Reviews 51945 Published by

Here a roundup of the latest reviews and articles:

20 of the Worst PC Setups - April 2015
Asus ROG Sica Review
Asustor AS-5102T NAS Review
Ditching My iPhone For The Samsung Galaxy S6
Gigabyte GV-N970IX-4GD Review
HTC Desire 820 Smartphone Review
In Wins 707 Black Gaming Version Chassis Review
Kingston HyperX Predator PCIe M.2 SSD Review
Kingston HyperX Predator PCIe SSD
KLEVV NEO DDR3 8GB 2400MHz Memory Kit Review
LG G4 review: Hands-on
Lian Li PC-O5S review: showcasing a show case
Motorola Moto E 2nd Gen. Smartphone Review
Noctua NH-D9L Review
Patriot Viper 4 DDR4-3000 16GB Memory Kit Review
Right-click problem on Lenovo touchpads - How to fix
RTGS Micro LED Light Kits Review
Silverstone Mammoth MM01 Review: A massive case built for harsh environments
Thermaltake Core V21 Review: Get stacked
Tt eSPORTS Poseidon ZX Blue Switch Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Review
Using Asus Transfer Express: A Multi-Platform Control Hub



20 of the Worst PC Setups - April 2015

I’m sure at some point you had a bad PC setup. Maybe moving into a new place, waiting for a new desk to arrive or you just ran out of room. I can remember my horrible PC setups from when I was living at the dorms in college. If you have ever ventured over to the Shitty Battlestations sub-reddit you will find a lot of horrible PC setups. We will are going to pick 20 each month and feature them as 20 of the Worst PC setups for that month. Here are some of the bad ones from April!

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

Asus ROG Sica Review

ROG's new entry-level gaming mouse. The Asus Republic of Gamers brand has expanded considerably in the past few years to include more and more products designed for a gaming audience. The Asus plan to create an entire PC ecosystem under its gaming sub-brand has seen it release desktops, headsets, laptops, mice, monitors, SSDs and sound cards in addition to the graphics cards and motherboards that have been with the mainstays of the ROG brand since its inception.

On that theme HEXUS has the Asus Sica gaming mouse in for review, which is one of two gaming mice currently offered by the Republic of Gamers brand, with a third is expected later this year named Spatha. The Sica is the entry-level mouse making use of a compact ambidextrous design with a 5,000DPI optical sensor. The other ROG mouse, the Gladius, is the best the company has to offer with a 6,400DPI sensor, changeable Omron switches, a 2,000Hz polling rate and built-in flash memory for storing macro profiles. To finish off the ROG-themed peripherals, Asus recently launched its Whetstone mouse pad constructed from a fray-resistant fabric sporting a Mayan-inspired pattern and non-slip silicone base.

Read full article @ Hexus

Asustor AS-5102T NAS Review

We keep a sharp eye on storage developments here. The market is changing rapidly, a couple of years ago the consumer and SoHo environment pretty much all used simple external storage devices like USB HDD encasements and external eSATA solutions. In the middle of the mainstream and high-end sector is a market for DAS units and at the other side of the scope we of course NAS units. A couple of years ago NAS storage units where to be found only in the enterprise and corporate environments as those solutions where not only expensive but also required a proper Ethernet infrastructure and a system administrator that could configure it. Then there was the smart-phone revolution and apps where born, PCs are getting smaller by the day and SSDs got popular. Herein lies the success of broad and diverse NAS units, a standalone server that you hook into your network, and all these many devices in your household can now share and stream data. Your Smart TV or HTPC could have a game or movie loading / streaming from the NAS. Quickly access your data with your smartphone, stream a video over NAS on your tablet. Yeah NAS slowly transformed into a file server with a lot of functionality.

While the dynamics have changed rapidly over the past few years, our demand for massive volume storage capacity has increased, with the help of WiFi and Gigabit Ethernet in general in our homes we started evolving in our lifestyle and thus requirements. It's exactly in the lifestyle segments where the latest NAS units come in. NAS units are really small handy servers that not only function as storage devices, they are getting more functionality combined with ease of use as well. With prices going down, and everybody having high-speed LAN Ethernet at home the market is slowly adapting and targeting NAS devices at a hard to convince and very money attentive consumer. One of the companies out there making a really good effort in offering you a handy and more affordable NAS unit is Asustor.

Armed with new firmware and an updated GUI + priced competitive against the big guns in the industry like Qnap, Synology and Netgear a year or two ago Asustor entered the market. We review the AS5102T NAS. We went blank into this review as we never had tested this brand before, but armed with very good hardware and an excellent software suite the AS-5102T is not only a fast file server, it's loaded with applications and media functionality as well.

Read full article @ Guru3D

Ditching My iPhone For The Samsung Galaxy S6

Relationships. Some go the distance. Others are of a more mercurial nature, such as the one between me and my iPhone.

As much as I loved my iPhone, I've always found iOS to be somewhat immature and not quite serious (a problem that plagues most Apple-produced software), which probably explains why my eye has wandered towards Android phones from time to time. I resisted the urge to explore Android's potentially greener pastures for years, though, opting to stay in my comfort zone rather than navigating the travails of adopting a new OS and workflows, the exasperation of manufacturer-included "bloatware" (Samsung's TouchWiz, for example, was said to be particularly headache-inducing), and the frustrations inherent in getting a non-Apple device to play nice with my beloved MacBook Pro. That is until just recently, when my fidelity was finally broken with the release of Samsung's Galaxy S6...

Read full article @ HotHardware.com

Gigabyte GV-N970IX-4GD Review

Small on the outside, big on the inside. Gigabyte has been a champion of Nvidia's GeForce graphics cards for a while now. Memory issues aside, the GeForce GTX 970 continues to offer a decent mix of performance, power efficiency and price. Basic cards cost around £260 and have enough horsepower to drive games at a tasty 2,560x1,440 resolution.

But too many times manufacturers take little heed of Nvidia's design philosophy and, rather than build a scenario-specific card, simply attach existing coolers that may not be the ideal match for the GPU underneath. Behemoth GTX 970s housed on 12-inch-long PCBs are missing the point of the Maxwell architecture.

Read full article @ Hexus

HTC Desire 820 Smartphone Review

‘Phablet’ is a term thrown around a lot these days, with some quick to brand anything bigger than 5-inches a phablet. Well today we look at the HTC Desire 820, a 5.5-inch smartphone which definitely fits within the phablet trend. With an asking price of under £280, is it worth the cash?

Read full article @ KitGuru

In Wins 707 Black Gaming Version Chassis Review

Today I will be reviewing the black version 707 gaming chassis from In Win. Let me first start out saying that the 707 is huge. So huge that I found it difficult to get some good shots of the 707 in my office. Making my regular set up impossible to use. Capable of supporting up to 10 fans or 2 water coolers, 4 graphic cards, 206mm CPU heat sink, and up to a E-ATX mother board. In Win 707 series comes in two different designs, the gaming black version and the silent white. With the main differences being that the black 707 has the side window, while the white has sound deafening materials built inside the chassis.

As you can see above, the 707 comes with an array of features and possibilities, that I believe appeals to both the new and old school gamer alike. I received the black gaming version, which is a full tower chassis comprised of a charcoal colored SECC steel and a tinted protruding side panel window, with red trim residing on the front panel. This gives the 707 more of a traditional look compared to their most recent chassis, which is in my book an awesome feature. I rather like a more classic look to my Towers. With all that said, I have to say that I am truly excited to open and check this baby out!

Read full article @ FunkyKit

Kingston HyperX Predator PCIe M.2 SSD Review

Are you in a hurry? Solid state Drive Technology has been serving up data at the fastest rates available to consumers, quickly earning the distinction of ‘instant’ storage. SSDs built for the SATA interface already make most computers open applications in a snap, but the latest generation of PCI-Express 2.0 based SSDs bring that title closer to the truth. The new Kingston HyperX Predator PCIe M.2 SSD is one such example, and boasts 1400 MB/s read speeds with 1000 MB/s compressible data writes. Available in 240/480GB storage capacities, and available as a single M.2 drive or installed to a half-height half-length PCI-Express 2.0 adapter, in this article Benchmark Reviews tests the Kingston Predator against the fastest SSDs on the market.

Read full article @ Benchmark Reviews

Kingston HyperX Predator PCIe SSD

"Traditional" or mechanical hard drives have long been a huge bottleneck in overall PC performance. A mechanical hard drive consists of magnetic rotating platters, read & write heads, electrical motor and a controller. As the platter spins, data is written and/or read from the platter by the heads that float just above. Essentially, the mechanics of the drive can only … Read more.

Read full article @ Modders-Inc

KLEVV NEO DDR3 8GB 2400MHz Memory Kit Review

When you think of computer memory, the first companies that come to mind are usually the top manufacturers such as Kingston, Corsair, Crucial, Patriot, G.Skill and several others. When choosing memory, most of us immediately go for these companies as they are well known and have proven themselves capable of manufacturing top quality memory. With already so many great companies manufacturing memory, it can be difficult for a new company to enter this competitive market. Founded in 2014, KLEVV is Essencore's house brand for memory; Essencore is a division of SK Group, which owns SK Hynix; so in a long way around, KLEVV is part of SK Hynix. Read on to see how our KLEVV memory kit performs!

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

LG G4 review: Hands-on

Great screen and impressive camera are looking to spoil Samsung's party

Read full article @ V3

Lian Li PC-O5S review: showcasing a show case

While we often receive requests to test one of Lian Li's enclosures, we frequently encounter difficulties in actually getting their products to our test lab. Luckily, this wasn't the case for their new "O" series of enclosures: we received the PC-O5S, a very special Mini-ITX case that has enough room to accommodate a 3-slot graphics card!

Announced by Lian Li back in October of 2014, the O-series of enclosures consists of four different models: two Mini-ITX cases, a micro-ATX enclosure, and an ATX tower. Features that these enclosures have in common are that they can be placed in both horizontal and vertical orientations, that they can be attached to the wall, and perhaps most importantly, that they'll enable you to make the most of the hardware that you put inside them.

Core design choices include the glass panel that covers one of the enclosures' sides, and the use of PCI-E risers that allow one to position the graphics card parallel to the motherboard rather than perpendicular to it, a construction that we've previously only seen SilverStone use for their RVZ01 and ML07. As a result, these cases aren't particularly compact, but are quite "thin". When placed flat on its side (as per the photo below), the PC-O5S that is covered in this article has a height of less than 15cm, substantially less than the 20-23cm of your average tower!

Read full article @ Hardware.Info

Motorola Moto E 2nd Gen. Smartphone Review

The Motorola Moto E 2nd Gen. (a.k.a. Moto E 2015) is a value smartphone with a 4.5-inch touchscreen that runs the Android 5.0 "Lollipop" operating system, powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 1.2 GHz quad-core processor in the 4G LTE version. It has 1 GiB of RAM and 8 GiB or 16 GiB storage space, a 5 MP main camera, a VGA frontal camera, and supports two SIM chips in the reviewed model. Let's see if is a good entry-level smartphone.

Read full article @ Hardware Secrets

Noctua NH-D9L Review

Noctua, like always, continues to make its products with considerable thought and care. The NH-D9L fills a even greater gap than the NH-U9S, while still covering the basics by focus on the low performance stock coolers from both Intel and AMD and provides something that can dissipate a large volume of heat within small confinement. The extra bit difference here is the D9L is 3U compatible allowing for a even smaller footprint reaching only 110mm. This is where I often run into this problem with a chassis, where I find it to be great, but lack the height to install a decent size aftermarket cooler. A great example would be Cooler Master Stacker series with its ITX chassis. That chassis was a rough sell considering the zero extra space. This is where Noctua comes in!

Read full article @ OCC

Patriot Viper 4 DDR4-3000 16GB Memory Kit Review

Patriot is no newcomer to memory and their Viper line has been around as long as I can remember. The Viper 4 series sits as the mid-range offering in their DDR4 memory line with the Viper Extreme sitting at the high-end and the Signature Line being more the entry level. We first got a glimpse of the Viper 4 series back in January at CES and now we have a kit of our own to test out. The kit we are taking a look at today is the PV416G300C6QK kit, which is a 16GB kit with timings of 16-16-16-36 at 1.35V. The memory kit is of course a quad-channel kit designed for Intel’s X99 chipset and has some pretty nice black and red heatspreaders that not only will keep the memory cool, but will look quite good in your system. Let’s see what this memory kit can do!

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

Right-click problem on Lenovo touchpads - How to fix

Today, we've got a tutorial explaining how to get rid of the two-finger context menu option in the Synaptics Pointing Device Driver for the touchpad on Lenovo Ideapad notebooks, and restore the normal right-click functionality. A first article in the series, so pay attention.

Read full article @ Dedoimedo

RTGS Micro LED Light Kits Review

Up for review today I have something a bit different, two sets of micro LED lights. Yes they are LEDs meaning they use less power and put out virtually no heat at all, but since they’re micro they’re just smaller. These have no real official name, just Micro Leds and they’re from a company called RTGS that seems to specialize in lighting as they have numerous products on their website. In the pack I have today are two sets of micro LEDs with fifteen per string and they’re about six feet long. The LEDs are battery operated with two CR2032 batteries that should last about 24 hours with continuous use. Read on to learn more..

Read full article @ Technogog

Silverstone Mammoth MM01 Review: A massive case built for harsh environments

The Silverstone "Mammoth" MM01 is built for folks who want a robust case that can protect systems or servers in harsh conditions. It's completely dust and spill-proof with a HEPA air filter, front and back panels designed to deflect liquid and a sealed top panel, all while boasting the capacity of a bar fridge at an impressive 87.7L.

Read full article @ Techspot

Thermaltake Core V21 Review: Get stacked

Bored of the same old computer case? Thermaltake want you to GET STACKED! Yes, their Core V21 can be stacked together (and the bases removed) to increase the size and capacity. It is a very unusual design, but at £48 'per case' it may make for some interesting mods.

Read full article @ KitGuru

Tt eSPORTS Poseidon ZX Blue Switch Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Review

The release of Grand Theft Auto V was enough for us to drop every review unrelated to gaming (ok not every single one but most) and focus our efforts in testing many of the available gaming peripherals we have here while playing this awesome game. Personally i have to say that i expected just a bit more from Rockstar especially since this is a 60GB game but still this past week flew by extremely fast thanks to it. Anyways i really don't know how many of you out there have limited space on your desks or how many attend LAN events but just like myself once (not too long ago) i imagine that in order to save space one of the first things that comes in mind is getting a more compact keyboard. Now finding a compact keyboard in the market is not that hard but finding a compact gaming keyboard with mechanical switches is not what I’d call easy, not if you're looking for one by one of the leading manufacturers. Tt eSPORTS is one of those companies that need no introductions and today we're taking a look at their Poseidon ZX Mechanical Gaming Keyboard.

“Challenge is the game” highlights the philosophy to bring out gamers’ addiction in gaming and the ambition of reaching to the extreme. Tt eSPORTS, a gaming obsessed division from Thermaltake, is uniting gamers from all over the world in a unique & fascinating eSPORTS culture, inherited the spirits of Thermaltake, is an energetic, powerful, bold and intelligent challenger who never says “no” to the extreme competition. We do not only provide gamers the ultimate gaming gears but also fulfills the passion to achieve the ultimate success. Thermaltake has been a well-known brand in the gaming & DIY market for PC Chassis, Coolers and Power Supplies PSU for many years. The brand personality of unique, aggressive, vivid and stylish makes Thermaltake an expert in creating exciting things and fascinating environment for gamers and enthusiasts. Tt eSPORTS inherited the brand personality with unique and creative design by observing users’ behaviors and requirements. The fan cooling design on Tt eSPORTS Challenger keyboard demonstrate the brand spirit. It is the worldwide first keyboard with fan cooling function that could dry your hand sweats and blow tension away during cut-throat competition.

Read full article @ NikKTech

Using Asus Transfer Express: A Multi-Platform Control Hub

For those of us with more than one device that sees regular usage, keeping in control of where important files are stored can rapidly become a complex chore. And that’s without even bringing the differing backup and file transfer procedures of handheld devices into the picture. The Asus Transfer Express is a central control hub that aims to minimise file synchronisation, PC control, and handheld device usage headaches. Its functionality extends from allowing two PCs to share a single keyboard and mouse, to playing audio on your smartphone through your PC-connected speakers, to a simplified file synchronisation method between computers.

Read full article @ KitGuru