Xara Xtreme Pro

With its multiple page documents, commercial print and workflow integration, Xtreme Pro certainly has its attractions and, even at the higher price, you're getting an extraordinarily powerful package for little more than the upgrade cost of the latest Illustrator. Ultimately, though, there's a sense of anti-climax.

While some advanced users will find the new power useful, Xara's core strength is its vector and bitmap handling and here there's little new apart from the ability to manage levels on imported photos. More disappointing is the fact that none of the new Pro features break new ground in either functionality or implementation when compared to rivals such as CorelDRAW. Xara feels better when it's innovating rather than filling in the gaps, and for most users Xara Xtreme remains the better buy.

Author: Tom Arah