NVIDIA SHIELD TV 2019 Review: AI Enhanced Android TV Streaming

The NVIDIA SHIELD TV is widely regarded as the best media streaming device on the market. In addition to offering high-performance, access to a massive repository of 4K streaming services and apps, and leading-edge features that some competitors have only just recently caught up with, the SHIELD TV gives users access to GeForce NOW and game streaming capabilities from a GeForce-enabled PC. There is a growing library of native AAA Android games too, along with a myriad of casual games as well. And that's not to mention the huge community of enthusiasts that use the SHIELD TV to emulate a multitude...

Nyrius Aries Pro Wireless HDMI Kit Review: Low Latency Cord Cutting

by Brittany Goetting - Tue, Oct 22, 2019

The number of “cord cutters” has accelerated over the last decade. Many people are cutting their ties to cable companies TV programming packages, and instead looking for online entertainment solutions. In that regard, consumers have been turning to streaming devices like Google Chromecast, Roku and NVIDIA Shield TV. However, HDMI wireless transmitters and receivers are another viable option for cord cutters. Wireless transmit/receive video products like these can be used for much more than streaming your favorite shows, including everything from gaming to office presentations...

Autonomous Kinn Chair Review: Ergonomic, Unique Materials And Style

by Dave Altavilla - Fri, Oct 18, 2019

Office chairs, whether they be for a home office or a corporate work space, are a personal thing for any self-respecting desk jockey. For most folks, it's all about ergonomics and comfort rather than style points, though certainly industrial design aesthetics shouldn't have to be compromised. Autonomous has made a concerted effort to try and strike this delicate balance with its new Kinn Chair. Known more so for its family of adjustable, intelligent sit-stand desks, Autonomous also makes a line of related "smart office" equipment. And though the Kinn Chair isn't motorized with memory presets like...

Gears 5 Review: UE4 Performance, Guts And Glory Explored

by Ben Funk - Tue, Sep 10, 2019

Gears 5 officially drops on Tuesday, September 10th, but if you've got Xbox Ultimate Game Pass or Xbox Game Pass for PC you may have already played quite a bit of it. The newest Xbox One and PC exclusive launched for Microsoft's subscription service on Friday. The Coalition's newest Gears title brings with it a whole host of new graphical effects and HDR lighting to both the console and PC alike, thanks to the latest iteration of Epic's Unreal Engine 4. We took the PC version for a spin and spent some time testing how the latest Gears title runs.   Gears 5 features lots of details in the characters...

Control: A Visually Stunning Ray Traced Gem Of A Game Explored

by Ben Funk - Mon, Aug 26, 2019

Finnish game studio Remedy Entertainment makes some of the finest-looking, quirkiest games around. Perhaps best known for the Max Payne series (but not Max Payne 3, which was developed solely by Rockstar), Remedy has been publishing its games exclusively on Xbox and PC for the last several years. The studio has delivered interesting, story-driven games more recently in the form of cult survival classic Alan Wake and the more recent sci-fi thriller Quantum Break. Both games featured cutting-edge graphics for their respective times. For that reason, maybe it's no surprise that the...

Building An AMD Ryzen 9 3900X Liquid-Cooled Performance Desktop PC With Maingear

by Dave Altavilla, Marco Chiappetta - Tue, Aug 13, 2019

AMD's Ryzen 3000 series processors have made a positive impact on the PC enthusiast market, the likes of which we haven't seen in years. From a performance-per-dollar standpoint, AMD's disruptive Zen 2 architecture offers a strong value proposition for new desktop PC builders from all walks of life and for many use cases including gaming, content creation and other workstation-class requirements. In fact, we were so impressed by Ryzen 3000 series processors in our launch review, that we decided we needed to have AMD's new architecture in our production flow here at HotHardware. This also presented...

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Super Review: More Bang For The Buck

by Marco Chiappetta - Tue, Jul 23, 2019

The final member of NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX Super-series officially arrives today, the GeForce RTX 2080 Super. In case you missed it, a couple of weeks back, NVIDIA launched the GeForce RTX 2060 Super and RTX 2070 Super, to preemptively zing AMD in the lead-up to the Radeon RX 5700 series launch. The GeForce RTX Super-series will supplant and eventually replace their original, “non-Super” counterparts once availability dries up. At the top and bottom of the stack, however, the GeForce RTX 2060 and GeForce RTX 2080 Ti will remain. It is in the meat of the 20-series where the Supers...

Lenovo Smart Clock Review: A Bedside Google Assistant

by Brittany Goetting - Thu, Jun 06, 2019

Humans have been dreaming up machines that take care of everyday household tasks since the Industrial Revolution. Smart home devices of various types have existed for several decades, but have become increasingly popular over the last few years as they have become more powerful, intelligent, and connected. Many consumers are now able to do everything from preheating their ovens to checking up on their home security cameras, with a simple tap on their smart device. Lenovo started to inch its way into the smart home market last year. The Lenovo Smart Display with Google Assistant was released...

Lenovo Legion Y740 Gaming Laptop Deep Dive Review With Benchmarks

by Chris Ledenican - Tue, May 07, 2019

Lenovo's line of Legion laptops and desktops are designed for gamers, but one complaint levied against last year's Legion Y730 model was the lack of more powerful graphics options. However, Lenovo was obviously listening to consumer feedback and the new Lenovo Legion Y740 we are looking at today, rights this previous wrong by giving potential buyers not one, but two powerful NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPUs to choose from. The base model comes with a GeForce RTX 2060, but if you're able to spend a few more greenbacks on your config, you can move up to a GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q. NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 2070...

Here's Everything We Know Of Sony’s AMD Zen 2-Powered PlayStation 5

by Dave Altavilla - Sat, Apr 27, 2019

Sony has been rather forthcoming with details of its next generation PlayStation 5 game console and though the new system isn’t as close to reality as we would like, there’s certainly a lot of information on the AMD-powered game cosole out there that we’ve been mining and reporting recently on for passionate gamers. Let’s run down a list of what we know and see if we can paint a clearer picture of what to expect with the next generation Sony PS5. PlayStation 5 Specs And Backwards Compatibility Sony hasn't been shy about committing to what gamers can expect under the...

Google Stadia Faces Stiff Competition In Cloud Gaming But Has Critical Platform Mass

by Chris Goetting - Sat, Mar 23, 2019

To succeed in business, as the saying goes, you need to do it first, do it cheaper, or do it better. Google's Stadia platform certainly is not the first game streaming platform to hit the market, with incumbents like NVIDIA with its GeForce Now service deployed for a while now. Pricing models are not yet disclosed either, though we would not expect Google to undercut the market per se. If Google is going to keep its head above water in this competitive but quickly expanding market, the company will need to bring platform improvements its competition cannot match. Sony's Playstation Now, Nvidia's...

GeForce RTX Performance And IQ In Metro Exodus Explored Post Patch

by Shannon Robb - Tue, Mar 05, 2019

The next installment in the Metro game series is here and for those not familiar, this game franchise is based on author Dmitry Glukhovsky's series of Metro novels that started with Metro 2033 back in 2005. As far as the written lore of the game is concerned, the first installment in the genre was Metro 2033, which was then followed by Metro Last Light (and Last Light Redux) and today we'll be looking at the latest release, Metro Exodus.    Like other releases in the Metro series, Metro Exodus follows a post-apocalyptic story line that takes place in the former Russian Federation,...

Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner Commercial Flight Hits Record 801 MPH With Epic Jet Stream Assist

by Brittany Goetting - Wed, Feb 20, 2019

It is almost always nice when your flight lands a little early, but one recent flight landed quite a bit earlier than usual. A Virgin Atlantic Boeing 787-9 reached 801 mph thanks to the help from a jet stream. This flight broke the Boeing 787-9’s previous record of 776 mph. The Virgin Atlantic flight from Los Angeles to London reached 801 mph on Monday night while flying over central Pennsylvania. At one point in the air, the plane was traveling faster than the speed of sound. The flight landed 48 minutes earlier than expected and many other flights in the United States were shortened by...

QLED Versus OLED, What To Expect From Samsung’s 4K And 8K TVs

by Chris Goetting - Wed, Feb 13, 2019

Earlier this week, Samsung announced their new 2019 lineup of 4K and 8K televisions using a display technology they call QLED. The term QLED looks suspiciously like OLED, but do the two technologies actually have much in common? After fielding a few questions about this on our website and social media, we want to clear up any confusion between them and expound on what to expect in terms of picture quality from each. We will start at the beginning with a basic LED LCD display. Virtually everyone has encountered one of these displays at some point in their life as they make up the majority of the...