PC_Tech_Authority_July_2017

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ISSUE 236 JULY 2017

TECH DESK LOGIN
ROBOT WARS
Many casualties, hopefully not YOU
Y
esterday I sat through a
keynote by Eugene Kaspersky
at Sydney’s CeBIT event. I
usually steer well clear of CeBIT due
to its heavily enterprise nature. One
can only tolerate so many empty
server racks on display from keen
vendors, or ‘NSW is on the move!”
government exhibitions before the
brain fades completely. I commented
to a colleague who covers these things
that it was all too terrifyingly real
world for my consumer electronics
tastes, to which he replied that
this was “the tech that pays for
everything.”
But I went along to hear the
boss of Kaspersky’s keynote, titled
“Threat Landscapes: What Australia
Can Expect Now & In The Future”.
Unfortunately Mr Kaspersky rolled
out a stock presentation that didn’t
mention any Australia-specific
threats or statistics, not once. A few
anecdotes here, a few (admittedly
good) jokes there, and it was done.
Later in a press conference he was
grilled by a serious bunch of journos,
and again deferred to broad and often
irrelevant stories.
So that was a disappointing waste
of time, and we all expected better
– there was much grumbling among
the other journos about the almost
complete lack of real Aussie-relevant
information. I was saving writing this
page until after the keynote, fully
expecting much juicy info to share
with you.
But all is not lost. One of Eugene’s
better jokey tales was about the
number of new threats the world faces
each day, and how they’re dealt with.
Note I say “the world” because we all
expected Australian stats, not global.
But moving right along...
So apparently there are 300,000
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new threat types (viruses, malware
etc.) every single day. They are
generated by computers, which subtly
modify the code within existing threats
so they circumvent known code and
the blacklists they appear in. That’s an
awful lot of evil computer code to deal
with, and is way beyond the capability
and capacity of mere humans to battle
by hand on a daily basis.
Thus, to make it a fair fight security
outfits like Kaspersky use their own
machines to do battle with the enemy
code, tearing it apart as it is detected,
analysing it and making decisions
about whether it is benign or malignant,
and updating their respective security
products.
Every day across the world computers
are waging war with other computers,
serving us, the human masters. All
without human intervention, and in
most cases, all contained within server
racks, with perhaps a daily report
on total fights fought being the only
time human eyes are set upon the
battlefield.
So, that’s this month’s cool story. I’d
mention how proud Eugene was that
most of the world’s hackers are Russian
– yes he really said that – because, he
boasts, that just shows how talented
they are at technology, and what a
great tech-based education system
Russia has to cultivate such talent, but
I’m out of space.
Ben Mansill
Editor
bmansill@nextmedia.com.au
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brightness, our tests are exhaustive
We will always offer an honest and
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THE TEAM...
Digital Editor Tech
and Gaming
David Hollingworth
E dhollingworth@nextmedia.com.au
T @atomicmpc
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Manager PC&TA
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E sfletcher@nextmedia.com.au
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www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 3

CONTENTS
REGULARS
FEATURES
Upgrade Australia wrap
Our big night went off, see the
photos and hear about what
went down ...................................................... 24
Best free apps
All of them are on the DVD! ....................... 28
Automate your life
How to set automated rules to make life
easier and work more productive .............. 38
TECHDESK
News
IoT under attack, Apple’s next MacPro and
streaming music stats .....................................8
Game news
A look at trends in gaming we don’t
necessarily love ............................................... 12
Chip news
A huge month as all the players release
interesting new products! ............................ 14
FUTURES
Technology and medicine
How tech is changing health care .............84
REAL WORLD COMPUTING
Jon Honeyball
Jon explores the advantages
of Apple’s new file system, before
explaining why we all need to sit up
and listen when it comes to surround
sound for VR .................................................100
Paul Ockenden
Paul finds the new Raspberry Pi
Zero W is an excellent platform for
creating a “thing”, and a tip for
Netgear Orbi owners ................................... 103
Smart cities
Dr Larissa Suzuki shares insights
from her PhD thesis, which now
forms the basis of London’s city data
strategy. ..........................................................106
Davey Winder
Davey delves deep into the world of
encryption. First, remembering how PGP
began, and then through a service that
promises to secure your email ................ 108
Steve Cassidy
Robot cheerleaders fail to excite
Steve on a visit to trade show CeBIT,
but a plea for more open standards
in IoT does set his pulse racing .................110
ALIST AND KITLOG
The best of the best ..................................92
DVD CONTENTS
Installation and features guide ........... 98
EPILOG
Spies amongst us
Jon Honeyball on government spying and
what can be done about it ........................ 114
4 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au

CONTENTS
VALUE SMARTPHONES
Group test 64
REVIEWS
PCS & LAPTOPS
HP Pavillion Wave .................................................53
Gigabyte Aero 15 ....................................................54
Asus VC66R ............................................................55
Pioneer Dreamvision 32” AIO PC7X ................58
Asus FGX533 ..........................................................59
HANDHELDS
Apple iPhone SE ................................................... 68
Google Nexus 5X.................................................. 69
LG G4 ........................................................................70
Motorola Moto G4 ................................................ 72
Motorola Moto G5 ................................................ 73
Motorola Moto Z Play .......................................... 74
Oneplus 3T..............................................................76
Samsung Galaxy A5 ............................................ 77
Samsung Galaxy A6 ............................................78
Samsung Galaxy S7 .............................................79
Sony Xperia X Compact .................................... 80
PERIPHERALS
Netgear AD7200 ...................................................56
Netgear AC5300 ................................................... 57
Netgear S8000 media switch ......................... 60
Oculus Touch Controller ......................................61
COMPONENTS
Intel Optane ........................................................... 50
GAMES
Prey ........................................................................... 88
Endless Space 2 ................................................... 90
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off see page 80.
www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 5

INBOX TECHDESK
INBOX
You have mail
ULTIMATE ATARI
Check this lot out Ben… all the old
computers we fondly remember!
These all still work and I have all of
the software as well. The 8bit Atari
days were special to me, I did a lot of
programming and the sound of a set of
daisy chained “happy” drives churning
away was special.
I’ve taken a photo for you which
includes a couple of extra Atari
machines and also two of the Atari
810 ‘happy’ disk drives. Also just for
interest is a photo of a review of my
fractal program coded on the Atari ST
published in Atari ST User issue 53 July
1990.
Some of the other memorable and
fun times included the anticipation
of hand typing in the program listings
from magazines and the trepidation
of entering ‘run’. Also fun were the
hardware mods like fitting happy
boards, upgrading the Atari 500 ST to
1 meg, and also adapting Commodore
screens to the Atari machines because
as you can see from the photo, the Atari
color screens were tiny. Despite the
memories, I wouldn’t go back because
the gear we have today is fantastic in
comparison.
Ian Connor
Ben Mansill replies: Ian, you’re a total
champ! You’re doing good work there,
preserving those fantastic old machines –
and all in full working order. Sensational,
and thanks so much for sharing.
Does anyone else have a similar home
museum? Send in your pics and stories!
PC > TABLET
While I use a 12.9 iPad Pro for most day
to day work, there is still a great deal that
requires a full blown, very fast PC.
Apple’s A10 and this year’s A11 are the
most powerful ARM processors available,
yet they are still so far short of an i7 or
Ryzen as to make the death of a PC
suggestion laughable, with a caveat.
For the vast majority of people I
interact with day to day, and some office
workers, a top of the line tablet and
decent keyboard would be sufficient
(as would a 15 year old PC) however for
higher end creatives, full on financial staff
and gamers, get real.
amcmo
WINDOWS WINS
Windows 10 S will become the default
OS, not least of all because it points
toward the ultra mobile world Microsoft
are creating with the creation of 3-in-1
devices capable of interacting with mixed
reality. Win32 and the future do not click
into place.
The Microsoft store is a massive place
with close to a million programmes
available. The app bridges are being
used to capacity. As of last week at build
they have a continual backlog of about
1000 win32 apps waiting to be ported....
and that list is growing. ITunes are even
making an appearance. Let that sink in
for a moment... it’s a very strong indicator
of A) the Microsoft play book and B) the
direction and size of the store.
In another nod to the ultra mobile
direction Microsoft are going, they’re
soon going to offer e-sim mobile
packages in the store. The majority of
mobile companies are on board. Again,
take a moment to reflect on this....every
windows 10 S device sold will have
cellular capability. That’s huge.
Google and Apple have walled gardens
and consumers like them. Note I said
consumers...normal people, regular users,
people who don’t know or care about
win32, x86 or arm architecture. They just
want to visit a store and get what they
need. Why are these firms allowed to
create that safe experience but you grind
Microsoft for doing the same?
Lastly, windows 10S is not a return to
RT, in one sense because the store is far,
far more developed than it was 4 years
ago, but also primarily because windows
10s is actually windows 10pro, with a few
additional locks that can be unlocked
with one click of a mouse. If you pick up
a device running S and want pro, you
have the option to unlock that device.
Microsoft are giving you options.
John Craig
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6 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au

Adobe RGB
Color

NEWS TECHDESK
TECH NEWS
The latest trends and products in the world of technology
WHO WANTS TO KILL
THOUSANDS OF IOT DEVICES?
Permanent denial-of-service attack hints at price war among Internet of Things hackers
S
ecurity experts are puzzling over
the motivation behind a new threat
that can permanently damage IoT
devices.The devices have been a target
before because they are often poorly
secured with old versions of Linux and
default passwords. Botnets built using
IoT devices infected by the Mirai malware
were blamed for attacks that brought
down several websites last year.
Researchers have been monitoring
the progress of a new form of attacks
– permanent denial-of-service (PDoS) –
that are targeting IoT devices with the aim
of damaging them beyond repair.
They’re a step beyond DDoS attacks.
“If you DDoS a service it recovers straight
away after the attack, but with PDoS it’s
more permanent – stop the attack and it’s
still broken,” explained Pascal Geenens, a
security researcher at anti-DDoS company
Radware. “People need to come in and
intervene and make repairs, so rather than
being able to build a botnet the device is
effectively knocked offline.”
Considering the effort that goes into
developing an attack, the question is what
motivates the attackers, who were
discovered using honeytrap machines
looking for DDoS malware. “There are
several theories behind it,” said Geenens.
“One is that it could be a vigilante who’s
said ‘okay, I’ve had enough of this danger,
so let’s destroy all these devices that are
still vulnerable and whoever left those
devices in a vulnerable state with out-ofdate
firmware or old passwords should be
accountable for this’.”
Another theory is that it’s a turf war.
With vulnerable machines easy to find
– often outside the normal firewalled
architecture that blocks inbound ports
– hackers don’t need to invest time and
money phishing or getting malware onto
Windows machines to build a botnet.
“Prices have been down for a few months,
since Mirai,” Geenens said. “It can cost as
little as $2 to perform an attack of five
minutes for 100Gbits/sec with a thousand
bots, and that’s because it’s so easy to
compromise IoT and build a bot.
“It could be someone who has been in
business for longer and had a Windows
botnet, and he sees the prices and his
margins erode. He wants to attack them
and close them down.”
PDoS attacks
aim to damage
IoT devices
beyond easy
repair – but
why?
APPLE PROMISES
NEW MAC PRO NEXT YEAR (MAYBE)
I
n an interview with Apple blog Daring
Fireball, executives admitted the
company had made mistakes with
its previous configuration, which meant it
couldn’t refresh the machines to meet the
changing requirements of pro customers.
The slim, quiet design meant it couldn’t
be upgraded to more powerful processors
without causing the cylindrical system to
overheat.
“I think we designed ourselves into
a bit of a thermal corner,” said Apple’s
senior vice president, Craig Federighi. “We
designed a system with the kind of GPUs
that… we thought we needed, and that we
thought we could well serve with a two-
GPU architecture.
“That was the thermal limit we needed,
or the thermal capacity we needed. But
workloads didn’t materialise to fit that as
broadly as we hoped. Being able to put
8 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au
larger single GPUs required a different
system architecture and more thermal
capacity… so it became fairly difficult to
adjust.”
The unusually early
announcement suggested
the company wanted to
dispel the growing fear that
Apple had abandoned pro
users.
The company said it had
gone back to the drawing
board for a new Mac Pro,
but didn’t specify an exact
launch date, save to say
that it wouldn’t be ready
this year. “We want to
architect it so that we can
keep it fresh with regular
improvements, and we’re
committed to making it our
highest-end, high-throughput desktop
system,” Apple’s marketing chief Phil
Schiller claimed.
In the interim, Apple said it
would improve performance
of its lower-end $4,899 Mac
Pro to match its current
top-spec machine, while
the $6,499 model would get
faster processors.
The $4,899 model will
move from four Xeon CPU
cores to six, and from dual
AMD G300 GPUs to dual
G500 GPUs. The $6,499
model goes from six CPU
cores to eight, and from dual
D500 GPUs to dual D700
GPUs.
The Mac Pro’s slim, cylindrical design
backed Apple into “a thermal corner”

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NEWS TECHDESK
The ups and downs
of new media
Our media consumption habits are unpredictable. Only a couple of years ago, podcasts
were fast becoming a dwindling niche and paper book sales were in terminal decline.
Now ebooks have swung into decline, while podcasts and audiobooks are more
popular than ever – largely thanks to the ubiquity of the smartphone. We track the
fluctuating fortunes of different types of media over the past few years.
Source: Official Charts Company
MUSIC
Format growth
and decline
2013
Streaming 6.2%
Digital albums 27.2%
Track-equivalent albums¹ 15.2%
Physical albums 51.3%
2014
Streaming 12.6%
Digital albums 25.3%
Track-equivalent albums¹ 13.3%
Physical albums 48.8%
2015
Streaming 22.1%
Digital albums 21.1%
Track-equivalent albums¹ 10.9%
Physical albums 45.9%
2016
Streaming 36.4%
Digital albums 14.6%
Track-equivalent albums¹ 7.9%
1. “Track-equivalent albums” are an industry measure equating to ten separate
song downloads, which is regarded as the equivalent of one album.
US music revenues
from streaming by %
60
50
40
30
20
10
25
20
15
10
5
0
PODCASTS:
Listener growth
Percentage of people who
listen to podcasts at least
once a month
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Listening devices –
computer vs smartphone
2013 2014
2015 2016
Source: Edison Research
Computer 58%
Smartphone 42%
Computer 43%
Smartphone 57%
Computer 36%
Smartphone 64%
Computer 29%
Smartphone 71%
Source: Edison Research
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Source: RIAA
10 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au

NEWS TECHDESK
GAMING NEWS
Just for the fun of it
GAME TRENDS
Daniel Wilks dons his RGB hat and examines the good, bad and ugly in gaming trends
COLOURED LIGHTS
How do you know that something is
made for gaming? If you think you
should be looking at the performance
of a component, most manufacturers
appear to think you’re wrong. What you
should be looking for are RGBs. Over
the last few years programmable RGB
lighting has managed to spread from
the keyboards and other peripherals
that featured programmable lighting
and infect nearly every other component
imaginable. You can now get RGBs
on your mobo, graphics card, RAM,
case fans, power supply, mouse pad,
speakers, headphones, microphone,
mouse, controller and almost anything
else you can think of. Don’t be surprised
to see RGB CPU coolers (too late – AMD
just released an RGB CPU cooler. Ed),
USB drives, monitors and even cables
(there are already RGB cables, I think
you’re subconsciously blocking out these
new realities Daniel. Ed) by the end of
the year.
THE YEAR OF VR… AGAIN
2016 was meant to be the year of
VR, and in terms of
12 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au
VR becoming available it was. In terms
of VR having any appreciable impact
on the market, no so much. Out of the
six major VR brands released in 2016;
Google Daydream, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift,
PSVR, Samsung Gear VR and Google
Cardboard, only two have managed
to sell over one million units globally.
Google Cardboard leads the pack with
around 90 million units shipped, with
Samsung Gear VR lagging well behind
with around two million sold. PSVR is
close to cracking one million and the
remaining three will reach that mark if
they combine forces. Given the number
of developers who have dedicated
considerable resources to developing
games for VR platforms, be prepared
for some serious marketing and hype as
they attempt to make VR appear much
bigger than it is.
ESPORTS
Parents should be prepared to finally put
to rest the argument that their kids will
never make anything of themselves if
they just sit around playing games, given
the rapid rise of esports as a global
phenomenon. In 2016 the total
prize money awarded to players
totalled $93,505,160.63 USD,
and the total revenue for
esports rose from $194 million
to $463 million between
2014 and 2016, with revenue
expected to top more than
one billion dollars by the end
of 2018. Rather than telling
kids to turn off the TV and do
their homework, it might be
better for their future to tell
them to quit school and get
really good at League of
Legends.
PAY TO KEEP
PLAYING
Why pay once when
you can pay to keep
playing? While more
and more Massively
Multiplayer games are moving away
from a subscription based revenue
stream, more and more single-player
and multi-player game developers and
publishers seem to be looking for ways
to keep players paying for games they
already own. 2016 was a big year for
season passes – a lump sum payment
guaranteeing you a bunch of DLC
available after launch (aside from the
last and best one that is really the only
one you probably wanted in the first
place, forcing you to pay for DLC on
top of the season pass). Expect to see
more of this in the coming year, with
season passes for anything that could
possibly have a season pass, more
paid DLC that you can poke a stick at,
microtransactions required to unlock
content already in the game.
GOODBYE RETAIL
Have you ever opened a game box,
inserted the disk into your drive and
discovered that it contains nothing but
a Steam code, forcing you to download
the game? Get used to it. More and
more developers are ignoring retail for
digital distribution, whilst still paying
lip-service to shops with boxed codes.
GIRL GERMS
Although growth is not as rampant
as it was when GamerGate was still
a thing that people pretended to care
about ethics in games journalism for,
online harassment is still going strong
in 2017 and looks to maintain its steady
foothold in the gaming arena. Around
half of all women face sexualised
harassment online, with that number
going up to 76% for women under 30
according to a 2016 Australian study,
with that percentage growing markedly
when you concentrate solely on the
online gaming statistics. Sorry to end
on a bummer, but this isn’t going to
change any time soon, or at least until
authorities and service providers start
taking a much firmer stance against any
harassment.

NEWS TECHDESK
CHIP NEWS
AMD’s marketing department goes into overdrive announcing an Epyc number
of new products, meanwhile deep learning and AI are the flavour of the month
for GPU makers. Mark Williams covers a busy month in chip news
CPU
AMD FINALLY BACK IN THE
SERVER GAME
AMD’s new server grade CPUs previously
known by its codename, Naples, has
been unveiled at its financial analyst day
as ‘Epyc’. Oh yes “I just bought an Epyc
server!” will be causing meme levels
of Picard facepalms everywhere. I like
it. And what’s not to like? A 32-core,
64-thread monstrosity sitting in a single
socket truly is “Epyc”.
It’s not a single chip monolithic design
though, a de-lidded Epyc CPU was shown
and it’s actually four octo-core CPUs
combined together on the one MCM
package.
The magic tying them together is
AMD’s infinity fabric which we’ve seen
before in the Ryzen desktop parts. AMD
is exploiting this Infinity Fabric for not
only module to module communications
on the same package but also socket
to socket in two and four socket server
configurations as well.
AMD demonstrated a dual socketed
GPU
NEW ULTRA-LOW END PART
Nvidia has released its entry level
graphics card in the form of the GT 1030.
With just a 30W TDP, this featherweight
draws even less than the 50W of AMD’s
competing RX 550, however it appears
this is achieved by halving the memory
bus to 64-bit and only supporting 2GB of
6GHz memory compared to 2GB or 4GB
of 7GHz on the RX 550.
The GT 1030 has a GP108 core with 384
shaders running at 1468MHz, just 10% of
what you can find inside the GTX 1080 Ti
or Titan Xp. Nvidia are spruiking this card
as a replacement for Intel’s integrated
graphics and not directly against AMD’s
part so it could wind up being slower.
The card will come in a plethora of
shapes and sizes, notably half-height,
half-length and passively cooled variants.
NEW ULTRA-HIGH END PARTS
Nvidia has given a sneak peak of its
next generation GPU microarchitecture
dubbed Volta. Showing off a product
14 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au
Epyc server compiling a Linux distro
against Intel’s fastest dual socket server
currently on offer. The Epyc system did
the compile in just under sixteen seconds,
compared to Intel’s twenty-two seconds.
Speedy!
AMD RIPS INTO HEDT
At the same analyst event AMD didn’t
reveal much more about its upcoming
HEDT parts we’ve known to be in the
works. They did confirm that a 16-core
32-thread SKU will be coming and they
announced the name of these upcoming
product range: Ryzen 9 Threadripper.
I must hand it to AMD’s marketing
for data crunching, AI and other HPC
work, Nvidia revealed the Tesla V100, its
successor to the Pascal based P100.
Having a gigantic 815mm2 die size
on a 12nm process node this chip is
at the absolute limits of current chip
fabrication capabilities. They literally
don’t get any bigger than this. With all
that die space, Nvidia has crammed in
5120 CUDA cores, some 33% more than
the previous generation.
With core clock speeds of 1455MHz
and 16GB of HBM2 sitting on a
4096-bit bus giving a jaw dropping
900GB/s of bandwidth the V100 can
pump out 15 TFLOPs of FP32 compute
performance, easily beating the 10.5
and 11.3 TFLOPs of current P100
and Titan Xp products respectively.
Consumer Volta parts aren’t expected
until next year.
Not to be outdone, after pointing
out that it didn’t have any products in
this space and just wanted to show the
flag, AMD revealed its first entry into
department; these names are
fantastically well suited to the products.
Given that Epyc chips are a 4-chip MCM
package, it stands to reason Threadripper
will be a 2-chip MCM package mini Epyc
style product, perhaps with lower end
SKU’s using just one chip for an octo-core
variant. Threadripper will slot into a new
X399 platform and support quad channel
memory and will go head to head with
Intel’s upcoming X299 HEDT platform an
i9 range of CPU’s.
APUS AND RYZEN 3
The final tidbits from AMD’s event was
that Ryzen 3 and APU parts will ship
Q3 this year with the APUs to have new
Vega level IGPs. Asus tripped up later
and accidentally released Ryzen 3 and
APU specs on one of its motherboard
compatibility spec sheets. This confirmed
the Ryzen 3 1200’s existence as a quad
core 3.1GHz 65W part. The APUs listed
showed dual and quad core parts ranging
from 35W to 65W and 3.0-3.8GHz clocks.
the HPC market, dubbed Vega Frontier
Edition (VFE). As you can tell by the
name it’s powered by AMD’s new Vega
GPU architecture. Compared to its last
high end product, the HBM1 powered
Fury X, the VFE has 4x the HBM(2)
memory at 16GB and a bandwidth rating
of 480GB/s, 3x the FP16 compute at
25 TFLOPS and 1.5x the FP32 compute
at 13 TFLOPS using a core clocked at
1600MHz.
As you can see by the memory
bandwidth and FP32 numbers it’s less
performant than Nvidia’s upcoming
V100, but to its credit showed a
benchmark where it beat Nvidia’s current
P100 in DeepBench by a solid 33%, so
it’s no slouch. It is power hungry though,
with a 300W TDP there’ll be a watercooled
edition to keep the temperatures
in check. One can only wonder how much
power Nvidia’s massive V100 chip draws.
Consumer Vega cards should be
announced at Computex with availability
a week or so later.

Order online at
www.viavision.com.au
*While stocks Last

MOST WANTED
Anthony Fordham gets his gear on
Mixxim Mixxtape
This plucky little audio player company – not to be confused with Mixxim,
one of the UK’s leading ready-to-pour concrete manufacturers – lives in
a beautiful dream world where the 80s never ended, and the millions
of playlists that angsty teens swap with each other via Social Media
don’t count. Or exist. The only true mixtape is an actual tape, mixed!
So it’s ironic that Mixxim’s Mixtape isn’t an actual tape, but this irony is
softened somewhat by the way it can work in a tape deck...
WANTED: This is a compact digital audio player with a microSD card slot
(64GB max), a 330mAh battery for 12 hours of tunes, a little LCD display
and basic touch controls. It supports most standard-resolution audio
formats, has Bluetooth 3.0 + EDR, a headphone jack and a USB port. So far
so typical, but the clever bit is a magnetic... thingy... that sends a tape-like
signal to a standard tape deck when you shove it right in there. You... you
have a tape deck, right?
NOT WANTED: So rather than tediously listening to Spotify via your
phone, you can download tracks onto a microSD card, put the card in the
Mixxtape, put the Mixxtape in the tape deck and hear the music played
back in all its muted, hissy glory! “Romance would be a lot cooler if kids
still made mixtapes for the girls they liked” says Mixxim’s Kickstarter
campaign, displaying perfect tone-deafness to the sexual politics of 2017
and also the way streaming music services have actual AIs to make new
mixtapes for you every time you log on...
Dyson Pure
Hot + Cold Link
You can buy a $25 floor fan from Aldi
and a room heater, too, for another
$50, but does the combined versatility
of that $75 investment match Dyson’s
$800 solution? Which of these things
has an app, and looks like it comes from
the future? Not the Aldi’s, we can tell
you that. The ‘Pure’ in the product
name denotes the filter inside, which
needs changing or cleaning every
couple of weeks. Bad air in, good air
out, and all about. A regular Dyson Hot
+ Cool fan is $500, so including a $300
air filter as part of the deal doesn’t feel
exorbitant, at least in Dyson terms.
WANTED: The Hot it creates is good,
but it’s more on the generously-warm
side of the scale than a burning heat.
A thermostat kicks it into being when
needed and it can punish you with a
tight jet, or fill the room with a wide
dispersion.
NOT WANTED: The Cool is not
spectacular and you’ll need to crouch
in front of it wearing a wet shirt to
really feel the temps drop. But it’s just
a regular fan, despite looking like a
mini-air-con unit, so performance was
within expectations.
16 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au

TECHDESK MOST WANTED
Brydge 12.3 Keyboard
There are times when we love the type cover on the Microsoft
Surface Pro 4... but there are also times when we don’t. Flexibility
is all! So adding a rigid, heavier aluminium half-shell keyboard
gives the Surface the opportunity to act like a normal laptop
when it needs to be. The Brydge has backlit keys, an “adaptive
trackpad” and still lets the Surface bend over through 180 degees
like any other hybrid.
WANTED: There are times when the kickstand doesn’t cut
it, and more options on this expensive computer are always
welcome. The keys have good travel, and there’s also a version
with a built-in 128GB “high speed SSD drive”. Handy!
NOT WANTED: Some might say if you’re going to turn your
Surface Pro into a regular laptop... why not just get a regular
laptop? Or a Surface Book? It also adds considerable bulk. This
makes the whole kit one of the thickest “laptops” on the market.
Sonicam VR Camera
What if you could make professional-quality immersive
360-degree video with perfectly synced 3D-positional
audio, all with one tiny device... and one that looks like
some kind of evil Star Wars spy robot or Death Star
spore, too? Sonicam makes this ancient dream of all
free citizens a reality! Seriously though, Sonicam won’t
be the last compact camera marketed to budding “VR”
filmmakers, but it’s among the first to be so much more
than a $249 gimmick.
WANTED: There are nine F2.2 glass fish-eye lens
cameras (8 around the middle, one on top) each with
its own Sony Exmor R CMOS. It shoots 4K video at
50Mb/s bitrate, and most importantly has 3D positional
audio thanks to 64 MEMS microphones. There’s also
“in-camera stitching” for a live preview.
NOT WANTED: Max framerate for 4K is only 30fps,
and despite being a US$3,999 pro-grade camera,
Sonicam only takes SD cards for internal storage
($4,000 should buy you more options). Kickstarter
backers got the cam from $2,000... so chances of it not
meeting its October 2017 release date are statistically
significant.
Betterspot VPN Router
Spend too much time trawling Indiegogo or Kickstart for cool new gadgets,
and you’ll come to the realisation that tech trends absolutely reflect
the issues of the day. Point: concerns about metadata retention and
government surveillance have led to a proliferation of “secure connection”
routers. Here’s one! Betterspot makes the business of VPNs and
anonymity easy. Plug it in, set it up, and you’re considerably less trackable
online.
WANTED: VPNs are only getting more popular, but using them with just
a PC can be tedious – remembering to log in etc. This makes the process
automatic, and largely invisible. You can choose to use a VPN service, or
even run in Tor mode. Shady!
NOT WANTED: Don’t think a product like this can hide you from the
feds, it’s not THAT secure. Also, in this bandwidth-benighted country,
routing everything through a VPN may slow your internet connection,
and VPN services have an ongoing subscription fee.
www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 17

System news
MARK WILLIAMS FINDS THAT INTEL HAS A HIT ON ITS HANDS
IN THE FORM OF THE 600P SERIES. WILL OTHERS FOLLOW?
When I went to build a new PC
recently I knew I wanted an NVME
SSD as the primary storage device.
With the way the market is currently I knew
a drive with a capacity of around 256GB
would be in the sweet spot for capacity
versus price. Searching around, Intel’s
600P 256GB model quickly came to my
attention as the cheapest M.2 NVME SSD
on offer. However, there was a problem,
it was out of stock almost everywhere I
looked!
I ended up settling for a slightly more
expensive and capable Samsung 960 EVO
but this got me wondering, where are all
the 256GB 600P’s?
It seems that I’m not the only one who
finds the 256GB 600P an attractive
offering. As Jaimie and John both confirm
in Shop Talk at the side of this page, Intel’s
600P series is selling “like hotcakes” and
with 256GB at the sweet spot and being
the cheapest product on offer it would
appear demand was outstripping supply.
Intel’s design choice with this product
was clearly a good strategy. Unlike the
superior performing Samsung 960 EVO
and other NVME
products around
at the moment
which utilise MLC
NAND flash for the
entire drive which
gives moderate
chip level storage
density and speeds,
Intel’s 600P range
uses TLC NAND
with some of it
partitioned off and
used in SLC mode.
The idea being that
because TLC has
the highest data
storage density,
fewer chip are
needed or are
simply smaller to
produce at the
same capacity,
thus cheaper.
The problem of
course is that TLC
is also slower to write to. So, by setting
aside some TLC as faster but less dense
SLC (4GB for 128GB, 8.5GB for 256GB,
17.5GB for 512GB and 32GB for 1TB drives)
to act as the drives write cache Intel can
mask the real speed of the underlying
TLC, so long as the cache doesn’t get full,
whereupon you’ll be writing directly to TLC
which is slower than most SATA MLC SSDs.
Not something you want to advertise on an
NVME M.2 SSD.
But here is the genius of it; consumers
will very rarely fill the cache during typical
desktop usage. Often there’s enough time
between large writes for the SLC cache to
get flushed out to the TLC, so for the most
part you’re always working with the fast
SLC.
This makes the 600P cheaper but
also well suited to consumers and their
typically bursty workloads.
Could this style of NVME drive become
more popular in the future? Intel has paved
the way and proved the case, now it’s a
question of whether Samsung, SanDisk
and the like will follow suit with cheaper
TLC NVME products too.
SHOP TALK
What are your thoughts on
the Intel 600P series SSDs? Are
they a popular product and is
that why some stocks have
been low recently?
Jaimie, Leader Computers:
“At Leader we have seen
fantastic take up on the Intel
NVME based 600P series, their
price point put NVME within
reach of the average punter
for the first time, especially in
the 128 and 256GB sizes. At
the time they were released,
all of the other brands were
significantly more expensive
and they have had to adjust
their pricing substantially to
compete. Along with Intel’s
new Optane technology,
the 600P is one of the best
performance upgrades you can
make for the money.
There have been shortages
on the 256GB, this is mainly
due to their excellent value
proposition, I don’t think Intel
forecasted as well as they
could have and there have
been some NAND shortages
in general which may also
have contributed. The 250GB
size was hard to source in
several brands, both NVME
and standard SATA SSD, so
the Intel at only a small price
premium sold extremely well.
We sell as many 600P drives
as we can get our hands on,
definitely our top performer!”
John, TI Computers:
“Yes, the Intel 600P 256GB
model is indeed very popular
and were sold like hotcakes.
It is hard not to use it in the
system considering the
significant performance gain at
such tiny additional investment
over SATA SSDs. We are
however unsure whether this
is the real reason behind the
shortage. It can also just be a
short supply before the end of
financial year.”

SYSTEM NEWS
Market snapshot
A SAMPLING OF PC SYSTEMS AVAILABLE THIS MONTH
BALANCED FORCE
Scorptech Computers Venom
1070 Quiet Gaming PC
$2,349 – http://tinyurl.com/lacenkr
This is a great system. A top end speedy quad core CPU ideal
for current games is paired with a capable GTX 1070 for solid
high graphics quality 1440p gaming. Matched with a sizeable
512GB NVME SSD and a comfortable amount of
DDR4 memory is doesn’t get much better
without breaking the bank. Really the
only thing an owner would want
to upgrade in a year or two is
the graphics card, the rest of
this system will easily handle
the next three or more years of
gaming with ease. Dropping in a
hard drive for some extra mass
storage down the track might
also be worthwhile considering.
KEY SPECS
CPU: Intel Core i7 7700K Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z270X-
Gaming K3 Graphics: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 G1 Gaming, 8GB Memory: Corsair
Vengeance LPX 16GB 2400MHz DDR4 Storage: Intel 600P Series 512GB SSD Power
Supply: Corsair CX550M Bronze 550W Case: Fractal Design Define R5 Black
LIGHT EM UP
Mwave
Aorus P3 Gaming PC
$2,060 – http://tinyurl.com/k4zy875
This is pure eye candy. Utterly beautiful
to look at with it’s see through acrylic
housing and striking white back pane
that everything attaches to and
seemingly hangs suspended from with
RGB lighting everywhere. It looks like
an art installation. But like candy it’s
also bad for you. For the price i5 7600K
or even i7 7700 CPU systems can be
had along with much faster GTX 1070 graphics cards. Oddly the
PSU is rather over powered for this system’s requirements and
unnecessarily adds to this overpriced system’s cost, likely done
just to get extra RGB lighting in. Not that your friends and family
will notice as they’ll be dazzled by all the RGB lighting.
KEY SPECS
CPU: Intel Core i5 7500 Cooler: Thermaltake Water 3.0 Riing RGB 360 Motherboard:
Gigabyte AORUS Z270X Gaming 5 Graphics: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming G1 6GB
Memory: G.Skill Trident Z RGB 16GB DDR4 2400Mhz Storage: WD Green 240GB M.2 SSD
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 750W RGB Case: Thermaltake Core P3
Snow Edition
NOT QUITE THE KING OF GODS
GMR Zeus Advanced
Gaming System V4
$2,399 –http://tinyurl.com/kmnhyln
This is a good example of a system that’s one step below the
high end. The non-K 7700 CPU is 300MHz slower at peak than
the 7700K and isn’t overclockable. The H
series motherboard is a step below the top
end Z series which also doesn’t allow
overclocking. The GTX 1070 GPU is
a step down from the top end GTX
1080 series. With storage capacities
of the RAM, SSD and HDD all in the
sweet spot this is an ideal system for
a serious gamer without blowing the
budget.
The problem is that this should
be cheaper than the asking price. In
this price bracket, there are better
options around.
KEY SPECS
CPU: Intel Core i7 7700 Cooler: OEM Motherboard: Intel H270 chipset based Graphics:
Nvidia Geforce GTX1070 8GB Memory: 16GB DDR4 2400MHz Storage: 240GB SSD, 2TB
HDD Power Supply: CoolerMaster B700v2 700W Case: In Win 303 Black + Tempered
Glass
THE BEAST HAS RYZEN
PC Case Gear
Ryzen 570 Gaming System
$1349 – http://tinyurl.com/mwkdqsz
A quad core CPU in this price bracket isn’t new,
but one that also supports simultaneous
multi-threading (or as Intel calls it,
Hyperthreading) is quite refreshing
and puts to shame Intel’s current
budget quad core product line-up.
So there’s a lot of multi-threaded
power here. The RX 570 will satisfy
most 1080p gaming requirements
too.
The only pinch point with this build is
the SSD which is just enough for the OS,
programs and perhaps one triple-A gaming
title. Owners may find they’ll be using the HDD
for installing games more than they might like.
KEY SPECS
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1500X Cooler: OEM Wraith Spire Motherboard: ASUS Prime B350M-A
Graphics: ASUS ROG Radeon RX 570 Strix Gaming 4GB Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury
8GB DDR4 Storage: Kingston SSDNow UV400 120GB SSD, Seagate Barracuda 1TB Power
Supply: Be Quiet! Pure Power 9 500W Case: Nanoxia Deep Silence 4 Claw

INVESTIGATOR TECHDESK
Can you
tell which
one is an
iPhone 4
and which
one is an
iPhone 4s?
CHECK BEFORE
YOU LEAVE
When you don’t get exactly what you paid for
I
t’s not uncommon – although it
should never happen – that you buy
an item from a retailer only to find,
when you get home, that the wrong item
was packed for you.
This happened recently with a
colleague who purchased a laptop from
a large retail chain. He got home to find
the model he was handed at the counter
only had 4GB of memory and not the
8GB he paid for.
It was a straightforward exercise to
correct the issue. All he had to do is
return to the store with his receipt and it
was all sorted out. Of course, this gets a
little more complex with online retailers
or when you make a special, long trip to
buy something.
But consumer protection laws are
clear about getting what you paid for.
So, spare a thought for Paul from
Bendigo. Back in 2012, he purchased an
iPhone 4s (or so he thought) from Dick
Smith. He was after an unlocked model
and found what he was looking for.
Now, Bendigo is not just around the
corner from suburban Melbourne so he
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.
trekked into the city to make his purchase.
Just recently he had cause to check
some of the details on the phone - an
unlocked 8GB iPhone 4s he bought for
$520.00. On checking the model number
on the back of the iPhone he discovered
he’d been sold and iPhone 4 not a 4s.
We’re in some pretty murky consumer
protection waters here. This is a
transaction that took place five years
“It was a
straightforward exercise
to correct the issue”
ago from a retailer who has failed with
the brand name being the only survivor,
purchased by a former competitor.
To all intents and purposes, Paul doesn’t
really have anyone to go to.
One of the problems, says Paul, is the
iPhone 4S came in an identical chassis
to the iPhone 4. Sit them side by side
and you’d be hard-pressed to tell the
difference. And the model numbers on
the back are extremely small. I know that
when I’ve had to confirm a specific number
that end up taking a photo and zooming in
to be sure.
According to the ACCC: “The retailer
who sold you the product or service
cannot refuse to help you by sending you
to the manufacturer or importer. You can
approach the manufacturer or importer
directly, however, you will only be entitled
to recover costs from them, which include
an amount for reduction in the product’s
value and in some cases compensation
for damages or loss. You cannot demand
a repair, replacement or refund from the
manufacturer.”
Paul’s problem is the retailer no longer
exists. He could take the item to Apple and
plead his case but given the time since the
purchase it’s not clear whether Apple is
obligated to do anything as they were not
at fault or even part of the transaction.
There is a lesson to learn from Paul’s
experience. When you buy something, it is
important to check the box carefully. Paul
made some strong comments about what
he thought Dick Smith’s motives might
have been in selling him an older model
that looked identical to a newer item.
As there’s no evidence to support that
supposition, I’ve not repeated them.
My feeling is this was a genuine
mistake made at the point of sale. If it
was a decided course of action then I
suspect we’d have heard of this being a
widespread issue.
The fact remains that there is a serial
number printed on the device and the
packaging also has a product serial
number and the model and specification
on it.
Before you leave a store, make sure
that what you ordered is what has been
handed over the counter.
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
20 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au

ACS TECHDESK
BIGGER
THAN BIG
It’s exceedingly hard to envisage
a data-driven future, but we are
hurtling towards one none-the-less
A
popular stat repeated in
recent times to help try and
understand this comes from
Monash University, stating that 90%
of the world’s data was created in the
last two years alone. And that was
calculated in 2015 – imagine where we
are today?
Ever keen to try and help blow your
mind, Monash also put it another way:
that by next year, 2018, we will have
stored more bytes of data than there
are stars in the universe.
And there’s a key word there – store. I
highlight this not in the sense of merely
having a place to put it – we don’t as
a civilisation seem to have an issue
with creating ever-denser storage
mediums – but instead in terms of
what we do with it. Just how do you
manage and manipulate ever growing
datasets on scales that are truly hard
to comprehend?
IBM is in on the game too, throwing
out a stat that suggests that we
already produce 2.5 quintillion bytes of
data every day.
Consider that today we already live
lives that create a constant data trail
– everything we do from browsing a
website, to walking down the street
with a GPS-enabled smartphone, to
making purchases with credit cards
– all of it is tracked. All of it leaves a
trail. All of it builds a profile about you
which companies around the world
are scrambling to interpret into useful
insights that can be utilised to raise
profit margins, or deliver entirely new
products.
At the time of writing, Google
announced a wonderful a new feature
where it will track your shopping trips
to allow advertisers to compare your
credit card purchases matched against
advertising, to see just how malleable
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 on ashton.mills@acs.org.au.
22 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au
– er, influenceable – people are to your
advertising.
But all this is dependent on making
sense of all that data, and quite frankly
no matter how beastly you consider that
machine under your desk or the racks
of servers in your server room, building
“It’s not mind boggling.
We’re well beyond
being boggled”
machines capable of processing it in
a reasonable time is actually quite the
challenge.
Hence also at the time of writing HP
had just unveiled The Machine, an aptly
titled new type of computer that is
designed to put memory first.
Specifically built to store and process
exceedingly large volumes of data in a
single bank of memory – 160TB in its
initial configuration, though HP says in
future this will scale to exabytes and
then that holy grail of computing metrics
– yottabytes. Imagine addressing
thousands of yottabytes of memory as
a single bank – well, we can’t. It’s like
trying imagine more bytes of data as
Locutus, is that you?
there are stars in the universe.
But this is where we are heading. HP’s
machine is a prototype, and while it’s
easy to be a pundit on its future – as a
new type of machine it requires a new
operating system and new software,
making it incompatible with everything
existing today – it does point to a future
where we are going to need new forms
of technology to manage and process
the multiples of quintillion of bytes of
data produced and collected every day.
And that’s just now – can you imagine
the volumes of data produced in a
future filled with even more data-driven
products such as autonomous cars,
drones, IoT and an ever-growing world
population?
It’s not mind boggling. We’re well
beyond being boggled. It’s an entirely
different concept of a digitally-driven
humankind, and an entirely different
concept of the value of data, how it is
produced, how it is stored, and how it is
used.
Which, of course, speaks to nothing
about privacy and just how much of the
data trail you create every day is yours
to own.
But that’s a topic for another time.

AUSTRALIA 5.0
WE MAKE PC TECH FUN WITH OUR SENSATIONAL FREE
EVENT FEATURING COOL GEAR, FREEBIES AND LOADS OF
FUN, FOOD AND MAYBE A COUPLE OF DRINKS, TOO
Our fifth event was the best yet,
with a record breaking number of
stands all showing off lustworthy
PC gear. As always, it was quite
apparent that everyone who came along had
a great time, with almost everyone leaving
with free gifts. The biggest winner of the
night was Alex Chong who took home the PC
PowerPlay Beast PC worth almost $7,000!
Over the course of the night our master
builder Josh Collins assembled the Beast using
the very best components from In Win, AMD,
Cooler Master, Aorus, MSI, G.Skill, Razer and
Microsoft. This went down rather well, as you
can imagine, so we’re looking at doing this at
every Upgrade Event, evolving the Beast as
technology marches along – so be sure to come
to the next one, which will be in Sydney later
this year, and you could win the mighty Beast.
Case mods were a highlight, and their
illustrious illumination and artisan
craftsmanship dazzled the halls.
Congratulations to Ethan, who won Best
Case Mod, scoring the most votes from all
attendees on the night. Ethan took home a
Samsung 960 Evo 1TB SSD along with prizes
from Eset including $1,250 in cash.
It’s always a treat for us to meet and chat
to readers, young and old. Thanks so much to
everyone that came along it was thoroughly
enjoyable to hang out and talk tech and hear
about what you are most interested in.
AMD attracted a lot of interest in the
fabulous new Ryzen CPU, with staff fielding
questions from attendees all night long.
And of course we built a Ryzen-based PC
PowerPlay Beast PC on the night so there was
no shortage of Ryzen excitement at Upgrade
Australia!
Asus showed off a wide range of gear
including its legendary motherboards and
monitors. Asus had its Aura Sync technology
for all see, showing off a spectrum of RGB
disco beyond anything else. MSI, too, dazzled
with a huge array of booty, including a never
PLATINUM
SPONSORS

UPGRADE AUSTRALIA
seen before unveiling of a very cool limited
edition Camo Squad gaming laptop.
Over at Seagate the company
demonstrated its cracking range of high
performance BarraCuda, IronWolf, SkyHawk
and FireCuda drives. Razer had a great stand
with loads of action and excitement, and we
know people were keen to get their finger
tips on the latest Blackwidow Chroma V2
keyboard, plus the Deathadder Elite and
Kraken Pro V2 as well as the OSVR VR HMD.
Aorus had the latest high performance
gear and the legendary Dino was up to his
usual tricks, giving the audience a great
show. We also had Rectron, which is one
of the main distributors to PC shops in
Australia and it was fantastic to see people
try out new gear they wouldn’t otherwise be
able to get their hands on. Rectron had the
latest from Antec, Fractal Design, Galax and
IG-Touch panel.
In Win laid out its gorgeous range of cases,
including the magical Infinity case and the
new tou 2.0. A pro-modder for In Win was
on hand to give modding demos, too. Cooler
Master had its first Upgrade Australia stand
and it was a great chance to see and play
with the keyboards that are very high in our
list of favourites, plus entries from the Cooler
Master Case Mod World Series 2017. PLE, as
usual, brought something special along and
it was a sim racing rig set up with an HTC
Vive VR headset. Many tried VR for the first
time that night and left with a smile. PLE also
talked about its custom PC building services.
Samsung owns the high performance
SSD scene, so it was terrific to have
Samsung experts there talking about how
its technology achieves such breathtaking
performance.
Qnap had a top spread of NAS products for
home and business, these guys are at the top
of the game and we think everyone needs
a NAS. Qnap’s Hybrid Private Cloud was also
there. HyperX had a focus on gaming to
show off gear including the fantastic Alloy
FPS keyboard and Cloud Stinger headphones,
plus it was nice to be able to sit down for a
while and hit a few rounds of CS: GO.
Another Upgrade Australia, another
bunch of PC & Tech Authority and PC
PowerPlay readers we met, who came, saw
and likely left with freebies. And of course
another great opportunity for the leaders
in PC tech to lay on an extravaganza for you
to all enjoy. Thanks for coming, we hope to
see see you at the next one so look out for
announcements in the magazine and online
at www.pcpowerplay.com.au and www.
pcauthority.com.au – and subscribe to our
free newsletter so you’ll be the first to hear
about it.

UPGRADE AUSTRALIA
GOLD
SPONSORS

Best free
software
PART 2
25 DOWNLOADS TO SECURE YOUR PC, HELP
YOU CODE, AND KEEP YOU ENTERTAINED
Here at PC & Tech Authority
we keep our promises, and
in last month’s roundup of
free software we gave you
time-savers, delivered lots of great
creative tools and offered utilities
galore. But we promised you more,
and here, in our second and final
roundup of the best free software,
we focus on three very different
areas.
First, a selection of nine brilliant
tools for keeping your PC safe from
threats. Then, Paul Ockenden gets
personal and reveals his favourite
free coding tools as part of our
Coding & Productivity section.
Finally, we go wild with a selection
of Media & Entertainment apps.
Enjoy!
28 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au
CONTRIBUTORS
BARRY COLLINS,
TIM DANTON, MAX
FIGGETT, DARIEN
GRAHAM-SMITH,
PAUL OCKENDEN,
DAVEY WINDER
THEY’RE
ALL ON
THE DVD!
CONTENTS
Security
AdwCleaner
Avast Free Antivirus
F-Secure Rescue CD
Junkware Removal
Tool
KeePass
RogueKiller
Secunia PSI
Unchecky
VeraCrypt
Coding &
Productivity
CodePen
Google Chrome
Google PageSpeed
Insights
LibreOffice
Notepad++
Opera
Raspberry Pi
Tawk.to
Visual Studio Code
Visual Studio
Community
Media &
Entertainment
Freemake Audio
Converter
Freemake Video
Converter
Kodi
Plex
Sonic Dash
VLC Media Player

FREE SOFTWARE FEATURE
AdwCleaner
malwarebytes.com
AdwCleaner was a popular tool long before it was swallowed
up by Malwarebytes, and for good reason: similar to the
Junkware Removal Tool, it’s a speedy way to check if adware
has hooked its claws into your system. Its particular specialism
is the sort of junk that’s installed when you download a piece
of freeware: think browser toolbars and unwanted extra
programs. It’s easy to use but, as with RogueKiller, you may be
left wondering what to do with the information it provides –
bleepingcomputer.com is your friend here.
Security
Avast Free
Antivirus
avast.com
It may be free but, in AV-Test.org’s most
recent round of tests, Avast achieved a
perfect 100% protection rating against
never-before-seen “zero-day” attacks,
and a 99.8% rating against widespread
threats. That puts it several points
ahead of Windows’ built-in Defender
tool, and on a par with the likes of
Bitdefender and Kaspersky.
Avast also wins points for its
relatively unobtrusive design. Like
all free security products, it does
encourage you
to upgrade
to a paid-for
subscription,
but we found it
less aggressive
than rivals AVG
and Avira. Once
you’ve turned
off unwanted
notifications,
and learnt
which buttons in the interface open up
adverts, it will rarely bother you.
Avast Free Antivirus also comes with
Avast’s SafeZone browser, a Chromium
derivative that’s designed to protect
you from hijacking and snooping. This
includes an ad blocker, a password
manager and a video downloader
that you can use to save media from
YouTube, Facebook and other sites.
Junkware Removal Tool
malwarebytes.com
A 1.6MB download, the Junkware Removal
Tool is so minimalist that most people simply
refer to it as JRT. Press Enter and it will rapidly
scan Windows for annoying malware and
things such as unwanted browser extensions
and PUPs – that is, potentially unwanted
programs. It’s a fantastic little tool.
EDITOR’S PICK
KeePass
keepass.info
You need unique passwords for
everything, and these need to be long
(25 characters minimum), complex and
random, in my opinion. Your brain can’t handle that;
a password manager can. What puts off some folk is
the annual subscription cost, and worries about the
security of password databases in the cloud. So use
a free one that bypasses the cloud for local database
storage. In that regard, they don’t come better than
KeePass.
I keep my software-encrypted KeePass database
on a hardware-encrypted USB stick, which doubles
up the security layers. I access this using the free
KeePass2Android app on my smartphone, which
requires my fingerprint to turn on the device and
again to access the app. Those security layers add up.
KeePass supports the Advanced Encryption Standard
(AES) with the SHA-256 hash. This encrypts the
complete database, not just the password fields,
including any notes.
What else is great about KeePass? Well, it’s multi-platform, including Windows,
macOS, Linux, iOS and Android. There’s a password generator included in the
package, and the import function puts many competing products to shame.
There’s no in-browser autofill by default, but thirdparty
extensions are available. Its configuration options are many, but PCTA readers
will have no issues stepping through them.

FEATURE FREE SOFTWARE
F-Secure Rescue CD
f-secure.com
This tool was originally recommended by computer repair specialist
Anthony Dowling: it’s a resource he often turns to when faced with
an unbootable PC. Despite its name, it can be installed to either a CD
or a USB drive.
It’s essentially self-contained antivirus software, and on booting
from the drive, you’re thrown into a simple text-based environment.
From there, you scan for malware and then remove it. F-Secure does
throw in some heavy caveats – that using it could break your install
if it renames essential system files – so it’s more the battering ram
of removing malware rather than the user-friendly sliding door.
Secunia PSI
flexerasoftware.com
It hasn’t been updated for a
while, but Secunia PSI remains
an excellent way to keep all
your software up to date
automatically. And keep your
system more secure by doing so.
On first load, Secunia PSI scans
your system to check which
programs you’ve installed and
then checks for updates against its database. You can control
whether it installs updates automatically (the recommended
option), in which case it does so in the background wherever
it can. Where you have to log in – think paid-for software such
as Adobe CC – it will let you know when a manual update is
required.
EDITOR’S PICK
Unchecky
unchecky.com
Most of the programs in this security section are there
to solve problems after the event, but Unchecky prevents
all those unwanted “free extras” being downloaded in the
first place. As such, it’s a wise program to install on family
computers as well as your own.
Its modus operandi is to flag a warning whenever you’re
about to install something that might be unwanted – toolbars,
browser extensions and the like – but the best thing is that,
once you’ve installed Unchecky, you can forget about it. It just
sits there, automatically updating itself. Exactly how I like
my programs to behave.
RogueKiller
adlice.com
If you’re worried that something might be lurking on your system,
RogueKiller is an excellent first port of all. Like a Windowsequivalent
of the Terminator, it hunts down and removes a wide
range of malware, including rootkits. It’s more thorough than the
Junkware Removal Tool, but that also means it takes longer to run
a scan – almost an hour in the case of our 256GB system drive.
It’s a little paranoid, so check files it flags before you delete them
(bleepingcomputer.com is a great resource if you want to see if a
file is worth keeping; check its “Am I infected?” forum at tinyurl.
com/kpy9ltm).
VeraCrypt
idrix.fr/veracrypt
While BitLocker is an excellent encryption tool, it does
have one rather annoying problem: it’s only available to
people running Pro or Enterprise versions of Windows
(Ultimate and Enterprise, in the case of Windows 7). The
free, open-source VeraCrypt steps into the gulf, and it’s
packed with options. If nothing else, you should consider its
full-disk encryption mode.
If you just want to encrypt a folder, file or partition,
though, then there are options to do just that. Heck, if recent
headlines are pushing your paranoia levels into the red zone,
then you can create a dummy Windows install disk and a
totally hidden volume containing your “real” Windows.
The final good news is that VeraCrypt won’t slow you
down (you can even keep using Windows while your disk is
being encrypted), meaning there really is no good reason not
to add this cost-free extra level of security to your system.
30 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au

Google Chrome
google.com/chrome
Browser choices are as personal as fashion, but there are many
reasons why Chrome remains our – and indeed, the world’s – default
browser.
Cross-platform sync is perhaps its chief attraction, with seamless
password sharing between both Android and Windows browsers,
and the ability to pick up tabs left open on other devices. Didn’t get
a chance to finish reading that important report in the office? With
Chrome, you can easily read it on the train on the way home using
your smartphone.
Chrome’s omnipotence hands it arguably the best library of
extensions of any browser (Edge, for the record, has a mere 21).
Pushbullet, Wikiwand and Social Fixer are among those we’d urge
you to install.
While Chrome certainly isn’t the sleek gazelle it lauded itself as at
launch, now almost a decade ago, its reputation as a resource hog is
over-cooked too. The fact that upcoming rivals such as Vivaldi are
choosing the same Chromium engine indicate that Google’s browser
technology is now seen as the industry standard.
Coding &
Productivity
LibreOffice
libreoffice.org
LibreOffice is far more than a free alternative for people loathe to shell
out for Microsoft Office – it’s a decent suite in its own right. Now at version
5.3, the software includes old favourites Writer (for word processing), Calc
(spreadsheets) and Impress (presentations), as well as Draw (design), Base
(databases) and Math (for, quelle surprise, maths).
Apart from the slightly cartoonish look of the icons, there’s little
to distinguish the suite from Microsoft’s offerings. This extends to
functionality, with powerful tools in place to improve the look of your
document, keep your spreadsheet ticking over and make sure your
presentations, if you’ll pardon the pun, impress. A favourite feature of
ours is the smartphone-esque AutoCorrect function, which draws on
previously typed words to bring up a suggestion after three letters.
Compatibility is also good. For example, you can save a Writer document
as a Microsoft Word DOCX or XML file, as well as in RTF, TXT and the
standard OpenDocument formats. As a mini-test, we pasted in Edgar
Allen Poe’s The Raven, formatted it, saved the document and watched
as it opened intact in Word. Also note version 5.3’s new cloud capability,
LibreOffice Online, allowing
you to run it “on your own
private cloud infrastructure”.
If you want a hassle-free
way of creating documents,
tracking your expenses, or
even tinkering with that
pesky quadratic equation,
LibreOffice is an excellent
resource.
Notepad++
notepad-plus-plus.org
Notepad++ was created for
programmers, with some preferring
its simplicity to full IDEs (integrated
development environments) such
as Visual Studio. Built on Windows’
Notepad, the interface is a bit oldfashioned
and the menu cluttered,
but its sheer speed makes it a pleasure
to use. Programmers particularly
appreciate the code completion, the
colour coding, and that they can switch
to a different language so easily –
although even non-coders should give
it a whirl as a way to jot down notes and
type up pieces without distraction.
It’s also one of the most popular pieces
of open-source software out there. With
an active community behind it – and
that’s understating things – there are
so many plugins that one of the main
complaints about the software is plugin
management.
Not that such things deter reader Dave
Poyser, who recommended the software.
“I use Notepad++ daily for all sorts of
editing,” he told us. “It’s crammed full of
features that I use whether I’m editing
config files, or writing code. On a new
build, this is a second install after Office
for me.”
32 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au

FREE SOFTWARE FEATURE
My favourite free
programming tools
We asked Paul
Ockenden to share his
personal picks based
on years of experience
Can you imagine how much a large software company would
charge you for a code development system that supported
programming languages such as C#, Visual Basic, F#, C++, HTML,
JavaScript, TypeScript and Python, and allowed you to deploy
your code onto Windows, Android, iOS or web servers? Such a tool
sounds really expensive, doesn’t it?
Well, as you’ve probably guessed it’s
free, and the software I’m talking about is
Visual Studio Community from Microsoft
(visualstudio.com/vs/community). It’s
a great mature platform, and for many
programmers it provides everything they
need without stumping up for the paidfor
version of Visual Studio.
Sharing a similar name, look and feel
– but not much else – is Visual Studio
Code (code.visualstudio.com), also from Microsoft. It’s a lean tool
compared to the other Visual Studio offerings. This lack of bloat can
be an advantage, especially for small teams and one-man bands – I
find its fast turnaround can make the development process more
productive.
As well as having excellent source-code editing
facilities, with code completion and colouring
support for pretty much any language, it also offers
an interactive debugger and version control via
integrated Git support. But the best thing about
Visual Studio Code is that it’s available for Linux and
Mac, as well as Windows.
My next free tool involves going outside the box
slightly. I’m nominating the Raspberry Pi. Okay, so
the hardware itself isn’t free (although the Pi Zero
is astonishingly cheap – assuming you
don’t get ripped off by resellers), but the
ecosystem that surrounds it usually is.
There are one or two paid-for tools, but
they’re rare.
The most common Pi OS package,
Raspbian, comes with pre-installed
versions of Python, C, C++, Java,
Scratch, Perl and Ruby. Via the magic of
the “apt-get install” command, there’s
also a whole world of software, tools
and libraries available, and “git clone”
gives you access to code on GitHub. The Pi is a great introduction to
free programming.
With my web developer hat on, a real favourite free tool is CodePen
(codepen.io). It’s an online playpen where you can try out HTML,
CSS and JavaScript mini-projects, and see instant, live results. It runs
in any web browser, and can be a quick way to mock up things such
as how the navigation buttons on a website will work. There are
paid-for plans available, but for smaller projects the free version is
perfectly adequate.
A free tool for web developers is Google’s
PageSpeed Insights (tinyurl.com/m65jex6).
This will analyse your website as both a desktop
and mobile user see it, and suggest code and
configuration improvements to make the site load
faster – quicker websites encourage people to stay
longer; faster-loading sites are also ranked higher
by search engines. There’s an API that you can use
to automate the tests, perhaps hooking them into
your CMS.
Opera
opera.com
Opera has long been the alt-browser, to use the modern
vernacular. And while it might have changed hands (Opera’s
original creator is now running interference with a browser
of his own, Vivaldi), Opera continues to innovate.
It’s the only faintly mainstream browser to come with a
built-in VPN, for instance, although if you’re planning to use
it to beat Netflix’s regional restrictions then think again:
the streaming service spotted the proxy and blocked the
stream in our tests.
Perhaps more useful is Opera’s battery-saving mode.
Yank the power cord out of your laptop and the browser
enters a low-power mode that conserves juice by “reducing
activity in background tabs, pausing plugins and animations,
rescheduling JavaScript timers, and tuning video-playback
parameters,” according to the company.
That, combined with effective built-in ad-blocking, seemed
to have some effect. With the exact same five tabs open,
Chrome consumed around 1% of our CPU’s capacity and
125MB of RAM, according to Windows Task Manager, while
Opera was barely registering on the processor and required
115MB.
Tawk.to
tawk.to
In arguably the most interesting
response to our plea for free software
that readers love, Tim Parkinson
suggested the messaging app tawk.
to. It lets you communicate with your
site’s readers in many ways.
“I love tawk.to as it shows me instant
activity on my website,” Tim wrote.
“It shows me the immediate effects of
social media posts or direct marketing.
You can post something to Twitter and
within seconds you can hear it pinging
like a cash register when people read
your blogs on your site. You can also see
where they are, the referral page and
what page they are on.
“You can live chat to them or they can live chat to you. It has
a mobile app as well, so you can do all of this via your mobile. All
this from a simple piece of code that you add to the header of
your pages.”
www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 33

EDITOR’S PICK
Freemake Video
Converter
freemake.com
“The whole line of
software from Freemake
is brilliant,” Jake Harris
told us, “but for me,
the most useful of their
applications is Freemake
Video Converter. I’ve
been using it for around five years now and it has become my go-to way of managing all
the different video file types on my PC.
“Freemake’s software can deal with almost any file format, as well as download
and convert videos from places such as YouTube. There are very basic video-editing
capabilities, such as being able to cut, join and rotate videos. The software is consistently
updated to support new devices, meaning you can select the device you intend to play
your video on and it will automatically know which format works best.
“For me, Freemake Video Converter provides all the features I’d once use HandBrake
for, whilst keeping to a clean and simple user interface.”
Freemake
Audio
Converter
freemake.com
This is simplicity itself to use: select
an audio or video file and choose to
convert it to MP3, WMA, WAV, FLAC,
AAC, M4A or OGG. It’s also speedy,
taking just 25 seconds to convert
a 6.4MB M4A song to crisp, highquality
MP3, which we could then
play directly in VLC Media Player
(see opposite). Be warned, however,
that Freemake cheekily tried to add
an additional piece of software,
Pro PC Cleaner, to the download – so
you may want to install Unchecky
first. For giving old songs new life in
a different format, it’s ideal.
Media &
Entertainment
Kodi
kodi.tv
Kodi is perhaps the most
controversial choice on this
list. Formerly known as XBMC
Media Centre, Kodi is ostensibly
a media entertainment hub,
yet it’s now earned notoriety
as a means to stream pirated
content through a series of addons.
We’ll let your conscience
dictate whether that crosses
any moral boundaries,
never mind the legal ones.
Kodi can be installed via
the Windows Store, although
beware that its ten-foot
interface is designed to be
viewed from distance, much like
a Sky EPG, so everything seems
enormous close-up. It can be a
little intimidating to set up and
you’ll need to learn how to install
add-ons to get the most from
Kodi.
34 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au

FREE SOFTWARE FEATURE
Plex
plex.tv
If you just want to play the odd video file, VLC
will do you fine (see below). For those with
bigger ambitions, Plex is the way to go. It’s a
complete media library system that can stream
movies and music to any device in your house –
or outside of it.
It’s built on a client/server model, so you’ll
need to configure one machine on your home
network as a media server. This might be a PC
or a Mac; alternatively, you can run Plex on a
Linux-based NAS appliance – check the website
to see which brands are supported.
Once this is done, the magic begins. Plex scans
your video and music files and – based on filename
recognition – organises them into a rich visual
library, with preview images, episode information, subtitles and
more, all automatically filled in from free online sources.
You can then browse and play media using either the Plex client
app or a smart web interface. Enable remote access and you can
access your library even when you’re out and about, and if you pay
for the optional Plex Pass you can open it up to friends and family
too, with their own custom playlists and restrictions. It’s like your
own personal Netflix, and it’s completely free.
Sonic Dash
Windows Store
VLC Media Player
videolan.org/vlc
Do you like your games to be simple, colourful and with a hefty dollop of nostalgia?
If so, Sonic Dash is the game for you. Now in its third year on Windows, its
lurid visuals and worlds should put a smile on the face of anyone who fondly
remembers Sega’s ring-collecting blue hedgehog from his beginnings in the
1990s.
But Sonic Dash isn’t just for diehard fans. It takes the tired Temple Run format
and, well, runs with it, fleshing out a flimsy premise with additional content.
This comes in the form of unlockable characters (including Knuckles and Tails),
combos, power-ups and “boss levels” in which you can take on rotund adversary
Doctor Eggman.
As ever with free games, there are a couple of drawbacks. The first is a liberal
smattering of adverts, but most of them can be promptly dismissed after a few
seconds. The second is the looming presence of in-app purchases, which can
become wearing.
Nevertheless, Sonic Dash is ideal for anyone in need of a mindless break – just
don’t blame us if you’re still playing it two hours later…
The grande dame of the free media player
world, VLC Media Player still has the same
aim as when it launched in 2001: to easily
play almost any audio or video format for
free. And it does.
Once set up as your default media player,
bringing VLC Media Player to life is a silkysmooth
process: pop in a DVD, click on a file,
choose a stream or open your webcam and
get started. If you’re playing a video, the
software has a few neat tricks up its sleeve,
such as setting the screen as your wallpaper
so you can continue browsing, custom
bookmarks, automatically saved snapshots
and fun visual effects (our personal
favourite is the trippy “Psychedelic” setting,
which certainly breathed terrifying new life
into Dad’s Army).
Furthermore, the interface is fully
customisable, allowing you to get rid of,
for example, the loop or shuffle button
when playing an album. Moreover, power
users can make the most of VLC Media
Player’s module for batch-converting media
files into a different format, which can
be used alongside Freemake’s software
(see opposite). If that wasn’t enough, the
developers have also thrown in a few treats
for Windows 10 users, including Cortana voice
commands (“Hey Cortana, play Slipknot”) and
Live Tiles.
www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 35

THE ESET
ADVANTAGE
STAY SAFE ONLINE WITH CONFIDENCE
he Internet can be a dangerous place, full of
malicious hackers trying to take advantage of
T honest and innocent users. Hackers constantly
pretend to be companies or websites they aren’t,
attempting to fool you into clicking their deceiving
links and giving them your personal information so
your computer becomes a member of their robot army.
Even the most attentive Internet user can slip up by
clicking something they’re not supposed to and end
up in a world of pain. Even a simple lapse in installing
vital Windows updates that fix flaws leveraged by
hackers can wreak havoc.
That’s why anti-virus, or more
accurately for 2017 – Internet security
software, exists. Anti-virus programs sit
in the background, valiantly monitoring
your computer, on the hunt for activity
that resembles something trying to ruin
your day. It would be foolish not to have
anti-virus software installed on your computer – just
like you wouldn’t drive your car without wearing a
seatbelt, you shouldn’t use the Internet without antivirus
software.
Dedicated anti-virus software is obsolete though,
right? Microsoft has one built-in to Windows - for free!
Who better to protect your computer than Microsoft,
who know the operating system inside out and
have a vested interest in ensuring your Windows
experience is not sullied with malware and viruses?
Sorry to break it to you, but that hasn’t been the case
for years. Windows Defender is the bare minimum in
protection against Internet nasties.
In real-world
detection tests from
the respected AV-TEST
outfit, ESET’s anti-virus
software detected
98.80% of threats,
whereas Windows
Defender managed a
paltry 88%, putting
it amongst the worst
performers. Windows
Defender’s false alarms
rate is much higher too.
In AV-Comparative’s
March 2016 test,
ESET didn’t present a
single false alarm, yet
Defender jumped the
gun 13 times. Defender
even has a higher
impact on system
performance.
36 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au
“ESET’s anti-virus
software detected
98.80% of threats”
ESET Internet Security
and ESET Smart
Security Premium
provide rock solid
protection
ESET INTERNET SECURITY
Dedicated anti-virus software such as ESET
Internet Security is not only better at basic
protection, but offers levels of protection Windows
Defender doesn’t, and never will. ESET implements
various features to go the extra mile in protecting
you online.
Ransomware Shield: This monitors and evaluates
all executed applications using behavioral
heuristics and actively blocks known behaviors
that resemble ransomware.
Anti-Phishing: Thwarts attempts to acquire
sensitive information such as
usernames or passwords by
fake websites masquerading as
trustworthy ones.
Banking & Payment Protection: A
special secured browser through which
you can safely pay online that protects
you from keyloggers.
Webcam Protection: Monitors all the processes
and applications running on your computer, to see
which ones want to use your webcam. It alerts
you to any that unexpectedly try to access your
webcam, and lets you block them.
Small System Footprint: ESET is famous for
having a small footprint that leaves more power to
programs you use daily and extends the lifetime of
hardware.
ESET SMART SECURITY PREMIUM
ESET’s Smart Security Premium offers more
features than anyone serious
about securing their computer even
considers.
Password Manager: Lets
you safely store and prefill your
passwords to avoid password reuse
and create strong passwords.
Secure Data: Encrypt files and
removable media, such as USB keys so
if someone does gain physical access
to your data, they can’t do anything
with it.
Anti-Theft: Helps you track and
locate your laptop in case it goes
missing because of a loss or theft.
Mark a device as lost and it activates
the webcam and takes screenshots to
see who’s got it.

ESET ADVERTORIAL
THE ESET
EXPERT
We sat down with Nick FitzGerald, Senior Research
Fellow at ESET to discuss the current threat landscape
What are the latest trends in the type of
threats and vulnerabilities ESET works
to prevent? Is there a particular type of
malware in fashion right now?
Well, right when you asked, everybody
was, and still is, talking about the
WannaCryptor (aka WannaCry)
ransomware worm. The reason
WannaCryptor has received so much
attention is that it combines one of the
most common current forms of malware
– ransomware – with fast-spreading
network worm functionality. The worm
also depended on an element of luck for its
success. It used the so-called EternalBlue
exploit from the recent Shadow Brokers
leak of what are reputedly NSA hacking
tools. EternalBlue exploits a vulnerability
in a very old part of the Windows
networking code that was present in
all versions of Windows from at least
Windows XP, and maybe even earlier.
Despite all this though, I don’t think
that WannaCryptor is the beginning
of a trend. The worm functionality of
WannaCryptor has seriously jarred quite
a number of people out of what may
have been an element of complacency.
I strongly suspect that many network
firewalls and other security perimeters
and controls will have been checked a
little more thoroughly than usual over
the last few days.
How does ESET stay on top of the
constant malware and virus threats
that seem to constantly be popping up?
It may be rather anti-climactic, but the
answer is that it’s ‘mostly done through
automation’. The huge volume of samples
of new malware and other “suspect”
activity our products see
and log is constantly being
mined for interesting
patterns and new developments. Of
course, there are human researchers
overseeing all this, as often their
experience means they see things better
or sooner than the automated systems.
Further, human researchers oversee the
testing and validation of new detection
patterns and other technologies we
deploy, either through the cloud or
directly to the endpoint security
software.
What’s a typical malware analysis
look like? How does ESET counter
increasingly ambitious hackers?
The new, possibly more challenging and
interesting material tends to stick out like
the proverbial “sore thumb”. Usually what
follows is nothing like typical. Sometimes
it takes thinking outside the square, such
as how researchers thought to look for
what turned out to be early IoT malware
and such.
Do you have a favourite piece of
malware? Something nasty, but you
kinda admire the ingenuity of it?
Not that I’ll identify publicly! Seriously
though, you do occasionally come
across something whose elegance,
or whose key ideas are so simple yet
had not been thought of or tried before,
gives you pause to admire the ingenuity
or skill that resulted in this piece of
malice being built. Mostly though, you
just groan at the unending ordinariness
of it all, or even have to laugh at the abject
stupidity and you are left scratching
your head wondering how many more
errors and bugs would have been needed
to render the code entirely useless, as
opposed to its current state of nearuselessness.
When ESET detects a vulnerability,
what is the typical time frame from
when the issue is detected and a
response is released to customers?
In the case that we become aware of
vulnerabilities in our own products, we
work as quickly as possible to remediate
and release updates to fix the issue. As
the complexity of vulnerabilities can vary
greatly, it is very difficult to put a likely
or typical timeframe on preparing and
shipping such remediations, but in the
few such cases since I have worked for
ESET, our responses have been measured
in days rather than weeks or longer
timeframes. Further, it is often the case
that we could ship detection updates
to detect and block attempts to exploit
such vulnerabilities, thus protecting our
customers until we can ship a full repair.
In the case that we become aware of
vulnerabilities in the products of others,
we work to responsibly disclose the
vulnerability to the affected vendor
and assist them in remediating the
vulnerability if they wish to work with
us. Again, it is likely that we could ship
detection updates for exploitation
attempts to help protect our customers
until the affected can ship an update to
fix the issue.
WHAT ABOUT THE WANNACRY MALWARE SCARE?
Ransomware is an insidious piece of
software that finds its way on to your
computer the same way as malware
(i.e: downloading a dodgy program via
an email link, banner ad or app that
misrepresents itself), but instead of
turning your computer into a hacker’s
slave, every single file is encrypted.
If you want your files unencrypted,
you have to use Bitcoin (a relatively
anonymous payment method) to pay the
ransom and have your data released.
Luckily, ESET Internet Security
includes Ransomware Shield. When
Ransomware Shield
is enabled, all executed applications
are monitored and evaluated using
behavioural and reputation based
heuristics. When behaviour that
resembles ransomware is identified,
such as trying to encrypt data
unexpectedly, the process is blocked and
you are notified of what’s going on. It’s
not a total replacement for a solid backup
of your important data, but another
line of defence to ensure your normal
activities are not disrupted.
www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 37

DO
SERVICES SUCH AS IF THIS THEN
THAT (IFTTT), MICROSOFT FLOW
AND ZAPIER CAN MAKE YOUR LIFE
EASIER BY AUTOMATING DULL, TIME-
CONSUMING TASKS. BARRY COLLINS
AND MAX FIGGETT SHOW HOW TO
MAKE THE MOST OF THEM
MORE
WORK
LESS
IFTTT PAGE 39
MICROSOFT FLOW PAGE 43
ZAPIER PAGE 46

DO MORE, WORK LESS FEATURE
W
e’re all plugged into dozens of
different web services and devices
– but all of them work in their
own little silos. You might have an Android
smartphone, Philips Hue lights, an Apple
iPad, accounts with Dropbox, Gmail and
Wunderlist, but making this diverse set of
digital accoutrements work with one another
is tough.
Services such as If This Then That (IFTTT)
are the glue that bind these services together.
Using a simple web interface or app, you’ll find
it’s possible to get your iPhone talking to your
smart plug, your Spotify playlists backed up
in a Google spreadsheet, your eBay listings
automatically tweeted to potential buyers.
Better still, it can make smart home devices
even smarter. Alexa can be told to dim your
lights, turn down the heating or lock the
garage door, even though Amazon itself
doesn’t support the smart devices. Someone
ringing your smart door can trigger a hallway
light to switch on, perhaps sufficient to
convince a would-be burglar that someone
really is home after all. Your neighbours could
even be alerted to potential fires in your home
while you’re sunning yourself on a beach.
In this feature, we’ve delivered more than
80 ways of making services IFTTT, Zapier
and Microsoft Flow do the heavy lifting, to
do the hard work while you get on with
your life. We’ll show you how to automate
a huge number of tasks, and how to create
your own applets and make your devices do
your bidding for you. It’s time to automate
everything.
I
FTTT is powered by applets (previously
called recipes), which are essentially
user-defined scripts for particular
services. Each applet needs a trigger (the
“if” this happens) and an outcome (“then do
that”). Applets can deal with a single service
(for example, if I leave the office, unmute my
Android phone), or bring together multiple
services/devices (if I add a song to a Spotify
playlist, tweet a link to the track).
The IFTTT.com website contains many
SAVE TIME WITH IFTTT
pre-prepared applets for the dozens of
different services and devices that IFTTT
is compatible with. If you can’t find an
applet to do what you want, you can
create your own by clicking on My Applets
| New Applets and follow the on-screen
prompts.
However, in our experience, IFTTT
applets can be flaky. Some work
flawlessly, others inconsistently, some
not at all. If you find a pre-prepared applet
doesn’t deliver the goods, it’s often worth
trying to create a new applet with the
same functionality yourself: a script that
works for one person may not work in
quite the same way for another.
IFTTT’s site can also be temperamental.
Users report problems activating applets
in Google Chrome on an external display
with a touchscreen laptop – a long-term
bug. The site works fine in Microsoft’s
Edge browser.
www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 39

PHONE
SILENCERS
3 applets
Let’s start with the basics – applets that
stop you getting disturbed by pinging
notifications in the middle of the night,
or while you’re in important meetings at
work. Unfortunately, IFTTT can only be
used to control Android phones – iOS’s
phone functionality is strictly locked
down by Apple, denying third-party apps
the ability to perform tasks such as mute/
unmute the handset, log calls or access
text messages.
To silence your phone during the twilight
hours and switch the ringer back on again
in the morning, you
will need two separate
applets:
To mute the phone at
bedtime: tinyurl.com/
kva7k43.
To unmute your phone
in the morning: tinyurl.
com/m2z88u7.
If you click on the
settings cog on both
applets, you’ll find
options to adjust both
your bedtime and the
time you want the phone
to wake up again, both
rather awkwardly broken
down into hours and
minutes. The wake-up
applet also lets you set
the ringer volume as a
percentage, for those
who don’t like to be
awakened by a 100% ringtone blast early
in the morning. Note, even on silent, any
alarm set on your phone should still work.
What about preventing the constant
chirping of Twitter
or personal phone
calls while you’re
in meetings?
The following
applet will silence
your phone
whenever there’s
an appointment
in your Google
Calendar: tinyurl.
com/kjew8s6.
The downside
to this applet is
that you’ll need
to remember to
unmute your
phone manually
after the meeting
has finished.
GET FREE
STUFF!
4 applets
IFTTT is excellent at keeping an eye
out for bargains. The service will
trawl all manner of sites for free
music, apps, games and other stuff.
Here’s a selection of useful applets
that will help ensure you never miss
out on a bargain.
Google releases a new song for free
every day on Play Music. Get a daily
email with a link to the song using
the following applet: tinyurl.com/
n7g4u78.
If you use the Steam games service,
you can be sent email notifications
when free game keys are posted to
Reddit using this applet: tinyurl.com/
lfaj3cf.
Want to make sure you don’t miss
out when leading apps have their
price dropped to zilch for promotional
giveaways? iOS users
should enable the
following applet,
which lets you
adjust the country
you’re living in, the
category of apps
you’re interested in,
and which device you
own (an iPad, say) in
the settings: tinyurl.
com/n2hzvfl.
There’s also a
similar applet for
Android users:
tinyurl.com/kfb4pf5.
MANAGE YOUR
STOCK PORTFOLIO
4 applets
If you haven’t got time to keep a beady eye
on your stock portfolio, you can employ
IFTTT to do it for you. There’s a slight catch
here, with IFTTT betraying its American
roots – only stocks listed on the NASDAQ
and other US exchanges can be tracked.
Still, if you’re an investor in the major tech
firms, you’ll likely be covered.
If you want to make sure you’re alerted
to a sudden crash in a company’s share
price, this applet will send an Android
phone notification when a selected stock
dips below a predetermined level: tinyurl.
com/mgbuwyf.
Alternatively, if you
want to be alerted if the
price falls by a certain
percentage, activate
this applet: tinyurl.com/
m6yhcbq.
Likewise, if you
want to get out when a
particular stock begins
to peak, this applet is
your friend: tinyurl.com/
lrvfk58.
If you’re more of a
long-term investor, and
just want to keep tabs on
your portfolio in a Google
spreadsheet, this applet
will automatically update
a sheet with each day’s
closing price: tinyurl.com/
mpo6y7a.
There are many other
applets for price falls or rises of particular
stocks, exchange rate fluctuations and
the price of commodities such as gold or
bitcoins. Take a look at the many options
available at ifttt.com/search/stocks.
40 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au

DO MORE, WORK LESS FEATURE
MONITOR THE
EBAY AUCTIONS
4 applets
You’ve got your eye on a Canon 1D, or a
vintage ZX Spectrum, or a rare B-side by
Squeeze. Whatever it is, it will likely end up
on eBay, but trying to keep abreast of all
the latest listings is a tricky manual job. Let
IFTTT take the strain.
The following applet lets you specify a
search term, a maximum price and then
saves all of the new listings to a Google
spreadsheet: tinyurl.com/lkcu2bv. If
you’re desperately seeking a rare item,
IFTTT’s mobile app will ping an optional
notification every time the applet is
triggered, so you should be alerted to any
new listings in short order.
Google Sheets is only one of the many
destinations that can log results for eBay
searches. Check out the eBay channel (ifttt.
com/ebay) and you’ll see options to ping
results into OneNote, Slack, Pushbullet,
and all manner of different services.
What about if you’re selling gear? This
applet automatically shares your new
listings on Twitter, handy for power sellers
who want to attract attention to listings on
social media: tinyurl.com/lut2apa.
There’s also a
straightforward applet for
people who want to keep all
of their eBay orders, both
incoming and outgoing,
in one place: tinyurl.com/
lkla8no. It scans your Gmail
inbox for emails from eBay
that contain the subject line
shipped” or “order” and then
automatically logs them in
a Google spreadsheet. It’s a
useful tool if you’re juggling
multiple eBay transactions
every week.
MASTER
YOUR MUSIC
COLLECTION
3 applets
Spotify subscribers will be
familiar with the often brilliant
Discover Weekly playlist, an
automatically generated two
hours of new tracks every
week that’s personalised
to your music tastes. The
problem is that every
Monday that list regenerates,
meaning it’s easy to lose
that great track you
listened to in the car last
week. The following applet
automatically creates a
Discover Weekly archive
playlist, meaning that all
the tracks curated by Spotify
are retained for future
listening: tinyurl.com/
ml9so6h.
There’s a
similar service for
the Release Radar
playlist, too: tinyurl.
com/ltsylfc.
Do you have
Spotify playing in
the office? Want
to alert colleagues
every time you’ve
found a banging
new tune? This
is a very clever
applet that sends
a message to a
specific Slack
channel every
time you add a
song to a specified Spotify playlist.
So you could have an #OfficeTunes
Slack channel that’s updated with
everyone’s recommendations, for
instance. The applet can be found
here: tinyurl.com/lejv8u4.
STOP THE PIPES
FREEZING!
5 applets
Anyone who uses a garden office or works
from the conservatory will know that, no
matter how good the insulation, the office
will take a good hour or more to warm up on
a cold winter’s morning. IFTTT can help you
avoid an unwanted morning chill.
The Weather Underground channel
lets you set alerts based on the current
temperature in your region. Consequently,
if the mercury dips below, say 5°C, you can
set IFTTT to switch on the heater connected
to your WeMo smart plug or even your Nest
thermostat. You’ll need to create the applets
yourself, using the Weather Underground
channel (ifttt.com/weather) and whatever
smart plug/thermostat device you use.
There are several from which you can
choose.If you want something a little more
low-tech, you can set Weather Underground
to email you in advance if it’s going to rain
tomorrow, or to automatically add a weather
forecast to your Google Calendar at 6am
every day (tinyurl.com/labj7p2). At the
other extreme, you can get mobile alerts if
the pollen count forecast is high (tinyurl.
com/mn6e2uu), or the forecast UV index
carries a high risk of sunburn, giving you
time to slap some suncream on the kids
before school (tinyurl.com/kyc2y8j).

MAKE ALEXA EVEN SMARTER 6 applets
Amazon’s Alexa has taken homes
by storm, either via Amazon’s
own range of speakers or thirdparty
products. However, the
range of devices and services
that Alexa plays nicely
with by default is pretty
limited. IFTTT provides
the bridge between Alexa
and a whole host of other
smart home devices and
services.
First, a warning. Alexa
support on IFTTT still
seems patchy. We couldn’t
get any of these services
to work on one of our test
devices, and readers have
reported similar problems. It
seems there are still kinks to
be worked out. However, we’re
assured that all of the following
do work in some instances,
meaning it’s a case of suck it and
see.
If you’re constantly asking Alexa
to add items to your to-do list, you
might be frustrated that it doesn’t
integrate nicely with your chosen
to-do list app: only Any.do and
Todoist are supported by Amazon
itself. With IFTTT, Alexa todos
can be synced to Google
Calendar (tinyurl.com/lc9jx5t) ,
Wunderlist (tinyurl.com/kat97kw)
and Evernote (tinyurl.com/
lv6c6qp), among other services.
Other smart home devices
can also get the voice-control
treatment. This applet (tinyurl.
com/k77jdzb) lets you tell Alexa
the precise temperature for your
Nest thermostat; this one lets you
switch off the Hue lights at bedtime
(tinyurl.com/kzt6u7h); and if you
have all the correct components,
telling Alexa to “trigger lock-down”
will switch off your Hue lights, shut
your garage door and silence your
Android phone with this recipe
(tinyurl.com/mcvzchf).
We suggest you test Alexa/
IFTTT integration with some free
software services before investing
in any smart home hardware,
however.
MAKE A BUTTON 2 applets
One of the newer features of IFTTT is
the ability to create your own “buttons”
on both smartphones and tablets.
These buttons appear in the form of
widgets (or icons) on your Android or
iOS device’s homescreen, letting you
perform reasonably complex tasks at,
well, the press of a button.
There’s a wide selection of pre-built
button applets that you can use, once
you’ve installed the IFTTT mobile app
on your device. You can, for example,
track the number of hours you’ve spent
working on a spreadsheet (handy for
billing purposes) by simply pressing the
button when you start, and again when
you clock-off (tinyurl.com/mntvvk3).
Another sneaky option for Android
users is the ability to press a button
to make your phone ring, helping you
get out of an awkward water-cooler
conversation in the office, or escape
when the Jehovah’s Witnesses come
knocking at your front door (tinyurl.
com/mgta945).
However, the buttons are best
deployed with your own recipes. We’ve
set one up to send a text message
saying “I’m on my way home” to the
other half, for example, effectively
creating an SMS macro. You could use
a button to toggle a smart plug, switch
lights on or off, or let your team know
you’ve arrived in the office by posting
a message to a Slack channel. The
possibilities are almost endless.
EMERGENCY
SERVICES
3 applets
IFTTT isn’t all about showing off and
convenience – it can actually be of genuine
assistance in emergencies, too. A common
mini-crisis can be averted by the applet that
automatically sends a text message to your
significant other if your phone battery is
running low, for example, potentially avoiding
a panic when they keep getting your voicemail.
Thankfully, the applet (tinyurl.com/mxzrpcn)
lets you edit the message sent, so you don’t
have to use the decidedly cheesy: “Hi babe,
this is an automated text letting you know my
phone battery is almost dead.”
If you have a Nest Protect smoke detector in
your home, you’re probably already set up to
receive phone messages if the device detects a
fire while you’re out. But what if you’re away
on holiday? With IFTTT, a Nest smoke alert can
be used to send a text message to a friendly
neighbour, who can perhaps enter the house
and check if it’s a false alarm. The applet is here:
tinyurl.com/lpfqvnz.
How about deterring burglars? Owners of
the Ring doorbell can already answer their door
remotely, but it won’t be long before thieves get
wise to smart doorbells and chance their arm
anyway. But what if pressing the Ring doorbell
also switched on a light in the hallway? That
might be enough to convince a potential thief
you’re home after all. There’s a recipe for Ring
doorbells and WeMo light switches at tinyurl.
com/lpdkxgw, with options for other smart
home solutions such as Philips Hue.
42 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au

DO MORE, WORK LESS FEATURE
GO WITH THE MICROSOFT FLOW
Microsoft’s IFTTT rival may be the new kid on the block, but it has much to offer
A
s the name suggests, Microsoft Flow
aims to smooth the automation of
tasks, streamline communication
between apps and, most importantly, make
power users’ lives easier – without the need
for time-consuming scripting.
Released to take on established services
such as IFTTT and Zapier, Microsoft Flow is
designed to be implemented in businesses
of all sizes. It can, therefore, automate
jobs involving a wide range of services
(110 to be precise), including big names
such as SharePoint, Office 365, OneDrive,
Dropbox, Gmail, Google Drive, MailChimp,
Slack, Todoist, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest
and Instagram, as well as comparatively
obscure choices such as Toodledo,
Typeform, SendGrid and Redmine.
As with IFTTT, you can create your own
applets, unappealingly called “Flows”, by
picking from a dropdown list of services
and “triggers” (for instance, when a file
is created in Dropbox) to put together a
flow diagram of actions and conditions.
To begin, head to flow.microsoft.com, sign
up, click on the My Flows tab and select the
“Create a Flow from blank” box. After that,
sign in to your chosen services and get
cracking.
That said, while the process may sound
intuitive and simple, in practice Flows
can be somewhat buggy and sometimes
leave you scratching your head – an issue
compounded by the lack of advice on the
website.
Don’t despair: there’s a truckload of
ready-made templates to save the day.
Some are less useful than others, but they
can be an invaluable resource for doing
those small, annoying chores that eat into
your day. For example, Microsoft Flow can
create Google Calendar notifications for
Slack, track your working hours, and let
you know when your boss is trying to get
in touch.
Moreover, the free version of Flow is
generous – 750 automations per month and
unlimited Flow creation – although some
services are locked off to non-premium
users. The paid plan, which starts at US$5
per user per month for 4,500 automations,
contains Salesforce, Bitbucket, Eventbrite,
Harvest, FreshBooks, Stripe and more.
We’ve skimmed the cream of Flow’s
template crop to help you forget about
mundane digital tasks and focus on the
important stuff.
ABOVE: To create your
own Flow, pick and mix
from the list of services
and triggers
TOP RIGHT: There’s
a wide selection of
useful ready-baked
templates to choose
from
RIGHT: The services
that integrate with
Microsoft Flow include
most of the big names,
as well as less wellknown
choices
www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 43

NEVER MISS AN EMAIL FROM YOUR BOSS 4 applets
Have you ever missed a deadline because an email from
your boss got lost in your cluttered inbox? Well, there’s
a Flow for that (tinyurl.com/lqxlwrw). Working with
Office 365’s Outlook and the Flow app, the template
sends you a push notification every time your boss
(or another VIP) sends you an email, meaning you can
respond promptly and garner brownie points. No wonder
it’s the fourth most used applet on the site.
If you want to make doubly sure that nothing slips
under the radar, Microsoft has crafted an applet (tinyurl.
com/losey9u) that sends you a text when your boss gets
in touch. The Flow utilises Twilio – a platform that uses
web service APIs to send and receive SMS messages
– meaning you can quickly hurry back from lunch to
polish off that last-minute report. Speaking of which,
there’s also a template that automatically saves Outlook.
com attachments to a Google Drive folder (tinyurl.com/
lzceudj), so you can plunge straight in.
If that wasn’t enough, you can even instruct
Microsoft Flow to notify you if the language in your
boss’ missive is very negative: for example, “Why
haven’t you brought me a coffee yet? You’re fired! :(”. The
template (tinyurl.com/lq7h45f) uses “text analytics” to
examine the content of the email, effectively giving you
advance notice when bad news is on its way.
COLLECT DATA FROM SOCIAL MEDIA 6 applets
Keeping track of what people are saying
about your company on social media
can be difficult. Luckily, Microsoft Flow
simplifies the process with a selection
of handy tools that will alert you to
mentions, store information, and provide
a “troll warning”.
First, you can choose to be alerted via
email when a specific user – be they an
important client, firm or even a celebrity
– sends a tweet (tinyurl.com/kku7wzx).
This applet is particularly useful for very
active or popular Twitter profiles, saving
you the hassle of wading through a long
list of notifications or hashtags.
Looking for a more user-friendly
way of storing and reusing your
Instagram snaps? There’s a Flow to help
(tinyurl.com/mk4blop): the template
automatically saves an image to a
specific Google Drive folder when you
post it on Instagram, avoiding the need
to laboriously re-upload it.
For a wider insight into how your
product, service or campaign is being
received on Twitter, use the “Log the
latest tweets about your product in
Excel” template (tinyurl.com/kt549yr).
This records the tweet content,
author, date sent and even the number
of times it’s been retweeted in a
spreadsheet. To get started, create an
Excel file on your favoured cloud
storage platform, follow the column
instructions, set the keyword you wish
to track, and watch the praise roll in.
Similar tools exist for Facebook (tinyurl.
com/k6jl8ba) and Instagram (tinyurl.
com/m47jdl9).
You can also be notified when someone
is less than complimentary about a
keyword – a kind of “troll klaxon”. The
Flow (tinyurl.com/lkbktn3), which uses
the Cognitive Services Text Analytics
API, will detect a negative comment,
translate it if necessary, and send a push
notification to your Android or iOS device
with a link to the tweet.

DO MORE, WORK LESS FEATURE
MANAGE YOUR CALENDAR
7 applets
Keeping your digital calendar up to date can be a mind-numbing
slog, fraught with potential pitfalls such as forgetting to jot
down an important meeting, arrangements getting lost in
the digital ether, and selecting the wrong day. Fortunately,
Microsoft has constructed an assortment of Flow templates
to lend you a helping hand when keeping on top of your
commitments.
A common business bugbear is that people or companies have
multiple calendars on different platforms, ramping up the risk of
double-booking. Don’t be one of them: using an applet, you can
share events across Google Calendar and Outlook.com (tinyurl.
com/lx23l4c), as well as between Google Calendar and Office 365
(tinyurl.com/k2qsfv5).
However, the Flows aren’t limited to just Google Calendar
and Outlook: there are also applets that post in a Slack channel
of your choice when a meeting is about to begin (tinyurl.com/
mz58do5), create events for Todoist items (pcpro.link/273todo),
open up a calendar task in Wunderlist (tinyurl.com/m7gbgk3),
extract a deadline from a Trello card (tinyurl.com/lgryvxv), and
automatically generate a OneNote page for a meeting (tinyurl.
com/lx533s3) so you have somewhere to take notes.
KEEP ON TOP OF
SHAREPOINT
7 applets
As you’d expect, Microsoft Flow integrates
well with SharePoint – the firm’s document
storage and management app – offering an
assortment of nifty reminders, alerts and
time-savers that run in the background.
First, there’s the ability to send a
customised email to yourself or someone
else whenever an item is added to a specific
SharePoint list (tinyurl.com/ldk5s62),
meaning there are no nasty surprises when
you next peruse the archive. It’s a very neat
utility – and the third most popular applet.
Moreover, you can order Flow to notify you
when a SharePoint item is modified via email
(tinyurl.com/mxhbhhb) or Slack (tinyurl.
com/mevycql), as well as easily copy files
between SharePoint and Dropbox (tinyurl.
com/krcz792), Box (tinyurl.com/k6ooxto),
Google Drive (tinyurl.com/k4t94p4) and your
Windows PC (tinyurl.com/mpxyq4h).
PUSH FLOW’S BUTTONS 7 applets
Like IFTTT, Microsoft Flow has reduced a
number of tasks to a simple button press
on your iOS or Android mobile device – and
offers the opportunity to build your own.
The pre-baked Flow templates include
simple buttons for setting a reminder
in ten minutes (tinyurl.com/klk8ryu),
checking the weather (tinyurl.com/
lr49ekw), and being emailed your own
coordinates (tinyurl.com/lahw537), in
case you’re being chased by a bear in
the Tunbridge Wells wilderness (see
screengrabs below).
The more complex one-press actions
include sending a simple “I’m working from
home” email to your manager (tinyurl.
com/kd8rrxw), tracking your working
hours in an Excel spreadsheet (tinyurl.
com/ksvwu3f), letting colleagues know
that you’re ill (tinyurl.com/mpey7n3), and
texting a contact that you’re late for a
meeting (tinyurl.com/khwuesz).
www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 45

ZAP YOUR WORKFLOW INTO LIFE
With its built-in applets and Chrome extension, Zapier is a godsend for busy users
implicity is the name of the game
with Zapier. Released in 2012, the
Sautomation service has become the
go-to alternative to IFTTT, being rightly
lauded for its clarity, ease of use and huge
selection of apps.
While Microsoft Flow can often feel
unwieldy, Zapier – according to its
website – wants to “empower businesses
everywhere to create processes and
systems that let computers do what they
are best at doing and let humans do what
they are best at doing”. It’s an admirable
ambition that’s reflected in the speed with
which its applet templates – satisfyingly
called “Zaps” – can be modified: providing
you’re signed up with the necessary web
apps, the process can take under a minute.
It’s really that simple.
As with both IFTTT and Flow, you can
also create your own Zaps from scratch.
To begin, sign up at zapier.com and click
the unmissable bright orange “Make a
Zap!” button. You can then construct a
recipe from a list of apps, triggers and
actions, testing each stage as you go
along to ensure that nothing goes awry –
a useful fail-safe tool.
And the list of supported apps
is vast, with over 750 services
to choose from. Apart from the
usual suspects such as Gmail,
Google Drive, Slack, Twitter,
Facebook, WordPress, LinkedIn
and so on, Zapier offers a
selection of its own built-in “By
Zapier” applets for, among other
things, formatting, scheduling,
parsing emails, coding and
receiving SMS messages.
All sound too good to be true?
Well, the free version of Zapier
is rather limited, restricting you
to just 100 tasks per month and
five Zaps at a time. Moreover,
Zaps in the free plan can only
work in 15-minute blocks – so
if an applet springs to life at
9am, you can’t run another until
9.15. Naturally, these figures increase
incrementally as you work up through the
paid plans, which range from US$20 to a
whopping US$250 per month for 50,000
tasks.
We’ve sifted through the hundreds of
Zap templates to pick out the ones that
TOP To begin crafting your own Zap, select a
trigger app and set up an action
ABOVE The choice of support apps is absolutely
huge – over 750 by our reckoning – and includes
crowd-pleasers such as Facebook and Gmail
will become invisible digital butlers,
working behind the scenes to make your
life easier.
GROW YOUR
LINKEDIN
AUDIENCE
3 applets
LinkedIn can often be treated as
something of an afterthought, as less
important than Facebook or Twitter,
but keeping your business or personal
profile updated with new content is key.
Fortunately, there’s a range of Zaps to
help keep your LinkedIn spick and span –
and grow your audience.
You can set WordPress posts to
hit LinkedIn (tinyurl.com/lda3yb4),
removing the need to copy and paste a
link. To make life even simpler, there’s
also an applet for sharing Twitter posts
from a profile to LinkedIn (tinyurl.com/
l9umjga).
Another useful Zap integrates with
Google Sheets, so you can post Google
Slides presentations – be they about
a new product or even a rebrand – to
your firm’s LinkedIn page (tinyurl.
com/k8znj8v). Simply update a row on
Google Sheets
and Zapier will
find the relevant
presentation on
Google Slides.
KEEP ON TOP OF
FORMATTING
3 applets
Zapier’s own Formatter service irons out
potential formatting issues between
web apps, making sure that nothing is
lost in translation between, for example,
OneNote and Google Drive.
For example, do you find yourself
jotting down a note or idea in OneNote
and then completely forgetting about
it? If so, there’s a Zap (tinyurl.com/
ml9fyrw) that will automatically create
a Wunderlist task whenever a new note
is added, preventing anything from
slipping through the cracks.
Similarly, if you use both Microsoft
OneNote and Evernote, a Zap that
shares data between the platforms is
essential (tinyurl.com/myyxbq2). Every
time a new note is added to a section
in OneNote, it will pass over the title to
Evernote – so you don’t have to enter the
same data twice and can work across
the apps.Another useful formatting
time-saver is that, if you regularly post
on a WordPress site, you can set up a
Zap that immediately posts the link to
Facebook with a shortened URL (tinyurl.
com/nysocsb). It’s an easy way of keeping
PUSH IT REAL GOOD
3 applets
Another of Zapier’s built-in apps, Push,
reduces sometimes complicated tasks to
a couple of clicks of its Chrome extension.
For instance, you can add a text note to
E vernote (tinyurl.com/m8phsxr), send
yourself an email (tinyurl.com/lxokpfm),
and quickly add a Google Calendar event
(tinyurl.com/m7bf3mf) from a box in the
browser.
46 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au

DO MORE, WORK LESS FEATURE
DIGEST
SOCIAL MEDIA
1 applet
If, like most of us, you don’t have a dedicated
marketing team managing your social media
and profiling new followers, Digest by Zapier
is here to help. Working on either a daily,
weekly or monthly basis, the Zap (pcpro.
link/273digest) sends you a summary of
your new Twitter followers via Slack, giving
you an overview of who is interested in your
business (or just you).
QUICKLY ADD
CONTACTS
1 applet
If your job involves coming into contact with a
lot of new people, it’s worth investing in a Zap
that allows you to speedily add new entries
to Google Contacts (tinyurl.com/kwjk3lc). To
do so, create a Google Sheet, enable the Zap,
and every time you add or update a row with
a name, email address and telephone number,
Zapier will create a new Google Contact. It’s
handy when you’re copying over large blocks of
data.
DELAY
2 applets
Picture the scene: you’re snowed
under with a project ,or nearing a
deadline, but keep getting distracted
by less important things or wellmeaning
colleagues. Sound familiar?
Luckily, another of Zapier’s homemade
apps is here to help: Delay. It’s an
uncomplicated tool that works via a
Google Chrome extension, allowing
you to quickly prioritise time-sensitive
tasks and put others on the back
burner.
First, using the Zapier Chrome
extension and Slack, you can type in a
message or job for your future self (for
example, “feed the cat” or “remember
to make lots of money”), set a delay
and receive a Slack notification when
the deadline expires (tinyurl.com/
kpjdxjv). Think of it as a trusty digital
Post-it note.
Another Zap allows you to enter a
note into the extension and then, after
a delay, receive a reminder via SMS
(tinyurl.com/lnpubls).
ALWAYS BE AHEAD
OF SCHEDULE
4 applets
Zapier offers a range of scheduling applets
that take the pressure off and automate timeconsuming
daily tasks.
First, you can set Gmail to automatically
fire off daily emails to yourself or others
(tinyurl.com/kw77kav). It’s an excellent
way of sending out reminders, sharing new
information, and managing your firm’s
workflow. You can also command Zapier to
create a new Evernote note every morning
(tinyurl.com/kpgofvs), and send an SMS to
yourself at a certain time every day (tinyurl.
com/m9zda8f).
Lastly, and perhaps least usefully, there’s
even a Zap that triggers a random “Good
morning” GIF in your #general Slack channel
at 8am every morning (tinyurl.com/mokaelg).
So you can begin the day as you mean to go on…
If something catches your eye while browsing, open the
Chrome extension and type a note into the box
Using Push by Zapier; the reminder can then be sent to your
Gmail email
A very simple Zap allows you to enter a note into the Zapier
Chrome extension and then, after a delay of your choice,
receive a timely reminder via SMS
www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 47

IN THE LABS
Our reviews are our pride, and our joy
Testing times
BENNETT RING EXPLAINS OUR UPDATED TESTING PROCESS THAT WE USE FOR MAINLY FOR GPUS AND CPUS
We’re updating all of our benchmarks with
the exception of the ever-reliable 3DMark.
We’re sticking with 3DMark because it’s the
most widely acknowledged, independent
benchmark on the planet. While certain
game engines are built closely with the
assistance from AMD or Nvidia, 3DMark is
built to give neither vendor an advantage.
It’s been in use for over 15 years, and is
built by a team who strive for one thing
– repeatable, accurate tests that are as
scientifically accurate as possible.
The next test on our list is Rise of the
Tomb Raider. We chose this test for several
reasons. Firstly, it now officially supports
DirectX12, an area that is becoming more
important in the coming years. Secondly,
it’s very GPU-centric when set to Ultra,
with dozens of different shaders that tax
GPUs incredibly. Finally, there are three
built-in benchmarks, but we only use the
result from the Geothermal Valley test,
to keep things simple. We run the test
three times, and then average the result.
We also disable the Purehair technology
included in the game that was built for
AMD products, as this would put Nvidia
products at a disadvantage.
One game that is fantastic for putting
CPUs through their paces is Total War:
Warhammer. The Built-in Benchmarking
feature contains hundreds of individual
units, each with their own unique AI
running. When lowering the GPU-intensive
settings in the incredibly detailed options
menu, we can put all of the load on the
CPU, which is why you’ll see some very
interesting results in the following
benchmarks. It also has beta DX12 support,
rounding out our reasons for making this
our third benchmark. Like Rise of the Tomb
Raider, we run it three times and average
the result.
Our final pick of the bunch is the latest
in the Tom Clancy Ghost Recon series,
Wildlands. Firstly, because it’s utterly
beautiful. The huge amount of detail
spreads across massive draw distances
makes it one of the most demanding games
currently on the market. By fiddling with
the settings, we can put the strain on
either the CPU or the GPU, or both. Again,
we run the test three times to get the
average score, as there is a slight amount
of variance between each run.
We also have a variety of other
benchmarks up our sleeves for testing
other components, such as Wi-Fi
performance or SSD performance,
including but not limited to SiSoft Sandra,
Zoltán Pallagi’s WiFi Speed Test, and
CrystalDiskMark. However, you’ll see the
above four tests most commonly used.
Note that we also reboot the PC between
each and every benchmark, as well as
update Windows and the graphics drivers
prior to testing; this is why we have to
retest older samples in comparison to new
products, as driver improvements can
change their performance over time (in
some AMD cases, by up to 20%).
So there you have it – our new range of
cutting edge benchmarks. All designed to
help us help you make the right buying
decisions for your gear.
PIONEER
DREAMVISION
58
ASUS
FX553VD
59
NETGEAR
AC5300
57
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.
WHAT OUR A-LIST MEANS WHAT OUR AWARDS MEAN WHAT OUR RATINGS MEAN
Our A-List award is
reserved for the best
products in each category
we review. With a winner
and an alternative pick in
each, that’s 92 products
you know are first class.
48 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au
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.
VERY POOR
POOR
ORDINARY
VERY GOOD
OUTSTANDING
0 1 2 3 4 5

INTRO REVIEWS
HOW WE TEST
Our benchmarking tests are the best in the
business. Read on to find how they work…
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.
PC&TA LABS BENCHTEST PC
Intel Core i7-7700 CPU; 16GB of Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4
RAM; ASRock Fatal1ty Z270 Gaming K6 motherboard; Corsair
Neutron XT SSD
On occasion we will run publically available bench testing
software, predominantly PCMark 8 from Futuremark.
This is run in the Home setting, in Accelerated mode. You
can get PCMark 8 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
• 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 DX12 support.
Tests are run using three resolution ranges, depending
on where the GPU sits in the market:
Entry level: 1920 x 1080
Mid-range: 1920 x 1080 – 2560 x 1440
High-end: 2560 x 4K
BATTERY TESTS
Screen brightness is set to 120cd/m2, playing a 720p video
on loop until the device runs out of power.
REVIEWS
INTEL
OPTANE
50
PCS & LAPTOPS
HP Pavillion Wave .........................53
Gigabyte Aero 15 ............................54
Asus VC66R ....................................55
Pioneer Dreamvision 32” AIO
PC7X ..................................................58
Asus FX553VD ...............................59
PERIPHERALS
Netgear AD7200 ...........................56
Netgear AC5300 ........................... 57
Netgear S8000 media switch . 60
Oculus Touch Controller ..............61
GAMES
Prey ................................................... 88
Endless Space 2 ........................... 90
HANDHELDS
Apple iPhone SE ........................... 68
Google Nexus 5X.......................... 69
LG G4 ................................................70
Motorola Moto G4 ........................ 72
Motorola Moto G5 ........................ 73
Motorola Moto Z Play .................. 74
Oneplus 3T......................................76
Samsung Galaxy A5 .....................77
Samsung Galaxy A6 ....................78
Samsung Galaxy S7 .....................79
Sony Xperia X Compact ............ 80
www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 49

Intel Optane
Memory 32GB
INTEL USHERS IN THE NEWEST TYPE OF DATA STORAGE IN
OVER THIRTY YEARS, MARK WILLIAMS TAKES IT FOR A SPIN
emory. Whether volatile or
non-volatile, every computing
M device needs some. From your
bedside clock, to your car, microwave,
smartwatch, phone and of course
computer. Whether it’s to save your data,
preferences, or to simply load basic
operating code when powered on so the
device knows how to work and behave
to inputs, it’s necessary to our modern
daily lives.
Interestingly all of these devices use
some form of storage first invented
between thirty-three and seventy years
ago! RAM has been around since the
1940s, PROM the 1950s, SRAM and
DRAM the 1960s, EPROM and lesser
known bubble memory the 1970s, with
NOR and NAND flash memories being
the most recent from the 1980s.
That’s right, the newest NVMe SSDs
we love so much today has lineage going
back over three decades. Current NAND
based SSDs are great and the new NVMe
protocol has helped to unleash this
technology’s full potential, but the very
nature of NAND flash memory has some
innate problems. All of which come
down to how data in NAND is stored.
Intel and Micron teamed up in 2012
to research and develop a new type of
memory storage that removes the flaws
that NAND flash has. What they came
up with is something called 3D Xpoint
(pronounced “crosspoint”).
NAND FLASH REFRESHER
Data is stored in NAND in a somewhat
complex structure. Each physical NAND
chip is logically divided into blocks, each
containing pages, which in turn contains
words which are a strings of several
bits. To read a single bit of data, the
chip needs to access the correct block,
activate the page, target the correct
word, activate the entire word then read
the desired bit. When it comes to writing,
things get more complicated. To write a
single bit to a fresh unused NAND chip
the drive controller needs to activate
the pertinent block, then write the entire
page including all words and bits to be
contained within at once. This might be
a surprise but NAND flash isn’t directly
re-writeable. Whole pages must be first
erased before the page and anything
within it can be written to or updated.
So, if you want to overwrite a single bit or
word in an already used page the entire
page needs to be read into the drive
controllers memory temporarily, the
whole page erased, the new data added/
altered in the controller’s memory before
the page then gets written back in its
entirety to the chip.
Therefore, read speeds are always
faster than writes on NAND flash and
is why TRIM was introduced early on to
effectively self-defrag pages so whole
clean pages are available to write
without incurring the time penalty of
reading to controller memory first and
processing delay. It’s also why write
amplification is a problem, with a finite
number of erasures per bit before failure,
just to re-write a single bit you must use
an erasure cycle on all bits within the
same page, wasting time and life span
on bits you don’t want to touch.
HOW 3D XPOINT WORKS
Firstly, 3D Xpoint really is 3D, unlike 3D
NAND or V-NAND as Samsung likes to
call it which is just layers of 2D NAND
stacked on top of each other allowing for
denser packaging. In Xpoint wires form
Optane’s internal structure is a true 3D lattice
50 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au

COMPONENTS REVIEWS
a criss-cross lattice above and below a
bulk material, with the top wires of the
first layer acting as the bottom wires of
the second layer. Increasing capacity can
simply mean adding more layers on top.
The advantage of this criss-cross
wiring pattern is that is allows bit
level access. Activate a wire and the
associated cross wire above or below
to access a single bit of storage. It’s that
simple. This is why Xpoint is proving
to be more than just mass
storage. The simplicity of this
design means the controller
has far less work to do, greatly
reducing response times. With
no transistors required per cell
Xpoint has roughly four times
the density of DRAM, and due to the
bit level access, write amplification is
not an issue and is part of the reason
why Xpoint has endurance ratings
some threefold that of NAND at the
same capacity. All this means Xpoint
sits between DRAM and NAND in
performance and effectively creates a
new tier of storage/memory.
OPTANE, INTEL’S FIRST XPOINT
PRODUCTS
Micron will be bringing Xpoint products
to market soon too but Intel is the
first from the partnership to release
a product line dubbed Optane using
this new technology. There’s only three
products currently; the 375GB Optane
DC P4800X PCIE card which is aimed
solely at big data centres, and two
Optane Memory products of 16GB and
32GB capacities in the M.2 form factor
using two PCIE 3.0 lanes.
Intel isn’t letting tech reviewers get
their hands on the P4800X yet, so we’ll
make do with the consumer grade
Optane Memory 32GB.
OPTANE MEMORY
Much like NAND SSDs in the early years
when capacities were too small to
be effectively used as a drive on their
own, Optane Memory is likewise being
marketed as drive caching devices to
speed up hard drive usage. This didn’t
“ Optane effectively creates a
new tier of storage/memory
performance”
stop us running tests on the Optane
Memory which when not configured as
cache still shows as a normal storage
device, to see what the underlying Xpoint
technology is capable of on its own.
Unfortunately, Optane Memory
caching currently only works with the
latest 200 series Intel motherboards
paired with a 7th gen Core processor. We
also had to update our test lab system’s
BIOS to support Optane. On top of
that the caching only works with the
operating system drive, there’s no ability
to choose which drive it caches.
Setting up Optane Memory as a cache
takes a little while but isn’t difficult.
First make sure your OS drive is in AHCI
mode, boot into Windows and install the
Optane driver. The system restarts, sets
the motherboard storage controller into
a special Intel RST with Optane mode,
then reboots into Windows. Part two
of the setup formats the Optane drive
ready for use, then reboots again. Before
hitting the Windows welcome screen
again Optane shows an enablement
process (doesn’t happen with the
smaller 16GB version). When that’s done
you’re back to the desktop and ready to
get going.
Once activated we started to feel the
caching influence. The Optane cache
requires something to be run or accessed
at least once to train it and start
caching, so after launching programs or
Windows a couple of times the
speedup became noticeable.
The Seagate 10TB hard drive we
paired Optane with exhibited
noticeably less disk thrashing
when booting into Windows
or loading a program. Not SSD
levels of performance but the HDD was
clearly getting a helping hand.
RESULTS
The start-up times graph shows what to
expect when Optane Memory is paired
with a hard drive. Windows booted 22%
quicker, and with Anti-Virus and other
services loading up in the background
after that, Steam wound up auto
launching some 28% faster too. Firefox
with one hundred tabs open took the
same amount of time to load the initial
webpage on start (likely CPU limited)
but waiting for Firefox to stop accessing
the disk afterwards reduced by 14%.
File access and game load times were
impressively reduced too, with Ashes of
the Singularity loading 44% quicker and
waiting for Photoshop to start and load
a 120MB 3D file was reduced by a most
impressive 65%.
Optane Memory caching clearly works
well!
At this stage Optane is being sold as a cache that sits between RAM and a HDD or SSD
www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 51

REVIEWS COMPONENTS
“Optane remains
orders of magnitude
more responsive and
performant”
But how does the underlying Xpoint
perform compared to NAND? Digging
into the graphs, with sequential reads
Optane gets beaten simply because this
product is hampered by only having two
PCIE 3.0 lanes of connectivity versus
the RD400 and 950 Pro’s four lanes.
Sequential writes beat a heavily-used
RD400 drive but gets slaughtered
by a relatively unused 950 Pro drive.
However, over time as the 950 Pro gets
used that stat will decline down to
nearer RD400 levels. Optane won’t.
Once we go to random read/writes
Optane starts to shine. With access
times an order of magnitude faster
than NAND, Optane blasts past the
competition.
NAND is great in straight line read/
writes but once randomness kicks in
(say as the drive gets filled) they slow
down and is why the heavily used RD400
shows some particularly bad write
results compared to a near-fresh 950
Pro.
To illustrate this point, while
duplicating over 14GB of 750,000 tiny
files back onto each drive (so the drive
is reading and writing already when
the benchmark is run again), Optane
remains orders of magnitude more
responsive (ms) and performant
(MB/s). Optane can multitask
where NAND fears to tread.
As a first product, the
underlying 3D Xpoint tech
is clearly already showing
advantages over NAND.
CONCLUSIONS
So Optane Memory caching works
well in making a HDD based PCs more
responsive. However, there are some
issues worth mentioning. The Optane
driver cannot be uninstalled. Optane can
be disabled afterwards but switching
your storage controller back to AHCI
causes Windows to not boot.
While Optane caching was enabled
we noticed the other NVME M.2 drive
plugged into the system didn’t show as
a device until the controller was reset to
AHCI again.
Every third boot or so caused
the Optane drive to go through an
“enablement” cycle before getting to
Windows, adding another two minutes
to the boot time, something the 16GB
model apparently doesn’t suffer from.
Finally, disabling Optane caching
took some thirty minutes waiting for the
drivers to finish the process.
Optane Memory works, but with
all these negatives it’s very hard to
recommend its use. For laptops it’ll be
great, paired with a HDD to get higher
storage capacity and a more responsive
system instead of a highly expensive high
capacity NAND SSD. Low end desktops
where money is of concern may also
find Optane plus a HDD to be a good
compromise.
Outside of those situations it seems
best to wait until larger Optane drives
come and can be used as regular
drives or the software integration gets
better. For now, Optane Memory is very
promising but this implementation of it is
somewhat disappointing.
KEY SPECS
$129 • www.mwave.com.au
32GB 8 M.2 • 2x 3.0 PCIE connectivity
OVERALL
0 1 2 3 4 5

LAPTOPS & PCS REVIEWS
HP
Pavilion
Wave
600-a051a
LOOKS GOOD FROM AFAR,
BUT IS FAR FROM GOOD
I
f there’s another segment almost as
popular as ultraportable convertibles,
it’s mini-PCs. Both have been driven
forth by the ever decreasing amount
of power required by today’s CPUs, not
to mention SSDs as small as a row of
stamps. One of the more intriguing mini-
PCs to cross our desk lately is the HP
Pavilion Wave.
The most interesting facet is the
custom-case. It’s covered in ‘Audio fabric’,
which makes it look more like a speaker
than a PC. It’s also darned small, with
a height of just 25.9cm, and a width of
16.8cm. To be honest, it’s the sexiest,
least-PC looking mini-computer we’ve
ever seen. If only it wasn’t so damn slow…
But before we get into the woeful
performance, let’s take a closer look
at that extraordinary design, which HP
refers to as the ‘Tesla’ design. Thankfully
HP has included a wireless mouse and
keyboard with the PC, as the number of
USB ports isn’t exactly prolific. There are
twin USB 2.0, a single USB 3.0, and finally
a USB 3.1 Type C on the rear of the case,
along with a single USB 3.0 Type A on the
front. There’s also a HP 3-in1 card reader.
Tucked away at the rear are the video
outputs as well, with a single HDMI and
DisplayPort, though there’s no mention
whether they can handle 4K at 60Hz.
We tried watching several Sony sample
4K videos, and the framerate hovered
around 10fps. It’s no surprise really, given
that they’re the visuals are powered by
a rather lowly AMD R9 M470 with just
2GB of dedicated memory. It’s also most
definitely not up to the task of playing
anything more demanding than Solitaire.
Making matters worse, we couldn’t even
run 3DMark, as the machine would crash
every time, even after updating the AMD
and HP drivers.
The entire chassis operates as a
speaker, with sound pumped out from
the top vent. It use’s Bang and Olufsen
‘Play’ internal speakers, and they’re not
too shabby. The lack of subwoofer means
it won’t be rattling any desks, but for
integrated speakers they do a decent
job. The 1x1 Wi-Fi antennae/receiver is a
little disappointing, given that 2x2 is the
standard these days, but there’s also
a Gigabit Ethernet port on the rear to
ensure fast file transfers.
Given the interior capacity is so
small, it’s no surprise that this unit isn’t
upgradable. So you’re stuck with what
your $999 gets you, which to be frank
isn’t a whole lot. Intel’s Core i5 6400T is
the beating heart of the system, though
it’s more of a struggling pump than a
healthy source of power. This chip design
is almost two years old, though it is
thankfully a quad-core design (there’s no
HyperThreading though). The main issue
is its frequency, with a base of 2.2GHz and
a Turbo of just 2.8GHz. HP has endowed
this with a mere 8GB of DDR4-2133MHz
memory, but where things really slow
down is the hard drive. Rather than go
with the super-speed, ultra-small SSDs
that are now commonplace in mini-PCs,
HP has favoured quantity over quality.
The Seagate ST2000DM001 2TB
Barracuda Desktop drive is a scary
throwback to the days before SSDs. Using
the Wave is like going back in time three
years, where it would take more than a
few seconds to open even the simplest
of applications. We’re positive that
upgrading this to a snazzy NVMe would
improve the speed of this unit no end, but
alas instead you’ll spend most of your
time admiring this machine’s stunning
good looks as you patiently wait for it to
do the simplest of tasks.
One of PC & Tech Authority’s sister
magazines, Hyper, recently showed
that it’s possible to build a mini-PC that
it at least five times faster than Wave
for a cost that is just 40% more. What
you’re paying for with the Wave is the
immensely beautiful Tesla chassis… and
that’s about it. We’re sorry, but when
performance is this bad, we simply can’t
recommend it, no matter how damn good
it looks. Although, we do look forward to
seeing what savvy modders will be able
to build inside such a unique case once
they gut it…
Bennett Ring
KEY SPECS
$999 • www.hp.com
Intel Core i5 6400T (quad-core, Turbo 2.8GHz) • 8GB DDR4-
2133MHz • AMD R9 M470 w/ 2GB GDDR5 GPU
OVERALL
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“The chassis has been
machined entirely from
aluminium, and feels
extremely well built”
Gigabyte Aero 15
A FULL-METAL POWERHOUSE
U
nlike other manufacturers who are
making a beeline for ultraportable
13 and 15-inch laptops, the new
Aero 15 from Gigabyte is focusing more
on high-end performance at the cost
of slightly less mobility. That’s not to
say that it’s behemoth; it’s still just 2.1kg
and has a footprint of a 14-inch laptop,
despite the larger 15.6-inch display,
largely thanks to the tiny 5mm bezel.
However, it’s definitely got more grunt
than we’re accustomed to in this form
factor, even including a discrete GPU for
gaming.
We were rather surprised to see
that the display is a mere 1920 x 1080
resolution, as it looks almost as crisp as
some of the 4k displays we’ve seen in
this size. It’s certified with X-Rite Pantone
certification, ensuring that what you see
on screen is what’s going to be printed,
making this machine especially suitable
for image designers and graphics workers.
You’ll get good glances in the next boardroom
meeting when you roll this funky unit out
A 4K option will be available later in the
year, which will likely see a sizable jump
in price.
The chassis has been machined entirely
from aluminium, and feels extremely
well built, with absolutely zero keyboard
flex. If you’re feeling a little showy, there’s
a bright orange option available; we’re
quite happy to stick to the subtle black.
Each key has its own RGB backlight, but
we did find the resistance a little heavy
for our liking. The touchpad is also a little
iffy – sometimes it worked absolutely
beautifully, other times it would skim and
flick all over the place. It also didn’t seem
to recognise basic Windows gestures,
such as window scrolling. The keyboard
supports macro recording, though there
are no dedicated macro keys; thankfully
there is a full numpad.
Gigabyte has equipped the Aero 15
with a solid range of connection options.
On the right resides twin USB 3.0 Type A
along with a single USB 3.1/Thunderbolt
3 Type-C connection. There’s also an SD
card reader on this side. Heading to the
left reveals a single USB 3.0
Type A connection, along with
Ethernet, HDMI 2.0, Mini Display-
Port and a combo headphone/
mic 3.5mm minijack. It’s nice to see
a machine this small with Ethernet,
as it seems to be a dying feature as
laptops become too thin for
its dimensions. Integrated
802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
v4.2 are included for wireless
connectivity. We’re a little surprised
at the placement of the cameras, which
are at the bottom of the screen, so during
voice chats you won’t be making eye
contact with your correspondents.
On to the hardware within, which
is where the Aero 15 really takes off.
Powering it all is Intel’s all-consuming
i7-7700HQ CPU, a quad-cored,
HyperThreaded beast that hits 3.8GHz
when necessary. This has been paired
with 16GB of DDR4-2400MHz, while
storage is delivered via a sizeable
Samsung 512GB M.2 SSD with NVMe
support. However, we should point out
that only 461GB of this is usable, and
there’s no secondary drive included with
this model.
Rounding out the powerful hardware
is Nvidia’s excellent GeForce GTX 1060
GPU, which is adequate for a screen of
this resolution. The overall high-level of
interior specs goes a long way to explain
the rather hefty price tag; it’s possible
to get similar sized machines at more
affordable prices, but they won’t have
such a healthy spread of high-end specs.
As our benchmarks show, they combine
to deliver a powerful machine, with
surprisingly lengthy battery life.
We just wish the keyboard and
touchpad were a little more fingerfriendly.
Given how often you’ll be using
the keyboard in particular, the fact it’s so
stiff will give your hands a good workout
whenever you use it.
Bennett Ring
BENCHMARKS (1080 ULTRA DETAIL) MINIMUM AVERAGE
SHADOW OF MORDOOR
GRID AUTOSPORT
0 20 40 60 80 100
PCMark 8 Home accelerated: 217 minutes
3DMark Cloud Gate: 25380
3DMark Fire Strike: 9647
KEY SPECS
$2,899 • www.gigabyte.com.au
15.6-inch 1920 x 1080 Wide Angle Panel • Intel 7th
Generation Core it-7700HQ (quad-cored, HyperThreaded,
3.8GHz Turbo) • 16GB DDR4-2400; 512GB Samsung M.2
NVMe SSD
OVERALL
66FPS
74FPS
90FPS
99FPS
0 1 2 3 4 5
54 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au

LAPTOPS & PCS REVIEWS
Asus
VivoMini
VC66R
SMALL FORM FACTOR;
OVERSIZED PRICE TAG
W
elcome to Asus’ upgrade to its
prior prosumer mini-PC, the
VC65R. It’s slightly larger than
your everyday NUC style PC, but Asus
has upgraded nearly every component
within. The result is a powerful media
box, but one that comes with a price tag
that is hard to swallow.
The interior of the chassis is two litres,
and squeezes in a standard Mini-STX
motherboard based on the Intel H170
chipset. It’s small enough to fit onto the
back of most displays using the included
VESA mounting kit, though it is 74.1mm
deep, which will push your display
further out from the wall.
Asus is really pushing this as a 4K
playback media device, and we found it
played back 4K video files effortlessly.
This is thanks to the Intel 7th Gen
Core i5-7400 within, which features
hardware acceleration thanks to the
Intel HD Graphics 630 iGPU and media
acceleration engine (note that this
can up or downgraded at the time of
purchase). This CPU can handle both
VP9 and HEVC 10-bit acceleration,
which is what makes it such a potent 4K
playback device. Despite having a mere
65W TDP, it’s a quad core chip that can
Turbo all the way up to 3.5GHz. Asus
claims that under normal operating
modes it’ll only use around 19W of
power, which probably explains why it’s
so quiet, hitting a mere 19dB of fan noise
when idling.
It’s possible to install up to three
different hard drives inside the chassis,
though our version only had a single
Despite its small size there’s no shortage of ports
256GB Hynix SSD. With
one M.2 drive in place, there’s
room for two more 2.5 inch drives,
or a single 2.5-inch drive and ultra-slim
optical drive. Putting a Blu-ray drive in
would make this a very capable media
box indeed; it’s just a shame there aren’t
any Ultra-slim Ultra HD Blu-ray players
on the market yet, which would make
this an all-rounder 4K playback box.
Thanks to the H170 motherboard, the
drives can be connected in RAID 0,1,5
or 10 modes, which would make this a
rather powerful – albeit expensive –
NAS solution.
A mere 8GB of DDR4-2400MHz of
memory was included in our review
sample, but this can be upgraded to
32GB. Just bear in mind that it’ll have
to be of the SO-DIMM form factor due
to the small size of the memory slots.
Intel’s integrated 802.11ac Wi-Fi 8260
chipset is included, which is a dual band
solution using 2x2 antennae, which also
delivers Bluetooth 4.1.
Up to three displays can be
connected simultaneously to the
VC66R thanks to the four different video
outputs – DVI-D, HDMI, DisplayPort
and VGA. Unfortunately we weren’t
able to connect up three monitors
simultaneously, but it’s highly doubtful
the Intel iGPU would be able to run
three independent 4K streams. As far
as USB options go, there’s plenty here
– two USB 3.0 Type-A on the rear, plus
another three on the front, though only
two of those are USB 3.0, one of which is
Type-C.
“Putting a Blu-ray drive
in would make this a
very capable media box
indeed”
Overall this is a very versatile mini-PC,
able to operate as a standard desktop
PC, media player or point of sale system.
However, it does so at a very high price
point when compared to the likes of
Gigabyte’s Brix systems or even Intel’s
NUC range, though these don’t include
storage or memory. We appreciate just
how much Asus has managed to fit
into such a small form factor, it’s just a
pity that the price is far too high for the
hardware within.
Bennett Ring
KEY SPECS
$1,259 • www.asus.com.au
Intel 7th Gen Core i5-7400 (quad-core, 3.5GHz Turbo) • 8GB
DDR4 memory • 177.4 x 153 x 74.1 mm (WxDxH)
BENCHMARKS
PCMark 8 Home accelerated: 3788
3DMark Cloud Gate: 6841
OVERALL
0 1 2 3 4 5
www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 55

Netgear
Nighthawk X10
AD7200 WiFi
Router D8500
A PREMIUM PRODUCT WITH A PRICE TO MATCH
T
he Nighthawk X10 WiFi router is by
far and away the most technically
advanced home Wi-Fi router I’ve
had the pleasure of testing, with a futureproof
feature set and capabilities normally
reserved for enterprise-grade equipment.
Let’s start with the design. This is a
behemoth of a router, with piano black
panels and a grilled façade that lets you
see the cooling fan within. This thing looks
reminiscent of a high-end graphics card
with four antennas attached to it.
Those antennas – although nonremovable
– all have subtle blue LED edge
lighting, further adding to the router’s
space age sensibilities. These LEDs can
be switched off with a toggle switch at
the back, should you not want an ambient
blue glow in the room.
On the left are two USB 3.0 ports for
plugging in storage or printers. If you
choose to use the router as a Plex server,
you’ll need one of those ports to install the
app on a USB stick or similar.
Around the back are six Gigabit Ethernet
ports, with ports 1 and 2 serving as
aggregation ports. This is great if you have
a NAS or a network switch that can take
advantage of the technology, feeding the
network even more throughput than is
usually possible with a single LAN port.
For real speed-hungry users, a bit of
enterprise-grade technology has made its
way to the Nighthawk X10 in the form of
a 10Gbps SFP+ port. This is the first time
this connection has made its way into the
home networking world.
If you’ve got the equipment to use it,
such as a high-end NAS, then you’ll have
absolutely no issues pushing content
through at speed. For 95 percent of the
home user population, however, it’ll
probably just sit there unused.
Which leads me nicely into the X10’s
wireless capabilities. Wireless N and AC
are available, as you’d expect, and both
provide solid – if not spectacular – speeds.
Using quad-stream (4x4) and MU-
MIMO, the router is more than capable of
servicing multiple connections to multiple
devices at multiple speeds with aplomb.
I ran Netflix on a 12in iPad Pro, a Google
Pixel XL streaming Stan, and Samsung
Galaxy S7 streaming Extreme quality
tracks on Spotify all on the 5GHz network,
and all started and played without a
hitch. Pretty impressive considering I’m
encumbered with an ADSL2+ home
internet connection that tops out at
14Mbps.
Wireless-N connectivity was also OK,
with reliable connectivity achieved from
one end of my three-bedroom house to
the other, through several walls and a
kitchen – an area notoriously difficult for
Wi-Fi signals to penetrate in any home.
One thing its wireless-N wasn’t though
was fast – if you’re looking for speed,
you’re best jumping onto one of the higherfrequency
bands.
Speaking of which, the X10’s party
trick is the inclusion of 802.11ad, which
promises theoretical throughput speeds
of 4600Mbps on the 60GHz network. This
would be just the thing to complement a
dual-Gigabit or 10Gbps-connected NAS
for streaming 4K content to a Wireless-AD
capable device. Sadly, there is a catch,
and it comes in the form of the laws of
physics. You see, when it comes to radio
frequencies, you can have long-range or
you can have high-throughput, but not
both. This is already evident when you
compare wireless-N and wireless-AC.
Wireless-N is a lower frequency, which
makes it more capable of penetrating
through walls and giving you greater range.
Wireless-AC, at more than double the
frequency of wireless-N, gives you much
higher throughput but sacrifices range.
Wireless-AD operates at a frequency
five times that of wireless-AC, so as you’d
expect, throughput is blisteringly fast
when you’re up close and personal with
the router. However, walk several metres
away from the X10, and your connection
drops off severely. Move into the next
room, and connectivity is just about
non-existent. This technology then is
purely reserved for same-room network
connectivity. When smart TVs and digital
hubs eventually start adopting wireless-
AD componentry, you’ll be one step closer
to 4K video streaming nirvana.
Sadly, wireless-AD capable devices
are few and far between at this stage.
What’s worse, 802.11ad is not backwardscompatible
like its predecessor 802.11ac,
but the recently announced 802.11ax by
Qualcomm will be, and that standard
promises not only multi-Gigabit
connectivity but energy efficiency as well.
So where does this leave the Nighthawk
X10? If you have to be on the absolute
bleeding edge of home networking
technology – and have the latest and
greatest high-end equipment to go with
it – then it’s a great buy. If you want to
future-proof your home Wi-Fi, then
the X10 will gladly step up to the plate
and knock it out of the park – provided
802.11ad becomes widely adopted.
However, $799 is a lot to ask for
functionality you either won’t use
or can’t use yet, making it a difficult
recommendation for anyone except the
earliest of early adopters.
Peter Gutierrez
KEY SPECS
$799 • www.netgear.com.au
Quad-core 1.7GHz processor • 7 x Gigabit Ethernet ports (1 x
WAN, 6 x LAN w. dual Gigabit aggregation), 1 x SFP+
10Gbps port • Triband (1 x 2.4GHz @ 800Mbps, 1 x 5GHz @
1733Mbps, 1 x 60GHz @ 4600Mbps)
OVERALL
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56 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au

PERIPHERALS REVIEWS
Netgear Nighthawk
X8 AC5300 VDSL/
ADSL Modem Router
D8500
ONE OF THE BEST MODEM ROUTERS
WE HAVE EVER TESTED
etgear’s Nighthawk range of
wireless routers have been among
N the most technically advanced –
and expensive – routers for power users,
and the Nighthawk X8 AC5300 VDSL/
ADSL Modem Router continues this proud
tradition.
While the design is a little more
subdued that its wedge-shaped
predecessor, the Nighthawk X8 is
nonetheless a fetching bit of kit, with an
undulating ventilation grid on the top, a
column of white LEDs to signal internet
connectivity, Wi-Fi channel status and
Ethernet connectivity, and three buttons
on the front to enable/disable the LEDs,
WPS and Wi-Fi, respectively.
Speaking of LEDs, the four external
antennas possess their own blue LEDs
that circle the tips. While dismissing
them as a design touch at first, I came to
appreciate them for signifying the status
of the Wi-Fi at a glance, saving me an
arduous walk across the living room.
These external antennas have builtin
amplifiers for the 2.4GHz and 5GHz
networks, and complement the four
internal 5GHz antennas nicely.
USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports lie
underneath a panel on the right side,
enabling connectivity to printers, USB
storage, and the like. If you download
Netgear’s ReadySHARE Vault app, you
can also turn the Nighthawk X8 into a file
server and back up your connected PCs to
any attached storage.
This router is definitely for bandwidthhungry
households, with theoretical
Gigabit throughput for the wireless-N
channel and 2.166 Gbps for each of the
wireless-AC ones. Furthermore, the
two 5GHz bands can be combined into
a single 5GHz connection, providing as
much bandwidth as you could possibly
ask for (as long as you don’t stray too far
away).
MU-MIMO and beamforming tech
come part and parcel with the router,
and using tricky software smarts, is able
to load-balance slower network devices
on one 5GHz channel, leaving the other
one for the gamers and streamers on the
network.
Setup on my ADSL2+ connection was a
relatively quick and painless experience,
and I was up and running in short order.
That the wizard encourages first-time
users to change the router’s password as
part of its process was a welcome sight.
Performance was, as you’d expect,
blisteringly fast. While simultaneously
streaming HD Netflix and Stan to a Google
Pixel XL and a 12in iPad Pro respectively,
streaming Spotify at Extreme quality to a
Galaxy S7, and watching 1440p YouTube
videos on an Ethernet-connected desktop
PC, the Nighthawk X8 chugged along with
nary a stutter, serving all devices with
aplomb. Wireless range was impressive
too. While the dual 5GHz channels
predictably dropped off somewhat after
moving a few rooms away, the 2.4GHz
channel covered my entire three bedroom
house and backyard with ease, even
reaching my neighbour’s house 30 metres
across the road.
$699 may seem like an eye-watering
amount for an ADSL modem router, but
if you want a no-compromise device that
will serve you well both now and into the
future, the Nighthawk X8 is one of the
very best.
Peter Gutierrez
KEY SPECS
$699 • www.netgear.com.au
Dual-core 1.4GHz processor • 7 x Gigabit Ethernet ports (1 x
WAN, 6 x LAN w. dual Gigabit aggregation) • Triband (1 x
2.4GHz @ 1000Mbps and 2 x 5GHz @ 2166Mbps each)
OVERALL
0 1 2 3 4 5
0 1 2 3 4 5

REVIEWS LAPTOPS & PCS
Pioneer Computers
Dreamvision 32”
Gaming PC 7X
AN AIO THAT PROMISES REAL GAMING PERFORMANCE
T
here was a time when only Apple
could build a decent All-in-One,
but those days are well and truly
over. The miniaturisation of components
for laptops has meant we can now have
Windows-based AIOs that don’t overheat,
aren’t ridiculously fat, or insanely priced.
This 32-incher from Pioneer shows how far
AIOs have come in recent years, but also
highlights a few issues that they still need
to work on.
The large 32-inch screen means this is
the perfect size for your office desktop or
even bedside table, but we should point
out just how fat it is. It’s approximately
15cm deep, so mounting it on a wall isn’t
possible, especially as the venting system
would be blocked. Given the large number
of vents on the rear, it’s not surprising to
see that this machine is basically silent
during our gaming tests, but there is one
bug-bear – there’s a high-pitched whine
that comes from within. We’re not sure if
it’s from a fan or coil noise, but it’s always
noticeable.
The large size of the screen is
appreciated, but it’s rather low resolution,
at just 1920 x 1080, making the pixel
structure extremely obvious. We’d have
much preferred a higher resolution for a
few hundred dollars more. At least it’s
IPS though, so the colour, clarity and
viewing angle are all very respectable.
Unfortunately there’s no way to change
the angle of the screen, as the two feet
it’s mounted on aren’t flexible at all. One
feature that would have really doubled the
versatility of the screen is a TV tuner, but
unfortunately there isn’t one included. It’s
a strange oversight as many AIOs include
this feature, though there’s always the
option of buying a USB tuner.
Unfortunately most of the USB ports
are hard to reach though. They’re on the
bottom, which means you have to lift it
up every time you want to plug something
in, along with the video outputs. There’s
four USB 3.0 Type-A, Ethernet, three
3.5mm minijacks for twin speakers and
a microphone, DVI-I, VGA and two old
school keyboard/mouse connections.
Thankfully there are two more USB 3.0
Type-A connections on the front along
with two more 3.5mm minijacks, but
there’s no sign of any USB 3.1 Type-C/
Thunderbolt 3 connection. A two megapixel
camera is included, but it’s on the
bottom, so when used in a normal desktop
setup your viewer will see your chest and
neck; there’s no way to change the angle.
Packed away inside the large plastic
boxes on the rear is a decently specced
up PC. Intel’s Core i5-7600 four cores
boost all the way up to 4.1GHz under load,
while a decent amount of DDR4 memory
is included, at 16GB. An Asus Prime H270
Plus motherboard is included; at this
price we’d have preferred a Z270 based
motherboard, but in reality there’s no
performance difference, just fewer PCIe
lanes. A hefty 512GB Intel 600p Series M.2
SSD is included, which supports NVMe
though only 476GB of the space is usable.
This is backed up by a mechanical WD 1TB
HDD. Rounding out the technical goodies
is an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 with 6GB
of dedicated memory.
As a result, this machine turned out
some decent results in our benchmarks.
However, it’s worth considering that it
costs close to three grand – it’s possible to
build a machine twice as fast for the same
price, but it won’t be an All-in-One. There’s
also the issue of the low resolution display
and lack of TV tuner. Yet as far as AIO’s go,
Pioneer has delivered a solid overall build.
Bennett Ring
BENCHMARKS (1080 ULTRA DETAIL) MINIMUM AVERAGE
SHADOW OF MORDOOR
GRID AUTOSPORT
0 30 60 90 120 150
PCMark 8 Home accelerated: 10588
3DMark Fire Strike: 10588
3DMark Fire Strike Extreme: 5774
KEY SPECS
$2,680 • www.pioneercomputers.com.au
32-inch IPS panel • Intel Core i5-7600 (quad-cores, 4.1GHz
Turbo) • 16GB DDR4 • 512GB Intel M.2 NVMe SSD; 1TB WD
HDD.
OVERALL
64FPS
95FPS
95FPS
126FPS
0 1 2 3 4 5
58 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au

LAPTOPS & PCS REVIEWS
Asus FX553VD
NOT YOUR AVERAGE 15 INCHER
F
rom the exterior, and the price point,
this looks like a rather standard
productivity focused 15.6-inch
based laptop. However, dig a little deeper
and you’ll see that Asus has endowed
this with some gaming prowess, despite
it looking or costing nothing like your
normal gaming laptop. If you just want
a super-portable mobile laptop or
convertible, this is not for you – but if you
want something that is happy to run Excel
during the day and Overwatch at night, it’s
actually a rather interesting proposition.
From the exterior, this looks like a
relatively mid-range office productivity
laptop. There are a few orange highlights
that suggest it’s a bit more than that,
but overall it doesn’t scream ‘Gamermachine’
during your weekly meeting with
the boss. That price might give it away a
little though; if there wasn’t some kind of
discrete gaming GPU within, you could
easily pick up a competing model for
$500 less. From what we can tell – and
it’s getting harder and harder to tell every
day due to various coatings – the entire
chassis is made from a plastic exterior.
Weighing in at 2.5kg with battery in place,
it’s also rather heavy compared to the
ultra-light weights we’ve seen in this form
factor of late.
The consolation for this is some rather
beefy hardware within. The 15.6-inch IPS
screen is a basic 1920 x 1080 model, and
we really do mean average. Compared
to other laptops in this price range, the
colour quality and clarity of the screen is
rather lacking. However, the darling of the
laptop world is powering this machine,
Intel’s 7th Generation Core i7-7700HQ
CPU. With quad HyperThreaded cores
that boost up to 3.8GHz, this machine
has CPU cycles in spades. It’ll cut
through anything you throw at it without
a problem, a fact helped by the chunky
16GB of DDR4 memory feeding it data at
high speed.
Unfortunately the main OS SSD is
rather lacking. At just 128GB, with only
118GB of that usable, you’ll be filling this
M.2 SSD quicker than you can click on
installing the Adobe suite installation
button. We had to mount most of our
benchmarks on the secondary drive, a 1TB
mechanical drive, as it kept spitting up an
error that there just wasn’t enough space,
despite there being a healthy 75GB of free
space on the main SSD; we’re guessing a
BIOS update will fix this bug in the
future.
Making this a somewhat decent
gaming machine is the inclusion
of Nvidia’s entry-level GeForce
GTX 1050 GPU. As our
benchmarks show, it’s
doesn’t really have the chops
to play today’s latest games at
Ultra detail, though it’s fine If you’re
more of a casual gamer. Still, at this
price it seems a little underpowered;
a GeForce GTX 1060 would have
delivered massively improved
performance. At least it’s not
too noisy, hitting the 50dB fan
noise that seems to be the basis
for all of the new Nvidia mobile GPUs.
Unfortunately battery life was pretty
abysmal, hitting just 129 minutes in our
PCMark 8 Home Accelerated battery test.
If you’re expecting full-day performance
from this machine, we’d suggest that
you’re going to be disappointed.
As far as other features go, things
are pretty much par for the course.
The inclusion of a Blu-ray drive is
interesting, but comes at the cost of USB
connectivity. There are just two USB 3.0
and a single USB 2.0 Type A connection,
along with a single USB 3.1 Type C
connection. There’s also HDMI out and an
Ethernet in, but that’s about it.
Asus has tried to deliver a rather unique
machine; with a business form factor but
the inclusion of a GeForce GTX 1050 to
give it a little gaming grunt. However, for
the price we think you’re better off with
something like an Alienware with external
GPU accelerator, which will deliver a
much more portable office machine, with
real gaming performance when you get
home.
Bennett Ring
BENCHMARKS (1080 ULTRA DETAIL) MINIMUM AVERAGE
SHADOW OF MORDOOR
GRID AUTOSPORT
0 20 40 60 80 100
PCMark 8 Home accelerated: 129 minutes
PCMark 8 Home accelerated: 4113
3DMark Fire Strike: 5426
KEY SPECS
$1,999 • www.asus.com.au
15.6-inch IPS panel • Intel’s 7th Generation Core i7-7700HQ
CPU (quad-core, HyperThreaded, 3.8GHz Turbo) • 16GB
DDR4 • Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050
OVERALL
30FPS
43FPS
68FPS
81FPS
0 1 2 3 4 5
www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 59

REVIEWS PERIPHERALS
Netgear S8000 Switch
NOT YOUR NORMAL SPLITTER
A
switch, is a switch, is a switch.
These boring beige boxes
generally do one thing, and
one thing only – split a single Ethernet
connection into multiple Ethernet
connections. There’s been basically zero
innovation of the field of these devices
for many years, but Netgear is trying
to change that with the S8000. Rather
than a box that equally distributes your
bandwidth amongst all of the connected
devices, they’ve endowed it with Quality of
Service (QoS) features to ensure that your
most important traffic gets through first.
But does it actually make a difference?
Considering most routers these days
already have QoS built into them, the
S8000 isn’t really necessary unless you’ve
got a multitude of Ethernet connected
devices. It’s an 8-port switch; so you’ll be
able to hook up seven discrete devices,
as one of the ports will be used for your
input connection. Even just looking at the
design of this device shows that Netgear
is trying to do something different. Where
most switches are a simple little box,
Netgear has instead gone for the styling of
a stealth fighter. It’s surprisingly heavy as
well; where most switches are built from
basic plastic, Netgear has gone for a full
metal jacket on this product.
Unlike most switches, this one includes
software to control the various settings
that are included. We have to say that it’s
not the most intuitive interface around;
most network novices won’t understand
the terms that it bandies about, such as
flow control, IGMPv3 IP header support or
multicasting. It’d be nice if the interface
explained each of these terms in detail.
However, it does make it simple to assign
priorities to certain ports for gaming or
media use. The Gaming pre-set mode
allows the first port to be given the fastest
access for gaming, while the Media
Streaming option enables the second
port to prioritise media streaming. But to
configure the remaining five ports (port
8 is used as the uplink port to your main
Internet connection), you’re going to
have to dig deeper into the configuration
options, where things get a little more
complex.
This software can also be accessed
via a Smartphone app, but digging into
the more advanced options is far more
complicated than necessary. For example,
to give a certain port a boost in the priority
list is not easy to figure out how to do at
all. Apparently the built-in QoS support
should do this automatically, but it’d be
The included app sets it apart from most switches,
allowing each port to be assigned a priority
nice to be able to assign priority manually
to each port, so that you can be sure you’re
main PC is getting priority, while other
devices are secondary. To do so you’ll need
to dig into the Prioritisation menu, where
you’re asked whether or not you’d like to
use 802.1P/DSCP mode, or do it manually.
Like we said, the terminology in use here is
well above what most home users will be
comfortable with. If you know what you’re
doing though, it’s possible to limit the
bandwidth per port, which means Mum
and Dad can hog 90Mbps of their NBN
connection, while leaving the little ones to
survive on a mere 10Mbps.
It’s possible to use Link aggregation to
patch together up to four ports to deliver
4Gbps of bandwidth to a certain device,
which will come in handy with other
devices that feature multiple Ethernet
connections, such as Netgear’s very own
ReadyNAS devices. There’s also a test
feature that allows you to see if there are
any issues with your cabling, which is most
handy indeed – we would have saved
many hours not having to disconnect every
device just to find a faulty cable.
As expected, speeds are bang on for a
Gigabit Switch. Yet for most home users
it’s probably total overkill, as their router
undoubtedly has QoS already built in.
On the other hand, if you’re managing a
small office and need to precisely control
the bandwidth available to each device,
the $100 jump in price over a basic 8-port
switch might just be worth it.
Bennett Ring
KEY SPECS
$149 • www.netgear.com
8-port switch • integrated QoS features • manual port
speed control • Link aggregation up to four ports
OVERALL
0 1 2 3 4 5
60 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au

WEARABLES REVIEWS
“we think the Rift may
end up being the
superior of the two
products (HTC Vive)”
Oculus Touch
OCULUS IS BACK ON EQUAL FOOTING
W
hen the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift
arrived, PCTA was lucky enough
to be one of the first magazines
in Australia to receive review samples.
After a week of testing we came to the
conclusion that the Rift was the superior
HMD, while the Vive was the superior
overall package, and it came down to one
reason – the lack of motion controls for
the Rift. Instead we had to make do with a
crummy Xbox controller, and it really took
away half of the VR equation. Well, we’re
pleased to finally see Oculus’ motion
solution arrive in the form of the Touch
controller. The million dollar question is
whether it brings the Rift platform up to
the same level as the Vive?
We expected Touch to cost around
US$299, so the release price of a mere
US$99 is simply astonishingly good value.
For this you get two touch controllers and
a second tracking camera, identical to the
first. Now that your Rift has two cameras,
Oculus suggests setting up a camera on
each side of your display, but we found
this to be a terrible suggestion. The
problem is that unless your display is right
at the front of your desk, your desktop will
occlude tracking below desk level, which
is a huge problem when you’re leaning
down to pick things up.
Thankfully the Rift community are a
savvy bunch, and they’ve come up with a
better solution – mount them the same
way as the Vive’s. That is, diagonally
opposite, at ceiling height, pointing
downwards. This allows much better
coverage, and also enables room-scale
tracking, though it’s not the same size
as the Vive, at around 7 feet diagonal.
However, you can purchase a third
camera (US$79), which will increase
the play size to around 11.6 feet
diagonally.
Oculus really needs to
work on their setup tutorial
for the Touch controllers, as
it’s confusing to say the least.
Once again the community has
saved the day, with third party
software that show exactly
where your controllers are being
tracked, and any problem spots. Like
the Vive, having room-scale tracking
means that the Rift now displays a blue
‘wall’ whenever you approach the edge of
your play space.
In terms of ergonomics, the Touch
are hands-down the winners, no pun
intended. They’re held like pistol grips
instead of the wand-like design of the
Vive controllers, which makes them far
more suitable for pointing at things, and
especially in games involving guns…
which unsurprisingly is a large amount
of titles. There are two triggers on the
main grip, one for your pointing finger,
the other for your middle finger. On top
of each controller are two main buttons,
along with a thumbstick that also clicks
in. Finally there’s a menu/settings button
each controller.
Once we’d spent a few hours finally
getting the tracking to work adequately,
we have to admit that the Oculus tracking
system doesn’t feel quite as accurate
as the Vive. It’s not a night and day
difference, but looking down the sights
of guns or using bows and arrows shows
they’re not quite as on point as the Vive.
They also seemed prone to lose tracking
a little more often, glitching out now and
then. They’re also powered by nonrechargeable
batteries, whereas the Vive
controllers can be plugged into USB and
recharged.
Despite the quirks with losing tracking
and the setup issues, we should take
into account that Vive’s controllers had
issues at first, and they’ve had a year of
extra polish. Give Oculus some time to
iron out the kinks, add a third camera and
we think the Rift may end up being the
superior of the two products, especially
once price is factored into the equation.
Bennett Ring
KEY SPECS
US$99 • www.oculus.com
Kit includes two controllers and camera • IR-based tracking
solution • single triple A battery for each controller.
OVERALL
0 1 2 3 4 5
www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 61

ADVERTORIAL SEAGATE
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Ironwolf health management
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IRONWOLF HEALTH MANAGEMENT IMPROVES
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the ambient temperature.” Or what if
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or “Excessive physical shock to the
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NAS? Wouldn’t it be useful to know, so
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62 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au
IHM FOCUSES ON THREE KEY CAPABILITIES —
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EVERY PRO NAS USER
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Well, no. Logging of drive parameters on
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What Seagate drives support IHM?
IHM is an exclusive feature of Seagate’s
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start sticking to that. These drives have 3x
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they are 24 by 7 and are built with rotation
vibration sensors that handle multi bay
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Will I be able to read and act on the output
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How is IHM different?
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PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE
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© 2017 Seagate Technology LLC. All rights reserved.

POCKET
VALUE
64 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au

SMARTPHONES GROUP TEST
MONEY
SMARTPHONES
WITH FLAGSHIP PHONE PRICES GOING THROUGH THE ROOF, YOU COULD
SAVE HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS BY HUNTING FOR A BETTER DEAL –
WHETHER IT’S AN UP-TO-DATE BUDGET HANDSET THAT PUNCHES ABOVE
ITS WEIGHT, OR A TOP-FLIGHT MODEL FROM YESTERYEAR. WE ROUND UP
THE 11 HANDSETS THAT OFFER HIGH QUALITY AT A LOW PRICE POINT
www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 65

I
t seems almost churlish to complain
that premium smartphones come
with premium prices attached,
especially when they do make an effort
to earn it: to name just a few, there’s the
new Samsung Galaxy S8, with its vast
edge-to-edge display; the incredibly
powerful iPhone 7; and the Google Pixel,
which features the best rear camera on
any handheld.
And yet, for many appealing phones
the costs are hard to stomach. The
iPhone 7? Yours for
$999, minimum.
Google Pixel?
A cool $900 for
the base model.
The Galaxy S8 is
another offender,
starting at $999.
Fortunately, while the top end
of the market is exploding, we’ve
been consistently impressed by a
lot of cheaper phones recently –
specifically, how they deliver the kind
of performance, display quality, battery
life and build quality we’d expect from
devices costing a lot more. For some, like
the OnePlus 3T, this is a conscious design
goal; others, like the Motorola Moto G4,
just happen to be excellent pieces of
hardware.
We therefore wouldn’t hesitate to
recommend a great lower- or mid-range
smartphone over an overpriced flagship,
66 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au
but then, that’s not your only option.
Even with the never-ending churn of the
annual smartphone release cycle, you
can still get older high-end models new
and unwrapped, and the inevitable price
drops that come with their age mean
that it’s possible to find these premium
products at heavily discounted rates.
Therein lies the best thing about
avoiding a smartphone rip-off: you’ve
got a huge amount of choice when it
comes to value handsets. Allow us to
“Many cheaper phones now deliver the kind of
performance, display quality, battery life and build
quality we’d expect from devices costing a lot more”
make things a bit easier with this test
of 12 possible purchase candidates –
we’ve skipped any duff phones and only
included those that are at least very
good, so you can be sure that with any of
them, you’ll be getting a fair deal.
CORE DRAW
If pure performance is what you’re after,
it’s generally better to go with an older
flagship rather than a new budget phone;
they might not be the fastest any more,
but the best processors of 2015 and
2016 can still easily outpace anything
built to sell for peanuts, especially when
it comes to games. For demanding 3D
titles at their best, you’re looking at paying
around $600 and up.
Not that cheaper alternatives are
necessarily slow. Hexa- and even octa-core
processors aren’t uncommon even in the
$300-$400 range, so it’s actually rather hard
to find something that doesn’t stay slick and
responsive throughout everyday multitasking.
Special mention goes to the Apple A9 chip
found within the iPhone SE; don’t be deceived
by the fact that it’s dual-core, as Apple has
somehow optimised it to run so well with iOS
that it’s one of the bestperforming
phones
here.
INCHING FORWARD
It’s important that you
choose a smartphone
with your ideal screen size, as there’s no
single ‘best’ spec here. The 4in iPhone SE is
wonderfully portable but doesn’t offer nearly
as much real estate as, say, the 5.5in Moto
G5, which is arguably better for watching
videos and web browsing but could prove
uncomfortable for small hands.
Otherwise, display quality can be measured
in conveniently objective terms. We test
for how much of the sRGB colour gamut
a screen can cover (ideally, at least 90%),
plus the contrast (higher is better) and peak
brightness. A high brightness (over around
400cd/m 2 ) will make the screen easier to
read when exposed to direct daylight, though
you can get away with a lower figure if you’ll

SMARTPHONES GROUP TEST
and you’ll have to be very careful with
saving music and movies.
SENSOR SENSIBILITY
Perhaps the most common pitfall for
budget smartphones is the quality of the
camera. Many models boast of having
12-megapixel, 13-megapixel or even
16-megapixel rear snappers, but image
“It’s important you choose
a smartphone with your
ideal screen size”
primarily be using your phone indoors.
As for resolution, 1,920x1,080 is
perfectly fine even on larger phablets;
anything higher is nice to have, but it’s
harder to tell the difference on such
small screens compared to Full HD vs
Quad HD monitors. That said, try not
to settle for anything lower unless the
screen is also smaller than average,
as is the case with the Sony Xperia X
Compact.
ELECTRIC BOOGALOO
Battery life is a no-brainer: the longer, the
better. Naturally, a higher milliampere
hour (mAh) count is preferable, but
variables including the processor
power, screen size, and brightness and
frequency of use mean you shouldn’t rely
on hard specs alone.
That’s why we run a benchmark test,
which involves looping a video file with
the screen brightness set to 170cd/m 2
and measuring how long this takes to
run a full battery dry. Most phones fall
around the 12-hour mark, which indicates
the ability to make it through a full day of
normal use on a single charge.
LOST IN SPACE
There was an odd period throughout late
2015 and early 2016 in which smartphone
manufacturers seemingly agreed that
expandable storage wasn’t actually that
important, and that they just wouldn’t
bother with microSD slots – presumably
another ‘brave’ decision along the lines
of the iPhone 7’s missing headphone
jack.
Luckily, sanity has re-asserted itself,
and most handsets these days adhere
to the gold standard of expandable
microSD compatibility. This is good
because onboard storage can fill up
at a surprising rate, particularly if it’s a
relatively low capacity such as 16GB. Our
advice would be to aim for a minimum of
32GB of integrated memory, ideally with
microSD support as a fallback; any lower
THE BEST PHONES FOR…
Got something specific in mind besides all-round quality? These are
the great-value handsets that most effectively fill their niche
…STYLE
Samsung
Galaxy S7
It’s the most
expensive
smartphone in this
group test, but not
only is the Samsung
Galaxy S7 still a
sizable wad of cash
less than the newer
Galaxy S8, it’s also
the most luxurious
model here. From its
glass and aluminium
construction to its
sleek, tapered edges
and gorgeous display
– which is almost
bezel-less on the left
and right edges – the
S7 is a perfect showoff
handset.
It’s not just trading
looks for practicality,
either. That glass – on
both sides – is highly damage-resistant
Corning Gorilla Glass 4, and the handset
meets the IP68 standard for dust- and waterproofing,
so it will survive a dunk in any puddle
or sink.
size is only one aspect, and the ability
to capture fine details and cut down on
visual noise are even more important.
Here, a lot of cheaper devices can
struggle, especially indoors.
We’ll cover each phone’s main camera
in more detail in their respective reviews.
To be fair, there are a few models that
do manage to excel at photography: the
Moto G4 is your best bet at the budget
end, while the LG G4, Nexus 5X and
Samsung Galaxy S7 all impress at higher
price points.
…CUSTOMISATION
Motorola Moto Z Play
The Moto Z Play’s versatility is mainly
derived from its modular design. There
are loads of clip-on attachments
available, from simple expanded batteries
to booming speakers and camera grips
with added optical zoom capability.
One – the Moto Insta-
Share – even turns
the handset into a
projector.
It’s all very
impressive stuff,
although it’s easily
possible to spend
more on these
‘Moto Mods’ than
you did on the
actual phone.
Luckily, you can
still add a personal
touch on the
(relative) cheap with
interchangeable
backplates – these
cost $20 and come
in some unusual
finishes, including
nylon fabric and oak
wood.
www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 67

Apple iPhone SE
WELL BUILT AND WITH A TOP CAMERA AND GREAT BATTERY
LIFE, THE IPHONE SE IS THE BEST 4IN PHONE OUT THERE
inding an affordable iphone is
practically impossible if you stick
F to the main series of handsets.
Even the iPhone 6, which is now two
generations old (having been replaced
by the iPhone 6s and, most recently, the
iPhone 7), goes for about $1,000 SIM-free.
And that’s if you can actually find it new,
among the far more prevalent refurbs.
Hope remains with Apple’s smaller 4in
models. For minimum expense, there’s
the iPhone 5c, which has fallen well below
the $250 mark, albeit at the cost of a
plasticky build and slow performance.
By contrast, the much more up-todate
iPhone SE has nailed pretty much
everything: it’s got the build quality, it’s
got the processing power and it’s got
the camera, all packed into a neat metal
chassis.
What’s more, on the same day we
began work on this group test, Apple
announced that the 16GB and 64GB
storage options would be replaced by
32GB and 128GB models respectively,
addressing our previous criticism that the
cheapest model’s capacity
was too low. All other hardware
remains the same.
Weighing 113g and at 7.6mm
thick, the iPhone SE is exactly
the same size as the old
iPhone 5s, and is compatible
with the same range of cases
and covers. While the SE is
the lightest iPhone currently
available, it’s actually the thickest of the
current crop.
This doesn’t particularly matter, as it
makes the handset easier to grip, and it
means that the camera sits flush with
the rear of the case. Besides, overall the
iPhone SE is comparatively tiny by today’s
standards, slipping easily into any pocket.
DENSITY SLICKER
Moving back to a 4in screen, Apple has
re-used the iPhone 5s’s resolution of
1,136x640. This is one of the lowest-resolution
phones here, not even hitting standard
HD, but the pixel density of 326ppi
actually matches that of the 2015 iPhone
6s, which has a resolution of 1,334x750.
Both phones are definitely sharp enough,
and text looks clear and easy to read.
Image quality isn’t quite as good as
Apple’s pricier iPhones, but the iPhone
SE’s screen performs better than stated:
Apple claims maximum brightness
68 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au
of 500cd/m2 and a
contrast ratio of 800:1,
but we measured it at
577cd/m2 with a contrast
ratio of 892:1. While this
contrast ratio still isn’t
great, its colour accuracy
coverage of 94.6% of
the sRGB colour gamut
goes some way to make
up for it.
Apple has fitted a
12-megapixel camera
into the iPhone SE, the
same as in the iPhone 6s.
It’s a great all-rounder,
ably adapting to most
situations to produce
well-exposed shots with
plenty of detail in them.
The HDR mode captures a particularly
excellent dynamic range, without overprocessing
the final shots.
There’s also a True Tone LED flash,
which measures ambient light then fires
the flash at the same colour temperature,
“The iPhone SE has nailed pretty much
everything: it’s got the build quality,
it’s got the processing power and it’s
got the camera, all packed into a neat
metal chassis”
reducing the tell-tale signs of a regular
flash. You also get all the shooting
modes that the iPhone 6s has, including
panoramic shots and 4K video.
CLOUD A9
Performance is excellent, thanks to the
iPhone SE having the same 1.8GHz A9
processor and 2GB of RAM as the 6s lineup.
In Geekbench, the iPhone SE scored
2,550 in the single-core test – the same
as the iPhone 6s and faster than the 2,115
scored by the Samsung Galaxy S7. In the
multicore test, the S7 takes the lead with
a score of 6,437, but that’s a quad-core
device: the iPhone SE has a dual-core
processor and still scored 4,444.
As with all of Apple’s phones, the slick
combination of the processor, iOS and
Safari makes web browsing a supersmooth
experience: the Peacekeeper
browser benchmark score of 4,761 is one
of the best we’ve seen on a smartphone.
The iPhone SE
absolutely delivers
on battery life, too.
Its 1,624mAh battery
might sound pretty
tiny compared to the
3,000mAh+ batteries
found on Android phones,
but its smaller screen
requires a lot less power.
As a result, it lasted an
incredible 16h 46m at a
brightness of 170cd/m2
in our battery test. This
is just shy of the Galaxy
S7’s run time, and 1h 48m
longer than the iPhone 6s
lasted.
Since launching with
iOS 9.3, the iPhone SE has
been updated all the way up to iOS 10.2
– with 10.3 coming very soon, if it’s not
out already by the time you read this.
This means it’s been able to benefit from
third-party integration for iMessage and
Siri, redesigned Maps and Music apps
and the Memories feature for
sorting images in Photos. Apple
Pay support remains, though
the iPhone SE uses an older
TouchID sensor, which isn’t
quite as fast or error-proof as
on pricier iPhones.
MAKE ROOM
As mentioned, the original 16GB
and 64GB models have been discontinued,
replaced by 32GB ($679) and 128GB
($829) variants. The price bumps are a
shame (bear in mind these are largely the
same phones that launched back in March
2016) but otherwise, that’s fine by us; 16GB
isn’t much space at all, especially with the
lack of expandable storage.
The iPhone SE surpassed our
expectations when it first came out, and
now the minimum storage issue has
been dealt with, it’s become even better.
Really, the only thing it lacks compared
to the iPhone 6s is 3D Touch. For anyone
who still hankers after a powerful 4in
smartphone, it’s an amazing choice.
KEY SPECS
$679 • www.apple.com/au
OVERALL
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SMARTPHONES GROUP TEST
Google Nexus 5X
IT’S OVER A YEAR OLD, BUT THE NEXUS 5X REMAINS A
SUPERB ANDROID HANDSET FOR A REASONABLE PRICE
W
hile we’re fond of the Pixel and
Pixel XL, Google’s most recent
smartphones, they both went
down the ultra-premium route, abandoning
the surprising affordability of the previousgeneration
Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X.
Happily, the latter is still an excellent
choice. It doesn’t make the best first
impression; made of plastic, it looks like a
budget handset, with utterly featureless
side buttons that are so simple as to
appear an afterthought.
It’s great to hold, though. The plastic
finish provides plenty of grip and, at 136g,
it’s among the lightest phones around.
The shape is good too, with the rear panel
neatly meeting the front bezels. The frontfacing
speakers provide better audio than
any tiny port tucked away at the bottom
of some flagship smartphones.
POKE’S ON YOU
Underneath the unassuming exterior
lies a powerful smartphone packed with
features. The circular rear fingerprint
sensor is placed just below the rear
camera, so you may have to adjust your
grip if you’re used to holding your phone
by the edges, but otherwise it’s easily
accessible. Resting your finger on the
sensor switches on and unlocks the phone
almost instantly. It’s accurate too, learning
fingerprints even quicker than the sensors
in Samsung’s flagship phones, and
recognising them more consistently.
There’s also a USB Type-C port. It’s
a little chunkier and feels sturdier than
Micro USB, and the reversible design helps
minimise fiddling. However, USB Type-C
cables still aren’t exactly common, and
Google includes only a Type-C to Type-C
cable in the box. There’s no video output,
and data transfer rates are only at USB2
speeds. Wireless charging has been
dropped, too, but Type-C allows for fast
charging, reaching 50% from flat in just
30 minutes.
A 2,700mAh battery is par for the
course, given this is a pretty slim 7.9mm
handset. In our continuous video playback
test, it lasted 10h 14m. This is one area
where the 5X hasn’t aged well, as many
more recent phones beat this by miles.
Still, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 808
chipset means the Nexus 5X is no slouch.
It consists of two high-performance
Cortex A57 cores running at 1.8GHz, and
four power-efficient Cortex A53 cores
running at 1.44GHz.
A Geekbench
multicore score of
3,489 puts it alongside
the similarly specified
LG G4. It’s not the
best, but in practice
everything is quick
and smooth. It’s well
ahead of the Moto Z
Play’s Snapdragon
625, which scored
only 2,599. In terms of
gaming, it doesn’t run
3D titles as smoothly
as most high-end
smartphones, but
it played our usual
selection of Android
titles without a hitch.
Amidst all that is a decent Full HD
LCD screen. Even at 5.2in across it has
a whopping pixel density of 424ppi
and, despite higher resolutions being
available, there’s no serious advantage
in day-to-day use. In objective tests, the
screen stood up well, covering 94.8% of
the sRGB colour gamut, with 415cd/m2
maximum brightness, a contrast level of
1,309:1 and a black level of 0.32cd/m2.
We’ve seen brighter LCDs at this price,
but the Nexus 5X nails consistency. It
also has a pleasingly flat colour output,
without the boosted and garish shades
seen elsewhere.
In most areas, the Nexus 5X may
be pretty good, but its camera is truly
excellent, coming out on top against
the very capable Samsung Galaxy S6.
Twelve megapixels on a typically sized
1/2.3in sensor sounds unremarkable, but
each pixel is bigger than most, measuring
1.55um. By comparison, the S6 reportedly
has 1.12um pixels on its 16-megapixel
sensor.
The Nexus 5X’s photos were packed
with detail, compared to the more
smoothed off appearance of the Galaxy
S6’s efforts. Outdoors, you can see great
detail in brick walls and a sharper image
overall. Colour balance was spot on, too,
with the camera matching the output of
the S6 almost exactly.
It dealt well with higher-contrast
scenes, eliminating noise from large
areas of colour without removing detail
elsewhere. Colours remained accurate
indoors, with great detail in complex
textures and well-balanced exposures
across our various lighting setups.
“In most areas, the Nexus
5X may be pretty good,
but its camera is truly
excellent”
The Nexus 5X was quick to shoot in
HDR mode, and you can jump straight to
the camera by double-clicking the power
button. Google’s camera app is fine for
basic snapping, but lacks any manual
controls or fancy features.
THE SWEETEST THING
Being a Google device, the Nexus 5X
was among the first smartphones to
be updated to Android 7.0 Nougat. This
adds a good few improvements and
new functions to the already-great
Android 6.0, such as native split-screen
multitasking, bundled notifications and
a Data Saver mode, which can block
background apps from using data.
The Nexus 5X isn’t the best-looking
phone, nor the best designed. It isn’t the
fastest, it doesn’t have the best battery
life and the screen isn’t outstanding. Don’t
be fooled by the lack of standout features,
however – it also has a distinct lack of
weaknesses, and few handsets can claim
the 5X’s comprehensive competence. As
such, it’s a device that’s far greater than
the sum of its parts.
KEY SPECS
$429 • www.google.com.au
OVERALL
0 1 2 3 4 5
www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 69

GROUP TEST SMARTPHONES
LG G4
WITH ITS VIBRANT SCREEN,
VERSATILE CAMERA AND
SURPRISINGLY COMFY LEATHER
REAR, THE LG G4 STILL HOLDS
ITS OWN
A
lthough lg didn’t stick with the g4’s
leather backing for its G5 and G6
handsets, it was still a fantastic
flagship smartphone when it launched
in 2015 – and now that it’s over $600
cheaper than on release, it makes a great
alternative to newer mid-rangers.
Measuring 149x75x8.9mm, it’s not
the slimmest of phones, but the leather
cladding adds a real premium feel. The
same goes for the 5.5in display, which has
a 2,560x1,440 resolution producing a crisp
534ppi. LG’s IPS Quantum panel helps out
here, showing lovely rich, vibrant colours
and eye-searingly bright whites. We
measured peak brightness as 505.66cd/
m2, so colours look just as punchy out in
the sun as they do indoors.
Blacks were deep at 0.27cd/m2, and
the huge contrast ratio of
1,715:1 stands up to 2017
standards. Its sRGB colour
gamut coverage of 96.3%
is also respectable for an
IPS screen, though this does
point to LG overstating the
G4’s capabilities somewhat – it was
supposedly able to reach 98% of the
wider Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI) colour
gamut, which equates to about 120%
sRGB coverage. This, evidently, was not
backed up by our testing.
The G4’s other headline feature is the
16-megapixel camera, which makes it the
first to have a colour spectrum sensor on
the back, which LG says is able to read
and interpret colours in exactly the same
way as your own eyeballs. Indeed, colours
looked very natural in outdoor shots.
ABLE SETTINGS
Manual mode is the star here, though.
This gives you control over white balance,
manual focus, shutter speed and ISO live
onscreen, giving you plenty of flexible
controls to be a little more creative with
your photography. Photo enthusiasts will
also appreciate the ability to save photos
as Raw files.
LG has also included a quick launch
mode, so you can take instant snapshots
without having to unlock the phone first.
It’s certainly very handy, but we wish it
hadn’t been mapped to the rear lower
volume button, as this is possibly one of
the least accessible buttons on the entire
phone, particularly if you’re trying to shoot
70 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au
“The G4 has a colour spectrum sensor,
which LG says is able to interpret colours
in the same way as your own eyeballs”
in landscape mode.
Rather than the Qualcomm Snapdragon
810 favoured by other 2015 flagship
phones, the G4 contains the slightly
slower hexa-core 1.8GHz Snapdragon
808 chip, plus 3GB of RAM. This showed
in our benchmarks: in Geekbench 3,
the multicore result of 2,547 is a long
way behind both old and new high-end
smartphones, from the Galaxy S6 to the
OnePlus 3T. Likewise, the G4’s single-core
result of just 692 has even been surpassed
by budget phones – hardly a ringing
endorsement for something that cost
$929 on its release.
However, benchmarks are only part
of the story, and the G4 feels beautifully
smooth when multitasking with different
apps or browsing media-heavy web
pages. It also coped well with games, as it
ran Hearthstone, Threes! and Alphabear
perfectly well, despite its somewhat
average benchmarking results: it only
produced 921 frames in the offscreen
GFXBench GL Manhattan test, which
equates to 15fps.
SWAP MEET
The G4 has a few more advantages as
well: it actually has removable storage
(microSD support up to 128GB), which
the Galaxy S6 and Nexus 5X neglected to
include, and the battery can be removed
and replaced, something you can’t do
on metal unibody handsets. The G4’s
battery benchmark result of 11h 58m isn’t
amazing when compared to more recent
alternatives, but you could carry around
spares. We can also see the first glimpses
of the LG G5 modularity in the G4’s ability
to take larger, third-party battery packs.
Following an update from Android 5.1,
the G4 currently runs Android 6.0 – 7.0 (or
more likely, 7.1) isn’t expected to roll out on
this older model until later in 2017, which
is a shame. Whatever Android version is
installed, it comes with LG’s UX interface
over the top. Unlike most custom skins,
we quite like this one; its Knock Code
feature offers an effective alternative way
to unlock your smartphone, by tapping out
a specific pattern on the screen, while the
Smart Settings menu can enable things
such as changing the sound profile once
you get home, or automatically opening
Spotify when you plug in headphones.
Meanwhile, Smart Power Saving will
warn you when apps are using too much
power, and create a Smart Notice prompt
to let you shut them down in order to help
save battery. Likewise, the G4 will put the
CPU to sleep when there’s
nothing happening on the
display, helping you squeeze a
few more hours out of it when
the phone is locked.
AGE BEFORE BEAUTY
The G4 may not be as powerful as other
flagship smartphones – especially
those that have been released in the
past two years – but it certainly has a
wealth of features to help it stand out
from the competition. The leather back
is surprisingly elegant, and we definitely
prefer it to the slippery glass of the
Samsung Galaxy range. The G4 camera’s
unique colour spectrum sensor also puts
it neck-and-neck with the camera on the
back of the S6, and its display looks just
as sharp and punchy as Samsung’s Super
AMOLED panels.
It’s also an unusually flexible
smartphone; not to the extent of
modular devices such as the Moto Z
Play (nor indeed its successor, the G5),
but the inclusion of a microSD slot and
a removable battery makes the G4 a
very accommodating handset indeed.
There are many faster and longer-lasting
alternatives, but at less than $300 this is
absolutely worth the cash.
KEY SPECS
$270 • From www.lg.com
OVERALL
0 1 2 3 4 5

Motorola Moto G4
FAST SPEEDS, AN EXCELLENT CAMERA, LONG BATTERY
LIFE – THE MOTO G4 IS A BUDGET MASTERPIECE
W
e’ll get to the newer moto g5
soon, but it’s worth noting that
for over a year now, the Moto G4
has been the yardstick by which all other
budget smartphones have been judged.
It’s only recently that genuine alternatives
have arrived, such is its phenomenal
balance of quality and thriftiness.
In particular, its octa-core 1.5GHz
Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 processor
and 2GB of RAM give it serious power. In
Geekbench 3, the Moto G4 scored 717 in
the single-core test and a massive 3,107
in the multicore test, about what we’d
expect from a good mid-range device.
Indeed, these scores are on a par with
those of the HTC One A9, which costs
twice as much.
It’s lovely to use on a day-to-day basis,
and it’s even a pretty capable gaming
machine, too. While its GFXBench GL
offscreen Manhattan 3.0 score of 412
frames (around 6.6fps) can’t match, say,
the Nexus 5X, we still managed to play
Hearthstone without too much stutter,
and simpler games such as Threes!
worked like a dream.
Web browsing has also been
significantly improved over the 3rd Gen
Moto G, its direct predecessor. Despite a
curiously lower Peacekeeper score (632
to the Moto G’s 731),
scrolling through
media-heavy
pages was much
smoother on the
G4, and images,
videos and adverts
all loaded faster
too.
HOUR SURGE
All this power
doesn’t come at
the cost of battery life, either, as the Moto
G4’s large 3,000mAh battery lasted an
impressive 13h 39m in our continuous
video test. That’s fantastic for a budget
smartphone, beating the much more
expensive LG G4 and Samsung Galaxy
S6 (although only by two minutes in the
latter’s case).
Be mindful, however, that the Moto G4
is very much in phablet territory, with its
screen measuring 5.5in diagonally. That
makes it quite a handful, and the flat back
makes it slightly less comfortable than
the previous Moto G, at least in our hands.
Fortunately, though, it didn’t take long to
get used to.
“Its octa-core processor
and 2GB of RAM give the
G4 serious power – it’s
lovely to use on a day-today
basis, and it’s even
a pretty capable gaming
machine”
Still, the overall design
could be better: the subtle
crosshatch pattern on
the rear isn’t particularly
elegant and it’s lost the
3rd Gen Moto G’s IP67
waterproofing, though its
water-repellent coating
should still provide
adequate protection from
splashes or a light rain
shower.
Those who like to
customise their handset
using Motorola’s Moto
Maker service might also
be a little disappointed,
as the G4’s options are
decidedly less fun than
those of its predecessors. It doesn’t cost
any extra to change the colour of the back
panel, but the shades on offer are rather
more muted than the bright yellows and
searing limes of yesteryear. The choice of
metallic accents around the camera are
also rather uninspiring, but considering
it’s free, you may as well personalise it as
much as you can to get the look you want.
The only thing you do have to pay
extra for on Moto Maker is if you want to
upgrade the Moto G4’s storage to 32GB.
This costs an extra
$70 or so, but when
the G4 comes with
a microSD slot that
takes cards up to
128GB anyway, this
seems like a bit of a
waste of money.
VISION
ACCOMPLISHED
It’s a shame the
display (and by
extension, the whole handset) isn’t a
bit smaller, but at least Motorola has
provided it with a 1,920x1,080 resolution,
giving it a sharp pixel density of 401ppi.
Our colour-calibration tests showed it
was displaying a respectable 90% of
the sRGB colour gamut, and its contrast
ratio of 1,693:1 is most impressive as
well. It’s also considerably brighter than
its predecessor, as it’s able to reach a
peak brightness of 539.51cd/m2, making
it much easier to see outdoors in direct
sunshine. These are, again, brilliant
results for a budget smartphone, and
its punchy colours look great regardless
of whether you’re browsing the web or
looking at photos in your
gallery.
Speaking of which, the
G4’s rear 13-megapixel
camera remains our
favourite budget
smartphone snapper
– and that includes the
one on the Moto G5.
Despite sharing the same
resolution as the 3rd Gen
Moto G, the difference
in quality is plain to see,
as the Moto G4 captures
far more detail, and
everything looks that
much sharper.
Outdoors, for instance,
colours looked accurate
and its exposure was expertly judged. It
blurred the occasional bit of brickwork,
but overall it produced truly excellent
photos. It looks as if Motorola has toned
down its HDR mode this year as well, as
rather than make images appear overly
artificial, it simply makes them look richer
and more vibrant, so you’ll probably want
to leave it on to get the best exposures.
CUT TO THE QUICK
Motorola also simplified the camera
app’s UI – an action reversed for the G5,
in some ways – to give it a dedicated
onscreen shutter button and easy
shortcuts to toggle the flash, HDR and
timer on and off. Tap the screen to
focus, and you can easily adjust the lens
aperture using the onscreen slider as well,
which works brilliantly and shows you
your results in real-time.
The camera was also an excellent
performer indoors, as noise was kept to
a minimum even in low-light conditions,
and detail levels were still pleasingly
high. Some of the objects in our stilllife
arrangement were a touch grainy in
places, but switching on the excellent
LED flash quickly sorted this out.
We’ve covered the G5 in more detail
on the next page, but in short we’d rather
stick with the G4. That a smartphone
can achieve so much for so little is as
astounding today as it was in 2016.
KEY SPECS
$232 • www.motorola.com.au
OVERALL
0 1 2 3 4 5
72 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au

SMARTPHONES GROUP TEST
Motorola Moto G5
THE HEIR TO THE KING OF BUDGET SMARTPHONES
ISN’T AS GOOD AS WE’D HOPED
T
his should be an exciting occasion:
the follow-up to 2016’s best budget
phone by a mile, the Moto G4,
updated with stylish metal bodywork
and the latest Android 7.0 Nougat. Sadly,
though, the new Moto G5 is a device we
can only appreciate with caveats.
Let’s start with the good. As mentioned,
both this and the larger Moto G5 Plus
(which we’ll cover in more detail in a
future issue) have ditched the plastic
backplates of previous Moto G handsets
in favour of a sleeker, slinkier metal design.
Although there’s the risk that this will
scuff, scratch and dent rather more easily
than the textured plastic rear of previous
generations, out of the box the Moto G5
looks very fine indeed.
In fact, this is a lovely phone to hold
– not slippery, and with just the right
amount of grip – and the fine-grained
matt finish on the rear is a big step
forward in terms of sophistication. Note,
however, that the phone isn’t all metal
– only the rear panel is. The edges are
constructed from plastic just as they were
before.
DOWNSIZING MEASURES
The Moto G5 is also a little more practical
than its pricier brother, with a removable
battery, microSD card support (up to
128GB) and dual-SIM support. The Moto
G5 Plus has both a microSD slot and
dual-SIM support, but you can’t replace
the battery.
Both phones now include a new
front-mounted fingerprint reader and,
thankfully, have Android 7.0 Nougat preinstalled.
There’s also NFC, so you can
finally use Moto’s cheapest handset to
pay for goods.
One key thing to note with the Moto G5,
however, is that the screen is 0.5in smaller
than on the Moto G4. It’s a surprising
downgrade but on the plus side there’s no
denying the Moto G5 is more pocketable
and easier to use one-handed.
Since the resolution has stayed the
same, at 1,920x1,080, it also looks just
as sharp. Alas, along with the reduction
in size, our testing reveals the Moto G5’s
screen has also taken a hit on quality.
Peak brightness is down from the G4’s
539.51cd/m2 to 471cd/m2, and sRGB
colour coverage is also down to 85.8%.
The result is a slightly duller, less vibrant
display, and while the difference between
the two phones isn’t night and day, it’s still
disappointing that the Moto G5 is inferior.
Under the hood, it’s
a similar story. The
base Moto G5 comes
with a Qualcomm
Snapdragon 430
and 2GB of RAM;
we tested the
slightly higher-spec
3GB version, but
this didn’t prevent
it landing slightly
behind the Moto
G4 in Geekbench
benchmarks, with
scores of 578 in the
single-core test and
2,379 in the multicore
test. It also merely
matches the G4’s
7fps average in both
GFX Manhattan’s
onscreen and
offscreen tests, so
it’s no better for
gaming.
So, not only does
the Moto G5 fail
to improve on its
predecessor, but it
lags even further
behind newer
budget challengers.
We were hoping
that the trade-off for this would be
improved battery life, but in our video test,
the Moto G5 achieved a time of 11h 51m,
which is 1h 48m short of the Moto G4. This
isn’t disastrous, of course, but heavy users
may well find that they need to top up
the phone’s charge more often that they
would the G4 – another disappointment.
FOCUS POCUS
Motorola says it has improved the camera
over the G4, though, adding phase-detect
autofocus to speed up capture. However,
the snapper’s core specifications remain
the same, with an aperture of f/2 and
resolution of 13 megapixels.
These look to be impressive
specifications on a sub-$300 phone.
They were last year, and the Moto G4’s
camera was very good indeed at the price.
However, on the evidence of our tests the
new camera module in the G5 isn’t all that
wonderful.
Outdoors, in brightly lit conditions, the
Moto G5’s rear camera does perform
splendidly, capturing photographs with
even crisper details and richer colours
“Not only does the Moto
G5 fail to improve on
its predecessor, but it
lags even further behind
newer budget challengers,
namely the Honor 6X and
Lenovo P2”
than the G4. Exposures
are balanced and focus
assured.
It’s an accomplished
snapper and the
improved camera
software is a bonus, too.
We particularly like its
ability to automatically
detect hand shake and
snap multiple frames,
upon which it offers you
the choice between two
frames, the second of
which is often sharper
than the first you fired off.
In the low light of
indoor scenes, however,
images aren’t great.
Photographs of our stilllife
scene exhibited
significantly higher
levels of noise,
smearing and handshake
induced blur
than on the Moto
G4, and enabling
the flash doesn’t
help much either.
Although it doesn’t
wash out the image,
it does add an
unnatural orangeypink
tinge to the whole scene that looks
far from attractive.
ECONOMIC WARFARE
One thing we can’t fault is the price. This
sub-$300 device packs a punch for that
kind of money, and as it turns out, you can
take a few steps back from something as
excellent as the Moto G4 and still be left
with a pretty good handset.
That, however, is also the issue. The
Moto G5 only makes improvements in
a few minor ways, and has got worse in
others. That’s not a recipe for a must-have
device when the Moto G4, are readily
available as alternatives.
As such, the only way we can
recommend the Moto G5 is if you’re
utterly determined to have the very latest
product.
KEY SPECS
$399 17GB, $449 32GB • www.motorola.com.au
OVERALL
0 1 2 3 4 5
www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 73

GROUP TEST SMARTPHONES
Motorola Moto Z Play
THE MOTO Z PLAY’S STUPENDOUS BATTERY LIFE AND MODULAR DESIGN MAKE IT A GREAT BUY
ike the Oneplus 3t, the Moto z play
aims to provide flagship-quality
L features while undercutting them on
price. Take, for example, the big 3,510mAh
battery inside – that even dwarfs the
2,600mAh of its own bigger brother, the
Moto Z. It thus lasted almost twice as long
in our continuous video loop benchmark,
clocking in at an outstanding 23h 45m.
It’s clear where Motorola has stashed
all those extra milliampere hours in the
Moto Z Play. Measuring a sizable 6.9mm
at its thinnest point, the phone feels
positively behemoth-like compared with
the svelte 5.2mm Moto Z, and its lightly
chamfered edges are sharper and harder
against your palm. That’s not to say the
Moto Z Play is uncomfortable to hold, but
it definitely feels a little gawky compared
to its luxuriously slim stablemate.
Girth aside, however, the Moto Z Play
looks every bit the top-end smartphone.
Its front-facing fingerprint sensor is every
bit as quick when it comes to unlocking
your phone, and its glass rear and metal
frame represent a huge leap forward in
overall build quality compared to the
rubberised rear of last year’s Moto X Play.
It also shares the Moto Z’s main
party trick: its modularity. While its rear
connection point might not look quite as
elegant as its big brother’s, it supports all
the same Moto Mod
accessories, allowing
you to augment your
smartphone with
stereo speakers, an
upgraded camera or
just even more battery
life.
RULE THE BOOST
It’s all easily done
– each mod simply
snaps on to the back
of the phone with
strong connecting
magnets. You might
need to dig your nails
in to prise them off,
but it’s definitely less
hassle than the system
on the modular LG
G5. Motorola is also
planning on making
these mods compatible
with at least two
more generations of
Moto Z phones, so
you should be able to
carry on using them
74 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au
even if you upgrade. Our favourite mod
so far is the JBL SoundBoost speaker,
which is a massive improvement on the
handset’s own tinny speaker, and includes
its own 1,000mAh battery.
Where the Moto Z Play starts to deviate
from the Moto Z is its internal hardware;
the former has to make do with the midtier
octa-core 2GHz Snapdragon 625.
It also has 3GB of RAM, rather than the
Moto Z’s 4GB. This is still a pretty potent
combination for everyday tasks, but the
difference showed in our benchmarks. In
Geekbench 4, the Moto Z Play scored only
798 in the single-core test and 2,599 in
the multicore test, making it almost half
as fast as the Moto Z overall.
To be fair, this is to be somewhat
expected for a mid-range phone, but
when you consider the OnePlus 3T also
has a Snapdragon 821 chip, the Moto Z
Play starts to look slightly less special.
The same goes for graphics
performance: it achieved a mere 636
frames (an average of 10fps) in GFXBench
GL’s onscreen Manhattan 3.0 test. The
OnePlus 3T, by comparison, achieved a
47fps average.
BLANKET COVERAGE
The Moto Z Play shares the Moto Z’s 5.5in
AMOLED panel, but with a 1,920x1,080
resolution, rather than
2,560x1,440. In the
cheaper phone’s defence,
we were hard-pressed
to tell the difference
in terms of overall
sharpness. The Moto Z
Play’s vanilla version of
Android 6.0 looks just
as crisp as it does on the
Moto Z.
More importantly,
the quality of the Moto
Z Play’s display hasn’t
diminished in the
slightest: it still covers
a fantastic 100% of the
sRGB colour gamut,
produces perfect blacks
and has superb contrast.
Its maximum brightness
only peaks at 355cd/
m2, but this will only be
a problem on the very
sunniest of days.
The Moto Z Play
actually has a higherresolution
camera than
the Moto Z, producing
16-megapixel images rather than 12. You
won’t find any optical image stabilisation
here, sadly, but you do get a hybrid laser
and phase detection autofocus, a wide
f/2.0 aperture and a colour-balancing
dual LED flash. Shots turned out sharper
and more defined on the Moto Z Play;
there was perhaps a fraction more
grain and noise than on the Moto Z, but
we’d rather have a bit of grit than have
everything smoothed over.
Colour reproduction was top notch,
even in gloomy, overcast weather
conditions. Indoors, shots were once
again a little grainy and mottled in
“The Moto Mod
accessories allow
you to augment your
smartphone with stereo
speakers, an upgraded
camera or even more
battery life”
places, but there was very little noise,
and artefacts were kept to a minimum.
Colours were pleasingly punchy and
contrast levels remained solid across all
lighting conditions. We’d recommend
sparing use of the flash, however, as
this tended to turn everything rather
warm and orange rather than correctly
balancing out white.
PLAY TIME
As with last year’s Moto X Play and Moto
X Style, it’s Motorola’s mid-range phone
that takes the crown here. The Moto
Z might be faster, slimmer and have a
higher-resolution display, but the Moto
Z Play is better value. You not only get
stonking battery life, but also a great
camera and equal access to Lenovo and
Motorola’s new Moto Mods.
It’s arguably worth paying extra for the
OnePlus 3T’s superior performance, but if
you’re looking for something a bit different
that can turn its hand to any task, you
won’t be disappointed with the Moto Z
Play.
KEY SPECS
$450 • From www.motorola.com.au
OVERALL
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OnePlus 3T
THE ONEPLUS 3T IS A SMALL
UPGRADE WITH A BIG PRICE
INCREASE, BUT IT’S STILL FANTASTIC
VALUE
he arrival of the OnePlus 3T at
the end of 2016 was a bittersweet
T occasion. This was an update to
one of our favourite high-end phones,
the OnePlus 3, and made several small
but welcome changes to the processor
and battery – yet these incremental
improvements came with a steep price
increase, which seemed antithetical to
the OnePlus ethos of creating flagshipstandard
devices at knockdown prices.
You couldn’t even get the older model
for less, as it was canned with such
remarkable speed and force that it
disappeared from all but the shadiest of
grey market stores.
That said, by any reasonable measure
the OnePlus 3T is still a bargain. Going
in at $539 for the 64GB model, or $709
for the 128GB model, it packs a 2.35GHz
Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor,
which is a straight upgrade from the
OnePlus 3’s Snapdragon 820, and a
convincing statement that the 3T is
still looking to compete with top-tier
smartphones on performance while
severely undercutting them on cost.
Battery size has also grown from
3,000mAh to 3,400mAh, complemented
by the new Dash Charge system, which
promises “a day’s charge in half an hour”.
SNAP HAPPY
Along with the processor upgrade, the
OnePlus 3T inherits its predecessor’s
impressive list of core specifications.
Namely, that Qualcomm Snapdragon 821
is backed up by 6GB of RAM and includes
Qualcomm’s Adreno 530 graphics
processing unit. As you’d imagine, these
top-of-the-range specifications result in a
smartphone that’s an absolute pleasure
to use, and one that comfortably handles
anything you throw its way.
In Geekbench 4, it scored 1,903 in the
single-core test and 4,273 in the multicore
test. Besides being clear – if moderate –
improvements over the OnePlus 3, which
scored 1,689 and 4,026 respectively, these
also show the OnePlus 3T holding its own
against the Samsung Galaxy S7, which
remains significantly more expensive even
now that the Galaxy S8 has arrived.
Graphics performance is unchanged
from the 3, as you’d expect from the two
OnePlus handsets sharing a GPU. The
OnePlus 3T matches its predecessor with
a superb 47fps average in the GFXBench
GL onscreen Manhattan 3.0 test. That’s
actually 9fps better than the Galaxy S7, so
you’ll have no problems running intensive
3D titles.
Weirdly, however, the larger 3,400mAh
battery actually fared worse in our video
loop test (running at the usual 170cd/m2
brightness). The OnePlus 3T lasted 13h
22m, compared to the OnePlus 3’s 16h
56m. That said, anecdotally we seemed
to get slightly better longevity out of the
newer phone in normal day-to-day use.
DASH BLAST
The Dash Charge tech is also impressive,
though the claims of “a day’s power in half
an hour” need a little extra scrutiny. While
it’s true we were able to jump from 49% to
92% battery in 30 minutes (it took another
24 minutes to hit 100%), not everyone
would find 43% capacity enough to get
them through a day – especially if they’re a
power user. Your mileage may vary.
The OnePlus 3T’s rear camera is great
as well. It’s a 16-megapixel snapper with
an f/2.0 aperture, phase-detect autofocus
and optical image stabilisation. It’s short
of laser autofocus for optimal low-light
performance, but it’s generally solid.
You might think that bringing the front
camera up to the same 16-megapixel
count would produce similarly good
selfies, but sadly that isn’t the case. We
found that shots taken on the frontfacing
camera had a nasty combination
of overexposure and unimpressive colour
balance, whether they were taken in or
outdoors. It’s not a patch on the Google
“Top-of-the-range
specifications result in
a smartphone that’s an
absolute pleasure to use”
Pixel XL’s 8-megapixel snapper, proving
that pixel count isn’t everything.
That’s about it for the new additions;
now we turn to the design and display,
which remain largely unchanged from
the OnePlus 3. Technically the 3T’s rear
panel is slightly flatter, but only hardcore
OnePlus fans are likely to notice that at a
glance. The anodised metal chassis looks
the same, and it still feels comfortably
secure in the hand, even one-handed. It
has support for dual SIMs, meaning this
can be your work and home phone, and it
still charges via USB Type-C.
PIXEL OF HEALTH
At 5.5in, it remains a big beast of a phone,
although that screen is still a 1,080x1,920
AMOLED panel. That’s a lower resolution
than some of its pricier peers, and
undoubtedly where some of the cost
savings are made, but unless you plan
on using this for virtual reality, then it’s a
sacrifice worth making. On a screen this
size, diminishing returns tends to kick in, so
most 1080p content is tough to tell apart
from that shown on a QHD or 4K display.
For everyday usage, the OnePlus 3T’s
screen is just fine. We measured a good
maximum brightness of 421cd/m2 and
perfect contrast. Switch to sRGB mode
and the screen covers 93.2% of the colour
gamut, and it does so while looking sharp
and vibrant.
The OnePlus 3T is a brilliant
smartphone, and objectively improves
upon the amazingly good OnePlus 3 in
a couple of small but significant ways:
namely the processing performance
and charging speed. It’s not ideal that
these tweaks have resulted in a price rise,
especially since one of the other hardware
upgrades – the bigger battery – has such
mixed results, but that’s not to say that the
OnePlus 3T is a rip-off.
In fact, while it’s not quite as incredible
a bargain as the OnePlus 3, it still gives
you demonstrably more bang for your
buck than anything in and above its price
range. It is, once again, a flagship-killer.
With the OnePlus 3 having vanished from
mainstream sellers, the OnePlus 3T is an
easy endorsement.
KEY SPECS
$539 • oneplus.net
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SMARTPHONES GROUP TEST
Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017)
SAMSUNG HEADS IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION WITH THE KEENLY PRICED GALAXY A5
his isn’t nearly the cheapest
Samsung handset around, but the
T latest Galaxy A5 is appealing as a
value purchase because it has much more
in common with the Galaxy S7 than it does
the budget Galaxy J series.
For starters, there’s the flagshipbothering
build quality. The Galaxy A5’s
clean metal frame and all-glass front
are incredibly handsome for a sub-$600
smartphone, and its tapered back helps
it fit snugly into the palm of your hand. It’s
also the first iteration of the A5 where the
rear camera is totally flush with the body.
It’s a lovely phone to hold and behold,
then, but then last year’s Galaxy A5 was
pretty nice, too. The key differences lie
beneath the phone’s glossy exterior, with a
new processor, more RAM and a higherresolution
camera.
GLASS WITH FLYING COLOURS
More similarly to last year’s model, the
new A5 comes equipped with a 5.2in,
Full HD, Super AMOLED display, racking
up a pixel density of 424ppi. That’s not
sharp enough for it to be compatible
with Samsung’s Gear VR headset, but
there’s nothing stopping you using Google
Cardboard instead.
More importantly, it looks superb in
everyday use. Colours are striking, covering
a perfect 100% of the sRGB gamut, and
while our X-Rite colour calibrator did spot
some slight inaccuracies
in some of the darker
shades of green, it’s so
marginal that you won’t
spot this with the naked
eye.
It’s also a reasonably
bright Super AMOLED
screen, too, with the
calibrator picking up
a peak brightness of
355cd/m2. It’s not
as dazzling as, say,
the Sony Xperia X
Compact or OnePlus
3T, and you’ll need
to shade the screen
to read it in really bright
conditions, but for the
most part it’s adequate
for outdoor viewing.
The adaptive light
sensor on the top of
the phone also bumps
up brightness to a
maximum of 451cd/m2,
should the need arise.
When it comes to performance, the
Galaxy A5’s octa-core Exynos 7880
(clocked at 1.9GHz) and 3GB of RAM keeps
Android feeling snappy. It does fall behind
the OnePlus 3T in our benchmarks, scoring
767 in the Geekbench single-core test and
4,054 in multicore (compared to the 3T’s
1,903 and 4,274). The multicore score in
particular is a great showing.
“The A5 is just the ticket
if you’re not fond of
handing over flagshipsized
sums of cash but
want something sleek”
The phone’s graphics performance
is somewhat less impressive. Running
GFXBench’s onscreen Manhattan 3.0 test,
it gained an average frame rate of 14fps,
which is 33fps slower than the OnePlus
3T. It’s not so bad in practice – Sky Force:
Reloaded ran with minimal hiccups, even
when there was lots happening on the
screen, but we’re concerned about how
it might handle more intensive games
that might come out in the next couple of
years.
ALL-NIGHTER
Battery life is much better. This year’s
Galaxy A5 ships with a
3,000mAh power pack, and it
put in a sterling performance
in our video playback tests.
With the phone in flight mode
and the screen calibrated
to 170cd/m2, the Galaxy
A5 lasted 22h 5m before
giving up and shutting down,
handily beating the Galaxy S7
and OnePlus 3T and coming
fairly close to the Motorola
Moto Z Play. There’s fast
charging via USB Type-C, too.
As for software, we
were more than a little
disappointed to find that
Samsung Galaxy A5 isn’t
powered by Android 7.0
Nougat straight out of the
box. While we’ve been
assured there’ll be an overthe-air
update in the near
future, you’ll have to wait a
little longer for the latest,
greatest version of Google’s
OS.
Returning our attention to that newly
flush rear camera, Samsung has boosted
the resolution to 16 megapixels, and done
the same to the front-facing camera –
that’s a sizable improvement over the 2016
Galaxy A5’s 13- and 5-megapixel cameras.
Using the rear camera, we were able to
capture some very detail-rich shots of the
streets outside our office on a clear day.
Switching on HDR didn’t yield massive
improvements, even if the image was
already well exposed to begin with. A tad
more cloud detail could be spotted in the
HDR shot, but not much else.
Indoor snaps weren’t a problem, with
shots of our low-light still-life arrangement
picking up an abundance of vibrant colour.
Visual noise is kept at bay as well, and
there’s no muddying of the finer details.
Samsung’s camera software has seen
a bit of an update, too. In a similar move
to Huawei’s slick Camera app, specific
shooting modes can be accessed via quick
swipes to the left and right, rather than
having to navigate through convoluted
menus. It’s the almost-perfect onehanded
experience – especially with the
new movable virtual shutter button, and
especially handy for selfie enthusiasts.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
There’s also Samsung’s new Food Filter,
which applies a basic depth-of-field effect
and some colour tinkering to supposedly
make your food photos look their
Instagram-worthy best. Photos with this
filter applied were a tad oversaturated,
though, and we weren’t keen on the
extreme background blur. It’s a frivolous
and ultimately ignorable inclusion.
The Samsung Galaxy S8 might be
grabbing all the headlines at the moment,
but that doesn’t mean the Galaxy A5
should be overlooked. It’s just the ticket if
you’re not fond of handing over flagshipsized
sums of cash.
The OnePlus 3T looms large as an
alternative, but its battery life isn’t nearly
as good. As such, the Galaxy A5 takes a
well-deserved place as one of the best
mid-range handsets you can buy today,
and has enough premium touches to
make it worth considering alongside older
flagships that have come down in price.
KEY SPECS
$584 • www.samsung.com.au
OVERALL
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Samsung Galaxy S6
WHAT WAS AN IMPRESSIVE STEP FORWARD IN 2015 IS
STILL A HIGHLY COMPETITIVE SMARTPHONE TODAY
E
ven at the ripe old age of two years
old, the Galaxy S6 still impresses
– after all, it was the first Samsung
smartphone to look and feel like a truly
premium product, without the plasticky
panels of what came before.
It’s not as eye-catching as the S6
Edge, with its tapered screen, and also
doesn’t feel as grippy in the hand, due to
the S6 having smoother, more rounded
edges. Still, these are minor quibbles,
and there’s much more to like about the
design than not. It only weighs 138g, for
starters – that’s a good 17g less than
the LG G4, which is also 1.9mm fatter –
and while the glass backplate attracts
fingerprints, it and the aluminium frame
make for a vastly better-looking device
than the old Galaxy S5.
There’s also the matter of the stunning
5.1in Super AMOLED display. The
2,560x1,440 resolution gives it a pixel
density of 577ppi, which remains among
the highest you’ll see on any smartphone
outside of certain 4K outliers. Colour
accuracy and contrast were through the
roof, with sRGB colour gamut coverage
of 100% and an Infinity:1 contrast ratio.
We measured a so-so peak brightness
of 346.49cd/m2 indoors, but the Galaxy
S6 has the same automatic brightness
mode as later Galaxy phones, allowing it
to reach a massive 577cd/m2 outside.
CARDS NOT ACCEPTED
Unlike the S5, the S6 doesn’t have a
replaceable battery. To be fair, this is
something that could be said of the
vast majority of flagships (as well as
most mid-range and cheaper handsets),
but it’s still a mild shame. As some
recompense, the S6 supports WPC (Qi)
and PMA (Powermat) wireless charging.
The Micro USB port on the bottom of
the phone also supports fast-charging,
which gave us about four hours of use
from 10 minutes attached to the mains.
We do prefer the reversible USB Type-C
port on the Galaxy S8, for convenience’s
sake, though it should be easier to find
spare cables for the S6.
Battery size is also down from the S5,
but this shouldn’t be too much of an
issue. The Galaxy S6 lasted 13h 37m in
our battery benchmark, a performance
which may have been thoroughly
outdone by the Galaxy S7, but still
translates into a good day’s worth of
regular use.
There’s a decently fast, thumboriented
fingerprint scanner
built into the home button –
you can use this with Samsung
Pay, to make payments with
the phone instead of having
to pull out a contactless
bank card – but sadly other
creatures comforts, such as
waterproofing and a microSD
slot, are missing as well. You’re
therefore limited to whatever
amount of onboard storage
you choose, from 32GB, 64GB
and 128GB flavours.
WIZ KID
On the plus side, Samsung’s
64-bit, octa-core Samsung
Exynos 7420 processor
makes the S6 very snappy
indeed. It scored 1,427 in the
Geekbench single-core test
and 4,501 in the multicore test,
so remains among the best of
the best even in 2017, and while the S7
and OnePlus 3T are more future-proofed
for gaming performance, you can still run
“We hear a lot about
‘flagship killers’. Well,
here’s a genuine
flagship that costs even
less than the best ‘killer’
on the market”
any intensive 3D title on the S6 with ease.
TouchWiz, Samsung’s Android skin,
is more streamlined than it has been in
previous versions; there are still about
two screens’ worth of pre-installed
apps, but it’s cut back on the bloatware.
The main issue is that, like most custom
skins, it seems to delay Android updates.
The S6 has long been running 6.1
Marshmallow, having launched with
5.0 Lollipop, but a timeframe for the
supposedly upcoming 7.0 Nougat update
has been left vague.
The Galaxy S6 includes a 16-megapixel
rear camera, which protrudes slightly
outwards from the back of the handset.
This is the same resolution as the
Galaxy S5’s camera, but there’s now
a brighter f/1.9 aperture lens, which
Samsung claims lets in 34% more light
than the S5’s f/2.2 lens. Optical image
stabilisation reduces blur in low-light
shooting, and a
double-click of
the home button
activates the
camera in under a
second, ensuring
you’ll never miss
a shot.
We were
pleased with
the quality of
our test photos,
as colours were
bright and vibrant
with plenty of fine
detail on show.
A few patches of
bright sky were
overexposed, but
turning on HDR
mode instantly
fixed the problem.
HDR also left the
rest of the picture
intact, keeping the high level of detail and
accurate colours we saw in Auto mode
without making it seem unnaturally harsh
or artificial.
RETURN OF THE KING
There’s no doubting that the Galaxy S6
is a much better phone, both in terms
of features and build quality, than the
Galaxy S5 – and, more pertinently, it
remains a great device by more recent
standards.
There is the question, however, of
whether it’s worth opting for a twogenerations-old
handset when not only
is there a newer, even better model
available, but that the later version – the
Galaxy S7 – has benefited from a big
price drop thanks to the Galaxy S8. The
most obvious answer to that is, of course,
that the Galaxy S6 is even cheaper.
We hear a lot about ‘flagship killers’,
phones that make a few compromises
here and there to offer premium
performance at a mid-range price. Well,
here’s a genuine flagship that costs even
less than the best ‘killer’ on the market
– and there’s definitely some appeal in
that.
KEY SPECS
$369 • www.samsung.com.au
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SMARTPHONES GROUP TEST
Samsung Galaxy S7
THE SAMSUNG GALAXY S7 IS STILL ONE OF THE BEST SMARTPHONES
OUT THERE, NOW WITH ANDROID NOUGAT AND A LOWER PRICE
Y
ou might be wondering what the
Galaxy S7 is doing here – aren’t
we meant to be looking at more
affordable current phones and older
classics? Well, you’d be right in that the S7
isn’t exactly chump change, but then by
the time you read this, the Galaxy S8 will
have arrived to replace it as Samsung’s
premier smartphone. That means price
drops for last year’s model.
This is great news for bargain hunters, as
the S7 quickly became our favourite-ever
Android handset when we first reviewed it.
Not that first impressions were that great:
our testing sample had fine scratches in
numerous places on the display and the
fingerprint sensor, and while the glass
back was in better conditions, it was and
remains an absolute fingerprint magnet.
RESISTANCE MOVEMENT
The S7 is 1.1mm thicker than the Galaxy
S6 and, at 152g, is 20g heavier, but neither
are things you’ll notice in everyday
use. Samsung has also made some
big improvements in the form of IP68
waterproofing and a microSD slot for
expandable storage. The S6 was sorely
missing both, and the S7 is far more
flexible and durable for it.
Our only major quibble is with the
front-mounted fingerprint sensor. It’s
much lower down than where our thumbs
and fingers would normally rest, and it
will only unlock the phone once you’ve
pressed the home
button or woken it
up with the power
button. It didn’t
always recognise
our fingerprints
successfully, either.
Samsung’s
Super AMOLED
displays have
always been one of the highlights of
its S-series smartphones, and the S7’s
screen is no exception. It may not have
the curved sides of the S7 Edge, but this
5.1in, 2,560x1,440-resolution display has a
super-sharp pixel density of 577ppi and its
quality is top notch. Covering a full 100%
of the sRGB colour gamut, it can produce
pitch perfect 0.00cd/m2 blacks, and a
super-high contrast ratio makes it lovely to
look at, whatever the task.
With a peak brightness of 353.74cd/
m2, it’s not as bright as most LCDbased
smartphones, but switch to
Auto brightness and shine a torch on
its adaptive light sensor and
the brightness will shoot up to
around 470cd/m2. It’s the same
thing Samsung did with the
S6, and it makes using the S7
in sunshine much easier than
some of its other Super AMOLED
handsets.
It also has the added benefit
of Samsung’s Always On
Display technology, which can
be used to display information
such as the date, time and the
phone’s battery status when
the screen is turned off. It can
also show calendar information,
but it’s a shame this widget
isn’t actionable like traditional
Android notifications.
This drains a little under 1%
of the battery per hour, but you
won’t have to worry about the
S7’s overall stamina – it lasted
17h 48m in our continuous video playback
test, an exceptional performance which
puts the S6’s 13h 37m to shame. Fastcharging
has also been improved, allowing
us to regain 50% charge in just 10 minutes,
and it supports wireless charging via the
usual Qi standard.
DRAGON SLAYER
In some territories, the S7 runs off
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820, but in
the UK and Europe this is replaced by
Samsung’s own
“The Galaxy S7 is far more
flexible and durable than
the S6 thanks to IP68
waterproofing and a
microSD slot”
octa-core Exynos
8890 processor.
This makes it one
of the slickest and
most responsive
smartphones
around, scoring
a massive 2,115 in
Geekbench’s singlecore
test and 6,437 in the multicore test.
Samsung’s TouchWiz interface (laid over
Android 7.0 Nougat) simply flies, and apps
loaded almost instantly. Web browsing
is similarly quick, with the S7 scoring an
impressive 1,882 in Peacekeeper and
coping extremely well when scrolling
through media-heavy pages.
The Exynos 8890’s graphics capabilities
are equally impressive. In the offscreen
Manhattan test of GFXBench GL 3.0, the
S7 managed a score of 2,336 frames,
which equates to around 38fps. The
cheaper OnePlus 3T beats it with 47fps,
but this still demonstrates the S7’s ability
to run demanding
games without
hitches. Samsung’s
added Game Launcher
comes in handy
as well, as it can
disable notifications,
capture footage and
screenshots or lock
the Back and Recents
buttons while you play.
The Galaxy S6 came
with an excellent
camera, but for the S7,
Samsung took a risk
in order to improve
image quality further,
reducing the main
snapper’s resolution to
12 megapixels instead
of sticking with the
S6’s 16-megapixel
sensor.
That may sound like a step backwards,
but each individual pixel is bigger, up from
1.12um on the S6 to 1.4um on the S7.
LUCKY NUMBER SEVEN
As a result, the S7 takes very similarly
high-quality shots to the S6, both indoors
and outdoors. Detailing is excellent,
there’s plenty of contrast, and colours are
lovely and bright. It tends toward a slight
overexposure in shots with a challenging
dynamic range, but that’s preferable to the
alternative of darker shots, and we could
rectify it by switching to HDR mode when
possible. It’s mainly in the shutter speed
that the S7 proves itself superior. For
instance, in a low-light shot, the S7 took
the photo at 1/25 sec, whereas the S6 shot
at 1/15 sec. This means the S7 will be more
reliable in low-light situations and less
likely to blur moving subjects, making it the
better camera overall.
Our only remaining issue with the
Galaxy S7 was its price, but now it can
be picked up for not much more than a
OnePlus 3T. It’s certainly better value
than the Galaxy S8, which will leave a
$1,200-sized crater in your bank account.
Proof that a bit of patience can net you a
top-tier smartphone at middling prices.
KEY SPECS
$900 • www.samsung.com.au
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Sony Xperia
X Compact
SONY’S 4.6IN HANDSET BOTH IMPROVES ON AND
STEPS BACK FROM THE LUXURY Z5 COMPACT
ince the next cheapest option in
sony’s smartphone range is the
S rubbish Xperia XA, the dinky Xperia
X Compact looks like the family’s best
balance of affordability and quality.
It is, however, something of a
Frankenphone, combining some features
from the top-of-the-line XZ with some
from the older Xperia X, all in its 4.6in
chassis. So instead of the octa-core
Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor
from the XZ, the X Compact has the hexacore
Snapdragon 650 from the X – yet it
inherits its camera lock, stock and barrel
from the XZ.
Honestly, this is a slightly disappointing
departure from Sony’s previous Compact
models, which were typically just as
powerful as their flagship brethren, just in
a smaller body.
SQUARE’S BREADTH
The fit-and-finish isn’t great either, with
unsightly gaps at the top and bottom of
the rear panel ready to gobble up unsightly
pocket fluff. It might be less fragile than
the Z5 Compact but surely Sony could
have found a way to make its replacement
look nicer than this. There’s no
dust- or water-proofing, either.
The phone does at least
fulfil its principal raison d’être:
it’s both more pocketable and
easier to use one-handed
than most of the 5.5in-plus
behemoths favoured by manufacturers for
their mid-range and higher smartphones
these days. It’s also good to see that Sony
has kept both the dedicated camera
shutter button and the fingerprint reader,
which is once again integrated with the
side-mounted power button.
As for the main camera, the sensor
size, pixel count and aperture all remain
unchanged from the Z5 Compact,
but Sony has made a few minor
improvements. First up is ‘laser-assisted’
infrared autofocus, which Sony says helps
the camera to focus more accurately in
low light. In good light, the hybrid phase
and contrast-detect autofocus system
(again, copied from the Z5 Compact)
takes over. This seems to work reasonably
well, but then we didn’t particularly have
any problems with the way the focus
worked on the Z5 Compact, so we’re not
80 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au
convinced it’s a
huge leap forward.
Next up is a
colour sensor,
similar to the one
introduced by
the LG G4. This is
supposed to deliver
more accurate
colours under a
wider variety of
lighting conditions,
and does indeed
seem to work
pretty well. Under
fluorescent office
strip lights, halogen
and LED lighting, the X Compact’s camera
always seemed to get the colour balance
spot on where others, even the Samsung
Galaxy S7, would veer a little off base.
BLAME TO FRAME
Despite these improvements, Sony’s
smartphones continue to be plagued by
the same old problems. Even with the
camera’s manual mode enabled – which
is the only way of getting 23-megapixel
“The screen is only a Standard HD panel,
but that’s sharp enough considering its
size. Photos and video look superb”
images out of the camera, by the way –
fine details are lost in a storm of grain and
JPEG compression.
We’re not huge fans of the X Compact’s
wide-angle 24mm lens, either. On the
positive side, it lets you cram much
more into your photographs than most
smartphones, whose lenses are typically
closer to 28mm. But the downside is
noticeable optical distortion, where
buildings and straight lines look warped at
the edges of the frame.
Fortunately, the move to a Snapdragon
650 CPU hasn’t had too much of an
adverse effect on performance. It’s no
slowpoke, that much is clear from using
the phone from day to day – launching
apps, flicking between them and
navigating around feels slick and quick.
The fact that the screen is limited to
a resolution of 1,280x720, rather than
the Full HD favoured by most
other mid-range devices, might
be off-putting to some, but it
does have the positive effect
of helping games to run better.
Here, the X Compact performs
well, even with demanding
games such as Sky Force
Reloaded.
Indeed, in the GFXBench
Manhattan 3 onscreen test,
which is run at the phone’s
native resolution, the X
Compact’s Adreno 510 GPU
gains an average frame rate
of 32fps, which is only a little
less than what the Galaxy S7
managed. Sadly, though, this is
one area in which the older Z5
Compact trounces it, scoring
47fps in the same test.
At least the X Compact puts
up more of a fight in Geekbench,
scoring 1,445 in the single-core
test and 3,778 in the multicore
test – competitive with the Z5
Compact’s respective scores of
1,369 and 3,795. These also put it ahead
of Google’s Nexus 5X and the Moto Z Play,
though it’s still some way off the OnePlus
3T in terms of horsepower.
SMALL WONDER
The screen is, as mentioned, only a
Standard HD panel, but that’s sharp
enough considering its small size. What’s
more, photos and video look superb on
it, whether you have Sony’s X-Reality
image turned on or not, and
measurements with our
colourimeter suggest that it’s
an excellent screen as well.
Contrast, maximum brightness,
and colour reproduction are
all top notch. Indeed, the
X Compact manages to outdo the Z5
Compact, with a maximum brightness of
535cd/m2 to the Z5 Compact’s 461cd/m2.
Battery life has improved as well. In our
video benchmark, the X Compact lasted
a strong 14h 41m, which is a full 1h 20m
longer than the Z5 Compact.
It may be a disappointment in some
areas, then, but with its enhanced camera,
longer battery life and still-respectable
performance, the Xperia X Compact is still
a good phone overall, and will particularly
suit Android fans who want to stick to a
smaller form factor.
KEY SPECS
$480 • www.sonymobile.com/au
OVERALL
0 1 2 3 4 5

SMARTPHONES GROUP TEST
AWARD RECOMMENDED BEST BUY RECOMMENDED BEST BUY
MANUFACTURER APPLE GOOGLE LG MOTOROLA
MODEL iPhone SE Nexus 5X G4 Moto G4
RATING
HARDWARE
PROCESSOR
Dual-core 1.8GHz Apple
A9
Hexa-core 1.8GHz
Qualcomm Snapdragon
808
Hexa-core 1.8GHz
Qualcomm Snapdragon
808
Octa-core 1.5GHz
Qualcomm Snapdragon
617
RAM 2GB 2GB 3GB 2GB
SCREEN SIZE 4in 5.2in 5.5in 5.5in
SCREEN
RESOLUTION
1,136x640 1,920x1,080 2,560x1,440 1,920x1,080
SCREEN TYPE IPS IPS IPS Quantum IPS
FRONT CAMERA 5 megapixels 5 megapixels 8 megapixels 5 megapixels
REAR CAMERA 12 megapixels 12.3 megapixels 16 megapixels 13 megapixels
FLASH LED (True Tone) Dual LEDs LED LED
GPS Yes Yes Yes Yes
COMPASS Yes Yes Yes Yes
STORAGE 16GB/64GB 32GB/128GB 32GB 16GB/32GB
MEMORY CARD
SLOT
None None MicroSD MicroSD
WI-FI 802.11ac 802.11n 802.11ac 802.11ac
BLUETOOTH Bluetooth 4.1 Bluetooth 4.0 Bluetooth 4.0 Bluetooth 4.2
NFC Yes Yes Yes No
WIRELESS DATA 4G 4G 4G 4G
DIMENSIONS 124x59x7.6mm 147x73x7.9mm 149x75x8.9mm 153x77x7.9mm
WEIGHT 112g 136g 155g 155g
FEATURES
OPERATING
SYSTEM
iOS 10 Android 7.0 Android 7.0 Android 6.0
BATTERY SIZE 1,624mAh 2,700mAh 3,000mAh 3,000mAh
BUYING INFORMATION
PRICE $679 $429 $270 $232
WARRANTY One year RTB One year RTB One year RTB One year RTB
DETAILS www.apple.com/au www.google.com.au www.lg.com www.motorola.com.au
www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 81

AWARD RECOMMENDED BEST BUY RECOMMENDED
MANUFACTURER MOTOROLA MOTOROLA ONEPLUS SAMSUNG
MODEL Moto G5 Moto Z Play 3T Galaxy A5 (2017)
RATING
HARDWARE
PROCESSOR
Octa-core 1.4GHz
Snapdragon 430
Octa-core 2.0GHz
Snapdragon 625
Quad-core 2.45GHz
Qualcomm Snapdragon
821
Octa-core 1.9GHz
Samsung Exynos 7880
RAM 2GB/3GB 3GB 6GB 3GB
SCREEN SIZE 5in 5.5in 5.5in 5.2in
SCREEN
RESOLUTION
1,920x1,080 1,920x1,080 1,920x1,080 1,920x1,080
SCREEN TYPE IPS Super AMOLED AMOLED Super AMOLED
FRONT CAMERA 5 megapixels 5 megapixels 16 megapixels 16 megapixels
REAR CAMERA 13 megapixels 16 megapixels 16 megapixels 16 megapixels
FLASH LED Dual LED LED LED
GPS Yes Yes Yes Yes
COMPASS Yes Yes Yes Yes
STORAGE 16GB/32GB 32GB 64GB 32GB
MEMORY CARD
SLOT
MicroSD MicroSD No Yes
WI-FI 802.11n 802.11n 802.11ac 802.11ac
BLUETOOTH Bluetooth 4.2 Bluetooth 4.0 Bluetooth 4.2 Bluetooth 4.2
NFC Yes Yes Yes Yes
WIRELESS DATA 4G 4G 4G 4G
DIMENSIONS 144x73x9.5mm 156x76x6.9mm 153mmx75x7.4mm 146x71x7.9mm
WEIGHT 145g 165g 158g 157g
FEATURES
OPERATING
SYSTEM
Android 7.0 Android 6.0 Android 7.0 Android 6.0
BATTERY SIZE 2,800mAh 3,510mAh 3,400mAh 3,000mAh
BUYING INFORMATION
PRICE $280 $370 $539 $584
WARRANTY One year RTB One year RTB One year RTB One year RTB
DETAILS www.motorola.com.au www.motorola.com.au oneplus.net www.samsung.com/au
82 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au

SMARTPHONES GROUP TEST
RECOMMENDED
BEST BUY
SAMSUNG SAMSUNG SONY
Galaxy S6 Galaxy S7 Xperia X Compact
Octa-core 2.1GHz Samsung
Exynos 7420
Octa-core 2.3GHz
Samsung Exynos 8890
Hexa-core 1.8GHz
Snapdragon 650
3GB 4GB 3GB
5.1in 5.1in 4.6in
2,560x1,440 2,560x1,440 1,280x720
Super AMOLED Super AMOLED IPS
5 megapixels 5 megapixels 5 megapixels
16 megapixels 12 megapixels 23 megapixels
LED LED LED
Yes Yes Yes
Yes Yes Yes
32GB/64GB/128GB 32GB 32GB
N/A MicroSD MicroSD
802.11ac 802.11ac 802.11ac
Bluetooth 4.0 Bluetooth 4.2 Bluetooth 4.2
Yes Yes Yes
4G 4G 4G
143x70x6.8mm 142x70x7.9mm 129x65x9.5mm
132g 152g 135g
Android 6.1 Android 7.0 Android 7.0
2,550mAh 3,000mAh 2,700mAh
$369 $900 $480
One year RTB One year RTB One year RTB
www.samsung.com/au www.samsung.com/au www.sonymobile.com
Verdict
E
very single device here will serve you well, even
the comparatively disappointing Moto G5. Still,
a few models stand out as particularly greatvalue
buys.
Google’s Nexus 5X, released in 2015, also
distinguishes itself as a powerful mid-range phone
with a great camera, now at a price that makes
it an even better choice. We can say something
similar about the LG G4, which offers true flagship
credentials for only $230. We’d have liked another
price drop for the iPhone SE, but considering it’s
been upgraded with superior storage, it remains the
best Apple smartphone for the money.
Creeping further up the price brackets, the
OnePlus 3T is a superb combination of value,
newness and genuine top-end hardware, though if
you don’t mind an older model, the Samsung Galaxy
S6 performs as well or better for a few pounds
less. Speaking of Samsung, it’s worth mentioning
the Galaxy S7, 2016’s most capable Android phone,
which is now less expensive than the one replacing it.
www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 83

DEEP LEARNING
AND HEALTH
THE HURDLES
MACHINE
LEARNING
MUST LEAP
Startups and Silicon Valley giants are pushing
into medicine with artificial intelligence and
deep learning. Nicole Kobie reveals how smart
use of data could save your life
D
ata is important in healthcare.
How a chart is read, if a doctor has
time to take a second look at that
scan of your chest, and whether there’s
enough evidence to make you book an
appointment with your GP could mean
the difference between life and death
for you — and of lower-cost preventative
measures and expensive treatments for
insurance companies.
Currently, we rely on doctors and
nurses to interpret key information — but
machines are already coming to their
aid, scanning images for signs of cancer,
analysing data for symptoms of kidney
failure, and more. In the future, apps will
allow you to ask Alexa for medical advice,
tools will assist GPs with triage and hunt
for signs of cancer in medical scans, and
chatbots could help treat mental illness.
Google-owned DeepMind is working on
projects to analyse patient data to predict
kidney failure, spot head and neck cancers,
and to read complicated eye images.
However, those projects are under scrutiny
because of data-sharing agreements with
Google’s parent firm Alphabet, problems
that could delay the life-saving — and
budget-rescuing — potential of deep
learning and other forms of machine
learning.
NECESSARY DATA
The coding and engineering that goes into
deep learning is only the start. No matter
how a machine-learning system operates,
it follows the old IT axiom: garbage in,
84 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au
garbage out. They need to be trained on
high-quality, accurate data before they
can read our medical charts and interpret
images.
“Without data there can be no
application,” explained Natalia
Simanovsky, business development lead
at data management platform Cvedia,
speaking at ReWork’s Deep Learning in
Healthcare Summit. “You need lots of
data.”
That’s complicated by privacy concerns
— and not helped by previous missteps
by technology companies entering
healthcare, which have had a chilling
effect on the ease of getting data. Plus,
when data is made available, it’s often in
legacy formats that must be converted,
which adds yet another barrier.
Even when data is accessible
and properly formatted, it
needs to be of good quality.
Simanovsky noted that
training a skin-scanning
system requires not only
a large number of highquality
medical images, but
correct labelling to avoid
passing mistakes on to
machine-learning apps.
“We need to work with
dermatologists to ensure
these images are
correct,” she said. If an
image is
labelled incorrectly, the mistake could be
learned by the algorithm — which means
doctors’ errors are passed on to the
machines.
ALGORITHMIC ASSESSMENT
Diagnosing disease will remain the job
of human doctors for a long time to
come, but AI could help narrow down
potential causes of symptoms, acting
as an assistant to human physicians,
explained Daniel Nathrath, co-founder and
CEO of Ada Health, speaking at ReWork.
Doctors have the disadvantage of being
human, meaning they have biases, make
mistakes and suffer limited brain capacity.
Trust
me, I’m a
doctor

FUTURES
“It’s impossible to have it all in your head;
there’s where AI has an advantage,” said
Nathrath. “We’re not replacing doctors;
we’re augmenting the intelligence of a
doctor.”
Machine-learning analysis is particularly
useful for people with multiple health
issues – known as comorbidities – and
that’s applicable to most older people,
notes Marzieh Nabi, director of business
strategy at Xerox PARC. Doctors aren’t
diagnosing your complaints one by one:
they need to consider multiple causes
DEEPMIND’S DATA USE
DeepMind’s work with kidney patients is
perhaps the best-known example of deep
learning or artificial intelligence used in
medicine – not because of the project itself,
but because of the criticism it sparked on
data management.
Owned by Google’s parent firm
Alphabet, DeepMind is a British
deep-learning startup,
which in 2015 announced
it was working with the
Royal Free Trust in London
on a kidney disease
monitoring app called
Streams; the app would
analyse data and suggest
interventions to avoid kidney
failure.
Shortly after the trial kicked off, a
report in New Scientist revealed that the
hospitals had shared a wider range of
patient data than expected, across 1.6
million patients. The NHS and DeepMind
responded by tweaking the data-sharing
agreement, but an academic report from
the New Scientist reporter, Hal Hodson,
and a Cambridge researcher, Julia Powles,
said the “inexcusable” use of data should
offer lessons for future projects.
What could DeepMind have done better
to avoid such criticism? “At the foundation
level, no patient was contacted and
no effort was made to address the pivotal
consideration in use of health data: that
What seems to
be the problem
Dave?
of symptoms and think about
how medications will interact
– something that isn’t often
tested in drug trials. Deeplearning
tools could be
applied to pre-existing data
sets to analyse how drugs
interact and how diseases
progress, Nabi noted,
making it easier for doctors
to decide how to address
all that’s wrong with your
health– without the treatments
conflicting.
Such diagnostic support could
help health services with stretched
budgets, assisting medical staff to
patients understand when and why their
data is used, and they have realistic options
for effective choice,” said Powles.
She called for other NHS health projects to
consider consent and value before starting
work. “[Our] paper talks about
here-and-now issues, such as
patient autonomy, confidentiality
and legal compliance,”
she said. “We also
talk about the essential
keys to innovative healthcare
advances that work
for everyone, such as ensuring
that the public gets
value for data, that there
is effective oversight and accountability,
and that egalitarian,
public interests are preserved
over purely commercial ones.”
Failures to get data sharing right only delay
the use of the technologies – problematic
when they could be helping improve
people’s health. Powles pointed to the Connecting
Care project in Bristol, Somerset
and Gloucestershire hospitals in 2015 as
a better example. That saw third-party
providers linked to an electronic patient
record, but first mass-mailed all patients
to explain why the data processing was
happening, allowing people to opt out if
they so wished. That case shows deep
learning and data protection don’t need to
be in opposition.
work faster and better, but it could also
help people in areas where doctors are
scarce. “There are one billion people with
no access to doctors,” Nathrath said.
“Even in developed countries, people wait
weeks.”
TREATMENT TECHNIQUES
We often judge doctors on their bedside
manner — on how well they listen and
communicate in return, and how they
make us feel. It’s one area machines
struggle, since understanding natural
language isn’t easy. “One thing human
doctors are still better at is empathy,” said
Valentin Tablan, principal scientist at Ieso
Digital Health. “This will be something
good doctors do more of in the future.”
But, once speech is unpicked, deeplearning
tools could also be used to offer
treatment to those suffering with mental
health issues — and that’s as many as
a quarter of us, with suicide the leading
cause of death for younger men, noted
Tablan. “Unlike cancer, which we don’t
always know what to do about, we do
know what to do with mental health,”
he explained, as cognitive behavioural
therapy (CBT) is proven to offer respite for
many people.
www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 85

FUTURES
Get better,
or there will
be...trouble
HOW MACHINE LEARNING
HELPS HEALTH
There are numerous ways that deep learning, AI
and machine learning can boost health, from
diagnosis to treatment. Here are five projects that
could change how we identify and treat illness.
However, it’s a human-intensive process
that’s high cost, leaving those in rural or
poor areas unable to access the therapy.
Furthermore, the remaining stigma
surrounding mental health issues means
some people fail to seek treatment in
person.
Tablan said deep-learning systems are
already assisting with triage, by suggesting
diagnoses and tracking indicators to
prevent relapses. Following recent trials,
his firm has posted a 44% accuracy rate
in triage — which is on par with human
doctors. The aim is to extend such
technologies beyond diagnosis into digital
therapists, with patients speaking to bots
as part of their treatment.
DOCTORS’ JOBS
Medical staff have difficult jobs — and
that’s even before budgets start shrinking.
“It’s not about replacing doctors; it’s about
helping them do tough jobs,” said Tablan.
Technology such as deep learning
could help them work more quickly and
accurately, but it remains early days. The
companies and research mentioned here
are discussing trials; they’re not finished,
usable products. That’s partly because
the data to train deep-learning systems
isn’t easily available, with privacy a key
concern, but also because the technology
is still imperfect — for example, anyone
with an Amazon Echo in their home will
be aware of the limits of AI for nuanced
conversation, which is at the heart of any
diagnosis.
“It’s important not to oversell what AI is
able to do,” explained Aureli Soria-Frisch,
head of R&D for AI firm Starlab. “Any kind
of mechanical, artificial system makes
errors. 100% performance doesn’t exist in
any system.”
ADA
Ada is a
smartphone app
that “talks to
you like a really
good doctor
would,” taking
into account your
history and symptoms.
It’s now being ported to Amazon’s Echo,
so you can ask such questions to the Alexa
voice assistant, too. Rather than act like
a symptom checker online, each aspect
of a question is actually computed for
results, offering advice and next steps –
including whether you should go and see
your human doctor. Naturally, there are
disclaimers: Ada is not a medical diagnosis,
so see a doctor if you’re worried.
DEEPMIND AND MOORFIELDS
DeepMind’s kidney app was its first
project; the second is a partnership with
Moorfields Eye Hospital, which aims to
help optometrists detect common eye
disorders by letting deep-learning systems
look at scans. It takes a long time for
humans to read the complex eye scans,
but
DeepMind’s system will
train using a million
images, with the
aim of reducing
the time doctors
spend staring at
images, instead
boosting their time
with patients.
OXSIGHT
OxSight pairs
augmented reality
and machine
learning to help
people with a
residual level of
sight, “offering a
simplistic view of the
world,” said Stephen
Hicks, founder and head of innovation at
OxSight. That lets people with reduced
vision see shapes and movement, helping
them to make their way around the world.
Since everyone’s sight is different, OxSight
uses machine learning to help customise
the experience and learn the best way of
displaying information.
BABYLON HEALTH
Babylon makes AI-driven chatbots using
the smart app as a digital 999 system.
Patients enter their symptoms into
the app, which analyses the data and
asks for more information if necessary,
helping to decide the seriousness of the
illness or injury. The app isn’t for extreme
emergencies, but rather
smaller queries, with
Babylon claiming
that the system
takes an average
of a dozen
messages over a
minute and a half
to come to a decision.
ARTERYS
This medical
imaging analysis
tool is the
first machinelearning
app to be
approved by the
US Food and Drug
Administration (FDA).
Arterys learns as it goes, helping doctors
examine heart images and data for
diagnosis. To get FDA approval, it needed
to post results on par with humans – and
it does so in seconds; human experts can
take as long as 30 m inutes on the same
task, the company said.
86 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au

Prey
FLY ME TO THE MOON…
LET ME DIE AMONG THE STARS…
rkane Studios, the developer
behind Prey, is best known for its
A Dishonored series – a game where
you get to explore fantastic-yet-discrete
locations, develop mystical abilities
that let you manipulate each level, and
discover a rich world and its backstory.
Prey is cut from very similar cloth; but
whereas Dishonored has a very worn,
medieval feel, Prey looks to a future built
upon an alternate historical timeline. In
this world, JFK lived, the US joined with
the USSR to explore space together, and
contact was made with a mysterious
alien presence, the Typhon.
Now, in the game’s present time
of 2032, the Transtar corporation is
operating out of a vast space station,
and trying to monetise the aliens by
combining their unique talents with
human DNA. If this sounds like a really,
really bad idea, congratulations, you are
correct – this is a terrible idea that, before
the game even starts, as started to go
terribly wrong.
The game also comes with a literal
false start, that’s more than a little
reminiscent of the opening of Half Life
– budding scientist goes to work for
some lab experiments, and things… well,
another scientist gets kind of killed by
a shape-changing alien beasty. Then…
you wake up again, at the start of that
seeming same day… Turns out – and
you learn this very early – you’ve been
experimenting upon yourself and now
your memory is effectively shot.
As set ups go, it’s very strong. You’re
obviously a person of some importance,
a member of the family that runs the
company in fact, but you still don’t have
any backstory – you’re a blank slate. As
you explore the station – in between
sneaking past strange aliens, or having
nerve-wracking fights with them – you
pick up recordings, books, notes, and all
manner of other details that fill in the
world and how it’s gotten to this rather
spectacularly crappy point.
Which is, you, alone, on an alieninfested
space station filled with
malfunctioning equipment and dead
people.
Thankfully, you’ve got a lot of rather
cool toys at your disposal. There are
guns, but while Prey is a first person
game, shooting isn’t what it’s about.
Ammunition is limited, and your enemies
88 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au

GAMES REVIEW
rather tough - this is a game about
outwitting your enemies, rather than
blowing them away. Combat is possible,
but you’ll have to pick and choose your
targets. Each level is also complex
enough that there are multiple paths to
each objective; you can use the awesome
GLOO gun to not only stick enemies to
the spot, but also to build impromptu
stairs to hard to reach places, or you can
mod yourself for boosted strength, and
move crates and other gear around. Or
you can just explore, and find not only
extra gear and loot, but also service
passages that might bypass doors and
enemies completely.
The modding system is based around
neuromods – alien-DNA-powered
changes to your physical self, and the
“this is a game about
outwitting your enemies,
rather than blowing
them away”
main product of Transtar. That they’re
also super-unstable is kind of beside the
point. But they let you unlock three trees
of cool skills, from being able to slow
down time to run rings around badguys,
to advanced hacking and repair skills that
let you unlock doors or fix up busted gear.
The game also features a crafting
system, which breaks down junk loot
into basic components, which you can
then build into more advanced gear,
ammunition, or even weapons. New
blueprints are littered around each level,
and as you gain neuromods, there’s
always new skills to unlock. Combining
all of this together to get past each
challenge is rewarding, and offers some
impressive replay value. Not as much,
perhaps, as Dishonored, where each level
is more based on a singular challenge,
but there’s still a lot of different ways to
play Prey.
Inspired as it is by games like Half
Life and System Shock, if Prey has one
flaw it’s that it feels like ground already
trodden, but it least it’s still very solid
ground, and Prey is a fine game, with a
look and feel all its own.
David Hollingworth
KEY SPECS
https://prey.bethesda.net
Genre: FPS • Developer: Bethesda Softworks • Publisher:
Arkane Studios • Platform: PC, PS4, XBox One
OVERALL
0 1 2 3 4 5
www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 89

Endless Space 2
RARE EARTH FOAMS OR ASTROFINANCE? CHOOSE NOW!
A
developer that wants you to
buy its new space-themed 4X
strategy game faces a unique
challenge. Because these games are all
the same. No really - 4X (explore, expand,
exploit, exterminate) games set in space
have no distinguishing characteristics
whatsoever. You can’t tell them apart.
Calm your space-jets, Ouroboran
Apostles of the End Turn, I’m wasn’t
talking to you, I was talking to the
underpeople. The ‘normies’. YOU, as 4X
fans and veterans, can absolutely identify
the subtle nuances in each title, and
know that 150 hours in Distant Worlds is a
profoundly different experience from 150
hours in Stellaris. If you’re Zen about it,
anyway.
Ever since Australia’s own Roger Keating
and Ian Trout wrote Reach for the Stars
way back in 1983, 4X has remained not
so much hostile to new converts, as it is
brutally indifferent to their confusion and
flailing attempts to get a grip on all that
hypercomplexity. These normies, they
lack the specialised adaptations in the left
fusiform gyrus of their brains, is what I’m
saying. Don’t hate them. Pity them.
Endless Space 2 begins as all spacebased
4X begins: you get a single star
system, a single homeworld, a single
colony ship, a single scout, (sometimes
a single attack ship, depending on race),
and a single-minded mission to dominate
the galaxy. Lesser gamers pursue victory
by military conquest, by technological
advancement, by even, perhaps, the
rather reductive accumulation of mere
points, but we Ultranauts of Iterated
Fate, we prefer the diplomatic victory,
don’t we? Because we always want what
we can’t have. Which means, of course,
diplomacy in ES2 sucks.
Seriously, we’d happily eschew racial
sub-factions or five types of resources, or
even these hand-drawn heroes and their
milquetoast buffs. We just need - NEED
- an incredible self-learning AI, diligently
programmed by, like, the guys who did
IBM’s Watson, to mess with our heads. To
break us, to stomp us, and then to mock
us.
When an alien pops up on your screen
and demands cash money lest it unleash
its three rusty corvettes against your 25
gleaming battleships... wouldn’t it be
great to spend forty minutes wondering
just what the hell this AI’s long game
is, wondering what you’re not seeing,
because attacking a battlefleet with three
garbage scows... there HAS to be a plan
right? Alas, in ES2 there is no wonder,
and there is no plan. The AI is doing this
because the AI is dumb.
Still, let us put aside our
disappointment, and cleanse the bile
from our palates with the refreshing
sorbet of ES2’s Major Factions. Far from
mere Humans of Different Hues, each
is properly different. The Unfallen are
basically ents, you know, tree people.
The Riftborn are refugees from an
orthogonally-alternate universe. The
Horatio are billions of clones of one crazy
hyperbillionaire. And so on.
90 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au

GAMES REVIEW
It all goes into the mix, and that mix is
further enhanced with sub-factions and
different population types on the one
planet, and bonuses for encouraging
population diversity, and intra-factional
politics, and being overridden by your
own senate, and possible descent into
anarchy, and... and this does indeed result
in a game of considerable complexity.
Because you, you plucker of Fractal Fruit
from the Great Decision Tree, you want
this complexity. You demand it!
And to support it, Amplitude has
crafted a beautiful, elegant interface.
A skinny-fonted sanctum sanctorum, in
which you hold the fate of billions. No,
trillions. Icons and numbers float in the
darkness of deep space. Each is familiar,
yet also unfamiliar. What devilry is this?
You flail, mouse-pointer flicking to reveal
tooltip after tooltip. And then you realise:
even as a Master you must learn, and
again you must learn...
ES2 was in Early Access for a year or
so, so others have come before you and
learned already. They played a thousand
games, and made YouTube videos where
they break ES2 down into its component
parts and answer important, stat-based
questions like: “Given that it costs me
fewer command points to build three
small ships with 400HP each, than it does
“You, you plucker of
Fractal Fruit from the
Great Decision Tree”
a big ship with 1200HP, and overall fleet
strength remains the same, why would I
bother spending 30 turns researching the
big ship when I can just spam these little
ones?”
ES2’s complexity invites these
questions, as well as questions about
resource levels, population levels,
population happiness, population
political identity, which anomalies are
worth analysing, the value of ancient
artefacts from the eponymous Endless
precursor race, upgrades, ship formations,
the battleplan system, terraforming,
optimised resource extraction...
Does any of this even matter? Look, as
a wanderer among the Nested Always-
Futures of One More Turn, you know that
the next 4X game you sink 1000 hours
into won’t win your favour with a sleek
interface, nor will you spurn it because of
the nuanced stupidity of its rock/paper/
hyperkinetic-darkmatter-quantumtorpedo
combat system. It’s more subtle
than that, a feel, a vibe. ES2 is hard to
score, because to the 4X casual (does
this person even exist?) it works no better
or worse than any other 4X game. But
for you, an Antimatutinal Arbiter of the
Quadridimensional Irrealis, can Endless
Space 2 ever hope to join the ranks of the
greats like Galactic Civilizations II, Master
of Orion 2, or even Distant Worlds?
Alas, despite its many interesting
aspects of newness, I suspect the answer
is no. ES2 is beautiful, it is sleek, but it
joins a genre stuffed with exemplary
achievements in gameplay design, and it
is remarkable only for being new.
Besides, playing Endless Space 2 is, like
all new 4X games, just another excuse.
An excuse we Philosophers-Militant of
Stepwise History keep making, to avoid
that ultimate test of our faith: Aurora. The
Most Insanely Complex 4X Game Ever
Made. I’m told it’s not so bad. They say
after 100 hours, you’ll have almost learned
how to read the system map...
Anthony Fordham
KEY SPECS
www.endless-space.com
Genre: 4X turn-based strategy • Developer: Amplitude
Publisher: SEGA • Platform: PC
OVERALL
0 1 2 3 4 5
www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 91

The A-List
THE VERY BEST GEAR YOU CAN BUY
THE BEST PC IS A MAC?
The fact that our best desktop PC
here has long been a Mac bothers us,
and maybe some of you, too. We’re
not saying that this particular Mac
is the best computer you can put on
your desktop, because we all know
that you can shop at any of the terrific
Australian online or physical shops
and spec-up a machine that leaves
this in the dust. But the reason we
don’t select a machine from any of
these places is due to several factors.
First, there’s tremendous variability
– most of these boxes are intended
for customisation when you place the
order, sometime with many things
changed. It’s also true that many
advertised PCs don’t exist other than
on paper until the orders start coming
in. Things change quickly, too, with
models constantly updated – and
that’s a big advantage the PC has over
the Mac. So we worry that a particular
model may no longer be sold after just
a couple of months.
The other thing is that we could put
in any of the good All-In-One machines
from the likes of Dell and HP, but the
iMac we have on the right is simply
better than any of them, that’s why it’s
here.
I hope that’s cleared things up a bit
for you. As always, check our Market
Snapshot on page 19 every issue
for the latest on the best and most
interesting PCs you can buy this right
now.
PC DESKTOP
ALL-IN-ONE
Apple iMac 27in with Retina 5k display
PRICE $2,799
SUPPLIER www.apple.com/au
The Apple 27in iMac with Retina 4K display is great. The best
all-in-one computer around, and by a furlong.
SPECIFICATIONS Quad-core 3.1GHz Intel Core i5 processor; Intel Iris Pro graphics
6200; • 8GB RAM • 1TB HDD • 27in 4096 x 2304 Retina 5K IPS display • SDXC card slot • 4
x USB 3 • 2 x Thunderbolt 2 • Gigabit Ethernet • 802.11ac Wi-Fi
PERIPHERALS
WIRELESS ROUTER Synology
RT2600ac Wi-Fi Router
SUPPLIER www.synology.com
This router really does do it all, and at a great price
point. We’d go so far as to say it’s the best 2600AC
router on the market, with blazing speeds, a rich feature
set and that oh-so-amazing interface. Highly recommended
for both novices and network engineers alike.
SPECIFICATIONS dual channel
(2.4GHz – 800Mbps; 5GHz –
1.73Gbps); EEE 802.11a/b/g/n/
ac; twin USB ports (1 x 2.0, 1 x
3.0); MU-MIMO compatible;
beamforming
NAS Synology
Diskstation DS216+
SUPPLIER www.synology.
com
For most people the Synology
DS216+ is all the NAS they’ll
ever need.
SPECIFICATIONS 2x SATA 3 2.5”/3.5” drive
bays • Intel Celeron Dual Core 1.6GHz CPU • 1GB DDR3 RAM • eSata, 2x USB 3.0 & 3x
USB 2.0 • 1x Gigabit Ethernet
LASER PRINTER Dell B1160w
SUPPLIER www.dell.com.au
The best all-rounder in our printer grouptest, with excellent
text printing and decent costs.
SPECIFICATIONS 1800 x 600dpi resolution; USB 2; Wi-Fi; 150-sheet input
trays; 331 x 215 x 178
ALL-IN-ONE PRINTER
EPSON WF-3620
SUPPLIER www.epson.com.au
It’s a near-perfect MFP for home or small-office use,
and a cut above the cheap MFPs you’ll find on the office
supplier shelves.SPECIFICATIONS 4,800 x 2,400dpi A4 inkjet • 2,400 x
1,200dpi colour scanner • claimed 33/20ppm mono/colour printing • 6.8cm touchscreen
• 802.11n Wi-Fi • 10/100 Ethernet • USB 2 • fax modem • SD card slot
92 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au

A-LIST REVIEWS
LAPTOPS
VALUE
Asus T100HA
PRICE $399
SUPPLIER www.asus.com.au
Performance that delivers everything
typical day to day computing demands
short of intense gaming, combined
with a fantastic screen and a solid and
we think, rugged design makes this the
value king.
SPECIFICATIONS 10.1in IPS panel • Intel Quad-Core x5-
Z8500 processor • 64GB eMMC SSD • 2GB LPDDR3 memory
HANDHELDS
SMARTPHONE
OnePlus3
PRICE $432
SUPPLIER
www.oneplus.net
Quick, beautiful,
long-lasting and an
incredible price; you
won’t find a better
phone for the money.
SPECIFICATIONS Quad-core
2.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 820
processor • Adreno 530 graphics • 6GB RAM •
5.5in 1,080 x 1,920 AMOLED display • 64GB storage • dual SIM
• 16MP/8MP rear/front camera • 802.11ac Wi-Fi
EBOOK READER
Kindle Paperwhite
PRICE $119
SUPPLIER
www.amazon.com
The premium
Kindle goes the
extra mile, with a
more attractive
design, lower
weight, and better
contrast.
SPECIFICATIONS 6in 1,072 x 1,448 E Ink Carta display •
4GB storage • single-band 802.11n Wi-Fi • optional 3G • 1yr
RTB warranty • 117 x 9.1 x 169mm (WDH)
GAMING
Asus GL502VS
PRICE $2,995
SUPPLIER www.asus.com.au
Asus has built a very solid machine
around an incredible new GPU. This has
totally revolutionised the performance
we can expect from a laptop, putting
many regular desktops to shame.
SPECIFICATIONS GeForce GTX 1070 GPU • Intel
i7-6700HQ CPU • 8GB DDR4 • 15.6-inch IPS display • 1TB
HDD • 256GB SSD
TABLET
Apple iPad Pro 9.7in
PRICE $849 (32GB, Wi-Fi)
SUPPLIER www.apple.com/au
This is a tablet you’ll
want to use all the
time, and there’s no
higher praise for any
piece of technology
than that.
SPECIFICATIONS 64-bit
Apple A9X custom processor with
M9motion coprocessor • 2GB RAM •
32/128/256GB storage • 9.7in 2,048
x 1,536 IPS display
SMARTWATCH
Apple Watch 2
PRICE $529
SUPPLIER
www.apple.com/au
The Apple Watch
is the best
smartwatch on the
market – and the
Series 2 can now
claim to be among
the best fitness
trackers too.
SPECIFICATIONS
340 x 272 AMOLED • GPS • heart rate sensor
PROFESSIONAL
Microsoft
Surface Book
PRICE $2,299 – $4,206
SUPPLIER www.microsoft.com.au
Truly beautiful, undeniably powerful
and without doubt the best
professional laptop you can buy.
SPECIFICATIONS 13.5in 3000x2000 IPS display • Intel
i5-6300U/i7-6600U CPU • 8/16GB RAM, optional Nvidia
GPU • 256/512GB PCIe SSD • 802.11ac Wi-Fi • Bluetooth 4.0,
2x USB 3.0 • Mini DisplayPort
SOFTWARE
SECURITY Kaspersky
Total Security
SUPPLIER www.kaspersky.com
Kaspersky Total Security is the only
security package on test that achieved
both perfect protection and falsepositives
scores.
BACK UP Acronis
True Image 2015
SUPPLIER www.acronis.com.au
The 2015 version adds full-system
backup and dual backup.
OFFICE
SUITE
Microsoft
Office
365 Home
Premium
SUPPLIER
www.microsoft.
com.au
The easiest to use Office to date.
WEB DEV Adobe
Dreamweaver CS6
SUPPLIER www.adobe.com.au
This edition makes PHP and CMS its
core focus.
ULTRA PORTABLE
Dell XPS 13
PRICE $2,499
SUPPLIER www.dell.com
There’s no denying how sexy Dell’s
latest XPS is. Premium. Sexy. Stylish.
Lightweight. Damn does this Ultrabook
impress. Along with a multitude of ports,
the extra battery life is a very pleasing
bonus.
SPECIFICATIONS Intel 7th Generation Core i7-6500 •
8GB memory • 256GB SSD • 13.3-inch QHD+ with Touch
AUDIO Cubase 7.5
SUPPLIER www.steinberg.net
The addition of better filters solidifies
this program’s continued place on the
A-List.
VIDEO Sony Vegas Movie
Studio HD Platinum 11
SUPPLIER www.sony.com.au
May not have the bells and whistles of
other consumer editing packages, but
its tools are efficient.
PHOTO Adobe
Photoshop Lightroom 6
SUPPLIER www.adobe.com.au
Lightroom 6 doesn’t add up to a
revolutionary update, but it improves
on what was already an exceptional
piece of software.
www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 93

The Kitlog
THE GAME BOX
AMD GPU UPGRADE
As AMD does, a new year brings a slightly
tweaked set of GPUs. Technically it’s not a
new family of GPUs, but the improvements
we see in the 500-series make it the
sensible choice to replace the AMD RX 480
we’ve had in the Game Box.
We’re jumping straight from the 480 to
the 580, and sticking with the 8GB variant.
When matched with the LG UC79C (or a
similar resolution monitor), the 8GB of
memory is ample to hold textures and
there should be no symptoms of running
short of memory.
Best of all these improvements in the
GPU come at the same price as the 480, so
with that comes better overclocking, lower
power consumption and slightly higher
performance.
VIDEOCARD MEMORY MOTHERBOARD CPU
INTEL CORE I5 6600K
PRICE $319
Gaming generally doesn’t make use
of hyper-threading which makes
this the CPU of choice for this box.
ASUS Z170 PRO GAMING
PRICE $229
Our Skylake Value Award winner, it packs
in a complete set of features yet is priced
reasonably. Good audio also means we don’t
need a sound card.
AMD RX 580 8GB
PRICE $380
More than enough power to run our
chosen monitor and with FreeSync
working, at a very reasonable price.
8GB OF DDR4
PRICE $65
The speed and brand makes so little
difference to performance we can’t
recommend one over another.
THE PERFECT PC
VIDEOCARD MEMORY MOTHERBOARD CPU
INTEL CORE I7 6700K
PRICE $459
Intel’s top-shelf unlocked i7 CPU.
GIGABYTE
GA-170X GAMING G1
PRICE $715
The most complete
100-series motherboard
you can buy today.
NVIDIA GTX 1080 TI
PRICE $1,189
The fastest graphics card of them all.
32GB OF DDR4
PRICE $200
For a general-purpose build 16GB is
all you need, but go big if you know
you need more.
94 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au

KITLOG REVIEWS
TOTAL: $2,932 RIG ONLY: $1,661
AUDIO DISPLAY SYSTEMDRIVES COOLER
SAMSUNG 850 PRO 512GB
PRICE $319
This SSD offers greatly improved
durability. Supplement it with a hard
drive of your choice if needed.
LG UC79G
PRICE $940
Ultrawide 2560x1080, curved, 144Hz with
FreeSync, this is the gaming screen to
bury your head in.
HYPERX
CLOUD REVOLVER
PRICE $119
For the price they sound
almost as good as $500
audiophile cans
COOLERMASTER
NEPTON 140XL
PRICE $85
Easy to install AIO CPU cooling,
relative quiet and performance to
rival twin-radiator units.
POWER SUPPLY MOUSE KEYBOARD CASE
COOLER MASTER
QUICKFIRE XTI
PRICE $149
Good looks, solid and reliable
build and many gaming features.
COOLER MASTER G750M
PRICE $129
Outstanding value for money, it’s
powerful enough for even performance
PCs packing twin GPUs.
BITFENIX RONIN
PRICE $106
Bitfenix continues to deliver great
budget cases that look terrific and
are easy to build in.
TT ESPORTS LEVEL 10 M
PRICE $85
Mouse perfection. Lovely on-screen
and on-pad movement, super
accurate and delightful to use.
TOTAL: $7,366 RIG ONLY: $5,179
AUDIO HDDS SSDS COOLER
SAMSUNG 960
PRO 2TB SSD
PRICE $1,799
Significantly faster than any
other SSD on the market.
ANY HDD
PRICE $99 (2TB)
Supplement the SSD
with cheap HDD storage.
CORSAIR H100IGTX
WATER COOLER
PRICE $159
Excellent cooling that is easy
to install with advanced
monitoring.
ASUS PA329Q
PRICE $1,999
32-inches of 10-bit colour at 4k res, 100%
RGB for professionals, and a luxurious
delight for gaming and general use.
POWER SUPPLY MOUSE KEYBOARD CASE
LOGITECH G610 PRICE $139
Stunning looks and a delight to type on.
STEELSERIES APEX M500
PRICE $135
A similar alternative to the G610.
CORSAIR HX1000I
PRICE $305
Corsair’s mighty HX1000i
pumps out extremely reliable
power, even when under
full loads.
ANTEC S10
PRICE $255
If you absolutely must have what is
very nearly the best case we’ve seen,
this is the one.
CM STORM REAPER
PRICE $49
Very solid and feels fantastic under
the hand with sweet on-screen
movement.
www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 95

SUBSCRIBE
OR RENEW TO
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GTX 1070
EXOC SNIPER WHITE
GRAPHICS CARD
WORTH $659!
VALUED
AT
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Sniper White, which has the power to run games at ultra
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It features a beautiful white anodized aluminium
backplate, and comes factory overclocked to a 1594MHz
Base clock speed. Dual 100mm LED cooling fans provide
efficient cooling with low noise, and a unique RGB
backplate adds a bit of magic to your case.
WWW.GALAX.COM
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MA/PCA236

DVD CONTENTS
WE HAVE A SPECIAL FEATURED APPS SECTION THIS MONTH! CHECK IT OUT!
FEATURES
+ ASHAMPOO UNINSTALLER 2017 +
ABELSSOFT ANTIRANSOMWARE 2017 +
ASCOMP BACKUP MAKER + NOVAPDF
LITE 8
FEATURED APPS
+ SECURITY + CODING &
PRODUCTIVITY + MEDIA &
ENTERTAINMENT
DRIVERS
+ ATI CATALYST + NVIDIA FORCEWARE
HELP
+ DISCLAIMER + DAMAGED OR FAULTY
DVDS + USING THIS DVD + INSTALLING
SOFTWARE
EDITORIAL
+ BURNING AN ISO IMAGE
+ PC&TA EDITORIALS
TROUBLESHOOTING
+ SERIAL CODES + BLANK
REGISTRATION WEBSITE + CAN’T FIND
A FILE? + INSTALLATION ERROR
WINDOWS
+ 7ZIP + CCLEANER + CLASSIC
SHELL + CUTEPDF + DEEPBURNER +
DEFRAGGLER + FLUX + FOXIT READER
+ GREENSHOT + APPLE ITUNES
+ LIBRE OFFICE + OPEN OFFICE +
MALWAREBYTES’ A/M + SANDBOXIE
+ VLC MEDIA PLAYER
MAC
+ ALFRED + BETTERTOUCHTOOLS +
APPLE ITUNES + DROPBOX + FLUX +
GOOGLE CHROME + MOZILLA FIREFOX
+ PLEX + SKYPE + TEAMVIEWER + VLC
INTERNET
+ VUZE + DROPBOX + GOOGLE
CHROME + MOZILLA FIREFOX + MOZILLA
THUNDERBIRD + SKYPE + STEAM
INSTRUCTIONS: Open Windows Explorer,
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98 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au
FULL VERSION
ASHAMPOO UNINSTALLER 2017
Ashampoo Uninstaller is a powerful
program which can fully remove stubborn
applications from your system. And
despite its name, that’s not all - it also
has a very full set of PC maintenance
tools.
Select an installed program and
Ashampoo Uninstaller goes to work,
locating and deleting any associated files
and Registry keys.
There are free tools which do the
same, but Ashampoo also has the ability
to monitor programs as they’re being
installed. This enables it to detect all the
changes made, and ensures far more
accurate removals later.
You also get the ability to create and
compare snapshots of your system.
These can’t be used for uninstalling, but
do have other uses, such as showing
the changes made by an application
whenever if runs.
Most of the competition don’t even
have this much functionality, but
Ashampoo Uninstaller keeps going
with more PC optimization tools than
many suites. There are disk and Registry
cleaners, an internet history wiper, a
defrag tool, individual startup program/
Windows service/ font/ system restore
point managers, an undelete tool, a
secure file wiper, duplicate file/ invalid
shortcut finders, and more.
REQUIREMENTS:
- Windows 7, 8, 10 32/64-bit
- 50 MB hard drive space
LIMITATIONS:
- Registration Required
- http://www.ashampoo.com/
REGISTRATION & INSTALLATION:
Download and run ashampoo_
uninstaller_2017_25961.exe
You will reach a prompt asking you to
enter your license key. On the same
screen, click the “Get a free activation
key” button.
A webpage will appear asking for your
email. Please fill in accordingly.
After you have followed the instructions
on the website, you will be presented with
your license key. Copy and paste this back
into the installer program.
Congratulations! You have unlocked
Ashampoo Uninstaller 2017!
For support of this software, please
direct your queries to: https://www.
ashampoo.com/en/aud/sup
FULL VERSION
ABELSSOFT
ANTIRANSOMWARE 2017
Abelssoft AntiRansomware 2017 is a
program designed to constantly monitor
your computer for ransomware, and
raise the alarm as soon as any suspicious
activity is detected.
The package works by scanning the key
folders where your data files are stored.
You can tell it to watch any or all of the
four main user folders - Documents,
Pictures, Music, Videos - or add custom
folders of your own.
If AntiRansomware 2017 spots
potentially dangerous activity it’ll
display a warning and recommend
that you reboot. If you’re very sure it’s a
false alarm, this can be dismissed, but
otherwise the system will automatically
reboot into Safe Mode after a countdown.
Rebooting may sound drastic, and it
could mean that you lose unsaved work.
But if you really have been infected by
ransomware, it could save hundreds or
even thousands of files from encryption--
and rebooting automatically protects you
even if you’re not at the computer.
Abelssoft AntiRansomware 2017
restarts your computer in Safe Mode,
which should prevent the ransomware
from operating. It sends an email to your
registered address to act as a warning,
just in case you’re not around, and opens
an assistant to advise you of the next
steps and help you recover your data.
The program can’t remove the
ransomware, unfortunately, so it’s not
a substitute for a full antivirus package.
But you can run it alongside your existing
package without conflicts, and it just
might give you a valuable early alarm of
problems.
REQUIREMENTS:
- Windows 7, 8, 10 32/64-bit
- 20 MB hard drive space
LIMITATIONS:
- Registration required.
- https://www.abelssoft.de/
REGISTRATION & INSTALLATION:
- Download and install AntiRansomware_
cs_uk_08_2017.exe
- A prompt will appear when you first run

CONTENTS DVD
the application, the prompt will detail
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FULL VERSION
ASCOMP BACKUP MAKER
ASCOMP BackUp Maker is an easyto-use
and highly configurable tool for
backing up all your most important
personal files.
Simple backups can be set up in
seconds. Choose a few items you’d like
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bookmarks, your Documents, Pictures
or Music folders), click Next a few times,
pick a destination drive and you’re done.
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NOVAPDF LITE 8
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www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 99

JON HONEYBALL
“THIS IS A CRITICAL STEP
FORWARD FOR PERSONAL DATA
SECURITY – AND A BLOW TO
INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES”
Jon explores the advantages of Apple’s new file system, before explaining
why we all need to sit up and listen when it comes to surround sound for VR
T
he launch of a new file system is a
rare event. There are good reasons
for this: moving over an entire
community of users from one file system
format to another is a big deal. No,
scratch that – it’s a huge deal. And it’s the
sort of hugeness that means you can do
this only once a decade. Even that would
be considered almost rashly hasty.
If you think about it, the PC/Windows
world has seen remarkably few file
systems over the history of the PC.
We started with MS-DOS, and then
subdirectories were added – oh, the
naughty radicalism of that move! MS-
DOS evolved from FAT to FAT32, and then
stopped. NTFS came with Windows NT in
1992, and it had tiny evolutions in the first
decade, before it also stopped.
Then Microsoft came up with ExFAT,
which can be described as FAT64, or
“FAT-with-some-NTFS-bits-added”,
depending on whether your view is topdown
or bottom-up. ExFAT has been fairly
successful, although take-up by third
parties remains slow, no doubt as a result
of the licensing cost that Microsoft applies
for ExFAT inclusion in your product.
So the news that Apple is moving to
the new Apple File System (APFS) is
significant, simply because it’s such a rare
event. Apple has decided that the existing
one is old and tired, coming as it does
from the era of the floppy disk drive. All
this is true, but Apple has tweaked it into
multiple versions targeted at its different
platforms. So there’s an APFS for macOS.
One for iOS. Another for Watch (yes, the
Watch needs to have a file system, even if
you can’t directly access it yourself).
By moving to APFS, Apple has brought
together all the capabilities required into
JON HONEYBALL
Jon is the MD of an IT consultancy
that specialises in testing and
deploying hardware
@jonhoneyball
100 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au
a single platform – and has strengthened
and extended it significantly. One notable
move is in the handling of encryption.
iOS supported full disk encryption, which
was a good thing. APFS goes further and
allows for full disk encryption of both
files and metadata, and also allows for
multi-key encryption with per-file keys for
file data and a separate key for sensitive
metadata. This is a critical step forward
for personal data security, and somewhat
of a blow to the intelligence agencies that
want access to everything right now.
“The news that Apple
is moving to the new
Apple File System
(APFS) is significant,
simply because it’s such
a rare event”
What’s interesting about APFS is that
Apple is making very little noise about
it. It isn’t even mentioned in the release
notes for 10.3, which is odd given how
significant the change is. It might explain
why the 10.3 update takes some time to
process, because it has to trundle through
the file system and change all the AFS
stuff to APFS. This isn’t the first time
such changes have been done on the
fly – readers with long memories will
recall how Microsoft originally hadn’t
written an NTFS formatter program,
but had a tool that converted FAT
format to NTFS, using the infamous
“convert d: /fs:NTFS” command.
Part of getting users onto APFS is
that the transition has to be totally
seamless.
Last time I checked, the APFS
support in macOS betas was for
data volumes only – you couldn’t
boot from it. Clearly, this isn’t
acceptable for a mass rollout of
APFS in the forthcoming autumn update
to macOS, so I’m sure Apple is quickly
fixing this limitation. But be clear that
macOS will be changing from AFS to
APFS this year.
Some are claiming that their iPhone
runs longer on battery using the APFS
file system, because it’s faster and more
efficient. I think it’s much too early to have
a view on this, but it’s possible that it
will speed up older iPhones (and related
devices).
COLOUR SPACE OF
AMOLED DISPLAY
Here’s an interesting problem. I’ve
recently been conducting various
measurements of tablet screens.
The tools I use are about the best
that money can buy – the Klein meter
(kleininstruments.com/k-80) feeding
into the excellent CalMAN software from
SpectraCal (calman.spectracal.com).
I measured the iPhone 7 Plus, which
displayed truly superb performance. Its
accuracy to the sRGB colour space is so
good that you can carry out colour-correct
work onscreen with high confidence that
Some claim
Apple’s new file
system speeds up
their older
devices

JON HONEYBALL REAL WORLD COMPUTING
your edits will reflect in the final output
correctly. If you use a screen with poor
colour accuracy, then you’ll make changes
but have no idea if they’re correct or even
appropriate to the underlying desired
modification. It truly is a case of the blind
leading the blind.
So colour accuracy matters. Normally,
you could measure the performance of
a screen, then generate a new ICC file
that contains details of the colour errors
and how to correct them. Then you apply
this ICC file to the display and it displays
colours correctly.
Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t allow
you to rewrite the ICC file for the iPhone
or iPad screen. While this is of itself
somewhat disappointing, the reality is
that the screen is normally sufficiently
close to the correct colour that tweaking
isn’t really needed. I say “normally”
because Apple, like any large-scale
manufacturer, has to use multiple
suppliers to satisfy the mind-bending
“Until we have a known
and defined colour
space for domestic still
images, we’re left with
a problem”
production numbers that are demanded
by customers, especially in the initial few
months when the New Shiny has just
landed and everyone wants to be seen
holding it.
So Apple buys screens from multiple
sources, and they don’t always agree
in terms of colour accuracy and even
maximum brightness. The differences
aren’t huge, and I’m not convinced that
they would justify the creation of a
custom ICC profile for a typical “man in
the street” user. But it would be nice for
the professional, finicky user who wants
to know that it’s correct.
I then put a Samsung tablet onto
the test rig – a Galaxy Tab S2, which is
quite rightly a highly regarded product.
I fired up the meter and CalMAN again,
and measured the display accuracy.
It was all over the place. I mean, truly
horribly wrong. This caused much headscratching,
until I realised that this tablet
uses the current state-of-the-art Super
AMOLED display, which claims to offer a
bigger colour range than a normal display.
I dug into the display settings, and
found that I could set it to Basic mode.
This was almost spot on to the sRGBexpected
colours. But when I went back
to normal, default mode, the colours
were wrong. “Wrong” as in “much
Klein’s K-80 colorimeter is my tool of choice for measuring colour accuracy of screens
too shouty and loud”, if I can use the term
we use here in the lab. Super-saturated,
bold and bright colours. It certainly looks
impressive, but it isn’t correct.
Now this does matter, because an RGB
value of 255.0.0 has an expected red
performance when displayed. It maps
through to the original colour value that
the camera saw. Take 255.0.0 and apply
it to a Super AMOLED display, and you’ll
get a very strong red. It will be punchy.
It’s correct in that it is indeed a supersaturated
red. But it isn’t the same red
that was intended when the camera took
the photo.
Herein lies the problem. In the film/
video world, we’ve known about colour
issues for years, and there’s even a
specialised step in the production process
that exists to handle colour imbalances,
called “grading”. We have multiple colour
spaces to choose from in the high-end
film/video world and we know that we
need to take control of it. However, this
isn’t true when it comes to photography,
and especially not in the world of the
smartphone camera, where the user
simply points and shoots.
Until we have a known and defined
colour space for domestic still images
that encompasses the enhanced colour
space of Super AMOLED, we’re left with
a problem. Do we set the display to the
sRGB colour space and disallow the
enhanced colour space that the display
can stretch to? Or do we show enhanced
colour, knowing that it’s incorrect,
however nice it might be to look at?
Then, another question: how should we
report on such a display? Do we measure
it in “default user mode”, in which case
it’s wrong, despite it just looking like “very
loud” colour. Or do we switch it down
to sRGB mode and report on its fine
performance, clear in the knowledge that
almost no user will switch away from
Super AMOLED mode?
It’s certainly a quandary, and one to
be aware of when considering all the
pathway components used in a colour
film and stills environment. Don’t assume
that things are as you might want, out of
the box.
SURROUND SOUND STUFF
Back in the 1970s, Peter Craven and
Michael Gerzon developed the Soundfield
microphone. This is essentially a singlepoint
microphone array, comprising
four capsules in a tetrahedron array.
The output from this array, known
as “A-format”, is processed via some
straightforward maths to generate a
four-channel signal called “B-format”.
The channels on B-format are named
X, Y, Z and W. X is front to back; Y is left
to right; Z is the up to down; and W is an
omnidirectional signal.
Once you have a B-format feed, either
live or recorded, you effectively have the
data necessary to create a virtual sphere
of sound, representing all the sound
sources around you – whether they be
Are the colours of your tablet screen accurate enough
for colour correction work?
www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 101

Rode’s first VideoMic Soundfield mic will be released later this year
behind, up, left, or in the top-right corner
of your perspective.
Now things get really fun. From the
B-format feed that creates a virtual
sphere, you can place virtual loudspeakers
into that sphere and then map them to
real, physical speakers that are mounted
around you. It might be an eight-speaker
cube. Or a 12-speaker array. Or some other
custom array. Providing you have a way
of mapping the virtual speakers to the
array, you have a way of recreating the
physical sound field that was present at
the Soundfield microphone.
And, of course, if you have a highquality
digital recorder, then recording
the four channels of B-format means you
can play it back later, and resynthesise
the sound field. Or fiddle with it to your
heart’s content. There’s superb software
available for working with B-format; my
favourite is from Harpex (harpex.net). It
allows me to take B-format and output
to binaural, which is surround sound
optimised for headphones. Or even
to Dolby Atmos format. Noisemakers
(noisemakers.fr) from France has a full
suite of fascinating plugins too, some of
which are pay-for and others are free.
Calrec productionised the Soundfield
microphone in the late 1970s, and it’s
been a stalwart of the surround sound
world ever since. I remember using one
for recordings throughout my undergrad
years, from 1982 to 1986. Indeed, I wanted
my final year research project to be a way
of capturing head movement such that I
could then post-process the virtual sphere
in a way to handle the head movement.
So if you were listening on headphones,
which is vastly easier than a huge
arrangement of a dozen or more speakers
mounted on a framework, moving your
head would allow the sound field to stay
correctly orientated in space, irrespective
of your head movement. Unfortunately,
at the time, the accelerometers and
processing necessary was simply beyond
what was achievable for a reasonable
cost.
But times change. Roll forward to a
few months ago, and the Soundfield
platform was sold to Rode microphones
in Australia, as I mentioned in this column
two months ago. Rode is world-renowned
for its high-quality microphones, sold
at reasonable prices. Its engineering
is absolutely state-of-the-art for the
complex process of making microphones.
It has made a fortune from selling mics
that go on top of cameras to accurately
capture the sound for news, interviews
and so forth, and also makes a range of
top-notch sound recording mics.
It has already announced a VideoMic
Soundfield for release later in the year.
I couldn’t be more excited by the news,
because it will bring B-format to a far
wider range of customers. Soundfield
mics have been the playthings of the
wealthy – the need for four channels to
store B-format was quite a pain in the
Harpex’s software allows me to optimise B-format
for headphones
early days, because four-channel digital
recorders were rare. And the mics weren’t
cheap – around $10,000 for one isn’t a
price to be sniffed at.
So why am I discussing this once again?
Because surround sound is becoming
increasingly important. There’s a big push
towards VR now, whether you’re working
at the cheap end of the market using a
smartphone and a cardboard headmount
from Google, or you have the money to
pay for an Oculus Rift. But be in no doubt
that VR is pushing full surround sound
to centre-stage, and that means that
B-format’s time has really come.
Still don’t believe me? Just look at all
the work broadcasters are doing with
VR with binaural fed from microphone
arrays, including B-format. Or Google’s
work with its Spatial Audio system
(https://developers.google.com/vr/
concepts/spatial-audio) and its support
on YouTube. If you just want surroundsound
playback, you can use YouTube/
Google on headphones from a computer
running Chrome, Firefox, Opera or Edge.
On Android and iOS, you can use the
appropriate YouTube app.
With the cost of entry collapsing, the
desire to capture full surround sound with
orientation information is growing. This
is a true resurgence of the work done by
Gerzon and Craven all those years ago,
and it’s certainly worthy of your attention.
STORAGE STORIES
My plans for a second Synology NAS
came to fruition with the purchase of
a 2415+ 12-bay monster. I started off by
fitting it with ten Seagate SkyHawk 8TB
drives, along with two Samsung 850 Evo
250GB SSDs for cache. I should have
known I was in trouble when I powered it
up for the first time.
Two of the drives failed. I returned them
to Amazon and received replacements.
Then another two failed. At that point,
I contacted Amazon and returned the
entire stack of Seagate drives for a full
refund. I replaced them with trusty WD
Red drives from another supplier. Since
then it has been trundling along just fine.
My plan is to use the built-in Synology
Hyper Backup tool between the two large
arrays, with one array held in the lab and
the second over the courtyard at my ISP
on the other end of the Gigabit fibre link I
mentioned a few months ago.
Am I worried about the drive failures?
No, because the whole point about
redundant systems is that they are
redundant. I have no idea why I had
a bad batch of Seagate SkyHawks
from Amazon, but having got to four
failures out of 12 drives (ten plus the two
replacements), I decided it was time to
walk away.
102 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au

PAUL OCKENDEN REAL WORLD COMPUTING
PAUL OCKENDEN
“THE ADDITION OF WIRELESS
SUDDENLY MAKES THIS A
FAR MORE USEFUL LITTLE
BOARD FOR IOT PROJECTS”
Paul finds the new Raspberry Pi Zero W is an excellent platform
for creating a “thing”, and provides a tip for Netgear Orbi owners
I
thought I’d follow on from last
month’s column by starting to show
you how to build a genuinely useful
Internet of Things (IoT) “thing”. And
to prove there’s plenty of choice in the
marketplace when it comes to ultracheap
wireless platforms, I’m going to
change boards. Last month was mostly
about the ESP8266-based NodeMCU
development kit; this month I’ll focus
on the Raspberry Pi Zero W. Why? Well,
because it’s fairly new (the “W” wireless
variant first went on sale at the end of
February).
I’m sure many of you already know
this, but the Raspberry Pi Foundation
is a charity, founded in Cambridge, and
its stated aim is to “promote the study
of computer science and related topics,
especially at school level, and to put the
fun back into learning computing”.
The foundation is primarily
supported by Cambridge University’s
Computer Laboratory and hardware
manufacturer Broadcom – whose
chips you’ll find at the heart of the
device.
There have been several Raspberry
Pi models over the past four years, but
there was a real buzz in late 2015 when
the Pi Zero hit the streets. It was small,
and low cost – about $12. It wasn’t as
powerful as the Raspberry Pi 3, but with
a single-core 1GHz processor it was no
slouch, either.
It was missing wireless, however.
The board had only a single USB port,
so if you added a USB wireless dongle
it meant you’d effectively cut the Pi off
from any other communication. You
could add a USB hub, of course, but then
the whole “small and cheap” ethos was
PAUL OCKENDEN
Paul owns an agency that helps
businesses exploit the web, from
sales to marketing and everything
in between @PaulOckenden
out of the window.
Which all goes to explain my
excitement over the launch of the Pi
Zero W. It’s essentially the Pi Zero with
added Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. The Wi-Fi
is 802.11bgn; no 802.11ac and no 5GHz,
but given its price is less than a tenner, I
don’t think anyone will be surprised. The
on-board Bluetooth is 4.1 with low energy
(BLE) support. The addition of wireless
functionality suddenly makes this a far
more useful little board for IoT projects,
and puts it on a par with the NodeMCU
development board, for example.
I want to get a little nerdy for a
moment about the Pi Zero W’s onboard
2.4GHz antenna. Normally you’d expect
this to be a track on the PBC with a
length that’s an exact fraction of the
12.5cm wavelength
found with 2.4GHz radio signals.
This makes use of the fact that since
resonance occurs at whole number
fractions of the wavelength (1/2, 1/3,
1/4 and so on), shorter antennas can be
used. They aren’t as efficient as full-wave
antennas, but without such fractional
antennas many electronic gadgets
would have to be bigger. For example,
an 800MHz mobile phone signal would
need an antenna that’s 37.5cm long!
Fractional wavelength PCB tracks
aren’t the only option, however – the
other major player is the ceramic chip
antenna. There are several types, but
the common factor is that they use a
material with a high permittivity (which
my dictionary defines as “the ability of a
substance to store electrical energy in an
electric field”.) The key is that in highpermittivity
materials the wavelength of
a radio signal is reduced, so the antenna
can be made smaller as a result.
Until now, those have been the
only two choices, but the Pi Zero W
introduces a third type of antenna. If you
look carefully at a photo of the board,
you may notice a tiny triangular shape
etched into the copper of the PCB. This is
an amazing new type of 2.4GHz antenna.
It acts as a tuned resonant cavity, and
the geometric shape, together with a
couple of associated capacitors, allow
the structure to capture Wi-Fi and
Bluetooth radio traffic. The technology
is licenced from Swedish company
Proant, and is similar in concept to the
traditional “slot” or “notch” antenna –
but in this case it’s so small that Proant
has called the product design “niche”
rather than notch. I suspect that
probably passes for a joke in Sweden!
I was sceptical at first, but it works
well. And, more importantly, it keeps
the board small and cheap. Signal
strength is decent, but if you need
The Raspberry Pi Zero, now with Wi-Fi and
Bluetooth

more you’ll find there are pads on the
board onto which you can solder a
standard U.FL RF connector, for use of an
external antenna. For most folk, the little
triangle will be adequate.
IT’S A SETUP
The kit I looked at last month was
configured by loading firmware and/or
code via the USB connection. The normal
Raspberry Pi setup is different to this.
Since the device is actually a computer
running an OS, the usual way to get things
running is to connect a USB mouse and
keyboard (because there’s only one
socket on the Pi Zero boards, a wireless
“desktop” combo is the easiest option),
with a monitor connected to the HDMI
port. It isn’t dissimilar to setting up a new
desktop computer.
The thing is, unless you have a suitable
mouse, keyboard and screen lying
around, plus the various connectors/
converters to plug into the micro-
USB and mini-HDMI, you could easily
find yourself spending far more on
peripherals and leads than you did on
the Pi itself. Also, because we’re going to
set it up as an IoT “thing”, the keyboard,
mouse and monitor won’t be needed
beyond the initial setup.
Luckily, with some fiddling it’s possible
to configure the board without using a
keyboard and screen. There are just two
things we need to do: the first is to get
the onboard Wi-Fi connected to your
network; the second is to enable SSH, so
we can open a remote command prompt.
But I’m jumping ahead of myself here.
The very first thing you’ll need to do is
to create a microSD card containing
the OS for the Pi. There are several
options available (see raspberrypi.
org/downloads), including a version
of Windows 10. However, for most
people, the most sensible option will be
Raspbian – a flavour of Debian Linux.
If you look at the download page
(raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian),
you’ll see two versions listed – one with
PIXEL, and a “Lite” version. PIXEL is the
Raspberry Pi desktop environment,
and since we’ll be operating without a
monitor, there simply isn’t a need for that.
Download the Lite version.
It will be easiest to download the ZIP
version. Once unzipped, you’ll see an
IMG file, just under 1.5GB in size. Flash
that onto a microSD card. Even if you
don’t have one kicking around, they’re
incredibly cheap. If your card reader only
has a full-sized SD card slot, you’ll also
need an adapter.
If you’re using Windows then the
recommended flashing tool is Win32 Disk
Imager (tinyurl.com/odxlnmf), whereas
Mac users can either use dd from the
command line, or use Etcher (etcher.io),
which will be easier for novices. However
you do it, you’ll end up with a microSD
that can be used to boot the Pi Zero W.
But we’re not done yet. First we
need the board to hop onto your Wi-Fi
network, and to do that it will need to
know your network name and password.
Now if you were using a keyboard, mouse
and screen, this would be easy: you could
simply select the network using the Pi’s
GUI. But since we’re doing this using a
headless setup, you’ll need to add the
details manually. Eject the card from
your card reader (using the OS tools,
rather than just pulling out the card) then
re-insert it. It should mount like a normal
disk, and you’ll see a file system in place.
The card has two partitions: one called
boot, the other root. The root partition
uses an ext4 file system and contains
the normal Linux file structure, which is
mounted as “/” once the Pi boots – it’s
where pretty much everything to do with
the Pi lives. The boot partition is a FAT file
system and is used only during booting.
You’ll see it mounted as /boot once you
have the Pi up and running.
When you insert a Pi microSD card into
the card reader on a PC or a Mac, you’ll
see this boot partition is visible with full
read/write access. But the main root

PAUL OCKENDEN REAL WORLD COMPUTING
There are a few OSes available for the Raspberry Pi,
but Raspbian is the best place to start
The antenna is that little triangle between the HDMI
and USB sockets
partition normally isn’t accessible – you’ll
need to install additional software to
view it. Luckily, we don’t have to do that.
The designers of Raspbian have created
a facility where if you put certain files in
the boot partition, they’re copied over
to root when the Pi starts up (and then
deleted from boot).
To get your Pi Zero W connected to
your wireless network, you’ll need to
place a file called wpa_supplicant.conf in
the root folder of the boot partition, and
in that text file include the following text:
network={
ssid=“Your_wifi_network_name”
psk=“Your_wifi_password”
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
}
Then plug the Pi Zero W into a USB
power supply (or a USB port on your
computer, which should have enough
power to drive it) and you should see the
green LED flash for a while, and then stay
lit green.
Next go to your wireless router and
view the list of connected devices. If
everything has gone to plan, you’ll see
your Raspberry Pi listed, along with its
IP address (it will have a MAC address
starting with B8:27:EB). If you don’t have
admin access to your wireless router,
just run a network scan – it’s easiest to
do this from an app on your phone – and
you’ll see the Pi listed as “raspberrypi”.
Once you know the IP address you’ll
find you can ping it, but you won’t be
able to open an SSH connection – that’s
because SSH is disabled by default in the
latest versions of Raspbian. This change
was made shortly after the tech world
became paranoid about IoT devices
being taken over and used as part of a
botnet.
To enable SSH, at least initially, simply
power down the Pi, plug the SD card
back into your PC, and create a blank file
called ssh (with no extension) in the root
of the /boot partition. Then pop the card
back into the Pi and reboot it.
Incidentally, you’ll probably see that
the green LED continues to flash, rather
than appearing solid after a minute or so.
It’s because you pulled the power, rather
than performing a clean shutdown.
Don’t worry, though – everything is fine.
Just give it a few more minutes and the
flashing will stop once the system has
checked that the file system is clean.
You should see a solid green LED once
it has booted, and not only be able to
ping the device (its IP address may have
changed) but also connect to it via SSH.
The username is “pi” and the password
“raspberry”. It’s important to remember
that the ssh file gets deleted, so you get
only one shot. If you reboot the Pi, you’ll
need to add the ssh file again.
Incidentally, if you don’t have an SSH
client then I recommend PuTTY for
Windows users (tinyurl.com/mgyxbev)
and vSSH for those of you on a Mac
(tinyurl.com/ovetpzl). Both are excellent.
Once you can access the Pi’s
command line you’ll be able to do things
like “ping www.google.co.uk” to test
connectivity. Unlike ping on a Windows
PC, it just keeps going, so you’ll need to
use Control+C to stop it.
Rather than messing around with
ssh files, we can configure the Pi to
have SSH permanently enabled. Type
sudo raspi-config, go into Interfacing
Options, select SSH and then the option
to enable it. While you’re there make
sure IC2 is enabled, too, as we’ll need
that in a moment. You can also change
the password for the pi account from
“raspi-config” – and that’s probably a
good idea. Then select Finish to exit
raspi-config. Incidentally, “sudo” is a little
like running something as administrator
on a PC. The Pi login doesn’t have access
to write these configuration changes,
but preceding the command with sudo
A quick hack allows you to see which Orbi unit your
devices are connected to
means to run it as a “super-user”.
Now you can reboot the Pi as often
as you like, and it will hop onto your
wireless network and enable SSH access.
No more messing around with files in
the boot partition. Incidentally, rather
than just pulling the plug, the correct
way to shut down the Pi is by using
sudo shutdown – by default, it will take
a minute. Or you can reboot by using
sudo reboot. This way, you won’t get the
flashing green LED mentioned earlier,
while the device scans the file system for
errors.
Next month, I’ll show you how to turn
your newly configured Raspberry Pi Zero
W into a useful IoT thing.
INTO ORBI
I continue to be impressed by Netgear’s
Orbi “whole house” Wi-Fi system. It’s
incredibly fast and bathes the whole area
in a really strong Wi-Fi signal. As I move
around the house, I find my gadgets hop
instantly and seamlessly between the
main router and the satellite. It’s so much
better than using conventional Wi-Fi
extenders and boosters. And the latest
firmware update offers a guest access
facility (addressing one of my complaints
the last time I wrote about Orbi). It’s
fantastic kit, but a real shame that there
isn’t a xDSL version, so you still need a
separate modem if you have a telephone
line-based internet connection.
One little tip. If you have an Orbi, go
to orbilogin.com/debug.htm and enable
telnet (note that this link only works if
you have an Orbi setup). Then telnet into
the router and execute the following
commands:
nvram set enable_adv_attached=1
nvram commit
Don’t forget to go back to the
debug page and switch telnet back
off afterwards! Now when you view
the attached devices in the Orbi user
interface, you’ll be able to see whether
they’re connected to the main router
or the satellite. This is incredibly useful
when it comes to finding the best
position for each unit, and I’m surprised
that it isn’t enabled by default.
www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 105

DR LARISSA ROMUALDO SUZUKI
“UNLESS CITIES CHANGE
THE WAY THEY DESIGN, WE’LL
NEVER DELIVER ON THE TRUE
PROMISE OF SMART CITIES”
How do you design a smart city? Dr Larissa Suzuki shares insights from her PhD thesis
E
very day nearly 180,000 people
move to cities, resulting in more
than 60 million new urban dwellers
each year.
Such rapid growth puts pressure on a
city’s infrastructure (transport, energy,
water, housing), and scarce infrastructure
aggravates civil issues such as law and
order and the delivery of basic services.
For instance, studies suggest a typical
driver spends 106 days of his/her life
looking for parking spaces. In response to
pressure from organisations and citizens,
“smartening up” cities has become a
priority for policy makers.
The “smart city” label has been applied
to a range of technology developments
powered by city data and digital
technologies. It’s hoped these will
help cities plan for population growth,
introducing a more sustainable model for
urban development.
We’ve already seen progress. Smart
electricity grids, energy-efficient buildings
and intelligent road crossings are
examples of existing solutions. These are
powered by data collected from many
systems and stakeholders; matching
high-quality data with digital services has
the potential to drive economic growth,
improve government transparency, and
create innovative city services.
TRUE SMART CITIES
I’m a computer scientist and am
passionate about how technology can
benefit mankind. However, it’s tempting
to fall into the trap of simply focusing
on infusing technology in cities and
disregarding true societal needs.
Despite the potential of smart cities,
there are no fully implemented smart city
initiatives, and unless cities change the
way they design, we’ll never deliver on
the true promise of smart cities. This is
because smart cities have been designed
mainly as centralised technology topdown
projects led by corporations, which
put municipalities under pressure to
deploy their projects and in which citizens
appear as consumers at best.
A true smart city is one where efficient
urban services are available to all –
including the disabled, senior, visually
impaired and children. Our societies are
stratified, and too many of the planned
“smart” services (smart cars, for example)
will probably only be available – in
the next few decades, at least – for a
privileged few. There are one billion people
with some form of disability, and despite
this huge demand, cities haven’t tailored
their “smart services” to them.
Adopting a more disciplined and
societal-needs orientated approach can
give cities the clarity they need to think
strategically about how they can function
better. My PhD research provides a
framework that helps cities on this journey.
CORE PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN
To unlock smart services for all, cities need
to embrace not only technology but many
other non-technological elements. They
must address the needs and expectations
of all users of services, reduce the digital
divide, and build public trust around new
services and data sharing. Therefore, a
one-size-fits-all approach will never work.
My PhD research framework – named
SMARTify – is built around five core
domains, all of which are designed to
support the delivery of a city’s own smart
cities vision.
1 SERVICES DESIGN
Providing access to “smart things”
designed without all society in mind isn’t
providing access at all. To design services,
you must understand the unique needs
and expectations of all users, including
senior citizens, disabled people and
children.
We must establish which infrastructure
and datasets are subject to greatest
demand, and use them for the trial of new
technologies and services.
Enabling integrated and responsive
urban services often involves joining up
data silos. It raises many security and
privacy concerns around personal data
(social media, GPS traces in phones),
smart cards (transport usage patterns)
and smart metering (lifestyle patterns).
When designing services, cities must
address the privacy aspects of personal
data, and define data management
Rapidly increasing numbers of city dwellers are
driving the need for smarter cities
DR LARISSA ROMUALDO SUZUKI
now oversees the tool designed
to improve coordination of
infrastructure planning and delivery
106 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au

DR LARISSA ROMUALDO SUZUKI REAL WORLD COMPUTING
strategies to ensure compliance
with national and international
data protection regulations.
2 TECHNOLOGY DESIGN
The main technological
challenge in smart city design
is the fragmentation in urban
services, infrastructure and data
provision. City data and digital
services are provided by many
stakeholders, systems and
applications. This fragmentation
creates a range of technical,
strategic and organisational
issues around interoperability,
cross-domain data exploitation,
and policies and regulations
in data-orientated business
models.
The economic benefits and
potential of smart cities relies
upon the delivery of service innovation
powered by interoperable technology.
It can be facilitated by organising cities’
technological assets around a common
platform that can manage data and
services, and physical assets.
An initial step towards this endeavour is
performing a city data-mapping exercise
for a detailed picture of existing data and
digital services. It includes identifying
current and future:
Data sources, volume, variety, temporal
factors and security sensitivities
(personal/private data);
Processes and resources needed to
manage data/services (computer and
network power to respond to data
requests, data storage requirements).
Once a data and services inventory
is created, it’s time to review existing
metadata schema for each data type
to identify standards with the greatest
potential for reuse, and fill any gaps.
Reducing technology and data
friction using reliable standards for
interoperability can help create new
integrated urban services.
3 VALUE NETWORK DESIGN
Cities find it tremendously difficult
to specialise in all the competencies
involved in designing smart city services.
Even powerful organisations such as
Google and Apple need to collaborate
with members of their value network
(developers) to provide inventive
applications to end users.
Adopting the concept of data-driven
value networks (DDVN) helps cities to
decentralise their data and technology
infrastructures and form an ecosystem of
expert collaborators.
There are three types of partners in a
DDVN. Partners should be chosen based
Tailor-made and
useful data and
digital servies
to all
Maximisation
of the efforts
of all society
Services
Value
Network
Governance
Technology
Value
Design
The SMARTify framework is designed to support the
delivery of a smart city vision
on the specialisation they can bring,
whereas cities should deeply specialise
in their core competence – governance of
the DDVN.
Supporting partners specialise in
managing data and digital services, and
making resources available to contributing
partners. Disclosing technical blueprint
details, for example, encourages open
innovation, and enables partners to openly
utilise resources.
A DDVN enables cities to become a
platform for the dissemination and active
consumption of services that will provide
society with a high quality of life, while
also meeting their ambitious sustainability
agenda. The success in designing smart
cities will be co-determined by the way
cities nurture, incentivise and coordinate
this network.
4 VALUE DESIGN
Smart cities’ data and services have
social, economic, environmental and
financial value. It can be generated
through the independent use or reuse of
data and services, or by combining them
with other sources to become inputs
into applications, services and decisionmaking.
For instance, city data can be input
into complex algorithms and analysis to
create insights through dashboards or
visualisations. Cities must explore the
value cases for the exploitation of data
and services.
On the flip side, the provision of digital
services and data isn’t free. Understanding
the associated cost entails engaging
with existing and potential publishers,
so that effective ways of recovering such
costs can be explored. In some instances,
City-wide exploitation
of data
Transformational
business models
and innovation
charging users to utilise
premium services and data
may help recover such costs
and fund the release of data
and services.
Structural partners can
support the development
of practical and diverse
business models for data and
digital services. Establishing
business models and licencing
agreements, including the
Open Government Licence
(OGL), can maximise the use of
data and services. It may even
increase competition on the
platform as data providers fight
(and collaborate) to provide the
best-quality data and services
to citizens.
5 GOVERNANCE DESIGN
A strong leadership strategy can enable
technology, data and digital assets to be
exploited to its full effect to deliver smart
city design and planning.
Designing smart cities as open
platforms can create governance
arrangements that provide a context in
which distributed innovation, driven by the
members of the platform ecosystem in
the smart cities, can emerge.
Open and transparent engagement
with partners on the strategic direction
of the smart cities vision can guarantee
the delivery of the actions and prevent
regulation problems during rollout. The
intended benefits of the smart city vision
should be clearly articulated, measured,
managed, delivered and evaluated in
practice by all partners.
Besides working closely with the
members of the DDVN, cities should
actively promote services and innovation
to demonstrate the value of smart cities.
This can be achieved through government
websites, hackathons, engagement with
community groups and addressing digital
literacy to drive uptake of services.
MEASURING SUCCESS
So how do you know you’ve built a smart
city? First, cities must keep their smart
city vision in mind, and continuously
assess their progress using critical success
factors. For instance, wider participation
among all the population, a reduction
in pollution-triggered deaths, increased
innovation. Based on those assessments,
they can then amend and improve their
“smart city” design.
Ultimately, a smart city design that’s
aligned with a city’s own “smart vision”
will provide it with a balance between
social, environmental and economic
opportunities.
www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 107

DAVEY WINDER
“THE US GOVERNMENT HAS COME
CLOSE TO MAKING IT ILLEGAL TO USE
SECURE COMMUNICATIONS ONLINE”
Davey delves deep into the world of encryption. First, remembering how PGP
began, and then through a service that promises to secure your email
W
ay back at the start of the
1990s, Phil Zimmerman
wrote an essay displaying
remarkable perception of what was to
come as the internet matured. “Email
messages are just too easy to intercept
and scan for interesting keywords,”
Zimmerman wrote. “This can be done
easily, routinely, automatically and
undetectably on a grand scale.”
Remember that this was almost 20
years before Edward Snowden blew
his snooping whistle loudly – and with
such reverberations within the world of
cryptology. Zimmerman then stated:
“The government will protect our email
with government-designed encryption
protocols. Probably most people will
acquiesce to that. But perhaps some
people will prefer their own protective
measures.” Phil Zimmerman was, in case
you need reminding, the creator of Pretty
Good Privacy (PGP).
His journey towards fame – or
infamy, dependent upon your views
of government and privacy – began
in 1991, when the US Senate had
added a resolution to a bill that would
“encourage” the industry to add
backdoors to networking (including
the emerging internet) equipment. The
wording of that resolution resonates
with more recent – and, sadly, more
successful – attempts to blow the doors
off the privacy of communications. “…
providers of electronic communications
services and manufacturers of electronic
communications service equipment
shall ensure that communications
systems permit the government to
obtain the plain-text contents of voice,
data, and other communications when
appropriately authorised by law.”
DAVEY WINDER
Davey is an award-winning
journalist and consultant
specialising in privacy and security
issues @happygeek
CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS
Scary stuff, huh? And it’s worth repeating
that this was 26 years ago. That US
bill didn’t succeed, but it sure caught
the attention of computer science
graduate and software engineer Mr
Zimmerman, who realised how close the
US government had just come to making
it illegal to use secure communications
online. He wasn’t wrong, either: soon
afterwards, public key cryptography
had become a protected weapon
(“munitions” was the term used in law)
with strict export controls.
Zimmerman had the foresight to get
his PGP software, based around the RSA
public key crypto algorithm, released as
freeware. Along with the source code and
documentation, he sent a copy of it to his
friend Kelly Goen, who in turn uploaded
the source to Usenet and a whole bunch
of bulletin-board systems. The code, like
the truth, will out – and out it was.
Within a couple of years the
government came calling; not the FBI,
but US Customs. Zimmerman and Goen
were charged with exporting protected
munitions without the appropriate
licence, and a federal grand jury
indictment followed. In fact, it followed
them for three years until the powers
that be realised that the duck they had
been chasing had died a long time ago.
Not that this stopped the US government
from starting a criminal investigation,
which also failed to produce charges that
stuck.
Things went a little downhill from
there with regards to the romance of
the privacy defender story (if you see it
through nerd-tinted spectacles like me).
Zimmerman founded a company called
PGP, which was acquired by Network
Associates, which was acquired by
McAfee, and which sold a commercial
application of PGP. It gets even messier if
you delve into licensing agreements and
legal agreements between RSA (which
owned the algorithm that PGP was
based upon) and Zimmerman. The story
kind of ends with Zimmerman agreeing
not to distribute PGP any longer and RSA
agreeing not to sue him as a result.
As one story ends, another begins.
That code, the PGP version 1.0 software
that was pushed out into the public
domain, had developed an organic
momentum all of its own. Helped by
MIT, PGP 2.5 eventually emerged from
the ether and RSA became annoyed,
but legal complications over interests in
the algorithm patent meant that legal
actions weren’t taken. It also meant
that PGP could take on a new life, and
Zimmerman was once again at the
forefront of it.
He published a book with the
source code of the new PGP version
programmed in C and printed it in a
font designed to be scanner friendly.
The US had made it quite clear, all the
way to the Supreme Court and on many
an occasion, that “written expression”
couldn’t be against the law. Zimmerman
had got another one-up on the man, as
it were. Apart from the fact that it was
actually still illegal to export PGP 2.5,
thanks to that munitions classification.
Thankfully, a European privacy-friendly
programmer, Ståle Schumacher, adapted
the code enough to make version 2.6xi
legal anywhere in the world.
Which is where we find ourselves
today. Now there’s something called the
OpenPGP standard via the Free Software
Foundation, as the original source code
is currently owned by Symantec, and
most folk will use the GNU Privacy Guard
(GnuPG) along with an email client such
as Mozilla Thunderbird. Or they would
if it were easier to install and configure.
It involves getting on very friendly terms
with the command line interface, or
investing time to learn how a PGP client
with a graphical UI works under the
bonnet, or flashing the cash to subscribe
to a service that does most of the dirty
work for you.
A NERDY NICETY?
And now we stumble upon the real
problem with PGP, or rather the real
problem with encrypted emails and
encrypted messaging in general. If it’s too
108 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au

DAVEY WINDER REAL WORLD COMPUTING
Swiss servers and company incorporation mean data
sovereignty isn’t an issue for SecureMyEmail
complicated, only geeks will use it to talk
to other geeks. I want to talk to my family,
friends and assorted non-geek contacts.
If it’s too expensive, only those who really
want it and can afford it will use it. Endto-end
email encryption is great in theory,
but in practice it only works if both sender
and recipient are using the same secure
application. That’s where it’s always been
a busted flush for becoming anything
other than a nerdy nicety.
If Bob wants to send Alice an
encrypted message, he first has to
send one saying: “I want to send you an
encrypted message, to do so you need
to download and use this app.” If Alice
discovers that the app is too complicated
or not to her liking, she won’t bother;
ditto if that app costs a few quid a month
to use or demands she opens up a new
email account with some weird address.
It has to be simple to set up, easy and
functional enough to accompany, if not
entirely replace, her email client of choice
– and it needs to be free, or as good as.
SecureMyEmail (SME) is the closest I’ve
come across so far to meeting these
requirements.
SME comes in a number of OS flavours,
including both Windows and Mac via a
version of Mozilla Thunderbird with the
SME plugin already installed. However,
I’ve been testing the Android app, so for
the purposes of this review that should
be borne in mind. iOS users will have to
wait, I’m afraid, although I’m assured
that there is a version in the pipeline. The
same goes for email clients other than
Thunderbird, with Apple Mail already
underway and Outlook in the planning
stage.
Back to Android, where the app is
a doddle to install and configure. And
if you’re an old hand at this PGP thing
then you can use it with your existing
keys easily enough. Again, I’m writing
this overview from the perspective of a
user that’s new to the encryption world,
and for them there really is nothing to
be afraid of. I’d happily invite my mum
or eldest grandchild to use SME, safe in
the knowledge that they could follow the
instructions without fear of failure.
I like the fact that it doesn’t require
you to register a new email address at
securemyemail.com; you simply use your
existing email address, be that with a
mail provider or your own mail server. I
also like the fact that, while not free, it’s
close at 99 cents per email address per
year. There are lifetime subscription plans
for the more adventurous, but for most
why worry when you’re “risking” only 7p
per month?
I also like the fact that it allows the
more advanced user to exploit the full
functionality of PGP crypto. So, the
SME client app is fully PGP compatible
in that it creates real PGP keys that you
can use wherever other software or
services require them. Hit the Advanced
Settings option and you’ll find all the
key management, on-demand key
regeneration, importing and exporting
tools that the crypto-savvy user could
want.
Those among you who are privacy
savvy can also rest assured that the SME
creators have given proper thought to
data sovereignty issues. The company
behind SME has a Swiss incorporated
management company and data is
housed in Swiss data centres. The
encryption happens on your device,
before any data – including attachments
(which are also encrypted) – are sent.
This means your data will remain
encrypted in transit and at rest on your,
or your email service provider’s, servers.
By using native software – rather than
a webmail client, for example – your
private key isn’t only generated on your
device, but it remains there. Decryption,
likewise, is done on the recipient’s device.
SECURITY CONCERNS
Without getting too deep into the math,
during the initial setup of SecureMyEmail,
a unique 4,096-bit key pair and
passphrase will be generated. How
secure is all that? Good question, and the
answer – if we accept that there are no
known backdoors, side-channel attacks
or quantum computers to take into
consideration – is long enough to futureproof
it for the foreseeable future.
The connections between my Android
device and the SME servers in Geneva
haven’t been forgotten either, which
comes as no great surprise to me, since
the people behind SME also run a VPN
business. This translates into multiple
layers of this particular security onion:
the APIs are set to opt for Transport Layer
Security 1.2 in preference; ephemeral key
support is deployed to enable perfect
forward secrecy (compromise of longterm
keys doesn’t compromise past
session keys in effect); and HTTP Strict
Transport Security (HSTS) protects
against protocol downgrade attacks,
among other things.
What else do I like about SME? Well,
there’s the easy method of using your
private key to sign and verify your email,
so the recipient can be sure it has come
from you and not a man-in-the-middle
attacker pretending to be you.
Talking of identity verification, I like
the novel approach SME has taken
with the use of a more modern version
of the PGP web of trust by employing
your social media networks. Using the
OAuth authentication functionality of the
social network itself, the user can opt to
“SME is easy to use, but
also allows the more
advanced user to exploit
the full functionality of
PGP crypto”
allow authentication against your social
network account. Again, it’s another neat
way of allowing your contacts to ensure
you are who you say you are; they click on
the Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter button,
and can immediately see if the account
matches up with you.
I’m not a huge fan of the Thunderbird
mail client, for reasons going back
many years, so I probably should give
it a try. For now, though, I’m just using
SME on Android – and the client isn’t
bad, although it could still do with
some polishing. It does the basics, plus
incorporates encryption almost invisibly.
It won’t replace my Android mail app
of choice, but it doesn’t have to – and
that’s the beauty of SME. Since the
service doesn’t require you to register
a new email address, or otherwise
interfere with your existing email, you
can continue using your mail client or
app of choice. Nothing changes, apart
from when you want to send or read a
received encrypted email and you fire up
the client. If you do fancy giving SME a
try – and there’s a 30-day free trial before
you’re asked for your 99 cents – feel free
to start a secure conversation with me
using my happygeek@gmail.com address
to see how it all works.
www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 109

STEVE CASSIDY
“WHEN THINGS GET EXTRA
TURBULENT, THE SILLY
QUESTION MOVES THE
CONVERSATION FORWARD”
Robot cheerleaders fail to excite Steve on a visit to trade show CeBIT,
but a plea for more open standards in IoT does set his pulse racing
I
f there’s a single measure to apply
to modern businesses then this year
is all about agility. Despite the fact
that nobody has standardised the unit
of agility, everybody thinks they can
measure it and demonstrate what it
means. When trying to make sense of this
type of problem, I fall back on a simple
technique known as derailing someone’s
smooth sales presentation with a silly
question.
You see, silly questions are much more
powerful than sensible ones. Especially
when someone agile has been through
and whipped up a show, a market, an
economy, or the whole world into a
turbulent mess in their passing wake.
When things get extra turbulent, the
silly question moves the conversation
forward, by reminding us that there really
are no sensible anchors in R&D, other
than the ones we make for ourselves.
The same goes for silly topics. One of
my invitations for this year’s CeBIT show
in Hannover made mention of “robot
cheerleaders”. As neither robots, nor
cheerleaders, form part of my natural
bailiwick, I was more than happy to have
a look – which is the reason for the hastily
snatched screenie of my heartbeat ECG
(below).
Even without cheerleaders, I was mildly
excited – mostly because the last time I
saw this data it involved some translucent
gel and a young chap nervously shaving
my chest.
It’s difficult to get clear electrical data
such as this without those precursors,
so the device I was holding that looked
like a gamer’s steering wheel controller
was quite the breakthrough in wearable,
touchable contact sensors. The
cheerleaders I mention were part of a
video showing two exceedingly deadpan
gentlemen, both wearing fleshy-looking
flexible biosensors; as they stood up,
little robots in front of them stood up too.
There was a lot of late 20th-century pop
video surrealness about it all – and for
me, the killer problem was the overreach.
Nothing in the video proved that the
movements of the little plastic homunculi
were triggered by the fleshy plastic things
stuck on the humans’ heads. There
wasn’t a choreographic link. The humans
got up and sat down in a very Daft Punk
way, careful and rigid – they behave more
like toddlers, clambering on and off their
feet.
Nobody – robot or human – ever
made any moves I’d associate with a
cheerleader. I’ve included a picture of
the video screen, but I wouldn’t blame
the editor if he threw it out: it was a bad
picture in a bad situation. [Fear not, it’s on
the opposite page – Ed.]
Which brings me on to the more
obvious robots, and indeed those that
we’re being told to expect great things
from in the near future. Cast your gaze
to SoftBank’s Pepper, opposite, which
was originally developed by Aldebaran
(softbank.jp/en/robot). It’s looking at
machines such as this that devalues
the achievement of the guys producing
the ECG electrodes, because Pepper
is meant to be programmed cute.
Cuteness isn’t on my radar. When
I want to think about how a system
works overall, I don’t add “cute” to my
list of tests – but Pepper is all about the
cutes. I found the various Peppers on
the SoftBank stand in a series of strange
postures, something that also seemed
to rather badly affect the attending
technical team. Pepper, you see, is a
curious combination of attributes, with
a surface a bit like a washing machine,
big doe-like eyes, a wasp waist and
hourglass figure, a huge touchscreen on
its upper chest, and very human-looking
ribbed plastic hands. Oh, and it’s short.
To my mind, Pepper is about the size of a
seven-year-old girl.
I think I could have found this
disturbing, had the Peppers been
There’s clearly something about CeBIT that sets my pulse racing
STEVE CASSIDY
Steve is a consultant who
specialises in networks, cloud, HR
and upsetting the corporate apple
cart @stardotpro
110 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au

STEVE CASSIDY REAL WORLD COMPUTING
The robots were out at this year’s CeBIT...
operational. There was much work-inprogress,
with actual engineers doing
stuff. I was naughty and sneaked a
snap of the laptop that appeared to be
responsible for Pepper programming.
It was a very strange display, especially
sat alongside the dancing assembly-line
arms of Epson’s stand, where cuteness
and the accompanying exploitation of
humanity’s Skinnerian response takes
a total backseat against the speed-ofmovement,
force-applied, jobs-done
world of industrial robotics. Not that
Epson’s team was therefore brutalist
or uncaring: I asked about the power
consumption of its huge paper recycling
device (the PaperLab), and they were
happy to inform me this was a staggering
6.5kW. Not great news for PaperLab
fans, but the news was a lot better on the
current-generation office-sized inkjets,
which squirt on the ink that PaperLab
removes at a much more liveable 140W
power draw.
The absolute top mark for me on the
“intrusive, transformative, personal”
front in technology came during a short
appointment pause, waiting to see
Fujitsu’s Dr Joseph Reger. He and I are
somewhat like the good and bad Jedi
knights of the press Q&A session; there’s
no question I can think up that he can’t
answer. He got an easy ride from me that
day, because while waiting for him I was
suckered into trying out the 3D glasses
... including
Pepper, a robot
with added
cuteness
developed by a spinoff/joint venture
of Fujitsu, with a name so thoroughly
Japanese that I now can’t read back the
business card I was given.
And I really wanted to follow up,
because these glasses use a full-colour
laser to paint the virtual screen you see,
directly on the back of your eyeball. As a
result, the dangling lens in front of your
eye is super-tiny, only really needing
to bend the laser’s beam as it scans
across the presented image. And since
it’s a laser, and at any one moment a
single point of light, it doesn’t need to be
corrected for any faults in your eyeball. I
find most VR headsets a pain, because I
first wore glasses at the age of six; these
are revelatory. Take my glasses off and
I can’t see ten inches – but I can see the
virtual display of the Fujitsu glasses, in
gloriously clear and focused HD.
The barriers between me and a
perfectly tailored VR display are still
difficult to overcome, however, because
this system requires that you keep your
eyes fairly still, and I already know from
my frazzled optician and a professor that
I’m an “eye mover”, not a “head mover”.
When this technology catches up with
people like me, though, there’s a distinct
chance I’ll be a near-instant convert. All it
would take would be a high-performance
camera, some additional processing of
the visual field for reality augmentation,
and I’d be completely sold on doing
without cumbersome lenses, awkward
contacts and the like.
Which isn’t where I expected to
be taken with an investigation that
began with the teasing proposition
of robot cheerleaders. However, it’s
a measure of how far the entire IT
business has come in just the past
few years. I can remember walking
around earlier CeBITs and losing count
of all the laptops and servers, even the
server racks. This year has seen a change
to a selection of machinery that uses
computers to get stuff done, rather than
being computers that can run anything
you care to put on them. All that said, I
think the claims being made for robotics
are at least five years too soon, before
we even starting to look at the social
implications.
AGILITY VS OPENNESS
I was sitting in the press pack seats on
the Software AG stand when the bigwigs
swung past. It’s normal to have at least
Angela Merkel come by and say a few
things. This time we had one of her
ministers, who had a lot to say about
the wonders of the software integration
and services sector. I wasn’t there for the
politicians – the media circus surrounding
Ms Merkel this year was boosted by the
www.pcandtechauthority.com.au July 2017 111

REAL WORLD COMPUTING STEVE CASSIDY
presence of the Japanese prime minister,
which made it even more difficult to stick
to any appointment on the sprawling
fairgrounds of Hannover Messe.
I was there for the speeches of the
people doing the work: there’s something
about the presence of a few world
leaders that makes these chaps raise
their game. Perhaps because that huge
rugby scrum of mainstream media
reporters and camera crews might sit
down for a rest now and again, and the
right soundbite is gold for those guys.
This year’s surprise for me, apart from
the abrupt shift from PC makers and
devices, over to device makers who might
occasionally use a PC, was a closing
comment from Karl-Heinz Streibich,
Software AG’s CEO.
Looking out across the hall of stands,
he’d had time to understand something
that I’ve been struggling with for some
time when looking at the world of
small, simple computers now intended
to control or report on just one or two
physical sensors: the vast array of the
Internet of Things. My problem has long
been that being able to miniaturise a
complete PC leaves far too many holes
open in the whole system– holes that
we’re really only learning to plug now,
as the risk level of unintended breaches
or uses for all those tiny little generalpurpose
computing devices rises.
I thought I’d understood what the
industry would do about this during
a visit to the IoT World Congress last
year in Barcelona. There, the exhibits
were all about diverse sets of sensors
and components, jointed together in
a noticeably proprietary and often noteven-Ethernet
network, then brought
together and made IoT-friendly by a
gateway device, sitting between their
proprietary world and a general-purpose
WAN or LAN.
Herr Streibich doesn’t like this
approach. He made an impassioned plea
that IoT implementers should always go
for the most open hardware they can
find to populate their estate of sensors,
cameras, connections and actuators.
Open wins over proprietary, he said – a
strange viewpoint from a business whose
lifeblood is the proprietary nature of its
software product portfolio.
So I waited until the Q&A and gave
him a second go at this topic. As I
understand the current state of play in
IoT, the biggest successes are found in
the one-trick ponies: businesses that can
take advantage quickly, because their
grasp of their own equipment and what
that means for their IT is pretty much
underwritten by proprietary control of
the entire hardware and software stack.
Lexmark is a good example of this.
German chancellor Angela Merkel and Japanese
prime minister Shinz Abe walk the floor
By owning all the printer firmware, it can
control exactly how it works as a plain
IoT equal-status internet member device,
even though all it does with that lofty
status is to ask for new toner cartridges.
Surely, I asked, there has to be some
proprietary-ness in the mix, to make such
deployments really work?
His response confirmed something
that I’ve been quietly thinking for some
time. All the problems with IoT – even the
“Being able to miniaturise
a complete PC leaves far
too many holes open in
the whole system”
daft ones that come up around gussiedup
consumer devices – are failures in
transparency. You can’t interrogate your
poorly coded, insecure IoT fridge over
your own network because it isn’t an
open standard with a neat walkthrough
somewhere on the web.
It’s pretty simple to be transparent in
software, with debuggers and compilers
and the like, but the R&D houses have
been concentrating so hard on getting
anything with an “IoT” badge on it out
of the door, they’ve barely thought
Open hardware is the key to IoT success, according
to Software AG’s CEO
about how to allow the purchasers and
operators of their kit to snoop around on
the inside of the tiny computer they’ve
co-opted to some incredibly boring job.
Take a look at the NAS box market. I
think of NASes as the precursors of the
IoT: they’re computers and they started
out doing just one job – handing out
files. It didn’t take long for that list of
jobs to expand, and the software writers
wasted no time in making it easy for the
enthusiast or home user to get inside the
box and take a look around.
It needn’t be all that easy – SSH shells
and telnet access require jumping through
a small number of hoops before access
is allowed – but that’s okay too, as a way
of keeping out the idle and destructive
fiddler. Once inside and working with a
command line, even a humble NAS can
be made to do all sorts of useful things,
such as adding on background file sync
services, or getting the machine to work
as a media file server as well as just a
plain old file server. (Okay, so maybe I was
being harsh, criticising IoT for only giving
decent CPUs boring jobs to do; described
this way, the life of a NAS box sounds
pretty boring too.)
The point here is the open-ness. As
Herr Streibich was insisting, you can
see the advantage to being able to
completely describe what that little lump
of chips and LEDs in the corner of the
room is up to, and the more proprietary it
gets, the less likely it is to be successful.
The next time you’re considering an
apparently IoT CCTV system, or a flashily
not-quite-IoT home heating controller,
see what happens when you ask the
vendor if the system is based on any
recognised, open standards, and how
open it is to you taking a good look around
inside the tiny little OS and filesystem it
comes with. If you’re told this isn’t needed
or not normal, maybe make a different
purchase. Openness and transparency
are the only good defences we have.
112 July 2017 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au

EPILOG
IF YOU’RE SURPRISED THE NSA CAN HACK
YOUR COMPUTER, SAYS JON HONEYBALL,
YOU NEED A REALITY CHECK
Colour me shocked. It appears
the NSA has been collecting a
treasure trove of hacks for Windows,
both desktop and servers, covering all
versions of the OS bar Windows 10. And
this toolbox of capabilities, which also
included ways to get into banking and
other related systems, has leaked to the
public.I suspect your jaw isn’t gaping in
surprise. What’s followed has been just
as predictable.
First, there’s shock that the NSA
might have built such a collection of
exploits. Sorry, what do you expect
the NSA to be doing? Creating toolkits
that can be used against undesirables
is what it exists for. Injecting custom
spyware onto the laptop of a terrorist
could bring up incredibly useful
intelligence information, after all.
Then there’s the public horror that
the NSA didn’t tell Microsoft about
the exploits. Why is anyone surprised?
Sure, it’s good practice for security
researchers to tell Microsoft (or Apple,
Facebook, Google, whoever) that
they’ve uncovered a security hole.
There are processes in place by which
such reports are made, the vendor is
given time to patch things and issue an
update, and then the exploit is made
public once the patch has been issued.
It’s all very gentlemanly, and some
companies even offer financial rewards.
Would I expect the NSA to tell
Microsoft about the exploits? Of course
not. Keeping such flaws hidden from
Microsoft meant they were exploitable
for as long as possible.
No-one is suggesting the NSA, or
any other equivalent organisation,
is using these tools against the
wider population. I don’t think there
have been mass deployments of
EmeraldThread or EternalRomance or
EclipsedWing or any of the other rather
charming codenames. (Nasty1 and
Nasty2 and ReallyNasty3 just don’t have
the same ring to them.)
But then we come onto the real
problems. The tools have now been
released into the wild, and it doesn’t
take much effort to download them.
This means there will be a flood of script
kiddies trying them out and targeting
everyone from NASA to the takeaway
down the street. That’s a whole pile of
grief no-one needed.
“There will be a flood
of script kiddies trying
them out and targeting
everyone from NASA
to the takeaway down
the street”
It would be interesting to analyse
which antivirus packages would protect
you against these exploits. My hunch,
backed by discussions with friends in the
industry, is almost none.
Even so, now the toolkit has leaked,
it’s of much less use to the NSA, and any
other organisations that might have had
access to it. That can’t be a good thing.
Don’t confuse that statement with any
desire on my part to see governmentmandated
encryption backdoors being
forced into end user applications. I see a
difference between what an organisation
such as the NSA or ASIO does and the
far more widespread misuse of datasnooping
that we have seen.
Then we come to Microsoft’s
interesting claim that these exploits
have been patched already, but only
very recently. One wonders whether the
NSA told Microsoft about the leak once
it knew its toolkit was compromised and
Microsoft went into top gear to get fixes
out as soon as possible.
It does mean, of course, that the old
mantra about running only the most
current and fully patched versions of
applications and operating systems is as
true today as it has ever been. Microsoft
rather coyly states that “Of the three
remaining exploits, ‘EnglishmanDentist’,
‘EsteemAudit’, and ‘ExplodingCan’, none
reproduces on supported platforms,
which means that customers running
Windows 7 and recent versions of
Windows or Exchange 2010 and newer
versions of Exchange are not at risk.” So if
you’re on XP, you’re on your own.
It’s also true that we’ve managed to
get ourselves into a situation where OSes
are so complex that it is now effectively
impossible to ensure they are secure.
The approach taken by Apple’s iOS,
forcing a walled garden approach on the
developers and the execution of code,
is arguably the most secure widespread
end user platform available. But that
still doesn’t mean that the core OS itself
is secure. Is open source the answer?
Maybe, but exploits are found there too.
You may be thinking I’ll use this final
paragraph to deliver the answer. Sadly,
there isn’t one. If ASIO or the NSA want
to access my computers, they will either
hack their way in, use a backdoor that we
don’t know about, or just turn up with a
warrant and remove every device fitted
with a mains plug. And there is nothing I,
or you, can do.
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