Do I really need... an HDR screen?

WhatWh does it do?

High dynamic range (HDR) means increasedincrea contrast (more difference betw between the darkest black and the lighte lightest white). It also implies more grad gradations between those extremes, to keekeep everything smooth. The same principle applied to colour gives you a wider ‘gamut’ (colour range). Imag Imagine turning down the contrast and brig brightness on your TV so everything look looks dull. HDR is the opposite (see imag image below). We’re not talking about ‘HDRHDR’ photo-editing tools, which boost shad shadow and highlight detail, creating an artifi artificial effect if overused. HDR is about maki making things look better, not different. The move to 4K resolution packs more detail into TV screens, and phone, tablet and PC screens are gaining more pixels for the same reason. High dynamic range is a complementary way of adding detail: each pixel can show more colours.

Why would I want it?

The Intel Core processors used in laptops (indicated by a single- or double-letter suffix such as ‘U’), have the same series names as their desktop PC counterparts – i3, i5, i7 – but use less power and generate less heat. The ‘U’ stands for ‘Ultra low power’. So they run at slower clock speeds and have less cache (built-in memoryry that makes data available faster). aster).r). More significantly, they mayay have fewer cores.

That means the i7 in the new Microsoft Surface Pro (see page 21), with just two cores, can barely equal a desktop PC i5 in single tasks and falls way behind in multi-tasking. But the Apollo 15’s I7-7700HQ is different. The ‘Q’ stands for ‘quad core’, and those four processing units produced scores across our tests similar to mid-range desktop i5 processors.

Meanwhile, the Apollo’s Nvidia GTX 1050Ti g graphics card is theoretically as capa capable as the desktop version, held back only by heat dissipation. Th The Apollo seemed to manage that fine fine, and the result is a laptop that perforperf performs as well as a desktop PC.

★★★☆☆

ALTERNATIVE: Motorola Moto G5 £159 We weren’t as impressed with this as we’d hoped to be, but it beats the 3 in every department and is worth the extra money