Not as good as PC Format.......... (PC Plus)

Name: theanarchistkid

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Product:	PC Plus
Date:	18/11/00 (169 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good content.

Disadvantages: Lacks personality.

PC Plus is a PC magazine that is published by Future publishing. This company produces a wide range of magazines like PC Format, PC Gear and Linux Format.

PC Plus is aimed that PC users with quite a wide range of knowledge so it maybe isn't suitable for an absolute beginner. There isn't really a main focus of the magazine, instead it aims to cover many different apsects of computing.

It has a strong editorial section which whilst lacking in humour is still an interesting read. The journalists are all extremely competent and you get the idea that they know what they're doing.

The magazine includes the following sections:

News
Previews
Software
Hardware
Letters Page
Programming section
Q & A section and many more.

The news section is often very useful and provides a lot of information in relatively little space. The news is all accurate and although often a little late (due to publishing dates etc) is of a high standard.

There is a section dedicated to previewing new products and this often gives an insight into what the industry expects to become common place. They don't actually give the pre-release products a rating because obviously they could insult a product that
can be improved before its release.

The software reviews section isn't always very interesting but it is very comprehensive and the reviews are all very in depth. They tend to review software that is aimed towards both the home user and the business user so it is all very useful. If a product is of particular significance, e.g MS Office, they'll dedicate a large amount of space to it. If it is only a minor product they won't give it as much space. This system works well although obviously different people regard different products as being significant.

The hardware review section is the section that I tend to read first mainly because I find it more interesting. They often
have group tests of machines that fit into specific price brackets. Some months they'll review budget machines and then the next month they'll review power machines. This means that the magazine always remains varied and interesting. The reviews are always accurate and they include all the information that is useful to the reader such as price, performance, warranty, ease of use etc.

The magazine also has an ongoing series of programming lessons. These are for a variety of languages such as Delphi and C++ and more recently PC Plus has been discussing lesser known languages such as PROLOG. These aren't exactly for beginners but they would help you if you were wishing to learn how to code.

Overall, PC Plus is a solid magazine but I prefer the slightly more humourous PC Format.

Summary: