Since I spend most of my day in Microsoft Word, I decided to see whether Word 2016 Preview for Mac finally lives up to the quality, usability and reputation of the Windows version. What I’m looking for is whether Word 2016 can approximate—if not duplicate—the productive experience I get in Windows. This isn’t super-important to…

With its latest flagship smart phones, Samsung is listening to its customers and going with high-quality materials and less bloat. The result is two stunning smart phones, the Galaxy S 6 and Galaxy S 6 Edge, the latter of which features two curve-around screen edges that really differentiate this product from the competition. I have…

Given the liberal storage allotments and deep OS integration with OneDrive, Windows users should consider using this cloud service for all of their documents, photos, music and videos. But in doing so, you will want to configure Windows to use your OneDrive-based storage by default, and not disconnected local folders, for this data. Here’s how.…

If you prefer to access your own music collection rather than use a streaming service, Google has a plan for you: It is now allowing users to store up to 50,000 of their own song files in Google Play Music for free. And from there, you can access those songs from any compatible phone, tablet,…

While old-school productivity offerings like Word, Excel and PowerPoint are still very much core to the Office experience, Microsoft has really stretched the boundaries of what it means to be an Office app over the past year. And two of its most recent offerings—Office Mix and Office Sway—are interesting, forward-leaning examples of how authoring in…

As I understand the schedule, the Nokia Lumia 930 is the last Lumia flagship to be released until Windows 10 hits the streets in the second half of 2015. As such, it will have a year-long reign atop the market for Windows Phone handsets. Which is fine: the Lumia 930 isn’t just the greatest Windows…

Several weeks back I previewed the February 2015 System Update for Xbox One. But that update is now generally available, providing a number of useful new features to everyone using Microsoft’s latest video game console. Microsoft usually releases new system updates for Xbox One every month, but this is the first system update of 2015,…

Microsoft today announced major improvements to the photos experiences in OneDrive on the web and on mobile devices and PCs.

Microsoft Band is powerful but confusing, and before you can even start tracking your activity there’s so much to learn. So here’s a quick rundown of the things you need to understand to use this new fitness tracker most effectively. The basics, if you will. Note: This article is excerpted from my free e-book, Microsoft…

The latest Windows includes a number of technologies for replicating and backing up documents and other files on your PC, wiping out the PC to start over from scratch, and imaging the drive so that you can recover in the event of a hard drive failure. Which of these technologies you choose will depend on…

Xbox Music combines streaming radio, music subscription services and music purchasing options. It simplifies finding, managing and listening to music, no matter which devices you use. But there is one downside: The availability of Xbox Music features varies by device, and requires a subscription service called Xbox Music Pass to take advantage of all of…

Hardware makers such as Microsoft (formerly Nokia), BLU, HTC, Samsung and many others sell various Windows Phone handset models in markets around the world, and your options will vary not only by locale—some phones are only sold in the United States, for example—but by wireless carrier. Additionally, these firms have developed ways to differentiate entry-level,…