Dave Altavilla
Recent posts
Google has been designing and building premium Android smartphones for many years, co-branding with various hardware partners since back in the days of the company's Nexus devices. More recently with its first generation Pixel series, the Mountain View team has taken more prominent ownership of the brand, with devices specifically underscored...
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One could argue that the two primary features of a modern laptop that can most prominently define the user experience would be its display and keyboard. After all, these two aspects make up the majority of a notebook PC's human-computer interface. If that's the case, then Lenovo's latest ThinkPad X1 Yoga (Gen 2) with...
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If ever there was a brand of laptops that folks might refer to as “iconic,” it would be Lenovo’s ThinkPad line of business-class machines. The ThinkPad line was also a very successful go-to notebook brand for many mainstream consumers over the years as well. Known for their minimalist, straight-forward but highly...
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If you keep a pulse on the premium smartphone arena, you probably have a line on the fact that there might be something special about the forthcoming LG V30. Set for an official IFA 2017 unveiling, the new handset has been leaked, rumored and even teased by LG itself. LG in fact has been on a consistent marketing...
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We had the chance to spend some time at Samsung’s Unpacked 2017 event in New York City today, where the brand new Galaxy Note 8 was officially unveiled. If you missed our initial coverage of the announcement, the Galaxy Note 8 features a 6.3-inch Super AMOLED Infinity Display with a WQHD+ resolution (2960×1440) and...
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A new feature of NVIDIA's latest GeForce technology for laptops that we weren't able to evaluate until now, is something NVIDIA calls Whisper Mode. Like its recently introduced Max-Q technology that paves the way for thinner and lighter gaming laptops such as the ASUS ROG Zephyrus GX501, Whisper Mode is another type...
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Today is the day AMD's Radeon Technologies Group has been working towards for a long time. The official launch of the Radeon RX Vega is here, and it's now time for AMD RTG's moment in the spotlight. Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) has been on a tear as of late; the desktop and server processor group executed...
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AMD's Ryzen series of next generation desktop processors have garnered a lot of buzz and praise around the web, but among the family of chips, none have created quite the stir as the company's Threadripper models of 16-core and 12-core processors. While Ryzen helped propel AMD back to essentially performance...
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Adjustable sit-stand desks are all the rage these days, after some smart person in the healthcare field put two and two together to figure out that planting your backside in an office chair all day long is really not good for you, and in more ways than one. Adjustable height desks come generally in two variants...
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When Dell announced in June that its Alienware gaming division would be the exclusive OEM partner for pre-built 16-core AMD Ryzen Threadripper systems, we figured Alienware would have a jump on the rest of the OEM pack, but we never thought they'd have this much of a head-start. In fact, we have Ryzen Threadripper...
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Gaming enthusiasts understand the impact that a proper gaming mouse can have on their performance. Whether it be for fast flick-shots in CS:GO or for programming macros in MOBAs, having a gaming mouse tailored to your needs is an absolute necessity. For this review, we compared three newer mid-range gaming mice from a...
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There was a time when laptop options were basically a choice between desktop-like performance in a heavy and bulky form-factor, an ultralight with integrated graphics, or something in the middle, around 5-lbs with a low-end GPU. NVIDIA sought to solve this choice compromise with its Max-Q Design initiative that was...
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Mechanical keyboards are wildly popular among computing enthusiasts and gamers currently. However, hardcore and old school geeks alike will argue that the venerable IBM Model F, circa 1981 and sporting keys that must be forced down on internal buckling springs, was the best mechanical keyboard ever made. It was a key...
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NVIDIA's Computex 2017 unveiling of the new GeForce GTX with Max-Q Design technology for laptops was presented with the usual charismatic polish and enthusiasm that the company's leather-clad CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang is well known for. Frankly, it seemed a little too good to be true. In one hand, Huang held a legacy...
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Here’s the thing about most types of mobile malware in the wild; they’re avoidable. That doesn’t mean, however, if you’re not paying attention--and especially if you’re the type that likes to customize things as the Android platform is so capable of--that you might not stumble into some nasty code deplorables. Such is...
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Today marks the launch of AMD's EPYC family of processors for data center servers. Based on the company's Zen microarchitecture, it has become abundantly clear that AMD was targeting the lucrative data center market first and foremost with its new CPU architecture and the highly scalable Naples platform that leverages...
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Over the next few months, Intel will be releasing an array of new high-end desktop processors in the recently-announced Core X Series, based on the Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X micro-architectures. The first chips in the series to arrive in the lab are the 10-core Core i9-7900X and quad-core Core i7-7740X. We’ve got an...
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Microsoft has gone to great lengths to foster adoption of its Windows 10 operating system, and for good reason. In addition to it likely being one of the best iterations of the Windows OS in a long time--with better security, support for DX12 and host of other features--it’s clearly also a platform for MSFT to better...
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Hybrid 2-in-1 tablet convertible devices like Samsung's new Galaxy Book 12 are a tough gig. Striking a balance between ultimate portability, performance, and battery life is not easy when it comes to the well-under 2 pound device class of products. That said, Microsoft made a go of it with the very popular Surface Pro...
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Lenovo's venerable ThinkPad business oriented laptop line is punctuated by a couple of stand-out models, but perhaps none as striking, at least for a ThinkPad, as the ThinkPad X1 series. In its current lineup, Lenovo offers two models specifically that command attention perhaps more than others, the ThinkPad X1 Yoga that we recently revisited--with...
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For most folks, VR (Virtual Reality) and AR (Augmented Reality) may sound like all fun and games. However, at Dell EMC World in Las Vegas this week, Nike demonstrated with the help of Dell Technologies, why AR, VR and supportive input technologies like Haptics, will be the future of industrial design. Shoe design may...
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If you want an early look at what to expect with NVIDIA’s next generation of high performance GeForce graphics processors, code-named Volta, today at GTC 2017 the company's CEO Jen-Hsun Huang just offered the first public unveiling of a product based on the next generation GPU architecture. NVIDIA just announced its...
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