Embrace the right medium for the right job

I DOUBT MANY people will read Paul Ockenden’s column this month without suffering a shudder of recognition ( see p113). In it he explains how he’s using a five-year-old scanner to fight against ever-growing piles of paper, and having just completed a clear-out of my office, I’m tempted to follow suit (I especially like his approach to dealing with the daily post).

Because there’s no disputing one fact: paper is as big a pain as it is a boon. Naturally, I love paper. I scrawl daily notes into a Leuchtturm1917 notebook that then becomes an archive of my year, and you may have noticed that PC Pro is primarily a paper magazine. Paper is both tactile and permanent in a way that nothing else can match.

The downside is obvious: space. I spend 90% of my working life in a glorified 12 x 8ft shed at the end of my garden, and with each passing month my mounds of paperwork and magazines grow higher. Even after my clearout, I have two full boxes of papers to sift through, just to make sure I’m not chucking something I’ll need roughly ten seconds after the recycling lorry has consumed it.

Like Paul, I don’t believe in the paperless office, but I am cutting down my paper carbs. Where I can get an electronic receipt, I will – so much easier to find. If I’m going to read a pulp novel – I have a weird addiction to the Harry Bosch stories that I can’t explain – then I’ll do so on my Kindle. But for “proper” novels, I’ll always opt for the paper route.

I did try reading magazines on my first and only iPad, but we never got on. I like to soak up information from magazines, and while tablet editions are a great backup if you can’t get the real thing – I know we have readers all over the world who can’t buy the paper version of PC Pro, even though they’d like to – there’s no substitute for holding something “real” while sitting on a chair, bed, or that other place where I know people read magazines.

So, while we have just switched to a new app for iOS and Android, which I encourage you to download and try (search “PC Pro magazine”), you’ll only find me reading magazines on a tablet if I’m travelling by plane. Even then, I’m more likely to be doing work. I fell a little in love with the Surface Go, reviewed as part of our tablets group test on p74, because it’s tiny yet capable of doing real work.

I accept that it falls down compared to the iPad when it comes to apps. Despite Microsoft’s best efforts, Windows 10 is years behind iOS and Android for entertainment on the move; to continue my example, I find playing Ticket to

Ride an excellent way to fill the hours of a cross-Atlantic flight when I’ve finished tapping away in Word. It’s available for both iOS and Android, but the Microsoft Store only offers scorekeeping apps for the physical board game.

Even so, of all the tablets in this month’s group test, the only one I’d buy – indeed, the only one I have bought – is the Surface Go. But that’s because I know what I want from my tablet. As phones have become bigger, they have become my consumption device, and I want a tablet to be my portable creation tool. I’m far more likely to buy the Galaxy Note 9 ( see p50) or iPhone Xs Max ( see p56) than any non-Windows tablet.

But that’s just me. Here’s hoping that this issue, which is packed full of the latest technology, can guide help you with your buying decisions whether for home, office or – as in my case – a mixture of both.