PC tech authority are you being watched protect your privacy online may 2018

Block diagram of Intel’s prototype discrete GPUCHIP NEWS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF RYZEN’S WERE EVEN BETTER, OR IF I9S EXISTED FOR LAPTOPS, OR IF INTEL MADE A GRAPHICS CARD?. AMD was clever

YOUR ONLINE LIFE IS AN OPEN BOOK CLOSE IT.

FOR ALL

TO SEE

as a critical issue with Facebook’s

ongoing woes The movement to

‘delete Facebook’ grew quickly and

is gaining some very high proi le support

It’s not all about Facebook, of course

Everyone that is on the internet is aware of

the importance to protect their reputation,

their history and their most private details

Some take it more seriously than others but I

have a feeling this moment in 2018 is going to

be pivotal and force many into action

But it is difi cult to know exactly what

you should do For many, taking action may

come too late to be effective thanks to years,

perhaps decades, of accumulated online

activity But, it’s never too late to start being

careful, so we hope that we can play our

small part in drawing attention to the issue

A big part of that is adopting a VPN

to cover your browsing tracks We’ve

covered VPNs in the past, we’ve done Labs

comparisons, and now in this issue is a guide

for what you should look for – plus a few

motivational reasons why you should bother

Almost needless to say, the actual VPN

industry is booming It’s by far one of the

strongest growth industries over the last

couple of years and it just keeps driving

forwards with more VPN products to

choose from and those that are out there

and established are pitched in a features

and value battle with one another for your

online dollar There’s no doubt VPNs are the

new anti-virus when it comes to competing

companies offering you more, and delivering

better value The only downside to using

a VPN is a slight performance hit to your

browsing speeds, but I think that now we’re

all prepared to wear that for the sake of our

privacy

And if that doesn’t motivate you, check

out our feature on page 34 of some classic

examples of how things went badly wrong

THE WINNERS ARE

After a huge amount of planning, some

stress, a little healthy debating and most

importantly of all – thousands upon

thousands of votes from you, our readers

It is done Along with our sister publication

PC PowerPlay, we called upon you to have your say and cast an opinion on the very best tech products of 2017

There were many categories and i nalists, and we know the actual process of voting in the awards took a few minutes so I’d like to thank each and every one of you that gave

us your time

Now, go check out the winners! The coverage starts on page 26 Ultimately our aim was to acknowledge and reward the products, people and services in the PC industry that deserve some recognition

And that we have achieved With a very happy added bonus It is extremely rare that the people from competing companies gather together in one room for a long night

of dinner and quite a lot of wine In fact,

it just never happens We were absolutely delighted to see everyone get on famously and share many a laugh

And, that’s it for awarding things – at least on this grand scale – until this time next year Until then, you will just have

to make do with our own editorial team product appraisals

Ben MansillEDITOR

David Hollingworth

dhollingworth@nextmedia com.au

T: @atomicmpc

• Our tests are performed by experienced reviewers in our Labs in accordance with strict benchtesting procedures

• Our brand new benchmarks have been tailor-made to reflect real- world computing needs

• We put tech through its paces – seriously From processing power to battery life, from usability to screen brightness, our tests are exhaustive

• We will always offer an honest and unbiased opinion for every review

RE AL TECH ADVICE YOU CAN TRUST!

THE PC&TA TEAM

4 WWW.PCAUTHORITY.COM.AU

FEATURES

24

THE AWARDS WINNERS!

You voted, and here are the

winners

30

DO YOU NEED A VPN?

Protecting your privacy online

– it’s not just for criminals and

hackers PCTA explains why we

should all take steps to cover our

tracks

34

PRIVACY BLUNDERS

We examine the biggest privacy

blunders of the century to date

and the lessons we should learn

Raytraced lighting in games is

coming, and a gaming router is

The lack of FTTN support

and Mesh Wi-Fi

HOW TO 76

UPGRADE TO SSDTransfer everything from

a HDD to SSD

LABS 63

MEMBRANE KEYBOARDSAlmost mechanical in quality but a little cheaper

HONEYBALLJon gives a high-i ve to the Microsoft Ofi ce team as it

i nally converges on a common codebase, and provides advice on surviving the CPU Armageddon

103

OCKENDENPaul checks out misleading phone specs, a hefty battery pack, and some wireless and not-so-wireless cameras

110

CASSIDYThin or fat – when is a cloud not really a cloud? Steve discovers two companies with very different views of the future

DREAM GEAR 90

A-LIST & KITLOGThis is the dream list of the best

HOW TO DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL THIS MONTH’S FREE FULL APPS!

98

THIS MONTH:

• ASHAMPOO Photo Card 2

•NovaPDF

• O&O SafeErase 11 Professional

•SSDFresh 2018

REVIEWS PCS & LAPTOPS

COMPONENTS

SPIN US A YARN

INBOX

DEAR JON

Just read Jon Honeyball’s article in the latest magazine

where he had isues with Windows converting to

German Well I had a similar situation with my Dell

XPS 13 and what I did to i x it was too install the

language it insists on using (German in Jon’s case) and

then removing it This sorted my laptop out and not

had an issue since

One other issue Jon has is looking for an alternative

to Aperture I have been a long time user of Lightroom

(since version 1) and have been searching for a

replacement Like Jon, I believe Lightroom may end

up in the cloud I hate the subscription model and

the fact Adobe broke their promise to always have a

non-subscription version of Lightroom In the end the

I have switched to DxO PhotoLab for Raw conversion

which does a better job of RAW processing than

Lightroom DxO PhotoLab has no asset management

features but a very good DAM (Digital Asset

Management) is iMatch which works well with tools

such as DxO PhotoLab

KEITH

CRISPY MONITORS

This is the second review I have seen by you of a 2K

monitor complaining about jagged type Isn’t a 2K

monitor at 32in equivalent to a FHD monitor at 23.5in?

and no-one seems to complain about them I use a 32in

Samsung 2K for Word and other text rich programs

and I am not having any problems at standard

resolution of 100% - it’s three pages wide mind you

I’m over 65 and use multifocals Compared with the

monitors of the 90s these are a dream

VAN

ON THE OPTANE 900P

Unless you really need this product for your workload,

you are better off paying a lot less and getting a

Samsung 960 Pro or Evo Mainly because the normal

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user will never notice any of the features and advantages over the cheaper NVME SSDs Besides, most people I know are either still have SATA SSDs for their OS and probably wouldn’t notice a difference to faster SSD Those who have their OS on a NVME, mostly don’t take full advantage of its potential

As for longevity, since most people I know would never have a NVME SSD long enough or work

it hard enough to near the write endurance, How often do people upgrade their PC? So it is a moot point At times I do move a lot of

i les, but usually from a SATA SSD

or from a large USB stick or SD card (128/256GB) to my NAS Only occasionally do I move large i les to and from my NVME SSD

If only it was not so expensive, it could become a real contender to the established products

Time will tell how it goes

to about 250MB/sec from over 540MB/sec (I now have NVMe

drives) Then again during the calculations I have written over 20TB of data I’m running on 16 cores/32 threads /128GB RAM and the high data throughput is needed to keep the cores running

at their optimum I’ve trialed the Optane drive and when my next NVMe drive dies I’ll get one The data throughput is consistently very high, perhaps a smidgen less than the Samsung

960 Pro but it keeps the cores running at 100% The low latency

is a bit plus for me

Unless you are doing the video encoding for proi t, I would suggest an M.2 NVMe drive They are faster than standard SSD drives which top at 550MB/sec This will allow you cores to run optimally Instead of running a RAID, you can put the operating system on one drive and the video scratch i les on a second drive Note that if you have lower capacity SSD drives the data throughput is generally slower (ie sequential read and write) and store data on a separate slow drive Adding lots of drives can be expensive and if your system shows a queue length of less than

1 there will be no benei t to adding extra drives Its only when the queue length consistently goes high you need to worry Also monitor the RAM utilisation.ORAC

m: Inbox, Level 6, Building A, 207 Pacific Highway, St Leonards NSW 2065

e: inbox@pcand techauthority.com.au

Please limit letters to 200 words, where possible Letters may be edited for style and to a more suitable length.

Go to www.pcandtechauthority.com.au

and join in the conversation

Also check out the Atomic forums:

http://forums.atomicmpc.com.au

WANT TO GET IN TOUCH?

Now you can truly

be trigger happy.

The curve that gives you the edge

The LG 34UC89G UltraWide monitor has a curved 34” screen that

immerses you in the game It features NVIDIA G-SYNC™ which

synchronises your senses with ultra-fast paced real time action

With a lightening-quick refresh rate of 144Hz, it responds even

faster than your reflexes Now that’s a real game changer

Apple’s self-proclaimed reputation for

cast-iron security is faltering after tracts of the

company’s all-important source code were

posted online Apple has frequently boasted

of how secure its operating systems are compared

to Windows and Android, but a series of recent

embarrassments have tarnished its image

The company admitted that a key part of the source

code for iOS has been posted online after an intern

managed to steal the code Although Apple forced

GitHub to remove the post, it’s understood to have been

widely distributed

The leak involved iBoot, the part of iOS that’s

responsible for ensuring a trusted boot of the operating

system Although the code is two years old and from

iOS 9, experts believe it could still offer hackers an

insight into how phones could be compromised

“It’s an embarrassment for Apple – your code is the

crown jewels so to have it leaked is bad news,” said Alan

Woodward, a security specialist “It gives an insight

into the code and might help you work around security

aimed at locking the code, rather than providing

something such as malware.”

Woodward said the publication of sensitive code

might not result in an immediate security breach,

but could lead to problems further down the line “It

obviously gives hackers a chance to see more than they

might otherwise do and if there is a way of abusing

some existing feature, say, they might i nd it,” he said

“I suspect the real issue is more to do with writing

code that might simulate the real code in some way –

the big disadvantage hackers have is they don’t (as I

understand it) have Apple’s digital certii cates.”

LONG-TERM LEAK

The leak actually took place at least two years ago, but

remained in limited circulation among a small group

of jailbreakers before being posted anonymously on

GitHub Apple claims that the age of the leaked code

and the company’s aggressive update release cycle

should minimise threats

“By design, the security of our products doesn’t

depend on the secrecy of our source code,” Apple said

in a statement “There are many layers of hardware and

software protections built into our products, and we always encourage customers to update to the newest software releases to benei t from the latest protections.”

However, because software is developed incrementally, old code could still be in use in the latest versions of iOS “The code might be

‘old’, but code evolves rather than being a completely new set of code each time there is an update,” said Woodward

BUG BOMBS

The news comes as Apple deals with

a slew of embarrassing software problems, including “bug bombs”

that crashed phones and Macs when

a certain character, link or symbol was included in messages to devices

The latest, the “Telugu text bomb”, caused devices to freeze when sent a message containing an unsupported character from the Indian language

Word spread and people started to include the character to crash other devices Apple has moved to i x the issue (with iOS version 11.2.6 and macOS version 10.13.3), but the fact that so many problem are emerging within active systems is a concern

At the end of December, the company was alerted to a critical security vulnerability for macOS High Sierra that allowed anyone with physical access to a Mac to gain system administration privileges without even having to enter a password In the i rst seven weeks of

2018, the company has been forced

to release 14 security updates across its stable of products

“There is dei nitely a growing

THE LATEST TRENDS AND PRODUCTS

IN THE WORLD OF TECHNOLOGY

IS APPLE’S

SECURITY SLIPPING?

A SERIES OF BUGS AND PATCHES SUGGESTS THAT THE TECH

GIANT’S QUALITY CONTROL ISN’T WHAT IT USED TO BE

impression that Apple seems to have had a few quality issues,” said Woodward “The volume of updates

is quite surprising

“You would imagine that some

of these things would be picked

up in simple testing, which is what makes them all the more surprising This isn’t about deliberate attacks by hackers per se, more an indication that Apple is letting things slip through the net into the wild.”

IN OTHER NEWS

WINDOWS ON ARM LIMITATIONS REVEALED

Microsoft outlined the limitations

of Windows 10 running on ARM processors when a company document was accidentally posted online Although most apps and programs should work as expected on the 64-bit ARM operating system, there are issues with 32-bit and 64-bit x86 drivers on the 64-bit ARM OS, which may mean older hardware and peripherals won’t work with the system

SPOTIFY PLANNING A MOVE INTO HARDWARE

Spotify could join the smart speaker crowd after plans for a hardware division were revealed via job adverts

In recruitment documents looking for hardware production engineers, Spotify suggested that it was considering making its own speakers, smartwatches and glasses, and that the company was recruiting staf to

“create its fi rst physical products and set up an operational organisation for manufacturing, supply chain, sales and marketing”

GOOGLE LAUNCHES CHROME

AD BLOCKER

Google has moved to block what it thinks are the most intrusive adverts – such as pop-ups and audio-driven marketing – from websites in its Chrome browser Using criteria laid out by the Coalition for Better Ads – of which Google is a member – Chrome will block adverts from websites that create “frustrating experiences”

I  will freely admit - when someone asked

me about this router before I knew much

about it, and what made it a gaming

router, I told them that it was likely a

few random apps and an aggressive physical

design Maybe some RGB lighting Otherwise,

it was just a branding exercise

And then I got to the new NPG XR500 WiFi

router in action and boy howdy, was I wrong!

Sure, it does kind of look like it’ll either

take off or eat your face at any moment, but

it is thankfully free of RGB lighting, and the

features it boasts sound legitimately useful for

gamers We’ve not seen one in the Labs yet -

though we’ll get one soon for review - but the

product demo certainly piqued our interest

First up, the router’s UI is one of the most visually impressive we’ve seen, with a tonne

of visual representations of the data fl owing through your network On top of that, there’s

a lot of ways you can dial in your connection for the best gaming experience You can set a Geo-i lter by limiting the physical distance of connected servers, and black and white lists of the same, as well as black listing players with connections that are known to be slow

Annoyed with that one guy who always logs on to Battlei eld 3 with that damn 800 ping and Block the guy

A Network Monitor lets you keep tabs on who’s hogging the pipe inside your house, too, and there’s a dedicated VPN built in to protect

IT’S PACKED WITH SOME LEGITIMATELY AWESOME FEATURES

your identity when you connect to outside servers (So, if two XR500 users be unable to block each other? The mind boggles at this new i eld

of gaming warfare )

* Five Gigabit Ethernet ports (4 LAN + 1 WAN) for maximized wired speeds ideal for fast-paced gaming; 802.11ac Wi-Fi; Dual-core 1.7GHz Processor; Simultaneous Dual-Band Wi-Fi; Four (4) external antennas; 15 more channels in 5GHz The Nighthawk Pro Gaming (NPG) XR 500 WiFi router is up for pre-order now, and retails for $449

DAVID HOLLINGWORTH

GAME NEWS

THE GAMES PEOPLE PLAY

NETGEAR’S NEW NIGHTHAWK PRO GAMING

XR 500 WI-FI ROUTER IS ANNOYINGLY COOL

REAL-TIME RAYTRACING

ON THE WAY

MAKING IT LOOK REAL

If you’ve ever wondered why your thousand dollar video card can’t makes games look as pretty as, say, the latest Pixar movie, a lot of it is due to raytracing This particularly computationally-intensive task renders refl ections in great detail, and with precise accuracy

Movie studios have vast render farms and can take their sweet time to render a frame Meanwhile your video card has to handle lighting and refl ections, potentially, several times per second So, dif erent methods are used in gaming that are computationally

‘cheaper’

But in somewhat of a compromise step in the right direction Microsoft says it’s nearly there with a reasonable solution than brings convincing elements

of genuine raytracing to games We’ll see it in DirectX

12 towards the end of the year Futuremark announced

a raytracing demo will be available soon after, and games support is expected to take a while longer

BEN MANSILL

Dual Gigabit Ethernet WAN ports for failover and load-balancing

Two USB 2.0 ports for connection to two 3G/4G LTE USB modems,

FTP server and network printer

4 x Gigabit LAN ports with multiple subnets and 50,000 NAT

sessions

50 x VPN tunnels (including 25 SSL VPN tunnels) with

comprehen-sive secure protocols

Fast VPN throughput, VPN load-balancing and backup for

site-to-site applications

[9/$1VIRUVHFXUHDQGHIĆFLHQWZRUNJURXSPDQDJHPHQW

IPv6 & IPv4

Increased IP addresses (1022) and IP subnets (8)

Object-based SPI Firewall and CSM (Content Security Management) for network security

Supports VigorACS 2 (Central Management system) for multi-site deployment

Central VPN Management for 8 remote Vigor routers Central AP Management for deployment of multiple wireless VigorAPs

UFB Ready

EthernetWAN

Vigor2926Vac

VigorAP

VPN

VigorSwitch Central

Management

Block diagram of Intel’s prototype discrete GPU

CHIP NEWS

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF RYZEN’S WERE EVEN BETTER, OR IF I9S EXISTED FOR LAPTOPS, OR IF INTEL

MADE A GRAPHICS CARD? MARK WILLIAMS EXPLORES SUCH FANTASIES IN THIS MONTH’S CHIP NEWS

RYZEN REFRESHED

Details about AMD’s next CPU generation

are leaking out thick and fast and it’s

looking promising from a competition

standpoint Code named Pinnacle Ridge,

the 2000 series of Ryzen processors is

based on the Zen+ architecture which

is just a slightly tweaked and optimised

version of what came in the initial Zen

powered irst generation So mild are the

tweaks to the architecture that is seems

that most of the performance gains come

directly from moving to a newer and

smaller 12nm manufacturing node (versus

14nm previously) and the added stock

compatibility with 2933MHz DDR4 memory

There’s talk about improved cache latency,

higher bandwidth and faster inter-core

communications All of which can be

explained by the faster memory support

which the internal Ininity Fabric’s clock

speeds are directly derived from

• SKU - Cores/Threads, Base/Boost

Off the bat, compared to the 1000 series

these have some welcomed clock speed boosts, being the 1000 series’

main drawback The 2000 series seeks to rectify this and pushes the peak boost clocks between 250MHz and 550MHz higher than their 1000 series siblings On the top end part this comes with a modest 10W increase in TDP to match but lets it outperform the 1800X Imagine what a theoretical 2800X might achieve

With XFR 2 and Precision Boost

2 these new processors should

be able to hit those boost clocks more often and for longer than the irst generation and helps to explain why the initial synthetic benchmarks going around show somewhere between a 12-18%

speed increases, more than what the clock speed increases alone would account for

Overall these are some more exciting products from AMD that will keep them in touch with Intel’s aggressive cadence

Expect to see these oficially launch along with new supporting X470 motherboards sometime

in April

I9 FOR YOUR LAP

Some details about new mobility chips from Intel have surfaced and appears to be laying down the law, as these new chips bring for the irst time an i9 processor

to the line-up Here is the list of newcomers:

• i9-8950HK – 6/12, 2.9GHz/4.8GHz, 45W

• i7-8850H - 6/12, 2.6GHz/4.3GHz, 45W

• i7-8750H - 6/12, 2.2GHz/4.1GHz, 45W

• i5-8400H - 4/8, 2.5GHz/4.1GHz, 45W

• i5-8300H - 4/8, 2.3GHz/3.9GHz, 45W

Hex-core parts are coming to laptops! The i9 part is particularly interesting as initial benchmarks put it in the region of the desktop grade 8700K A 45W TDP will likely cause it to throttle quite hard though if it’s to stick to the stock TDP rating Being an overclockable

K variant though it seems likely that manufacturers might push beyond that limit to give end users the processors true performance at the cost of battery life

CPU

12 WWW.PCAUTHORITY.COM.AU

INTEL THINKING OF DISCRETE

GRAPHICS AGAIN?

Two decades after its last discrete graphics

card (the i740), Intel unveiled a proof of

concept GPU at the recent IEEE ISSCC event

in San Francisco Having recently poached

AMD’s GPU lead, Raja Koduri, Intel showed

that it is exploring ideas for “future circuit

techniques that may improve the power

and performance of Intel products” To do

this it intriguingly made a proof of concept

14nm 1.54B transistor discrete GPU based

on its Gen9 integrated graphics architecture

While everyone got excited at the prospect of Intel entering the discrete graphics market, Intel soon explained that while it does “intend

to compete in graphics products in the future, this research paper is unrelated”

Even so, it’s good to see Intel tinkering around with such ideas all the same

GPU

UNPARALLELED PRECISION

EXCLUSIVE PLAY MODE FOR LAPTOPS

FLOW HIVE 2

You know what’s so hot right now? Beekeeping No it is But who wants to have to keep their bees in those boring old white box hives, or those weird manger-style hives that hipster hobby farmers use? None of us! Meanwhile the Anderson boys, the father/son team from Byron, have upgraded their 2015 hit beehive and it can be yours again on Indiegogo for a lot But you just have to turn a thing to get honey!

MOST WANTED: You just have to turn a thing to get honey! The “fl ow frame” is the Anderson’s invention, which they claim is the most signii cant innovation in beekeeping since 1850 The idea of the hive generally is

to make beekeeping much, much easier

NOT WANTED: It’s still beekeeping, a pastime that is actually lethal for many people Yes, the Flow Hive 2 is much less work than a standard hive, but it still means nets and smokers and whatnot Also for some reason, hardcore hipster beekeepers hate this thing Which is probably ironic on some level

DYSON V10

The stated mission objective from Dyson is to render any kind of vacuum

that isn’t handheld like this obsolete So much so, that the company is

no longer making any other kind That’s mighty coni dence And, to my

vacuuming hand, a good decision There is nothing any other kind of

vacuum can do that this doesn’t do as well or better It comes with an

almost bewildering array of attachments including an excellent extensible

and fl exible hose that attaches to several kinds of small brush head that are

perfect for cleaning the innards of a PC It actually motivated me to clean

the inside of my PC last night, and my fans and AIO radiator are as-new

dust free

MOST WANTED

It’s all about the motor The little thing around the size of two cigarette

lighters spins at over 100,000 RPM, and that allows immense suction, and all

in a body way smaller than ‘proper’ vacuums This is the motor tech used in

the hairdryers and hand dryers also from Dyson, and they think they have

at least a two year lead on any other company doing this stuff

NOT WANTED

On max power mode it will drain the battery in i ve minutes, but you

hardly use that mode anyway, medium speed is i ne for everything and will

comfortably do your house It quick charges, too, so a few mins plugged in

and you can i nish your almost-i nished job

EYEBALL CAMERA PACK

The problem with IP cameras is that they promise you the ability to spy on anyone, anywhere, at any time but the blasted things need to be drilled into the wall Isn’t there

a portable solution that lets you set up a creepy CCTV network anywhere you want, anytime? Well, obviously or

we wouldn’t have asked the question, now there is!

MOST WANTED: Watch everything, everywhere, always For the paranoid, this high-tech boce-set lookin’ thing has

it all Resolution is 4K, 130-degree FOV, microSD storage,

12 hour battery life per camera, there’s even a 100dB

“panic alarm” for if you feel either alarmed or panicked Independent Wi-Fi network too, so no home internet required

NOT WANTED: Has a “laughter detector” so you can spy

on and record for later suspicious analysis, anyone nearby who you might suspect of having a good time

LIGHT PHONE 2

Remember when people used to whine that they wanted a phone

“that just made calls”? Well, these guys made that phone last year and the general consensus was that it was too limited Now that’s dei nitely ironic! Anyway, here’s a new version that adds messaging, contacts, alarm, and maybe an ultra-stripped back version of a navigation app MAYBE

MOST WANTED: The e-Ink display is minimalist and the phone itself is tiny, which is a thing many people want Also, the sheer street cred the Light Phone 2 will give you when you move

to New York is hard to overestimate

NOT WANTED: One of the marketing photographs of this phone shows a person texting a friend asking if they remember the address of “the show” But unless that address was previously texted to you, there’s no way to know The Light Phone 2 can’t even take notes Also, why is this a 4G phone?

SONIC SOAK

What’s something that every single deep future science i ction novel ever

written ever, has in common? That’s right: everyone showers with ultrasound

because water has aliens in it now This ultrasound cleaner isn’t big enough

for your body, but it’s big enough to handle all the gross stuff that comes off

your body and sticks to your clothes Plus, the creators claim, it will clean

everything else too

MOST WANTED: Put your stuff in a bowl Put the Sonic Soak in there as

well Gently usher any dogs from the room Turn on the ultrasound and feel

vaguely discomi ted as this pulverises the microbes and whatever Then rinse

and it’s done Works on gross undies, tableclothes and even fresh fruit Not all

in the same bowl, please

NOT WANTED: Demo videos show stained cloth going in to bowl with Sonic

Soak for ages, then removed, then soaped, washed, rung out and dried So

still need to actually wash your stuff then?

SYSTEM NEWS

JUST HOW POPULAR ARE PCS WITHOUT GRAPHICS

CARDS, WONDERS MARK WILLIAMS?

3 2200G and Ryzen 5 2400G

processors, which are essentially

quad core Ryzen CPUs paired

with a Vega graphics core onboard, i nally

giving AMD something to compete more

directly against Intel’s consumer parts

line-up that have had integrated graphics in them

for many generations

AMD was clever when designing these

new chips though; knowing that Intel still

had the lead on performance per core on the

CPU side, and knowing it (AMD) would have

to remove one CCX to drop in the graphics

core, it asked why go toe to toe with you

opponent when you don’t have to? So, AMD

crammed as much GPU into these chips as is

possible given the power and thermal limits

they were targeting (65W TDP)

As a result, the CPU portion performs

admirably at around Ryzen 3 1200 and Ryzen

5 1500X levels respectively, but amazingly

at the same price except with a Vega IGP

included! So, compared to the Ryzen 1000

series this 2000 series couple seems like

a no brainer if quad core computing is all

you’re looking for from AMD’s line-up The

included “free” Vega graphics though is

quite something else for this segment It puts

Intel’s IGP’s to shame by doubling the frame

rates those are capable of, and especially

with the 2400G matches what an entry level

discrete graphics card (GT 1030) can do This

might explain why AMD has no discrete

cards directly competing with the GT 1030,

SHOP TALK

WHAT PERCENTAGE OF PC’S SHIP WITHOUT A DISCRETE GRAPHICS CARD? HOW MUCH OF AN IMPACT DO YOU THINK AMD’S NEW APU’S WILL MAKE?

JAIMIE, LEADER COMPUTERS:

“Most Leader consumer systems ship with a discrete graphics card, around 80% Although embedded graphics from both AMD and Intel has improved a lot, it seems to be an expectation of most retail consumers that they will get discrete graphics In the corporate desktop market, the ratio is fl ipped, with only around 10% needing discrete graphics

With the 2200G and 2400G emerging with RX Vega GPU capabilities, they are a viable option for the cost-conscious gamer or power media user

We hope to see many more small form factor PCs built around this combination to give a rich media experience without the high price tag and larger footprint associated with discrete graphics cards.”

TROY, SCORPTEC:

“Roughly a quarter of our system sales are for systems without a discrete graphics card and we currently don’t sell any systems with entry level discrete graphics We generally fi nd customers are either looking for strictly a non-gaming machine

or would rather pay a bit more to allow the ability

to play more game titles.”

JOHN, TI COMPUTERS:

“At TI, roughly 60% of our sale is contributed

by general offi ce builds, which does not require

a discrete graphics card Due to performance constraints, entry level discrete graphics cards are primarily used for system repairs only We generally use GTX1060 or above when building systems with discrete graphics cards, as that is pretty much the base line for running popular game titles at a reasonable quality these days We are yet to see too much benefi t of switching to the new APUs from AMD, considering you can easily build a signifi cantly better performing system with a little last mile investment changing to the 8th Gen Core-i3 + GTX1050 combo.”

they don’t need to as they’ll simply

be integrated

Jaimie from Leader Computers brought up an interesting point;

“It will be hard work for AMD

to change the perception of the average punter though For those who are not tech savvy, the

perception is that good media performance NEEDS discrete graphics While true in the past, over the last 2 years we have seen the gap close considerably for all except high end gaming and CAD applications.”

Media performance has been using i xed function silicon on IGP’s and graphics card for a long time

so it’s amazing that the average

“ AMD crammed as much GPU into these chips as is possible given the limits ”

person might still think that way While the Ryzen 2000G series line-

up will easily handle most media tasks, it’s also starting to push the boundaries if what integrated graphics can do even when it comes

to gaming (1080p@30fps)

If you’re the person your friends and family come to for PC or tech advice, reconsider what integrated graphics are capable of these days AMD is redei ning it and you just might save yourself, friends and family some money with the correct advice

MARKET WATCH

SAMPLING SELECT SYSTEMS IN THE MARKET TODAY

$1,749 • https://tinyurl.com/y84wqwyg

At a time where gaming PCs are at such a high price point, this

system makes a rather compelling case for itself

If ideally paired with a 1080p monitor, this system will perform

quite well in most games with details all set at high levels The i7

7700 CPU while being “last gen” is still a beast and dropping the

K level overclocking abilities further saves on the hip pocket too

Storage space is adequate however, you might feel the pinch of

system memory constraints

if you like to multitask, but

given current high RAM

pricing, this is forgivable and

an easy drop in upgrade later

With a Wi-Fi card thrown

in for network diversity

all housed inside a shmick

looking chassis, for the price,

this is a hard system to beat

KEY SPECS

CPU: Intel Core i7 7700 Cooler: OEM Motherboard: ASUS Prime B250M-Plus

Graphics: ASUS Strix GTX 1060 DC2 OC 6GB Memory: 8GB Corsair Vengeance

LPX DDR4 Storage: 240GB SSD, 1TB HDD Power Supply: In Win F1 600W Case:

In Win 301

If you want soaring gaming performance but don’t want to be over enthusiastic like Icarus once was and come a cropper, in your hip pocket, this build walks that line well It of course has the fastest CPU and GPU available for gaming right now with the CPU sitting under a nice water cooler to keep all six of its cores chilled

This build keeps things a little more modest when it comes to the RAM, SSD and PSU While the RAM is rated at a faster than stock 3000MHz for overclocking, at 16GB of it some money is saved versus the 32GB the over the top builds have The SSD will perform admirably too, but it’s no Samsung EVO, just be aware of the 8GB SLC caching going on and if that’ll affect your usage

KEY SPECSCPU: Intel Core i7 8700K Cooler: Fractal Design Celsius S24 Motherboard: ASUS ROG Strix Z370-F Gaming Graphics: ZOTAC AMP! Edition GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB Memory: G.Skill Trident Z RGB 16GB 3000MHz DDR4 Storage: Intel 600P 512GB SSD, Seagate BarraCuda 2TB HDD Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G1 650W Case: Fractal Design Meshify C Black

TI COMPUTERS

TI GAMING PC

$999 • https://tinyurl.com/ydzdxqhx

A gaming PC for under $1000? Of course

it’s possible, the question is what you

compromise on

The trouble with Intel’s 8th generation

CPU’s at the moment is that the only

motherboard chipset available for them is

the top end Z370 Very pricey As a result, the

rest of this build need to make up for this forced splurge

This system gets the basics right on the storage and memory

capacity front Although the memory is listed as 2133MHz, below

the CPU’s recommended 2400MHz

An unfortunate compromise is the graphics card The GTX

1050 is $40 cheaper than the GTX 1050 Ti but it is also 20% slower,

which at the low end is easily felt Given this system has an optical

drive a better choice would’ve been to ditch the optical drive and

put the savings into a 1050 Ti instead

KEY SPECS

CPU: Intel I3 8100 Cooler: OEM Motherboard: ASUS Prime Z370-P Graphics:

ASUS Geforce GTX 1050 2GB Memory: 8G DDR4 2133Mhz Storage: 240G SSD

Kingston + WD 1TB 7200rpm Power Supply: 550W Case: TI Deluxe

CPL ONLINE

BUDGET BUSINESS PREMIUM PC

$712 • https://tinyurl.com/ycyhyc93Doing mundane tasks at work usually means having a mundane

PC to do it on But mundane PC’s are just like mundane cars, they’re cheap This system is no different The heart of this build

is the i5 7500 which offers up quad non-hyperthreaded cores

at a reasonable 3.5GHz peak clock speed giving

it enough grunt to power through any general ofice task you can think of without much trouble

8GB of system memory is reasonable too

as long as you’re not a heavy multitasker

The mass storage arrangement is a bit of a pinch point 120GB SSD’s are at

an annoying size where they can get full rather quickly if you’re not careful

Ditching the HDD for a larger 250GB SSD would’ve been preferable

KEY SPECSCPU: Intel i5-7500 Cooler: OEM Motherboard: MSI H110M PRO-VH PLUS Graphics: Onboard Memory: Crucial 8GB 2133MHz DDR4 Storage: SanDisk 120GB SSD, WD 1TB Caviar Blue HDD Power Supply: Thermaltake 500W Case: Thermaltake Versa H22

SCORPTEC

MESHIFY 1080 TI

$3,399 • https://tinyurl.com/y9fd6k5j

Over the last few months,

we’ve seen an explosion

in cryptocurrencies

Largely fuelled by

stories about Bitcoin, which is used

in the same way to represent all

cryptocurrencies in the same way

hoover means vacuum cleaner,

there have been stories about

massive overnight wealth And

that’s led to some folks seeing

Bitcoin as an investment

Over recent weeks, there have

been two reports coming from

respected analysts that paint very

different pictures One suggested

Bitcoin’s price will plummet over

time, from the recent highs of

about US$20,000 to less than $100

But another said Bitcoin will hit

$91,000 over the next two years

Alongside those reports

and analyses there are many

opportunists who see an

opportunity to fl eece unsuspecting

potential investors

One of the symptoms of this

new model for duping people has

been a rash of advertising on social

media But Facebook, Twitter and

others have instigated bans on

advertising relating to ICOs, or

initial coin offerings

ICOs are the cryptocurrency

world’s version of an initial share

offering for a business Basically,

people launch ICOs in the hope

of attracting “investment” from

people wanting to get in on the

ground fl oor of the launch of a new

cryptocurrency The attraction is

that they can buy the new coins –

often called alt-coins as they are

an alternative to Bitcoin – at a low

price with the hope that they will

appreciate in value

And while some ICOs are

legitimate, there are charlatans out

there trying to steal money

For example, earlier this year

Pordeum duped investors

PLAY IT SAFE WITH

CRYPTOCURRENCIES

CRYPTO IS BOTH A POTENTIAL GOLD MINE AND SCAMMER’S PARADISE

Dubbed as a cryptocurrency that would “revolutionise the fruit and vegetable industry”, the Lithuanian start-up absconded with all their investor’s cash and crypto-coins, leaving their website with just one word – “penis”

And another scheme, called BitPetite, pulled a similar disappearing act, taking all their investor’s coins with them

Such scams are common enough that the ACCC received over 1,200 complaints about cryptocurrency scams last year, resulting in losses

of over $1.2M to Australians

So, what can you do? This isn’t specii c investment advice For that, you should consult with a licensed i nancial planner or seek counsel from a suitably qualii ed expert

Cryptocurrencies are a new

i nancial instrument and subject to signii cant volatility In a little over two years, Bitcoin has appreciated

in value from $100 per coin to around $12,000 at the time of writing But, over that time, it has reached highs of around $20,000 with daily fl uctuations in excess

of $1,500 not uncommon On one occasion, the announcement of a regulatory decision in the United States saw the value fall by $1,200

in a few minutes before bouncing back by over $2,000 the next day.ICOs are like all new businesses That means they can succeed or fail as a result of conditions that have not yet been understood And with over 1,000 ICOs launched over the last 12 months, the only thing that can be said with certainty is that they won’t all succeed So, they are highly speculative

Governments around the world are looking at cryptocurrencies closely and making determinations

on how they are best regulated For example, the Securities and Exchange Commission in the US has said cryptocurrency exchanges – which are like stock-markets for trading cryptocurrencies – are to

be regulated in the same way as national securities exchanges This will impact how cryptocurrency transactions have to be handled, placing more scrutiny on the industry

Some people have called the cryptocurrency markets the

“wild west”, where lawlessness and a lack of enforcement make

it possible for fraudsters to dupe unsuspecting victims Even Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak was caught in a scam, losing about

$70,000 of bitcoin

Don’t be like The Woz

NEED HELP? EVER HAD AN ISSUE AS A CONSUMER?

INVESTIGATOR CAN HELP.

If you’ve had an issue or had something happen and you think investigator could help, email your problem to

investigator@pcandtechauthority com.au

ANTHONY CARUANA has worked for almost every major masthead in the Australian IT press

As an experienced

IT professional – having worked

as the lead IT executive in several businesses, he brings a unique insight to his reporting of IT for both businesses and consumers.

It was science-iction luminary

Arthur C Clarke who

famously coined the phrase

“Any suficiently advanced

technology is indistinguishable

from magic.” It’s been oft-quoted

over the years because it so

eloquently displays the relationship

between science and understanding

– while also leaving room to spark

the imagination

Recently IBM revealed its

latest innovation in the form of

a computer the size of a grain

of sand A rather large grain, by

comparison, but let’s not split

hairs (which also happen to be

really small) over what is clearly a

remarkable achievement

And the moment I read the story

I couldn’t help but think of the

Technomages from Babylon 5 If

you’ve watched the show, you’re

already smiling, and if you haven’t

a brief cap: Technomages are a

secretive bunch whose abilities

include conjuring up illusions

of monsters, hurling ireballs or

generating cloaks of invisibility,

and manipulating people through

words (“14 words to make someone

fall in love with you forever, seven

words to make them go without

pain ”)

Importantly, they do all this

through technology they embed in

themselves (biohackers, anyone?)

well beyond anything that which

exists elsewhere in the universe,

thanks to an ancient race who

happen to feature prominently

in the show (*cough* Shadows!

*cough*)

Clearly inspired by Arthur C

Clarke’s classic maxim, delivering

feats of what looks like magic

through advanced technology

beyond the understanding of their

peers, Technomages are also seen

placing viewing and listening

INCONCEIVABLY

INDISTINGUISHABLE

A 1MM COMPUTER THAT COSTS 10C YES, REALLY

devices smaller than a grain of sand on individuals and observing them at a distance

Boom! Enter IBM’s 1mm x 1mm computer, sporting a million transistors with an x86-core, as well

as some SRAM, an LED, a voltaic cell for power and – get this – a photo-detector Ahuh

photo-IBM claims these ink-dot PCs – which cost just 10c to make – can

be used for example in logistics, placed in everyday objects and products to aid tracking and, when paired with a blockchain,

to guarantee authenticity But clearly they’re also on the path

to creating their own breed of Technomages with their universal

spying devices Am I right? But there’s more – the applications here are massive: the potential for their use as inconspicuous sensors

in the coming age of IoT is clear, especially if later versions bundle

in communications in the form

of Wi-Fi or 5G Smart buildings, smart streets, smart cars, smart cities – these are all in our future,

a society enmeshed in billions and billions of sensors allowing buildings to regulate their own temperature and water pressure, streets to monitor pollution or detect emergencies, cars to talk to each other and provide real-time feedback on trafic Smart cities will improve eficiencies, lower costs, better manage water and electricity supply, reduce environmental impacts, and create a higher quality

of life for everyone (though, let’s leave for a minute the potential for universal surveillance to the side – nothing’s perfect, after all)

However you cut it, IBM’s of-sand PC isn’t just an impressive innovation – look at the images on this page and recognise that you’re looking directly at the future These will, one day, be everywhere and in everything

grain-And soon after this, I bet we’ll have Technomages too

ASHTON MILLS has been writing about technology for 20 years and still gets excited for the latest techy gear He’s also the Outreach Manager for the Australian Computer Society (www.acs.org.au), you can email him

BY:

22 WWW.PCAUTHORITY.COM.AU

the NBN, it was all

pretty simple You had

essentially two Broadband

connectivity types, Ethernet (usually

on the back of a Telstra or Optus

Cable connection) or ADSL

From a manufacturers’

perspective, it was also relatively

straight-forward Any manufacturer

wanting to connect their device

to Telstra’s copper network

(remembering that the vast majority

of ADSL services, especially in the

early days, were all using Telstra’s

wholesale DSL service, since they

owned the vast majority of the

copper in the ground!) needed

to pass a set of criteria which

was coined IP1149, in its various

iterations, as well as the mandatory

standards from an electrical safety

perspective, rolled up as C-Tick,

and A-Tick It cost quite a bit to get

certii ed to these standards, well

over $15,000 per device, but then

you knew it would work, and would

work across the nation In fact, type

“IP1149” into Google and you can

still see the lists of once-certii ed

products available on the Telstra

website, along with the publicly

available 55-page document that

outlined the test criteria themselves

NBNIFICATION

Then, the NBN was announced

Initially, life was good Because the

rollout was to be i bre-based, this

essentially meant that

Ethernet-based Routers would become

a much larger percentage than

the historic 80:20 split that had

been in place for years between

ADSL Modems and Ethernet

Routers Because ADSL would

be transitioned out and replaced

with Fibre to the Home (FTTH)

whereby the resulting connection

to your Router would be a simple

Ethernet cable (often some confusion occurs here, as Fibre does indeed come into the home from the street, but connects to a Fibre NTU (Network Termination Unit) usually on the outside wall

of your home where it would be

‘terminated’ and is delivered into the home itself as a single Ethernet cable to connect to your Router) this meant that it would relatively easy for manufacturers to dispense with the ‘modem’ itself within the devices, and the somewhat difi cult testing against the IP1149 criteria

It would mean cost savings for consumers too, due to removal of the relatively costly modem chipset

in each DSL device, and simplify the installation experience markedly as all connection types would be the same

THEN THINGS CHANGED

However, as we all know, the government of the day changed, and soon after the NBN announced its revised strategy of using a

“multi-technology mix”, essentially meaning that, to deliver substantial cost savings to tax-payers as well as speed up the overall NBN rollout, that the ‘best’ technology for each deployment would be utilised to deliver a broadband connection to

an individual’s home or business

A combination of technologies would be used to achieve this, in some instances a FTTH service, resulting in an Ethernet connection being the Router connection point

as described above, but also Fibre

to the Node services (i.e a box out

in a nearby street, within which Fibre coming from the exchange essentially connects to the existing copper telephone wires from your house to deliver VDSL services into your home), HFC (the old Telstra and Optus Cable networks),

Fixed Wireless (Ethernet services delivered over a Satellite service, with a big dish on your roof) along with variants of all of these

The big difference this time though, from a manufacturers perspective, there was no standard

to follow, only a loose set of points, which were updated randomly, and with, at least as far as D-Link was concerned anyway, little to no consultation As you can probably imagine, it’s not just a 2-3-month task to pull together chipsets and all the various components that

go into building a new Modem or Router, in fact if you can do it in

12 months you’re doing well, and often manufacturers would spend

a year building a product only to

i nd that the goalposts had changed again, effectively rendering the product obsolete sometimes before

it even launched Not only that, but products that were ‘NBN-Ready’ based off the early iteration of the NBN that did not require modems, suddenly became a customer service nightmare, because the ‘new’ version of the NBN ‘may’ need a modem built-in to support FTTN connections

So, it was some sense of relief that last week I read that the government, to help consumers get the best experience from their NBN service, is talking about putting together a set of criteria for manufacturers to work towards it’s just about 4 years too late

GRAEME REARDON

is the Managing Director of D-Link Australia and New Zealand and has had over 20 years’ experience working with major networking brands including Cisco

Graeme has

a borderline obsessive passion for all things IT-related.

YOU CAN ASK GRAEME

Ask Graeme about networking, the internet, getting the most from your gear and this wonderful digital world

we live in Each month we’ll choose one for Graeme to answer here.

askgraeme@pcauthority.com.au

JAMES FROM QUEENSLAND HAS WRITTEN IN ASKING ABOUT ALL THE DIFFERENT TYPES

OF NBN CONNECTIVITY TYPES, AND THE ISSUES THAT IT CAUSES HIM, AND I FEEL HIS PAIN

NBN AND THE EVER

SHIFTING GOALPOSTS

I  n a mighty triumph of democratised consumer electronics, you, the

people, have spoken Your excellent opinions, vast experience of using things and liking them – or not – has come together for the very irst (of many!) annual Australian PC Awards

For your time, we thank you

For your opinions, we respect you And, so does the PC industry, which, each year, makes new and improved gear, innovating all the way,

to win your hearts and dollars They listen to you, and via these awards, will take enormous pride in their wins

Thank you too, to the many sponsors that helped us get this off the ground, and to the many people behind the scenes at Nextmedia that worked hard to pull this together

There was a huge turnout for the voting, with many thousands

of people having a say It was quite humbling for us to see how you embraced this

The ultimate goal, of course, is to reward those that make great gear with an acknowledgement of a job well done This extends throughout all levels of the product chain, from the engineers and R&D people that create products, the people that actually build the gear, the channel and resellers that bring the gear to you, and the support staff that make sure all is as you expect

And now, to the winners!

WINNERS

FINALIST COMPANIES:

• Intel

• AMD

HIGHLY COMMENDED:

• AMD Ryzen 5 1600

• AMD Ryzen 5 1500X

WINNER: Intel Core i5-8400 BEST BUDGET CPU

BEST PERFORMANCE

CPU

FINALIST COMPANIES:•

• Intel

• AMD

HIGHLY COMMENDED:

• Intel Core 8700K

i7-• AMD ThreadRipper 1950x

WINNER: Intel Core i9-7960X

FINALIST COMPANIES:

• Intel

• AMD

HIGHLY COMMENDED:

• AMD

WINNER: Intel

BEST CPU COMPANY

• Nvidia Titan V

• MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Lightning Z

WINNER: Asus ROG Strix

GTX1080TI Gaming

BEST PERFORMANCE

VIDEO CARD

FINALIST COMPANIES:

• Nvidia

• AMD

HIGHLY COMMENDED:

AMD

WINNER: Nvidia

BEST GPU COMPANY

FINALIST COMPANIES:

• Asus Dual series GeForce GTX 1050 Ti OC

• MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Aero ITX 2G OC

WINNER: Gigabyte Aorus GeForce GTX 1060 6G

BEST BUDGET VIDEO CARD

VIDEO CARDS

CPUs Sponsored

by

FINALIST COMPANIES:

• Sandisk Ultra 3D

• Crucial MX500WINNER: Intel 545S

• Seagate Barracuda

• Seagate IronWolf Pro

WINNER: Western

Digital Black

BEST HARD DISK DRIVE

FINALIST COMPANIES:

• Intel

• Samsung

HIGHLY COMMENDED:

• Samsung 960 Evo

• Intel Optane 900P

WINNER: Samsung

960 Pro BEST NVME SSD

COMPONENTS AND PERIPHERALS Sponsored by

Corsair 570X RGBCooler Master MasterCase H500P

WINNER: Thermaltake View 71 Tempered Glass

BEST CASE

FINALIST COMPANIES:

Thermaltake Floe Riing RGBCooler Master Liquid ML240L RGBWINNER: Corsair H100i v2

BEST COOLING PRODUCT

FINALIST COMPANIES:•

Netgear Nighthawk X10 D-Link Cobra DSL-5300

WINNER: Asus ROG Rapture GT-AC5300

BEST ROUTER

FINALIST COMPANIES:

• Asustor

• QNAP

• Synologyl

HIGHLY COMMENDED:

• Asustor AS6404T

• QNAP TS453BT3

• WD My Cloud Home

• Synology DS218

BEST HOME NAS

• Aus PC Market

• BCC Computers

• Centre Com

• CPL

• EB Games

• Harris Technology

• PC Case Gear

• MwaveWINNER: PLE

BEST RESELLER ONLINE

WINNER: Synology

DS218 Play

WINNER: Synology DS918+

BEST SOHO NAS

FINALIST COMPANIES:•

• Acer Predator XB1HU

• Samsung CHG90

WINNER: Asus ROG Swift PG27VQ

• Sennheiser PC 373D

• HyperX Cloud Alpha

WINNER: Corsair Void Pro RGB Wireless

BEST GAMING HEADPHONES

FINALIST COMPANIES:

• Corsair Glaive RGB Aluminium

• Asus ROG Gladius II

WINNER: Razer DeathAdder Elite

BEST MOUSE

FINALIST COMPANIES:

• MSI Infi nite X

• Corsair One Pro

WINNER: Asus ROG G20CI

BEST OEM DESKTOP PC

• Asus ZenBook Flip

S UX370

• Apple MacBook Pro

WINNER: Microsoft Surface Pro

BEST LAPTOP OR CONVERTIBLE

FINALIST COMPANIES:

• Asus ROG Zephyrus GX501

• Asus ROG Strix GL503 Scar

WINNER: Razer Blade

BEST GAMING LAPTOP SYSTEMS

FINALIST COMPANIES:

• MSI

• Gigabyte

WINNER: Asus

BEST MOTHERBOARD COMPANY

FINALIST COMPANIES:

MSI Z370 Godlike GamingWINNER: Asus ROG Strix

X299-E Gaming

BEST PREMIUM

MOTHERBOARD

MOTHERBOARDS

and how

do I choose

one?

Why do I need a

originally perhaps best known as a sneaky way

of spooi ng your location so you could watch Netfl ix US in Australia It’s also a valuable tool for any business with a mobile workforce, allowing employees

to access the company network without having to worry about remote security

But even if you’re not trying to hide your location,

or log into a corporate server, installing VPN software and subscribing to a reputable service is a must – because the number of threats to your online security

is growing

For example, it’s alarmingly easy easy for criminals

to spoof a Wi-Fi network, setting up a dummy hotspot that looks like the real deal, but which allows them to spy on any data that passes between the computer and the net Your passwords, credit card information and more could be at risk – and if you’re working remotely, sensitive customer information could also leak That can be disastrous for your business, and it could leave you open to blackmail, or punitive i nes for failing to uphold your data protection obligations

VPNs reduce your exposure enormously, by

encrypting your connection from end to end The data that passes between your laptop, tablet or phone and the public access point is secured, and immune to even sophisticated eavesdropping It goes without saying, however, that you do need to trust your VPN provider And with so many to choose from, how you do pick the right one?

YOU (OFTEN) GET

WHAT YOU PAY FOR

When choosing a VPN, price is an obvious

comparison point – but the cheapest option

almost certainly isn’t the best It costs money

to operate a VPN, so if you i nd a provider

offering free or very cheap services, ask

yourself how they’re paying the bills

Because let’s be clear: although the

connection between your laptop and the VPN

is secure, the provider can see everything

you’re doing, and can even interfere with

your trafi c We haven’t heard of a reputable

VPN provider actively snooping on its users’

data, but unscrupulous providers could

insert their own content (such as adverts) into

the download stream, or selectively throttle

access to certain sites and services

For these reasons, we would always

recommend signing up with a paid service

You’re buying peace of mind, and an

expectation of support when required

LOCATION, LOCATION,

LOCATION

Consumer VPNs often advertise the

availability of exit nodes in a wide variety

of countries This is useful for accessing

sites or streaming services that might not be

available here

In a business context, that probably isn’t

such a concern – but geographic reach is

still an important issue If you work with

sensitive data that you don’t want to slip

outside the legal jurisdiction of your home

country, a VPN allows your staff to work

from anywhere in the world, without a risk of

the data being intercepted by local agencies

It’s vital to ensure your provider has access

points where you need them

A related issue is capacity VPNs are

becoming more and more popular as users

become aware of the dangers of going online

unprotected, so a provider that doesn’t have

plenty of servers in the right places is likely

to be slow today and slower tomorrow

Since different providers have different

numbers of subscribers to accommodate,

it’s impossible to say how many servers is

“enough” – but ask your chosen provider

about load and availability, and don’t

be swayed by companies that advertise

thousands of servers without saying how

many users they’re shared between

PRIVACY AND THE LAW

When it comes to jurisdiction, it’s not

only the outlets that are important: you

also need to consider the national base of

your chosen provider Australia, the UK,

US, Canada and New Zealand all operate under the “Five Eyes” (FVEY) agreement – described

by Edward Snowden

as a “supra-national intelligence organisation that doesn’t answer to the known laws of its own countries” In short, these countries routinely share surveillance data – and have been known to help one another out by spying

on each others’ citizens

So, if you choose a VPN provider based in the

US, your online activities might not be immediately recorded within Australia

But if the authorities want

to know what you’ve been

up to, they can easily ask their US counterparts to subpoena the provider’s records and pass them back to the local authorities

FVEY isn’t the only formal data sharing agreement in operation

There are additional “Nine Eyes”

and “Fourteen Eyes” arrangements involving Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden And while close allies such

as Japan, Israel and South Korea might not have a legal obligation

to share surveillance information, they may choose to do it anyway

In short, if you really want to keep your browsing habits to yourself, you’ll need to i nd a provider based in one of the world’s more obscure jurisi ctions – such

as NordVPN in Panama, Perfect

Privacy in Switzerland

or ExpressVPN in the British Virgin Islands, all

of which operate beyond Fourteen-Eyes territory

THE ISSUE WITH LOGS

While the standard advice is to steer clear

of FVEY countries, there may be benei ts to choosing a provider that co-operates with the law Back in 2011, UK-based VPN provider Hide My Ass (hidemyass.com) was forced to hand over logs relating to the online activity of a user who had been been implicated in several major hacking operations Some users were outraged at what they saw

as a betrayal of their trust, and declared their intention to switch to

a service that didn’t store such logs.Yet, as the company made clear on its blog (blog.hidemyass.com/lulzsec-i asco), no-one ever promised that using a VPN would make you untouchable “It is very naive to think that by paying a subscription fee to a VPN service you are free to break the law without any consequences,” it explained More signii cantly, HMA pointed out that services claiming

to keep no records at all “are more likely to have their entire VPN network monitored and tapped by law enforcement, thus affecting all legitimate customers”

For the record, Hide My Ass states that it only logs the times

at which users connect to and disconnect from its service – purely for the sake of identifying abusive users – and doesn’t store any details of what you’re actually looking at

ADDITIONAL SECURITY

If you’re concerned that the VPN service you’re using isn’t entirely secure, or you want the highest possible degree of anonymity, it’s Ensure your provider has enough servers

to cope with its subscriber base

iOS and Android both have VPN clients built in, so there’s often no need to use

a dedicated app

possible to connect to multiple

VPNs in sequence, feeding their

data through each other and

heavily obfuscating your location

and identity

You can do this manually, by

signing up with several providers

and connecting to each one in turn

without disconnecting any that

are already active A more elegant

solution is to use a dedicated

multi-hop (or “cascade”) service,

which will automatically

route your trafi c through a

series of anonymising servers

Anybody wanting to intercept

your data would need to

compromsie multiple different

networks to obtain anything

useful Romanian provider VPN

ac implements double hops, while

Switzerland’s Perfect Privacy can

route your connection through up

to four servers in sequence

While a VPN prevents outsiders

from spying on your active

connections, it offers only partial

protection against services

that track you using cookies,

or by analysing your system

coni guration After all, if the sites

you visit can positively identify

you, that negates some of the

privacy benei ts of running a VPN

in the i rst place

VPN providers often provide

additional security features to

close off such tracking methods

NordVPN incorporates an optional

service called CyberSec, which

not only intercepts cookies, it also

blocks ads and malware Even

better, it can cut the link between

DDoS command servers and an

infected PC, by checking a list

of servers found to be hosting

malware or DDoS control points,

before passing on a user’s domain

look-up request to the DNS server

Any positives will throw up a

warning, and unless the feature

is disabled through the VPN

settings, you won’t be able to

proceed any further This gives you

an opportunity to deal with the

infection, and saves bandwidth too

BUSINESS VPN

ADMINISTRATION

Several VPN providers offer

packages tailored for business users, which simplify onboarding staff and managing both billing and use

One popular choice is Tunnelbear (tunnelbear.com/teams), as

recommended by privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo (spreadprivacy.com/how-to-choose-a-vpn) Team subscriptions offer centralised billing, easy user management and fl at pricing, at US$69 per user per year Each user can connect up to i ve devices simultaneously

VyprVPN, which bills itself as the world’s most powerful VPN, offers a dedicated IP address and dedicated server on its Business Cloud service, which starts at $569 per year

It’s also possible to set up your own VPN server: the feature is conveniently built into Windows

10, and can be coni gured in just a few simple steps:

the search box to i nd Network Connections Pick “New Incoming Connection…” from the File menu and, on the pane that launches, choose which users should be able to use the VPN server you’re setting up

want connections to come

over the internet, then click Next again Choose which networking options should be accessible remotely (leave at least TCP/IPv4 ticked), then click Allow Access Your VPN is now active

server, it’s a good idea to sign up for a free dynamic IP address These days this feature is likely to be built into your router, so you can coni gure it from there

4Finally, you need to tell your router to forward incoming connections to the VPN server If there isn’t a predei ned VPN option, you’ll need to create a new rule to forward incoming connections on port 1723 (Point-to-Point Tunnelling Protocol) to the machine hosting your VPN

ALL-ROUND PROTECTION

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that a VPN is only for your PC Most VPN providers allow you to make at least two simultaneous connections, so you can also use it on your phone or tablet when you want to connect to

a public Wi-Fi hotspot

You don’t even need to download an app: both iOS and Android have VPN support built-in On iOS, you can i nd it under Settings | General | VPN; on Android it will

be in your Wireless and Networks settings, although the precise location varies on different devices Once you i nd it, just enter the server and login settings – and perhaps download and install a security certii cate if prompted – and you’re ready to browse in safety

2

1

4 3

D ata breaches have become so

commonplace that to make the headlines, they need to be big – really big But how do you measure size when it comes to a data breach?

The metric might be a dollar value that refl ects the cost to the organisation

in terms of investigation, brand damage, clearing up and even i nes Or how about the number of users involved or records compromised? For this feature, we decided

to opt for the metric that we feel is most relevant to our real-world audience:

impact

We have considered what the impact has been on the organisation concerned, the users involved and the general cyber security landscape By looking back at the mistakes that have been made, we offer advice on how to avoid repeating

them in the future – and that advice is as relevant for the small business as it is to the multinational corporations

As for our timeline of 21st century breaches, not a lot really happened during the i rst four years of the millennium – at least not as far as data theft was concerned The year 2000 got off to an insecure start, though, with the ILOVEYOU worm (also known as the Love Letter or Love Bug) exploding across millions of Windows-powered computers in a matter of hours The payload was a damaging rather than exi ltrating one: a VBScript overwriting random i les on the local machine More worms followed during the next couple

of years and, in 2003, the Anonymous hacking collective was established

But we have to wait until 2004 for the data breach mayhem to really start…

DAVEY WINDER EXAMINES THE BIGGEST DATA BLUNDERS OF THE

CENTURY TO DATE AND THE LESSONS WE SHOULD LEARN FROM THEM

OF THE 21ST CENTURY

PRIVACY

THE BIGGEST

2004 AOL EMAIL THEFT

2005/2006

TJX CREDIT CARD COMPROMISE

In July 2005, systems that processed and stored data related to credit card payments at the TJX group of companies across the US were accessed illegally The intruders were apparently able to continue accessing these systems unnoticed until mid-December 2006 With 96 million customers affected by credit and debit card information stolen during this period, it was the biggest such compromise ever at the time and is thought to have cost TJX, banks and insurers a total of $167 million

It has been reported that a “sniffer” was installed

on the payment network, allowing the capture of

at least 80GB of card data to be siphoned off This was transferred to a remote server, again undetected, using TJX’s own high-speed network Albert Gonzalez, a well-known hacker working as an informant for the US Secret Service at the time, was eventually convicted as the ringleader in this case and sentenced to 20 years

The mitigation against such an attack is the same now

as it was then: regular security audits to ensure best practice is followed TJX was culpable for misconi gured wireless networks, inadequate intrusion detection, lax patching strategies and weak login systems Multilayered protection and some measure of log analysis would have spotted the unusual data fl ow patterns and alerted TJX to the data exi ltration

processing company, took

the “biggest card compromise” crown from TJX after

another long-undiscovered breach was finally spotted at

the start of 2009 Responsible for 100 million card

transactions a month, mainly on the behalf of small- to

medium-sized traders, the breach compromised 134

million credit cards Albert Gonzalez (yes, the same one)

was convicted for the breach, but how did he do it?

Very easily, using an SQL injection vulnerability to

install spyware on the systems The impact of this one

was not dissimilar to the TJX breach, in that it reinforced

the reality that criminal organisations will steal your

credit card data if possible and that lessons were not being

learned by those responsible for processing transactions

Heartland wasn’t compliant with the Payment Card

Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) and ended up

being prohibited from processing payments until four months

later As well as the reputational damage, Heartland also lost

around $187 million in compensation for fraudulent payments

2013

YAHOO SUFFERS BIGGEST BREACH IN HISTORY

In 2004, it was revealed that

a software engineer at the

then internet behemoth

AOL had stolen 92 million

email addresses while

using another employee’s

credentials, in a forlorn

attempt to cover his tracks

The email database,

thought to impact at least

30 million AOL members,

was then sold for $27,000

to a spammer, resulting in

an estimated seven billion

unsolicited emails that

advertised an offshore

gambling website fl ooding

AOL inboxes This makes it

into our list not only because

the impact on AOL users was

huge, but the consequences

of getting caught for stealing

data were as well

The rogue employee was

ultimately prosecuted under

the newly introduced

CAN-SPAM legislation in the US

and sentenced to 15 months

in prison He was also

ordered to pay $83,000 to

AOL in restitution It was the

i rst time that a truly large

i rm had suffered a data loss such as this, and that breach had been made public

While there was little relevant legislation to protect data in the cyber realm

14 years ago, things have changed Ryan Wilk, vice president at NuData Security, told PC & Tech Authority that organisations can help protect data by limiting both what is collected and how long it is kept “While we never want to lose data that may one day be helpful, sensitive data should not

be stored for no reason,”

Ryan explained “Security and data analytics teams should work together to understand what data is actually needed and what data can be deleted If you only hold what you need, and only hold it for as long as you need it, you greatly limit your risk to exposure.”

Fast forward to 2013 and the

“big” label really starts to stick, nowhere more so than

at Yahoo When the i rm disclosed, at the end of 2016, that a billion user accounts had been compromised in August

2013, it seemed bad enough

Eventually the true scale of the breach became known:

three billion users, or every account at the time

It is thought that sponsored actors were behind the breach, which likely involved accessing a backup Yahoo user database to reset passwords and

state-a Ystate-ahoo state-admin tool thstate-at could access and edit information in the user database The impact

on Yahoo was huge, not least as the disclosure occurred during merger negotiations with Verizon The value of Yahoo fell by $445 million as a result.Most telling was the reputational damage, as Ondrej Kubovi, a security awareness specialist at Eset explained

“It was a showcase of how not

to communicate in such situation It took Yahoo more than three years to disclose it Moreover, it took another year until the true extent of the case was revealed.”

Talking of insider threats, the 2014 Morrisons

breach makes our biggest breach list not because

the 100,000 employee records compromised was

so large – but rather because the methodology

was so unsophisticated, yet so successful

Andrew Skelton, who worked for Morrisons

in Bradford England, uploaded a database of

sensitive information about his fellow workers,

including bank details and salaries, to an

external site He was able to access the database

using the credentials of another employee and

was somehow allowed to copy the data and

then upload it, unencrypted, to a public i

le-sharing service Morrisons was found to be

vicariously liable by a High Court judge in the

i rst successful case of a UK data leak class action

suit, which was brought by 5,000 staff members

“The fact that the breach was unsophisticated

is actually what makes it so scary,” said Egress

Software Technologies CEO, Tony Pepper “This

ruling will have sent chills up the spines of

many board members, who know that the risks

of an employee leaking data are all too high A

recent survey of UK employees showed that one

in four workers had maliciously leaked business

data, and a further 35% admitted to sending

sensitive information over email by accident.”

2015

TALKTALK DISCLOSURE FIASCO

In 2012, a contractor working as a systems administrator

for the National Security Agency (NSA) started

downloading documents containing evidence of how

the US intelligence agency was collecting data from

emails, text messages and mobile phone calls using the

PRISM surveillance program Edward Snowden went

on temporary leave in May 2013 and, whilst in Hong

Kong, met with a Guardian journalist

This meeting kickstarted the public exposure of NSA

surveillance methods and the publication of the now

infamous WikiLeaks documents The impact hardly

needs explaining, as the true extent of nation-state

intelligence gathering was a shock to the system for

most people It also damaged the reputation (such as it was)

of both government and spy agencies alike

Matt Middleton-Leal, general manager (EMEA)

at Netwrix, told PC & Tech Auhority that Snowden’s leak exposes the common insider threat of privilege escalation: “An insider deliberately raises his or her level of permissions to get more access rights,” he explained, and for every business the mitigation will include “tightening up access controls and informing staff of the severe consequences of any transgression”

If you thought that Yahoo made a i st of disclosing the biggest breach in history, European i rm TalkTalk managed to make them look like PR experts The company fell victim to a SQL injection attack that enabled a cyber attacker to access data on 156,959 customers over a week

in October 2015

The Information Commissioner ruled TalkTalk had failed “to implement the most basic cybersecurity measures” and i ned the i rm

a record-breaking $700,000

But, the real impact of this attack was that it revealed how unprepared in terms

of incident response and disclosure TalkTalk had been

Initially, it claimed the site was unavailable due

to technical issues, but it wasn’t until 24 hours later that it admitted that a attack may have compromised customers’ data And then things got really weird, with the media being told of a

possible distributed of-service (DDoS) attack being responsible for the data compromise (despite this not being possible) and this was followed by TalkTalk CEO Dido Harding insisting that stolen data wasn’t encrypted nor was it legally required so

denial-to do

“This breach highlights the importance of planning and preparing your incident response ahead of time,” said Steve Lamb, head of cyber consulting for Europe at Rapid7 “Having processes and tech in place to detect the early signs of a breach really come into their own in

a crisis Effective and timely communications are important

as misinformation simply makes matters worse.”

WANNACRY

No round-up of breaches could be complete without mention of WannaCry Even though no data was exi ltrated,

it was held to ransom and the impact was pretty much unprecedented

In May 2017, WannaCry was the biggest ransomware attack ever, hitting organisations across 150 countries, including 50 NHS trusts that in some cases had to cancel non-emergency admissions and routine clinical appointments as systems were taken down $400 million in ransoms was demanded and 250,000 systems infected

WannaCry spread rapidly for two key reasons: it used

a leaked NSA exploit called EternalBlue that targeted older Windows systems, and the available patch to protect against EternalBlue had not been installed The real impact

was in making news across the world As Richard Walters, chief security strategist at CensorNet told PC & Tech Authority: “It exploited a vulnerability for which there had been a patch available since March [2017] Using

a combination of ransomware and a network worm was hardly a black swan event and, yet, it caught a lot

crypto-of people out The lesson to

be learnt? Patch systems fast SMEs need to forget about layering expensive security solutions to protect against zero-day attacks – they account for less than 0.1% of all attacks and it’s highly unlikely you’ll

be a target Focus on the basics

i rst.”

HOW TO AVOID BECOMING A BREACH VICTIM

2016

AUSTRALIA’S

SEXUAL HISTORY LEAK

The Australian Red Cross Blood Service admitted in

October 2016 that the personal data of 550,000 blood

donors had been compromised Anyone who had

completed a form to submit blood between 2010 and 2016

was affected, and in the most egregious way possible

As well as names and addresses, these forms contained

details of any “at risk” sexual history

“The breach occurred due to human error, when an

administrator placed a database backup on a publicly

facing web server,” Linus Chang, the founder and CEO

of Scram Software explained “My advice is that every

SME should, at a minimum, encrypt all backup copies

of data, whether in the cloud or stored locally Primary

copies of sensitive information should also be encrypted

if stored in the cloud Encryption should be done as early

as possible, as copies of data can and do end up in places

they shouldn’t It’s the cheapest and most reliable way I

know to defend against human errors.”

Identifying what each victim

should have done to prevent a

breach probably isn’t as valuable

as looking at what all fi rms could

have done to minimise the risk of

such breaches

“What most of these breaches

have in common is their lack

of visibility into data access,”

said Terry Ray, CTO at Imperva

“All major breaches, and most

middle and minor ones, fail to

immediately detect their breach,

instead fi nding out weeks,

months, or years after the fact,

often from third parties fi nding

breach data online.”

Step one to protecting

something is, therefore,

watching it “Do we fi nd it surprising that banks have cameras not only in their public areas, but also in their vaults, arguably their most secure locations?” Terry concluded “They have

an explicit zero-trust model Why do organisations feel the need for implicit trust models for authorised users of their data, because they believe that it’s too diffi cult to watch all data users? It’s not.”

Monitoring and analytics are beginning to solve the problem, with data collection and machine learning coming together to provide insight that could prevent your business from ending

up in PC & Tech Authoritys next biggest breaches feature

WE TRY BEFORE YOU BUY

V irtual is starting to fragment As we see in this issue, as

well in previous coverage, Microsoft is in deep with its

Mixed Reality standard Along with a bevy of top tier

consumer electronics companies, we have several virtually

identical headsets all pitched at the mainstream And let’s

not forget, too, that Microsoft is also cornering the high-end

professional space with its Hololens Augmented Reality system

What began as an enthusiast gamer product, the way led by

Oculus Rift (a company now owned by Facebook), has permeated

every day life

Well, sort of It’s far from ubiquitous You would be more likely

to see a smartphone VR in use when you’re out and about, and I

have, but those rare sightings are limited to once seeing someone

on a park bench at lunch, and twice on international flights Never

once have I seen anyone on a train or bus using VR (can’t speak

for ferries, wish I could, lovely way to go to work, that)

Perhaps it’s the embarrassment? I know I’d feel more than a

little self-conscious with VR on my face in public You would

absolutely know everyone is looking at you, or at least raised an

eyebrow once or twice Then there’s the fear of missing your stop

because the world you’re in is so absorbing that you completely

lose track of time

But VR isn’t purely for gaming, or even the great many (and varied!) ‘virtual experiences’), it’s equally popular for media consumption In Asian countries the situation is quite different For one, VR HMDs (Head Mounted Displays) are used primarily for watching movies or recorded TV shows At least it seems

to me that way anecdotally, based on the huge number of VR products you can buy in China, and that their specs are clearly not for gaming thanks to a lower refresh rate which is useless for gaming but inconsequential for media These Chinese HMDs can have wider ields of view than gamer HMDs, again better for media over gaming

I know we here at PCTA, and yours truly in particular, have effused about the world-changing potential of VR I don’t recall

being on record as ever saying everyone will use it at some stage,

but in the couple of years that have passed since it really started to roll into the mainstream VR is still invisible

All my sim racing buddies either have VR or want it, but that’s pretty niche A few ‘experience zones’ have opened up, and we’ve covered them in the past where you pay to play for an hour or so

So maybe it is mainstream, and it’s just something everyone does

at home? Have you tried VR and walked away, or embraced it as life changing? Let me know bmansill@nextmedia.com.au

BEN MANSILL WONDERS WHERE THE VIRTUAL WORLDS HAVE GONE?

EDITORlAL & PRODUCT SUBMISSION: PC & Tech Authority welcomes all information on new and upgraded products and services for possible coverage within the news or reviews pages However, we respectfully point out that the magazine is not obliged to either review or return unsolicited products Products not picked up within six months of submission will be used or donated to charity The Editor is always pleased to receive ideas for articles, preferably sent in outline form, with details of author’s background, and – where available – samples of previously published work We cannot, however, accept responsibility for unsolicited copy and would like to stress that it may take time for a reply to be sent out.

2D TESTS

Desktop PCs and laptops are tested using our own custom bench testing suite, which has

been carefully designed to test all aspects of a system and rate them in a way that’s useful

to you Our benchtesting cover three main tests: a typical video editing test, a demanding

4K video editing test and a multitasking test that stresses all aspects of the system We

look at the time it takes for each test to run, which is then compared to our reference PC to

produce a normalised result This score is shown on a graph, and to help you understand

just where the PC we’re reviewing sits in the grand scheme of things, we will often include

other system’s scores

On occasion we will run publically available bench testing software, predominantly PCMark

10 from Futuremark This is run in the Home setting, in Accelerated mode You can get

PCMark 10 as well as 3DMark (below) from www.futuremark.com

3D TESTS

For video cards, as well as Integrated Graphics Processing Units, we use:

• 3DMARK FIRESTRIKE

• RISE OF THE TOMB RAIDER

• TOTAL WAR: WARHAMMER 2

• GHOST RECON WILDLANDS

3DMark is designed specifically to test video cards, and you can download and run the same

tool as us to help you gauge where your own GPU ranks compared to what we are reviewing

The games were selected because they are relatively well balanced in performance

between AMD and Nvidia, favouring neither Rise of the Tomb Raider supports DX12 Ghost

Recon Wildlands is a cutting edge 3D engine and can be optimised to stress either the CPU

or GPU, while Total War: Warhammer is particularly good at stressing CPUs, and has beta

Screen brightness is set to 120cd/m2,

playing a 720p video on loop until the

device runs out of power

HOW WE TEST

Our benchmarking tests are the best in the

business Read on to fi nd how they work…

PC & Tech Authority’s

comprehensive Real World testing

sorts out the best products from the

pack Any product recommended by

PC & Tech Authority is well above

average for features, value for

money and performance

WHAT OUR RATINGS MEAN WHAT OUR RATINGS MEAN

REVIEWS PCS & LAPTOPS

COMPONENTS

Battery life

BREAKDOWN SCORES

I t isn’t Vegemite; you won’t either love the

Surface Book 2 or hate it But you will fall

one side of a divide: you’ll either see the

point of a laptop with a detachable screen or

you won’t That was true of the 13.5in version

and applies equally to this 15in spin

When I say “spin”, though, I may be

exaggerating things The 15in Surface Book 2

is essentially the same machine as its smaller

sibling, right down to the weird fulcrum

hinge and magnii cent electromagnet system

that locks the screen in place One second it’s

a 15in laptop and no amount of yanking will

remove the screen, but with a press of a button

you’ll hear a clunk and the screen can be

easily removed

The only difference between the two

models is that the screen and chassis are

proportionally larger here Naturally, this

translates into weight too The 15in Book 2

weighs 1.91kg with the keyboard, the 13.5in

weighs 1.53kg Used as a tablet alone, that’s

820g versus 720g

EXTRA GRUNT

Where things diverge are inside Evidently,

Microsoft believes that those people who want

a 15in laptop will also demand more power

So while you can order the 13.5in Surface

Book 2 with a Core i5 processor and 8GB of

RAM, its big brother only comes with a Core

i7-8650U and 16GB of RAM You can then

choose from 256GB, 512GB and 1TB of storage,

with each storage upgrade causing a $600 hop

in price and a wider smile from Microsoft’s

accountants Note there’s no way to access

this laptop’s innards, so you’re stuck with the

amount you choose at time of purchase

The 15in version also comes with a discrete

GeForce 1060 chip built into the keyboard

base, with the tablet reverting to the CPU’s

integrated Intel graphics when undocked In

laptop mode, you can expect a i ne turn of

pace in games: at 1,280 x 720, with settings

turn to High, it scored an average 93fps in Dirt

Showdown That compares to 145fps from the

Scan 3XS (see p57) at the same settings Even

at its native resolution, with quality upped to

A VERSATILE AND POWERFUL 2-IN-1 LAPTOP

THAT ALSO OFFERS ALL-DAY BATTERY LIFE –

BUT IT NEEDS BETTER SUPPORT

MICROSOFT

SURFACE

BOOK 2 15IN

Ultra, the Book 2 averaged 50fps

It coped just as well in Rise of the Tomb Raider, hitting 94fps at 1080p, Ultimate quality Again, that’s some way behind the Scan’s 220fps, but unlike that gaming monster the Surface Book reaches those scores with a low-level fan whirr In general use, the only noise you’ll hear from the Surface Book 2

is the tap of your i ngers against the keyboard This is one indication that Microsoft veers towards power-saving over all-out-grunt, but that makes sense for a machine like this

Nor should you underestimate what it can do I put it through its paces in VR environments - both Microsoft’s and Steam’s, not to mention a few VR games - and it performed admirably It scored 7 in Steam’s own VR Performance tests, which translates into “VR Ready”

If you want more power than this, you’ll need a gaming laptop

EVERYDAY PERFORMANCE

Few people will need any more everyday speed than this laptop offers Its overall score of 104 in the

PC & Tech Authority benchmarks is one of the highest we’ve seen from

a machine this thin and light, and

on a more anecdotal basis I noticed

it was much more responsive

in Adobe InDesign - a highly demanding application - than the 13.5in Surface Book 2

Microsoft’s emphasis on power management pays respectable dividends when it comes to battery life, too, with a result of 10hrs 47mins in our video-rundown tests

That falls short of the “up to 17 hours” that Microsoft claims, but is

a laudable result when you consider the power demands of the screen The crucial thing is that you don’t need to worry about carrying around the 102W power brick during a working day That’s fortunate, because this isn’t the smallest unit in the world It weighs around 200g and is roughly the size of an iPhone 5 – but triple the thickness

If you’re using the tablet alone, you can expect around three hours

of life based on our video-rundown tests, which may not sound great compared to the ten-plus hours of a modern iPad but in reality shouldn’t

be an issue Most scenarios will see you using the Surface Book in laptop mode at least 80% of the time

my phone

It seems more likely that people will use the Surface Book in tablet mode for professional or artistic reasons Here, though, the $139 Surface Pen is absolutely necessary, and I i nd it irritating that Microsoft doesn’t bundle it with such an expensive device

Still, once you’ve bought the Pen, it’s a pleasure to write on and

Don’t get excited – the Surface Pen isn’t included, despite this laptop’s astronomical price