Reviews
Asus has never been a company to shy away from offering over-the-top, custom products that command a price premium. Here's proof. Perhaps it’s because the company is large enough, and thus, has the resources to cater to virtually all market segments, big or small. Or perhaps the top brass at Asus just likes inducing slack-jawed stares...
Read more...
In preparation for the impending arrival of its Bulldozer-based FX-series of processors, AMD recently released their 9-Series chipsets. The AMD 9-Series currently consists of three products, the 970, the 990X, and the flagship 990FX chipsets. At their core, all of the current AMD 9-Series chipsets are similar, and offer support for socket...
Read more...
Eleven years ago, now-defunct developer Ion Storm released Deus Ex and made video game history. The original title cast players in the role of JC Denton, a nanotech-augmented agent with the United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition (UNATCO) circa 2052. The game's plot is a fusion of classic conspiracy theories and a referendum on what it means...
Read more...
If you were looking for a 10-inch Android tablet just a few short months ago, you'd be hard-pressed to find them for sale and Android 2.2 was the only game in town. However, with the release of Google's Honeycomb OS in late February, the floodgates began to open. Now you can't swing a USB cable and not hit one of these things and...
Read more...
id Software's long-awaited FPS Rage is set to ship in October. When it launches, it'll be the first game to feature id's newest graphics engine, dubbed id Tech 5. With expectations running high in the wake of the latest game trailer shown at QuakeCon last week, we've put together an article to examine the merits of both the game and the...
Read more...
As the final days of summer wind down, most people will find themselves in one of two situations. Either you're gearing up to head back to school, or it's life as usual, only with worse weather right around the corner. It doesn't matter which category you fall into, because either way, there's a good chance you'll be spending less time outside...
Read more...
To some users, one of the downsides of the iPad, iPod touch, and iPhone is non-expandable memory. Of course, many users buy the higher-capacity devices and assume they'll have adequate storage. But what happens if you run out of space on your iPad, iPod touch, or iPhone and you don't want to delete any files? At first, it may appear that...
Read more...
Samsung's Galaxy S II was first introduced to the world at Mobile World Congress 2011, and despite the fact that quite a few smartphones have shipped in the months between then and now, Samsung's top-tier smartphone remains a favorite across the globe. In fact, it hasn't even shipped to America yet. With a potent dual-core 1.2GHz processor,...
Read more...
Just a few short weeks after the release of its high-end WildFire-branded solid state drives, Patriot is at the ready with a new family of drives, dubbed Pyro. Like the WildFire, the similarly fire lovin’ Pyro is built around SandForce’s sought after SF-2200 series solid state storage processor. But with this newer series of drives,...
Read more...
A few weeks back, AMD officially launched their Llano-based A-Series Accelerated Processing Units, or APUs, in both desktop and mobile flavors. At the time, we covered the high-end variants of both A-Series offerings; our coverage of the desktop version A8-3850 APU and its companion chipsets is posted here and the mobile...
Read more...
Notebook hard drives have generally followed a similar track as other mobile components, in that they're much smaller, lighter and consume less power, but also offer lower performance, features and capacity versus their desktop counterparts. And though technology continues to evolve in notebook architectures, similarly, some may argue that...
Read more...
Apple's Mac mini hadn't seen a substantial update for about a year, but with Intel's second generation Core processor family arriving in 2011, it was only a matter of time before one of those chips found favor with Apple's tiniest desktop. The Mac mini design really hasn't changed in the year or so it took the folks in Cupertino...
Read more...
Android Honeycomb based tablets are beginning to feel like they're a dime a dozen. 10.1-inch slates are coming out of the woodwork from a bunch of major players, and for all intents and purposes, they're built upon very similar base platforms with NVIDIA's Tegra 2 processor powering them. Capacitive touch displays, integrated...
Read more...
Touted as America's first glasses-free 3D 4G device, the HTC EVO 3D features a 4.3-inch, qHD (Quarter High Definition) 3D display as well as dual rear-facing cameras that can capture 3D images and video. Even if you're not interested in this phone's 3D capabilities though, its specs and power under the hood may attract you. The EVO 3D runs...
Read more...
One of the downsides to system reviews is that it's usually impossible to evaluate system reliability or performance over an extended period of time. Since boutique builders typically assemble rigs with a focus on solid warranties or top-level components, not being able to properly grade long-term reliability is an area of product...
Read more...
There's a time and place to act a fool, like at a Ludacris concert for example, or when entertaining your in-laws during a holiday function in which you're trying to encourage a hasty departure. Likewise, there are situations where showboating simply isn't appropriate. Wondering what this has to do with a laptop review? Well, the same...
Read more...
It's becoming more difficult to justify the purchase of Intel's X58 Express chipset with all the new technology looming on the horizon. This chipset came out almost three years ago. Time sure flies, especially in the hardware industry. We still like the fact that the X58 offers support for the six core processors in Intel's...
Read more...
There's something about the allure of a gaming notebook. Even mainstream users, not necessarily hellbent on frame rates and decked-out designs, can relate to a powerful notebook with striking good looks. It's no wonder that products like Asus' G73 series of notebooks and Alienware's M series, have been some of the most viewed pages...
Read more...
We’ve opened our last few SSD round-ups with comments regarding the break-neck pace at which the solid state storage market has advanced these last few years. At the risk of repeating ourselves, the SSD market continues to show no signs of slowing down. New drives are being introduced constantly and along with updated interfaces, drivers...
Read more...
As a long-time competitor in the desktop and laptop space, Acer recently began competing against other Android tablet manufacturers with the launch of its Acer Iconia Tab A500. This 10.1-inch tablet is the company's first in the new Acer Iconia family of tablets. Like many other Android-powered tablets, the Acer Iconia Tab A500 features...
Read more...
Google's Chrome OS came close to being labeled vaporeware after its highly publicized initial announcement, at least by some. But at Google, there was never any doubt about its future. Just as they have done with the Chrome Web browser, Google has poured tons of resources into Chrome OS. It's a radical system, no matter how you slice...
Read more...
A couple of weeks back, we took a look at AMD's Llano mobile platform, with a mainstream notebook from Compal, and we came away impressed. If you're unfamiliar with Llano, be sure to check out our launch coverage (available here). But to quickly recap, Llano is the codename for AMD's latest Fusion-based product, that combines...
Read more...
