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A flattering considerable second act, literally, figuratively, and audibly

We awarded Corsair’s HS1 USB headset a 9 outcome final year, asserting that a outrageous 50mm drivers, plain and gentle construction, and $100 cost tab combined adult to a surprisingly good value for a beginner effort. The one component that denied a HS1 a Kick Ass endowment was a uninspired—nay, officious ugly—industrial design.

Corsair’s new flagship USB headset, a Vengeance 1500, retains all a strengths of a HS1 and eliminates scarcely all a weaknesses. The Vengeance 1500 packs a same enormous drivers as a predecessor, providing top-notch sound peculiarity for this cost range. The circumaural pattern and thick, soft stuffing make for a parsimonious sign around your ears that isolates we from a wickedness of ambient noise.

The Vengeance 1500 sounds each bit as good as Corsair’s progressing HS1 USB headset, and it looks a whole lot better.

While it doesn’t broach a turn of peculiarity that some higher-end products provide—Sennheiser’s PC 333D G4ME, for example—the Vengeance 1500 does yield important energetic operation and drum response that’s ideally suitable for both games and movies. And while zero can review to an tangible surround-sound setup, Corsair does broach Dolby Headphone. This program algorithm upmixes stereo and 5.1-channel sources to copy a 7.1-channel orator complement wrapped around your head, delivering softened positional recognition than stereo phones are able of providing.

Build peculiarity as compared to a HS1 has also softened significantly. The struts joining a ear cups to a wipe underline an appealing brushed-aluminum finish, and a cups themselves pivot to lay prosaic opposite your chest when a headset is resting on your neck. They competence feel peculiar if you’re transitioning from an on-ear headset, though after many extended gaming sessions, we’ve found a Vengeance 1500 to be one of a many gentle headsets we’ve tested. They are utterly large, however, so they competence not be a right choice if your conduct is quite small.

Corsair’s HS1 is a plain headset; a usually reason we wouldn’t suggest it currently is that a Vengeance 1500 is even better. If you’re looking for a critical gaming headset and can means to spend 100 bones, we won’t go wrong with this one.

$100, www.corsair.com

Corsair Vengeance 1500 USB Gaming Headset

VENGEANCE

High construction quality; good sound; comfortable; good value.

PENNANCE

Too vast for folks with diminutive heads.

Article source: http://www.maximumpc.com/article/%5Bprimary-term%5D/corsair_vengeance_1500_usb_gaming_headset_review

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We reviewed Eurocom’s top-of-the-line mobile workstation, a Panther 2.0, in a Jun 2011 issue. That high-end behemoth weighed some-more than 15 pounds and cost ceiling of $5,000, though it sported a desktop Core i7-980X CPU and a span of Radeon HD 6970s in CrossFire. This time around we’re holding a demeanour during a company’s lighter-weight mobile workstation, a Neptune 3D.

While also billed as a high-end desktop-replacement, a Neptune 3D is distant some-more medium than a brawny large brother. It’s formed on a mobile Sandy Bridge CPU (Intel’s Core i7-2760QM) and a singular mobile GPU (Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 580M). The Neptune 3D weighs reduction than 9 pounds, though a defining underline is a 17.3-inch, 120Hz, 3D display.

Eurocom bundles one span of Nvidia’s 3D Vision active-shutter LCD eyeglasses with a machine, and a emitter is built into a chassis. The 1920×1080 LED-backlit row is strikingly bright, no doubt to recompense for a extinguishing a eyeglasses cause. After we incited it down a bit to weigh a screen’s quality, we saw that it constructed frail content and still images, as good as impressively dim blacks. The arrangement was equally considerable in motion, with no manifest blurring or ghosting. The matte finish did a good pursuit of shortening ambient glare. If we puncture 3D, you’ll suffer a 3D knowledge a Neptune delivers; if you’re not sole on 3D, zero about this cover will change your mind. 

Storage comes in a form of a 250GB Intel SSD, supplemented by a 750GB automatic tough drive. The appurtenance is also given with an visual expostulate that can bake Blu-ray media during 6x speed and DVDs during 8x. The chiclet-style keys are gentle and responsive. Lap weight and a two-hour battery life are good within customary operation for high-end gaming notebooks. 

Aside from a 3D feature, a Neptune 3D’s all-around opening is a summary of standard. It trounced a aging zero-point machine, though that’s accurately what we design from a complement using Sandy Bridge hardware. As a gaming laptop, a Neptune 3D is equally sufficient. The GeForce GTX 580 rubbed all though a many perfectionist games with relations ease, and a complement delivered benchmark numbers on standard with a likewise clocked Sandy Bridge desktop machine. 

The categorical emanate here is cost. With a cost tab only bashful of $3,500, we design a bit some-more crash for a buck. The 3D video is nice, though it’s not adequate to clear a Neptune 3D’s ostentatious cost tag. Eurocom should have overclocked a CPU for even improved all-around performance, or forsaken a second GPU underneath a hood for faster gaming. 

Still, if you’re looking for a well-constructed desktop deputy with a pointy display, 3D capability, and clever all-around performance, a Eurocom Neptune 3D won’t disappoint. But if you’re looking to lift a bar on high-performance mobile gaming, demeanour elsewhere; a Neptune 3D is remarkably unremarkable.

Eurocom Neptune 3D

Jupiter

Solid all-around performance; splendid and colourful display; 3D capable.

Uranus

Poor price-to-performance ratio; complicated with energy brick.

Article source: http://www.maximumpc.com/article/%5Bprimary-term%5D/eurocom_neptune_3d_review

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Will this new difficulty of slim, trim, comparatively affordable portables be a Next Big Thing?

You’d have to actively be avoiding a tech media over a past several months not to have listened about Ultrabooks. Their entrance has garnered a boatload of buzz, fueled in no tiny partial by Intel’s $300 million account to get hardware and program makers behind a cause.

Ultrabooks are Intel’s answer to a widespread of ARM-based tablets—a approach to constraint a hearts and minds of a masses with an x86-based unstable device (of a Intel persuasion, natch). To that end, Ultrabooks are compulsory to accommodate a few pivotal “desirability” standards. They contingency be slim, lightweight, have inexhaustible battery life, and foot and resume from hibernation in sprightly fashion. It’s also accepted they should demeanour cool. As Apple products so clearly demonstrate, character sells. And certain enough, Ultrabooks—at slightest those that have debuted so far—are exuberantly infused with MacBook Air influence.

So are these new, “cool” inclination a subsequent must-have products? Is all a hoopla warranted? We examination a initial 4 Ultrabooks to flog off a category. All are 13.3 in. models, though any brings a possess code of hot-newness to a table, with varying degrees of persuasiveness, as you’ll see on a following pages.

Acer Aspire S3

Priced right, though distant from perfect

When Ultrabooks were initial announced it seemed puzzled that manufacturers could spin out these wannabe MacBook Airs during a sub-$1,000 cost Intel was promising. Acer put those doubts to rest with a Aspire S3, that debuted during $900. Given a relations affordability, it’s not startling that a Aspire S3 creates a few compromises in a Air aspirations.

Measuring .68 inches during a thickest, a ever-so-slightly wedged three-pound framework is matte china throughout, save for a black rubber hinge and gray keyboard. An appealing brushed-aluminum lid lends a S3 a plain feel and a grand countenance—at slightest when a cover is closed. The inside and underneath are all plastic. Nevertheless, a S3 feels firm when hold by one corner, and we like that it opens roughly 180 degrees.

Overall, a S3’s island keyboard is gentle to form on, nonetheless a pivotal press is a bit shoal and many of a oft-used keys around a periphery, such as Enter, Shift, Backspace, etc. are truncated. That’s quite loyal of a arrow keys, that also double as volume and screen-brightness controls. Using a S3’s one clickpad, that supports multitouch functions, didn’t give us any woes.

Closed, a S3 cuts a some-more considerable figure, with a large brushed steel lid on display.

Port preference is spare, a peculiarity of all Ultrabooks, and here consists of a headphone/mic, a media reader, HDMI, and dual USB 2.0 ports—the S3 is a usually Ultrabook in this roundup not to underline USB 3.0.

Acer tapped a Core i5-2467M for estimate duty. While a bottom time is only 1.6GHz, it can Turbo adult to 2.3GHz, and so achieved improved in many benchmarks than a 2.13GHz Core i7-640LM Arrandale CPU in a zero-point ultraportable rig. The S3’s lagging measure in Quake III is no doubt a outcome of a single-channel RAM, that is quite cryptic in comparison titles. Conversely, a measure in Quake 4 demonstrates a advances of Sandy Bridge’s integrated graphics, nonetheless a gaming chops of any ultraportable out right now will be flattering limited.

In a video playback test, a S3’s battery lasted 5 hours; it recharged to full ability in half that time. Videos themselves looked frail and color-accurate on a S3’s 1366×768 silken shade if a shade was slanted only so. Otherwise, tone and fact were discontinued to varying degrees.

The S3 is singular among these Ultrabooks for featuring a automatic tough drive, though it’s interconnected with 20GB of NAND peep for SSD caching, regulating Intel’s Smart Response Technology (SRT). Thus, your most-often used programs advantage from a SSD’s faster performance. The S3’s foot time of approximately 39 seconds, however, was a good understanding slower than that of a SSD competition.

Acer also offers a $1,300 S3 indication with a Core i7 and a 240GB SSD. But law be told, a physique is improved matched to a lower-cost category, where it contingency make due with a medium regard of being a decent bill option.

$900, www.acer.com

Acer Aspire S3

RIPE APPLE

Sub-$1K; attractive, stout lid; decent performance.

ROAD APPLE

Plastic bulb don’t compare aluminum outside; no USB 3.0; uses HDD; slight straight observation angle.

Our zero-point ultraportable is an HP EliteBook 2540p with a 2.13GHz Intel Core i7-640LM, 4GB of DDR3/1333 RAM, integrated graphics, a 250GB, 5,400rpm tough drive, and Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

Article source: http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/ultrabook_ultra-roundup_4_top-notch_notebooks_reviewed_and_compared