A few weeks back, we took a look at a new series of solid state drives from Crucial, the M550, which leveraged Marvell controller technology, 20nm MLC NAND flash memory, and firmware optimizations gleaned from the last couple of years of SATA SSD advancements. Ultimately, we found the M550 series of drives to be solid offerings, with well-rounded...Read more...
A few months back, we took a look at Samsung’s SSD 840 EVO series of solid state drives. At the time, we found their performance to be quite good, and the drives were competitively priced too. Shortly after the 2.5” versions of Samsung’s SSD 840 EVO drives hit the scene, the company prepared an array of mSATA drives...Read more...
NVIDIA's 2014 GTC (GPU Technology Conference) kicked off with a bang this morning in San Jose California, with NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang offering up a healthy dose of new information on next generation NVIDIA GPU technologies for the professional workstation, big data analytics, cloud computing, gaming and mobile markets. As members...Read more...
Western Digital’s original My Cloud personal cloud storage solution brought a unique approach to the NAS segment, for individuals and the SOHO crowd, and the subsequent multi-bay My Cloud EX4 offered a beastly amount of storage--8TB, 12TB, or 16TB--via the same “My Cloud” platform. WD introduced the My Cloud EX2...Read more...
Samsung introduced its PRO line of Galaxy Tab and Galaxy Note tablets at CES in January. We had a brief chance to check out these new tablets while at CES and now we have the Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1 in house for a full hands-on review. As you may recall, this tablet features a 10.1-inch WQXGA display that supports a resolution of 2560...Read more...
The solid state storage market continues to be one of the hottest in the PC industry. Over the last few weeks alone, we’ve seen the release of the Intel SSD 730 and the OCZ Vertex 460 series of drives and there are still plenty more on the horizon, as many companies ready products with different capacities, form factors and...Read more...
Google's Chrome OS is an open source operating system that is designed to offer fast, simple, and secure computing for connected devices. That's not to say the Chrome operating system can't function offline, but connected to the cloud is where users can harness the full power of Google's cloud services and storage infrastructure. ...Read more...
Dell aims to give users a premium mobile experience with the company’s XPS line of laptops. Not long ago, we had some hands-on time with Dell’s XPS 15 and really liked it. Last year, we also took a look at the 2013 version of Dell’s XPS 13. Here again, we had many positive things to say of Dell's top shelf ultralight 13-inch...Read more...
In case you didn't get the memo, the 4K Ultra HD revolution has begun. What's been remarkable about the ongoing transition from Full HD 1080p to 4K Ultra HD is that hardware makers and content creators didn't get stuck in a 'chicken and egg' scenario. Typically when new technology emerges, hardware makers wait for software developers to come...Read more...
We’ve been hankering to test out one of CyberPowerPC’s new Zeus Mini SFF gaming desktop models ever since we got some hands on time with it at CES, so we were happy to unpack the black and neon green Zeus Mini-I 780 that CyberPowerPC sent us this week. Small form factor (SFF) PCs are something of a trend these days, and frankly,...Read more...
Intel has established a strong record in the solid state storage space, dating all the way back to 2008 with its debut of the excellent X25-M series of drives. Back then, Intel upped the ante in enthusiast-targeted solid state storage, and they want to do it again with the drive we’ll be showing you here today, the upcoming Intel SSD...Read more...
LG’s new G Flex smartphone is the “world’s first curved flexible smartphone” according to the company. We’ve seen smartphones that have curved bodies before, but this is the first smartphone to feature a display and battery that are curved as well. LG claims the curved design of the G Flex is optimized...Read more...
Intel is announcing its new tablet and smartphone designs this week at Mobile World Congress, alongside a major push to drive adoption of its 28nm XMM 7160 and XMM 7260 modem technology. It's been two years since Intel launched its first serious Atom-based smartphone platform, codenamed Medfield, and it's safe to say that those two years haven't...Read more...
To say OCZ has had a tumultuous year in 2013 would be putting it mildly. The company took a brutal beating financially and was knocked down, but not out. Now, thanks to an acquisition by Toshiba, the newly formed and revitalized OCZ Storage Solutions, is poised and ready to make another run at enthusiasts and the enterprise. In an effort...Read more...
For months, there have been rumors circulating of a new Intel 15-core CPU, with a particular focus on Big Data analytics, multi-socket systems, and the enterprise market. Well, this past January, we took a trip to Intel's SAP research lab to see the new processors and the rather substantial update coming down the pipe. Unlike Intel's...Read more...
The mid-range graphics card market has seen a lot of action as of late, with an infusion of new products and the discontinuation of popular previous-gen products. Last week it was AMD’s turn to announce a new card—the $150 Radeon R7 265—and with its arrival also came a price cut on the Radeon R7 260X, which can now be had...Read more...
In terms of brand recognition, Lenovo's ThinkPad probably has some of the best "brand equity" of just about any notebook line in the history of Windows PCs. A favorite among IT managers for their rugged reliability, especially in business environments, Lenovo's ThinkPad brand, previously acquired from IBM, helped propel the company towards...Read more...
The Dell Latitude E7440 is not quite as sexy as some of the sleek ultrabooks out there, but it’s also not as square as most business notebooks we've been subjected to over the years. The Dell Latitude E7440 thus continues a trend we’ve been noticing lately of companies gussying up their business-class laptops, while maintaining...Read more...
AMD is shaking up its mid-range graphics line-up today, by slashing the price of the Radeon R7 260X and introducing the more powerful Radeon R7 265. Though their model numbers are quite similar, the Radeon R7 265 is actually built around a beefier GPU than the 260X, and is more like the higher-end Radeon R9 270X. AMD is positioning the...Read more...
In about six weeks, Blizzard will launch Reaper of Souls, the first expansion pack for Diablo 3. I've spent the last few weeks playing in the beta for RoS, and while I normally hold an article this extensive for a launch, there's enough locked-in differences to be worth discussing at this stage. This new expansion comes with the usual...Read more...
If you’ve spent any time at all following PC and storage technologies, you probably know that SanDisk is a brand that is synonymous with Flash memory. Whether it’s a memory card for a digital camera or a high-performance solid state drive for an enthusiast-class PC, odds are SanDisk has got you covered. And even in the highly unlikely...Read more...
It’s a ThinkPad. No, it’s a Yoga! No, it’s...a ThinkPad Yoga. Lenovo has melded two of its popular laptop design approaches together to create a sort of hybrid ultrabook, bringing together elements of its workhorse ThinkPad lineup and multi-mode capable Yoga notebooks. It has the work-friendly keyboard design of the new generation...Read more...