| Product: |
PC Plus |
| Date: |
13/08/01 (22 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: good information, plenty of technical tips and tricks, tonnes of software on the DVD
Disadvantages: too much software on the DVD for one month! haha, alot of ads but they're all the same now
As an IT professional I am constantly in need of up to date information and good quality opinions. I usually get this information from magazines (for unrequested stuff) and from scouring the net for on demand information (i.e. when I need it!).
To this end I subscribe to a number of publications, funnily enough most of them are from the same company (cue twilight theme song) – Future Publishing. PC Plus is one of the magazines I have quite recently allowed into this exclusive group!
In a nutshell, PC Plus is really NOT ideal for beginner computer users. I really think it IS aimed at somebody like myself, someone who works in the IT sector or somebody who has an avid interest in IT and a good knowledge base already. The magazine is released monthly and there are DVD and CD versions available. I get the DVD version, purely because they cram a hell of a lot of stuff on there for you!!!
Okay, onto the magazine itself. It is split into 3 MAJOR categories to my mind, news, previews and reviews, and technical instruction and help. There are a lot of sections within these (like letters, different types of tech pages and different product sections – but I am trying to keep this short!!).
The News Section. This is at the start of the magazine and is very informative and well-written stuff. They have columns of the short stuff, rumours, gossip etc and also some multipage ‘investigations’ and feature articles. For example this month has an in depth article on Consumers Rights and Wrongs. This section is helpful to me to learn things in the pipeline, goings on in the major companies and stuff like that (sorry!). They also have a letters page where readers put their two bobs worth in about the magazine (I usually SKIP this bit!).
Now the biggest section – reviews, labtests and previews. This is the section I REALLY get this mag for. Every month they have a major labtest – this varies
month to month – this month it is PCs under £699, top of the range notebooks and Hard Drive utilities. They ask the major manufacturers to submit products to be tested and then show all the results and their recommendations. They have done laser printers before, laptops, lots of other things. They usually do a couple of these each month as well!!!
They have a large section in here called ‘on test’. Basically they take a lot of the newly released products (I have a feeling it is just what has been submitted by companies hoping for free ads!) and tell you about them and what they think they are like compared to other products out there. This is EXTREMELY helpful for somebody like me. They have a wide range of products in this section (PCs, laptops, applications, printers, mice, graphics cards, you name it really). They do come across slightly advertorial sometimes, but for the most part I have found their advice to be quite sound and their ratings to be quite well thought out. I would however add that I never trust one review completely, and always double check my information on the web!
Now we come to my other favourite section (very close between this and the on test section I might add!). The technical help section starts with helpdesk where people write in with their problems and the staff of PC Plus will find the answer!! They cover all the main software and operating systems and even hardware!! It’s the kind of section you read and say ahhhhhh didn’t know that, and you might glean the odd bit of information for your own uses. I remember many a time when I have come across a problem and remembered the solution from a magazine such as this, so cram it all in there grasshopper – its all helpful!!
Following this they have expert workshops, which are like tutorials on how to accomplish things in certain programs. They quite often have these spread out over a few issues, and deal in a multit
ude of different programs (graphics, office, web development, Java programming, XML, Linux, and tonnes of others). This is helpful if you use any of the stuff, but a lot of it I don’t and I ignore it (I don’t program in Java and stuff like that!).
Okay so I’ve told you why I like it, how its laid out and what’s good. Now you want to know what’s bad don’t you?? Why are you all such pessimists!!! Haha okay here goes. Like all magazines these days (and ESPECIALLY PC ones it seems!) PC Plus is overflowing with ads. I don’t mean the odd page, I mean 10 page catalogues for one place, 5 page ads for gateway computers, fold out cardboard ads for Dell, you name it. I cannot complain really as I am sure a magazine with a DVD would cost a lot more if they didn’t have so many ads.
The other thing I don’t like is the false advertising they participate in, okay I take that back its not really. Let me explain. Like most of you I love the disks you get with magazines – have loved them since floppy disk days (showing my IT age here!) and always will. There seems to be a scam of kinds going round these magazines (probably because they are all the same publisher!) where they advertise on the cover and the disk that you get a FREE FULL WORKING VERSION…. this is clever because you really do get this, they fail to mention though that it is not the latest version, and also offer for you to upgrade to the latest version for some special price!! You do get used to this though, and it is useful to get a full version of a program (rather than a trial edition) and sometimes it is good enough for your uses and you don’t need to pay then!! For example I got Picture Publisher off one of the disks – a full version – and it does everything I need in picture editing, so why buy the latest version?? I can see this tactic fooling newbies but most people who have been around IT for a while
will be used to it now.
So there it is, my long winded opinion on PC Plus, if you stuck around to read this bit congratulations and I hope you rush out and subscribe now. If you just skipped here from the top, just click the VH button and continue your scanning never the wiser about this fabulous magazine. Thanks for reading.
An original opinion by Ken Scammell, 2001.
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