Review Horizon

We were fortunate enough to get on of the CoolerMaster’s best looking cases for a review – the CM Storm Trooper, a high grade full tower gaming case with an ambitious design and a price to match ($189.99 retail). On paper, CM Storm Trooper has everything a serious gamer would ever dream to have – a really spacious interior capable of accommodating 8 to 13 drives depending of the chosen configuration, an advanced cooling system, enough space for ATX XL size motherboards and the heftiest graphic cards available plus a well designed cable management system so everything looks nice and clean. Can it provide all it promises? Let’s get into some details in Review Horizon’s CoolerMaster CM Storm Trooper Review. Read More…

RAIDMAX has been on a roll recently launching a plethora of good looking cases on a budget (check our Raidmax Helios Review) and their latest addition, Seiran (MSRP $79.99) is even more ambitious than the other members of the family, at least in terms of specifications. Beside the good looks though, more important is the provided space, ventilation system, motherboard form factors that it can accommodate, overall sturdiness and the degree of finishing, etc. We’ll try to cover all these questions and more in our Raidmax Seiran Review and help you make an informed decision, so read along. Read More…

Today’s computer run faster and faster and with the speed comes increased heat dissipation. The latest CPUs featuring 4, 6 or more cores are power hogs and, especially if you overclock them, the need to keep them happy and cool is stringent. Our latest review will get into details about one of the most popular CPU Coolers on the market today – the Hyper 212 Evo by Cooler Master.

Cooler Master is a name well known to the aftermarket connoisseurs earning numerous design awards for their products. One of their newest products, Hyper 212 Evo is part of the Cooler Master’s 212 series of CPU that have quite a history, with the first member of the family to surface about 4 years ago. While the initial design sporting heatpipes is still followed, the new Hyper 212 EVO model is quite improved in both cooling capabilities and mounting design. How does it perform in the real word? Let’s proceed with the review: Read More…

As the number of mobile devices in our house increased, our reliance on them also increased. Both me and my wife barely touch our PCs anymore (maybe when we do a quick Age of Empires III showdown on our home network, but with two kids, those days are fewer and long in between).

Our family also cut the cable cord quite a while ago, when the Dish Network wanted to increase our bill yet again. While we don’t have a full fledged cable subscription anymore, having Internet service from Time Warner comes with some perks, most notable the free included digital local channels (clear QAM), PBS and a bunch of other free channels as well including NBC sports.As part of my TV watching setup, I am using my Windows Media Center 7 as a local DVR, a number of XBOX 360 consoles as DVR clients to access the live/recorded TV around the house and the only thing missing would be the access of the same channels live and mobile, both from around the house and during my daily 1.5 hours train commute, via my tablet/smartphone over a 3G connections. What to do?

Well, let me tell you I have long searched for a cheap/good software only streaming solution since I already have my MCE server chugging quietly 24/7. I tried ORB and several other solutions that claim to be able to stream Live TV over the internet, but all the solutions found share one major caveat – they don’t work with digital TV tuners. Why? I have no idea, but that’s the way it is. I started to look around and the only reasonable priced solution came from Sling Media (now belonging to Dish Network) and their Slingbox Pro-HD SB300-100, their only model with an embedded ATSC/NTSC/QAM tuner. I built an entire ecosystem around it, streaming to PC, notebooks, iPhone / iPad / Nook Color / HP TouchPad running Android CM7, HTC Vivid and Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket both on my home network and away, and the result of this comprehensive experience is detailed in this review.

1. Slingbox Pro-HD box content

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Introduction

With the introduction of its innovative motion controller, Nintendo Wii changed forever the way we interact with our games (until the launch of Kinect, that is). It didn’t took that long until accessories producers copied the concept hoping to also copy the success Nintendo had. Probably the most well known PC motion sensor controller is the Genius Wizard Stick manufactured by Genius and based on the AIWI software platform, controller that makes the object of today’s review.

Unpacking

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Introduction

Let’s face it, even if you are not a gamer, you know that modern PCs need more and more power as the CPU frequencies are higher and more computer cores become available for general use. While certainly not destined for an average system, RAIDMAX’s new RX-1200AE 1200W ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply is one of the most powerful PC power supplies available on the market and comes with all the bell and whistles you might expect including high efficiency, multiple PCI-E connectors in case you want to build a SLI system (and why else would you need a 1200W power supply?) and modular cables to help reduce the clutter. Read More…

Let’s be honest, Kinect is an amazing piece of technology and unlike Sony, Microsoft did not specifically tried to close it and limit its usage on XBOX 360 consoles only. Soon after the first units were made available for public, a myriad of hacks and innovative projects appeared all over the world, even 3rd party SDKs. Microsoft promised they’ll do something about it as well, and today is the big day. Kinect SDK beta version is released and yours for free to play with it if you have a Kinect sensor, a PC and good programming skills.

The SDK  is based on the software used on XBOX 360 but ported to .NET platform. You can use the libraries with the .NET language of your choice (C#, VB.NET or C++.NET). Platform wise, you’ll need a dual core machine, 4GB RAM, Windows 7 (yes, mandatory) and a DirectX 9.0c compatible graphic card. Visual Studio 2010 Express at a minimum (it is free!!!) and the latest .NET Framework, version 4.0.

Kinect SDK comes in both 32 and 64-bit versions (kinectsdk32.msi and kinectsdk64.msi both at the version 1.00.11), the download is around 20MB and it is capable of tracking your entire skeleton movements. The install kit includes the driver, API library and precious code samples. Hit the link below for download info.

via Microsoft Research

We knew it was bound to happen sooner or later. After all, the gadget prices are dropping faster and faster and eventually, we had to get some reasonable good tablet at Nook Color price point of $250. We didn’t know until today which company will launch it – Viewsonic. Their new Android tablet ViewBook 730 retails for $249.99 and brings the following:

• 1 GHz ARM Cortex A8 CPU – faster than Nook Color which runs at 800MHz
• front facing VGA camera
• 512MB RAM
• 8GB storage memory
• Android 2.2
• microSD expansion slot, up to 32GB
• 7 inches 800 x 480 with 400:1 contrast ratio and 380 cd/m2 brightness – LED backlit
• 5000mA/h battery designed to last between 8-10 hours
• mini HDMI output
• mini USB for charging / PC link
• audio jack for audio out (3.5mm – standard)

We don’t know yet whether the screen is resistive or capacitive, however it comes with a pen so 99% chances the screen is resistive (ouch). Compared with a Nook Color, the ViewBook has a cheaper screen with a lower resolution (no competition for Nook Color’s IPS 1024 x 600 wonder), no capacitive screen but faster CPU, HDMI out and VGA camera. It is up to you what device you’ll prefer. ViewBook will also come with the Amazon Android Appstore, Amazon Kindle and Amazon cloud player. To be shipped this month.

Check after the break for a ViewBook 730 video clip / additional photos. Read More…

iPad 2 won’t ship until tomorrow (orders start only at 1:00AM Pacific Time, in Apple store at 5:00PM local time), but there are already a bunch of early reviews around the web from the big guys lucky enough to get their test units early. While everybody is in awe about the reduced thickness of the new Apple device – at only 0.34 inches – amazingly enough even slimmer that the already slim iPhone 4, the general opinion seems to be that the new iteration is more an evolutionary device rather than revolutionary.

Hardware:
Everything is faster and better, that much is sure. The weight is somewhat reduced from around 1.5 pounds to about 1.34 pounds (for Europeans, from 680g to 601g), the overall dimensions are reduced a bit to 9.5 by 7.3 inches (see the comparison table) and the processor in now dual core A5 instead of single core A4.
The memory doubles as well to 512MB from 256MB and there is a new graphic beast inside, around 9 times faster than the Read More…

If you want to receive clear QAM or over the air ATSC 8VSB TV channels with your computer, the cheapest solution I could find was a small USB stick produced by MyGica (actually based on the drivers, the tuner is produced generically somewhere in China and MyGica is packaging / branding / selling it in North America). I was initially skeptical to its quality, especially considering the very low price (under $30 shipped) but I bought one anyway and I will review it so you can make an informed decision.

Unpacking:

MyGica A680 comes packaged in a small box containing the USB stick itself, an infrared remote control (compatible with Windows Media Center), a mini antenna, a mini RF to F connector converter and the software CD containing the driver and a somewhat old software, Total Media 3.5. Read More…