Should you buy a tablet or laptop?

We look at how to choose the right portable computing solution for your needs.

Although tablets and laptops are very different classes of devices, they also have a huge amount in common. They’re both fairly casual devices compared to a full-size desktop system, so you don't have to spend a lot of time maintaining them. They're both quite cheap, so you don't have to spend a lot of money on them. And they're portable, so you can take them anywhere you like whether that's on holiday or simply into the next room.

But that's where the similarities end. Although they're often mentioned in the same breath, there are as many differences as similarities. At some point, you have to decide whether you actually want a tablet or a laptop. To try to help you do that, we've taken a quick look at the advantages and disadvantages of each class of device so you can decide which makes sense for you.

Introducing Windows 10

Microsoft has taken the wraps off its new version of Windows. Windows 10 brings back some old favourites, while looking into a cloud-first, web-first future. By Graham Barlow, Dan Grabham

Microsoft has announced the successor to Windows 8, cutting version 9 out of the chronological sequence altogether and jumping straight to version 10.

“I think we’d all say that Windows is at a threshold,” said Terry Myerson, executive vice president of the Operating System Group at Microsoft, introducing the new Windows 10 while making a joke about the well-known codename for the next OS, “and now its time for a new Windows.”

10 Years of Ubuntu

We celebrate a decade of the distro by looking back at Ubuntu with its movers and shakers.

Ten years ago this month, a seemingly unassuming distro nicknamed Warty Warthog emerged in the Linux landscape and set in motion a cultural landslide that would see Linux rise from the shadows of the archetypal operating systems and become, in 2014, a household name. Since October 2004, Warty Warthog has evolved through numerous forms into Utopic Unicorn, the latest version of Ubuntu.

A catalyst for change, Ubuntu has achieved a great deal in its first fabulous decade. It pioneered the idea of a Linux operating system that just worked straight out of the box, without the need to manually troubleshoot and configure your hardware. It popularised the graphical interface that we use for most of our distro installations today, making them more accessible and easier to use, as well as the long-term support releases that many of us rely on for our main computers. It sharply divided opinion by having an opinion on the future of desktop and mobile operating systems, predicting convergence and boldly taking a hand in preparing the way.

AMD FX-8370E

AMD rejigs old hardware in an attempt to compete with Intel.

AMD has ceded the CPU high ground to Intel’s all-conquering i7 chips, but the firm still reckons it can fight in the mid-range – and that’s exactly where the new FX-8370E hunkers down.

This chip is different from the rest of AMD’s FX parts thanks to its ‘E’ suffix. It stands for ‘energy efficient’, and means it has a TDP of 95W. That’s a reduction from the 125W and 220W TDPs used by other AMD FX chips, but it’s still 11W more than Intel’s Core i5 parts require. That’s because the FX-8370E still relies on the toasty 32nm Piledriver architecture, rather than the 28nm Steamroller cores found in the firm’s APUs.

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments

The game is at hand.

Call me the king of wrongful imprisonment. The big ‘hook’ with the latest Sherlock Holmes title from Frogwares is that you get to both accuse and suggest the punishment for the perpetrators of the Crimes being investigated. At this I failed.

Despite my careless dooming of innocents to their fate, the investigative side of the game is surprisingly robust affair, especially when compared to the usual fare that claims to include detection as a feature. While the actual means to an end sometimes feels like a bizarre attempt to shoehorn in mini games, the actual process of evidence collection and deduction is quite slickly done, and requires both a thorough approach and some decent thought processes.