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'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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Apple has announced plans to spend and invest more than $500 billion in the United States over the next four years, a commitment that came days after President Trump said the company was going to "build here because they don't want to pay tariffs." Part of Apple's massive investment includes a new 250,000 square-foot...
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If you are reading this, there's a pretty good chance that you are already familiar with Qualcomm's Snapdragon branding. Snapdragon is the dominant mobile chip platform in Android-based smartphones and Arm-based Copilot+ PCs, with solutions running the gamut from flagship silicon (we're looking at you, Snapdragon 8...
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It's official—following the first user report of a GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Edition graphics card to display missing render operation pipeline (ROP) hardware in the popular GPU-Z utility, NVIDIA has confirmed that it too is affected by a rare "production anomaly" affecting half a percent (0.5%) of all GeForce RTX 50...
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Presidents' Day was exactly a week ago today, but Best Buy's Presidents' Day sale event is still going on with some pretty nice discounts. It won't run too much longer (it goes through February 26), though like Amazon, sales have become a year-round thing. That said, there are some discounts that may not be in play...
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Have you ever tried remotely diagnosing and ultimately resolving a computer issue for a frantic friend or family member who's having an issue, or a litany of PC-related issues? It's no easy task. Now put yourself in the shoes of NVIDIA's driver team, which is currently investigating a rash of stability issues across a...
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A user on Reddit has posted a GPU-Z screenshot that purportedly shows their GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Edition graphics card with fewer render operation pipelines (ROPs), or render output units if you prefer, than what are supposed to be there. It's the first case we're aware of with missing ROPs on a GeForce RTX 5080...
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Hey, is that a portable solid state drive (SSD) in your pocket or are you just happy to have saved some money? The answer can be both if you take advantage of our roundup of external storage deals. We found some great discounts on portable drives from the likes of Crucial, Lexar, and Samsung, all with fast data...
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It turns out that a spattering of reports about some GeForce RTX 5090 graphics cards shipping with missing render output unit (or raster operations pipeline) hardware were the result of a "production anomaly" and not an issue with the BIOS. NVIDIA said as much in a statement confirming a "rare issue" with some cards...
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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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