Other Reviews

Today we are going to be taking a look at the Kingston 64gb SSD. It doesn't come with the blazing new Sand Force controller or a huge storage capacity but we are going to dig until we find SOMETHING the drive can go home and brag about. This drive has been on the market for over a year, with packaging in many different disguises. But other than some exterior changes, are we getting anything new compared to a year ago? Are we getting the same ol' stuttering JMicron controller or did Kingston really upgrade the controller for real world use? Let's just see, shall we?

We realize we're not the first website to post a review of the Asus G73Jh-A1 gaming notebook -- though we were one of the first to get our hands on this unit (heh, we said "unit") -- but even if you've read several other evaluations of this model already, let us encourage you to click through the following pages anyway. Why? Dude, we like the hits. But other than the obvious, after a couple of months of extensive testing and real-world usage, we have a firm grip on where this laptop stands among its peers, and at least one quirky troubleshooting tip that we wouldn't have run into had we cranked out a review after a few days of testing (Steam users take note, this tip applies to you).

For the rest of you who somehow managed to miss the early coverage on Asus' new G73Jh series, this is the latest (and greatest) lineup in the company's Republic of Gamers notebook family. Carrying the tagline, "Strike in Silence," Asus set out to build a desktop replacement class gaming notebook with the balls to the wall performance gamers lust after, but without the noise you would expect from cramming a boatload of high-end gear into a laptop chassis. Did Asus succeed?

Yes, yes they did (hey, if you're looking for suspense, fire up Netflix and flip through the 'Thriller' section, the cat's already out of the bag on this one). Equipped with a Core i7 processor, the fastest mobile graphics chip in the known universe, and a unique cooling solution, the G73Jh-A1 races along at breakneck speeds while remaining surprisingly quiet. It's also not without a few faults (alright, so there's a smidgen of suspense), but you'll have to click through to find out if any of them are deal killers.

Choiix? Who's Choiix you ask? Choiix is a new subsidiary of Cooler Master, providing, as they describe it, "simple and practical yet stylish notebook accessories." Strange brand title aside, they do provide some decent accessories, and today we have the Choiix Power Fort accessory, aimed at road warriors with limited access to an outlet and tons of USB gadgets. Sounds like a fairly big market, right? That appears to be what Cooler Master was thinking too.

System builders are at a crossroads of sorts when it comes time to choose a storage solution. Do you go for balls-to-the-wall performance and slap your wallet silly by investing in a high performance solid state drive (SSD), or are you better off picking up a high capacity, yet slower performing hard drive for a fraction of the cost? There isn't a clear cut answer, but thanks to SilverStone, there might be an alternative. What if you could have both performance and capacity, and not have to spend a fortune to get them?

That's exactly what SilverStone is hoping to make possible with its HDDBoost, a seemingly ingenious device that allows you to combine the capacity of a hard drive with the performance of an SSD by fusing the two together. The end result is a home brewed hybrid drive, one that relies on RAID 1 to take advantage of the strengths of both. Admittedly this all sounds good on paper, but what happens when the rubber meets the road? Good question, and we aim to find out.

Today we are taking you on a tour of the icloud OS. Icloud is not only a custom operating system designed by Xcerion. Icloud's free services exceed an online operating system and includes multiple apps and options. More to the point, Icloud describes itself as a "Free Online Computer." While we had serious reservations as to the extent to which a website could actually be our computer, we were quite intrigued by the idea.  So, this past week, the BURNED iN Crew decided to take this "computer" for a test drive to see how well it actually measures up to the real thing. Buckle up, we're taking you along for the ride.