We need your help for a forthcoming PC Pro Labs report.

To help us calculate the true running costs of the 16 inkjet printers we’ll have on test in issue 208, we need you to tell us how often you print photos and documents. Please note: we’re asking specifically for your printer output on home inkjet printers, not lasers nor office machines.

The survey will genuinely take ten seconds to answer, using the embedded form below. Your help is much appreciated.

No one enjoys receiving angry emails. But in this case it’s probably my own fault.

For the latest issue of PC Pro (with subscribers  now, on sale Thursday) I carried out a Labs group test of 15 USB 3 hard drives in a range of capacities going right up to 3TB. And in my column I questioned whether the typical customer has any legitimate need for this much space.

Now, one of our readers has written to put the very valid point that an eager videographer or photographer can easily fill several terabytes of storage in a few years, or even months. Developers too may need to work with – and back up – huge data sets. My (admittedly slightly mischievous) suggestion that large drives were mostly useful for storing downloaded porn and illegal Blu-ray rips did not amuse, and I can see why.

Here’s what I should have made clearer in my column: when I referred to “the typical customer”, I didn’t mean the many enthusiasts and professionals we’re proud to count among our readers. It’s understood that PC Pro readers are, overall, a demanding lot when it comes to IT resources. I dare say Jon Honeyball generates more than 3TB of data before breakfast.

My comments were aimed more at the man in the street – what we might call the PC World customer, if that’s not an unfair stereotype. This, after all, is the target market for this new wave of huge yet cheap USB drives, and this is the context in which I was questioning the need for so much storage.

Of course, cheap storage is valuable to power users too, but that’s a different market – one where multi-terabyte storage devices have been common for years. Perhaps I should have made that distinction explicit.

So please don’t be offended if it looks like I’m dismissing your computing needs. If you’re in the market for a 3TB hard disk then I say more power to you, and I hope you find our Labs helpful – no matter what your plans might be for the drive.

Does your business need some expert help with its IT? PC Pro’s newly launched Business Clinic is on hand to offer free IT advice to Britain’s small businesses.

Our team of Real World Computing experts — with decades of computing experience between them — could pay a visit to your company, providing first-hand advice on anything from your server set-up, to your internet security, to managing your remote workers. What’s more, your business could feature in the new-look PC Pro.

Our team of experts include:

Jon Honeyball

A contributor to PC Pro since issue one, Jon writes his popular monthly missive on Advanced Windows & Mac, as well as the Epilog column. A renowned computer journalist and IT consultant, Jon specialises in both client/server and office automation application.

Steve Cassidy

Our highly respected Real World columnist mixes networking technologies with human resources consultancy work. Steve helped the Sandy Balls holiday park tackle its problem with getting internet access to all its visitors in this month’s PC Pro Business Clinic, and next month visits a manufacturing firm that needs help with its in-house software.

Davey Winder

The three-times winner of the BT Information Security Journalist of the Year award, Davey Winder combines his indisputable expertise with no-nonsense advice. He can advise firms on their security set-up or their social-networking strategy, both of which he covers in his monthly PC Pro column.

If you’d like a free visit from one of our experts, send details of your problem and your company to businessclinic@pcpro.co.uk.

Alternatively, if you’ve got a simpler problem that you’d like the team to tackle in the pages of the magazine, send your questions to the email address above.

Please note: we can only answer business IT queries through the pages of the magazine, or in person if your business is chosen for a visit from our experts. We cannot guarantee a reply to all questions. PC Pro will decide on the suitability of a case for publication and may offer companies anonymity at its discretion.

Here’s an actual page from the new Reviews section:

The first thing you’ll notice is the shift in focus towards meaningful photography. Rather than a fixed angle throughout the magazine, products will be shot and laid out on the page to accentuate their most interesting features. For PCs that means going bigger on the guts shot than a plain product photo; for a camera it might mean the screen and controls get as much page space as the fascia. For Enterprise reviews, it’s a revelation.

This is combined with a new captioning system. By placing numbered dots onto interesting points of the product image, we can link straight to the relevant section of the text – and vice versa. The focus is on making the reviews as readable as possible while retaining depth, and getting as much as possible across via good photography.

Nowhere benefits from this shift more than Labs, where the most interesting products now get a whole series of shots – both full and close-up – to make every feature as visible as possible. Add this to the still-comprehensive feature tables, and the reviews themselves benefit from more freedom to focus on what a Labs is all about: real-world analysis and an informed buying decision.

We make space for these “hero” products by reducing the focus on every last product in a Labs. All of the Labs products are still put through the same intensive tests, but readers are naturally more interested in finding out more about the products that do well in our tests, and not so much about, say, a laptop that comes 15th in a test of 20. So instead we’ve introduced a Best of the Rest page in some Labs to round-up the also-rans.

We think it all makes PC Pro’s Reviews and Labs sections clearer and more interesting, both to read and to look at. We hope you do too.

The new issue of PC Pro goes on sale 14 July.

If you’re a PC Pro subscriber, you may already have received the latest issue of your magazine – the first issue to sport our new design and logo.

On the front, you’ll notice a pyramid of laptops, which illustrates this month’s comprehensive Labs of 20 Intel Core laptops.  That image isn’t a piece of cobbled together Photoshop trickery. Our brilliant photographer, Danny Bird, not only came up with the concept of arranging the laptops in a pyramid, but carefully constructed the tower himself.

Needless to say, we were a little nervous about precariously balancing about £8,000 worth of laptops in the photography studio. Nobody fancied making the phone call to the PR departments of Sony, MSI, Asus et al to explain that we’d destroyed their expensive review models by treating them like a deck of cards.

Fortunately, Danny pulled it off, and here in his own words is how he did it:

“For PC Pro’s cover there were plenty of laptops to get into the image so I was looking for a way to show the large number in the group test while keeping a graphic shape that would allow space for the headline and other coverlines.

“A house of cards seemed the way to go, so I set up the first layer to test how sturdy they would be. Surprisingly they were very stable, so I carefully built up the pyramid.

“The lighting was very simple: one hard light to the right illuminating both the laptops and the background, with one large reflector to the left to fill out the shadow. The rest of the light came from the laptops themselves.

“The tricky bit was getting all the screens to stay on at the same time, so I could burn in all the reflected light from the screens onto the keyboards. That involved a lot of running about from the basement studio to the PC Pro office on the fifth floor, fetching power supplies for laptops that had run out of battery. It was a frantic day, but we got the perfect shot in the end.”

We’ll bring you more details about the design and content of the new-look PC Pro over the coming days. The magazine goes on sale on 14 July.

In the meantime, we’ve produced a series of free wallpapers of our spectacular laptop pyramid, which you can download in a variety of resolutions below:

1,024 x 768

1,280 x 800

1,280 x 1,024

1,680 x 1,050

1,920 x 1,080

As anyone who listened to this week’s podcast will know by now, PC Pro’s sister title Micro Mart is building a shed at LITS.

For those shamefully unaware, LITS (London International Technology Show) is being organised by Dennis Publishing from  21 to 23 October. While much of the floor will be filled with exhibitors, and dedicated to particular subjects such as gaming, photography and tablets, all the Dennis titles have a chance to create their own area.

Fuelled by generous quantities of beer in a pub last Friday, the best idea we’ve had so far is a PC Pro pub. So people can drop in and have a friendly pint with members of the PC Pro squad, whether you want to ask technical questions or answer David Bayon’s very important question about fish. (You’ll need to listen to the podcast for that one.)

You can see why we need better ideas.

So, if inspiration strikes, please let us know. And if you didn’t manage to take advantage of the two-for-one ticket offer, which expired yesterday, then fear not: I’ve arranged for readers of this blog to use a special code of PT103 until 10 June.

Not sure whether to upgrade your business PCs to Windows 7? Worried that your company’s IT security isn’t up to scratch? Having problems with your web host or ISP? You could benefit from expert advice from PC Pro’s new Business Clinic.

Our Real World experts, including Jon Honeyball and Steve Cassidy, are ready to pay a free visit to your business to help you identify and solve your IT dilemmas. What’s more, you and your business could feature in the new-look PC Pro magazine, which will be on the shelves this summer.

Jon, Steve and our other Real World experts are also standing by to answer your business IT queries via email, the pick of which will be published in the magazine every month.

So if you fancy a visit from PC Pro’s Business Clinic team, or simply want to put a question to our experts, drop us an email to businessclinic@pcpro.co.uk.

(Please note: we can only answer business IT queries through the pages of the magazine, or in person if your business is chosen for a visit from our experts. We cannot guarantee a reply to all questions. PC Pro will decide on the suitability of a case for publication and may offer companies anonymity at its discretion).

The new issue of PC Pro is on sale today, and many readers are already wondering what’s happened to the Zinio edition for iPad/iPhone devices.

Unfortunately, Zinio suffered a major outage in one of its data centres this week, which has resulted in delays to the delivery of new magazines, including PC Pro.  You can find more information on the Zinio help page.

We apologise for the delay.

Barry Collins – Editor

Our new tests don’t rely on synthetic measures: we use real, current applications such as Microsoft Office 2010 and Photoshop CS5, as well as a completely new set of responsiveness tests, to get an all-round picture of a PC’s performance.

That means the benchmark scores you’ll see from this day on are not directly comparable with older scores, but they give the best ever insight into exactly what each system can do for you.

The new tests

The new PC Pro Real World Benchmarks are split into three sections, each reflecting a different area of usage.

Responsiveness

With so many netbooks and ultraportables using lightweight processors, it’s vital to know how responsive a system is. We measure this with two new tests. We time how long it takes to open documents and switch between a series of common desktop applications, including the latest versions of Word and Excel, Acrobat Reader 10 and Internet Explorer. We also measure Windows performance, by timing how long the system takes to open, close and move dozens of Explorer windows.

Media

Our media tests expose how capable a system is at using modern software to process music, photos and video files. We start by using iTunes 10 to encode an album into both AAC and MP3 formats. Next, we set Photoshop CS5 to work on a folder of 12-megapixel RAW-format photographs. We adjust the colours and curves, apply some artistic sharpening and blurring and save the results in JPEG format. Finally, we use Sony Vegas 10 to render a short home video shot at 1080p resolution, with a picture-in-picture effect and a crossfade transition. Again, the whole process is timed.

Multitasking

For our multitasking test, we run the iTunes and Photoshop tests simultaneously and then launch our responsiveness tests over the top, giving the CPU, hard disk and memory a real workout. Finally, we time how long it takes the multi-threaded Cinebench 11.5 renderer to produce a complex 3D scene. The multitasking score thus reflects both responsiveness and performance under heavy load – just the information you need if you’re looking for a real workhorse computer.

The Overall score

Once we have our timings, we compare them with the times achieved by our new reference platform: a 3.4GHz Core i7-2600K processor, with 4GB of DDR3 RAM and a 7,200 RPM hard disk, at a display resolution of 1,920 x 1,080 (all desktops are tested at this resolution; we test laptops at native resolution).

Each score is given as a number relative to that platform, with higher scores being faster. Thus, a score of 0.50 in a particular test indicates that a system performs those tasks half as quickly as our reference system. A score of 2.00 would indicate a super-powerful PC that was twice as quick as the reference platform.

We combine the three scores into an average for easy comparison – this is the Overall score. But at the bottom of each review you’ll find a breakdown of the scores in the three tests. This shows each system’s strengths and weaknesses at a glance, so you can easily find the system that’s perfect for you.

Examples

Current desktop PCs are powerful enough to motor through the Responsiveness and Media sections with ease, and should prove the most adept at Multitasking too:

Laptops, with their slower processors but still-plentiful RAM, should show the real variation in what is being tested. Most will remain strong in the Windows Responsiveness test, demonstrating their proficiency at everyday tasks, but will be less successful when pushed by the more intensive Media and Multitasking tests:

Finally, low-power systems such as netbooks and nettops will see that Responsiveness score falling by the wayside as well, but the real drop will be in the more intensive tests as their lack of power limits them to simple linear tasks:

New battery benchmarks

We’ve changed our battery benchmarks too, to be more consistent and to better reflect the sort of stamina you can expect from your laptop while it’s actually in use.

Light use

In the light-use test, we optimise the system settings for the greatest power efficiency. Windows’ power profile is set to Power Saver mode, and we use an X-Rite i1Display 2 colorimeter to set the screen brightness as close to 75cd/m² as possible. We then disconnect the mains and run a script browsing a selection of web pages until the system shuts down, giving you a realistic idea of how much surfing time each notebook offers.

Heavy use

For the heavy-use test, we engage Windows’ High Performance power profile, set the display brightness to maximum, and allow the taxing Cinebench 3D renderer to push the processor load to the limit. This gives a worst-case figure, revealing how long you can expect the battery to last under the most demanding conditions.

The switchover

As of today, every PC and laptop that arrives in the PC Pro Labs will have these new Real World Benchmarks run on them. You’ll still see the old benchmarks on reviews already on the website and (due to press timelines) in issue 199 of PC Pro, on sale 10 March. We’re in the process of updating the benchmarks tab on website reviews, and as of issue 200 the switchover will be complete.

Over the next few months you’re going to see some big changes on PC Pro.

2011 benchmarks

In issue 200 of the magazine (on sale mid-April), we’re going to be unveiling our 2011 benchmarks suite. Written in-house using real-world applications such as Office 2010 and Photoshop CS5, the PC Pro benchmarks will deliver the most accurate measurement of PC performance to date, testing overall system responsiveness as well as typical desktop tasks and demanding multi-core workloads.

That will be graphically illustrated in issue 200’s CPU megatest, in which we’ll be testing every mainstream desktop CPU from both Intel and AMD to see which really offers the best performance for your money. We’ll explain more about how our new benchmarks work in the coming weeks.

New-look magazine

In the next few months, you’ll also see a new-look PC Pro magazine on the newsagents’ shelves or dropping through your letterbox (find out how to subscribe here). We’re fundamentally redesigning the magazine, whilst still delivering more features, more reviews and more real-world expert advice than any other title.

We’ll share more of our redesign plans with you in the coming weeks and months, but you can look forward to:

* A revamped A List that makes it easier than ever to find our recommended products

* More detailed product photography, analysis and performance scores in reviews

* Platinum Labs – comprehensive group tests of the best kit money can buy

* Real-world advice from those looking to pursue a career in IT

These are only a small fraction of the changes and new features we’re planning for the new-look PC Pro. Read Tim Danton’s column in this month’s magazine to find out how you give your feedback on the planned changes.

A new editor

A more immediate change is that, as of today, I will be succeeding Tim Danton as editor of PC Pro.

Tim’s left me with an enviable legacy: the biggest, most-read computing monthly in the country; a website with more than a million unique users every month; and, crucially, the most talented and experienced team of staff and contributors of any IT publication in the country.

Tim’s not going far: he’s taking over as editorial director of Dennis Publishing’s tech division. You’ll still hear his voice on the PC Pro podcast and read his fine words on the PC Pro blogs.

I’m sure you’ll join me in wishing him well (a man who drinks that much black coffee each day needs all the well-wishers he can get) in his new post, and I look forward to what’s going to be a momentous few months for PC Pro.

Barry Collins – Editor