WatchGuard’s Firebox M390 shows that high-end security appliances don’t always command a high price. Targeting busy SMBs with up to 250 users, this affordable 1U rack model boasts a top raw firewall throughput of 18Gbits/sec, dropping to a respectable 2.4Gbits/sec with all UTM security services enabled.

A simplified licensing scheme makes it easy to manage costs. We’ve shown the price of a Total Security Suite (TSS) subscription, which enables everything WatchGuard has to offer. This includes gateway antivirus, anti-spam, web content filtering, application controls, intrusion prevention services (IPS) and an advanced persistent threat (APT) blocker with cloud sandboxing.

You also get WatchGuard’s reputation enabled defense (RED) cloud-based URL filtering, ThreatSync XDR for collection, correlation and automated responses to threat events, and DNSWatch to monitor client DNS requests and block access to known malicious domains. It has enough power to run the Cylance AI-based IntelligentAV malware scanning engine; the elderly dual-core Celeron in the M370 has been upgraded to an 8-core NXP LS2084A CPU.

There’s room to grow, as the front expansion bay accepts modules with gigabit, 10GbE or 2.5GbE multi-gigabit ports. Note that the PoE+ services on the multi-gig module will be disabled as the M390 doesn’t support the required 54V power supply, which is only available on the M590 and M690 models.

The appliance is easy to deploy. Its web console wizard sorts out the LAN and WAN network interfaces and applies a base set of firewall policies that include blocking common undesirable web categories. We had already registered the appliance’s serial number with our cloud support account so the wizard grabbed our TSS feature key and applied it.

The M390 can be managed in standalone mode, but businesses with multiple appliances will prefer WatchGuard’s Cloud portal, which is included in both the Basic Security Suite (BSS) and TSS subscriptions. Two choices are available: you can keep local management and set the appliance to send its logs to the cloud for remote monitoring and reporting or move it all into the cloud.

Full cloud management is activated by allocating the appliance from your account inventory and enabling it from the local console. The portal steps through WAN port setup and applying new admin passwords, after which the appliance disables local management.

Cloud configuration is simple as the portal groups all security settings for the appliance in one page. From the content scanning section you activate antivirus scanning, APT blocking, IntelligentAV and anti-spam policies for incoming SMTP, IMAP or POP3 traffic.

The network blocking section covers botnet detection, IPS, port and site blocks and detection of Tor exit points. WatchGuard’s WebBlocker service is accessed in the content filtering section and offers 166 URL categories that can be allowed, blocked or set to display a warning page to users.

Each content filter action policy manages both web access and application controls. The latter presents nearly 1,300 predefined app and protocol signatures, with Facebook and X activities getting the lion’s share of the social networking category. They’re easy to apply; when creating firewalls rules, you simply choose the action policy you want to assign.

The portal’s monitoring page provides a wealth of information on all activities. Graphs and charts are provided for live activity, traffic, detected malware and botnets, application usage, blocked websites, top clients and much more.

The Firebox M390 will appeal to SMBs with a large user base. It combines strong performance with an incredible range of security measures all at a competitive price. It’s easy to deploy and WatchGuard’s cloud portal delivers excellent remote management and monitoring features.

We also rated the best anti-virus software for PC.

TP-Link’s first Wi-Fi 7 business access point (AP) sets a high standard for the rest to follow, as this slimline discus has a mighty BE19000 rating. The EAP783 achieves this with a claimed 1,376Mbits/sec on the 2.4GHz radio, 5,760Mbits/sec on 5GHz and a speedy 11,520Mbits/sec on 6GHz, with the latter enabling the ultrawide Wi-Fi 7 320MHz channels.

It’s also one of the first APs to support the multi-link operation (MLO) feature, which allows devices to connect to the 2.4GHz, 5GHz and 6GHz bands simultaneously for increased throughput and reduced latency. The only downside is that very few end-user devices currently support MLO, and Windows users will have to wait until Windows 11 24H2 is fully released.

The EAP783 has other appealing credentials. It provides two 10GbE ports, with the first requiring an 802.3bt PoE++ power source; there’s also an input for TP-Link’s optional 12V adapter. The second 10GbE port is designed to be aggregated with the primary network port for a higher network connection speed.

Despite the AP’s 12 internal aerials, TP-Link has kept the size down to a manageable 280mm diameter and a thickness of 47mm. It’s heavy, though, tipping the scales at 1.4kg – around 15g more than Zyxel’s WBE660S.

The EAP783 supports standalone mode, where the web console’s quick start wizard requests a new username and password, after which it removes the default admin account for extra security. Eight SSIDs per radio can be created, and the wizard asks you to configure the first three and provide new encryption keys.

For our real-world Wi-Fi 7 performance tests we connected the AP to the lab’s Zyxel XS1930-12HP 10GbE PoE++ switch and used a Lenovo desktop client running Windows 11 Pro 24H2 Insider Preview and fitted with a TP-Link Archer TBE550S Wi-Fi 7 PCI-E adapter. With Windows reporting a Wi-Fi 7 connection speed of 5,764Mbits/sec, we saw large file copies between the client and a Windows server on our 10GbE LAN averaging close-range speeds of 323MB/sec, dropping to an equally impressive 280MB/sec with the AP placed ten meters away in an adjoining room.

The web console provides a separate section for MLO where you create a new SSID and decide which of the three radios to assign to it. Performance-wise, we saw no benefits from a triple radio MLO SSID as the Windows 11 client reported the same speed as a standard Wi-Fi 7 connection and our copies were no faster.

TP-Link offers plenty of cloud management choices. You can deploy its hardware or free software controller on-site or use its cloud-hosted controller, which has a yearly fee of £165 for 250 devices. We use TP-Link’s OC300 dual-port controller appliance in the lab as its £130 price enables lifetime cloud management of up to 500 Omada APs, switches and routers.

All controllers are viewed from the Omada portal home page, and selecting the OC300 transported us to its own console. This presents a ribbon across the top showing all cloud-managed devices, and selecting a site below provides options to create multiple dashboards with a wide range of widgets.

The EAP783 initially appears as “pending” in the portal, and all you do is adopt it and assign it to a site. It only takes a minute, after which the AP disables its local web interface for security reasons, takes all its settings from the controller and broadcasts your preconfigured SSIDs.

It’s easy to add more SSIDs, apply a desired personal or enterprise encryption scheme, set client and SSID rate limits and define schedules to determine when they’re active. For the EAP783, we could enable any of all of its three radios, and we noted the portal has an option to create MLO Wi-Fi 7 SSIDs.

The EAP783 will appeal to businesses looking to make an early transition to Wi-Fi 7. It delivers excellent performance and is MLO-ready, and TP-Link’s Omada cloud platform offers great remote management services.

We also rated the best routers for small businesses.

The Meeting Owl products from Owl Labs have consistently been among the best video conferencing (VC) solutions on the market, and the Meeting Owl 4+ comes with even more appeal. Previously, the Owl Pro and Owl 3 offered a comparatively low 1080p resolution, but the Owl 4+ sports a new 64MP fish-eye camera that boosts video output to 4K Ultra HD.

There’s more going on inside, as it gets a faster Snapdragon 8250 SoC – the same as used by the 4K Owl Bar. The extra power has been put to good use by the Owl Intelligence System (OIS) software as businesses can pair multiple Owl devices together to provide total in-room coverage.

The Owl 4+ sports the same array of eight microphones as the Owl 3, which it uses to identify speakers. The smart part is the video feed: the Owl 4+ presents a 360-degree panoramic view across the top of the screen, dynamically splits the main display below to show the three most recent speakers and zeros in on the person currently speaking.

The internal speaker count has been reduced from three to two, but output quality is undiminished. Comparisons with an Owl Pro found that the Owl 4+ was just as loud at maximum volume but delivered a much cleaner sound quality, with its heavier body producing a warmer bass without the shrillness of the Owl Pro.

Other improvements are an integral K-Lock security slot and an option to turn off the white LED “eyes” if they become a distraction. The Owl 4+ comes with an external power supply that can be replaced with an optional Power over Ethernet (PoE) network adapter, which has the part number ACCMTW405-0006 and costs around £75.

Installation is a breeze. After plugging the Owl 4+ into a Windows 11 Pro desktop PC, it loaded all the required drivers and defaulted to the split-screen mode. Management options abound: the free Owl mobile app connects over Bluetooth and provides tools to register the device and connect it to a wireless network for software updates. You can also enable remote management from the Owl Nest cloud portal, and meeting room analytics.

Using the iOS app on an iPad, we could passcode-protect Bluetooth access, choose the central point for the 360-panoramic view or disable it, set the camera to lock and focus on one person or follow a presenter. You can turn off the video feed and control the volume during meetings and use a whiteboard to present notes and diagrams to attendees, replacing the split screen in their session window.

The Owl 4+ supports all popular VC platforms, and we had no problems using Teams, Zoom and Skype. You’ll be impressed when you first use it as the video display is quite remarkable and noticeably sharper than the Owl 3.

During meetings, it maintained the full-room panoramic view at the top and swapped effortlessly between active speakers in the split screen below. It’s fast, too, taking around two seconds to swap from one active speaker to another, with the slide animation placing up to three participants in the main view. During small round-table meetings, we found a 50% volume level was quite sufficient and remote participants could hear us clearly, even when three meters away from the table.

Pairing the Owl 4+ with an Owl Bar is easy, as you place them within two-and-a-half meters of each other with their front logos facing off and use the mobile app to pair them, after which they’ll use their tracking algorithms to choose the best view. No more looking at the back of people’s heads if they turn away from the Owl Bar, as the Owl 4+ takes over so they’re always looking directly at you.

For fully immersive meetings, nobody does it better than Owl Labs. The Owl 4+ delivers excellent video quality plus super-smooth speaker tracking, and pairing it with an Owl Bar covers every meeting room angle.

We've also ranked the best streaming microphones for content creation.

One of the biggest challenges for Logitech is that its best webcams are expensive compared to no-name rivals on Amazon that have similar specifications. As a recent example, consider the £219 MX Brio 705 for Business I reviewed four months ago.

Admittedly, that was a top-end device packed with features and capable of 4K streaming at 30fps. The Brio 105 is a more modest offering that’s limited to 1080p and a 58° field of view (the Brio 705 offers a choice of three FoVs). But in practice, how much resolution and flexibility do most people need? If it’s only you, sitting at your desk, attending a meeting, 1080p is absolutely fine, and a 58° FoV will place you large in the frame.

More to the point, image quality is excellent. Not just in strong light, but also when I turned off my office light at night and relied on my screen’s backlight. The Brio 105 still did a fine job, without any amateurish artefacts.

The other plus side of buying from Logitech is that the Brio can be managed from Logitech’s mature software, whether Logi Options+ for individuals or Logi Tune for businesses (you can deploy it using Logitech Sync). There’s also a three-year warranty, while the webcam has been certified for Google Meet and Works with Chromebook -and it will naturally work on Windows and macOS with all the usual conferencing platforms. Logitech takes sustainability seriously, too, promising that the plastic parts are made from 77% post-consumer recycled plastic and that this is a carbon neutral product.

From a practical point of view, it’s good to see a basic but functional plastic shutter that you can slide over the lens when not in use, and while the single mic lacks any advanced features, I found it worked fine in a home office environment. The Brio is light enough to sling into a bag, but the whole assembly will come with you as the 1.5m USB-A cable is captive rather than detachable, as is the basic two-part mechanism to keep it in place atop your screen.

Of course, you can save cash by buying a £15 webcam with the same specs. But it won’t perform as well in low light and definitely won’t be as easy to roll out and manage for businesses.

We also ranked the best budget webcams.