Your bonus software

We scour the globe to negotiate the best software deals for our readers, from extended licences to full programs you don’t need to pay a penny for. Here’s this month’s lineup

Editor’s letter

Never mind Windows 95, let’s time travel back to 1950

The A-List

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

Readers’ comments

Your views and feedback from email and the web

Readers’ poll

See page 66 To tie in with

Don’t start a trade war when you know nothing about trade, demands Jon Honeyball

W e are in the centre of a

Trump tariffs are “like Covid again” for PC firms

Huge uncertainty over supply chains will disrupt PC prices and stocks this year

Microsoft heads off CrowdStrike 2

Quick Machine Recovery to avert Windows boot disasters

Britain’s full-fibre alternative

Zen Internet CEO Richard Tang wants to bring Britain’s disparate fibre networks together

FIBRE’S BIG BEASTS

Here are the UK’s major fibre providers that

We live in way too interesting times

Whether it’s world leaders, customer support teams or Chromebooks, the world is conspiring to make my life interesting in all the wrong ways

Forget AI and robots: lockers are the future

Nicole has found the secret to productivity, and it has nothing to do with advanced technology. It’s all about one simple innovation in sending parcels

The Phoney War with Virgin Media

It’s 2025 and apparently I must have a landline I don’t want, along with a tiny lump of plastic and wires

The inside story of Windows 95

30th ANNIVERSARY

BIG TECH BURNOUT

Many tech firms demand their staff work long hours. Barry Collins examines the toll it’s taking on employee wellbeing

WHICH HOME VOIP SERVICE IS BEST FOR YOU?

As Skype closes down and residential landlines switch to internet services, Nik Rawlinson picks the best VoIP providers for staying connected

CPUs the latest generation

The processor industry moves quickly, and a lot can change between laptop or PC purchases. Darien Graham-Smith breaks down all the latest chips from the big three CPU firms – and shares what we know about what’s coming next

Scan 3XS Evolve Studio Pro

Equally at home in gaming and (most) 3D content creation tasks, this is an ideal jack of both trades

How we test

Laptops and PCs We put PCs and

Apple Mac Studio M4 Max and M3 Ultra

Macs are rarely bargains, but the Studio delivers striking levels of performance in M4 Max and M3 Ultra form

Wired2Fire R7X3D 9070 XT Beast

A strong debut for AMD’s Radeon RX 9070 XT, and if you have space to house it this is a striking choice

PCSpecialist Eclipse R70i Lumin

If you want a speedy gaming PC in a hurry, this is a well-built choice that will keep you happy for years

Razer Blade 16 (2025)

A gorgeous OLED display, impactful audio and Ryzen AI chip make this a great all-rounder, but others extract more from the GPU

MSI Prestige 13 AI+ Evo A2VM

An extremely powerful system for the price, and you can’t argue about its sub-1kg weight or battery life

Lenovo Idea Tab Pro

A great-value rival to the iPad due to its 12.7in screen and bundled stylus, even if the OS can’t match Apple’s

Xiaomi Pad 7 Pro

Pluses include a high-res screen, powerful processor and fast charging, but AI features remain iffy

Huawei MatePad Pro 13.2 (2025)

Yet another brilliant piece of hardware design from Huawei, but the lack of apps is too big a drawback

Eizo FlexScan FLT

A great choice for rollouts where power consumption is a priority – and the arm is an absolute triumph

Dell Pro 14 Plus (P1425)

A great-looking mobile monitor, but it’s about £100 too expensive given its resolution and features

Potensic Atom 2

A fantastic drone for budget-conscious pilots, capturing smooth 4K/30fps video and detailed 48MP stills

RayNeo Air 3s

Well-priced AR glasses that are ideal for long journeys thanks to a gorgeous picture and clear audio

Google Pixel 9a

Quite simply the best mid-range phone around, with useful AI features, long battery life and excellent cameras

Xiaomi 15

A solid Android phone with few flaws, but unlike the Xiaomi 15 Ultra it fails to stand out from the crowd

Samsung Galaxy A56 5G Enterprise Edition

A well-built big-screen phone enhanced with Galaxy AI, but don’t expect heaps of business-friendly extras

NAS DRIVES STORAGE AND BEYOND

With our guide to the best NAS devices currently available, you can take control of your files and run your own private cloud

Questions you need to ask before buying a NAS drive

There’s one easy way to avoid buyer’s remorse when purchasing a NAS drive, and that’s to have answers to these key questions before you reach for your card

Asustor Drivestor 2 Pro AS3302T

Although relatively cheap, this two-bay NAS has the performance and features to match high-end enclosures

Qnap TS-233

A simple, cheap, two-bay NAS, the TS-233 is good for basic needs but lags behind in terms of performance

Do I need special NAS hard disks?

We explain what hard disks you should buy to populate your NAS enclosure

Qnap TS-264

This two-bay model offers a strong combination of price, performance and flexibility via slots for future upgrades

Synology DiskStation DS723+

A fully featured and expandable NAS, which is only let down by the lack of 2.5GbE ports

Asustor Nimbustor 4 Gen2 AS5404T

Powerful and well priced, this is a great choice for everything from streaming to running a small office

Qnap TS-464

Powerful, fast and easy to expand, the Qnap TS-464 is a brilliant four-bay device that’s well suited to techies

RAID levels explained

Ensure your data is protected by choosing the right RAID level for your needs

Synology DiskStation DS923+

An expandable and flexible four-bay NAS that’s great for small businesses despite its gigabit Ethernet ports

TerraMaster F4-424 Pro

Extremely fast and powerful, this four-bay NAS is great for file storage, but its software lags behind

Synology DiskStation DS1522+

Five bays gives extra storage flexibility to complement the powerful SMB-friendly software and hardware

Qnap TS-h973AX

A nine-bay NAS with a mix of 3.5in and 2.5in hard disks and SSDs, but cheaper, more flexible options are available

How we test

As this Labs focuses on home and small

View from the Labs

Features and flexibility are important, but you need the network speed to keep up

VoIP buyer’s guide 2025

Buyer’s guide

3CX Phone System 20 Update 5

The IP PBX host with the most offers classy features and flexible deployment options at a tempting price

GoTo Connect Phone System

An easily deployed cloud-hosted solution with a feature set larger businesses will find very appealing

TelephoneSystems. Cloud

Clear pricing and a smart online quote system make this VoIP-to-go service ideal for SMBs

Voip Unlimited Voxone

Feature-rich and affordable, Voxone offers easily deployed and reliable cloud-hosted UC services

D-Link DAP-X3060OU

In need of a firmware upgrade but this Wi-Fi 6 AP is built for life outdoors and comes with free management software

Ruijie Reyee RG-RAP73Pro

Incredibly affordable and very fast, this Wi-Fi 7 AP is a cinch to deploy and includes free cloud management

Remote access: best practice

How do you efficiently and securely allow workers to access resources from wherever they happen to be? Steve Cassidy explores the different approaches and philosophies

ISO 27001

Can a single IT security standard apply to all businesses? Steve Cassidy explores an exacting certification scheme

“To say the software and firmware was buggy would be unfair to bugs. It was a horrible mess”

Truth? You can’t handle the truth. Or so developers appear to think, but Jon has a rather different point of view – whether you’re small, large or Apple

“It’s like bolting a Ferrari V12 to a shopping trolley, but it will go like the clappers down the milk aisle”

Lee explains why Microsoft’s PC Health Check may be fibbing to you, and why PC upgrades fuelled by Watneys Party Seven are a bad idea

“It’s a good idea to keep an eye on the legal pipeline and start planning how it could impact you”

If there’s one thing that stays the same in law, it’s that the law is always changing. And that’s even more true if your specialism involves technology

“I must be out of my mind even suggesting that 2FA could be past its sell-by date, right?”

Davey ponders the future of multi-factor authentication and has some sage words of advice on recovering your Google account if things go awry

“While the on-paper specification looked ideal, our real-world experience wasn’t so wonderful”

The Heathrow substation fire may not seem a natural topic for an IT column, but it highlights a problem that all IT teams need to address

PageMaker: read all about it

Inspirational stories from computing’s long-distant past

The outlook is sunny for weather apps… thanks to AI

AI-based weather forecasting systems aren’t only cheaper than supercomputers, they could also bring more accurate predictions to the world. Nicole Kobie reports on the winds of change