ExpressVPN

ExpressVPN is a small British Virgin Islands-based provider of VPN services. The company’s products are a little more expensive than most, from $12.95 (£10.50, AU$16.90) for a one-off month option to an effective $8.33 (£6.75, AU$10.90) if you pay for a year upfront.

On the plus side, you do get a lot for your money. We’re talking 145 locations in 94 countries, P2P support, along with custom clients for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, even Linux. You also get a lot of genuinely helpful web-based tutorials and troubleshooting guides, and 24/7 email and live chat support if you have problems. The service does limit you to three simultaneous connections while you might get five elsewhere, but otherwise it’s very well specified.

There’s no free plan or trial, but ExpressVPN’s ‘no-hassle money-back guarantee’ is arguably better. You’re able to try the full service for up to 30 days with no sneaky small-print restrictions on bandwidth or sessions, and if you still want a refund you can just email and ask. We tried this and there were no questions at all, just a quick acknowledgement the next day, and a full PayPal refund three days later.

If you like the service, ExpressVPN also has a simple referral scheme which can help reduce costs. Get a friend to sign up and provide your email address during the order process, and you both get a free month.

Privacy

ExpressVPN’s privacy policy explains that the company doesn’t “collect or log traffic data or browsing activity from individual users connected to our VPN”.

There is a little session logging, with your connection dates, choice of server and total amount of data transferred all being recorded. ExpressVPN doesn’t collect your connection times or IP addresses, though, so this can’t be used to identify you.

Unusually, ExpressVPN’s clients have a telemetry feature, enabled by default, which “may send diagnostic data to a third party analytics provider”. But the company says “the information collected is generic in nature and does not contain personally identifying information”, and if you don’t want it anyway, the feature can be permanently disabled on installation with a single click.

The rest of ExpressVPN’s small-print was very, very standard. The company stores basic information about you, but doesn’t share it with anyone else, and the website uses cookies and third-party analytics, but then so does almost everybody else. It’s all very normal and we saw no reason for any privacy concerns.

Performance

ExpressVPN does its very best to get you set up correctly, with easy-to-use apps for all your main devices, and an array of setup instructions for everything else (Apple TV, Kindle Fire, PlayStation, Xbox, MediaStreamer, and more).

Our PC client provided several ways to help choose a location. A Recommended tab highlights local and fast servers, and the Favourites tab lists recently-connected servers and any you’ve set as favourites, plus there’s the Location Picker which organises servers by continent, region and country.

This is all very simple and straightforward, but there are also a few extras hidden away, including a Speed Test module, diagnostics report, kill switch, and manual or automatic selection of protocol (OpenVPN, L2TP – IPSEC, PPTP, SSTP).

One issue we noticed immediately is the client gives very little feedback when it connects or disconnects. Other software displays pop-up alerts to let you know exactly when you’re protected, but ExpressVPN only updates the taskbar button and system tray icon, and – depending on what you’re doing – they might not always be visible. However, that’s still enough to let you know what’s happening, and some users might prefer ExpressVPN’s quieter pop-up-free approach.

ExpressVPN achieved solid results in our performance tests*. UK-UK connections were fractionally lower than we expected at 25-30Mbps, but we achieved similar or higher rates with the French, Netherlands, German and Swedish servers. 

There was little change in UK-US traffic with downloads averaging 20-25Mbps, and even moving on to Pakistan (18Mbps) and Australia (15Mbps) gave us very acceptable speeds. There were one or two glitches – under 5Mbps downloads from South Africa, barely 1Mbps in Mongolia – but that’s no surprise with this size of network, and performance overall was very good.

ExpressVPN completed the positive picture by doing well in our leak tests, with its DNS protection ensuring our identity was protected at all times.

Final verdict

ExpressVPN costs more than most VPNs, but then it also gives you more locations, more clients, along with more help and support if something goes wrong. If you value service quality more than price, take advantage of the money-back guarantee and check it out for yourself.

*Our testing included evaluating general performance (browsing, streaming video). We also used speedtest.net to measure latency, upload and download speeds, and then tested immediately again with the VPN turned off, to check for any difference (over several rounds of testing). We then compared these results to other VPN services we’ve reviewed. Of course, do note that VPN performance is difficult to measure as there are so many variables.

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Creative SoundBlasterX Katana

Why are there not more soundbars for desktops? If you have a pair of speakers, a regular-sized desk and perhaps a 24-inch monitor, it’s likely that you’re fighting for space. Cue the SoundBlasterX Katana, a soundbar for pairing with a PC monitor that creates 2.1 audio – using a separate, wired subwoofer – and offers a whopping 75W of power. 

Although a relatively rare genre, the Katana does have competitors, most notably the ageing Razer Leviathan and the even older XtremeMac Tango bar. This is the first soundbar for desktops that we’ve seen for a good few years. It’s selling for US$299.99/UK£279.99/AUS$391. 

Design

The Katana has a robust build quality. Measuring 59cm long, it has two small feet beneath it, which creates about a centimetre of clearance between it and the desk. 

Cue a pleasant floating look, with the speaker angled slightly up towards the user. Audio-wise, that’s an excellent design, while on each end there’s a separate 7cm speaker grille that enables the Katana to project sound slightly to the sides. 

Despite its heavyweight feel and 1.5kg bulk, it looks super-sleek (save for an over-the-top brand logo), with a height of just 4.5cm, depth of 8cm, and a black, brushed aluminium finish. 

Set-up

Physically, the Katana is a little difficult to house on a desktop. Not because there’s anything wrong with the main unit, but because the subwoofer must be tethered to the soundbar using a relatively short cable. 

It measures about two metres, which may sound like a lot, but once you’ve trailed a cable behind a desk and position the subwoofer in a convenient place, it’s not enough. Ditto for the power cable for the sound bar itself, which links first to an external power pack, and then to a wall socket. 

If you were in any doubt that the Katana is meant primarily for desktops and not for living rooms, the ins and outs on its undercarriage make it clear. Back there you’ll find a subwoofer connector alongside inputs for a microphone, a 3.5mm aux, an optical audio input, a USB slot (for USB audio), and a microUSB. 

Note that you could use this soundbar in your living room using optical or 3.5mm, or perhaps in a second room with a 26 inch TV (though it would suit a 32 inch TV just as well, size -wise). However, soundbars created for the living room typically use an HDMI input, which the Katana lacks. 

Performance

The chief reason why the Katana works well is that the user has to sit pretty close to it. Unlike a soundbar, which disperses sound all over a room with varying degrees of success, Katana’s two tweeters, two mid-bass drivers, and one separate subwoofer do have its audience at close quarters. 

Cue some decent audio effects though the promised 7.1 virtual surround sound effects are nowhere to be heard. However, the overwhelming impression is one of volume. Serious volume. As in, far too much of it. We got no further than about 25% through its volume capabilities, having already reached deafening levels. Both game soundtracks and music is handled well, with plenty of mid-range and bass, though treble detail is its defining characteristic. 

It’s got a DAC capable of 24-bit/96Hz lossless playback via USB or optical, so you can stream hi-res FLAC and WAV audio files. The clarity at close-quarters is impressive, with some exceptional detail demonstrated by what is as effectively an add-on PC soundcard. 

At the other end of the spectrum, even songs streamed from a phone over Bluetooth have pleasing breadth and treble detail. Overall, the subwoofer does OK, but can sound a little blunt. 

Verdict

Soundbars are hot, growing in sales by 15% every year, so it’s no surprise that Creative is attempting to spread the love to the desktop by designing an ‘under monitor audio system’. We’re wondering why few other speaker and soundbar brands have tried it, because the Katana  proves a surprising success. 

We liked

Firstly, it saves a lot of space. Anyone with a relatively small desktop, especially those with a super-wide monitor with a 21:9 aspect ratio who no longer have room for separate left/right speakers, is likely to be in short supply of space, and the 59cm-long, 4cm high slimness of the Katana does come in handy. 

If its sleek build quality isn’t alluring enough, the Katana arrives in a box covered in pictures of the Northern Lights. 

Initially, we found this quite amusing, figuring that Creative thought a nice picture of a magnetic storm might increase sales. However, it soon became clear that it sports a rather nifty RGB light show. 

Now, it’s nothing like a Northern Lights display, obviously, and nor does it even match-up to the colours spewed by a Philips Ambilight TV, but an LED button on the remote toggles between various light modes, one of which is for a rainbow of colours (16.8 million, to be exact) that gently projects downwards onto the desk. It subtly changes, and covers the whole spectrum of colours, and is really rather nice when the lights are off. 

We disliked

It’s not cheap, and nor is it good for the living room despite its stunning volume levels. Why? There’s just no surround sound – it just about manages some stereo separation – so the Katana probably isn’t going to hugely impress in a big room. 

Although the subwoofer is relatively slim (at 13x30x30 cm) and passive, so doesn’t need wiring-up to anything but the soundbar itself, it would be much better if it was wireless. 

However, it’s a little blunt for ultimate sound quality. The least impressive part of the Katana is the tiny 8x4cm remote; it’s the kind of remote you expect with a throwaway no-name gadget. 

Final verdict

It’s sleek, it’s powerful – perhaps too powerful – and it’s got Bluetooth. If anything, the Katana leaves you wanting not more, but less, with its volume and bass levels potentially a little overwhelming at close-range on a desktop. 

However, that extra oomph gives the Katana a deserved place perhaps not in a living room, but certainly next to 32-inch TV in a second room or bedroom. That said, with only 2.1 sound, at its core the Katana is best thought of as a powerful and space-saving upgrade for PC games and music alike. 

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Apple promises it’s still serious about desktop PCs

If you thought that desktop computers had fallen by the wayside at Apple, then think again, because Tim Cook has spoken out regarding his firm’s plans to do more with PCs in the ‘pro’ market.

In a Q&A at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, the CEO said the company hasn’t forgotten about its professional customers (as opposed to consumers), and as MacRumors reports, Cook stated: “You will see us do more in the pro area. The pro area is very important to us. The creative area is very important to us in particular.”

The comment is obviously a general one, but was meant to placate those who aren’t impressed with the lack of action in terms of a refreshed Mac Pro or indeed iMac. New models for these computers have been a long time coming, particularly the former (the last version of the Mac Pro was unleashed at the end of 2013, four years ago now).

So it’s hardly surprising creative pro types are getting impatient.

Cook hinted that things are happening behind the scenes, and that Apple still places great importance on developing its range of computers, adding: “Don’t think something we’ve done or something that we’re doing that isn’t visible yet is a signal that our priorities are elsewhere.”

Thanks for the memory

It’s also true that matters aren’t really helped by the MacBook Pro, which did get a refresh last autumn, but the big addition of the Touch Bar was seen as gimmicky by some folks. And furthermore, others weren’t impressed on the connectivity front, or the fact that you can no longer specify 32GB of system memory (which heavyweight users might need).

With the new MacBook Pro, 16GB is the maximum memory configuration, apparently due to power issues – such is the price of making a thin and light device, and trying to fit a beefy enough battery in there.

Apple will reportedly be doubling up the RAM (to 32GB) on these laptops and adding Kaby Lake processors with an overhaul later this year. The grapevine also insists that new iMacs are due at some point in 2017, perhaps sooner rather than later.

Cook was also questioned about the possibility of a touchscreen Mac, and restated Apple’s previous position that this isn’t something which is on the cards.

The CEO confirmed that going forward, the iPad and Mac will remain distinct and separate entities, saying: “Expect us to do more and more where people will view it [the iPad] as a laptop replacement, but not a Mac replacement – the Mac does so much more. To merge these worlds, you would lose the simplicity of one, and the power of the other.”

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Dell XPS 15 9560 review

The Dell XPS 15 one of the best laptops in the world if you want a computer that can do just about everything. Rather than one that weighs as much as a multi-pack of crisps. It has a powerful processor, a decent graphics chipset, surprisingly good battery life and an excellent screen.

It’s also far smaller than the average 15in laptop. While we’d pick a 13-inch model to use on the road every day, the Dell XPS 15 is one of the most portable 15-inchers money can buy.

There’s very little to dislike about this excellent laptop.

Dell XPS 15 9560 review: Price

The Dell XPS 15 starts at £1349 (just $999 from Dell if you’re in the US).

The US model isn’t as highly specified. It has a Core i3-7100H CPU, 8GB of RAM and a hard drive with a speed-boosting 32GB SSD cache. And unlike all other versions of the XPS 15 which have an Nvidia GTX 1050 GPU, this one has just the integrated Intel HD Graphics 630.

The £1349 UK model has an Intel Core i5 HQ-series CPU, a GTX 1050 plus the same screen, RAM and storage.

The step up to the £1429 model swaps the hard drive for a 256GB SSD, and upgrades to a Core i7 CPU. You can get a 512GB SSD instead for £1599.

All these models have 1080p screens. Only the very top-end £1799 Dell XPS 15 has the eye-catching 4K display. That may sound terrifyingly expensive, but the new 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar will cost you £2699 for similar specifications.

Dell offers a one-year on-site warranty, but you can extend that cover if you like. Two years costs £97, three £172 and four years £255, regardless of the spec ordered.

Dell XPS 15 9560 review: Design

The 2017 Dell XPS 15 looks and feels much like the 2016 XPS 15 9550, reviewed.. Its changes are all about the insides: upgrading the CPU to a 7th Generation Kaby Lake model, and the graphics to one of Nvidia’s great new 10-series cards.

Dell is still well ahead of the competition here, though, thanks to the XPS 15’s InfinityEdge screen. Its tiny bezels make this laptop unusually small for one with a 15in display. It’s 357mm wide when, for example, the 15in Asus ZenBook UX501 is 383mm wide. This makes the Dell that much easier to fit in a bag. Its dimensions are similar to those of the 15-inch MacBook Pro.

At 2kg, it’s perhaps a little heavy to carry with you 24/7. However it is certainly among the best options if you need a laptop with a powerful quad-core processor and a 15in screen.

The lid and underside of the XPS 15 are aluminium, but the insides around the keyboard are soft-touch carbon-fibre reinforced plastic. There’s a carbon fibre-like finish on the top to tell you it’s not plain plastic.

This reinforcement makes the keyboard surround very stiff, managing the unusual feat of making something that at first appears to be basic plastic seem high-end. As with just about all of Dell’s more expensive laptops, the XPS 15 is exceptionally sturdy.

For all its forward-thinking design moves, there’s still more than a hint of that classic Dell pragmatism to the XPS 15, though. When Dell designs a style laptop, you can tell it still wants it to look at home in a board meeting.

Dell XPS 15 9560 review: Connectivity

The Dell XPS 15’s connections attempt to cover most bases too. There are two USB 3.0 ports as well as a newer USB-C shape 3.1 connector. For video there’s a full-size HDMI, and on the right side is a full-size SD card slot.

There’s no Ethernet connector, but the USB-C could be ‘turned into’ one with the right adapter, and Dell also makes a docking station for its laptops should you need true desktop-like connectivity. It costs around £155.

The XPS 15 also has a Kensington security slot and a little 5-LED display next to it, which displays the battery level when the button alongside is pressed.

Dell XPS 15 9560 review: Keyboard and touchpad

A lot of 15-inch laptops fit in NUM pads as well as the standard array of keys, but to do so with the Dell XPS 15 would be a serious stretch. Instead, it just has the standard layout, with larger, for example, Shift keys than you often see in a laptop.

All that space to the left and right of the keyboard may look a bit funny, but in use it’s a great setup. It means you’re always working at the centre of the laptop, not off to the side. Look at the trackpad: it’s right in the centre of the XPS 15, where in a lot of 15in and 17in machines it’s shunted to one side.

Although a subtle difference, it’s increases how intuitive the XPS 15 feels.

The quality of the keyboard is great too. While key travel is ‘normal’ for a laptop rather than super-deep, the keys have a meaty feel provided by a decent less of resistance. There’s also a backlight that can be adjusted to two different levels

We’re read a few criticisms about trackpads of previous Dell XPS 15 models, but this one is great. There’s no floaty feel, it’s not prone to mis-firing right button clicks or phantom cursor lunges and the click action is spot on. There’s some resistance, but not so much that quick double-taps are laboured.

The surface of the XPS 15 trackpad is excellent too, made of textured glass with a super-soft finish.

Dell XPS 15 9560 review: Screen

Dell sent us the top-end version of the XPS 15, the one with an ultra-high resolution 4K (3840 x 2160) pixel screen. This is like four 1080p screens stacked together.

It’s a very sharp display, but it’s the colour that impresses the most once you get over quite how small the screen surrounds are. It covers 99.9 percent of the sRGB colour standard, 96.9 percent of Adobe RGB and 91.4 percent of DCI P3. This is pro-quality screen in terms of colour. But you don’t need to be a graphics pro to appreciate this.

The XPS 15 screen looks very vivid, making films and games look fantastic, although the tone is a little cool/blueish. Pros will want to calibrate it before doing serious work.

We would like to see slightly better contrast, though. While the XPS 15’s 800:1 contrast is good, you can tell the blacks are less than perfect in a room with mid-level lighting. Some of Dell’s older laptops manage over 1000:1, which would be ideal for a high-end IPS LCD like this.

To reiterate: we’re only complaining because the price is quite high and the screen is otherwise beautiful.

The 4K version is also a touchscreen (the 1080p models aren’t). In a laptop like this we don’t think it’s a must-have, but it’s a neat extra if you’re accustomed to using a tablet.

Dell XPS 15 9560 review: Performance

Our review model has a quad-core Intel Core i7-7700HQ CPU and a borderline ridiculous (for most people) 32GB DDR4 RAM. However, for the most part the performance is going to be similar to the 16GB standard setup, as nothing we’re doing is going to be bottlenecked by 16GB, or even 8GB, of RAM.

This system is far more powerful than almost any other style-leaning laptop out there, because it uses a quad-core HQ CPU rather than the dual-core U-series ones seen in slim and light laptops. The Dell XPS 15 has desktop-replacement style power, and that extends to the ‘entry level’ £1349 Core i5 spec version too.

In PC Mark 8 it scores 2810 points and, the real telling score, 14049 in Geekbench 4. That’s twice the score of the HP Spectre 13 (6894), which has an Intel Core i7 but the dual-core variety.

This is one of the smallest laptops ready to become a real workstation, if you upgrade the RAM to your requirements.

However, it does also seem to use a bit of system throttling to keep the fans quiet. For a laptop with a quad-core processor it’s eerily quiet most of the time, and its PC Mark score isn’t the best we’ve seen from a HQ i7 system.

The Dell XPS 15’s versatility doesn’t end there. It’s the first we’ve seen with the new entry-level Nvidia GTX 1050 discrete graphics card. We were hoping this would usher in a new selection of affordable gaming laptops, but even though the 9560 isn’t cheap, the 1050 still lets you play games fairly demanding games at decent frame rates.

At 1080p with the graphics maxed-out, Thief runs at 42.4fps. Alien: Isolation averages 60fps at 1080p.

You won’t hit 60fps with very demanding games and this laptop isn’t perfect for VR or 4K gaming beyond casual titles that won’t benefit hugely from the pixels anyway. But it is a perfectly good gaming laptop. And a surprisingly good one given it’s only 17mm thick.

If you’re wondering how well those games run at 4K, the results are less-than-favourable. Thief averages 13.4fps, Alien: Isolation 21fps. Hardcore gamers should consider a laptop with a GTX 1060/1070/1080 instead, depending on your budget.

Dell XPS 15 9560 review: Battery life

Given the processor power underneath the aluminium lid, we’d expect the Dell XPS 15 to last 4-5 hours. That’s the standard for a very powerful performance laptop.

The Dell XPS 15 sails through that, though. Playing a 720p video on loop at 120cd/m brightness, it lasts six hours, 24 minutes. Part of this is down to the use of a decent-size 56Wh battery, but there’s far more to it.

Dell clearly uses much more dynamic (and invasive) power management than most, scaling back the CPU’s power to suit the situation. This is also why the Dell XPS 15 is so eerily quiet most of the time. We’ve noticed no obvious drawback, surprisingly. You don’t want to feel that shifting of gears or that any management of CPU clock speed is holding the laptop back, and we haven’t.

The Dell XPS 15’s speakers are decent too, although do not have much greater volume than some 13in laptops. Their tone is warmer than a MacBook, but with less pronounced treble.

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Oxide Games Reveals VR-Only Nitrous 2 Engine, 'Not Enough Bullets' Game

AMD had much to say during the Capsaicin and Cream event, but the Red Team wasn’t the only company with news to share. Dan Baker from Oxide Games took the stage to introduce his next game and the next-gen game engine powering it.

Baker is up to his old tricks again. The co-founder of Oxide Games is out to push the performance boundaries of next generation game development technology. He and his company are hard at work building the second-generation Nitrous engine–and this time he’s not letting the old guard hold him back.

Baker played a role in bringing the Khronos Group’s Vulkan API to market, and his company was among the first to embrace AMD’s Mantle API. You may also recall that a little over a year ago, we spoke with Baker about his experiments with DX12 in the first Nitrous engine.

At the time, Ashes of the Singularity was still in the development, but a lot of eyes were on Oxide Games because Ashes was poised to be one of the first DX12 games on the market. Baker spent the time to explore DX12’s Explicit Multiadapter feature, which allowed him to build an experimental build of the game that simultaneously supports Nvidia and AMD graphics cards.

Now that the development of Ashes of the Singularity is out of the way, Baker looked towards the virtual reality market and wondered what boundaries he could push next.

“When we finished Ashes [of the Singularity], and we had the first DX12 engine, we said ‘Well, ok. We still have to support the old APIs, but what could we do if we did next-generation only? And what would a new engine look like if you were only DX12 and only VR? And what would it look like?’” said Baker. “What we came up with is Nitrous 2.0.”

By dropping the old APIs that restricted development of advanced features and hamstrung performance, Oxide Games was able to use the available resources more efficiently than ever before. Baker said that the first generation Nitrous engine allowed Oxide to squeeze approximately 85% of the available performance out of all the GPU cores and CPU cores you could throw at it. Nitrous 2.0 kicks it up a notch and allows for “complete utilization of all cores.”

Baker said that Nitrous 2.0 features a new shading technique, which plays a key role in scaling the performance efficiency to 100%. Oxide leverages asynchronous compute to run the rasterization and shading workloads simultaneously.

“We have this new technology where we’re actually able to rasterize the entire scene at 90 [fps], and in the asynchronous compute we shade at 30 [fps]–We decouple the two. And we can share the data between the eyes,” said Baker. “So, that means, in theory, our shading can be 6x more efficient than it ordinarily would be. And async compute is working perfectly for this.”

As was the case with the first Nitrous, Oxide Games isn’t developing Nitrous 2.0 for other developers. As Baker told us in his interview in 2015, “Oxide is a game development company first and an engine licensing company second.” As such, the developer is building a game with the new engine.

Oxide Games did a live demo of a game called Not Enough Bullets running on one of AMD’s new Ryzen processors and Vega GPUs, and pushing all 16 CPU threads to the limit. The game crashed a few seconds into the demo, which is a shame, but not surprising for early software running on an in-development game engine, on an engineering sample graphics card. They were able to launch the demo again moments later.

Unfortunately, the scenery in the game is quite dark, and we weren’t able to make out exactly what was going on in the demo. We suspect that Not Enough Bullets is another real-time strategy game, as the original Nitrous Engine is optimized for the genre.

Baker made no mention of when we can expect to see more of Not Enough Bullets or the Nitrous 2.0 engine.

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