PC Pro March 2020

highlights this month

REVIEW OF THE MONTH Apple MacBook Pro 16in p52 The best laptop ever made? It’s certainly one of the most powerful, and most expensive, with the top option costing almost £6,000 and packing an 8TB SSD along with high-end AMD Radeon graphics, 64GB of memory and an eight-core Core i9 processor. But anyone can do power: the Apple difference is to support it with industrial chic design, a glorious 16in screen, the best audio setup we’ve ever heard on a laptop and what can only be described as a “magical” keyboard. Even if you’re a Windows traditionalist, we won’t blame you at all if you’re tempted. p30 ADVICE OF THE MONTH Chances are that you know someone who’s still running a Windows 7 PC or laptop. We lay out the three options you have available, and…

when the real rate isn’t real, do discounts matter?

THERE WAS A palpable sense of frustration in Raymond’s email. “NordVPN was your Labs Winner in the comparison of VPNs in issue 303. You state that the price for a three-year licence is £82 including VAT at the top of the review on p84… I decided yesterday to purchase a three-year licence for NordVPN and was charged £122.12 in spite of this price being promoted on the NordVPN site as an 83% limited-time discounted deal. “By my calculation, the ‘deal’ being offered by NordVPN is 49% more expensive than the price that you stated in the review. I am aware that market prices do fluctuate but there can be no excuse for this sort of discrepancy.” Don’t worry if you have a sense of déjà vu. We printed a correction in last…

contributors

Barry Collins Is there a way to keep Windows 7 running safely? Barry sets out three options in our “Windows 7 rescue kit” feature, starting on p30 Mike Jennings Our resident hardware enthusiast puts the new Ryzen 9 3950X to the test, along with two high-end motherboards. Read his verdicts from p72 James Morris If you’re looking to invest in a 3D-rendering machine, James believes Armari has something perfect, all thanks to a 32-core AMD Threadripper. See p62 Jon Honeyball It wouldn’t be PC Pro unless Jon was trying to improve the world. This month, he’s urging us all to use VPNs (not necessarily NordVPN). Turn to p130…

pc pro

EDITORIAL EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Tim Danton: editor@pcpro.co.uk EDITORIAL FELLOW Dick Pountain ASSOCIATE EDITOR Darien Graham-Smith REVIEWS EDITOR, EXPERT REVIEWS Jonathan Bray: jonathan_bray@dennis.co.uk FEATURES EDITOR Barry Collins FUTURES EDITOR Nicole Kobie BRIEFING EDITOR Stewart Mitchell LETTERS & SOFTWARE EDITOR Nik Rawlinson ART & PRODUCTION ART DIRECTOR Paul Duggan FREELANCE DESIGN Bill Bagnall PRODUCTION EDITOR Max Figgett CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Steve Cassidy, Lee Grant, Dave Mitchell, Jon Honeyball, Paul Ockenden, Davey Winder CONTRIBUTORS James Archer, Stuart Andrews, Mike Jennings PHOTOGRAPHY Christian Hopewell ADVERTISING Tel: 020 7907 6662 GROUP ADVERTISING MANAGER Ben Topp: ben_topp@dennis.co.uk DEPUTY ADVERTISING MANAGER Rebecca New: rebecca_new@dennis.co.uk PRODUCTION GROUP PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Robin Ryan NETWORK PRODUCTION MANAGER Kerry Lambird PRODUCTION EXECUTIVE Sophie Griffin CIRCULATION & SUBSCRIPTIONS Tel: 0330 333 9493 CIRCULATION MANAGER Emma Read NEWSTRADE DIRECTOR David Barker DIRECT MARKETING EXECUTIVE Charline Kuehn LOGOS & REPRINTS Tel: 020 7907 6132 ENDORSEMENT LICENSING MANAGER Simon Flavin: simon_flavin@dennis.co.uk LETTERS letters@pcpro.co.uk SOFTWARE SUPPORT software@pcpro.co.uk TWITTER @pcpro FACEBOOK facebook.com/pcpro SUBSCRIPTION ENQUIRIES 0330 333 9493 customercare@subscribe.pcpro.co.uk MANAGING DIRECTOR Dharmesh Mistry DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING Julian Lloyd-Evans CHIEF EXECUTIVE James Tye COMPANY FOUNDER Felix Dennis PRODUCTION…

microsoft trade-in payments fail to surface

MICROSOFT’S TRADE-IN programme for Surface buyers is leaving customers waiting months for payment or even failing to pay them altogether, a PC Pro investigation has uncovered. Microsoft introduced the scheme in October 2019, promising customers up to £500 towards a Surface Pro X, Surface Pro 7 or Surface Laptop 3 if they trade in their old laptops. But the process has left customers out of pocket for several weeks, seen them spend hours chasing payments, and saw one customer report Microsoft to Trading Standards after it refused to pay him for a laptop that went missing in transit. “I traded in my Surface 6 for a Surface Laptop 3 and was promised £510,” said author David Hewson, who had waited five weeks for his trade-in payment, before PC Pro intervened. “I have a…

five stories not to miss

1 China hits back with ban on foreign tech kit China has reacted to trade tariffs and security blocks on companies such as Huawei and ZTE with plans to pull foreign software and hardware from official networks and offices. According to reports, the ban on non-Chinese technology will start with a 30% reduction of overseas products in 2020 and should be completed in 2022. 2 Verizon under fire over Yahoo Groups closure Yahoo owner, Verizon, was accused of preventing campaigners from archiving a trove of early internet content ahead of the closure of Yahoo Groups and the deletion of 20 years’ worth of data. Verizon said it was permanently deleting the publicly created data – seen by archivists as an important slice of early internet culture – because keeping the archive available was…