ct_47_mar_13

The Technology Magazine that speaks your language

March 2013

Talk is cheap!

Five killer smartphone handsets that you can afford

How to beat Laptop thieves

Reviewed: Dead Space 3 Apple MacBook Pro Retina BlackBerry Z10 Samsung Galaxy SIII Mini

Lock up your laptop and catch anyone who tries to nick it

BioShock Infinite Steampunk in the skies! Meet Irrational’s stylish new game.

Get your geek on

Upgrade and Save!

SSDs • CPUs • Graphics • More

Ultimate DIY upgrades that anyone can follow R14.95 incl. VAT

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So genny’s n rev cons ext ea l o l e ed !

Ultimate Portability.

Ultimate Power.

Sony recommends Windows® 7.

Sony VAIO range available at Incredible Connection

VPC-Z227 “Beyond the Ultimate” • • • • • •

VPC-SB38 “Power wherever you need it” • • • • •

Windows 7 Pro 64-bit Intel® Core™ i7-2640M Processor 2.80 GHz with Turbo Boost up to 3.50 GHz 750GB HDD 4GB RAM 13.3” Led Backlit Display

Works the way you want.

Windows 7 Pro 64-bit Intel® Core™ i7-2640M Processor 2.80 GHz with Turbo Boost up to 3.50 GHz 256GB SSD 8GB RAM 13.1” Full HD Led Backlit Display Includes Power Media Dock with Blu-ray, and high speed graphic support

VPC-F237 “Dive into 3D” • • • • •

VPC-EH Series “Power and Simplicity” • • • • •

Up to Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Up to Intel® Core™ i5-2450M Processor 2.50 GHz with Turbo Boost up to 3.10 GHz 500GB HDD 4GB RAM 15.5” LCD Display

Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit Intel® Core™ i7-2860QM Processor 2.50 GHz with Turbo Boost up to 3.60 GHz 640GB HDD 8GB RAM 16” Full HD 3D Led Backlit Display

VPC-YB Series “Mobility to take you places” • • • • •

Windows 7 Home Basic 32-bit AMD Dual-Core Processor E-450 (1.6 GHz) 320GB 2GB RAM 11.6” LCD Display

www.sony.co.za/vaio

Contents Issue #47

Time to Step Up! T

here’s a popular old joke about the stable hand who’s been cleaning up horse manure with the same broom for the last 20 years, a fact of which he is rightly proud. Upon hearing this, a newcomer to the yard is skeptical.

“The same broom,” says the newcomer, “How come it hasn’t broken or worn out?”

“Of course it has,” says the stable hand, “I’ve replaced the head seven times and the handle

more than a dozen.”

Many people make the mistake of thinking modern technology is disposable. Once it no longer works as it should, it’s time to throw it away and get a new one. But the joy of a computer, laptop or phone is that there’s always something you can do to improve performance before you say goodbye. I’ve had the same PC for a decade, it’s just had five different motherboards, four CPUs and six graphics cards is all. Oh - and I changed the case three times as well. It may not have any of its original parts, but I know it’s still my PC (p22).

Of course, sometimes there does come a time where it makes more sense to upgrade by buying new – just remember that if you do, you can often donate old gear to charity or trade it in for a hefty discount.

Enjoy the mag.

Upgrade & Save

How to fit new parts to PCs, laptops and phones.

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Adam Oxford PUBLISHER: Brett Haggard – brett@connectmag.co.za EDITOR: Adam Oxford – editorial@connectmag.co.za HARDWARE EDITOR: Deon du Plessis – deon@connectmag.co.za GAMING EDITOR: Tiana Cline – tiana@connectmag.co.za TECHNOLOGY EDITOR: Christo van Gemert – christo@connectmag.co.za ART DIRECTOR: Jason Palmer – jason@connectmag.co.za Junior Designer: Jessica Hurwitz – jess@connectmag.co.za CONTRIBUTOR: Tamsin Mackay – techtannie@connectmag.co.za ADVERTISING: Dorothy Haggard – dorothy@connectmag.co.za SUBSCRIPTIONS: subscriptions@connectmag.co.za

CONNECT is a joint venture between Hypertext Media and Incredible Connection.

Contact Us: Email: info@hypertext.co.za Tel: (011) 023-8001/4 Fax: 08654 83304 2 | connect | March 2013

Get Connected 4 6 8 10 12 15 16

Internet Insecure Hackers are targetting SA web users. Are you safe?

School books on iPad New digital service for South African learners.

Sol Power World passes 100GW sun powered milestone.

Talk is cheap Affordable smartphones are on their way.

What is... Raspberry Pi? Cut price computer for all.

Tech Jargon Where we make sense of it all.

Stay Connected Your words, our mag.

www.connectmag.co.za March 2013

Gaming 44 46 48 50

News

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SiNG It Nike+ Kinect

55 56

Ni No Kuni: Lair of the White Witch

BioShock Infinite Dead Space 3

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Anarchy Reigns Batman Arkham City: Armoured Edition

Mobile Gaming

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46 Software 62

Hardware

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24 26 28 30 31 32 35 37 40 42

News Microsoft Surface RT

Best of BlackBerry 10 DropBox Angry Birds: Star Wars FNB Banking TuneIn Radio Mango Airlines

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13inch MacBook Pro Acer Aspire S7

How To‌

BlackBerry Z10 Apple TV Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini Group test: The best iPad mini covers Long Term Test: Sony Vaio E Component Corner

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60 64 67 69

Upgrade an SSD Beat laptop thieves 2x5 from Daily 5 Tech Tannie www.connectmag.co.za | 3

GetConnected The technology news you need to know

Internet insecure

Following a recent attack on South African websites, online security is once again in the spotlight.

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et’s be honest: do you really think about the security of your personal data online as carefully as you should? Or do you regularly enter your ID number and date of birth into random pages without thoroughly checking out that the people you’re giving the info to won’t use that information to get into your bank account?

Online security is one of the biggest issues that no one talks about in South Africa, yet we’re just as much – if not more – at risk of the dangers from identity theft as the rest of the world.

A group of South African hackers, which calls itself ‘Team Ghost Shell’, released a huge database filled with personal information to the web this February. More than 20 sites were hacked and databases stripped of usernames and passwords, of which 11 belonged to South African companies, including big consumer brands like Postnet and Woolworths.

In total, information from 700 000 accounts was exposed, along with more than 30 000 valid email addresses tied to those accounts. Other details also included full names, encrypted passwords, and unencrypted passwords. The hacking group didn’t seem to be using these details for financial gain, but by releasing the full leak to the public, it’s a dead cert that some

4 | connect | March 2013

more nefarious types have harvested that information to use for criminal purposes.

Should you worry?

Don’t panic just yet. The information leaked is probably not enough to put individuals at direct risk, although chances are high that if your email address was in the leak, you’ll end up with an unusual amount of spam mail soon. It should, however, serve as a reminder to practise safe surfing and to regularly change your passwords (see https://cryptoparty.org/ for guidance on best password practices).

In the past, the biggest threats we were exposed to were all confined to Windows computers. Nowadays no system is immune, since the attacks have moved onto webpages rather than system malware. When it comes to ‘phishing’ – see below– is just as easy to get phone users to hand over their details to a home page that looks like their bank as it is a PC owner.

Symantec – the publisher of Norton internet security tool – released their annual cybercrime report for 2012 recently, which claims that South African consumers lost an estimated R3.7 billion to online crime. Sixty-four percent of the internet-using population in the country was affected last year alone, mostly thanks to more connected devices and services.

That’s an enormous number.

Of all the internet users in the country, only 43% know that malware operates in a manner that makes it impossible to detect.

For the hacking underworld, it’s imperative that their tools go undetected.

Bronwynn Naude, head of sales for Symantec in South Africa, says that best practices for safer surfing include being vigilant about where you sign up with your email address, as well as ensuring the websites you’re visiting are secure.

‘Phishing’ (pronounced ‘fishing’) attacks are the most common form of security problem today: a criminal sets up a website that looks like your online banking portal (for example), and then sends you an email

with a link in it. You think the mail is from your bank, click the link and happily enter all your password details on the criminal’s page, giving them access to your account.

What you think is your online banking portal is actually a front end that’s being used to harvest your details.

Of course, there are many internet security programs that can help detect both phishing schemes and malware on your computer. However, those won’t save you if organisations you give your details to don’t keep them encrypted and in a part of the server that’s secured from intruders.

In the case of the Team Ghost Shell hack, the leaked information had nothing to do with bad practices from users, but rather terribly insecure websites. Team Ghost Shell’s attack wasn’t particularly sophisticated or clever, but simply exploited common flaws that really should have been fixed.

The most important advice is to not use the same password on multiple sites.

After all, an attacker with an email address and one password will attempt to use those credentials on a number of services until they strike gold. Gaining access to somebody’s primary email account can spell disaster, because it unlocks the possibility to gain login details for banks, sites where credit card details are stored, and social networks.

Knowledge is power Armed with just a name, surname and email address, a determined hacker can cause a lot of damage with a little identity theft. A simple Google search using an individual’s name can show up a social networking profile. From there, it’s easy to gain a physical address and possibly a phone number. Some companies can reset passwords and change account details using just that information. If an attacker has just a phone number, it’s possible to send a malicious link to the victim, via SMS. Once clicked, the link prompts a user for seemingly innocuous information, all of which the attacker can use to convince banks and companies that they are you.

News in Brief:

Bionic boy

Could 3D printing mean an end to lost limbs? South African Rich Van Ans and his US-based collaborator Ivan Owens think so.

They’ve just built a robotic hand using 3D printers and basic milling tools for toddler Liam Dippenaar, who was born without his right hand, and achieved international fame through YouTube videos of their work.

The pair began working together after Van Ans lost four fingers on his right hand in a workshop accident. By sharing the designs on their blog – comingupshorthanded. com – they’re hoping to reduce the price of sophisticated prosthetics for all children born with Amniotic Band Syndrome, like Liam.

Microsoft goes 4Afrika

US software firm Microsoft has set up a 4Afrika initiative to help support new businesses, training opportunities and technologies across Africa. In South Africa alone, the fund will be worth some R900 million over seven years to get new businesses started and apps off the ground.

Much of the focus for 4Afrika is obviously on training people to use Microsoft software, but the firm says that its primary focus is getting people into work and creating new jobs, so it will be funding 200 new businesses a year. 4Afrika kicks off with a budget Windows Phone 8 handset (see p10).

www.connectmag.co.za | 5

get connected

Putting learning at your fingertips.

Literally.

South Africa gets electronic textbooks A bag full of schoolbooks loaded onto an iPad does more than lighten the load for SA students. It’s lighter on parents’ wallets too.

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arrying a year’s worth of textbooks and set works to school and back every day is a tiring exercise for most South African students. But there’s more to worry about than the impact on a child’s spine.

School textbooks are prone to everyday wear and tear, often making them unusable for future generations. For many schools in both the public and private sector, keeping adequate supplies of up-to-date textbooks in a reasonable condition is impossible – and that’s not counting the headline educational catastrophes like Limpopo.

What’s more, with traditional textbooks that must be recycled at the end of the year, pupiles often can’t take them home, refer to them later in their studies and they certainly can’t make notes in the margin, highlight passages or easily search for information without incurring the wrath of the school librarian.

Digital books don’t face any of these problems, though, making them the perfect alternative to printed material.

Problem is that up until now, there’s been no way for schools, students and their parents to take advantage of what electronic media has to offer.

The content has quite simply not been there. Varsity level works are easy to find on Apple and Android platforms, but high school and matric?

ZA Books is an electronic marketplace for textbooks and set works for the iPad. If you’re familiar with the Apple tablet, it works a bit like newstand. You buy a textbook and it appears on a virtual bookshelf, and when you tap on it you get an interactive app that’s much more than just a reference paper.

Books bought through ZA Books are also a minimum of 25% cheaper per title than the conventional printed versions. And it’s very specifically South African: 80% of the books required by schools are available as digital downloads.

Right now it’s aimed at schools, who buy sufficient licences to the books they need and link up those licences with school-owned iPads. Parents will soon be able to buy their own copies to own in perptuity. In the future, ZA Books is also hoping to add university content specific to courses offered at South African institutions too.

Read it again ZA Books is designed specifically for the curriculum taught in schools here, but with your tablet, you can get into a world of online learning. Try Amazon’s Kindle app, Kobo or iBooks, which comes preinstalled on an iPad, for international options. Kindle and Kobo are also available for Android tablets in the Play store, although Google’s own Play Books app isn’t available here yet. All these readers carry textbooks, but you’ll also find classic novels and non-fiction works that are out of copyright available for free – the works of Jules Verne, JM Barrie, Kipling, Shakespeare and thousands of others are available in ebook format from www.gutenburg.org.

6 | connect | March 2013

A4_M

Memory Card Range

www.verbatim.com Verbatim is part of the Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Group

A4_MemoryCardRange_Advert_SA.indd 1

18/07/2012 16:18

get connected

Sol Power World passes 100GW solar energy

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he world’s capacity for electricity generation via solar generators doubled over the last two years, as we passed the landmark 100GW mark in 2012. A new report from the European Photovoltaic Industry Association reckons that despite falling investment due to continued economic problems elsewhere, the ultimate source of renewable energy is on the up, and is now throwing out

8 | connect | March 2013

as much energy as 16 nuclear plants.

The spectacular Andasol parabolic generator in Spain, for example (see inset) accounts for almost a full gigawatt by itself.

Here in South Africa, work has just begun on a 28MW solar plant in Limpopo, capable of powering 20,000 homes with renewable energy. In Gauteng, meanwhile, Kia Motors is about to open its first solar powered showroom.

www.connectmag.co.za | 9

get connected

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Talk is cheap Can’t afford a smartphone? You’ll be able to soon, thanks to a new wave of clever, low-cost handsets about to hit the continent. If only data was as cheap.

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Intel Yolo

Estimated price: R1 116

Funny thing is, Intel doesn’t make phone handsets anywhere else but Africa.

Its Yolo phone, released in Kenya this month, runs Android and comes with a 1.2GHz processor. It’s just right for first-time smartphone owners.

Apparently the first batch of 5 000 sold out in days.

10 | connect | March 2013

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Huawei 4Afrika

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Nokia Lumia 510

Estimated price: R1 116

Estimated price: R1 582

It runs Windows Phone 8 and has been designed as part of Microsoft’s 4Afrika project (see page 5). When it launches, it will come bundled with an exclusive suite of apps developed by solely Africans designed for use right here.

It’s not the most powerful of the budget smartphones, but Nokia’s Lumia 510 is brightly coloured and well built. We never thought we’d see a fully featured smartphone costing R1 582 described as a bit pricey by comparison to the two new upstarts to the left, though.

It’s excellent value, but doesn’t offer much over the Huawei 4Afrika.

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VMK Elika

Estimated price: R1 518

Billed as the first phone designed in Africa (but built in China), the Congo-based VMK has a decent-looking handset apparently ready to roll. But Intel and Huawei are beating it on price already, and like nearly all the phones here, we’ve yet to actually see one.

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Google Nexus 4

Estimated price: R3 341 Considerably more expensive than the other phones here, Google’s Nexus 4 is nevertheless a bargain considering its quad core CPU and massive 4.7inch screen. It’s a Galaxy S3 competitor for half the price, and you can see its potential. Unfortunately, it’s been sold out since launch, and there’s no release date set for South Africa yet.

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Q+A with global experts

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50 self-paced training labs

Sneak peek of upcoming products

200 sessions with global speakers

If you book and pay before 15 March, you qualify for a R400 discount. For more info and help, contact info@teched.co.za

Network with top IT pros

What is...

Raspberry Pi? It’s tiny, cheap and is teaching kids all about how computers work. It’s a full power PC that’s the size of credit card. It’s the world famous Raspberry Pi. > It’s proved so popular that in the year since its launch, more than 700,000 Pis have been sold worldwide. The Raspberry Pi Foundation thought they’d sell a couple of thousand, tops, but Google alone have ordered 15,000 to distribute to UK stores.

“2”, “PlayStation”, “PS3” and “ ” are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. “ ” is a trademark of the same company. “Ô” is a registered trademark of Sony Corporation. “Blu-ray Disc” and “BD” are trademarks. All rights reserved.

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Why Pi? Raspberry Pi is the brainchild of Ebon Upton and a team from Cambridge University and other institutions in the UK. They worried that schools were too focussed on teaching kids how to use popular software packages like Word and phone apps, but not how computers work or the amazing things you can make them do. So Pi is basic, cheap and comes with loads of tools for teaching kids to program. Pi has been a massive success because it can be used for anything, and it makes computers fun again.

> Raspberry Pi is a PC stripped down to its most essential parts. It’s built around a low power processor from Broadcom that combines a CPU and RAM onto a single chip, placed on a credit card-sized circuit board. It uses an SD card for storage, and you have to supply your own keyboard and mouse.

> Pi is powered by a microUSB port, and has audio out and HDMI connectors on board. The pins that stick up are for connecting it to other devices, so that it can be used as a controller for robots and the like.

Want to know more about Pi? > For more information, head over to www.raspberrypi.org.

There, you can read more about the Raspberry Pi, order your own and join the vibrant community that has sprung up around the device. > If you’re interested in putting XBMC on your Pi, this is the site to visit: www.raspbmc.com. > You can order your own Raspberry Pi online from local website RS Components (http://za.rs-online.com). The waiting time is about 6 weeks as the Pi will need to be imported.

> The processor is similar to those found in tablets and mobile phones, and is designed to run the Linux operating system. So it behaves like a desktop PC and is completely flexible. Many people use them as cheap media centres, playing back high def video from remote storage to their TVs. It’s not quite powerful enough to replace your laptop, though – it does struggle with even simple tasks sometimes.

> A networking port means Pi can be connected and accessed anywhere. You can build a home security system using a Pi and a camera, for example, and so long as it has network access see who’s in your house from anywhere in the world.

The astonishing about the P thing i Model A, w is the price. hich has 25 6MB of RAM, costs just $25 (R2 22.01) and the 512MB Model B is $35 (R310 That’s a full PC, for abou ). t the cost of a round of drinks.

12 | connect | MARCH 2013

PS3 poste

New PS3™, Ultimate in gaming and home entertainment

PS3 poster1.indd 1

17/09/2012 15:32

“2”, “PlayStation”, “PS3” and “ ” are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. “ ” is a trademark of the same company. “Ô” is a registered trademark of Sony Corporation. “Blu-ray Disc” and “BD” are trademarks. All rights reserved.

get connected

TechJarg n Behind the baffle: hardcore tech decoded Phablet

Key travel The distance a key moves when pressed is called its ‘travel’. Shallow travel means the key moves only a short distance before the press is registered, and deep travel the opposite.

Which one is best for you really depends on what you’ve used before. (pg 30)

This is a portmanteau of ‘phone’ and ‘tablet’, and means a phone so big that it almost qualifies to be a tablet (pg 35). Samsung’s Galaxy Note and Note II phones are good examples of this with their huge 5.5inch screens. It’s not an oslang that’s slowly gaining popularity as more extra-large phones hit the market.

As the name implies, biometrics is the measurement of biological phenomena like fingerprints and faces in order to properly identify someone. It’s used in computer security to make absolutely sure of a person’s identity before access is allowed to restricted computers and data. (pg 65)

The long white, black or coloured ports that you see towards the bottom of a PC’s motherboard are called Expansion Slots (pg 20). It’s here that you plug in additional hard drive controllers, graphics cards, sound cards and other hardware that expands the system’s capabilities.

Apple has its own brand of iPad covers called ‘Smart Covers’, (pg 37-39) but really any cover that can wake an iPad and put it to sleep by simply opening and closing it is considered ‘smart’ (no capital S required.

WQXGA

Biometrics

Expansion Slot

Smart Cover

Linux

This acronym is used to describe a monitor resolution of 2 560x1 600. The actual letters stand for Widescreen Quad Extended Graphics Array, and it’s based on the fact that it’s a wide version of QXGA (2 048x1 536, Quad Extended Graphics Array) and has four times as many pixels as a WXGA (1 280x800, Wide Extended Graphics Array) display.

Most PCs and laptops use Microsoft’s Windows operating system, while Apple computers have a slightly different look and feel called MacOSX. Linux is a third operating system that’s as capable as Windows or MacOSX, but is entirely free to download and install. Which makes it perfect for Raspberry Pi. (pg 12) www.connectmag.co.za | 15

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StayConnected Speak and be heard! Write and be read...

Reading your emails, Tweets and Facebook chatter makes us happy.

Responding, even more so.

StarLetter Free ftw Dear CONNECT, I just wanted to say THANK YOU for all the excellent advice on how to get free stuff in the February issue. I was particularly happy at finding out about The Gimp: I am but a poor high school student and I’ve been trying to figure out how I’m going to afford those really expensive image editing programs everyone keeps talking about, and I was ecstatic to discover that The Gimp can do everything I need it do, without the huge price tag! You guys rock.

Stephen, Howick Ed sez You’re very welcome, Stephen. I am glad that feature came in handy – we love helping wherever we can, and it’s even better when that help is both free and effective. I’m so glad, in fact, that I’m awarding you the Star Letter prize; I hope that copy of FREE SOFTWARE* comes in handy.

Dumb TVs Hi CONNECT, I read last month’s article on Smart TVs, and I must admit I’m still not sold on the idea. Are they really worth the extra money? My current “dumb” TV seems to be doing just fine, and those extra features sound rather useless to me. Can you convince me otherwise?

Piet, Steynsburg Ed sezThat depends quite a bit on whether you’d like to do the things you do with your PC, on your TV. If you just want to watch YouTube videos, a PC is still your best option, but if you want to chat with friends and family using Skype right from your lounge without having to force everyone to gather around a laptop, then a Smart TV with a built-in webcam is a good bet. Also remember, Smart TVs will continually improve as the companies behind them make even more apps, games and media available to them over time.

Hope that helps!

Address Angst Dear CONNECT, I’ve heard that the internet is running out of addresses. Is this true? If it is, is anyone doing anything about it?

Muzi, Durban

WIN! The writer of our star letter of the month earns themselves a copy of top photo editing program, Corel PaintShop Pro X5, worth R799!

Ed sez Yes, Muzi, you’re absolutely right – there are only 4.295 billion IP (internet protocol) addresses in total, and the organisation that oversees who gets allocated which addresses is running out of them.

Fortunately, the problem has been foreseen, and measures are in place to ensure that a new addressing technique, called IPv6, will slowly take over from the old one (IPv4) and provide such a huge number of IP addresses that we’ll never, ever run out.

We want to hear from you – whether it’s a suggestion for making the mag better, or a story idea you think we should cover, or you just want to share something interesting with us. E-mail the CONNECT team at: editorial@connectmag.co.za Or send a Tweet to @CONNECTOnline and make sure you follow us while you’re there.

16 | connect | MARCH 2013

www.connectmag.co.za | 16

upgrade everything

Upgrade & Save

Want to get more PC performance for the least amount of cash?

Here’s how to crack open your computer and make it better one component at a time.

18 | connect | March 2013

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here comes a time in every PC’s life when it just isn’t performing quite as well as it used to. Programs get more complex and demanding, and games take up more space on your hard drive. Eventually, it grinds to a halt and you’ll just have to trade it in for a replacement, right?

Wrong.

The canny PC owner works out what internal component is slowing down the machine and changes that, rather than the whole PC. And the big secret no-one wants to tell you is that it’s really easy to do.

Upgrading system memory, for example, is cheap and takes less than five minutes to do.

Putting in a solid state hard drive (pg 60) will make your computer run better than new, and takes just half an hour for the uninitiated. Swapping in a new CPU or motherboard is tricky, but it can be done.

And the thing CONNECT really likes about upgrading? It’s a way of personalising the PC, making it truly yours, something that’s unique and not just another off-the-shelf box. That goes for outside as well as inside. For a quick and simple makeover, why not grab a new keyboard and mouse set, speakers, or any number of new and shiny peripherals?

The point is you don’t have to be stuck with tech you don’t enjoy using – the power to make it better is in your hands.

In this feature, we’ll take you through some of the upgrade options that can revitalise your tech without requiring that you take out a bank loan or sell your kidney to pay for it.

Phones

Update your smartphone for new services and better security.

Everyone knows that keeping Windows up to date is imperative to keeping your PC secure (you did know that, didn’t you?), but what about your phone?

As handsets get cleverer, they also get targeted by malicious hackers and malware.

According to the latest stats from Trustwave, the amount of malware targeting phones quadrupled last year alone.

Keeping your phone up to date with the latest software patches can help protect your data, and it can also mean new features for free. Apple’s latest iPhone update, for example, improves its Maps application, while the newest version of Android has cool features like ‘Face Unlock’.

Is there a free upgrade for your phone waiting to be downloaded that you might have missed out on? If you have an Android handset, here’s how to find out.

Go into your Settings menu and scroll all the way down to the bottom of the screen. Tap the line that says ‘About Phone’, then the option to check for an update.

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If there is one, it’ll download in the background and install itself.

Updates can be quite big, so make sure you’re on a WiFi connection before starting the download and then let your phone restart itself.

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When the phone reboots, it’ll take a few minutes to go through every installed app and upgrade it for the latest version of the operating system. Don’t get impatient and restart – you’ll just have to do the whole process again.

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Enjoy your new operating system. You should find your phone is faster, has extra features and is more secure. Congratulations!

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Graphics card

Are your games running a bit slowly? Fitting a new graphics card will help.

The graphics card is, arguably, the second most important component in a PC. The Central Processing Unit (CPU) is the chip that handles most of the number-crunching, most of the time, but when it comes to the huge number of calculations required to decide what colour every pixel on the screen should be in a 3D scene, and update that information hundreds of times a second, the CPU just can’t cope.

It passes data on to a dedicated graphics card to do the drawing, and an upgrade will do that faster.

That means it can render better detail on in-game models, and at a much smoother frame rate too.

Can you upgrade it?

Not all PCs have graphics cards that can be upgraded, so before you rush out to buy one, you’ll need to first check that your machine has a 16-lane PCI Express port (see next page). For many mid- to high-end cards, you’ll also need to make sure your power supply card has one or two special six pin adaptors.

Should you?

There’s nothing quite like seeing a well-designed PC game with all of the visual tweaks set to their highest levels, running at a speed that keeps movement fluid. That smoothness is what makes games respond quickly to your input – and your skill the only thing separating you from the n00bz. A powerful graphics card is therefore an essential component of any respectable gaming PC.

www.connectmag.co.za | 19

upgrade everything

Upgrade your PC Not sure which bits of your PC can be upgraded and which can’t? Here’s an easy-to-follow guide to understanding what goes where and how.

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Memory

Can you upgrade it?

Absolutely. Computer memory, also known as RAM, comes in sticks of various sizes that slot into these ports by the CPU. The important thing is that you use the right type of RAM for your motherboard – DDR2 RAM won’t fit into a DDR3 socket and vice versa. You’ll upgrade two sticks of the same capacity at a time, though, so make sure you have enough slots available before you spend any money.

Should you?

Adding more memory to your system will be one of the best ways to improve in terms of extra performance per rand spent. Going from 2GB to 8GB should result in a noticeable increase on Windows systems, although 8GB is probably enough. One thing to bear in mind, however, is that PCs running 32bit versions of Windows can only use up to 4GB of RAM. You can see whether your system is 32bit or 64bit by right-clicking on the Computer icon, selecting properties and looking at the description there.

20 | connect | March 2013

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CPU

Can you upgrade it?

The CPU is the heart of your PC, and it sits in this port in the motherboard. Usually, it’s covered by a large fan called a heatsink (not pictured), which stops the chip from overheating. You can upgrade the heatsink as well, which is a good idea if your PC often crashes in the summer.

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Sound card

Can you upgrade it?

Should you?

All motherboards have a sound chip built in, which feeds out to the audio connectors on the back panel.

You can upgrade it, though, by adding a second, higher quality sound card into one of the open PCI or PCIExpress slots.

To be honest, probably not. CPUs can only fit into compatible motherboards.

This Socket 1155 motherboard, for example, will only take the latest Intel Core processors. By the time your CPU is starting to feel old, chances are your motherboard will be out of date and won’t accept a more modern chip, so you’ll have to upgrade both motherboard and CPU for an improvement.

Maybe. On-board sound really is more than good enough for most people. Unless you’re using your PC as a media centre, play a lot of games or demand the highest audio quality, it’s not worth it. For hi-fi buffs, however, adding a sound card with better processing and built-in amps will be a noticeable upgrade.

Should you?

Motherboard

Can you upgrade it?

4

People think of the CPU as being the heart of the PC, but really it’s the motherboard that everything else plugs into. Upgrading the motherboard is essentially replacing your PC, but reusing your existing hard drives, power supply and so on.

Should you?

5

5

4

Graphics card

Can you upgrade it?

Yes! It goes in these PCI-Express slots. See page 19.

You’ve got the power Powerful graphics cards use a lot of electricity, so it’s a good idea to make sure your computer’s power supply unit (PSU) can handle the increased power draw. We recommend a minimum of 600W for systems with lower-end cards, and 800W for more powerful cards like AMD’s Radeon HD7970 and NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX680.

It’s a big task that needs a careful hand with a screwdriver, several days of free time, and for you to be prepared to reinstall Windows if necessary. Plus, you’ll need a new CPU and probably a new heatsink as well To be honest, at least 50% of the time, you’re better off buying a new PC, but for the other 50%, it’s a great way to prove your geek credentials.

Hard drive

Can you upgrade it?

Adding a bigger hard drive for extra storage is something most people will consider at some stage.

The good news is that it’s easy to install a second, third or fourth drive if you need the space. Upgrading to an SSD (see pg 60) is also highly recommended.

Should you?

There’s one thing to bear in mind here, which is that if you want to replace your main hard drive – with an SSD, for example – you’ll need to reinstall Windows from scratch. That means removing all your data and restoring it – and that’s a bit of a chore.

To add a second drive as storage, however, takes almost no effort. Just screw it into a spare hard drive bay, connect it to these SATA ports and then format it from within Windows.

Getting to the motherboard Of course, your PC won’t look like a barebones motherboard (main picture) and the good news is that unless you’re planning to replace the motherboard, you don’t have to take everything apart. Just remove the side from your PC so that it looks like the shot above, and you should be able to do most upgrades in situ.

www.connectmag.co.za | 21

upgrade everything

Electronic Encore

What does the future hold? Will tomorrow’s PC be as heavily customisable as it is today?

Screen Supreme One of the simplest upgrades since it doesn’t involve screwdrivers, adding a better screen to your PC is one of the best ways to improve it.

Can you upgrade it?

Simple answer? Yes, you can. In fact, we encourage it. Display technologies have come along in leaps and bounds in the last decade, so if you’re still stuck with an old CRT monitor, or a squareish LCD, a new display will do wonders – for both your computing experience and your eyes, thanks to faster refresh rates and IPS technology.

New monitors are all widescreen (great for those big spreadsheets), and start at around 21inches in size. Cheaper models will only have a resolution of 1 600x900, but for only a little extra you can get a Full-HD model.

How to do it?

Monitor upgrades are super-easy. Most modern monitors will work even with computers that are ten years old, thanks to some degree of backwards compatibility. Older computers will either have a VGA or a DVI port for connecting a monitor, while modern ones can use DisplayPort or HDMI. Once the old monitor is out of the way, just set up the new one in its place and hook it up with the newest connector your PC has.

Even better, keep hold of the old screen and try running a PC with two desktops – it can revolutionise how you work.

22 | connect | March 2013

What to look for...

Screen size is probably going to matter more to you than anything else, since the larger the display, the more comfortable it is to work on. Massive 27-inch panels are coming down in price at the moment, so keep an eye out for them to become available.

Don’t forget the other factors that make a screen worthy: look out for overall colour accuracy and whether or not the picture distorts or becomes washed out when you look at it from the edges of the panel.

Looking at the devices that sell by the millions today, it’s easy to predict where the technology market is going. Smartphones and tablets are ruling the roost right now – and it’s likely we’ll be able to plug our phones into a monitor and use them as a PC within the next year.

This does present a problem, however.

Smartphones, tablets and even small laptops can’t be upgraded in the same way desktop systems can, which means once they’ve become too slow for your purposes, they have to be recycled or thrown away – you can’t put a new CPU into an otherwise functional phone and get a better PC. The Green Electronics Council has a system called EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool) designed to rate the environmental friendliness of a new piece of electronics. This is based on recyclability as well as upgradeability.

Devices that are more upgradeable are more environmentally friendly, by virtue of the fact that they’ll take longer to end up on the rubbish dump. In the entire EPEAT registry of certified devices (all 2 359 of them), only one tablet has a rating – a highly specialised military device with a $4 600 price tag, and tons of upgrade parts.

While companies like Apple are making it more and more difficult to repair or upgrade their hardware, that’s not the case for everyone in the tech industry. Companies like Xi3 (www.xi3.com) are trying to figure out a way of building modular computers that are small, elegant and easy to upgrade.

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42

30 MARCH MAYHEM

T

here’s nothing harder for companies than to make us sit up and take notice of their products, so it was very nice to see Acer bringing their A-game when it came to the design of the Aspire S7. It’s definitely one of the best ultrabooks to date: check out our review on page 30.

We were lucky to be among the first people in the country to experience BlackBerry’s new touchscreen smartphone, the Z10, and we were pleasantly surprised at just how far the Canadian company has come in terms of the look, feel and responsiveness of its phones. Our review on page 31 will give you our impressions, and more.

I also spent some time with a whole bunch of new iPad mini covers, which is the subject of this month’s roundup.

There are so many options out there that I hope you’ll find the info on pages 37 through 39 useful in your search for the perfect cover for your new Precious.

Cheers

Term Test – Sony Vaio E 40 Long Reasons to love the hulking monster.

Deon

Corner 42 Component Upgrades in here.

35

Contents

26

Surface RT 26 Microsoft The beast of Redmond makes a slate.

MacBook Pro 28 Apple Retinas all round.

Aspire S7 Ultrabook 30 Acer Thin, slim and very sexy.

Z10 31 BlackBerry Can BlackBerry fight off the Android threat?

TV 32 Apple Is this your new set-top box?

Galaxy SIII Mini 35 Samsung Not interested in a big-screen phone? Try this.

– iPad mini Covers 37 Roundup Protect your ‘Pad in style.

32

Our hardware promise to you…

Every month we test dozens of new pieces of kit and hardware at CONNECT Towers. Here’s why our reviews are the ones you should read.

All of our reviews are:

24 | connect | MARCH 2013

Independent of bias

Authoritative

Exhaustive

Jargon free

Our reviewers work hard, and they work alone. There’s no question of editorial interference from advertisers or other partners, so you can be sure that we’re being honest and truthful in our opinions.

When we say we like it, we do.

You can trust us, because we really do know what we’re talking about. Years of experience and a state of the art lab (well, it’s in a state at the moment) mean we can be thorough and accurate in what we say.

And yet never exhausting.

In other words, we put every piece of hardware on these pages through the most rigorous tests, and then present our findings in the most entertaining and readable prose possible.

We do the hard work of staying up to date with tech so you don’t have to – why should you need a degree to understand what we’re saying?

The best there is ‘Nuff said.

news hardware They just keep getting smaller Micron Technology has created the industry’s densest 128GB memory chip. It measures just 12mm by 12mm and uses a triple-level cell technology that packs three bits of data per cell onto the chip.

It’s aimed at the low-cost removable storage market, so expect it to appear in USB memory sticks and flash cards in the near-ish future.

NVIDIA unleashes new GPU NVIDIA has released its newest GeForce graphics card, the GTX 780 Titan, and it has so much horsepower that it’ll eat three-screen gaming for breakfast and spit out silky-smooth frame rates even with all details cranked to the max. The Titan comes with 6GB of GDDR5 RAM on a 384-bit bus that’s clocked at a bit over 6GHz, a brand-new CPU (NVIDIA’s GK110 chip) that runs at 875MHz, a massive 2 688 CUDA cores and a maximum power draw of 250W. Sjoe!

So much awesome is not cheap, though: the Titan retails for $999, so expect to pay around R12 000 locally once it gets to SA.

Crash-proof computing Researchers at University College London have created a computer that repairs itself, and never crashes. Instead of carrying out instructions one at a time, like modern computers do, UCL’s researchers have made one that treats processes as complete systems that are separate from one another.

Should one process fail, it can simply be re-built without affecting any of the other processes. In this way, UCL’s computer will never appear to crash, and `heal’ itself in the event of a malfunction.

This development will prove particularly useful in mission-critical tasks requiring computers that simply cannot fail, and might even contribute towards making computers in general a lot more reliable.

Noisecancelling chips for phones

New Valley benchmark from Unigine Unigine, the company behind the popular Heaven benchmark, has released new software called Valley Benchmark that tests the graphics capabilities of modern PCs by rendering a huge valley (64 million square kilometres, to be precise) in 3D, in real time. The benchmark lets users control the weather, and features advanced visual technologies like volumetric clouds, sun shafts, depth of field and ambient occlusion. Users can explore the valley in interactive fly-by and game-like walk-through modes.

A free basic edition of the benchmark can be downloaded by anyone, and it’s compatible with Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Head over to http://www.unigine.com for more info.

Electronics giant Toshiba has created a noise-cancelling microchip that will be used in mobile phones and improve the quality of calls made in noisy places.

The sexily named TC94B24WBG chip eliminates the need for separate speaker, headphone and line-out amplifiers and has integrated audio post-processing support and an equaliser for audio playback.

What does this mean for everyday folks? Future phones that ensure your caller hears you, even when you’re in high winds or standing in noisy places. Sounds good to us.

www.connectmag.co.za | 25

hardware hands-on preview Heart of gold

Inside the Surface, there’s NVIDIA’s quad-core Tegra 3 ARM processor, just like the one in many popular smartphones. That means it’s not as powerful as a laptop, but can run lightweight apps at lightning speed and is always on.

Microsoft Surface RT NEED TO KNOW • Microsoft’s very own tablet computer • Runs Windows 8 RT • Includes SkyDrive and Office 2013 SA Availability: TBC

Microsoft’s first foray into the world of personal computer production, the Surface RT tablet, may or may not land in South Africa.

Right now, there are no confirmed plans to launch it here, and we certainly don’t know what sort of price it would command.

CONNECT, however, has managed to have a few weeks’ hands-on time with a sample we acquired via nefarious means. So even though you won’t be seeing these on the shelves of your local tech retailer any time soon, here’s what we think.

Smooth Operator

The Surface RT is a tablet computer made by Microsoft that runs the Windows RT operating system. That’s Windows 8, without the traditional desktop.

26 | connect | march 2013

Thin and elegant

At 680g, it’s not the thinnest or the lightest tablet (iPad weighs in at 652g), but it’s sturdy and attractive. The edges are tilted slightly inwards, resulting in a three-dimensional trapezoidal shape that’s actually quite nice to hold and carry. It’s definitely not a featureless block of tech; rather, it’s an elegantly moulded shape that’s unique to Microsoft – you certainly won’t be mistaking the Surface for anybody else’s tablet.

Stand and deliver

There’s a full-sized USB 2.0 port, a mini HDMI output for viewing the Surface’s screen on a TV, and a tiny speaker grille. The left side has another speaker, a volume rocker and a 3.5mm jack for headphones or speakers to be plugged in. The kickstand that Microsoft designed into the Surface’s underside is very sturdy, and keeps the tablet at a fairly steep angle that makes it ideal for using on a desk.

As you can see, the Surface RT has a lot going for it. It takes advantage of Windows 8’s shiny new touch functions, comes with a full version of Office 2013 Home & Student and is a solid and good-looking tablet. It’s just the ARM processor keeping it from being completely compatible with existing software, and that, in the end, might make or break it. Plus the fact that you can’t buy one here, of course.

NOTEWORTHY SPECS

We Say: The Surface RT might struggle to find its place, but it’s a good tablet nonetheless.

Low key, high perfomance

The soft cover doesn’t just protect the screen. It also has a low-profile keyboard embedded in the surface, which is surprisingly comfortable to type on. It’s perfect for taking quick notes in lectures, but it’s not quite up to being used to pen that great novel.

• Operating system: Windows 8 RT • Bundled software: Office Home and Student 2013 RT Preview • Storage: 32GB and 64GB options, microSD card slot • Display: 10.6inch, 1 366x768 • Processor: NVIDIA Quad-Core Tegra 3 • Memory: 2GB • Wireless: 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 • Battery: 31.5W-h (lasts approximately 8 hours) • Cameras: Two 720p HD LifeCams, front- and rear-facing • Ports: USB 2.0 (Full Size), 3.5mm headset jack, mini HDMI Pros

Cons

• 8-hour battery life • Built-in kickstand • microSD card slot

• It can’t run normal desktop applications • Lower pixel density than competing tablets • Limited app selection in the Windows Store

Overall rating

www.connectmag.co.za | 27

hardware reviews

Apple MacBook Pro 13inch with Retina Display NEED TO KNOW • 13inch Retina display • 2.5GHz • 7-hour battery life R12 999.95

When Apple released the iPhone 4, it waged a war on bad image quality by blessing the handset with what it called a Retina display. Until then, display resolution on mobile devices was simply another boring number on the spec sheet, dictated by the size of the screen, and largely ignored.

Previous iPhones had a 3.5inch display with a resolution of 480x320.

With the Retina display on the 4, Apple quadrupled the pixel count, doubling both the vertical and horizontal numbers: 960x640. In simple terms, this meant that where you would previously see one pixel, you’d now see four. Or rather, you wouldn’t see pixels at all.

The idea behind the Retina display is that your eyes would be unable to discern pixels at regular viewing distances. In the case of the iPhone, this meant up to 25cm from the user’s face. When the third-generation iPad released, it also had a Retina display. Since Apple determined that tablets are used from 40cm away, or more, the iPad’s Retina display was still quadruple that of the previous iPad, but a further practical viewing 28 | connect | MARCH 2013

distance meant that it had fewer pixels per inch – 264 pixels per inch, compared to the iPhone’s 326 pixels per inch.

Apple finally applied that logic to its notebook computers early last year, when it released the MacBook Pro with Retina Display. We reviewed that machine, the 15inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display, in September last year. Now, we have the 13inch version.

With the 15inch model, Apple gave us the thinnest-ever 15inch nonultrabook computer. But it’s still a machine that big is too big for some and carries a massive price tag. Now it’s applied the same thinking to the 13inch MacBook Pro, upping the screen resolution and slimming the chassis down to something approaching the blade-like MacBook Air. The base configuration, which we have on test here, sees it with an Intel Core i5 2.5GHz dual core processor. There’s an option to upgrade that to a Core i7 chip running at 2.9GHz, although that’s still a dual core chip. No quad core options are available, as with the bigger 15inch Retina.

Whichever chip you have, it’ll always be mated to 8GB of RAM. This is set in stone – there’s no upgrade option. Storage comes courtesy of a built-in solid state drive (SSD), with the base model sporting a very modest 128GB capacity. Factory upgrades are available in 256GB, 512GB and 768GB sizes if you think you’re going to run out of room.

The headline specification, though, is the 13inch Retina display, with

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Apple MacBook Air 13inch

We Say: The 13” Macbook with Retina display gives us a glimpse of the future of Ultrabooks.

a resolution of 2 560x1 600, exactly double the resolution (1 280x800) of the regular MacBook Pro 13inch. In fact, this machine’s native resolution is usually seen on monitors of 27inches and 30inches – so here you have the same number of pixels packed into less than a quarter of the space.

The results are jaw-dropping. It’s not just about big numbers, but overall display quality. The contrast ratio is far higher than 99% of the other consumer-level displays, and colour accuracy is incredible. Viewing photos on this display is like looking at real life, with LED backlighting.

Compared to the 15inch model, this wins on compactness. It’s actually 1mm thicker than the larger machine but 400g lighter – essential for those who want to travel light. Thanks to the lower spec processor it loses out when you’re doing punishing things like video editing and processing large photos, but it’s still adequate for most people in day-to-day use.

Outside, it has the same number of ports as the larger Retina MacBook Pro, which means its a more viable option for people who are put off of the Air’s limited connectivity. Essentially, this is a compact machine with Pro-level features. There are two Thunderbolt ports, each capable of driving a 30inch display with a resolution that matches the built-in display.

A built-in HDMI port also makes it home theatre-friendly, if you ever want to hook it up to an HD TV or projector.

The two USB 3.0 ports are welcome – and incredibly fast. With an external hard drive, we measured transfer speeds in excess of 130Mbps.

This is helped along by the SSD, which is capable of reading and writing faster than 350Mbps, in our testing.

Like the Air and the 15inch Retina, this lacks an optical drive. An add-on USB drive will be required for that. It also lacks a separate audio input, which is strange on a machine that’s likely to be used for audio recording.

Again, USB recording gear remedies this. There’s no ethernet port – the machine wouldn’t be this thin with one. It’s wireless and Bluetooth for networking, or you can buy a USB Ethernet adapter.

If the Retina display is a bit too rich for your tastes, the 13inch MacBook Air is still very capable, and even more compact than this machine.

The biggest compromise of all, though, is the use of Intel’s HD graphics.

That graphics chip performs perfectly in machines with lowlier displays, but struggles to throw around this many pixels. It’s noticeable in general use, when the graphics don’t quite feel as smooth as they should. Scrolling around on busy web pages feels a bit jittery. This doesn’t affect overall performance, and most users won’t notice it, but it’s unnerving to know that your expensive new laptop struggles with scrolling around websites.

But when you stop scrolling, you’re looking at one of the best displays in the world, and that’s totally worth the tradeoffs.

NOTEWORTHY SPECS • Intel Core i5 dual core processor at 2.5GHz • 2 560x1 600 resolution screen • 8GB RAM • 128GB SSD • 2x USB 3.0 ports • 2x Thunderbolt ports • 1x HDMI output • 1x analogue audio output • 1x SDXC card reader • Battery life: 7 hours (quoted), 6h 20m (tested) Pros

Cons

• Retina display is incredible • Ultra-thin design • Very fast daily operation

• Sluggish graphics performance • Pricier than non-Retina models • Lacks ethernet port

Overall rating

perfect companions

Seagate USB 3.0 External Hard Drive With only 128GB of internal storage, and no easy way to upgrade, you might want to consider a fast, USB 3.0 external drive for backup and storage of large files.

LG External USB DVD Drive The Retina MacBooks don’t have a built-in DVD drive – not that it’s essential these days – but an external drive can help you out in a pinch.

www.connectmag.co.za | 29

hardware reviews

We Say: The S7 is an almost perfect ultrabook that makes Windows 8 really shine.

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Acer Aspire S7 Ultrabook • Intel Core i7-powered Windows 8 ultrabook • Chassis made from a single piece of aluminium • Full HD 13.3inch touchscreen R16 999.95

HP Envy 4 Ultrabook

The Envy 4 has a luxurious finish, top-tier hardware and supermodel looks that help it live up to its name, inspiring the green monster in onlookers wherever it appears.

Asus Zenbook Prime UX31A

A Full HD IPS touchscreen is this Zenbook’s most impressive asset, followed closely by its fast hardware and solid build.

30 | connect | MARCH 2013

Our first impression of Acer’s gorgeous Aspire S7 ultrabook was incredibly positive. This time around, Acer has gone with a combination of aluminium and Gorilla Glass to make the S7 look as good as possible, and boy have they succeeded. With its amazing thinness, Gorilla Glassprotected lid and surprisingly lightweight body, the S7 is the nicestlooking ultrabook we’ve seen so far.

It’s also the best Windows 8 notebook we’ve used. That’s because of its screen: a gorgeous Full HD capacitive touch display that’s fluid and responsive. We were super-impressed with just how smooth the scrolling motion was, and how accurately the screen responded to our touches.

Windows 8’s Start Screen, which we haven’t professed much love for thus far, suddenly became much more useful thanks to the S7’s touchscreen.

Interestingly, having a touchscreen had us touching the screen more often than we expected to; moving icons on the desktop, moving windows around and closing applications by pressing the X with a finger actually felt more intuitive than reaching for the mouse.

Acer has bundled a casual game service called WildTangent with every S7. Many of the games offered by the service work beautifully with touch-based interaction; we lost a good hour to Bejewelled, matching crystals and racking up the points with our fingertips. It was, surprisingly, more fun than playing with a mouse, although it’s not free – the games on offer are only limited-use demos, with a purchase required to unlock unlimited play. Boo.

And then there’s the quality of the screen itself. Running it through a handful of tests, we found its viewing angle to be as good as advertised, with distortion only happening from extremely wide angles. The IPS panel renders a wide range of colours and shades so well that no banding (the noticeable difference in shades as they move through the gradient scale) was visible. In other words, colours look amazingly lifelike on the S7’s screen.

On the inside, Acer hasn’t skimped on hardware. The S7 is powered by a top-of-the-range Intel Core i7 mobile processor, has a 256GB solid state hard drive, Intel’s HD Graphics 4000 and 4GB of system RAM. The payoff is, of course, phenomenal Windows performance. Everything we did felt nippy, from navigating Explorer to browsing web pages; even 3D games ran nicely.

All of this excellence is not without a few flaws, however. The S7’s battery lasted about four hours during testing without doing much that would drain power quickly, and its trackpad is only okay, not great. It sometimes didn’t register touches as clicks and the cursor had a noticeable lag.

And then there’s the keyboard. While we like the metallic keys, they don’t have a lot of travel. It felt like we were typing on a very flat surface; this didn’t impact much on accuracy, but it was a little off-putting. To each his own, though, and it might be that shallow travel is your thing – it just isn’t ours.

In the end, the Aspire S7 is a very well-made ultrabook that’s worth the asking price. It’s fast and responsive, has a beautiful touchscreen, and is crazy-thin and nice and lightweight, making it a good fit for anyone looking for speed and beauty in a compact shell.

NOTEWORTHY SPECS • Processor: Intel Core i7-3517U @ 1.9GHz (Turbo to 2.4GHz) • Operating system: Windows 8 • Memory: 4GB DDR3 • Storage: 256GB SSD • Screen: 13.3inch IPS LED @ 1 920x1 080 • Touchscreen: Capacitive, 10-point • Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4000 • Connectivity: 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth • Ports: 2x USB 3.0, mini HDMI, SD card reader • Protection: Gorilla Glass on screen and lid • Thickness: 11.94mm • Weight: 1.3kg

Pros

Cons

• Fantastic build quality and looks • Delivers brilliant performance for all manner of tasks • High-quality screen produces brilliant colours • Touch really improves Windows 8’s usability

• Low travel keyboard is awkward to type on • Touchpad doesn’t always respond to touches • Relatively short battery life for an ultrabook

Overall rating

reviews hardware

We Say: A great phone, but not great enough to make us switch.

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BlackBerry Z10 NEED TO KNOW • BlackBerry 10 OS • 4.2inch touchscreen R6999.95

South Africa loves BlackBerry. Hearts it even. As of the end of 2012, the business friendly smartphones with their lovelable but clunky keyboard are far and away the most popular in the country. There are something like ten times as many BlackBerry handsets in use as there are iPhones.

This is not a trend which repeats itself elsewhere in the world. Outside our national boundaries, BlackBerry is struggling, having its proverbial handed to it on a daily basis by iPhone and Android. Many have speculated whether the company is in a terminal tailspin.

The Z10 is BlackBerry’s riposte to these early rumours of its demise; a sleek touchscreen smartphone clad in sexy black anodised aluminium.

To behold, it’s not entirely unlike Apple’s latest iPhone 5: slim, light and incredibly elegant. If imitation is the highest form of flattery, it’s also a great way to make a phone look beautiful.

Unlike the iPhone, mind, there’s no buttons on the BlackBerry Z10. The brand new operating system – BlackBerry 10 (BB10) – has been designed entirely for gesture control: so you sweep up from the bottom to call up a screen of running applications, right to access the app launcher and over to the left to bring up a unified inbox.

The latter is probably the greatest triumph in BB10. BlackBerry has rightly surmised that most of us are starting to drown in a sea of Facebook updates, Twitter streams and email messages, and has come up with the single most useful way of combining all these message sources and more into one inbox which can be intelligently sorted and filtered at the swipe of a screen. It’s hard to describe how effective this is, but the feeling is absolutely one of being back in control of your inbox rather than a slave to that new message ping.

The Z10 is powerful, too. There’s no doubt about that, even though BlackBerry hasn’t released many details on the internal specs. The interface outdoes even Apple in its smooth transitions from one screen to another and the multitasking engine means that open apps are always running in the background ready to be recalled, and yet the phone never feels like it’s being slowed down.

For all that, it has one insurmountable flaw. Its best features are only really as good as those found in Android or iPhone, and it’s lacking some key skills.

There’s no turn-by-turn navigation built in, for example, and many well known apps are still missing from BlackBerry World. And if you’ve already bought apps on one of the other platforms, why would you buy them again on this?

Businesses will like the Z10 for its extra security features and so on, but as far as we’re concerned? We’ll stick with what we’ve got.

Sony Xperia Z

We can’t wait until next issue when we’ll be getting hands on with Sony’s new five inch Android beast. Fast, gorgeous and waterproof too. What’s not to like?

NOTEWORTHY SPECS • Screen: 4.2inch • Resolution: 1200x720 • Dimensions: 130x65.6x9mm • Connectivity: 3G, LTE • Camera: 8Mp • CPU: Dual core 1.5GHz • Battery: 1800mAh Pros

Cons

• Fast interface • Great inbox • Good battery life

• Not as many apps • No turn-by-turn navigation • Gesture control won’t suit all

Overall rating

HTC One

Another majestic Android phone from HTC, which many are already dubbing an iPhone killer. We’ve heard that before, but have a sneaking suspicion that this time it could be true.

www.connectmag.co.za | 31

hardware reviews

We Say: The hardware is fine and the software is great, but there’s not enough television to be watched on the Apple TV.

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Apple TV NEED TO KNOW Apple iPod touch

The iPod isn’t dead, yet, and the new iPod touch is the best version to date. It sports a lovely four inch display, and can play all kinds of media.

Western Digital WDTV

This compact media player boasts USB ports for connecting external drives, and will play almost any file format you throw at it.

Mede8er 1000X3D

Another media streamer, with a built-in hard drive, and the ability to play 3D content, as well as stream video and music from the web.

32 | connect | March 2013

• Rent movies from the internet • Play content stored on your local network • Stream content from your iPad, Mac, or iPhone to your TV Price: R1 099.95

Last year, Apple gave us the iTunes Store in South Africa. It made purchasing music dead easy, and very cheap. Most albums on iTunes are almost half of what the CD would cost in a store. If you have an iPod, it makes perfect sense to buy music from the iTunes Store.

Given that, it would stand to reason that the Apple TV is just as great.

Where the iPod is a simple box to let you take music with you, the Apple TV is a simple box that brings internet content to your HD TV. However, Apple TV is not about the little box. Proof of that is the fact the unit itself is a non-descript bit of kit. In matte black, you’d miss it in a modern lounge. Any old hardware could do what this does, but it’s the Apple TV’s extremely user-friendly front-end and the content that makes it so desirable. Sadly, it’s with the content that it fails to deliver.

Apple has given us a great music store in iTunes, but the movie department is lacking. It has some recent releases, a bunch of older films, and a handful of local movies. However, some major movie studios aren’t there at all, and those that do have content aren’t fully represented. There are also no TV series for rent – something that’s huge in the US and UK iTunes stores.

The system’s design is not to buy, but rather to rent movies. Be prepared to spend between R30 and R40, depending on how new the film is. All of them are in HD, though. When you rent a film, you have 30 days to start watching it, and 48 hours to finish watching it. You can also watch it multiple times during that 48-hour period.

You’ll probably need 48 hours, too. Renting a film means it has to stream over the internet. We recommend an ADSL line of 4Mbit/s or faster, and uncapped access is a must – HD movies can be more than 4GB in

size. If a movie stutters (i.e. your line isn’t fast enough), you can leave it to download in the background and continue watching later. Remember that 48 hour limit though – it will vanish once time’s up.

It’s impossible to connect your own external hard drive to play films off. If you have content on a network computer, it has to be content that will play through iTunes. If you’ve ripped your own DVDs to play on your computer, you might need to fiddle with those files before they’ll play on an Apple TV. The Apple TV supports AirPlay, an Apple technology that lets you push video content from your Mac, iPad, or iPhone onto the TV. You can play a video on your iPad and then ‘push’ it to the Apple TV, where it will be played on the big screen. You can even mirror your whole screen to the Apple TV – useful for presentations or playing iPhone games on a big display. It’s really cool, but can’t justify buying one of these.

The hardware is fine and the software is great, but sadly there’s not enough television to be watched on the Apple TV. NOTEWORTHY SPECS • HDMI outputs: 1 • Ethernet ports: 1 • Optical audio outputs: 1 • Wireless: Built-in 802.11b/g/n • Remote control: included Pros

Cons

• Very easy to use • Built-in wireless • AirPlay is fantastic

• Very little content • Streaming requires fast, uncapped ADSL line • Can’t play other file formats

Overall rating

Intelligent printing

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The Kodak ESP C310 and C110 Allin-One Printer is an entry level wifi printer retailing for a recommended price of R999.

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All Kodak All-in-One Printers use Kodak 30 Series Inks that deliver exceptional quality and cost-per-page ink value. The system uses a one size fits all philosophy across its all-in-one range, meaning they all use the same model black and colour ink cartridgesa, available in either standard or XL sizes.

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reviews hardware

We Say: The Galaxy S3 Mini is a nice addition to the Galaxy smartphone lineup, but it’s not really what the name suggests

Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini NEED TO KNOW • The Galaxy S3’s smaller cousin • 3G only – no LTE • Good battery life R3 999.95

Samsung’s top-end smartphone, the Galaxy S3, is selling like the proverbial hot baked products. Some 40 to 50 million people now own one worldwide, and outside the US it generally outsells the top iPhone available in almost every country.

With its 4.8inch screen, however, the S3 is still too big for many hands.

So what’s the logical thing for Samsung to do? Launch the S3 Mini, of course. That’s the name of Samsung’s newest smartphone, but there’s slightly more to it than simply a shrunken S3.

Some sacrifices to the gods of making things smaller were necessary to produce the phone; these include the use of a slower processor, a screen that’s not as bright or sharp, less system memory and a limitation on the maximum size of its internal storage (although this last one is at least expandable using a microSD card).

The camera also took a hit: the rear-mounted one is a 5MP shooter compared to the S3’s 8MP work of art, and the front-facing camera can only do VGA (640x480). As big a difference as 3MP sounds on paper, the pictures we took with the rear-mounted camera actually came out really well. The front camera, on the other hand, produced rather grainy images.

It’s only really for video chatting, though, so not a train smash. The screen looks great from a distance, but its relatively low pixel density (233ppi vs the S3’s 306ppi) doesn’t do justice to details like tiny text and other small elements.

Samsung’s S Suggest, Game and Video Hubs widgets are present and accounted for, although our experience with Samsung’s Video Hub was less than impressive. The app insisted on being updated several times, movie trailers kept buffering, and some trailer buttons just didn’t do anything when pressed. This was on a 4Mbps Wi-Fi connection, too. Still, there was plenty of content to choose from and it’s all affordably priced;

we just wished the user experience was a little more polished.

On the build side, Samsung has kept the plastic backing used on the S3 for the Mini. It feels solid enough at first grasp, but a bit of give is definitely noticeable and our test unit arrived with a tiny crack along the right edge of the back cover.

Despite all of that, the Mini performed admirably as an everyday phone. About the only performance issue we encountered was the odd lag when browsing the internet using the phone’s built-in browser, and the occasional judder when swiping through the TouchWiz interface. We downloaded both Angry Birds and Temple Run 2 to gauge the phone’s 3D performance, and both games were silky-smooth.

After a full 24 hours of using the phone to play games, surf the web, talk to friends, send text messages and watch movie previews over Wi-Fi, the phone still had 40% of its battery remaining. That makes it a two-day phone with moderate use. Obviously more strenuous activities will drain the battery faster.

When it comes to mobile connectivity, the Mini only has a 3G radio, so no super-high-speed LTE. 3G speed depends heavily on your chosen service provider; our Vodacom SIM card achieved 3.19Mbps in Highlands North according to the Speedtest.net app we downloaded.

The Galaxy S3 Mini is a nice addition to the Galaxy smartphone lineup, but it’s not really what the name suggests. It’s a fine mid-range phone for the smaller-handed, but a miniaturised version of the outstanding S3 flagship? Not quite.

Pros

Samsung Galaxy S3

This popular handset has a big yet very sharp screen and a fast dual core processor, and is ideal for people who enjoy a large screen, top-notch performance and first-rate visuals from their phone.

Cons

• Smaller build is easier to hold and use • Screen not as sharp as the Galaxy • Good everyday performance with S3’s decent battery life • Slight lag on some interface • Storage expandable with microSD card transitions • No LTE radio Overall rating

related

products

Samsung Galaxy Note II

If 4.8inches of screen still isn’t big enough, consider the Note II. It’s so big, it blurs the line between phone and tablet.

www.connectmag.co.za | 35

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hardware group test

Making a

strong case The accessories market has finally caught up with the iPad mini, and store shelves now have a ton of protective cases for Apple’s diminutive tablet.

We found four we liked and put them through their paces.

If you’ve ever gone shopping for a cover for your iPad, chances are you’ve been confronted with various options, leaving you with no real idea of which cover you’ll like best. Short of dropping a good few grand on all of the ones that appeal so you can test them out for yourself, you don’t have a way of examining each to reach your final decision.

That’s where we come in. For this month’s roundup, we arranged for a whole slew of iPad covers to be delivered to us. Once they got here, we lined them all up and

chose the four we were most interested in based on their looks alone, much like most folks do when they go shopping.

The four we chose are from different companies, and we spent some time with each, examining their looks, the feel of their material and how well they protected our iPad mini as well as how well each provided various viewing angles. The result is the info you’ll find on the next few pages, which we hope will help the next time you go shopping for a cover.

XtremeMac Thin Folio Professional Faux Leather R399.95 Looks

Functionality

Resembling a business person’s organiser, XtremeMac’s Thin Folio is a thick, fake leather cover with a magnetic clasp that looks quite serious. It has a leather holder that keeps the iPad secured, and fuzzy material on the inner cover that the Velcro found on the edge of the iPad holder can stick to.

The Thin Folio is not a Smart Cover – it doesn’t wake the iPad when opened or sleep it when closed. The Velcro strip on the left edge of the iPad holder sticks anywhere on the fuzzy material on the inside cover, allowing the iPad to stand in a landscape position at enough angles that users are sure to find one they like.

Build Quality

The faux leather is surprisingly hard, which provides a lot of protection for the money.

The clasp is attached to the case by a flimsy piece of elastic, however, which feels like it might break at some point. We also noticed that the leather holder didn’t keep the iPad mini from sliding around, which made pressing buttons rather awkward.

We Say: It looks nice, but the slidey inside and absence of a Smart cover are letdowns.

Overall Rating

www.connectmag.co.za | 37

hardware group test Ozaki Dare To Be Dotty Slim Folio Case R699.95 Looks

Functionality

This is the simplest of all the covers we had on test: it’s designed to look like a book.

Incredibly good binding is to be found down its spine, and the inside is covered in the most exquisite microsuede material that’s just lovely to touch. And that’s it: elegant simplicity is the name of the game here.

The Dare To Be Dotty cover is the simplest in terms of its functionality, too.

It stays closed by means of the magnets embedded in its cover, which also serve to wake the iPad mini and send it to sleep when it’s opened and closed.

The stand functionality is the only real letdown – while the cover does fold to let the iPad rest at an angle, that angle is a bit steep as the iPad won’t stay in position when pushed lower.

Build Quality

It’s amazing. Everything from the spine to the feel of the cover itself to the bumpers that hold the iPad mini in place is nothing short of breathtaking.

We say: A beautiful, well-made iPad mini cover with somewhat iffy stand functionality.

Overall Rating

Capdase Folio Dot Folder Case R549.95 Looks

Functionality

The Folio Dot is a rather large and thick iPad mini case that looks and feels like a heavy leather-bound journal. It gets even heavier when it’s actually housing an iPad mini. It has a rather thick Capdase badge on the front that may scratch other objects it comes into contact with in any bag it’s stored in. The leather holder doesn’t obscure the screen at all, but does make a noticeable border around the screen’s edges.

The Folio Dot can swivel the iPad mini into portrait or landscape position, and support it at various angles in either orientation thanks to its solid stand design. It does have magnets embedded in it, so it does wake and sleep the iPad mini, although we noticed some irregularities with our sample unit, in that it would sometimes make the iPad’s screen flash and then turn off rather than turning it on when opened.

Build Quality

There’s a really nice feel to the interior material, and the leather on the outside is quite hard and protective. The stitching is first-rate, and a leather holder and Velcro fastener keep the iPad mini from moving, even when buttons are being pressed Overall Rating

38 | connect | MARCH 2013

We Say: A bulky case with some good ideas and solid workmanship.

Speck FitFolio

’s tor e i d E ic Cho

R399.95 Looks

The FitFolio is sleek and thin, and is made from what feels like fake leather. On the inside is a form-fitting cradle that hugs the iPad perfectly, with various openings cut into it to allow easy access to the tablet’s many ports and buttons. The inside is covered in soft, luxurious microsuede. This is the cover to go for if you don’t want to add a lot of bulk to your iPad. Build Quality

This case feels pretty solid. The material it’s made of is hard enough to offer protection, but also soft enough that it feels like you’re holding a leather-bound book. The plastic cradle the iPad mini fits into has a tiny bit of flex in it to allow you to install the iPad easily. The clasp is also plastic, but it feels a little flimsy, and some of the cover’s stitching on our sample unit looked to be coming loose.

Functionality

With the iPad secured so tightly and with unfettered access to its ports, the FitFolio does what it’s supposed to really well. It also folds into various positions for typing or viewing easily. It doesn’t, however, have any Smart Cover functionality.

We say: An affordable, highquality and very thin iPad mini cover that lacks Smart functionality.

Overall Rating

And the winner is...

Despite not having Smart Cover functionality, we feel the Speck FitFolio case is the best one in our roundup. For the very reasonable asking price, you’re getting a solidly made case that does exactly what

an iPad case needs to do: it protects its charge without hampering its usability. We especially loved its plastic cradle that did such a great job of keeping the iPad mini completely secure, without the

cradle itself gripping the tablet in a way that made using it awkward.

And on top of all that, its stand design is clever and versatile, making it an easy choice as the winner of this month’s roundup.

www.connectmag.co.za | 39

hardware long term test Sony Vaio-E Can a chunky old `vintage’ laptop of more than 18 months compete with modern ultrabooks? Deon du Plessis thinks his can.

It’s 2013, and portable computers have become thinner and faster than we previously believed possible. Just look at the Acer S7 reviewed on page 30. When it comes to new notebooks, even those that don’t gain Intel’s Ultrabook specification are exponentially lighter than we could have ever imagined a few years ago. But does that mean every computer older than Windows 8 needs replacing? I’m not so sure.

The Sony Vaio laptop I use for work is about two and a half years old. Even when it was new, it wasn’t exactly cutting-edge.

It’s powered by a bottom-barrel Core i3 dual core processor, and has a chunky styling to support its 17inch screen. Despite its age and on-paper deficiencies, I’m pleased to say it’s still holding up pretty well and is definitely fast enough for my needs.

That’s not to say I haven’t added a few modifications of my own, of course. After two years or so of near-daily use and many software updates and app installations, Windows 7 started to slow down. Booting to my desktop began to take longer than the drive to work, and the general responsiveness of the system wasn’t particularly good. I tried to fix it, but the laptop’s hard drive was constantly being thrashed for no reason I could determine, so I thought I’d try a few cheap upgrades to see if I could speed things up again.

I started by upgrading the RAM from 4GB to 8GB in case the system was running out of

memory and reading data from and writing data to the hard drive to compensate. It didn’t help, so I replaced the 5 400RPM hard drive with one that spins at 7 200RPM. The new drive did the trick, and Windows 7 was happy again. Faster than before, even.

The big difference, though, came last October, when I upgraded to Windows 8.

To my astonishment, I actually noticed a significant speed difference in just about everything I was doing. My cynical self had to give my optimistic self ten bucks; as it turned out, Microsoft was right about Windows 8’s improved performance.

The thing is, when it comes to hardware, not many of us need the kind of processing power the latest top-end CPUs and graphics cards offer. In all the time I’ve had it, the Vaio’s lowly Core i3 processor has managed to

keep up with the demands of my job just fine, and the Windows 8 update made it feel like a modern machine again. Today, I feel no need to get a new notebook anytime soon. I can extract large compressed files quickly (a fairly CPU-intensive task I perform quite often), HD movie files play just fine, and my applications load at a speed that doesn’t displease me, so my processor needs are nicely taken care of.

The only task I’ve not been able to pull off is playing a 4K video file smoothly (a trailer for The Hobbit); the new format is just too demanding for my poor CPU. Fortunately, the 4K standard is a long way from replacing 1 080p, plus this is only a Core i3 chip so it’s by no means a deal-breaker.

The most important part of a laptop, in my opinion, is the screen. And what I’ve loved about this laptop from the very start is its HD

The cost of staying up to date I reckon buying a new laptop every couple of years works out to at least R3 000 every 12 months, assuming you’re buying a machine with build quality to last that long. Here’s what I’ve spent in that time keeping my Sony up to date: • New 500GB 7 200RPM hard drive: R800 • An extra 4GB of DDR3 notebook RAM: R300 • Windows 8 Upgrade: R300

This works out to less than R700 a year over its lifetime – a saving of more than 75%. The bad news is that Windows 8 isn’t as cheap anymore. Microsoft’s excellent value upgrade offer ran out at the end of January and it now costs around R1 440, depending on the version you want.

40 | connect | MARCH 2013

resolution and the quality of the colours and wide viewing angles. Sony has historically always been top-notch when it comes to notebook displays, rarely capitulating to the cost demands that make other manufacturers fit poor panels with washed-out colours.

Images on my Vaio E are bright and rich, surpassed only by Apple’s newer Retina quality screens.

As a gadget and tech writer, many people would assume I upgrade every few months to the latest and greatest thing.

But for me, it’s more important to have a reliable tool that gets the job done than something that’s fresh from the shrink wrap.

And sticking with my trusted friend, of course, means I have more to spend on the gadgets I do need or want.

There’s a lesson there, I think.

hardware reviews

component

corner

We’ve told you all about the best ways to upgrade your PC, so here are the bits you’ll need to turn your computer into a DIY demon.

Intel Core i5 3470 3.20 GHz Socket 1155 Processor R2 199.95

Sure, these days you can just about buy a laptop for the same price as this processor, but it won’t perform half as well as the Core i5 3470. A fully-fledged quad core CPU based on Intel’s impressive Ivy Bridge architecture, this chip has more than enough power to keep your games and applications running flat-out for years to come. You’ll want to pair it with a decent graphics card, mind, because while the main processor here is one of the best around, the built-in graphics aren’t up to gaming.

Patriot 8GB DDR3 SODIMM R649.95

Since most notebooks have two slots for memory and only one is in use (more often than not), adding more RAM to it is as simple as opening the RAM compartment and inserting another module. Just be sure that doing so doesn’t void your warranty. If it does, you’ll need to have a certified technician do it for you, for a nominal fee.

Having more RAM allows your notebook to operate a bit faster; you should notice general performance improvements, but particularly in applications that use a lot of it, like video and photo editing packages and office productivity suites.

Also remember that laptop and desktop memory are incompatible – desktops use the larger DIMM format.

ASUS DVD Writer DRW-24B1ST R299.95

If your old DVD burner seems to take forever to create a 4.7GB DVD, you should probably consider getting a new one. Fortunately, they’re cheap and easy to replace. All you need to do is disconnect the power and SATA connector at the back, slide it out of the drive bay and slide the new one in, then reconnect everything.

This one from ASUS is a very good option as it has a 24x write speed, meaning it can burn a 4.7GB DVD in about two and a half minutes.

42 | connect | March 2013

Solidata x8 LE 120GB solid state hard drive R1 799.95

ASUS ENGTX660 Graphics Card R3 399.95

The GTX660 is a mid-range NVIDIA card that balances good performance with a relatively low price.

It’s fast enough that it will make even the most demanding games released so far run butter-smooth at HD resolutions and at reasonable detail levels.

The only consideration you need to keep in mind before buying is whether your power supply will cope with it, as graphics cards can use a lot of additional electricity. Fortunately, the GTX660 is power-efficient and uses a maximum of 140W, meaning if you have a power supply that’s 500W or more, you’re fine.

Hard drives have traditionally been among the slowest components of any computer system. With the arrival of solid state hard drives that store data on memory chips and not a spinning magnetised disc, that’s no longer the case.

This 120GB drive from Solidata offers enough storage capacity to be useful, and plenty of read and write speed to make your PC run noticeably faster. It will make everything from the time it takes Windows to reach the desktop to the speed at which Outlook loads unbelievably quick.

Patriot 8GB DDR3 DIMM kit R599.95

It’s easy to add more RAM to desktop systems. It’s as simple as buying it and sliding it into an available slot on your motherboard. So long as you have the right memory for your motherboard, and enough free slots to put it in to (see page 20), it will only fit one way round.

With Windows 8, most people will be fine with 4GB of RAM, but we know from personal experience that games and applications load faster and perform better when there’s more at their disposal. We recommend having 8GB of RAM, and the Patriot kit here has everything you need for the next few years.

www.connectmag.co.za | 43

Gaming News | Previews | Reviews | The Best Advice

VIRTUAL FEELINGS

R

ecently, I read an interview with Ken Levine, the creative director and co-founder of Irrational Games (and the man behind BioShock Infinite – see page 46), in which he spoke about feelings.

Levine asked some important game design questions, like how do you create characters in video games that players will actually become attached to? And how can you make a gamer feel emotions like fear, sympathy or guilt?

“The more important aspect is the emotional resonance of it,” said Levine, “rather than the sort of pixel resonance.”

The answer is a combination of what you see, hear and the moral choices you make that can define your virtual experience.

The story matters. That’s interesting in light of the fact that so many of today’s top titles are more focussed on the action.

In this month’s gaming section, you’ll see the transition of a very popular survival horror series turn into an action shooter.

Is the third Dead Space game (p48) as scary as its predecessors now that the focus is on blasting aliens to bits?

We also review an exclusive PlayStation 3 title, Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch (p55). This breathtaking Japanese role-playing game will surprise and enthrall you. And while there’s Pokémon-esque combat, Ni No Kuni’s narrative and characters will make every PS3 owner smile.

Also in this issue, we review Batman: Arkham City – the Armored Wii U edition and Nike+ Kinect Training, the perfect exertainment excuse to finally ditch your gym contract and get fit at home. Enjoy!

Tiana Cline Gaming Editor

46 48

Contents 45 NEWS The latest and greatest INFINITE 46 BIOSHOCK A dream-like city in the sky

50

SPACE 3 48 DEAD Shoot, loot and upgrade

50

BATMAN ARKHAM CITY: ARMOURED EDITION ANARCHY REIGNS Take Bruce Wayne to bed... on your GamePad

PARTY 52 SING NIKE+ KINECT TRAINING Karaoke and cardio

NO KUNI: WRATH OF THE WHITE WITCH 55 NI Awesome and deep RPG from Japan GAMING 56 MOBILE The best smartphone entertainment

55

Our gaming promise to you…

Games aren’t cheap, and if you’re going to get the best value for your money, you need to be sure you’re getting the best advice there is. Our deal with you is that we will be:

44 | connect MARCH 2013

Independent of bias

Authoritative

Exhaustive

Jargon free

Our reviewers work hard, and they work alone. There’s no question of interference from publishers, developers, advertisers or other business partners. We say what we think and recommend only what we like.

We’ve played a lot of games here at Connect, starting with ye olde Binatone Pong clone in 1812, right up to ZombiU 200 years later. Our knowledge of gaming is vast and comprehensive, and we know what you like.

Every game reviewed is played through to the end, and only then do we decide whether or not we like it. We’ll avoid spoilers, but we won’t leave you open to unpleasant surprises, like a bad final reel which ruins the end.

We’re knowledgeable so you don’t have to be. If there’s something technical that makes a game great, we’ll explain it simply.

The best there is ‘Nuff said.

news And the award goes to…

Dr Ray Muzyka and Dr Greg Zeschuk, the founders of Bioware and developers of Baldur’s Gate, MDK, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and more, will be honoured with Lifetime Achievement Awards at the upcoming 13th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards. Together, Muzyka and Zeschuk started Bioware in 1995 and ran the company until their simultaneous retirement in October 2012.

“There’s no denying the deep footprint Ray and Greg have made, and how much their dedication and leadership will be missed in our industry.

We’re proud to honour them with the Lifetime Achievement Award as they parlay into their next careers,” said Meggan Scavio, General Manager of all GDC events.

Xbox by the numbers According to the latest stats from Microsoft’s Yusuf Mehdi, the Seattle software house has sold more than 76 million Xbox 360 consoles to date. That’s a lot of consoles, and the promising news is that 38% of people who play on them are women. Interestingly, 49% of Xbox gamers are adults, putting to rest once and for all the myth that gaming is for children. The motion-controlled Kinect sensor is also a hit: more than 24 million have been sold since it was released, which is almost one for every three Xboxes out there.

PlayStation 4 Officially announced Sony has revealed its plans to release a PlayStation 4 console in November this year, which will replace the PlayStation 3 as its flagship console. No designs for the new console have been revealed, but the company has confirmed that it will be built around an eight core PC processor from AMD, with 8GB of and support for 4K video. It will also have a new touch sensitive controller and a Kinect-style camera.

No more borrowing games from friends!

Rumour has it Microsoft’s new Xbox console will block second-hand video games. According to a report in Edge magazine, the next-generation Xbox console could require gamers to be permanently connected to the internet – ruling out the use of second-hand games. Being `absolutely committed to online functionality’ means players will be required to activate games in the same way as most other software from Microsoft and other publishers is already activated online. This would mean the game is tied to the console it’s activated on, and to the Xbox Live account activating it, making it impossible to sell on old games. An activation system would check that you are the registered user of the game each time you start it up – you wouldn’t even be able to lend it to a friend.

Farmville television show on the way?

Still addicted to 2009’s Farmville on Facebook? Well, it’s not over yet. According to Gamespot, Brett Ratner (the director of Rush Hour and X-Men: The Last Stand) is planning on making a television series based on the hit game. The animated FarmVille television show, according to a new report at Deadline, “will be based on Zynga’s popular online game and is in production in association with Six Eleven Media.”

Gaming

$550 000 for an eBay video game collection Hold off donating your second-hand games to that charity shop! There could be serious money to be made if you’ve been playing for long enough. An eBay seller based in Milan, Italy, is auctioning off his video collection with a starting price exceeding half a million US dollars. A mere $550 000 will net you more than 6 850 titles, 330 consoles, 220 controllers and 185 accessories. The collector also has some limited edition items, like the pearl-white Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles edition of the Nintendo GameCube (there are only 150 units in the world), as well as the classic NES Zelda Limited Edition Pak of the Game Boy Advance SP.

Buzz Aldrin Approves a Space Agency Videogame Buzz Aldrin, the second man to step on the moon, is apparently working on a video game called Space Program Manager. The sim will focus on the inner workings of a space agency. It kicks off in the 1950s with the race to put a man in space, and the player is responsible for developing the facilities, personnel, and research initiatives that will one day allow humanity to takes its place among the stars. Aldrin is consulting with developer Matrix Games to ensure the title’s accuracy and authenticity, presumably from a historical and scientific perspective.

Buzz Aldrin’s Space Program Manager is set to launch on June 15, 2013 and will be available for PC, Mac, and iPad platforms. www.connectmag.co.za | 45

Gaming

preview

BioShock Infinite A city in the sky

It’s been five years since the first BioShock wowed gamers with its engrossing storyline and beautifully detailed underwater world.

It’s hard to forget the moral choices you had to make in the game, the haunting Little Sisters and melancholic environment that was the submarine city of Rapture.

Rather than hash out another game set in the Objectivist-based society under the seas, the second sequel – BioShock Infinite – tackles the inherent contradictions of a different philosophical form: jingoism. It does this using the only valid tools of philosophical discussion permissible after the age of 16: steampunk airships and guns.

You are former Pinkerton agent Booker DeWitt, sent to the floating ship city of Columbia to rescue Elizabeth, a young woman imprisoned there since childhood. As Booker, you’ll begin to develop a 46 | connect | MARCH 2013

Can you help me? I’ve been stuck for centuries.

Elizabeth has a book.

Welcome to Columbia

relationship with Elizabeth, augmenting your abilities with hers so you can both escape from a city that is falling from the sky. You’ll also have to learn how to fight foes in high-speed Sky-Line battles, and engage in combat both indoors and among the clouds.

Legendary game creator Ken Levine says the types of encounters in BioShock Infinite will be very different, but it’s the small details that make the game shine – story elements like genetic technology, robotics, science and quantum mechanics. Importantly, your actions have an effect on the game world, and when changes happen, they’re not only reflected in the floating city but in the characters as well. What you can expect from this much-anticipated game is a breath-taking world that you’ll want to explore. It’s no wonder BioShock Infinite has already received over 80 video game awards. Expect to play this first-person adventure at the end of this month.

>>1999 MODE<<

>>Sky LINES, YOU SAY?<<

Longing for the days when games were more challenging? BioShock Infinite’s 1999 Mode is said to include tweaks and features that hardcore fans will not experience in a standard play-through of the game, no matter the difficulty level. According to creative director Ken Levine, 1999 Mode means “permanent consequences for gameplay decisions.

Gamers will have to sweat out the results of their actions. 1999 Mode will demand that players pick specialisations, and focus on them.”

In addition to these undeviating decisions, 1999 Mode will feature demanding weapon, power and health management. The mode also takes a much harder stand on player respawning, sending you directly to a `Game Over’ screen if you lack the resources to be brought back to life.

The Sky-Lines were originally built as a transportation system in Columbia, a means for shipping and moving cargo. But soon, the vertical city’s youth found a way to use them to get around, and as the struggle between factions in Columbia intensified, the Sky-Lines became not only a method of transportation, but a new way to engage in combat. And according to the game developers, the feeling you’ll get travelling the in-game Sky-Lines is like the difference between being on a plane and riding a rollercoaster. We can’t wait.

www.connectmag.co.za | 47

Gaming

reviews

Dead Space 3

NEED TO KNOW • Co-op space shooter • Explore the frozen planet of Tau Volantis • Kinect voice control

The first thing you need to know about Dead Space 3 is that it looks beautiful.

The graphics are crisp and the game has an incredible atmosphere surrounding its gritty and dark galactic setting. The soundtrack is also something to note and each locale is more thrilling than the next. Whether floating in space or attempting to stay alive in a suffocating blizzard, DS3’s incredible environments will keep you on your toes.

Of course, it inherits this amazing art style from Dead Spaces 1 and 2, its multimillion-selling predecessors that chart the trials and tribulations and many weapons of astro-engineer Isaac Clarke and his battle against the reanimated alien corpses known as ‘necromorphs’.

That’s space zombies to you and me.

Dead Space 3 catches up with Clarke in his attempts to locate his ex-girlfriend Ellie. To keep things fresh, DS3 also introduces a new protagonist, John Carver, who is playable in co-op mode. Carver helps Clarke fight off hordes of dangerous necromorphs as well as the equally terrifying religious fanatics called Unitologists.

Things get pretty incomprehensible from there, and our main criticism of the game is its lack of attention to plot continuity. Take Ellie. In the last game, her eye was gouged out and yet now she appears to have 20/20 vision. Given that part of the pleasure of DS1 and DS2 was plunging ever deeper into the rewarding and well-crafted back story, it’s a bit of a letdown.

Luckily, DS3 has enough to commend it so that you can overlook such inconsistencies. The gun physics in DS3 make fights both tactical and fun. You can either blow a necromorph to bits and watch limbs fly, or be more strategic and use plasma blasts and kinesis. That introduces an important element of choice to every scenario – it’s not quite Dishonored or Deus Ex in its levels of freedom, but it’s certainly more than an on-rails shooter that will bore you quickly.

The weapon variety is impressive too, but, more importantly, you can craft new types of firearms yourself from the basic components of others. Wish your pocket pistol had the firepower of an artillery cannon? The tweaks are yours to make, turning what could have been a dry and generic shoot-‘em-up into something quite personal.

Indeed, it would almost have been a better game had Dead Space 3 settled for straightforward combat and bolted on plot, but in an attempt to vary the mission structures, there are parts where the game feels more like a grind than a pleasure to play. The ‘collect three of those items, do these six things’ structure it occasionally falls into reminds CONNECT of the worst parts of an MMO rather than adding the detail of – say – Skyrim.

But it does manage, within all this, to stay on the right side of enjoyable.

Dead Space 3 has some of the best combat and world design you will get to experience on a next-gen console. Co-op adds something new to the series while the frozen planet of Tau Volantis is an exciting and challenging area to explore. And the new weapon and resource system is something you’ll want to play with over and over again… R599.95

48 | connect | MARCH 2013

Anyone have a space broom?

Isaac and John knew that it might be the end.

We didn’t start the fire.

SPEAK UP, SPACEMAN The weapon upgrade and crafting system

Dead Space 3 is one of the few games you can control with Kinect’s microphone. Using voice commands, you can help your co-op partner with health or ammo, find objectives, revive one another and more.

>>BUY this<< Resident Evil 6 Co-op survival horror? Why not. Grab a friend and take out some zombies, the mutant J’avo and a whole host of other horrific creatures.

>>COMING SOON<< Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel Alpha and Bravo are back. The pair will come face to face with a violent, bloodthirsty drug lord and must fight to protect an unwavering political figure determined to take him down.

www.connectmag.co.za | 49

Gaming

reviews

B.A.T. Mode FTW.

Batman Arkham City: Armoured Edition

NEED TO KNOW • Become the Dark Knight • Exclusive GamePad features • Meet iconic characters Arkham City and Arkham Asylum were both stand-out Batman games for the PS3 and Xbox 360. But if you didn’t get to play Arkham City, the Armored Edition is now out and it’s a must-play game for Nintendo’s new console. Not only does it include all of the Game of the Year (GoTY) content, it has some exclusive Wii U features: there’s an all-new B.A.T. mode that gives Bruce Wayne higher powers and heightened sensors, as well as the ability to look around a room using the GamePad tablet. You can also play the entire game on the GamePad… on your lap.

Arkham City is an unforgettable bat journey filled with well-written characters, exciting missions and beautifully detailed environments. If you played and loved the original, there’s no need to buy the Wii U port. But if you do have the next-gen console and are looking for an award-winning title that will keep you busy for a long time, this should be it. Go bat and you won’t go back. R499.95

>>Buy This<< The Amazing Spider-Man Help a young Peter Parker discover his Spider-Man powers and added superhero responsibilities as you swing around Manhattan and take on classic Marvel Super Villains.

Don’t look behind you!

Anarchy Reigns

NEED TO KNOW • Violent online brawler • Exciting multiplayer modes • Boring solo campaign • Destructive fun 50 | connect | March 2013

Blind dates never work out well.

The first thing you’ll notice about this open-world brawler is how disjointed it feels – the all-too serious cutscenes don’t work well with the overthe-top ‘hardcore’ dialogue and music moments.

The single-player campaign feels like a chore undertaken purely to unlock characters, with a dead-dull story and few compelling reasons to play.

But stick it out, for this is just the taster for the main part of the game: it’s in co-op and multiplayer that Anarchy Reigns truly shines. Think 16 characters, all with distinct weapons and playing styles, getting together for a brawl.

The combat is non-stop chaos and you’ll have to think on your feet to win. Button-mashing will always lose to clever, reactive strategy. It’s not just a free-for-all punch-up either: what makes Anarchy Reigns fun are the unique co-op and competitive modes. Deathball, for example, is like a really violent version of American football. The less exciting

You can’t catch me!

multiplayer modes have dynamic events – like plane crashes and exploding bridges – that keep you going back for more. So while Anarchy Reigns is neither the prettiest title (think blocky textures and bland colours), nor does it have the most engrossing solo campaign, it is, however, ridiculously good, destructive fun. R499.95

>>Coming soon<< Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth Designed for WiiU GamePad and Kinect, this superhero brawler is set in authentic comic book-style art environments and has a variety of gameplay modes, including co-op, campaign, arcade, challenges, versus and tournament.

Gaming

reviews

Does this top match these pants?

Nike+ Kinect Training It’s time to ditch your gym contract and start exercising with your Xbox! Imagine if fitness was as easy as having a virtual personal trainer in your living room that could help you get in shape? Nike+ Kinect Training is exactly that.

Using the Kinect camera, the game can see how your body moves, assess your physical strengths and athleticism, identify areas for improvement and create a personalised

workout plan to help you achieve your goals. The trainers (Alex Molden, a retired NFL player, and Marie Purvis, an original Nike Training Club trainer) even offer real-time feedback to make sure your positions and movements are correct. You’ll start off with a personal assessment and progress to creating your own four-week fitness routine that consists of workouts that last between 20 and 30 minutes.

Nike+ Kinect Training will leave you breathless… but in a good way! R449.95

>>DOWNLOAD THIS<< Nike+ Kinect Training App Get the free Nike+ app to track your workout progress, celebrate achievements, explore your workouts, get challenge reminders, and connect with and cheer on friends.

>>COMING SOON<< Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2013

Must. Reach. My. Water. Bottle.

Ubisoft’s best-selling exercise game is bigger and better on the Wii U. Never mind the 125 different workouts, there’s also a healthy recipe collection to help you eat better.

SiNG Party

NEED TO KNOW • Over 50 fun songs • Karaoke with friends • Comes with wired Wii U microphone

From Sony’s SingStar (and its never-ending expansion packs) to the not-as-successful Lips for the Xbox 360, every console has its own karaoke sing-along. SiNG Party is the Wii U’s answer to multiplayer musical fun. It’s also the first `party game’ for the platform. So if you like to belt it out and show off your dancing moves, you’ll enjoy how SiNG Party integrates the GamePad to get everyone in on the action – it’s easy, accessible and hours of fun. In Party mode, the lead singer with the mic uses the GamePad to read lyrics and performance cues, and in

Sing mode, your vocal ability will be judged on pitch, power and flair. The only question is: solo or duet? With an eclectic mix of hit songs and even more to download, you’ll definitely find something to suit your musical style. Do you have what it takes to be Nintendo’s next idol? R649.95

>>GET THIS<< Nintendo Land

Pitch, power, flair and colour!

Alanis Morisette in on the action.

This is a fun party game for the whole family. You’ll get to explore a virtual theme park made up of 12 attractions based on fan-favourite Nintendo game worlds.

52 | connect | MARCH 2013

TOM

A

S U R V I V O R

I S

B O R N

A V A I L A B L E M A R C H 5 th

A TURNING POINT Experience Lara Croft’s intense origin story from a young woman to a hardened survivor.

ALL-NEW RAIDING EXPERIENCE Explore a mysterious island filled with environmental puzzles, visceral combat, and ancient tombs to discover.

FIGHT TO LIVE Salvage resources, gain experience, and upgrade Lara’s weapons to survive the island’s hostile inhabitants.

Tomb Raider © Square Enix Ltd. 2012. Square Enix and the Square Enix logo are registered trademarks of Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. Lara Croft, Tomb Raider, Crystal Dynamics, and the Crystal Dynamics logo are trademarks of Square Enix Ltd. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved.

TOMB RAIDER_SP_CONNECT_MARCH.indd 1

2013/02/22 11:21:38 AM

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TPL-406E2K Powerline 500 AV Nano Adapter Kit • 500 Mbps networking from any electrical outlet • Compact form factor saves space • Pre-encrypted signal

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TRENDnet’s award winning wireless provides the speed you need to stream videos, download files, chat online, and play games.

TEW-718BRM N150 Wireless ADSL 2/2+ Modem Router • Compatible with ADSL 2 and ADSL 2+ ISP networks • No need to rent a modem • Four Ethernet ports TEW-648UBM • Ultra compact wireless n adapter • One-touch WPS button

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reviews

Gaming

He has a good and kind aura.

Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch (PS3)

NEED TO KNOW • Japanese role-playing game • Studio Ghibli animation and cutscenes • Save the world!

Fe Fi Fo Fum… get ready to run..

And back in the parallel world…

Ni No Kuni is a Japanese role-playing game (JRPG) for the Sony PlayStation 3. It tells the heart-warming story of Oliver, a young American boy caught between two worlds. His dilemma: how can he save his mother and the world?

From the moment you switch it on, Ni No Kuni looks beautiful, like an anime storybook come to life. With its simple character design, the colours are vibrant and the animation is crisp. This is due to the developer’s collaboration with famed Japanese animation film studio Studio Ghibli. And if the whimsical art style of Ni No Kuni doesn’t impress you, the soundtrack certainly will.

Written by Joe Hisaishi (a composer and director known for over 100 film scores and albums dating back to 1981), it’s entirely performed by the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra.

Back to the game, and Ni No Kuni is a mix of Pokémon and Namco’s Tales. Oliver can fight in a battle or capture a creature to make his own. The creatures, called Familiars, protect Oliver and his friends. It might sound simple, but like any good JRPG, there’s a lot of depth involved. Ni No Kuni also has an open battle system – when you run into a character in the world map or in a dungeon, the 3D battle mode opens up. (Even though the story is linear, there are side quests and optional events.)

We defy you not to be charmed by Oliver. Compared to today’s swearing and violent anti-heroes, Oliver is a good-natured kid trying to help out the world with the magic he learns over time.

Sometimes the characters Oliver meets will be looking for a missing feeling (courage, love, etc.), or he’ll take out an enemy who is giving someone else a hard time. It sounds sweet, almost silly, but Ni No Kuni is anything but. This JRPG is unique and filled with interesting characters. Oliver’s journey into a parallel world to become a wizard in an attempt to bring back his dead mother will keep you playing to the end.

Ni No Kuni is both bold and unexpected – it manages to stay true to its JRPG roots while still being a sought-after exclusive PS3 title that most role-playing gamers will enjoy. R499.95

>>COMING SOON<< Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn This fan-favourite JRPG series features a new combat system along with redesigned areas that reflect the story’s time shift to five years after the events of Final Fantasy XIV.

>>BUY This<< Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask By the same developer, this 3DS adventure – and number 5 in the series – has over 150 brain-bending puzzles to solve on-the-go.

www.connectmag.co.za | 55

Gaming

mobile reviews

Old McDonald had a bitmap farm.

Minecraft Pocket Edition (Android, iOS) Minecraft is a sandbox construction game where you can build anything you can imagine.

It also has scary monsters – green, mean and exploding creepers that want to destroy everything you’ve lovingly built.

Minecraft is about placing blocks to build things and the Pocket Edition includes randomly generated worlds, multiplayer over a local Wi-Fi network, and both the popular Survival and Creative modes.

If you haven’t played the desktop version of the game, you might be surprised to see how pixelated the game’s graphics are. But don’t be put off – this is all part of the Minecraft charm.

The controls are quite basic, too – it’s simply a matter of navigating on the left or digging on the right. (You can also view the game from a first- or third-person perspective.) If you have time on your hands and a battery to burn, you’ll soon uncover

Save the eye, win the world

56 | connect | MARCH 2013

the sheer depth and complexity Minecraft offers.

And with enough persistence, you can make the 3D procedurally generated world you’ve been dreaming of.

Developer Mojang is constantly updating the app so if you do encounter any bugs, there’s no need to worry – the on-the-go version of this game is a work in progress, and is constantly getting better.

(Before version 0.6.0, for example, the game didn’t have items like food, chests, beds, spiders, skeletons, and so on.) According to recent stats, Minecraft (the desktop version) made over $80 million since launch… so it may be more pricey than other mobile games, but it’s definitely worth the randelas.

Minecraft is addictive, pixelated, architectural fun.

R54.37 (Android) $6.99 (iOS)

Contre Jour (Android, Windows Phone, iOS) In Contre Jour (French for ‘against daylight’) you play an eyeball. Sounds gross, but don’t let that put you off, or the fact that you play through mostly in black and white. It’s a stylish, Gallic take on the physics puzzler style of game popular on handsets, and the goal of each stage is simply to move the ocular protagonist to the exit by altering the shape of the ground so that it rolls through collectible

Pixellated Machu Picchu, anyone?

smudges of light, accumulating points as you go.

What makes Contre Jour really shine is its exquisite presentation – it’s as pretty to look at as it is beautiful to hear. Both the soundtrack and sound effects are something to note, with the game’s only downside being the lack of level editor.

Price: R17.65 (Android) R23.99 (Windows Phone) Free (iOS)

Gem Miner 2 (Android)

Lead? I want diamonds and gold!

We’re not sure how digging for loot became a fun gaming genre, but get ready to grab your pickaxe anyway! Gem Miner 2 offers two fun gameplay modes: freeplay and expedition. So you can either take your time to mine, explore dark caves and forgotten temples, or try more challenging expeditions – there are over 50 in the game to work through. There’s also a handy map to help you navigate levels in order to find saleable items (like coal, iron and gold). But be careful, mobile miners, it’s a hazardous business and you’ll have to face dangers like water, fire and choking coal gas… R18.30

Punch Quest (iOS) What makes Punch Quest different to every other running, sliding and coin-grabbing mobile game available right now? Brawling, of course, with the main character punching everything in sight. You can choose to punch and jab enemies or just keep out of the way.

The aim is to reach the end of the level while getting as many points as possible. Enemies get tougher but, luckily, points earned can be traded in for unlocking fun new fist powers and hats… because why can’t your character look stylish while performing death-defying uppercuts? FREE

Get ready to rumble…

Mappy (iOS) Hands up if you remember Mappy, with its catchy theme music and arcade jumping fun. If you threw cents at it in the arcades of yore, you’ll love the fact that Namco has brought this 1983 platformer to iPhone, giving a whole generation of new gamers a chance to experience the addictiveness of this bizarre title. You’re Mappy, a police mouse who has to retrieve valuable items stolen by the Mewkies, the infamous cat burglars. Get ready to run and jump on trampolines, close doors and make a Pac-Man-like escape from some hungry kitties. The gameplay controls can be tough at first, but once you work them out, there’s the simple matter of figuring out whether you’re going to be a walking cat snack or a squeaking superhero. $1.99

www.connectmag.co.za | 57

apps & software //by deon du plessis

Apps and games for

BlackBerry 10 What’s a mobile operating system without apps and games? Boring, that’s what.

Here are some of the apps and games that make the new BlackBerry 10 OS a little more exciting, all available from BlackBerry World.

Angry Birds Star Wars

TuneIn Radio Price Free

Price Free

Dropbox

Price Free

The popular store-everythingonline app now brings all the documents, music files and photos you have saved to your Dropbox folder to your BlackBerry 10 phone.

The beauty of Dropbox is that you can share files with every phone, computer and tablet that has the app installed by uploading them once to Dropbox and letting it synchronise everything.

58 | connect | MARCH 2013

A short time ago, in a marketing meeting quite close by, a bright spark came up with a plan to make money from both Star Wars and Angry Birds with a crossover game. Angry Birds Star Wars is that game, and it’s now available for BlackBerry 10. It pits Rebel Birds against Imperial Pigs in tweaked Angry Birds gameplay as they fight to deliver stolen Pig Star plans to the Rebel headquarters.

FNB Banking Price Free

By the time you read this, other banks will probably have followed suit, but FNB was the only bank to publicly put its hand up at the launch of BlackBerry 10 in late January.

The app gives users access to all the functions of FNB’s online banking portal, as well as things like geopayments and once-off electronic fund transfer payments that are easy to set up.

There are so many internet radio stations out there, you’re bound to find one that plays the exact music and shows you love listening to. The TuneIn Radio app gives you access to over 70 000 stations, from BBC Radio to Talk 702. It streams the audio over the internet, so it might eat a lot of bandwidth, but it’s a fantastic way to consume content that’s tailored to your specific tastes.

Mango Airlines Price Free

With the launch of FlyMango for BlackBerry 10, commuters can book flights and manage those bookings using their BlackBerry 10 phones, with no need for a computer. Once registered, users’ information will be automatically populated in the relevant fields every time they make a booking to make the process a little easier, something BlackBerry users will surely appreciate.

© 2012 Kaspersky Lab ZAO. All rights reserved. Registered trademarks and service marks are the property of their respective owners.

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how to //by deon du plessis

Upgrade

your laptop to a Installing a solid state drive in your notebook will make it faster and extend its battery life.

Here’s how to do it...

N

SSD

ot considered upgrading your notebook with a solid state hard drive (SSD)? Here’s a tip: you really should. SSDs use flashbased memory chips to store information rather than the spinning, magnetised platters of older hard drives. So they don’t have any moving parts. No moving parts means they generate less heat and require less electricity to run, and the fact that it’s an entirely digital form of storage means they can transfer information a lot faster than spinning hard drives.

60 | connect | March 2013

In other words, if you fit your laptop with an SSD, you should get faster boot times, quicker returns from standby, better battery life and accelerated game level loads.

And almost all notebooks (and desktops) benefit.

Even a system based around an older processor and a modest amount of system memory will see a noticeable difference, which is why many experts reckon it’s the single most effective upgrade you can make these days.

In this How To, we’re going to walk you through the process of upgrading your notebook’s hard drive yourself. Don’t panic – it’s actually a lot easier than it sounds. As long as you read our step-by-step guide in full and heed our tips on what to do to make the process as smooth as possible, you’ll be just fine.

All you need is a screwdriver.

One thing to keep in mind: by accessing your notebook’s inner workings like you will by following this guide, you’ll probably be voiding its warranty. If that’s the case, you can have someone official install the SSD for you. It’ll cost you a bit more but it will at least preserve your warranty.

Is it simple?

Before you start!

First thing to do is to take a backup of your current drive. That way, if anything goes wrong, you can restore this image of your data and return your machine to the way it was before. This can be done in several ways. You can create a ‘clone’ of your old hard drive that effectively copies its contents using specialised backup software (we’re quite fond of Macrium Reflect, a free yet incredibly competent utility), or use the Windows Easy Transfer tool to transfer your personal data from your old drive to the SSD.

Cloning is a little neater as you won’t have to reinstall Windows and your applications like you would if you go the Windows Easy Transfer route, but it only works if you move to an SSD that’s the same size as your current notebook hard drive. Since most notebooks have an average storage capacity of 500GB, to clone their contents will require a 500GB SSD; these cost in the region of R4 500, putting them out of reach for many.

For this How To, we’ll be reinstalling Windows and importing backed-up data using Windows Easy Transfer and a 240GB SSD.

Fortunately, using Windows Easy Transfer is as easy as its name suggests. All you need to do is press the Windows Key (this brings up the Start Menu), type Windows Easy Transfer and then press Enter. Once the application loads, follow the on-screen prompts to select the data you want backed up and where you want to save it, and off you go. You’ll need an external hard drive for this bit.

When you’ve restored your personal data to your new Windows installation (a process we’ll get into a bit later), Windows Easy Transfer helpfully provides a list of programs that need to be reinstalled.

Know your drive Understand your SSD before you slot it in

1. SATA port This part of the connector at the back carries data to and fro the laptop motherboard.

2

1

2. Power point Power is supplied to the drive through here. Your laptop will have one port that covers both this and SATA connector.

3. Screw points If your laptop has a drive cage, you can screw your hard drive into it to stop it moving round. Screws should be supplied or you can use the ones that were in the old drive.

3 www.connectmag.co.za | 61

how to //by deon du plessis

Swap hard drives Don’t worry – even if you think you have two left thumbs, swapping a drive is simple. All you need is a Philips screwdriver and the ability to tell the top of the drive from the bottom.

1

2

3

Shut down your notebook, unplug it from any docking mechanism or power supply and turn it over.

Examine the underside for a rectangular door that’s secured with tiny screws. It’s usually marked with a symbol.

Unscrew the screws and remove the door.

The screws are small and easy to lose, keep them in a safe place.

4

5

6

Remove any screws securing the hard drive to the notebook chassis.

Remove the hard drive and prepare the SSD for installation.

If the drive was attached to the notebook with a small cage, remove the cage and secure it around your SSD.

Be gentle!

PC components generally only fit together one way round, so if the drive isn’t fitting, don’t force it.

Try turning it over and make sure the connections look like they’ll fit once they’re pushed gently together.

7 Insert the SSD and secure it with the screws you removed earlier. It will only go in one way, so don’t fret about getting it wrong.

62 | connect | March 2013

8 Put the hard drive cover/door back and screw it in place. That’s the hard work done – now it’s time to restore Windows.

Need to know Laptop hard drives are normally 9mm high, but some slimmer notebooks use an even narrower drive of just 7mm. If your new SSD is a 7mm one, you’ll need a bracket to fit it into a 9mm drive space.

Reinstalling Windows If your copy of Windows came on a DVD, then all you need to do is insert the DVD into the notebook’s optical drive and turn it on. The notebook should read the DVD and automatically launch the Windows installation process.

If it doesn’t, follow these steps:

> Turn on your notebook > Press the key needed to enter the notebook’s BIOS (Basic Input/ Output System). This is typically Delete, F2 or F12, depending on your notebook brand. Watch the boot screen for this info. > Inside the BIOS, look for an option that says Boot or something similar. This should take you to a screen that shows the order in which your computer searches for a bootable data source. > Ensure your DVD drive is the first device in the order by highlighting it and pressing the + key to raise its priority in the boot list. > Save and exit the BIOS. This will reboot your computer. > The Windows installation will launch now. Follow the prompts, wait a bit and within 15 to 30 minutes, you should see the familiar Windows desktop appear.

Restoring your data Once the installation completes, Windows will load for the first time and ask you a few questions. Answer them, and the desktop loads (or the Start Screen for Windows 8 users). For a bit of nerdy fun, reboot your system and time how long it takes to bring you back to your desktop. Try to resist yelping with joy as your boot time drops from minutes to seconds thanks to your speedy new SSD. Or don’t: your call.

The notebook is now ready for your data. If you’re familiar with all of the programs you regularly use, this is a good time to reinstall all of them. If not, importing your data and having Windows Easy Transfer generate a list of all the needed programs is a better option. Either way, you’re going to have to import your data.

Here’s how:

> Connect the external hard drive that has your precious data to your notebook. > Press the Start button on your keyboard/click Start, and type Windows Easy Transfer. Press Enter. > Follow the onscreen instructions and select the backup file on the external hard drive when you’re prompted. Allow the import process to complete. This may take a while, depending on how much data you have. > If you haven’t already reinstalled your programs, take note of the list of programs presented at the end of the import procedure and set about reinstalling them. > Once all that’s done, you’ll find Windows will need to download a few additional updates for all the new software you’ve just installed. Only once that is complete will your system be up to date and ready for everyday use.

How much?

Here are some rough figures as to how much SSDs of various sizes cost.

60GB About R800. They’re too small to be useful in a notebook.

120GB Around R1 300. This is the price/performance sweet spot.

180GB About R2 400. Bigger is better, but you’re only getting an extra 60GB for your R1.1k.

240GB Approx. R3 000. Here, an extra R600 nets you an extra 60GB. Not bad, but still pricey.

480GB Around R5 000. That’s a lotta dough. Ouch!

Conclusion This is one upgrade we can’t recommend enough for anyone battling with sluggish notebook performance. We’re absolutely positive that when you see for yourself just how responsive and speedy your notebook has become, you’ll have no regrets about the cash you’ve just spent to make it happen.

Do us a favour, please? Once your upgrade is complete and you’re loading programs and booting up faster than ever before, tell a friend. Tell several.

Post your excitement on your Facebook page, start a blog, hire a skywriter to express your joy, we don’t mind – just get the word out there.

It’s the 21st century, and there’s really no excuse for sluggish notebook performance anymore.

www.connectmag.co.za | 63

how to //by christo van gemert & deon du plessis

Secure your

laptop

Want to stop thieves from getting hold of your laptop and all the sensitive information it contains?

Lock it or lose it is our motto.

64 | connect | March 2013

L

osing your laptop is a tedious business.

Even if itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s insured, getting a replacement is a time- consuming pain in the proverbial, and someone has access to your files.

And no one is safe. Even CONNECT Towers has been victim to laptop loss at the hands of an errant chancer who just happened to spot a five-second opportunity to sweep in and steal. So how can you prevent your laptop from going missing, and secure your data in the off-chance it does?

Preventing theft is always better than dealing with its aftermath, so weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve put together a brief guide on ways to secure that most precious of preciouses â&#x20AC;&#x201C; your notebook. We also show you how to track down a stolen laptop should the worst happen.

The simplest way to protect your machine is with a password. When you first booted your laptop, back when it was new, Windows will have asked you to set a password for your username. Unfortunately,

many of us don’t bother, since it slows down the process of logging into your PC. But that extra couple of seconds is worth it if you lose your laptop, when it will foil most simple attempts to get into the machine. So start your new security regime by going back to Control Panel > User Accounts and Family Safety and selecting your username from the list, then clicking ‘Create a password for your account’.

What’s a secure password?

If your password is a date, a name or a word that appears in a dictionary, it’s useless. It will take a hacker literally a few seconds to break using a brute force attack (trying lots of words until the right one comes up). The best rule for passwords is to choose three words you can remember but that don’t belong together, and separate them with spaces.

So ‘milking moon monteray’ is, curiously, almost unbreakable – yet far easier to remember than something that appears secure but may be forgotten, like ‘xFgtos&u21!.’.

Windows 8, meanwhile, will let you use a pattern as a passkey – instead of typing a password, you touch predefined points on a photo.

Lock and load You can secure your laptop both physically and virtually with a little help.

Just like your car or house, one of the best ways to protect your laptop is with an alarm system.

There are a few ways to fit a physical alarm to your laptop, too, for catching a potential thief in action.

Accessories company Targus has a product called the ‘Targus DEFCON 1 Ultra Laptop Computer Security System’, which combines a toughened stainless steel cable and a four-digit combination lock with a motion-sensitive alarm.

Clip it to the Kensington lock (see right), and if someone tries to pick up your laptop and the alarm is moved, a buzzer will sound.

Biometric access Many business notebooks also have fingerprint scanners that can be used to authenticate only those who the owner has granted access to their PC. It’s easy to set up and requires that users of the notebook swipe their fingers over the scanner to verify their identity.

If your laptop doesn’t have a fingerprint scanner, though, what about a faceprint? Some Dell laptops will use the built-in webcam to scan your facial features before unlocking your desktop, and software like BananaScreen can add the same sorts of abilities to other models.

Encrypt your hard drive Even with a Windows password in place, it’s not too difficult for a dedicated thief to remove the hard drive from a stolen machine and read it in another. Encrypting a hard drive means re-encoding all of its data using a secure code, and is completely inaccessible without the proper access key (usually another password).

Windows Vista, 7 and 8 have a built-in encryption program called BitLocker that can do this.

To access BitLocker, go to the Control Panel, click System and Security, then BitLocker.

Unlocking options include a password or a USB drive that has the decryption key saved to it. You will be prompted for whichever one you choose to use every time the encrypted data is accessed.

Track it down Want to get a stolen laptop back? The bad news is that 97% of stolen laptops are never recovered. So you might want to sign up for a service like www. locatemylaptop.com, which is a free application that will try to work out where your notebook is by looking at the networks it’s logged into and then send a message home – all hidden from the thief’s view. Should your property go walkies, it can help you lock it remotely so the thief can’t use it, and then try to pinpoint it on a map.

Other anti-theft suites include options for taking pictures of the thief and their surroundings using your notebook’s webcam, causing the machine to lock up completely and delete all of its data. It’s not just on notebooks either – if you have an Android phone, search for Cerberus or Phone Locator Pro for a full suite of tools designed to foil phone thefts too.

How to fit a Kensington lock

Ever wondered what that odd recessed bar is on the side of your laptop? It’s a standard fitting for a universal chain.

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Get a Kensington lock with the thickest steel cable you can find, as this will make it more difficult to damage with inconspicuous cutting implements. Also consider the kind of lock you want on it. A key lock is the most secure, while combination locks can be pretty easy to pick provided the thief has lots of time.

Just like bicycle locks, Kensington locks are designed to loop around a heavy, immobile object – except you’ll lock your laptop to the desk, not a lamppost. Find a way to loop the cable around a desk leg in such a way that it’s impossible or really difficult to unloop.

Once the cable is secured to the desk, find the Kensington slot on your laptop. It’s a 3mmx5mm oval and the lock mechanism slides into this. When locked, the three fingers on the lock mechanism spread out and make it almost impossible to remove – at least not without causing visible damage.

www.connectmag.co.za | 65

top tips //By Christo van Gemert

2X

PRINTS CHARMING Don’t feel like printing things at home? Try one of these online services to print your photos, photo books, and even Instagram snaps.

Need advice in a hurry? Here’s ten quick things that you need to do this month courtesy of DailyFive.tv.

Five ways to make better use of cloud storage

by Dropbox, you can keep a considerable amount of data online. So it’ll be easy to stash your entire music library online, and with mobile apps for all the smartphones, you can stream those files on demand. Even Apple has an official feature for this, built right into iCloud, although you have to splash out R199 a year for the iTunes Match service.

3

D

ropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive – the list of cloud storage providers grows by the day. For some people, though, storing things on the web might seem a bit pointless. So to help you make sense of it, we have some likely uses for your little folder on the internet – hopefully, now you’ll be able to take full advantage of online (cloud) storage.

1

Back right up

The most obvious use for cloud storage is backing up files. You keep a copy on your machine, but also keep a copy of the file online. So let’s say your computer is stolen or zapped by lightning.

Simply set up your new PC and log into your cloud storage, and the files you had will be redownloaded. Except those that couldn’t fit in your 5GB storage allowance, of course.

2

Sweet streaming melodies

If you’ve splashed out for a larger account, like the $10-per-month for 100GB of storage offered

Stop, collaborate and listen

Working with others can be a pain in the butt when you have files to pass around and nobody’s in the same office. Cloud storage can be used as a shared network drive by simply inviting everybody to a shared folder. You make a change or save a file, and it automatically syncs to everybody else who’s a member of the folder. No more pesky emailing and email size restrictions.

4

Attach THIS

Okay, let’s say you do still have to email files.

That 1GB folder with all your holiday photos? Nope, no email server in the world is going to be happy with that. Google recently built a little hack into Gmail. You can attach a file up to 10GB in size, but technically, the attachment isn’t in the email: it gets uploaded to Google Drive. The recipient simply sees a link to download the attachment. You can do the same with any of the other services by uploading a file and pasting the link into an email. Easy, peasy.

5

1

Blurb

2

My photo book

3

Photospace

4

Print wild

5

250 gram

www.blurb.com

www.myphotobook.co.za

www.photospace.co.za

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Photofile

The best usage case for cloud storage is creating photo albums. Not everybody has Facebook, so sharing photos online might not be easy for grandma. Dropbox, SkyDrive, and Google Drive all let you upload photo collections and send a link to the gallery to anybody who has an email address.

They simply click and browse in their web browser.

No downloads, no online accounts, no fuss.

www.250gram.co.za

www.connectmag.co.za | 67

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Maravedi Financial Solutions (Pty) Ltd is an authorised Financial Services provider (FSP 3247) and registered Credit Provider (NCRCP 74) t/a Hi Finance.

tech tannie

Like the Easter bunny cavorting with a basket of eggs,

TECH TANNIE reveals her generous side and brings you great joy...

issue of the month: Q:

I keep getting air bubbles on my screen protector and it’s driving me mad.

I hate them. Is there a foolproof way of getting my screen protector to sit nicely on my phone? Protected in Poffadder

A:

If you have questions, gripes or just seek some solace, e-mail Tamsin, our friendly tech tannie at techtannie@connectmag.co.za

Why yes, dear bubble hater (although, are you allowed to hate anything in these hyper-aware times, I wonder?), there are a few tricks you can employ to get rid of those pesky bubbles and make sure your screen protector fits like a glove. First, you need to clean your cellphone screen. Do this using a microfibre cloth so the screen doesn’t get scratched. Use a circular motion to remove all the fingerprints, oil and dust that are resting on the surface. Next, find all the peel tabs and locater stickers so you know exactly where you’re planning on sticking the screen protector and then carefully peel back the first tab. Hold the screen protector on the sides; don’t splodge your fat fingers onto the front or back of the protector as this will instantly ruin it and you’ll have to start all over again. If you have difficulty doing such a thing, practise on pieces of paper and plastic first. Carefully lay the protector onto the screen starting at the top of the phone and slowly lowering it downwards. Avoid jerking it down or doing it too quickly. It needs to be a slow and measured motion, allowing gravity to pull the plastic onto the screen. Don’t worry too much about any bubbles you may see, as these will be removed. Using either the provided piece of plastic, or something equally stable, press firmly onto the screen and stroke downwards to ease the bubbles out of the plastic. Do not use metal or anything guaranteed to break or damage the screen – the protector can only do so much. Things like a hard square of cardboard or plastic are ideal, but make sure they have smooth edges. Once all the bubbles have been removed, you can now peel back the second tab. Do this slowly and carefully as you don’t want to pull off your carefully applied protector. Then take the microfibre cloth, wedge it into a firm bubble and, in a left-to-right motion, use this to wipe any residual bubbles out from under the protector. Now you should have before you the perfect screen without any of those nasty bubbles.

www.connect.co.za | 69

tech tannie

Q:

My smartphone battery keeps dying really quickly and it’s driving me crazy. Sometimes it lasts less than three hours, which is ridiculous.

Help me, Tech Tannie! Smart in Sasolburg

A:

Q:

What exactly are Easter eggs and why does Google use them?

Baffled in Bloemfontein

A:

An Easter egg is one of my all-time favourite things in the world with its chocolaty outside and marshmellowy inside, made even better by the fact that it’s delivered by a large rabbit that has the same tendency to ignore relativity and time/space issues as Santa Claus. I also have a fondness for the scattered bits of clever code called Easter eggs that are made for the enjoyment and delectation of the geekily-inclined. These virtual Easter eggs are hidden inside video games, computer programs, websites, books – the list goes on. You can find these yourself by playing the games, visiting the sites, or using the computer programs and painstakingly trying to find them. You can also go to sites like www.eeggs.com for comprehensive lists of all the most well-known, and some of the lesser-known, ones. My personal favourites are in video games, but Google’s giddy enjoyment of a good Easter egg is not to be denied. Why they use them is up for debate, really. It could be a great media trick so they stay in the public eye (http:// www.pcworld.com/article/2019539/ top-15-google-easter-eggs-of-2012. html), or it could just be because making and sharing Easter eggs is enormous fun.

You have to be a pretty hard nut to not find them entertaining. Go on, type `zerg rush’ into your search bar on Google.

70 | connect | MARCH 2013

Well, you probably have about 400 apps running at the same time and these have a tendency to chow down on your battery life. Most smartphones tend to use up a lot of juice if you have activated push notifications or email. As your phone hooks up to 3G or Wi-Fi to fetch data, it chomps on the battery to connect/ get connected and download. By the same token, certain apps will drain your battery life a lot faster than others.

My iPhone battery tends to plummet when I use the camera app, and my Nexus 7 battery takes a dive whenever I play Where’s My Water. On most smartphones, you can find out what’s busy eating away at your battery so you can either limit your usage or remove the app entirely. With an Android phone, go to Settings and look at both your battery and data managers to see what’s using up the most battery

life. On the iPhone, you can see your usage statistics by tapping the Settings icon and choosing General>>Usage.

Under the heading `Time since last full charge’, you can see two sections: Usage and Standby. These figures will tell you how much time your phone has spent alert and being used and how much time it has spent being asleep. Other tricks that apply to all models of smartphone include: lower your screen brightness to help reduce battery drain, reduce the frequency at which your phone fetches emails or notifications, and turn off Wi-Fi when you’re not in an area with a signal. I also recommend turning off or limiting the use of Location Services on your iPhone as this can substantially drain battery life when you’re out and about.

There are some other tricks and apps you can download to help you, but try these simple ones first.

reconnect

Number Cruncher Top tech stats for South Africa

63% of college students believe tablets will replace textbooks within 5 years

October The first Ubuntu powered smartphone will go on sale.

R700m in South Africa students and businesses over the next five years through its 4Afrika project

1 000 000 bits per second (1GB/s) = speed of wireless data via 802.11ac WiFi

190 000 Samsung Galaxy S3 smartphones sold every day worldwide (according to Samsung).

1 in 3 $50 new ‘PCs’ is a tablet.

Microsoft is investing

the price of a new smartphone by the end of the year*

$13bn the amount of profit made

by Apple in the last three months of 2012

*According to Gartner

Issue 48 of Connect magazine will be on sale from 1 April 2013.

Reserve it now, or check out www.connectmag.co.za

Who are you?

In depth special investigation into ID theft in South Africa, and how you can avoid getting scammed.

Also: HTC One versus Sony Xperia Z, Samsung Galaxy S4, God of War: Ascension, Crysis 3, Skyrim: Dragonborn, The Witcher 3, Ninja Gaiden 3!

Now available at Vodacom 12156 BB10 ConnectMag 210x289 V2.indd 1 INCR136170_MAG BANNER.indd 1

2013/02/12 9:04 AM 2011/03/02 3:01 PM