Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

Acer Swift 7 Review
Adata XPG Gammix S11 960GB NVMe SSD Review
Azulle Inspire Fanless Intel Kaby Lake Barebone Mini PC Review
Elgato Eve Review
Fantom Drives G-Force 3.1 USB-C SSD Review
Gigabyte Aorus B450 Pro Wifi Review
Intel i7-8086K Review
JBL Link 20 Bluetooth speaker with Google Assistant Review
Kingston UV500 240GB (mSATA) Solid State Drive Review
MSI Infinite A 8th Gaming Desktop PC Review
SanDisk Extreme Portable 1 TB SSD Review
The curious case of mystery crypto boxes
Why mirrorless cameras are taking over the world
Windows 10 fresh install - What gives?

Acer Swift 7 Review

Acer's ultra-thin Swift 7 laptop is certainly impressive to look at. At just 8.9mm thick, it's actually thinner than some smartphones. Combine that with a great (albeit 1080p) display, LTE support, and battery life that's surprising for its size, and you've got a formidable device. But those alluring aesthetics do come with some downsides, not least of which is that $1,700 price tag.

So is it worth it? Check out our video review below to find out.

Read full article @ Windows Central

Adata XPG Gammix S11 960GB NVMe SSD Review

Adata's 960GB XPG Gammix S11 is a fast, high-capacity SSD that comes with great pricing. Whether you game, create content, or are just looking for a fast, high-capacity SSD that isn't as expensive as the Samsung 970 PRO, look no further than Adata's 960GB XPG Gammix S11. With blistering speeds, a five-year warranty, and enough endurance to satisfy most users, the XPG Gammix S11 has what you’ve been looking for and comes with a stylish heatsink to match the heat it brings with it.

The XPG Gammix S11 lived up to its billing in our test suite. It regularly challenges more expensive competitors and even outperforms Samsung's 970 PRO in some of our real-world benchmarks. The solid performance in our suite, paired with competitive pricing, makes this recommendation easy.

Read full article @ Tom's Hardware

Azulle Inspire Fanless Intel Kaby Lake Barebone Mini PC Review

Azulles Inspire Barebone Mini PC offers a range of processor options and is, in all but the Intel Core i7 variant, a fanless system. The Inspire supports up to 32GB of DDR4 across two SoDIMMs, and supports both 2.5-inch SATA and M.2 storage. We had a chance to test out a Core i5-powered variant, and well explore both the design and performance in this review.

As this is a barebone system, the Inspire - like Intel NUC computers - requires users to supply memory and storage, leaving only the processor to be selected when you order. Four Intel platform options are available, with Apollo Lake ($169.99), Core i3 ($269.99), Core i5 ($334.99), and Core i7 ($449.99) CPUs. Our review unit is equipped with an Intel Core i5-7200U, which is the $334.99 configuration, and Azulle sent over NVMe storage and DDR4 memory to make this a complete system.

Read full article @ PC Perspective

Elgato Eve Review

Elgato recently doubled down on its HomeKit lineup of products by selling its long-standing gaming portfolio to Corsair, reinvesting into its smart home lineup and more importantly furthering its commitment to Apples HomeKit ecosystem.

If there was one company, vendor or brand that was most committed to HomeKit, it would be Elgato. Their portfolio of HomeKit compatible solutions ranges from switches to weather stations to air quality sensors down to plugs and motion sensors. In this article we will look at many of their products, in fact the entire portfolio was sent over for testing. So, let's get down to it.

Read full article @ TweakTown

Fantom Drives G-Force 3.1 USB-C SSD Review

Fantom Drives has long been purveyors of external drives, almost always encased in a durable metal body. Their new 1TB G-Force 3.1 drive carries on that tradition with the addition of USB-C.

Like the rest of the Fantom Drives lineup, the 1TB G-Force 3.1 we tested is wrapped in aluminum. We are generally fans of aluminum external frames, but Fantom Drive's can come off a bit utilitarian. They look like an extruded metal tube with the internals secured inside, versus a more detailed exterior that has a bit more work put into it.

Read full article @ Apple Insider

Gigabyte Aorus B450 Pro Wifi Review

We're going small today as we review the Gigabyte Aorus B450 I Pro Wifi, based on the new B450 chipset it is aimed at for Ryzen processors, and in specific the new Ryzen 2000 / Zen+. And with a 17x17cm, mini-ITX form factor this motherboard is small, offers good value and really has it all you need and require.

Yeah, Zen+ was launched in April, aka Ryzen 2000 or 12nm optimized Ryzen processors, the 'refresh' SKUs so to say. The new 12nm Zen+ processors will work fine with your X370 chipset based motherboard and vice versa, however, AMD launched the X470 chipset alongside these new Zen+ processors. The new chipset offers small improvements in combo with the new 12nm products. For example, to better facilitate XFR2 options. It has been a year already ever since AMD launched the first generation Ryzen processors. It had a bit of a rocky launch with the inter-core latency discussion a 1080p gaming performance as well as memory support. But the tide definitely turned for AMD as more and more people are considering to purchase an AMD processor-based PC, for their next purchase. The memory compatibility issues are mostly all gone, of course, we'll look at game performance in this article as well. But yes, things are looking good. The new 12nm processor generation can be clocked a notch higher. The upper range frequencies at 4.2~4.3 now are feasible, that also means that on the lower end of the spectrum, AMD is now capable to increase base-clock performance ion the more high-end parts. All these little tweaks bring the benefit of an overall faster processor series. Add to that improved memory latency and improved XFR2 ranges and you'll notice that the new ZEN+ generation now has become a really viable and more competitive product. So the ones that have not made a move towards AMD Ryzen just yet, now potentially could or will.

Read full article @ The Guru of 3D

Intel i7-8086K Review

Its been an exciting few years in the PC market, especially with big gains in the CPU market. But it gets a lot crazier when you look back farther. Intel recently did this when they were celebrating the 40th birthday of their 8086 microprocessor. While most of you may not know the 8086 specifically, you would recognize some of the processors that it paved the way for. Most notably the ones that came after it the 286 and the 386. I personally grew up playing with those and played my first real PC games like the original Warcraft on a 486 after we spent a LOT of money to upgrade to I think it was 12MB of ram. The 8086 brought the X86 platform so 40 years was a big milestone. To celebrate Intel brought out the 8086K, named after the original. It is also their first CPU to deliver 5.0 GHz single core turbo clock speeds. Well, today I’m going to take a look at the 8086K and see where it fits in the market.

Read full article @ LanOC Reviews

JBL Link 20 Bluetooth speaker with Google Assistant Review

The JBL Link 20 is expensive as Bluetooth speakers go, but an absolute steal in the world of smartspeakers, especially ones with Google Assistant.

The Link 20 is part of the first wave of Assistant-compatible speakers by JBL, a pretty well-established brand in the audio realm. Accordingly, the Link 20 mostly resembles a traditional Bluetooth speaker — it's tall and cylindrical, available only in black or white, and has physical control buttons up top, rather than anything hidden or touch-sensitive. It's also IPX7 waterproof, and its rechargeable battery provides up to 10 hours of playback if you're not hooked up to micro USB.

Read full article @ Apple Insider

Kingston UV500 240GB (mSATA) Solid State Drive Review

The Kingston UV500 240GB is a decent performing budget solid state drive in the mSATA form factor.

How does one become the most famous dentist in the world? Unless you have been living under a rock in the last little while, you have probably watched Greenville dentist Dr. Rich Constantine do the "In My Feelings" challenge, and at the time of writing this review, his video has garnered 84 million views with nearly 400,000 likes on his Facebook page. I have watched his video at least half a dozen times, and even I must admit he has some smooth moves. In comparison, the dentist I go to does not even have a Facebook page, let alone posting a video of himself dancing to the latest Drake hit. Being an internet sensation is one thing, but after reading some reviews on Google -- the legitimate ones written before he became famous -- I am quite convinced Dr. Rich Constantine's real patients think he is a great dentist, too. In this case, I think the road to becoming the most famous dentist in the world involves two things. One is a bit of luck, but the other is being good at what you are doing -- whether it is dancing or doing actual dental work. It is important to get all your bases covered, even if you do not think it will contribute to your success initially. Recently, we have covered the Kingston UV500 240GB (SATA) and Kingston UV500 240GB (M.2) solid state drives. Today, we will cover the Kingston UV500 240GB (mSATA). Even though we have not covered a motherboard with an mSATA slot since the Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD3H-BK in 2014, Kingston wants to ensure they have all their bases covered. Will this be their key to success? Read on to find out!

Read full article @ APH Networks

MSI Infinite A 8th Gaming Desktop PC Review

MSI is certainly one of the best-known brands in terms of their PC components. You may not, however, realise that they do also create full system builds. We’ve certainly seen a few of their laptops in the past, but this time we’re looking at something a bit bigger. Namely, a full-blown gaming desktop PC.

In this instance, we certainly have a treat. The MSI Infinite A 8th is a fully-fledged gaming system. With the system having nearly all MSI components though, they have pushed out the boat a little in terms of the design. This system has lighting everywhere, all of which is controllable via MSI’s sync software. Put simply, this can look as bright or colourful as you want and there’s very little that doesn’t get the RGB attention.

Read full article @ eTeknix

SanDisk Extreme Portable 1 TB SSD Review

Howdy, gerbils. Nvidia and its legion of board partners may doing their best to distract you with some newfangled foolishness, but we all know the real reason you're here: solid-state storage. In particular, the kind you can put in your pocket.

Last year we reviewed external SSDs from Adata and Samsung and found them quite delightful. Manufacturers may go overboard with romanticized visions of surfers and mountain climbers pursuing their passions while drives dangle perilously from board shorts and carabiners, but the fact remains that these brands are very good at putting together potent portables in compact and attractive form factors. Anyone weary of the languid transfer speeds and shoddy construction of the average thumb drive would be well served to splurge on a portable SSD.

Read full article @ The Tech Report

The curious case of mystery crypto boxes

The concept of a mystery box isn’t even remotely new, nor is it often much of anything but a gimmick in a best-case scenario. Worst case scenarios toe the line with outright scams disguised as money-making opportunities. When cryptocurrencies enter the fray, it’s less a sign of the widespread adoption of emerging technologies and more a strange crossover between schemers and dreamers.

That isn’t to say that all crypto mystery boxes are designed to leave your wallet hurting, of course. Crypto company CBlocks has offered crypto mystery boxes of varying values in the past, but the gimmick is less a gamble on worth and more a gamble on which currencies you receive. Each tier of the box they offer contains five random selections of altcoins of varying values and is treated more like an opportunity to draw in newcomers who aren’t entirely certain how to enter the world of cryptocurrencies.

Read full article @ KitGuru

Why mirrorless cameras are taking over the world

Nikon's introduction of its Z6 and Z7 cameras might make it the most recent company to hop on board the professional mirrorless-camera bandwagon, but the venerable Japanese firm is hardly the first to take a crack at cutting the flipping mirror of single-lens-reflex cameras out of the optical path.

Olympus and Panasonic were some of the pioneers of the digital mirrorless camera with the Four Thirds and Micro Four Thirds systems. Fujifilm's X System and Sony's Alpha family of cameras are some of the most popular mirror-free picture-takers available today. Why is the industry making the mirror persona non grata, though? Let's take a little trip into the history books.

Read full article @ The Tech Report

Windows 10 fresh install - What gives?

It's fresh - fresh - exciting. Uh, maybe? Let's see. Here's my review of Windows 10 Build 1084 after a fresh install, including account setup and configuration, desktop look & feel, privacy settings, installation of alternative software to default Microsoft application and associated annoyances, how to disable Windows Defender, Cortana, OneDrive, and telemetry, other observations, and more. Enjoy.

Read full article @ Dedoimedo