Paul Lilly
Paul is a seasoned geek who was first seduced into the world of computers and technology by the Commodore 64, and through the years he’s courted a number of OSes and platforms from DOS on up to the latest version of Windows. Having joined the HotHardware team in 2011, Paul is now a mainstay of the site covering the news beat and reviews, and resident wiseguy who keeps the mood light. He’s also an experienced freelance technology writer whose work has appeared in a number of online and print publications.
Opinions and content posted by HotHardware contributors are their own.
Recent posts
As expected, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to restore net neutrality rules that were repealed during the Trump administration. The vote passed 3-2 in favor of reinstating net neutrality regulation by reclassifying broadband service as a Title II telecommunications service, which in turn enables the...
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The results are in for Intel's first quarter earnings and while investors sent the stock sliding in after hours trading on a soft Q3 outlook, the chip maker remains confident in its position. We'll get to that in a moment, but first let's discuss how Intel fared in the first quarter, both overall and among its...
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Valve offers a rather generous return policy on its Steam platform, which allows players to return games for a refund within two weeks (14 days) of purchase and with less than two hours of play time logged. As Valve plainly states on its refund page, "it doesn't matter" if the reason is because a PC doesn't meet a...
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The U.S. CHIPS and Science is in full Oprah meme mode as of late, essentially telling chip makers, 'You get a grant, you get a grant...everybody gets a grant!' The idea is to boost US chip manufacturing with some $280 billion earmarked to bolster the domestic semiconductor industry, and Micron has emerged as the...
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Update 4/25/24:
Corsair reached out to us to clarify the date format as mm-dd-yyyy, and confirm that May 5, 2024 is when it will be unveiling its Corsair One i500 gaming desktops with "next-gen components." That's only about a week and half away. If the Corsair One i500 is to use Ryzen 9000 series parts based on Zen...
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Could your home theater use an upgrade or two? Call it fortuitous timing, then, because the deal gurus at Woot are serving up big discounts on some of Samsung's best TV and soundbar products. Most of the products on sale come from the upper range of Samsung's lineup, including discounts on mini LED and OLED TVs, and a...
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Remember when a 55-inch TV was considered a big screen? They've been shoved aside by 75-inch, 85-inch, and even massively big 98-inch living room displays. Instead of dominating the living room, however, 55-inch panels have become an enormous option for PC battle stations, along with gaming monitors that are even...
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JEDEC, the standards body that oversees official memory specifications that get adopted by the industry at large, just gave DDR5 ab important speed boost. The new JESD79-JC5 specification defines a faster 8,800MT/s speed standard, which in theory could lead to wider adoption of speedier DDR5 RAM kits that are more...
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At this point, the handheld gaming market is more mature than it was when Valve introduced its Steam Deck a couple of years ago. It's a more competitive landscape now than it was in early 2022, and as we know, competition breeds better pricing for consumers. This is on display with several handheld gaming consoles...
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Following a brutal eight quarters of declining shipments, the PC market is back on the upswing, growing in the neighborhood of 3% in the first quarter of 2024, according the latest audit by the bean counters at Counterpoint Research. Not surprisingly, the long overdue return to growth comes on the heels of an...
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Over the coming years and decades, we're going to see a lot more computer chips manufactured on U.S. soil, with companies like Intel and TSMC investing heavily on new and upgraded semiconductor fab sites in North America. Lest it need be said, however, TSMC has confirmed that chips produced in the United States are likely to carry an up-charge
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There are two premium display technologies competing for the attention of consumers, those being OLED and mini LED (you can throw micro LED into the mix as well, but it's not as widely adopted yet or remotely affordable). Sony has chosen a side for refreshed Bravia TV line for 2024: mini LED is the winner, though it...
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Your TV's built-in speakers might get the job done but they'll never match the fidelity of dedicated speakers and bone crunching bass of a discrete subwoofer. The problem is, home theater speaker systems can be a bit of bear to set up. That's where soundbars come into play. To that end, LG is rolling out its new...
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It's important to dream big, and to that end, Acer's new and affordable Chromebook Plus 514 laptop has aspirations being an AI PC, though not necessarily through specialized hardware. Instead, the heavy marketing pitch towards AI is geared towards the "AI-powered capabilities of ChromeOS" and the Chromebook Plus...
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Over the years, we've seen a bunch of seriously impressive robotics demonstrations from Boston Dynamics, with several videos starring the firm's bipedal hydraulic Atlas robot. From running through a parkour course like a seasoned pro to romping around a construction site like a hard hat boss, Atlas is a marvel in...
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It was right around a year and a half ago when Samsung found itself in a braggadocios mood over its 8.5 gigabits per second (Gbps) low power data rate 5X (LPDDR5X) DRAM, the fastest in the industry at the time and validated for use on Qualcomm's Snapdragon mobile platforms. Then six months ago, Micron and SK hynix...
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You may not have noticed, but incredibly large TVs are coming within grasp of ordinary individuals rather than being relegated to those who scored big on Bitcoin, or otherwise amassed a fortune. No, we're not talking about 65-inch, 75-inch, or even 85-inch TVs, all of which no longer necessarily command a king's...
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The Biden administration has agreed to grant $6.4 billion in direct funding to Samsung as part of the CHIPS and Science Act, which in part will go towards an advanced semiconductor facility in Texas. The investment is part of a broader effort to "restore US leadership in semiconductor manufacturing." It will also...
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Look, if you're rocking a 49-inch monitor for your PC setup, then your battle station display is anything but puny. But plop it next to Acer's new Predator Z57? Well, that's about the only thing on the market that might make a 49-inch display feel small by comparison. As the model name implies, the Predator Z57 (first...
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Apple ended 2023 with bragging rights over Samsung by boasting the biggest share of the global smartphone market, but turns out it was a short-lived victory. According to the latest shipment and market share figures shared by IDC Research, Samsung is back in the top spot after iPhone sales slumped by nearly 10% to...
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If you find yourself in need of a new laptop, we have good news—there are a whole bunch of models on sale right now (as is usually the case as of late), including an all-time low price for Apple's M2 MacBook Air. Yes, it's officially a last-gen product with the M3 roll out, but it's still a powerful and efficient...
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Several reviews of Humane's wearable Ai Pin are now live and, much to the dismay of Ken Kocienda, head of product engineering at Humane, they're collectively less than glowing. In response, Kocienda took to X (formerly Twitter) to address what he insinuated were a bunch of "hot takes," chalking up the negative...
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