FOCUS!

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● Surprise winner! ● Stay safe for free
● Boost your privacy

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FREE! Norton 360 Standard worth £64.99 page 66

Best of

2025!

2025's HOTTEST
LAPTOPSWhat’s new &
what’s coming
PLUS 44 other hot products
from world’s biggest
tech show

LATEST REVIEWS
BONUS SOFTWARE CODE ANA4N6S5

HTC Vive Raspberry

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ISSUE 366

Focus Fusion Pi 5 16GB

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 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO
March 2025 Issue 366
HIGHLIGHTS THIS MONTH Full contents overleaf

REVIEWS
p48 OF THE MONTH
Acer Swift 14 & 16 AI
We have a triple dose of Acer AI laptops this
month, all proudly boasting Microsoft Copilot+ PC
status and a light-up icon on the trackpad that lets
you know the NPU is being called into action. They
also reflect an industry-wide switch to OLED panels,
except in Acer’s cheaper “Go” range, which will
become abundantly clear if you read our guide to
CES. In fact, of the 12 laptops we feature there,
only one doesn’t use OLED. But Acer will be
hoping that one of its Swift AI machines
will make you buy now rather than
hold out for what’s coming
later this year...

p26 p40 p44

EXHAUSTING EVENT LIFE IMPROVEMENT TIPS DEEP DIVE

OF THE MONTH OF THE MONTH OF THE MONTH
We love CES for its smorgasbord of new If you find your daily life constantly interrupted Sure, we can all live happily without knowing
technology, but pulling together this 13-page by pop-ups and chirrups from your computer our AVIs from our H.264s, but where would the
feature summarising the best of the show was and mobile devices, read our feature on how fun be? Darien Graham-Smith explains the tech
almost as exhausting as attending it for a week. to live a quieter existence. behind each format and why it matters.

INTERVIEW OF p13 THE LABS IN p78

THE MONTH ONE NUMBER

You can protect yourself

£0.00
from malware perfectly well
Piers Daniell for free thanks to Microsoft
In the first of our new Defender and alternatives,
series of interviews, but as our group test of 12
we speak to the contenders reveals there are
founder of a UK-based good reasons to consider a
company that reckons paid-for security suite.
it can cut your energy
bills in half.

3
 p40
FOCUS! HOW TO TURN OFF ALL TECH DISTRACTIONS REGULARS

7 Editor’s letter 108 Subscriptions

BEST FREE ANTIVIRUS p78

14 The A-List
24 Readers’ letters
129 Next month
130 One last thing…

VS SECURITY SUITES BRIEFING

● Surprise winner! ● Stay safe for free
10 WordPress the nuclear
● Boost your privacy button
See
How the WordPress CEO’s behaviour
FREE! Norton 360 Standard worth £64.99 page 66 is shaking confidence in the web-
publishing giant.
Best of
11 Microsoft: let them eat AI
2025! Microsoft hikes prices of 365 apps to

2025's HOTTEST
accommodate Copilot features.

12 Ofcom’s inflation ban

backfires
p26 Regulator’s new rules could lead to
higher broadband bills for consumers.

LAPTOPS
13 Interview: Piers Daniell
The Tewke founder reveals how he’s
building a smart grid in the home to
help slash your energy costs.

VIEWPOINTS
WW
What’s new & 20 Dick Pountain
what’s coming The changing fortunes of technology
are like the rise and fall of civilisations,
and now is the time of the podcast.
PLUS 44 other hot products
from world’s biggest 21 Nicole Kobie
AI can create art, but it’s much more
tech show fun when we do it ourselves.
WW

22 Barry Collins
The rush to throw money at Trump
LATEST REVIEWS underlines the uncomfortable truth that
technology lives in a moral vacuum.
HTC Vive Raspberry
ISSUE 366 MARCH 2025 £6.99

Focus Fusion Pi 5 16GB FEATURES

26 Best laptops of CES 2025 –
Cut-price Vision Pro Best Pi yet plus 44 other releases
rival at last! – for a price Our team traipse the halls of the Las
p68 p59 Vegas Convention Center to reveal the
366 COVER.indd 1 20/01/2025 14:10
hottest products that are heading your
way in the coming year.
Real World Computing 3 SUBSCRIBE
AND RECEIVE A 40 Be more productive with
FREE GIFT focus sessions
110 Jon Honeyball 118 Davey Winder Subscribe to PC Pro Tame distractions and get things
The latest developments Davey answers the today and you can done: Nik Rawlinson takes a close
in networking prompt “Am I Secure?” benefit from our limited- look at focus features in Windows
Jon to make big changes. question which, it and other platforms.
time offer: see p108 for
seems, is worrying so BELOW Only full details.
113 Lee Grant many iPhone users. connect: p120 44 Video formats decoded
The grubby-faced urchin Want to know your QuickTime from
that picks the pockets of 120 Steve your HEVC? Darien Graham-Smith
OEMs on the pitfalls of Cassidy demystifies the popular video-sharing
the repair economy. The Russians have formats and codecs.
rediscovered the 3THE PC PRO
116 Rois Ni Thuama art of cutting PODCAST
Listen live to the PC Pro THE NETWORK
We can all learn lessons undersea cables
from those who climbed – and that spells podcast every Thursday 104 Conquer the storage blues
the southwest face of trouble for at 1pm. Join us at As data stacks up, every business needs
Everest, says Rois. businesses. pcpro.link/discord a storage strategy. Steve Cassidy looks at
ways to manage your megabytes.

4
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO
March 2025 Issue 366

REVIEWS THIS MONTH LABS

LAPTOPS & CONVERTIBLES SMART DISPLAY
48 Acer Swift 14 AI (Intel) 76 Amazon Echo Show 21
50 Acer Swift 16 AI (Intel)
51 Acer Swift Go 14 AI (Qualcomm) SECURITY SUITES
52 Honor MagicBook Art 14 84 Avira Prime
Qualcomm 85 Bitdefender Total Security
56 Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition 86 McAfee+ Ultimate
Gen 9 (15in, Intel) 87 Norton 360 Deluxe
88 Sophos Home Premium
SINGLE-BOARD COMPUTER 90 Avast Ultimate
59 Raspberry Pi 5 16GB 90 Eset Home Security Ultimate
91 F-Secure Total
GRAPHICS CARDS
91 G Data Total Security
60 Intel Arc B570
92 K7 Ultimate Security
60 Intel Arc B580

THE
92 Microsoft Defender Antivirus

SUITE
93 TotalAV Antivirus Pro
DRONE p78
62 DJI Flip (RC-N3)
NETWORK-MONITORING
DUAL MONITOR SOFTWARE
64 Acer PD3 Series 98 AdRem NetCrunch Professional 15

SPOT
99 Park Place Technologies Entuity 22
VR HEADSET 100 Progress WhatsUp Gold 2024
68 HTC Vive Focus Vision 101 SolarWinds Observability
Self-Hosted Essentials
AR GLASSES
70 Xreal One WI-FI 7 ACCESS POINT
102 EnGenius ECW526

BEST SECURITY
SMARTPHONES
72 OnePlus 13 NAS APPLIANCE
74 OnePlus 13R 103 Qnap TS-433eU
SUITES
p59
It’s the most capable Pi
money can buy – but is vs BEST FREE
ANTIVIRUS
16GB of RAM overkill?

With so many excellent choices for free antivirus

protection, the real question becomes whether
it’s worth paying for any of the full suites. We
provide the answers in our in-depth guide.

Buyer’s guide
96 Network-monitoring software
Predict and fix failures before they happen
and keep your business working smoothly.
Dave Mitchell puts four solutions to the test.

Retro Futures
123 Old computers, 126 Live in the future now
new tasks You can have a driverless car, metaverse
David Crookes explains how workplace and home-cleaning robots
classic computers can remain today! But it will cost you and likely
relevant in today’s world. disappoint, says Nicole Kobie.

5
@PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Editor’s letter

It’s time for the

world’s biggest
tech companies to
take responsibility

O
ne of the reasons I love going the hype and hope of AI, seeing the out whether it includes an NPU
to CES each year is that I term slapped onto everything from with enough TOPS to qualify for
get to interview people I binoculars to rabbits (well, the Rabbit Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC branding.
otherwise simply wouldn’t r1), this year it has matured. But only Then we come to Microsoft itself,
meet. Some are high-flying execs at a little: 2024 was equivalent to which has horribly confused the
international companies, and that’s toddler tantrums, with many noisy situation by delaying certification of
great. After speaking to a trio of Intel outbursts, while this year you can Copilot+ PCs, to the point where one
VPs in one particularly intense have a conversation about what it senior VP, at a company I won’t name,
half-hour session, I feel I have a far wants to be when it grows up. simply shook his head in despair
better insight into what’s happening Still, there is the equivalent of a when I spoke to him about it. Not to
at the company and how that will shrug of the shoulders from the mention the confusion of Copilot+ PC
affect what it’s doing this year. In PC-making industry. The equivalent branding itself: how is the average
short, pedal to the metal for the core of we’ll see what happens, not up to punter meant to know the difference
skills of making, well, cores, but a me, whatevs. And to be clear, I’m not between Copilot the cloud-based
shedding of distractions such as its blaming the kids of Acer, Dell, HP service and Copilot+ PCs? Especially
RealSense camera division. and Lenovo: I blame the grown-ups, when Microsoft dollies the term
But I also enjoy speaking to the by which I mean AMD, Intel and “Copilot” onto so many other services
up-and-comers. We highlight a Microsoft. These are the three it’s rendered almost meaningless.
couple in our big CES feature, starting companies that should have been I would have spoken to Microsoft
on p26, such as a Japanese PhD setting clear guidelines as to what AI about this, and could perhaps
student who has created a hardware means when it comes to computers, have shared its defence in this
platform for third parties to develop and they messed up. column, had it attended the world’s
their own robots. Or consider the I’m willing to cut AMD some slack, biggest tech show. But for several
Dutch startup LV Energy (lvenergy. since at least it branded its NPU as years now Microsoft has deemed
io) – which didn’t even make our Ryzen AI from the start. And you itself too important to show up.
roundup of 56 products – which is know whether its latest ranges of Well, Microsoft, if Intel is willing to
converting the kinetic energy trapped CPUs have a powerful NPU inside stand up to scrutiny after its annus
in sound waves into electricity, so because they include “AI” in the horribilis then I suggest it’s time
that noise pollution can actually be name. Intel, on the other hand, gains for you to pull on the long trousers
turned into something useful. a hard Paddington stare, because you and do the same.
CES is also a sampling point in have to delve into the specifications
time, giving us an idea of where of each range – sometimes each Tim Danton
technology is. If last year was about processor within the range – to find Editor-in-chief

CONTRIBUTORS

KG Orphanides Rois Ni Thuama Davey Winder Nicole Kobie

When it comes to rating What does climbing Is someone spying on you? Want to live in the future
security suites – from AV Mount Everest have in Our security guru explains today? You can indeed
effectiveness to the quality common with business why your iPhone might not travel in a driverless car,
of bundled VPNs – nobody leaders understanding be quite as secure as you work in the metaverse and
does it better than KG the fundamentals of think, and how to find out if enjoy robot service in your
Orphanides. Read their information security? your paranoia is justified, home. Just don’t expect
verdict from p78. Rois explains all on p116. from p118. miracles. See p126.

7
March 2025 Issue 366 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO

EDITORIAL What’s a deal-breaker for you when To tie inCONTACT

with our group test of
US letters@pcpro.co.uk
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF choosing new technology? Chromebooks (see p78), we asked our
TWITTER/X @pcpro
Tim Danton editor@pcpro.co.uk contributors: when did you last use a
FACEBOOK facebook.com/pcpro
EDITORIAL FELLOW Chromebook and what would make you
Dick Pountain buy one? pcpro.link/discord
DISCORD

ASSOCIATE EDITOR “I always check the warranty and the SUBSCRIPTIONS

Darien Graham-Smith customer service. So, what’s covered, “IPrice:
reviewUKtwo
£77.88; Europe
or three €138; USA $156, Rest of World
Chromebooks
how does the company do in the PC Pro £120. Visit
each subscribe.pcpro.co.uk/offer
year, and they’re definitely for our best offers.
FEATURES EDITOR
Barry Collins Excellence Awards and other surveys becoming more capable. But I can’t see
SUBSCRIPTION ENQUIRIES
FUTURES EDITOR – and do they actually offer proper myself switching. There’s always some
help@magazinesdirect.com
Nicole Kobie support at all? I’m clearly a pessimist piece of Windows software I need to do
BONUS SOFTWARE EDITOR as I assume something will go wrong.” my job, andMANAGE YOUR SUBSCRIPTION
until everything moves to the ONLINE
Visit
web www.mymagazine.co.uk/FAQ
I can’t see that changing.” to view frequently
Nik Rawlinson asked questions or log in at www.mymagazine.co.uk
“I’m writingPRODUCTION
this on one! What would
& DISTRIBUTION
ART & PRODUCTION
make me buy onePrinted
is if thisbyone
Walstead
broke?Roche.
I’m
ART DIRECTOR
Distributed
quite committed now,by and Marketforce
get flu-like (UK) Ltd,
Paul Duggan “Anything that ONLY works with a
121-141
symptoms on Westbourne Terrace,
the rare occasions London W2 6JR.
I have
FREELANCE DESIGN subscription or cloud service – I’m out.
Email: mfcommunications@futurenet.com.
to use Windows, so I can’t imagine buying
Bill Bagnall I’ve seen far too many services
PC Pro anything
is produced by Danton Media Limited and
else.”
PRODUCTION EDITOR come and go!”
published monthly by Future plc.
Steve Haines
“My daughter has a Chromebook
COPYRIGHT – it’s
© Future
ideal plc 2025. PCshe
for schoolwork, Procanis aplay
registered trademark.
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Neither the
Android whole
games of and
on it, this itpublication
won’t be too nor any part of it may
Steve Cassidy
“Vendor lock-in. As a Mac and iPad muchbeofreproduced,
a loss when itstored in a retrieval
inevitably gets system or
Lee Grant transmitted in any formget or by
owner, it would make far more sense broken. Personally I could byany
withmeans
a without the
Dave Mitchell written
for me to use an iPhone than Android. Chromebook 90%permission
of the time,of the
but thatpublishers.
Jon Honeyball
But I don’t like the idea of relying on otherHOW
10% makes
TO ORDERit a non-starter.”
AND ACCESS PAST ISSUES
Rois Ni Thuama
one company for practically Active subscribers have instant access to past issues
Olivia Whitcroft
through
“About your ago,
a week iOS or Android
trying to fixdevices.
an issueTo purchase single
Davey Winder everything.”
mypast issues (print
daughter format
had with only),
the still visit magazinesdirect.com
snappy and
(click
lovely looking on the ‘Single
Chromebook issues’
Pixel that tab)
she or email
CONTRIBUTORS help@magazinesdirect.com. Magazinesdirect.com is
uses for homework, six years since it
Ita Achanta owned and operated by Future Publishing Limited.
first rocked up here.”
Keumars Afifi-Sabet
Paul Alcorn “In-app purchases that don’t last at SYNDICATION & INTERNATIONAL LICENSING
least until the next full version release. “LastPC Proone
used is available
about fiveforyears
licensing
ago. overseas.
No Contact
David Crookes
Perpetual licences seem to be an Phoebe
reason atGriffin-Beale, phoebe.castledine@futurenet.com
all why I wouldn’t buy another,
Jason England
endangered species.” but Affinity Designer andLIABILITY
LibreOffice are
Brandon Hill
myWhile
happyevery
places. If they
care weretaken
has been web appsin the preparation of
John Loeffler
I’d be
this Chromebook
magazine, shopping today.”
the publishers cannot be held responsible
Philip Michaels
for the accuracy of the information herein, or any
Hassam Nasir
“I usedconsequence
one yesterday, arising fromI use
but then it. Please
one note that all
Joanna Nelius
“Ironically, the usual breaker is judgements
most days and have been
I’ve beenmade
doing inso
thefor
context of equipment
David Nield
whether the product is new. If you look available
around PC Pro
tentoyears. Foratme
timeit’softhe
review,
priceand that “value for
KG Orphanides money” comments are
in the right places, there’s normally a and the convenience. Asbased
long asonyou’re
UK prices at the time of
Les Pounder review, which are subject to fluctuation and are only
decent refurb with a bargain price. happy in Google’s ecosystem they just
Richard Priday applicable
‘Not-new’ isn’t always possible (or work.” to the UK market.
Anthony Spadafora
Rami Tabari practical) but increasingly with
day-to-day tech, it really is.” “I used my daughter’s last weekend to
Jarred Walton
play a family game of Among Us. Except
PC Pro is a member of the IPSO (Independent Press
ADVERTISING for some tinkering with ChromeOS Flex,
Standards Organisation) which regulates the UK print
GROUP ADVERTISING MANAGER I’m not really a Google user, so I don’t feel
and digital news industry. We abide by the Editors’ Code
Ben Topp: ben.topp@futurenet.com any urge to purchase a Chromebook.”
of Practice and are committed to upholding the highest
ADVERTISING MANAGER “An app that’s critical to the hardware standards of journalism. If you think that we have not met
Alexandra Thomas: that won’t be supported in 18 months.” “I used one just last week, and for many
those standards and want to make a complaint, please
alexandra.thomas@futurenet.com people it’s an ideal solution, but I won’t be
contact legal@futurenet.com. If we are unable to resolve
buying one.
your I have too
complaint, ormuch
if youwhich
wouldislike
local
more information
PRODUCTION toabout
my networks and don’t spend my life
IPSO or the Editors’ Code, contact IPSO on 0300
SENIOR PRODUCTION MANAGER on online services. PlusorI visit
use “real” apps
123 2220 www.ipso.co.uk.
Lawrence Brookes too much, ones that don’t exist for
“Restrict me to a single company for
Android/Chromebooks.”
The Professional
CIRCULATION & SUBSCRIPTIONS ink refills, phone rechargers or Publishers Association
Member

CIRCULATION MANAGER widgets, then I’m not buying. I want a

Emma Read product, not a lifelong commitment.” “I’ve not usedCERTIFIED
a Chromebook since
DISTRIBUTION
SENIOR CAMPAIGN MANAGER before Covid, because I haven’t
16,468 travelled
(Jan-Dec 2023)
Juber Ahmed on business in that time. I used one as it
DIRECT MARKETING EXECUTIVE was small, secure and worked well for
Lewis Smythe writing. I wouldn’t buy another as the
“I’ll ask for help with something – even new MacBook Pro M3, at 14in, meets my
LOGOS & REPRINTS
if I have to make it up – during a trial travel demands should I ever start again,
ENDORSEMENT LICENSING MANAGER
and if the support is slow/non-existent but Mrs W uses a Chromebook as her
Ryan Chambers:
ryan.chambers@futurenet.com or unhelpful then I dump it.” daily driver.”

8
Briefıng
Background and analysis on all the important news stories

WordPress
the nuclear
button
CEO’s aggressive behaviour is
shaking confidence in the
web publishing giant

P
icking a fight with one of the potentially creating a damaging split contributes back 3,915 hours a week,”
leading WordPress-hosting in the platform’s user base. he complained.
companies by describing it as What on earth is happening to “This is one of the many reasons
“a cancer”; twice telling staff WordPress? they are a cancer to WordPress, and
who disagreed with him to pack their it’s important to remember that
bags and take a pay-off; threatening Mullenweg’s mission unchecked, cancer will spread,”
to effectively down tools on the The turmoil at WordPress kicked off Mullenweg added.
development of WordPress itself. in mid-September, when Mullenweg Shots fired, and with lawsuits
It’s been a tumultuous few months posted a blog attacking WP Engine, flying back
for the co-founder of WordPress, one of the biggest WordPress hosts Website owners are and forth,
Matt Mullenweg, and it doesn’t seem
to be getting any calmer.
in the business. Mullenweg accused
the host of passing itself off as
considering switching Mullenweg
stepped up his
Mullenweg’s dictatorial behaviour WordPress, claiming even his own platforms, and disgruntled campaign
as the figurehead of WordPress is
shaking confidence in his
mother was confused. Among other
allegations, he also lambasted
staff are demanding a against WP
Engine. He
company, Automattic, and how little WP Engine change of leadership banned the
the future of the web contributed to the open- company from
publishing platform source WordPress, accessing vital resources on
itself. Website compared to his own WordPress.org, breaking many
owners are WordPress host, websites for WP Engine customers
considering Automattic. and leaving them exposed to security
switching “They do about attacks. Developers logging into
platforms, half a billion in WordPress.org were also forced to
disgruntled staff revenue on top tick a box declaring “I am not
are demanding a of WordPress affiliated with WP Engine in any
change of and contribute LEFT WordPress way, financially or otherwise”
leadership, and back 40 hours a co-founder Matt before they could get access. A court
there are rumours of week, Automattic Mullenweg is not eventually forced Mullenweg to back
a fork of WordPress, is a similar size and afraidof controversy down on both these measures.

10
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Briefing News

Microsoft:
But Mullenweg wasn’t just waging wrote on his blog. “Let me be clear
war with WP Engine, he went into though: we should not replace one

let them
battle with his own staff. In October, BDFL [benevolent dictator for life]
159 Automattic staff – or 8.4% of the with another. This is a moment of
company’s headcount – decided to transition. I’m also very willing to work

eat AI
accept Mullenweg’s “alignment with other leadership if it turns out
offer”. If you disagreed with his the community wants someone else.”
stance on WP Engine you could take Others, however, were bemused as
$30,000 or six months’ salary, to why they should be on Mullenweg’s
whichever was higher, and clear your blacklist, such as the self-described Microsoft 365 price bumped to
desk. The offer was repeated a week “tech policy wonk” Heather Burns,
accommodate Copilot
later, except this time it was nine who posted on her own blog that
months’ salary on offer. It’s not clear she was nothing to do with any
how many walked the second time. breakaway effort. She said she hadn’t
In January, Thijs Buijs from the even logged into her WordPress
company’s Sustainability Team posted account “since February 2020 –
his resignation on the firm’s internal almost a full five years ago – which
Slack channel, after Mullenweg was when I retired from WP and
published a provocative Reddit post all open-source involvement,
on Christmas Eve titled “What drama specifically because of the primary
should I create in 2025?”, which Buijs and secondary harassment that he
told colleagues was “yet another proof [Mullenweg] threw onto me”.
to me that this community needs a Automattic declined to comment
change of leadership”. on these allegations.
Mullenweg replied to Buijs’ Slack
post with: “Today I learned that we Community in doubt

M
have a sustainability team”, before The aggressive and unpredictable
announcing that the entire team behaviour of Mullenweg has left icrosoft has bundled its Copilot AI
would be “dissolved”. some website owners considering into Personal and Family editions
whether to stick with WordPress, of its Microsoft 365 apps – but it’s
Picking on the plotters still by far the most used CMS for bumping up subscription prices as a result.
If the Christmas break that Mullenweg website builders. Microsoft was previously charging a
effectively enforced on his staff and “Many non-profits worldwide rely hefty £19 a month to add the AI extras to
the wider WordPress community, by on WordPress to connect with the former Office suite, but it’s now
shutting down many of WordPress. communities, decided to roll them in, albeit with limits.
org’s operations over the holidays, raise funds, and As a business owner, Personal and Family subscribers get 60 AI
gave him time to take a break and
calm down, it seemingly didn’t work.
create positive
change,” wrote
I’ve been shocked by credits per month, with each prompt in
apps such as Word, PowerPoint or Outlook
He came back all-guns blazing, one IT manager your behaviour and it consuming a single credit. Customers who
picking fights with perceived
plotters and announcing in January
in an open letter
to Mullenweg
has shaken my faith in want unlimited access to the AI can still pay
£19 per month for Microsoft Copilot Pro.
that Automattic would reduce its on Reddit. the platform Microsoft has used the bundling of the
contribution to WordPress to match “However, AI features and the inclusion of Designer
WP Engine’s 45 hours per week. instability in WordPress’ ecosystem (think Canva or Adobe Express) to justify
“We’ve made the decision to threatens their ability to do this.” the increase. In the UK, the monthly price
reallocate resources due to the Another customer, replying to of Microsoft 365 Family has risen from
lawsuits from WP Engine,” a post on Mullenweg’s Christmas Eve post, £7.99 to £10.49 (inc VAT), an increase of
the Automattic company news site wrote: “As a business owner of 17 31%. The Personal plan (with only a single
stated. “This legal action diverts years who switched to WordPress + licence) now costs £8.49 per month,
significant time and energy that WooCommerce in 2016, I’ve been though there are discounts on these prices
could otherwise be directed toward shocked by your behaviour and it has if you commit to an annual subscription
supporting WordPress’s growth shaken my faith in the platform,” (£105 and £85 per year respectively).
and health.” adding “your recent actions have Microsoft said it was upping the price
Meanwhile, Mullenweg was back made me seriously consider whether for the first time since it first started
on the attack, with a blog post another platform would be better, selling Office apps on subscription 12 years
dripping in sarcasm, claiming that despite our heavy investment in ago. However, UK buyers are better off not
Joost de Valk – founder of SEO service your ecosystem.” buying a subscription from Microsoft at all.
Yoast – and others were plotting to And while there are some that have For instance, at the time of writing, you
create a WordPress fork. “To make sympathy with Mullenweg and could get a 15-month Microsoft 365 Family
this easy and hopefully give this criticise WP Engine for profiting subscription, bundled with McAfee
project the push it needs to get off the handsomely from WordPress without antivirus, for £105 on Amazon – the same
ground, I’m deactivating the .org giving much back, open-source price you’d pay Microsoft for only a year.
accounts of Joost, Karim, Se Reed, experts say Mullenweg has no cause Or head to the PC Pro store (store.pcpro.
Heather Burns, and Morten Rand- for complaint. “That’s the deal,” co.uk), where you can pick up a 12-month
Hendriksen,” Mullenweg wrote. blogged David Heinemeier Hansson, Family subscription for £59.99.
To be fair to Mullenweg, de Valk creator of web app framework Ruby Those with existing subscriptions are
had more than hinted at a breakaway, on the Rails. “That’s open source. I also getting the AI features, whether they
tweeting that he was “ready to lead give you a gift of code, you accept the asked for them or not. However, Microsoft
the next releases” of WordPress and terms of the licence. There cannot be a will allow existing subscribers to
writing lengthy blogs on the future of second set of shadow obligations that effectively opt out of the AI, by switching to
the community. “I’m here, and willing might suddenly apply, if you strike it “Basic” or “Classic” plans that don’t include
to lead through this transition,” he rich using the software.” the Copilot credits “for a limited time”.

11
 Briefing Ofcom @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO

Ofcom’s inflation Could Hopcast

cure net energy

ban backfires guzzling?

Device-to-device transfers
may slash net energy grab
Regulator’s new rules could lead to higher broadband bills for consumers

O T
fcom’s decision to ban he world could save 99% of the
broadband providers from energy spent on transferring data
imposing inflation-linked over the web if it moved to a system
price rises could lead to of device-to-device communication,
customers on cheaper tariffs facing according to a startup firm.
the steepest price rises. Hopcast, a company formed in 2022,
The telecoms regulator decided to claims to be the first mobile-specific
ban mid-contract price hikes that are content delivery network (CDN). Instead
linked to inflation following the of constantly fetching data from remote
spike in 2022, which saw the UK’s servers all over the world, Hopcast’s
inflation rate rise to almost 10%. That technology allows for device-to-device
left millions of customers facing huge transfer of data – similar to systems
price rises without any option to such as Apple’s AirDrop but without any
cancel their contract. user intervention.
Ofcom’s new rules ban inflation- This would both slash the amount of
linked price rises, stating that data users require from their mobile
“telecoms providers must now set network and save a vast amount of
out up front, in pounds and pence, energy, according to the company’s
any price rises that will apply to co-founder and CEO, Farid Benbadis.
customer contracts”. “On all Android phones, on all iOS
However, this has already led to phones, we have the capability to do
some customers paying more than device-to-device communication, but
they would have under the previous these resources are not used today,”
system. BT, for example, has Benbadis told PC Pro at CES 2025. “With
announced that broadband Hopcast, we orchestrate device-to-
customers signing new contracts will device communication… to distribute
face a fixed price increase of £3 per the content, instead of always going
month. However, customers inflationary and anti-competitive. ABOVE Broadband through centralised servers which can
currently under contract, who are They bake into their contracts 3% or customers might be be thousands of kilometres apart.”
still being charged under the old 4% above-inflation price hikes each in for a nasty shock Benbadis points to examples such as
system, would face price increases of year, which is, by definition, Netflix, where the release of Squid Game
6.4% (inflation of 2.5% plus an inflationary in its own right.” saw traffic handled by South Korea’s
additional 3.9% increase). Lewis noted that Ofcom was internet providers multiply 24 times.
As a consequence, any customer consulting on the pound-and- Hopcast would be able to transfer those
on a broadband tariff costing less pence system, adding that would video files from device to device, without
than £46.88 per month will end up still allow for above-inflation touching Netflix’s own servers or CDNs.
paying more under the new pound- price rises, as we’ve now seen from “We anticipate encounters between
and-pence system than they would BT. Lewis argued that if rises were people,” claimed Benbadis. “We know,
under the inflation-linked rises. to be allowed, it should have “an because we have some machine
If other broadband providers override saying it cannot be more learning techniques… that
follow suit and impose fixed price than inflation”. there is chance that we
rises across the board, it will mean An Ofcom spokesperson meet, let’s say this
that those on the cheapest tariffs will defended the decision to ban evening at 6pm at
be relatively worse off. For example, inflation-linked rises, arguing “our some location,
a BT customer paying £25 per month new rules make it easier to compare maybe the
would have faced a £1.60 per month offers and choose the best deal, supermarket.
price increase under the old system, without any nasty surprises”. We say, okay, so
whereas the new flat increase is £3. The spokesperson added that this content,
The TV presenter and founder of “inflation might be low now, but as instead of sending it
MoneySavingExpert.com, Martin we’ve seen recently, it’s difficult to now, let’s wait until
Lewis, wrote to then chancellor predict and can be incredibly volatile 6pm, because they
Jeremy Hunt last year arguing that – we don’t think consumers should are going to meet.”
mid-contract price rises should be bear that risk,” and that “for people The Hopcast technology is
banned. “You have spent the past claiming certain benefits, there are ABOVE Files the fruit of a 20-year collaboration
year focused on reducing inflation,” cheaper packages available known as transferred via between the French National Centre for
he wrote. “Yet the policies of social tariffs, which don’t include mobile devices could Scientific Research (CNRS), Sorbonne
telecoms providers are both any mid-contract price rises”. slash energy use Université and tech giant Thales.

12
Interview
@PCPRO The FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Briefing PC Probe

A light switch
moment for
smarter energy
Piers Daniell, Tewke
Tewke founder reveals to PC Pro how
he’s building a smart grid in the home

T
here are few technologies as simple PC Pro: What kind of energy saving are you level of saving, and that’s with a dumb
or as ubiquitous as a light switch. able to achieve? device. And it’s the same with the lighting.
Tewke founder Piers Daniell Piers Daniell: We’re all about parasitic We turn every light bulb into a smart light
hopes that by replacing two or power, so reducing wasted energy, without needing to replace it with a Hue
three of them in the home with his optimising when you use things, and light bulb.
smart energy consoles – dubbed Taps – giving real feedback to the user that’s super
he’ll be able to cut your energy bills in simple. So, no configuration required, and PC Pro: How does the device know when
half. We met up at CES 2025 to find out at the same time becoming a touch point in to switch things on or off?
how it works. the home where we consolidate this IoT Piers Daniell: When you’re not in a room,
mess that all sits on your phone, that my we’ve got a Doppler radar in every device,
PC Pro: Where did you get the original idea wife doesn’t log into, that my children and every device has nine sensors, so we can
for Tewke from? don’t have access to. detect movement, we can detect presence,
Piers Daniell: I’d set a company up called heating humidity. So when you’ve got a
FluidOne. We built data networks, and we window open, we’ll turn your heating off.
were trying to put data over power lines,
and it just opened my eyes to how If we’re going to build PC Pro: Why launch in the UK?
antiquated our energy generation system is.
So there’s a real opportunity for a smart a smart grid, we need to do Piers Daniell: The UK is the best place to
innovate for energy tech. We’ve got the
grid, where we optimise how we consume
energy, and hence we can generate energy
it in the home highest adoption of smart meters in the
world, 60% of us are using one. Germany
in a more efficient way. doesn’t have one residential smart meter
installed yet. We have a nice plethora of
PC Pro: Why have you built your console into a We are pitching it as a control for a energy providers. We have a really
light switch? Lutron-style automation platform that interesting adoption of green energy.
Piers Daniell: So the idea with Tewke is, if doesn’t require rewiring, can be retrofitted We’ve got wind and solar deployed, which
we’re going to build a smart grid, we need to in seconds into any home and then allows a lot of countries don’t have yet.
do it in the home. We need to do it with us to do the energy optimisation behind
consumers. But what we need is really the scenes. We’ve just literally started
granular detail, in terms of what everyone’s installing into homes. We’re achieving a
doing and how they’re doing it. And so the 50% saving on the energy bill and about a
idea of reinventing the light switch was, if 30% saving on energy consumption.
we could put technology into the light
switch, we’re in an amazing position within PC Pro: How do you achieve that
the home where we can cram it full of level of energy saving?
sensors – we can see everything from Piers Daniell: We tie it into a variable
humidity to air quality, but also we can do tariff. If you have a smart plug behind a
energy management. dishwasher, we detect the dishwasher
We can see consumption, not just on the is turned on, we kill the smart plug
device itself, but by talking to smart meters, immediately, the dishwasher remembers
plugs, anything else. We’re working with its profile, and we then pick the time when
the Matter standard, so that as more Matter it should go back on. So it’s very raw, it’s
devices become available, we can talk to not very smart, but it achieves a great
them, and we really then understand
individual products, what they’re doing, RIGHT Tewke can monitor a whole range of
how they’re doing it. things from a light switch

13
The A-List
The best products on the market, as picked by our editors

PREMIUM LAPTOPS BUSINESS LAPTOPS

Apple MacBook Lenovo ThinkPad T14s

Pro M4 Gen 6 (Snapdragon)
M4 beast from £1,599 Copilot+ PC for £1,500 exc VAT
from apple.com/uk from lenovo.com
This M4 update to the already It’s perhaps a controversial choice – and
brilliant MacBook Pro line is an we wouldn’t roll this out en masse – but if
easy recommendation, so the big you’re buying for executives or CTOs this
question becomes do you choose the 14in version from £1,599 or 16in from cutting-edge Copilot+ PC, complete with
£2,499? And then how much do you upgrade, as Apple isn’t afraid of high prices. a Qualcomm Snapdragon Arm processor, is a superb choice. Not only is it
But whatever you choose should last for years, and look great while it’s doing it. good value, it’s light, it’s fast and its all-day battery life is genuinely 24 hours.
REVIEW Issue 364, p50 REVIEW Issue 360, p56

ALTERNATIVES
Apple Mac Book Asus Zenbook S Asus ProArt PX13 Lenovo ThinkPad Dell Latitude HP OmniBook
Air13in (M3) 14 OLED With AMD’s new Ryzen AI X1 Carbon Gen 12 9450 2-in-1 Ultra Flip
Both the 13in and 15in Asus pairs a Core Ultra 9 9 HX 370 inside, this 1.4kg The X1 Carbon range has This 14in convertible, A top-quality 2-in-1 with
MacBook Airs impress 288V with a 72Wh battery compact powerhouse stepped up a gear thanks based around Core Ultra a terrific 14in OLED
for speed, styling and to produce a laptop that offers incredible amounts to Intel’s Core Ultra chips, CPUs, lacks for nothing, panel, great build quality
battery life, but the lasts almost 20 hours on a of power. Add a fantastic and Lenovo matches it whether that’s speed, and superb battery life
1.2kg 13in Air wins out charge. What’s more, this OLED screen and RTX 4070 with the stunning build battery life (around 16 thanks to Intel’s latest
of the two for its sheer 1.2kg machine looks (and graphics and it’s a winner. quality and keyboard hours), build quality or generation Core Ultra 7
portability. From £1,299 feels) the business. From From £2,000 from you’d expect. From £1,375 flexibility. From £1,560 processors. From £1,699
from apple.com £1,750 from scan.co.uk uk.store.asus.com from lenovo.com exc VAT from dell.co.uk from hp.com
REVIEW Issue 356, p54 REVIEW Issue 362, p46 REVIEW Issue 361, p50 REVIEW Issue 358, p58 REVIEW Issue 361, p63 REVIEW Issue 365, p46

COPILOT+ PCs EVERYDAY LAPTOPS

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x (Gen 9) Acer Aspire 14 A14-51GM

AI on demand, £1,350 Compact power for £850
from lenovo.com from acer.com
You won’t find a better-value Want gaming power? Buy the
laptop, never mind one that meets version with RTX 2050 graphics for
the Copilot+ PC criteria. With a £850 (part code NX.KSVEK.005).
Snapdragon X1E-78-100 inside it Just care about value? Get a Core
isn’t the fastest in benchmarks, 5 processor and integrated
but it’s incredibly nippy in practice, graphics for £600 (part code
the battery lasts over 16 hours NX.KRWEK.00B). Whichever you
and the 14.5in OLED screen is choose, it’s a staggering laptop
top quality. for the price.
REVIEW Issue 361, p57 REVIEW Issue 359, p82

Samsung Galaxy Microsoft Asus Zenbook Asus Zenbook 14 Framework Huawei

Book4 Edge Surface Laptop, S 15 OLED OLED (UX3405) Laptop 13 (DIY MateBook D16
A classy 16in laptop that 7th Edition With a price drop to If you can stretch past Edition) It’s big and certainly not
weighs 1.6kg, uses the The poster child for £1,200 this 15.6in laptop £1,000, this is a top- With a competitive price, bashful, packing an Intel
fastest Snapdragon Elite Copilot+ PCs offers becomes a viable quality Core Ultra laptop modular approach and Core i9 chip and a high-
X chip and delivers a solid quality, great looks and competitor to the Yoga with a superb 120Hz easy-to-repair ethos, you quality 16in panel – and
12 hours of battery life. staggering battery life. Slim 7x if you need a screen and great battery can pick and mix your surprisingly good battery
512GB, £1,499 from From £1,049 from bigger screen. £1,200 life. From £1,099 from perfect 13in laptop. From life, too. £1,000 from
samsung.com microsoft.com from uk.store.asus.com uk.store.asus.com £779 from frame.work huawei.com
REVIEW Issue 360, p53 REVIEW Issue 360, p50 REVIEW Issue 359, p52 REVIEW Issue 359, p58 REVIEW Issue 360, p58 REVIEW Issue 359, p87

14
 @
@PPC
CPPR
ROO FACEEB
FAC BOOO
OKK..C
COOM
M//P
PCCP
PRRO
O The A-List
CHROMEBOOKS

Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus (2024) Acer Chromebook Plus 515

This Chromebook Plus laptop is all about
Acer Chromebook
Spin 714
Core 5 power for £749 value. With strong speeds thanks to If you’re looking for a convertible,
from samsung.com Intel’s Core i5-1235U processor, and a this is the best choice around.
good-quality 15.6in panel with a 1,920 x Others may beat the 12th gen Intel
The first truly desirable Chromebook 1,080 resolution, Asus’ Chromebook Plus Core i5 we tested for performance,
since the Pixelbook, this is a top-quality 515 is ideal for families, students and but for features, design and bang for
laptop from the all-metal chassis to business users, providing mobility isn’t buck you won’t find any laptop that
the 15.6in Full HD OLED screen. And your main priority as it isn’t particularly can match this 2-in-1 for the
thanks to Intel’s Core 5 120U processor, it’s fast enough to last for years. light at 1.7kg. £429 from currys.co.uk money.£799 from currys.co.uk
REVIEW Issue 364, p65 REVIEW Issue 356, p82 REVIEW Issue 356, p83

MINI PCs

Apple Mac mini M4 Geekom A8 Mini PC

Geekom makes brilliant use of AMD’s
Minisforum
Venus UM790 Pro
Little monster from £599 Ryzen 9 8945HS in this powerful mini Ignore its basic looks, for this
PC, which occupies little more desktop compact system packs in a fast AMD
from apple.com/uk
space than a drinks coaster. And it still Ryzen 9 7940HS processor, 32GB of
This is a big and timely update for the Mac mini, with a much smaller (and packs every port most people need, DDR5-5600 RAM and 1TB SSD along
squarer) design that’s easy to tuck behind a screen. But what lifts it above the plus Wi-Fi 6E. If you don’t need this with a generous selection of ports,
pack is the astonishing power of the M4 and M4 Pro chips, with barely any much power (or 32GB of RAM and a including two USB-C 4 connectors.
cooling required. As ever with Apple the upgrade costs are high, but at least its 2TB SSD) the Ryzen 7 version is £719. And the price is super-aggressive.
starting price is reasonable. Ryzen 9, £899 from geekom.co.uk £549 from store.minisforum.uk
REVIEW Issue 364, p44 REVIEW Issue 359, p62 REVIEW Issue 363, p91

ENTHUSIAST PCs

Wired2Fire HAL 9000 Compact PC CyberPowerPC

Infinity X145 Elite
PCSpecialist
Nebula Goliath
Mini powerhouse for £1,900 Designed to deliver the maximum The best possible debut for Intel’s
from wired2fire.co.uk possible gaming power for £999, this Core Ultra 285K processor, with
Core i5-14400F system – with 32GB of PCSpecialist teaming it up with an
Wired2Fire proves there’s no need to go big for DDR5 RAM and GeForce RTX 4060 RTX 4080 Super to provide a versatile
top-level performance, squeezing a Ryzen 7 graphics – is a great machine now system for gamers and creatives
7900X and RTX 4070 Ti into a Cooler Master with potential for more later. £999 alike. £2,399 from pcspecialist.
chassis measuring 185 x 295 x 377mm (WDH). from tinyurl.com/360cyber co.uk/configure-review/629
REVIEW Issue 365, p59 REVIEW Issue 360, p61 REVIEW Issue 365, p56

ALL-IN-ONE PCs

HP Envy 34 All-in-One Dell Inspiron 24

All-in-One
Apple iMac M4
Anyone hoping for a 27in iMac will
£2,099 widescreen wonder Despite being built to hit a price point, be disappointed, but everyone
from hp.com the Inspiron 24 All-in-One manages else should be delighted by this
to look classy, include a good-quality, M4-powered all-in-one with its
Built around a high-quality 34in widescreen 1,920 x 1,080 24in panel and have enough 24in 4,480 x 2,520 IPS panel.
– which is perfect for viewing two windows power to breeze through a typical day’s It’s fast inside and out, too,
side by side thanks to its 21:9 aspect ratio – this also comes tasks. It even packs mod cons such as a with Thunderbolt 4 and Wi-Fi 6E
with Nvidia RTX 3060 graphics. We’re big fans of the 720p webcam. Superb value for money. on offer. From £1,299 from apple.
magnetic 16-megapixel camera, too. From £599 from dell.co.uk com/uk
REVIEW Issue 335, p46 REVIEW Issue 350, p47 REVIEW Issue 364, p48

CREATIVE WORKSTATIONS

Armari Magnetar M64T7-AW1650G4 PCSpecialist

Quantum Goliath R
Scan 3XS GWP A1-TR64
A more balanced offering than
Threadripping power for £8,329 exc VAT Extracting maximum power from Armari’s Magnetar, Scan mixes a
from armari.com its budget by opting for consumer Threadripper 7970X with Nvidia
AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper 7980X is the star of this components with professional levels RTX 5000 graphics – and a stunning
particular show, dominating our benchmarks with of power, this well-thought-out supporting cast of components with
the help of 128GB of RAM, two 2TB Crucial PCI-E 5 workstation couples Intel’s Core an equally stunning case. Perfect
drives in RAID0 configuration and AMD’s Radeon Pro i9-14900KS with RTX 4090 graphics for real-time viewsets and GPU
W7800 professional GPU. And it’s all wrapped up in a to tremendous effect. £3,750 exc VAT accelerated computation.
custom Armari case with liquid cooling. from pcspecialist.co.uk/reviews £7,917 exc VAT from scan.co.uk
REVIEW Issue 361, p92 REVIEW Issue 361, p89 REVIEW Issue 361, p94

15
 TABLETS

Apple iPad Air (M2) Apple iPad Pro (M4)

The best tablet in the world becomes
OnePlus Pad 2
Last year the OnePlus Pad took its
M2 power from £599 even better thanks to Apple’s stunning place alongside Apple’s iPads on the
from apple.com M4 chip, a gorgeous OLED screen A List – and this year it’s done it again,
and the must-have accessory: the with superb battery life of over 18
We love the new iPad Pro, but for most people all-new Pencil Pro. But it comes with hours, a gorgeous design and great
the M2 iPad Air is not only far better value but an obvious downside of cost, with the power making this new version an
also all the tablet they’ll need. It supports the cheapest 13in incarnation costing even better proposition. All for a
Magic Keyboard and Pencil Pro, plus it’s now £1,299. From £999 (11in, 256GB) from price that’s exactly right. £449 from
available in both 11in and 13in sizes. apple.com oneplus.com/uk
REVIEW Issue 358, p50 REVIEW Issue 358, p48 REVIEW Issue 364, p86

EVERYDAY PHONES

Motorola Moto G54 5G Google Pixel 8a

We’re fans of the Pixel 8 but you can
Samsung Galaxy A55
Not the fastest phone on the market,
Great looker for £180 save £200 and buy the 8a without but in return you get a high-quality
from johnlewis.com missing out on any key features, 6.6in OLED display, excellent battery
including its advanced AI skills thanks life and a trio of strong cameras. And
The 6.5in 120Hz IPS display is the G54’s standout feature, but it to the same Tensor G3 chip inside. It’s you also get four years of feature
improves on the previous generation in numerous ways while only when you zoom into snaps that updates. With a price that significantly
being even cheaper. It’s faster, looks better, takes great photos you spot the camera quality difference. undercuts the Pixel 8a, it’s great value,
and battery life is strong. You won’t find better for less than £200. 128GB, £499 from store.google.com too. 128GB, £364 from johnlewis.com
REVIEW Issue 355, p77 REVIEW Issue 358, p74 REVIEW Issue 358, p77

PREMIUM PHONES NEW ENTRY

Apple iPhone 16 Pro Honor Magic V3

With the Magic V3, not only does
OnePlus 13
If you don’t want to spend over a
Class and quality from £999 Honor make foldable phones as grand on a phone but you do want
from apple.com/uk slim as flagship phones but also as cutting-edge speed, lots of AI
affordable – so long as the £300 features, great cameras and superb
Even without Apple Intelligence, the introduction of a discount voucher still applies, as battery life we have great news – not
5x optical zoom, classy 6.3in OLED panel and Apple’s shown in the price here. What’s only does the 256GB version cost
ludicrously fast A18 Pro chipset make this the best update more, the cameras and both OLED £899, but the 512GB option is £999.
to an iPhone Pro for years. The improved battery life is panels are superb. £1,400 after Look out for offers, too. 12GB/256GB,
merely the cherry on top. discount from honor.com £899 from oneplus.com/uk
REVIEW Issue 363, p70 REVIEW Issue 362, p62 REVIEW Issue 366, p72

EVERYDAY MONITORS

Iiyama ProLite XUB3293UHSN-B5 AOC Q27B3CF2 Acer Verso B277

32in 4K bargain, £429 AOC’s relentless focus on value Ebmiprzxv
delivers a 27in 1440p screen with a This is a basic but high-quality
from currys.co.uk
high-quality IPS panel that costs £200 monitor, delivering colourful images
The fact that this 31.5in IPS monitor could including VAT – and also packs in a across its 27in Full HD diagonal.
compete so well against Eizo’s alternative USB-C port. Those are almost the only You don’t get USB-C docking, but it
(see below) says it all. Great colour coverage features you get, and the OSD is awful, includes VGA, HDMI and DisplayPort
in sRGB and DCI-P3, USB-C and RJ45 inputs, but at this price we’re not complaining. inputs, plus a two-port USB hub.
plus solid build quality add up to a bargain. £200 from amazon.co.uk £149 from tinyurl.com/357acer277
REVIEW Issue 357, p88 REVIEW Issue 360, p77 REVIEW Issue 357, p84

PROFESSIONAL MONITORS

Eizo FlexScan EV3240X Eizo ColorEdge CG2700X

A brilliant choice for professional
BenQ PD2706U
If you can’t stretch to Eizo budget
Stunning 4K quality, £1,206 designers, whether working solo or levels then this 4K 27in screen
exc VAT from photospecialist.co.uk in teams, thanks to its dedication to is definitely worth investigating.
providing accurate colours across It has several features aimed at
With images that whack you between the potentially years of life. It’s also bang professionals, including a Hotkey
eyes as soon as you lift it, fully assembled, up to date for connectivity, with Puck to switch between profiles,
from its box, this 32in 4K monitor is our USB-C and RJ45 making it easy to plus great coverage of the sRGB
top choice pick for anyone willing to manage, too. £2,149 exc VAT from and DCI-P3 gamuts. £333 exc VAT
make such a hefty long-term investment. wexphotovideo.com from scan.co.uk
REVIEW Issue 357, p91 REVIEW Issue 357, p90 REVIEW Issue 357, p86

16
 @PCPRO FAC E B O O K . C O M / P C P R O The A-List

WEBCAMS

Logitech MX Brio 705 for Business Logitech Brio 105

for Business
Obsbot Tiny 2
This portable 4K webcam delivers
Consistent brilliance for £219 While you can buy 1080p webcams for quality, design and sharpness,
from logitech.com for a third of the Brio 105’s price, they and it comes with a shedload
won’t hold a candle to the Logitech of advanced features, including
Consistent image quality in all webcam’s quality – especially in dynamic zoom and subject
lighting conditions coupled with top low-light conditions, such as one tracking. The only real downside
build quality and nifty features – such candle. It’s also easy to manage, for is that it has a price that reflects
as a presenting mode for items on your businesses and individuals. its premium ambitions.
desk – make this a fantastic all-round choice. £45 from logitech.com £329 from amazon.co.uk
REVIEW Issue 356, p68 REVIEW Issue 360, p77 REVIEW Issue 352, p75

HOME OFFICE PRINTERS

HP OfficeJet Pro 9135e Epson EcoTank ET-2865

As usual with ink tank printers, you
Canon i-Sensys
LBP243dw
Do-it-all inkjet for £193 don’t get many frills with the Epson Everything you could want from a
from printerbase.co.uk EcoTank ET-2865 (so no ADF or mono laser printer – it doesn’t
screen). What you do get is come with a scanner – the
This versatile inkjet all-in-one – which includes incredibly low running costs of LBP243dw produces excellent
a 35-page ADF – pumps out high-quality prints 0.5p for colour and 0.2p for mono, results at speed. You also get Wi-Fi
at laser-rivalling speeds. Likewise scans and plus high-quality prints and scans. and wired networking. £186 from
copies. Print costs are reasonable, too. £233 from uk.insight.com printerbase.co.uk
REVIEW Issue 365, p85 REVIEW Issue 365, p84 REVIEW Issue 365, p88

WORKGROUP PRINTERS

Canon Maxify GX6550 Brother HL-L9430CDN

This laser printer (not an all-in-one,
Xerox B315DN
A fine alternative to the Brother and
Ink tank all-in-one for £392 exc VAT so there’s no scanning or copying Canon, this mono laser multifunction
from canon.co.uk functionality) is a great choice for printer produces superb results at
a busy office, producing sharp great speed – 27.5 pages per minute
Designed to fit in tight spaces, this black text and making a good job in our 50-page test, which includes
all-in-one includes a highly effective of colour graphics as well. All while the spool time. It’s similarly quick for
ADF and backs it up with high-quality doing so quickly with a competitive scans, with a dual-CIS ADF to speed
prints at 24ipm in our tests. Running price per page. £415 exc VAT from up double-sided copies. £238 exc VAT
costs are superb, too. printerland.co.uk from printerbase.co.uk
REVIEW Issue 350, p58 REVIEW Issue 353, p84 REVIEW Issue 341, p87

WIRELESS ROUTERS

Netgear Nighthawk RAXE300 Netgear Nighthawk Asus RT-AX59U

Fast Wi-Fi 6E router, £350 RS700S You can buy cheaper Wi-Fi 6
Make no mistake – you won’t get routers – such as the D-Link Eagle
from amazon.co.uk stunning speeds out of this Wi-Fi 7 Pro AI R15 for £55 – but Asus’
router today. But if you must buy a well-priced offering delivers
The RAXE500 is faster than the RAXE300, but router now and want future-proofing, strong performance along with
in practice we doubt you would notice – this tri-band router still delivered speeds this is a solid choice. But honestly, lots of control and exceptional
between 50MB/sec and 150MB/sec in our tests. And it’s packed with features, too. we would recommend that you wait. VPN support. £125 from
At £150 cheaper than its bigger brother, we think it hits the Wi-Fi 6E sweet spot. £800 from netgear.com uk.store.asus.com
REVIEW Issue 341, p68 REVIEW Issue 353, p76 REVIEW Issue 350, p57

MESH WI-FI

TP-Link Deco XE200 Netgear Orbi 770

If you’re eager to upgrade to Wi-Fi 7 then
Linksys Velop Pro 6E
Ironically, this Wi-Fi 6E router
Clever Wi-Fi 6E for £400 the Orbi 770 is the best mesh option yet. will get the most out of your
Its speed and range are both excellent, non-Wi-Fi 6 devices thanks to
from amazon.co.uk
with a twin-pack covering 420m2 (says its use of the 6GHz network for
There are cheaper Wi-Fi 6E meshes, but the XE200 Netgear), and the wired connectivity station-to-station traffic. And
wins for its superb download speeds, excellent superb: four 2.5GbE connectors on the you only need two units for rock
coverage and the fact that older clients reap benefits router unit, two 2.5GbE ports on the solid performance across a
of 6E, not just new ones. And a two-pack (code satellites. But it ain’t cheap. 2-pack, three-bedroom house. 2-pack,
B0BKTDPWC8) should be enough for most premises. £600 from amazon.co.uk £380 from amazon.co.uk
REVIEW Issue 349, p65 REVIEW Issue 364, p70 REVIEW Issue 350, p54

17
 BUSINESS WI-FI NEW ENTRY

Ubiquiti UniFi U7 Pro Max TP-Link Omada EAP783

This slim-line discus has a mighty
EnGenius ECW526
The ECW526 is a top choice for SMBs
Wi-Fi 7 AP, £214 exc VAT BE19000 rating and will appeal to looking to make the move to Wi-Fi 7 as it
from broadbandbuyer.com businesses looking to make an early combines a great feature set at a
A great choice for SMBs seeking a powerful and transition to Wi-Fi 7. It delivers superb tempting price. Cloud management
affordable upgrade to Wi-Fi 7. You’ll need a UniFi performance and is MLO-ready, while services are extensive, and its potent
controller to complete the wireless picture, but this TP-Link’s Omada cloud platform offers Qualcomm CPU and 10GbE port deliver
investment will be paid back handsomely as they great remote management services. superb wireless performance.
offer the best cloud management services around. £520 exc VAT from senetic.co.uk £225 exc VAT from solwise.co.uk
REVIEW Issue 365, p100 REVIEW Issue 360, p103 REVIEW Issue 366, p102

NAS SERVERS

Synology DiskStation DS1823xs+ Qnap TS-h987XU-RP

The TS-h987XU-RP is a ready-made
Synology
DiskStation DS1522+
10GbE NAS, £1,413 exc VAT hybrid storage solution for SMBs. Small businesses that want a high-
from broadbandbuyer.com This rack-friendly package offers capacity desktop NAS at a good price
a great specification for the price, will find Synology’s DS1522+ a great
This powerful eight-bay NAS is a great and Qnap’s QuTS hero software choice. Performance over 10GbE is
choice for SMBs that want plenty of scores highly for its wealth of data- impeccable and the DSM software
capacity, features and performance at a protection features and business offers a fantastic range of storage
reasonable price. The new DSM 7.2 software has security high on its agenda, and apps. Diskless, £3,292 exc VAT from features. 5-bay NAS, diskless £586 exc
the icing on the cake is Synology’s generous five-year warranty. broadbandbuyer.com VAT from broadbandbuyer.com
REVIEW Issue 346, p101 REVIEW Issue 344, p96 REVIEW Issue 344, p98

VIDEOCONFERENCING

Biamp Parlé VBC 2800 Owl Labs Medium

Room Solution
Ricoh Meeting 360
Ricoh’s Meeting 360 is up against stiff
Go big for £2,918 exc VAT (MSRP) The Owl 4+ and Owl Bar partnership competition in the panoramic meeting
from midwich.com offers smart tracking and dynamic hub market but stands out for its
split-screen views to ensure everyone is excellent build quality and generous
We thought the in the picture, while the Whiteboard Owl three-year warranty. It’s easy to use
VBC 2500 was a great VC room bar, and the new VBC 2800 delivers Biamp’s adds extra professionalism to and delivers good video and audio
undeniable expertise to larger meeting rooms. Video and audio quality are presentations and training sessions. quality, while the smart app allows you
outstanding, speaker framing is super fast and the smart combination of dual Owl 4+, Owl Bar, TV mount, £2,999 exc to create a view for every occasion.
camera lenses makes sure everyone is in the big picture. VAT from owllabs.co.uk £744 exc VAT from amazon.co.uk
REVIEW Issue 364, p98 REVIEW Issue 364, p100 REVIEW Issue 364, p101

SCANNERS

Xerox N60w Pro Scanner Brother ADS-4500W Epson WorkForce

Ideal for small businesses, the DS-800WN
Speed demon, £766 exc VAT ADS-4500W offers a fine set of A flexible desktop scanner with 50ppm
from tradescanners.com walk-up scan features and its output pace and lots of connection options.
quality is beyond reproach, while Epson’s software provides great scan
The N60w Pro offers tremendous value and Brother’s Print&Scan app delivers management features, and support for
versatility. It delivered up to 67ppm in our tests with great scan workflow management Epson’s Open Platform is a boon for
great output quality, offers a plethora of connection options. £295 exc VAT from document management. £656 exc VAT
options and makes walk-up scanning a breeze. printerbase.co.uk from ballicom.co.uk
REVIEW Issue 358, p101 REVIEW Issue 358, p98 REVIEW Issue 365, p103

SERVERS

Dell EMC PowerEdge T350 Dell EMC

PowerEdge R250
Broadberry CyberServe
Xeon E-RS100-E10
Xeon E-2300 power, from £1,399 exc VAT With prices starting at around This represents a powerful hardware
from dell.com £850 exc VAT for a Pentium Gold package at a price that will please
CPU, and the option of Xeon E-2300 small businesses. We love its
Perfect for SMBs and branch offices looking for an series chips from £1,461 exc VAT, this low-profile chassis and the fine
affordable and powerful single-socket tower server. is a slim, rack-mounted alternative selection of remote-management
Along with support for Xeon E-2300 CPUs and lots of to the more high-powered T350 tools. It’s a great alternative to the Dell
memory, it has a high storage capacity, plenty of that’s ideal for SMBs. From £845 EMC servers also listed here. £983 exc
expansion space and is sturdily built. exc VAT from dell.com VAT from broadberry.co.uk
REVIEW Issue 335, p98 REVIEW Issue 332, p98 REVIEW Issue 318, p96

18
 @PCPRO FAC E B O O K . C O M / P C P R O The A-List

SECURITY SOFTWARE VPNs PASSWORD MANAGERS

NEW ENTRY

Avira Prime Surfshark NordPass

Avira wins for all-round AV performance, Reliably fast and goes out of its way to ensure that This hassle-free option is a great choice for both
plus a solid VPN, for a fair price. Watch international streaming services work. Surfshark personal and business use, with a competitive
out for a second-year hike to £91, though. has a credible track record for privacy, too. price matched with all the features most people
First year: 5 devices, £52 from avira.com £55 for 27 months from surfshark.com need. £1.89 per month from nordpass.com
REVIEW Issue 366, p84 REVIEW Issue 360, p87 REVIEW Issue 350, p70

NEW ENTRY NEW ENTRY

Bitdefender Avira Free NordVPN Proton VPN Bitwarden Keeper

Total Security Antivirus One of the best all- A great VPN in its own Free for individual use A great choice for
A long-term award winner There’s absolutely no purpose consumer VPN right, but also the best free and open source, the businesses thanks to its
in our security suite Labs, need to pay for a full services around, and VPN service as you get only important thing focus on security and a
Bitdefender continues to security suite if you only the paid-for version is unlimited data. Instead, Bitwarden lacks is phone zero-knowledge policy,
charm for its consistent want antivirus protection, packed with features Proton restricts which support: it works with and if you need more
AV performance, solid and Avira is our top – from anti-malware endpoints you can access virtually every device options then Keeper
feature set and extremely choice simply due to its tools to a rather clever to only three countries: and browser, and the has them. Business
competitive price. excellent and consistent mesh file-transfer system. the USA, the Netherlands paid option is well worth edition, from £2 per
5 devices, 1yr, £20 from performance in tests. £94 for 27 months and Japan. Free from £10 per year. Free from user per month from
store.pcpro.co.uk Free from avira.com from nordvpn.com protonvpn.com bitwarden.com keepersecurity.com
REVIEW Issue 366, p85 REVIEW Issue 366, p89 REVIEW Issue 360, p85 REVIEW Issue 360, p86 REVIEW Issue 350, p71 REVIEW Issue 350, p72

ON-PREMISES BACKUP NETWORK MONITORING VOIP SERVICES

NEW ENTRY

Nakivo Backup & Replication 10.11.2 Progress WhatsUp Gold 2024 3CX Phone System V20
Perfect for SMBs that want the freedom to choose A great SMB choice as it presents a clear picture Our top choice for businesses that want to manage
their host system. It supports an incredible range of of your network and is available in a wide range of their own VoIP system. It can be hosted in the cloud
hardware platforms and OSes and is packed with licensing plans. It’s a cinch to deploy, doesn’t or on-premises, and has lots of new features. Small
data protection features. Enterprise, 10 servers, require a lot of host resources and the new Business, 10 users, £175 exc VAT per year from 3cx.com
perpetual features make it even REVIEW Issue 357, p98
licence, £1,118 easier to customise.
exc VAT from Enterprise, 50 devices,
nakivo.com £1,177 exc VAT per year
REVIEW Issue from whatsupgold.com
362, p100 REVIEW Issue 366, p100

NEW ENTRY

Veritas Backup Exec 23 Park Place Technologies Entuity 22 TelephoneSystems.Cloud

Backup Exec 23 is easy to manage, provides valuable An impressive toolbox of monitoring services all A great choice for businesses that know what they
ransomware protection and the subscriptions are easily managed from a web console that offers a want from cloud-hosted VoIP services, offering a
great value. Simple Core Pack, 5 instances, £498 wide range of informative dashboards. From $150 wealth of features at a good price. From £11 exc VAT
exc VAT per year from uk.insight.com per node/year from parkplacetechnologies.com per user per month from telephonesystems.cloud
REVIEW Issue 362, p101 REVIEW Issue 366, p99 REVIEW Issue 357, p100

ENDPOINT PROTECTION REMOTE SUPPORT SECURITY APPLIANCES

WithSecure Elements Endpoint Security NetSupport Manager 14.1 Firewalla Gold Pro
A comprehensive set of protection measures for a Sets the standard for on-premises hosted A great choice
great price, easily managed from a cloud portal. It support for local and remote workers. It delivers for small
supports a wide range of devices and the Luminen a remarkable range of features and its one-time businesses that
tool delivers AI-powered reporting services that cost per seat will appeal to businesses concerned delivers a wide
present detailed summaries of events with a click. about subscription fees. 1-500 systems, perpetual range of security
100-499 devices, licence, £10 features at a tempting price. Our 10GbE tests show it
£37 exc VAT each each exc VAT can easily cope with high demand, and you don’t have
per year from from netsupport to worry about subscriptions either, as the price
withsecure.com manager.com includes all security services and lifetime updates.
REVIEW Issue REVIEW Issue $899 (£676) from firewalla.com
363, p101 361, p100 REVIEW Issue 364, p103

Sophos Intercept X Advanced ISL Online Standard DrayTek Vigor 2927Lax-5G

An unbeatable range of tough security measures. Perfect for SMBs wanting cloud-based support. This affordable security router offers always-on
Deployment is a breeze, and a multitude of security Features and access security are excellent, as are internet access thanks to an unbeatable set of WAN
policies make it highly flexible. 100-199 users, £48 its flexible licensing plans. Standard Cloud/One redundancy features and also offers built-in Wi-Fi 6
exc VAT each per year from enterpriseav.co.uk user, £287 exc VAT per year from islonline.com services. £667 exc VAT from broadbandbuyer.com
REVIEW Issue 363, p98 REVIEW Issue 361, p99 REVIEW Issue 360, p98

19
 The pod people Dick Pountain is
editorial fellow of
PC Pro. His Prague

have landed
trip podcast can be
found at tinyurl.
com/366whisky.
Find him on BlueSky
at @dick-pountain

The changing fortunes of technology can be looked at exactly like the rise
and fall of civilisations, and now is the time of the podcast

A Just as reels were shrinking

llow me to be contrarian and Mancunian accent kept me enthralled.
suggest that 2024 was not the The episode on “White Light/White
year of AI. Instead, for me at Heat” was only number 164 of the 500 down to 30 seconds of inane
pointlessness, podcasts started
least, it was the year of the podcast. he plans, in chronological order, but I
That’s partly because I was exposed to was hooked and went back to listen
AI rather early via Stable Diffusion in
2022, and was bored stiff of it by the
from the beginning. Number 1 was on
Benny Goodman Sextet’s 1939 “Flying
expanding into three-hour epics
end of 2023. But it’s also because Home”, the first record with electric Cooper’s series, available in
online services that had kept me guitar, played by Charlie Christian. both audio and video formats, raises
amused for years, including Facebook Andrew’s early episodes ran to the question of when a podcast is
and YouTube, started sliding down a around 30 minutes, but soon zoomed actually a vlog, although I don’t
sloppily slippery slope into irrelevance past the hour and now are regularly much care. Among my favourites is
during 2024. Feeds filled up with split into two or more parts – for a series of 80+ YouTube interviews
unwanted sponsored guff and example, the Beatles and the Rolling with living musicians by the veteran
AI-generated fluff, while real friends Stones reached three hours. Thanks to jazz guitarist and producer Rick
abandoned platforms to be replaced by his immense research efforts they Beato, which is probably neither or
reels and clickbait that spread like remain engrossing. He’s now at both – but his interview with Rick
digital cockroaches. In response, I episode 177 and intends to finish with a Rubin is priceless.

H
began to consume more podcasts. song from 1999. At his current delivery
Just as reels were shrinking down rate, that should take him to 2050. ave I ever podcasted myself?

A
to 30 seconds of inane pointlessness, Only once, because I don’t
podcasts started expanding into nother mega-podcast I’ve much like the sound of my own
three-hour epics. Of course, our own listened to all the way through voice. It happened this way: in 1990,
excellent PC Pro podcasts, crafted by is Paul Cooper’s superb “Fall of my brother-in-law Pip Hills and I took
Barry, Tim, Darien, Lee, Jon and Rois, Civilisations” about the rise and fall of a road trip to Prague in his 1937
adopt a manageable one-hour format, empires throughout human history. Lagonda saloon to witness Václav
probably the optimum length for He has an advantage over Andrew Havel’s inauguration as president of
normal attention spans, but several Hickey in that there are fewer of them, the Czech Republic. Following this
other podcasts I consume started at mostly long in the past, and he’s trip another friend, Mark Williams,
that length then got carried away. covered most of them in 19 episodes. commissioned us to write about it for
Back in 2023 an old friend While not an academic historian, his magazine The Classic Motoring
recommended an article about the Cooper has invested a huge amount of Review, and subsequently the Scotch
Velvet Underground, of special effort in research and is an excellent Malt Whisky Society, which Pip had
interest to me as the first piece I ever presenter, making every episode founded in 1983, asked to reprint
had published was about my informative and exciting without our article in its magazine and
experience of working at Max’s in resorting to sensationalism. accompany it with a podcast.
New York in 1970 while they were the Some online niggling about I charily agreed, and since I don’t
house band. This piece was on a historical accuracy is only to be possess a professional-grade
podcast called “A History of Rock expected, but his interpretations are microphone, let alone a studio, I
Music in 500 Songs” by Andrew largely convincing, not grossly performed my part over my
Hickey, and it was three hours long. ideological or biased, and the video Chromebook’s mic, using an audio
Rather to my surprise, I listened to version of the podcast (free on editor called Lexis (my Android
all of it and was riveted: Hickey’s taste, YouTube at tinyurl.com/366cooper) replacement for the wonderful
depth of research, even his bluff illustrates his arguments with a Audacity, with which I had 20 years of
well-curated montage of experience). I managed a usable take
Have I ever podcasted photographic, film and after two attempts, even including a

myself? Only once, because

literary evidence on a par snatch of music by Smetana at a
with the work of Adam pivotal point. Judge for yourself from
I don’t much like the sound Curtis. Turns out that my
favourite dead empires were
the link above whether a career in
voiceovers beckons...
of my own voice the Nabataean and the Pagan. dick@dickpountain.co.uk

20
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Viewpoints

AI can make art, Nicole Kobie is

PC Pro’s Futures
editor. She probably

but it’s more fun

couldn’t write a good
song even with the
help of AI.
@njkobie

when people do
A tech CEO reckons composers hate playing instruments so much that
they’d give it up in favour of AI, but that doesn’t quite ring true

M
ikey Shulman needs to bake laptop. (It’s no coincidence that after bland, so flat. AI is getting better at
some cupcakes or sit down writing my own book I needed fillings approximating something closer to
with some crayons and paper in three of my molars and remain thinking, by taking information,
and doodle. He’s the CEO of Suno AI, a permanently in need of a back assessing it and then making a
tool for making music using AI. On a massage. I wish this were a joke.) decision. But no human behaves like

I
recent podcast, he said writing and that; we feel our way through life.
recording songs takes too much time wouldn’t appear to an outsider to There’s more to it than just
– you need to learn an instrument, be enjoying myself, but I love emotional limitation, however, even
practise it until you’re good and maybe being caught up in an idea and if we’re just enjoying the output of
even learn production software. “I following it, sinking into that creative, someone else’s creation. Most
think the majority of people don’t deep flow where time disappears. humans, perhaps not Shulman, would
enjoy the majority of the time they I’m not musically inclined – I was in
spend making music,” he suggested. the school band at high school, but AI is getting better at taking
It’s hard to think anyone would do
a job like writing songs if they hated it.
they asked me to pretend to play
during performances – but regardless information, assessing it and making a
So this is clearly a man who himself
gleans no joy from the act of creation.
of the sort of creation, the practice
and striving to get better is what
decision. But no human behaves like
Getting caught up in writing, building, makes the journey worthwhile, not that; we feel our way through life
cooking or whatever is one of the great just the output.
pleasures of life. The joy is in the Oh, but that’s all so pretentious, rather hear an imperfect version of
making, not just the consumption. isn’t it? And a tool that opens up a bit their favourite song played live by
There’s a quote on this idea that’s of music creation to those without the their favourite band than simply listen
been meme-fied, so you may have seen skills or the desire to gain them is no to the studio recording on Spotify.
it on social media: “I want AI to do my bad thing. It doesn’t stop those with Heck, we even still go to cinemas to see
laundry and dishes so that I can do art musical skill or talent from composing movies; my TV is great, the popcorn is
and writing, not for AI to do my art and their own work, after all. free, there’s no queue for the toilet, yet
writing so that I can do my laundry But I do think that statement is it still feels better. Being there matters.

T
and dishes.” That’s from the social evidence that Shulman, and by
account of fantasy author Joanna extension let’s just assume the rest of his morning, my kid drew a
Maciejewska, and although she AI company CEOs that think like him, picture of a marshmallow. It was
haven’t got a clue what normal fabulous. If I showed it to you,
Getting caught up in people actually love about life. you would never have guessed that it

writing, building, cooking Sometimes they’re right about

what we hate; Microsoft wants AI
was a marshmallow. Generative AI
would have made a much more
or whatever is one of the to automate your emails and even
attend your meetings. That’s good
accurate representation. But watching
her create something herself, learning
great pleasures of life – no-one likes doing those things. how to draw and hold a marker and all
We’ve been begging for the death that, is much more rewarding than
perhaps momentarily forgot the of email for years, and companies have typing “draw marshmallow” into an
existence of dishwashers, it’s spot on implemented meeting-free days just to LLM. (Plus, she did it using a “silly
about the strange direction of AI keep staff from quitting. If it can solve scents” marker that smells like a
development taking over creative doing the dishes, too, even I’d shell out marshmallow, and that’s very funny.)
work rather than the drudgery. £25 a month for Microsoft Copilot. Doing something ourselves is part
Shulman isn’t entirely wrong, of But that’s just one side of what of the fun. I’d rather write a terrible
course. Writing, for example, can be Maciejewska noted: we want to stop song, draw a mushy marshmallow or
a ridiculously frustrating process – emailing so we can do the good bits type out every word of a 115,000-word
even physically painful. I’m not of our jobs, whatever they may be. book with a clenched jaw than hand
exaggerating: when I’m concentrating We want to be creative, to learn those moments of creativity to an AI,
on figuring something out and putting things, to build something. regardless of whether its output or
it into words, I clench my jaw and Perhaps that’s one reason why mine is better.
grind my teeth and hunch over my AI-generated anything just looks so work@nicolekobie.com

21
 Viewpoints @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO

Big tech Barry Collins is a

former editor of PC
Pro. His personal

firms have
values include not
working on the
Sabbath (football,
innit) and donating

no values
10% of his income
to Tetley’s. Email
him at barry@
mediabc.co.uk.
@bazzacollins

The rush to throw money at Trump underlines the uncomfortable truth

that technology lives in a moral vacuum

T It shouldn’t matter if the top brass

he notion that big tech firms them and the families, loved ones,
have a set of values has always and allies who support them.”
triggered my BS filter. Well, now he’s contributing to a drink too much Dom Perignon on the
big day, because several already seem
Companies will do what’s best for the whip-round for the president who
bottom line. If that happens said on the campaign trail that he
to coincide with what’s best for
the planet, society or its customers,
plans to “get transgender out of the
military and out of our elementary
to be suffering from memory loss
great. But the buck comes first. schools and middle schools and high
Never has that been more schools”. Anyone want to remind Tim plastered over its careers page is now
transparent than in the rush to throw what the “T” of LGBTQ+ stands for? happy for its users to brand them

Y
money at Donald Trump’s abnormal. It’s not just hypocritical,
inauguration fund. Apple, Amazon, ou might argue that the actions it’s morally vacuous.
Meta, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and of the execs should be divorced Ah, the defenders of the Big Tech
Uber are among the companies that from those of the company, firms wail, these companies have no
have all made $1 million donations to and you’d have a point, except that choice but to cosy up to Trump. No
the fund, either directly or through Apple’s diversity policy claims company wants to be at odds with its
their senior executives. That pays for that “we’re continuing to create a own government, and given Trump’s
one hell of a party. culture of inclusion, increasing vindictive nature, it would be crazy
It shouldn’t matter if the top brass representation across teams, and not to contribute. Besides, many of
at these firms drank a little too much holding ourselves accountable at them donated to the Democrat
Dom Perignon on the big day, because every level”. Except CEO, it seems. inaugurations. It’s just the done thing.

T
several of them already seem to be Perhaps none has bent the knee
suffering from memory loss. quite as readily as Mark Zuckerberg. hat’s a pathetic, weaselly
OpenAI’s Sam Altman was clearly Not only has the Facebook founder defence. You either have
hallucinating in 2016 when he wrote handed over his share of the kitty, but values or you don’t. You either
on his blog that “Trump’s casual he’s changed how the social network “help to protect democracy, and
racism, misogyny, and conspiracy is moderated. Third-party fact- advance fair and inclusive societies”,
theories are without precedent checking is coming to an end (in the Microsoft, or you contribute to a party
among major presidential nominees”, US, at least); content moderation for the guy who tried to overturn an
as he made a personal donation of teams are being moved from the election defeat and openly mocks
$1 million. firm’s HQ in California to Republican disabled reporters. You either believe
Apple’s Tim Cook cracked open stronghold Texas “to help remove the there’s “no limit to what we can do to
the personal chequebook, too, instead concern that biased employees are help individuals, communities, and
of donating via the company, which overly censoring content”; and hate businesses mitigate and adapt to
seems even stranger given his speech policies are being relaxed to climate change”, Google, or you
personal criticisms of Trump policy. the point where, according to a stump up a million quid for the man
“As a proud member of the LGBTQ+ report from NBC, Facebook’s new who describes climate change as a
community, I am deeply concerned rules “allow allegations of mental “hoax”. You either believe good
about laws being enacted across the illness or abnormality when based leaders “seek diverse perspectives
country, particularly those focused on gender or sexual orientation”. and work to disconfirm their beliefs”,
on our vulnerable youth,” he tweeted This is the same Mark Zuckerberg Amazon, or you back the guy who
in 2022, in a none-too-opaque who was repeatedly shown joining appoints his own children and fires
reference to US state laws targeting the company’s employees on Pride those who stand up to him.
transgender people. “I stand with parades, who in 2016 said he had “It’s a real and terrifying
committed “to make possibility that Trump actually
Facebook’s new rules ‘allow Facebook a safe place for
members of the LGBT
believes much of what he says,”
wrote Sam Altman on his blog in 2016.
allegations of mental illness or community everywhere”. It’s a near certainty that the big tech
abnormality when based on The same Meta that has
photos of employees
companies believe nothing of what
they say on their own “values” pages.
gender or sexual orientation’ brandishing a Pride banner barry@mediabc.co.uk

22
Readers’ comments
Your views and feedback from email and the web

Is that a fact? These changes have the banks’ legal guys an insurer other
I listened to episode instilled in me a very than their own to go knocking on the
725 of the PC Pro small, but very real, door of if things go pear-shaped!
podcast with great sense of fear for the Having trust in your supply chain
interest, specifically future, for my future. is important, but surely companies
the conversation on As Rois said, “the road should have a responsibility to kick
the removal of to Hell is paved with the tyres of the services and goods
Facebook’s fact- good intentions”. Is this they buy to make sure they’re fit for
checkers. In that change one of those purpose? They shouldn’t just be
discussion Rois good intentions? conducting a responsibility-shirking
outlined her views Reuben Clarke exercise of making already very
that the removal pressured suppliers carry the can by
of Facebook’s Cost of business ticking a generic, and often overly
fact-checkers was a I read Rois’ column draconian, list of requirements.
good step change and (issue 364, p116) with Alan Ingram
correction from Facebook to enable ABOVE Facebook interest as I have experience of what
further free speech on the platform. claims its removal of she describes. However, I disagree that Contributing editor Rois Ni Thuama replies:
I felt she made a very valid point fact-checkers is to businesses should be conveniently The reality is that suppliers are failing to
that those with certain views not “protect free speech” “transferring costs to suppliers”, as meet even the most basic cybersecurity
considered in keeping with what the when this is coming from an requirements. For example, some
fact-checkers deemed acceptable are organisation such as the one she suppliers haven’t even configured their
shut down and accounts are blocked, describes – a large bank with deep email properly. As a result, it’s easy for
where the fact-checkers were moving pockets – this seems wrong, doesn’t it? criminals to phish the staff in the client
far too much towards censorship. I It’s often not so much about firm. The fix – it costs the client firm a small
also have great sympathy with those transferring costs, although it fortune to train up their staff to detect
who are making points as part of a certainly does do that, or even about the phishing email when the simplest
debate (even when I do not agree with moving the buck-stopping point measure would be to put in a tech fix on the
them) who then experience abuse; further down the line. And as a supplier side. In other words, transfer the
this simply should not be allowed to bureaucratic box-ticking exercise it cost to the supplier. Not only does this
happen in a civilised society. rarely improves the quality of the demonstrate you care about your client,
Abuse of those with opinions goods or services you are receiving, you also protect your own firm.
similar to Rois is wrong, but how will because the array of diktats, which
these changes stop abuse being sent to I’m sure seemed like a good idea in the Classic hits
those with an opposing opinion? I don’t meeting room when talking about a Tidying up my study I came across a
see any attempt to protect those on the “typical” supplier, will rarely apply to dusty and worn looking set of Altec
other side in these changes. I am a all suppliers, who are now expected to Lansing speakers (two desktop
happily married gay man and I thought tick those boxes or be “off the list”. speakers, one large subwoofer) I got
the debates on this subject were If the supplier is providing a unique free with a Dell PC I bought 24 years
concluded long ago. Instead, based on line of business application or service, ago. I was going to take them to the
these changes, it appears that once being axed would often be detrimental recycling centre but then decided I’d
again someone can legitimately say I to both businesses anyway. So, really, donate them to a charity shop if they
have a mental illness. ticking the boxes is just about giving still worked. Not only do they work,

Star letter upgrade, but the real blocker to me is the

licence confusion. My Win 10 installation is
an upgraded boxed copy of Windows 7 Pro.
sad, having spent a terrifying three
decades in the Microsoft ecosystem.
Ross Fleming
Crunch time for Windows 10 Microsoft can’t seem to answer what the
I read your Windows 10 EOL article (see status of that licence key will be once Editor-in-chief Tim Danton replies: Thanks, Ross.
issue 365, p28) with interest and a hint of upgraded to Windows 11, and I’m at a loss as It sounds like you need to shift operating systems
shame. I have stuck resolutely to Windows to whether I’ll be able to reinstall Windows one way or another. It’s worth seeing if your
10 for a multitude of reasons, not least that 11 or move it to another PC in the future current licence will upgrade successfully, but if
it’s hard to feel like your PC any more, what – particularly important as the PC is not I will politely point you to the PC Pro store
with the pushes to online accounts, adverts creaking with problems for which the only (store.pcpro.co.uk), where you can pick up a full
and incessant attempts to reinstall Teams, solution seems to be a fresh install. Windows 11 Pro licence for £79.99. Or you can
Office 365 and (for a while) Candy Crush. I’ve got a few months to make the look forward to next month’s Labs, which is
But mainly because I’m avoiding a decision. decision, but at the moment it feels like dedicated to Linux, including one that might be a
Currently I’ve got TPM disabled in the a shift away from Windows is likely to better choice for Windows switchers than Mint…
BIOS to prevent Microsoft sneaking in the be the outcome, which makes me a bit

This month’s star letter writer wins a Cherry KC 200 MX mechanical keyboard, worth £80,
recipient of a five-star review and a PC Pro Recommended award. Email letters@pcpro.co.uk

24
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Viewpoints

Readers’ poll
Do you listen to podcasts?

they sound amazing: no distortion,

hiss or crackle, great sound across the
range, the subwoofer is incredible, and
the maximum volume frightening.
Amazing quality no longer found
nowadays as manufacturers churn out
goods destined to end up in a landfill

No Yes
after only a few years. A crying shame.
Oh, I’m keeping the speakers!

31 69
Cyrus

Kindle blockers
Flipping through issue 365, I was
enjoying the review of the new Kindle

% %
Scribe and Paperwhite on p62/63 until
I reached the end of the reviews and
noticed they hadn’t mentioned that the
new Kindles have switched to using
MTP, or Media Transfer Protocol, to This was a two-part poll. First, we wanted a rough idea of how many PC Pro readers listened to
transfer books via cable. This is a big podcasts, but second we were after recommendations. Particularly across technology, aside
issue for me and many other readers, from our own PC Pro podcast, but we were open to ideas from further afield, too.
as it means the Kindles won’t show as “Oh! You have a podcast!” wrote David J G Torrens, who now has an 18-year back catalogue
a normal USB storage device on Mac or of PC Pro podcasts to enjoy. “Just listening to the one about CES and have clicked subscribe. My
Android, and will need MTP software others are the BBC and Guardian science podcasts and several TED ones… all the others are
such as OpenMTP in order to transfer news, history and general interest ones, my favoured being Everything Everywhere.”
files to the Kindle – a slow and error- We hadn’t heard of Mark Warner’s suggestion, but perhaps should point our Retro writer
prone method of transferring files. David Crookes towards it. “Advent of Computing. Really in-depth coverage of lots of interesting
In addition, this new connection topics from computing’s history.” Kevin Peare, meanwhile, is a man after our own hearts. “Yes,
type prevents Calibre, popular I listen to the PC Pro podcast. It’s the only one that I listen to, and have purchased some of the
E-library software, from sending page hot hardware recommendations. Hope you keep it going.” We will, Kevin, we promise.
number data to your Kindle. This As well as the above podcast recommendations, our readers also suggested tech podcasts
leads to an annoying situation where Security Now, TWiT (This Week in Tech), The Vergecast, The Artificial Human, Windows Weekly
your books are stuck viewing the and This Week in Google. See the full responses at facebook.com/pcpro, and don’t forget that
“time left” or “location” options while you can listen to the weekly PC Pro podcast every Thursday at 1pm by signing up to our Discord
reading, an annoying method of server: pcpro.link/discord. Even if you don’t like podcasts, there’s a growing community of PC
gauging book progress. In addition, Pro readers gathering there, so it’s a great place to chat – and throw shade at all our writers!
the “Download and Transfer” link on
the Amazon website (previously used
to let you download a copy of your Yes, varies, but none as Only PC Pro for tech (what
book) no longer seems to function, regularly as PC Pro. else is there for IT?), but
either as a bug in new firmware or an
intentional anti-piracy feature. Chris Mark also the Tennis Podcast and
While I can understand Amazon football podcasts.
wanting to reduce the number of No. Just stick the radio
Andy Brown
pirated books on its hardware, I and
many others who purchase ebooks
on; if they’re playing rubbish,
from third-party sites can’t help but switch to Spotify.
feel sidelined by these changes to the Martin Bailey
2024 Kindles. I feel this should have Join the debate
Yes, but I only listen to PC Pro
been mentioned in the review as it
could potentially be a deal-breaker for Join the growing PC Pro
many. Hopefully Amazon will update and Smashing Security. community on Facebook at
its next Kindle generation to enable facebook.com/pcpro
these features again, as the Kindle
Sean Dodd
Get the latest news and
reading experience is one of the most updates by following us
seamless and user-friendly on the Yes, Still To Be Determined and @pcpro FOCUS!
HOW

various science podcasts.

TO TURN
OFF ALL
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RE ULTR
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PRINTERS TESTED

Dylan Mitchell
Wh BEST ink
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at’s
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es what’s com &
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Editor-in-chief Tim Danton replies: Thanks S 2025

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To subscribe to PC Pro, please turn to p108 for our latest offer.

UPG RAD E
366 MARCH

GUINESS E
ion Raspbe
YOU R WI- Cut-price

GIFTS FOID
FI TO BUS Vision Pro
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rival at last!
B
CLA SS Every
366 COVER.indd
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Best Pi yet
– for a price
GEEK R
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for pointing this out, Dylan. I’ll make a note

question s
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ts desire
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Pi
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ISSUE

in a
● 3 reasonsnsyou
NOT to
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probably C.indd
1

PLU
will anyway
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14/11/2024
15:12
BEST LAPTOPS
OF CES 2025
PLUS 44 OTHER
RELEASES
We pick the 56
standout products
and new technologies
from this year’s CES

Best of

2025!

E
very year, CES acts as a calling card for all the great new LiveScience, TechRadar, Tom’s Guide and Tom’s Hardware – it’s a
technology due to be released in the coming year. It’s the week-long battle to uncover the brilliant. And some that’s just plain
only place to be if you want to see what companies will be weird, as you’ll discover if you turn to our segment on robots.
pinning their hopes on. You’ll bump into everyone from We dedicate 13 pages of this month’s magazine to the show,
PhD students with ideas fresh from research labs to directors of and frankly you should see our discard pile. There are countless
global tech firms. And CEOs, too, with Nvidia’s Jensen Huang laptops, PCs, monitors and gizmos that failed to make the cut, with
stealing much of the limelight, as we describe opposite. our aim being to give you the best possible taste (to misquote
CES takes place in Las Vegas, consuming two huge convention Kenny) of what CES offers. And if the 56 different products aren’t
centres and speckling its way across many of Sin City’s hotels. With enough to sate your appetite, then fire up your favourite podcast
the first briefings taking place on a Sunday and the show closing app and listen to the first entry from PC Pro in 2025 – courtesy of
the following Friday, even with the assistance of our colleagues at Barry Collins, Tim Danton and Jon Honeyball, who traipsed the
Future Publishing – including brands such as Laptop Magazine, halls and hotels on your behalf.

CONTRIBUTORS Barry Collins, Tim Danton and Jon Honeyball, plus Keumars Afifi-Sabet, Paul Alcorn,
Jason England, John Loeffler, Hassam Nasir, David Nield and Anthony Spadafora

26
@PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO CES 2025

NVIDIA AT CES 2025

Jensen Huang’s keynote at CES 2025 didn’t disappoint, but it was only when we saw live
demos using the new Nvidia cards that we appreciated what the company had achieved

RTX IS GOING NEXT-LEVEL ON AI

N
vidia’s RTX 50-series GPUs were features are coming to older GPUs too, but none
arguably the biggest news of CES 2025, will take advantage quite like the 50 series. Nvidia is going hard on the word “neural” with
encompassing four desktop cards – the the RTX 50-series, and for good reason. For me,
RTX 5090 ($1,999), RTX 5080 ($999), 4090 PERFORMANCE IN RTX 5070? RTX Neural materials was the first standout
RTX 5070 Ti ($749) and RTX 5070 $549) – plus My eyes lit up when Jensen claimed you’re going feature when looking at the demos in person.
equivalent chips for laptops. But to get a true to get the performance of the $1,599 RTX 4090 Typically, game developers must bake in the
taste for what the cards could do, I went in the $549 RTX 5070, but surely that’s too good texture of an object or surface and the rules of
behind the scenes at a private Nvidia event. to be true? Sort of. It comes down to the Multi how it interacts with the rest of the world’s
Frame Generation aspect of DLSS that is lighting and ambiance. With RTX Neural
DLSS 4 IS THE KEY exclusive to RTX 50-series cards. With DLSS 4 materials, AI compresses that code and
“Can it run Cyberpunk 2077?” has become the on the 50-series, the transformer model isn’t makes processing up to 5x faster. The end result
2020s equivalent of “can it run Crysis?”, and limited to generating one additional frame, but is that multi-layered items such as silk look
boy, can the RTX 5090 run Cyberpunk 2077. can now generate three. dramatically more realistic, with subtle colour
At maxed-out settings, I saw a peak of around For comparison, Nvidia booted up Marvel changes that follow light diffraction.
265fps and a low of 245fps. Every detail is crisp, Rivals. With an RTX 4090 generating one Then there’s RTX Mega Geometry, which
the fidelity incredible and smoothness fantastic additional frame, you’re seeing around 180fps; massively increases the amount of triangles
– and much is thanks to Deep Learning Super on a 5070, that goes up to nearly 250fps on the that build everything you see in a game for
Sampling (DLSS) 4. This uses a machine learning same settings. In other games, the two GPUs insane levels of granular detail. Typically, more
model trained on the game to boost resolution are more equal in terms of frames, with Nvidia detail means more VRAM, as this stores
and improve frame rates. picking Marvel Rivals for the demo due to it essential graphical instructions in the
Nvidia’s secret sauce is changing from a being exceedingly strong in frame generation. background that the game will need to
convolutional neural network (CNN) to a And there’s the twist. Jensen’s claim constantly refer back to. These could be
transformer model. A CNN relies on the layers it depends on developers supporting Multi Frame anything from textures to lighting, facial
sees before it, which can result in ghosting Generation. If the game doesn’t support it, then expressions to animations.
(seeing the outline of a fast-moving item on the RTX 4090 is still going to be better. The RTX 50 series’ onboard AI means
screen follow behind it). A transformer model is textures can be compressed to save up to
similar to the LLMs powering ChatGPT and seven times of that previous video memory,
Google Gemini and, according to Nvidia, this while the Neural Materials feature works in
“enables self-attention operations to evaluate tandem to process materials up to five times
the relative importance of each pixel across the faster. Some key textures in the demo Nvidia
entire frame and over multiple frames”. In other showed me dropped from 47MB to 16MB.
words, this new version of DLSS can think a few That’s a huge reduction that also frees up the
steps ahead. The end result is far better frame memory needed for Mega Geometry.
rates and image quality. And this isn’t hype.
The Super Resolution and Ray Reconstruction OUTLOOK
transformer models give the tiniest of details Nvidia deserves all its headlines. Games of
a real sense of existence in-game worlds. On top today can render faster, look sharper and run
of that, the new transformer model is 40% LEFT Find out smoother. Games of the future could be packed
faster and uses 30% less video memory. There what Project with so much detail it would take you pressing
is a tiny amount of latency, but nothing DIGITS is your face on the screen to actually find the
compared to previous generations. DLSS 4 on p37 pixels. JASON ENGLAND

27
BEST LAPTOPS
With new silicon from AMD, Intel and Nvidia, CES 2025 saw an unprecedented number of
stylish and powerful new laptops. Here’s our roundup of the best debuts

ASUS ZENBOOK A14

PRICE From £999 AVAILABLE To be confirmed
Asus pitches the Zenbook A14 as the world’s lightest
Copilot+ PC, somewhat ambitiously describing it as “light
as air” in one claim. That’s for the 48Wh version, which
weighs 899g, but I’d opt for the 70Wh model as that
promises 32 hours of video playback per charge
(thankfully, this is the model that will be sold in the UK).
Powered by Snapdragon X chips, it packs a 14in OLED
panel and Wi-Fi 7, while Asus’ “Ceraluminum” material
combines the feel of ceramic with the lightness of
aluminium. In the flesh, it looks genuinely
lovely, too. Three final plus points: LENOVO THINKPAD X9
the keyboard is nice and PRICE & AVAILABILITY To be confirmed
crisp, the trackpad Prepare to be shocked: this new ThinkPad
is large, and you still series doesn’t include a TrackPoint. And –
benefit from USB-A gasp! – it’s finished in dark grey rather than
and HDMI, along with two trademark black. It’s all part of Lenovo’s
USB-C ports. TIM DANTON attempt to attract a younger breed of buyers
to its most famous business brand, and if you
think the picture above resembles a MacBook
HP ELITEBOOK X G1I 14in that’s one reason why. It also enables Lenovo to
PRICE From $1,999 AVAILABLE From February 2025 include a haptic touchpad, while a spokesperson
HP’s refreshed EliteBook range is rather tame compared told me that studies show more people prefer
to the HP ZBook Ultra G1a 14 opposite, but this sleek 1.4kg the X9’s scissor-style keys than the traditional
laptop will appeal to business buyers. HP is pushing its ThinkPad action (I’m not one of them).
AI features – it meets Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC criteria – The other big innovation is a discrete “hub”
and don’t dismiss them as I expect HP’s AI Companion on the chassis bottom with dual fans to keep
app to turn into a handy helper over the years. The 14in, the Core Ultra 200V vPro chips running at
120Hz, 2,560 x 1,600 touchscreen covers 100% of the their peak. This allows Lenovo to keep the rest
DCI-P3 and Adobe RGB gamuts, HP claims, of the chassis as thin as 6.7mm.
with Intel’s Core Ultra 200V The X9 will come in 14in and 15.3in versions,
chips inside. Also look with respective weights of 1.2kg and 1.45kg.
out for the “Ultra” Either way, your eyes will thank you for a 2,880
version, which will come x 1,800 resolution, OLED technology and
with a choice of Intel and 120Hz refresh rates. The final plus: a 5MP
Qualcomm chips and replaces the webcam with a two-micron sensor, well suited
Dragonfly series. TIM DANTON to video capture in low light. TIM DANTON

ASUS EXPERTBOOK B5
PRICE & AVAILABILITY To be confirmed
I’ve long been impressed by the build quality and value of Asus’
ExpertBook range. I don’t yet have a price, so can’t talk about the
latter when it comes to its new flagship business laptop, but the
sturdy all-aluminium chassis (I’m told it’s resilient to 1.2m drops
along with passing all the usual MIL-STD-810H tests) makes me
confident it will last for years of abuse.
Asus also talks a good game for sustainability, with a battery that
can be replaced without tools, while a unique QR code reveals each
laptop’s carbon footprint. Based around Intel’s Core Ultra 200V vPro
chips (see p33), and with a 63Wh battery, it will easily last a full day of
work, and there’s plenty here for IT directors, too: ExpertGuardian to
protect against cyber attacks, extra BIOS protection and Windows 11
Secured-core PC technologies to name but three.
Perhaps most importantly, end users will enjoy typing on the firm
keyboard and gazing at the 14in 144Hz OLED screen (an option, so
we’ll see if that hits the UK). Choose the Core 9 Ultra version with
64GB RAM and a 2TB SSD – there’s a second M.2 slot, too – and you
have one compelling system for even your most
demanding users. TIM DANTON

28
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO CES 2025

HP ZBOOK ULTRA G1A 14

PRICE To be confirmed AVAILABLE Spring 2025
Yes please. That was my simple reaction to seeing the ZBook Ultra G1a 14 in the flesh at CES,
because this self-proclaimed mobile workstation doesn’t weigh the typical 2-3kg of most yet
still packs the power required to tackle hefty tasks such as CAD. That’s all due to AMD’s all-new
Ryzen AI Max Pro processors (see p32), which support up to 128GB of unified memory, which
is a fancy way of saying that up to 96GB of RAM can be dedicated to the integrated AMD
Radeon graphics. HP also reckons the Ryzen AI technology can “redefine workflows”, but
that very much depends on software vendors taking advantage of the 50 TOPS NPU.
There isn’t space inside this slender chassis for discrete graphics, so some tasks will be
best left to bulkier workstations, but HP claims up to 14 hours of battery life depending on
usage and which screen you choose. These range from a Full HD IPS touchscreen panel to a
choice of two QHD OLED panels, and no doubt adding these will also bulk
up the price – a subject on which HP remains quiet.
With Wi-Fi 7, up to 4TB of storage and a decent
selection of ports (one USB-A, two Thunderbolt 4,
one USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 and HDMI 2.1) and a stylish dark
grey design, it’s hard not to be wowed by what HP has done
here. Especially when you consider it weighs 1.5kg. TIM DANTON

ACER ASPIRE VERO 16

PRICE From €1,199
AVAILABLE Q2 2025
It’s great to see Acer expanding
its sustainability-focused Vero
line, this time updating the
chassis of its 16in laptop to be
smoother and a shade more stylish
as a result. It features
Intel’s new Core
Ultra 200H Series
processors (see p33),
LENOVO YOGA SLIM 9I (14IN, GEN 10) and with up to 99 TOPS there’s
PRICE & AVAILABILITY To be confirmed plenty of local AI power. That sadly
If you love phones that include an all-round means the memory – up to 32GB – can’t
glass finish then take note of the new 1.2kg be replaced, but the SSD can, and overall this laptop has
Yoga Slim 9i, designed to catch the light like been designed for easy repair. There’s no getting away
jewellery. Lenovo assured me it won’t break, from the fact that the most sustainable laptop is the one
unless you count onlookers’ hearts. It also you already own, but if you’re looking to invest in a
features a 32MP camera mounted behind the “green” laptop that will last for years then this is a top
screen, which means that when you’re on choice. TIM DANTON
video calls you won’t have that faraway gaze.
Everything else is typical of Lenovo’s top-end
consumer laptops, including 1.5mm key travel, LENOVO THINKBOOK PLUS GEN 6 ROLLING LAPTOP
a 4K 120Hz OLED panel and kick-arse speakers. PRICE From $3,500 AVAILABLE From June
It also ticks the Copilot+ PC box with Core Ignore the silly “Gen 6” suffix Lenovo’s saddled this laptop with – there’s
Ultra 200V chips. TIM DANTON never been anything quite like it before.
The ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 is the first laptop we’ve seen with a rollable
screen. Although even rollable isn’t quite the right word here,
SAMSUNG GALAXY BOOK5 PRO 5 more slideable, as the screen slithers under the keyboard when
PRICE & AVAILABILITY To be confirmed it’s not fully extended. Pressing the button or performing the
Samsung announced the global release of its Book5 gesture that extends the screen sees it shoot upwards from a
Pro and Book5 Pro 360 at CES 2025, so I visited its 14in to a 16.7in diagonal. And though that doesn’t sound like an
stand to take a look. And, well, it’s fine. Sleek, silver awful lot of extra screen space, it boosts the resolution from
and sexy, like all previous Galaxy Books. The key 2,000 x 1,600 to 2,000 x 2,350, which is getting on for 50%
upgrade is the switch to Intel’s Core Ultra 200V more display on which to work.
Series chips, which should solve one of my biggest That extended tall screen certainly looks odd, and the
criticisms of predecessors – their battery life. noise the motor makes as it’s rolling the screen upwards
Samsung’s 25-hour claims for will catch people’s attention, too. However, there’s no
the 16in Pro are perhaps a doubt that portrait format could be beneficial for
tad ambitious, bearing in work on documents, coding or even basic web
mind this is a high-resolution surfing. Whether it’s worth the extra weight (1.7kg is
AMOLED panel, so I’ll a good 300-400g more than a regular 14in laptop)
be interested to put the or $3,500 asking price is more questionable,
laptops through their paces however, not least given how cheap portable
if and when Samsung screens are becoming.
sends me review BARRY COLLINS
samples later
this year.
TIM DANTON

29
 RAZER BLADE 16
PRICE To be confirmed AVAILABLE Q1 2025
The days of gaming laptops that are thicker than the Yellow Pages (teenagers, ask your
parents) are numbered. The new Blade 16 is almost physically identical to a 16in
MacBook Pro, so slender that it’s hard to fathom that Nvidia’s top-of-the-range RTX
5090 GPU is tucked somewhere inside this thing.
The Blade 16 is the very opposite of a gaudy gaming laptop. It’s demure black metal
casing wouldn’t look out of place on an office desk, which is handy for professionals
who require the graphics grunt. How well that slender casing copes with cooling will
have to wait for the review, however, as the graphics chip alone can demand 155W.
The QHD+ OLED display is a stunner, with a 240Hz refresh rate and a response time
of 0.2ms. Its factory-calibrated colour profiles for Adobe RGB, DCI-P3 and Rec. 709
are more good news for those thinking of excuses to buy this beyond gaming.
Intel’s been thrown overboard for this 2025 model, with up to an AMD Ryzen AI 9
HX 370 inside, along with up to 64GB of non-replaceable 8,000MHz LPDDR5X
RAM. It will come in various configurations, none of which will please the
Money Saving Expert. BARRY COLLINS

MSI STEALTH 18 HX AI
PRICE To be confirmed
AVAILABLE Spring 2025
We could have included countless gaming
laptops released at CES 2025 (Acer, Asus, Dell
and Lenovo all released multiple models), but
I single out the MSI Stealth 18 HX AI due to its
focus on creators as much as gamers. Nvidia’s
latest GPU arguably offers as much of an
upgrade for video editors and designers as it
does for gamers, and the Stealth 18 HX AI
supports the top-end RTX 5090. You also
benefit from an 18in mini-LED display in a
2.9kg frame –
lightweight
considering what’s
within, which
includes your
ACER SWIFT GO 14/16 AI choice of the new
Go 14: PRICE From €1,249 AVAILABLE Q2 2025 AMD Ryzen AI Max
Go 16: PRICE From €1,299 AVAILABLE Q2 2025 or Core Ultra
Following the hot trend for laptops at CES, the Go 14 and Go 16 both include punchy OLED panels. They will 200HX CPUs .
come in a variety of resolutions, but from what I saw at the Acer stand you can expect excellent colours and Cracking speakers
rich blacks. No shock there. Nor is there in the sleek chassis, with the 16in version weighing 1.5kg with a complete the
promise of up to 22 hours’ battery life and the 14in Go dropping to 1.3kg but upping life expectancy to 27 package.
hours. This makes the smaller version more attractive, especially as both pack Intel’s Core Ultra 200H TIM DANTON
Series chips, Wi-Fi 7, two Thunderbolt 4 ports and a promising-sounding 1440p webcam. TIM DANTON

DELL’S NEW STRATEGY AND LAPTOPS

F
arewell old friends. I refer, of course, to RIGHT Dell’s Pro Premium range initiative), while the tandem OLED
Dell’s XPS, Inspiron, Latitude and Precision replaces its high-end Latitude available on the 14in model is, to
brands, which have been sacrificed on the quote Dell’s Sam Burd, “nearly 25%
Apple-esque altar of simplicity. Now you have Aggravatingly, Dell wasn’t at more power efficient, 12% thinner
to pick between Dell, Dell Pro and Dell Pro CES, so I couldn’t get my hands on and almost 50% lighter than a
Max ranges, each with the choice of Base, the nine models it announced. traditional OLED”.
Plus and Premium options. So perhaps not Dell’s first UK releases are all Dell says it will release the full
quite Apple-esque simplicity. from the Pro range, with the range of new laptops over the
So, what does it actually mean? Plain Dell, Dell Pro 13 Premium starting at coming months, so I look
equivalent to ye olde Inspiron, is for value £1,530 exc VAT, the Dell Pro 14 Plus £1,192, the Dell forward to getting them in for review.
buyers. Unless you choose Dell Premium, which Pro 14 Premium at £1,514 and the Dell Pro 16 Plus Now that Dell has committed to this new
is basically the XPS range. Dell Pro is basically a a snip at £1,192. It’s no coincidence that all four branding strategy – which extends across all its
rebadged Latitude range, so you get more use Intel’s new Core Ultra 200V Series with vPro hardware, including monitors – I can’t see it
manageability features for business (see p33). They all meet Microsoft’s backing down. Personally, though, I find it odd to
rollouts. And Dell Pro Max is the new Copilot+ PC criteria, too. abandon the years of equity and trust that Dell
name for workstation-class products, Of all the new laptops, the Pro has built up via its XPS branding in particular,
previously known as Dell Precision. Premium models look the most even accepting the argument that this new
interesting. These include modular structure makes it easier for people unfamiliar
RIGHT The new Dell 14 Plus, ports for easier repair (inspired, Dell with Dell’s historic products to pick what’s right
formerly Inspiron Plus says, by its Project Luna environmental for them. TIM DANTON

30
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO CES 2025

BEST MINI PCs

GEEKOM QS1 PRO
PRICE & AVAILABILITY To be confirmed
It should be no surprise that a mini PC specialist is
among the first to sell a system based around ACER REVO BOX AI
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon platform, in this case the PRICE From €899 AVAILABLE Q2 2025
12-core X1E-80-100. All the usual caveats apply If you needed any more indication that mini PCs are the hottest
about performance – blistering in multitasking, not of hot potatoes, welcome to the Revo Box AI. Acer has sold
so great at 3D acceleration – but with a 45 TOPS compact PCs in the UK before, for business use, but this is its first
NPU for local AI tasks I’d be happy with this as my mainstream offering to match the likes of Geekom and Minisforum. It measures 0.75 litres, weighs
main system. It resembles the Geekom A6, but note around 500g and includes a Core Ultra 200V processor, so meets the Copilot+ PC spec. You can add
the four microphone slots and that there’s space for up to 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, while the dual 2.5GbE ports add welcome flexibility. And unlike
two M.2 SSDs. It also comes with Windows 11 Pro, a most mini PCs, Acer is also including a wireless keyboard and mouse in the package. TIM DANTON
three-year warranty and dual 2.5GbE ports. All we
need now is a price and on-sale date. TIM DANTON

HP Z2 MINI G1A
PRICE To be confirmed AVAILABLE Spring 2025 a cracking mini PC. Based around AMD’s Ryzen AI 9
While I love the HP ZBook Ultra G1a 14 (see p29), if LENOVO THINKCENTRE NEO 50Q HX 370 CPU, part of the new Ryzen 300 Series (see
you’re after even more power you should turn to its PRICE From $849 AVAILABLE February 2025 p32), it includes an NPU rated at 50 TOPS, supports
mini PC sibling, the glorious HP Z2 Mini G1a. The “a” Lenovo is the first big-name manufacturer to create up to 96GB of memory, and you can add up to 12TB of
stands for AMD, as it includes the Ryzen AI Max Pro. a mini PC based around the new Snapdragon X chip storage via three M.2 slots. And an OCuLink port sits
That means up to 16 cores and 32 threads for smooth (see p32), and interestingly it’s targeting businesses ready for an external GPU should AMD’s Radeon
running, and if you specify its maximum 128GB of with this 1.2-litre box. There’s room for two M.2 SSDs 890M graphics prove too weak for you. We await
RAM then 96GB can be inside, while numerous office-friendly ports sit at further details such as price or a release date, but
dedicated to graphics. the rear: DisplayPort, HDMI, four USB-A and a head to tinyurl.com/366minis for a $50 “launch
Other neat tricks gigabit Ethernet port. A further USB-A port sits day special” coupon. TIM DANTON
include an integrated alongside a USB-C connector at the front (plus a
PSU – much neater 3.5mm combo jack). In the flesh it’s not what I’d call
than an external block a looker, but its sleek dimensions mean it should fit MSI CUBI NUC AI+ 2M
– and two “Flex IO” into most spaces – or behind a monitor. TIM DANTON PRICE & AVAILABILITY To be confirmed
ports, along with all the It may not look like a business PC, but that’s the
connectivity you’d hope target MSI has in mind with its Cubi NUC mini PCs
for. For demanding MINISFORUM A1 X1 PRO MINI PC (so far, at least), with the NUC AI+ 2M offering much
users, perhaps PRICE & AVAILABILITY To be confirmed to entice IT teams looking to simplify their setups.
wanting to run local I’m very much hoping that I can persuade This 0.83-litre system is VESA mountable, includes
LLMs, it’s a great Minisforum to send the A1 X1 Pro in for review Intel’s Core Ultra 200V chips (up to the 258V), and at
choice. TIM DANTON when it eventually lands, as on paper it looks like the rear you’ll find a pair of 2.5GbE ports along with
two Thunderbolt 4 ports. One of these supports
power delivery up to 100W, and if you buy an MSI
GEEKOM A6 monitor you can even switch the Cubi on via its
PRICE £599 AVAILABLE Now power switch. There’s also a built-in mic and
When I met with Geekom representatives at speaker to make video calls simpler. TIM DANTON
CES, they had one thing on their mind: the A6.
Designed to offer great value from the off, its
list price of £599 (discounted to £499 at the
time of writing) buys you a powerful Ryzen 7
6800H CPU, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, a 1TB SSD and
Windows 11 Pro. The 6800H is a couple of years old now,
so doesn’t include Ryzen AI, but with eight performance
cores and 16 threads it will easily cope with everyday
demands for years to come. With a three-year warranty
and Geekom’s usual sturdy magnesium alloy chassis,
this is a mini PC for bargain hunters. TIM DANTON

31
BEST CPUs
Both AMD and Intel revealed a host of new processors at CES, with Qualcomm not to be left
behind with its Snapdragon X chips

AMD RYZEN AI MAX/MAX PRO

PRICE Not applicable AVAILABLE Q1-Q2 2025
AMD has created a monster with
its “Strix Halo” Ryzen AI Max series
of laptop processors. Designed for
thin-and-light gaming and AI
workstation laptops, and featuring
what AMD bills as the fastest
integrated graphics in the
Windows ecosystem, the flagship
Ryzen AI Max+ 395 features 16
AMD RYZEN 200 AND AI 300 CPU cores, 32 threads and 40 RDNA 3.5 graphics
PRICE Not applicable AVAILABLE Q1-Q2 2025 cores, with support for up to 128GB of shared
Alongside its powerful Ryzen AI Max and 9000H/HX memory. AMD claims this architecture allows
CPUs, AMD launched two mainstream mobile CPUs for up to 1.4 times faster gaming performance
at CES: the Ryzen 200 and AI 300 Series. than Intel’s flagship Core Ultra 9 288V and up to
The budget 200 series is an update to the Ryzen 84% faster rendering performance than the 120W. The AI Max 390 includes 12 CPU cores and
8040 series. It lacks the AI moniker as – at best – it Apple MacBook M4 Pro. Additionally, says AMD, 40 graphics cores, the 385 packs 12 CPU and 32
includes an NPU rated at 16 TOPS. These chips are the AI Max+ 395 delivers up to 2.2 times more graphics cores, while the AI Max 380 Pro
based on AMD’s Zen 4 architecture, using a mix of performance in AI workloads than the Nvidia includes six CPU cores and 16 graphics cores.
Zen 4 and Zen 4c (so more efficient) cores. The RTX 4090 GPU, all with an 87% lower TDP. The “Pro” indicates that it supports AMD’s Ryzen
Ryzen 3 210 sits at the bottom with four cores, eight The series includes four SKUs, all featuring a Pro technologies, described opposite. Now we
threads and no NPU, while the Ryzen 9 270 tops the 55W base TDP that’s configurable from 45W to must hope AMD delivers. PAUL ALCORN
list with eight cores, 16 threads and the NPU.
The Ryzen AI 300 series is more interesting,
based on Zen 5 architecture (using a mix of Zen 5 INTEL CORE ULTRA 200S Intel’s LGA 1700 boards, while others are
and Zen 5c cores) and wielding a 50 TOPS NPU to PRICE Not applicable “Arrow Lake-S”, which need the newer
meet the Copilot+ PC threshold. AMD reckons the AVAILABLE Now LGA1851 socket and an 800-series
Ryzen AI 7 360 offers the fastest multitasking in its Is it just me, or is it getting harder to chipset. The new chips are designed to
class, being 30% than the Qualcomm X Plus understand Intel’s naming strategy? be more affordable than their “K”
X1P-42-100 and 54% faster than Intel’s Core Ultra 7 Buried among its announcements at counterparts, while still delivering the
258V in Cinebench R24. The Ryzen AI 7 350 (eight CES was an extension to its Core Ultra high levels of performance that
cores, 16 threads) and Ryzen AI 5 350 (six cores, 12 200S Series desktop chips, all of which demanding users would expect –
threads) will be available in Q1. are non-K models (so they can’t be including AI workloads. Just note that
Most of the Ryzen 200 and Ryzen AI 300 series overclocked). For example, there’s the Core Ultra 9 the NPUs aren’t powerful enough to meet Copilot+
will also be made available in Pro versions, which 285 rather than the Ultra 9 285K. Muddying the PC requirements. The Arrow Lake-S chips are
hints at the growing importance of commercial waters is that some of the new chips are “Bartlett already available, with the Bartlett Lake-S variants
laptops in AMD’s strategy. HASSAM NASIR Lake-S”, which are backwards-compatible with due to follow later this year. TIM DANTON

QUALCOMM SNAPDRAGON X
PRICE Not applicable AVAILABLE Now
When I dropped in to see Qualcomm at CES, it was keen to point out
that every single one of its Snapdragon X processors includes the
same NPU. So, as a buyer, you know that you can take advantage of its
AI abilities, whether that’s mixing music or accelerating previously
tough workloads such as background removal in photos (and they
were impressive demos). This is in contrast to AMD and Intel, where
you have to be very careful when selecting which chip you buy as many
– including the new arrivals at CES – include NPUs that don’t meet
Microsoft’s 40 TOPS criterion for Copilot+ PCs.
Naturally, Qualcomm’s all-new Snapdragon X platform does, with
the same 45 TOPS. Although calling it a platform right now feels over
the top, as it consists of a single chip, the X1-26-100. This includes eight
cores running at a peak of 3GHz, with a 30MB cache and an Adreno
GPU rated at 1.7 TFLOPS. That compares to 12 cores, 4GHz, 42MB and
4.6 TFLOPS for its popular X1E-80-100 Elite chip, which reflects the
fact that Qualcomm is targeting budget buyers who want Copilot+ PCs
with its new chip. And not just laptops, with a handful of mini PCs (see
p31) also featuring the X1-26-100. TIM DANTON

32
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO CES 2025

INTEL CORE ULTRA 200H, 200HX AND 200U

PRICE Not applicable AVAILABLE Now
Intel announced its latest series of mobile processors at CES 2025, with the Ultra
200HX family targeting enthusiasts, Ultra 200H aimed at premium users
and Ultra 200U meant for thin and light laptops. Unlike the 200V family,
which use Lunar Lake architecture, the new chips are built off the same
Arrow Lake architecture used in the current Core Ultra 200S desktop CPUs.
Arrow Lake for desktop was rather underwhelming for gamers, but it makes
sense for laptops due to its relative power efficiency, especially for everyday and
professional workloads. The 200HX series covers six CPUs, from the 14-core (six P-cores,
eight E-cores) Core Ultra 5 235HX to the 24-core (8P/16E) Core Ultra 9 285HX. The 200H series is a
step down, ranging from the 12-core (4P/8E) Ultra 5 225H to the 14-core (6P/8E) Ultra 9 258H. The 200U
series focuses on efficiency, with two P-cores and eight E-cores throughout the range.
Only the Core Ultra 200H series has Intel’s top-end Arc graphics, with the HX and U series including the basic
Intel Graphics GPU. This makes sense, as the 200HX series will likely be paired with a discrete GPU, leaving the
integrated GPU for basic Windows use to save power. A number of new laptops include the H and HX series chips,
but the 200U is likely to be found in cheaper machines – it’s no match for the 200V series. JOHN LOEFFLER

AMD RYZEN PRO AMD RYZEN 9000HX AMD RYZEN Z2

PRICE Not applicable AVAILABLE Now PRICE Not applicable AVAILABLE H1 2025 PRICE Not applicable AVAILABLE Q1 2025
One of Intel’s “For the ultimate mobile gaming experience, new AMD’s Ryzen Z2
biggest strongholds AMD Ryzen 9000HX Series processors deliver the series is helping to
against AMD and most incredible performance a gaming laptop has usher in the second
Qualcomm is on ever seen.” So gushed AMD’s press release generation of PC
commercial PCs, in announcing its new graphics and gaming products gaming handhelds
part because of its at CES, and you can see why it’s so bullish when you in 2025 (see p34),
long history in the realise that its top release includes the V-Cache with the promise
sector but also due memory technology that many games love. of a step up in
to the adoption of There are three chips in the range, but it’s only performance and
vPro – although the Ryzen 9 9955HX3D that includes this extra efficiency compared
AMD’s general manager of its client business unit, cache, bringing its total to 144MB. It also packs a to the Z1 series.
Rahul Tikoo, told me at CES that he reckons only handy 16 cores (32 threads), with a boost The Ryzen Z2 chips come in three tiers: Z2
5-10% of businesses actually activate the vPro frequency of up to 5.4GHz. The Ryzen 9 9955HX Extreme, plain Z2 and Z2 Go. The Z2 Extreme
technology they’ve invested in. has the same specs but only 80MB of cache, while features eight cores and 16 threads, a 5GHz boost
AMD launched its own out-of-band management the Ryzen 9 9850HX includes 12 cores, 24 threads, clock, 24MB cache, 16 RDNA 3.5 GPU cores and a
system, Ryzen Pro, back in 2017, but it gained fresh 76MB cache and 15W-35W power envelope. The Z2 also features
momentum this year with almost all of its new boosts up 5.2GHz. eight cores and 16 threads, but with a slightly higher
mobile chips being launched with Ryzen Pro Both will be 5.1GHz boost clock, the same 24MB cache, but 12
variants. “Intel has put a great marketing machinery great candidates RDNA 3.5 GPU cores rather than 16, and a smaller
around vPro and how important vPro is, but the for creator 15W-30W power envelope. The all-new Ryzen Z2 Go
reality is that Ryzen Pro does that and more,” Tikoo laptops, too. (there’s no equivalent in the Ryzen Z1 series) packs
said during our interview. “And companies can do The 9000HX four cores and eight threads, a 4.3GHz boost clock
exactly what they want to do in manageability or range is based on and 10MB cache, but the same 12 GPU cores and
security or deployment of their products [with Zen 5 cores, with a 15W-30W power envelope as the Ryzen Z2. There’s
AMD] they can do with the other side.” It’s surely no dual chiplet design, no hard release date as that depends on the
coincidence that Dell’s new fleet of commercial but there’s no NPU. handhelds, as detailed overleaf. JOHN LOEFFLER
laptops support AMD for the first time. TIM DANTON TIM DANTON

AMD RYZEN 9 9900X3D AND 9950X3D

INTEL CORE ULTRA 200V WITH VPRO PRICE & AVAILABILITY To be confirmed
PRICE Not applicable AVAILABLE Now AMD is finally replacing the Ryzen 9 7950X3D and
Intel’s Core Ultra 200V (“Lunar Lake”) series was the Ryzen 9 7900X3D processors released in early
company’s biggest silicon hit of 2024, and it doubled 2023, while also offering a step up from the existing
down on the technology by announcing vPro versions of 8-core 9800X3D (see issue 364, p58). The
the processors at CES. You only need to read through 9900X3D features 12 cores, a 5.5GHz Boost clock
our list of best laptops to see how eagerly this move and a 140MB L3 cache on a 120W TDP, while the
has been embraced by commercial laptop makers, 9950X3D packs 16 cores, a 5.7GHz Boost clock and a
and little wonder as the 200V series provides massive 144MB L3 cache on a meatier 170W TDP.
Qualcomm-rivalling battery life coupled with great Unlike the 9800X3D, the new chips
performance – except in multitasking benchmarks. aren’t strictly designed for
They meet Microsoft’s 40 TOPS criterion for gamers. The 9950X3D,
Copilot+ PCs, too. Intel also announced that it was especially, is being pushed
making it far simpler for businesses (of all sizes) as a creative processor on
to roll out vPro technologies (see tinyurl. a par with the Core Ultra 9
com/366intelvpro). Which makes sense, as 285K and Core i9-14900K.
vPro makes it possible to manage PCs and Whether the new chips
laptops remotely, which would have been strike the right balance
a great help during the CrowdStrike fiasco remains to be seen, but
last year. TIM DANTON AMD is making promising
claims. JOHN LOEFFLER

33
 CES 2025 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO

BEST HANDHELDS

NVIDIA GEFORCE NOW ON STEAM DECK LENOVO LEGION GO S

PRICE Free AVAILABLE Soon PRICE SteamOS from £500, Windows 11 from If your interests are purely gaming, there’s
If you own a Steam Deck, you probably already know £600 AVAILABLE SteamOS May 2025, little reason not to go for the SteamOS version.
you can apply a workaround to get GeForce Now on Windows 11 now The selection of games isn’t as broad, but most
the handheld. Soon there will be no need for this The Lenovo Legion Go S is the first of what’s titles are compatible, and in our experience the
fiddly hack, as official support is on its way. expected to be several third-party devices to lightweight, handheld-oriented OS is better for
Perhaps the biggest benefit won’t be felt by those license SteamOS, the Linux-based operating mobile devices than full-blown Windows. Its
who primarily use the device for handheld gaming, system Valve uses on its enormously popular colour scheme is nicer too, in dark purple
but by those docking their Steam Deck with a Steam Deck handhelds. compared to the pure white Windows version.
full-blown display: you’ll now be able to stream 4K at There’s a Windows 11 version too, which The Go S has an 8in LCD display (sadly, not
up to 60 frames per second using the Deck, feels a bit like a sop to keep Microsoft sweet, OLED) with a 1,920 x 1,200 resolution. It comes
provided you’ve got one of the punchily priced although Lenovo appears to be making a with up to an AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor
Ultimate tier accounts. The benefits will presumably pointed remark with its pricing. The base and Radeon 700M series graphics, and up to
extend to the SteamOS version of the Lenovo Legion SteamOS version will be $100 cheaper than its 32GB of RAM. If you can’t wait to get your hands
Go (see right) and future SteamOS devices, too. Windows 11 equivalent, because the Windows on one, there’s a £650 Windows version on sale
BARRY COLLINS version requires a bigger battery. now, with a Ryzen Z2 Go. BARRY COLLINS

RAZER KISHI + PC REMOTE PLAY

PRICE Free beta AVAILABLE Now
Razer’s Kishi controllers do a very presentable job of turning your smartphone into a gaming
device, particularly if you use streaming services such as GeForce Now or Xbox streaming.
Now Razer has hit on the idea of reviving in-home streaming, with the release of free
software that lets you stream games from PC to phone across your home network, or even
the open internet if you’re brave enough.
Razer is positioning this software as an accompaniment to its latest controller, the Kishi
Ultra, although it works with any Kishi or indeed any controller/phone combo. The company
claims it’s made it easier to launch games than rival apps, and that it auto-matches the
phone’s resolution on the PC, avoiding ugly black bars on the phone screen. BARRY COLLINS

ACER NITRO BLAZE 11

PRICE €1,199 AVAILABLE Q2 2025
It’s hard to describe just how massive the Acer Nitro Blaze 11 feels
in the hand – it’s not dissimilar to holding a dinner tray, albeit a
very expensive one with cracking graphics.
Well, we say cracking graphics. The spoilsports on Acer’s
CES stand didn’t actually let us play games on the pre-
production model that was on display at the show in case
we wrote disparaging things about it, but the spec suggests
this Windows-based handheld should deliver a decent
wallop of gaming power. Its AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS
processor, coupled with Radeon 780M graphics, shouldn’t
disappoint. It will come with up to 2TB of storage, although
the 16GB of RAM is a touch on the tight side.
The controllers on each side of the display are
detachable, but given how much room there is to play with on
them, it’s disappointing that Acer didn’t see fit to include a touchpad
for navigating the OS as well as gaming. Windows 11 has never been
a pleasure to navigate with touch alone, even bearing in mind
Microsoft’s promise to redevelop the UI for gaming handhelds.
That extra screen space will certainly make it more pleasurable
to play games with a cramped UI that are a struggle on regular
handhelds, although Acer has an 8.8in version (€999) as well if you
find the digital dinner tray too cumbersome. BARRY COLLINS

34
BEST DISPLAYS
displaying works
of art. The Frame
Pro ups the ante
by introducing
Mini LED
technology to the
range, giving the device stronger
picture quality all round. HP OMEN 32X
Samsung has worked hard on the aesthetics PRICE $749
by making the controller box wireless, meaning AVAILABLE April
you only need worry about keeping the power The HP Omen 32x isn’t just a gaming monitor
LG ULTRAGEAR OLED 45GX990A cord out of sight now. That controller box can as it packs Google TV. When you’re not
PRICE & AVAILABILITY To be confirmed be placed up to 10m away, Samsung claims, even playing games, you can fire up Google TV
The display industry can’t make its mind up whether with obstacles in its path. and unwind with a selection of TV shows.
curved or flat screens are in fashion, so why should The Frame Pro certainly looked punchy on No matter what’s on the screen, everything
you? The LG UltraGear OLED 45GX990A offers Samsung’s CES mega-stand; we’d expect the looks gorgeous thanks to the sharp 4K
both: at the press of a button on its remote control it price to be equally eye-popping when it’s finally resolution and smooth 144Hz refresh rate.
goes from flat to a 900R curved screen. launched. BARRY COLLINS It can even stream directly from four
It isn’t short of resolution, with 5,120 x 2,160 platforms, such as YouTube, if you want to
pixels spread across the 45in OLED panel. The LG show off your gameplay to others. You can
Dual-Mode technology means it can switch POCKETBOOK INKPOSTER do Android casting right from your phone,
between native 21:9 and 16:9 aspect ratios, with PRICE From $600 AVAILABLE To be confirmed and deploy DeX Mode to get some work done.
picture sizes of 27in, 34in or 39in. If the idea of leaving a TV on to display wall art, like At $749, it’s a relatively affordable gaming
It supports DisplayPort 2.1, HDMI 2.1 and USB-C Samsung’s The Frame, leaves you fearing for the monitor that can serve multiple purposes.
with 90W power delivery, and is certified for Nvidia polar bears (and so it should), the PocketBook BARRY COLLINS
G-Sync and AMD FreeSync to keep everything InkPoster is a much more palatable alternative.
looking smooth. A non-bendy version is launching It needs to be charged only once
at $1,999, so expect this to cruise past the $2,000 a year, because this E Ink display – prints, with the obvious
mark when it arrives later this year. BARRY COLLINS available in three sizes – displays art advantage that the art can be
using the same sort of technology refreshed. The 13.3in version
as your Kindle, needing no power to will cost around $600, it’s $1,750
SAMSUNG THE FRAME PRO retain its image, only to refresh. for the 31.5in model and $2,400
PRICE & AVAILABILITY To be confirmed The colours and resolution of the for the 28.5in version, which has
Samsung’s The Frame concept is to give your TV a images looked awesome on the CES a different screen technology
purpose in life beyond Netflix and the like, namely by showfloor, as good as high-quality from Sharp. BARRY COLLINS

BEST ALL-IN-ONE PCs

HP OMNISTUDIO X NEXT-GEN AI PC ACER ASPIRE S AI

PRICE From £1,399 AVAILABLE Now PRICE From €1,299 AVAILABLE Q2 2025
What’s most striking about the OmniStudio X is that it actually looks like a Acer launched two all-in-one PC ranges at CES: the C series, with a fixed stand,
monitor rather than an all-in-one. Indeed, it can act as a monitor if you connect and the S series, shown here, which is finished in white and is a shade more
a laptop or PC. But its real skill is as an AI PC, based as it is around Intel’s Core expensive. Both are available in 24in and 27in variants and both meet Copilot+
Ultra 200V processors, with support for up to 32GB of RAM and 2TB of storage. PC requirements, with the S series using Intel’s Core 200V chips and the C
I was a little saddened to see that HP had abandoned the movable camera of its series relying on AMD’s new Ryzen AI 300 chips. What marks the S series out
previous high-end all-in-one PC, but at this price – from £1,399 for the 27in is its touchscreen, along with support for Wi-Fi 7. HP wins the award for its
version, £1,599 for 32in – I’m willing to concede the point. TIM DANTON greater versatility and (in my view) style, but it’s a close-run battle. TIM DANTON

36
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO CES 2025

BEST ROBOTS
We think humanoid robots will be huge (well, about 5ft 8in) in 2025, but what we saw at CES
2025 was a mix of the fluffy, fearsome and worrying

ADAM Samsung representatives and then interacts with them by blinking its googly
PRICE Price varies announced during a press eyes and rotating its head. The somewhat less
AVAILABLE conference at CES. Responding fluffy-sounding Yukai Engineering (ux-xu.com) said
Available to rent to “Hey, Ballie”, the robot comes Murumi will be made available via a crowdfunding
in the US now with plenty of sensors, a projector site (probably Kickstarter) in the middle of 2025.
The robotic and AI designed to help you complete daily tasks, KEUMARS AFIFI-SABET
bartender ADAM such as giving you directions. It also has a 2K
uses AI to mix the perfect camera on its rear and a 4K camera on the front.
drink, say scientists at Richtech KEUMARS AFIFI-SABET SENSEROBOT CHESS
Robotics (richtechrobotics.com). PRICE $999 (pre-order) AVAILABLE Due to ship
It can be configured to make hot September 2025
drinks like coffee and bubble tea, too, with HAGAMOSPHERE This AI-powered game-playing robot can help you
an extensive library of drinks stored in its PRICE & master chess, with a 2-in-1 (chess and draughts)
software. It also interacts with customers – AVAILABILITY version also available. Its maker, SenseRobot
according to company representatives – and Prototype only (senserobotchess.com), is using prelaunch.com
provides recommendations. You can even rent Sitting on the line to raise funds to mass-produce its mobile
ADAM… but right now, it’s only available in the USA. between drone and game-playing robots for kids or even as a training
KEUMARS AFIFI-SABET robot, the ominous- partner for professionals. The chess robot’s Apex
sounding (and looking) Duel mode puts users up against an opponent with
HAGAMOSphere packs eight propellers into a an Elo rating of up to 3,200, so higher than Magnus
REALBOTIX ARIA compact cubic frame and mounts them in a Carlsen (2,882) and Garry
PRICE $175,000 AVAILABLE Now spherical chassis. This means the drone not only Kasparov (2,851) at their
“Let’s get down to brass tacks,” I say to Realbotix’s flies horizontally and vertically in any direction, but respective peaks. You can
CEO, on the company’s tiny can also roll and rotate on the ground. Its Japanese pre-order for $999 now
CES stand. “Is this a sex doll?” creators (hagamosphere.com) hope to see it via tinyurl.com/​
“No,” Andrew Kiguel deployed in disaster-recovery scenarios in the 366chess.
replied, “but it can have, what future, including search and rescue due to its ability KEUMARS
I would say, conversations of to dart into small gaps. KEUMARS AFIFI-SABET AFIFI-SABET
a more intimate nature.”
The conversation I’d want
to have with Aria is: why do MI-MO
you cost so much? This PRICE $3,000 (mini),
$175,000 premium model, $30,000 (full-size)
the apparent epitome of the AVAILABLE Late 2025
company’s goal to “create robots that are Disney lawyers may be
indistinguishable from humans”, looks about as in touch with Japanese
lifelike as Nelson’s Column. Her limbs move like developer Jizai (jizai.ai) SWITCHBOT K20+ PRO
C-3PO having a stroke, her lips are badly out of sync after CES, with this PRICE To be confirmed
with her speech, she moves around on a massive Pixar-like lamp drawing AVAILABLE Late 2025
Roomba-like plinth. Even Captcha wouldn’t bother crowds for its sheer At first glance you could be forgiven for
asking Aria to prove she was human – she has less cuteness. Jizai doesn’t intend to sell this exact thinking this is just another robot
charm than a wheelie bin. Even calling Aria “she” is model, instead viewing itself as a hardware platform vacuum cleaner, but popping out from
an offence against pronouns. provider – it will release an SDK later this year and its centre are robot appendages that
Still, if you get sick of looking at “her”, you make Mi-Mo available for sale to developers. It’s enable it to do so much more. The
can rip her magnetic face off and replace it then up to third-party companies to create their SwitchBot K20+ Pro can perform
with another, maybe even one that looks like a own robots using its AI solution. Mi-Mo is there to multiple tasks in the home thanks to
celebrity or a historical figure. Don’t ask how give them hardware to play with right away, its robotic arm and finger grips, from
much that costs. Don’t ask anything further. Just whether that’s the full-size Mi-Mo on a multi-legged real-time
don’t. BARRY COLLINS table or the mini version. TIM DANTON monitoring to
cleaning up
rubbish and
BALLIE MIRUMI delivering meals to
PRICE To be confirmed AVAILABLE Q2 2025 PRICE Around $70 acting as a mobile
It’s hard to believe that Ballie – the concept AVAILABLE Mid-2025 humidifier. And it’s
AI-powered robot that resembles a Star Wars droid This adorable (or customisable through
– is already five years old. But the bright yellow, slightly unsettling) modules you can
rolling smart miniature robot clings design yourself.
home companion onto your bag and The strangest
is finally getting interacts with people release of CES?
released around you. Mirumi It’s up there.
commercially resembles a sloth and uses a built-in measurement KEUMARS
this year, unit and distance sensor to detect nearby people AFIFI-SABET

37
BEST OF THE REST
There’s never any shortage of weird and wonderful products on show at CES, with these simply
the highlights from the deeper recesses of the event’s many halls

NVIDIA PROJECT DIGITS

PRICE & AVAILABILITY To be confirmed
Want a supercomputer on your desk for building
AI engines? Nvidia has just the box: a small form
factor unit with the GB10 Grace Blackwell
Superchip inside. Along with 128GB of RAM,
DIGITS can build and run models with 200 billion
parameters. Once you’ve fine-tuned everything,
HDMI 2.2 the model can be deployed to the cloud or a data
PRICE Not applicable AVAILABLE Late 2025 centre for operational use. At around £3K, this
The HDMI specification body used CES to announce isn’t a toy, but it is a computing monster designed
HDMI 2.2, an upgrade on the current 2.1 version. As for specific uses – and for those developers, the
you would expect, it has lots of shiny new features – price will be immaterial. Availability is claimed
specifically around faster data rates and hence for later this year and I’m sure the queue is
higher resolutions and frame rates. already long. JON HONEYBALL
You can share the 96Gbits/sec of data
bandwidth between resolution and frame rate, so
although HDMI 2.2 supports panels at 16K Swippitt promises to end the ceaseless available, as it’s a hugely convenient pair
resolution, it can also do 4K at a 480Hz frame rate. charging nightmare with a toaster-like of wireless Lavalier microphones
There are new features in the specification for device that contains five batteries. with a range of up to 100 feet.
latency management, too, which will be handy. Pop your phone – wrapped in a Connect the USB-C adapter to
All of which sounds great, but sales of 8K TVs special Link case – into the toaster your phone, clip mics to your
are weak due to lack of content and high power (they call it a Hub), and two seconds presenters’ lapels, and it’s ready
consumption. It’s hard to see a broader need for later it pops back up with a fully to work. With five hours of
these new 2.2 capabilities, but doubtless vendors charged battery installed. The charge, and up to 20 hours via
will try to sell them to us. And there will be a wait. company will sell Links for iPhones, the box, it’s a bargain at an
The current version, HDMI 2.1, was announced back Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixels to expected $100. TIM DANTON
in 2017 but took years before it came to market in start with. It’s not cheap, but if it works as
shipping TVs and gaming consoles. The same will well as it did in the demo, it’s brilliantly
happen with 2.2: initial product announcements convenient. BARRY COLLINS
later this year at the highest end of TV products,
with more mainstream support coming in a few
years’ time. JON HONEYBALL Moana Wave T5
PRICE $100 AVAILABLE From
February
SWIPPITT I hadn’t heard of the brand Moana before
PRICE $450 + $125 for each stumbling across its stand in the Las
battery Link AVAILABLE June Vegas Convention Center South Hall, but
If your house is anything like mine, I’ll definitely be watching out for new
it will normally have a teenager products from this audio specialist (in fact,
dangling off the sofa, holding a we recorded the PC Pro podcast from the KEYCHRON K2 HE KEYBOARD
phone lashed to the wall, because show using one of its desktop mics). In PRICE From $140 AVAILABLE Now
it ran out of charge for the third particular, I’ve asked the company to send The black version of the Keychron K2 HE has real
time today. me the Wave T5 set when it becomes Atari vibes: black plastic with a walnut veneer on the
edges that gives it a retro charm.
The K2 HE uses the Gateron Double-Rail Magnetic
EVEN REALITIES GI AR GLASSES Switch, which allows you to customise the actuation
PRICE From £594 AVAILABLE Now point and even assign multiple actions to a single
Most smart glasses I tried at CES were dire. Even key based on travel depth (in other words, tap lightly
Realities shows promise, however, with a clever for one function, press harder for another).
optical waveguide to bring the text panel into the I had only the briefest of hands-on plays on the
centre of your field of view – much like the HUD in a Keychron stand, but it felt lovely under the fingers,
car. It has a useful window size and crisp text. And and the keyboard has the reassuring heft that
best of all, it’s shipping now. It tethers to an app on means even hammer-fisted typists won’t shift it.
your phone, which provides direction information (not when driving), BARRY COLLINS
AI-based translation, quick notes, reminders and a teleprompter mode.
Starting from just under £600, this is not a cheap plaything, but you can
order prescription lenses and varifocals. What I saw – mostly a text RAZER PROJECT ARIELLE
display projected into my line of sight – was head and shoulders above PRICE $1,000+ AVAILABLE Prototype only
the competition, but it will live and die by the app. JON HONEYBALL Face facts, gamers: you can get awfully sweaty
when trying to take down the teenagers in

38
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO CES 2025

TCL NXTPAPER 11 PLUS

PRICE & AVAILABILITY To be confirmed
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to
JONHONEYBALL’S
tell Android tablets apart from each
other, but buy the TCL Nxtpaper 11 Plus
and you’ll have no such problem. It uses
TCL’s new Nxtpaper 4.0 technology for
HOTTAKEONCES2025
A visit to CES is always worth the
rich colours when you want them, but time, effort and cost, because
press a button on the side and it transforms into an you’ll see an entire planet’s worth
E Ink-like black and white. You can choose a focus mode, too, to hide of IT thinking, dreaming and sheer
attention-sucking apps and quieten notifications. But this 11.5in tablet isn’t a one-trick desperation laid out in front of you
pony, with AI tools to help you write, plus Google’s Circle to Search – and the latter will

T
work with your finger or the optional T-Pen. I only had a limited time with the tablet on his year, the world was clearly, if slowly,
the CES showfloor, but it’s well made, sleek and extremely light. My only complaint is moving from the “AI with everything” we saw last year.
that TCL is keeping schtum on the specifications, price and release date, merely saying Then, AI felt like a slap-on marketing tag, but many firms
it will go on sale “this year”. TIM DANTON are making real progress in justifying the moniker.
The one big winner, of course, is Nvidia. A new range of
graphics cards promises multiplier levels of speed increases.
Counter-Strike. And we TP-LINK DECO BE65-OUTDOOR Although some accuse the company of “cheating” by using
do mean awfully. PRICE & AVAILABILITY To be confirmed inferred frames to bump up the frame rate, it’s hard to argue
Razer’s prototype What the world has surely when you see the demos.
chair is fitted with air been waiting for: Wi-Fi For me, though, Nvidia’s Project DIGITS was the high point
conditioning to combat 7 in your garden. of CES 2025. Although it isn’t yet a shipping item, it promises
this, blowing cold air Because this to bring true supercomputer levels of AI performance at a
around the seat when IP65-rated petaflop of speed to the desktop of any researcher or AI
you’re overheating or tri-band mesh fiddler, for a cost close to a serious desktop PC. This will allow
warm gusts if the home node can be added those who have the data sets and who want to build AI
office is a little chilly on a to any TP-Link mesh models, but don’t want to splurge on paying cloud services, to
February morning. Wi-Fi system to extend build these models on local hardware. And then, owing to the
It’s surprisingly your network by 3,000 strength of the Nvidia software and deployment platform, to
effective, too. Razer’s square feet. If your home is wired for roll these out at scale via cloud services if required. This is
crowded CES suite was hotter than the sun, Ethernet, you can power and add the Deco uncharted territory, but it will be fascinating to see how
crammed with high-end gaming gear and BE65-Outdoor to your network using a DIGITS is used. I predict a strong presence in healthcare
staff who looked like they’d lost a stone single cable. With a combined top speed of diagnostics, as one example.
demonstrating it. But when I was plonked in 11Gbits/sec, you can download or stream just Wearable screens were another big topic, although most
the chair with the cooling fans switched on, it about anything to any one of 200 connected that I saw fell towards the “truly miserable” end of the scale.
was a glorious moment of respite… before devices. ANTHONY SPADAFORA But a few were showing proper waveguide solutions that
they demonstrated the heaters and I wanted projected data into your line of vision, in a manner akin to a
to run out of the room and dive into The heads-up display in a car. Clearly there’s a huge amount of
Venetian’s fake canals. WITHINGS OMNIA work required to be done here to get a wearable AR product
It’s currently only a prototype, Razer PRICE & AVAILABILITY To be confirmed that is actually useful on a day-to-day basis, but many bright
insists, but it didn’t half look like a finished The Withings Omnia is an AI-powered mirror minds are working on it. By contrast, there were few
product. Don’t be surprised if it actually that gives you a full health assessment as well demonstrations of solutions based on the Apple Vision Pro,
launches this year. BARRY COLLINS as showing your reflection. Along with data but this wasn’t surprising because of the per-user guest
pulled in from other Withings gadgets, a base setup requirements. But quite a few companies had software
in the stand measures your weight, heart to share via Apple’s development platform code-sharing test
TARGET OMNI AUTO rate, blood pressure and metabolic health.
Withings says it will also be able to run ECG
environment, which I will follow up.
Healthcare, especially with lashings of AI overtones, was
SCORING SYSTEM scans and check for signs of atrial fibrillation. another big topic, although no-one has yet managed to create
PRICE £450 AVAILABLE Now You should be able to use the Omnia mirror the Holy Grail of blood sugar monitoring done optically
If Luke Littler’s heroics have you digging to get feedback on the quality of your sleep, through the skin. Samsung boldly talked about whole-person
your dartboard out of the garage, here’s workout recovery and VO2 max monitoring. health monitoring and AI-generated personal modelling, but
an add-on to bring darts screaming into The mirror will display stats on screen, and this was really just arm waving around existing tech and the
the 21st century. give relevant feedback via an AI assistant. newly announced partnership with Continuous Glucose
The Omni Auto Scoring System is a You might see a recommendation to book a Monitoring (CGM) manufacturer Libre. And it was interesting
plastic ring you mount around any check-up with the doctor, or to fit more active to see vendors in the CGM space such as Dexcom announcing
dartboard. It contains LED lights and four minutes into your day. In true AI chatbot over-the-counter non-prescription CGM devices, to allow
HD cameras that can detect where each fashion, you’ll be able to ask questions about those who might be health-conscious or pre-diabetic to get a
arrow has landed, even bounce-outs. That your health and get answers in return. For handle on their sugar processing.
integrates with an Android/Apple app that now, this is still in development, so there’s no Finally, I saw a big push towards making assistants look
allows you to keep news on a price or a launch date. DAVID NIELD and feel like another human, both in the cloud and locally
score of local generated. I’m not sure this will be the right direction, and the
games, play “humanification” might be a dead end. Much is being done on
against opponents seamless additional help that simply bolts on to your existing
online, and keep life – a tool that immediately and seamless converts between
track of your stats. speech between two different languages doesn’t need a
Note that the talking head to make it work well. But this requires a bolder
app costs extra and more interesting approach, and it will be interesting to
after a three- see who wins and loses when we return in a year’s time for
month trial. CES 2026.
BARRY COLLINS

39
Be more
productive
with Tame distractions and get things done:
Nik Rawlinson takes a close look at focus
features in Windows and other platforms

f cus sessions
I
t’s been said look at how focus sessions can help is the amount of time you intend to
that the you in daily life – and how you can spend working on a task without
obstacles in our take advantage of similar features interruption before taking a break, so
path aren’t what stop us when working on other platforms. while you might be tempted to set this
achieving great things; rather, to eight hours, that’s not realistic (or
it’s the easier paths we choose Setting up desirable). The lengths you set here
to follow instead. your sessions for your focus and rest periods will
Nowhere is this truer than Before you start focusing, you’ll apply across all of your Focus Sessions
when sitting at a computer. You want to set up some parameters. (unless you return to this screen and
could be getting on with writing your Unhelpfully, the relevant settings change them), and you can chain
novel, but half an hour clicking are split between the Clock app and together as many of them as you like
around the web is easier and more the wider system settings, so you’ll within your available working time.
beguiling. You could have finished need to visit both to fully tailor We’ve found the Pomodoro
filing your taxes – if you’d not been Windows to your requirements. technique works well when it comes
distracted by your email. You might Start by opening the Settings app to keeping ourselves on track: this
even have got ahead on an academic (press Windows+I), then type “focus” involves 25-minute work sessions
assignment, if you hadn’t spent the into the Search box and click on punctuated by
time compiling the perfect playlist. “Focus settings”. You’ll see four five-minute
Each of these paths is a distraction,
and while we’re sympathetic to
tickboxes that let you decide how
Windows will behave while in focus A focus period breaks, with a
longer break after
anyone who finds themselves mode, and we recommend you ensure four sessions.
continually distracted by an ever-
connected PC, there really is no
that they’re all ticked to minimise
distractions. The second, third and
is the time You can’t fully
replicate this in
excuse for such behaviour today – not
if you’re using Windows.
fourth are by far the most important
as they stop notifications from you intend Windows, but
you can set your
That’s because the latest versions drawing attention to themselves – focus period to
of Windows 10 and 11 include a
feature called Focus Sessions to help
which is otherwise precisely what
they’re designed to do.
to spend 25 minutes and
your break period
you shut out distractions. When a
focus session is active, alerts and
Now launch the Clock app and
click Settings in the sidebar to tweak working on a to five minutes,
and then remind
notifications are disabled, and the your focus session options. Start by yourself to take
computer tracks how long you’ve
been working so far and how long
clicking “Focus periods” and set how
long you’d like to focus and rest for.
task without a longer break
after two hours.
you still have to go, so you don’t need
to worry about burnout. Let’s take a
Be clear that a focus session isn’t the
same as a working day: a focus period interruption Alternatively,
there are plenty of

40
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Focus sessions

1 2

other tools you can use: we’ve built a you’re starting work at quarter past Use the jobs can only be performed in a
physical Pomodoro timer using a nine and lunch is at one o’clock, you
1 Settings app certain location, and others at a
Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller, can set a work time of 225 minutes. to suppress specified time, either because you’ll
which plugs into our PC’s USB port If you’ve set your focus sessions to be notifications while be in the right head space to tackle
for power, providing an always-on 25 minutes apiece and each break to you’re focusing them, or because someone with
reminder of our work cycle in the run for five minutes, Focus Sessions whom you need to collaborate will
corner of our eye. will give you seven work sessions for We built this also be available.
The remaining focus session a total of 175 minutes, with one
2 real-world To help with this, you can
settings are to do with sound. By further work session of 15 minutes, Pomodoro timer integrate the Microsoft To-Do app
default, Windows plays a chime at and seven five-minute rest sessions using a Raspberry with Focus Sessions, so the jobs you
the end of a focus or break period, between them. Pi Pico plan there appear in the Clock app.
but you can click the headers to try All this might seem fiddly, but Likewise, any jobs you add via the
out different sounds for each. You once you’ve set up the parameters for Focus Focus Sessions panel in Clock will be
can also choose to have Spotify play your Focus Sessions, Windows will
3 Sessions will synchronised to To-Do. As well as
non-intrusive background music remember them, and you can launch alert you at the living on your main PC, these tasks
during focus periods, by connecting one at any time with just a few clicks. start of each focus will appear in the To-Do app for
your Spotify account to the Clock Simply click the time on the Windows or rest period Android and iOS, so you’ll have them
app. This feature doesn’t work taskbar, then, when the calendar to hand wherever you happen to be.
with rival music streaming services, appears, click the Focus button in the Once a job appears on your list,
but it’s compatible with free Spotify bottom-right corner to start a new you can assign it to your current focus
accounts, so you don’t need to pay session using your existing settings. session by hovering over it and
to use it. clicking the “Select for this session”
Managing link. There’s one notable limitation
Running your your schedule here, though: you can only select one
first session Focus sessions can help you get task to focus on at a time, to keep you
Once you’re happy with your things done, but it’s also important on track, and if you complete a task
settings, click “Focus session” at the to have a clear idea of what you before the session is over, you can’t
top of the sidebar in the Clock app to want to achieve during each session. directly select another one – you’ll
return to the main session page, and For many people, a simple list can be need to pause the session, make your
use the “get ready to focus” dialogue a vital productivity tool, helping to selection, then resume.
to set the total length of time you manage task priorities and ensure
want to work – including breaks. The nothing gets missed. A good to-do Focusing on
app will work out for you how many list doesn’t only show the jobs you Apple devices
focus sessions and breaks you’ll have have to do, however, but gives them Windows isn’t the only operating
during that period: so, for example, if some context: for example, some system with built-in tools to help you

41
4 7

5 6

stay focused. Focus Mode was them in System Settings, then click Clock and on your list of approved contacts; if
introduced in macOS in 2021, the Focus profile you want to edit.
4 Microsoft you don’t like this idea, turn off the
bringing its own distraction-limiting In the image above, we’re editing To-Do can be used “Allow repeated calls” option in the
features to the Mac desktop. To enable the Do Not Disturb setting, to make it to synchronise Allowed People dialog.
it, click the Control Centre icon to the automatically activate according to a your jobs list To turn on Focus Mode on an Apple
left of the clock, followed by Focus. schedule (useful for blocking out mobile device, swipe down from the
By default you’ll see three focus regular meeting times), while making You’ll find clock to open Control Centre, then tap
options: driving, sleeping and Do exceptions for specific apps and
5 macOS’s focus Focus, followed by the focus profile
Not Disturb. You can configure each contacts that are allowed to interrupt settings in the you want to use. You may see a more
mode differently according to how the session. To do this, click Allowed Control Centre diverse range of profiles on offer here
far you want to lock down your People, then click the “+” button to than on your Mac, and two of them –
interruptions, and you can also add select which calls and messages will You can Personal and Work – won’t be fully
new focus profiles of your own. be allowed through. By default,
6 specify what’s set up at first. Tap either one and
It might seem strange that there’s anyone who calls you twice within allowed to happen you’ll be switched to the Focus area in
an option for driving; this appears three minutes will also be allowed to when Focus Mode the iOS or iPadOS Settings app to
because your status can be interrupt, even if they don’t appear is active customise it to your liking.
synchronised across all devices
logged into the same Apple ID. iOS has Staying focused
Selecting driving here before leaving Focus Mode 7 additional on Android
the office will also enable it on your Focus Mode Android supports a wide range of
iPhone, so you won’t be disturbed
while behind the wheel. was introduced profiles focus features, though different
manufacturers may implement them
When you’re sitting in front of in different ways. If you have a Google
your Mac you’ll normally want to use
the regular Do Not Disturb profile.
in 2021, Pixel 3 or later, turning over the
phone and placing it face-down on
You can turn this on for an hour or
until the next morning by selecting bringing its your desk instantly turns on Do Not
Disturb; you can also swipe down
the appropriate option from the from the top of the screen to find a
menu; alternatively, clicking the Do
Not Disturb header will leave it
distraction- quick-access Do Not Disturb button.
What you might not see, unless
turned on until you switch it off.
To customise what happens when limiting you’ve enabled it, is the Focus button
that’s part of Android’s digital
your Mac and other devices are in wellbeing tools. If this doesn’t
focus mode, click “Focus Settings...”
at the bottom of the menu to open
features to the appear on your phone, tap the
pencil to edit the buttons on

42 Mac desktop
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Focus sessions

8 9 10

11

the panel, then scroll through the list

and tap “Focus mode”. When it 8 You can add a
Focus mode
The mainstream Linux variants
don’t come with a full equivalent to
When you first activate Focus button to Android’s Focus Sessions, but you can use a
mode you’ll be prompted to specify
which apps you want to be silenced
comes to shortcuts third-party app such as Pomodoro for
Gnome (gnomepomodoro.org) to time
when the mode is activated. Tap
“Select distracting apps” to expand Linux there 9 Specify which
apps can’t
your work sessions. Its implementation
is a faithful translation of the original
the menu, then tap the tickbox beside notify you when in technique – it comes set up to run
any app you want to turn off while
you’re trying to focus.
are even more Focus mode for four 25-minute sessions with
three five-minute breaks, then an
You can then either select “Turn
on now” to enable Focus mode variables 10 You’ll find
extensive Do
extended break of 15 minutes before
the cycle repeats.
immediately, or set a schedule to block Not Disturb Bells chime at the start of each
out distractions at specified times.
You can tweak the list of blocked
than on settings on
Amazon’s Fire OS
session and you can optionally set it
to make a ticking sound. You might
apps whenever you choose, but once
it’s set up you won’t normally need to Android tablet devices imagine this would be a distraction,
but the original kitchen timer used to
adjust it. From now on, tapping the To turn off devise the Pomodoro technique
Focus mode button on the menu that
11 distractions in almost certainly ticked, and
appears when you pull down from the Ubuntu, click the anecdotally we’ve found that the
clock will apply the settings you’ve Staying focused on switch at the repetitive sound helps to keep us
already defined. Ubuntu bottom of the focused – as well as blocking out some
If your Android device doesn’t When it comes to Linux there are even notifications panel background noise. Perhaps the most
include digital health tools, you more variables than on Android, but important aspect of the timer is that it
may be able to customise its Do Not many distributions include some way can be set to suppress notifications,
Disturb mode. Amazon’s Kindle Fire to reduce or block distractions. much like Focus Sessions in Windows.
tablet, for example, offers extensive Ubuntu works with several window If you’re not using Gnome – or if
Do Not Disturb options in the Settings managers, but the default Gnome you just don’t want to install a
app’s Sound group. This allows you desktop has an easy-access do-not- dedicated timer application – you
to tweak not only your audible disturb mode that you can use for could also try a web-based timer,
alerts, but visual notifications, focusing. To find it, click the clock such as the one at focusplus.io.
exceptions for reminders or events, and you’ll see a switch at the bottom This can’t block notifications or
how long a session lasts, and of the notifications dialog. When this distractions, so you’ll need to partner
whether it should kick automatically is turned on, a struck-through bell it with some self-discipline, but it
on a preset schedule. icon appears beside the clock. can’t be beaten for convenience.

43
Video
formats
decoded
Want to know your QuickTime from your HEVC?
Darien Graham-Smith demystifies the popular
video-sharing formats and codecs

44
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Video formats

W hile capturing and editing

video is easier than ever,
the fighting file formats
are a pit of complexity. We’re asked
actually carry two types
of information: the
video itself and the
accompanying audio
The file formats we refer to as
to choose between AVI, MP4, H.264 content. Aside from the “video files” actually carry two
and so forth, but what’s the fact that these elements
difference between them?
Here’s everything you need to
are intended to be played
simultaneously, they’re
types of information: the video
itself and the audio content
know to produce the best videos for quite independent of
your needs, whether you’re looking each other, and are
for smaller files, fast transcodes or encoded and stored
the best possible quality. separately inside what’s
called a container file.
The big picture In fact, container files
The fundamental reason why all often contain more than
these different formats exist is that two data streams. For
each frame of video – in the form example, there might be
that we see on our screens – is huge. multiple selectable audio
A single frame of Full HD video streams for 5.1 or DTS
consists of 1,920 x 1,080 pixels, which playback, or even a
is to say just over two megapixels. If separate stream for
each pixel were represented by a embedded commentary.
single bit, the full frame would Metadata such as
represent over two megabits (that is, subtitles and chapter
250 kilobytes) of raw data. divisions can be stored in
And of course we don’t use one-bit the container file, too.
video, as that would mean each pixel Many different
would only be either black or white. container formats have
Most mainstream media uses a 24-bit been developed over the
colour palette, with eight bits years. Older ones include
representing each of the red, green Audio Video Interleave
and blue components for a palette of (AVI), Matroska video (MKV), ABOVE As detail applications will support at least one
16,777,216 colour tones. This allows WebM (WEBM), Microsoft’s Windows increases, the size of these formats, so unless you’re
for subtle colour gradients and Media Video format (WMV) and the of the raw video working with archive footage you
shades that look (to the human eye) Third-Generation Partnership data becomes huge can forget about the rest.
perfectly smooth, with no blocky Project (3GP) format, designed for The container format is only half
aliasing. It also pushes up the raw sharing videos over 3G mobile of the equation, however. The other
size of the frame to 1,920 × 1,080 × 24 networks. Now, though, the industry question is what compression system
for a total of 49,766,400 bits. In other has settled on two standard container has been used for the data streams
words, just under 50 megabits, or formats: MPEG-4 (M4V or MP4) and inside. Audio content almost
around 6.2 megabytes. QuickTime File Format (MOV). All invariably uses Advanced Audio
Then of course we need to think current video-encoding and playback Coding (AAC) compression, but
of the time domain. A typical there have been dozens of different
Hollywood film will be shot at 24 systems developed over the years
frames per second, so one second of What’s in the container? for encoding and decoding video
footage represents 49,766,400 × 24 If you’re curious about the make-up of a particular video data (“codecs”, for short), MP3
bits for a total of 1,194,393,600 bits. file, there are plenty of tools you can use to look inside its being the most famous. Thankfully,
That’s equivalent to around 150 container. One free, open-source choice is called MediaInfo again, only a few of them are in
megabytes per second, so a two-hour (tinyurl.com/366mediainfo). widespread use today.
film equates to more than a terabyte You can use MediaInfo by dragging any video file into All the mainstream video codecs
of data. This is an inconveniently the application window, or right-clicking on a video file in are “lossy”, meaning they trade off
large amount of information to be Windows File Explorer and selecting “MediaInfo” from the file size for fidelity, but they’re also
working with. And that’s before we contextual menu. all fully configurable, so the person
consider HDR media, which typically You’ll now see a “Basic” view, showing a breakdown of all exporting the video file can decide
uses ten bits of colour data per pixel, the data items contained in the file. Under “First video whether to create a large file with
or higher frame-rate media, shot at stream” you’ll see the specified language of the primary very high-quality content or trade off
30fps or even 60fps. 4K media is video file, along with its bit rate, resolution, frame rate and fidelity for a smaller file size. At the
four times the pixels – and hey, you compression format; below, similar information is shown for point of encoding they can also scale
might like to include some sound the first audio stream. For more details, open the “View” the original video data to their
with that video, too? menu and select “Sheet” or “Tree” to browse embedded desired resolution, and choose how
It’s clear that, for us to be able to metadata and other details of the file. many bits to use for colour data.
edit, share and store video data on These numerous decisions
our personal devices, it needs to be determine the eventual bit rate of the
compressed down to a manageable file – that is, how many bits of data
size – and this is where all the are stored for each second of video.
different file formats come in. Although a low bit rate generally
corresponds to low overall quality,
Containers different codecs can produce
and codecs differing results, and it’s also possible
Let’s start by clearing up a common to use slower, more computationally
point of confusion. The file formats expensive encoding methods to pack
we commonly refer to as “video files” more detail into a given number of

45
bits. The upshot is that the use of a on social media, you might choose frames as well as the current one, and
particular container format, and to use 480p or 720p, and reserve only encoding parts of the image that
even a particular codec, doesn’t higher resolutions for more are changing from frame to frame.
necessarily tell you much about the cinematic creations. Nowadays it’s Then there’s H.265, which, as the
quality or resolution of a video file. generally assumed that any video name suggests, was designed as a
file, regardless of the resolution, will successor to H.264. Introduced in
Which video format be in a 16:9 aspect ratio, but you can 2013, it’s also known as High-
should I use? still use the older 4:3 format if you Efficiency Video Coding, or just
If you’ve ever shot your own videos, prefer, or a wider shape; the player HEVC, because of its ability to
edited existing footage or re-encoded will either resize to fit your footage, produce video files of similar quality
old files to save space, you may have or play it with black bars along the to H.264 at around half the file size
wondered which file format is best sides or the top and bottom. – or twice the quality for a given file
for your output. As we’ve seen, it size. It achieves this by using similar
doesn’t matter which container The different compression techniques, but with
format you use, as long as you choose codecs BELOW All major greater flexibility to break the image
one that’s supported by your target So, back to the central question: if video-sharing up into differently sized segments,
platform or application. In fact, you have a choice of codecs, which services will accept and to compress each segment with
beginner-friendly video apps such as should you use, and which settings MOV and MP4 files the most efficient method available.
Microsoft Clipchamp It also introduces better ways of
may only support a detecting and encoding elements that
single output format move from frame to frame.
– typically either MOV H.265 is natively supported by all
or MP4, since these are major desktop and mobile operating
by far the most widely systems, so from a consumer’s point
used file types. You of view it’s all upside. However,
won’t go wrong if you H.265 encoding can take as much as
stick to one of these 20 times as long as H.264, which is
industry-standard one reason why many creators stick
formats, as all the with the older standard.
major sharing platforms Apple’s ProRes codec takes a
will accept them, different approach to H.264 and
including Facebook, H.265. Aimed at professionals,
Instagram, TikTok, ProRes prioritises image quality
Vimeo and YouTube. above all else – some have gone so far
Depending on the as to call it “visually lossless”. It also
software you’re using, doesn’t use inter-frame compression,
you may also be able to
choose between codecs,
the most common being H.264, H.265
(also known as HEVC) and Apple’s
The use of a particular container format
doesn’t necessarily tell you much about
high-quality ProRes encoder, which
comes under its QuickTime branding.
These codecs each have their own
strengths and parameters, as we’ll
discuss below.
the quality or resolution of a video file
If you have the option to choose a
frame rate, it normally makes sense
to match the frame rate of your should you apply? There are meaning that each frame can be
source footage, as converting it will numerous legacy codecs floating decoded independently, making it
slow down the export process and around that programs still support, ideal for non-linear editing or
could make the video look jerky. such as CinePak, DivX, MJPEG and scrubbing. These design decisions
Clipchamp and Apple’s iMovie RealVideo. There are also a few make ProRes files very large: one
always use 30fps, which is the default open-source options, such as AV1 minute of SDR ProRes video at 1080p,
for most smartphones and digital and VP9. For modern standards of running at 25fps, takes up around
cameras, but you might sometimes quality and compatibility, however, 1.6GB of storage. Clearly this isn’t a
want to mix in some 60fps footage, or there are only three codecs you need good format for sharing or streaming,
insert clips from commercial videos to know about. but it can be useful for storage,
that play at different rates. In this H.264 – also known as Advanced archival and editing.
case you’ll need to let the software Video Coding, or AVC for short – is None of these “big three” codecs is
downsample or upsample these clips the industry standard for distributing technically free. H.264 and H.265 are
as needed, so the whole file plays at a video. It’s been around since 2004, protected by various patents, but you
consistent frame rate. It is technically when it was chosen as a default codec don’t need to pay to encode or watch
possible to create video files where for Blu-ray discs; it’s now widely video in these formats – at least not
the frame rate changes from scene to used by streaming services and directly – as licences are covered by
scene, but these aren’t widely shows no sign of becoming obsolete the suppliers of the software and
supported by playback platforms. any time soon. The latest revisions services that use them. Similarly,
A final consideration is output support resolutions up to 8K, with Apple’s ProRes format must be
resolution. The size of a video file 14-bit colour and frame rates of up to licensed for use in both software and
grows rapidly as you increase the 600fps. H.264 achieves high-quality hardware, but you won’t normally
resolution – as does the amount of results at reasonable bit rates by using need to worry about this as the
time taken to encode it. So if you just techniques such as compressing data company offers free codec support
want to quickly share a selfie video based on the content of previous for both macOS and Windows.

46
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Video formats

Get the best from free video apps

Microsoft Clipchamp Medium and High quality presets all use H.264 compression levels. The “Base” profile is for
compression, with different trade-offs of quality low-bandwidth targets such as mobile phones,
and file size. If you select Best (ProRes), iMovie while “Main” and “High” provide normal and
will use Apple’s professional-quality codec top-quality output. When you’re happy with your
instead, resulting in an output file that looks settings, click “Add to Render Queue”, then click
excellent but is around six times the size of one “Render Queue” at the top-right of the Deliver
produced with the High quality preset. window to start processing.
The dialog provides a handy dynamic estimate
of how large your output file will be with currently Handbrake
selected settings. There’s no estimate of how long
it will take to render, but once you’ve started an
As we’ve noted, Clipchamp produces MP4 files export you can click in the circle icon in the
using the H.264 codec at 30fps; if your source top-right of the application window to see an
footage is in another format, it will be converted estimate of time remaining, and cancel it with the
automatically when you import it. The exception “x” icon if you don’t want to wait that long.
is if your video is less than 15 seconds long, in
which case you can export as an animated GIF. DaVinci Resolve
Once you’ve made your edits, the “Export”
button at the top-right of the main Clipchamp
window brings up a dropdown letting you choose The free Handbrake video-conversion tool
what resolution you want to export at. There are (handbrake.fr) offers a huge range of options for
no user-selectable quality or compression transcoding video files, but you can get started
settings: once you’ve picked a resolution, the easily by clicking the “Presets” button in the top
encoding will start immediately, and you’ll be toolbar. This opens a sidebar showing an
given a choice of export locations including extensive list of container and codec options. The
OneDrive, Google Drive, YouTube and TikTok. “General” profiles support different resolutions
and frame rates to suit almost any need.
Apple iMovie We explored DaVinci Resolve in issue 365 – you Most of these presets use H.264, but you can
can download it for free from blackmagicdesign. easily switch to a different codec by selecting
com – and its “Deliver” module offers handy your preset, then clicking on the “Video” tab in the
export presets for YouTube, Vimeo, TikTok and main window and selecting H.265 or another
other services. They all default to a resolution of codec from the dropdown menu. You can also
1080p, but you can click the arrow next to them change the desired frame rate here – potentially
to switch to 720p, 1440p or 2160p (4K). useful if you want to use one of the “Web Creator”
Below this, the Format dropdown lets you presets, as these all default to 60fps.
choose from a wide range of container types, Handbrake’s other tabs include options to
including not just MP4 and QuickTime but also resample or crop the video to change its
AVI, MKV and the professional MXF format. resolution, convert the audio, apply various
iMovie’s “Share File” dialog lets you export at You can explore the codec options too, to try out filters and update the metadata. Once you hit
540p, 720p or 1080p resolutions – although if H.265 and other compression types. the “Start Encode” button a progress display
your project doesn’t include any Full HD video, Don’t overlook the Encoding Profile dropdown appears along the bottom of the window,
that last option will be greyed out. The Low, either, as this lets you choose different including an estimated time to completion.

BELOW Professional editors use the Apple

ProRes codec to keep as much detail as possible

47
Reviews
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Acer
Swift 14
AI (Intel)
Not the greatest multitasker, but
long battery life, thin design and a
good-quality screen lift its appeal
and 16GB of RAM, along with 16in ABOVE Acer’s Swift 14 used, but my fingers never skipped
SCORE variants of both (one of which I review AI is a well-designed over the surface or caught on it. It’s
PRICE Core Ultra 7 258V, £1,083 (£1,300 overleaf). Note that while 16GB of laptop with excellent accurate and responsive too, and
inc VAT) from store.acer.com RAM is enough for most purposes, battery life pressing down registers a full,
the memory is soldered to the satisfying click. However, sometimes

T
motherboard so can’t be upgraded. it misunderstood my
he Acer Swift 14 AI Intel is a “The display has a sharp gestures: I had to place
Copilot+ laptop with several top Sleek design resolution of 2,880 x 1,800 two fingers all the way
features. It’s speedy, with
graphics that can actually handle
The Swift AI 14 is thin and light,
measuring 16mm thick and weighing
and a refresh rate of 90Hz, on the left side if I wanted
to scroll through a web
games; its battery lasts two regular 1.3kg – light enough to comfortably and you can expect deep page or document, and
workdays; its OLED display pops with hold one-handed. A lovely dark, blacks and vivid colours” occasionally when I wanted
colour; and it’s superbly portable. As metallic-looking finish keeps the to tap to place the cursor in
the name suggests, there’s also a chassis from looking bland; Acer calls the middle of a sentence, it scrolled to
generous helping of AI horsepower it Steam Blue, although depending on the top or the end of the page instead.
under the bonnet. the lighting I’d say it looks black or I didn’t love the keyboard: the keys
The model I tried features a Core light grey. The small Acer logo etched BELOW The laptop’s feel slightly muddy when most typists
Ultra 7 258V processor, a 1TB SSD and into the lid becomes a prism when it metallic-looking finish prefer a snappy response.
32GB of RAM; there’s also a cheaper reflects light, and I spent a happy gives it a classy look
variant with a Core Ultra 7 256V CPU minute tilting it back and forth, Audio visual
watching the pretty colours glide The display is a 14in non-touch OLED
BENCHMARKS across the logo. The screen doesn’t screen, with a sharp resolution of
Geekbench 6.1 single-core fold around into pseudo-tablet mode, 2,880 x 1,800 and a refresh rate of
2,753
0 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000
but it will open out to a full 180°. 90Hz. Those are strong stats, and
Geekbench 6.1 multicore
The vents on the underside you can expect deep blacks and
11,009 help with the sleek look of vivid colours. My only warning
0 5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000 the laptop, and leave space here is that it’s a glossy
3DMark Time Spy for a good-sized keyboard display, meaning glare
4,414 and trackpad. The keys could be a problem if you
0 5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000
span almost the entire want to work (or play) in a
laptop width, and brightly lit environment.
BATTERY LIFE the trackpad is Above the screen sits a
Light use 15hrs 53mins almost 5in wide; it’s very good 1440p webcam.
0 5 10 15 20
not the smoothest I’ve Whether I was using it under

48
@PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Reviews
fluorescent or natural light, I was BELOW Both the While running all these tests, the
impressed by the colour and detail it keyboard and laptop never got hot. The warmest
picked up; I could even make out a trackpad are a point I measured on the surface was
few flyaway strands of hair. It works decent size above the F8 button on the keyboard,
better with cool lighting sources than which peaked at 28°C. The underside
warm ones, though: when I had my didn’t exceed 24°C, so I could work
Ikea Tärnaby table lamp turned on at with this laptop sitting on my lap.
the same time as the laptop screen,
the webcam overcompensated for the AI smarts
lamp’s warm lighting and cast a As the name of this laptop implies, the
bluish tone over my face. When you Core Ultra 258V also packs plenty of
don’t want to be seen, there’s a AI capabilities. The Intel NPU is
physical shutter to close off any rated for 48 TOPS, contributing
possibility of unwanted access. to a total of 120 TOPS for the
Audio performance is whole system once the GPU
surprisingly strong, too. gets in on the act. This is partly
The Acer Swift 14 AI’s used to power Microsoft’s Copilot+
speakers provide plenty of PC features, such as Windows Studio
volume and heavy bass; Rob Effects, Live Captions and Recall;
Zombie’s “Dragula” is one of Intel’s AI Playground is available to
my go-to songs for laptop testing, download, too.
because most laptop speakers drain Acer also offers its own AcerSense
the chorus of aggressive fun, but the AI portal, which serves as a gateway to
Acer’s bottom-firing speakers do a custom features such as AI-generated
robust job with it – so long as the desktop art, image editing and the
laptop is placed on a flat surface. surviving 15hrs Acer Assist helper, which searches
53mins on a full your files without sending any data to
Speed vs efficiency charge. In use, I found the cloud. None of these features
When it comes to performance, the this was enough to get me transformed my working day, but
Intel Core Ultra 7 258V is a through a busy two-day trip without there’s plenty of power and potential
multifaceted beast. “Lunar Lake” having to plug in once. for the laptop’s AI functions to grow
introduced major architectural with future updates.
changes, which altered the balance Gaming juice
between single-core and multicore Intel’s integrated Arc graphics Big deal
performance. In particular, the 200V perform well. In 3DMark Time Spy I’m less keen on the bundled
series chips don’t support Hyper- the Swift AI 14 scored 4,414, which “For anyone seeking a software and apps that come
Threading, so the eight cores (already is higher than other laptops we’ve versatile and portable preinstalled: these include
fewer than previous generations) tested with a Core Ultra 7 258V, AppExplorer, Booking.com, a
don’t double into 16 threads. which typically return around 4,200.
Windows laptop the Dropbox promotion, an Xbox
This has an interesting impact in That’s a huge jump over laptops with Acer Swift 14 AI is an Game Pass promotion, Acer
benchmarks. In the single-core the Core Ultra 7 155H, too (the LG attractive option” LiveArt, two separate DTS
Geekbench 6 test, the Swift 14 AI SuperSlim returned 3,433), and a full sound applications, Intel
scored an excellent 2,753, making it 35% ahead of the Arm-powered Asus Unison (another take on Windows
20% faster than the LG gram Vivobook, which scored 1,907. Phone Link) and ExpressVPN.
SuperSlim 15.6in (see issue 364, p51) That carries over to real game Despite that fly-tipping, for anyone
with its last-generation Core Ultra 7 engines: in the Sid Meier’s Civilization seeking a versatile and portable
155H (2,285). It even outpaced the VI: Gathering Storm benchmark, the Windows laptop the Swift 14 AI is an
Asus Vivobook S15 (powered by a Swift AI 14 Intel averaged a smooth attractive option. Heavy multitaskers
Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100) by 61fps at 1080p and Medium visual should consider the Arm version,
12%, with a score of 2,432. settings. It fared well in more which we hope to review next month,
In the multicore benchmark, demanding games, too, averaging especially as its battery is likely to last
however, the Swift 14 AI scored only 29fps in Shadow of the Tomb Raider BELOW Although it even longer; however, that model’s a
11,009 – behind the LG (11,455) and with Ultra graphics at 1080p; you can can’t be used in tablet fraction heavier and thicker than the
around 25% slower than the Asus edge close to 60fps if you turn down mode, the screen does Intel version, and also comes with less
Vivobook (14,522). the settings. fold out to a full 180˚ RAM. As an all-round productivity
Still, this doesn’t mean a laptop, the Acer Swift 14 AI Intel has
huge amount in real-world more than ample performance and
use. Occasionally the laptop battery life, and enough NPU power
felt sluggish when I had to handle current and future AI
multiple active tabs in Edge workloads. JOANNA NELIUS
and was running Spotify,
Word, Slack and Discord at SPECIFICATIONS
the same time. But for 8-core (4 P-cores, 4 E-cores) Intel Core Ultra 7
regular desktop tasks it’s a processor 258V Intel Arc 140V graphics
very responsive chip. 32GB LPDDR5X-8533 RAM 14in 90Hz
And the big advantage of non-touch OLED, 2,880 x 1,800 resolution
Intel’s approach – which 1TB M.2 PCI-E Gen4 SSD Wi-Fi 7 Bluetooth
prioritises efficiency over 5.4 1440p IR webcam 2 x Thunderbolt 4/
raw speed – is battery life. USB-C 4 2 x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 HDMI 2.1
The Swift AI 14 Intel is one 3.5mm combo jack 65Wh battery Windows
of the longest-lasting 11 Home 312 x 221 x 16mm (WDH) 1.3kg 1yr
laptops we’ve tested, RTB warranty part code NX.J2KEK.006

49
Acer Swift 16 AI (Intel) The Swift 16 AI’s multicore

The 16in OLED panel and Geekbench score of 10,951

is well behind 16in rivals
speakers are real strengths, such as the AMD-powered
Asus Zenbook S 16 (see
making this an attractive issue 361, p52), which
topped 13,000.
choice for the price Still, there’s enough
performance for typical
use, and the integrated
SCORE
Arc graphics can handle
PRICE Core Ultra 5 226V, £1,000 demanding games. Set to
(£1,200 inc VAT) from store.acer.com 1080p and Medium visual
settings, the Swift 16 AI

T
averaged 50fps in the
he 16in model of Acer’s Sid Mieier’s
Swift AI laptop is, on Civilization VI:
paper, all but identical Gathering Storm
to the 14in model (see p48) benchmark,
– only bigger. It’s still which feels
sharp-looking and deliciously Although Acer’s website claims ABOVE The Swift 16 perfectly smooth in practice.
thin, tapering from 15.9mm at the that its Swift AI laptops can offer up to AI’s OLED screen is a Intel’s chips also include a
back down to 9.9mm at the front. 29 hours of battery life, I didn’t get real highlight powerful NPU, and since the Swift 16
There are differences, though. anywhere near that in our battery AI is an official Copilot+ PC it’s in line
Naturally, it’s a little heavier, at 1.5kg rundown test – mine died after 12hrs to get all of Microsoft’s latest and
– enough to make the squared-off 57mins of continuous use. That’s still future AI features, such as Cocreator
edges feel a little uncomfortable when not bad: in real life the laptop easily in Paint, Restyle Image, Click to Do
you hold the laptop in your hands. On got me through a full day of work, and Recall. At the time of my testing,
the plus side, the extra space allows comprising eight hours of writing and Microsoft’s Copilot AI companion
Acer to squeeze in a numeric keypad emailing, grading essays and getting RECOMMENDED was the only AI feature on general
alongside the main keyboard, and distracted by cat videos on YouTube. release, but I had fun chatting to it,
while the number keys are Just don’t expect a full second and it’s good to know that it will
distinctly narrow, they’re day without a charger. work even offline.
usable. I was By far the best feature On the Acer side, you
also pleasantly of the Swift 16 AI is its “By far the best feature of get the AcerSense system
surprised to big OLED display. It the Swift 16 AI is its big control tool, along with
find that the looks amazing, and OLED display. It looks Acer’s suite of AI assistant
keyboard
response is crisper
is highly colour
accurate with a
amazing, and is highly software. As on the 14in
version, you also get a
than that of the brilliantly wide colour accurate” disappointing amount of
Swift 14 AI, with gamut – I bloatware for unrelated services such
a nice action measured as Booking.com and Dropbox; if you
and a deep 139% of the don’t want these apps cluttering your
but quiet DCI-P3 colour space. LEFT The laptop new laptop you’ll need to clear them
clacking sound. The I wouldn’t have minded tapers down to a slim off manually.
touchpad is the same as if it were a little brighter, 9.9mm at the front For most people the Swift 14 AI
the one on the smaller model, though: the peak of 384cd/m2 might be a more sensible choice; the
although the larger chassis makes it is fine for indoors, but is susceptible to 16in version is heavier, with less
feel less generously sized. glare on sunny days. exceptional battery life, and doesn’t
As well as not upscaling the Perhaps the second-best feature is bring any advantages in terms of
trackpad, Acer hasn’t built any the Swift’s bottom-firing speakers. connectivity or multitasking
additional ports into the Swift 16. The They’re no replacement for a decent performance. But if you’re looking for
four USB connectors are useful, but pair of headphones or external BELOW The keyboard a big-screen laptop that’s thin and
I’d have liked to see an Ethernet port speakers, but they sound way better has a nice action and a AI-capable, the Swift 16 AI’s vivid
or a microSD slot. Curiously, the than I expected, with just enough bass deep but quiet display, great speakers and even its
webcam across the top bezel lacks the in my playlist of metal and industrial clacking sound keyboard make it a pleasure to use
privacy shutter of the 14in version. songs to make me lightly headbang. from day to day. JOANNA NELIUS
Together with the screen they make
BENCHMARKS this a very enjoyable SPECIFICATIONS
Geekbench 6 single-core multimedia laptop. 8-core Intel Core Ultra 5 226V processor
2,737
0 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000
The Swift 16 AI Intel Arc 140V graphics 16GB
Geekbench 6 multicore
model I tried features LPDDR5X-8533 RAM 16in 90Hz OLED
10,951 an Intel Core Ultra 5 touchscreen, 2,880 x 1,800 resolution
0 5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000 226V processor and 16GB 1TB M.2 PCI-E Gen4 SSD Wi-Fi 7
3DMark Time Spy of RAM; there’s also an Bluetooth 5.4 1440p IR webcam
4,173 option with the Ultra 7 CPU 2 x Thunderbolt 4/USB-C 4 2 x
0 5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000
and 32GB of RAM, priced at USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 HDMI 2.1
£1,500 inc VAT. Either way, the 3.5mm combo jack 65Wh
BATTERY LIFE performance profile is similar – battery Windows 11 Home 356 x
Light use 12hrs 58mins that is, great for single-core jobs, 249 x 16mm (WDH) 1.5kg 1yr RTB
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
but mediocre at multitasking. warranty part code NX.J3ZEK.002

50
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Reviews

Acer Swift Go 14 AI
resolution, but UK
residents are only being

(Qualcomm) offered the 1,920 x 1,200

version. That means

Excellent battery life and a slightly longer battery life,

but a drop in sharpness;
colourful 14.5in screen can’t across a 14.5in diagonal
the higher-resolution
hide all the sacrifices Acer display would certainly
have been preferable. This
has made to hit a price also means we don’t have
quality results for the
panel, but if it’s along the
SCORE
same lines as the tested
PRICE £741 (£890 inc VAT) display (and it probably
from johnlewis.com will be), then expect
bold and accurate

A
colours but not
cer’s Swift Go series sits much brightness.
a rung or two below My sample peaked
the Acer Swift range, at 331cd/m2.
so don’t expect the same build noticed sluggish performance in my ABOVE The screen The keyboard also shows signs of
quality or aesthetics. It features a grey hands-on tests, with Chrome tabs produces punchy cost-cutting. The keys don’t offer that
aluminium lid that looks like a taking longer to load than normal and colours with a speedy satisfying bounce, so I found myself
standard film prop laptop; it’s blank even delays in File Explorer. 120Hz refresh rate hitting with more force than usual.
outside of the Acer logo in the top Hopefully you’re not thinking Travel is limited, too. And the
right and Acer’s AI branding in the about buying the Acer Swift Go 14 AI generously sized touchpad would
top left. Still, basic looks aside, it has for its gaming capabilities, as it have been a dream to use, thanks to a
that premium metal feel thanks doesn’t have any. Not only does smooth surface, were it
to a sandblasted lid. the Adreno GPU offer “Hopefully you’re not not for an unsatisfying
At 1.4kg it’s roughly middling graphics thinking about buying the “click” that went deeper
the same weight
as most modern
performance, but the
Arm architecture
Acer Swift Go 14 AI for its on the left side of the
chassis than the right.
14in laptops, but severely limits gaming capabilities, as it Like its sibling, the
at 16.6mm thick the number of doesn’t have any” Acer Swift Go 14 AI
it’s a fraction Windows games includes a 1440p webcam
chunkier than you can use. In that produces plenty of detail and
rivals. But Civilization well-balanced contrast, but here it
Acer rewards VI: Gathering suffers from a faint green hue. Acer
you with Storm, it stuttered supplements Windows Studio Effects
plenty of ports: to 15fps at 1080p. LEFT The uninspiring with its AI-powered PurifiedView
two USB-A ports (albeit The good news is grey lid looks plain, feature, which sharpens the image,
5Gbits/sec) to accompany that even though this is a but is sturdy enough but I can live without these. The
the pair of USB-C 4 ports, plus low-level Qualcomm chip, it side-firing speakers are similarly
an HDMI 2.1 connector and the still includes the same NPU as the rest mixed, with loud and crisp vocals but
expected 3.5mm combo jack. of the series. That means acceleration barely present bass. Don’t get excited
There’s no Thunderbolt, but that in a growing number of applications, by the promise of “DTS:X” tuned
isn’t a surprise when you consider the particularly creative ones, and also speakers, as the settings are limited.
Qualcomm Snapdragon chip inside. means you can enjoy the various All of which means that it’s hard to
This is the budget “Plus” X1P-42-100 Copilot+ PC features – Windows recommend the Swift Go 14 AI, despite
chip, with eight cores rather than the Studio Effects, Live Captions and its aggressive price for a Copilot+ PC.
ten or 12 of its Elite siblings, and that’s very soon the controversial Recall. Yes, it includes a bold display,
reflected in relatively modest scores Like all Acer AI-branded laptops, excellent battery life and a 1TB SSD,
in our benchmarks. Where the Honor you can tell when the NPU is called but there are too many compromises
MagicBook Art (see p52) returned into action thanks to an indicator on BELOW When the to hit a price. RAMI TABARI
2,820 and 14,521 in Geekbench’s the touchpad. NPU is working, the
single-core and multicore tests, the Another Qualcomm advantage icon on the touchpad SPECIFICATIONS
Acer scored 2,426 and 11,379. I also rapidly – or slowly – became clear lights up 8-core Qualcomm Snapdragon Plus X1P 42
in our light-use 100 SoC Qualcomm
BENCHMARKS battery life tests, Adreno graphics 16GB
Geekbench 6 single-core where the Acer Swift LPDDR5X-7467 RAM
2,426
0 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000
Go 14 AI kept going for a 14.5in 120Hz non-touch IPS
Geekbench 6 multicore
superb 16hrs 10mins. panel, 1,920 x 1,200 resolution
11,379 That gives it bragging 1TB M.2 PCI-E Gen4 SSD
0 5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000 rights over the Core Wi-Fi 7 Bluetooth 5.4 1440p
3DMark Time Spy Ultra 258V-powered IR webcam 2 x USB-C 4 2 x
981 Acer Swift 14 AI (see USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 HDMI 2.1
0 5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000
p48), albeit by only a 3.5mm combo jack 75Wh
few minutes. battery Windows 11 Home
BATTERY LIFE That battery life was 323 x 226 x 16.6mm (WDH)
Light use 16hrs 10mins with a 14.5in IPS panel 1.4kg 1yr RTB warranty
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
with a 2,560 x 1,600 part code NX.KYXEK.003

51
Honor MagicBook Art
Tremendous scores. As ever, gamers
should steer clear, as reflected by

14 (Qualcomm) 1,977 in 3DMark Time Spy and 20fps

in Dirt 5 at 1200p High settings.

An innovative camera setup The other hallmark of Snapdragon

chips is superb battery life, but the
marks out this slim and MagicBook 14’s return of 12hrs 34mins
is distinctly average. You should still
speedy laptop – if only it get a full working day’s battery life,
but evidently the high-resolution
was on sale in the UK OLED display comes at a power cost.
So long as you have a T5 Torx
screwdriver it’s simple to remove
SCORE
the base cover, which reveals few
PRICE €1,417 (€1,700 inc VAT) repair options. If something
from honor.com/fr goes wrong outside of the
one-year warranty, you

F
could face a costly bill.
ancy a trip to France? Only the 60Wh battery is
Right now that’s the solidly into place. It’s all very slick, ABOVE This 14.6in replaceable, though I was happy to see
easiest way to buy the Honor not to mention privacy-friendly, and OLED screen has a a vacant M.2 2280 slot to complement
MagicBook Art 14 Snapdragon, as it can even point backwards. pin-sharp resolution the supplied 1TB of storage.
the laptop is only on sale there, China, There are two downsides, of 3,120 x 2,080 The lack of repairability isn’t
the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Honor is however. First, sometimes Windows surprising with such a slim design: it
monitoring sales in France before it lost the connection to the camera tapers down to 11.5mm at the front,
decides whether to sell it in the UK, so despite it being attached. This is and a weight of 1kg is a great
a 4.9-star rating on Honor’s French probably a driver issue, as it’s early achievement for a 14.6in laptop. Its
site is a promising sign. days for this technology. Also, the magnesium alloy chassis feels
Start using the MagicBook and it’s camera’s quality can’t match that of superbly made, too, with no hint of
easy to see why it’s so loved. The recent laptops, with good colours but flex on the base and only a hint on the
screen is a 14.6in expanse of OLED a lack of detail. I even checked for a lid despite its slenderness.
RECOMMENDED
beauty with a super-sharp 3,120 x protective coating that I needed to I have no complaints about
2,080 resolution. It’s almost perfectly unpeel, as I expected a crisper image. connectivity, either, with two USB-C
tuned to the DCI-P3 gamut, too, with The mics picked up my voice 4 ports on the left and USB-A, HDMI
97% coverage out of a 98% volume. clearly, however, and I was even and a 3.5mm jack on the right. Wi-Fi 7
Add a peak brightness of 486cd/m2 more impressed by the MagicBook’s and Bluetooth 5.4
and crisp whites, plus solid speakers. They deliver subtle “Add a peak brightness complete the forward-
colour accuracy (an details many laptop of 486cd/m2 and crisp looking checklist, with
average Delta E of
1.36), and you have a
speakers miss, and
pack bass thanks to
whites, plus solid colour NFC there to enable
“Quick Share” if you
great panel. four extra units to accuracy, and you have a own an Honor phone or
Honor amplifies accompany the great panel” tablet. If you don’t, you
the screen’s effect two tweeters. may well find an offer in
by including Speaker grilles place at the point of purchase.
slim bezels on sit either side of I can see why Honor wants to
all sides, and the keyboard, sweeten the deal, as €1,700 is a lot to
that includes but there’s LEFT The magnesium pay even for a top-quality laptop such
the top bezel. still space for alloy chassis feels well as this. At the time of writing, it was
That’s because there’s full-sized keys. These made, with no hint of offering a voucher to take €200 off
no webcam to squeeze in, have a crisp feel thanks to flex on the base that price, along with an Honor Pad 9
with Honor instead including a solid backplate, so I was tablet (this costs £220 at Argos). If I
a magnetic, detachable 1080p happy typing on it, but Honor could was in the market for an ultraportable
webcam that’s housed in the left of learn a lesson from Lenovo on laptop all these extras would certainly
the chassis. When you want to use it, cushioning. It instead lavishes its make me consider a trip across the
press on the edge and it bounces out, attention on the huge “Magic” Channel, but let’s hope that Honor
at which point a light appears at the trackpad, which includes special decides to sell the MagicBook Art 14
top of the display to show you where gestures – scrolling up and down the Snapdragon in the UK sooner rather
to clip it. The magnets then snap it left and right adjusts screen than later. TIM DANTON
brightness and volume, for instance, BELOW A magnetic
BENCHMARKS while tapping the top left of the pad webcam flicks out SPECIFICATIONS
Geekbench 6 single-core minimises the active window. from the chassis 12-core Qualcomm Snapdragon X1E-80-100
2,820
0 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000
Honor talks up the cooling, but I when you click on it SoC Qualcomm Adreno graphics 32GB
Geekbench 6 multicore
rarely heard the fans kick LPDDR5X RAM 14.6in 120Hz
14,521 in. That’s to be expected OLED touchscreen, 3,120 x 2,080
0 5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000 from a Snapdragon resolution 1TB M.2 PCI-E Gen4
3DMark Time Spy laptop, even with a SSD Wi-Fi 7 Bluetooth 5.4
1,977 powerful 12-core X Elite 1080p webcam 2 x USB-C 3.2
0 5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000
chip inside. This Gen 2 USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 HDMI
thundered to 2,820 in 2.1 3.5mm combo jack
BATTERY LIFE Geekbench 6’s single- 60Wh battery Windows 11
Light use 12hrs 34mins core test, and 14,521 in Home 317 x 224 x 11.5mm (WDH)
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
the multicore section. 1kg 1yr RTB warranty

52
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Reviews

How we test
Laptops and PCs What our awards mean
We run a selection of benchmarks on all the
PCs and laptops we test. Where possible, we Recommended
use a cross-platform test so we can compare
Windows and macOS machines, which is This, quite simply,
where both Geekbench and Cinebench come is a product we
into play. Both push the CPU to its limit, recommend
exposing how well cooled a system is.
you buy – if it meets
We run extra tests for Windows systems. RECOMMENDED
We use PCMark 10 to benchmark systems in your needs.
office tasks, content creation and basic
tasks such as web browsing and video
calls. We also run 3DMark Time Spy and
A-List
Shadow of the Tomb Raider as a The best buy in its
minimum. We test laptops and PCs that include discrete graphics with a range ABOVE We put PCs category right now.
of games, such as Metro Exodus Enhanced and Dirt 5. and laptops through
The product will also
For laptops, we test battery life with Wi-Fi on and the screen brightness set to our intensive set of
150cd/m2. We fully charge the laptops and drain them until they reach 5%. For benchmarks
feature on our A-List,
Windows laptops, we will use a mix of PCMark 10’s light-use and video-based starting on p14. It’s
tests, or a web surfing benchmark where a laptop automatically visits sites updated each month.
until the battery dies. We also use this test for MacBooks.

Labs Winner
Screen quality
LEFT We use a Display Each month we run a
we run Geekbench 6. i1 colorimeter to
group test, or Labs.
This is a good test of measure sRGB gamut
In each laptop, the processor and coverage and Delta E This product has
phone, tablet and memory in managed to beat all
monitor review, particular, and others to top position.
you’ll see our include both a
conclusions about test for single-core
the screen quality. and multicore Tinyurl.com links
Some of this will be performance. See Throughout the magazine you’ll see
subjective, but we also below for a selection BELOW We play a
test each screen using a of scores to provide a video with the screen
tinyurl.com shortcuts. Enter these into
X-Rite Display i1 Plus reference of what’s good... set to 150cd/m² to the address bar of your browser and it
colorimeter. We measure and what’s not so good. test battery life will take you to a particular page, which
maximum brightness, colour We also run 3DMark Wild Life
will either be too long or awkward for
accuracy and (for monitors) test to give a measure of gaming
consistency – there may be performance. us to publish or will take you to the
a difference in, say, We test tablet battery precise shop from which to buy. If it’s
brightness from the life by playing a full- Amazon, note that we may have an
middle and the screen video until the
affiliate deal in place so we will receive a
edges of the panel. battery runs out with the
We also device. To simplify the commission from each sale. This will
measure Delta E, test, we use Airplane never affect our verdict of a product,
which is a guide to mode. We set the and if another reputable vendor is
how accurately brightness to as close to
panels display 150cd/m2 as we can get in the selling the product cheaper then we
colours. Anything device’s settings. We also put will use that instead.
under 1 is excellent and phones through a set of real-world
likely to be difficult for the human eye and labs-based tests.
to distinguish; between one and two is Prices will vary
still strong; above this suggests a GEEKBENCH 6 (SINGLE CORE) Prices we publish are correct on the day
panel that you shouldn’t trust for Google Pixel 8a we publish, but we often see prices
Tensor T3, Mali-G715s graphics
1,581
colour-accurate photo editing.
Google Pixel 7a change, especially on sites such as
HIGHER IS BETTER

Tensor T2, Mali-G710 graphics

1,408
Amazon. However, we do work with
Phones and tablets Samsung Galaxy A55
Exynos 1480, Xclipse 530 graphics
Samsung Galaxy A35
1,161
British PC retailers to ensure the prices

Exynos 1380, Mali-G68 graphics

1,015 we quote for their systems are correct.
We run a selection of publicly
available benchmarks on all the Samsung Galaxy A54 996
If the price isn’t being honoured, contact
Exynos 1380, Mali-G68 graphics
phones and tablets we review. First, us via letters@pcpro.co.uk.

53
Lenovo Yoga
Slim 7i Aura
Edition Gen 9
(15in, Intel)
Not the most exciting laptop,
but this affordable Copilot+
PC has great stamina and a
neat trick or two
RECOMMENDED

Pain points such as poor battery life, ABOVE The Yoga Slim582 in Cinebench R24, far behind
SCORE poor integration with phones and the 12-core Honor MagicBook Art 14
7i is a decent laptop, but
PRICE As reviewed, £1,167 (£1,400 inc VAT) confusing customer support. If you’re Snapdragon (see p52) with 14,521
the “Aura Edition” tag
from lenovo.com buying an Aura Edition laptop, you and 847 respectively.
is fairly meaningless
should therefore expect such Where the Core Ultra 7 258V wins

A
problems to be a thing of the past. is for gaming, with a 4,204 return in
fter the excitement of seeing a 3DMark Time Spy and a playable
Lenovo laptop with a rolling The battery life problem 41pfs in Shadow of the Tomb Raider
display (see p29) at CES, the If we take the first pain point of – although I had to drop
Yoga Slim 7i seems rather ordinary. battery life, then the Yoga Slim 7i “Lenovo and Intel hoped to the settings from High
The display is boringly fixed in place, delivers. It lasted for 20hrs 11mins in make it easy to share files (29fps) to Low. In Dirt 5, it
it uses Intel’s well-established Core our light-use test, and even though returned 49fps at 1200p
Ultra 7 258V processor, and the light that’s with the screen set to 150cd/m2
and photos with phones and High settings,
grey finish is frankly dull. But despite I’m confident that battery life won’t and tablets, but work still dropping to 33fps at Low.
my initial yawns on picking up the be an issue with this laptop. needs to be done” Intel’s chip includes a
Slim 7i on my return from Las Vegas, Lenovo provides a slim charger powerful NPU, too, and
there’s a solid laptop here that that it promises will provide “three this is officially a Copilot+ PC.
deserves your consideration. hours of runtime on a 15-minute
The first thing to mention is what charge”. In my own tests, it climbed to Living in unison
makes it an Aura Edition laptop. 19% in 15 minutes and to 36% after half Lenovo and Intel also hope to make it
This is the outcome of a partnership an hour, which are solid results for a easy to share files and photos with
between Intel and Lenovo that aims to 70Wh battery. phones and tablets, but work still
address the pain points revealed by a The main reason for this laptop’s needs to be done. At the launch demo,
survey of tens of thousands of users. longevity is its use of Intel’s Core Ultra
200V “Lunar Lake” chips. You can
BENCHMARKS either buy it with a Core Ultra 7 256V
Geekbench 6 single-core or a Core Ultra 7 258V, with the only
2,756
0 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000
difference between the two being that
Geekbench 6 multicore
the 256V includes 16GB of RAM and
11,098 the 258V doubles that to 32GB.
0 5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000 I tested the 258V version, and its
3DMark Time Spy results are typical for the processor.
4,204 It’s strong in single-core tasks, with RIGHT The uninspiring
0 5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000
a return of 2,756 in Geekbench 6, grey finish is sturdy
but if you’re hoping for fantastic enough thanks to the
BATTERY LIFE multicore speeds then you should aluminium chassis
Light use 20hrs 11mins look elsewhere. For example, it
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
scored 11,098 in Geekbench and

56
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Reviews
Lenovo showed off an Aura wrong with the microphones,
Edition app that, when loaded but if you want to make a
on phones, meant you could professional impression
lightly tap on the side of the during video calls then
laptop and send photos instantly maximise your ambient lighting.
from one to the other. Fortunately, the speakers came
That app hasn’t arrived, so for to the rescue, reminding me that
now you’re directed to install the Lenovo targets this laptop at home
Intel Unison app, use this to scan a users rather than professionals. If one
QR code that pairs your phone to of your primary uses of a laptop is to
the laptop, and then drag and drop watch streaming video services, or
files between the devices. Which is you like to listen to music while
fine, and works, but it isn’t going tapping away, then I can recommend
to have Apple quaking in its boots. the Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition.
If anything, the experience
demonstrates how Apple’s tight Well connected
control over its ecosystem gives it It also a win for connectivity. On the
such an advantage over its rivals. right, there’s a handy button to switch
In Lenovo and Intel’s defence, the webcam on or off, a USB-C port
they aren’t trying to create a siloed that supports both Thunderbolt 4 and
ecosystem. They want you to use an USB 4, and a USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 port.
iPhone, and the Aura Edition app will Jump to the left and there’s a second
supposedly work on iOS. But it’s now identically specified USB-C port, a
six months after the launch and there 3.5mm combo jack and an HDMI 2.1
isn’t even an Aura app on the laptop. lighter than most 15.3in laptops ABOVE Concave connector. Tri-band Wi-Fi 7 and
despite its solid aluminium alloy keycaps make the Bluetooth 5.4 complete the set.
Smart care chassis. I wouldn’t call the Yoga Slim keyboard a pleasure Flip the Yoga over and you’ll spot a
Not that I really want yet another 7i beautiful – it’s a regular grey-ish to type on Carbon Neutral sticker, again with a
piece of software. Lenovo already laptop – but it’s slim at 13.9mm. QR code. This time it doesn’t take you
provides its Vantage app with its The keyboard is a pleasure to type to a personalised page but a generic
consumer laptops, and it’s the place to on, with 1.5mm of travel and a firm one describing Lenovo’s efforts,
go if you want to check battery health, feel to each press, and Lenovo which will explain how it’s based
updates, “bonus” software included provides concave keycaps to help upon credits that Lenovo purchases
with your purchase and security info. guide fingers. There’s a double-height over the expected four-year lifespan
It also provides warranty details, Enter key (on the UK version, not the of the laptop. Lenovo also uses
but not everyone knows about US version pictured above) and large post-consumer recycled plastics and
Vantage, which is why the QR left and right cursor buttons, recycled aluminium where it can.
code on a sticker mounted with only the up/down Ultimately, though, the best way to
on the wristrest makes buttons being half make a product more sustainable is to
a lot of sense. This height. Navigation is extend its lifespan, and here Lenovo
takes you to a further helped by a gets into my good books by providing
unique page for smooth and a detailed hardware maintenance
your product, responsive 80 x manual. However, few items are
complete with 135mm glass- considered customer replaceable; it’s
your warranty coated touchpad. more for technicians. There is ready
details, specs for access to the M.2 SSD at least, and you
your machine and Touching could replace the battery with some
even your serial times LEFT A weight of care, but that’s it as the memory is
number. Fantastic You can also navigate 1.5kg and decent integrated into the CPU package.
for remote problem via the 120Hz IPS battery life help All of which means I would be
solving with tech support. touchscreen, and it’s with portability tempted to order direct from Lenovo
There’s also a chatbot built another high-quality and add on a couple of extra years to
into Vantage, called Lena, who you inclusion. Whites look best when you the single year of cover that comes
can ask questions. If Lena can’t solve push it towards its maximum 524cd/m2 as standard. And this laptop might
them, she’ll provide a number for you brightness, and Vantage is once more have been walking away with a
to call or start a service request. As I your friend if you want to switch Recommended award had the
know, because I asked her where the between the sRGB and DCI-P3 gamut. webcam been better and I had more
Aura Edition app was, and she hadn’t I kept it in the latter, where it covered confidence in the added value of the
a scooby. You can also head into the 95% of that space with an average “Aura Edition” label. For the moment,
Vantage app and select “Chat with an Delta E of 0.5. So, great colour it’s simply too confusing. TIM DANTON
Agent”, so long as you try between coverage and accuracy.
9am and 6pm, Monday to Friday. A 1080p webcam and four-mic SPECIFICATIONS
array sit in an island above the display 8-core (4 P-cores, 4 E-cores) Intel Core Ultra
Back to basics – which also makes the lid easier to lift 7 258V processor Intel Arc 140V graphics
So those are the main promises of an one-handed – but I was disappointed 32GB LPDDR5X-8533 RAM 15.3in 120Hz
Aura Edition laptop. Some delivered, by its results. I’m so used to ThinkPads OLED touchscreen, 2,880 x 1,800 resolution
some absent. The good news, producing crisp, detailed images that BELOW The Slim 1TB M.2 PCI-E Gen4 SSD Wi-Fi 7 Bluetooth
however, is that Aura aside this is a the amount of blur and noise here 7i is well served 5.4 1080p IR webcam 2 x Thunderbolt 4/
great laptop. It weighs 1.5kg, which is took me by surprise. There’s nothing for connectivity USB-C 4 USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 HDMI 2.1 3.5mm
combo jack 70Wh battery Windows 11
Home 344 x 235 x 13.9mm (WDH) 1.5kg
1yr Premium Care RTB warranty

57
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58
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Reviews

Raspberry Pi 5 16GB
it would be a stretch for
the cheaper variants –

The Pi 5’s power now comes indeed, when I tried

the same test on
with RAM to back it up, but a 2GB Pi, the
machine crashed.
the price means only die- As a final
browser test, I
hard fans should buy it turned to
Browserbench
Speedometer 3.0, a
SCORE
JavaScript benchmark that
PRICE £96 (£115 inc VAT) measures the responsiveness of web
from thepihut.com applications. Here I saw a significant
difference between the two cheapest

W
versions of the Raspberry Pi 5 – the
e’ve previously sung the ABOVE The latest 2GB board achieved 3.2 runs per
praises of the Raspberry Pi Raspberry Pi 5 comes minute in Chromium, while the 4GB
5 in our Pi buyer’s guide with a whopping model managed 4. Beyond that,
(see issue 363, p41), and discussed the 16GB of memory though, are diminishing returns, with
versatile range of 2GB, 4GB and 8GB Since the Raspberry Pi OS comes with both the 8GB and 16GB models only
models. Now there’s a fourth option a choice of two browsers, I tested raising the bar to 4.1 runs per minute.
with a whopping 16GB – more than startup times for both and was a little I also tried compressing a 1.4GB ISO
any previous Pi model. It’s also the surprised to find that these were image file using the gzip command-
most expensive Pi ever, costing around slower for the 16GB model than for the line utility. Surprisingly the extra
£40 more than the 8GB version. 8GB one. Chromium took six seconds RAM appeared to be a
The 16GB Pi has the same capabilities to open, versus 3.6 seconds on the 8GB “The 16GB Pi isn’t an handicap here: the 4GB Pi
and connectors as the 8GB model. The board, while Firefox took a languid upgrade many people have completed the task in 66
only differences are the RAM and the 11.9 seconds, up from 9.7. Again, I seconds, while the 8GB
fact that this board uses the updated assume this means more content is been crying out for. Most model took 77 seconds and
Broadcom BCM2712D0 CPU, as being loaded into memory at projects and apps will run the 16GB one kept me
found on the 2GB version. startup, for a better happily in 8GB or even 4GB” waiting for 93 seconds.
This removes a few experience once you start This appears to be a quirk
on-chip functions actively browsing. of gzip, though, and shouldn’t reflect
that the Pi doesn’t I then tried general desktop performance.
need, making it opening multiple Frankly, the 16GB Pi isn’t the
slightly more browser tabs and upgrade many people have been
cost-effective to checking memory crying out for. Most projects and apps
manufacture, but consumption, just will run happily in 8GB or even 4GB,
to all intents and to see how far and will see little discernible benefit
purposes it’s the 16GB will stretch. from the extra RAM. The price feels
same platform as With five tabs LEFT The board uses like a stretch, too: we’re accustomed
the 8GB Pi 5: the open – containing the updated Broadcom to thinking of Raspberry Pi systems
GPIO pinout, port JavaScript, images and BCM2712D0 SoC as dirt cheap, but for around £50
locations and chip active content such as more than this you can get a mini PC
locations are identical, and advertisements – I saw no with an Intel N100 processor and a
any existing HATs, cases, cooling difference between the 8GB and 16GB decent-sized SSD. If you’re looking for
systems and other add-ons for the Pi 5 systems, with Chromium consuming a general-purpose desktop computer
will work perfectly well. around 1.5GB of RAM and Firefox that might be a better choice, not least
To see what practical difference demanding a slightly higher 1.7GB. since it can run Windows as well as
the extra RAM makes, I put the 16GB Working my way up to 50 tabs saw your choice of Linux distribution.
Pi 5 through a series of benchmarks. I Chromium’s memory footprint grow But if you enjoy using the Raspberry
started by measuring boot time, using to around 4.1GB, while Firefox ate up BELOW The GPIO Pi 5 for everyday productivity and
the latest Raspberry Pi OS release on a 3.5GB. In other words, even this pinout, port locations multitasking – or if you’ve invested in
32GB Pi-branded microSD card. This extreme scenario is within the and chip locations are the Raspberry Pi AI HAT+ and want to
showed no difference between the capabilities of the 8GB model, though identical to the 8GB Pi 5 crunch large data sets – this new model
8GB and 16GB models, both taking could be just the ticket. It’s overkill
around 10.5 seconds – which isn’t for the “usual” Raspberry Pi projects,
surprising, since the OS is designed to but it’s the most capable Pi money
work on boards starting at 2GB of RAM. can buy, and we can’t complain too
That’s not to say the OS doesn’t much about that. LES POUNDER
take advantage of the extra memory.
After the 8GB board had fully booted SPECIFICATIONS
to the desktop, I noted that the OS was 2.4GHz Broadcom BCM2712 SoC with 4 x
occupying 550MB of memory, while Cortex-A76 CPUs 16GB RAM dual-band
the 16GB model was using 657MB. That Wi-Fi 5 Bluetooth 5.0 microSD card slot
suggests more components are being 2 x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 2 x USB-A 2 1GbE
pre-loaded, or given bigger buffers, port 2 x 4-lane MIPI camera/display
for a snappier desktop experience. transceivers PCI-E 2.0 interface USB-C
I also ran a series of browser tests, input for power Raspberry Pi standard
since this is where desktop users are 40-pin GPIO header power button 85 x
likely to spend much of their time. 56mm (WD) limited warranty

59
Intel Arc B570 and
B580 Graphics
Battlemage architecture has
turned Intel Arc cards into
solid mid-range alternatives
to AMD and Nvidia
B570
SCORE
PRICE £175 (£205 inc VAT) data, 16-wide). Couple all ABOVE Intel’s Arc Both cards come with the standard
from amazon.co.uk these changes with the cards will take up two trio of DisplayPort 2.1 ports, plus a
higher boost frequencies and slots but have plenty single HDMI 2.1 port.
B580 the results you see in the graphs of room for cooling
SCORE opposite are far less surprising. Creative tasks
PRICE £200 (£240 inc VAT) Modern GPUs aren’t just about gaming.
from amazon.co.uk Limited appeal They’re used for video encoding,
As with Alchemist, Intel is selling a professional apps, and increasingly

N
reference design Arc B580 Limited for AI. We tested across a range of AI
vidia may have set the world of Edition card. That “Limited” is for benchmarks, and it’s notable that the
high-end graphics cards alight branding, not necessarily because the Arc B580 beat its rivals – including the
at CES 2025, but weeks earlier cards will only be offered in limited RTX 4060 – in all of them. It did
Intel had jumped its rivals by releasing quantities. The only notable change particularly well in the Stable
two cards based on its Battlemage compared to its A750 predecessor is Diffusion test, as shown opposite,
architecture. With much-improved the removal of the extra 6-pin power where the B570 was also strong.
drivers compared to the first round of connector. Now, the B580 has a single In Blender, Nvidia’s
Intel Arc GPUs, it’s now a genuine 8-pin connector that, when combined “We tested across a combination of firepower
alternative to Nvidia and AMD if you with the 75W from the PCI-E slot, can range of AI benchmarks, and highly optimised drivers
have between £200 and £250 to spend. deliver 225W of total power to the pushed it to the top. I’m not
On paper, the B580 looks far less board. That leaves a decent amount of
and it’s notable that the too concerned by the B580
powerful than the existing A750, never headroom for overclocking as well. Arc B580 beat its rivals and B570 being beaten by the
mind the full-fat A770 16GB card. The It’s not particularly small (272 x 111 x in all of them” older Intel cards, as I suspect
B580 has “only” 20 Xe-cores, compared 39mm, so will consume two slots), but that’s a driver fix away.
to 28 on the A750 and 32 on the A770; that leaves plenty of room for cooling, We’ve combined the scores
even the lowly A580 has 24 Xe-cores. and the whole length of the card’s across SPECworkstation 4’s viewport
The real story is that Battlemage has interior is filled with radiator fins. graphics suite, which includes seven
major architectural design changes, The result is a quiet-running card. applications. AMD provides the most
which means that ray tracing sees a There’s no such reference card for “professional” performance in its
1.5x to 2.1x improvement per Xe-core, the B570, with Intel sending us an consumer drivers, roughly doubling
for example. Mesh and vertex ASRock Arc B570 Challenger OC. Early the performance of the Arc B580.
throughputs see improvements of 2x indications are that all the partner The only test where the B580 beat the
or more, as does sampler feedback. B570 cards perform similarly, so the RTX 4060 is the medical benchmark.
Another big change is the move to results opposite should be an accurate Otherwise, the three Arc GPUs occupy
native SIMD16 instructions, compared reflection of the GPU’s capabilities. the bottom three slots on each chart.
to Alchemist’s SIMD32 units (SIMD16 Like the B580, it’s a dual-slot card, I suspect driver tuning could again
stands for single instruction multiple but slightly shorter at 248mm. help Intel a lot in these tests.

Arc B580 Arc B570 Arc A770 16GB Arc A750 Arc A580
Rasterisation performance
Pure rasterisation – the process of
Architecture Battlemage Battlemage Alchemist Alchemist Alchemist converting vector graphics into raster
graphics, so the dots that appear on
Xe-cores 20 18 32 28 24 screen – remains the most compelling
gaming test for graphics cards, and
Shaders 2,560 2,304 4,096 3,584 3,072 our 16-strong testing suite allows us to
see how each card performs across a
XMX cores 144 144 512 448 384 range of titles and genres. And there’s
excellent news here for the Arc B580
RT cores 20 18 32 28 24
in particular: not only does it come out
Boost clock 2.85GHz 2.75GHz 2.4GHz 2.4GHz 1.7GHz ahead of the competition in most
cases, but it also easily eclipses the
VRAM 12GB 10GB 16GB 8GB 8GB previous generation Arc A770.
Against the Nvidia RTX 4060, the
VRAM speed 19Gbits/sec 19Gbits/sec 17.5Gbits/sec 16Gbits/sec 16Gbits/sec incumbent budget-mainstream GPU,
the Arc B580 ends up leading by a
VRAM bus width 192-bit 160-bit 256-bit 256-bit 256-bit
comfortable 10% at 1440p Ultra. The
Max power draw 190W 150W 225W 225W 185W gap narrows at 1080p, where it’s only
3% faster at Ultra settings and 1.5%

60
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Reviews

PROFESSIONAL & CREATIVE BENCHMARKS

PROCYON STABLE DIFFUSION 1.5 BLENDER CLASSROOM SPECWORKSTATION 4 MEAN
Arc B580 1,517 RTX 4060 853 RX 7600 155
RTX 4060 1,203 RTX 3060 12GB 585 RX 7600 XT 144
Arc B570 1,178 Arc A770 16GB 580 RX 6600 117

HIGHER IS BETTER

HIGHER IS BETTER

HIGHER IS BETTER
RTX 3060 12GB 1,117 Arc A750 571 RTX 4060 94
Arc A770 16GB 1,102 Arc B580 472 Arc B580 81
Arc A750 1,031 Arc B570 363 Arc A770 16GB 76
RX 7600 XT 737 RX 7600 344 RTX 3060 12GB 76

RX 7600 705 RX 7600 XT 342 Arc A750 70

RX 6600 167 RX 6600 270 Arc B570 67

16-GAME RASTERISATION MEAN

1080P (ULTRA) 1440P (ULTRA) 4K (ULTRA)
RX 7600 XT 59 Arc B580 43 Arc B580 25
Arc B580 57 RX 7600 XT 41 RX 7600 XT 22
RTX 4060 56 RTX 4060 39 Arc A770 16GB 22
HIGHER IS BETTER

HIGHER IS BETTER

HIGHER IS BETTER
RTX 3060 12GB 48 Arc A770 16GB 37 RTX 3060 12GB 20
Arc B570 48 Arc B570 35 Arc A750 17
Arc A770 16GB 48 RTX 3060 12GB 35 Arc B570 17
RX 7600 44 Arc A750 31 RTX 4060 16

Arc A750 41 RX 7600 29 RX 7600 13

RX 6600 37 RX 6600 24 RX 6600 12

6-GAME RAY TRACING MEAN

1080P (DXR ULTRA) 1440P (DXR ULTRA) 4K (DXR ULTRA)
Arc B580 58 Arc B580 39 Arc B580 20
RTX 4060 53 Arc A770 16GB 34 Arc A770 16GB 17
Arc B570 49 RTX 4060 33 RTX 3060 12GB 15
HIGHER IS BETTER

HIGHER IS BETTER

HIGHER IS BETTER
Arc A770 16GB 46 Arc B570 33 RTX 4060 13
RTX 3060 12GB 46 RTX 3060 12GB 29 Arc A750 12
Arc A750 41 Arc A750 29 RX 7600 XT 12
RX 7600 XT 40 RX 7600 XT 26 Arc B570 11

RX 7600 32 RX 7600 17 RX 7600 8

RX 6600 28 RX 6600 15 RX 6600 7

“Ultra” refers to highest setting in each game. The test rig used an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU on Windows 11 24H2.

faster at Medium, so pretty much tied. rasterisation numbers. Where AMD’s going to be difficult. It tried to do so
And although it’s mostly meaningless, RX 7600 XT could be competitive in back in the late 1990s and then gave
it’s 48% faster in our 4K Ultra results. rasterisation games, it falls well up. Some people assumed the same
The 4060 runs out of VRAM in several behind on ray-tracing performance. would happen this time, but the B580
games, which tanks performance. Nvidia’s RTX 4060 card hardly excels, and Battlemage suggest that Intel
AMD’s RX 7600 and RX 7600 XT hobbled by its 8GB of VRAM, but it remains committed to being
trade blows with the RTX 4060, with easily pulls ahead of AMD’s offerings. competitive in the GPU arena.
the 7600 XT clearly pulling ahead at Intel’s Arc B580 matches the RTX The next-generation Celestial
higher resolutions thanks to its 16GB 4060 at worst (at 1080p Medium), and architecture is apparently already
of VRAM. The 7600 XT also takes the starts pulling away at higher-quality under way, and if that continues, we
top spot at 1080p Medium, ties with BELOW The Arc B580 settings and resolutions. Even the Arc should see Arc C-series GPUs in the
the B580 at 1080p Ultra, and then falls is arguably the A770 manages to surpass the 4060 at next year or two — probably first as
behind at 1440p and 4K. best-value graphics 1440p Ultra. And there’s good news an integrated solution on a future
As for the Arc card you can buy for the B570, too, until we look at the processor, just like Battlemage.
B570 – well, it’s 4K graph – but you’re The good news is that Intel’s
hard to argue that probably not planning on Battlemage is more compelling than
it’s worth saving running maxed-out 4K at its predecessor. It delivers better
£30 or so when the native resolution on a performance, improved efficiency and
performance drops £250 GPU, so that’s only impressive AI skills.
so much compared there for reference. Right now, you can argue that the
to its sibling. Arc B580 represents the best-value
Final word graphics card on the market. Whether
Ray tracing I have to give Intel that’s true in another month or two
Our mean for ray credit: entering the hinges on how aggressive AMD is
tracing looks very dedicated GPU with the pricing of its forthcoming
different from the market was always budget GPU. JARRED WALTON

61
DJI Flip (RC-N3)
A great-value, lightweight
drone that captures detailed
48MP stills and records
gorgeous 4K/60fps footage
SCORE
PRICE RC-N3, £308 (£369 inc VAT)
from store.dji.com Actually flying the thing is very
enjoyable. The Flip features ABOVE The DJI Flip

T
palm take-off and landing, so you captures high-quality
he DJI Flip is the drone giant’s can simply hold out your palm stills and video at a
latest offering, and it might well underneath the drone and it will land very reasonable price
be its most appealing one yet. in your hand. The RC-2 controller’s
For a very reasonable price it captures detachable joysticks feel good under
stunning stills with a high-quality your thumbs, and the display shows A plethora of shooting modes is on
48MP camera, and can also film clear, low-latency footage. Thanks to offer, including MasterShots (where
smooth and sumptuous 4K video that its four antennas, the controller can you can program a flight path to
looks as good as anything you’ll get communicate with the drone over a create long cinematic sweeps and
from far more expensive models. claimed operating range of up to pans), Hyperlapse, panoramas and
The headline price of £369 includes 20km; since the Flip has a maximum vertical shooting. As mentioned
the drone and basic RC-N3 controller, flight distance of 14km, that’s not RECOMMENDED above, the Flip also supports DJI’s
which connects to your smartphone something you need worry about. The signature QuickShot mode, which
to show the live view from the drone’s only limitation to note is that the Flip gives you a quick and easy way to
camera. In my view it’s worth features forward obstacle avoidance capture timed videos with specific
stepping up to the £549 bundle with only, so you’ll need to be careful drone movements, such as circle,
the RC-2 controller, which has its own when manoeuvring sideways or rocket, spotlight and so
integrated 5.5in touchscreen for a backwards; for comparison, the “The Flip features palm on. You don’t even need to
neater, more engaging flying DJI Mini 4 Pro features take-off and landing, so you use the controller to set
experience. The Fly More omnidirectional obstacle your QuickShot mode:
combo adds two spare avoidance, although
can simply hold out your pressing the button on the
batteries, a charging the Mini 3 doesn’t palm underneath the drone Flip’s left lets you cycle
hub and a shoulder feature any at all. and it will land in your hand” through the modes, and
bag for £659; you’ll the drone will then take
also probably want Shoot to off and finish filming automatically,
to invest in a thrill with AI subject tracking used to keep
microSD card, One of my favourite the subject in focus.
as the Flip’s parts about the Flip As for image quality, the DJI Flip
internal storage is hardware is its LEFT Your phone slips has the same 1/1.3-inch CMOS sensor
limited to only 2GB. camera mount, which into the RC-N3 as the DJI Mini 4 Pro, capturing either
uses a three-axis controller so you can 12MP or 48MP stills. You can choose to
Flight response mechanical gimbal to view the live action shoot in RAW mode for maximum
The drone itself resembles a ensure footage remains smooth creative freedom in post-production,
Star Wars droid, and I don’t mind that while the drone zooms about, even but even the straight-out-of-camera
at all. It’s made of high-quality, light when buffeted by gusts of wind. This JPEGs are very detailed and colourful.
grey plastic, and doesn’t look or feel makes a real visible difference to your You can see a couple of examples of
cheap. On the right edge of the results: by contrast, the DJI Neo’s 48MP stills in the gallery opposite: in
drone’s body sits the power button, single-axis design can produce choppy the first shot, I love how the Flip
while the left edge houses footage in windy weather. Like the DJI has captured the different shades of
the QuickShot button (which we’ll Mini 3 and the Mini 4 Pro, the Flip BELOW Here’s what green and the way the sun shines on
discuss below). There’s also a small remains stable in conditions up to you get in the DJI Flip the foliage on the left-hand side.
screen above the camera that displays 10.7m/sec (roughly 25mph). RC-N3 pack The frost on the ground looks great,
the active QuickShot mode. too, and the Flip’s f/1.7 aperture
Since the propellers are encased in means it even does a decent job in low
guards, you can fly the Flip either light – better than you’ll get from
outdoors or inside without worrying other drones in this price range.
about damaging the rotors or the Switching to 12MP mode allows
furniture; when not in use the rotors you to squeeze more images into
fold underneath and click neatly into your available storage, and
place, ensuring they stay secure and lets you take advantage of
reducing the travelling size to 136 x 62 a 3x crop zoom option.
x 165mm. It isn’t heavy, either, at Naturally, though, 12MP
249g. During my testing I carried the images aren’t as detailed as
drone, RC-2 controller, spare batteries 48MP ones: in the middle photo,
and charging hub around in the with me in shot, you can see that my
included shoulder bag for hours and features are barely discernible and the
didn’t feel uncomfortable at all. overall image is quite grainy.

62
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Reviews

Photo gallery Along with this selection of photos, you can see sample video footage from the
DJI Flip (shot by our sister title Tom’s Guide) at tinyurl.com/366flip

48MP MODE Stick to 48MP and you’ll capture stunning ZOOM The Flip offers a 3x “crop zoom” in 12MP mode SPHERES In this mode, the drone captures 25 shots
amounts of detail, or save space and switch to 12MP that gets you closer to the action and stitches them together to create a 3D landscape

PANORAMA You
can shoot classy
panorama shots
such as this, and
even create 3D
landscapes

Extra modes good to have the option if you want to “The combination of high lasts longer, operating for
Wide horizontal panoramas,
meanwhile, look as good as those
capture something in the distance.
frame rates with the up to four hours on a
90-minute charge.
shot on the much more expensive DJI Take control three-axis gimbal ensures
Air 3S, and the Flip can also capture If you’re using the RC-2 controller that everything looks Will it take off?
photospheres, where the drone hovers then all of the camera controls can beautifully smooth” Whether you’re looking to
in one spot and captures an all-round be accessed directly from the upgrade from an older DJI
view across 25 frames. These are then touchscreen, but if you’ve opted to drone or considering your first
automatically stitched together to stick with the standard RC-N3 purchase, the Flip is the perfect
create a 3D landscape, which you controller you’ll need to install the midpoint between feature-limited
can zoom into on either the RC-2 free DJI Fly companion app on your budget models and professional-grade
controller or your smartphone, much smartphone. As well as controlling flyers. It does have its shortcomings:
like street view on Google Maps. the camera, this is your one-stop shop as I’ve mentioned, the light frame
The DJI Flip shines equally when for checking nearby fly spots and makes it susceptible to strong winds,
shooting video. It can capture footage restrictions, updating the controller and front-only obstacle avoidance
at resolutions up to 4K at 60fps, with a and drone firmware, sharing your means you’ll need to fly with care.
100fps option also available when footage with other DJI users and Battery life is unexceptional, too.
filming in 1080p. The combination of uploading footage to your phone. Overall, though, the DJI Flip
these high frame rates with the As usual with drones, the only delivers a fantastic flying experience,
three-axis gimbal ensures that limitation to your creativity may be BELOW The propellers with great build quality and a
everything looks beautifully smooth, the amount of time the thing can stay fold neatly under the compact design that’s perfect for
although if you intend to share your in the air. I tested the DJI Flip in drone when not in use, travelling with. The 48MP camera
footage on Instagram and the like, moderately windy conditions and making it easy to carry captures detailed stills in both bright
you’ll be pleased to know you can save found it remained aloft for and dimly lit environments, and
space by dropping down to 30fps. around 31 minutes, all the delivers stunning 4K video
Impressively, you also get full while recording in 4K at footage, along with striking
manual control over the camera 30fps, before it needed panoramas and spheres.
settings, so you can adjust the to return home and Factor in DJI’s QuickShot mode
shutter speed, exposure and ISO recharge. That’s less and a brilliant, easy way to grab
(up to 6,400), or let the drone than the cheaper popular types of video clip, and
automatically select the best settings. DJI Mini 3, which can there really isn’t a better drone
You can even shoot in D-Log M, navigate the skies for 38 out there for amateur aerial
allowing the drone to capture a wider minutes. Once the Flip runs photographers. ITA ACHANTA
dynamic range to give you more out of juice, you can charge
freedom when using professional it via the onboard USB-C SPECIFICATIONS
tools to grade your footage. port, but this takes just 48MP camera (82° FoV, 4K video
Digital zoom options for shooting under 90 minutes to go at 60fps) 3,110mAh battery
video go up to 3x when filming in 2.7K from zero to 100%. For this 2GB storage microSD card slot
or 4K resolutions, or up to 4x for Full reason I recommend RC-N3 remote controller GPS,
HD. As with stills, you lose detail investing in the spare Galileo, BeiDou 136 x 62 x 165mm
when zooming in fully and footage batteries and charging hub. (WDH, folded without propellers)
starts to appear fuzzy, but it’s still Thankfully the RC-2 controller 249g 1yr warranty

63
 Reviews @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO

Acer PD3 Series

But that’s fine, as all most people
will want to do is adjust brightness.

Two really is better than one Here the two panels differed, with the
top one hitting 245cd/m2
when it comes to portable while the bottom reached
261cd/m2, but I couldn’t spot
screens, but there’s no this with my naked eye.
Acer also builds in a pair of
denying the PD3 Series’ bulk 2W speakers, and by portable
monitor standards they’re
RECOMMENDED
respectable. There’s little
SCORE
bass, but if you want to play
PRICE £250 (£300 inc VAT) background music or use them for a
from store.acer.com video call they do the job. It’s also
easy to control the volume: press

F
the rocker switch that you use for
orget bendable screens: up/down navigation in the OSD.
sometimes simplicity is best, and The only area where this
that’s exactly what Acer opts for monitor moves into dubious
with this dual portable monitor. It’s territory is portability. It’s
slapped a pair of 15.6in IPS panels into heavy at 2.3kg (ignore the
a plain but effective plastic casing, 1.5kg you might see on
added a sturdy stand, and in doing so Acer’s website, as that
provided a surprisingly versatile way refers to a different
to expand your laptop’s display. model in the series),
You can position the PD3 Series but it’s roughly the
(model number PD193Q) in several size of an 18in gaming
ways. I tried it in portrait mode with a notebook so you’ll struggle to fit it
bend in the middle, as shown to the into a standard rucksack alongside
right, portrait without the bend, in your laptop. I’d only bring it on my
landscape mode (where it’s like a 22in detail. It’s not a deal-breaker, ABOVE The PD3 travels if I was also taking a suitcase,
panel but with a big bezel in the especially if you switch to 150% Series can be set up in at which point the fact that it folds
middle), and in tent mode so that scale in Windows’ settings (rather four main positions, inwards when not in use becomes an
someone else could view the content than the recommended 200%), but I including tent mode advantage, as you don’t need to worry
of the other display while I was missed the sharpness that a 4K 27in about protecting the screens.
working on the “main” screen. desktop monitor brings. Still, that’s only one scenario. The
What really lifts the PD3 Series The panels’ quality is surprisingly proverbial “travelling
above traditional portable good considering you’re paying “The panels’ quality is salesman” could sling this into
monitors, though, is its size. £150 per unit, with 96% surprisingly good. Not the boot of their car, ready to
I find traditional
portable monitors
coverage of the sRGB
gamut and 88% of
only do colours look whip out during presentations
to clients – the point at which
frustrating, as they DCI-P3. Not only vivid, but whites are the tent mode becomes useful.
simply don’t give do colours look genuinely excellent” You can also mount this on an
me enough extra vivid, but whites arm if you occasionally need
space to make the are genuinely extra space, thanks to a 100 x 100mm
hassle of bringing excellent. An VESA mount (again, ignore Acer’s
them worthwhile. average Delta E of site that says 75 x 75mm). Or maybe
I constantly yearn 1.16 reflects good you regularly visit shared
for my main setup, colour accuracy, LEFT The displays fold workspaces where there isn’t a
with a spacious too. Perhaps most inwards, protecting dedicated screen you can use.
monitor on which to importantly, both them when you’re Just remember that you’ll always
scatter windows. Having panels behave identically travelling need a separate 45W power source,
two 15.6in monitors to play when it comes to colour whether via a USB-C cable or the
with, especially as you can select reproduction, so there’s no cognitive supplied plug.
“Fill” in Acer’s OSD to treat them as dissonance when you switch from Overall, I can only applaud Acer’s
one monitor, makes a colossal one to the other. execution. The stand provides all the
difference – to the point that I’m a Acer sticks to the simple theme flexibility you need, and although it’s
little annoyed Acer didn’t send me when it comes to connectors and the by no means perfect – I would have
this to test before I went to CES (see onscreen display. It’s powered by a BELOW While liked higher-resolution panels, the
p26) rather than after it. 45W USB-C wall plug, which slots into portable, the bezel that separates them is thick and
One disadvantage of Acer’s one of the two USB-C connectors. You PD3 Series is the whole unit is chunkier than ideal
solution is that it opts for 1,920 x 1,080 can then connect to your computer still fairly bulky – it’s a buy that any frequent traveller
panels rather than 2,560 x 1,440, via the other USB-C port or an HDMI should consider. TIM DANTON
which means that you lose out on connector. These ports all sit on the
left side of the monitor, with the SPECIFICATIONS
MAIN TEST RESULTS controls for the OSD on the right. 2 x 15.6in 1,920 x 1,080 IPS panels up to 60Hz
Colour coverage
There are a few options, such as 6-bit (262,000) colours 8ms response
sRGB 96%
modes for gaming, reading and time 2 x USB-C 3.2 Gen 1 HDMI 3.5mm
DCI-P3 88%
0 25% 50% 75% 100% movies, but these fiddle at the edges audio out VESA mount (100 x 100mm)
Average Delta E – think sharpening, response times 2 x 2W speakers 376 x 217 x 24.4mm
1.16 and contrast – rather than changing (WDH) 2.3kg 1yr limited warranty
0 1 2 3 4 5
the colour profile of the panel. part code PD163Q
All measurements in default profile

64
IN ASSOCIATION WITH DRAYTEK Advertorial

DRAYTEK
TECHNOLOGY
EXCELLENCE
AWARDS 2024
WI NN ER

TRIED, TRUSTED & RECOMMENDED

When it comes to building a wireless network that PC Pro For all these reasons, DrayTek routers inspire
long-term loyalty. PC Pro reader Ian McCulloch
readers trust, DrayTek has over a decade’s worth of wrote: “I have used DrayTek some 20 years; best
internet connection devices I have ever used.
trophies in its award cabinet Very secure.” Simon Reynolds echoed: “I’ve been

W
using DrayTek comms equipment for many
hen choosing infrastructure for your years, very happy with them.”
network, you need top-quality
hardware and reliable support. But Industry recognition
with so many router manufacturers out there, Naturally, DrayTek isn’t short of industry
how do you know which can be relied on? networking components. “Bought [router] with accolades. The company was recently named
The answer is to ask satisfied customers – DrayTek switch and access points to build a Specialist Vendor of the Year at the 2024 CRN
and you’ll find plenty recommending DrayTek. In proper home network,” wrote Richard Lord. Awards – for the second year running – for
our annual PC Pro Excellence Awards, the firm “Awesome piece of kit.” And with centralised achievements such as being picked by CSL and
has been named best router manufacturer for administration for the router, APs and switches, Vodafone as the exclusive networking supplier
the past three years running. That’s an it all works together. for the National Lottery Connectivity Project.
achievement that reflects not only excellent Wi-Fi And right here in PC Pro the company’s no
performance but also reliability and customer A question of support stranger to awards. The DrayTek Vigor
service – plus, of course, value for money. Perhaps most importantly, DrayTek scores very 2927Lax-5G was Highly Commended in our
It’s an achievement that really means highly when it comes to customer support, with 2024 Product of the Year ratings, and remains
something, because the awards are voted on by an unbeaten 91% satisfaction rating in the latest on our A-List (see p19). In our review we praised
PC Pro readers. And when – as in the latest 2024 awards. That’s largely thanks to the company’s not only its value for money but also its
awards – a staggering 96% of customers said knowledgeable, UK-based helpline – but there’s “incredible range of WAN failover features,
they’d stick with DrayTek for their next router, also a wealth of online resources to help, being super simple to manage and even
you can be confident that it’s a smart purchase. including technical documentation, a lively user including integral Wi-Fi 6 services”.
forum and even simulated web portals for Prior to that, we recommended the DrayTek
Why DrayTek? numerous router models, so you can fully Vigor 2866ax router – “a great choice for small
What makes PC Pro readers keep explore each one’s management interface and businesses that want reliable internet and
recommending DrayTek? For many it’s peace of check the features before you buy. security services in one unit”.
mind: in the 2024 awards, 96% of customers
said they were highly satisfied with their
DrayTek router’s reliability; the year before it
was 97%, and 95% in 2022. “They just work, and
Top new routers from DrayTek
work well,” said reader Martin Packer. DrayTek provides professional-grade routers, access points, switches and more,
Of course, performance is important, too, for environments of all sizes. The latest products include:
and here again DrayTek didn’t disappoint,
Vigor 2136ax AX3000 you can fully manage your bands with an ultra-fast
offering Wi-Fi access points rated for up to a
Wireless router network traffic, plus a 2.5GbE uplink – plus an
massive 6Gbits/sec. In 2024, 93% of customers
said they were happy with the network speeds A high-performance router versatile firewall for keeping additional gigabit Ethernet
from their DrayTek router, and 90% were highly with built-in VPN your network secure. socket for wired connections.
satisfied with their Wi-Fi range. capabilities and Whether you’re kitting out
Others appreciate the powerful range of 2.5GbE WAN and VigorAP 805 a home office or managing a
features, with different models offering
LAN ports – ideal Mesh wireless business network,
business-class features such as load balancing,
for fast fibre access point DrayTek provides fast,
5G SIM support, hardware failover and
integrated VPN server. An “amazing product”, connections. It This access point reliable infrastructure
said reader Chris Davies: “the functionality is also includes offers wireless physical with great support –
streets ahead of the ISP-provided box.” content filtering and rates of 2.4Gbits/sec on 5GHz and you don’t have to
DrayTek also earns praise for the seamless Quality of Service controls, so and 600Mbits/sec on 2.4GHz take our word for it.
integration between the router and other

65
Your bonus Total value

software
this month
£230
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licences to full programs you don’t need to pay a penny for. Here’s this month’s lineup

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security suite includes One-device,
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protect your device and worth £65
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HTC Vive Focus Vision
A top-quality headset for VR
gaming on a PC, but when
you’re paying this much
you deserve more
SCORE
PRICE £833 (£999 inc VAT)
from vive.com

I
really wanted to love the HTC Vive
Focus Vision, especially after my
first few tests with Half-Life: Alyx
and VR sim racing worked out so well.
But after a few weeks with the
headset, the relationship grew
complicated. Let me explain. sharpness and vivid colour of the ABOVE HTC has the contrast ratio. Out of the choices
After the first handful of sessions, I HTC Vive Focus Vision’s picture focused on comfort made for the Vive Focus Vision, this
felt that what I’d heard about this cannot be understated. rather than a stylish seems like the most baffling one.
headset from my friends in the Nor can that field of view — the design for style’s sake
industry may have been overly harsh. widest I’ve ever tested and something Comfortable wear
The build quality is great, with a I didn’t really think I’d appreciate as If there’s one thing HTC headsets have
lovely even weight distribution that much as I did here. Seeing all the managed to do better than pretty
feels fine on your head for hours crispy details in my peripheral view much anyone else in the business,
and hours, which makes the hot- adds to that immersion. What’s more, it’s wearability. The Vive Focus Vision
swappable batteries even more the 5K resolution and 90Hz refresh is no exception. Starting with the
critical and impressive here. rate (120Hz would have been even build quality — the
Pair that with 5K display tech, nicer) eliminates the screen door “If you’ve got of gaming PC aesthetic is much more
stellar eye tracking with minimal effect that has been prominent in with the raw horsepower utilitarian than its stylish
latency, great all-round tracking
and an ergonomic set of controllers,
headsets from this company.
But there’s one major oddity here. I
to drive high-resolution rivals from Apple and
Meta. Everything you see
and you’ve got a good headset think everyone agrees that pancake visuals, the 5K LCD display is where it is for a reason,
tailor-made for gaming. But this is lenses are absolutely the best way to can look glorious” and it all feels well put
where the story of the Vive Focus go in VR right now — you don’t get the together without any
Vision starts to get murky. chromatic aberration or light blooms creaking in the plastics when you
When you see a standalone headset caused by the circles imprinted on the adjust the headset on your face.
for £999, you expect the standalone glass. Meta knew this with the Quest But the most important thing is
aspect to shine. But there are 3, but had to opt for fresnel on the that any VR headset is comfortable to
problems here that stop it from being Quest 3S to cut costs. wear, which the Vive Focus Vision
a high-end alternative to the Meta So why am I seeing fresnel lenses absolutely is. If you wanted to stay
Quest 3 (see issue 363, p64) or a on a headset of this price? The sharp immersed in a game for hours on end,
cheaper rival to the Apple Vision Pro picture does fight off some of the edge BELOW A resolution you won’t find any problems keeping
(see issue 355, p48). blurring, but the blooming of 5K and the 120˚ this thing on, thanks to the balanced
And now, when it comes to PC VR is seemingly field of view make for weight distribution between the tech
gaming, we have a new challenger in unavoidable in any impressive visuals up front and the battery pack round
the PSVR 2, which just so happens to games that play the back. Speaking of the battery,
be the combo breaker of high-specced heavily on given it’s hot-swappable, staying in
VR at an impressive price. It’s a busy the game is easier than ever.
market where you absolutely need to With near latency-free eye tracking,
be the best to stand out — especially at hand tracking, high-resolution
a thousand pounds. Still, there are passthrough and two stellar
some standout features here. controllers in terms of ergonomics,
this is a great PC VR headset. It’s the
Glorious visuals by-product of all the above coming
If you’ve got the right kind of gaming together that makes it work.
PC with the raw horsepower to drive On top of that, connectivity is
super high-resolution visuals, the simpler than you think with the
5K LCD display with a 120° field of additional streaming kit. Normally, it
view can look glorious. can be a mess of cables, but there’s
Whether it’s dipping into the sim plenty of versatility here. Like the
racing experience of Assetto Corsa Meta Quest, there’s a Streaming Cable
Competizione, having a laugh in you can use to plug directly into a
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, VR-ready PC. And for that visually
getting lost in the trippy imagery lossless connection for the pros, you
of Tetris Effect or shooting your can use the Wired Streaming Kit for
way through Half-Life: Alyx, the DisplayPort connectivity.

68
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Reviews
There’s also a wireless option, but Outdated chipset BELOW The headset design with hot-swappable batteries
you can expect a downgrade in visual Why this doesn’t have the Snapdragon is comfortable to to keep you playing all day.
fidelity carrying that data over the air. XR2+ Gen 2 packed into it is beyond wear for long gaming But for £999, there are too many
It does mean you could whip out the me. Instead, HTC uses the same chip sessions drawbacks. The limited app library
Roto VR chair, though, and I did have found in the aged Meta Quest 2, and reliance on the older Snapdragon
a lot of fun spinning on this throne namely the Snapdragon XR2. This chipset means this isn’t so great as
playing Half-Life. means that, in the standalone VR a standalone experience. And
experience, you can feel the fresnel lenses at this price are
Beaten by Meta system stress under the just unacceptable.
So it’s good for a PC VR headset, but pressure of anything more So when you think
once you start to peel back the layers, than casual gaming or of this as a not-so
you start to notice the frustrations. productivity tasks. standalone headset that
This is always going to be a There is multitasking requires a PC to take
problem with any headset that capability with the 12GB advantage of all it offers,
doesn’t have the word Meta in its of onboard RAM, but I’m you’re in a world of
name. Yes, this headset is technically not sure whether it’s a other options such as the
a standalone one — a hybrid that can bottleneck of the chipset more cost-efficient PSVR
switch quickly on the fly between PC to that RAM or something 2 with all its OLED glory at
VR and its own Android-based OS – else (maybe the graphics a fraction of the price. By
but given the very limited selection performance?) — something that point, this becomes hard
of games you’ll find on Viveport (with bothers this headset when you to recommend to anyone outside
many being rather old), it doesn’t throw anything more intense at it. of the PC VR elite. JASON ENGLAND
feel standalone. That’s frustrating if you’ve just spent
HTC has done work on its own £999 on it. SPECIFICATIONS
front end: the OS is easy to navigate Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2
and it’s simple to establish your Too many drawbacks BELOW The two processor 12GB RAM 128GB storage
boundaries with room-scanning And that’s the story of the HTC Vive controllers are very microSD card reader (up to 2TB) dual 2,448
(shout out to the full-colour Focus Vision. In many ways, it’s one of well designed x 2,448 90Hz IPS screens up to 120° field of
passthrough). But there isn’t really the best PC VR headsets you can buy, view 2 x colour passthrough cameras
anything to do, so I found myself packing an impressively 4 x eye-tracking cameras 2 x mics
spending the vast majority of the time crisp, colourful and integrated stereo speakers removable
with this headset tethered to my PC. smooth 5K screen, battery 2 x USB-C 3.2 Gen 1 ports (one with
Who knows? Maybe Android XR great tracking of DisplayPort support) Wi-Fi 6E Bluetooth
will change this in the future. But I can eyes and hands, 5.2 2 x handheld controllers 230 x 185 x
only go on what I have right now. and an ergonomic 125mm (WDH) 700g 1yr warranty

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69
 Reviews @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO

Xreal One
only extends to 50°; the One Pro
broadens this to 57°, but either way

Thinner frames and a it’s still way less than the Meta
Quest 3 and 3S, which offer 110°
new spatial processor and 97° respectively. As a result,
the edges of your display can get
make the Xreal One cut off, requiring you to
physically turn your head
tempting despite the price from side to side to see
everything. The solution
ABOVE The Xreal One is to increase the virtual
SCORE
are great for watching viewing distance in
PRICE £374 (£449 inc VAT) replaced with films as well as gaming the settings; I found
from amazon.co.uk new frames in different four feet tended to
colours and finishes to clip content, but five

X
express your own style. feet was fine.
real’s long-running family of Another enhancement is an When I’d finished
augmented reality (AR) electrochromic dimming feature playing games, I
glasses has recently been for the lenses. At the maximum decided to try kicking
joined by two new models, the Xreal setting it blocks out most ambient back and watching a
One and the One Pro. They’re quite light, giving you a cinema-like film using the glasses. The virtual
similar, so we’ll focus– if you’ll experience with no need to attach display can be scaled up to an
pardon the expression – on the physical light blockers, as with the enormous 191 inches, and it was a joy
Xreal One, which costs £100 less older Air 2 glasses. to sprawl out on my couch and enjoy
than the Pro model. Perhaps the most significant Deadpool & Wolverine,
The price is still £159 more than change is inside. Xreal’s new X1 “Xreal’s new X1 spatial especially with the
the mixed-reality Meta Quest 3S (see spatial computing chip provides computing chip provides dimming feature blocking
issue 363, p64), but this is a different vastly improved movement tracking
type of headset. Unlike Meta’s compared to earlier models. This is
vastly improved movement out the room light. The
sound quality impressed
offering, the Xreal One isn’t a particularly noticeable in Anchor tracking compared to me, too: normally I use
standalone unit, but rather an mode, where the virtual earlier models” earbuds when watching
add-on display for any picture remains fixed in movies or playing games
device that supports space when you move with AR glasses, but the One’s
HDMI or DisplayPort your head (the speakers are so good, with so much
over USB Type-C. alternative being bass and dynamic range, that it
Like most AR follow mode, simply wasn’t necessary.
spectacles, the where it follows The Xreal One won’t be right for
One looks like a your gaze). With everyone. It needs to be driven by a
pair of oversized the older Air 2 wired host, and the limited field of
sunglasses, with glasses there was view makes it less than wholly
thick frames and visible lag when immersive. If you’re looking for a
side arms. The you turned your LEFT The glasses are self-contained VR experience, a
frame holds dual head, but now the comfortable to wear cheaper Meta Quest headset will be
Sony micro-LED One responds to even thanks to a choice of more up your street.
displays with an effective quick movements nose pads Within its own market, however,
pixel density of 3,320ppi, smartly and precisely. the Xreal One is a winner. It offers a
firing down onto a triangular The Xreal One’s USB connectivity slim, customisable frame, a stylish
birdbath lens to create a 1080p screen means it will work with almost any aesthetic and some significant
with an expansive 32:9 aspect ratio. device that supports an external technical improvements over
The arms of the One include display, be that a phone, laptop or previous models. It’s excellent
Bose-branded open-air speakers, and gaming PC. My iPhone’s home screen for consuming content while
the left one features the USB-C port, initially unhelpfully opened in travelling – or simply lounging
which connects to your host device portrait orientation, but turning the around the house in front of a huge
via a supplied cable. A red “X” button device into landscape mode rotated virtual display – and there’s also
on the underside of the right arm the content in my glasses. Video BELOW The slim, the promise of future add-ons,
brings up the main menu, where you services such as YouTube or Disney+ stylish frame contains including an upcoming snap-on
can adjust the screen size, distance, default to landscape mode anyway, Bose-branded camera for taking photos or
brightness enhancement, colour so it’s easy to enjoy immersive open-air speakers recording videos. BRANDON HILL
temperature, interpupillary distance multimedia content on
and more. A rocker switch adjusts the the go.
brightness of the display, or Connecting to a
navigates up and down in the menu computer is similarly easy,
system, and a customisable black and the experience is quite
button on top of the right arm can be impressive. I played
set to your preferred function. Guardians of the Galaxy on
The detachable front frame is a my Windows PC for several SPECIFICATIONS
big upgrade over Xreal’s previous hours with no eye strain or 2 x 1,920 x 1,080 120Hz OLED displays
glasses. It’s made of thin, black discomfort, and was even able 600cd/m2 perceived brightness 50° field of
plastic that snaps around the lenses, to take advantage of the One’s view 3 DoF 3ms M2P latency Xreal X1
with interchangeable nose pads in 120Hz refresh rate. co-processor 2 x open-ear speakers
small, medium and large sizes. My biggest caveat here is that USB-C 147 x 160 x 48mm (WDH) 84g
It’s easily removable and can be the One’s horizontal field of view OS independent 1yr warranty

70
OnePlus 13
If you’re after the best-
value flagship phone you
can get, this superb all-
rounder is the answer RECOMMENDED

three new finishes. I tried the Arctic

SCORE Dawn version, a whitish-silver model
PRICE 12GB/256GB, £749 (£899 inc VAT) with an anti-fingerprint matte
from oneplus.com/uk texture; also available are Black
Eclipse, which supposedly feels like

T
wood, and the vegan leather Midnight
he number 13 may be unlucky Ocean Blue, which is thicker but ABOVE The OnePlus Another interesting display feature
for some, but the OnePlus 13 has lighter than the glass-backed options. 13 brings flagship is the new Glove Mode. The OnePlus 12
plenty of blessings, including a features at a much introduced Aqua Touch, which helps
great screen, powerful processor, long Screen refresh keep the screen usable when wet; now
lower price than rivals
battery life and fast recharging. You As before, the OnePlus 13 uses a 6.8in the OnePlus 13 works better when
could even say it sets the standard for OLED screen with a refresh you’re wearing gloves. This is a great
2025 smartphones, having been rate that scales automatically idea for cold weather, but OnePlus
launched in the first week of the year. between 1Hz and 120Hz. What’s says it will only work with woollen or
The price is higher than last year’s new is LTPO 4.1, which allows sheepskin gloves under 0.5cm thick,
OnePlus 12 (see issue 354, p60): you’ll the display to set two different and even then I found I had to make an
now pay £899 for the phone with 12GB refresh rates in different effort to make big, clear gestures and
RAM and 256GB of storage, or £999 for screen zones, to save more taps. Still, it’s better than nothing.
the 16GB/512GB version. That’s still power when only a part of the One final hardware upgrade is the
less than other high-end, big-screen screen is moving. new under-display
phones such as Samsung’s Galaxy S24 The display looks great, as “LTPO 4.1 allows the fingerprint scanner, whose
Ultra (see issue 354, p58) or the Pixel 9 OLED usually does. It scored display to set two ultrasonic sensor is faster
Pro XL (see issue 362, p58) – especially extremely well in our colour and more reliable than the
if you’re looking for maxed-out reproduction tests, and
different refresh rates optical sensors in previous
memory and storage. beat its rivals for colour in different screen zones, OnePlus phones. Mind you,
accuracy. Its peak brightness to save more power” the company is playing
New look measurement was lower than catch-up here, as Samsung
The design has changed from the the competition’s, but that tells has already been using this technology
previous model. The sides are flatter, only part of the story: OnePlus’ for more than five years.
but the display is still curved on all new “RadiantView” technology
sides, helping the phone nestle in your dynamically adjusts localised High-res cameras
hand however you hold it. At the back, brightness (as well as colour Like previous models, the OnePlus
OnePlus has trimmed the metal and contrast) for optimum 13’s camera module is Hasselblad-
backing from the camera block and readability. Consequently, branded, and the main ultrawide and
added a smart glossy line across the while the numbers suggest 3x telephoto cameras now all use
body of the phone. The front is now the OnePlus 13 is only half as high-resolution 50MP sensors. I took a
clad in Ceramic Guard material to bright as the Pixel 9 Pro XL, whole load of photos with each and
prevent cracks and scratches, and the I actually found it just as easy found the results held up very well
phone gains IP69 water and dust to read in bright daylight. against the best rival phone cameras.
resistance, meaning it should survive However, if you’re contending Street scenes captured looked brighter
total immersion in water, or even with concentrated light sources and sharper than the same shots taken
being sprayed by a high-pressure jet. such as a powerful ceiling LEFT An IP69 rating on an iPhone 16 Pro Max (see issue
The trim options have been spotlight, the anti-glare means the phone is 363, p72), while the image from the
freshened up, too, with the familiar coating of the Galaxy S24 well protected from Google Pixel 9 Pro XL looked dull and
black and green casings replaced by Ultra still comes out on top. dust and water lifeless by comparison.

72
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Reviews
I was happy with night shots. GEEKBENCH 6 SINGLE CORE GEEKBENCH 6 MULTICORE
Again, the OnePlus brightened the
scene a lot, but kept big light sources Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max 3,386 OnePlus 13 9,058
Apple A18 Pro, 6-core GPU Snapdragon 8 Elite, Adreno 830
such as fairy lights nicely controlled, OnePlus 13 Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max
2,893 8,306

HIGHER IS BETTER

HIGHER IS BETTER
squeezing out more detail as a result. Snapdragon 8 Elite, Adreno 830 Apple A18 Pro, 6-core GPU
The Pixel’s signature Night Sight mode Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra 2,300 Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra 7,249
Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, Adreno 750 Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, Adreno 750
produced a more natural-looking
OnePlus 13R 2,098 OnePlus 13R 6,533
image overall, but with worse bloom Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, Adreno 750 Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, Adreno 750
from the lights. The 32MP front sensor Google Pixel 9 Pro XL Google Pixel 9 Pro XL
1,929 4,747
takes great selfies in all conditions, Google Tensor G4, Mali-G715 MC7 Google Tensor G4, Mali-G715 MC7
too. Based on my experiences, Google Pixel 8a 1,581 Google Pixel 8a 4,093
Tensor T3, Mali-G715s Tensor T3, Mali-G715s
OnePlus has earned a place alongside
Apple, Google and Samsung in the top 3DMARK WILD LIFE EXTREME (FPS) BATTERY LIFE (WEB BROWSING)
tier of smartphone photography.
OnePlus 13 34 OnePlus 13 19hrs 45mins
Power on tap Snapdragon 8 Elite, Adreno 830
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
Snapdragon 8 Elite, Adreno 830
OnePlus 13R
30 18hrs 49mins

HIGHER IS BETTER

HIGHER IS BETTER
The OnePlus 13 features the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, Adreno 750 Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, Adreno 750
Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, giving it OnePlus 13R 29 Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max 17hrs 35mins
Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, Adreno 750 Apple A18 Pro, 6-core GPU
enough power to go head to head with
Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max 23 Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra 16hrs 46mins
more or less any phone on the market. Apple A18 Pro, 6-core GPU Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, Adreno 750
The OnePlus placed a little behind the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL Google Pixel 9 Pro XL
15 12hrs 54mins
Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro (see issue 365, Google Tensor G4, Mali-G715 MC7 Google Tensor G4, Mali-G715 MC7
p72) in our benchmarks, thanks to its Google Pixel 8a 14 Google Pixel 8a 11hrs 21mins
Tensor T3, Mali-G715s Tensor T3, Mali-G715s
high-performance “X Mode”, but it
mostly beat the Galaxy S24 Ultra and
Pixel 9 Pro XL, and gave the iPhone 16 50W, and OnePlus has introduced a call wouldn’t work just as well, but
Pro Max a good run too, only falling magnetic wireless puck that snaps there’s no harm in having the option.
short on the transcoding and single- conveniently onto the back for strong, And you can look forward to more
core CPU performance metrics. reliable charging. Curiously, though, features arriving in future, as OnePlus
Consequently, everything you the OnePlus 13 itself isn’t magnetic, so promises four years of full
do on this phone feels fluid and you’ll need to pop it into a suitable “Based on my experiences, Android updates and six
instant. Even gaming performance case to make the charger stay in place. OnePlus has earned a place years of security updates.
is admirable: admittedly it can’t First-party offerings start at £25.
run mobile RPG Ex Astris at full
alongside Apple, Google and That’s a year more than the
OnePlus 12 got, and while
settings without hiccups, but Software updates Samsung in the top tier of it’s not as long as the seven
performance is generally smooth as The OxygenOS 15 system software is smartphone photography” years that Google and
you run around the game world or based on Android 15 and has all the Samsung offer for their
fight enemies in flashy battles. features you’d expect from a premium flagship phones, it could well see you
Android phone, including the through until your next upgrade.
Brilliant battery inevitable AI suite. This contains tools
There’s also good news on the battery for live translation, transcription, Many pluses
front. OnePlus is known for equipping text generation and formatting, plus BELOW The three In all, the OnePlus 13 is a great phone
its phones with extra-large batteries, image editing and enhancement; 50MP cameras on the at a compelling price. Its closest
and the 6,000mAh unit inside the there’s also an Intelligent Search tool rear are a match for competitors all cost more, and mostly
OnePlus 13 kept it ticking for 19hrs that can hunt for content within the best phone lenses come with less storage, shorter
45mins in our web-browsing test. local files (except in hidden battery lives and slower charging. If
That’s seven hours longer than the folders), along with Google’s there’s a catch, it’s the timing: as I
Google Pixel 9 Pro XL, three hours Circle to Search tool and write this, Samsung is preparing to
longer than the Samsung Galaxy S24 Gemini assistant. reveal its new range of Galaxy S25
Ultra and more than two hours of Another interesting smartphones, which will doubtless
extra juice compared to the iPhone 16 addition to OnePlus’ divert the spotlight from OnePlus.
Pro Max. As with the processor, this software is the Share with But even if new rivals match the
phone can’t quite match the iPhone tool, as previously OnePlus 13 on specs or beat it for
overachieving Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro, seen on the Oppo Find X8 photographic quality or raw
which managed 20hrs 34mins, but Pro. This lets you beam files performance, I very much doubt
this is still an excellent result. wirelessly between an they’ll challenge it for all-round
The other thing OnePlus is known iPhone and the OnePlus 13, value. Pound-for-pound this is one of
for is lightning-fast charging. The and although it does require the best phones around, and that’s not
phone supports OnePlus’ 100W you to install the companion likely to change any time soon.
“Supervooc” charger, which the app on the iPhone it RICHARD PRIDAY
company claims will refill the battery generally works very well –
from dead to 100% charge in a little it’s the closest thing we’ve SPECIFICATIONS
over 35 minutes. I tried the 80W seen to a cross-platform 8-core Snapdragon 8 Elite SoC 12GB/16GB
model and was pleased to see the AirDrop equivalent. RAM Adreno 830 graphics 6.8in 120Hz
phone fill up to 56% in 15 minutes and I also have to mention AMOLED screen, 1,440 x 3,168 resolution 5G
to 92% in half an hour. There’s no BeaconLink, a walkie-talkie 256GB/512GB storage dual nano-SIM
charger in the box, though; budget for mode that lets you make IP68 triple 50MP/50MP/50MP rear
around £30 extra if you want one of calls to other OnePlus cameras 32MP front camera Wi-Fi 7
these high-speed chargers. phones over Bluetooth in Bluetooth 5.4 NFC 6,000mAh battery
Wireless charging has been a 200m range. Honestly, USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 connector Android 15 with
upgraded, too: with a compatible pad it’s hard to think of a OxygenOS 15 (4 major updates) 77 x 8.5 x
you can recharge wirelessly at up to situation where a standard 163mm (WDH) 210g 1yr warranty

73
 Reviews @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO

OnePlus 13R
The OnePlus 13R also
benefits from an enormous

Not as cheap as the Pixel 8a, 6,000mAh battery, which

gave me 18hrs 49mins of

but battery life and overall web surfing before running

out of power. That’s way
performance make it a ahead of competing phones:
the Google Pixel 8a lasted
strong choice at this price 11hrs 21mins in the same
test, while the Samsung
Galaxy S24 FE held out for
SCORE
11hrs 38mins. There’s no
PRICE 12GB/256GB, £566 (£679 inc VAT) wireless charging, but wired
from oneplus.com charging is supported at up
to 80W; a 55W adapter took

T
me from empty to 60% in 30
he OnePlus 13R offers much of minutes – not bad at all.
the same character as the Needless to say, the
OnePlus 13 (see p72), but for software includes various
£220 less. You still get a 6.8in screen, AI capabilities: OnePlus’
the same 12GB of RAM and 256GB of Intelligent Search feature
storage, and they even look similar: quickly tracked down a
its aluminium frame comes in silver document I had stored on
“Astral Trail” or black “Nebula Noir”, the phone, and there’s a
with Corning’s Gorilla Glass 7i for suite of AI-powered
protection against scratches. An IP64 photo-editing tools, too,
rating means it can handle splashes, including a Reflection
too, though you can’t dunk the phone Eraser for cleaning up shots
in water or blast it with high-pressure taken through a window
water jets like you can the OnePlus 13. and an AI Eraser for
While the OnePlus 13R’s display is completely removing
just as big as the 13’s, it has a lower digital zoom algorithm unwanted elements. The
1,264 x 2,780 resolution. That’s still OnePlus is using is clearly handy Compare button
sharp (it works out to 449ppi), and on point: 4x zoom shots lets you instantly review
the adaptive refresh rate scales came out impressively sharp. ABOVE The 13R has before and after versions of your
dynamically from 1Hz to 120Hz. It’s The ultrawide lens also performed much in common with edited images, to see what the AI tools
bright, too – I had no problem admirably when I captured an the more expensive have done.
watching films in direct sunlight – expansive scene of a bridge across the OnePlus 13 on p72 In a few ways, though, the AI
and colour performance is impressive, river; once again, it delivered a bright, features feel unrefined. I wish it were
with 172% sRGB coverage in its default colourful image, next to which results easier to tell which of your photos had
Vivid mode and 122% of the wider from the Pixel 8a (see issue 358, p74) been AI-edited, without
DCI-P3 colour gamut. In all looked rather flat. “By the traditional metrics digging into the details of
it’s a very good-looking The OnePlus 13R uses a of camera, performance each one, and I was
screen, and while the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3
and display, the OnePlus 13R annoyed that the AI Notes
under-display SoC, which powered app rewrote my text in
fingerprint sensor is many of last year’s is a brilliant all-rounder for a tone that sounded
optical rather than flagship Android a very reasonable price” nothing like my voice.
ultrasonic I found phones. While not Still, OnePlus promises
it responsive as fast as the latest four years of software updates, so
enough to use as Snapdragon Elite hopefully these features will be
my primary way silicon, it’s still improved in future.
of unlocking the powerful enough for The OnePlus 13R is around £100
phone. There’s face almost anything you LEFT The bright, more expensive than the 256GB Pixel
recognition, too. might want to do, sharp screen displays 8a, and £55 more than the 256GB
The OnePlus 13R may including gaming. In colours accurately Galaxy S24 FE. Right now, both
not have the Hasselblad- 3DMark Wild Life Unlimited, rivals offer slicker AI services, but
branded photographic hardware of the 13R averaged 115fps, well ahead of by the traditional metrics of camera,
the 13, but it’s still well equipped other phones in its class such as 87fps performance and display, the OnePlus
with a 50MP main and 2x telephoto from the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE (see 13R is a brilliant all-rounder for a very
cameras, plus an 8MP ultrawide issue 363, p76) and 51fps for the Pixel reasonable price. PHILIP MICHAELS
shooter. The results are attractive, but 8a. The phone became warm when I BELOW An aluminium
only if you like bold, lively colours. tested a bunch of AI features before frame provides SPECIFICATIONS
In fact, the processed images often leaping into a lengthy gaming session, protection against 8-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC
looked more exciting than the actual but performance never stuttered. dust and water 12GB RAM Adreno 750 graphics 6.8in
scene, often emphasising colour at the 120Hz AMOLED screen, 1,264 x 2,780
expense of detail. I took a 2x telephoto resolution 5G 256GB storage dual
shot of a monument in a park, and nano-SIM IP65 triple 50MP/50MP/8MP
while the image looked great at first rear cameras 16MP front camera Wi-Fi 7
glance, zooming in revealed that the Bluetooth 5.4 NFC 6,000mAh battery
text on the plaque was smeary, while USB-C 2 connector Android 14 (4 major
Google’s Pixel 8a produced a cleaner updates) 76 x 8 x 162mm (WDH) 206g
result. On the plus side, whatever 1yr RTB warranty

74
Amazon Echo
Show 21
Amazon’s biggest and
fastest smart display,
with Wi-Fi 6E and the
built-in Fire TV adding
to its allure

RECOMMENDED

SCORE and wall mount included in the box. ABOVE Amazon’s resolution is sharp, especially since
You can also plonk it on a desk or Echo Show 21 is far this isn’t a screen that’s intended for
PRICE £333 (£400 inc VAT) kitchen counter, though the optional more than a simple up-close document work – it’s more
from amazon.co.uk stand costs an extra £100 inc VAT. voice assistant for popping up reminders, displaying

T
This isn’t Amazon’s first attempt at photos or watching films and shows,
he Echo Show 21 is by far the a big-screen Echo. In 2022 we tested and for those purposes it looks great.
largest Alexa device Amazon the first-generation Echo Show 15 (see The text in widgets is easy to read, and
has ever made, and it’s also the issue 330, p70) and found it a generally I really enjoyed catching up on TV
most expensive. But you get much agreeable smart-home hub. The shows or watching YouTube clips.
more than a simple voice assistant. It’s experience of using the Echo Show 21 As well as great visuals, the Echo
a smart, always-on display for is similar, with notable upgrades that Show 21 has surprisingly good audio.
checking upcoming appointments, might win over those who weren’t With the volume turned up halfway,
shopping lists, the weather forecast persuaded by the original model. the Echo Show 21 filled my
and more at a glance; it can monitor The most visible enhancement is “It’s a smart, always-on kitchen with sound, with
and control a huge range of smart- the larger screen. The name slightly display; it can control a dual 2in woofers providing
home appliances using Matter, Thread undersells the display size, which
huge range of smart-home solid and rich-sounding bass
and Zigbee platforms; and it doubles measures 21.5in across the diagonal, – so it’s ideal not only for
as a Fire TV for streaming movies and making all other Echo devices look appliances; and it doubles video, but for music and
TV programmes, with a voice remote tiny in comparison. The Full HD 1080p as a Fire TV” radio services, too.

Smooth operator
Internally, the Echo Show 21 is
powered by a custom eight-core SoC,
which makes everything feel fast and
snappy. When testing previous Echo
Show devices I’ve noticed occasional
delays and stutters, but with this
smart display it was a perfectly
smooth experience throughout.
Another thing that helps the Echo
Show 21 feel fast is its support for
Wi-Fi 6E. When partnered with a
LEFT The 21.5in compatible router, this allows it to
Full HD display is fetch information from the internet at
great for watching tremendous speeds. For example, on
films and TV shows the original Echo Show 15 I saw an

76
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Reviews
average download rate of 128Mbits/sec, have to adopt a clunky workaround
but with the Echo Show 21 that of going into the Silk Browser app
rocketed up to 304Mbits/sec. and using the iPlayer web interface.
There are a few subtle design You can’t cast content to the Echo
changes from the Echo Show 15. The Show 21 from other devices as you
front-facing camera has moved from can with a regular Fire TV device,
the left to the centre of the frame. This either, and there’s no video input
looks more natural when you’re using socket for external sources.
it – when not in use you can hide it Finally, while the optional metal
away behind a shutter – and it works stand feels nicely solid, it’s not as
better for video calls. The camera has a flexible as I would have liked.
13MP sensor with a wide field of view, Although it can rotate through 360
which works well for group photos or degrees and tilt up and down, for the
video calls with multiple people in the price I would have liked height
room. For one-on-one meetings, digital adjustment, too.
pan and zoom capabilities follow you
around the room automatically, with Generational difference
a zoom factor of up to 3.3x. As with Despite those shortcomings, I found ABOVE The Echo Even if you aren’t upgrading
other Echo Show devices, when you’re the Echo Show 21 a very likeable Show 21 can be easily from the Echo Show 15 to the Echo
not using the camera, the device can upgrade from the older Echo Show 15. mounted on a wall Show 21, you can easily swap from one
use facial recognition to identify Part of me always wished the original to the other if you find that the Echo
who’s standing in front of it and bring model had a larger screen, so in that Show 21’s larger screen is too big for
up their preferred widget content. regard it feels as if Amazon read my your space.
mind. More than this, I was pleasantly
Room with a view surprised by how easy it was to Worth the price?
There’s one other trick to the camera, upgrade from one to the other: the For many people, the biggest issue
too: when the Echo Show 21 is idle you Echo Show 21 uses the same power with the Echo Show 21 will be the
can use it to keep an eye on your adapter and wall mount as the 15in price. It’s £100 more than the 15in
home. With the device mounted on version, so I was able to take the model (see below), and if you’re on a
my kitchen wall, I could open up the smaller smart display down and tight budget you could
Alexa app from anywhere and get a replace it with the larger model in less “While the price may be a even opt for the wall-
live view right across my kitchen and than five minutes. I did have to pair reach, you’re really getting mounted Echo Hub at only
into the living room. You can also the included remote and go through
a lot of capabilities – and you £170, although it’s a lot
view the camera feed from other the initial setup process, but it was smaller at 8in. Of course,
Alexa-equipped smart displays, and still one of the simplest smart home don’t have to pay extra for a the Echo Show 21 serves
even listen in on the microphones. upgrades I’ve ever done. wall mount or a remote” double duty as an
I do have some gripes. One of my entertainment station, but
biggest complaints about the Echo ECHO SHOW 15 it’s questionable how well that really
Show 15 hasn’t been fixed, and that’s meshes with the live information
the limited selection of home-screen display and smart home hub roles.
For those seeking something cheaper and less imposing than
widgets. The ones you do get are Still, the Echo Show 21 is an
generally good: Amazon’s first-party the Echo Show 21, Amazon has also updated the 15in model undeniably impressive device,
widgets provide handy updates on with most of the same features. The smaller smart display addressing many of my reservations
the weather, your calendar, your uses the same latest-generation CPU as the 21in version, with about Amazon’s original wall-
commute and so forth. It’s also nice to the same camera and smart-home capabilities, plus Fire TV mountable smart display. Its big screen
walk up to the screen and directly allows you to pin a wide selection of
support and a bundled remote.
control other smart-home devices. home-screen widgets, and makes it a
Beyond that, though, there’s little in The main difference – aside from the physical size – is the perfectly viable device for streaming
the way of inventive or fun widgets, home screen. The Echo Show 15 matches the 1080p TV shows and movies, as well as
from either Amazon or third parties. resolution of the plus-size version, but to keep things listening to music and audio services
The widget interface doesn’t take readable it uses larger widgets: you get one main display, through those upgraded speakers.
full advantage of the big screen of the taking up half of the screen space, plus one wide widget and Other welcome improvements
Echo Show 21, either. Next to the include the enhanced camera and
three smaller panels. If that’s enough for your home it’s a
jumbo-sized main panel you can tracking capabilities, allowing for
configure one wide widget and six more economical choice at £300 inc VAT, although the better video calls, group pictures and
mini displays – but there are only adjustable stand is still an extra £100 on top. home monitoring, while the new CPU
seven wide-format widgets to and Wi-Fi hardware make for a faster
choose from, and you can’t use two at experience overall. So while the price
once. This frustrated me, as I would may be a reach, you’re getting a lot of
have loved to have the wide calendar capabilities in return. While not as
and appointment view on display, versatile as you might hope, the Echo
plus the full-sized smart-home Show 21 is a striking, high-quality and
control panel. Instead, I had to use neatly integrated upgrade for any
the compact version of the latter, kitchen. ANTHONY SPADAFORA
and miss out on the full set of
touchscreen controls. SPECIFICATIONS
Another curious limitation is that, 21.5in 1,920 x 1,080 IPS touchscreen 8-core
while most major streaming services SoC with Amazon AZ2 neural network engine
are accessible through the Fire TV 2 x 2in woofers 2 x 0.6in tweeters 13MP
interface, there’s no direct support for camera Wi-Fi 6E Bluetooth (A2DP and
BBC iPlayer. This doesn’t mean you AVRCP) 540 x 38 x 340mm (WDH) 4.9kg
can’t watch BBC programmes, but you remote control 1yr limited warranty

77
 THE
SUITE
SPOT
BEST SECURITY SUITES
vs BEST FREE ANTIVIRUS
With so many excellent choices for free antivirus
protection, the real question becomes whether
it’s worth paying for any of the full suites

W
hen it comes to virus protection, you’ve never had
it so good. All of the products on test here provide
strong defences against real-world attacks, and
that includes the built-in protection from Windows
Defender (although it was the weakest on test).
So why pay for a security suite? You certainly don’t need to if
you’re only worried about malware, but the clue comes in the name:
Contents
Avira Prime........................................ 84
if you want a suite of tools to protect your security, and your privacy,
Bitdefender Total Security.............. 85
then there are strong arguments to buy an all-in-one package McAfee+ Ultimate............................ 86
rather than going separately. Norton 360 Deluxe............................87
We’re particularly thinking about VPN software. While we will Sophos Home Premium.................. 88
always tell you to buy a specialist tool if you have advanced needs, Avast Ultimate................................... 90
a security suite is a cost-effective way to add this privacy tool to Eset Home Security Ultimate......... 90
your armoury. But choose wisely and you’ll also enjoy additional F-Secure Total....................................91
protection against ransomware attacks, device management tools G Data Total Security........................91
that allow you to track/kill lost or stolen devices, and cloud backup. K7 Ultimate Security.........................92
The more expensive suites also bring identity protection into the Microsoft Defender Antivirus.........92
equation. Several of these suites will monitor the dark web to see if TotalAV Antivirus Pro...................... 93
your details are being sold online, and McAfee will even step in and
act on your behalf. Albeit for a price that’s built into the suite. Feature comparison table.............. 80
As always, don’t be lured in by low first-year prices. It’s the Security suites vs free antivirus:
renewal cost that really matters, which is why we hunt out the how to decide.................................... 82
best price for retail licences wherever possible. We hope the end Best free antivirus............................ 89
result is a Labs that helps you choose the best buy for your needs – How we test....................................... 94
and keeps you safe in 2025 and beyond. Test results........................................ 94
View from the Labs........................... 95
CONTRIBUTOR: KG Orphanides

78
@PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Labs Security suites

79
 LABS WINNER RECOMMENDED
Avast Ultimate Avira Prime Bitdefender Total Eset Home F-Secure Total G Data Total
Security Security Ultimate Security
Overall

Website avast.com avira.com bitdefender.co.uk eset.com f-secure.com gdatasoftware.co.uk

Desktop clients macOS, Windows macOS, Windows macOS, Windows macOS, Windows macOS, Windows macOS, Windows
Mobile clients Android, iOS Android, iOS Android, iOS Android, iOS Android, iOS Android, iOS

Pricing
First year’s price direct 1 PC, £42 (£50 inc VAT); 5 devices, £43 (£52 inc VAT) 5 devices, £42 (£50 inc VAT) 5 devices, £64 (£77 inc VAT) 5 devices, £83 5 devices, $68
10 devices, £58 (£70 (£100 inc VAT) ($82 inc VAT)
inc VAT)

Renewal price direct 1 PC, £92 (£110 inc VAT); 5 devices, £76 (£91 inc VAT) 5 devices, £63 (£75 inc VAT) 5 devices, £96 (£115 inc 5 devices, £83 (£100 inc 5 devices, $68
10 devices, £117 (£140 VAT) VAT) ($82 inc VAT)
inc VAT)

Third-party retail price 10 devices, 2yrs, £25 Not available (Avira 5 devices, 1yr, £17 5 devices, 1yr, £67 N/A 5 devices, 1yr, £60
(£30 inc VAT) from store. Internet Security for 3 (£20 inc VAT) from store. (£80 inc VAT) from (72 inc VAT) from
pcpro.co.uk devices costs £30 inc VAT pcpro.co.uk amazon.co.uk amazon.co.uk
from Amazon)

Features
Firewall

Browser protection: link

checking or site blocking
Ransomware protection
(dedicated module)
Cloud backup (local backup tool
included)
Webcam protection
(dedicated module)
VPN

Password manager

Scheduled scans?

Silent detection mode

Parental controls

Device management/ Mobile only

tracking

Bootable rescue disk (free download) (built into app)

Breach monitoring

Data broker removal service

Identity theft/lost wallet

support

Test results
AV-Test Real-world (batch 1) 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
AV-Test Real-world (batch 2) 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
AV-Test Reference (batch 1) 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
AV-Test Reference (batch 2) 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
AV-Test false positives (total) 1 0 0 0 0 2
AV-Test protection score 6 6 6 6 6 6
AV-Test performance score 6 6 5.5 6 5.5 6
AV-Test usability score 6 6 6 6 6 6
AV-Comparatives 99.6% 99.8% 99.6% 99.2% 99.8% 99.6%
Real-World Protection –
% blocked
AV-Comparatives 13 7 5 3 45 17
Real-World Protection –
false positives
SE Labs Protection rating 100% N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
SE Labs Legitimate 100% N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
Accuracy
SE Labs Total Accuracy 100% N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
rating

80
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Labs Security suites

RECOMMENDED
K7 Ultimate Security McAfee+ Ultimate Microsoft Defender Norton 360 Deluxe Sophos Home TotalAV Antivirus Pro
Antivirus Premium

k7computing.com mcafee.com microsoft.com uk.norton.com home.sophos.com totalav.com

macOS, Windows macOS, Windows macOS, Windows macOS, Windows macOS, Windows macOS, Windows
Android, iOS Android, iOS Android Android, iOS

5 devices, £31 (£37 inc VAT) Individual, unlimited devices, Free to Windows users 5 devices, £25 (£30 inc VAT) 10 devices, £31 (£37 inc VAT) 5 devices, £24 (£29 inc VAT)
£142 (£170 inc VAT); Family,
unlimited devices, £217
(£260 inc VAT)
5 devices, £53 (£63 inc VAT) Individual, unlimited devices, Free to Windows users 5 devices, £75 (£90 inc VAT) 10 devices, £42 (£50 inc VAT) 5 devices, £83 (£99 inc VAT)
£191 (£230 inc VAT); Family,
unlimited devices, £292 (£350
inc VAT)
N/A Not available (Total Protection N/A Not available (Norton 360 N/A N/A
– 10 devices, 15 months – costs Advanced – 10 devices, 2yrs –
£15 inc VAT from Amazon) costs £20 inc VAT from store.
pcpro.co.uk)

(cloud backup service)

5GB (OneDrive) (50GB) (2GB)

(via Microsoft Authenticator)

Family only (web filtering)

(management and remote

scanning)

(free download)

100% 100% 100% 100% N/A 100%

100% 100% 99% 100% N/A 100%
100% 100% 100% 100% N/A 100%
100% 100% 100% 100% N/A 100%
2 2 2 1 N/A 0
6 6 6 6 N/A 6
5.5 6 6 5.5 N/A 5.5
6 5.5 6 6 N/A 6
N/A 99.8% 98.3% 99.8% N/A 98.7%

N/A 10 3 22 N/A 5

N/A 98% 98% 100% 99% N/A

N/A 100% 100% 100% 100% N/A

N/A 99% 99% 100% 100% N/A

81
Security suites vs free
antivirus: how to decide
The great thing about internet security software is that it’s easy to try before you buy
– and if you’re after simple protection, there’s no need to spend a penny

W
hen it comes to choosing
security software, there’s
one thing that can’t be
ignored: security. That may sound
obvious, but with so many packages
drowning in other features, it’s easy
to become sidetracked. However,
avoiding infection by malicious
software should be your top priority.
That means that real-time malware
protection is the critical feature of a
security suite. This is a service that
continuously monitors your PC for
threats, primarily by scanning files and
websites your computer encounters.
It’s our minimum bar for inclusion
in this group test. For example, the
free edition of Malwarebytes is
effective and justifiably popular but,
unlike its paid-for version, only
provides on-demand scanning.
Every product here can protect
your computer against the majority
of malicious software. You can take ABOVE Ransomware (“packing”)? Does it engage in all, Defender requires no additional
their mere presence in our shortlist – protection can lock potentially threatening behaviour software installation or payment and
there are roughly 25 reputable down your most such as attempting to delete files or it won’t nag you to upgrade.
products out there to choose from important files terminate processes? Characteristics Here, we review the free “for
– as an implicit nod of approval. such as these allow antivirus software individuals” version of Microsoft
to decide whether an unknown Defender that ships with the
Testing procedures program is likely to be a threat or not. operating system on the same terms as
Performance analysis of malware A number of antivirus its rivals, but the fact that you don’t
protection is in the business of The fundamental question suites offload some need to install anything new or
assessing edge cases, unfamiliar about any third-party malware detection update any licences
malware and false positives. These
solution is whether it can features by automatically makes it a compelling
marginal instances can have an sending samples to their choice when it comes to
impact on your quality of life and, perform better than cloud for analysis – here, protecting the PCs of less
potentially, the health of your PC. Microsoft Defender more processor power and tech-savvy friends and
Malware signatures – the hashes of AI can perform a fast relations. But that’s only
known malicious files – are important heuristic assessment of potentially assuming that its protection
to both real-time and on-demand malicious files. While this feature is continues to meet the grade.
scanning, which is why testing still most common in enterprise Due to the huge number of systems
houses run flat file scans against BELOW We use data endpoint protection, you’ll find it at on which it’s deployed, Microsoft has
large batches of recently collected from, among others, the heart of features such as Eset’s a real advantage when it comes to
malware introduced on a disk. the well-regarded LiveGuard. These features can obtaining malware samples to
But polymorphic viruses and other AV-Test testing house generally be disabled in case you’re analyse, which informs not only
forms of obfuscated malware have handling sensitive files its malware signature database, but
been around for years, that should never leave also the behavioural data it has to
which is where your network. add to its heuristic rules of thumb
heuristic scanning for sketchy software. However,
comes in: this looks at Can it beat Defender isn’t always best in class,
characteristics and Microsoft Defender? particularly when it comes to the
behaviours of a The fundamental free version for home PCs. That’s
suspicious file or question about any something that’s quite obvious if
process to determine third-party antivirus you turn to the graphs on p94.
whether it’s a threat. solution is whether it can Where Microsoft does have an
Does it use known consistently perform advantage, it seems, is performance.
detection-evasion better than Microsoft Every single one of its rivals slowed
techniques such as Defender antivirus, down the performance of systems –
encryption or which comes built into albeit not by a huge amount –
compression Windows 10 and 11. After compared to Microsoft Defender.

82
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Labs Security suites
The effect can be noticeable on
low-performance systems, and is
definitely something to consider if
you’re planning to install software on,
say, a Celeron-powered laptop.

A question of price
Free antivirus remains an important
part of the anti-malware landscape.
Companies benefit by processing data
about malware that their free users
encounter in two ways: one, it’s more
training data for their engines; two,
they can promote their paid-for
products with timely offers. They also
gain a reputational boost if their free
products are high quality. All of which
means you shouldn’t dismiss the
freebies. They provide exactly the ABOVE/RIGHT Buying direct or
same core anti-malware engine as the Third-party retailers via third parties
full security suites. such as Amazon are In general, suppliers want you to buy Others are still security-oriented,
So, why pay? For the same reason often cheaper than direct from their sites. It’s curious, but broader in the net they cast –
you might choose any bundled buying direct – as is then, that they often punish loyal they’re usually things that you might
software: the idea of added value. the PC Pro store customers with a price rise in their otherwise get as a dedicated service,
Security suites include extra features second year. Not that they call it that: such as password managers, parental
that cost money to provide, from they talk of first-year discounts, and control software, cloud backup
online password managers and cloud this allows them to show big banners services and VPNs.
backup to device tracking if you lose that scream “70% OFF!!!” But be very While it’s convenient to get
your phone or laptop, or if it’s stolen. A careful, as they will auto-renew everything bundled together, you will
couple of companies even offer hands- unless you’re careful, and a year later rarely get the best of all worlds, and
on helplines in case you lose your you’re hit by the full and often you don’t necessarily want your
wallet or have your identity stolen. wincingly high price. password manager or cloud backup
We cover more about the extra We recommend you take a That’s why we will provider – long-term, high-security
features in security suites below. close look at the different often direct you to subscriptions by their nature – to be

Tiers for fee-ers tiers on offer. Why pay an third-party retailers.

Amazon is generally a
tied into a bundle with a malware
protection suite that you might decide
Where possible, we’ve looked at extra £5 per month for a solid choice, but the to swap for a better alternative in a
the most feature-packed version of service you don’t need? prices fluctuate so check year’s time.
each security suite, and made that you’re not paying If you’re a power user, you probably
recommendations based on its over the odds. We also recommend already have opinions and requirements
performance and how likely different our own PC Pro store (store.pcpro.co. about many of these things. If you use
users are to want its extra features. uk), as it’s one of our specialist areas multiple operating systems, or want a
Sometimes, however, the best choice (and the prices are more consistent VPN that you can deploy to your
for you will be at a lower-cost tier. than Amazon’s). router, the VPNs bundled with
To that end, before you buy, we The only downside to third-party security suites rarely provide
recommend you take a close look at stores is that you may not be able to sufficient flexibility. We will cover
the different tiers on offer. Why pay buy exactly the same package as VPNs separately in a future Labs.
an extra £5 per month for a service provided direct. That’s especially true Bundled parental control suites are
you don’t need? You should also BELOW Suppliers will for services such as identity tracking. rarely as effective as Microsoft Family
think carefully about how many attempt to lure you in Take a careful look at what’s on offer Safety or macOS Parental Controls,
devices you’ll need to cover, as this with big first-year to make sure it’s what you want. unless you’re specifically looking for a
often has an impact on price. discounts on products cross-platform solution or legacy OS
Extra features support. Some third-party parental
Our reviews are weighted heavily control suites, including those
towards protection against malware, provided with internet security suites,
in real-time. However, most of the are also less than entirely respectful of
products in this group test do a lot children’s rights under British law.
more, helping to justify their status as The final category of extras consists
fully fledged security suites. of tools such as local encrypted data
Some of these features are very stores, secure file shredders and
specifically to do with device Registry cleaners. Although they can
security: ransomware protection that be handy, there are free/open-source
can lock down and/or back up your applications that do as well or better
most important folders, web-based in almost all cases, so these can be
management consoles that allow you safely ignored as filler, at best.
to remotely find or wipe lost devices, If you’re mostly in the market for
bootable rescue disks to help you malware protection, with some extra
recover after a malware infection, options just in case you need them,
and firewall software that, in almost then most services we’ve reviewed do
all cases, has a less creaky interface an adequate job. You don’t need to pay
for creating rules than Microsoft’s more to get better protection against
integrated solution. malicious software.

83
AVIRA PRIME
Matching or outperforming
the biggest names in AV,
Avira Prime is worth
spending money on
SCORE
1st YEAR PRICE 5 devices, £43
(£52 inc VAT) from avira.com
RENEWAL PRICE 5 devices, £76
(£91 inc VAT) from avira.com
RETAIL PRICE Not available

AV- SE LABS AV-

AV-TEST COMPARATIVES COMPARATIVES
NOT
100% 99.8% TESTED 7
PROTECTION PROTECTION PROTECTION FALSE POSITIVES

G
erman brand Avira kept
going as its own company
until 2021, at which point it of shady practices we’ve seen from ABOVE Avira’s Avira also makes an extremely
was sold to an investment company PayPal’s Honey. performance was thehelpful bootable system rescue disc
and then the internet security firm On top of the core malware (tinyurl.com/366avira), which you
best in this test overall
Gen Digital, which was formed when protection, you get Avira’s own VPN can download as an ISO to burn to a
Avast and NortonLifeLock merged. service, which can’t match the region- bootable USB stick or DVD. This boots
Unlike AVG, Avira continues to use shifting prowess of NordVPN, a barebones Linux distro that can
its own malware detection engine and ExpressVPN and ProtonVPN, but does update itself and scan your system
is an independent, distinct product. In an adequate job of hopping your drives when they’re unmounted, thus
fact, it did slightly better than Avast in digital self around the globe. preventing any malicious software
the latest tests from both AV-Test and Avira’s firewall is friendlier to use that’s taken hold from defending itself.
AV-Comparatives, though the margins and generally better looking that A five-device subscription
are very fine. Sadly, SE Labs didn’t Windows’ built-in option. There’s costs £50 for the first year, and
include Avira in its latest round-up, also a password manager, accessed via automatically renews at the registered
but two data sets are sufficient to a browser plugin or mobile app, that’s retail price – currently £75, but this
make a fair assessment of the service. barebones but does the job if you insist may change by this time next year.
Avira’s performance was the best on using it. However, as usual, we A 25-device subscription is also
in this test overall. It scored perfectly recommend using a dedicated available, and doesn’t cost too much
in AV-Test’s real-world malware product, as you don’t want to have to more at £112 per year . No
exposure tests and its reference set move all your passwords every time We didn’t come into this first-year discount is
tests, with zero false positives. It you change antivirus provider; we test expecting Avira to win available at this tier, but
didn’t have a conspicuous impact on
system performance, either. It was
recommend going with Bitwarden or
KeePass instead. Both are free to use
out over the big names, but you can subscribe
monthly for £10.72.
one of the top performers in AV- and fully open source. it’s taken the crown due to While we usually
Comparatives’ latest real-world Back to Avira Prime. You don’t get its all-round performance encourage readers to save
tests, blocking 99.8% of malicious cloud backup, parental controls or money and avoid
software and misidentifying only fully featured device management, unexpected automatic subscription
seven benign programs as threats. tracking or remote scanning of the renewals by buying keys from
It’s worth noting that some of these kind Sophos offers. You can check on third-party retailers, that’s not
outstanding results actually came the status of the Avira installation of currently an option for Avira Prime.
from Avira Free. This uses exactly the each device registered to your online However, you can buy Avira Internet
same malware detection engine, but account, and that’s about it. There’s Security for £30 from Amazon, with
lacks the bonus features of Avira breach monitoring for your email the key difference being its three-
Prime. The latter, paid-for security addresses, which will inform you if device limit and the lack of a VPN.
suite, which we’ve reviewed here, your personal data is compromised in We didn’t come into this group test
supplements outstanding protection a leak, but Avira isn’t trying to expecting Avira to win out over
against malicious software with an compete with high-priced such big names as McAfee,
excellent range of bonus features. identity protection services. established contenders such as
Avira Ultimate covers Windows The focus here remains G Data, and its own stalemates
and macOS PCs, along with Android antivirus and device security, Norton and Avast, but it’s taken
and iOS phones, and also produces and it’s very good at it. the crown this time due to its
protection plugins for the most The Android app includes all-round performance. This
popular browsers. As a caveat, the malware detection, while its award should also be taken as a
plugins include a price comparison iOS app provides a blocker for recommendation to use and
tool, which – like most superfluous phishing sites and unwanted recommend the free version for
browser plugins – we recommend callers. The VPN and password any scenarios where an Avira
avoiding, although at no point has manager are also available on Prime subscription isn’t
Avira been implicated in the kind both major phone platforms. practical or affordable.

84
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Labs Security suites

BITDEFENDER TOTAL
SECURITY
Focused on malware
protection and not bloated
with pointless features, a low
price makes this a winner
SCORE
1st YEAR PRICE 5 devices, £43
(£52 inc VAT) from bitdefender.co.uk
RENEWAL PRICE 5 devices, £63
(£75 inc VAT) from bitdefender.co.uk
RETAIL PRICE 5 devices, 1yr, £17
(£20 inc VAT) from store.pcpro.co.uk

AV- SE LABS AV-

AV-TEST COMPARATIVES COMPARATIVES
NOT
100% 99.6% TESTED 5
PROTECTION PROTECTION PROTECTION FALSE POSITIVES

A
already struggles with the resource- ABOVE Bitdefender list. While any antivirus software
lready a very effective security hungriness of modern applications. provides effective worth its salt will protect against the
suite, Bitdefender has Bitdefender Total Security is a pure malicious cryptominers, and there’s
protection through its
improved its malware antivirus and computer security pleasant interface no indication from test data that
detection performance from last year, product and is priced accordingly. Bitdefender’s approach makes it more
and offers plenty of features without It does come with a VPN; a rebranded effective at protecting your PC, its
becoming too costly or bundling in version of Hotspot Shield that granular controls and ability to block
irrelevant options. It’s available for wouldn’t be our first choice if we mining applications that might have
Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. were choosing a standalone VPN but been deliberately and correctly
We don’t have data from SE Labs, which should be adequate for most of installed on Windows is a solid
but Bitdefender was a top performer your region-shifting needs. RECOMMENDED approach, particular for family PCs
in AV-Test’s regular assessments There are also parental controls, with multiple users.
involving both real-world exposure to primarily managed via a web interface, Bitdefender Total comes with
live malware and scanning of a passive which lets you set screen time limits, a trial version of Bitdefender
set of malicious files. It detected and control application access and SecurePass password
protected against all malware, with location-track family members. It It detected and protected manager, and the more
zero false positives of benign software. works, but it isn’t as comprehensive against all malware, expensive Bitdefender
AV-Comparatives’ latest real-world
malware exposure test was more
as the Microsoft Families feature in
Windows, nor is it as compliant with
with zero false positive Ultimate comes with a full
version. But as usual, we
challenging to all the software tested, international law regarding children’s detections of benign advise against committing
but Bitdefender blocked 99.6% of right to a private life. software to a password manager
malware – only slightly behind Other features include a firewall to simply because it’s
Norton, F-Secure, McAfee and Avira replace Windows’ offering, and bundled with your antivirus. Pick a
– and picked up only five false positive dedicated modules for browser and standalone one and stick with it.
misidentifications of benign software webcam protection, anti-spam for Bitdefender Total Security has an
as a potential malware threat. local installations of Outlook and RRP of £75 per year for five devices
The only caveat comes in the form Thunderbird email clients, plus and a first-year discount that knocks
of AV-Test’s observations about its ransomware protection. The latter £23 off that if you buy directly from
impact on system performance, for can back up and restore important Bitdefender, but the best offers are to
which its score was reduced to 5.5 out documents, but doesn’t let you be found in other online shops, where
of six, knocking down its overall control which files and directories are you’ll find the same thing for £30 or
ratings. The key offender here was its opted into this feature. less. The two leaders here are Amazon
impact on software launch times, with There’s also a new cryptomining and the PC Pro store. You can simply
a performance hit of up to 17% when it protection module that protects buy codes from shops year after year
came to launching applications versus against cryptocurrency mining and manually use them to extend your
no malware protection, compared to software being used to exploit subscription, without signing up
an average of 11% on low-end systems. your PC’s resources and burn for automatic renewals that
Beefier PCs were affected by a 12% electricity without your could sting you at an undesirable
launch speed impact, compared to knowledge. It’s switched off by moment. If you don’t need extra
an average 7%. Installation times default, so you’ll want to features, Bitdefender Antivirus
were also a little sluggish compared manually enable it. You can Free is worth a look, too.
to the best of its rivals. have it detect and notify you of Bitdefender Total Security
Although the differences are visible or automatically block any provides genuinely effective
in test data, it’s unlikely that you’ll cryptomining activity, but you protection and its interface is
really perceive that great an impact can add any cryptocurrency pleasant to work with. It’s
in day-to-day use on a powerful PC, miners that you wish to run for reasonably priced so long as you
but it could be a problem if your PC your own purposes to an allow buy from a third-party retailer.

85
McAFEE+ ULTIMATE
Going well beyond virus
protection, this expensive
suite comes with a range of
identity protection services
SCORE
1st YEAR PRICE Individual, unlimited
devices, £142 (£170 inc VAT)
from mcafee.com
RENEWAL PRICE Individual, unlimited
devices, £191 (£230 inc VAT)
from mcafee.com
RETAIL PRICE Not available

AV- AV-
AV-TEST COMPARATIVES SE LABS COMPARATIVES
100% 99.8% 98% 10
PROTECTION PROTECTION PROTECTION FALSE POSITIVES

A
s antivirus brands merge and keeping you safe in the face of online ABOVE McAfee+ will be about as effective as an
reform, McAfee has retained threats remains consistent. Ultimate provides unused gym membership.
its name but hasn’t been McAfee Ultimate is wildly far more than just Bearing that in mind, if you’re just
immune to changing corporate winds. expensive, with an RRP of £230 inc antivirus protection after antivirus, check out McAfee
In the past decade, the company has VAT for an Individual subscription and Total Protection, which will get you
been sold by Intel, floated on the New £349 for a Family subscription. Both antivirus plus an excellent VPN to
York stock exchange and taken support unlimited devices, and the deploy on ten devices for 15 months
private again by an investment group. biggest difference is that the Family for just £15. The malware protection
Once synonymous with hard-to- subscription extends identity performance will be the same as that
uninstall OEM laptop cruft, McAfee protection to a second adult. McAfee of McAfee+ Advanced, and that
has become both easier to live with and heavily promotes the first-year remains reassuringly strong.
better at protecting against malware, reduction that takes prices down to McAfee detected
but its top tiers remain expensive, and £170 and £260 respectively, but they This is so far beyond standard 100% of malware in
renewal costs can be extremely steep. will auto-renew at the current RRPs. antivirus – where this group AV-Test’s real-world
We’re reviewing McAfee’s most
expensive, feature-packed McAfee+
That’s significantly more
expensive than McAfee Ultimate’s
test is still weighted – that and reference set tests.
Although it only picked
range. This includes four products: nearest rival, Norton 360 Advanced, it’s basically a different kind up two false positives,
Essential, Premium, Advanced and which has an RRP of £150 per year and of service entirely one was a high-priority
Ultimate. The top two tiers are deep first-year discounts, but – for all item, which saw it
significantly more expensive than the financial and lost wallet services it falsely block actions carried out by
McAfee’s non-plus Antivirus and includes – doesn’t come loaded either legitimate software, likely to seriously
Total Protection offerings, which you with so much insurance or with the disrupt a user’s workflow. This is why
can buy in third-party shops for very data broker removal service. it was given a usability score of 5.5 out
decent discounts; McAfee+ products In fact, McAfee+ Ultimate is the 6 by the testing house.
are only available to subscribe to only security service to offer quite AV-Comparatives similarly found
directly from McAfee’s own website. such comprehensive service in the that McAfee was a top performer
The unique selling point of all of UK, which means that if you’re when it came to defending against
them is their identity protection looking to have your information malware, blocking 99.8% of threats,
features. These range from simple scrubbed from the net, and but also picking up ten false positives.
identity monitoring in Essential, particularly if you want insurance to SE Labs’ tests didn’t see any false
where you’ll receive an email if your go with it and don’t want to shell out positives, but McAfee’s protection
registered personal information for a specialist data broker removal performance was no better than
appears in a corporate breach dataset, service such as Ingogni for around Microsoft Defender Antivirus.
all the way up to insurance against £160 a year, then this might actually McAfee Ultimate has almost every
identity theft and ransomware, look like a good deal. Especially as feature you can imagine, from a VPN,
hands-on identity restoration you also benefit from a VPN, password manager and
assistance, and an online account and antivirus and (for the Family parental controls to its identity
personal data clean-up service to sub) parental controls. protection services. It also has
remove unwanted accounts you have However, you’ll need to enter clients for Windows, macOS,
around the internet. McAfee will also the data you want removed and Android and iOS devices. If it’s
request the removal of your personal protected, and generally interact malware detection you’re after
information from online data brokers. with these components if you then McAfee is a solid choice,
This is so far beyond standard want to take advantage of them. but little better than the
antivirus – where this group test is If you’re too busy to get involved antivirus that ships with
still weighted – that it’s basically a with scrubbing your data from Windows. Only spend this
different kind of service entirely. the internet, even if you have much if you really plan to use
However, the overarching theme of the services, McAfee+ Ultimate the identity protection services.

86
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Labs Security suites

NORTON 360 DELUXE

A strong performer in tests,
but most people will be
better off buying Avira’s or
Norton’s retail alternatives
SCORE
1st YEAR PRICE 5 devices, £25
(£30 inc VAT) from uk.norton.com
RENEWAL PRICE 5 devices, £75
(£90 inc VAT) from uk.norton.com
RETAIL PRICE Not available

AV- AV-
AV-TEST COMPARATIVES SE LABS COMPARATIVES
100% 99.8% 99% 22
PROTECTION PROTECTION PROTECTION FALSE POSITIVES

N
orton 360 Deluxe covers up
to five computers and mobile
devices. We’ll touch on the variations on the same feature set. ABOVE It’s a decentfine, but the overall experience is less
entire Norton 360 range, though, The PC Pro store stocks Norton 360 performer, but slick than that of Avira or Sophos.
because the number of licences, in Premium at £10 per year for ten beware of Norton’s While Norton’s parental controls,
addition to which features you get, devices (£20 for a two-year licence), if password manager, online backup
steep renewal prices
changes depending on which tier you you don’t mind a little variation in the storage and VPN are fundamentally
buy. For example, a Plus subscription feature set and confusion over unremarkable compared to other
(£20) covers one device but doesn’t branding. Premium is the Australia products from more specialist service
include a VPN while Standard (odd and New Zealand version of more or providers, they all work well. Norton
naming) adds a VPN for £5 more. less the same product as Deluxe. The Secure VPN is the best inclusion,
Deluxe covers five devices and adds way Norton works means you have to comparing well to more specialist
parental controls for £30. associate keys with your Norton services such as NordVPN – unless you
We’ve previously reviewed the top account, but note that any new key have advanced needs. For example,
£35 Advanced tier, which doubles the you add to your account will replace you still can’t use it with any
number of devices to ten, includes the existing key for the same product, hardware other than a Windows or
identity restoration and credit score rather than being added to your macOS PC or an Android
checking tools, and promises dark remaining subscription time. It impressively detected all or iOS smartphone.
web breach monitoring. Advanced is a Norton’s performance when it samples thrown at it in SE We recommend you
competitor to McAfee+ Advanced, but
the latter has a far wider range of
comes to malware protection is
strong. It impressively detected all
Labs’ real-world malware Safety for parental
stick to Windows Family

identity protection features – most samples thrown at it in SE Labs’ exposure tests, with no controls and a specialist
notably a data broker listing removal real-world malware exposure tests, false positives password manager such
service for your contact details. with no false positives. Likewise in as Bitwarden or KeePass
However, identity protection features AV-Test’s flat file scans and real- for your passwords, however –
remain largely beyond the scope of world tests, picking up only a couple Norton’s products are adequate, but
this specific group test’s core malware of false positive misidentifications of not worth tying yourself to a single
protection remit. It’s also worth legitimate software on the way. subscription for everything.
noting that you can’t associate two However, AV-Test found that it Unlike Avira and Avast, Norton has
different Norton products with significantly slowed the installation problems which it comes to buying
identity protection features on a of software and had a slight impact and activating licences. We ran into
single account. on file copy speeds. unexpected conflicts that made it
Norton is one of the worst In AV-Comparatives’ tests it did easier to create a new account with a
offenders when it comes to RRPs that very well at detection, picking up new email address every time we
are significantly more expensive than 99.8% of all malware in the most registered a key, rather than simply
retail prices. In the case of Norton 360 recent real-world exposure test. using our existing one. Also, it doesn’t
Deluxe, the price is £20 for your first However, with 22 false positive include web-based device management,
year’s subscription, which then goes misidentifications of benign unlike Sophos, and it’s not as good
up to the RRP of £90 per year unless software, it could be a nuisance. at accurately detecting malware
you remember to disable auto- Norton’s interface is a and letting past legitimate
renewal. If you want to protect ten multi-layered thing, with one software as Avira and Avast.
devices, you have to pay even more for front-end client giving you If you like the Norton
Norton 360 Advanced. Cheaper tiers access to all the different approach and branding,
are available: Antivirus Plus is a Norton products you have you’re far better off buying
single-device product with an RRP of installed, plus ads for those the £20 version of Norton 360
£35 per year, for example, but it’s not you lack. Then comes the Advanced from the PC Pro
really any better than Avira Free. Security client that lets you see store as this avoids the auto-
You can find different Norton overviews of and access settings renewals and covers you for ten
products online for less, with for your malware protection. It’s devices and two years.

87
SOPHOS HOME
PREMIUM
Sophos provides decent
protection, but it’s the fully
functional remote web
interface that impresses
SCORE
1st YEAR PRICE 10 devices, £31
(£37 inc VAT) from home.sophos.com
RENEWAL PRICE 10 devices, £42
(£50 inc VAT) from home.sophos.com
RETAIL PRICE Not available

AV-TEST AV- AV-

COMPARATIVES SE LABS COMPARATIVES
NOT NOT NOT
TESTED TESTED 99% TESTED
PROTECTION PROTECTION PROTECTION FALSE POSITIVES

B
ased in the UK, Sophos SE Labs’ thorough real-world live ABOVE Sophos makes is clear and, unlike a number of rival
produces antivirus for home malware exposure tests shows that it easy to protect a products, doesn’t throw a huge
and business use, with its home Sophos put in a very respectable number of PCs number of different packages with
offering notable for its unusually performance, blocking 99% of slightly different feature sets at you.
useful web-based dashboard. Sign malicious software before it even This is a reasonably priced, all-or-
into your account management hit the system, and neutralising nothing deal.
interface on the My Sophos website the last sample, giving it a 100% The remote interface is
and you can not only see a list of every accuracy rating. outstanding and Sophos keeps its
device that the software has been We’d have liked to include data core security offering tight. You don’t
deployed on, but also enable and from more sources, and – although get a VPN, but that’s reflected in the
disable protection modules on a it’s not directly comparable – to price, and we don’t mourn the
RECOMMENDED
per-device basis. You can also set up some extent we can: by referring absence of a password manager or
scheduled scans and run a quick scan to AV-Comparatives’ August– file shredder or Registry cleaner.
on any computer that you’ve added November 2024 Business Security We’d argue that these are the kinds of
to your fleet, assuming it’s switched Real-World Protection Test (tinyurl. tools that advanced users should
on at the time. This is the kind of com/366sophos). The core malware source from specialist companies,
functionality we more often see from protection engines are the same as rather than have them as a white-
enterprise antivirus, but with a clear those you’ll find in the products’ label add-on or rarely
and simple interface that makes it home security counterparts, You can apply web content updated afterthought in a
easy to manage, it’s excellent. although there are extra features, filtering rules to children’s security suite that would
Via the dashboard, you can apply
web content filtering rules to
so it’s not quite a like-for-like
comparison. Nonetheless, the fact
PCs to prevent them from have been just as good
without them.
children’s PCs to prevent them from that Sophos’ product blocked 98.1% accidentally viewing There’s no firewall,
accidentally viewing inappropriate malware – a score slightly reduced inappropriate content because Windows’ own
content such as violence or gambling. for a couple of alerts that required works perfectly well,
Or you can make sure that the user interaction to counteract the despite an ageing interface. What
ransomware protection modules – threat – is a useful data point. It’s not we’re classing as parental controls in
designed to prevent unauthorised an amazing performance, but slides our feature table is actually web
encryption of files – are active on your in above the mean for the group filtering, rather than tools to spy on
relatives’ computers, even if they’re (albeit just below the median). your family members’ lives, and
not particularly comfortable with Sophos’ antivirus software isn’t could just as easily be enabled for a
technology themselves. This ability available to buy from third-party small office as for a household.
to discreetly ensure that your loved retailers, but the official website is Sophos gets bonus points for
ones’ browsing habits aren’t placing very reasonably priced. You’ll pay keeping both its product and its
them at undue risk, without invading £50 per year for ten licences for PCs interface clean. You don’t need
their privacy, is one of the greatest running Windows or macOS. to spend forever trying to work
benefits offered by the web interface. A new subscriber discount out which features you need –
In fact, while it looks like there’s a takes the price down to £37. it simply does the job, and
full-blown local “Sophos Home You can also attach an makes all the devices you
Premium” client on your system, the unlimited number of install it on easy to scan
buttons simply open your browser Android and iOS devices and manage. Its online
and direct you to the web interface. to your account without management interface is
The exception is a scan button that affecting the number of easily the best we’ve seen for
does exactly what it promises. This licences you have. users who manage others in
means that, even if your PC isn’t Sophos’ pricing for online their extended household, and
online, you can still scan it using the subscription purchases and that’s what earns Sophos its five
last update to its signature library. renewals from the official website stars and Recommended award.

88
 Labs Security suites
Best free antivirus
@PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO

(and more)
Don’t want to pay for a security suite? No problem: here, we round up
the best free options and extra tools to keep you safe

W
e’ve exclusively reviewed rivals, but it protected against 98% or
paid products in the main more threats in tests by all three labs
group test, but it’s whose data we draw on.
important to recognise that all the You can also layer it with online
results we publish for protection protection tools such as ad blockers
would be identical if we were (Ublock Origin is the way to go here),
reviewing the free antivirus offerings. but it’s active from the moment
That’s because the malware detection that Windows is installed. It’s a
engines used in antivirus products are particularly good choice if you’re
invariably the same across the entire setting up a PC for a less technical
range, with only extra features – such person, as it fits seamlessly into the
as firewalls, VPNs, password OS with no potential for confusion.
managers and system cleanup tools However, if you’re looking at a
– being added as price tiers increase. higher-risk use case, or if you’re
Here, we round up not only the best using older hardware, you’ll want
free antivirus software choices but also third-party software. ABOVE Avira Free is RUNNERS-UP
the best free options for on-demand our pick of the best Avast Free Antivirus,
scanning and single file testing. RUNNER-UP free antivirus tools AVG Antivirus Free
Bitdefender Free Antivirus avast.com • avg.com
RUNNER-UP bitdefender.co.uk Avast and its sibling AVG are excellent
Microsoft Defender Antivirus Bitdefender’s free antivirus has a slick choices in terms of effective protection
The real-time antivirus that ships interface and works just as well as its and performance: the data in our graphs
with Windows PCs (see p92) provides paid-for counterpart, reviewed on applies as much to the free versions as
genuinely effective protection against p85, when it comes to real-time to their paid-for counterparts. These
malware. Test results show that, malware protection. However, it slide in above Bitdefender, because
despite Microsoft’s access to a vast has more of an impact on system although their ability to protect your
pool of malware samples, the free performance than Avast or Avira, PC is comparable, Avast and AVG add
version that comes with Windows and wasn’t as effective as Avira in less load to your system.
does a little worse than most of its recent detection tests. From 2014 to 2020, Avast’s now-
dissolved Jumpshot advertising
division siphoned data from Avast and
BEST ON-DEMAND SCANNER AVG to sell to third parties, with
Malwarebytes Free neither permission nor sufficient
malwarebytes.com anonymisation. Although it was shut
If you already have antivirus software with down almost five years ago, it was in
real-time protection installed but your system still the news again in 2024 following an FTC
isn’t behaving quite as you’d expect, you might settlement that saw compensation for
want a quick second opinion. That’s where US victims of the data misuse and a
on-demand scanners come in: old-school ruling that prohibits Avast from
antivirus programs that will only scan when you selling or sharing your browsing data
ask them to, rather than constantly checking files for third-party advertising purposes.
BEST SINGLE-FILE TESTING as they touch the file system or are run.
VirusTotal There are a number of free AV tools that only WINNER
virustotal.com provide on-demand scanning, such as Eset’s Avira Free Antivirus
If you’ve just received a file – or if your antivirus has “Online” Scanner (tinyurl.com/366esetscan). avira.com
flagged something up as a threat that you’re pretty However, Malwarebytes Free remains the If you’re looking for a free antivirus
sure shouldn’t be – then VirusTotal is your friend. benchmark for on-demand scanning. Note that suite, Avira Free Antivirus is absolutely
Currently owned by Google, VirusTotal is a in both cases you still need to download a file, the way to go right now. Its detection
front end for over 70 malware detection engines, despite the name. engine was a clear winner across the
cloud-based scanners, website scanners and board, you can run it on Windows 7,
known-threat lists. Upload a file or enter a URL and it doesn’t have too much impact
and it will direct all of its malware detection on system performance.
firepower at the target and tell you what each of The only downside, like every other
them has to say about it. free product here (aside from Microsoft
This will occasionally highlight differences. For Defender) is that it will nag you to
example, some scanners draw a line between upgrade. This starts at the beginning,
Potentially Unwanted Programs (PUPs) and when it kicks off with a scan that
malware, or classify all cracking tools as malicious identified “issues” only its paid-for
whether or not they’re otherwise “trojaned”. software can solve. But it’s a fair price
to pay for such effective free protection.

89
AVAST ULTIMATE
Avast was one of the most effective
anti-malware suites across the board
in tests carried out by AV-Test,
Avast Ultimate will keep AV-Comparatives and SE Labs. It

you safe, but make sure you

protected against all threats in both
AV-Test and SE Labs’ tests, with a

buy it anywhere except single false positive in everything

AV-Test could throw at it. While Avast
directly from Avast didn’t do quite as well in the latest
real-world exposure tests from
AV-Comparatives, it was still among
SCORE the top performers, blocking 99.6% of
1st YEAR PRICE 10 devices, £58 malware threats. Here, though, it
(£70 inc VAT) from avast.com proved a little twitchy, flagging 13
RENEWAL PRICE 10 devices, £117 benign programs as threats in
(£140 inc VAT) from avast.com the lab’s false positive tests.
RETAIL PRICE 10 devices, 2yrs, £25 Avast’s products are always
(£30 inc VAT) from store.pcpro.co.uk from £65 to £70 for ten devices. If you ABOVE Avast a solid choice when it comes to
leave auto-renews active, your Avast Ultimate offers solid defending against malware, and Avast
sub will always renew at whatever the antivirus protection Ultimate certainly packs in plenty of
AV- AV-
AV-TEST COMPARATIVES SE LABS COMPARATIVES current RRP is, so this price inflation features. It has silent detection options
100% 99.6% 100% 13 is important to keep an eye on. to keep it from bothering you, plus a
PROTECTION PROTECTION PROTECTION FALSE POSITIVES The best tip when buying Avast is firewall that’s nicer to use than

S
to avoid the company’s own website Windows’ default offering. Then we
ince we reviewed Avast Ultimate entirely, and thus ensure that you come to Avast’s own VPN, which isn’t
last year, both its RRP and its never renew or set up an auto- a rebranded version of another
reduced-cost first-year offer renewing subscription, and instead service. This has always been reliable,
have increased in price. Buy direct buy a copy at retail. A two-year, albeit not quite up there with the likes
from avast.com and you’ll pay £110 for ten-device subscription to Avast of NordVPN and ProtonVPN when it
a one-PC subscription, up from an Ultimate is available from the PC Pro comes to region-shifting media.
already ludicrous £90, while a store for £30, and as well as setting up Stick to retail and Avast Ultimate
ten-device sub has leapt from £110 to a new subscription, you can use retail remains a solid buy. However, sister
£140. Avast’s heavily discounted keys such as this to add a new licence brand AVG uses exactly the same
first-year offers have also gone up, to your existing Avast account when malware detection engine and pips
from £42 to £50 for a single PC and your previous subscription runs out. it to an award this year.

ESET HOME SECURITY

in stolen data being sold on the dark
web. Unlike McAfee+, Eset Ultimate

ULTIMATE doesn’t yet provide access to a service

that will request takedowns of your

Excellent antivirus and VPN

personal information from data
brokers. Only one person’s identity is

performance, with identity protected per Ultimate subscription.

Eset’s bundled VPN is better than
protection a bonus, but most, as it’s a white-label version of
Windscribe, which regularly performs
that’s reflected in the price well in our VPN tests. Eset also gives
you a password manager, but you
ideally want password management
SCORE
to be separate from your antivirus.
1st YEAR PRICE 5 devices, £64 There are also parental controls,
(£77 inc VAT) from eset.com complete with device tracking.
RENEWAL PRICE 5 devices, £96 Eset still publishes a bootable
(£115 inc VAT) from eset.com It did well in AV-Test’s trials, ABOVE Eset provides rescue disc image that you can burn to
RETAIL PRICE 5 devices, 1yr, £67 where it detected all malware with no a range of excellent a CD or USB stick and then boot from
(£80 inc VAT) from amazon.co.uk false positives, and AV-Comparatives, features – at a price to scan your drive for malware while
RETAIL PRICE Not available where it blocked 99.2% of threats and it’s unmounted, meaning malware
misidentified only three harmless can’t act to prevent its own removal.
applications as potential malware. Eset has improved the performance of
AV- SE LABS AV-
AV-TEST COMPARATIVES COMPARATIVES SE Labs doesn’t currently test Eset. its software for screen reader users and
NOT
100% 99.2% TESTED 3 Components include a firewall, a added high contract modes for those
PROTECTION PROTECTION PROTECTION FALSE POSITIVES browser protection module, a silent with low vision, a welcome move.

B
Gamer Mode, ransomware protection Eset Home Security Ultimate
ased in Slovakia, Eset is a and webcam protection that grants provides effective protection, but
proven player in the internet per-application access to the device. unless you particularly want both
security world. Here, we review Eset’s Identity Protection Eset and Windscribe VPN –
Eset Ultimate, and the first thing to offering varies depending on both good choices – and
note is that – unusually – the best where you are in the world. assuming you don’t need
deals are available direct from the UK subscribers can register iOS support, it’s worth
company. Still, compared to rivals, it’s their personal information considering the Premium
expensive, so it needs to excel. and be informed if it appears tier, which is half the price.

90
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Labs Security suites

F-SECURE TOTAL
F-Secure operates its own VPN
service, Freedome, which is included
in F-Secure Total. The other extra
Reliable malware and features you get in Total versus

identity protection, even if

F-Secure Internet Security are a
password manager – it’s not bad, but

it’s a little twitchy about our usual caveat applies about

choosing your password manager
false positives separately from your antivirus – and,
far more importantly, breach
monitoring, which will inform you if
SCORE your submitted email address and
1st YEAR PRICE 5 devices, £83 identity information have appeared
(£100 inc VAT) from f-secure.com for sale on the dark web. F-Secure
RENEWAL PRICE 5 devices, £83 will then offer support if you
(£100 inc VAT) from f-secure.com experience identity theft.
RETAIL PRICE Not available If you don’t require these
previous performances in this set ABOVE F-Secure uses additional features, then F-Secure
of tests. The counterpoint to this is two effective malware Internet Security is also available
AV- SE LABS AV-
AV-TEST COMPARATIVES COMPARATIVES that it’s consistently strongly detection engines without the identity protection
NOT
100% 99.8% TESTED 47 protective, in this case blocking and VPN options for £60 per year
PROTECTION PROTECTION PROTECTION FALSE POSITIVES 99.8% of malware. for three devices. If you want either

F
This indicates that F-Secure’s the VPN and identity protection
-Secure Total is F-Secure combined engines might be on the options from F-Secure, they’re
Internet Security plus a bunch of twitchy side, blocking more sites and reduced to £7 and £13 respectively.
additional features. The Finnish programs than you’d want, but it’s F-Secure doesn’t offer any
company’s antivirus suites all use a also a reflection of AV-Comparatives’ first-year discounts, but its prices
pair of malware detection engines – testing methodology. By comparison, are already competitive by the
Bitdefender’s Aquaris in conjunction F-Secure produced no false positive standards of the internet security
with its own. They’re great at keeping malware identifications in tests industry (once you factor in the
you safe, but in AV-Comparatives’ carried out by AV-Test, in addition identity protection) and there aren’t
real-world live malware exposure to protecting against 100% of samples any hidden renewal fees. Arguably,
test run by from July to October 2024, in both real-world exposure tests you’re better off trying the one-month
it threw up 45 false positives. That’s and flat file scans. SE Labs does not free trial and then committing for two
no one-off, being in line with currently test F-Secure products. years, which brings a £20 saving.

G DATA TOTAL SECURITY

process but not placing significant
load on either high or low spec PCs.
It did well in AV-Comparatives’
G Data provides competent real-world exposure tests, too,

protection that won’t

blocking 99.6% of malware, but it was
a little oversensitive when it came to

surprise you with second- misidentifications of benign software

as a threat, clocking up 17 instances.
year price hikes G-Data provides a number of extra
features that are worth your time: a
firewall that improves on the Windows
SCORE firewall’s interface, parental controls
1st YEAR PRICE 5 devices, $68 with a focus on web content filtering,
($82 inc VAT) from gdatasoftware.co.uk and timed access restrictions. Total
RENEWAL PRICE 5 devices, $68 Security specifically gives you
($82 inc VAT) from gdatasoftware.co.uk even more. Sadly, most of these
RETAIL PRICE 5 devices, 1yr, £60 tools, with the exception of a
(£72 inc VAT) from amazon.co.uk system tuner doesn’t automatically ABOVE G Data takes a local backup utility and USB device
try to defrag your SSDs (a very bad refreshingly different access control tool, are rather
idea for their longevity). Its password approach to its rivals redundant, including the password
AV- AV-
AV-TEST COMPARATIVES
SE LABS
COMPARATIVES manager, only usable via some creaky manager and system performance
NOT
100% 99.6% TESTED 17 browser plug-ins, is to be avoided. And tuner we complained about earlier.
PROTECTION PROTECTION PROTECTION FALSE POSITIVES if you want a VPN you’ll have to shop We’ve been wishing for just a

G
for one separately, as none is included. minor update to G Data’s Windows
Data might not be the first All of which hammers home that this application’s interface for years now,
name that comes to mind when German company takes a different but this is a solid example of things
you’re asked to name an approach to rivals – and that includes that don’t really need fixing. Given the
antivirus provider, but it consistently invoicing you in dollars and not number of features of G Data Total
puts in an excellent performance in sneakily increasing the renewal price. that are functionally superfluous to
malware protection tests, year in, G Data’s malware detection anyone’s requirements, though,
year out. Its interface hasn’t visibly engines – it uses both its own and the you’re just as well off getting G Data
changed in years, but it does the job. Bitdefender engine – defended against Internet Security as Total Security,
It still refers to Internet Explorer, 100% of malware in AV-Test’s latest and save yourself a tenner in the
not Edge, and long-defunct services real-world and flat file scanning tests, process. Or buying Avira Prime,
such as Google Picasa. At least its picking up two false positives in the which includes identity protection.

91
K7 ULTIMATE SECURITY
basic parental controls and protection
for USB devices and webcams.
However, K7 Ultimate Security
K7 Ultimate Security makes was actively hostile to our testing

it appear that it’s protecting

setup. Its firewall blocks Windows’
remote desktop protocol by default,

you against far more than it which to be fair can be used to exploit
PCs if a bad actor uses social
is, and we find this deceptive engineering to gain access. Less
explicable was the misidentification
of our virtual machine’s driver files as
SCORE malware. False positives happen, but
1st YEAR PRICE 5 devices, £31 (£37 inc a link that purported to give further
VAT) from k7computing.com information on the detected “threat”
RENEWAL PRICE 5 devices, £53 (£63 inc simply took us to a generic
VAT) from k7computing.com landing page on K7’s site. To its
RETAIL PRICE Not available credit, it was easy to find the files
been going from strength to strength. ABOVE K7’s trial in quarantine and add them to the
The bad news is that AV-Test’s data version makes it exclusion list.
AV- SE LABS AV-
AV-TEST COMPARATIVES COMPARATIVES shows that K7 notably slows down the appear that your PC is K7’s trial version is hyperbolic –
NOT NOT NOT
100% TESTED TESTED TESTED launch of both apps and websites. under constant threat pop-ups use bold red numbers and
PROTECTION PROTECTION PROTECTION FALSE POSITIVES It’s pretty cheap, starting at £17 inc lines such as “Total Threats: 6115”,

W
VAT for your first year’s subscription counting both thousands of instances
ith so many internet for a single device, while cover for of network traffic automatically
security companies taking a three devices costs £25 per year and a blocked by the firewall, as well as the
similar approach, this year five-device sub comes in at £37. That false positives, so less knowledgeable
we wanted to give Indian contender roughly doubles upon renewal, users may feel pressured into
K7 a try, even though only AV-Test however, with £28 for one device, £42 extending their licence.
regularly puts K7’s malware detection for three and £63 for five. And you K7’s malware detection engine is
engine through its paces. While it can’t buy from third-party sites. fine and its feature set competent, but
failed to detect some malware in a The main interface is pleasant we’re unimpressed by the way it
flat-file scan of AV-Test’s huge (clients are available for Windows, trumps up basic defence to make it
reference cache of infected files, it macOS, Android and iOS) and there’s appear as though your PC is under
scored well in real-world exposure a decent array of features, including a constant siege, and recommend
tests and its overall performance has firewall, ransomware protection, choosing Avira instead.

MICROSOFT DEFENDER
malware samples in SE Labs’ test, with
data showing it to be compromised in

ANTIVIRUS one instance, but no false positives. Its

worst performance came from

Windows’ built-in virus

AV-Comparatives’ recent real-world
tests, in which it blocked 98.3% of

protection does the job, malware samples it was exposed to,

and made three false positive
but more effective options identifications. By no means terrible,
but worse than its key free rivals.
are available Defender does everything it needs
to, including dedicated ransomware
protection. Setting up scheduled scans
SCORE via Task Manager can be a chore, but it’s
PRICE Free also irrelevant to most use cases.
The firewall looks after itself and
although creating rules could be
AV- AV-
AV-TEST COMPARATIVES SE LABS COMPARATIVES commercial antivirus. It also isn’t ABOVE Microsoft smoother, it works perfectly well.
100% 98.3% 98% 3 available for end-of-life Windows Defender is a great, Microsoft Family Safety – not part of
PROTECTION PROTECTION PROTECTION FALSE POSITIVES versions like Windows 7. hassle-free solution Defender but also built into the OS – is

T
Windows Defender’s performance among the best parental control
he integrated version of in independent tests plays a critical systems you’ll find, and also one of the
Microsoft Defender is the role in how likely we are to recommend most conscious of children’s rights.
benchmark by which all other other antivirus software. Recently, it Unfortunately, most of Defender’s
Windows antivirus is measured. has wobbled in terms of malware additional web protections only work
When we review antivirus software, protection from all three labs whose in Edge, but it will protect you against
we’re really trying to answer the data we source for these reviews. malicious downloads regardless of
following question: “Is it good enough Its best result came in AV-Test’s which browser you use.
to replace Microsoft Defender?” most recent outing, where it earned a This is perfectly good antivirus that
For many users, that answer will be 6/6 protection rating, despite missing costs nothing in terms of effort or
no. Defender protects your Windows a sample in the firm’s real-world live money, beyond what you’ve already
PC from the moment you install the OS malware exposure tests. It also made a paid for Windows. It will do a decent
and its system impact is low, although couple of false positive identifications job of keeping you safe and not bother
it does slow down the installation of benign software. It came up with a you, but if you want something that
of software compared to some 98% accuracy rating for blocking live did better in recent tests, look at Avira.

92
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Labs Security suites

TOTALAV ANTIVIRUS
360 Premium. If you want a VPN –
which won’t do better than dedicated

PRO software from a specialist – then you’ll

need to pay £129 a year for TotalAV

Decent value in the first

Internet Security.
If you don’t buy a licence when you

year, but its renewal fees create an account, or if you allow your
subscription to lapse, TotalAV reverts
are wildly overpriced for to a free version which, like the free
version of Malwarebytes, only has
its limited feature set on-demand scanning and no real-time
protection. You can also choose to
download this version. However, it’s
SCORE real-time protection that really
1st YEAR PRICE 5 devices, £24 defends you when your PC is
(£29 inc VAT) from totalav.com connected to the internet.
RENEWAL PRICE 5 devices, £83 TotalAV Adblocker and
(£99 inc VAT) from totalav.com file reference scan malware samples, ABOVE TotalAV did WebShield modules are free for
RETAIL PRICE Not available with no false positives. It struggled okay in tests, but is no anyone to add to their browser,
more with AV-Comparatives’ tests, better than its rivals and you can also get a couponing
which saw it block 98.7% of malware extension in a similar vein to PayPal’s
AV- SE LABS AV-
AV-TEST COMPARATIVES COMPARATIVES with five false positives. That’s pretty Honey service, although hopefully
NOT
100% 98.7% TESTED 5 good. SE Labs doesn’t test TotalAV. less duplicitous than the latter.
PROTECTION PROTECTION PROTECTION FALSE POSITIVES The basic antivirus costs as little as While its first year price is cheap,

U
£29 a year with a first-year discount there’s fundamentally no reason to
K-based TotalAV’s detection (you’ll see the offer when you head to buy TotalAV over its rivals. We were
engine regularly appears in the payment section), getting you five hoping for a new budget champion,
AV-Test and AV-Comparatives’ licences and some PC optimisation but the extremely steep renewal fees of
tests, so we have plenty of data on how tools, but we can’t ignore the even its most basic Antivirus Pro tier
well it performs. In the latest tests by expensive £99 renewal price. Frankly, makes it impossible to recommend as
both labs, it barely outperforms this isn’t good value in terms of it offers little improvement over
Microsoft Defender, but still did well malware protection performance or Microsoft Defender’s integrated
enough to effectively protect a PC. features compared to rivals. You can antivirus. If you’re after premium
AV-Test found it protected against get a lot more for the same money protection, you’re better off with
100% of real-time exposure and flat from even big names such as Norton Avira or Bitdefender.

Say goodbye to
WiFi frustrations

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93
 How we test LEFT UK-based SE Labs is one of
We get hands-on with every product in the tested, results for three testing houses we use
group test, ensuring that its features and products using the
interface all work as they’re supposed to and same malware And finally, the SE Labs
highlighting any friction points. However, detection engine are Home test was from Q4 2024
long-term testing with live malware samples is used. In cases where a (tinyurl.com/366selabs).
required to evaluate how effective any given product hasn’t been In evaluating the test
antivirus solution is at protecting your system tested recently by all data, we place the greatest
against malicious software. labs, we refer back to weight on “real-world”
For this, we turn to data produced by a trio of historic test data to testing, in which antivirus
well-regarded anti-malware testing houses. provide insight into its software is exposed to live
Specifically, SE Labs in the UK, AV-Test in long-term performance. malware samples in a realistic scenario, such as
Germany and AV-Comparatives in Austria. All The first batch of data for this group came web exposure, rather than flat file scans of a
three publish their test data and methodologies, from the AV-Test Home Windows test October large collection of malware samples.
making them available to the public, as well as 2024, which you can check for yourself at We also take into account each product’s
the press and industry professionals. tinyurl.com/366avtest. The second was from impact on system performance, as measured by
We use the most recent available test data in AV-Comparatives’ real-world protection test, AV-Test, and false positive misidentifications of
all cases. Where a specific product hasn’t been July-October 2024 (tinyurl.com/366avcomp). legitimate software and websites as malicious.

Protection
AV-Test real-world AV-Comparatives SE Labs

st Avast Avast 100% 100% 100% Avira Avira LabsAvira

Winner 99.8% 99.8% 99.8% Avast Avast Avast 100% 100% 1
ra Avira 100% 100%
Avira Labs Winner 100% F-Secure F-Secure F-Secure 99.8% 99.8% 99.8% Norton Norton Norton 100% 100% 1
ast Avast Avast 100% 100% 100% Avira Avira Avira 99.8% 99.8% 99.8% Avast Avast Avast 100% 100% 1
100% 100%
erBitdefenderBitdefender Recommended 100% McAfee McAfee McAfee 99.8% 99.8% 99.8% Sophos Recommended
Sophos Sophos 99% 99% 99
ra Avira Avira 100% 100% 100% F-Secure F-Secure F-Secure 99.8% 99.8% 99.8% Norton Norton Norton 100% 100% 1
set Eset Eset 100% 100% 100% Norton Norton Norton 99.8% 99.8% 99.8% McAfee McAfee McAfee 98% 98% 98%
derBitdefenderBitdefender 100% 100% 100% McAfee McAfee McAfee 99.8% 99.8% 99.8% Sophos Sophos Sophos 99% 99% 99
re F-Secure F-Secure 100% 100% 100% Avast Avast Avast 99.6% 99.6% 99.6% Microsoft Microsoft Microsoft 98% 98% 98%
set Eset Eset 100% 100% 100% Norton Norton Norton 99.8% 99.8% 99.8% McAfee McAfee McAfee 98% 98% 98%
ata G Data G Data 100% 100% 100% Recommended
BitdefenderBitdefenderBitdefender 99.6% 99.6% 99.6% Avira NotAvira
testedNot tested
Labs
Avira Not tested
Winner
ure F-Secure F-Secure 100% 100% 100% Avast Avast Avast 99.6% 99.6% 99.6% Microsoft Microsoft Microsoft 98% 98% 98%
K7 K7 K7 100% 100% 100% G Data G Data G Data 99.6% 99.6% 99.6% Bitdefender Not tested
Bitdefender Not tested
Bitdefender Not tested
Recommended
ata G Data G Data 100% 100% 100%BitdefenderBitdefenderBitdefender 99.6% 99.6% 99.6% Avira NotAvira
tested NotAvira
testedNot tested
ee McAfee McAfee 100% 100% 100% Eset Eset Eset 99.2% 99.2% 99.2% Eset Home Eset NotHome
testedNotHome
Eset testedNot tested
K7 K7 K7 100% 100% 100% G Data G Data G Data 99.6% 99.6% 99.6%BitdefenderBitdefender Not tested Not tested
Bitdefender Not tested
on Norton Norton 100% 100% 100% TotalAV TotalAV TotalAV 98.7% 98.7% 98.7% F-Secure Not tested
F-Secure Not tested
F-Secure Not tested
fee McAfee McAfee 100% 100% 100% Eset Eset Eset 99.2% 99.2% 99.2% Eset Home Eset NotHome
tested NotHome
Eset testedNot tested
os Sophos 100% 100%
Sophos Recommended 100% Microsoft Microsoft Microsoft 98.3% 98.3% 98.3% G Data Not tested
G Data NotG tested
Data Not tested
on Norton Norton 100% 100% 100% TotalAV TotalAV TotalAV 98.7% 98.7% 98.7% F-Secure Not tested
F-Secure Not tested
F-Secure Not tested
AV TotalAV TotalAV 100% 100% 100% K7 Not tested
K7 Not tested K7 Not tested K7 Not tested
K7 Not tested
K7 Not tested
hos Sophos Sophos 100% 100% 100% Microsoft Microsoft Microsoft 98.3% 98.3% 98.3% G Data Not tested
G Data NotG tested
Data Not tested
oft Microsoft Microsoft 99.5% 99.5% 99.5% Sophos Not tested
Sophos Not tested
Sophos Not tested
Recommended TotalAV Not tested
TotalAV Not tested
TotalAV Not tested
AV TotalAV TotalAV 100% 100% 100% K7 Not tested
K7 Not tested K7 Not tested K7 Not tested
K7 Not tested
K7 Not tested
90 91 92 93
90 91
94 92
95 93
96
90 94
91
97 95
92
98 96
93
99 100
94
97 98
95 99
96 100
97 98 99 100 90 91 92 90 93 91
94 9295 90
93
96 94
91
97 9592
98 96
93
99 100
94
97 98
95 99
96 100
97 98 99 100 90 91 92 90 93 91
94 92
95 90
93
96 94
91
97 95
92
98 96
93
99 100
94
97 98
95 99
96 100
97 9

oft Microsoft Microsoft 99.5% 99.5% 99.5% Sophos Not tested

Sophos Not tested
Sophos Not tested TotalAV Not tested
TotalAV Not tested
TotalAV Not tested

False positives
90 91 92 90
93 91
94 92
95 93
90
96 94
91
97 92
95
98 93
96
99 100
94
97 95
98 96
99 100
97 98 99 100 90 91 92 90
93 91
94 92
95 90
93
96 94
91
97 92
95
98 93
96
99 94
100
97 95
98 96
99 100
97 98 99 100 90 91 92 90
93 91
94 92
95 90
93
96 94
91
97 92
95
98 93
96
99 94
100
97 95
98 96
99 100
97 9

ra 0 0 Avira
AviraAV-Test 0 3 Eset 3 Eset
AV-Comparatives
Eset 3 SE Labs Avast 0 Avast 0 Avast 0
0
erBitdefender 0
Bitdefender 0 3
Microsoft Microsoft 3
Microsoft 3 McAfee 0 McAfee 0 McAfee 0
ira 0 Avira 0 Avira 0 Labs Winner Eset 3 Eset 3 Eset 3 Avast 0 Avast 0 Avast 0
set 0 Eset 0 Eset 0 5
BitdefenderBitdefender 5
Bitdefender 5 0
Microsoft Microsoft 0
Microsoft 0
0
derBitdefender 0
Bitdefender 0 Recommended 3
Microsoft Microsoft 3
Microsoft 3 McAfee 0McAfee 0 McAfee 0
re 0 F-Secure 0F-Secure 0 TotalAV 5
TotalAV 5
TotalAV 5 Norton 0 Norton 0 Norton 0
set 0 Eset 0 Eset 0 5 Bitdefender
BitdefenderBitdefender 5 Recommended
5 0
Microsoft Microsoft 0
Microsoft 0
AV 0 TotalAV 0 TotalAV 0 Avira 7
Avira 7
Avira 7 Sophos 0 Sophos 0 Sophos 0
ure 0 F-Secure 0F-Secure 0 5
TotalAV TotalAV 5
TotalAV 5 Norton 0 Norton 0 Norton 0
ast 1Avast 1Avast 1 McAfee McAfee10 10
McAfee 10 Avira NotAvira
testedNotAvira
testedNot tested
AV 0TotalAV 0 TotalAV 0 Avira 7
Avira 7 Labs Winner
Avira 7 Sophos 0 Sophos 0 Sophos 0
Recommended
Lower is better

Lower is better

Lower is better

on 1
Norton 1
Norton 1 Avast 13
Avast 13
Avast 13 Not tested
BitdefenderBitdefender Not tested
Bitdefender Not tested
ast 1Avast 1Avast 1 10
McAfee McAfee 10
McAfee 10 Avira NotAvira
testedNotLabs
tested
Avira Not tested
Winner
ata G2 Data G2Data 2 G Data G Data17 G Data17 17 Eset Not tested
Eset Not tested
Eset Not tested
on 1
Norton 1
Norton 1 Avast 13
Avast 13
Avast 13 Not tested
BitdefenderBitdefender NotRecommended
tested
Bitdefender Not tested
K7 2 K7 2 K7 2 Norton Norton 22 Norton 22 22 F-Secure Not tested
F-Secure Not tested
F-Secure Not tested
ata G2 Data G2Data 2 G Data G Data17 G Data17 17 Eset Not tested
Eset Not tested
Eset Not tested
ee McAfee 2 2
McAfee 2 F-Secure F-Secure F-Secure 45 45 45 G Data Not tested
G Data NotG tested
Data Not tested
K7 2 K7 2 K7 2 Norton Norton 22 Norton 22 22 F-Secure Not tested
F-Secure Not tested
F-Secure Not tested
oft Microsoft2 2
Microsoft 2 K7 Not tested
K7 Not tested
K7 Not tested K7 Not tested
K7 Not tested
K7 Not tested
fee McAfee 2 2
McAfee 2 F-Secure F-Secure F-Secure 45 45 45 G Data Not tested
G Data NotG tested
Data Not tested
os Not tested
Sophos Not tested
Sophos Not tested Sophos Not tested
Sophos Not tested
Sophos Not tested TotalAV Not tested
TotalAV Not tested
TotalAV Not tested
2
oft Microsoft 2
Microsoft 2 K7 Not tested
K7 Not tested
K7 Not tested K7 Not tested
K7 Not tested
K7 Not tested
0 2 0 4 2 06 4 28 6 4
10 8 6 10 8 10 0 10 0 20 10 30
0 20 10
40 30 20
50 40 30 50 40 50 0 2 0 4 2 06 4 28 6 4
10 8 6 10 8

hos Not
Sophos Not
tested tested
Sophos Not tested Recommended Sophos Not
Sophos Not
tested tested
Sophos Not tested
Recommended TotalAV Not tested
TotalAV Not tested
TotalAV Not tested
0 2 0 4 2 06 4 28 6 410 8 6 10 8 10 0 10 0 20 10 0
30 20 10
40 30 20
50 40 30 50 40 50 0 2 0 4 2 06 4 28 6 410 8 6 10 8

oft Microsoft 16%

94 Microsoft 16% 16% McAfee 5%
McAfee 5%
McAfee 5% McAfee 0%
McAfee 0%
McAfee 0%

set Eset 19%

Eset 19% 19% Eset 7%
Eset 7%
Eset 7% Avast 1%
Avast 1%
Avast 1%
 Labs Security suites
View from the Labs
@PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO

Is it a security suite with a VPN or a security suite with antivirus?

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95
The Network
Practical buying and strategic advice for IT managers and decision makers

Buyer’s guide

2025 guide to network-

monitoring software
Predict and fix failures before they happen, and keep your all your critical systems and deciding
what you want to monitor. The reason

business working smoothly, with the best network-monitoring for this is every vendor uses different
licensing models that can be based on

software around. Dave Mitchell puts four products to the test devices, sensors or the number of
monitored elements, so it’s vital to
pick the right one to avoid overspend.

I
Device, or node, licences may
n today’s digital world network issues by providing an early warning BELOW AdRem’s initially seem more expensive but
downtime is bad news for system that highlights poor service NetCrunch lets you they allow you to monitor everything
businesses, and a prolonged response times, an overloaded create custom on a device regardless of the number
outage could be catastrophic. application server or one that’s dashboards and of components it has. Elements and
The immediate effect is loss of running out of storage capacity. This remotely share them sensors mean the same and only allow
productivity and revenue, but it can gives support staff crucial time to with other users a single resource to be monitored,
have far-reaching consequences if identify and fix a problem before it
dissatisfied customers take their becomes a disaster.
business elsewhere. The good news for overworked
An essential IT support role is support departments is there are
monitoring network, system and plenty of affordable options on the
application health and providing a market that can help. This month, we
rapid response to ensure problems or look at four solutions from AdRem
faults don’t impact on productivity. Software, Park Place, Progress
Network-monitoring software is the Software and SolarWinds and put
ideal solution as it can tell you them through their paces in the lab
precisely what’s on your network, to help you choose the right one.
how it’s performing and alert you to Monitoring software can provide
issues the moment they happen. a vast amount of data about your
Monitoring software can help network, but before choosing one we
predict system failures and network recommend running an inventory of

96
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO The Network Business Focus

LEFT The NetCrunch strong password and two-factor

Node view uses icons authentication (2FA) if available, so
to clearly show the access to these credentials is restricted
status of each device to authorised users. You may want to
delegate support functions such as
viewing and reporting, so look for
products that support multiple user
roles with different access levels.

LEFT Park Place’s A voyage of discovery

Automated discovery services are
Entuity lets you create
highly customised essential features as they scan the
dashboards network and populate their databases
with all device details. The best
products organise and present data in
meaningful ways and may surprise
you by revealing more devices on your
network than you previously thought.
When a device or
“Automated discovery resource goes down you
services are essential as need to know about it
they scan the network and immediately, so look for
products that have
populate their databases consoles with top-level
with all device details” dashboards that highlight
these areas. Built-in Top
which could be one CPU core on a server 10 dashboards can be invaluable as
or a single port on a network switch. they show details such as systems
Vendors try to convince you that a with the highest CPU, memory, disk
per-device licence is better than a and network interface utilisation
per-sensor one or vice versa, but it – indicators that problems could be
really comes down to what you want round the corner. Another valuable
to monitor. Sensor licences are more feature is the ability to customise
cost-effective when you want to dashboards so you can choose the data
control precisely what individual you want presented and in what order.
resources are to be monitored, while Alerting is just as important as you
device licences are great if you want may not always be watching the
to keep track of everything and are monitoring console. Facilities to issue
particularly appealing if you have a lot alarms when a device goes down can
of high-density network switches. range from sending an email, posting
If you want full monitoring can be encrypted and the monitoring ABOVE SolarWinds’ a Microsoft Teams message, issuing an
facilities for your virtualisation hosts software must authenticate before Observability QoS SMS or running a program.
and business apps, bear in mind some being allowed access. Many legacy shows how critical Look out for network operations
vendors only offer these components devices only support the older SNMP2, apps are performing centre (NOC) views; you can use
as optional features that cost extra. but you can tighten up security by these to present your support
Check the various licence plans using a unique name instead of the department with a heads-up display
carefully as some include these as well-known “public” read-only showing network pain points that
standard in the base product or community and not providing a require their immediate attention.
include them in a suite licence. read-write community name as this Some products only support a single
isn’t necessary. NOC view, but the best ones allow you
Heart monitor The preferred method for to create slide decks of your favourite
Network-monitoring products won’t monitoring Windows workstations and views and cycle through them at
interfere with normal network servers is with Microsoft’s Windows predefined intervals.
operations, but you’ll need to do some Management Instrumentation (WMI) With so many different features, a
preparatory configuration before they service. WMI is enabled by default and multitude of licensing schemes and
are ready for action. Infrastructure provides a lot more information than price ranges to match, it’s important
devices such as switches, firewalls and SNMP, such as running services, to choose the network-monitoring
routers use simple network processes and storage usage, but package that best suits your
management protocol (SNMP) to you’ll need to provide the software environment. With this in mind,
report their status. For sound security with account credentials for each we’ve specifically selected the four
reasons this is often disabled by device to allow it to retrieve this. products for this guide as they’re all
default so it may need to be manually It’s therefore important that available as time-limited evaluations
enabled. If available, use SNMP3 – this you lock down the software’s with all features enabled either as free
is the most secure version as its traffic administrative console with a downloads or on request.

97
AdRem NetCrunch
Professional 15
Fast deployment, smart
dashboard views and plenty
of features make NetCrunch
a solid choice for SMBs
SCORE
PRICE From £2,350 exc VAT per year
from adremsoft.com

S
MBs are spoilt for choice with
network-monitoring products,
but AdRem’s NetCrunch stands
out from the crowd for a number of
reasons. One feature we’ve always and drop each widget into the desired ABOVE NetCrunch and moving to its Analytics page
liked is its lightning-quick location. We had no problems creating presents a range of presents graphs of all alerts over the
deployment, and version 15 is no a custom dashboard for monitoring highly informative last day, week or month.
exception: we loaded its Server and our VMware ESXi and Hyper-V hosts dashboards The NetCrunch Monitoring Packs
Console components on a Windows and used the new data-sharing and are a great feature as they group
Server 2022 host, followed the NetCrunch Connection Cloud together performance data and alerts
discovery wizard and were presented features to send a password- for specific devices or services and
with a complete readout of our lab protected web link to external users are automatically assigned during the
network in only 20 minutes. so they could view it remotely. discovery process. The Professional
The NetCrunch console has been Different viewpoints are easily version on test offers hundreds of
redesigned to make it even easier to accessed from the upper ribbon different packs, with the Enterprise
use and opens with an informative menu, with the Top Charts tab version including ones for
Atlas overview page that uses presenting a graphical view of nodes “It’s incredibly easy to monitoring Dell and HPE
colour-coded icons of all monitored neatly sorted into groups so you can deploy, and the highly server management
devices so you can see at a glance see which have the most alerts, those
informative central console controllers and cloud
which ones have issues or are offline. with the highest CPU usage, the services such as Amazon
Custom views take this further, slowest responders, the top talkers ensures support staff are Web Services, Microsoft
automatically presenting details and more. Click on the three dots at always one step ahead” Azure, 365 and OneDrive,
based on the content selected in the the top right of any chart and you can Google and Zoom.
left pane, while full search facilities pull up a performance trend graph for There are far too many to list here,
apply your criteria to nodes, the Atlas any time period you want. but we did like the antivirus check
view and program settings, making it The Nodes page shows all packs with ones available for
easy to find a device of interest. monitored devices, and applying virtually every product you can
The new Dashboards feature is one-click filters shows systems that name. We run Sophos Endpoint
limited only by your imagination. are down, those with critical alerts Protection on some of our labs
Its smart editing tool allows you to or in a warning state. The Active systems and could add a specific
create highly detailed custom views Alerts page provides real-time BELOW Colour-coded sensor to them that verified that the
using any monitored system, views of the latest network issues, icons clearly show Sophos endpoint agent was running.
individual sensor or chart and drag which can be filtered by severity, device status AdRem offers a range of licensing
plans, with the Devices version
aimed at those that want to monitor
systems, services, virtualisation
hosts and cloud services. Prices start
at £2,350 per year for 250 nodes and
interfaces, which AdRem claims is
the equivalent of monitoring 2,500
device aspects, while a perpetual
licence begins at £7,050.
AdRem’s NetCrunch 15 takes
all the hard work out of network
monitoring, and its flexible licensing
schemes make it a good choice for
businesses of all sizes. It’s incredibly
easy to deploy, and the highly
informative central console
ensures support staff are always
one step ahead of network issues.

REQUIREMENTS
Windows Server 2016 upwards

98
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO The Network Business Focus

Park Place Technologies

Entuity 22
A wealth of monitoring
features presented in a
well-designed web console
with simple licensing plans
SCORE
PRICE From $150 per node/year
from parkplacetechnologies.com

E
ntuity from Park Place
Technologies will appeal to SMBs
worried about hidden costs as its
licensing is based only on nodes. The
yearly starting price of $150 per node
may seem high but this includes many RECOMMENDED
features other vendors charge extra
for such as IP address management, moved around to the preferred ABOVE Entuity offers checked every day, while more
Flow analysis, device configuration position, previewed and saved. fast network discoverydashlets are provided for AWS and
management and cloud monitoring. Discovered devices are viewed and easily customised Azure cloud service monitoring
Entuity can be run on Linux or from the console’s asset management dashboard views We run a lot of Dell and HPE servers
Windows Server 2019/2022 platforms page. Selecting one transports you to a in the lab and were pleased to see that
and minimum system requirements are summary dashboard that reveals all iLO and iDRAC monitoring is another
modest, with smaller environments the information Entuity has gathered standard feature with the default
requiring only a 6-core Xeon E3 CPU, about it. For our Windows servers, we dashboards showing every server
6GB of memory and 60GB of storage could see the OS version along with hardware component and their status.
space. Entuity can be virtualised so we current incidents, and swapping to The network switch
opted to install it on a Windows Server the hardware view presented resource “Entuity delivers an dashboard is another winner
2022 VM on the lab’s VMware ESXi utilisation graphs plus details of impressive toolbox of as its real-time summaries
host, which took 30 minutes. network ports and logical volumes.
monitoring services all show hardware utilisation
Some vendors expect you to supply Virtualisation host monitoring is and latency, while the ports
your own production database, but included as standard, with our easily managed from a tab presents charts for port
Entuity’s default MariaDB is fine for VMware vCenter dashboard providing central web console” status, all unused ports and
all environments. Network discovery is charts for performance, vSwitches, how long they’ve been
fast: after we created a list of device datastores, hypervisors and clusters. inactive, with a table below showing
credentials, our first job took only five The default dashboard for our ESXi 7 the devices connected to each one.
minutes to scan the entire lab subnet. hypervisor also provided data about Entuity’s event administration
The Entuity web console is well its hardware and the status of all VMs. provides a design tool for creating
designed and provides customisable Entuity 22 delivers plenty of new notification projects that link traps,
dashboard views, with nearly 100 features, with vulnerability scans events and incidents with rules,
predefined ones that you can duplicate using CVE lists published by NIST BELOW Virtualisation variables and conditions, which are
and use as a basis for your own. These warning if any devices are running host and network then assigned to actions. These
are built using “dashlets”, which define risky firmware versions. Expiry dates switch monitoring are include email, ServiceNow, Slack,
specific device metrics and can be for web app SSL certificates are included as standard Splunk and Microsoft Teams channels.
SurePath uses agents to monitor
external web locations and provide
hop-by-hop maps with latency and
packet loss details. It’s optional but
worth considering as it’s only licensed
by the number of paths required.
Well suited to larger networks,
Entuity delivers an impressive toolbox
of monitoring services all easily
managed from a central web console
that offers an incredible range of
informative dashboards. Its simple
node-based licensing makes it easy to
manage ongoing costs, and you can
try out Entuity as Park Place offers
a 30-day trial on request which
includes engineer assistance.

REQUIREMENTS
Windows Server 2019 upwards, Linux

99
Progress WhatsUp
Gold 2024
A great-value choice,
with heaps of network-
monitoring tools and a highly
informative web console
SCORE
PRICE Enterprise, 50 devices, £1,177 exc
VAT per year from whatsupgold.com

F
ew can match WhatsUp Gold
(WUG) for longevity: it has been
a major player in network-
monitoring for nearly 30 years, and
Progress Software continues to
enhance it with new features. features including network discovery, ABOVE Custom The smart web console makes
WUG 2024 has a sharp focus on topology mapping, alerting and dashboards can show device monitoring a breeze, and WUG
customisation and improved reporting, plus cloud, wireless your choice of devices automatically applies a base set of
reporting. Performance monitors can network and storage monitoring. and status views active and passive monitors and
now be modified with filters to The Enterprise edition on review thresholds to each one. The console is
exclude irrelevant data such as the costs £1,117 for 50 devices and adds easy to navigate, with all features
Windows system reserved partitions, log management plus virtualisation gathered under five main menus in its
and Alert Center email notifications host and application monitoring. upper ribbon bar, and frequently used
can be improved with options to fully Enterprise Plus ups the price to £1,727 views can easily be added to the
customise the message body. and includes switch, router and Favorites tab by clicking on the star
Devices that breach their assigned firewall configuration management, icon at the top right of the console.
thresholds trigger an alert and WUG along with the network traffic Devices are assigned colour-coded
can now inform you when a device analysis component. icons so you can see immediately if
automatically recovers and goes back Installation on a Windows Server they are up or down, and linking them
within its thresholds. Changes to 2022 host took 30 minutes and, after to state change policies allows actions
active monitor policies can be applied adding all device credentials, our first such as running
in bulk to multiple devices, and the wizard-assisted network scan took “WhatsUp Gold 2024 is a great scripts, restarting
monitor library now includes only ten minutes. WUG spotted all choice for SMBs as it presents a services or sending
hyperlinks so you can see which
devices they are applied to.
our Windows systems, switches,
virtualisation hosts, firewalls, NAS
clear picture of your network alerts to be applied.
Analysis dashboards
There are lots of subscription appliances and printers and is available in a wide range can be customised to
plans, as well as a free version that can We run a virtualised Progress of affordable licensing plans” show whatever you
monitor up to ten devices regardless FlowMon appliance in the lab and want, and support
of the number of network ports, CPU WUG picked this up as well. After departments will like the network
cores or storage devices. The Business adding Rest API credentials, we could operations centre feature as they can
edition starts at around £706 per year feed its traffic data directly into the create slide decks of multiple dashboard
for 50 devices and enables all key WUG analysis dashboards. views with a display duration.
We run Hyper-V and VMware
BELOW FlowMon data systems in the lab and found WUG’s
can be fed into the virtualisation monitoring very useful
console while the Top as we could see host resource usage
10 view shows which and all running VMs along with their
devices need attention vCPU, memory and network use. The
application monitor makes life easy by
running discoveries on devices for
apps selected from the WUG library
and adds them to the analysis
dashboard for at-a-glance status views.
WhatsUp Gold 2024 is a great choice
for SMBs as it presents a clear picture
of your network and is available in a
wide range of affordable licensing
plans. It’s a cinch to deploy, doesn’t
require a lot of host resources and the
new features make it even easier to
customise it for your environment.

REQUIREMENTS
Windows Server 2016 upwards

100
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO The Network Business Focus

SolarWinds Observability
Self-Hosted Essentials
A big bundle of monitoring
tools wrapped up in a smart
web console, with greatly
simplified licensing plans
SCORE
PRICE From £4.25 exc VAT per node
from solarwinds.com

S
olarWinds offers lots of
network-monitoring and
systems management solutions,
but the different licensing models can
make buying separates a complicated
process. The Observability suite OSH starts with NPM’s network ABOVE The suite OSH Essentials provides basic
comes to the rescue as it amalgamates discovery, which took ten minutes to includes SolarWinds’ availability monitoring of VMware,
all key products into one solution and deliver a detailed list of all our lab flagship Network Hyper-V and Nutanix on-premises
uses simple node-based licensing. systems. It can present a huge amount Performance Monitor and cloud hosts. If you want more
Deployment options are extensive, of information, but this can be easily you’ll need to upgrade to the
with the Observability SaaS version refined using dashboards where you Advanced version or buy the VMAN
hosted in the cloud for you while the choose the number of columns, add component separately. This monitors
Observability Self-Hosted (OSH) on resource views, move them around to virtualisation hosts, reports on CPU,
review can be run on-premises and in suit and preview them. memory and datastore usage, provides
your own cloud. OSH Essentials starts Modern dashboards offer more views of VM resource use and health,
at £4.25 per node and includes the detailed widget-based displays using and creates capacity planning reports.
Network Performance Monitor (NPM), key performance indicators from any The VNQM module supports Cisco,
Log Analyzer, Server & Application OSH module. The SolarWinds query Juniper and Avaya devices and
Monitor (SAM), IP Address Manager, language Studio app is provided for RECOMMENDED provides detailed views of call quality,
VoIP & Network Quality Manager building them and first-time users latency and failed calls, and also offers
(VNQM) and User Device Tracker (UDT). will find lots of help in the SolarWinds a search facility for locating specific
OSH Advanced ups the price to THWACK online community. VoIP calls. As long as you
£7.43 per node and adds the Network Standard features include the “The Server & Application don’t put a VM agent on
Configuration Manager, NetFlow NPM PerfStack Analysis tool, which Monitor uses templates for them or specify them as
Traffic Monitor, Virtualization Manager identifies the root cause of network
monitoring Windows and nodes, AWS and Azure
(VMAN) and Server Configuration problems by comparing data collected cloud service monitoring
Manager. There are also two OSH from multiple devices in one Linux servers and can keep a is free, while UDT polls
Enterprise options for larger businesses dashboard. The Quality of Experience close eye on business apps” switches, routers and
that start at a minimum of 500 nodes. service uses sensors linked to switch Active Directory domain
OSH Essentials used one routine to mirror ports to identify, categorise controllers to provide real-time data
load all suite components in around 45 and analyse traffic for over 1,500 on network devices, their connections
minutes. They’re easy to manage, too, applications, while NetPath monitors and user login activity.
as everything is neatly integrated into external web locations and warns of SAM uses templates for monitoring
the SolarWinds Orion web console. cloud service performance issues. Windows and Linux servers and can
keep a close eye on business apps
BELOW The various such as Active Directory, Exchange,
consoles can be easily IIS and SQL Server. For Microsoft 365
customised to show environment monitoring, SolarWinds
what you want to see has replaced its outdated and clunky
PowerShell queries with API poller
templates, which are easier to use
and more informative.
SolarWinds Observability Self-
Hosted Essentials offers SMBs a big
network-monitoring toolbox with a
simple and affordable licensing
system. There’s a lot to play with so it
will take a while to get it configured to
your requirements, but the suite is
surprisingly simple to install and easily
managed from a single web console.

REQUIREMENTS
Windows Server 2016 upwards

101
EnGenius ECW526
our predefined wireless settings and
started broadcasting them. The cloud

A good-value cloud-managed portal opens with a freshly designed

dashboard showing connection
business Wi-Fi 7 AP with details of APs and switches, with
doughnut graphs revealing the
plenty of features and an number of connected wireless clients
and power status for PoE switches.
impressive turn of pace These changes are only minor, but
if you prefer the older dashboard you
can swap back to it with one click.
SCORE
The rest of the portal hasn’t changed,
PRICE £225 exc VAT with each site supporting up to eight
from solwise.co.uk SSIDs. For each one, you can decide
which radios are active, enable L2

W
isolation, band steering and fast
hen we reviewed The Qualcomm and 10GbE combo ABOVE The ECW526 roaming. You can also apply
EnGenius’ mighty delivers in the speed stakes. For delivers great Wi-Fi 7 download and upload rate limits for
BE19000-rated ECW536 testing, we connected the ECW526 to performance for the entire SSID or per client.
Wi-Fi 7 access point (see issue 365, the lab’s Zyxel XS1930-12HP 10GbE the price WPA3 encryption is mandatory
p98), we were bowled over by its multi-gig PoE++ switch and used a for Wi-Fi 7 clients, but you can
great combination of features and Lenovo Windows 11 24H2 desktop LEFT Unusually for the present SSIDs that enable all radios
performance. Its £406 tag may be a client equipped with a TP-Link Archer price, the ECW526 has and use mixed WPA2/WPA3 security.
bit steep for smaller businesses TBE550S Wi-Fi 7 PCI-E adapter. a 10GbE port Sensibly, you aren’t allowed to create
though, and for them there’s the Starting with Microsoft’s NTTTCP unsecured SSIDs, but there’s an
ECW526, which offers a scaled-down utility, we recorded impressive raw option for using OWE (opportunistic
set of Wi-Fi 7 features at a more upstream and downstream rates of wireless encryption) to present safe
appealing price. 309MB/sec and 264MB/sec between open public networks, and the
Behind the scenes is the the client and a Windows ECW526 supports the Wi-Fi 7 MLO
same powerful Qualcomm server on our 10GbE LAN. (multi-link operations) feature.
Networking Pro 1220 Real-world speeds You can present guest wireless
hardware platform are good, with RECOMMENDED users with a captive portal that
featuring a 2.2GHz close-range large supports authentication methods
quad-core ARM file copies between such as click-through, EnGenius
Cortex-A73 CPU. the client and cloud-managed users, Radius,
The ECW526 presents server averaging voucher and Facebook account
six spatial streams – 245MB/sec. Moving logins. A splash page is
half as many as the the AP ten metres “We recorded impressive displayed to guest users,
ECW536 – but this still away into an adjoining upstream and downstream and it can be easily
delivers an impressive room saw top average
rates of 309MB/sec and customised from the
BE9500 rating comprising copy speeds of 218MB/sec. portal’s integral HTML
5,800Mbits/sec on the 6GHz radio, The ECW526 must be managed 264MB/sec between the editing toolbox.
2,900Mbits/sec for 5GHz and using EnGenius’ cloud portal, as its client and a server” EnGenius offers a Pro
720Mbits/sec for 2.4GHz. local web browser interface only version of the cloud portal
The AP ensures there are no displays an overview of LAN, internet that enables enhanced features such
bottlenecks as it boasts a 10GbE port; and cloud connection status. To add as a 30-day log retention period,
most similarly priced Wi-Fi 7 APs the AP to our cloud account we used network topology views and
only have a 2.5GbE port. It requires a the Cloud To-Go iOS app on an iPad seven-day timeline charts of the APs
PoE+ source and, although there’s a to scan its QR code. a client connected to, authentication
power jack alongside, an adapter The AP was automatically added methods used and details of errors
isn’t included. to our organisation, where it took all such as incorrect passwords. You get
a 90-day Pro subscription trial
BELOW/LEFT The included in the price, with a one-year
cloud portal offers subscription costing £46 per device
plenty of features or £110 for three years.
The ECW526 will appeal to SMBs
looking to make the move to Wi-Fi 7
as it combines a great feature set at a
tempting price. Cloud management
services are extensive and its potent
Qualcomm CPU and 10GbE port
deliver superb wireless performance.
DAVE MITCHELL

SPECIFICATIONS
BE9500 tri-band 2.4GHz/5GHz/6GHz 802.11be
2.2GHz quad-core Arm Cortex-A73 CPU 6 x
internal aerials 10GbE LAN/802.3at PoE+
wall/ceiling mount kit 12V DC input (adapter
not included) 190 x 190 x 39mm (WDH)
720g 90-day Cloud Pro trial licence 2yr
hardware warranty

102
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO The Network Reviews

Qnap TS-433eU
Minimal upgrade potential,
but this affordable NAS
delivers plenty of features in
a remarkably small chassis
same drive compatibility restrictions ABOVE The miniature and iSCSI LUNs, with the Snapshot
as Synology so you can use pretty TS-433eU offers four Replica service offering scheduled
SCORE
much any storage device you want. hot-swap LFF/SFF block-level replications to a local
PRICE Diskless, £528 exc VAT We also noted that the appliance’s drive bays storage pool or remote Qnap NAS.
from ukstore.qnap.com three 40mm cooling fans were The Hybrid Backup Sync 3 app
extremely quiet. protects appliance data and helps

Q
The modest memory capacity create a 3-2-1 backup strategy in
nap’s TS-433eU will appeal to limits the TS-433eU to running as few as four clicks, and you can
small offices with limited Qnap’s QTS operating system as its still use Qnap’s older free NetBak
space as it’s probably the QuTS hero OS requires a minimum Replicator Windows agent, which
smallest rack-mount NAS appliance of 16GB to get the best from it. This is manages simple file-based
on the market. Presented in a chassis no bad thing for small businesses as workstation and server backups
that’s a mere 292mm deep, it can be QTS is more nimble, requires far less to the appliance.
easily fitted in a small wall box, a memory and offers an equally To test 2.5GbE performance, we
standard two-post rack cabinet or impressive range of features. hooked the appliance up to the lab’s
even placed unobtrusively on a desk. Installation was swift, with the Zyxel XS1930-12HP 10GbE multi-
The appliance offers four QFinder Pro Windows app quickly gigabit switch. A NAS share mapped
hot-swap LFF/SFF drive bays at the discovering the appliance and to a Dell server connected
front and is powered by a 2GHz directing us to its web interface, “The TS-433eU offers over 10GbE returned
quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 CPU. It where a quick start wizard installed space-poor SMBs an Iometer sequential read
comes with 4GB of DDR4 RAM, but the latest QTS version. On
entry-level network and write rates of
this is soldered on the motherboard completion, we used the Storage 2.1Gbits/sec and
and cannot be upgraded. & Snapshots app to create a large storage solution at a 1.9Gbits/sec respectively.
Networking comes courtesy of 22TB RAID5 array. sensible price” Real-world speeds
dual 2.5GbE multi-gigabit ports, QTS offers plenty of business were in the same
and two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports can be apps, although some aren’t available ballpark, with drag-and-drop copies
used to expand storage outside the for ARM-based CPUs such as the of a large 25GB file between the
box with Qnap’s equally short Virtualization Station, Hyper Data appliance and server delivering
four-bay TR-004U disk shelves. Protector and Browser Station. You sustained read and write averages of
No expansion slots are provided so won’t be able to use Qnap’s new 2Gbits/sec and 1.7Gbits/sec.
10GbE is off the menu and, unlike NetBak PC Agent, either, as although Securing a 22.4GB folder with 10,500
some of Qnap’s other short-depth it offers block-based backups for small files to the share mustered a
appliances, the TS-433eU doesn’t Windows workstations and servers, tidy 1Gbits/sec throughput.
have internal M.2 SSD slots. it requires the Hyper Data Protector IP SAN performance was very
The appliance is clothed in a solid app to be installed. BELOW Along with an similar to NAS speeds, with a 1TB
steel chassis and uses equally sturdy Backup features are still in unusual file activity iSCSI target returning Iometer read
metal carriers. For testing, we fitted abundance, however, with QTS monitor, QTS offers and write rates of 2.1Gbits/sec and
three 12TB Seagate IronWolf NAS supporting on-demand and backup and snapshot 1.8Gbits/sec. Ramping up to a dual
drives; Qnap doesn’t enforce the scheduled snapshots for NAS shares data protection 2.5GbE MPIO link to the target
proved to be challenging, with read
and write speeds only increasing to
3Gbits/sec and 2.7Gbits/sec, while
CPU utilisation peaked at 90%.
It has limited upgrade potential,
but the TS-433eU offers space-poor
SMBs an entry-level storage solution
at a sensible price. Performance over
2.5GbE is good enough for light to
medium workloads, the QTS
software provides plenty of data
protection apps, and the appliance’s
low-profile chassis is small enough
to neatly tuck away in a wall cabinet.
DAVE MITCHELL

SPECIFICATIONS
1U rack-mount chassis 4-core 2GHz Arm
Cortex-A55 CPU 4GB DDR4 (max 4GB)
4 x LFF/SFF hot-swap drive bays 2 x 2.5GbE
2 x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 internal 60W PSU 430 x
292 x 43mm (WDH) 2yr hardware warranty.
Options: RAIL-S01 kit, £67, TR-004U disk shelf,
£388 (both exc VAT)

103
Conquer the
storage blues
As data stacks up, every business needs a storage strategy. everything else that determines the
real limits to your capacity,

Steve Cassidy looks at ways to manage your megabytes

performance and longevity. If you’re
shopping for a NAS appliance, I can’t
stress enough how important it is to

A
choose one with upgradable memory
lmost everything a have turned to cheap and cheerful slots, a reliable networking chipset
business does generates desktop NAS systems. Unfortunately, from a major brand, and a CPU with
data. So it’s entirely these bring plenty of issues of their not just enough megahertz but
possible – even quite own. One thing that can be said for enough cache to handle
likely – that at some point you may an enterprise NAS is that you can “The practice of tiering prolonged periods
abruptly and painfully run out of use it right off the bat, more or less; derives from the very basic of high demand.
storage space. This isn’t a concern with a self-build device, configuring It’s also worth looking
that’s always taken seriously, and reconfiguring your arrays can
observation that all forms at some of the processes
because avoiding it seems like almost take days. of storage have strengths and practices the big
the simplest job in IT: just stack up More to the point, these smaller, and weaknesses” guys use to handle
some more disks, job done. friendlier devices aren’t built for storage issues, a topic
However, if you take a closer look the demands of a larger office. I we’ll discuss below.
around, you may find that storage remember one company that
doesn’t scale up in the way you think centralised all its operations on a Setting quotas
it should. Older enterprises may still little two-drive Buffalo NAS, Per-user storage quotas date back to
be relying on expensive boxes, with expecting it to host about 100 BELOW Make sure the days when your entire business
dedicated, special-purpose drives roaming profiles for Windows PCs. you buy the right might run off a server with a 40MB
inside and six Ethernet ports on the Inevitably, this task required far size of NAS to meet hard disk – but they’re still available
back. These drives do the same job as more memory than its logic board your office needs in all server operating systems, and
cheap, generic SATA disks, but could accommodate: every morning, some businesses implement
they’re coded to work with the as people arrived for work and all them aggressively. I’ve
supplier’s own NAS hardware – so started accessing their profiles, visited places where
while they’re technically hot- it would be called upon to individuals had network
swappable, you can’t just replace serve up thousands of tiny storage quotas as low as
one with a reclaimed disk from a files at once, and would 500MB; anything in this
decommissioned desktop, or end up totally repository would be
bulk-buy a cheap batch of spares. overwhelmed. thoroughly backed up and
You’ll have to pay whatever price is The truth is, most of us made available around the
demanded for the approved drives, think about storage in globe, but the user had to
wait for however long it takes for entirely the wrong way. figure out what data was
them to arrive – and hope that Our experience of important enough to
support continues for as long as you desktops and the like leads warrant that treatment, and
need it. us to focus on the size and what wasn’t.
This kind of protectionist speed of the storage media, Quotas are an increasingly
approach is why many businesses but in fact it’s almost tough sell, however. Users aren’t

104
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Windows
The Network Storageon Mac
solutions

Where did all our space go?

Until recently I would probably have farm. It wasn’t even necessary to shut the
tended towards the unsophisticated view old machine down for this; they’d been
that most storage problems can be staved taking advantage of its hot-swap support
off, if not solved entirely, by the infinite to replace failed drives, writing the start
adding of more and bigger disks. But date of each drive’s active service on the
then two very different clients ran out of casing of the unit. That’s how I could see
space at the same time, for totally that, as well as filling up more quickly than
different reasons. expected, some of their disks were failing
The first set of clients will not mind after less than a year’s service.
me calling them the Brazilian Drag Without making too much of a fuss, I
Queens, because that’s what they are. set up two big Dell NAS servers as iSCSI
With a textile studio in Camden, a shop in targets and duplicated the whole thing
Covent Garden and little specialism in over, being happy to take the hit on
technology, they carried blithely on as network performance just to have
their boss made a semi-arbitrary decision some backup copies safely outside the
that their clothing catalogue would no casing of the aged server. Shifting the files
longer use Photoshop to simulate pictures to the iSCSI machines was initially
of clothes in varying colours: if a material laborious and slow, but once we came to
were available in 30 shades, they would the email repository an explanation for
shoot and publish 30 real pictures of 30 the missing space and high failure rate
real garments. became clear.
Indeed, there was some support for It turned out that their mail server
this decision, because with the best will in wasn’t a mainstream product, and didn’t
the world, digitally retouched colours use a database: rather, it used a single
don’t always resemble the real-world item socking great folder to store everything
– but hardly anyone was nodding in in. Messages, attachments, you name it,
sympathy after the raw files from their everything was there in plain sight,
first real, physical photoshoot were available to be freely browsed in Windows
delivered. They came on a USB storage Explorer. That wasn’t the worst of it,
used to scrimping on storage (not ABOVE Some unit the size of one of those robot vacuum though: that was the thousands – probably
helped by applications that happily enterprise storage cleaners that cats sit on; it even sounded tens of thousands – of TMP files, of all sizes
generate enormous data files); if you systems only work like a Roomba, thanks to the integrated and uses, interspersed between all those
tell them they can’t dump their whole with “validated” cooling fans. vital, irreplaceable emails. Attempting to
working data set on the network drives As well as being physically enormous, import all this chaff into Exchange Server
drive, they’ll just stick it on Google this device had more capacity than all the resulted in nothing but warnings and word
Drive or a USB flash drive instead, and disk storage on the network put together salad, with the whole process taking so
all your data protection and backup – along with the slowest transfer speeds in long that it began to markedly intrude
systems go out of the window. the building. The in-house IT helper on the working day.
merrily plugged it into the server USB and So I turned to my safe copy of all these
Deduplication ran straight into a classic storage files and, following a hunch, deleted all
Properly implemented, deduplication nightmare: not only did it take ages files ending in TMP. This worked like
is a wonderful thing. The server to mount the volume, every other magic. It turned out that simple
storage device identifies when operation then slowed to a crawl as the directory traversal operations (opening
identical blocks of data exist in two server painstakingly worked its way a file, searching for text and so forth)
different files, or across two different through the mass of pictures had been causing the server to spend
user profiles, and only stores a single and generated the thumbnails, almost all of its CPU cycles iterating
copy of the relevant ones and zeros, which nobody up to that point had seen through these huge numbers of tiny files,
with all other files simply containing any reason to disable. not merely affecting its performance but
pointers to that canonical source. The The second set of clients were also incurring considerable wear and
efficiencies can be enormous: think of engineers. These guys were supremely heat generation on the drives. No matter
a company with a one-megabyte logo confident about their old HP server setup, how many drives were added or how
that features at the top of every and quietly proud of the fact that it hadn’t often they’d been replaced, they’d never
memo, letter, order and invoice. needed replacing in many years – all that have matched the space and performance
Identifying candidates for had been needed, they told me, was an gains I was able to get with a single
deduplication can, however, be occasional disk upgrade to the SATA RAID shell command.
resource-intensive. You won’t
find this feature on inexpensive,
consumer-grade NAS boxes. It’s more of versioning and storage tiering – so the media is dirt cheap, and they
commonly associated with a mesh of let’s talk about that latter idea now. don’t need fans. We could draw a
semi-autonomous, high-spec drive whole matrix of good news/bad news
servers, with their own configuration Tiering attributes for all types of storage,
and management. The practice of tiering derives from old and new, and the conclusion
Deduplication also gets the very basic observation that all would be that a whole range of
complicated with resilient storage forms of storage, from old-school assumed-obsolete technologies still
architectures, as the “store once, refer tape drives up to the latest NVMe have some specific advantages over
many times” model completely SSDs, have strengths and the newest technology.
clashes with the idea of retaining weaknesses. NVMe is great for This is where tiering comes in.
multiple copies of everything as ultra-fast storage, but it’s expensive Rather than trying to keep all your
safeguarding against failures. This is and can get very hot in use. Tape eggs in any particular basket, a tiering
before we consider the complexities drives conversely are very slow, but system knows the strengths of your

105
 The Network Storage solutions @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO

different storage media, dynamically for at least some online storage. This ABOVE High-end appeal of the cloud is that you can,
moving data to the most appropriate inconvenient fact has paid for a lot of storage servers nominally, forget about planning –
place based on predicted usage. Teslas and holiday homes, because save space with but this approach is likely to earn
Ancient files that no-one ever touches absolutely everything you do on a deduplication you a visit from the finance director.
will be shunted onto tape, while hot cloud VM is chargeable, not just It’s much better to throw up flags
data will be located for the fastest uploading files but downloading internally the minute you have an
access – potentially even in a RAM them again, and deleting them, too. issue (or ideally the minute you see
disk. All of this is invisible to the user, The alternative is to have a VPN one on the horizon).
who sees everything as occupying a pipeline back to home base and It’s also important not to
single network storage location, let your cloud resources access your underestimate your future
while the middleware moves the data local storage via iSCSI, but even then requirements. I’m forever
around in the background. you’ll pay for the VPN traffic, not to “It’s far more efficient to warning IT guys not to ask
Clearly, tiering doesn’t reduce mention the CPU time spent dealing have a big storage project for too little – not just for
your total storage requirements, but
it does mean you can get by with a
with encryption and data transport.
Of course, cloud storage does
every five years than to their own benefit but
for that of the business. It’s
modest amount of top-speed storage, have its benefits, in particular keep thinking in 90-day or far more efficient and
and keep everything else in cheaper scalability. If your problem is that annual spending rounds” effective to have a big
locations, without slowing your you never know how much data storage project (say) every
everyday processes to a crawl. you’re going to need to process from five years than to keep thinking in
Indeed, while tiering systems one month to the next then the cloud 90-day or annual spending rounds.
themselves are expensive, once could be the perfect answer. As we all
you’re working with enterprise-scale know, though, it’s far more common Stuck in the middle
quantities of data, tiering becomes to have a large mass of data that just Storage woes can often be a growing
the only practical way to survive the keeps on growing. Paying for cloud pain that hits medium-sized
high demands put on your server storage means you never need to businesses the hardest. Tiny startups
suite by heavy-duty applications such worry about the physical media or can muddle along with external USB
as VDI, which breeds enormous VM infrastructure, although you’ll still BELOW Cloud hard disks and a shared Google Drive
image files, and then expects to be be paying for it indirectly. storage has its account, while the largest companies
able to copy them around on demand Indeed, it’s fair to say that, benefits, but tread can afford to throw as much money as
as a user accesses their virtual for many companies, the whole carefully here needed at local or cloud storage. Or
desktop PC image. indeed both.
It’s we battlers in the SME sector
And finally – cloud who face the biggest challenges.
The promise of the cloud was With limited resources and
always about hosted computing ever-growing demands, we need
resources, not storage. After all, to make difficult judgment calls,
your internet connection is not just about raw quantities of
probably the slowest data pipe storage but about how and when to
in your entire organisation, so upgrade the infrastructure and
how could it make sense to put which of the aforementioned
the information you need to strategies to employ in a bid to keep
operate at the other end of it? things manageable. While drives get
But of course a remote CPU ever faster and cheaper, we’re
needs to be able to access your producing more and more data at
data, so if you’re using any sort accelerating rates, and we need to
of cloud platform then it’s keep running as fast as we can just to
impossible to avoid the need stay in the same place.

106
 @P
@ PC
CPPR
ROO FFA
ACCEEBBO
OOOK
K..CCO
OMM//PPCCPPRRO
O The
TheNetwork
NetworkCheat
CheatSheet
Sheet
That doesn’t mean you need to excise
Wi-Fi 6 from your premises, though:
if only half of your machines are
accessing the network more quickly,
that means they get off the air faster,
increasing availability for the rest.

Are there any major downsides to

running a Wi-Fi 7 router in parallel
with older hardware?
My one note is the same one I have
about all Wi-Fi deployments: some
security features are part of the
over-the-air signals standards, while
others are implemented in the IP
layer, and only protect devices that
use the router as their gateway. So if
you want your new Wi-Fi 7 router
to provide network security, that’s
going to push your buying pattern in
the direction of more new devices,
sooner rather than later.

Wi-Fi 7 for
What about other technologies,
such as VPNs and IPv6?
Strictly speaking, neither VPNs nor
IPv6 are anything to do with Wi-Fi 7.

business
They’re several jumps up the diagram
from the wireless connection, so there
should be no inherent issue running
these services on any version of Wi-Fi.
Of course, that doesn’t guarantee
they’ll be implemented by all routers,

Should you be upgrading to the latest wireless standard? but if you come across one that lacks
these key features, I’d suggest walking

Steve Cassidy explores the benefits – and the limitations away for that reason alone.

It sounds almost as if Wi-Fi 7 isn’t

actually all that necessary?
So, is it that time again when we to communicate across multiple I wouldn’t disagree with you, in terms
need to upgrade our network to frequency bands at once, but if you of what the technology is capable of
keep up with Wi-Fi standards? want to completely fill your premises compared to Wi-Fi 6. However,
You don’t need to upgrade to Wi-Fi 7 with signal you may need to look into replacing increasingly dusty router
yet – nor ever. Doing so could bring a different model, such as 5G. hardware with newer kit offering the
benefits for performance and latest features and quality is rarely a
reliability, but Wi-Fi 6 is plenty fast Is it better to slot Wi-Fi 7 into our bad idea – especially when doing so
enough for most desktop roles, and as existing infrastructure, or to also gives you an opportunity to
long as you’re already using WPA3 start afresh? unpick all the messy static routes,
authentication, there’s nothing new I never like to dismiss any suggestion user hacks, port redirection fabrics
in Wi-Fi 7 on the security front. of a clean redesign of a network. Most and so forth that have accumulated
businesses could benefit from one, over the years, and to replace them
Well, that’s good to hear. But if we and in this case the signature benefits with something as clean, fast and
do choose to upgrade, are we of Wi-Fi 7 are only fully accessible if reliable as is achievable with the
looking at a major project? you dump your old setup in the bin. latest hardware.
It doesn’t have to be an all-hands-to-

Wi-Fi 7 vs Ethernet
the-pumps undertaking. A Wi-Fi 7
base station will happily work with
slower, old-tech devices – although
they won’t get the fastest connections Much has been made of the performance of Wi-Fi 7 – capable of. In the real world, the fastest Wi-Fi 7 router
– so existing laptops can serve out it’s officially subtitled “Extremely High Throughput”, we’ve seen – the Netgear Nighthawk RS700 (see
their lifespan, and you can replace and on paper it promises connection speeds of up to issue 353, p76) – claims a top data rate of 19Gbits/sec.
them with Wi-Fi 7-compatible ones 46Gbits/sec. That’s fast enough that you might be Even this isn’t realistically attainable in use: attenuation
when the time comes to retire them. wondering whether it could entirely replace your and interference will slash connection speeds for
wired infrastructure. devices that aren’t situated right next to the router.
Can we replace our existing mesh In reality, though, that number comes with some In other words, Wi-Fi 7 may not be any faster than
system with a single Wi-Fi 7 router? significant caveats. For one thing, wireless ratings a gigabit Ethernet connection – and there’s very little
Probably not, I’m afraid. Wi-Fi 7 like this represent total throughput, not per-client chance of it competing with a 10GbE link. It may still
doesn’t increase signal strength or speeds: if you plan to connect 20 devices, expect your be fast enough for your business, but you should
directly improve round-a-corner bandwidth to be divided up 20 ways. also consider the unbeatable reliability and security
propagation. Compatible devices It’s also important to understand that 46Gbits/sec of a physical connection before you start ripping out
may see a boost in performance or is the theoretical maximum the Wi-Fi 7 standard is your Ethernet cables.
reliability thanks to Wi-Fi 7’s ability

107
Real world
computing
Expert advice from our panel of professionals

JON HONEYBALL

“As a product test lab that specialises in

technology such as Wi-Fi, it’s important
that we’re at the bleeding edge”
Whether it’s wired or wireless, the latest developments in networking speed and reliability
might prompt you to make a big upheaval. Here’s one man’s story on doing exactly that

A
fter years of very solid service, of maxing out the DMSE unit, but my
I have moved away from experience with this on the home
pfSense running on a LAN gave me the confidence that a
dedicated Netgate gateway appliance Dream Machine could work at the lab
at the lab. Why move away from such and would inherit the existing
an illustrious and well-regarded network fabric from a rather old
platform for the core lab network? and tired Ubiquiti CloudKey+ unit.
Well, let me first say that pfSense is a The kicker would be the really easy
superb piece of work – I have no integration and day-to-day operation Jon is the MD of an IT
qualms about using it again. It’s that the UniFi platform brings. consultancy that
supremely flexible and has a wide I bought one when it was specialises in testing
range of add-on packages that you announced, but I had to wait until the and deploying kit
can install and tweak to get it Christmas shutdown before I was @jonhoneyball
working just how you want. brave enough to attempt this level of
The problem is that I am not, surgery on the network. Not only did
and never have been, a pfSense nerd. all of the UniFi devices need to be
I have relied on the default migrated, a task that is actually
configurations to work well, and they incredibly simple, but I also needed
have. And that isn’t just a matter of to consider more sticky issues with
trust: I have poked and probed it on DHCP MAC address reservations. I
both the LAN and WAN sides with couldn’t find an easy way to export RIGHT Site Magic
serious tools such as Nessus, and it the DHCP list on the pfSense box; I’m SD-WAN allows you to
has a clean bill of health. Setting up sure I could do it from a command join two networks
VPN tunnelling was pretty line, but this seemed boring. In the together seamlessly
straightforward, likewise managing end, I simply copied the DHCP data
DHCP and IP reservations. from the pfSense configuration web countries and instigating a good level
But it is nerdy. And I had to make a page and pasted it into Excel, which of live monitoring.
choice: stick with the Netgate/pfSense fortunately made a good job of So far, I’m pleased. I could link two
combo or change to something that formatting it nicely. BELOW Ubiquiti’s physical units together in a full
would integrate better with the lab’s The switchover was simple Dream Machine Pro failover, taking the failover from the
wider hardware and software stack. enough, and within minutes the Max supports port level to the whole device level,
As I’ve said before, I’m a big fan of network was up and running. I have hundreds of clients but that’s overkill for me. The unit is
the UniFi platform from Ubiquiti. I made some appropriate in a rack in a nearby data centre with
use the £480 Dream Machine Special security tweaks, dark fibre between the lab and the
Edition at home, where it interfaces including blocking DC, so this is already provably robust.
with the Gigaclear fibre and Starlink the IP addresses I see Ubiquiti also sells a new
(the latter as live failover). But now of certain Enterprise Fortress Gateway
Ubiquiti has launched the similarly with 25Gbits/sec
priced Dream Machine Pro Max. connectivity, a significant
This is quite a monster that step up from the 10GbE
supports many hundreds of on the Dream Machine
clients and devices. To be Pro Max. But I can’t really
fair, I was a long way short justify that, despite it
supporting 5,000+
clients and 12.5Gbits/sec
routing through the
packet
inspection
engine.

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 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Real world computing

Jon Honeyball Lee Grant Dr Rois Ni Thuama Davey Winder Steve Cassidy
Opinion on Windows, Apple and Tales from the front line of Risk analysis from our expert in Keeping small businesses The wider vision on cloud and
everything in between – p110 computer repair – p111 cyber-governance – p116 safe since 1997 – p118 infrastructure – p120

There’s one last party trick that 1GbE port and having
these UniFi routers support: the data on the 10GbE
SiteMagic SD-WAN. This allows you port. But where’s the
to seamlessly join two separate fun in that? I went
networks together using a VPN tunnel hunting for a 10GbE
across the internet. It really couldn’t PoE++ solution. Turns
be simpler: choose the sites and press out they really don’t
the go button. It just works and is a exist, and only hugely
superbly simple and controllable enterprise-sized
solution for site-to-site connectivity. switches can support
I could manually set up the both on the same port.
necessary protocols to do site-to-site And even those are rare.
VPN tunnelling, and indeed I had So the obvious
done this on the pfSense box, but the solution was to find a
Ubiquiti platform makes it really PoE injector that could
simple, and I created a three-site mesh sit between the switch
connection in under ten seconds. You and the E7, and inject
can’t ask for easier than that. I’ve the necessary juice onto
looked at solutions like Tailscale, too, the wire. Now you
and although it has much power the might think that any
Ubiquiti solution meets my needs. PoE++ injector would
There are two configuration do the job, but you’d be
options: a hub and spoke system or wrong; almost every
a fully meshed design. Hub and injector is limited to
spoke will allow for up to 1,000 sites Move two rooms away, and the ABOVE The E7 is an 1Gbit/sec network speed. I needed the
and is ideal if you want a master consequential drop in signal strength enterprise-grade Holy Grail of 10GbE and PoE++.
headquarters (or data centre hub), by about -25 to -30dBm knocks that indoor access point And I found it! Trendnet makes a
and then a number of spokes at down to around 400-500Mbits/sec that supports Wi-Fi 7 10GbE PoE++ injector that can deliver
branch sites. With the mesh solution, even on a client device that has up to 90W of power called the
you’re limited to 20 sites, but that excellent aerial design. TPE-319GI. This seemed like fun, so I
will be more than enough for the So far I’ve been somewhat ordered one from Amazon for around
smaller end of the small to medium underwhelmed by the 802.11be Wi-Fi £85 exc VAT including delivery.
enterprise marketplace. 7 implementations out there, and It works just fine,
To enable remote VPN tunnelling can’t get past the magic 2Gbits/sec and as soon as I
from laptops and phones, I also speed barrier. Obviously, you need BELOW Trendnet’s can, I will
needed to have a full VPN server set to ensure that the connected TPE-319GI is a 10GbE find
up. This is very easy to do using the backbone is capable of handling this, PoE++ injector that
WiFiman tool provided by Unifi. so 2.5GbE switches are the minimum. delivers up to 90W
Again, it’s one click to enable and join I actually use 10GbE switches, and the of power
onto the network, whether that’s performance test server uses 10GbE
from a laptop or phone. I also needed ports on a card from Intel. I know this
an OpenVPN server on the main lab can deliver about 9.7Gbits/sec of user
network for one team member to join data when you connect from an
in; this was very simple to enable, appropriate 10GbE port on a fast
sending him the .OVPN configuration laptop, usually using Thunderbolt.
file along with appropriate username Anyway, the E7 is an enterprise-
and password. grade indoor access point that time to try
supports Wi-Fi 7, despite its £380 the E7 on the
Enter the E7 exc VAT price. It has a 10GbE port 10GbE test backbone
All of which leads me to the E7 for its connectivity and a secondary to see just what this will do.
(tinyurl.com/366ubiqe7). 1GbE port for data and power As a starter, it supports multi-link
As a product test lab that backup purposes. operation (MLO), which will bind
specialises in technology such as This left me with an intriguing multiple Wi-Fi radios together
Wi-Fi, it’s important that we’re at the problem. The E7 requires Power- (for example, 2.4GHz plus 5GHz, or
bleeding edge of what’s happening over-Ethernet, and specifically 5GHz plus 6GHz) to really maximise
there. To be honest, almost nothing PoE++, which is a whole big step up the throughput. Some devices
beats the raw throughput of an from the usual PoE+ specification. “I needed the support this today, too. It will be
older Netgear RAXE500 unit, and It will run on PoE+ but whines that Holy Grail of interesting to see what the absolute
that’s only 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6E, not it’s cowering in the corner due to a
10GbE and state-of-the-art Wi-Fi unit will do
802.11be Wi-Fi 7. It can happily give lack of oomph. when stretched.
you just shy of 1.9Gbits/sec of user I could have gone for a split power PoE++. And I Ubiquiti even claims it will
data throughput if you’re nearby. option, pumping in the PoE++ on the found it!” support ten spatial streams and over

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1,000 concurrently LEFT The UniFi Flex supports 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6 on 2.4GHz
connected devices. That switch has four 10GbE and 5GHz, so it doesn’t have a 6GHz
latter point is actually ports, as well as an radio, but we can easily forgive that.
very hard to test unless Ethernet port Setup is pretty easy once you
you have a large populated remember that this is OpenWRT so
area such as a train station or it’s aimed more at nerd hobbyists
conference centre. But that’s than my gorgeous Aunt Helene.
the target for this device, and I Nevertheless, the GUI is quite
can’t wait to stretch its legs. straightforward and I had no
“Sometimes problems bringing up the Wi-Fi
Switching switches things are just interfaces with appropriate security,
Talking of 10GbE, I mentioned the wider network; and three units if too complicated and ensuring it was connecting to
test backbone we use which has
10GbE switches. These are quite
we’re testing a three-way mesh
system that relies on Ethernet
for my brain” the WAN side with no issues.
So what’s the upside? It’s a
straightforward units, namely the backbone. I could buy two and stack perfectly decent board in a nice shiny
Netgear ProSafe XS508M, which is them up, but that isn’t a clean dark blue case. It has OpenWRT,
an 8-port 10GbE switch with a fibre solution either. I might need to buy which is extremely well understood
port that takes a standard SFP another two of these Trendnet PoE++ and is open source, so ongoing
connection. But I have an issue with injectors, so I can power up a support won’t be an issue.
this switch, which is that it just three-way mesh at 10GbE with Best of all? It was around £80
hangs. All the LEDs come on and no appropriate power. Sometimes things BELOW The Local delivered from AliExpress. Delivery
traffic flows. Reboot it, and often it are just too complicated for my brain. Network setting in took a week or two but was painless.
won’t come up cleanly at all, sitting at macOS can be toggled And so far I think it’s really cute and
the “all LEDs on” stage. Going bananas with OpenWRT on and off certainly delivers on the price/
Now I might have dismissed this Looking for a nerdy
as a hardware failure on this unit, router that gives you
but for the fact that I also have the opportunity to
the identical 5-port version, the really configure
XS505M. And this does the same everything? Down to
thing. Powering down the switch being able to compile
to let it calm down sometimes helps, your own firmware/
but not always. operating system?
Some suggest that it’s a crash in Then look no
the components that drive the SPF further than the
port, because I often use an SFP-to- Banana Pi OpenWRT
SFP interconnect cable between this One development
switch and the rest of the network. board in a box. Inside
But I’ve had the issue using Ethernet sits a board based
cable interconnectivity as well. around the MediaTek
There are quite a few threads on MT7976C system on a
various fora about this issue, but chip. There are three
no-one has a definitive solution. And aerials, two Ethernet
because both are plain unmanaged ports (one WAN port,
switches, there are no obvious which goes up to
firmware updates available. 2.5Gbits/sec, one LAN
The solution is probably to throw a port, which runs to
little money at the problem and buy 1Gbit/sec) and a USB-C
another UniFi Flex 10GbE switch. port for power input. You can also performance promise. It’s the entirely
This has four 10GbE ports, along with power it via PoE from a downstream opposite end of the scale to the
an Ethernet port that can be used to LAN switch if you like. app-controlled modern Wi-Fi routers
power the switch over PoE using a The OpenWRT operating system that mainstream vendors sell, and
handy USB-C port. I know this works has been around for years, but here BELOW The Banana Pi then often fail to support correctly.
well, because I have one on my desk it’s pre-baked ready for this OpenWRT One: a nerdy For that, it is a breath of fresh air.
at the lab, connecting up 10GbE on hardware. Or you can take the source router that lets you
my desktop machines across to the and reconfigure it to your taste. configure everything Upsetting Mac settings
10GbE backbone switch. In terms of wireless, it It was one of those annoyances that I
This would be ideal but for one had to track down and fix. On my
problem: I need more than Mac desktop at work, and my
four ports. One for the test old, tired but still fully
server that hosts functional MacBook
OpenSpeedTest and iPerf; Pro at home, I couldn’t
one for the uplink to the get into the web
configuration pages of
local servers using the
Microsoft Edge browser.
I could ping them
from a command line.
But getting to the HTTPS

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 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Real world computing

page didn’t work. I tried a different LEE GRANT

browser and had no such issues.

“I think of myself as the Artful

At this point, it was clear to me
that a security setting had gone awry.

Bodger, a grubby-faced urchin

So, I dived into the deep and complex
mess that is the settings within Edge,
to see if there was an obvious switch
that needed flipping.
I found nothing. Which, of
course, made me even madder and
that picks the pockets of OEMs”
determined to find the solution. After acquiring faulty parts, a PC repair shop hopes that the repair
This required a bucket of coffee, and economy will be more profitable than setting fire to the cash in the till
then another. If I may quote from The

T
House on Pooh Corner, “It was still
snowing as he stumped over the he year 2025 has begun with is functionally dull. I acquired it in
white forest track, and he expected to the traditional bedlam and 2021 and despite a decent spec, it’s
find Piglet warming his toes in front financial ruination of repair- always been sluggish.
of his fire, but to his surprise he saw based retail. By striving to fix the Battery life has been awful, too.
that the door was open, and the more unfixable, I think of myself as the Despite exploring Windows’ power
he looked inside the more Piglet Artful Bodger, a grubby-faced urchin management inside out several times,
wasn’t there.” that picks the pockets of wealthy there are days when I get 45 minutes
My Edge settings were open in OEMs by denying them a sale. while word processing. Lenovo’s
front of me, and the more I looked, This year, my job should get easier. Lee Grant and his wife management software, Vantage,
the more any obvious security setting More Right to Repair legislation went have run a repair shop flagged that the battery health is now
wasn’t there. live on 1 January and, if the EU can in West Yorkshire for “fair” and presents a handy link to
And then a thought struck me – finally agree what day it is, by the end over 20 years take me directly to the Lenovo parts
maybe it wasn’t Edge itself that was of the year there should be clarity on @tnargeel.com store. This is how repair-retail should
doing the blocking? Maybe it was the user-replaceable batteries for devices be done, and Lenovo gets full marks
firewall, which can usually do app larger than mobiles and tablets. for removing the friction from the
level filtering? But no – the firewall I’m excited about the potential of parts-purchasing process.
service wasn’t running on this laptop. these changes and look forward to The fly in the ointment is that the
It never goes onto an unknown LAN reading PC Pro reviews where the Lenovo parts store doesn’t sell a
so it isn’t an issue, although obviously availability and pricing of spare parts battery for my laptop. The page that
it’s good to have a firewall running will affect the final score. “For decades Vantage pings up is trying to flog me a
when you’re out and about.
If it wasn’t the firewall, what else
Despite the new laws, change
won’t be instant. For decades
manufacturers “cloverleaf” mains cable that slots
into the charger. How much for the
could it be? I finally had the light bulb manufacturers have avoided have avoided cable? As I write this, £32, which is
moment. MacOS, like most modern repairability like a president avoiding repairability rather pricey for a cable I sell for £4.
operating systems, allows you to a tax bill, so until 2025 makes a like a president If you think this is some kind of error
control network access on a per app real-world impact, our shop will then it’s an increasingly profitable
basis, but it’s down in the Privacy & remain its usual chaotic self. avoiding a one, as the same cable in September
Security settings under the System tax bill” 2024 was a bargain £28.
Settings app. And “Local Network” is Will the real battery If we put blatant profiteering to
one of the settings that can be toggled please stand up? one side, you may have spotted that
on or off. There was the answer: for I’m writing these very words on my BELOW The battery Lenovo’s presumably gold-plated,
some reason, Edge had local network Lenovo ThinkBook G2. It has an 11th on my Lenovo laptop Swarovski-encrusted cable is not a
access switched off. Enabling it let me Gen Core i7 (the Matt Smith), 16GB of was “fair”, according battery. I’m going to make a huge
get to all my lovely 10.x.x.x servers, RAM and Nvidia MX450 graphics, and to Vantage presumption that Lenovo Vantage is
and normality returned.
The moral of the story? Don’t
assume the setting you need is within
the app itself. There’s now a whole
raft of system-level configurations
that directly and individually impact
how apps run. Other examples here
are “Microphone”, “Camera”,
“Bluetooth” and, my favourite,
“Screen & System Audio Recording”.
Without which you might find your
Microsoft Teams or Zoom app having
a working camera but no sound.
jon@jonhoneyball.com

113
showing me this cable-of-the-gods
as the battery for my laptop isn’t
available in its store. If I access the
parts for my machine via pcsupport.
lenovo.com, I get different results
(slow hand clap for Lenovo). It gives
me three unavailable battery
options which, in any situation,
isn’t particularly helpful.
Despite what analysts will tell
you, repair-retail, especially with
laptops, isn’t like “normal” retail.
Specificity and the availability of a
specific component often overrules
price. I can’t just buy another Lenovo
battery because it probably won’t fit
inside the chassis. This is different to
buying an Nvidia RTX 4090 card
where OEMs (basically) create
variations of the same product.
One may flash LEDs faster or have a
different thermal/acoustic profile,
but throw any of them into desktop
and the machine will run. My laptop
needs one of three batteries, none of
which Lenovo can supply.
This is where the third-party
market comes into play. There are unique to the tech sector, but until ABOVE A replacement handy utility offering to load various
plenty of reputable third-party these blocks are removed, we can wasn’t available, but I drivers once the install is complete.
battery suppliers around (“proper” as have all the spare parts in the world, could buy a power A genuinely useful solution in a
they say here in Yorkshire), and this is but they can’t be used. cord for a bargain £32 post-DVD world. Once the ASRock
a positive thing. Late last year, a How did I fix this laptop? I didn’t. drivers were on (and for clarity, I will
customer brought their Lenovo into The customer bought an Acer. refer to these as the OEM drivers),
the shop for a replacement battery as Now for the bit of repair-retail that the party really started. The mouse
the factory-fitted one had died. As the rarely gets talked about. I’d bought a couldn’t control the interface, and the
user was a field engineer, using the part specifically for this customer’s screen repeatedly froze. If you’re
machine in places without a 240V laptop, so I can’t use it in another playing along, then place your bets
supply, this was a showstopper fault. machine (see above). As consumer now as to what the problem was.
Lenovo also didn’t have a battery legislation such as the Consumer Given that the machine’s OS was
for that machine, so I sourced a Rights Act 2015 doesn’t apply to about a nano-second old, I ruled out a
third-party version, which arrived business-to-business transactions, software glitch, so it was time to look
next day and at a price that doesn’t my battery supplier isn’t obliged to at hardware. As it was the end of the
make you wonder if the accounts restock the part and my business working day, I booted into a multi-
department is on hallucinogens. takes a financial hit because of cycle MemTest Pro RAM diagnosis
Job done? No. I installed the battery, Lenovo’s Byzantine firmware farce. “If the customer and left the machine to work its
pushed the power button and wept If the same customer had walked had walked into magic. In the morning, the RAM had
at the message: “The battery installed into the shop and, instead of asking
the shop and passed all the tests. Next, I removed
is not supported by this system and me to fix their laptop, had asked for the brand-new SSD. Why? I don’t
will not charge. Please replace the £50 from the till, I’d be better off than asked for £50 want to put mileage on a new part
battery with the correct Lenovo I am now. As you can appreciate, this from the till, I’d while performing various test installs.
battery for this system.” glaring hole in business protection be better off” It will also reveal if the issue is being
For clarity, there’s nothing wrong does nothing to promote a repair- caused by a stalling SSD.
with the third-party battery. This is economy, especially when the type of I de-coupled the new PSU and
a firmware block and a deliberate component gets more expensive. wired in one of our known-working
way to prevent repair. Thanks to test units and, after that, there was
Oregon’s Right to Repair laws (and Two out of three ain’t bad only the motherboard and the APU
Colorado’s beginning in 2026), this At the start of the year, I built a PC for left. I installed a temporary version of
type of parts-pairing is forbidden, a customer using an AMD Ryzen 7 Windows 11 but didn’t hook the
but until OEMs push BIOS updates, 7700 APU. During the installation of machine to the internet to download
it remains a problem in the real Windows I’d noticed that our test drivers. The machine was stable but
world. Lenovo isn’t the only one bench monitor kept turning black, laggy; I ignored the OEM drivers and
to employ this practice, nor is it but I hadn’t been too concerned. opted for the pucker real-deal AMD
This happens on new builds as Adrenalin originals. On reboot, an
Windows plays “guess the driver” AMD pop-up appeared stating that a
(it’s very good at it) and various parts driver timeout has been detected.
of the system refresh. This was positive as it confirmed that
This system’s motherboard was even AMD’s software was detecting
an ASRock B620M Pro, which has a an issue, but with what?

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 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Real world computing

At this point it looked like the Sales of Goods Act

GPU component of the APU was (1979) that cover
faulty and, for once, luck was on business-to-
my side. Sitting in boxes on the other business
side of the shop were the parts for transactions, but
another PC I was building that used the wording is so
the same APU and motherboard. I woolly that
removed all my test parts (except the lawyering up is
SSD) from the build, replaced the the expensive
suspect APU, and the machine fired route to
up with no AMD nags or stutters. I recompense. In
flattened the machine and tested short, the law is
with both OEM and AMD drivers, and not on my side.
all was well. For a flourish, when I First, this isn’t
built the second machine, I installed anything new
the suspect AMD chip and merry hell and Alison and I
rampaged once more. have countless
So if you guessed that the GPU stories when we’ve been p****d on ABOVE The USB ports convenient as buying
of the APU was faulty, give yourself by a supplier who swears on their in an Antec case ere new while being cheaper, and the
a point. I contacted my supplier, granny’s grave that it’s only raining. soldered to a PCB at real-world nonsense I’ve mentioned
boxed up the faulty APU and sent it I haven’t named the supplier as they the top of the chassis makes it an unfairly tough business
back for the supplier to deal with. are trade-only, but one of the driving sector. Unrealistic business-to-
And, as they say, this is where the factors for the Right to Repair business legislation from 1979 needs
story really starts. movement is to help build a proper a radical overhaul. As Mr Bumble
repair economy. This means that said, “the law is an ass”.
Real-world repair repair must mature from the
To ensure we hit the delivery date for volunteer sector into profitable, USB or not USB
our client, we sourced a replacement standalone businesses that can That said, OEMs are not always the
APU from an alternative trade contribute to the economy and pay best people to supply spare parts.
supplier. I informed the original living wages. Last summer I built a desktop for a
supplier that as the APU was dead on Alison and I have done this for over client using an Antec NX500M case.
arrival, I didn’t want a replacement two decades, and while our “living “While our After a few months, the customer
but a refund or credit onto my
account would be fine. This was
wage” is often circa 1625 rather than
2025, we’re still here. For a repair
‘living wage’ is said that the front USB 2 ports were
“intermittent”. On the workbench,
refused. I was told that once the part economy to become a fiscally often circa 1625 I confirmed the fault, although I
had been tested by AMD (which can workable reality and not just the rather than couldn’t work out if the customer’s
take up to four weeks) a decision jargon of environmentalists, then the 2025, we’re ham-fistedness (their own
would be made if there was indeed a gaping void, where buying and selling description) or Antec’s “value” USB
fault to be found. rights for businesses should reside, still here” plugs were to blame.
Currently, I’ve bought three must be filled with practical and The USB ports are soldered to a
APUs to build two machines. Once enforceable legislation. PCB that sits at the top of the case.
AMD has tested the suspect APU, a The real-world reality of Although Antec sells some spares for
decision will be made whether I’ll get bricks’n’mortar repair-retail is that its products, the list is far from
a new Ryzen 7 7700 (which I don’t consumer law puts the responsibility conclusive and is mainly fans and
want), a refund or credit (perfectly onto the retailer. A retailer who is not glass side-panels. Like all OEMs,
acceptable) or the suspect APU afforded the same protections against Antec had built the case to a budget
returned with “no fault found” (I’ve any of the tiers of multi-million- and I wasn’t keen to buy more ports of
lost count how many times this has dollar suppliers/distributors/ this standard. The fix was to desolder
happened). There’s a 50/50 chance corporations – all they need to do is the ports and replace them with
that I will end up in a worse position naff all while counting the profit for quality versions made by Adam-Tech
than when I started. This isn’t retail, selling faulty products. BELOW An AMD error (adam-tech.com). As you may know
it’s gambling. Repair-retail must be attractive to message about a from your own tinkerings, one of the
Why am I boring you with this dull the consumer if any form of repair faulty APU is no pleasures of repair is not only the
insight into my business affairs? If economy is to thrive. It needs to be as guarantee of a refund possibility of saving something from
you’d bought this APU from an online the skip but the opportunity to
retailer, there’s a 14-day cooling-off improve on the original and increase
period allowing you to change your the quality of a product. The customer
mind and get a refund. This is part was surprised that a modern
of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, manufacturer was willing to supply
which governs the buying rights the parts so I didn’t disabuse them.
for consumers, not businesses. Antec can thank me later.
Technically, there are still parts of the Also, as the machine was under
warranty, the customer wasn’t
charged, so if Antec’s accounts
department is reading, let me know
where to send the invoice for
repairing your product for free.
lee@inspirationcomputers.com

115
 Because whatever decision infosec
ROIS NI THUAMA leaders and business leaders make at

“No-one is losing their life over

work, everyone gets to go home at
night. Everyone. So yes, infosec is

infosec decisions and no-one

critical for businesses and yes it may
be stressful at times, but it doesn’t
carry the same life-and-death stakes.

should be losing their head” No-one is losing their life over infosec
decisions and no-one should be losing
their head. In the words of the World
Don’t be daunted by the rapidly changing face of the security landscape – War II motivational poster that now
learn from those who climbed the southwest face of Everest instead finds itself on tee shirts and tea
towels: keep calm and carry on.

O
The story of the successful ascent
n an icy night in November clear. Leaders could process complex of Everest is fundamentally about
2018, I picked my way slowly information, but wouldn’t engage in the importance of teamwork and
around the snaking roads of information security matters. team dynamics, careful preparation,
north Wales through a flurry of snow. effective risk management,
I was heading to the Moel Siabod café Grappling with complexity continuous monitoring and
to meet friends – and listen to two of Scaling Everest is a significant responding to incidents. It
the greatest mountaineers describe milestone in the history of human exemplifies the importance of setting
the first ascent of the southwest face achievement. For most of us, unless and achieving long-term goals
of Mount Everest. Rois Ni Thuama is a you’re a professional soldier, through discipline and collaboration.
Fifty years ago, as part of a British consultant specialising nothing we do at work will ever be as It’s true to say that the cyber-threat
expedition led by Chris Bonington, in risk management difficult or as dangerous as scaling a landscape and legislative landscapes
Doug Scott and his climbing partner and corporate 29,000-foot mountain in sub-zero are shifting. But this is true of
Dougal Haston became the first governance temperatures. For all the talk of everything. New viruses develop and
climbers to reach the summit via this @rois_cyberstuff cyber-war and sophisticated nation the world responds. Legislators are
new route. It was a remarkable state actors, information security continuously drafting new rules.
achievement; it was an ambitious and isn’t more difficult than scaling And the business world responds.
challenging climb largely due to its the world’s highest mountain. But in the context of infosec,
technical difficulty and exposure to Securing information is, or should the changes aren’t occurring so
severe weather conditions. That be, manageable. So why are so dramatically that it’s impossible to
evening, Doug Scott and Paul “Tut” “Why are so many business leaders failing to put people, tools or processes in place
Braithwaite, Britain’s most prolific
alpinist, shared with the audience
many business take the small but necessary steps
to protect their interests?
to address the changes. Many British
businesses that look to the EU as a
what it took to scale what the leaders failing If we consider Martin’s point about destination for their goods or services
Nepalese call Sagarmatha, the to take steps to leadership grappling with tough will need to comply with the new
forehead of the sky. protect their subjects and how a team successfully rules under the NIS2 directive.
You might well wonder why you summited Mount Everest half a Businesses that fall within the
are reading about climbing exploits in interests?” century ago, we should be able to scope of NIS2 must tackle the critical
PC Pro. Bear with me, I have a point. offer insights into issue of leadership. The new
Just before the world shut down succeeding in tough obligations require that management
in March 2020 to control the conditions. If not, then at approve and oversee cybersecurity
transmission of the then deadly the very least it should risk management measures. To
coronavirus, I sat in Dublin and provide some perspective. approve and oversee, leaders must
listened to the UK’s first CEO
of the National Cyber Security
Centre, Ciaran Martin, deliver a
presentation to a rapt audience of
information security and fraud
prevention experts.
Martin made the point that many
businesses operated across a number
of sectors that required detailed
understanding of engineering
(chemical, civil, electrical),
programming, biomedical matters ABOVE Sir Chris
and so on, but whose leadership had Bonington, who led
not yet grappled with the the first ascent of
fundamentals of information security. Everest’s southwest
He wasn’t wrong. The point was face, can teach us all
lessons

RIGHT If we can climb

the southwest face of
Mount Everest, we
need not fear infosec

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 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Real world computing

understand cybersecurity risk implemented best practice

management measures. That means that were contained in
that where leaders have failed to corporate documents that
grapple with the fundamentals of provided the claimants in
information security, they must the case with their
undertake training – or, to put it strongest argument.
another way, the gap Martin
highlighted in his 2018 presentation. Stay in your lane
No-one is saying that the
Leadership and teamwork information security
The importance of leadership professionals should
cannot be overstated. In Doug Scott’s also understand all the
words, Chris Bonington had “honed rules about corporate
the art of large expedition planning communications, corporate
to perfection”. While Bonington law and governance. That’s
was a skilled and accomplished why you have people who
climber, his leadership skills were do understand those factors
a key to success. Bonington on your team, or you have access to ABOVE SolarWinds efficiently, minimising waste and
nurtured skilled climbers, supported those experts. Either way, when you CEO Sudhakar maximising productivity.
group harmony and effectively have advice from those individuals it Ramakrishna at the Bonington’s meticulous planning
managed the complexities of behoves the leadership to take their Senate Intelligence meant that the equipment and
high-altitude expeditions. direction on the matters that fall Committee hearing in much of the food needed for the
As part of the team, Tut Braithwaite within their areas of expertise. February 2021 expedition left London months
alongside Nick Estcourt climbed the Years ago I had a great boss; let’s before the initiative would begin.
sheer obstacle at 8,200 metres known call him Dave (since that was his Any gaps in essential supplies could
as the Rock Band, a feat that has been name). Dave was fond of saying you be remediated by providing a long
claimed to be the hardest extreme need the right person in the right run-in time. There’s simply no
altitude technical climbing ever position. In other words, you don’t substitute for preparation.
undertaken. As they climbed, they want your best logistics guy Moreover, Bonington wasn’t afraid
put measures in place, setting up establishing the rope work or your to use new technology. He relied on a
fixed ropes that the rest of the team best alpinist on strategy. Know what computer to plan his expedition,
would rely on to make their ascent. you do and do what you know. And while others were still committed to
Bonington as the leader didn’t go get on with your job. pen and paper. This willingness to
with this part of the team, stand over Alternatively, there’s always the embrace the tools he needed to get the
them or bark orders at them to fix option to go the SolarWinds route. job done undoubtedly helped with
ropes here and there. Nor did he Management blithely ignored their managing the huge number of details
interfere with Braithwaite and expert who forewarned them of the required to keep the project on track.
Estcourt. As the leader, Bonington foreseeable problems that lay ahead. It also meant that Bonington and his
selected those on his team for their Failing to take reasonable care led deputy were able to provide the
ability, then he gave them the tools, directly to civil litigation and a $26
“Businesses essential visibility to the financial
gear and support as well as the million payout for the claimants. can no longer backers that their resources were
autonomy so that they could simply Beyond the possibility of civil simply rely on being put to good use. You’re not
get on with the job. Leadership is not litigation, the financial penalties
input from scaling Everest, but do what works
a synonym for micromanagement. under NIS2 range from €7 million for you, your team and your business.
It is essential that business or 2.4% of global annual turnover to infosec
leaders select individuals with the €10 million or 4%, whichever is personnel” Peak performance
appropriate and relevant skills and higher. Pick your position and take The story of this remarkable ascent
ability. Once this selection is made, care, or ignore the warnings and best is not just about the physical
it’s prudent for the leadership to of British luck with that. achievement but also about the
grant their team the room to critical role that leadership,
manoeuvre independently. The five Ps teamwork, technology and
Changes to the legislative Proper planning prevents poor equipment play in such endeavours.
landscape mean that businesses can performance. Careful preparation It emphasises how advancements in
no longer simply rely on input from to manage the risks is key for two gear and meticulous planning
information security personnel. reasons. A clearly articulated strategy contribute significantly to success in
Getting it right will require team and plan should be in place so the extreme conditions. In other words,
effort. Have a leader with deep team as well as the wider business people, tools and processes. The point
technical ability, yes, but make sure understand what should happen at which innovation, technology and
that you have access to someone that and when. It helps to provide a human perseverance intersect can
understands the legal context for framework for operating and for create extraordinary outcomes.
these new infosec obligations. understanding when essential If half a century ago a team of men
Take the matter of SolarWinds. milestones have been met. could carve out a new route on the
Criminals compromised SolarWinds’ Scheduling these steps provides highest mountain in the world, then
software and embedded malicious much needed transparency, helps today’s businesses can put the right
code. The successful civil litigation to identify delays in advance people, tools and processes in place to
that followed didn’t turn on a and allows for prompt corrective manage the changing infosec and
technical matter. Instead, it was the actions. Furthermore, having a plan compliance landscape.
representations that SolarWinds had ensures resources are allocated rois@rtconsulting.ltd

117
 high confidence in this warning –
DAVEY WINDER please take it seriously.”

“What if someone had got Where it went next

through the iOS defences? What

So, I took it seriously even though
nobody had targeted me successfully,
as far as I knew. And there’s the issue

if my iPhone was spying on me?” – as far as I knew. I mean, I’m not

stupid, and I readily admit that Apple
is right when it says that the kind of
Davey responds to Elon Musk and answers the “Am I Secure?” question spyware attacks it’s talking about are
that, it seems, is worrying so many iPhone users vastly more complex than most
consumer-facing malware. I agree

A
that this kind of mercenary, and
t this point in time, I’m really although I do find it highly amusing almost always nation-state-
not sure if it counts as a flex – I’m considered to be at high risk of sponsored attacker, will have the
or the precise opposite, but attack. That program keeps my kind of resources not available to
Elon Musk recently reposted a tweet Google accounts pretty safe. When it most criminals to target a very small
(twix, tweet, Xeet – I give up) about an comes to iOS, of which I have two number of iPhone users.
article of mine discussing iPhone active phones, a huge iPhone 16 Pro Apple said that the people so
spyware attacks that had been Max and a diminutive iPhone 13 mini, targeted will have been “likely
published at Forbes. Needless to say, so sue me, I’m aware of the threat but because of who they are or what they
that got me a lot of attention, both Davey is a journalist have never really worried too much do”. Agreed, agreed, agreed. But what
positive and negative, from the Elon and consultant about falling victim when it comes to if someone had got through the iOS
followers as well as the looney tunes specialising in privacy spyware. Until I started reading about defences and my own safeguards as a
conspiracy brigade. There’s some and security issues these notifications: paranoia much? security pro? What if my iPhone was
overlap between the two, but that’s @happygeek In case you’re wondering what spying on me? What could I do to find
beside the point. such a notification looks like, the out? And so, my journey to find a
The point, dear reader, is that the wording is thus: “Apple detected solution began. Here’s how that went.
overwhelming majority of those that you are being targeted by a There are, it turns out, no shortage
emails and direct messages on X were mercenary spyware attack that is of apps and services claiming to
asking about the best way to detect trying to remotely compromise the protect your iPhone from spyware
spyware on your iPhone and how iPhone associated with your Apple attacks. As I soon discovered by
such detection works. Oh, and with a Account. This attack is likely doing a bit of donkey work, however,
nod in the direction of the looney targeting you specifically because many of the apps claiming to protect
tunes folk, how safe this is, what with of who you are or what you do. you from nation-state spyware
“The Man” watching all we do and Although it’s never possible to attacks are actually just confirming
collecting data using so-called achieve absolute certainty when what you already know, or rather,
protections to infect us. Sigh. detecting such attacks, Apple has what you should already be doing to
Anyway, I thought I’d take a bit of “I’ve never protect yourself.
a deep dive into the subject through really worried What do I mean by this? Simple:
the lens of a rather interesting app
too much about iOS sandboxing is a great security and
called, aptly enough, Am I Secure?. privacy feature that also happens to
falling victim mean that the data needed to be
How it all started when it comes accessed to perform a meaningful
There I was reading about Apple’s to spyware” security analysis of your device isn’t
threat notification system that warns available to these apps. Instead, from
high-risk iPhone users of spyware what I can tell, most tend to focus
attacks against them. You’ve on things such as security policy
probably never heard of these, let compliance, or look for a lock screen
alone seen one, as Apple admits it passcode being enabled, or check to
hasn’t sent a load of them. In an see if the device is jailbroken and
October 2024 support posting running the latest version of iOS.
(tinyurl.com/366apple), Apple said: Pass all these checks, and guess
“Since 2021, we have sent Apple what? Not only is your iPhone still
threat notifications multiple times a vulnerable to the most advanced of
year as we have detected these spyware attacks, but it could even
attacks, and to date we have notified have already fallen victim to one.
users in over 150 countries in total.”
I’m enrolled in the Google I asked: Am I Secure?
Advanced Protection Program as – During a social media discussion
of the risks of spyware on an iOS
device, someone reached out with
information regarding a possible
solution that could do all the things I’d
RIGHT The free app been thinking about. That someone
security check is was Colin Caird, founder of Numbers
pretty decent in itself Station (numbersstation.app).

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 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Real world computing

Ordinarily, I ignore such messages

as they’re usually a sales pitch for
some stale and pointless money-
grabber. However, there was
something about the language Caird
used, something about the tech he
mentioned, that got me intrigued
enough to investigate further.
That thing I investigated: an app
called Am I Secure?. I quite like the
“what it says on the tin” approach to
apps, so Caird was already off to a
good start. Before I went any
further, though, I dug into the ABOVE Apple’s threat and so on. But it’s the advanced
background of the app itself: notification system security scan for malware and
anything that wants to probe my warns iPhone users spyware that I’m interested in.
device and data needs to be of spyware attacks This isn’t free, however, and the
probed by me first. I think it’s subscription can be a monthly £9.99
called due diligence and appears LEFT The advanced (if you just wanted to do a one-off
to be something overlooked by far scan is where the real check, for example), or yearly at £50
too many folks, including those value of the Am I which, at just a tad over £4 a month,
who really should know better Secure? app lies seems reasonable for peace of mind if
these days. I trust you’re taking you’re worried that your data could
notes, dear reader, although I’m be at risk from spyware threats. The
sure that wouldn’t apply to the advanced scan costs money because it
PC Pro massive. takes resources, including a team of
It turns out that Caird has been cyber-threat analysts specialising in
providing security solutions to the mobile sector. It will manually
government clients by way of a trust me in verifying this as the data is review any and all anomalies
standalone on-premises version of highly confidential. The consumer discovered during a scan to determine
the Am I Secure? app for some time. version of the app is, I’m happy to if your iPhone has been compromised
Which is a good thing. Obviously, report, both relatively simple to use or not.
pinning down in print exactly which – and more of that in a moment – and So, how does it work to get that
governments is tricky, but I can efficient at what it does – more of that data in the first place? This is where
confirm it includes multiple NATO as well. But first, the science bit. things get interesting, as the advanced
governments with cabinet officials, scan requires access to your system
heads of state and prime ministers in Searching for spyware diagnostic report, which you’ll need
that number. For once, you’ll just The free version of the app does much “It will review to initiate first. This collects, as you
have to trust me on this one. of the bog-standard “security” stuff any anomalies are likely aware, data about iOS and
“Our government clients have that other such apps do. Think to determine if running processes. Red flags, alarm
already discovered active operations
against their devices running the
checking for iOS version, whether
iCloud private relay is enabled or not,
your iPhone bells, whoop whoop, that’s the sound
of the place. But fear not; this data is
latest versions of iOS,” Caird told me, looking for man-in-the-middle attack has been end-to-end encrypted on your
although, once again, you’ll have to indicators, third-party keyboard risk compromised” iPhone, and only the Numbers Station
analyser server can decrypt it.
If you want to know the entire
process, for transparency, which is
always to be applauded for such
services, here goes. The encrypted file
is first sent to Firebase Cloud Storage
in the US (Oregon) but cannot be read,
from where it is downloaded to
Numbers Station servers for local
decryption and analysis. The results
are sent back to Firebase’s Firestore
database where the app pulls them
and displays the results to the user.
Those analyser servers are Mac minis,
physically located in Canada and
where the decryption keys reside.
“Your sysdiagnose data is always
stored in an encrypted state when in
cloud storage so it is unreadable by
anyone accessing it other than
Numbers Station Inc,” Caird told me.
LEFT How Am I “Our analyser servers are only
Secure? analyses the permitted to connect to Firebase and
iOS sysdiagnose file Apple (for macOS updates), have

119
Continued from previous page STEVE CASSIDY

“The Russians have rediscovered

iMessage disabled and are not used
for any other purpose, making their

the art of dragging the seabed for

exploitation high unlikely.”
Those servers look for indicators of
compromise and anomalies in the
diagnostic information that deviate
from a known good or expected
baseline so they can be triaged for
cables and cutting them”
manual analysis. “As new threats The recent assaults on undersea cables that make the internet work open
and related IOCs are found,” Caird up questions about businesses’ reliance on faraway servers
said, “old submissions (which are

T
retained for up to three months)
are re-analysed, with any changed he most important book in my been out of print for a few decades.
results sent to users.” modest collection of tech Its age should not be taken as an
literature is pictured opposite. indicator of its irrelevance or the
Using the app: how easy is it? How the World Was One is a dreadful quality of research presented. When I
The app isn’t the most straightforward pun of a title, by scientist, wartime bought my copy, the world’s long-
to use as it requires the user to go and boffin and sci-fi author Arthur C haul data transmission experts were
get that iPhone system diagnostic Clarke. It’s his account of how several scouring the world’s second-hand
report and upload it. This won’t be generations of communications bookstores for copies too, not just
beyond the ken of any PC Pro reader, engineers connected together the Steve is a consultant because of the unique disclosures
but there is a literal shortcut you can world’s political classes, by way of who specialises in from one of the inventors of Radar and
take to make it less of a pain. If you telegraph Morse code, telephony voice networks, cloud, HR the geosynchronous satellite, but
think that clicking through Settings | signals and eventually the internet. and upsetting the because the secrets of cable-laying
Privacy & Security | Analytics & What has this to do with 2025? corporate apple cart and cutting don’t change much
Improvements | Analytics Data is a Because the Russians seem to have @stardotpro through the centuries. Right from
pain, that is. Anyway, I’ve set up a rediscovered the fine art of dragging dit-daah-dit of Morse code through
shortcut for the process using the the seabed for submarine cables and the 5-bit binary of Telex signals and
accessibility options, and you can do cutting them. A sufficient number of up to date with multi-waveform
the same by heading to tinyurl. those cables carry regular, public single mode fibre “cables”, the
com/366shortcut. internet traffic to make this wholly procedures and accompanying
Caird told me that the Am I Secure? relevant to 2025. And, more pointedly, challenges remain much the same.
app can detect nation-state-level to make your cloud resources and Clarke details the drama and
implants and spyware, including NSO your backup/restore technology truly determination that gave us the first
Group Pegasus, which continues to location independent. transatlantic cable, managed by
make so many headlines around the I will, now and then, refer to BELOW Artist Charles Brunel and delivered by his game-
world, and provides “the same level Clarke’s account of modern Parsons’ depiction of changing iron-hulled steamship, the
of detection capabilities as our infrastructure construction and Brunel’s Great Great Eastern. It took more than one
government clients”. repair despite the fact the book has Eastern from 1858 attempt to lay a cable from Ireland to
Importantly, the app doesn’t
require access to such things as your
camera, contacts or microphone. Why
would it? Something you should ask
yourself when it comes to some other
apps claiming to offer protection.
Numbers Station suggests the
same approach as Apple when it
comes to what to do if you discover
you’ve been compromised. Rather
than offering to intervene on your
behalf, it links the victim to a
relevant third-party organisation.
“We recommend users that have a
compromise and work in media or
human rights contact Access Now,
Amnesty Tech or Citizen Lab to
perform the forensic work required to
determine the vulnerabilities that
were exploited,” Caird said.
davey@happygeek.com

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 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Real world computing

Newfoundland, and when I say LEFT Arthur C Where the trouble sets in is in the
“attempt”, I mean that the company Clarke’s How the burgeoning software-as-a-service
formed to pay for the making of the World Was One is (SaaS) markets. Many of the big names
cable and the coal in the bunkers of a history of global insert their added value in front of
the ship went explosively and communications your deployment, and you aren’t
painfully bankrupt when the first meant to ask questions about where
attempt didn’t deliver a working their servers are physically located.
cable. Some of these difficulties were For a refreshingly transparent
down to arcane matters such as declaration of the deployment of
signal degradation over thousands of cloud SaaS, take a look at the
miles; others were things like giant Cloudflare Architecture Reference
squid or sperm whales chewing on resource (tinyurl.com/366cloudflare).
the cable in the darkling abyss. Cloudflare mentions that it passes
Clarke explains that the cable design most of the world’s internet traffic,
and preferred signal format evolved which probably means it too is
together, quite expensively, mostly running its own massively distributed
as a burden on the British economy. system design – but that’s not
I can’t postpone the punchline dependent on being regularly hauled automatically so for other providers.
here any longer. While Clarke doesn’t
ponder this matter directly in the
up out of the depths for a battery
swap, and a repair recovery is simple
“Where the An awful lot of “white box”
companies set up a front-of-house
book, he points to a very simple fact. for such technologies. trouble sets in in the country they want to sell to,
The very first cable-layers did at least The important takeaway here is is in the while actually adding their compute
as much cable recovery and repair as that the fault-tolerant design for your burgeoning power back home, because they cut
they did laying. The equipment company’s assets – which discover an economy-of-scale deal with the
necessary to find and haul up a heavy they have been cut off from each other
SaaS markets” data centre round the corner (or
communications cable from by an assumed cable break – doesn’t sometimes, because their insurers
thousands of feet deep in the ocean have to be eternal. Repairs will still won’t let them operate on foreign-
was readily available even on the take a few weeks, but this means soil hardware). The lesson for you?
Great Eastern; a revolutionary vessel temporary fixes to make isolated Make sure you aren’t being
to be sure, but one that still had some affected systems work from localised overconfident about system resilience
masts and sails, just in case. replicas are more tolerable. After all, if you use such a provider. It’s one
So, when you see an article making the cloud wouldn’t be workable at all thing to confidently tell the board
a fuss about some mysterious agency were it not for the ability to replicate – and your customer base – that
slicing cables in strategic locations, data between lumps of storage. you can survive foreseeable enemy
don’t get caught up in the panic. action, and another thing when it
Think about the benefit secured by the Business workloads
mysterious attacker, and the likely I realise that while discussing
time-to-repair; in the case of a tolerance against undersea
shallow location such as the Baltic, cable attacks, I have so far
most of the repair delay will be the talked about business
travel time of the repair ship to the workloads that are, at heart,
location of the break. internal facing. But we also
This presumes that detecting the need to mention websites.
exact spot in a featureless ocean for a That’s because resolving
repair craft to aim itself at is even even a mild traffic bottleneck to
possible, but here at least there have a website is one of the great
been improvements since Brunel’s problems of the past few years.
time. Even back then, measuring Can’t get in the way of the
the electrical characteristics of a cut money, you see. We’re used to
cable gave a fair guess as to where it the term CMS for content
had been cut. In fact, if you’ve ever management system, but these
played around with some of Intel’s should strictly be renamed
Ethernet diagnostics, you’ll have DCCMS – big hosts replicate
seen neat little modern-day your site files between invisible
implementations of a measurement data centres so that customers in
first put to practical use back in the poorly connected countries are
time of horses and highwaymen. directed to physically nearby
Modern fibre-based cables aren’t replica servers. The international ABOVE Cloudflare happens and you realise you were at
as inherently helpful as an old school links simply move the master copy claims that it passes jeopardy the whole time.
Image: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

lump of copper wire, but the various data (and VMs, these days). most of the world’s That goes double for single-
speed and capacity improvement We’re not allowed to poke our internet traffic purpose SaaS brands. Just think
hacks in the overall cable design make noses under the covers at the big cloud how you might get round not being
this difference in materials into an providers, but it’s fair to assume that able to take payments via your
advantage, not a hindrance. Fibres most of those have outpost data chosen provider, for instance.
have booster stations at regular centres scattered around in places Likewise, there’s not much
intervals in the cable; these are, where bad temper or despotism turn point in having a war chest of
incredibly, battery powered, and global data into a bit of a pipe dream cryptocurrency squirrelled away
function as a repeater. Their design is for the locals. in a repository that turns out to be

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When unreliability made replicas

Back in the 1990s I had a lot of fun building global replication between a tribal medical centre in
on the other side of a subsea cable link email systems. These straddled the eras of southern Malawi, a US air base in Afghanistan
that suddenly stops working. old-school phone calls by modems to widespread and a resort town near the Black Sea in Romania.
Funnily enough, the most take-up of internet connections. We actually We burnt CDs containing only header data and
prominent country thinking about created a complete network linking over 50 security templates for files that had been seeded
these risks turns out to be Russia. It subsidiaries around the world back to the head on the Notes server farm in head office, deep in
war-gamed a scenario in which it was office in the UK, solely by using top-end modems exotic and war-torn South London.
completely cut off from the rest of the and software. The latter handled the schedule of Some of those CDs were, at various points in
planet as far as the internet was calling the rack of devices back in the office, and their delivery journeys, carried in backpacks before
concerned. While we might not agree the list of files and emails that needed to be copied being posted to windswept, rusty metal pick-up
with Russia’s aims or intentions, you across the wire. postboxes in the foothills of the Himalayas; the
can’t fault its capacity for intellectual This was, I must say, phenomenally reliable. diametric opposite of what happened once they
analysis. A willingness to look into the Later on, a couple of similar distributed networks were deposited on the arrays of the servers already
worst-case scenario is something we were built in advance of higher-speed connections running in each location. The replication process
would do well to emulate. as the internet grew both in population and started them filling up, quickly for some and more
performance, using the rather more sophisticated slowly where the analogue modem still held sway.
Letters from the Edge and ornate services provided by Lotus Notes. This stuff really worked. The guy who designed a
There was only one Christmas present I can hear some old nerds out there hissing lot of those features subsequently went on to be the
I was hoping for in 2024. Despite some through their teeth at this mention, but I refuse to principal architect of Microsoft Azure, which has
satisfactory trailing-edge purchases join in with the critical litany that sought to usurp de-emphasised replication as part of the basic
after the recent near-collapse of Intel Notes for Microsoft Exchange. The two products did product feature list, leaving it as an optional add-on
(a 13in MacBook Air for £150? Don’t completely different jobs for completely different available from a variety of suppliers. Once in full
mind if I do!), I wanted the Raspberry business roles and purposes. 1990s nostalgia mode, I’m inclined to wonder
Pi 500 (see issue 365, p54). Notes’ stand-out capability for me was its whether cloud architectures are actually a leap
This is the Raspberry Pi 5 variant of dogged and apparently indefatigable approach forward when the times become more violent and
its cute little “machine in a keyboard” to data replication. One trial required data uncertain. We had it good back then.
design. I already have a Pi 4 in a
keyboard; all I can find to criticise
about this is the relatively is no longer compelling
unsophisticated GUI when because everything is up
compared to equally cheap for re-evaluation.
Apples or rapidly I believe the most important
depreciating Intel-based thing to re-evaluate is the whole
Windows 11 machines. idea of edge computing. Time was
But what really that everything had to be cloudified,
piqued my interest because the effort of washing all that
is that the Pi 5 has data around a distributed workforce
add-on boards was simply too high. The edge was a
that let you directly place where data was generated and
connect NVMe storage (what a missed What really kicks off with the ABOVE All I wanted collected, with servers bristling with
opportunity that the Pi 500 doesn’t NVMe options on the Pi 5 is the idea for Christmas was… their own Wi-Fi antennas in order to
have an M.2 slot). I know you can boot that you can present home users with a Raspberry Pi 500 listen to all those network-equipped
from an SSD via the USB drive on a Pi 4 a full local replica of your entire nano-devices recording half a dozen
platform, but my focus here isn’t the company data set. Okay, so the logic environmental statistics – or just the
chunk of the Pi world that’s held about cheapness starts to weaken here, same picture of the back of your car
together with elastic bands and because 4TB of NVMe storage will add park – every few seconds until the
chewing gum. I’m thinking about users a few hundred quid to the price. heat-death of the universe.
who only react favourably to devices But that’s where replicas come on. I think the edge is now much more
that look like finished, professional, Board members’ WFH config can be important than that, with releases of
comforting bits of design. full copies, but the accounts team need platforms such as the Pi 5 opening up
And I want these devices in front only the accounts data, stock control a tectonic shift of roles. I’m talking
of users. A keyboard-mounted Pi fits only their fulfilment and invoicing, about a move away from the cloud and
in a Jiffy bag and can be updated by and so on. You only have to make two towards local smarts, now both big
sending out a microSD memory card. or three different replication content “The most and fast enough to be handling jobs
It would be hard to come up with a profiles for the benefit of this important thing long thought of as “rack only”.
more convenient device for working- approach to start accumulating. to re-evaluate I hope that the peace and quiet
from-home support, and that’s before
contemplating the difference in cost.
If you were to go to a big systems
integration or reseller business and
is the whole interval of lockdown is bringing forth
a lot of desirable software releases in
A Raspberry Pi 500 comes in at start talking about this as a design idea of edge the Linux continuum, too, though the
around £180 with various little extras, option, they would of course be quite computing” Linux sense of “oh, that was solved in
which means you can have eight or keen to plump it up to the same 1972” could do with a slap round
ten of those for the cost of a new, expense bracket as the old-school the chops. Where’s my friendly,
corporate-grade laptop. hardware purchasing budget, or come background data replication peer-to-
up with various show-stopping peer platform to make best use of 50 Pi
reasons why you couldn’t do this. My 5 computers loaded with 4TB of NVMe
argument: with the gradual demise each, keeping my company data safe
of Windows/Intel architectures, with a mesh of 50 replicas? Come on,
they have no safe option to present chaps, there’s work to be done here.
you with. The “traditional solution” cassidy@well.com

122
Retro Inspirational stories from
computing’s long-distant past

BELOW The ZX
Spectrum Next is a
modern update to
the ZX Spectrum
But there are advantages of using
decades-old machines beyond inertia.
For instance, they can be incredibly
reliable and they don’t require
constant updates. Grab a computer
from the 8-bit era and you can be
almost certain that it won’t be
susceptible to viruses, either.
Retro machines are also great for
storing private information such as
passwords and financial details. Since

Old
files designed for retro computers
can’t always be executed on modern
systems without emulation, there’s a
natural barrier.
To that end, using a less powerful
and stable machine can be
advantageous if the tasks are

computers,
relatively straightforward. If all you
require is a word processor, simple
spreadsheet or basic inventory tool,
for example, there’s ample software
available from many years ago that
can perform these tasks effectively.

new tasks
As long as the floppy disks or tapes
haven’t degraded, you should be able
to get up and running very quickly.

Old meets new

But what if you want to revive a
vintage computer and incorporate it
into your personal or business
workflow? It’s all well and good

Classic computers can remain relevant in today’s grabbing an old copy of a word
processor from eBay, rattling off a

world thanks to modern hardware and software, bunch of files and saving them to disk
if you’re entirely happy for that work

as David Crookes discovers to remain in isolation. If, however,

you want to share it with other people
or continue working on a modern

A
n intriguing photograph automotive repair shop and by an machine, then you may find yourself
recently appeared in my engraver. Nor are examples of retro in a bit of a pickle. How will you
Facebook feed, featuring an computers in modern settings limited transfer those files from the old
employee at a US doughnut to the C64. DOS machines are being computer to the new?
shop using one of two Commodore 64s used to run a dry cleaners in Austin, BELOW Amstrad Over the years, hobbyist
to process orders. The post featured Texas, while a Sinclair QL operates a CPC users have communities have emerged around
the ageing computers positioned side greenhouse irrigation system in connected their many retro computers, and
by side in Hilligoss Bakery in Romania. There are likely countless PCs to Wi-Fi using enthusiasts have resolved this
Brownsburg, Indiana, and it garnered other examples, but are there truly the M4 Board very issue by writing apps and
more than 1,300 comments, many of any tangible benefits in preserving
which echoed the old adage, “if it ain’t and using such outdated systems?
broke, doughnut fix it!” In many cases, using ancient
Upon closer examination, it machines to perform tasks in the
became evident that the computers modern day isn’t a deliberate choice.
were running a program written in It’s more a matter of we’ve started,
BASIC, a relatively primitive so we’ll continue.
programming language by today’s Hilligoss Bakery has been around
standards. But, as one poster asked, since 1974, and it probably began
“how much computing power do you using the C64s shortly after their
really need to sell doughnuts?” The vast release in 1982 and simply continued
comments thread also highlighted the with them. Similarly, the US
continued use of Commodore 64s in military’s DEC PDP-11s were used
various other contemporary settings. for decades, while NASA software
There are reportedly instances of from the 1960s and 1970s persisted
Commodore 64s being used in a US into the 2000s.

123
 developing hardware that make LEFT This blurry reliable. You can save files onto the
older machines more relevant to image shows C64s USB flash drive and use them on your
users in the modern era. You can being used in a US PC or Mac, making file transferring a
now connect retro computers to bakery breeze. Suddenly, you’re
modern monitors and use expanded transforming a retro computer from a
memory, Wi-Fi connections and dusty relic into a functional device.
more reliable SD cards or hard drives. But there’s more. The Spectrum
You can also use operating systems also has SD card-based storage
that replace command prompt solutions (such as the divMMC Future)
interfaces with Windows-like GUIs BELOW SymbOS along with the Specranet Ethernet
and take advantage of more recently – here running on interface and memory expansions.
created software that lets you save an MSX computer The Commodore 64 has RAM
files in a format that modern – has lots of modern expansion units, accelerators and
computers can recognise. software available mass storage devices including
To achieve this higher level of SD2IEC, which
integration, however, you will need replaces the
to splash some cash. In some cases, Commodore 1541
you may also need to become more disk drive.
involved in your chosen retro The Amiga is
computer’s community by signing blessed with
up to forums, joining Facebook FPGA-based and
groups and following the right Raspberry Pi-based
people on social media. accelerators, and
That’s because you’ll require extra you can buy the
hardware – peripherals that aren’t recently released
always readily available. In many Indivision ECS V4, a
instances, you’re relying on a sole guy frame rate converter
operating from a back bedroom to that eliminates
make a device from scratch while flicker on VGA
simultaneously managing all the monitors, flat
responsibilities of life including screens and large
family, work and friends. televisions.
The good news? Most of these Additionally,
community groups provide
information about availability, The deeper you explore Plipbox allows you to connect Amigas
to the local network via Ethernet
waiting lists and alternative
products and they are, for the most each computer’s while RapidRoad provides USB ports.

part, friendly and welcoming. Modern adaptations

community, the more The deeper you explore each
Hardware revival computer’s community, the more
Community forums can also provide you’ll discover you’ll discover the remarkable
technical support that can be advancements achieved by machines
invaluable if you’re looking to from the past. You’ll also find
perform professional tasks that were This eliminates the need for floppy numerous serious software
often a pipe dream when the disks or tapes, and it also allows you to applications that bridge the gap
computers were in their heyday. At download programs from the web for between older and newer computers.
the very least, you may need some use on the CPC. You’ll gain access to Applications are still being
guidance on which wires to buy. more recently developed applications developed for the CP/M operating
Images: Spinpoint.org/CPC Wiki, SymbOS, ZX Spectrum Next, Simulant, SymCalc

Thankfully, companies such as that were never released on tape or system, which has been around since
coolnovelties.co.uk are very helpful. disk. Furthermore, if you also acquire 1974. As an example, 2024 saw the
They can assist you in finding the expanded memory (enthusiast- release of the On File database
necessary video cables to connect a created expansion packs for the CPC management system inspired by
wide range of retro computers to can offer up to 4MB of RAM), you’ll be the PC applications of the MS-DOS
many different displays, eliminating well on your way to creating a truly era. There’s also a great cost-
the need to rely on increasingly rare powerful machine. monitoring system called COSMOS
and expensive CRT TVs or monitors. The CPC 6128 also lets you connect that allows users to edit their daily
You’re also likely to come across ROM boards and have key software income and monthly expenses and
newer power supplies that should such as the acclaimed 8-bit word perform trial and error analyses.
prove safer than the aging originals. processor Protext on instantly loading However, many serious
Beyond that, however, the types of ROMs. Additionally, you can connect applications are being created for
available products will depend on the an internal Gotek drive, a modern disk retro computer operating systems
computer you’re trying to modernise. emulator that replaces traditional that weren’t even around a couple of
If you want to tinker with an Amstrad floppy disk drives. This enables you to decades ago. In the case of 8-bit
CPC 464 or 6128, for instance, you save programs on USB flash drives and computers, some of the most exciting
could consider connecting them to locate files by pressing buttons or developments revolve around the
Wi-Fi using the popular M4 Board turning a rotary dial until its name multitasking SymbOS initially
expansion card. This allows you to appears on the unit’s built-in display. released by Jörn Mika. It can be
use a web browser on a PC or Mac Gotek drives are also available for installed for free on a mass storage
to drag and drop CPC files and the ZX Spectrum +3, Commodore device such as an SD card.
programs onto the peripheral’s SD Amiga, Atari ST and other retro “SymbOS has a full-featured
card and make direct use of them on computers. Since they lack moving Windows GUI with all kinds of
Amstrad’s 8-bit machine. parts, they’ve proven to be highly elements,” Mika told PC Pro. “It also

124
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Retro Old computers, new tasks
has true pre-emptive multitasking
on an original 4MHz Z80, usually You could go retro in favour of Personal Paint on the
Amiga – there are versions for classic
without any performance losses – you
can run a music player, download and without really going retro. systems – or surf the web using
iBrowse. You can scour Aminet.net,
unzip a program and chat with your where new apps are being dropped on
friends online, all at the same time.” Lots of old software has a monthly basis. It shows that you
SymbOS provides flexible memory don’t always need to use a new
management with support for up to been updated for use on operating system to enjoy modern
1MB of RAM, dividing the RAM into applications on a retro machine.
256-byte pages and using the memory modern machines At the very least you’ll find many
with maximum efficiency. But what devices and programs that will
makes it more interesting is its transfer files from one machine to
compatibility with many different another. OmniFlop, for example, can
platforms including the Amstrad read and write multiple disk formats
CPC 6128, Amstrad PCW, MSX2 and if you have a PC with a floppy disk
Enterprise 128 with floppy disk drive. controller. SamDisk, for Windows,
“In 2024, we added support for Linux and macOS, can transfer disk
the ZX Spectrum Next, Amstrad images to and from a SAM Coupé and
NC100/200 and SymbOSVM ports, a modern computer, and you could
the latter letting you run SymbOS in also consider emulation – use your
a near-native way on a Raspberry Pi retro computer as intended, transfer
or x86 machine,” Mika said. With the files, and use them within an
more than 60 SymbOS applications emulator on your PC or Mac.
and games as well as tools and You could even go retro without
libraries for the development of really going retro. Lots of old software
your own applications in languages such as WordPerfect, Protext and
such as Quigs IDE and SymbOS C Lotus 1-2-3 has been updated for use
Compiler, there’s a lot to get your on modern machines. If you really
teeth into. want to go far back, consider
For starters, you can launch the WordStar, a word processor from
Notepad text editor to create and edit 1978. It was reborn in 2023 as an
plain text documents, launch the open-source clone called WordTsar,
standard and scientific Pocket developed by Gerald Brandt, who has
Calculator and make use of SymbOS used it to write science fiction novels.
E-Mail, a Win9x-like email client that “I missed the simplicity of
features an address book and lets you WordStar and hated the complexity
send and receive attachments. and bugginess of modern word
The year 2024 also brought processors,” he told PC Pro. “I wanted
SymCalc, a fully featured spreadsheet to go back to the simple display and
app that aims to bring the delights of keystroke commands I remembered,
Excel to machines running SymbOS. and there was nothing out there that
It includes more than 50 functions, did what I wanted so I wrote my own.”
absolute and relative cell references Classic code TOP Inexpensive WordTsar has been updated for
and fast auto-recalculation of cells. Other notable operating systems that Gotek drives work modern use so it has partial support
You can even import and export CSV keep retro computers ahead of the with many retro for DOCX and RFT documents as well
and SYLK files. curve include Contiki, available for computers as WordStar 4 and WordStar 7 files.
“I wanted to show that large and the Apple II, Atari ST, Commodore 64, “WordTsar uses the abilities of
powerful applications, which have Commodore PET, Oric and more. It ABOVE Created in modern processors and operating
even more functionalities compared comes with a lightweight text-based 2024, SymCalc is a systems to reformat the entire
to those from the 1980s, are possible web browser, a basic email program fully featured document without stopping the user
in SymbOS,” said Mika. “I’d always and an FTP client. Meanwhile, spreadsheet from continuing their work,” Brandt
dreamed of programming a GUI- AmigaOS 4 fully updates the classic says of one improvement.
based spreadsheet application like Amiga OS, although you’ll need to run BELOW Modern This means that, regardless of your
Excel because I was always fascinated it on a computer with a PowerPC peripherals and approach, you can still draw
by those cell calculation algorithms, processor, which isn’t quite in the new software can inspiration from the past. You can
formulas and all that stuff. Now I spirit of running modern apps on a help bridge the gap either seek to use more modern
want it to be the first part of a new classic machine. between retro and software on old machines or bridge
office suite and a word processor is That said, modern computers the gap by using retro software on new
coming next, perhaps over the next you can ditch machines. Either way, you’ll be able to
year or two.” the classic keep one foot in the past while moving
SymbOS also has file and disk DPaint forward. And have a bit of fun
management programs, a font editor in the process.
and, in the past year, Star Chart.
The latter lets users plot the sky with
stars and planets for any time and
geolocation. You can even use CPvM
and run multiple CP/M virtual
machines in SymbOS. “This lets you
execute several business apps from
the 1980s at the same time so long as
they were made for the old CP/M
operating system,” Mika added.

125
Futures
The trends and technologies that are the shape of things to come

while staying home. Level 2 driverless

cars are approved on British
motorways, so buy or rent the right
vehicle and you too can feel the thrill
of the future of automotive
automation: carefully changing lanes,
maintaining a safe distance from
the car ahead and dutifully obeying
speed limits.
So far, just one driverless system
has been approved: Ford’s BlueCruise,
which is available on the Mustang
Mach-E. If you’re purchasing the
electric version of the classic Ford car,
it comes with BlueCruise free for 90

Live in the
days, and then costs £18 a month –
that’s right, the future comes with a
subscription. Alternatively, hire a
Mustang; Hertz offers the vehicle
with BlueCruise enabled. Teslas with
so-called “Full Self Driving” are also

future now
expected to be approved for use in
the UK in early 2025.
But manage your expectations.
BlueCruise only works on motorways,
and the driver must be watching the
road at all times, though their hands
can be removed from the steering
wheel. Indeed, that’s the main way

You can have a driverless car, metaverse workplace and that driverless differs from other
advanced safety systems in newer

home-cleaning robots today! But it will cost you and likely

cars, which can also watch for lane
markings, brake in an emergency and

disappoint, says Nicole Kobie

feature adaptive cruise control.
Indeed, the only appreciable
differences between driverless level 2
cars and existing automation-based
safety features are the technologies

T
he future is unevenly Hit the road in a ABOVE Waymo’s that power the systems (computer
distributed. That famous driverless car driverless taxis can vision versus machine learning) and
axiom, courtesy of sci-fi Dream of sitting back and letting the be hailed in LA and the fact that you can move your
author William Gibson, has car do the driving? There are a few Phoenix, Arizona hands away from the wheel using
become a tech cliché, but when it ways you can achieve this now. The BlueCruise. That’s right: the future is
comes to the arrival of futuristic first is to book an Uber and pretend your hands resting aimlessly.
technologies it holds true. Yes, many the driver isn’t there – but don’t do
sci-fi innovations are already here if this. It’s rude and it will likely hurt Automated assistant
you’re willing to put in some effort your rider rating. No-one wants to Imagine the luxury of a personal
and turn on your imagination, but you slip below four stars, after all. BELOW AI is fast assistant: paying your bills,
must also lower your expectations. The second route is to head to the becoming capable managing your admin, ending your
Consider driverless cars, AI US or China for a holiday. Pick a of becoming your subscriptions to services you haven’t
personal assistants and robot butlers. destination such as San Francisco or personal assistant used in years. AI is approaching some
These technologies loom over the Beijing that has robotaxis operating,
horizon. They may never come to be, download the requisite app, and
perhaps tripped up by technical enjoy geographical and temporal
limitations or regulatory demands. tourism at the same time.
But you can try out the early versions For a ride in a Waymo, you can
of these ideas now for a small taste of also head to Los Angeles or Phoenix,
what the future could bring. and the company plans to expand
Here’s how to capture a glimpse of to Austin, Atlanta and Miami next.
the future by renting a swish car, Rides are limited to specific
automating your work with AI, catchment areas, however, so you’ll
upgrading your Zoom calls, working have to plan your trip carefully.
less, and spending far too much Not keen on international travel?
money on home appliances. You can visit the future of driving

126
 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Futures Live in the future now

utility on this front, looking into a

although what it webcam when you
can actually achieve can immerse
remains limited. yourself in the
To get started, metaverse for a
simply open quick all-hands
ChatGPT or your catch up. Zip into
alternative the future with
generative AI virtual reality.
machine of choice, First, you’ll need
and use it to fetch a VR headset such
answers or explain how to do
something. Once you’ve got to grips For some tasks writing as the £290 Meta Quest 3S (see issue
363, p64). Then you can use Meta
with how the system works – and
doesn’t work – it’s time to build a prompt is better Horizon Workrooms, which is Meta’s
metaverse meeting room, where your
what’s known as a Custom GPT. avatar can sit around a virtual desk
For this, you’ll need ChatGPT Plus, than doing all the alongside the avatars of your
which is a more fully featured version coworkers. Those who have VR
of the chatbot that requires a paid-for work yourself headsets, at least.
subscription at $20 a month – did we Those who don’t can still join the
mention that the future comes with a meeting, but will show up in a virtual
monthly cost? After you’ve handed screen in the Workroom; in other
over your credit card details, you can words, avatars will sit around a digital
either build your own chatbot or table, watching your face talking via
head to the GPT store to install one Zoom, thanks to integration with that
made by another user. company. Yes, this is weirder than a
If making your own, ChatGPT regular video call, and may just make
will run you through a few setup you long for a full return to the office.
questions to personalise the assistant. Still, at least it’s easier than booking a
This will be remembered every time meeting room in real life.
you use the assistant, saving you Mootup is an alternative virtual
from needing to give the system workspace that lets you hold meetings
context or background or instructions in a shared digital environment
with each use. without the need for a headset, but
What could it do? Teach you a skill, you will have to navigate designing
act as a personal trainer reminding of your own avatar. Mootup has a
exercises, or even help with work wonderfully wide range of inclusive
tasks. Want to be better organised settings, from prosthetic legs to
when working from home? Create a headscarves, but if you’re using
Custom GPT to prioritise tasks, TOP Meta Horizon this for professional purposes
nag when something is late Workrooms lets perhaps suggest some office-friendly
and remind you of meetings. you sit around a design guidelines so you can
You’ll still have to update it virtual table recognise the digital representations
each morning with your day’s of your colleagues. Given there’s no
work, but you can offload the ABOVE Ecovacs’ way to expand the waistline of the
thinking to the Custom GPT. Winbot W2 will avatar, though, these virtual
Now, if you’d rather not clean your versions of ourselves are all a bit
pay, head to You.com, windows for you inaccurate anyway.
which uses a range of AI
models including OpenAI’s Work less now
GPT-4o. It provides a range The future of work is three-day
of prebuilt assistants to help weekends. Four-day work weeks are
create Python functions, on the rise. Admittedly, there’s been
pull together sales emails, and pushback from companies and tech
target content with SEO keywords. bro CEOs like Elon Musk, but Japan
It may not be the smart virtual is rolling back weekly hours in
assistant you’ve always dreamed the hopes of improving falling
of, but for some tasks writing a ABOVE The reproductive rates – take the
prompt is still better than doing all Ecovacs Airbot Z1 day off and have some fun of a
the work yourself. roams your house very specific sort!
to purify the air In the UK, workers have the
Virtual work legal right to request flexible
Tired of boring old Zoom calls when working, and that can include
you’re working from home? Forget reduced or compressed hours.

127
 Futures Live in the future now @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO

That doesn’t mean your boss must

approve your futuristic working The future is already Owning all of these will come at a
cost of a couple thousand pounds,
plan, but at least you can ask.
If management isn’t keen on fewer here, and not only is it plus you’ll need to find space to store
and charge each device. It may be
hours for the same pay, perhaps ask if cheaper and simpler to find a human
it’s possible to reduce your salary or unevenly distributed, it’s cleaner and hand them a mop and
work more hours on the other four days bucket, but if there’s a task you
– taking a shorter lunch or working not very useful, either particularly hate doing, it’s worth
later in the evening could give you a trying to automate it.
day off every fortnight, for example. Of course, none of those devices
And if that doesn’t work, make looks anything like Tesla’s Optimus or
your own four-day working week the Jetsons’ Rosey. If you’re hoping
for a taste of the future by simply for a humanoid helper, you’ll need to
booking every Friday off for a month. think a bit smaller.
It’s nice, isn’t it? Amazon abounds with toy
Managers, if you want to be robots that are programmable,
particularly forward looking, consider notably the Lego Mindstorms
running a four-day-work-week trial kits and humanoid designs
supported by campaign group 4 Day such as the UBTECH Alpha Mini
Week (4dayweek.co.uk), which offers (£1,000). The EBO X (£720) is a
free 15-minute consultations via Zoom wee robot that rolls around your
and a handbook full of advice. house looking for burglars
RIGHT The Meta while offering conversation via
Robot butlers Quest 3S allows GPT-4o mini or playing music
Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robots you to join in – think of it as an Amazon Alexa
will be available in 2026 for between virtual meetings on wheels with a digital face. And
$20,000 and $30,000 – of course, if that’s not a terrifying vision of the
Elon Musk also said he’d be on Mars future, we don’t know what is.
by now, so temper your expectations.
In the meantime, simply fill your Live in the future, now
home with automation and much 3 humanoid robots Driverless cars, AI assistants,
smaller robotics, some of which are
actually useful. coming soon(ish) metaverse meetings, robot cleaners –
the future is already here, and not
First, if you haven’t already done Robot butlers are probably still decades away, but humanoid only is it unevenly distributed, it’s not
so, set up some home automation – robots are becoming a reality. One, Digit, is already working in a very useful, either. Trying out these
flipping switches and setting US factory, while the rapid maturing of AI means cutting-edge technologies may reveal the current
thermostat temperatures is so last robots can chat with you and process their surroundings. and future limitations of some of these
decade. Install a Nest thermostat for Here are three coming soon. ideas, as much as we’d love an AI that
heating, Philips Hue or LIFX smart could do our admin for us. (Come on
bulbs for smart lighting, and a Ring or Figure 02 OpenAI, make it happen.)
Arlo doorbell rather Don’t expect this stylish 5ft 6in robot to run For now – and, possibly, for the
than peek through your towards you – think Julie Walters’ shuffling foreseeable future – if you don’t want
front-door. If you can’t waitress – but it can hold a conversation to drive a car, then call a cab or wait
be bothered to open thanks to ChatGPT and recognise objects, and for the bus. Need an assistant? Hire a
your app for controls, its fingers have a huge range of movement. virtual human online, or learn to
hook them up to Alexa Sadly we don’t yet have a price or a likely delegate. Tired of Zoom meetings?
or similar. That’s hardly release date, although BMW has tested it in Call your colleague and go for a walk
the future, but it’s a a manufacturing plant. while having your chat – or better yet,
good starting point. go to the office now and then (but
Next, it’s time to automate your Ameca only when you want
cleaning with a Roomba-style vacuum Head to British firm engineeredarts.com to). Too tired to clean?
and mop robot. Similar robots are and you can order an Ameca today. Or you Pay a person to do it;
available to clean windows (Ecovacs can rent one – the price depends on what they’ll do a better job
Winbot W2 for £300) and gutters or features you want. The current version than a robot.
even mow the lawn. The Ecovacs can’t walk, but with AI on board it can chat There is one future
Airbot Z1 (£770 on eBay) will roam to people, so could be a superb addition to idea that’s easy to
your house to purify the air, the an exhibition space. Especially as its welcome, however:
SmartDuvet ($1,150) will make the bed advanced facial features can express a working less. After
for you (sort of), and the Townew bin range of emotions. all, that’s what
(£170) will tie up the bag for you and technology should
put a fresh one in its place, though Optimus Gen 2 have been helping us do all along,
you’ll still have to Even after you remove the Musk rather than extending our working
haul the full bag to hype filter, the 5ft 8in Optimus Gen 2 hours as we check emails after the
the bins outside should set any futurist’s pulse kids are in bed or dip into Slack on our
yourself. And the aflutter. It seems to have it all: full commute into the office. Whether
UBPet C20 (£270) is a mobility, advanced AI, dextrous powered by AI or merely by social
self-cleaning litter fingers and the sheer robotics pressures, if we do get shorter
tray with an app so and AI knowledge of Tesla. It’s working weeks, at least we’ll have
you’ll never have to expected to cost between $20,000 more time to do our chores while we
acknowledge your and $30,000 on its release, await the arrival of personal AI admin
cat’s output again. supposedly in 2026. assistants and robot butlers.

128
 SUBSCRIBE.PCPRO.CO.UK Coming next month

Next month
ON SALE
Thursday 6 March 2025
Features Labs
Which Linux is
right for you?
We put a combination of new
and old favourites to the test as
we uncover which Linux distro
is the best choice for different
needs – or simply to replace
Windows 10.
Use your phone
like a computer
Can you really ditch your laptop in favour of a
phone that offers a desktop-like OS? Yes, says
Darien Graham-Smith, who explains how.

Features
Retro The Network
The glory days of
shareware
We relive the time when the best way to
get your software out there was via
shareware, and
celebrate a
Affinity Photo: number of Cloud file-sharing
Instant Expert the best services
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or PC, but if you want to get the most out of it which live on dedicated service is a great solution. We
then read our guide next month. to today. review four of the strongest contenders.

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It’s time for a

zero-trust approach
to “news”, argues
the very real
Jon Honeyball

I
t was a watershed moment. I’m whether they think it’s the real thing an advert, and this is not a level of
not too sure what brought it on or it simply scratches their Beatle itch. signal to noise that I can cope with.
– maybe the rather nice gin and I won’t engage with AI-generated So what’s the answer, other than to
tonic I was enjoying in Virgin content, simply because it’s a rising retreat into our caves? Simple: find
Upper Class on my flight to Los level of noise that my head can’t cope outlets where the journalist puts their
Angeles en route to CES? But I’ve with. The issue is not whether name, face and preferably an email
drunk many gin and tonics and AI-generated content is good or not – address to their words. Get to know
they’ve never had this effect before. it’s that there is already too much of it, what they think and why. Almost
Yet there, undeniably, it was. As real and it’s only going to get worse. everyone has biases and some form of
as the bubbles surrounding the slice AI isn’t the only problem: my trust agenda, but that’s true of everything.
of lemon, the realisation that I in so-called news has also evaporated. Get over it. We need to relearn how to
couldn’t trust most anything on the Now anyone with a smartphone can be listen to conversations, to interact
internet any more. a social newscaster; the age of without erupting in a blaze of anger.
This might seem like a trivial professionalism, where cost and effort Mainstream media is full of flaws,
matter. A “doh!” moment that’s went into training journalists, but at least there’s someone there with
obvious to many. But having been has been replaced by the faux a pulse who is prepared to put a point
around in the online world since well professionalism of a slickly of view based on some semblance of
before the internet existed in its made video that anyone can

Mainstream media is full of flaws, but

current form, I have always felt an create. And that video can
underlying bedrock of trust. circle the world via social
That trust has gone. It’s not just the media quicker than you can at least there’s someone there with a
pulse who is prepared to put a point of
rise of AI-generated audio and video, say “tap to view”, whether
where the creation of a deepfake is a it’s real or not.
few mouse clicks away; it’s the
underlying worry that almost
Meanwhile, platforms
are claiming that they are
view based on some semblance of fact
everything generated by a GPT-style the one true source, that
LLM is another layer of obfuscation they are “open” and support “free fact. It takes effort, it takes resources,
and fog. I know some will give links speech” while simultaneously it takes time. And it takes investment
through to the underlying site from shutting down editorial management, in the craft of reporting.
where a particular “fact” was scraped, unhindered by any semblance of Is the mainstream media always
but when I visit those sites I often responsibility for the content on their right? Of course not. But it’s time to
conclude that the source words were site. Do you really have the time, assume that everything else is rubbish,
just concocted by another AI engine. energy and emotional strength to get without value, unless you have reason
That video you’ve just watched? involved in a “discussion” on Twitter, to assess otherwise. Give upticks for
It might have looked authentic, but when you consider the pile-on that the genuine people who put in effort,
Hollywood-grade imaging is now can happen from those who are sure and actively shun the rest. The noise
available on your phone, let alone you’re wrong? It’s school-yard simply isn’t worth the effort.
your desktop. The fakery goes deeper bullying taken to a global scale. In the meantime, thanks for coming
and deeper, and at some point we It’s fine if you’re JK Rowling and along for this particular ride. These
have to say “stop!” have the finances and moral grit to words were written by me on a Sunday
My hackles rose a further inch take this on. But mere mortals are in a afternoon, pondering where this
when I read that the CEO of Suno, an far more fragile position. industry, and the global information
AI music site, claimed that musicians All of this means I’m not posting future, goes. Because it matters and I
don’t actually enjoy making music. to social media any more. I had hopes care about it. And if you disagree, I’d
Apparently, it’s just so much more for Bluesky, but while it’s better be delighted to hear from you. I
“fun” to have software write it for us. than Twitter, it’s still not good promise I’ll do my best to answer.
Those hackles only sharpen when I enough. My Facebook world is
think about the ease with which AI heavily locked down, but even Jon Honeyball isn’t really a contributing
can create kind-of Beatles-ish music. that is now flooded with adverts – editor to PC Pro but a cyborg AI engine who
And that many people download it, yesterday, one in two postings was worries a lot. Email jon@jonhoneyball.com.

130