Table of contents for September 2018 in PC & Tech Authority

At the time of writing, AMD’s Threadripper 2 launch is just around the corner. AMD is so excited about it that it’s pulling favours through its Formula 1 sponsorship ties with Ferrari to get some help with Threadripper 2’s launch at Ferrari’s headquarters in Maranello. After Computex where a Threadripper 2, sporting 32-cores and 64-threads was demonstrated operating under a beefy but otherwise standard air cooler; upstaging Intel’s 28-core HEDT CPU demonstration that had been shown off the day before, but which turned out to be overclocked to 5GHz and using a specialised cooling system that itself drew over a kilowatt; without any immediate competition from Intel is would seem that AMD will get to enjoy the halo effect of such a beastly product, at least for a little while.…

There’s an old saying about a lumberjack who once said “I’ve changed the handle six times and the head seven times but this is still the best axe I’ve ever owned”. It’s clear after that many changes that the axe was not the one he started with. But what about when you buy a smartphone? At what point does a “refurbished” phone become a “fake”? That’s the situation Dan found himself in when he recently purchased an iPhone on eBay. He picked up one of Apple’s handsets on Ebay but discovered it was not as it seemed. “It’s got a genuine apple logic board inside it but that is literally the only genuine component left in it as far as I can tell. Even the casing is a poor replica…

Gmail is popular for both personal and professional use, and we haven’t found a genuine contender that we would recommend in its place. But we have found something that arguably improves it, turning it into a more modern communication tool. Email remains indispensable, but collaboration services such as Slack and Microsoft Teams are definitely nibbling away at the edges, replacing much of the communications traffic that used to end up on emails cc’ed around the office. Redkix (redkix.com) aims to deliver the best of both worlds – if not entirely successfully. You log in with your work email account (it supports Gmail, Office 365 and Exchange) and are presented with an interface that will look instantly familiar to users of Slack or Teams. You can access your inbox and calendar…

HP’s ZBook X2 G4 resembles the offspring of an HP 2-in-1 workstation and a Wacom graphics tablet. While it looks like a bulky, industrial-inspired laptop-tablet combo, it’s a super-niche device for graphics professionals who want more PC functionality than professional graphics tablets usually provide. HP offers many SKUs of the ZBook. Ours came with a modest 1.9GHz Core i7-8650U quad-core processor, a generous 32GB of 2,400MHz RAM and a 512GB NVMe hard disk: a configuration that’s optimised for graphics work. In regular PC terms, it’s midrange as its modest PCMark 10 score of 3,272 attests to, but then workstations tend to be optimised for certain tasks at the expense of general, benchmarkable performance. Everything revolves around the bright, 14-inch IPS screen which boasts a full, 4K resolution of 3,840 x…

NAS is coming on strong in leaps and bounds. They’ve become fully featured servers capable of all manner of functions. The portability of data between devices is becoming a pretty big deal even for the regular consumer. Despite all of the capabilities a NAS offers, one area the consumer NAS has consistently been bottlenecked by is 1GbE networking. While 10GbE is nothing new, its prohibitive cost has primarily relegated it to the professional and enterprise realms. Slowly we are seeing 10GbE filter down into the consumer space, and Asustor is at the head of this trend with the brand new AS4002T. The AS4002T is designed to be a low cost device that aims to fulfil a simple and obvious role – network attached storage. The included ARM Marvell Armada CPU…

Huawei’s flagship P20 Pro is a leading candidate for best phone of the year. Now here’s its stripped-down baby brother, the P20 Lite (called the Nova 3e in Australia) which comes in at just $399. The 5.8-inch IPS screen is bright, colourful and has great viewing angles, belying its budget nature. Its 1,080 x 2,880 Ultra HD resolution maintains a good balance of providing fine detail in images while leaving text large enough to read. The classy glass chassis with its thin bezels and 7mm thinness are features we expect from more-expensive models and Huawei bundles a clear, silicon case to protect it without hiding its looks. A key feature is face-unlock (unique at this price) which isn’t as instant as its siblings but is faster than expensive Android rivals.…

Nothing – repeat nothing – can replace the immediate tactile satisfaction of scribbling notes with pen and paper. Not Apple Pencil, not the Galaxy Note, nothing that involves a stylus and a slab of glass. Rocketbook Wave doesn’t attempt to replace pen and paper – it is pen and paper. However, it attempts to bring some of the benefits of digital writing systems by letting you scan your handwritten notes with a smartphone and then wipe the book clean by giving it a quick spin in the microwave. Is it the proverbial best of both worlds? Agonisingly, not quite. As someone who’s spent years and way too much disposable income trying to bring some order to my handwritten notes, the Rocketbook Wave looked (if you’ll forgive the pun) good on…

When Avast bought a majority stake in AVG at the end of 2016, it looked as though it could be curtains for one of the most popular free anti-virus packages: it seemed as though the two products would merge, creating a single, more powerful app. That hasn’t happened, and AVG Antivirus Free Edition actually scored higher than Avast Free Antivirus in our testing. In fact, the two products superficially look the same, but under the hood, the two managed different results. As with most of the free packages, AVG offers a paid-for version of its virus suite. Upgrade to Internet Security and you get personal folder protection to thwart ransomware, webcam protection to stop people from hijacking your feed, fake website avoidance for shopping protection and an enhanced firewall. At…

Last year we were incredibly impressed with ESET Internet Security. This year, the level of protection has stayed the same, and so has the price. Prices start at an unappetising $59.95 for a single user, dramatically increasing with the more computers that you add, making this product very expensive. Cheaper pricing and a single bundle for multiple computers would be good to see; currently, you have to choose how many computers you want to protect at checkout. In this year’s tests, ESET Internet Security came second overall, with a total accuracy rating of 99%. Looking at how this security suite scored so highly, we found its malware protection was top notch, scoring a protection accuracy rating of 98%: it detected, and blocked or neutralised all 100 threats. When it came…

Windows Defender has long been bottom of our testing table, and this year things have not improved. If anything, things have got worse. Really, the only positive thing that we can say about Windows Defender is that it’s there when you first get a new computer or do a fresh install of Windows 10. You then get just enough protection to get online and get yourself a proper bit of security. We simply can’t stress enough just how bad the protection you get from Windows Defender is. If you’re using it, switch to something else immediately, even if it’s another free application that we’ve tested here. How bad exactly is the protection? Well, with a total accuracy rating of just 81%, Windows Defender hit rock bottom of the table, proving…

The threat landscape has changed, and our more in-depth tests really highlight the differences between security suites. By injecting targeted attacks, of the kind that happen every day, we could see how security suites deal with the unknown. Overall, this year’s tests give a far better view of which products will protect you. There have to be winners. While we strongly recommend that you use paid-for software for the best protection, we have to start by mentioning AVG AntiVirus Free. This software managed to defend against most attacks, and it’s lightweight and easy to use. It wins a Recommended award. Next, we have two products with a high level of protection. If you run these already or can find them online for a lower price, these suites will keep you…

Antigraviator is one of those games that wears its heart upon its racing sleeve, and that very definitely belongs to Wipeout series of games made popular on various PlayStation iterations – a game that happens to be that rare racing game I am madly fond of. And while Antigraviator may not bring much new to the genre, it’s as close and loving enough remake that it’s easy to sink some time into. Would I play it a lot, though? It’s great in short bursts of intense racing that are guaranteed to – let me check my wrist – yes, definitely getting the old pace racing. But the game lacks some of the depth that allowed “just one more race” in Wipeout to turn into all night, Red Bull-fueled gaming sessions.…

Steady as she goes this month with no changes. PREMIUM LAPTOPS DELL XPS 13 9370 Ultraportable This 2018 update to the all-dominant Dell XPS 13 keeps tweaks to the minimum: slimmer bezels, eighth-generation Intel Core processors and the promise of even longer battery life are the key benefits. Just note that Dell has embraced USB-C ports at the expense of the old-fashioned Type-A. ALTERNATIVES MICROSOFT SURFACE BOOK 2 A unique and versatile laptop with a screen that detaches to become a tablet. LENOVO YOGA 920 An ultra-thin convertible from Lenovo that not only looks great, and has supreme power, but lasted for over 12 hours in our battery tests. MSI STEALTH THIN 8RF It’s powerful, but not overpowered, it’s great to interact with and it’s highly-portable – the perfect trifecta.…

One of the most remarkable features of artificial intelligence is just how quickly it’s being adopted across a wide range of industries and products. The nature of AI is that it’s enabling new ways to solve old problems (for example, language translation), or creating entirely new innovations that will shape our world for evermore (hello autonomous vehicles). This is especially true for AI utilising deep learning and neural networks, which can effectively become so complex in their manipulation of data that, although the result that pops out the other end appears to be what we want, we don’t always know how that result came about. It’s called the explainability problem, and it’s a bit of a concern. There are two key issues here: the first is that without understanding how…

If there’s one area where Google remains an immovable, dominant force, it’s search. Yet, there are interesting alternatives to Google, most of which don’t compete on the strength of their results, but the strength of their values. Here are a few ethical alternatives to Google to consider: ECOSIA Ecosia is the up-and-coming search engine. It’s offered as one of the preset search engines in Vivaldi and is a Bing-powered search engine that’s trying to save the planet. Ecosia pledges to return 80% of its profits from search ad revenue to tree-planting projects around the world. You can’t fault its transparency: it publishes a monthly financial report (documents.ecosia.org) revealing exactly how much has been earned in spent. In April 2018, for instance, it donated more than $536,000 to tree-planting projects and…

The days when we would automatically decide between either the new iPhone or new Samsung Galaxy are well and truly over. Perhaps not in the short term, but certainly sooner rather than later. The reason: what Samsung and Apple offer for $1,300 or more can now be had for closer to $1,000 – like the new and very nice LG G7 (review on page 58). Or perhaps the OnePlus 6 might tempt you for just $789 (review PCTA 249 page 43) – and that particular handset finds its way into Australia via many direct importers so you can definitely pick one up for much less. But the real disruptor is the growth of Chinese brands. Both Oppo and Huawei have long-established Australian offices, and both run local service and repair…

Windows tablets very common these days, with almost every large OEM selling a variant of this popular form factor. The new Stylistic V727 is Fujitsu’s take on the tablet-that-can-also-work-as-a-laptop design. Intel’s versatile and low powered Core 7Y CPUs are the heart of the Stylistic V727. This CPU selection is ideal for a tablet because power usage is low, allowing 10 hours of battery life and fanless operation. The downside is relatively low performance. That said, the Core 7Y range is more than adequate for web browsing and basic office work. The 12.3-inch IPS, 1080p multitouch display is crisp and bright, with a finger friendly matte finish that works well outdoors. Included is a Wacom AES pen that is extremely accurate with multi-touch display’s 4,000 levels of pressure sensitivity. Rounding out…

As tech geeks, we are fortunate to get our hands on some pretty cool gear, and there’s not much out there cooler than the Asus ROG G703 gaming laptop. Calling this a laptop is actually something of a misnomer. It’s more like a technical statement – Look at what we can make. Straight up, The Asus G703 is perhaps the most beastly laptop we’ve ever seen. THE BEST OF EVERYTHING Let’s rattle off a few specs, starting with an Intel i9-8950HK and overclocked GTX 1080. Not a bad start. Throw in 64GB of DDR4 memory, up to three 512GB NVMe RAID SSDs (two in the default configuration) and a 2TB SSHD. Then there’s the gorgeous 144Hz Gsync 17.3in IPS screen and you’re left with no doubt that this is not…

Over the last few years I have been falling more in love with mirrorless cameras, but was never confident they could do the job of my DSLR, which I rely on professionally. After using the Sony A9 for a month I fell in love with it, but the only thing holding me back from switching was the price – it was just too expensive. I mustn’t have been alone in thinking this, and Sony has read our minds. Introducing the Sony A7RIII, which is cheaper than the A9 but packed with a lot of the same goodness and incredible performance and features. From the outside it doesn’t look much different to the other A-series cameras, but there are some definite improvements. A magnesium alloy chassis assures rigidity and durability while…

Every year the risk of attack goes up, with cyber criminals finding newer, smarter ways of attacking you. While Windows 10 has boosted base security levels, you’re still not completely safe. Nothing shows this as much as the results of our testing. The last time we tested security suite, the lowest-rated product managed a protection rating of 88.1%; this year, the worst product managed just 48%. That’s quite terrifying. Fortunately, there are better products out there that can dramatically improve your protection and stop you getting hacked or your private details being stolen. HOW WE TEST Testing security software means turning to the experts. This year all the tests were performed by SE Labs, run by Simon Edwards. SE Labs uses the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization (AMTSO) standard for testing.…

This year, Bitdefender Total Security put in a good showing, with a total accuracy rating of 96%, putting it in the same league as AVG AntiVirus Free. Drilling down into the results reveals the full picture behind this quality score. Bitdefender managed a protection accuracy rating of 91%. It blocked 94 threats, defended against five further threats and allowed a single bit of malware through. That makes the overall protection better than AVG, which also let one bit of malware through, but only managed a complete block on 85 bits of damaging software. PACKAGE DEAL Bitdefender has several packages available. Internet Security costs $59.99 and supports up to three Windows PCs, but has the most basic protection. Pay an extra ten dollars and you get Bitdefender Total Security, which we…

F-Secure makes a return to these pages with its Safe suite, which starts with a package for up to three devices (including Windows, macOS, Android and iOS) for $99.99. That makes it one of the more expensive suites in this test. If you want to cover more devices, then the price rapidly goes up, with five devices coming in at $129.99 and seven devices at $149.99. This level of pricing would be fair enough if the protection was the best on the market, but F-Secure Safe didn’t fare so well in our tests. With a total accuracy rating of 90%, F-Secure Safe was near the bottom of the table and fell behind the free security suites, bar Defender. The low total score is mostly down to the way that F-Secure…

Symantec’s Norton security suites have always performed well in our tests, and this year the trend is continued. However, Symantec sells Norton Security in a fairly confusing array of packages, which you’ll need to sift through first. At the bottom is the Individual version, wwith support for one device. The Multi-Device version is the best value; it’s the same as Standard, but gives you the option to install on three devices: PCs, Macs and mobile. At the top is the Household version, which gives you 5 devices to install on and adds 25GB of online storage, plus a few extra family-protection features. Symantec Norton Security scored a 97% total accuracy rating in our tests, placing it third overall. Looking into how this was achieved, Norton scored a protection accuracy rating…

The line-up includes new routers with huge amounts of bandwidth and low latency, amazing peripherals like headsets with Quad DACs for superior SNR and mousepads with Qi charging, new Aura products that’ll make your rig shine and immense monitors with brilliant colour gamuts and refresh rates. Asus are also entering product fields like power supplies and watercooling for the first time. There’s so much to explore, so let’s get stuck into it shall we? First up is Asus’ 802.11ax routers, including one of the first 10 Gbps gaming routers - the ROG Rapture GT-AX11000. Joining the AX11000 is the RT-AX88U. Both are 802.11ax gaming routers that support ODFMA and 160MHz bandwidth channels for low pings while maximizing throughput on Wi-Fi. Both have a Game Boost Hotkey that when pressed lowers…

How you walk is special–and is as good at identifying us as our fingerprints. Footstep recognition systems could replace other biometrics for security and identity confirmation, letting us keep walking instead of queuing and waiting at airports. That’s according to Omar Costilla-Reyes, a researcher at the University of Manchester. He has built a floor sensor system and paired it with a neural network algorithm to identify people by their footsteps, which have 24 different characteristics. And it works, with an encouraging 0.7 error rate per hundred people. Here, he reveals how the system works. Gait analysis isn’t new. What have you done differently here? This is not something we’ve created, but what we did differently is footstep analysis [rather than gait]. That means we only need two footsteps to recognise…

I’m not the only one who’s a little jaded by the rapid release date of games based on Games Workshop franchises. As the satirical games website Point and Clickbait notes, it feels like just about anyone can get into the action. So it’s rare that a game like Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor – Martyr comes along – that is, a game that I’m actually genuinely keen to play. Martyr – no WAY am I saying the overblown full name every time – is essentially grimdark take on the action RPG genre, as typified by Diablo. But instead of a dungeon, you’re exploring the bowels of a gigantic, abandoned space-hulk, whose gleaming bulkheads and rusted partitions gradually give way to gore-soaked corridors and the fleshy architecture of the corruption of Chaos. And…

WordPress is the king of website frameworks, powering up to around a third of all sites, but it isn’t the most intuitive of platforms. It’s brilliant for bashing out a few hundred words to pour into a template on publication, but a beast when it comes to creating fully featured custom websites. Wix, SquareSpace and other site builders seek to exploit its weakness with their drag-and-drop interfaces and slick advertising. However, Wix is to web development what AOL was to the internet: an easy-to-use walled garden that’s fine until you want to see what’s beyond the fence. I’ve been building WordPress sites for over a decade now and have yet to come across a problem that couldn’t be solved with a plugin, theme or, if all else fails, some hand-crafted…

BEELINE MOTO MOTORCYCLE GPS Do you go to places on your motorcycle? Have you ever been laughed at, as you balance a street directory on your knee and edge up through traffic to the front of the lights, tracing your planned route with one finger as cheerful cagers wish you the very best? Have you ever been savagely beaten-down by a police constable who saw you put one finger JUST ONE FINGER on your smartphone while in the saddle with the engine running? Wow, that sucks. MOST WANTED: Here’s a sleek little GPS display to mount to your sick sports bike or weird Triumph alike, that shows you the minimal possible information to your destination. Its 350mAh battery lasts a claimed 30 hours, and it’s IP67 waterproof. Smart. Basically there’s…

When it comes to laptops, there’s usually a choice between a sober, work-friendly model, a bulky gaming machine and a svelte ultra-portable which sacrifices power for battery life. For years we’ve had to choose between one or the other or, in rare instances, a model that can excel at two of three facets. But not anymore. Finally, the trifecta has been achieved! Say hello to the latest Razer Blade. A TOUGH YET THIN STUNNER First off there are the looks. The matte-black finish oozes sophistication and yet it would not look out of place at a LAN party or in an office. The super-thin lid is solid enough to protect the screen from knocks and its new, sharper lines look cutting edge. The screen bezels are now unbelievably thin on…

Social media just keeps getting busier and noisier. So if you want your personal profile to attract attention – or if you want your business account to perform as well as it possibly can – you need to make sure you’re posting regular content that’s worth interacting with. That may sound like a lot to ask, but there’s a wealth of tools out there that can help with both sides of the equation. Here’s how you can spend less time posting and still attract a loyal, growing audience. CROSS-POSTING Cross-posting – posting the same content to several platforms – is an obvious way to multiply your social media reach. But if you do it carelessly or to excess, it can backfire. If your followers connect with you on Facebook, Twitter,…

Dell isn’t putting all its gaming eggs into the Alienware basket. Back in March, it announced the G3 and G5 gaming laptops, with the idea that these 15in and 17in laptops would offer a budget alternative to Alienware kit. A sensible move, it would seem, so we were keen to test an early example. The G3 here is actually the lowest-spec model in the range. That means a quad-core Core i5-8300H processor and GeForce GTX 1050 graphics, along with a 128GB SSD, so hardly bargain basement. You can even specify a two-disk setup, but one of the beauties of the G3 range is that it’s easy to add this yourself further down the line. Remove eight screws, prise the base off, and you have full access to the empty 2.5in…

LaCie’s Rugged line of external hard drives have long been the go-to for anyone that plans on mistreating their storage. The new Rugged Secure variant adds an extra layer of security to ensure your precious data is safe not just from physical damage, but unauthorised access too. At its core, the Rugged Secure is simply a USB-C 2TB external hard drive like any other, but wrapped in a removable bright orange rubber cover, in a tough aluminium case that is rain resistant, drop resistant up to 1.2m and can withstand a 1-ton car driving over it. LaCie even throws in free data recovery for 2 years with the Rugged line of drives. That’s how confident they are in the toughness of their external drive. The Secure part of the product…

If you’ve ever had the pleasure of witnessing the silky-smooth output of a graphics card and monitor working in unison to display 144 frames per second, you never want to play games any other way. Unfortunately, most monitors capable of such a feat are also expensive. That changes with Acer’s new KG251QF. This 24.5-inch monitor brings that 144Hz goodness we all want, at a low $299 price point. The KG251QF uses a 1920 x 1080 Full HD, matte anti-glare coated, twisted nematic (TN) panel. Thanks to Acer’s choice of TN technology, the KG251QF is not just capable of fast refresh rates but can achieve a miniscule 1ms grey-to-grey response time. An ideal combo for first person shooters. The downside of that TN panel, fast response time and refresh rate is…

In some ways we’re sad to be reviewing the DSL-3785. This modem router supports both Australia’s second-rate NBN network plus New Zealand’s superior, fibre-based UFB (Ultra-Fast Broadband) equivalent – it hurt knowing we couldn’t get the best from it. Nonetheless, as many long-suffering owners of poor internet connections know, bad modem routers (frequently the models supplied by ISPs) can dramatically amplify one’s frustrations. While the DSL-3785’s $200 price tag isn’t particularly cheap in today’s market, it’s not overly expensive and aims to offer high-end, consumer-level features to people with new connections or upgraders. We tested the diminutive D-Link in our three-storey Sydney townhouse and were delighted to see that it streamed internet and HD video to the top floor just as happily as its larger, more-expensive rival managed. However, for…

Every new technology needs a tipping point before it explodes. In the case of virtual reality, we’ve been waiting for decades. So long, that many people - including several within PC & Tech Authority - have written it off. It may seem bizarre to herald the HTC Vive Pro as the breakthrough product, but at last we’ve seen what’s capable when hardware and software meet in the middle to create something genuinely great. When I took delivery of the Vive Pro for an in-depth test – as I write these words, I’ve been living with it for two weeks – I didn’t have such amazing expectations. I’ve used the HTC Vive, played with the Oculus Rift through its various incarnations, and currently have three Windows Mixed Reality headsets sitting on…

Avast Free Antivirus is one of the best-known names in free anti-virus protection. Avast also has paid-for software available, which provides additional tools. Upgrade to Internet Security, Premier or Ultimate and you get fake shopping site detection, a sandbox option to safely test dodgy-looking programs, an advanced firewall, spam filtering, and ransomware protection. The top two tiers also add webcam blocking to stop people spying on you, and an option to update your other apps. Given the popularity of the free version, we’ve once again stuck with this for testing. Avast has improved its protection over the years, and a total accuracy rating of 94% puts this software ahead of some paid-for suites. That score was made up of a protection rating of 82% and a score of 100% in…

Trend Micro scored well last year, but the main thing that put us off was the high price. This year, Trend Micro has reduced its pricing, making its software quite a bargain. We reviewed Maximum Security, which has support for up to two devices (a four-and six-device option is available). Maximum Security also contains mobile protection, if that’s something you require. While the price has gone down, the level of protection hasn’t. In our tests, Trend Micro Maximum Security scored a total accuracy rating of 97%, which shows just how good this software is. Maximum Security scored a protection accuracy rating of 94%, managing to detect all 100 threats, blocking 97 and neutralising one further threat. However, that meant that two threats compromised the test systems. Even so, that puts…

Generally, when it comes to racing games, in my opinion there’s WipeOut, Mario Cart, and then everything else just… Well let’s just say I’m no sim fan. Or real racing fan. Or someone who can actually drive or who cares about cars. In fact, I’m the last person who should be getting excited over a racing game, but here we are. Wreckfest is a goddamn DELIGHT. It kind of came out of nowhere for me, despite it’s years in early access (see above, re: racing noob), so getting into it now makes it feel like one of the most polished games I’ve played in years – period. It’s striking to look at, features a banging rock soundtrack, and looks absolutely amazing. But even more amazing is that it’s a racing…

The older I get, the more I suspect I’m going to be saying this quite a lot about games: “I really wanted to like X, but…” So, let’s get this out of the way now, shall we? I really wanted to like Vampyr, but all it really made me think as I was playing it was that I’d much rather be playing Dishonored instead. Now, to be fair, it did make me also think how much some of Vampyr’s mechanics would really add to Arkane Studio’s game of leaping assassins stabbing people in the face. Vampyr does a lot of very cool things, in a very cool setting, but I feel it also squanders a lot of those mechanics in trying to tie them all together in a game about,…

I know we’ve all heard of Blue Screens of Death. No doubt, dear reader, you’ve suffered them over the years when Windows decides to have a kernel panic and throw all of its toys out of the pram. But a blue flashing LED of death is a new one. And it was the starting point of quite a lot of wasted time. First, the back-story. I love NAS boxes, especially the units from Synology. I know others swear by QNAP and other vendors, but Synology satisfies all of my requirements. I have small units for IP camera storage and backup. I have another pair for music-streaming. And I have two large ones for data backup in the lab. They’re not primary storage, but secondary units. However, I love the range…