Table of contents for Xmas 2017 in APC

Bill Gates has invested US$80 million in the building of a smart city outside Phoenix, Arizona. The city, to be built on 24,800 acres of land, will consist of 80,000 homes, with over 4,000 acres reserved for industry, office, retail space and schools, with another 3,400 acres set aside for open spaces. The proposed city will be called Belmont and “will create a forward-thinking community with a communication and infrastructure spine that embraces cutting-edge technology, designed around high-speed digital networks, data centers, new manufacturing technologies and distribution models, autonomous vehicles and autonomous logistics hubs,” Belmont Partners said in a statement. Not much else is known about the project, including when the foundation work will begin. This isn’t the first time we’ve heard of a smart city being planned. In October,…

“When it comes to specific mechanics of how to use a password manager, if you’ve signed up for LastPass, you don’t actually need to install the dedicated app if you’re onWindows or Mac.” YOU SHALL NOT PASS I like the idea of password managers but worry about getting locked out of everything if I somehow forget my master password. If I do, then all my other passwords will be lost! I have tried LastPass but could not persevere as it did not appear as simple as anticipated. Geoff Kemp PASSING THE TEST I read the Editor’s piece in APC 447 (see page 3) and downloaded and installed a password manager but cannot sort out what to do next. The user manual does not help and there is no support as…

ALL-IN-ONE PC RYZEN 5, FROM $2,299; RYZEN 7, FROM $2,799 | WWW.DELL.COM/AU Dell’s Inspiron 27 7000s haven’t been the most inspiring all-in-one PCs since they launched a couple of years ago, but with not a lot to lose, the company’s gone a little radical in its search for the next big thing. It’s done so by betting big on AMD components, throwing out the Intel parts and going all-in on an AMD Ryzen CPU and Radeon GPU combo. This transition has added a dedicated GPU to the 27-inch AIO equation, meaning these new models finally pack some real gaming grint. However, these new Inspirons have consequently started to line up with Apple iMac’s ‘premium’ price points. So can Dell compete in this space? We tested the midrange model…

LAPTOP $1,298 | WWW.ACER.COM The Swift 3 is the latest affordable ultraportable laptop from Acer, whose most notable contributions to the PC space this year have included a US$9,000 (not officially available Down Under) gaming laptop and the world’s thinnest ultrabook. For that reason, you may have expected the company to go big or go home with its next project. If the Swift 7 was Acer’s flagship, the Swift 3 is, well, just a cheaper version of that. This laptop is intended for frugal shoppers. Making the best of a 14-inch, 1080p Full HD display, a 18mm thick frame and 1.6kg of muscle mass, there’s no denying that the Swift 3 is fairly generic at first glance. But take a look inside and you’ll discover a set of…

PROJECTOR $999 | WWW.BENQ.COM.AU BenQ has taken the first step to making a portable projector that’ll let you watch movies and TV shows without the need for an external player. Although this should theoretically give it access to dozens of existing streaming apps from the Google Play Store, the number of apps currently on offer is surprisingly limited. Instead of letting you access the Play Store and select the apps you want, the GS1 defaults to Kodi as its primary media playback software. The GS1 also includes a handful of other Android apps pre-installed, including a few of the OS’s best file organisation apps alongside media players VLC and MX Player. For all those hoping to watch Netflix, the GS1 is at least compatible with the Wi-Fi Alliance’s…

GAMING AMONITOR $2,499 | WWW.SAMSUNG.COM/AU We’re not huge fans of curved TVs here at APC — we find that they generally sit too far away for the screen-curvature to have any practical value. However, because of their closer proximity, curved monitors actually make a bit more sense to us, with the potential to make it easier to see the extremities of a screen, particularly for ultrawide displays. Samsung’s CHG90 has taken this symbiotic curved ultrawide monitor concept to the next level by making a 1.2-metre-wide, 49-inch curved gaming screen that’s equivalent to two 27-inch 16:9 monitors sitting side by side. The key in this equation is an 1800R curvature (meaning the arc of a full circle would have a 1.8m radius) which, Samsung says, is designed to mimic…

GAMING MOUSE $79 | WWW.ASUS.COM/AU The ASUS RoG Strix Evolve Aura RGB USB Wired Optical Ergonomic Ambidextrous Gaming Mouse (7,200dpi) — which sounds more like keyword targeting than product naming — is the first ambidextrous mouse we’ve seen that has gone beyond a simple symmetrical design and truly innovated. Included in the box are four interchangeable top plates — a high and low profile for the left and the same for the right — which, when attached in different configurations, offer four distinct feels; left-handed, right-handed or high and low neutral (or flat). Sound weird? It’s actually a really clever design. This reviewer likes a little ergonomics, so clipping a high plate on the left and a low on the right results in a nice tapered feel in…

WEBCAM $300 | WWW.LOGITECH.COM/EN-AU Logitech’s engineers (who have, it must be said, been on fire recently) realised that they could create a 4K webcam without stopping to think if they should. Then its marketers slapped the word ‘stream’ on it, despite the fact that rendering and uploading a stable 4K stream is beyond most PCs, internet connections and streaming hosts. And then its power-crazed number-crunchers decided $300 was a perfectly reasonable price. This is that dream device: a higher resolution sensor, HDR support, wider angles, up to 90fps capture, and support for Windows Hello on board. The stand includes additional points of articulation, and a standard camera-mount thread, so the Brio can be attached to a tripod. The fact that its sensor can pull a respectable 4K image…

BEST BUDGET CPU AMD Ryzen 3 1300X $180 | www.amd.com Intel and AMD both offer super-competitive CPUs at this under-$200 price point, with this Ryzen 3 1300X going up against Intel’s brand-new i3-8100. Both are fast quad-core chips, but AMD’s model ultimately comes away with the award for one key reason: Intel’s budget 8th-generation motherboards haven’t launched yet, and it’s frankly silly to match a low-cost Core i3 CPU with a high-priced Z370 mobo. BEST MAINSTREAM CPU Intel Core i5-8400 $290 | www.intel.com AMD may have swept every other category in this year’s CPU awards, but Intel has still managed to hold on to the all-important mainstream slot — although that’s something we can probably still thank AMD for, at least in part. The Core i5-8400 might be reasonably-priced, but…

Running an operating system on real hardware is  so passé. All those hours ensuring your hardware  is set up and behaving correctly? Pah. Then so many more hours installing and configuring all the software, so everything’s just right, while risking what’s on the machine already? Ugh. It can seem like an awful lot of effort just to, say, try out a Linux distribution, or create a clean Windows install. And, what’s worse, it can present you with a whole lot of extra work if something goes wrong. Killing your day-to-day Windows installation, that one you’ve spent so long lovingly streamlining and customising, the one you need for work, play and everything else? It doesn’t bear thinking about. If you’re running a mission-critical system, you also need to figure out a…

If you begin to rely on virtual machines to a serious extent, enterprise-grade solutions are probably worth a look. The industry standard for virtualised servers is VMWare’s ESXi tech — available free in a package called vSphere Hypervisor — and Microsoft also offers up its Hyper-V Server 2016 without charge. Both solutions run a similar model: a complete hypervisor running at the OS level, and nothing else. In the terms we’ve used in this feature, they’re your host operating systems, but they do nothing more than host, giving their guests unprecedented access to system hardware, and giving you high-level access to the administrative tools you need to maintain a server full of temperamental yet critical systems. Typically, home users boot the likes of ESXi from a small local drive, such…

Whichever version of Linux you chose will almost certainly incorporate its own Window Manager. These serve as clients to the ‘X’ Windows system and, in essence, they live up to their name in that they determine the appearance and behaviour of any windows used by graphical applications. While you may be of the opinion that one window is much like any other, your manager of choice can have huge implications for your productivity. For instance, you may prefer a stacking window manager that enables you to place windows on top of one another, as you would on a Windows machine or a Mac. On the other hand, you may prefer a tiling window system which ensures that no two windows overlap. There are even dynamic window managers which can switch…

Besides empowering a new generation of makers, the Raspberry Pi has also established its merits as a gaming platform. Projects such as RetroPie, combined with the Pi’s cheapness, mean that it’s great for playing old classics. And even some new ones. Such as Minecraft. In case you’ve been living under a rock since 2011, Minecraft is the best-selling computer game of all time. It’s an open- world sandbox affair, in which our hero, Steve, roams around a landscape made of voxels (blocks). Resources can be mined and crafted into other resources, so that Steve can build houses, farm crops, cook food, and fight enemies (all rendered in low-res splendor). A special version, Minecraft: Pi Edition, was released in 2013, and has been bundled with Raspbian since 2014. This version is…

They’re no doubt two of the more difficult programming concepts to get your head around, but inheritance and polymorphism are integral to maximising the value you get from using classes. They help simplify your code, but also give you the option of customising it at the same time to meet the specific needs of your programming tasks. Python not only supports these features, but does so in a way that’s easy to implement and understand. CLASSES OVERVIEW These new concepts build on the idea of ‘classes’ that we looked at last month. Just to review quickly, a class is a code block that describes an object and how it works through data attributes (or variables) and functions. What’s more, a class is typically used like a ‘cookie-cutter’ to quickly create…

PC, PS4, XO | $99.95 | WWW.THEEVILWITHIN2.BETHESDA.NET Directed by legendary horror icon Shinji Mikami (Resident Evil), the original Evil Within suffered all of the problems you’d associate with a survival horror game indebted to the past. Sure, it was petrifying and psychologically draining, but it was also a pain in the arse — difficult, clunky and frustrating, in all the ways old Resident Evils can feel to modern players. The Evil Within 2 shares the same protagonist with that first game but sheds a lot of what made that first instalment mediocre, resulting in what could be the best survival horror game since Alien: Isolation. You play as ex-detective Sebastian Castellanos, newly kidnapped by dodgy organisation Mobius to enter its strange alternate reality in pursuit of his daughter…

In a recent response to an official Productivity Commission report, the Australian Government endorsed the use of VPNs for Aussie consumers wanting to gain access to geoblocked media content, stating that doing so could help to reduce piracy. The MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) has responded, firing off a stern warning against the adoption of any such laws and claiming that the whole proposal shows “a breathtaking lack of understanding of longstanding international norms and the importance of copyright to Australia’s creative industries”. It’s perhaps unsurprising that Hollywood isn’t so keen on some of these laws getting passed. Australia is currently paying more than most other regions for its streaming content and in many cases is getting it much later, so circumventing geoblocks allows Australians to access movies and…

Once upon a time, the term ‘social media’ described websites where we shared baby photos, movie opinions and other banalities with our friends. But now, platforms like Facebook and Twitter are more consequential — politically and socially — than their creators often care to take credit for. The most stunning example is the reports that Russia sought to influence the 2016 US election with propaganda and misinformation, distributed via Facebook. In the wake of that election, platform holders like Facebook were pressured to assess how such ‘fake news’ was being spread and whether it could be curbed. It’s a gigantic, seemingly insurmountable challenge, but the company made a fuss about taking action. In partnership with organisations such as Snopes and the Associated Press, Facebook does moderate the millions of stories…

LAPTOP FROM $1,699 | WWW3.LENOVO.COM/AU Lenovo hasn’t thrown traditional laptop design out of the window with the IdeaPad 720S, but this is far from a run-of-the-mill machine. If anything, the 720S seems poised for a bare-knuckle battle with Dell’s slightly-dinkier XPS 13, one of the best all-round laptops in the world.   It has a similarly slim bezel design, comparatively compact, luxurious frame, and even goes one better than the XPS 13 with a discrete graphics solution on board. But does it punch above its weight? The IdeaPad sits in the mid-range bracket in terms of its cost, starting from $1,699. There’s a few different configs on offer, and we tested a midrange Core i5 for this review. Despite its 14-inch display, the 720S is incredibly compact —…

GAMING LAPTOP $3,399 | AU.MSI.COM We’ve long been searching for a gaming laptop that offers solid 1080p performance in a frame that’s not just portable, but is actually light and thin enough to toss in a regular backpack. The kind of machine that a college student could take to class, or a young professional into a meeting — and not have to worry about loud whirring fans. In short, a MacBook Pro that can play games. The MSI GS63VR comes pretty close to fulfilling that dream. With an Intel Core i7-7700HQ CPU, 16GB DDR4-2400 RAM and a 256GB SSD, the GS63VR is nearly identical to (if not a small step up from) the 15-inch Apple prodigy on productivity specs, while its GeForce GTX 1070 absolutely demolishes the Mac’s…

MECHANICAL KEYBOARD $180 | WWW.DASKEYBOARD.COM We’ve reviewed a few of these pro-oriented, mechanical keyboards from Das Keyboard over the course of 2017, and the Prime 13 is definitely our favourite iteration. While the DK’s ‘boards are all quite similar, small differences can ultimately add up to quite different usage experiences. The ‘Prime’ in this board’s name is meant to imply that it focuses on delivering good solid basics rather than fancy extras. It offers a great typing experience, with Cherry MX Brown mechanical switches for reliable performance and subtle resistance. The most immediate difference between the Das Keyboard Prime 13 and the 4 Professional which we reviewed last month is that this more basic board has ditched both the bank of media controls (including that lovely volume dial)…

GAMING KEYBOARD $250 | WWW.ALIENWARE.COM.AU Alienware’s first foray into mechanical gaming keyboards has delivered an OK result, but the price doesn’t stack up against its terrestrial competition. The company promises “otherworldly beauty” with this ‘board, and while that’s clearly a subjective claim, we’d argue that the angular wings on each side do little more than contribute to its overall bulkiness, which is at odds with the industry’s trend of compact, minimal and portable. Moreover, while there’s the requisite inclusion of RGB lighting alongside a rather dazzling underglow, it lacks per-key lighting customisability — which is standard well below the Pro’s $250 price tag. Instead, there are lighting zones that you can tweak with effects or static colours, although there are certainly fewer than the promised 13, and the…

GAMING MOUSE $110 | WWW.RAZERZONE.COM Judging by the name, Razer really thinks its new ‘FPS mouse’ is the shizzle. European folklore holds that the basilisk — a mythological chimera-like creature — is the ‘king of the serpents’, able to kill enemies with just a glance. There’s just one problem with that ‘kingly’ identification: Razer arguably already has a top-dog gaming mouse in the form of the DeathAdder. Razer claims that this is perfect for first-person shooters, largely thanks to a new thumb button called the ‘DPI clutch’. Hold it down and it’ll temporarily adjust your DPI sensitivity to whatever pre-determined setting you’ve configured. The theory is that you can use a higher sensitivity most of the time, but temporarily drop it down if you need fine-control over smaller…

GAMING MOUSE & KEYBOARD COMBO $99 | COOLERMASTER.COM For fresh-faced PC gamers chasing a highly coveted mechanical-switch keyboard — but who’re also, perhaps, a little strapped for cash — this keyboard-and-mouse pack offers a worthy compromise. Both components of the Cooler Master Masterset have an unassuming aesthetic, although the clearly visible white plastic layer beneath the keys does taint this effect somewhat. The same layer is also responsible for extending the otherwise-dazzling RGB lighting a little too far from the keys. The mouse and keyboard are both built from plastic and are about as ergonomically vanilla as possible. While the keys feel fairly sturdy, the mouse is a little light and plasticky. Cooler Master is calling the switches on this ‘board ‘mem-chanical’, but they don’t feel as awkward…

Intel’s 8th Generation core processors have landed. They’re the most exciting mainstream CPUs from Chipzilla in at least five years — but also the most confusing. In fact, Intel’s 8th-generation Core isn’t really a generation of CPUs at all. It’s more a collection of products with common branding than a distinct ‘generation’ of processors with something approaching a homogeneous feature set. Eventually, 8th-gen Core will contain CPUs from three generations of processor design, and be manufactured on two silicon production nodes. But even with three generations and two production nodes, 8th-gen Core chips don’t include Intel’s new multi-core chips that range from 10 to 18 cores. Those fall under the 7th-gen banner. Intel never makes it easy to understand its product range... If Intel’s marketing can be utterly baffling at…

BEST GAMING MONITOR ViewSonic XG2703-GS $899 | www.viewsonic.com This 27-incher from ViewSonic uses a higher-than-average 2,560 x 1,440-pixel resolution, making it ideal for general usage and gaming alike. The 144Hz panel can be overclocked to 165Hz using G-Sync and features all the key components of its closest competitor the ASUS’s PG279Q (reviewed in issue 447, page 40), while managing to come in at $200 less. You’ll need a powerful GPU to make the most of the IPS display’s QHD screen and 4ms response time, but it’s a compelling offering if you can. BEST PROFESSIONAL MONITOR ASUS ProArt PA328Q $1,499 | www.asus.com/au This monster 32-inch 4K IPS panel is as vivid as your dreams with 10-bit colour reproduction that’s generated by an 8-bit panel and some clever temporal dithering. The colour…

Try to run games or anything else that places any heavy graphical demands on a VirtualBox VM, and you won’t have much luck. VirtualBox’s 3D acceleration doesn’t really do anything for DirectX 10, 11 or 12 titles. There is a solution, but it’s one with some pretty heavy requirements. You need to run a Linux distribution as your host OS, and have two graphics cards in your physical machine, one of which you’ll use for your host — integrated graphics will do — and the other you’ll dedicate entirely to your VM. You also need to have a motherboard with an IOMMU unit, a CPU that supports it, and IOMMU enabled in the BIOS or UEFI. IOMMU is essentially a translation methodology, which maps physical memory addresses between guests and…

HARDWARE WHY AM I GETTING PICTURES, NOT SOUND? Recently, I connected my laptop to the television via HDMI to watch something on the big screen, but can only get pictures — not sound. Everything was fine up until this point — I’m running Windows 10 on a HP laptop and have verified that the HDMI cable is working correctly. Andrea Christou These days, both laptop and desktop PCs offer multiple sound outputs, and if you have the wrong one selected as the default, it means you can appear to lose all sound. To solve this problem, start by clicking the ^ button in the Taskbar Notification area. Look for a white volume icon, right-click it and then choose ‘Playback devices’. One will clearly be marked as the default — our…

Much as we all may love Justin Bieber, it’s debatable whether the pop star deserved his own version of Linux. The fact that the internet community has afforded us ‘Biebian’ Linux (biebian.sourceforge.net) is a testament to both their ingenuity and sense of humour. It may come as a slight relief to non-Beliebers that this operating system wasn’t built from scratch, but is in fact a variation of the ultra-lightweight Puppy Linux. Even non-fangirl versions of Linux such as Ubuntu are based on older systems (in this case Debian). This is the upside to living in a world that gave us operating systems devoted to Justin Bieber, Hannah Montana and Satan. The free and open-source Linux kernel allows for distributions (distros) in thousands of so-called ‘flavours’. For you as the end…

As fun as it is working methodically through the various features of Linux, wouldn’t it be much more convenient if there was some kind of program that did all the hard work for you? Over the years there have been a number of tools such as UCK (Ubuntu Customization Kit) that aim to help you create your own distro. However, during our tests none of them worked with recent versions of Ubuntu. The story is a little different for those who favour RPM-based distros of Linux, because the good people at SUSE have put together an excellent online wizard to create your very own installable version of Linux based on openSUSE or SUSE Enterprise. SUSE Studio, as it’s known, walks you through the process of creating your own so-called ‘appliance’,…

PC, PS4, XO | $99.95 | WWW.ASSASSINSCREED.COM It’s hard to detect at which point in recent gaming history numbers started to figure heavily into anything that wasn’t a niche RPG. Nowadays, you see numbers everywhere, whether it’s the interminable level grind of your average online FPS (Overwatch, Battlefield) or in once breezy and noncommittal arcade racers (Forza, Need For Speed). Games like Diablo arguably perfected the ‘loot grind’ — actually a cyclical, alarmingly futile chase for bigger numbers — but now, it’s difficult to imagine any blockbuster game launching without some form of levelling attached. And so it is with Assassin’s Creed: Origins, which has enjoyed a longer period of gestation since Ubisoft ceased dishing them out on a yearly basis. It’s the archetypal, modern ‘light RPG’ —…

SWITCH | $79.95 | WWW.NINTENDO.COM.AU With the release of the critically lauded Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Nintendo took one of its most beloved franchises back to the drawing board and eventually delivered one of the finest and most accomplished titles in its entire history. Now, it’s Mario’s turn to get a shake-up, and while it’s not quite as extreme as the one Link received earlier in the year, it’s easily the most inventive and refreshing adventure the portly ex-plumber has embarked on yet. In Super Mario Odyssey, our hero is once again tasked with saving Peach from the maniacal Bowser — yes, this sounds very familiar, but wait for it — this time, he’s trying to prevent the evil tyrant from making the princess his wife. This…

THE NUMBER OF F*CKS ISPs GIVE ABOUT DELIVERING GOOD NBN SERVICE According to NBN Co board member and founder of iiNet Michael Malone, most Aussie internet service providers (ISPs) “don’t give a f*ck about the quality of [NBN] service” they deliver, instead “the reason they are moaning is that they are price fighting”. In the interview with Fairfax Media, Malone very much pointed the finger at the ISPs, rather than NBN Co itself, when it came to where the blame should be laid for slow NBN speeds. 28th AUSTRALIA’S RANKING AGAINST 27 OTHER COUNTRIES IN A SURVEY OF GLOBAL BROADBAND SATISFACTION The bad news for the Aussie ‘net keeps rolling in, with an annual Global Advisor survey conducted by Ipsos finding that Australians are more unsatisfied with their broadband than…

Time to find out  whether Apple’s merely playing numerical catch-up to Samsung’s Galaxy S8 line, or if glass backing and wireless charging warrant skipping ahead an ‘S’ upgrade. MAJOR TECH SPECS ■ A11 Bionic chip, with embedded M11 motion coprocessor ■ 64GB or 256GB onboard storage ■ 4.7-inch IPS multitouch 1,334 x 750 (326 ppi) Retina HD display ■ 12MP camera with f/1.8 aperture, optical image stabilisation and 5x digital zoom ■ 7MP FaceTime HD camera with f/2.2 aperture and 1080p HD recording ■ Support for fast-charge and Qi wireless charging ■ 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi, MIMO, Bluetooth 5.0 and NFC KEY FINDINGS ■ Features include a solid-state home ‘button’, with Touch ID fingerprint sensor and an IPS display, similar to the one in the iPhone 7 (but now featuring True Tone).…

LAPTOP $1,799 | WWW.ASUS.COM/AU With a starting price of around $1,799, this is a moderately-priced laptop that’s sure to attract attention from students and the casual user. It’s powerful and has a large display, yet is still portable enough to tote around in a backpack. The plastic base is a mirage. Its brushed finish gives the impression it’s a metal housing from afar. It’s only after you pay closer attention that you realise the optical illusion, designed to match the laptop’s aluminium lid.   The slight taper from the hinge to the front of the housing is reminiscent of Apple’s MacBook Air. Weighing in at 1.5kg, the VivoBook is slightly heavier than the Dell XPS 13 (1.29kg).  Overall, it feels solid, with its combination of plastic and aluminium…

GAMING MOUSE $179 | WWW.ALIENWARE.COM.AU Although the Elite Gaming Mouse offers some neat tricks for gamers, its price is something of a deal-breaker. Still, the combination of metal- and rubber-coated plastic surfaces make the device look and feel quite striking and, for the most-part, the construction seems to reflect this quality, although the scroll wheel is a little on the wobbly side. There are several physical configurations on offer, with two interchangeable side-grips for each side offering different grip and button layouts (with either two or six side buttons), a three-position palm grip and a clever configurable weight system that can add up to 20g of heft. Its lack of ambidextrous support to complement its near-symmetrical design, however, is its biggest missed opportunity. The main left and right…

GAMING HEADSET $199 | WWW.RAZERZONE.COM As with its stablemates in the current Razer lineup, every effort is made to make this headset feel luxurious. An aluminium headband over a memory foam contact pad gives the cans a comfortable fit. A reasonably light 414g weight makes it comfortable to wear for long periods, although synthetic leather and closed cups being what they are, it does get hot around the ears after a while. The headline act on the spec sheet, however, is the introduction of two 50mm drivers inside each earcup. At the base of the right cup is a toggle switch, which gives you the power to activate all four drivers, or go with the standard two. The effect of having all four activated is a well-balanced and…

With Intel stringing its 14nm production node out to at least four generations (that’s generations with a small ‘g’) of Core processors, and having officially delayed the 10nm node, is Moore’s Law dead? Moore’s Law, of course, is the observation that computer chips double in complexity or halve in cost — or some mix of the two — every couple of years. The simple answer is ‘yes’. If you define Moore’s Law by that rigid two-year time frame, then it’s probably done and dusted. Progress with conventional computer chips will continue, but at the slower pace we’re already seeing. After all, Intel’s first 14nm processors went on sale in late 2014. Nearly three years later, we’ve yet to see any 10nm chips, even if Intel is promising them by the…

BEST ULTRABOOK Dell XPS 13 From $1,999 | www.dell.com.au Dell has largely stuck with the same XPS 13 chassis design for the last few years now, but there’s a reason for that: it’s an appealingly compact little unit made from a tough mix of aluminium and carbon fibre that looks great and weathers well. It’s topnotch in use, too, with a first-rate keyboard and trackpad combo and the option of a 4K screen — not that you really need it on a 13.3-inch display. Lastly, the XPS 13 has one of the longest-lasting batteries for a Windows laptop we’ve seen, so this is genuinely an ‘all day’ notebook. BEST BUDGET GAMING LAPTOP Gigabyte SabrePro 15 $2,250 | www.gigabyte.com.au ‘Budget gaming laptop’ is something of a non-starter in many senses, because…

We’ve covered VirtualBox in detail, primarily because it’s free to use and pretty comprehensive in its abilities. For most tasks, you’re unlikely to need anything more complex. If you want to take virtualisation further, though, there are a few commercial tools that can make the process easier and (generally) run VMs more efficiently. VMWare Workstation Player, free with a limited set of features, is a solid option, and one that’s compatible with the same VHDs, though you need to pay a licence fee if you want to use it commercially. Its level of support and development is, naturally, very good — it’s arguably more capable than VirtualBox, and it’s due a major version upgrade soon, which should add a little spice. Check it out at www.vmware.com. If you’re willing to…

The Start menu’s return was big news when Windows 10 launched, and it has evolved as the operating system has been updated. It’s become a fast and efficient way to access apps and settings — Windows 8’s full-screen monstrosity is now a distant memory, thankfully! However, if you don’t like how the Start menu looks when you first pop it up on your fresh install of Windows 10, it doesn’t have to stay that way. It’s fully customisable in ways that were never possible in earlier versions of the operating system, and can be made to work in just about any way you want, standing out from its background for ease of reading, or automatically blending in with the colour scheme of whatever theme you have currently set on your…

Part of the joy of Linux being open source is that there are a number of desktop environments you can choose. This is entirely a matter of personal preference, based upon your needs and how powerful your hardware is. While you can install multiple desktop environments on the same machine, it’s simpler to choose a distro of Linux that comes with it preinstalled. Most Linux operating systems also come with a set of applications optimised for the default desktop environment. WHOSEBUNTU? Up until Ubuntu 17.04 (Zesty Zapus), the default version of the ever-popular operating system made use of the Unity Desktop, which is still in use on the LTS (Long Term Support) versions of Ubuntu. However, Ubuntu 17.10 and onwards use the Gnome environment. Gnome is designed for accessibility and…

“They may not be endowed with lashings of performance, but they come with an excellent array of I/O ports and functions to make it easy to connect up almost anything.” The Arduino Uno and Nano boards are incredibly popular, easy to use and surprisingly robust. They may not be endowed with lashings of performance, but they come with an excellent array of I/O ports and functions to make it easy to connect up almost anything. Yet eventually, that 8-bit performance becomes a road block, and if you’re in need of more speed, there are plenty of options that leave those 8-bit Arduino boards behind. ARDUINO M0 While there are plenty of designs around, the original Arduino Uno form factor is pretty close to universal and tough to beat. The new…

PC, PS4, XO | $99 | WWW.SHADOWOFWAR.COM The first Middle-Earth game, Shadow of Mordor, released during the launch window of the current console generation, and probably benefited a lot from that. It boasted an interesting novelty in the form of the Nemesis system — basically an emergent approach to warmongering, which had enemies remember you and behave according to your past actions. But apart from this very clever system, it was a fairly drab open-world action game. Decent, but a little uninspiring. Shadow of War does address this last point — it’s a much more varied and colourful game than what came before, but it’s still beholden to the colour palette of the grimmest areas of Tolkien’s world. The combat is as gripping and challenging as it was…

China may ban PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds For deviating from ‘socialist’ values... PUBG is a hugely popular online battle royale game on PC, expected to be released from Early Access by the time you read this (with an Xbox version also to come). The premise of the title is simple — up to 100 players parachute onto an island and must hunt for weapons, armour and other equipment, before then going about systematically killing everybody else on the map and hopefully not dying. However, this type of last-man-standing deathmatch-style of game has not gone down well with the China Audio-Video and Digital Publishing Association, who stated that the game was too violent for a Chinese audience and that its core values contradict the government’s goal for social unity. The less realistic League…