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Here a roundup of the latest reviews and articles:

2015 Chevrolet Trax LTZ AWD
Case Mod Friday: Refl3ctoR 900D
Corsair Hydro Series H80i GT Review
EMTEC Stay Earbuds Wireless Review
Hands On: Windows 10 build 10122 in Tablet Mode on HP Stream 7
i-rocks Golem Series K50E gaming keyboard
KitGuru Complete Guide to Buying a Workstation
Microsoft Lumia 640 LTE Review
MSI CUBI Review
ROCCAT Kave XTD 5.1 Analog Review
Seagate Archive HDD 8TB SATA III HDD Review
Turtle Beach Impact 500 TKL Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Review
Xubuntu 15.04 Vivid Vervet - Fabulous



2015 Chevrolet Trax LTZ AWD

t’s funny I spend so much time in the office playing with hardware and tech and gaming throughout the year that completely miss out on some of the cool tech that requires me to get outside a little. When we plan out trips I sometimes take that chance to bring things along with me that require a little more time out of the office. Well for the second year in a row my wife and I decided to make the trip down to Florida to visit family. Along the way we spent a few days at the Mid-Season Invitational League of Legends games, snuck off to Disney World, and spent a few days on the beach in Daytona. Well I decided this would be a great time to check out something completely different. As an old school car guy and a tech nut I keep my ear to the ground when I can and I have seen GM pushing their OnStar with 4G LTE. I thought it would be interesting to see just what they have going on the tech side of things. I reached out to GM and they were surprisingly happy to drop of a 2015 Chevy Trax with all of the bells and whistles. We took the Trax down with us giving us a great chance to check out what they have going on.

Let’s be clear, this isn’t a car review as it is more a peek at what kind of tech you can get with a new car although I will talk a little about how the Trax worked out for us on the trip as well.

Read full article @ LanOC Reviews

Case Mod Friday: Refl3ctoR 900D

Welcome to another Case Mod Friday showcase! This week we have twister7800gtx's “Refl3ctoR 900D” build. Here is what he had to say about it, "After the last Mod I made last year, the 8.0.0.D, a mod built upon the Corsair 800D, this year I decided to create a new project based on the very new Corsair 900D. This work shall be an evolution of the previous project trying to solve some of the limits that had occurred previously with some evolutions and graphic optimizations"

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

Corsair Hydro Series H80i GT Review

ALCs (All-contained Liquid Coolers) are now regarded as a mainstay in the cooling market, bridging the gap between air cooling and custom water-cooling. Corsair are a name that stand out in this arena, having presented us with a multitude of liquid coolers over the years and today we’re to look at the latest iteration of their 120mm variant which sits inside the Hydro Series.

The Hydro Series H80i GT is a closed loop cooler which adheres to the 120mm specification. This CPU cooler is supplied with two SP120L fans and is configured to offer digital functionality via Corsair LINK software – allowing the user to modify performance, noise and LED lighting.

Read full article @ Vortez

EMTEC Stay Earbuds Wireless Review

Believe it or not, EMTEC originated as EMTEC Magnetics and further, BASF Magnetics, where in 1934 they invented the first magnetic tape for audio recording. BASF, now EMTEC, is a pioneer in the media industry, so it is easy to imagine the expected quality of the Stay Earbuds.

Read full article @ TechnologyX

Hands On: Windows 10 build 10122 in Tablet Mode on HP Stream 7

After installing Windows 10 Insider Preview build 10122 in a clean upgrade from build 10074 I was finally able to use Tablet Mode on a small screened device, the HP Stream 7, and this is about that experience.

Read full article @ WinSupersite

i-rocks Golem Series K50E gaming keyboard

Although we do love a good mechanical keyboard here at KitGuru, we’re not blind to the fact that it is not the only way to do things. There are of course traditional membrane, rubber done keys and the more laptop orientated scissor switch, a modified version of which is what i-rocks has utilised in its new Golem Series K50E board. It has quite a standard look compared to the average LED festooned gaming board, but this one does have a basic level of backlighting, a few media keys and some subtle styling.

Is it worth its modest price tag and is it a worthy alternative to the many mechanical boards dominating the peripheral scene?

Read full article @ KitGuru

KitGuru Complete Guide to Buying a Workstation

From the advent of affordable internet in the 90s to the explosion of broadband services over the past 5 years, content has been getting better and better. From building designers to game developers, from training companies to broadcasting organisations, everyone is processing larger and larger media files and regularly sharing them with colleagues on the other side of the planet. With so many of us working in/around the digital content creation (DCC) zone, there seems a paucity of intelligent, accessible buying advice for professional systems. Today, we begin the first in a new series at KitGuru, which aims to give you a complete buying guide to workstations – beginning with the options available to you and the differences in the kind of load that each package places on your hardware.

Read full article @ KitGuru

Microsoft Lumia 640 LTE Review

The Microsoft Lumia 640 is among the first in a new breed of Windows Phones. With a larger screen, more RAM and a different design language from its predecessor, this is Microsoft stamping its logo (literally) on the Lumia range. And what a change this proves to be.

The old Nokia did things a little differently. Budget devices made by the Finnish firm were notoriously bare-bones; this could be seen in the decision to omit Gorilla Glass and limit RAM in models such as the Lumia 520 and 630, among others.Value was added for the consumer through access to services such as MixRadio and HERE Maps. Microsoft takes something of a different tack.Those who purchase a Microsoft Lumia 640 will receive several sweeteners, such as 30GB of free OneDrive storage and a one-year subscription to Office 365. These in themselves are nice, especially for the price. However, when paired with a phone that rivals (and exceeds) the ever-popular Moto G in many areas, even in its newer incarnation, heads will start to turn.

Read full article @ Techradar

MSI CUBI Review

Small is the new in thing... For a while it seemed that all in one systems, machines which have the main PC components built into the back of the screen, would be the next big thing. That hasn’t happened and instead the trend looks to be going more towards ultra compact systems, at least as far as desktops go. A number of major manufacturers have systems based on this form factor and MSI are no different, today we test one in our MSI Cubi Review.

Read full article @ HardwareHeaven

ROCCAT Kave XTD 5.1 Analog Review

As a successor to the original Kave headset, the Kave XTD Analog is based on the same ground up redesign that we saw in the Kave XTD 5.1 Digital. However, instead of being attached to a large control pod-come-external soundcard we get an inline remote with a deskstand to help control each individual channel of surround goodness, meaning, by doing away with the fancy audio processing the analogue version falls into a lower price range.

Packing in three drivers in each earcup, 2x 40mm 1x 30mm we are happy to hear that the Kave 5.1 Analog shares the same 25% weight reduction with its digital sibling over the original version, coming in at 335g.

Read full article @ Vortez

Seagate Archive HDD 8TB SATA III HDD Review

How many of you recall the days when even 340MB of storage space was the highest one could find and consumers had lots of brands they could choose a drive from (well at least in most places on the planet) including Seagate, WD, IBM, Quantum and Maxtor? Well since then (over 15 years ago) things have changed a lot so aside the fact that Seagate and WD are the two largest players right now (for example Quantum was bought by Maxtor which in turn was bought by Seagate) storage capacities have skyrocketed up to a crazy 10TB (10TB=10000000MB). Of course technology never stops progressing so we all knew that this day would eventually come although it did arrive earlier than some expected. Unfortunately as we all know in order to own the latest and highest capacity model you need to spend quite a bit especially if you're looking for a durable HDD with the best possible read/write performance. The good news however is that thanks to Seagate people who place capacity and durability before performance now have a HDD they can turn to and its name is the Archive HDD.

Read full article @ NikKTech

Turtle Beach Impact 500 TKL Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Review

It’s been a very interesting time for Turtle Beach, with the revealing their new desktop peripherals at CES 2015, we’re now very excited to have them in the eTeknix office. We’ve already looked at their new gaming nice, the GRIP 500 and the GRIP 300, as well as their full-size mechanical keyboard, the IMPACT 700. Today, we’ve got their first Ten Keys Less (TKL) keyboard, the Impact 500.

“The Turtle Beach IMPACT 500 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard for PC and Mac combines precision and power in a minimalist, tenkeyless keycap layout for minimum distance and smaller keyboard footprint. For that sharp, tactile feel, the Impact 500 features Cherry Blue MX mechanical switches that deliver gold-standard responsiveness. Six-key rollover with full anti-ghosting means fast-moving fingers can control games without the fear of missed moves and dropped instructions. And a rubber-coated, steel reinforce chassis provides rock-solid stability in a small footprint occupying less space on your desktop.”

Read full article @ eTeknix

Xubuntu 15.04 Vivid Vervet - Fabulous

I'm so excited, I just can't fight it. So yes, here's a long, enthusiastic review of Xubuntu 15.04 Vivid Vervet 64-bit edition, tested in a multi-boot Windows 8/10 & Linux setup on a Lenovo G50-70 laptop with UEFI, Secure Boot and GPT, covering live session, install and day-to-day use, including look & feel, network connectivity - Wireless, Bluetooth, Samba, partitioning & slideshow, package management, software updates, default and applications, webcam, multimedia - Flash, MP3, HD video, resource usage, performance, responsiveness, suspend & resume, stability, hardware compatibility with one outstanding bug with the Realtek Wireless card, smartphone support - Android, iPhone, Windows Phone, Ubuntu Phone, new Samba printing, customization, and more. A perfect 10? Looks like it.

Read full article @ Dedoimedo