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
We've been praising continued price drops on OLED displays for quite some time now, mostly in the TV arena but more recently in the realm of gaming monitors, too. Almost overnight (it felt that way, anyway), monitor makers began embracing OLED. Now we're starting to see an influx of newer quantum dot OLED (QD-OLED)...
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While many were expecting Apple to announce a new line of Macs this week (which it still might), we're instead (for now) getting a couple of new iPad tablets, including an 6th generation iPad Air infused with Apple's M3 silicon and a new baseline iPad powered by Apple's A16 chip. Which one might be right for you?...
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When you think of expensive chips, you probably envision server processors like AMD's EPYC and Intel's Xeon silicon. Or in light of recent events, the GeForce RTX 50 series may come to mind, particularly the GeForce RTX 5090. But a Flamin' Hot Cheeto? If you thought GPUs were pricey, check out what a Cheeto chip...
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TSMC announced plans to invest an additional $100 billion on advanced chip manufacturing in the United States, bringing its total US investment to $165 million. As part of the bolstered spending, TSMC will build five new factories, including three fabrication plants and two advanced packaging facilities. It's also...
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The only 'vendors' with a standalone GeForce RTX 5080 graphics card in stock are greedy marketplace sellers and scalpers at places like eBay. Looking at some of the recently sold listings on eBay, we're seeing card go for $1,600 to $2,150, and several of them don't even include shipping. Pshaw! Only time will soothe...
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While not perfect, Steam's hardware and software survey, which is updated every month, is one of the quickest and easiest ways to gauge what kind of systems gamers are using at any given point in time. You just have to take the results with a grain of salt. If you don't, you'll end up thinking that most gamers are...
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Mobile World Congress (MWC) has officially begun in Barcelona, and with it comes the usual mix of product announcements and concept showcases. Falling into the latter category, Lenovo has a couple of cool gadgets on display, including a laptop that draws power from the sun (or other light sources) as well as a nifty...
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Seeing smartphone makers trip over themselves in a suddenly emerging race to claim the title of world's thinnest handset reminds us of the classic Saturday Night Live skit, the one where Will Ferrell pulls out a ridiculously tiny flip phone, much to the glee of Jimmy Fallon and guest host Sean Hayes, both of which...
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We're living in a moment in time where it seems like everything has gone up in price, from simple staples like eggs (thanks, bird flu) to advanced electronics like graphics cards (thanks AI demand-induced shortage and scalpers, among other factors). The dollar just doesn't stretch as much as it used to, but there are...
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There are numerous ways humans can become extinct, like an asteroid crashing into Earth or nuclear bombs making the planet inhabitable, both of which have been featured in various Hollywood flicks. But instead of the sound of bombs exploding or a giant space rock smashing into our home planet, the last sounds we might...
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As higher tariffs imposed by the Trump administration loom, the analysts at IDC have adjusted their outlook on PC shipments for 2025 and beyond, reducing the expected shipment figure to 273 million units for the current year. The silver lining is that's still a whole heck of a lot of PCs, and it also still represents...
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It took a minute, but details about pricing and availability for AMD's Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070 cards, the first gaming GPUs to feature its RDNA 4 architecture (see our deep dive), are finally official. Gamers hoping AMD would be aggressive with its approach to pricing should be generally pleased, with the...
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Psst, you. Yeah, you, the one with a PlayStation VR2 in your shopping cart. You don't want to complete your order. Trust us on this one, because if you do proceed, you'll just regret it in a couple of days. Not because the PS VR2 is a bad product by any stretch—it's not—but because it's about to become significantly...
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NVIDIA recently confirmed that it was still in the process of "actively investigating" black screen issues and other bugs plaguing some GeForce RTX 50 series owners, and now it's released new 'Game Ready' and 'Studio' driver packages that, according to the release notes, stomps out "various" black screen bugs.
The...
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Forget for a moment that it's almost impossible to find a GeForce RTX 5090 in stock or that pricing on some of custom models is way above NVIDIA's baseline MSRP for its Founders Edition variant. All that aside, ASUS is touting a rash of world overclocking records achieved with one of its more pricier models, the ROG...
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It’s almost springtime but you don’t have to wait around to spring into some nifty savings on various OnePlus smartphones and other devices. That’s because OnePlus is running promotions on several of its products, including trade-in discounts (any device, any condition), coupon codes, and free bonus offers, depending...
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We're starting to sound like a broken record, but NVIDIA crushed yet another quarter with its Q4 revenue scaling to $39.3 billion, which is a 12% sequential gain and a massive 78% spike from the same quarter a year ago. Even more impressive, the record quarter capped off a monster year that saw NVIDIA post a greater...
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Can you imagine splurging on a big and beautiful quantum dot OLED (QD-OLED) monitor, only to turn around and intentionally test its mettle against burn-in over a 12-month period? It's not something the average consumer should do, and fortunately there's no need to either, because it's already been done as part of an...
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It's been almost a month since the GeForce RTX 5090 and GeForce RTX 5080 landed on retail shelves, both of which sold out in all of a nanosecond (or at least it felt that way). In the days and weeks since, multiple retailers and add-in board (AIB) partners have implemented systems designed to get limited restocks in...
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Samsung is rolling out a new flagship solid state drive (SSD) series, the 9100 Pro, to replace the excellent 990 Pro at the top of its consumer storage totem pole. Part of what makes it Samsung's fastest SSD series to date is that it's the company's first consumer storage solution to hitch its wagon to the PCI Express...
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Razer today unveiled the latest iteration of its big and beastly Blade 18 gaming laptop (an upgraded version of the one we reviewed last year), which it's pitching as its most powerful Blade to date. According to Razer, the sharpened Blade 18 delivers a "premium desktop experience" in a mobile package with high-end...
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So you've gone and preordered Apple's newest addition to the iPhone family, the iPhone 16e. With prices starting at $599, the iPhone 16e ascends past the budget category and into midrange territory. As such, it's a good idea to protect your purchase (which is true even for budget phones), and you can do that by...
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