Reviews
Last week we offered you all our picks for mobile tech goodies for good girls and boys this holiday season. Nothing says I love you and care, now get into this selfie with me, like a new smartphone, tablet or notebook -- even if that loved one is, well, you. You're on the nice list after all, so it's all good. But what if you're...
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When Intel gave us an early deep-dive look at their new 14nm Broadwell Core M series processor back in August, we were hopeful that great things would be coming to ultra-light notebooks and premium 2-in-1 tablet devices. Intel's low power 14nm Tri-Gate architecture coupled with an enhanced integrated graphics...
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It feels like only yesterday that we were whipping up last year’s holiday gift guide, but somehow a full year has passed and we’re staring yet another winter in the face. Don’t fret, though — just because you haven’t prepared for this season doesn’t mean that you’re hung out to dry. As the technology behind smartphones, tablets, and laptops...
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When we took at look at SanDisk's Extreme II series of solid state drives in June of last year, we began our article by noting, "odds are, if you’ve bought anything that uses flash memory in the last 20 years or so, you already own a small piece of SanDisk technology. The company has been a leader in flash memory storage since the late...
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Chromebooks seem to have found their place in the market, especially in the education segment, and shipments have increased significantly. The latest statistics show Chromebook shipments jumped 67 percent in the most recent quarter and are on track to double compared to last year. Now that Intel and Google have joined forces to further the...
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When Microsoft first released Windows 8, the company hoped that hardware manufacturers would get creative with form factors and customers would be enticed by the intriguing new PC designs. One of the clear leaders to emerge since Windows 8's launch is the Lenovo Yoga series of laptops, which fold in half to mimic tablets or can be used in...
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As it does every so often, Amazon recently updated and revamped its line of Fire tablets to include upgraded models and a somewhat simplified naming scheme. The new models abandon the "Kindle" branding and are now simply known as Fire HDX 8.9, Fire HD 7, and Fire HD 6. To flesh out the lineup, Amazon still sells a Fire HDX and a Fire...
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The concept of net neutrality has been a hot-button topic over the past few years, particularly as evidence by fundamental ISP misconduct that has grown more prevalent. In addition, an increasing number of customers have found themselves caught in the crossfire between two huge corporations (ISPs and content providers especially) with little...
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Most are in agreement that Apple's iPad Air 2 is one of the finest tablets ever produced, if not the best out there, period. Certainly, it's not difficult to make that case -- after all, the latest 9.7-inch iPad is thinner than its predecessor at just 6.1mm thick, wicked fast with its custom A8X System-on-Chip (SoC), and incredibly light at...
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The PC laptop market is a funny place. Good laptops are fairly easy to find, but great laptops are staggeringly rare. This is true even at the boutique end of the market, where manufacturers have a tendency to choose powerful components, but cram them into a chassis that can't handle the heat without sounding like a jet turbine, or pick...
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When Motorola introduced the Moto X last year, the company was owned by Google. In our hands-on review of the first-generation Moto X, we pointed out that the collaboration between Motorola and Android engineers led to an incredibly sleek device and a good user experience. Although the first-generation Moto X didn’t have quite as...
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It has been a few weeks since Microsoft released its Technical Preview of Windows 10 -- which means we've had enough time to walk around the vehicle, kick the tires, and investigate the product in its current form. After the drubbing that Windows 8 took in the tech press and from angry users, Microsoft badly needs this new operating system...
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We have seen a rapid influx of entry-level to enthusiast-class gaming systems and hardware over the last few months. The Maingear Rush we recently evaluated targets the most demanding PC users with its twin AMD Radeon R9 295X2 (8GB DDR5) video cards, killer Intel i7-4960X processor and fast storage. Weighing in at...
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For the past few years, Intel has promised that its various low-power Atom-based processors would usher in a wave of low-cost Android and Windows mobile products that could compete with ARM-based solutions from its major competitors. And for years, we've seen no more than a trickle of hardware, often with limited availability and/or...
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Until such time as Valve gets its ducks in a row, those of us who want a console-like Steam experience are sticking with DIY PCs, Big Picture mode and a third-party controller. Digital Storm, however, thinks it has a killer system for your living room Big Picture setup (or for use as your main gaming rig if you’re a mouse and...
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When introducing the iPhone 6 Plus, Apple described it as the “biggest advancement in iPhone history.” Naturally, the use of “biggest” was quite intentional, a pun almost. Prior to 2014, Apple’s entire iPhone line had only ever had two screen sizes: 3.5-inch and 4-inch. Those sizes were perfectly acceptable...
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When NVIDIA launched the powerful GTX 980 and 970 last month, it was obvious that these cards would be coming to mobile sooner rather than later. The significant leap forward that Maxwell offers in performance-per-watt means that these GPUs would shine in mobile contexts -- maybe even more than in desktop. The mobile Maxwell die Today, NVIDIA...
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Welcome to the era of dual-mode devices, where the mantra "bigger is better" rules the day. Need an example? Take smartphones -- Samsung's been serving up large size handsets for the past several years, some of which are so big that it warranted creating a brand new category. Even Apple jumped on the big device bandwagon with...
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Samsung made some waves earlier this year with the introduction of its 850 Pro family of solid state drives and the first commercial use of 3D stacked NAND Flash memory. Micron is striking back today with a lower manufacturing process geometry in conventional NAND, however, and a new Flash technology it claims, will accelerate performance...
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Dell has become a very different company since going private about a year ago. It’s quieter, more nimble, and it has dramatically focused its product lines. A company once known for its ability to ship just about anything you could ask for on a custom PC is reinventing itself in a world smitten by handheld devices with tighter profit...
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In the interest of full disclosure, I’m going to start this piece off with a bit of a confession: Last year, when I was first exposed to NVIDIA’s G-SYNC technology, I turned to one of our contacts at the company and said, “The moment someone comes out with a nice 4K version, I’ll hand over my credit card”....
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If your any kind of a computing enthusiast, you're quite familiar with EVGA, even if you haven't bought and of their hardware. From power supplies to motherboards and graphics cards, the company has established a solid reputation for producing high-quality, enthusiast equipment. EVGA recently sent over one of their new Torq X10 gaming...
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