EpsonExpression Home XP-432

A small all-in-one printer

From a distance, the XP-432 looks much like any other inkjet printer/scanner/copier. Then you realise you’re not seeing it from a distance – it’s just very small. That makes it an attractive option for a crowded desk. As with Epson’s other budget printers, the colour screen is tiny – even smaller than the one on the back of your average digital camera – which makes it less useful than it should be for previewing photos from the SD card slot.

Dell Optiplex 5040 Mini Tower

A PC that does the business

Look around any electronics shop, and you’ll find the computers they sell from the shelves aren’t the same ones they use on the counter. That’s because most big PC brands make entirely different ranges for consumers and businesses.

Dell’s Optiplex 5040 series is definitely aimed at the office, not the home. But it’s cheap enough to consider for home use. The first thing we noticed was the quality of the case. Most affordable PCs come in a basic black plastic box that aims to keep costs down, or a curvy multi-coloured confection designed to catch shoppers’ eyes. By contrast, the Optiplex looks like a piece of serious industrial equipment.

Mesh Elite Inspire CA

A complete PC with good peripherals

There are two questions people always ask you when your job is writing about PCs. One is when's the best time to buy a PC, and the other is when's the best time to get rid of it. Well, here’s the answer to both: there is no right time. Whenever you do it, you might have got a better deal a month later. Sorry, we realise that’s not helpful. But the good news is, if there’s no right time, there’s no wrong time either.

Huawei MediaPad M2 10

A stylish Android tablet

The tablet market has gone a bit quiet in the past few months. Even Apple’s iPads haven’t been selling quite as well as expected. There’s a feeling that maybe everyone who wanted a tablet has got one and is quite happy with it, thank you. They don’t get broken as easily as phones, and we don’t rely so much on their cameras, so there are fewer incentives to replace or upgrade them.

Samsung LC27F591FDUXEN

Honey, I bent the screen

Once upon a time, TV sets bulged like fishbowls around the cathode ray tubes that fired electrons at the glass screen. Later, Sony’s Trinitron all but eliminated the curve from top to bottom, but not side to side. Only with the switch to LCD did we get completely flat screens. And finally, the electronic display was perfected.