Biostar have always been on the radar for motherboard builders, occupying that niche of ‘bang-for-buck’ if your wallet is looking a little empty this month.  In the grand scheme of things they usually do okay, perhaps a little imperfect in the design or not exactly the premium BIOS and software package we have come to expect from top-tier motherboard manufacturers, but today we look at one of their Z77 range, the Biostar TZ77XE4.  Visually in orange, it provides something different, but is that true of the whole package?  Read on to find out more.

Thanks to a flood of new arrivals, over the next couple of weeks we’ll be taking a look at a range of GTX 670 and GTX 680 cards from Asus, EVGA, MSI, and Zotac. And to kick things off our first card will be what's perhaps the most unique card among them: EVGA's GeForce GTX 680 Classified, our first fully-custom GTX 680.

In EVGA’s product hierarchy the Classified is their top of the line product, where they typically go all-out to make a customized products to scratch the itch of overclockers and premium buyers alike. The GTX 680 Classified in turn is EVGA’s take on an ultra-premium GTX 680, creating a card that is monstrous in virtually every sense of the word. What has EVGA seen fit to do with their fully-custom GTX 680, and does it live up to the hype and the price tag that comes with the Classified name? Let’s find out.

Around November of last year we had a chance to take a look at one of the most popular enclosures from up-and-comer Fractal Design, the Define R3. Impressions were good if not absolutely amazing, but it was easy to see how the case had gotten so popular. A competitive price tag, solid acoustics, understated aesthetics, and fairly flexible design all conspired to produce a case that could conceivably be a silver bullet for a lot of users.

Today Fractal Design is launching their next revision of the Define, the R4. It's easy to mistake it for its predecessor, but as is often the case, the devil is in the details. Fractal Design hasn't radically tweaked the formula, but they've rounded some of the edges and added more value to their design without making very many sacrifices in the process. They've done a lot to improve the Define in the R4, but have they done enough?

With most of the attention from Apple's hardware refresh event centered around iOS 6 and the new Retina MacBook Pro, the updated 2012 edition of the regular MacBook Pro has flown a little bit under the radar. Basically, it’s just an Ivy Bridge-infused version of the venerable unibody MacBook Pro chassis that we’ve known and loved for the last few years. The details don’t bring any particularly earth-shattering revelations, with 13” retaining the dual-core processor and integrated graphics, while the 15” makes the switch from AMD to Nvidia’s new Kepler-based GT 650M dedicated graphics. Along with Ivy Bridge, the 2012 MBP line gets HD 4000 graphics and USB 3.0 across the board, plus a free update to Mountain Lion when it releases later this summer. Naturally, it doesn’t generate the same kind of excitement that the all-new, all-awesome Retina MacBook Pro does. But is a less headline-worthy computer necessarily a worse one?

Last November, we reviewed the Netgear NV+ v2 and came away quite satisfied with the price to performance ratio. However, we had some reservations about the absence of NFS and iSCSI (which happen to be staple features in offerings from other vendors in this particular segment of the market). The maturity of the platform was also a concern (since this was Netgear's first attempt at introducing a NAS based on an ARM chipset).

Netgear recently updated the firmware for the NV+ v2 and Duo v2 units. RAIDiator 5.3.5 added support for a number of new share management protocols including NFS. It also brought along a number of fixes. In the meanwhile, LaCie also contacted us about a firmware update improving RAID-1 performance in the 2big NAS that we reveiewd a couple of months back. Keeping these updates in mind, it is time to take another look at the 2-bay NAS units in our labs. Read on to find out whether the Netgear NV+ v2 has improved, and also a refresh of the benchmark figures for the LaCie 2big NAS.

Plextor is one of those OEMs who have quietly been making their way into the SSD market. They haven't been aggressive with marketing. Their drives are not featured on NewEgg's front page or advertised on most technology sites. 

Prominence in marketing, or a lack thereof, doesn't mean Plextor's drives are something to be ashamed of. We were quite pleased with the M3 and M3 Pro SSDs, and today we are looking at their new M5S SSD. While it's still equipped with the same Marvell 88SS9174 controller, Plextor has switched from Toggle-Mode NAND to ONFi NAND. The M5S is also using a brand new firmware which promises some improvements. So, to find out how the M5S performs in our tests, read on for the full review!

At the very top of HTC’s new lineup are three flagship devices: the One X, its cousin the One XL, and the One S. I say flagship because HTC’s One S is really a device with a level of fit and finish beyond the rest of the high-end to midrange device category. Don’t let its diminutive size and 4.3" display fool you, the One S packs a lot of punch. It’s almost funny to write it, but the T-Mobile One S has been the device I’ve been reaching for more often than a few other larger size phones for a while now. For those wanting a device with arguably the best in-hand feel around, and an outline that isn’t large like the norm, the One S might make more sense than the One X.

Read on for our full review.

Things are getting very blurry.

The MacBook Pro once stood for tons of power plus upgradability. Add a Retina Display and now it's just tons of power. It's a thicker, faster MacBook Air (with an awesome display). It's not bad, in fact it's quite amazing, but it confuses the general order of things.

The MacBook Air doesn't help in the clarity department. You can now order a MacBook Air with up to 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD, for the first time in MacBook Air history. Users who were once forced into Pro territory because of RAM and storage requirements can now happily live with an Air. And thanks to Turbo Boost, you do get similar performance in lightly threaded workloads.

Today the MacBook Air is even more affordable. The 11-inch model still starts at $999, but the 13-inch version is only $200 more. From the outside not a lot has changed, but that doesn't mean there's any less to talk about. Ivy Bridge, USB 3.0 and faster SSDs are all on the menu this year. Let's get to it.

I was reminded yesterday of the Droid RAZR launch event. One of the RAZR product managers excitedly leapt at the opportunity to run me through some benchmarks on the demo device, a rare opportunity at these sorts of events. The results were, for the time, startling. Motorola took sometime to optimize the browser in ways that set it head and shoulders above the competition in some benchmarks. The result was a Sunspider score that was fully half of its predecessor the Droid Bionic. 

That's how I felt as I started to run the Motorola Atrix HD through its paces yesterday. The Atrix HD softens the hard edges of the RAZR design philosophy a touch, and to good effect. The white sample we received is understated and rather pretty, though I wonder if I wouldn't have preferred an all white back, rather than that expanse of Kevlar. And inside, Motorola has moved on from the OMAP 4 that won their hearts last year and adopted Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4. Yes, the MSM8960 scores another design win. Read on for our preview of the performance.

ASRock are not afraid of the legacy connections.  Not merely content on having both a floppy drive header and an IDE connector on the Fatal1ty Z77 Professional, they have also put a floppy header on the Z77 Extreme6.  There is reason for this, given that industrial equipment can cost $millions and a shiny new PC to process the data costs a lot less, even if they can only communicate via Floppy.  Today we are looking at the performance and package that comes with the Z77 Extreme6, and see if it holds up with its price tag against the vast array of Z77 motherboards currently on the market.

AZZA is a relatively new company when it comes to enclosures. Their major splash came with the Fusion 4000 enclosure (which we're still slated to review at some point in the future), a case that can house both a full ATX system and a secondary Mini-ITX system simultaneously. Someone over at AZZA is definitely thinking outside the box, and that becomes increasingly evident when we take a look at their most recent launch, the Genesis 9000.

The Genesis 9000 is an incredibly flexible enclosure, not in terms of building materials (which are almost entirely SECC steel) but in terms of assembly. This is a case that looks incredibly daunting to build in (partly because it's 36 pounds on its own) because of how many ways you can actually build a system in it. More than that, AZZA has gone slightly off the beaten path with the cooling system. The result is a very unique case at a remarkably competitive price, and after multiple nights of testing, we're only too happy to share our conclusions with you.

First generation technology is seldom perfect, and the fruit of Intel's ultrabook initiative was no exception. While vendors came out in force with some fairly impressive pieces of hardware, these first shots at the form factor all came away lacking in some way. Be it thermal performance, general performance, build quality, or display quality, no matter where you looked you were forced to make some kind of compromise. Intel's Sandy Bridge architecture wasn't horribly suited to the tasks, either, but it was also clear that at least another generation of processors would be more ideal to the increased thermal constraints of the platform.

We're now into our second generation of ultrabooks. Vendors have had the opportunity to begin working the kinks out of their initial designs (as well as experimenting with some new ones), and Intel's 22nm Ivy Bridge is much better suited to the form factor. Today we have on hand one of the more premium examples of the second generation of ultrabooks, Acer's Aspire S5. At just 15mm thick, Acer claims it's the thinnest ultrabook yet, but it still comes fairly feature rich and includes Intel's Thunderbolt technology. At $1,399 the S5 doesn't come cheaply, though; was Acer able to pack enough value into this new ultrabook to justify the price tag?

I’m working on the Droid Incredible 4G LTE review (there’s a delay resulting from a signal issue where I do battery testing), but in the interim let’s talk about something that seems to have come up about this phone. We don’t often discuss what’s happening on other review sites, even as they get their reviews out much faster than we, but the Incredible 4G LTE has been hit in many reviews for its display, and this surprised me. So, let's take a look at the display and the rest of the device for a quick preview.

We’ve had plenty of Acer laptops come in for review over the years (along with visits from their close relatives, Gateway). Rarely do we find such laptops reaching for the upper echelons of performance, build quality, design, or features, and yet many people buy Acer products. The reason is pretty straightforward: while they may not be the “best” in any single area, what Acer does well is produce well-equipped laptops that target the value conscious buyers. With their new V3 and V5 lines, Acer once again goes after that familiar territory, and today’s V3-571G packs some decent performance into an updated design that addresses a couple of our previous complaints.

Make no mistake, however: this is still an inexpensive Acer laptop, with quite a few questionable choices made in order to hit a lower price point. Those of you longing for decent quality displays are going to want to look elsewhere, and if you’re looking for a sturdy chassis that eschews glossy plastic you’ll also be disappointed. But while those are some significant and sometimes painful omissions, taken as a whole the V3-571G does plenty of things right. Those of you interested in seeing just how much performance you can grab for under $800 might be in for a surprise—like a quad-core processor and switchable NVIDIA Kepler GPU. Can the new V3 hit the sweet spot, or are the compromises too much to stomach? Read on for our full review.

Today we're looking at some inexpensive ATX power supplies with a low output power. In most cases there is no need for a 1KW power supply when 350W to 450W units with an adequate cable configuration will do just fine. This is why we will review a few PSUs from manufacturers throughout the world which come up to these requirements. We have four units manufactured by FSP, three from HEC, one by Enermax, one ATNG, one CWT and one LongYi.

The following review is one more look at seeing if you really get what you pay for—or if you can get high quality without breaking the bank. For this roundup we have 11 power supplies with different prices and power ratings. Will the most expensive unit deliver the best results? Read on to find it out. As usual we will look at the voltage regulation and quality, noise levels, and check out the internal design.

Our monitor reviews frequently go into a lot of depth about the results before and after calibration, but for many users this won’t matter, as they aren’t going to purchase the calibration hardware and software necessary to achieve these results. Getting accurate performance out of the box without needing to spend extra money on hardware is important to many people but it's often very hard to deliver. With their Pro Art monitors, ASUS aims to deliver just that: sRGB and AdobeRGB modes that are reasonably accurate (a dE < 5.0 out of the box), with a full set of controls for users to calibrate it on their own.

ASUS doesn’t stop there as they also offer a 10-bit panel, integrated card reader and USB ports, and a user calibration mode with more controls than I have seen on a consumer monitor to this point. Does the ASUS deliver good color out of the box, and does it have the performance for those that wish to calibrate themselves? Read on for our full review.

If you are an active reader, you might remember our Plextor M3 review from a few months back. As I noted in the review, I wasn't expecting much when I received the SSD; a Marvell based SSD from a relatively unknown brand when it comes to the SSD market isn't all that promising. We had not reviewed any Plextor SSDs before the M3, so I had no idea what to expect. Obviously, I prepared for the worst.

Luckily, my expectations turned out to be very wrong. Plextor's M3 came out as one of the highest performing drives we have tested. Today we are back with M3's big brother: the M3 Pro. Based on the same Marvell 88SS9174 controller and 24nm Toshiba Toggle-Mode MLC NAND, the M3 Pro offers even higher performance according to Plextor. The differences lie exclusively in the firmware, as hardware wise the M3 and M3 Pro are exactly the same. Just how much more performance can Plextor squeeze out of the Marvell controller? Read on and find out!

Ostensibly, Corsair's Carbide line of enclosures are their budget cases; the Obsidian and Graphite lines both start where the beefy Carbide 500R leaves off. Corsair's least expensive entry is the one we have on hand today, the Carbide 300R. Yet like a certain fruit-flavored company we know, they seem unwilling to part with many of the amenities that make their cases such a joy to assemble and work with, and the result is a Carbide that's caught between two worlds.

The Carbide 300R attempts to bring many of the things we've come to know and love and expect from Corsair cases down to a hopefully more palatable $79 price tag. While that's not in the "true budget" arena we've seen companies like Bitfenix and Antec stake out, it's definitely more affordable than most and may hit a sweet spot for users who don't want to spend too much on a case but want something of slightly higher quality. Read on to see how the 300R fares.

Today was an extremely busy day for Google, with the formal announcement of both Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, and two new members of the Nexus family – the Nexus 7 tablet, and Nexus Q streaming device. While I already wrote up impressions about the Nexus Q based on a media center demo, Android 4.1 and Nexus 7 require a closer look to fully appreciate. I got my hands on a loaner Nexus 7 and Galaxy Nexus with Android 4.1 and have been using and testing the devices all day (in addition to catching a session or two). 

Read on for a mini review of both the Nexus 7 and Android 4.1 on a Galaxy Nexus. 

Mechanical keyboards have become increasingly sought after over the past couple of years, with more and more manufacturers jumping on the bandwagon, oftentimes producing gamer-oriented hardware that features mechanical Cherry MX switches. Going mechanical has a lot to offer both the seasoned typist and the serious (or even semi-serious gamer), and we've gone over those benefits in our reviews of Rosewill's RK-9000 keyboard (with Cherry MX Blue switches) and Corsair's Vengeance K60 and K90 keyboards (with Cherry MX Red switches).

For a little while we've also had on hand a trio of Thermaltake's Meka keyboards (along with their Black Element mouse), and all of these keyboards feature Cherry MX Black switches. So we have a few questions to answer here: what's with all these colored switches, what has Thermaltake made out of them, and which one is going to be the best for you? And as a substantial sidenote, in a world dominated by Razer and Logitech mice, what is Thermaltake bringing to the table with the Black Element?