MacFormat issue 250 sampler by Future PLC

& ED EW V N RO P IM

Issue 250 | August 2012 Sampler MacFormat.com | @MacFormat

ISSUE 250 | August 2012 Sampler

MOUNTAIN LION WHY YOU NEED OS X 10.8 Our choice of the top ten features

THE ALL-NEW MACBOOK PRO WITH RETINA DISPLAY

Edit photos on your iPad We test six of the best iOS photo editors

SAMPLER

In-depth review of the most amazing Mac ever!

Do more in Pages

Create your very own comic book

We’re number 1! The UK’s best-selling Apple mag!

Get iTunes organised

Rate your music and make great playlists

MacFormat.com

KIT RATED

Audyssey dock iCade Core ● Five great mice

●

Lion tips & tricks Master Mission Control in OS X

Tomb Raider Underworld Games icon Lara Croft is back on the Mac

to a special sampler of MacFormat, issue 250 SAVE & SUBSCRIBE TODAY See inside!

hat better way to celebrate reaching the milestone 250th issue of MacFormat than by giving the mag a complete overhaul? Hopefully this sample edition gives you a good idea of how the redesigned magazine looks and reads. Our goal was to re-imagine Britain’s biggest-selling Apple magazine in a way that reflects modern design values, and I think we’ve succeeded. But we haven’t stopped there! At the same time we’ve also launched a brand new, fully interactive iPad edition, which really brings the pages to life. Now you can watch video tutorials and interact with our reviews and features in exciting new ways. We’re the first established Apple mag to produce a fully interactive edition. If you’d like to experience it for yourself you can download a free preview edition using the MacFormat app – search for it on the App Store or in Newsstand on your iPad. In the meantime, if you like this sample then order the full print issue from myfavourite magazines.co.uk/macformat. But for now, enjoy the sampler!

LOOK INSIDE Apple WWDC 2012

The announcements in full

Apple in our lifetime

250 issue’s worth of Apple

Subscribe today

Summer sale: save 50%

Get more from your kit

Great tips for Apple devices

Turn day into night

Clever Photoshop tutorial

OS X Mountain Lion

Get to know your new OS

MacBook Pro review

Graham Barlow Editor-in-Chief graham.barlow@futurenet.com twitter.com/MacFormat

Retina display laptop rated

Samsung Syncmaster

Stylish multimedia monitor

MEET THE TEAM | YOUR MACFORMAT EXPERTS Ian Osborne

Tech Champion

Always on the lookout for a bargain, Ian is in charge of our Rated section. He loves testing out new kit with his beloved Mac Pro.

Tim Hardwick Apps Guru

Never happier than when he’s touching a tablet, Tim is a keen ebook reader, writer, Mac gamer and allround iOS addict.

Alex Thomas

Creative Pro

Alex is a dab hand with professionallevel creative software and puts the magazine and app together for you each month.

Luis Villazon

Apple Expert

We haven’t found a technical question that Luis can’t answer yet, which is just as well since he heads up our Mac SOS section!

Matthew Bolton

iOS evangelist

Matthew has a passion for iOS apps, particularly ones that push the boundaries of what people expect from a tablet computer.

We round up the stories that matter to you

THE BIG STORY A fake Stig joins Apple’s Craig Federighi on stage for a demo at this year’s WWDC. Image © GettyImages.co.uk

The lowdown from Apple’s 2012 Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco

une saw California’s Moscone Centre abuzz for six days as WWDC 2012, the event that showcases Apple software and technologies, brought in developers from all around the world. The events included dozens of talks from highprofile speakers, including film-maker JJ Abrams with an engaging speech on ‘The Physics of Inspiration’ and William Joyce of the awardwinning Moonbot Studios talking about the future of content. Keynote announcements included the next anticipated step in Apple’s divorce from Google with the introduction of Maps. There was also focus on iOS 6, as well as Mountain Lion, and the latest revisions to its portable Macs. A minor update to the Mac Pro also appeared. There was a lack of news about the iPhone 5 or the rumoured Apple television, so with enhancements to Siri plus Facebook integration,

Apple WORLD

Apple in pictures

Eye-catching images from the world of Apple

The team’s picks from the Store… Our apps of the month

iOS 6 was the star of the show. The mobile OS is due to ship in autumn. As usual, Apple was keen to share some of its positive figures: the App Store is now available in 155 countries; Apple has paid $5 billion to app developers so far; there are 400 million iTunes accounts and 650,000 apps now available, with 250,000 for the iPad. It also touted the fact that iOS users keep their OS up to date: 80% of users already run the latest version, compared to just 7% of Android users who remain up to date. App developers Rocketfarm Studios noted the rise of iOS development: “Our clients generally request an iOS version of the product first or both an iOS version and an Android version simultaneously… Apple’s commitment to userfriendly, streamlined designs makes them the gateway to app development.” Apple’s Maps includes turn-by-turn navigation integrating Yelp (local-business finder) listings and turning to third-party developers for traffic flow data. Maps also delivers Siri support and a rich 3D overhead mapping feature called Flyover, which reproduces an aerial view of major destinations rendered in stunning 3D. Siri improvements include support for most sports, Yelp reviews, Open Table restaurant reservations, and Rotten Tomatoes movie support. You can now launch apps using Siri, which will also be available for iPad 2 and 3. These steps will “marginalise Google’s presence on the iPhone,” said Piper Jaffray analyst, Gene Munster.

We’re most excited about

Gadgets that take our fancy

There was no news on iPhone 5, so with enhancements to Siri plus Facebook integration, iOS 6 was star of the show

Isn’t it time Apple gave something back?

I use my Mac for… People pushing boundaries using Apple devices

Apple in QUOTES What people are saying about Apple right now

Tim Cook apple.com

Passbook is a new iOS feature that automatically looks after tickets, coupons, and boarding passes. Just don’t lose your phone… a black cloth, ’the lightest pro notebook Apple’s ever made’ does away with an optical drive, and has neither FireWire nor Ethernet ports. Fresh Mountain Lion announcements included AirPlay Mirroring; Game Center; a faster Safari with iCloud Tabs; features for China and 1,700 new APIs for developers to use. We take a closer look at the new features of Mountain Lion this issue on page 20. Analyst reaction was broadly positive to the announcements: “Apple is strengthening the interaction within its own ecosystem, and also creating a consortium of powerful web partners to offer an experience that largely falls outside of Google’s walls,” Gene Munster said.

TEAM TALK

Apple’s roadmap

The hardware highlight of Apple’s presentation was the introduction of a new high-end MacBook Pro equipped with Retina display (see our review on page 92). Ushered on stage under

One more thing

Despite a few hiccups – like the Mac Pro ‘update’ – this was another good WWDC for Apple. Some worries remain over the trend of merging OS X and iOS, but the new mobile features like Maps are impressive.

[t] @gbarl

Apple CEO promises Mac Pro upgrades – in 2013

Phil Schiller apple.com

“[Mobile payment services are] fighting over their piece of the pie, and we aren’t doing that.”

More in the mag! Buy the full issue 250 today!

I was really excited by the Retina display demo. It’s a fantastic screen; I hope it trickles down throughout Apple’s range. Mountain Lion has a few interesting features, but nothing earthshattering yet.

[t] @ijosborne

“Pro customers like you are really important to us… don’t worry as we’re working on something really great for later next year.”

Schiller says Apple isn’t doing direct payment services just yet.

Tim Cook apple.com

“We tried Ping, and I think the customer voted and said ‘This isn’t something that I want to put a lot of energy into.” Apple’s social network for music fails. Did anyone notice?

Steve Wozniak timesunion.com

“I’ve been disappointed by Siri since Apple’s acquisition.” Apple co-founder is down on Siri. Maybe he’s not saying the right things…

ISSUE 250 100

Apple in As MacFormat reaches its 250th issue, we look back at Apple’s ups and downs over the years

The Apple Cool Factor*

1993 MacFormat launches The PowerCD, Apple’s first purely consumer product, is launched. ● John Sculley resigns and Michael Spindler is named CEO of Apple. ● The Apple Newton MessagePad is launched. Despite its initial limitations, the Newton foreshadowed the world of personal digital assistants, and the tablet PCs that now dominate the high street. Although Steve Jobs was quick to kill the device when he returned, there’s still a dedicated community of Newton users. Also, two Newton software engineers founded Pixo, which provided the operating system used in the iPod. ●

1994 Apple launches the PowerPC Macintosh

1997 OS 8 and G3 Macs

● Apple tests its Interactive Television Box set-top system. ● To keep up with the rapidly evolving world of PCs, Apple ditches Motorola’s range of CPUs in favour of the PowerPC chip it has co-developed with IBM and Motorola. The Power Macintosh range – including 2003’s G5, ‘the world’s first 64-bit PC’ – would run until 2006 when a lack of development progress caused Apple to finally relent and move to Intel x86 processors.

Mac OS 8 debuts G3 computers introduced alongside Apple’s online store. ● On 7 February, Steve Jobs makes a triumphant return to the company he founded, when Apple buys NeXT for its object-oriented NeXTSTEP OS, for $430 million. Within six months, Steve convinces the board to oust CEO Gil Amelio. Come September, Steve takes on the role of interim CEO himself. In doing so, he immediately cancels the Mac clone business. ● ●

Gil Amelio

Gil Amelio is made CEO of Apple, succeeding Michael Spindler. ●

1993 -10

1994

1995 Mac clones appear ● ● ●

The first Mac clones go on sale. 1,000,000th PowerMac is produced. Apple Pippin launches.

1996

1997

ISSUE 250

our lifetime 1998 iMac unveiled

1999 OS 9 and the iBook

The Bondi blue and white ‘bubblegum’ iMac G3 is unveiled by Steve Jobs on 6 May, and revolutionises the personal computer industry. It’s the first mainstream computer to remove the 3.5-inch floppy drive and have USB ports as standard. The design aims to get users onto the internet quickly and easily (hence the ‘i’ prefix). The iconic design means it rapidly becomes a pop-culture phenomenon that is recognisable all over the world.

The ‘clamshell’ iBook is unveiled by Steve Jobs, 21 July. ● OS 9 is released, becoming the final iteration of the Mac operating system prior to the advent of OS X. Highlights include the Sherlock internet search engine, support for multiple user accounts, the Keychain password system, automatic software updates, and improved networking.

●

2000 OS X revealed Steve Jobs becomes permanent CEO of Apple. ● Apple’s UNIX-based OS is released. Although based on the Mach OS kernel developed in the mid-80s, it brings the latest technologies such as memory protection and pre-emptive multitasking. The OS comes wrapped up in the Aqua GUI, featuring anti-aliased interface elements and drop-shadowed windows. The full commercial launch of Cheetah is followed by OS X 10.1 Puma in 2001.

●

2002 The iMac evolves ● The aging iMac is brought up to date with a revolutionary makeover that ditches the CRT in favour of a 15-inch LCD. The anglepoise iMac G4 sets a new benchmark for computing design and manufacture. ● OS X 10.2 ‘Jaguar’ introduces improved OpenGL and AppleScript, plus disc-burning and DVD playback support.

2001 iPod launches Apple reinvents portable audio with a small hard-drive-based MP3 player. Despite industry naysayers, the neat user interface and iTunes integration makes it the decade’s must-have gadget. It takes three years to sell 10 million, but sales spiral upwards and, in 2008, Apple sells over 55 million iPods. To date, the iPod family has sold upwards of 300 million.

Final Cut Pro Apple buys Macromedia’s video editing software Final Cut. Final Cut Pro is released at NAB in 1999. ●

1998

1999 Record loss

Apple records a record loss of more than $1.8 billion. ●

2000

2001

2002

*The Apple Cool Factor Our graph of Apple’s progress is based on a mixture of commercial success, industry impact and product ‘coolness’

2003 More in the mag! Buy the full issue 250 today!

Summer is here and it’s the perfect time to get out in the garden with your Mac or your iPad and MacFormat magazine. This issue only, we have an exclusive summer sale – not available anywhere else – offering you up to a MASSIVE 50% off MacFormat. Remember, a print subscription to MacFormat means you also gain access to our online subscriberonly PDF archive, which stretches back to issue 200.

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Terms & Conditions This offer is open to new subscribers only and all savings are based on buying 13 issues at newsstand. Minimum subscription term is 12 months. Your subscription will start with the next available issue. You will receive 13 issues of MacFormat a year. Details of the Direct Debit guarantee available on request. If at any time during the next 60 days you are dissatisfied in any way, please notify us in writing and we will refund all unmailed items. Access to the subs-only area of MacFormat is available for print subscribers only. Unless specified payment must be in GBP. This offer ends 31 August 2012.

Check out the new enhanced iPad version on Apple Newsstand

H U RR Offer muY! end 31stst August

TOP MAC TIPS

Ge ett morre e frro om yyo ou Apple kit Welcome to our definitive guide to making the most of your Mac, iPad and iPhone Words: Laurence Cable

pple gear is about more than just sleek designs and engineering. All the amazing things that can be done with a Mac, iPhone or iPad have made them central parts of our lives. Who would have thought, 10 or 15 years ago, that it would be possible to surf the web from a device that’s less than a centimetre thick, browse a day’s worth of music stored on your Mac, and listen to it wirelessly through speakers in another room? And this is only the beginning – there are so many more things you can do with

your Apple gear, which is where MacFormat comes in. We’ve compiled this guide packed full of ways to get more from your Mac, iPad and iPhone. It’s crammed full of hints, tips and app recommendations to help you work and play smarter. We’ve even picked some of the best hardware and accessories around to supplement your setup – turn to page 30 to discover more. And on page 38, we look at some of the more unusual ways you can use your Mac and iOS gear in harmony. So turn the page and let’s get started!

TOP MAC TIPS

things you never knew Mac apps could do to the video in 3 Listen 1Edit radio in iTunes QuickTime Player X

QuickTime Player X does more than just play video files – it enables you to edit them, too. Open a clip, then go to Edit > Trim to chop off the beginning or end, or Edit > Add Clip to End… to combine videos.

A feature of iTunes that often gets overlooked is its ability to play online streaming radio broadcasts. In the left column, click on Radio, then browse the categories listed. Simply double-click a station, and a short moment later it starts playing.

your own images using 2 Create keyboard shortcuts 4 Scan OS X Preview

Need to edit a video? QuickTime Player X lets you trim or combine clips easily.

If you’ve got a scanner, an easy way to use it is via Preview. Click File > Import from Scanner and select your device. Then click Show Details, and use the options on the right-hand side to set the type of document you’re scanning and the quality you want. Finally, click Scan and choose where to save your image.

ways to work faster in Finder

your 1Customise Dock and sidebar

Easily access the apps and folders you use most frequently. Drag any app from your Applications folder or Launchpad to your Dock. You can drag folders to the righthand end of your Dock, or to the ‘Favorites’ section of the sidebar that appears on the left-hand side of Finder windows.

Open System Preferences and click Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts. Click Application Shortcuts, then +, choose your app from the top menu, type the exact command as it appears in the Menu Title box, click the Shortcut field and press your desired key combo. A tip: avoid ç, since you could create a clash.

Open your apps automatically

Right-click (or place two fingers on your Mac’s trackpad and click) any app in your Dock and choose Options > Open at Login to save

yourself time clicking to open it every time your Mac starts up.

an app 3 Force to open a file

You can drag a file onto an app’s icon in your Applications folder or Dock to open it using that app. However, if the app’s icon doesn’t highlight when you hover over it, it won’t attempt to open the file, because it thinks it can’t. However, it doesn’t always know best! So to force an app to open the file you’re dragging onto it, hold down å+ç as you drag. The app’s icon will now highlight, meaning it will attempt to open your file.

Keep your most-used apps close to hand – customise your Finder sidebar and Dock.

the Trash 4 Empty without a warning

You can disable the warning that pops up every time you empty your Mac’s Trash. Simply click the Finder icon in your Dock, then go to Finder > Preferences > Advanced and untick ‘Show warning before emptying the Trash’.

Customise your 5 Finder windows

In any Finder window, go to View > Show View Options to tweak a host of settings, including the icon size, what details get shown about each item in the window and more. The Use as Defaults button applies your settings to all Finder windows.

More in the mag! Buy the full issue 250 today!

IMPROVE | Mac Apps

BEFORE

AFTER

Find out how to get the moonlit look in Photoshop and Elements!

Turning day into night With a little Photoshop trickery you can turn an everyday shot into a brooding, gothic scene fit for a Hollywood movie SKILL LEVEL

Could be tricky

IT WILL TAKE 30 minutes

YOU’LL NEED

Photoshop or Elements 9 or 10

Photography isn’t always about accurately depicting reality. If you go out and take a shot by moonlight with a tripod and a long exposure, what you get looks remarkably like daylight. We ‘see’ moonlight very differently, though. We expect moonlight to look dark, and the low light levels affect our eyes’ sensitivity to colour, so moonlit scenes appear bluetinted, with limited colour saturation. At the same time, we see the moon clearly as a stationary object rather than the elongated blur you get from a long exposure. So this technique is all about fabricating what we think we see, rather than what the camera actually records. There are three principle steps: creating the moonlit tones, adding a sky and then adding in the moon itself. The steps in our walkthrough are quite condensed, and it’ll help if you have a working knowledge of Photoshop or Elements. Rod Lawton

There’s more in our app!

You’ll find a full step-by step video of this tutorial in the MacFormat iPad app

STARTING IMAGE

For this effect to work you need the right kind of image. This one works well because the subject matter, a fairy-tale castle, suits the eerie moonlit effect. You can download it from our blog at macformat.com. Look out for pictures that have been shot in bright sunlight, too, because the strong shadows help enhance the effects.

Mac Apps | IMPROVE HOW TO | CREATE A CONVINCING MOONLIT SCENE

1 Create a gradient layer 2 Set the blend mode For the dark-blue tint, add a gradient adjustment layer, then use the Gradient Editor to set a dark-blue colour at the left end and a medium blue at the right. Set the opacity of the right-hand colour stop to 60-70%. Adjust the angle so the gradient is darker at the top.

Change the blend mode so the gradient merges with the photo. Multiply works best because it gives the image a dense, contrasty look. The gradient darkens the sky more than the foreground, and the partial transparency allows the natural colours to show through.

4 Transform and blur

5 Add a layer mask

If you are using the Clouds filter, select the Transform tool and ç-drag the corner handles to ‘reshape’ the layer, giving the clouds a direction and a change in scale. Motion Blur can then be used to add the soft movement effect you see in long night-time exposures.

Click the Add layer mask button and use the Gradient tool to drag out a black-white gradient on the mask. If the sky area is clear, this may be all you need to do, but if you have objects jutting into the sky, like this castle, there’s more work to be done on the mask…

FINAL IMAGE

7 Add a moon

Finally, add a picture of the moon, shot separately, as a new layer. No cutouts are needed as the moon was shot against a black sky – with Screen mode, the black areas disappear. Reducing opacity to 80% makes the moon blend in nicely with the clouds.

The finished image has all the characteristics we expect in a ‘moonlit’ shot, including the dark-blue tint, luminous clouds and the moon itself. It’s a Hollywood-style montage rather than a realistic rendition, but it still creates an evocative atmosphere.

3 Create some clouds

For the wispy clouds, add a sky from a separate image as a new layer, or create a blank layer and use Render > Clouds, with foreground and background set to the default black/white. You can change the blend mode to Screen or, for a hint of subtle colour, Linear Dodge (Add).

6 Cutting out objects

Select the image layer, hide the others. Select the object you want to cut out using the Quick Selection Tool (or whatever works best for that subject). Select the layer mask for the clouds layer and use Edit > Fill to flood the selection with Black, adding the object outline.

MOUNTAIN LION Mountain Lion takes another bound towards OS X and iOS integration.

The top 10 features of

Mountain Lion Apple’s new OS is A nearly here. Is it worth making the leap and can your Mac cope with the new big cat? Words: Ben Harvell

pple’s preview of OS X Mountain Lion garnered all the usual oohs and ahhs at WWDC this year. The latest iteration of the Mac operating system is due to arrive on the Mac App Store (and only the Mac App Store) in July. It brings more than 200 new features to boost the way you use your Mac. At the heart of this OS update is integration with your other Apple devices such as iPads and iPhones. Making use of iCloud, Mountain Lion claims to make it easier than ever to keep all of your media, documents and important information in one place and, as a result, available across all of your devices. It also adds deep integration with Facebook and Twitter,

turning your Mac into a highly sociable machine. This puts it in line with its iOS siblings, which now boast baked-in Twitter access and have also seen the Facebook app storm the App Store charts. The gradual merging of iOS and OS X features continues with the arrival of Messages, Reminders, Notifications and Dictation in Mountain Lion – the aim being to make switching between any of your Apple devices as seamless as possible. But do you need these new bells and whistles or should you be content with what you’ve got? Over the next few pages, we weigh up the new features as well as the upgrade considerations in order to provide you with an answer.

MOUNTAIN LION

Social integration

Your Mac gets sociable with Twitter, Facebook and more A quick trip to the Mail, Contacts & Calendars section of your Mac’s System Preferences pane allows you to sign in to a number of social networks including Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and Vimeo. Once you’re signed in, you can share links, photos and more to your friends, right from the app you’re currently using. Want to share an interesting blog post with your followers? Or perhaps you’ve taken a funny picture with Photo Booth that you want to use as your Facebook profile picture. Then simply click the Share button, found in a wide range of apps, and select the network you want to send your content to. A pane appears with your content included, allowing you to add a message and post it. An additional feature, specific to Facebook, allows you to select which of your Facebook friends can see an update. The new Notifications feature will also alert you to messages and other information from the social networks you’re logged in to.

And, from the Notification Center, you can quickly send updates to your social networks in a few simple clicks. Facebook integration also enhances your Mac’s contacts list, pulling in the contact details for all of your Facebook friends as well as their profile picture, and adding them to your address book. If a friend updates their contact information or profile picture on Facebook, your address book will also update so you’ve always got the right details stored.

Update your Facebook and Twitter accounts from your Mac.

to challenge them to a game. If you receive a game invite, accepting it launches the game on your Mac automatically. You can even use AirPlay mirroring to play the game on your HDTV if it’s connected to an Apple TV on your wireless network. Game Center in Mountain Lion looks set to open up the fairly small world of Mac gaming to a whole new audience thanks to its cross-platform abilities, and there are sure to be a lot more iOS favourites heading to the Mac in the coming months.

Play against friends and track your achievements with Game Center.

Game Center for Mac

Play against friends on Mac or iOS and top the leaderboards Mountain Lion brings the Game Center experience, previously only available for iOS devices, to the Mac. If you already have a Game Center account you can log in and access all of your game stats and high scores as well as view friend requests and receive game suggestions. Games you’ve played on iOS devices will be listed as well as those you download from the Mac App Store, with a link within the app allowing you to view all available Game Center-compatible games. Game Center isn’t just about tracking your gaming prowess, though; it also offers a route to quickly play games against friends or recommended opponents. Regardless of whether the other player is using a Mac, an iPad, an iPhone or an iPod touch, as long as they have the same game linked to their Game Center account you can play against each other. Head-to-head games, turn-based games and more are all available and game invites can be sent directly from Game Center to another user

More in the mag! Buy the full issue 250 today!

Kit | RATED

15-inch Retina MacBook Pro 2.6GHz Is this new-look, pixel-rich notebook the future of the MacBook Pro?

★★★★★ £2,299 Manufacturer: Apple inc, apple.com/uk Display: 15.4-inch, 2880x1800 resolution at 220 pixels per inch Processor: 2.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 Discrete Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GT 650M with 1GB of GDDR5 memory

The mid-2012 refresh brought us six new MacBook Pros in all. Two 13-inch and two 15-inch models blaze the same trail as their predecessors, with a significant components upgrade but an identical form factor and screen. The two 15-inch MacBook Pros with Retina displays, which replace the now-discontinued 17-inch model, enjoy a complete redesign. Taking more than a little inspiration from the MacBook Air, several features are sacrificed for a thinner, lighter form factor, but several more are added and the specifications take a significant step up. Its most exciting new feature is, of course, the Retina display. With a 2880x1800 resolution at 220 pixels per inch, it crams over 5.1 million pixels into its 15.4-inch screen, over three million more than a HDTV. To get the most from this incredible resolution, applications must be Retina-optimised; non-optimised apps are scaled up to stop their icons and text appearing incredibly

small. OS X 10.7 Lion and its bundled software have been optimised already, as have Apple’s Aperture, Final Cut Pro, iPhoto and iMovie. Thirdparty applications will be optimised over time. New versions of Photoshop and AutoCAD are expected ‘later this year’, and no doubt games developers will want to get the most out of the new display too. Diablo 3 is already planned, and we hope more follow. The screen is now directly integrated into the unibody casing,

The new Pro boasts over 5.1 million pixels. It’s the highest-resolution notebook ever. Retina display benefits from some significant component upgrades. The processor is now a third-

The screen is now directly integrated into the unibody casing, with the cover glass dropped. This reduces reflections by 75% generation ‘Ivy Bridge’ quad-core Intel Core i7 running at 2.3GHz on the less expensive model, and 2.6GHz in this top-of-the-range version. Like all Core-i chips, their Hyper Threading feature enables two threads to run on each core, for a

with the cover glass dropped. As well as making the notebook lid much thinner and lighter, this reduces reflections by around 75% and gives a 29% higher contrast ratio. But it’s not all about the screen. Under the hood, the MacBook Pro’s

BENCHMARKS | TESTING PERFORMANCE

MacBook Pro with Retina Display 2.6GHz, mid 2012

MacBook Pro 15-inch 2.4GHz Core i7, late 2011

MacBook Pro 15-inch 2.2GHz Core i7, early 2011

3000

6000

9000

12000

Cinebench (CBs)

15000

18000

Measuring CPU and GPU performance, Cinebench reports its results as a single figure. Multi-core performance quoted.

21000

120

160

Doom 3 frame rates (FPS)

200

Tested using Doom 3’s‘timedemo 1’ routine, set at 1,024x768 with settings at Ultra. Frames per second quoted. Higher is better.

100

Xbench

200

300

400

500

Xbench tests CPU and hard drive performance. Higher is better. As you can see, the new MacBook Pro’s SSD makes a big difference.

total of eight virtual cores. They also Turbo Boost, with under-used resources reallocated at times of high need to make the processor run faster than its stated clock speed for short periods. The 2.3GHz CPU can reach 3.3GHz under Turbo Boost, with this 2.6GHz chip maxing out at a blazing 3.6GHz. Graphics have had a refresh too. The Ivy Bridge processors include the new Intel HD Graphics 4000 chipset, which is pretty powerful in its own right. When more graphical power is needed, the discrete Nvidia GeForce GT 650M with 1GB of GDDR5 memory comes into play. It’s around 60% faster than the last generation’s graphics chip, and so powerful it can simultaneously support full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 2560x1600 pixels on two external screens. In our Cinebench real-time rendering test, the Retina MacBook Pro scored 5165 using just one of its four cores, up from 4870 on the 2.4GHz late 2011 model. But with all four cores and Hyper Threading in action, this score shot up to 20179, more than 27% up on its predecessor’s score of 15786. Our test movie took 149 seconds to encode to iPod format using iMovie. More in

the mag! Buy the full issue 250 today!

Kit | RATED

Samsung SyncMaster S27B750 Samsung breaks the mould with its designer two-tone LED monitor

£340 Manufacturer: Samsung, samsung.com/uk Resolution: 1920x1080 Brightness : 300cd/m² Response time: 2ms

The S27B750 is a 27-inch, 1080p display with a polished black bezel integrated into a glossy white stand. It’s more Bang & Olufsen than Apple, and may or not be to your taste, but it’s both stylish and understated. The arched base supports the screen on one side and provides about ten degrees of tilt, but has a fixed display height. On first use, imagery seemed quite muted, necessitating a trip to the menu – accessed via touchsensitive buttons – to alter the colour and gamma settings. You also get presets for brightness and viewing angle, which attempts to compensate for viewing position. Overall we found the colour fidelity to be good, with clear distinction between areas of low contrast, and with very little banding in gradients. When playing colourful media, like a movie, the monitor remains viewable from quite a wide angle, but with white or pale backgrounds, the colour shift is immediately noticeable. Indeed, a pure white backdrop revealed colour variation near the edges

TEAM TALK I really like the S27B750’s sleek lines and very modern appearence. It might not be ideal as a primary display for your Mac, but as a multimedia monitor, it’s great. It’s best used with external speakers. [t] @ijosborne

and blotchy areas at the bottom. These are indicative of the quality of these low-priced panels, but will largely go unnoticed. Audio from the built-in 5W speakers is a little woolly, and while perfectly acceptable, they’re never going to replace dedicated external speakers. In terms of connections, the S27B750 isn’t exactly well endowed, featuring just two HDMIs and a single RGB In, plus audio

In/Out. This is fine if it’s acting as your TV and games monitor, and it works with any Apple gear that has HDMI out, but for most Macs you’ll need a DVI-to-HDMI adapter. And because of its HDMI-only connection, you don’t get the luxury of USB or Ethernet ports. The native 1080p resolution and vivid colours makes this an ideal monitor for multimedia and general computing, but it’s not great for text; in fact it’s surprisingly poor and gets worse as font size decreases. So if your work involves staring at words or figures all day, it would be worth investing in the higher pixel density that 2560x1440 monitors can provide. Steve Jarratt

A handsome LED display that’s at its vibrant best when playing games or movies, but struggles with fine text. Good colour reproduction Bright, vibrant display Small text is hard to read No USB or Ethernet throughput

Samsung’s two-tone LED display has a unique, neo-retro look – as if it were a 2012 monitor designed in the 80s.

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Photography: Joby Sessions Image: iStockPhoto

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