The lowdown on TechRadar's new look

TechRadar
TechRadar has had a makeover

We've redesigned the UK's most popular technology news and reviews site to make it easier to use and faster to load, and we're now in the "ironing out bugs" phase, so please bear with us if some things don't quite work as expected.

This is also only the first phase of the new TechRadar - we'll have more exciting developments coming over the next few months.

But we'd love to hear what you think once you've had a look around. Please leave any comments - positive or negative - below.

What about the images?

One issue you'll notice immediately is that many images on older stories have a vertical grey bar on each side (unlike the one above).

This is because we have changed our image format to 16:9 from 4:3 and so images from the old TechRadar site are the wrong aspect ratio.

As the new site is rolled out we'll be cropping our images in the new aspect ratio (16:9) and the grey bars will disappear (like the one above).

The new TechRadar has been designed to showcase much better images and we'll be improving how we photograph kit in reviews as well as upping our game for news and feature images.

The new TechRadar front page

The key thing about the new TechRadar is that it's designed to be cleaner and a lot easier to navigate. There was a lot of content on the old site, but finding it wasn't always that simple.

The search function has also been overhauled, while the navigation has been reordered into key categories. Writers now also have their own pages, while you can also browse related articles by keyword, too.

TechRadar redesign

We've now moved to a blog view so you can more easily see the content that's most recently published. And, as well as what's new, we've also got a constantly updated list of our latest reviews, too. If you're into RSS, you can subscribe to either of these as a feed.

Each section is also tabbed, so you can delve deeper - for example, to look at the most read reviews or most discussed news and feature articles.

TechRadar redesign

Further down the page, we've got more emphasis on feature content than we used to with the old site. There's also a category tree for reviews on every page, so you can always browse for images by category.

TechRadar redesign

The new TechRadar news page

Our new news pages are easier to read, while you can view at-a-glance how many people have commented on each article.

The right-hand panel now shows the latest, most read and most discussed stories in each category.

There's still a breadcrumb on each article, so you can easily get back to category pages from any particular article.

TechRadar redesign - news

Again there are relevant reviews by the side of each article, while we've also got bigger 16:9 inline images, too.

TechRadar redesign - news

At the bottom of each article, there are also more social buttons, plus better related content than we had before.

TechRadar redesign - news

The comment system has also been improved and works a lot better, but we will be doing more work in this area, so there's a lot more to come.

TechRadar redesign - news

The new TechRadar reviews page

Our review pages are a lot different than before and will serve you will a lot more related content. The way we display pricing has also been overhauled.

You can also view user reviews from Revoo, as well as specifications for each product.

TechRadar redesign - reviews

Our page menu has changed and should be much easier to use for jumping around our bigger multi-page reviews.

TechRadar redesign - reviews

We'll also be incorporating better images in as many of our reviews as possible.

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You'll also see related reviews and features from the particular category you're in.

TechRadar redesign - reviews

TechRadar redesign - reviews

Pricing also appears at the bottom of each review, as well as the top.

TechRadar redesign - reviews

We hope you like the new look of TechRadar. We'll be rolling out more improvements over the coming weeks and months, so do please leave your comments below of what you'd like to see.

Global Editor-in-Chief

After watching War Games and Tron more times that is healthy, Paul (Twitter, Google+) took his first steps online via a BBC Micro and acoustic coupler back in 1985, and has been finding excuses to spend the day online ever since. This includes roles editing .net magazine, launching the Official Windows Magazine, and now as Global EiC of TechRadar.