A New Format for PC Format! (PC Format)

Member Name: R_Easton

Product:	PC Format
Date:	30/09/01 (43 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: has everything computing

Disadvantages: short reviews

PC Format is a great computing magazine. It has a mixture of games reviews and hardware/computer reviews. It has a quite large section with news on the computing world, recent gaming events and new hardware announcements. The magazine has recently been re-designed to a more ‘modern’ style and everything is easy to find.

-Software-
PC Format has previews upcoming games and reviews of recently released games. The reviews are 1 or 2 pages and about 1/3 of that is usually pictures. The games are given a percentage score with advantages and disadvantages for each game. It also compares them to other recent games of the same genre. It also reviews new utilities and applications. These are mostly graphical and financial programs. There is a page of DVD film reviews as well.

-Hardware-
PC Format reviews new computers and peripherals. The computer reviews are normally for top of the range computers. The peripherals are things like printers, scanners, mice, speakers and joysticks. They are given a percentage score, and have advantages and disadvantages like with software reviews. They review graphics and sound cards in the same way. They have comparison reviews with 5/6 different makes of the same thing (graphics card or hard drives etc.), which they will review individually and then decide which one is best.

-CDs-
The Magazine comes with two CDs. One has game demos and the other has applications and full products. There is a section in the centre of the magazine that tells you the controls for all the programs. The ‘How To’ section often gives detailed tutorials of the full products on the second CD.

-Rest of the Mag-
Also in the magazine is an Internet section, which tells you about new websites. There are normally quite a lot if you include the short reviews along the edges of the pages. It has a troubleshooting section with 4 pages of answers to people’s problems. There i
s a main letters page, which includes e-mails and text messages! Most of the letters aren’t serious and are just a bit of fun at the end of the mag.

PC Format is a good all-rounder mag. Some computer magazines are mostly hardware and some are mostly software or games. But PC Format is about a 50/50 mixture of both.

Summary: