Inhaltsverzeichnis für April 2015 in PC & Tech Authority

So Windows 10 will be free. Sure, there are token restrictions on eligibility and the validity period, but for almost all corners of the PC world it’s a free gift. This was mooted by a few bloggers through the second half of 2014, but it all seemed so unlikely, despite the logic behind such a suggestion. I would very much like to think that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was instrumental in this decision – which as CEO of course he was – but think back to the Ballmer era and it all seems all the more remarkable. Ballmer would make all the big calls, while what we hear of Nadella is a levelling of management, a breaking down of the separated cells of power within the company, and an agreed…

Microsoft has revealed more details of Windows 10, including the Spartan browser and the HoloLens headset (see opposite). Windows 10 will be a free upgrade for users of Windows 7 and 8 – news that may cheer those unhappy with Windows 8. But will the changes and new features (see p38 for our preview) be enough to convince customers to stick with Windows? FRESH START At a press conference at the end of January, Microsoft confirmed that, during its first year of release, Windows 10 will be free for those upgrading from Windows 7, 8 or 8.1 – but not Vista. Plus, the updates will keep coming. “This is more than a onetime upgrade: once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it current…

HOT AMD RADEON 280X It’s faster in many games that Nvidia’s all-new GTX 960 card, and can be found for a few dollars less, too. Usually the parry between AMD and Nvidia sees each one leapfrog the other with a new product release, but it appears AMD has held the high ground this time around in the all-important battle of entry-level/mid-range graphics cards. NOT USB 3.1 Yes, in a couple of years you’ll probably find USB 3.1 up there in the Hot box when things are right with the new plug, but for today, after our initial testing of the supposedly revolutionary new connectivity standard, performance is a startling 40 percent lower than what was promised. Stay tuned, though, this story is far from over.…

Thanks to a job listing tweeted by BioWare Senior Development Director, Chris Wynn it has been revealed that Mass Effect 4 will feature a strong multiplayer component. Amongst the key responsibilities for the newly created Online Producer position, “Create and champion the vision of the multi-player, connected experiences and online features of the game which respects the project leadership goals and be accountable for the quality targets and the results achieved” is paramount. The listing also states that Online Producer will also be responsible for providing and delivering context for the multiplayer component, hinting that it may be more thoroughly integrated into the overall story than the multiplayer in Mass Effect 3. Little else is known about Mass Effect 4 at the moment aside from the fact that BioWare has…

If you view the task of building your PC as some kind of metaphorical ascent up Mt Bling, you may think you have conquered this shiny, glowy challenge. But, you have not. No, not while your multi-GPU rig has plain old SLI bridges sitting atop your otherwise fabulous PC. What, with a plain circuit board showing? Ha! You’re not even half way up – and if you’re only running a single video card you’re not even in the game. As should be apparent, to ice the cake with intent means adding in one of these lovelies. They’re milled from a single piece of aluminium and look terrific, and, they do glow. It’s not a surprise that these come in under Asus’ Republic of Gamers label – or ‘pride identity’ as…

Microsoft is paranoid about people pirating Windows, so your new PC almost certainly didn’t come with a disc for installing the OS. It probably came with a recovery tool, which you can use to restore the system to its fresh-from-the-box state – but this includes wiping all your personal data, so isn’t a convenient solution if you simply want to declutter your system. If you’re using Windows 8, there’s a simple answer. The new Refresh My PC feature restores the OS to its “naked” state without touching your data files (although you’ll still need to reinstall your desktop applications). You’ll find it in the Metro-style PC Settings app, under Update And Recovery. If you’re using an earlier version of Windows, the official line is to make a backup of all…

It’s maddening when you’re trying to move a folder from one place to another – or delete it – and Windows stops mid-action to pop up a requester asking you to confirm that you want to move one particular file. It’s even more annoying if you’ve gone off to do something else, and come back to find that Windows has been sitting idle for an hour, rather than getting on with the task at hand. Files are generally flagged as “system files” for a reason, and moving them around can cause OS and application failure when they can no longer find the resources they need. Often, though, the file in question is something perfectly innocuous – such as the thumbs.db file that stores previews of the images in a folder,…

In fairness, Windows is doing its best. To provide any sort of estimate, the operating system has to extrapolate from the observed transfer speed. At first, it has to rely on the speeds achieved during the first few seconds of the copy operation. This speed can easily change, however. If, while copying, you’re also performing another action – such as loading a program or watching a video – your copy operation might briefly stall, causing Windows to drastically revise its timing estimate. Even if the computer is otherwise idle, there are plenty of factors that can affect copying speed. For example, writing lots of small files tends to be much slower than one big one. If a mechanical disk is becoming full, fragmentation could cause the second half of a…

Another Core M-based device lets us see further evidence of its advantages – and cons. Toshiba is pitching the Portege Z20t as a business device, but also hopes to sell them into schools, so it’s a sturdily built device with thoughtful features. The fanless Core M CPU allows this transformer to operate silently, and with impressive battery life. Indeed, the battery function is its most impressive feature. Both the keyboard unit and tablet section pack a battery. When running with the keyboard attached (and not connected to the mains), it draws power first from the keyboard battery, then the tablet battery when that’s drained. Conversely, when connected to the mains the tablet battery is charged first. This, so you always have the maximum possible charge for tableting. On the tablet…

The Core M processor inside the Envy x2 is one of the first chips we’ve seen based on Intel’s new Broadwell microarchitecture – but it will soon be joined by a new family of fifth-generation mobile Core i3, i5 and i7 processors. Broadwell desktop chips aren’t due until this summer, but anyone using a Haswell laptop right now is about to find themselves running last-generation hardware. Does this mean your current laptop is obsolete? Absolutely not. According to Intel’s “Tick-Tock” model, Broadwell is a “Tick” – a scaling down of a previous architecture, rather than a new one. Specifically, Broadwell uses the same CPU core as Haswell, but shrunk from a 22nm manufacturing process to 14nm. This brings a minor performance benefit: smaller chips generate less heat, so they can…

www.corsair.com - $99 Corsair went keyboard crazy through last year, with a great many variations on its K-series mechanical product. At the opposite end of the maniacal full-bling K95, replete with millions of cycling disco colours, is the wee K65, and I really like it. It has the same super sexy black brushed aluminium top plate, three levels of brightness – all of which are too bright, but you get used to that, I’ve found, plus a mute music button, volume and a Windows key lockout selector. But, as you can see, it’s little, and that’s no small thing. 10 keyless keyboards, as they’re inelegantly called, give you back some desk space at the cost of a little versatility. You know your computing habits – if you never use the…

Nvidia’s Maxwell architecture set the premium market alight with its blistering performance at ice-cool temperatures. The fully-fleshed version of Maxwell found in the GeForce GTX 980 was fast enough to push AMD’s steamy R9 290X off the top of the performance pile, yet had a Thermal Design Power (TDP) of just over half that of the R9 290X, measuring 165W vs the estimated top TDP of the AMD product of 300W. No wonder Nvidia felt it could charge a premium for these products, with the cheapest GTX 980 now retailing for around $200 more than the cheapest R9 290X. It’s a price leap that is hard to justify considering it’s only around 10 percent faster. Nvidia then released a cut-back version of the GTX 980 in the form of the…

Just take a look at that picture. Gainward’s Phantom cooling system can’t be mistaken for anything else, as it’s a giant slab of cooling fins, chilled by twin fans. Despite the fans being located behind the cooling block, each fan can easily be removed, making for simple cleaning when the dust demons come to stay. Despite being built around the usual GTX 960 PCB, which measures 170mm, the Phantom cooler makes this one of the biggest cards in the roundup, stretching another 70mm to reach a total length of 240mm. It’s definitely not the card for those with cramped cases. Given the huge size of the cooler, we expected this product to be whisper quiet, but our sound meter test proved otherwise. The Phantom roared along at 51dB, which is…

The ADATA Premier SP610 differs from other SSDs in that it uses a Silicon Motion controller instead of the more common type from Marvell. Silicon Motion has been around for a while, and other companies such as Corsair also use its controllers. The ADATA Premier SP610’s SM2246EN controller supports the SATA3 (6Gbit/s) interface, and has a claimed read speed of 560MB/s and write speed of 290MB/s for the 256GB model we tested. The Premier SP610 is also available in 512GB and 1TB capacities, both of which have a higher rated write speed of 450MB/s. The cost per gigabyte is about average across the capacities, at between 52 and 55 cents. Like many other mid-priced SSDs, the Premier SP610 uses 20nm MLC (Multilevel Cell) NAND with an Input/Output Operations Per Second…

We were fans of Samsung’s 840 Evo series of solid-state drives, as they were the first models we’d seen that came in capacities of up to 1TB. The 850 Evo is the follow-up, and uses Samsung’s new 3D V-NAND technology. This refers to the way the cells in the Evo 850’s NAND flash chips are stacked vertically and horizontally, allowing Samsung to offer greater storage capacities without shrinking the manufacturing process, which is becoming increasingly difficult. These chips use a 40nm process rather than the 20nm process more commonly seen in other manufacturers’ SSDs. Although 3D V-NAND should pave the way for higher-capacity SSDs, the 850 Evo range still offers a maximum storage capacity of 1TB. Samsung claims that 3D V-NAND reduces cell-to-cell interference, which will help the cells last…

The venerable OCZ Vertex 460 has long been a solid SSD performer, and the new 460A model uses a newer A19 MLC NAND flash from OCZ’s parent company Toshiba. For Toshiba, the 19nm MLC NAND used in the Vertex 460A is its second generation of this type. The 460A retains the Barefoot 3 controller which was used in the original 460A. The Vertex 460A comes bundled with a 3.5inch desktop adaptor, as well as a copy of Acronis True Image, which will come in handy if you’re cloning from another drive when it’s installed. Claimed speeds for the 460A across available capacities are 530MB/s (120GB), 540MB/s (240GB) and 545MB/s (480GB), showing a slight increase in speed as capacity increases. Claimed sequential write speeds come in at 420MB/s (120GB), 525MB/s (240GB)…

The Seagate Desktop HDD range goes all the way up to 4TB, which should provide ample space for the even the largest media collections. It’s also available in 2TB and 3TB capacities. Whichever capacity you choose you’ll pay 3p per gigabyte, so you might as well opt for the largest capacity you can afford. Our prices are for the OEM versions. Retail kits are slightly more expensive but include mounting screws, a SATA cable and a Molex-to-SATA power adaptor. Seagate also offers its Desktop HDD in smaller capacities, but we’ve excluded those as they’re poor value in comparison. These drives were formerly part of Seagate’s Barracuda range but have since been rebranded as the Desktop HDD range. They are standard 3½in devices and have 64MB of cache and a SATA3…

VALUE Asus TF103C PRICE $429 SUPPLIER www.asus.com.au While ostensibly a tablet with a removable keyboard, it also fits tidily into the value portable category thanks to it’s immense usability and remarkably low price. SPECIFICATIONS Quad-core 1.86GHz Intel Atom Z3745 • 1GB RAM • 8GB/16GB eMMC storage • 10.1in 1,280 x 800 IPS display • dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi PERFORMANCE Aorus X7 PRICE $2999 SUPPLIER www.aorus.com Super-sleek, light, outrageously powerful and with a spec-list that outclasses many high end desktop systems. SPECIFICATIONS Q.4-3.4GHz i7-4700HQ • 4GB/8GB DDR3L 1600, 4 slots (Max 32GB) • 17.3” Full HD 1920x1080 • NVIDIA® GTX 765M SLI GDDR5 4GB • mSATA 128GB/256GB, 2slot 2.5”HDD 500GB/750GB/1TB 5400rpm PROFESSIONAL Apple Macbook Retina PRICE $3199 SUPPLIER www.apple.com/au The machine that does everything right, and looks the part, too. We’ve chosen…

Not all videos need an introduction: it’s often best to jump straight into the action. And as it happens, PowerDirector 11 LE comes with only a handful of animated title cards – none of which meet our professional ambitions. However, you can easily create your own titles and captions in any graphics program, such as the free Paint.NET (getpaint.net). Simply create a new document with a size of 1,920 x 1,080 pixels, then paint it with a suitable background colour and type your required text on top, alongside adding any graphical effects you may desire. Save this as a PNG file and import it onto the PowerDirector timeline. You can adjust its position and length, and apply transitions just as you would a normal video clip. A similar approach can…

ESET Smart Security gives you the peace of mind to enjoy your digital journey, secured by multi-layered Internet security. Rely on anti-malware solution with Antivirus, Anti- Theft and now with Botnet Protection. Explore the great online, securely protected by ESET’s award-winning detection technology. It’s trusted by over 100 million users worldwide to detect and neutralize all types of digital threats, including viruses, rootkits, worms and spyware. It also protects against techniques that seek to evade detection, and blocks targeted attacks and exploits. Antivirus and Antispyware: Provide proactive protection against all types of online and offline threats and prevent malware spreading to other users. Advanced Memory Scanner: Enables improved detection of persistent malware that employs multiple layers of encryption to conceal its activity. Cloud-Powered Scanning: Speeds up scans by whitelisting safe…

THERMALTAKE TOUGHPOWER DPS G If you're looking for that ultimate optimisation for your performance system -we're happy to let you know that your search today comes to an end. The new Thermaltake Toughpower DPS G PSU offers industry leading precision monitoring and control of your system. Allowing you to lock down and engage, track, record and quantify not only your power supplies efficiency and usage - but other core system components as well such like your CPU and GPU. Through Thermaltake's groundbreaking DPSapp software, you can easily monitor the electricity cost of your PC - allowing you to manage your expenses. On top of this, you can also see your systems component wattage, voltage, efficiency and temperatures. The Thermaltake Toughpower DPS G is built with a fully modular cabling design…

1 OFFICE 2016 TO ARRIVE IN 2015 Alongside its Windows announcements, Microsoft said Office 2016 will arrive in the second half of this year. The firm said it will be the “experience you’re long familiar with” and will work best with a mouse and keyboard. Meanwhile, “universal” Office apps for touch and mobile are also being prepared for general release later this year, and will be available in upcoming versions of the Windows 10 technical preview. 2 GOOGLE STOPS GLASS SALES Google has stopped selling its augmented-reality headset Glass. It said it wasn’t the end of the technology, with future versions to be launched “when they’re ready”. The glasses hit the US market in 2013, with controversy almost immediately ensuing over the forward facing camera and privacy concerns spreading quickly.…

Microsoft surprised everyone by revealing the new HoloLens headset only days after Google announced that it was to stop making Glass. The timing couldn’t have been better, especially with awareness of Augmented Reality on the up – but what exactly is HoloLens? Is this Microsoft’s version of Google Glass? Not quite. As one analyst cheerfully pointed out to us, the only real similarity between the two is that both are worn on your head. Glass overlays a small box of information into your vision, whereas HoloLens projects entire 3D objects into the real world, allowing you to play Minecraft on your coffee table or follow maintenance instructions overlaid on a problematic appliance. What’s more, you can interact with these 3D virtual models via gestures and voice commands – and via…

Legendary game designer Peter Molyneux has come under fire from press and fans for delays and design decisions relating to his much hyped Kickstarter project, Godus. A spiritual successor to the developer’s hugely influential and beloved 1989 god game, Populous, Godus received a little over $1 million AUD from the Kickstarter campaign, with an estimated delivery date of seven months. Molyneux also ran an enigmatic online competition named ‘Curiosity’, in which players tapped on a cube until someone eventually unlocked the centre. Molyneux, known from making big promises, said that the winner of Curiosity would have their life changed as they would become the first ‘God of Gods’ in Godus and would receive a small percentage of game profits for as long as they held the position. The position of…

There’s piffling laptop and tablet bags, which are fine if all you ever carry are laptops and tablets. But if you’re all about your camera gear then you’ll need a proper bag to protect your goodies, and make carrying it all around more delightful. LOWEPRO TRANSIT BACKPACK 350AW The smaller of the two we tested, it manages to stuff an Tardisesque amount of gear in. We managed two DSLR bodies, a large zoom lens, flash, a regular lens and a small lens, with room to spare for chargers, external drives and a pack of Tic Tacs. The padded rear compartment can take a laptop up to about 15 inches in size. There’s a hidden rain cover as well as stomach and hip straps. We especially liked the quick access side…

I want to reinstall Windows: where do I find my product key? The product key used to be printed on a label on the side or underside of your PC, but on Windows 8 systems it now tends to be buried away in the operating system, or embedded in the BIOS. This isn’t helpful if you suffer a system crash and need to reinstall the OS, so use a tool such as winkeyfinder.com to discover your key before you need it. I’m seeing an extra drive in My Computer called “System Reserved”. What is it? This partition is created when you install Windows on a disk that’s completely blank. It contains Windows’ startup files, so you can’t get rid of it – but there’s nothing here that you need to…

When you format a USB drive of more than 32GB, the default option is to use NTFS, which is Windows’ “native” file system. Unfortunately, while NTFS drives can be read by all major computing platforms, OS X and Linux systems can’t write to these volumes without third-party software. The simplest solution is to use the FAT32 format, which is supported across all three major platforms. If your disk is larger than 32GB, the Windows Format requester won’t show FAT32 as an option, but you can format a disk with this files system from the command prompt by typing “format d: /fs:fat32 /q” – where d: is the letter of your removable drive. The /q parameter specifies a quick format, which means Windows won’t spend time checking the drive for errors.…

The obvious answer is for security – and if you’re at work, or on a laptop containing personal or confidential information, we suggest you leave these password prompts enabled. Data theft is a growing threat, so requiring re-authentication whenever your PC wakes up is a good thing. If you have young children who might be tempted to meddle, a wake-up password can help there too. For a home PC, however, you might understandably want to skip the password. To disable the password request when Windows wakes up from sleep, right-click on the desktop and select Personalise. Next, click the Screen Saver link and you’ll see a tickbox labelled “On resume, display log-on screen”. Untick this and in future your PC will spring straight back into the desktop. If you don’t…

What’s on the bench, this month? We have a review in this issue, on page 49, of the first USB 3.1 motherboard. It’s an Asus, and the company was good enough to provide a USB 3.1 device to test the connection with (as such things are virtually non-existent at this point). Is this a big deal? Yes, it will be... a few months down the road, for most of us, at least. Before then it will be important to certain professionals, like video editors wanting to transfer large amounts of data from one device to another. For some perspective from the manufacturer’s side, I’m reminded of a conversation I had with the Asia Pacific Marketing Manager of a very large Taiwanese company a few years ago. I was involved in…

The latest build of Windows 10 includes the desktop debut of Microsoft’s “personal digital assistant”, Cortana. Officially the feature is, for now, US-only, but you can enable it in the Australia by changing your region and keyboard settings. Without the Spartan browser – which Cortana uses to learn about you and make browsing suggestions – there’s a limit to her usefulness, but you can still get a taster of the idea. You can access Cortana by typing queries into the taskbar search field, but the real focus is on voice commands, which you can issue by clicking the microphone icon – or, in the optional always-listening mode, by using the key phrase “Hey, Cortana”. You can carry out web searches, search for documents (using the somewhat unintuitive “show me” phrase),…

The review unit as supplied is the fullspec job, and in this guise it truly is a supreme business machine. There’s an all-encompassing aura of luxury about the Carbon X1, which, in a world of nice looking ultrabooks, sets the Carbon X1 above the rest. Like all ThinkPads (past and present), there’s a wonderful fusion of raw utility and premium styling. There are four models available in the all-new Carbon X1 range, from a 2.2GHz non-touch 128GB version, to the full pack of meat we’re testing today. The $2669 pricetag is ballpark-average for an ultrabook of this specification, and that buys you a Core i7-5500U CPU (up to 3GHz), 8GB RAM and a 256GB SSD which is also Opal 2.0 compatible (for better encryption). The only serious disappointment is that…

If you’re looking for a graphics card to proudly display through your case’s Perspex window, this could be just what your interior designer ordered. Where Gigabyte’s huge coolers are all about function over form, MSI has delivered a real head turner of a cooler, with its striking red and black design. The Twin Frozr V has three heatpipes wicking the heat away from the GPU, but they’re much longer than those found in other cards, and they appear to do a damn fine job. Even under load, this cooler remained whisper quiet, recording the lowest operating volume in the roundup at just 44dB. Like several of the other products on test, the fans don’t spin up until the GPU hits a certain temperature, resulting in total silence at the desktop.…

While it might not be quite as massive as its brother, this more affordable Gigabyte product shares many of the excellent features that Gigabyte has endowed its GTX 960s with. The first is the 0dB cooler, which is used to highlight the fact that the twin fans on this cooler don’t spin up while on the desktop, only kicking into action once the GPU hits a certain temperature. This makes it a great product for HTPC owners, who need the ultimate in silence while watching films. Having said that, like its brother, this is one of the larger GTX 960s around, as Gigabyte has once again used a larger PCB than the default, measuring 240mm. However, the cooler ends at the same length of the PCB, so it’s not quite…

As you can see, manufacturers have delivered a wide variety of GTX 960 products, across a relatively large spread of prices. Yet performance across the bunch remained incredibly close, with even the slowest products just a couple of frames behind the leaders, a common occurrence when looking at competing graphics cards that are all built around the same GPU. Our benchmarks indicate that the GTX 960 has the goods to deliver smooth average frame rates of 60 frames per second, but the minimum frame rates tell another story entirely. REAL WORLD RESULTS In Thief, this card bottomed out at 28 frames per second; even though the average frame rate is solid, drops to such low frame rates will prove to be a jarring experience while gaming. As a result, it’s…

The MX100 IS part of Crucial’s budget range of SSDs, and when it comes to performance at a low price, it’s tough to beat. The MX100 is available in 256GB and 512GB capacities and has a low cost per gigabyte of around 54 cents. The MX100 uses 16nm, 126Gbit/s, 2-bit MLC NAND flash from Crucial’s parent company Micron. The smaller 16nm manufacturing process allows Crucial to pack more chips into a tighter area, lowering production costs and paving the way for even higher-capacity SSDs, which goes some way to explain how Crucial is able to price the MX100 so competitively. The MX100 uses a Marvell 88SS9189 controller with custom Micron firmware. Although the MX100 isn’t available as part of an upgrade kit, it comes with a couple of extras we…

The MX100 is Crucial’s budgetfriendly SSD, but the M550 is for those who would rather have extra performance. Unlike Crucial’s cheaper model, the M550 is available with up to 1TB of storage. It’s the successor to one of our favourite SSDs, the M500. As its name suggests, the M550 is a fairly minor update, but any drive that improves on the excellent M500 is bound to grab our attention. As well as the 1TB drive, you can buy 256GB and 512GB versions. All but the 1TB model are available either as a standard 2½in SATA3 disk or as mSATA DIMM-style chips for use in an Ultrabook. We tested the 2½in SATA3 version of the drive, but there shouldn’t be any performance differences between the two designs. Like the MX100, the…

The XLR8 Pro is marketed by PNY as a high-performance gaming device, but in practice it doesn’t offer much to make it any better for gaming than other SSDs. It’s available in 240GB and 480GB capacities, and both models use a SandForce 2281 controller. SandForce has been making SSD controllers for a long time, and is now owned by Seagate after an acquisition in mid-2014. The SandForce controller is paired with 25nm MLC NAND flash memory. At 66 cents per gigabyte for the 240GB drive and 53 cents per gigabyte for the highest-capacity 480GB drive, the XLR8 Pro range is reasonable value. You don’t get much in the way of bundled accessories or software, so you should factor this in if you need an application to help you transfer your…

Seagate’s Desktop SSHD was one of the first 3½in desktop hybrid drives. Hybrid drives are an attempt to combine the speed benefits of an SSD and the large capacity of a mechanical hard disk by adding a small amount of NAND flash memory to speed up access times for frequently used files. Seagate’s adaptive memory technology learns the user’s data access patterns and adds the most frequently used data to the solid-state memory to speed up the system. The 4TB Seagate Desktop SSHD we tested is equipped with 8GB of MLC NAND and 64MB of cache, and spins at 5,900rpm. The Desktop SSHD range also includes 1TB and 2TB versions, and these have faster spindle speeds of 7,200rmp. At 6 cents per gigabyte for 4TB, 7 cents for the 2TB…

Although 2½in disk drives are commonly used for laptops, Western Digital’s 2½in Green Mobile hard disk drive is not intended for such use. This is because, with a thickness of 15mm, it simply won’t fit in laptop bays that typically accept 5mm, 7mm or 9.5mm drives. Instead, despite its name, the Western Digital Green Mobile is designed for use in a desktop PC or custom enclosure. Its smaller 2½in form factor is more often seen in all-in-one desktop PCs, so if you need to upgrade your all-in-one’s internal storage, it’s worth checking whether yours takes 2½in or 3½in drives. Most regular PC cases will also accept the 2½in drive in any slots designed for SSDs. The Green Mobile is available in either 2TB or 1.5TB capacities, which cost 11 and…

Lenovo’s lovely Carbon X1 (reviewed this issue, page 41) came that close to bumping the Macbook Retina out of its long standing hold on the Professional Laptop category. It’s much lighter and thinner, can be configured to be as powerful – although the Carbon’s memory can’t go higher than 8GB, which ultimately is a fatal blow for a professional machine. We also really liked the more useable resolution of 2560x1440 vs the Retina’s higher 2880x1800 - as there are still major issues with high DPI scaling across a great majority of websites and apps, but countering that is that the Retina’s higher resolution fits its purpose as a professional machine. So, it stays. However – if a Windows machine is what you need, then the Carbon X1 is an outstanding…

SMARTPHONE Sony Xperia Z3 Compact PRICE $699 SUPPLIER www.sony.com.au In short, no other smartphone offers the same level of performance and features at this price. SPECIFICATIONS 2.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 SoC • 2GB RAM • 16GB storage • Adreno 330 graphics • 4.6in 720 x 1,280 IPS display TABLET Apple iPad Air 2 PRICE $539 SUPPLIER www.apple.com/au The iPad Air 2 is definitively the best tablet on the market right now, and rightfully replaces its predecessor on our A-List. SPECIFICATIONS 1.5GHz Apple A8X SoC • 2GB RAM • 16/64/128GB storage • 9.7in 1,536 x 2,048 IPS display • 7,340mAh battery EBOOK READER Kindle PRICE $109 SUPPLIER www.amazon.com The new model is quicker, slimmer, lighter and cheaper than before. If all you want to do is read books, its simple design…

Last month I was talking about some of the technical innovations coming from the company Meridian, in Huntingdon, in the field of studio-quality encoding of music over a limited-data-rate pipe. This month I’ve decided to extend this theme by covering some more interesting technology from a pair of companies – one in the UK and one in the Netherlands – who are shining examples of the way we in Europe are still creating some of the very best technology in the world. The American hegemony in electronic innovation was an historical accident that’s becoming less relevant: indeed, it’s the lack of true global vision that will be the downfall of the big American companies. Let’s begin with GPS. There’s a set of orbiting satellites that transmit the GPS signal: essentially…

From time to time, we all find ourselves looking out of the window and daydreaming. Among the fast cars, holidays and lottery wins, there may be the occasional “Wouldn’t it be great if…”, quickly followed by, at least in my case, “How hard can it be?” This is one such story. It’s a tale of ambition, teamwork and talent (mostly other people’s). And it’s also the story of how modern PCs and largely opensource tools can solve problems that a generation ago weren’t only difficult but, by all practical measures, impossible. By personality and training, I’m an engineer. Many years ago, when BBC Micros were cutting-edge, a fascination with aircraft led me to study aerodynamics. On qualifying, my career quickly took me in other directions, but the fascination with all…

Idon’t know whether to laugh or cry. Literally, such is the state of life in the information technology business at the start of year 2015. On one hand, I’ve just witnessed a classic story of hardware failure that’s enough to make you despair for the whole industry. On the other, I’ve been able to use some clever software to get out of trouble – in ways that give me hope for the future, not only of our own business, but of the multitudes of businesses that have become painfully dependent on us (in ways that, even two years ago, nobody saw coming). I know that everybody loves a rant and a disaster story, though, so let’s start with that part. In what follows, I may perhaps be accused of navel-gazing,…

LETTER OF THE MONTH THE RURAL PIPE DREAM I note with interest the comments in the March 2015 editorial regarding the redundancy of the cover DVD on the basis that “everyone just downloads what they need online”. It’s a wonderfully urban centric view but if you live outside of the metropolitan areas, it’s not now, nor will likely ever be the case. We enjoy limited internet speeds which enable web browsing and email. Much more than that is beyond the capabilities of the technology that the only provider in the area, Telstra, has chosen to provide. The idea of online gaming or downloading a movie is a dream that will likely never be realised for us as we just don’t have enough people to justify the infrastructure provision and while…

Sometimes tech companies have brilliant ideas, produce perfect products, and still can’t convince consumers to buy them. Back in 2010, CES pushed 3D TVs as the next big thing. Trouble is, no-one bought them. This year, the monstrous Vegas technology show was full of the Internet of Things (IoT) – but will firms be able to convince consumers to connect every aspect of their lives? Make no mistake, tech companies’ vision of the future is that nigh-on everything will be connected. At Samsung’s CES keynote, co-CEO Boo-Keun Yoon claimed that 90% of the company’s products would be able to connect to the internet by 2017. And that includes fridges and washing machines. “In the five-year view, it’s about a connected experience,” Charlene Marini, vice president of marketing for ARM’s embedded…

Atari has revealed that it will be releasing a ‘reimagined’ version of the classic arcade game, Asteroids to be developed Salty Games, a new LA-based studio reportedly made up of industry veterans with substantial AAA development experience. Billed as something of a homage to the arcade game, Asteroids: Outpost doesn’t focus on a small vector graphics ship shooting down wave upon wave of space rocks but rather on an open world sandbox experience in which players explore and mine asteroids for resources that can be used to build better equipment and bases. In a nod to the original Asteroids, the game will also feature smaller asteroid showers as a constant threat to players and must be blasted from the sky. Asteroids: Outpost will also focus on both cooperative and competitive…

CPU BROADWELL-K, A WARNING Word has spread that Intel will unveil its new Skylake architectured CPU offerings on the 15th of August, days before the annual IDF conference. The Skylake-S (desktop) and Skylake-U (mobility) versions are said to be what will be shown off. With Broadwell-K (Intel’s first 14nm desktop part) not even out the door yet due to the 14nm ramp up delays, it has the expected launch window of mid-2015. Giving Broadwell-K possibly just two months before becoming obsolete. This has given rise to the belief by some in the industry that Intel will simply skip Broadwell-K altogether and push for Skylake’s launch instead. Intel have been stalwart in their communications however that both will launch as scheduled. If this turns out to be true, beware of buying…

Almost every business and individual is using some sort of cloud service. Sometimes we don’t even think of what we’re using as a cloud service. Many of us rely on a webmail service such as Gmail, Yahoo! or Windows Mail. Storage services such as Dropbox are very popular and there are all the SaaS, or Software as a Service, applications such as Salesforce, SugarCRM, Saasu and others that businesses rely on. If you use a fitness tracker then your data is being stored on a remote server somewhere. While you think you’re buying some hardware, it’s just one part of a bigger service. But what happens when the services go belly up or you decide you want to change provider? START AT THE END Most of the time, when we…

Windows stores a database of files and folders on your hard disk, so that when you search for something, the results can be returned instantaneously. However, for speed and efficiency, only the most common file types and personal folders are included by default. There are two ways to get Windows to search outside of your user folders: one is to open the target volume or folder in Explorer and use the search box to search directly from there. This will prompt Windows to ask if you want to add this location to its index. Alternatively, open Indexing Options from the control panel, and click the Modify button in the dialog that appears. This will bring up a list of all searchable locations, which you can tick to add to the…

This shouldn’t be a problem for Windows 8 users, however, those on older versions of Windows have to wait for all programs and services to shut down before the computer switches off, which can be a slow process. By default, Windows 7 gives programs that are running 12 seconds to close down cleanly before attempting to force them to shut down. There are two ways to speed up this process: one is simply to close programs yourself as you finish using them, so that there’s less waiting around when the time comes to shut down the PC. This also saves resources, so you might see a performance benefit too. If this still isn’t fast enough, you can edit the Registry to shorten the 12-second timeout. Open the Registry editor –…

It goes without saying that, in most cases, Windows Update should be left on. And to be precise, it isn’t normally Windows Update itself that causes frustration, but the way it insists on restarting your PC at inconvenient times. The simplest solution to this is to open Windows Update from the control panel, click “Change settings” in the left of the window and change the dropdown option to “Download updates, but let me choose when to install them”. You’ll still be nagged when updates are available, but you’ll be able to install them and reboot at your own convenience. If you want to prevent Windows Update from restarting your PC altogether, open Regedit and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\ Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU. If this key doesn’t exist, you can create it. Create a DWORD…

While all manner of products come through our labs, as much as possible we run standardised tests for specific product categories. This allows you to compare products we may have reviewed in an earlier issue with something newer. However, at times we’ll deviate if we feel a certain test is more appropriate to a certain type of product or group test. GRAPHICS CARDS To put today’s GPUs under the most pressure, we use two real-world games with excellent built-in benchmark routines, in the form of Grid Autosport and Thief. These were selected as they don’t favour Nvidia or AMD, instead taxing both equally, and their scores are in frames per second, where higher is better. Finally we run the synthetic 3DMark benchmark to get a holistic view of each GPU’s…

If you can’t beat them, join them. That appears to be the mantra for HP with its new Envy x2 13. Where the previous Envy x2 partnered an 11.6in tablet with a keyboard dock, 2015 sees it grow into a larger 13.3in model replete with a built-in kickstand and a thin, clip-on keyboard; a design clearly inspired by the Microsoft Surface Pro 3. If you’re hoping to be bowled over by a futuristic, super-svelte hybrid, however, we suggest you look away now – this simply isn’t what you’ve been waiting for. The main problem is that it’s far too big, especially given that it’s powered by one of Intel’s latest Core M processors, purpose-built for thin-and-light devices. In fairness, the Envy x2 isn’t a horribly ugly thing, but HP has…

Now this is where we think most GTX 960s should be priced, at just under $300. Given time we think the rest of the market will have to come down to this level, but until then this is the most affordable GTX 960 that we’ve tested. It’s arguably not that much more affordable than some of the other cards, but it breaks through the psychological barrier of the $300 price point. Given the low price, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this think might turn in bottom tier performance numbers with a howling cooler… but you’d be quite wrong there. As our benchmarks illustrate, this budget number turned in framerates that even the most expensive products would be proud of, basically tying with the faster Gigabyte products. Whipping out the…

Few things have a greater impact on the performance and usefulness of a PC or laptop than its internal disk drive. Not having enough storage is immensely frustrating, as you have to uninstall programs to make room for the latest game, for example, or move some of your files to an external storage device before you can download a rented film. A slow hard disk, on the other hand, can make your computer feel sluggish, as the operating system and applications take ages to load. Both problems can be solved with a drive upgrade. Mechanical hard disks are astounding value, providing thousands of gigabytes of storage for less than 3p a gigabyte. Meanwhile, solid-state drives (SSDs) are incredibly fast and enable a PC to boot in seconds, while adding a…

Much like the Intel 730 Series of SSDs, the Patriot Blaze range has a maximum capacity of 480GB, so it isn’t a great choice for those who need a lot of storage space. Lowercapacity options are available, including 60GB and 120GB models, but we wouldn’t recommend that anyone buy an SSD with less than around 250GB of space. The 240GB and 480GB models are the best choice for most people. These allow you to install an operating system as well as applications and games to benefit from the faster speeds of solid-state drives. Both the 240GB and 480GB drives cost around 50 cents per gigabyte, which makes the Patriot Blaze a competitor to the keenly priced Crucial MX100. Like the MX100, the Patriot Blaze uses 16nm MLC NAND, with smaller…

The price of SSDs has been consistently decreasing while capacities have been increasing, so we were surprised to see that Intel’s 730 Series of SSDs still offers only 240GB and 480GB capacities, especially as many rivals now offer upwards of 1TB. The 240GB model isn’t particularly good value at 78 cents per gigabyte. The 480GB model is slightly more expensive at 83 cents per gigabyte, but that’s still distinctly more expensive than SSDs from companies such as SanDisk and Crucial. Intel claims that the 730 is exceptionally fast, as it’s equipped with the company’s own third-generation controller with optimised firmware and 20nm NAND flash, both of which have been overclocked. This specification is an improvement over previous Intel SSDs such as the 520 series, which used older SandForce controllers. Intel…

Few solid-state drives can rival Crucial’s MX100 for value, but the SanDisk Ultra II range has managed just that. With prices that equate to 58 cents per gigabyte for the 240GB drive, 54 cents per gigabyte for the 480GB model and, again, a reasonable 54 cents per gigabyte for the 960GB version, the SSDs in the Ultra II range are very good value. The 240GB version of the Ultra II uses a Marvell 88SS9190 controller, while the higher-capacity disks use a Marvell 88SS9189. Crucial also uses the latter controller for its MX100 and M550 SSDs. All the Ultra II drives are built with SanDisk’s 19nm TLC flash memory, which can store three bits of data per cell instead of the two in MLC NAND. This means more data can be…

At first glance, the Black2 Dual Drive looks like a standard 2½in hard disk, but it’s actually two disks in one, with both a 1TB hard disk and 120GB SSD in the same shell. Unlike other hybrid drives, the Black2 doesn’t use the SSD as a cache. Its just two drives in a case with one SATA3 interface. Conveniently, the Black2 comes with a couple of extras to help you install the drive in your computer. A USB3-to-SATA adaptor and a downloadable edition of Acronis True Image that only works with the Black2 will help you clone your PC’s existing Windows installation to the SSD. At 9.5mm, the drive is deeper than most SSDs or laptop hard disks, so if you plan to fit it in a laptop, check that…

WIRELESS ROUTER Netgear Nighthawk X6 AC3200 SUPPLIER www.netgear.com.au Designed to keep pace with high-bandwidth content consumption, it is the router King. SPECIFICATIONS 1GHz dual core processor with 3 offload processors, 6 High performance antennas, one 2.4GHz band and two 5GHz Wi-Fibands DESKTOP STORAGE CalDigit T3 with Thunderbolt 2 SUPPLIER www.amazon.com The T3 is an expensive RAID device, but when you factor in the drives and the capacity included, it’s good value. SPECIFICATIONS 6/9/12/15TB external hard disk with RAID; Thunderbolt and Thunderbolt 2, 135 x 241 x 116mm 4.5kg. NAS Synology Diskstation DS214play SUPPLIER www.synology.com The fastest NAS in our grouptest (PC&TA 197), with excellent media streaming capabilities. SPECIFICATIONS 2.1GHz Intel Atom; 2GB RAM; 2 x USB 3 + 1 x USB 2; iOS and Androidmobile apps; RAID 0, 1, 5,…

SECURITY Norton Security 2015 SUPPLIER www.norton.com/security Great malware protection and equally good legitimate software recognition BACK UP Acronis true image 2015 SUPPLIER www.acronis.com.au The 2015 version adds full-system backup and dual backup and unlimited cloud storage. OFFICE SUITE Microsoft Office 365 Home Premium SUPPLIER www.microsoft.com.au The easiest to use Office to date. WEB DEV Adobe Dreamweaver CS6 SUPPLIER www.adobe.com.au This edition makes PHP and CMS its core focus. AUDIO Cubase 7.5 SUPPLIER www.steinberg.net The addition of better filters solidifies this program’s continued place on the A-List. VIDEO Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 11 SUPPLIER www.sony.com.au May not have the bells and whistles of other consumer editing packages, but its tools are efficient. PHOTO Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 SUPPLIER www.adobe.com.au An excellent tool for photo management and light editing, as…

As well as video clips, it’s possible to drag audio files onto the timeline to add sound effects or background music to your video. By default you’ll see an audio-only Track 3 available for this purpose. Audio clips can be trimmed and dragged like regular video clips, and volume changes can be automated using envelopes. To set this up, click on the line along the middle of the audio clip to create a “node”, then drag that node up or down to fade or boost the volume at that point. To make this easier, you can expand the track view by dragging the track-dividing line in the track list. In the same way, you can also edit the volume envelopes of video clips – click the waveform in the lower…

WHAT IS YOUR JOB? I’m a search-engine optimisation (SEO) expert, and pay-per-click (PPC) specialist. Very simply, I help brands to be discovered online. I work in a creative marketing agency that handles promotions for clients of all sizes, and that might also include leaflet drops or magazine advertising – but my role is specifically online. WHAT DOES YOUR DAY LOOK LIKE? I spend a fair amount of time checking analytics, which enable me to stay on top of the trends among visitors to the sites we look after. There’s a lot of work involved in maintaining a site’s online presence: there are more than 200 factors that Google looks at to decide where you should rank for a given search phrase, the weighting of which is changed regularly, with bigger…

Artificial-intelligence experts have long warned that super-intelligent machines could – on purpose or inadvertently – pose a threat to human life. In an open letter signed by AI luminaries, including Stephen Hawking and Nick Bostrom, members of the research community have now pledged to ensure AI systems build in safeguards to ensure that our greatest invention benefits mankind, rather than wiping it out. Dr Seán Ó h Éigeartaigh, an AI researcher who helps run the Cambridge Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, said such a pledge is necessary because recent progress in deep learning and statistical learning is increasingly raising troubling questions about machine intelligence. “It’s no longer enough to ask ‘can we build it?’,” he told PC Pro. “Now that it looks like we can, we have to…

Virtual reality (VR) is one of those strange areas of tech that’s been knocking around for ages, perpetually about to explode into the mainstream but never quite managing to achieve it. The idea can be traced back to science fiction from the 1930s, while the first crude and clumsy devices appeared in the 1960s. One of these first VR incarnations, created by the influential computer scientist Ivan Sutherland, dangled above the user’s head in such a precarious fashion that it was nicknamed the “Sword of Damocles”. At various times since then, massmarket adoption has seemed just around the corner but never actually happened. It was almost 25 years ago that Sega promised the Sega VR headset for its popular Mega Drive console. There was much hype, but it never arrived:…

KofiAnnan, former secretary general of the United Nations, once said “knowledge is power, information is liberating”. This certainly applies to technology, even more so the technology in your hand. Are you aware of the permissions you’ve granted apps on your smartphone and tablet, and what they’re doing with those permissions? Chances are, you don’t – and liberating those apps to do what they like greatly diminishes the power you have over your privacy and data security. What set me thinking about this was some advice that recently appeared on the PC Pro website, the aim of which was to help readers to better understand their data allowance under iOS 8. This isn’t something that’s of great concern to me, since I’m on true unlimited data plans for both my smartphone…