Ruggedized Portable SSD

If you need more storage capacity than a flash drive, but you also need more speed, portability and durability than an external hard drive, the easy solution is to pickup an external SSD. One of the top manufacturers of external SSDs is SanDisk, which recently launched their new SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD which we have in for review today.

The new SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD is designed for those who need fast, high capacity storage, yet also want something rugged to travel with. The Extreme Portable SSD features SanDisk’s latest 3D BiCS NAND technology which greatly increases capacity of the drive up to 2TB yet still allows it [...]

The New M.2 NVMe Price/Performance Champ

Nearly two years ago, Samsung launched their Samsung 960 PRO and 960 EVO to major fanfare. These two juggernaut introductions in addition to their enterprise cousins further established Samsung’s position as the undisputed leader in M.2 form-factor NVMe SSDs. At the time, the industry had been facing a massive shortage of NAND which slowed down product introductions across the board, but as NAND supply has finally begun stabilizing, companies are now finally introducing some new products to once again reignite demand.

Recently, Samsung launched the Samsung 970 EVO and the Samsung 970 PRO which will replace the aging Samsung [...]

Introduction

Back in 2013, OnePlus jumped into the smartphone scene with a bang, introducing their OnePlus One smartphone, which quickly distinguished itself by offering flagship class smartphone features at a pricepoint of just $299. Thanks to massive community support, OnePlus was able to quickly build a name for itself as the enthusiast class smartphone with the best value possible.

Fast forward to June 2017 and OnePlus has continued this tradition of delivering flagship class smartphones at very reasonable prices. The OnePlus 5 featured all the latest and greatest hardware including a 5.5-inch AMOLED display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, up to 8GB of [...]

Quiet and Beautiful

AVADirect wasn’t really a systems builder on our radar until late last year when we reviewed their Avant Mini Cube Gaming PC. After extensive testing, we found that the system was well configured, well built, and well priced, quickly propelling AVADirect to the top as one of our favorite custom PC builders.

Recently, AVADirect sent us another one of the systems in their lineup, the AVADirect X370 Quiet Gaming PC, which as its name implies is AVADirect’s quiet gaming PC offering based on AMD’s X370 Ryzen platform.

AVADirect Quiet Gaming PC Specs Desktop AVADirect X370 Quiet Gaming PC Case Phanteks Eclipse [...]

More Than Just a Box

Kailh makes keyboards? Yes! But the one we’re reviewing today, the Kailh Hexgears KHBSJNB-0795, is a special edition product designed as a demonstration platform for Kailh’s new BOX mechanical switches which is what we’re actually reviewing today.

The Kailh BOX mechanical switch is a relatively new switch on the market and has a few new design changes from the traditional Kailh switches we all know and love. The Kailh BOX switches were released back in June 2017 and is now just starting to trickle into mainstream mechanical keyboard designs. Unlike the previous Cherry clones, the Kailh BOX comes in its own line of stem [...]

Introduction

For the most part when gaming there are just two senses that matter – sight and sound. This is why having a top quality headset is one of the most important elements to winning on the virtual battlefield. Traditionally, gaming headsets have always been manufactured by gaming peripherals companies that make headsets that are either average or below average quality, but with the dearth of options from premium audiomakers, until recently there really wasn’t much of a choice.

Several years back, renowned German audio products maker Sennheiser jumped into the gaming headset market and saw such success that they now have several models of [...]

FPS Gaming Mouse

First Person Shooter, or FPS, games are one of the most common gaming genres out there, but when it comes to gaming mice designed specifically for the genre, there is surprisingly very few out there. Of course, if you ask any professional FPS gamer, it’s easy to understand why. As FPS gaming relies almost solely on the quality of the main switches along with the accuracy of the sensor, FPS gamers typically select simple mice with quality switches and ultra-accurate sensors making gaming mice such as the Zowie EC2, Razer DeathAdder Elite, Logitech G Pro, or SteelSeries Rival 300 some of the most popular gaming mice for FPS gamers.

Of [...]

Tesla for the Home

We have a treat for all the audiophiles out there with a new pair of Beyerdynamic audiophile headphones for review. For those who aren’t familiar with high end audio brands, Beyerdynamic is a German audio brand with almost 100 years of history crafting some of the highest end professional and enthusiast grade audio equipment.

Today we’ll be reviewing the new Beyerdynamic Amrion Home. The Beyerdynamic Amiron Home is the successor to the popular Beyerdynamic T90 and is geared toward a very niche group of enthusiast audiophiles with its $600 price point. As implied by its name, Beyerdynamic is making it clear that the Amiron Home is [...]

The Next Generation

When Eero launched last year, it helped drive a revolutionary shift in the WiFi router market. Unlike the traditional WiFi router which was complicated to configure and manage for the average user, Eero wanted to create something that was easy to setup, easy to manage and could provide reliable whole home WiFi coverage no matter the size of the home. For the most part, Eero achieved its goal.

Now that it’s a bit more than year later, Eero has revealed the 2nd Generation Eero. Rather than a major redesign, the 2nd Generation Eero focuses on improving on the first generation product while simultaneously launching lower powered wall [...]

As portable devices have become more prevalent, power banks have become the must have for anyone who spends any time away from an electrical outlet. Typically power banks offer a microUSB or a USB Type-C port for charging and while many devices have now adopted microUSB or USB-C, many devices still require AC power, which is a problem if your power bank only supports USB charging.

One innovative company looking to make power banks a bit more versatile is Jackery, which recently launched an Indiegogo campaign on their new PowerBar power bank. Over the past month, Jackery was kind enough to let us test one of the early units, so let’s take a look!

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