Recently I did a review on a pair of earbuds from Gigabyte. They were a nice pair of earbuds for only being $10. When Wes told me that the price of earbuds can get quite high I began to wonder what could make a pair of earbuds worth so much money. Steelseries sent us a pair of their Flux In-Ear Pro headphones, and priced at $129.99 they certainly come with a hefty price tag, though still at the price point of most decent earbuds. Join me as I take a close look at them and find out what separates them from their competitors and if they are worth your hard earned money.
Generally when it comes to video card reviews, I only get a chance to check out cards when they launch. The rest of the year things are slow and I don’t get the chance to revisit cards as the drivers improve and companies introduce various other designs. Today is an exception to that with a card from PowerColor, their PCS+ HD7870. If you haven’t been paying attention to the market, PowerColor has been changing things up considerably with cards like their Devil 13. I’m excited to see what they have been up to on their other cards as well.
When I reviewed the Aver Media Game Capture HD late last year there were a couple of things I felt were missing. The first was the ability to record HDMI gameplay footage, and the second was the ability to stream any gameplay. Roxio has sent us one of their new capture boxes. The Game Capture HD Pro claims to offer many of the same features of the Aver Media card with the added bonus of being able to do HDMI gameplay and live stream all of your gameplay footage with the click of a button. Let’s take a look at the box and compare its features to that of the other.
I finally got with the times and bought a smart phone, being that I wanted to go with straight talk; the Google Nexus 4 seemed like the logical choice. The next decision I needed to make was what case I wanted. I took a look at the recent reviews Wes had written for different Poetic to see if they might have a case I would want. I expressed interest in their cases to Wes and he said he had another one lying around the office that needed to be looked at. So let’s take a look at the next case in the Poetic lineup, the Palette.
Being a headphone guy myself, when Wes told me I was being shipped some speakers, my first instinct was either a portable speaker set for laptops or mobile listening, or maybe a small set of speakers for a desktop setup. To my surprise AlienVibes sent out one of their W401 model speakers. This is part of a new larger line of speakers that AlienVibes recently released. The W401 is a full size desk speaker setup with subwoofer. After clearing off some room around my desk it’s time we take a look and see what these guys are capable of.
Our pal’s over at Thrustmaster have once again sent us a review sample, the Thrustmaster HOTAS WARTHOG flight stick. While at CES 2012 I asked about this flight stick and what made it so special. After giving it a quick look over I knew I was in for something crazy. After reviewing the T500RS a couple of months ago I came to realize that Thrustmaster doesn’t make the cheapest products but they do make some of the best quality products. Read on for my impressions of the Thrustmaster HOTAS WARTHOG flight stick
Dinosaurs and rifles are a dastardly duo. Putting them together in a game is an interesting combination to say the least. It has been attempted before in games like Turok and Dino D-Day. Fans have shouted for a Battlefield 3 expansion with dinosaurs and Lukewarm Media may be here with the answer. Their new game Primal Carnage is a class based first person shooter that pits humans and dinosaurs against one another in an all-out slaughter fest. Let’s take a look at Primal Carnage and hope that much like John Hammond, Lukewarm Media spared no expense.
Being in the LAN scene, mobility is something that is important to most of us. The solution for some is a laptop, for others it is a sling for their tower and dealing with the grunt work that goes into lugging around an entire system. More and more however folks are turning to smaller form factor motherboards that will fit into LAN boxes. Fractal has sent over one of their Mini ITX cases that can perform as a LAN boxe, the Node 304. Let’s take a look and see how it stacks up against the competition.
When it comes to cases there are two different types. The first is the flashy cases that are meant to grab everyones attention and show off all the cool hardware inside. The second is the sleek professional looking case that is all about style and function. When it comes to Fractal Design I always seem to place them in this second category. They don’t make anything flashy or over the top, but their cases are always functional, cool, spacious, and what I like to call business sexy. Their Define cases have always been a perfect example of this, today we are going to take a look at the Define R4, their lastest version.
We have taken a look at a whole collection of unique case designs in the past with two standing out more than the others. The Silverstone Fortress FT01 and the Silverstone Raven. Both stood out because of their 90 degree rotated motherboard design that works so well for cooling. Although no one else been making cases with the motherboard oriented that way, Silverstone is still working on perfecting the design now with their Raven 3. We loved the previous versions so I have high hopes for the Raven 3. Lets take a look to see what is new and how it performs.