PC Pro December 2022

p50 REVIEW OF THE MONTH Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED Bendy phones are just so passé. If you truly want to live on the cutting edge then bendy laptops are the next big thing, and the Zenbook 17 Fold OLED is very big indeed. Unfolded, it’s a 17in tablet. Or kick out its built-in stand, whip out the Bluetooth keyboard and turn it into an all-in-one. Need to work on the move? No problem. Pop that keyboard onto the bottom half of the screen and you have a mini laptop. That, at least, is the theory. It’s true to an extent but, as we discover, this first-generation device suffers from some jack-0f-all-trades drawbacks. For the moment, you may decide to look but not touch.…

If you’re a regular PC Pro podcast listener, you’ll know that I should never change occupation to become a futurologist. My record is something like one hit to every ten misses, starting way back in the 1990s when I resisted buying a mobile phone. “Why would I want people to be able to contact me wherever I am?” I almost certainly grumbled to anyone who would listen. “Besides, there are lots of phone boxes if I ever need to call someone.” A few years later, in 2004, you would have found me at the launch of the Compaq iPAQ 3800 series with bulging pockets, lugging around my Psion Series 5mx in one and a Nokia 6310 in the other. I distinctly remember speaking to Compaq’s head of product development at the…

If you watched Apple’s iPhone 14 announcement, you could be forgiven for thinking the firm wanted you to be afraid of, well, everything. We were told stories of people who experienced plane crashes, car wrecks and heart attacks and only survived thanks to their Apple devices. The point of this scaremongering? To show off new features such as crash detection, which will automatically contact the emergency services if your phone or watch detects fast motion and crash-like noises. But what are you supposed to do if you need emergency help and you’re in the wilderness or out of signal range? If you have an iPhone 14, the answer could be to look to the heavens and pray, as your phone sends an emergency message via the Globalstar satellite network. A new…

If you’re a PC user with an Android device, we get it. You don’t need to be like those snooty Apple people – you rightly value the flexibility and customisation that Apple zealots can only dream of. But it would be nice if your devices played nicely together, right? Whether it’s sharing the screen with AirPlay, transferring a file via AirDrop or finishing the email you started on your phone on your computer using Continuity, Apple devices are just that little bit slicker. It’s good news, then, that Google has announced plans to do something similar for Android, with the launch of a new cross-device SDK that should help Android apps communicate better locally, enabling some clever new functionality in the process. “There’s just a bit of a minefield,” said Richard Leggett, the…

Exclusive investigations into technology practices. Email probe@pcpro.co.uk if you have a story Back in August, users of password management app 1Password saw a familiar prompt inside their desktop apps: a new update was available. But the launch of 1Password 8.0 wasn’t a routine update. Under the hood, something significant changed: the underlying architecture of the app was switched to Electron. Electron, or “ElectronJS” to use its full title, is on paper a rather clever idea. It allows developers to write an app only once, so instead of writing an app for Windows, an app for macOS and an app for Linux, the same code powers the app on multiple platforms. It’s both popular and open source, and the framework is used today for a range of popular desktop apps, from Slack and WhatsApp…

PREMIUM LAPTOPS Apple MacBook Pro 14in Stunning creative power from £1,899 from apple.com/uk Alongside its 16in sibling, this is simply the world’s best laptop for demanding users. The amount of power on tap via the M1 Pro or M1 Max processor is staggering, and it’s backed up by a terrific screen and stunning battery life. With all the ports you could ask for, the only negatives are its relative bulk (especially compared to the Air) and high price. REVIEW Issue 328, p58 ALTERNATIVES Dell XPS 15 (2022) Surely the best Windows all-rounder money can buy, with a slim design, gaming potential and plenty of power courtesy of Intel’s 12th gen Core processors. And the AMOLED panel is gorgeous. From £1,950 from dell.co.uk REVIEW Issue 337, p54 NEW ENTRY Huawei MateBook X Pro 2022 A truly gorgeous design in eye-catching powder blue. It’s expensive, but…