Marco Chiappetta
Recent posts
The "Intel Next Unit of Computing" (NUC), as it's appropriately called, is an ultra-compact desktop system that's small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, while packing a performance punch that belies its diminutive stature. Power users looking to game on their high-resolution 30-inch...
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In a sense, it feels like Windows Phone 8 is Microsoft's first real foray into the smartphone space post Windows Mobile. Of course, Microsoft made a concerted effort with Windows Phone 7, but there's something very different about version 8. WP8 borrows from the underpinnings of Windows Phone 7, but there are so many differences in the operating...
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OCZ has been carpet-bombing the solid state storage market for years now. It seemed that every time a new controller technology emerged, OCZ was at the ready with a fresh batch of products and over time built a portfolio that targeted virtually every market segment. Consumer-class solid state...
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OCZ has been carpet-bombing the solid state storage market for years now. It seemed that every time a new controller technology emerged, OCZ was at the ready with a fresh batch of products and over time built a portfolio that targeted virtually every market segment. Consumer-class solid...
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2012 has been a banner year for both notebooks and desktops, in terms of design and innovation. It's not every holiday season that you get to swoon over a new Windows operating system and freshly designed hardware to go with it, but those in the market this winter will be treated with Windows...
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The upcoming holiday season may just be the best ever for my fellow geeks. Whether you’re hoping for some hot new components for your existing system, a new camera, some new speakers, or maybe even a new mobile device or laptop, there is a myriad of good stuff already sitting on store shelves, just waiting to be gobbled up by holiday...
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With the release of the Nexus 7 not only did Google show that Android can be competitive on a small tablet, but they also beat the iPad mini to sale by several months, giving time for the Nexus 7 to gain a foothold in the market. Fast forward to today and Google's set their sights even higher: right into the 10" tablet fray where the iPad...
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Portable devices are becoming ever more powerful, and users are increasingly using them to keep up with news and friends, get work done, and remain entertained. Smartphones and tablets have never been so powerful, and if you're in market for either, it's going to be a fun holiday season...
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Lenovo's IdeaPad Yoga 13 ultrabook is designed to give users flexibility in a way other ultrabooks don't: This ultrabook features a unique, dual-articulating hinge that lets the Yoga 13's touchscreen fold 360 degrees, converting the machine from notebook mode to tablet mode. Thanks to its special hinge design, the Yoga 13 can also be used...
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They say hindsight is 20/20. Looking back, it’s now obvious that Microsoft had dropped a number of hints that the company would eventually offer its own tablet, which should have made their Surface announcement last summer much less of a surprise. It was way back in 2008 that Microsoft began showing off its similarly named Surface tabletop,...
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They say hindsight is 20/20. Looking back, it’s now obvious that Microsoft had dropped a number of hints that the company would eventually offer its own tablet, which should have made their Surface announcement last summer much less of a surprise to industry insiders. It was way back in 2008 that Microsoft began showing off its similarly...
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Take a look at a smartphone from a few years ago compared to something available today and you'll find a number of major differences. Screens, processors, operating systems and more are advancing at a breakneck speed. However, battery tech has been stuck moving at a relatively glacial pace, as evidenced by even some of the highest spec'ced...
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Normally we don't cover games that are still in alpha. While beta coverage is typically a good example of how final gameplay is shaping up, alpha is a time when major design elements are still in flux. We're making an exception for Crysis 3's recent multiplayer test, however, to highlight just...
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Last month, Intel brought us out to the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) in Austin to brief us on its latest and greatest foray into high-performance computing (HPC) and exascale level processing performance. For Intel, years of heady talk about parallelism and exascale computing have...
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After 25 years of typing on keyboards, I've field-tested everything from IBM's legendary Mode M to the sort of $4.99 specials that were, as far as I could tell, constructed from styrofoam, packing peanuts, and pocket lint. About a year ago, I made the jump to a pair of mechanical keyboards and...
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The Intel SSD 335 is the company’s first solid state drive to ship with NAND flash memory produced using a 20nm process. Intel claims the drive “uses the smallest, most efficient multi-level cell NAND flash on the market”. The flash memory used on the Intel SSD 335 was...
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The solid state storage market has rapidly evolved over the last four years or so. Whereas early drives were relatively slow and offered inconsistent performance, current high-end drives routinely approach the limits of the SATA interface and off much better performance, both in terms of...
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Calling the Alienware M18x R2 a laptop is like referring to a Harley Davidson as a bicycle. Both have handlebars and ride on two wheels, but when the rubber hits the road, the Harley's going to leave a Schwinn in the rear-view mirror. So it goes with the Alienware system we abducted from Dell...
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The original Samsung Galaxy Note was a bit of an oddity. When it was first introduced, many reviewers, analysts, and industry pundits scoffed at the device’s relatively large form factor. The 5.3” screen on the original Note looked simply gargantuan next to anything else available on the market at the time, leading many folks to...
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The original Samsung Galaxy Note was a bit of an oddity in the smartphone market. When it was first introduced, many reviewers, analysts, and industry pundits scoffed at the device’s relatively large form factor. The 5.3” screen on the original Note looked simply gargantuan next to anything else available on the market at...
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Even before AMD officially released its Bulldozer-based FX-Series of desktop processors last year, the company was already talking about the follow-on microarchitecture codenamed “Piledriver”. In fact, in the conclusion of our launch article featuring the AMD FX-8150, we posted an AMD-provided slide that showed Piledriver...
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Even before AMD officially released its Bulldozer-based FX-Series of desktop processors last year, the company was already talking about the follow-on microarchitecture codenamed “Piledriver”. In fact, in the conclusion of our launch article featuring the AMD FX-8150, we posted an AMD-provided slide that showed Piledriver was already...
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