Here a roundup of todays reviews and articles:

Asus ZenBook UX305CA Review: Thin And Light, Great Battery Life
Das Keyboard Unveils Its First Gaming Peripherals
Kanto Yaro 2 Amplifier & Speakers Review
PNY CS2211 SSD Review (240GB/480GB)
PowerColor Devil HDX PCI Express Sound Card Review
Rise of the Tomb Raider: PC graphics performance benchmark review
Samsung 950 Pro M.2 NVMe 256GB Review
The best Windows 10 laptops
The ideal smartphone: What we want to see in 2016
WD My Passport Ultra Metal Edition 1TB USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive Review
Windows Phone is dead
Zotac Premium Edition SSD Review

Asus ZenBook UX305CA Review: Thin And Light, Great Battery Life

We had good things to say about Asus’ super-slim ZenBook UX305 when we evaluated it early last year. Attractive, sturdy, and downright tiny, the UX305 was a good value for the price, and it had good looks too. A year later, the ZenBook is back with the updated UX305CA, so we got one in to see if the new version is as balanced a machine as last year’s model.

The Zenbook UX305CA we will be showing you here has Windows 10 and an updated Core M processor, along with improved graphics, but many things haven’t changed: it’s still tiny, it has the same wedge design and the lid still props the keyboard up at angle when opened. If you liked the UX305, you’ll be happy to know that many of its best features stayed on in the UX305CA...

Read full article @ HotHardware

Das Keyboard Unveils Its First Gaming Peripherals

The Das Keyboard trademark is best known for mechanical keyboards designed for the combination enthusiast and professional. For many years Metadot, the owner of the brand, has been going through the process of improving its keyboard design in a bid to bolster comfort for those who type a lot. However, the rising popularity of PC gaming and growing popularity of high-end gaming peripherals means that companies are developing solutions for this market segment. This week Metadot introduced Division Zero by Das Keyboard, the family of products designed for gamers.

Read full article @ Anandtech

Kanto Yaro 2 Amplifier & Speakers Review

The Kanto Yaro 2 digital stereo system is aimed at desk use as well as TV and home theatre use. Kanto is marketing the system, which includes the company's Yaro 2 amplifier and two passive speakers, as a straightforward speaker solution with a small footprint.

The Yaro 2 speakers have a gloss black finish with a soft rubber finish on the top, with design language similar to the Apple TV. While they look great, the finish is a magnet for dust and fingerprints. The package doesn't include a microfibre cloth, something that would have been nice to include.

Read full article @ Hardware Canucks

PNY CS2211 SSD Review (240GB/480GB)

Just last week we announced PNY's latest SSD products for the new year (http://thessdreview.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=3d9b6193ffd32dd60e84fc74b&id=a07805c79e&e=312ec141fb) , the CS1311 and CS2211 (http://thessdreview.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=3d9b6193ffd32dd60e84fc74b&id=eaf38ce0dc&e=312ec141fb) . It just so happens that today we have some in our hands for review. The CS1311 is your basic, entry level SSD jam packed with TLC NAND for those looking for a cheap SSD upgrade from an HDD. As you may have noticed as of late, many companies have been following this trend to help push SSD adaptation to the masses, however, for enthusiasts and gamers, these lower performance SSDs are something which we avoid. For those of us who need more performance, the PNY CS2211 (http://thessdreview.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=3d9b6193ffd32dd60e84fc74b&id=8a79ba3810&e=312ec141fb) is a mainstream offering developed specifically
for us, the gamer and enthusiast crowd. With a sleek design and great performance numbers on the spec sheet, the CS2211 should hold its own very well in today's review. But, let's not jump to any conclusions just yet, continue on as we poke and prod the new PNY CS2211 (http://thessdreview.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=3d9b6193ffd32dd60e84fc74b&id=db250c187f&e=312ec141fb) to see how it compares to the rest of the competition!

Read full article @ The SSD Review

PowerColor Devil HDX PCI Express Sound Card Review

The PC sound card selection has been pretty sparse for years, dominated by the likes of Creative Sound Blaster and ASUS Xonar cards. Today we have something from someone else who many of our readers should recognize. PowerColor is well established as a major AMD graphics partner and have become known for their distinctive top-end Devil line of products. Thus the PowerColor Devil HDX sound card we are reviewing here is a new enthusiast offering and we should expect some great audio....

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

Rise of the Tomb Raider: PC graphics performance benchmark review

Today we review Rise of the Tomb Raider in relation towards PC gaming graphics card performance. In this first installment of our article 20 cards graphics cards are being tested and benchmarked. We have a look at performance with the newest graphics cards and technologies. We'll also look at frame-time performance, graphics memory and a thing or two more. We test with the latest game patch and for AMD Radeon Software Crimson 16.1 driver and for Nvidia the new 361.75 WHQl GeForce driver.

So I have been wondering, should or shouldn't I test Rise of the Tomb Raider. The Square Enix title will probably be patched, then patched again and then after 2 weeks new drivers will boost performance even more. To wait a couple of weeks, normally is best procedure to bypass game release start issues. Square Enix Rise of the Tomb Raider can be downloaded from Steam for the PC. That means no restrictive DRM bothered us, the game runs great if you select the right graphics options and yeah, it looks quite good as well. We will look performance with this DirectX 11 title combined with the newest graphics cards and technologies. This article will cover benchmarks in the sense of average framerates, we'll look at all popular resolutions scaling from Full HD (1920x1080/1200), WHQD (2560x1440) and of course that big-whopper of a resolution Ultra HD. UHDTV (2160p) is 3840 pixels wide by 2160 pixels tall (8.29 megapixels), which is four times as many pixels as 1920x1080 (2.07 megapixels).

Read full article @ Guru3D

Samsung 950 Pro M.2 NVMe 256GB Review

With the 950 Pro Samsung launches an NVMe-SSD for end users. The drive which is lying front of us in this case performs extremely well pumping out up to 2200 MB/s sequentially reading and 900 MB/s sequentially writing. This definitely makes us wonder how much of that horsepower is available in real life.

Read full article @ ocaholic

The best Windows 10 laptops

If you're looking for a new Windows laptop and you want to know what's the very best on offer, look no further. The Windows 10 ecosystem is incredibly varied, with something truly to suit all needs. Be it a cheap, no-frills experience, a tablet, a 2-in-1, ultrabook or a gaming monster, you'll find something to suit. If you're in the market for the very best, though, then this is the right place to be. Here we've rounded up the cream of the crop, and we'll be continually updating the list as new, awesome machines are released. Let's get to it. This article was updated for January 2016 with a new lineup.

Read full article @ Windows Central

The ideal smartphone: What we want to see in 2016

In 2015 I saw a ton of great smartphones hit the market, but I’m yet to see the elusive ‘perfect’ device -- the phone with no compromises in hardware or software. In this article I'll go through every aspect of the modern smartphone and list exactly what I want to see, with every aspect of it firmly grounded in reality. This is a smartphone that should be possible to create in 2016.

Read full article @ TechSpot

WD My Passport Ultra Metal Edition 1TB USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive Review

We’ve been fans of WD’s My Passport portable hard drives for years. These drives are a great companion for your Ultrabook where hard drive space is limited and are extremely reliable as well. WD’s latest iteration of the drive is the My Passport Ultra, which is a USB 3.0 portable hard drive. They were nice enough to send us over their Metal Edition, which has a very sexy Aluminum design. Not only is this going to look great, but it will add extra protection to the drive as well. The drive features a very fast USB 3.0 connection so your transfers will take no time at all. The drive comes with the WD SmartWare Pro backup software so you can setup and schedule local as well as cloud backups with no problem at all. Let’s take a look at the My Passport Ultra Metal Edition and see what it can do!

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

Windows Phone is dead

Windows Phone started off life as a promising alternative to Android and iOS five years ago. Microsoft positioned its range of Windows Phone 7 handsets as the true third mobile ecosystem, but it's time to admit it has failed. If a lack of devices from phone makers and even Microsoft itself wasn't enough evidence, the final nail in the coffin hit today. Microsoft only sold 4.5 million Lumia devices in the recent quarter, compared to 10.5 million at the same time last year. That's a massive 57 percent drop. Even a 57 percent increase wouldn't be enough to save Windows Phone right now.

Read full article @ The Verge

Zotac Premium Edition SSD Review

Armed with Phison's new v.1.6 firmware for the S10 processor and low-cost flash, Zotac takes aim at the mainstream and gamer SSD markets.

Read full article @ Toms Hardware