Sony Catalyst Production Suite

Video editing for more than just home movies

There are plenty of options for editing videos. Windows Movie Maker is free and surprisingly good, and other software from Adobe, Corel and Pinnacle come in at under £100. But there’s a gap between these ‘enthusiast’ programs and what the professionals use, such as Adobe Creative Cloud (which is expensive) and Avid Media Composer (which makes Creative Cloud look cheap).

Serif Affinity Photo

A serious new rival to Photoshop for Mac users

No image-editing program compares with Adobe Photoshop, with its ridiculously comprehensive range of tools covering everything from medical scanning to 3D printing. But quite a few mimic some its features at a lower price. For PCs, Serif’s PhotoPlus X7 is one of the best. For Macs, the company has launched Affinity Photo, a different program with a new approach that could make it the best Photoshop rival yet.

Make your tablet battery last all week

Why do your tablet and phone need plugging in every day? Actually, they don’t. Jane Hoskyn reveals how to double your battery life, or even make it last for days

Scientists can explore Pluto and even do head transplants, but they still can’t make a tablet battery last for a couple of days without having to plug it in.

OK, you could make your battery last for weeks if you were to close all apps, switch on aeroplane mode and leave it in the sock drawer. But if you do that you might as well not have a tablet at all.

Many of the best ways to make your battery last longer are well-known – don’t run a zillion apps at once, for example. So we won’t insult your intelligence by filling two pages with them, but we will start with a few basic battery tips you may have forgotten. Then we’ll reveal the latest battery tricks, including a couple of hacks the manufacturers don’t want you to know.

EE Harrier

A great mid-range Android phone

We’re not sure we like the trend of networks offering their own devices. It’s easier to get the best deal if you can pick from a range of models that aren’t locked to any one provider. Here, though, EE at least demonstrates that a phone doesn’t need a hardware brand logo to be good.

Canon Pixma Pro-100S

A bigger printer for better photos

If you have a good-quality digital camera, you probably have thousands of great pictures stored at high resolutions. But when you view them, you probably do so on a relatively coarse computer screen. A high-end colour printer might encourage you to commit more of them to paper in their full-size glory.

50 most useful Command Prompt commands. Part 3

This issue, Jane Hoskyn reveals 10 command-line tricks for finding files and hidden information on your PC

21 Instantly open the Control Panel

Some of Windows’ best built-in tools are buried deep in your PC. You could create shortcuts that clutter up your Desktop and have a habit of not working – or you could use the Command Prompt to find and open them instantly instead.

For example, type control panel at the prompt then press Enter, and the Control Panel will open instantly on your Desktop. Bit easier than rummaging around in the Start menu, isn’t it?

Lenovo Yoga 3 (14 inch)

Can a convertible avoid compromise? Not on this evidence

Lenovo’s Yoga laptop-tablet range has almost as many models as the eponymous spiritual discipline has followers. This full-size hybrid (not to be confused with the Yoga Pro 3) takes the opposite approach to Microsoft’s Surface Pro 3. The Surface is a tablet that tries to be a laptop (by adding a keyboard). The Yoga is a laptop that you can also use as a tablet. Either way, you’re still carrying a keyboard around with you.

Toshiba Satellite Click Mini

A cheap hybrid laptop that might just convert you

Everyone knows netbooks are dead. Truth be told, they were never really alive, making them even less enticing than your average zombie (and just as likely to start falling apart halfway through a video). But somehow the idea of a £200 portable PC keeps getting resurrected.