Here a roundup of the latest reviews and articles:

ARM Cortex-A72 Architecture Deep Dive
Audiofly AF56m Earphones Review
AVM FRITZ!Box 3490 AC1750 Gigabit Modem Router Review
Best of CES 2016
CES 2016 Day 4 Roundup
CES 2016 Top Picks
CES Day 5 Roundup
Corsair Carbide 400C Review
DeepCool Gamer Storm Lucifer K2 Heatsink Review
GIGABYTE Z170X-Gaming 5 Motherboard Review
Google Pixel C Review
HP Z27q 27-inch 5K Professional Monitor Review
Huawei Mate 8 Review
KeyedUpLabs ES-87 TLK Keyboard
Sumo Gamer Suede Beanbag Chair Review
Thecus W4000+ Windows Server NAS Review

ARM Cortex-A72 Architecture Deep Dive

ARM's Cortex-A72 CPU adds power and performance optimizations to the previous A57 design. Here's an in-depth look at the changes to each stage in the pipeline, from better branch prediction to next-gen execution units.

Read full article @ Toms Hardware

Audiofly AF56m Earphones Review

Is six years ago a long time? Recently, I was talking to my friend, and this conversation came about. "Six years ago? You were still an LG -- literally." ('LG', in this context, is an abbreviation of "little girl" -- except used in a literal sense without any further implications.) For some people, six years ago was a long time, like my friend. But for me, without making myself sound too old, was a lot more recent than I perceived. When I was chatting with my colleague Aaron Lai about the last time I wrote an in-ear monitor review, it turned out to be the Arctic Cooling Arctic Sound E352 in early 2010. While we are quite the sound enthusiasts here at APH Networks, and my colleague Aaron Lai has reviewed the EMTEC Stay Earbuds Wireless as recently as August 2015, I am quite picky on the kind of audio products I cover. More often than not, they are either really good, like the V-MODA Crossfade Wireless, or really bad, like the Gigabyte Fly. When I came across Audiofly's product lineup a few months ago, I knew I was interested. The Australian company is a professional musician-driven manufacturer of premium and professional audio products. To see if they are as awesome as they look, we got in touch with them, and took in one of their midrange offerings, the AF56m, for our review today. The AF56m is a features 13mm dynamic drivers for "astonishing clarity over the whole spectrum with a rich and detailed bottom end… all with a nostalgic smirk". The little 'm' at the back means it comes with a microphone. Interesting fact: Six years ago, Audiofly did not even exist. But will that matter? Read on to find out!

Despite the fact Audiofly is an Australian company, I was slightly disappointed to discover the package actually did not come upside-down to us here in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Instead, our review unit of the Audiofly AF56m came in a padded envelope from the company's public relations firm in Miami, Florida, USA. While it is not as interesting as something arriving from Down Under, a peek outside the window makes me almost wish I was at Miami right now. Or at least Las Vegas, where my colleagues Preston Yuen and Aaron Lai are both hanging out for their coverage of CES this year. Anyway, UPS got the stuff to us using their Standard service, which arrived in great condition as always.

Read full article @ APH Networks

AVM FRITZ!Box 3490 AC1750 Gigabit Modem Router Review

With this year's CES almost over the time has come for us to sit down and think about all the new devices and technologies we saw from virtually every single section/area in the electronics industry/market. Unfortunately however although 2016 will see several innovations in home automation and connectivity once again most network hardware manufacturers have "missed" the opportunity to introduce new DSL modem/router models in order to cover most consumers out there so at the end of the day even though we witnessed the unveiling of well over a dozen state of the art standalone routers (could be more that's all i recall however) there were less than half as many modem/routers present. Fortunately there are several modem/router models which we've yet to get our hands on including the latest FRITZ!Box 3490 AC1750 Gigabit Modem Router by AVM which has been with us for two weeks now.

AVM offers a wide range of products for high-speed broadband connectivity and smart home networking. With the FRITZ! product family, AVM is a leading manufacturer of broadband devices for ADSL, cable, and LTE as well as Smart Home products for wireless LAN, DECT, and Powerline in Germany and Europe. The FRITZ!Box is the best known brand for wireless routers in Germany. In 2014 the communications specialist had 500 employees and generated a turnover of 340 million euros. Founded in Berlin in 1986, from the outset the company has focused on developing its own secure, innovative products for broadband connections. FRITZ! stands for fast Internet, the networked home and convenient telephony. Millions of satisfied customers and hundreds of award-winning products confirm AVM’s commitment to high-quality FRITZ! products and first-class customer service.

Some of you may recall our review of the FRITZ!Box 7490 a while back which ended with very positive results and us hoping to see a replacement with even faster Wi-Fi connectivity. Well the FRITZ!Box 3490 is not that since it's basically a cut-down version of the FRITZ!Box 7490 that gets shipped without the somewhat secondary (and not so important to many) DECT base station and fixed-line telephony features. However it still packs a VDSL2/ADSL2 modem (up to 100Mbit with VDSL support for vectoring), dual-band AC1750 Wi-Fi (5GHz 1300Mbps 802.11ac and 2.4GHz 450Mbps 802.11n), 4 Gigabit LAN ports and 2 USB 3.0 ports. Under the hood of the FRITZ!Box 3490 AVM has placed a 6-band DSL System-on-Chip (SoC) by Lantiq (XWAY™ VRX288), 3-stream 802.11ac radio solution by Qualcomm Atheros (QCA9880), 6 high-gain antennas, 512MB flash memory (Toshiba in our sample) and two Winbond RAM modules (W971GG8KB-25/256MB total). With everything out of the way the time has come for us to check and see just how good (or bad) the FRITZ!Box 3490 really is.

Read full article @ NikKTech

Best of CES 2016

Here's our selection of the most innovative, promising, or downright cool products we saw during this year's massive show. So without further ado here's the best of CES 2016

Read full article @ TechSpot

CES 2016 Day 4 Roundup

Four days into the one of the largest technology trade shows in the world, Aaron and Preston continued to meet with more companies we are familiar with to see what they are up to.

Cooler Master is taking their "Make it Yours" slogan seriously. To say their cases are modular is an understatement. They also showed off their latest lineup in CPU cooling and PC peripherals.
Looking for the latest M.2 SSD or a waterproof external drive? SanDisk got some on display.
Phanteks has a great reputation for making great cases here at APH Netwroks, and stuff like the Project 916 reinforces this idea.
QNAP goes redun-ception with a new NAS, along with some regular ones.
LG Electronics goes crazy with their displays. Oh, and there is also a fridge.

Read full article @ APH Networks

CES 2016 Top Picks

Once again, the Tom's Hardware team was out in force at the annual consumer electronics show in Las Vegas. Here are our top picks for CES 2016.

Read full article @ Toms Hardware

CES Day 5 Roundup

As we come to near the end of the show, APH Networks zeroed in on three well-known audio companies.

Read full article @ APH Networks

Corsair Carbide 400C Review

After the Carbide 600, Corsair is already back with yet more new Carbide Series cases. The 400C is a spacious mid-tower which allows the assembly of high-end and custom watercooling rigs. Like its big brother - the 600C - this case also features a mid-plate allowing for clean builds.

Read full article @ ocaholic

DeepCool Gamer Storm Lucifer K2 Heatsink Review

DeepCool's Gamer Storm Lucifer K2 heatsink is a revised version of the original Gamer Storm Lucifer heatsink, which Frostytech tested about a year back. The Lucifer K2 heatsink only differs in that it's not nickel plated and ships with a slim profile (20mm thick)120mm fan which makes the heatsink a little more accommodating on confined motherboards.

Read full article @ FrostyTech

GIGABYTE Z170X-Gaming 5 Motherboard Review

The GIGABYTE Z170X-Gaming 5 is everything you could possibly want in a motherboard; great overclocking, excellent performance, tons of features and an affordable price.

Read full article @ Hardware Canucks

Google Pixel C Review

The Pixel C is the first tablet to be fully developed in-house by Google. Not unlike the Chromebook Pixel that runs Chrome OS, with the Pixel line Google means to show off what's possible to build using their software platforms even if it's inpractical for most to buy.

Read full article @ TechSpot

HP Z27q 27-inch 5K Professional Monitor Review

Just as we're getting acquainted with Ultra HD, HP has upped the ante with a 5K monitor. At 5120x2880 the Z27q puts a whole lotta pixels on the screen, 14,745,600 in fact. Today we check it out in our lab.

Read full article @ Toms Hardware

Huawei Mate 8 Review

Huawei began selling the Mate 8 smartphone, the successor to the Ascend Mate 7, in China on December 9th, 2015 and the phones have been getting rave reviews and flying off store shelves. According to the company’s CEO, Yu Chengdong, over one million units of the Mate 8 smartphone have already been sold in China! Huawei might not be a household name here in the Unites States, but the Chinese telecom recently partnered with Google to build the Nexus 6P and has gained much notoriety since that phone debuted in September 2015. At CES 2016, Huawei held a press conference to announce that the 6-inch Mate 8 will be coming to 30 other countries. Read on to see what makes the Mate 8 interesting and to see how it performs!

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

KeyedUpLabs ES-87 TLK Keyboard

When it comes to keyboards it feels like after all of these years the only thing that manufactures can do is work with lighting to make their keyboards stand out. Recently though I came across a fairly new company who only makes one keyboard but still caught my attention. KeyedUpLabs only sells the ES-87, a tenkeyless keyboard. It doesn’t have backlighting or anything else flashy. Instead they have focused on making a keyboard without cutting corners to get the highest quality with a simple design. What stood out to me though was a small feature where the keyboards case can actually be replaced with a variety of cases in different colors. Being a TKL keyboard this stood out to me as a great way to match your keyboard with your build or with a different keyset put a little of your own personality into your keyboard, much like how we do with our PC builds. Because of that I reached out and KeyedUpLabs sent over a keyboard as well as a few different cases and I set out to customize the ES-87 to match my wifes personality as the ES-87 would be her LAN keyboard.

Read full article @ LanOC Reviews

Sumo Gamer Suede Beanbag Chair Review

By the time you read this, you would already have known both Preston Yuen and I are at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, reporting from the show floor. This is the first time APH Networks has ever gone to CES. When I realized we were able to apply and attend this conference back in July of 2015, I was excited and ready to go. Since then, we had done a lot of small tasks such as booking flights, accommodations, and finally, scheduling meetings and appointments with many different companies and manufacturers. There has been many "first-time experiences" while planning this trip, as this is also the first time I have traveled without my parents. Professionally speaking though, I can say I never expected I would ever get to go to a show like this, and I cannot say enough how excited I am to be here. The same could be said for today's lounge article of the Sumo Gamer Suede beanbag chair. Say what you will, but I again can say I never expected to review a product like this. Even when I told my friends I would be taking a look at a chair, they all asked me if APH Networks suddenly turned into a furniture review site. While it probably would take a different mindset when reviewing furniture, I can say it would be pretty cool. I mean, reviewing beds would be something I would have to sleep on, haha. Anyway, as Sumo has sent us several beanbags in the past, like the Omni and the SumoSac, it is now time to take a look at today's offering, the Gamer Suede. Will it still be the same puffy goodness we have seen from them in the past? And what makes this beanbag for gamers? These questions and more will be answered in today's article!

Read full article @ APH Networks

Thecus W4000+ Windows Server NAS Review

Thecus has made an interesting variation on the market with their W4000/W4000+ NASes (a 2-bay and also a 5-bay version is also available) considering that we no longer have a Linux distribution on our server but Windows Storage Server 2012 R2 Essentials and the product can be used from scratch like a regular PC. Windows Server 2012 is quite complex for entry-level users and we can clearly say that we would not recommend this product for home use simply because it is not as easy to set up as a Linux-based NAS and also requires a Connector software to be installed on each and every station in order to integrate the client with the server (and implicitly the newly created internal domain).

Read full article @ Madshrimps