Reviews 51914 Published by

Here a roundup of the latest reviews and articles:

Adam Elements Bella Power 6000mAh Portable Power Bank Review
Asus Strix 7.1 Gaming Headset
Grand Theft Auto V Benchmarked, CPU & GPU Performance Review
Grand Theft Auto V Benchmarked, Full Performance Review
HD Video Editing PC - April 2015
Here’s what you’ll need to play Grand Theft Auto V in 4K
How to remove Windows 10 upgrade updates in Windows 7 and 8
Kwikset SmartCode 916 Electronic Deadbolt Review
Microsoft Band Apps by Platform
Noctua NH-U9S Review
Phanteks PH-TC12LS Low Profile Heatsink Review
Samsung 850 EVO M.2 and mSATA SSD Review
SpotCam HD Wi-Fi Video Monitoring Camera Review
The Dell Venue 11 Pro 7000 Review
Ultimate Ears Boom Review
WD My Cloud DL4100 Review



Adam Elements Bella Power 6000mAh Portable Power Bank Review

If there's one thing most people i know are out to buy this time of the year in anticipation of their summer vacations that's portable battery packs since they all know how it feels to have your smartphone and/or tablet run out of juice while on the road or the middle of nowhere without any way of charging it. True some people choose car chargers since they are easier to use and quite cheaper but leaving out the fact that power coming from the cigarette adapter is not very clean for your portable devices there's also the matter of what will you do if your car is nowhere near you. So yes portable batteries are a must gadget if you want to be 100% certain that you will never be left without your smartphone and todays reviews is about one such product the 6000mAh Power Bella AEP-6000BT Portable Power Bank by Adam Elements.

Established in December 2013, Adam Elements offers innovative solutions for leading smart technology brands. Covering mobile devices, smart wearables, intelligent peripherals, smart health products and other intelligent equipment, Adam Elements provides a diverse range of exciting products. We offer the best solution available, backing our role as exclusive agents in the Taiwan and global markets with excellent R&D capabilities, strong international awareness of our products, and our own Adam Elements brands. Adam Elements offers an exceptional selection of the world’s best mobile smart products from renowned manufacturers. Headquartered in Taiwan, Adam Elements serves the global market including China, Hong Kong, Russia, Turkey, Germany, and the Middle East. With the rapid growth of the smart lifestyle market, Adam Elements has created three distinct consumer brands, these are "AdamElements", "AdamSelect", and "AdamCare". Each of these product lines meets the demands of a growing segment and benefits from Adam Elements’ strengths as agents and product developers.

The Power Bella Portable Power Bank is really nothing we haven't seen numerous times in the past so once again we see a small enclosure housing 6000mAh (22.2Wh) worth of high-quality lithium-ion cells which in turn can transfer to mobile devices via two 5V charging USB ports placed at its base (1A/2.5A). The good news is that unlike the majority of new companies in that specific segment of the market Adam Elements chose rechargeable lithium-ion cells manufactured by Samsung so that alone is enough for us to expect very good results from the Power Bella model. As the name suggests the design of the battery may not appeal to some users and particularly men (although the white/black model is not bad looking) but our primary goal is to see just how good this power bank is and so let's find out just that.

Read full article @ NikKTech

Asus Strix 7.1 Gaming Headset

When it comes to headsets, just about every company you can imagine makes their own. You can find them in all different shapes and with countless features. That said I can’t honestly say that anything out on the market is the end all be all gaming headset. That is because everything about them is subjective. That said when a company like Asus puts out what they market as a high end gaming headset, I take notice. In just about everything they do they do an amazing job, especially on the audio front. So when the Asus Strix 7.1 gaming headset came in I couldn’t wait to test it out.

Read full article @ LanOC Reviews

Grand Theft Auto V Benchmarked, CPU & GPU Performance Review

With a handful of delays now in the rearview mirror PC gamers are finally getting their chance to play the latest entry in the Grand Theft Auto series. Rockstar has made many improvements to the PC version, including increased resolution and graphical detail, denser traffic, greater draw distances, upgraded AI, new wildlife, and advanced weather and damage effects. So far GTA V looks to be truly optimized for PC, but we'll have a better notion of this after some tests.

Read full article @ TechSpot

Grand Theft Auto V Benchmarked, Full Performance Review

PC gamers are finally getting their chance to play the latest entry in the Grand Theft Auto series. Rockstar has made many improvements to the PC version, including enhanced graphics, denser traffic, greater draw distances, upgraded AI, new wildlife, and advanced weather and damage effects. GTA V looks to be truly optimized for PC.

Read full article @ TechSpot

HD Video Editing PC - April 2015

A few years ago, your PC just couldn't be fast enough for digital video processing. By now every average PC is able to process Standard Definition (PAL 720x576) as well as HD Ready, but technology doesn't stand still. By now just about every smartphone can record in HD or Full HD and the new frontier is Ultra HD, also known as 4K. This resolution and the 'accompanying' codec HEVC / H.265 require seriously powerful hardware.

That's the reason why a powerful PC can still really make a difference. You need a fast processor, lots of storage capacity, and good monitor able to display HD resolutions.

Read full article @ Hardware.Info

Here’s what you’ll need to play Grand Theft Auto V in 4K

Game scales well across multiple configs, but 4K is still a system killer. While the vast majority of PC games now support 4K, few make it a defining feature. But what to do when it's a game that's been out since 2013, and already made available on four different systems? Rockstar's been banging the 4K drum ever since it finally admitted that yes, a PC version of Grand Theft Auto V was in the works, but it hasn't gone so far as to tell people exactly what kind of system they'll need to get the game up and running at such a high resolution.

Fortunately, the Internet has stepped up to fill in the gaps. If you were hoping that GTA V's engine was lightweight enough allow 4K at high settings on more modest setups (it did debut on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 4 after all), prepare to be disappointed. In a big benchmarking test over at Gamers Nexus, GTA V was put through its paces on just about every piece of modern graphics hardware around, all the way from a lowly R7 250X through to a $1000 GTX X Titan X. The takeaway? Go dual-GPU or go home if you want 4K approaching anywhere near 60 FPS.

Read full article @ ArsTechnica

How to remove Windows 10 upgrade updates in Windows 7 and 8

Microsoft will ship Windows 10 later this year and with it comes an offer to upgrade existing versions of Windows to the operating system for free.

Read full article @ gHacks

Kwikset SmartCode 916 Electronic Deadbolt Review

The recent rash of burglaries concerned me, as my new home shared the same basic deadbolt as everyone else. I check with neighbors, and a popular choice with contractors was the Kwikset SmartCode 916 Z‑Wave Touchscreen Electronic Deadbolt, which auto-locks after thirty seconds and can wirelessly communicate with security and home automation systems via encrypted Z-Wave technology. Mine installed in minutes, and is the subject of this article for Benchmark Reviews.

Read full article @ Benchmark Reviews

Microsoft Band Apps by Platform

The Microsoft Band has the capability to provide cross-platform app support. Here's the current listing of what's available across Windows Phone, iOS, and Android.

Read full article @ WinSupersite

Noctua NH-U9S Review

Noctua has once again made a product with considerable thought and care. The NH-U9S fills that gab between the low performance stock coolers from both Intel and AMD, and provides something that can dissipate a large volume of heat within small confinement. I often run into this problem when reviewing chassis, where I find it to be great, but lack the height to install a decent size aftermarket cooler. This is where Noctua comes in! While All-In-One (AIO) coolers are great, it doesn't always fit within the users build preference or budget. It's also true that not every consumer wants to overclock, but do like the idea of lower temperatures compared to stock coolers. The NH-U9S fits perfectly within the socket specifications for Intel or AMD. This is great for small form factors like ITX or M-ATX motherboards.

Read full article @ OCC

Phanteks PH-TC12LS Low Profile Heatsink Review

In this review Frostytech is testing the Phanteks PH-TC12LS heatsink, a top-down low profile heatsink that stands 74mm tall and weighs in at 500grams. Like the Phanteks PH-TC14S heatsink Frostytech tested here , the Phanteks PH-TC12LS relies heavily on aesthetics. The aluminum fins have been painted black, which is not an ideal surface treatment because it insulates the aluminum fins from the surrounding air mass to some degree.

Read full article @ Frostytech

Samsung 850 EVO M.2 and mSATA SSD Review

Though we already reviewed the regular EVO 850 SSD series, there are more form factors and a week ago Samsung announced their Samsung 850 EVO SSD based on the M.2 slot as well as the mSATA slot. Samsung submitted both form factors for some testing as we received a 120 GB M.2. version, and a nice 1 TB version of the mSATA product. Interesting stuff as these smaller form factors are just as fast as a regular SSD. The M.2 is more intended for enthusiast class motherboards, but that mSATA form factor is often used in laptops. And boy let me tell you, if you'd like to speed up your laptop's mSATA storage, then look no further. The new SSDs are a stunning series of storage technology as they have an enthusiast class speed yet are made to be very competitive in pricing, armed with truckloads of performance and that attractive pricing.

As you guys know, we've been testing NAND flash based storage ever since the very beginning, and it is surprising to see where we have gotten. The SSD market is fierce and crowded though. While stability and safety of your data have become a number one priority for the manufacturers, the technology keeps advancing at the fast pace it does, the performance numbers a good SSD offers these days are simply breathtaking! You get between 450 MB/s to 500 MB/sec on SATA3 which is the norm for a single controller based SSD. Next to that, over the past year, NAND flash memory (the storage memory used inside an SSD) has become much cheaper as well. Prices a year ago settled at just under 1 USD per GB. That was two to threefold two years ago. These days a good SSD can be found under 50 cents per GB. With parties like Samsung, Toshiba and Micro, the prices have now dropped by another 20%, you can spot SSDs for 40 cents per Gigabyte!

This means that SSD technology and NAND storage has gone mainstream and due to the lower prices, the volume sizes go up as well. Years ago, 64 GB was hot stuff, then slowly we moved to 120 GB, last year 240 GB for an SSD in a PC was the norm, in the upcoming year we'll slowly transition to roughly 500 GB per SSD as the norm as such a drive is going to hover between 200 to 250 USD/EURO. With the market being so huge, fierce and competitive, it brought us to where we are today... nice volume SSDs at acceptable prices with very fast performance. Not one test system in my lab has an HDD, everything runs on SSD while I receive and retrieve my bigger chunks of data from a NAS server here in the office. The benefits are performance, speed, low power consumption and no noise. You can say that I evangelize SSDs, yes Sir... I am a fan.

Read full article @ Guru3D

SpotCam HD Wi-Fi Video Monitoring Camera Review

Personal home security is not something we necessarily always think about, especially if you happen to live in an apartment. For most people setting up a WiFi camera can be complicated and just frustrating. Well Spotcam wants to solve that problem and give you video monitoring to your home that is easy to set up and can be viewed from any device. Spotcam is a a WiFi camera that offers 720p HD video, 24 hours of free recording, motion alerts via their mobile app or e-mail, scheduling, and two-way talking. At only $119 it is a very inexpensive way to add security to your home. Let’s take a look…

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

The Dell Venue 11 Pro 7000 Review

Back in November, Dell took the lid off of their Venue 11 Pro 7000 refresh which is their first tablet offering to have Core M powering it. Dell is aiming this tablet squarely at the enterprise segment, but with prices that start low enough for consumers to take a look as well. Starting at $699, it is not an inexpensive device, but it does offer some compelling features on top of the powerful (for a tablet) processor. Dell has an entire range of accessories for the tablet to let the end user get the maximum out of the device, and allows the device to be used as a tablet, a laptop, or even a desktop computer.

Read full article @ Anandtech

Ultimate Ears Boom Review

Looking at most Bluetooth speakers, how they work, where the buttons are and how you charge it up are all pretty obvious from the get go. This isn't the case with the Ultimate Ears Boom. This might seem like a weakness, but being elusive is only this speaker's first act.Coming in at $199 (£169, AU$199), the UE Boom isn't cheap. But it more than makes up the difference with its second and third act: a wealth of surprising and impressive features.

Read full article @ Techradar

WD My Cloud DL4100 Review

Meet WD's new "business-ready" NAS. WD has revamped its range of network-attached storage (NAS) solutions with the introduction of various My Cloud models that tout a good mix of performance and ease of use without breaking the bank.

The premium and complicated nature of the firm's earlier Sentinel units seems a distant memory, with simplified My Cloud models now covering all bases, from entry-level single-drive units to the prosumer EX Series and, at the top of the tree, the business-ready DL Series.

We recently came away impressed with the four-bay EX4100, calling it "one of the more user-friendly NAS devices on the market," but the expansion of the My Cloud range makes the decision-making process that little bit more complicated, and if you've perused WD's high-end NAS portfolio, you may be left wondering: what's the difference between the EX and DL SKUs?

Read full article @ Hexus