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
SK hynix announced today that it has begun supplying 16-gigabyte (GB) packages of its Low Power Double Data Rate 5 Turbo (LPDDR5T) memory to global smartphone makers, after having announced development of the turbo-charged chips back in January of this year. Though 10 months have elapsed since then, SK hynix still can...
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Intel's flagship consumer processor for the desktop is the recently minted 14th Gen Core i9-14900K (Raptor Lake Refresh), but perhaps not for long. It turns out that Intel might be prepping an even faster-clocked "KS" variant, just as it had done with the previous generation Core i9-13900KS. That's assuming a handful...
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Sony promised that its slimmed down PlayStation 5 console would be available to purchase in time for the holidays, and sure enough it's now listed at several retailers. Even better, Sony and its retail partners are offering some sweet bundle deals. Specifically, you can pick up a 'PS5 Slim' with either Spider-Man 2 or...
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Display fatigue can be a real thing, and not just in the wear and tear on your eyeballs, but also in the sheer number of devices found in any given home. Televisions, laptops, desktop PCs, tablets, smartphones, smartwatches—it all adds up. It's not a bad idea to try and consolidate, and that's what TCL's new NXTPAPER...
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You don't have to look very far to spot Black Friday bargains—we're a week and a half into November, which means retailers are frantically pushing out early discounts ahead of this year's actual Black Friday. As such, we're already seeing some gems. One of them is a chunky discount on the ASUS ROG Ally gaming handheld...
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AMD continues to chip away at Intel's dominant lead in x86 CPU market share with a round of gains across the board, including desktop PCs, laptops, and servers, according to the latest audit performed by Mercury Research and shared by AMD. The updated figures cap off an impressive year for AMD, which looks to end 2023...
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LG is expanding its growing gaming monitor portfolio with a couple of large additions, including the UltraGear GR75DC and UltraGear GR65DC. Other than the model numbers and a $100 price difference, the distinguishing trait between these two curved behemoths is USB-C connectivity—the GR75DC boasts a USB-C port while...
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Rockstar Games has finally broken its silence on the "next Grand Theft Auto" game. In a message posted to X (formerly Twitter), the developer confirmed a trailer is coming for what is widely assumed to be Grand Theft Auto VI, the next installment in the long-running franchise and the first major iteration since Grand...
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Perhaps several generations from now, concerns over battery life will no longer exist as technology continues to evolve. As it stands now, however, battery life is certainly a concern for pretty much any powered device designed for mobility, and that includes smartphones like the recently introduced iPhone 15 series...
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Generally speaking, the two best times of the year to buy a TV are the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, which is still a few months out, and right now when retailers trip over themselves shoving Black Friday bargains out the door. Driving home this point, TCL is serving up some excellent deals on big screen...
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The trend in modern hybrid microarchitecture design is to pair high performance cores for heavy lifting, with lower power cores for lighter duty workloads. Going this route allows chip makers and designers to balance performance with power efficiency, and it's worked well in various ARM-based designs as well as...
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We're into the second week of November and, as expected, retailers have begun pumping out early Black Friday bargains like they're going out of style. If you're ready to jam out to savings as well, then check out these deals we've rounded up on various audio gear, including some sweet discounts on wireless Beats and...
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We're already several days into the month of November and you know what that means, right? Well yes, a fowl feast is right around the corner. But this is also the time of the year when companies start promoting Black Friday (and later, Cyber Monday) deals. It's more of a Black Friday season, really, as opposed to just...
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There are plenty of gamers who are having a blast in Alan Wake II, a survival horror game with bone-crunching system requirements (particularly if you want to play at a 4K resolution with max settings and ray tracing on high). If you're having performance issues while playing the game, you may need to dial back the...
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The service formerly known as HBO Max and now simply Max is the latest streaming service to put the squeeze on its subscribers. Owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, the service sent out an email to existing subscribers to its $15.99 per month ad-free tier that, effective on their next billing date, they'll either have to...
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Apple posted financial results for its fiscal 2023 fourth quarter (for the period ending September 30, 2023), with CEO Tim Cook boasting an all-time high in Services revenue and a quarterly high in iPhone sales. Along with its other product offerings, Apple generated a cool $89.5 billion for the quarter, resulting in...
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Believe it or not, it's already been over a year since AMD released its desktop Ryzen 7000 series processors based on Zen 4, along with its socket AM5 platform that it plans to support through at least 2026 (AMD initially said through 2025, then later extended its commitment). What that all means is it's not too early...
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Sega revealed that it's releasing a new 3D adventure game starring none other than the world's most famous hedgehog, Sonic, but there's only one place you'll be able to play it—on Apple Arcade. The game, Sonic Dream Team, is one of an overflowing handful of titles headed to Apple's subscription gaming service this...
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Back in the old days, solid state drive (SSD) storage was mostly relegated to the PC platform. That changed with the introduction of the PlayStation 5 (and new PS5 Slim) and Xbox Series X, both of which shed spinning platters in favor of NAND flash memory, and gamers are better off for it. So it's no surprise that...
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We might be in the midst of a lingering PC sales slump but you wouldn't necessarily know it by looking at AMD's latest earnings report. AMD posted financial results for its third quarter of 2023, which reflected a 4% year-over-year and 8% quarterly gain in revenue to $5.8 billion. This pushed its profit to $299...
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So here's the deal—Black Friday and Cyber Monday discounts will arrive in earnest very soon. Retailers are in the habit of pushing out holiday bargains increasingly early every year, so barring a generous return or exchange window, you want to be careful on what you splurge on. That said, there are some tantalizing...
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In a surprise move, Western Digital is splitting its hard disk drive (HDD) and flash memory storage businesses into separate companies, effectively spinning off its solid state drive (SSD) division. The move comes around the eight-year anniversary of when Western Digital announced plans to acquire SanDisk for $19...
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