Table of contents for March 2017 in PC & Tech Authority

Just for the fun of it At last year’s Computex, VR was the be all and end all. It was everywhere, and ‘VR Ready’ danglers hung off everything from graphics cards (to be expected), to NAS products (whaa…?). But at the heart of it all was Oculus and Vive. A few exhibitors had lesser players on display – we saw a couple of OSVR prototypes, and not much else. Clearly with VR the potential is huge for sales, so it was no surprise to hear from industry people that when China surges into VR everything will change. And it has, and here it is, now. Prowling through the VR product pages of Gearbest – a Chinese company that sells PC gear and consumer electronics on behalf of local brands, as…

With CES having just wrapped up I wanted to cover some of the products and technologies that caught my attention. Interestingly it all seemed to revolve around displays for me, and it seems all the new screen tech also got John from TI computers excited. We’ll have some more complete coverage of CES for you to drool over next issue. First cab off the rank is Razer. It’s been known to embark on some crazy and whacky product ideas in the past and this year was no different. Project Ariana is a projector that Razer has developed as the next step in their Chroma (synchronised RGB lighting) technology. In a nutshell, using your regular monitor as your central viewport, the Ariana projector effectively expands your viewing real estate onto the…

Recently at Reimagination 2016, held in Sydney in December, it was refreshing to hear from a range of experts in topics such as entrepreneurship, innovation, artificial intelligence, and the role of government in the development and adoption of new technologies. Panellists including Pip Marlow, Managing Director of Microsoft Australia; Karen Stocks, Former Managing Director of Twitter; and Dr Ian Oppermann, CEO and Chief Data Scientist at NSW Data Analytics Centre spoke alongside pollies including the Hon Victor Dominello MP, Minister for Innovation and Better Regulation; the Hon. Philip Dalidakis, Victorian Minister for Small Business, Innovation and Trade; and the Hon Stephen Conroy, Former Minister for Broadband --who, it must be said, provided one of the more interesting insights into government when he spoke about the sometimes risk-averse culture of government…

Auto-playing adverts, intrusive feedback requests, messages that prompt you to update unwanted software – it can often feel like your PC is under siege. In theory, we’re supposed to have more control of our systems and privacy than ever before, but in practice all those control panels and opt-out options count for nothing when software developers and web advertisers keep finding new ways to circumvent them. In fact, some of the biggest names in PC manufacturing, security and software – even Microsoft itself – seem hell-bent on running roughshod over our preferences and invading our PC screens. It’s time to take our PCs back. On the following pages, you’ll find not only details of the most intrusive PC invaders but also simple, practical advice on how to stop them. We…

Laptop makers are lining up to shoot down Microsoft’s Surface tablets, with the Asus Transformer Mini locking the Surface 3 in its targets, right down to its 1.44GHz quad-core Atom processor. It’s littered with ports. You’ll find micro-USB for charging the device, mini-HDMI, USB 3, microSD ports and a 3.5mm headphone jack – all you need for everyday usage. Around the back, a Surface-style kickstand converts the tablet into a laptop. I’d have liked to see rubber edges around the kickstand, to prevent it from sliding around, but had no issues using it either on my lap or on a wooden desk. Where it suffers compared to the Surface is build quality: it feels flimsy. Then again, and unlike the Surface, the Transformer Mini has a keyboard and trackpad included…

There’s a reason why Panasonic’s Toughbook range of ruggedized PCs are used by some of the world’s most elite special forces. When it comes to surviving a life less travelled, be it in tropical jungles, dusty deserts or icy-cold climates, nothing comes close to the reliability of these devices. The Toughpad FZ-A2MK1 takes Panasonic’s experience with indestructible construction and brings it to the Android tablet market. This is without doubt the toughest 10.1-inch Android tablet around, but the result is a price that is exponentially higher than standard 10.1-inch tablets. When it comes to the conditions this thing can handle, it’s been tested to a variety of specifications. It carries IP-X5 water resistance, which means it can handle being sprayed with water projected from a 6.3mm nozzle with no harmful…

A huge component of marketing PC hardware is the numbers game. The bigger the number, the better the product. Benq’s new XL2540 blows other monitors out of the ballpark with one figure in particular – the astonishing refresh rate. This speed-demon cranks out the frames at an incredible 240Hz, which the fastest we’ve yet seen. The question is whether or not such a high-speed is really necessary, even in the hyper competitive world of e-Sports? Measuring 24.5-inches across the diagonal, it’s not an exceptionally large monitor, though the 1080p resolution means it’s not too hard to spot the pixel structure. A matte finish matches the relatively plain yet attractive stand and bezel design. Unlike many of today’s monitors, it doesn’t utilise an edge-toedge screen, with a rather thick 12mm bezel…

It might be relatively new to the Aussie market, but Xiaomi has been taking the rest of the world by storm with its innovative yet inexpensive products. The Mi Wi-Fi is the latest such gadget, and it’s a rather impressive piece of kit to say the least. Combining an 802.11ac router with a 1TB hard drive, all at a ridiculously low price, this thing is likely to fly off shelves once word spreads. Considering the large size of most Wi-Fi routers, the tiny dimensions of the Mi Wi-Fi is the first thing you’ll notice, it’s approximately 170mm tall by 120mm deep by 64mm wide. It’s got an incredibly simple design, with none of the huge external antennae normally associated with 802.11ac routers. Yet this doesn’t seem to have hampered its…

FreeAgent is a cloud-based bookkeeping package designed to make accounting simple for small businesses. We reviewed the Limited Company edition at $20 a month, which covers your whole company with no limit on the number of users. Setup was as easy as promised. With the help of a wizardbased routine to input all the necessary company details, we were up and running within about 30 minutes. We uploaded our historical transactions and our contacts as CSV files with no problem at all. The only snag was uploading a bank statement as a CSV, with the initial file rejected due to formatting. In the end, we opened it up in Notepad and formatted it manually. Once uploaded, though, reconciliation was made easy, with FreeAgent identifying most transactions from our statement. You…

G raphics cards are as relevant today as they’ve ever been. To be sure, a discrete GPU is no longer a technical necessity. Most modern CPUs have enough built-in graphical power to handle desktop applications, and even a bit of casual gaming. However, today’s graphics cards are a world apart from those integrated GPUs. They have to be: modern games are typically set in vastly complex 3D worlds, with cinematic lighting and immersive effects. It’s no exaggeration to say that computer game design is one of the major creative industries of the 21st century. If your hardware isn’t powerful enough to render the visuals as they were meant to be seen, you simply aren’t getting the full experience. This month, we’ve picked out 17 of the latest graphics cards…

S tretch your budget to the $160 mark and you’re entering the realm of “proper” graphics cards, capable of delivering impressive visual experiences. The AMD Radeon RX 460 ($160) is a big step up from the company’s budget R7 models. Compared to the R7 250, the stream processor count has more than doubled, to 896 individual cores. The memory allocation is up too, to 2GB of GDDR5 as standard. We tested a PowerColor “Red Dragon” card, but other brands will offer identical specifications. The RX range also supports Direct3D feature level 12, rather than the 11_1 level of the R7 series. That bespeaks a GPU that’s designed to keep up with the latest technologies, and so it proved in our tests, where the RX 460 made current DirectX 12 titles…

W hen choosing a new graphics card, you may have given little thought to the idea of virtualreality gaming. After all, we’ve yet to see an essential VR game: it’s easy to imagine that you’ll be onto your next graphics card before virtual gaming becomes relevant. But the tipping point may come sooner than you think. The PSVR accessory for the PlayStation 4 was a big hit at Christmas, bringing the idea of VR into the mainstream. For PC gamers, the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift headsets offer a mature and effective VR experience. And while A-list games are still the missing link, the catalogue is growing. Right now on Steam you’ll find dozens of fun VR games and experiences. It may take only one or two major releases to…

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon has, since its inception, essentially been an outdoor companion to the Rainbow Six franchise. Whereas Rainbow Six concentrated on the tension and moment to moment thrills of room to room tactical combat in a realistic modern day setting, Ghost Recon instead took the action a few years into the future and gave players more environments to explore. As the series progressed from its first iteration in 2001, Ghost Recon pushed further and further into the realms of science fiction, culminating with the 2012 release of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, a game set in 2024 and featuring future tech such as walking robots and adaptive camouflage armour. Ghost Recon: Wildlands brings the action back to the modern day, and from what we’ve played so far is all…

TOUGH CALLS Despite the fact that the AMD Radeon R9 Fury won best ‘High-end gaming’ card in this month’s group test, we’re leaving our recommendation for the Game Box as is, with the excellent AMD Radeon RX 480. The sad reality is that the Fury just wasn’t a sales success so they are now difficult to find in Australian shops. Not impossible, just difficult. If you see an R9 Fury at a nice price it comes with our recommendation. Its performance is well beyond its price – so take advantage of it selling poorly and, thus, has seen a disproportionate price drop. It’s a heck of a bargain! SAMSUNG 960 EVO As our review on page 56 makes clear, the Samsung 960 Evo is a dynamite performer and the price…

Laptop gamers rejoice! Thanks to the huge bandwidth in Thunderbolt 3 you can now have desktop class GPU performance without having to invest in a separate desktop PC. With the Asus ROG XG Station 2, which implements this technology, you can have the thin laptop you need to travel between home, work or school and the GPU firepower necessary to play the latest games and enjoy VR gaming with no lag. Just like the familiar process of plugging in an external hard drive, you can now connect an external GPU for when you need it, instead of carrying it around with you all the time, taking up space and weight in your laptop. THUNDERBOLT 3 IS GO! The huge bandwidth in Thunderbolt 3 makes this possible, with over 40Gbps available…

Lenovo might be better known for its office and productivity PCs, but it’s being making a go of the gaming market in recent times. Their latest shot at gaming greatness is the Y710 Cube, an almost-mini-PC that packs some decent hardware into a very small box. It’s not quite small enough to tuck away behind your TV, but it’s a far-cry from the tall towers most gamers are used to. As you can see, it’s certainly a stylish creation, with the angular lines and accented LED lighting systems that set gaming rigs apart from boring black towers. Yet it’s not over the top in our humble opinion – you won’t mistake your gaming room for a nightclub when all of the LEDs are illuminated. The actual dimensions are 393mm by…

When we first received the pitch email about this product, we were quick to dismiss it. Positioned as a mini-PC designed to power retail displays, it seemed to be rather irrelevant to our audience – we’re pretty sure that specific audience reads “Point of Sale Monthly”. However, after taking a quick glance at the specs, we realised we’d found a hidden nugget of gold that would actually work pretty damn well as a media PC, for an incredibly low price. Let’s explain why this mini-PC is actually much more capable than something designed to deliver images to large displays in the middle of a shopping centre. At the heart of this tiny box is Intel’s new Apollo Lake architecture, in the form of a J3355 CPU Processor. This was released…

Kano, an education-focused company, had a huge hit on Kickstarter with its original Computer Kit, promising to provide everything you could need to “build your computer bit-by-bit”. The truth is somewhat different. Inside this, Kano’s second Computer Kit Bundle, you’ll find that the computer you’re “building” is actually a fully assembled Raspberry Pi 3 single-board computer, with only power and its microSD card required to get it up and running. The bundled full-colour manual – which Kano dubs a “storybook” in keeping with its desire to engage children – walks you through the “building” process using simple terms and clear illustrations. Insert the microSD card, snap together the two halves of the included case, and then the most daunting step: connect the power cables for a small speaker and amplifier…

When Kaby Lake launched, we weren’t exactly blown away by its raw CPU performance, nor its overclocking abilities. While its media engine received a nice upgrade, the CPU cores themselves didn’t seem to have made much ground. What was more exciting was the release of the Z270 chipset, which offered up many more PCIe lanes and widespread support for USB 3.0 Type C and high-speed M.2 drives. This month sees our first review of the next chipset in the Kaby Lake arsenal, the H270. Aimed at a slightly more affordable, mainstream market, what has Intel taken away from the Z270 to save on costs? When it comes to High Speed IO lanes, both chipsets are identical, with 30 each. However, as we’d anticipated, the number of PCIe 3.0 lanes has…

Sage One Accounting S age One Accounting is the premium version of Sage’s small-business accounting software. You can produce estimates and invoices, track sales and outstanding debts, file your GST returns and record expenses. Like QuickBooks, Sage also has an integrated third-party app store — useful for adding industry-specific functions. As with the other bookkeeping programs, Sage One lets you create estimates, log sales and send invoices. As jobs are generated, and estimates accepted by the client, they’re entered into the ledgers. You can see a breakdown of your spending using the Trial Balance Report. The Sage One Dashboard offers at-a-glance snapshots to instantly see who your top customers are, who owes you money and a useful cash-flow forecast. The Accounting version of Sage One lets you raise not only…

1: DON’T BE BLINDED BY BRANDS Browse online for graphics cards and you’ll find a panoply of brands, from Asus to Zotac. But the choice isn’t as complicated as it may first appear. Every mainstream graphics card is built around a standard graphics chip – a GPU – from either AMD or Nvidia. There are around 20 different models widely on sale, and we’ve tested all of the major variants, with prices stretching from $50 to $1,030. That doesn’t mean that brands are irrelevant. One maker may equip a given GPU with a tiny cooler, so it will fit inside a compact case and make minimum noise. Another manufacturer’s take on the same GPU might have a powerful fan that lets it run at top speed for long periods without…

W hen you’re spending more than $350 on a graphics card, you expect certain things. Every game should be smooth and playable at 1080p, and 4K gaming becomes a reasonable expectation, if not something you can take for granted. As prices creep up toward the enthusiast end of the market, manufacturers start expending more effort customising their offerings: it’s worthwhile shopping around to see if one manufacturer’s card is faster or quieter than another’s, or if it has a more attractive set of coloured LEDs. Such aesthetic fripperies aren’t universal considerations, however. PowerColor’s AMD Radeon R9 380X ($400) is an unremarkablelooking thing, powered by two six-pin plugs. Beneath the twin fans lurks a specification that’s very similar to the cheaper Radeon RX 470, including 2,048 stream processors and 4GB of…

The latest trends and products in the world of technology Microsoft will rekindle its attempts to use ARM-based chips for Windows devices following a deal with Qualcomm that it says will enable “cellular PCs” to run a full range of Windows software. Microsoft’s previous attempts to engage with ARM have proved little more than disastrous. Windows RT was widely shunned by manufacturers, after consumers were left bewildered by early devices’ inability to run x86 software. ARM-based phones also power Windows Mobile, but its market share has dwindled to the brink of non-existence. Seemingly learning from past failures, Microsoft is pushing the fact that its latest ARM venture will embrace legacy Windows software. “For the first time, customers will be able to experience the Windows they know with the apps, peripherals…

Dr Zaber SENTRY Console-sized PC We love super-compact PCs that can still take a proper GPU. Most go for a cube shape or look like a NAS of some kind. The Sentry mimics a games console, and is deliberately designed to slot effortlessly into an existing home theatre setup. MOST WANTED: The Sentry will take a full-sized (double-slot) midrange GPU and a power supply big enough to power it. The interior layout is extremely compact, but also straightforward to work inside, making upgrades easy. Cleverly, the GPU is separated from the mini-ITX motherboard, which help with heat management. NOT WANTED: The compact size means the CPU will need a low-profile active cooler, which will make the system relatively noisy. In horizontal configuration, the Sentry needs a blower-style GPU cooler too.…

Have you been caught using a version of a favourite application and found, when you needed some technical support, that your software was no longer supported or that you were pushed into an upgrade? One of our readers, David, hit some of these issues recently. David is a retired specialist adult educator who still works with people who have acquired or congenital brain injury. He gives his programs to clients for free. INSTALLING AN OLD VERSION David purchased a programming language called LiveCode some time. After some initial issues, he settled on version 5.5.5 which overcame the bugs he found in the original version he purchased. When version 6 was introduced, he installed a trial version but as he didn’t need the new features he removed it only to find…

PC & Tech Authority, PC PowerPlay, Atomic and Hyper are joining forces once again to bring you another spectacular night of cutting edge PC technology, the latest advances in gaming and the coolest new gear around. The last Upgrade Australia event was hosted in Sydney, so now we’re heading back to Melbourne with an all new show with new partners and gear. Get ready to experience the latest PC hardware, talk to experts in the field, witness live demonstrations, feast on free food and drink and stand a pretty good chance of walking away with freebies. We know you can’t wait to get your hands on the latest and greatest PC gear so jump on the website and register right away! Register at: www.pcauthority.com.au/upgradeaustralia WHERE: Melbourne ‘s Monash University, Caulfield…

They’ve been banished from phones, tablets and MacBooks, and they cause consumers no end of confusion with myriad formats. Yet, the SD card continues to shrug off the repeated threats to its existence, with manufacturers such as Samsung having to eat humble pie and reintroduce SD card slots in their flagship phones. Now, yet another new format is set to make SD cards even more pivotal in smartphone storage (see boxout). Why can nobody kill off these tiny chunks of storage? CHAOTIC EVOLUTION Understandably for a 16-year-old technology, SD cards have changed significantly since they first arrived at the turn of the millennium. Capacity has obviously increased significantly as storage density has improved, while card sizes have shrunk to the size of a toddler’s fingernail. The initial SD card standard…

Thanks to Intel’s latest CPUs needing less power than ever, we’re seeing an ultraportable market awash with spectacularly thin laptops that still deliver excellent performance at a price point that won’t demolish your bank account. Between Dell’s XPS 13, Razer’s Blade Stealth and even Apple’s latest Macbook, we’ve been spoilt for choice when it comes to laptops that are barely thicker than your average magazine. The latest to join this range is Acer’s Spin 7, but unlike the rest it’s also fully convertible, with a screen that is attached via dual 360-degree hinges. This means it can operate in four modes – laptop, tablet, display or tent, making it far more flexible than many of the other ultraportables on the market. Unlike its competitors though, Acer has gone for a…

The Asus ZenBook range has always been – let’s put it politely – a homage to Apple’s MacBook Air. Nowadays, though, that brand is no longer a byword for thin-andlight portability, so the new ZenBook 3 takes its inspiration instead from the 12in MacBook. If the MacBook is the target, the ZenBook 3 certainly hits the mark. Look past the brushed swirl on its aluminiumalloy lid and you could almost get the two laptops mixed up. Even the colour options are eerily familiar. Alongside the distinctive Royal Blue trim, as pictured above, the ZenBook 3 can be ordered in a pale Quartz Grey or the ever more popular Rose Gold. The ZenBook 3 isn’t a precise duplicate, though. Measuring 11.9mm deep, it’s very slightly slimmer overall than the MacBook. At…

For artists and designers used to drawing directly onto paper, the Wacom Intuos Pro (Paper Edition) must appear to be an attractive entry level digital illustration tool. But the traditional “scan a drafted sketch then paint it digitally” approach using standard affordable drawing tablets has generally satisfied those creatives who prefer the feel of a pen scratching on paper. So what exactly does the Wacom Intuos Pro Paper Edition offer beyond what a standard tablet and a decent scanner has already been doing for us? Admittedly the product idea is appealing. I can draw directly onto paper and this special Wacom ink pen automagically transmits that sketch directly to my computer. How cool! Only...it isn’t nearly that easy, straight forward or satisfying. First the good stuff though, the hardware is…

The OnePlus 3 set a new standard for reasonably priced smartphones when it was launched in June 2016. Offering an incredible combination of premium specifications and a $500 price, it carved out a whole new category; it was so good it had no close rivals. Now, however, the OnePlus is ending the honeymoon with the OnePlus 3T, a replacement flagship smartphone with a faster processor, a bigger battery and, on paper, a vastly improved front camera – but also a much higher price. So what’s new? From a physical perspective, hardly anything. Like the “S” versions of Apple’s iPhones, all the important improvements have taken place beneath the surface. That’s fine by me: I liked the design of the OnePlus 3 when I first saw it, and I’m still a…

In the December issue (see issue 229, p44) we reviewed Samsung’s new 960 Pro drives and concluded they were amazingly fast, but overkill for most people, especially for the price. Well, Samsung’s 960 Evo has now arrived to provide a similar level of performance for a far more sensible price – and we can forestall any speculation by saying it’s a winning combination. With a few caveats. Like the 960 Pro family, the 960 Evo drives use the M.2 NVMe specification. They’re once again small, black and covered by two smart-looking stickers (the latter aren’t just there for show; they help with thermal performance too). You also benefit from the same 256-bit AES encryption – you can portion off a section of the drive to be password-protected and hidden from…

The Nvidia GeForce GT 710 ($50) may well be the cheapest graphics card we’ve tested, but it’s fully DirectX 12 certified, with the same OpenGL and OpenCL support as you’ll find on Nvidia’s premium cards. Still, we doubt you’ll run anything more demanding than Minesweeper on this card. You might imagine you could run demanding games by switching to low-res graphics and minimal detail – but this isn’t the case. Across all of our gaming tests, the best we could coax out of the GT 710 was an average 20fps in Dirt: Showdown – achieved by stepping down the resolution to 1,280 x 720 and switching all settings to Low. The reason isn’t a mystery: the GT 710 is equipped with just 192 stream processors and a measly 1GB of…

Y ou read that price correctly – with the exception of a few souped-up, special edition cards, there’s almost nothing to buy right now between $500 and $600. The size of the price gap makes it clear that, with these final four cards, we’ve aspired our way into a market where price is a secondary consideration. Within this echelon your cheapest option is the AMD Radeon R9 Nano ($640). If you thought the R9 Fury was too darn big, this card could be just what you’re looking for. The Gigabyte card we tested measured a mere 154mm in length – around half the size of the Fury, taking up barely more space than the humble Radeon R7 240. It also requires only a single eight-pin power connector, and while we…

Y ou’ll notice that this month’s Labs focuses almost entirely on gaming. So you might well be wondering: can’t we harness the huge computational power of these cards for productive applications? It isn’t an unreasonable question. Not many years ago, there was much optimistic talk about the potential of “general-purpose GPU computing” – GPGPU, for short. Today, developers can freely offload calculations onto the graphics hardware, via DirectX, OpenCL or Nvidia’s CUDA platform. Unfortunately, GPU computing has its limitations. For example, the 4,096 stream processors in an AMD Radeon R9 Fury X card represent a huge amount of aggregate power – but each core can only perform quite simple calculations, and breaking down the workload accordingly can add considerable complexity to your program. What’s more, you’ll only see the full…

LAPTOPS GALORE It is the season of a great many new products and we’ve had a focussed eye on the laptop scene, in particular. While many great products have come our way recently we’re holding true to the ones we have because they’re still the most suited for each task. Stay tuned though, we expect some new entrants soon, the way things are looking! PC DESKTOP ALL-IN-ONE Apple iMac 27in with Retina 5k display PRICE $2,799 SUPPLIER www.apple.com/au The Apple 27in iMac with Retina 4K display is great. The best all-in-one computer around, and by a furlong. SPECIFICATIONS Quad-core 3.1GHz Intel Core i5 processor; Intel Iris Pro graphics 6200; • 8GB RAM • 1TB HDD • 27in 4096 x 2304 Retina 5K IPS display • SDXC card slot • 4…