Microsoft Edge Web Browser: Hot or Not

Microsoft launched Windows 10, their first major OS overhaul after over 3 whole years of the last release. For Windows old timers, Windows 10 brought a lot of improvements, and gave us all hope for the future. We got the new and innovative Start Menu, kind of a combo between the Windows 7’s classic layout and the Modern UI funkiness from Windows 8 and 8.1. But among all those changes was a pretty major new thing, the so called Project Spartan, now what we know as Microsoft Edge.

Meet Microsoft Edge, the oh-so long awaited replacement for Microsoft’s ageing, and anemic Internet Explorer. It brings a whole array of new features, like taking notes and doodling on a live webpage, enhanced sharing features, revamped user experience to fit all three ecosystems, desktops, mobiles and tablets, to heavy hitters like a totally new web rendering engine, EdgeHTML, created on a fork of the Trident Engine. Microsoft also has been updating the browser with optimizations and newer security fixes quite consistently too. We can surely notice that Microsoft is not only trying to gain back the old time Internet Explorer fans, most of whom went over to Chrome or Firefox in frustration over the experience and speed of Internet Explorer, but also entice new Windows adopters into sticking with Microsoft Edge.

But all the fancy stuff aside, does Microsoft Edge live up to its claims of being the best browser for Windows 10? Let’s find out!

System Setup to Perform the Testing

• Parallels Desktop 11 running on Mac OSX 10.11.2 El Capitan
• Windows 10 Pro, fully updated
• 4 CPU Cores, 768MB VRAM and 6GB RAM allocated to the Virtual Machine
• Intel Core i5-4440 @ 3.1GHz
• 16 GB RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960

All drivers and software on both host and virtual machines have been updated to the newest revisions, and all background applications have been terminated. We have ensured that no bottlenecks have occurred in our testing, and have tried our level best to ensure an unbiased playing field for all the browsers in our testing process.

For this comparison, we have chosen Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and legacy Internet Explorer. We have also added Google Chrome and Apple Safari native performance under OSX, so you can get more idea about the performance metrics.

Enough talk, lets get down to the benchmarks

HTML5 Test (Higher is Better)

HTML5 Test is a simple test designed to check if the browser supports certain classes of features and capabilities which HTML5 can handle. This test does not measure performance of those features, but merely whether it can support it or not.Here, Google Chrome sweeps the floor with everyone else. Microsoft Edge performs pretty well, scoring 402 out of 555, quite a bit better than Internet Explorer, but it’s nothing exceptional.

Sunspider 1.0.2 (Lower is Better)

Sunspider is a well known JavaScript benchmark, albeit a bit old at it. While it is a CPU intensive test, a lot of browsers perform exceptionally well in JavaScript tests, but others don’t, so the CPU relativity is debatable.

Here, Microsoft Edge, and Internet Explorer too totally obliterates the competition. It even performs better inside a Virtual Machine than Apple Safari and Google Chrome does natively inside OSX. This indicates strong JavaScript performance and optimizations by Microsoft.

Jetstream (Higher is Better)

Jetstream is a relatively new benchmark, again based on various JavaScript based tests. It is a heavily browser and CPU intensive test.

In Jetstream, Microsoft Edge puts in a very strong showing, beating out Google Chrome by a sizeable margin inside the VM, and by a fraction natively. We can clearly see how much improvement has gone into the new engine, as Edge performs nearly 60% better than Internet Explorer. The chart is dominated by Apple Safari, which beats out Edge by some margin.

Google Octane 2.0 (Higher is Better)

Octane 2.0 is a comprehensive browser benchmark, and it tests a vast variety of features, ranging from HTML and JavaScript based testing, to capability testing and more.

Here in Octane 2.0, we again see a very similar trend, with Microsoft Edge topping the testing chart, beaten only by Google Chrome on the Host machine. It even edges out Apple Safari on the Host machine, and totally sweeps Internet Explorer off, with a whopping 125% lead over it.

Futuremark Peacekeeper

Futuremark Peacekeeper is a web benchmark suite from Futuremark, makers of the wildly popular PCMark benchmark tools. Peacekeeper is mostly oriented towards testing the graphical capabilities of the web engine, including HTML5, OpenGL, WebGL, online video and more.

In this set, Microsoft Edge performs really badly, barely managing to cross Internet Explorer. It misses a lot of HTML5 capabilities, especially video formats like WebM and Theora. Google Chrome on Windows has nearly 58% lead over Edge, while Apple Safari holds a whopping 117% lead, pulling in a clean win.

See Also: ‘How to Speed Up Windows 10’»

Other Stuff

Microsoft Edge is a brand spanking new effort from Microsoft. It was built from scratch to be a part of Microsoft’s Universal app ecosystem. It has a new minimalistic UX, oriented towards putting focus on the content you are watching, than on the interface itself.

We clearly admit that Microsoft Edge is a really good browser, it has many innovative features up its sleeve, especially the web annotation and OneNote integration are great features to have. There is also a dark and light theme, a comprehensive Reading mode, Cortana integration. It also syncs well to other device if you are into the Microsoft ecosystem.

Thoughts About the Performance

While Microsoft Edge is definitely a strong contender in the field, it is definitely a major improvement in performance over Internet Explorer, ranging from 3% in Futuremark Peacekeeper to a whopping 125% in Google Octane 2.0.

Microsoft Edge also trades blows with Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox in a lot of tests, but it can’t decidedly take the top spot just yet. It shows exceptional JavaScript performance on one hand, only to be let down by lackluster HTML5 and Web Graphics performance.

For real world usage, Edge is a perfectly fine browser. Page loading is fast, scrolling and panning around are silky smooth and overall performance is commendable.

A major omission, something you might actually miss, coming from Firefox or Chrome is extension support. It’s a real turn-off for those used to using extensions like AdBlock, PushBullet, Hola, Boomerang, Pocket and much more. Microsoft did state that it will be coming soon, but that soon hasn’t appeared yet.

See Also: ‘Windows 10 Tips and Tricks’»

In our opinion, Microsoft still has ways to go before claiming that Microsoft Edge web browser should be your one and only internet companion on Windows. Really, there is nothing stopping you from using it, and yes, you won’t really be disappointed with Edge as your daily driver. But our focus is on the other crowd, the people looking to switch. We are sorry, but there is no reason for you guys to jump ship at the moment. Microsoft Edge web browser doesn’t offer any big advantage or discernable performance difference over Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. Plus, you get the added benefit that Chrome or Firefox are cross platform, coming in on Windows, Linux, Mac OSX, Android and even on iOS, so you can take your bookmarks and tabs on the go easily.

Final Verdict

So, is the Microsoft Edge hot, or is it not?

The answer is, yes, it is hot, with a ‘but’.

There are still ways to go for Microsoft to create the perfect browser. However, we would still applaud Microsoft for the effort they put in, and it clearly paid off. Edge is a much better browser, much more comparable than Internet Explorer ever was.

How To Speed Up Windows 10: Tips to Make Windows 10 Faster

Windows 10 is perhaps the most impressive, stable and user-loved Operating System ever released by the tech giant, particularly after a not-so-good take with Windows 8! And, no other OS upgrade from Microsoft has been received in such a crazy manner! It’s certainly because the brand-new Windows 10 has a lot to offer, both in terms of design and productive features. That having said, continuous use may make your Windows 10 PC slow down, up to an extent it’s hard to use the device. While the main reason is with your PC usage habits, a few good tips can be used to speed up Windows 10.

In this article, we have a collection of a few hand-picked, effective tips that will make your Windows 10 faster, in the end.

Lower Visual Effects = Better Performance

Although not a total visual overhaul, Windows 10 has brought some superb visual tweaks to Windows interface. It is to be noted that these effects can be a boon and curse at the same time. For instance, these effects are consuming a lot of resources, which is a reason why your Windows 10 PC lags a bit. So, if you are not a hardcore fan of such visual effects, it’s better to disable them. To have an impressive boost of performance, you should disable following stuff.

Transparency Effects:

This can be disabled by going to Desktop -> Right Click -> Personalize -> Choose Color. There, you have to disable the option named ‘Make Start, Taskbar and Action Centre Transparent. By doing so, it is possible to cut down the use of some useful resources.

Shadows and Animations:

These may some other reasons why your Windows 10 PC is lagging like hell. If it’s okay, you can turn them off, by following the steps

• In start button, Right Click
• Select the option named ‘System’
• Choose Advanced System Settings
• Go to the Advanced Tab
• Under the Performance tab, there’s a button named ‘Settings’
• In the coming window, check the button ‘Adjust for Best Performance’. Or, if you know which effects are using more resources, you can disable them one by one.

See Also: How to Improve the Performance of Android Tablet

During Startup, Load Programs You Really Want

As you go forward using your computer, some programs you have installed tend to open during startup. It means, all such programs will be loaded during your startup, thus making the whole process longer. To know if there are some useless programs in the startup list, you should take frequent checks and choose the only ones you really need. To do that,

• Go to Task Manager
• There is a section named ‘Startup’; open that tab
• You can see a list of programs that are loaded during startup

If you find the un-used or less-used ones, just clear them off — it will make Windows 10 faster, we bet. This is a well-trusted and tested method of speed boosting.

Choose the Services Wisely to Speed Up Windows 10

It’s a matter of fact that Microsoft Windows comes with a lot of useless services — useless, at least from a common user’s point of view. So, finding and disabling the services you don’t use is an effective way to speed up Windows 10 PC of yours. For instance, Background Intelligent Transfer Service is used for Windows Updates & other background data usages; if you don’t use both of these, you can disable the service, thus boosting performance as well as minimizing the bandwidth used. Similarly, you can find the Windows services that are not actually useful — and disable them all, permanently or temporarily. If you want a list of services worth disabling, you can add in IP Helper, Diagnostic Policy Service, Portable DEVICE Enumerator Service, Offline Files, Distributed Link Tracking Client, Remote Registry etc.

See Also: Windows 10 Tips and Tricks: Things to Do After Installing Windows 10.

Find the Unused Apps — and, Kill’em

When you get an all-new laptop or system — particularly from a renowned brand —, there will be a lot of bloatware in it, we bet. And, all these bloatware will be combined with some seemingly-useful apps, which becomes far more useless in the course of time. Even in the current scenario, even without you using a bit of it, these programs will be eating your resources, stealing your bandwidth and thus slowing down your computer.

So, when you need a faster Windows 10 experience, it’s inevitable to find and remove the unused apps. And bonus is that you will able to save some storage space as well. In most cases, these damned bloatware take up GBs of storage space to just exist, and more data to run. So, this would do the job.

Find if There’s a Virus

Despite the fact that Windows 10 may be one of the most stable OS upgrades from Windows, we’ve to admit that it is vulnerable. So, there are chances of the presence of some malware, which is using your resources and thus boosts the process of slowing down. So, at least once in a while, it’s necessary tocheck your computer with an up-to-date antivirus solution — you can try Windows Defender, the in-built one, if you don’t like to go third-party. Well, it does not matter the solution you choose, a scanning is a must!

Conclusion- Speed Up Windows 10

Apart from these commonly effective tips to speed up Windows 10, you can try some modifications based on some of your usage habits, such as shifting from the RAM-hungry Chrome or so. Anyway, these will help you optimize Windows 10 a lot.

How to Use Remote Desktop Connection in Windows 10

Even though most people have heard of solutions such as TeamViewer when it comes to accessing one remote PC, it is a lesser-known fact that Microsoft Windows has an inbuilt feature to let you do that. That is, even when you lack all those TeamViewer stuff, you will be able to remotely control another Windows PC and at the same time allow the PC of yours to be controlled by another person. If both computers are connected using a Local Area Network, it’s better than third-party solutions, but it might be a bit time-consuming to get used to Windows Desktop Connection.

In the latest version of Windows, however, there are some slight changes in terms of Remote Desktop Connection! If you are new to it, you may have some issues as well. To let you use Remote Desktop Connection in Windows 10, we have created a comprehensive tutorial about enabling and using the remote desktop connection in your Windows 10 PC.

See Also: ‘Windows 10 Tips and Tricks’»

To Be Noted: As you might know, there are two major versions of Windows 10 — Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro. In both the versions, capabilities of Remote Desktop Connection are different. Suppose you are running Windows 10 Home in your PC; then, you will not be able to let others use your computer. In shorter words, Windows 10 Home does not support incoming remote desktop connections. On the other hand, as we come to the case of Windows 10 Pro, both incoming and outgoing remote desktop connections are supported; you can let others use your PC and use other PCs over the network.

In the Target PC

Well, before you do something about remote desktop connections and all. There are some things to be taken care of in the Target PC. By Target PC, we mean the computer, which is going to be controlled using the RDC. And, you’ll be able to use a PC as target PC only if it is running Windows 10 Pro.

If you are planning to connect to the computer using a Local Area Network, you have to make sure that a connection is there, working fine. In another scenario, if you prefer an internet-based connection, that is to be taken care of. If it is sure, let’s move on. In this post, however, we are going deeper into LAN-based Remote Desktop Access.

Enable Remote Desktop Access

This is a more important part. In order to let the connection reach your computer, you have to enable the Remote Desktop Connections in the target PC. To do that, you can follow the steps given below.

1. Go to Control Panel of your PC
2. Choose System and Security
3. Go to the Remote Tab
4. Check the option named ‘Allow Remote Assistance Connections to this computer’
5. If you want to reduce messing stuff, you can un-check the checkbox given below. If not unchecked, it’ll cause some troubles during the connection time.

If you have done all these, you can press the Apply button, and then ‘OK’ to close it.

So, you have successfully enabled Remote Desktop Connections in your Windows 10 PC.

Find the IP Address

Before you move on, you should know the IP address of your Windows 10 target computer. What is to be noted here is that a static IP address is easily available in the LAN scenario, while the Internet-based connection can be more or less troublesome.

To find the IP address, you can follow the steps given below.

1. Search for Run and open it; alternatively, you can press Windows Key + R
2. In the text box, type ‘cmd’
3. It will open the command prompt, and there, type ‘ipconfig’
4. Now, you can see a page with a lot of info
5. From the list, find the IPv4 IP address of the computer, which is a numerical combination with dots between.

Connecting to Another PC

Obviously, this is done from another PC, which may run Windows 10 Home or Windows 10 Pro. In both the versions, the options are same and you don’t have much stuff to mess up with. Some things are to be taken care of, though.

For instance, as we said before, both the source and target computers should be connected to a Local Area Network. If the connection is working and rest all set, you can follow the following steps to get its Remote Desktop Connection done.

1. In the Start Menu, search for Remote Desktop Connection
2. Click on the app shortcut to open the interface
3. In the corresponding space, enter the IP address of your target computer
4. If given IP address is correct, you will be asked for the username-password combination
5. Upon providing the prompted data, you can see the fully-fledged remote desktop in your screen.

Now that you have connected to the target PC, you can do whatever you want. If there isn’t a person at other end of the connection, it’s advised to turn off auto-power-off modes of your lap, so that connection won’t be messed up.

Conclusion

So, you have seen how to enable and use Remote Desktop Connection in Windows 10, over Local Area Network. Do you have any better alternatives, by the way?

20 Must Have Free Windows Tools

What do you think about using your Windows PC without the necessary tools installed? Of course, you can’t imagine an internet life if you are sticking on to Internet Explorer. Similarly, not limited to replacements, some tools are quite necessary when you’re running Microsoft Windows. Despite the fact that Windows is a paid OS, there’s a big enough collection of free Windows tools available for download. In this post, we shall have a look on top 20 must-have free Windows tools. If you need a productive working environment, make sure you have the best of these tools installed.

20 Essential Free Windows Tools

Here goes the list of free Windows tools. We’re sure everybody will find something there are looking for.

Google Chrome

When you want to get rid of Internet Explorer, Google Chrome — the free, multi-platform web browser from Google — is one of the best choice. Though it may consume relatively higher amount of resources from PC, you will have an ultra-smooth access to web services, especially Google Services. Google Chrome is not just a browser, but rather one powerful platform, with lots of extensions, apps and productive tools at its disposal. Indeed, one of the top free tools for Windows, you shouldn’t miss this browser.

Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox is an open-source alternative to Internet Explorer, and one of the most used web browsers in world! It comes with advanced options for developers, and is compliant towards all the new technologies in web world, like HTML5 and CSS3. Known for the clean design, regular updates, superb User Interface and the wide collection of web browser plug-ins, Mozilla Firefox is just right for an active internet user. Moreover, it’s free from tracking, which is an awesome thing today.

See Also: ‘Useful Tips for Mozilla Firefox’»

OpenOffice

When you cannot afford to buy Microsoft Office suite, which is quite expensive, the must-have alternative to it is the OpenOffice package. The package, as you can guess, includes various kinds of tools such as a Word Processor, a clean spreadsheet creator, a Multimedia Presentation creator and some other tools for office document-based works. It’s to be noted that OpenOffice gives some additional features that you won’t get naturally in Microsoft Word. It has an option for exporting your doc file straight into PDF.

VLC Media Player

Please don’t mind us being a bit more frank, but the inbuilt Windows Media Player is rather bullshit! It cannot even manage the most popular video formats. So, it becomes essential that you should seek another alternative to watch movies and listen to music. VLC Media Player, available for different platforms, is the best choice you can make. Even as it consumes least amount of resources, sustainable performance is assured from this media player. It has a set of cool features too.

BitTorrent

BitTorrent is one of the most popular BitTorrent clients available for Microsoft Windows. You must have this free to use tool when you want to download your favorite torrents with maximum speed. When compared to other kinds of torrent downloading solutions, BitTorrent is easier to be set up and used. There are not many annoying ads or messy interface, for that matter. In short, we shall be able to get the best torrent downloading experience, at the maximum speed.

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware

Of course, in Windows, it’s necessary to make sure that you are protected from malware and other kinds of evil stuff such as Trojans, Rootkits and Rogues etc. Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is a completely free solution to scan your PC for such malware and remove them instantly. Quite ironically, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is better than many of the so-called antivirus suites out there. So, for security-conscious people, it’s a must-have Windows tool, we bet. It’s a layer of extra security too.

WordWeb

It doesn’t matter whether you’re an IT professional or an avid bibliophile, it’s good to have a good dictionary in your Windows PC. And, WordWeb is one of the best, free-to-use dictionaries you’d get for Windows. It has a clean, quite lightweight and simple interface, accompanied by a huge collection of words. It also has an option for speech output, which is useful when you want to know the correct pronunciation. So, you can count in WordWeb if you’re into the world of Words.

Picasa

Picasa is a comprehensive image management solution from Google. You would be able to use the software for wide variety of purposes, such as viewing the photos, making edits and uploading them to Google, if you want. However, even when we keep the uploading part aside, it’s a good image viewer — no questions asked on that matter. It’s to be noted that the app will not be officially supported by Google from the coming March 15. But, we repeat, it’s one of the must-have windows tools.

LightShot

Lightshot is a quite simple, lightweight yet productive screen capture program. It’s just limited to screenshots, but it would be done in a neat manner. Weighing just a few MBs, you can get the tool installed in a few seconds. Talking of its options, you can even set hot-keys for launching the programs. Also, Lightshot offers a set of inbuilt options for editing images you capture. The best part is that the annotations and basic editing can be done from the very same screen.

See Also: ‘Best Screen Capture and Screen Recording Tool’ »

Notepad++

Notepad++, sometimes known as NPP, is a popular text editor that is available for Windows and other platforms. It’s been optimized for coding purposes, and it’s a must-have free Windows tool if you are seriously into world of coding and development. Written in C++, this completely free source code editor can be of ultimate convenience and it will not consume many resources either. For those geeky people, Notepad++ can’t be ignored — period.

HandBreak

HandBreak is an awesome, open source yet simplified video converter with a lot of other capabilities. You can do lots of things, such as converting your videos into another, ripping DVDs with advanced options etc. Out of this, DVD part would work fine in HandBreak. The interface is way too simple, but has options for deeper customization, which is a good thing from the user point of view. For those who are passionate about media, it’s a must-have tool, we bet.

AbiWord

We’ve already listed a fully-fledged alternative for the too-expensive Microsoft Word package! However, if you think you need a lightweight alternative, AbiWord is your answer. It’s a result of some open source initiatives and the tool can give a cleaned interface to create documents, smoothly. There are almost all kinds of features you would expect from a typical word processor, and there might be some extra ones too. You shouldn’t miss this free word processor if you prefer lightweight alternatives.

7-Zip

7-Zip is your answer when you need a powerful alternative to the paid archive creation tools out there. Using 7-Zip, it is possible to create superb compressed files in a matter of a few seconds. Apart from the wide support for various compression standards like TAR, ZIP, RAR, XZ, BZIP2, GZIP etc, there is a special standard named 7z, which is good for lower size. Other features of 7-Zip include integration with Windows shell, inbuilt file manager, etc. And, it’s totally free to use.

Audacity

Audacity is the best and simplest method to record and edit audios, accompanied by an awesome interface! If you’re into trimming a favorite song to make it a ringtone or combining a few songs to create a fusion, you can get Audacity to do the job, quite neatly. Apart from editing, you can use this free tool for various purposes such as creation of the podcasts. Altogether, from the audiophile’s point of view, it’s a must-have free Windows tool.

Free Download Manager

Free Download Manager, often called FDM, is one of the best free download managers you can get for Windows. It’s a strong alternative to the premium Internet Download Manager. In light of our experience, we can say that the tool is providing impressive download speeds, with options for easier management. For instance, there are options that let you schedule downloads, set a downlink speed threshold, preview files when downloading etc. It’s more or less a complete package to go for.

CCleaner

In the course of time, your Windows PC may create enough junk files that the system may be slowed down! If that is the case, it’s necessary to use CCleaner, which is a free-to-use tool to clear temporary and junk files. By using so, you can not only enhance speed of your PC but also save up some space from hard drive. This free tool, when installed in your PC, can be a protector of online privacy, as it deals with the traceable content that may be stored in your PC.

NET

Paint.NET is an ultra-productive alternative to Paint and even some professional image manipulation suites. The tool, accompanied by an intuitive interface, helps you edit your photographs with an unprecedented ease. There are a lot of features that make Paint.NET a bit different from others, such as the professional UI, layer-based editing, an active online community for seeking support, special effects etc. In short, this free tool should be more than enough for all the image editing needs of yours.

TeamViewer

Even after the dawn of several remote access solutions out there, TeamViewer is an awesome tool to have in PC. The tool lets you access others’ computers and let others access yours, through a simple-enough process. Once you’ve done with the authentication process, TeamViewer gives you complete access to the other computer. This would be quite useful when you want to fix a technical issue remotely. In that respect, TeamViewer is a must-have, we’d say. It is completely free for personal use.

Adobe Acrobat Reader DC

Adobe Reader is the most popular and most used method to open PDF file. Of course, there may be some other PDF tools available; but Adobe Reader is noted for the ultimate simplicity and performance when it comes to opening the PDF documents of varying types. The features of Adobe Reader include regular updates and annotation features. It’s to be noted that you have the option to connect your Adobe account, in case if you wanted to use features such as creation of PDF documents.

Kindle

You would be familiar with Kindle, which is a quite popular ebook reader. Well, in case if you didn’t know, there is a Windows version of Kindle eReader available for free downloading. Using this free ebook reader software, you have the option to read the books you have in your Kindle account. The interface is quite neat and suited for an immersive reading experience, per se. Thanks to the multi-platform availability of the apps, you can have the same experience in all your devices.

Conclusion:

So, with these awesome free Windows tools, we sum up our list of 20 must have Windows tools. Of course, we know that there are personal changes, but most of the above-mentioned tools are productive from the common user point of view.

Microsoft Excel 2016 Features

For more than three decades, Microsoft Office Excel has been one of the inevitable tools for offices! For a big variety of purposes — if it is about creating a basic list of payment you have to receive or to prepare the nifty financial stuffs to be presented — Excel has been there, for both professional and personal uses. In addition, every time Microsoft is ready with an upgrade, we expect and receive something big and useful. The case isn’t different as we take the latest version — Microsoft Excel 2016, which is included in the Office 2016 Suite. In this post, we shall have a look on best-noted Microsoft Excel 2016 features, so that you can know whether the tool is worth going for.

Microsoft Excel 2016 Features

Quick Analysis Tools for Data Management

Managing BIG data would be less cumbersome in Excel 2016, for it comes with some cool quick analysis tools. If you have provided the data and selected the area, rest will be taken care of by mentioned analysis tools. With respect to the data you have provided, Excel can suggest you actions.

For instance, if you have a table of amounts, finding sums and other results would be a matter of a few seconds. If we are to take the case of a table, you’ll see a button on the right-bottom part of table, clicking on which will show you the available options. There are five sections in total — it has Formatting, Charts, Totals, Tables and Sparklines. In short, you don’t have to explore all those menus and tabs to deal with your big data.

Introducing New Charts

Charts have become way too common in business presentations, and even in common scenarios. Use of charts is an impressive method to present the statistical content, quite conveniently. To make the statistical storytelling superb, Microsoft Excel 2016 includes six new kinds of charts. Despite the fact that Excel 2016 features will recommend the best chart for your data, you can choose one from the new six, if you want. The newly-added charts include Treemap and Waterfall and Box Charts.It has to be noted that the entire section of Excel Charts has been enhanced in update. In the charts menu, you have plenty of options to choose, apart from the newly-added ones, and they are quite usable as well. For instance, if we take the case of Waterfall Chart, it’s quite effective when you want to represent cash flows or related stuff. In short, you can count on Excel 2016 charts for statistical storytelling, we repeat.

It has to be noted that the entire section of Excel Charts has been enhanced in update. In the charts menu, you have plenty of options to choose, apart from the newly-added ones, and they are quite usable as well. For instance, if we take the case of Waterfall Chart, it’s quite effective when you want to represent cash flows or related stuff. In short, you can count on Excel 2016 charts for statistical storytelling, we repeat.

3D Maps or Power Maps

When you want to compare statistics of something, 3D Maps are quite useful, we bet. For instance, if you like to do a comparison of temperature of different places in a region, you can set up a 3D Map. So, we were saying, 3D Maps is an inbuilt feature of Microsoft Office 2016. This feature was previously available as an add-on, but now you get best native support and stability. When you are into serious yet persuasive business, this would help.
Smart Lookup to Help You

First, you have to admit that you can hardly live without Internet. Microsoft is reinforcing that idea by introducing an awesome lookup feature, tightly integrated with Excel 2016. Smart Lookup is the awesome feature in Excel 2016 that helps you grab related information from various parts of web — Bing image search, Wikipedia or some dictionary if you prefer that. The best part of Smart Lookup is that it works with any kind of data you select — a complex word, a place name or anything else. Once the data is selected you can choose ‘Smart Lookup’ from the context menu. Then, you can find the list of related information, ready to be integrated instantly.

Ink Equations

Courtesy: Microsoft Support Office

This is going to be an awesome Excel 2016 feature if you are planning to deal with mathematical formulae and those different kinds of equations. You can write down the equation using the convenient method — a digital pen, mouse or something else — and Microsoft Excel 2016 would recognize the equation and bring it into the spreadsheet. To do this, you have to go to Insert >Equations > Ink Equations, and you will have the fully-fledged panel to input. This is going to be useful for the equation people.

Simpler Options for Sharing & Work Collaboration

Of course, we repeat, we cannot live without Internet, Excel 2016 has brought some awesome options of file sharing and work collaboration into the stage. An effective technique to compete with the online alternatives, this feature lets you co-author worksheets and manage other options of a document. It’s to be noted that we’re now talking about realtime collaboration — when you’re editing something, someone else can edit the same document.

In the same way, Microsoft has succeeded in integrating Excel 2016 with its various online services, such as OneDrive or SharePoint. In the saving section, you have all the freedom to choose the most convenient location. This can also be seen as a move for enhancing productivity. It is after you have saved the document in cloud that you can get best collaboration options from Microsoft Excel 2016.

Additional Excel Templates

This is going to be a real timesaver for those who frequently create spreadsheets with extra purposes. Excel 2016 has an impressive set of spreadsheet templates — it has to be noted that these templates are not just about design, but they include additional options such as sample data and charts. This way, you would be able to manage your data in a better manner. An example we can take is that of Excel’s My Cashflow template, where you have many controls to get the data right. All these templates come with in-built tutorials, so that you can use them seamlessly.

Tell Me

Tell Me is more of a personal assistant that helps you use Microsoft Excel 2016 in the most productive manner. It’s a quite natural thing that, sometimes, you won’t have enough time to go through individual menus and choose option you really want. Tell Me is actually an alternative method for this. Placed next to the Power Pivot option, you can see a text field, where you can enter the proposed idea.

Courtesy: Microsoft Office Support

For instance, in the text field, you can type ‘Waterfall’. In that case, the tool will show you the option to insert a chart instantly. Many things work through the same text field. So, from the ease of use point of view, Tell Me is just a nice feature in the top feature list of Excel 2016. It’s walking towards assistive intelligence, you know.

Enhanced Control on Database Management

Along with the many superb functions that have been added to Microsoft Excel 2016, we have the better control for databases and related stuff. If you have used the previous versions of Excel, you would know that Power Pivot and Power Query were the features available through an add-on. In 2016 version, however, all these features are in-built and work seamlessly. There are options such as Data Models Reports, Pivot Tables and the one-click Forecasting.

Once you have imported the database from the desired source, you have the freedom to use these features in quite a convenient manner. This feature is way too useful when you want to create a bit more interactive and persuasive Excel worksheet, even with the use of heavy data.

Conclusion:

Apart from the top nine Excel 2016 features we have mentioned, the suite comes with a lot other useful options, however minor they may be. For instance, there are some financial-oriented enhancements such as a few new charts, some PivotTable enhancements and introduction of a few new worksheet functions etc. Altogether, we can say that Microsoft Excel 2016 is a must-have upgrade if you want to create interactive, persuasive & innovative spreadsheets with relatively less effort.