PC Proの January 2022 の目次

Sunday was a beautiful sunny autumn day, so I took a walk on Hampstead Heath. The sky was covered in small white clouds, like a Simpsons intro, so I took a picture of it on my Moto G8 Power Lite phone, then set off through the woods between the Viaduct Pond and Kenwood. The thick undergrowth put me in mind of a favourite piece of music, so I fired up Spotify and listened to Janácek’s “On an Overgrown Path” (what, metropolitan elitist, moi?) on my Bluetooth headphones. On my way back, near Highgate Pond, I glimpsed a movement in the grass and found a pair of bright red crayfish disporting themselves on dry(ish) land. My acid-head days are far in the past, and a passing dogwalker confirmed that they were…

It’s hard to be sure of anything these days, but if there’s one thing we can say with confidence, it’s that your energy bills aren’t going to be getting cheaper any time soon. The UK (and beyond) is in the midst of an energy crisis, with a combination of factors sending the wholesale cost of energy up to frightening levels. That’s already forced several of the smaller energy companies – often those with the cheapest tariffs – to the wall, with several more predicted to follow. Suddenly, millions of people are paying hundreds of pounds a year more for their energy, with an increase to the price cap due early in 2022. In short, we’ve never had greater motivation to get our energy consumption under control. With winter now upon…

The implementation of IP in use today is actually the fourth version of the standard, commonly known as IPv4. It was introduced in 1982, and at that time the four-octet address format – representing a total of 4,228,250,625 unique addresses – doubtless seemed quite generous. As internet usage exploded in the 1990s, however, it became clear that sooner or later IPv4 was going to reach its limit. The architects of the internet foresaw that at some point every possible IPv4 address would be allocated, and it would become impossible to connect any more devices to the internet. Clearly a new addressing system was needed. Version 5 of IP had already been designated as a system specifically for video streaming (although it never caught on), so in 1998 a new general-purpose…

SCORE PRICE 128GB, £566 (£679 inc VAT) from apple.com/uk Don’t let the iPhone 13 mini’s size fool you — it packs a serious punch. While Apple reserved some of the best features for the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max, such as 120Hz displays, telephoto zoom and macro mode (see p48 and p49), the iPhone 13 mini enjoys plenty of welcome upgrades. You get a brighter display, fast A15 Bionic chip and compelling new camera features such as Cinematic mode for video. The iPhone 13 mini looks very similar to the iPhone 12 mini, with one notable change: the notch. It’s about 20% smaller this year, and certainly noticeable when placed next to its predecessor. With the same squared-off edges and tiny dimensions it’s easily pocketable, and I…

SCORE PRICE 64GB Wi-Fi, £266 (£319 inc VAT) from apple.com/uk On the face of it, Apple’s latest iPad doesn’t offer much of an upgrade over last year’s model (see issue 316, p88). It suffers from the same thick top and bottom bezels, is stuck on Wi-Fi 5 and still uses Touch ID rather than Apple’s Face ID unlock. But it doesn’t take long to see that Apple has performed its usual trick of upgrading just enough to make this a tempting purchase for both loyal buyers and first-timers. For a start, it can be used with the first-generation Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard (sold separately at £89 and £159 respectively) for those times when you need a more laptop-style experience. It also ships with iPadOS 15 and its host of…

SCORE PRICE £583 (£699 inc VAT) from stormforcegaming.co.uk Stormforce is a new name to PC Pro, but it has all the credentials we look for in a PC supplier: a high rating on Trustpilot, a UK base (Warrington, Cheshire, to be precise) and it supplies all its desktop computers with a three-year collect-and-return warranty. That includes parts, labour and carriage, making it one of the most comprehensive warranties out there. As such, we were interested to see how it would rise to the challenge of building a £699 system in these challenging times. The answer is an extremely well-balanced system that spreads the limited budget available around all the key components, while keeping avenues open to upgrades when the time is right. The most challenging component of all right now…

SCORE PRICE As reviewed, £1,808 (£2,170 inc VAT) from lenovo.com From Lenovo's point of view, the great thing about Apple’s new MacBook Pro laptops – which we’ll review next month – is that they make its ThinkPad X1 Carbon series look like good value. The top-end 14in MacBook Pro costs £2,399, but you can currently purchase this flagship and mobile broadband version of the X1 Carbon for £2,170. For that, you enjoy a three-year on-site warranty and premium components. A Core i7-1165G7 CPU, 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD make for a potent combination, with the latter returning blistering sequential rates: 5,384MB/sec reads and 3,581MB/sec writes. Multicore scores of 5,229 in Geekbench 5 and 4,756 in Cinebench R23 aren’t as extraordinary, but the X1 Carbon has enough power and…

SCORE PRICE Core i7/16GB/256GB, £1,249 (£1,499 inc VAT) from microsoft.com/uk The Surface Pro 8 is the biggest change to the Surface Pro lineup in years, bringing the design improvements we’ve been begging for, as well as improved performance. It truly feels like a new generation – just in time for the launch of Windows 11. The most obvious change is the new graphite colour, which looks incredible. The chassis has also been refined, with rounded edges that are more comfortable to hold for long periods than the previous flat sides with sharper corners. But what makes the Surface Pro 8 look like a new device rather than a relic from the early 2010s are its slim bezels. This allows for an 11% larger display, with a 13in 2,880 x 1,920…

SCORE PRICE From £308 (£369 inc VAT) from apple.com/uk Compare the Watch Series7 with the Series 6 (see issue 315, p68) and there’s one obvious difference: the screen. Not only is it 20% larger but it stretches out to fill almost the entire front, with the big bezels now consigned to history – or the Watch SE (see issue 315, p70), which is still available from £249. The larger screen makes a difference to the amount of data you can see on the display, and it makes it easier to interact with as a result. What you won’t be able to discern when holding it for the first time is the improved robustness: with IP6X on board, this watch is now partially dustproof as well as waterproof (to WR50, for…

SCORE PRICE £716 (£859 inc VAT) from photospecialist.co.uk There are some monitors that you come to love gradually, appreciating their subtle charms as time goes on. With the BenQ, that feeling is instant. From the moment you plug it in, you’ll realise that this is a gorgeous example of a 27in 4K panel. That’s in part because its default mode is the punchy Display P3 profile with brightness pushed close to this panel’s 308cd/m2 maximum (58cd/m2 higher than BenQ’s stated figure), and BenQ does a fine job of hitting the target 6500K colour temperature: we measured 6336K in Display P3 and 6477K in sRGB mode. Unusually, BenQ offers the choice of Display P3 and DCI-P3 modes, which are identical save for their gamma curve. However, Apple prefers Display P3 so…

SCORE PRICE £383 (£459 inc VAT) from wexphotovideo.com The Asus ProArt Display PA279CV makes all the right noises for a professional monitor. It promises 100% coverage of the sRGB and Rec.709 colour spaces (although these are basically the same), Calman-verified colour accuracy and even includes a certificate in the box that promises that it’s calibrated for “creative perfection”. With a 4K resolution and a sub-£500 price, you would be right to look around for gotchas. The first is that, compared to some more expensive screens, its colour performance is weak. It does indeed come with an sRGB preset, and a printout showing exactly how it performs, but that locks you to a rather dim 95cd/m2 brightness. Its other figures in this test are all respectable – 92% sRGB coverage out…

SCORE PRICE £1,438 (£1,726 inc VAT) from wexphotovideo.com Most three-year-old monitors are claiming their pension, but it says something for the CG279X’s quality that it can still mix with the best professional monitors on sale today. The only obvious sign of its age are the thick bezels, but that’s in part to accommodate the bundled hood and in part so Eizo can build a drop-down calibrator into the top bezel: it never gets tired for this to pop down automatically and make sure all the colours are as they should be. Our review model bore almost 600 hours of use, as revealed by the detailed, speedy and intuitive OSD, but the only sign of wear and tear in this superbly built unit is that when it said 120cd/m2 in the…

SCORE PRICE £358 (£430 inc VAT) from box.co.uk This AOC screen has much in common with the Acer Predator, based as it is on a 27in IPS panel with a 2,560 x 1,440 resolution. Where the Acer left us underwhelmed, however, this offers much to tempt someone looking for a monitor with a split personality: work from 9 to 5, party all night. To keep that party going it comes with its own light show, courtesy of downward-facing lights next to the joystick and a large ring at the rear. You can control brightness and the choice of colours via the logical and speedy OSD, with a number of gaming presets plus three that you can program. For example, you might prefer a higher “Shadow Control” for some games. One…

SCORE PRICE £583 (£699 inc VAT) from scan.co.uk If this Labs proves one thing, it’s that MSI knows how to build top-quality gaming monitors. This 31.5in curved screen is a gem that any gamer would love on their desk. Part of its appeal is its sheer size, and its 1000R curvature makes games feel more immersive. If you have £2K to spend, sitting three of these together on a desk would be a magnificent setup, although bezels slimmer than 9mm would have been nice. MSI hits all the key points when it comes to gaming. The 1ms grey-togrey response time is a given, but we’re more than happy with a 165Hz refresh rate as well: fast-paced games such as CS: Go look super-slick. Other monitors go even punchier than the…

SCORE PRICE £1,458 (£1,749 inc VAT) from currys.co.uk It’s tempting to compare the Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 with the Philips Momentum, but this 49in curved monitor is a different beast. For one, it will fit on a desk… it just has to be a large one, consuming 30cm of space from back to front. Most desks only measure 60cm deep. If you meet that proviso, and can pay the price without wilting, then there’s a lot to like about this monitor. In its default mode it covers 92% of the DCI-P3 gamut out of a 93% volume, and if you switch to sRGB it locks well to that space: 99% out of a 106% volume. And it backs that up with an average Delta E of 1.15 and maximum of…

SCORE PRICE £625 (£750incVAT) fromvery.co.uk When we first reviewed this monitor two months ago (see issue 325, p62), we showered it with technical praise but questioned whether it was worth £750 for a 28in monitor – even a high-quality 4K IPS panel such as this. We’re left in the same quandary this month, but the factor that still lifts the VG28UQL1A above rivals is its four HDMI inputs. Two of these support HDMI 2.1, so if you own an Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5 then you’ll love playing games at a fluid 120Hz. Switch back to a PC and that peak rises to 144Hz. You can be assured of a wide colour gamut coverage, too. In its native settings, the VG28UQL1A covered a respectable 84% of the DCI-P3 space,…

SCORE PRICE £225 (£270 inc VAT) from uk.insight.com This monitor has three big things in its favour: a 240Hz refresh rate, 31.5in diagonal and 1500R curvature. If you’re passionate about esports and don’t mind its limiting Full HD resolution, then these factors alone might persuade you that it’s worth £270. You might even be tempted to buy three to sit side by side for a truly epic panorama, with narrow bezels along with that curvature certainly helpful here. At £810 for three, that’s almost half the cost of the Samsung Odyssey Neo G9. Before you press the Buy button, though, be aware of this screen’s big limitation: its colour reproduction. It has the most limited gamut of all the monitors on test this month, only covering 89% of the sRGB…

SCORE PRICE 1-24 devices, £27 exc VAT each per year from f-secure.com All of the security solutions on test this month offer cloud-based management, but F-Secure takes it to the next level: its web portal lets you manage not just the Endpoint Protection package, but the company’s entire portfolio of business security products. So if you’re already using an F-Secure cloud service – or if you plan to in the future – it could help you simplify administration. We found the cloud side of things easy to set up. Once we’d created a central management account, we simply had to enter our Elements Endpoint Protection (EEP) subscription details, after which the service immediately appeared in the console. Other F-Secure services are enabled in the same manner, and can be accessed…

SCORE PRICE 10-user licence, £245 exc VAT per year from blitzhandel24.co.uk Trend Micro offers an endpoint protection choice for every business: firms that want to keep it all in house can install Worry-Free Business Security Standard on their own server, while those that prefer a hosted solution can use this fully cloud-based option. It’s aimed at companies with up to 250 devices to protect, and the price is SMB-friendly. Yearly pricing starts at £58 for two devices, rising to £520 for 25, with each licence covering one Windows or Mac workstation, one Windows server or one mobile device. All the key security features are present. Along with anti-malware scanning you get protection against web threats, web content filtering, a client firewall, removable device controls and mobile device security. A standout…

The EU has decided that all mobile devices shall use the USB-C port for charging. Or, to be technically correct, it has proposed legislation that, if adopted, vendors will have two years to comply with. The full statement can be found at pcpro.link/327usb, but I will draw your attention to a couple of key sentences. First: “USB-C will become the standard port for all smartphones, tablets, cameras, headphones, portable speakers and handheld videogame consoles.” This leaves out a whole swathe of devices and opens up a rat’s nest of questions. For example, what is a “camera”? Does that include product sectors such as security webcams? You will notice that laptops aren’t mentioned either, and quite a few laptops still have custom round-barrel DC connectors for charging. When does a laptop…

In all the furore over leaked Facebook documents, one tiny number appears to have escaped most people’s attention: 3.58. 3.58 billion, that is, which refers to the number of monthly users that Facebook has across its “family of apps”. This family includes Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp, and I’m willing to lay a sizeable bet that you are one of those 3.58 billion. I know I am. In fact, despite my best efforts, I fall into the “daily active people” category. What a DAP. This is despite uninstalling the Facebook app from my phone about six months ago in an attempt to escape my daily need to check it, only to find myself loading up the website to scroll through inane videos and tennis highlights. Multiple times, every day. Have…

Privacy campaigners have claimed a victory in their battle to make the web safer, by retiring a now redundant plug-in that enforced encryption. Back in 2011, the web was a very different place. Most websites didn’t use HTTPS to connect to a computer. Instead, they used the unencrypted HTTP protocol, meaning that your web traffic could be sniffed out by any system your data happened to pass through. It was a security and privacy nightmare. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) knew this needed to change for the good of the web, so it launched the “HTTPS everywhere” browser extension, which performed a task we now take for granted. It redirected web addresses to secure versions of websites, so we would use HTTPS by default. A decade on, HTTPS by default…

It was only fitting that Microsoft insisted that this chat would be via Teams. After all, Teams has been one of the huge success stories for the company this past 18 months, and it helpfully allows senior Microsoft execs to speak to people the world over from the comfort of their front room. In his opening statement, Aaron Woodman, the general manager of Windows, talked about a Windows userbase of 1.3 billion people, and that the Windows 11 rollout would probably be the biggest software update program in the world. Which led to my first question: Q You say that 1.3 billion people are using Windows, but are all those upgradable systems? A No. In fact, one thing I would say is, from our perspective, we want to put our…

@njkobie What a difference three years make. In 2018, then health secretary Matt Hancock couldn’t stop talking up Babylon, a virtual GP service that allowed patients to video chat with a physician rather than head to the surgery. Indeed, he was criticised for taking part in a paid advertorial in the Evening Standard for the startup health tech firm, in which he said this “revolutionary” technology “allows more resources for the people visiting GPs directly”. Virtual appointments were the future of GPs, Hancock clearly believed. Yet the current health secretary Sajid Javid is now demanding via a letter to GPs that they default to face-to-face appointments, at risk of being publicly shamed via league tables if they don’t comply. What happened? Having previously looked into Babylon and other virtual GP…

It’s always exciting to start up a new laptop and enjoy the benefits of new technology. Being an enthusiast, for me this is usually every three years or so. Processors get faster, graphics get better, ergonomics improve and storage gets speedier. However, with the welcome move to SSDs comes the fact that they are less capacious than old hard disk drives. Although I have a 1TB SSD on my new Asus laptop, this is less than the combined total of the 512GB SSD and 1TB HDD on my three-year old Dell Inspiron. While setting up the new laptop, the TV was showing a programme featuring individuals with serious hoarding issues in their homes; struggling to find space with mountains of clutter destined to make their lives a self-induced misery, combined…

Looking for a particular past review? Visit our index at pcpro.link/index SCORE PRICE 128GB, £649 (£799 inc VAT) from apple.com/uk On paper, you’d be hard pressed to find a reason why Apple didn’t call this phone the iPhone 12S. The design and specs are largely the same, and there are few headline-grabbing new features. But everything on the iPhone 13 is a touch better than before – and some elements are significantly better. It’s cheaper too. The iPhone 13 costs £779 for 128GB of storage, £20 less than the 64GB iPhone 12 at launch. If you need more storage, the 256GB iPhone 13 is £879, while the 512GB model costs £1,079. The iPhone 13 mini (see p47) has similar specs but is £100 cheaper in all its iterations. Or you…

SCORE PRICE 128GB, £791 (£949 inc VAT) from apple.com/uk If you want it all, then there's only one iPhone for you: the Max Pro opposite. But you'll need hands as a big as your pockets, with the 13 Pro a more practical size for one-handed use. Even if you drop it, you should be well protected courtesy of Apple’s Ceramic Shield glass on both the front and back: Apple says that protection makes it four times less likely to break than, say, the iPhone 13 (see p44). It’s available in graphite, silver, gold or “sierra” blue. The striking blue option is new this year, so it’s a good choice if you want an iPhone that stands out. Whichever version you choose, the matte finish on the rear feels distinctly premium,…

SCORE PRICE 64GB Wi-Fi, £399 (£479 inc VAT) from apple.com/uk You can’t talk about the iPad mini without puzzling over its size. Dimensions of 135 x 6.3 x 195mm mean that it’s notably smaller than the last-gen mini, and while it isn’t quite mini enough for one-handed use, it’s perfectly tailored for anyone who wants a screen bigger than their phone’s for watching video but doesn’t like grappling with a “full-size” tablet such as the 10.2in iPad (see p50) or the Air (see issue 316, p81). The flat-edged design is more like the Air than the previous mini, right down to its brushed metal effect on the rear. At 293g, a touch less than its predecessor, it’s easy to slide into a bag or large pocket without feeling the extra…

SCORE PRICE £833 (£1,000 inc VAT) from chillblast.com Enjoy playing occasional games but not a fan of RGB bling and roaring fans? Then this unassuming system may make an ideal choice in these graphically challenging times: a triumvirate of cryptomining, supply chain issues and lack of raw materials has seen the cost of graphics cards rocket, with no sign of a return to normality. As such, we don’t need to shine a spotlight to find the elephant in the Chillblast Fusion Prime’s room. This elephant isn’t so much in the room as stampeding around it. The cost of even an RTX 3050 graphics card is too much for Chillblast to supply one in a £1,000 system – even if it could find a reliable source – and so it has…

SCORE PRICE £695 (£834 inc VAT) from ballicom.co.uk In the past couple of years we’ve seen the gap between Dynabook’s ultraportable Portégé range and its more functional Tecra series grow narrower, but the A50-J-11X is a return to the old days. Not that it’s boxy or heavy – at 19.9mm thick and 1.7kg, it’s hardly in Tyson Fury territory – but with a chassis that stretches 358mm across you’ll need a larger bag to accommodate it on trips. This Tecra A50 would still make a fine travelling companion. It lasted almost 11 hours in our battery tests (two hours more than Dynabook quotes), and the chassis feels built to last. It’s made of ABS polymer rather than metal, but you’d struggle to notice this, with not a hint of flex…

SCORE PRICE £166 (£199 inc VAT) from portal.facebook.com While phones and tablets remain the most popular devices for video calls, some of the best smart displays have built-in cameras, including the mains-powered Facebook Portal introduced last year. However, until the 1.4kg Portal Go, smart displays lacked the portability that phones and tablets offer. The Go even has a handle built into the back, making it easy to carry from room to room during a call, or even outdoors. Facebook claims – accurately – that the Portal Go will last for up to five hours of video calling between charges. That’s plenty, and it’s easy to use and recharge at the same time thanks to a charging dock that sits flush with the bottom of the display; it takes around three…

1 Visit pcprodownload.co.uk. You’ll need to enter the coupon code printed on the spine of the cover (or directly on the cover if you’re a digital subscriber). If there’s no code on the spine, you have bought the £4.99 version of PC Pro, which doesn’t include a code. Also enter your email address. We’ll then send an email to confirm that your code has been registered. 2 Once you’re in 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 make sure to read these carefully). 3 If the software needs registering, click the purple Register…

SCORE PRICE 1TB, £120 (£144 inc VAT) from uk.insight.com Who needs an external solid-state drive when you’ve got the Kingston DataTraveler Max? It may be small but it delivers spectacular performance thanks to a combination of a high-speed USB 3.2 Type-C connector, fast TLC flash memory from Micron, and Silicon Motion’s SM2320 UFD controller. Kingston claims the 1TB version will reach read/write sustained speeds of 1GB/sec and 900MB/sec respectively, but it actually exceeded these scores in CrystalDiskMark with 1,066MB/sec reads and exactly 1,000MB/sec writes. AS SSD was a trifle slower at 943MB/sec and 895MB/sec, but those are still results that put it in the realms of an NVMe SSD. In a real-world test, transferring a 10GB file, it kept up a strong 558MB/sec average. You won’t be kept waiting long.…

SCORE PRICE £3,300 (£3,960 inc VAT) from wexphotovideo.com Walk into a design studio where Eizo ColorEdge CG319X monitors sit on desks, and you know one thing: that company means business. Not just due to the sheer cost of these screens, but because of their incredible flexibility. Where monitors such as the BenQ SW271C are tuned for photographers’ needs, the CG319X can flick easily between HDR 4K editing and creating a centre-page spread for Cosmopolitan. The ever-lasting joy of Eizo’s ColorEdge series is that it makes it so easy to move between the different colour gamuts, and that you can have such confidence in the colours you’re seeing. The ease of use stems from an industry-leading OSD based on six touch-sensitive buttons that sit towards the right of the bottom bezel:…

SCORE PRICE £1,019 (£1,223 inc VAT) from dpsb.co.uk This 27in monitor might look old-fashioned with its inchwide bezels, but don’t be fooled: the BenQ SW271C was released this year as an update to the pension-drawing SW271. The extra “C” brings a USB-C connection (delivering up to 60W of power), the second generation of the Hotkey Puck and HDR support. Don’t get too excited by the latter, as a peak brightness of 301cd/m2 in our tests emphasises that this isn’t a panel with HDR editing at the fore of its mind. Its target is photographers, with features such as an SD card slot and a black and white mode that reveals what photos will look like without any processing necessary. You can divide the screen vertically into two colour spaces, allowing…

SCORE PRICE £428 (£514 inc VAT) from wexphotovideo.com This ViewSonic shares much in common with the Asus ProArt PA279CV, whether that’s the 4K resolution or the promise of 100% sRGB coverage. But primarily we refer to the monitors’ prices, which puts them at the low end in this month’s esteemed company. One sign of this is the solid but unglamorous stand, but it offers a smooth 120° swivel and a respectable 130mm of height adjustment. We also like the thin bezels on all sides, with 8mm on the top, left and right, and 10mm on the bottom. This would make the ColorPro a great monitor to use side by side, and unusually the viewing angles are as good in portrait mode as they are in landscape mode. We were similarly…

SCORE PRICE £275 (£330 inc VAT) from scan.co.uk Iiyama has built its reputation on producing keenly priced but high-quality mainstream monitors, and with its G-Master series it copies and pastes this recipe onto gaming displays. For a ridiculous price, you’re getting everything most gamers could want without making any obvious sacrifices. Let’s start with the curved 1500R panel, with a 34in display and a 3,440 x 1,440 resolution. It’s basically the same as having two 27in 1440p panels, and the pixel density of 109ppi means text looks sharp. Stick to the default colour setting and whites will look pleasantly white, with a colour temperature of 6410K not too far off the target 6500K. Admittedly, it wasn’t the star performer in our technical tests. An average Delta E of 1.07 is…

SCORE PRICE £499 (£599 inc VAT) from scan.co.uk Is the MSI Oculux overkill for most people? Absolutely. This screen is crammed with features that will appeal to competitive esports players, but at a price that would otherwise buy you a 4K screen. So, what do you get for £599? First, a 24.5in IPS panel with one headline specification: a 360Hz refresh rate. As we discuss in the buyer’s guide (see p86), it’s questionable whether this gives even top players a boost over, say, 240Hz, but with the Oculux NXG253R you certainly can’t blame latency for missing targets any more. It’s also one of Nvidia’s G-Sync monitors, launched in 2020, which go well beyond typical AMD or Nvidia approval. It includes a tool to measure the latency between pressing the left…

SCORE PRICE £899 (£1,079 inc VAT) from viewsonic.com The Elite XG320U is so new that, at the time of writing, we couldn’t find a price for it from a retailer. The £1,079 comes direct from ViewSonic, so we hope it drops when it goes on sale: as it is, this screen is pricing itself out of contention. The most obvious return for your cash comes in the size and resolution of the panel, a gigantic 31.9in IPS screen with a 4K resolution. There’s no curvature, so it’s fortunate that its viewing angles are so good. It delivers incredibly wide gamut coverage, with 100% of the Adobe RGB space within its grasp; of the other gaming monitors on test, only the MSI Optix can match that. This translated into 93% of…

SCORE PRICE £175 (£210incVAT) frombox.co.uk Iiyama applies the Pareto principle to its monitors, concentrating on the 80% of features that really matter and mostly ignoring the 20% of luxuries, such as RGB lighting and USB-C docking. Instead, you get a fast-response VA panel with a strong 1500R curvature, 165Hz refresh rates and support for AMD FreeSync Premium. Not bad when you consider its £210 price, although 1500R makes a far bigger impact on larger screens. As we expect from Iiyama, the panel looks great without any need for finetuning. Not that there are many options to do so in the joystick-driven OSD; while this is fiddly, it’s quick to respond to prompts. You can use the OSD to switch to Iiyama’s Standard i-Style preset, but this is the panel’s native…

Imagine, just for a moment, a world where you could visit a product’s homepage and it wasn’t full of near-meaningless, buzzword-packed, jargonistic nonsense. For the past month, while I’ve been physically surrounded on all sides by gaming monitors in my 12 x 8ft testing lab, I’ve also been drowning in phrases like “next-gen gameplay” and “precision to the max” and even “a new era of immersion”. We’re all used to marketing hyperbole, of course, but for gaming monitors it’s ramped up to such an extreme that the words are rendered almost meaningless. What the world needs is a plugin that strips away all the fluff, all the claims that can’t be backed up by evidence, to leave a stripped-bare page filled with useful information. I have some sympathy. The challenge…

SCORE PRICE 20-user licence, £976 exc VAT per year from kaspersky.co.uk Kaspersky’s Endpoint Security Cloud Plus (ESCP) offers some of the most flexible licensing terms in the business. While some vendors expect you to purchase separate licence packs for different types of devices, each Kaspersky user licence covers one workstation, laptop or server, plus two iOS or Android mobile devices. The service is designed to protect up to 1,000 Windows and Mac workstations and Windows servers, and is managed entirely in the cloud. The extensive roster of security features includes anti-malware, threat and ransomware protection, a client firewall, network vulnerability scanning and an attack blocker. On top of all this, the Plus subscription we tested adds endpoint device controls, URL-based web filtering, vulnerability assessments, patch management and encryption. It also…

SCORE PRICE As reviewed, £7,446 exc VAT from dell.co.uk Dell EMC’s PowerEdge servers are now in their 15th generation – and the choice is bigger than ever, with 17 new and refreshed systems in the latest lineup. Tower servers in particular have been revamped, with the PowerEdge T550 stepping up to replace the trusty T640. As you’d expect, the T550 is built on Intel’s third-generation “Ice Lake” platform. Our system came with a 12-core 2.1GHz Xeon Silver 4310 CPU, but the motherboard can take two processors with TDPs of up to 220W TDP, meaning you can go all the way up to 32-core CPUs. Decked out in slinky silver, the T550 chassis is slightly smaller and quieter than the old T640 enclosure. This does mean that storage capacity is slightly…

“Get a pocket computer, try to do what you used to do, yeah” sang Debbie Harry in the Blondie song “Picture This”. It appeared on the group’s ground-breaking 1978 album Parallel Lines, and I’ve been obsessed ever since. As a teenage boy I was naturally obsessed with Debbie Harry, but my longer-term obsession has been with that line about a “pocket computer”. It was actually a prophetic lyric, because back in 1978 when the album hit the shops, there was no such thing as a pocket computer. It’s astonishing just how much progress was made in the last couple of decades of the 20th century, but 1978 was still the era of 5.25in floppy disks. There were no spreadsheets; VisiCalc was still being written. Even Intel’s 8088 CPU, which heralded…

Commodore is a name that resonates strongly with computer users of a certain age. The company that made it famous created the Commodore 64 – still the biggest-selling single computer of all time. It also produced the PET, the VIC-20 and, of course, the Amiga range that was first introduced in 1985 and went on to achieve sales of around five million. Given such a pedigree, you’d think a revival of the Amiga would proudly bear the Commodore branding. But when such a project was announced by Retro Games Ltd in July, the name was nowhere to be seen. It didn’t appear in the press release; it didn’t figure on the images of the packaging; and it won’t take pride of place on the new machine itself. “The Amiga has…

While the skies over our heads have been quieter throughout the pandemic, they’re normally jammed full of planes: Heathrow alone saw 1,300 flights take off or land each day in 2018, and ferries more than 80 million passengers annually. That makes air traffic control a complex job — and with unmanned drones and small electric planes eventually added to the mix, it could become completely unmanageable. That’s why NATS — once known as National Air Traffic Services — has teamed up with data scientists and AI researchers at the Alan Turing Institute, the national body for investigating and developing such smart technologies. Since 2018, the two organisations have been working on project funded by the Engineering Physical Sciences Research Council worth £12 million. Called Project Bluebird, a sweet-sounding name for…

Thursday 9 December Subscribe today Start your subscription today and claim a free 32GB memory stick emblazoned with the logo of your favourite magazine. You can read PC Pro in print, or on an iPad, iPhone or Android device. See p106 for more details. FEATURES Predictions 2022: a year in tech We know it’s a mug’s game, but still we do it: our experts predict the big tech events that will shape the next 12 months. Christmas gifts for grown-ups Looking for gift ideas? We provide our annual roundup of things that we would like under our Christmas tree. How to host an online event Physical meetings may be coming back, but online events are still a key way to engage audiences. Here’ show to run them effectively. SUBSCRIBE. PCPRO.CO.UK…

I’m getting increasingly annoyed with spam email. I don’t mean the old-school nonsense telling me that some noble person has decided to leave me $10,000,000 and they need my help to get the money out of the country. I don’t even mean the sort of spam that comes along with being on too many marketing databases. A few years back, I made the fatal mistake of giving my home email address to the organisers of CES (the consumer electronics show, held in Las Vegas in January each year) as my press contact. This went onto the press mailing list, and suddenly every company on the planet, from major players to the smallest mom-and-pop workshop in China, decided I needed to be emailed on a regular basis. No, I’m talking about…

Barry Collins Find out how small actions could add up to big savings in our lead feature this month, as Barry and the team find ways to drive down your monthly electricity bill. See p28 Olivia Whitcroft Don’t sign on the dotted line until you’ve read what data and IP lawyer Olivia has to say about assigning intellectual property as part of a technology project. Turn to p116 Davey Winder Is he a cybersecurity expert? A privacy guru? As Davey explains, the two are converging, and it’s easy for bystanders to be as confused as they are vulnerable. Find out more from p118 Nicole Kobie In the not-so-distant future, drones and “flying taxis” will join the planes high above us. To make sense of it all, flight controllers are bringing…

PREMIUM LAPTOPS Apple MacBook Air Affordable Apple M1 ultraportable from £999 from apple.com/uk Apple’s ARM-based M1 chip is blasting away its AMD and Intel x86 opposition with truly extraordinary speeds. Even the low-end model with 8GB of RAM is ludicrously fast. Apple makes no changes to the Air’s design, but it still looks fabulous and now supports both USB 4 and Wi-Fi 6. Add battery life into the teens and its biggest threat comes from the updated M1 MacBook Pro 13in. REVIEW Issue 316, p40 ALTERNATIVES Samsung Galaxy Book Pro (15.6in) A powerful laptop with a 15.6in AMOLED screen that weighs a mere 1.05kg? And with stonking battery life too? The Galaxy Book Pro is a winner. Core i7, £1,449 from johnlewis.com REVIEW Issue 323, p50 MSI Summit E13 Flip…

@bazzacollins This is the least controversial opening to a column that you’ll ever read, but social media is a sewer. Take one look at the replies to the most benign of tweets from, say, Chris Whitty or Nancy Pelosi or pretty much anyone in the public eye, and you’re almost guaranteed to see a stream of abusive replies. It’s the cost of doing business. The UK government (like its US counterpart) isn’t happy about this – not least because it’s taking a fair bit of social media flak itself, I suspect. The Draft Online Safety Bill puts a duty of care on social media firms, requiring them to remove “harmful content”. That definition includes content that is legal but might be considered harmful, such as abuse that doesn’t pass a…

If you’re running Windows 10, and your system requirements meet Microsoft’s demands, then at some point over the next few months you’ll be offered an upgrade via Windows Update. However, as we reveal on p14, big question marks hang over exactly when that time will come. This week? This month? This year? If you’re anything like us, you’re impatient and want it now. This is our guide to performing a clean installation of Windows 11, but like all good stories, there are three things that you need to know. First, this method is designed for clean installs on new PC builds. Make sure you back up your data. Second, while you can attempt this on your current Windows 10 machine, you may not get to the end. If it doesn’t…

NAT is a good thing, so double NAT must be better, right? Not really. Double NAT normally happens when you connect a device with router functions to a network that already has a router – for example, you might find that the only way to get a new Wi-Fi 6 router on to the internet is to plug it into your old ISP-provided router. A double-NAT configuration means that you end up with two devices handing out IP addresses. This isn’t a disaster. The secondary router won’t assign addresses that clash: if the old router is issuing addresses in the 192.168.0.x range, the new one might use the 192.168.100.x range. And the two routers should be able to pass packets between themselves so that all systems can talk to one…

SCORE PRICE 128GB, £874 (£1,049 inc VAT) from apple.com/uk We’ll get this out of the way now: if you’re looking at the iPhone 13 Pro Max as your next phone, prepare yourself for a massive handset. This is not a phone for those wanting something you can wrap a hand around or even reach a thumb the whole way across. Using the phone for extended periods can stretch the fingers further than normal, and that can cause slight aches; my digits adapted over time, but it’s one reason to choose the iPhone 13 Pro instead. We were sent the sierra blue version of the iPhone 13 Pro Max and, like the other colours in the range (graphite, gold and silver), it looks classy. Despite the phone having Apple’s super-tough Ceramic…

The era of Windows 11 is well and truly upon us, but it may be months before your current system is deemed compatible (see our interview with the general manager of Windows on p14). If you’re feeling bullish you can bypass the Windows Update mechanism and update your own machine, as we cover in some detail from p36. But there is another way to get Windows 11 now, and that’s to buy a new PC. To that end, we invited three British manufacturers to send in systems that were not only compatible with Windows 11 but would make it buzz. To give you the maximum amount of choice, we set three different prices for them to hit. We provide full reviews over the next three pages, and a series of…

SCORE PRICE £1,042 (£1,250 inc VAT) from pcspecialist.co.uk/reviews We described the lack of an RTX graphics card as the elephant in the room Chillblast Fusion Prime 11 review opposite, and that absence is made all the more obvious by the RTX 3060 Ti graphics card that sits proudly in the middle of the PCSpecialist Fusion Supreme’s chassis. It’s this machine’s standout feature, and what a difference it makes when it comes to gaming. Take our most demanding trio of tests: Hitman 2, Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Metro: Exodus. At 1080p and High settings (or their equivalent), the RTX 3060 Ti card powered this system to 70fps, 155fps and 109fps in those three games respectively. By contrast, the GTX 1650 inside the Chillblast managed 17fps, 55fps and 35fps. You…

SCORE PRICE Core i7/1TB, £1,000 (£1,200 inc VAT) from huawei.com/uk It’s taken several years and a pandemic, but Huawei has finally recognised that webcams should live above screens rather than secreted in pop-up buttons on a keyboard. It even adds infrared sensors to support Windows Hello, and this worked flawlessly and speedily throughout our tests. What a shame, then, that Huawei’s laptop division didn’t have a word with its phone designers and steal some of their fantastic camera technology, because in terms of image quality the 720p unit here is deeply mediocre. From Huawei, I expected crisp detail, not compression so heavy that the background looks almost smudged. Just to emphasise the opportunity missed, the audio quality from the pair of noise-reducing microphones is so good that I would rarely…

SCORE PRICE £92 (£110 inc VAT) from hp.co.uk HP has a bewildering array of multifunction OfficeJet printers that all look much like this, and the differences in design and functionality are subtle. For example, the seemingly identical OfficeJet Pro 9022e (see issue 324, p52) is slightly larger, has several more ports and you access the ink cartridges through the front flap. Here you have to open the front flap and then lever open the printer to insert the cartridges. It’s a functional design, but it’s not especially compact and the plastic panels are wobbly and insubstantial. HP says 15% of the plastic is recycled, but I couldn’t help but notice that the packaging was made of polystyrene rather than recyclable cardboard and included a lot of unnecessary plastic. There’s room…

SCORE PRICE £19 (£23 inc VAT) from thepihut.com The Build HAT is the culmination of two years of work between the Raspberry Pi Foundation and Lego Education. The idea: to carry on from Lego’s block-coding language and provide a Python module that enables learners to keep using the expensive Lego kits with a more powerful and expandable language. The hardware is essentially an interface between the Raspberry Pi’s 40-pin general purpose input/output (GPIO) and those Lego kits. Build HAT targets Lego Spike Prime and Technic, but no Mindstorms as this uses a different connector. The hard part of making a serial connection in Python is done for you, meaning you can focus on building Lego-powered projects. Build HAT is a standard HAT add-on designed to be placed directly on top…

SCORE PRICE £83 (£100 inc VAT) from logitech.com Two years ago I gave the following verdict to the Logitech MX Keys (see issue 303, p75): “Yes, it’s overpriced, but if you want a luxury keyboard to match your luxury MX Master mouse, you’ll love it”. I could repeat that verdict almost exactly this month, except I would refer to the MX Anywhere mouse instead – because the key to the Mini’s appeal is its size, with it being small enough to slip into a small rucksack. Not that this is a keyboard purely designed for travel. Head to Logitech’s site and you’ll see a plethora of images showing it in creative design settings, with three colours available: graphite, pale grey and rose. There’s also a dedicated MX Keys Mini for…

SCORE PRICE £741 (£889 inc VAT) from box.co.uk It’s difficult to categorise the Acer ConceptD CP3271KP. Acer says it’s aimed at “professional creators, video editors, animators and graphic designers”, and there’s no doubt that some of its attributes will appeal to that audience. But then it also offers 144Hz refresh rates and slaps an Nvidia G-Sync sticker on the front, so perhaps we need to add games designers to that list. Print designers are better served elsewhere, with no sign of Adobe RGB in its list of colour presets. Instead it offers sRGB (92% out of 93% volume), DCI-P3 (84% out of 84%), HDR, Standard, CAD/CAM, Graphics, Movie, a User mode and two slots for hardware calibration. You can use calibration to attempt to tune it to the Adobe RGB…

SCORE PRICE 15.6in, £2,667 (£3,200 inc VAT) from estore.wacom.com Don’t be fooled by the Wacom name: this is a portable workstation, not a drawing tablet. With a £3,200 price for this 15.6in, 4K version (and £2,400 for the 13.3in, 1440p model), this pen computer is a long way from a mainstream device. Both models come with a Wacom stylus that attaches via a travel case you can mount on the side. The pen is much thicker than the Apple Pencil, but doesn’t need to be charged and is packed with quality: note the 8,192 pressure levels and rubber grip. It helps that the screen has a matte finish, which provides a texture similar to paper. That makes it ideal for sketching and illustrating, aside from a slight lag. That’s despite…

SCORE PRICE £333 (£399 inc VAT) from currys.co.uk LG is better known for its TVs than its monitors, but if it keeps on cramming in as many features for the price as it does here then that may yet change. For a bargain £434, it hits all the key hotspots and – to a large extent – delivers for quality too. We’ll start with the big positive, namely the big screen. If you enjoy gaming at 1440p this 32in display gives you a bang per buck that few can rival, and with a 165Hz refresh rate – rising to 180Hz if you overclock it – it will deliver smooth performance in any modern game that your setup can handle. Notably LG chooses to include a Nvidia G-Sync sticker on the…

SCORE PRICE £1,024 (£1,229 inc VAT) from box.co.uk It takes some effort to make the Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 look small, but put side by side the Philips Momentum would tower over it. It has far more in common with TVs than traditional desktop monitors, but with no TV tuner to be found the 55in Momentum stands alone. We think it makes most sense in a den or a trendy office, with extra versatility stemming from its inputs. Its trio of HDMI 2.1 ports make it ideal for consoles; there’s even an official Designed for Xbox stamp of approval. The Xbox Series X can “only” produce 120Hz at 4K, but switch over to the USB-C or DisplayPort input and you can enjoy up to 144Hz refresh rates at 4K on…

SCORE PRICE £416 (£499incVAT) fromao.com Part of the Acer Predator XB3 series, the XB273U NV dates back to 2019 and is reaching the end of its life. It’s now in scarce supply and you’re more likely to find its sibling the Predator XB273U GS (for example, we saw that on sale for £369 from ao.com), which is also a 27in IPS 1440p monitor but has a strip of LED lighting on the front to complement the rear-mounted rectangular strip found on the NV variant we tested. While they’re undoubtedly similar models, the two monitors don’t use identical IPS panels so we can’t vouch for the same performance in our tests. Still, you can expect over 85% of DCI-P3 coverage – we measured 86% for the XB273U NV – and that…

SCORE PRICE £416 (£499 inc VAT) from scan.co.uk With a £499 price, this 27in IPS screen asks one question of potential buyers: is it really worth £69 more than the AOC AG273QXP for the privilege of a wider colour gamut and a USB-C connector? We might have said yes, but for the fact that MSI cripples that connection by delivering only 15W of power. That isn’t even enough to trickle-charge most laptops. Not that this matters if you intend to connect a desktop PC, where the single DisplayPort connector and two HDMI ports will take precedence. There’s no HDMI 2.1 support, but the good news for owners of a PlayStation 5 or Xbox One X is that the Optix will be recognised as a 4K screen capable of 120Hz, and…

The past 18 months have been a bumper harvest for hackers. As SMBs struggled with the sudden switch to home working, there was a huge rise in ransomware attacks and other exploits – and though many staff are starting to come back into the office, the numbers continue to rise. The challenge for businesses now is to provide flexible security that can protect all staff, whether they’re based at home or in the office, as well as for those who will be dividing their time between the two. It’s a big security challenge for hard-pressed IT security personnel. The solution is an endpoint protection suite, which can protect workstations, laptops and mobiles, regardless of where they’re located and what sort of connectivity they have. There are plenty of such products…

SCORE PRICE 500-999 users, 1yr subscription, $28 per user from sophos.com These days AI seems to be everywhere, and Sophos Intercept X proudly exploits it to help identify unknown malware. It also blocks ransomware attacks using behavioral analysis, and provides tools to investigate potential threats to see how and why they occurred. This may sound complicated, but everything is rolled neatly into a single web portal for easy access. You can also pick and choose which features you want: along with standard workstation and laptop support, separate modules are available for protecting servers and mobile devices. If you only need core protection services then you can go for the Intercept X Essentials subscription, but we trialled the Intercept X Advanced service, which adds support for multiple security policies, application and…