Here a roundup of todays reviews and articles:

6 Ways to Use Microsoft Office For Free
AMD Athlon 5350 (Kabini AM1 Platform) FS1b APU Review (w/ Sapphire R7 240 Low Profile)
AMD Athlon 5350 / 5150 & Sempron 3850 / 2650 Linux Review
Blackfire CLAMPLIGHT LED Flashlight Review
Corsair Raptor K40 Gaming Keyboard Review
Crucial M550 512GB SSD Review
EVGA SuperNOVA G2 750 W Review
How to Reinstall OS X on Your Mac, Wipe Your Drive, and Create USB Installation Media
In Win 901 Mini-ITX Case Review
NVIDIA 337.50 Driver Comparison
OCZ 240GB Vertex 460 solid state drive review
Razer BlackWidow Ultimate Stealth Gaming Keyboard Video Review
SteelSeries Rival Optical Mouse Review

6 Ways to Use Microsoft Office For Free

Microsoft Office costs money, except when it doesnt. From a hidden 60 day free trial that doesnt require payment details to web apps and mobile apps, there are many ways to get Office for free. Office is still one of Microsofts big cash cow, so you cant just download a free full version of Office 2013 and use it forever. But there are ways to use Office without ever spending a dime if only for a few months.

Read full article @ Howtogeek

AMD Athlon 5350 (Kabini AM1 Platform) FS1b APU Review (w/ Sapphire R7 240 Low Profile)

The gaming and enthusiast audiences love their big, quick, expensive powerhouse machines – there’s no denying that. But the reality is that many users – about 38% of the market, in fact – in a wide span of geographical regions simply cannot afford or justify the latest-and-greatest in both CPU and GPU hardware. That’s where AMD’s Kabini APUs come into the picture. Shipping in up to 2.05GHz quad-core flavours and leveraging the GPU power of AMD’s Radeon R3 graphics, can the Athlon and Sempron – Kabini – APUs prove that respectable performance is available for a sub-£40 fee?

Read full article @ KitGuru

AMD Athlon 5350 / 5150 & Sempron 3850 / 2650 Linux Review

It's been a busy past few days since AMD launched their "AM1" Socketed Kabini APUs. After the initial Athlon 5350 Linux review on launch-day, I did some tests involving a faster kernel and newer Mesa code along with some reference DDR3 memory scaling benchmarks for these APUs with Jaguar processor cores. Since then the Athlon 5150 and Sempron 3850/2650 APUs arrived. After a busy weekend of benchmarking, here's the initial Ubuntu Linux benchmarks of all four AMD AM1 APUs that are available at this time: the Sempron 2650, Sempron 3850, Athlon 5150, and Athlon 5350. With these four new AMD APUs are also a number of thermal and power consumption tests.

The Sempron 2650 is the only dual-core part that runs at 1.45GHz for its two Jaguar cores while the memory frequency is also capped at DDR3-1333MHz compared to the other parts at DDR3-1600MHz. Crippling the Sempron 2650 further is that its 128 Radeon R3 GCN cores are only clocked at 400MHz compared to 600MHz with the AM1 Athlons or the Sempron 3850 at 450MHz. This lowest-end AM1 APU currently retails for about $40. For about $5 more is the Sempron 3850 that's a 1.3GHz quad-core APU, twice the amount of L2 cache (1MB vs. 2MB), and this higher-end Sempron shares more in common with the Athlon APUs. The Athlon 5150 meanwhile is quite similar to the Athlon 5350 except its four Jaguar CPU cores are clocked at 1.6GHz rather than 2.05GHz but its Radeon R3 Graphics are identical to the high-end 5350. The Athlon 5150 is currently priced about $55 USD while the Athlon 5350 costs $65... The AM1 APUs are priced for entry-level desktop systems and other low-end systems.

Read full article @ Phoronix

Blackfire CLAMPLIGHT LED Flashlight Review

Up for review today I have something a bit different, a flashlight from a company called Blackfire. Normally we cover tech products, but we do cover everything really, but flashlights these days can be considered high tech when you really look at them with high intensity LEDs and futuristic designs. The flashlight I have today is called the Clamplight and it’s what I would call a utility light as as its name suggests, it has a clamp built-in so you can attach the light most anywhere to make sure you have light where you need it most. So read on to learn about a very versatile product…

Read full article @ TestFreaks

Corsair Raptor K40 Gaming Keyboard Review

When it comes to the peripherals market it can be easy to get lost in a sea of high-end, high performance and typically high price tag gaming hardware. With the rise in popularity of e-Sports and PC gaming in general, there has been a huge wave of new keyboards over the last couple of years, covering all budgets and needs and while the new Corsair K40 is targeted at the more budget friendly end of the market, it does still promise a wide range of features that should appeal to both gamers and general PC users.

For a little over £50 the K40 isn’t exactly expensive, but it’s still a big enough investment to have you expecting something a little special given that this is a membrane keyboard. Promising a bunch of cool features such as macro keys, on-board memory, customisable LED back-lighting, dedicated multimedia keys and more, it certainly sounds like a tempting option for gamers who don’t want to invest more for a mechanical Corsair keyboard, which are typically more than twice as expensive as the K40 model we have here today. Being feature packed and budget friendly is obviously going to make the K40 very appealing to a wide audience, plus the Corsair brand name is well-known and well trusted by a large portion of the gaming community, so let’s get right to it and see what else this keyboard has to offer.

Read full article @ eTeknix

Crucial M550 512GB SSD Review

Late last year the M500 series not only cemented Crucial’s reputation as an industry leader but it also helped prove to consumers that there was another alternative to TLC NAND. By leveraging the power of Marvell's then top of the line 9187 controller and a strong relationship with IMFT through their parent company Micron, massive 128GBit ONFi 3 NAND ICs ushered in a new era of price vs performance. Since then Crucial and Marvell have learned many valuable lessons about the nature of these new ONFi 3 beasts.

These hard won lessons have now been distilled into an entirely new model called the M550 which uses only top-shelf ONFi 3 NAND, binned specifically for these SSDs.

Read full article @ Hardware Canucks

EVGA SuperNOVA G2 750 W Review

EVGA is expanding their high-end SuperNOVA G2 series by releasing two mid-capacity units with 750 W and 850 W maximum output power. Today, we will evaluate the G2-750 with Gold efficiency, a fully modular cabling design, and selectable semi-passive operation, which renders it totally inaudible at lower loads.

Read full article @ techPowerUp

How to Reinstall OS X on Your Mac, Wipe Your Drive, and Create USB Installation Media

Macs can automatically download and reinstall their operating system. This process normally keeps your personal files, but you can choose to erase them. You can also create USB installation media to speed up installing OS X on multiple Macs. This is normally a simple process just boot to OS X Recovery and select Reinstall OS X. Be sure to erase your personal files if youre selling or getting rid of your Mac, though!

Read full article @ Howtogeek

In Win 901 Mini-ITX Case Review

I have to admit I have a soft spot for multi-windowed cases dating back to the Kingwin KT-436-BK-WM that I still own today. The 901 features stunning black tinted glass side panels framing a one piece brushed Aluminum one piece frame. Let’s take a closer look at the specifications.

Read full article @ Hardware Asylum

NVIDIA 337.50 Driver Comparison

As the quest for more performance rolls on, both AMD and NVIDIA are working hard behind the scenes to really drive game performance with significant driver optimizations and the use of new APIs such as AMD's Mantle. These optimizations seemingly always find the magical 10+% performance boost month after month, and there has to be a break-even point somewhere, right? You would think at least, but here we go again.

NVIDIA has delivered its latest driver set, the 337 series, that looks to deliver performance gains across the board with some significant targeted gains in games using both single and multiple DX11 capable GPU combinations. What that means is that instead of relying on a new API for a performance boost, NVIDIA is showing that using the current DX11 API it can deliver performance optimizations that boost performance in all games. Further providing that all inclusive gaming experience, NVIDIA has included GeForce Experience 2.0 in this driver release that now has been updated with profiles for 150 games.

When you look at the potential gains, you may or may not see the maximum benefit in some of the games you play. I say potential because the list below says "UP TO" X%. The only way to truly know what you will see is to test these combinations and come up with a reasonable conclusion as to how the drivers perform on a current high performance build. To do that we will use our OCC video card test bed and run a few of the combinations through a few tests to see how well the new 337.50 beta drivers perform.

Read full article @ OCC

OCZ 240GB Vertex 460 solid state drive review

One of the first announced products to come about as a result of Toshiba acquiring OCZ was the Vertex 460, a marriage of OCZ's Indilinx Barefoot 3 controller and Toshiba 19nm toggle flash memory. Advertising up to 545MB/s sequential reads and 525MB/s sequential writes and from 90,000 to 95,000 4K random IOPS, it appears as if OCZ is right back at the top of their game in the SSD market. Available in 120GB, 240GB and 480GB capacities with a three year warranty, the Vertex 460 joins the Vector 150 in OCZ's new lineup of consumer SSDs utilizing Toshiba's toggle NAND flash memory.

Read full article @ OCIA.net

Razer BlackWidow Ultimate Stealth Gaming Keyboard Video Review

Last month Razer launched the 2014 version of their BlackWidow Ultimate keyboard, today Kaeyi takes a look at the Ultimate Stealth edition to compare between the original and what the silent key version "Stealth Edition" offers.

Read full article @ HardwareHeaven.com

SteelSeries Rival Optical Mouse Review

"He is the Asian guy with black hair, brown eyes, and glasses," I told my friend. "Oh yeah, I know that guy!", my friend replied, albeit with a slight tone of sarcasm that can be clearly sensed from a mile away without any further explanation required. Sometimes, it is quite impressive how often we can give a description of someone or something that can be so detailed, yet so useless all at the same time. What is the first thing that comes to your mind when I mention "optical mouse"? For me, it will have to be a beige Microsoft Wheel Mouse Optical I got years before APH Networks even came into existence. This was back in the days when CRT monitors were still common, and everyone still had a ball mouse. The Microsoft Wheel Mouse Optical was my very first optical mouse, and having one was definitely something only the cool kid on the block had. Heck, it even came with red LED lights! Well, that was until someone showed up with an IntelliMouse Optical, but that was a completely different story. Fast forward to 2014, if you told your friends you have an optical mouse, will it still have the same effect as it did ten years ago? Probably not; but just like I told my friend to look for the Asian guy with black hair, brown eyes, and glasses, you are really just giving a description that is technically correct, yet fundamentally useless at the same time. To prove my point, today, we will take a look at the SteelSeries Rival, the latest optical mouse from the renowned gaming peripherals manufacturer. Designed specifically with first person shooter gaming in mind, and featuring a sensor that can go as low as 50 DPI to as high as 6500 DPI (Or CPI in SteelSeries language), this is certainly not my decade old Microsoft Wheel Mouse Optical packed away in a box somewhere in the basement. Let us take a closer look and see if it is the real deal!

Read full article @ APH Networks