Reviews
On the surface, there's nothing particularly glamorous about a universal remote. It's simply a device that controls multiple electronic gadgets, like your TV and Blu-ray player, so you don't have to keep track of and juggle multiple remotes. No big deal, right? If that's what you think, then you haven't encountered...
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Thanks to the emergence of NVIDIA’s G-SYNC, AMD’s FreeSync, i.e Adaptive Sync, 4K and various other display technologies, we’ve had the pleasure of evaluating a number of new monitors recently. One of our favorites from this past year was the ASUS ROG SWIFT PG278Q. Although it featured a resolution of “only” 2560x1440, and employed a TN panel,...
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It may be a bit too early to be shopping for the holidays just yet, but doing a little research never hurts, particularly if you’re in the market for a new mobile device. Tablet makers are continually in the process of slimming down their devices and boosting battery life, even in the entry-level space, where products like the Android-based...
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The rapid pace of innovation in the solid state storage market shows no signs of letting up. In only a few generations, the industry bumped up against the limits of the legacy SATA interface, and began leveraging PCI Express for additional bandwidth with some passable, though somewhat clunky bridged solutions (in...
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You don't need a crystal ball to figure out Apple will release a new iPhone handset every year. It's been doing it since the original came out in 2007, and starting with the iPhone 3G, Apple's naming convention has consisted of introducing a new model number every two years, with "s" variants in between. There was the iPhone 3GS in 2009, iPhone...
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When we took a look at the ASUS ROG SWIFT PG278Q G-SYNC monitor last year, we praised it for its sleek design, thin bezels, support of NVIDIA’s adaptive refresh rate technology, and high-quality TN panel—relatively speaking. TN (Twisted Nematic) panels generally have fast response times and can be more affordable, but at the expense of color...
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Wireless routers are going through somewhat of a renaissance right now, thanks to the arrival of the 802.11ac standard that is "three times as fast as wireless-N" and the proliferation of Internet-connected devices in our homes and pockets. Whereas before we merely had a handful of laptops and PCs connected to the...
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The Internet is an ever changing congruous mass of standards, design, and interoperability challenges. Keeping on top of it all can be a daunting task. It's a delicate balance between features, security and performance. If you're considering swapping out your web browser for something new and fresh, but are uncertain over the real world performance...
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Intel Skylake processors have landed and motherboard manufacturers now have a wide range of boards sporting the necessary LGA 1151 socket and Z170 chipset to support the CPUs. Under the microscope today we have a high-end model from Gigabyte, the formidable Z170X-Gaming G1—a board that's virtually bursting at the...
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Although the $999 GeForce GTX Titan X is currently the King of the single-GPU hill, NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 980 Ti is the far more palatable option for most hardcore enthusiasts, due to its lower $649 starting price point. As we showed you in our initial coverage of the GeForce GTX 980 Ti, however, the card is still a monster in terms of performance....
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If you want to sell a tablet to the masses -- an increasingly difficult thing to do with tablet shipments now on the decline, according to International Data Corporation -- the go-to strategy is to pitch a vibrant display and boast about its thin and light design. Everything else is secondary for most consumers, including hardware specs and...
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Technology moves quickly, but when it comes to smartwatches, things seem to be moving more rapidly than usual. We published our Moto 360 review early last year and here we are merely half a year later testing the second generation of that device. In many ways, the original Moto 360 felt like the hero device for Android Wear. Google still...
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Apple and Samsung have already launched their latest flagship devices for 2015, and now, Motorola is taking its turn. For the third year in a row, a new Moto X has arrived that's built upon the successes of the original. There's no mistaking the design -- visual cues that created the silhouette of the original still...
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Unlocked smartphones are attractive to customers who are looking for ways to avoid a long-term contract with a carrier, replace a broken phone, or travel overseas. If you’ve shopped for an unlocked phone, you’ll likely have come across a company called Huawei. Huawei ships phones worldwide, though they aren't very well known here in the United...
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What does your desktop PC say about you? Is your system hiding by your feet and used only for serious business? Is it sitting on the corner of your desk with its window facing the wall because it’s just easier to reach its inputs that way? Or is taking up a third of your workspace with LEDs blazing, screaming “Fire me...
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Major players in the solid state storage business continue to innovate at a breakneck pace, especially now that the market has begun a shift away from the lowly SATA interface towards higher performing alternatives like PCI Express. For a while, manufacturers were bolting multiple SATA controllers together on single devices, in RAID configurations,...
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Today, Intel is taking the wraps off new NVMe PCI Express Solid State Drives, which are the first products with these high speed interfaces that the company has launched specifically for the enthusiast computing and workstation crowds. Historically, Intel's PCI Express-based offerings, like the SSD DC P3700 Series...
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Utlrabook designs just keep getting thinner, more powerful and more capable with each iteration of the various platforms on the market. Dell's XPS line of ultrabooks has always done relatively well in the arena, with some notable break-out features, like composite carbon fiber construction, that helped them stand out in a sea of offerings...
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We recently set out to design a mini desktop computer with the wildly popular Raspberry Pi single board computer. The Raspberry Pi is a Linux-driven, ARM processor-based micro computer that is known for its low cost and small size. People use the device for a variety of projects, from micro-servers to low cost media players. Basically, our...
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The wait is over. The time is nigh for sci-fi super-spy gadgets, cigar-smoking, and rampant exclamation points. Oh yes, the one-eyed one has returned. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain has landed on the PC and it’s a doozy. Using the same Fox Engine game engine, this latest effort nicely follows-up last year’s...
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Competing with Apple in the mobile space isn't rocket science, it's just a matter of sticking to a proven formula for success -- build a premium device with superior specs than the one Apple is selling, inject it with Android, and then undercut the iWhatever in price. That's not to say Apple is the only premium slate...
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Logitech's Performance MX Mouse series has long since been a favorite with enthusiasts and workstation professionals alike. Introduced to the market several years ago, it was high time Logitech revisited and refreshed their flagship general purpose mouse with the latest technologies and creature comforts. And boy what...
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