PC Pro Magazine

I recently visited Wimbledon. Not to watch tennis, sadly, but for the next best thing: to talk technology. This year, the Championships, with support from long-term technology partner IBM, is using generative AI to create live commentary for matches.

It will soon be time to rest your trigger finger. The five-second “skip” button will shortly be disappearing from some YouTube videos, as the Google subsidiary has announced that it will soon be rolling out unskippable 30-second adverts. According to

Microsoft has often made big, expensive bets on almost certainly doomed ideas. From challenging the almighty iPod with the Zune, to trying to muscle Windows Mobile into a market that had been reshaped by Apple and Android, the gambles don’t always pa

For decades, the fields of rocket science and brain surgery have been cited as fields of endeavour that present almost unimaginable levels of complexity. Now we might want to add another tricky job to the list: managing Twitter. Since Elon Musk dropp

Nicole Kobie is PC Pro’s futures editor. The biggest culture shock moving from Canada to the UK was rounds at the pub: it’s beautifully social, but wow does it increase alcohol intake. @njkobie When I first moved to London from Canada, I was surprise

Dick is editorial fellow of PC Pro. Searching his 341 columns at dickpountain-idealog.blogspot.com will reveal only one occurrence of “copper beech”. Email [email protected] “I’m writing this column sitting under a magnificent copper beech tree

Barry Collins is a former editor of PC Pro and the current manager of Premier League champions Newcastle Utd. @bazzacollins I couldn’t do it. My suitcase was packed, I was ready to leave for the airport at ungodly o’clock, but I couldn’t leave her be

Many congratulations on finally publishing a review of affordable phones (see issue 336, p70). Although it’s nice to read about all the high-tech goodies that hundreds of pounds can buy, in my real world, I can only afford something below £200 and a

If anyone should be worried about the emergence of generative AI art it’s Adobe, the company that’s had a stranglehold on computer-generated art for the past couple of decades. Adobe has been dabbling with generative art with Firefly, a beta web serv

16% EXTERNAL MEDIA 26% NAS DRIVES 57% CLOUD 1% PRINTOUTS We asked this question to tie in with our feature on how to best print out photos (see p38), but we’re not wholly surprised that so few people consider printouts the best route. After all, this

Microsoft hasn’t bet the house on AI, but it’s certainly unbuttoning its shirt. AI has given Bing search and the Edge browser a belated reason for being; we’ve seen hints of what’s coming in Microsoft Office; and now Microsoft has unveiled Windows Co

In 2022, the UK’s total financial loss to fraud exceeded £1.2 billion, with more than 2.9 million reported cases. Maybe you’re among the statistics. Anyone who’s responded to a phone call, SMS or social-media post and was then tricked into transferri

We live in a digital age, but photo printing is far from dead. In fact, the market is thriving, with numerous companies such as Shutterfly, Moonpig and Photobox all eager to turn your digital images into glossy, colourful hard copies. A recent report

Networking is one of those magical areas of technology where complex processes are made beautifully simple for the end user. Operations such as downloading a web page or backing up a file to a NAS appliance take just a few clicks or taps. Behind the

Looking for a particular past review? Visit our index at pcpro.link/index SCORE PREVIEW PRICE US only (available early 2024), $3,499 from apple.com According to Apple, the Vision Pro is no mere AR headset: this is a “spatial computer”, the “most adva

SCORE PRICE As reviewed, £4,000 (£4,800 inc VAT) from hp.co.uk Let there be no doubt: the HP Omen 45L is a beast. I just had to carry this 25kg machine from one desk to another, and I’m still catching my breath. Then again, our review model is packed

We run a selection of benchmarks on all the PCs and laptops we test. Where possible, we use a cross-platform test so we can compare Windows and macOS machines, which is where both Geekbench and Cinebench R23 come into play. Both push the CPU to its l

SCORE PRICE £3,667 (£4,400 inc VAT) from chillblast.com Before you shake your head at the £4,400 that Chillblast is charging for this system, take a look at the price of an RTX 4090 graphics card. At the bare minimum this will cost you almost £1,600,

STORE.PCPRO.CO.UK For years, Norton has been synonymous with security. Norton 360 Deluxe is its comprehensive “do it all” suite that continues its fine tradition of offering protection for all your devices (PC, Mac, iOS or Android). And now you can p

SCORE PRICE £749 (£899 inc VAT) from pcspecialist.co.uk/reviews Forget the expense of the HP Omen 45L (see p50) or Chillblast Apex (see p52): the PCSpecialist Topaz Supreme is all about value. That doesn’t mean cheap, it doesn’t mean nasty. It means

SCORE PRICE Reference designs, £217 (£260 inc VAT) from scan.co.uk While Nvidia has released cards with metronomic regularity these past few months, AMD has been quiet: the last graphics card we saw was the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX (see issue 341, p60)

SCORE PRICE Founders Edition, £324 (£389 inc VAT) from store.nvidia.com The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti is without doubt one of the most anticipated graphics card launches of this generation, and now that it’s here, it should be an easy win for Nvidia

SCORE PRICE As reviewed, £1,499 (£1,799 inc VAT) from apple.com/uk It’s easy to dismiss the 15in MacBook Air as a blown-up version of the M2-powered 13in MacBook Air released last year (see issue 336, p50). Indeed, that’s mostly what it is. Yet it al

SCORE PRICE 1TB, £1,500 (£1,800 inc VAT) from lg.com/uk We all remember the iconic moment when Steve Jobs pulled the first MacBook Air from a manilla envelope, and at WWDC 23 Apple doubled down on the theme by declaring the 15in version (see p60) as

SCORE PRICE As tested, £2,983 (£3,579 inc VAT) from dell.co.uk This is the biggest XPS on the block, updated for 2023 with the latest Intel and Nvidia silicon. It’s hefty yet sleek, with slick reflective accents complementing the silver machined alum

SCORE PRICE £1,953 (£2,343 inc VAT) from lenovo.com The Lenovo Yoga Book 9i could start a trend for 2-in-1 laptops. It could also be an expensive gimmick. Incorporating two 13.3in OLED screens in one device, the Yoga Book 9i offers a bevy of differen

SCORE PRICE £300 (£360 inc VAT) from amazon.co.uk Released in 2020, the Anycubic Kobra was a popular 3D printer with a big print volume and a small price. The Kobra 2 upgrades the formula with an improved tool head, new electronics and other mechanic

SCORE PRICE £879 (£1,055 inc VAT) from prusa3d.com The Original Prusa MK4 is the latest version of the popular Prusa open-source 3D printer. Like its predecessors, it promises fast, reliable 3D printing; it also adds several new features that set it

Total value this month £169 NovaPDF is a powerful tool that can create PDF files from any Windows application that supports printing. It equips your PC with a virtual printer driver, which you can then use to create PDFs as if you were printing out a

SCORE PRICE £180 (£217 inc VAT) from amazon.co.uk Buy a mechanical keyboard and there’s every chance that Cherry’s MX switches will be inside. So why not cut to the chase and buy one of the company’s own offerings, especially if you seek sleek busine

SCORE PRICE £1,566 (£1,879 inc VAT) from store.dji.com DJI’s new high-end Mavic 3 Pro drone breaks the mould with a triple-camera array, providing huge flexibility for framing photos and videos. Like the original Mavic 3 it comes in two models: a sta

UM 3.0 SCORE PRICE £67 (£80 inc VAT) from box.co.uk UM 6.0 SCORE PRICE £92 (£110 inc VAT) from box.co.uk UM 9.0 SCORE PRICE £125 (£150 inc VAT) from box.co.uk Cherry is branching out. The German company best known for keyboards has decided the time i

Most students, and most people, have a limited budget to work with. While it’s tempting to splash out on the best-looking laptop from the coolest brand, this isn’t always a practical option – and your budget might be better off spent on getting the r

We set manufacturers a simple brief this month: send us affordable laptops that fulfil the needs of students. As you’ll see, however, the mix of offerings was incredibly diverse. But that makes sense, as there’s no single perfect student laptop. Seco

SCORE PRICE Standard, £17 (£20 inc VAT) per month per user from docusign.co.uk As you might guess from the name, DocuSign is a tool for adding personal signatures to digital documents. That’s a valuable ability in an age when teams are often collabor

SCORE PRICE £275 (£330 inc VAT) from mobvoi.com With so many smartwatches being released at any one time, you may wonder what makes Mobvoi’s latest so special as to deserve a full-page review. The answer is two-fold: the TicWatch Pro 5 marks a debut

SCORE PRICE £416 (£499 inc VAT) from currys.co.uk Acer is serious about the eco credentials of the Vero 514. It’s built using 30% post-consumer recycled (PCR) plastics in the chassis and the frame around the screen, with 50% PCR plastics in the keyca

SCORE PRICE £938 (£1,125 inc VAT) from pcpro.link/347asus This month we wanted to focus on student-ready laptops at budget to mid-range price points, but if you want to see what pushing your budget a little further can get you, you only have to look

SCORE PRICE £749 (£899 inc VAT) from dell.co.uk With its 16in screen and dark green metallic finish, the Inspiron 16 Plus is an imposing laptop, working better as a desktop replacement for coursework-heavy studies than for lugging around college or c

SCORE PRICE £458 (£550 inc VAT) from lenovo.com Most manufacturers opted for Intel-based machines in this month’s Labs, but Lenovo bucked the trend by sending in an AMD-based system. Ryzen processors are popular at the budget end of the market, and i

SCORE PRICE £470 (£565 inc VAT) from microsoft.co.uk The Surface Laptop Go 2 is a great example of how specs don’t always tell the whole story. On paper it might sound underspecced and underpowered, with a small, low-resolution screen. In practice, i

SCORE PRICE £458 (£550 inc VAT) from lenovo.com Looking for a monster laptop with a less-than-monster price tag? Lenovo’s IdeaPad 5i Chromebook 16 could be just what you need. Not only does it have a massive 16in screen, but there’s a speedy 12th-gen

SCORE PRICE £708 (£849 inc VAT) from currys.co.uk There’s a distinct family resemblance between the Acer Aspire Vero AV14-51 and its Chromebook cousin, with both sharing the same basic chassis design, only with a blue finish on the Aspire Vero agains

SCORE PRICE £391 (£469 inc VAT) from currys.co.uk It’s hard to tell from first impressions that the Chromebook Spin 514 is a sub-£500 computer (its RRP is actually £599, but it’s always discounted). Both the lid and the bottom cover are fashioned fro

SCORE PRICE With keyboard, £499 (£599 inc VAT) from microsoft.co.uk Microsoft’s original Surface Go set a new benchmark for how usable a small-screen convertible can be, and the third version doesn’t mess with the successful formula. It still present

SCORE PRICE £417 (£500 inc VAT) from hp.co.uk HP’s Chromebook 11 X2 is effectively HP’s Chrome OS answer to the Microsoft Surface Go, giving you an 11in Chrome OS tablet that transforms into a laptop with the aid of a magnetic keyboard cover. It even

SCORE PRICE £577 (£693 inc VAT) from pcpro.link/347vibe The Asus Chromebook Vibe CX55 Flip is one of a wave of gaming Chromebooks released last year, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore it if you’re buying a laptop for study. In fact, other than

One thing that struck us when researching this Labs was the number of Chromebooks still shipping with only 4GB of RAM. Sure, there are Windows laptops selling with such basic specs, but these are mostly low-budget cheapies, as featured in our article

SCORE PRICE £708 (£849 inc VAT) from laptopoutlet.co.uk The most exciting thing about the MSI Prestige 15 is its impressive spec. Not only do you get a 12th generation Intel Core i7-1280P processor but also Nvidia RTX 3050 graphics. This makes it one

There are many reasons for students – and indeed everyone – to consider a laptop, tablet or convertible with a touchscreen. Combined with a stylus they’re a great way to scribble notes during lectures and meetings, and if you’re recording audio at th

Data backup may not be on an IT administrator’s list of “exciting projects to manage”, but those that fail to do it properly – or even at all – are putting their company’s existence on the line. Data is one business asset that is not expendable, so f

SCORE PRICE One server from £649 exc VAT per year from acronis.com Businesses seeking a complete data protection and security strategy for their workstations, servers, virtualisation hosts and apps will love Acronis’ Cyber Protect. It’s all managed f

SCORE PRICE From £10 exc VAT per month for 100GB from backupeverything.co.uk Backup Everything Cloud Backup Plus (CBP) is affordable for small businesses since costs are based purely on the amount of cloud storage you want. Prices start at £10 per mo

SCORE PRICE From £708 exc VAT per year from barracuda.com SMBs fretting about running an entire data backup strategy can rest easy with Barracuda’s Backup products, which are designed to manage the whole process. These all-in-one solutions look after

SCORE PRICE 2.5TB, £479 exc VAT per year from idrive.com With a track record going back over 15 years, IDrive has been in the cloud backup market longer than most and for good reason. It offers a range of affordable subscription tiers, with the flags

SCORE PRICE £1,737 exc VAT from midwich.com Videoconferencing (VC) continues to enjoy unprecedented growth levels since the pandemic, and Biamp now wants a piece of the action. It makes its play for the small to medium-sized meeting room market with

SCORE PRICE £515 exc VAT from broadbandbuyer.com TP-Link takes a commanding lead in the business wireless AX class wars, with the Omada EAP690E HD being the first AXE11000 access point (AP) to market. Its mighty Wi-Fi 6E unit achieves this admirable

*Backpack included with every print and bundle subscription • The best elements and amenities passed down from the industry leading STM family tree of functional and style laptop bags.• Suspended tech cells & ample storage space.• Pockets, pockets, p

Whether you’re a dedicated software house or a bricks-and-mortar retailer, IT is an essential underpinning of your business. That doesn’t just apply to developers, but to managers, support staff and numerous other roles. The Department for Digital, C

There is an age-old question in photography: “What’s the best camera in the world?” Some might talk about the delights of Canon or Nikon. Others might ponder on the financial ruin that comes from acquiring a serious Leica habit. I have done all of th

If you’ve cast your eyes at the latest financials for AMD and Intel, you’ll have noticed that chip sales have nosedived. There’s no denying that our desktop purchases are fewer than what they were five years ago. Many blame the popularity in laptops,

I hate it when a sensible suggestion gets broken by a stupid situation. Having recommended desktop virtualisation as my personal preferred means of retaining superseded PCs, I found myself hung by Oracle’s petard. To upgrade VirtualBox, one downloads

You can almost hear the buzz of excitement emanating from Microsoft HQ about Windows Copilot. So what’s all the fuss about? And how will it help you? We reveal all. Barry Collins goes behind the scenes at Lenovo’s global HQ in Raleigh, North Carolina

We’re in the middle of the Forth Road Bridge when the automated systems controlling the bus decide they’re unhappy and ask the safety driver to take back control. He does so, without any appreciable change in the handling of the bus – which is to say

I can’t let the public unveiling of the Apple Vision Pro headset go without comment. Of course, proof is in the pudding (or in this case, the putting on). But I’ll stick my neck out now and say this is possibly the most profound change in personal co