PC Magazine (sometimes referred to as PC Mag) is a computer magazine that is published monthly in the United States (until 2008 it was published biweekly except in January and July) both in print and online. The magazine is published by Ziff-Davis Publishing Holdings Inc. The first edition was released in January 1982 as a monthly called PC (the "Magazine" was not added to the logo until the first major redesign in January 1986). The magazine moved to biweekly publication in 1983 after a single monthly issue swelled to more than 800 pages.

The magazine's editor-in-chief, Lance Ulanoff, ascended to his current post in July 2007. Jim Louderback had held this position since 2005, but accepted the position of CEO of Revision3, an online media company.

Overview

PC Magazine provides reviews and previews of the latest hardware and software for the information technology professional. Articles are written by leading experts such as John C. Dvorak, whose regular column and Inside Track feature are among the magazine's most popular attractions. Other regular departments include columns by long-time editor-in-chief Michael J. Miller (Forward Thinking), Bill Machrone, and Jim Louderback, as well as:

• First Looks (a collection of reviews of newly-released products),
• Pipeline (a collection of short articles and snippets on computer-industry developments),
• Solutions (which includes various how-to articles),
• User-to-User (a section in which the magazine's experts answer user-submitted questions),
• After Hours (a section about various computer entertainment products; the designation "After Hours" is a legacy of the magazine's traditional orientation towards business computing), and
• Abort, Retry, Fail? (a beginning-of-the-magazine humor page which for a few years was known as Backspace--and was subsequently the last page).

Development and evolution

The magazine has evolved significantly over the years. The most drastic change has been the shrinkage of the publication due to contractions in the computer-industry ad market and the easy availability of the Internet, which has tended to make computer magazines less "necessary" than they once were. Where once mail-order vendors had huge listing of products in ads covering several pages, there is now a single page with a reference to a website. At one time (the 1980s through the mid-1990s), the magazine averaged about 400 pages an issue, with some issues breaking the 500- and even 600-page marks. In the late 1990s, as the computer-magazine field underwent a drastic pruning, the magazine shrank to 300-something and then 200-something pages.