Tuesday, 5 June 2018

VPN Unlimited

VPN shopping can feel like a horribly complicated process. There are lots of options to consider, and you'll often find yourself scrolling through lengthy comparison tables to find a plan that works for you.

KeepSolid's VPN Unlimited does things differently. It even offers VPN for businesses. The website doesn't overwhelm you with features or technicalities, at least initially, instead focusing on the key benefits of speed and privacy.

Browse the site and you'll find a few details, but they're mostly focused on the key basics. The service offers 400+ servers in 70+ locations across 45+ countries, for instance. It supports five simultaneous connections, and has software for a huge range of platforms. That means not just the usual Windows, Mac, iOS and Android: there's also a Windows Phone app, a Linux client, and browser extensions for Firefox and Chrome.

[50% Off VPN Unlimited Official Promotion, ends 15/7] - VPN Unlimited is running a special promotion for 2018 FIFA World Cup. Users can get a 2-year subscription for the price of 1-year plan - $59.99. KeepSolid VPN Unlimited is a reliable VPN service with no limits on the bandwidth and connection speed, available for all key platforms. It works with Netflix, BBC iPlayer and Hulu, and has dedicated servers for torrenting.

There's torrent support on five servers only: Canada, France, Luxembourg, Romania, and a single location in the US.

The product structure is simple. There are three main plans with identical features, which only vary by how they're billed. The Economy plan is $9.99 (£8) for a single month, the Professional plan is $4.17 (£3.35) per month over a year, and the Infinity plan gives you lifetime coverage for a one-off $149.99 (£120). At the time of writing, that's described as a 'time limited offer' with a regular price of $499.99 or £400 but don't expect it to disappear anytime.

VPN Unlimited does have some optional extras. You can get a static IP or your own personal VPN server from $21.99 (£18) a month with lifetime offers available, depending on territories. If the five-connection limit is too restrictive, paying $0.99 (£0.80) a month gets you one extra device, and $5.99 (£4.80) adds 10 devices.

The Family plan gives access for up to five users and 25 devices from only $8.33 (£6.65) a month, an amazing deal if you've three or more people to cover. Keep in mind that while VPN providers typically allow up to five devices to be connected at one time, most of them specifically say these can only belong to the same person. The Family plan allows for covering individuals, each of whom gets their own account, login and device support.

Sounds tempting? Then, good news: KeepSolid provides a 7-day free trial to get you started, and also a 7-day money-back guarantee for a little extra security after you’ve subscribed.

Privacy

KeepSolid's privacy policy explains that there's no logging of your specific online activities, such as the websites you visit or the files you download.

There is some session logging, including the date of every connection session and the total bandwidth used. That's not ideal, but it's not unusual, either.

The company says clients may ask you if they can collect data on program use. The privacy policy states this may "include your KeepSolid ID; the connection attempt time; the connection type; the encryption type; the device type, etc."

Recording basic stats on program operations is common. There's a problem here with the inclusion of your ID, which means the data is no longer anonymous. The suggestion that the client "may ask" for permission indicates that you'll have a chance to opt out, but this may not happen by default, so it'll be important to check any settings.

While browsing the small print, we noticed a small plus point in KeepSolid's fair usage policy. Most companies use these to scare you with vague warnings about not using the service "too much", but KeepSolid actually puts a figure on what "too much" might be: 900GB a month. Even if you pass that limit, the worst that might happen is your speeds might be limited. That seems very fair to us, and even if you disagree, it's good to have a company which spells out what its policies really mean.

Performance

KeepSolid supports a wide range of payment methods, including cards, Bitcoin, Amazon and more. Even better, if you opt for PayPal then you get a further 5% discount off the total, for example cutting the cost of the Professional plan to $3.96 (£3.15) a month.

We handed over our cash, and moments later an email arrived thanking us for the "early purchase" of the VPN, and saying that "as agreed" the company was extending our subscription by 10%. We hadn't noticed any mention of a contract extension, but free stuff is always welcome and we weren't about to complain.

KeepSolid's website and welcome email doesn’t point you to any setup guides, but it's not difficult to figure out the process for yourself. Click the Downloads link, choose a platform – iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, Linux, Windows Phone, Apple TV and a catch-all Chrome and Firefox extension – and follow the instructions.

It's always interesting to see how clients are doing on their individual app stores. KeepSolid was performing generally very well when we checked, with three stars for the Mac app, but around four stars for everything else, and all clients have been updated within the last six months.

Whatever you choose, setup seems relatively easy. We grabbed a copy of the Windows client, downloading and installing it within a few seconds.

The interface is bulkier than most clients, and doesn't make the best use of space. The opening screen displays your location on a world map, for instance, but you can't pan around it, zoom in/out, or click a location to connect. It's just a static image.

A separate Servers tab displays all available locations along with their workload, and includes a Search box to help you find a particular city. It's easy enough to use, but again takes more space than most clients to give you fewer features. You can't browse by continent, for instance, there's no way to change the sort order, and there's no Favorites scheme to highlight your most commonly-used servers.

Poke around the client for a while and you'll notice a second group of settings, bizarrely tucked away in the Account section. Here you can change your protocol from OpenVPN to 'KeepSold Wise TCP' or 'KeepSolid Wise UDP', which appear to be enhanced versions of OpenVPN with extra security. We would have liked the ability to decide whether the regular OpenVPN selection used UDP (for speed) or TCP (for reliability), but that's not an option here.

There are no other significant settings or features. You can't control whether the client reconnects when it launches. There's no kill switch to prevent your identity leaking if the connection drops. There's no IPv6 leak protection, and no way to modify program behavior, for example, to display notifications or not.

We had some issues with connecting and switching between servers. If you click on any server in the list, ever, KeepSolid connects to it immediately without asking for confirmation. We found it easy to do this by accident, and it seems to us that the standard Windows behavior – single click to select an item, double click to perform an action on it – would be more intuitive. But if you're happy with the single click approach then it's certainly easy to use, and the lack of "do you really want to connect?" confirmation messages may be an advantage.

We didn't have any concerns about KeepSolid's performance, which our tests* showed was excellent everywhere. Local UK servers managed 36-44Mbps download speeds. Nearby European countries – France, Netherlands, Germany – regularly reached 40Mbps. Stockholm couldn't quite match up with an average in the low 30Mbps, but it was never lower than 28Mbps.

Connecting to the US made surprisingly little difference, with the New York server averaging around 40Mbps. Even Australia delivered speeds of 5Mbps, enough for us to stream basic HD video without difficulty.

Unfortunately, despite the triumph of the speed tests, the review ended with a problem. Both ipleak.net and dnsleak.com showed a potential DNS leak. This may not apply on all systems and platforms, but if you trial the service we would recommend checking it out for yourself.

Final verdict

KeepSolid offers great performance for a low price, and clients that run on almost everything. The DNS leak and the lack of a kill switch are going to be a problem for many, but if your needs are simple – unblocking websites, say – it could still be a good choice.

*Our testing included evaluating general performance (browsing, streaming video). We also used speedtest.net to measure latency, upload and download speeds, and then tested immediately again with the VPN turned off, to check for any difference (over several rounds of testing). We then compared these results to other VPN services we've reviewed. Of course, do note that VPN performance is difficult to measure as there are so many variables.



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IPVanish VPN

[60% Off IPVanish Official Promotion, ends 15/7] - To help World Cup spectators against threats from censorship, monitoring, and throttling, IPVanish VPN is offering new users a discount. Get up to 60% off this award winning VPN Service with IPVanish's top-tier network delivering some of the fastest speeds in our tests.

While many VPN providers try to stand out with their free plans and cheap commercial products, IPVanish talks more about service quality. It's "the world's fastest VPN" says the website, boasting 40,000+ shared IPs, 1000+ VPN servers in 60+ countries, unlimited P2P traffic, five simultaneous connections and more.

Clients are available for Windows, Mac, Android and iOS, and the company also has setup instructions for Chromebook, Amazon Fire TV/ Fire Stick, Linux, routers and more.

The starter price for a month is $10 (£8), this drops to $8.99 (£7.20) for the quarterly plan, or $6.49 (£5.20) if you pay for a full year. That's a little more expensive than NordVPN's $5 (£4), a little cheaper than VyprVPN's $7.29 (£5.80), but fairly typical for a premium service.

There's no free plan or trial, although you do get a seven-day no-strings refund. And we noticed something else you can try – if you go to the payment page, leave it open for a while, choose a payment method then go to switch to another browser tab, you might be offered a 20% discount on the first billing for any plan.

Privacy

Some VPN providers spell out their logging policy in fine detail. IPVanish focuses mostly on simple headlines – "Zero Traffic Logs!!" – but dig around and eventually you'll find this more meaningful statement:

"We have a strict policy against the collection of both connection and activity logs. We will never store the metadata about your VPN session or information about how you used the service."

As expected, IPVanish says it doesn't log the websites you visit or any details about what you're doing online. What's more interesting is that, unlike some providers, IPVanish doesn't seem to log session data such as connection times, incoming and outgoing IP addresses, bandwidth used and more. That's a definite privacy plus.

The wide range of payment methods is also welcome. If you want to avoid card or PayPal trails, you can opt for Bitcoin, Giropay, CashU, DineroMail and more.

VPN providers sometimes try to bury key details in their terms of service, and the IPVanish page is so lengthy – nearly 4,000 words – that we wondered if there was something to hide.

Look past the wordy legal jargon, though, and the contract is much like any other. If anything, there are less catches than you might expect. There's no bandwidth restriction with the seven-day trial, for instance, and you don't have to justify why you might want to cancel. Just ask within the first seven days, and as long as you've used a payment method which supports refunds, you'll get your money back.

Performance

Once we’ve handed over our cash, we like to see a VPN point to download links, setup guides and everything else needed to get up and running immediately. Unfortunately, all we got with IPVanish was a warning that our account was inactive, and we would have to wait for an authentication email which didn't arrive.

After waiting for five hours, we raised a support ticket asking what was going on. Nine hours after that we received a reply asking for our PayPal email address, and around 20 hours after that a further response said our account was 'active and in good standing' and ready to use.

Every web service has glitches occasionally and we wouldn’t be too concerned about the signup problem, but the lethargic support response is more of an issue. If a customer hands over their money and receives nothing in return, we would expect that to be treated as an urgent problem that needs to be resolved quickly, not a matter where the customer is left waiting, with no information, for more than a day.

Once we were finally able to log in, the IPVanish website proved clear and straightforward. A Download page acted as a central point where we could start to set up the service on just about any device. In a couple of clicks we were able to download the Windows app, view a quick setup guide, or see how to manually set up Windows 7, 8 or 10, using OpenVPN, PPTP or L2TP.

The Windows client is crammed with features, and feels more like a full-scale application than the simple apps used by other VPNs. Getting connected isn't just about double-clicking a flag, for instance: you can select individual countries, cities or servers, and locations can be filtered by country, response time or load. You can choose locations from a map or a list, and there's a simple favorites system for your most commonly-used servers.

A comprehensive Settings page enables launching the client at startup, optionally connecting to your choice of server. There's a kill switch to block network traffic if the connection drops, and an Auto Reconnect option to restore the VPN as soon as possible.

There's an unusual option to automatically change your IP address at regular intervals, reducing the opportunity for websites to track you within a single session.

Low-level settings include the ability to choose your protocol (options include OpenVPN UDP or TCP, PPTP, L2TP), set the OpenVPN port, obfuscate OpenVPN traffic, browse OpenVPN's connection logs, accept IPVanish's DNS servers or use your own.

If you're a VPN beginner or just not interested in any of this, switching the client to Simple Mode reduces the interface to a tiny desktop gadget, with little more than lists of locations and a Connect button.

While this sounds great, and mostly works very well, there are issues. For example, even though we were in the UK, the client initially selected a US server for our first connection. The Quick Connect and Server List tabs don't have a simple 'Nearest Server' option that will always choose the most likely fastest location.

IPVanish also struggled in our stress tests, where we try to discover how a client behaves when there are other VPNs and low-level network applications installed. In some situations we found that connecting via IPVanish left us unable to access any websites, but if we closed the client and connected via another VPN, everything worked just fine.

You may never see anything similar yourself, especially if you're only using a single VPN, but this does suggest the Windows client may be more fragile and prone to odd network problems than some of the competition.

Our speed tests* were more positive, with IPVanish achieving excellent download speeds of 30 to 35Mbps from our nearest UK server, and a very similar 28 to 34Mbps from nearby European servers.

UK to US speeds were also above average with a peak of around 25Mbps, although this was more difficult to achieve than we expected. If we left the client to connect to the 'Best Server', it chose Boston, which gave us barely 6Mbps. We had to manually select New York before we saw the full 25Mbps.

IPVanish didn't need any manual assistance when it came to our privacy tests, at least. The service successfully blocked DNS, WebRTC and other potential leaks, ensuring our real identity was shielded at all times.

Final verdict

IPVanish is configurable and can be fast in some situations, with some interesting features. The Windows client has a few annoyances and it's not always comfortable to use, but if you're looking for both power and performance we'd give it a try.

*Our testing included evaluating general performance (browsing, streaming video). We also used speedtest.net to measure latency, upload and download speeds, and then tested immediately again with the VPN turned off, to check for any difference (over several rounds of testing). We then compared these results to other VPN services we've reviewed. Of course, do note that VPN performance is difficult to measure as there are so many variables.



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Monday, 4 June 2018

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is a hosted e-commerce platform which provides everything you need to create, manage and grow your online store.

A WYSIWYG website builder provides only seven free templates, but some excellent commercial themes are available for around $145-$195 (£110-£145), and the BigCommerce theme store makes it easy to browse and try them out. You can also customize every aspect of the site from the interface, or take full control by editing the raw HTML and CSS.

A built-in CMS enables building, categorizing and managing even the most complex of product catalogs.

If your own web store isn't enough, BigCommerce's wide sales channel support sees you able to sell on Facebook, Pinterest, eBay, Amazon and Square POS. Sales made on any channel are synced with a single central inventory, too, so there are none of the overselling issues you'll sometimes see elsewhere.

BigCommerce doesn't have any of the usual e-commerce catches. All the plans support unlimited products, file storage, bandwidth and staff accounts, and there are no transaction fees for any of the 40+ supported payment gateways.

That's not bad at all, especially as the BigCommerce Standard plan is priced at only $29.95 (£21.40) a month (that really is per month, not per year - no lengthy contracts here). This does have a couple of issues, though. The plan supports online sales of up to a lowly $50k (£35,700) per year, and there's no abandoned cart recovery (Shopify throws that in as standard with its Basic account).

The Plus plan lifts the sales figure to $150k (£107,000), adds abandoned cart handling, and throws in useful extras including a stored credit card option and useful customer grouping and management tools. It's available for $79.95 (£57) billed monthly, with a 10% discount if you pay annually.

The $249.95 (£179) Pro plan gives you a $400,000 (£286,000) allowance for online sales and adds smart product filtering options, custom SSL support (the ability to use a certificate you bought elsewhere) and more.

Put it all together and BigCommerce seems fairly priced, particularly for small startups who can get by with the baseline Standard plan.

Whatever you're after, BigCommerce makes it easy to find out more with a free 15-day trial, no credit card details required.

BigCommerce

Getting started

With a large Getting Started button permanently visible on the BigCommerce website, it's not difficult to figure out how to begin. We clicked, entered our details in a form (email, name, phone number, country), and within a few seconds the process was complete.

It really is that simple. There's no requirement to verify your email address, or sit and wait until you get an email notification that your account is 'activated'. We were almost immediately logged in to the BigCommerce web console, while a welcome email arrived moments later with our temporary store URL (storename.bigcommerce.com) and some startup advice.

The opening BigCommerce interface looks a little intimidating, at least initially. A left-hand sidebar organizes service functions into various areas - Orders, Products, Customers, Storefront, Marketing, Analytics, Channel Manager, Apps, Store Setup, Advanced Settings, Server Settings, Account Settings - and clicking any of these reveals even more functionality to explore.

Fortunately, BigCommerce tries to help in various ways. A simple opening tutorial explains key areas of the interface, for instance, and the Dashboard starts with a display of the various steps you need to follow (add products, customize store, set shipping rates, enable payment gateways and review the results). There's plenty to do, but the website does its best to create an environment where even total e-commerce newbies will feel at home.

BigCommerce

Creating your store

Some e-commerce platforms expect you to design your website first, while others believe you should focus on your inventory. The BigCommerce Dashboard suggests you start with the Add Products section, but as it already includes some sample products, it's just as easy to begin with the site.

Take the website route and you're able to choose a theme, then customize it with a logo and social media links. A neat Home Page Carousel option enables cycling through images of whatever products you'd like to highlight. You can add more pages, manage images and insert custom scripts to integrate with other services. There's even a blog, though only a simple one (you can't schedule posts, there's no built-in comments system, and so on).

An Import option enables importing your product catalog from other platforms. BigCommerce only supports CSV files but it can cope with files up to a huge 512MB (Shopify chokes on anything larger than 15MB.) The Import routine detects the fields in the CSV (the column names, usually) and enables mapping them to BigCommerce's own product fields. This takes a little work as you must wade through 50, 60, maybe 70 fields, and figure out which you want or need to translate, but you only do this once, and it's still much easier than retyping your entire catalog.

BigCommerce also allows you to add products manually via a feature-packed editor which effortlessly outperforms most of the competition.

Other sites might allow you to insert videos and other content by using their standard embed code, for instance, but BigCommerce goes so much further. It has a YouTube search and preview tool to help you find the clips you need. It supports embedding YouTube, Vimeo, Metacafe and Megavideo URLs directly. A separate Embed Media dialog enables using HTML5 video and audio, Flash objects and generic IFrames, and you can define their size, background, alignment and custom settings (Autoplay, Mute, Loop and Controls for HTML5 video).

There's similar attention to detail everywhere you look. Most providers support using simple tables in their product description, but few give you the formatting controls and options you have here: caption, cell padding, spacing, alignment, border color, background color or image, frame type, rules, even language type and direction.

Just browsing the Other Details section gives you access to valuable but unusual settings. You're able to include warranty information, search keywords to help users find the product, provide a custom availability message ("usually ships in 24-48 hours"), set a sort order to define where the product appears in product lists, maybe define a minimum and maximum purchase quantity. It's all hugely flexible and very well thought out.

You'll probably want to configure your shipping settings next, and they're easily accessed from the dashboard. BigCommerce doesn't set you up with any defaults beyond a single shipping zone for your own country, but it's easy enough to add a shipping address and additional shipping zones as required (country-specific, custom zones which include what you need, or a general 'rest of the world').

Tapping a shipping zone enables setting up simple static shipping rules (free, flat rate, costed by order value or weight, or pickup in store) or getting real-time shipping quotes from top companies appropriate to your country (for our UK-based review this was Royal Mail, FedEx and UPS.)

If that's still not enough, integration with ShipperHQ gives you enterprise-level shipping functionality including multi-origin shipping, drop-shipping, dimensional rating, estimated delivery dates, time in transit restrictions and more. It's priced from $50 (£36) a month.

Taking payments is more straightforward, as BigCommerce can accept PayPal and credit cards once you've provided just a few more details about yourself. Browsing the Payment Methods settings box reveals easy integration with Amazon Pay, Apple Pay, other big-name providers (Skrill, Square, and WorldPay, to name some) and assorted offline methods (check, money order, bank deposit, and more).

This all worked well for us, but if you run into issues, opening the Help page displays information on the current page and provides links to a wide range of other resources: video tutorials, a community forum and links to email, live chat and phone support.

BigCommerce

Running your business

BigCommerce doesn't just excel with its store creation tools – once you're online, the service has plenty of ways to keep your business running smoothly.

Inventory management is very flexible. You can choose to update your stock levels when an order is placed, or mark as shipped. BigCommerce can send email notifications of low stock levels, and your store can handle 'out-of-stock' situations in several ways (hide the product entirely, hide it but keep the product page for direct links, redirect to the category page or do nothing at all.) This kind of control is great for ensuring the store works precisely as you'd like.

BigCommerce supports multiple ways to engage with your customers. A simple Comments system enables customers to review products, and there's support for several live chat services (LivePerson, Olark, a generic 'third-party' option.)

The features keep coming, wherever you look. There's a returns system, for instance, which enables customers to return items from others on their Completed Orders list. It's tucked away in the Settings dialog, but you can turn it on with a click.

If all this functionality still doesn't deliver what you need, no problem - BigCommerce has approaching 600 apps enabling it to integrate with an array of third-party services covering every possible requirement: payments, shipping, marketing, merchandising, accounting, CRM, ERP and more. Shopify does even better with more than 2,000 apps, but BigCommerce still outperforms just about everyone else and has some great extensions.

Just one example: the QuickBooks Online app can automatically sync your BigCommerce orders, discounts, refunds, shipping and more with your QuickBooks Online account, as often as once per hour, and it's free to download and use. Check out the other apps available in the BigCommerce App Store.

Final verdict

A powerhouse e-commerce platform, hugely configurable, yet it also has a very fairly priced starter plan. A must-see for anyone who needs more than the web store basics.



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ASUS ROG Phone is a high-end Android gaming phone with 8GB of RAM, 512GB of storage

ASUS ROG Phone official

Gaming phones are a growing segment of Android hardware, with Razer, ZTE, and Xiaomi all introducing gaming-focused handsets recently. Now ASUS is jumping on the trend, too.

The ASUS ROG Phone includes gaming features like a 6-inch 2160x1080 AMOLED display with a 90Hz refresh rate and AirTriggers, which are three ultrasonic buttons — two on the left edge for landscape, one on the right for portrait — that can be customized to perform certain actions.

ASUS has also included an X Mode to raise the minimum clock speed on the ROG Phone's Snapdragon 845 processor and keeps tasks on its four fastest cores to ensure speedy performance. And to help keep the phone cool, ASUS has used a copper heat spreader and 3D vapor chamber to transfer heat away from the SoC. The company even plans to sell an AeroActive Cooler accessory that'll blow air over the back of the phone to help dissipate heat further.

ASUS ROG Phone handheld accessory

Speaking of accessories, ASUS will offer a Mobile Desktop Dock for the ROG Phone that'll let you hook the device up to a monitor, Ethernet, 5.1 speakers, and USB add-ons, while a WiGig Dock wil let you use wirelessly send your display to a TV. When you're on the go, the TwinView Dock will give the ROG Phone physical trigger buttons, enhanced cooling, a secondary display, and a 6000mAh battery.

Getting back to the ROG Phone itself, the device is packing 8GB of RAM and up to a whopping 512GB of built-in storage. There's a dual rear camera setup with a main 12MP camera and 8MP wide angle camera, and around front there's an 8MP camera. A 4000mAh battery powers the ROG Phone, and there are USB-C and 3.5mm headphone jacks included.

ASUS ROG Phone official rear

Rounding out the ROG Phone's feature set is a fingerprint reader, dual front-facing speakers, DTS Headphone:X 7.1 virtual surround sound, and Qualcomm apX high-def Bluetooth audio.

The ASUS ROG Phone will go on sale in Q3 2018. There's no word yet on where the ROG Phone will be available or how much it'll cost.

There's no question that the ROG Phone is a well-equipped device, boasting specs like 8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage that we haven't seen on many other Android phones to date. The aggressive styling might turn off some folks who aren't big gamers, but if you're into angled lines and top-end specs, stay tuned for more on the ROG Phone as we get it.

ASUS


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Nebula Capsule projector

The humble projector has come a long way over the years. Gone are the days when a decent one cost an arm and a leg and required two people to carry it. These days, you can get an affordable, and even portable, projector that works great for most users.

One such example is the new Nebula Capsule, which is made by Anker. It’s a follow-up to last year's Nebula Mars, and boasts a slightly smaller design and powerful built-in JBL speakers.

But at $350 / £400 (around AU$460), it’s not cheap. So is it worth the cash? We put the Anker Nebula Capsule to the test to find out.

Design and set-up

The first thing you’ll notice about the Nebula Capsule when you take it out of its box is its design – it’s a nice-looking product. It’s about the size of a drinks can, with a series of controls on the top, and a micro USB port, HDMI port and speaker on the side, along with the lens and a keystone correction control.

We actually really like the look of the Capsule. It’s built for portability, and as such you’ll find a carry bag in the box with it, along with charging accessories and a remote. The remote is pretty basic – there are directional buttons, selection buttons, volume controls, and a power button, so everything you need to control Android. The remote also has a mouse button, which displays a cursor on the screen that you can control – it’s an interesting idea, but we rarely found ourselves using it.

And yes, you read that right: Android. As if a nicely-designed portable projector wasn’t cool enough, the projector runs what seems to be a highly customized version of Android that’s made to look a little like Android TV. We’ll get into the software and how it performs a little later.

The HDMI port is a nice inclusion. While the Nebula Capsule is obviously built to use Android apps, many will want to stream content from their computer or another device. The HDMI port makes that easy.

Under the hood, the projector features a 5,200mAh battery, which is able to power the projector for around four hours. That’s not bad at all – it means that if you’re diligent about keeping the device charged up it should always last the duration of a movie. 

The remote, as mentioned, is pretty basic, but that’s not a bad thing. What is a bad thing is that it seemed like the projector often didn’t register us pressing a button. That was especially true, for example, when we pressed it twice quickly – perhaps to type a double letter. In the end we got used to having to press down a little harder and slower to get the desired results.

When you first turn on the device you might be a little surprised by how loud it is. It makes sense that the fan has to cool the unit, and thankfully the speakers can get loud enough to drown out the fan noise, but only when they’re turned up – and you might not want to always be watching TV at super-high volumes.

Still, in general the Nebula Capsule is pretty well designed and very easy to set up. This particular forked version of Android doesn’t require you to sign in to Google, so you can switch on and be ready to go.

Software

Running Android 7.1 on a projector is a pretty cool idea, although if you’re a regular user of Android, and particularly Android TV, you might find the experience a little disappointing.

As mentioned, the Nebula Capsule lacks the Google Play Store, so the wealth of apps on Google’s marketplace are absent. When the Google Play replacement, Aptoide TV, runs properly (which it often doesn’t), you’ll be able to find some of the major apps that should be there, including Netflix, Plex, and Hulu, but other apps that you might want to enjoy, like Sling TV, are missing. 

Thankfully, Anker has a built in a file manager, enabling you to download the APK for your favorite apps and then install them through the file manager. What that means is that with a little time and effort, any compatible Android app you can download should be one that you can use on the Nebula Capsule.

The software is sub-par in other aspects too, and here it’s really the small things that count. For example, when you’re typing, autocomplete suggestions pop up under the search bar, as you'd expect; the only problem is the software simply won’t let you choose from those suggestions, rendering the entire purpose of autocomplete useless.

You also might want to download the Capsule Control app on your phone. Why? Turns out the version of the Netflix app on Aptoide TV may be the version built for smartphones – when you first open Netflix you’ll be greeted with a notice telling you that this version of Netflix 'doesn’t support the physical remote control.'

If you don’t mind such quirks and can find all the apps you might want, using the software is a pretty simple experience. It basically works the same way Android TV does, with a grid-style layout.

The Capsule Control app works pretty well too. Once you download the app you can use your phone as a kind of trackpad and remote for the Nebula Capsule, which is far easier than using the included remote.

Image quality

Of course, the main thing you need a projector to do is, well, project, and in this respect the Nebula Capsule is a solid option. The projector supports a display size of up to 100 inches, which isn’t bad. Of course, at that distance, things like resolution and brightness suffer, so you probably won’t want to go that large if you don’t need to.

Smaller projectors often have a tough time when it comes to resolution, and the Nebula Capsule is no different. The resolution comes in at 854 x 480, which is pretty low. Thankfully, if you’re sitting at least a few feet away you generally shouldn’t notice the low resolution. We did most of our testing with the projector positioned around 6-8 feet from the wall, seated around 2 or 3 feet back from it, and watching content from Netflix was a comfortable and enjoyable experience.  

Then there’s the brightness, and once again it's an area in which smaller projectors often suffer. The brightness comes in at 500 Lumens, which is fine for darker rooms, but not great if you have the lights on. You’ll want to make sure you can achieve a relatively dark room when you’re using this projector, otherwise you may not be able to properly see content.

Audio quality

Because the projector has a built-in speaker you’ll also want to think about audio quality, and what we found – and which kind of surprised us – is that the speaker can get pretty loud for such a small device.

Now, don’t confuse loudness with quality. While it’ll be fine for most, it’s certainly not the best-sounding speaker on the market. Bass was there, but it didn’t extend very far, while there seemed to be a slightly annoying boost to the high-mids, which is often the case with a relatively inexpensive speaker.

Thankfully, if you don’t want to use the speaker you don’t have to – the projector supports connecting to Bluetooth headphones and speakers, and while you may experience some lag this seemed to work pretty well in our testing. 

Verdict

The Nebula Capsule surprised us in more ways than one. It’s actually a pretty handy little device. We love the concept of an Android-powered projector, and the fact that it has a built-in speaker and offers wireless control through the phone app makes it a very solid all-in-one solution.

But there are some serious downsides. For starters, the software isn’t great. We assume the device simply isn’t certified to use Android TV or the Google Play Store, and while we can live without the former, the latter is a pretty necessary aspect to any Android device. Sure, there are workaround – but there shouldn’t have to be. There’s also the resolution and brightness, and while both being relatively low isn’t unexpected for a projector this size, it’s still something you’ll need to consider.

In the end, however, there aren’t all that many alternatives. If you want a portable projector with semi-decent speakers and Android built in, then the Nebula Capsule is the one to go for. We, hope, though, that more – and better – options come along in the near future. 



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Asus ROG Phone

Asus had promised us a few surprises at Computex this year, and the company is staying true to its word. The Taiwanese PC and smartphone company came to this year’s event with it’s first gaming smartphone under its ROG brand.

The company calls it the ROG Phone right now, under the model number ZS600KL and it’s the third gaming-centric smartphone we’ve seen in recent times, with the Xiaomi Black Shark and the Razer Phone being the others.

Unlike the company's Zenfone series, this one follows the ROG design language and a few neat tweaks that could tickle a gamer's fancy.

Price and availability

At the moment, Asus seems reluctant to confirm that the device will be launched in India, though we do expect it to make it there eventually. The ROG Phone will almost certainly be priced in the premium range, though that's another aspect Asus hasn't revealed right now.

However, some company representatives did say that the APAC region should be covered, along with the US and UK.

Design

While smartphones from Asus have so far been sold under the Zenfone monicker, with the ROG Phone, Asus is effectively launching an extension of its PC Gaming brand to mobile devices..

The device follows the ROG design language, with sharp lines, a black finish and distinctly "gamer" looks. Even the fingerprint sensor, camera and flash modules on the back are distinct from other phones, and you see the glowing ROG logo under them. And yes, the ROG logo does light up and you can change the colour if you want.

Most of the back is covered in glass, with a cut out metallic section on the right, that holds the speaker grilles. While Asus says there's glass on the back, it does feel more like plexiglass than the Gorilla Glass backs you find on flagships today.

The company has also curved the rear edges, so the phone nestles in your palm. It's heavy, but not too heavy to complain, and it's tall, which makes it easier to use with one hand, though it isn't perfectly suited for that either.

What the ROG Phone doesn't have is a notch on the front. You can see another speaker grill on the top bezel here, while an identical notch is placed on the bottom bezel too, both in a reddish gold colour, to continue the stealthy looks of the phone.

The power on/off and volume buttons are on the right, accompanied by two USB Type-C ports, to attach accessories. There's another Type-C port on the bottom, meant for charging the phone.

Overall, while the ROG Phone wouldn't qualify as slim or sleek per se, it's definitely distinct and "gamer-focused".

Specs and Performance

The ROG Phone runs on the Snapdragon 845, but the chipset does a higher clock speed on this device. Asus says it worked with Qualcomm for the chipsets on this one, and the clock speed can rise up to 2.9GHz – about 100MHz higher than normal.

But more importantly, the ROG Phone has a 1080p AMOLED display with 90Hz refresh rate. While that's lower than Razer's 120Hz spec, neither would make a big difference until games really start supporting them. The same is true for HDR playback, which the display does support.

However, what's more, interesting is the vapour-cooling technology Asus employs on this device. This is the first phone to sport such tech and on first look, it does seem to work. We spent a good half an hour playing Asphalt 8 and Marvel: Contest of Champions on the device, there was no noticeable difference in frame rates, there was no frame drop even after the phone got considerably and uncomfortably hot.

In fact, we streamed the game to a TV from a ROG phone, for over half an hour, and though you could feel the phone getting hot, frame drops didn't happen.

There's also a version of Asus' ROG Gaming Center app on this device. This shows you what frequency the CPU and GPU are at, the phone's temperature and more. Of course, you don't get the same level of control over these as you do on gaming PCs.

However, this app can let you toggle the "X-Mode", that lets you set the CPU clock higher and to its maximum, if needed. You can also squeeze the edges for this, or turn it on from Android's quick settings dock.

Though there's a lot of testing yet to go, the ROG Phone does look like a one-of-a-kind device. Its specs may not make a difference just yet, but with the right pricing, Asus may be able to spark a new market amidst the sea of similar smartphones out there.

Audio

The ROG Phone may also be the loudest smartphone out there today. Its speakers can easily fill medium sized rooms as long as there is no peripheral noise. Audio quality is also noticeably better than regular smartphones, though we wouldn’t recommend making this your go to music device. The speakers are loud, but they still lack bass and audio seems more biased towards the high frequencies.

Accessories

One of the major elements of this device are the accessories that go with it. Other than vapour cooling, Asus will be bundling a fan accessory with the phone. This helps cool it when you're playing for long hours and attaches to the USB-C ports on the side. It's worth noting that this is the only accessory Asus is bundling, while the rest have to be purchased separately.

There's also a TwinView Dock, which allows a dual-screen handheld gaming experience. It looks like a military box, where the phone fits on the top. You can then use the phone to watch a movie etc, while the screen on the base can be used to game.

There's also a Gamevice controller that gives you console-like controls for gaming, while the WiGig Dock allows you to cast the phone onto a monitor and play using keyboards and mice. The ROG Phone also supports Asus' AuraSync and RGB lighting features.

Early Verdict

While it is still too early to tell whether this phone is actually worth it, it's safe to call it a new innovation for the smartphone market. Companies seem to trying to make the "gaming phone" a thing, and Asus may have just taken the biggest step towards it.

It's certainly a niche product, but the ROG Phone could easily be marketed as a flagship class device. Moreover, if it's successful enough, Asus may want to come up with variants of the device and with developer support, make it a cross between a phone and a handheld console.

The ROG Phone will tickle a gamer's fancy, look distinct in your hand and offer some nifty features that no one else can. Your move, everyone else.



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ExpressVPN

  • Express has doubled the number of servers available to more than 2,000. It has also introduced split tunneling, a host of browser extensions and open sourced a number of tools including leak testing ones.

ExpressVPN is a large British Virgin Islands-based provider of VPN services. The company's products start off a little more expensive than most, from $12.95 (£10.35) for a one-off month option, although it drops to $6.67 (£4.71) for the standard yearly plan (which comes with three extra months).

There are plenty of services which can beat that, but ExpressVPN gives you a lot for your money. We’re talking more than 2,000 servers across 145 locations in 94 countries, P2P support, and easy setup with custom clients for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, even Linux. You also get a lot of genuinely helpful web-based tutorials and troubleshooting guides, and 24/7 email and live chat support if you have problems.

There's no free plan or trial, but you're able to try the full service for up to 30 days with no sneaky small print restrictions on bandwidth or sessions, and if you still want a refund you can just email and ask. We tried this and there were no questions at all, just a quick acknowledgement the next day, and a full PayPal refund three days later.

If you like the service, ExpressVPN also has a simple referral scheme which can help reduce costs. Get a friend to sign up and provide your email address during the order process, and you both get a free month.

Privacy

ExpressVPN's privacy policy is unusual for a lot of reasons. Fortunately, they're all good reasons: it's clear, it's detailed, it covers many different areas and tells you just about everything you want to know.

Take logging, for example. While other providers can be vague and leave you guessing, ExpressVPN gets straight to the point:

"We do not collect logs of your activity, including no logging of browsing history, traffic destination, data content, or DNS queries. We also never store connection logs, meaning no logs of your IP address, your outgoing VPN IP address, connection timestamp, or session duration."

There is a little session logging, with your connection dates, choice of server and total amount of data transferred all being recorded. ExpressVPN doesn't collect your connection times or IP addresses, though, so this can't be used to identify you.

ExpressVPN's clients have a telemetry feature which may "collect anonymized analytics data used for network diagnostics." That may be a concern for some, but ExpressVPN takes the time to explain exactly what can be sent, who it's sent to, and points out that you can stop sharing this data at any time by toggling a client setting.

The rest of ExpressVPN's small print was very, very standard. The company stores basic information about you, but doesn't share it with anyone else, and the website uses cookies and third-party analytics, but then so does almost everybody else. It's all very normal and we saw no reason for any privacy concerns.

Performance

ExpressVPN’s signup procedure is carried out almost entirely on a single page, where all the key details are clearly displayed.

The first step is to choose from the one, six or twelve-month plans. The company shows both the monthly and total amounts and the billing frequency, so you shouldn't have any unpleasant surprises later.

Registration is kept to a minimum in terms of requested details, with the company asking for your email address only.

A good selection of payment options includes card, PayPal, Bitcoin, and many others via Paymentwall.

After handing over our cash, the ExpressVPN website generated and displayed a secure password for us. That's a smart move as it hopefully reduces the chance that users will enter the same credentials that they use elsewhere. But if you like to keep control, no problem, there's also an option to enter a password of your own.

The next page displayed a link to download the Windows client for our laptop, and offered links for other devices.

You can install ExpressVPN's clients on as many devices as you like. This is a little more complicated than usual as the firm asks you to enter a 23-character 'activation code' allocated to your account. You only have to do this once, though, and then you're able to connect up to three devices to the service at one time.

If you've got problems with any of this, links point you to some helpful support pages. We checked out the article on ‘how many devices can be connected to ExpressVPN simultaneously’ and found it clear and straightforward, with useful examples and helpful links to other details you need to know.

We downloaded and launched the Windows client. The setup program prompted for the activation code we'd just been given on the website, gave us a couple of simple configuration options, and then installed in a few seconds.

A quick check of ExpressVPN's files showed the package grabbed a little more hard drive space than usual at around 60MB. But the service scores where it matters, with its two background processes only taking around 40MB RAM (we've seen CyberGhost, for example, grab as much as 200MB RAM).

It can be interesting to see how often a VPN client is updated, as this gives you some idea of how much time and effect has gone into the app. Very few providers give you any clear idea of this, but ExpressVPN has a 'What's New' page which spells it out. In the first half of 2017 the app had 10 releases, for example, more than you might expect from many specialist developers.

The ExpressVPN desktop client is all about simplicity. Launch it, the nearest location is automatically selected, one click on the Connect button is enough to get you protected, and clicking it again turns the VPN off.

The Choose Location button enables browsing locations by continent, country or individual server, as well as providing a simple favorites system.

The location lists don't have any details on server load, but a separate Speed Test window can benchmark the servers, giving their download speed in Kbps as well as simple latencies. This takes two or three minutes as ExpressVPN insists on testing every server, unfortunately: the client really should allow for benchmarking only the countries or servers you select. Still, this more thorough approach has its benefits, giving you measurements of download speeds as well as the basic ping times you'll get elsewhere.

The client's Settings dialog doesn't contain many options, but there are a couple that stand out from the crowd.

You're able to choose your preferred protocol from options including OpenVPN via UDP, OpenVPN via TCP, L2TP - IPSEC, PPTP or SSTP. Alternatively, accept the default Automatic setting and the client will decide itself.

The client also provides a Network Lock feature, a kill switch which stops all network traffic if the connection drops. You can enable and disable this, and there's an option to allow access to network devices such as printers or network shares.

ExpressVPN achieved solid results in our performance tests*. UK-UK connections were fast and reliable at 31-36Mbps; near European connections were less consistent but still very acceptable at 14-35Mbps.

There was little change in UK-US traffic with downloads averaging 15-25Mbps, and connecting to even the most distant Asian server still gave us 3-7Mbps, maybe enough for basic video streaming.

ExpressVPN completed the positive picture by doing well in our leak tests, with its DNS protection ensuring our identity was protected at all times.

Final verdict

ExpressVPN costs more than most VPNs, but then it also gives you more locations, better performance, and a real focus on your web privacy. If you value service quality more than price, this is a VPN you need to try.

*Our testing included evaluating general performance (browsing, streaming video). We also used speedtest.net to measure latency, upload and download speeds, and then tested immediately again with the VPN turned off, to check for any difference (over several rounds of testing). We then compared these results to other VPN services we've reviewed. Of course, do note that VPN performance is difficult to measure as there are so many variables.



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Logitech G903 mouse and PowerPlay mouse pad

The Logitech G900 has reigned as the undisputed king of wireless gaming mice since it was introduced last year. Now, a successor has already been named with the Logitech G903. 

To many, this peripheral might seem like a premature sequel. However, its ability to constantly draw power from Logitech’s new PowerPlay mouse pad could solve one of the last annoyances of wireless gaming mice.

That said, to get this winning combination, you’ll need to spend AED 828 on the Logitech G903 – which is a lot to spend on a gaming mouse by itself – and another AED 608 for the PowerPlay. Altogether, this is an expensive setup, though you can always find deals that are a good AED 200 cheaper.

Despite flaunting a price high enough to make your eyes water, the performance of Logitech’s flagship wireless gaming mouse, and the convenience the wireless charging pad, are worth every cent in our book.

Design

Physically speaking, the Logitech G903 only varies in subtle ways from its predecessor. The gunmetal gray parts of the Logitech G900 have been replaced with a purely black color scheme. While this gives the mouse a more uniform look, we wished Logitech didn’t remove the soft touch coating on the front edge of the peripheral, as it gave us an extra bit of texture for our ring finger to rest against.

The bigger shakeup is on the underside of Logitech G903, which now features a puck-shaped cavity. In this space, you can either add a 10 gram weight or attach a ‘PowerCore’ module that we’ll get into more later.

Otherwise, the Logitech G903’s body shape hasn’t changed – not that we’re complaining. Our hands fall comfortably onto the G903’s gentle curves and its long body make it compatible for a wide range hand sizes. Although there aren’t any surfaces lined with soft touch material or rubber, the mouse never really slipped out of our hands.

Now you’re playing with power

The Logitech G903’s newest trick is it comes with the ability to wirelessly charge through a specialized mouse pad called the Logitech PowerPlay. The pad essentially creates an electromagnetic resonance charging field – say that five times fast – that the mouse absorbs through a PowerCore module you can attach to the bottom of the mouse.

With this arrangement, the Logitech G903 can pull a constant current of electricity to both power its operation and recharge its internal batteries. Not only that, the PowerPlay mat comes equipped with a wireless receiver that connects with your mouse, so you won’t need to occupy another USB port for a separate dongle – which you can instead plug into a laptop.

In this way, the PowerPlay sets up the perfect way of using a single mouse both at home and on the go. On a typical day, we use the mouse and specialized charging mat in the office for work and testing, take it out for a few meetings, bring it back home for gaming on our personal rig and come back to the office on the next day to fill the batteries back up with regular usage.

That said, as convenient as the PowerPlay is, it isn’t going to get the Logitech G903 fully charged in a jiffy. Going from 0% battery to a full charge with your mouse on the PowerPlay would take between 12 and 14 hours, by Logitech’s estimate.

If you’re looking for a quick charge, plugging in a microUSB cable would be way faster. Thankfully, though, the Logitech G903 has a fairly-sizable battery life with up to 24 hours of usage – or up to 32 hours without any lighting at all.

For these reasons, we would say the Logitech’s specialized mouse mat is a convenient luxury, but not a necessary add-on for the Logitech G903.

Performance

The Logitech G903 might be a wireless gaming mouse, but it feels as seamless as a wired one. That’s no small feat, and that’s all thanks to the same Lightspeed Wireless technology that was also in the G900. We never experienced any latency or loss if signal despite using the peripheral in an office saturated with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and every other type of wireless signal.

Of course, a big part of the Logitech G903’s accuracy comes from its PMW3366 optical sensor with a maximum sensitivity of 12,000 dots per inch. Comparatively, the AED 600 Razer Lancehead is equipped with its self-made 5G laser sensor at an even higher sensitivity of 16,000 DPI.

Some will argue that optical sensors are better than five-year-old laser technology, meanwhile, on paper Razer has a leg up on the sensitivity department. Ultimately, though, after using both mice for a week at the same time, we can confidently say they’re both equally as accurate and reliable.

The real distinction between these two peripherals comes down to aesthetics and ergonomics, which we feel is again a dead heat between the two.

Final verdict

The Logitech G903 is dang expensive and even more so if you’re looking to pick up the PowerPlay mat. That said, if you want the best wireless gaming mouse combo right now, this is it. 

Logitech’s Lightspeed Wireless technology was ahead of the curve last year, and it still feels like it’s on the cutting edge today. Now with the ability to always wirelessly charge your peripheral, there’s almost no reason not to ditch the cord.



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