Articles by Desire Athow, Managing Editor, TechRadar Pro

Désiré has been musing and writing about technology during a career spanning four decades. He dabbled in website builders and web hosting when DHTML and frames were in vogue and started narrating about the impact of technology on society just before the start of the Y2K hysteria at the turn of the last millennium.

Then followed a weekly tech column in a local business magazine in Mauritius, a late night tech radio programme called Clicplus and a freelancing gig at the now-defunct, Theinquirer, with the late Mike Magee as mentor. After an eight-year stint at ITProPortal.com, where he discovered the joys of global techfests and transformed the publication into one of the biggest tech B2B independent publishers, Désiré moved to TechRadar Pro where he has been the editor for nine years.

He has an affinity for anything hardware and staunchly refuses to stop writing reviews of obscure products or cover niche B2B software-as-a-service providers. He is an avid deal hunter and can be found lurking around on various deals forums.

Articles by: Desire Athow

DeepSeek on steroids: Cerebras embraces controversial Chinese ChatGPT rival and promises 57x faster inference speeds

By Desire Athow Published 30 January 25

Cerebras brings its massive inference waferscale chip to DeepSeek R1 70B.

Someone's finger holding down a DVD disk in an external DVD player

Blu-ray is dying so I believe it's now time for 'obsolete' tape to shine again in the strangest of ironies

By Desire Athow Published 25 January 25

Sony announced that it is shutting down Blu-ray media production forever, so is tape the alternative?

8 Comments

Forget about a $120 Raspberry Pi 5 barebone, I found a much better mini PC that has 512GB SSD, a far more powerful CPU, Windows 11 Pro and an actual casing

By Wayne Williams Last updated 24 January 25

Think the 16GB Raspberry Pi 5 is expensive? We found a much better x86 alternative for the same price

23 Comments

A padlock icon next to a person working on a laptop.

Best business VPN of 2025

By Benedict Collins Last updated 23 January 25

VPN We list the best business VPN services, to help you connect safely and securely online with your business IT network.

Seagate smashes largest HDD world record with 36TB hard drive and reveals a 60TB model is coming

By Desire Athow Published 21 January 25

Seagate also plans to launch a 100TB HDD in the future.

Best cheap dedicated server deals of 2025

By Desire Athow Last updated 20 January 25

We list the best cheap dedicated server deals currently available, to make it simple and easy for you to upgrade and expand your web hosting portfolio.

An image of emails erupting like a flock of birds from a mobile device.

Best free email checker of 2025

By Pawan Singh, Desire Athow Last updated 16 January 25

We list the best free email checkers, to make it simple and easy to clean up your email lists of invalid or broken email addresses.

Microsoft 365 product logos on an orange background

Best Microsoft Office and Microsoft 365 deals in January 2025

By James Pickard Last updated 14 January 25

Here's where to buy the Microsoft Office suite for the lowest price and get the best deal on a Microsoft 365 subscription.

I am thrilled by Nvidia’s cute petaflop mini PC wonder, and it’s time for Jensen’s law: it takes 100 months to get equal AI performance for 1/25th of the cost

By Desire Athow Published 11 January 25

Nvidia’s desktop super computer is probably the greatest revolution in tech hardware since the IBM PC

A WD Red Pro NAS hard drive, one of the best NAS hard drive picks, against a two tone background

Best NAS hard drives of 2025: our picks for network storage drives

By John Loeffler Last updated 10 January 25

Updated We review the best NAS drive for every budget and use-case and these are our top picks.

A Velocity Micro PC, one of the best workstation picks, against a gold techradar background

Best workstation of 2025: top picks for professionals at every budget

By Desire Athow Last updated 3 January 25

Updated When it comes to power and performance, only the best workstations have what it takes.

Please disable this mobile broadband feature ASAP or risk losing hundreds of pounds like I almost did for Christmas

By Desire Athow Published 26 December 24

Putting a block on premium numbers could save your sanity ahead of Christmas

one of the best small business routers against a techradar pink background

Best small business router of 2024

By Collin Probst Last updated 18 December 24

Updated We list the best small business routers, to make it simple and easy for small and medium businesses to improve wireless connectivity.

one of the best mobile hotspots against a techradar blue background

Best mobile hotspot of 2024

By Desire Athow Last updated 18 December 24

Updated We list the best mobile hotspots, to make it simple and easy to set up a reliable and secure internet connection without using less secure public WiFi.

Best surge protector of 2024

By Desire Athow Last updated 18 December 24

Updated We list the best surge protectors and power strips, to make it simple and easy to protect your PC and IT equipment from power surges.

People using drawing software on a tablet and laptop.

Best website design service of 2024

By Desire Athow Last updated 17 December 24

We list the best website design services, to make it simple and easy to make your online presence look more professional.

A selection of SSDs and HDDs next to text promoting Cyber Monday deals

Best Cyber Monday SSD and hard drive deals 2024: with rising prices, these deals and discounts definitely won't last

By Steve Clark Last updated 3 December 24

Cyber Monday 2024 The Cyber Monday HDD and SSD deals continue - but I'm already seeing price rises

Cyber Monday MicroSD memory card deals from just $3.50

By Desire Athow Last updated 3 December 24

Black Friday 2024 Memory cards are becoming bigger and cheaper every year, which is perfect for content creators.

Two Asus mesh routers next to text promoting Cyber Monday

Best Cyber Monday mesh router deals 2024: I test and review routers for a living and these are my top pick offers

By Desire Athow Last updated 3 December 24

Cyber Monday 2024 Looking for the best Cyber Monday mesh router deals? As a tech tester, I've selected my favorite deals and discounts on a range of routers.

I tracked the best Cyber Monday USB flash drives from less than $0.40/GB but my favorite is this $100 one performs like an SSD

By Desire Athow Last updated 3 December 24

Cyber Monday 2024 Small but mighty, check out these Cyber Monday special deals on USB Flash drives for your storage needs

What are the most common web hosting cybersecurity concerns?

By Desire Athow Last updated 2 December 24

Phishing, malware and DDoS attacks are just a few of the ways hackers can try and take over your website.

Shared hosting vs dedicated hosting: Which plan should I choose?

By Desire Athow Last updated 1 December 24

Updated Confused about the differences between these types of web hosting? We’ll make everything crystal-clear.

I am a Microsoft 365 expert and these are the Office deals I’d buy with my money for Cyber Monday

By Desire Athow Last updated 1 December 24

VPN, Password manager, Identity monitoring, Antivirus and more than a dozen Microsoft applications

How shared hosting can kill your online business

By Desire Athow Last updated 30 November 24

Sharing server resources with other users can lead to performance issues which may drive away customers.

Person completing a feedback survey on a laptop

Best customer feedback tool of 2026

By Desire Athow Last updated 29 November 24

Updated We list the best customer feedback tools, to make it simple and easy to find out what your customers want and need from your business.

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