BEST BUYS…
Curated picks of third-party kit
monitor ViewSonic VP2772 £650 viewsonic.com
If you’re not fussed about 4K but still want exceptional image quality, this IPS display is truly superb. It offers 99% coverage of the Adobe RGB colour space, 10-bit colour and a 2560x1440-pixel resolution. It has HDMI 1.4, DVI and Mini DisplayPort connections, and four USB 3.0 ports for expansion.
network storage QNAP TS-251+ 6TB £480 qnap.com
We know a good NAS drive when we see one, which is why the 6TB TS-251+ won MF302’ s group test. It’s one of the quickest NAS drives we’ve seen lately, with transfer rates of over 105MB/sec for large files. It has an HDMI port and a remote control for watching your media directly on your TV set. Four USB ports top it off.
printer Brother HL-3150CDW £108 brother.co.uk
This versatile laser printer got the nod in MF300’ s group test. Its light design, feature list, and impressive print quality make it a great choice for home office users. AirPrint and Wi-Fi connectivity means it plays nice with your iOS devices. It’s not great for printing photos, but is a winner at everything else.
ultra hd monitor Philips 328P6VJEB £573 philips.co.uk
We love this display. At 32 inches diagonally it’s big enough to make its 4K resolution worthwhile, and its colour rendering is excellent – 100% of sRGB, 93% of Adobe RGB and 97% of the P3 gamut that Apple’s new MacBook Pro uses. It’s big, bold, beautiful and superb for productivity and colour work alike.
wire less router D-Link AC3200 (DIR-890L) £209 dlink.com
Being a tri-band router, this blows every other router we’ve seen out of the water when it comes to speed. We saw speeds of 600Mbps between two Macs in the same room. Wi-Fi speeds hit up to 3.2Gbps, so its three channels mean it’s no slouch there either. It’s costly, but is a worthy investment if speed is your thing.
NEW! ip camera Netatmo Presence £250 netatmo.com
The Netatmo Presence is an impressive outdoor security camera. Set in a sturdy housing, it’s built to defy the elements. It has a built-in floodlight to deter intruders, and a 100° field of view recorded in 1080p. There’s also an SD card included, making it easy to store and access your footage.
Exter nal SSD G-Technology G-Drive Slim SSD USB-C £157 g-technology.co.uk
Most USB SSDs we’ve tested have peaked at about 440MB/sec, but not this 500GB one; it peaked at 496.1MB/sec for write speeds and 534.7MB/sec when reading, very close to the claimed 540MB/sec. It lagged a bit in our random read test, but for copying big files over USB-C, this is the drive to pick.
thunderbolt dock CalDigit Thunderbolt Station 2 £210 caldigit.com/uk
Our MF297 group test winner got the nod for its beautifully compact form and superb menu bar tool, which lets you eject individual drives as you please (something its rivals failed to offer). It’s not the most laden with ports, but has everything that most people will need, and comes in at a great price point.
macbok bag Knomo Hanson £90 knomobags.com
Deceptively spacious inside, the Hanson is full of well padded pockets to protect your precious portables. It’s extremely comfortable, distributing weight well so your shoulders don’t feel the strain, and is rather good looking, but remains subtle enough not to attract the attention of light-fingered thieves.