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
Working an extra long shift can stink but your peripherals don't have do. Not that I've ever had a problem with bad-smelling peripherals. All the same, ASUS is attempting to inject a breath of fresh (or scented) air into the PC peripheral market with its new Fragrance Mouse (MD101), a wireless rodent equipped with an...
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If you thought "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" was an odd premise, wait until you get a load of the curious case of missing render output unit hardware (or raster operations pipeline, if you prefer—ROP from here on out) on some GeForce RTX 5090 graphics cards that are out in the wild. One of the seemingly...
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If you blinked, you missed the initial wave of GeForce RTX 5090 graphics cards at retail before they sold out. And if you sneezed, you also missed your window of opportunity to snag a GeForce RTX 5080. The GeForce RTX 5070 Ti came and went in similar fashion during its retail debut, and we suspect the non-Ti variant...
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Amazon announced it is shutting down its 'Amazon Appstore for Android' this summer as part of a broader effort to streamline and improve its services and programs. The app store was never nearly as popular as Google's own Play Store anyway, but it does mean one less officially vetted (and generally safe, though not...
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Whether retailers want to admit it or not, you have almost no shot of a bagging a GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card against the barrage of bots and scalpers that swoop in whenever there's an inventory refresh. Stock has been slightly better for the GeForce RTX 5080, but those are nearly impossible find at retail, too. In...
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There comes a time when the right thing to do is to put your gaming mouse out to pasture. Maybe the buttons stopped working and are beyond repair or perhaps it's so old that kids with their fancy new mice have a competitive advantage in your favorite online shooter. You can level the playing field with a gaming mouse...
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Nintendo is going to make us wait for its next Direct event on April 2, 2025 (one day after April Fools') to find out more details about its upcoming Switch 2 console, which we anticipate will reveal more information about the hardware specifications, features, and capabilities. We should also get clarity on pricing...
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It took a minute, but Micron has released what it is calling its "first Gen5 client SSD," which primarily takes aim at OEM system builders. With sequential speeds rated at up to 14.5GB/s, it's the fastest SSD in Micron's stable, though the qualifier here is that it previously released multiple PCIe 5.0 SSDs under its...
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At least one major laptop maker is getting ready to raise prices in response to US President Donald Trump's 10% tariffs on Chinese imports. According to Acer's Chief Executive Officer and Chairman, Jason Chen, the upcoming price hikes will be "very straightforward," with plans to raise the cost 10% next month to...
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Make no mistake, laptops powered by NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 50 series mobile GPUs are inbound, though rumor has it they're slightly delayed. The initial launch might also focus on lower end discrete GPU models. If you're looking to get in the RTX game right now and want to stretch the value of your dollar, there are...
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It's fair to say that PowerColor is best known for its AMD Radeon graphics cards, with aggressive product names like Red Devil and Hellhound (among others). But did you also know that PowerColor dabbles in peripherals? It's a relatively recent expansion, and today PowerColor formally introduced its first gaming mouse...
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In the oft-used words of every magician that's ever performed a disappearing act, 'Now you see it, now you don't!'. Only instead of a magic trick, that same line can be applied to the GeForce RTX 5090 and GeForce RTX 5080 retail launches, and rumor has it the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti retail debut will be no different. It...
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If you're ready to take in the plunge into OLED territory for your next gaming display, we have some great news—Amazon has slashed pricing on several models. Among the deals we found is an Alienware model with a QD-OLED panel that's been marked down a generous 28% (versus MSRP) to a new all-time low price, and it also...
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Frank Azor, a PC industry vet who co-founded Alienware before joining AMD as its Chief Architect of Gaming Solutions and Marketing five and a half years ago, is not shying away from rumors of there being a Radeon RX 9070 XT with 32GB of VRAM on the roadmap. In comical fashion, he issued a 'correction' to the rumor on...
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Corsair is under the impression that it knows when Rockstar Games will release a version of Grand Theft Auto VI, one of the most anticipated games of all time (if not THE most anticipated title ever), will land on PC. During an earnings call to discuss fourth quarter results, Corsair's Vice President of Finance, Ronald van Veen, suggested
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Four score and seven years ago, our ancestors had no idea what it would be like to game on a massive monitor or have practically all of the world's information accessible on a handheld device. Some of you still don't, but good news—we found a bunch of deals on Amazon that are just in time for Presidents Day, so...
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Several early listings for custom GeForce RTX 5070 Ti models from NVIDIA's OEM partners have popped up at Micro Center and, spoiler alert, almost every single one (so far) is priced higher than the baseline $749 MSRP. The lone exception is a factory overclocked PNY GeForc RTX 5070 Ti that's listed at $750 (so...
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There are deals, and then there are DEALS. Well folks, when a retailer slashes the price of a product nearly in half and it's a real discount, it gets our attention. And so it goes with Amazon slashing 48% off the price of Samsung's Galaxy Book4 Pro laptop with a 14-inch 3K AMOLED display (model NP940XGK-KG2US) in the...
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For tech-savvy users (and everyone, really), it goes without saying that you should never click on links in emails willy-nilly. In light of a recent account hijacking campaign, however, YouTube has taken to X/Twitter with a warning to "be cautious" of phishing tomfoolery as it investigates bogus emails making the...
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Somewhat surprisingly, AMD barely mentioned its Radeon RX 9000 series at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January, while rival NVIDIA trotted out no less than four desktop GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs and also four mobile variants. Well, the wait for more official details on AMD's first consumer RDNA 4-powered...
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So, you're one of the lucky few who managed to score a GeForce RTX 5090 or GeForce RTX 5080 without paying ridiculous (and greedy) scalper pricing, and now the question isn't so much 'Can it run Crysis 4?, but 'How well can it run Crysis 4?'. As much as we'd love to answer that question, it will have to wait. Crytek...
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Practically everything these days has an artificial intelligence (AI) angle to it, but when it comes to actually getting work done, it all boils down to what you're able to see on your display. Or multiple displays, as the case might be. If you could benefit from a second display, ASUS has finally announced retail...
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