Dell’s XPS 13 ultrabook just received a significant performance upgrade and enhanced asthetics.

The new XPS 13 now uses Intel’s 8th gen Quad-core i5-8250 and i7-8550 CPUs. The CPUs have a baseline TDP of 15W, but can be configured for to up to 25W. Dell states that the new cooling solution in the new XPS 13 can handle up to 27W, so it’s likely that the CPUs had their TDPs increased accordingly. Despite the robust cooling, the weight of the is kept at  just 2.67 lbs.

The Dell XPS packs a display that guarantees a peak brightness of 400nits. It covers 100% of the sRGB color gamut and 72% of the Adobe RGB color gamut. Full HD and 4K resolution [...]

Aorus, Gigabyte’s gaming-centric laptop branch, has released the world’s thinnest gaming laptop that packs two Nvidia GTX 1070 GPUs in SLI.

The Aorus X9 is designed for gamers looking to play at QHD/UHD resolutions and is more than VR ready. Complimenting the dual GTX 1070s is an Intel Core i7-7820HK quad-core CPU. The CPU is unlocked, meaning users can overclock it on their own.

Two display options are available: a 17.3″ UHD 3840x2160p IPS display with 100% Adobe RGB color gamut, or a 17.3″ QHD 2560x1440p 120Hz WVA high-refresh rate display. All displays are factory calibrated for the best color accuracy.

To [...]

As device makers strive to continue to make their devices thinner and more compact, USB-C ports have become commonplace on today’s latest mobile devices. Despite this however, the availability of quality USB-C docks are still difficult to come by.

OWC, the popular maker of Mac accessories, is attempting to change that with their most recent release, the OWC USB-C Travel Dock. The OWC USB-C Travel Dock is a portable USB-C powered device that offers users five additional I/O ports to greatly expand the versatility of a single USB-C port.

Ports on the OWC USB-C Travel Dock include:

USB-C Power 2x USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A HDMI (Up to one 4K [...]

At a special event at SIGGRAPH 2017, Dell revealed the Precision 5520 mobile workstation, commemorating 20 years of Dell Precision workstations.

Crafted in a beautiful brushed aluminum finish, the Dell Precision 5520 mobile workstation is according to Dell the thinnest and lightest 15-inch mobile workstation on the market. The laptop features a thickness of just 0.66-inches at its thickest point and a weight of just under 4lbs for the fully loaded unit.

What do you get in such a compact package? Well, you get a choice between the Intel Core i7-7820HQ or the Intel Xeon E3-1505M v6, up to 32GB of DDR4, Nvidia Quadro M1200 graphics and up to 1TB M.2 [...]

The SD Association recently took the wraps off SD Specification 6.0 which includes the A2 (Application Performance Class 2) standard, designed for newer Android devices with the capability of using microSD cards as Adoptable Storage. Adoptable Storage is a new Android feature which rolled out with Android 6.0 Marshmallow allowing SD cards to be used as internal storage.

According to the announcement, A2 class memory cards will be required to include features such as command queue, cache, and self-maintenance as well as deliver performance meeting or exceeding random read performance of 4000 IOPS, random write performance of 2000 IOPS, and sustained [...]

Sony SF-G32 Memory Card | Source: Sony

Looking for the fastest SD card ever? Sony has you covered. In a recent release, Sony introduced the world’s fastest SD card designed for professional photographers and videographers for use with high end DSLRs and mirrorless cameras.

The new line of SD cards which Sony refers to as the SF-G Series will feature speeds up to 300MB/s reads and 299MB/s writes with devices that support the SD card UHS-II standard. This has been achieved thanks what Sony refers to as their “unique firmware” programmed into the SD cards.

The Sony SF-G Series SD cards will [...]

Bringing DSM to the Router

Synology is a company well known for their excellent, easy to use NAS systems, and several years ago they decided to enter the router market with the Synology Router RT1900ac which combined their expertise in producing quality, intuitive, easy to use operating systems with a high performance router solution. While we didn’t get a chance to review the RT1900ac at the time, it was very well received by customers and press, which is why when Synology announced the Router RT2600ac, we absolutely had to check it out.

Specifications Manufacturer Synology Model RT2600ac Processor Qualcomm IPQ 8065 Dual Core 1.7GHz Memory 512MB [...]

Synology is getting ready to launch their RT2600AC router which we recently saw at CES 2017.

Being the best router Synology has to offer for home/small office users, the RT2600AC supports all the latest Wi-Fi standards including 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, boasting up to 1,733Mbps on the 5.2GHz band and 800Mbps on the 2.4GHz band for a total throughput of up to 2,533Mbps. In order to achieve this, the RT2600AC features MU-MIMO which ensures a dedicated antenna for each receiver/transmitter radio pair to ensure the best possible performance even if there are many users on the network.

Powering the RT2600AC is a dual-core 1.7 Ghz processor along with 512MB of DDR3 DRAM [...]

When Apple launched their new MacBook Pros last week, many were disappointed by the fact that the new systems required a slew of new adapters as the new MacBook Pro now “courageously” only features USB Type-C ports. As most devices currently don’t use USB Type-C, this could require another hundred bucks worth of adapters.

One solution to this issue is OWC’s new 13-Port Thunderbolt 3 Dock which will allow a single USB Type-C port on the MacBook Pro to connect to a variety of devices and connectors. Among the ports included is USB 3.1 (Type-A), S/PDIF, FireWire 800, Gigabit ethernet, Thunderbolt 3, mini-DisplayPort, SD Card Reader, and [...]

With the ever expanding storage requirements of smartphones, cameras, and other mobile devices, the need for microSD storage capacity has been growing at an exponential rate prompting companies to offer ever increasing capacities of their memory cards.

Case in point is Kingston’s latest microSDXC memory card which now offers storage capacity up to 256GB. Previously, the Kingston microSDXC memory cards were only available in capacities of 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB.

“We are excited to ship our new higher capacity 256GB microSDXC card for consumers who need more storage for photos, videos and other data,” said Annette Chan, Flash memory business [...]