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ISSUE 338 LATEST REVIEWS

Asus’ bendy Every NEW
laptop iPhone
The future is here. iPhone 14, Plus,
Are you ready? Pro & Pro Max



@PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO December2022 Issue338

HIGHLIGHTS THIS MONTH Full contents overleaf

REVIEW p50
OF THE MONTH

Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED

Bendy phones are just so passé. If you truly want
to live on the cutting edge then bendy laptops are the
next big thing, and the Zenbook 17 Fold OLED is very
big indeed. Unfolded, it’s a 17in tablet. Or kick out its
built-in stand, whip out the Bluetooth keyboard and
turn it into an all-in-one. Need to work on the move?
No problem. Pop that keyboard onto the bottom half

of the screen and you have a mini laptop. That, at
least, is the theory. It’s true to an extent but,
as we discover, this first-generation device
suffers from some jack-0f-all-trades
drawbacks. For the moment, you
may decide to look but
not touch.

TECHNOLOGY
EXCELLENCE
AWARDS 2022

p26 p32 p34

AWARDS OF THE YEAR HEROES OF THE YEAR PRODUCTS OF THE YEAR

If you buy one issue of PC Pro each year, As part of our Excellence Awards feature, Our final set of awards is dedicated to the
make it this one (or better yet, subscribe – we celebrate six companies/organisations stand-out products from the year, as decided
see p108!). Because this month we include a full – nominated by readers – that went above
breakdown of brands’ reliability and service and beyond during the lockdowns to help by our writers and editors. And we review
hundreds, so to make this shortlist is quite
across dozens of categories. their customers.
an achievement.

PERSON OF THE MONTH p123 THE LABS IN ONE NUMBER p78

Anne Bras We review 11 extremely
varied PCs this month, all of
Anne Bras has crowned which ship with Windows
himself the PC King, even 11 (fear not, some offer
building a throne out of the Windows 10 as an option).
games boxes that he loves Whether you’re after a tiny
so much that he’s earned PC, a stylish all-in-one or a
a place in The bargain desktop, this Labs
Guinness Book of holds the answer.
Records. The only
question is, will
you be inspired to
become a collector
yourself?

3

SAVE MONEY! SWITCH MOBILE DATA SUPPLIER see 36 How AI is helping historians and
p33
p archaeologists reimagine the past
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12 LATEST REVIEWS

9 771466 382030 Asus’ bendy Every NEW
laptop iPhone
ISSUE 338 DECEMBER 2022 £5.99 The future is here. iPhone 14, Plus,
Are you ready? Pro & Pro Max

338 COVER DVD.indd 1 14/09/2022 16:58

FEATURES BRIEFING

COVER STORY 10 Are the days of “no signal”
almost over?
26 PC Pro Technology Excellence
Awards 2022 The dreaded “No signal” message may soon be
a thing of the past, thanks to the satellite
Almost 7,000 people took part in our survey connectivity that’s now heading into the
about technology buyers’ satisfaction. Whether mainstream with the latest smartphones.
you want to buy a new phone or invest in a NAS
server, this unique guide will show you the way 11 Android learns to share 3 SUBSCRIBE:
for the rest of 2022 and the whole of 2023. Plus
we reveal your lockdown heroes and the Google has announced a new cross-device THREE ISSUES
products of the year. SDK that could help Android apps to
communicate better locally.
36 The AI that’s remaking history
12 Why is Electron so controversial? FOR £1
AI doesn’t just make stuff up – historians, Subscribe to
archaeologists, musicians and data scientists App publishers love the simplicity of Electron, PC Pro today and
are deploying AI technologies to reimagine but is it a risk to users? James O’Malley gets you can benefit
and recreate historical moments. Lee Grant knee-deep into the code. from our three
explains how technology is helping us better
understand the past. issues for £1 offer –

42 Secrets of the Google office apps VIEWPOINTS visit subscribe.

If you think of Google’s apps merely as BELOW Stretch your pcpro.co.uk now.
free alternatives to the traditional desktop storage to the limit
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Struggling with an undersized THE £16,000 PC AND WHY YOU’LL WANT IT
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explains how to make the most tFor£o1m,2£9292o9fclhuexaupriyes
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ATrheeyfoutuurreeaids yh?ere.
PiProho&nPer1o4M, Palxus,

14/09/2022 16:58

@PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO December2022 Issue338

REVIEWS THIS MONTH

LAPTOPS & CONVERTIBLES WINDOWS 11 PCs

Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED 50 Acer Aspire C24-1651 84

Huawei MateBook X Pro 54 HP Envy 34 All-in-One 84

Lenovo ThinkPad Z13 Gen 1 56 Huawei MateStation X 85

Lenovo ThinkBook 15 Chillblast WAP Ultimate AMD

Gen 4 (Intel) 58 3500U Micro System 86

Lenovo ThinkPad E15

Gen 4 (Intel) 59 HP Z2 Mini G9 workstation 87

Palicomp AMD Cobra 88

SMARTPHONES 62 Palicomp Intel Hellfire 89
Apple iPhone 14
Apple iPhone 14 Pro and 64 Chillblast Fnatic Boost
68
Pro Max 69 Gaming PC 90
RedMagic 7s Pro
OnePlus 10T Cyberpower Ultra 45 Radeon

Next Day PC 90

PCSpecialist Aurora Spark R 91

3D CAMERA PCSpecialist Aurora Pro R 91
Matterport Pro3
70

MONITOR 71 BUSINESS BACKUP 96
Huawei MateView SE Arcserve UDP 8.1
Nakivo Backup & 97
SMARTWATCHES 98
Samsung Galaxy Watch5 72 Replication 10.6 99
Retrospect Backup 18.5
Samsung Galaxy Watch5 Pro 73 Veritas Backup Exec 22 100
Barracuda Cloud-to-Cloud
VIDEO-EDITING SOFTWARE
Backup
HitFilm 2022.2 74

62 The latest iPhones have arrived – get PDF SOFTWARE 5G MOBILE ROUTER 103
WinZip PDF Pro 77 Zyxel NR5101
p the PC Pro verdict from p62

REGULARS p78

Editor’s letter 7 Subscriptions 108
129
The A-List 14 Next month 130

Readers’ comments 24 One last thing…

THE NETWORK 3 THE PC PRO

94 Business Backup 2022 PODCAST WINDOWS 11 PCs
Listen live to the EVERY SIZE.
If you haven’t implemented a detailed backup PC Pro podcast every EVERY BSHUADPGEE.T.
regime then you may be putting your entire Thursday at 1pm. EVERY
business at risk. Dave Mitchell explains what to Visit mixlr.com/
look for and reviews four software solutions. pcpro to join us

104 Get the best from Teams REAL WORLD COMPUTING

Steve Cassidy explores how to make Microsoft’s
communication app work as smoothly as possible.

107 Cheat sheet: Small data 110 JON HONEYBALL The major learning from biking in the rain
with a laptop? Make sure it’s ruggedised. Plus, why Jon
The importance of keeping things manageable. won’t be using UPS for international deliveries.

Futures 113 PAUL OCKENDEN Paul explains how programming should be
taught to beginners, looks at some SQL basics and debunks a
myth about destroying your phone.

123 The lost art 126 How quantum 116 LEE GRANT Lee manhandles a 43kg printer into submission,
computing can fight accidentally recreating a crime scene in the process, before a
Collecting retro PC games in climate change quick game of “guess the price of the replacement keyboard”.
their original big boxes is
more popular than ever, but New technology could help 118DAVEY WINDER Read this very carefully, for we shall write it
don’t expect to get rich quick, only once: invisible ink has been updated for the 21st
and watch out for crooks. unpick the challenges of century. Plus some good and bad news for Gmail users.
Particularly David Crookes,
who reveals all here. climate change and offer 120STEVE CASSIDY Steve has a message for MPs who are
worried about their social media presence that they
solutions with real impact, really won’t like.

says Nicole Kobie.

5



@PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Editor’s letter

The future is
always just
around the
bend

If you’re a regular PC Pro podcast by the mid-2010s. In short, you really Flip Z4 being joined by the Fold Z4,
listener, you’ll know that I shouldn’t listen to anything I say. both of which are well-constructed
should never change occupation phones based around bendable
to become a futurologist. My This is terrible news for Asus, display technology.
record is something like one hit to Huawei, Lenovo and Samsung, as all
every ten misses, starting way back in four companies are at the vanguard of And now it seems the era of bendable
the 1990s when I resisted buying a bendy screen technology. And I’m laptops is with us, as sitting on the desk
mobile phone. “Why would I want here to tell you all, I believe! Before in front of me is the Asus Zenbook 17
people to be able to contact me their market caps dissolve, let me Fold OLED (see p50). As I mention in
wherever I am?” I almost certainly explain what I mean. my review, there are still some signs of
grumbled to anyone who would listen. this being a first-generation device,
“Besides, there are lots of phone boxes One of the fortunate aspects of with the inch-thick base being far too
if I ever need to call someone.” being editor of this fine magazine is clunky in laptop mode. But I am
that I get to see technologies in their totally convinced by its ability to
A few years later, in 2004, you early phase. So it was that Jon Honeyball switch from laptop to all-in-one. For
would have found me at the launch of and I attended the launch of a bendy business travellers, any travellers, it’s
the Compaq iPAQ 3800 series with phone made by Royole, which was a revelation.
bulging pockets, lugging around my one of the biggest hits of CES 2019. The
Psion Series 5mx in one and a Nokia clunky FlexPai was more a proof of With Lenovo already on its second
6310 in the other. I distinctly concept than a device you would buy, generation of bendy laptop with the
remember speaking to Compaq’s head but at last, after years of speculation, X1 Fold, I’m convinced that we will see
of product development at the time; a bendy phone had arrived. Huawei and Samsung follow suit
we firmly agreed – good old echo within the next year. It’s a genuinely
chamber – that two devices would A handful of weeks later and I was exciting time, because these are new
always be better than one. part of a queue of journalists being form factors that open up new ways of
given a glimpse of Huawei’s Mate Xs at computing in exactly the same way as
I could go on. My belief that a whizz-bang exclusive briefing in the smartphone did over a decade ago.
Windows RT was a great idea. Pouring Barcelona, although its impact was All I need to do now is convince my
scorn on the possibility of Apple rather diminished by the fact that we fellow podcasters that I’m right.
developing its own processors. My weren’t allowed to hold the darn
prediction that 3D screens would be a thing, such was the delicate nature of Tim Danton
de rigueur technology built into all TVs early bendable phones. But zoom to
the present and we have the Samsung Editor-in-chief

CONTRIBUTORS

Almost 7,000 readers Lee Grant Paul Ockenden Nicole Kobie
Every year, our From filling in the Paul often gets asked Quantum computers
Excellence Awards – for gaps within ancient which language will help in our fight
companies that best manuscripts to newcomers to against climate change,
support the most reliable enhancing the world’s programming should making solar panels more
products – are based on first photos, artificial use. His off-the-wall efficient and reducing
your feedback. See who intelligence is making answer may just cows’ gassy output (really).
you’ve recommended a real difference. Lee surprise you. Find out But they can’t do it alone;
this year from p26. explains how from p36. why on p114. see p126.

7

December 2022 Issue 338 @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO

w

EDITORIAL 2022 has seen the update to Huawei and LETTERS [email protected]
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Samsung’s range of bendy phones, and TWITTER @pcpro
Tim Danton: [email protected] now Asus has joined Lenovo with its first
EDITORIAL FELLOW bendy laptop in the Zenbook 17 Fold OLED. FACEBOOK facebook.com/pcpro
So have our contributors been tempted? SUBSCRIPTION ENQUIRIES 0330 333 9493
Dick Pountain And what would make them buy one?
ASSOCIATE EDITOR [email protected]
Darien Graham-Smith “The flip design leaves me cold, but I’m
FEATURES EDITOR pretty sure that my next phone purchase PRODUCTION & DISTRIBUTION
will be a foldable – I’ve managed to stop Printed by Walstead Bicester.
Barry Collins myself from buying the Samsung Galaxy Z
FUTURES EDITOR Fold4, but if the Fold5 is a fraction thinner Distributed by Marketforce (UK) Ltd, 2nd Floor,
5 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London, E14 5HU.
Nicole Kobie then that might push me literally over
NEWS WRITER the edge.” Tel: 020 3787 9101.
James O’Malley
BONUS SOFTWARE EDITOR “The Galaxy Z Fold tempts me for use as PC Pro is produced by Danton Media Limited and
Nik Rawlinson a camera, and what would make me buy published monthly by Future plc.
one is a price reduction of exactly one
ART & PRODUCTION COPYRIGHT
ART DIRECTOR order of magnitude.” © Future plc 2022. PC Pro is a registered trademark.
Paul Duggan Neither the whole of this publication nor any part of it may
“I’m tempted by the portability of the latest
FREELANCE DESIGN flip-up phone designs – I’ve never really be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or
Bill Bagnall liked the appearance of walking around transmitted in any form or by any means without the
with a VHS tape in my pocket.”
PRODUCTION EDITOR written permission of the publishers.
Steve Haines “The only thing that would make me buy
one is if they stopped selling ordinary SUBSCRIPTIONS
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Price: UK £62.99; Europe £70; Rest of World £90. Visit
Steve Cassidy phones/laptops.”
Lee Grant subscribe.pcpro.co.uk/offer for our best offers. To
Dave Mitchell “More laptops than phones. I really like my renew a subscription, change an address or report any
Jon Honeyball Yoga but have already gone super-retro
Paul Ockenden for taking pictures, removing one strong problems, please visit managemymags.co.uk .
Davey Winder reason for having a folding-screen phone.”
Please note: Distribution remains disrupted within UK
CONTRIBUTORS “Love the idea, but the current prices and and international delivery networks. Please allow up to
Tom Bedford uncertainty about the long-term durability seven days before contacting us about a late delivery.
David Crookes
Matt Evans of the ‘bend’ prevents me from parting LIABILITY
Basil Kronfli with cash. What they’re all missing is a While every care has been taken in the preparation of
Steve Paris button that auto-unfolds the device while this magazine, the publishers cannot be held responsible
Collin Probst
Lance Ulanoff playing the Transformers’ sound.” for the accuracy of the information herein, or any
consequence arising from it. Please note that all
ADVERTISING “Not tempted. But if Apple did it, it would be judgements have been made in the context of equipment
GROUP ADVERTISING MANAGER properly engineered and integrated into available to PC Pro at time of review, and that “value for
Ben Topp: [email protected] the OS rather than the various hacks that money” comments are based on UK prices at the time of
Microsoft and Samsung have done.” review, which are subject to fluctuation and are only
ADVERTISING MANAGER
Alexandra Thomas: “I’m not convinced that the bend isn’t a applicable to the UK market.
weak point in the design, so I remain on the
[email protected] SYNDICATION & INTERNATIONAL LICENSING
fence for a bit longer.” PC Pro is available for licensing overseas. Contact
PRODUCTION Phoebe Griffin-Beale, [email protected]
SENIOR PRODUCTION MANAGER “The idea appeals, but screen longevity
needs to rise and prices fall before I’d bite.” The Professional
Lawrence Brookes Publishers Association
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Emma Read 21,483 (Jan-Dec 2021)

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Juber Ahmed

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Lewis Smythe

LOGOS & REPRINTS
ENDORSEMENT LICENSING MANAGER

Ryan Chambers:
[email protected]

8



Briefıng

Background and analysis on all the important news stories

Are the days of ‘no signal’
almost over?
14 look like a small step compared to
the giant leap it is planning.

Simply put, the idea is real mobile

Satellite connectivity is heading into the mainstream with the latest phones connectivity from space.
Speaking alongside SpaceX CEO

Elon Musk at the company’s Boca

If you watched Apple’s iPhone 14 the first phones capable of directly ABOVE Satellites Chica base, T-Mobile CEO Mike
announcement, you could be communicating with satellites. could enable users Sievert explained that the company
forgiven for thinking the firm to receive a signal was planning to add mobile phone
wanted you to be afraid of, well, The process isn’t completely wherever they are transmitters to Musk’s Starlink
straightforward: you need an

everything. We were told stories of unobstructed line of sight to the sky, satellite network, which currently

people who experienced plane crashes, and you need to point your phone provides broadband services to the

car wrecks and heart attacks and only directly at the satellite. It could take ground using a bulky satellite base

survived thanks to their Apple devices. upwards of 15 seconds to transmit the station, and can reach speeds in the

The point of this scaremongering? To ultra-compressed text message to the hundreds of megabits per second.

show off new features such as crash authorities using the extremely Once in place, the system should

detection, which will automatically limited bandwidth available. mean that customers of T-Mobile (and

contact the emergency services if your But even if the tech works, it’s still other partner networks around the

phone or watch detects fast motion some distance away from posting world) will be able to connect with

and crash-like noises. selfies from anywhere on the planet. just the phone they already have, the

But what are you supposed to do if And perhaps knowing that’s inevitably transmitter in space appearing to

you need emergency help and you’re where Apple wants to go, other This is a huge phones just like a
in the wilderness or out of signal companies are trying to get there first. normal terrestrial

range? If you have an iPhone 14, the phone mast.
deal for everybodyanswer could be to look to the heavens Starlink for mobiles “This is a huge
on the planet…and pray, as your phone sends an
Just a couple of weeks prior to Apple’s deal for everybody

emergency message via the Globalstar announcement, US carrier T-Mobile And it’s a huge on the planet,” said
satellite network. A new modem chip announced a new partnership with market  Charles Miller, CEO
in the iPhone 14 means it will be one of SpaceX, which could make the iPhone of Lynk, which is

10

Briefing News

building a similar satellite-to-cellular Android learns
to share
system. “And it’s a huge market so
New SDK will make Android device more Apple-like
we’re not surprised at all that SpaceX

felt compelled to jump in.”

In fact, Lynk appears to be ahead of

even SpaceX in deployment. The firm

first tested its tech in 2019, connecting

directly from a phone to a satellite as it

passed over the Falkland Islands.

“We’ve invented a new form of

spectrum sharing that we are already

demonstrating,” said Miller. “We’re

using existing cellular bands that are

ground base bands, but from space,

without causing harmful interference.”

T-Mobile’s plan is to do something

similar. According to Sievert, the

upgraded Starlink satellites with

cellular transmitters will be allocated

a sliver of the mid-band 5G spectrum.

The satellites may even switch off the

5G signal as they pass over different

countries, depending on whether the

service is allowed in that region or not.

“Your phone can do it, why can’t a

satellite do it?” said Miller. “Your

phone can figure out where it is. It’s

got a software-defined radio in it, it

can frequency hop, it can change

protocols from 2G Your phone
to 3G to 4G to 5G.

The satellite does can figure out
the same thing.” where it is. The

T-Mobile’s

system will have satellite does the
more bandwidth same thing
available than

Apple’s, starting at

around 2-3Mbits/sec per cell (which is If you’re a PC user with an Android device, then communicating back to the person
we get it. You don’t need to be like those placing the order using Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.
around 15 miles wide). The initial plan snooty Apple people – you rightly value
the flexibility and customisation that Similarly, the new SDK could make the
is to restrict connectivity to only Apple zealots can only dream of. local sharing of files easier – for example,
picking up where you left off on a video
messaging apps and later expand to But it would be nice if your devices when watching on multiple devices.
played nicely together, right? Whether These sorts of features, which are
cover voice calls and more. it’s sharing the screen with AirPlay, already common on Apple devices, could
transferring a file via AirDrop or finishing be much easier to implement on Android.
Lynk is promising similar, with an the email you started on your phone on
your computer using Continuity, Apple “You have to think of so many things to
upper limit on bandwidth of around devices are just that little bit slicker. make [connectivity] work,” said Leggett.
“You have to worry about security, you
30Mbits/sec, but once again shared It’s good news, then, that Google has have to worry about the permission
announced plans to do something similar models, and then you’ve got the other
between every connected phone. for Android, with the launch of a new concern, which is that I don’t want to
cross-device SDK that should help drain this person’s battery.”
That’s why the initial focus will be Android apps communicate better
locally, enabling some clever new But fingers crossed, the new SDK
around providing bandwidth for functionality in the process. will take away all of the complexity,
meaning that app developers can spend
emergency communication in remote BELOW Starlink “There’s just a bit of a minefield,” said less time on the technical foundations
Richard Leggett, the Android platform and more time making their apps unique.
areas. “If you knock offline 100,000 satellites will be lead at Octopus Energy, who works on “You have to do all of this stuff before
communication between our devices and you’ve even written a line of code,” said
people to give one person 30Mbits/sec allocated part of our homes. “Just take Bluetooth Low Leggett. “I think what Google is trying
Energy alone: you could read hundreds to say is let [Google] worry about all of
so they can watch their Netflix, the 5G spectrum of pages on how it works and every those aspects.”
manufacturer decides to do it a little
there’s probably somebody bit differently.” According to Google, the new APIs will
work all the way back to devices from
who’s hurt that you just didn’t The new SDK appears to be designed 2017 running Android 8, and the company
to make this process easier, and it could eventually wants to expand the SDK to
help,” said Miller. make it simpler for developers to build work with iOS and Windows, too. So
restaurant apps where everyone could perhaps one day, Android will talk to your
Exactly when satellite choose what they want to eat on their PC and explain how it told Apple users to
own phone, for example, with the app wipe that smug grin from their faces.
connectivity on our phones will

become commonplace remains

to be seen. The Apple system is

slated to launch in the US in

November, whereas T-Mobile/

Starlink is expected to take

years to become operational,

not least because the latter

needs to finish developing the

huge Starship rocket to launch

microsatellites at scale. But

Lynk could be with us much

sooner. According to Miller, the

company could be launching its

first services later this year.

11

PCProbe

Exclusive investigations into technology practices. Email [email protected] if you have a story

Why is Electron
so controversial?

App publishers love the simplicity of Electron, but is downloading the 1Password update, and coder Tom
Morris summed it up as: “It has been a bad week if you like
it a risk to users? James O’Malley gets knee-deep software that is high performance, low memory usage,

into the code and not hideously ugly.”
Penetration tester Vetle Hjelle put it even more

Back in August, users of password management bluntly, saying: “This is a punch to the gut.”
app 1Password saw a familiar prompt inside Some developers love Electron, many others hate it.
their desktop apps: a new update was available.
But the launch of 1Password 8.0 wasn’t a So why is Electron so divisive?
routine update. Under the hood, something significant
changed: the underlying architecture of the app was Fast and slow
“To me, Electron is the choice between no app and an

switched to Electron. app existing,” said Tony Onodi, a web developer by

Electron, or “ElectronJS” to use its full title, is on paper background, but thanks to Electron his skills are

a rather clever idea. It allows developers to write an app transferable to desktop apps. Because instead of needing

only once, so instead of writing an app for Windows, an to write software in a complex, low-level programming

app for macOS and an app for Linux, the same code language such as C, Electron is based on the much simpler

powers the app on multiple platforms. web programming language JavaScript.

It’s both popular and open source, and the framework This means that apps can be written using pretty much

is used today for a range of popular desktop apps, from the same simple instructions as web apps. And this is the

Slack and WhatsApp to Twitch. Even Microsoft has hidden genius of Electron apps: beneath the surface,

embraced it to build the hugely popular Visual Studio they’re essentially a web browser without an address

Code editor. bar, and with a few special controls for things such as

But it’s also safe to say that not everyone loves it, as right-click menus to help apps better mimic native apps.

demonstrated by the reaction on Twitter. It’s this relative simplicity that means Onodi is

“I’m suddenly in need of a new password manager,” currently working on a standalone version of NumPad,

wrote Mac developer Bryan Jones on Twitter after a lightweight web app he made that combines a Notepad-

like text editor with an in-line

Will Tauri take over? calculator. “If I tried to implement
it in the Apple way, or the Windows
way, I would just probably give up

Is it possible to have the best of both worlds? Can it be possible to make app creation as easy as using quite quickly, because it would

JavaScript, but without the bloat? Enter the Tauri Project, which attempts to square that circle. involve learning a whole load of

Tauri works on the same principle as Electron – that the app is basically a web browser in disguise. tools that I’m not familiar with,”

But instead of bundling Chromium with every app, it uses your computer’s built-in browser engine. It uses said Onodi.

WebView 2 on Windows, WebKit on macOS and WebKitGTK on Linux. This means that small apps may only Bloated code
be a few megabytes in size – and probably less resource-intensive, too.

“If you have ten apps using Tauri, it will However, not everyone is such a fan.

only occupy one time the WebView Because inside every Electron app is

storage,” said Terzi. “Whereas if you have essentially a standalone version of

ten Electron applications, you get ten times Chromium, the engine that runs

the storage space occupied.” Google’s Chrome web browser,

There is a trade-off, though, which is which takes care of the hard work of

that because different rendering engines translating JavaScript code into the

are used, it might be more work for app you see on the screen.

developers to ensure apps look the same “Talk about bloatware,” said

across platforms. Despite that, Onodi software developer Sam Strachan,

thinks it could one day steal Electron’s who points to how two Electron apps

crown. “I think that’s probably the future he uses regularly, Postman and

and Electron will probably fall by the GitHub Desktop, both of which have

wayside,” he said. temporary files that clock in at

around a gigabyte each.

12

@PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Briefing PCProbe

“In some ways it just doesn’t matter these days, ABOVE Electronlets “The biggest problem
because who notices a gig here and there. But when you developers use the is that these open up an
stop and think that actually you could write the same same code for attack called the ‘vendor-
app [natively], it would be like a couple of meg.” different platforms chain attack’, which
means that if just one of
There’s a trade-off, then, as each Electron requires these packages is
its own Chromium back-end, so if you’re running, say, compromised, then the
Slack, GitHub Desktop and Visual Studio Code at the whole application
same time, it’s effectively running three copies of potentially is
Chrome simultaneously. compromised,” he said.

“I usually work with powerful machines so they’re not Though that sort of
as noticeable, but I can imagine most people with average attack is conceivably a
computers really suffer if they open multiple Electron problem on other
apps,” said Federico Terzi, a software engineer who has platforms too, the risk is
had his own experience building cross-platform apps arguably more acute due
such as Espanso, a text expander. to the way Electron is
designed. “Web browsers
So, choosing Electron impacts users differently. “I like Chrome, Firefox and
think Electron is mostly loved by developers rather than Safari all have sandboxes
users,” said Terzi. “Users would always love to have that make it impossible or
native applications if possible.” very, very hard for any [rogue package] to basically get
access to your computer. [But] Electron applications have
Security matters superpowers, because that’s what is necessary to create
desktop applications.”
There is another layer to Terzi’s concerns. He worries that Under the hood, Electron apps essentially run two
Electron apps by their very nature are not as secure as different processes on your computer: the Chromium
native apps, which could have potentially significant engine used to render HTML and JavaScript, and also
implications for apps such as password managers. “The NodeJS, a back-end environment that lets JavaScript
biggest problem with Electron applications is that you control things that are usually off limits. For example,
build them using JavaScript,” he said. if an Electron app needs to interact with the computer’s
file system, or your computer’s hardware, it sends
As JavaScript is often open source and used all over commands through Node. And it means that if any rogue
the web, JavaScript applications are commonly built code was able to run inside an Electron app, it could
using many different packages – building blocks of code meddle with your computer at a low level.
that have been written by other people. It’s a potential vulnerability that 1Password appears to
be well aware of, too. As part of the switch to Electron, the
For example, say that you want your app to display company released a set of tools it calls “Electron Hardener”,
a graph. Instead of going to the trouble of writing your which it says will improve security loopholes like this.
own graph-drawing code, it is much easier to use an
off-the-shelf graph-drawing package inside your app Money talks
– and that package becomes a dependency that the app Security and bloat aside, Electron is clearly popular. So
requires to run. It makes development much quicker
and easier. But it does have one drawback. “An average what’s motivating the trend for Electron? Why are major
application can download thousands of those
dependencies, because each dependency has other apps such as 1Password switching to the framework when
dependencies, which each have other dependencies,
and so on,” said Terzi. there are so many demonstrable drawbacks?

This creates what Terzi describes as “dependency hell”. If any rogue code was “For a company, it’s a no-brainer
to choose an Electron app,” said
Terzi. “They can reuse the web
able to run inside an developers they have in-house to

Electron app, it could build a desktop application. And if
meddle with your you go with native applications,
the skills that are needed are

computer at a low level completely different, and it’s
usually harder to find developers.”

It also makes it simpler on a

technical level. “They can just create one code base and

then it works pretty much on every platform and you

have a lot of control over it.

“If you read in technical forums, everyone hates

Electron, but the actual truth is that average users don’t

care too much. Of course, they would like things to be

snappy. But for a company, we’re talking about

potentially millions of dollars saved using Electron so

that’s probably why most of them choose it.”

13

The A-List

The best products on the market, as picked by our editors

PREMIUM LAPTOPS BUSINESS LAPTOPS

Apple MacBook Pro 14in Dynabook Tecra A40-J-101

Stunning creative power Business bargain, £720 exc VAT
from £1,899
from misco.co.uk
from apple.com/uk
It may miss fineries such as a gorgeous
Alongside its 16in sibling, this is simply the screen, but the Tecra A40-J-101 is a
world’s best laptop for demanding users. business workhorse for a great price.
The amount of power on tap via the M1 Pro With fine build quality, a speedy
or M1 Max processor is staggering, and it’s backed up by a terrific screen processor and easily upgradable
and stunning battery life. With all the ports you could ask for, the only memory and storage, it should last
negatives are its relative bulk (especially compared to the Air) and high price. for years.
REVIEW Issue 328, p58 REVIEW Issue 333, p83

ALTERNATIVES NEW ENTRY ALTERNATIVES NEW ENTRY

Dell XPS 15 (2022) Huawei LG Gram 16 (2022) Dell Latitude Lenovo ThinkPad HP EliteBook
MateBook X Pro 9420 2-in-1 Z13 Gen 1 840 Aero G8
Surely the best Windows 2022 A quite exceptional piece
all-rounder money can buy, of engineering, this A top-quality convertible The perfect laptop for HP’s premium range
with a slim design, gaming A truly gorgeous design in top-quality 16in laptop that justifies its price with executives, with amazing of laptops is worth the
potential and plenty of weighs a mere 1.2kg but superb build quality, battery life backed up extra for its top-quality
power courtesy of Intel’s eye-catching powder blue. packs plenty of power, incredible battery life and a by strong performance. screen, and it’s backed
12th gen Core processors. excellent battery life great screen. A three-year A great debut for the up by HP’s Wolf Security
And the AMOLED panel is It’s expensive, but then and a superb anti-glare on-site warranty is a tasty Ryzen Pro 6850U. From and a slim, all-metal
gorgeous. From £1,950 screen. £1,550 from extra, too. From £1,304 £1,592 exc VAT from chassis. From £899 exc
from dell.co.uk again this is the premium lg.com/uk exc VAT from dell.co.uk lenovo.com/uk VAT from hp.com
REVIEW Issue 337, p54 REVIEW Issue 336, p46 REVIEW Issue 333, p81 REVIEW Issue 338, p56 REVIEW Issue 333, p84
laptops category… £1,800
from consumer.huawei.
com/uk
REVIEW Issue 338, p54

  GAMING LAPTOPS EVERYDAY LAPTOPS

Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 SE G733ZX (2022) HP Pavilion 14

Core i9/3080 Ti for £3,399 Stylish laptop from £549

from rog.asus.com/uk from hp.com

Everything about this laptop screams This slim 1.4kg laptop is a superb choice
speed: the 16-core Intel Core i9-12950HX for anyone on a tighter budget, with
processor, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, a 4TB the Core i3 version costing £549.
RAID0 array and Nvidia’s GeForce RTX We tested the Core i5
3080 Ti graphics. It’s heavy at 3.1kg but edition (part code
that reflects top build quality, 2G2E2A#ABU), which costs
while the 17.3in 240Hz £680, and found it struck an
1440p panel is almost excellent balance between speed
beyond reproach. and battery life – around ten hours.
REVIEW Issue 336, p56 REVIEW Issue 330, p85

ALTERNATIVES ALTERNATIVES

Asus ROG Strix Lenovo Legion Asus ROG Samsung Galaxy Huawei Microsoft Surface
Scar 15 (2022) 5i Pro (16in) Zephyrus M16 Book2 360 (13.3in) MateBook D 16 Laptop Go 2

A no-holds barred 15.6in A great-value gaming (2022) This is the best-value 2-in-1 The £750 Core i5/8GB A top-quality and incredibly
laptop that gets the most laptop that’s extracts the
from its i9-12900H CPU, most from its powerful A 16-core 12th gen Core laptop we’ve seen, with version of this 16in laptop portable 12in laptop. You’ll
RTX 3070 Ti, 16GB of components. We love the i9 CPU supports RTX
DDR5 RAM and 2TB SSD. keyboard, too. Part code 3070 Ti graphics, plus a good build quality, bags of offers staggering value, but pay £729 for 8GB of RAM
G533ZW-LN148W, £2,399 82RF002LUK, £2,000 gorgeous 16in screen.
from scan.co.uk from lenovo.com RTX 3070 Ti for £2,600 speed, a 13.3in AMOLED choose the Core i7/16GB and a 256GB SSD, but even
REVIEW Issue 332, p54 REVIEW Issue 337, p61 from rog.asus.com/uk
REVIEW Issue 331, p59 screen and 12-hour version if you need maximum the cheapest 4GB/128GB

battery life. £949 from power. From £750 from version is tempting. From

samsung.com/uk consumer.huawei.com/uk £529 from microsoft.co.uk

REVIEW Issue 335, p52 REVIEW Issue 336, p62 REVIEW Issue 336, p58

14

@@PPCCPPRROO FFAACCEEBBOOOOKK..CCOOMM//PPCCPPRROO The A-List

  CHROMEBOOKS Asus Chromebook Flip CX5 HP Elite Dragonfly
Chromebook
Acer Chromebook Enterprise Spin 713 The best big-screen Chromebook
we’ve tried, with a bright 15.6in Full This is quite simply the best
Flexible laptop for £800 HD display with decent black levels business Chromebook around,
and surprisingly rich colours to enjoy. although at the time of writing
from store.acer.com And it’s a good specification for the we’re waiting for units to
price, with a Core i3 processor, 8GB of hit the market. Build quality
A Core i5-1135G7 processor, 8GB of RAM and a LPDDR4 RAM and a 128GB SSD in tow. is stunning, as is this 13.5in
256GB SSD make this one of the best specified Part code 90NX0361-M00010, £600 convertible’s 1.3kg weight.
Chromebooks around, and it also delivers for from johnlewis.com. From £1,000 from hp.co.uk.
all-round quality. A deserving winner in our REVIEW Issue 337, p84 REVIEW Issue 337, p86
Labs. Part code NX.A6XEK.002.
REVIEW Issue 337, p82

EVERYDAY PCs NEW ENTRY

Apple Mac mini (M1) Acer Predator Orion Palicomp AMD Cobra
3000 (P03-640)
Mini masterpiece from £699 This is an absolute bargain at £400,
Updated for 2022, the Predator with an excellent Ryzen 5 5600G
from apple.com/uk Orion 3000 looks stylish and processor providing plenty of
also offers great value: a Core everyday power and a modicum
Apple has applied its M1 formula to the diminutive Mac mini with predictably i5-12400F processor and GeForce of gaming ability. Add 16GB of
stellar results: superb performance in native apps to the point where the mini is RTX 3060 Ti graphics combine to RAM and a 1TB SSD and the only
challenging the much more expensive iMac for speed. If the software you want produce a worthy 1440p gaming obvious reason to expand is to add a
to run is compatible with the M1, it’s an obvious, quiet and bargain choice that system. Part code DG.E2WEK.005, discrete graphics card. £400 from
will get you through your working day without fuss. £1,199 from currys.co.uk pcpro.link/338cobra
REVIEW Issue 318, p54 REVIEW Issue 336, p64 REVIEW Issue 338, p88

ENTHUSIAST PCs NEW ENTRY

Palicomp Intel Hellfire Cyberpower Infinity Box Cube Legendary
X123 Pro Elite in Black
Core i5 and RTX 3070 for £1,000
An obvious choice for enthusiasts – so A superb choice for RGB lovers and
from pcpro.link/338hellfire long as you don’t mind fan noise – gamers thanks to GeForce RTX 3070
thanks to how easy it is to customise. Ti graphics, a Ryzen 7 5700X, 16GB of
This isn’t a typo: you can now buy a system With a Core i3-12100F processor, RTX Corsair RAM and a 1TB SSD. The Lian
based around a 12th gen Core i5-12400F and an 3060 graphics and 16GB of RAM, it’s Li case lets those components, and
RTX 3070 graphics card for a grand. And simply phenomenal value for money. multitude of fans literally shine
there’s lots of room for expansion. £899 from cyberpowersystem.co.uk through. £1,810 from box.co.uk
REVIEW Issue 338, p89 REVIEW Issue 335, p49 REVIEW Issue 333, p54

ALL-IN-ONE PCs HP Envy 34 All-in-One Apple iMac 24in

Huawei MateStation X Built around a high-quality 34in Apple’s M1 processor is the star
widescreen – which is perfect for of this show, delivering all the
Stunning design for £1,800 viewing two windows side by side power we would expect with
thanks to its 21:9 aspect ratio – this is minimal power draw. Apple wraps
from consumer.huawei.com a great alternative to the MateStation it up in a sharp new look, with a
X and comes with Nvidia RTX 3060 4.5K Retina display and top-quality
Huawei shows all the other PC manufacturers how to graphics. We’re big fans of the 1080p camera. Let’s hope a bigger
create an all-in-one that runs Windows. If you want magnetic 16-megapixel camera, too. version arrives soon. From £1,249
speed, gorgeous design and a stunning 28.2in 4K+ £2,300 from hp.com from apple.com/uk.
screen, the MateStation X is the machine to buy. REVIEW Issue 335, p46 REVIEW Issue 322, p48
At this price, it simply has no rivals.
REVIEW Issue 334, p46 Scan 3XS GWP-ME A124C Armari Magnetar
M64TP-RW2000G3
WORKSTATIONS This system comes highly
recommended if you seek strong Based around AMD’s 32-core
Scan 3XS GWPME-A1128T 3D visualisation and rendering Threadripper Pro 5975WX,
capabilities. Intel’s Core i9-12900KS with Quadro RTX A5000
64-core power for £13,333 exc VAT puts in another fine performance, graphics, 128GB of RAM and a
and Quadro RTX A4500 graphics 4TB RAID0 array, the Magnetar
from scan.co.uk are great to see in a workstation rips through all tasks with
Supreme modelling power alongside compute at this price. £3,500 exc VAT ease. £7,459 exc VAT from
abilities that put server farms to shame more than from scan.co.uk armari.com.
justify the cost of this Threadripper Pro 5995WX REVIEW Issue 336, p86 REVIEW Issue 336, p82
machine. Not to mention the Quadro RTX A6000,
stunning 8TB RAID0 array and 256GB of ECC RAM 15
(product code LN128457).
REVIEW Issue 337, p48

TABLETS Apple iPad (2021) Apple iPad Air

Apple iPad Pro 12.9in (2021) Apple performs its usual trick of Why spend extra on an iPad Pro
upgrading just enough to keep 11in when the much cheaper iPad
M1 power in your palm from £999 the iPad affordable and up to date, Air includes the same crazy-fast
without treading on the toes of its processor and supports all the
from apple.com/uk more luxurious stablemates. The big same accessories? The 60Hz screen
bezels remain, but a faster processor, isn’t quite so special, sure, but if
Blurring the boundaries between laptop more storage and improved camera you’re happy with 64GB or 256GB
and tablet like never before, the M1-powered all add to its appeal. From £319 from of storage, then it’s a superb choice.
iPad Pro 12.9in is every bit as fast as we apple.com/uk 64GB, £569 from apple.com/uk
expected – and the “Liquid Retina XDR” REVIEW Issue 327, p50 REVIEW Issue 332, p63
display is simply phenomenal.
REVIEW Issue 323, p62 Realme 9 Pro+ Apple iPhone SE

EVERYDAY PHONES The colour-changing back (if you buy The iPhone SE’s design may have
the Sunrise Blue edition) catches the aged – those thick bezels at the top
OnePlus Nord 2 5G eye, but what we truly love about this and bottom are so 2010 – but the
phone is the quality it packs in for the cameras, 5G support and A15 Bionic
Ultimate all-rounder from £399 money – most notably a fine trio of processor are bang up to date. If
cameras. Add 5G support and solid you can cope with a 4.7in screen,
from oneplus.com/uk battery life and it’s a winner. 256GB, this iPhone will keep going for years.
£349 from buy.realme.com/uk 64GB, £419 from apple.com/uk
OnePlus packs a surprise with this MediaTek-powered phone, REVIEW Issue 331, p73 REVIEW Issue 332, p70
which stormed through our benchmarks – only the Poco F3 can
beat it for the price. But with a superior camera, longer-lasting Google Pixel 6 Pro Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4
battery and striking design, this is worth the extra £100.
REVIEW Issue 325, p68 The Pixel 6 Pro is a superb showhome Tweaks and improvements all
for Android 12, with Google’s Tensor round make this 2022 update an
PREMIUM PHONES processor and the gorgeous 120Hz even more convincing folding
6.7in panel ensuring everything looks smartphone/tablet than the
Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max slick. Add a quite brilliant camera Fold3, with better build quality,
setup, with software to match the excellent performance (thanks
Big-screen monster, 128GB, £1,049 hardware, and the Pixel 6 Pro sits to a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chip)
apart from most Android rivals. and a fine trio of cameras. 256GB,
from johnlewis.com 128GB, £849 from store.google.com £1,649 from samsung.com/uk.
REVIEW Issue 328, p68 REVIEW Issue 337, p74
Get it while you can, because the 13 Pro Max has been officially
replaced by the 14 Pro Max. You miss out on the Dynamic Dell UltraSharp U3223QZ Iiyama ProLite
Island and a handful of other new features, but this 6.7in XUB2792QSN-B1
phone still sits at the cutting edge for speed, cameras, design Don’t be shocked by the price: this is
and display… and for significantly less than the 14 Pro Max. a feature-packed monitor designed If you’re on a tight budget but want a
REVIEW Issue 327, p49 to be your working hub, complete high-quality 27in 1440p screen, this is
with a 4K webcam. But your main a brilliant choice. There’s even USB-C
EVERYDAY MONITORS investment is in the top-quality docking, an RJ-45 port and respectable
31.5in 4K panel that’s tuned for speakers. It’s so good it begs the
Philips Brilliance 346P1C sRGB and DCI-P3 as you need them. question of why you’d spend more on
£1,202 inc VAT from dell.co.uk a 27in monitor. £300 from box.co.uk
34in curved docking, £563 REVIEW Issue 335, p59 REVIEW Issue 326, p87

from shop.bt.com
No-one can match Philips for its mix of
quality, features and value, especially when
it comes to curved MVA monitors such as
this. It’s great for casual gamers and busy
workers alike, with USB-C docking and superb colours.
REVIEW Issue 326, p93

PROFESSIONAL MONITORS BenQ PD2725U Eizo ColorEdge CG279X

Eizo ColorEdge CG319X By no means a cheap 4K 27in monitor Designers who need to work
– unless you compare it to the Eizos across different disciplines will
Creative masterclass, £3,960 – but it marries all-round quality with love how easy it is to switch between
ease of use thanks to a puck that the Adobe RGB, DCI-P3 and sRGB
from wexphotovideo.com allows you to quickly move between colour spaces using the Eizo’s
settings. You can even daisy chain fantastic OSD. It’s certainly not
As the price indicates, this monitor is for a second Thunderbolt 3 monitor cheap for a 27in 1440p monitor, but
heavyweight creatives who demand the for a monster setup. £859 from it’s packed with quality. £1,726 from
best in every discipline: HDR video editing, print layouts, photospecialist.co.uk wexphotovideo.com
professional photography and more besides. With superb coverage and REVIEW Issue 327, p80 REVIEW Issue 327, p84
accuracy across all spaces, plus a built-in calibrator, it justifies the investment.
REVIEW Issue 327, p81

16

@PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO The A-List

WEBCAMS Aukey PC-W3 1080p Obsbot Tiny 4K
Webcam
Logitech C925e Business Webcam We love this dinky and oh-so-clever
If the thought of spending £100 on webcam. With a pan, tilt and zoom
Top quality 1080p video, £100 a webcam has you spluttering into camera, plus a dash of AI, it can keep
your microphone then you should you at the centre of the image if you
from logitech.com consider this far cheaper but high- wish, crop to your head and shoulders
quality alternative. Its colours are or slip into presenter mode. But most
Logitech remains the supreme ruler of the webcam low-key in comparison to Logitech’s, crucially it delivers a high-quality and
world and the C925e shows why. None can match its but it still produces a sharp and crisp 4K image, with excellent colours.
image quality under challenging light conditions and detailed image. £30 from aukey.com £247 from store.obsbot.com
Logitech backs this up with the best software (and REVIEW Issue 321, p72 REVIEW Issue 332, p73
compatibility with the likes of Teams) on the market.
REVIEW Issue 321, p73 Canon Pixma Pro-200 Xerox C235dw

HOME OFFICE PRINTERS Yes, it’s big and it’s expensive – and This multifunction laser printer has
you don’t even get a scanner – but the it all, including a 50-sheet automatic
Epson EcoTank ET-1810 Pixma Pro-200 means that you can document feeder. Add high-quality
print A3 photos with glorious colour output at a fast pace – 19.2ppm
Back to basics, £190 accuracy and detail. If you’re after for black text, 13.1ppm for colour
an office workhorse, look elsewhere, graphics – and only above-average
from epson.co.uk but it can’t be beaten on photo print costs count against it. £335
quality. £455 from store.canon.co.uk from printerbase.co.uk
There’s nothing flashy about this bottle- REVIEW Issue 320, p80 REVIEW Issue 331, p83
fed inkjet: it’s there to churn out pages at a decent rate (8.8ppm for black text)
for a low price. It comes with enough ink for 4,500 black pages and 7,500 in Epson EcoTank ET-5880 Kyocera Ecosys
colour, but refills are cheap. Just don’t expect features like duplex printing. M6235cidn
REVIEW Issue 331, p80 This is a great office all-in-one with
plenty of useful features, excellent A strong contender for small and
WORKGROUP PRINTERS output quality and top-notch medium businesses that want good
cloud support. It’s expensive, but print speeds and great access
Brother X-Series MFC-J6957DW phenomenally low running costs security. The M6235cidn’s large
thanks to Epson’s EcoTank system operator panel is very user-friendly,
Versatile inkjet for £471 exc VAT mean that SMBs will recoup the the print quality is excellent and its
initial outlay in no time at all. running costs are surprisingly low.
from printerbase.co.uk £1,077 exc VAT from epson.co.uk £696 exc VAT from printerland.co.uk
REVIEW Issue 323, p97 REVIEW Issue 323, p98
Ideally suited to SMBs on a tight budget, this
affordable large-format inkjet delivers low Netgear Nighthawk Honor Router 3
running costs, good output quality and the RAXE500
best cloud and mobile support around, as This affordable Wi-Fi 6 router
well as an A3 scanner with 50-page ADF. If you want the fastest Wi-Fi then 6E delivers consistently fast wireless
REVIEW Issue 337, p98 is the obvious choice, and this router speeds, broad coverage and a modest
delivers. The Armor protection service speed boost for newer hardware –
WIRELESS ROUTERS costs £38 in the first year, but then and the Router 3 has a cute design
rockets up to £85, so you’re buying top too. If you need more range, you can
Asus RT-AX82U quality and performance, but you pay pick up a second unit to use as an
for it. £550 from netgear.co.uk extender. £55 from amazon.co.uk
Punchy Wi-Fi 6 performance, £194 REVIEW Issue 332, p64 REVIEW Issue 318, p51

from box.co.uk Linksys Atlas Pro 6 Netgear Orbi Quad-band
The RT-AX82U punches well above its Wi-Fi 6E RBKE963
price when it comes to raw Wi-Fi 6 It may not be as slick or fast as the
performance and includes a fistful of useful Deco X90, but the Atlas Pro 6 still The RBKE963 is a phenomenal
features, such as an ultrafast 20Gbits/sec USB offers terrific performance for piece of hardware that sets the gold
connector, outbound VPN support and a host of parental controls. the price and produces rock-solid standard for 6E meshes, but since
REVIEW Issue 318, p80 connections in tough-to-reach few internet connections are fast
places. To put it in perspective, it enough to take advantage of the extra
MESH WI-FI offers more range and faster speeds bandwidth, you should only buy it if
than the £450 Netgear Orbi RBK752. you’re desperate for Wi-Fi 6E right
TP-Link Deco X90 2-nodes, £251 from amazon.co.uk now. £1,500 from netgear.co.uk
REVIEW Issue 333, p64 REVIEW Issue 331, p68
Superb Wi-Fi 6 mesh, £449
17
from scan.co.uk

Welcome to the new generation of Wi-Fi 6
meshes, with greater range and consistent
speeds for both upload and downloads. TP-Link
reckons these two units will cover a six-bedroom
house, and they each include 2.5GbE ports too.
REVIEW Issue 333, p65

BUSINESS WI-FI Netgear WAX630 Ubiquiti Networks
UniFi U6-LR
Zyxel WAX610D Unified Pro Access Point A great choice of access point for
dense Wi-Fi 6 deployments, as its It would have been nice to see a 2.5GbE
Wi-Fi 6 access point, £358 exc VAT triple radios deliver astounding port, but the U6-LR is a fast Wi-Fi 6
performance. It’s easy to install, access point with good range. It offers
from broadbandbuyer.com with an impressive range of remote a wealth of features for a fair price, and
management services, and the price the UniFi cloud-management services
The WAX610D leaves other Wi-Fi 6 access points in the is very reasonable, too. £229 exc VAT are among the best in town. £159 exc
dust. Support for 160MHz channels delivers a big from broadbandbuyer.com VAT from broadbandbuyer.com
speed boost to clients that support it, it’s easy to deploy REVIEW Issue 329, p97 REVIEW Issue 329, p99
and it offers classy cloud management features.
REVIEW Issue 333, p99

NAS SERVERS Qnap TS-873AU-RP Qsan XCubeNAS XN5008T

Synology DiskStation DS3622xs+ The TS-873AU-RP offers a great A reasonably priced nine-bay desktop
storage package in a space-saving appliance, though the basic CPU
12-bay NAS, diskless £2,349 exc VAT chassis. You’ll need to upgrade the has some limitations and it can’t
memory to get the best from it, but it match Qnap and Synology for app
from broadbandbuyer.com offers good all-round performance, choices. But it delivers good 10GbE
and the choice of operating performance and offers a fine range
Not cheap, but it delivers a lot for your money and systems makes it very versatile. of business-quality data-protection
includes a five-year hardware warranty. Designed Diskless, £1,753 exc VAT from features. Diskless, £1,168 exc VAT
to deliver big storage to small offices, it offers good broadbandbuyer.com from lambda-tek.com
10GbE performance and expansion potential, and REVIEW Issue 332, p94 REVIEW Issue 332, p95
the DSM7 software is packed with backup utilities.
REVIEW Issue 332, p96

VIDEOCONFERENCING Maxhub UC M40 Bose Videobar VB1

Logitech Rally Bar Maxhub’s innovative UC M40 offers You’re paying a premium for the
a refreshingly new perspective on Bose name, but the Videobar VB1
4K meeting room solution, £2,527 exc VAT video meetings. Easy to set up and is a class act for huddle spaces
use, this clever little panoramic and meeting rooms. It’s easy to set
from meetingstore.co.uk camera has a view for every occasion, up, delivers smart auto-framing
provides good video quality, and features and its audio quality is,
This simple and tidy is an affordable choice for small as you would expect from Bose, a
videoconferencing solution combines businesses. £595 exc VAT from cut above the rest. £975 exc VAT
everything you need into a single unit that can be mounted on a desk or wall. It polar.uk.com from business.currys.co.uk
includes speaker tracking together with video and audio quality that are beyond REVIEW Issue 334, p99 REVIEW Issue 328, p96
reproach. A highly versatile system that also looks great.
REVIEW Issue 328, p97

SCANNERS

Brother ADS-4900W Epson WorkForce Xerox D35 Scanner
DS-790WN
Perfect for SMBs, £565 exc VAT The D35 delivers a lot of features for
This hassle-free scanner is a great a very modest outlay and combines
from printerbase.co.uk choice for businesses that want them with good speed and output
standalone digitisation. Its quality. It’s a great choice for heavy
Combines 60ppm speeds with great output touchscreen makes walk-up scanning scan workloads, has a great range of
quality at an affordable price. Its colour LCD a breeze, and it delivers great speed apps, and the network support makes
makes light work of walk-up scanning and and quality too. £499 exc VAT from it even more versatile. £210 exc VAT
Brother’s scan-to-cloud features are superb. thescannershop.com from ballicom.co.uk
REVIEW Issue 336, p98 REVIEW Issue 334, p95 REVIEW Issue 334, p97

SERVERS Dell EMC PowerEdge Broadberry CyberServe
R250 Xeon E-RS100-E10
Dell EMC PowerEdge T350
With prices starting at around This represents a powerful hardware
Xeon E-2300 power, from £1,273 exc VAT £800 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
from dell.co.uk series chips from £1,741 exc VAT, this low-profile chassis and the fine
is a slim, rack-mounted alternative selection of remote-management
Perfect for SMBs and branch offices looking for an to the more high-powered T350 tools. It’s a great alternative to the Dell
affordable and powerful single-socket tower server. that’s ideal for SMBs. From £801 EMC servers also listed here. £983 exc
Along with support for Xeon E-2300 CPUs and lots of exc VAT from dell.co.uk VAT from broadberry.co.uk
memory, it has a high storage capacity, plenty of REVIEW Issue 332, p98 REVIEW Issue 318, p96
expansion space and is sturdily built.
REVIEW Issue 335, p98

18

@PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO The A-List

SECURITY SOFTWARE VPNs PASSWORD MANAGERS

F-Secure Safe NordVPN Bitwarden

F-Secure concentrates on the basics: NordVPN provides consistent and fast speeds, Bitwarden has a huge advantage: it’s
faultless protection with minimal impact serious security, great support for video-streaming free. It isn’t as slick as some paid-for
on your system’s performance – for a low price. services and some cost-effective subscription rates. rivals, but it can sync passwords across all devices
1 PC, 1yr, £19 from pcpro.link/322safe £44 per year from nordvpn.com for no extra charge. Free from bitwarden.com
REVIEW Issue 322, p83 REVIEW Issue 329, p84 REVIEW Issue 320, p61

Norton 360 Avast ProtonVPN Surfshark Dashlane 1Password
Premium Free Antivirus
ProtonVPN provided one A strong rival to NordVPN, A manager that’s ideal 1Password is targeted at
Norton consistently tops For the second year of the best free offerings especially if you’re willing for beginners, and it even technically minded users
tests for protection, and running, Avast is our top of all the VPNs in our to commit to its two-year builds in an unlimited (if who are looking for the
sweetens the deal with pick for free antivirus recent group test (see contract. It’s fast, cheap basic) VPN service. Note last word in security. It
75GB of cloud storage, a software – it’s simply issue 329, p78), including and a fine choice for you may prefer to buy even offers a Travel Mode
VPN service and parental lighter on its feet than unlimited data, but people who like to switch the Family plan ($60 per that may ease your mind if
controls. At this price, Microsoft Windows upgrade to benefit from to US streaming services: year) as this extends the surrendering your phone
it’s simply a bargain. Security, whilst offering even faster speeds and they actually work! service to six people. to customs officials. $24
10 devices, 2yr, £20 from fewer false positives. many more options. Free £44 for two years from $40 per year (Premium) per year (individual)
pcpro.link/norton-2 Free from avast.com from protonvpn.com surfshark.com from dashlane.com from 1password.com
REVIEW Issue 322, p84 REVIEW Issue 322, p82 REVIEW Issue 329, p85 REVIEW Issue 329, p86 REVIEW Issue 320, p62 REVIEW Issue 320, p60

REMOTE SUPPORT CLOUD & HYBRID BACKUP VOIP SERVICES

Zoho Assist Enterprise NEW ENTRY 3CX Phone System Enterprise 18

Packs in a remarkable number of remote support Veritas Backup Exec 2022 Along with easy on-site and cloud deployments, this
features and is a great choice for larger businesses. provides a remarkable range of call-handling
The slick technician portal is easy to use, platform This well-rounded data-protection solution offers features and can’t be beaten for value. 16SC
support is tops and the flexible licensing plans make complete protection for physical and virtual Enterprise, £615 per year exc VAT from 3cx.com
it equally appealing to environments plus a wealth of recovery services. REVIEW Issue 333, p94
SMBs. £19 per It’s easy to manage and integration with MS365 is
technician/mth seamless. Simple
exc VAT from Core Pack, 5
zoho.com/assist instances, $745 exc
REVIEW Issue 337, p97 VAT per year from
veritas.com
REVIEW Issue 338, p99

GoTo Resolve Basic NEW ENTRY Voip Unlimited Voip Exchange

A well-rounded solution that’s ideally suited to SMBs that Naviko Backup & Replication10.6 UK-based Voip Unlimited is ideal for home workers. Its
want the tightest access security. And GoTo is planning to call-handling features are superb, it’s simple to manage
add endpoint antivirus software, patch management and Easy to deploy, support for all the key NAS players and flexible pricing plans make it affordable. From £8.50
alerting. £58 exc VAT per agent/mth from goto.com and the various licensing plans mean you only pay per seat/month exc VAT from voip-unlimited.net
REVIEW Issue 337, p95 for what you need. Enterprise, 5 servers, perpetual REVIEW Issue 333, p97

licence from £525 exc VAT from naviko.com

REVIEW Issue 338, p97

NETWORK MONITORING SECURITY APPLIANCES STORAGE APPLIANCES

Paessler PRTG Network WatchGuard Firebox T40-W Sophos XGS 116
Monitor 21.4
Designed for small offices and remote The XGS 116 and Xstream flow processor partnership
PRTG provides a terrific range of sensor options for sites, the WatchGuard Firebox T40-W is deliver strong gateway security at a great price. It
local devices and cloud services, along with plenty big on performance with the promise of has the power to handle high demands, provides
of monitoring facilities, yet it’s easy to manage, 3.4Gbits/sec for raw firewall throughput and great remote management features and will appeal
and comes with an affordable pricing scheme 300Mbits/sec with the AV, IPS and app control to businesses that want to extend their protection to
that’s perfect for SMBs. services enabled. Appliance with 1yr Total home workers. Appliance with 3yr Xstream
2,500 sensors, Security Suite, £1,363 exc VAT from guardsite. Protection, £1,439 exc VAT from enterpriseav.co.uk
1yr maintenance, co.uk REVIEW Issue 335, p95
£4,950 exc VAT from REVIEW
paessler.com Issue
REVIEW Issue 330, p97 331, p98

Progress Software WhatsUp Gold 2021.1 Ubiquiti Networks UniFi DrayTek Vigor 2866ax
Dream Machine Pro
WhatsUpGold has flexible licensing plans, a smart web DrayTek’s Vigor 2866ax teams up solid security
console that will keep downtime to a minimum and An impressive piece of kit that delivers an incredible measures with integrated Wi-Fi 6 services and
powerful new log management features. 25 devices, a great set of WAN redundancy features.
Premium licence, $2,740 from whatsupgold.com range of easily managed features at a low price. £286 exc VAT from ballicom.co.uk
REVIEW Issue 330, p98 REVIEW Issue 335, p94
£298 exc VAT from broadbandbuyer.com
19
REVIEW Issue 327, p101

My photo-editing Dick Pountain
app turned out to wonders whether,
be a threesome if a picture is
worth a thousand
How do you replace a powerful if bloated app such as Photoshop Elements words, he might
on a Chromebook? The answer, it turns out, is to go with the flow… submit four-fifths
of a picture next
month. Email dick@
dickpountain.co.uk

In last month’s column I explained Android. It too has a clever, ArtFlow is organised in such an
how I came to terms with, and minimalist user interface that avoids elegantly economical manner that
eventually even to love, taking lots of cascading menus, but its UI you need to adjust, to stop looking
for items in menus
photographs with my smartphone clicked with me instantly.
which spawn visual palettes of
rather than a proper camera. I take For minor touch-up jobs, it’s the brushes, erasers, smudgers, fillers
and selectors, while those two
even more pictures now because the best tool I’ve ever used. The exposure left-hand sliders control the size and
intensity of each tool. Once I’d got
phone is always ready in my pocket. controls are superb, particularly the my mind right, I began to appreciate
the speed and uncluttered screen.
What hasn’t changed is that I select Ambience slider that works subtle
ArtFlow’s handling of layers is
a very few of the pictures I take to magic on the “feel” of pictures, and particularly powerful, with
more Blend modes than either
post online, on Facebook more than a Details slider for structural Elements or Sumopaint, and its
effects filters are also excellent.
Flickr nowadays (since the latter sharpening that’s as good as the Nik I miss Sumopaint’s fractal filter
(from which I’d created a whole
was taken over by SmugMug), and Collection filters I miss so much from art style), but it’s some consolation
that ArtFlow has an unusually
recently more on Instagram, too. the Photoshop days. However, it controllable Solarise filter that can
create striking effects. Its one major
Before posting them I examine these doesn’t support multiple layers – limitation is that ArtFlow doesn’t
handle text at all, but this has led me
pictures in a photo editor and often only a rather limited “double to a discovery that has completely
transformed the way my imaging
lightly tweak them, with cropping exposure” – and its handling of text is workflow works.

and maybe a touch of exposure limited and idiosyncratic. Not only does Android’s Files App
recognise Snapseed, Sketchbook and
correction and/or sharpening. ArtFlow in its “Open with” menu,
but these three apps also recognise
Fewer still get selected for heavier Thus, when I happened across one another in their own Share
mangling, with special effects an online magazine article that commands, so if I need to add text to
making them into graphic art to rounded up what it claimed an image that I’m creating or editing
in ArtFlow, I can share it straight into
look like a painting or a poster. were the ten best Android image Sketchbook with its rather superior
text handling, then return it back
I started learning such post- editors, I grimly set to trying them into ArtFlow.

processing tricks many years ago all. Most were powerful, but not in Sketchbook, Snapseed and
ArtFlow Studio are all available free
under Windows 3 in Paint Shop Pro, ways that helped me: many were for Windows (though both Snapseed
and ArtFlow require Bluestacks or a
before switching to a copy of Adobe clearly aimed at youngsters into similar-quality Android emulator).
If ever you’re feeling symptoms of
Photoshop Elements that I hacked anime and manga, others way too menuphobia, one of them might
provide instant relief.
onto each successive PC. When I complicated. But one, called ArtFlow
[email protected]
jumped ship to a Chromebook I Studio, grabbed my attention.

needed to find an online photo At first it seemed more puzzling

editor with a layer-based approach even than Sketchbook or Snapseed:

the equal of Elements; Sumopaint upon launch you face a blank screen

did that for a while, until its with a white dot in the upper left

publisher switched to a rental corner. Click on that dot and a very

business model and removed the minimal UI appears, with a single

feature I used most. row of small icons along the top of

I next tried Autodesk Sketchbook, the screen, a pair of thin vertical

which is a good-looking app with a sliders at the left edge, and a hideable

clever user interface – so clever that it Layers box at the right. No text is

still baffles me when I use it on visible anywhere, though clicking

occasion. Then a professional and holding an icon pops up a hint.

photographer friend introduced me It took me several weeks to

to Snapseed, which he uses on an uncover all the power I need within

iPad but I’ve found is just as good on ArtFlow, because it’s organised in

such an elegantly

I started learning post- economical manner that
processing tricks many you need to adjust, to
stop looking for items in

years ago under Windows 3 menus. Everything
in Paint Shop Pro descends from the six
icons at the top left,

20

@PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Viewpoints

The cookies Despite writing about
are finally historical web laws,
crumbling Nicole Kobie is PC
Pro’s Futures editor.
You may have noticed
she kept the cookie
puns to the headline
and out of her column.
You’re welcome.

@njkobie

This stalest of all stale laws is getting an overhaul after years of menacing
the web, and its end can’t come soon enough

Go to a new website, or merely positive outcomes. A repeal of the question once and only once. That
one you haven’t visited in a cookie law could have been the single ought to kill off tracking cookies
while. You likely won’t be able light in the darkness that is Brexit, but entirely, as it’s bewildering to think
that anyone would make an informed
to see it, especially if you’re on one of the UK didn’t bother to actually decision to allow them.

these new-fangled mobile phones. change its regulations once given the This solution was discussed back in
the early days of the cookie consent
That’s because the page you’ve tried to freedom to do so, as that involved law debate, but presumably asking

load is probably obscured by the bane governmental effort. So here we sit Google is finally embedding cookie
consent decisions into Chrome next
of the internet: a cookie banner. with a silly EU law still on our books. year so we can be asked the question
once and only once
In my early days at PC Pro, I spent a
once and never again was seen as
lot of time writing about the then- It’s a law that we (perhaps rightly) lacking the educational component.
incoming cookie consent law. This haven’t heavily enforced. The ICO But so long after the fact, other
was born from an EU directive that receives hundreds of complaints a tracking techniques have superseded
the humble cookie, such as social
web users should know if a website year about cookies – exactly about media widgets and tracking pixels
and now Google’s new Topics API,
wants to track them, and have an what is impossible to discern, as it designed to let the company keep
selling targeted ads.
opportunity to withhold consent; here doesn’t break down the nature of
If Google manages to make the
in the UK it fell to the Information complaints – but hasn’t, as far as I can system work, Chrome will track
our interests and make a list of
Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to tell, ever issued a fine or enforcement topics we like, sharing access to three
of those at random to ad networks
recommend ways for website owners notice over the issue. I asked the ICO’s each time you visit a page. No other
demographic data will be shared, says
to implement the warning and ask for press office, and they couldn’t provide Google, and the information will fade
after three weeks. What this means is
permission when the law came into evidence of any formal action. advertisers – Google included – will no
longer be able to track you all across
force in 2012. The EU has been more forceful. the web to know that you’re eyeing up
a new pair of trainers, but they’ll still
Unfortunately, the ICO opted for a European regulators deemed Google’s be able to show you ads for trainers
constantly, including three weeks
simplistic solution, declaring that a cookie pop-ups for Search and YouTube after you’ve purchased a pair.

pop-up requester would be sufficient to be insufficient, forcing it to roll out In other words, don’t expect this to
fix the web. None of this will end the
for compliance. Now, web publishers more robust banners earlier this year. online addiction to advertising nor the
use of tracking to fuel it. But at least
have realised that obscuring the page The new version – which you’ll only you’ll no longer be slapped in the face
with cookie pop-ups while having
with big, intrusive cookie requesters see if you’re logged out, so hit Incognito your privacy invaded.

leads to visitors hitting “accept” just mode if you’re curious – runs to more [email protected]

to get them out of the way. than 200 words, and that’s before you

But if implementation of the tap the “More options” button.

directive failed to protect privacy, it Hopefully, the cookie debacle won’t

was successful with the second goal: run much longer. The UK is finally

education. Before the cookie law, web amending the regulations to reduce

tracking was a niche subject of the number of banners, while German

interest only to privacy nerds like regulators are working on a law that

myself. The advent of large annoying would see users’ consent replicated

banners ensured everyone understood across some websites, reducing

the basic fact that websites didn’t just pop-ups but not removing them.

show information, but collected it too. Even that tweak may soon become

Ten years on, the lesson continues. largely pointless. While tech-savvy

This is despite the UK leaving the EU, users have long used blocking

a decision that in my opinion – and no, extensions to dodge tracking, and

I don’t want to know yours – was a Firefox and Safari already block

maliciously foolish move with no tracking cookies by default, Google is

Web publishers have realised set to follow that

lead with Chrome,

that big, intrusive cookie requesters finally embedding
cookie consent

leads to visitors hitting ‘accept’ just decisions into the
to get them out of the way browser next year so
we can be asked the

21

Viewpoints @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO

Reasons to Barry Collins is
be cheerful, the co-editor of
part 3 BigTechQuestion.
com. If he hasn’t
replied to you on
WhatsApp, you now
know why.

@bazzacollins

Switching to new computing devices is not the hellscape it once was, but
Barry can’t convince himself to be entirely happy about the process

I’ve moved home a lot recently. dog’s name and date of birth. It’s not If it had been a nightmare to
Not my actual home – I last did often this column lavishes praise on, transfer data from Windows to Mac,
that 15 years ago and I understand well, anything, but the computer I’d probably have never switched to
an Apple laptop when I did
they’ve still not introduced solicitors industry really has done a remarkable
testing. None of these problems was
to the concept of email. I’m not job of eliminating the pain of moving. serious, but such little niggles irritate
because they’re erratic and avoidable.
moving again until they do.
The big difference between
No, I’m talking about moving my It’s not only from PC to PC, either. computers and phones, though,
virtual home, the computers and My main work computer these is switching platforms. If I’d
phones I use for my day-to-day days is a MacBook Pro, but it moved from Android to iPhone, I
wouldn’t have been able to transfer
existence. And unlike hoiking the wasn’t so long ago that I shifted from any app data. All those podcast
playlists, notes, saved games and
family from one plot of bricks and Windows. Most of my go-to software other pieces of app data would be lost,
unless they lived in the cloud. Any
mortar to another, this process has is cross-platform – Microsoft Office, paid apps would also have to be
bought afresh on iOS, because there’s
become a lot easier over the years. Creative Suite, web browsers and no mechanism for transferring app
purchases from one platform to the
Switching computers used to be an Slack don’t care if you’re on PC or other – not unless the apps are free to
download in the stores and activated
eight-cheese-sandwiches-before- Mac. Dropbox flows your files into via a subscription.

bedtime, wake-up-dripping-in- either and keeps them all in sync. That’s mad when you think about
it. If it had been a nightmare to transfer
sweat nightmare. Just getting your Games are the only software sector data from Windows to Mac, if I’d had
to buy loads of apps all over again, I’d
files from one PC to another was a where your choice of platform still probably have never switched to an
Apple laptop when I did. It wouldn’t
chore when I first started banging out makes a difference, but as we move to have been worth the hassle. Apple
and Google might think they’re being
words for this magazine in the late cloud gaming services such as Xbox clever by making it harder for
customers to leave their respective
1990s, what with removable storage Game Pass, Stadia and GeForce Now, platforms, but they’re also making it
harder to switch.
having all the capacity of a Pimlico even that barrier is eroding. The days
But let’s not end this column on a
bedsit. Not to mention the hunt for the when Mac owners were stuck with negative – it’s my once-in-a-decade
reason to be cheerful. Moving your
floppy disks or CD-ROMs required to The Sims and Minecraft are long gone. computing home is far smoother than
it used to be and no longer pops the
reinstall apps on your new machine. Switching phones is also easier balloon of excitement you get from
upgrading to a new device. Above all,
“Insert disk 8 and enter your 28-digit than a decade ago, though there’s it makes the job of reviewing phones
and computers a damned sight easier.
activation code, printed in dot-matrix more room for improvement here. I knew you’d be pleased for me.

hieroglyphs on the back of the I’ve been testing Android phones [email protected]

manual you last saw 18 months ago.” recently and the easiest way of getting

Things have grown easier over the your personal data from old to new is

years, to the point where it only takes still by connecting the phones via USB

an hour or two to make a new PC feel cable, although with chargers rarely

like a well-worn pair of slippers. My included in the box, it’s no gimme

everyday documents are all stored in that consumers will have a USB-C to

Dropbox, so getting them back is a USB-C cable lying around, much less

matter of banging in a password and a a USB-C to micro-USB or whatever

2FA code. Apps are all downloadable, connection they were using on older

and now that broadband connections handsets. Yes, data can be transferred

are worthy of the name, that doesn’t wirelessly, but that’s much slower.

take long. Windows shuffles across Even with a cable, switching

your settings, browsers bring your phones isn’t as seamless as it could be.

bookmarks and browsing history, I found my app data went AWOL for a

password managers mean you no couple of apps, WhatsApp messages

longer need to remember your first sent in the past day had disappeared

because the backup

Switching computers used to be is only taken on a
an eight-cheese-sandwiches- daily basis, and
voicemail had to

before-bedtime, wake-up- be set up from
dripping-in-sweat nightmare scratch on one of
the phones I was

22



Readers’ comments

Your views and feedback from email and the web

Don’t delete that! Contributing editor Paul Ockenden
replies: You make an interesting
I have an Asus Zenbook with a 250GB point, Paul. I realise that in
SSD. After several years, I am again theory the higher bands
getting warnings about running low shouldn’t have worse
on storage space. I have previously attenuation (we’re talking 5.8cm
drastically cut my music and photo vs 5.2cm – the difference is
files, so I’m looking for other ideas. minimal). However, real-world
experience shows that the
My laptop has an Intel Core i5 lower channels do have shorter
processor, but there’s 5GB of range. Some manufacturers
AMD64 files on the hard drive, in even mention this in their
the WinSxS folder. Can I delete literature. AVM, for example,
these, as I assume they are not used states: “Since the range and data
by the Intel system? throughput of Wi-Fi channels

Stephen Eastman over 48 is significantly better, it
only makes sense to manually
Darien Graham-Smith replies: I’m afraid ABOVE Don’t delete (mea culpa) and manufacturers being set a Wi-Fi channel from 36 to
you can’t safely delete these files. AMD64 is anything until you’ve lax in other directions, it has worked 48 in exceptional cases.”
the standard 64-bit architecture that’s read Darien’s feature out in the end. My suspicion is that this is down to
used by both AMD and Intel processors – on p46 antenna tuning. The sweet spot will be
the name merely reflects the fact that it When Paul says that using slap bang in the middle of the 5GHz band,
was originally designed by AMD as an channels 36-48 have shorter indoor so the channels below 48 are at the side
extension to the 32-bit x86 platform, and range I think this is based on the of the curve where the sensitivity will be
adopted by Intel for its own 64-bit Pentium assumption that the higher frequency less. And with this happening in both the
4 (and subsequent) CPUs. channels (using DFS) are allowed to router and client then the effect will be
use much higher transmit powers further magnified.
What you can do is tell Windows to scan (1W rather than 200mW, IIRC). In I think this is one of these cases where
the folder and remove any components practice, I think that most routers/ real-world experience – the very reason
that are no longer needed by the OS or access points/repeaters use the same we write those RWC columns – trumps
your installed applications (see pcpro. transmitter for both lower (non-DFS) what you might initially expect based on
link/338delete). I also cover a number of and higher (DFS) channels, in which theory alone.
other techniques in this issue of the case the range for the higher channels
magazine (see p46). will be slightly less. Caught in the web

Band talk I have always been surprised that If there’s one thing I hate, it’s poor
manufacturers don’t use the higher website design. When you have a
Paul Ockenden’s “Off the radar” (see powers allowed for the upper channels page of required and optional entries
issue 336, p112) took me back to my – is this a cost or safety issue? and press Submit, you get the
younger days as I was deeply involved annoying red flags because a single
in the initial regulatory process that Paul Hansell required one is in the middle of a
opened the 5GHz bands to Wi-Fi. load of optional ones. Why can’t the
Although there have been bumps
along the road since then, due to a
combination of lax or vague standards

Star letter

Tim Danton’s editorial last month (see issue 337, We thought we specified every possible priority to low for services that had to be run but
p7) very much struck a chord with me. A few feature, but it turned out there was one item impacted heavily on the speed (I’m looking at
years back, when my faithful Dell Optiplex we’d overlooked. I hadn’t asked for the you, Cylance). Since I had to do this again after
(Core i7-3770) was drawing to the end of its two-in-one; in fact, having no need for it, I hadn’t every reboot it got old quite quickly.
useful life, the timing happened to coincide looked closely at the specs. However, that was
with a mass move to laptops at work. Echoing what the ICT manager bought us, and they The ICT department tried for ages to get a
Henry Ford’s famous pronouncement on turned out to be absolute disasters. half-decent performance out of them but
colours, we were told we could have whatever eventually admitted defeat. We both now have
we wanted as long as it was a Dell XPS. The two-in-one of that year had passive XPS 15s with Core i9 processors. Cycling to
cooling and was therefore fitted with a cut-down work with one of those in my backpack is harder
Since both I and my colleague on the i7 that had absolutely no business bearing that work, but for the rest it’s in a completely
programming team were cyclists, the ultra- label. It had half the number of cores of the different class.
compact XPS 13 suited us fine, so we sat down standard laptop i7, and the only way I could get
and looked at the lineup. We settled on the the XPS to run Visual Studio without bringing it And the Dell Optiplex? I was allowed to
top-of-the-range Core i7 model and sat back to to its knees was to open up Task Manager and purchase it and it’s still doing sterling work
await the arrival of our sleek new laptops. disable every non-vital service, then set the providing media and backup services in my
home. John Gwatkin-Williams

Our star letter writer wins their very own PC Pro mug to help them get through even the sternest IT challenge.
For your chance to win, email [email protected]

24

@PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Viewpoints

required ones be on one page and the Readers’ poll 6.5%
optional ones on the next? Foldable
How bendy are you? phone
Then you get the date entry, but it’s
not clear what format it’s in. Next you We asked via Twitter and Facebook if 92%
start typing in your email, and as soon you wanted a flippable phone, foldable Nothing
as you put the first letter in, it flags up phone, bendable laptop or nothing bendy
in red that it’s wrong, even before bendy at all. We got our answer…
you’ve finished.
2%
Finally, you’re expected to create
a password without knowing any Flippable
criteria until you press Submit and phone
then it nags you if you haven’t used
upper-case letters or exclamation 0.5%
marks or whatever. It’s a wonder we Bendy
ever get anything done! laptop
Andrew Redding
Asus, it’s best if you look away now. Out of the 215 votes we received across
And another Fing Twitter and Facebook, only one person said they were interested in a bendy
laptop. Perhaps people will change their minds after reading our review of the
After reading the “25 Apps for Geeks” Asus Zenbook 17 OLED Fold on p50.
article in issue 336, I downloaded and
installed Fing. I uninstalled it less than We are seeing some appetite for foldable phones, however, with several
five minutes later. Why? readers having already bought one. “Took the plunge and got the Z Fold 4,” wrote
@Mandy_Rarsh_ on Twitter, “it’s already come in handy a few times. Second
First, any program or app that does screen in the pub for alternative footie games, bigger screen to plan a route on
not offer a choice of install location Google Maps with a few others etc. All things a tablet can do, sure. A tablet
tells me that the developer is either doesn’t fit in my pocket, though.”
too arrogant to accept that users may
have multiple partitions on a drive, or But that’s life at the bendy edge. Most people are either not interested or
too stupid to know – neither of which share the view expressed by Mike Collins on Facebook. “Same bracket as
is likely to endear me to their product. electric vehicles for now... Want? Yes! Affordable? Nope…”

Second, to use the app would have None of the above, mainly What I really want is the
required me to create an account. because I’m wedded to the Apple Surface Neo. I entirely hate
This is meant to be an app for ecosystem. If they did a bendy Microsoft for cancelling it, and
scanning my local network, not phone I’d be interested. not having the courage to put
supplying information back to the Windows Core on the Surface
developer, so why does it need this John Wright Duo. Geoff Campbell
information? An option to register,
yes; a requirement to do so, no. None of the above, too Join the debate
expensive and too flimsy. Not
PC Pro’s reviews are generally very to mention I know the crease Join the growing PC Pro
informative but in this case I felt would drive me insane. community on Facebook at
disappointed – sure, it only cost me facebook.com/pcpro
five minutes, but even a brief Dale Williams
statement such as “Note, to use this
app you need to create an account” I have no interest in bendy Get the latest news and
would have been useful. tech. I’m particularly confused updates by following us
Dr Norman Glen by the Samsung Z Flip range: @pcpro
surely a Z would have two folds –
Editor-in-chiefTim Dantonreplies: Duly noted! it’s a V Flip! Bryan Davison @ Email us at letters@ SAVE MONEY! SWCbMLAIrTAooTISasHMCtdYbrHEVeOalnUiBMOadRb,EEalTOAenSSldEBaYspTIDBotALomBCpEBuKscR,UDYbhPeAAmSsYOTotN-FrAvOTeaWDlSUuAeSRUEP£P20LIpEs6e6eR
pcpro.co.uk
ABOVE Worse Fing happens at C: why doesn’t see
the app give you a choice of install location? p33

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14/09/2022 16:58

25

TECHNOLOGY
EXCELLENCE
AWARDS 2022

...or what to buy in

2023

Almost 7,000 people took part in our unique survey about technology
buyers’ satisfaction. Whether you want to buy a new phone or invest

in a NAS server, cut out and keep this unique guide to keep you
company for the rest of 2022 and the whole of 2023.

Plus we reveal your lockdown heroes and the products of the year!

CONTRIBUTORS: 6,676 READERS
(AND BARRY COLLINS AND TIM DANTON)

26

@PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Excellence Awards 2022

Technology Excellence Awards

BEST PC MANUFACTURER BEST CLOUD STORAGE
Chillblast, Scan Backblaze

BEST LAPTOP MANUFACTURER BEST BROADBAND ISP
Apple Zen Internet

BEST TABLET MANUFACTURER BEST MOBILE DATA PROVIDER
Apple Giffgaff

BEST NAS MANUFACTURER BEST PHONE MANUFACTURER
Qnap Google, OnePlus

BEST ROUTER MANUFACTURER BEST MONITOR MANUFACTURER
DrayTek BenQ

BEST ONLINE RETAILER BEST SMARTWATCH MANUFACTURER
Printerland, Scan Amazfit

BEST WEB HOST BEST PRINTER MANUFACTURER
Zen Internet Brother

Lockdown Hero Winners

Adobe • BBC Bitesize • Berserk Games • Openreach • Truespeed • Wightfibre

Products of the Year

DESKTOP PC OF THE YEAR BUSINESS SOFTWARE OF THE YEAR
PCSpecialist Fusion Elite 3CX Phone System Enterprise 18

LAPTOP OF THE YEAR BUSINESS HARDWARE OF THE YEAR
LG Gram 16 Dell EMC PowerEdge T350

BUSINESS LAPTOP OF THE YEAR ALL-IN-ONE PC OF THE YEAR
Lenovo ThinkPad Z13 Gen 1 Huawei MateStation X

CHROMEBOOK OF THE YEAR SECURITY PRODUCT OF THE YEAR
HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook Sophos XGS 116

WORKSTATION OF THE YEAR INNOVATION EXCELLENCE
Scan 3XS GWPME-A1128T Intel 12th generation Core

SOFTWARE OF THE YEAR SUSTAINABILITY EXCELLENCE
Adobe Creative Cloud 2022 Steam Deck

27

KEY WINNER HIGHLY COMMENDED BEST VALUE

Best Desktop PCs Chillblast, Scan

HIGHLY COMMENDED Apple, Box, CyberPower, PCSpecialist

At the risk of repeating ourselves from support when buying a desktop PC, to shoulder with the Brits
year to year, one truth remains: if you choose a British manufacturer – only when it comes to satisfaction.
want the highest level of customer Apple is capable of standing shoulder
Dan Hedley’s experience
Customer Reliability Value Speed Buy Overall with Chillblast, after a Windows choosing the right gaming PC, very
activation error due to a Microsoft well made and it looks outstanding,”
support again? glitch, is a case in point. “They put me wrote Steve Summerbell-Myers of his
straight through to the guy who built it Box experience. “Great support for
Chillblast 94% 96% 90% 93% 95% 94% who sorted me out with a working someone new to buying a gaming PC,”
product key in about five minutes.” said Natasha Kendall of CyberPower.
Scan 95% 94% 91% 95% 97% 94% And we repeatedly saw praise for
It’s this level of customer support PCSpecialist’s customisation options,
Box 91% 90% 90% 93% 98% 92% that also earns Scan admirers. “[I] enabling people to create exactly the
made my order during a time of high system they wanted. “Great website,
Apple 92% 95% 82% 93% 98% 92% demand for GPUs, and due to a lack of very easy to configure the PC to my
supply Scan upgraded me to a higher exact specification,” wrote Chris
CyberPower 90% 92% 91% 91% 94% 92% spec of 3070 than I’d originally Stephens. “First-class customer
ordered, free of charge,” wrote service and great value.”
PCSpecialist 90% 91% 87% 91% 96% 91% Matthew Cave. “Who could complain
about that?” As for Apple, it should be no
MSI 80% 89% 86% 87% 98% 88% surprise that the company garnered
While Scan and Chillblast share much praise for its PCs’ looks,
Dell 82% 90% 87% 85% 96% 88% the top accolade, it’s no surprise to reliability and innovation. But no-one
see three other British custom PC praised it for customisability…
HP 85% 89% 86% 86% 92% 88% builders earn Highly Commended
awards. “Incredibly helpful when
Alienware* 81% 88% 83% 91% 93% 87%

Palicomp 81% 88% 85% 86% 91% 86%

Lenovo 80% 87% 87% 81% 91% 85%

Acer 78% 86% 84% 82% 93% 85%

* Small sample size so we have reduced confidence in results

Best Laptops Apple Best Tablets Apple

HIGHLY COMMENDED Huawei HIGHLY COMMENDED Lenovo, Samsung

It’s worth drilling into the numbers looking laptop that does what it’s Considering that three out of every five and might have stolen the Highly
when considering what Apple has supposed to do,” echoed Christopher tablets sold in the UK last year were Commended award from Lenovo if
achieved here. Not only does it come Quest. People’s only complaint was iPads, according to Statista, it’s perhaps they could improve battery life.
top overall, but also for speed, battery the webcam embedded into the keys, surprising that rivals are so close in
life and customer support. Little but that design has now been terms of satisfaction. Both Samsung While Amazon sits at the bottom of
wonder that 98% of its customers changed in most new Huawei laptops. and Lenovo win Highly Commended our charts overall, no-one can match it
would stick with the company when awards, albeit for different reasons. for value, which is why it wins our Best
buying their next laptop. Asus’ and MSI’s gaming laptops Value award. The message from
also earned praise for their speed, but In Samsung’s case, it’s build quality readers was clear: a Fire tablet won’t
“Apple charges a premium but you not quite enough to lift either company and overall satisfaction, with 96% of win for luxury, but it fulfils all the basics
can’t beat the build quality and battery into award-winning positions. its customers happy to buy again. And for a low price. And the close ties with
life of its new M1 Pro MacBooks,” it’s learning some tricks from Apple, other Amazon services helps. As Alice
wrote Devin Jones. And John Taggart too. “Useful interaction between Forsythe wrote: “My Fire 10.1 doubles
only has words of praise for Apple’s tablets and other Samsung devices as an e-reader and a tablet, which is
“superb” support: “That alone is worth throughout ou r household,” wrote great for holidays.”
the premium you pay above the cost of Philip Turner. But others complained
other manufacturers.” about a lack of customer support, so
there’s still room for improvement.
Only Huawei pushed Apple close.
“Good discount, runs Windows 11 very “Lenovo makes very decent tablets
fast,” wrote Stephen Sinclair. “Good- at competitive prices in my opinion,”
wrote PC Pro subscriber Adam
Apple Customer Reliability Value Battery Speed Buy Overall Marshall. So much so that he was
Huawei support life again? on his third Lenovo-made tablet.
Asus 88% Microsoft and Acer weren’t far behind,
Acer 95% 78% 90% 94% 98% 91%
Samsung 76% 95% 96% 83% 93% 89% 89% Battery Reliability Value Speed Customer Buy Overall
Microsoft 80% 87% 84% 76% 87% 97% 85% life support again?
MSI 81% 86% 87% 80% 84% 93% 85%
Dell 83% 87% 80% 80% 84% 93% 84% Apple 85% 95% 77% 92% 86% 97% 88%
Lenovo 78% 89% 79% 81% 85% 93% 84%
HP 81% 88% 82% 70% 91% 90% 84% Samsung 82% 90% 82% 84% 78% 96% 84%
80% 87% 81% 76% 85% 93% 84%
77% 86% 85% 74% 84% 90% 83% Lenovo 86% 87% 88% 81% 78% 89% 83%
76% 86% 82% 76% 81% 89% 82%
Microsoft 78% 89% 81% 81% 80% 88% 82%

Acer* 74% 88% 85% 82% 76% 92% 82%

Huawei 84% 83% 86% 78% 80% 72% 79%

Amazon 77% 84% 91% 70% 79% 84% 79%
* Small sample size so we have reduced confidence in results

28

@PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Excellence Awards 2022

Best Phones Google, OnePlus Best Monitors BenQ

HIGHLY COMMENDED Apple, Oppo, Xiaomi HIGHLY COMMENDED Philips

Of all the categories, none is more phones’ camera The thinnest sheet of glass separates comments.
competitve than phones. Even Apple is quality, too. the winners from the rest here, with “Gorgeous curved
pushed into third place here, with almost every manufacturer earning ultra-widescreen,” said
Google and the ever-popular OnePlus Chinese firm superb results for image quality. And Richard Brand.
snatching the top accolade. Oppo actually across all the categories here, it’s the “Almost makes
owns OnePlus, only one where more than 90% of our working from home a joy.”
“Good-value proposition but also a so it’s no readers would happily buy the same
good experience, with everything you surprise that brand of product next time around. However, we don’t think you’ll be
could want in a phone,” wrote Colin its well-priced disappointined if you buy from any
Rudden. “More companies should phones aren’t Congratulations, then, to BenQ for brand on this list. For example, Iiyama
follow the same mantra: keep Android far behind its doing such a stellar job that it stands has won this award on several
clean.” Martin Farmilo gave particular subsiduary. And out from the crowd. “Great monitor,” occasions, and once again earned
praise to the Nord range, “which are Alan Thomas pinpointed exactly what Ian Smith told us. “My first 4K one and much praise. “I got the Black Hawk
excellent phones for the price”. won challenger brand Xiaomi its very impressed.” Aleksandrs Pestovs G-Master (G2730HSU) and I love it,”
award: “[It’s] fast becoming the brand kept his praise simple: “Super quality.” wrote Daniel McCready.
Google, meanwhile, can relax for value and performance.”
knowing that it has a loyal buyer in Philips’ monitors earned a similar Our final word goes to Best Value
Jordan Simpson. “I have owned the Apple customers remain level of adulation, but this time it was winner AOC. “By far the best image
Pixel 2XL and the Pixel 4XL and I will immensely satisified with their curvature rather than 4K resolutions quality I have ever seen on a monitor
probably only ever buy Google phones phones, with 98% happy to buy again. that kept cropping up in people’s at this price,” said Nigel Partridge.
for the rest of my life. Stock Android is If it can boost battery life further then
too good to pass up.” Many praised its it may well yet regain the top position. Image Reliability Value Customer Buy Overall
quality support again?
Battery Reliability Speed Customer Camera Buy Overall BenQ 92% 94% 91% 98% 93%
life support quality again? Philips 92% 93% 90% 87% 95% 91%
LG 92% 93% 90% 84% 98% 90%
Google 83% 90% 90% 81% 93% 96% 88% Acer 90% 93% 89% 79% 95% 90%
OnePlus 89% 92% 91% 76% 84% 95% 88% Asus 92% 93% 88% 85% 98% 90%
Apple 80% 93% 91% 87% 91% 98% 87% AOC 89% 91% 93% 80% 94% 90%
Xiaomi 87% 88% 90% 74% 83% 95% 87% Iiyama 91% 92% 91% 84% 98% 90%
Oppo 88% 91% 90% 72% 85% 91% 87% Dell 89% 90% 87% 76% 94% 88%
Sony 79% 90% 89% 79% 87% 97% 86% MSI 90% 89% 87% 81% 94% 88%
Samsung 80% 90% 88% 81% 87% 96% 86% Samsung 91% 90% 85% 80% 95% 88%
Huawei 86% 89% 84% 76% 88% 81% 85% ViewSonic 93% 88% 91% 78% 92% 88%
Motorola 87% 86% 82% 75% 80% 95% 85% HP 88% 91% 88% 73% 95% 88%
Nokia 77% 78% 72% 63% 74% 79% 75% 76%

How you decided the winners

PC Pro doesn’t decide the winners of the Technology support you or your community during the most difficult of times.
Excellence Awards: you do. Each year, thousands of readers You can see the six companies that earn this accolade on p32.
take part in a comprehensive three-month survey. We ask
how satisfied you are with the quality of prints, reliability of From p34, we also select our own Products of the Year. Chosen
your broadband, battery life of your laptop – and collate the by PC Pro’s editors, these are the standout products from the
figures to create the percentage scores you see in the tables. hundreds we’ve tested over the past 12 months.

The maximum score a company can receive is 100%, where a TECHNOLOGY
reader declares themselves to be “very satisfied” with, for EXCELLENCE
instance, customer support for their desktop PC. If they merely AWARDS 2022
select “satisfied”, that’s 80%. And so on, until they reach “very
dissatisfied”, which is 0%. So a score of 90% could be 50 people
saying “very satisfied” (100%) and 50 “satisfied” (80%).

At the foot of some tables you’ll see an asterisk next to a
company’s name. This indicates that between 25 and 50 people
responded rather than the 50 or more we prefer. The scores are
still representative, but – from a statistical point of view – we
can’t have the same level of confidence in the results.

We also use methods to protect against “stuffing” – that is,
where a manufacturer may try to bias results by encouraging
only positive feedback. As a result, we believe that the scores
you see are ones you can trust.

This year, we asked you to nominate your “lockdown
hero”. Companies that went beyond the call of duty to

29

ExcellenceAwards2021 KEY WINNER HIGHLY COMMENDED BEST VALUE

Best Routers DrayTek Best Printers Brother

HIGHLY COMMENDED Fritz!Box, Ubiquiti HIGHLY COMMENDED N/A

In the many years we’ve run the PC comprehensive, well-thought-out Oh, Brother. Wouldn’t it be fairer if you Canon coming close to Brother for
Pro Excellence Awards, DrayTek has menu,” added Derek Abbott. gave other printer manufacturers a buy-again loyalty with 94% of readers
been one of the most consistent chance to win the Best Printers saying they would stick with the brand.
performers. A fact that will come as no And Ubiquiti is rapidly earning award? After all, this year’s win marks
surprise to Ian McCulloch. “I have itself similar amounts of admiration. “I a decade of continuous success. Going through reader comments
used DrayTek some 20 years,” he have a Ubiquiti UniFi system installed for all the brands, two things are clear.
wrote. “Best internet connection in my house with a Dream Machine Julian Foster gave a clue to its First is that printer setup remains way
devices I have ever used. Very secure.” Pro [8-port] switch and two 802.11ac secret formula: “Cost more than too complicated, with wireless
access points,” said Callum Gourlay. ordinary printers, but it pays back by connections not always behaving, and
Not that DrayTek had things all its “This system works flawlessly with my just working reliably on all aspects, second that people often regret
own way this year, with Fritz!Box and gigabit internet connection.” print scan, paper feed, best ever.” buying cheaper printers with high
Ubiquiti pushing it close. “Looks weird, running costs. Buyer beware.
works great,” said Mike Carpenter of Andrew Breith was similarly
his Fritz!Box router, in one of our impressed. “Reliable, good running
favourite comments from this costs,” he wrote. “When my last
year’s survey. “Easy control with a Brother printer finally broke, it was an
easy decision to buy another.”
Speed Range Reliability Value Customer Buy Overall
support again? Canon, Epson and Xerox were all
tied together with similar scores, with
DrayTek 94% 90% 95% 88% 87% 98% 92% Xerox winning for value for money
Fritz!Box 91% 87% 94% 89% 91% 96% 91% (which includes running costs) but
Ubiquiti 96% 93% 92% 88% 82% 92% 91%
Asus 93% 91% 90% 82% 76% 96% 88% Print Reliability Value Customer Buy Overall
TP-Link 87% 86% 90% 87% 79% 90% 86% quality support again?
Linksys 89% 81% 90% 83% 81% 92% 86% (inc running
BT 85% 82% 86% 82% 79% 89% 84% costs)
Netgear 87% 82% 83% 77% 77% 87% 82%
Brother 89% 90% 89% 83% 96% 89%

Xerox 95% 85% 84% 62% 91% 83%

Canon 86% 83% 78% 73% 94% 83%

Epson 85% 84% 80% 75% 90% 83%

HP 85% 79% 76% 71% 85% 79%

Best NAS Devices Qnap Best Smartwatches Amazfit

HIGHLY COMMENDED Synology HIGHLY COMMENDED Apple

Qnap and Synology have configured correctly, very fast. Would Amazfit is a relative newcomer, only “This is my third
vied for top spot in the NAS recommend to anyone.” established in 2015, but it has rapidly Apple Watch,” said
devices category for many earned a reputation for superb value. Callum Gourlay. “I
years, and once again there Consider James Clark the already Even if the first four letters of its name buy them as they
was little to separate them. converted. “I’ve used a Synology NAS confuse people, as this Chinese brand integrate well with
for over 15 years. I’m now on my third has nothing to do with Amazon. my iPhone and
Mike Steddy, though, is firmly NAS. The software just keeps getting always work.”
behind this year’s winner: “Great better and, even when your NAS “Outstanding value,” said Rob
products and great service even can’t get the latest version of DSM Sadler-Hands. “Easy setup, even for a And we suspect
when the device is out of guarantee. [DiskStation Manager, the drive’s OS], 74-year-old like me!” Stephen Cusack Damian Hiscocks’
Responsive support department, they continue to offer security updates is similarly impressed. “Bought a Band comments will
great YouTube videos and support.” for a long time. I expect this new NAS 5 for my son to replace a broken resonate with many
to last a good eight to ten years.” Honor equivalent and it’s terrific.” readers. “Apple ecosystem rules. I
Mike is not alone, with John Perry keep trying to break away but they pull
equally steadfast in his fandom. “I’ve Western Digital could learn a While people complained about me back in.”
still got an 11-year-old Qnap running lesson about longevity, with repeated their Apple Watch’s value for money
and have newer ones too. Great complaints about a lack of support for and the battery life (though Samsung Garmin and Xiaomi were close to
performance and reliability and their older devices. That’s one reason why clearly has some challenges here, too), winning awards too, with the former
tech support is excellent.” relatively few of its customers said their integration with other Apple earning praise for its reliability and the
they would buy its NAS drives again. products earned repeated praise. latter tying Amazfift for value for money.
Still, Stuart Ellis was delighted with
his switch to Synology. “Hands-down Reliability Value Battery Ease of Buy again? Overall
the best NAS device I have had,” he life use
commented. “Better feature set and Amazfit 88% 95% 92% 87% 98% 89%
apps than Qnap’s and, once you have it Apple 93% 81% 78% 92% 95% 88%
Garmin 92% 85% 89% 86% 92% 87%
Qnap Speed Reliability Features Value Buy Overall Xiaomi 90% 95% 92% 85% 86% 87%
& apps again? Huawei 86% 86% 84% 84% 74% 81%
Synology 88% 90% 84% 91% Samsung 86% 81% 68% 86% 86% 81%
85% 92% 91% 84% 100% 89% Fitbit 80% 75% 80% 79% 88% 80%
Western 76% 82% 81% 78%
Digital 89% 97%

71% 79%

30

@PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Excellence Awards 2022

Best Online Retailers Printerland, Scan

HIGHLY COMMENDED John Lewis, Overclockers UK

Amazon is normally a shoo-in for like-for-like products,” said Zack Gould. Printerland Delivery Customer Satisfaction Overall
this award, but a notable dip in its “The customer service, speed and price Scan satisfaction support
customer support score (it scored are always nothing short of stellar.” John Lewis 92% 91%
95% last year compared to this year’s Overclockers UK 93% 88% 92% 91%
80%) has seen the world’s biggest Tom King agreed, saying that he’s CCL 92% 87% 92% 90%
retailer topple down the table. “never had any problems” with Scan. Box 90% 89% 93% 90%
“The website doesn’t have much Broadbandbuyer.co.uk 89% 89% 90% 88%
In its place comes Printerland to pizzazz and looks a bit old, but the Very 89% 87% 90% 88%
share the spoils with Scan. “I buy a lot content is good.” Amazon 88% 85% 90% 88%
of printers for work directly through Ebuyer 88% 85% 89% 87%
Printerland, as they’re almost always The Highly Commended spots go Laptopsdirect.co.uk 88% 84% 87% 86%
cheaper, faster and have a larger to last year’s joint winner John Lewis Argos 91% 80% 88% 85%
selection than my usual business- and Overclockers UK. John Lewis BT Shop 86% 80% 87% 84%
direct vendors,” said Heath Booth. recorded another set of solid Currys/PC World 86% 80% 86% 84%
all-round scores, while Overclockers eBay 86% 79% 82% 79%
He wasn’t the only one impressed UK recorded the best customer 81% 75% 81% 78%
with Printerland’s prices. “Had the satisfaction score of any of the 80% 74% 83% 78%
printer I wanted in stock and a very retailers on the list. 78% 73%
competitive price compared to other
retailers,” said Chris Jones. Other high street chains didn’t fare
so well. Currys/PC World and Argos
Scan’s service was widely praised, were both in the bottom half of the
landing it the joint award once more. table, albeit with respectable scores,
“Ever since I first used Scan I’ve never while eBay takes home the wooden
really had to go anywhere else for spoon. Which it will no doubt sell.

Best Web Host Zen Internet Best Cloud Storage Backblaze

HIGHLY COMMENDED N/A HIGHLY COMMENDED N/A

Zen Internet continues to park its bus It’s good to Backblaze’s winning streak in our far higher than
on our web host award. With see more hosts cloud storage category continues, any other player
industry-beating scores for reliability, earning enough making it the company that PC Pro in our table.
speed and value, it has once again feedback to be readers would most trust with their
proved untouchable. included this critical data. Amazon S3
year. Fasthosts was the next best
“Zen is brilliant,” said Jonathan takes second place once again, Reliability is Backblaze’s key performer, with
Grey, who praised the company’s use although doesn’t do quite enough to strength – a score of 97% puts the Martin Gorrod praising the service for
of cPanel for his personal website. “I land a Highly Commended award. company way ahead of any of its rivals, its “offsite backups from NAS”, while
also set up a website for a golf society including giants such as Amazon, Google Drive was the runner-up for
at Zen which has been a great success.” The big multinational brands such Google and Apple. value. For example, George Rigby had
as Amazon, Wix and Microsoft’s Azure this to say: “200GB for £24.99 a year.
Zen’s support team earned lots of platform dominate the top half of the “Great for small business backups,” Best value for money by far.”
praise from web hosting customers, table. But none of them can match said Robin Sinclair, mirroring many
including Michael Tott. “I hit an issue Zen’s scores for customer service, similar comments along the lines of “it Perhaps the biggest surprise here
with the CMS I was using and Zen with many comments highlighting the just works” and “great price”. The is Dropbox, which is only kept off the
worked tirelessly to solve this for me,” fact that the local UK support makes a simplicity of Backblaze’s personal bottom by BT. The worst customer
he reported. “Others could learn from big difference. plans, which allow you to back up as support score of any of our longlisted
Zen’s level of service.” much data as you like from a single finalists suggests that the biggest
PC for a fixed price, certainly wins name in consumer cloud storage is
Customer Reliability Speed Value Renew? Overall admirers, too. Its 91% value score is struggling to meet demand.
support
95%
Zen Internet 94% 90% 92% 92% 97% 94% Speed Reliability Value Customer Renew? Overall
89% 86% 83% 94% 88% support
Fasthosts 84% 88% 89% 82% 92% 87% 100% 94%
85% 86% 83% 95% 86% 90% 97% 91% 90% 91% 86%
Amazon (AWS) 82% 84% 83% 82% 92% 85% Backblaze 87% 89% 81% 81% 92% 84%
85% 83% 76% 89% 82% 83% 85% 84% 77% 92% 84%
Wix 80% 82% 80% 75% 89% 81% Amazon S3 83% 86% 80% 80% 87% 83%
83% 77% 78% 86% 80% 82% 84% 80% 81% 90% 82%
Ionos 82% 80% 77% 74% 80% 78% Google Drive 79% 83% 81% 76%
79% 78% 71% 83% 77%
Microsoft (Azure) 79% 76% 81% 75% 78% 77% Apple iDrive
74% 71% 81% 75%
1and1.co.uk 76% Box.com

WordPress 75% Amazon
Cloud Drive
GoDaddy 75% 79% 82% 79% 74% 87% 80%
Microsoft
BT 76% OneDrive

Tsohost 74% Dropbox 79% 82% 76% 72% 87% 79%
75% 79% 79% 76% 84% 79%
123-reg.co.uk 71% BT

31

KEY WINNER HIGHLY COMMENDED BEST VALUE

Best Broadband ISP Zen Internet

HIGHLY COMMENDED N/A

It’s (count ’em) 19 consecutive years Richard Luney says it’s the small suppliers is to match (Hyperoptic) are a decent
at the top of the PC Pro broadband but important details that set Zen Zen’s record on customer start, but show they still have
award for Zen Internet, but the apart from the crowd. “Zen Internet is service. Scores of 76% some way to go to bring their
emergence of some new contenders very reliable,” he said. “I switched to (Gigaclear) and 82% support up to speed.
for Zen’s crown is indicative of the Zen over five years ago. The company
changing shape of the British even supplied the same static IP Customer Reliability Value Speed Renew? Overall
broadband market. address after I moved home to a support
different area.” Zen Internet 96% 90% 92% 98% 94%
First, it’s not hard to find Hyperoptic* 96% 86% 83%
customers with a good word to say But if there’s one area where Zen Gigaclear* 82% 82% 82% 89% 95% 87%
about Zen. The Rochdale-based is open to attack, it’s speed. As an Plusnet 76% 80% 77%
support centre has always won Openreach wholesaler, it’s pretty Now 78% 73% 82% 92% 100% 86%
glowing praise from our readers, and much restricted to whatever speed Broadband 71%
it’s streets ahead of the competition the network can offer customers. Vodafone 72% 78% 77%
when it comes to the customer There’s no such problem for the new EE
support score, finishing a full 14 breed of full-fibre providers, such as BT 76% 75% 75%
percentage points in front of the Hyperoptic and Gigaclear, however, Virgin Media
next nearest contender. who can offer gigabit (or close to TalkTalk 69% 75% 76% 75% 77% 74%
gigabit) connections to all of the Sky
“Zen has been my ISP for many customers within their footprints. 79% 79% 71% 68% 74% 74%
years,” said Laurence Brown.
“Customer service is top notch That certainly helps explain why 72% 80% 62% 73% 76% 73%
and they recently moved me Gigaclear ties with Zen when it comes
without any quibbles onto a to satisfaction with speed and 64% 75% 60% 84% 78% 72%
better-value contract at the end Hyperoptic is only a short head
of my present one.” behind. The challenge for the new 61% 74% 74% 71% 71% 70%

73% 72% 64% 67% 72% 70%

* Small sample size so we have reduced confidence in results

Your lockdown heroes

Thank you to the 4,499 people in our own homes.” It surely has to be LOCKDOWN activate millions of homes and
who nominated companies as better than yet another online quiz. HEROES businesses to the Openreach
lockdown heroes. While the network. They deserve this award
likes of Amazon, Netflix and Zoom For Openreach, we bent the rules a Adobe for working extremely hard in
deservedly earned many votes, little. Yes, its job is to keep us all BBC keeping us all connected during
we were particuarly looking for connected, but there were times in Berserk unprecedented times.”
organisations that had gone lockdown when the only people we Games
beyond “business as usual”. saw out on the streets were delivery Openreach Our final two winners were
drivers and Openreach engineers Truespeed again related to connectivity.
Six companies and services buried in cables. “Openreach [kept] Wightfibre “After a lightning strike in the
stood out, starting with Adobe. the nation connected during village, Truespeed replaced our
“They gave me three months off my lockdown,” wrote Matthew Wallace, modem the following day and the
plan payments at the start of one of many readers who nominated service was also available on the
lockdown when all my work dried the service. “Openreach continued following day,” wrote someone
up,” wrote Warren Brooks, echoing maintaining and upgrading millions who preferred to stay anonymous.
what we heard from many others. of telephone lines to full fibre for the “I understand from our
country. Continued to maintain and neighbours that [their supplier]
Paul Edwards only has words of upgrade 4G and 5G mobile cell sites. didn’t restore the service for
praise for the BBC. “BBC Bitesize is Continued to install, repair and nearly three weeks and they had
a fantastic source of information to purchase new modems.”
and online learning for schoolkids,” There were times when the only
he wrote. “As parents, we both people we saw were delivery And finally, let’s cross to the
work full-time (and did so right drivers and Openreach engineers Isle of Wight for Wightfibre.
through all lockdowns). Without “When we had an outage due to
Bitesize we would have been lost roadworks, they went above and
during the first lockdown when our beyond to sort it out,” said Colin
school provided nothing at all. And Baker. “Also when they switched
all at no cost (other than the licence our phone to digital, they
fee). It’s always current and installed a battery backup system
regularly updated – just awesome.” for my wife’s telecare alarm the
same day we asked about it.”
Online board games platform
Berserk Games has Jason Linford to Congratulations to all six of
thank for its nomination. “Their our lockdown heroes, and thank
tabletop simulator product/ you to everyone who worked so
environment enabled having fun hard to keep customers happy
with friends despite being shut up during those tough months.

32

@PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Excellence Awards 2022

Time to switch mobile
data provider?

Mobile networks can be a bit like Others do things a rolling monthly unlimited
banks – people are reluctant to differently. Giffgaff – a deal, Three wants £28.
switch. That’s partly because repeat winner in this The economics of that
mobile data increasingly comes as category – relies on online are baffling. How is it
part of a wider broadband/TV bundle, forums for customer possible for an MVNO to
and partly because of inertia. But support as much as its piggyback off another
switching is a lot less painful than it own staff. That suits network and yet
used to be, and as our mobile data some customers. “Good massively undercut them
award has consistently shown over all-round support and on price? Are the big
the past few years, it’s the household very knowledgeable networks relying on their
names of this sector that offer least community forum brand recognition to
satisfaction and value for money. members,” said John Blake. command higher prices?

Each of the top five providers in Others would prefer to have Downsides of MVNOs
our table are MVNOs – virtual someone at the end of a phone line.
networks that don’t have their own “Cannot contact them if anything There are some advantages to staying
masts, but piggyback on another goes wrong,” said James Whannel. with the big networks. For example,
network. It’s not until you reach EE in “Changed to O2.” the MVNOs are often slower to get
fifth place that you find one of the their hands on new technologies.
traditional big four networks (the The price is right
others being O2, now merged with Among the comments from
Virgin Media, Three and Vodafone). As is clear from our charts, the Giffgaff users in our survey were
MVNOs often win out when it comes complaints about the lack of support
Two clear reasons to switch to to raw value. A quick scan of their for eSims and Wi-Fi calling, which
an MVNO emerge from our survey websites is enough to confirm why. most of the big four have supported
results: customer support and value for some while now.
for money. Take, for example, iD Mobile,
which came third in our rankings. And though we’re still in the early
The MVNOs have their own days of 5G, MVNOs often have to wait
support teams. A Giffgaff customer Each of the top five providers in our a while before they receive next-gen
doesn’t deal directly with O2 support, networks. If you’re gagging to be the
for example. So there’s a clear table are virtual networks that first person on 6G, whenever that
opportunity for the MVNOs to may arrive, you probably don’t want
distinguish themselves from the piggyback on another network to be on an MNVO.
big players by providing better
support, and that certainly seems At the time of writing, it was offering Our mobile data results table shows
to be the case. a SIM-only deal for 60GB of data for the cost of unlimited data on a
only £10 per month, on a one-month SIM-only, one-month rolling
The average customer support rolling contract. Another £6 per contract, where available. Where
score for the MVNOs is 81%. For the month earns you unlimited data. it’s not, we’ve included the closest
big four networks it’s down at 71%. Parent network Three, by alternative. Virgin Media/Mobile is
That’s not to say size is any obstacle to comparison, wants £24 per month for not included in our results table as
delivering strong customer service: unlimited data (after the first three it’s currently transitioning between
the two MVNOs with the best months at half price), and that’s only different parent networks and we
customer service scores are Tesco available on a two-year contract. For felt this might affect the reliability of
Mobile and Sky, neither of which survey results.
could be described as minnows.

Giffgaff Parent network Unlimited data cost per month; Speed Customer Value Reliability Renew? Overall
one-month contract support
Tesco Mobile O2 86% 93% 89% 97% 89%
id Mobile £35 (or £25, but slows 81%
Sky O2 after 80GB) 83% 88% 87% 93% 87%
Plusnet Three 83% 85% 91% 86% 92% 86%
EE £30 80% 78% 86% 82% 87% 83%
BT Mobile O2 80% 82% 85% 83% 90% 83%
EE £16 80% 80% 74% 80% 85% 79%
O2 N/A 78% 75% 77% 81% 80% 78%
Three EE N/A; 70GB costs £25 75%
Vodafone 75% 75% 80% 84% 78%
N/A N/A; 50GB costs £15 72% 74% 77% 73% 76% 73%
N/A 76% 69% 71% 77% 76% 73%
N/A £35 67%
33
N/A; 100GB costs £30 on
12-month contract

£36

£28

£30

Products of theYear 2022
In association with TechRadar, Tom’s Guide and IT Pro

Desktop PC of the Year Laptop of the Year
PCSpecialist Fusion Elite LG Gram 16

HIGHLY COMMENDED Acer Predator Orion 3000 (2022) HIGHLY COMMENDED Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 SE (2022)

PCSpecialist earned many nominations to be a “The Gram 16 seems to defy the laws of gravity
Lockdown Hero (see p32) , as it kept on delivering thanks to its frankly unbelievable lack of heft ,”
high-quality systems during those tough times. We wrote Desire Athow in his review of the LG Gram
were particularly thankful for the Fusion Elite. 16 on techradar.com. And he speaks the truth:
grab the corner of this 1.2kg machine and it
While many rival manufacturers thrust up almost seems to lift itself.
the prices of their systems due to fluctuating
component costs earlier this year, PCSpecialist That’s not its only attraction. “Uniquely among
kept its rises to a minimum. That meant people laptops of this size and form factor, the LG Gram
could benefit from an affordable five-star system 16 ships with not one, but two SSD slots that
based around a Ryzen 5 5600X and RTX 3060 Ti are PCI-E Gen 4.” Then there’s the small
graphics card while others suffered price matter of its 14-hour battery life.
increases, cancelled orders or long lead times.
Our Highly Commended winner, on the other hand, weighs 3.1kg and has
Thankfully prices are now dropping again, which is a four-hour battery life. But the Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 SE includes GeForce
where the £1,199 Acer Predator Orion 3000 steps in. It pairs the same 3080 Ti graphics and a Core i9 processor, with superb cooling and build
graphics card with a 12th gen Core i5, wrapped up in a striking new design. quality to extract the absolute maximum from its powerful components.

Business Laptop of the Year Chromebook of the Year
Lenovo ThinkPad Z13 Gen 1 HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook

HIGHLY COMMENDED Dynabook Tecra A40 HIGHLY COMMENDED Acer Chromebook Enterprise Spin 713

“It’s testament to the ThinkPad Z13’s longevity It says something about the quality of
that the laptop is still battery testing even as I the HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook that
write these words,” explained editor-in-chief it could easily have won the Business
Tim Danton, who Laptop of the Year award, too.
reviews the laptop on
p54. “It’s ridiculous how “It shows that premium
long it goes on for. And on. And on.” Much of that credit is down to AMD’s Chromebooks don’t have to come
Ryzen 7 6950U processor, which in tandem with a 52Wh battery makes this with last year’s specs or a second-
all-new design so attractive to business users on the go. But we also love rate design,” said Stuart Andrews,
the svelte looks, with the option of a vegan leather cover for that extra who wrote our most recent
differentiation from typical business machines. Chromebooks Labs (see issue 337, p76) and uses them whenever he can.
“It’s a great example of how far Chromebooks have come on their journey
You pay for this style and panache, but if your budget is more modest from cheap school computers to true enterprise-grade devices.”
then may we direct your attention to the Highly Commended Dynabook
Tecra A40 (see issue 333, p83). This range of understated but attractive Our Highly Commended winner is the Acer Chromebook Enterprise Spin
laptops starts at £699 exc VAT, and offers tremendous quality for the price. 713, which is roughly half the price of the more glamorous HP Elite Dragonfly
but so powerful – and high quality – that it won our Labs overall.

Workstation of the Year Software of the Year
Scan 3XS GWPME-A1128T Adobe Creative Cloud 2022

HIGHLY COMMENDED Armari Magnetar M64TP-RW2000G3 HIGHLY COMMENDED Bitwarden

For much of this year Intel has been in the “Adobe CC gets a significant update every year,
ascendency when it comes to workstation CPUs and it’s usually so feature-packed that it’s like
thanks to its 12th generation Core chips (see getting brand new software,” said Paul
Innovation Excellence, opposite), but AMD Ockenden, who (along with Jon Honeyball)
struck back just in time. Workstation experts argued strongly for the software to win.
Armari and Scan were quick to take advantage.
“My top highlights from this year’s release
“The Scan 3XS GWP-ME A1128T shows just are the object finder in Photoshop. This does in
how potent AMD’s new Threadripper Pro 5000 seconds what I used to spend hours doing
series is,” said our own workstation expert, manually. And automatic font activation in Illustrator – it’s so simple, but
James Morris. “This workstation’s 64-core saves loads of time. There are cheaper competitors, but CC is always two or
processor delivers the fastest CPU rendering three steps ahead of them. For anyone doing serious design work, whether
performance we have ever seen by a country mile. It’s dominant in everyday online or print, CC remains an essential software subscription.”
applications, too. Scan has also included the fastest PCI Express storage ever
to grace PC Pro. This is an expensive system, but it’s worth every penny.” Congratulations also to Bitwarden, which continues to steal the hearts
and minds of our editors while at the same time protecting their passwords.

34

@PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Excellence Awards 2022

Within the magazine and across our sister websites, we review hundreds of products each year.
It takes something special to stand out, so congratulations to all our winners

Business Software of the Year Business Hardware of the Year
3CX Phone System Enterprise 18 Dell EMC PowerEdge T350

HIGHLY COMMENDED Zoho Assist Enterprise HIGHLY COMMENDED Allegro Network Multimeter 500

While some software looks stale by its Dave Mitchell reviews a lot of business
18th iteration (did someone say hardware each year, both for PC Pro and our
Microsoft Office?), that’s not an sister site IT Pro. So it takes a lot for him to be
accusation that can be aimed at 3CX’s impressed. Congratulations, then, to Dell for
ever-brilliant 3CX Phone System. “It’s doing precisely that. “Excellent design, Xeon
perfect for businesses that want to E-2300 processing power and acres of room to
manage their own VoIP services as it can be easily hosted on-premises or in expand makes this single-socket server an ideal
the cloud,” said Dave Mitchell, who reviewed 3CX’s offering against three candidate for remote offices and growing
rivals in a recent test (see issue 333, p94). “Plus, it teams up an unbeatable SMBs,” he said. “Its burly build quality makes it
range of call-handling features with outstanding value. Don’t waste your perfect for a life in busy offices.”
time looking for a better alternative as there isn’t one.”
Dell’s win was Allegro’s loss, but the company
Congratulations also to Zoho Assist Enteprise, which was Dave’s pick for can take comfort from Jon Honeyball’s
remote support. “Zoho Assist is everything a good remote support product undimmed enthusiasm for the Network Multimeter 500. “I only realised how
should be,” he said. “This affordable cloud-hosted service is easy to deploy, much I loved it when it was gone,” he said. “Nothing can match its real-time
simple to use and packed with a wealth of valuable features for technicians.” insight into your network, with simply exceptional analysis and clarity.”

All-in-One PC of the Year Security Product of the Year
Huawei MateStation X Sophos XGS 116

HIGHLY COMMENDED HP Envy 34 All-in-One HIGHLY COMMENDED Burp Suite web vulnerability scanner

What a year for all-in-one Windows There has been
PCs. Which, let’s face it, have been no shortage of
consistently mediocre (and that’s security-related
being kind) until the arrival of the products coming
Huawei MateStation X. through our doors over the past year, so it took quite something to lift the
Sophos XGS 116 above its many rivals.
“Its brilliance almost makes me
angry,” said Tim Danton. “Why has “It may be a compact desktop firewall appliance, but the powerful dual
it taken PC manufacturers so long processor architecture inside is capable of handling a very heavy demand,”
to deliver a top-quality all-in-one explained Dave Mitchell. “It offers an impressive range of gateway security
when Apple has been doing it for years?” measures for the price, and seamless integration with the Sophos Central
cloud service delivers classy remote management.”
You can turn to p85 to see exactly what we love
about this computer, and if you then cast your gaze Dave also praised the F-Secure (now rebranded WithSecure) Elements
to the opposite page you can read all about our Highly Commended winner, Endpoint Protection, but our Highly Commended winner was nominated
the HP Envy 34 All-in-One. “Again, you have to wonder why it took HP so long. by Davey Winder. “It’s been around for ages, but the Burp Suite web
But if you’re after a powerful all-in-one that’s great for gaming then this is it.” vulnerability scanner is essential in today’s environment,” he enthused.

Innovation Excellence Sustainability Excellence
Intel 12th Generation Core processors Steam Deck

HIGHLY COMMENDED Apple M1 Ultra HIGHLY COMMENDED Fairphone

Think back to late 2021. Intel was still struggling “The Steam Deck is so refreshing,”
to deliver on its promise of 10nm chips, while said Lee Grant. “A monster device,
one of its biggest customers – Apple – had capable of top-tier gaming built
shifted to its own silicon. Meanwhile, a to be repaired and upgraded.
rejeuvenated AMD kept on delivering with Valve’s designers have eschewed
ever more powerful CPUs. proprietary screws and hidden cables in favour
of accessible fixes with sensibly priced spares.”
Over to Darien Graham-Smith: “Intel fought
back with a new hybrid CPU architecture, And it doesn’t stop there: “The tie-in with iFixit should be a
combining high-power silicon with lightweight benchmark for other tech companies who plan to tackle global e-waste by
efficiency cores. It’s a major overhaul, enabling 12th generation chips to race recycling packaging. Valve’s debut console is true smart design and iFixit’s
through heavy workloads while keeping laptops ticking over all day.” parts and guides also make it a smart purchase.”

Meanwhile, Apple continues to impress our reviewers and writers via the For Steam, the Deck is a tiny part of its business. We would also like to flag
M2 and the M1 Ultra. “‘UltraFusing’ two M1 Max chips together is cool,” said the work of Fairphone, which puts sustainability at the heart of everything it
Lee Grant. “Though not in a thermodynamic context.” does. We look forward to seeing what 2023 holds for the company.

35

AI doesn’t just make stuff up – it’s
helping us better understand the
past, finds Lee Grant

The AI that’s
remaking
history

36

@PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO AI: remaking history

Image: T WallaceR arely does a month
pass without PC Pro
reporting on a new AI Prag is an epigraphist, specialising ABOVE AI helped machine, which could hypothesise
system, billed as
forward-looking, in the restoration of ancient Greek Dr Gino Caspari the missing words from the Greek
autonomous and
poised to improve our futures. texts carved into stone. Over the correctly identify texts. However, Pythia’s successor
What we don’t often hear about is
the increasing utilisation of AI to centuries, many carvings have been ancient structures was already in development. “Ithaca
examine our pasts.
Historians, archaeologists, smashed into fragments, some of pays attention to patterns in the text,
musicians and data scientists are
deploying AI technologies to which have never been recovered, with reference about the region that
re-imagine and re-create historical
moments. We’ll explore the immense leaving vast gaps between words. each text came from, and the
human challenges in getting the best
results from AI machines, and, as In 2018, Prag’s PhD student Thea proposed date,” said Prag.
you’ll discover, there’s no magic-
bullet computing at work. Sommerschield and Google The Ithaca machine (ithaca.
Like so many tales from the
evolution of modern computing, DeepMind’s Yannis Assaelto deepmind.com) has already resolved
success with AI is grounded in the
values of collaboration, opportunity suggested using AI to speed up the a point of conjecture in Athenian texts
and experimentation. The challenges
our experts face require distinct laborious process of filling the gaps regarding the Greek letter S, sigma.
technical solutions, while sharing
striking amounts of commonality. in ancient texts. “I
We’ll also look at the bias and
ethics of restorative-AI and consider just sat there and
how we should interpret and
categorise such works. We’ll flick went, that’s cool! AI was used to speed up the
around a timeline, stopping at points Can you do it?”
between the modern day and the
ancient world, hearing from people A successful AI laborious process of filling
who have used AI to expand our project relies on high-
perspective of historical events,
enhance familiar sights and sounds, quality source data to
and even rewrite the history books.
AI is already changing our the gaps in ancient texts“learn”, and Prag’s
perceptions of the past. Welcome
to reality. team didn’t have any.

Filling in the gaps “In the eighties,

Jonathan Prag is a professor of ancient Hewlett-Packard
history at Oxford University who,
somewhat contrarily, has always had mobilised scholars to type up the “The state abandoned the three-bar
a passion for computing. “I got into
mapping and visual analysis, which published Greek inscriptions,” he form of the sigma, which enabled you
led to trying to build a digital
catalogue of all the inscriptions said. “It’s horribly messy and because to put a bunch of texts on one side or
from ancient Sicily,” he said.
it went from beta code into Unicode at the other of 445BC,” said Prag.

a certain point, it’s full of artefacts.” This date marker had been

Sommerschield painstakingly BELOW Dr Smola considered gospel within historical

cleaned the data to give the team and Emil Wallner scholarship, but the few dissenting

more than 100,000 texts, from which trained AI on voices must have cheered when

the team trained Pythia, its first AI Gustav Klimt’s work Ithaca was let loose on the data. “We

ran Ithaca over the original data and it

came out with new dates, moving

them down by about 30 years.”

This shift alters the interpretation

of a key period of Athenian

imperialism. “It makes a big

difference to our reading of Athenian

history and this famous bit of Greek

history,” said Prag.

Dr Gino Caspari, from the

University of Sydney, is an

archaeologist with a passion for

things so old that they make Ancient

Greece seem positively modern.

He’s studied the burial mounds of

the Scythians, an ancient tribe of

nomadic warriors who lived in parts

of Asia more than 3,000 years ago.

Collaborating with a colleague, he

built a convolutional neural network

(CNN) that used satellite imagery to

37

multispectral frames. “I am a creator for my own
audience,” said Shiryaev. “AI
It’s important to remember that, data in order colourisation is not real, and it’s not
to find more historically accurate. I generate faces
based on old source photos or
despite the dystopian headlines, settlements, paintings, it’s also an approximation.
I think it’s important to have this
including small disclaimer that this video is AI.”
many situated
Shiryaev’s use of AI is not to
AI is simply a customisable tool further north establish historical accuracy, then,
than had but to inject verisimilitude into old
footage, refreshing it for a modern
ever been audience. Almost 65 million YouTube
views of his channel underlines his
documented. success and the interest in these types
of works. “I saw this popularity as an
Could this opportunity,” he said. “Some
companies from Hollywood, huge
identify circular structures, seeking ABOVE Old images have been achieved without AI? “Yes, brand names, contacted me.”

lost Scythian tombs. “Arriving in the are sharpened and but it would have taken a lot more In 2020, Shiryaev launched
neural.love (neural.love), an
survey area a year later, I immediately colourised by time,” he said. “Due to small training automatic cloud-based AI service
that makes media enhancement
saw how wrong I had been,” he said. neural.love data sets, we often have a high accessible to anyone. “We have this
beautiful feature called Generate
“What I had assumed to be buried number of false positive detections Portfolio,” he said. “You can upload
really low-resolution old photos and
structures in fact stemmed from the and those still need to be weeded out generate high-quality portraits, and
people love it.”
locals corralling sheep overnight in by hand. We are not really reaching
Delivering neural.love’s
circularly fenced areas.” superhuman performance in most automated tool to customers is a
dedicated team. “We’re developing,
Dr Caspari’s long journey to see cases due to a lack of training data.” building AI, in a responsible way.
When we train our neural networks,
someone else’s lambs was because Making movies we’re creating tools for content
of poor data fuelling the AI. “The creators, movie makers, bloggers or
people who have archives of their
limitation is the availability of Let’s leave the ancient world and own family photos.”

high-resolution satellite data, which travel to 1888 and the garden of Giving a non-technical user
access to AI is a growth area, and
is too expensive for archaeological Oakwood Grange in Leeds, Yorkshire. competition is fierce. Audioshake
(audioshake.ai) is an award-winning
projects to afford,” he said. Louis Le Prince, the “Father of specialist in separating fully mastered
recordings back into audio stems.
His recent work on tracking Cinematography”, is using his

3,000-year-old Native American invention, the motion-picture

settlements in southern America was camera, to film the Whitely family.

completed with the commercial Today, only 20 grainy frames remain

package, ArcGIS (arcgis.com). “In of what we acknowledge as the oldest

archaeology, we are clearly not at the surviving film in existence, but this

forefront of development in AI and didn’t stop Denis Shiryaev from

the number of people actively using AI to create something rather

working on AI is limited,” he said. marvellous. “I’ve always been the

“To find broader adoption, we will history junkie, and I decided to apply

ultimately need a kind of intuitive my knowledge of artificial

GUI that allows you to train models intelligence,” he said.

without coding.” Using the images posted on the

It’s important to remember that, Science Museum website, Shiryaev

despite what dystopian headlines re-animated the stills, applying a

may suggest, AI is simply a CNN to add detail to the faces and

customisable tool. Dr Caspari upscale the resolution. In total, the AI

combined AI, LiDAR images and generated 250 colourised and stable

38

@PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO AI: remaking history

The company’s CEO, Jessica Powell, short. In my mind, that is an It’s something I dreamt about as a kid.
explains: “Stems are the different
parts of a song, for example, the vocal incredibly human thing.” I went nuts, I took everything apart
or drum stem. We take the full
recording, and we pull it apart.” Stripping back songs like old Beatles recordings, and I was
like, ‘What can I do with this thing?’”
Audioshake’s clients are seeking
the flexibility to re-purpose audio. A popular use of AI within the music Visconti sees AI as just another tool
“In advertising, the car is going
around the bend and they want to industry is to enhance old recordings available to a music producer and,
increase the energy of the bass, or in
a movie, Angelina Jolie walks on by removing noise and artefacts, having grown up in music studios,
screen, and they [turn] down the
a cappella on the Rolling Stones’ often present since the day they were he’s seen them all. His father is the
song to make sure the audience is
focused on what she’s saying. You captured. In May 1972, singer Mary legendary music producer Tony
need the parts for all that.”
Hopkin performed at London’s Royal Visconti, who asked Morgan to
Audioshake has produced an
industry leading AI, winning Sony’s Festival Hall and a venue engineer sprinkle the technical stardust for the
“Demixing challenge” by beating
research institutions, private captured her sublime performance. soundtrack of Moonage Daydream, a
companies and researchers from
Facebook and TikTok. To win, By 2005, the technical quality of the new film about David Bowie. “The
Audioshake’s AI produced a vocal
stem that was a full decibel higher recording needed some assistance, as director used a ton of found footage
than any other competing team.
“When we started this, we thought Mary’s son Morgan Visconti explains. and one clip is of Bowie playing
our customers were going to be from
old recordings, where no parts “I think it was probably done hastily; “Rock ’n’ Roll With Me” and the mix
(stems) were made. However, it’s not
uncommon for people to not have I think it was quarter-inch tape. The isn’t great. Like Festival Hall, this was
their stems and there can be a bunch
of reasons for that,” she said. “We had noise flow is heavy, and it gets worse recorded straight to mono. I was able
a customer come to us, one of the
biggest producers in the world, and as you got towards the end of the gig; to provide separated tracks of vocals,
their hard drive crashed and lost a
couple albums’ worth of stems.” there’s more noise than signal.” drums, keyboards and bass and Tony

Powell is also clear on the key Visconti is a musician and was able to remix the song for the
component required for AI success:
human experts. “Certain kinds of producer with a passion for film.” Moonage Daydream went on
recordings need different things.
What time period is it from? What technology. “I was chatting with my general release on 16 September.
genre is it? That requires a level of
human curation in terms of deciding mom about noise removal and Experimental tech
what you’re doing, deciding the suggested she let me have a whack at
places where your AI is still falling
it, and it was stunning. Just to hear it AI remains an experimental

without the noise, it felt like a refresh, technology, even for the largest

like you cleaned

your ears out to We experiment with the cutting

hear the nuances.
She was very

pleased with it”. edge of technology and try to find
Once again,

experimentation interesting areas to apply it to
and passion have

honed Visconti’s

skills after having

a lightbulb

moment with iZotope’s mastering tech companies. Emil Wallner is

suite (izotope.com). “This feature, part of Google’s Arts & Culture lab.

music rebalance, was just an eye “We experiment with the cutting

opener, or an ear opener,” said BELOW Audioshake edge of technology and try to find

Visconti. “The ability to go into a separates music interesting areas to apply it to,”

mixed track and make stems for bass, tracks into their he said. “Sometimes it doesn’t

vocals, drums, guitars and keyboards. component parts work and we don’t publish things,

Image: Credit: UxxxxxxxxxLondon

39

AI: remaking history @PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO

What’s clear in AI is that the ‘A’ ABOVE Google AI Ridding AI of Image: Monochrome photographs held by the Austrian National Library, re-colourised by Google Arts & Culture labs and the Belvedere, Vienna.
is the computer and the ‘I’ is has added colour harmful bias
a human to the work of
Gustav Klimt The UK’s Arts and Humanities
Research Council (AHRC) has launched
sometimes we have interesting of painstaking research took the Enabling a Responsible AI
results and we share them.” Wallner’s team another six months Ecosystem programme to challenge
to convert into usable machine some of the ethical questions posed by
Recently the lab has experimented data. “We would just enable it to AI. Samantha McGregor, head of AI
on the works of the world-renowned add a few pixels and a few motifs and design at AHRC, explained why the
artist, Gustav Klimt. “We go to a lot of that we knew the colours of. We work is important. “AI presents ethical
museums, to digitise collections so add pixels in the machine learning challenges and biases which differ
anyone can access them online. At the model, and from there, it could depending on factors, from the data
Belvedere Museum in Vienna, the colourise the entire painting.” they’re trained on, to the team
topic to start working with these developing them, to the settings they
Faculty Paintings came up.” Wallner is clear that this are applied in and who is using them,”
extraordinary project is not a she said. “The programme has been
Klimt’s controversial Faculty restoration, but a re-colourisation designed to ensure that the
Paintings, Philosophy, Medicine and owing to the lack of detail in the development, deployment and
Jurisprudence, were destroyed by fire monochrome photos. “One area application of AI is responsible,
in 1945 and could only be viewed via would be to re-create the accountable, and ethical by default.”
a handful of old monochromatic pointillism,” he said. “He used a lot
photos. To give Google’s AI some of gold which you can’t really see, Matthew Guzdial, assistant
colour training data, Dr Franz Smola, so you need to somehow augment professor at the University of Alberta,
curator at the Belvedere Museum and that in a 3D environment to capture urges caution about the bias present in
Klimt expert, stepped in. “Franz the impression of the metallic AI systems. “AI models are trained on
looked at what all the critics said elements in those paintings”. data that capture the biases of the
about these paintings,” said Wallner. current moment, then replicate those
What’s clear in AI is that the “A” is biases at scale. Not only harmful issues
Dr Smola scoured written records the computer and the “I” is a human, like racism and sexism, but biases in
and gathered paintings by similar and together they’re capable of terms of composition, uses of colour
period artists to reference their creating beautiful things. and textures, and so on. Ensuring that
palettes and paint types. His months this doesn’t make it difficult to progress
past these biases is an open problem.”

George King from the Ada Lovelace
Institute believes long-standing ethics
practices may need to change. “AI to
examine human history raises exciting
opportunities that researchers must
learn to manage,” he said.

“In most corporate and academic
institutions, research ethics
committees (RECs) are insufficient for
the ethical challenges presented by AI
research, particularly for uses to
examine human history. REC reviews
are done before research, but the risks
involved in AI research may only
become apparent later in the research
cycle,” he explained. “Other risks can
relate to engaging in extractive
research practices in relation to
indigenous communities, or unethical
labour practices for third-party data
labellers who clean the data to power
AI systems. If AI research is to be done
safely, risks like these must be
addressed and accounted for.”

40

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42

@PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Google apps secrets

art of what’s great
about Google Docs is
its familiarity. It looks
and feels so similar
to Microsoft Office,
LibreOffice and other
offline word processors
that you can jump

Pin and start working
with very little culture
shock. Similarly, Google Sheets looks
enough like Excel that you can skip
over any sort of training and start
being productive right away.
However, if you think of Google’s
apps merely as free alternatives to the
traditional desktop office suite, you’ll
miss out on some unique features,
many of which take advantage of the
online model. Here are some of our
favourite features and tricks that will
help you get the best from Google
Docs and Sheets.

PAGELESS VIEW ABOVE Google were talking to a virtual secretary. DYOOUYROUDROCRUEMSEEANRTCH INSIDE
Docs can pull up However, it only works if you’re using
When word processors first relevant web links Docs through Chrome, not any other Rather than switching back and forth
became mainstream in the 1980s, in a sidebar browser, even if that browser is between Docs and any web pages you
it was a fair assumption that most Chromium-based. You can activate need to refer to, you can access a lot
things you typed would end up it by pressing Ctrl+Shift+S, or by of the research you might need inside
being printed out for sharing and picking it from the Tools menu. Docs itself.
consumption. That’s certainly not
true any more – so there’s no need The translator doesn’t just First, make sure you’re not in
for many documents to be divided transcribe spoken words; it can the pageless view; then click the
into pages. handle punctuation, too, with full square speech bubble icon at the
stop, comma, exclamation mark, bottom of the screen (when you
To remove the virtual page breaks, question mark, new line and new hover over it, an “Explore” label
open the File menu, click Page setup paragraph all included in the range of will appear). Google Docs will
and switch to Pageless mode. Your commands it understands. When examine your document and pull
page breaks will disappear, as will you’ve finished writing, you can edit up relevant web links in a tabbed
the page edges, giving your text room using your voice, too, using clear sidebar that also includes options
to breathe at the centre of the screen. commands such as “select paragraph”, for Images (pulled from the web)
You can also change the background “select word”, “copy”, “paste”, “delete and Drive (which contains any
colour to something other than white last word”, “insert page break” and so related documents in your Google
if you find that too glaring, or if on. You’ll find a full list of available Drive storage).
you’re working at night and want to commands in Google’s help pages at
reduce your blue light exposure. pcpro.link/338voice. If the initial selection doesn’t
satisfy your needs, use the search
TALK, DON’T TYPE BELOW Save TYPE LESS box at the top of the sidebar to look
typing the same for other relevant content.
Google Docs has a built-in thing over and over Voice typing is a great time
voice-to-text processor, allowing you with substitutions saver, but if you prefer to keep your QUICKLY FORMAT TEXT
to dictate your documents as if you hands on the keys you can work more
efficiently by setting up automatic You no doubt know that Ctrl+B
substitution, to save retyping (bold), Ctrl+I (italic) and other
common phrases again and again. conventional shortcuts work in
For example, if you sign off every Google Docs just as in Word. You can
document with your email address, also use Shift+Ctrl+comma and
you could set up Docs so you only Shift+Control+full stop to make
need to type “my@” to insert your selected text incrementally smaller
complete address. and larger, saving you a trip to the
toolbar. Ctrl+comma and Ctrl+period
To set up automatic substitution, alone invoke subscript and
click Tools followed by Preferences superscript respectively.
and switch to the Substitutions tab.
Type your shortcode (my@ in our You can use similar shortcuts to
example) into the empty box at the reorganise text on the page. For
top of the left column, then put the example, you can select a section of
full text in the corresponding box in text, then use Shift+Alt+up arrow
the opposite column and click OK. to move it above the preceding
Because this is set in the application’s paragraph, or Shift+Alt+down arrow
Preferences rather than the to move it beneath the one below.
document itself, your new shortcode You’ll find a full list of keyboard
will work across all of your shortcuts at pcpro.link/338format –
documents, new and old. but be warned, it’s long.

43

ADD AND EDIT IMAGES ABOVE Upload rectangular Bookmark icon The link text is optional: if you leave it
and edit images to copy a direct link to that out, the URL will be shown in the cell.
Select Insert | Image from the without leaving location. You can send this
Google Docs menu and you’ll see Google Docs link to anyone, as long as COLLATE DATA FROM MULTIPLE SHEETS
options for uploading a new image, they have access rights to the
selecting one from Google Drive or BELOW Bookmarks document. You can grant You can manually copy and paste
using a picture in your Google Photos can draw attention these by clicking the Share data between Sheets documents, but if
library. If you choose Google Drive or to a specific part of button at the top of the you want to copy a whole sheet from
Google Photos, your online Drive and a document screen and assigning rights to one document to another, you can do
Photos storage will be opened in the individual people, or making so in a few clicks. At the bottom of
sidebar; click the image (or images) the document available to your Google Sheets document you’ll
you want to use, then click Insert. anyone with the link. see a tab for each sheet it contains;
click the drop-down arrow on any tab,
Once the picture is on the page, you INSERT AN IMAGE then select “Copy to” from the menu
can perform basic formatting and that appears. Select “Existing
editing functions without needing to If you want to brand a spreadsheet” and a file selector will
open up an external image editor. spreadsheet with a company appear; you can now pick another
Click the image to make handles logo, include your signature at the document to copy the sheet into.
appear; if you drag from any corner, bottom of the page or simply decorate
the image will retain its original it with pictures of your cat, you can IAMNPOOTRHTERLISVPERDEAATDASFHREOEMT
aspect ratio, while dragging from an easily incorporate an image hosted
edge lets you squeeze or stretch it. The elsewhere online with the formula: It’s easy to collect sheets together as
uppermost handle has a stick, with outlined above, but any copies you
which you can rotate the picture. =IMAGE("URL", mode) make aren’t linked to the original data;
if you update the source document,
When an image is selected, you’ll Note that the URL needs to be in the copied version doesn’t change.
also notice that a new button – Image quotation marks. The mode variable
options – appears on the toolbar. tells Sheets how to size and scale the If you want your data to remain
Click this to set text wrapping options, image. If we wanted to include a photo current in both documents, instead
change the image colour (to match at example.com/pic.jpg, we could use: use the IMPORTRANGE function,
your document theme or a corporate which draws in live data from a
or club colour scheme, perhaps), and =IMAGE("http://www.example.com/pic.jpg") separate document. The formula is:
change its transparency, brightness
and contrast. Right-click on an image, This defaults to mode 1, which shrinks =IMPORTRANGE("spreadsheet_url","range")
and you can add descriptive alt text, the image to fit within the cell while
or crop the picture. retaining its original proportions. The spreadsheet URL variable is just
Specifying mode two will stretch the the address of the source spreadsheet
On a related note, there’s an easy image to fill the cell, like this: in the browser, excluding the “/edit”
trick you can use to extract images on the end, and everything that
from a Google Doc: open the File =IMAGE("http://www.example.com/pic.jpg", appears after it. The range specifies
menu, then select the Download 2) the cells we want to include, such as
submenu and click "Web page (.html, A1:B4. Again, you’ll need the quotation
zipped)". A ZIP file will then be Mode 3 leaves the image at its original marks. If your source document has
downloaded to your computer, inside size, but hides any parts that extend multiple sheets, you can specify a
which you’ll find a folder named beyond the edges of the cell, while particular sheet by writing its name in
“images” containing the images mode 4 allows you to specify a custom front of the cell reference followed by
embedded within the document. height and width in pixels: an exclamation mark, just as in Excel.
For example, if we wanted to import
LINK TO A SPECIFIC LOCATION =IMAGE("http://www.example.com/pic.jpg", those cells from Sheet 2, we’d enter
4, 480, 640) the range as “sheet2!A1:B4”.
When a colleague first opens a
document that you’ve shared with INSERT A LINK When you first enter a formula
them, their view will start at the top. such as this you may see an error,
If you want to draw their attention to Inserting a hyperlink is a warning that you need to link the
a specific part, you can create a similarly simple exercise, with a two sheets. Click the button to allow
bookmark and share that instead. formula that allows you to specify this and a live view of the source data
both the URL and the hyperlinked text will be imported into your main
To do so, position your cursor that should appear in the cell. spreadsheet, running down and right
where you want them to start reading, from the selected cell. Any changes
then click Insert | Bookmark. A small =HYPERLINK("https://history.gg/", "The you make to the original cells will be
tab icon now appears in the margin; history of Guernsey") immediately reflected in the second
click this to expand it, then click the spreadsheet. (Note that the reverse is
not true: if you overwrite any of the
linked cells in the destination sheet,
the whole block will be blanked out
and you’ll see an error message.)

CREATE DROP-DOWN LISTS

If you’re using Sheets to design a
form, you may want to make sure that
any data entered conforms to a
limited, pre-defined range. You can
do this using Sheets’ data validation
function, which lets you embed a
drop-down list within a cell.

44

@PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Google apps secrets

To use it, click in the cell where the normally choose whether to make it TOP Sheets’ data multiple menus to get to a blank
list should appear, open the Data read-only or to allow recipients to edit validation lets you page: if you’re already logged into
menu and select “Data validation”. the content. With Sheets there’s a embed a drop- your Google Account, just open a
Change the Criteria drop-down to third way: you can broadly permit down list in a cell new browser window and visit
“List of items”, then type the entries editing, but prevent others from ABOVE You can doc.new (for a new word-processing
for your list in the box to the right. changing the contents of specific create visible document) or sheet.new (for a
Click Save; a down-pointing arrow cells, unless they’ve been specifically colour thresholds new spreadsheet).
will now appear at the end of the cell, authorised to do so. for your data
which you can click to open the list. FIND HIDDEN FUNCTIONS
To do this, select the range you LEFT Sparklines let
You can create other list types want to lock, then right-click on the you display tiny If you’re looking for a
just as easily. For example, if you selection, select “View more cell graphs inside a specific feature but can’t remember
want to offer values between 1 and actions” from the context menu, then single cell where it is, hold down Alt and press /,
10, change Criteria to Number, and click “Protect range” on the fly-out. then start typing a few letters from
specify the range. Sheets can also Enter a description for the range, the function name. Matching options
handle dates, tickboxes and strings then click “Change permissions”. will drop down from the menu bar,
of text that either do or don’t contain You can now either allow specific and the selection will be filtered as
specific words. people to edit, or show a warning you carry on typing. So, if you can’t
when someone tries to make an remember where Conditional
CREATE SMARTER HEATMAPS amendment. In the latter case, they Formatting is found in Sheets (it’s
can go ahead and make the change if in the Format menu), press Alt+/,
You doubtless know how they click OK, but they can’t claim type “cond” – and there it is, at the
conditional formatting uses colour to they weren’t warned. top of the list.
make data easy to understand at a
glance. What you may not know is GET GOING QUICKLY SHARE A PDF
that you can customise the parameters
to create visible colour thresholds. To When you’re setting to work You can turn any Google
do this, select the range of cells on a new document or spreadsheet, document or spreadsheet into a
containing your data, then open the there’s no need to step through PDF in seconds: just open the File
Format menu and select Conditional menu, then select Download | PDF
formatting. Switch to the Colour scale document. An even quicker way is to
tab on the overlay that appears, and click in the address bar, copy the URL
choose a colour scheme by clicking and swap the “edit#” at the end for
the bars beneath Preview. You can “export?format=pdf”. You can then
now use the Minpoint, Midpoint and share this URL with a correspondent;
Maxpoint options to refine when each when they click it, they’ll be
colour kicks in. Click Done to apply prompted to view or save a freshly
the colours to your data. generated PDF, rather than the
original editable document. Note
USE SPARKLINES that they’ll need access to the
original document for this to work,
Sparklines are tiny graphs that so make sure you’ve authorised
display inside a single cell, giving an them as a viewer or editor, or made
instant visualisation of a series of data. the file accessible to anyone who
You can create these in Google Sheets has the link.
using the SPARKLINE function, with
this syntax: CREATE ONE-CLICK TEMPLATES

=SPARKLINE(reference,{options as an You can use a similar
technique to create instant templates
array}) for new documents. Copy the URL of
an existing file, but this time replace
The “reference” is the range of cells “edit#” with “copy”. Now, when
you want the graph to depict, such as anyone accesses that URL, they’ll be
A1:A4. The appearance of your prompted to create a new copy in their
sparklines can be configured by own workspace, which they can go on
adding pairs of arguments – the first to edit. Again, remember that
being the name of property you whoever you share the link with will
want to configure, and the second need access to the original (whether
containing the value you want to set explicitly through being named, or
it to. For example: implicitly because it’s available to all).

=SPARKLINE(A1:A4,{"charttype", "bar"; ROLL BACK YOUR CHANGES

"color1", "red"; "color2", "blue"}) If you go too far in an edit – or
if someone else makes a mess of your
There are four chart types to choose work – you can always roll back. Open
from: bar, column, line and “winloss”, the File menu and select Version
which shows a simple representation history; you can then browse the
of whether successive values are various editions of your file in the
positive or negative. You’ll find full sidebar, in each of which new changes
details of the various applicable will be highlighted. Hovering over a
options at pcpro.link/338spark. change reveals who made it; you can
revert the entire document to any
PREVENT EDITING IN SELECTED CELLS previous state by simply clicking the
“Restore this version” button.
When you share a document
from one of the Google apps, you can

45

SYTORUERAMDALINTAE
STRUGGLING WITH AN UNDERSIZED SSD?
DARIEN GRAHAM-SMITH EXPLAINS HOW TO
MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR PRECIOUS DISK SPACE

Modern laptops are amazing ABOVE Windows' weighed in at 4.56GB and 2.48GB was first released in 2003, and the
things, with ultra-slim Disk Clean-up tool respectively, which is an amount of fact that it’s still around today
designs, bright screens reveals unwanted space that’s well worth reclaiming. reflects how useful it is.
and powerful processors. system files After deleting these you won’t be able
Storage, however, tends to remove the updates or roll back to To use the tool, simply download
to be a sticking point. an earlier version of Windows, but the installer from windirstat.net,
To keep the price down, entry- when did you last do that anyway? run it then launch the program.
level computers often have a small When it opens, a drive selection
SSD with a capacity of only 256GB Track down outsized dialog will appear; the default option
or even 128GB, much of which is files and folders is to scan all drives, but you can
instantly eaten up by the operating narrow its search to a particular
system and core applications. The Windows clean-up tool is great disk or folder if you wish. Once you
That’s fine if you just want to for safely clearing out old system files hit OK, the program will spend a
browse the web and edit the odd – something it would be dangerous to minute or two scanning every file and
Word document, but when it comes attempt without its guidance. folder within the selected area, then
to playing games, editing movies or However, it mostly ignores files present a (rather garish) three-pane
otherwise taking advantage of your you’ve downloaded or created view of your drive.
PC’s potential, space can quickly yourself. To track those down, I
become tight. Here’s our advice on always recommend a third-party The upper-left pane shows a
stretching your storage to get the tool named WinDirStat (short for familiar tree view of your hard disk,
best from your computer. Windows Directory Statistics). with collapsible folders and
Although it doesn’t have quite as subfolders. Next to the name of each
Use the built-in long a history as Disk Clean-up, it entry you can see what proportion of
clean-up tool used space is taken up by each item,
along with information about the
Let’s start with a simple tool that’s precise size in gigabytes and how
been built into every release of many items each folder contains.
Microsoft’s OS since Windows 98. To
open it, hit the Windows key and Below it, a graphical view shows
enter “Disk Clean-up”; a window will all the individual files on your disk,
open detailing various categories of with each one represented by a
file, with an estimate of how much coloured block. The size of the block
space each type is taking up. All of reflects its relative size on the disk,
these can be safely deleted by ticking while the colour indicates its filetype,
their boxes and hitting the OK button corresponding to the colour key in
at the bottom of the window. the upper-right-hand pane. If you
click on a folder or file in the tree
Hit the “Clean up system files” view it will be highlighted in the
button at the bottom of the window graphical view; conversely, clicking
and some additional categories will on a block will select that file in
appear, including files left over from the tree view, so you can see its
upgrading and updating Windows. details and whereabouts in the file
These can be quite substantial – on my system it’s located.
personal laptop those categories
These linked views can instantly
expose huge downloads or data files

46

@PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Streamline your data

that might have been forgotten Native compression LEFT WinDirStat tracks down files you’ve
about; they might also reveal bloated downloaded or created yourself
folders containing hundreds or Not everyone knows that Windows
thousands of innocuous-looking files comes with built-in data compression. again on access, so you never have to
that add up to a real drain on your I’m not talking about the ability to think about or even be aware of the
storage. You can delete unwanted create Zip files – though that can be compression process.
files directly from within WinDirStat useful – but a fully transparent
using the right-click context menu. compression layer, which One reason this system isn’t better
Before you do so, you might wish to automatically crunches down files known is that it’s disabled by default,
look into the possibility of... as they’re being written to disk, and you might wonder why that is.
and automatically expands them The simple answer is that while the
compression and decompression
processes are effectively invisible,
they still make extra work for the CPU
every time a file is read from or
written to disk, and this could affect
the overall responsiveness of your
system. Don’t worry too much about
this, though: the Lempel-Ziv
compression algorithm used by
Windows was selected precisely
because it has a light impact on
performance, even though this means
it tends to achieve lesser space savings
than other compression types.

You can compress any file or folder
on an NTFS volume in just a few clicks.
First, right-click on it and select
Properties; then, in the window that
opens, click the Advanced button to
access advanced attributes. You can

47

now tick the box for “Compress ABOVE Windows window will pop up; select “Apply clicking on the system tray icon, then
contents to save disk space”, then can compress your changes to drive C:\, subfolders and clicking the cog icon and selecting
click OK to close the two windows. files as they’re files”, hit OK again and the process Settings from the drop-down menu.
written to disk will begin. In the window that opens, switch to
Compressed files appear in the Settings tab and check that “Files
Explorer with two blue arrows over BELOW On-demand Bear in mind that compressing the on demand” is ticked. To configure
the corner of their usual icon. The downloads from whole drive may have a noticeable offline access for specific items,
actual space saving will vary from file cloud services will impact on performance, as all of your browse to your OneDrive folder in
to file; big text files may well be save local disk space applications and Windows system Explorer, right-click on any file and
reduced to a fraction of their original files will need to be decompressed select “Always keep on this device”.
size, while JPEG images won’t shrink each time they’re accessed.
by much at all. If you’re curious you Dropbox works the opposite
can check by opening the Properties Switch to on-demand way round to Google Drive and
window for any item and comparing downloads OneDrive: it defaults to making all
the “Size” value to the (hopefully files offline, except for those you
much smaller) “Size on disk”. Most of us these days are signed up to mark for on-demand access. To do
a cloud syncing service, such as this, simply right-click on an item
For the maximum possible Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive or in your Dropbox folder and select
space-saving you can compress an Dropbox. If on-demand downloading “Make online-only”.
entire drive. To do this, right-click on is enabled, the files in your cloud
it in Explorer, then select Properties, repository will appear in the Windows Move large folders onto a
and in the window that opens tick Explorer like normal files, but they different volume
“Compress this drive to save space”. won’t take up any local space – items
When you click OK, a confirmation will only be downloaded at the point By default, Windows puts all your
where you open them. personal and application folders on
the main C: drive – but they don’t have
The catch with doing it this way is to stay there. You can move personal
that large files can be slow to access, folders such as Documents, Music,
since you need to wait for them to Pictures and so forth onto a different
download in their entirety before you drive by right-clicking on each one in
can do anything with them. And if Explorer and opening its Properties
you’re offline then you can’t get at window; then, under the Location tab,
your remote files at all, so if there’s click “Move...” and select a new
anything you need critical access to, location on your desired drive.
it’s a good idea to exclude it from
on-demand downloading, and mark it This isn’t just for systems with two
to be always available offline. internal hard disks. You can move
personal folders onto external storage,
In Google Drive you can check that or even to network locations, though
on-demand downloading is enabled in both cases you’ll have to be
by opening the Preferences window, prepared for comparatively slow
selecting the Google Drive tab and access, and you may run into errors if
ensuring “Stream files” is selected. To the external drive is unplugged or the
make specific files and folders available remote location isn’t available. You
offline, right-click on them in Explorer can also move cloud storage folders,
and select “Available offline”. such as those created by Google Drive
and OneDrive, onto secondary
In OneDrive, the option for
on-demand downloading is found by

48

@PCPRO FACEBOOK.COM/PCPRO Streamline your data

HIGH-SPEED EXTERNAL STORAGE

If you really can’t fit everything you need onto your the speed of an internal
SSD, it’s time to consider external storage. Not all
drives are alike, though. USB flash drives are SSD. For this, the computer
appealingly cheap and compact, but they’re very
slow compared to the SSDs you’ll find in today’s and drive need to support
laptops. The last time we tested low-cost flash
drives, we saw sequential read speeds of up to either the latest USB4
210MB/sec: that might be acceptable for everyday
data storage, but the best internal SSDs deliver standard, or the awkwardly
upwards of 5GB/sec (see issue 324, p81).
named USB 3.2 Gen 2x2
USB-attached mechanical drives are even more
affordable, with 1TB models available for under revision. To reduce the
£30, but their performance is often worse than a
flash drive, especially if you want to read and write confusion, such products
lots of files at once. We measured a multithreaded
read rate of just 500KB/sec from a typical drive. are often explicitly labelled

For most people, therefore, we’d recommend “20Gbits/sec”.
an external SSD. These aren’t as dinky or cheap as
a flash drive – you might pay £100 for a 1TB model. USB-C ports may also
However, they’re far faster than the alternatives.
As a minimum, look for a drive that supports USB be compatible with
3.0, also known as USB 3.2 Gen 1: this supports
transfer speeds of 5Gbits/sec, which in practice Thunderbolt, which further
means files can be read and written at around
500MB/sec. Drives with USB 3.2 Gen 2 are better boosts transfer speeds to a
still, doubling the maximum transfer speed to
10Gbits/sec, but you’ll need to check whether huge 40Gbits/sec – when
your host PC supports this standard.
used with a compatible
The fastest USB connections can go higher still,
ABOVE Your personal folders don’t have at up to 20Gbits/sec, which is starting to approach drive, of course. The newest

to stay on the main C: drive standards increase the

volumes. Recent versions of Google bandwidth cap to 40Gbits/sec
Drive obscure this by creating a
virtual drive for your cloud files, but over USB and 80Gbits/sec
in the Preferences page of the Drive
app you can switch the streaming with Thunderbolt, but it will
location from “Drive letter” to
“Folder” and then choose any location probably be a few years ABOVE An external
you like for it.
before those connectors are USB drive can boost
You’ll note that there’s no way to
move the entire Users folder. This commonplace on mainstream your storage options
change is officially unsupported;
while it’s technically possible to consumer hardware.
achieve it by hacking the Registry,
Microsoft has stated that – for reasons Whatever drive you go for, remember that the
of data safety – new versions of
Windows won’t install on a system speed of the connection only tells you the
that doesn’t have the expected
folder structure. maximum rate at which data can be transferred.

You can, however, move your Check our reviews and benchmarks to find out
application files. For Store apps this
couldn’t be easier: just open the “Apps how an external drive will actually perform.
& features” page in the Settings app,
find the app you want to move, click ABOVE Windows 11 Command Prompt so that the original slowly, which could have a noticeable
the menu icon and select “Move”. You cleans up temp files location redirects to the new one. If effect on the overall feel of your PC.
can also pick which drive you want via Storage Sense you moved a folder called “BigApp”
new Store apps (and other content) to out of the main Program Files folder Configure Storage Sense
be downloaded to in the future; these and into a new folder on a different
options are also in the Settings app, drive, the command-line syntax The above measures should recover a
under System | Storage | Advanced would be: decent amount of disk space; the next
storage settings. question is how to ensure you won’t
BELOW It’s usually mklink "D:\Moved App Folders\BigApp" run out again in six weeks’ time. The
However, it’s probably not Store safe to move folders Storage Sense tool built into Windows
apps that are taking up the lion’s share in Program Files to "C:\Program Files\BigApp" 11 might help here: you’ll find it inside
of space on your drive – it’s more a different drive the Settings app, again under System |
likely to be traditional applications in Alternatively, you can use a free Storage. You can click a switch to turn
your Program Files folder (or Program tool called FreeMove (pcpro.link/​ it on, or click the arrow next to the
Files x86 for 32-bit applications). 338freemove), which takes care of switch (or anywhere else in the panel)
Moving the Program Files directory moving folders and creating a link to bring up a page of options.
itself can cause problems, but it’s in one step via a simple graphical
normally safe to move the individual interface. Remember, though, As you’ll see, there’s not an awful
app folders within this folder onto a that depending on how fast the lot to Storage Sense: its basic function
different drive, and then use the destination is, moving applications is simply to clean up temporary files
mklink command from an elevated off your main SSD will probably created and left behind by apps.
cause them to load and run more You can also turn on “Automatic
User content cleanup”, which
automatically purges items from the
Recycle Bin and Downloads folders
after they’ve been left there for
customisable periods, ranging
between one and 60 days.

While these options should cut
down on the cruft, you might be
cautious of enabling them, just in case
you later realise you still need a
deleted file or an old download.
Similarly, you can also set “always
available” OneDrive files to revert to
online-only if you don’t open them
for a configurable period of time – but
this does rather undermine the whole
point of keeping a local copy.

49

ReviewsThe biggest, best, most exciting products in technology – reviewed and rated fpoarsaLtporaoerkvtiiniecgwul?ar
Asus Zenbook 17 pVcispirtoo.ulirnkin/dinexdeaxt
Fold OLED

It’s a brilliant idea that has been cleverly executed,
yet somehow it still misses the spot

SCORE the UK by December at the latest, ABOVE In laptop guise. I sit here typing as if it was a
albeit for a startling £3,300. Lenovo
PRICE £2,750 (£3,300 inc VAT) from has so far only provided a price and mode, the Zenbook 17 desktop PC thanks to a basic flip-out
asus.com/uk (available in Q4 2002) availability for the X1 Fold in the USA.
Fold has a 1in thick, stand that forms part of the leather
So, what exactly is the Zenbook 17
Fold? You could say it’s a 17in tablet 1980s-style base cover. More on that later. The stand
that folds in the middle, which is true.
Or you could describe it as a bendable means you can angle the 17in OLED
laptop with a detachable keyboard.
Or an all-in-one computer with a screen from around 60 to 80 degrees,
bendable display. At a real push, you
Before I go any deeper into this might decide that it’s a bendable so not a huge amount of range but
review, I must make it e-reader that just happens to run
absolutely clear that I applaud Windows (I’ll come on to why that enough. Or you could arrange the
Asus for releasing the Zenbook 17 really isn’t the case).
Fold. Asus isn’t alone in believing Zenbook with the screen bent in half
there to be a future in folding laptops, Cynics, on the other hand, might
with Lenovo also showcasing the X1 argue that it’s simply a technology “What exactly is the along the vertical and the
Fold (see overleaf), but the Zenbook looking for a problem to solve, and
has one major factor in its favour: that that the end result is something not keyboard below it. I’m
we know it will actually go on sale in wholly successful in any of those
categories. There’s an element of truth Zenbook 17 Fold? Cynics just not sure why you
in that, for sure, but let me go through might argue that it’s simply would ever want to.
the scenarios one by one to explain a technology looking for a
why it shouldn’t be summarily Instead, I found the
dismissed as a gimmick. best position to be with

One for all problem to solve” the screen tilted at

BENCHMARKS To start this review, I have put the around 70 degrees with
Zenbook 17 Fold into its all-in-one
PCMark 10 the keyboard a couple of centimetres

5,772 away. And you know what – it’s

0 2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000 great. If I was sitting in a hotel room

3DMark Time Spy or a business class seat in a plane, this
1,272
would be 90% as good as a “real”
0 5,000
10,000 15,000 20,000 all-in-one PC due to the sheer

expanse of screen in front of me.

BATTERY LIFE Office use Video rundown In particular, the 2,560 x 1,920

8hrs 49mins panel gives a high 185ppi that means I
10hrs 20mins
would be quite happy to work on a
0 5 10 15 20
detailed spreadsheet or place two

windows side by side. Here Windows

50