FOR Aids detail and dynamics; will improve budget system AGAINST Nothing of note Chord clearway analogue rca review – It can be a difficult sharing a name with someone famous, not to mention highly confusing for others. Imagine the travails of trying to be taken seriously while going about your daily life as Alan Partridge … Read more
GIGABYTE’S NEW BRAND AIMS FOR MAXIMUM EVERYTHING The Aorus brand name has been around for approximately seven years, but few people know that this is actually an off-shoot of Gigabyte. We’ve been reminded time and again by Gigabyte to not associate the two brands, yet 2016 sees the two merge. Aorus is now the prime … Read more
ASRock Z270 Gaming K6 Review – We’re jumping from the most expensive board in the roundup to the most affordable, in the form of ASRock’s Z270 Gaming K6. As the name indicates, it’s still based on the best chipset in the 200 series, the Z270, yet ASRock has managed to bring the price down to a level … Read more
Zotac Magnus ER51060 review – This is a barebones PC, meaning that it has some of the components pre-installed (it’s not just a ease), but leaves others for you to add. Barebones can be a budget option, but not in this ease: the Magnus ER51060 comes with an AMD Ryzen 5 1400 processor and a GeForce … Read more
Medion Erazer x5361 G review – Life would be much simpler if every PC came with one big processor to do all the work. In reality, tasks are divided between the main processor (CPU) – normally an Intel Core i3, i5 or i7 or AMD Ryzen – and a graphics processor (GPU). Both consist of hundreds of … Read more
Asus ROG Strix X370-I Gaming – Pure engineering genius BENCHMARKS Asus ROG Strix X370-I Gaming MSI X370 Gaming Pro Carbon X265 (Avg fps) 28.3 27.98 Cine bench R15 Multi (Index) 1,635 1,622 Fry Render (Seconds) 152 158 AIDA64 Memory Latency (ns) 76 90 Power Draw Idle (Watts) 81 56 Power Draw Load (Watts) 168 147 CrystalDisk … Read more
OnePlus 5T – 20-hour battery life, anyone? Despite adding only one letter to last year’s OnePlus 5, the 5T feels like a new phone. The glitchy wide-angle/telephoto dual camera has been replaced, while the front gets a wider-than-widescreen 18:9 AMOLED screen reminiscent of the iPhone X. Unlike Apple’s phone, OnePlus has left a small border at … Read more
The MSI Z270I Gaming Pro Carbon is on its own in this month’s group test, being cheaper than the premium offerings, but taking a very different route from ASRock’s similarly priced Fatality Z270 Gaming The Z270I Gaming Pro Carbon sports both Type-A and Type-C USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports, while the ASRock board lacks the … Read more
As the cheapest board on test, the Gigabyte Z270N-WiFi doesn’t have many immediate competitors, with just ASRock offering the Z270M-ITX/ac. Both boards lack the visual pizzazz of other boards on test, instead focusing on features, and In some areas, they’re better equipped than their more expensive peers. The biggest difference between the Gigabyte board and … Read more
“Pretty much the ideal entry level product…” FOR Expressive and musical; built-in phono stage AGAINST Nothing of note “Budget, fully automatic?” Isn’t this treating turntables as toys? Stripping away the rules and reducing the record player to little more than a retro trinket. And, more annoyingly, these sorts of turntables are usually catering for those … Read more
WHEN A PHONE COMES OUT BOASTING AKM AUDIO CHIPS, AND PROMISING THE HIGHEST AUDIO QUALITY, WE THOUGHT WE OUGHT TO HAVE A LOOK AT SOUND QUALITY! T he phone is the premium model for ZTE, one of the giant Chinese companies that you don’t hear much about in the consumer space. But if you were … Read more
Mid-range smartphones are hard to get excited about, but the A5 is quietly impressive. Like last year’s model, it has a plain but classy design with a metal frame and tapered back. The 5.2in size feels modern without being too big. It comes in black, gold, pink or ‘Blue Mist’, the nearest option to white, … Read more