Here a roundup of the latest reviews and articles, including Micron P400m Review (200GB), Netgear R6300 Dual Band Gigabit WiFi Router Review, Nokia Lumia 620 Review, Prestigio MultiPad 7.0 Prime Duo Review, and ECBC Hercules Laptop Backpack



Micron P400m Review (200GB) @ Anandtech

Micron has remained one of the more stable players in the SSD space over the past few years. Although not typically at the top of our charts, Micron (and its consumer brand, Crucial) have generally paired the latest in NAND technology with custom firmware thats well validated. It sounds like a simple combination, but its so rarely found in an industry thats growing quickly enough to both those that are first to market as well as those that are most reliable. On the enterprise front, Micron is looking to fill a gap in its product lineup. In the 2.5 SATA form factor, Micron really only had two offerings: the dated SLC-based P300, and the entry level P400e. The former was built for a market that has increasingly moved to high-endurance MLC NAND, while the latter wasnt robust enough to deal with any of the more write-heavy enterprise environments. Filling the gap is the drive were looking at today: Microns P400m. Read on for our full review!

Read more: Micron P400m Review (200GB) @ Anandtech

Cooler Master HAF XB Mid-Tower Chassis Review @ KitGuru

The Cooler Master HAF XB Mid-Tower chassis is part of the High Air Flow range of cases, but it is crafted into a new and special form factor. Is this a case you need to be shortlisting for a new system build?

Read more: Cooler Master HAF XB Mid-Tower Chassis Review @ KitGuru

Netgear R6300 Dual Band Gigabit WiFi Router Review @ eTeknix

Virtually everyone that has access to the Internet at home will have a wired connection and this therefore means that at the heart of their connectivity in the house we will find a router of some shape or from. Typically most of these are ISP supplied items such as BT’s Home Hub or a generic branded router. Whilst these on the whole do as they say on the tin and for the most part of their lives and use run without any problems, there is always a better option.

Most home users would like to get a little bit extra from their router, whether it be a better wireless signal or even media and printer sharing capabilities, there is only one option and that is to replace the supplied equipment. Thankfully, for those that will need the facility, a large number of routers come with a built in ADSL modem to get them connected, but other users like myself may not need this option if they have the likes of fibre broadband where a separate specialist modem is required.

Whilst Netgear produce a lot of enterprise level gear like access points and managed switches that we have recently seen, they have also for many years been producing consumer grade solutions that offer up some of the best wireless performance available on the market. Talking about wireless, for a number of years 54Mbps wireless has an was the standard and over the last few years we have seen the implementation of wireless-N taking wireless to the next level with improved range and speed. To improve on this current standing in wireless technology, we are now starting to see an extension and improvement again for the 802.11 standard with 802.11ac.

Read more: Netgear R6300 Dual Band Gigabit WiFi Router Review @ eTeknix

Motörheadphönes Bomber Review @ Techradar

We can but applaud the shameless high-conceptness of such an invention. Regardless of their quality, we rather fancy that your decision on whether to shell out for a pair of these latest band-endorsed headphones to hit the market will be based on this: are you willing to be seen wearing them? We were happy to wear them on the brisk walk into work, but far too ashamed to sport them, with their striking Motörhead stylings, on the bus home.

Read more: Motörheadphönes Bomber Review @ Techradar

HiFiMAN RE-400 In-ears @ techPowerUp

HiFiMAN's newest baby, the RE-400 in-ears, are put to the test. The in-ears will retail for $99, and it is clear that HiFiMAN is pulling out all the stops to regain leadership in the sub $99 in-ear segment. Packed with several new features, these in-ears are an interesting departure from previous HiFiMAN designs.

Read more: HiFiMAN RE-400 In-ears @ techPowerUp

Sparkle Calibre X680 @ PureOverclock

With Nvidia’s Kepler lineup fully deployed, we’ve seen the gamut of 600 series card, from flagship to budget products. We’ve been impressed overall, as there’s been good competition against AMD’s lineup, not to mention seeing some innovative features from Nvidia in the Kepler architecture.

It’s not surprising that we’re seeing more custom cards now, as board partners are looking to differentiate themselves, and also keep interest alive until the next product cycle hit the market. One of those partners is Sparkle, perhaps not as popular in North America as a few other offerings, but today we’re looking at a flagship card that looks very interesting: the Sparkle Calibre X680.

Read more: Sparkle Calibre X680 @ PureOverclock

Tt eSPORTS Knucker Review @ Vortez

It's been a significant quarter for peripheral manufacturer Tt eSPORTS, the gaming sub-division of Taiwanese components giant Thermaltake. The Level 10M was an instant taking point not just for its style but also its gaming chops, whilst the last month saw an almost top to bottom product refresh of their previous peripheral line-up with new colours, lighting and other improvements. New coloured mirror finish options to the Theron RTS mouse range and aesthetic updates to the Meka G-Unit keyboard range are particularly good examples. Furthermore, Tt eSPORTS are also pushing new audio products: the Isurus in-ear headset and Bahamut external USB sound card are both set to take the pro-gaming world by storm in the coming months. The months following CES and CeBIT are likely to be extremely important for the brand as a whole.

Still, they're not neglecting their core peripheral market, nor those with more modest sums to spend. To accommodate these value-focussed gamers Tt eSPORTS are continuing to release more suitable products, the latest of which is the Knucker keyboard.

Read more: Tt eSPORTS Knucker Review @ Vortez

SilverStone Redline RL04 Case Review @ Hardware Secrets

The Redline RL04 is a mid-tower case from SilverStone targeted to users on a budget, costing only USD 53. Yet, it brings features usually only seen on more expensive models. Let's see what the RL04 has to offer.

Read more: SilverStone Redline RL04 Case Review @ Hardware Secrets

Kingston Wi-Drive MobileLite Wireless Card Reader Preview @ Legit Reviews

While at CES 2013 last month, Kingston shared with us a new but related product that they'll be rolling and asked if we could give our feedback prior to going live with production. It puts a twist on the Wi-Drive which comes with its own built-in solid state storage, by substituting this self-contained storage with SD card slots and a USB port so the user can add their own storage effectively making storage capacity options limitless. From this plug and play media, you can access or stream content to your iOS (5.1.1+) or Android device...

Read more: Kingston Wi-Drive MobileLite Wireless Card Reader Preview @ Legit Reviews

ASRock's Z77E-ITX Mini-ITX motherboard reviewed @ The Tech Report

In just a few years, ASRock has cemented its position as the third biggest player in the retail motherboard business. We take a closer look at Z77E-ITX to see how this mini Ivy Bridge board fares against the competition.

Read more: ASRock's Z77E-ITX Mini-ITX motherboard reviewed @ The Tech Report

Nokia Lumia 620 Review @ The Inquirer

The best budget smartphone on the market

Read more: Nokia Lumia 620 Review @ The Inquirer

Nanoxia Deep Silence 1 Case Review @ ThinkComputers.org

Nanoxia was a company I had not heard of up until recently. We were introduced to them at CES this year as they provided cases for Swiftech's demo systems. The German company was founded in 2006 and has been making some great cooling fans and other smaller PC accessories. This past year they introduced their first case, the Deep Silence 1. These were what I saw at CES and I was rather impressed. Now I have one to review and I am excited to spend some real time with the case. The Nanoxia Deep Silence 1 is a mid tower that if you can guess by the name is made for silence. It has sound dampening material throughout, three of Nanoxia's Deep Silence fans, room for up to 8 hard drives, dual fan controller and USB 3.0 support. Can this case compete against other silent cases out there? Let's find out!

Read more: Nanoxia Deep Silence 1 Case Review @ ThinkComputers.org

Samsung 840 Series SSD Review: Cost-Efficient Performance @ HotHardware

Samsung has roughly a trillion or so different products in virtually every market of the computing world, but one area where the company can occasionally be overlooked is in consumer storage. Samsung SSDs are plentiful, though, most notably inside of Apple's MacBooks, and unlike many SSDs out there, they're built entirely with Samsung-made components, from the controller to the Flash NAND and DRAM cache. In fact, Samsung is one of the largest Flash memory suppliers in the world.

In any case, the latest generation of Samsung SSDs is the 840 and 840 Pro Series, and we took the 250GB version of the 840 SSD for a spin. Not literally, of course, because these aren't HDDs. (Nerd joke.)

Read more: Samsung 840 Series SSD Review: Cost-Efficient Performance @ HotHardware

Unigine Valley with GPU monitoring @ Warp2Search

Unigine posted on their Facebook website that the upcoming Valley GPU benchmark comes with a built-in GPU monitor (temperature, core/memory frequency etc.)

Read more: Unigine Valley with GPU monitoring @ Warp2Search

Prestigio MultiPad 7.0 Prime Duo Review @ t-break

Android is certainly the OS of choice when it comes to affordable tablets. In recent years we’ve seen tablets of all sizes powered by Google’s OS; some do it well while others are just cheap paperweights. I managed to get my hands on the Prestigion MultiPad 7.0 Prime Duo this week for a quick review, to see if it was a capable Android tablet or just another one to be abandoned in the corner.

Read more: Prestigio MultiPad 7.0 Prime Duo Review @ t-break

NETGEAR Powerline USB Music Extender (XAUB2511) Review @ HardwareHeaven.com

This Powerline device features a USB expansion port that can be used to stream music to any device with a USB, RCA / Mini Jack connection. Alternatively, the USB port brings network functionality to printers, scanners or hard drives allowing such devices to be shared across your home network from any power outlet.

Read more: NETGEAR Powerline USB Music Extender (XAUB2511) Review @ HardwareHeaven.com

HP Pavilion 20-b010z Review @ TechReviewSource.com

If your workspace is tight, and your budget even tighter, consider the HP Pavilion 20-b010z. This all-in-one desktop PC offers middling performance and a mediocre feature set but that's why it's so inexpensive. Its AMD APU is a low-end processor and it only comes with 2GB of RAM, but it's more than adequate for basic home productivity tasks such as email, web surfing, and word processing.

Read more: HP Pavilion 20-b010z Review @ TechReviewSource.com

Hands-on review: Vertu Ti @ Techradar

The Vertu Ti is the first Android smartphone from the luxury smartphone maker, although it's certainly not for everyone.But is it for me, you ask. Honestly, probably not. Unless that is, you've got money coming out of your ears and regularly travel the world.For you see Vertu has a very focussed market and although it may be a small one in the grand scheme of things, it's pretty much unrivalled in what it does. Think of the Vertu Ti as the mobile equivalent to a Mulberry handbag or Rolls Royce Phantom.Its starting price is an eye watering £6,700 (around $10,600/AU$10,300) with the premium model, the Black PVD Titanium Red Gold Mixed Metals since you ask, topping out at £13,900 (around $18,600/AU$18,100).Available this month the Ti will be winging its way to Vertu's stores worldwide, if you fancy divulging.The Ti signals a new direction for a company which has shed its Finnish backer (it was formerly owned by Nokia) and the accompanying Symbian platform for pastures Google.

Read more: Hands-on review: Vertu Ti @ Techradar

Kingston DataTraveler HyperX Predator 512GB Flash Drive Review @ Techgage

When we kicked-off our CES coverage last month, little did we realize that it was going to become our most successful to date. To help put things into perspective, to equal the amount of visitors seen as a direct result of our CES coverage last month, we’d have to combine the previous five year’s worth together. What on earth caused such a surge of traffic to happen? Believe it or not, a flash drive. Kingston’s DataTraveler HyperX Predator, to be exact.

It might seem a little bizarre that a simple flash drive could have garnered so much attention, but it had one little number working in its favor: 1TB. While Kingston’s Predator isn’t the “first” 1TB flash drive ever produced, it’s going to be the first that people can actually buy. I say “going to be”, because at the moment, only the 512GB model is available. The 1TB model will come sometime before the end of the first quarter.

Read more: Kingston DataTraveler HyperX Predator 512GB Flash Drive Review @ Techgage

Micron RealSSD P400m Enterprise SSD Review @ HotHardware.com

Micron is announcing a brand new, enterprise-class solid state drive today, the RealSSD P400m. We have a looked at a number of Micron-built solid state drives in the past, including the ultra high-end RealSSD P320h PCI Express-based beast and the consumer-targeted RealSSD C300, but what makes the P400m somewhat different is that it was designed from start to finish by Micron's NAND and SSD engineering teams to provide high endurance and reliability and superior data protection. That's not to say Micron's previous products lacked in those departments, but the P400m goes a few steps further with custom NAND and firmware and physical power loss protection designed for mainstream enterprise applications...

Read more: Micron RealSSD P400m Enterprise SSD Review @ HotHardware.com

Noctua NF-A Series 140mm Fan Review @ Hi Tech Legion

Noctua’s new NF-A Series of fans blends legendary Noctua features, such as AAO Frame with Stepped Inlet Design and Flow Acceleration channels for the utmost in quiet performance, with some new twists and specializations. The NF-A Series 140mm fans come in three very unique models, the NF-A15 PWM, NF-A14 FLX and NF-A14 ULN. The NF-A15 PWM features a rounded 140x150mm frame with 120mm mounting points and 300~1200rpm operation, making it ideal for use on CPU coolers. The NF-A14 pieces use the standard square frame and 140mm mounting, along with 3-pin connections making them more suitable for use in cases and radiators. The NF-A14 FLX is rated at 1200rpm, with included low noise and ultra-low noise adapters bringing speeds down to 1050 and 800rpm. The NF-A14 ULN is a low noise fan rated at 800 rpm (650 with included low noise adapter) at a mere 11.9 dBA that is the perfect choice as an add on or replacement where quiet is the key. For more precise cable management, all three fans in the series use a 20cm cable built in and include a 30cm extension with black sleeving. All NF-A Series fans use Noctua’s reference class SSO2 bearing rated for >150,000h MTBF and come backed with a 6-Year Warranty.

Read more: Noctua NF-A Series 140mm Fan Review @ Hi Tech Legion

NZXT Respire T20 @ PureOverclock

Air coolers are everywhere these days. They come in every imaginable shape, size and layout and offer varying price points and degrees of performance from “awesome” to “don’t waste your money.” NZXT is fairly new to the CPU cooler market, having released their first air coolers (the Havik 140 and Havik 120) just last year. Both received great fanfare and praise from their reviewers. NZXT decided to release a more budget-friendly set of air coolers dubbed the Respire series. Today we look at the baseline model, the Respire T20.

Read more: NZXT Respire T20 @ PureOverclock

ECS A85F2-A Golden Review @ OCC

Overclocking the A10-5800K with the A85F2-A was a bit more expeditious than I expected it to be. Knowing the limits of my A10 APU from extensive use, I headed towards 4.7GHz right away and was surprised to get the same OC from it with a motherboard that is not equipped with digital power. This is truly a testament to how far ECS has come with the quality of the components it uses and the board as a whole. I was also able to achieve a 1GHz+ core speed on the graphics core; a move that bumps the 6770D graphics a couple rungs up on the ladder.

Read more: ECS A85F2-A Golden Review @ OCC

Mad Catz F.R.E.Q.5 Red Stereo Gaming Headset Review @ NikkTech

February 2013 was supposed to be a very important month for me and the rest of the staff since during this month not one but two very special game titles were scheduled for release, first the Dragonborn DLC add-on for The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim and the long awaited Aliens Colonial Marines which as the title suggests was made after one of the best sci-fi/thriller movies of all time, Aliens. Unfortunately although the Dragonborn DLC proved to be worthy of our enthusiasm i can't really say the same about Aliens Colonial Marines since after having played with it for almost 6 hours straight it left us with a bitter taste (mostly due to gameplay and graphics). Had Sega released the game 3 years ago there's a good chance that we would all be astonished by it and sucked into the storyline, however this is 2013 and releasing a game with 2010 graphics is simply not the way to go, especially when you are releasing a sci-fi game with plenty of visual effects (although we did enjoy the Weyland-Yutani Corporation twist). Still both the Dragonborn DLC and the Aliens Colonial Marines came at just the right moment in time since almost 10 days ago we started testing of the latest F.R.E.Q.5 Red stereo headset by Mad Catz.

Read more: Mad Catz F.R.E.Q.5 Red Stereo Gaming Headset Review @ NikkTech

MyDigitalSSD BP4 120GB SSD Review - SATA 3 At an Amazing Price @ SSD Review

There have been more than a few interesting things that we have seen in reviewing technology over the past few years. Today’s SSD analysis is yet another, although it is not the first time this has happened.

Can you catch the oddity in this report just yet? If not, take a closer look and follow along as we walk you through our latest SSD analysis, this on MyDigitalSSD’s newest notebook SSD, the 120GB MyDigitalSSD BP4.

Some time ago, we considered marketing our own solid state drives and each time we take a look at any of the MyDigitalSSD products, it brings us back to that mindset and whether or not it would have been a wise choice. Granted, once you put your name to your own SSD, any impartiality you have once had for other SSD brands is pretty much lost. After all, how could we possibly offer your brand an honest public analysis when I am hoping to make money off of my own?

Read more: MyDigitalSSD BP4 120GB SSD Review - SATA 3 At an Amazing Price @ SSD Review

ECBC Hercules Laptop Backpack @ MEGATech Reviews

Before I got the Hercules laptop backpack from ECBC, I was carrying around an old, worn out, red and black Everest bag that I’ve had since high school. Going from that ratty old thing to something as, well, Herculean as the Hercules laptop backpack was practically a religious experience. I had been shown the light, and now I feel as if I should have just thrown my old backpack into a fire.

The ECBC Hercules backpack is made of 1000d kodra nylon, and if you know your fabrics (you’re forgiven if you don’t), you’d know that it’s used often in the world of high quality backpacks. It’s both soft and lightweight, yet durable, and is generally water resistant. On this particular backpack, the zippers are water resistant as well. I’m certain not going to poor liquid on the thing, so I’ll have to take their word for it.

Read more: ECBC Hercules Laptop Backpack @ MEGATech Reviews

Sony NEX-5R camera Review @ Silicon Repblic

Sony's NEX-5R is a compact-sized camera with a DSLR-sized interchangeable lens - but can it deliver top-of-the-range photos from a small package? We put it through its paces to find out.

Read more: Sony NEX-5R camera Review @ Silicon Repblic