Table of contents for June 2017 in PC Pro

I’M CALLING IT: we’re living in the Nag Age of technology. Half the sites I visit pop up a “Sign up to our newsletter” box as soon as I get there. If I stop for a coffee in the real world, my Android phone asks me if I want to leave a review. An hour later, Google pesters me to add the venue to my timeline. If I buy something from Amazon, an email arrives the next day prompting me to review it. I’d love to leave a huge DO NOT DISTURB sign somewhere in my internet presence, but not only would it do no good whatsoever, it would be like the “little Dutch boy” trying to stop the flood with a thumb. It wouldn’t stop the BBC asking me,…

1 Google apologises for extremistads Google was forced to apologise to its all-important advertising customers after a series of adverts on Google and YouTube appeared alongside hate videos and extremist-related content. Organisations as diverse as banks, the UK government and M&S pulled adverts over fears that they could be indirectly funding terrorism. 2 US charges Russiansover Yahoohack US officials launched legal action against two Russian intelligence staffers and two Russian hackers, claiming the four were responsible for the massive hack of half a billion Yahoo user accounts, revealed last December. The US will doubtless face a tough battle to extradite the accused. 3 Bumper bonus for bug bounty hunters Google and Microsoft have upped their rewards for hackers who report bugs to their bounty programmes. Google said it was getting…

 MICROSOFT SAYS IT will address complaints over the inopportune timing of updates and reboots in Windows 10. Updates are a necessity for adding features and fixing security holes, but machines suddenly rebooting remains a problem despite past efforts to solve the irritation. “We heard back most explicitly that you want more control over when Windows 10 installs updates,” explained John Cable, director of program management at Microsoft. “We also heard that unexpected reboots are disruptive.” According to Microsoft, the Creators Update will allow users to schedule when the updates take place, make changes if the time is no longer convenient, and to pause updates. “The ‘snooze’ capability allows you to pause the update process completely for three days when you need uninterrupted time on your device,” Cable said. “In addition,…

PREMIUM LAPTOPS Dell XPS 13 (New) 13in ultraportable from £1,149 dell.co.uk Dell only needed to refine its brilliant XPS 13 design to keep top spot, and that’s what it does: it’s slightly quicker and adds more options, but it’s the edge -to-edge 13.3in display and compact chassis that lift it above the opposition. Oh, and it’s now available in Rose Gold. REVIEW Issue 270, p54 ALTERNATIVES Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga A dream laptop that turns into a 14in tablet with the swivel of a keyboard – yet it still weighs under 1.3kg. Simply beautiful design from Lenovo. From £1,699; lenovo.com/uk REVIEW Issue 263, p56 Apple MacBook Pro 13 (2016) The high price stops it from taking Dell’s top spot, but a nine-hour battery life, sleek design and – for a…

Barry Collins, former editor of PC Pro, is 38% journalist, 18% photographer, 15% football director and 63% mathematician. Follow him at @bazzacollins Journalism is a strange business. There’s no formal training worth the course fees (the NCTJ may disagree), no exam to pass to earn your “media badge”. Most people turn up on day one with the word “reporter” or “writer” somewhere in their job title and learn the job as they go along. There is no point – like there is with accountancy or law – where someone pats you on the back, hands you a certificate and declares you a fully trained “journalist”. You’re a journalist from the moment your first article appears in print or on a publisher’s website. (Your own website doesn’t count, bloggers. Sorry.) I had…

Duolingo Windows Store, duolingo.com If you want to stretch your French vocabulary beyond a simple “une bière, s’il vous plaît”, or take your German further than “eine Bratwurst bitte”, Duolingo is here to help. Available from the Windows Store, it’s a brilliant piece of free language-learning software. For English speakers, the choice of languages is extensive: Spanish, French, Italian, German, Portuguese, Dutch, Irish, Welsh, Danish, Swedish, Turkish, Russian and even Esperanto. Duolingo’s content is crowdsourced, meaning that certain classes – including Vietnamese and Hebrew – are still in beta, but the languages listed above are finished and fully functional. Embarrassingly, PC Pro’s collective knowledge of Irish began and ended at “sláinte”, so we decided to give the Duolingo course a go. The app’s attractive interface relies on images, repetition…

MEDICINE Dr Homer Warner was the first to use computers in the operating room to track real-time blood pressure and heart-rate data – not bad for Utah in the 1950s. Working with hospital engineers to build the data-collecting circuit, he later said of what they built: “I didn’t even know it was a computer.” Two decades later, he created one of the first computerised healthrecords systems, which not only held patient data digitally in one place, but helped physicians interpret it for treatment. It was dubbed Health Evaluation through Logical Processing, or HELP, so doctors would feel less threatened, noted Michael Millenson, the author of Doctors and Accountability in the Information Age, in Forbes. CAR RACING Formula 1 is now a computer arms race, but when the championship started in 1950,…

3D modelling always appears to be one of those fiercely intimidating tasks best left to the professionals. Fuse, which is currently in preview for Creative Cloud subscribers, goes some way to busting that myth. Fuse allows you to create 3D human characters and import them into Photoshop, from where you can alter their pose, drop in a background, retouch the textures on their clothing, and create a stunning piece of artwork around your 3D model. You start assembling your character by choosing a head, arms, legs and torso from a selection of templates. There isn’t a huge choice of body types to choose from, but we assume the collection will grow as Fuse matures into a full-blown part of the Creative Cloud family. You can’t complain about the number of…

This month we’re giving away the full, Professional edition of O&O DiskImage. It’s free to subscribers, and it’s also included with the £5.99 “bonus software” edition of PC Pro – see the insert at page 66 of this issue for your unique download code. DiskImage Professional lets you back up and restore anything, from a single file to multiple volumes at a time. It takes the pain out of selecting files and folders across multiple volumes, and its intelligently chosen defaults save you from getting your hands  dirty with manual configuration – unless you want to, of course. The software also comes with tools for mapping network drives, creating recovery media for restoring your PC should disaster strike, and running a health check on your existing drives. Here, we’ll show…

SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE £2,125 (£2,550 inc VAT) from chillblast.com Chillblast’s new Ryzen flagship is advertised as a gaming PC, and is endorsed by professional gaming team Fnatic. This is no ordinary gaming system: with its Fractal Define R5 case measuring 232mm wide and 521mm deep, you could mistake it for a workstation, or even a pedestal server. The price hints in the same direction, too. Either way, you get a loaded system for your money. That imposing case offers no fewer than 18 USB sockets across the front and rear of the chassis: ten USB 3 ports, two 10Gbits/sec USB 3.1 connectors, and one of them in the USB Type-C format. RAM and storage provisions are no less extravagant. The Fnatic comes fitted with four 8GB DIMMs, adding up to…

There are limits to how excited you can get over a mid-range handset, and especially ones as confusingly named as Sony’s latest. The names “XA1” and “XA1 Ultra” may make sense on internal spreadsheets, but good luck getting anyone to remember them in the outside world. But what appear to be a couple of unremarkable mid-range handsets have a couple of tricks up their sleeves, which could make them a canny purchase for photography fans. Or, more likely, will see their ideas stolen by better-placed rivals. Let’s get the basics out of the way first. There’s nothing special about a 2.3GHz MediaTek octa-core processor, 3/4GB RAM and a 2,300/2,700mAh battery. The smaller XA1 has a 1,280 x 720 display, while the larger Ultra model packs a 1,920 x 1,080 display.…

SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE £154 (£185 inc VAT) from huawei.com Three months ago, the Huawei P8 Lite 2017 would have seemed amazing value: dual SIM, 5.2in Full HD display, a fingerprint reader, an octa-core processor and Android 7 for less than £200. You can even buy it for £149 with a Vodafone PAYG SIM. Trouble is that the competition at this price is fierce, with handsets such as the slinky Honor 6X (£225), the long-lasting Lenovo P2 (£200) and the all-round excellent Moto G4 2016 (£150) all strong alternatives. Where does that leave the P8 Lite? Certainly looks are a strong point. The Piano Black option shown here, with its curved edges, is reminiscent of the iPhone 7. Move closer, though, and it’s clear this isn’t a premium Apple product. It’s…

SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE £194 (£233 inc VAT) from morecomputers.com For a monitor that costs only £233, the Asus VX279Q looks amazing. Its edge-to-edge design does away with the usual picture-frame bezels, while the external PSU keeps it super-trim. The eye-catching circular stand doesn’t provide much adjustment – a little back-and-forth tilt is all you get – but there are plenty of connections at the rear. DisplayPort, VGA and HDMI are the usual suspects, and MHL support means you can directly connect a compatible tablet or smartphone with a suitable MHL-to-HDMI cable. The first annoyance is Asus’ decision to use touch-sensitive controls rather than buttons. Navigating the menus is far more laborious than necessary. Picture quality is another weak point. The VividPixel sharpening makes images look over-sharpened, but even with it…

SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE £298 (£358 inc VAT) from morecomputers.com As the cheapest monitor here to offer a 2,560 x 1,440 resolution, Iiyama offers much to admire. The edge-toedge panel and tiny bezels are a boon for multi-monitor setups, and look elegant too. Plus the ProLite trumps cheaper competitors for build quality, with an adjustable stand that feels solid and free from wobble, rises up and down by 130mm, and spins around into portrait mode. DisplayPort, HDMI and VGA provide plenty of connectivity options, and a sensible combination of basic, stripped-down menus and clickable buttons make it easy to adjust settings. Gamers with an AMD graphics card will appreciate the FreeSync support, too. The WQHD panel is sharp and clear, but refinement isn’t a strong point. None of the various picture…

1 Pick a platform Windows remains the world’s most popular computing platform – but there’s another option. Chrome OS is gaining momentum, especially at the cheaper end of the market. For sure, if you want to edit photos and movies, or play the latest games, you should stick with Windows. But thanks to online services such as Google Docs and Office Online, you might be surprised by how much you can get done on a humble Chromebook. What’s more, Chrome OS has recently had a big boost with the arrival of Google Play. This opens up a vast library of downloadable apps and games for compatible hardware – including all of the Chromebooks in this month’s Labs. The only catch is that most of these downloads were originally written for…

SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE £416 (£499 inc VAT) from ebuyer.com The Spin 3 looks like a remarkable deal. It’s the cheapest Windows system here, yet also the largest, with a luxurious 15.6in touchscreen. Clad in tough, “shale black” plastic with a subtle brushed effect, it’s an impressive looker. And, as the name hints, the lid flips all the way round to turn it into an outsized tablet. Before you get too excited, though, there are a few points to be aware of. To start with, the Spin 3’s sheer size, and its 2.14kg weight, make it this month’s least portable laptop. While it’s nice to have the option of switching into tablet mode, we’re not sure we’d want to use this hefty PC in any sort of handheld arrangement. Another point…

SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE £184 (£221 inc VAT) from amazon.co.uk The Chromebook R11 is this month’s cheapest laptop – but it doesn’t feel like a budget machine. Even before you open it up, the smart white trim and aluminium lid create an upmarket impression. The keyboard carries on that sense of quality – it’s better than we’ve seen on laptops at three times the price, with solid, well-spaced keys. The touchpad is nice and large, although the clickable zone along the lower edge feels a bit rattly. And these aren’t your only input options. The 11.6in, 1,366 x 768 screen is fully touch-enabled – ideal for Google Play apps that were originally designed for Android. Impressively, you can even rotate the screen all the way round, to turn the Chromebook…

SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE £466 (£560 inc VAT) from laptopsdirect.co.uk Dell’s Vostro range is aimed unapologetically at the business market. But it may also appeal to power users, since the budget is directed towards practical features, rather than entertainmentfocused fripperies. That begins with the Pro edition of Windows 10, which comes with BitLocker, Hyper-V and more control over Windows Update. You also get a powerful processor to run it on: Intel’s Core i5-7200U drove the Vostro 5468 to an overall score of 48 in our application benchmarks, marking it out as this month’s best performer. It’s partnered with 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD – a solid, if not extravagant, provision. In use, the Vostro 5468 feels very professional. The design is scrupulously sober, with a rock-solid keyboard and a…

SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE £525 (£630 inc VAT) from pcworld.co.uk HP’s Pavilion x360 range exploits the familiar rotating lid design, in which the touchscreen folds around to turn the system into a tablet. It’s a nice option to have, but since this 13.3in model weighs 1.65kg, we doubt you’ll want to use it for extended periods. As a laptop, meanwhile, the Pavilion x360 is slightly idiosyncratic. Like the Acer Spin 3, it uses a lastgeneration Skylake processor, though here it’s a rather more powerful Core i5-6200U. Also like the Acer, it comes with a 1TB, 5,400RPM mechanical hard disk. Uniquely, that’s partnered with a huge 12GB of RAM. This mixture of components doesn’t yield particularly distinctive desktop performance, but the x360 is far from slow: in our application benchmarks, it…

Practical buying and strategic advice for IT managers and decision makers If you’ve been paying through the nose for expensive PTSN or ISDN telephone services, a move to VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is long overdue. Not only can you make big savings, you can benefit from a more flexible phone system – and present a super-professional profile. Sooner or later you’ll be moving to VoIP regardless, as BT has announced its intention to switch off its PSTN and ISDN networks by 2025. It may seem a long way off, but in the build-up to the switch, new PSTN and ISDN services will no longer be offered from 2020 – that’s less than three years away. With the days of the private branch exchange (PBX) numbered, the way forward is…

SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE From £252 exc VAT from kerio.com If you’re looking for a versatile on-premises IP PBX, Kerio’s Operator is a great choice. You can buy it preinstalled on Kerio’s little v300 appliance, or as a Linux-based software platform, which is what we tried. It’s supplied as an ISO file and has very modest system requirements, so can easily be installed in a virtual environment. VMware fans can even download an OVF file straight from Kerio’s website, but we opted to install the ISO on a Hyper-V host. Creating a Hyper-V VM and loading the software took 15 minutes, after which plenty of management options were offered. You can access these by pointing a browser directly at the VoIP server, or register the appliance with a MyKerio cloud management…

No matter how small your organisation, or how simple your network, a monitoring solution can help make it more secure. But it’s important to understand that monitoring, on its own, doesn’t provide any sort of protection against online attacks. It’s not a substitute for a firewall or other normal security provisions. The reason monitoring is so valuable is that it allows you to establish a baseline picture of normal, everyday network traffic inside your business. Once you know what this looks like, any deviation from that norm – such as a sudden flood of traffic travelling to and from a particular client – should stick out a mile, revealing at once that something anomalous is going on. And while your network monitoring software may not be able to identify…

If your router lacks the capabilities your growing business needs, it may be technically possible to upgrade it – for free. DD-WRT is a project aimed at producing better firmware for routers than the manufacturers do themselves. After all, a router is basically a little computer, and firmware updates have to be permitted for the sake of security. Via this same avenue, it’s possible to install an entire new operating system. Of course, as with most open-source projects, there are a few catches. Perhaps the most important is that this is a very good way of turning a working device into a doorstop, if you’re not au fait with the update process. Then there’s the feature-set issue. DD-WRT is aimed at home users – it may be fine for a…

Paul investigates how you can roll your own IoT nodes using very cheap hardware Paul owns an agency that helps businesses exploit the web, from sales to marketing and everything in between @PaulOckenden The Internet of Things, or IoT, has been on the brink of actually becoming a “thing” for so long now that I’m sure many of you’ll have given up, skipping to the next page whenever you see it mentioned. That would be a mistake, because although it never launched with a coherent "big bang", IoT is very much with us – right here, right now. It just crept up and invaded our homes and workplaces without us even realising. For decades our PCs have been connected to the internet, but over the years other devices have been…

Doing a spot of techie DIY is a good thing: not only can it save you money, it also keeps you on top of trends and solving modern problems Steve is a consultant who specialises in networks, cloud, HR and upsetting the corporate apple cart @stardotpro Back when paper magazines were the undisputed kings of computing, we used to have a slightly uncomfortable relationship with Custom PC – another title in the Dennis stable, but based on a different proposition. PC Pro is, of course, aimed at the PC Pros, both in the industry and in the wider population of users. Custom PC was all about the nuts and bolts – building your own PC by browsing parts lists and fine-tuning its configuration to exactly what you wanted. We felt…

Winfried Hensinger is professor of quantum technologies at the University of Sussex QUANTUM COMPUTERS HAVE been proven in theory— now it’s time to get building. That’s the idea behind the University of Sussex’s efforts to lay out a blueprint to create a machine. By taking advantage of quantum states, these computers will be many orders of magnitude more powerful than existing binary machines when solving certain problems. However, such a general-purpose quantum computer has yet to be built. Winfried Hensinger, professor of quantum technologies at the university, hopes to change that, revealing a blueprint that could be created using existing components, offering a practical approach to an academic problem. We spoke to Hensinger to find out why it’s time to get practical with quantum computing and when to expect the…

Sasha Muller A few weeks back, a reader emailed to ask for our 27in IPS monitor recommendations. We set monitor expert Sasha the task. See his verdict on p74 Darien Graham-Smith Darien spent more time than he’d have liked testing AMD’s Ryzen chip, and two PCs that take full advantage. Find out about Intel’s new rival from p54 Brian Horisk In our guest column in Real World Computing, Brian Horisk shares how he helped deliver a new call response system for the Scottish SPCA. See p116 PC Pro readers Simon Mellor, Ryan Thomas and Adrian Ciccantelli are three of the readers who contributed to our Best Free Software feature, from p30…

Nicole Kobie is PC Pro’s Futures editor. She works from home and really just wants someone to talk to during the lonely daytime hours. Sad! @njkobie “Alexa, what use are you?” That’s about the only question I’ve ever wanted to pose to Amazon’s voice assistant, and yet I’ve just allowed one of them into my home. Alexa is the name of the voice-activated AI that lives inside the Amazon Echo speaker and cheaper model, the Echo Dot. My partner has wanted one for months, and while my usual response to the purchase of random gadgets in our home is straightforward – “you want it, you buy it” – I’ve for months refused to allow an Alexa through the front door. And yet, here I am, writing this column next to an…

I was fascinated by your article, “Can technology save the NHS?” (see issue 270, p30), but I’m sure that anyone who, like myself, works on the NHS shop floor wouldn’t have known whether to laugh or cry at the gulf between the promised utopian view and the day-to-day reality. The NHS has not so much embraced IT as stumbled across it. Where I work (a large, inner city, university teaching hospital), we have a disparate group of systems. There are too many to count: some off the shelf, some bespoke, many of which can’t communicate with each other. They’re running over a network that struggles to keep up, over Wi-Fi that might better be called “where-fi”, in places where no mobile phones (or bleeps for that matter) ever work, and…

7-Zip 7-zip.org 7-Zip is the internet’s premier file-compression tool. You might not think you need it, since Windows can create and extract ZIP files natively, but 7-Zip has many advantages. It supports a huge range of file formats: it will open almost anything you find online, including RAR files that remain popular in some corners of the web. It also lets you browse and extract files from ISO, VDI, VHD and WIM disc images, CAB and MSI installers, and even macOS DMG files. Another strength of 7-Zip is ease of use. On installation, it adds a sub-menu to the Windows Explorer right-click menu, meaning you can compress and extract files and folders with a single click. For power users, there’s also a complete command-line interface. Best of all, 7-Zip offers…

Wunderlist Windows Store, wunderlist.com Unlike some to-do list apps, Wunderlist favours simplicity – there are options to set deadlines, create sub-tasks and append notes and attachments to tasks, but its strength is quickly noting that you need to do something. It’s also simple to share lists with other people. Lists can be broken down into different topics, helping to keep work and personal tasks separate, although the default Inbox view shows all tasks in deadline order There are Wunderlist apps for almost any OS you can think of, but given this app is now owned by Microsoft, there’s one unforgivable omission. Why on earth doesn’t it have a Live Tile in Windows 10? Evernote Windows Store, evernote.com While not as feature-rich as Microsoft’s OneNote (see opposite), Evernote Basic is a…

Dreamweaver has always been the flagship for Adobe web design, but with code-free systems such as WordPress now the preferred choice for self-publishers, Adobe has had to counterattack. Enter Muse Creative Cloud, design software that’s more than capable of creating responsive HTML5 sites, without having to get your head around tricky HTML, JavaScript or even the intricacies of Dreamweaver. In terms of user interface, Muse is very similar to another Adobe heavyweight – InDesign. Elements are dragged onto the page, lined up to guides and presented in a wysiwyg format, meaning that you can see the pages coming together without constantly having to preview them in a browser (although that option is still there). It’s not quite as pick-up-and-play as its near-namesake Fuse – if you’re unfamiliar with concepts such…

SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE £1,332 (£1,599 inc VAT) from pcspecialist.co.uk/reviews While Chillblast’s first Ryzen system targets those who place value near the bottom of their priority list (see opposite), PC Specialist has opted for a much more affordable price. The Apollo Zen promises premium performance in both desktop applications and games for only £1,599. While cheaper than the Chillblast, that’s not exactly a tight budget, so you might be surprised to find your money only buys you a Ryzen 7 1700X processor, rather than the top-tier 1800X. That’s arguably a smart choice, however, as the price difference is close to £150, and the only technical difference between the two chips is their stock frequencies – which, since all Ryzen chips come unlocked, is somewhat moot. In fact, PC Specialist hasn’t overclocked…

1 Visit the PC Pro download site at pcprodownload. co.uk. You’ll need to enter the coupon code printed on the card, along with your email address. We’ll send you an email to confirm that your code has been registered. On subsequent visits, you’ll be able to access the download area by entering only your email address. 2 Once you’re into 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 read these carefully). 3 If the software needs registering, click the purple Register button, or follow the instructions on the left of the product page (again,…

SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE Triple pack, £417 (£500 inc VAT) from currys.co.uk Regular readers will need no introduction to the Linksys Velop. We picked it out as one of the hottest products of CES 2017, with a promise of killing all dead spots within a home or office – and boosting speeds throughout. Already, however, it’s up against tough opposition. Both Netgear’s Orbi and BT Whole Home Wi-Fi use a similar mesh-networking principle, designed to extend a blanket of strong wireless coverage across the whole of your home. Where the Velop wins is flexibility. It’s possible to buy the Velop in one of three configurations: a single device, a twin pack or a triple pack. By contrast, the Orbi is only available as a pair, while BT’s Whole Home Wi-Fi is…

SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE £492 (£591 inc VAT) from dell.co.uk Dell’s UP2716D wins its Recommended award for good reason. Great design and superb image quality get it off to a fine start, but support for hardware calibration makes it the most affordable semi-pro monitor around. Like others here, Dell dumps traditional bezels in favour of an edge-to-edge panel. Those super-slim bezels are great news for multi-monitor setups, and the fully adjustable stand is also top-notch. It’s stable and sturdy, and gives 130mm of height adjustment, a portrait mode, and plenty of forwards and backwards tilt. Mini-DisplayPort, full-sized DisplayPort, twin HDMI ports, and a four-port USB 3 hub are all present, while the DisplayPort output allows you to daisy-chain a second monitor if your GPU is DisplayPort 1.2-compatible. Dell’s factory-calibrated panel is…

SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE £175 (£210 inc VAT) from laptopsdirect.co.uk If svelte good looks and image quality are more important to you than adjustable stands or high resolutions, then you’ll love the Philips 276E7QDAB. Not only is this display photogenic, it’s thin, too. The matte-grey metal stand only provides forward and backwards tilt, and there’s a little side-to-side wobble, but it certainly looks the part. Image quality is surprisingly strong for the money. Brightness tops out at an ample 252cd/m2 and colour accuracy is a plus point. The backlighting is good, too, with colours and brightness remaining consistent across the entirety of the panel. It takes a little time to get used to the onscreen display controls, though. Navigating the menu with the tiny four-way joystick on the rear of the…

Every system in this month’s Labs is subjected to an extensive series of tests. We start by running our standard desktop benchmarks on each of the Windows machines, to measure application performance. To test gaming performance, we run the Dirt: Showdown benchmark at a resolution of 1,280 x 720 with all detail settings on “high”. We then run the JetStream and MotionMark browser benchmarks on every system, in the latest version of the Chrome browser, to get a measure of each one’s performance in JavaScript applications and web graphics. To test battery life, we fully charge each system, set the screen to a standard brightness of 170cd/m2, then leave it to run a looping full-screen video file until it runs out of power. You can see the results of…

SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE £488 (£586 inc VAT) from ebuyer.com The slim, tasteful design of Asus’ ZenBook range calls to mind Apple’s MacBook Air – but with a wider range of configurations, and much more palatable pricing. In this case the resemblance isn’t purely aesthetic. Like the MacBook Air, the ZenBook UX310UA is designed for a specific role. It’s a lightweight travelling companion rather than a desktop replacement. That much is evident from the internals. Unlike most of this month’s Windows-based contenders, the UX310UA comes with a dual-core Core i3 processor, which limits its multitasking capabilities. We wouldn’t call this a slow system, but with an overall score of 34 in our desktop benchmarks, it’s a fair way behind the front-runners. Gaming power is limited too. In our high-detail Dirt: Showdown…

SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE £500 (£600 inc VAT) from johnlewis.com Many of this month’s laptops can be turned into tablets; the Transformer Mini is a Windows 10 tablet that turns into a laptop, via a clip-on keyboard cover. The distinction may sound academic, but the tablet-first approach feeds into almost every aspect of the Transformer Mini’s design. For a start, this is clearly a device intended for handheld use. With its 10.1in screen, the Transformer Mini looks tiny next to the likes of the Acer Spin 3. It’s very light too, at just 790g with the keyboard attached, and 14mm thick; snap off the keyboard and the main unit is just 8mm deep. It’s also designed to be usable in varying lighting conditions, with a screen that dials up to…

SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE £476 (£571 inc VAT) from misco.co.uk Regular readers will already know about the Chromebook 13 G1’s charms – it was our lead review in last month’s PC Pro. For a Chrome OS device to earn top billing perhaps says something about the platform’s growth, but it also says much about the laptop itself. For this is no regular Chromebook. That’s obvious as soon as you lay eyes on its super-slim brushed-aluminium case, measuring just 13mm thick. It’s a design that can sit proudly next to anything Apple has to offer. And the Chromebook 13’s beauty is much more than skin-deep. Inside, it boasts an Intel Core m3-6Y30 CPU; by Windows standards that’s a lightweight processor, but for a Chromebook it’s a hefty performer. In the JetStream…

SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE £541 (£649 inc VAT) from pcspecialist.co.uk/reviews While most of this month’s systems are mass-produced by global corporations, the UltraNote IV 14 is assembled to order in Wakefield – an approach that helps ensure you get the right components for your needs. In this case, those include a Core i5-7200U processor, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. It’s a strong specification, although in our application benchmarks, the UltraNote IV 14 fell slightly behind the Dell Vostro with an overall score of 46. Still, the gap isn’t huge, and the UltraNote rallied in our gaming test, with an average frame rate of 35fps at 720p with high detail. On paper, the UltraNote IV 14 looks very similar to the Dell, but PC Specialist has wisely chosen a Full…

SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE Standard service, 1yr, 4 simultaneous calls: £129 exc VAT from 3cx.com 3CX’s Phone System is a favourite of VoIP service providers,offering an unbeatable range of IP PBX features with a pricing structure that will suit SMBs and enterprises. Along with an updated web console and tighter security, this latest version delivers wider platform support than ever: we tried the Windows version, but 3CX also runs natively on Debian Linux. It’s easy to run Phone System on a low-cost appliance, on a local virtual machine or in the cloud on a Linux VPS (virtual private server). Installation on our Windows Server 2012 R2 host was automated; the wizard asked us how many digits our internal extensions should have, and let us set the default operator extension and also…

SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE From £15 exc VAT per month from sipgate.co.uk If you don’t want the responsibility of installing and managing an on-site IP PBX, Sipgate Team could be the answer. Its modest starting price and monthly billing scheme make it accessible to small operators – and, as they grow, it can easily scale with them. It’s simple to deploy: the package includes a SIP trunk connection, so all you have to provide are phones and headsets. A wide range of popular SIP-compatible IP desktop models are supported, and although Sipgate doesn’t provide its own softphone, it will work with most third-party products, including the free Zoiper, X-Lite and Telephone for Mac apps. At £14.95 per month, the basic package gets you three users, three groups and three locations –…

SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE £242 exc VAT from printerbase.co.uk Workers on the go with no time to waste will love the Work Force DS-360W: Epson claims it’s the fastest portable scanner in its class, with a top scan speed of 25ppm. Impressively, that’s not just for mono scans, but for full colour, at resolutions up to 300dpi. Duplex scanning is supported too, at standard paper thicknesses up to 128gsm, as well as business cards and postcards up to 230gsm. A small lever at the front pulls the upper scan sensor back slightly, allowing you to feed in embossed plastic cards. Although portable, this scanner is no lightweight at 1.3kg. It’s well connected, though, offering both micro-USB and wireless connectivity, and you can use either the provided external power supply or the…

Most ransomware actors are not targeting businesses: the scattergun attack method of bulk phishing distribution catches enough consumer victims. Cybercriminals will always follow the money, and that money is much more likely to be paid by an individual than an enterprise. This explains why the average ransom asked during 2016 was £500. When it comes to businesses, though, recent research from Trend Micro (pcpro.link/272trend) suggests around 65% of victims pay the ransom. The reasoning varies from business to business, but getting on the wrong side of regulators and being fined accounted for 37%. Nearly a third said they paid because the ransom was affordable. Which brings me on to probably the most controversial question within the security industry community: should you ever pay a ransom? I will buck the trend…

If your internal network already has its own issues then you may be understandably hesitant to layer Wi-Fi on top of it. This is a major motivation – but not the only one – behind the growth of cloud-based Wi-Fi systems, where the base stations are managed by a third-party service, rather than connecting directly to your internal network. One such service is Cisco Meraki, which is frequently enthused about by Jon Honeyball. It’s an attractive solution to certain problems, albeit an expensive one. If you want to be sure your wireless infrastructure is up to date with security patches, and you’d like to manage your users while lying beside a sun-dappled swimming pool with your smartphone, this is a superb way to achieve those goals. All the same, what…

Developing a new call-management system for the Scottish SPCA highlighted the importance of listening when creating bespoke software Brian runs Horisk Leslie Development, a web application and database development agency based in sunny Fife @TheLifeOfBri_ “Listening to all the users and combining their sometimes conflicting needs into a coherent system is the hard part” As a development company, there are lots of areas in which you can specialise. But most important of all for any bespoke developer, where you’re trying to develop a system for a specific need, is to listen. One of our recent projects is a good example. The Scottish SPCA, Scotland’s animal welfare charity, runs a national helpline available to the public 16 hours a day. It takes over 200,000 calls a year, many of which are…

Background and analysis on all the important news stories THE GOVERNMENT has pledged the best part of a billion pounds towards it, the handset makers are desperate for it, but experts are seeing little appetite among network operators for the much-hyped 5G technology. Although the final standard won’t be ratified until later this year, the International Telegraph Union’s (ITU) specifications have been released and, as always, the headline speed figures are alluring. The specification demands at least a 20Gbits/sec downlink and 10Gbits/sec uplink per mobile base station, and although this is shared bandwidth, it promises potential for a significant speed boost and lower latency for mobile broadband customers. Moreover, Ofcom research even suggests that the technology could eventually exceed a benchmark of 50Gbits/sec. The government announced a £16m 5G test…

PC Pro readers and experts give their views on the world of technology Darien Graham-Smith is PCPro’s associate editor. However, his other functions can be unlocked for a low monthly cost. @dariengs Adverts have started to appear in recent builds of Windows 10, and it’s fair to say that users are not impressed. I’m not just talking about the unrequested links to Windows Store apps that pop up in your Start menu. The company’s latest wheeze is to place an advert for OneDrive in the top half of File Explorer windows. The response to this, on the forums I frequent, has been furious. It’s one thing to give a product away and make your money from advertising, but that’s never been the deal with Windows. Apart from anything else, the software…

Dick Pountain, editorial fellow of PC Pro, often finds himself torn between David Graeber’s and Barrett Strong’s explanations of money A few months ago (issue 269, to be exact) I wrote a column about the way the so-called “alt-right” in the US had built an alarmingly effective alternative web of sites that pumped a continual stream of fake news stories into the mainstream social and news media during the 2016 presidential election campaign. A US professor of communications, Jonathan Albright, mapped the topography of this dark web, which he dubbed a “micro-propaganda machine”, and The Guardian printed his map. This network employs advanced SEO and link-tweaking tricks to stay hidden. Turns out that this was barely half the story, and after I found out the other half I rather wished I…

You may remember the headlines. How a single typo brought down whole sections of Amazon’s S3 public cloud service in late February, taking with it big-name brands such as Expedia and Slack. You may draw the conclusion that this is a sign that you should keep your data centre within and not trust it to anyone else. According to Kate Craig-Wood, managing director of Memset, cloud hosting provider, you couldn’t be more wrong. “The Amazon downtime shows that organisations shouldn’t be putting blind faith into just one provider like AWS, Azure or Google Cloud,” she said. “It doesn’t matter how many data centres a provider has. With tightly linked complex systems and a heavy reliance on the software layer controlling the technology stack, there is a single point of failure…

Six years ago, my PC Pro colleagues and I went to Adobe HQ for a morning to learn how to use Audition 4, venturing as we were at the time into making our own podcasts (listen along at mixlr.com/pcpro). It was a traditional classroom setup: each of us had our own workstation, and the Adobe chap at the front showed us precisely what to do on the big screen at the front. Even with this level of hand-holding, and a thick wodge of tutorial handouts in front of me, I was lost within the hour. I’d dragged the wrong clip onto the timeline, couldn’t work out how to remove the background noise, and quickly became the Picasso of audio, with weird wibbles and gurgles all over the soundtrack. This, I…

Given the number of free or low-cost PDF readers/editors out there, it seems astonishing that Adobe can still get away with charging well over a tenner a month for a standalone app such as Acrobat Pro (which comes as part of the Creative Cloud subscription). However, you can’t deny that Adobe’s PDF fiddler is powerful. As someone who spends an ungodly amount of time filling out poorly formatted PDF forms, Acrobat Pro often prevents me from slamming my laptop through the office wall in a fit of a rage. Whereas previously a PDF form without editable fields would have to be laboriously filled by hand, scanned in and then sent back to the recipient, I can now use Acrobat’s Prepare Form tool to automatically detect static form fields and convert…

Those with long memories may recall AMD’s Phenom chips, launched back in 2008. These suffered from an embarrassing bug that could theoretically crash your PC without warning. The fix was to disable one of the CPU’s internal caches – hammering performance, and AMD’s hopes of high-end dominance. If you believe what you read online, it’s rumoured that Ryzen could be bugged too. Some commentators have suggested that the SMT feature can hold back performance by allocating resources inefficiently. It’s been claimed that turning it off, so each core processes only a single thread, has led to improved frame rates in games. Should you be worried? AMD has officially stated that SMT is working as designed, and we found that turning it off certainly didn’t help performance. On the contrary, it…

SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE From €274 (€329 inc VAT) from huawei.com Unlike most new smartwatches, the Huawei Watch 2 has some heritage to live up to. The original Watch was our A-List choice for months, and with the Watch 2 using the latest version of Android Wear I was optimistic as I slid it onto my wrist. My first impressions, though, were that Huawei had taken a backwards step, at least in terms of looks. I tested the Sport version, which has a plastic strap and largely black plastic watch casing. (Note that, although it’s IP68 dust- and water-resistant, it isn’t swim-proof.) It’s a chunky 12.6mm thick, but at only 40g feels comfortable on the wrist. I’m also a fan of the smoky, glossy ceramic bezel that surrounds the watch’s 1.2in,…

SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE £308 (£369 inc VAT) from samsung.com/uk The Galaxy A5 may sit a tier or two below the Galaxy S7 in Samsung’s enormous phone range, but with its clean metal frame and all-glass front, it almost puts its pricier sibling to shame. The tapered back helps it fit snugly in your palm, and it’s nice to see that the rear camera is flush to the body of the phone. There are four paint jobs to choose from: Black Sky, Gold Sand, Blue Mist or Peach Cloud, and while Blue Mist isn’t to my taste, all the other colours look snazzy. This 2017 model features some internal upgrades compared to last year’s A5, with a new CPU, more RAM and storage, and a higher-resolution camera. It still comes equipped…

Treat yourself: upgrade to a new monitor. Sasha Muller puts six screens that share the same dimensions and IPS display technology – but very different talents – to the test SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE £188 (£225 inc VAT) from laptopsdirect.co.uk Finished in matte-black plastic and with thick picture-frame bezels, the AOC looks chunky next to the new breed of edge-to-edge IPS panels. This is a sensible monitor through and through, though. While the stand feels clunky it provides 130mm of height adjustability, tilts back and forth, and swings around into portrait mode. Shame it’s a tad wobbly. There’s oodles of connectivity, too. AOC has included every video input you could ask for (barring USB Type-C), in addition to a four-port USB hub that provides two USB 2 ports at the rear,…

SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE £753 (£904 inc VAT) from bechtle.co.uk If you’re looking for a monitor to accompany a USB Type-C or Thunderbolt 3-equipped laptop, Eizo’s FlexScan EV2780 is your friend. It’s a class act throughout. The onscreen display and responsive touch-buttons make it easy to adjust settings, while the picture-by-picture mode is handy for taking advantage of the USB Type-C, Display Port and HDMI inputs. The adjustable stand is equally easy to use: it takes two hands to adjust, but rises up and down by 155mm, spins into portrait mode, and angles back and forth enough to ensure comfortable viewing in most scenarios. Hook up the Eizo with the supplied 2m USB-C cable, and it marries single-cable simplicity with glorious image quality. The backlight goes brighter than anyone could possibly…

SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE £333 (£400 inc VAT) from pcworld.co.uk You can’t accuse Acer of being short of ideas. The company has no fewer than three Chromebooks in this month’s Labs, plus the Windows-based Spin 3 convertible – but each has its own distinctive design and personality. Of the three, the R13 is the most interesting and, in our view, the most desirable. At £400 it’s admittedly a step up from the bargain bucket where Chromebooks are often found, but it’s still a lot cheaper than a halfway-decent Windows system. The first thing you’ll notice about the R13 is how sleek its casing is. Just 16mm thick, it’s the slimmest laptop here, save for the HP Chromebook 13 G1 – and that costs another £171 on top (see p87). It’s not…

SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE £191 (£229 inc VAT) from pcworld.co.uk But for the Chrome logo on the lid, you could mistake the Chromebook 14 for a much more expensive ZenBook-type affair. It certainly looks the part, and once you start tapping on the firm and responsive keyboard, it feels it too. But don’t be lulled into thinking of this as a direct alternative to a prestige Windows system: performance-wise, it’s a mile behind. Acer has equipped the Chromebook 14 with a Celeron N3060, which is basically the same chip as found in the Chromebook R11, but with greater headroom for dynamic overclocking. That pushed the Chromebook 14’s performance towards the top of the Chrome OS table, but it’s still nowhere near any full-spec Windows laptop. The model we tested also…

SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE £259 (£310 inc VAT) from dell.co.uk Dell’s take on the compact, low-end Chromebook looks physically similar to the Acer Chromebook R11 – leaving aside the colour scheme. At £310, though, it’s quite a bit more expensive. What the extra money chiefly gets you is a faster processor. The Chromebook 11’s Celeron N2840 ticks over at 2.16GHz, and boosts up to 2.58GHz. It’s partnered with 4GB of RAM, and together these components yield respectable performance, by Chromebook standards. In the JetStream JavaScript benchmark, the Dell Chromebook 11 scored 53 – an improvement of almost 30% over the Acer. And in the MotionMark graphical test, its overall score of 63 made it this month’s most visually capable Chromebook, aside from the Core m3-powered HP. Unfortunately, while Dell’s Chromebook…

If you’re tempted by a Chromebook, but not sure you can live without Windows, there’s a simple way to test-drive the platform. Chromium OS is Google’s open-source branch of Chrome OS, and it’s completely free to download and use. You can install it on an old laptop, to effectively turn it into a Chromebook – or you can run it directly from a USB flash drive, leaving your old operating system untouched. There are just a few differences between Chromium OS and Chrome OS. For one, Chromium OS doesn’t automatically update itself, so you’ll want to periodically check for security fixes and the like. It uses the open-source Chromium browser, rather than regular Chrome, and some closed-source plugins aren’t included – although you can install these with a few clicks.…

Even I wasn’t convinced at first. “Chromebooks are completely different things to Windows laptops,” I protested. “They’re barely comparable. They do a different job. The entire philosophy is different.” It is indeed, Tim agreed. All the same, he pointed out, anyone looking for a low-cost laptop should at least consider the Chromebook option. I didn’t argue further – not least because, in truth, I’m quite a fan of Chromebooks. Podcast listeners will often have heard me defend the platform in the face of Barry Collins’ aspersions. And as it happens I hadn’t properly tried one out since the original Samsung Series 5 back in 2011, so I was keen to see for myself how the platform had come along. Interestingly, Chrome OS itself hasn’t changed much since then. Yes, Google…

SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE £333 exc VAT from broadbandbuyer.com We’re big fans of DrayTek’s SMB routers, and the VigorBX 2000ac combines the company’s trademark strengths with an integrated IP PBX. Along with dual-band 802.11ac wireless, it offers triple WAN redundancy, an SPI firewall, optional web-content filtering and all the VPN services you can eat. It works brilliantly as a small business IP PBX, with support for 12 SIP trunks, 50 IP phone extensions and 20 simultaneous calls. Call handling features are also extensive, and include dial plans, hunt groups, voicemail, an auto-attendant and much more. The router’s web interface provides plenty of wizards covering initial setup, VPNs and, of course, management of the IP PBX itself. WAN failover support is excellent: the router has an integrated ADSL2+/VDSL2 interface, along with a…

SCORE PRICE £3,262 exc VAT from shop.bechtle.co.uk Tandberg Data’s RDX removable drive technology is a great backup option for small businesses. The sturdy RDX cartridges are built to last, the hardware is cheaper than LTO tape drives, and the latest 4TB cartridges show there’s no slacking in terms of development. The new QuikStation 8 makes the format even more appealing, with big improvements over the QuikStation 4. This 2U rack chassis houses eight SATA RDX drives, presented as iSCSI targets, with quad Gigabit Ethernet connections, plus a single 10GBase-T port. Inside, the processor has been upgraded from an Intel Atom to a much more potent 3.6GHz Core i3. It also offers even more emulation modes than before: by default, the appliance presents all eight drives as separate targets, which appear…

Jon helps out an old client as they shift to Office 365, but it’s the back-end infrastructure that was in greatest need of a reboot EXPERT ADVICE FROM OUR PANEL OF PROFESSIONALS Jon is the MD of an IT consultancy that specialises in testing and deploying hardware @jonhoneyball It was one of those things I probably should have said no to, but they were a client from years ago, and a thoroughly good bunch at that. I should explain that my days of doing small-business IT consultancy are pretty much over; when the only sensible answer to most questions became “Office 365”, I felt there wasn’t much value I could add. Getting companies from where they are to an Office 365 solution isn’t necessarily as easy as Microsoft would have…

Research from security firms is easy to ignore, but they’re in the best position to spot issues. Here are the key takeaways from the latest batch Davey is an award-winning journalist and consultant specialising in privacy and security issues @happygeek “One attack vector that’s on the up in terms of both attack attempts and profit is ransomware” It’s easy to dismiss “research” and “threat reports” by security vendors. Look at the Wikipedia definition of MRDA (Mandy Rice-Davies Applies) and you’ll find a reference from this very column back in 2005 (pcpro.link/272mrda) as well as another by our very own Paul Ockenden (“well, she would say that, wouldn’t she?”). I always slap a virtual MRDA sticker on the front of any such report that comes my way, but that doesn’t mean…

 We explore the trends and technologies that are set to shape the future Q&A: Quantum computers The researcher with a blueprint for a quantum computer p126 Fake news How do you keep news real when tech makes faking easy? p127 Geek Day Out Explore the history at p128 ory of robots t the Science Museum Forget the strikes and delays of British train travel. Instead, distract yourself with a dream of an innovative transport utopia. That’s what the Rail Delivery Group (RDG) has done. The organisation representing Britain’s 23 train companies has set out a blueprint for railways in the digital age, envisaging smart carriages that chat to each other to cut delays, drones hovering over tracks to assist with maintenance, and biometric, fingerprint-based ticketing. It’s a compelling vision of…

“We now have a population that hasn’t been brainwashed into hearing ‘wow’ and ‘flutter’ all the time” You know you’re getting old when things that were fashionable when you were young come back into the media limelight. It almost defines you as being unhip to note “it was better last time around”. It doesn’t matter if it’s clothing styles, something I’ve never understood, or hip technology. So the rise of interest in vinyl LPs is a fascinating thing to watch. For starters, for those of us interested in hi-fi and music, vinyl never went away. Firms such as Linn Products and Rega have held the torch for the highest levels of engineering quality, with products made here in Britain. Unfortunately, much of the vinyl revolution has happened due to those…