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
MediaTek is expected to officially lift the wraps on a new flagship system-on-chip (SoC) next week, and specifically the Dimensity 9400, which will supplant the Dimensity 9300+ as the company's top mobile chip. Ahead of the anticipated launch, a user on Weibo, a massive social media site in China, posted a handful of...
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We've seen a whole bunch of vintage Apple products command massive money in the auction scene over the years, like when an ultra-rare Apple-1 prototype that was hand-soldered by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak himself sold for a staggering $677,196. Collectors pay big money for Apple collectables. So hopes the owner of...
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There has been a lot of attention pointed towards NVIDIA's next-generation GeForce RTX 50 series based on Blackwell, and in particular the eventual GeForce RTX 5090. Let's not forget, however, AMD also has skin in the game and will be launching its RDNA 4 cards at some point. There's evidence to suggest that a...
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The wait for the next Civilization game isn't quite over—there's still several months to go before publisher 2K releases Sid Meier's Civilization VII to PC (Windows, macOS, and Linux), Switch, and both PlayStation and Xbox game consoles. For those who plan to pick up and play the strategy game on PC, 2K and developer...
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It appears as though Samsung will be slightly tweaking the design language of its next mainstream Galaxy device, the Galaxy S25, when it arrives (presumably next year). Most notably, photos, video, and some accompanying specifications of a purported dummy unit made of aluminum indicate that Samsung has found a way to...
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Amazon has announced a refreshed Fire HD 8 tablet with some key upgrades over its predecessor, and also a massive early discount ahead of the retailer's upcoming Prime Big Deals Days event, a two-day sales affair that runs through October 8-9, 2024 (next week). Looked at from afar, the retooled tablet with its...
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When we posted our Radeon RX 7700 XT review last year, we noted that it's position withing the discrete graphics card landscape "is not as clear cut" as the Radeon RX 7800 XT at time, due to its pricing in relation to GPUs like the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti and Radeon RX 6800 XT. Things have changed in the past year, and a...
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One thing I've gotten in the habit of doing during my daily perusals of the web is to hunt for deals, including whatever happens to be Best Buy's advertised 'Deal of the Day' promotion. These can be hit or miss, though if you're in the market for a secondary laptop to use as a beater—or a gift for mom and pop to knock...
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How high of a DPI do you truly need in a gaming mouse? The answer depends on who you ask and the though the consensus is typically in a range much lower than what mouse makers like to promote, they remain undeterred in pushing the limits of sensor capabilities. Enter Razer's new Basilisk V3 Pro 35K (wireless) and...
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Microsoft announced it has begun a phased roll out of its Windows 11 2024 update, otherwise known as Windows 11 24H2, which the company describes as a "full operating system (OS) swap" containing brand new foundational elements to help usher in the era of artificial intelligence (AI) experiences. Being that's a major...
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Samsung recently unveiled a few new hardware devices, one of which includes the Galaxy S24 Fan Edition (FE), which is now official and available to preorder in several colorways—graphite, gray, blue, and mint (light green). Additionally, Samsung announced some bonus offers for those who decide to pounce on a preorder...
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An alleged car thief who was arrested for stealing a 2023 Ferrari 812 GTS, a sports car that's worth over half a million dollars, must have thought he scored a major haul. However, he was undone by a pair of Apple's AirPods (possibly the new AirPods 4) that the owner left in the vehicle. Police were able to locate the...
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It's totally fair to criticize Sony for artificially limiting production of its PlayStation 5 Pro 30th anniversary edition console to just 12,300 units, which essentially means it's a console for scalpers and not genuine fans. However, Sony Japan deserves credit for how it's handling the limited quantity of themed...
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It's taken a minute, but memory makers are finally starting to approach the DDR5-10000 mark, though they're not quite there yet. They are getting close, however, with G.Skill being the latest to announce yet another overclocked DDR5 memory kit at a blistering-fast speed, the Trident Z5 Royal Neo in DDR5-9000 form...
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A sketchy leak purporting to show a photo of an unreleased 14-inch MacBook Pro refresh touting Apple's custom M4 silicon has found its way to the web, and with it comes possible confirmation of an upgrade to a key baseline specification. Namely, the system memory. If the image is to be believed, then Apple may indeed...
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Floor 84 Studio has collaborated with Taito on a new smartwatch that tugs at the nostalgic heartstrings of folks like myself who, decades ago, spent hours playing Space Invaders on the Atari 2600 or on an actual arcade cabinet. Launched as Kickstarter campaign, the Space Invaders: My Play Watch is a custom-themed...
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We never did end up seeing a Ti or Super variant of NVIDIA's flagship GeForce RTX 4090 like there was with the previous generation's top SKU (GeForce RTX 3090 Ti). That ship has sailed at this point and instead, all eyes are looking ahead to NVIDIA's next-generation Blackwell lineup. While we wait for the eventual...
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It's taken a minute, but there are finally a handful of earbud options specifically for gamers, and I couldn't be happier about this. While there are a million and one earbud designs to choose from overall, ones that specifically take aim at the gaming crowd are far less plentiful (unlike gaming headsets). One more...
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SK hynix, which notably supplies memory chips to NVIDIA (among other customers), said it has begun volume production of the world's first 12-layer high bandwidth memory 3E (HBM3E) chips in a 36GB capacity, which is the largest capacity of any existing HBM product to date. According to SK hynix, customers will get...
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If the 990 Evo Plus is the last PCI Express 4.0 solid state drive (SSD) that Samsung releases before fully embracing PCI Express 5.0, then it stands as one heck of a PCIe 4.0 swan song, at least on paper. To be clear, we have not tested this drive (yet). But looking at Samsung's rated specifications, the company's...
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There are multiple reasons to think that discrete graphics cards would see a decline in shipments during this time of the year, such as typical seasonality and this being the tail-end of the current generation product cycle for AMD (Radeon RX 7000 series), NVIDIA (GeForce RTX 40 series), and Intel (Arc A-series)...
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A nonprofit digital privacy group called NOYB, short for None Of Your Business, has formally issued a complaint against Mozilla with the Austrian data protection authority (DSB), urging it to investigate the browser maker's "Privacy Preserving Attribution" (PPA) feature in Firefox. According to NOYB, this feature is...
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