Sourabh’s blog

When an international publication like PC World set foot on the Indian turf and come up with their dedicated magazine aimed at the Indian masses, it’s kind of a warning sign for existing mags. Competition does a lot of funny things, and I kinda expect the same to be happening here.

I got hold of the first issue of PC World Indian edition yesterday. Inaugural price of the issue was a descent 60 Rs. This didn’t make me think twice about buying the issue. I have been a reader of their international issues for long via e-books. A couple of things which I liked about PC world distinctly were their unique rating system and column based articles by writers. I expected the same in the Indian issue, and I was not wrong. The layout and other details were parallel to their international publication. Majority of the articles featured came from global writers for their big brothers probably. I do expect a lot more to lend it an Indian touch. The issue comes with a free dual layer DVD which boasts Ubuntu Dapper, Kubuntu, Xubuntu and Fedora Core 5 64bit edition ( the last three don’t mean much to me) – I don’t mind – especially when I wanted to try Ubuntu 6 for long and my net connection has been down for well over a few weeks to download it.

The PC World DVD has been a blessing in disguise. The optical drive in my laptop had been dead for more than a couple of months and barely managed to read burnt cd’s. But when I popped in the PC World DVD, My drive rejuvenated and for my surprise – not only did it read the DVD also burnt the Ubuntu image perfectly (nevermind if took 12 minutes to write it)

All in all, it is nice to have more choices/options which can resort to quench your thirst for technology when you buy the magazine. There are a lot more choices at the newsstand than ever before by the likes of Digit, Chip, Computer Act!ve, PC Quest, Linux for You, Skoar! and now the PC World. I am sure there would be a few more but these are all I recollect now.

As for first PC World July 2006 issue, it is a nice beginning. I hope they pack in more volume in their mag in the next issue – 110 odd pages is too less. I wonder how long they would stick to the inaugural 60 Rs. I would be happy to see their Indian website to be on similar lines to their main portal @ www.pcworld.com offering more than just some info about their mag and offer some interactivity. I have never been in favor of subscribing to limit yourself to a single magazine. There are better options available every month- so its worth buying from the news stand and getting the issue which appeals you the most. All these magazines are throwing attractive subscription offers to cement their subscribed reader base. So lets see how game all these computer magazines are in this competition. In the end, readers are the only one who will benefit when they try to be better than their counterparts with better content, offers and deals.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 3rd, 2006 at 4:27 pm and is filed under General, Personal, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.