PC Pro的September 2023目录

I recently visited Wimbledon. Not to watch tennis, sadly, but for the next best thing: to talk technology. This year, the Championships, with support from long-term technology partner IBM, is using generative AI to create live commentary for matches. By analysing the live action, and using source material from what must be ten of thousands of past commentaries, IBM’s Watson will work out what’s happening in real-time and put it into words. It’s clever. Astonishing, even. But what surprised me most was when I discovered that this partnership stretches all the way back to 1990, when IBM was appointed as the official IT supplier and consultant to the All England Lawn Tennis Club. The year when Stefan Edberg defeated Boris Becker to win the men’s championship, and Martina Navratilova clinched…

Dick is editorial fellow of PC Pro. Searching his 341 columns at dickpountain-idealog.blogspot.com will reveal only one occurrence of “copper beech”. Email dick@dickpountain.co.uk “I’m writing this column sitting under a magnificent copper beech tree in the West Meadow at the Kenwood Estate in North London, with tall summer grass all around and even a foxglove in the corner of my vision. You might not find this any big deal – after all, mobile computers have been around for a long time – but it has taken me 20 years to achieve this feat, and I’ve only achieved it now thanks to my Palm Pilot and a neat little add-on keyboard called the GoType, whose purchase was the best £70 I’ve spent in a long time.” In actual fact I’m writing…

Moto G13 woes Many congratulations on finally publishing a review of affordable phones (see issue 336, p70). Although it’s nice to read about all the high-tech goodies that hundreds of pounds can buy, in my real world, I can only afford something below £200 and a pay-as-you-go SIM. To be able to read a comparison of four phones in this range was excellent. I was so taken with the Motorola Moto G13 that I was on the verge of placing an order, when I had a look at some of the chatter online. It appears that there is a problem with this MediaTek CPU and the handling of SMS messages, but only on the O2 network. Whether this is a hardware, firmware, software or network problem is not clear, but…

01 Adobe Firefly in Photoshop If anyone should be worried about the emergence of generative AI art it’s Adobe, the company that’s had a stranglehold on computer-generated art for the past couple of decades. Adobe has been dabbling with generative art with Firefly, a beta web service that allows users to create images from text prompts (a poor man’s Midjourney; see no. 5), fill in text with specified textures or recolour vector art images. However, Adobe’s big AI breakthrough has arrived with the inclusion of Firefly in the Photoshop beta. It is nothing short of stunning. Take the sample picture shown above of the runner, for example. I extended the canvas, drew a selection box around the empty space and told Photoshop to fill it with a “pond with waterlilies”,…

To complement the preventative measures being introduced by the industry, the UK government has announced its new Fraud Strategy to protect the public and increase the chances of judicial prosecutions against scammers. The plan is to create a new National Fraud Squad, tasked with changing how fraud is investigated, while creating 400 new specialist investigators to work with local police and the UK intelligence community. A spokesperson from the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau explained: “The new Fraud Strategy is supported by the NFIB as a shift towards tackling volume fraud. The NFIB has started a five-year process of reform, moving into a new target operating model supported by new technology and additional resources. Though emphasis remains on pursuing fraudsters, enhanced strategies through disruption techniques and protect engagement campaigns support the…

Fujifilm’s £111 Instax Mini Link 2 (pcpro. link/347instaxmini) is a battery-powered pocket device designed for printing directly from a smartphone. It will connect to any Android or iOS device via Bluetooth, and produces credit-card-sized 62 x 46mm photographs. The only consumables are film packs, which work out to around 75p per print when purchased online (pcpro.link/347instaxfilm). The Kodak Mini 2 (pcpro. link/347kodakmini) is a similar proposition. The printer itself costs around £78, and you can pick up two media cartridges, totalling 60 sheets, for £24 (pcpro. link/347kodakcartridge) – a little under 40p per shot. The prints are slightly larger than those produced by the Instax Mini Link 2, measuring 86 x 53mm. A third option is the HP Sprocket Plus printer (pcpro. link/347sprocket). It costs £130 and produces photos measuring…

Looking for a particular past review? Visit our index at pcpro.link/index SCORE PREVIEW PRICE US only (available early 2024), $3,499 from apple.com According to Apple, the Vision Pro is no mere AR headset: this is a “spatial computer”, the “most advanced personal electronics device ever”. That’s a hefty claim when you already make the iPhone. Available early next year, initially in the US with the UK to follow, the Vision Pro is indeed powerful, with an Apple M2 and a new R1 chip designed for real-time data processing. It offers eye tracking, hand control and voice control. Nor has Apple ignored usability, with a lightweight headset married to the slick new VisionOS. What will you do with this $3,499 spatial computer? Apple promises enhanced productivity with your Mac, a new way…

STORE.PCPRO.CO.UK For years, Norton has been synonymous with security. Norton 360 Deluxe is its comprehensive “do it all” suite that continues its fine tradition of offering protection for all your devices (PC, Mac, iOS or Android). And now you can protect three devices for two years, all for just £14.99 rather than the standard cost of £149.99. JUST £14.99 Three devices. Two years. REAL-TIME THREAT PROTECTION Norton’s advanced security helps protect against existing and emerging online threats to your device, and helps protect your private and financial data online. PASSWORD MANAGER Tools to easily generate, store and manage your passwords, credit card details and other online credentials more securely. SMART FIREWALL FOR PC OR MAC Monitors communications between your computer and other computers and helps block any unauthorised traffic. PC…

SCORE PRICE £1,953 (£2,343 inc VAT) from lenovo.com The Lenovo Yoga Book 9i could start a trend for 2-in-1 laptops. It could also be an expensive gimmick. Incorporating two 13.3in OLED screens in one device, the Yoga Book 9i offers a bevy of different modes designed to boost productivity. It can function as a traditional Windows 11 laptop or tablet, and it can slip into tent mode for presentations. And thanks to the included folio kickstand, you can use the Yoga Book 9i with two displays stacked on top of each other, or spread the two panels side by side. The latter is ideal for activities such as watching films and video calls, while the former works well when word processing, coding or web browsing. You can easily switch between…

SCORE PRICE £300 (£360 inc VAT) from amazon.co.uk Released in 2020, the Anycubic Kobra was a popular 3D printer with a big print volume and a small price. The Kobra 2 upgrades the formula with an improved tool head, new electronics and other mechanical changes aimed at boosting speed, reliability and print quality. The look remains functional rather than stylish, with an open-frame Cartesian design. However, Anycubic has made some effort to pull away from a purely industrial aesthetic, with injection-moulded belt tensioner covers and enclosed bases. Getting started is a breeze. The printer arrives semi-assembled, and it took me around 15 minutes to work through the supplied setup instructions. With this done the next step is to run the printer’s calibration and fine-tuning procedures, as the vertical positioning of…

SCORE PRICE £180 (£217 inc VAT) from amazon.co.uk Buy a mechanical keyboard and there’s every chance that Cherry’s MX switches will be inside. So why not cut to the chase and buy one of the company’s own offerings, especially if you seek sleek business professionalism rather than the RGB gaming alternative? The “ULP” in this keyboard’s name refers to the company’s ultra-low profile switches, which are similar to its quieter MX Brown keys but with a shorter travel distance and lower height. There’s 1.8mm of total travel, but that includes around 1mm of “pre-travel”. That means the actuation point is at around 0.8mm, but what really matters is that people who need to hit particular keys at great speed will enjoy greater responsiveness, as each key requires less force to…

SCORE PRICE Standard, £17 (£20 inc VAT) per month per user from docusign.co.uk As you might guess from the name, DocuSign is a tool for adding personal signatures to digital documents. That’s a valuable ability in an age when teams are often collaborating remotely. The entry-level Personal plan costs £80 exc VAT per user per year, and integrates with Dropbox, OneDrive and Google Drive. You can configure an audit trail, set up reminders and notifications, and create templates. Accompanying mobile apps help you keep track of your documents while on the go; the catch is that you’re only allowed to send five documents to be signed per month. That restrictive limit is removed in the higher tiers. In addition to the above, the Standard plan lets you add comments to…

We benchmarked all the Windows laptops using PCMark 10 to get a picture of performance across a range of productivity and creative applications. We then switched to PCMark 10’s Modern Office and Idle battery benchmarks to check battery life. We split 3D games testing across two tests. First, we ran 3DMark Time Spy and then used Shadow of the Tomb Raider’s built-in benchmark. With this month’s mixed Windows\Chromebook lineup, we also wanted to run some cross-platform tests. First, we used the Windows and Android versions of Geekbench 6 and GFXBench, along with the Wildlife benchmark featured in both the Windows and Android versions of 3DMark. Finally, we ran a selection of browser-based benchmarks to simulate cloud-based apps, and ran the laptops unplugged with a looping 1080p video file for a…

SCORE PRICE £749 (£899 inc VAT) from dell.co.uk With its 16in screen and dark green metallic finish, the Inspiron 16 Plus is an imposing laptop, working better as a desktop replacement for coursework-heavy studies than for lugging around college or campus. At a shade over 2kg, it’s one of the heavier laptops here, but that’s reflected in a metal top and bottom, repeated in the plate beneath the keyboard, that give it a rugged, premium feel. The size also means there’s room for more ports and sockets alongside the large vents on either side. It’s disappointing to see just one USB-C port, even if it supports Thunderbolt 4, but at least you get two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports, HDMI 2.0 and headphone outputs, plus a full-sized SD-card slot. Note…

SCORE PRICE £470 (£565 inc VAT) from microsoft.co.uk The Surface Laptop Go 2 is a great example of how specs don’t always tell the whole story. On paper it might sound underspecced and underpowered, with a small, low-resolution screen. In practice, it’s one of the most likable devices on test. Originally released in 2020 and updated in the middle of last year, the Surface Laptop Go works as a pint-sized version of Microsoft’s 13.5in Surface Laptop, with a smaller, slimmer chassis and a 12.5in screen. It’s surprisingly compact, at just 278mm wide by 206mm deep and only 15.7mm thick at most (towards the rear of its wedge-shaped profile). The lid and keyboard plate are aluminium, while the base is a soft-touch polycarbonate composite. It’s also extremely light at just 1.1kg,…

SCORE PRICE £577 (£693 inc VAT) from pcpro.link/347vibe The Asus Chromebook Vibe CX55 Flip is one of a wave of gaming Chromebooks released last year, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore it if you’re buying a laptop for study. In fact, other than the orange lettering and borders on the WASD keys, you’d be hard pressed to know this was a games machine at all, and the gaming features are restricted to an anti-ghosting keyboard and a 144Hz 1080p screen. Despite the screen size, this is a 2-in-1 convertible Chromebook, able to be used in a tablet mode or a tent mode as well as for standard clamshell operations. At 2kg, it’s far too big and heavy for tablet mode to make much sense, but the tent mode is…

Have we passed peak Chromebook? The sales figures might suggest so. According to IDC, Chromebook sales rose by a staggering 181% in 2021, only to drop by 48% in 2022. Chromebook market share looks set to fall from just under 7% in 2022 to 6% this year. Yet this month’s Labs is a reminder why Chromebooks took off – pandemic pressure for cheap, education-ready laptops – and what they still offer today. These are highly capable devices with good security that offer easy maintenance, plus a little more premium feel than you might get from the Windows equivalent. I’m a firm believer that Chromebooks can be great for home or business, provided that you know what you’re getting into. However, they’re particularly good for student use, partly because the limitations…

SCORE PRICE From £10 exc VAT per month for 100GB from backupeverything.co.uk Backup Everything Cloud Backup Plus (CBP) is affordable for small businesses since costs are based purely on the amount of cloud storage you want. Prices start at £10 per month for 100GB of cloud storage and, unlike some competing vendors, this is the capacity after compression has been applied, so in real terms you’re getting even more for your money. Extra chunks of cloud storage cost 10p per gigabyte per month, CPB’s vault seeding service is free and, if you’re worried about data residency, you’ll be pleased to know that both its data centres are located in the UK. Data security is good as your account password is the encryption key and although you can set an option…

SCORE PRICE £1,737 exc VAT from midwich.com Videoconferencing (VC) continues to enjoy unprecedented growth levels since the pandemic, and Biamp now wants a piece of the action. It makes its play for the small to medium-sized meeting room market with the imposing Parlé VBC 2500. Measuring nearly one metre in length, this all-in-one conferencing bar takes a lot of the technology Biamp has developed over its 46 years in the professional audio-visual (AV) space and hands it to SMBs. Whereas most competing VC bars offer a beam-forming array made up of five or six microphones, the VBC 2500 boasts a highly accurate beam-tracking array comprising 27 microphone elements. It sports a 4K UHD camera capable of delivering up to a 2160p resolution at 30fps and teams this with a wide…

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One of the first things I was taught at law school was how a contract is formed. Someone needs to make an offer to another party; for example, Person A says to Person B, “I will provide you with services for £200”. Person B needs to accept that offer; for example, by saying, “Yes please”. There needs to be some form of consideration from each party to the other party. In Person A’s case, it is promising to provide services; in Person B’s case, it is promising to pay £200. The terms of the contract need to be sufficiently certain and complete. In our example, there are many different types of services, and many different ways in which they can be provided. The parties would need to be clear that…

Features Windows Copilot: an expert’s guide You can almost hear the buzz of excitement emanating from Microsoft HQ about Windows Copilot. So what’s all the fuss about? And how will it help you? We reveal all. The battle to make sustainable PCs Barry Collins goes behind the scenes at Lenovo’s global HQ in Raleigh, North Carolina, to discover why building a”green PC” isn’t quite as simple as it may first appear. Personal document management master class Nik Rawlinson explains how to use OCR to organise and manage your affairs without the hassle, from hardware and software to organisational tips. Labs Workstations It’s been a big 12 months in the world of workstations, with new silicon from AMD, Intel and Nvidia. We put ten powerhouse systems through their paces. Retro The…

One of the reasons why web scrapers occupy such a grey area is because a crucial part of scraping at scale is the need to disguise where web traffic is coming from, to get around web servers putting up defensive walls and blocking significant amounts of web traffic that originate from the same IP address. “On a technological level it’s definitely a cat-and-mouse game,” said Oxylabs’ Denas Grybauskas. “It’s a constant battle between who has better IP blocks, and who has better IP rotation and captcha-solving features.” As such, scraping at scale requires the use of proxy servers, so that traffic is routed to the destination by taking different routes each time. “Proxies are like fuel for web-scraping technology,” said Grybauskas. “You basically need to pour in gasoline, and proxies…

Nicole Kobie is PC Pro’s futures editor. The biggest culture shock moving from Canada to the UK was rounds at the pub: it’s beautifully social, but wow does it increase alcohol intake. @njkobie When I first moved to London from Canada, I was surprised by the many cultural differences: no tipping at pubs, litter in the streets (right next to a bin, you slobs) and that when someone greets you with “alright?” they aren’t asking for a detailed answer. It was strange to be in a country that spoke the same language but did everything slightly differently than my homeland. At one point early in my life here, I needed to send money back to Canada. This required physically taking my body into a bank, which surprised me as 20…

Human factor authentication Lee Grant’s piece (see issue 346, p111) about Brian needs to be posted on every home and office wall as a reminder that the weakest link in the security chain is almost always the human. Security experts rightly bemoan the fact that SMS has become the lowest common denominator when it comes to 2FA, but people are often lured into a false sense of security when they believe that they have locked down access to their accounts. Brian’s story highlights the fact that one of the major access vectors used by scam artists today involves the (often literally) bad actors convincing the victim that they’re from their ISP, Microsoft, HMRC or even the “criminal fraud department”. Once that’s achieved, they get remote access to a device that the…

It’s important to remember that behind every one of the fraud statistics we’ve discussed is a real person. In April, Mark received a call claiming to be from Microsoft. “I’d been having problems with email, so when they said there were viruses on my computer, I didn’t doubt him.” Mark gave the scammer remote control of his PC. “He was on the phone a good hour, but kept asking to log in to my bank.” The scammer had unwittingly picked the wrong target. “I’ve never done computer banking as I don’t trust it,” said Mark. When Mark refused to hand over debit card details, the fraudster became abusive, and Mark ended the call. “I spoke to the bank, just to be sure.” Although Mark doesn’t bank online, he had made…

Recommended This, quite simply, is a product we recommend you buy – if it meets your needs. A-List The best buy in its category right now. The product will also feature on our A-List, starting on p14. It’s updated each month. Labs Winner Each month we run a group test, or Labs. This product has managed to beat all others to top position. The pcpro.link Throughout the magazine you’ll see pcpro.link shortcuts. Enter these into the address bar of your browser and it will take you to a particular page, which will either be too long or awkward for us to publish or will take you to the precise shop from which to buy. If it’s Amazon, note that we have an affiliate deal in place so we will receive…

SCORE PRICE Reference designs, £217 (£260 inc VAT) from scan.co.uk While Nvidia has released cards with metronomic regularity these past few months, AMD has been quiet: the last graphics card we saw was the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX (see issue 341, p60). That was a fine offering, but it launched half a year ago. It’s interesting that AMD chose to release a budget-friendly mid-range card rather than go down the list of higher-end offerings the way Nvidia has. That’s a smart strategy: it means AMD’s closest current competitor is the ageing RTX 3060, which can be bought for a similar price, with the RTX 4060 not due out for another month. That card is more expensive, too, with prices from £289. In terms of performance, we’ll let the 1080p…

SCORE PRICE As reviewed, £1,499 (£1,799 inc VAT) from apple.com/uk It’s easy to dismiss the 15in MacBook Air as a blown-up version of the M2-powered 13in MacBook Air released last year (see issue 336, p50). Indeed, that’s mostly what it is. Yet it also gives Mac fans a fresh, tempting portable computing option. One immediately interesting thing about the new Air is its price. Starting at £1,399 inc VAT, it’s only £150 more than the 13in model – a modest premium for a much bigger screen. As usual, the entry-level spec has a lowly 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, and there’s no scope for post-purchase upgrades. Consider doubling the memory at least, as this is a laptop made for multitasking. I tested a 16GB model with a 512GB…

Total value this month £169 novaPDF 11.8 Lite NovaPDF is a powerful tool that can create PDF files from any Windows application that supports printing. It equips your PC with a virtual printer driver, which you can then use to create PDFs as if you were printing out a document. Just Full product worth £29 novapdf.com select the novaPDF printer and, rather than being output to paper, your document is processed and saved as a PDF. Using the virtual printer isn’t your only option. NovaPDF also has its own console, through which you can select documents and convert them directly to PDF. It directly integrates with Microsoft Office applications, too, so if you’re an Office user, you can open a document, click the novaPDF tab on the ribbon toolbar, and…

SCORE PRICE £879 (£1,055 inc VAT) from prusa3d.com The Original Prusa MK4 is the latest version of the popular Prusa open-source 3D printer. Like its predecessors, it promises fast, reliable 3D printing; it also adds several new features that set it apart from earlier models, and from current competitors. The printer has a maximum build volume of 250 x 210 x 220mm (which is 10mm wider than the MK3S+) and uses a 1.75mm diameter filament, with a layer resolution of between 0.05 mm and 0.3 mm. The magnetic heatbed has removable PEI spring steel sheets and supports a wide variety of materials, including PLA, PETG, ABS, ASA, Flex, HIPS, PA, PVA, PC, PP, CPE, PVB, NGEN, composites and more. One of the most exciting features of the MK4 is the…

SCORE PRICE £1,566 (£1,879 inc VAT) from store.dji.com DJI’s new high-end Mavic 3 Pro drone breaks the mould with a triple-camera array, providing huge flexibility for framing photos and videos. Like the original Mavic 3 it comes in two models: a standard edition with 8GB of onboard storage, and a Cine version with a much larger 1TB SSD. The standard drone with DJI’s regular RC controller will cost you £1,879, while the “Fly More” bundle adds two additional batteries, a carrying bag, a charging hub, ND filters and other useful accessories for £2,549. Step up to the RC Pro controller and you’re looking at £3,169 for the bundle, while the top-end package with the RC Pro and the Mavic 3 Pro Cine vehicle will cost you £4,109. The drone itself…

SCORE PRICE £416 (£499 inc VAT) from currys.co.uk Acer is serious about the eco credentials of the Vero 514. It’s built using 30% post-consumer recycled (PCR) plastics in the chassis and the frame around the screen, with 50% PCR plastics in the keycaps and speakers. The touchpad is made from recycled ocean-bound plastics in a composite material Acer calls OceanGlass, while all the packaging is made from cardboard. Acer even accentuates the point by colouring the legends on the E and R keys yellow, though they’re not reversed as they are on the Windows Aspire Vero 514 (see p90). It might be plastic, but the Chromebook Vero 514 feels tough. There’s practically no flex or movement on the base when pressure is applied, while the lid is a little thicker…

SCORE PRICE £458 (£550 inc VAT) from lenovo.com Most manufacturers opted for Intel-based machines in this month’s Labs, but Lenovo bucked the trend by sending in an AMD-based system. Ryzen processors are popular at the budget end of the market, and it’s easy to understand why. Not only do you get a good level of performance and decent battery life at an affordable price, but also more GPU power than you can expect from the equivalent Intel chips. The chassis is one we’ve seen before from Lenovo, using aluminium alloy for the lid, base and keyboard surround in a smart dark grey finish. There’s little give in the base if you try to twist it and precious little flex in the lid, yet it’s relatively lightweight at 1.4kg. And, with…

SCORE PRICE £708 (£849 inc VAT) from currys.co.uk There’s a distinct family resemblance between the Acer Aspire Vero AV14-51 and its Chromebook cousin, with both sharing the same basic chassis design, only with a blue finish on the Aspire Vero against the Chromebook Vero’s grey. If anything, the blue looks slightly better thanks to a coloured fleck effect. Its construction feels rock solid, not to mention comfortable while you work. The Chromebook version is also heavier, weighing in at 1.5kg to the Aspire’s 1.4kg. There are more differences when it comes to connectivity. Where the Chromebook model has a USB-C port on each side, the Aspire has a single USB-C port that supports Thunderbolt 4 and USB 3.2 Gen 2 on the left, with USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports on…

SCORE PRICE £417 (£500 inc VAT) from hp.co.uk HP’s Chromebook 11 X2 is effectively HP’s Chrome OS answer to the Microsoft Surface Go, giving you an 11in Chrome OS tablet that transforms into a laptop with the aid of a magnetic keyboard cover. It even follows Microsoft’s trick of using magnets to raise the level of the keyboard as it clamps to the front and bottom of the screen. The mechanics are somewhat different, as the tablet itself has no kickstand. Instead, the bottom half of a magnetic rear cover folds out to keep the tablet supported while in laptop mode. Good design makes this less clunky than it sounds, and the Chromebook 11 X2 is an extremely usable little laptop. Where the Surface Go’s keyboard is an extra, HP…

SCORE PRICE £708 (£849 inc VAT) from laptopoutlet.co.uk The most exciting thing about the MSI Prestige 15 is its impressive spec. Not only do you get a 12th generation Intel Core i7-1280P processor but also Nvidia RTX 3050 graphics. This makes it one of only two laptops here with a dedicated graphics chip, and it’s a great gaming system. It’s also one of the biggest laptops on test, with a 257 x 234mm desktop footprint, and while the lid and keyboard surround are aluminium, the base itself is plastic. This isn’t a machine that will gain admiring glances. However, the build feels rigid and robust, and our only real grumble is that the base gets warm should you switch performance profiles to High Performance in the MSI Center app. This…

Data backup may not be on an IT administrator’s list of “exciting projects to manage”, but those that fail to do it properly – or even at all – are putting their company’s existence on the line. Data is one business asset that is not expendable, so failing to protect it is courting disaster. There’s no need for this madness as a huge choice of products is available to suit businesses and budgets of all sizes. In fact, the biggest hurdle facing SMBs today is the sheer range of solutions; it can be difficult to choose the best one for their data protection requirements. The cloud has an essential role to play, as it provides a ready-made location for off-site backups. The most effective backup strategies employ a hybrid approach…

SCORE PRICE From £708 exc VAT per year from barracuda.com SMBs fretting about running an entire data backup strategy can rest easy with Barracuda’s Backup products, which are designed to manage the whole process. These all-in-one solutions look after local and cloud backups, offer optional site-to-site replication and are easily managed from a single cloud portal. Barracuda offers a range of hardware appliances, and in this review we test the Backup Vx virtual appliance. It’s a cheaper alternative if you already have a Hyper-V or VMware host and it doesn’t require much in the way of resources. It’s priced differently as the virtual appliance is free and you purchase a single socket licence for each physical host it will protect, with this costing £708 per year. Virtual host licences are…

SCORE PRICE £515 exc VAT from broadbandbuyer.com TP-Link takes a commanding lead in the business wireless AX class wars, with the Omada EAP690E HD being the first AXE11000 access point (AP) to market. Its mighty Wi-Fi 6E unit achieves this admirable feat by delivering quad-band wireless services comprising 2.4GHz, dual 5GHz and 6GHz radios. All four radios can be enabled simultaneously and deliver claimed maximum speeds of 1,148Mbits/sec on the 2.4GHz radio, 2,402Mbits/sec on each 5GHz radio and 4,804Mbits/sec on the 6GHz radio, with the latter supporting the Wi-Fi 6 160MHz channels. That’s a lot of bandwidth to cram through the AP’s LAN connection, and TP-Link claims another first with the EAP690E HD sporting a high-speed 10-gigabit (10GbE) port. The LAN port supports an 802.3at PoE+ power source, and to get…

There is an age-old question in photography: “What’s the best camera in the world?” Some might talk about the delights of Canon or Nikon. Others might ponder on the financial ruin that comes from acquiring a serious Leica habit. I have done all of the above, and loved most every minute of it. The correct answer to the question is, “the one that you have with you at the time”. There’s no point having expensive glass, wonderful high-end camera bodies and more bokeh you can shake a stick at if the damnable thing is at home and you aren’t. I have no problem with the concept of planning. Anyone who has done work with a 5 x 4in plate camera knows of the exquisite delight in waiting for the cloud…

You may recall that, back in issue 345, I questioned just how much of a real-world risk shoulder surfing is to smartphone users. My conclusion was that, while it most certainly is an approach used by some opportunist thieves, there’s little evidence to suggest it’s rife on the streets of the UK. Nor is it the hardest of attack methodologies to thwart if you follow privacy and security best practice. On the privacy side of things that means treating your smartphone PIN in the same way you should your bank card PIN. Most folk do their best to keep the latter to themselves, especially when at the cash machine. Hand-cupping and awareness of those around you come into play. When it comes to security, if you must use a numerical…

Two donkeys go into a pub. When they get in, what do they order? According to The Man’s Daddy – an oddball with a penchant for telling nonsensical jokes – the answer is chicken. And if you laughed at that, then it’s highly likely you’d have enjoyed Digitiser, an offbeat, surreal videogames magazine broadcast on Teletext in the UK between 1 January 1993 and 9 March 2003. Daddy was a pixellated character who graced Digitiser’s on-screen pages, but he wasn’t the only one. There was The Man himself (aka The Man with a Long Chin), Zombie Dave, Insincere Dave and the innuendo-laden Chester Fisho. They formed a little world of their own alongside sword-selling Britt Slaps, prankster Phoning Honey and Mr and Mrs Nude. Readers would also be treated to…

I can’t let the public unveiling of the Apple Vision Pro headset go without comment. Of course, proof is in the pudding (or in this case, the putting on). But I’ll stick my neck out now and say this is possibly the most profound change in personal computing for decades. The more I look into the technical details, the implementation and the forthcoming developer platform, the more my jaw drops. Let’s first set some realistic timeframes. The Vision Pro doesn’t go on sale for the best part of a year. The price is, I suspect, designed to keep the V1 hardware out of the mainstream and within the realms of developers and those who need this tech today. There’s simply no way that a screen solution/VR/AR headset is going to…

Microsoft has often made big, expensive bets on almost certainly doomed ideas. From challenging the almighty iPod with the Zune, to trying to muscle Windows Mobile into a market that had been reshaped by Apple and Android, the gambles don’t always pay off. Now Microsoft has decided to pour money into perhaps the most historically doomed venture of all: fusion energy. Fusion is, in essence, a highly speculative form of nuclear power. Unlike the power plants we have today based on nuclear fission – splitting the atom – the idea behind fusion is that it’s conceivably possible to capture the huge amounts of energy released when atoms fuse together. There’s one major snag: so far, it hasn’t been proven to work. The long-running joke in the energy industry is that…

PREMIUM LAPTOPS Apple MacBook Pro 16in M2 Pro power from £2,699 from apple.com/uk All the upgrades to this 2023 model are within, as Apple’s M2 Pro and M2 Max processors take charge. Combine this power with the 16.2in mini-LED screen, superb sound system and phenomenal battery life, and you have the world’s premier workstation laptop. REVIEW Issue 342, p48 ALTERNATIVES NEW ENTRY Apple MacBook Pro 14in If you prefer your power in a more compact package than the Pro 16in, then the 14in is an excellent alternative – and it weighs 1.6kg rather than 2.2kg. From £2,149 from apple.com/uk REVIEW Issue 343, p44 Samsung Galaxy Book3 Ultra Samsung packs everything into this 16in laptop, from a superb AMOLED panel and a slim 1.8kg chassis to a Core i9 CPU and…

Barry Collins is a former editor of PC Pro and the current manager of Premier League champions Newcastle Utd. @bazzacollins I couldn’t do it. My suitcase was packed, I was ready to leave for the airport at ungodly o’clock, but I couldn’t leave her behind. I’ve been building up to leaving her for a while. The odd day trip to London without her, the occasional conference, sometimes with an overnight stay. But this was going to be three days. Three whole days. I’d never been without her for that long. It was never going to work. Or, at least, I was never going to work. Not properly. She who couldn’t be jettisoned was, of course, my MacBook Pro. This a computing magazine, not Mills & Boon. You saw the thin…

In 2022, the UK’s total financial loss to fraud exceeded £1.2 billion, with more than 2.9 million reported cases. Maybe you’re among the statistics. Anyone who’s responded to a phone call, SMS or social-media post and was then tricked into transferring money to criminals is a victim of Authorised Push Payment fraud, currently the most prolific form of financial crime affecting UK consumers and businesses. We’re going behind the scenes, speaking to financial regulators, industry groups and crime experts to learn why this type of fraud has become so prevalent and what happens once the crime is reported. You’ll hear from the police about the challenges of investigating the crime and learn the uncomfortable truth about who is picking up the compensation bill. We’ll also look to the future, hearing…

The seven OSI layers don’t directly mirror any particular networking system, and that’s arguably a strength: it means the model can be used to analyse or plan out any sort of networking scenario. However, not everyone agrees that OSI is a good fit for the 21st century. That’s because the vast majority of modern networks use TCP/IP – and this particular collection of standards is itself defined in terms of four layers, which don’t perfectly match the OSI divisions. In TCP/IP, the bottom layer is the “link layer”, or “network access layer”. This includes defined standards for both connection protocols (such as Ethernet and Wi-Fi) and basic communications over those connections, so it’s like a combination of OSI Layers 1 and 2. The next two TCP/IP layers are the “internet…

SCORE PRICE £3,667 (£4,400 inc VAT) from chillblast.com Before you shake your head at the £4,400 that Chillblast is charging for this system, take a look at the price of an RTX 4090 graphics card. At the bare minimum this will cost you almost £1,600, and a card designed for overclocking such as the Asus ROG Strix here won’t give you much change out of £2,000. If you’re investing this much in a graphics card, it makes sense to back it up with the best gaming CPU and motherboard around. That means AMD’s much-lauded Ryzen 9 7950X3D processor and an Asus ROG Strix gaming motherboard that sells for over £500. For cooling? A top-of-the-range Corsair iCue H150i Elite liquid cooler (£300). It makes no sense to supply such components unless…

SCORE PRICE £749 (£899 inc VAT) from pcspecialist.co.uk/reviews Forget the expense of the HP Omen 45L (see p50) or Chillblast Apex (see p52): the PCSpecialist Topaz Supreme is all about value. That doesn’t mean cheap, it doesn’t mean nasty. It means every penny you’re spending is designed to deliver the maximum return possible in terms of performance. It all starts with the AMD Ryzen 5 7600 processor. The first thing that strikes you on powering up Windows is that everything snaps to attention, and so it should because this is using AMD’s latest Zen 4 architecture. The only area where the 7600 will fall behind more expensive processors is when you’re using the PC for a task that exploits multiple threads. There are six performance cores and 12 threads here,…

SCORE PRICE Founders Edition, £324 (£389 inc VAT) from store.nvidia.com The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti is without doubt one of the most anticipated graphics card launches of this generation, and now that it’s here, it should be an easy win for Nvidia over arch-rival AMD. Nvidia is leaning into DLSS 3 as the 4060 Ti’s biggest selling point over AMD, but it has other factors in its favour. For example, an expanded cache (compared to the 3060 Ti), which widens its memory bandwidth despite still having only 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM to work with. But: the 4060 Ti uses a 128-bit bus while the RTX 3060 Ti had a 256-bit bus for the same amount of VRAM. To cut a long story short, the end result is that the…

SCORE PRICE As tested, £2,983 (£3,579 inc VAT) from dell.co.uk This is the biggest XPS on the block, updated for 2023 with the latest Intel and Nvidia silicon. It’s hefty yet sleek, with slick reflective accents complementing the silver machined aluminium chassis. It sports the same eye-catching InfinityEdge design as smaller siblings such as the Dell XPS 13, and when you crack it open the thin bezels make its 17in display even more striking. At 2.4kg, though, I recommend against trying to pick it up with one hand – I’ve done just that multiple times without thinking, and each time I felt like my wrist was going to pop out of its socket. This is also the first XPS I’ve reviewed where I needed both hands to open the lid,…

1 Visit pcprodownload.co.uk. First, enter the issue number (347 this month). Next, enter your email address and the coupon code printed on the cover’s spine (or directly on the front cover of digital issues of the magazine). We’ll then send an email to confirm that your code has been registered. Follow the instructions in the email to access the download area. 2 Once you’re in the download area, you can access this month’s bonus software by navigating to the relevant product page and clicking the red Install button. For trial software, freeware and other downloads, click the Install button below the product description, or follow the onscreen instructions (please make sure to read these carefully). 3 If the software needs registering, click the purple Register button, or follow the instructions on…

UM 3.0 SCORE PRICE £67 (£80 inc VAT) from box.co.uk UM 6.0 SCORE PRICE £92 (£110 inc VAT) from box.co.uk UM 9.0 SCORE PRICE £125 (£150 inc VAT) from box.co.uk Cherry is branching out. The German company best known for keyboards has decided the time is right to launch its own range of microphones. We’ll start with the flagship offering: the UM 9.0 Pro RGB. In terms of design, this shares much with the UM 6.0, but with a copper rather than silver base to accompany the shock mount mechanism. This suspends the microphone separately from the stand, and means accidental thumps of the table shouldn’t make their way onto your recordings. It can even reduce the low rumble from background noise such as traffic. As the UM 9.0’s full…

SCORE PRICE £275 (£330 inc VAT) from mobvoi.com With so many smartwatches being released at any one time, you may wonder what makes Mobvoi’s latest so special as to deserve a full-page review. The answer is two-fold: the TicWatch Pro 5 marks a debut for Qualcomm’s Snapdragon W5+ G1 chip, and it promises over three days of battery life. With a rugged design, could this be Android’s answer to the Apple Watch Ultra (see issue 339, p76)? The TicWatch Pro 5 certainly makes a fine first impression. Its aluminium casing is finished in gunmetal grey with a subtle ridged pattern on the bezel’s outer edges that sends all the right signals in terms of quality. It’s chunky, standing 12mm proud from your wrist, but during long walks, runs and numerous…

SCORE PRICE £938 (£1,125 inc VAT) from pcpro.link/347asus This month we wanted to focus on student-ready laptops at budget to mid-range price points, but if you want to see what pushing your budget a little further can get you, you only have to look at the Asus Vivobook S 15 OLED. No prizes for guessing what this laptop’s key selling point might be, but it isn’t merely the screen that’s high end: it also packs the only 13th-gen Intel CPU in this test, along with one of only two dedicated GPUs. It’s clear that the budget has been concentrated on the screen and specs, because the unit itself isn’t quite as premium as it first appears. While the lid is metallic, the rest of the chassis is a silver plastic…

SCORE PRICE £458 (£550 inc VAT) from lenovo.com Looking for a monster laptop with a less-than-monster price tag? Lenovo’s IdeaPad 5i Chromebook 16 could be just what you need. Not only does it have a massive 16in screen, but there’s a speedy 12th-generation Core i3 CPU and a better feature set than you’d anticipate at this price. Of course, making that happen involves some compromises, but the IdeaPad 5i Chromebook 16 makes these in sensible places. This is a bulky laptop, so it’s better for those studying and doing coursework at a desk than those looking for something they can lug around campus all day long. Its desktop footprint measures 357 x 253mm, it’s nearly 20mm thick and it weighs 1.9kg. If that’s lower than you expected, it’s because the…

SCORE PRICE £391 (£469 inc VAT) from currys.co.uk It’s hard to tell from first impressions that the Chromebook Spin 514 is a sub-£500 computer (its RRP is actually £599, but it’s always discounted). Both the lid and the bottom cover are fashioned from aluminium, and while the keyboard surround is plastic, it looks good. There’s little flex in the base, and the screen is visibly brighter than your average Chromebook’s: we measured it at 338cd/m2. It’s very much a mid-range laptop at a budget price. Acer hasn’t failed on ergonomics, either. The keyboard has a great layout that makes the most of the available space, while the keys’ light but tactile action is consistent across the surface. The touchpad could be larger, but it’s smooth and does a fine job…

SCORE PRICE With keyboard, £499 (£599 inc VAT) from microsoft.co.uk Microsoft’s original Surface Go set a new benchmark for how usable a small-screen convertible can be, and the third version doesn’t mess with the successful formula. It still presents as a 10.5in tablet with nicely rounded corners and a pull-out kickstand, while attaching the not-so-optional Type Cover transforms it into an amazingly compact laptop. In cramped situations such as a train or busy lecture hall this form factor is incredibly convenient (albeit not suited to use on your lap), and it lends the Surface Go 3 more flexibility than most other laptops in this test. We tested the Surface Go 3 with Microsoft’s £100 black microfibre Type Cover (the tablet on its own costs £499 inc VAT), but Alcantara finish…

SCORE PRICE One server from £649 exc VAT per year from acronis.com Businesses seeking a complete data protection and security strategy for their workstations, servers, virtualisation hosts and apps will love Acronis’ Cyber Protect. It’s all managed from one cloud portal and a single host agent takes care of backups, malware protection, web content filtering, patch management, remote desktop services and vulnerability assessments. Cyber Protect 23 Advanced takes everything from the Standard version and adds deduplication, backup malware scans, security posture reports and group management. Acronis offers an on-premises option but the cloud-hosted version on review has extra appeal as it includes mobile backup and is ideal for extending protection to remote workers. Cyber Protect is a subscription service, with Advanced yearly workstation licences costing £95 each and including 50GB…

SCORE PRICE 2.5TB, £479 exc VAT per year from idrive.com With a track record going back over 15 years, IDrive has been in the cloud backup market longer than most and for good reason. It offers a range of affordable subscription tiers, with the flagship Business version on review priced according to the amount of cloud storage you require. Yearly subscriptions are the best value and start at £60 for 250GB of cloud storage, with 2.5TB upping this to £479. Even better, all Business tiers include unlimited clients and apps, with IDrive providing outstanding platform support. The guest list includes Windows, macOS and Linux desktops, iOS and Android mobiles, Windows Server, Hyper-V and VMware hosts, along with business apps such as Exchange, SQL Server, SharePoint, Oracle and Microsoft 365 Exchange…

An email from reader Glen Moore got me thinking this month. He was trying to share the power-control signal from a UPS with a Synology NAS and a Windows 10 desktop PC, but both needed to be connected over USB. And there was only one USB port on the UPS. Over to Glen: “I have read that splitting a USB is not possible; however, one person said they had such a scenario working using a non-powered hub, but I couldn’t make it work. I also read of scripting options where one PC advises another, but that’s no good for a NAS. I read about NUT but didn’t manage to get that working, though admittedly it was complicated to the point I gave up. Surely such a seemingly simple thing can…

We’re in the middle of the Forth Road Bridge when the automated systems controlling the bus decide they’re unhappy and ask the safety driver to take back control. He does so, without any appreciable change in the handling of the bus – which is to say, as we sped over the bridge, I noticed nothing at all. This is not only the UK’s first autonomous bus operating on a real schedule with actual customers, but, it is believed, the world’s. For the price of a bus ticket, you can hop on at Edinburgh Park on the western edge of the city and ride to Queensferry before crossing the picturesque bridge, admiring the views of the famous Forth Bridge and Inchgarvie. Forget the hype around driverless cars: autonomous buses are here.…