Here a roundup of todays reviews and articles:

7 Things You Can Do With The Xposed Framework on a Rooted Android Phone or Tablet
ASUS Xonar Essence STX II 7.1 Review
Dell 34-inch Ultrasharp U3415W curved ultra-wide monitor
EVGA unveils its X99 motherboard lineup
MSI X99S GAMING 9 AC Review
Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium 13 Review
PS4 vs Xbox One: which is better
QNAP TurboNAS TS-470 Pro NAS Server Review
Thermaltake Frio14 Silent CPU Cooler Review

7 Things You Can Do With The Xposed Framework on a Rooted Android Phone or Tablet

The Xposed Additions module allows you to remap your Android device’s hardware buttons. You can turn a volume button into a dedicated camera button to more easily take photos on devices without a dedicated camera button. Or, you can make something different when you long-press a button, or when you press a button while the device’s screen is off. Xposed Additions is packed full of these options.

Read full article @ Howtogeek

ASUS Xonar Essence STX II 7.1 Review

ASUS Xonar have made a mighty stamp in the discrete audio market and the Essence STX has long been an audiophile favourite since its release. This was due to its great performance and is easy to modify. Since then, high end audio has been pressed by the ever expanding needs of the tech savvy generation, wanting the best from whatever they put their PC to. Whether it is gaming, audio creation, HD movie playback or simply rocking out to their music library. Creative have encompassed this need fairly well with their Z-Series of Sound Blasters. Making the Xonars, such as the Essence Series, limited to just stereo channels or the majority of the entertainment series featuring 5.1/7.1 surround, but no headphone amp, look relatively disparate and too specific. Then came the ROG Phoebus, providing excellent 7.1 surround sound with a dedicated headphone amp that gave gamers a serious look into what is available in the discrete sound card segment. The Phoebus, loosely based on the Essence layout, loses some audiophile appeal when they needed to drop the Op-amp sockets in order to cram in the extra audio channels. Operational amplifiers, as they are more formally referred to, can change the characteristics of the audio either physically and/or subjectively improving the output signal. So the use of socketed Op-amps can give great appeal to audio enthusiasts who enjoy changing, swapping, and testing the latest Op-amps available or simply allowing the use of a known preference.

Following suit with the Creative ZxR, ASUS has opted to expand the PCB real estate with use of an optional daughter board, providing 7.1 surround functionality while retaining space for the relatively large Op-amp sockets. Though the design layout is almost identical to the older generation STX, there are various changes including an improved TCXO (temperature controlled crystal oscillator) clock source, new low-dropout regulators, professional level WIMA capacitors as well as coming equipped with the latest MUSES Op-amps that aims to provide the best out the box audio experience from a discrete consumer sound card. Let's move on.

Read full article @ Vortez

Dell 34-inch Ultrasharp U3415W curved ultra-wide monitor

This is a 21:9 ratio 3440x1440 pixel resolution display. Dell says that this new monitor is "the perfect display" for gamers. Explaining that assertion we are told that the U3415W's curvature and ultra-wide view "work together to give gamers a competitive edge, requiring less eye movement when compared to a flat panel display and enabling players to take advantage of their peripheral vision when the competition heats up." Game developers will also be delighted by the U3415W, apparently, as it provides "the ultimate canvas for enhanced productivity and creativity". I'm sure these two PC user niches aren't the only ones who would love this monitor on their desks.

Read full article @ Hexus

EVGA unveils its X99 motherboard lineup

Three models now, higher-end one next year. After Intel has officially lifted the NDA veil off its Haswell-E HEDT platform, EVGA has officially unveiled full details regarding its Intel X99 Express chipset based motherboard lineup. EVGA's current X99 Express chipset based lineup include three models, the EVGA X99 Micro (E995), EVGA X99 FTW (E997) and the EVGA X99 Classified (E999). According to EVGA, the company is also working on a higher-end model which will most likely be ready for the next year.

During the Haswell-E launch day, EVGA has also launched a new BIOS version update which brings support for DDR3-2800 and DDR4-3000 on all three motherboards.

Read full article @ Fudzilla

MSI X99S GAMING 9 AC Review

After so much speculation we can today reveal Intel's X99 chipset, more specifically, the X99S Gaming 9 AC motherboard from MSI. MSI are widely regarded as one of the most overclocking friendly manufacturers and so our review will focus heavily on this area. While the Gaming 9 is not the flagship motherboard or even the flagship 'series' (this tag goes to the XPower range - soon to be reviewed by us), a motherboard's prowess is quite often judged not just by the abundance of features but by its ability to take your components to the edge without falling over in a smouldering mound of silicon and plastic.

There is a wealth of information to get through today as at Vortez we feel the end user deserves a thorough appraisal of the component reviewed rather than a basic - 'how fast can it go' overview. To this end, we hope you find this review both informative and enjoyable should you be dreaming of your next upgrade or indeed in the market for such components.

Read full article @ Vortez

Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium 13 Review

Reviewers of speech recognition software often publish the unedited transcripts of their dictation sessions, with predictably hilarious consequences. Unfortunately for us Dragon 13 doesn't want to play that game: in normal circumstances with a good quality microphone it performed flawlessly, converting long texts into type without significant errors. The days when voice recognition software made irritating errors such as hearing new paragraph as uterus – hello, IBM ViaVoice! – are clearly long gone.Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium comes in three versions: the standard version at £139.99, and the Wireless version, which bundles a Bluetooth headset at £199.99. There's also a Mobile version, which includes a Philips Digital Voice Recorder you can use to dictate when you're out and about before transferring the recordings to Dragon for processing. That's £199.99, too.Dragon is designed to do two things: to turn your speech into text in your various applications, and to enable you to control your computer using only your voice. You can dictate directly into Office (and OpenOffice) applications or into desktop or web-based email, get Dragon to post to social networks, search the web with voice commands and schedule calendar appointments without lifting a finger – and unlike many voice recognition programs, you don't necessarily need to wear a noise-cancelling headset to use it.

Read full article @ Techradar

PS4 vs Xbox One: which is better

Our PS4 vs Xbox One comparison considers Microsoft's price drop and how it contrasts with Sony's specs, games and graphics power headed into the holidays.Like it or not, almost ten months into this PS4 vs Xbox One comparison, sales have proven that Sony is more popular with early adopters of the next-generation of video games.

Read full article @ Techradar

QNAP TurboNAS TS-470 Pro NAS Server Review

Sometimes i feel that things are moving so fast in the electronics and PC hardware industry that i simply can't afford to look the other way not even for a minute. Take for example NAS devices/servers. It hasn't been more than a month since i last checked all the available models by the 4 leading manufacturers (QNAP, Thecus, ASUSTOR and Synology) and right now there are at least 10 more available ones in their product lines (some already available in retail and some just announced). So that alone means that things must be going even better for all those manufacturers than the last time i checked several sales charts almost half a year ago and with so many people using NAS servers at home for various things such as for file sharing, downloads, video recording and media playback that doesn't really come as a surprise. Today with us we have one of the latest high-end NAS servers to hit the market by QNAP the TurboNAS TS-470 Pro.

QNAP Systems, Inc., as its brand promise "Quality Network Appliance Provider", aims to deliver comprehensive offerings of cutting edge network attached storage (NAS) and network video recorder (NVR) solutions featured with ease-of-use, robust operation, large storage capacity, and trustworthy reliability. QNAP integrates technologies and designs to bring forth quality products that effectively improve business efficiency on file sharing, virtualization applications, storage management and surveillance in the business environments, as well as enrich entertainment life for home users with the offering of a fun multimedia center experience. Headquartered in Taipei, QNAP delivers its solutions to the global market with nonstop innovation and passion.

We've been waiting for the TS-470 Pro ever since it was announced for one single reason, the Intel Core i3-3220 3.3GHz dual-core CPU it wears which is one of the most advanced models currently used in NAS servers so it's really obvious that we just had to see how it does against all the models we've tested in the past. Of course the 2GB DDR3 RAM along with the 512MB DOM flash featured here are also very important for the performance of a NAS server but the downside with the TS-470 Pro is that the RAM is not expandable so if you get the regular version you are pretty much stuck with it. Luckily for some of you out there QNAP became aware of this issue shortly after launch and their solution was as obvious as it was simple so as we speak they've also made available the TS-470 Pro-16G model which comes ready with 16GB of DDR3 RAM (!!!). The TS-470 Pro also comes ready with two Intel WG82574L GbE Ethernet ports, 2 eSATA ports, two USB 3.0 ports (Etron EJ188H controller), two USB 2.0 ports, 4 SATA III ports (via the Marvell 88SE9235 PCIex card) and exactly like with the TS-470 you can also purchase and install the extra 10GbE PCIex card by QNAP if you happen to have compatible equipment. So let's see just how better the much promising TS-470 Pro is not only compared to the TS-470 but also with every single NAS server in our charts.

Read full article @ NikKTech

Thermaltake Frio14 Silent CPU Cooler Review

While all in one liquid cooling units continue to dominate the high end CPU cooling space, there is still plenty of room left in the market for a good old fashioned air cooler. Today we will be taking a look at the Frio 14 from Thermaltake. This CPU cooler promises minimal noise output at an affordable price but, does it deliver? Let’s find out…

Read full article @ KitGuru