| Pogoplug Safeplug: Safe, Secure, Anonymous |
| Created by once and former private-cloud-turned-moretraditional-cloud-provider Pogoplug, the Safeplug reimagines the company’s Linux-powered and ARM-based embedded hardware platforms as access points to The Onion Router (TOR). |
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| Run Retro Games On Phone, Tablet And PC (Part 3) |
| Although DOSBox and ScummVM can work with original game discs, most emulators can’t use the original media - after all, there’s nowhere to plug a game cartridge into a modern PC. To play a game you therefore need to obtain a soft copy of the program data, called a ROM file. ROMs are often surprisingly small - only a few megabytes in many cases, but the question of legality is a thorny one. |
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| Run Retro Games On Phone, Tablet And PC (Part 2) |
| Emulator software is available for all sorts of devices, but some make better emulation platforms than others. Android users, for example, will find plenty of emulators for old games consoles in Google Play, or distributed as APKs from enthusiast websites. |
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| Run Retro Games On Phone, Tablet And PC (Part 1) |
| Modern computers offer a formidable amount of processing power - and modern computer games push this to the limit. Triple-A blockbusters such as Tomb Raider and Lost Planet 3 will max out your CPU and call for all the horsepower available from a beefy graphics card. |
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| The Yamaha RX-V375 Review |
| The RX-V375 follows in its predecessor's footsteps to deliver a really lively sound. It bounds along to movie soundtracks with plenty of energy and soaring dynamics. Tonal balance is good, the top end is textured, voices are solid and the bass is pleasingly punchy. |
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| ViewSonic VP2772-LED - Out With The Old |
| Anyway, what to make of the new VP2772? The basics are carried over. We’re talking a premium 27-inch model with an IPS panel, 2,560 x 1,440 pixel resolution and an LED backlight. The pro-style chassis and stand are dead ringers for the VP2770, too. |
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| Lap Test – Beats Mixr_April 2014 |
| For quite some time now, Beats by Dr. Dre has excelled in delivering great audio with its street-savvy headphones. For this Lab Test, we put the Beats Mixr in the spotlight, which is a youthful pair of headphones that claims to be the “lightest and loudest headphones ever.” |
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| Lap Test – JBL Pulse_Lights And Sound |
| The JBL Pulse is a Bluetooth speaker in an LED lava lamp-like chassis which creates an impressive light show while listening to music. This speaker comes in a black cylinder that’s 79mm in diameter and 182mm in length, and wrapped around a metal grill that glows in a variety of attractive colors. |
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| Lap Test – Philips AeA7000_April 2014 |
| When you think of dock-style Bluetooth speakers, one of the first things that might pop into your head is Philips’ renowned Fidelio line. Apparently, the Philips AEA7000 is not part of the line, yet it is a Bluetooth speaker that comes with a docking station and, notably, a wireless microphone. |
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| Dedicated Gaming Monitors BeNQ XL2720Z |
| By that metric, the BenQ XL2720Z is perhaps inevitably a mixed bag. It’s immediately obvious that you’re looking at a TN rather than an IPS or VA panel, that’s for sure. |
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| Hart Audio Evo1 Active Loudspeaker Review (Part 2) |
| Bass is highly extended, but with next to no flab or overhang. More impressively, it seems to have nothing to do with the boxes that generate it. With some traditional floorstanding designs, lower frequencies can be synthesized by flexing the cabinets themselves or tuning a port to resonate below the abilities of the drivers. |
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| Hart Audio Evo1 Active Loudspeaker Review (Part 1) |
| Hart Audio may not be a household name but David Hart’s Isle of Wight-based business has a refreshing approach to audio design and high-quality UK manufacturing, as well as a growing number of passionate customers appreciating service and bespoke production. Hart Audio sells its speakers direct in the UK so you won’t find its speakers at your local hi-fi dealer. |
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| Gaming Headset Steel-series H Wireless |
| It’s wireless, but you won’t have to string it to your rig to recharge because SteelSeries has included two Li-ion battery packs. One slots in behind the left ear cup, while the second charges inside the transmitter so the cans are never without fresh juice. |
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| Gaming Headset Turtle Beach EF Z300 |
| Don’t mock. We’re no strangers to incoherently vast product ranges – just take Intel’s mobile CPU line-up – but Turtle Beach raises things to a different league. So, here’s the Ear Force Z300, which looks identical to the Ear Force PX4, apart from its red trim. God help you if you’re colour-blind. |
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| Floorstanding Loudspeaker Focal Aria 926 Review (Part 2) |
| The Focal family sound is generally very fast, sharp and engaging; these speakers go loud without compression and punch hard on transients, making them lively listens. And the new 926 doesn’t lose any of these good things, but it seems to do everything with a little more elan than you’d have got from the earlier 800 series. |
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| Floorstanding Loudspeaker Focal Aria 926 Review (Part 1) |
| Focal has traditionally used Polyglass for its lower-end designs and W sandwich cones for its premium Electra and Utopia ranges. First launched back in 1985, the former comprised a cellulose pulp cone for good damping, together with a layer of glass microspheres in order to increase the rigidity. |
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| ASUS PQ321QE Widescreen LCD Monitor |
| If you’ve read the 4K feature in this issue and decided you still want to give this uber resolution a shot, there are a variety of consumer PC 4K displays to choose from, provided they’re the PQ321QE, the PQ321QE or even the PQ321QE. |
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| Back To Basics Sony KDL-65W850A 3D HDTV (Part 2) |
| With Sony’s LED Dynamic Control (for the edge-lit local dimming) set to Standard, the black level was unmeasurable with a full-screen black image. But it increased significantly when this feature was turned off. |
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| Back To Basics Sony KDL-65W850A 3D HDTV (Part 1) |
| I’m accustomed to 65-inch sets by now, but if you’re not, the KDL-65W850A will look huge in most domestic spaces. Be not afraid. First of all, it’s thin – though at just over 2.5 inches, not the thinnest of flat screens. Second, at under 80 pounds, even on its non-rotatable stand, it isn’t that difficult for two people to unpack and set up. |
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| 30 Something CD Players Group Test Preview |
| At the ripe old age of 32 years - and counting - the ubiquitous little silver disc continues to spin. Who’d have thought it? Will there ever be a future format that lasts this long again? I think not. Compact Disc continues to satisfy so many of us because it was able to gain traction before any rival formats arrived. For nearly 15 years, it was the only digital audio game in town. |
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| 30 Something CD Players Group Test (Part 5) - Exposure 1010CD |
| Many modern audiophiles I will have first become acquainted with Exposure HIP in the eighties, when the company established itself as the purveyor of high-quality transistor amplification. It was distinctive for not being as bright and bracing as the popular Naim sound, and yet a good deal more musical than many Japanese or American amps. |
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| 30 Something CD Players Group Test (Part 4) - Quad Elite CDS |
| This is the latest version of Quad’s CD player, and the most costly model in the Group Test. Quad CD players started in the mid-eighties with the 66, which was targeted at buyers wanting a step up from budget machines, but was never intended to be a high-end machine. |
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| 30 Something CD Players Group Test (Part 1) - Teac CD-H750 |
| Esoteric is Teac’s high-end division and it’s widely regarded as the maker of some of the world’s best CD transports. It’s a specialist in optical disc mechanisms and still supports many legacy products with spares and service - in other words, it takes them seriously. |
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| Vivid And Warm Sony Bravia KLD-55W954A |
| As befitting a premium LED TV, the 55-inch model in the W954A series has a number of smart features which help it secure its position as a flagship product. The user-interface is slick and clean, being an evolution of the UI found on the PlayStation gaming console. |
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| Vivid Audio Giya G3 Loudspeaker (Part 3) |
| The G3's farfield response, averaged across a 30° horizontal window centered on the tweeter axis, is shown to the right-hand side of fig.3, spliced at 300Hz to the complex sum of the nearfield responses from fig.2, and taking into account both acoustical phase and the drivers' various distances from a nominal farfield microphone position. |
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| Vivid Audio Giya G3 Loudspeaker (Part 2) |
| Yet the Giya G3 did very well in this exposed situation. Male voices, female voices, solo piano - all were reproduced with no obvious colorations and with a full frequency balance. And while the G3’s phat low end remained audible, it didn’t interfere with the music. |
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| Vivid Audio Giya G3 Loudspeaker (Part 1) |
| Electrical connection is via two pairs of binding posts housed in a recess on the speaker’s base. This was the only gripe I had about the G3’s design: connecting cables required the speaker to be tilted to one side, and, with the thick cables preferred by audiophiles, there is only just enough clearance in the recess to tighten the terminals, even when the six carpet-piercing cones are fitted to the base. |
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| Xidax M6 Mining Gaming Rig |
| Exotic Car Paint, multiple GPUs, and custom-built chassis’ be damned, boutique PC builder Xidax thinks it has the sexiest sales pitch on the planet with its M6 Mining Rig: It pays for itself! Now, we can’t say this PC is basically “free” because it ain’t that, but Xidax says by using the box’s spare GPU cycles to mine for crypto-currency, this baby would be paid off in about four months. |
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| Yamaha YSP-1400 Transcending The Sound Bar |
| Sound bars generally provide 2.1 channel sound, with fancier models claiming to deliver virtual surround sound with the help of software and algorithms. Yamaha however states that the YSP-1400 achieves “actual” surround sound, even though it has a single unit design. This feat is achieved with the help of eight 2.8cm array speakers mounted in the center of the device. |
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| Steam Is Rising Watch Out, Consoles! (Part 3) |
| Valve says its extensive testing indicates that a Steam controller could make you a better gamer. “There’s something inherent about it,” says Greg, “that teaches you how to hold it right from the start. It’s not your larger muscle groups you’re using; it’s your fine motor skills. |
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| Steam Is Rising Watch Out, Consoles! (Part 2) |
| The prototype Steam Machine may have been a fairly straightforward piece of thinking, but at the same time as they began developing it, Valve’s engineers began to untangle a far knottier problem: how to build the gamepad of the future. |
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| Steam Is Rising Watch Out, Consoles! (Part 1) |
| Greg Coomer was one of the original Valve employees. It was his idea to call the company Valve, and he served as one of the head models for Gordon Freeman, the protagonist of the Half-Life series and arguably the most iconic character in PC games. |
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| The Edimax CV-7438nDM N600 |
| The Edimax CV-7438nDM is a curiously funnel-shaped device that lets you connect up to two Ethernet-only devices - such as smart TVs, older Sky+ HD boxes and Blu-ray players - to your wireless network at home so they can access the internet. |
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| ProLink PIC1007WP Higher Quality Monitoring |
| re many affordable and good performing entry- level IP cameras in the market, but the majority of them only stream video at a 640 x 480 resolution that’s usually good enough to make out the face of the intruder, but not the number plate of the car he escaped in. |
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| Sony Smart Watch 2 Fashionable Wearable |
| The Smart Watch 2 remains one of the best looking smart watches in the market. Fans of Sony Xperia mobile devices will like the design as it inherits the design DNA from its larger counterparts. |
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| Soundbar LG NB3530A Review |
| LG is a company that has proved to be quite the favorite among consumers. Its range of TVs are generally very good, its smart phones are considered to be some of the best available and of course, its audio visual units are pretty amazing too. So this, low-budget soundbar, the LG NB3530A, naturally makes a very good first impression. |
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| Logitech G550 PowerShell Dedicated Gaming Controls for iPhone |
| Do you need physical buttons and a special controller case to play games on your iPhone? Probably not – especially if you’re more of a Flappy Bird kind of gamer. And yet, iOS MFi-certified game controllers are here, promising handheld console-like gaming for supported iPhone games. |
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| Looks Can Be Deceiving CM Storm Pulse R |
| When it comes to gaming peripherals, aesthetics do really matter. Gamers can be a fickle bunch and they expect a certain look for their products. Therefore it is not a surprise that CM Storm has paid close attention to the aesthetics of their gaming headset, the Pulse R. |
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