Samsung Galaxy Tab S7+ Review: Dex Empowers Productivity

Tablet PCs running Google's Android mobile OS have largely been relegated to the budget sector. For the most part, options are limited to Amazon's Fire HD series these days, with slower budget SoCs and a handful of small tablets with even slower processors. Those systems without exception are stuck on older versions of Android, and Amazon's tablets don't even offer Google Play support. The exception to these low-end doldrums is Samsung, which designs and manufactures a wide variety of tablets powered by more modern versions of Android on platform hardware that is more current and capable. Samsung's...

2.5 Geeks: AMD Ryzen 5000 Unleashed! Let's Break It Down

by Marco Chiappetta - Fri, Nov 06, 2020

In this latest episode of HotHardware's Two And A Half Geeks webcast we take a deep dive look at AMD's Zen 3-based Ryzen 9 5950X 16-core and Ryzen 9 5900X 12-core processors, using all of the data from our recent review. We discuss performance benchmarks, power and thermals details, availability, overclocking and much more... Please Hit Our YouTube Channel -- Like And Subscribe! Additional AMD Ryzen 5000 and Zen 3 Coverage: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X And 5900X CPU Review: Zen 3 Dominates AMD Ryzen 5600X, 5800X And 5900X Spike To The Top Of Amazon's Best-Selling Processors List AMD Ryzen 5000 Zen 3 CPUs...

2.5 Geeks: GPU Battle Heats Up! Let's Talk Radeon RX 6000 & GeForce RTX 3070

by Marco Chiappetta - Fri, Oct 30, 2020

In this latest episode of HotHardware's Two And A Half Geeks, we'll be diving into the renewed GPU war between AMD and NVIDIA and discuss the just-announced Radeon RX 6800, RX 6800 XT, and RX 6900 XT "Big Navi" GPUs from AMD, along with our full NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 review. We even sneak in some retro discussion while answering questions from the live chat, complete with some pictures of a BitBoys graphics card you may not have seen before. Enjoy -- and don't forget to like and subscribe to the channel! Show Notes: 05:17 - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Review: Breakout Performance At $499 23:29 -...

2.5 Geeks: NVIDIA Reflex, Intel Iris Xe Max GPU, Throttling iPhones And A Winner!

by Marco Chiappetta - Thu, Oct 22, 2020

In this episode of HotHardware's Two And A Half Geeks, we'll be taking a close look at NVIDIA's Reflex technology, the first sighting of Intel Iris Xe Max DISCRETE graphics, and throttling iPhones in UL's latest cross-platform graphics benchmark. We also announce the winner of our killer gaming system giveaway with EK Fluid Gaming! Show Notes: 02:25 - Google Pixel 5 Review: Refined And Feature-Rich With Caveats 08:37 - Acer's Swift 3X Is The First Tiger Lake Laptop To Flex Intel Iris Xe MAX Discrete GPU 16:10 - 3DMark WildLife Benchmark Shows iPhones Thrashing Androids But Apple Throttles Hard...

Samsung T7 Portable SSD Review: Blazing Fast, Portable Storage

by Chris Goetting - Wed, Oct 21, 2020

Earlier this year, Samsung unveiled the privacy-minded Portable SSD T7 Touch. This external USB-C storage device delivered high capacities up to 2TB and impressive read-write speeds over USB 3.2 Gen 2. Its headlining feature, however, was an integrated fingerprint reader to effortlessly unlock the drive’s AES 256-bit encryption. Not everyone needs this one-touch access to their files though, and would prefer a more straightforward external storage solution. For these users Samsung has released a non-touch variant of the T7 to shed some cost, but keep the rest of the goodness intact. Samsung...

2.5 Geeks: AMD Ryzen 5000 Unveiled, Google Pixels, 5G iPhonery, Retro Ryzen eMachines Revival And More

by Marco Chiappetta - Fri, Oct 16, 2020

 On this episode of HotHardware's Two And A Half Geeks podcast, we'll be talking up AMD's recently announced Zen 3-based Ryzen 5000 series processors, Google's new Pixel 4a 5G and Pixel 5 Android smartphones, the latest 5G Apple iPhones, a vintage eMachines system reborn with Ryzen and Radeon firepower and details of our EK Fluid Gaming PC giveaway, which is winding down... Show Notes: 05:08 - Apple Unveils 5.4-Inch iPhone 12 mini Starting At $699, iPhone 12 Pro Rocks LIDAR And Dolby Vision HDR Video Capture 14:09 - Google Pixel 4a 5G Review: Big Screen, Great Camera And Value 23:12 - Rage...

2.5 Geeks: Alienware m15 R3, Tiger Lake ZenBook, Qualcomm Branded Phones, EKFG Rig And More

by Marco Chiappetta - Thu, Oct 08, 2020

On this episode of HotHardware's Two And A Half Geeks, we'll be talking Tiger Lake retail laptops from ASUS, EK Fluid Gaming's awesome liquid cooled, all-AMD 270 Conquest gaming PC (and we're giving one away!), Alienware's m15 R3 gaming laptop, the potential for Qualcomm-branded Snapdragon gaming phones, MSI scalping RTX 3080/90 cards and more... Show Notes: 04:20 - Qualcomm To Launch Its Own Premium Snapdragon Branded Phones That Will Raise The Bar 13:23 - MSI Caught Red-Handed Scalping GeForce RTX 3080/90 Cards On eBay At Exorbitant Prices 19:30 - Alienware m15 R3 Review: A Quieter, Powerful...

2.5 Geeks: Talking GeForce RTX 3090, RTX 3080 And More With NVIDIA's Tony Tamasi

by Marco Chiappetta - Fri, Sep 25, 2020

On this episode of HotHardware's Two And A Half Geeks, Tony Tamasi, NVIDIA VP Of Technical Marketing will joined us for some lively banter about the beastly GeForce RTX 3090, the GeForce RTX 3080, all things Ampere and more... Time Stamps: 00:55 - Introduction 04:38 - Explaining the enhancements made to Ampere 08:19 - Why go all in with Ampere, this generation? 10:00 - Was the new cooler a function of Ampere's higher power? 12:47 - What's special about Samsung's custom 8nm process? 14:20 - Roadmap Question, Will there be anything below 3070? 15:02 - Why SLI and multi-GPU are less of a focus 18:05...

2.5 Geeks: GeForce RTX 3080 Unleashed And Sold-Out! Intel Tiger Lake Roars!

by Marco Chiappetta - Fri, Sep 18, 2020

On this episode of HotHardware's Two And A Half Geeks podcast, we'll be taking a look at the MONSTER performance of NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3080, in addition to chatting about our review of a custom RTX 3080 from Palit. We'll also be looking at performance of Intel's ferocious new Tiger Lake CPU that will bring serious gains to laptops soon... Show Notes: 07:49 - Intel Tiger Lake And Xe Graphics Benchmarks: Laptops Will Roar 27:45 - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Review: Ampere Is A Gaming Monster 47:08 - Palit GeForce RTX 3080 GamingPro OC Review: Big, Custom Ampere...

TONOR Q9 USB Microphone Kit Review: Affordable, Quality Audio

by Chris Goetting - Thu, Sep 10, 2020

This is undoubtedly the year of video conferences and virtual meetings. Perhaps nothing makes one of these conferences more insufferable than someone’s scratchy, low-quality integrated microphone -- and the last thing you want is for that scratchy mic to be yours. Fortunately, upping your microphone game can be very easy. You do not need to dive into the expensive world of audio interfaces, mixers, and XLR cables to see a massive improvement. The TONOR Q9 USB microphone kit we'll be showing you here provides everything necessary to step up your audio production quality for a very attractive...

2.5 Geeks: Under The Hood Of Ampere, AMD Zen 3 And Big Navi Dates, Lakefield Vs Snapdragon

by Marco Chiappetta - Thu, Sep 10, 2020

On this episode of Two And A Half Geeks, we'll be peeling back the lid on NVIDIA's Ampere GPU architecture, and also looking at the new Reviewer's Toolkit from NVIDIA that arrived just in time for our GeForce RTX 30 series review efforts. We'll also be chatting about Intel Lakefield vs. Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx in ultra-low power laptops and more… Show Notes: 05:18 - Microsoft's Xbox Series S Entry-Level Next-Gen Console Officially Announced At Just $299 07:54 - Samsung 980 Pro PCIe 4.0 SSD Family Listed With Blazing Fast 7,000MB/Sec Read Performance 09:40 - Radeon RX 6000 And Zen 3 October...

2.5 Geeks: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30-Series Ampere, Intel Tiger Lake 11th Gen Core Launch And More

by Marco Chiappetta - Thu, Sep 03, 2020

On this episode of HotHardware's Two And A Half Geeks, we're going to discuss NVIDIA's brand new GeForce RTX 30-Series based on the Ampere architecture, Intel’s new branding and just-announced line-up of Tiger Lake-based 11th Gen Core mobile processors, and more... Show Notes: 03:50 - Microsoft Boldly Outs DirectX 12_2 Feature Support For AMD Big Navi, Intel Xe-HPG And Qualcomm GPUs 07:03 - DJI Mavic Air 2 Review: A Powerful Drone For Any Skill Level 08:54 - TeamGroup Targets Data Hoarders With Massive 15.3TB QX Consumer SSD 12:09 - NVIDIA Ampere GeForce RTX 3090, RTX 3080 And 3070 Debut...

DJI Mavic Air 2 Review: A Powerful Drone For Any Skill Level

by Brandon Hill - Fri, Aug 28, 2020

DJI brought a lot to the table with its original Mavic Air that launched back in 2017. It was a step up from DJI's entry-level Spark, but not quite as feature-packed and robust as the Mavic Pro. In other words, Mavic Air struck a nice balance in between the aforementioned product bookends with respect to performance, features, and price. And unsurprisingly, it became one of DJI's most popular drones as a result. As you might expect, DJI needed to follow up on the original Mavic Air with a worthy successor, and we have that now with the aptly-named Mavic Air 2. The Mavic Air 2 bests...

2.5 Geeks: NVIDIA Ampere Details CONFIRMED, Ryzen-Powered ThinkPad X13 & More, Live!

by Marco Chiappetta - Thu, Aug 27, 2020

In this episode of HotHardware's Two And A Half Geeks podcast, we're going to dive deep on NVIDIA's recently disclosed GeForce RTX Ampere cooling and power design, kick the tires on a great new AMD Ryzen 4000-powered, thin and light Lenovo ThinkPad X13 laptop and cover some of the latest headlines in tech! Show Notes: 08:04 - LG Velvet Review: Stylish 5G Phone Lacks Excitement, Brings Value 08:44 - ASUS TUF Gaming X3 Radeon RX 5700 Series Review: Great Coolers, Solid Value 09:35 - Galaxy Note 20 Ultra 5G Review: Samsung's Most Powerful Phone Yet 12:09 - NVIDIA Confirms Leaks, Highlights Cooling...

2.5 Geeks: Rare PC Hardware From the Vault - Vol. 1

by Marco Chiappetta - Thu, Aug 20, 2020

In this episode of HotHardware's Two And A Half Geeks podcast, we're going to do something a little bit different and break into Marco's hardware vault to revisit some rare PC hardware from years past. We'll be showing off some obscure ATI graphics cards and AMD and Intel platforms and processors, some of which you may not have ever seen before... Show Notes: 07:00 - ATI CrossFire Multi-GPU Technology Preview 08:07 - ATI CrossFire Technology Showcase 12:19 - ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4000 Series Sneak Peek 18:40 - AMD QuadFX Platform & FX-70 Series Processors 35:52 - Intel...

Galaxy Note 20 Ultra 5G Review: Samsung's Most Powerful Phone Yet

by Marco Chiappetta - Tue, Aug 18, 2020

Samsung announced its latest flagship, large-format smartphones -- the brand-new Galaxy Note 20 5G and Galaxy Note 20 Ultra 5G -- at this month's Galaxy Unpacked Event, along with a host of additional wearable and tablet products. As is typically the case when Samsung updates its premiere line of devices, the new Galaxy Note 20 family offers an array of enhancements and improvements over the previous generation. For example, these new Galaxy Notes are built around a more powerful processing platform, they have numerous camera and video updates, offer support for new Ultra Wide Band wireless technology,...

2.5 Geeks: Intel Architecture Day, Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, Maingear Turbo And More

by Marco Chiappetta - Fri, Aug 14, 2020

In this episode of HotHardware's Two And A Half Geeks, we'll be chatting about all of the juicy news to come out of Intel's Architecture Day 2020, Samsung's upcoming Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, Maingear's pint-sized Turbo gaming PC with Ryzen 3000 XT inside, Google's Pixel 4a affordable Android phone and lots more! Show Notes: 06:13 - Samsung Unveils Galaxy Note 20 And Note 20 Ultra With Precision S-Pen And UWB Support 08:22 - Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra Hands-On Video Tour And Demo Action 17:13 - Google Pixel 4a Review: Great Camera, Killer Android Value 22:16 - ASUS ROG Phone 3 Review:...

ASUS ROG Phone 3 Review: Fastest Android On The Planet

by Paul Lilly - Tue, Aug 04, 2020

Since its inception, ASUS has gone the extra mile to bill the ROG Phone as a gaming-first smartphone, and not simply another high-end handset with a flagship processor and fast refresh rate. Now in its third iteration, the ROG Phone 3 takes what we liked about the previous two models and improves upon the brand's gaming-oriented features, to enhance the experience even further. And yes, it's also delightfully fast, armed with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus 5G SoC that ASUS claims gives the ROG Phone 3 a double-digit (10 percent) performance advantage over top-shelf phones rocking a regular...

2.5 Geeks: Ryzen 4000, AMD Earnings, OnePlus Nord And Buds, Tiger Lake Benchmarks

by Marco Chiappetta - Thu, Jul 30, 2020

In this episode of HotHardware's Two And A Half Geeks podcast, we'll be talking about the AMD from Ryzen 4000 series, AMD's stellar earnings, and how fast DDR4 RAM affects Ryzen performance. We'll also be chatting up the fabulous OnePlus Nord and Buds, impressive Intel Tiger Lake benchmarks and lots more... Audio Kicks In @ 3:40! Show Notes: 05:49 - AMD Brings Power And Performance Of Ryzen 4000 Renoir Processors To Desktop PCs 09:29 - AMD Crushes Q2 Earnings, Setting Records As Ryzen And EPYC Sales Surge 17:03 - Intel Tiger Lake Benchmark Leak Shows Massive Performance Gains 19:23 - Intel...

2.5 Geeks: AMD Threadripper Pro, Death Stranding, Kingston DC SSD, TCL Giveaway Winners!

by Marco Chiappetta - Thu, Jul 16, 2020

In this episode of HotHardware's Two And A Geeks Podcast, Marco, Chris and Dave will be announcing our TCL 10 Pro Giveaway winners! We'll also be discussing AMD's new Ryzen Threadripper Pro beast chips, Lenovo's ThinkStation P620 workstation that's powered by those chips, our review of the cool new Death Stranding PC game, a big, fast new line of NVMe SSDs from Kingston and new giveaways going on now and to be announced! Show Notes: 03:51 - AMD Unveils Ryzen Threadripper Pro Processors To Battle Intel Xeon W 11:01 - Lenovo ThinkStation P620 Launches With AMD's New Threadripper Pro 64-Core...

2.5 Geeks: Ryzen 3000XT, Dell XPS 15 9500, Thunderbolt 4, Giveaways And More!

by Marco Chiappetta - Fri, Jul 10, 2020

In this episode of HotHardware's Two And A Geeks Podcast, Marco, Chris and Dave will be chatting up AMD's new Ryzen 3000 XT series CPUs, Dell's sweet new XPS 15 9500, blistering-fast Thunderbolt 4, Samsung's BIG bad 870 QVO, making a young gamer's wish and details of our next AWESOME GIVE AWAYS (plural) and more! Show Notes: 04:06 - AMD Ryzen 3000XT Processors Reviewed: Zen 2 Turbocharged 14:17 - Intel's Supercharged Thunderbolt 4 Delivers Gobs Of Bandwidth, Aims To Replace All Your Cables 21:05 - Samsung SSD 870 QVO Review: Terabytes Of Solid State Storage 27:48 - Dell XPS...

2.5 Geeks Podcast: Apple Silicon, iOS 14 Reveal, Intel 10th Gen NUC, And Nubia RedMagic 5G

by Brandon Hill - Mon, Jun 29, 2020

In this episode of HotHardware's Two And A Half Geeks, Marco, Dave, and Chris are on the scene to discuss Apple's big switch to its own custom Arm-based processors, Intel's 10th generation NUCs and the Nubia RedMagic 5 Android smartphone (among other topics). It's a jam-packed episode that you'll definitely want to check out in the YouTube embed below. Show Notes: 06:00 - Apple Announces Its Own Processors For Macs With Systems Shipping This Year 13:30 - Here’s What Intel Has To Say About Apple’s Seismic Shift To Its Own Chips For Macs 28:00 - Intel NUC10i7FNH: Powerful,...