Here a roundup of todays reviews and articles:

A first look at SATA Express with Asus Hyper Express storage device
Adobe Lightroom Mobile Review
Alienware 17 Review
AMD AM1 vs. Intel Bay Trail-D review: cheap desktop platforms
Antec High Current Pro Platinum 850W PSU Review
be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3 CPU Cooler Review
Corsair Flash Voyager GO 64GB PC/Mobile Flash Storage Drive Review
Firefox 29 sucks
Gigabyte P35K-CF4 UltraBlade Review
Gigabyte Z97X-UD5H Review
HTC One (M8) Android Smartphone Review
Huawei Ascend Y530 Review
Intel 730 240GB SSD Review
Intel Core i7-3960X 3-way SLI Gaming Performance Scaling
IOGEAR KeyMander Controller Emulator Review
KingFast 32GB Encrypted USB Key Review
Mad Catz R.A.T. TE Gaming Mouse Video Review
Microcool Banchetto 103 Review
Nikon D7100 DSLR User Review
Z97 Motherboards Listed: Now in USA, Taiwan, and EU

A first look at SATA Express with Asus Hyper Express storage device

SATA Express combines Serial ATA and PCI Express on the same physical interface. Some next-gen Intel motherboards support the standard, and Asus has developed a RAID-infused Hyper Express storage device that's compatible with it. We take a closer look at SATA Express and the Hyper Express prototype to see what's what.

Read full article @ The Tech Report

Adobe Lightroom Mobile Review

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is designed for enthusiasts, experts and professional photographers who need powerful image cataloguing tools, not just an image-editor. Photoshop can get the most out individual images, but Lightroom can import, organise and enhance them in bulk. It's a powerful image database that can easily search, sort and display tens or hundreds of thousands of images stored on an internal or external drive, in multiple locations.

Read full article @ Techradar

Alienware 17 Review

The 17-inch laptop is a unicorn these days. But in the gaming world, the arguably huge form factor is alive and well. Alienware has doubled down on its colossal clamshell, simply known as the Alienware 17, with an AMD-powered variant.With an AMD Radeon HD R9 M290X pushing the pixels behind its 1920 x 1080 anti-glare screen, this version of Dell-owned Alienware's notebook comes in $350 cheaper than its Nvidia-toting counterpart. Given that AMD's latest mobile GPU houses twice as much video RAM – 4GB to the GeForce GTX 860M's 2GB – that's not a bad deal at all.Aside from that, nothing about the Alienware 17 has changed, including its gigantic frame. Both the MSI GS70 Stealth and Asus G750JX are thinner and cheaper, but fall on different ends of the spectrum in terms of hardware, design and overall focus.

Read full article @ Techradar

AMD AM1 vs. Intel Bay Trail-D review: cheap desktop platforms

Where we recently reviewed an AMD video card that cost over $1500 / £1200 / €1300, today we'll be discussing a series of products which is considerably more value-oriented. The new AMD AM1 platform allows you to purchase a small motherboard and a processor for a little over $80 / £50 / €60. The platform is mainly marketed towards economically developing countries that have a large demand for extremely cheap PCs. However, according to AMD, the Western world should also find the platform to be an interesting choice, due to its low price, low power consumption and capable performance. We tested the new AMD Athlon 5350 and compared it to the Bay Trail-D platform which Intel offers as an alternative, and more specifically, to the Celeron J1900.

The AMD AM1 platform consists of new processors and motherboards, the latter of which features a new processor socket and does not contain a traditional chipset, as the AM1 processors are actually so-called SoCs (System on a Chip). This means that the tasks of the CPU, the GPU and the chipset are all being taken care of by a single chip.

These processors are not entirely new. The AM1 processors are based on the Kabini processors for laptops, with which we are already familiar. What's new is that these Kabini chips have been made suitable for use in desktops and have thus been released onto the market as a separate component..

Read full article @ Hardware.Info

Antec High Current Pro Platinum 850W PSU Review

At the beginning of April we reviewed the incredible Antec High Current Pro Platinum 1300 W. This power supply ranked as one of the best we had ever reviewed, and today we look at the more cost effective 850W model. Can the HCP 850W power supply cement Antec’s standing in the high end power supply sector?

Read full article @ KitGuru

be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3 CPU Cooler Review

When it comes to CPU coolers there are no shortage of options, in fact it can be quite a headache trying to find the right one for your system. With water cooling now cheaper than ever, and air cooling still pushing forward with innovative designs that have pushed performance up and prices down, not to mention the wide range of sizes, shapes and a dozen other factors that can make each one unique from the last. be quiet! have one important focus on their coolers that sets them apart from the crowd, and they’re already a world-renowned brand for their ultra quiet performance products. It’s their ambition for quiet performance that has earned them a solid reputation among system builders, gamers and many other sections of the PC building / owning world. Offering up some of the quietest products on the market has long been their goal and they’ve succeeded time and time again, especially since their quiet performance is often backed up by superb cooling capabilities, pretty much the two best qualities you could ask for from a CPU cooler.

When it comes to picking your new CPU cooler, thermal performance is obviously a top priority, having a cooler that is also quiet is a welcome second priority, followed by build quality and aesthetics. be quiet! have proven before that they can tick all these boxes with their products, so they’re a premium choice for any system builder and that’s often reflected in the premium price tag of the be quiet! product range, but as they saying goes “you get what you pay for”. The Dark Rock Pro 3 cooler that we have in the office today is the new top dog of the be quiet! range, intended to be their best ever cooling product and today I’ll be expecting nothing short of excellence from this cooler. With prices edging over £70 from most major online retailers, this is a premium class product and it’s already treading into water cooling territory at this price range, so it’s going to have to be pretty special to compete with that market.

Read full article @ eTeknix

Corsair Flash Voyager GO 64GB PC/Mobile Flash Storage Drive Review

Thanks to the newly released Corsair Voyager GO USB Flash Drive, we will be able to transfer data to and from our mobile devices supporting OTG easier and faster. The Flash Drive can be also used to clear up smartphone NAND space when we reach the upper limit or do regular backups of important information in case something fails.

Read full article @ Madshrimps

Firefox 29 sucks

This is a short article about the colossal failure called Firefox 29, with additional mention on how to disable the new interface called Australis and change it back to the classic theme using the Classic Theme Restorer addon, and then some. Do not read if you don't like expletives, there's plenty of them here.

Read full article @ Dedoimedo

Gigabyte P35K-CF4 UltraBlade Review

The Gigabyte P35K UltraBlade is a sleek 15.6-inch laptop that measures a mere 21mm thick when the lid is closed. Open the lid and the main part of the chassis is less than 17mm thick which is pretty amazing when you discover the P35K is powered by a Core i7 processor and Nvidia GeForce GTX 765M graphics. We’re not talking about a weak kneed laptop that has been compressed into a skinny laptop, but rather a power house that has been shrunk to a surprisingly slender form factor.

Read full article @ KitGuru

Gigabyte Z97X-UD5H Review

Gigabyte takes a stab at Z97 with its overclocker-friendly UD5H.. Intel's Z97 chipset looms near and the race is on, as manufacturers are clambering to get boards ready for launch later this month. All the usual suspects are onboard, and Gigabyte as you might imagine has a complete roster of Z97 solutions, ranging from the Mini-ITX Z97N-Gaming 5 to the overclocker-orientated ATX Z97X-SOC Force.

The Taiwanese firm will, it seems, have a Z97 board for everyone, but it's the mid-to-high-end Z97X-UD5H that may be the most appealing to budding enthusiasts looking to put together a new Intel Haswell-based rig.

On course to be available at launch with an MSRP of £149 inc. VAT, the new board will be slightly cheaper than the current Z87X equivalent but will continue to offer a wealth of high-end features in an ATX form factor.

Read full article @ Hexus

HTC One (M8) Android Smartphone Review

HTC has clearly been putting in considerable effort into its products' industrial design. For years, the company has churned out some of the most appealing flagship devices, running both Android as well as Windows Phone. As of late, the Taiwanese outfit has been struggling to turn a profit, and that’s despite a robust, well-received lineup of phones. In many ways, the new HTC One (known internally as the M8, signifying a followup to last year’s One M7) is a make-it-or-break-it device.

The new HTC One M8 is, in many ways, a phone that pulls out all of the stops. It’s a creation that’s born from listening to years of feedback from users, and it packs just about everything one could wish for when searching for a top-tier Android device...

Read full article @ HotHardware.com

Huawei Ascend Y530 Review

The Huawei Ascend Y530 is the latest handset offering from the Chinese technology giant, and it's rapidly developing a reputation of releasing budget devices every six months.You can pick up the Y530 for around £110 SIM free, which puts the Ascend Y530 in direct competition with devices like the Motorola Moto G, Nokia Lumia 520 and Sony Xperia M.By looking at the phone's specifications it is obvious to see that the Y530 is a slightly updated version of the Huawei Ascend Y300 released last year.The usual smartphone features have all been bundled into the device and connectivity should not be an issue, as the Y530 packs Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, Wi-Fi, Accelerometer and Proximity sensors into the device. The option to add additional storage (up to 32GB) via the microSD card slot is also available for when the internal 4GB of storage rapidly fills up. It's worth noting that this is one of the main advantages over its closest rival the Moto G, which doesn't have a microSD option.

Read full article @ Techradar

Intel 730 240GB SSD Review

After last year's release of the DC S3700 series SSD’s, it was only a matter of time before Intel allowed their LSI built, in house designed X25 generation 3 controller to trickle down into the consumer marketplace. With the release of the new "Jacksonville" 730 series of enthusiast grade drives, that wait is finally over. The 730’s launch not only marks the formal introduction of the X25 Gen3 into the consumer marketplace but also happens to be the first 7 series SSD that isn’t intended for the enterprise or workstation segments. This direction actually makes perfect sense since Intel has the DC S-series to cover what was once the 7 series’ primary areas of responsibility.

Read full article @ hardware Canucks

Intel Core i7-3960X 3-way SLI Gaming Performance Scaling

In our 3-way SLI gaming performance scaling articles we're going to investigate 3-way SLI scaling factors with different CPUs and different clock speeds. In eight recent games and two theoretical benchmarks we want to find out what difference 3-way SLI makes, when we run benchmarks with the CPU at stock clocks as well as overclocked to 4.5 GHz. Let's kick off with an Intel 3960X CPU and three ASUS GTX 780 DirectCU II graphics cards and find out what the differences are going to be like.

Read full article @ ocaholic

IOGEAR KeyMander Controller Emulator Review

Hello editors,

Today we review something for console gamers who can't let go of their
keyboards and mice for game control, the IOGEAR KeyMander. This interesting
little box basically allows you to map console controller buttons and
functionality to your keyboard and mouse, allowing you to use the setup to
play console games in place of controller. Supported consoles include the
PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and the new Xbox One with PS4 compatibility on the
way via firmware update. We go hands on with the KeyMander to see how well
it does the job of emulating controllers on a keyboard and mouse for its
rather large $99.95 USD price tag.

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/iogear_keymander/

"The IOGEAR KeyMander is a controller emulator that allows console gamers
> to use a keyboard and mouse to control games instead of a gamepad. This
> isn't as simple a task to address as you may expect, keeping in mind that
> most console titles don't have native support for PC peripherals."


Thanks as always for any linkage,

Neoseeker Hardware
http://www.neoseeker.com/
hardware@neoseeker.com

Read full article @ Neoseeker

KingFast 32GB Encrypted USB Key Review

I've been watching this great show called The Americans. The show is set during the Cold War time period when the Soviet Empire was at odds with their American counterparts. Essentially this spy drama has two KGB intelligence agents posing as a married couple in America and are tasked with spying on the American government. Their neighbor just happens to be an FBI counterintelligence agent so you have this FBI, CIA, KGB thing going against each other, its riveting stuff. You also get to see the "high tech" gadgets and spy equipment being used.

Well that got me thinking about today's review and thinking of it possibly being used as one of those devices in a The Americans type of show. Imagine a scenario, similar to the one seen on the House of Cards season 2, where a malware-infected USB drive was to be used to hack the AT&T servers. Maybe you had to pull some dark information and keep it secure, or maybe you had to keep ultra secretive information protected from prying eyes, you'd need something that couldn't be seen.

Heck, the Canadian Government should have had one of these a few years back when they lost an UNENCYRPTED portable hard drive that stored hundreds of thousands of people's important contact information along with their Social Insurance Numbers, birth dates, account balances, you name it. It's beyond laughable at how anyone in the Canadian Government can be using a cheap unencrypted storage medium. What did they do? Did they think grabbing a portable hard drive at Costco was good enough to secure incredibly sensitive information?

Read full article @ ModSynergy.com

Mad Catz R.A.T. TE Gaming Mouse Video Review

Today DaveChaos takes a look at the R.A.T. TE gaming mouse from Mad Catz, featuring the R.A.T. series trademark adjustability.

Read full article @ HardwareHeaven.com

Microcool Banchetto 103 Review

Microcool is an Italian company which make bench tables and the Banchetto 103 is one of the best bench tables out there for hardware testing labs as well as extreme overclockers. It features all the possibilites for testing and benching hardware and an ability to mount hardware components directly out of the box is one of the main bench table features.

Read full article @ ocaholic

Nikon D7100 DSLR User Review

Today Technology X is taking a look at the Nikon D7100 18-105 VR Kit, which features the Nikon D7100 DSLR camera body and a AF-S DX Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR Lens … now that’s a mouthful! We’re taking a look at the D7100 and 18-105mm lens from a user’s perspective, showing you some examples of how well the photos and videos turn out. We even went on the road to Niagara Falls Butterfly Conservatory to take a look at some vivid color comparisons.

Read full article @ TechnologyX

Z97 Motherboards Listed: Now in USA, Taiwan, and EU

Despite being nowhere near the official release date, it would seem that retailers have jumped the gun.

Read full article @ Anandtech