PC Pro Magazine

Full contents overleaf p44 We won’t lie: the iPhone 13 is unlikely to go down in history as the world’s most revolutionary phone. It’s all about incremental improvements, from the processor to the cameras, from battery life to design. As such, we don

For the past five years, we’ve been waiting patiently for cargo drones to take off in Britain. But despite backing from companies such as Amazon, the skies remain mostly empty. The problem? Making drones fly is the easy part compared to the countless

Privacy campaigners have claimed a victory in their battle to make the web safer, by retiring a now redundant plug-in that enforced encryption. Back in 2011, the web was a very different place. Most websites didn’t use HTTPS to connect to a computer.

For crypto enthusiasts, a big part of the appeal of Bitcoin, Ethereum and the like is that they exist outside of the government’s clutches. Cryptocurrencies, tokens and other crypto assets aren’t like ordinary money - they hold value and can be trade

Could the results from our poll – solicited directly via Twitter and Facebook – be any more conclusive? If the laptop manufacturers need any more persuasion, we also asked if repairability would influence your purchasing decision, and 78% said yes. I

It’s hard to be sure of anything these days, but if there’s one thing we can say with confidence, it’s that your energy bills aren’t going to be getting cheaper any time soon. The UK (and beyond) is in the midst of an energy crisis, with a combinatio

If you have a south-facing roof and own your property, then it’s a no-brainer to fit solar panels. You should more than halve your electricity costs, although it will cost around £6,000 for a typical system, so the payback is by no means instant. You

If you’re running Windows 10, and your system requirements meet Microsoft’s demands, then at some point over the next few months you’ll be offered an upgrade via Windows Update. However, as we reveal on p14, big question marks hang over exactly when

When we see a string of numbers such as “192.168.0.1”, most of us know that we’re looking at an IP address. But what exactly is an IP address, and why does it take that form? These are things you might not know – and that’s fine, because you don’t ne

Looking for a particular past review? Visit our index at pcpro.link/index SCORE PRICE 128GB, £649 (£799 inc VAT) from apple.com/uk On paper, you’d be hard pressed to find a reason why Apple didn’t call this phone the iPhone 12S. The design and specs

SCORE PRICE 64GB Wi-Fi, £266 (£319 inc VAT) from apple.com/uk On the face of it, Apple’s latest iPad doesn’t offer much of an upgrade over last year’s model (see issue 316, p88). It suffers from the same thick top and bottom bezels, is stuck on Wi-Fi

SCORE PRICE 64GB Wi-Fi, £399 (£479 inc VAT) from apple.com/uk You can’t talk about the iPad mini without puzzling over its size. Dimensions of 135 x 6.3 x 195mm mean that it’s notably smaller than the last-gen mini, and while it isn’t quite mini enou

SCORE PRICE £583 (£699 inc VAT) from stormforcegaming.co.uk Stormforce is a new name to PC Pro, but it has all the credentials we look for in a PC supplier: a high rating on Trustpilot, a UK base (Warrington, Cheshire, to be precise) and it supplies

SCORE PRICE As reviewed, £1,808 (£2,170 inc VAT) from lenovo.com From Lenovo's point of view, the great thing about Apple’s new MacBook Pro laptops – which we’ll review next month – is that they make its ThinkPad X1 Carbon series look like good value

SCORE PRICE £695 (£834 inc VAT) from ballicom.co.uk In the past couple of years we’ve seen the gap between Dynabook’s ultraportable Portégé range and its more functional Tecra series grow narrower, but the A50-J-11X is a return to the old days. Not t

SCORE PRICE Core i7/1TB, £1,000 (£1,200 inc VAT) from huawei.com/uk It’s taken several years and a pandemic, but Huawei has finally recognised that webcams should live above screens rather than secreted in pop-up buttons on a keyboard. It even adds i

This smart tool uses multiple antivirus engines to detect threats that your regular security software might miss. To get started, just select the Smart or Deep option and click Scan: the program trawls your hard drive, and if it finds something suspi

If you’re of the opinion that a monitor is a monitor is a monitor, then we have some news: you’re wrong. While it’s true that most of the UK’s computing population would be delighted with the top picks from last month’s test of general-purpose monito

If you intend to use the monitor for a single task, such as photo editing, print design or animation, you’re likely to be working in a single colour space (see below). You pay more for the ability to switch between colour spaces at a touch of a butto

SCORE PRICE £3,300 (£3,960 inc VAT) from wexphotovideo.com Walk into a design studio where Eizo ColorEdge CG319X monitors sit on desks, and you know one thing: that company means business. Not just due to the sheer cost of these screens, but because

SCORE PRICE £716 (£859 inc VAT) from photospecialist.co.uk There are some monitors that you come to love gradually, appreciating their subtle charms as time goes on. With the BenQ, that feeling is instant. From the moment you plug it in, you’ll reali

SCORE PRICE 15.6in, £2,667 (£3,200 inc VAT) from estore.wacom.com Don’t be fooled by the Wacom name: this is a portable workstation, not a drawing tablet. With a £3,200 price for this 15.6in, 4K version (and £2,400 for the 13.3in, 1440p model), this

Manufacturers are keen to push the “higher hertz is better” story. There’s a step change in clarity between a 60Hz monitor and one running at 144Hz, say, but we are unconvinced that anyone outside of elite esports competitors will gain any competitiv

SCORE PRICE £1,458 (£1,749 inc VAT) from currys.co.uk It’s tempting to compare the Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 with the Philips Momentum, but this 49in curved monitor is a different beast. For one, it will fit on a desk… it just has to be a large one, con

The past 18 months have been a bumper harvest for hackers. As SMBs struggled with the sudden switch to home working, there was a huge rise in ransomware attacks and other exploits – and though many staff are starting to come back into the office, the

SCORE PRICE 20-user licence, £976 exc VAT per year from kaspersky.co.uk Kaspersky’s Endpoint Security Cloud Plus (ESCP) offers some of the most flexible licensing terms in the business. While some vendors expect you to purchase separate licence packs

SCORE PRICE 1-24 devices, £27 exc VAT each per year from f-secure.com All of the security solutions on test this month offer cloud-based management, but F-Secure takes it to the next level: its web portal lets you manage not just the Endpoint Protect

SCORE PRICE 10-user licence, £245 exc VAT per year from blitzhandel24.co.uk Trend Micro offers an endpoint protection choice for every business: firms that want to keep it all in house can install Worry-Free Business Security Standard on their own se

SCORE PRICE 500-999 users, 1yr subscription, $28 per user from sophos.com These days AI seems to be everywhere, and Sophos Intercept X proudly exploits it to help identify unknown malware. It also blocks ransomware attacks using behavioral analysis,

SCORE PRICE As reviewed, £7,446 exc VAT from dell.co.uk Dell EMC’s PowerEdge servers are now in their 15th generation – and the choice is bigger than ever, with 17 new and refreshed systems in the latest lineup. Tower servers in particular have been

“Hybrid vigour” is a term from genetics, describing the observation that pure pedigree animals tend to be more vulnerable to sickness than cross-breeds. So it is in the world of IT. Adapting to hybrid working – where employees divide their time betwe

Is this really a worthwhile expense for our business? Have you any idea how expensive it is to rewire a building? It’s understandable that companies are reluctant to tamper with an existing network infrastructure that’s still working perfectly well.

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Deep in the archive of your prized collection of PC Pro magazine will be issue 318. If you flip to page 114, you’ll be reminded about the influx of SSDs that failed long before their time. Unfortunately, they’re still coming, and I’ve had a few adven

The EU has decided that all mobile devices shall use the USB-C port for charging. Or, to be technically correct, it has proposed legislation that, if adopted, vendors will have two years to comply with. The full statement can be found at pcpro.link/3

Let’s imagine a common scenario: a company (Alpha Ltd, say) is engaging another company (Beta Ltd) to provide technology services, including development of a bespoke software platform. The parties have agreed that Alpha will own the platform and othe

There are some strange rules in techno-shock stories published in the mainstream media. Ever-larger counts of stolen data sets from ever-more-remote corporates form a constant backdrop to the self-appointed superheroes, videoing themselves laying dow

My name is Davey Winder and I’m a cybersecurity specialist. No, I’m a privacy specialist. Hold on, maybe I’m both. It’s certainly felt that way of late, with the amount of time I spend focusing on privacy being roughly equal to “pure” cybersecurity m

While the skies over our heads have been quieter throughout the pandemic, they’re normally jammed full of planes: Heathrow alone saw 1,300 flights take off or land each day in 2018, and ferries more than 80 million passengers annually. That makes air