Table of contents for Xmas 2025 in APC

Valve rattled the gaming industry in 2022 with the launch of the Steam Deck, letting you take your PC games anywhere with an easy-to-use operating system. Now, the company is taking its learnings from that device and bringing them to your living room in a new gaming PC, the Steam Machine. This is a system meant for living room play, armed with a new semi-custom AMD Zen 4 CPU and AMD RDNA 3 GPU, and it runs SteamOS just like the Steam Deck. In many ways, it’s effectively a Steam-based console. Valve claims that this system is six times more powerful than the Steam Deck, though, so it should be a better couch experience than using the Steam Deck Dock and playing games at low resolution. The company suggests that…

We explore the trends and technologies that are set to shape the future. Robotics demonstrations are always wild: you’ll have seen dancing robot dogs, backflipping humanoids and other nightmare-inducing but impressive feats. But the Robbyant R1 just wanted to cook dinner, with its maker Ant Group recently demoing the human-shaped robot assembling a meal of garlic shrimp. Dig in and even that basic task is less impressive than it sounds. While the robot takes the order, cooks the food and presents it, the prep is all completed beforehand. The Robbyant isn’t standing around shelling shrimp or mixing sauces; it merely picks up a small container of ready-made ingredients and dumps it into an appliance sitting on the countertop. Even that small bit of work happens at a pace so slow…

PRICE Pro: $1,999 (256GB), Pro Max: $2,199 (256GB) WEB apple.com/au The iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max showcase a new design, with the camera bump extending across the entire back of the phone. In my view, it’s a smart update: the full-width bar feels more “Pro”, and the aluminium unibody casing feels cooler in your hand than the old titanium edging. Enhanced Ceramic Shield coatings on the front and back provide better scratch and crack resistance than any previous model, and Apple has also introduced a bold new Cosmic Orange colour, along with Deep Blue and Silver for those who prefer a more serious look. The OLED display is perfect for sunny days. Both phones reached almost 1,000cd/m2 in our SDR tests with adaptive brightness on, with the Pro Max…

PRICE $1,799 (256GB) WEB apple.com/au The iPhone Air is the boldest new iPhone design in years. It replaces the iPhone 16 Plus in Apple’s lineup – but rather than going big, this model goes thin, with a thickness of just 5.6mm. It’s a striking innovation, and one that comes with certain compromises, but depending on your priorities it could be your perfect iPhone. DESIGN AND DISPLAY Clearly, the point of the iPhone Air is its thinness – but when Apple says it’s 5.6mm thick, it unaccountably omits to mention the camera bump, which also contains many of the core components. This gives the phone a maximum thickness of 11.3mm – thicker than a regular iPhone 17 – but because it’s all up at the top of the body, the phone…

We all know that Microsoft Defender works pretty well. Released in the days of Windows XP’s prime in 2006, it had a spluttery start compared to established tools, but thanks to Microsoft’s continued investment and the small fact it’s installed by default on hundreds of millions of computers – not a bad testbed – it traditionally holds its own in annual tests against malware. Take a look at the graphs on p78, however, and you’ll see that its latest set of results falls behind the rest. If you want the best protection but you don’t want to pay then it makes sense to switch to Avast, Avira or the others that we mention in our best free antivirus section on p77. So, why pay, other than to avoid those painful…

SCORE PRICE 5 devices, 1yr, $80.95 from avira.com Avira is part of international cybersecurity giant Gen Digital, which formed in 2022 after US-based NortonLifeLock merged with Czech anti-malware company Avast. Still headquartered in Germany, Avira was at the time a subsidiary of Avast and is now a subsidiary of the Gen Digital holding group. Avira is available in a number of different versions, including Avira Free Security. This costs nothing but uses the same malware detection engine as all the company’s commercial offerings: Avira Antivirus Pro, Avira Internet Security and Avira Prime. If you subscribe to Avira Prime directly from the company’s website, you’ll pay $80.95 for a one-year, five-device subscription, but this renews at $147.95. Such a steep increase means you should immediately disable automatic subscription renewal. In fact,…

SCORE PRICE 3 devices, 1yr, US$79.99 from f-secure.com Based in Finland, F-Secure is one of a handful of antivirus firms, along with Eset and Bitdefender, that is based in the EU. F-Secure uses a combination of malware detection engines, including its in-house Capricorn engine and Avira’s detection engine, as well as cloud-based analysis for its various scanning and real-time detection operations. It generally does well in tests by AV-Comparatives and AV-Test, and this quarter was no exception: it detected 100% of malicious files in real-time exposure and flat file scan tests by AV-Test, with no false positives, as did many of its rival security suites. AV-Comparatives’ latest real-world (live malware exposure) tests proved more challenging for most participants. Impressively, F-Secure still didn’t misidentify any benign files or websites as threats,…

SCORE PRICE 5 devices, $49 for first year from trendmicro.com Maximum Security is an apt name for this suite. Rather than let any misbehaving file escape its clutches, it’s twitchy to the point of paranoia: in AV-Comparatives’ test, it picked up a shocking 52 false positives. By comparison, Avast flagged five false positives and everything else here identified three or fewer. However, it’s extremely effective. It blocked 99.5% of genuine malware in the AV-Comparatives test, which is better than Microsoft Defender and most other services. The notable exceptions include our award winners, Avast and Norton 360. We had to refer back to AV-Test’s March/April 2025 results to obtain data for Trend Micro, as it doesn’t appear in the latest round of testing. This perhaps reflects the company’s growing focus on…

KEY Budget build Pick these parts if you want to build a new, well-rounded PC for a good price. Mid-range build For productivity power and running every new game at 1080p 60fps. This recommended build will see you through. Advanced build You’re looking for the best PC on the market and superior components. But you still want to spend smart. BUDGET BUILD Enjoy 1080p gaming and most tasks without breaking the bank. MOTHERBOARD TUF Gaming B650 Plus WiFi Asus $269 This board doesn’t skimp on features, which means it’s the perfect starting point for an AM5 rig, with room to upgrade. PROCESSOR Ryzen 5 7600X AMD $339 It’s a hot runner, but this budget AMD chip provides six cores of genuine gaming grunt for a very reasonable sum. GRAPHICS CARD Radeon RX 9060 XT 8GB AMD…

Nintendo has had a lengthy history of legal skulduggery, but after initiating last year’s patent lawsuit against Palworld developer Pocketpair, the house of Mario has descended into outright moustache-twirling IP villainy. September, however, saw Nintendo armed with a particularly troubling weapon for its legal arsenal: US Patent 12,403,397, a patent on summoning and battling characters that the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted with alarmingly little resistance. According to videogame patent lawyer Kirk Sigmon, the USPTO granting Nintendo these latest patents isn’t just a moment of questionable legal theory. It’s an indictment of American patent law. “Broadly, I don’t disagree with the many online complaints about these Nintendo patents,” says Sigmon, whose opinions do not represent those of his firm and clients. “They have been an embarrassing failure of…

PRICE $34.95 PLATFORM PC, XBS/X, PS5 WEB tinyurl.com/APC553wash Some of us will do just about anything to avoid having a thought, so let’s talk about a particularly good thought-eradicator: PowerWash Simulator. It plays a lot like the name suggests. You get a beefy hose, fancy attachments and hop from client to client blasting grime off of surfaces, and that’s its biggest appeal: just the raw, sensory satisfaction of stripping dirt off of things. It’s the perfect brain treat when I both want and do not want to do something. As you can imagine, there’s not a lot about powerwashing to change or expand on in a sequel, but PowerWash Simulator 2 didn’t need to reinvent spraying water at dirt to be worthwhile, just refine it, and it does. Among PowerWash…

It all feels like an odd dream now. Stepping out onto our doorsteps to bang on our pans every Tuesday evening. Nationwide shortages of baking ingredients. Terrible, self-administered haircuts and vast lines outside supermarkets, shoppers spaced two metres apart and wearing face coverings that you’d previously only seen in news reports about SARS in Asia. However surreal the events of 2020 might seem now, five years later, the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects were very real. As nations imposed their own lockdown rules of varying stringency, supply chains broke down and waiting lists lengthened exponentially. Zoom in on the PC hardware market, and PCB shortage completely disrupted the market. Lockdown restrictions in China, Taiwan and Korea, where the vast majority of circuit boards are manufactured, left the entire sector without its most…

Valve also announced a brand-new VR headset called the Steam Frame, and it’s set to launch next year. Pricing is not yet confirmed, but it will launch in Australia on the same day as the U.S. and other countries. I’ve been to Valve HQ to try it out and get all the details. This isn’t the Valve Index 2, it’s something quite different, but it should still appeal to hardcore VR users and new users alike. The Steam Frame includes a wireless adapter that plugs in via USB to a host PC, which can be any PC capable of running Steam and playing VR games. This wireless adapter beams the game over a dedicated 6GHz connection to the Steam Frame. Essentially, Valve intends for players to use the Steam Frame…

APC is Australia’s oldest consumer technology magazine – having been consistently in print for over forty years, since our first issue way back in May 1980 – and we take that heritage and responsibility very seriously. While our focus is obviously on the personal computer the very definition of the PC has changed and shifted markedly since the early 1980s. As such, we touch on many other areas of everyday tech, too, from smartphones and apps to peripherals, accessories, and beyond. We have two goals: to find the best modern tech and to help you make the most of it. INDEPENDENT REVIEWS Championing technology doesn’t mean we’re unrelenting yes-men and -women, however, and APC aims to be as objective as possible in all our coverage. That means identifying the best…

PRICE $599 WEB www.gigabyte.com We’ve seen some stunning monitors in our labs over the past year, but they’ve arrived with astronomical price tags. Gigabyte’s M27UP gaming monitor is one-quarter the cost of some and so, what are the compromises? The first noticeable difference is the sub-7KG weight. The base and stem connect to the panel without tools but they’re thinner and lighter than premium rivals. This counts for nothing, though, as it sat solidly on our desk, wobble-free. There are no geometric or colourful design flourishes, but we missed none of that: the sharp lines and black bezel are still stylish. The stand also facilitates pivot, tilt and height-adjustments, so it doesn’t feel limiting. The 27-inch panel itself has an impressive, native-UHD (3,840 x 2,160) ‘4K’ resolution which provides plenty…

PRICE $2,699 (256GB) WEB store.google.com/au Talk about a tough act to follow. The Pixel 10 Pro Fold arrives in the wake of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7 – a phone so thin and light that it comprehensively raised the bar for foldable phones – we called it “a triumph of engineering and design”. Yet in my testing of Google’s new foldable, I’ve found it beats Samsung’s in several ways. The Pixel 10 Pro Fold is chunkier than the Galaxy Z Fold7, but there’s a definite advantage to its design. Google’s new gearless hinge provides excellent protection against water and dust intrusion, making it far more rugged than rivals: excitingly, it’s the first foldable we’ve seen with an IP68 rating. The Galaxy Z Fold7 by contrast only bears an IP48 rating,…

Modern security software packs in countless features, and we cover these as part of each review. But never forget that the key feature you’re looking for is protection against malicious software. That should always be your top priority. That means that real-time malware protection is the critical aspect of a security suite. This is a service that continuously monitors your PC for malicious software, primarily by scanning new files and websites your computer encounters. It’s also our minimum bar for inclusion in this group test. For example, the free edition of Malwarebytes is effective and justifiably popular, but, unlike its paid-for version, only provides on-demand scanning. Every single product in this group test will protect your computer against most malicious software. We know this thanks to the stalwart efforts of…

SCORE PRICE Individual, unlimited devices, $299.95 for first year from mcafee.com Compared to all the other products here, it may seem ridiculous that McAfee is charging $299.95 for its services, especially as that rises to $399.95 after the first year. However, those heady subscription fees buy you a huge amount of technical support and hands-on services, from assistance in setting up your protection to finding and removing your unused accounts – and having your personal information removed from data broker websites. You also get identity theft and ransomware insurance, along with access to one-on-one support from an identity theft restoration expert if necessary. If you have a family to protect then a McAfee+ Ultimate subscription costs $449.95 for the first year and $599.95 per year thereafter. That covers unlimited devices…

When we talk about Microsoft Defender this month, we’re talking about the basic out-of-the-box protection that comes with Windows 10 and 11 (not to be confused with the variety of Microsoft’s paid-for services by the same name, such as Microsoft Defender for Business). It’s pretty good, but it’s not currently the best free antivirus around in terms of malware detection and accurate assessment of benign but unknown or obscure software. We’re exclusively covering free antivirus software with a real-time protection component here. This rules out popular antivirus tools such as Malwarebytes Free, which only provides on-demand scanning. This can be useful to sit alongside your real-time malware defences, in case you want a second opinion on a suspicious file, for example, but doesn’t meet our requirements that malware protection must…

Streamer Emily-Beth ‘Emiru’ Schunk has released a statement criticising streaming platform Twitch after she was assaulted at a TwitchCon meet and greet on October 17. This incident comes as high profile streamers, mostly women, have dealt with increasingly common incidents of in-person stalking and harassment by viewers. In video on social media, a large man approaches Emiru, pulls her into a forceful hug and tries to kiss her. A bodyguard Emiru personally hired then rushes in to shove him away. The video ends as the man walks back into the crowd. “HE WAS ALLOWED TO WALK AWAY FROM MY MEET AND GREET” Twitch released a statement calling the incident “completely unacceptable and deeply upsetting”. The company said that it has banned the offending individual from the convention, Twitch itself, and…

WHAT IS IT? A breezy first-person RPG in a future that’s part raygun, part deco EXPECT TO PAY $109.95 DEVELOPER Obsidian Entertainment PUBLISHER Xbox REVIEWED ON Intel Core i5 12600K, 32GB RAM, AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT STEAM DECK Unsupported WEB  outerworlds2.obsidian.net The Outer Worlds 2 was a slow burn at first, and it was the midgame, act two climax that won me over. It includes a pair of classic Obsidian conversation boss fights, and I had a big, dumb smile on my face as I contemplated dialogue options – some available to me, some greyed-out – gated by skills, background traits, quest choices and even an out-of-the-way optional conversation I’d had ten hours previously. Since I specialised in speech and had gone for nonviolent resolutions whenever possible, I was able to pull off a satisfying…

PRICE $94.95 PLATFORM PC, Mac, XB Cloud WEB footballmanager.com How to improve Football Manager. Is it a matter of making it a more technically impressive affair? Sports Interactive evidently thinks so. Simply put, matches look more like real football. Now running in Unity, but most importantly with a deeper fidelity and variety of player animations in the match engine, Football Manager 26 shows you details that weren’t there before. My manager’s eye can now better observe how well a team holds its shape out of possession, watch impact subs skin their markers with their fresher legs, and note when my centre-backs are pulled out of position. But the gamer in me just likes watching the cool goals go in. The intention of this redesign is to show you more information…

If there’s one phrase that’s guaranteed to make you come across like a third-year humanities student who’s got life figured out and now simply watches civilisation from the sidelines with a wry smile, it’s this: ‘late stage capitalism’. It’s a term that implies society’s imminent downfall at the hands of corporate greed. Whatever indicator of late stage capitalism the observer has noticed is also an indicator that these are the end times, before our economic and philosophical status quo is demolished and replaced by… well, whatever comes next. Nobody’s sure about that minor detail. IT LOOKS LIKE SOMETHING YOU’D USE ON THE USCSS NOSTROMO Generally speaking, then, it’s quite a blunt rhetorical device. Nobody can see the future, so there’s some considerable confidence inherent in calling anything related to the…

RELEASE 2006 DEVELOPER Human Head Studios PUBLISHER 2K Games WEB tinyurl.com/APC553prey Prey is a ridiculous game. Ridiculous in many ways, but mostly in terms of creative ambition. At its core, Prey is still an FPS, so you run forwards and sideways and, occasionally, backwards, while shooting stuff in the head. The shooting is good but not great. But surrounding that solid core is a game that drips with a level of ambition and creativity that few first-person shooter games have ever delivered, or even attempted to deliver. And it starts with the game’s narrative setup, which immediately tells you that you’re not in FPS Kansas any more. You’re Domasi ‘Tommy’ Tawodi, a former soldier with Cherokee Native American blood running through your veins, and all you want to do is…

Bang & Olufsen Beo Grace PRICE $2,000 WEB bang-olufsen.com With a look inspired by fine jewellery, the Beo Grace may be the finest pair of earbuds you could ever put in your ears. Crafted from polished aluminium and with a pearl-blasted aluminium charging case, the Beo Grace earbuds not only look slim and stylish, they also include 12mm titanium drivers, active noise cancellation (ANC), and offer Spatial Audio support as well as up to seven hours of battery life (with ANC on) or up to 17 hours with the charging case. Sticking with noise cancelling, the Beo Grace earbuds also include six studio-grade microphones to help reduce unwanted ambient sounds, while their ear tips are oval-shaped for a perfect fit. Naturally, you’ll want to cosset earbuds as exclusive as these…

PRICE $899 WEB www.samsung.com A 37-inch desktop monitor is on the larger side. We’re not quite in the realm of some of the largest gaming monitors you can get with the Samsung ViewFinity S8 37, but then this is a 4K UHD-capable 37-inch screen that can sit on your desk for only $899, which feels quite aggressively priced for a display at this size. Setting up a larger monitor is always a little trickier entirely because they’re bigger, though Samsung does keep this relatively simple with a classic latch-in back panel and simple square stand to slot in. The most significant issue you’re going to have here is unavoidable; a 37-inch monitor is slightly heavy and quite bulky. On the connectivity front you’ve got DisplayPort, HDMI and USB-C choices at…

GAME EMULATOR NEEDS Windows 10 or 11 WEB play.google.com/googleplaygames Google Play Games lets you play more than 200,000 free Android games on your PC, using your mouse rather than a touchscreen. Launched in beta two years ago, it’s now officially available for everyone to download. Before you do, be aware that your PC needs at least 8GB of RAM and 10GB of free storage – Google recommends an SSD. If your system doesn’t meet those requirements, some games may not launch or display properly. The games span genres including arcade, board, puzzle, simulation and word, and include versions of Monopoly, Chess, Hangman, Solitaire and Tetris. You can play perennial favourites Angry Birds, Candy Crush Saga and Cut the Rope, as well as strategy games such as Clash of Clans. Visit…

The problem with writing for APC is you sometimes have to follow through on your own stupid ideas. So when, during a features meeting a few months ago, I idly speculated whether you could actually work full-time from a Raspberry Pi, the team unanimously and immediately agreed that it was a great idea and it was slotted into the schedule. Consequently, I’ve just spent a week doing as much work as possible from a computer that cost less than the backup SSD connected to my Mac. You’ll notice that “as much work as possible” caveat, because there are some jobs in my day-to-day existence – shuffling round magazine pages in InDesign and editing podcasts in Audition to name but two – that the Pi simply can’t cope with. Not only…

1 QR codes can encode all types of data You’re already familiar with QR codes as a quick and easy way to access a web link. All right, it can be fiddly to dig your phone out of your pocket, bring up the camera and point it at the code. Or, if you’re the one generating the code, it’s a little bit of a pain that you have to use a tool to create the image and embed it into your document, poster or wherever. Hopefully, though, we can all agree that using QR codes is a much better way to share addresses then expecting people to type in URLs manually. QR codes aren’t just for web addresses, however. You might also have come across them in the context of…

SCORE PRICE 10 devices, 1 year, $79.08 from avast.com Avast and AVG use the same malware detection engine and tools, wrapped in different desktop clients. We’ve chosen to review Avast, as AV-Test data shows its client to have less of an impact on system performance than AVG’s. Avast came top of the malware protection tests we use, aggregated from three highly reputable testing houses. It detected 100% of threats in AV-Test’s real-time exposure and flat file scanning tests, with no false positives. It similarly scored a 100% total accuracy rating in SE Labs’ test, defending against all threats during live malware exposure tests, with no false positive identifications of legitimate software or websites. In AV-Comparatives’ real-world tests, it protected against all threats but picked up five false positive identifications. Nonetheless,…

SCORE PRICE $139 for first year from eset.com/au Eset was one of several antivirus suites whose malware detection engines put in a perfect performance during AV-Test’s real-world malware exposure test, during which PCs are exposed to threats as they would be when encountering them in the wild. Likewise its reference malware sample tests, where the antivirus software is instructed to scan a large set of recent samples of malicious files. Notably, it scored 100% in both tests across two months, with no false positives. Unfortunately, Eset had a worse time of it in AV-Comparatives’ latest real-world protection tests. Its protection score of 99.1% – the percentage of malware blocked – matches that of Windows Defender, which, as the default Windows antivirus that ships with the OS, is the benchmark for…

SCORE PRICE 3 devices, 15 months, $89.95 from au. norton.com Norton is part of the Gen Digital group, making it a sibling company of Avast, AVG and Avira, but while Avast and AVG share detection engines, Norton and Avira continue to be developed independently. That’s good news for anyone who likes choice, especially as Norton’s engine is one of the best performers in our aggregation of results from three different anti-malware testing houses. Norton 360 was one of several antivirus suites to earn a perfect score in AV-Test’s latest real-world and flat file-scanning tests, correctly identifying and protecting against all the malicious programs thrown at it, and with no false positive identifications of benign software as potentially malicious. It also scored a perfect 100% in AV-Comparatives’ real-world protection tests, meaning…

What are they? Animations and videos you can set as desktop wallpapers, giving you something more interesting to look at than a static image. They might be making a comeback in Windows. When were they last available? Back in Windows Vista, which launched in January 2007, but was superseded by Windows 7 less than three years later. The feature was called DreamScene. Really? I don’t remember it in Vista. That’s probably because you didn’t pay for any Ultimate Extras in the operating system. This was Microsoft’s short-lived scheme to sell bonus features – as well as DreamScene you got BitLocker (now in Windows 11 Pro), sound effects for pop-ups and alerts, and the games Hold ’Em poker and Microsoft Tinker. Microsoft Tinker? Yes, Tinker was a robot you had to…

IT WILL TAKE 10 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How the new Apple Games app works and how to get the most out of it YOU’LL NEED macOS 26 or later Apple Games isn’t playing around. The new app, available by default in macOS 26 (Tahoe), looks set to become the go-to hub for anyone who wants to get their gaming kicks and it has the potential to help revitalise gaming on the Mac. Not only does it bring together the games you’ve installed, it also shows you the games you’ve previously played on iPhone and iPad and allows you to quickly enjoy them. What’s more, it will give direct access to emulators including OpenEmu. Here, we explore the features in more depth, enabling you to get up to speed and enjoy playing your…

1 month RELEASE January 9, 2026 DEVELOPER Ice-Pick Lodge PATHOLOGIC 3 The latest instalment in the Russian survival series casts you as a doctor who, with only 12 days to save a town, must make ruthless decisions and precise diagnoses. RELEASE January 28, 2026 DEVELOPER Netmarble F&C THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS: ORIGIN A new open-world anime RPG where you must step into the shoes of Prince Tristan of Liones and proceed to explore the world of Britannia. RELEASE January 29, 2026 DEVELOPER Bandai Namco Studios Inc. CODE VEIN II In a dystopian world overtaken by Revenants, play as a Revenant hunter who must travel into the past with a mysterious girl called Lou in order to save the planet. 2 months RELEASE February 5, 2026 DEVELOPER Overhype Studios MENACE Get…

PRICE $89.95 PLATFORM PC, PS5, XBS/X WEB tinyurl.com/APC553anno It wasn’t built in a day, but this latest Anno in a long-running series of accessible and endearingly twee city builders doesn’t take that old adage entirely to heart. There’s complexity to its supply chains and economy, but it takes a ruthless writer’s pen to the systems-bloat and perplexing menu rabbit holes found elsewhere in the genre. As a result, overseeing a burgeoning Roman territory feels far less like filling in a tax return than other city builders, and more like the power fantasy that we probably all showed up for in the first place. It will feel like stepping into worn-in old shoes to Anno 1800 players: you begin by clicking on the resource you’d like your citizens to start making, then…

Inspirational stories from computing’s long-distant past Molotov cocktails arced through the foggy October air as Red Army tanks made their way down the frozen streets of Budapest. It was October 1956, and the city pulsed with fury. Crowds roared and urged the Soviets to leave, only for their cries to be drowned out by the rattle of machine gun fire. András Gróf was 20 years old and just starting his second year at the University of Budapest. His young life had been difficult. Mocked as a Jew at school before the Second World War, he’d been forced into hiding with his mother during the Nazi occupation from 1944, avoiding the brownshirts and living in a cellar with other families. When the war was over, Hungary emerged from the destruction under…