Big day for news here, so I figure I shouldn’t say much and let you get right to it. Enjoy!
Desk Genie Non-Slip Charging Desk Stand
http://www.testfreaks.com/blog/review/desk-genie-non-slip-charging-desk-stand/
The Desk Genie features two USB ports along with an 8 in 1 card reader, and the ability to charge most any portable device out there today. I was a bit skeptical of this device at first, but I figured I’d give it a try anyway. I’ve come to like the Desk Genie in my time with it, it’s very useful especially since it’s a card reader and USB hub as well as the charger, but there is one improvement I’d make to it, read on to learn more…
Tips: Tech Gifts To Avoid Giving This Holiday Season
http://www.testfreaks.com/blog/information/tips-tech-gifts-avoid-giving-holiday-season/
Ah, the Holidays are here, and with it comes the Spirit of Giving. While you are going through your list, finding the perfect gift for those you love (and otherwise), it might be good to note that some tech gifts are better served by not giving.
MovieWedge
http://www.testfreaks.com/blog/review/moviewedge/
Today’s review item can easily be mistaken for a Hacky Sack. The MovieWedge is basically a bean bag and is used with various portable media devices as a stand. Sounds far fetched, doesn’t it? It is simple in it form and function yet remarkably versatile.
THECUS N0503 COMBO NAS REVIEW
http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/thecus_n0503_nas_review/
One thing I’ve noticed after reviewing several Thecus NAS units is that they aren’t afraid to try new things. They’ve had a lot of “firsts” – they were first to introduce a DAS unit with eSATA support, and then a couple of years ago they were the first company to bring RAID 5 to a home NAS. Today Thecus continues the trend by releasing the N0503 Combo NAS. This unit not only accepts 3.5” SATA hard drives, but also 2.5” drives. Up to 6TB of storage space is supported, so it’s sure to meet or exceed the needs of most home or small office users.
Roccat Kova Mouse
http://www.rbmods.com/content/17176/specifications-and-features.aspx
Today we have a new Roccat product on our test bench, they sent us their latest mouse that they named “Kova”. This mouse has some cool features, it doesn’t need software as all settings are done by pushing specific buttons. It also is made for both left and right handed people which I think will attract alot of users if it performs well.
BlackBerry Bold 9700 Review
http://www.digitaltrends.com/product-reviews/blackberry-bold-9700-review/
It might have been called the Bold Mini had it been born in Cupertino, but those logical Canucks at RIM stuck to numbers. The BlackBerry Bold 9700 takes the stylistic cues and capabilities of its flagship Bold 9000, and scales them down to a more pocket-friendly form factor. The result: BlackBerry bliss.
Olympus E-600 Review
http://www.digitaltrends.com/product-reviews/olympus-e-600-review/
Every so often camera makers decide to strip a few features out of a popular model, lower the price—and like throwing pasta on the wall—hope it sticks—or in this case sells. Enter the Olympus E-600, a modified version of the popular E-620. Both are 12.3-megapixel D-SLRs offering 2.7-inch swiveling LCD screens, Live View, in-body image stabilization and 4 fps shooting.
Thermaltake Element G Case Review
Ever since Thermaltake introduced the ‘Element’ series of cases we have constantly been amazed by the number of features they have been able to come up with for this line of cases. If you look at the the Element cases we have reviewed in the past you will see we have not really been reviewing them in any sort of alphabetical order. Today we are going to be looking at the Thermaltake Element G case, this case has a number of sought after features that we will be pointing out as we go through the review, I can almost positively say that there will be at least one and possibly more features that you will like. So come on along as we check this extremely nice case out.
Simpletech by Hitachi SimpleTOUGH 500GB USB 2.0 External Enclosure
Robust storage is starting to become a hot item. Just recently Cameron tested the A-DATA SH93, a water and shock proof external USB drive. Many years ago I was the first to test Corsair’s Flash Voyager and while testing I boiled the drive in water on my stove and then froze the USB thumb drive in the freezer. I can’t claim that I have ever ran into a situation where I found myself in below freezing temperatures for an extended period of time, or in a hot tub with my portable storage, but at least I am prepared for when the time comes.
NZXT LEXA-S Gaming Case LEXS-001BK
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=411&Itemid=61
NZXT is on a roll. Their line of sub-$100 computer cases brings features to this market segment we haven’t seen before, including fully finished interiors, rolled metal edges, and cable management, just to name a few things. The NZXT Lexa S Mid-Tower computer case is one of the more recent offerings in their “Crafted Series” line of cases. Festooned with a sleek black front door with integral LED lighting and fan controllers, this case would look great on your desk. But as a starting point for a new system build, how does LEXS-001BK model stack up?
ASUS P7P55D Evo Intel P55 Motherboard Review
http://www.thinkcomputers.org/asus-p7p55d-evo-intel-p55-motherboard-review/
A few months ago, Intel released the first of the LGA 1156 family of processors, and the P55 chipset to accommodate them. The processors include the Core i7 860, the Core i7 870, and the Core i5 750, the i5 being a slightly underclocked i7 860 without Hyperthreading. The processors are more than merely LGA 1366 processors with dual channel rather than triple channel memory support, they have a totally new I/O interface that eliminates the motherboard’s Northbridge altogether.
Review of a Virtual Desktop, Icloud.com the “Free Online Computer”
http://www.realxtreme.net/review-icloud-free-online-computer-storage-and-apps
Today we are taking you on a tour of icloud. If you’ve never heard of it before, you’re not alone. Essentially, icloud is a custom operating system designed by Xcerion that runs in your browser. Icloud’s free services exceed an online operating system and includes multiple apps and options. More to the point, icloud describes itself as a “Free Online Computer.” While we have serious reservations as to the extent to which a website could actually be our computer, we were nevertheless intrigued by the idea. So, this past week, the Real Xtreme Team decided to take this “computer” for a test drive to see how well it actually measures up to the real thing. Buckle up, we’re taking you along for the ride.
Silverstone Temjin TJ10B: Water Cooled with Silence
http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1729
Silverstone came out with their Temjin Series chassis back a few years ago. One of their successful Temjin chassis’ was the TJ09 which later got upgraded with the help of customers feedback to the Silverstone Temjin Series TJ10. The older high end gaming chassis TJ09 had excellent reputation with Digital Storm as they started using multiple water cooling loops in their systems. However Maingear’s “Ephex” line is using the Silverstone TJ10 chassis for their systems. This brought up lots of attention and made me curious how good could this chassis be? So I decided to give the TJ10 a go and try to implement my own internal water cooling system with the RadSupport09 and with some of the latest hardware on the market. Seeing that the Temjin TJ10 case was built a few years back however, it made me curious if this chassis could keep up with the latest hardware and the current competition on the market.
Intel X25-M G2 34nm Firmware 2CV102HD Quick Test
http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&articID=972
Those keeping track of the SSD evolution know that Intel’s SSD product have set a high standard for others to follow and try to keep up with. Their X25-M series features 10 controllers and has ruled the performance charts for everything but sequential read/write operations.
VIZO Ninja HS
http://lanoc.org/review/hardware/laptop/2160-vizo-ninja-hs
Companies have been trying to produce the perfect laptop cooler for years, trying to cover all range of sizes and focusing on unique hot spots of the laptop models. This is near impossible with one set mold, or at the very least spreads each aspect so thin it hardly does any good. However The people over at VIZO weren’t satisfied with one specific mold. They decided that the best way to satisfy each individual user was to let the user decide their own measurements and fan placements, to meet their own unique cooling needs. The result is the Ninja HS, and VIZO has sent us a sample to try for ourselves.
Acer Aspire AS5738PG-6306 Touchscreen Notebook Review
http://www.i4u.com/full-review-636.html
The Acer AS5738PG-6306 has an Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 processor, 4GB of RAM, 320GB HDD, built-in optical drive, and a memory card reader. The screen is a 15.6-inch touch sensitive unit with a resolution of 1366 x 768. Graphics for the machine are via ATI Radeon 4570 and the notebook has built-in WiFi, a modem, and a webcam.
The Death of Free: Will Free Online Content Like Hulu Ever Dry Up?
Did your father ever tell you there’s no such thing as a free lunch? Well, most of today’s industry experts would probably agree with him. The idea of “free” has become extremely controversial in the technology industry, especially in the case of online content. Rumors that favorite show streaming website Hulu will be charging for all of their content has most online-media-viewing junkies scared stiff. Sources for Hulu, after reaping the backlash of complaints, deny the rumors and say turning the service into a pay-only site is just not in the cards. Fair enough, but what happens when Hulu and other sites get desperate? Ad sales are down, magazines and newspapers aren’t selling, and people are only accessing “free” web content. Will these poor economic conditions and lack of advertising force more web publishers into a pay-only frenzy?
Case In Point: Searching For the Perfect Mid-Tower
http://hothardware.com/Articles/In-Search-of-the-Perfect-MidTower/
Right now, my production PC is humming along under my desk. It’s built into a massive Antec P193 case, which is built like a tank. It’s relatively quiet, especially since I removed the 200mm side fan. As a hardware reviewer, my lab testing seems to revolve around large cases. I’ve got several test systems built into three Coolermaster Cosmos 1000s and a Cosmos 1000S. Moving these systems around takes some care, since it would be easy to throw out a back; dropping one on your foot would be no joy, either.
ASRock P55M Pro Motherboard
http://ixbtlabs.com/articles3/mainboard/asrock-p55m-pro-i55p-p1.html
Though in case with other manufacturers we chose to review top or similar ATX boards based on the Intel P55 chipset, we decided to familiarize ourselves with new ASRock products by reviewing company’s compact, inexpensive microATX board P55M Pro. After all, ASRock became known and popular by making budget and ultrabudget boards. And customers are still somewhat wary of company’s feature-rich products. But, frankly speaking, ASRock P55M Pro is not that budget. These days it is company’s only P55-based microATX board. It had used to be the lowest in the new series until ASRock released two P55DE boards. Anyway, its features are rather decent. Suffice it to say that the board has FireWire and USB/eSATA (Powered eSATA) interfaces and utilizes only polymer capacitors (unlike the aforementioned P55DE).
SDC Megtron LC-Display
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/SDC/Megtron_LCD_external
CaseKing is one of the few companies out there, which will not just sell anything. They only offer hardware that performs well and is of high quality. The shop carries quite a few exclusive parts and devices from all around the world and it is also the official distributor for a long list of well known manufacturers. Their assortment has grown substantially in recent years, while great service and support is still a very important part of the shop philosophy.
Cooler Master HAF 932 Full Tower Case Review
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=2325&page=1
Every possible surface that could be covered with a fan has a grating on it, and you’ll find three 230mm fans installed in the front, top and side panel as defaults, along with a spare 140mm in the back to boot. You can even stick more fans on the bottom of the case. Along with the built-in air cooling options, there’s also a lot of configurations for watercooling, with adjustable backplates, extra bays, reservoir mounts and filling inlets all supported out of the box.
Nokia E75 Mobile Phone
http://www.bayreviews.com/electronics/408-nokia-e75-mobile-phone
While I wouldn’t use this phone for business use (I prefer Blackberries for business use), this phone makes a great personal phone that will keep you connected almost anywhere in the world. The E75 is unlocked so you can use any SIM card and it even has Wi-Fi. Email setup is a walk in the park also (type in your email address and password and it will do the rest for you). There is also a 3.2 megapixel camera with LED flash that also has a macro shooting mode (something that is very rare on mobile phones). So this is a pretty high-end device and I will tell you all about it.
Canon PowerShot SX200 IS
http://www.insidehw.com/Reviews/Digital-cameras/Canon-PowerShot-SX200-IS.html
Canon with model PowerShot SX200 IS finally changed the design of whole PowerShot series. Despite changed looks and new feature in form of ability to record HD 720p videos, new PowerShot SX200 IS does not introduce any other new and significant feature.
Enermax Twister Series Fan Review
http://www.vortez.co.uk/contentteller/articles_pages/enermax_twister_series_fan_review,1.html
Enermax are a legendary manufacturer of some of the best high end power supplies on the market. Their Galaxy series in particular were truly high end units that were the definition of ultimate performance. Since this success they have chosen to branch out with an equally successful ‘Air Cooling by Enermax’ brand.
Titan Fenrir & Skalli CPU Coolers Review
Today we are going to look at another new comer to HWC: Titan Technology Ltd. While Titan Tech is not exactly a well known company they do have over 20 years of manufacturing experience under their belts. Way back in 1989, a small Taipei based company called “Sogic Computer Co.” was founded and out of this small seed grew Titan Technology Ltd since back in 1992 the Sogic name was changed to Titan and the rest as they say is history. Titan is now a multinational company offering not only CPU cooling solutions but also a myriad of other cooling related items such as fans and GPU coolers. They even have their own factories to build their designs (located in China) which ensures higher quality standards are met throughout the production process.
Seagate FreeAgent Go 1TB USB Hard Drive
http://www.bigbruin.com/content/freeagentgo1tb_1
Seagate’s well known FreeAgent Go series of USB hard drives recently received an upgrade with the newly released 1TB model. Like the other FreeAgent Go drives, it is designed to be very portable while keeping your data secure. The promotional image below shows the 1TB FreeAgent Go in a color they call “Tuxedo Black”. While most of the other FreeAgent Go drives are available in a variety of colors, the 1TB drive, and some of the other higher capacity models, are currently only available in black.
Titan Fenrir Christmas Edition Heatsink
The company name Titan Technology Limited may not be all that common to a lot of people, but I have used and owned a number of heatsink from Titan over the years and some of them are still in use. Today we have the pleasure of reviewing one of their new heavy hitter heatsinks which is named the “The Titan Fenrir Christmas Edition Heatsink.” So come on along as we take a look at this overclocking capable heatsink and then see how well it will perform.
GELID Tranquillo CPU Cooler
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/3040/gelid_tranquillo_cpu_cooler/index.html
Coolers seem to follow a very typical plan of what makes a good tower cooler. Some companies try fancy edge designs, while others implement more and more heat pipes to transfer the heat, all with varying success. To save a ton of money in real world building and testing, computer simulated environments are definitely the way to go. GELID has offered silent cooling prior to this, but this time they looked at things a little differently.
Thermaltake Evo Blue 650Watt Power Supply Review
http://www.ninjalane.com/reviews/power_supply/evoblue
A power supply is often the last item considered when building a new computer, but it is definitely one of the most important and when looking for a new PSU it is hard for most people to know what they need. A normal enthusiast or gamer PC is fine with 500 watts for single video card setups and 650 watts for dual card configurations. When additional accessories and overclocking are added to the mix you can expect these estimates to rise considerably. While it may be nice to have the overhead afforded by buying a 1KW PSU there is often no need for the larger and more expensive power supplies.
Topower Tiger Series 1200W PSU
http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1735
If you happen to be new to quality power supplies (PSU’s), you may actually have no clue who Topower (AKA Epower) is. With brands like Antec, Thermaltake, PC Power & Cooling, and Corsair dominating the power supply market, Topower is easily overlooked. The fact is, Topower has been making quality power supplies since 1986 when the company first formed. Being no stranger to power supplies, Topower is definitely a brand to keep on your list when building that next rig. If your current rig or future rig will have a demand for 1000+ watts, Topower’s Tiger 1200W PSU might just be the PSU that fits your bill.
Need for Speed: Shift Patch 2 accelerates Radeon graphics cards
http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,700688/Need-for-Speed-Shift-Patch-2-accelerates-Radeon-graphics-cards/Practice/
When Need for Speed: Shift was released, we criticized the surprisingly low performance of AMD’s Radeon cards. Especially in scenes with many vehicles the framerate was bad – no matter if the resolution was set to 800 x 600, 1920 x 1200 or any other resolution. The first time the racing game was updated, the problem was not solved, but the second patch for Need for Speed: Shift delivers more frames per second – according to the readme because of “Improved ATI graphics card support”. The reason for the up to now poor performance of Radeon cards has not been unveiled although rumors say that certain Shader routines had not been optimized. Honi soit qui mal y pense – Shift is part of Nvidia’s TWIMTBP program.
TRENDnet TV-M7 7-Inch Wireless IP Camera Monitor
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/3043/trendnet_tv_m7_7_inch_wireless_ip_camera_monitor/index.html
TRENDnet has a very good answer for you and one that does not need to always show off what is going on with the cameras. This is the TRENDnet TV-M7. The TV-M7 is a 7-inch Wireless Camera Monitor that also doubles as a digital photo frame, media player, Clock, Calendar and a host of other features. This means that you can place this out in the open and feel safe in the knowledge that it will not be too obtrusive.
Choiix Air-Through Notebook/Laptop Cooler
http://www.techwarelabs.com/choiix-air-through-notebook-cooler/
A common accessory to any laptop is a cooling pad. These inexpensive devices are designed to cool your laptop and make up for the faults of an experienced engineer. The big question I always ask is do these coolers really cool? Wouldn’t an engineer design their product to be cool and comfortable to use without additional aid? In my experience simply elevating the laptop about an inch off the table will cool the laptop to a noticeable degree; or even using your laptop on a harder surface, but I’ve never actually used a fan based cooler. Today, I’m going to use the Choiix Air-through thin cooling pad with USB hub for the Apple Macbook and other notebooks to test my theory. Find out how this device fairs and if my theory is correct after the break.
Spire Slide Pro
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Spire/Slide_Pro
The Spire Slide Pro ships in a compact full color box. The front has an image of the device, while the rear goes into some detail. Spire has chosen to use a very fragile carboard cutout to hold the device in place. While this type of protective packaging is generally strong enough for something like that, the way it was folded for the Spire Pro eliminated that attribute entirely. I would have liked to see either foam or a bit more thought into the folding process of the cardboard.