance it'll be able to handle an Ultra HD monitor. How well it handles an Ultra HD monitor will come down to your graphics hardware. What does it take to put together a 4K-ready gaming PC? That's what we plan to find out.

My household cut the metaphorical cable cord about five years ago, so I've watched this idea evolve in the media from "insane notion" to "cable industry crisis." But the truth is a bit more complicated than that. To help you decide whether cable abandonment is right for you, we're tackling seven major cord-cutting myths.

There are a number of uses for running Linux from a USB drive, from simply test driving Linux to troubleshooting a Windows PC, or working on the go from someone else's computer. There are basically two ways to go about it: from within Windows using virtualization software such as VirtualBox, or creating a boot disk. This quick guide details both methods in a few easy steps.

Intel's Bay Trail platform and low-power Haswell offerings may be the go-to choice when it comes to mainstream Windows tablets and laptops, but AMD believes that their next generation chips will be the best. A refinement of their work on APUs in the past few years, the new chips, 'Beema' and 'Mullins', are set to be strong contenders in this segment.

What makes a product iconic? Design, functionality, styling, and innovation will get you part of the way there, but the true tests are how these products distinguished themselves from their competitors, how widely those traits were subsequently imitated by those competitors, and how history remembers their status.

As Amazon Fire TV bursts onto the market to compete with streamers like the Roku 3 and Apple TV, you may be wondering what these set-top boxes offer over cheaper streaming sticks, specifically Google's Chromecast and Roku's Streaming Stick.