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WELCOME PAGE

Welcome!

THIS MONTH, WE’VE got a new-look Shopper for you. We’ve taken stock of the criticisms and advice from all our readers, and come up with something that hopefully addresses all the issues. For starters, we’ve made the magazine cleaner and easier to read. We’ve worked hard to ensure that all the detail we print in graphs and screenshots is bigger and easier to see. That said, we’ve been at great pains not to slice into our word counts and deprive you of meaningful content, so we’ve re-arranged the page carefully, enabling you to enjoy all the same in-depth analysis and expertise. However, we also thought it was time to change the balance of content, so we’ve introduced new columns (see the box below), the new Business Expert section to help you run your own company, and a monthly Top 10. On top of this, we’ve also revamped our in-depth coverage, giving you longer features on topical subjects. To give our reviews more space, we’ve moved our Best Buys to their own dedicated section (see page 66). That way, you can refer back to all the kit we’re still recommending, in one handy place.

We’ve still got all your old favourites, but the columns are now all at the front, except for the ever-brilliant Zygote, which still takes pride of place on the back page. Finally, we’re making a big change to the way we give away free software. In recent years, we’ve been pushed down the route of having to provide online registration for the software we give you. In addition, registration sites are time-limited, which makes old DVDs of limited use. This month, we’ve revamped our download website. Using the unique coupon code provided in our Cover Gift Guide section (which starts on page 74), you can download and register all the software featured in this month’s issue. I hope that you find this system easier and more convenient to use. There’s no guarantee we’ve got everything right, of course. We make the magazine for you, and it’s important that we’re providing the right mix and coverage. Please write in to [email protected] and let me know what you think, and if there’s anything we can do to make Shopper a better read. For now, I hope you enjoy the magazine.

David Ludlow, Editor [email protected]

MEET THE TEAM

QUESTION OF THE MONTH

What’s the worst bit of kit you’ve ever bought? David Ludlow

Tom Morgan

I decided to get a laser-disc player – just a few months before the arrival of DVD

A Sega Dreamcast with a light gun. Last year. Shame it doesn’t work with LCD TVs

Chris Finnamore

Barry de la Rosa

An iPhone 4, which stopped charging after 13 months, with 11 months of my contract still to go

A CD jukebox for £300 – turned out to be for storage, and gave no way of connecting to a PC

Seth Barton Nokia 7600 – I thought I’d get used to the odd shape, but a year later I still couldn’t text on it

Andrew Unsworth

SHOPPER LABS Senior Staff Writer Kat Orphanides [email protected] Senior Staff Writer Barry de la Rosa [email protected] Senior Staff Writer Tom Morgan [email protected] CONTRIBUTORS [email protected] Bill Bagnall, Gareth Beach, Mike Bedford, Matt Chapman, Mel Croucher, Kay Ewbank, Steve Haines, Simon Handby, Gordon Holmes, Robert Jaques, Mike Jennings, Rene Millman, David Neal, Ben Pitt, Julian Prokaza, Nik Rawlinson, Heather Reeves, David Robinson

ADVERTISING Email [email protected] Group Advertising Manager Andrea Mason 020 7907 6662 Account Manager Charlotte Milligan 020 7907 6642 COVER CD/DVD CONTACT Chris Wiles [email protected] SUBSCRIPTIONS Tel 0844 844 0031 Web www.subsinfo.co.uk DVD edition: UK £44.99, Europe £70, Rest of world £90 PHOTOGRAPHY Danny Bird, Jan Cihak, Darren Brooke, Henry Carter, Julian Velasquez

MARKETING Marketing and Editorial Executive Paul Goodhead 020 7907 6393 LICENSING AND SYNDICATION Anj Dosaj-Halai 020 7907 6132 [email protected] MANAGEMENT Tel 020 7907 6000 Group Managing Director Ian Westwood Managing Director John Garewal Group Advertising Director Julian Lloyd-Evans Circulation Director Martin Belson Finance Director Brett Reynolds Group Finance Director Ian Leggett Chief Executive James Tye Chairman Felix Dennis PRINTING Printed by BGP, Bicester, Oxon Distributors Seymour 020 7396 4000 LIABILITY While every care was taken preparing this magazine, the publishers cannot be held responsible for the accuracy of the information or any consequence arising from it. All judgements are based on equipment available to Computer Shopper at the time of review. ‘Value for money’ comments are based on UK prices at time of review. Computer Shopper takes no responsibilty for the content of external websites whose addresses are published in the magazine. COMPUTER SHOPPER INCORPORATES UPGRADE SHOPPER, GAMES SHOPPER, INTERNET SHOPPER, MOBILE SHOPPER, PC SHOPPER, PORTABLE SHOPPER AND SOFTWARE SHOPPER 36,002 (average monthly sales Jan-Dec 2011) A DENNIS PUBLICATION Computer Shopper is published by Dennis Publishing Ltd, 30 Cleveland Street, London W1T 4JD. Company registered in England. All material © Dennis Publishing Limited licensed by Felden 2011, and may not be reproduced in whole or part without the consent of the publishers. ISSN 0955-8578

He’s got a mountain to climb this month, and we’re not just talking about the one situated in Washington, North America

Kat Orphanides

David Neal

| SEPTEMBER 2012

PRODUCTION Production Editor Janey Goulding Art Editor Colin Mackleworth

David Robinson

Gordon Holmes

ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

Editor David Ludlow [email protected] Reviews Editor Chris Finnamore [email protected] Online Editor Seth Barton [email protected] Labs Manager Andrew Unsworth [email protected]

THIS MONTH’S COLUMNS

A no-name belt-drive DJ turntable; it was so light and plasticky, the needle would bounce across your vinyl

The Barcode Battler, a console that let you swipe barcodes – as much fun as a self-service checkout

CONTACT US

Our retired cybercop tells you how to spot a scam and the importance of reporting it to the police Our intrepid technology lover worries about whether his brain can cope with any more technological instructions

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5

Contents Issue 295 September 2012

074

120

098

p86

110

Learn

086

Regulars 008 Letters

Your monthly missives of wit and wisdom

011 Under Development

David Robinson is off to the US to see the sights, but will he be able to tell the missus?

012 Byte Back

David Neal wonders what will happen when his brain gets too full of IT gubbins

013 Cybercop

Features We’ve always suspected that expensive cables weren’t worth it – and now we can prove it! Tom Morgan puts them through a barrage of tests to prove you don’t need to pay more

126 Are you breaking the law?

If you’ve recently clicked ‘I agree’ on some T&Cs, only to find yourself wondering what you just agreed to, then it’s time to get smart. Julian Prokaza lays down the law by explaining what user licence agreements really involve

LAW? If you want to stay on the right side of the law, you’ll need to read the small print on your computer software. Julian Prokaza has a licence to explain

C

This month, Mel Croucher will mostly be emailing Theresa May

lick the ‘buy’ button on almost any website that sells digital content such as MP3s or eBooks and you may think you’re simply providing money in return for goods, just like transactions that have taken place since the dawn of commerce. In reality, however, nothing could be further from the truth. Most digital content sold online isn’t actually sold at all, but licensed to you for use only in the ways prescribed by its owners and retailers. While this may make little difference when listening to an MP3 or reading an eBook, it has serious implications should you wish to do anything else, such as move it to another device, and things become even more complex if you want to sell or give the content to someone else. This model isn’t limited to digital downloads; software sold on discs and CDs and DVDs are governed by a myriad of confusing rules and regulations on what you can and can’t do with them. Many of these regulations are laid out in a document called the End User Licence Agreement, or EULA. These can run to thousands of words, and they have serious implications for the notion of content ownership. Here we’ll be looking at the legal position of such agreements, and what rights you have in regards to them.

016 Top 10

Zygote gets ready for the end of the world

News 018 Newsfile

Our round-up of the latest technological events

6

agreement only gives you some rights to use the features included in the software edition you licensed.” Since software is IP licensed for consumer use, this disclaimer is called the End User Licence Agreement. There can’t be a single computer user who hasn’t encountered an EULA at some point, but few are likely to have ever read one. EULAs used to be (and some still are) printed on paper inside a retail box, but it’s long since been the norm to present a EULA in the early stages of a software installation. In theory, a EULA should be read before proceeding with the installation, since installing the software is only possible by accepting the EULA and forming a contract with the licensor. In practice, the prospect of ploughing through a few thousand words of dense legalese (a typical EULA can be as long as this feature) in a dialog box that shows just a dozen lines at a time is scant temptation for most, which is why the ‘I agree’ button usually gets clicked without a second thought.

Are you breaking the

14 Rants & Raves

162 Zygote

140 Business Help

120 The HDMI con

Gordon Holmes explains how to identify two common scams – and what you can do

We consider the UK’s most influential contributions to technology

How To... 134 Print your own passport photo 137 Play any media format 138 Synchronise your files with SugarSync

PROPERTY LADDER

Intellectual property (IP) is defined as an intangible idea or creation over which someone claims ownership (bear with us on that for now). For copyright-protected IP, a licence is a way for the owner to allow their property to be used by a third party without giving up any ownership rights. For example, Marvel Comics licenses its Spider-Man character (which itself is an

136

intangible idea over which it claims ownership) to Sony Pictures so that it can make films about him, but Marvel still retains ownership of Spider-Man. The films that Sony make are then IP themselves, owned by Sony. A licence seldom gives free rein to the licensee. The IP owner (the licensor) sets out the way in which the property can be used in an agreement the licensee must agree to. In this case Sony can make films about Spider-Man and sell spin-off merchandise, but wouldn’t be able to launch a competing comic book. When you buy a DVD of said movie, you then also enter into an agreement with Sony. You’ve only bought a single copy of the film on disc, though; it doesn’t mean you now own the IP rights over the film as a whole. In the same way, the rights to the words printed in a book belong to the publisher or author, as the ‘All rights reserved’ legal statement that appears at the front of the book makes clear. The printed paper that makes up the book itself, on the other hand, belongs to the person that bought it. This is because although licences are a useful way to control IP, they can’t usually be used to control the physical media itself. The ownership of goods – any physical copy of an IP – brings with it a few rights of its own, not least that the owner can do more or less what they like with it as long as the IP owner’s rights aren’t infringed. So, while duplicating an audio CD and selling the copies would infringe the IP owner’s copyright, selling the original CD to someone else would not. In the European Union, these rights are granted by a law called the Exhaustion of Free Rights Doctrine, which essentially prevents an IP

PASSING THE BUCK

owner from using their IP rights to hinder the free movement of the goods they sell (however indirectly). In the US, the First Sale Doctrine provides something similar.

PERSONAL SERVICES

Although software sold on a DVD is also an intangible idea delivered on a physical medium, like a Spider-Man movie, it isn’t legally the same. As software is essentially IP provided to perform a particular task, it blurs the line between goods and services, and the law for services is very different from that for goods. Services are usually provided according to terms set out in a contract to which both parties agree. Entering into a prolonged negotiation process each time someone wants to install a new web browser is hardly practical, though, so software publishers instead use an elaborate up-front disclaimer that attempts to limit their liability as a service provider and affirm their rights as an IP owner. Microsoft gets straight to the point with Windows 7, for example: “The software is licensed, not sold. This

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| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

Most EULAs aren’t particularly contentious, and the terms usually make little practical difference to the way software is used. Even so, it’s still worth reading the EULAs for key applications to see what kind of conditions they impose, as they include stipulations such as about how many computers you can install the software on. Rather than attempting to do this in the software installation dialog box in which the EULA appears, copy the text and paste it into a word processor for easier viewing or, better still, try the free EULAlyzer program, which is available from www. javacoolsoftware.com/eulalyzer.html. One thing you’ll immediately spot is that a EULA is primarily a disclaimer. There are usually lots of clauses that state how the software is provided ‘as is’ and how the licensor is not liable for any data or financial loss that may arise from its use, even if it is the fault of the software. Should a bug in Excel 2010 create a serious discrepancy in last year’s accounts and lead to a fine from HMRC, for example, the most that can be

EULAs can be slippery pseudo-legal documents, since most contain a clause that allows their terms to be changed at will by the licensor. Apple isn’t alone in stating that it “reserves the right to modify the Usage Rules at any time” for its iTunes Store. It also states that it “reserves the right to enforce the Usage Rules without notice to you”, but we’re not Ï Amazon overstepped the aware of any high-profile instances of this happening. bounds of its Kindle EULA by The same can’t be said about Amazon. In 2009, Amazon deleting purchased copies of in the US remotely deleted eBooks from Kindle owners’ Nineteen Eighty-Four after the copyright owner objected devices after it apparently offered them at sale prices without the publisher’s permission to do so, despite its EULA not explicitly granting Amazon the right to take such a step. Although Amazon is undoubtedly to blame here, it’s worth noting that the retailer appeared to be acting in response to complaints from the eBooks’ publishers, who were wielding their IP rights to prevent Amazon selling the books at reduced prices. You may well have noticed the words, ‘This price was set by the publisher’ on many Kindle eBook listings. Amazon subsequently apologised for overstepping the mark, but only after widespread negative publicity about the act - publicity no doubt field by the fact that one of the books was, appropriately enough, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS

Some EULAs also attempt to place limits on what users can say about software. The EULA for VMware Workstation, for instance, includes a clause that doesn’t bode well for anyone wanting to review or comment on it: “You may use the software to conduct internal performance testing and benchmarking studies, the results of which you… may publish or publicly disseminate; provided that VMware has reviewed and approved of the methodology, assumptions and other parameters of the study.” The key point with any EULA, however, is that if it’s to act as a contract, there’s a legal presumption that its terms and conditions have been mutually agreed, which isn’t the case when the end user’s only option is an ‘I agree’ button before they can use it. This creates some legal room for manoeuvre, as David Sanders, civil law lead officer with the Trading Standards Institute, explains: “Where parties are not of equal bargaining power, the law sometimes gives the weaker party added protection. For example, Ï The free EULAlyzer program will analyse the content of a EULA consumers have statutory rights and highlight any clauses that it deems ‘interesting’, which is that cannot be taken away, and much quicker than trying to read the whole thing any terms to that effect are void, ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| SEPTEMBER 2012

142 Helpfile

Step this way for help with all your hardware and Windows problems

146 Advanced Projects

Chris Finnamore takes you back to the golden years of home computing with his guide to BBC and Spectrum emulators

149 Web Expert

What’s your type? Nik Rawlinson shows you how to choose your fonts with care so your website looks great in any browser

Limited agreement

recovered from Microsoft is the cost of the software, since its EULA states (much like most others): “You can recover from Microsoft and its suppliers only direct damages up to the amount you paid for the software. You cannot recover any other damages, including consequential, lost profits, special, indirect or incidental damages… even if… Microsoft knew or should have known about the possibility of the damages.”

Our resident expert answers those persistent software queries

although the position is not clear on contracts between consumers within the EU and traders outside of it.” Sanders also makes another key point: an EULA can only grant additional rights to the user, not take away any that are conferred by the laws of the country in which they reside. Most software publishers recognise this. Here’s the relevant clause from Microsoft’s EULA for Windows 7: “You may have additional consumer rights under your local laws, which this agreement cannot change.” The degree of consumer protection differs from country to country, which is why EU residents don’t need to worry about the US-specific clause in Electronic Arts’ EULA that states: “By accepting these terms, you and EA expressly waive the right to a trial by jury or to participate in a class action.”

152 Multimedia Expert

If you want to make your digital photos to look like faded analogue snaps, it couldn’t be easier. Ben Pitt goes vintage with a photo editor

PASSING IT ON

Unfortunately, the problems that arise from licensing, rather than owning, software hit home when it comes to disposing of it. In principle, a software CD-ROM is a tangible item that’s covered by the aforementioned Exhaustion of Free Rights Doctrine in the UK and the First Sale Doctrine in the US. That means selling the CD-ROM should be legal, as long as the software isn’t inadvertently duplicated by leaving it installed on the original buyer’s computer. This would be an infringement of copyright. Some software publishers allow this, however. Surprisingly, Microsoft is one, as the EULA for Windows 7 illustrates: “The first user of the software may make a one-time transfer of the software and this agreement, by transferring the genuine proof of licence directly to a third party.” Unfortunately, most EULAs take the opposite stance and, by insisting that software is licensed rather than sold, claim

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130 The Digital Games

London 2012 will see the world’s best athletes compete in the capital, so David Ludlow finds out how this year’s big event will be embracing TV, internet and mobile technologies

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155 Business Expert

A network can make all the difference to your small business. Simon Handby shows you how to choose and set up the kit you’ll need

158 Linux Expert

There are times when only the real thing will do. David Ludlow shows you how to get Windows applications working on Ubuntu

SEPTEMBER 2012

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CONTENTS

p98

p120

p110

Reviews 026 PCs & Laptops

Find out why we’re blown away by the new MacBook Pro, with its high-resolution Retina display

034 Handhelds

Samsung’s Galaxy S3: the best Android handset yet. We also review Nokia’s new Windows Phones

056 Networks

Versatile powerline networking with Devolo’s dLAN 500 AVtriple+

057 Storage

We see if LaCie’s SSD-equipped Thunderbolt drive can possibly live up to the hype

Group Tests 086 Ivy Bridge PCs

Why pay more for a computer, when you can get the latest Intel Ivy Bridge processor, a stunning monitor and the ability to play games, all for £650? With 10 PCs to choose from, there’s something here for everyone

098 Online Backup

040 Photography

058 Components

Find out if the £32 Raspberry Pi really could be a bedroom programmer’s dream

Thanks to falling prices and faster broadband speeds, online backup is the best way to protect your important files from fire, theft, failure and flood. We test 12 services to help you find the best one for your needs

046 Displays

060 Software

110 SSDs

048 Home Cinema

062 Games

A new solid state drive is a great way to give your PC a performance boost – you can cut your boot times to 10 seconds and make applications load quicker. We test 16 to help you find the perfect time-saver

050 Audio

064 Business

074 Your software

Take a look at these pocket digital cameras with huge zooms from Sony and Canon

Asus’s professional-grade IPS monitor and a palm-sized LED projector

Enjoy cut-price beats with Reason Essentials and give your digital snaps a fancy makeover with Snapseed

Sony’s incredible top-ofthe-range TV and Yamaha’s bargain new AV amp

Max Payne descends deeper into the abyss in the incredible third installment of the hit game

Sony’s new Walkman is the best Android media player yet – could it be an iPod Touch beater?

Feature-packed networkattached storage kicks off our new Business section

052 Video

066 Best Buys

054 Printers & Scanners

076 How We Test

Exquisite image quality could be yours, with Sony’s HDR-CX730E camcorder

Looking for all the best kit we’ve reviewed recently? It’s all in one place in our new Best Buys section

Kodak is back in the headlines with its ESP 3.2 MFP

ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| SEPTEMBER 2012

Our comprehensive tests, ratings and awards explained

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Find out how to get your hands on a copy of this industrious archive utility, enabling you to open, edit, create and manage all kinds of files with ease

7

Letters

Nothing lasts for ever, whether it’s a mobile phone battery or a laptop – although it may feel as though mice and keyboards have been around since the dawn of time, and they’re not going away any time soon, either CONTACT LETTERS

[email protected] London W1T 4JD

The range of interface devices has changed over the years, but how you physically use your computer is roughly the same as it was 20 years ago

PUNCH-DRUNK SHOPPER

David Ludlow made an amazing statement in his introduction to Shopper 264. If he thinks that “the way we interact with our computers hasn’t really changed since they were invented”, then I guess he’s still using punch cards and hasn’t heard of mice, keyboards, touchscreens, voice recognition, trackpads, motion-sensing devices such as Kinect, gamepads and so on. Stephen Naylor

■ It’s certainly true to say initial

computers were used with punch cards or, in the case of Colossus, by physical plugs and switches; however, it’s fair to say that people wouldn’t have had one of these machines at home.

In terms of the personal computer, we’d argue that how we interact with them hasn’t particularly changed. Since the advent of the graphical user interface (GUI), PCs have been used via a combination of mouse and keyboard, using windows, icons, menus, pointer (WIMP). Even touchscreen devices still have the same interface, albeit with a finger physically tapping the screen as a pointer. Other input devices, such as the touchpad, gamepad and even Microsoft’s Kinect, are just variations on the mouse: they take a control input and send

that to the computer, which performs a corresponding action, such as moving a cursor or your character across the screen. Voice control is starting to make inroads but, let’s face it, the technology is pretty flaky at the moment and doesn’t understand the context of what you’re saying, or more complicated forms of speech. That’s what we meant, and until we can completely ditch the current GUI and interact with our computer using entirely natural speech, just like in Star Trek, things are going to stay much the same for most people.

RECYCLE MY PC

I’ve just bought a new laptop, as my old laptop was in a poor state. Only one of its USB ports worked, the internal keyboard had failed (cup of tea accident), there are cracks in the case, it no longer recharged, won’t do wireless and the screen had started to lose its backlight. Naturally, I’ve transferred all data from it and have been using my new laptop happily for a while. I’d like to dispose of my old laptop in an environmentally friendly way. Is the local council recycling facility the best place? I also thought I could take out the hard disk, find a case for it and maybe make some use of it as an external drive. If I decide that’s not worth the hassle, what’s the best software to wipe all my data from the hard disk securely? Stephen

★ Star letter BATTERY FARM

I’ve read a few reviews of phones recently and found out that the battery is often inaccessible so it can’t be user-replaced. I would like to know how many times a battery can be charged, as if it breaks outside the warranty period the phone won’t work. For example, if the battery needs recharging every seven hours or so, it could need two recharges a day. In three months, it would have been recharged about 60 times. I don’t understand why manufacturers make phones with user-inaccessible batteries.

8

I have a Fujifilm HS30 bridge camera that has a rechargeable battery and can be replaced if it’s faulty. Surely mobile manufacturers should give users the same ability to replace phone batteries if necessary? Tom Green

■ It can be annoying if you

can’t access your phone’s battery, but we understand why phone manufacturers do this. By integrating the battery inside the case, they have more control over the shape and size of their phones. With style counting for so much, it’s an important reason for companies to do this.

Digital cameras have replaceable batteries, so you can carry a spare around with you so you don’t miss a shot. With mobile phones, the battery should last at least a day, so there’s less need for a spare. As to how many times you can charge a battery, it depends. Modern batteries have improved greatly in recent years, as has battery-charging technology. Lithium-ion rechargeable batteries, which all phones use, should last for up to 1,000 charge cycles. A charge cycle is using the battery’s entire capacity, but this includes multiple charges. So if you made

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calls on a fully charged phone until it was half empty, for example, then recharged it fully at the end of the day, and then did the same thing the next day, that would count as a single charge cycle, not two. Each time you complete a cycle, your battery loses a bit of capacity, but it will take a long time to get to the stage where it’s completely useless. Lithium-ion batteries need to be used in order to maintain maximum performance. Laptop users should regularly use their computer away from the mains socket, but for phone users this is less of an issue. After all, your

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| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

Say

Darik’s Boot and Nuke will securely wipe all the data from your hard disk so you can dispose of it securely

■ The council recycling site is

definitely the best place for your old laptop. You’ll find a dedicated place for electronics, and maybe a section for old computers. These are then sent to a larger recycling facility to be broken down into their constituent parts. Using your hard disk should be easy, but you need to find out what type it is. All laptops use a 2½in hard disk, but there’s a choice of SATA or PATA. We’d guess you have a PATA hard disk, which uses a single ribbon connector; newer SATA hard disks use the same connector as desktop hard disks, with two L-shaped connectors: one for power and one for data. PC World (www.pcworld.co.uk) sells USB caddies for hard disks, with a 2½in IDE model costing £7. All you have to do is put your old hard disk in the caddy and you can use it as an external disk. If you decide it’s not worth the hassle, or your old disk doesn’t have sufficient capacity to be

useful, you’ll need to wipe it securely as you stated. Darik’s Boot and Nuke (www. dban.org/download) is a good choice to do this. Download the ISO file and burn it to a CD. Boot from this disc on your old computer and, when prompted, type autonuke and hit Enter. This will wipe any hard disks connected to the computer automatically. You can then safely dispose of your old laptop.

CALLS FOR CONCERN

I have been receiving calls from a company telling me that they’ve received information that something’s not right with my computer. I was informed that every time I used it, other types of corruption could creep on to my PC. I was told that these problems might be carried on the backs of emails to other people’s computers and also affect the smooth running of Microsoft Windows.

to

LETTERS

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ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

Modern technology means phone batteries will last for hundreds of charges before they need to be replaced

charged, the charger is then cut off. All this should mean that your phone’s battery lasts for longer than you have the mobile phone, although that can’t be guaranteed. Manufacturers also provide battery replacement services, although you’ll have to pay for this outside the warranty period.

| SEPTEMBER 2012

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Available at Scan me with your QR code app

Amazon, Amazon.co.uk and the Amazon.co.uk logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Amazon EU S.à.r.l. or its affiliates. Copyright © 2012 GFI Software. All products and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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LETTERS

They informed me that they were authorised by Microsoft to approach clients and offer to repair such faults over the phone for a fee, which had to be paid as £99.99 per annum. I was told that thousands of computers could have these self-generated faults, which were an irritation to Microsoft and not all could be dealt with, but they aimed to cure as many as possible when they came across them. They offered to show me the faults in question, and got me to run Event Viewer from the Start menu. One of the logs they showed me had thousands of entries. I was told that if I allowed this to go on, my PC would eventually cease to work

and be irreparable, with a degree of damage caused to the motherboard. I was also told that Microsoft would arrange for me to be deprived of all its services and I would no longer be able to go online. Can this be genuine? Chris Cattanach

■ This kind of contact really makes us angry, as these lying companies are trying to con people out of money. There are plenty of logs in Windows that look as though they’re full of errors, but it’s just a record of your entire computer and useful for diagnostics by qualified system engineers, not something to worry about on a day-to-day basis.

Microsoft does not authorise e people to contact customers on its behalf, nor can anyone detect ect errors across the internet. Our new columnist Gordon Holmes, a retired policeman, explains how to deal with this kind of crime on page 13. The importantt thing is to follow his advice and report this to the police. If any readers have paid for any services or let these people access their computers, we recommend following Gordon’s advice to report this as fraud. You should also change your internet passwords and thoroughly scan your computer for viruses. Your local computer er shop will be happy to help out if you’re not sure how to do this yourself. A clean install may be the best bet to ensure you’ve wiped out any malware.

BUILD IT YOURSELF

Scammers will often use common Windows components as ‘proof’ of a fault. Don’t believe them – they can’t detect errors over the internet

I recently completed my first self-build PC using your instructions and managed to get a base unit for just £442. Looking back at Shopper 292, I noticed that the cheapest one you’d reviewed was £523. I can understand that not everyone would be willing or able to build a computer from scratch, but doing it this way cuts costs and gives you exactly what you want. S Bannon

WRITE IN AND WIN

Do you wish your computer was faster? Thanks to Crucial, your wish can be granted, with the help of the m4 solid-state storage device. The writer of our Star Letter will be awarded one of these super-fast SSDs, which can be installed in a laptop or desktop PC. With a capacity of 128GB, there’s plenty of space for Windows, applications and a decent number of files. Using the latest SSD technology, this lightning-fast storage will make a real impact on any computer.

■ We’re glad you’ve built your own computer and managed to get yourself a bargain. Building your own PC lets you choose exactly which components you want in it. It’s having exactly what you want at the end without any compromises that makes it such a worthwhile endeavour. Then there’s the fact that you’ve learnt a brand-new skill, so you’ll have more knowledge about the inside of your computer should anything go wrong.

NEXT MONTH ❱ LAPTOP MEGATEST

The technology that goes into manufacturing laptops is becoming increasingly complex. We find out how modern laptops are built with a visit to the Samsung factory in Korea.

❱ HOME CINEMA SYSTEMS

❱ ALWAYS TAKE THE WEATHER

Get stunning sound and amazing HD pictures in your living room for less cash with one of these incredible all-in-one Blu-ray home cinema systems.

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❱ THE ULTIMATE LAPTOP

Intel’s Ivy Bridge processors mean there’s never been a better time to buy a new laptop. Find out which one meets your needs in our huge megatest.

The UK weather is notoriously unpredictable, so how are forecasts made? We look at the technology behind the weathermen and find out if more accurate predictions are possible.

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❱ COOKIE MONSTER

New EU laws mean that if website owners don’t tell visitors how they use cookies, they’re liable to pay a fine, even if it’s a private site. Find out how to stay ahead of the law.

❱ RECHARGEABLE BATTERIES

AA batteries are still surprisingly popular, but which are the best? We put the top brands through their paces to find out.

SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

UNDER DEVELOPMENT

Call of the wild While planning the perilous ascent of a stratovolcano, David Robinson has little time to get daunted. The real nightmare is getting his mobile phone to work in America

DAVID ROBINSON

Software and systems developer [email protected]

I FIRST TOOK a mobile on a US trip in 1996. It was a walloping great Motorola handset that weighed half a ton, and the charger weighed another half a ton. They swallowed a significant proportion of my luggage weight allowance and doubled up as an exercise aid. Finding a connection to use the thing took ages (we’re talking pre-3G here) and was very hit and miss. You needed a triband phone, as the yanks used an inferior analogue communication standard to us sophisticated Brits – something to do with the CIA needing to listen in on your calls, I seem to remember. On this month’s trip to Baton Rouge and Seattle, I “de-planed” in Newark. I turned on the BlackBerry and found I was connected to T-Mobile. I was then greeted by a text from O2 announcing that calls to the UK would cost 90 pence per minute and texts would be 25p each. Anything involving data would cost £6 per megabyte. I’d need to start the trip with a bank robbery if I wanted to contact anybody.

STATE OF EMERGENCY

My mountain-climbing buddy, Lee, was collecting me at Red Stick airport, so I tried calling him to say the connecting flight was leaving on time. I dialled 830 557

The wind increased to 60mph, and there was a foot of snow in a few hours – so much for supercomputers! 7891 only to be told it was “out of service”. I got the customer to call Lee for me, but they were out of service, too. I then dialled 001 830 557 7891 and got an engaged tone (Lee spends half his life on the phone). So, to make a call to somebody in the USA when I’m in the USA, I must pretend I’m in the UK and pay international call rates to contact somebody who’s in the same country as me? It didn’t used to be like this. A few years ago, you just added the UK

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+44 code in front of the number when calling home, and only needed the local number to talk to local people. As the meerkats would say, “Simples!” In the end, I sent Lee a quick email while connected to the free (I hoped) airport Wi-Fi. In theory, even emailing over the T-Mobile connection should only have cost 12-thousandths of a penny at £6 per megabyte but, hey, you’ve got to save where you can. While working in Red Stick, I used Skype to chat with Mrs R. The Lenovo has a webcam and, as she’s just acquired a similar model, we could also use video to help shrink the miles. Ahh. Again, using Wi-Fi, it cost nowt. This was fine, until it was time to fly to Seattle to climb Mount Rainier. I didn’t want to take the laptop, partly to save weight and partly because I didn’t want to leave it in a hire car for a week while we were schlepping up the slopes. So, it was back to the BlackBerry, which is OK if you can find a Wi-Fi connection and stick to emails or Google Chat. I looked at installing Skype, which you can do easily – but only with a Verizon account. Got an Android phone? Skype works fine. An iPhone? That’s fine, too. Skype used to be available for general use on a BlackBerry, but it’s been withdrawn. No wonder RIM is losing market share. In Ashford (Washington State, population 210), I had free Wi-Fi at the bunkhouse so I could send and receive emails, but the phone connection worked only for the chosen few with Verizon accounts. T-Mobile? “No chance,” said the locals at the grocery store, built in 1905 and last painted in 1906. So which electronics, if any, should I take up the mountain? Rainier would involve technical climbing with ropes, ice axes and crampons. And if you wanted to wear it, use it or eat it on Rainier, you had to carry it up there yourself; there was no handing it over to some poor Sherpa. Five layers of clothes, a sleeping bag,

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a safety helmet, a head torch, a harness, four days of high-calorie nosh and water filled my 70-litre rucksack to busting and weighed over two-and-a-half stone. Room for the Kindle? Afraid not. My one luxury was my MP3 player. I must be getting old. One member of our eight- strong party toted a Canon EOS 5D, weighing 1.1kg in its case, plus three lenses, an iPhone, an iPad and a Freeloader solar charger to power it all from. He even had a GoPro HD Hero camera to strap to his climbing helmet to record high-definition movies; it had a surface area of six square inches, and the manufacturers had used most of that for this message: “For best sound in high wind use: < 100 mph: non-waterproof skeleton door > 100 mph: waterproof standard door.” It was clearly designed for the clinically insane. I hoped I was coming down the mountain without having to consider the second setting. Still, as a Verizon user, he got a perfect phone service signal at 10,000 feet up, and spent hours on the iPhone chatting to his wife, kids and friends. Grrr.

SNOW WAY OUT

Sadly, all the planning and training didn’t get us to the top of the mountain. At the start of the summit attempt (1am on Sunday morning), the wind increased to 60mph, and there was a foot of extra snow in just a few hours – whiteout conditions. So much for supercomputers and short-term weather forecasts! A couple of guys got within 500 vertical feet of the top, but had to turn back. My own efforts came to an end long before that, thwarted by a mountain feature aptly known as the Disappointment Cleaver. Am I disappointed? Not at all. To quote the late Steve Jobs, “The journey is the reward”. My experience was still well worth the time, expense and effort. However, to call home, I did the only thing I could do: “Lee, can I borrow your iPhone, please?”

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BYTE BACK

Dangerous curves ahead Instructions are important, but what happens when we reach the limit of what we can learn? David Neal worries that there’s a confusing technological future ahead

DAVID NEAL

Freelance journalist [email protected]

I LEARNED AN important lesson the other day: always read the specifications before buying a PC game. It’s something that I should have learned a lot sooner, I know. I can’t think of a time when I have bought any PC game that worked out of the box on my home computer, yet I keep falling into the same incompatibility trap, taking those games home only to find that they won’t work. Even Doom, which I played when I was still in touch with my hair, required a boot disk to get enough memory out of the PC just to load. Since then, games have either not worked or worked very badly on whichever home machine I’ve had at the time. This time around, it was Diablo 3 that caused me to slap my ever-increasing forehead and curse myself for not paying closer – or, for that matter, any – attention to the requirements. I spent hours downloading and updating the game, which requires a painful online

a lot more undisturbed sleep. But has it lead to another problem? Maybe, now I’ve learned this, I will have forgotten something else – something even more important. Perhaps I am sitting writing this on an old typewriter, and wondering what that ribbon thing is, and what happened to its DVD drive. Maybe my fiancée will find me standing in the street with no trousers on, trying to make a phone call. Perhaps I’ll drive the wrong car home from the supermarket, or maybe I’ll just forget to buy any more games.

LEARNING SWERVE

This situation, which has annoyed me more than is reasonable, has made me realise just how poor my learning curve is. Right now, at the tender age of 37, I am pretty good with technology. It has taken me a while, but I am doing OK. But what if this is my lot? What if I am done learning? It bothers me that I may have reached the limit of what I can do.

Maybe, now I have learned to read the manual, I will forget something else… Maybe my fiancée will find me standing in the street with no trousers on, trying to make a phone call activation process, then mere milliseconds being told that it would not work with my video card, and finally tens of minutes stomping around the garden in anger as a result.

REPETITIVE STRAIN

Now, thanks to all this repetition, and stomping, I have learned the lesson that I should have learned all that time ago. I’ve decided that from this moment forward, I must read the manual, specifications, and system requirements before doing anything. From now on, wherever there are peripherals, mice or PC games, there you will find me reading the paperwork. And liking it. It’s a fine lesson, and one that I am sure will give me a lot of pleasure, and my neighbours

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Sure, I can pretty much find my way around my smartphone, and I can generally fix the sort of problems my home PC throws up, such as forgetting it has a soundcard, for example. I’ve fixed up my home entertainment system – we’ll call that a telly for shorthand – and my car has never run out of oil. Hell, I can even put up a shelf. Other things have gone along the way, though. Pop into my brain, and ask it what happened to the ability to Mail Merge, which is something I think I used to do a lot of once upon a time, and your question will bounce around like an echo, before falling into a corner next to questions such as “Where is the charger for my camera?” and

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“Why did I buy that really cheap Android tablet?” Worse, I’ve forgotten how to create a spreadsheet, and Apple’s iTunes has become a strange and confusing land. These abilities and understandings have gone – deleted and replaced with facts such as what kind of SD card I need, and how many USB slots my laptops has. I’m just about coping with new technology at the moment, but I’m standing on the edge of a technological cliff, one where the next gust of innovation could knock me off the edge.

APEING THE APE

Obviously, I’m glad to have used Microsoft Kinect and the Nintendo Wii, because it means I will never be the person in the old people’s home who thinks everyone else is trying to swat invisible bees, and I won’t be the only one on the ward who thinks tablets are what keep me regular. I’ve done my time with technology. I’ve swiped things, pinched things and grabbed others; I’ve connected to a hotspot while having a latte, I’ve streamed a movie to a games console, I’ve had a four-way chat with people that I don’t know over video, and I’ve accidentally Bluetoothed the wrong photo to the wrong person in a pub. Hell, I’ve done it all. So far. But I dread to think what’s coming. If mobile phones turn into implants that slide into your ear and cheeks, I’ll probably have to pass, and if buying a ticket at a train station involves pressing your palm or eyeball against a scanner, I’ll be the chap fumbling with change at the retro counterwith-real-man combo. Taking on the alternative will definitely put me at risk of forgetting my trousers. And no-one wants that. There is hope, though. I’ve seen footage of an ape enjoying a tablet computer. If a simian can do it, I’m sure I’ll always get some enjoyment from technology, whether I understand it or not.

SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

CYBERCOP

The wrong kind of support Anti-virus and Microsoft Support scams are everywhere. Gordon Holmes explains what they are, how to spot them, and how you can help the police stamp them out

GORDON HOLMES

With more than 30 years of experience in law enforcement, our retired cybercop gives a police officer’s perspective on the sticky subject of cybercrime [email protected]

IN MARCH 2010, an officer of the Metropolitan Police, who was engaged in the investigation of cybercrime, accessed a popular online music-streaming service. He expected the site to provide access to delightful tunes, but the result was anything but pleasant. Seconds after loading the web page, his machine appeared to perform an anti-virus scan. It then screamed that it had found 265 separate virus infections. Its recommendation? To call a prominently displayed telephone number and speak with an expert to get the machine cleaned up. All for an appropriate fee, naturally. That officer was yours truly. Although I was well aware of fake anti-virus threats at the time, this knowledge was not enough to prevent my machine being infected. On the day I accessed Spotify, this legitimate site was displaying an advertisement containing a malicious program. Many other users accessing the service were also infected. I spent

This type of malicious software evolves constantly, and a relatively new incarnation uses the reputation of the police as a means of tricking victims. Action Fraud, a government-run service that monitors all types of scams, is warning of malicious software that locks the computer and delivers a message purporting to originate from the Metropolitan Police or from the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau. The fake message states that your IP address has been connected with pornography, child abuse or terrorism. It demands a fee to unlock the machine. This ‘fine’ is paid via Ukash or Paysafecard. Even in these days of austerity, UK law enforcement will never ask you for an online payment in this way.

WHERE’S TUFTY?

Many of us are old enough to remember the highly effective road safety campaigns of the 1970s featuring Tufty, a squirrel

Your first reaction may be, “I’d never do that”. But trust me, people do. I know a number of savvy, cynical types who have been defrauded into giving up control of their PC the next few hours removing the fake anti-virus program and cleaning my machine.

ACT TO GRIND

This type of attack isn’t just an annoyance – it’s a criminal offence. As such, it should not just be fixed and forgotten. It falls under the Computer Misuse Act 1990, Section 3: Unauthorised acts with intent to impair. The impairment, which in this case is causing the computer to stop operating normally, only has to be temporary to count as an offence. Even if you reboot the system and the fake anti-virus disappears, or your own anti-virus software ejects the threat, an offence has been committed under UK law. ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

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who educated a generation on crossing the road safely. His core message of ‘Stop, Look, Listen’ still applies today, and not just when trying to avoid road traffic. There’s a popular trick still doing the rounds known as the ‘Microsoft Support’ scam. The phone rings, and when the potential victim picks up, the caller falsely declares himself to be an employee of Microsoft. The victim is directed to access a relatively obscure area of the PC, such as the Event Viewer logs, and told that the multitude of alerts (which normally appear here) indicates a serious problem. Predictably, they are asked for payment to ‘clean’ the machine of non-existent infections.

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Your first reaction may be, “I’d never fall for that”. But trust me, people do. I have spoken with a number of savvy, cynical types who have been defrauded into giving up control of their PC and who have paid for the privilege. This type of behaviour is an offence under the Fraud Act 2006, Section 2: Fraud by false representation. The caller knowingly made a false representation with the intent to make a financial gain for himself or another. According to the Crown Prosecution Service, the offence is complete as soon as the caller makes the false representation, provided it is made with the appropriate dishonest intent. You might not fall foul of this scam, but you may know others who have. As they have been a victim of a criminal offence, you should advise them to report it. Action Fraud has both a website and telephone reporting service for fraud, and will take such reports (www.actionfraud.org.uk). The data gathered by Action Fraud is passed to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau, where it is analysed. This makes it possible to launch a pro-active law enforcement operation to prosecute those involved.

SUPPORT RELIEF

There is no doubt both scams will keep occurring, due to the staggering amounts of cash being duped from the unsuspecting. Globally, law enforcement is just starting to identify how prevalent the problem is. However, Trading Standards is in the process of setting up a ‘cybercrime’ unit, which could be a massive step in the right direction. Meanwhile, an aggressive programme of awareness and prevention is required. It’s a pity the Central Information Office, which used to run government marketing schemes, closed its doors in March this year, just when we could have done with a ‘CyberTufty’.

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Rants & Raves

What’s rattled our cages or made us giddy with delight this month? Our resident technological gurus wax lyrical and vent spleen on what’s hot – or not – at the moment

Mel Croucher

RAVES Perhaps the fact that Theresa May wants to check all his mail is no cause for concern. Still, just in case it doesn’t give her enough to worry about, Mel has a cunning plan of his own… SIR TIM BERNERS LEE, is not only the founding father of the World Wide Web (see Top 10, page 16) but he’s also Open Data Adviser to the government, and the second-greatest living Englishman. The greatest living Englishman is, of course, Jeff Beck. I cheered when the government announced the go-ahead for legislation to monitor all our internet activity, and I thanked our Home Secretary, Theresa May, for her kind offer to read my emails. I hope when she gets to know me and understands my funny little ways, she can check my Ocado orders and monitor my winnings at Betfred. Oh, and I’ll soon be posting stuff online about our new Irish Setter puppy, so maybe she can remind me when it needs worming. Unfortunately, Sir Tim Berners-Lee thinks Theresa May’s legislation will be “a destruction of human rights”. He’s worried that our personal data will get mislaid by incompetent operators or stolen by corrupt officials, then used to blackmail the vulnerable and defraud the stupid. Personally, I think he should chill. After all, there’s never been a single case of sensitive private files going astray from any government department, has there? Besides, if we have nothing to hide, we have nothing to fear.

PATRIOT GAMES

to speed and post regular comments on her Facebook page. Just go to http://on.fb.me/TheresaMayMP. But hurry! We only have a very short window of opportunity, because I am planning to topple the government on 12th August by an act of creative terrorism…

OLYMPIAN EFFORT

I will bypass government monitoring systems and send messages as Sinclair Basic audio signals via pay-as-you-go mobile phones. I’ll use this mechanism to coordinate my terrorist attack during the Olympic Games’ closing ceremony, whereby I present Boris Johnson with an inflatable Lithuanian synchronised-swimmer doll, cunningly infected with bubonic plague. Twenty-eight days later, after Boris has done his thing, and the entire Tory High Command has succumbed to terminal pustules – and Theresa May is still wading through all our emails – me and George Galloway (and probably the Liberal Democrats) will set up our Slightly Disrespectful Provisional Government in The Blue Boar Inn, Bradford. My first act as People’s Tribune will be to appoint Sir Tim Berners-Lee as Home Secretary. And Jeff Beck as Supreme Ruler.

I realise it will cost loads of money to monitor everybody’s data – money that the government needs for bankers and nuclear weapons – and I want to play my part in The Big Society, as I’m sure you do, too. Seeing as how Theresa May believes all our data belongs to her, I can save her the cost of collecting mine and automatically cc her everything I send out by email. Many other patriots are doing this, and I invite you to join our campaign. Her email address is [email protected]. Just to make sure she doesn’t miss anything, it’s best to send another copy to her constituency address, which is offi[email protected]. In fact, to be absolutely certain she knows everything about you in order to help keep the nation safe, you should probably keep her up

The Home Secretary could be in for a large email backlog if Mel gets his way

I hope when Theresa May understands my funny little ways, she can check my Ocado orders and monitor my winnings at Betfred

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SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

RANTS & RAVES

Dave Ludlow

RAVES Being surrounded by dodgy street traders is hell for some, but it gives Dave a heightened appreciation for the real deal CHINA MAKES PRETTY much everything electronic in the world. It does this mostly for big multi-national corporations. However, it has a nifty side-line in rip-offs. Far from being an underground thing, sold by a few dodgy street traders, the rip-off market has an official area underneath Shanghai’s Science and Technology museum. Here, seemingly endless corridors contain shop after shop peddling its own knock-off merchandise. The clothing stores look pretty good, and you’d easily get away with pretending you’d spent a fortune on a pair of ‘Prada’ sunglasses; you can see why the real manufacturers get a bit upset. For the tech

manufacturers, though, the rip-off stuff is a brilliant advert for the real thing. Personally, I think Dr Dre’s Beats Audio line is over-rated, the kind of thing hipsters buy when they want to show off. Still, a pair of real Beats Audio headphones sounds a hell of a lot better than the fake £15 Beats Audio set. To look at, they just about pass as the real thing, but slip them on, and the appalling drivers and tinny sound made me wish I had absolutely anything else, including Apple’s tinny in-ear headphones. This is just one of many terrible products on sale, and things are even worse in the fake Apple section. Love it or hate it, there’s

Kat Orphanides

RANTS Could it be the work of motor fanatic Jeremy Clarkson? The Apple ID security questions are driving Kat round the bend WHEN LOGGING INTO the App Store via my antique iPod Touch, Apple informed me that I wasn’t quite secure enough for its liking, and that it wanted me to set up three questions to prove my identity in future. This seemed a bit excessive, especially given that I was typing on a touchscreen, but I needed a new app, so off I went. For each of the questions, I was given five options to choose from. Unfortunately, very few were those for which I could give an answer. Here’s what I had to deal with. “What was the first car you ever owned?” Um, I live in London. I have a travel-card and a bicycle. Yes, I may be some kind of leftist hippy, but that surely shouldn’t disqualify me from using the App Store, right? I similarly had no idea what the name of my first teacher was, and had blotted out

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the memory of my childhood nicknames. At least I was on safer territory with the first album I owned (well, let’s compromise on the first one I bought, just to spare me from embarrassment). That took longer than I expected. Oh well, on to question two. “Which of the cars you’ve owned has been your favourite?” Wait. What? Another car question? Fine. What else is there? My favourite teacher? Who on Earth has a preference about this that extends beyond each individual school year? I went with ‘My first concert’. So, question three. “Which of the cars you’ve owned has been your least favourite?” Was this thing composed by a deranged automobile fetishist? Moving swiftly onwards… “Where did you and your partner go on your first trip together?” Not a question I

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no denying Apple knows a thing or two about build quality and smooth graphical interfaces. The fake merchants don’t. I had a chance to play with a fake iPad, which sort of looks like the real thing – if you squint at it in a dark room, and try hard to convince yourself that it really is an Apple product. But even strenuously believing that won’t be able to stop you noticing that the tablet is running a really old version of Android, it’s incredibly jerky, and the touchscreen is less sensitive than a Jan Moir column. It’s the fake iPhones that really got me. One shop offered me a choice of iPhone 4S handsets. As each one was a different size, it seemed unlikely that either was the genuine article. Any illusions that the phones might be decent were shattered the moment they were turned on. The low-resolution displays and touchscreens that refused to acknowledge even the firmest finger prods were a sorry sight to behold. However, far from posing a threat to the manufacturers responsible for the original merchandise, I see these rip-offs as positive marketing. If I was given a product like those I saw in China, it would last three minutes before it got dumped in the recycling, and I went down to the shops for the real thing.

could answer, for at least four reasons, some of which are more perverse than others. “Where were you on January 1, 2000?” If I could remember, which I can’t, it’d be safe to assume that I wasn’t anywhere of note. Apple also expected me to know in which city my parents met (OK, my family is more migratory than most) and asked me where – but not what – my least favourite job was. What happened to my cat’s name, and the fact that I’m into the musical stylings of Necrosadistic Goat Torture? With questions like this, I can guarantee that I’ll have to reset my security passwords every time I use the App Store, because several of them require surprisingly long answers with variable punctuation and, in some cases, information I’ve had to fudge a bit. Of course, I could always write them down. This really isn’t the kind of thing that encourages real security on the internet. It took a while, but I eventually finished working out what I wanted these almostmade-up answers to be and submitted them for my fruity overlords’ approval. “Security info: Your session has timed out. Try again.” Thanks, Apple. Oh, and because it timed out, the damnable thing refused to install my app. If anyone needs me, I’ll be testing the Android version. My Google passwords, while long, improbable and slightly hard to type in accurately, are at least of my own choosing.

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The UK has been a hotbed of innovation over the years, with its inventions and input helping to create and define the IT industry as we know it. Here’s our list of its biggest IT contributions

UK innovations in IT ALTHOUGH IT’S FAIR to say that UK companies don’t dominate the tech industry in the same way as American, Japanese and Korean companies, our island nation has still played a big part in creating and shaping the world as we know it. In fact, a large part of life today wouldn’t be the same if it weren’t for British inventors,

Boolean logic (George Boole)

Colossus: the first computer

Computers use the base-2 binary numeral system, where all component data is composed of individual bits of 0s and 1s. s. This system allows very complicated applications and algorithms to be created, but, underneath it all, the engineers and low-level programmers must understand the logic that controls it. Step forwards George Boole, who came up with the idea of Boolean logic in the 1840s. This system is defined as a “logical calculus of truth values”. In other words, Boolean logic defines statements as either true (1) or false (0). So, a hundred years before the first digital computer, the logic system was created. Boolean logic is evident in every aspect of technology. Logic gate diagrams and truth maps are all used to plan circuits, and Boolean expressions are a key part of any programming language. Put simply, George Boole devised the language of computers long before any one else.

Although Charles Babbage designed the Difference Engine in 1822, it was never built in his life time. The plaudits for the first actual computer go to Tommy Flowers. While working at Bletchley Park during World War 2, he designed Colossus, the world’s first programmable electronic computer, to break the German Lorenz cipher. Colossus was incredibly fast, and could break the first part of the cipher in less than 30 minutes. It was later discovered that the computer could be used for wheel breaking, which was the second part of breaking the code. Sadly, after the war, Colossus was broken down and kept a secret, so details of how it worked were not widely known. As such, modern computers have evolved from subsequent projects. Still, Colossus proved a high-speed electronic computer could be made reliably, so its importance on the modern world should not be overlooked.

Raspberry Pi

The early home computer market It took until the early 1980s for computers to be ready for mass-market home use, but the UK grabbed the opportunity by the horns. In a short period of time, we saw the launch of the BBC Micro, the ZX Spectrum and the Amstrad CPC 464, all of which were massively popular in their own right. These computers saw limited success outside of the UK, with the US favouring its own brands, but the impact these computers made cannot be denied. As well as giving UK consumers their very first taste of home computing, they also gave many people their first platform on which to program, paving the way for significant successes in a broad range of technological fields.

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designers and entrepreneurs. Our bolt isn’t completely shot yet, either, as we continue to contribute and evolve the tech world. Here is our list of the people and companies that we think have made the biggest impact. If you don’t agree, write in to [email protected] and let us know who you think should be given an honorary mention.

The downside of computers becoming easier to use in recent cent years is that kids are no longer exposed to programming as they were in the early days of computing. Education has moved away from teaching kids how to program and towards teaching them how to use applications such as Excel. The result is that the UK isn’t providing the IT industry with the skills it desperately needs, which is where the Raspberry Pi Foundation steps in. The goal of this foundation, which was set up by Eben Upton and colleagues at the University of Cambridge’s computer laboratory, was to create a low-cost computer that would boot into a programming environment. The Raspberry Pi was born, and is now available for just £32 including VAT (see Reviews, page XX). Based around a mobile processor, this cheap computer boots from an SD card into a Linux operating system that kids (and anyone, really) can use to learn how to program.

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TOP 10

The digital audio player

Palmtop computers

It’s hard to imagine a world without digital music players, but it was a British inventor that got there first. In 1979, Kane Kramer came up with the idea of a digital audio player known as the IXI. This player was the size of a credit card with a small mono LCD screen and navigation and control buttons. It was designed to use bubble memory, although its 8MB capacity was capable of storing only around three-and-a-half minutes of audio. However, Kramer correctly postulated that storage capacities would massively increase. In addition to the player, Kramer also proposed a digital download service over telephone lines to let people get the music they wanted, when they wanted it. A patent was awarded in 1985 in the UK and 1987 in the US. Sadly, the product wasn’t to be a success. After failing to raise £60,000 to renew the patent, the design entered the public domain, and other companies were free to do their own thing. In 2008, Apple called Kramer as a witness to defend itself against charges of patent infringement for the iPod, citing the IXI as prior art.

It would be tempting to think of smartphones and tablets as recent inventions, but in fact portable computing began n in 1989, thanks to a British computer company. Distributed Information Processing (DIP) created the Pocket PC – a tiny computer powered by AA batteries, complete with a keyboard. This carry-everywhere computer attracted the attention of Atari, which released the product as the Portfolio, the world’s first palmtop. Fact fans should note that it’s the Portfolio John Conner uses to hack the ATM machine in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. From the initial days of the palmtop computer came the first PDAs, and this in turn lead to the development of the ubiquitous smartphone.

Modern computer games

The resurgence of Apple

The UK has played a big part in influencing the development of computer games. Bletchley Park codebreaker Alan Turing first created a chess game in 1947, although the resulting program was only capable of computing ‘mate-in-two’ games. In 1951, Alexander S Douglas, a British professor of computer science, created OXO (Noughts and Crosses), the world’s first graphical computer game. Later, in 1984, David Braben and Ian Bell created the first 3D game with Elite. The explosion of UK home computers resulted in the emergence of many UK-based games developers who would create some iconic titles. Some big studios are still based in the UK, including Rockstar North, developer of the Grand Theft Auto titles, and – under its old name of DMA Design – Lemmings.

As hard as it is to believe now, Apple was once a company in massive financial trouble. The turnaround of the company is largely down to Steve Jobs, of course, and one of his key decisions was to make design a key part of all new products. He wanted to make products that weren’t only functional, as were the beige PCs of the time, but also beautiful and, ultimately, desirable. For Jobs to make this happen, he needed a designer of considerable talent. Jonathan Ive, who was born in Chingford, London, has been the conceptual mind behind most of Apple’s iconic products, including the iMac, the MacBook Air, the iPod, the iPod Touch, the iPhone and the iPad. Just one of these products would be an impressive achievement on any designer’s CV; to do them all is incredible. By creating desirable products, Apple has managed to turn itself into one of the world’s most valuable companies. It’s also gone from the underdog to the company that everyone else wants to emulate.

ARM

The World Wide Web

British IT company ARM Holdings plc is a Cambridge-based ed company that designs the processors used in the majority of mobile phones and tablets. It’s so important, even Microsoft is writing a version of Windows 8 that will run on ARM architecture. What’s particularly clever about the company is that it doesn’t manufacture processors but licenses its intellectual property to other companies such as Intel, Samsung, Nvidia, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments, which build their own CPUs. ARM CPUs are also noted for their low power consumption. Given the ever-growing number of smartphone and tablet computers, this feature is crucial, and one that should see ARM Holdings plc grow even more. The company started life as Acorn Computers Ltd, which manufactured the popular BBC Micro and the Archimedes range of computers. Just as it helped to kick-start the home computer revolution, so it continues to drive innovation and new products, making it the most important British computer company in operation today.

Although the internet – an interconnected network of computers – came out of the US military, the graphical World Wide Web, which we access through our web browsers, was created by English scientist and inventorr Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Working at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in 1980, he built a system called ENQUIRE, which was a personal database of people and software models. Each page in ENQUIRE was linked to another page via hypertext. In 1984, he wrote a proposal for “a large hypertext database with typed links”, which generated little interest. Undeterred, he came up with the World Wide Web, developing HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), HyperText Markup Language (HTML) the first web browser, the first web server and web server software, and the first web pages. On 6th August 1991, he posted a short summary of the World Wide Web project online, and the web was officially made public. The rest, as they say, is history.

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Windows 8

Release Preview MICROSOFT WINDOWS 8 is edging ever closer, with the Release Preview now available. This is likely to be the final version we see before the Beta Release, and is the last chance for Microsoft to get feedback before making final changes. Once that happens, there will only be minor tweaks and bug fixes before the new operating system goes on sale. Microsoft made a raft of improvements in the Consumer Preview (see News, Shopper 292), many of which were designed to make it work better on a desktop PC with a mouse and keyboard. However, the changes didn’t quite go far enough, so we were eager to try the new release to see what had changed.

MULTI-MONITORS

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Microsoft has decided to use two different user interfaces in Windows 8: the Metro interface, with its colourful live tiles, and the standard Windows Desktop interface. Getting the interaction right between them is one of the biggest issues Microsoft faces, and it didn’t get it quite right in Consumer Preview. Metro, for example, worked only on the main monitor. Multi-monitor support has been overhauled in the Release Preview, tightening up integration between the Desktop and Metro modes and making the use of the dual interfaces far more flexible. You can now use the bottom-left hotspot from any screen to make Metro appear on it. Windows remembers your choice, so when you’re on the desktop and hit the Windows key, Metro appears on the monitor on which you last used it. It’s certainly an improvement over the Consumer Preview, but as Windows knows which screen your cursor is on, it would be nice to have an option to open Metro on the display you’re currently using, even if this wasn’t the default behaviour. Full-screen Metro applications were similarly locked to the main display, but you can now drag them to any other display connected to your PC. Metro will still only run

To get around the fact that Windows 8 is largely a touchscreen interface, Microsoft has introduced hotspot corners for mouse users. Move the mouse to the bottom-left in Desktop mode and you can launch the Start

Annoyingly, the Metro and Desktop versions of IE10 don’t share Favorites or pinned sites

The new Calendar app is clean and easy to use, and pulls in information from your email accounts

Improved multi-monitor support means the Metro interface can now be viewed on more than one screen

on a single monitor, but at least you now have the flexibility to put it where you want.

SMART TASKBAR

We’re pleased to see the new Taskbar is still there. This appears on every display, with the default option showing shortcuts for every running application. You can override these settings and choose to display icons for the applications that are running on that display only if you wish, although the main monitor still has the fully loaded Taskbar. We also like the wallpaper management, which lets you choose different wallpaper for different monitors or stretch a panoramic shot over multiple screens. It makes the OS feel that bit more polished than Windows 7.

TIGHT CORNERING

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menu; in Metro mode, the same movement takes you to the previously used application. With the Consumer Preview, hotspots were available only on the main monitor, but they work on any display. On a single monitor using corners is easy, as the mouse stops when it hits an edge. With multiple monitors, however, the default behaviour in previous versions of the OS was to let the mouse move seamlessly between monitors, so hovering the mouse cursor in a corner was a feat of absolute pixel-perfect precision. Microsoft has introduced real corners in the Release Preview, so where two monitors have a shared edge, the cursor will stop when it hits the corner. It makes accessing hotspots much easier. However, the corners are ignored for certain operations, such as dragging a window from one display to another.

METRO APPS

Although the Windows Store launched with the Consumer Preview, it has recently been updated to include more software, making it easier to get hold of Metro apps. Annoyingly, there’s no permanent search bar; instead, you have to select Search from the Charms bar. The range of software is growing all the time, and now includes apps from big names such as Amazon Kindle and Sky News. They’re mostly well designed, with large, bright interfaces that will make the most of the displays on touchscreen devices. However, not all the apps we tried work properly yet. For example, the Kindle app has a status bar to show how far through a book you are. It looks as though you can grab the

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current position indicator to flick through a book, but clicking and dragging it merely highlights text instead. We like the Metro email app, and can imagine using it regularly on a tablet. The simple interface – with a panel for folders, one for messages and another for the main message – makes it easy to flick through your email. It has built-in Exchange support, although there’s no way of accessing public or shared folders using this interface, so it’s not an Outlook replacement. Adding an email account that also has a calendar and appointments (such as Exchange, Google and Hotmail) pulls this information into the Metro Calendar and People apps. These are also well designed, with big, bold, simple interfaces that work just as well with a keyboard and mouse as they do on a touchscreen system.

Searching for files is easy, but you can’t choose which application will open them

DISCONNECTED TIMES

right-click a file and choose to open its folder version. Again, there’s a disconnect between or choose an application with which to open the Desktop and Metro versions of the Despite these changes, there remains some it. The only thing you can do is open the file in application: in effect, each version is a divergence between Metro and the Desktop. its default application. Want to edit a photo in separate application. Take Internet Explorer 10, for example, which Photoshop rather than view it in the Metro comes as both Desktop and Metro versions. Photos app? You’ll either need to open SEARCHING QUESTION In the Desktop version, you can create Photoshop manually or switch to the Desktop, The search in Metro remains the same as it Favorites in the normal way; switch to Metro open Explorer and find the file you want to did in the Consumer Preview: simply run and you can’t access Favorites at all. Instead, edit manually. It’s strange that the system is Metro and start typing. The default search you have to pin websites to the Metro so locked down in this regard. looks for Apps, but you can select Settings, interface. It’s bizarre not to allow users to access the same information. MULTI-TOUCH SUPPORT Microsoft isn’t the only company What’s frustrating about Windows Multi-touch support is likely to be that’s at it, either. The latest Dev version of Google Chrome has a 8’s search is its inconsistency. It’s strange one of the areas where Windows 8 excels, as Metro is largely a Metro mode, which is activated by that the system is so locked down touchscreen interface. Sadly, there’s setting the browser as the default. no easy way to test this properly at From that point, you can have only the moment; as yet, there are no drivers for Files or a supported application to narrow one version of the browser running at a time, the hardware we used to test it. We installed your search criteria. We prefer Windows 7’s so, to launch the Metro version, you have to touchpad drivers on an Asus ZenBook UX31 search, which brings up results for both shut down the Desktop version, then launch laptop, which let us scroll through Metro applications and documents together. Chrome through Metro. Failure to do so takes using two fingers. This was very smooth, as What’s frustrating about Windows 8’s you back to the Desktop when you click on was scrolling through lists in Explorer. search is its inconsistency. Perform a search in the Chrome icon in Metro. Apps, and you can right-click a program and When you launch the Metro version for CLOSER TO SUCCESS? choose to open a new window for that the first time, Chrome asks you to provide Our main concern with the Consumer application or open the Apps location, which your username and password for the Preview version of Windows 8 was the lack takes you to its containing folder in Explorer. synchronisation options, even if you’ve of integration between the Metro and Search for Files, however, and you can’t entered this information in the Desktop Desktop user interfaces. Unfortunately, that disconnection still exists in the Release Preview version. It’s almost as if there are two operating systems at work, bundled together to work on touchscreen devices. In a way, this is what Windows 8 is, particularly as the ARM version of the OS, Windows RT, will be even more reliant on Metro, with only a cut-down desktop, if any. Although we can understand the reasons for Metro – and in fact, we actually like it – it would make more sense if applications were able to share data and settings between the two interfaces. Where Microsoft has made a lot of progress is with multiple monitor setups. In Consumer Preview, running more than one display was too restrictive but, now you can use Metro wherever you want it, the OS feel a lot more finished. Windows 8 is certainly edging towards completion – but Desktop wallpaper can be set independently on each screen you use it’s not quite there just yet. ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

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Microsoft springs surprise with iPad rival WINDOWS 8’s TOUCHSCREEN Metro interface was a clear indication of how vital Microsoft sees the tablet market to its future. What no-one was expecting, however, was for the company to launch its own tablet computer to rival the iPad. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer unveiled two Surface tablets at the launch in Los Angeles. The Surface RT, running Windows 8 RT, is for use with ARM processors and runs the Metro interface, and is designed to go head-to-head with the iPad and Android-based tablets. The Surface Pro, meanwhile, for Intel architecture, will run the full version of Windows 8 Pro. Both versions look very similar, with a 10.6in touchscreen. The Surface RT will have a resolution of 720p, while the Surface Pro will have a Full HD resolution. These compare unfavourably with the new iPad’s resolution of 2,048x1,536. The other main differences between the two models are size and weight; the Surface RT is 9.3mm thick and weighs 676g, while the Pro is 13.5mm and 903g. Both models are designed to combine the best features of a tablet and a full computer.

The Surface has a built-in kickstand, so it can stand upright on a desk, making it easier to type on the covers

The Surface’s Type Cover comes with a traditional QWERTY keyboard

They will be available in a choice of Touch or Type covers, which attach magnetically to the side of the Surface, similar to Apple’s Smart Cover. The Touch Cover is made from microfibre and is the same size as a regular tablet cover; however, it has a full QWERTY keyboard and touchpad printed on the inside of the cover. It’s designed to be sensitive to pressure, so you won’t accidentally hit keys by resting your hands on the cover, and supports multitouch gestures. Microsoft claims that typing is twice as efficient on the Touch Cover as it is on glass. We have yet to test the cover to validate this claim, however. The Type Cover is a thicker plastic protective sleeve, and houses a plastic keyboard and touchpad. The keys have travel, so typing on this should be more like using a real keyboard rather than a touch-sensitive

Microsoft’s hardware failures Apart from the Xbox, Microsoft doesn’t have a very good record with making its own hardware. Its biggest est failure was the Kin Phone, which first appeared at the same ame time as the iPhone 4 prototype was taken from a bar, causing headlines all around the world. The joke was that a Microsoft employee left the Kin in the same bar, but nobody wanted it. After just 48 days on sale, it was discontinued. The Zune music player fared little better. Launched as a competitor to Apple’s iPod, the general consensus was that the Zune was technically a better product. However, it was also larger, and the initial models came in a rather horrid shade of brown. Zune was never sold in the UK and the Microsoft’s Zune player didn’t make a dent in product was recently discontinued. Apple’s sales and never made it to the UK

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model. Again, though, until we’ve actually had the chance to try it, it’s hard to make any judgements about its quality. Both types of cover are relatively thin and have no built-in support to hold up the tablet, so using them comfortably could be problem. Microsoft has therefore built a clever feature into the Surface – a kickstand. Flick this out of the back of the screen, and the tablet can stand upright on a desk, so you can fold the covers down flat and type as if you were using a regular keyboard. Storage options will be 32GB or 64GB for the Surface RT and 64GB, and 128GB for the Surface Pro, and both models will have USB ports and Micro SDXC card slots. There’s a slight difference between the models with the graphics output, with the Surface RT having a Micro HDMI port and the Surface Pro using a Mini DisplayPort output. Initial reaction to the tablets has been positive, and from our experiences with Windows 8 (see News, page 18), it should be slick and smooth as a touchscreen operating system. Microsoft also seems to be working hard on the branding, pushing the Surface as something completely new. In fact, the Microsoft logo isn’t visible at all on the images we’ve seen, and there’s just a small Windows icon printed on the front. The product’s official name is Surface by Microsoft. It could be a good move, as Microsoft’s most popular hardware product, the Xbox, has barely any branding on it at all. Microsoft has said that the Surface RT will be priced in line with ARM-based tablets, so expect it to cost about the same as the Apple iPad. For the Surface Pro, pricing is expected to be similar to that of an Ultrabook. The Surface will be available at the same time as Windows 8 later this year.

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Want to know more about it?

NEWS

See Reviews, page 26

In-depth:

MacBook Retina display is a resolution revolution THE NEW MACBOOK Pro’s 15.4in Retina display has a staggering resolution of 2,880x1,800 pixels, making it the highestresolution screen on a laptop ever. Even the highest-resolution desktop displays have a lower resolution of 2,560x1,440. Our full review (see page 26) tells you how good the display is, but what does the Retina display actually mean for you? First, it’s worth defining what Apple means by the word ‘Retina’. You can’t distinguish between individual pixels at normal viewing distances, so the pixel density – measured in pixels per inch (ppi) – is the important factor in distinguishing a Retina display from a regular one. As the viewing distance changes, so does the required pixel density for Retina. The Apple iPhone 4s, which has a 3½in, 640x960 screen, has a pixel density of 326ppi. This high density is necessary because you hold the phone so close to your face when using it. The new iPad has a 10.1in, 2,048x1,536 screen, and a lower pixel density of 264ppi, as it’s designed to be used from further away. The MacBook Pro with Retina display has a pixel density of 220ppi, as it’s designed to be used from further away again. By comparison, a standard 15.4in display with a resolution of 1,920x1,080 has a pixel density of just 147ppi. In practice, this makes text and photos look much sharper. Since you can’t see individual pixels, you can’t see jagged lines as you would on lower pixel-density displays. For the best results, applications have to be designed for high pixel-density displays, with high-resolution graphics and icons; simply blowing up existing graphics loses detail. In our examples here, you can see the differences between text and icons viewed on a Retina display

2,880x1,800

1,920x1,080 Run at full resolution, the Retina display has a lot more space to work with, as you can see by the small amount of space a Full HD image (bottom left) takes up

and those simply increased in size from a MacBook Air with a 1,366x768 display. High resolutions also offer other benefits. The 16:10 aspect ratio provides more space at the top and bottom of the image compared with a Full HD screen’s 16:9 aspect ratio, as you can see in the close-up shots of New York, below. On the Retina display, the Free Wi-Fi sign is clearly readable when displayed at a 1:1 pixel ratio; with a Full HD display, it becomes murky and the text is a lot harder to read. A higher resolution means more detail, as you can see from this close-up, where the sign is readable on the Retina display

At full resolution, the Retina screen has more than double the resolution of a Full HD display. This means, for example, that when you’re editing a photo you can fit a lot more of the image on the screen working at a 1:1 pixel ratio. The extra resolution could also be extremely useful when editing Full HD videos, as there’s plenty of room around the side of the movie for toolbars, making it easier to control what’s going on. In short, the Retina display provides greater clarity and sharpness and more screen space. For those working with videos or photos, it’s a big step up from a regular laptop display. It’s time for PC manufacturers to play catch-up.

RETINA SCREEN

HD SCREEN

Here you can see the difference in the aspect ratios of a Full HD and the Retina screens, where Retina has slightly more detail in the top and bottom of the image

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Apple drops Google Maps from iOS 6 APPLE HAS UNVEILED the latest versions of its iPhone and iPad operating system, and announced that Google Maps is to be replaced by Apple’s own mapping application. Due to be launched with the new iPhone later this year, iOS 6 will be the first time Apple mobile products don’t use the Google Maps mapping application. The new Maps app will offer everything that Google Maps currently does, with the addition of turn-byturn directions, which Android already has. Apple has also built its own alternative to Google’s friend-finding Latitude service. Called Find My Friends, this lets you locate your friends and family on the map. By taking control of its own mapping app, Apple can ensure it keeps up with the latest developments. It also opens up the possibility of integration with other apps, which can tap into Maps and use it to display information. The real test will be the quality of the app itself. Google has had years to perfect its app, while Apple is completely new to the field. Some Google Maps features, such as Streetview, simply won’t be available. Google may have been ditched, but Apple is happy with its Facebook relationship. The social network will be integrated across the entire iOS 6 platform. Users can share photos and videos from the camera app, post scores from Game Center, ask Siri – which makes its debut on the new iPad – to make posts and view events and birthdays in your calendar. Contact details will be automatically updated in your address book, and you’ll be able to ‘Like’ songs, albums, shows, movies and apps right from your iPhone or iPad.

Apple’s new operating system sees a raft of improvements, and the dropping of Google Maps in favour of Apple’s own alternative app

Photo Streams already lets you save your pictures to iCloud, and iOS 6 adds the ability to share streams with others. Shared streams can be accessed by iOS devices, Mac OS and Apple TV, and via the web. The cloud also makes an appearance on the updated Safari web browser, which will have iCloud tabs. These will store your open tabs on any iCloud-connected device, so you can pick up where you left off from any device. The mobile version of Safari has also been updated, so you can access the camera directly from it. This is useful if you want to upload a photo to an eBay listing, for example.

The final big addition is Passbook, an app to store tickets and coupons in one place and use your iPhone in place of paper. Apple says the data will be smart and time-sensitive, so your airline ticket will be displayed on the lock page as your flight nears its departure time. The app will require companies to develop for Passbook, and there’s no information about if and how this will work in the UK. As with all major versions of iOS, the software will be launched with a new handset, with owners of older iPhones able to upgrade on the same day. It will be available later this year.

Mac OS X gets closer to mobile devices THE LATEST VERSION of Apple’s Mac OS X operating system, Mountain Lion, is to be integrated more closely with Apple’s iOS mobile operating system. New OS X features include a Reminders app, which lets you set up to-do lists. You can set a location, and your iPhone or iPad will display the Reminder when you get there. The Notes program has also been improved, and is now a standalone app rather than being integrated into Mail. Both Notes and Reminders are synchronised automatically across your devices using iCloud. Apple’s instant messaging service, iMessage, was introduced with iOS 5 on mobile devices as an alternative to SMS messaging. Now available with OS X Mountain Lion, the iMessage client will enable you

to communicate with iPhone users from your laptop or desktop computer. Notification Center is also ripped straight from iOS. It tells you what’s going on with your computer, and includes information on new emails, updates from the App Store, calendar appointments and more. The layout is exactly the same as the iOS version.

Mountain Lion promises better integration with iOS devices

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Unlike MacBooks, Windows-based Ultrabooks have the ability to wake periodically and check for new information, such as emails and instant messages. With Power Nap, Apple redresses the balance and adds the feature to its armoury. Macs are increasingly coming under threat from malware attacks, and Apple has therefore introduced a new security feature called Gatekeeper to help protect its users. This enables you to install only applications that have come from the Mac App Store or from identified developers. The feature can be disabled, however, should you not wish to use it. Tighter integration between iOS and Mac OS X devices provides a compelling reason to buy Apple-only products, and piles further pressure on Windows and Android. OS X Mountain Lion should be available by the time you read this; we’ll bring you a full review in next month’s issue.

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NEWS

Microsoft puts Xbox on mobile screens MICROSOFT HAS UNVEILED a new way to play games on the Xbox 360 using your smartphone or tablet. Dubbed SmartGlass, the app uses your mobile device as a secondary display for an Xbox 360 console. It will support iOS, Android and Windows Phone devices. The extra screen can be used for a variety of purposes in compatible games. For example, you could view interactive maps and in-game inventories or check your status information at a glance, without having to pause the game and enter a menu on the main display. SmartGlass-compatible games have already been demonstrated. Ascend: New Gods, an RPG, uses the secondary display as an interactive map, while in the American football game Madden, the second screen is used to help plan tactics and plays. The technology can also be used to provide additional information about the television programmes and films you’re watching. In a recent demonstration, the US TV series Game of Thrones used SmartGlass to display extra information about episodes and show maps of the programme’s fictional world. Microsoft is hoping to release the SmartGlass app this autumn.

Ascend: New Gods uses Microsoft’s SmartGlass technology to display game information on your smartphone or tablet screen

Full Windows OS comes to phones THANKS TO THE Metro interface, the Windows 8, Xbox and Windows Phone 7 operating systems already look the same. Now Microsoft has revealed that Windows Phone 8 will use the same core as its desktop operating systems, meaning the mobile OS will share the same kernel, file system, device drivers and media features as its big brother, as well as many of its security features. Called ‘Shared Windows Core’, it means there will be practically no difference between the OS on your phone and your computer. This may sound like overkill for a mobile phone, but it could be a shrewd move by Microsoft. While Windows Phone 7 is a slick operating system, its big problem is that there aren’t as many apps for it when compared with Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android. By moving Windows Phone 8 to the same code as Windows 8, it will make it possible for developers to create apps for the handset at the same time as developing the standard Windows version of a program. With more than one billion people worldwide running Windows, there’s no shortage of developers for the platform. All existing 100,000 apps in the Windows Phone Store will work on Windows 8 natively, too. Windows Phone 7.5 has suffered from limited hardware support, but Windows Phone 8 will open the door for multicore processors. Given Microsoft’s experience with this technology in desktop Windows, multicore processors in Windows Phone 8 handsets should be incredibly fast. The only screen resolution supported in Windows Phone 7 was 800x480, but this will be increased to include support for 1,280x768 and 1,280x720 resolutions. This is a big improvement and puts Windows Phone 8 on a par with high-end Android smartphones.

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Near-field communication (NFC) support will be built into the OS, with a mobile wallet providing a central place to store credit-card details and membership cards. It goes head to head with Apple’s new Passbook (see News, page 22). Windows Phone 8 has also been given an improved Start Screen. There are now three sizes of Live Tiles: small, medium and large. The new small tiles mean you can fit more information on the Start screen. These will be particularly useful when you don’t need much space to show information, such as for the number of new SMS messages you have. Microsoft now owns Skype, so it makes sense that the VoIP service has been integrated into its handsets. The Windows Phone 8 phone app will let you make regular or Skype calls, all from one place. Perhaps more surprisingly, Bing Maps is going in favour of Nokia Maps. The Finnish company’s mapping data has better worldwide coverage and supports offline

maps, which is handy if you’re abroad and don’t want to run up huge roaming charges. Microsoft will also open up Nokia Apps to developers, so they will be able to use its features within their apps. While this all sounds like good news, with Microsoft pushing its mobile operating system in a direction that could dramatically improve the range and number of apps, there’s one set of people that aren’t going to be happy: Windows Phone 7.5 owners. Windows Phone 8 will not run on existing handsets, and there will be no upgrades available. Instead, Windows Phone 7.5 users will receive a separate Windows Phone 7.8 update, which will bring some of the interface changes, but little else. This will undoubtedly put many people off buying a Windows Phone 7.5 handset now, as they will prefer to wait for the new OS to arrive. However, it shouldn’t be too long a wait; Windows Phone 8 is expected to be released this autumn at around the same time as Windows 8.

Windows Phone 8 will use the same code base as Windows 8, making it easier for developers to write apps

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REVIEWS

REVIEWS YOUR TRUSTED GUIDE TO WHAT’S NEW APPLE MacBook Pro with Retina Display ★★★★★

£1,799 inc VAT • From www.apple.com/uk

VERDICT

Gorgeous design and an absolutely stunning screen, with an equally breathtaking price THE MACBOOK PRO was once the domain of graphics professionals, video editors and engineers who needed a huge amount of power in a portable package, but when Apple retired the standard MacBook it became the de facto standard for every would-be screenwriter in coffee shops up and down the country. That all looks set to change with the new-generation MacBook Pro and its stunning Retina display, which promises to return the MacBook Pro to the professionals. Looking beyond Apple’s jargon (the definition of Retina changes from one device to another – see our News story for details) the 15.4in, 2,880x1,800 display is still a world first, squeezing more pixels into a laptop than ever before. OS X has been completely overhauled to make the most of the extra pixels, with higher-resolution icons and text and updated applications. OS X scales up its icons and text to suit the higher resolution, so you don’t end up with tiny icons that are hard to use, as you do when running Windows on a small high-resolution screen. This also means you don’t get any more desktop space than you did with last year’s 1,440x900 MacBook Pro. However, it’s when running applications written to take advantage of the Retina display that the screen really impresses. In Final Cut Pro, the screen can display a full HD video with its native number of pixels while leaving plenty of room for a time line and playback controls. Photos show much more detail in Aperture without the need to zoom in, making it the ideal tool for image editing.

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Unfortunately, this also means that any programs that have yet to be updated to make the most of the higher resolution won’t render text correctly, leaving it blurred and hard to read. For example, Safari displays beautiful high-resolution text, but text in the current version of Chrome is jagged. Google is in the middle of updating its browser, and the latest Canary developer version renders text correctly for the Retina display. Web pages look better or worse depending on how they’ve been put together. On www. expertreviews.co.uk, the logo looks slightly jagged, but the product images in reviews are lovely and crisp and have more detail than when the same page is viewed on a normal 1080p display. This is because the logo has a

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set resolution, but the product images are uploaded at 800x640 and then downsized to fit a smaller space in the web page. The Retina-ready browsers can load more pixels from the original image and so show more detail. The MacBook’s IPS panel has near-limitless viewing angles and more than enough screen tilt to combat the few reflections from the glossy display finish. We’ve never seen anything like this screen before; it’s sublime. Of course, Apple hasn’t only upgraded the screen. The entire laptop has been redesigned, and the aluminium chassis has been slimmed down to an incredible 18mm. Despite this, it offers two USB3 ports, two Thunderbolt ports, an HDMI video output, SD card reader and a 3.5mm headset audio jack, so there’s no compromise for connectivity. The internals are all cutting edge, too, with an Intel Ivy Bridge processor, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SATA3 SSD and dedicated Nvidia graphics. The quad-core i3-3610QM processor runs at 2.3GHz but can also use Turbo Boost to hit 3.3GHz when thermal limits allow.

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p34 Samsung Galaxy S3

p48 Sony KDL-46Hx853

p58 AMD Radeon HD 7970

p86 Ivy Bridge PC group test

p110 SSD group test

OS X has been completely overhauled to make the most of the extra pixels

Unsurprisingly, its performance was spectacular. It produced an overall score of 111 in our multimedia benchmarks, making this one of the quickest laptops we’ve ever seen. The dedicated GT 650M graphics chipset helps when dealing with HD video, and is capable of playing modern games. There’s 1GB of dedicated RAM, which helped lessen the impact of the anti-aliasing in our Call of Duty 4 test. With an average frame rate of 30.8, very few games will struggle to play smoothly – as long as you stick to 720p resolutions. Call of Duty 4 is still playable at 2,880x1,800, but only with anti-aliasing disabled. More graphically intensive titles will require you to drop detail settings to maintain a solid frame rate. It’s also up to developers to add support for the Retina display to their games – Diablo 3 runs at a playable frame rate of 2,880x1,800. Despite these powerful components, the MacBook Pro has fantastic battery life. Apple has used several battery cells of different sizes to squeeze as much capacity into the slim chassis as possible, and the effort has paid off. Our light-use test ran for an unheard-of 12 hours away from the mains, so you’ll be able to use it all day if you disable Wi-Fi and stick to light tasks. In most cases, you’ll get between seven and nine hours of web browsing, which is incredible for a 15in laptop. In general use, this latest MacBook Pro is every bit as easy to use as its predecessor. It has the same Chiclet-style keyboard and

more memory or storage might be useful in the future, you’ll have to pay for the upgrade when you buy it rather than later. There’s simply nothing that can compete with the new MacBook Pro’s gorgeous screen. It has the highest resolution of any laptop display ever, and it probably produces a level of detail that must be seen to be believed. It’s almost overkill for most people, as few applications currently take advantage of the extra pixels. If you edit photos or video for a living, the new MacBook Pro is one of the best laptops you could possibly buy. For everyone else, the older MacBook Pro is still more than capable of doing everything you’d want a laptop to do. It’s an Ultimate laptop. Tom Morgan

oversized touchpad, so current Apple Mac users should feel at home. The Chiclet-style keyboard is comfortable and responsive, with a white LED backlight to help you work in low light. The touchpad is still the best we’ve ever had the pleasure of using, thanks to its pinpoint precision. The laptop’s multi-touch gestures work perfectly, even if Apple’s strange decision to reverse the scroll direction in OS X Lion can seem counter-intuitive to Windows users, but you can reverse the scroll direction in Settings. The few faults we could find are minor. Laptops are notoriously difficult to upgrade at the best of times, but the MacBook Pro is impossible to upgrade yourself. Everything is soldered to the motherboard, so if you think

SPECIFICATIONS CPU 2.3GHz Intel Core i7-3610QM RAM 8GB STORAGE 256GB SSD GRAPHICS Nvidia GeForce GT 650M OPTICAL DRIVE None DISPLAY 15.4in widescreen LED (2,880x1,800) OPERATING SYSTEM Mac OS X 10.7 POWER CONSUMPTION 0W standby, 56W idle, 72W active WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE N/A DETAILS www.apple.com

ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| SEPTEMBER 2012

359mm

247mm

Windows overall

111

Multitasking

109

15.4in 2kg

18mm Closed

WorldMags.net

Dirt 3

N/A 12h 9m

Battery life 0%

-50

Reference

+50

+100

See page 76 for performance details

27

REVIEWS

SONY Vaio T13 ★★★★★

£680 inc VAT • From www.sony.co.uk

VERDICT

A well-rounded entry-level Ultrabook, although not without its faults ULTRABOOKS WERE AN expensive luxury when they first appeared last year, but they’re gradually coming down in price. Now that more people are willing to buy one, Sony has finally decided to enter the ring with its first Ultrabook, the Vaio T13. It’s a mid-range machine with a mechanical hard disk and previous-generation Sandy Bridge processor, but don’t let that put you off; you can pick one up for a very reasonable £680. First impressions are very positive – Sony’s signature Vaio styling looks sleek, and with its 18mm-thick chassis you’d be hard pushed to separate it from the much more expensive Vaio Z series. It’s built from plastic rather than metal, the only exception being the brushed aluminium lid. The main body shows few signs of flex, although there’s much more give in the screen. The display is a 13.3in panel with a fairly standard 1,366x768 resolution. Brightness can be set to a very high level, and the glossy display makes colours appear bright and vibrant, but we still found reflections quite

The touchpad is more than large enough to span the entire desktop in a single swipe, thanks to the widescreen layout, which matches the laptop’s display. The laptop’s application performance was distinctly average due to its entry-level Intel Core i3-2367M processor. This runs at 1.4GHz but doesn’t support Turbo Boost for extra performance when required, although it has the benefit of Hyper-Threading. The laptop

You’d be hard pushed to separate the sleek T13 from Sony’s much more expensive Z series troublesome. Thankfully, there’s a large amount of screen tilt, although the viewing angles from the TN panel are average at best. Once we’d found a workable viewing angle, we had no trouble working on the T13 thanks to its spacious Chiclet-style keyboard. There’s not much travel in the keys, but they spring back instantly, giving you plenty of feedback when typing. You don’t get a numeric keypad, and there’s no backlight, but the full-size keys are still a pleasure to use.

A TOUCH OF CLASS

Sony has also done a great job with the all-in-one touchpad – we don’t usually like these designs, as we prefer physical buttons, but the multi-touch gestures make it much easier to use than similar touchpads from other manufacturers. A two-finger tap will right-click, so you don’t even need to press down on the pad to access context menus.

still struggled in our multimedia benchmarks, managing just 29 overall, although you should still be able to use most desktop applications, including image editors and word processors, smoothly. Multitasking shouldn’t slow the system down either, as it has 4GB of RAM. As we’ve come to expect from Intel’s HD 3000 integrated graphics, gaming is mostly out of the question unless you lower all the detail settings and resolution. Our Dirt 3 test managed only 12.3fps, which suggests that trying to play newer games will result in a jerky slideshow. HD video playback is perfectly smooth, however, whether you play it directly on the laptop at 720p or on an external display at Full HD resolution. One major benefit of using integrated graphics is improved battery life, and the T13 doesn’t disappoint. If you stick to basic tasks such as word processing and web browsing, you’ll be able to work for a full day without

the battery running out – in our light-use test, the T13 lasted for seven and a half hours. The T13 isn’t perfect. It’s connectivity is rather limited, with only two USB ports (although one is a USB3 version), a 3.5mm headset audio jack and a multiformat card reader. VGA and HDMI video outputs are a welcome inclusion, as is the full-size Ethernet port, but if you’re using the T13 at a desk you may need to buy a USB hub. As one of the cheapest Ultrabooks around, the T13 looks like great value. It may lack the power of a similarly priced 15in model, but if you require greater portability, you get plenty for your money here. The processor can even be upgraded to a newer Ivy Bridge model, improving battery life and performance, for an extra £100. Its screen isn’t the best and its connectivity could be better, but the Vaio T13 is still a very attractive laptop. Tom Morgan

SPECIFICATIONS CPU 1.4GHz Intel Core i3-2367M RAM 4GB STORAGE 320GB hard disk GRAPHICS Intel HD 3000 OPTICAL DRIVE None DISPLAY 13.3in LCD (1,366x768) OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit DIMENSIONS 18x323x216mm, 1.6kg POWER CONSUMPTION 0W standby, 10W idle, 25W active WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE SVT1311M1E DETAILS www.sony.co.uk

Windows overall

29

Multitasking

27

Dirt 3 12.3fps 7h 27m

Battery life 0%

-50

Reference

+50

+100

See page 76 for performance details

28

WorldMags.net

SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

For QUALITY and PERFORMANCE choose

iiyama ProLite G2773HS The 27’’ ProLite G2773HS is a real game changer. The use of a high quality 120Hz panel with a blistering 1ms Response Time offers you an amazing gaming experience. The screen offers crystal clear, smooth and judder free graphics during fast paced games and beautiful quality HD video. Hardcore gamers will really appreciate the few milliseconds advantage this screen gives you, allowing split second game changing decisions. The screen comes equipped with stereo speakers and a headphone socket as well as HDMI, VGA and Dual Link DVI connections and boasts a 1920 x 1080 Resolution.

iiyama ProLite E2273HDS 22’’

iiyama ProLite E2473HDS 24’’

iiyama ProLite E2773HDS 27’’

Features include:

Features include:

Features include:

• 22” LED-backlit • Full HD 1080p, 1920 x 1080 resolution (2.1 megapixel) • 2ms response time • 5 000 000:1 ACR • DVI-D, VGA (D-Sub), HDMI

• 24” LED-backlit • Full HD 1080p, 1920 x 1080 resolution (2.1 megapixel) • 2ms response time • 5 000 000:1 ACR • DVI-D, VGA (D-Sub), HDMI x 2

• 27” LED-backlit • Full HD 1080p, 1920 x 1080 resolution (2.1 megapixel) • 1ms response time • 5 000 000:1 ACR • DVI-D, VGA (D-Sub), HDMI

Extended Warranty Options available! See the complete range of iiyama displays: www.iiyama.co.uk [email protected] Tel: 01438 745 482

iiyama monitors available from the following reseller partners:

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REVIEWS

APPLE MacBook Air 11in (2012) ★★★★★

£929 inc VAT • From www.apple.com/uk

VERDICT

The original and still the best – if you’re after ultra-portable perfection, look no further AS ONE OF the thinnest laptops ever made, the original MacBook Air was a revelation. Competition heated up with the launch of Intel’s Ultrabook specification, but Apple hasn’t been resting on its laurels. This latest version may be more of an evolution than a revolution, but it’s the best MacBook Air yet. The 2012 Air has the same aluminium chassis as last year’s model, and looks almost identical. The only clue is the slightly thinner MagSafe power connector, which has been redesigned for a more secure hold. Otherwise, the two USB ports, single Thunderbolt port and 3.5mm audio jack look identical to those of the old system. Apple has made some major changes internally, starting with an upgrade to the USB ports. They both support the faster USB3 standard, although unlike the USB3 ports on most Windows PCs and laptops, they’re not blue. The Air’s SSD storage has been upgraded to support SATA3, improving data transfer speeds by as much as 40 per cent in certain applications.

courtesy of Intel’s HD 4000 GPU. It’s a major improvement over the GPU found in Sandy Bridge processors, so you can now play games without a separate graphics chipset. Our normal Dirt 3 graphics benchmark isn’t compatible with OS X, so we fell back to our old Call of Duty 4 test to put it through its paces. An average frame rate of 20.6 with 4x anti-aliasing is reasonable for such a compact laptop. You should be able to play classics

Apple has made some major changes internally, starting with an upgrade to the USB ports The major upgrade is the processor, which has leapt from a second-generation Core i5 to the latest third-generation Ivy Bridge models. Despite the usual secrecy over Apple’s component choices, the specifications match those of a low-voltage Intel Core i5-3317U running at 1.7GHz. The processor can Turbo Boost to 2.6GHz when operating below its thermal ceiling for extra performance.

AIR FORCE

This certainly showed in our multimedia benchmarks, where the Air scored a very respectable 60 overall. It has enough power to run almost any everyday application, and is quicker than any Ultrabook we’ve seen, although we’ll have to wait for our first Ivy Bridge Ultrabook to make a real comparison. The new processor also includes upgraded integrated graphics,

such as Half-Life 2 and less-demanding newer games at Medium detail settings. Despite this improved performance, Apple has managed to keep the new Air’s battery life at the same level as that of last year’s model. Apple quotes five hours with Wi-Fi enabled, but in our offline light-usage test the battery managed a significantly higher eight hours. In almost every other respect, this latest MacBook Air plays it safe by replicating last year’s Chiclet-style keyboard, glass touchpad and 11.6in screen. With so much fuss being made over the Retina display in the new

MacBook Pro, we can’t help but feel a little disappointed with the Air’s 1,366x768 screen, although it has exceptional viewing angles and vibrant colours. The glass touchpad feels slightly less grainy than last year’s model, which is a welcome improvement. As we’ve come to expect from OS X, Apple’s multi-touch implementation is unparalleled, although OS X Lion’s reversed scrolling motion can take some getting used to. It’s meant to mimic the way its mobile iOS behaves, but you can turn it off. The keyboard is backlit to make working in low light easier, and although there’s not a huge amount of travel in each key we had no trouble typing. At £929, this 11in model is very reasonably priced. It’s a superb ultra-portable laptop, but there’s one model that beats it – the 13in MacBook Air, which is only slightly larger but has a 1,440 x 900 display. Look out for our full review in the next issue. Tom Morgan

SPECIFICATIONS CPU 1.7GHz Intel Core i5-3317U RAM 4GB STORAGE 120GB SSD GRAPHICS Intel HD 4000 OPTICAL DRIVE None DISPLAY 11.6in widescreen LCD (1,366x768) OPERATING SYSTEM Mac OS X 10.7 DIMENSIONS 17x300x192mm, 1.1kg POWER CONSUMPTION 1W standby, 6W idle, 33W active WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE N/A DETAILS www.apple.com

Windows overall

60

Multitasking

48

Dirt 3 N/A 8h

Battery Life 0%

-50

Reference

+50

+100

See page 76 for performance details

30

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SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

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REVIEWS

CMS COMPUTERS Zoostorm Home Media Desktop ★★★★★

£395 inc VAT • From CMS Computers (Zoostorm) 0844 800 6100

VERDICT

This budget PC performs well enough but we’d welcome better build quality WHILE MANY PEOPLE are excited about Intel’s powerful new Ivy Bridge processors, not everyone needs a powerful processor or the latest in 3D graphics. Most people still use their PCs mainly for social networking and the web, email, chatting and writing the odd letter. If the nearest you regularly come to 3D gaming is the odd game of Bejewelled Blitz, you don’t need to spend a fortune on a PC. At £395 including VAT, the Zoostorm Home Media Desktop is a modestly priced mini desktop system. It’s not much to look at and is surprisingly noisy but it doesn’t take up much space. The case’s interior is bare metal – there are no unfinished edges to cut yourself on but it looks stark and has wide mesh vents that do little to stop fluff getting into the case. There are no fans to keep it cool, but with a minimum of components this PC runs little risk of overheating.

ALL WORK AND NO PLAY

The processor is a 2.8GHz AMD FX-4170, plugged into a Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2P motherboard. The processor’s integrated AMD Radeon HD 3000 graphics couldn’t handle any of our 3D gaming tests, although it should be able to cope with casual 2D games such as Plants vs Zombies. In our application benchmarks, the system scored 52 overall. It’s nothing to write home about, but should be sufficient for undemanding use. The no-frills motherboard has just one PCI, one PCI-E x1 and one PCI-E x16 slot. This allows a modest amount of upgrade potential, but if you want to add a powerful graphics card, you’ll have to upgrade the 350W power supply and add some fans, too. Both of its memory slots are occupied by 4GB modules – 8GB is the maximum the motherboard can handle, but you’re unlikely to need more.

There are six SATA ports (none of them SATA3), two of which are used by a DVD drive and a 500GB hard disk. The hard disk is surprisingly small by modern standards. There’s one empty 5¼in drive and three unused 3½in bays, one of which is external and so can be fitted with accessories such as a memory card reader. Just two USB ports, a headphone port and a microphone input sit beneath a flap at the front of the PC. There’s not much at the back either, with just four USB2 ports, two PS/2 ports for a keyboard and mouse, Gigabit Ethernet, 5.1 analogue audio outputs and DVI and VGA graphics outputs. This is a reasonable PC, but its £395 price is a little high given its limited upgradability, poor graphics and surprising noise levels. If you want a basic PC, you’re better off with the Overclockers Primo 6100i, which costs around £350 and has a more powerful Intel Core i3-2100 processor and a quieter and more attractive case, or the £440 Palicomp Hyper Flame, which is well made and has outstanding integrated graphics performance. Kat Orphanides

SPECIFICATIONS CPU 2.8GHz AMD FX-4170 RAM 8GB STORAGE 500GB hard disk GRAPHICS CARD AMD Radeon HD 3000 OPTICAL DRIVE DVD+/-RW +/-DL OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit DIMENSIONS 360x180x394mm POWER CONSUMPTION 2W standby, 59W idle, 104W active WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE 7873-0501 DETAILS www.zoostorm.com

Windows overall

52

Multitasking

52

Dirt 3 FAIL Crysis 2 FAIL 0%

-50

Reference

+50

+100

See page 76 for performance details

32

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SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

REVIEWS

CHILLBLAST Nautilus ★★★★★

£1,599 inc VAT • From Chillblast 0845 45678 30

VERDICT

Monstrous both in power and price, this media PC is nothing short of stunning THANKS TO ITS Lian Li Snail case, the Chillblast Nautilus is the most distinctive media centre PC we’ve ever reviewed. It looks stunning and runs very quietly, with only the faintest rush of air to be heard even when we pressed our ear to the case. This is particularly impressive given that the case has little soundproofing. Instead, its sides are made entirely of a fine but sturdy mesh, which does a good job of keeping fluff out of the guts of the PC. Our review system became a glowing apparition thanks to some unusually impressive lighting, but this is optional, and you can order the system without it if you’d find it distracting. The case has fans on its sides, so placing it on its side under your TV will mess up the cooling. Inside, the components, cages and fan mountings slot into place like a 3D jigsaw. The internal edges are smoothly finished, and to

The system became a glowing apparition thanks to some unusually impressive lighting

gain access to the motherboard you simply slide away a mounting with a pair of intake fans on it. There’s also a rear outflow fan, which you can adjust to find your own optimal balance between cooling and quietness. The massive processor cooler and graphics card almost entirely obscure the Asus P8Z77-M Pro microATX motherboard, leaving only one PCI slot accessible. This limits the Nautilus’s upgrade potential, but you could install a sound card or TV tuner if you don’t want to occupy the PC’s external USB ports. The PC has an Intel Core i7-3770K processor, which has been overclocked to 4.2GHz, making this the most powerful media centre system we’ve ever seen. With this processor, a 2GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 graphics card and 16GB of RAM. It’s ready for anything, from gaming to graphics. The graphics card has two DVI ports as well as HDMI and DisplayPort, and you can connect monitors to all of them simultaneously. The system showed its speed in our tests, achieving a huge overall score of 129 in our application benchmarks, 124fps in Dirt 3 and 40.7fps in Crysis 2 at Ultra quality.

SNAIL’S PACE

A 120GB SSD serves as the Nautilus’s boot disk, which means you get fast performance in disk-intensive tasks and very quick boot times. There’s also a 1TB hard disk, which gives you plenty of room to store multimedia content. As you’d expect from a media centre PC, there’s also a Blu-ray re-writer. Inside, it has six SATA ports, but only two are SATA3 and both are in use. If you want to connect external storage, though, you’re in luck, with one eSATA2 port and two USB3 ports at the front of the case and two eSATA3 ports, four USB3 and two USB2 ports on the back. There’s also a PS/2 port and a Gigabit Ethernet port. There’s no built-in Wi-Fi, but Ethernet or powerline networking is better for HD media streaming anyway. Audio ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| SEPTEMBER 2012

WorldMags.net

is provided by an optical S/PDIF output and 3.5mm analogue audio outputs, which allow the on-board Realtek audio to output up to 7.1 surround sound. There are also 3.5mm mic and headphone ports on the front of the PC. A removable mesh panel covers the system’s rear ports, helping to keep your cables tidy. This is a brilliant PC, both in looks and functionality, although its relatively large size means that it’s arguably less a media centre system than a pretty desktop PC. At £1,599, it’s very expensive, too. However, if you want a massively powerful system that’s not simply unobtrusive but genuinely attractive as well as very quiet, this is a classy choice. Kat Orphanides

SPECIFICATIONS CPU 4.2GHz Intel Core i7-3770K RAM 16GB STORAGE 120GB SSD + 1TB hard disk GRAPHICS CARD 2GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 OPTICAL DRIVE BD-RE + DVD+/-RW +/-DL OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit DIMENSIONS 495x192x412mm POWER CONSUMPTION 2W standby, 81W idle, 240W active WARRANTY Two-year collect and return DETAILS www.chillblast.com

Windows overall

129

Multitasking

137

Dirt 3

124fps

Crysis 2

49.7fps 0%

-50

Reference

+50

+100

See page 76 for performance details

33

REVIEWS

SAMSUNG Galaxy S3 ★★★★★

£500 inc VAT SIM-free, £89 on £31-per-month 24-month contract • From www.play.com (SIM-free), www.vodafone.co.uk (contract)

VERDICT

Fast, with an amazing screen and great battery life. Android handsets don’t get much better than this THE GALAXY S3 was unquestionably Samsung’s big launch for 2012; the company even hired Earl’s Court for the day under the grandiose title ‘Samsung Mobile Unpacked 2012’, just to launch one phone. This is no ordinary Android handset, though. The Galaxy S3 is an Android 4.0 phone that has a huge 4.8in AMOLED screen with a 720x1,280 resolution, a 1.4GHz quad-core processor and an 8-megapixel camera, so it’s going head-to-head with HTC’s 4.7in One X. It’s available in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB versions, and has a microSD card slot for further expansion. The S3 is a big phone, but it couldn’t have been smaller and still crammed in the 4.8in screen. There are only a couple of millimetres of space either side of the screen, and around a centimetre on the top and bottom to house the front-facing camera and home button. The handset is also just 9mm thick. However, while its slim body is comfortable to hold, we weren’t so sure about the all-gloss-plastic back. The quad-core 1.4GHz processor runs Android 4.0 beautifully, and the web browser has near-desktop performance. It took four seconds to render the BBC News homepage, compared with five seconds on a Motorola RAZR MAXX and seven seconds on Nokia’s Lumia 800. A score of 1,459 in the Sunspider benchmark shows this to be the quickest Android phone we’ve seen, and around 15 per cent faster than the HTC One X. Despite its speed and fast processor, battery life is also impressive; we saw just shy of 10 hours of video playback in our tests, compared with six hours and 21 minutes from the HTC One X. The screen’s high resolution makes it simple to browse web pages in full desktop mode, with little need for zooming and scrolling; you won’t really need a tablet as well as this phone. There’s one problem with a handset this big, though: it’s hard to use one-handed. With one hand holding an umbrella, it’s a real stretch to reach the app tray icon and the home button, and we never felt particularly confident about not dropping the phone. This is the only problem we had with the phone’s size; the handset’s slimness means it still fits fine in jeans pockets.

In contrast to the HTC One X’s IPS LCD display, the Galaxy S3 has an AMOLED screen, which gives better contrast than the HTC One X’s display. The Galaxy S3’s display is a PenTile screen with two rather than three coloured pixels per sub-pixel, but there’s none of the colour cast we sometimes see with PenTile displays, such as the slight yellow tint on Motorola’s RAZR MAXX. We found it hard to find fault with the Galaxy S3’s screen; if you look really closely the text isn’t quite as sharp as on the iPhone 4S’s display, but it’s really splitting hairs. Samsung claims the Galaxy S3 is “designed for humans”, and to this end the handset has several motion controls designed to make it intuitive to use. When you launch an app for which a motion control is available, a help screen pops up telling you about it and asking if you want to enable the feature. All the motion controls are grouped together in Settings, so you can tweak them later.

FUTILE GESTURES

We had varying degrees of success with the gesture controls. You can turn the phone over to mute a call, and when you pick it back up the Smart alert feature will make the phone vibrate to let you know that you’ve missed something, such as a call or a text message. You can double-tap the top of the phone to go to the top of a list, such as your contacts, but we couldn’t get the tilt-to-zoom function on web pages and the gallery to work at all. One feature we did like was that if a contact is on your screen or you’re in the middle of writing a text message to that contact, bringing the phone up to your ear will automatically call that person. A particularly interesting addition is Smart stay, which is meant to use the front-facing camera to stop the screen turning itself off when you’re looking at it. We found it

sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. The phone also has Samsung’s S Voice control, which is meant to perform functions such as sending people messages or dialling them, Siri-style. We found it barely understood the simplest voice commands. The well-designed camera app makes it simple to get the best out of the phone’s 8-megapixel camera. There are a few different ways to take a photo, including a 20-shot burst mode, HDR and the fun Panorama feature. The phone takes pictures almost instantly, but the thin screen bezel meant we would sometimes nudge the touchscreen and activate an option when lining up a shot. The resulting images are up there with the best we’ve seen, with natural colours and plenty of detail in bright light. They can’t quite match the compact camera-bothering HTC One X, though. Samsung’s Galaxy S3 is a superb Android handset, with a beautiful screen and super fast processor. If you’re after an Android handset, it’s really a choice between this and the HTC One X. We think the HTC One X feels slightly classier and has the edge when it comes to camera quality, but the Galaxy S3 is faster and has around 30 per cent better battery life. We don’t think Samsung’s motion and voice controls are enough to swing the argument over to the Galaxy S3, so the phone you choose will depend on your priorities; both are equally excellent Android 4.0 phones. Chris Finnamore

SPECIFICATIONS PROCESSOR SPEED 1.4GHz NUMBER OF CORES 4 RAM 1GB MOBILE DATA GPRS, EDGE, 3G, HSDPA DISPLAY 4.8in, 720x1,280 LCD CAMERA 8-megapixel INTERNAL STORAGE 16GB MEMORY CARD SLOT microSD CLAIMED BATTERY LIFE 22 hours’ talktime, 37.5 days’ standby DIMENSIONS 137x71x9mm, 133g PART CODE GT-i9300RWDBTU DETAILS www.samsung.co.uk

9hr 57m

Battery life 0%

-50

Reference

+50

+100

See page 76 for performance details

34

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SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

REVIEWS

NOKIA Lumia 900

BYTE SIZE

★★★★★

BOOQ Mamba Shift

£446 inc VAT SIM-free, free on £31-per-month 24-month contract • From www.ebuyer.com (SIM-free), www.mobiles.co.uk (contract)

★★★★★ £113 inc VAT • From www.comeuro.net

VERDICT

Superb build quality and a bigger screen, but the smaller Lumia 800 is better value WHILE MANY MANUFACTURERS release their high-end products first before bringing out the cheaper models in the range, Nokia went straight for the middle ground with its Windows Phone Lumia 800 and 710. It then topped and tailed the range with the budget 610 and this, the high-end Lumia 900. Microsoft has avoided the interface disparities suffered by Android phones by making sure manufacturers barely change Windows Phone 7. This provides consistency, but also means there’s little difference between handsets, and that includes those within Nokia’s Lumia range. All the handsets have single-core processors and screen resolutions of 480x800 pixels. They also have access to Nokia’s Music, Maps and Drive apps, which let you listen to music mixes for free and have turn-by-turn navigation. Apart from the bottom-of-the-range Lumia 610, which has an 800MHz rather than 1.4GHz processor, the only differences between the phones are in screen sizes, screen technology and cameras. In these respects, the Lumia 900 is top dog thanks to its 4.3in AMOLED display, 8-megapixel camera and additional frontfacing camera for video calls. It’s a beautifully built phone, with a matt polycarbonate body that makes it easy to hold. The AMOLED screen certainly looks great, with incredibly deep black levels giving colours a huge amount of punch. Images look just as good as on the Lumia 800, which has a smaller 3.7in AMOLED display, and the larger screen size makes viewing photos a joy. However, the fact that the Lumia 900 has the same number of pixels as the Lumia 800 spread over a larger area makes text look less sharp. The Lumia 900’s screen, unlike the Lumia 800’s, doesn’t curve out from the body, so seems less vulnerable to damage. Windows Phone 7 mostly runs just as well on the Lumia 900 as it does on all Windows Phone handsets: transitions are smooth and quick, the onscreen keyboard is responsive and there are rarely any slowdowns. The only area we felt let the Lumia 900 down was that the scrolling seems to have slowed down, so you can’t flick up and down the menus with your finger as quickly as you can on the other phones in the Lumia range. Everything else about Windows Phone is intact, so you have a capable web browser, Facebook integration, support for editing Office files, built-in cloud storage, an excellent email client and a calendar that, to our increasing annoyance, still doesn’t have a week view. You also have significantly less ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| SEPTEMBER 2012

choice when it comes to apps, but things are improving; there are a couple of good travel apps, but you still miss out on big-name apps such as Rightmove, Sky+ and BBC iPlayer. The Mix Radio part of Nokia Music is a fantastic free music resource and Nokia Drive is a competent turn-by-turn navigation app with offline map support, but neither Nokia Maps nor Bing Maps supports offline mapping. The Lumia 900’s 8-megapixel camera is far better than the 710’s and 610’s 5-megapixel models, but still fairly disappointing, especially compared with recent HTC cameras. As with the Lumia 800’s photos, the 900’s show significant noise, even in bright daylight. The Lumia 900’s camera also seems to produce overly saturated colours, leading to the blue sky in one of our test photos looking almost turquoise. Unlike the rest of the Lumia range, there’s also a front-facing camera. We found it worked fine in Skype video calls. Nokia’s Lumia 900 is a good-looking and well-made Windows Phone 7 handset. We don’t think it offers enough over the Lumia 800 to justify its price of £100 SIM-free and around £5-per-month on contract premium, though. If you’re after a Windows Phone 7 handset, the Lumia 800 is still the one to get. Chris Finnamore

SPECIFICATIONS PROCESSOR SPEED 1.4GHz NUMBER OF CORES 1 RAM 512MB MOBILE DATA GPRS, EDGE, 3G, HSDPA DISPLAY 4.3in, 480x800 LCD CAMERA 8-megapixel INTERNAL STORAGE 16GB MEMORY CARD SLOT None CLAIMED BATTERY LIFE 7 hours’ talktime, 12.5 days’ standby DIMENSIONS 128x69x12mm, 160g PART CODE Lumia 900 DETAILS www.nokia.co.uk

9hr 6m

Battery life 0%

-50

Reference

Booq’s Mamba Shift laptop backpack is built to hold a 17in laptop,, as well as everything else se you might need when n working on the move, and even has extra peace of mind sewn into its lining. A unique identifier can be registered with Booq’s Terralinq service, so if your bag goes missing they can help you find it through the Terralinq register. This service is included in the price of the bag, so you won’t have to pay a subscription fee, although it can’t prevent your belongings being stolen and does mean the bag costs a whopping £113. With several pockets for a tablet, power supplies and other gadgets, you should have no trouble filling it up, but if you would prefer to keep a closer eye on your belongings, there are less expensive bags to be found elsewhere. Tom Morgan PART CODE 68677 DETAILS www.booq.com

CM STORM Quickfire Rapid

★★★★★ £63 inc VAT • From www.aria.co.uk This compact mechanical keyboard is aimed at gamers with limited desk space. You gain about 3in of desk space over a regular keyboard, as CM Storm has removed the numeric keypad. This frees up room for a larger mouse mat, making it easier to use lowersensitivity mouse settings without bashing into the keyboard. The removable braided USB cable is a nice touch, as is the row of multimedia controls assigned as secondary functions to the F keys, but otherwise it’s refreshingly devoid of the superfluous features usually found on gaming kit. It’s incredibly well built, with responsive mechanical keys that have precise actions and satisfyingly loud click noises. Because it uses fewer keys than other mechanical keyboards, it’s also one of the cheaper models we’ve seen and is great value. Tom Morgan PART CODE SGK-4000-GKCC1-UK

+50

+100

DETAILS www.cmstorm.com

See page 76 for performance details

WorldMags.net

35

REVIEWS

NOKIA Lumia 610

BYTE SIZE TREEGREEN energyEGG

★★★★★

£180 inc VAT SIM-free, free on £13.50-per-month 24-month contract • From www.clove.co.uk (SIM-free), www.buymobilephones.net (contract)

★★★★★

£40 inc VAT From www.uswitch.com

VERDICT

Compromised, but beautifully made and stylish for the price AFTER THE MID RANGE Lumia 710 and 800, closely followed by the big-screen Lumia 900 (see page 35), we finally have Nokia’s budget Windows Phone 7 handset: the cheap-aschips Lumia 610. This is just £180 SIM-free or free on a £13.50-per-month contract, which makes it £40 cheaper SIM-free than the next phone up in the range, Nokia’s Lumia 710, and about £7 cheaper per month with a contract. The Lumia 610 is still a Nokia, though, which means its build quality is anything but budget. The phone feels beautifully made, with no flex in the body and a textured rubber back that makes it a delight to hold. It’s definitely got the edge in looks over the Lumia 710, and is on the verge of being the best-looking Lumia in the entire range. The Lumia 610’s back, home and search buttons are touch-sensitive, which we prefer to the 710’s physical buttons. The camera is the same five-megapixel model as the 710 and takes fairly average photos; there’s not a great deal of detail, and noise speckles are present even in bright daylight shots. The handset’s low price has led to some compromises. The phone’s 3.7in display has the standard Windows Phone 7 resolution of 480x800 pixels, but according to Nokia lacks the Lumia 710’s ClearBlack technology. It’s still a bright, clear screen with vibrant colours, but blacks aren’t as deep as on the Lumia 710, so colours don’t pack the same punch. There’s also the question of the processor. Unlike the Lumia 710, 800 and 900, which all have 1.4GHz single-core processors and 512MB RAM, the Lumia 610 makes do with an 800MHz single-core chip and 256MB RAM. This makes it the slowest Windows Phone 7 handset we’ve seen. You don’t notice the slowdown when you’re flicking through Windows 7’s Live Tiles or the menu system, which is still the smooth Windows Phone 7 experience we’ve come to expect, but application performance takes a hit. On the Lumia 710, rendering the BBC News homepage took just under seven seconds, but this almost doubled to 14 seconds on the slower Lumia 610. Likewise, loading Nokia Drive from startup to the main map view took seven seconds on the Lumia 710 but a huge 17 seconds on the Lumia 610. The RAM is also a problem with some games; trying to install Sid Meier’s Pirates! from the Marketplace, for example, pops up a message saying, “This application requires a phone with more RAM than the Nokia Lumia 610”. Angry Birds is also a no-no.

36

The phone’s basic functions still work beautifully; pages may take longer to load in the Lumia 610’s browser, but scrolling around them and zooming in and out is smooth. There’s nothing wrong with core apps such as the email client and calendar, even if there is a very slight hesitation when closing them to go back to the home screen. The problem is that Windows Phone 7 devices are meant to give a consistent experience, and it’s a shame to have that experience stymied by your phone’s lack of resources. However, we didn’t find any non-game apps that wouldn’t install. The Lumia 610 is a gorgeous phone which, while slower than other Windows Phone 7 handsets, is still faster and slicker than any budget Android handsets we’ve come across. It has the worst screen in the Lumia range, but it’s still better than most budget Android phones’ displays, and even the camera isn’t bad for the price. If you want to be sure to have the full Windows Phone experience you should save up for the Lumia 710, but as long as you’re aware of its compromises the Lumia 610 is still a great handset. It’s a Budget Buy. Chris Finnamore

SPECIFICATIONS PROCESSOR SPEED 800MHz NUMBER OF CORES 1 RAM 256MB MOBILE DATA GPRS, EDGE, 3G, HSDPA DISPLAY 3.7in 480x800 LCD CAMERA 5-megapixel INTERNAL STORAGE 8GB MEMORY CARD SLOT None CLAIMED BATTERY LIFE 9.5 hours’ talktime, 30 days’ standby DIMENSIONS 119x62x12mm, 132g PART CODE Lumia 610 DETAILS www.nokia.co.uk

8hr 15m

Battery life 0%

-50

Reference

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See page 76 for performance details

WorldMags.net

The energyEGG is designed to save power by switching off devices at the socket when you’re not in the room. It consists of an infrared motion sensor and wireless control plug. You can set the sensor to wait for between five minutes and half an hour before turning off the power, so you have time to leave the room and come back in again without everything being turned off. One sensor can control up to 12 plugs at distances up to 20m; extra plugs cost £7 from www.uswitch.com. We plugged our TV and home cinema amp into the control plug and set it to switch off after five minutes. We left the room and came back over five minutes later, and our kit was switched off. When we sat in front of the TV for 10 minutes, keeping as still as possible, the sensor picked up our presence and left the kit switched on. It works well but, even if you leave your TV and amplifier on standby for 20 hours a day, the energyEGG will only save you around £25 a year. Chris Finnamore PART CODE energyEGG DETAILS www.treegreen.net

LEXAR Professional 600x SDHC UHS-I Card ★★★★★

£90 inc VAT From www.picstop.co.uk

Lexar’s 32GB SDHC card is a Class 10 UHS-1 model, making it one of the fastest-rated memory cards you can buy. In our file transfer test, it wrote JPEG images at 32.8MB/s and read them at 58.3MB/s. This makes it even quicker than the Class 10 Sony SF-16UX. One reason to buy a high-speed SD card is for shooting in continuous mode; a slow card will slow down your shots. With our Nikon D40 and the Lexar card, we shot seven frames in Raw mode before the camera slowed down. With Sony’s card we could shoot only five frames before the card became a bottleneck. Lexar’s Professional 600x SDHC UHS-I is a very quick SDHC card. It’s expensive, though, so unless you’re serious about using your SLR in continuous mode you’re better off with Sony’s SF-16UX, which costs £66 for the 32GB version. Chris Finnamore PART CODE LSD32GCTBNA600 DETAILS www.lexar.com

SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

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REVIEWS

BOOKEEN Cybook Odyssey ★★★★★

£125 inc VAT • From www.pixmania.co.uk

VERDICT

Despite some unusual features, this eReader is too expensive to recommend over its very competent rivals THE CYBOOK ODYSSEY is Bookeen’s first There’s no dedicated software for the touchscreen eBook reader. It looks similar to reader, but it’s compatible with Adobe’s the Cybook Opus, but it has fewer buttons Digital Editions. You’ll need to either and is slightly more compact. The reader register the reader with an existing Digital feels sturdy, with a black, brushed metal back Editions account or create a new one to that easily stood up to rattling around in use books that rely on this DRM system. our backpack. Your Adobe authorisation is set up Although the Odyssey is largely dependent automatically when you create a Bookeen on its touchscreen controls, it’s not been account either on Bookeen’s website or by entirely stripped of traditional buttons. connecting the reader to the internet over There’s an on switch at the bottom and Wi-Fi and logging into the Bookeen store. buttons set into the left and right edges of the You can also transfer non-DRM files to reader that allow you to turn the page if you the eBook reader using your computer’s would rather not touch the screen with wet or file manager or a third-party eBook greasy hands. A single button below the management tool such as Calibre. The screen brings up a range of touch shortcuts. reader can also handle EPUB, PDF, HTML, Bookeen claims that the Odyssey’s High FB2 and TXT document formats, plus Speed Ink System (HSIS) makes it the fastest JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, ICO, TIF and PSD eBook reader around. However, in our slightly image formats. unscientific side-by-side page turn swipe test, The reader can’t reflow PDF files as the Odyssey loaded new pages fractionally you zoom into them, so you may find slower than our reference Sony Reader. yourself scrolling around the page if you need Despite this, page turns were smooth and fast to zoom in to read a PDF comfortably. This enough to ensure a comfortable reading situation can be improved slightly by turning experience. The 600x800 display is the usual the Odyssey to read in landscape mode. E Ink Pearl V220 that you’ll find on most Unlike most eBook readers, the Odyssey eBook readers, but rather than the Neonode has an accelerometer which lets it rotate the zForce infrared touchscreen system used page depending on whether you’re holding it by rivals from Kobo, Sony and Amazon, the Odyssey instead has a capacitive Page turns were smooth and touchscreen. This makes little fast enough to ensure a comfortable difference, except you can’t turn pages using a stylus or reading experience when wearing gloves. The Odyssey has just 2GB of built-in storage – that’s enough to hold in portrait or landscape mode. Unfortunately, around 666 eBooks at a typical size of 3MB. the reader sometimes rotated its display at You might eventually need extra capacity if random during our tests, rather than in you also want the Odyssey’s built-in MP3 response to how we were holding it. On one player to listen to your audiobook collection or occasion, the page-turning function also got to store the ancillary audio files that go along stuck on, causing the reader to turn page with some language and reference books. The after page without any interaction from us. reader has a microSDHC slot for this purpose, Both these issues occurred in slightly damp so you can add up to 32GB of additional space. conditions, so they may have been caused by Between the memory card slot and the 3.5mm moisture interfering with the touchscreen on headphone output is a Micro USB port that a damp train platform. allows you to connect the reader to your The onscreen keyboard is a good size, PC for transferring books. making it easy to enter Wi-Fi passwords and

search terms, but the default font size is too large for the screen. It’s easy to avoid a lot of unnecessary page turning simply by adjusting the font size in the reader’s settings menu, though. You can even change the font family, which is helpful for those who find it easier to read serif fonts. Like most eBook readers, you can add and edit highlights, bookmarks and notes. You can also jump between pages and pull up your eBook’s contents in a separate menu, instead of having to go back to the main contents page.

JOURNEY’S END

At around £130, the Odyssey is surprisingly expensive for a touchscreen eBook reader. It costs more than both Sony’s outstanding PRS-T1 and Kobo’s budget £80 Touch reader. Bookeen has incorporated some unique features, most notably the capacitive touchscreen and the accelerometer. However, during our testing the capacitive touchscreen made the reader more vulnerable to poor weather conditions and you can’t use it while wearing gloves. At this price, we prefer Sony’s Reader. Kat Orphanides

SPECIFICATIONS DISPLAY 6in mono touchscreen STORAGE 2GB MEMORY CARD SUPPORT MicroSD EBOOK FORMATS ePub, PDF, HTML, TXT IMAGE FORMATS BMP, TIFF, JPEG DIMENSIONS 166x9x120mm, 195g CLAIMED BATTERY LIFE 25,000 page turns WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE 11538276 DETAILS www.bookeen.com

You can store 666 books on the internal 2GB storage, or use a microSD card for an inexpensive upgrade

ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| SEPTEMBER 2012

WorldMags.net

39

REVIEWS

NIKON CoolPix L810 ★★★★★

£171 inc VAT • From www.morecomputers.com

VERDICT

A noisy sensor and unreliable autofocus undermine some impressive specifications SOME PEOPLE BUY a digital camera based purely on brand, specs and price. Nikon has these people in its sights with the L810. With a 26x zoom, 16-megapixel sensor, 3in 921,000dot screen, HDMI out, a choice of four colours and a price well below £200, this camera is bound to stand out on the shelves. Although the similarly priced Olympus SP-810UZ has a 36x zoom, the L810’s zoom range starts at an unusually wide 22.5mm equivalent focal length. It’s not a huge gain over the 24mm focal length commonly offered elsewhere, but it’s still welcome for landscape and architectural photography. The chunky lens barrel and rubber-coated handgrip give it the air of an enthusiasts’ camera, but in truth this is a point-and-shoot with a big zoom. There’s no electronic viewfinder, manual exposure or focus controls, and the screen isn’t articulated. There are no rechargeable batteries included, and no orientation sensor, either, so portrait-shaped photos have to be rotated manually. The menu options are stripped right back, with ISO speed and white balance but no control over the metering or autofocus. Even face detection isn’t available in Auto mode,

although it appears in a couple of Portrait scene presets. Zooming in with an ultra-zoom camera gives a narrow depth of field, so it’s more of a problem when the camera focuses on the wrong thing. The self-timer is stuck at 10 seconds, whereas virtually every other camera includes a two-second option to prevent camera shake when shooting with a tripod. This function is especially useful on ultra-zoom cameras because they’re far more susceptible to shake, so it’s a shame not to find it here.

NOISE ANNOYS

Most of these criticisms also apply to last year’s Nikon CoolPix L120, but while that camera made up some ground with its dependable image quality, that sadly isn’t the case with the L810. The move from a 14- to a 16-megapixel sensor boosts noise levels more than detail. In fact, because of the stronger noise reduction required in the L810, the L120’s photos also displayed sharper details in subtle textures such as hair and fabric, even in brightly lit shots. Comparisons with the L120 were even more damning in low light; neither model excelled, but the L810 suffered particularly badly for noise, with grubby shadows, blotchy highlights and barely any definition to fine details. Our biggest concern is that the autofocus was unreliable at

telephoto zoom positions. About 30 per cent of our test shots at the full zoom extension were a little soft, and a further 30 per cent were completely out of focus. At least the worst offenders were easy to spot on the screen so we could have another go at capturing the scene, but on some occasions the camera was persistently unable to focus. The 720p video mode has little to commend it, either, with a weedy soundtrack that picked up lens motor noises, ineffective optical stabilisation and jittery autofocus. Lots of pocket ultra-zoom cameras suffer less from image noise, and while none matches the L810’s 26x zoom, various models come close and deliver far more reliable focus. The L810 may have the specs to impress, but it doesn’t back it up with results. Ben Pitt

SPECIFICATIONS SENSOR SIZE 16 megapixels (4,608x3,456) ZOOM 26x optical (22.5-585mm) LCD 3in (921,000 pixels) STORAGE SDXC (50MB internal) BATTERY 4x AA DIMENSIONS 77x111x89mm, 430g WARRANTY Two-year RTB PART CODE VMA972E1 DETAILS www.nikon.co.uk

450 shots

Battery life 0%

-50

Reference

+50

+100

See page 76 for performance details

BYTE SIZE RETRAK Retractable HDMI Adaptor Cable ★★★★★ £20 inc VAT • From www.currys.co.uk The ReTrak Retractable HDMI Adaptor Cable consists of a 1.5-metre HDMI cable wound around a plastic wheel. You simply pull the cable to extend it and press a button on the wheel to retract it. We had no problem with either.

40

The pack also contains an HDMI-to-DVI adaptor, an HDMI-to-mini-HDMI adaptor and a micro-HDMI adaptor, which means you’ll be able to plug your laptop into most digital displays. The Retractable HDMI Adaptor Cable is a useful and versatile bit of kit to take around with you. However, at £20 including VAT it’s fairly expensive. Andrew Unsworth PART CODE EUCABLEHDM DETAILS www.retrak.co

WorldMags.net

SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

REVIEWS

CANON Powershot A4000 IS ★★★★★

£127 inc VAT • From www.amazon.co.uk

VERDICT

A mixed bag, but it may be worth living with image quality concerns and slow performance to get an 8x zoom in such a slim, low-cost camera CAMERA MANUFACTURERS HAVE started to come to their senses and called a truce on the megapixel race – something that has been fairly disastrous for compact cameras’ image quality. However, a new battlefront is being drawn over zoom ranges. Our natural inclination is to roll our eyes, but this could be a good thing. There’s still a chance of screwing up a camera by pushing its design beyond sensible limits, but unlike a pointlessly huge resolution, a big zoom in a slim camera is a good idea. The Canon A4000 IS’s 8x zoom isn’t groundbreaking, but other similarly equipped cameras are either chunkier or more expensive. It’s closer in appearance to Canon’s stylish Ixus cameras than its more utilitarian Powershot range. The buttons are a little cramped, though, and the navigation pad was quite fiddly for our thumbs. Unlike the pricier Powershot models, there are no dials for changing modes or adjusting settings. There is a Help button – a new feature from Canon – but, bafflingly, pressing it while browsing the menu options simply quits the menu. Pressing it again revealed various help topics, but it’s lightweight stuff. One entry reads: “Use the menus to set functions like the date, sounds,

and shooting settings.” If you want to know the difference between centre-weighted and evaluative light metering, you’re on your own. Fortunately, we had little reason to venture away from fully automatic settings. Details were extremely crisp in the centre of frames but edges exhibited chromatic aberrations, where the red, green and blue parts of the image didn’t line up. This gave slightly vague focus towards the edges of shots and discoloured halos around high-contrast lines, and it got worse as we zoomed in.

BLOTCH JOB

The Auto ISO mode maxed out at 800 and worked fine in most conditions, although we had to raise it to 1600 manually to avoid blur under high zoom in low light. This brought the 16-megapixel sensor’s noisy output to the fore, with multicoloured blotches across darker areas of photos. ISO 400 and 800 shots weren’t too pretty when viewed up close, either, but they looked decent enough after resizing to fit the screen. The A4000 is slow to take photos, managing three seconds on average between shots. Using the flash at full power, it took eight seconds. Continuous mode ran at just 0.7fps without live view, which made it tricky to keep up with the action. The 175-shot battery life is also poor. Videos are recorded at 720p with stereo sound. Image and sound quality were both excellent and clips ran for up to 30 minutes. However, zoom

and focus were locked for the duration of clips, except for a digital zoom function that made a mess of image quality.

SHOT IN THE DARK

The A4000 promises a lot at a low price, but it’s slow, its controls are fiddly, its video mode lacks features and image quality doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. That’s a sizeable list of flaws, yet we’re still hesitant to write it off. Few cameras at this price excel for image quality, and none can match the A4000’s slim proportions and its generous zoom range. If you can rustle up £200, Canon’s Ixus 230 HS is a much better implementation of the same idea. If that’s beyond your budget, we’d recommend Canon’s Ixus 115 HS, which is end-of-line but still widely available for £100. However, if a big zoom is essential and your budget is tight, the A4000 is a solid option. Ben Pitt

SPECIFICATIONS SENSOR SIZE 16 megapixels (4,608x3,456) ZOOM 8x optical (28-224mm) LCD 3in (230,000 pixels) STORAGE SDXC card BATTERY Li-ion DIMENSIONS 58x96x24mm, 145g WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE 6150B012AA DETAILS www.canon.co.uk

Battery life

175 shots 0%

-50

Reference

+50

+100

See page 76 for performance details

BYTE SIZE RETRAK Retractable USB 2.0 Adaptor Cable ★★★★★ £10 inc VAT • From www.pcworld.co.uk Consisting of a USB extension cable and an adaptor with five different types of USB connector, the Retractable USB 2.0 Adaptor Cable has a plastic wheel at its centre, around which the 1m cable is wound when it’s retracted. The cable feels tough enough to withstand regular use.

ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| SEPTEMBER 2012

You connect the adaptor to the cable via a type A USB connector. The other connections, which consist of type B, mini five-pin, mini four-pin and micro five-pin USB connectors, are then available for use. The cable became tangled a couple of times and sometimes wouldn’t fully retract, but fully extending it solved the problem. For £10, this is the ideal device to keep in your laptop bag or home just in case you need it. rth Andrew Unsworth PART CODE 473101 DETAILS www.retrak.co

WorldMags.net

41

REVIEWS

SONY Cyber-shot DSC-HX20V ★★★★★

£280 inc VAT • From www.amazon.co.uk

VERDICT

A fantastic array of innovative and genuinely useful features, but image quality has its ups and downs POCKET ULTRA ZOOM CAMERAS combine point-and-shoot simplicity with a big zoom to help frame shots more creatively, and are a worthwhile upgrade to a smartphone’s camera that can’t zoom at all. The DSCHX20V is the pricier of two such models in Sony’s current range. Its specifications are similar to models such as Canon’s PowerShot SX260 HS, Fujifilm’s FinePix F770EXR and Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ30: 20x zoom lens, 3in screen, 10fps continuous shooting, manual exposure control, 1080p videos and GPS for geotagging photos. It’s pricier than its rivals, though, which cost from around £250 to £290. One justification for the price is the HX20V’s ability to capture 1080p videos and 13-megapixel photos at the same time. There are so many times when we wished we’d captured a photo rather than a video, or vice versa; this camera removes any such worries. There’s no need to select a special mode in advance; as long as videos are recorded at 25fps rather than the top 50fps frame rate, the shutter button keeps on working. Olympus offers the same feature on the SZ-31MR, but it’s limited to 24 photos per video clip. The HX20V can take photos every couple of seconds for the duration of its 30-minute video clips. It helps that this camera excels at video capture. The picture was clean and detailed, displaying remarkably little noise in low light. Autofocus was smooth and responsive, and the optical stabilisation did a fantastic job in telephoto shots, delivering smooth pans while eliminating wobbles. Our only grumble is that manual settings are ignored for videos, even down to the white balance setting. That will put creative videographers off but, for everyone else, there’s little point in buying a dedicated camcorder. It’s a rewarding camera to take photos with, too. Performance is fast, with just one second between shots in normal use. Continuous shooting is at either 10fps or 2fps, although only for 10 frames per burst. There’s a mode dial on top, a wheel on the back for adjusting settings and a Custom button that can be set to exposure compensation, ISO speed, white balance, metering or smile detect. We’d have liked quick access to more than just one of these functions, though. Accessing the others involves delving into the menu; this presents photographic functions in one

42

long list, which is easy to get lost in. The mode dial includes manual exposure but not aperture- or shutter-priority modes. A sweep panorama mode captures and stitches as the camera is turned. A high-resolution option captures panoramas with the camera in portrait orientation for a taller view, and generates huge 43-megapixel images. The camera has to be moved fairly quickly to capture the panorama before the memory is full, so there’s a small amount of motion blur except in very bright conditions.

BAD MANAGEMENT

File management leaves a lot to be desired. As with all the other Sony cameras we’ve seen recently, the HX20V doesn’t like being given a blank SDHC card, and took 12 seconds writing folders to it before any photos could be taken. Photos and videos are stored in separate locations on the card – an inevitable result of using the AVCHD format, which uses a convoluted file structure – but there’s a third folder for MP4 video recording. At least Sony no longer expects you to switch manually between different folders when playing back photos and videos on the camera. The HX20V also gathers photos and videos into one virtual folder when connected to a computer via USB. The USB socket’s location on the base of the camera isn’t ideal, though, as it meant we had to rest the camera on its screen or its lens. More worryingly, we couldn’t retrieve photos saved to the internal memory using the USB cable. The camera offered us a link to register online and an installer for its PlayMemories Home software, but after installing this we still couldn’t access the internal memory. We eventually solved the problem by switching from MTP to Mass Storage mode in the camera’s setup menu. Inspecting photos on a computer revealed a complex set of strengths and weaknesses. Wide-angle shots exhibited sharp focus and were packed with detail, thanks to the 18-megapixel resolution, but noise reduction glossed over subtle textures such as grass and hair. It struggled to disguise noise in skin textures – arguably the most important part of a photo.

We also found that out-of-focus areas in a scene tended to look quite scruffy, suggesting that the noise-reduction processing didn’t know how to deal with blurry images. The fact that this was common across the entire image in telephoto shots suggests slightly soft focus in these shots. Whatever the underlying reason, the HX20V was a little disappointing for telephoto shots. These issues with noise didn’t bode well for image quality in low light, but in fact the HX20V coped surprisingly well in such conditions. By ISO 800, the turbulent noise artefacts were only a little worse, and there was still a reasonable amount of detail in dense textures. It couldn’t match Canon’s SX260 HS in low light but it wasn’t too far behind, and it narrowly surpassed Panasonic’s TZ30. Its ability to capture, align and combine six frames to reduce noise levels in low light gave it a further boost. The Cyber-shot DSC-HX20V is a tricky one to weigh up. We can’t fault it for features, and its high-resolution panorama mode and ability to capture photos and videos simultaneously are two of the best features we’ve seen for a long time. It’s fast and reasonably straightforward to use, and we could bring ourselves to live with its awkward file management. It’s an outstanding video camera, but photo quality is the sticking point. Photos are consistently respectable, but never really much better. It’s also quite expensive at current prices. If you’re tempted, we’d recommend holding out for our forthcoming review of the HX10V, which is very similar except for a 16x zoom and a much lower price. Ben Pitt

SPECIFICATIONS SENSOR SIZE 18 megapixels (4,896x3,672) ZOOM 20x optical (25-500mm) LCD 3in (921,600 pixels) STORAGE SDXC, Memory Stick Pro HG Duo (105MB internal) BATTERY Li-ion DIMENSIONS 63x107x35mm, 254g WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE DSCHX20VB.CEH DETAILS www.sony.co.uk

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SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

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THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS Two Leading Technology Award Winning Monitors!

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www.aoc-europe.com

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REVIEWS

SONY Cyber-shot DSC-HX200V ★★★★★

£339 inc VAT • From www.morecomputers.com

VERDICT

Packed with features and excels for video, but photo quality isn’t in line with the price THE HX200V IS a beast of a camera. It’s bristling with big numbers and impressive features, including an 18-megapixel sensor, 30x zoom, articulated 3in screen, electronic viewfinder and GPS. Even the cardboard box is a force to reckoned with, with serrated edges that can slice through human flesh. Thankfully, the camera itself is much gentler on the hands. The substantial handgrip and contoured back plate are a snug fit, and the shutter button and command dial fall neatly under the thumb and forefinger. The sharp, bright screen tilts up and down rather than sideways, but it’s satisfying to use. The viewfinder is a let-down, though. Its 201,600-dot resolution is considerably coarser than the LCD screen’s 921,600 dots, and the view is quite small. We’d have preferred for Sony to bump up the price to include the fantastic 2.4-million dot viewfinder that graces Sony’s NEX-7, or do without one altogether. We’d also have liked an accessory shoe for flashguns and off-camera flash systems. Some cameras’ GPS functions can be undermined by the time it takes to get a lock after switching on. Sony gets around this with a log function, which keeps a constant record of the camera’s position, even when the camera is switched off. It’s limited to 24 hours to avoid draining the battery, and also creates a log file to show the route you travelled. This generates a huge amount of data, recording its coordinates every few seconds, whereas other cameras do so only every couple of minutes. However, accuracy was often out by around 100 feet, so the plotted route at www.gpsvisualizer.com looked as if it was for a hyperactive dog. The same route as recorded by Fujifilm’s FinePix F770EXR was less detailed but ultimately more accurate. There’s no shortage of advanced photographic functions, with the camera capturing multiple exposures to reduce noise, create panoramas and capture scenes in 3D. Sony has provided these functions for years,

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| SEPTEMBER 2012

and though its rivals are catching up, it still leads the way. Its Anti Motion Blur mode combines exposures to reduce noise but uses clever processing to avoid ghosting in moving subjects. It’s used automatically in low light when Superior Auto is selected. Priority and manual exposure are available too, and cycling through the controls is a simple matter of pushing and turning the command dial. A dedicated button makes it quick to reposition the autofocus point. There’s a custom button that’s set to AE lock by default, but can be reconfigured to one of four other functions. Autofocus is responsive, and 1.2 seconds on average between shots is a fine achievement. Continuous shooting is at 10fps or 2fps, but lasts for only 10 frames before taking a seven-second breather.

MINOR DETAILS

The 30x zoom and 18-megapixel sensor means this camera should be pretty good at capturing details in faraway subjects. Sadly, though, such a high resolution in a 1/2.3in sensor boosted noise levels more than details. Even in bright light at ISO 100, subtle details were obscured by noise reduction. A combination of heavy noise reduction and sharpening plus slightly soft focus gave bolder details a spidery quality. Slight chromatic aberrations and heavy purple fringing around highlights didn’t help, either. Panasonic’s Lumix DMC-FZ150 resolves more fine detail, despite its smaller zoom and megapixel count. It’s also disappointing that a Clear Image Zoom function is available separately from its digital zoom. It looks like digital zoom to us, doubling the zoom range to 60x but adding no discernible extra detail. In fact, it mostly exaggerated the turbulence in fine details caused by image noise, even in bright light at ISO 100. At least you can turn Clear Image Zoom and Digital Zoom off in the menu. When lower light demanded higher ISO speeds, image quality held up well. By ISO 1600, shadows were a little grainy but overall image quality was good enough for viewing onscreen on small prints. This is important not just for indoor photography but also for telephoto shooting in anything but direct sunlight, as fast shutter and ISO speeds are needed to avoid blur. The camera frequently raised the ISO speed to 800 in these situations, and while smudged, spidery details were all the

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more visible, they weren’t terrible. Skin textures were handled less successfully at faster ISO speeds, though. The HX200V’s videos are more impressive. They’re recorded at up to 1080p, 50fps and 30 minutes in AVCHD format. Picture quality was crisp and detailed, and exhibited remarkably little noise in low light. The optical stabilisation did a fantastic job of keeping handheld shots steady at the full zoom extension, autofocus was responsive and smooth, and the zoom motor had a minimal impact on the high-quality stereo soundtrack. It’s disappointing that there’s no manual control over video exposures, but Sony makes up for it with the ability to capture 13-megapixel photos while recording videos. This isn’t available when recording at 50fps, but that’s a fair compromise. Using this function in low light, the videos exhibited significantly lower noise than the photos of the same scene, even when the photos were resized to the same dimensions. The HX200V is similar to the Panasonic FZ150. They both excel at video, and while the FZ150’s manual exposure control gives it a distinct edge for creative video projects, the HX200V’s ability to capture photos and videos simultaneously will be more popular with casual users. The FZ150 is the faster of the two for photos, but the HX200V’s GPS function will be more appealing for some. Then there’s the FZ150’s superior image quality. The HX200V doesn’t have any other aces to pull out of its sleeve, so the Panasonic’s Lumix DMC-FZ150 remains our top recommendation. Ben Pitt

SPECIFICATIONS SENSOR SIZE 18 megapixels (4,896x3,672) ZOOM 30x optical (27-810mm) LCD 3in (921,600 pixels) STORAGE SDXC, Memory Stick Pro HG Duo (105MB internal) BATTERY Li-ion DIMENSIONS 87x122x105mm, 583g WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE DSCHX200VB.CEH DETAILS www.sony.co.uk

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REVIEWS

VIEWSONIC PLED-W200 ★★★★★

£389 inc VAT • From www.projectorpoint.co.uk

VERDICT

A hugely versatile portable projector AS WITH THE Best Buy-winning Asus P1, the PLED-W200 is a miniature, lightweight LED DLP projector designed to be carried around with you. This projector is particularly versatile, as it can receive video from a PC over VGA or USB, it has composite and component video connections, and it can display video, photo and office document files from an SD card. It’s a tiny projector, which is slightly smaller than a stack of three CD cases and weighs just 400g. You’ll need to carry the laptop-style power supply with you, as there’s no battery. Rather than a normal bulb, the projector uses LEDs as a light source. This means it uses just 35W when active, and has the added benefit of 20,000 hours of lamp life – enough to have the projector switched on for eight hours a day for seven years. The projector has a proprietary video input, which goes to a breakout cable with a VGA plug, a composite video input and a 3.5mm audio input for the projector’s twin 2W speakers. You can also plug the projector into component video connections, but you’ll need a component-to-VGA adaptor and a male-to-female VGA adaptor to do so. The projector can display up to 1,280x800 pixels at its native resolution, and with a short throw ratio of 1.16:1 you can create a 40in screen at a metre away from your projection surface. The projector isn’t bright enough to cope well with office lighting, though. You can read text

and use Windows, but it’s a bit of a strain on the eyes. It’s fine in low light, though, which is impressive for such a small unit. Colours are vibrant enough for presentations and photos, and films are definitely watchable. Whites have a slightly grey appearance and reds are a bit orange. However, we had few complaints about colour quality during normal use. We did struggle to get consistent focus across the entire projection surface; either the top or bottom of the display was slightly blurred, no matter how we positioned the projector and with keystone correction enabled or disabled. We found the SD card functions useful. You control the simple onscreen file browser with the remote control, and can browse through an SD card’s videos, photos and office documents. The unit could play all our test videos smoothly; we had no problems with MKV, XviD, AVI, MOV, WMV, H.264 and MPEG4 videos, but the projector only supports 16:9, 16:10, 4:3 and aspect ratios when playing from SD, so films are slightly stretched no matter which ratio you select. Films were fine when played from a Windows laptop, though. The built-in speakers are tinny, but at least louder than those of most laptops. We enjoyed playing back photo slideshows from the SD card, but the experience was spoilt slightly by the loading animation popping up in the middle of each photo as we swapped between them. The office file viewer works well. It was fine displaying PDFs and all Office and Office 2007 (docx, xlsx and so on) files, and you can use the remote control’s direction keys to move between

pages, zoom in on text and scroll around documents. The SD card functions mean you can be confident of taking the projector with you without a PC to give a presentation. The final connection option is to plug the projector into your PC over USB. The PLEDW200 has a Mini USB port for this purpose, but you’ll need to supply your own Mini USB cable. When you plug the projector into your PC, you’re prompted to install the USB driver from the projector’s internal storage, and the PLED-W200 then acts as an external display. Resolutions are limited over USB to 1,024x768, 1,280x720 and 1,280x768, but this is fine for presentations. However, pointer movement wasn’t quite as responsive as using a normal external display, and films, while mainly smooth, exhibited slight tearing as the USB bus struggled to supply enough bandwidth. ViewSonic’s PLED-W200 is a superb portable projector. It has a huge range of connections and can play back a range of files from an SD card so you don’t even have to bring a PC with you. Image quality is also reasonable for such a small projector, and the LED light source will last the life of the unit, so you don’t have to worry about running costs. Its versatility makes it our new favourite pocket projector, and a Best Buy. Chris Finnamore

SPECIFICATIONS NATIVE RESOLUTION 1,280x800 CONTRAST RATIO 2000:1 RATED BRIGHTNESS 250 ANSI lumens DIMENSIONS 32x130x126mm, 400g POWER CONSUMPTION 1W standby, 35W active WARRANTY One-year collect and return, three-year RTB PART CODE PLED-W200 DETAILS www.viewsonic.com

BYTE SIZE MUC-OFF Antibacterial Screen Cleaning Rescue Kit ★★★★★ £6 inc VAT • www.muc-off.com/store

Muc-Off’s products are better known for keeping your bike clean and lubricated than for PC maintenance, but the company has now turned to keeping your PC clean. This pocket-sized cleaning pack comes with a black microfibre cloth and a 35ml bottle of cleaning spray. Just spray the cleaner over

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the cloth and wipe it across your screen, and be amazed to discover that the default colour of a blank page in Word isn’t grey. Once we’d tightened the pump enough to avoid leakage, the Rescue Kit proved highly effective on a range of displays, from our desktop LCD to our mobile phone. It’s

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biodegradable and eco-friendly, too. It’s a bit expensive at £6, but it’s more effective than many cheaper cleaners we’ve tried. Kat Orphanides PART CODE 990 DETAILS www.muc-off.com

SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

REVIEWS

ASUS PA248Q

★★★★★

£382 inc VAT • From uk.insight.com

VERDICT

A feature-packed high-quality IPS monitor with some clever designer-focused features ASUS’S PA248Q IS an IPS monitor aimed at professionals. Asus claims that the screen “guarantees industry-leading colour accuracy” and “delivers 100 per cent sRGB colour accuracy”. To test this, we calibrated the screen with our Spyder4Express screen calibrator. After this, the screen’s colour was noticeably warmer, and the Spyder4Express software claimed the screen’s colour gamut was within 93 per cent of the sRGB standard. The display has a matt finish, so it doesn’t suffer from overhead reflections like a reflective-surface monitor. This does mean that colours are more accurate than punchy and vibrant; this is a screen more for photo editing than gaming or watching films. We had no real complaints about image quality. Colours were accurate and consistent across the display, and we couldn’t discern any bleed-through from the backlight. The panel does have a slight grainy texture, which we were aware of at first but soon got used to. Horizontal viewing angles are wide, but the screen’s colours become darker fairly quickly when you view it from higher up. The monitor’s menus are simple and make it easy to adjust settings. You navigate and select the options with a joystick, which is easier than the up and down buttons you have to use to change the options on most displays. Selecting one of the User modes frees up all the screen’s picture tweak options, such as Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Hue, Colour Temperature and Gamma, and going into the Advanced menu even lets you adjust Hue by RGB and CMY.

The PA248Q has some useful extra features. The screen tilts and rotates on its stand, and the screen height adjusts between 45 and 135mm, so it’s simple to find the right viewing angle. This is the only screen we’ve ever seen with a built-in powered USB3 hub, so it’s perfect for attaching fast external storage. There are DVI, VGA, HDMI and DisplayPort inputs, and the monitor can display a picture-in-picture view from a second display input, either in a window or with the display from both inputs side by side on one screen. The picture-inpicture display is always on top of whatever is on the main display, which is useful if you don’t want what you’re referring to – such as a reference picture – to keep disappearing behind your active application. There are other extras to help with photography and print layout. The insides of the horizontal and vertical bezels have half-centre measurement marks to help you judge the size of objects onscreen, and there’s also

QuickFit. This generates various onscreen overlays, each of which can help you line up objects and judge their sizes. Clicking the joystick button cycles through a 0.5cm grid, a ¼in grid, A4 and Letter overlays, and a photo print overlay for various print sizes. You can also use the joystick to move the overlays onscreen, so you don’t have to rearrange your application windows to fit. Asus’s PA248Q is an expensive screen, but you get an impressive specification for your money, including a top-quality, fully adjustable IPS screen with even colours across its surface, a built-in USB3 hub and the QuickFit mode, which will be handy for print designers. This all comes at a price, and if you’re a home user we’d recommend a consumer-oriented display such as Samsung’s 3D-capable S27A950D. Still, for professionals, the PA248Q’s extra features make a lot of sense. Chris Finnamore

small that we lost track of it on our desk more than once. Fortunately, there’s a tiny hook you can use to attach a thin lanyard, so you can put it on your keyring for added security. The drive’s cover fits securely, but we’d have preferred a clip to help hold it fast. With a large file write speed of 3.87MB/s and a small file write speed of 1.42MB/s, the disk is two to three times slower than we’d

expect for a USB drive. Read speeds of 8.88MB/s for small files and 15.95MB/s for large files are around half what we’d expect, too. However, what you’re paying for is convenience and the versatility of a tiny flash drive that doubles as a microSD card, rather than performance. Kat Orphanides

SPECIFICATIONS RESOLUTION 1,920x1,200 CONTRAST RATIO Not disclosed (8,000,000:1 dynamic) BRIGHTNESS 300cd/m PORTS VGA, DVI, DisplayPort, HDMI, POWER CONSUMPTION 1W standby, 32W on WARRANTY three years RTB PART CODE PA248Q DETAILS www.asus.com

BYTE SIZE PNY Attaché Evolutive

★★★★★ £16 inc VAT • From www.amazon.co.uk

PNY’s Attaché Evolutive is a clever miniature USB drive that conceals a microSD card. You can take the card out to use it in a compatible mobile phone, and use the USB adaptor with any other microSD that you might want to copy data from. The flash drive measures just 20x14x5mm; it’s so

ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| SEPTEMBER 2012

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PART CODE SDU16GBBABY-EF DETAILS www.pny-europe.com

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REVIEWS

SONY KDL-46HX853 ★★★★★

£1,449 inc VAT • From www.johnlewis.com

VERDICT

A fantastic high-end TV, with plenty of features and excellent image quality THINGS MAY LOOK gloomy for Sony right now, but that doesn’t mean the company has lost the ability to produce stunning televisions. Its flagship model for 2012 is the KDL-46HX853, an LED-backlit 3D TV that takes Sony’s monolithic design concept to another level. Unlike last year’s monolithic TVs, which had an optional stand that doubled as a speaker bar, the KDL-46HX853 has one as standard. It’s far more curved and stylish than 2011’s blocky stand, although it has only three speakers as opposed to last year’s six. It’s still a major improvement on the tiny speakers in the TV. Placed on the stand, the thin panel looks gorgeous, whether the TV is on or off. A slim silver metal screen bezel surrounds the single sheet of Gorilla Glass, designed to protect the TV from scratches or accidental damage. If you keep fingerprints off it, the rich black panel has a near-mirror finish when switched off. Despite the TV’s compact dimensions, there’s still plenty of connectivity around the back. As well as four HDMI inputs, VGA, SCART, composite and component video, you get one 3.5mm and two analogue audio inputs, 3.5mm and digital optical outputs, a Common Interface port, Ethernet and two USB ports. If you plug in two USB flash drives, you can use one to record TV and the other to play back files locally. PVR functionality is rudimentary, just like all the other TVs we’ve used it on, but file format support is excellent if you have a hard disk full of video files. We managed to play all our test files, including DivX and MKV. You can also stream content from a networked PC or NAS device using DLNA, or get it straight from the internet. What used to be Bravia Internet Video is now the Sony Entertainment Online portal. It’s a massive improvement on last year’s interface, and makes it easy to pick out channels and

services. It’s reminiscent of the Windows 8 Metro interface, with large icons and bold text, but it works very well. We especially liked the picture-in-picture mode, which lets you browse the portal without missing out on the current program. There’s a huge amount of content to choose from, too, with catch-up TV from BBC iPlayer and Demand Five, YouTube, DailyMotion and Sony’s 3D channel, on-demand video from Netflix and social networking from Facebook and Twitter.

HOW LOW CAN YOU GO?

Moving from streaming content to standarddefinition television, it’s clear that Sony’s X-Reality Pro image processing engine can work wonders with low-quality video. It cleans up even muddy images, sharpening edges without generating noise or visible motion artefacts, even during fast-moving scenes or when watching sport. High-definition content looks even better, with vibrant colours, accurate contrast and pixel-sharp edges. In films, the left- and right-edge LED lighting comes into its own. Blacks look deep, even when sharing the screen with bright colours or white light. X-Reality Pro is just one of the many options available for tweaking picture quality. MotionFlow handles motion smoothing, with almost every pre-set working well. The

exception is Impulse, which produced too much flicker to be watchable. A range of noisecancelling and image-sharpening features, colour enhancers and LED auto-adjust settings can be turned on and off as required, so you should always get your TV looking its best.

THREE RANGE

Sony doesn’t include 3D glasses with the set, so you must buy them separately (part code TDGBR250, £39 from www.amazon.co.uk), but it’s worth the investment – 3D content looks fantastic. The images had a believable sense of depth in every 3D test, without sacrificing colour clarity or brightness. Our only complaint was a bit of crosstalk, but it was barely visible and a big improvement over previous Sony TVs. Sound quality was a step above the competition, thanks to the compact sound bar. It produced louder and punchier audio than the integrated speakers we’ve seen in other TVs, and even produced audible bass thanks to the front-firing speakers, which preserve frequencies that are often lost with the more common down-firing speakers. Sony has thrown everything at the KDL-46HX853. It’s a superb-looking TV with plenty of high-end features, and both picture and sound quality are excellent. It still can’t beat Panasonic’s ST50 plasma set for rich colour and black level accuracy, but it’s up there with the best LCD TVs we’ve seen. It’s much cheaper than the equivalent models from Samsung and LG, and has better styling and more features than Panasonic’s line-up. If you want your TV to be a design statement, but also look good during films, this is ideal. Tom Morgan

SPECIFICATIONS TV TYPE LED RESOLUTION 1,920x1,080 CONTRAST RATIO 1,000,000:1 dynamic BRIGHTNESS CONNECTIONS 4x HDMI, 1x SCART, 1x VGA, 1 component, 1x composite inputs TUNER Analogue, Freeview HD POWER CONSUMPTION 0W standby, 74W on WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE KDL-46HX853 DETAILS www.sony.co.uk

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SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

REVIEWS

YAMAHA RX-V373 ★★★★★

£250 inc VAT • From www.superfi.co.uk

VERDICT

A great entry-level amplifier, with all the inputs and features you’d need for a basic home cinema setup YAMAHA HAS STARTED 2012 from the bottom up, releasing its entry-level A/V receivers before unleashing the high-end kit Audio Return Channel in the summer. First to arrive is the RX-V373, (ARC), they can also act as which costs just £250, but is packed with 4K pass-through, future-proofing features designed to simplify your home your amplifier for when super high- resolution cinema setup. video content appears. With two component From the front, the RX-V373 has clean inputs and one output, plus four composite styling, with an oversized volume dial, four inputs and one output, you should have no control has a huge array of buttons, so you quick input select buttons, controls for the can activate most settings with a single press. trouble connecting all your devices at once. integrated radio and buttons to adjust tone. Two digital optical and two coaxial inputs, four There are plenty of options for calibrating Hidden beneath a pop-out cover are audio analogue inputs and two outputs, a subwoofer and tweaking your speakers, including the and video auxiliary inputs, as well as a USB output and a ¼in headphone jack cover almost option to use the bundled mic to measure the port that supports iPod playback. You can’t acoustics of your room accurately for the best every conceivable audio connection. use it to play back photos or video, but sound quality. This straightforward it works well for playing MP3 audio process takes less than five minutes, from a USB flash drive or external hard disk. The two-line LCD display The RX-V373’s menus are sensibly and is well worth doing if you aren’t sure where to set your levels. is a simple affair, although we found laid out, so we had no problem getting The RX-V373 supports the full the always present volume and input complement of high-definition audio labels helpful when setting up our into the more advanced features standards, including DTS HD Master A/V equipment for the first time. Audio and Dolby TrueHD, so films Setup is much easier than last year’s get the explosive bass and clear soundtracks BACKWARD GLANCE entry-level model, thanks to the inclusion they deserve. With our reference speakers and There’s a lot more around the back. Although of an onscreen display. It’s easy to read even subwoofer connected and calibrated, we were the RX-V373 is a budget amplifier, and Yamaha if you’re watching 3D content, taking up a impressed with the enveloping sound that has omitted any networking features for corner of the screen rather than obscuring greeted us during Casino Royale’s opening services such as Spotify and DLNA streaming, the entire image. The menus are sensibly laid scene. Bass crossover felt spot on thanks to the company certainly hasn’t skimped on out, so we had no problem getting into the the calibration microphone, but we could still inputs. Not only do the four HDMI inputs and more advanced features. However, the remote tweak individual speakers to our taste. single HDMI output support 3D video and Music was equally impressive for a budget amplifier, with both rock and acoustic tracks filling our room with clear sound. Your results will vary depending on your choice of speakers, but you can be sure that the amplifier won’t lose quality between the source and speaker.

LEVEL BEST

Thanks to its integrated onscreen display, the RX-V373 is a welcome step up in ease of use from last year’s entry-level model. Features such as 4K pass-through make the amplifier ready for the next generation of video, and the huge number of inputs should be more than enough for most home cinema setups. It lacks the networking features of some more expensive amplifiers, but this is an excellent starter amp for a surround-sound system. Tom Morgan

SPECIFICATIONS INPUTS 4x HDMI, 2x component, 1x composite, 3x stereo phono, 2x coaxial S/PDIF, 2x optical S/PDIF OUTPUTS 1x HDMI, 1x component, 1x composite, 2x stereo phono, POWER CONSUMPTION 73W on, 0W standby WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE RX-V373 DETAILS www.yamaha-uk.com

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REVIEWS

SONY Walkman NWZ-Z1060

★★★★★

£275 inc VAT • From www.play.com

VERDICT

This is the best Android MP3 player we’ve seen yet, but it’s shockingly expensive SONY’S NEW WALKMAN is a chunky Android-based MP3 player with 32GB internal storage and a 4.3in QVGA (800x480) screen. It has similar battery life to most Android phones, playing audio for 22 hours and video for almost six-and-a-half hours in our tests. The Walkman is big enough to use for comfortable mini-tablet style gaming and movie watching, but it’s a squeeze if you want to stuff it into your jeans pocket. It has a snazzy coloured back, although this was prone to scratching. Tinny (but loud) speakers on the rear allow you to share your impeccable musical taste with fellow bus commuters, too. For some unknown reason, Sony has used a proprietary USB cable. This means you’ll have to buy extras or cart your cable everywhere with you. We’d have been happier with the standard Micro USB port found on other Android devices. The Walkman also has a Mini HDMI port, so you can connect it to a TV to watch videos on a bigger screen. The MP3 player is installed with Android 2.3.4 (Gingerbread), rather than Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich), which is disappointing, but the 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 processor is powerful enough to make Sony’s launcher interface run smoothly. The music app is easy to use and has some cool features such as a mood analyser. You can’t search through track names, but its format support is decent. It can handle AAC, MP3, Wav and WMA files, but we had to install Winamp to play our Ogg files and AndLess for FLAC content. Similarly, if you want to play Audible’s proprietary AU format audiobooks, you’ll have to download a dedicated app. The joy of Android, of course, is that installing these apps is easy to do. The Walkman’s sound quality is excellent. The default settings of Sony’s own music app are flat and well balanced, with a slight bass emphasis. There are also plenty of other settings you can apply to normalise track volumes, change the EQ balance and compensate for the effect of dynamic range compression during the music production process. However, we slightly preferred the audio characteristics and settings built into the free Winamp player. The choice is up to you, as you can install any Android audio app you want. If you use the Walkman button on the side of the player to wake up the

player’s screen, it will jump straight to the Sony music player app; waking the Walkman with the power button at the top of the device takes you straight to whichever app you’re currently using. The supplied earplug-style headphones are among the best you’ll get with an MP3 player, but we found them a touch boomy and bass-heavy for our taste. This made it harder to pick out detail in the mid and treble ranges. Fans of more balanced audio are advised to upgrade to headphones such as Soundmagic’s E10 earplug style set (see Best Buys, page 69).

PLAY FOR TODAY

Not everyone’s interested in gaming on their mobile device, but Android’s developers have packed the Google Play store with plenty of top-notch casual games. The large 4.3in screen really lends itself to cult construction title Minecraft, Sentinel III – our favourite tower defence strategy game – and board game conversions such as Catan, making it easy to see and control your games. The Z1060 is also powerful enough to play processor-intensive 3D action games such as Captain America, making this a good buy for those who want their MP3 player to serve double duty as a handheld games console. There’s a huge 1GB of internal storage for apps. The Walkman is also good for films, with support for a wide variety of video formats including H.264 MP4 files, WMV, QuickTime MOV, XviD and more. Not all test files worked, and some of the non-standard resolutions didn’t adjust properly to the screen size, but most played without a hitch. Sony’s own video player app didn’t work with all our test files, but the Walkman still has Android’s integrated video player, so when we added a file manager app and browsed to our video directory, we could play almost everything.

Adding a third-party app such as MX Player meant that we could even play even unusual formats such as MKV, although the challenge of decoding our high-resolution MKV videos lead to jerky playback.

OUT OF TOUCH

Regardless of which application you use, the Walkman is an excellent video player. The screen can’t rival the high-resolution ‘retina’ displays of recent Apple devices, but it’s still an excellent display. Our photos and videos looked great, with even lighting and intense colours that made them easy to watch at this relatively small size. The glossy screen does pick up some smears and fingerprints, but no more than other touchscreen devices. The Walkman costs £70 more than a 32GB 4th Generation iPod Touch, which has a 960x460 display and a massive battery capable of over 48 hours’ audio playback and almost eight hours of video. However, the iPod is limited by being tied to iTunes and its store. You can get third-party video and audio player software that allows you to escape the iPod’s very limited range of supported formats, but the iPod doesn’t make your life easy. If you want to be able to play as much of your media collection as possible on a single device and access online content that requires Flash then this is the high-end media player for you, despite its proprietary connector. However, most users will prefer the lower price and higher display resolution of its iOS rival or an Android phone with a large screen and battery, such as Motorola’s RAZR MAXX. Kat Orphanides

SPECIFICATIONS STORAGE 32GB flash memory DISPLAY 4.3in 800x480 resolution LCD EXPANSION None AUDIO SUPPORT WMA, WMA-DRM, AAC, Ogg, Wav, Audible, MP3 VIDEO SUPPORT WMV, WMV-HD, MPEG4 AVI, MPEG4 MP4 IMAGE SUPPORT BMP, JPEG INTERFACES USB DIMENSIONS 71x11x134mm WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE NWZ-Z1060 DETAILS www.sony.co.uk

22h 10m

Audio battery life

6h 25m

Video battery life 0%

-50

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WorldMags.net

SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

REVIEWS

VIEW QUEST Retro WiFi Radio

★★★★★

£144 inc VAT • From www.micom.co.uk

VERDICT

It’s got some great features and supports DAB+, but this multi-functional radio is let down by its lack of support for Variable Bit Rate MP3 files THE RETRO WIFI Radio’s stylish chassis contains a combination DAB+/FM/internet radio and UPnP media streamer. You can power it from the mains or from four C-cell batteries, and the radio has a claimed 15-hour battery life. A physical power switch at the back means there’s no risk of running them down by leaving the radio in standby mode. There’s even an iPod dock, so you can play content from an iOS device. It’s neatly concealed behind the View Quest logo; just push it in and a sturdy plastic dock shelf pops out. A mono LCD display allows you to navigate through the radio’s menus, while text entry – which is only called for when you have to enter your wireless password – is handled by using the dial or buttons to cycle through letters of the alphabet. When you first power it up, the radio scans for wireless networks and prompts you to select yours and enter the password. You can then choose to tune in to internet, digital or FM radio stations, connect to your network to search for UPnP media streams, or listen to

content from an iPod or the radio’s auxiliary input. There was already a list of stations present, but we had to re-scan for DAB stations before we could correctly tune them in. We encountered a different problem with the radio’s ability to deal with files on our DLNA share. It was easy to connect to our share and – although we were annoyed by the way in which files are listed alphabetically rather than in track order – it was also easy to navigate through our audio collection. However, although all the files in our collection were shown, the radio couldn’t play them all. Files in Wav format were shown in the list but wouldn’t play, and the same was true of our Variable Bit Rate (VBR) encoded MP3s. This is a pity, because the radio looks and sounds great. A pair of 10W speakers put out clear, powerful sound. High notes are crisp while mid-tones are powerful and well defined. There’s a bit of bass, but not much; this is a traditional radio after all. Despite this, we

were pleasantly surprised by the sense of space, especially in electronic dance tracks. You can get plenty of volume out of the radio, but above three-quarters volume, high notes started to become harsh and brittle, although the bass sounded a lot more powerful. If you’re after an attractive and easy-to-use radio with a few streaming features, this is a good choice, although the lack of support for VBR MP3s is a pity. Still, if you listen to the radio on the move, the combination of battery power and DAB+, which is increasingly popular across Europe, will definitely appeal. Kat Orphanides

SPECIFICATIONS CONNECTIONS 3.5mm line in AUDIO SUPPORT WMA, OGG, MP3 POWER CONSUMPTION 4W standby, 5W on WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE RETROWF-BK/C DETAILS www.viewquest.co.uk

AFTERSHOKZ Mobile AS301 ★★★★★

£70 inc VAT • From www.aftershokz.co.uk

VERDICT

They’re not exactly high fidelity, but these bone conduction headphones make it possible to hear the traffic while you run THE AFTERSHOKZ BONE conduction headphones are designed to let runners, cyclists and other active types listen to music while still being able to hear everything going on around them. They also have a built-in mic and double as a hands-free headset. While standard headphones work by making the air vibrate to carry sound, bone conduction headphones use the bones of your skull to transmit sound to your inner ear. The bone conduction transducers rest against your cheekbones just in front of the ear. A plastic band joins the transducers, hooks over your ears and rests behind your neck. Each transducer has an 18mm rubber pad that clings to your face. They’re designed to shake your bones, but you can hear sound coming from them through the air as well as through your skull. The air-conducted sound overlaying the more resonant bone-conduction makes the headphones sound tinnier than they should. It also means that these headphones are unsuitable for public transport, as you would seriously annoy those around you. ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| SEPTEMBER 2012

Sound quality isn’t amazing, but it’s clear enough and even has some bass. It’s just unfortunate that the headphones sound their best if you block your ears. We also got better sound conduction when we wore them under a helmet. We were very pleased to be able to hear the sound of traffic as we ran – having that awareness of your surroundings can be a real lifesaver. The only downside was that the headphones slipped back a little during our run. The Aftershokz headphones weigh just 22g. The battery and control box weighs the same and can be securely clipped to your clothes. In addition to a power button, the control box houses a mic and a call-end button, which doubles as a pause button for audio tracks. We’d have preferred a track skipping button, though. We’re not convinced the target audience will get much use out of the headset capabilities; we’re not inclined to chat on the phone while we’re out for a run, and it’s not a good idea while you’re cycling. The headphones are water-resistant rather

WorldMags.net

than waterproof, but we had no problems when we took them out in the rain. The Aftershokz headphones are a great idea if you’re seriously into your sport, want to listen to music and want to be safe while doing it. They could be better at preventing sound from being carried through the air, but currently they have few rivals that aren’t rebadging the same hardware. They are the best option for anyone who wants to listen to music but needs to keep their ears open and their wits about them on the road. Kat Orphanides

SPECIFICATIONS CONNECTION 3.5mm headset jack plug CABLE LENGTH 1.3m IMPEDENCE 10 ohms WEIGHT 44g WARRANTY Two-year RTB PART CODE AS301 DETAILS www.aftershokz.co.uk

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REVIEWS

SONY HDR-CX730E ★★★★★

£799 inc VAT • From www.pixmania.co.uk

VERDICT

Excellent image quality with natural colour reproduction and an incredible display – a real enthusiast’s camcorder APART FROM THE HDR-TD20VE, which is designed specifically for 3D, the HDR-730XE is the top of Sony’s current camcorder range. It’s a Full HD camcorder with a 10x optical zoom, 17x zoom, a back-illuminated Exmor R CMOS sensor and plenty of I/O ports, as well as a powered accessory shoe and an electronic viewfinder, all of which puts it up against Panasonic’s range-topping HC-X900. There’s one big difference, though –the Panasonic camcorder has separate /4.1in sensors for red, green and blue light, whereas the Sony camcorder has a single, large /2.88in sensor. Sony’s decision to use a single, large sensor has paid off, as the video quality is incredible. Footage looks natural, as though you’re in the scene, and the colours are astoundingly well reproduced, not only with objects in immediate focus but also the yellow of a distant van, the blues, whites and greys of the clouds, and the greens of faraway trees. The detail is exquisite, too; the HDR-CX730E captures footage that’s truly worthy of the label Full HD. There are few signs of compression and the clarity with which scenes are rendered is breathtaking. The little details impressed us even more, such as the clean, smooth edges of shadows dancing across the roof of a moving taxi and the brickwork of an adjacent building.

STABLE TURNER

A prime reason for the HDR-CX730E’s excellent image quality is its image stabilisation system, which is set to Active by default. As soon as you open the touchscreen monitor, you can see the image stabiliser working its magic, keeping the camcorder as steady as possible and giving footage smooth, fluid motion. This is one of the best image stabilisers we’ve seen. When filming as we walked around, we found it even better than Panasonic’s image stabilisation at avoiding shakes.

It’s fair to say the HDR-CX730E isn’t perfect. Its autofocus sometimes struggled while shooting indoors in relatively enclosed spaces, such as stairwells and our lift, which is something its closest rival – the Panasonic HC-X900 – didn’t do. As with all camcorders, there’s also some noise in footage shot in very low light but, here again, Sony’s model trumps the HC-X900 for low-light footage.

TOUCHING CONCERN

The HDR-CX730E’s high-resolution 921,600-pixel touchscreen display looks fantastic. Its icons and menu items are refreshingly legible and attractive, and are good enough to shame certain smartphones. The menus, which you access the menus, are well organised and easy to navigate. The touchscreen is responsive for a resistive screen, but it’s easy to select the wrong option accidentally – an example being the ease with which the record button is pressed instead of the telephoto button. The HDR-CX730E also has an electronic viewfinder, which displays information such the zoom meter and battery meter, but the display door must be closed in order to use it. The camcorder’s 10x optical zoom lens maintains the HDR-CX730E’s high image quality even at full zoom. Active stabilisation, which minimises vertical and horizontal shake, must be switched off in order to use only

the optical zoom; instead, you must use one of the other modes, such as the balanced SteadyShot mode, which is designed for zooming. When Active Stabilisation is enabled, the camera defaults to a digitally enhanced 17x zoom, which doesn’t affect image quality too much until the end of its extension, at which point you get a slight halo effect on some objects and a softening of focus. The effect is so slight that you only notice it if you pause the footage and look for examples. As befits a high-end camcorder, the HDR-CX730E has a wealth of connections, including a 3.5mm microphone input, a 3.5mm headphone output, A/V and HDMI outputs, a Mini USB port to connect to your PC, and a powered accessory shoe. It also records 5.1 digital surround sound, and the touchscreen displays a level meter for each of the five sound inputs so you can avoid clipping. The HDR-CX730E’s excellent image quality, image stabilisation and touchscreen monitor, plus its multiple I/O connections, great image stabilisation and terrific colour reproduction earn it an Ultimate award. It’s an enthusiast’s camcorder that’s as much of a pleasure to use as its footage is to watch. The Panasonic HC-X900’s autofocus sometimes works better and it comes close for image quality, but the HDR-CX730E’s footage has a vibrancy and realism that you can’t help but love. Andrew Unsworth

SPECIFICATIONS SENSOR /2.88in CMOS STORAGE SD/SDHC/SDXC ZOOM 10x optical DISPLAY 6,650,000-pixel, 3in LCD PC CONNECTIONS Mini HDMI out, Mini USB A/V INTERFACES A/V out, 3.5mm microphone input, 3.5mm audio output DIMENSIONS 74x68x138mm, 645g WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE HDR-CX730E/B DETAILS www.sony.co.uk

2hr 15m

Battery Life 0%

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WorldMags.net

SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

REVIEWS

CANON Legria HF R36 ★★★★★

£359 inc VAT • From uk.insight.com

VERDICT

It may only have average image quality, but its built-in Wi-Fi and Story Creator function make it an ideal family camcorder CANON’S HF R36 is a Full HD compact camcorder with a ¼.85in CMOS sensor, 32x optical zoom, 51x intelligent zoom, a 3in colour touchscreen monitor and 8GB of internal storage space. That specification is already pretty good for a camcorder at this price, but Canon has gone even further by adding Wi-Fi connectivity, which means you hybrid optical and digital zoom giving a zoom can transfer recorded videos to your PC for streaming HD video. The ability to transfer boost without degrading quality too much. without a USB cable, and stream videos to videos to your PC wirelessly sounds like a There are also several image stabilisation DLNA-enabled TVs and games consoles. The good idea, but you have to install a video on options, including Dynamic IS and Powered IS. Legria range also includes the HF R306, which your PC and the transfer process is slow. The Dynamic IS aids stability when walking with is identical but has no built-in storage. process of transferring a one-minute video the camcorder and Powered IS adds stability The HF R36 has many built-in features that took three-and-a-half minutes, while attaching when using the zoom, although you can have are perfect for families who want to have fun a USB cable, plugging it in to your computer both activated at the same time. The image with video, but don’t necessarily want to use a and transferring a video took just 55 seconds. stabilisation is reasonable for a camera of computer. Story Creator lets you create video The real benefit of the Wi-Fi adaptor is the this price, but we do recommend using a stories using pre-designed patterns, various ability to watch your videos on DLNA-enabled tripod where possible. digital filters make your videos look like old devices such as smart TVs, games consoles The HF R36 has a 3in touchscreen monitor movies or a 1970s show, and Memory Save and computers. Within minutes of activating instead of a viewfinder. Sadly, its horizontal lets you back up your images and videos to an the DLNA services, we were watching our and vertical viewing angles are poor, which attached hard disk from the USB host port. videos on a PlayStation 3. When both devices can make it difficult to film at interesting Image quality is the key feature of any were connected via Wi-Fi, footage stuttered camcorder. When shooting from our because the PS3 couldn’t buffer rooftop in bright daylight, the HF R36 enough data in time, but when we The HF R36 has many built-in captured sufficient detail to make a connected the PS3 to our router via satisfying family movie. It adequately Ethernet, footage played flawlessly. features that are perfect for families captured the texture and staining The HF R36’s may not have the who want to have fun with video of paving stones, pebbles and walls best image quality and stabilisation within five metres of the lens; that said, we’ve seen, but both are acceptable angles. The touchscreen is also used for from around 15 metres the camcorder for the price and the camcorder has plenty of adjusting options, although the menu you captured less detail, so individual bricks extra features. It’s fairly slow, but streaming see depends on the mode to which the HF were no longer apparent, although individual videos to your PC wirelessly is convenient, R36 is set. The menu icons are clear and menu patches of colour were. Overall quality isn’t and the Story Creator function makes it an options easy to read, but they could be better bad for a camera of this price, although the ideal gift for a budding cinematographer. Just organised. Even after some time with the HF automatic focus is a little too soft and there’s bear in mind that the standard battery lasts R36, we still struggled to remember where some noise, even in daylight. less than hour in use, so it isn’t a camcorder certain menu options were located. The camera’s CMOS sensor is supported for taking on your travels. If image quality is by a 32x optical zoom lens, which works well most important, the Panasonic HC-V500 BAND ON THE RUN up until half of its full extension. After that, edges it. However, if you want a fun, goodThe HF R36 has a built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi objects have a pronounced halo effect and quality camcorder, the Canon HF R36 is ideal. adaptor. It uses the 2.4GHz band rather than more noise is introduced. You can further Andrew Unsworth the less congested 5GHz band, which is a extend the zoom digitally to 51x and 1020x. shame because the 5GHz band is better suited The former is Advanced Zoom, which is a SPECIFICATIONS SENSOR /4.85in CMOS STORAGE SD/SDHC/SDXC ZOOM 32x optical DISPLAY 3,280,000-pixel, 3in LCD PC CONNECTIONS Mini HDMI out, Mini USB A/V INTERFACES Combined A/V out and 3.5mm headphone output DIMENSIONS 55x54x115mm, 273g WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE 5976B015AA DETAILS www.canon.co.uk

47m

Battery Life 0%

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| SEPTEMBER 2012

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REVIEWS

BROTHER DS-700D ★★★★★

£192 inc VAT • From www.lambda-tek.com

VERDICT

An inexpensive portable scanner, but the competition is worth the extra cash DESPITE FITTING MFPs with scanners for years, Brother has only recently launched its first standalone devices. The range of three business-oriented models includes an A3 document scanner and two USB-powered portable document scanners, of which the DS-700D is the more highly specified. This is a tricky market to enter, as it already includes high-quality devices from competitors such as HP, Fujitsu and Canon, so we were interested to see how Brother’s model would hold up. First impressions were good. The DS-700D is keenly priced, undercutting Canon’s excellent ImageFormula P-215 (see Best Buys, page 70) by around £35, and unlike most of

the competition it comes with a case. Although this is a simple, cheap-looking bag, it’s enough to protect the scanner from dust and scratches. The scanner itself is made from strong-feeling plastic and feels impervious to bending or twisting, apart from a flexible area just above the paper output slot. Unfortunately, things start to go downhill from there. This is a simple device with a single function button and a status light. There’s no input tray, so sheets must be fed individually by hand, and there isn’t even a sliding width guide to help keep paper straight. Its specification is underwhelming, too. There’s nothing wrong with a 600dpi optical resolution in this class, but the quoted 10 images per minute (ipm) maximum speed is unimpressive, particularly as it only applies to mono scans. In our tests, the DS-700D proved even slower than we expected, taking almost six minutes to capture both sides of 10 sheets of A4 paper at 150 dots per inch (dpi). In comparison, Canon’s P-215 completed the same test in 91 seconds with optical character recognition (OCR) enabled. The DS-700D took 18 seconds to scan a single side at 150dpi, and 32 seconds to scan it at 300dpi. While the image quality of the results was acceptable for office work, a couple of fine vertical lines spoiled our 600dpi photo test.

FEEDING TIME

Thin magazine pages don’t always feed straight through the scanner, producing some wonky results

Manual paper feeding is common in this type of scanner, but we found that it wasn’t always easy to offer sheets to the DS-700D, and some seemed to snag on the right-hand side of the paper entry area. Thin magazine pages tended to take a slightly crooked path through the scanner, producing subtly curved results. We also learned to wait until the paper

transport had come to a standstill after ejecting the previous sheet before adding another; otherwise, it would be pulled through quickly without being included in the scan. While the scanner’s hardware isn’t the best, it’s the included software that really disappoints. The best competitors have excellent one-touch scanning modes that automatically deal with a varied stack of paper, but Brother’s DSmobileSCAN II software leaves it up to the user to decide whether to scan in colour or greyscale, and whether to capture one or both sides of the originals. The supplied Presto! PageManager 9 can use OCR to produce a searchable PDF file, but it can’t suppress blank pages, or automatically rotate pages that were upside down. The DS-700D may seem like a bargain, but in practice it’s comfortably outclassed by several competitors. We’d gladly pay more for Fujitsu’s ScanSnap S1300 or Canon’s P-215. Simon Handby

SPECIFICATIONS SCANNER TYPE CIS OPTICAL RESOLUTION 600dpi COLOUR OUTPUT 24-bit INTERFACES USB DIMENSIONS 319x76x54mm POWER CONSUMPTION N/A WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE DS700DZ1 DETAILS www.brother.co.uk

A4 scan 300dpi

32spm

35mm negative Fail 0%

-50

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BYTE SIZE ROCCAT Savu ★★★★★ £50 inc VAT • From www.scan.co.uk PC gamers haven’t jumped on the achievement bandwagon in the same way as Xbox owners, but that hasn’t stopped Roccat adding an achievement system to its latest mouse. When you click, scroll or adjust sensitivity, you’re working towards a series of trophies. The Savu is otherwise a relatively plain five-button mouse, with just a thin LED strip to indicate it’s aimed at gamers. It’s smaller than the flagship Kone+, so

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larger hands might feel a bit cramped, and you don’t get a horizontal scroll wheel, but it does support the EasyShift system, which doubles the number of available buttons using a macro key. Unless you’ve always wanted to know how many times you’ve clicked the mouse, achievements alone aren’t enough to convince us that the Savu is worth £45. We like the design, but if you can find another £10 the Kone+ is a better choice. Tom Morgan PART CODE ROC-11-600 • DETAILS www.roccat.org

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SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

REVIEWS

KODAK ESP 3.2 ★★★★★

£79 inc VAT • From www.kodak.co.uk

VERDICT

Cheap running costs, but this printer gives average scanning and printing quality IN JANUARY THIS year, Kodak filed for bankruptcy protection and announced that it would no longer be making digital cameras. Happily, the company is still making printers, and recently launched two new inkjet multifunction peripherals (MFPs): the ESP 1.2 and the ESP 3.2. Both are reasonably basic devices for home users, with the chief difference between them being that the ESP 3.2 has a colour touchscreen and the cheaper ESP 1.2 makes do with more basic touch controls. The ESP 3.2 looks subtly better than the ESP C310 that it replaces, but it’s still a basic design, built from uninspiring black plastic with a splash of Kodak yellow. There’s a sloped paper tray at the rear and a chunky fold-down tray at the front. The scanner lid is on sturdy hinges, but these don’t allow it to

cases, using higher quality settings slows things down and reduces the volume. In our tests, the printer produced reasonably good-quality black text, but it was let down slightly by a subtle horizontal tearing on one line. In general, it was faster than the ESP C310, but it still wasn’t a particularly quick printer, delivering its default quality

Kodak’s ESP 3.2 supports printing from the cloud and from iOS and Android smartphones or tablets via the free Pic Flick app

SPECIFICATIONS MAXIMUM RESOLUTION 9,600dpi QUOTED SPEEDS 8ipm mono/5.5ipm colour SCAN RESOLUTION 1,200dpi INTERFACES USB, 802.11b wireless DIMENSIONS 178x419x315mm POWER CONSUMPTION 2W standby, 3W idle, 18W active WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE ESP 3.2 DETAILS www.kodak.co.uk

Mono costs

1.8p

Colour costs

3.3p

Draft speed Fail 7.7ppm

Normal speed

1.5ppm

Photo speed

close flat on thick originals such as a book or magazine. There are slots for three memory card types, but the printer wouldn’t recognise either a FAT-formatted 512MB SD or a FAT32-formatted 16GB SDHC card.

DON’T LOSE YOUR HEAD

The printer’s heads and ink tanks need to be slotted in place before you can begin printing, at which point we discovered that the ESP 3.2 is quite noisy by inkjet standards, especially when printing at draft quality. Similarly, the scanner head makes a racket as it moves across the platen, particularly during low-resolution scans and previews. In both

prints at 7.7 pages per minute (ppm). Draft printing seemed rapid, but we experienced repeated paper jams and mis-feeds when trying to complete our 25-page timed test. After four failed attempts, we gave up. In colour, the printer was quick to deliver photos, taking just four minutes to print six borderless postcard-sized shots, but slow when printing graphics on plain paper, completing our 24-page test at just 3ppm. Photo quality was unremarkable, but plain paper prints were more impressive, let down only by some banding in areas of solid colour. The results from the scanner were average, with decent colour accuracy and sharpness, but the printer wasn’t so good at preserving detail among the darkest shades of an original. The ESP 3.2 supports printing via the cloud and from smartphones or tablets, but there’s no AirPrint support, so iPad and Android users must download the free Pic Flick app. This works well but is focused on photos. Printing other documents requires Document Print which isn’t as slick and is available only for Android.

SMOOTH RUNNINGS

A colour touchscreen lets you use the printer without a computer

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| SEPTEMBER 2012

Kodak is keen to stress its printers’ low running costs, and the ESP 3.2 is one of the cheapest home inkjets we’ve seen to run. However, unless cheap ink is critical, we’d recommend Canon’s similar but better Pixma MG4150, which is now available for just £70. Simon Handby

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3spm

Scan speed 0%

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FAQ

Q A

How would you suggest I go about calculating printer costs?

We list all of a printer’s consumables and search the internet for the cheapest price for each one, then divide the cost by the number of pages that the consumable will print; we use manufacturer figures calculated using the ISO/IEC 19752 and ISO/IEC 19798 standards for laser printers, or the ISO/ IEC 24711 standard for inkjets. Where there’s a choice, we always use the highest capacity consumable. We add together the relevant costs per page to give separate values for black and colour printing, which means there is ease of comparison between colour and mono devices. Just bear in mind that our figures don’t include carriage costs, and that real-life printing may consume inks and toners more quickly than their rated life might suggest, particularly when you are printing photos or graphics. Simon Handby

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REVIEWS

DEVOLO dLAN 500AVtriple+ ★★★★★

£118 inc VAT • From www.amazon.co.uk

VERDICT

An expensive HomePlug kit, but useful for connecting your home cinema system to your network THE DEVOLO DLAN 500 AVtriple+ kit consists of two 500Mbit/s HomePlug adaptors that are quick enough to stream high-definition video over your home network’s cabling. The 500AVtriple+ is different to most HomePlug kits, though, in that one adaptor has a single Gigabit Ethernet connector and the other has three. This means you can attach the

SPECIFICATIONS NUMBER OF ADAPTORS 2 HOMEPLUG STANDARD (SPEED) Homeplug AV (500Mbit/s) PORTS 4x 10/100/1000Mbit/s Ethernet ports

POWER SOCKETS 2 DIMENSIONS 143x72x42mm POWER CONSUMPTION 4W on WARRANTY Three-year RTB PART CODE 1721 DETAILS www.devolo.co.uk

140Mbit/s

Battery Life 0%

-50

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single-plug HomePlug adaptor to your router, media PC or NAS drive and the triple-port HomePlug adaptor to your smart TV, Blu-ray player and Sky HD box, for example, without having to buy an Ethernet switch. It’s a neat and tidy way of connecting all of your AV kit to your network. The plugs also have pass-through plug sockets so you can use them without taking up a plug socket. Setting up the adaptors is easy, as there’s push-button security to encrypt your network traffic. Alternatively, there’s a software utility that lets you set the encryption password manually. The dLAN 500AVtriple+ kit performed well in our network speed tests, with a transfer rate of 139.8Mbit/s. While not Gigabit Ethernet speed, it’s faster than most wireless routers. Actual speed will depend on the wiring in your home, but the dLAN 500

AVtriple+ kit should cope well: testing in our lab, which has a lot of data sockets and kit plugged in, we managed 27Mbit/s when the adaptors were 10m apart. At home, you should see better performance. At this worst-case speed, there’s still plenty of bandwidth to stream 1080p video smoothly. The dLAN 500 AVtriple+ has transfer speeds that compare favourably with those of other 500Mbit/s HomePlug kits we’ve seen, and its three Ethernet ports help to cut down on clutter. However, the kit i0s relatively expensive. If you only need a single-port, two Solwise NET-PL-500AVPiggy adaptors are around £50 cheaper. For multiple network ports, there are definitely cheaper four-port HomePlug AV 500MBit/s available. Andrew Unsworth

TP-LINK TL-WR2543ND ★★★★★

£50 inc VAT • From www.amazon.co.uk

VERDICT

Average Wi-Fi performance and flaky USB device support spoil this budget cable router THE TP LINK WR2543ND seems like a bargain. It is a dual-band router and it also has a USB port to which you can attach USB storage and printers, four Gigabit Ethernet ports and dynamic DNS support, all for £50. There’s no ADSL modem, so you must plug an ADSL or cable modem into the router’s WAN port.

SPECIFICATIONS WIRELESS STANDARD 802.11n dual band (450Mbit/s) CONNECTIONS 4x 10/100/1000Mbit/s LAN ports, 1x WAN port FEATURES UPnP

Centrino 2 1m

DIMENSIONS 36x155x234mm POWER CONSUMPTION 4W on WARRANTY Three-year RTB PART CODE TL-WR2543ND DETAILS uk.tp-link.com

44.2Mbit/s

Centrino 2 10m 26.6Mbit/s Centrino 2 25m fail Fail Own-brand 1m

69.9Mbit/s

Own-brand 10m

53.6Mbit/s

Fail Own-brand 25m fail 0%

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Sadly, during testing, the WR2543ND’s shortcomings become apparent. When using the 2.4GHz band and our Centrino laptop’s built-in Wi-Fi adaptor, we saw speeds of 44.1Mbit/s at one metre and 26.6Mbit/s at 10 metres. The router couldn’t maintain a stable connection at 25m. The speeds increased dramatically when we switched to TP-Link’s TL-WDN3200 Wi-Fi adaptor (£20 from www.dabs.com). We saw transfer rates of 69.9Mbit/s at one metre and 53.6Mbit/s at 10 metres, though we still couldn’t get a stable wireless connection at 25 metres. There was another slight performance increase when we switched to the 5GHz band. Over 5GHz and using our laptop’s built-in Wi-Fi adaptor, we saw data transfer speeds of 64.5Mbit/s at one metre and 53.6Mbit/s at 10 metres. Once again, the test failed at 25 metres. When using the TL-WDN3200 USB adaptor, we saw transfer speeds of 63Mbit/s at one metre, an impressive 74.1Mbit/s at 10 metres and 8.25Mbit/s at 25 metres. You must use the 5GHz band to get the best from the TL-WR2543ND, but this is impractical as the router can’t broadcast on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands simultaneously. Most smartphones and tablets can use only

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2.4GHz, so you must choose between fast transfer rates with your PC or laptop and being able to get your phone on Wi-Fi. We were also disappointed with the laptop’s print server utility, which wouldn’t install on our 64-bit Windows 7 machines. It installed on a 32-bit laptop but it couldn’t find the router, regardless of whether we were connected over Wi-Fi or Ethernet. As a consequence, we couldn’t print anything. We had better luck using the router to share a storage device, although it wasn’t always reliable. It should work with all DLNAenabled devices, but sometimes it wouldn’t appear as a server in Windows Media Player. When it did work, it worked brilliantly, and we could stream movies and music up to 10 metres away when using the 2.4GHz band, and further than that when using the 5GHz band. This isn’t a bad router, but its performance is far from spectacular and its media and print serving functions aren’t entirely reliable. You’re better off spending £50 on D-Link’s DIR-645 (see What’s New, Shopper 289). Andrew Unsworth

SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

REVIEWS

LACIE Little Big Disk Thunderbolt ★★★★★

£573 inc VAT • From www.misco.co.uk

VERDICT

Hideously expensive, but the combination of Thunderbolt and two SSDs makes for some of the fastest file transfer speeds we’ve ever seen THUNDERBOLT COULD BE the next big thing in storage technology, but so far its adoption has been restricted to Apple’s latestgeneration MacBook and iMac products. Now, motherboard manufacturers such as Asus and MSI are releasing boards with Thunderbolt ports and more firms, such as LaCie, are unveiling accessories that work on both Macs and PCs.

SPECIFICATIONS CAPACITY 120GB+120GB SSD INTERFACES Thunderbolt DIMENSIONS 85x40x140mm POWER CONSUMPTION 7W idle, 11W active WARRANTY Three years PART CODE 9000243 DETAILS www.lacie.com

Large files

388MB/s

Small files

97MB/s 0%

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The Little Big Disk is the first of LaCie’s range to include Thunderbolt and, with two 120GB SSDs installed in its tough-feeling aluminium frame, it’s well-placed to exploit the 10GB/s theoretical speed that Thunderbolt offers. The SSDs in question are mainstream Intel 320-series drives, and the Little Big Disk itself has two Thunderbolt ports on its rear, so multiple devices can be daisy-chained SCSI-style. The drive didn’t disappoint in our benchmarks. In the large file write benchmark it scored 212MB/s, following this up with a mammoth 564MB/s in the large file read test – the best indicator we’ve yet seen of Thunderbolt’s potential speed. The LaCie also performed well in our small file tests, although it didn’t match its large file performance. A result of 132MB/s in the small file write test is impressive, but this figure drops to 61MB/s in the small file read benchmark. Those figures were recorded in RAID 0 mode, which stripes the data so 222GB of

formatted space is available across the two Intel SSDs. The LaCie drive also supports RAID 1 mode, which mirrors the contents of one drive across the other; there’s only 111GB to play with, but your data will survive the failure of one disk. Thunderbolt is a new technology, though, and that comes at a price. The 240GB version of the Little Big Disk, with its two Intel SSDs, costs £573. That’s more than you’d pay for a 6TB NAS device and over three times the price of a 2TB USB3 disk such as the Western Digital My Passport 2TB; that said, the Western Digital disk only has a tenth of the Thunderbolt LaCie’s file transfer speeds. If you regularly work with large files such as Raw high-definition video and you need lightning-quick transfer speeds, the Little Big Disk is a luxury that will pay off. For the rest of us, though, it’s worth waiting until the price of Thunderbolt devices begins to fall. Mike Jennings

SEAGATE Backup Plus 1TB ★★★★★

£101 inc VAT • From www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk

VERDICT

Not particularly quick, but it’s an easy way to back up both local and social networking data EXTERNAL HARD DISKS are usually used to back up local data, from pictures and videos to game saves and important documents. However, with its latest drive, Seagate has addressed the fact that more people are storing important information on social networks such as Facebook and Flickr. The Backup Plus 1TB takes care of that particular information by promising to

SPECIFICATIONS CAPACITY 1TB SPINDLE SPEED 5,400rpm INTERFACES USB3 DIMENSIONS 15x81x123mm WARRANTY Two-year RTB PART CODE STBU1000200 DETAILS www.maplin.co.uk

96MB/s

Large files 34MB/s

Small files 0%

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download and back up pictures and videos from Facebook and Flickr, ensuring they’re kept safe from any problems in the cloud. The disk does this with a simple software suite. One module requires only a couple of clicks to save certain types of data from social networks, and it’s just as easy to back up local data. The first module allows you to select which drive to use to store the backup, and whether to perform the social network backup immediately or schedule it for when you’re not busy. The second option can be used to choose particular types of files to back up, from pictures and documents to music and video files, and a third module allows you to enter your details for Facebook, Flickr and YouTube, and upload pictures or videos directly from the device to these social networks. The software is basic, so it’s ideal for beginners, but it’s limited as a backup package. However, you could use it in combination with a more

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powerful free backup suite such as EaseUS Todo Backup Free to back up your local data. The Backup Plus 1TB is a USB3 disk, but we weren’t blown away by its performance. The disk scored 88MB/s in our large file write test, rising to 104MB/s in the large file read benchmark. By comparison, the Iomega Prestige Mobile was slightly slower when writing large files, with 73MB/s, but its 115MB/s large file read result is quicker. In the small file write test the Backup Plus 1TB wrote at 28MB/s, and it read small files at 40MB/s. Iomega’s drive was faster in both tests; the Iomega Prestige Mobile could write small files at 62MB/s and read them at 48MB/s. The Seagate Backup Plus’s average speed means it’s not for those looking for ultra-fast file transfers, but the social networking features are a neat addition that make it easy to look after important data from Facebook and Flickr. It’s a decent drive that provides backup with as little hassle as possible. Mike Jennings

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REVIEWS

AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition ★★★★★

£370 inc VAT • From www.dabs.com

VERDICT

More than the sum of its parts, and the best enthusiast graphics card there is AMD HAS MADE a big deal about its latest graphics card and, at first, it’s hard to see why. It looks identical to the Radeon HD 7970 and has the same 2,048 stream processors and 3GB of GDDR5 memory running at 1.5GHz. The card still has one dual-link DVI port, an HDMI output and two mini DisplayPort outputs. It also needs one six-pin and one eight-pin PCI Express power connector, although it is a reasonable 277mm long. There are a couple of big differences, though. The new HD 7970 GHz Edition has an increased clock speed, up from 925MHz to 1GHz, and can boost dynamically up to 1.05GHz when the thermal envelope allows it. The card can also vary the GPU’s voltage to help it manage boost speeds more effectively. This isn’t the first card we’ve seen to dynamically boost its clock speed; the Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 can boost from 1.01GHz to 1.58GHz if there’s enough power and thermal capacity. However, we were surprised by how much of a difference the tweaks made to the AMD card’s performance.

TESTING TIMES

We first tested the card with AMD’s current release driver, which, at the time of writing, was version 12.4. In our Dirt 3 test, which we ran at 1,920x1,080 with 4x anti-aliasing and Ultra detail, the HD 7970 GHz Edition managed 104.3fps, up from 88fps with the standard HD 7970. In Crysis 2 at 1,920x1,080 and Ultra detail, the new 1GHz card managed 46.6fps, compared with 42.9fps from the original 925MHz HD 7970. These figures indicate that the new card runs between nine

per cent and 18 per cent quicker than the old HD 7970, which, considering that its clock speed is around eight per cent higher, is pretty impressive. We also tested the card in Eyefinity mode with three monitors, for a total resolution of 5,760x1,080. To do this, you’ll need to use at least one of the mini DisplayPort outputs. We had no problems getting it to work with one DVI, one HDMI and one DisplayPort monitor, but if you don’t have a DisplayPort monitor you can buy Startech’s active mini DisplayPort-to-DVI adaptor for £25 (part code 340944, from www.ebuyer.com).

We were surprised by how much of a difference the small changes to the core and memory clock speeds made to the AMD card’s performance In Dirt 3 at this resolution and with 4x anti-aliasing and Ultra detail, which is a level of detail far beyond the capabilities of most mid-range cards, the HD 7970 GHz Edition managed 45.9fps, compared with 41.5fps for the standard HD 7970, which is a 10 per cent speed increase.

CATALYTIC CONVERTERS

The card’s standard clock speed is 1GHz, but GPU-Z shows the maximum 1.05GHz boost speed

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although the beta drivers were stable during all our game tests, we saw some odd results in Crysis 2 when running in Eyefinity mode at 5,760x1,080. In one test, the benchmark ran at a smooth 35.4fps, which is a big increase over the 21fps we saw from the standard HD 7970. However, running the test after a reboot, the frame rate dropped to 15fps. We also saw no more than 15fps from the standard HD 7970 using the beta 12.7 drivers. We’ll have to wait for the next driver release to see how well the new card can cope with Crysis 2 on three monitors. The Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition is a card with better performance than its specifications would suggest, suggesting that

These results are impressive enough on their own, but there’s more. The beta Catalyst 12.7 drivers promise significant performance gains across all AMD’s graphics cards, and this was certainly the case in our testing. With Catalyst 12.7 installed, the standard 925MHz HD 7970 jumped up to 100fps in Dirt 3 at 1,920x1,080, while the HD 7970 GHz Edition managed a huge 113fps. In Crysis 2, the new drivers saw the standard HD 7970 increase its frame rate to 44.3fps, while the GHz Edition managed 48.7fps. With the new drivers, Dirt 3 in Eyefinity mode saw increases to 46.2fps and 50.6fps for the standard HD 7970 and GHz Edition. The new, faster HD 7970, coupled with the new drivers, is a match for the Nvidia GeForce GTX 680, with near-identical frame rates in all our game tests. There’s only one problem;

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the fairly modest clock speed increase and dynamic overclocking produce some serious benefits. Problems with Crysis 2 in Eyefinity mode aside, the combination of this card with AMD’s latest beta drivers is enough to challenge Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 680 for the high-end graphics card crown. The Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition is also set to be a similar price to the standard HD 7970, at £370. This makes it around £50 cheaper than Nvidia’s card, and a new Ultimate award winner. Chris Finnamore

SPECIFICATIONS CHIPSET AMD Radeon HD 7970 CORE SPEED 1GHz RAM 3GB GDDR5 (1.5GHz) WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE HD 7970 GHz Edition DETAILS www.amd.com

Dirt 3

113fps

Crysis 2

48.7fps

3DMark 11

3,197 0%

-50

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SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

REVIEWS

THE RASPBERRY PI FOUNDATION Raspberry Pi Model B ★★★★★ £32 inc VAT • From http://uk.rs-online.com

VERDICT

The RasPi is an excellent platform for handson technology use, but the learning process starts from the minute it finally arrives THE RASPBERRY PI, or RasPi, was conceived as an affordable, community-supported computer that would encourage children to take up coding (see our Top 10, page 16), much in the same way that the Sinclair, Commodore and BBC computers of the early 1980s spawned a generation of enthusiasts and programmers. At its core is a Broadcom ‘System on Chip’, which contains a 700MHz ARM processor and a graphics core capable of displaying HD video at 30 frames per second. There’s room for little else other than some input/output headers on the RasPi’s circuit board, but various connectors crowd the perimeter, including HDMI, a 3.5mm audio jack and composite video; on the model B reviewed here, there are also two USB ports and an Ethernet socket. There’s a Micro USB connector for power and, on the underside, a single slot for the SD card that must be used to boot the computer. The basic device comes without a power adaptor or suitable SD card, but it’s possible to buy them in a bundle. The RasPi can’t run Windows, but there are three Pi-optimised Linux distributions available from the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s website. Some bundled SD cards come pre-loaded with the recommended Debian Squeeze, but while this will save you the initial

preparation, it’s worth familiarising yourself with the Win32DiskImager if you have an SD card reader for your PC; this provides an easy way to make and restore backup images. For those used to smartphones, game consoles and Windows computing, the RasPi presents a steep learning curve. For a start, there’s a need to learn basic Linux commands and concepts, such as ‘sudo’ to obtain elevated privileges and ‘apt-get’ to install software packages. We encountered other hurdles, not least of which is that the data partition occupies 1.6GB of the SD card, of which 1.3GB is full. After installing GIMP, we ran out of space when trying to install OpenOffice. To fully utilise our 8GB card, we had to boot a laptop into the GParted partition editor and use this to stretch the partition to fill the disk’s 5.5GB of empty space. In the 19th April distribution we used, enabling elevated access required the one-time use of ‘gconftool-2 --type bool --set /apps/gksu/sudo-mode true’, while getting the sound to work in the X

window system GUI required ‘modprobe snd_bcm2835’ after each reboot. Such troubleshooting is a challenge, but it’s also a learning process. Experienced Linux users will quickly find their way around these hitches, but novices will need to learn the answers from resources such as the Wiki and the excellent community forum at www. raspberrypi.org. This forum includes sections dedicated to the various programming, automation or robotics projects for which the RasPi is intended, and it’s here that the real challenges are likely to be found.

CREATIVE JUICES

This all raises the question of whether the RasPi will achieve its goal of stimulating and enabling a new generation of coding talent. It’s already easy enough to boot a cheap or old PC into Ubuntu and install various free coding tools. In most cases, the results are likely to run more quickly than on the RasPi, particularly until its GPU is used to speed up the sluggish X window performance – an improvement slated for a future Debian release. It is possible to surf the web on the RasPi using its Ethernet port and the included Midori web browser, but it’s incredibly slow. Still, the availability of limited or flawed resources can stimulate creativity – just ask any Spectrum programmer. Though unsophisticated by mainstream standards, the RasPi is powerful enough for HD multimedia and even gaming projects. With a growing community of users offering support, it will reward those who have the will, aptitude and patience to learn. Simon Handby

SPECIFICATIONS

The Raspberry Pi is pre-loaded with coding tools, such as the Scratch scripting environment

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PROCESSOR Broadcom BCM2835 system-on-a-chip (ARM1176JZFS CPU) RAM 256MB STORAGE SD card slot GRAPHICS CARD Videocore 4 PORTS 2x USB2, 10/100 Ethernet, composite video, HDMI, 3.5mm line out OPERATING SYSTEM Debian Squeeze recommended DIMENSIONS 15x85x55mm WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE Raspberry Pi model B DETAILS www.raspberrypi.org

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REVIEWS

PROPELLERHEAD Reason Essentials ★★★★★

£85 inc VAT • From www.amazon.co.uk

VERDICT

A novice-friendly audio production suite that’s powerful and easy to use PROPELLERHEAD’S REASON IS among the best-known Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) suites around, providing a full audio production environment on your PC. However, as with many professional audio packages, its near£300 price is rather high for many enthusiastic amateurs and bedroom producers. With that in mind, Propellerhead has released Reason Essentials, a cut-down but capable alternative. The most immediately visible difference between Reason Essentials and its more expensive sibling is the range of included synthesisers, samplers and effects. There are also some relative limitations to the power of Reason Essentials’ mixer functions and production environment; Essentials has a two- rather than four-band equaliser, for instance. It only supports its own file format, so you can’t edit projects that were created using other versions of Reason. If you’re used to the full power of Reason, this program might feel like a step backwards, but if you primarily treat Reason as a recording environment for live instruments or you’re new to Propellerhead’s software, there’s plenty to like.

JUST THE ESSENTIALS

Many DAWs can overwhelm you with a wealth of powerful options, few of which are immediately clear, so the intuitive simplicity of Reason Essentials’ interface is a very welcome pleasure. You can configure the program to display the features you need, but we were soon comfortable with the default setup of a track display at the bottom of the screen and space to load virtual effects racks and synthesisers above it. Each of your virtual effect and synth units is depicted by an image of a rack unit, with knobs and buttons you can use to adjust it. This makes it obvious how to adjust and control your sound, and invites easy experimentation. To add a new track for an analogue audio line input or a synth-based MIDI instrument, just select the relevant option from a rightclick menu. Once created, you can choose which input it records (if you’re recording with a multi-input audio device) and enable or disable options such as recording – which determines whether it records sound when you click Reason’s main record button – and monitoring, which determines whether the track is played as you record. There are also mute and solo options, which allow you to silence it during playback or make it the only track played. These options work in concert with Reason’s main controls at the bottom of the screen, which allow you to play, record, pause and scrub through any active tracks.

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Tracks at the bottom, virtual mixers and instruments at the top – the beauty of Reason is in its simplicity

The effects rack bank towards the top of the screen allows you to add and configure a variety of effects to each audio input, or apply effects to multiple inputs at once. Available effects include classic guitar pedals such as flangers and distortion boxes, plus reverb, delays, compressors and a wide range of vocal effects. It’s easy to select these using Reason’s file-manager-style Patch Browser interface. You’ll need a decent sound card to get the most out of Reason Essentials, particularly if you plan on recording live instruments. At the very least, you should install a generic lowlatency ASIO driver such as ASIO4ALL, which will minimise lag when recording and will work with the most generic on-board or budget USB audio devices. Like the recording and input interfaces, Reason Essential’s settings are clearly designed and easy to use, from selecting your sound card driver to detecting MIDI input devices such as keyboards and drum pads. If you don’t have a MIDI keyboard, you can even set up your computer keyboard to work as a MIDI control surface instead, although it’s very much a compromise option.

ALL THE MORE REASON

Whichever control surface you use, choosing an instrument for it is simple. You set up an instrument track from Reason’s main rightclick menu in much the same way as you’d create an audio track or add an effect. You can select instruments using the Patch Browser, or go to the Instruments submenu

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and choose from Reason Essentials’ supplied synths, samplers and drum machines. Propellerhead’s legendary Thor synth isn’t included in Reason Essentials, but the range of synthesisers, samplers and patch banks included should keep most musicians going for a long time before they’ll need more advanced options. Reason Essentials lacks support for VST plug-ins, which limits your ability to add third-party sound patches and effects, but it does support Propellerhead’s ReFill sound libraries. ReFill is a proprietary closed system, but there are plenty of interesting sounds available, some of which are free. It may be limited in comparison with the full version of Reason 6, and it lacks VST patch support, but Reason Essentials is a brilliant introductory DAW. Its clear layout, comprehensive help files and handy mouseover tooltips make it genuinely easy for a beginner, and it’s competitively priced, too. At £85 including VAT, it’s both cheaper and easier to dive straight into than Steinberg’s Cubase Artist, so it’s our Budget Buy for audio production. Kat Orphanides

SPECIFICATIONS SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Windows XP/Vista/7, Intel Pentium 4 or better (multiple cores recommended), 3GB disk space, monitor with 1,024x768 resolution or higher, 16-bit audio device, internet connection, USB port for authentication dongle PRODUCT CODE 99-101-0025 DETAILS www.propellerheads.se

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| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

REVIEWS

NIK SOFTWARE Snapseed ★★★★★

£13 inc VAT • From www.snapseed.com

VERDICT

Precise colour correction, attractive creative effects and a smart, friendly interface. Small teething troubles keep this image editor from an award SNAPSEED IS ONE of our favourite iPad apps, and the cut-price image editor is now available for Windows and Mac. The interface will be familiar to anyone who’s used the iOS version, with a large preview and icons for the various processes on the left. They’re better organised here, with a clear subdivision between Basic Adjustments and Creative Adjustments. Crop and Straighten have been rolled into a single process, as have the three colour-correction processes: Automatic, Tune Image and Selective Adjust (which applies brightness, contrast and saturation adjustments to a limited area of a photo). Clicking Automatic adjusts the sliders

SPECIFICATIONS SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Windows XP (SP3)/Vista (SP2)/7 (SP1), AMD or Intel processor, 2GB RAM (dual-core processor, 4GB RAM recommended), 256MB graphics, OpenGL 3 recommended PRODUCT CODE Snapseed DETAILS www.snapseed.com

for you, but you can refine them further without having to re-process the photo. One feature we’re not so pleased to see carried over is the restricted undo facility. It’s easy to undo and redo while making changes to a particular process, but after clicking Apply, the only option is to revert to the original state. This was a nuisance when we’d spent a while perfecting colours and then applied a frame that we decided we didn’t want. Despite several export options such as Print and Flickr, there’s no control over the export resolution. It’s the quality of the effects that stand out, though. Each one comes with six presets, which often give superb results, and there’s plenty of scope to fine-tune settings. Colour correction is effective, and Selective Adjust’s system for singling out areas to adjust – using a combination of a user-definable radius and matching areas by colour – works brilliantly. The Creative Adjustments specialise in retro film treatments. Vintage applies a colour tint, manipulates contrast, darkens the edges

Selective Adjust is useful for applying colour correction to certain elements within a frame

and applies subtle scratches. Grunge takes this concept further, creating photos like those you’d find in your grandma’s sideboard. The Drama effect boosts contrast to resemble high dynamic range photography, and Black & White includes the ability to pick a source colour to convert. Center Focus applies a circular area of sharp focus, blurring at the edges, while Tilt-Shift produces a band or ellipse of focus. There’s room for improvement in the undo and export functions, and we’d love to see photo management and non-destructive editing in the style of Picasa included, too. Still, Snapseed couldn’t be much easier to use, and the quality of the results is first rate. Ben Pitt

XARA Web Designer MX

★★★★★

£40 inc VAT • From www.xara.com

VERDICT

This DTP-style web design package has its limitations, but it’s still a friendly and capable introduction to web design XARA WEB DESIGNER MX is a web design application for novices interested in building a traditional static site rather than a WordPressstyle blog. Its DTP-like approach hides the underlying code unless you need to edit it. Web Designer MX makes it easy for novices to flex their design muscles. The interface is free from the floating palettes and toolbars that crowd similar applications. The demo site that loads when the application is first run explains the tools used in building a site, and can be edited directly to try them out. It works in much the same way as a DTP application. Text can go anywhere on the page, and can be resized or reflowed by dragging its frame handle with the appropriate tool. User-definable text styles make it easy to apply a consistent style across several pages.

SPECIFICATIONS SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Windows XP/Vista/7, 500MB RAM, 600MB hard disk space PRODUCT CODE Web Designer MX DETAILS www.xara.com

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Images are similarly straightforward to work with and can be dragged straight on to the page from an Explorer window. Wrapping text is only an option away and basic imageediting can be performed directly on the page with simple tools. Web Designer MX can also optimise images for web use by resampling them at their current size to 96dpi and saving them as a PNG or compressed JPEG. Deploying such web features as mouse rollovers and pop-up images means working with layers, and these behave much the same as in an image-editing application. Layers are also useful for simplifying the creation of more sophisticated page designs that incorporate background images and other common elements, but at this point a web novice would do well to investigate Web Designer MX’s range of templates. There are only 33 templates to choose from, but there’s plenty of variation in style and all have a clean, modern design. Each also comes with a dozen page designs for different purposes, plus a handful of colour schemes;

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Drag and drop elements help you make even complicated web pages, with no coding required

colours can also be edited manually. Separate page elements are also supplied, so it’s easy to drop in a consistently styled button or sidebar, for example, without having to copy it from another page. Although Web Designer MX’s DTP metaphor is a welcoming way for novices to put together a web page, it’s less successful at designing an entire site. Pages appear in a flat list in a ‘gallery’ at the far right of the window. This gives no clue to the site hierarchy, which means the user must remember how one page relates to another, or use the navbar ‘properties’ view to see their relationship — assuming a navbar is used, of course. Xara Web Designer MX isn’t as capable as the similar Serif WebPlus X5. That said, its learning curve isn’t as steep, nor its interface as imposing for someone new to web design. Julian Prokaza

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REVIEWS

ROCKSTAR GAMES Max Payne 3 ★★★★★

£28 inc VAT • From www.amazon.co.uk

VERDICT

Brutal yet beautiful, Max Payne 3 is a gritty action shooter that’s great fun to play EMBITTERED NEW YORK detective Max Payne first introduced PC gamers to the slow-motion gun ballet known as Bullet Time back in 2001. Having spent the best part of a decade at the bottom of a whiskey bottle, he finally makes his long-awaited return as he relocates to São Paulo for a new life as a private security guard. This may sound like the ideal retirement, but kidnappers, ransoms and double-crossing former allies make it more like a recipe for the perfect hangover. Despite shifting from New York to sunny Brazil, Max Payne 3 will feel instantly familiar to anyone who has played the original games. Partly told in flashback, with comic book-style sequences and in-game cut-scenes filling in the gaps, the story is every bit as dark and twisted as Max’s first two outings. As before, it’s Max’s own narration that gives the game its unique feel. Between unloading bullets into his enemies and necking fistfuls of painkillers to regain health, Max constantly comments

Never question the actions of a man in a Hawaiian shirt and aviators

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Each perfectly timed bullet dodge makes you feel as if you’ve leapt straight into a Matrix film

on his downwardly spiralling life with a series of film noir clichés, in a gravelly voice that embodies manliness.

TWIST AND SHOUT

Development has passed from series creator Remedy Entertainment to Rockstar, the studio famous for the controversial but slick Grand Theft Auto games. The transition brings with it a significantly upgraded animation model. Every bullet is modelled accurately, and Max has complete freedom of movement when aiming, moving in a lifelike way that’s rather startling the first time you swing round to target an enemy directly behind you. He’s as gymnastic as ever, despite having gained a few pounds, so you’ll frequently be diving to the floor in glorious slow motion. This new level of interaction also brings new dangers. Misjudge a bullet-time dodge, and Max will crumple as he collides with the wall, throwing your crosshair off target, bringing you out of slow motion and leaving you vulnerable to enemy attacks. Max can take cover to keep out of the crossfire for as long as possible, but it doesn’t significantly affect gameplay as you have to break into the open before activating bullet time. In a rare turnaround for a multi-platform game, the PC release of Max Payne 3 is by far the best version. Rockstar has worked hard to create an exceptional level of detail, both in characters and locations, with high-resolution textures taking up a considerable portion of the massive 30GB installation. DirectX 11 effects such as tessellation look stunning, even if the difference is less striking during a frenzied gun battle. You’ll need a hefty PC to run everything at the highest settings, but even older PCs should run Max Payne 3 smoothly in DirectX 9. With such incredible detail, the level of violence in the game seems

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much more visceral than in previous outings. Hold down the trigger when downing the last enemy in a given area, and Max will continue to pump bullets into their corpse as it falls to the floor in slow motion. The cut-scenes are just as graphic. If you can look past the violence, which made even the Shopper team wince a few times, there’s an absorbing 10-hour campaign to finish, with plenty of twists and turns that should keep you guessing right up to the end. Admittedly, the gameplay isn’t that varied, but reliving your Matrix fantasies as an angry bald New Yorker in a string vest is brilliant fun. Also, for the first time in the series, there is a competitive multiplayer mode for when you’ve completed the story.

TIME SQUARE

Rather than placing you in control of Max, the multiplayer game lets you choose between various Favela gangs, tasking you with a series of evolving objectives that vary depending on how well your team performs. It’s a welcome change from the standard deathmatch, especially as you can still use Bullet Time – when activated, everyone within your line of sight is affected, but the rest of the match carries on in real time. Choosing the right moment to activate and cause the most damage creates a more tactical approach than the run-and-gun methods used throughout the campaign. Yes, it can be brutal, and gameplay hasn’t evolved much from previous encounters, but Max Payne 3 is the best kind of adventure – explosive, action-packed and memorable, if just a little too brief. Tom Morgan

SPECIFICATIONS SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Dual-core 2.5GHz processor or better, 2GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce 8800GT / AMD Radeon HD3400 or better, 34GB hard disk space PRODUCT CODE B00200LTTE DETAILS www.rockstargames.com

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| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

REVIEWS

CAPCOM Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City ★★★★★

£26 inc VAT • From www.amazon.co.uk

VERDICT

A different spin on the classic survival horror franchise that ends up missing the mark WHILE GAMERS WAIT patiently for the next game in the core Resident Evil franchise, they can still get their zombie-bothering fix with Operation Raccoon City, a squad-based spin-off that puts you in the shoes of an elite Umbrella Corporation mercenary. Umbrella is the evil company responsible for the T Virus, a lethal serum that turns people into the walking dead. This is the first game to put players in control of Umbrella operatives, so you can see the story from a new perspective. The team has six members, from explosive and reconnaissance experts to medics and snipers. Each has three unique abilities, although you can use any weapon regardless of your class. You unlock more abilities as you progress, and it’s only towards the end of the game that characters show any individuality. Each of the six single-player campaigns can be finished in less than an hour. The occasional boss fight or set piece breaks up

Boss fights are the only times teamwork is actually useful

the action but with little variety, making progress feel like a bit of a grind. The campaign wasn’t much fun to play. The controls were clearly intended for a console controller rather than a mouse and keyboard, and the abysmal AI often thwarted our progress. Many doors require your entire team to be present before they open, but squad-mates often stopped short, leaving you to push them forward an inch at a time. The PC version feels like an afterthought. It retains the auto-aim system from its console counterparts, even though a mouse and keyboard are more accurate, and onscreen prompts show console controller buttons. The graphics are reasonable once you look past the gloom. Each level is little more than a series of dark tunnel and corridors, with rare opportunities to notice the character models or scenery. Your PC won’t strain to play it on maximum, but you’ll gain little from it.

Competitive multiplayer modes add replay value, including one that puts a player from each team in control of an iconic character from the Resident Evil series. These modes are fun for a while, but when gameplay as a whole is lacklustre there’s little incentive to stick with it. Even die-hard Resident Evil fans will be disappointed with Operation Racoon City. It makes too big a leap from the original games, copying gameplay mechanics from other, more successful titles but not implementing them as effectively. Tom Morgan

SPECIFICATIONS SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Dual-core 2.4GHz processor or better, 2GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce 8800GTS/AMD Radeon 3850 or better, 8GB hard disk space PRODUCT CODE B005APTHJK DETAILS www.capcom.com

RED WASP DESIGN Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land

★★★★★

£3 inc VAT • From www.appup.com

VERDICT

Despite an awkward control conversion, the quality atmosphere and gameplay make this a must-have bargain for strategy and horror fans BASED ON THE fiction of HP Lovecraft, Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land explores the trenches of an alternative First World War, where cultists threaten to turn the conflict into mankind’s final battle for survival. You control a small band of soldiers who’ve been given the task of preventing disaster by fighting off supernatural enemies. Each of your units is an individual character with their own skills and stats – they receive a certain number of action points to invest in either movement or combat. Victory often calls for lateral thinking over brute force: when in doubt, the best course of action is often to make a tactical escape rather than attempting to outgun more powerful enemies. Every time you complete a mission with your entire team intact, you’re rewarded with a bonus that can be spent on equipment such as first aid kits and vitality boosts, armour or increasingly powerful weapons. You’ll also get experience points to invest in the team’s skills. ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| SEPTEMBER 2012

It looks cutesy, but the gothic plot is surprisingly dark

The isometric graphics are functional and reasonably attractive – characters and enemies are easy to distinguish and the environment is well rendered. Sound is effective, if limited to ominous background effects and echoing gunfire. We spotted some typos and grammatical errors in the narrative and dialogue panels, but these storytelling elements get the atmosphere spot on. The Wasted Land’s greatest weakness is its controls, which are unchanged from its iOS touchscreen incarnation. Everything is controlled by clicking, or clicking and dragging. This is fine if you’re playing on a touchscreen PC, but we’d have appreciated some options for mouse and keyboard. We also found some of the onscreen buttons rather insensitive. The clickable areas of objects were often too small and oddly located, perhaps because they’ve been scaled up from tablet size. We managed to get to grips with the controls once we’d worked out

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where we had to click, but selecting units, particularly wounded characters, could still be quite fiddly. Despite this, The Wasted Land provides a deep and engaging strategic challenge. Even the early levels require you to examine your surroundings and objectives rather than simply throwing everything you’ve got at enemies. The Lovecraftian storyline also adds to the appeal for fans of the genre. If you’re not a particular fan of Lovecraft or turn-based strategy, The Wasted Land isn’t the best introduction to either. Still, fans who like their pan-dimensional horror should definitely put it on their wish list. Kat Orphanides

SPECIFICATIONS SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Windows XP/Vista/7, 1.8GHz processor, 1GB RAM PRODUCT CODE Call of Cthulhu DETAILS http://redwaspdesign.wordpress.com

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REVIEWS

SYNOLOGY RackStation RS812RP+ ★★★★★

£1,400 inc VAT (£1,120 ex VAT) • From www.morecomputers.com

VERDICT

It’s expensive, but with fast transfer speeds and a massive range of features, it could be the only NAS device your business needs THE SYNOLOGY RACKSTATION RS812RP+ is a rack-mount NAS device, which means that if you have a rack cabinet, you can save desk space and cut out cable spaghetti. The option to lock the NAS device into a secure rack unit also means you can feel safer about your data than you would with a free-standing NAS enclosure. Synology’s range of rack-mount NAS units includes everything from two-bay enclosures to 22-disk monsters. The RS812RP+ is an intermediate model, with four hot-swappable SATA2 bays, each capable of taking a 3½in or 2½in hard disk of 4TB capacity, so you can stock the NAS device with 16TB of storage. If you need to add more drives, you can do so by connecting Synology’s four-bay RX410 hard disk array (£447 including VAT), but you’ll need space in your rack to house it; the array connects to the NAS device over eSATA.

DOUBLE TIME

The RS812RP+ has a Dual Core 2.13GHz Atom D2700 processor and 1GB of DDR3 RAM, which can be expanded to 3GB. There are two power supply units, either of which can be easily replaced. Normally, both PSUs are in use, but either one can keep the NAS device running if the other fails. The system also has redundant fans and an easily replaceable motherboard that won’t affect the integrity or recoverability of stored data if you have to change it. Two Gigabit Ethernet ports and support for Wi-Fi via a USB wireless dongle provide plenty of options for connecting the RackStation to your network. At the back of the NAS, there’s an eSATA port and two USB ports for connecting external storage or printers you wish to share across the network. The popularity of Synology’s NAS devices is partly due to their ease of configuration. The Synology Assistant setup tool is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. It locates the NAS device on your network. Once found, you just have tell the Assistant where your copy of Synology’s DiskStation Manager OS is located, and it will proceed with installing the OS and configuring your NAS device. By default, the configuration software uses Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR) to optimise storage capacity when using disks of different sizes and to protect your data to the greatest possible extent. You can manually configure the NAS device to create a JBOD, RAID 0,

RAID 1, RAID 5 + hot spare, RAID 6 or RAID 10 array. In our tests, the NAS device achieved excellent transfer speeds between its SMB shared folder and PC, with an average score of 49.3MB/s in our large file transfer test and 15.5MB/s in our small file test, using two disks configured as a RAID 1 array via SHR. Speeds were even faster when we set up an iSCSI target with thin provisioning, averaging 62.2MB/s in our large file test and 28.4MB/s for small files. The RackStation’s processor power is put to good use by Synology’s outstanding graphical user interface, which also allows you to install and run a massive range of optional add-on packages. There’s a range of streaming media servers and a web-based download application, which you can set up to download files via BitTorrent, NZD, FTP and HTTP; this is handy if you need to download large update files that you’ll subsequently want to distribute to users. There’s also a range of DiskStation packages made with business in mind, from virus protection to allowing your NAS device to act as a DHCP server instead of your router. Synology’s DiskStation Manager OS makes it easy to use the RackStatation as your web, FTP and mail server. It doesn’t have the scalability or added security of an externally hosted service, but if your requirements are modest or you want a development server on which to build websites before they go live, it’s a valuable option. The web server has full PHP & MySQL support and the phpMyAdmin database front end is available as a package, making the NAS device ideal as a local database server. The NAS device has backup tools, including support for multiple versions, which are useful if your staff works predominantly on its local PCs rather than saving directly to the server. It’s also worth investing in an online backup service (see our group test on page 98), which can back up from network file shares. If physical security is a concern, the

RS812RP+ has an IP camera control centre for up to 20 cameras; you’ll need to buy a separate add-on licence for each (£44 per camera, or £128 for four, including VAT).

SERVICE WITH A SMILE

In addition to its range of bolt-on packages, the RS812RP+ excels in the core function of a NAS device – serving files. It’s easy to set up SMB shared folders and configure a range of permissions, user accounts and groups so your users have access only to the folders they need. You can set up iSCSI targets, which client PCs on your network will be able to mount as though they were local drives – for example, by using Windows’ iSCSI Initiator tool. There’s also a VPN server package, which means that if your staff work remotely, you can create up to 20 VPN accounts using PPTP or OpenVPN to give your remote workers access to files and services on your local network. With fast transfer speeds to RAID arrays, plenty of power, a vast number of features, the ability to scale as your business grows and one of the best NAS operating systems around, the RackStation RS812RP+ is a comprehensive business NAS device. At £1,400 including VAT without disks, this four-bay enclosure may be beyond the means of the smallest firms, but if you can afford a device that can fulfil multiple server functions with the minimum of fuss, this is a brilliant Business Buy. Kat Orphanides

SPECIFICATIONS CONNECTIONS 10/100/1000Mbit/s Ethernet, 2x USB2, 1x eSATA ports EXTRAS UPnP media, iTunes, print, USB disk, web, FTP servers WARRANTY Three-year RTB DIMENSIONS 44x430.5x507.5mm POWER CONSUMPTION 8W standby, 77W active PART CODE RS812RP+ DETAILS www.synology.com

Large files

49.4MB/s

Small files

15.5MB/s 0%

-50

Reference

+50

+100

See page 76 for performance details

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SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

REVIEWS

QNAP TS-469 Pro ★★★★★

£632 inc VAT (£506 ex VAT) • From www.kikatek.co.uk

VERDICT

This four-bay business NAS device is powerful and versatile, if not the fastest around THE QNAP TS 469 Pro NAS device doesn’t look too different to the TS-412 home NAS device that recently won our coveted Best Buy award. The enclosure’s sturdy metal chassis and sliding drive caddies are similar in appearance, although the TS-469 adds simple drive locks to help prevent anyone fiddling with your disks. There’s also a K-lock security slot, which can be used to tether it to a desk or wall. A mono LCD status screen lets you check on the device’s IP address and firmware version, and even access a control menu. Once you’ve set up the NAS device, the control menu lets you view the status of your drives and even reboot, shut down and change the admin password, but it’s difficult to navigate and select items using just two buttons, and far too easy to select an option you didn’t want.

PORT AUTHORITY

The TS-469 has an impressive specification, with four hot-swappable SATA3 bays, a 2.13GHz dual-core Intel Atom D2700 processor and 1GB RAM, which can be upgraded to a maximum of 3GB. Located on the front panel is a USB port; this ties into the TS-496’s one-touch copy feature, which you can set up to immediately copy data from any USB drive you connect to a designated directory on the NAS device. At the rear of the device are two Gigabit Ethernet ports, four USB ports, two USB3 ports and a couple of eSATA ports. While this desktop NAS device can’t be expanded with disk modules in the way as some rack-mount NAS hardware, there’s plenty of room for expansion, as long as you don’t mind plugging in lots of external drives to the device’s ports. The USB ports can be used to connect up to three printers you wish to share across your

ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| SEPTEMBER 2012

network. There are also HDMI and VGA ports; we expected to be able to connect a monitor and a USB mouse and keyboard to control the NAS device, but the graphics ports currently don’t do anything. The process of configuring the NAS device, installing its OS and setting up its disk volumes is painless. QNAP’s Finder program locates the device on your network, checks its status and sends you to its webbased configuration interface if it hasn’t yet been set up. As well as allowing you to name the device and set it up to use a NTP server, you’re prompted to select which services you wish to enable from a list. Microsoft (SMB) Networking, a web-based file manager and FTP are enabled by default, but you can also activate Apple networking, NFS share, web server and MySQL Server, as well as more typically consumer-oriented services such as a UPnP and iTunes media server, a Multimedia Station to provide a web interface to media stored on the device, and a Download Station that lets you configure the device to download files via BitTorrent, HTTP, FTP or via the RapidShare file-sharing service.

CONFIGURATION NOW

You’re then prompted to set up your disks. The NAS device supports RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10 or JBOD disk configurations and will default to an appropriate RAID configuration to ensure that you have at least one redundant disk. In our transfer speed tests, we used a pair of disks configured in a RAID 1 array. Transfer speeds were disappointing, with a large file average of 29.8MB/s and an average transfer speed of 13.2MB/s. Its performance in our iSCSI transfer test was much faster, but we experienced inconsistent transfer speeds on the initial couple of runs through the test before we achieved a fast and stable result of 61.9MB/s in our large file test and 31.1MB/s in our small file transfer test. The NAS device has plenty of extra features beyond acting as a file server. These include web and mail servers, which are respectively useful for web development and very small enterprises, but we’d recommend dedicated external hosting for added security. If you employ remote workers, the device can act as a VPN server to allow them to access your network as though they were connected locally. The NAS device supports MySQL and phpMyAdmin, so it’s also ideal for use as a local database server.

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There’s also an excellent range of backup features, including the ability to back up all or selected data stored on the device to cloud storage services, including Amazon’s S3 servers. This provides a useful additional layer of protection if you plan to use your device as a backup target. QNAP provides its own NetBack Replicator software to make it easy to back up and restore content from the PCs on your network, either on demand or on a fixed schedule. The NAS device also supports Apple’s Time Machine backup system. Several third-party packages allow you to use the NAS device as a proxy server or Asterisk VoIP server or add a Joomla CMS for your website. See Business Expert on page 155 for more on the role of a NAS device on your network. The TS-469 Pro’s interface is rather plain when compared with the glossy windowed GUI of rivals such as Synology, but it’s easy to use. A tree view helps you to locate different feature categories, from disk management to network services and application servers. Clicking into any of these opens an icon-based menu pane where everything’s clearly laid out. The TS-469 is well specified, with SATA3 connections for internal drives and plenty of scope to expand your storage. Transfer speeds via SMB could have been better; iSCSI speeds were faster, but we had problems getting our transfer to copy during a couple of iterations. Still, this is a good-value NAS device with a well laid-out interface and plenty of features. Kat Orphanides

SPECIFICATIONS CONNECTIONS 2x 10/100/1000Mbit/s Ethernet, 7x USB ports EXTRAS UPnP media, iTunes, print, USB disk, web, FTP servers WARRANTY Two-year RTB DIMENSIONS 177x180x235mm POWER CONSUMPTION 2W standby, 32W active PART CODE TS-469 Pro DETAILS www.qnap.com

Large files

29.8MB/s

Small files

13.2MB/s 0%

-50

Reference

+50

+100

See page 76 for performance details

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REVIEWS

Choosing a ... PC system 01

A basic PC costing around £350 will be capable of running everyday office, multimedia or education software, as well as anything on the internet. It won’t cope with modern games, though. Many PCs are available with or without monitors; if you don’t like the display that the manufacturer is offering, use an old one or choose one from our Displays section.

02

If you’re interested in playing games, upgrade to a decent graphics card. Mid-range cards such as the AMD Radeon HD 7770 will cope with this year’s games, but to play next year’s just as smoothly (and enjoy gorgeous graphics today) it’s worth upgrading to a more powerful card such as a Radeon HD 6790.

03

All modern PCs come with at least a dual-core processor, so they’re capable of taking on most tasks. Anyone who regularly undertakes demanding tasks such as video editing and encoding should seriously consider a quad-core processor.

04

There are plenty of reasons to upgrade the memory or hard disk. If you’ll be using your PC for gaming, video-editing or other demanding tasks, you’ll want 8GB of RAM and a large hard disk – 1TB should suffice. Many new PCs come with SSDs, some of which work alongside a standard hard disk as the boot disk. These are smaller than normal hard disks but make your PC boot and load programs incredibly quickly.

05

The standard connectors can be improved with extra USB ports, to which most PC gadgets attach. Some newer PCs have USB3 ports, which provide faster data transfers with supported devices. Look for a memory card reader if you have a digital camera, and make sure your camera’s memory card is supported.

06

Most new PCs come with Windows 7 Home Premium installed. Don’t be too easily swayed by the inclusion of other software with your PC. It may be that you’ll never use it, but if you find a PC that includes software you’d otherwise pay for, you’ll save money by having it preloaded.

07

While most PCs come in cases of a fairly similar size, some have more compact mini tower or mini-PC cases. These smaller PCs are more compact so will fit under your TV or on your desk, but bear in mind that they are significantly harder to upgrade than full-size machines.

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PCs

PALICOMP Alpha Detonator

★★★★★

£1,250 inc VAT • www.palicomp.co.uk

This Intel Ivy Bridge powerhouse has a Core i5-3570K processor, which earned the highest benchmark score we’ve seen at 153 overall. It also has an Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 graphics card that ran Crysis 2 at 51fps, 16GB of memory, a 2TB hard disk, Blu-ray reader/DVD re-writer drive and plenty of room for additional storage and cards. It’s unashamedly expensive but it does plenty to justify its price. CPU 4.7GHz Intel Core i5-3570K • RAM 16GB • STORAGE 120GB SSD+2TB hard disk • GRAPHICS CARD 2GB Nvidia GeForce GTX680 • OPTICAL DRIVE DVD+/-RW +/-DL BD-ROM • DISPLAY None • OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit • DIMENSIONS 495x210x525mm • POWER CONSUMPTION 3W standby, 109W idle, 270W active • WARRANTY Three-year RTB • PART CODE IVY1 • DETAILS www.palicomp.co.uk • FULL REVIEW Jul 2012

ECLIPSE Matrix i5238r777 ★★★★★

£550 inc VAT • www.eclipsecomputers.com

With an AMD Radeon HD 7770 graphics card, 8GB RAM and Intel Core i5-2380P processor, this mid-priced mini-tower makes an effective gaming PC. Its score of 102 overall in our application tests and 40fps in Dirt 3 shows that it’s a great all-rounder that won’t leave you feeling out of pocket. All we’d change is the 500GB hard disk. CPU 3.1GHz Intel Core i5-2380P • RAM 8GB • STORAGE 500GB hard disk • GRAPHICS CARD 1GB AMD Radeon HD 7770 • OPTICAL DRIVE DVD+/-RW +/-DL • DISPLAY None • OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit • DIMENSIONS 415x179x435mm • POWER CONSUMPTION 4W standby, 51W idle, 184W active • WARRANTY One-year RTB • PART CODE Matrix i5238r777 • DETAILS www.eclipse-computers.com • FULL REVIEW Jun 2012

ORANGE Amplification OPC ★★★★★

£945 inc VAT • www.orangeopc.com

Iconic stage amp maker Orange has turned its hand to audio production PCs with great success. With a built-in guitar amp, dedicated sound card, 6GB of RAM, a Core i5-2500K processor that scored 101 overall in our tests and a wealth of music production software, it’s ideal for guitarists and songwriters. There’s even room for a dedicated graphics card if you fancy playing games between recording sessions. CPU 3.3GHz Intel Core i5-2500K • RAM 6GB • STORAGE 500GB hard disk • GRAPHICS CARD Intel HD Graphics 3000 • OPTICAL DRIVE DVD+/-RW +/-DL • DISPLAY None • OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit • DIMENSIONS 320x350x240mm • POWER CONSUMPTION 2W standby, 40W idle, 82W active • WARRANTY One-year RTB (free extension to 18 months RTB with registration) • PART CODE OPC • DETAILS www.orangeamps.com • FULL REVIEW Apr 2012

LAPTOPS

SAMSUNG Series 9 ★★★★★

£1,026 inc VAT • www.laptopsdirect.co.uk

The Series 9 might just be the best Windows-based Ultrabook you can buy. It’s elegant and powerful, with a high-resolution screen that elevates it above the competition. With a brushed metal finish and lots of connectivity for such a small, slim laptop, the Series 9 is both portable and practical. Its eight-hour battery life means you won’t fall short when on the move, either. CPU 1.6GHz Intel Core i5-2467M • RAM 4GB • STORAGE 128GB SSD • GRAPHICS Intel HD Graphics 3000 • OPTICAL DRIVE None • DISPLAY 13.3in widescreen LCD (1,600x900) • OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit • DIMENSIONS 17x328x227mm, 1.2kg • POWER CONSUMPTION 0W standby, 11W idle, 39W active • WARRANTY Two-year RTB • PART CODE 900X3B • DETAILS www.samsung.co.uk • FULL REVIEW Jun 2012

ALIENWARE M17x ★★★★★

£1,839 inc VAT • http://configure.euro.dell.com

The Alienware’s M17x gaming laptop has recently been upgraded with an Intel Ivy Bridge processor and your choice of AMD or Nvidia graphics. The addition of solid state storage speeds up start up times and the Full HD screen lets you enjoy 1080p video in all its glory. This is the next best thing to a desktop PC. CPU 2.3GHz Intel Core i7-3610QM • RAM 8GB • STORAGE 60GB SSD + 500GB hard disk • GRAPHICS AMD Radeon HD 7970M • OPTICAL DRIVE BD-ROM + DVD+/-RW +/-DL • DISPLAY 17.3in widescreen LCD (1,920x1,080) • OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit • DIMENSIONS 45x410x304mm, 4.3kg • POWER CONSUMPTION 1W standby, 38W idle, 186W active • WARRANTY Oneyear onsite • PART CODE M17x • DETAILS www.dell.co.uk • FULL REVIEW Aug 2012

HP PAVILION DV6-6C05ea ★★★★★

£484 inc VAT• www.ebuyer.com

HP’s Pavilion DV6 may cost less than £500 including VAT but it can play the latest games and handle all your desktop tasks thanks to its dedicated graphics card, quad-core AMD processor and 6GB of RAM. The 15.6in, 1,366x768 screen, full-size keyboard, 1TB hard disk and DVD drive make it an excellent budget replacement for a desktop PC. CPU 1.7 GHz AMD A6-3430MX • RAM 6GB • STORAGE 1TB hard disk • GRAPHICS AMD Radeon 7470M • OPTICAL DRIVE DVD+/-RW +/-DL • DISPLAY 15.6in widescreen LCD (1,366x768) • OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit • DIMENSIONS 35x378x247mm, 3kg • POWER CONSUMPTION 0W standby, 26W idle, 62W active • WARRANTY One-year RTB • PART CODE DV6-6c05ea • DETAILS www.hp.co.uk • FULL REVIEW Jul 2012

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SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

REVIEWS

HANDHELDS

HTC One X

★★★★★

Free on £21-per-month 24-month contract • www.buymobilephones.net

The first HTC handset with Android 4.0 has a super-fast processor and a gorgeous screen. Couple this with a gorgeous curved body and photos worthy of a compact digital camera and you have an Ultimate phone.

MOTOROLA Defy Mini XT320 ★★★★★

£79 inc VAT • www.amazon.co.uk

An incredibly cheap Android 2.3 handset with long battery life, the Defy Mini is also dust-proof and water-resistant, with a snappy interface and front-facing camera for video.

ASUS Transformer Prime ★★★★★

£484 inc VAT • www.amazon.co.uk

Asus’s top-of-the-range Android 4.0 tablet has a detachable keyboard dock that adds six hours to the battery life. It has incredible graphics and processing power, and the Super IPS screen is a delight to use.

APPLE iPad

★★★★★

£399 inc VAT • www.apple.com/uk

The latest iPad’s 1,536x2,048 screen resolution makes it impossible to see individual pixels, and the display’s IPS technology leads to saturated colours and great contrast. The iPad still has great battery life, too.

AMAZON Kindle Touch ★★★★★

£109 inc VAT • www.amazon.co.uk

The Kindle Touch was a long time coming to the UK, but the touchscreen was worth the wait. It makes it much easier to buy books and organise your collection than the standard model’s buttons.

PROCESSOR SPEED 1.5GHz • NUMBER OF CORES 4 • RAM 1GB • MOBILE DATA Edge, HSPA, WCDMA • DISPLAY 4.7in 720x1,280 LCD • CAMERA 8-megapixel • INTERNAL STORAGE 32GB • MEMORY CARD SLOT None • CLAIMED BATTERY LIFE 8.9 hours talktime, 24.8 days standby • DIMENSIONS 134x70x9mm, 130g • PART CODE 99HRL031-00 • DETAILS www.htc.com • FULL REVIEW Jul 2012 PROCESSOR SPEED 600MHz • NUMBER OF CORES 1 • RAM 512MB • MOBILE DATA EDGE, HSDPA • DISPLAY 3.2in 320x480 LCD • CAMERA 3-megapixel • INTERNAL STORAGE 120MB • MEMORY CARD SLOT microSDHC • CLAIMED BATTERY LIFE Nine hours talktime, 15 days standby • DIMENSIONS 109x59x13mm, 107g • PART CODE SM3254AA2B1 • DETAILS www.motorola.com FULL REVIEW Aug 2012 CPU 1.3GHz Nvidia Tegra 3 • RAM 1GB • STORAGE 32GB • GRAPHICS Nvidia Tegra 3 • DISPLAY 10.1in 1,280x800 widescreen LCD (IPS) • OPERATING SYSTEM Android 4.0 • DIMENSIONS 180x263x 8.3mm, 586g • WARRANTY One-year RTB • PART CODE TF201-1B002A • DETAILS www.asus.com • FULL REVIEW Apr 2012

CPU 1GHz Apple A5X • RAM 1GB • STORAGE 16GB • DISPLAY 9.7in IPS • OPERATING SYSTEM iOS 5.1 1,536x2,048 LCD (IPS) • DIMENSIONS 241x186x9mm, 652g • WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE iPad DETAILS www.apple.com/uk FULL REVIEW Jun 2012

DISPLAY 6in mono touchscreen • STORAGE 4,096MB • MEMORY CARD SUPPORT None • EBOOK FORMATS PDF, HTML, Microsoft Word, MOBI, Amazon AZW, TXT • IMAGE FORMATS BMP, JPEG • DIMENSIONS 172x120x10.1mm, 213g • CLAIMED BATTERY LIFE Two months (wireless off) • WARRANTY One-year RTB • PART CODE B005890FUI • DETAILS www.amazon.co.uk FULL REVIEW Aug 2012

PHOTOGRAPHY

PANASONIC Lumix DMC-GX1 ★★★★★

£604 inc VAT • www.amazon.co.uk

Compact system cameras (CSCs) deliver SLR-quality photos and SLRbeating videos in pocket-size dimensions. The GX1’s fast performance, elegant controls and wide choice of lenses make it our top pick.

CANON Ixus 230 HS ★★★★★

£135 inc VAT • www.ebuyer.com

It’s not bursting with extras, but this little point-and-shoot camera takes attractive photos and videos with the minimum of fuss. It copes admirably in low light, and the 8x zoom helps to frame shots creatively.

PANASONIC DMC-TZ25 ★★★★★

£209 inc VAT • www.amazon.co.uk

A pocket-sized camera with a big zoom is ideal for travelling, and the TZ25 is an excellent example at a competitive price. It excels for video and for continuous shooting, where it can shoot and refocus five times a second.

FUJIFILM X-S1 ★★★★★

£520 inc VAT • www.play.com

This ultra-zoom camera has lots of controls for quick access to manual settings, an outstanding electronic viewfinder, fast performance and the best image quality in its class. Video capture is the only let-down.

NIKON Nikon D3100 18-55VR Kit ★★★★★

£365 inc VAT • www.amazon.co.uk

Image quality doesn’t vary much among sub-£1,000 SLRs, which makes Nikon’s entry-level model a bargain, especially as it also records 1080p video. Slightly awkward access to manual controls is our only reservation.

ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| SEPTEMBER 2012

SENSOR SIZE 16 megapixels (4,592x3,448) • ZOOM 3x optical (28-84mm) • LCD 3in (460,000 pixels) • STORAGE (INTERNAL) SDXC card (none) • BATTERY Li-ion • DIMENSIONS 71x116x65mm, 413g • WARRANTY One-year RTB • PART CODE DMCGX1XEB-K • DETAILS www.panasonic.co.uk • FULL REVIEW Apr 2012

SENSOR SIZE 12 megapixels (4,000x3,000) • ZOOM 8x optical (28-224mm) • LCD 3in (461,000 pixels) • STORAGE (INTERNAL) SDXC card (none) • BATTERY Li-ion • DIMENSIONS 57x95x22mm, 140g • WARRANTY One-year RTB • PART CODE 5270B006AA • DETAILS www.canon.co.uk • FULL REVIEW Jan 2012

SENSOR SIZE 12 megapixels (4,000x3,000) • ZOOM 16x optical (24-384mm) • LCD 3in (460,000 pixels) • STORAGE (INTERNAL) SDXC card (70MB) • BATTERY Li-ion • DIMENSIONS 61x105x34mm, 208g WARRANTY One-year RTB • PART CODE DMCTZ25EB-K • DETAILS www.panasonic.co.uk • FULL REVIEW Jul 2012

SENSOR SIZE 12 megapixels (4,000x3,000) • ZOOM 26x optical (24-624mm) • LCD 3in (460,000 pixels) STORAGE (INTERNAL) SDXC card (26MB) BATTERY Li-ion • DIMENSIONS 107x136x155mm, 945g • WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE P10NC06400A DETAILS www.fujifilm.co.uk FULL REVIEW Jul 2012 SENSOR SIZE 14.1 megapixels (4,608x3,072) • ZOOM 3x optical (27-82.5mm) • LCD 3in (230,000 pixels) • STORAGE (INTERNAL) SDXC card (none) • BATTERY Li-ion • DIMENSIONS 96x124x75mm, 505g • WARRANTY Two-year RTB PART CODE VBA280SU01 DETAILS www.nikon.co.uk FULL REVIEW Apr 2012

WorldMags.net

Choosing a ... Smartphone 01

A smartphone’s operating system (OS) dictates its basic features and also which third-party software you can install. There are three main contenders: Apple’s iOS, which is found in the iPhone, Google’s Android, which is used by various handset manufacturers, and Windows Phone 7, which is becoming more widespread and has replaced Symbian as Nokia’s smartphone operating system. Apple iOS and Google Android have the most apps available, although Windows Phone is slowly catching up.

02

All smartphones have a colour screen, but resolutions vary. Budget models have 240x320 pixels, but these can make text look indistinct. Look for a display with at least 480x800 pixels to make it easy to browse web pages on your smartphone. Don’t worry too much about the built-in media players or Office document editors – you can always install apps to replace these with better versions. Cameras are common in smartphones, and resolutions have increased to as much as eight megapixels. However, the sensors and lenses can’t compete with those of even budget digital cameras.

03

Nearly all smartphones have touchscreen interfaces, and some have a physical keyboard for entering text quickly and accurately. Although physical keyboards are desirable for heavy emailing, touchscreen keyboards also work well, and Android smartphones let you install a variety of custom onscreen keyboards so you can find the one that suits you.

04

Be careful when choosing a mobile contract. Look for one with a large data allowance if you want to use the internet regularly or you’ve set your phone to synchronise your contacts, calendar and email with online services such as Google’s. Built-in Wi-Fi can help you avoid high data charges by allowing you to connect to the internet using wireless hotspots, or your router when you’re at home. The iPhone and Android handsets enable you to turn your phone into a wireless hotspot and connect your laptop to the internet over this connection. Bear in mind that there may be an extra charge for this.

67

REVIEWS BEST BUYS

Choosing a ...

DISPLAYS

AOC i2352Vh

★★★★★

£127 inc VAT • www.scan.co.uk

Monitor

This IPS monitor has a full HD resolution and VGA, DVI and HDMI inputs. It displays deep blacks and has very little colour cast, while its wide viewing angles and natural colour reproduction add up to impressive image quality.

01

A basic 22in LCD monitor will cost around £90. It will be fine for typical Windows work but is likely to have poor viewing d to angles, so you’ll need e the sit straight on to see best quality picture. Colour accuracy may not be very good, so it isn’t ideal for colour-sensitive work.

SAMSUNG S27A950D

02

ASUS P1 Portable LED Projector

A VGA input enables you to use the monitor with any PC, but the quality may not be quite as good as with a DVI or HDMI input. Both are digital connections and require a compatible graphics card but avoid the need for digital-to-analogue or analogue-to-digital conversions, which can reduce image quality. A digital connection automatically gets the best picture – you won’t have to adjust clock or phase settings as you do with an analogue connection. Many DVI and all HDMI connections support HDCP, which lets you watch protected video content such as Blu-ray movies on your monitor. DisplayPort is becoming more popular, but you’ll either need a graphics card with a matching output or a DVI-to-DisplayPort adaptor.

03

A larger monitor will be easier on the eye and will have a larger resolution. Monitors with 22in, 23in and 24in screens typically have resolutions of 1,920x1,080 (1080p), which provides lots of room for working with multiple windows at the same time. For even higher resolutions, you’ll need a larger display. A 30in screen or higher will have a massive resolution of 2,560x1,600. You’ll need a graphics card with a dual-link DVI output and a dual-link DVI cable to use a monitor at this resolution.

04

If you want better picture quality, look for a monitor with a high contrast ratio. The higher the ratio, the whiter the whites and the blacker the blacks. You’ll also be able to see more fine detail in images with high contrast levels. Viewing angles are important, as wider angles mean you don’t have to sit directly in front of the monitor to get the best picture. Wider angles also allow more people to watch the screen at the same time. Fast response times cut down on ghosting, but don’t be dazzled by the numbers. A response time of 25ms or quicker is fine for all applications.

68

RESOLUTION 1,920x1,080 • CONTRAST RATIO 1,000:1 (20,000,000:1 dynamic) • BRIGHTNESS 250cd/m2 • PORTS VGA, DVI, HDMI • POWER CONSUMPTION 0W standby, 31W on • WARRANTY Three-year collect and return • PART CODE i2352Vh DETAILS www.aoc-europe.com FULL REVIEW Jul 2012

RESOLUTION 1,920x1,080 • CONTRAST RATIO 1,000:1 • BRIGHTNESS 300cd/m2 • PORTS DVI, HDMI • POWER CONSUMPTION 1W standby, 39W on • WARRANTY Two-year collect and return PART CODE LS27A950DS/EN DETAILS www.samsung.com/uk FULL REVIEW Jul 2012

★★★★★

£619 inc VAT • www.play.com

Samsung’s high-end display supports 3D through active shutter glasses and the included TriDef software. It’s a TN panel, but it could pass for an IPS model thanks to its rich colours and wide viewing angles.

HANNSG HL272HPB

RESOLUTION 1,920x1,080 • CONTRAST RATIO 1,000:1 (30,000,000:1 dynamic) • BRIGHTNESS 300cd/m2 • PORTS VGA, DVI, HDMI, POWER CONSUMPTION 36W standby, 1W on •WARRANTY Three-year onsite • PART CODE HL272HPB DETAILS www.hannsg.co.uk FULL REVIEW Jul 2012

★★★★★

£200 inc VAT • www.amazon.co.uk

The HL272HPB is a 27in monitor at a bargain price. Its controls are easy to use and it has VGA, HDMI and DVI inputs. Its contrast isn’t the best we’ve seen, but colours are accurate.

NATIVE RESOLUTION 1,280x800 • CONTRAST RATIO 2,000:1 • RATED BRIGHTNESS 200 ANSI lumens • DIMENSIONS 34x126x130mm, 415g • POWER CONSUMPTION • 1W standby, 29W active • WARRANTY One-year RTB • PART CODE 90LJ0010-B0002 • DETAILS www.asus.com • FULL REVIEW Jun 2012

★★★★★

£353 inc VAT • www.play.com The P1 is a tiny LED projector that can output 200 lumens, so it’s bright enough for presentations in office lighting. It has a 1,280x800 resolution and produces deep, natural colours.

EPSON EB-X11

NATIVE RESOLUTION 1,024x768 • CONTRAST RATIO 3,000:1 • RATED BRIGHTNESS 2,600 ANSI lumens • LAMP COST (ECONOMY) £0.03 (£0.03) inc VAT • DIMENSIONS 77x295x228mm, 2.3kg • POWER CONSUMPTION 1W standby, 231W active • WARRANTY Three-year onsite (lamp one year) • PART CODE V11H435041 • DETAILS www.epson.co.uk FULL REVIEW May 2012

★★★★★

£354 inc VAT • www.lambda-tek.com This office projector has a bright 2,600-lumens lamp, so it’s well-suited to projecting high-contrast images, charts and graphs under office lighting. It can also accept video from a PC’s USB ports.

HOME CINEMA

PANASONIC Viera TX-P50VT50 ★★★★★

£1,899 inc VAT • www.johnlewis.com The best TV of 2011 only gets better in 2012. Panasonic upgraded its flagship TV with superb 2D and 3D image quality, internet connectivity and more adjustment options than you could ever hope to need.

PANASONIC DMP-BDT220 ★★★★★

£160 inc VAT • www.dixons.co.uk This Blu-ray player is packed with features, including 2D and 3D Blu-ray support, local and network video playback and internet connectivity. If you don’t have a smart TV, this is the next best thing.

TANOY TFX 5.1 £200 inc VAT • www.richersounds.com For £200 the TFX 5.1 speaker set packs an unbelievable amount of sound power. Paired with an amplifier and turned up to full, you’ll soon be hearing complaints from the neighbours.

BENQ W1060

£700 inc VAT • www.amazon.co.uk This is one of the cheapest DLP projectors we’ve used that can still project 1080p images without significant rainbow artefacts. If you’re on a budget, it’s one of the best ways of bringing the big screen home.

CAMBRIDGE Audio NP30 ★★★★★

£400 inc VAT • www.richersounds.com Once you’ve tried multi-room streaming audio, there’s no going back. The Cambridge Audio NP30’s interface is easy to use, and with its huge range of features, you’ll soon be looking to add more speakers to your setup.

WorldMags.net

SEPTEMBER 2012

BLU-RAY PROFILE 2.0 • CONNECTIONS 1x HDMI, 1x composite, 1x stereo phono • POWER CONSUMPTION 0W standby, 9W on • WARRANTY One-year RTB • PART CODE DMP-BDT220EB • DETAILS www.panasonic.co.uk FULL REVIEW Aug 2012

SPEAKER CONFIGURATION 5.1• POWER RATING 600W RMS • CONNECTIONS SATELLITES: binding posts, subwoofer: stereo phono, stereo binding posts • POWER CONSUMPTION • 1W standby, 62W active • WARRANTY Five-year RTB PART CODE TFX DETAILS www.tannoy.com FULL REVIEW Jul 2012

★★★★★

★★★★★

TV TYPE 3D Plasma • RESOLUTION 1,920x1,080 • CONTRAST RATIO 6,000,000:1 native • BRIGHTNESS CONNECTIONS 4x HDMI, 1x SCART, 1 component, 1x composite inputs • TUNER Analogue, Freeview HD, Freesat HD • POWER CONSUMPTION • 1W standby, 317W on • WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE P50VT50 DETAILS www.panasonic.co.uk FULL REVIEW Aug 2012

NATIVE RESOLUTION 1,920x1,080 • CONTRAST RATIO 5,000:1• RATED BRIGHTNESS 2 ANSI lumens• LAMP COST (ECONOMY) £0.03 (£0.02) inc VAT• DIMENSIONS 150x330x247mm, 3.6kg• POWER CONSUMPTION • 1W standby, 225W active• WARRANTY One-year collect and return, twoyear RTB (lamp 12 months or 2,000 hours) • PART CODE 9H.J5777.27E • DETAILS www.benq.co.uk • FULL REVIEW Mar 2012 CONNECTIONS 1x stereo phono output, 1x coaxial S/PDIF output, 1x optical S/PDIF output, none • AUDIO SUPPORT WMA, AAC, Ogg, Wav, MP3, FLAC • VIDEO SUPPORT None • POWER CONSUMPTION 1W standby, 7W on • WARRANTY One-year RTB • PART CODE NP30 • DETAILS www.cambridgeaudio. com • FULL REVIEW Jun 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

BEST REVIEWS BUYS

AUDIO

APPLE iPod Touch 32GB (4th Generation) ★★★★★

£212 inc VAT • www.amazon.co.uk

Two cameras, a 640x960 touchscreen and a mic for video and VoIP calling supplement top-notch audio and video playback in Apple’s flagship MP3 player, while the interface and app support are second to none.

SOUNDMAGIC E10 ★★★★★

£35 inc VAT • www.iheadphones.co.uk

These reasonably priced earplug style headphones sound loud, clear and balanced, with rich bass tones and plenty of natural character. They’re a great buy if you add a £10 set of T-400 sound-isolating ear tips.

PHILIPS Fidelio DS3020 ★★★★★

£70 inc VAT • www.argos.co.uk

Despite its compact size, this mid-priced iPod dock’s clear and balanced sound makes it a pleasure to listen to. You can also run it off batteries, connect it to your PC and use an app to stream radio.

CRESYN CS-HP600 ★★★★★

£30 inc VAT • www.iheadphones.co.uk

These folding headphones produce a big, powerful sound with plenty of bass and a great sense of space. They’re a bit leaky, but the quality of their sound really sets them apart from similarly priced rivals.

ION Quick Play LP

STORAGE 32GB flash memory • DISPLAY 3.5in 640x960 resolution LCD • AUDIO SUPPORT AAC, Protected AAC, Wav, MP3 • VIDEO SUPPORT MPEG4 MP4 • IMAGE SUPPORT BMP, TIFF, JPEG • INTERFACES USB • DIMENSIONS 58.9x7.2x111mm, 101g • WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE A1367 DETAILS www.apple.com FULL REVIEW Dec 2010 CONNECTION 3.5mm stereo jack plug CABLE LENGTH 1.20m IMPEDENCE 16 ohms WEIGHT 11g WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE E10-BKRD DETAILS www.soundmagic.com.cn FULL REVIEW Apr 2012 SPEAKER CONFIGURATION 2.0 • POWER RATING 8W RMS • CONNECTIONS 3.5mm stereo, USB inputs, iPod dock • POWER CONSUMPTION 2W standby, 3W active • WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE DS3020 DETAILS www.philips.co.uk FULL REVIEW Sep 2011

SPEAKER CONFIGURATION 2.0 • POWER RATING 8W RMS • CONNECTIONS 3.5mm stereo, USB inputs, iPod dock • POWER CONSUMPTION 2W standby, 3W active WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE DS3020 DETAILS www.philips.co.uk FULL REVIEW Sep 2011 CONNECTIONS USB port, RCA phono output • REQUIRES Windows XP/2000/Vista/7 DETAILS www.ionaudio.com • FULL REVIEW Aug 2011

★★★★★

£42 inc VAT • www.amazon.co.uk

Ion’s stylish turntable is the ideal budget option for playing and ripping your favourite vinyl. It’s easy to use, produces accurate recordings and doesn’t bind you to using one particular piece of software.

VIDEO

PANASONIC HC-X900 ★★★★★

£710 inc VAT • www.amazon.co.uk

This camcorder feels well balanced and delivers fantastic image quality and colour reproduction thanks to its 3MOS sensor, Hybrid OIS image stabiliser and Full HD resolution. Its touchscreen is clear, informative and responsive.

SONY CX730E ★★★★★

£799 inc VAT • www.pixmania.co.uk

This camcorder’s high-resolution touchscreen monitor is clear and responsive, and it also has a digital viewfinder should you prefer to use it. Its SteadyShot optical stabilisation makes footage extremely smooth.

PANASONIC HC-X800 ★★★★★

£599 inc VAT • www.amazon.co.uk

This camcorder doesn’t have a viewfinder or microphone output, but it has the same high-quality 3MOS sensor as the more expensive HC-X900 and the same ultra-smooth Hybrid OIS image stabilisation system.

D-LINK Boxee Box ★★★★★

£130 inc VAT • www.amazon.co.uk

This media streamer has an attractive interface that is easy to use. You can view BBC iPlayer or Channel 4’s 4oD catch-up TV service, among others. Its remote control makes it easy to browse the interface.

WESTERN DIGITAL WD TV Live ★★★★★

£73 inc VAT • www.amazon.co.uk

This media streamer supports a variety of media formats and it can output video at resolutions up to 1080p. Its interface is intuitive, and you can even control it with an iOS and Android app.

ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| SEPTEMBER 2012

SENSOR 3x 1/4.1in CMOS • STORAGE SDXC ZOOM 12x optical • DISPLAY 3,050,000-pixel, 3.5in LCD • PC CONNECTIONS • Mini HDMI out, Mini USB AV • INTERFACES A/V out • DIMENSIONS 67x72x150mm, 482g • WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE HC-X900EB-K DETAILS www.panasonic.co.uk FULL REVIEW May 2012 SENSOR 1/2.88 CMOS • STORAGE SD/SDHC/SDXC ZOOM 10x optical • DISPLAY 6,650,000-pixel, 3in LCD • PC CONNECTIONS Mini HDMI out, Mini USB AV • INTERFACES AV out, 3.5mm microphone input, 3.5mm audio output • DIMENSIONS 74x68x138mm, 645g • WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE HDR-CX730E/B DETAILS www.sony.co.uk FULL REVIEW Sep 2012 SENSOR 3x 1/4.1in CMOS • STORAGE SDXC • ZOOM 12x optical • DISPLAY 3,050,000-pixel, 3in LCD • PC CONNECTIONS Mini HDMI out, Mini USB AV • INTERFACES A/V out • DIMENSIONS 26x52x86.3mm, 460g • WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE HC-X800EB-K DETAILS www.panasonic.co.uk FULL REVIEW Jun 2012 CONNECTIONS 1x stereo RCA output, 1x optical S/PDIF output, 1x HDMI output • AUDIO SUPPORT • WMA, AAC, Ogg, Wav, MP3, AIF, AIFF, AC3, FLAC • VIDEO SUPPORT MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, H.264, WMV9, XVID, DIVX, VC-1, FLV, F4V, M4V, TS, AVI, MKV, MOV, M2TS, MP4, DAT, MPG, MPEG, VOB, TP, ISO, IFO, ASF, DVR-MS • POWER CONSUMPTION 1W standby, 12W on • WARRANTY Two-year RTB • PART CODE DSM-380 • DETAILS www.dlink.co.uk • FULL REVIEW Apr 2012 CONNECTIONS 1x optical S/PDIF output, 1x HDMI output, 1x composite output • AUDIO SUPPORT WMA, AAC, Ogg, Wav, MP3, FLAC, MKA, AIF • VIDEO SUPPORT MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, APC, H.264, x.264, AVC, VC-1, XVID, AVI, MPG, MPEG, VOB, MKV, TS, TP, M2T, MP4, MOV, M2TS, WMV9, FLV • POWER CONSUMPTION 6W standby, 6W on • WARRANTY One-year RTB • PART CODE WDBGXT0000NBK • DETAILS www.wdc.com • FULL REVIEW Apr 2012

WorldMags.net

Choosing an ... MP3 player 01

ayers Basic MP3 players ies with capacities lable below 1GB are available from as little as £10, layer but a 1GB or 2GB player nd costs around £30 and ace provides enough space undred to store several hundred MP3s encoded at 192Kbit/s. Most small MP3 players use solid-state flash memory for storage, and this is immune to shocks, knocks and bumps. Flash-based players are ideal if you want to use them while jogging, for example.

02

If you want to carry your entire music collection around with you, look for a hard disk player. These use compact 1in or 1.8in drives, and the highest capacity models can hold up to 160GB of media. Hard disk players are bulkier than flash-based devices and can be damaged if they are dropped, so you need to take care of them.

03

It’s unusual to find an MP3 player with a battery life of less than 10 hours. Ideally, you should look for something that lasts at least 15 hours. Flash-based players tend to be less power-hungry than hard disk players, but hard disk players usually have larger batteries. Few modern MP3 players use disposable batteries, but they’re worth looking out for if you will be away from a power supply for long periods.

04

If you download tracks from online music stores then you need to make sure your player supports those formats. Apple’s iTunes store sells tracks only in AAC format, while some other online stores use Microsoft’s WMA-DRM format. Not all players support a wide range of formats. If you want to listen to music in unusual formats such as Ogg or FLAC, for example, then you need to make sure they’re supported by your player.

05

Many of the most popular MP3 players can also play video. Although they come with software to convert video into their preferred format, some players are more flexible than others when it comes to playing a wide range of video files, so you’ll need to check the manufacturer’s specifications before you buy.

69

REVIEWS BEST BUYS

Choosing an ... Inkjet printer 01

You should be able to buy a decent inkjet printer for under £40. High-quality printing is possible, al but slow. The actual print speed of inkjets can be half the quoted (maximum) speed for text documents, and even slower when printing graphics. Budget inkjets such as these are designed only for light use and can be expensive to run.

02

Spending £60 will get you a much more capable printer that’s either faster and better built or better at reproducing photos. If documents are your priority, you’ll want double the minimum speed and half the print costs of the sub-£40 printer. Look for inkjets that can handle all your office media, including envelopes and labels.

03

If photos are your priority, speed is less important. Choose a printer that reproduces subtle tones well. Only hands-on testing will tell you this (specifications won’t cut it), so you’ll need to check our reviews. Borderless printing (up to the edge of the paper) should also be possible. Pay particular attention to running costs: photos use three times as much ink as regular colour documents.

04

Heavy-duty office inkjets can cost up to £1,000 and their build quality is improving. They use large, individually replaceable ink tanks, which can cut running costs. Printers with automatic duplex (double-sided) printing or A3 capability are steadily becoming more affordable.

05

Pricier photo printers allow you to print digital photos by plugging memory cards straight into the printer; no PC is required. An LCD preview screen gives you greater control over this. Many inkjet printers now have a PictBridge USB port, which can be used to print images directly from most digital cameras.

06

If you’re really serious about photography, consider buying an inkjet that can print up to A3+ without borders. The best produce prints that are nearly as good as those supplied by professional labs.

70

PRINTERS AND SCANNERS

SAMSUNG ML-3710ND

MAXIMUM RESOLUTION 1,200dpi • MAXIMUM SPEED 35ppm • INTERFACES USB, 10/100/1000 Ethernet • DIMENSIONS 253x366x368mm • POWER CONSUMPTION 3W standby, 3W idle, 980W active • WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE ML-3710ND/SEE DETAILS www.samsung.co.uk FULL REVIEW Dec 2011

★★★★★

£156 inc VAT • www.printerbase.co.uk

The ML-3710ND is rated to print up to 80,000 pages each month and has low running costs, so should be ideal for even a busy office. We also couldn’t fault its text prints, although graphics aren’t its forte.

CANON ImageFormula P-215

SCANNER TYPE CIS • OPTICAL RESOLUTION 600dpi • COLOUR OUTPUT 24-bit • INTERFACES USB • DIMENSIONS 40x285x95mm WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE 5608B003 DETAILS www.canon.co.uk FULL REVIEW Jun 2012

★★★★★

£226 inc VAT • www.lambda-tek.com

This portable A4 scanner is perfect for mobile workers who need to capture multi-page documents. You can load a stack of paper, press the button and quickly turn a document into a PDF with searchable text.

EPSON WorkForce Pro WP-4535 DWF ★★★★★

£173 inc VAT • www.printerland.co.uk

This inkjet MFP has a full set of business-friendly features, including a fax. It’s fast and produces great plain-paper prints, and its copies and scans are excellent. It also has lower running costs than a laser.

EPSON AcuLaser C1750N

MAXIMUM RESOLUTION 4,800x1,200dpi • QUOTED SPEEDS 16ppm mono/11ppm colour • SCAN RESOLUTION 1,200x1,200dpi • INTERFACES USB, 10/100 Ethernet, 801.11n wireless • DIMENSIONS 341x460x420mm • POWER CONSUMPTION 3W standby, 3W idle, 22W active • WARRANTY Oneyear onsite • PART CODE C11CB30301BY • DETAILS www.epson-europe.com • FULL REVIEW Dec 2011 MAXIMUM RESOLUTION 4,800x1,200dpi • QUOTED SPEEDS 16ppm mono/11ppm colour • SCAN RESOLUTION 1,200x1,200dpi • INTERFACES USB, 10/100 Ethernet, 801.11n wireless • DIMENSIONS 341x460x420mm • POWER CONSUMPTION 3W standby, 3W idle, 22W active • WARRANTY Oneyear onsite • PART CODE C11CB30301BY • DETAILS www.epson-europe.com • FULL REVIEW Jun 2012

★★★★★

£108 inc VAT • www.oyyy.co.uk

The AcuLaser C1750N is designed for light personal use, and is cheap to run. Printing 67 mono and 33 colour pages a month for three years will cost you just £325, and the print quality is great.

EPSON Stylus Photo PX730WD

MAXIMUM RESOLUTION 5,760x1,440dpi • QUOTED SPEEDS 40ppm mono/40ppm colour • SCAN RESOLUTION 2,400x4,800dpi • INTERFACES USB, 10/100 Ethernet, 802.11b/g/n wireless • DIMENSIONS 150x445x458mm • POWER CONSUMPTION 3W standby, 5W idle, 34W active • WARRANTY Oneyear RTB • PART CODE C11CB18301 • DETAILS www. epson.co.uk • FULL REVIEW Mar 2012

★★★★★

£137 inc VAT • www.amazon.co.uk

This inkjet MFP is aimed at creative users. Its six-ink print engine excels at printing photos and it has a quick scanner, which captures brilliantly detailed images and helps to make good-quality copies.

NETWORKS

AVM Fritz!Box 3970

ADSL WIRELESS ROUTER 802.11n dual band (300Mbit/s), 4x 10/100/1000Mbit/s LAN ports, 1x WAN port (ADSL2+ modem), UPnP, QoS PART CODE 20002484 POWER CONSUMPTION 9W on DETAILS www.fritzbox.eu FULL REVIEW Jun 2011

★★★★★

£190 inc VAT • www.amazon.co.uk

The Fritz!Box 7390 ADSL2 router combines wireless internet access with NAS storage and USB printer support. It broadcasts on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands simultaneously, and has a brilliant built-in web interface.

WIRELESS STANDARD 802.11n dual band (450Mbit/s) CONNECTIONS 4x 10/100/1000Mbit/s LAN ports, 1x WAN port • FEATURES UPnP, QoS DIMENSIONS 31x223x153 POWER CONSUMPTION 6W on WARRANTY Two-year RTB • PART CODE WNDR4000-100UKS DETAILS www.netgear.co.uk FULL REVIEW Aug 2011

NETGEAR WNDR4000 ★★★★★

£97 inc VAT • www.pixmamia.co.uk

This dual-band router broadcasts on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands simultaneously. It lets you use connected USB devices as NAS storage so they can be used over your network, too.

DRAYTEK Vigor 2850n ★★★★★

£203 inc VAT • www.dabs.com

Combined with the Draytek N65 Wi-Fi adaptor, the Vigor 2850n can transfer data very quickly. It also lets you configure two backup internet access options, including 3G, in case your main internet service goes down.

SOLWISE Piggy HomePlug adaptor ★★★★★

£34 inc VAT • www.solwise.co.uk

This adaptor lets you network your PC using your home or office’s electric cabling without consuming a mains socket. It’s rated at 500Mbit/s, and we achieved transfer rates of 139Mbit/s at close range.

NETGEAR WNCE2001

WIRELESS STANDARD 802.11n dual band (300Mbit/s) • CONNECTIONS 4x 10/100/1000Mbit/s LAN ports, 2x WAN ports (ADSL/VDSL/3G modem) • FEATURES UPnP, QoS • DIMENSIONS 44x165x241 • POWER CONSUMPTION 7W on • WARRANTY Twoyear RTB • PART CODE Vigor2850n DETAILS www.draytek.co.uk FULL REVIEW Jul 2012 NUMBER OF ADAPTORS 1 Homeplug Standard (Speed) HomePlug AV (500Mbit/s) • PORTS 1x 10/100/1000Mbit/s Ethernet ports • POWER SOCKETS 2 • DIMENSIONS 62x42x116mm POWER CONSUMPTION 3W on WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE NET-PL-500AV-PIGGY DETAILS www.solwise.co.uk FULL REVIEW Nov 2011 PART CODE WNCE2001 DETAILS www.netgear.co.uk FULL REVIEW Jul 2012

★★★★★

£34 inc VAT • www.pixmania.co.uk

The WNCE2001 provides Wi-Fi connectivity to smart TVs, Sky boxes and other devices with an Ethernet port. It only works on the 2.4GHz band, but we got brilliant data rates that let us enjoy HD movies and other media.

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| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

BEST REVIEWS BUYS

STORAGE

CRUCIAL Adrenaline ★★★★★

£73 inc VAT • www.amazon.co.uk

This clever cache works alongside your existing hard disk, so you get the speed boost of an SSD with the full capacity of a mechanical hard disk. It’s a brilliant upgrade for any PC.

SYNOLOGY DiskStation DS212J ★★★★★

£160 inc VAT • www.amazon.co.uk

With its Linux GUI-style interface and wide-range of features, this is one of the easiest and most fully featured NAS devices you can buy. All you need to do is add your own hard disks, and you’re ready to go.

WESTERN DIGITAL My Book Live Duo 4TB ★★★★★

£265 inc VAT • www.amazon.co.uk

If you’re looking for a lot of network storage for central backup and storage, you can’t go wrong with this incredible NAS device. With 4TB of storage built in, it’s excellent value and very easy to use.

BUFFALO DriveStation Velocity 2TB

★★★★★

£121 inc VAT • www.ebuyer.com

External storage is a handy way to boost your hard disk’s storage, and this drive is one of the best. With 2TB of capacity and a super-fast USB3 connection, the DriveStation Velocity is a great all-rounder.

SAMSUNG SpinPoint F3 1TB ★★★★★

£65 inc VAT • www.amazon.co.uk

It may be relatively old, but this is still the best-value hard disk you can buy, and 1TB of storage is plenty for all but the biggest file hoarders. If you want the capacity of a mechanical disk at a good price, the SpinPoint F3 is ideal.

CAPACITY 50GB • FORMATTED CAPACITY (NTFS) 46GB • INTERFACE SATA3 • SPINDLE SPEED • NOISE WHEN IDLE None • WARRANTY Three-year RTB PART CODE CT050M4SSC2BDA DETAILS www.crucial.co.uk FULL REVIEW Jul 2012

★★★★★

£58 inc VAT • www.amazon.co.uk

The best-known consumer photo-editing package, and also the best. Whether you want to give your photos a simple tweak or perform some advanced editing, Photoshop Elements 10 is the package for you.

CANONICAL Ubuntu 12.04 ★★★★★

FREE • www.ubuntu.com

This free operating system is the best version yet. Canonical has made Ubuntu easier to use than ever, making it a creditable rival to Windows. Unlike Microsoft’s operating system, it’ll run well on old computers.

SERIF PagePlus X6 ★★★★★

£50 inc VAT • www.ebuyer.com

This desktop publishing application gives you full control over the layout and appearance of all your documents. Its a great-value DTP package, and a big improvement over the previous version.

ACRONIS TrueImage Home 2012 ★★★★★

£24 inc VAT • www.amazon.co.uk

The Windows backup is a good entry-level product, but this full suite provides image-based backup for a complete copy of your PC, including the OS, programs and files, and incremental backups for daily use.

BITDEFENDER Internet Security 2012 ★★★★★

£23 inc VAT • www.amazon.co.uk

With perfect scores in our anti-virus testing, BitDefender is our favourite internet security suite. It’s also excellent value for a three-use licence, letting you protect all your computers for one low price.

ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| SEPTEMBER 2012

NAS device

STORAGE Not included • CONNECTIONS 10/100/1000Mbit/s Ethernet, 3x USB2 ports • EXTRAS UPnP media, iTunes, print, USB disk, web, FTP servers • WARRANTY Two-year RTB • DIMENSIONS 165x100x225mm • POWER CONSUMPTION 11W standby, 24W active • PART CODE DS212j • DETAILS www.synology.com FULL REVIEW Apr 2012 STORAGE 2x 2TB hard disk • CONNECTIONS 10/100/1000Mbit/s Ethernet, 1x USB2 ports • EXTRAS UPnP media, iTunes, USB disk, FTP servers • WARRANTY Three-year RTB • DIMENSIONS 165x157x99mm • POWER CONSUMPTION 15W active • PART CODE WDBVHT0040JCH DETAILS www.wdc.com FULL REVIEW Jun 2012 CAPACITY 1TB+1TB • SPINDLE SPEED 7,200rpm • INTERFACES USB3 • DIMENSIONS 127x86x204mm • POWER CONSUMPTION 11W idle, 16W active • WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE HD-WLU3 DETAILS www.buffalo-technology.com FULL REVIEW Jun 2011

CAPACITY 1TB • FORMATTED CAPACITY (NTFS) 931GB • INTERFACE SATA2 • SPINDLE SPEED 7,200rpm • CACHE 32MB • SEEK TIME 8.9ms • NOISE WHEN IDLE 25dB(A) • WARRANTY Three-year RTB PART CODE HD103SJ DETAILS www.samsung.co.uk FULL REVIEW Oct 2009

01

A basic network-attached storage (NAS) device will cost around £100. It has only a single hard disk, so you’ll need to make backups to protect your data, and you can’t upgrade its storage capacity. Its Gigabit Ethernet interface means that it transfers data quickly although, to use it at this speed, you’ll need computers with Gigabit Ethernet network adaptors and a Gigabit Ethernet switch or router. Computers with 10/100 adaptors will still be able to access the NAS device, but at just 100Mbit/s.

02

SOFTWARE

ADOBE Photoshop Elements 10

Choosing a ...

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Windows XP (SP2)/Vista/7, 1.6GHz processor, 1GB RAM, 3GB disk space PRODUCT CODE Photoshop Elements 10 DETAILS www.adobe.com/uk FULL REVIEW Dec 2011

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS 700MHz processor, 385MB RAM, 5GB hard disk space PART CODE 12.04 DETAILS www.ubuntu.com FULL REVIEW Aug 2012

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Windows XP or later, 512MB RAM, 566MB hard disk space PRODUCT CODE PagePlus X6 DETAILS www.serif.com FULL REVIEW Apr 2012

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Windows XP/Vista/7/ Home Server 2011, 1GB RAM, 120MB hard disk space, 1 GHz processor PRODUCT CODE True Image Home 2012 DETAILS www.acronis.co.uk FULL REVIEW Mar 2012

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Microsoft Windows XP/ Vista/7, 800MHz processor, 1GB RAM, 1.8GB disk space, internet connection PART CODE PB11031001-EN DETAILS www.bitdefender.co.uk FULL REVIEW Feb 2012

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The amount of network storage you need depends on the types of files you use. If you want to store Word and Excel documents, for example, then a 250GB device will be more than enough. If you intend to store DVD-quality video, however, you’ll need much more. A single uncompressed DVD image can take up to 8.5GB of data, which means that even a modest media collection will require around 500GB of storage space.

03

If you can see no end to your storage needs, consider buying an upgradable NAS device. Many have a USB port so you can add a second, external disk. Devices such as Synology’s barebones NAS kits with spare disk trays allow for cheaper and faster upgrades.

04

If you want extra protection for your data, look for a device that supports RAID. A RAID 1 or RAID 5 array reduces the available capacity, but if one disk fails then your data remains safe.

05

If you need access to your files while you’re away from home or the office, look for a NAS device with an FTP server. Some NAS devices can share a USB printer across your network, saving you the expense of a buying an Ethernet printer. A NAS device with a Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) media server can stream your music, photos and videos to a network media player, so you can enjoy your media collection in another room.

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BEST BUYS REVIEWS

Choosing an ... AMD motherboard

COMPONENTS

INTEL Core i7-3770K

CORES Four • CLOCK SPEED 3.5GHz • SOCKET LGA1155 • CACHE 4x 256KB L2, 8128KB L3 • TDP 77W • WARRANTY One-year RTB • PART CODE i7-3770K • DETAILS www.intel.com • FULL REVIEW Jul 2012

★★★★★

£258 inc VAT • www.amazon.co.uk

The new Ivy Bridge processors have a smaller 22nm process and improved graphics. They can apply Turbo Boost for longer than previous Sandy Bridge processors, so have incredible performance in intensive applications.

AMD A8-3850

CORES Four • CLOCK SPEED 2.9GHz • SOCKET FM1 • CACHE 4x 1024KB L2 • TDP 100W • WARRANTY Oneyear RTB • PART CODE A8-3850 • DETAILS www. amd.com • FULL REVIEW Sep 2011

★★★★★

£72 inc VAT • www.pixmania.co.uk

The top of AMD’s range of ‘Llano’ desktop processors isn’t as quick as the Intel competition, but it can play modern games at medium-detail settings without requiring a separate graphics card, and it is very well priced.

ASUS P8Z77-V Pro

PROCESSOR SOCKET LGA1155 • CHIPSET Intel Z77 Express • MEMORY SLOTS 4x DDR3 1066/1333/1600 • EXPANSION 3x PCI Express x16 slots, 1x PCI Express 1x slots, 1x PCI slots,4x SATA2 ports, 4x SATA3 ports WARRANTY Three-year RTB warranty PART CODE P8Z77-V Pro DETAILS www.asus.com FULL REVIEW Aug 2012

★★★★★

£151 inc VAT • www.aria.co.uk

01

AMD motherboards come in two socket types: FM1 and AM3+. The FM1 socket only works with ‘Llano’ processors such as the A8-3850, which have integrated graphics, while AM3+ motherboards are intended for the ‘Bulldozer’ chips in AMD’s FX range.

02

If you want to play games at anything other than the lowest resolutions and lowest detail settings, a PCI-E x16 slot will let you install a dedicated graphics card. Some motherboards let you install a second graphics card in a second PCI Express slot to use in AMD’s CrossFire or Nvidia’s SLI modes. These modes can increase 3D performance, but can also be glitchy. We’d recommend a single, more powerful graphics card instead.

03

If you want to use a processor’s integrated graphics, your motherboard will need the right graphics outputs for your monitor. These will be a mix of VGA, DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort; remember that HDMI, DVI and DisplayPort outputs can be used with different kinds of monitors that have inexpensive adaptors.

04

Make sure the motherboard is the right size for your case. Most cases take full-size ATX motherboards, but smaller cases take microATX or even even Mini-ITX models.

05

Make sure your motherboard has enough slots for the amount of RAM you want to have. Having just two slots may restrict you to 16GB of RAM.

06

If you’re installing lots of expansion cards, look for a motherboard with plenty of PCI and PCI-E x1 slots. If you’re going to install a lot of storage in your PC, a motherboard with plenty of SATA ports is essential. SATA2 is fine for mechanical hard disks and optical drives, but to take full advantage of a fast SSD you’ll need SATA3 ports. If a motherboard supports RAID, it will give you a simple way of improving performance or protecting your data.

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The P8Z77-V is designed to work with Intel’s latest ‘Ivy Bridge’ processors. It’s loaded with expansion options and has a full complement of video outputs on the rear. The motherboard’s performance is impressive, too.

ASUS F1A75-V Pro ★★★★★

£82 inc VAT • www.ebuyer.com

This socket FM1 motherboard is designed to work with AMD’s ‘Llano’ processors. It has all the features and expansion options you could need, as well as comprehensive overclocking options and excellent performance.

AMD Radeon HD 7870 ★★★★★

£256 inc VAT • www.ebuyer.com

AMD’s mid-range card is a compact 242mm and needs only a single six-pin power connector, so it’s a simple upgrade. It gives smooth frame rates in all modern games and is nearly as quick as more expensive graphics cards.

PROCESSOR SOCKET FM1 • CHIPSET AMD A75 • MEMORY SLOTS 4x DDR3 800/1066/1333/1600(OC)/18 66(OC)/2250(OC) • EXPANSION 2x PCI Express x16 slots, 2x PCI Express x1 slots, 3x PCI slots, 6x SATA3 ports • WARRANTY Three-year RTB warranty PART CODE F1A75-V PRO DETAILS www.asus.com FULL REVIEW May 2012 CHIPSET AMD Radeon HD 7870 • CORE SPEED 1GHz • RAM 2GB GDDR5 (1.2GHz) • WARRANTY One-year RTB PART CODE HD 7870 DETAILS www.amd.com FULL REVIEW Jun 2012

GAMES

BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT Diablo III

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS 2.8GHz processor or higher, 1GB RAM, Nvidia 7800GT/AMD Radeon X1950 or higher, 12GB hard disk space PRODUCT CODE B0030DH9R6 DETAILS www.diablo3.com FULL REVIEW Aug 2012

★★★★★

£38 inc VAT • www.zavvi.com

Just like the digital equivalent of crack cocaine (or so we’re led to believe), Diablo III is incredibly addictive, whether you plan on playing alone or online with friends.

EIDOS Batman: Arkham City ★★★★★

£23 inc VAT • www.amazon.co.uk

Arkham City is the evolution of possibly the best Batman game ever made. Letting the caped crusader loose in an open-world Gotham was an inspired decision, ensuring that every minute of gameplay is an absolute riot.

MOJANG MineCraft ★★★★★

£17 inc VAT • www.minecraft.net

An unbelievably simple concept, well executed and incredibly popular, Minecraft is the definition of a gaming phenomenon – you absolutely have to try it if you’ve missed out so far.

SQUARE ENIX Deus Ex: Human Revolution ★★★★★

£7 inc VAT • www.amazon.co.uk

The original Deus Ex is arguably one of the best games ever made, so it’s a huge compliment to say Human Revolution is a worthy sequel. It’s an excellent blend of action, stealth and story.

BETHESDA SOFTWORKS Elder Scrolls V ★★★★★

£29 inc VAT • www.amazon.co.uk

The fifth instalment of Elder Scrolls (or Skyrim) is an absorbing tale of adventure and exploration, open to a world of possibilities. Every player experiences Skyrim in a different way – what will your story be?

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SEPTEMBER 2012

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Windows XP/Vista/7, 2.5GHz dual-core processor, 4GB RAM, 17.5GB hard disk space, Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 or ATI Radeon HD 6850 with 768MB+ RAM PRODUCT CODE B0030T12BE DETAILS http://community.batmanarkhamcity.com FULL REVIEW Mar 2012

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS 1GHz processor, 1GB RAM, Intel HD graphics or better PRODUCT CODE Minecraft DETAILS www.minecraft.net FULL REVIEW Apr 2012

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS WIndows XP/Vista/7, 2GHz dual-core processor, 2GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce 8000 series/ATi Radeon HD 2000 series or better, 8.5GB disk space PRODUCT CODE 28050 DETAILS www.deusex.com FULL REVIEW Nov 2011

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Windows XP/Vista/7, dual-core 2GHz processor, 2GB RAM, 6GB disk space, DirectX 9 graphics card with 512MB RAM, internet connection PRODUCT CODE 0093155141506 DETAILS www.elderscrolls.com/skyrim FULL REVIEW Feb 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

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COVER GIFT GUIDE

Cover disc guide Your free gifts are now even easier to enjoy. Just download all the software at www.computershopperdisc.co.uk/september and register with your unique coupon code

NovaBackup Professional 12.5 NOVABACKUP PROFESSIONAL IS a feature-packed NovaStor partner. This costs extra, but comes with endbackup tool that makes it easy to protect your most to-end encryption to keep valuable data safe, version management so you can restore old versions of files, and valuable files. It backs up your system drive by default, bandwidth optimisation to speed up backups by ensuring but you can add folders and files of your choice – such that only the changed parts of a file are transferred. as your documents, email, music or pictures – with just Restoring files is just as straightforward. Choose the one click. Alternatively, you can choose specific files and folders to protect. Support for incremental and differential ‘latest backup’ from a slider, and you can restore some backup types will save only new or changed files, thereby or all backed-up files without having to choose a backup improving performance and cutting down on the time it source device. A versatile scheduler runs unattended takes to preserve your most precious files. backups at the time of your choosing, and the bootable recovery disc means you can restore Your data can then be saved to local or network files, CDs, DVDs or your backups even if Windows no SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Windows XP, Vista or 7 longer starts. It’s all very easy to set Blu-ray discs. There’s support for 32/64-bit, 3GB hard disk space INFORMATION www.novastor.com backing up to an FTP server or an up, but experienced PC users will love REGISTRATION Get your registration code at Amazon S3 account, or you can NovaBackup’s settings dialog, which www.novastor.com/en/download/shopper open an account with a certified is packed with essential extras.

GETTING STARTED

Insert the disc into your optical drive. If the Computer Shopper browser does not start automatically, double-click the icon. To install a program from the browser, follow the onscreen instructions.

UPGRADE OFFER NovaBackup Professional 13 offers support for full, incremental and differential imaging for much faster recovery backups. The backup environment is Windows PE-based and can recover entire systems to different hardware. You can access and restore selected files

and folders in an image, as well as the entire backup. You also get improvements to the interface, scheduling, NAS destination support, file restoration and more. After registering version 12.5, NovaStor will offer users an exclusive discount to version 13.

ANY PROBLEMS?

If you need help with your cover disc, please visit www.computershopper.co.uk and check the Cover Disc forum in the IT forums section. DEFECTIVE DISCS

If your disc is physically defective, please return it to the following address, enclosing your name and address: Dovetail Services, 800 Guillat Avenue, Kent Science Park, Sittingbourne, Kent ME9 8GU. Please enclose stamps to the value of 38p to cover postage and packing. IMPORTANT INFORMATION

These discs have been thoroughly tested at all stages of their production. Dennis Publishing Limited cannot accept any responsibility for any loss, disruption or damage to your data or your computer system that may occur while using either the discs or the programs and data on them. Due to restrictions on the distribution of certain software and selected offers undertaken by Computer Shopper or Dennis Publishing, please also note that readers outside the UK will only receive selected cover gifts.

74

Diskeeper 2011 Home FRAGMENTATION MAKES MECHANICAL disks work harder, impeding performance and ultimately shortening the life of the hardware. Unfortunately, the Windows defragmentation tool leaves quite a bit to be desired. If you want to push the performance envelope and extend your drive’s lifespan, you’ll need a third-party solution. Diskeeper 2011 aims to make fragmentation a thing of the past with its new IntelliWrite feature, which prevents up to 85 per cent of fragmentation occurring by forcing files to be written in contiguous blocks when they’re created or edited. This feature is married to new technologies such as Instant Defrag, which eliminates the need for scheduled defragmentation, and a new Performance Report feature to highlight the performance gains the program is delivering. This free Home edition is perfect for the typical desktop user and includes HyperFast technology, which can even speed up performance from

UPGRADE OFFER Diskeeper 12 is a major update and ships with a host of new features, including a brand-new Disk Health module, which will keep an eye on your hard disks to determine whether they are likely to fail soon, enabling you to safeguard your data before system failure. Diskeeper 12 Home, which costs around £19, can help you enhance your hard disk performance even further. For more details, view the Diskeeper homepage at www.condusiv.com/products/diskeeper.

SSDs. More advanced versions of the software are also available, with two extra key new features. There’s Efficient Mode, which aims to cut overheads and speed up the defrag process by prioritising problematic fragmentation, and an engine for consolidating free space to help boost performance further. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Windows XP, Vista or 7 32/64-bit, 60MB hard disk space INFORMATION Diskeeper www.diskeeper.com REGISTRATION Get your registration code at http://diskeeper.disc.expertreviews.co.uk

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SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

COVER GIFT GUIDE

Resources

Chat and Communication Digsby Access all your instant messaging services from a single application, with support for Windows Live!, Yahoo!, AIM, Google Talk, ICQ and Jabber. UPDATED Evernote 4.5 Store your notes, ideas, plans and interesting snippets from the web in the cloud and synchronise them between computers. UPDATED Mozilla Thunderbird 12 FINAL A powerful email client from the organisation better known for the Firefox web browser.

Postbox Express 1 An email client that provides a comprehensive array of tools to help you manage your messages more easily. Skype for Windows 5.9 Make internet voice and video calls for free. You can also buy credit to make calls to mobile phones and landlines, too. UPDATED Trillian 5.1 Use all your instant messaging accounts with one application, with support for Windows Live!, AIM, Yahoo! and Google.

Customisation 7 Taskbar Tweaker 3 Customise the Windows 7 taskbar so that it works to your liking. Metro UI Tweaker for Windows 8 This software lets you customise the new user interface for the Windows 8 beta. Mosaic Desktop Beta 1 Refresh Add Windows 8’s mosaic-tiled desktop to your computer without having to upgrade.

UPDATED Rainmeter 2.2 Cover the desktop with your choice of information, tools and shortcuts. Windows 8 Transformation Pack Essential software if you’d like to emulate the look of Windows 8 on an earlier version of the OS. Windows 8 UX Pack Give Windows 7 an interface upgrade so that it looks like Windows 8.

General EaseUS Partition Master Home 9.1 Divide your hard disk into different partitions with this powerful tool. UPDATED Free Studio 5.5 This software provides an easy way to convert your video and audio files into different formats. UPDATED PeaZip 4.5 A powerful archivemanagement tool.

UPDATED Screenshot Captor 3.05 Create and manage screenshots the easy way. UPDATED SUMo 3.1 Quickly scan your PC’s installed applications and find any updates that are available for them. ZipGenius 6.3 A flexible file-compression tool with support for a huge number of compressed file formats.

Internet and Network CrossLoop Free 2.82 Control another computer remotely over the internet, and even charge for the time you spend fixing a problem. Cyberduck 4.1 A powerful but easy-to-use FTP client. Easy WiFi 4 Find free Wi-Fi hotspots while you’re out and about with the help of this free tool and its comprehensive database.

LogMeIn Free 4.1 Control your computer over the internet for free, wherever you are. UPDATED NetBalancer 5.1 Make the most of your internet connection by assigning download and upload priorities to your web applications. Vuze 4.7 A powerful BitTorrent client that makes it very easy to locate, share and download files.

Tweaking and Performance UPDATED CCleaner 3.19 Remove unwanted information, temporary files, browsing history, huge log files and even the settings left behind by uninstalled software. UPDATED Defraggler 2.10 Keep a system defragmented and improve its performance. UPDATED Finestra Virtual Desktops 2.5 Set up four or more virtual desktops on your PC and organise the way you work.

ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| SEPTEMBER 2012

IObit Advanced SystemCare 5 A complete computer security, maintenance and optimisation suite. UPDATED Revo Uninstaller Free 1.94 Remove installed applications completely, including all their folders, system files and Registry entries. Simple Performance Boost 0.9 Tweak the Windows Registry to give your PC a performance boost.

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REVIEWS

How we test

Find out how well products perform with the help of Computer Shopper’s comprehensive tests

COMPUTER SHOPPER’S REVIEWS use some of the most exhaustive testing procedures you’ll find in any PC magazine. Every product is subjected to qualitative and quantitative tests that show how it performs in practical use. Graphs for performance, battery life scores and costs are used in the Reviews section, as shown on the right. Look in the ‘Summary of tests’ box (below) for details on each test we run. For PCs and laptops, we evaluate performance using our own custom benchmarking suite. See below for a brief description of our benchmarking software and game tests.

Summary of tests PC SYSTEMS Windows overall Average speed across numerous demanding tasks Multitasking Speed when running simultaneous applications Dirt 3 Frames per second at 1,920x1,080 4xAA, Ultra detail Crysis 2 Frames per second at 1,920x1,080, Ultra detail LAPTOPS Windows overall Average speed across numerous demanding tasks Multitasking Processor-intensive multitasking test Dirt 3 Frames per second at 1,280x720 4xAA, High detail Battery life Run time in minutes for web browser use HANDHELDS/PORTABLE MEDIA PLAYERS/TABLETS Battery life Run time in minutes for continuous video playback PRINTERS AND MFPS Draft speed Pages per minute for draft-quality inkjet text Normal speed Pages per minute for correspondence-quality text Greyscale speed Pages per minute for presentable text and graphics Mixed colour speed Pages per minute for presentable text and graphics Photo speed 6x4in photos per minute at top quality setting Scan speed A4 scans per minute at 300dpi Mono costs Running costs expressed as pence per page Colour costs Running costs expressed as pence per page DIGITAL CAMERAS Battery life Number of shots from full charge CAMCORDERS Battery life Run time in minutes for recording MP3 PLAYERS Battery life Run time in minutes for continuous playback ROUTERS

Bigger is better for all bars except the red ones, which show running costs

Mono page

2.2p

Colour page

The actual scores in each test are shown inside each bar

6.7p

Draft speed

11ppm 12ppm

Normal speed 0%

-50

Reference

+50

+100

This line represents the performance of a reference product in each test. All graphs for components and systems are relative to our reference PC (see below for specifications)

BENCHMARKS

RATINGS & AWARDS

SHOPPER BENCHMARKS Our benchmark suite uses opensource software that runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux systems. This lets us use objective results to compare PCs and laptops, no matter which operating system they run. It’s designed to test each computer to its limit, using a combination of intensive image-editing, video-encoding and multitasking tests. We ran the tests on our reference PC, which has an Intel Core i5-2500K processor and 4GB of DDR3 RAM. We normalised our results so this PC had a score of 100. This makes it easy to draw comparisons between test systems. The resulting overall score is shown at the bottom of every PC and laptop review. As we use the same tests in our standalone and group test reviews, you can compare the performance of any computer, whether it’s a netbook, laptop or desktop, from both sections of the magazine. To see how your computer compares with those we’ve tested, you can download the suite from http://bit.ly/ shopperbenchmarks. They’re available for 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems.

Centrino 2 1m Mbit/s at 1m with Centrino 2 adaptor Own brand 1m Mbit/s at 1m with own-brand adaptor Centrino 2 10m Mbit/s at 10m with Centrino 2 adaptor Own brand 10m Mbit/s at 10m with own-brand adaptor Centrino 2 25m Mbit/s at 25m with Centrino 2 adaptor Own brand 25m Mbit/s at 25m with own-brand adaptor NETWORK-ATTACHED STORAGE Large files Average MB/s for read/write of 100MB large files Small files Average MB/s for read/write of 100MB small files

A product hitting the +100 per cent mark performed twice as well as our reference

Computer Shopper rates products out of five:

Avoid

★★★★★

Below average ★★★★★ Good

★★★★★

Very good

★★★★★

Excellent

★★★★★

The best products can win the following awards: BEST BUY Products with outstanding quality and performance for the money win our Best Buy award.

BUDGET BUY The very best products for those on a tight budget win our Budget Buy award.

3D BENCHMARKS CRYSIS 2 With full DirectX 11 support and high-resolution textures, Crysis 2 will push any PC to the limit. You’ll need at least 30fps for smooth gameplay.

Business Buy The very best products for work win our Business Buy award.

HARD DISKS Large files Average MB/s for read/write of 100MB large files Small files Average MB/s for read/write of 100MB small files PROCESSORS Windows overall Average speed across numerous demanding tasks Multitasking Speed when running simultaneous applications MOTHERBOARDS

DIRT 3 Dirt 3 is the latest racing and rally title from Codemasters, and a true DirectX 11 game. You’ll need at least 30fps for smooth racing.

ULTIMATE The very best products, when money is no object, win our Ultimate award.

Windows overall Average speed across numerous demanding tasks Multitasking Speed when running simultaneous applications Dirt 3 Frames per second at 1,920x1,080 4xAA, Ultra detail GRAPHICS CARDS 3DMark 11 Performance settings, 1,920x1,080, 4xAA, 8xAF Crysis 2 Frames per second at 1,920x1,080, Ultra detail Dirt 3 Frames per second at 1,920x1,080 4xAA, Ultra detail

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3DMARK 11 Futuremark’s latest synthetic 3D benchmark tests the latest DirectX 11 graphics features. It’s representative of current and future titles.

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SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

British award winning PCs for 25 years utilising the latest in AMD and Intel technologies producing the ideal systems for another generation.

m sh award winning PCs • 1987

mesh Elite 3450 Plus
Intel® 3rd Gen Ivy Bridge Core i5 3450 Processor

Featuring the New Intel® 3rd Generation Ivy Bridge Processor - Your productivity is ready to be maximised from startup.









- 3.1GHz, 6MB Cache, 4x Cores ASUS® P8Z77-V LX Motherboard 1GB AMD RADEON™ HD 6570 GPU 8GB DDR3 1600MHz Memory 1TB SATA III - 6GB/s 7200rpm HDD 22” Widescreen LCD Monitor + Logitech Keyboard & Mouse Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium Plus many additional features - full spec online

only

£699 inc. Vat

Latest Technologies The Elite 3450 Plus utilises the very latest technologies from the leading component manufacturers in the world today FREE Delivery The Elite 3450 Plus comes with FREE delivery (UK mainland only) 3 Year Warranty The Elite 3450 Plus comes with a 3 Year Hardware Warranty

For the latest Mesh offers on new technology call or go online

020 8955 0731WorldMags.net | www.meshcomputers.com Pictures shown for illustration purposes only - colours may vary. Prices and specification correct at time of going to press (27/6/12). E&OE.

British award winning PCs for 25 years utilising the latest in AMD and Intel technologies producing the ideal systems for another generation.

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3rd ridge Ivy B i5 345

A superior performance PC competitively priced with AMD FX unlocked processor.

mesh Matrix 4100 Gaming PC


AMD FX 4100 Processor







- 3.8GHz Turbo, 12MB Cache, 4x Cores - CPU Overclocking available ASUS® M5A99X EVO Motherboard 1GB nVIDIA GEFORCE™ GT620 8GB DDR3 1600MHz Memory 1TB SATA III - 6GB/s 7200rpm HDD

Delivers a powerful entertainment experience with high performance processing.

mesh Elite 3450 Gaming PC


Intel® 3rd Gen Ivy Bridge Core i5 3450 Processor





Plus many additional features - full spec online

only

0

£499 inc. Vat

- 3.1GHz, 6MB Cache, 4x Cores ASUS® P8B75-M LE/USB3 Motherboard 1GB nVIDIA GEFORCE™ GT620 4GB DDR3 1600MHz Memory 1TB SATA III - 6GB/s 7200rpm HDD

Plus many additional features - full spec online

only

Powerful gaming system with leading graphics performance.

mesh Matrix 8120 Gaming PC


AMD FX 8120 Processor







£499 inc. Vat

- 4.0GHz Turbo, 16MB Cache, 8x Cores - CPU Overclocking available ASUS® M5A99X EVO Motherboard 2GB nVIDIA GEFORCE™ GT640 8GB DDR3 1600MHz Memory 1TB SATA III - 6GB/s 7200rpm HDD

Plus many additional features - full spec online

only

£599 inc. Vat

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3rd ridge Ivy B

3rd ridge Ivy B

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i7 377

Use the leading technology to power all your apps and gaming activities.

mesh Elite 3570K Gaming PC

A superior PC system utilising the best in processor and graphics technology.

mesh Matrix 8150 Gaming PC

Accomplish all the tasks you throw at this Elite PC at speeds you won’t have reached before!

mesh Elite 3770K Gaming PC


Intel® 3rd Gen Ivy Bridge Core i5 3570K Processor


AMD FX 8150 Processor


Intel® 3rd Gen Ivy Bridge Core i7 3770K Processor



















- 3.4GHz, 6MB Cache, 4x Cores, Unlocked - CPU Overclocking available ASUS® P8Z77-V LX Motherboard 2GB nVIDIA GEFORCE™ GT640 8GB DDR3 1600MHz Memory 1TB SATA III - 6GB/s 7200rpm HDD

Plus many additional features - full spec online

only

£659 inc. Vat

- 4.2GHz Turbo, 16MB Cache, 8x Cores - CPU Overclocking available ASUS® M5A99X EVO Motherboard 2GB AMD RADEON™ HD 7850 GPU 8GB DDR3 1600MHz Memory 2TB SATA III - 6GB/s 7200rpm HDD

Plus many additional features - full spec online

only

£799 inc. Vat

- 3.5GHz, 8MB Cache, 4x Cores/8x Threads, Unlocked - CPU Overclocking available ASUS® P8Z77-V LX Motherboard 2GB AMD RADEON™ HD 7850 GPU 8GB DDR3 1600MHz Memory 2TB SATA III - 6GB/s 7200rpm HDD Plus many additional features - full spec online

only

£899 inc. Vat

For the latest Mesh offers on new technology call or go online 020 8955 0731 | www.meshcomputers.com

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Please Read: Sales subject to terms & conditions (copy available on our website). Advert does not form part of a contract. Pictures shown for illustration purposes only - colours may vary. PC 3 Year Warranty - 1 Year hardware only, parts & labour - return to base (UK Mainland only) Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries. All trademarks are acknowledged. Finance options available on request. Sales line open Monday - Friday 9am - 6pm. Online ordering 24x7. Prices and specification correct at time of going to press (27/6/12). E&OE.

m sh award winning PCs • 1987

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Windows 7 All Mesh desktops are pre-installed with Microsoft Windows® 7

0K i7 377

Experience ultimate multi-screen gaming with the addition of 2x 24” LED monitors.

mesh Elite Pro Eyefinity

High-end power and performance to upstage all other PC platforms.

mesh Elite 3770K Pro Gaming PC


Intel® 3rd Gen Ivy Bridge Core i7 3770K Processor


Intel® 3rd Gen Ivy Bridge Core i7 3770K Processor















- 3.5GHz, 8MB Cache, 4x Cores, Unlocked - CPU Overclocking available ASUS® P8Z77-V LX Motherboard 2GB AMD RADEON™ HD 7850 GPU 2x 24” Full HD LED Monitors + Dual Monitor Eyefinity Setup 8GB DDR3 1600MHz Memory 2TB SATA III - 6GB/s 7200rpm HDD

Plus many additional features - full spec online

only

£1249 inc. Vat

- 3.5GHz, 8MB Cache, 4x Cores/8x Threads, Unlocked - CPU Overclocking available ASUS® P8Z77-V Motherboard 2GB nVIDIA GEFORCE™ GTX680 16GB DDR3 1600MHz Memory 2TB SATA III - 6GB/s 7200rpm HDD Blu-Ray Writer Optical Drive

Latest Technologies Our PCs and Laptops utilise the very latest technologies from the leading component manufacturers in the world today

Plus many additional features - full spec online

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£1399 inc. Vat

FREE Delivery All our PCs come with FREE delivery (UK mainland only)

3 Year Warranty All Mesh desktops come with a 3 Year Hardware Warranty Delivering top-of-the-line performance for your most demanding tasks.

mesh Slayer 3930K Gaming PC


Intel® Core i7 3820 Processor


Intel® Core i7 3930K Processor

















- 3.6GHz, 10MB Cache, 4x Cores ASUS® P9X79 LE LGA 2011 Motherboard 2GB nVIDIA GEFORCE™ GTX670 16GB Quad Channel 1600MHz Memory 120GB Solid State Drive (SSD) 2TB SATA III - 6GB/s 7200rpm HDD Blu-Ray Writer Optical Drive

Plus many additional features - full spec online

only

£1499 inc. Vat

- 3.2GHz, 12MB Cache, 6x Cores ASUS® P9X79 LE LGA 2011 Motherboard 2GB nVIDIA GEFORCE™ GTX680 16GB Quad Channel 1600MHz Memory 240GB Solid State Drive (SSD) 3TB SATA III - 6GB/s 7200rpm HDD Blu-Ray Writer Optical Drive

PC Service & Health Check A one stop solution to get a more responsive and productive PC and Laptop (see our website for full details)

Plus many additional features - full spec online

only

£1999 inc. Vat

For the latest Mesh offers on new technology call or go online

WorldMags.net 020 8955 0731 | www.meshcomputers.com

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mesh Slayer 3820 Gaming PC

The very top-end of gaming systems, this PC gives out the ultimate gaming experience.

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The Power of RadeonTM Push graphics and gaming performance to the extreme with the power of two – AMD Radeon™ Dual Graphics

CCL Elite Harrier II Gaming PC System Amazing Value Gaming PC Powered by AMD RadeonTM Dual Graphics! This is one amazing all-round PC powered by the AMD A6-3670K APU • Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium • AMD Quad-Core Accelerated Processor

• • • • •

A6-3670K with AMD Radeon™ HD 6530D + 6570 Dual Graphics 8GB of 1333MHz DDR3 Memory 500GB Hard Drive, DVD Writer Built-in Wireless, Keyboard & Mouse 22” Acer 1080p TFT LED Monitor 1 Year Warranty

509.99

£

ONLY

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CODE: CCL-CS-050

2.8GHz

4GB

500GB

Wi-Fi

1 Year

What is AMD RadeonTM Dual Graphics? Get the power of two when you purchase an AMD A-Series Accelerated Processor (APU) based PC with an AMD Radeon™ DirectX® 11 capable discrete graphics card. Only AMD Radeon™ Dual Graphics combines two powerful Radeon™ DirectX 11-enabled graphics processors to provide the ultimate gaming performance boost when you need it. Experience gaming at higher resolutions with greater image quality and boost visual performance when you combine a Quad-Core AMD APU for desktops with the AMD Radeon™ HD graphics card

WE’RE AWARD WINNERS! Highly Commended in the 2011 PC Pro Awards for Desktop PCs and Best Online Retailer Awards by PC Pro Magazine Readers

www.cclonline.com

www.cclonline.com/amdapuvga WorldMags.net Call us on 08000 50 10 10

A PC System for Everyone

Home, Business, Media Centre, Gaming and Enthusiast

HOME & ALL ROUNDERS CCL Alpha Advantage System

CCL Alpha Champion III System

With the AMD FX-6100 six core processor and AMD Radeon 6450 graphics card this is an amazing all round machine! • Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium • AMD Six-Core Processor FX-6100 • AMD Radeon™ HD 6450 Graphics Card • 8GB of 1333MHz DDR3 Memory • 500GB Hard Drive • Built-in Wireless • DVD Writer • 1 Year Warranty

Excellent all round system powered by AMD A-Series APU making it great for Full HD media! • Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium • AMD Dual-Core Accelerated Processor A4-3300 with AMD Radeon™ HD 6530D Graphics • 4GB of 1333MHz DDR3 Memory • 500GB Hard Drive • DVD Writer, Built-in Wireless • 1 Year Warranty

£

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RRP: £599.99, Save:£120

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CODE: CCL-CS-051

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MEDIA CENTRE & HOME THEATRE CCL Alpha Vision Media PC

CCL Alpha Scope Media PC

Raise your performance expectations for energy-efficient computing with the digital media friendly Alpha Vision Media-PC • Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium • AMD Dual-Core Accelerated Processor E-350 with AMD Radeon™ HD 6310 • 2GB of 1333MHz DDR3 Memory • 160GB Hard Drive • Multi Format Card Reader • Built-in Wireless • 1 Year Warranty

Powered by the AMD E-450 APU Platform with AMD Radeon HD 6320 Discrete-Class Graphics making this PC ideal for HD Video Playback • Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium • AMD Dual-Core Accelerated Processor E-450 with AMD Radeon™ HD 6320 • 8GB of 1333MHz DDR3 Memory • 500GB Hard Drive • Built-in Wireless • Blu-Ray Drive • 1 Year Warranty

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GAMING & ENTHUSIAST CCL Elite Hawk II Gaming PC

CCL Elite Buzzard II Gaming PC

Our best selling gaming PC evolved now with Better Graphics - Bigger Hard Drive for a Better Deal! • Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium • AMD Quad-Core Processor FX-4100 • AMD Radeon™ HD 6850 Graphics Card • 8GB of 1333MHz DDR3 Memory • 1TB Hard Drive • Built-in Wireless • DVD Writer, Built-in Wireless • 1 Year Warranty

Featuring AMD's latest APU technology this is our best ever gaming PC for the price! • Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium • AMD Quad-Core Accelerated Processor A6-3670K with AMD Radeon™ HD 6530D Graphics • 4GB of 1333MHz DDR3 Memory • 500GB Hard Drive • DVD Writer • Built-in Wireless • 1 Year Warranty

£

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Built with genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium WorldMags.net

M oni to r s a nd p e r i p he ra l bu n dl es are avail abl e separatel y u n l ess specifi ed.

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IVY BRIDGE PCs

IVY BRIDGE PCs

The future is now

Intel’s latest processors bring new levels of performance to desktop PCs, and they don’t cost as much as you might think. We test 10 next-generation PCs CONTENT REVIEWS Page 88

ARBICO Elite 3575 CS CHILLBLAST Fusion Diablo Page 89

DINOPC Velociraptor 3450 Package ECLIPSE Discovery Z77i345R777 Page 90

GINGER 6 G6 Vision MESH Elite i3570K CS Page 93

PALICOMP Alpha Excite PC SPECIALIST Vanquish Elite 560 Page 94

WIRED2FIRE Hellspawn Ultima YOYOTECH Warbird 3570XTI

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INTEL’S THIRD GENERATION Core processors, previously known as Ivy Bridge, have finally arrived, and they push performance further than ever before. With improved thermal performance, higher clock speeds and better Turbo Boost technology, Ivy Bridge PCs are the quickest we’ve seen. We asked 10 PC manufacturers to create systems for us that would challenge Ivy Bridge, and they didn’t disappoint. Not only do the PCs have Ivy Bridge processors, but many have also been overclocked to deliver extra performance. They also come with dedicated graphics, Blu-ray optical drives and plenty of storage for your cash. Each of the PCs on test this month can be bought separately as a base unit or bundled with a monitor, so they’re perfect for anyone who wants to buy an entire system or just upgrade an existing one. If you’re thinking

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about buying a new desktop computer, now is the time to do it. When buying a new PC, there are plenty of things to consider beyond how much you want to pay. We take you through the most important decisions here.

PROBABLE CORES

Most processors have at least two cores. This boosts performance in applications that support multicore processors, such as video-editing software, and when running multiple applications simultaneously. All the Ivy Bridge processors in the PCs we review here have four cores, which provide even greater performance than a dual-core chip. Intel’s range of processors can be confusing. Some of its models have two physical cores and two virtual cores that are created using the company’s Hyper-Threading

SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

IVY BRIDGE PCS

technology. Our reviews tell you how many cores a processor has, and our benchmarks on page 95 tell you how fast each one is in practice. Some PC manufacturers also boost a processor’s performance by overclocking it. Overclocking is a way of improving a PC’s performance by increasing the bus speed, processor multiplier or voltage, or a combination of all three. It’s a common practice among system builders, but even PCs that haven’t been overclocked may have a motherboard and processor combination that makes it easy to do manually. This is almost never the case with big-name systems, which tend to be shipped with motherboards that lack the required options. It’s a definite point in favour of smaller PC manufacturers if you like to tinker with your system, although you should always check that an overclocked PC has enough cooling to cope with the extra heat generated. Our reviews mention any unexpected heat issues or poor cooling.

JOG YOUR MEMORY

The amount of memory in your PC determines how much data it can handle. For light use, such as working on office files or browsing the internet, 2GB is plenty, but most systems ship with at least 4GB of RAM. The table on pages 96-97 tells you how many free memory slots are available. If there are no free slots, you’ll have to replace your existing RAM when you upgrade. To use more than 4GB of RAM, you need a 64-bit version of Windows, as the 32-bit version can only use around 3.5GB. You can’t upgrade to the 64-bit edition of Windows without buying a new licence key, so make sure the PC you want comes with 64-bit Windows. All the PCs we’ve looked at this month have 64-bit operating systems.

GENERAL STORAGE

If you have lots of documents, photos, music and videos, you need plenty of hard disk space. Disk prices are slowly recovering from the record highs experienced after the tragic flooding in Thailand, which disrupted production in key component factories, so 1TB disks should be the norm for most mid-range PCs. If this isn’t enough, you could buy an inexpensive external USB disk. Most PCs have at least two spare SATA ports. These are used to connect hard disks, optical drives and additional eSATA ports. Two types of SATA port are commonly in use, although both use the same connectors. SATA3 is the latest standard and can transfer data at up to 6GB/s. This is impressive, but only the latest solid-state drives (SSDs) have sufficiently fast read and write speeds to make the most of the interface. SATA2 ports are still common, though. They have a maximum data transfer rate of 3GB/s and are commonly used for optical disc drives and traditional magnetic hard disks. Any available SATA3 ports are best saved for SSDs. If you want to add a solid-state drive or eSATA port later, you’ll need a PC with free SATA3 ports, but there’s little practical difference when it comes to connecting most storage devices. If you don’t have enough ports to fit all the drives you want, you’ll need to add a PCI-Express SATA card. Drive bays are essential if you want to add more storage. You need spare 3½in bays for extra hard disks, while 5¼in bays can accommodate optical drives such as DVD or Blu-ray drives. Look for external bays if you want to fit a memory card reader or an extra optical drive. The table lists how many bays and SATA ports each PC has. Also check the number of external ports. All PCs support USB, but some support the

The ports on a PC determine the number and type of peripherals you can connect

faster USB3 standard, so look for this if fast external storage is important to you. Others have FireWire ports, which can be used to connect older video cameras, and eSATA ports, which let you connect external disks that can transfer data as fast as internal disks.

GRAPHIC SCENES

If you want to play the latest games at high resolutions and settings, you need a fast graphics card. The PCs we’ve tested aren’t heavy-duty gaming machines, but the latest GPUs found in Intel’s Core i5 and AMD’s Fusion processors can run most 3D games if you reduce the resolution and quality settings. Even some relatively low-budget PCs contain a dedicated graphics card. However, make sure that other important components haven’t been sacrificed for decent games performance and that any graphics card supplied provides enough of an advantage over integrated graphics to make it worthwhile. Our benchmarks show you how each PC performed in our gaming tests.

COVER ME

Spare drive bays are essential for adding internal storage

ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| SEPTEMBER 2012

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Warranties can vary greatly between manufacturers. Most last only a year and are return to base, which means you pay to return the PC to the supplier. Some are longer or have a collect-and-return service, where the manufacturer covers the cost of shipping. Beware of long ‘labour only’ warranties. These cover only labour costs of labour, so you’ll have to pay for replacement parts to fix any breakdowns. You also have the option of fitting parts yourself if they fail outside a PC’s warranty period.

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IVY BRIDGE PCs

ARBICO Elite 3575 CS ★★★★★

£893 inc VAT • From Arbico 08456 252627

VERDICT

An overclocked CPU and SSD make it a fast desktop PC, but gamers should look elsewhere ARBICO HAS MADE a huge effort to cool the overclocked Core i5-3570K inside its Elite 3575 CS, installing five 120mm fans around the midi-tower case. With a solid-state boot disk and dedicated Nvidia graphics, it’s no slouch. It has two USB ports at the top of the case and two 3.5mm audio jacks – one for a mic and the other for a pair of headphones. Below this is an optical DVD drive, two empty 5¼in drive bays and an external 3½in bay. Its back-panel ports include four USB ports, two faster USB3 ports, one PS/2 port and Gigabit Ethernet, along with three 3.5mm audio jacks and a digital optical output. If you want to use the integrated GPU, there are DVI, VGA and HDMI outputs, although the installed Nvidia GeForce 550Ti is much faster. The spacious interior is dominated by a huge Xigmatec CPU cooler. This tower-style design has 120mm fans at both ends to create a push-pull configuration for superior cooling. Blue 120mm LED fans have been fitted to the front intake, rear exhaust and roof, keeping

the processor cool even when overclocked and under load. Annoyingly, you can’t use the top side-panel mount as the CPU cooler gets in the way. The system felt responsive thanks to an incredibly fast 128GB OCZ Vertex 4 SSD. Arbico has supplemented this with a 1TB mechanical hard disk. There’s plenty of room for expansion, too, with four spare 3½in drive bays and three free SATA ports. The dual-slot graphics card blocks access to one of the two PCI-Express x1 slots, but three PCI slots and a second PCI-E x16 slot are available for add-in cards. Two of the four memory banks are empty, too, so you can add more RAM without discarding your current modules. Considering the massive heatsink, we think the i5-3570K’s overclock to 4.2GHz is a little conservative. We’ve seen the same chip reach 4.4GHz and 4.5GHz. However, this modest increase still had an impact in our multimedia benchmarks, where the Elite 3575 CS scored 136 overall. This is significantly faster than our

reference PC, and it means you’ll be able to tackle almost any desktop application, including multithreaded ones. The graphics card managed a frame rate of just 35.2fps in our Dirt 3 test and 15.4fps in Crysis 2. You’ll have to reduce the detail to play the latest games in DirectX 11 mode. Arbico bundles an Asus VS247H monitor with the Elite 3575 CS. The LED-backlit Full HD panel is a good one, with DVI, VGA and HDMI inputs for plenty of flexibility. Its 24in widescreen display is great for watching films and playing games at your desk. A Logitech keyboard and mouse complete the system. The overclocked processor and SSD make the Elite 3575 CS very quick in desktop applications but the Nvidia graphics card isn’t quite fast enough to cope with today’s most demanding games. As similarly overclocked systems are available for almost £100 less, however, this PC is hard to recommend.

CHILLBLAST Fusion Diablo ★★★★★

£799 inc VAT • From Chillblast 0845 4567830

VERDICT

Fantastic performance in desktop applications and games from a well-rounded PC WITH AN OVERCLOCKED third-generation Core i5-3570K processor on board, the Chillblast Fusion Diablo really is a beast of a PC. It also has 8GB of memory, a dedicated AMD Radeon graphics card and a 2TB hard disk, so it should be able to handle anything. The system is housed in a CIT Vantage X11 case. Chillblast has subtly enhanced its fairly generic looks with sparing use of blue LEDs. It’s also well equipped for cooling. One 120mm front intake, one 120mm exhaust and two 120mm side-panel fans kept the components cool and quiet, even after several hours of benchmarking, although you can turn off the side panel fans if you prefer even less noise. The sparse front panel contains just two USB ports, 3.5mm audio jacks and an SD card reader, but there are more ports at the back. Its four USB ports, two faster USB3 ports, one PS/2 port and a Gigabit Ethernet port should be all you need to get up and running. The Diablo also has DVI, HDMI and VGA connectors should you wish to use the integrated Intel HD 4000 graphics. Finally, it

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has three 3.5mm analogue and an optical digital audio output for a 5.1 surround-sound system. Inside, Chillblast has kept the cabling tidy to prevent the obstruction of airflow. You’ll have to remove the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU cooler’s fan if you want to install additional memory, but the other expansion ports are easy to access. One free SATA3 port and three empty SATA2 ports provide potential for additional storage or optical drives, but you must screw them in to the three empty 5¼in and three 3½in drive bays. Sadly, there’s no tool-free installation here. The Asus P8Z77-V LX has three empty PCI slots, as well as two PCI-Express x1 slots, although the double-width HD 6870 obscures the second slot. There’s a second PCI-Express x16 slot, but this runs only in x4 mode if you install a second graphics card. Its 700W PSU should easily power more expansion cards. In terms of performance, the Fusion Diablo blitzed our multimedia benchmarks, scoring a whopping 144 overall. With four physical

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processor cores, even heavily multithreaded applications shouldn’t prove a problem. Its graphics performance was equally magnificent, thanks to its 1GB AMD Radeon HD 6870 GPU. It sped through Dirt 3 at 55fps, and even ran Crysis 2 at 23.8fps. Reduce the anti-aliasing and most games should be playable. Chillblast bundles an Asus VS247H 24in Full HD monitor with the Fusion Diablo, as well as a Logitech KM260 wireless mouse and keyboard set. The matt display helps to reduce light reflections and gives colours a muted yet lifelike quality. HDMI, VGA and DVI inputs provide plenty of flexibility, as do the internal speakers. The Fusion Diablo is definitely powerful, with good graphics performance, lots of ports for your peripherals and one of the highest Ivy Bridge overclocks we’ve seen so far. We think the Palicomp Alpha Excite is the better buy because of its superior graphics card, but the Chillblast Diablo is still a cracking option.

SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

IVY BRIDGE PCs

DINOPC Velociraptor 3450 Package ★★★★★

£749 inc VAT • From Dino PC 0844 999 4123

VERDICT

Limited upgrade potential tames this raptor before it shows its claws DINOPC HAS BUILT the Velociraptor 3450 inside an attractive Xigmatek Asgard Pro case. This has a USB3 port on its front panel, making it easy to connect super-fast storage. With its Ivy Bridge Core i5-3450 and SSD boot disk, it’s as nippy as a raptor, too. The PC has one external 3½in drive bay and three 5¼in bays. Only one 5¼in bay is fitted with an optical drive, so there’s room for expansion. The front panel is made almost entirely of wire mesh to increase airflow, so the ports are located on the roof. As well as a USB3 port, it has two regular USB ports and a standard 3.5mm audio input and output. The back panel provides two more USB3 ports and four standard USB ports, as well as Gigabit Ethernet and two PS/2 ports for older peripherals. Audio is limited to three 3.5mm audio jacks, with no digital connection. Removing the side panel simply involves undoing two thumbscrews. The microATX Asus P8B75-M LE motherboard occupies barely half of the motherboard tray, leaving

ample room for cable management. Three holes make routing the wires easier, and DinoPC has done a good job of hiding the 400W PSU’s cables. With a smaller motherboard, there’s less scope for expansion than with other PCs. It has three spare SATA ports, a PCI slot and a second PCI-Express x16 port, but the dual-slot graphics card obstructs the second slot. It has 8GB of RAM, but both memory slots are full, so you’d have to remove these to upgrade. This limitation is disappointing, as the case has room for six more 3½in hard disks. A single 120mm front intake and 120mm rear exhaust fan help the Intel CPU cooler to dissipate excess heat. This is plenty as the i5-3450 isn’t overclocked, but if you add a second graphics card or lots of hard disks, you may want to install extra fans. There’s a spare 120mm fan mount in the floor, two in the roof and two more on the side panel. Performance was as we’d expect from an Ivy Bridge i5-3540. Running at 3.1GHz, but

using Turbo Boost to reach 3.5GHz at times, it scored 103 overall in our multimedia benchmarks, making it marginally faster than our reference processor – a previousgeneration i5-2500K. Its four cores can easily handle multithreaded applications. The AMD Radeon HD 7770 graphics card managed a decent average of 41fps in Dirt 3 but just 20.9fps in Crysis 2, so you may need to lower the settings to maintain smooth frame rates in DirectX 11 games. The Velociraptor 3450 is supplied with an AOC i2352Vh display, which has a superb 23in IPS panel with fantastic viewing angles. The bundled Logitech keyboard and mouse are basic, however. The Velociraptor 3450 is a great package but its lack of upgrade potential is disappointing. Even taking into account its excellent monitor and SSD boot disk, we’d recommend Palicomp’s Alpha Excite first.

ECLIPSE Discovery Z77i345R777 ★★★★★

£674 inc VAT • From Eclipse Computers 08444 723723

VERDICT

If you’re not interested in overclocking, this computer is a bargain THE ECLIPSE DISCOVERY Z77i345R777 has a multiplier-locked Intel Core i5-3450 processor. This means it can’t be overclocked, but its dedicated AMD graphics and ample room for upgrades mean it’s a strong contender to be your next PC. The quad-core i5-3450 runs at 3.1GHz, with Turbo Boost pushing it to 3.5GHz when required, but it doesn’t support HyperThreading, so the four cores aren’t doubled in Windows. Paired with 8GB of RAM, it completed our multimedia benchmarks with an overall score of 110, which is fast enough for almost every desktop application. Its AMD Radeon HD 7770 graphics card is great for light gaming. It managed a fairly smooth 40.6fps in Dirt 3, but only 20.6fps in Crysis 2, so you’ll have to lower detail settings to play the latest games at high frame rates. Eclipse builds the Discovery Z77i345R777 in an EZ Cool chassis, which is made from a combination of steel and plastic. The mesh front helps increase airflow, and a transparent side panel lets you see the components. The ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

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front panel provides four USB ports, as well as 3.5mm audio jacks for a microphone and headphones. One of the 5¼in bays houses a DVD optical drive, with two 5¼in and one 3½in drive bay available for future upgrades. The Asus P8Z77-V LX’s back panel has four USB ports, two USB3 ports, Gigabit Ethernet and one PS/2 port. It also has three 3.5mm audio jacks for a 5.1 surround-sound system and a digital optical output. Finally, there are DVI, HDMI and VGA outputs. There’s lots of room for expansion. Five of the six internal 3½in drive bays are free for extra hard disks. Even though the processor is multiplier-locked, Eclipse has installed an enthusiast motherboard with four spare SATA ports, as well as three PCI slots, two PCI-E x1 and two PCI-E x16 slots. The dual-slot graphics card occupies one of the PCI-E x16 slots and obscures the second x1 slot, so you’ll have to remove it to add additional expansion cards. Although the processor hasn’t been overclocked, we were surprised that Eclipse

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has fitted only one 120mm intake fan. It’s fitted to the side panel rather than the front, and there’s no exhaust fan at the back. This leaves the Intel CPU cooler, PSU and graphics cards fans to dissipate the heat from within the case. We didn’t notice any serious overheating, but there are five empty 120mm fan mounts in the front, rear, roof and side panel that we’d seriously consider using. Eclipse has bundled a no-brand keyboard and mouse, but also a high-quality BenQ 22in LCD monitor. The GL2240 is a little smaller than others but has a Full HD panel and a matt display that helps avoid reflections. At £596 for the base unit, the Discovery Z77i345R777 costs around £50 less than the competition. You can’t overclock the Ivy Bridge processor, but it’s still fast enough for almost every task and the graphics card is decent, too. If you need a low-cost PC, this is an excellent choice.

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IVY BRIDGE PCs

GINGER 6 G6 Vision ★★★★★

£800 inc VAT • From Ginger 6 0871 230 7170

VERDICT

Not bad, but it needs more RAM to make the most of its components GINGER 6 HAS paired a 1TB hard disk with a super-fast 128GB SSD to give the G6 Vision a speed boost. Indeed, the G6 Vision reaches the Windows Desktop in just under 30 seconds. Once you’re there, the Intel Ivy Bridge processor and 4GB of RAM should be able to handle all your applications. Our multimedia benchmarks are a prime example. Scoring 113 overall, the G6 Vision is around 10 per cent faster than our reference PC. It won’t outpace an overclocked system, though, so you may need to look for a multiplier-unlocked processor if you plan on running intensive multithreaded applications. You’ll also be able to play the latest games, thanks to the Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 SE with 1GB of video memory. It completed our Dirt 3 benchmark with an average of 41.5fps, although it managed just 18.2fps in our Crysis 2 test, so you’ll have to turn down settings in more graphically demanding games. The G6 Vision is built in a basic midi tower case that’s made from a combination of

plastic, steel and wire mesh for added ventilation. The blue LED lights glowing from inside may not be to everyone’s taste, but they’re relatively unobtrusive. A panel in the roof of the case provides two USB ports, a pair of 3.5mm audio jacks and a multiformat card reader. The back panel adds four USB ports, two faster USB3 ports and a PS/2 port, as well as DVI, VGA and HDMI outputs for the integrated graphics. A digital optical and three 3.5mm audio outputs complete the selection. There are plenty of expansion options inside the midi tower chassis, too. It has three vacant 5¼in external drive bays, one external 3½in drive bay and four internal 3½in bays, which should provide ample room for additional storage, although there are no tool-free mounting mechanisms. The motherboard is also well equipped, with three empty RAM slots, three unused SATA ports, three PCI slots, two PCI-E x1 slots and two PCI-E x16 slots. However, the

dual-slot graphics card obscures one of the PCI-E x1 slots. Cooling is well covered, with four 120mm fans installed throughout the case. The single front intake and single rear exhaust fans create a constant flow of air, while the two side-panel fans push cold air on to the CPU cooler and graphics card. Ginger 6 has used the default Intel heatsink, but you shouldn’t have to worry about heat unless you add a lot of extra hard disks or expansion cards. The included AOC 2436Vwa monitor has a very useful USB hub. It’s a 1080p panel, but we thought its image quality was distinctly average. The Microsoft keyboard and mouse set is basic but reasonably well built. The G6 Vision may have a fast SSD, but Ginger 6 has had to compromise in other areas to keep costs down. For a similar price, you can find an overclocked system with more memory and a faster graphics card.

Another welcome inclusion is the 120GB SSD, which handles both Windows and storage. This is great if you have a large external hard disk or NAS device for your multimedia files, but less so if you want to play a lot of modern games, as their large install sizes could soon fill the SSD. Thankfully, the Cooler Master case offers ample room for expansion. A DVD rewriter occupies one of the 5¼in drive bays, leaving three empty, along with one external 3½in bay. The motherboard has three PCI slots, one PCI-Express x1 and one PCI-E x16 slot free, but the dual-slot graphics card uses one PCI-E x16 and blocks the other PCI-E x1 slot. With three empty RAM slots, you can upgrade your memory without removing the existing 4GB. Beyond the CPU cooler setup, the system cooling is basic. One 120mm front intake and one 120mm rear exhaust fan are installed, leaving one 120mm fan mount in the bottom of the case and a second 120mm mount next to the side-panel fan. This level of cooling was adequate for the current

configuration, but if you plan to add a lot of expansion cards or extra hard disks, we recommend upgrading the CPU cooler to better balance system cooling. The front panel provides two USB ports and two 3.5mm audio jacks. On the back there are four USB ports, two USB3 ports, three 3.5mm audio jacks and a digital optical output, Gigabit Ethernet and a single PS/2 port, as well as DVI, HDMI and VGA connections for the integrated GPU. The Hanns.G 23.6in monitor that comes with the system is an LED model, with a Full HD resolution and integrated stereo speakers. It supports HDCP for playing protected content and its image quality is above average With its stock CPU cooling and limited memory, the Elite i3570K CS isn’t as balanced as we’d like. The huge overclock, powerful dedicated graphics and large SSD are great, but stability can’t be overlooked. Unless you don’t mind upgrading the CPU cooler yourself, the Palicomp Alpha Excite is a better choice.

MESH Elite i3570K CS ★★★★★

£779 inc VAT • From Mesh 020 8955 0731

VERDICT

Overclocked and well equipped for games, but there’s not a lot of storage THE ELITE I3570K CS has a heavily overclocked Intel Core i5-3570K processor running at 4.4GHz. This is a big increase over the stock speed, but Mesh has opted to use the basic Intel CPU cooler rather than a larger heatsink to more effectively dissipate the heat caused by overclocking. Sensibly, Mesh has installed an additional 120mm fan to keep the PC cool. The Elite completed our multimedia benchmarks with an overall score of 130. The multitasking score was slightly lower than expected, as the system has only 4GB of RAM. Impressively, the Elite i3570K CS has a Sapphire Radeon HD7850 GPU graphics card. It’s powerful, has 2GB of dedicated video memory and can play the latest games at Full HD resolutions, as our graphics benchmarks show. In Dirt 3 it produced a stellar 57.1fps, and even in Crysis 2 it managed a perfectly playable 28.9fps. Very few games should pose a problem for this machine, even with DirectX 11 and antialiasing enabled.

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IVY BRIDGE PCs

PALICOMP Alpha Excite ★★★★★

£830 inc VAT • From Palicomp 01270 898104

VERDICT

With great graphics, ample storage and bags of upgrade potential, this is a fantastic PC PALICOMP’S ALPHA EXCITE was built for playing the latest games. Its overclocked Ivy Bridge Core i5-3570K processor and 2GB AMD Radeon HD 7850 graphics card won’t break into a sweat even if you try to play the latest titles at 1080p with maximum detail. A Cooler Master Elite 330 midi tower forms the basis of the system. Its subtle looks should appeal to those who don’t want a PC to be the focus of the room. Its minimal front panel has two USB ports and two 3.5mm audio jacks, but the rear panel of the Gigabyte Z77-D3H motherboard has plenty of ports. With four USB and four USB3 ports, you’re unlikely to need a USB hub. There’s also PS/2, Gigabit Ethernet and five 3.5mm audio jacks for 7.1 surround sound, plus a digital optical audio out, VGA, DVI and HDMI. Two thumbscrews keep the side panel in place. It’s very tidy inside, thanks to the modular 750W power supply, which allows you to add only the cables you need. The three empty 5¼in drive bays and six free 3½in

drive bays use tool-free mounting brackets, so you won’t need a screwdriver to add more storage. The Gigabyte Z77-D3H motherboard is dominated by a huge Thermaltake CPU cooler, but it still has plenty of expansion options. Two of the three PCI-E x1 slots are free while the third is obscured by the dual-slot graphics card, but both PCI slots are available. There’s also another PCI-E x16 slot for a second graphics card. An mSATA port lets you add a small SSD to speed up the system even more. Sadly, all four RAM slots are full, so you’ll have to discard some modules if you upgrade. The Thermaltake CPU cooler keeps temperatures low, but cooling is basic. There’s only one 120mm front intake and one 120mm exhaust fan, while the 80mm fan mount on the side panel is obstructed by the huge CPU cooler. The system is quiet when idling, but long gaming sessions could see fan noise rise. Our gaming benchmarks were no match for the AMD Radeon HD 7850 GPU, which

Palicomp has overclocked for even greater performance. It completed our Dirt 3 test with an average frame rate of 60.6fps and Crysis 2 with an average 25.9fps, so you’ll be able to play pretty much anything without having to reduce detail settings. Desktop performance was equally impressive, scoring 142 overall in our multimedia benchmarks. The Full HD Asus VS247H display included with the Alpha Excite has a matt screen that minimises light reflections. Its viewing angles aren’t the best, but the LED backlight looked even. A basic Cherry Keyboard and mouse set completes the bundle. Palicomp has done well to include a high-end graphics card in this Ivy Bridge PC considering the price. The three-year return-to-base warranty is another welcome inclusion, as is the massive overclock. It might not have an SSD boot disk, but in all other respects it’s an excellent PC.

PC SPECIALIST Vanquish Elite 560 ★★★★★

£799 inc VAT • From PC Specialist 0844 499 4000

VERDICT

A slightly underwhelming graphics card holds back this otherwise well-rounded PC THE VANQUISH ELITE 560 is built inside a minimalist Cooler Master Elite 310 case, which should blend in wherever you put it. The PC may not look particularly powerful from the outside, but it contains an overclocked Ivy Bridge Core i5 and dedicated Nvidia graphics. Its Core i5-3570K processor runs at 4.4GHz and is paired with 8GB of RAM, which helped it finish our multimedia benchmarks with an overall score of 143. Four physical cores make it ideal for heavily multithreaded applications. Graphics performance was impressive. The Nvidia GeForce GTX 500 Ti graphics card may be a generation old, but it coped well in our Dirt 3 test, reaching a fast 60.6fps, although Crysis 2 was a tougher challenge. An average of 24.9fps in Crysis is still respectable, and only a little way off the 30fps needed for smooth gameplay. Turning down detail settings slightly will let you play any modern game smoothly. From the outside, the Vanquish Elite 560 looks basic, with a glossy plastic front fascia that attracts fingerprints. The front panel is ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| SEPTEMBER 2012

located at the bottom of the case, which could make it difficult to reach if you stand it on the floor. Only two USB ports and two 3.5mm audio jacks are included, although PC Specialist has fitted a multiformat card reader in one of the external 3½in drive bays. This has an extra USB port, too, which should be easier to reach than those on the front panel. One of the four external 5¼in bays contains a Blu-ray optical drive, leaving three more empty for additional upgrades. Internally, the Asus P8Z77-V LX motherboard has plenty of room for upgrades, including three PCI slots, a spare PCI-Express x16 slot and two PCI-E x1 slots, although one PCI-E x1 slot is obscured by the dual-slot graphics card. Two unused memory slots let you add more RAM, and there are four SATA ports for connecting hard disks. The top 3½in bay contains a 1TB hard disk, and there are five more empty bays, so you won’t run out of space for storage. Cooling is fairly basic, with just one 120mm front intake and one 120mm exhaust fan. The

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Titan CPU cooler is, ironically, rather compact, but it managed to stay quiet even when the processor was under heavy load. You can use the mounting point on the side panel to fit an additional 80mm, 90mm or 120mm fan. Cables are secured away from sources of airflow, but you must cut the plastic ties if you want to rearrange them. PC Specialist offers the Vanquish Elite 560 with an AOC E2450SWDA monitor. It’s a Full HD panel with an LED backlight that helps produce natural colours. There’s little in the way of adjustment, and it provides only VGA and DVI inputs, but it’s still a welcome inclusion. The base unit also comes with a Logitech wireless mouse and keyboard, which are a welcome step up from the basic desktop sets we’ve seen from other system builders. The Vanquish Elite 560 is a well-built machine with a hefty overclock and decent gaming performance. It just loses out to the Palicomp Alpha Excite, which has a 2TB hard disk.

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IVY BRIDGE PCs

WIRED2FIRE Hellspawn Ultima ★★★★★

£800 inc VAT • From Wired2Fire 0845 388 9051

VERDICT

The Hellspawn Ultima’s SSD and overclocked CPU are hard to beat and make it a great system WIRED2FIRE HAS GIVEN the Intel Core i5-3570K inside its Hellspawn Ultima a hefty overclock to produce a 4.6GHz clock speed. Combined with dedicated Nvidia graphics and OCZ SSD, it’s an incredibly fast mid-range PC. To achieve this overclock, Wired2Fire has replaced the standard Intel heatsink with a Xigmatek tower cooler, which is far more capable. A Xigmatek Asgard case forms the basis of the system. One 120mm front intake and one 120mm rear exhaust fan provide ample airflow, but there are two additional 120mm fan mounts on the side panel, too. The case looks fairly generic from the outside, and has one 3½in and four 5¼in drive bays. A DVD optical drive occupies one bay, but the rest are free. The ports are positioned in the centre of the front panel, which should be easy to reach even if you place the case on the floor. This has just two USB ports and the usual 3.5mm audio jacks, though, so you’ll need to connect most of your peripherals to the back of the case.

The Asus P8Z77-V LX motherboard’s back panel has four USB ports, two faster USB3 ports, Gigabit Ethernet and a PS/2 port. The audio ports include three 3.5mm analogue jacks for 5.1 surround sound and a digital optical output. VGA, DVI and HDMI ports let you use the integrated graphics that are built into the Intel processor, but the dedicated graphics card is significantly faster. Inside, there are five free 3½in bays. Two are taken up by the OCZ 64GB SSD and 1TB hard disk. The drive cages use tool-free retention mechanisms, so you shouldn’t need a screwdriver to fit a hard disk. The dual-slot graphics card takes up one PCI-E x16 slot and obscures a PCI-E x1 slot, but there are three PCI ports and one PCI-E x16 slot free. In performance terms, the overclocked processor is more than fast enough for everyday tasks. It has four cores, so heavily multithreaded applications will run smoothly. This includes our multimedia benchmarks, in which the Hellspawn Ultima scored 141 overall.

The AMD Radeon HD 7770 graphics card is an overclocked Asus model, so it should be slightly faster than a standard one. This was borne out in our gaming benchmarks. In Dirt 3 it produced an average frame rate of 41.7fps. Crysis 2 proved more of a challenge, and it reached only 21.2fps. If you want to play the latest games, you’ll have to reduce the detail settings or disable anti-aliasing. Wired2Fire sells the Hellspawn Ultima with a 24in Full HD Asus VS247H monitor. It’s a matt display, so reflections shouldn’t be a problem, and has an even LED backlight and DVI, VGA and HDMI inputs. The Keysonic keyboard is fairly generic, as is the Gigabyte mouse, but they’re better than some bargain-basement peripherals. With an SSD and a heavily overclocked processor, the Hellspawn Ultima is fast. If frame rates are your main concern, the similarly priced Palicomp Alpha Excite may be a better choice, but there’s little to fault here.

YOYOTECH Warbird 3570XTI ★★★★★

£799 inc VAT • From Yoyotech 0871 855 3380

VERDICT

The Warbird is a great PC, but you get better graphics for your money elsewhere WHEN WE OPENED the Yoyotech Warbird 3570XTI, we had to double-check that the case wasn’t upside down, because the motherboard tray is mounted on the left side rather than the right. This may not be typical but it certainly works well. The Warbird 3570XTI was one of the quietest overclocked Ivy Bridge PCs we’ve seen, despite having four 120mm case fans and a tower-style third-party CPU cooler to help keep temperatures down. These are all required as Yoyotech has overclocked the Intel Core i5-3570k processor to 4.5GHz, providing a huge performance boost over stock-clocked machines. With 8GB of RAM it blitzed our multimedia benchmarks with an overall score of 143, which suggests that very few applications will slow it down. The 64GB SSD boot disk certainly helped, speeding up file access and transfer times. There’s also a secondary 1TB hard disk on which you can store your multimedia files, so you won’t run out of space in a hurry. If you’re looking for a gaming PC, you’ll be happy to know that the Warbird 3570XTI has

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an Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti graphics card installed. It isn’t a current-generation card, but it’s a proven performer and completed our Dirt 3 test with an average 61.7fps. Newer games will trouble it slightly, as our Crysis 2 test showed. A frame rate of 26.3fps in Crysis 2 means you’ll have to reduce detail settings for the latest titles. Once you’ve got your head around the reversed design, there’s a reasonable amount of room for expansion inside the midi tower case. Three empty 5¼in external drive bays let you add extra optical drives if the included DVD rewriter proves insufficient, although the two empty 3½in internal bays may be a little restrictive if you need extra storage. Only two of the four RAM slots are occupied, and there are three empty PCI slots, one PCI-Express x1 and a PCI-E x16 slot for expansion cards. On the outside, the front panel contains two USB ports and two 3.5mm audio jacks. That may seem basic, but we were happy to see that one of the USB ports supports the

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faster USB3 standard. There are more ports at the back too, such as four USB ports, two USB3 ports, one PS/2 port, three 3.5mm audio jacks and a digital optical output. There’s also VGA, DVI and HDMI video outputs for the integrated GPU, although these are superfluous if you use the graphics card. Yoyotech sells the Warbird 3570XTI as a base unit or with an Asus VS247H monitor. It’s a 23.6in LED-backlit panel with a 1080p resolution, making it the ideal upgrade for an older display. VGA, DVI and HDMI inputs provide plenty of flexibility in case you want to connect additional hardware to the screen. There’s little to dislike about the Warbird 3570XTI. The SSD boot disk speeds up Windows and the processor is easily fast enough for demanding applications. However, Palicomp’s Alpha Excite has a faster graphics card and a Blu-ray optical drive for £10 less. If gaming is more important to you than boot times, the Palicomp is a better choice.

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IVY BRIDGE PCs

BENCHMARKS 2D performance

3D performance

Overall

Multitasking

Dirt 3 (fps)

144

153

143

150

143

149

142

149

57.1

141

146

55

136

61.7 60.6 60.6

41.7

144

41.5

132

130 113

41

123

110

40.6

114

103

35.2

97

Image editing

Video encoding 146

140

This DirectX 11 benchmark shows how well a PC will cope with lessdemanding games. SETTINGS 1,920x1,080 resolution, 4xAA, Ultra settings

140

137

133

136

133

136

120

103

26.3

132

118

113

28.9

135

125

118

Crysis 2 (fps)

25.9

131

24.9

109

23.8

105

21.2

98

20.9 20.6

Our new benchmark suite allows us to compare Windows, Mac OS X and Linux PCs. The tests use open-source applications to gauge a PC’s performance, and comprise image-editing, video-editing and multitasking elements. These scores are added to produce the overall score. Our reference PC is fitted with an Intel Core i5-2500K processor and 4GB

of DDR3 RAM. We normalised all its results to 100, which makes it easy to draw comparisons. We use the same tests in all our reviews. You can download the tests for free from http://bit.ly/shopperbenchmarks. SETTINGS We run our application tests at native resolution and in 32-bit colour WEB http://bit.ly/shopperbenchmarks

18.2 15.4

With its stunning effects and explosions, plus some of the most realistic character animation available, Crysis 2 pushes a PC to its limits. SETTINGS 1,920x1,080 resolution, 4x AA, Ultra settings

VERDICT Wired2Fire managed to squeeze an SSD boot disk, an overclocked processor, 8GB of RAM and a 1TB hard disk into its Hellspawn Ultima. Its performance was excellent, as was its cooling and upgrade potential, making it an obvious choice for a five-star rating. However, its graphics card wasn’t quite as powerful as the one in Palicomp’s Alpha Excite. Although the Alpha Excite doesn’t have an SSD, the larger 2TB hard disk, Blu-ray optical drive and AMD Radeon 7850 graphics card make it a superb PC for gaming and

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multimedia. The overclocked processor makes it incredibly fast in desktop applications, too. It’s a Best Buy award winner. If you’re on a tighter budget, you can still get fantastic performance as long as you don’t mind a multiplier-locked processor. You won’t be able to overclock it, but Eclipse’s Discovery Z77i345R777 is still well equipped to play the latest games, run demanding desktop applications and hold all your multimedia files on its 1TB hard disk. For £674, it definitely deserves our Budget Buy award.

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ECLIPSE Discovery Z77i345R777 ★★★★★

PALICOMP Alpha Excite ★★★★★

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IVY BRIDGE PCs

BUDGET BUY

ARBICO Elite 3575 CS

CHILLBLAST Fusion Diablo

DINOPC Velociraptor 3450 Package

★★★★★

★★★★★

★★★★★

Intel Core i5-3570K

Intel Core i5-3570K

Intel Core i5-3450

Intel Core i5-3450

Four

Four

Four

Four

100MHz

100MHz

100MHz

100MHz

X42

X46

X31

X31

4.2GHz

4.6GHz

3.1GHz

3.1GHz

Processor socket

LGA2011

LGA2011

LGA2011

LGA2011

Memory installed

8GB

8GB

8GB

8GB

Memory type (speed)

DDR3

DDR3

DDR3

DDR3

Maximum memory

32GB

32GB

32GB

32GB

Asus P8Z77-V LX

Asus P8Z77-V LX

Asus P8B75-M LE

Asus P8Z77-V LX

Rating Processor Processor number of cores Processor external bus Processor multiplier Processor speed

Motherboard Motherboard chipset Power consumption standby Power consumption idle Power consumption active

ECLIPSE Discovery Z77i345R777 ★★★★★

Intel Z77

Intel Z77

Intel B75

Intel Z77

1W

2W

2W

1W

59W

64W

48W

62W

129W

141W

126W

135W 4/6

PORTS USB ports (front/rear)

2/6

2/6

3/6

FireWire ports (front/rear)

0/0

0/0

0/0

0/0

eSATA ports (front/rear)

0/0

0/0

0/0

0/0

1x 10/100/1,000

1x 10/100/1,000

1x 10/100/1,000

1x 10/100/1,000 Midi tower

Networking INTERNAL EXPANSION Case

Midi tower

Midi tower

Midi tower

190x435x478mm

455x180x420mm

200x445x470mm

198x439x503mm

PCI (free)

3 (3)

3 (3)

2 (1)

3 (3)

PCIe x1 (free)

2 (1)

2 (1)

0 (0)

2 (1)

PCIe x16 (free)

2 (1)

2 (1)

2 (1)

2 (1)

Case size HxWxD

Serial ATA (free)

6 (3)

6 (4)

6 (3)

6 (4)

Memory (free)

4 (2)

4 (2)

2 (0)

4 (2)

Drive bays 3½in (free)

5 (3)

4 (3)

8 (7)

6 (5)

Drive bays 5¼in (free)

3 (2)

4 (3)

3 (2)

3 (2)

OCZ Vertex 4 SSD and Seagate ST1000DM003-9YN162

Seagate Barracuda (ST2000DM001-9YN164)

Corsair Force 3 60GB and Seagate ST1000DM003-9YN162

Seagate Barracuda (ST31000524AS)

HARD DISK Hard disk model Interface Total storage capacity

SATA3

SATA3

SATA3

SATA3

1,128GB

2,000GB

1,064GB

1,000GB

Nvidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti

1GB AMD Radeon HD 6870

AMD Radeon HD 7770

AMD Radeon HD 7770

VGA, DVI, HDMI

DVI, HDMI, 2x Mini DisplayPort

DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort

DVI, HDMI, 2x Mini DisplayPort

GRAPHICS Graphics card Graphics/video ports SOUND Sound card

Realtek HD Audio

Realtek HD Audio

VIA HD Audio

Realtek HD Audio

7.1 line out, optical S/PDIF out

7.1 line out, optical S/PDIF out

5.1 line out

7.1 line out, optical S/PDIF out

Speakers

None

None

None

None

Memory card reader

None

SDXC, MMC

None

None

DVD+/-RW +/-DL

BD-RE + DVD+/-RW +/-DL, DVD+/-RW +/-DL

DVD+/-RW +/-DL, DVD-ROM

DVD+/-RW +/-DL

24in widescreen LED

24in widescreen LCD

23in widescreen IPS

22in widescreen LED

Asus VS247H

Asus VS247H

AOC i2352Vh

BenQ GL2240M

1,920x1,080

1,920x1,080

1,920x1,080

1,920x1,080

VGA, DVI, HDMI

VGA, DVI, HDMI

DVI, VGA, HDMI

DVI, VGA

Sound card outputs REMOVABLE DRIVES

Optical drive type DISPLAY Size and technology Model Native resolution Inputs OTHER HARDWARE Keyboard

Logitech K120

Logitech MK250

Logitech K120

Yes

Mouse

Logitech M120

Logitech M210

Logitech B110

Yes

Extras

None

None

None

None

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Restore disc

Restore disc

Restore disc

Restore disc

None

None

None

None

Two-year RTB

Two-year collect and return

Three-year RTB (three-year labour, two-year parts)

One-year RTB

SOFTWARE Operating system Operating system restore option Extras BUYING INFORMATION Parts and labour warranty Price including VAT and delivery

£893

£799

£749

£674

Price excluding monitor (including VAT and delivery)

£733

£650

£630

£596

Supplier Details Part code

96

Arbico 08456 252627

Chillblast 0845 4567830

Dino PC 0844 999 4123

Eclipse Computers 08444 723723

www.arbico.co.uk

www.chillblast.com

www.dinopc.com

www.eclipse-computers.com

ELITE 3575 CS

FUSION DIABLO

VELOCIRAPTOR3450P

DISCOVERY Z77I345R777

WorldMags.net

SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

IVY BRIDGE PCs

BEST BUY

MESH Elite i3570K CS

PALICOMP Alpha Excite

PC SPECIALIST Vanquish Elite 560

WIRED2FIRE Hellspawn Ultima

YOYOTECH Warbird 3570XTI

★★★★★

★★★★★

★★★★★

★★★★★

★★★★★

★★★★★

Intel Core i5-3450

Intel Core i5-3570K

Intel Core i5-3570K

Intel Core i5-3570K

Intel Core i5-3570K

Intel Core i5-3570K

Four

Four

Four

Four

Four

Four

100MHz

100MHz

100MHz

100MHz

100MHz

100MHz

X31

X44

X45

X44

X46

X45

3.1GHz

4.4GHz

4.5GHz

4.4GHz

4.6GHz

4.5GHz

LGA1155

LGA1155

LGA2011

LGA2011

LGA2011

LGA1155

4GB

4GB

8GB

8GB

8GB

8GB

DDR3

DDR3

DDR3

DDR3

DDR3

DDR3

32GB

32GB

32GB

32GB

32GB

32GB

Asus P8Z77-V LX

Asus P8Z77-V LX

Gigabyte Z77-D3H

Asus P8Z77-V LX

Asus P8Z77-V LX

Asus P8Z77-V LX

Intel Z77

Intel Z77

Intel Z77

Intel Z77

Intel Z77

Intel Z77

1W

1W

2W

1W

1W

1W

57W

53W

67W

63W

68W

67W

159W

163W

138W

137W

136W

171W

2/6

2/6

2/8

3/6

2/6

2/6

0/0

0/0

0/0

0/0

0/0

0/0

0/0

0/0

0/0

0/0

0/0

0/0

1x 10/100/1,000

1x 10/100/1,000

1x 10/100/1,000

1x 10/100/1,000

1x 10/100/1,000

1x 10/100/1,000

Midi tower

Midi tower

Midi tower

Midi tower

Midi tower

Midi tower

189x450x410mm

190x483x420mm

410x185x480mm

189x433x465

185x475x408mm

180x470x430mm

3 (3)

3 (3)

2 (2)

3 (3)

3 (3)

3 (3)

2 (1)

2 (1)

3 (2)

2 (1)

2 (1)

2 (1)

2 (1)

2 (1)

2 (1)

2 (1)

2 (1)

2 (1)

6 (3)

6 (4)

6 (4)

6 (4)

6 (3)

6 (3)

4 (3)

4 (3)

4 (0)

4 (2)

4 (2)

4 (2)

4 (2)

6 (5)

7 (6)

8 (5)

7 (5)

4 (2)

4 (3)

4 (3)

4 (1)

4 (3)

4 (3)

4 (3)

Crucial CT128M4SSD2 and Seagate ST1000DM003-9YN162

Corsair Force GT 120GB

Seagate Barracuda (ST2000DL003-9VT166)

Seagate Barracuda (ST1000DM003-9YN162)

OCZ Agility 3 64GB and Samsung HD103SJ

Corsair Force 3 60GB and Seagate ST1000DM003-9YN162

SATA3

SATA3

SATA3

SATA3

SATA3

SATA3

1,144GB

120GB

2,000GB

1,000GB

1,064GB

1,060GB

Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 SE

2GB ATI Radeon HD 7850

2GB ATI Radeon HD 7850

Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti

AMD Radeon HD 7770

Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti

HDMI, DVI, VGA

DVI, HDMI, 2x Mini DisplayPort

DVI, HDMI, 2x Mini DisplayPort

VGA, DVI, HDMI

DVI, HDMI, 2x Mini DisplayPort

2x DVI, 1x mini HDMI

Realtek HD Audio

Realtek HD Audio

VIA HD Audio

Realtek HD Audio

Realtek HD Audio

Realtek HD Audio

7.1 line out, optical S/PDIF out

7.1 line out, optical S/PDIF out

7.1 line out, optical S/PDIF out

7.1 line out, optical S/PDIF out

7.1 line out, optical S/PDIF out

7.1 line out, optical S/PDIF out

None

None

None

None

None

None

None

None

None

SD, SDHC, CF, Memory Stick PRO, MMC, xD

None

None

DVD+/-RW +/-DL

DVD+/-RW +/-DL

BD-ROM + DVD+/-RW +/-DL, DVD+/-RW +/-DL

BD-ROM + DVD+/-RW +/-DL, DVD+/-RW +/-DL

DVD+/-RW +/-DL, DVD-ROM

DVD+/-RW +/-DL

23.6in widescreen LCD

23.6in widescreen LED

24in widescreen LCD

23.6in widescreen LED

24in widescreen LCD

23.6in widescreen LCD

AOC 2436Vwa

Hanns.G HL249

Asus VS247H

AOC E2450SWDA

Asus VS247H

Asus VS247H

1,920x1,080

1,920x1,080

1,920x1,080

1,920x1,080

1,920x1,080

1,920x1,080

VGA, DVI

VGA, DVI

DVI, VGA, HDMI

DVI, VGA

VGA, DVI, HDMI

HDMI, DVI, VGA

Microsoft Wired Keyboard 600

Logitech K120

Cherry KU-0556

Logitech MK250

Keysonic KSH

Microsoft Wired Keyboard 400

Microsoft Wheel Mouse Optical 1.1A

Logitech RX 250

Cherry M-5400

Logitech M210

Gigabyte M5050

Microsoft Wheel Mouse Optical 1.1A

None

None

None

None

None

None

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Restore disc

Restore disc

Restore disc

Restore disc

Restore disc

Restore disc

None

BullGuard Internet Security

AVG Antivirus, OpenOffice

CyberLink Blu-ray suite

None

None

One-year collect and return

Three-year RTB (three-year labour, two-year parts)

Three-year RTB

One-year collect and return, oneyear parts, three-year labour

Two-year parts and labour

One-year RTB

£800

£779

£830

£799

£800

£799

£670

£650

£650

£699

£665

£660 Yoyotech 0871 855 3380

Ginger6 0871 230 7170

Mesh 020 8955 0731

Palicomp 01270 898104

PC Specialist 0844 499 4000

Wired2Fire 0845 388 9051

www.ginger6.com

www.meshcomputers.com

www.palicomp.co.uk

www.pcspecialist.co.uk

www.wired2fire.co.uk

www.yoyotech.co.uk

G6 VISION

ELITE I3570K CS

IVY5

VANQUISH ELITE 560

HELLSPAWN ULTIMA

20167

ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| SEPTEMBER 2012

WorldMags.net

Prices correct at time of going to press

GINGER 6 G6 Vision

97

ONLINE BACKUP SERVICES

ONLINE STORAGE

Back up to perfection Fed up with losing backup tapes? Tired of syncing PCs with a USB drive? Take the tedium out of peace of mind with these 12 services

BACKING UP IMPORTANT files or your entire disk is a task that no-one relishes, and few people enjoy synchronising files among their many PCs with a notepad and USB drive. Wouldn’t it be great if there were online tools to assist you? Luckily, there are, and very few of them are absolutely terrible. This month, we’ve reviewed eight online backup services and four synchronisation services that take the stress and strife out of

CONTENT REVIEWS Page 100

Page 105

DATABARRACKS Buddy Backup

SOS ONLINE BACKUP Home Edition 5.0

Page 103

Page 106

CARBONITE Home

DECHO MozyHome

GOOGLE Drive

LIVEDRIVE Pro Suite

MICROSOFT SkyDrive

Page 104

Page 107

MYPCBACKUP Home/Pro 75GB

TREND MICRO SafeSync

MEMSET SquirrelSave

98

PRO SOFTNET iDrive Pro Personal

SUGARSYNC 30GB

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backing up and synchronising your most important files so that you can easily recover and access them. Some of the services are free and some charge you for specific storage sizes, but all of them are worth a look.

NO WORRIES

We all know that backing up is essential, but how many of us actually do it? It seems there’s always something more pressing or interesting to do. Thankfully, online backup services can put an end to the worry of losing all those precious files. Managing a local backup routine can be a chore that often gets postponed, but online backup is usually a set-and-forget affair. It’s also more secure than local backup. Data is taken off-site, which means you’ll be able to recover it in the event of fire, flood or theft, and now that broadband is so fast and cheap, it’s realistic to back up all your data online. You can also use synchronisation services to make sure the work you want to take home gets there long before you do, letting you access your data wherever you are. Plenty of

SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

ONLINE BACKUP SERVICES

Often, the limiting factor isn’t how much space you have available to you online, but the length of time it takes to upload your data

companies promise fast and secure online backups and synchronisation, but what do you need to know when choosing a service?

SIZING UP YOUR OPTIONS

Obviously, you need to know how much storage you get for your money. This can vary widely, with some providers offering just 20GB of space, while other, similarly priced services provide hundreds of gigabytes or even unlimited storage. However, some companies that offer unlimited storage impose other limits on the amount of data you upload. They might not support external drives or certain file types, for example. Services with fixed-capacity allowances tend to be more relaxed about how you use them, and let you use multiple computers for a single account. Most users have only a couple of gigabytes of important personal files, but you’ll need more space if you want to back up lots of photos, videos or audio files. Often, the limiting factor isn’t how much space you have available to you online, but the length of time it takes to upload data.

TAKING THE BROAD VIEW

Most home broadband connections have an upload speed of between 448Kbit/s and 1.5Mbit/s. It might take around 14 minutes to upload 30MB of data over a basic home ADSL connection, while a Virgin cable connection with an upload speed of 1Mbit/s can manage the same task in around seven minutes. At these speeds, 100GB would take 16 to 32 days ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| SEPTEMBER 2012

of continuous uploads, and much longer if you wanted to switch your PC off at night or if your broadband supplier throttled the connection due to excessive use. There are no performance scores for individual services in this group test because it depends on the speed of your broadband connection, the time of day and various other contributing factors. If you have a lot of data to back up or restore at once, it may be worth choosing a company that lets you post a DVD or hard disk to them instead of shifting gigabytes of data over the internet. There’s an option built into SOS Online Backup’s client interface that makes it easy to burn a backup to DVD and post it to the service, which could be a real time-saver if you want to back up your home movie archive, for example. Its 50GB or 150GB capacity limit means you can’t get too carried away, though. Meanwhile, Mozy will send DVDs or USB drives to you when you need to restore, and Carbonite will do the same at an additional cost. This could prove critical if you need to restore more data than your broadband service’s monthly download allowance will allow, or you simply wish to carry out a full restore without delay. Most services offer throttling, which involves deliberately slowing uploads and downloads to minimise the impact of backups on your other broadband activities. Most let you pause a backup, too. If you have multiple PCs, choose a service that doesn’t restrict you to backups from only one computer. You’ll find this information below each review and in the table on pages 108-109.

THAT SYNCING FEELING

As well as online backups, we’ve also looked at synchronisation services. There’s some blurring of boundaries, however. Some online backup providers, such as Memset’s SquirrelSave, let you back up data from multiple PCs, while a few synchronisation services also have basic backup functions. However, if a service’s key feature is to synchronise data between two or more PCs, we’ve classed it as a synchronisation service. Most synchronisation and backup services will retain old or deleted versions of files. Version retention can be a lifesaver if you’ve accidentally deleted or mangled a section in an important document, whether it’s your financial records or the first draft of your novel. Some services keep only a few versions, such as the last five saved copies. However, as most of us are in the habit of saving frequently, this might not be enough before you notice your mistake. A few services, including SquirrelSave, Dropbox Pro 50 and

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SOS Online Backup, can provide version storage over an unlimited period, which is worth having if you need extra peace of mind. Our table tells you how long each service retains deleted copies, and how it handles version retention.

SHARE AND SHARE ALIKE

Online backup and file-sharing services are closely related, and many of the companies reviewed here provide both in one convenient package. The most limited only let you email links to individual files; others provide a full multimedia browser that lets you not only share entire directories but also incorporate photo galleries or a streaming facility for your audio and video files. Many services also let you access and even upload files directly from your mobile phone or tablet. Our table lists those services that provide online or mobile access to your backups, and you can find more details in the individual reviews. A backup service is no use if you can’t be sure it’s copying new versions of your files as they change. It’s handy if the service you choose provides some form of logging or can email you to confirm that your backup has completed successfully. Most services have some form of logging or email alert; see the table for details.

FREE FOR ALL

Online backup and synchronisation is a highly competitive market that includes dozens of companies, large and small. Because of this, and because of the need to impress prospective customers, many providers offer free as well as paid-for services. You’ll find them listed at the bottom of our table, along with the timelimited trials offered by other providers. You can get free versions of Mozy, iDrive, Dropbox and SugarSync, all of which are fully functional, while Microsoft’s SkyDrive and Google’s Drive are free in the first place. A number of services, including Dropbox, SugarSync and iDrive, even let you earn extra free storage space by referring other users to the service, up to a maximum of 16GB for Dropbox free accounts, 15GB for iDrive and 32GB for free SugarSync accounts. Previous free versions limited backup features, but we’ve found no such restrictions in the latest free software clients. There’s never been a better time to discover online backup services and develop a new backup and synchronisation regimen, especially when so many services are free and come with fully usable storage capacities.

99

ONLINE BACKUP SERVICES

CARBONITE Home ★★★★★

£42 inc VAT per year • From www.carbonite.co.uk

VERDICT

It’s great if you need a simple online backup service for one PC, but it doesn’t provide many extra features beyond mobile access CARBONITE, ONE OF the most established online backup providers, gives you unlimited backup storage for £42 per year. There’s no monthly plan and you can only associate one PC with the account, so you need multiple accounts if you have multiple computers. When you install the application, you’re asked to name your PC. You can then either let Carbonite automatically select the files it thinks you want to back up (typically, the contents of your desktop, document and media directories) and then define its own backup schedule, or set it up yourself. You can start with Carbonite’s default folders and edit its selections or start with nothing selected and manually add files later. You’re also given the option of creating a backup schedule. The default option instructs Carbonite to update your online backup automatically every time it detects a change to your backed-up folders, but you can also back up once a day or halt monitoring and backups during certain hours. Finally, you’ll be prompted to set up an encryption key. By default, Carbonite manages your key, but you can also set your own key. If you create your own key, you’ll be entirely

responsible for safeguarding it, you won’t be able to retrieve your data if you forget it, and you won’t be able to access services such as Carbonite’s mobile applications and optional Courier Recovery service. With that done, Carbonite completes its configuration and opens its main InfoCenter interface, through which you can adjust its settings and restore backup files, but you don’t use it to select folders or files you want to back up. Instead, Carbonite adds an option to Windows Explorer’s right-click menu. Carbonite’s standard configuration means that some file types won’t be backed up, including video files, executables and anything over 4GB in size. You can’t change this file exclusion list, but you can select such files directly and add them to your backups. More expensive Carbonite plans have automatic backup functions that include default video backups and the ability to add a single, locally attached external drive to your backups. The easiest way of retrieving a single file or folder is to browse your backups using the Carbonite Backup Drive, accessible from the ‘Browse your backup’ option in the InfoCenter software. This replicates your PC’s directory

structure, and lets you restore them to their original location or a new directory through a right-click menu option. You can also search for files by name and restore all your files at once. Although a standard Carbonite Home subscription lets you back up only one computer, you can also restore your files to a new PC, which makes it easy to get your data back if your original PC stops working. It also has multiple data centres that use 1,024-bit Blowfish encryption to keep your precious files safe. If you require a long-term online backup plan, you can get a two-year plan for £76 and a three-year plan for £102. This makes Carbonite a good-value choice. Unlike many of its rivals, Carbonite hasn’t adopted any synchronisation or file-sharing features. This is a straight backup service for one PC only. There are mobile apps for iOS, Android and BlackBerry devices that let you access your files and listen to your stored music, however. With unlimited storage, an easy-to-use backup and restoration interface and its low price, Carbonite’s a great option, although we prefer SquirrelSave’s unlimited plan, which can be used with multiple PCs.

DATABARRACKS Buddy Backup ★★★★★

Free • From www.buddybackup.com

VERDICT

This free, easy-to-use service turns your network of friends and contacts into a secure off-site backup resource MOST ONLINE BACKUP and synchronisation services provide you with a certain amount of online storage on their own servers, but Buddy Backup lets you store data on your friends’, family and colleagues’ computers instead. However, they can’t look at your precious (or incriminating) data because the information is encrypted before it’s sent to their computer – just be aware that they can also store their data on your PC. If you’d rather not get your friends involved, you can simply set up an account for several of your own computers, such as your work and home PCs, for example. Although each computer must have its own account, you can have multiple accounts associated with the same email address. Each requires a unique username, however. You can then select the files and folders you wish to back up. An icon is then placed in

100

your Notification Area that tells you if your files have been backed up or if they still need to be securely stored. An option is also added to Windows Explorer’s right-click menu that lets you easily select any file or directory to be added to your backup. Before you can secure your data, you have to add a buddy. All you need to do is enter their email address, and they’ll be sent an invitation either to join Buddy Backup or, if they’re already a member, let you back up to their PC. The client software shows you the status of your backups and lets you change the amount of space you share with your buddies. Other options let you chat with your buddies and restore backed-up files or folders to the location of your choice. Buddy Backup stores every altered version of all the files you’ve backed up by default, but an option in the client’s Tools menu lets

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you remove versions older than a specified number of days. Backups are made in real time as you change files, or when your buddies’ computers come online if no backup target is online. You can also use Buddy Backup to back up your data locally to an external hard disk or network share. You can also recover an unlimited number of deleted files, as well as an unlimited number of previous file versions, making it a safe storage option. Although Buddy Backup lacks features such as web access and synchronisation, it’s free and – assuming you have even slightly reliable friends or your own PCs in multiple places – it provides you with convenient offsite backups. Combine it with a free syncing service such as Google Drive, and you have a powerful, convenient and entirely free data storage and sharing setup.

SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

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ONLINE BACKUP SERVICES

DECHO MozyHome ★★★★★

£4.99 inc VAT per month • From www.mozy.co.uk

VERDICT

As far as online backup goes, this is a good choice, but it isn’t the best-value option around MOZY SELECTS A few common directories to back up and defaults to its own key using secure 448-bit Blowfish encryption. You can also configure it to use your own key, but you won’t be able to restore your files if you lose it. If you don’t want to back up all the suggested files and directories, you can change them in the Settings menu, which takes you straight to the MozyHome client. Once there, you can select from default backup sets such as music, photos and documents, edit them, and create your own. If you opt to do the latter, a neatly designed file browser appears, from which you can select directories and view files. You can back up anything on your local PC, but network and external storage drives aren’t accessible. Other options in the MozyHome client let it warn you if you exceed your backup quota, set backups to be carried out automatically when your PC is idle or on a fixed schedule, restrict bandwidth to prevent your backups monopolising your internet connection and

even create a local backup location on a connected hard disk or network share. You can view the progress of the backup in the status window. An icon in the Notification Area provides quick access to backup settings, a tool to search files you’ve backed up and a link to your online storage. You also access the file restoration interface here. A browser makes it easy to search for backups by version, select files and restore them. Mozy’s website lets you browse and restore files directly via a hierarchical sequence of directories. You can also browse them by backup set. Mozy lets you sort by type, date and version, but it can’t open them. It has no audio player or photo viewer. The latest addition to Mozy’s service is a synchronisation folder called Stash. This shares space with your MozyHome backups, but you have to install it separately, which is a tad annoying. However, it does mean you can install Stash on as many computers as you like without having to configure the online

backup part of Mozy’s service on each. Stash creates a folder, the contents of which are automatically mirrored with both your online storage and any other PCs on which you’ve installed Stash. If you use Mozy backup, you’ll also notice a MozyHome folder that appears under your Computer folder. This lets you browse your backed-up files. Mozy’s free plan provides 2GB of backup space. The £4.99-per-month account we reviewed offers 50GB of storage for a single computer. If you need more space, you can get a 125GB plan, which can handle three computers for £7.99. Beyond that, each additional PC costs £1.75 per month, as does an additional 20GB of space. Mozy’s backup client is effective and easy to use, although its web interface is rather clunky. The addition of the Stash sync folder provides further functionality missing from many rivals. If you need a pure backup service, though, Mozy’s 50GB of storage isn’t as good a deal as SquirrelSave’s unlimited plan.

LIVEDRIVE Pro Suite ★★★★★

£15 inc VAT per month • From www.livedrive.com

VERDICT

Livedrive’s combined backup and sync service is expensive, but it provides an immense amount of storage space LIVEDRIVE IS ONE of our long-standing favourites when it comes to online backup, with its unlimited storage and, unusually, the ability to back up content from network shares as well as local drives. The former is really useful if you have a NAS device or shared folders and want to make a secure backup of your networked data. We found the software very easy to set up thanks to a simple wizard. Initially, you’re prompted to name the PC you’re backing up and select a few folders from a list, such as your documents, videos, Outlook contacts and Firefox bookmarks. You can set up your PC with a Livedrive Briefcase folder, the contents of which are automatically synced between every PC on which you’ve set it up. You’re asked to select the hard disk partitions on which you wish to store the local copy of files. An advanced menu lets you choose between automatically downloading all files to every briefcase, automatically downloading files of a certain size only, or only pulling down Briefcase files when they’re accessed locally. Unlike many ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| SEPTEMBER 2012

synchronisation services’ shared folders, Livedrive maps its briefcase to a drive letter. You select directories to back up from the file system browser. You can switch between a scheduled backup mode, which scans your files for changes once an hour, and real-time backup mode, which uploads modified files instantly. The same screen lets you add file type exceptions that won’t be backed up. Only .log files are exempt by default. The web interface is clean and business-like, if a little less approachable than SugarSync’s. A web-based audio player lets you browse, cue and stream audio files, although it didn’t recognise our Ogg and FLAC test files. There are also integrated image viewing, editing and slideshow utilities, and tools that let you view the contents of Microsoft Word and Excel files. You can also share files in your Livedrive Briefcase with others, either making them accessible to anyone who has the link or requiring a password to access them. It’s less obvious how to restore files once you’ve backed them up. You can’t directly

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restore backup folders from the web interface, and the backup utility is just that: a backup utility. Instead, you have to download Livedrive Restore. It isn’t very well signposted on the website, but restoring individual files or entire directories is simple once it’s installed. We’re not sure why it isn’t part of the main Livedrive client application. Livedrive Pro Suite lets you back up and synchronise up to five computers, and has Android and iOS apps. You get unlimited backup space and 5TB of sync space, but its many functions come at a cost: it costs £15 a month or £150 per year, making it one of the most expensive online storage services around. It’s worth noting that if you don’t need synchronisation, Livedrive’s backup-only service still provides unlimited space and costs just £4.95 per month, although you can use it on only one PC. If you work with large amounts of data, however, and require secure storage and synchronisation, Livedrive Pro Suite gives you all the space you’ll ever need, earning it our Ultimate award.

103

ONLINE BACKUP SERVICES

MEMSET SquirrelSave ★★★★★

£5.05 inc VAT per month • From www.squirrelsave.co.uk

VERDICT

Unlimited storage, a low monthly price and support for multiple computers all make this our favourite backup service MEMSET’S SQUIRRELSAVE IS a simple online backup service that doesn’t have the web-based sharing and synchronisation features of many of its rivals, but it does have a cute logo. It provides unlimited storage for just £5.05 per month, making it a bargain. By default, SquirrelSave backs up all the non-system files in the Windows User directory, but that can be changed during setup or via the Windows Explorer right-click menu at a later time. You can also exclude specific files or folders, but we’d have liked to exclude files by type or extension, too. That, however, is a minor omission from an otherwise excellent system. Its interface displays lots of useful information and includes a handy pause button and the ability to throttle the maximum bandwidth. The default schedule for new files is every eight hours, but backups of changed files are made continuously. Sadly, the ability to recover old versions of files is a little complex. Instead of keeping all

versions, it keeps one from six hours, 12 hours, and then one day, two days and so on, on a doubling time scale. It’s a clever system that provides ample scope for recovery without filling Memset’s servers with pointless multiple copies. Deleted files are recoverable for 32 days and all files included in the firstever backup are kept forever. This is a sensible system that we’re glad to see is provided, considering it’s such an inexpensive service. Unfortunately, SquirrelSave is limited in other areas. It won’t back up external drives or network locations, and there’s no web access to files, let alone any way of sharing them with others. Using the service with multiple PCs is a bit complicated, too. Although the service is sold as only for use with one computer, SquirrelSave’s own FAQ tells you how to use it with multiple systems. To do so, you must make sure that the path you’re backing up on each PC is unique. You could, for example, back up C:\Users\Kat on one computer and C:\Users\Dave on

another, but you couldn’t have a path with the same name backed up on both. SquirrelSave isn’t available on longer and lower-cost packages. Whereas other services may reduce the cost if you buy two or more years, SquirrelSave is only available for £5.05 per month, or £61 per year. However, this is still a bit of a bargain. There’s no skimping on safety measures, either, because SquirrelSave uses multiple data centres and 256-bit AES encryption to keep your important business files or treasured family documents safe. Because of its unlimited storage, its ability to handle backups from multiple PCs and its retention of old versions of files, SquirrelSave is an excellent choice if you simply want to back up loads of data. Livedrive Pro Suite is more flexible, particularly when accessing and sharing content online, but it’s significantly more expensive. SquirrelSave is the best backup service around if you don’t need synchronisation.

MYPCBACKUP Home/Pro 75GB ★★★★★

£6.95 inc VAT per month • From www.mypcbackup.com

VERDICT

It’s a decent backup service, but its pricing structure and features are unnecessarily complicated MYPCBACKUP PROVIDES ONLINE backup, storage and sharing, along with optional synchronisation, mobile access, seven days’ version retention and unlimited retention of deleted files. When you log in to the website for the first time, you’re prompted to download the desktop client. Irritatingly, a video presentation starts telling you how to install the program shortly after you start downloading it, but it’s easily muted. The installer suggests you back up your pictures, documents and desktop folders, but it also gives you the option of selecting folders to back up and provides you with a file browser to help you navigate the contents of your hard disk. You can back up directories from your hard disk and external storage, such as USB disks, but not mapped network shares. MyPCBackup has a wealth of additional bolt-on features, but many of them are surprisingly expensive. The company is offering 20 per cent off until the end of 2012, but the premium features still seem expensive, even at this discounted rate, particularly when

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compared with similar services that are often included for free by other backup providers. You can buy a ‘supercharged backups’ option, for example, which offers faster backup speeds for an extra £24. We tested a standard account, so had no access to these special features, but that didn’t seem to affect the performance of our backups. Other bolt-ons include extra synchronisation space, priority support, unlimited version retention, the option of scheduling hourly rather than daily backups and licences for additional PCs at £40 each. Sadly, MyPCBackup doesn’t provide a facility to transfer your existing licence from one computer to another without contacting its support team to do it for you. MyPCBackup has a comprehensive range of settings that enable you to optimise your backups. Most users will want to increase the file size limit from the default 2MB to something a little more flexible. You can set a maximum size of 5GB, which is enough for all but the largest video clips. You may want to

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modify the service’s file type blacklist, too, which prevents you backing up a huge range of multimedia files, including MP3 audio files, AVI videos and EXE files by default. MyPCBackup is available in various versions. The free version provides 5GB of backup and synchronisation space, and paid-for accounts are available in 75GB, 250GB and Unlimited versions. We tested the 75GB option, which costs £6.95 per month or £59 per year. Should you need more storage, you can buy 250GB of space for £7.95 per month or £71 per year, while a two-year plan costs £119. The Unlimited plan costs £9.95 per month or £95 per year. The two-year Unlimited plan costs £167. Unfortunately, the service as a whole is let down by a confusing system of upgrades and feature restrictions. We prefer Memset’s SquirrelSave, which is cheaper, gives you unlimited storage space and lets you back up multiple computers. If you need online access to your files, Pro Softnet’s iDrive costs less and has a much clearer pricing structure.

SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

ONLINE BACKUP SERVICES

PRO SOFTNET iDrive Pro Personal ★★★★★

£3.24 inc VAT per month • From www.idrive.com

VERDICT

This long-standing favourite continues to prove its worth as one of the best online backup services IDRIVE USUALLY DOES well in our tests, thanks to its user-friendly and reasonably priced service. Unlike many of its rivals, iDrive lets you back up files from any number of PCs, Macs, iOS and Android devices. Space is limited, but 150GB for a little over £3 per month will be enough for most people. Once you’ve registered for an account – either the free 5GB version or a paid-for account – you need to configure its encryption. iDrive can either generate a key itself, which it will then manage and use automatically, or you can set your own. The latter option means you won’t be able to share files with others or retrieve your data if you forget your key phrase. With that done, all that’s left to do is download the desktop application so you can set up your backups. Like most online backup services, iDrive also lets you create folders and upload content directly via the web interface, which you can also use to share your uploaded files with others. You can share folders, files and

groups of files, adding passwords, expiration dates and download limits. You can also let your sharing associates upload or edit shared content. The web interface is functional, but it’s not very pretty and lacks the advanced features of some of its rivals, although there is an image gallery that lets you easily view and share your photo collection. The web interface may be limited, but the meat of iDrive is in its desktop backup utility. Once installed, a pop-up lets you edit the folders that are to be backed up and set up a backup schedule. Sadly, the pop-up disappears as soon as you select any of the options, leaving you face to face with a rather cluttered interface. We’d have preferred a friendly step-by-step setup wizard. The main interface gives you side-by-side panes showing tree views of your local hard disk and remote storage. Below, it lists the directories included in your backup set. Your Documents, Desktop, Pictures, Music and Video folders are all included by default, but

you may want to deselect these if, for example, you have a lot of media in your video folder. Below are buttons that let you immediately back up the selected folders, set a backup schedule or restore selected content from your online backup drive to the location of your choice on your local PC. When a backup is running, you’re presented with a progress bar and options for pausing and throttling the backup in order to free bandwidth for other purposes. Should you need more space in which to store your important files or precious family photos and memoirs, you can pay an extra $15 (around £9.60) per month or $150 (around £96) per year for 500GB. iDrive has better features for online content sharing than the Best Buy awardwinning SquirrelSave, and it’s very reasonably priced. Its 150GB of storage is plenty for most users, but those with large amounts of data to back up should check out SquirrelSave’s unlimited service instead.

SOS ONLINE BACKUP Home Edition 5.0 ★★★★★

£52 inc VAT per year • From www.sosonlinebackup.com

VERDICT

Needs a more polished web interface for navigating stored files, but the basic service is reliable and feature-packed WHILE MANY ONLINE backup providers see little need to add bells and whistles to what is fundamentally a simple service, others offers smart features such as synchronisation, file sharing and support for a wide range of devices. SOS Online Backup Home Edition 5.0 is packed with genuinely useful extras. The Windows backup client has been revamped and it also has clients for Mac OS X, iOS and Android, as well as a Facebook app and extra Windows utilities. After installation, the core backup utility can scan your hard disk to help you choose appropriate files to be backed up. By default, it offers to store all document, image, music and video files, but you can select specific files and folders, include or exclude a custom list of file types and deselect any particular category of files. Once your files have been selected, you can configure backup schedules at hourly, daily, weekly or monthly intervals at the time of your choice. You can choose to receive email reports once your scheduled backup has been completed. You can also use the ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| SEPTEMBER 2012

SOS client to store backups on your local network, PC or a connected external storage device. These are easy to set up, and you can make either full or incremental backups. However, this part of the client feels less polished than the online backup features. The SOS client also lets you restore your online and local backups. You can locate them using the date, size or filename, or a combination of the three. Content backed up online is shown within a directory tree, with separate trees for each PC from which the backup is taken. It can be restored to the local directory of your choice. You access your stored files via the SOS web interface, which doesn’t look as polished as some rivals but is easy to use. You can search through them by type or name, download them, share them with others via email or Facebook and even view some files. This means you can preview Excel spreadsheets and Word documents and also play some music and video files via your browser, but SOS has limited format support and lacks a

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browser-based music player such as those you’ll find in SugarSync and Livedrive. SOS retains every backed-up version of each file, so there’s no chance of losing the iteration you need. It lets you back up from as many computers or compatible mobile devices as you like, as well as content from network shares and external drives, so the only limit is the amount of space you have left in your account. Prices start at $80 (around £52) for 50GB storage for one year, with discounts for multi-year subscriptions. You can get 50GB of storage space for $156 (£99) for three years. You can also get more space, but there’s currently no pay-monthly option. SOS is a good backup service with a decent range of features, but £52 per year for 50GB isn’t as competitive as SquirrelSave’s massive unlimited storage. Its ability to play and preview files via the web interface is great, but we were less impressed when navigating through our stored directories. iDrive remains our favourite option for online backup with web access functions.

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ONLINE BACKUP SERVICES

GOOGLE Drive ★★★★★

Free • From http://drive.google.com

VERDICT

Expanding its scope from Docs to general online storage and synchronisation has made Google the best free sync service IT’S BEEN POSSIBLE to store, share and create a wide range of files via Google Docs for ages, but Google Drive takes the service to the next level by providing a downloadable synchronisation client that you can install on Windows and Mac OS X. There are also Android and iOS apps that let you create, access and upload content. Drive replaces your existing Docs web interface with its own. It’s virtually identical and behaves in much the same way as Google Docs, but it makes a few key changes. The main difference is that your files and documents are divided between My Drive, which contains files you created, and Shared With Me, which holds the files to which others have granted you access. Files in Shared With Me are sorted by the date on which they were shared rather than when they were edited, but the Recent tab makes it easy to see which files have recently been changed. All you need to do is drag the files on which you’re working to the My Drive tab and they will appear among your own files when you access your Drive online and

synchronise them to the Google Drive folder on any computer on which you’ve installed it. When you download and install the Drive software, it creates your synchronisation folder. By default, all the files you’ve ever created or uploaded to Google Docs will be downloaded to it automatically. If you prefer, you can choose only to synchronise files stored in specific folders on Google Docs. When your Google Docs have been synchronised, you can edit them offline so they will be updated when you next connect to the internet, which is an incredibly useful additional benefit for regular users of Google Docs. Because Drive is built on top of Google Docs, you get significantly more features when editing and viewing your files than you’ll find in most synchronisation services. This applies to office documents such as word processor files, spreadsheets and slide presentations especially. You can preview Microsoft Word and Excel files, but you have to export them in the Google Docs format to edit them. Oddly, RTF files can’t be previewed,

but can be exported. Google Docs files you create aren’t automatically synchronised with your local Google Drive directories, but you can download them to your computer in the format of your choice or make them available for offline viewing using the Docs Offline app for Chrome browsers. You can also view images, but we were disappointed to find they aren’t automatically opened using the Google+ slideshow interface. There’s also no facility to stream audio or video files, which rival services such as SugarSync and Livedrive provide. Google Drive is free to use and you get 5GB of space, which is also shared with your online photo storage. This alone makes it worth using, especially when you consider Google’s convenience and ubiquity. Google Drive is definitely among the best of the free synchronisation services, despite its lack of music streaming, but if you require greater multimedia support then SugarSync’s more established service is a better bet, while Livedrive is the best option for those who need both synchronisation and backup.

MICROSOFT SkyDrive ★★★★★

Free • From www.skydrive.com

VERDICT

Its free service isn’t as good as Google Drive, but its capacity upgrades are great value MICROSOFT’S INVOLVEMENT WITH online backup and synchronisation has always seemed rather half-hearted. Although we appreciated the 5GB storage provided by previous versions of SkyDrive, its limited features and lack of upgradability meant it was never a serious contender against rivals such as SugarSync and Livedrive. Although the old Live Mesh and SkyDrive service is still online, Microsoft has relaunched the latter with more space, many more features and the option of buying extra capacity. The most immediate improvement is that SkyDrive’s online storage has gone from being a simple dumb file list to a Google Docs-style affair that lets you create, share and edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint files online. The tools you’re given feel like a cut-down version of Office 2010, although some key features are conspicuous by their absence: the Excel WebApp lacks the ability to sort data, for example.

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You can also view and edit Office documents that you upload, but we had to wait a couple of minutes for the WebApp to open some of our more complicated and graph-heavy Excel documents. All the elements appeared exactly as we’d created them, which isn’t always the case when working with Google Docs. It’s worth noting that some common document formats, including RTF, aren’t supported for viewing or editing; files in these formats are simply downloaded to your PC if you click on them. SkyDrive creates a special folder that synchronises anything you save or copy in to it with your SkyDrive online storage. This content is also synchronised with any other PC on which you’ve installed SkyDrive. SkyDrive also provides a photo gallery, which you can use to share your favourite snaps with friends and family. There’s no audio player, but the service has a great range of features and is also supported by

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mobile apps for iOS and Windows Phone. Android users can access content stored on SkyDrive using OneNote. Although its features are cutting-edge, SkyDrive’s appearance isn’t. Its small icons and cluttered screen make it feel slightly dated, but we like its versatile right-click menu, which makes it easy to download, share and even generate HTML code to embed your content in another web page. Every SkyDrive user gets 7GB of online storage for free, and if you used the previous version of SkyDrive you can currently get a free upgrade to 25GB of storage. If you need more, you can buy it relatively cheaply. An extra 20GB costs £6 a year, 50GB costs £16 per year and 100GB is £32 per year. You can’t pay monthly for packages, but even the 100GB bundle, which adds up to 107GB if you add it to the standard free space you’re given, works out at just £1.34 per month. That’s a bargain by any standard.

SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

Want to use SugarSync?

Full guide on page 138

ONLINE BACKUP SERVICES

SUGARSYNC 30GB ★★★★★

£3.29 inc VAT per month • From www.sugarsync.com

VERDICT

Our favourite synchronisation service thanks to its great value and outstanding web and local interfaces SUGARSYNC IS ONE of our favourite synchronisation services thanks to its competitive pricing, ease of use and featurepacked web interface. The core feature is the Magic Briefcase, a folder on your computer that automatically duplicates any files within it on the service’s online storage and the PCs on which you’ve installed the application. There’s support for most smartphones and tablets, including Android, iOS, BlackBerry, Windows Phone and even Symbian devices. You can also use SugarSync as a rudimentary online backup service by adding folders to be synchronised. You can do this with any folder, and a right-click menu option that SugarSync adds to Windows Explorer makes it particularly easy. You can’t schedule or pause backups, though; everything is backed up in real time, and entire partitions or external storage can’t be included. When you install the SugarSync client on a new PC, it offers to synchronise a few common folders with your online storage, including the Desktop, Pictures and Music. There’s also an Add More Folders button that

provides access to the rest of the hard disk. Although any folder from a local (rather than network or removable) drive can be added, individual files can’t be selected in this way. Backups are sent to SugarSync’s online storage, but not copied to other PCs. Only the Magic Briefcase folder is automatically synchronised, but the Sync Manager control panel lets you easily change a backed-up folder so that it’s also a synchronised folder. You can even do this to backed-up folders located on computers other than the one you’re currently using. Similarly, backed-up files can be restored to any PC. Unlike Trend Micro’s SafeSync (below), which lets you add files directly from Windows Explorer’s right-click menu, SugarSync’s right-click option opens the service’s software interface. The main window shows all the folders currently being backed up from all the PCs linked to your account. It also displays your Magic Briefcase. Files and folders can be shared with other people, and it’s even possible to let them add and edit content if they have a SugarSync account.

Photos, including those uploaded using SugarSync’s mobile apps, are automatically added to a photo browser. You can let others access and share them on Facebook. If you delete a file, it’s kept online indefinitely in the Deleted Files folder, but if you accidentally save over a file, you can only go back five versions. This isn’t ideal, especially if your software auto-saves. Like Dropbox, SugarSync gives you extra storage when you successfully refer new users. Specifically, it gives you 500MB per user, with no cap. The free version of SugarSync gives you 5GB of storage (plus as much referral space as you can get). It’s fully functional, but we reviewed the 30GB bundle, which costs around £3.26 per month. That’s about 10.9p per GB, making it the cheapest of the commercial synchronisation services we’ve reviewed. Higher-capacity accounts are also available, and are progressively better value. As well as being great value, SugarSync has the slickest interface, with fantastic features and great looks, making it a worthy Best Buy award winner.

TREND MICRO SafeSync ★★★★★

£6 inc VAT per month • From www.trendmicro.co.uk

VERDICT

SafeSync’s easy to use and has some great features such as music streaming, but other services are better value TREND MICRO’S SAFESYNC has been updated since it won five stars in Shopper 284. There’s a new interface, which is a welcome improvement to the slightly dated appearance of the last version. Other new and updated features include the SafeSync folder – a directory that’s automatically synchronised with your cloud storage and the SafeSync folders on your other PCs – plus the ability to configure other folders to be synchronised, and upgrades to Trend Micro’s data centres and encryption standards. Although SafeSync has some backupfriendly features, the emphasis in this product is on synchronisation. You have to register with Trend Micro’s website before you can install the program, which allows it to configure itself cleverly and automatically to use your account. This means there’s no real initial configuration; you simply run the installer, read a couple of information screens about the SafeSync folder and ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| SEPTEMBER 2012

the program’s free mobile apps, and the SafeSync folder is then opened. If you want to configure or examine your settings, you’ll have to use the right-click menu on SafeSync’s Notification Area icon. The settings menu shows you how much storage you’ve used, allows you to add extra folders to be synchronised and lets you set speed limits to control how much bandwidth SafeSync takes up. You can also add any folder to SafeSync via an option that’s added to Window Explorer’s right-click menu. All your SafeSync folders are automatically copied to your online storage space, where you can download individual files, open them using a program on your PC or play a stream of the audio files in a given online folder. Our MP3 and Ogg files both played directly from the web interface, but our test FLAC file wouldn’t play, even though it appeared in the audio player interface. There’s also a click-and-drag upload box to make it easy

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to add new files via the web. You can also share links to files and protect them using either an expiry date or a password. Should you need more storage space in which to synchronise your business files, family photos or media collection, £100 buys you 50GB of storage for two years, while 100GB will set you back £10 per month, £100 for a year or £150 for two years. Unlike most synchronisation services, SafeSync hangs on to unlimited versions of your files, and deleted files are stored online until you manually remove them. There are mobile apps for Android and iOS, and you can post photos and documents directly to Facebook and Twitter. It’s easy to use and fairly cheap. For example, £6 per month gets you 50GB of space, which works out at 12p per GB. However, SugarSync’s most basic package is both cheaper and better value, while its web interface and local client are also a little more polished.

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ONLINE BACKUP SERVICES

BUDGET BUY

ULTIMATE BUY

BEST BUY

ONLINE BACKUP SERVICES

Rating

CARBONITE Home

DATA BARRACKS Buddy Backup

DECHO MozyHome

LIVEDRIVE Pro Suite

MEMSET SquirrelSave

MYPC BACKUP Home/Pro 75GB

★★★★★

★★★★★

★★★★★

★★★★★

★★★★★

★★★★★

Price inc VAT per month

N/A

Free

£4.99

£15

£5.05

£6.95

Price inc VAT per year

£42

Free

£55

£150

£61

£59

Windows XP/Vista/7

Windows XP/Vista/7, Mac OS X 10.4+

Windows XP/Vista/7, Mac OS X 10.6+, other operating systems with FTP, SFTP or WebDAV

Windows XP/Vista/7

Windows XP/Vista/7, Mac OS X

ACCOUNT SPECIFICATIONS Operating system support

Storage space

Windows XP/Vista/7

Unlimited

Unlimited

50GB

Unlimited backup, 5TB sync

Unlimited

75GB

1

Unlimited

1

5

Unlimited (with unique paths)

1

Folder & file restrictions

Operating system files, video files must be selected manually (upgrade available)

None

None

None

None

5GB maximum file size limit

Other price plans

£42 for one year, £76 for two years, £102 for three years

None

125GB, £7.99 per month; each additional PC, £1.75 per month; each additional 20GB, £1.75 per month

Backup, £4.95 per month/£50 per year; Briefcase, £9.95 per month/£100 per year

None

Premium 250GB, £7.95 per month/£71 per year/£119 per two years; Unlimited, £9.95 per month/£95 per year/£167 per two years

Multiple data centres

N/A

Multiple data centres

Multiple data centres

Multiple data centres

Amazon S3

1,024-bit Blowfish

SSL, 256-bit AES

256-bit AES or 448-bit Blowfish

256-bit AES

256-bit AES

SSL, 256-bit AES

Continuous, daily, weekly

Continuous

Continuous, daily, weekly, monthly

Continuous

Automatic, every 1-24 hours

Daily, weekly, monthly Pause

Number of computers

BACKUP Redundancy/data centres Encryption Schedule options

Pause, throttle

Pause

Pause, throttle

Pause, throttle

Pause, throttle

Back up open files

Pause/throttle

No

Not disclosed

Yes

Yes

Yes

Not disclosed

Back up entire disk partitions

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

No (upgrade available)

Yes

Fixed local drives only (eSATA, USB)

Yes

No

Fixed local drives only (eSATA, USB)

No

Yes

Yes, but not network shares

No

No

No

No (upgrade available)

N/A

No

No

No

No

Recover previous versions of files

30 days

Unlimited

30 days

30 versions

Unlimited

Seven days

Recover deleted files

30 days

Unlimited

30 days

30 days

32 days; initial backup kept permanently

Unlimited

Restore from DVD/USB drive sent in the post

No (upgrade available)

N/A

Yes

No

No

No

Web access to backups

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

No (upgrade available)

No

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Back up external disks Save backups to local media Send backups by post RESTORE

Share selected backup contents Media browser Mobile device support

None

None

Photos

Photos, music

None

None

Android, BlackBerry, iOS

No

Android, iOS

Android, iOS

None

Mobile site

15-day trial

Free

2GB free account

14-day trial

None

1GB free account

www.carbonite.co.uk

www.buddybackup.com

www.mozy.co.uk

www.livedrive.com

www.squirrelsave.co.uk

www.mypcbackup.com

BUYING INFORMATION Demo available Contact website

How we test Online backup and synchronisation services The key to testing any service is to use it in as realistic a way as possible. We start by letting each program set up backups using its default configuration to find out which files they recommend we protect. We also test the ability of each program to back up an entire drive and content from external disks and network shares. Our backups include a range of file types, from JPEG pictures and MP3 audio to CD ISO images,

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which is how we confirm the format support lists provided by each service. We test the web interfaces, including picture gallery and media-streaming capabilities, as well as the ability to share files and download backups to other computers. In the case of backup services that have dedicated mobile sites or apps, we test their functionality using compatible handsets.

WorldMags.net

SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

ONLINE BACKUP SERVICES

BUDGET BUY

BEST BUY

PRO SOFTNET iDrive Pro Personal Use

SOS ONLINE BACKUP Home Edition 5.0

GOOGLE Drive

MICROSOFT SkyDrive

SUGARSYNC Sugarsync 30GB

TREND MICRO SafeSync

★★★★★

★★★★★

★★★★★

★★★★★

★★★★★

★★★★★

$4.95 (£3.24)

N/A

Free

Free

$4.99 (£3.29)

£6

$50 (£33)

$80 (£52)

Free

Free

$50 (£33)

£60

Windows XP/Vista/7, Mac OS X

Windows XP/Vista/7, Mac OS X

Windows XP/Vista/7, Mac OS 10.6+

Windows XP/Vista/7, Mac OS X 10.5+

Windows XP/Vista/7, Mac OS X

Windows XP/Vista/7, Mac OS X 10.5.8+

150GB

50GB

5GB

7GB

30GB

50GB

Unlimited

5

Unlimited

Unlimited

Unlimited

Unlimited

Continuous protection of files under 500MB

None

Only syncs Google Drive folder

Only syncs SkyDrive folder

None

Windows system files

500GB, $15 per month/$150 per year

50GB, $130 per two years/$156 per three years; 100GB, $100 per year/$150 per two years/$200 per three years; 150GB, $150 per year/$200 per two years/$250 per three years

25GB, $2.49 per month; 100GB, $4.99 per month; 200GB, $10 per month; 400GB, $20 per month; 1TB, $50 per month; larger packages available

20GB, $10 (around £6) per year; 50GB, $25 (around £16) per year; 100GB, $50 (around £32) per year

60GB, $10 per month/£100 per year; 100GB $15 per month/ $150 per year; 250GB, $25 per month/$250 per year; 500GB, $40 per month/$400 per year

20GB, £25 per year/£40 per two years; 50GB, £100 for two years; 100GB, £10 per month/£100 per year/£150 per two years

Multiple data centres

Secure data centre with off-site redundant array

Not disclosed

Not disclosed

Amazon S3

EU Data Centre with ISO 27001 Certification

SSL, 256-bit AES

SSL, 256-bit AES, 1,024-bit AES at the data centre

SSL, no storage encryption

TLS, SSL, 128-bit AES

SSL, 128-bit AES

256-bit AES

Continuous, daily, weekly, monthly

Hourly, daily, weekly, monthly

None

None

Automatic

None

Pause, throttle

Pause, throttle

No

No

Throttle

Throttle

Yes

Yes, with exceptions

No

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

Yes, except system drive

No

Yes

No

No

No

Yes

No

Yes

No

No

No

No

30 versions

Unlimited

100 versions for 30 days by default, optional permanent storage of all versions

None

Five versions

Unlimited

30 days

Unlimited

Deleted files are stored online permanently until deleted

No

Deleted files are stored online permanently until deleted

Deleted files are stored online permanently until deleted

No

No

No

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

None

Photos, music, videos

Documents

Documents, photos

Photos, music

Photos, music

Android, iOS

Android, iOS

Android 2.2+, mobile site

Android (via Microsoft OneNote), iOS, Windows Phone, mobile site

Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Symbian, Windows Phone, mobile site

Android 2.2+, iOS 3.1.3+

5GB free account

14-day free trial

5GB free account

Free

5GB free account, 30-day trial

30-day trial

www.idrive.com

www.sosonlinebackup.com

https://drive.google.com

www.skydrive.com

www.sugarsync.com

www.trendmicro. co.uk

Prices correct at time of going to press

SYNCHRONISATION SERVICES

VERDICT For pure synchronisation, SugarSync holds its crown as our Best Buy, thanks to its low price and feature-packed web interface. Google’s free 5GB Drive is a brilliant addition to the company’s already vast range of online tools and wins our Budget Buy. If you don’t have cash to spare, Databarracks’ free Buddy Backup service lets you back up encrypted content to your friends’ and family’s computers securely, as well as remote PCs of your own.

DATABARRACKS Buddy Backup ★★★★★

ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

MEMSET SquirrelSave ★★★★★

| SEPTEMBER 2012

It’s our Budget Buy. If you don’t mind paying, Memset’s unlimitedcapacity SquirrelSave is fantastic value and wins our Best Buy award. Sadly, it lacks web access to your files. If you need that, Pro Softnet’s iDrive has all the online features you’ll need. Finally, LiveDrive’s Pro Suite incorporates both online backup and synchronisation services with unlimited storage for up to five computers. It’s our Ultimate award winner.

LIVEDRIVE Pro Suite ★★★★★

WorldMags.net

GOOGLE Drive

★★★★★

SUGARSYNC 30GB ★★★★★

109

SOLID-STATE DRIVES

SOLID STATE DRIVES

High speed, low cost Solid-state drives are cheaper than they’ve ever been. Whether you want a fast boot disk or a replacement for your ageing hard disk, check out these 16 SSDs

THE PRICE OF mechanical hard disks has been high for nearly a year now, and although their prices have come down from the incredible highs they reached after the floods in Thailand disrupted production, they still don’t represent the same great value they once did. In contrast, solid-state drives (SSDs) have dropped in price over the same period and are now a viable alternative to their mechanical counterparts. Of course, there’s still a large discrepancy in the capacities available, with SSDs

CONTENT REVIEWS Page 112

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CORSAIR Force GT 240GB

PATRIOT Pyro SE 120GB

ADATA S511 120GB

CORSAIR Performance Series Pro 256GB

PATRIOT Wildfire 240GB

CRUCIAL M4 128GB

PLEXTOR M3 Pro 128GB

page 113

Page 115

INTEL 520 Series 60GB

110

OCZ Vertex 4 256GB

PNY Professional SSD 120GB

INTEL 520 Series 240GB

SAMSUNG 830 Series 256GB

KINGSTON HyperX 240GB

SANDISK Extreme 120GB

OCZ Agility 3 240GB

VERBATIM SSD 240GB

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providing considerably less storage space than mechanical hard disks. For example, a typical SSD might offer 128GB or 240GB of storage, whereas a typical mechanical hard disk might provide a capacity of 1TB or 2TB. Even so, many people use SSDs as fast system disks because the high data-transfer speeds they offer make for fast boot times and a more responsive system, even if your PC only has a modest processor. This month, we’ve reviewed 16 SSDs of various capacities and prices to help you find a model that meets your needs and budget. Whichever SSD you buy, we’re sure you’ll enjoy the speed boost it gives your computer. Before you choose a solid-state disk from our group test, however, there are a few factors that you need to consider.

DRIVING RANGE

Are you buying a solid-state drive for a new PC build or as an additional disk for your current PC? If you’re buying an SSD for a new build you should buy as much storage as you can afford, particularly if you plan to install lots of applications or you want to store lots of media on it, such as music, videos and photos.

SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

SOLID-STATE DRIVES

Solid-state drives have much smaller capacities than mechanical hard disks, and some older SATA2 SSDs offer as little as 30GB of unformatted storage, which is just enough for a Windows installation. The most expensive SSDs have capacities of 512GB, which is probably enough storage for a typical family PC. If you have enough money, you can even buy a 1TB SSD – the OCZ Octane costs £1,963 including VAT. If your solid-state drive will be your PC’s sole storage device, we

If you haven’t already done so, it’s worth upgrading to Windows 7 when switching to an SSD, as this is the only version of the operating system that supports the TRIM command. Without TRIM, the performance of an SSD can deteriorate over time. This is because files on an SSD are written in 4Kbit pages but can only be deleted in 512KB blocks. When a file smaller than 512Kbit is deleted, its page entries are simply removed from the allocation table. The contents remain

Many people use SSDs as fast system disks because the high data-transfer speeds they offer make for fast boot times and a more responsive system recommend buying a capacity of at least 240GB. That’s enough for your operating system, office applications, some games and some media files. Solid-state drives also make great laptop system drives. This is because they weigh less than mechanical disks, use less power and are far less likely to fail if you accidentally bang your laptop. If you want to enjoy the fast boot speeds and responsiveness of an SSD without sacrificing your media library or game collection, you could always use a solid-state drive as a system disk and a mechanical hard disk as a secondary storage device. This gives you the best of both worlds, especially as SSDs cost considerably more per gigabyte than mechanical hard disks. It’s also a good solution if you want to speed up an old PC but you don’t want to throw away your old hard disk. To make it easier to compare the cost of different disks, we’ve included the price per gigabyte in our reviews and the table on page 117. We calculate this by dividing each disk’s price (including VAT) by its unformatted capacity. The price per gigabyte of solid-state storage has halved since our last hard disk group test (see Labs, Shopper 281) from around £2 per gigabyte to less than £1 per gigabyte. This is still more per gigabyte than a mechanical hard disk, but the speed increase is more than worth the extra cost.

FAST AND FURIOUS

They might be more expensive per gigabyte than mechanical hard disks, but SSDs are significantly faster. This has its benefits, particularly if you use one to store and run your operating system. Our tests have shown that an SSD can halve the time a PC takes to boot to the Windows 7 desktop compared with booting from a hard disk. You can examine the full results of our performance benchmarks on page 116. When choosing an SSD, look for one that uses Multi Level Cell (MLC) memory technology. These are much faster than models equipped with Single Level Cell (SLC) memory technology, so we’ve only included MLC models in our reviews this month. ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| SEPTEMBER 2012

on the disk, but Windows recognises it as empty space. However, before the operating system can write new data to these parts of the disk, it has to cache the remaining valid pages of the 512Kbit block, erase it completely and then write both the new and the existing data back to the SSD. Using the TRIM command, Windows can tell the SSD memory controller to erase the deleted files in advance. When the SSD is idle, it reads valid data from a 512Kbit block into the cache, erases the entire block and rewrites the content to leave empty 4kbit pages ready for new data. This significantly reduces the time it takes to write new data.

MAKING A CONNECTION

Now that the ageing IDE interface is all but forgotten, almost every hard disk and SSD available today uses the SATA interface. All

motherboards made in the past few years support SATA2 and all the latest motherboards – and certainly those produced within the past year – support the latest SATA3 standard. The newer interface is backwards compatible, too, so you can always upgrade to a SATA3 disk now and buy an SATA3 motherboard later. SATA3 is twice as fast as SATA2 on paper, but although we’ve found that SATA3 mechanical hard disks are indeed faster than their SATA2 counterparts, they’re certainly not twice as fast. The same isn’t true of SSDs – SATA3 SSDs make excellent use of the faster interface and can be noticeably faster than their SATA2 counterparts, so it’s worth upgrading your motherboard or adding a SATA3 PCI Express card if you want to make the most of your SSD’s capabilities. SATA3 SSDs used to cost a lot more than SATA2 devices, but this is no longer the case now that SATA3 is the dominant interface.

ACCESSORIES

Installing a mechanical hard disk is usually a straightforward task, but installing an SSD can be slightly more difficult. As they have the same 2½in width as laptop hard disks, SSDs won’t fit in a 3½in drive cage without the use of an adaptor. Some disks come with adaptor kits that make installation easier, and some even include cloning software and external enclosures to help you transfer data from your old disks. These accessories aren’t expensive to buy separately, but they’re useful inclusions if you don’t have them already. Our reviews tell you which drives come with bundled accessories.

How we test…

Solid-state drives To test the read and write speeds of each SSD, we use a script that copies files to and from the drive and measures the time taken. We copy the files to the disk from memory rather than from another hard disk because RAM is faster than any hard disk or SSD. This ensures that the transfer speeds are limited by the disk on test

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rather than by our test PC. In our large file tests, we copy a 100MB file to and from each disk 100 times to see how each disk copes with big files such as videos. We repeat this test using a 100MB selection of smaller files, which shows how each disk copes when used to store a system backup or office files.

111

SOLID-STATE DRIVES

ADATA S511 120GB

CORSAIR Force GT 240GB

★★★★★

★★★★★

VERDICT

VERDICT

SANDFORCE HAS LONG been a popular SSD controller, and Adata’s S511 is one of many SSDs this month that rely on the popular SF-2281 chip. The 120GB capacity translates to 111GB of formatted space, and the memory chips themselves are 25nm NAND modules, which are used in quite a few SSDs. This unremarkable specification delivered a variable performance in our benchmarks. The Adata S511 managed a poor 184.9MB/s in our large-file write test and 385.1MB/s in our large-file read test. In comparison, the 128GB Crucial M4 scored 277.5MB/s in the large write test, which beats the Adata’s score and 378MB/s in the large read test, which isn’t far behind. The Adata was as variable in our small-file tests, managing 81.9MB/s in our write test and 61MB/s in our read test. The drive isn’t terribly good value at £120 for 120GB of space, which is exactly £1 per gigabyte, as all of this month’s award winners are cheaper. At a time when SSDs are offering more exciting specifications and prices that regularly dip below £1 per gigabyte, the Adata’s high price and relatively archaic design see it being left behind. The Crucial M4 is much better value

THE FORCE GT is Corsair’s mainstream SSD, and this fact is reflected in its price. The 240GB model we review here costs £180, which works out at around 75p per gigabyte, making it one of the best-value drives on the market today. The Force GT excelled in our small-file benchmarks. It scored 83.5MB/s in our small-file write test and 60.6MB/s in our small-file read test, which is a decent turn of speed. Its results in our large-file tests were mixed, however. The Force GT ran at 381MB/s when reading large files, which is a good rate, but scored only 254.4MB/s in our write test. This middle-of-the-road performance can be explained by the hardware used to power the Force GT – the perennially popular SandForce SF-2281 is partnered here with 25nm NAND chips. The box contains little in the way of extras, too, with only a standard 2½in to 3½in drive bracket and no sign of any data migration or backup software. The Force GT is good value, but its reasonable performance is bettered by that of the Crucial M4, which also offers a better price per gigabyte. It’s for these reasons that the Force GT can’t quite topple the Crucial M4 as our favourite budget SSD.

CORSAIR Performance

CRUCIAL M4 128GB

£180 inc VAT • From www.scan.co.uk

£120 inc VAT • From www.morecomputers.com

Uninspiring design and a high price make it a disappointing drive

Series Pro 256GB

A fine budget effort from Corsair

★★★★★

£88 inc VAT • From www.amazon.co.uk

★★★★★

£240 inc VAT • From www.overclockers.co.uk

VERDICT

VERDICT

A middling performer that’s made into a tempting buy thanks to an extremely low price and good value throughout

CORSAIR’S PERFORMANCE SERIES Pro has a good pedigree. Its Marvell 88SS9174 controller is also used in the Crucial M4 and Plextor’s M3 Pro, both of which deliver good, if not stunning, performance. To lift the Performance Series Pro above its rivals, Corsair has kitted out its 256GB drive with Toshiba’s Toggle Mode NAND, which can process more data transfers per second. In our large-file write test, the Performance Series Pro scored 406MB/s, which is second only to the OCZ Vertex 4, but in our large-file read test it scored only 367.2MB/s. The Performance Series Pro really excelled when handling small files, writing them at 85MB/s and reading them at 63MB/s; the Crucial M4 reads small files at 60.6MB/s. At £240 – or just 93p per gigabyte – it isn’t expensive, either. Excellent performance coupled with a keen price per gigabyte make the Performance Series Pro an Ultimate award winner. If you need a high-speed SSD to boost your system, this is the one to buy.

CRUCIAL HAS BEEN selling SSDs to consumers for longer than almost any company, and has evidently honed the art of producing good-value drives. The M4 128GB costs just £88, which works out at 68p per gigabyte. That’s only marginally behind the OCZ Agility 3, which costs 58p per gigabyte. The M4 uses the Marvell 88SS9174 controller found in the Ultimate-award-winning Corsair Performance Series Pro. Without the Corsair’s Toggle Mode NAND, though, the M4 didn’t perform as well in our benchmarks. Its 277.5MB/s score in our large-file write test is slower than the Corsair’s, although its large-file read result of 378.4MB/s is quicker. Sadly, the M4 proved mediocre in the small file tests. Its writing score of 80.8MB/s is slower than the Corsair Performance Pro’s and the OCZ Vertex 4’s. It read small files at 60.6MB/s, which is a little better, but is still behind five other drives. No accessories are included, but its five-year warranty is two years longer than those of most SSDs. The chief attraction here is value. At 68p per gigabyte it’s a great budget performer. It can’t match the performance of the best drives, but as a budget choice the Crucial M4 is the one to buy.

Lightning-quick and relatively affordable for a high-end SSD. If you want to give your PC a speed boost, this is the drive to buy

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SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

SOLID-STATE DRIVES

INTEL 520 Series 60GB

INTEL 520 Series 240GB

★★★★★

★★★★★

VERDICT

VERDICT

INTEL’S LATEST BATCH of SSDs, the 520 Series, offers a range of capacities, but the 60GB is the smallest. This may not sound like much, but it’s plenty for an installation of Windows and some key applications. A smaller drive is a route to the speed of an SSD without spending too much. At £81, the 60GB Intel 520 is relatively inexpensive, but at £1.35 per gigabyte it isn’t good value. This leaves it competing with higher-capacity drives, such as the Crucial M4, which has 120GB capacity for £88. It doesn’t provide the best performance, either. In our large-file write test, it scored 284.2MB/s, which is fairly average. The situation didn’t improve in the large-file read benchmark, where the 520 Series scored 319.1MB/s, which is below average. The 520 Series’ small file performance wasn’t particularly good, either. It scored 79.4MB/s in our small-file write test and read small files at a rate of just 59.4MB/s. This combination of poor performance and middling value makes Intel’s drive unappealing. The Crucial M4 costs only £7 more but offers more than twice the capacity and is quicker. If you’re looking for a budget SSD, the M4 is a better option.

DESPITE BEING PART of the same series, the 240GB version of the Intel 520 has higher quoted write speeds than the 60GB model – 60,000 input/ output operations per second (IOPS) rather than the 60GB model’s 23,000 IOPS. In our tests, the Intel 520 Series 240GB read large files at a hugely quick 380MB/s. It also wrote large files at a brisk 319MB/s, but that’s still much slower than the cheaper Ultimate-award-winning Corsair Performance Series Pro, which wrote large files at 406MB/s. The Intel 520 Series 240GB’s small file reading and writing speeds of 56MB/s and 75MB/s respectively are just below average and a little disappointing; again, the Corsair Performance Series Pro beats it. The disk is relatively expensive at £1.08 per gigabyte, but it’s a solid performer and its five-year warranty provides two more years than you get with many SSDs. Intel’s 240GB 520 Series SSD performs well overall and has just about enough capacity to act as your PC’s sole storage device. You can get better performance for less money from the Corsair Performance Series Pro, making that drive the better choice by far. If the five-year warranty is important, the Intel 520 Series is a good choice, but we’d choose better performance and a lower price.

KINGSTON HyperX 240GB

OCZ Agility 3 240GB

★★★★★

★★★★★

VERDICT

VERDICT

KINGSTON’S HIGH END HyperX drive is designed for gamers and enthusiasts, and is priced accordingly. The 240GB model here costs £282 including VAT, or £1.18 per gigabyte. Kingston includes a good selection of accessories. As well as a 2½in-to-3½in adaptor, it comes with an enclosure that lets you use the HyperX as an external drive, SATA and USB cables and even a screwdriver. Inside is the SandForce SF-2281 controller and 25nm NAND. Sadly the HyperX didn’t justify its price in our tests. Its large-file write result of 265.4MB/s is less than that of the OCZ Vertex 4, which scored 423.2MB/s. It redeemed itself slightly in the small-file write test, but its 83.2MB/s write speed isn’t the fastest we’ve seen. Kingston’s drive performed better when reading. It read large files at 380MB/s, which is good but not the fastest we’ve seen. Its small-file reading score of 61.8MB/s is excellent, though. Only other hardcore SSDs such as the Corsair Performance Series Pro 256GB scored higher. Overall, the HyperX isn’t quick enough to justify its price. If you’re looking for performance, choose the Corsair Performance Series Pro, while for value, the Crucial M4 is cheaper and offers similar speeds.

IN TERMS OF price per gigabyte, OCZ’s Agility 3 is an inexpensive SSD at just 57p per gigabyte. That’s less than half the price-per-gigabyte of the Patriot Wildfire, and means you can purchase 240GB of SSD storage for just £139. The SandForce SF-2281 controller is pressed into action once again for the Agility 3, and the 240GB of capacity on offer is divided into 16 25nm NAND chips, each offering 15GB of space. The drive comes without any accessories, though, and the three-year warranty is nothing special; many other SSDs offer this, and some come with a five-year warranty. The OCZ Agility 3 didn’t perform as well as we hoped in our benchmarks, either. It wrote large files at 273.2MB/s and small files at 83.3MB/s, both of which are slightly above average. When reading small files, though, the OCZ managed just 54MB/s, which is one of the lowest scores we’ve seen, as is its large-file read test score of 194.9MB/s. The Agility 3 may be cheap, but that doesn’t make it a good buy. If you’re searching for a budget SSD, the Crucial M4 is much better. It costs just £88 for 128GB, which works out at 68p per gigabyte, and is also a much more consistent performer.

£81 inc VAT • From www.scan.co.uk

£260 inc VAT • From www.scan.co.uk

Despite its relatively low price, we can’t recommend the 60GB Intel 520

£282 inc VAT • From www.amazon.co.uk

£139 inc VAT • From www.overclockers.co.uk

A decent mid-range performer that’s outclassed by other drives that are quicker and more affordable

ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| SEPTEMBER 2012

This impressive SSD is fast and reasonable value for its size

Cheap, but poor performance makes you question its value

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113

SOLID-STATE DRIVES

PATRIOT Pyro SE 120GB

OCZ Vertex 4 256GB

★★★★★

★★★★★

£129 inc VAT • From www.play.com

£200 inc VAT • From www.scan.co.uk

VERDICT

VERDICT

OCZ’S VERTEX 4 has a specification that puts most of its rivals to shame. The controller comes from newcomer Indilinx, which OCZ acquired just over a year ago. It’s called the Everest 2, and OCZ is confident that it’ll compete with the best the competition has to offer. The memory chips are the familiar 25nm NAND type. The Vertex 4 achieved mixed results in our tests. Its large-file write score of 423.2MB/s beats even the Corsair Performance Pro’s 405MB/s, but its large-file read result of 327MB/s is slower than we expected. This pattern was repeated in our small-file tests. It wrote small files at 85MB/s, which is on a par with other high-performance drives such as the Samsung 830 Series and the Corsair Performance Series Pro, but scored a mediocre 56.2MB/s when reading large files. To OCZ’s credit, the Vertex 4 is inexpensive. Its £200 price provides 256GB of space, which works out at an impressive pence-per-gigabyte cost of just 78p. That makes the OCZ Vertex 4 terrific value. The Ultimate award-winning Corsair Performance Series Pro provides even better performance, but the OCZ Vertex 4’s great value and high benchmark scores make it a Best Buy.

PATRIOT WAS AN early pioneer of fast, low-cost SSDs. Their once-impressive performance was delivered by the familiar SandForce SF-2281 controller, but now this older component is falling behind newer competition from the likes of Marvell and Indilinx. The entire specification is getting long in the tooth, as our benchmark results demonstrate. The Pyro SE’s large-file write test result of 168MB/s is much less than we expect of a modern SSD, although its large-file read test score of 360MB/s is respectable. It didn’t set the world alight with its small file benchmarks, either. Its small-file write test score of 75MB/s is much less than we expect to see from a modern SSD, as is its small-file read test of 58MB/s. The Pyro SE comes without any accessories or software, and its three-year warranty is nothing special, either, with some SSDs providing five-year warranties. Unfortunately, the Patriot doesn’t offset its weak performance and lack of extras with a low price. At £1.19 per gigabyte, it’s one of the most expensive SSDs, in this month’s group test, so it’s impossible to recommend.

PATRIOT Wildfire 240GB

PLEXTOR M3 Pro 128GB

★★★★★

★★★★★

VERDICT

VERDICT

PATRIOT’S 240GB WILDFIRE costs £258, or £1.07 per gigabyte, which is relatively high when a lot of SSDs now cost less than £1 per gigabyte. An SSD will have to perform well to convince us to spend that kind of money. Sadly, the Wildfire’s performance is mixed. Its result of 198MB/s in the large-file write test is a lot less than we expect to see, although its small-file write score of 83MB/s is average. Thankfully, its file-reading performance is better. The Wildfire’s large-file read test score of 386MB/s is outstanding, and its small-file read result of 62MB/s is also good, and very close to that of the Ultimate-award-winning Corsair Performance Series Pro. Sadly, it doesn’t come with a 2½in-to-3½in bracket or data migration software, so you’ll have to buy these separately if you need them. The three-year warranty is standard, but some other SSDs offer five-year warranties for greater peace of mind. With inconsistent performance and a high price, the Patriot Wildfire is a drive that we can’t recommend wholeheartedly, despite its good read results. The Corsair Performance Series Pro is cheaper and provides better performance.

SSDS WERE ONCE considered an expensive option, but this is changing as more and more SSDs fall below the £1 per gigabyte mark. At £1.09 per gigabyte, Plextor’s M3 Pro isn’t one of them. Its results go some way to justifying the price. Its score of 353.2MB/s in the large-file write test is faster than that of many SSDs, and it read large files at an impressive 380.3MB/s; the Ultimate-award-winning Corsair Performance Series Pro scored 367MB/s in the read test. The small-file results were mixed, however. It wrote small files at 83.8MB/s, which is fast, but read them at 58MB/s, which is bettered by many recent SSDs such as the similarly priced Adata S511. This mixed result could be explained by the specification. Marvell’s 88SS9174 controller has been used in top-end SSDs for two years, which is a long time in the world of technology. To compensate for its ageing controller, Plextor has used 24nm Toggle Mode NAND chips, which are faster than the 25nm chips in most of this month’s drives. Great results in the majority of our tests make the Plextor a good buy, and its extras include a 2½in-to-3½in bracket and data migration software. There are faster, cheaper drives, such as the Corsair Performance Pro and OCZ Vertex 4, but the Plextor M3 Pro is still a decent SSD.

Lightning speed when writing files and a fine price. Only a couple of benchmark results let the Vertex 4 down

£140 inc VAT • From www.scan.co.uk

£258 inc VAT • From www.pixmania.co.uk

The Wildfire can deliver impressive performance, but it’s too expensive compared with its rivals

114

Poor performance and an ageing specification means the Pyro SE is best avoided

Impressive performance throughout makes this an excellent buy

WorldMags.net

SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

SOLID-STATE DRIVES

PNY Professional SSD 120GB

SAMSUNG 830 Series 256GB

★★★★★

★★★★★

VERDICT

VERDICT

PNY ISN’T KNOWN for its SSDs, so it’s no surprise that the company has stuck to a tried-and-tested recipe for its Professional SSD: a SandForce SF-2281 controller and 25nm NAND chips. This typical specification resulted in poor benchmark results. In our large-file write test, the SSD scored a sluggish 188.9MB/s, which pales in comparison to the OCZ Vertex 4’s 423.2MB/s. The situation didn’t improve in our large-file read test, with the PNY’s 350.6MB/s result falling behind all but four of its rivals. Its small-file write result of 81.9MB/s is average compared with a lot of the solid-state drives tested, and its 61.2MB/s small-file result is a little above average. Sadly, the PNY professional SSD doesn’t come with any accessories, such as a 2½in to 3½in adaptor, and its three-year warranty period is typical of a lot of SSDs. The PNY does, at least, have value on its side. It costs just £95 for 120GB of space, and that translates to a great value 79p per gigabyte. Unfortunately for this drive, the Crucial M4 costs just 68p per gigabyte and it is considerably quicker, too. If you want a great value solid-state disk, think about the Crucial M4 first rather than the PNY Professional SSD.

SAMSUNG MAKES MANY of the memory chips used in the world’s most popular smartphones and tablets, so it’s no surprise that the firm has used its manufacturing clout to produce a fantastic-value drive. At £219 for 256GB, it costs a relatively affordable 85p per gigabyte. Samsung has developed its own controller based on a triple-core ARM9 processor. It also uses 20nm Samsung NAND memory rather than the 25nm chips used by most of its rivals. Its performance was good, although Samsung can’t quite deliver the highest results of its fastest rivals. Its 346MB/s result in our large-file write test is faster than those of many SSDs we’ve tested, but while its large-file read test score of 371.5MB/s is also good, it’s not outstanding. The 830 Series wrote small files at 85MB/s, which is one of the fastest speeds we’ve seen and is on a par with that of the Corsair Performance Series Pro. It faltered when reading small files, however – its 56MB/s score is slightly below average, which is disappointing. Overall, though, its results are good and its 85p per gigabyte price makes it better value than the Ultimate-award-winning Corsair Performance Series Pro. If the Corsair is a little too expensive for your tastes, this is an impressive alternative.

SANDISK Extreme 120GB

VERBATIM SSD 240GB

★★★★★

★★★★★

VERDICT

VERDICT

WITH A NAME like Extreme, SanDisk’s SSD sounds as if it’s designed to compete with the fastest, most expensive drives, but its price suggests otherwise. At £80, it costs 66p per gigabyte for 120GB of storage, making it one of the most affordable SSDs you can buy. This low price is easy to understand when you consider its specification. It uses the popular SandForce SF-2281 controller, although, instead of the 25nm hardware we’re used to seeing, SanDisk has opted for Toshiba’s 24nm Toggle Mode memory, which, it argues, offers improved performance. Sadly, the SanDisk’s older hardware is left behind by newer and more adventurous solid-state drives. Its large-file write test score of 179.8MB/s is poor compared with the 423.2MB/s of the OCZ Vertex 4, and its large-file read test score of 351.3MB/s is average. Its small file performance is slightly better than average, although neither its write test result of 81.5MB/s or its read test score of 59.9MB/s is very exciting. The SanDisk Extreme can only really compete on price. If you pay a little more (68p per gigabyte), however, you can have the Crucial M4, which is our favourite budget choice and provides consistently better performance.

VERBATIM ISN’T KNOWN for its SSDs and doesn’t have a whole range of drives to choose from. Its consumer drive doesn’t even have a proper name. The Verbatim SSD has a 240GB capacity and provides 222GB of formatted space, which is plenty for Windows and a host of applications. The drive is powered by the SandForce SF-2281 controller and, like many of this month’s contenders, comes with a 2½in-to-3½in adaptor and a data backup and migration utility. It also comes with a three-year warranty, which is typical for SSDs. The SF-2281 controller has delivered mixed results this month, but it performed well here. The Verbatim’s large-file write test score of 308.3MB/s is respectable, and its large-file read test result of 384.4MB/s is even better, beating the Ultimate-award-winning Corsair Performance Series Pro. The Verbatim SSD was good at handling small files, too. Its write speed of 83MB/s is acceptable, and its small-file read test score of 61.4MB/s is fast compared with other drives we’ve tested recently. Our main qualm is with the price. This 240GB model costs £232, or 95p per gigabyte, which is a little expensive. If you’re spending that amount, you may as well buy the Corsair Performance Series Pro, which is even faster and no more expensive per gigabyte.

£95 inc VAT • From www.scan.co.uk

£219 inc VAT • From www.scan.co.uk

Great value, but certain benchmark results are lower than we expect

£80 inc VAT • From www.amazon.co.uk

£232 inc VAT • From www.morecomputers.com

A decent price, but it’s not fast enough compared with budget rivals

ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| SEPTEMBER 2012

Impressive performance at an attractive price makes this a great buy

A decent drive that’s marred by its comparatively high price

WorldMags.net

115

SOLID-STATE DRIVES

BENCHMARKS Performance Data transfer rates Large Write (MB/s)

Large Read (MB/s) 423.2 405.9

Large Overall (MB/s) 386.3

386.9

385.1

375.2 366.8

353.2

384.4

346.4

381

319

380

349.4

380

346.4

308.3

359

284.2

379.8

328

277.5

378.5

322.6

273.2

317.7

371.6

292

367.2

265.4

285.03

360

254.4 197.9

351.3

269.8

188.9

350.6

265.6

184.9

327.2

179.8

319.1

264 234 217.6

194.9

168

Small Write (MB/s)

Small Read (MB/s)

Small Overall (MB/s)

85

63.04

74

84.99

62

72.7

84.95

61.8

72.6

83.86

61.48

72.5

83.51

61.23

72.2

83.44

61.04

71.6

83.37

60.6

71.5

83.29

60.6

70.7

82.99

59.93

70.7

81.97

59.42

70.7

81.9

58

70.6

81.54

56.28

79.42

56.27

75 75

70.6

57.5

80.88

69.4 68.7 66.5

56

65.4

54.04

VERDICT Of the 16 SSDs tested, only three have won awards. We were impressed by the Crucial M4. For just £88 including VAT, you get a fantastic SSD that costs just 68p per gigabyte and delivers great performance. It’s not outstandingly fast compared with pricier models, but it’s good enough and its 128GB capacity is sufficient for Windows and a couple of games or a decent amount of media files. Alternatively, you could combine it with a mechanical hard disk and use it as a fast boot disk. It’s our Budget Buy award winner. If you need greater capacity, consider the 240GB Corsair Force GT. This provided consistently good performance, although its large-file write test result let it down slightly. Even so, it’s a relatively inexpensive means of

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boosting your PC’s performance, and unless you’re an enthusiastic media hoarder, you can use it as your sole drive. We were also impressed by the speedy OCZ Vertex 4. This offers fantastic read and write performance, a five-year warranty and fantastic value at just 78p per gigabyte. What’s more, its 256GB capacity is large enough that it can act as the sole drive in your family PC. It wins our Best Buy award. Finally, we were well and truly smitten by the Corsair Performance Series Pro. This SSD also provides a 256GB capacity, as well as a phenomenally quick read and write speeds. Its cost of 93p per gigabyte is relatively high, but we feel that its performance is worth the extra money. It wins our Ultimate award.

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CORSAIR Performance Series Pro ★★★★★

OCZ Vertex 4 ★★★★★

CRUCIAL M4 128GB ★★★★★

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120GB

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£1.19

SATA3

SATA

238

£0.78

SATA3

SATA

Price per gigabyte

Interface

£129

Three-year RTB

www.play.com

www.patriotmemory.com

PPSE120GS25SSDR

Five-year RTB

www.scan.co.uk

www.ocztechnology.com

VTX4-25SAT3-256G

Warranty

Supplier

Part code

Details

Price including VAT

£200

BUYING INFORMATION

Power connector

Formatted capacity (NTFS)

Capacity

256GB

★★★★★

★★★★★

2½in

Physical size

PATRIOT Pyro SE 120GB

CSSD-F240GBGT-BK

www.corsair.com

www.scan.co.uk

Three-year RTB

£180

OCZ Vertex 4 256GB

BEST BUY

AS511S3-120GM-C

www.adata-group.com

www.morecomputers.com

Three-year RTB

£120

2½in

STORAGE

Rating

Part code

Details

Supplier

Warranty

Price including VAT

BUYING INFORMATION

SATA

SATA3

SATA

SATA3

Power connector

Interface

£0.75

£1

223

240GB

2½in

111

120GB

2½in

Price per gigabyte

Capacity

Physical size

★★★★★

★★★★★

Formatted capacity (NTFS)

STORAGE

Rating

CORSAIR Force GT 240GB

ADATA S511 120GB

PW240GS255SSDR

www.patriotmemory.com

www.pixmania.co.uk

Three-year RTB

£258

SATA

SATA3

£1.07

223

240GB

2½in

★★★★★

PATRIOT Wildfire 240GB

CSSD-P256GBP-BK

www.corsair.com

www.overclockers.co.uk

Three-year RTB

£240

SATA

SATA3

£0.93

238

256GB

2½in

★★★★★

CORSAIR Performance Series Pro 256GB

ULTIMATE

PX-128M3P

www.plextor-digital.com

www.scan.co.uk

Five-year RTB

£140

SATA

SATA3

£1.09

119

128GB

2½in

★★★★★

PLEXTOR M3 Pro 128GB

CT128M4SSD1

www.crucial.com

www.amazon.co.uk

Five-year RTB

£88

SATA

SATA3

£0.68

119

128GB

2½in

★★★★★

CRUCIAL M4 128GB

BUDGET BUY

P-SSD2S120G3-BLK

www.pny.com

www.scan.co.uk

Three-year RTB

£95

SATA

SATA3

£0.66

111

120GB

2½in

★★★★★

PNY Professional SSD 120GB

SSDSC2CW060A3K5

www.intel.com

www.scan.co.uk

Five-year RTB

£81

SATA

SATA3

£1.35

55

60GB

2½in

★★★★★

INTEL 520 Series 60GB

MZ-7PC256D

www.samsung.co.uk

www.scan.co.uk

Three-year RTB

£219

SATA

SATA3

£0.85

238

256GB

2½in

★★★★★

SAMSUNG 830 Series 256GB

SSDSC2CW240A3K

www.intel.co.uk

www.scan.co.uk

Five-year RTB

£260

SATA

SATA3

£1.08

223GB

240GB

2½in

★★★★★

INTEL 520 Series 240GB

SDSSDX-120G-G25

www.sandisk.com

www.amazon.co.uk

Three-year RTB

£80

SATA

SATA3

£0.66

111

120GB

2½in

★★★★★

SANDISK Extreme 120GB

SH100S3/240G

www.kingston.com

www.amazon.co.uk

Three-year RTB

£282

SATA

SATA3

£1.18

223

240GB

2½in

★★★★★

KINGSTON HyperX 240GB

Prices correct at time of going to press

47379

www.verbatim-europe.co.uk

www.morecomputers.com

Three-year RTB

£232

SATA

SATA3

£0.96

223

240GB

2½in

★★★★★

VERBATIM SSD 240GB

AGT3-25SAT3-240G

www.ocztechnology.com

www.overclockers.co.uk

Three-year RTB

£139

SATA

SATA3

£0.57

223

240GB

2½in

★★★★★

OCZ Agility 3 240GB

SOLID-STATE DRIVES

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SOLID-STATE DRIVES

Setting up an SSD A solid-state drive can make your computer boot much faster than a traditional hard disk, but you need to configure it in Windows first. Here we show you what to do A SOLID STATE DRIVE (SSD) has many advantages over a traditional mechanical hard disk. SSDs use fast memory chips, so your computer will boot more quickly and Windows and your other applications will load faster. In our tests, we’ve seen the boot time of Windows 7 fall to 10 seconds on a Core i5-750 PC simply by switching from a hard disk to an SSD. What’s more, SSDs have no moving parts, which makes them immune to many of the problems from which mechanical disks suffer, such as damage from being knocked. However, SSDs are limited in the number of times data can be written to them, so you’ll need to configure Windows to get the best performance out of them. Over the next few pages, we’ll take you through all the settings you need to adjust. There are other downsides to using SSDs. You have to pay more per gigabyte when buying an SSD, and the largest models still have much smaller capacities than typical hard disks. For this reason, it’s worth having an SSD for booting and running applications, and a mechanical hard disk for storing all your data. We recommend a minimum capacity of 64GB for an SSD, although 128GB is preferable. If you plan to use an SSD on its own as a single drive, 128GB should be the absolute minimum. Another problem with SSDs arises from the technology they use. Most consumer SSDs use multi-level cell (MLC) memory chips. A cell is a storage area that’s split into pages (typically around 4KB each) and grouped into blocks (usually 128 pages for a

If possible, move the paging file for virtual memory to a regular hard disk

You should also move the system index to a regular hard disk if you have one

total of 512KB). Each page can be written to individually, but only if it’s empty. If a page is considered to contain data, such as the remnants of deleted files, this must be erased first. However, data can only be erased in entire 512KB blocks. In this situation, overwriting a file means wiping the original data first. The SSD has to read the existing block, wipe the storage space and write the valid data back to the SSD. This can cause performance problems, as there’s more of an overhead involved in writing data. It can also affect the longevity of your SSD, as MLC cells have a lifespan of only

around 10,000 writes. After this, a cell can’t be written to or erased, although the data can be read, so a worn-out SSD can still be read. To erase data securely, the disk must be physically destroyed. Information about cells wearing out has led to a lot of panic about the quality and usability of SSDs, but most of this is unfounded. Research has discovered that MLC drives last a lot longer than you might think. According to a test performed by Toshiba, a typical user will write up to 2.4GB per day and a heavy user will write up to 9.2GB per day, including autosave and hibernate features in the operating system. Taking this into account, SSDs are rated to last at least three years when writing up to 20GB of data per day. For a typical user who writes 2.4GB per day, that’s a lifespan of 25 years. This long lifespan is achieved in several ways. First, if you use an operating system that supports it, such as Windows 7, there’s the TRIM command. This allows the operating system to tell the SSD which blocks are considered free in the file system, so that the disk’s controller can take care of overwrites. Second, wear levelling ensures that data is spread evenly over a disk so that one cell doesn’t wear out before the others. However, you’ll need to perform some extra configuration to make your SSD last as long as possible. This includes disabling systems that constantly write to a disk, such as virtual memory – we’ll show you how using Windows 7. We’ve split the guide into two

When using an SSD, you need to have AHCI enabled in the BIOS

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parts: one for systems that have more than one disk (an SSD and a hard disk), and one for systems with just an SSD.

INSTALLING WINDOWS

An SSD will probably be smaller than your existing hard disk, so you need to decide how to transfer your operating system. Most SSDs come with cloning software that does the job for you, but the amount of data on your hard disk must be equal to or less than the capacity of the SSD. If it isn’t, you’ll need to move some files off the hard disk until there’s enough room. For this reason, the best option is a fresh installation of Windows 7. Before you install Windows 7, make sure the advanced host controller interface (AHCI) is turned on in the BIOS. This is the SATA native mode and supports all the advanced features that SSDs require. It’s usually found in the menu with storage options. Make sure your BIOS is set so that the SSD is the primary boot hard disk after the optical drive. Windows should detect that you’re using an SSD and disable defragmentation (which can damage it), but you should check this. Open Computer, right-click on your SSD and select Properties, then click Tools. Click Defragment now, then click Configure schedule and Select disks. Make sure your SSD isn’t selected. Windows should remove your SSD from this list automatically, so don’t worry if you can’t see it.

‘Automatically manage paging file size for all drives’ option. Click C:, select ‘No paging file’ and click Set. You should see a warning telling you that your computer could run out of memory – ignore this and click OK. Repeat the procedure for any partitions on your SSD. Next, you need to turn on virtual memory for your hard disk. Select an internal hard disk, such as D: and click System managed size. Then click Set, and click OK for each of the open dialog boxes. The next task is to sort out Indexing. This is the service that indexes all your files so that you can find them quickly, and it can be responsible for quite a few file writes. Click on the Start menu and type Index. Click on Advanced, Indexing options and ‘Select new’ under ‘Index location’. Browse to a mechanical hard disk and click OK. The index can only be moved to the root of a drive, and the changes won’t stick if you select a folder. It’s also worth moving your Documents, Pictures, Music and Videos folders to a hard disk to save space on your SSD. Windows 7

You’ll need to perform some extra configuration to make your SSD last as long as possible. This includes disabling systems that constantly write to a disk

The chances are that you’ll be adding an SSD to a PC that already has a hard disk. This arrangement provides both speed and plenty of storage. Once Windows is working, you can start making the appropriate system changes. First, make sure virtual memory is switched off on the SSD. Virtual memory copies data from RAM to the hard disk to free up memory for other applications, but it can damage an SSD. Right-click Computer in the Start menu and select Properties. Click the System protection link, select Advance and then click Setting under Performance. Click the Advanced tab, then click Change. Untick the

makes this easy using Libraries. To move the Documents folder, go to your physical hard disk and make a folder such as d:\documents or d:\\documents. To change the location of your Documents folder, type Libraries into the Start menu and click Libraries. Right-click Documents and select Properties. Click the option to include a folder, navigate to your new folder and click the Include folder option. Select the existing entries in the Library locations window, then choose Remove and click OK. Repeat the process for your Music, Pictures and Videos Libraries. Once you’ve done that, every time you access one of these Libraries you’ll be diverted to the new folder on your mechanical hard disk. There’s little point in changing other user settings or

Disable virtual memory on a laptop to prolong the life of your SSD

You can disable Windows Search, but we don’t recommend it

USING AN SSD WITH A MECHANICAL DISK

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Windows 7 makes it easy to move your user files to another hard disk

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hunting for a way to move the Windows Temp folder and Program files. You may want to move the default download directory of your web browser, though, so that it saves files to your hard disk rather than the SSD.

USING AN SSD ON ITS OWN

If you’ve decided to build your computer with only an SSD, your configuration options are more limited, as you can’t move files to a larger mechanical disk. This means you have to disable some services. It’s worth disabling virtual memory, as this can harm an SSD. Before you do this, you’ll need 4GB of RAM or else Windows could run out of memory. You can leave it enabled if you have less RAM, but you could wear out your SSD more quickly. Right-click Computer in the Start menu and select Properties. Click System protection, select Advanced and click Setting under Performance. Click the Advanced tab and then click Change. Untick the ‘Automatically manage paging file size for all drives’ option. You’ll be prompted to restart. In Windows, follow the instructions above to get back to the Virtual Memory dialog box. Click C:, select ‘No paging file’ and then click Set. You can’t move the Indexing service on a laptop, but you can disable it. However, we don’t recommend this, as it will be hard to find programs and files. If this doesn’t bother you and you want to disable the service, click on the Start menu and type in Services. Click Services from the list and double-click Windows Search in the list. Select Disabled from the Startup type drop-down box. Then click the Stop button and OK to continue. There’s no need to make any other changes.

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HDMI CABLES

Manufacturers may prefer you to believe that expensive HDMI cables bring improvements in image quality, but is this really true? Tom Morgan finds out once and for all

W

e’ve long been sceptical of claims that expensive HDMI cables offer improved image quality over cheaper cables. After all, it’s a digital connection and digital is designed to ensure that what you transmit is what you receive. Despite this, there are plenty of people who argue that expensive cables make a difference and can even dramatically improve the picture quality of your home cinema setup. We decided that it was time to settle this argument once and for all, with in-depth testing to prove beyond all doubt whether or not there is a case for expensive cables. Before we get into the testing, though, we need to look at how HDMI cables are made, how data is transmitted and what happens once the signal reaches the TV. We’ll also look at the different arguments and find out if there’s any truth to them.

for their lack of “colour variety, reduced punch and less depth”. What Hi-Fi magazine has several pages of HDMI cable reviews on its website, with prices reaching a dizzying £300 – apparently this is enough to buy you a “clear, detailed, realistic picture” that cheaper cables simply can’t match. It’s not a view that’s directly supported by the manufacturers of premium HDMI cables, though. The claims on many manufacturers’ websites focus on superior components and construction rather than the potential for a better image or improved sound quality. Try as we might, we couldn’t find a claim on any manufacturer’s website that said its cables would improve the image or audio of your home cinema setup. The reason manufacturers don’t make outrageous claims about better image quality or audio fidelity is that it simply isn’t true and

HIGH FIDELITY There are plenty of advocates for expensive HDMI cables, most notably among high-end home cinema enthusiasts. Reviews in home cinema magazines often comment on the difference a cable made on motion handling, picture noise, image sharpness and skin tones. Reviews even go so far as to recommend specific cables for their “detailed and punchy delivery of picture and sound,” and slate others

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would be false advertising. An HDMI cable performs no processing. As far as the cable is concerned, electrical signals pass through it, but it has no idea what the data it contains is. In other words, if you read that an HDMI cable has boosted flesh tones, it’s either misguided belief or simply wrong.

DIGITAL LOVE That’s not to say all the arguments regarding HDMI cables are technically incorrect. However, you can only argue that a cable might deliver a signal that’s closer to the original, not one that’s better. This is an important distinction, and to get a better understanding of the argument we need to look at how the technology works. First, it’s important to distinguish between HDMI cables, which are used for digital data, and older cables designed for analogue data. In theory, an analogue system has an infinite number of values, and tiny variations in the signal are significant and meaningful. The world we live in is technically analogue, with an infinite variety of colours, sounds and everything else that you perceive. As a result, an analogue signal can be represented as a smooth, continuous waveform. However, the downside of an analogue signal is that interference affects the output and changes what’s being received. As analogue has infinite variety, there’s no way to tell if what you’re receiving is what was originally transmitted.

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Analogue versus digital An analogue signal

2

A digital signal

1.5

1.5

1

1

0.5

0.5

0

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

0

2

7

0.5

0.5

1

1

1.5

1.5

1

0

2

4

3

5

7

6

The original analogue signal (left) is a smooth waveform, but the digital version is a representation of this taken at specific steps. The number of samples and number of bits used defines how close the digital version (right) is to the original. In our example, the digital version has few samples, so is heavily stepped. Doubling the number of samples would create smoother steps, and so on

In digital systems, the analogue data is first converted to a digital format consisting of zeroes and ones. This is done by sampling, where the analogue waveform is sampled at regular intervals and the value at each sample point is recorded. The result is a waveform with square steps. The quality of the digital version is based on two things: the number of samples taken per second and the number of bits used to store the value. The more samples you take, the smaller the steps in the digital waveform, which allows you to recreate the original form more accurately. Using more bits increases the accuracy of the value recorded. The true advantage of digital comes when transmitting the data again, as the sender and the receiver only need to look out for zeroes and ones. With just two values, it’s comparatively easy to tell if what you’re receiving is a zero or a one. In this way, digital systems are designed so that what is transmitted is the same as what is received.

ERROR ERROR That’s not to say digital is flawless, as errors can and do occur. The fact that digital errors occur is the basis for many of the arguments for more expensive cables, so this needs some explanation. In a digital system, an error occurs when a zero is received as a one or a one is received as a zero. This may seem insignificant, but the effect it has depends on whereabouts in a binary number the error occurs. ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

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As binary uses only zeroes and ones, numbers with a value greater than one are represented in a different way to those in the decimal system. In binary, the number of bits and their position is important. With an eightbit number, eight binary digits are used to create a number. Reading from right to left, the first digit has a value of one, and the value of each place doubles for each digit as you move to the left. The final number is calculated by adding up all the digits assigned a value of one. In a binary system, the maximum number that can be represented is (2n)-1, where n is the number of bits. So an eight-bit binary has a maximum value of 255 (or 28–1). With every number between 0 and 255, this gives us a total of 256 different values. To represent the decimal number 10 in binary, we’d use:

Binary number 00001010; decimal number 10 (8+2) Binary

1

0

1

0

Decimal value (128) (64) (32) (16) (8)

0

0

0

0

(4)

(2)

(1)

We can see what effect an error might have by looking at how an HDMI signal transmits RGB colour data. RGB uses three eight-bit binary numbers, one each for the red, green and blue channels, making a total of 24 bits for colour information. With 256 colour values per channel, this allows for 16.7 million colours. If the eight-bit number above represented a value in the red channel, an error of one bit would alter the number and change the colour. For example, an error in the first digit would result in a difference of one:

in the red channel. An error of this magnitude would be all but indistinguishable to the eye, but an error in another part of the binary number could have a more noticeable impact. For example, if the final binary digit were incorrect, the pixel could be a different colour altogether, as it changes the value by 128:

Binary number 10001010; decimal number 138 (128+8+2) 1

0

0

0

1

0

1

0

(128)

(64)

(32)

(16)

(8)

(4)

(2)

(1)

ERROR CORRECTION HDMI includes a mechanism for error detection but not error correction. In other words, the receiving device knows if there’s an error in the signal but doesn’t know what that error is or how to correct it. The way a display handles the error differs from manufacturer to manufacturer, but in general it will guess the correct value by looking at the values of the surrounding pixels and estimating the value of the incorrect pixel. This is similar to using the Spot Healing brush in Photoshop. To show how this could work, we captured a test image with an incorrect pixel and applied the Spot Healing brush to it. We then compared the value of the fixed pixel with the value of the original pixel. Our corrected pixel was a slightly different shade.

10

11

Binary number 00001011; decimal number 11 (8+2+1) 0

0

0

0

1

0

1

1

(128)

(64)

(32)

(16)

(8)

(4)

(2)

(1)

This mistake would change the final displayed pixel, making it a single shade lighter or darker

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10

138

Depending on where in a binary number an error occurs, the difference could either be a very subtly different shade or a completely different colour

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HDMI CABLES

Error correction

Although a TV can try to correct the colour of a pixel, it simply guesses what it should be, and the results aren’t completely accurate ORIGINAL SHADE

This is the crux of the argument for buying more expensive cables. Adherents claim that pricier cables produce fewer errors, so the picture they transmit is closer to the source material. Note that this isn’t a better picture – HDMI cables can’t do any processing – but simply one that’s closer to the original.

WOULD YOU NOTICE? So technically a more expensive HDMI cable may produce a picture that’s closer to the original, but would you really notice the difference? The HDMI standard allows for a single bit error to occur in every billion bits of data sent – known as the Bit Error Rate (BER). This doesn’t sound like many errors, but for a Blu-ray disc encoded at 24p (the cinema standard of 24 frames per second), roughly 1.2billion bits of data are transmitted per second. This means that an HDMIcertified cable should only send an incorrect bit for a single pixel of a single frame of video each second. Remember that this is the maximum allowed, so in practice you’re likely to get fewer errors. Even so, one slightly wrong pixel per second in a moving 1,920x1,080 image is pretty much impossible to detect with the human eye.

transmitted. In theory, a digital signal should appear as a square wave as the voltage jumps from the maximum to nothing to represent the digital zeroes and ones being transmitted, although this is rarely the case. Limitations of the cable and other components cause the verticals to become sloped, resulting in an eye-shaped pattern (see image below). As interference increases, the pattern becomes distorted to the point that the shape – and the signal – is lost completely. When empty space appears in the centre of the oscilloscope, the signal will transmit successfully, but if it closes – either vertically due to lack of signal amplitude, or horizontally due to timing jitter – then errors will occur.

ERROR-CORRECTED SHADE

This could mean that cable certified at a 1m length will fail when sold as a 10m cable if the manufacturing process doesn’t account for an increase in interference. However, unless you specifically need to buy an extra-long cable, it’s a safe bet that an HDMI cable will work without any trouble. Even the best manufacturing processes haven’t found a way to perfect HDMI cables at increased lengths. According to manufacturer AudioQuest, errors increase sharply beyond 15m; a cable of this length might produce one error over the course of an entire day’s viewing, but a 17m cable might produce one every hour. An 18m cable could see an error every minute compared with one every second at 22m. At 23m, errors can be counted in the tens of thousands per second.

Rather than square lines, a digital signal forms an eyeshaped pattern

SHORT CIRCUIT It’s only at longer cable lengths that binary errors become a major issue. This is due to interference from the individual pairs of wires inside the cable. We can visualise this using an oscilloscope. An eye-pattern test, commonly used by manufacturers to test cables before they’re sent for certification, examines the amplitude and timing of a signal as it is

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Prices of HDMI cables we tested MANUFACTURER

PRODUCT NAME

LENGTH

PRICE

QED

Profile high speed with Ethernet

1m

£23

QED

Performance

1m

£32

QED

Reference

1m

£70

Lindy

Premium standard

10m

£45

Lindy

High speed

2m

£5

Atlas

Equator

1m

£75

Cambridge Audio

300

1.5m

£30

Cambridge Audio

514

1.5m

£50

Cambridge Audio

714

3m

£80

Cambridge Audio

914

5m

£130

COMPLETE FAILURE While the number of errors a cable introduces affects quality, there is a limit to the number that can be tolerated. HDMI doesn’t only carry picture information but also sound and HDCP copy-protection data. An error is as likely to occur in the audio soundtrack or the HDCP part of the signal as in the video part. HDCP includes error correction, but if there are too many errors there won’t be enough information to correct them and the system will break down. When HDCP fails, the picture and audio cut out completely, so a cable that produces too many errors is useless.

MORE BANDWIDTH Not surprisingly, cable manufacturers use expensive equipment to test their products before they submit them for certification. BER tests send a generated signal over an HDMI cable, which is connected in a loop back to the test machine. By comparing the data sent with the data received, it can calculate the number of errors (if any). Any more than one error per billion bits will prevent the cable from meeting the HDMI standard specifications. One of the main arguments for expensive cables is that superior manufacturing and testing processes result in cables that transmit fewer errors (have a lower BER than the HDMI standard), whereas cheaper cables don’t go through the same testing procedures. While we’ve established that one error per second is unlikely to be noticeable, advocates for higher-quality cables argue that they’re better when it comes to features that require greater bandwidth, such as Deep Colour. Deep Colour is an HDMI standard that allows for billions of colours. As a result, ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

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it requires a lot more bandwidth. So while there might be one error per second in our RGB colour example, Deep Colour could increase the error rate to two or three per second. Throw in 3D video, which doubles the frame rate, and you could be looking at four or five errors per second. Before we get too excited, it’s important to note that many of the extra options available on your Blu-ray player are actually pointless. Deep Colour, for example, is not a colour space that’s encoded on Blu-ray discs. In fact, all Blu-ray discs use the YCbCr colour space with a 4:2:0 ratio. This colour space is derived from the RGB original and is designed to save on bandwidth by separating the luminance, which the eye is more sensitive to, from the chroma (colour) values. When a Blu-ray player outputs the picture, it has to take the YCbCr 4:2:0 data and re-encode it as YCbCr 4:2:2, YCbCr 4:4:4 or RGB. This conversion preserves the original colours represented on the disc but increases the bandwidth required. Turning on Deep Colour increases the bandwidth required further, but adds no more colour information. At the moment, an increase in bandwidth is useful only when dealing with higher frame rates.

It’s important to note that many of the extra options available on your Blu-ray player are actually pointless

3D video runs at 48fps, while games consoles run at up to 60fps. Using the default HDMI standard, you’d get a maximum of three incorrect pixels per second when playing a game at maximum speed. However, as each frame is onscreen for less time than a frame of a film ( ⁄ th of a second rather than ½ th of a second), it’s hard – if not impossible – to spot these single-pixel errors.

ERRORS YOU CAN SEE While single-pixel errors are hard to see, there are some circumstances when enough errors occur to cause a visual problem but not enough to disrupt the HDCP signal. These errors, often called sparkles, appear as snow or static on the screen and are caused when the TV receives insufficient data to turn them into pixels. Noticeable errors such as this are not a sign that you need to buy a more expensive cable but rather that your

It’s possible to see some errors on very bad HDMI cables, where the image is ruined by sparkles

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HDMI CABLES

HDMI facts & FIction “More expensive HDMI cables improve colour tone” FALSE When we compared the performance of each cable using captured frames from our reference Blu-ray, we found that they outputted an identical image. Comparing them using ImageMagick revealed no difference in colour. An HDMI cable simply transmits data from the source to a display, so it can’t improve image quality, and unless your cable is broken, it can’t degrade picture quality, either.

current cable has failed and it’s time to buy a new one. Taken together, the length, construction and error rate of any given cable support the argument for expensive cables from a technical point of view. It’s true that a cable with a lower BER produces a picture that’s closer to the original source. However, as bog-standard HDMI-certified cables produce a maximum of one error in one pixel per second, and this error is easily corrected to the extent that you won’t notice it, the argument falls a bit flat. It’s also important to remember that this argument is based on specifications rather than physical testing of cables. We’re not interested in what can technically make a difference but in what actually makes a difference, and whether or not HDMI cables can improve image quality. With this in mind, we set about testing the quality of different HDMI cables.

TESTING

“Expensive HDMI cables are less likely to fail than cheaper cables” FALSE Cheaper cables may not go through the same rigorous tests as their pricier counterparts, so they could be more susceptible to signal errors, but the HDMI certification process means a cable will only ever produce a maximum of one error in every million bits – roughly one pixel of one frame of video every second. The error correction algorithms of modern TVs mean that even if a significant error occurs, it will most likely be corrected to the point that the human eye simply wouldn’t notice.

“It doesn’t matter which way round you plug in an HDMI cable” FALSE

Even after establishing that most HDMI cables either work or they don’t, we still have the question of whether they can affect picture quality. The only way to answer this question is to test image quality objectively. Performing an objective test is important, as subjectively testing HDMI cables by asking volunteers to examine the picture as it’s played can lead to misleading results. Comparing anything objectively is incredibly difficult, as the average person will almost always pick a side when given two options to choose from. This is what we discovered when we last tried to test HDMI cables subjectively. There are other problems, too. Using identical TVs, Blu-ray players and discs still can’t create a level playing field because of minor differences between the colour casts of each set. Even identical devices have the potential for affecting the results of a blind test. When we compared the output of two PlayStation 3 consoles, we noticed a distinct difference in the colour reproduction of a Blu-ray disc, no matter which TV or HDMI cable we used. Unless you colour-calibrate

each device first, a blind test can’t produce reliable results. Instead, we needed to perform objective tests to determine how much of a difference, if any, HDMI cables can make.

DEFINITIVE TESTING To test HDMI cables objectively, we first bought a Digital Foundry TrueHD capture card. This high-quality card allowed us to capture the HDMI output from a device in an uncompressed Raw format without error correction, using 24-bit RGB. This eliminates any colour cast or error correction from the equation, as we’re dealing with Raw frames captured. Next, we used a PC to output the Blu-ray version of Sintel, an open-source film produced by the Blender Foundation. The choice of a PC may seem a little strange, and some people would argue that we should have used a Blu-ray player instead. However, we’re not interested in which device produces the best-quality video, but rather if HDMI cables produce different results. To this end, the PC gave us an important advantage: we could capture a frame from the film on the PC and compare this with a frame captured on the TrueHD card. If the two were the same, the cable had made no difference; if they differed, the cable was affecting quality. To ensure that we managed to capture the same frames at the PC and TrueHD ends, we paused the film and jumped to chapter two. It may seem strange to pause the film, but as far as the PC’s graphics card, cable and TrueHD card are concerned, pausing has no effect. The PC still has to output at the same rate, but rather than outputting 24 different frames per second to produce a moving image, it outputs 24 identical frames per second. As an HDMI-certified cable allows for a single one-bit error in a billion (one incorrect pixel per second), we captured 24 frames of the paused Sintel video and saved them as uncompressed bitmap files that we could then compare with the original frame we’d screen-grabbed on the PC. As the TrueHD doesn’t apply any correction to the source, a single pixel’s difference would be visible.

Although some HDMI cables (known as passive cables) can be connected either way, active cables are uni-directional. These have different modules at the transmit and receive ends of the cable, which in effect doubles the range of a standard twisted-copper cable. These signal-enhancement electronics are found in the connector housings, which are usually labelled to indicate the direction in which they should be used. Connecting a uni-directional cable the wrong way may result in errors, as we saw in our tests. These may not be visible during regular viewing, as the error correction in most TVs can adjust for them, but using them in the correct way will produce a more accurate picture. We used Sintel, an open-source Blu-ray film, in our tests to find out if HDMI cables make any difference

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original image Once we’d captured our frames, we needed an objective way of comparing them with the original. We decided to use two methods for this. First, we used the ImageMagick Compare command. This takes two images and creates a third image that highlights any pixels that are different in red. Next, we created an MD5 hash of each file we captured, as well as the ImageMagick output files. An MD5 hash is a unique fingerprint of a file: if two files have the same MD5 hash, there can be no argument – they’re scientifically identical.

COMPARE AND CONTRAST Our tests compared the captured frames with the original. If they had the same MD5 hash, they were identical. We also created an MD5 hash of the comparison file output from ImageMagick, which would enable us to prove that these files were identical with each other too, as they had the same MD5 hash. In other words, we could show that our captured frames were identical and that our comparison frames were also identical. In both verification tests, the change of a single shade of colour in one pixel would be enough to trigger a difference. To ensure that our tests could respond to this level of accuracy, we edited a screenshot in Photoshop, changing the red colour value of a single pixel by one point before running our comparison tools. The red highlight in the comparison image and the difference in MD5 hashes indicated that there was a difference between the two images. This method of testing not only determines the number of errors transmitted by a particular cable but also indicates whether colours have changed at all between cables – a claim that’s frequently used to explain why certain cables are better than others in high-end home cinema reviews. We looked at a range of cables, from the bargainbasement cables that come with Blu-ray players and TVs to incredibly expensive high-end cables with huge lists of features advertised on the packaging. Prices ranged from £5 to an eye-watering £150, which could easily confuse anyone who needs a new cable.

CABLE MANNERS After methodically testing each cable, our comprehensive results revealed the truth. We couldn’t find a single error in any of the frames of video we captured, no matter which cable we used. Even allowing for a single error per billion bits, none of our captured frames contained as much as a pixel out of order by a single shade. ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

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edited image

COMPARE image

ImageMagick’s Compare command can detect a single pixel error and highlight it

The MD5 hash values backed up our findings – the captured frames were identical to the originals. As verification, the MD5 hash of the ImageMagick comparison files were also identical with each other. For reference, here are the MD5 hash values generated:

File

MD5 Hash

Original screenshot on PC 292243CAE2FB14F76145E0C32A6A8CE6 Frame capture over HDMI 292243CAE2FB14F76145E0C32A6A8CE6 All comparison files

3492B407D028028C15FB53192EABA36E

We had to force an error by reversing a uni-directional cable (see ‘Facts & Fiction’ box, opposite), which generated several incorrect pixels. As our capture card doesn’t apply error correction, these pixels simply failed to render. Comparing our captured images also proves that individual cables have no impact

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on colour reproduction. As each capture was identical, with no differentiation between the colours of individual pixels, we have to conclude that the picture displayed on a TV is not affected by your choice of HDMI cable. With no active circuitry inside them, HDMI cables don’t know what format the data it transmits will be encoded in when it reaches its destination, so there’s no way it could adjust colour values, improve skin tones or create better black response. Pricier cables may have been engineered to eliminate timing jitter or reduce binary errors, but we didn’t experience any errors with our Lindy 10m cable, which costs less than Atlas’s 1m cable. Our tests revealed no errors from any of the cables, and more expensive cables didn’t improve image quality at all. Given these results, we’d definitely buy cheaper certified cables and save money.

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LICENSING LAWS

Are you breaking the

LAW? If you want to stay on the right side of the law, you’ll need to read the small print on your computer software. Julian Prokaza has a licence to explain

C

lick the ‘buy’ button on almost any website that sells digital content such as MP3s or eBooks and you may think you’re simply providing money in return for goods, just like transactions that have taken place since the dawn of commerce. In reality, however, nothing could be further from the truth. Most digital content sold online isn’t actually sold at all, but licensed to you for use only in the ways prescribed by its owners and retailers. While this may make little difference when listening to an MP3 or reading an eBook, it has serious implications should you wish to do anything else, such as move it to another device, and things become even more complex if you want to sell or give the content to someone else. This model isn’t limited to digital downloads; software sold on discs and CDs and DVDs are governed by a myriad of confusing rules and regulations on what you can and can’t do with them. Many of these regulations are laid out in a document called the End User Licence Agreement. These regulations can run to thousands of words, and they have serious implications for the notion of content ownership. Here we’ll be looking at the legal position of such agreements, and what rights you have in regards to them.

PROPERTY LADDER

Intellectual property (IP) is defined as an intangible idea or creation over which someone claims ownership (bear with us on that for now). For copyright-protected IP, a licence is a way for the owner to allow their property to be used by a third party without giving up any ownership rights. For example, Marvel Comics licenses its Spider-Man character (which itself is an

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intangible idea over which it claims ownership) to Sony Pictures so that it can make films about him, but Marvel still retains ownership of Spider-Man. The films that Sony make are then IP themselves, owned by Sony. A licence seldom gives free rein to the licensee. The IP owner (the licensor) sets out the way in which the property can be used in an agreement to which the licensee must agree. In this case Sony can make films about Spider-Man and sell spin-off merchandise, but wouldn’t be able to launch a competing comic book. When you buy a DVD of said movie, you then also enter into an agreement with Sony. You’ve only bought a single copy of the film on disc, though; it doesn’t mean you now own the IP rights over the film as a whole. In the same way, the rights to the words printed in a book belong to the publisher or author, as the ‘All rights reserved’ legal statement that appears at the front of the book makes clear. The printed paper that makes up the book itself, however, belongs to the person that bought it. This is because although licences are a useful way to control IP, they can’t usually be used to control the physical media itself. The ownership of goods – any physical copy of an IP – brings with it a few rights of its own, not least that the owner can do more or less what they like with it as long as the IP owner’s rights aren’t infringed. So, while duplicating an audio CD and selling the copies would infringe the IP owner’s copyright, selling the original CD to someone else would not. In the European Union, these rights are granted by a law called the Exhaustion of Free Rights Doctrine, which essentially prevents an IP

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owner from using their IP rights to hinder the free movement of the goods they sell (however indirectly). In the US, the First Sale Doctrine provides something similar.

PERSONAL SERVICES

Although software sold on a DVD is also an intangible idea delivered on a physical medium, like a Spider-Man movie, it isn’t legally the same. As software is essentially IP provided to perform a particular task, it blurs the line between goods and services, and the law for services is very different from that for goods. Services are usually provided according to terms set out in a contract to which both parties agree. Entering into a prolonged negotiation process each time someone wants to install a new web browser is hardly practical, though, so software publishers instead use an elaborate up-front disclaimer that attempts to limit their liability as a service provider and affirm their rights as an IP owner. Microsoft gets straight to the point with Windows 7, for example: “The software is licensed, not sold. This

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agreement only gives you some rights to use the features included in the software edition you licensed.” Since software is IP licensed for consumer use, this disclaimer is called the End User Licence Agreement, or EULA. There can’t be a single computer user who hasn’t encountered an EULA at some point, but few are likely to have ever read one. EULAs used to be (and some still are) printed on paper inside a retail box, but it’s long since been the norm to present a EULA in the early stages of a software installation. In theory, a EULA should be read before proceeding with the installation, since installing the software is only possible by accepting the EULA and forming a contract with the licensor. In practice, the prospect of ploughing through a few thousand words of dense legalese (a typical EULA can be as long as this feature) in a dialog box that shows just a dozen lines at a time is scant temptation for most, which is why the ‘I agree’ button usually gets clicked without a second thought.

PASSING THE BUCK

Most EULAs aren’t particularly contentious, and the terms usually make little practical difference to the way software is used. Even so, it’s still worth reading the EULAs for key applications to see what kind of conditions they impose, as they include stipulations such as how many computers you can install the software on. Rather than attempting to do this in the software installation dialog box in which the EULA appears, copy the text and paste it into a word processor for easier viewing or, better still, try the free EULAlyzer program, which is available from www. javacoolsoftware.com/eulalyzer.html. One thing you’ll immediately spot is that a EULA is primarily a disclaimer. There are usually lots of clauses that state how the software is provided ‘as is’ and how the licensor is not liable for any data or financial loss that may arise from its use, even if it is the fault of the software. Should a bug in Excel 2010 create a serious discrepancy in last year’s accounts and lead to a fine from HMRC, for example, the most that can be

Limited agreement EULAs can be slippery pseudo-legal documents, since most contain a clause that allows their terms to be changed at will by the licensor. Apple isn’t alone in stating that it “reserves the right to modify the Usage Rules at any time” for its iTunes Store. It also states that it “reserves the right to enforce the Usage Rules without notice to you”, but we’re not Amazon overstepped the aware of any high-profile instances of this happening. bounds of its Kindle EULA by The same can’t be said about Amazon. In 2009, Amazon deleting purchased copies of in the US remotely deleted eBooks from Kindle owners’ Nineteen Eighty-Four after the copyright owner objected devices after it apparently offered them at sale prices without the publisher’s permission to do so, despite its EULA not explicitly granting Amazon the right to take such a step. Although Amazon is undoubtedly to blame here, it’s worth noting that the retailer appeared to be acting in response to complaints from the eBooks’ publishers, who were wielding their IP rights to prevent Amazon selling the books at reduced prices. You may well have noticed the words, ‘This price was set by the publisher’ on many Kindle eBook listings. Amazon subsequently apologised for overstepping the mark, but only after widespread negative publicity about the act – publicity no doubt fuelled by the fact that one of the books was, appropriately enough, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.

recovered from Microsoft is the cost of the software, since its EULA states (much like most others): “You can recover from Microsoft and its suppliers only direct damages up to the amount you paid for the software. You cannot recover any other damages, including consequential, lost profits, special, indirect or incidental damages… even if… Microsoft knew or should have known about the possibility of the damages.”

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS

Some EULAs also attempt to place limits on what users can say about software. The EULA for VMware Workstation, for instance, includes a clause that doesn’t bode well for anyone wanting to review or comment on it: “You may use the software to conduct internal performance testing and benchmarking studies, the results of which you… may publish or publicly disseminate; provided that VMware has reviewed and approved of the methodology, assumptions and other parameters of the study.” The key point with any EULA, however, is that if it’s to act as a contract, there’s a legal presumption that its terms and conditions have been mutually agreed, which isn’t the case when the end user’s only option is an ‘I agree’ button before they can use it. This creates some legal room for manoeuvre, as David Sanders, civil law lead officer with the Trading Standards Institute, explains: “Where parties are not of equal bargaining power, the law sometimes gives the weaker party added protection. For example, consumers have statutory rights The free EULAlyzer program will analyse the content of a EULA and highlight any clauses that it deems ‘interesting’, which is that cannot be taken away, and much quicker than trying to read the whole thing any terms to that effect are void, ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

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although the position is not clear on contracts between consumers within the EU and traders outside of it.” Sanders also makes another key point: an EULA can only grant additional rights to the user, not take away any that are conferred by the laws of the country in which they reside. Most software publishers recognise this. Here’s the relevant clause from Microsoft’s EULA for Windows 7: “You may have additional consumer rights under your local laws, which this agreement cannot change.” The degree of consumer protection differs from country to country, which is why EU residents don’t need to worry about the US-specific clause in Electronic Arts’ EULA that states, “By accepting these terms, you and EA expressly waive the right to a trial by jury or to participate in a class action”.

PASSING IT ON

Unfortunately, the problems that arise from licensing, rather than owning, software hit home when it comes to disposing of it. In principle, a software CD-ROM is a tangible item that’s covered by the aforementioned Exhaustion of Free Rights Doctrine in the UK and the First Sale Doctrine in the US. That means selling the CD-ROM should be legal, as long as the software isn’t inadvertently duplicated by leaving it installed on the original buyer’s computer. This would be an infringement of copyright. Some software publishers allow this, however. Surprisingly, Microsoft is one, as the EULA for Windows 7 illustrates: “The first user of the software may make a one-time transfer of the software and this agreement, by transferring the genuine proof of licence directly to a third party.” Unfortunately, most EULAs take the opposite stance and, by insisting that software is licensed rather than sold, claim

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Most software displays a EULA when you first install it, usually as a lengthy block of text in a small window through which users have to scroll if they want to read it – and most don’t bother

exemption from any such doctrines. Here’s the relevant clause from Blizzard’s EULA for Diablo 3: “The game is licensed, not sold. The licence… may not be sublicensed or transferred to any other person or entity, and any attempt to do so shall be null and void.” That rules out finding any boxed copies of Diablo 3 on eBay in the foreseeable future, then. Serif is a little more flexible with its EULA (picked at random from a pile of software), which states: “[The] licensee shall not… assign rent, transfer, sell, disclose, deal in, make available or grant any rights in the software product in any form to any person without the prior written consent of Serif.” Even so, that still makes it difficult to sell an unwanted copy of PagePlus X5 on a whim. In effect, this means a software licensor is exerting ownership rights over the software’s storage medium, in addition to IP rights over the software itself. The only way to transfer ownership of packaged software without infringing copyright is to transfer ownership of the media it was originally supplied on, but if the licence for use can’t be transferred at the same time, then technically speaking the software is useless.

ALTERED STATES

The terms of a heavily restrictive EULA only become a serious issue when the licensor chooses to enforce them, but there is some precedent here. In 2005, Autodesk attempted to stop Timothy Vernor from selling secondhand copies of its AutoCAD application by pointing out that only its original purchaser was licensed to use it. Since the software was still sealed and unused, Vernor argued that neither the original EBay prohibits the resale of songs downloaded from iTunes, along with other kinds digital content where the seller is not the copyright holder

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MP3 resale site ReDigi has so far resisted attempts from record labels to close it down. The company claims to be trading legally under the US First Sale Doctrine

owner nor he had agreed to its EULA, and so each buyer was free to resell it. Autodesk, however, argued that since the EULA stated the software was licensed and not sold, it was exempt from the US First Sale Doctrine and so Vernor was infringing its copyright. Court cases ensued and, to cut a long and complex legal story short, the courts found in Autodesk’s favour – a EULA did indeed qualify as a licence and Vernon was therefore infringing Autodesk’s copyright by selling its (now unlicensed) software. In short, this now means the terms of a EULA are

to the storage media it’s supplied on (even if with modern ripping software that’s rarely the case). Unfortunately, the same can’t be said when that IP is supplied without storage media, such as when it’s downloaded. Copyrighted digital content that’s made available for download is always licensed and never sold, which has some serious implications for end users. The EULA for an MP3 download, for example, only grants the non-transferable right for the end user to use an MP3 in various ways, and while this may include copying to multiple devices and

If the licence for use can’t be transferred at the same time as the media on which it was supplied, then technically speaking the software is useless binding in the US and software is effectively borrowed, not bought. Thankfully, the situation isn’t the same in the EU, but that’s not for want of software publishers trying. Last April, the Luxembourgbased European Court of Justice ruled that reselling software is not illegal under EU copyright law and the Exhaustion of Free Rights Doctrine, after US company Oracle attempted to prevent a German second-hand shop reselling ‘non-transferable’ licences for its software. Although the ruling is not yet legally binding, it is expected to form the basis of future judgments by the European Court of Justice Eur and Federal Supreme Court.

LICENCE LI TO LISTEN

Audio CDs and DVD Aud movies are so far mov unaffected by overly una restrictive licence res agreements, and their sale agr is still protected by the Exhaustion of Free Rights Exh Doctrine. However, that’s only because, unlike software, the IP is considered to be bound

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burning to disc, it doesn’t include the right to transfer the licence to someone else. The obvious justification is that this prevents piracy since, unlike reselling a book, reselling an MP3 doesn’t deprive the original buyer of their copy, and IP owners obviously don’t trust end users to delete a file once it’s been resold. This is also the case when reselling an audio CD that has already been ripped by its original owner, of course. That said, there’s little to prevent someone reselling the odd download to someone else and keeping their conscience clear by deleting the original copy, but doing it on the same scale as a second-hand CD shop risks incurring the legal wrath of IP owners. EBay forbids the sale of download content for that reason (see its terms and conditions at http://bit.ly/Jot09f), but ‘second-hand’ MP3 site ReDigi (www.redigi.com) has so far resisted legal attempts from record labels to close it down. ReDigi’s legal justification for its business model is based on our old friend, the US First Sale Doctrine, but its applicability to music downloads is still to be properly tested in the courts. Its legal documents shed some light on the intricacies of this issue, though, and make for genuinely amusing reading (see http://bit.ly/KyCfJp).

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INFRINGEMENT NOTES

Whatever the law regarding downloaded digital content and the loopholes end users can exploit to distribute it legally, there’s one more way for IP owners to assert their rights more strongly: Digital Rights Management. Digital Rights Management (DRM) ties digital content to its original buyer in some way and usually renders it unusable without access to that buyer’s online store account or credit card details. DRM can also be used to control how an authorised licensee gets to use that content, such as limiting the number of computers to which a music track can be copied. In reality, DRM poses almost no technical barrier to pirates and instead simply hinders the legitimate uses of content for honest buyers, which is why DRM-free downloads are seen to be a feather in the cap of online providers. Apple famously dropped DRM from its iTunes Music Store downloads in 2009, for example, and Amazon has only ever offered DRM-free MP3s, although it does still use DRM for its Kindle eBooks. DRM doesn’t have to be a force for user frustration, though, as Jim Killock, executive director of the UK Open Rights Group, explains: “If DRM is employed, then really there is no excuse for not enabling resale or transfer. DRM supplies control of devices and behaviours to copyright owners, who could therefore easily enable these exchanges.” In other words, an IP holder-approved licence-trading site along similar lines to ReDigi is technically feasible and would at least offer IP holders the chance to make money from such ‘sales’ – money they don’t currently make from the second-hand sale of physical media. A cynic might suggest that the reason such a service has yet to exist is to do with the shortsighted financial self-interest of IP holders, who would rather complain about problems than propose creative solutions, but it’s still the customer that ends up being short-changed. Jim Killock agrees: “Most consumers are honest and they are disadvantaged by digital distribution. They can’t resell, transfer or even leave digital goods in their will. The question about ease of copying is beside the point. If these restrictions are made, digital goods are worth far less than physical goods, as we have far fewer rights. If that’s the case, they should be much cheaper. But they aren’t.”

REJECTING THE EULA

We’ve discussed at length the implications of the EULA for packaged and downloaded digital content, but we’ve so far failed to make mention of one key fact: there’s no compulsion for an end user to accept one. All onscreen EULAs have a ‘Cancel’ button next to the one that reads ‘I agree’, and this gives an easy way out for anyone who wants to reject the terms on offer. Sites that deliver digital downloads usually present their terms in a EULA that must be accepted before a purchase can be completed, or at least an account opened. Sites that hide a EULA on a separate T&Cs page and simply ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

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Rip a CD, break the law Few people think twice about buying an audio CD and ripping its content for use with an MP3 player, but anyone who does it in the UK is breaking the law. Current UK copyright law makes it illegal to make a copy of digital media for personal use, whether it’s for backup purposes or ‘format shifting’. The law applies to audio CDs, DVD movies and eBooks, which means you should theoretically buy multiple copies of Consumer watchdog tchdog the same content if you wish to use it on different devices. Consumer Focus has No-one in the UK has yet been prosecuted for copying recommended legalising digital media for personal use, but DRM on many kinds of MP3 ripping for personal use digital media can result in an anti-competitive lock-in for online services. Until Apple switched to DRM-free downloads on its iTunes Music Store, for example, its customers had to listen to their music using only iTunes or an iPod, unless they degraded the quality by first burning the AAC files to audio CD and then re-ripping them to MP3. The need to update UK copyright law to reflect the different ways in which digital media can be used has long been known, but the last attempt in 2006 didn’t get very far. The current Hargreaves Review looks more likely to lead to a change in the law, though. If its recommendations are passed, it should streamline a whole host of licensing issues, and make it legal to copy digital content for your own personal use.

treat the user’s agreement as tacit offer less scope for rejection, but then they also stand on shakier legal ground, since it’s difficult for someone to know what terms they’re agreeing to if they’re not presented upfront. Boxed software, however, poses a bigger problem. A 2008 report from the statutory consumer watchdog (then the National Consumer Council, now called Consumer Focus) criticised software publishers for failing to state on the packaging that use of the software required accepting the EULA, but now most include a perfunctory mention in minuscule text and the requisite web address for those who want to read it in full. This is just as well, since while physical media is covered by the UK Sales of Goods Act and Distance Selling Regulations, its content is not. Few stores will issue a refund for software that has been opened and its EULA subsequently rejected; the original manufacturer might, although ironically that may well depend on clauses in the rejected EULA itself. The only real solution is a change in the law to tilt the balance back in the consumer’s favour. “Consumer law is out of date and, worse, copyright lobby groups are listened to too much, creating a highly uneven bargain for consumers,” says Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group. “Software, just like any other product, might be purchased by mistake, and the error might be found only when you’re trying to install it. Customers should not be penalised because software companies make excessive claims.”

Thankfully, plans are afoot to reform UK and EU law to reflect the fresh needs of end users of digital content. Consumer Focus has published a detailed response to the government’s proposed review of copyright law that suggests sweeping changes to the way in which digital content can be treated, to the benefit of end users. Similarly, EU proposals for a Common European Sales Law should harmonise consumer’s rights for digital content by treating it as a tangible good, irrespective of whether it’s a download or stored on physical media.

OFF LICENCE

Hopefully, we’ve highlighted some of the issues surrounding licensed software, and the problems faced by everyone now that similar agreements are being applied to other digital content and services. We apologise that we can’t be crystal clear over all consumer rights with regards to EULAs, but the law that surrounds them is still murky, and legal clarity has so far been brought only by precedents set in the courts. That said, the UK and EU look set to avoid the same kind of sidestepping of statutory rights that has taken place in the US, at least as long as the proposed changes to copyright and sales law are introduced as planned. These may not create the same sense of ownership for digital content as we’ve long enjoyed with its more physical counterparts, but they should at least tip the balance back in the end users’ favour and remove all doubt about exactly what that content can be used for.

FURTHER READING www.ipo.gov.uk/consult-2011-copyright www.consumerfocus.org.uk/news/government-proposals-to-modernise-uks-copyright-system

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OLYMPIC TECHNOLOGY

London 2012 will be the most technically advanced Olympics ever, with new technologies entering the mainstream for the first time. David Ludlow fires the starting gun on this year’s medal-winners he Olympic Games is the single biggest sporting event in the world. In fact, calling it an ‘event’ is misleading: it’s really 39 world finals all staged together. It’s little wonder an event of this size not only gives the athletes a world stage on which to perform, but also gives the technology companies involved a chance to try something a bit different. This year’s games promises to be the first to combine the viewing experience on a variety of platforms, from traditional broadcast media to dedicated smartphone apps. It’s an amazing leap forward from the 2008 Beijing games, which were the first Olympic Games to be shot in HD. For London 2012, there’s a lot more in store, from 3D broadcasts of live events to the first demonstration of super high-definition 8K images (see the ‘Super Hi-Vision’ box, page 132). Whether you’re a sports fan or not, the Olympics will be significant for providing a platform for new technologies that will influence and change the way we watch in the future.

AN EXTRA DIMENSION

The Olympics is organised using so-called key partners, each charged with providing certain parts of the infrastructure. On the audio-visual side, Panasonic is providing the equipment, both for broadcasting and consuming video at the Olympic site. As sole provider for London 2012, Panasonic has the freedom to test out new technologies and develop new hardware specifically

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for this kind of live event. So, just as Beijing 2008 was about HD, this year’s Olympics is all about 3D. London 2012 will be the first games to be shot in three dimensions. This isn’t just some kind of experiment to be demonstrated after the event, but a true live broadcast to UK consumers. An event of this magnitude has never been broadcast in 3D on such a scale, and this marks a big push for 3D content creators and 3D TV manufacturers to get the technology into the hearts, minds and, most importantly, homes of UK consumers. In order to shoot high-quality 3D footage, Panasonic is relying on its P2HD broadcast-quality 3D cameras. P2 is the name of the company’s solid-state memory technology, which is designed to offer the ultra-high level of reliability required for broadcasts that consumer memory card formats such as SD can’t offer. Manolo Romero, managing director of the Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS), explained why the company had been chosen. “For the past two decades, Panasonic has been a valued partner of the Olympic movement and of the [OBS],” he said. “We are now proud to announce the first ever live 3D Olympic Games, and we are confident this unprecedented broadcast will be a great success, in no small part due to the 3D technologies provided by Panasonic. Ultimately, we believe this production of the first live 3D Olympic Games will make the London 2012 Olympic Games one of the most significant in the history of broadcasting technology.”

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OLYMPIC TECHNOLOGY

Taking centre stage is the AG-3DP1 camera. This professional model is a twin-lens camera capable of shooting 1080p (Full HD) 3D footage using its dual 2.2-megapixel 3MOS sensors. As each 3MOS sensor is, in fact, three sensors – red, green and blue – each AG-3DP1 camera has, in effect, six image sensors. The camera is also notable for its level of control over shots, with a 17x zoom (35mm to 602mm, 35mm 5mm equivalent) and full control over 3D convergence. While the zoom range gives fine control over the composition of a shot, the convergence feature is incredibly important for producing 3D content that doesn’t overwhelm the viewer. 3D convergence sets the reference plane of the 3D image. Anything in front of this plane jumps out of your television, and anything beyond it falls into the background. Having control of the convergence point on the fly is incredibly important on a live shoot, as 3D is a very sensitive technology; when it’s wrong, it looks really wrong, and can even cause headaches and queasiness. Shooting a film in 3D is fine, because you can set up the shot and reshoot if it’s not working. When you’re shooting live, though, you can hardly ask Tom Daley to take his dive again because the 3D effect wasn’t working properly. To understand why fine control is required, you have to understand how 3D is viewed. Think of your TV as a window that you’re looking through, with the bezel as the window frame. In effect, most of a 3D image should be towards the background; if you’re looking through a window, objects passing by don’t lurch through the frame towards you. There’s a second reason that objects shouldn’t generally jump out of the frame: realism. Although you see a 3D image, your TV has a two-dimensional screen, so it can only draw images inside the screen’s area; it can’t have objects jump out of the screen and move past the bezel. Shooting 3D incorrectly can break this illusion and cause huge problems. Take, for example, a person standing close to the camera, so you can only see their torso. If the 3D convergence point is set so they appear behind the bezel, this looks normal: to you, you’re looking through a window and the person’s head and legs are obscured by the frame. If the 3D convergence point is set incorrectly, so the person appears in front of the screen, you end up with a strange floating torso, which looks terrible. What’s more, if the convergence point has been set incorrectly, items can either lurch sickeningly from the screen or disappear into the far reaches of the picture, creating an unrealistic viewpoint. The final trick in the Panasonic’s AG-3DP1 camera’s armoury is overcranking, which enables it to shoot footage at double the required frame rate (50fps for PAL TV). When played back at ‘normal’ speed, it creates a slow-motion effect, halving the speed of the action, so you can see every bit of detail in every single sport. Of course, Panasonic’s HD P2 cameras will also be there to shoot everything in HD.

Panasonic’s AG-3DP1 is a broadcast-quality 3D camera that will bring the Olympics to your TV

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Panasonic nic is putting tti a Full ull HD 3D Th Theatre in the middl middle off the Olympi Olympic Park, and will also be streaming events to screens on a giant barge

3D ON YOUR TV

As we’ve already mentioned, the London 2012 Olympic Games will be the first ever to be broadcast live in 3D in the UK. Most of the coverage will be shown on Sky and Virgin Media, via Eurosport, the official Olympics broadcaster. Sky is handing its Sky 3D channel over to Eurosport, opening it up to all Sky HD subscribers for free, while Virgin Media will carry a dedicated Eurosport 3D channel with identical programming, available for all its HD customers (V HD, V+ HD and TiVo are all supported). Each day of the games, there will be eight hours of live programming, followed by four hours of highlights.

Just as Beijing 2008 was about HD, this year’s Olympics is all about 3D. London 2012 will be the first games to be shot in three dimensions “Eurosport has been innovating to provide fans with the best live sports experience for many years,” said Jean Thierry Augustin, Eurosport’s managing director of rights acquisition, distribution and development. “We pride ourselves on giving a truly global view of the Olympic Games, letting supreme sporting performances drive our coverage. This opportunity to present the London 2012 Olympics in 3D to Sky customers will give British fans an unforgettable experience of their ‘home’ Games and the fan international sporting heroes it will generate.” int intern You won’t need a TV subscription to watch in 3D, however, as the BBC is also giving the technology a whirl, although on a more limited scale. As it doesn’t have a dedicated 3D channel, mor the BBC will turn over its BBC HD Channel (BBC One HD will carry the HD version of the broadcast) for 3D content. It will car show the opening and closing ceremonies and the men’s 100m sho fin live, and nightly highlights in 3D. final “We’ve chosen these events partly because they mark the pinnacles of the Games but also to minimise the loss of HD pin that is a consequence of our 3D service,” said Roger Mosey, the tha director of London 2012 at BBC Sport. “The aim is to showcase dir direct 3D for the biggest moments but to preserve choice in a world of conflicting demands.” con

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OLYMPIC TECHNOLOGY

If you thought a 4K (4,096x2160) camera was the pinnacle of display technology, think again. This year’s Olympics will see a trial of Super Hi-Vision technology, which shoots at a resolution of 7,680x4,320, or 16 times the number of pixels of a Full HD (1,920x1,080) picture. The result isn’t just more clarity, but a much wider field of view. Developed by NHK, the technology will also be joined by a new surround-sound format, providing 22.2 channels of audio. Showings are being hosted by the BBC (see http://tinyurl.com/superhivision). According to the BBC, “Super Hi-Vision is designed to be experienced as a wide camera angle shot, giving the audience the experience of being at an event. Special showcase screenings will include highlights of the Olympic Games as well as content showing what London feels like as it becomes an Olympic city.” Don’t expect the technology to make it to your home any time soon, though; 4K footage is too large to fit on a Blu-ray, while 8K is far beyond that. Without something dramatic changing, there’s no possible way of broadcasting such detailed images, as there’s simply not enough bandwidth. However, as a showcase for future developments, it should be interesting.

Super Hi-Vision 7,680x4,320

4K Digital Cinema 4,096x2,160

Full HD 1,920x1,080

Super Hi-Vision promises a wider viewing angle and more detail than 4K Digital Cinema or Full HD footage

Outside of these events, BBC HD will continue to show its normal programming, giving those people not interested in the event the opportunity to watch something else. BBC HD and BBC One HD are available on Freeview HD and Freesat HD, and via Sky HD and Virgin Media HD boxes.

3D IN THE PARK

What if you don’t have a 3D TV, but want to see how the technology looks for an event on this scale? For this, Panasonic is installing a Full HD 3D Theatre in the middle of the Olympic Park. This will allow any visitor to pop in and see live events streamed in Full HD 3D on giant screens. It’s not just for those people lucky enough to have tickets to actual events, as non-event tickets have also been made available. These enable 70,000 visitors to enter the Olympic Park and walk around it, without actually attending any events. Priced at £10 each, these tickets cost no more than a cinema ticket in the capital.

OLYMPICS SCREENING

The organisers of London 2012 were very keen for the games to be accessible to the whole of the UK. Although most events are taking place in London, primarily in Stratford, it was important that people all around the country could watch the games live. To that end, Panasonic will be installing giant screens in public places in every major UK city. A total of 45 large LED

A giant LED screen will be showing the games live in Hyde Park, London

screens, with a combined surface area of around 1,730m2, will be set up around the country. There will be a wide variety of screen sizes, but the most impressive are the giant 143in screens placed back to back on a barge floating on the River Lea in the Olympic Park. Each screen is built from individual tiles, stacked on top of each other to create a larger screen. A 30m2 screen requires 720 individual tiles and more than 193,000 LED bulbs, so creating two 143in screens and getting them to float on a barge is quite a technical challenge.

LIFE ON DISPLAY

Panasonic is also responsible for providing display information inside the stadia. This has traditionally been done at previous games using large projectors on big screens, but for London 2012, the company is using its own plasma technology. It will install 47 103in screens, which it believes will give higher definition and better image quality than projectors. For some of the games, such as the opening and closing ceremonies, projectors will still be needed in order to create a large enough picture. At such times, Panasonic’s PT-DZ21K three-chip DLP projector will come into play. Although little bigger than a traditional projector, it has an incredible 20,000 lumens brightness. This high brightness is necessary in order to project a clear picture on a giant screen from a distance; the PT-DZ21K can project a 600in, 1,920x1,200 picture from 587ft away, using the ET-D75LE8 zoom lens. The company is also providing a TV in every athlete’s room in the Olympic village, while British Olympiads that win a gold medal will also be presented with a Panasonic TV.

HOME COMFORTS

All this new technology may be exciting, but only a minority of people will be able to experience the games in this way. For those stuck at home without a 3D TV, London 2012 will be using the internet and digital broadcasting to provide wider access to events. In previous Olympic Games, viewers have been limited to watching the event that the broadcaster has chosen to show. This means that although high-profile events such as the men’s 100m final will always be shown on TV, other events often miss out on coverage. This year, however, you’ll be able to choose what you want to watch, thanks to multiple streams being available courtesy of the BBC.

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OLYMPIC TECHNOLOGY It may look like a normal projector, but Panasonic’s PT-DZ21K is a 20,000-lumens model designed for outdoor events

“The London 2012 Olympic Games is likely to be the biggest sporting event in the UK in our lifetimes,” explained the BBC’s Roger Mosey. “The BBC’s coverage will ensure that our audiences need never miss a moment. “We will be bringing live coverage of every Olympic sport from every venue, through a combination of BBC One and BBC Three and up to 24 simultaneous streams live online on PC, mobile, tablet or connected TV.” No matter where you are, the BBC Sport website (www.bbc.co. uk/sport) will give you the option of 24 live HD streams to any desktop or mobile browser. While this has been possible before, the BBC is really embracing the technology for the games. Users will be able to rewind live streams, so they can watch from the start if they missed part of the action. Chapters will also be used, marking exciting events, letting visitors jump straight to the highlights. This hasn’t been done on this kind of scale before. For Android and iOS users, the free Olympics app will provide access to the same content directly from their tablet or mobile phone, making it easy to stay up to date with what’s happening. That’s not to say that television viewers are being ignored. The BBC is expanding its ‘Red Button’ digital content for the Olympics, so Sky, Virgin Media and Freesat customers will be able to choose from up to 24 live streams, getting the same content that’s available on the website. However, this service will show only the live stream, and will lack the ability to rewind footage. For Freeview and BT Vision customers, it’s a bit more restricted. The Red Button will provide access to an extra Olympics-only channel, in addition to the coverage on BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three, BBC HD and BBC One HD. The BBC’s iPlayer service will also give you the chance to catch up on anything you’ve missed. It can be accessed on a variety of platforms, including media streamers, Blu-ray players, Smart TVs, web browsers and mobile phones.

SMART TV

In case there was any danger that Smart TV wasn’t being taken seriously, the BBC has announced that it will release the BBC Sports app for televisions before the games. This will provide live streams of up to 24 events and 2,500 hours of content on

demand, all in HD. So far, it’s been announced that Sony Smart TVs (2011 and 2012 models) and the Sony PlayStation 3 will have access to the app. We’ve also been told that Panasonic’s Viera Cast Smart TV platform will also get BBC Sport. Other supported TV models hadn’t been announced as we went to press.

LET THE GAMES BEGIN

The BBC Sport website will offer 24 live HD streams of the Olympics, letting you watch what you want wherever you are

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While a lot of this technology has been about broadcasting the Olympics, the simple fact is that the results will be more farreaching. By simultaneously providing feeds via standard TV, Smart TV, the internet and mobile apps, the BBC has created a new way of watching TV and choosing what to watch, when you want to watch it. This truly is on-demand TV. The games will also provide a testing ground for live 3D coverage and new super high-resolution images. London 2012 may be a big stage for competing athletes but, for technology, it’s also the biggest stage ever.

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PHOTO PRINTING

How to...

Print your own passport photos There’s no need to pay a small fortune on a new driving licence or passport picture. Matt Chapman shows you how easy it is to print a high-quality picture at home THESE DAYS YOU’D have to spend £5 or more per family member to get passport photos from a booth, and a lot more for prints from a local high street specialist. Luckily, you don’t have to go to those lengths. Thanks to improvements in photo printing, you can easily create images your local chemist would be proud of and save yourself money in the

process. Even better, as you’ve got control over the photography, you can ensure you only print pictures you’re proud of, which is important as your passport photo will be with you for 10 years. Using free online resources, you can create passport photos of the regulation size for the UK without having to master an image editor or your print settings.

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First, you’ll need to have a high-quality photo 01 taken of you. Get a friend or family member to use a digital camera to take the shot. You’ll find full details of the conditions you need to meet at http://bit.ly/ukpassport. Just remember that you need to stand in front of a white, cream or light-grey background; you can hang a sheet if you don’t have a suitable wall. The photo should be straight on and of your face, with good contrast between your head and the wall behind. Don’t smile, and don’t wear any head gear or sunglasses or, indeed, anything that will obscure your face. Make sure you fix any red eye, and be careful that any flash doesn’t reflect off your face and blow out the details.

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Now add your image in JPEG format. The file size must be no larger than 10MB. Images should be no smaller than 130x200 pixels and no larger than 5,000x5,000 pixels. Once you find a suitable image, click the Choose File button, select your photo and press Upload to use it.

Go to www.idphoto4you.com and use the Country menu to select United Kingdom. This will mean that the correct setting is automatically selected in the Photo menu below; it should now read ‘Passport (3.5 x 4.5)’. Then select your print size – for example, the standard ‘9x13 cm (3.5x4.5 inch)’ photo paper.

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Once the photo has loaded, the Crop page should open automatically. If it fails to load, click the Crop tab at the top of the main page. If the website detects your face, the crop frame will be adjusted to show the best image based on UK passport requirements. If you need to crop the image, hover the mouse icon over the edges to move them, or the dots in the centre to widen the image. You can also use the sliding scales at the right to increase or decrease the image’s brightness and contrast. Click the Reset button to remove unwanted changes and the Make Photo button when you’re happy with your photo.

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After a short wait, your image will be available for use. Click the small, blue Download link that appears and then save the printable image. If your computer suggests resizing the image or making any other changes to the print settings, you should ignore those prompts. You should also remember to use decent quality white photo paper to match UK passport regulations. Once the images have been printed, you can check that each one is the correct 3.5x4.5in size by using a ruler.

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Everything you need to know about Windows Phone, in one place. The Ultimate Guide To

Top Windows Phone handsets tested and rated Find out all the tips, tricks and shortcuts The best apps and games to download

Order your print or digital copy direct from magbooks.com or call 0844 844 0053 MagBooks cover a range of topics, from IT to Motoring, and Fitness to Lifestyle WorldMags.net

WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER

How to...

Play any media format

If you like using Windows’ built-in media player but you can’t get it to play all your files, don’t panic. Rene Millman explains how to make it work with every format WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER (WMP) is a simple-to-use media player that’s also quick to load. Its one slight downfall is that it doesn’t support all media files out of the box. Fortunately, if there are any audio or video files you’re struggling to play, you can use codecs to sort out your problems. The word ‘codec’ is a combination of the words

‘compression’ and ‘decompression’, and it denotes the bit of software that tells your computer how to decode or encode a particular video format. By installing additional codecs on Windows, you can extend WMP’s capabilities and get it to play any file. This will also make Windows Media Center play the same range of files.

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You’ll be able to tell 01 if you don’t have the necessary codecs installed to play a file, because when you browse to a folder, you won’t get a thumbnail view of the file, such as a frame from a video file. If you double-click one of these files, you’ll get a warning from Windows telling you it can’t open the file. As it stands, these video files won’t be imported into your Windows Media Player library, either.

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Although following Step 2 will enable you to play most video files, you may find that MKV files and DivX files with a .divx extension won’t play. For this reason, you should download and install the DivX Plus Codec Pack from www.divx.com/en/software/divx-plus/codec-pack. Download and run the installation file; you’ll get the option to choose which components to install. The DivX Plus Codec Pack is essential, and you can safely deselect the Converter Player and Web Player components. Click Next when you’re done and deselect the Norton Security Scan option. Click Next again to complete the installation.

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When you open Windows Media Player, the files that wouldn’t play before should now start appearing in the correct categories of your Library. Click Videos, for example, to view all your videos. If they don’t appear, make sure your files are in the right folder. Right-click the category you want to manage and select Manage Library. This will list all the folders that Windows Media Player uses for that particular file type. You can either copy the files into these folders, or click Add, navigate to the folder containing your files and click ‘Include folder’. If your files are already in a listed required folder, Windows might require a bit of push. First, quit and restart Windows Media Player. If that doesn’t work, right-click the category you want to edit and select the Manage option. Select the folder with your files in and click Remove. Click OK, and all the files in that folder will disappear from your library. Then add the folder back to the library following the instructions in this step. All your files should now be listed.

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All your video files should now appear in Windows Explorer with a thumbnail preview of the content in them, bar files with a .divx extension. To fix these files so they have a proper thumbnail, try renaming them so that they have a .avi extension. You can then double-click any media file to open it in Windows Media Player.

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The easiest way to 02 play all the files is to install a codec pack that contains all the extra codecs you’ll need for both video and audio. There are several packs available, but we think the Windows 7 Codec Pack (www. windows7codecs.com) is the best. Go to the website and click the download button to save the installation file to your computer. Run this file, select Easy Installation and follow the wizard, remembering to deselect any toolbar or other extraneous software that you’re prompted to install. Then restart your computer to apply the changes. You should then be able to play all your music files and the majority of video files.

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More storage help required?

Backup reviews page 98

How to...

Synchronise your files with SugarSync Keeping multiple computers up to date with the same set of files couldn’t be simpler. Robert Jaques shows you how to synchronise all your most important documents CLOUD SYNCHRONISATION SOFTWARE enables you to start work on one computer, save the file, then continue working on it on another computer, with all the changes seamlessly updated. Most cloud storage services offer online backup, too, so you’ll also add extra protection to your important files. As you can see from our Labs group test on page 98, our favourite synchronisation service is SugarSync. This flexible

application has a free 5GB version, and you can buy extra storage as you need it. It supports Windows and Mac for synchronisation, while iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, Symbia and BlackBerry clients let you access your data from anywhere. Just download and install the software from www.sugarsync.com/downloads. You’ll be prompted to create a username and password, and then you’re ready to use it.

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The first time you run SugarSync, you’ll be asked to a select an icon that represents your computer. The software will also present you with a list of default folders it wants to synchronise with the cloud, including your Desktop, My Documents, My Pictures, My Music and My Videos. You can either select these defaults or click Cancel and select folders manually. To add a folder manually, click Add Sync Folders, navigate to the folder you want to save online and tick its Checkbox. You can select multiple folders before clicking OK to confirm the changes. The folder will then be synchronised online.

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02 You’ve set SugarSync up on one computer so far, so selected folders are only backed up to your cloud storage. To synchronise files with another computer, install the SugarSync client on it and, when prompted, log in with the username and password you created earlier. To synchronise a folder, select Manage Sync Folders on the new computer. The computer you’re on appears as This Computer; under Other Computers, you can see the folders being saved to the cloud storage. Click a folder you want to synchronise to this computer, then click Sync. If you had D:\pictures on the original computer, SugarSync will try to create D:\pictures on your new computer. You can click Choose Another Location and browse to an alternative folder if you prefer, but SugarSync will try to create the sync folder inside the folder you’ve picked, D:\pics\pictures, rather than letting you select D:\pics. If you want to go with your choice, select the ‘click here’ link and click OK. The two folders will now be synchronised: any new files or edits will be saved on both computers, and to your cloud storage. Add folders on the new computer using the instructions on Step 1, or synchronise your original computer to new folders using the instructions in this step.

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On top of the folders you choose to synchronise, SugarSync also creates a Magic Briefcase folder on all computers and provides a link to it from your Desktop. The idea is that this gives you a quick way to share a file between all your computers – just drag and drop a file into it, and it will be shared with all your computers.

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One advantage of cloud-based storage is that you can access those files from anywhere once they are synchronised. You can browse your files using the SugarSync File Manager on the Desktop, but the web interface is easier to use and gives you more options. Simply go to www.sugarsync.com and log in to your account. Browse your synchronised folders by clicking on a device under My Devices, then browsing through the folders. From here, you can navigate through all your cloud storage. Just click on a file’s name to download it to your computer.

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SUGARSYNC

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The web interface also lets you share a file or folder by creating a public link to it that other people can use to download it. Hover your mouse over a file or folder and select Share. Copy the link the software creates, or type in the email address of the person to whom you want to send it. For Shared Folders, you can set an access password and give people Read Only permission or let them edit files. To remove a link, click Public Files under Other Places on the left-hand side of the web interface to view a list of shared files. Click the Chain icon and select Disable Link. By default, files you email are available for 21 days.

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To edit a file and then save it back to the cloud, you can use a helper app provided by SugarSync called WebSync. Click a file’s tickbox in the web interface, then click Edit with WebSync. This downloads a file to your computer. Run it to start a Java app. The file is downloaded and opened in the associated application on your computer. All changes are saved back to your cloud storage. Click the Done With All button in the WebSync dialog box when you’ve finished making edits.

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If you navigate to a shared folder with photos in it, you can click the View in Gallery button for a thumbnail view; click on a picture to view a large version of it. Use the links on the right to share the album with a link, download it, publish the photos to Facebook and even rotate them. You can also make an album public for all SugarSync users to see. To stop sharing an album, you just need to click the Photos link, 07 find your album in the list (it’s organised by folder) and select Properties from the Actions drop-down menu. Select the option to make the folder private.

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As well as sending your files to the Cloud, SugarSync saves deleted files and previous versions of changed files. You can access versions through Windows Explorer if you right-click a file and then select SugarSync, Versions. Alternatively, use the web interface to browse to the file. Hover the mouse over it, select More and Versions. You can view the versions by date, either choosing to view the file or selecting Save As to download a previous version. To view deleted files, click the Deleted Files link in the web interface. Navigate through the Deleted files until you find the one you want. Click the tickbox, and you can choose to restore, download or permanently delete, which reclaims the space the file is using from the total storage space available.

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To get SugarSync running on a mobile device, download the free client software from SugarSync’s website or from your device’s app store. You can create a PIN to protect your data from unauthorised access in case your phone is stolen. The mobile apps give you much the same functionality as the web interface. Select your computers to view shared folders and files. Once you’ve found a file you’re interested in, you can share it, copy a link or synchronise it to the local device for offline access. You can also view, rename, copy and move a file. Files synchronised to your mobile are accessed by choosing your device from the front screen of the app, such as My iPhone. You can also choose Sync to Mobile Device from the web interface to send a file to your phone.

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Using the app to navigate to a folder with pictures in it, you can browse the images as though they were stored locally on your device. You can also upload photos automatically. Select Photos and click the camera icon. Take a picture using your phone’s camera, and it will be uploaded automatically to your Mobile Photos folder in Sugar Sync.

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Business Help If you have databases, office applications and macro issues, Kay Ewbank can help. Send your problems to [email protected]

Outlook not working with Hotmail Q

My wife recently opened a Hotmail email account. I suggested that she should use Outlook to access it. When she started Outlook, she input her account as ***@hotmail. com, which does not exist, instead of ***@hotmail.co.uk. When she started Outlook, it started loading the profile but then a window appeared asking for her password, but for the ***@hotmail.com account. There seems to be no way to alter this to the correct account, as it is greyed out. Eventually, another window appeared with this message: “Cannot open your default e-mail folders. The file C:\Users\*******\AppData\Local\Microsft\Outlook\*****@hotmail. ost is not an Outlook data file (.ost).” Clicking OK causes Outlook to close. How do I rectify this situation? R Gordon Smith If you’re working with an Outlook version pre-2010, one way to solve this is to start Outlook without it attempting to load the incorrect profile so your wife can set up the correct one. From the Run command in the Start menu, type Outlook /firstrun and click OK. This starts Outlook as if it were being run for the first time, so you should be able to input the correct profile and delete the incorrect one. Outlook switches can be helpful in a variety of situations where there’s a problem. You can find a useful list of the switches, and what they can be used for, by visiting http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/ command-line-switches-HP001003110.aspx. From Outlook 2010 onwards, the /firstrun switch has stopped working so you’ll need to use an alternative method. In the Control Panel, open the Mail applet. From the options on offer, choose Show

A

Use the Mail applet from the Control Panel to change an Outlook profile if you can’t do it from within Outlook

Profiles. You should see a profile called Outlook. Click Properties, then choose Email Accounts. You’ll see a list of the current email accounts that have been defined, including the problematic one. You can either choose Remove, to go through the process of re-entering the details in Outlook, or choose Change to alter the email address and password. You can also change the folder where the data files are stored.

Sharing Access database changes Q

I have built an Access database, which I am hoping will be useful to my peers using their own data. I know I can give them an empty copy of my design for them to fill, but if I make changes, how do I distribute these updates to my peers so they can have the latest design without any hassle? Andy Shellis

front- and back-end is also useful if several people are using the same database, as it means each user can work with their own local copy of the forms, queries and reports without being slowed down by other people using the same files. You split a database by using the Access database splitter wizard. You’ll find this in the Database Tools tab of the Office Ribbon, in the Move You would normally do this Data section. You’re going to need by splitting the database into the Access Database option. The a front-end database that wizard simply warns you that the contains the forms, queries and reports, operation might take a long time, Use the Access database splitter wizard to split a database into a and a back-end database that contains front and back end format advises you to back up your data only the tables and indexes for the before starting, and asks for the name database. That way, you can distribute new your changes. However, problems arise if you of the back-end database. It then gets on with copies of the front-end without problems, need to change the design of a table or index, the splitting, leaving you with a front-end because the data that your peers have saved so it’s important to get those fixed before you database that contains only the ‘visible’ in the back-end database isn’t affected by start the distribution. The concept of a split parts of your database.

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| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

BUSINESS HELP

Can I update Excel automatically? Q

I have a spreadsheet containing historic data that goes back nearly two years. It has data in it that is entered daily by staff with little or no knowledge of Excel (2003). I want to make a dashboard to show the last six weeks’ worth of dynamic data from this master document for reporting purposes; the updating must happen automatically as data is entered, because the staff members entering the data don’t have the skills to update the data manually. I should be able to do this by using a named range and an offset formula, but knowing this and getting the formula to work are two different things. I’m attaching a sample of the data to prove I can’t make it work. Glyn F

A

Getting Excel to update data automatically is straightforward, but the process depends on the data used. Here’s the sample data provided by Glyn, which uses this format:

Date

Calls offered

Calls answered within 20 seconds

Calls answered after 20 seconds

06/04/2012

146495

132628

2840

131959

07/04/2012

72495

62628

2540

60000

Calls answered

08/04/2012

108743

93942

3810

97428

27/04/2012

184862

158124

5685

161255

Calls answered after 20 seconds

Calls answered

The summary section looks like this:

Calls offered Week 1

253058

Week 2

281175

Week 3

312417

Week 4

240321

Week 5

184862

Week 6

108742

Calls answered within 20 seconds

The macro falls into two parts. The first part uses the full data set (which we assume is on a separate sheet on the current workbook called AllDates). This full data set is analysed to find the entries for the past six weeks, given by subtracting 42 days from the current date. The matching entries are then copied on to the summary sheet called CurrentDates. To work out the data range for all the dates, we use: dates = alldates.Range("A2" & ":" & "A" & CStr(alldates. Range("A" & CStr(alldates.Rows.Count)).End(xlUp).Row)).Value

The data is entered into the first area, and the data for the last six weeks is displayed in a table, alongside the summary information. The simplest solution is a macro that could be run when the spreadsheet is opened, or when the user presses a ‘show summary’ button on the Excel toolbar, so: Public Sub CopyDates() Dim alldates As Worksheet Dim currentdates As Worksheet Dim CurrRow As Integer Dim DestRow As Integer Dim weekstats(6, 4) As Long Const firstrow = 2 week6 = Now() - 42 week5 = Now() - 35 week4 = Now() - 28 week3 = Now() - 21 week2 = Now() - 14 week1 = Now() - 7 Set alldates = Sheets("AllDates") Set currentdates = Sheets("CurrentDates") currentdates.Range("A2:F200").Clear dates = alldates.Range("A2" & ":" & "A" & CStr(alldates.

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Range("A" & CStr(alldates.Rows.Count)).End(xlUp).Row)).Value Dim i As Integer For i = LBound(dates) To UBound(dates) If (dates(i, 1)) >= Now() - 42 Then CurrRow = firstrow + i - 1 DestRow = currentdates.Range("A" & CStr(currentdates. Rows.Count)).End(xlUp).Row + 1 alldates.Range(CStr(CurrRow) & ":" & CStr(CurrRow)).Copy currentdates.Range("A" & CStr(DestRow)) Select Case dates(i, 1) Case Is <= week5 weekstats(6, 1) = weekstats(6, 1) + alldates. Range("B" & CStr(CurrRow)) Case (week5 - 1) To week4 weekstats(5, 1) = weekstats(5, 1) + alldates. Range("B" & CStr(CurrRow)) Case (week4 - 1) To week3 weekstats(4, 1) = weekstats(4, 1) + alldates. Range("B" & CStr(CurrRow)) Case (week3 - 1) To week2 weekstats(3, 1) = weekstats(3, 1) + alldates. Range("B" & CStr(CurrRow)) Case (week2 - 1) To week1 weekstats(2, 1) = weekstats(2, 1) + alldates. Range("B" & CStr(CurrRow)) Case (week1 - 1) To Now() weekstats(1, 1) = weekstats(1, 1) + alldates. Range("B" & CStr(CurrRow)) End Select End If Next i For i = 1 To 6 currentdates.Range("H" & CStr(i + 21)) = weekstats(i, 1) Next i End Sub

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This works out as A2:A47, or however many rows are in the data range. It works out the range by counting the number of rows used in the worksheet, then using .End(xlUp).Row to move from the last row to the last used row. This sets up the range called dates to hold all the values used in the dates column. This range is looped through using ‘For i = LBound(dates) To UBound(dates)’. Within this loop, where a date falls in the six week period, the information from that row is copied on to the CurrentDates sheet using: DestRow = currentdates.Range("A" & CStr(currentdates.Rows. Count)).End(xlUp).Row + 1 alldates.Range(CStr(CurrRow) & ":" & CStr(CurrRow)).Copy currentdates.Range("A" & CStr(DestRow))

This works out the next empty row on the destination sheet, then copies the current row in the range on the source sheet across to the destination sheet. Having copied all the rows of data across, the Select Case statement works out to which week’s total (if any) the numeric values for calls offered should be added. We’ve only shown the code for calculating the Calls Offered totals. Glyn would need to add similar lines for adding in the Calls Accepted and other totals.

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Helpfile Whatever your general PC, hardware and software woes, Simon Handby is here to help. Send your problems to [email protected]

Confusing missing .dll error Q

After skipping version 12.2 of the AMD Catalyst drivers, I’ve upgraded to version 12.3. After rebooting, I see an error message warning me that ‘The program can’t start because OpenCL.dll is missing from your computer’. The message also suggests that I try reinstalling, but it doesn’t suggest what needs to be reinstalled. I’ve tried uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers, but that didn’t work. Any advice? Ben Baxendale This problem appeared on certain systems running version 12.2 of AMD’s video driver suite, and has persisted through version 12.3 into 12.4. It seems to be related to the drag-and-drop transcoding feature. It’s likely that AMD will resolve the issue in an incremental release of the software, but you can prevent the error message by customising your driver installation.

A

Open the Start menu, search for Programs and click ‘Add or remove programs’ from the results. In the resulting applet, find and select AMD Catalyst Install Manager in the list of programs, then click Change at the top of the program list. Click Next in the InstallShield wizard that appears, and then, on the next screen, select Uninstall Manager and click Next. Provide permission if prompted, then tick Custom in the AMD Catalyst Install Manager window and click Next again. On the next screen, select AMD Drag and Drop Transcoding and Uninstalling AMD’s transcoding software will prevent this AMD Accelerated Video Transcoding error message from the list of installed components. Click Next and allow the installer to the error has gone. If you need the transcoding finish making changes. There’s no need to feature, keep an eye out for future releases reboot, but when you next do, you should find of the driver package.

Is my printer collection obsolete? Q

For many years, I have been collecting Canon i560 printers and their cartridges. I currently have five with more than 80 ink cartridges between them, plus an i850 printer. I print a lot of pages and use a lot of ink, and when the print

heads eventually go, I just throw the printer away. Recently my computer failed and, after replacing it with a Windows 7 PC, I discovered that there were no drivers available for my printers. I’ve spent days and days trying to find a solution – can you help? Brian Evill, [email protected] According to the Windows 7 Compatibility Centre, your printers should be compatible with both the 32- and 64-bit editions of Windows 7. However, the drivers are downloaded through Windows Update, rather than from Canon’s own website. First, uninstall any drivers that you’ve tried to install for either printer and turn the printers off if they’re already connected to the PC. Then click the Start button on your PC, right-click Computer and select Properties. In the left-hand pane of the window that appears, click Advanced system settings.

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Change this particular setting will enable Windows Update to find device drivers for you

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Click the Hardware tab of the dialog box that appears, then click the Device Installation Settings button. In the next window select ‘Yes do this automatically’, then click the Save Changes button. Ensure you are connected to the internet, connect the i560 (if necessary) and turn it on, at which point Windows will attempt to install it; this may take a minute or so. You may notice a message telling you the installation has failed, but don’t worry about this. Click the Start button, then click Devices and Printers, and look to see if the i560 is listed under Printers and Faxes. If the printer has a green circle with a tick in it, it has been recognised and installed by Windows and is now the default printer, and you should find you can print to it. If this isn’t the case, rightclick the printer’s icon and Troubleshoot, and Windows will offer to install a driver for the printer. Click ‘Apply this fix’, and you should find that the printer is installed. You should also be able to install the i850 by plugging it in and switching it on. If this doesn’t work, right-click its icon and use the troubleshooter to apply the correct drivers.

SEPTEMBER 2012

| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

HELPFILE

Is my overclocked CPU cool enough? Q

I read with interest your response to Bob Michie’s question on overclocking CPUs (Helpfile, Shopper 289). In your response, you say that CPUs can run at up to 80°C without damage, but that with a good fan and heatsink you should aim to keep the overclocked temperature below 60°C. I have an AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition, which I bought specifically for its easy overclocking potential, paired with a Scythe Katana 3 cooler. Using the AMD Overdrive utility, I had no problem overclocking the CPU from its 3.4GHz stock speed up to 4GHz. However, I was a little concerned that when running at 100 per cent load, CoreTemp was reporting temperatures in the high fifties with an occasional peak of 63°C. AMD’s official specs state the maximum core temperature of the CPU is 61°C, so I returned the clock to the defaults to prevent any damage. I’m unsure how to square your advice with AMD’s recommended maximum temperature and the fact that CoreTemp reports that my processor’s ‘Tj Max’ is 90°C. When overclocked to 4GHz and reaching temperatures of 63°C, the system has worked perfectly. Please can you confirm if it is safe to run my processor at 60°C or not? Is it just that AMD’s specs are very conservative? Paul, [email protected] Processor specifications vary, so our 80°C figure was a generalisation. We wouldn’t expect to see damage at that temperature, but not all processors would

A

Remember that everyday processor use isn’t as taxing as a stress test

be happy running so hot. The 90°C Tj Max temperature displayed by CoreTemp is the temperature that no part of your processor should ever exceed, and the accepted wisdom is that you shouldn’t get within 20°C of this. While this would suggest that you can safely run your processor up to 70°C, we wouldn’t recommend that you routinely exceed AMD’s stated 61°C maximum, so removing your overclock may have been a sensible precaution. Remember, though, that testing with a 100 per cent processor load represents a worst-case scenario. Few practical applications tax a processor in this way, and in your system it only just nudges the temperature above the recommended maximum. Try reintroducing a modest overclock and leave CoreTemp running while you use your computer normally, keeping an eye on the maximum recorded core temperature from

time to time. If it remains below 61°C, you may be able to try a faster overclock. If you are approaching 61°C in normal use, though, you should improve your system’s cooling. Start by making sure that there is good airflow through the case. There should be at least one fan drawing fresh air in to the case and at least one other fan expelling stale air. If you have a powerful graphics card, you’ll probably need additional case fans. Ensure that the cabling inside the PC is as neat as possible to keep it out of the airflow, but also that there’s room for air to circulate around the exterior of the case; don’t put the PC in a confined space or near other sources of heat. If the processor is still too warm to support the level of overclocking you want, you could upgrade to a water cooler. Antec’s Kühler H2O 620, which is available for £47 from Amazon.co.uk, is a good choice.

The hardest buttons to button Q

I have a 22in Philips Brilliance 200w monitor that has recently started displaying the flashing message ‘OSD main controls locked’ in the middle of the screen. I’ve tried everything to get rid of it. The only thing that works is continuously holding down the Auto button. Before this latest trouble, the monitor randomly flashed up the screen controls and sometimes behaved as though someone was adjusting the controls when nobody was. Has my monitor lost its marbles, or is there a way to stop it misbehaving? Chris Olding, [email protected] We haven’t encountered this ourselves but, from what we hear, it can be a problem among some older Philips monitors. We’ve read of two possible fixes, but

A

If you can get to a dodgy switch or slider, there’s a good chance Servisol will fix it

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unfortunately we don’t have a similar screen available on which to test them. The first fix involves resetting the monitor using the control buttons. Hold the OK button in for a minute, which should cause a menu to appear. If it does, release the OK button, scroll down the menu to the Reset entry and press OK when the Yes option is selected. If this doesn’t work, the cause is probably a sticking or bouncing switch. Check that the monitor isn’t still covered by a warranty; if it is, ask Philips to repair it. If it’s out of warranty and you’re feeling brave, you could try opening the monitor casing and cleaning the contacts in the control switches. Note that this will definitely invalidate any warranty and, if you’re unlucky, you might also break the monitor; it’s only worth trying if the alternative is throwing the screen away. Also, older CRT monitors can retain dangerous high voltages for days after being switched off – never dismantle one of these.

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Unplug the power from your monitor before you start, then look at the construction of its plastic casing. Check for obvious screw heads on the rear panel and at the sides; the chances are that the front panel simply clips on. If you find no screws, use a small blunt knife to prise the front away from the back where the two panels join, starting at the bottom of the screen. If you’re able to do this without resorting to excessive force, work your way up the sides until you can lift the front panel off enough to see the area behind the panel switches; there should be a small circuit board here containing the actual switches. You may not be able to remove this board, but you should be able to reach in to gently scrub it clean with a toothbrush or similar soft brush, using a small amount of methylated spirit as a solvent. Alternatively, you could try applying a switch-cleaning lubricant such as Servisol Super 10. Allow the switches to dry for a couple of hours before clipping the monitor back together, then plug it in and see if the problem is fixed. If not, you may have to bite the bullet and buy a new monitor.

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Fond of the early home PCs?

ADVANCED PROJECTS

See our Top 10, page 16

Emulating the BBC Micro and Sinclair ZX Spectrum Britain once led the world in home computing with the BBC Micro and Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Chris Finnamore shows you how to resurrect these classics

IN THE PREVIOUS issue, we showed you how to emulate a 1987 Commodore Amiga, a computer that, even with just 512KB RAM, could run a full multitasking operating system. This month, we’re taking you even further back – to the heady days of the early 1980s and the hugely popular BBC Micro and Sinclair ZX Spectrum. The Amiga is a veritable powerhouse when compared with these early home computers, with their 32KB or 48KB of RAM and their 2MHz and 3.5MHz processors. Both computers are a challenge to master, but their simple Basic programming languages and variety of classic games make them ideal for running inside your PC.

BBC MICRO AND MASTER The BBC Micro was a rugged, expandable home computer built by Acorn for the BBC Computer Literary Project, and was a common sight in schools up and down the country. Many children in the 1980s, including this esteemed publication’s reviews editor, did their first programming on the Micro’s BBC Basic.

There are several BBC Micro and Master emulators, but our favourite is BeebEm. The emulator itself is simple to set up and use; remembering how to use the computers themselves is significantly harder. To start, download and install BeebEm from www.mkw.me.uk/beebem. The latest version is 4.14. Just run BeebEm from your Start menu to open up a virtual BBC Micro. The program defaults to a BBC Model B – the most popular of BBC computers. You can change the type of model by selecting BBC Model from the Hardware menu; you may need to upgrade to a more powerful BBC Master 128 to run some programs.

KNOWING THE BASICS

The BBC’s screen is bare – after all, it harks back to the days before home computers had a GUI. All you’ll see is a command prompt, but this simple cursor does everything, from programming to disk operations. Type in 10 PRINT “HELLO” (BBC Basic displays everything in capitals) and press Return, then type RUN and press Return, and you should

With an emulator, you no longer have to queue up to use a BBC Micro

The BBC Micro’s entire operating system is Basic, so you can get stuck in to programming

see “HELLO” appear onscreen. Type Mode 5 and press return to change to graphics drawing mode. Type ‘DRAW 800,0’ and press Return – you’ve just drawn a line! For more Basic commands and some simple programs to type in, you’ll need the BBC Micro manual. Luckily, this is available download as an RTF file if you visit for do Lawrence Edwards’ page at www.btinternet. Law com/~lawrence.edwards/bbccomp/bbc.htm, com and there are plenty of other useful links at the same website. If you don’t want to type in the programs manually, you can even copy and paste them straight from the User cop Guide into the BBC emulator using the Paste command in BeebEm’s Edit menu. com

SAVING AND LOADING SAVI

You’ll need to create a floppy disk if you want You keep your amazing Basic creations. From to kee the File menu, go to Disc Options and select New Disc 0 (the emulator supports up to two emulated 5¼in drives). Choose where you emu want to create your virtual floppy, type in a wan filename and press Return to save it. You can filena select one of several types of disc from the ‘Save as type’ menu. Single-Sided models ‘Sa are the most compatible and don’t require you to change any options within BeebEm. To mount your disk, select Load Disc 0 from the File menu, and double-click on your file. To see what’s on the disk, typ ‘*CAT’ and press Return. To save a type progra to disk, turn off the disk’s writeprogram protec protection in the Disc Options menu, then sim simply type SAVE and put the name of the file

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| COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 295

ADVANCED PROJECTS

This month, we’re taking you back to the heady days of the early 1980s and the hugely popular BBC Micro and Sinclair ZX Spectrum

It’s amazing what you can do with 80 lines of BASIC code

The BeebEm emulator comes with a selection of games, such as the classic Chuckie Egg

you want to create in between quotation marks – such as SAVE “TEST1”, for example. To load your program, type LOAD TEST1, then type RUN to run it.

THE NAME OF THE GAME

You may also want to run some games. Disk images are available all over the internet for download. They often come in Zip format, so you’ll need to unzip them to the folder where you’re keeping your disk images. BeebEm already comes with a selection of disk images for you to try. To load a bootable disk image, such as the Games.ssd disk that comes with BeebEm, select Run Disc from the File menu and select the Games.ssd file. You can also use the Load Disc command and press ShiftBreak on your PC’s keyboard to boot the disk. The Games disc contains four games, including the classic Chuckie Egg and Zalaga. Most of the time you’ll be fine with BeebEm’s standard keyboard mappings, but you may occasionally have problems. On a BBC computer, the CTRL and Caps Lock keys were next to each other, so were used for left and right in games, but on a PC they’re above each other. You can change this behaviour by selecting Map A,S to Caps, Ctrl in the Options menu.

SINCLAIR ZX SPECTRUM 48K Clive Sinclair’s 1982 ZX Spectrum 48K could well be considered the first mainstream UK home computer. The black brick with the ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

| SEPTEMBER 2012

rubber keys inspired a generation of programmers and games fanatics, and launched classic computer magazines such as Your Sinclair and Sinclair User. The computer itself was powerful for its time, and for its price. Your £129 (which is around £390 in today’s money) got you the 48K version, with a 3.5MHz processor and 256x192-pixel display with a 15-colour palette, hence the word ‘Spectrum’. The ZX Spectrum became more powerful (and lost the rubber keys) with the ZX Spectrum+, ZX Spectrum 128 and the Amstrad-manufactured ZX Spectrum +2 and floppy disk drive-equipped +3.

MOVING TOWARDS ZERO

There are many Spectrum emulators around, but the one we found the easiest to use – as well as the most stable – was Zero, which is available at http://ramtop.wordpress.com. First, make sure you have installed Microsoft’s .Net Framework 3.5 or later; you can get it from http://tinyurl.com/7vrsjj3. Go to the Zero website’s Download section and download the Zero Zip file. Unzip the contents of the zip file to a folder called ‘Spectrum’ on your PC and then run the Zero.exe file.

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Zero’s interface is quite friendly. The first thing you’ll want to do is increase the Spectrum’s screen size. The Spectrum’s limited number of pixels means it takes up a minesweeper-sized space on a modern PC’s display. To increase the screen size just press Alt+ on your PC, and to decrease use Alt-. You can also toggle fullscreen mode with Alt-Return. It’s also possible to access the display options by right-clicking on the main window and selecting Zoom. For the real Spectrum-plugged-into-a-TV feeling, select Show Scanlines from the Rendering menu. Access the emulator’s main functions with the icons along the bottom of the main screen. The far-left icon lets you perform soft and hard resets, as well as switch between the Spectrum 48 and 128 models. The reel-to-reel icon lets you manage cassette images, while the Eye icon brings up the Monitor – this lets you delve into the Spectrum’s inner workings and poke memory addresses, and maybe find an infinite-lives cheat if you’re clever enough. The cog icon brings up various settings. The magnifying glass is particularly useful; it links in to the World of Spectrum archives, and will let you search for anything from game tape images to user manuals to scans of magazine articles. Just enter your search term, press Search, click on the result and select Program details. You’ll see a new list of available files, so select the tickboxes next to those you need and click Download Selected Files to save them to your PC.

KEY NOTES

Using the ZX Spectrum 48K is certainly an eye-opener. Most of the 40 keys have five different functions, and half of them are in different positions to those you’d expect. Have a look at our keyboard screenshot on the next page (which comes from a different Spectrum emulator, WJSpeccy) to get an idea. As with the BBC, the Spectrum uses BASIC for its entire operating system; the Spectrum 128 is a bit different, as it has a separate tape loader section for when you just want to load some software. When you first boot up, all you’ll see is a grey screen with ‘© 1982 Sinclair Research Ltd’ at the bottom. This is your cue to begin typing. You don’t have to type out

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ADVANCED PROJECTS

There’s no help from the Spectrum’s startup display – it’s just you, a grey screen and a bit of imagination

the full commands for Print, Save and so on. The Spectrum auto-completes them for you, whenever you’re in a situation that requires a command. On a basic level, this is when you’re at the beginning of a line or after you’ve added a program line number. As you can see in our picture of the keyboard (above), the letter keys all have commands printed on them in white. If you press P while at the beginning of a line, for example, the Spectrum will always return the PRINT command, then expect you to type in arguments after that. You can tell which input the computer currently expects by looking at the cursor; a flashing K means it expects a command, and a flashing L means you’re free to enter text. On the original Spectrum, if you wanted to type symbols such as quotation marks, you had to hold down the Symbol Shift

key; in Zero, Symbol Shift is mapped to your PC’s Ctrl key. To use the commands above each key, press your PC’s Shift and Ctrl keys at the same time; this puts you in Extended mode, denoted by the cursor changing to an E.

FOLLOW THE LINES

As in BBC Basic, each line of a program is prefixed by a number, so you can reference each line from other points in your program. As you type each line prefixed by a number and press return, the programming line will appear at the top of the Spectrum’s input window. When your program is finished, type R and press return to run it. World of Spectrum at www.worldofspectrum.org has a digital copy of the ZX Spectrum Basic Programming Manual in its Documentation section. You can use Zero’s Save Snapshot function to save the memory state of the Spectrum to a file on your PC. Right-click on the main window and select Save Snapshot, name your file and save it (in .szx format). Load the Spectrum’s state into the Zero emulator by rightclicking in the Zero window and selecting Open File.

The Zero emulator has a clear tape image management interface

Each rubber key has four functions – who said computers used to be simple?

LOADING FROM TAPE

It’s a bit more complicated if you want to play games. The Spectrum stored its games on tapes, and their inherent lack of random access makes them a tricky storage medium. You’ll find plenty of Spectrum games in the World of Spectrum archives, or by hunting around the internet. Alternatively, you can download them from within Zero by clicking the Program Finder button. Tape image files come in a variety of formats, but the most common is .tzx. Zero can also read tape images from within Zip files. Click the tape icon, browse to the tape image file you want to load and open it. Zero’s Tape Deck program should also open. On the right, you should see a list of the tape’s structure, divided mainly into data and pauses. If you’re in Spectrum 128K mode, select Tape Loader in the boot menu, then switch to the Tape Deck and press Play, and your game will load. In 48K mode, type J to bring up the LOAD command, then type “” (by holding down Ctrl on your PC and pressing the P key twice). Then press Return, switch back to the tape deck and press Play. When the game is loading, the Spectrum’s screen will display bright stripy colours, and the Tape Deck display will make its way down the list of data on the tape until the game is fully loaded. You can speed things up by checking the Accelerate loading box. Bear in mind that the emulator will pause – and therefore stop loading – if you change to another program in Windows.

NEXT MONTH RASPBERRY PI

It’s the British mini-computer that looks set to become a bedroom coding phenomenon – we show you how to set up and use the £30 Raspberry Pi.

The emulator has everything you need for some game hacking

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WEB EXPERT

Making versatile web typography Do you sometimes get nervous about using a particular font on your site? Nik Rawlinson shows you how to free up your designs by embedding fonts

IN THE PREVIOUS issue, we looked at how you can ensure your site remains accessible, whichever device your visitors use to access it, by using relative text sizes for padding, margin and images that respond to changing baseline measurements. The upshot is that not only will you end up with a better coded site as a result, but you’ll also spend less time working on it. This month, we’re taking text even further and showing you how you can use the font-embedding features of CSS3, HTML5 and modern browsers to move beyond the standard ‘web safe’ fonts and create more engaging online designs.

FREEDOM RULES

The liberation of web typography is one of the biggest benefits of the latest web design modifications. It marks a shaking off of the old restrictions that hampered innovative design. Not so long ago, the web was rendered in just six mainstream fonts: Verdana, Arial, Courier New, Times New Roman, Serif and Sans-Serif. These are the ‘web safe’ fonts, so called as they have long been found on just about every Windows, Mac and Linux machine with access to the internet. Over time, though, the range of fonts common to each platform has grown. Just as you can safely assume everyone with a desktop computer or laptop has Flash installed (or access to Chrome with its built-in Flash Player), you can bet that their system will

also have Palatino, Arial Black and Narrow, Lucida Sans, Impact and a handful of other fonts. This is great news for designers who want to produce a quick website using common elements, as the full list (http://bit. ly/websafefontslist) more than doubles what was at their disposal before.

SPECIAL AGENT

You can go further than this if you know that a particular font is bundled on one platform but not the others, by applying a user agent check in your page header to establish which platform your visitor is using. The user agent is a string that identifies the browser and OS that the computer is running. For example, the code below runs a user agent check as soon as a visitor lands on the page in which it’s embedded and outputs a relevant line of text to confirm the results, but it could just as easily be used to load an alternate, platform-specific stylesheet:
This is the same page rendered using (clockwise from top left) Windows 7, Mac OS X 10.7, ChromeOS and Ubuntu. Despite the fact that it is Linux-based, Chrome wasn’t recognised by our user agent test because we hadn’t made any allowances for it

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echo "You are using a Mac."; } elseif (strpos($agent,'Linux')) { echo "You are using a Linux-based operating system."; } else { echo "I can’t tell what you’re using."; }

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?>

SCRIPT ATTENTION

You’ll notice that we’ve included a failsafe line at the end of the script that informs the visitor you can’t tell what they’re using because their user agent string doesn’t include the terms ‘Windows’, ‘Macintosh’ or ‘Linux’. This illustrates one of the two shortcomings of this approach. First, we’d have to create a very long script if we wanted to cater for every eventuality, encompassing every desktop, mobile and smartphone browser. This would be slow to parse and would delay the loading of our page, and it would never be comprehensive as new devices are popping up every day. Second, it’s easy for visitors to spoof their user agent string, particularly if they’re using a less popular or non-standard browser. In the early days of Apple’s Safari browser, for example, it was often necessary to set it to identify as Internet Explorer if you wanted to use it for online banking. This may no longer be the case, but it should serve as a lesson for all web developers that clumsy barriers such as user agent checks are easily worked around. Should a visitor’s smartphone browser allow them to set it so that it mis-identifies itself as Internet Explorer then they may have access to a wider range of sites, but when they come to yours they’ll likely be served up code demanding fonts they don’t possess. The user agent trick also doesn’t take into account any adjustments that your visitor might have made to their machine’s base OS installation. Mac users might have uninstalled the bundled cut of Helvetica if it interferes with an in-house alternative that they need to use for laying out brochures, magazines and flyers. Sending them to a Mac-specific stylesheet that only calls Helvetica because you know it’s installed by default by OS X will cause their browser to revert to its default font, and your design will be ruined.

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The two fonts used here for the header and body copy have been embedded within the page from Google’s Web Fonts servers

With 501 faces to choose from, the chances are that Google will have a font to meet any need

FAMILY VALUES

This leaves us with font families, which, as you probably already know, allow the browser to work its way through a list of fonts until it finds one installed on the host machine. The first match it turns up is the one it uses, so: body { font: 1em/1.2em Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, sans-serif; }

This would set your text at 1em, on 1.2em line spacing, in the first font it could render out of the list that followed. For Mac users, this would probably be Helvetica; for Windows users, it would probably be Arial. Using font families like this allows us to call on non-standard fonts or, if we choose, use fonts that aren’t installed on our visitors’ machines at all.

EMBEDDING REMOTE FONTS

There are various remote font services available. Adobe Creative Cloud users who pay a monthly subscription for the company’s CS6 applications, for example, can call on Typekit

fonts. The same service is also open to nonCreative Cloud subscribers through www. typekit.com, with plans starting at $25 (around £16) a year without Typekit branding. Other providers include www.fontdeck.com, which is $7.50 (around £4.80) per font per year, www. fonts.com, which is $10 (around £6.37) every 30 days, and www.fontslive.com, from $40 (around £26) per year per font. However, the best-value option is Google Web Fonts, which offers hundreds of fonts, each of which can be embedded in your site for free; see our ‘How to…’ (right) for details. It’s important to keep an eye on the size of the download package when choosing your fonts. The more you pick, the longer it’ll take for your page to load, which could have more serious implications than you might imagine. Following the switch from table- to layer-based layouts, the problem of waiting

for a complete sliced page to load before it’s rendered has largely been eliminated. Even if our stylesheets fail to load, the bare bones of our page will still be available to visitors as unformatted, top-down text and graphics. However, when using Google Web Fonts, your site’s effective loading view will differ from browser to browser. Firefox is the best behaved in this respect, as it displays your text in the default browser font in the first instance and swaps it out for your Google Web Font once it has loaded the rest of the page. Internet Explorer, Chrome and Safari render those parts of the page set in regular fonts immediately, but leave spaces for the Web Fonts content, which is slotted in after everything else has loaded. If you only use Web Fonts for headings, this won’t be such an issue. However, if you’ve set your whole site, including your body copy, in a Google Web Font, the structure will be built and the images set out, but the text will appear a few seconds later, once the font has been downloaded from Google’s servers.

EMBEDDING LOCAL FONTS

With 501 faces to choose from, the chances are that Google will have a font that comes close to meeting any need. However, if you have a custom in-house font you absolutely must use, then it’s possible to call this direct from your server. The @font-face CSS tag first locates the font on the local server and then makes it available for calling in your CSS classes. Bear in mind that Internet Explorer, which has supported @font-face since version 4, implements it a little differently to Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Safari. Still, we can run the two implementations one after the other in the same class declaration. We’ll start with the non-IE browsers: Adobe’s Typekit service lets you choose from hundreds of fonts, all of which will be displayed correctly in any browser

@font-face { font-family: JennaSue;

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WEB EXPERT

font. To do this, run it through the processor at www.fontsquirrel.com/fontface/generator. Extract the .eot and .woff versions of the font from the downloaded bundle and upload these to your server, alongside the original font. Then expand the @font-face declaration to cater for IE using the template that was downloaded along with your converted font: @font-face { font-family: JennaSue; src: url('jennasue.eot') format('embedded-opentype'), url('jennasue.woff') format('woff'), url('jennasue.ttf') format('truetype'); }

Microsoft has long championed the technology behind embedded web fonts, and started working on a standard with Internet Explorer 4 src: local("JennaSue"), url("JennaSue.ttf") format("truetype"); }

h1 { font-family: "JennaSue", Arial, sans-serif; }

Here we call the server-stored JennaSue True Type font, downloaded from dafont.com and in the same folder as our HTML page. We’ve assigned it the logical name JennaSue, so we can call it within our

tags by swapping out our Google Web Fonts header, Nuntio:

Reloading the site in Safari, Chrome or Firefox, we can see that the headline has now been swapped out for our server-stored font. However, Internet Explorer doesn’t like the TrueType format. To get it working reliably in all browsers, it’s first necessary to convert the

Refreshing your site in IE will now render it in the same way as Safari and Chrome. Uploading a font to your server in this way would make it possible for third-parties to download, as they’d only have to inspect your CSS to find out where it was stored. You should only use the @font-face method with open-source or creative commons fonts, or those for which you own the copyright.

NEXT MONTH COOKIE UPDATES

The EU has introduced new laws that state your website has to let visitors opt in to receiving cookies. We’ll show you everything you need to be compliant.

How to…

Use Google Web Fonts Find out how to add web fonts to your pages without the need for any programming

1

Go to www.google.com/webfonts. Use the Filters drop-down in the left margin to narrow down the fonts on offer. Choose contrasting styles for your headlines and body copy. We have chosen the sans-serif font Nunito for our headlines and serif font Antic Slab for the body copy. Click Add to Collection beside each one.

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Click Use in the blue footer and select the weight of each font you want to use. We want our headlines to stand out, so we have changed Nunito from the default cut of Normal 400 to Bold 700. There is only one cut of Antic Slab. Then copy the code in box 3 (see screen above) and paste it into the area on your web page.

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3

Call the embedded fonts using styles in the area of your page or, preferably, using an attached stylesheet. Enclose the embedded font names in quotes and provide alternate styles as part of a family for older, incompatible browsers, or as a fallback for when the browser can’t access the Google server.

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Creating vintage photo effects Making digital photos look like faded analogue snaps is all the rage. Here, Ben Pitt reveals how to create this effect from scratch with your image editor

IF YOU’RE FED up with the grotty digital noise that blights photos from your compact camera or smartphone, why not hide it with some nostalgic splodges and smudges? Vintage photo effects recall the days of Box Brownie and pinhole cameras, with blurry, darkened edges, skewed colours and mottled textures that give a warm, dreamy haze to photos. Various image editors and mobile apps offer these styles, but creating the effect in conventional image-editing software gives far greater control over the process. In this article, we’ll be using some of Photoshop Elements’ most advanced features to take your photos back into the past.

CHOOSING THE EDITOR

In Reviews, Shopper 294, we reviewed a superb little image editor called Snapseed, which specialises in vintage treatments that make digital snaps resemble grainy old photos from a bygone era. These effects are very fashionable at the moment – largely driven by the success of Instagram – and make a

refreshing change from the clinical look of normal digital photos. They are also a useful way to disguise the imperfections of an image created on a smartphone’s camera. Snapseed offers finer control over these effects than Instagram, but it’s still a matter of mixing and matching from pre-defined templates. Here, we’ll be creating vintage photo effects in a conventional image editor, as this gives us far greater control over each stage of the process. We’ve used Adobe Photoshop Elements, but similar results can be achieved in any editor that supports adjustment layers and blend modes. An adjustment layer is the digital equivalents of a lens filter. It sits on the layers palette and applies colour correction to all the layers below it. Unlike the various filters in the Enhance and Filter menus, adjustment layers are applied non-destructively, so you can go back and tweak settings. This is useful when various adjustment layers interact with each other. Adjustment layers can also have masks applied, so they affect only a part of the image.

Blend modes dictate how the layers will merge with each other. The default mode, Normal, simply means that anything on an upper layer hides the layers below. Other blend modes are more sophisticated. Screen is the equivalent of shining two projectors on to the same screen, while Darken shows only the pixels that are darker than those below. However, Overlay is the one we’ll be using here. It combines the colours of both the upper and lower layers, but retains plenty of contrast and definition from both. Even if you have no interest in creating vintage photos, this tutorial will help you to unlock the power of adjustment layers and blend modes.

SELECTIVE FOCUS

After selecting a photo, the first task is to apply some selective focus; older lenses were often sharp in the centre but blurred towards the edges. As well as creating a nostalgic appearance, this effect can also help to focus the viewer’s attention on the main subject. Many image editors include an effect that’s specifically designed for this task, but Photoshop Elements’ Depth of Field effect isn’t the best example. To demonstrate why, let’s recreate how it works using the conventional Layers and Filter tools; don’t worry, we’ll be using similar techniques more fruitfully in a few minutes. In the Layers palette, rightclick the Background layer, select Duplicate Layer and then click OK. With the upper layer selected, click the Filter menu, Blur and Gaussian Blur. Choose a blur radius – 20 pixels is about right – and then click OK. In the Layers palette, click the second button from the left at the bottom to add a layer mask. Click the Gradient Tool (or type G), then click the gradient at the top-left of the screen and choose the preset that goes from black to white. Choose Radial Gradient from the options to the right. Click the centre of Adjustment layers and blend modes allow for all sorts of complex treatments without requiring you to alter the original photo directly

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the photo and drag to the corner. The blurred layer will be given a gradient mask, revealing the sharp version in the centre of the frame. You can switch the two layers on and off using the eye buttons in the layers palette to see how the effect is put together. This works to an extent, but it’s not an accurate simulation of how a lens behaves. For one thing, a Gaussian blur looks a little different to lens blur. More importantly, this technique creates two versions of the image and fades between them, whereas a lens will blur different areas by varying degrees. The mid-point should be slightly blurred, not half blurred, half sharp. Our solution with Photoshop Elements is a bit of a bodge, but we prefer it to the technique above. Right-click the blurred layer and delete it, and duplicate the background layer again.

Our photo has been transformed from vanilla dullness to withered relic in just a handful of stages – blur, gradient map, vignetting, texture and final colour correction

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ker areas. We can simulate this using an darker adjustment layer called Gradient Map. Click the button third from the left at the bottom of the Layers panel and select Gradient Map. This maps the brightness of underlying pixels to a gradient, and the default white-toblack gradient produces a greyscale image. If it’s in negative, locate the Adjustments panel (via the Window menu if it isn’t visible) and click Reverse to flip the greyscale so it’s the right way.

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Old photos were often developed with a white border with rounded-off corners, and this effect is easy to replicate in Photoshop Elements Click the Filter menu, Blur and Radial Blur. Set Amount to 2 and Blur Method to Spin. If you want the area of focus to be away from the centre, click the white box to reposition it (this might take a few attempts with the Undo command) and then click OK. Apply Radial Blur to the same layer again, but this time switch from Spin to Zoom and increase the Amount to 8. This technique doesn’t look exactly like lens blur, either, but it’s closer than Gaussian Blur, and the blur gets progressively stronger from the centre to the edges. You might find that the sharp area in the centre is too small and that parts of your main subject are a little blurry. In that case, add a mask to the upper layer and reset the foreground and background colours to White and Black (type D). Select the Eraser tool (type E), right-click the image and select a soft round brush type 300 pixels wide. Then simply draw with the mouse to erase parts of the blurred layer. Bear in mind that you’re editing the mask and not actually deleting the image data. If you want to restore any parts of the blurred layer, type X to switch the background and foreground colours, and the Eraser tool will start working as a restorer. When switching between layers, choose whether to edit a layer or its mask by clicking on the appropriate thumbnail in the Layers panel.

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In the Layers panel, click the drop-down list at the top to change the blend mode from Normal to Overlay. The greyscale and full-colour versions of the image will combine to produce a full-colour image with boosted contrast. In the Adjustments panel, click the gradient and a bigger one will appear. Double-click the black marker below this gradient and choose a different colour. This will tint the darker areas of the image but still allow some of the original colour through. Do the same for the white marker to give highlights a tint. Experiment with highlight and shadow tints

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ADDING A COLOUR CAST

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To recreate the scratches and splodges of a photo that’s been in a drawer for decades, you’ll need a bit of help from Google image search until you find something that works for the image. Click OK when you’re done, and try adjusting the layer’s opacity to reduce the strength of the effect.

DIFFERENT CORNERS

The primitive lenses of yesteryear weren’t only blurry towards the edges but also tended to be darker. This effect is known as vignetting. Again, it draws attention to the subject and also serves as a natural frame. To simulate this effect, create a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer and use the Adjustments panel to reduce the Brightness across the image. Adjustment layers have a mask applied, so use the Gradient tool to apply this effect progressively more strongly towards the edges of the frame. If the corners aren’t dark enough, change the blend mode of this adjustment layer to Multiply. By this point, the image should be looking convincingly vintage, and we can get more precise with our colour correction. Use the left-most button at the bottom of the layers panel to create a new layer; this is just a normal layer with pixels. Switch its blend mode to Overlay, select the Brush tool (type B) and reduce the brush’s Opacity to 30% either at the top of the screen or by typing 3 on the numerical keypad. Right-click to select a suitable brush size (soft, round, 300 pixels works well) and lighten and darken parts of the image using brush strokes. Type X to switch between black and white brushes to

darken and brighten. This has a similar affect to the Dodge and Burn tools, but because it’s on its own layer there’s no risk of messing up the original image.

FRAMES AND SCRATCHES

Old photos were often developed with a white border with roundedoff corners. This is easy to replicate in Photoshop Elements. Type U repeatedly to cycle through the shape tools until you come to Rounded Rectangle. Set the Radius to 100 pixels and drag across the image to draw a rectangle. This creates a rectangle that obscures the image. Hold down the Ctrl key and click on the thumbnail of the rectangle in the Layers panel (it should be a white square with the words Shape 1 beside it). This turns the layer’s shape into a selection. Right-click the Shape 1 layer and select Delete Layer. Create a Solid Colour adjustment layer, set its colour to white and click OK. Type Ctrl-I to invert the mask for this adjustment layer, The frame should now be in place, but it might look too neat and straight. There are lots of ways to give it some imperfections. We’ve used a 3-pixel Gaussian blur to soften it and the Blur tool (type R) to soften some parts a little further. We’ve then used the Glass effect (Filter menu, Distort, Glass) to add some gentle undulations to the edge, with low Distortion and high Smoothness values.

Snapseed will add vintage effects automatically but you have more control using Photoshop

To recreate the scratches and splodges of a photo that’s been in the drawer for decades, you’ll need a bit of help from Google image search. Searching for “paper texture” or “photo texture” yields lots of useful results, although it’s worth showing only large images so the texture isn’t a much lower resolution than your photo. Right-click in your browser to copy an image and type Ctrl-V to paste it as a layer into Photoshop Elements. Type Ctrl-T and resize it to cover the image. Set its blend mode to Multiply, and the image will appear to have been printed on to this textured paper. The image may now be too dark, so you’ll want to brighten up the texture without losing the darker tone of its scratches. Create a Levels adjustment layer and, in the Adjustments panel, click the button at the bottom-left so it affects the layer below only. On the histogram display above, drag the centre handle to the left to lighten the midtones, and the left handle to the right to darken the scratches. If you’re not so keen on the colour of this texture layer, add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, link it to the layer below and adjust the controls.

FINISHING TOUCHES

It’s worth switching each adjustment layer on and off to see what they do, and trying out a few settings. It may be worth adding a couple more, too, such as another Levels adjustment layer to brighten or darken midtones, or Hue/ Saturation to reduce the overall saturation of the image. Changing the order of these layers in the panel will dictate which other layers they affect. Remember these techniques aren’t just for creating old relics. You can achieve subtler results with gentler settings, or venture off in a completely different direction. Because you’re designing the effects from scratch, you’ll always be in control.

NEXT MONTH UNDERSTAND THE MANUAL

You can process any photos in the same way to give it that vintage feel, such as with this photo of the Thames we worked on

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Digital cameras’ automatic settings are so reliable, there’s often little incentive to stray, but manual settings have corrective and creative benefits, as we explain.

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BUSINESS EXPERT

Building a budget network A startup rarely has funds to splash about. In the first Business Expert, Simon Handby shows you how to build a fast, reliable network on a budget

BY THE TIME most businesses start to become widely known, they’re already well funded and well equipped, but many of them started off with just a couple of people and some ropey computers in a back room. This is a common setup when there’s limited cash to spend and the focus is on getting the first round of sales or funding, rather than building an infrastructure. With a bit of luck, you might get away with it, but temperamental hardware can delay vital progress, while a simple failed hard disk could make the difference between your business dreams becoming a reality or remaining dreams. However, for just a few hundred pounds, it’s possible to build a backbone for your business using standard consumer devices. Spend wisely, and you’ll have have the support you need in the short term, and possibly for a few years to come. Whatever you’re starting with, we’ll explain some of the must-haves for startups and how best to set them up.

BROADBAND BEGINNINGS

Every business needs internet access for communications, research and marketing at the very least. Many also need it to receive, manage and fulfil orders. While bigger firms can afford high-bandwidth, dedicated lines, most startups do just fine with broadband. Self-employed home workers can use their existing connection (remember to claim a

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suitable portion of its cost as a business expense), but in an office you’ll need your own connection to a business broadband service. Most business addresses should have access to landline-based ADSL and VDSL services from a range of providers, while some may also have the choice of cabled services from Virgin Media. When choosing a package, remember that two or three people who are using the internet for email won’t require a big bandwidth or high monthly usage cap. If your business revolves around the web or the electronic transfer of large multimedia files, however, it’s best to pay more for a fast service with a higher cap. If you’re in short-term offices, get a provider that won’t penalise you for moving, or sign up to a service with a short minimum term; some, such as Zen Internet, offer one-month contracts. Business broadband doesn’t always come with a free wireless router, so you may have to buy one. This could be an ADSL modem/ router or – on cable or fibre broadband, where your ISP provides the modem – it could be a wireless Ethernet router. Such routers are at the heart of a typical small office, acting as a DHCP server and firewall, and often forming the physical backbone of the network.

ADDING A SERVER

A modern business depends on information. Data loss is an inconvenience at best; at

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Synology’s DS212j is a budget-friendly two-bay NAS server for small office use

worst, it can have catastrophic results, and even legal repercussions. Therefore, it’s vital to build any business network around a reliable server with an effective backup plan. You can use just about any computer as a server but, unless you already have one going spare, the cheapest reliable option is to buy a network-attached storage (NAS) device. As the name suggests, these devices connect to a network and are left permanently switched on, providing storage space on demand. NAS servers either come complete with one or more hard disks, or as an enclosure into which you can slot disks of your choice – if you don’t already have disks, it’s easiest to buy a NAS device with its own. The best NAS device for business is one that supports at least two hard disks, as this will allow you to add an easy layer of protection to your data by mirroring the contents of one disk on to the other. Do this by selecting RAID 1 (mirroring) when setting the NAS up. Should a disk ever fail, the NAS device’s contents will remain safe on the working disk; just be sure to replace the failed disk as soon as possible to re-introduce this redundancy. Note that mirroring the disks will halve the advertised capacity of the NAS device; a 2TB NAS device containing two 1TB disks will have a capacity of 1TB if you choose to mirror it. Choose a NAS device with plenty of room for your business’s needs. Although 1TB of mirrored space will be plenty if you mostly work with customer records, text databases and office documents,

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A business depends on information. Data loss is an inconvenience at best – at worst, it can have catastrophic results, and even legal repercussions

you will find that multimedia work, particularly video editing, generates huge amounts of data; you may need to spend more for a device with two 2TB disks, or even a four-disk device. Most models include extra features such as FTP or web servers and USB ports, which you can use to expand the storage by connecting an external hard disk. If your budget isn’t too restrictive, we recommend QNAP’s TS-412 Turbo NAS device, a fully featured enclosure with slots for up to four disks. When bought with two 2TB disks, this costs just over £400 including VAT, and it provides two spare slots for adding more disk space as the business grows. If money’s tighter, the Western Digital My Book Live Duo 4TB comes with two 2TB disks. This device, which costs less than £300, can be expanded with a single external USB disk. For more in-depth buying advice, read our group test of NAS devices in Computer Shopper 293.

SETTING UP THE NETWORK

Whichever NAS device you choose, you need to plan the network properly to get the best out of it. You’ll need to connect it, and the computers that will use it, via a Gigabit (1,000Mbit/s) switch if you’re to get the fastest file transfers – this could make a huge difference when you’re backing up or sharing large volumes of data. The four-port switch on

Configure the network to use WPA2 in order to protect wireless access

the back of a standard router is the perfect start for a simple network. Most modern routers have a full set of Gigabit Ethernet ports, but some budget models have only 10/100 (100Mbit/s) ports. Choose a Gigabit router if possible. If you can’t get one, or you think your network might grow to more than four devices, there’s no harm in also spending £25 on an eight-port Gigabit switch. The router acts as the gateway to the internet and the core of the network, allocating IP addresses to devices connected via the wired or wireless networks and protecting them with its firewall. If you also have a Gigabit switch, connect the two with a Cat5e Ethernet cable, and don’t plug anything else into the router’s switch. Plug all other network devices into the Gigabit switch to ensure that they can exchange

data as fast as possible. This approach prevents a bottleneck occurring in the link between the router and switch. Its limited bandwidth will be used only for network admin traffic and internet access, and when data is exchanged between wired and wireless devices on the network. In most cases, even a 100Mbit/s link provides enough headroom for all three to happen at once. If you’ve got more than a couple of network devices, it’s good practice to label each Ethernet cable at the end near the switch so you know where it’s going. Cables come in various colours, so you could create a scheme to help you identify connections at a glance. Try red for backbone connections which shouldn’t be unplugged, such as the links to the NAS device and between switches, and green or blue for regular connections to PCs.

Shields Up will highlight potential firewall problems

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Ensure there is a wired connection available for each laptop, as it will make backups faster and more reliable. If you can afford it, Cat6 cables and devices across your entire network will ensure the best speeds, but you’ll still get near-Gigabit speeds with Cat5e cabling.

MAKING A SECURE ENVIRONMENT

Most off-the-shelf routers are pre-configured to block all incoming internet traffic, allowing only outbound traffic and any replies. This is a good secure starting point, so if you’re using a second-hand router, be sure to reset it to its factory defaults and start from there – you can normally do this by poking a recessed reset button for at least 10 seconds. Follow the instructions in the router’s manual to access its web configuration interface and log in. Change the admin password to something you’ll remember, avoiding anything easy such as the company name. If neither you nor any likely visitors have wireless devices, it’s most secure to switch the wireless network off altogether. In most cases you’ll need it, though. Change the SSID to something friendly and configure the network to use WPA2, WPA-PSK encryption, choosing a suitable encryption key; don’t make this the same as the router password, though. Don’t use an old router that only supports WEP, which is insecure. Also, it’s recently been discovered that there’s a security flaw in the PIN system used in many modern Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) routers – if you have one, turn off the WPS feature if possible. You should now have a secure network, but test the firewall with a utility such as Shields Up, available at www.grc.com, and remember that you may need additional protection if you’re storing information covered by the Data Protection Act; there’s more information available at the Information Commissioner’s Office at http://tinyurl.com/info-com-office.

You can create NAS user groups to control access to different shared folders

we generally recommend that businesses pay for faster, more reliable professionally hosted webspace. Similarly, it’s safer to use an online file-sharing service rather than FTP for large file transfers. If employees frequently need to work remotely, a virtual private network (VPN) is the most secure option; we’ll cover this in more detail in a future issue.

DEVISING A BACKUP

Exactly where you store files will depend on the type of business you run. Your staff may work directly on files stored on the NAS device, or predominantly with files stored on their own computers. In the latter case, it’s best to use the NAS device as a daily backup destination, installing backup software on each PC and storing password-protected backups in a dedicated network share on the NAS device. A home backup program such as Acronis Home Image is a good choice when starting out, but you may need to switch to a business package as you grow. If you’ve mirrored the NAS’s disks, this ought to amply protect your backups against

KEEPING THE DOORS CLOSED

Most NAS devices have built-in FTP or web servers, which are useful but must be set up with care if you're to avoid creating security weaknesses on the network. Ensure that the NAS device and router are updated with the latest available firmware, which should include fixes for any security bugs discovered. When setting up services, limit access to the server. Only give FTP access to those who really need it; make sure they’re only given permissions to access the directories they need, and give the lowest level of access necessary. If possible, create a dedicated FTP folder on the NAS device and give users access to that – do not enable FTP access to your main network shares. Whether configuring an FTP or web server, you must add suitable rules to the router’s firewall to permit incoming traffic. It’s essential to limit this to the relevant port numbers and ensure that the router forwards traffic only to the relevant server on your network. Most routers have pre-configured service rules that help to make this more straightforward. Given the potential for security breaches and the overloading of your broadband connection, ISSUE 295 | COMPUTER SHOPPER

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Shopping List Pricing up the essent ials

Setup:

NAS device Network MF P Gigabit wireless router Eight-port Gigabit switch Cat5e Ethernet cables Backup software

Total (for three users) Monthly:

£300 £85 £50 £25 £2 each £20 per PC

£526

Broadband and calls package £40/month (£19)/ Optional online backup/sync $30 mont h

Total:

£59month per

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hardware failure, but it won’t help if there’s a fire or if the NAS device and PCs are all stolen. For additional protection, you should consider backing up critical information with an online service such as LiveDrive or SugarSync. A three-user, 100GB business account with SugarSync costs $30 (£19) per month, but you’ll need a generous broadband cap. If you’re working directly with files on the NAS device, consider creating different shares for one or more projects or customers, and limiting different users’ access. Also, create a separate share for business administration so that only those who need to will be able to see financial details or staff records. Don’t work from and back up to the same NAS device, as this offers little data protection, and don’t assume that mirrored disks will protect your data from all eventualities; a flood, fire or big drop could still trash a NAS device and all its contents. It’s advisable to use one or two high-capacity USB hard disks to back up the entire NAS device once a week, and store these securely off-site unless in use.

READY FOR BUSINESS

You should now have a fast, secure and reliable small business network, but you’ll need to add a printer if you don’t already have one. Choose a network MFP with a fax machine – it’s antiquated, but it may occasionally prove essential. We recommend spending £160 on Epson’s WorkForce Pro WP-4535 DWF (see Best Buys: Printers on page 70), but if money is tight then Kodak’s ESP Office 2170 isn’t bad at just over half the price. This is a sensible beginning for startups, but established firms are likely to have greater needs. As your business grows, you’ll need to replace consumer network products with more robust enterprise equipment. We’ll be exploring this in greater depth in future columns.

NEXT MONTH ONLINE ACCOUNTING

Keeping your books online means that you and your accountant can access them anywhere, and work together to keep on top of them – we’ll sum up the options.

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LINUX EXPERT

Running Windows applications in Ubuntu Linux doesn’t come with all the applications you love, so here David Ludlow explains how to get the most popular Windows programs on to Ubuntu

UBUNTU COMES WITH a lot of built-in applications that let you do most of the tasks you need to carry out, but there will be times where they don’t quite make the grade; perhaps you want Microsoft Office for a specific job, for example. Fortunately, you can run certain Windows programs under Linux. In this month’s Linux Expert, we’ll show you how. Ubuntu ships with a lot of open-source applications that replace the software you’d normally expect to see on a Windows PC. While most of them do a brilliant job, there are times where only the official Windows application will do the job. Fortunately, you don’t have to switch back to Windows for these occasions, as a good number of the programs you want to run can be persuaded to run under Linux by using emulation. This month, we’ll take you through the process of configuring and installing the most popular programs and those that you’re likely to miss the most.

EMULATION NOW

The reason Windows applications don’t work on Linux is because they’re written for entirely different and incompatible operating systems. A Windows application asks the operating

system to draw its main window and menu in a different way to a Linux one. This is before we even consider the differences in the file system, how the various files are stored, and the different ways of treating executable applications. However, underneath it all, Ubuntu and Windows run on the same hardware. Using emulation software, it’s possible to trick Windows applications into running under Ubuntu at pretty much full speed. The emulator you need is called WINE. Its name is a recursive acronym that stands for Wine Is Not an Emulator – who said Linux people weren’t funny? This essential bit of software is designed to make Linux look like Windows. The only downside is that not every application supports it, and there can be quite a bit of configuration involved. Fortunately, help is at hand in the form of PlayOnLinux. This is a front-end of WINE that makes installing and managing Windows applications incredibly easy. First, you need to install PlayOnLinux. The easiest way to do this is to open the Ubuntu Software

Centre and search for PlayOnLinux. Select the option that appears and then click the Install button. Enter your password when prompted and click OK. In the Terminal window, type Y when prompted to allow the software to download and install from the internet. Keep an eye on the installation and approve any dialog box that appears using the left and right cursor keys and Enter.

FIRST RUNNINGS

Once it’s installed, you can start PlayOnLinux from the Ubuntu Dash. Launch the software into a setup wizard that will automatically configure it for your computer. Click Next to create the virtual drive, which is used to house a Windows-compliant file system for the applications you want to install. This will take a few minutes, after which you can click Next to complete the configuration.

You can download the latest version of PlayOnLinux from the official website PlayOnLinux makes it easy to add and install Windows applications on Ubuntu

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LINUX EXPERT

PlayOnLinux comes with a lot of predefined installation routines for the most popular Windows software, such as iTunes, but they don’t all work perfectly

All the applications you can install are neatly organised into categories

with the help of PlayOnLinux, you can install Internet Explorer 8. Click the Install button and Next, and Internet Explorer 8 will be downloaded and installed. You may be prompted to download other components as the installer completes. You’ll also need to go through the Internet Explorer 8 first-run wizard to set up your preferences. Once this is completed, you’ll get a shortcut to the application on your Desktop and in the PlayOnLinux application. Double-click either link to start Explorer. You’ll get an icon for the software in the Launcher, too, and can pin it there like any regular Ubuntu application. Internet Explorer 8 works just like it does on Windows, with one restriction – ActiveX is not supported. This makes it useful for dealing with websites that aren’t rendering properly in your regular browser and also for checking that your own website designs will work properly in Internet Explorer. It does mean that you can’t get certain bank websites working, but we’ll cover an alternative method for doing this in next month’s column.

MICROSOFT OFFICE

Although Libre Office is a good office suite, it doesn’t have all the features of Microsoft Office. Fortunately, you can install Office on Once the wizard has run, you may find that when you hover your mouse over a button, you’re told that there’s a new version of PlayOnLinux available. The easiest way to upgrade is to go to www.playonlinux.com/en/ download.html in your web browser. Select Ubuntu and download the Deb file. Once downloaded, open the file and it will load in the Ubuntu Software Centre. Click the Upgrade button to get the latest version. You’re now ready to start installing and configuring the applications you want to run. The main page will house the applications that are installed; all you have to do is select one and click Run. However, as you don’t have any applications installed yet, you’ll need to click the Install button to bring up the PlayOnLinux install menu. Here, you’ll find the list of applications that the software supports, all split neatly into categories. Before we continue, a word of warning: although there are a lot of applications in the list, some don’t quite work properly. Apple iTunes 10 is a good example. PlayOnLinux requires you to download the installer from Apple’s website, but the 64-bit version doesn’t install properly. The 32-bit version is better, but it won’t install on 64-bit Linux. You can install iTunes 7 automatically from PlayOnLinux and this works well, but it doesn’t support the latest iPods or iPhones, and there’s also no access to the iTunes store. Other software

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Ubuntu ships with a lot of open-source applications that replace the software you’d normally expect to see on a Windows PC suffers from similar problems. In order to help you with those, we’ll be looking at a different way of working with Windows applications next month. Still, PlayOnLinux is a great place to start. We’ll show you the most useful applications available to you, and how to get them working.

INTERNET EXPLORER

Internet Explorer is a useful browser to have, as some websites refuse to work with anything else and don’t render pages properly. Luckily,

your Linux computer via PlayOnLinux. The only restrictions are that neither Access nor Outlook works, leaving you with the core applications of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. To install Microsoft Office, click the Install button in PlayOnLinux, select Office and then choose the version of Office that you want to install. There’s currently no support for Office 2010, although you can run an add-on installation script for it. Just type ‘get:801’ into the PlayOnLinux Install search bar and the script will be downloaded and run

Internet Explorer is a handy application to have to hand if you’re experiencing problems with a website or you want to check how your own designs are rendered by the popular browser

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LINUX EXPERT

automatically. We had problems getting this to work with our Office 2010 version, which is an executable file rather than a CD, so we went with Office 2007 instead. Regardless of the version that you run, you’ll need to point the installer at your installation files. This can either be via CD or by extracting the files from your Office ISO and putting them on to your hard disk. If you opt for the latter method, you’ll need to tell PlayOnLinux where to find the installation files. First, use the Nautilus file browser to navigate to the Office install folder. Right-click the title bar, which houses the full path of the files, and select Copy. Return to PlayOnLinux and select Other as the location for the installation files, then select the text box and paste in the path. Click Next, and the installer should start. You’ll need to enter your Product Key into the box and click Next. Agree to Microsoft’s terms and conditions, then click Continue. You’ll now get the choice to install every Office component or to click Customize and choose the applications you want to install. Given that not all applications work, we recommend clicking Customize. Depending on the version of Office that you’re installing, you should deselect Access, Publisher and Outlook from the list, and click the Install Now button. Office will then install on your computer. Once the installation has finished, you’ll only have access to Word, Excel and PowerPoint, as these are the only applications supported. Just double-click the icon of the relevant application in PlayOnLinux or on the Desktop to start it; once running, you can also right-click the icon in Launcher and select

Using the Windows version gives you access to all Spotify’s features

Lock Icon to Launcher to leave it as a permanent feature.

THE CALL OF SPOTIFY

Although Spotify works on a Linux client, it’s currently not fully featured and doesn’t support apps. A better way is to install the Windows version. Click the Install button on PlayOnLinux, then click Multimedia and Spotify. Click the Install button, then follow through the installation wizard, choosing ‘Download the program’ when given the option. This will automatically download and install Spotify from the internet. Once the installation has completed, just enter your login details and click OK. The full

PlayOnLinux is a front-end of WINE that makes installing and managing Windows applications incredibly easy

Once the installer starts, it’s the same on Linux as it is on Windows

With PlayOnLinux, you can get Microsoft Office working perfectly on your Ubuntu computer

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It’s easy to install the Windows version of Spotify; just follow the wizard and download when asked

Spotify app will now launch, and you can play all your music just as you would if you were using Windows. You’ll need to quit Spotify (right-click the icon that appears by the clock in Ubuntu and select Quit) to complete the installation routine. Then relaunch Spotify using the icon in PlayOnLinux or on the Desktop.

OTHER SOFTWARE

PlayOnLinux also supports a variety of games, although these aren’t that new or up to date. Given the graphical power that games require, we think it’s best to play games on Windows and save emulation for work applications. It may seem as though you can’t run many Windows applications under Linux. The truth is that Windows applications rely on large parts of Microsoft’s operating system to install and run properly. WINE can only emulate part of the operating system and it requires scripts to get any software to install, so not everything will be compatible. Even the software that does install won’t necessarily have all its features enabled. Still, getting some important Windows applications to install will make your experience of Ubuntu much better. Come back next month, when we’ll show you how you can use software that doesn’t support PlayOnLinux, and how a virtual machine can become a powerful ally.

NEXT MONTH RUNNING VIRTUAL MACHINES

We show you how to run Windows from inside Linux, so you can access all the software you need without ever having to reboot.

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PRODUCT INDEX

Product index Our useful guide to all the products reviewed this month

PCs and laptops 26 Apple MacBook Air 11in (2012) Apple MacBook Pro with Retina Display Chillblast Nautilus CMS Computers Zoostorm Home Media Desktop Sony Viao T13

Audio 50 Aftershokz Mobile AS301 Sony Walkman NWZ-Z1060 View Quest Retro WiFi Radio Video Canon Legria HF R36 Sony HDR-CX730E

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Ivy Bridge PC group test 86 Arbico Elite 3575 CS Chillblast Fusion Diablo DinoPC Velociraptor 3450 Package Eclipse Discovery Z77i345R777 Ginger 6 G6 Vision Mesh Elite i3570K CS Palicomp Alpha Excite PC Specialist Vanquish Elite 560 Wired2Fire Hellspawn Ultima Yoyotech Warbird 3570XTI

Printers and scanners Brother DS-700D Kodak ESP 3.2

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Networks Devolo dLAN 500AVtriple+ TP-Link TL-WR2543ND

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Storage

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Handhelds Bookeen Cybook Odyssey Nokia Lumia 610 Nokia Lumia 900 Samsung Galaxy S3

SSDs group test 110 Adata S511 120GB Corsair Force GT 240GB Corsair Performance Series Pro 256GB Crucial M4 128GB Intel 520 Series 240GB Intel 520 Series 60GB Kingston HyperX 240GB OCZ Agility 3 240GB OCZ Vertex 4 256GB Patriot Pyro SE 120GB Patriot Wildfire 240GB Plextor M3 Pro 128GB PNY Professional SSD 120GB Samsung 830 Series 256GB Sandisk Extreme 120GB Verbatim SSD 240GB

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Photography 40 Canon PowerShot A4000 IS Nikon CoolPix L810 Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX20V Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX200V Displays Asus PA248Q ViewSonic PLED-W200

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Home Cinema Sony KDL-46HX853 Yamaha RX-V373

48

LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt Seagate Backup Plus 1TB

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eviews inside!

Components 58 AMD Radeon HD 7970 The Raspberry Pi Foundation Raspberry Pi Model B Software 60 Nik Software Snapseed Propellerhead Reason Essentials Xara Web Designer MX Online backup group test 98 Carbonite Home Databarracks Buddy Backup Decho MozyHome Google Drive Livedrive Pro Suite Memset SquirrelSave Microsoft SkyDrive MyPCBackup Home/Pro 75GB Pro Softnet iDrive Pro Personal SOS Online Backup Home Edition 5.0 SugarSync 30GB Trend Micro SafeSync Games 62 Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land Max Payne 3 Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City Business 64 QNAP TS-469 Pro Synology RackStation RS812RP+

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PARTING SHOTS

Zygote What can we learn from the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles? Zygote isn’t sure, but it might just come in useful as we prepare for that encroaching zombie apocalypse

IN THE LINE OF FIRED

All 1,340 members of staff at the asset management arm of Aviva were recently sacked in the worst possible way – by email. The email from Aviva Human Resources ordered every one of them to clear their desks, hand over their computer passwords and security tags and vacate their offices. They were also warned never to disclose any information about systems, operations and clients, before they were wished bon voyage to the outer darkness to which they had been condemned. You’ve probably guessed that the email was intended for just one person. Well, we’ve all been there. Of course, sending an email to an entire mailing list instead of the sole intended recipient usually ends in tears. Happily, a grovelling apology was issued to the 1,339 staff who were not meant to be sacked. However, Zygote is intrigued to note that several key Aviva board members were shown the door in the same week as the email disaster, including the heads of the North American, European and Investment sections. Were they also pushed out by receiving the same email, or by any chance did they receive huge rewards for their recent questionable performances?

GHOST TOWN

A billion-dollar City Of The Future is being built in Lea County, New Mexico, and it’s stuffed full of smart technology ranging from intelligent traffic lights to self-flushing toilets. There will be malls, suburban areas and rural districts, all linked by highways and boulevards, and ultra-modern utilities and services will reach into every shiny nook and cranny. Needless to say, telecommunications will be superfast, with next-generation wireless networks everywhere, and security will be handled by a vast array of surveillance devices and monitoring systems. In fact there will be only one thing

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lacking in this 15 square-mile paradise, and that’s people. The city is not for human beings to inhabit but is purely for research – chiefly something ominously referred to as “first responder tech for homeland security”. It is to be used to conduct urban experiments on a huge scale without causing annoyance to existing communities. Ain’t that sweet?

THE CALL OF NATURE

Spectrum Interactive is the UK’s largest independent Wi-Fi provider, so why has it been snapping up every payphone box it can find in London, amassing no fewer than 1,800 of them? To begin with, Spectrum offered a paid-for Wi-Fi service based on the location of the phone boxes, but it was clear that the only way to make a small fortune from this was to start off with a big fortune and watch it dwindle. Now the strategy has changed. Spectrum is giving free Wi-Fi access to any punter who will reveal some contact details to download electronic coupons. Brilliant. At present, the coupons are only for shops in areas such as Victoria and Mayfair, which gives Zygote an idea. London phone boxes used to be handy places for young ladies and gentlemen to deposit calling cards for services of an intimate nature. Zygote can foresee a convenient downloadable coupon service for this ancient practice.

ROAD TRIP

We’ve already been lulled into trusting computers with our financial affairs, social networks, tax returns and medical records. Now it looks as if we’re about to hand our car keys over as well. The Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles has just allowed driverless vehicles on to the public highway. To be specific, it has licensed Google’s fleet of robot cars to drive all over the state without any humans on board to control them. Instead, the Google fleet of Lexus, Audi and Toyota vehicles will be driven by personal computers. Zygote sincerely hopes they don’t use Windows. Otherwise, Nevada may soon see a spate of wonky boots, blue windscreens and inexplicable crashes.

SAGE STUFFING

When customers log in to a “secure and efficient payment service” such as Sage Pay, they expect their online credit card transactions will be handled, err, securely and efficiently. Similarly, when businesses pay a minimum of 20 pounds a month for Sage Pay to handle online customer payments, they expect the same. So when Sage allegedly forgot to renew its security certification, customers trying to do business with Sage Pay clients were told that the site security was invalid and could not be trusted. In a patronising statement, a Sage Pay minion blamed someone

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outside their company for the situation, then went on to say it was a minor issue and customers shouldn’t worry about it. So which is it? Either website security certificates aren’t worth the electrons they are printed on and can be safely ignored, in which case the online business world has been conned out of millions, or Sage Pay is a group of incompetents who leave their security to “someone outside the company”, in which case their clients should change to a more professional payment service, such as PayPal, which is free.

YELLOW PERIL

The publisher of Australia’s Yellow Pages has launched a prize competition worth over £15,000 to whoever develops “an app to survive and thrive during the inevitable zombie apocalypse”. Zygote doesn’t know about Australia, but the zombie apocalypse has already happened here in the Mother Country, as dead-eyed, drooling creatures lurch through the streets. The sponsors of the competition say entries should take full advantage of geolocation features and tracking. They have obviously never seen a proper zombie movie. Geolocation will be useless, as all communication networks are sure to fail in the wake of the zombie dawn, in which case the Yellow Pages will be best served as toilet paper.

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Mobile documents made easy with

When you are out of the office, work doesn‘t stop. Taking your work on the road is easy with today’s lightweight and powerful laptops, multitasking smartphones and tablet devices… but what about all those files and the paperwork on your desk? With Fujitsu‘s ScanSnap Scanner solutions you can easily scan all your documents and have access to them wherever you are and on any device; Office PC, notebook, iPad®, iPhone® and now even on Android® devices thanks to the ScanSnap Connect App* and in the cloud with Google Docs, SalesForce CRM, SugarSync, Evernote, Dropbox and more. Make your documents as mobile as you are – with just the press of one button!

Have a look at www.ScanSnapit.com/computershopper2

All names, manufacturer names, brand and product designations are subject to special trademark rights and are manufacturer‘s trademarks and/or registered brands of their respective owners. All indications are non-binding. Technical data is subject to change without prior notification. Apple, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, and iTunes are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc., Google, Google Docs and Android are registered trademarks or trademarks of Google Inc.

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* Available for iPad®, iPhone® and Android® 2.2 or later; details on our website.