Here a roundup of todays reviews and articles:

ADATA Premier Pro SP920 512 Gigabyte Review
ASUS Maximus VI Gene Motherboard Review
Cooler Master CM Storm Pitch Gaming Earphones Review
GAMDIAS EROS Surround Sound Gaming Headset Review
Gumstick Smartphone Stand Review
In Depth: 10 best free apps for Windows 8 and Windows 8.1
MSI A88XM-E35 Motherboard Review: Micro-A88X for $68
MSI/Informatique OC Academy featuring HWinfo Pro OC Team
Nokia Lumia Icon Review: Verizon's Windows Phone 8 Flagship
Nokia Lumia Updates
Panasonic TZ60/ZS40 Review
VidaBox OpenSqueeze Network Players

ADATA Premier Pro SP920 512 Gigabyte Review

With the Premier Pro SP920, ADATA have an SSD in their portfolio, which is based on a very well performing and well-known controller from Marvell. Other than that ADATA have optimized the firmware towards maximum performance as well as high endurance. With this drive up their sleeve ADATA wants to steal some market share from their competitors and we're certainly curious how well a job the company did.

Read full article @ ocaholic

ASUS Maximus VI Gene Motherboard Review

ASUS’s Republic of Gamers line is just what you think it is, a line of products specifically targeted at gamers. While many PC games have full tower rigs with multiple graphics card and intense watercooling others just have a simple setup. Being a PC gamer who attends multiple LAN parties a year I made the switch to a Micro-ATX system a long time ago to make it easier for me to bring my PC to events. ASUS of course catering to gamers actually has two motherboards in their Republic of Gamers Z87 stack, the Maximus VI Gene which is a Micro-ATX board and the even smaller Maximus VI Impact which is a Mini-ITX board. Today, our review will be focusing on the Maximus VI Gene, which has quite a lot of features for gamers and overclockers alike. Let’s check it out!

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

Cooler Master CM Storm Pitch Gaming Earphones Review

Cooler Master has recently entered another gaming audio segment by producing the CM Storm Pitch, which feature high-quality non-tangle cables (with a catchy red color) and adapter for connecting to our PC (separate microphone/headphone jack ports). These are better to be used for gamers which are frequently on the move and use their smartphones/portable consoles for checking out the latest releases on the market.

Read full article @ Madshrimps

GAMDIAS EROS Surround Sound Gaming Headset Review

Just last month, the Futurelooks team attended GOTTACON 2014 in Victoria, which happens to be British Columbia’s premiere gaming convention. This was the first time I’ve seen cosplay, gaming, and hardware vendors all in one place. Our shared booth featured Creative Labs, GIGABYTE, Kingston, NCIX, and GAMDIAS.

While we’ve worked with others on that list on more than one occasion, GAMDIAS is the newest manufacturer of gaming peripherals and accessories to hit the market (2012). GAMDIAS designs their products based on creativity and artistic beauty. However, the real inspiration seems to come from the adventure of Greek mythology. Their focus is all things gamer in an effort to provide the peripherals needed to bring down opponents as if the gamer is a champion of the gods.

One of the weapons of choice is the new EROS Surround Sound Gaming Headset. The headset is designed to be lightweight and easy to set up, providing ample audio for those tide changing battles. I took the headset for a week long adventure through various RPG, FPS, and MMO games. The question here is whether this is just another common item drop or something truly imbued.

Read full article @ Futurelooks

Gumstick Smartphone Stand Review

Phones today do a lot more than just make phone calls. You can play games, listen to music, read books and watch videos on them. Some of these activities are best done without having to hold the phone all the time. If you are watching a movie or listening to music you might not want to have to hold it and instead want to prop it up somehow. There are a lot of stands available for the bigger tablets but not as much for phones. At least not many that are small and as portable as the phone itself. This is where the Gumstick Smartphone Stand comes in. It is a product that was started on Kickstarter and funded there and now is being shipped to backers and also sold on at least their website.

Read full article @ Bjorn3D

In Depth: 10 best free apps for Windows 8 and Windows 8.1

Making the most of Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 doesn't mean you have to spend a lot of money. We've put together a list of the top ten apps for Windows 8 that wont cost you a penny to install. From apps for movie making, to movie watching; sketching, gaming and apps to help you when you're programming, all available to download right now, for free. So long as you can control yourself during a Steam sale these apps should give you endless joy, without hurting your wallet.

Read full article @ Techradar

MSI A88XM-E35 Motherboard Review: Micro-A88X for $68

While the desktop PC industry has been reported as shrinking these last few quarters, the dichotomy rests in a drive towards the smaller form factors while the large under-the-desk systems market remains steady. This would suggest a split between mini-ITX and ATX users, leaving micro-ATX platforms stranded in the middle. Is there still room in the market for this form factor?

Read full article @ Anandtech

MSI/Informatique OC Academy featuring HWinfo Pro OC Team

Sponsored OC venues are getting more and more popular; Belgian shop Tones.be started this trend in the Low Lands in 2011 with the first OC Academy. The initial concept was to introduce people to the hobby of overclocking; via the knowledge of the MadShrimps crew, the attendees got initiated in the quest of more MHz Though it quickly expanded to the more extreme form of overclocking and even went international one time. Overclockers are still being used by the hardware manufacturers for highlighting the durability, quality of components and versatility of their products. Last weekend the brand new Hardware.Info Pro OC team was present at the huge shop of Informatique in the Netherlands; joining forces with MSI and Hardware.info this should be an ideal cocktail for new records.

Read full article @ Madshrimps

Nokia Lumia Icon Review: Verizon's Windows Phone 8 Flagship

If you want the latest and greatest Nokia-built Windows Phone phone, and you’re an AT&T customer, the Lumia 1520 is a beast of a smartphone, but it’s not available to Verizon customers. Instead, Verizon offers the newer, and arguably more refined, Nokia Lumia Icon, which has nearly all of the same internal specifications as the 1520, but with a few key differences.

The most obvious difference is the size; the 5-inch Lumia Icon is a sizeable smartphone whereas at 6 inches, the Lumia 1520 falls squarely into the phablet category. Otherwise, under the hood the two devices are quite similar--they are both powered by the same SoC, have similar amounts of RAM, and feature the same base OS...

Read full article @ HotHardware.com

Nokia Lumia Updates

First up was the new Lumia 930. The Lumia 930 is a 5" 1080p phone, with a 20 Megapixel PureView camera with OIS, Snapdragon 800 2.2 GHz SoC, 2 GB of RAM, 32 GB of storage, and Qi wireless charging. This new phone is actually the recently released Lumia Icon rebranded, and pre-loaded with Windows Phone 8.1. Availability of the device is going to start with Europe in June, and move out from there. The announced price point is $599 USD off contract. This phone doesn't look like it will be launched in the USA anytime soon, since Verizon has an exclusive arrangement with Nokia for the rebranded Icon.

Read full article @ Anandtech

Panasonic TZ60/ZS40 Review

The Lumix TZ60, known as the Panasonic Lumix ZS40 in the US, is the latest addition to Panasonic's respected range of travel compact cameras and it replaces the flagship TZ40 (known as the Panasonic Lumix ZS20). The TZ40 was by no means short on features, but for the TZ60, Panasonic has really looked at what's important to the travel photographer and made some significant changes and additions.The top new features are the EVF (electronic viewfinder), a 30x optical zoom lens that replaces the already impressive 20X optical zoom of the TZ40/ZS30, a control ring around the lens, and the ability to shoot raw files. Image stabilization and AF speeds have also been improved.As with the TZ40, Panasonic has used a Leica DC VARIO-ELMAR optic, but the focal length range is 4.3-129mm, giving a 35mm equivalent range of 24-720mm. Meanwhile the maximum aperture range is f/3.3-8. The new lens is constructed from 12 optics in nine groups, which can be operated as six groups when needed.Panasonic has used essentially the same EVF in the TZ60 as it has in the Panasonic LF1. This is a 0.2-inch, 200,000-dot device, but the company has added a second lens to reduce chromatic aberration and improve overall quality. Its addition to the TZ-series camera will be especially welcomed by those traveling to bright, sunny locations where an LCD image is traditionally hard to see.

Read full article @ Techradar

VidaBox OpenSqueeze Network Players

VidaBox's new media player, dubbed the OpenSqueeze, fills the gap left by Logitech's Squeezebox devices. The OpenSqueeze is powered by an open source OS and comes with the same functionality as the original Squeeze products.

Read full article @ techPowerUp