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
When the first Service Pack shipped for Windows Vista, it was a pretty big deal. After all, it took several performance and reliability updates to turn what debuted as a buggy OS into a serviceable platform, all of which were rolled into...
Read more...
Don't let it ever be said that Toshiba doesn't love its PC and Mac brethren equally, lest how would you explain the Canvio, Toshiba's latest portable backup solution for Macs? The thing comes in 500GB, 750GB, and 1TB capacities, each one pre-loaded with Mac specific backup software. "Toshiba...
Read more...
Apple and AT&T can't seem to catch a break in the court of public opinion lately, and now the two will have to defend themselves in a real court. That's because a federal judge has ruled that a monopoly lawsuit against Apple and...
Read more...
It's never pretty watching two nerds duke it out, and as is often the case, a would-be battle turns into a lot of awkward posturing. That's currently what's going on between Fring, who last week released an updated iPhone app allowing iPhone 4 owners to make 2-way video calling over Wi-Fi or...
Read more...
It's a dog-eat-dog world in the mobile phone space, and had T-Mobile remained staunch in trying to sell the GarminFone to its customers for $200, it would have been quickly gobbled up by Samsung's Galaxy S (known as the Samsung Vibrant on T-Mobile) when it's released later this week. Not...
Read more...
Decide for yourself whether this is a good thing or not, but according to Intel, reports of the Celeron's death have been greatly exaggerated. Responding to Internet rumblings that Intel would phase out the Celeron brand in 2011, the world's largest chip maker said the rumors are false, plain and simple. "The rumor is not true, Intel has no...
Read more...
Dell's Studio line has always been about both form and function, and now an even greater emphasis is being placed on the aesthetic design. In a joint collaboration with Threadless, Dell is sprucing up its Studio laptop line with "11 inspired designs," each one created and submitted by members...
Read more...
Chris Ball, the Lead Software Engineer for the OLPC project, made a series of announcements this week about the direction the low-cost laptop is taking, not the least of which is the addition of a multitouch display. That's right folks, the next iteration of the XO laptop -- XO-1.75 -- will...
Read more...
Half the fun in putting together your ultimate home theater setup is piecing together parts you hand selected after auditioning each one (you don't just buy audio components based on paper specs and price, do you?). It's similar to rolling...
Read more...
Just because it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck doesn't mean it's a duck at all. And by that same token, Motorola's newest smartphone sure looks like a BlackBerry and has a physical keyboard like a BlackBerry, but this ain't not BlackBerry, folks. It's Motorola's Charm, and it's...
Read more...
There's a new beta browser in town, and its name is Firefox 4. Previously available in "Candidate" form, this latest release is a bit more polished and ready for anyone comfortable playing with beta software, which may or may not prove stable (been running fine for us so far). If Firefox 4 looks eerily familiar, then you must have logged some...
Read more...
You have to hand it to HTC, the handset maker who has found a way to be profitable by bombarding mobile phone market with a near-endless stream of smartphone models. The strategy is paying off, and quite handsomely -- HTC on Tuesday said its second quarter net profit jumped by 33 percent, The...
Read more...
For compatibility reasons, many corporations still insist on deploying Internet Explorer across their workforce, no matter how much the end-user complains. It's not that IE is more standards compliant than other browsers -- in most cases, the opposite is true -- but Microsoft's longstanding...
Read more...
Comedians often make cracks at banks for including Braille on drive-through ATMs (there are number of valid reasons why they do this), but given the progress made by researchers at The National Federation of the Blind and Virginia Tech, don't assume that the driver in front of you isn't...
Read more...
We're going to be up to our eyeballs in tablets this holiday shopping season if every company who promises to release a slate in 2010 comes through. That's potentially bad news for Apple, and maybe great news for LG, the latest electronics maker to announce plans to release a tablet before the...
Read more...
PC gamers are a lucky bunch, particularly those who have only recently begun their journey into the awesome world of computers. Never before has this hobby been so affordable, and there was a time not that long ago when building a cheap gaming rig resulted in a second-rate gaming experience, one devoid of copious amounts of eye candy and buttery...
Read more...
Text messaging teens who don't already own an iPhone are headed for tough times in the trendy smartphone market. First we find out that Microsoft's Kin phones aren't selling as well as the software juggernaut had hoped, leaving questions as to the future of the Kin One and Kin Two, and now...
Read more...
All the "I"s are dotted and the "T"s are crossed in Hewlett Packard's $1.2 billion acquisition of Palm, which was finalized on Thursday, HP announced. That means HP can officially begin putting into motion whatever plans it has for Palm's technology, and most notably the newly acquired webOS platform. "With webOS, HP will deliver its customers...
Read more...
Mobile advertising firm AdMob this week released its latest Mobile Metric report. In it, AdMob indicates Apple's iPhone still holds a numbers advantage over Android devices, even through Android handsets have been popping up left and right. The numbers aren't necessarily indicative of the...
Read more...
Fan controllers, while functional, don't exactly come to mind as the first item to spruce up a rather drab looking PC, but maybe they would be if they all looked like NZXT's Sentry line. Released today is NZXT's Sentry LXE, the fourth external fan controller in NZXT's Sentry family and...
Read more...
For those who take their audio seriously -- as in, serious enough to drop a couple of grand, or more, on a home theater receiver -- Onkyo today announced the release of two new high-end network A/V receivers, the TX-NR5008 and TX-NR3008. Not for the faint of wallet, the cheapest of the two (TX-NR3008) runs a cool $2,100, while the the TX-NR5008...
Read more...
Good news for text messaging teens enamored with Microsoft's Kin phones. Verizon has gone and slashed the prices on both the Kin One and Kin Two, making it easier for social networking addicts to save some of their allowance for the real important things, like Justin Bieber concert tickets. As...
Read more...
